05/01/2004 - Pittsburgh (Perez) at Milwaukee (Obermueller)

[tomwopat]

more annoying is his lack of patience at the plate, especially in clutch situations. he's always up there hacking at the first pitch. it's not like pitchers are fearful of him and are going to throw him garbage after a first strike. and this aggressiveness would be excusable if he was hitting for power, but his 270 SLG is downright pathetic.

 

i don't like to get down on players who are slumping, but i don't see a single upside with playing him at first instead of overbay.

 

do we have other options in the system? ginter at third seems to work offense wise, but i don't like the idea of playing people out of position on a team with defensive liabilities.

[Jopal78]

The Brewers have more important issues to deal with than Wes Helms. His defense at third is fine, and the overall offensive production is adequate.

Finding out what they are going to do with the rotation is a bigger issue. Kinney and Obermueller cannot just keep going out there and handing the Brewers a 5 run or more defecit every game. Plus with Capuano's set back they will need that 5th starter after all, and the guys on the 25 man that could start a game: Hernandez, Santos, and Ford are pretty scary options.

And that bleak situation inlcudes giving Doug Davis a lot more credit than he deserves. Davis has been a nightmare this season too, but just like last year when he has gotten in jams the damage has been limited by the other team not capitalizing, but I would not expect that to continue for 30 more starts.

Bottomline is until the Brewers can field a rotation with pitchers who can keep their era under 5.20, does it really matter that Wes Helms is batting. 203?

[950opsLHcatcher]

I, oddly enough, completely agree with Jopal. The least of the Brewers' problems right now is Wes Helms. I'm not going to throw him on the butcher's block after a whopping 74 at-bats. If he would have had a hot April and then done this in May, no one (well, outside of this site) would have realized it. Helms is not a 514 OPS hitter. If he continued to start everyday at third, it is not that hard to envision him finishing the year with about a 750 OPS. Same thing, to a lesser extent, with Counsell. I don't think he's going to finish the year, wherever he finishes the year, with a .206 batting average, and you don't either.

 

The one thing that could spark this offense is actually playing Keith Ginter everyday, but for the long-term good of the franchise, playing Spivey everyday to increase his trade value is a good thing, and Ginter's defensive liability at third base may not outway the positives of him playing everyday there. The Brewers have to find more and regular PA for Keith, but Wes isn't going to get any better by not playing, either. And it's not like we all don't know that our mid-August middle infield won't be Hardy and Hall, anyway.

 

Back to pitching, I'm actually shocked that the team ERA is only 5.08. While Capuano may or may not pass the Dave Letterman "Is This Anything?" test, the rotation is, as many of us feared, just plain bad beyond Sheets. And the long relief outside of Burba Time (Ford and Hernandez) has been equally as crappy. The Brewers are 22nd in ERA, 22nd in hits allowed and 23rd in walks allowed. That is a powerful index of mediocrity. And I honestly don't see the current bad pitching moving as close to the median as much as the current good pitching losing ground to median. Kieschnick and Burba Time are not this good. Davis and Obermueller may be this bad.

 

A big test in Melvin's GManship may come soon when he has the option to promote prospects like Hendrickson and Adams to fill in spots where veterans have failed. Will he Taylor and promote the guys before they are due, or will Melvin press on, wait it out, and let prospects actually earn their stay? It's tempting to look at Hendrickson's 0.88 WHIP and say he's ready, and it's tempting to look at Adams' 25:1 K:BB ratio and say he's ready. (Note the profound sigh of discontent over not mentioning De La Rosa's nonexistent gaudy numbers here.) I really hope the Brewers press on and try guys like Wise and Michalek and a Childers or two before testing the meat of the farm system before they may be ready to be tested.

[endaround]

I'm not sure why you think Counsell will improve. He is pretty much doing what he did over last season. His average is down, but his OPB is the same and he is actually hitting for more power (his slugging is down a bit due to his lower BA). Counell is what he is, a below replacement level hitter playing out of position.

[MassBrew]

If Ben Hendrickson shines again today, there's really not a better setting for his big league debut than on the road in front of smallish crowds against offensively-challenged teams like the Expos and Mets on the next road trip.

 

I can not stomach the fact that Matt Kinney, Wes Obermueller, and Victor Santos are slated for starts next week.

 

Where's the vomit emoticon?

[scoop53714]

Mass,

 

Would you agree that a person can conclude that Matt Kinney and Wes Obie are unacceptable starting pitchers? They dont throw strikes, they dont throw hard and they (especially Obie) have never had a ton of success. Kinney flashed some signs of life early last year but the overall picture is that they, for lack of a better word, suck.

 

Putting the arby clock issue aside, would you be in favor of just throwing caution to the wind and go with a rotation of Sheets, Davis, Hendrickson, Seanz and Capuano?

 

I would. I cant take any more of Helms and I sure cant take any more of our starting pitchers walking the brewers into huge deficits.

 

I am all for sweeping changes. Send Obie and Kinney packing and begin the influx of young arms.

[DuWayne Steurer]

I agree with Scoop, except for putting Saenz in the rotation. It's been mentioned before, but if teams actually get to scout him before he starts, and he gets around the league once, I really believe he'll get hit pretty hard. He's got good stuff, but he needs more time to develop.

 

And Ginter needs to play everyday. It doesn't matter where. I was worried about his D at 3rd, specifically his arm, but there was a play last night where he dove at the ball, knocked it down, picked it up, stood up and still threw the guy out. I don't think the arm is a worry, or at least as much of a worry as some (myself included!) made it out to be.

[RyDogg66]

Still waiting for someone to post a picture of 'Thor' from Adventures in babysitting. He's a dead ringer for Craig Wilson. I did a google image search and got a picture but have no idea how to post it. Here is the link though....

 

images.google.com/images?...abysitting

[DHonks]

Putting the arby clock issue aside, would you be in favor of just throwing caution to the wind and go with a rotation of Sheets, Davis, Hendrickson, Seanz and Capuano?

 

Scoop, we've been agreeing a lot lately it seems. Like I said earlier, let's forget waiting till June 1st for Hendrickson (as I've advocated for a long time), because we may not be at .500 then. If we choose to wait, then we might be so far out on June 1st that we'll be forced to say "well, why start their arby clocks now, why not just give them a brief callup in Sept?".

My one suggestion is that if we are tapping into AA for a starter, that we go with Matt Ford before Saenz. Then again, Davis has struggled too, so perhaps there's room for a Sheets-Cappy-Ford-Hendrickson-Saenz rotation afterall. Still, before raiding AA I'd advocate giving some starts to Kieschnick, Burba, Ben Ford (1 start at least), and Liriano.

[xisxisxis]

Like I said earlier, let's forget waiting till June 1st for Hendrickson (as I've advocated for a long time), because we may not be at .500 then. If we choose to wait, then we might be so far out on June 1st that we'll be forced to say "well, why start their arby clocks now, why not just give them a brief callup in Sept?".

 

If you think the Brewers are 1 pitcher away from contending then you don't appreciate the sorry status of the talent that the Brewers call a pitching staff. There's no reason sacrificing the future to make a poor run at 0.500. I guess in a society that requires instant gratification there's no need to save for tomorrow when we can spend everything today. I hope Melvin is smart enough to realize that winning 1 or 2 more games isn't as important as establishing a strong future for this team and not wasting service time on players when they could be learning in AAA. Neugie is still on the DL and technically is burning up his service time. If he ever makes it back to the majors he'll be arby eligible immediately and what did we get for that privilege? 60IP? Well I have to go, Bestbuy has a sale on plasma TVs, I don't need another 1, but I'd like one for the bathroom. Can't afford it, but I still have some credit limit left on one of my 30 credit cards. I'm trying to hit 5 times my annual salary in debt to see if I'll end up killing myself like that English Bloke.......Who needs to save for tomorrow when I can spend today.

[DHonks]

If you think the Brewers are 1 pitcher away from contending then you don't appreciate the sorry status of the talent that the Brewers call a pitching staff. There's no reason sacrificing the future to make a poor run at 0.500.

 

We're at .500 and we're 2.5 back. To me it's not about making a "poor run at .500" when it can be about being above .500. With Sheets, Capuano, Hendrickson, and Davis, it would give us 4 at least adequate pitchers (although Davis isn't much better than that). But right now we are losing games because of our pitching. We could have 2 of 3 more wins if not for Kinney, Obermueller, and--to a lesser extent--Davis.

Plus, I never said we were one pitcher away from contending. We're one or two pitchers away from stabilizing our staff. If our offense keeps performing against solid teams, then is it really wasteful to stabilize the rotation? We need two starting pitchers now, and getting one is a start.

Hendrickson is dominating AAA thus far, he was (from my perspective after witnessing a bunch of Fall League games) far and away the most dominant pitcher in the Fall League, and he's done very well at every level in the minor leagues. The jump from AAA to the big leagues isn't all that big.

[whizkid]

Just hope DM has more patience than what's being demonstrated here by some. No Ben H. before July if I had my way. All we have to fear is fear(and panic) itself. The future is not now.