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Too Early to Be Demoralized?


The disagreement comes with estimating how much more that run saved is worth.

 

I think part of the disagreement also comes from the difference between an average reliever and an elite one. I think it is very difficult to determine in any given year considering the up and down nature of most relievers. A lot of times a guy will be considered an elite reliever even though he may not be.

Fan is short for fanatic.

I blame Wang.

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I guess because I was so vehemently against resigning Hoffman, signing Hawkins, signing Wolf/Davis, and trading for Gomez this first month of the season has been my worst fears coming true. I'm not rooting against those guys, I desperately want them to succeed now that they are here, but there was a reason I didn't want to spend money on aging pitching. Wolf has been pretty decent, hopefully Davis can build off his last start, I have to believe Hoffman will turn it around, I think Hawkins is going to be up and down all season...

 

Plus Gomez has a .786 OPS so far, which is far better than any of us would have put him at this point. Obviously that can change, but his power thus far has been a nice surprise.

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I guess my push is more into not having an absolute belief in anything, as nothing is always the case, and quotes like those above take analysis that leans one way and try to make a theory into an absolute truth that the theory isn't even claiming.

 

It is almost never stated as an absolute. If you are looking at a player's stats over the course of an entire season the yes, "strikeouts don't matter." Once you start talking about certain situations of course strikeouts matter. I really don't recall anybody saying bunting is always a bad idea either. It is generally bad strategy and used to much but not always.

 

 

Yeah but Torres was a pretty effective closer for that year. The last

thing we need is another year where we have a Turnbow/Gagne-like

implosion and we are scrambling to find a back end solution

 

Torres was pretty effective that year and that is exactly my point. All you really need for a closer is an above average reliever who will not walk a lot of guys. You don't need an elite pitcher. Instead of the $7.5M spent on Hoffman we could have signed Matt Capps(well maybe not Matt Capps in particular given his history with some of the Brewers players) and another solid reliever and picked whoever was pitching well as the closer. All spending lost of money does is lock you into a guy for longer than necessary. I would rather have a few solid guys than one elite guy as the elite guys are not necessarily leaps and bounds better talent wise. Look at the Twins as an example this year. They seem to be doing fairly well without Nathan. Sorry to go so far off topic.

Fan is short for fanatic.

I blame Wang.

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What has me not giving up is that most of the losses have been the result of one player/part of the team failing spectacularly each time. In one game it's a reliever getting destroyed in an inning, in another it's a starter taking the beating of his life, in another, it's the hitters not scoring. We haven't really seen much in the way of everything just going normally: the lineup scoring a decent number of runs, the starter going 6 adequate innings, and the relievers coming in and not giving up a lead. Some part of the team always implodes. That just doesn't seem normal to me.
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  dlk9s said:
What has me not giving up is that most of the losses have been the result of one player/part of the team failing spectacularly each time. In one game it's a reliever getting destroyed in an inning, in another it's a starter taking the beating of his life, in another, it's the hitters not scoring. We haven't really seen much in the way of everything just going normally: the lineup scoring a decent number of runs, the starter going 6 adequate innings, and the relievers coming in and not giving up a lead. Some part of the team always implodes. That just doesn't seem normal to me.
That's the description of a bad baseball team -

 

Great teams are solid in all areas of their roster, and are good enough to overcome the occasional hiccup by any individual performance. They'll still lose their share of games, but they minimize prolonged struggles with the next day's great starting pitcher or a relentless offensive lineup.

 

Good teams are solid in most areas of their roster with one or two weaknesses that cost them more winnable games than great teams lose. A weak setup man or #4-5 starters make it difficult to string together long winning streaks, but other parts of the team continue to produce and keep the ship from sinking.

 

Bad teams have weaknesses/inconsistency everywhere on their roster, which leads to the mentalities of 'what can go wrong, will go wrong' and 'what will cause the wheels to come off tonight?' Teams without solid starting pitching, a dependable bullpen, and solid defense end up treating each game like a minefield, with the feeling that disaster's just around the corner...more often than not, at least one of the issues either prevents a win or causes undue stress on the other facets of the game - too much of that over time is what leads to crappy baseball over 162 games.

 

It's still too early to make a definitive conclusion that the 2010 Brewers are a bad baseball team - however, glaring issues with their pitching staff (both starters and relievers), and defense (near the MLB lead for errors thus far) need to be addressed. I'm not going to complain too much about an offense that's scoring runs like crazy on occasion.

 

So far this season, there hasn't been much difference between the 2010 and 2009 Brewers, IMO. I just don't think they have enough pitching to be a better than .500 baseball team.

 

 

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  dlk9s said:
What has me not giving up is that most of the losses have been the result of one player/part of the team failing spectacularly each time. In one game it's a reliever getting destroyed in an inning, in another it's a starter taking the beating of his life, in another, it's the hitters not scoring. We haven't really seen much in the way of everything just going normally: the lineup scoring a decent number of runs, the starter going 6 adequate innings, and the relievers coming in and not giving up a lead. Some part of the team always implodes. That just doesn't seem normal to me.
For the same reason you provide for not giving up, I provide for how demoralizing this team can be. Instead of one player stepping up each time to get the win, we are talking about one player imploding and costing the win. Its not looking good, and its too early to not be looking good.
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  Postseason2006 said:
I may be comparing basketball to baseball, but there are some people that coaches do not matter in either sport. But if you could compare Skiles to Macha, it is like comparing a Porsche to a Pinto.

 

With Macha as the coach, I am dispirited.

I think the analogy is valid, even though it's a different sport. The Bucks were given a perfect excuse to to just walk to the finish line. Bogut is down, no reason anypne would expect the team to compete in the playoffs. But they are mentally tough. Skiles has instilled that in them. He has taken a bunch of guys who played marginal or bad defense, and has made them a very good defensive team. He made it clear from day one if you don't play D, you won't be on the floor. He proved that by sitting Bogut, Jennings, Delfino...anyone who wsn't giving the effort. That sounds easy, but it's not- and very few NBA coached would be willing to pull out their stars to make a point.

 

Compare that to "by the book" Macha. Let's not talk much to players, let alone inspire or challenge them.

 

 

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I was excited cause i believed the staff would be better and having a healthy Weeks back would help,but after a month Both those things didn't happen and it now lookd like our closer has lost it. Their still alot of baseball but again this team is showing holes in their team.
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This team is showing serious holes. Suppan is out of the rotation now but who really knows what we will get in Narveson? If Davis continues down the path he is headed, the Brewers will be forced to replace him in the rotation as well. Parra and Villanueva finally look like they could be viable options for the rotation again but with the bullpen woes, they will have to stay put.

 

I really thought heading into the season that our 8/9 inning bullpen guys were going to be one of this team's strengths. So far they have shown that they can't be relied upon.

 

Rickie now has me concerned, Edmonds is encountering back problems, McGehee has to tail off somewhat and I have feeling that Hart and Gomez's production will return to what we saw last year.

 

I hate to say this but I don't see how this team comes even close to being .500. One injury to the starting rotation and we are toast. As things currently stand, I could see us winning 78 games max.

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Earlier in this thread I said I wasn't (although previously in an IGT I said I was). Now I am again. 22 consecutive scoreless innings will do that to me. Right now they're 5 games under .500 and it's hard for me to see how they make that up. I know they can get it rolling, and probably will, but the longer it takes, the longer they'll have to roll to get to .500 and stay there until the end of the season.
You may run like Mays...
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Two shut out games in a row make it tough to be optimistic. We're in fifth place, just one game above the lowly Astros. It's hard to see this game stringing together enough wins to catch up to the Cards or even the Reds at this point. You have to wonder if Macha is on the "hot seat" if this road trip goes as badly as the previous home stand.

 

My big fear is that an early sell off may be warranted if the poor play continues, but Melvin won't have the guts to pull the trigger on anything, due to the team's over reliance on ticket sales to generate revenue. This could be a really disastrous season if things don't turn around soon and potential moves aren't done.

The Paul Molitor Statue at Miller Park: http://www.facebook.com/paulmolitorstatue
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  Invader3K said:
Two shut out games in a row make it tough to be optimistic. We're in fifth place, just one game above the lowly Astros.

Not only that. Other than the Astros, the Orioles are the only other team in all of baseball with a worse record than the Crew, and a lot of that can be attributecd to playing in the most stacked division in MLB.
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Things are looking grim for sure. But if I may offer a ray of hope? Remember last year's Colorado Rockies? They started off poorly enough to fire their manager, then ended up making the playoffs. Things are looking bad, but there's still a long season ahead of us. Prince Fielder will pick up his power numbers, Doug Davis will start pitching like at least an average starter, Trevor Hoffman will get it together or get replaced. There's still quite a bit that can go right with this club.
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Lets not forget that they were 24-10 in 2007 and ended up with only 83 wins. The Astros, I believe, were 15-30 and won a wild card. 5 games under in April does not end the season.
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23-27 on May 25th, 2008. Ended up winning 90. I'm holding out hope, but if the offense doesn't wake up soon, it's gonna be a really, really long year.

In Non Pirates games (17 games, 65 runs) averaging a paltry 3.8 runs per game, which would put them bottom 5 in the league.

"I wasted so much time in my life hating Juventus or A.C. Milan that I should have spent hating the Cardinals." ~kalle8

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It's amazing how one win can help my attitude towards this team. I suppose that's the nature of fandom, though. It was nice to see Hoffman hang on to the one-run lead and Gallardo perform like a true stopper. If Wolf can get a split in SD tomorrow, that would be pretty cool after a really bad start to the series.

I think it's good general policy to wait until June 1 to even look at the standings and take them seriously. Though, of course, that's a rule I tend to break, especially when the exciting build up to April baseball is torn down with a flurry of really tough-to-take losses. If Rickie and Prince get things going at all, the offense will be fine.

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Obviously your win-loss record from April counts as much as any other month but I don't even consider baseball to begin until May 1st. I have played fantasy baseball a long time and one thing it has taught me is to pretty much throw April out the window. Baseball is a streaky game by nature but April and September are even streakier than the rest of the season which makes a lot of sense. In April a lot of hitters don't have their timing down yet and a lot of pitchers don't have good control yet, in September you see a lot of rookie callups which changes the dynamic of the game quite a bit.
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  Ennder said:
Obviously your win-loss record from April counts as much as any other month but I don't even consider baseball to begin until May 1st. I have played fantasy baseball a long time and one thing it has taught me is to pretty much throw April out the window. Baseball is a streaky game by nature but April and September are even streakier than the rest of the season which makes a lot of sense. In April a lot of hitters don't have their timing down yet and a lot of pitchers don't have good control yet, in September you see a lot of rookie callups which changes the dynamic of the game quite a bit.
I think this is a good way to look at it. While the wins and losses still count, and can make things frustrating as a fan, it's still too early to gauge individual player results.
The Paul Molitor Statue at Miller Park: http://www.facebook.com/paulmolitorstatue
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Well, the one bright spot about this series is that if San Diego can stay in first place, they won't look to trade Gonzalez, taking a big bat off the market when the Brewers are shopping Prince. Other than that, I can't see much good about scoring two runs in a four-game series.

"The most successful (people) know that performance over the long haul is what counts. If you can seize the day, great. But never forget that there are days yet to come."

 

~Bill Walsh

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  JohnBriggs12 said:
Here's a more depressing thought. Melvin was considering Garland and Davis last January when he was looking to round out the rotation. He chose Davis. How's that working out Doug?

 

Not like Garland is really a better pitcher, he has proven that over his 10 year career. They are basically the same guy just Davis has given up a million weak singles this year and Garland pitches in Petco.

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Yet, we lost to Garland while our 10 million dollar man gave up two homers in this "big" park including a tap measure job to a punch and judy hitter.

 

8-0 Macha's interview after the game was priceless especially commenting about the pitching. Hey Ken, your team just got shutout 3 times in 4 games.

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