All Things Yuni

[Ennder]

Point being, when you have a manager like RR, you need to idiot proof the roster (kinda like what Beane did with Howe and traded all the crap players he would play).

 

I could buy this when we had Macha. Roenicke doesn't seem like this at all though so not really sure where you are coming from. We didn't play the proven Morgan last year, we gave Aoki his shot. They were set to just give Gamel 1B until he got hurt. When Segura came to the team he played every day as the SS. They were willing to go to Jim Henderson as the closer last year. When Lucroy went down they leaned more on Maldonado. The only time he has favored a vet over a young guy was McGehee over Green in 2011 but I think that is more a product of him just not liking Green than anything and probably a product of McGehee having his hot streak right in the middle of the season and buying himself more time.

 

Yuni started full time in 2011 because we didn't have another SS to play basically, it was a dead position.

[Gobias Industries]

Briggs,

 

I think you can agree much bigger reasons for winning all those games in 2011 was having a good rotation that stayed pretty healthy, having two relief aces to shorten games, two mvp candidates, half a season of a allstar 2nd baseman, and basically a lot of good fortune. Yuni was more or less just along for the ride. I will agree with you that he wasn't as bad as I was expecting, but a guy like A Gonzalez certainly would of been a noticed upgrade.

 

Roenicke playing Yuni over more deserving players because we won a lot of games with him is exactly what I'm afraid of.

[Ennder]

Roenicke playing Yuni over more deserving players because we won a lot of games with him is exactly what I'm afraid of.

 

There weren't any more deserve players though. Did we really want to see more Counsell or Josh Wilson? We just had nobody else to play SS in 2011. Hairston can't field the position. There was no depth there at AAA. Who is this more deserving person? I disliked Betancourt as much as the next guy but there just weren't options in 2011 unless we brought in a different player from another team.

[Invader3K]

I don't buy the argument that Roenicke is going to be so enamored with Betancourt that he's going to give him tons of playing time. The team clearly likes Segura and Gonzalez. Roenicke hasn't shown the propensity for overplaying veterans like Macha and Yost did either.

[3and2Fastball]

We have Alex Gonzales to back-up SS

 

Sean Halton > Yuni B

 

Theres a bunch of scrap heap backup 1B > Yuni B

[RWeeksFan23]

I don't buy the argument that Roenicke is going to be so enamored with Betancourt that he's going to give him tons of playing time. The team clearly likes Segura and Gonzalez. Roenicke hasn't shown the propensity for overplaying veterans like Macha and Yost did either.

Mark Kotsay says hello.

[Ennder]

Mark Kotsay says hello.

 

Mark Kotsay was a 4th OF who played over Gomez whose defense gets heavily downgraded in value playing RF and Kotsay was a better hitter at that point than Gomez was. That is really trying to stretch things using this as your argument. This is a complete non issue.

[Gobias Industries]

Ennder,

 

I'm not arguing about 2011. I agree with you that Yuni was the best option we had on the roster at SS that year, but still, that's not really saying much. You can pretty much get a Gonzalez in free agency every year for a cheap 1 yr commitment and he's twice the player. All reports said that DM wanted Yuni coming back in the trade. And now that you bring it back up, Melvin having Yuni (No D Ok bat) Counsell (All D no Bat) and Wilson (No D No Bat) as the SS options was a major fail.

 

What I'm saying is now that our 24th/25th man is a "name" player, he's probably gonna be seeing more time than he should or more than a normal end of the bench guy would. I'd rather stick some no name scrub/unproven player down in that spot so our manager isn't even tempted.

[Ennder]

That is fine Gobias I'm just saying that RR is not the type of manager who does this more than most though. He has shown a tenancy to play the best player and not just the most known. The fact that you pointed him out as being flawed in this is what bothered me. I really don't expect Yuni to play a lot though unless Segura really struggles which might happen since he is completely unknown at this point.

[3and2Fastball]

Of course RR will give Yuni B some starts, after all Yuni B has been batting over .400 in spring training and RR likes going with the "hot hand" (wish this was in Blue!)

[Ennder]

Of course RR will give Yuni B some starts, after all Yuni B has been batting over .400 in spring training and RR likes going with the "hot hand" (wish this was in Blue!)

 

And that was Yost. RR isn't really a big hot hand manager either, he is pretty normal in this regard. Seems like people are taking every flaw of our last 3 managers and throwing them all on RR. RR is a pretty vanilla manager like he is pulling the book out and just doing what it says to. Yost was more of the wild PH with the LHB who is hot even though he is facing a LOOGY or play the crappy MI just because he is hot type or actually take some risks with the batting order. Macha was the I hate rookies guy. RR is in the middle on both of those with way too many bunts thrown in.

[Gobias Industries]

Mark Kotsay says hello.

 

Mark Kotsay was a 4th OF who played over Gomez whose defense gets heavily downgraded in value playing RF and Kotsay was a better hitter at that point than Gomez was. That is really trying to stretch things using this as your argument. This is a complete non issue.

Do you remember when Kotsay started several games in CF, in Petco no less, when that hadn't been a viable position for him in nearly a decade? As you said, Gomez' value was basically all his glove at the point. There was no reason for him not to play in spots like that.

 

Also, if we still had a Kotsay on the roster last year, who knows if Gomez is given the chance to play every day and break out.

[3and2Fastball]

RR started Mark Kotsay in CF in a playoff game!

[TURBO]

Point being, when you have a manager like RR, you need to idiot proof the roster (kinda like what Beane did with Howe and traded all the crap players he would play).

 

I could buy this when we had Macha. Roenicke doesn't seem like this at all though so not really sure where you are coming from. We didn't play the proven Morgan last year, we gave Aoki his shot. They were set to just give Gamel 1B until he got hurt. When Segura came to the team he played every day as the SS. They were willing to go to Jim Henderson as the closer last year. When Lucroy went down they leaned more on Maldonado. The only time he has favored a vet over a young guy was McGehee over Green in 2011 but I think that is more a product of him just not liking Green than anything and probably a product of McGehee having his hot streak right in the middle of the season and buying himself more time.

 

Yuni started full time in 2011 because we didn't have another SS to play basically, it was a dead position.

 

Aoki got his shot because Hart moved to 1B and Morgan was terrible, no other reason.

 

Henderson was given a shot at closer because both Axford and K-Rod were just that bad. They didn't just have a rough patch, they were as bad as bad can be, for a long time. Don't think that both Aoki and Henderson were given shots out of the goodness of RR's heart. At that point, there was no other choice. NONE.

 

The key to Maldonado playing was Lucroy getting hurt. Again, he had no choice other than to play the next guy in line. Lucroy was hurt, that is the only reason Maldonado giot his shot.

 

McGehee should have been replaced by anyone MUCH sooner than it happened. RR gets no credit for that one either, that should have happened in July, but it didn't until playoff time.

 

Kotsay starting in CF in a playoff game was perhaps the biggest blunder ever made by a Milwaukee Brewers manager. There is and was no excuse for that type of decision. It was completely asinine. I have zero faith in our manager to make managerial decisions that put our team in the best position to win games. He is an absolute doofus, and has no business calling shots for this team.

 

This statement is accurate and truthful, as sad as it is:

 

"when you have a manager like RR, you need to idiot proof the roster"

 

The fact that we now have Yuni back on the roster, and a manager that will more than likely go out of his way to get him at bats is a reality, and it is frustrating.

[Ennder]

Do you remember when Kotsay started several games in CF, in Petco no less, when that hadn't been a viable position for him in nearly a decade?

 

Kotsay played in 10 games in CF in 2011 and only 2 of them did he play the full game in CF and they were spread far apart. Most of the time he spent in CF was when Morgan was out with a broken finger. Almost all of his starts on the year were when Hart was injured at the beginning and when Braun got hurt in the middle of the season. Again this is really stretching your definition of favoring vets when you have 1 example and it was as a 4th OF who mostly played while guys were hurt. Anyway I give up, you are going to believe what you want to.

 

Again, he had no choice other than to play the next guy in line

 

That is exactly the point though, he does have other choices. He went ahead and went to the less experienced choice who was showing they could handle it in every single one of those cases last year. He isn't going to play Betancourt just because of his name, I think he has proven that.

[Thurston Fluff]

Kotsay played what five or ten games in center? I can find that many games over an entire season that every manager made a stupid decision on who to play where. I don't think it's accurate to ignore all the other games where he didn't make those choices to say he's going to play Yuni over Segura other than to rest Segura. For the Kotsay argument to work he'd have to have played regularly over Gomez not just a handful of games.

[3and2Fastball]

Kotsay starting in CF in a playoff game was perhaps the biggest blunder ever made by a Milwaukee Brewers manager. There is and was no excuse for that type of decision. It was completely asinine..

 

This is exactly correct. That one decision is enough to not allow me to ever have complete faith in RR, and oh I wish that was the only major mistake that RR has made!

[3and2Fastball]

I will almost guarantee you that if Segura goes 0 for his first 3 games, Yuni B will start Game 4.... might even be if Segura goes 0 for his first 2 games. Time to pray that Jean starts the season out hot

[Gobias Industries]

Kotsay playing 10 games in CF when you have perhaps the best defender in the league on the bench is unbelievably dumb. Just like if Yuni winds up starting 10 games at SS over both Segura and Gonzalez, I will consider that a very dumb decision. Yes, I know in the grand scheme of things it probably won't cost us a chance at the postseason or anything.

 

My whole point of this was Roenicke is obviously gonna give a Yuni B type vet a lot more opportunities than a journeyman scrub like Murphy. And I realize that most pro sports coaches are the same way and do suboptimal things all the time. That doesn't make it any less frustrating. Look no further than the Milwaukee Bucks for a recent example. They just lost out on a very good young player in Tobias Harris because both idiot coaches played a "proven" vet in Marquis Daniels over him and they had no idea what the even had. Imagine if we would have given McGehee's spot in 2009 to a Yuni-esqe vet. We would have never gotten those two dirt-cheap, productive seasons out of him.

 

Signings like this are a waste of a money and there's absolutely no upside to it. I hate crap like this.

[brewers19]

The Brewers have a .593 regular season winning percentage with Betancourt not just on the roster but the starting SS. I think he's a clear upgrade on the bench over a guy (Murphy) with career numbers of .205/.270/.373, and who was booting balls this spring all over the infield.

The Brewers have a .777 regular season winning percentage when Mel Stocker plays.

[TURBO]

 

Kotsay played in 10 games in CF in 2011 and only 2 of them did he play the full game in CF and they were spread far apart.

 

 

That is even more of a reason NOT to start him in CF in a playoff game of all times... He had no comfort level at that position, which was evident in the fact that he misjudged a crucial play that could have/probably ended our season.

 

If he did only play CF 10 times in a full season, why on earth start him there in the post season?

 

asinine.

[MVP2110]

Even if you consider the Kotsay argument. Ok that is one time he played a vet a little to much. Name another one. We didn't have other options for McGehee or Yuni. When we got another replacement for McGehee, he sat in the playoffs. When opportunities have opened up he has not hesitated to give them to young players.

[topper09er]

Kotsay starting in CF in a playoff game was perhaps the biggest blunder ever made by a Milwaukee Brewers manager.

 

Besides starting Shawn Marcum 3 times that postseason.

 

RRR hates rookies just as much as Macha, RRR has WAY more loyalty to "the guys that got us here" than he should.

[topper09er]

When we got another replacement for McGehee, he sat in the playoffs. When opportunities have opened up he has not hesitated to give them to young players.

 

We had Jerry Harry on August 1, yes he played some CF and filled in for Rickie, but when Rickie was back McGehee started at 3B until the end. The only games Harry started at 3B for us were team games 156, 159, 160 and 162.

[James Zumstein]

Even if you consider the Kotsay argument. Ok that is one time he played a vet a little to much. Name another one. We didn't have other options for McGehee or Yuni. When we got another replacement for McGehee, he sat in the playoffs. When opportunities have opened up he has not hesitated to give them to young players.

 

Besides leaving Pedro Martinez in after 125 pitches when he hadn't done that all season, what did Grady Little do to get fired by the Red Sox? When it comes to the playoffs, there is no room for error. You can't manage with your gut. You've got to use your head, which means no Kotsay and definetely no Marcum.