Impressions of Roenicke 2012

[adambr2]

Good: Emptying out your bench when necessary to go for the win and not being afraid to use your catchers out of fear of injury.

 

Bad: Overthinking PH moves and thus making unnecessary or even downgrading moves. Conrad is batting .079 and hits around .200 vs RHP for his entire career. He should never be used as a last resort for any non-position player with the game on the line unless a HR is your absolute only hope and your position player is Cezar Izturis. Just leave Maldanado in.

[Marc Newfield of Dreams]

So how many more 8th inning disasters will it take to change the "8th inning guy?"

[adambr2]

So how many more 8th inning disasters will it take to change the "8th inning guy?"

 

Yes and no. I agree K-Rod has been disappointing, but what are the alternatives? Veras has been hit and miss. Loe setting up Axford last year was a disaster. This entire pen is atrocious.

[Marc Newfield of Dreams]

Yes and no. I agree K-Rod has been disappointing, but what are the alternatives? Veras has been hit and miss. Loe setting up Axford last year was a disaster. This entire pen is atrocious.

 

I don't disagree with this. More frustrated than anything else.

 

Honestly, I'd be fine with 8th inning by committee at this point. K-Rod isn't working, throw something against the wall and see if anything sticks.

[dlk9s]

Nothing is going to stick, unless it's someone not currently on the team. There are only two guys I have any confidence in: Axford (and it's not like he's been any great shakes this season, but I still have faith in him) and Loe against righties. I guess Parra has been pretty solid, but I don't trust him yet. Everyone else basically sucks.

[Glennron]

I know this is all over the IGT, but pulling Parra after about as easy a 1-2-3 inning you can have in favor of Loe when 2 of the next 4 Royals hitters are lefthanded is pretty befuddling to say the least.

 

I know he can't be blamed for the pen's poor performance in general this year, but that was a head scratcher for sure.

[Marc Newfield of Dreams]

He lost to Ned Yost in a battle of bullpen wits.

 

He is, the most incompetent manager in the world.

 

Stay righty-lefty, my friends.

[burnzy24]

Nothing is going to stick, unless it's someone not currently on the team. There are only two guys I have any confidence in: Axford (and it's not like he's been any great shakes this season, but I still have faith in him) and Loe against righties. I guess Parra has been pretty solid, but I don't trust him yet. Everyone else basically sucks.

 

I alsoblame Melvin for the current bullpen woes more than Roenicke. Well him and the fact K-Rod and Axford basically forgot how to pitch. I just came here to echo the fact that there was no reason to pull Para, our only long man in the bullpen, with lefties coming up and not having to even deal with the pitcher's spot in the line up.

 

Additionally, using Conrad as the first pinch hitter today with men on base made me want to scream at the tv. It's like Ron thinks that Conrad is so overdue for a hit that he will get one if he keeps using him enough.

[brwrsfan]

Parra has a very easy inning, 2 lefties coming up. Yeah, let's take him out for a guy that can't get lefties out. Good thinking Ron. Mark this down as yet another game he made it harder for us to win. Yeah, it's not his fault Axford can't throw strikes, but that move was his fault and that pushed across the game winning run ultimately.

 

The Conrad move was also horrible.

[Glennron]

On top of the whole Conrad being the first pinch hitter off the bench thing, I'm still confused as to why Green wasn't used to pinch hit for Maysonet in the 10th with two on and two out. Against a tough right handed pitcher no less.

 

He truly was outmanaged by a guy who had Betancourt bat 2nd.

[adambr2]

Yeah, Roenicke has been outmanaged by Ned Yost this series. That's pretty telling.

 

There have been numerous times this year where I've thought to myself, "Hey, he's learning. I think he's really starting to figure it out." Those are usually the times when he will quickly prove me wrong.

[adambr2]

"We’ve got Kameron Loe and we’ve got Veras down there," he said. "We shouldn’t have to put Manny back in the ballgame. He did his job."

 

 

So the explanation from the Skip is to name off two other relievers in our bullpen, and say that Manny's job was done after 1 inning.

 

 

So let me get inside RR's brain here (buckle up). The 3 for 39 Brooks Conrad should PH for Maldanado the other day, and George Kottaras in the 8th with RISP, even though George may at least get you a walk even against a lefty. But same situation in the 10th against a tough righty with Mayonset up, no Taylor Green, even though they could easily double switch him in and move Ransom to SS. Parra can't pitch a 2nd inning tonight with 2 lefties coming up in the inning because "he did his job", even though 9 times already this year he's come in to throw at least 2 innings. (On nights when he had not done his job after one inning, apparently).

 

I'm so confused. Does anyone really know what he's thinking? Does he?

[monty57]

Does anyone really know what he's thinking? Does he?

 

I'll try. I think he's a very organized person, and wants to have everything laid out in a nice, easy order prior to events taking place. As long as everything goes according to the pre-game plan, everything is A-OK. When something doesn't go according to plan, sparks start to shoot out of his ears and his head spins.

 

That's why he's so renowned about his Spring Training schedules. Every minute of Spring Training is laid out in perfect order and everyone knows what they're supposed to be doing all the time. That's perfect for Spring Training, or for a bench coach in assiting his manager. It's kind of like a business owner having an accountant to keep everything in order so that he can focus on making decisions. It's probably not an ideal trait for the person who actually has to make the split-second decisions and react to things as they're happening on the field.

[FVBrewerFan]

Well put. This also manifests itself in sticking with players too long, and not recognizing when he has someone better right in fromt of him. Took too long for Aoki to play every day, and I doubt he would be doing so today if it wasn't for some injuries. Veras was penciled in as the vaunted "7th inning guy" and it took forever for RR to see he is a below average pitcher. Last year it Loe in the same situation. Stuck wth McGehee forever. He wants Gomez at the top of the lineup come hell or high water. He just seems to convince himself of certain things, and it becomes very, very diffiuclt for him to make the necessary changes.

 

He has to realize the way this season is going, doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results is the definition of insanity. A bold move last night would have been to leave Parra in for the rest of the game as long as he wsn't getting into trouble. You could always bring Ax in during the 9th if necessary. But no. The law is a relief pitcher must start the inning. I'm all for having set "rules" for the bullpen if you have the arms and results you need. That's not what we have this year.

[Baldkin]

 

Braun's turn to DH tonight for ‪#Brewers‬. He (Achilles), Ramirez (quad) and Hart (knee) are all dealing with aches and pains right now.

 

Good thing RRR decided to DH the perfectly healthy Taylor Green last night.

[logan82]

How about putting a guy on the DL. Ramirez obviously can't run. Not that he could when not injured but now it is just painful to watch. We are not competing this year. Time to cut our loses and work for next year. CL Braun also while we are at it. Bring up Schafer and play Green Schafer full time somewhere to see what we have with them.

[adambr2]

Strange, the clubhouse seems real downtrodden these days, and the world was signing Roenicke's praises last year for being able to energize the clubhouse. Maybe researchers will one day be able to find a correlation between winning, and energy in the clubhouse. Macha was boring, but I bet he brought plenty of "energy" to the 2003 A's.

[endaround]

Macha was fired because Braun didn't like him. The idea that Macha wasn't "fun" is refuted by how the Brewers played. People forget the whole untuckem' thing and the bowling ball celebration were both under Macha. Roenicke made it a point to turn down those things.

[fondybrewfan]

RR makes curious decisions from time to time; but so does just about every other manager. Yes that doesn't excuse the mistakes when they happen but I truly believe RR is doing the best he can with what he has at his disposal right now. There are atleast 5 or 6 guys that have no business being on a contending team right now. The Parra decision on Wed was questionable at best. Yes Parra had a really good inning; but that also hasn't stopped him from falling apart before. I probably would have stuck with him though.

 

I mean really if you are an MLB manager and you have to try to win games with the 25 man roster the Brewers have right now it is going to be tough. There are 5 guys who shouldn't be here and another 10-15 guys that aren't living up to expectations. Some of that does fall on the coaching staff but some of it is just ridiculously bad luck or whatever you want to call it. It just sucks.

[3and2Fastball]

whoops. Wrong thread. My apologies

[logan82]

I believe hi is doing the best he can. I also believe the best he can do is still substandard.

[Invader3K]

I get sick of the "blame the manager" game every single year. The team sucks right now, and it's not his fault.

 

Most managers are going to fail when their starting shortstop, backup shortstop, starting first baseman, backup first baseman, and starting catcher have all gotten hurt. Oh yeah, and two starting pitchers. Also your All-Star second baseman and All-Star closer are both sucking it up. Maybe he can give Rickie Weeks a good pep talk to stop hitting week popups and striking out at a record setting pace. Maybe he can re-teach John Axford how to throw a ball across the plate.

 

I'm sure we could bring back Ken Macha if people think he could do so much better with Edwin Maysonet, Cody Ransom, and Brooks Conrad as regular starters. Curiously no other teams have hired him yet.

[adambr2]

I get sick of the "blame the manager" game every single year. The team sucks right now, and it's not his fault.

 

Most managers are going to fail when their starting shortstop, backup shortstop, starting first baseman, backup first baseman, and starting catcher have all gotten hurt. Oh yeah, and two starting pitchers. Also your All-Star second baseman and All-Star closer are both sucking it up. Maybe he can give Rickie Weeks a good pep talk to stop hitting week popups and striking out at a record setting pace. Maybe he can re-teach John Axford how to throw a ball across the plate.

 

I'm sure we could bring back Ken Macha if people think he could do so much better with Edwin Maysonet, Cody Ransom, and Brooks Conrad as regular starters. Curiously no other teams have hired him yet.

 

Brooks Conrad and Edwin Mayonset aren't regular starters, that's an exaggeration. I'm not saying Macha would be doing any better than this but I doubt that Roenicke could have gotten 80 wins out of a team that featured Braden Looper as the #2 starter.

 

This team still has Greinke, Gallardo, Marcum, and Wolf at the front of the rotation. There is still too much talent on this team for the injury pass card to work for me.

[fondybrewfan]

Both Gallardo and Wolf have underperfomed too. I don't blame injuries nearly as much as underperformance by key players. However losing solid players at 1B and SS for the entire year has definitely hurt. However if Weeks, Morgan, Krod, and Axford were anything like they were last year we would be a hell of a lot closer to .500 and respectability than we are now. The whole season is spiraled out of control for a number of reasons. It is looking more and more like one of those years where nothing goes right.

[adambr2]

I don't think 1B has hurt at all, except for maybe depth purposes. But I think that with Aoki's emergence, him playing everyday in right and Hart at 1st is just as good if not better than Hart in RF, Gamel at 1st.

 

SS has hurt, but I don't think anyone expected Alex Gonzalez to be anything more than a Betancourt with good defense. The dropoff between him and Izturis is pretty dramatic, though, which really hurts us.

 

And this is where you have to look at Melvin a little bit. Going into the season with Izturis as your primary back at all of 2B, SS, and 3B is asking for disaster if any regular starter goes down, which obviously happened.