Tuesday's Frosty Mug
by Kyle Lobner on Jun 23, 2009 9:18 AM CDT
in Milwaukee Brewers News
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PrintSome things to read while wearing unnecessarily dangerous hats and vests.
Well, I'm married, honeymooned and moved, and I think I'm finally ready to be back. Thanks to Jordan for filling in on the Mug in my absence, and to all the site's contributors and mods who posted in my absence. It doesn't look like the site missed a beat while I was gone, which is great to see.
Unfortunately, the Brewers are 4-9 since I left on my honeymoon, and 0-3 since I've moved into my new house. I've started putting things back in boxes.
As I'm sure you know, the Brewers' starting pitchers haven't been very good lately. FanGraphs notes that Brewer pitchers posted a 6.08 FIP last week, and five different pitchers posted ERAs over 10. Meanwhile, Dave Bush will likely be pushed back a few days, or could skip a start entirely to recover from arm fatigue.
Who will take Dave Bush's spot in the rotation? Tyler Mass handicaps the favorites over at Right Field Bleachers. Seth McClung appears to be the early favorite. I doubt consideration will be given to Manny Parra (who has only made one start in AAA) or Carlos Villanueva (don't mess with a good thing in the bullpen), but Mike Burns is already lined up to start Thursday, so he could also be an option.
At least Yovani Gallardo looked pretty good on Sunday. He also ranks eleventh in Baseball Analysts' list of pitchers ranked by strikeouts per 100 pitches. Jeff Suppan ranks 90th out of 98 pitchers listed.
The Brewers close out interleague play with a three game series against the Twins starting tonight, but don't expect it to be the end of the line for Mat Gamel. Anthony Witrado says Gamel is getting comfortable in the big leagues and the team appears committed to keeping him around.
Prince Fielder, meanwhile, simply continues to produce. Adam McCalvy has a look at Fielder's consistency, and notices that Fielder has not gone more than three games without an RBI this season.
It seems increasingly likely that the Brewers will make a move to strengthen their playoff chances, but how much money can they spend? Jon Heyman lists them among ten teams that could add payroll, but I'm not sure they could add much, as they were already claiming they were out of money before giving $5 million to Braden Looper months ago.
I still think it's too early to start discussing the Wild Card, but MLB FanHouse notices that the Brewers are tied with the Giants for the lead in the race for the final playoff spot, and five teams are within 2.5 games of it.
Meanwhile, in power rankings:
- WhatifSports dropped the Brewers six spots to fourteenth.
- Richard Griffin of the Toronto Star dropped the Brewers from seventh to twelfth.
Around the league:
Angels: Placed Ervin Santana on the DL with triceps inflammation.
Mets: Placed Carlos Beltran on the DL with a bone bruise on his right knee, designated infielder Wilson Valdez and minor league pitcher Connor Robertson for assignment and released Javier Valentin, Wily Mo Pena and Bobby Kielty from minor league deals.
Phillies: Will place Clay Condrey on the DL with an oblique strain.
Pirates: Designated Craig Monroe for assignment after he showed a lack of hustle.
Rays: Akinori Iwamura's knee injury was not as bad as previously thought, and he could be back in 6-8 weeks following an arthroscopic procedure.
Yankees: CC Sabathia is expected to make his next start after being pulled in the second inning of his last start with arm soreness.
This is how you know your infield situation is pretty bad: Lookout Landing crunched the numbers and discovered that the Mariners may actually be better off starting veteran journeyman Chris Woodward at shortstop. Woodward spent 2008 in Nashville.
Where would the Mariners be without Russell Branyan? The USA Today has a profile of Branyan and his breakout season, and Larry Stone of the Seattle Times notes that Branyan is on past to collect the least RBI ever accumulated by a 40 home run hitter.
On top of making all the roster moves listed above, the Mets had another reason to panic yesterday, as Jose Reyes and a team trainer were rear ended by a fire truck on their way to an appointment with Reyes' doctor. Everyone is ok, thankfully.
Oh, and today is a Woot-off day.
Drink up.
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Welcome Back KL
completely off topic. If you could go back 2 years, would you do the Kyle Loshe/Bill Hall trade?
"That's not a weird stat. Rickie is a run-scorer," Yost said. "It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter," Yost told reporters. "See, you guys have no concept. He's a run-scorer. So there's nothing weird about it. That's what he does."
this is assuming that Loshe resigned with us for his current deal
"That's not a weird stat. Rickie is a run-scorer," Yost said. "It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter," Yost told reporters. "See, you guys have no concept. He's a run-scorer. So there's nothing weird about it. That's what he does."
Welcome back KL
Mike Burns on Thursday, Chase Wright on Saturday. The two days off this week should help the bullpen.
we have 2 days off this week?
Cards Announcers On Gamel's First Career HR, ""That’s all they need is another home run hitter".
I assume he meant last week including yesterday. Perhaps if we flood again and the roof gets stuck open, we may have a day off in the next two.
I suppose that would be within the span of a week. I doubt it will help the bullpen much in the long run, though. Since the starters don’t get an extra day off, I doubt they’ll be going deep into games. The bullpen will probably start being overworked again. They should be fresh, though.
Cards Announcers On Gamel's First Career HR, ""That’s all they need is another home run hitter".
Wording fail
I did mean that there have been 2 days off in the past week, so we at least have that.
I don’t like the idea of moving McClung to a starting role for the short-term, because you are taking out a long relief guy, and he wouldn’t be able to go much past 5 innings for the first few starts. Just bring up a AAA guy and hope for the best .
Are Chris Cody or Josh Butler options?
Rather, I should say, would they get a shot if they were in another organization. Melvin seems good at maintaining depth in the minors, but it seems like indentured servitude with little hope for passage to the colonies majors for other than top prospects. Heck, maybe even Escobar feels that way. Yesterday on the radio, Witrado suggested that Hardy should be benched. He ignorantly equated him with Maggs Ordonez, but I digress.
I do think the Brewers could add payroll. They’ve picked up sponsorships, get mentioned for their ability to sell “merch” and sell a lot of seats. Atlanta dealt for McLouth without a whisper in the media, could this TalkingChop fanpost mean they are thinking of moving Vasquez when Hudson comes back? The Reds are rumored to be shopping Arroyo, although Harang’s contract goes the same length. Their recent televised Sunday afternoon game had quite a few empty seats. That rumor started with Nick Cafardo though and he seems to bat in single digits for accuracy.
Oh, and the “tired arm” scenario seems doubtful as he started pitching poorly in Minnesota.
I don't see why the Braves would want to trade Javy
Cards Announcers On Gamel's First Career HR, ""That’s all they need is another home run hitter".
If money is the issue,
then why sign him in the offseason?
Cards Announcers On Gamel's First Career HR, ""That’s all they need is another home run hitter".
er.. trade
Cards Announcers On Gamel's First Career HR, ""That’s all they need is another home run hitter".
Cody and Butler are somewhat different situations.
Cody maybe could be, because he’s at a somewhat advanced age for a “prospect.” As such, the organization would probably be less likely to be reluctant to burn an option to use him for a spot start or two and see what they have.
Butler, on the other hand, seems like an unlikely option. He pitched a couple of starts in AAA to fill in a gap, but we’re talking about a guy who started the year in Brevard County. If he continues to pitch at or near his current level for a month or two he could make himself an outside candidate to make the roster next spring, but calling him up now would be a pretty big leap.
"The reports are that he is getting better. The definition of better is nebulous."
by Kyle Lobner on Jun 23, 2009 10:04 AM CDT up reply actions
Maybe so
I’d say the logic on Cody could be the opposite: he’s advanced age, let’s see what we’ve got. They’re not doing the Super 2 dance with Gamel. Butler is 24 years old and is pitching in AA. It’s not outrageous.
I’m not really advocating those specific moves. I’d like to see Burns and/or Wright get starts. Regardless, if you have pitchers who have a good chance at providing needed pitching, they should be tried. A lot of people are calling for Escobar to be traded for crying out loud. Burning an option on guys who may be doomed to toiling on the plantation doesn’t seem like an impediment.
“Melvin seems good at maintaining depth in the minors, but it seems like indentured servitude with little hope for passage to the colonies majors for other than top prospects.”
Isn’t that like every non-rebuilding team? Unless there’s a rash of injuries, of course.
Obscure baseball records and more at my blog, Recondite Baseball.
By the way
Move isn’t quite done yet, because I still need to get rid of a couch.
"The reports are that he is getting better. The definition of better is nebulous."
Welcome to Wisconsin, KL
Cards Announcers On Gamel's First Career HR, ""That’s all they need is another home run hitter".
Melvin on the Milwaukee ESPN radio station
He and [I forget] have already talked to Bosio and Money, will talk to Macha later and also see how Bush feels. The damage to Miller Park sounds like it was somewhat significant. While they’re ready for baseball, he said contractors will be working on the place for a while during days with baseball at night.
I know they said they had to rip all the carpet out of the home clubhouse.
I think I also heard that the loading dock area and a lot of the other things located on the lower levels were underwater.
"The reports are that he is getting better. The definition of better is nebulous."
by Kyle Lobner on Jun 23, 2009 12:27 PM CDT up reply actions
Moneyball is closer to being called out on strikes
From /Film
After Friday, when Paramount’s Film Group President John Lesher was axed, there was little to no chance that the film would find a home there. But Warner Brothers wasn’t interested, either. Both studios cited concerns about the nearly $60m budget and the niche appeal. A baseball stats movie is going to have a small audience even in America, and the sport doesn’t draw overseas. That counters Brad Pitt’s overseas draw which, as broken down by Dave Poland, is substantial. For a basic studio film with Brad Pitt, $60m is nothing. But this really feels like a $30-40m picture that got inflated.
Moneyball for a big-ticket studio?
doesn’t that run contrary to the whole philosophy?
They should hire some grips straight out of grip school that have good peripheral gripstats, but aren’t necessarily #1 in their grip class, or went to Canadian or Dominican grip class so no one has heard about them.
Additionally, they should put the Highest Leverage Actors in the highest leverage scenes only. Brad Pitt should only get a cameo near the end of the film. Maybe Seth Green should be in there to talk statgeek from time to time, but would demand too much if he was in every major scene. Perhaps they could go with the asian geek from Prison Break who got whacked after only appearing in 3 episodes in the last season rather than Green. To pack the theaters, they should give away cheap crap like Brad Pitt bobbleheads to the first 50 attendees on opening night.
by PagsBrewCrew on Jun 23, 2009 2:30 PM CDT up reply actions 2 recs
The funny thing is...
analytics have hit hollywood. Not every studio is on board, but there’s at least one company out there that does predictive analysis based on script elements, stars, etc. to figure likely profits. Somebody may well have a solid estimate that Brad Pitt + baseball + geekiness + no hot chicks = $40MM.
Also, cheese.
by Jeff Sackmann on Jun 23, 2009 3:37 PM CDT up reply actions
Like the "no hot chicks" part couldn't be adjusted on the fly...
Isn’t that what happens to basically every other big-budget movie script these days?
i'm sure some no-name hot chicks would be willing to do the movie for free
to break out of their current portion of the film industry.
by PagsBrewCrew on Jun 23, 2009 6:39 PM CDT up reply actions
Yeah, who says Mike Magnante needs to be played by a man?
Obscure baseball records and more at my blog, Recondite Baseball.
Welcome back KL!
Just a fun tidbit: The bassist for Eric Hutchinson when he was in Milwaukee two weeks ago looked like Prince Fielder, minus about 100 pounds or so.
"If lovin’ Braun is wrong, I want to be a repeat offender!"
RIP Nick Adenhart - Stop Drunk Driving
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NL Central Standings
| W | L | PCT | GB | STRK | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Chicago
|
0 | 0 | .000 | 0 | Lost 0 |
|
Cincinnati
|
0 | 0 | .000 | 0 | Lost 0 |
|
Houston
|
0 | 0 | .000 | 0 | Lost 0 |
|
Milwaukee
|
0 | 0 | .000 | 0 | Lost 0 |
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Pittsburgh
|
0 | 0 | .000 | 0 | Lost 0 |
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St. Louis
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0 | 0 | .000 | 0 | Lost 0 |
(updated 2.15.2012 at 1:03 AM CST)
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