Is Braun becoming this team's "leader"?

[brewmann04]

Ryan has the right to speak his mind and become a team leader,and he should have a clue to what the feel in the club house is.

The brewers are a mess and hopefully someone will get it that something needs to happen.

[Bring Back the Stein]

"But it's not about trying hard. You have to expect to win." With the numbers to back that up. Good on him for manning up in the midst of the poop storm that is this season.

[brettac1]

You may not like what he had to say, but to make the leap that he thinks has nothing to improve on is sort of odd.

 

I don't think it was that much of a leap.

[And That]

Wait... taking walks/OBP counts as a "facet", right?

True, though I have a tough time arguing with the production of a guy with a 912 OPS and decent defense.

 

[DuWayne Steurer]

Braun may or may not be the team leader, but he's quickly becoming the face of the franchise. The fact that he was giddy about a contract that could make him vastly underpaid as few as 3-4 years from now tells me a lot about him and that his main motivating factor once he's between those lines is winning.

 

I may be taking a leap here, but if the Brewers can make a few playoff appearances (and maybe even if they don't) in Braun's next 7 years, he continues to play well.......you look at extending him again when he's got a year or 2 left on that deal, and he could become a franchise icon much like a Robin Yount.

 

Too early? Yeah, absolutely, but if there's a guy among the current crop who's got even a 10% chance of achieving that, it's this guy.

[BrewCrewForever]

Great post RoCo. I totally agree and I hope he does become an icon like Yount. A lifetime Brewer, #8 retired and a HOF.

 

 

(edit: quoting message not necessary... it's one post above --1992)

[rluzinski]

Braun may or may not be the team leader, but he's quickly becoming the face of the franchise.

 

I think that's all a team leader really is. The leader in the eyes of the media and fans. Baseball is barely a team sport to begin with (I know, I know, blasphemy!).

 

And while Braun is very hitting well right now, that .319 OBP is keep him from from hitting great. Whether he's going to be a good hitter or a great hitter is still up for debate, IMO.

[olsonnet]

I think this was on his mind, he got asked a question and just spoke from the heart. Now that he knows he's going to be around for a while for sure, I can see why he'd be upset that the team isn't performing better - nobody wants to play for a loser.

 

Now if this was Prince, ya know, it would be just like oh, were struggling, ya know, but ya know, we just have to play better ya know, and, and, ya know, things will start to come around ya know.

[owbc]

Fielder has always been quiet with the media, so it's hard to judge whether he is the clubhouse leader or not...and every indication is that he still is. Braun learned some things from his slump, now he's on a hot streak...but he's missing the key component of an on the field leader...his home runs are not resulting in wins. Fielder has hit several HRs this year in the 7th-10th innings to win/tie games. Braun seems to get his hits earlier in games.

 

The runs count the same either way, but I'd still rather have Fielder up there with the game on the line. But as for the clubhouse leader, there's no way to know unless someone in the media decides to ask.

[DuWayne Steurer]

Braun may or may not be the team leader, but he's quickly becoming the face of the franchise.

 

I think that's all a team leader really is. The leader in the eyes of the media and fans. Baseball is barely a team sport to begin with (I know, I know, blasphemy!).

 

And while Braun is very hitting well right now, that .319 OBP is keep him from from hitting great. Whether he's going to be a good hitter or a great hitter is still up for debate, IMO.

I agree. Baseball is a continual series of 1 on 1 matchups. And I don't disagree about the leader just being a media friendly guy. Fiery clubhouse speeches don't win games, hitting, pitching, and defense do. That being said, there still can be a guy who waves the flag for the rest of the group.

 

[DrWood]

I'd hate to be called the "team leader" of a team that is uniformly underperforming.

[And That]

Earlier in the season, Ryan was swinging at crap and his production was crap. Now, he's laying off stuff out of the strike zone and punishing mistakes. I love walks as much as the next guy, but when you're seeing the ball well, you may as well hit it if you have the natural power that Braun does. I think he'll be able to take walks eventually as he gets some help, but when you're one of only a couple guys in the lineup performing, you have to capitalize.

 

That isn't an excuse for his relatively poor OBP, but when someone else starts approaching a 900 OPS it'll be a better case for an argument. I think he'll be just fine at the plate.

[DrWood]

That isn't an excuse for his relatively poor OBP, but when someone else starts approaching a 900 OPS it'll be a better case for an argument. .

 

When is that going to happen? Looks like next season if Gamel and LaPorta are up. :-(

[SoCal Brew Crew Fan]

I thought Braun's comments were great today. He stated the facts in a positive manner. He's trying to give his teammates a boost and change their mindset. If he's going to be here for another 8 years, he wants to win. This team has the talent to do that.

 

I think Prince is fine as well. It doesn't have to be a one or the other...we need both of these guys to be the leaders. People read too much in to some of Prince's comments. He seems well regarded by his teammates and was a definite leader last year. His bat is coming around as well.

[splitterpfj]

I fully support Braun's comments.

 

You can't make a living on potential, and you don't "Participant" medals in MLB, you have to show up and win. The physical skills of this team are obvious, when you look at the lack of performance so far this season, I can't blame Braun for telling it like it is.

 

Yes, Braun got off to a slow start, but he's certainly making up for that at the moment, I'd bet the contract situation played a role, and that is now behind him. When Ryan hit 4 homers on the last homestand, he got 4 RBI - come on already.

 

When your guys are dropping routine throws, throwing away double plays, making outs on the bases, and constantly falling behind even the weakest of hitters, I would think somebody should mention it.

[homer]

I'd really like to see the team leader actually run on long fly balls from Prince rather than assume they are home runs.

[TuesdaysWithRillo]

I'd really like to see the team leader actually run on long fly balls from Prince rather than assume they are home runs.

Wasn't Braun trying to make sure he didn't get doubled up at 1B on a caught fly ball? Ellsbury and Crisp could've ran in the Big Ten Championship track meet this weekend so them running down any ball isn't a surprise.

On a side note, I was disappointed to see the Badgers take 2nd.

[danzig6767]

Braun may or may not be the team leader, but he's quickly becoming the face of the franchise.

 

I think that's all a team leader really is. The leader in the eyes of the media and fans. Baseball is barely a team sport to begin with (I know, I know, blasphemy!).

I understand that baseball is largely one on one battles between the pitcher and hitter, along with a fielder having to make a play on a ball hit in his direction. Sports like football and basketball involve much more team work for the team to have success.

With that said, i hesitate to just dismiss the leadership and clubhouse dynamic of baseball teams that play a 162 game grinding schedule. I have no idea what kind of effect those things can have on a team, good or bad, because i've never spent a second on a major league team. I've never spent a second in their clubhouses, went on long road trips over six straight months, know exactly how a team gets/feels when on a great stretch of games or when struggling badly, know whether team personality dynamics during bad/good stretches can have some effect on the teams play, and if it can, how so and how much?

I'm quite sure that a fair number of things spouted in the media about pro sports teams can be filled with more cliche than actual reality, but in some of these cases like leadership and team chemistry, many fans commenting from behind their computer are really only guessing because they can't know given they've never been on a pro sports team and saw first hand what exactly is truth, myth, cliche, or somewhat truth, but overstated.

 

[logan82]

I guess I would be a little more excited with Braun if his OBP was higher than Weeks'. Maybe he is the team leader, maybe he isn't. Fielder has quietly put up a .372 OBP so far. He has a couple more games with HR and doubles and he is out OPSing Braun easily.

[brewizard]

We all know, or atleast feel that Prince seems to have a jelous side in him.

 

Or a giant CHIP on his shoulder...

 

http://assets.espn.go.com/photo/2008/0219/mlb_ap_cecil_prince_300.jpg

[TooLiveBrew]

"We were competing; I know everybody tried hard. But it's not about trying hard. You've got to expect to win. I almost feel like we never really expected to win any of these games. I just kind of had that feeling.

 

"It's just a feeling. Every time we were winning, I just didn't feel we expected to win. It was like we were just content to be there and compete. I don't think we necessarily expected to win.

 

"Obviously, they're a great team. It's a good gauge of where we're at when we can go out and compete with those guys. For us, as a team, our goal can't be to compete. Our goal has to be to win.

 

"Obviously, to come in here and win the series would have been extremely difficult but it's a real disappointment to come in here and get swept.

 

That's from Braun's comments. I love to see the way that he not only said what everyone's been thinking, but he said it in a way that didn't 'call' anyone out. He credited effort & commitment, yet commented that the focus of the club needs to sharpen. If Braun is as special as he appears, I won't think the 'retire his #8, HoF' comments are as premature as I've thought. http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/smile.gif

[kramnoj]

Fielder has quietly put up a .372 OBP so far. He has a couple more games with HR and doubles and he is out OPSing Braun easily.

 

That may have been true before the Boston series, but Braun has a higher OPS than Fielder now.

[logan82]

I never said anything about Fielder having a higher OPS than Braun before or after the Boston series. I was refering to the fact that despite Braun being a feel good story right now his OBP sucks. If Fielder has a couple good SLG games he will pass Braun in OPS. Taking into consideration the fact that OBP is more valuable than SLG it could be argued that Fielder is actually having a better year than Braun.

[JoeHova]

Anybody looks good when they hit 6 home runs in a week. I don't see what all the excitement is about in this thread. So Braun thinks the team didn't expect to win. Maybe they did, maybe they didn't, but it's still pretty standard athlete talk when a team is going poorly. I don't see what's groundbreaking about what he said or about his performance so far this year.

 

I'm happy that Braun is on the team and that he's signed for 7 more years, but if his becoming the "team leader" coincides with a stretch where the team has won four of its last 16 games, you really have to question what the concept of team leader is even supposed to mean. If he's supposed to literally be leading the team to where he wants them to go, he's doing a spectacularly piss-poor job of it.

[gbpacker40]

I don't know who the team leader is, but I think most people would agree its nice to see someone care and say whats on his mind w/o sugarcoating it. I do agree that if this team has a mindset that they can't or shouldn't be winning certain games then that directly relates to the manager.

 

I don't care what level or league your playing on, the reason people play any sport is because they want to win. No one plays a game because they want to lose, because they might lose or because they just think the other team is better. If this team has a mindset going into games that, "well guys, I don't know if we can win this one, but by-golly - wouldn't it be really great if we did." then they need a serious kick in the buttocks. Expect to win, never expect to lose, never fear your opponent, never show them you may be outmatched, and when you win, it should be because you went into the game knowing you were going to win.

 

The shows on FSN about the players, can't think of the name, had the show on Braun and he was quite forceful on one thing during that interview and that was that he has won on every level and he expects to win on every level. Another thing I liked on his interview on that show was when he was asked if he feared players like Peavy and he had a great response....."No, Ive been ready for this a long time." That should be what all these players have instilled into them. He backs it up to, on back to back days he nails one of the top closers in the game and then wakes up and nails one of the best pitchers in the game.