Back From The Break, Five Things To Watch For

So the All-Star Break is coming to an end (after three long days) and i've finally mustered up the motivation to do some writing.

Thursday happens to be a light day (a soft launch if you will).....the only game being nationally televised is:

1-Dodgers vs. Cardinals MLB Network
Kershaw vs. Carpenter
Interest Level: 8

This is a pretty solid match-up to start off the second half and the beginning of things to come. First of all, there is the factor of this being a rematch of last years NLDS. Also, both teams come into this game with legitimate playoff hopes as the Dodgers are 2 games behind the Padres for the west and tied for the Rockies in the Wild Card race. The Cardinals are in decent contending position as well as they sit only 1 game back of the Reds in the Central.

Also, the pitching match-up is nothing to scoff at either. The Dodgers are starting Clayton Kershaw who in my opinion, is one of the under-rated young pitchers in the game. He barely turned 22 before the season started, he's capable of dominating at times, piling up high strikeout numbers (he leads the NL in SO/9) and has improved on his one weakness control (going from 4.8 BB/9 to 4 BB/9 from last year to this). In other words, once Kershaw gets his walk totals a little lower, he is bound to have his name in the discussion of young ace pitchers that has been dominated by Strasburg (despite the disadvantage of playing on the West Coast).

The Cardinals are countering with Chris Carpenter. While Carpenter obviously isn't as young as Kershaw, the last couple of years have proven he can still pitch. He nearly won the Cy Young last year and has followed it up with a strong 2010. This game also includes a conflict of interest element. Obviously, a Dodgers win over the Cardinals would help the Brewers increase their 1% chance of making the playoffs (albeit slightly) while a rough outing by Carpenter would hurt my fantasy team that is in the midst of a season high 3-game losing streak. Either way, expect this to be a close, low-scoring game


Other things that pique my interest:

2- How will the Brewers start the second half?

While the Brewers may have embarrassed themselves against the Giants, they still managed to sweep the Pirates last weekend giving them a 3 game winning streak and get themselves within single figures in the Games Back column. The Brewers have Dave Bush taking the hill. This may not guarantee victory (as indicated by a 4-6 record) but it at least means that more likely than not, the Brewers will at least have a chance to extend their winning streak to 4 as he held the opposing team to 3 ER or less in 14 of his 17 first-half starts.

3- How will the Gonzales/Escobar trade affect the Braves?

We will begin to find out starting with their game against the Brewers. Personally, i'm not sold on it being as positive of an impact as the Braves are hoping. Sure, Gonzales went on a tear in the first half and hit a bunch of homers. Personally, it's more he had an extended hot streak than Gonzales turning a corner (at 33 and with a .296 OBP). The Blue Jays were smart enough to sell high on Gonzales while the Blue Jays were able buy-low to pick up a younger, talented but struggling Yunel Escobar (who's younger (27) has a better OBP than Gonzales (.334...so he's getting on base more often in his worst year than Gonzales has in his best year) and he also happened to be 10th the NL in Wins Above Replacement last year while Gonzales has never had an OPS+ over 100 in a full season.

My take, i'm not convinced the Braves upgraded themselves going from Gonzales to Escobar and there is a fair possibility that they may regret this trade a few years down the line.

4- How long can R.A. Dickey keep this up?

If you would have told me on opening day that R.A. Dickey would have been the Mets best pitcher in the first half and asked me how many games out of first they would be, I would have said 20. However, R.A. Dickey has been a major factor in the Mets having a legit shot at the playoffs. In terms of the NL East race, a major factor for the Mets being a player will hinge on whether Dickey reverts to the journeyman pitcher he was through his age-34 year or if he's made a permanent breakthrough with the knuckle ball that will keep him effective into his 40s.
We'll begin to find out tomorrow as he goes up against Tim Lincecum and the San Francisco Giants.

5- Is this the 3rd straight year the AL Central gets decided in a one-game playoff?

The reason I ask this question is the Twins and White Sox get started in a crucial 4-game series coming up this weekend. In 08 it was White Sox over Twins, last year it was Twins over Tigers. Leads me to think about a couple of weird scenarios. Scenario #1 being that neither team wins it as it would be the Tigers turn to win the AL Central via a one-game playoff. Scenario #2 being an unprecedented 3-way tie that leads to a 3 team round-robin playoff. Considering that Coolstandings.com gives all 3 teams at least a 25% chance but none of them have a 50% chance to make the playoffs.

My prediction, with pitcher Jake Peavy out for the year, the White Sox eventually take the AL Central via the Ewing Theory.

6/12: Disabled List Reunions, Pitching Past 50 & More

The weekend is here and with that (even) more baseball. The last time I wrote a column was during a Manny Parra start and coincidentally i'm writing this now as Parra is making his next start.

Last time, I made an off-comment early in the game about a long night for the bullpen based on the short length of his prior starts.....granted he didn't pitch that long Sunday (5 2/3) but he had a nice start racking up 10 K's and the bullpen kept it together to beat St. Louis.

It's been a good stretch....winning 4 of the last 5 including an extra inning win in STL and two walk-off wins against the Cubs...on the off-chance the Brewers get into contention this year, the walk-off sac bunt by Counsell could be the catalyst to an extended run of good play.

This nice stretch of play has coincided with the end of the Jeff Suppan era. Probably should of happened before the season began. I thought I would have been happier about this development but the only reaction is relief that the experience of watching him pitch (whether it be as a starter or mop-up man are over and if I do see him pitch it will be with the Brewers bats going up against him as a member of the Cardinals. Apparently, the Cardinals are looking to give Jeff Suppan a chance in their rotation......which means they may have inadvertently increased the Reds chances of getting their first playoff appearance since 1995.

On a more disturbing note, the release of Jeff Suppan allowed the Brewers to lead the league in a category. However, the bad news is that category happens to be percentage of payroll going to players no longer playing for them.

So early today, I stumbled across ABC and some new show (it's been a couple hours but I forget the name already) where they had the plays of the week on a bracket (BTW in my humble opinion, this show is downright terrible and I don't see it lasting more than a couple months.....seriously I could feel my IQ dropping by the minute watching this.....the concept is good....the execution not so much).

Anyways they had a couple 16-seed brackets and the walk-off Sac Bunt was seeded 11 against Big Baby Davis drooling after celebrating a basket.

Needless to say, Carlos Gomez did not advance to the next round (BTW Strasburg's debut won their tourney). Granted Big Baby has the advantage of doing his thing on the stage of the NBA Finals.....but c'mon i'm pretty sure people drooling after a big play happens on a regular basis. Scoring from first on a Sac-Bunt hasn't happened since 1975. That was so long ago that I wasn't even born for 8 years and the Dharma Initiative was in its prime....this may involve two teams who won't be talking about the Playoffs?! but we're talking about History?! it hasn't happened in 35 years and your reducing it to an 11-seed....you kidding me?

In the it was a matter if when not if category, Rich Harden was placed on the Disabled List for what seems like the kajillionth time. If it was anyone else, there may be speculation about the DL trip being connected to performance (Harden throw a season high 120-pitches last night, gave up 6 runs (second highest total in 2010) and has seen his ERA reach a season high of 5.68.

However, this is Rich Harden we are talking about. Harden and the Disable List are total BFFs. When all is said and done, Rich Harden is probably in the top 5 of pitchers that we will be speculating on how much they could have accomplished if not for their frequent jaunts to the DL:

other pitchers w/in this discussion would be Mark Prior, Kerry Wood, Ben Sheets and those are just the ones that come to mind at this point.

Thus far he's only had 4 seasons where he has pitched over 100 innings. His ERA+ for those years are 114, 173, 212 & 110.....a couple decent seasons and a couple seasons that would have been Cy Young caliber if extended to a full slate of 35 starts. To further the point, players on his top 10 similar's list on his Baseball-Reference page include Felix Hernandez, Matt Cain & Adam Wainwright.....in other words health is keeping the list of elite pitchers at least one pitcher too short.

In the you never know what your gonna see/i'm glad I decided to change the channel to this game department.......Daniel Nava. So, I was aimlessly flipping through the channels and the thought came to me to see which game was on FOX during their exclusive domain known as Saturday afternoon. At that time it was 2-1 Phillies and the Red Sox had two men on (they loaded the bases shortly after)......leading to an epic matchup between Nava and Joe Blanton. The broadcasters barely get a sentence out about it being his debut, etc, etc, etc.......and then BOOM grand slam....first pitch......history made. Honestly, didn't see it coming.....Grand Slams don't happen very much as it is but to see someone do it on the first-major league pitch that they see......not bad when you start your career with a rate of 4 RBI/Pitch Seen.

That makes it the second player to make history in this weekend tilt between Red Sox/Phillies.

Yesterday, Jamie Moyer set another age-related record becoming the oldest pitcher to give up 9+ runs in a start (well, technically he was breaking his own record that he set a few years back). Even the writers of this blog (Baseball-Reference) have little to no faith in this record being broken (by someone other than Moyer)....but the door is open for it to be broken within the next five years. While many of the pitchers on this list have since retired (Maddux, Clemens, Fassero, Sad Sam Jones, etc.).....the last active player to make this list (Tim Wakefield....who made it with his May 28th start against the Royals) happens to be 4th all-time on this list (2nd amongst pitchers not named Jamie Moyer. Wakefield isn't that much younger than Moyer (43 vs. 47) and knuckle ball pitchers are known for lasting forever, for all we know Wakefield could still be pitching into his 60s if he wanted......then again Jamie Moyer might be still be pitching keeping one-step ahead in all things related to age records.

In all seriousness, I am rooting for Moyer to stay in the bigs and effective into his 50s. Seeing a pitcher be able to get hitters out this deep into his 40s and beyond is very rare and something we don't see all the time. Since Julio Franco barely missed this threshold (probably) Moyer/Wakefield may be the last hopes of seeing someone playing past 50 as MLB has been on a league-wide youth movement.

Till next time.......

6/6: The Sunday Night Column: ESPN, Brewers-Cards & My Dislike Of The Super-2 Rule

The Brewers are facing off against the Cards on Sunday Night baseball. In the I knew this year was bad but can it get any worse......the Brewers need to win tonight to avoid dropping to a tie for last-place with the Houston Astros.......ouch.

In the I feel a bit old already category, ESPN used music that I actually grew up with (Tumble In The Rough-Stone Temple Pilots). The reward for national tv...the Brewers get to go up against the buzzsaw that is Jaime Garcia.....counterting for the Brewers......Manny Parra.....if his last couple starts are any indication, we could be seeing a lot of the not so vaunted bullpen tonight.

In terms of imagery, Jon Miller was talking about the Cardinals going for a sweep as they cut to an image of a groundspeople sweeping dirt off of the right-field foul line.......yes it's been that type of year when even the groundspeople.

I haven't watched very many ESPN broadcasts this year and i'm getting a refresher course on listening to Joe Morgan. They brought up the fact of the lead-off man changing....prompted by Rickie Weeks leading the league in strikeouts amongst lead-off men and a conversation about how back in their day the lead-off man role was to bunt their way on to base. While I would prefer Rickie Weeks to play closer to his hype......its not like he's been that terrible despite the strikeouts despite the strikeouts and a .248 average he has a passable OBP (.340) and an okay OPS+ 104...in other words a lot better than your stereotypical light-hitting middle infielder leadoff man from back in the yesteryear.

Another thing to note is the broadcast team mentioned Macha and Melvin having a conference call discussing the rest of the season (primarily seeing if they can improve the pitching staff).....on the speculative side, it does trigger my thinking to what else (that they're not going to tell the public) that they are thinking about doing (i.e. will Suppan (finally) get released? what about Hoffman? does Macha get to finish the year or will they go in another direction? are they thinking about trading one of their hitters (i.e Hart to upgrade the pitching staff?). These questions and many others are likely to at some-point (maybe tomorrow maybe in a couple months, maybe in the off-season, who knows).

Taking a shot in the dark but it's safe to assume ratings for tonight's games are probably going to be lower than average.....even if the Brewers weren't south of .400, this would still be the case as this game has the NBA Finals and Stanley Cup Final games (despite the Onion constantly bashing the NHL for having no fans) going on at the same time.....but hey, ESPN is showing the crew Wednesday against the Cubs.

So, Weeks just went deep for the 10th time this year leading to more discussion revolving around Weeks in the context of his spot as the lead-off hitter, leading to a couple backhanded compliments. Joe Morgan praises his power (despite him being on base less than you'd like from the leadoff position. At this point I would like to note that Weeks has a higher OBP (.340) than the two Brewers players who typify the stereotypical "traditional" lead-off hitter (lack of power coupled with lots of speed) those being Carlos Gomez (.297) and Alcides Escobar (.297).

Jon Miller counters by saying Rickie Weeks has the batting line of a #5 hitter.....in other words if Weeks keeps his average in the .250-.260 range, i ain't too worried about it because he draws enough walks to keep his OBP/OPS within a respectable range (even if he isn't a "traditional" lead-off man).

OMG!!!!!!! Strasburg is making his big league debut on Tuesday. I find it a bit ironic that ESPN is going to be covering this story pretty much all day Tuesday but they weren't even able to pull off getting the broadcast for the game (which went to MLB Network instead). On a side note, this indirectly led to me making some tweaks to my Razzball team as i've ridden Craig Stammen's 5.88 ERA as far as I could as he was the pitcher who got sent down to make room for him on the roster (I also had to find someone to replace Oliver Perez who went on the DL with an inflated ERA).

As we are into June (i.e. far enough into the season to avoid the Super-2 arbitration rule) means one thing.....super-prospect call-up season. Strasburg isn't even the only mega-prospect from the NL East getting the call this week as the Marlins are calling up Mike Stanton. While he hasn't gotten the hype of Strasburg, the way Stanton has absolutely killed the ball in the minors has a better chance to be a game-changer than Strasburg.

Even if Strasburg is as good or better than advertised, the Nationals are slowly but surely coming down to earth after a better than expected start and even with a strong performance from Strasburg, there's only so much he could do every 5 days to cut into the 6 1/2 game hole the Nationals have dug (thus far).

The Marlins, while they aren't much better (28-29 5 1/2 games out) get an impact bat in the line-up every day. Stanton should give a nice jolt to the Marlins line-up and replacing him with whoever goes to the bench (probably either Chris Coghlan or Cameron Maybin). Either three things happen in the context of the playoff race. A) This isn't enough to get the Marlins into contention B) It's enough to get them in contention but not enough to get them in the playoffs C) It helps put them over the top and into the playoffs.

If options A or C happen, 2 months in the minors isn't going to be that big of a deal. However, option B seems to be the most likely at this moment. The Marlins have done enough with their hitting and pitching wise to indicate that they have at least a shot. If this happens, this (should) and likely will bring in more discussions of the "merits" of working around the Super-2 rule (i.e. would two more months of Stanton versus two less months of Coghlan or Maybin) would this have been the difference between playoffs and no playoffs.

Seriously, the yearly manipulation of the Super-2 rule is one of the things that is wrong with the game. One of these years, some GM is going to mis-calculate the 17 percent rule and have the combination of a partial season for an uber-prospect but still having to go to arbitration as a Super-2. You, know how i'm going to react? I'm going to sit back and laugh at this act of karmic retribution.

Seriously, this super-2 loophole needs to be eradicated. It doesn't benefit the prospects as they have to toil around in the minors for a couple of months even though their game is major-league ready. It doesn't benefit the fans as they are usually stuck with a less than optimal (i.e inferior product) as less-talented players like Maybin, Stammen, etc. are filling roster slots and contributing little to their teams success (versus what Stanton and Strasburg) are expected to do. Seriously, most of the time this happens it is pretty clear that the GMs are under-mining their teams chance of a playoff spot in an attempt to delay arbitration.

5/28: Epic Duels, Epic Walkoffs With A Side Of West-Coast Bias

Well, it's been an interesting night baseball-wise. The Brewers-Mets game has been an epic pitchers duel to the nth degree as Yovani Gallardo and Johan Santana have put zeros across the score-board all night long.

As I write this, there is one gone in the bottom of the ninth and the Mets are in the process of making a pitching change. Will this be the second straight day the Crew win it in their last at-bat? That is a question that is yet to be revealed. With Braun and McGehee the next two batters up, the Brewers have a shot.

Braun eeks out an infield hit after Reyes makes a diving stop...good for the momentum but there's still work to do. McGehee jumped the gun and hit a harmless pop-up. Tonight in particular it seems like the Crew hitters have an all or nothing approach (i.e. everyone seems to be swinging for the fences).

And just like that IT WORKED. Corey Hart took one DEEP!!!!!!!!!. Had to chill for a few moments and let the walk-off homer sink in. Even though the Brewers still have work to do standings wise (20-28)....it has been nice to get out of the abyss of a 9-game losing and to start winning some games in the 9th inning instead of losing them.

As epic and awesome as tonight's game was, there is still more baseball to get into. We might be getting towards the late games but these games do have heavy fantasy implications for myself. As I write this, my team is trailing by 4 points for the week (191.5-187.5) and two of my starting pitchers are pitching right now (Cain and Richard) and the team i'm up against has Edwin Jackson and Scott Kazmir getting starts currently.

In other words, lots of hectic split-screen back and forth engagement between split-screens on the mlb.tv and the Angels game on Fox Sports West.

Right now, my main focus is on the Padres-Zombie Expos game as Clayton Richard has put up 3 2/3 scoreless right now. If Clayton Richard keeps this up, i'll have to ask myself why it took me so long for me to replace John Lackey with Clayton Richard.

I'd definitely have to say that I find the Padres to be one of the more interesting teams in baseball this year. Pretty much everyone (myself included) thought the Padres had little or zero chance to contend this year. But the way that team is pitching, this is a definitely a team that is not going away anytime soon (even though Willingham just hit a 3-run shot off of Richard).

The Zombie Expos on the other hand seem to be playing the hang around .500 until they can call up Strasburg without accruing arbitration time in 2010 (this rule manipulation is up there amongst things that are wrong with pro baseball). While this team is not going to be as bad as they have been the last few years (100-plus losses)......I definitely wouldn't give the Zombie Expos a higher than 20% percent chance to stick around (tougher division, less overall talent, no way that Livian Hernandez keeps that era low, etc.).

Either way, if I end up winning this league Strasburg will be indirectly involved to some extent (no he's not on my team). To back track, third base had been a black hole for my in the first month of the season as I decided to pick Brandon Wood's upside over Casey McGehee (big mistake). I had stuck with Wood (not good) gave Casey Blake a chance to start (didn't work out) but at this moment, a third basemen fell out of the sky the same way a spinal surgeon fell out of the sky for Benjamin Linus when Oceanic 815 crashed on to the island. I look one day and Casey McGehee was on the waiver wire. I picked him up and out of curiosity looked to see who the NL Leader In RBI was replaced with (none other than Steven Strasburg).

Bounced to the D-Backs-Giants game to see if the Giants can put up some runs on Edwin Jackson. The Giants broadcast team just put up a pop-up of highest slugging average since 2009. Not suprisingly, Kung Fu Panda took the 1-spot. The #2 spot, Andres Torres.

While it may be a small sample size (305 At-Bats) and he didn't exactly set the world on fire prior to coming to The City, it does seem odd that it took Torres a year to get regular playing time considering how much this team has struggled to score runs in recent memory. Playing for the Giants (and thus half his games at Pac-Bell and he's put up a nice 126 OPS+, his profile may be low but that's actually fairly impressive. (Giants went up 2-0 BTW).

Back to the Padres-Zombies game which has the Zombie Expos up 3-1 (my team is up by .5 pts currently).........it looks like lots of leads changes and ties for my fantasy team tonight. Since Richard wasn't back on the mound yet, back to the Giants game and Matt Cain cruising along into the 4th inning.

Cain gets through another scoreless half-inning, my lead jumps to 4 points (helped along by Scott Kazmir giving up 4 runs). Off to the top of the 5th inning, a shot of the San Diego skyline and Richard racking up his second K. Richard shows a nice bounce-back from giving up the homer as he goes through a very quick 1-2-3 5th inning.

Back to the Giants-D-Backs game. I show up just in time to see Bengie Molina strike out. With mega-prospect call-up season right around the corner, Molina may not have many more chances to look clueless at the plate. Molina's (probable) replacement Buster Posey could be coming over from Fresno any day.

While this article indicates that Posey could be brought in to play 1st instead of going behind the plate, it is inevitable that Posey will take his reigns as Giants catcher of the future at some point. With the Giants still having hope for contending (only 3 1/2 out) and their offense struggling as always, there just seems to be more-upside to upgrading (i.e. starting Posey) at Catcher than at First.

Aubrey Huff has had a reasonable bounce-back season so far and it being questionable that Bengie Molina is an asset offensively (yes he can be counted on to hit .270-.290 with 15-20 homers but the last time he even had a 100 OPS+ was in 2006 with the Blue Jays). Point being, the numbers show that Molina is a slightly below league average hitter, he's 35 this year (his hitting is bound to regress at some point) and I think Posey is one of those prospects who steps in and gives his team a boost (probably should have broken camp with the Giants but hey, he "needed" those two months to develop his game.

Well I finished that rant in time to see Cain put up scoreless inning number 5 (as my team has pushed the lead up to 10). Kung Fu Panda misses an opp to blow the game open as he strikes out with the bases are loaded. The Giants are still in good shape though (up 3-0) and my team's lead has expanded to 16 1/2 points.

Well, that's whats going on right now....been a pretty good night.....till next time

Nerve-Racking Save Situations plus my thoughts on Jose Lima and Nyjer Morgan's inside the park incident

Just another sunny-Sunday afternoon. Got the Brewers-Twins game going on the MLB.tv feed. Got the end of the Red Sox-Phillies game playing on the TV.

Yesterday's game was interesting to say the least. Coming back from 4 down to take a lead only to blow the lead and lose in the 12th. Thus far today, the Brewers pitching (despite being in shambles) has pitched reasonably well so far as they are up 4-2 in the 6th inning. This also happens to be the second game where a Brewer has made their big league debut this weekend as Zach Braddock is in the middle of his first appearance as we speak.

Today is a sad day in the world of baseball as Jose Lima died at the age of 37. This was a bit shocking to say the least (anyone that uses a name such as Lima Time for his pitching appearances has to be interesting). His Major League career might have been over but he wasn't that old. Lima had an interesting career to say the least. He had a couple really good seasons in '98 at '99 and at age 26 it looked like he was going to be amongst the elite pitchers for the foreseeable future.

Of course things didn't work out that way. He did have his moments after that (pitching a playoff shutout for the Dodgers in the 2004 NLDS) but he was never able to recapture what he had for the end of the 90s. The last I remembered seeing of him was about a month ago. I was watching a Dodgers-Pirates game, it was about the 8th inning and they cut to the crowd where Lima was signing some autographs for some fans....I didn't think too much about this when I was watching that game but it seems surreal now that the next time I would see or hear anything about Lima would be to hear of his death.

So, yesterday I was watching MLB Network and they were about to go to commercial and they were teasing for a highlight for the Nationals game and something about an inside-the-park home run that happened in an unusual fashion. Since I wasn't feeling like TV after the Brewers loss yesterday, I didn't think much about it and went on with my day.

Well, I just saw the YouTube video for it and all I gotta say is wow. So I know its gotta be disappointing falling short on making a catch that would have robbed the hitter of a likely double. Being distracted enough to throw your hat down and completely lose it to the point that another outfielder has to throw the ball in a desperate attempt to prevent an inside the parker--that has got to be about the dumbest i've seen on a big league field in a long time (if not ever)--i'm guessing it will be hard for him to live this incident and he'll be likely to be remembered for the 20 seconds of bad judgment more than whatever he may accomplish on the field....it might not be fair but thats just the harsh reality of things.

Felling a bit tense the Brewers are up 4-2 right now but down to those elusive last 3 outs. Today's closers role is going to John Axford (after a very quick inning by Hoffman). Hudson just led off with a double--not liking how this is starting......strikes out Morneau (not bad at all)....struck out Cuddyer swinging (up and in).....Kubel RBI Single (not hit that hard outfield playing deep 4-3).......base hit runners at 1st and 3rd, Thome coming up...based loaded Plouffe coming out......strikes out Plouffe to end the game and lead the bases loaded...........for once a blown save is averted...........wow that was a bit nerve-racking......been inside my apartment a bit much this weekend, time to hit the gym.....till next time

5/22: Ranting on the Brewers and Roy Oswalt Wanting to get out of Houston

Well, after Thursday's win over the Pirates, there was (faint) hope that the Brewers could turn things around and go on a winning streak (that's when a team wins more than one game in a row.....or so i'm told).

Then, last night happened. Dave Bush lasting a 1/3 of an inning (but long enough for an umpire to try to fight him). Carlos Gomez over-celebrated a home run (while the Crew was down 12). In all seriousness, maybe this is the type of swagger the Brewers need to come back to (i.e. Choreographed Home Run Celebrations, Untucking, etc.)......the Brewers toned down on that stuff this year and also toned down their place in the standings at the same time.

Also, gotta say, i'm slowly but surely coming around on Carlos Gomez. I didn't think much of him when he got traded for J.J Hardy......i thought of him as another speedy light-hitter who was going to be a liability on offense. However, he's shown improved power (still not being mistaken for Braun/Fielder) he's hit for decent contact (but could improve on selecting which pitches to swing at) and the guy is an absolute vacumn in center field.

As for today, things ain't lookin much better. At least today's starter made it out of the first and has "held" the Twins to 4 runs in 2 2/3.

In the fake baseball world, John Lackey's bad start finally moved me to the point where I had seen enough and I sent him away to this magical place called the waiver wire (all this place had to do is give me Clayton Richard). Despite this bad start, my team is still hanging on to a 206-180 lead.

Well the Brewers might be a dysfunctional NL Central team but......but their team of strong hitters, bad pitching, and bad managing is joined in this dysfunction (and in the bottom of the standings) with the soon-to-be conducting a fire sale Houston Astros.

The writing for this is basically on the wall. Roy Oswalt has formally requested a trade. This is beyond bad for the Astros for a few reasons.

Oswalt is the face of this franchise:

Maybe the last few years haven't been the peak of his career. Maybe he hasn't finished in the top-10 in Cy Young voting since 2006. Maybe he's had lingering injury troubles as he gets to the wrong side of 30. But when you think of the Houston Astros, Roy Oswalt is one of the if not THE first name that you associate with that team. He has been deeply entrenched in that teams rotation since 2001. While star players switching teams isn't exactly a new phenomenon, he is on the short list of players where it would be totally weird to see him pitching in a different uniform.

He's one of the few bright spots on a pretty dull team:

The reality is this, if he were to be theoretically traded today, this team goes from one of the worst in baseball to a chance to be one of the worst teams in history. As it stands, the Astros are 15-27 (which is sadly better than their pythagoreon record of 13-29......Brad Mills may or may not be a good manager but we'll never know since this team is going to tarnish his W-L to the point where this is likely his only chance to manage...but that's another rant for another day).

Point being: 2010 Astros are pretty bad and they would be a lot worse if not for Roy Oswalt. Yes, I am completely aware that Roy Oswalt is 2-6 this season. However, the rest of his numbers indicate that this is a vintage peak (or better) season for Oswalt.

His ERA+ is 160 (Tied for 8th in the NL and the second best total for his career), His WHIP is at 1.066 (good for 9th in the NL and just shy of his personal best 1.059), he's only given up 7.2 Hits/9 (shy of the top-10 but would be a career high), Tied for 7th in innings, tied for 5th in strikeouts tied for 7th in SO/BB ratio at 3.75 (his best since 2006).

Point being, this isn't your typical 2-6 pitcher..if you remove this from an already bad team this becomes an even more colossal train-wreck....when (not if) he gets traded Brett Myers become their #1--Myers isn't a bad pitcher but he hasn't exactly been mistaken for an ace..with a back of the rotation of Wandy Rodriguez (acutally not that bad) Felipe Paulion/Bud Norris/#5 Pitcher TBD combined with a starting line-up led by a struggling Lance Berkman (95 OPS+), their second best hitter being Michael Bourn (seriously, you couldn't even make this up) and 4 starters with OPS+ below 52 ("led" by Tommy Manzella at 35+, this team has 110, maybe 115 losses written all over them, depending on when they trade Oswalt.

To put into context the pitcher that is requesting to have no piece of this team (according to his B-R page, the 3 most similar pitchers to him are Roy Halladay, Johan Santana & CC Sabathia). It's too early to tell where he's going to get traded but wherever he does he's probably going to be the difference between that team going to the post-season and not going to the post-season. I'd be surprised if he DIDN'T have a CC Sabathia type-effect on his future team.

The Ramble 5/20: It's Been Awhile, Its been a bit too long

Been away for way too long (been a busy couple of weeks).....lots have happened since the Gerut cycle.

-The Brewers lost a lot of ball-games. They lost 9 in a row......the lost by blowouts (Braves series)....they lost due to a faulty bullpen (Phillies series)....they lost when Ken Macha tried to get 130 pitches out of Chris Narveson.......they lost due to further bullpen failure (Todd Coffey having a bad 7th inning......we all have a bad game now and then).....they lost because Ken Macha brought in Hoffman to close a game (totally indefensible........you know it's bad when you see that your team is up 4-2 after 8 1/2 and you see who's pitching in the 9th and you think to yourself........the Brewers ain't winning this game..........they finally won when Ken Macha finally figured out that bringing Hoffman in to pitch the 9th isn't getting it done (about a month late).

-With the closer situation....my vote for who to blame for this mess goes to Ken Macha. While Trevor Hoffman might be the one losing the games and struggling horribly......Macha was the one that kept putting him into these situations to lose until the Crew dropped 10 games below .500. If you read between the lines, its pretty clear where I place the blame for this mess. It's so bad that he's starting to make Eric Gagne look good.....nuff said.

-It's really hard to find a silver lining through all of this failure. The closest I can come up with is this stretch only cost the Brewers a couple games in the standings as St. Louis struggled pretty bad during that stretch and the Reds have lost the last couple of games (in pretty brutal fashion nonetheless). While that 16-25 record is pretty ugly, they are still only 7 1/2 games out............if they turn things around and get hot for a month (with their offense it's not beyond reality) this team could bounce back yet.............it's a fat chance but with 121 games left it's too depressing to think about looking ahead to 2011 (even though that is a reasonable thing to think)

-Whew....lengthy rant.....the fantasy teams....they keep moving along. Chillin at 4-2 in the CBS League.....lost pretty bad last week.....found some time to pick up Ian Desmond and Casey McGehee (one of the few Brewers to actually show up the last week and a half).....i'm in pretty good shape this week (up by about 40 points).........(however the team i'm playing has Tim Lincecum who's having a nice start against the D-Backs as I write this).

-I know it's been about a week in a half but I gotta say. Calling out A-Rod (twice).......A-Rod calling him out by saying he doesn't want to add to his 15 minutes of fame......pitching a perfect game 2 days later........I don't care what happens the rest of his career, Dallas Braden is THE man.

-Who doesn't like a good list to ignite some discussion? Why Do I say this? The Sporting News just released their list of the top 50 players in the game.

To the surprise of not very many people, Albert Pujols is their #1 player. The show the list plus where they ranked last year (if applicable). This year 19 of the 50 players were nowhere to be found in 2009.

Out of those 19 players, the five I see as most likely to be on the list in 2011:

Prince Fielder

Matt Kemp

Andre Ethier

Pablo Sandoval

Felix Hernandez

The Five Newcomers Least Likely To Be On The List in 2011:

Todd Helton

Adam Wainwright

Aaron Hill

John Lackey

Bobby Abreu

Connor Jackson busts out a game-tying 2-run triple to tie things up at 2.......slightly increasing the chance of my team being 5-2 come Monday......which happens to be the score in favor of the D-Backs after Mark Reynolds took Lincecum deep......................

That's all for now....till next time.....

The Ramble 5/8: Brewers-D Backs, Robin Roberts & Lefty/Right Power Duos

Yaayy for some Saturday Baseball and it being late enough in the day for it to not be blacked out by Fox.

The time between my last post and now have seen the Brewers split with one LaTroy Hawkins induced loss and a victory over Arizona where the bullpen pitched 4 scoreless innings after Gallardo left due to a high pitch count. Another positive out of last nights game was Hoffman getting another fairly drama free save last night putting him at 2 for 2 for the month of May.

For the Brewers, the face their second starter who is making their second career start (Cesar Valdez) in the last three days. This led to trouble the other day as the Brewers looked lost against Joe Ely. So far it is looking like trouble again as the Brewers failed to capitalize on a 2nd and 3rd with Braun, Fielder and McGehee coming up and coming up empty. On the flip side, Arizona's bats are looking strong out of the gate with a 1-0 lead and on the cusp of adding some more runs.

As for the fantasy team, Things are looking pretty good right now with a 265-218.5 lead. Despite my pitchers having less starts this week.....holding on to win looks like something that could reasonably happen with Bucholz being pushed around for 5 runs in 5 innings......if the Twins push around Millwood some tonight the chances of going up to 4-1 should go up a bit more.

Randy Wolf may have won his last 6 starts in Arizona. However, the way this game is starting, winning 7 in a row is looking questionable. On the brighter side, Wolf was able to avoid complete disaster by inducing a DP with the bases load to limit the damage to 2 runs.

Steeped away from the computer for awhile...its nice to see the Brewers cut into the lead by making it a 2-1 game......time to see what else is going on around baseball.

Baseball lost another member of the Hall of Fame with the passing of Robin Roberts. While his career came and gone way before my time, the numbers show many areas that were impressive.

First of all, the number of innings he logged in (300+ in a six-year stretch).....he threw 20+ Complete Games in 8 different seasons.....and 305 in his career (plus he found time in there for 25 career saves).

If someone tried to give somebody that many innings these days, whoever was their manager would probably never hear the end of it and would be accused of ruining said pitcher at the earliest sign of injury. My take: if the pitchers could hold up for this many innings 50 years ago and the improvements in conditioning these days....why couldn't we get pitchers back to expecting to pitch all 9 every time out?

Another thing I've looked at for players announcing their retirement & when the Hall of Fame voting results come in is look at the similar players index for from Baseball-Reference and see if it gives us a clue to what other players may see Cooperstown's doors in future years:

In Robert's case, 4 of these said similar pitchers are not in the Hall of Fame (Jim Kaat, Tommy John, Bert Blyleven and Jack Quinn). Taking a look at these players backgrounds the one thing that sticks out is Roberts lead in Complete Games at 305 (none of the other pitchers have more than 243).

Looking at career Wins (not the best measurement but it tends to sway more than enough voters) everyone except Quinn won between 283 and 287 games). ERA is also very close (3.29 to 3.41) as is ERA+ (108 to 118). Taking a closer look the thing that got Roberts into the Hall of Fame but not these four other pitchers was Roberts was more dominant at his peak than his statistical neighbors. He finished in the Top 10 in MVP voting 5 times between 1950 and 1955 while the other pitchers combined for only one.....considering that its tougher for pitchers to get MVP votes than hitters....still.....it shows the overall number similarites do indicate that Kaat, Blyleven and John should get a chance to get into Cooperstown at some point down the road.

During my look at these pitchers, the Brewers had themselves a nice 3rd inning to take a 5-2 lead......giving Randy Wolf a much better chance to run his in-Arizona winning streak to 7 games.

The Brewers managed to avoid their struggles against pitchers with <2>

So i've been watching the Arizona feed for the game on MLB Network and their broadcast team has been heavily discussing Righty/Lefty power-hitting duos discussing various ones within the last few decades and heavily promoting their fan text poll of the best righty/lefty power duo in the game today with the choices being (Fielder/Braun, Werth/Howard, Longoria/Pena & Zimmerman/Dunn). They had been heavily urging viewers to vote Zimmerman/Dunn until Braun went deep and they told viewers it was ok to vote Fielder/Braun. But that is besides the point....with it being 11-2 in the 5th, I decided to take a closer look to see how these duos stack up.

My Rankings:

4- Zimmerman/Dunn

Zimmerman is a good hitter but I wouldn't put him in the elite category. Adam Dunn, the 3TO here himself and the only player amongst these duos with other 300 career Home Runs....willing to overlook the strikeouts, still there are better options here.

3- Longoria/Pena

Carlos Pena bounced around the bigs for several years before settling in at Tampa. He has a couple Top 10 MVP finishes and led the league in homers last year. Longoria hasn't led the league in anything nor finished in the top 10 in MVP voting but the way he is progressing, it is only a matter of time before he does so.

2-Werth/Howard

Werth (like Pena) took a few years to get into the right situation and has rewarded the Phillies with a couple of 30-Homer plus seasons. Ryan Howard was rewarded with that $125 million contract as he already has 4 Top 10 MVP finishes and has led the NL in homers twice and RBIs three times.

1-Braun/Fielder

Alright, this could be the result of homerism but the numbers do back up Braun and Fielder being the best duo. This is the only duo where both players have OPS+ totals of 140 or above (Braun 143+ & Fielder 140+) the only other player amongst the duos over 140 is Howard. They've combined to only lead in Homers and RBIs once (Fielder 07/Fielder 09) but they've already combined for 3 Top 10 MVP Finishes. If we were going on an individual basis, Howard would have a good case to get in the top-2 but having Jayson Werth as the other half of the duo doesn't help.

My decision to continue watching the game while the outcome is not in question is rewarded as it allowed me to watch Jody Gerut successfully hit for the cycle......pushing the Brewers run total up to 16.....now 17.........third time the Crew have busted out 17 runs in a game.....first Brewers cycle since 2004 and the 291st in MLB History.

Well.....it's been fun...the Brewers got a nice victory in Arizona.....saw a little bit of history....more than a little bit of hitting....till next time

The Ramble 5/6: Brewers-Dodgers, Tasers, Eric Byrnes and more

Well, it's been a week since I posted anything. Been a pretty busy week, just turned 27 (my body decided to give the gift of a cold for said birthday)......anyways I ain't here to talk about that....its time to talk some baseball.

-What the Brewers have done since I last posted: They lost 3 out of 4 and scored a whopping total of 2 runs in a 4 game series to a San Diego Padres team (which by the has a real chance to contend....if Blanks and/or Venable get things together and Headley continues his strong start....this should give them enough offense to make a serious playoff push)

-The first two games of the Brewers-Dodgers series have been much more encouraging. The Brewers bats came alive and dropped a couple of 11-spots on the Dodgers. (However, the Dodgers just took a 1-0 lead against the Brewers on a Walk, Steal and back-to-back Sac Flys....well at least Dave Bush still has a no-no going.

-One thing I like about the Brewers playing the Dodgers is being able to watch it on the big-screen and not having to worry about the mlb.tv feed.

-Fantasy Teams Update: Cheddarhead is in 8th place.......the Razzball team is languishing in 9th....the random CBSSports league is the only one doing well.

-For that team, i'm sitting pretty well at 3-1......despite having a 9 1/2 point lead (159.5 to 150), i'm not sure about my chances of going to 4-1 as I have 2 starts remaining and my opponent has 4 starts remaining

-For any chance to win, things pretty much have gone down as I needed them to today (Strong starts by Halladay and Cain coupled with a rough start for Kazmir).......now if Niemann follows suit and has a good start in Seattle, that should put me in a much better spot to be competitive.

-One sign of trouble for the Brewers, the pitcher for the Dodgers is John Ely who is making his second career start (for some reason the Brewers going up against someone making their first or second start always seems to be a sign of trouble.

-Now to surf around the internets to see what else is going on in the baseball world: It looks like the end is here for Eric Byrnes . Starting off the season at 3 for 38 and his last solid season occurring in 2007, this is probably the last we'll see of Byrnes on a major-league diamond. Speaking of 2007, he did happen to finish 11th in the NL MVP voting that year (despite a 103 OPS+). Looking at his B-R page its pretty obvious he's not a Hall of Famer......he does have the common link with his most similar player (Jeffrey Hammonds) of getting 3-year contracts ($30 million for Byrnes, $27 million for Hammonds) that they didn't even come close to living up to.

-It looked like the Brewers were gonna get out of the second unscathed....routine grounder turned into a Prince Fielder error....2-0 Dodgers......grrrhhhh.....on the bright side it is still early and if the Brewers bats act like they have the last couple nights....2 runs is not an insurmountable deficit......with Xavier Paul hitting a double to make it 3-0......time to get a bit worried

-Listening to the broadcast....random comment was made about Joe Ely looking like Matthew McConaughey........it don't matter what else he does in his career he will always be associated with Wooderson from Dazed and Confused to me

-Randomly stumbling around the internets and saw that ESPN writer Rob Neyer has embarked on a 30-part series where he breaks down team eras by players. In a not so shocking development, the Red Sox and Yankees are the first two teams that get covered......considering ESPN is involved in this series, it should come as no surprise that these are the teams that get covered first (wouldn't expect anything less from ESPN).

-A story that is a few days old but i'm gonna talk about it because I haven't had the time or chance to do so yet: The Taser Incident: In episode 2 of the season of Phillies fans behaving badly. So a Phillies fan runs onto the field and gets tasered and has generated controversy:

-My take: It was the right move. When you have funs doing stuff like this running onto the field, usually it's an attempt to get their 15 seconds of attention and usually aren't a physical threat. HOWEVER, you never know......if someone is nuts enough to think they can get away with running on the field....you don't know what their intent is.....you never know what their thinking is.......you never know whether its someone who wants to run circles around the outfield or if they want to cause physical damage to someone on the field.....point being on the security perspective, if you are struggling to apprehend whoever is on the field and feel the Taser is necessary go for it.......if you are the fan dumb enough to run on the field........dude your running onto the ballfield......sorta tough to feel sorry for you.

-Well that's all for now....till next time

Thursday Night: My thoughts on the Brewers, and that WSJ poll listing the most hated teams in baseball and more

Well, its been a few days since i've written anything. Not the best stretch for the Crew as they lost 3 out of 4 with Trevor Hoffman single-handedly handing the Pirates a couple of games.......ouch.

Well it's another day, another series as the Brewers are spending the next 4 days playing the NL's surprise team, the San Diego Padres. The last series proved back-to-back losses, blown saves and a conflict of interest scenario between real and fantasy baseball (the same type that kept me away from fantasy ball for several years (Ryan Doumit pretty much owned owned Hoffman and I happen to own Doumit on one of my teams...grrhhhhhh.

Tonight has a NL West oriented theme as the Brewers playing in San Diego is firing away on my laptop and the Pirates-Dodgers game is going in the background.........ahhhh to live on the West Coast........it is weird to come home and have to wait an hour or so for the Brewers game to start.....the 2 normal scenarios are a) the played during the day and the game is long over by the time I get home or b) they play a night game and the game is in the middle innings by the time I come home from the gym.

Now would be a lovely time to congratulate Carlos Gomez for getting picked off and costing the Brewers a run....with the Brewers losing 5 of their last 6 and a closer that's singlehandedly dropped them into a tie for fourth.....not the best way to start a game.....

That base-running blunder not withstanding, it may be time to re-evaluate my take on the Gomez-Hardy trade. For pretty much the entire off-season, I was not feeling the trade at all. I saw Gomez as just another fast light-hitter along the lines of a Bourn, Taveras, etc. While 70 plate appearances isn't the greatest sample size, the early returns seem at least somewhat encouraging. So far his average is up 45 points his slugging average has gone from .337 to .468 and his OPS+ has gone from 64 to 108.....his BABIP is .319....so he's getting a little lucky but still leaves some proof that maybe his hitting game has turned a corner.

Speaking of off-season acquisitions, Doug Davis is in a bit of early trouble with runners on 1st and 2nd no outs and A-Gon at the plate, ouch. Not the best way to improve on an 8+ ERA. In Davis' case part of this high ERA can be explained by some extreme bad luck.......opposing hitters have a .450 BABIP against Davis.....there is no way that BABIP is sustainable and is going to remain at .450 all year and gives a silver lining of hope that Davis is not as bad as his current ERA indicates.

Not even an inning into the game, and the FS Wisconsin crew is having the mandatory conversation about Petco Park being a hitter's graveyard (it's almost like there was a law passed in 2004 making it mandatory for announcers to point this out within the first three innings).....or not.

Gotta give credit where credit is due....Doug Davis may have pitched his way into a sticky situation but he got out of it just as easily.

In terms of other stuff going on in the baseball world, this article from the Wall Street Journal is interesting. At first glance a bit surprising that the Yankees are only the fifth most hated team in baseball (somehow the Indians get this "honor") a bit surprising since the Indians probably haven't prompted any strong feelings one way or another since the late 1990s. But on second glance I can't escape the feeling that some New York bias is in there. Think about it, a newspaper based in NYC is trying to convince us that there are four other teams more hated than the Yankees.....it would seem given that the Red Sox would be high on this list considering the New York basis.....and the (possible) poor cover-up of said bias by placing a random AL Central team at the top of the list.......i'm probably horribly wrong about this assesment....maybe the Indians are really hated but nobody admits....but with the Yankees being hated by everyone outside of ESPN and New York City.....it does seem a bit odd to say the least......having a favorite team hanging out in the NL Central that happened to play in the AL Central against the Indians during their hey-day.........in 2010 i definitely have stronger negative feelings about the Yankees than the Indians

Could this be people that don't think the team name is PC? Maybe, maybe not........maybe they surveyed a bunch of people that don't like bloggers. This article from Walk Off Walk discusses the Indians reaching out to the Social Media world by inviting bloggers and local prominent twitter users to sit in the new section at Progressive Field. For reaching out to bloggers and that someone working for the Indians recognizing the existence of the blog/social media world as being relevant and here to stay. For that, the Indians do not get my vote for most hated team in baseball

And Doug Davis pitches himself out of trouble again........gotta say between his start against the Cubs and the first couple innings tonight, Doug Davis is looking pretty sharp and may be on the cusp of getting past his early struggles.

On the Padres side, Wade LeBlanc is also looking very impressive......looks like we could be in for an extended pitchers duel........while I like the results so far.....its a bit discomforting that Doug Davis' pitch count is in the 60s and its only the third innings.....with the bullpen being stretched out for 9 innings yesterday (5 of those after Hoffman failed to get a save).....this could make things interesting in a bad way towards the late innings.

Speaking of this closing situation, it seems reasonable to speculate on who should replace Hoffman as closer (assuming Macha ever notices that continuing to bring out Hoffman has the potential to derail the 2010 season. There has been some limited speculation about who should/would get a chance at closer usually involving Villaneuva, Hawkins and/or Coffey. While I see 2 of these 3 pitchers as relievers that can be relied on.......not sure what it is just a hunch i'm not sold on them being the best internal option.

I know i'm probably going outside the box a little bit.......i'm not sure if this option has been brought up elsewhere and I haven't read about it but my gut instinct says Manny Parra should be given a chance to pitch the 9th inning.

While Parra has been on the starting pitching path for most of his career, it seems as though the Brewers are planning not to place Parra in the rotation as he has been passed over for Jeff Suppan (bad decision) and Chris Narveson (defensible toss-up decision....Narveson had the better spring/better 2009.....Parra was off to a stronger start in 2010).

Beyond that I could see Parra having a good chance to excel in this role as a) thus far he has improved control-wise (11 2/3 innings is a small sample size but a BB/9 rate dropping from 5 to 1.5 indicates Parra deserves a chance at something beyond middle-relief and he's proven more than capable of ringing up strikeouts (7.9/9 IP for his career) that would make him an asset being handed the ball in the 9th inning.

As with the current game, Doug Davis is in another jam......the Brewers committing miscues with the glove and on the base-paths......this seems to not bode well for the next 5-plus innings, especially with the Padres getting on the board in the middle of typing this paragraph.

Ahh....Brewers down 2-0 and now for something that is a lot less depressing. I was stumbling around the internets and stumbled across a new website that is being rolled out on 5/1 that is blended the addictive powers of gambling and fantasy baseball. This new concoction, Rosterslots.com allows users to build a fantasy baseball team by spinning a slot machine........Just heard the words Jeff Suppan warming up in the bullpen from the FS Wisconsin crew.......not gonna lie those words don't do much for comfort.

Anyways, back to the Rosterslots....this thing gives you 20 spins in which to get a fantasy team to your liking (you can field a new team every day if you wanted to).....between probable starters, bullpens, middle infielders/catchers, corner infielders/dhs and outfielders.....the best part is you can get this done through your Facebook account as well........

Well....that time of the night....time to get some shut eye.

Early Look At Sunday's TBS/ESPN games

Cubs vs. Brewers TBS

Interest Level: 10

Wells vs. Bush

The I-94 rivalry is a bitter/intense match-up regardless of time of season & the teams respective places in the standings. In this case, probably good in the name of being interesting since we're not out of April yet and both teams find themselves on the wrong side of .500.

The Brewers find themselves at 8-9 and thus far have unable to hold teams not called the Pittsburgh Pirates to less than 5 runs in a ballgame. Speaking of that series, epic.......anytime you can outscore a team 36-1 in a 3 game stretch (20-0 in one of those games). Things are going good. Unfortunately, reality has struck the last 2 days as thus far they have been outscored 13-2. Still, they sit in 2nd place a couple games behind St. Louis. The Brewers are starting Dave Bush today who has pitched very well in his first 3 starts and would be 3-0 if not for some shoddy bullpen work. Bush is very familiar with a many of the Cubs hitters as he's faced several of them at least 10 times. Fukudome and Soriano tend to hit him pretty well while Lee, Nady and Soriano have struggled against him.

The Cubs, while playing well this weekend, haven't played very well in 2010. They come into todays game at 8-10, 2 1/2 games back and with an opportunity to get into second in the NL Central. The Cubs are starting Randy Wells who has been a bright spot for the Cubs since coming over. Like Bush, Wells is a pitcher who started his career with the Blue Jays before ending up in the NL Central.

Braves vs. Mets ESPN

Hanson vs. Pelfrey

Interest Level:6

Another early season divisional battle. The Braves are in the midst of a 4-game losing streak that has taken them down to last in the NL East. They still have the talent to make a playoff run but things aren't exactly trending in the right direction currently. The Braves start their talented second year pitcher Tommy Hanson in this game. In his 3 starts so far, it appears that he has a shot to have a nice follow up to his rookie year. Also worth looking forward to is seeing what Jason Heyward will do next.

Ah, the New York Mets. The team that can't stay off the disabled list. Well, at least they haven't completely embarrassed themselves so far. Currently, the Mets are at 9-9 and tied for the Zombie Expos for third place. Mike Pelfrey takes the hill for the Mets in tonight's match-up. The sponsor of his baseball-reference page (Section 518) asks the question of is 2010 the year Mike Pelfrey realizes his potential. So, far the answer of that question seems to be yes as he's rocking a 3-0 record with a .86 era. If the Mets are going to stay in contention despite all of their health problems, they are probably going to need to get a breakout season from Mike Pelfrey.

Cardinals-Brewers Series Preview

The first series of the season turned out fairly well with the Crew taking 2 out of 3 from the Rockies. As it stands the Crew trails Pirates and Cardinals by 1/2 a game (they'll either be tied or a game back when the series actually starts.

Friday

Lohse vs. Bush

Chico, California product Kyle Lohse gets the start Friday night. Not a star but always finds a way on someones rotation. Historically, this hasn't been enough for him to be effective against Brewers hitters. Gerut, Braun and Counsell have all hit him fairly well....wouldn't be surprised if Gomez and/or Escobar end up getting the night off.

Dave Bush....well there's no way to go but up from his 2009 performance. The reigning NL leader of Hit Batsmen makes his 2010 debut on Friday. Like his counterpart, Bush hasn't exactly dominated the opposition. Pujols, Molina, Schumaker and Ludwick have all hit him around pretty good. In other words, don't be shocked if both terms score runs by the bunch.

Saturday

Carpenter vs. Gallardo

Well, Carpenter has made it through one start healthy. The health thing all about taking it one start at a time. The reigning 2009 NL Leader in ERA, ERA+, Win Pct. and HR/9 gets the start here. Counsell, Edmonds and Fielder have all hit him pretty well but in general Brewers hitters have struggled against Carpenter (then again who hasn't) to the tune of an .580 OPS

The last time (Monday) Gallardo went up against someone on one of my fantasy teams (Jiminez) he ended up coming away with a loss. Considering Carpenter is on one of my fantasy teams, this isn't a good omen. Another bad omen is that Pujols and Molina have hit him relatively well and current cards hitters have rocked him to the tune of a .846 OPS. Based on the past, this game isn't looking too good for the Crew.

Sunday

Garcia vs. Wolf

In this ESPN-televised Sunday night game, the Cardinals are giving Jaime Garcia his 2nd career start (and 11th appearance). The Brewers may struggle against pitchers making their big league debut but Garcia has started before (albeit once) which alone increases the Brewers hopes.

Sunday marks start number 2 of the Randy Wolf era. His start Tuesday didn't exactly go great but the Brewers did enough on offense for them to win (i.e. for this to not be that big of a deal). Wolf has historically struggled against Lopez, Pujols and Holliday. Wolf going against hitters that have hit him well versus a young inexperienced pitcher, we could be in for another high-scorer on Sunday.

Brewers-Rockies Preview: First Series of the Decade

With the 2010 season rearing and ready to go, we finally begin to get the questions answered such as can the Brewers return to the playoffs, can their pitching staff actually get anyone out this year so on and so forth.

Monday

Jiminez vs. Gallardo

For several years, I was reluctant to play Fantasy Baseball because of the situations where I would have to pick between the Brewers and the fantasy team. I can't even get past the first game of the season without getting into this situation as Jiminez is a key member of Cheddarhead. I have decided to rationalize this by thinking "it's ok if he pitches well all season but he can feel free to give up 8 runs in 2 1/3 against the Brewers, he has 30-plus starts to actually pitch well"

For the Brewers, Yovani Gallardo will be making the 1st of what should be several opening day starts. If nothing else, at least theres no way he could be worse than last years opening day starter (Jeff Suppan). As the only Brewer pitcher to pitch well last year, it's good to see him leading off the season, now if only he can lay off on the walks.........

Tuesday

Smith vs. Wolf

The Rockies are giving Greg Smith the start on Tuesday. He pitched fairly well in '08 but didn't see any big league action last year. The most interesting things that can be said about him is he's good at picking off runners and he ended up being one of the players that went to Colorado for Matt Holliday.

This is an important game for the Brewers as this is Randy Wolf's first start as a Brewer. On Tuesday, we begin to find out whether Randy Wolf is a good investment or if he is Jeff Suppan Version 2.0. Since Wolf has spent time pitching in the NL West, he should be fairly familiar with most of the Rockies hitters. A few positive indicators here:

1) Some of the Rockies projected regulars have struggled against Wolf (Helton, Tulowitzki and Barmes).

2) In the glass half empty/glass half full line of thinking: He's given up plenty of homers to current Rockies players (9 in 122 at bats) but at the same time they've hit .205 off him.

Wednesday

Cook vs. Davis

The Rockies are bringing Aaron Cook to the hill for Wednesday's MLB Network national broadcast. A fairly steady-slightly above average pitcher--pitching half the games at Coors, no small feat. Out of current Brewers, Counsell, Gerut & Fielder have struggled pretty bad against him but Jim Edmonds has pretty much owned him. If Edmonds is getting any starts this year, Wednesday should be one of those games. Despite Edmonds strong track record, it could be a long day for the Brewers as Cook has pitched fairly well against the current Brewers.

Another day, another first start for a Brewers off-season acquisition. Doug Davis starts his second stint as a Brewer with this start on Wednesday. Doug Davis is the reigning National League leader in Games Started and Walks. Looking at his past performance against the Rockies does give some cause for concern. Both Tulowitzki and Helton have hit him well and amongst current Rockies, they have tagged Davis to the tune of an .880 OPS....ouch.

NL Central Preview Part II:

In the quest to answer the ultimate question of where do the Brewers stack up against their NL Central brethren, it is time to complete the second park (pitching half) of the NL Central Preview:

Our standings after the first half are:

Brewers 22

Cardinals 23

Cubs 25

Reds 29

Pirates 34

Astros 35

Starting Pitching

Cardinals-Carpenter/Wainwright/Lohse/Penny --4

Cubs-Zambrano/Lilly/Dempster/Wells/Silva-- 8

Brewers-Gallardo/Wolf/Davis/Bush/Parra/Suppan's Expiring Contract--12

Reds-Harang/Arroyo/Bailey/Owens/Chapman-16

Astros-Oswalt/Rodriguez/Norris/Paulino/Moehler--20

Pirates-Malholm/Duke/Ohlendorf/Morton/Hart

The rankings for this are fairly relative and contextually based as none of these rotations are without their question marks. The Cardinals get the nod because their question marks are less glaring. For them the questions are Can Carpenter stay healthy ? Maybe Will Wainwright pitch as well as he did last year? Probably not Will Lohse do what Kyle Lohse usually does ? Probably Will we see the Brad Penny that struggled in Boston or the Brad Penny that pitched strong in San Francisco ? Arguments for the latter--He's still in the National League, he had Dave Duncan as pitching coach--Argument against--He doesn't get to make half his starts at Pac-Bell

For the Cubs--Can Zambrano stay healthy AND not be a distraction? Probably and Probably not Will Ted Lilly be an All-Star and be the only representative again? Maybe and Probably not Will Randy Wells sneak up on anyone again? Unlikely Will Cubs fans still rationalize that trading for Carlos Silva was a good idea even though he is one of the WORST pitchers in the league. Regardless of how rocky Miton Bradley's tenure was in Chicago, they reality is that they got ABSOLUTELY FLEECED IN THIS DEAL. Since we are on the subject here are five things the Cubs could have gotten in return from Milton Bradley and have it work out better for them than trading for Carlos Silva.

1) Random AA Player

2) Random A Player

3) $20 Starbucks Gift Certificate

4) CDs from any of the following artists......Nirvana, Heart, Pearl Jam, Alice In Chains, Queensryche, Jimi Hendrix, Soundgarden

5) Matt Hasselbeck......he might play a completely different sport but it's not that hard to top Carlos Silva's "production"

6) A bag of baseballs

On one hand I feel I am being too generous with the Brewers rotation rankings. On the other hand, the rotations ranked below them ain't setting the world on fire. The argument for....Yovani Gallardo has ace potential. He showed many flashes of promise as he struck out 200+ batters last year and he was the only Brewers starter that didn't make me absolutely cringe. I am a bit concerned that he walked 94 batters as well but he's only 24 and he's on the cusp of being one of the elite pitchers in the game.

The argument against--relative weakness from 2 to 5. The Brewers addressed their rotation needs by signing Randy Wolf over the winter. While the Brewers stretched it money-wise with their decision based on his career year, I still see him eating some innings winning about a dozen games and having an ERA close to 4. Not exactly #2 pitcher caliber stuff but an improvement over last year. The Brewers also brought back Doug Davis and its reasonable to expect his performance will be similar to Wolf.

In the 4-5 position it's likely that Suppan will get a spot he does not deserve well because he gets paid a lot of money. The last spot will be between Parra (who is too talented to pitch as bad as he did last year) and Dave Bush while not having the high ceiling as Parra has shown the ability in to put up Wolf/Davis type numbers. Not to be forgotten is that the Brewers have a new pitching coach (Rick Peterson) who does have a sucessful track record in the bigs.

In terms of starting pitching, the Reds are the biggest wildcard in the equation. In terms of how they actually do in terms of starting pitching comes down to 1) Is this the year Homer Bailey lives up to the hype surrounding him? and 2) Is Aroldis Chapman as good as everyone says he is?

For the Astros the question is begged Can Oswalt stay healthy and will Rodriguez pitch as well as he did in 2009? Maybe and Maybe and will the Pirates pitching be as bad as it looks on paper? Dude, it's the Pirates and the last time I checked the calendar it isn't 1992.

Bullpens

Brewers-Hoffman/Hawkins/Coffey-4

Reds-Cordero/Rhodes/Herrera-8

Cardinals-Franklin/Reyes/Miller-12

Cubs-Marmol/Grabow/Marshall-16

Pirates-Hanrahan/Asciano/Veal-20

Astros-Lyon/Lindstrom/Fulchino-24

While the Brewers starting pitching cost them a chance to contend for their second straight trip to the playoffs, the bullpen did what they could. Hoffman had a 2009 season that defied his age. It would be too much to expect a repeat of 2009 but Hoffman is still one of the better closers in the league. Like Wolf, the Brewers stretched a little bit on years and money for Hawkins. Still, Hawkins has shown he can be an effective pitcher as long as the team hes playing for isn't dumb enough to put him in the closers role. Todd Coffey is example one of too many to count of players that seemingly were going nowhere until Doug Melvin picked them off the waiver wire. There's a lot to like about Coffey....the full on sprints from the bullpen....the fact that it took him forever to give up a run when the Brewers signed him. Plus the full on vendetta he has against the broadcast team of the Reds.

The this single-handedly makes Todd Coffey the man story as found via a Google Search for Jeff Brantley Todd Coffey and the first organic result from the Dayton DailyNews:

Former Reds relief pitcher Todd Coffey, now with Milwaukee, pitched a 1-2-3 inning against the Reds then ran into a railing in front of the Brewers dugout because he was staring at the radio booth where Jeff Brantley was seated. When Coffey was with the Reds, Brantley said of him, "It is difficult to pitch with both hands around your throat."

If that's not epic I don't know what is.......

The Reds get the second spot with the back of their bullpen anchored by Francisco Cordero. I'm going to skip talking about the Reds bullpen and discuss a random Francisco Cordero anecdote. So the gym that I work out at has 7 TV screens. Five of them actually have cable (unfortunately one of these...sometimes two is dedicated to the vile that Sean Hannity calls "analysis".....but thats another rant for another day).....Anyways, the two other TV screens run a blatant inundations of local ads on a 5-10 minute cycle and usually there's some recent news and some sports trivia questions that run within the cycle of these advertisements. Anyways, I was working out one day and one of the trivia questions was who won the 2006 NL MVP. The first choice was the winner (Ryan Howard) the second choice (Barry Bonds) while off his MVP-peak would still pass for a plausible wrong answer....the third choice.....Mr. Francisco Cordero.....hmm I wonder which one isn't like the others. The same Francisco Cordero who while having a fine career being a 3 time All-Star and quietly putting up a career ERA+ of 148 but also the same Francisco Cordero who has never finished above 24 th in MVP-voting.

If we were going solely on what happened in 2009 instead of what's likely to happen in 2010 the Cardinals would have a higher rank based on Franklin's career year. I'm definitely not sold on Franklin repeating his career year........I'm not sold on Carlos Marmol getting through the year without giving the Cubs fits at closer.....I'm not sold on anyone that puts on a Pittsburgh Pirates uniform.......Also, if the Astros keep Brandon Lyon in the closers position....wait for disaster.......some people were made to be middle-relievers and not closers....Brandon Lyon fits perfectly within this scope of some people.

Final Results:

Brewers-38

Cardinals-39

Cubs-49

Reds-57

Astros-75

Pirates-79

Wow.....by every other projection and even my pre-conceived notions of this team......best case was second worse case was fourth and probable case was third. If this holds up we could be up for an epic battle for the NL Central title. Of course, this assumes a lot of things go right, i.e. the starting rotation getting their act together, the bullpen being strong all year and what I believe will be the make or break factor assuming little to no change elsewhere....the ability of Rickie Weeks to stay healthy AND effective all year. It will take seven months to figure out whether this is the smartest or dumbest posting I write all year. I'm either on to something that no one else is or I just gave homerism a really, really, bad name......not the avant gard homerism you see given to the Yankees by ESPN but Carlos Silva-bad homerism........now we play the waiting game.

NL Central Preview Part 1

So there are a lot of important questions to be asked for the upcoming baseball season. How bad are the Royals going to be? How epic is my fantasy team going to be? Who's going to win it all? Isn't dedicating a prime 9 to the Tampa Bay Rays sort of like making a greatest hits album for Vanilla Ice? But all of these questions are inferior to THE ultimate question........Where Can I expect the Brewers to finish in the standings this year?

Only one way to find out.....break it down the NL Central just like it's any other division

Catcher

1-Geovany Soto

2-Yadier Molina

3-Gregg Zaun

4-Ryan Doumit

5-Ramon Hernandez

6-J.R. Towles

Yes Soto had a terrible season last year. Note the emphasis on a terrible season, not being a terrible player. Easily attributable to an obscenely low BABIP. Yadier Molina had another All-Star season last year and he can play defense but I find it hard to associate a Molina brother with being an offensive juggernaut. For the Brewers, having Zaun instead of Kendall allows them to jump from the bottom to the middle of the pack in this position but a sense of reality and perspective needs to be placed in that Zaun is a middle of the pack catcher...no better...no worse.

First Base

1-Albert Pujols

2-Prince Fielder

3-Derrek Lee

4-Joey Votto

5-Lance Berkman

6-Steve Pearce

All I have to say about 1 to 5 is......wow. First Base is deep in this division. It's obvious that Pujols is the best at this position and in the league until proven otherwise....still in a love/hate mode with myself for drafting him onto Cheddarhead but c'mon it's Pujols. Prince Fielder is amongst the top candidates to dethrone King Albert as the best hitter in the league but wanting to be number 1 and being number 1 are two different things. There are talks of a contract extension in place so maybe this will motivate him to go from his status as an already great hitter to being in his own top echelon. Derrek Lee is a great hitter in his own regard but a notch below Albert and Prince. Votto and Berkman are fairly interchangeable. Votto is on the way up and could be in line for a breakout season. Berkman, while still a great hitter is getting up there in years and seems more vulnerable to injury and/or regressing numbers than Votto.

Second Base

1-Brandon Phillips

2-Rickie Weeks

3-Felipe Lopez

4-Akinori Iwamura

5-Kaz Matsui

6-Mike Fontenot

How production from this position actually shakes out is highly reliant on the ability of certain players (Rickie Weeks....cough...cough) to stay healthy. Phillips and Weeks are in the top tier for this division. Both Phillips and Weeks have the talent to put up 20-20 seasons. Phillips gets the nod because as of now, he's been the one to fulfill said talent.

Weeks is definitely a talented player and has been a breakout prospect for a long time but has been plagued by under-performance and health injuries. 2009 was beginning to look like his breakout year but then....BOOM....out for the season. Here's to Weeks fulfilling his potential in 2010.

Shortstop

1-Alcides Escobar

2-Ryan Theriot

3-Brendan Ryan

4-Ronny Cedeno

5-Tommy Manzella

6-Paul Janish

The shortstop position in two words......Paper Thin. Yes, I realize Escobar is a work in progress especially in the Power and Walks department but a combination of his assets (good contact, blazing speed, strong defense) and going up against players that peaked last year and even then didn't peak that high (Theriot) a prototypically bland middle-infielder (Ryan) and three players that despite being on the wrong side of 25 don't have anything screaming about them that they will ever be stars (Cedeno, Manzella and Janish)..leads to a pretty weak crop of Shortstops.

Third Base

1-Aramis Ramirez

2-Casey McGehee

3-Scott Rolen

4-Pedro Feliz

5-Andy LaRoche

6-David Freese

Another fairly weak crop. Despite the injury concerns/issues surrounding Ramirez the reality remains that he is by far the most talented amongst this crop. McGehee is definitely a Major-League caliber starter but how good he ultimately will be is still debatable. On one hand, McGehee's breakout season was aided by a fairly lucky BABIP. On the other hand, he had his breakout season without being completely healthy. While Scott Rolen's ability to stay healthy is highly questioned, hes still a fairly productive hitter. That is more than we can say about Pedro Feliz has overcome hitting double figure home runs on a yearly basis to consistently hit 20 percent below league average.

Left Field

1-Ryan Braun

2-Matt Holliday

3-Carlos Lee

4-Alfonso Soriano

5-Chris Dickerson

6-Lastings Milledge

This field busts out into 3 tiers. Braun/Holliday are in Tier One. If I were to reduce the face of the Brewers to one player, it would be Ryan Braun. All he's done since coming to the bigs is knock the cover out of baseballs. He's asserted himself as the vocal leader of this squad even saying things to the media that pretty much every fan was thinking (i.e. last year's pitching was terrible).

While Holliday is also amongst the elite hitters in the league, he does have the strike against him that he struggled a bit in his stint in Oakland (regardless of how much McAfee stadium is to blame). That and in full disclosure I am a bit biased towards Braun.

Carlos Lee is a distant third. He's become so reliable to hit .300 and go yard about 30 times a year that he's sort of fallen into the background. A great hitter, a solid producer its just that Braun and Holliday are better. Soriano obviously has lots of talent (its sort of hard to be a 40-40 player without it) but things have definitely gone south for him since becoming a Cub. Definitely a make or break year for him.

Center Field

1-Andrew McCutchen

2- Marlon Byrd

3-Colby Rasmus

4-Drew Stubbs

5-Michael Bourn

6-Carlos Gomez

McCutchen was good enough to actually make the Pirates decision to trade McLouth look justifiable. He should continue to improve and progress until the Pirates decide to trade him in the name of continuing their perpetual cycle of losing. Byrd had a nice year in Texas....not sure how the momentum of that and being away from Texas will affect his game this year. Rasmus had moments last year....he's better than the players below him....but haven't seen enough to rank him any higher.

Yes, Drew Stubbs had a nice run after getting called up but I would like to see him sustain that level of play for more than a couple months before signing off on him as a star. Bourn had his career year last year and I wouldn't be surprised to see him struggle at the plate this year....as I've mentioned here before....I am not very confident in the current ability level of Carlos Gomez and he is ranked accordingly.

Right Field

1-Jay Bruce

2- Hunter Pence

3-Ryan Ludwick

4-Garrett Jones

5-Corey Hart

6-Kosuke Fukudome

One of the tougher rankings by position. Jay Bruce may have only hit .223 last year and struggled with injuries. However, he is on the cusp (i.e. a couple months away) from stardom.....he was ridiculously unlucky at the plate as evidenced by a .222 BABIP. In other words, he should have hit closer to .260.....even with this bad luck he still went deep 22 times in 345 at bats. Also, he'll be 23 next month indicating he'll only get better than where he is currently. Even if he doesn't actually improve and the only difference is he doesn't get hurt and he doesn't get horribly unlucky we could be looking at .260-.270 hitter with 35-40 homers.

Two through five are fairly close. There's something about Astros hitters with power that makes them hard to notice. I don't know whether its the hitter friendly park or if its because their team isn't very good but Hunter Pence has managed to go deep 25 times the last couple years without anyone really noticing.

Where to rank Hart, Jones and Ludwick is a bit more ambiguous. That could be because their bodies of work are so similar, they make each others Top 10 lists for similarity scores. Both are average to slightly above average hitters whose reputations are expanded by a career year aided by an inflated BABIP (Hart in 2007, Ludwick in 2008). Both players could potentially drive in 100+ Runs because of pitchers opting to pitch around star hitters in the lineup (Fielder/Braun and Pujols/Holliday). Corey Hart is younger and likely has more years ahead of him while Ludwick has done more with the opportunities given as he has the advantage in OPS+ (117 to 106).

Thus Ludwick is 3rd and Hart is 5th. Why does Hart fall to 5th? Because i'm not quite sure what to do with Garrett Jones. On one hand, his monster season last year would have projected to a 40 homer season. On the other hand, the fact that he was aided by a generous BABIP (.327) and he didn't get his first chance to play regularly until 28 raises a few red flags. I don't think hes going to be total bust (i.e. Michael Bourn) and he's still better than Fukudome but I don't see him hitting 40 out this year. Not sure exactly where he will fall in the context of Hart-Ludwick but I could see him moving to a new normal of slightly above average and thus I am splitting the difference and ranking him 4th.

And our standings after one half:

Brewers-22

Cardinals-23

Cubs-25

Reds-29

Pirates- 34

Astros-35

Some surprises some non-surprises. I am slightly surprised that the Brewers have a lead (albeit slight one). I'm not shocked that Milwaukee, St. Louis, Chicago and Cincinnati occupy the top four positions. However, i'm surprised at the exact order of the four teams. To my absolute non-shock, the Pirates and Astros are not even to the top. In all fairness, the halves are broken down into hitting and pitching and one reason the Brewers are even close to the top (let alone at the top) is that the pitching staffs don't get ranked until the next post. Well whatever helps me sleep easier at night.