How Much Do We Still Hate These Guys?

Last year, I openly questioned where the majority of Green Bay Packers fans were placing their priorities. I stated my feelings about the insanity that most people fall into when the topic of the Packers' head coach and general manager. After that post, the Pack went on to win 6 of their last 7 games to finish the season 11-5 and make the postseason. Obviously, the playoff game in Arizona did not go quite as we had hoped, but it looked like the team took a huge leap forward. The players, who couldn't play, that the one idiot drafted, played... and played well. The quarterback that no one wanted suddenly emerged as a near elite level NFL quarterback. The offensive scheme that the other idiot put in place, which would never work, worked. Now national pundits are extolling the Packers a potential Super Bowl team in 2010. This should be exactly the image rehab that the Thompson/McCarthy regime needed... right?

But in listening to the thoughts of the local fandom via talk radio, blog comments, etc., I get the impression that that isn't the case at all. People inside the state of Wisconsin seem to have a far more negative outlook of the team than do those that cover it on a national level. When the fuck has that ever happened before? Aren't Packers fans usually the ones saying that people need to watch out for the Packers, when those big-time media types are writing them off? This seems like a bit of a reversal in the normal trend. And I can't help but think that this general resentment towards both Thompson and McCarthy. If that "Do you want the Packers to lose sot that Ted and Mike get canned" question were posed again today, I wonder if the response would be any different than it was in November of last year?

I don't know what's going to happen with the season. My own opinion is that they are going to be pretty damn good. But what I do know is that there's still something amiss in Packerland. The whole vibe is like one of a couple where one cheated on the other, but they didn't break up. They got back together, and they tell everyone that everything is OK. But it's not OK. Every time you're in the room with them, you can just tell that they're just putting on a good face and trying not to let the tension ruin everyone else's good time. But behind closed doors, they're both just waiting for the other to slip up so they can say "AHA!! See, I knew it, I knew you were no good!"

So where do we come down on this now? Who will you be rooting for this year: The Packers or these guys? Personally I'll be rooting for the Packers to go Jake Taylor on everyone and win the whole fuckin' thing. If for nothing else than to just see people's reactions.

Manny Parra Ruined My Sunday

Nothing quite like battling traffic through construction in Kenosha and dodging the future mother-in-law's comments about my health (hangover) to get to Miller Park and see another frustrating effort by Manny Parra. His "stuff" truly sucks. Maybe Prince should shake Manny up a bit again... might motivate him a little.

The effort was so terrible that I texted Va Jay Jay suggesting that Manny's batting music should be switched to "Undone" by Weezer. At least I was able to get a good chuckle when I saw the Brewers.com game summary.

It might be time to consider letting Cappy get a start.

Joe Mauer Threat, Not Really A Threat At All... Just German.

It turns out that a post from a White Sox fan threatening death to Joe Mauer on an SBNation blog was not really a threat at all. The "Die Mauer"post was actually a compliment much like the compliment Sideshow Bob made by tattooing "Die Bart, die" on his chest.

Honestly, why would anyone ever think that someone who speaks German could intend to harm somebody?

The real threat here is Joe Mauer and his God damned sideburns; he's corrupting America's youth.

shocking

In what has become an unfortunate trend, Doug Melvin and the Milwaukee Brewers have AGAIN managed to swing and miss on a 1st round selection of a starting pitcher. Unlike the previous circumstances where the selections have "busted" due to things such as weed, injuries, or flat out ineffectiveness, this years selection of Dylan Covey has failed due to diabetes! What next???? Question....when evaluating prospects leading up to the draft, do you not evaluate their health before ultimately deciding to select them? Maybe taking a blood sample isn't common practice, but considering that as an organization you are not only investing the million dollar signing bonuses that get paid to 1st rounders, but you are also investing in their talent as being a contributor to what hopefully is a winning ball club in the future, I then suggest that you fully evaluate each player's health. I understand that in the end Milwaukee will be reimbursed their selection of 15thish in next year's draft, but considering the time that it takes for pitching prospects to emerge from the minor league system and the fact that our "young" team isn't exactly young anymore, pushing back the drafting of a starting pitcher another full year is flat out disheartening. When can this organization catch a break with these early round selections? It is becoming evident that Doug Melvin & Co. simply cannot put together a quality starting staff with home grown talent.....or via free agency for that matter. This additional black mark on their resume only reiterates the need to trade Prince Fielder.....whether it be for an established and quality starting pitcher or for a pitching prospect(s). Unfortunately Melvin's history with trades hasn't exactly been extraordinary so I'm not holding my breath regarding this scenario.

I Heart This Man.

Brandon Phillips, I'll tumble for you.

Referring to the Uptight Citizens of St. Louis, B-Phil sez:

“I’d play against these guys on one leg,” Phillips told Hal McCoy, a columnist for the Dayton Daily News. “We have to beat these guys. All they do is b—- and moan about everything, all of them. They’re little b——s, all of them. I really hate the Cardinals. Compared to the Cardinals, I love the Chicago Cubs. Let me make this clear: I hate the Cardinals.”

Doug Melvin, GET ME THIS MAN.

(With love to KL for the link.)

We Have a Trade

The Milwaukee Brewers finally found a dance partner.....and they found this partner in their own division. The Cincinnati Redlegs agreed to send the underachieving 27 year old "prospect" Chris Dickerson to Milwaukee for aging vet Jim Edmonds. Whatever. Not exactly an organizatioin changing event, but I'll take it. It appears that whatever the organization saw in Carlos Gomez was an illusion, so center field is definitely a position of need. Locally, and when I say "locally" I mean Cincinnati of course, the Reds fan base is not at all happy with the deal. Dickerson has been one of the up and comers for years, but health problems have limited his overall production and consistency which has prevented a prolonged stay in the bigs. This season, though, he has been playing well in tripleA......enough that I recall many reds fans on the local AM's discussing how he should be called up to be a contributor for the playoff run.

While Dickerson is already 27, I think that overall it's a good move for Milwaukee. Moving Edmonds is a low to no risk move and considering our center field situation, why not gamble on Dickerson. He has showed flashes of good offensive ability, speed on the basepaths, and is solid in the field. He'll have roughly 8 weeks to show what he can do which essentially will be an audition for next season. So as I previously stated....I'll take it.

Fat Fest 2010

Little needs to be explained about this other than the fact that Sheets Va Jay came up huge this past Friday night while I was out with old Whitewater football cronies, Sheets, you DA MAN. It was almost as big as the comeback the Brew crew had down 4 in the ninth to win. Come to think of it, the crew has done some good things this weekend, Prince walk off on Friday, Hoffman save on Saturday, and as I am writing this, the crew is up 8-2 in the 3rd inning looking for the sweep. Dare I say, that's a winning streak Bob, however, too little too late for any post season run, but good nonetheless. O, in Sunday's no shit Sherlock sports column of the Urinal Sentinal, Mark Attanasio announces that the Brewers are going to lose money this year. "Hi, I'm Earth have we met?" We can thank the great pitching staff for losing all those games this year and causing people to stay home to watch American Idol or You Think You Can Dance, instead of going to the ballpark. Maybe Doug Davis and Randy Wolf can give some cash back to pay for some free tickets and/or bobbleheads? I'm guessing not though, those asshats.

REVITALIZE!!!!

In an effort to revitalize the war weary blog, Quevedo at the Buffet, I have been finally asked to contribute to the Buffet on a full time basis. My expertise really will be all things football and I have a keen eye for the guys who play on Sundays wearing the green and gold. However, at times I will spar my two sense now and again where need be. Now, on with the show. I couldn't help but mention this ridiculous story coming out of Deadspin about this hot broad Jenn Stenger getting weenus shots from our apparent favorite sexting football super hero Brett Lorenzo Favre. If you haven't read it, its worth the time just to check out the chick's who ha's. O and by the way, Pound Sand Favre.

Why I'm Down on the Corey Hart Extension.

I realized that I made an overly-emphatic case against the Corey Hart extension at The Jack last night -- fueled, in part, by our barkeep's exaggerated yet inspiring rant against Kate Winslet. Anyway, now that I've had time to work through this a little more, here are my concerns.

Below are the league-average (NL) "slash" splits by position, as compared to the "slash" splits of the Brewer who plays that position:

Position	AVG	OBP	SLG	OPS	Brewer	AVG	OBP	SLG	OPS
Catcher	.256	.331	.390	.721	Jon Lucroy	.270	.301	.350	.651
First baseman	.274	.358	.465	.824	Prince Fielder	.267	.400	.499	.899
Second baseman	.266	.333	.392	.725	Rickie Weeks	.274	.372	.486	.858
Third baseman	.268	.337	.427	.765	Casey McGehee	.272	.337	.446	.783
Shortstop	.263	.325	.375	.700	Alcides Escobar	.250	.304	.336	.640
Left fielder	.266	.335	.435	.769	Ryan Braun	.281	.334	.463	.797
Center fielder	.261	.330	.410	.740	Carlos Gomez	.228	.286	.350	.635
Right fielder	.265	.335	.449	.784	Corey Hart	.294	.350	.568	.917

Note a couple of things, if you would:

(1) Corey Hart's having a banner year, for sure, but the league-average SLG and OPS numbers for right field are the second-highest on this list behind first base. Point is: a slugging right fielder isn't exactly a rare commodity.

(2) Conversely, a slugging second baseman -- who's also outpacing the league-average OBP for his position by forty points -- is a rare commodity. Part of the reason I don't like the extension for Hart is that it makes it that much more difficult to sign Weeks to an extension, and second basemen with 25-homer, .370-OBP potential don't exactly grow on trees.

(3) The Big Point: At every position save for C, SS, and CF, the Brewers are outstripping the league-average OPS for the respective position -- and, in some cases (1B, even with Prince's depressed slugging numbers; 2B, with Rickie's brea ... nope, not going to say it; and RF, with Corey Hart's career year), they're far ahead of the league-average OPS.*

*As my boy KL pointed out, the better-than-league-average OPS numbers are due, in large part, to the higher slugging numbers for Brewers like Braun, Hart, and McGehee. The numbers don't look as good when you compare average OBP by position to the individual Brewers' OBPs (Braun and McGehee are right at league average, Gomez and Esky and Jon Lucroy are well below league average, and Hart's just a shade above league average), but that's not the point of the post.

And yet, and still, we're 10 games under .500 this year, a year after it took a great year from Braun, very good years from McGehee and Weeks/Counsell/Felipe Lopez, and a sublime campaign from Prince to finish two games under .500. This team, as currently constructed, will not contend.

We need pitching, and we need it desperately. It's not coming from the free agent market -- in part because that market is going to be shit after the 2010 season, and in part because Doug Melvin can't identify solid free agent pitchers -- and the farm system isn't producing anyone in the near future. And we just took our biggest in-season trade chit, who was at peak value and who could be easily replaced (either from in-house or by a veteran on a short-term deal) ... and signed him to a three-year extension.

This isn't how you build a winning baseball team.

Oh, The Things I Saw Last Night

A quick run down of last night's action at Wrigley Field:

-The Brewers offense and defense came alive at the same time providing a 26 hit 18 run performance while only surrendering 1 run to the Chubs. This could have been a bigger drubbing given that the Crew left 15 on base.

-Hart, Braun, and Fielder combining for 14 hits.

-Carlos Gomez doing his best Rickie Weeks impersonation by getting drilled in consecutive at bats; once in the head and it looked pretty effing brutal.

-Alcides Escobar doing a solid job playing center field.

-Trevor Hoffman taking his 34th career at bat in the 9th inning. I have to say, his swing didn't look that terrible.

-The interior of the Wrigley Stadium Club. While the food was good, the view sucks. Nothing like building a fine-dining facility where the only window looks out onto the corner of Addison and Sheffield.

-An Ice Fishing With Kirby sighting.

-Douchey Cubs fans.

-Scantily-clad, over-served, coeds on a Monday night.

-Several over-served mom-types with new and improved mounds that they were more than happy to flaunt.

Desperation Is A Stinky Cologne

The Brewers, who have managed to:

-Let the trade deadline pass without trading Corey Hart at what was likely the height of his value.

-Fail to move Prince who is now just winding down rest of his time in Milwaukee as his trade value rides along a time-based return curve.

-Go on a 4 game skid leaving them 10.5 games back (with Wolfy on the mound today, I don't have much confidence that this trend will change).

Have now decided to let Mat Gamel play right field and 1st base at AAA Nashville in hopes of expediting his promotion to the Majors. This is a major CYA move for the Crew who will likely be losing Prince and Corey Hart after 2011.

Given Mat Gamel's injury history, I'm hoping this attempt at versatility is to increase his trade value.