2013 Brewers Whipping Boy...

[Outlander]

Roenicke, if Crosby, Murphy or anybody else plays more than they deserve or a loogy pitches to a righty when he shouldn't it always goes back to Roenicke.

[Invader3K]

Rick Kranitz, if the rotation gets off to a bad start.

[Ennder]

Gallardo is an ace against 28 teams and he is a minor league pitcher against the Cardinals. No clue why that is myself but it has been going on long enough that I don't see it stopping.

[MVP2110]

kyle lohse

[JimH5]

If a player is doing his best, not making stupid plays, taking responsibility for his mistakes, staying out of the police blotter, etc. I'll cut him some slack.

 

That leaves Roenicke & Melvin for putting this team on the field & pulling the strings.

 

I don't expect things to go smoothly all the time, but neither of them is willing to offer much candor, which then rubs me the wrong way.

[jmeks23]

Rick Kranitz, if the rotation gets off to a bad start.

 

 

Wild Card. I'm in for that one.

[GenoSeligPrieb]

Nice topic!

 

Since he cut payroll, due to attendance, I'd go with Attanasio first.

 

But as the year wears on, I'm afraid Axford will be the biggest target of the boo-birds. Hope he has an All-Star season to prove me wrong

[PrinceEatMeat]

Nice topic!

 

Since he cut payroll, due to attendance, I'd go with Attanasio first.

 

But as the year wears on, I'm afraid Axford will be the biggest target of the boo-birds. Hope he has an All-Star season to prove me wrong

 

People have no right whatsoever to rag on Attanasio.

[Raw Biz]

Nice topic!

 

Since he cut payroll, due to attendance, I'd go with Attanasio first.

 

But as the year wears on, I'm afraid Axford will be the biggest target of the boo-birds. Hope he has an All-Star season to prove me wrong

 

People have no right whatsoever to rag on Attanasio.

 

I disagree. If the Brewers end up signing Lohse, I think it will be because of Attanasio. There's a few articles out there saying that he's pushing hard for him. Not only would they lose a 1st round pick but they'd also be stuck with a mid-30s, mediocre pitcher for most likely at least 8 mil/year. Sure Melvin could say no but I'm sure Attanasio has some pull.

[TheCrew07]

Doug Melvin, he's ultimately responsible for everything.

 

Why would my opinion suddenly change now?

[TURBO]

It doesn't matter who is responsible for signing Lohse, if Lohse ends up in Milwaukee, anyone involved with his signing deserves to be a whipping boy, now, and forever!

 

If it's our GM, the owner, or both, they should be chastised until the end of time.

[homer]

Aramis Ramirez or Rickie Weeks: whoever starts off slower

[Ennder]

Franchise has gone through the best 8 year span in its history and people are still saying the people running it are awful, they will always be the whipping boys for some unless we win a World Series.

[Fear The Chorizo]

Franchise has gone through the best 8 year span in its history and people are still saying the people running it are awful, they will always be the whipping boys for some unless we win a World Series.

 

here here!

 

My early season whipping boy is whoever plays 1B while Hart is out, because 90% of posters will have someone else in mind that would obviously be a much better option.

 

Top candidate for a season-long whipping boy is the pitcher who starts the season's 2nd game (probably Estrada). He will technically be our #2, but he's unlikely to put up pitching statistics warranting that label.

 

Darkhorse candidate is Kyle Lohse - even if he never throws a pitch for the Brewers, the threat of him signing and costing the Brewers a draft pick is reason alone to warrant "whipping boy" HOF status on this board.

[MJLiverock]

Roenicke, if Crosby, Murphy or anybody else plays more than they deserve or a loogy pitches to a righty when he shouldn't it always goes back to Roenicke.

 

If Crosby so much as makes the 25 man roster he is instantly my whipping boy. There is so reason that guy should be able to make the roster. Even worse than my immediate anger over Izturis making the roster last year. Espeically infuriating are the mentions of him playing 1b. Gonzalez is a horrible enough choice for 1b given his bat, let alone plugging a guy who couldn't hit 4 years ago when he last played.

[Bombers]

I really hope if Axford struggles we move to another option. It seems like we have a lot of other options this year on who could close games.

[GenoSeligPrieb]

Tom Haudricourt wrote a few weeks ago about Mark Attanasio's belt-tightening for 2013:

 

"When all was said and done, some $51 million had come off the books, more than half of the payroll...Some of that went toward raises for arbitration-eligible players, but, anyway you figure it, the payroll is down at least 20% from a year ago."

 

I'm still grateful for Mark spending to give us a few postseason berths, and he'll never achieve a Selig-Prieb level of cheapness & incompetence. But it seems as if we fans have to fill the damned park every game, to watch some pretty uninspiring baseball and baseball players, on a discounted payroll, just for Attanasio to not cut payroll. We're the smallest market in the majors, with a still-bad TV deal. We've upheld our end of the bargain. While we still have Aramis, a so-far unsuspended Braun and a healthy Lucroy, our pitching could have been taken care of a LOT better.

 

And by "better" I DON'T mean another suspiciously-good-only-as-a-Cardinal, like Kyle Lohse! Migod, if we give that Suppan/Looper clone more than $3 million, then Melvin should be demoted to race in the Italian Sausage costume.

[logan82]

I don't have a huge problem at all with not spending much money on free agents this year.

[JimH5]

Franchise has gone through the best 8 year span in its history and people are still saying the people running it are awful, they will always be the whipping boys for some unless we win a World Series.

 

I would put the Brewers' 1978-85 run up against the past 8. Higher winning percentage & a pennant.

 

I appreciate what Melvin has done during his tenure, but this 2013 team (including the current condition if the farm system) is on him--for good or bad.

[Spidey]

Migod, if we give that Suppan/Looper clone more than $3 million, then Melvin should be demoted to race in the Italian Sausage costume.

 

Are you implying that something unsavory happened to the Italian costume while it was "vacationing" at the bars, to make it seem like a punishment to wear it? Just asking.

[mothershipconnection]

Tom Gorzelanny. Why him? Because one of our relievers will be crap and see too many high-leverage situations where he implodes. I arbitrarily picked a member of the pen to be that guy, and it's Gorzelanny.

 

My second pick would be Jean Segura, because he's a young raw guy who could suck for a year as he adjusts to the majors.

[brewtank34]

Tom Haudricourt wrote a few weeks ago about Mark Attanasio's belt-tightening for 2013:

 

"When all was said and done, some $51 million had come off the books, more than half of the payroll...Some of that went toward raises for arbitration-eligible players, but, anyway you figure it, the payroll is down at least 20% from a year ago."

 

I'm still grateful for Mark spending to give us a few postseason berths, and he'll never achieve a Selig-Prieb level of cheapness & incompetence. But it seems as if we fans have to fill the damned park every game, to watch some pretty uninspiring baseball and baseball players, on a discounted payroll, just for Attanasio to not cut payroll. We're the smallest market in the majors, with a still-bad TV deal. We've upheld our end of the bargain. While we still have Aramis, a so-far unsuspended Braun and a healthy Lucroy, our pitching could have been taken care of a LOT better.

 

And by "better" I DON'T mean another suspiciously-good-only-as-a-Cardinal, like Kyle Lohse! Migod, if we give that Suppan/Looper clone more than $3 million, then Melvin should be demoted to race in the Italian Sausage costume.

 

I apologize, but this is probably one of the worst takes I've seen in this forum for quite some time. Uninspiring baseball? Braun, Gallardo, Lucroy, Weeks, Hart, Aoki, even Gomez was fun to watch last year. Our pitching has never been more stocked and we have an up and coming position player pool such as Gennet, Gindl, Schaffer, Segura, Coultier, Roach... the list goes on. I as a fan applaud MA and his efforts. He brought his payroll to $100 mil last year and if it wasn't for our stupid BP in the first half, we proved we were one of the better teams in the NL. We have an exicting brand of baseball as we stole more bases, produced more runs than ever and were the tops in the NL in scoring runs. How is that uninspiring and not worthy of us fans coming to the ballpark? I'm sorry GSP, but your rationale is quite off. Yes, our tv deal sucks and unfortunatley that's not going to change any time soon. But we are going to compete and be a legit contender/wild-card contender every year for the foreseeable future. Brewers stock is high and rising.

[Ennder]

You know what raising the payroll this year would get us, a named bullpen guy signed to a 3 year deal or a marginal FA pitcher signed to a 3 year deal. The team just didn't have any other holes to fill. The reason the payroll went down is because we have young cost controlled talent everywhere and we chose to go with the younger pitching.

 

I would put the Brewers' 1978-85 run up against the past 8. Higher winning percentage & a pennant.

 

That definitely is plausible. When we are at 6 years of being a good team that other stretch was an easy pick. Now that we have extended it a couple more years it is getting harder to compare.

[TooLiveBrew]

You're using the term "good team" quite liberally. 4 of these 8 seasons were .500 or worse, and only 2 of the 8 resulted in a postseason appearance. From '78-'82, the Brewers were consistently one of the best in the AL. This "run" has hardly outdone that... nor has it actually been a run, since it hasn't been consistent.

[owbc]

The idea that higher payroll will solve issues with "uninspiring baseball and players" is absolutely absurd. Do we have a source for that quote?

 

In reality, the end result of adding $15 million to the payroll would almost certainly be the exact opposite. The extra money would be spent on Suppan clones like Lohse who will quickly end up as top whipping boys.

 

All indications are that the vast majority of Brewers fans are in favor of waiting to spend the money. There will be no complaints when the Brewers have the financial leverage to be buyers in July.