Packers Fire Bob Sanders?

http://www.nationalfootballpost.com/2009/01/breaking-news-packers-fire-sanders/

According to the National Football Post, the Green Bay Packers have fired their defensive coordinator.  Hopefully the rest of the defensive staff will follow.

Brewers to make a “serious” offer for CC Sabathia

I know, I know, more Brewers talk.  However, this is a big deal.  I figured the Brewers could make a competitive offer, but still lose out by a good $10m, but this gives a bit of hope.

Brewers plan to ma ‘serious’ offer to Sabathia

Sveum Out – Melvin Back

Brewer’s interim manager Dale Sveum is officially out of the running for the Brewer’s 2009 manager position.  Seems Jim Skaalen, the hitting coach, is also out.  I guess his method of “swing as hard as you can every pitch” wasn’t working.  Meanwhile, GM Doug Melvin has signed a 3-year extension.

Now Melvin has to find an experienced manager who can get this team playing up to full potential and find ways to win games on defense and base hits; something that cost a lot of wins this year.  Right now all signs are pointing to former Arizona manager Bob Brenly as the front-runner.

How does Corey Hart suck? Let me count the ways…

He’s screwed up numerous times in the post-season… in game 3 I’ve already seen two bad outs with runners on (a strikeout and bad baserunning move).  He had the horrible double play that killed our chances in the 1st inning of game 2.  He struck out to end a potential rally at the end of game 1.  He’s batted .239 after the All-Star break including hitting .173 in September.  He also led the outfield with 5 errors.

I hate you, Corey Hart.

Brewers-Reds Game 1 – Does anyone care?

You can tell the network interest in the first game of the NLDS matchup between the Brewers and Phillies by the TV slot.  3PM EST on a Wednesday.  Thanks MLB.  The Brewers haven’t seen the playoffs in the entire lifespan of many of their fans and yet, those of us with jobs (you know, the ones most likely to buy tickets, apparel, etc) will likely not see the game.

Regardless, this should be a good matchup.  Two very young and talented teams.  Seems the Phillies have the edge of being more complete and having better pitchup through the roster, but who knows.  Anything can happen in baseball.  Just look at the Mets losing 2 of 3 to the Marlins.  The first two games should be good ones.  The Brewers are putting their prized young pitcher whose name nobody can properly pronnounce (hint: it’s NOT Gah-lard-oh) against the Reds’ ace who looks more like a frozen lemonade vendor than a pitcher.

Thankfully, the teams have a somewhat more reasonable 6PM EST start on Thursday.

Braun/Sabathia = team co-MVPs

Both guys were amazing all year, but there is simply no topping what they did today.  Game winning home run for Braun and another complete game win for CC.  Longest post-season drout in major pro sports is over!

Brewers make changes in process, not end result

So I hesitated to jump on board with the millions of other journalists and bloggers talking about Ned Yost being fired.  Why?  What could I say that they haven’t.  Now that the Brewers have officially moved away from Yost and played (and lost) their first game without him, I feel I should add a little perspective.

First, I tend to agree with a select few folks from the Milwaukee area on this topic.  Several people have said that they believe Yost was the right guy to get the Brewers to where they are.  I’ll go as far as saying he was the right guy to get the Brewers to where they were last year.  He did a great job bringing the young players along and not doing anything to shake their confidence over their young careers.  On another team, Braun and Fielder would probably be where they are now, but players like Weeks, Hall, Hardy and Hart would likely still be in the minors.  A majority of people outside of Milwaukee (those who haven’t seen the Brewers play regularly the last 5-6 years) really don’t understand this.  I’ve seen Yost portrayed by the national media as being overly stern, but he really isn’t.  Sure, he’s a statue during games, but he’s far too kind to the players.  Few successful managers would’ve let a player like Rickie Weeks bat lead-off an entire season.  Few would have let Bill Hall cost runs on a daily basis.  Few would’ve stuck with starting pitchers who regularly could not get out of the 2nd inning.  Yost did.  He was a great leader for doing this while the team was growing and maturing.  Although it could be easily argued they are still in the maturation process, the upper-management has decided that this year is the time for winning.  The Yost method is clearly not the method for winning now.

So what are we left with?  Quite likely we are stuck with the reality that the team still isn’t ready to win.  The caliber of pitching falls off sharply after Sabathia/Sheets.  You don’t expect your 3-5 starters to get 20 wins each, but you do expect them to manage games carefully and try to get through 6-7 innings on a semi-regular basis.  The offense still is an all or nothing affair.  The team has never gained the discipline to play unselfish baseball.  They are seemingly unwilling to move runners into scoring position, take walks, bunt, etc.  The Cubs were a great lesson last night in that, as they regularly got their lead off guy on base and followed with 1-2 outs through ground balls that moved the runner over to 2nd or 3rd.  Home runs are great for fans, but being able to consistently score runs wins games and eventually pennants. Benching Hall and Weeks helps, but it won’t replace years worth of undisciplined training.

How we judge Dale Sveum as a coach will probably be unfair.  He’s going to be charged with getting the team into the post-season and anything else will likely be considered a failure.  I know that everyone else will claim that the move was more about trying to fix things before it’s too late, but let’s face it, it’s already too late.  We’ve proven we cannot beat the Cubs and last night that was confirmed.  Our once comfortable wild card lead has turned into a 1/2 game deficit.  Sadly, we’re now hoping that the Mets and Astros free-fall and we can simply do enough to hang on.  Even moer sadly, most Brewers fans are turning their attention to the Packers and forgetting about baseball as we have every time for the past 25 years.

Busy weekend!

Friday 8/22:
Brewer game!  I love Friday night baseball.  Something about the atmosphere just makes it so much more fun.  I think it’s something about everyone finally getting out of work after a long week and just letting go and enjoying the game.  Brewers played the Pirates.  We had great seats, it was a fun game and the hometown boys won 10-4.

View from our seats

Friday was also my first fantasy football draft; for the free league I’ve run the last several years.  Since I was at the game, I missed the draft.  However, I spent ages pre-ranking my players and it actually worked to my advantage.  Despite the fact that Yahoo will fill all starting roster spots before bench spots, I still got a pretty good team.  The draft order in this league was based on last years performance, and since I sucked, I had the #1 pick (snaking order, 8 teams)  Here’s my draft picks:

1. (1) LaDainian Tomlinson

2. (16) Terrell Owens

3. (17) Reggie Wayne

4. (32) Reggie Bush

5. (33) Brandon Marshall

6. (48) Kellen Winslow

7. (49) Matt Hasselbeck

8. (64) New York

9. (65) Shayne Graham

10. (80) Greg Jennings

11. (81) LenDale White

12. (96) Chris Chambers

13. (97) Donovan McNabb

14. (112) Alge Crumpler

I’m decently pumped about my team.  I think I have awesome wideouts and running backs.  The Giants defense is probably going to get dropped because of the hits they’ve taken on the D-Line, but I’m not terribly worried about that.  In fact, while I was posting, I just dropped NJ-A and picked up Seattle.

There was also some good preseason football Friday night.  Cowboys looked really good and Crayton even might have stopped Dallas fans from freaking out about their WR depth.  Packers looked good as well and Aaron Rodgers definitely bounced back from poor play last week.  Running game of the Packers is still a little scary, but hopefully Ryan Grant will help that in the regular season.

Saturday 8/24:
Went golfing Saturday morning.  Got rained out midway through, which bummed me out because when the thunder was first heard I was starting to hit some really good shots.  I also came decently close to a hole-in-one (I know, close doesn’t count for anything).

Went down to Chicago Saturday night and met up with best bud and his woman.  Ate at this place called Earwax which had good vegitarian food and neat little atmosphere.  Almost died afterward at this chocolate/ice cream shop… got some sort of orange dreamsicle float that was really large and had two huge ice cream scoops kind of hanging onto the brim of the glass.  Shouldn’t have finished it, but it was good.

Sunday 8/24:
Another Brewer game.  Finally saw CC in person, although he did not pitch a great game.  Ended up being a pretty good game, went into extra innings (we’ve seen 3 extra innings games this year, 2 of them wins).  On JJ Hardy bobblehead day, Hardy had the game winning single.  Nice how that works out.

Had my other fantasy football draft tonight.  Actually attended this one, although barely made it due to the length of the baseball game.  Another 8 team league, snaking draft order.  I had Yahoo auto pick the draft order and I wound up with the #1 pick (which of course everyone thought was a scam being I’m the commish of the league, haha).  Here’s my team:

1. (1) LaDainian Tomlinson

2. (16) Clinton Portis

3. (17) Braylon Edwards

4. (32) Laurence Maroney

5. (33) Torry Holt

6. (48) Roy Williams

7. (49) Derek Anderson

8. (64) LenDale White

9. (65) Earnest Graham

10. (80) Donald Driver

11. (81) Vernon Davis

12. (96) David Garrard

13. (97) Dallas

14. (112) Josh Scobee

Had one problem during the draft… I was connected to the internet via cell phone and lost my connection in the middle of the draft.  I had players in my “draft queue” but once the connection dropped, the queue was erased and Yahoo auto-picked.  Happened during a back-back pick, and I got Maroney/Holt out of it.  I *never* would’ve picked Maroney.  In the draft chat, I was just commenting on how Yahoo had Maroney ranked way too high just moments before it happened.  Holt is good, but he’s old, so that scares me.  I wanted to grab Reggie Bush in one of those spots and Wes Welker in the other.  Damnit.  Maybe I can make a trade…

I think that’s all I’ve got for now.

Prince Fielder does his best Steve Smith impression, Brewers lose again

More bad pitching, selfish offense that won’t just move runners over, and another Brewer loss.  This one was nicely capped off with Prince Fielder shoving Manny Parra after Parra gave up 6 runs in 2 innings.  Way to go, Crew!

Sabathia making Brewers history?

Well, maybe recent history.  As of a few moments ago, Sabathia threw his third complete game as a Brewer (in 4 starts, not to mention, it was his 3rd IN A ROW).

For the record, the most complete games in a season by a Brewer pitcher in the last 20 years was by Jaime Navarro in ’91.  He had 10 of them that year en route to a 15 win season.  At this rate, Sabathia may get to that mark in just the 2nd half of the year!  In his short time with Milwaukee, he’s doubled his CG total for the season.  This guy can really eat up innings and he’s probably the best move the team could’ve made to help out the bulpen.  Bill Castro must be feeling great about having CC on the mound, as it gives him some extra time to try and figure out how to get the relievers on track.

Davis/Brand look like dopes, Favre owns a cell phone, Lauren fights with Heidi

Well, the first night of Sabathia in Milwaukee was exciting, but nothing after his arrival was spectacular so it’s on to other things.  Looks like Elton Brand is going to be a 76er.  So much for him saying he wanted to put his pride aside to get a ring ala Boston.  Instead he has gone from one NBA wasteland to another.  Not only that, but Baron Davis opted out of a ton of money to help make things happen in LA with Brand.  Now Baron Davis is the newest star wasting his life as a Clipper.

In other news, why is it news that Favre sent a text message to Ted Thompson?  Can we all just agree to shut up about Favre until something official happens?  I don’t care what he secretly hopes.  I don’t care what teams some idiot sportswriters or braindead fans want him to play for.  I don’t care what color shorts he wore to the bait shop on Thursday.  It’s too much.  We need preseason to start so this can all be brushed aside with the other pointless gossip.

C.C. Sabathia Expected to Start for Brewers Tuesday, 7/8/08

Sadly, I won’t be at the game.  I’m not even going to look at what ticket prices have jumped to in the last 24 hours.  It will be pretty amazing to see a Milwaukee game likely sell out, on a Tuesday against the Rockies.

I will definitely be watching the game though, cannot wait to see how the new ace (do you call it a “deuce” when you have two aces?) settles in his first night.

So now it looks like the starting rotation will be:
– Sabathia
– Sheets
– Parra
– Suppan
– McClung or Bush

And at the end of the season, we have the *potential* of adding Gallardo into that mix and push Suppan into the #5 spot. 

Look out Cubbies!

I didn’t want to jinx anything…

…but I’ve been reading the Sabathia rumors and have gotten rather excited.  Well now that it seems pretty much official, I am extremely excited.  In fact, I’ve been a Brewer fan for roughly 20 of my 26.5 years on this planet and I have not once been this elated to be a fan.  I think you have to agree this immediately puts the Brewers as one of the favorites in the NL to go to the World Series (them and the Cubs).  Man oh man, what a deal!  I can’t wait to see how the rest of the season unfolds.  It’s a tough to think of what LaPorta could have been, but it’s far greater to envision what is going to happen NOW.

12-0

Despite the Ravens defense looking like it was 2001 again… despite Kyle Boller having a career game (until about 5 minutes left in the 4th and a really dumb Kyle Boller-esque throw)… despite the Pats defense getting pounded by the run most of the night… despite ESPN putting the jinx on with bringing Shula into the booth to cheer on the Ravens… despite all this and more, the Patriots are 12-0.  Fantastic game.  I was nearly at the breaking point along with Bart Scott at the end with all the tension in that last drive by New England.  The wildest thing about the game?  While Brady was going down the field in that last drive, facing essentially four 4th down plays and a bunch of nutjobs and a murderer chasing him down on the other side, there was no emotion.  It’s like this New England team is completely heartless and the game-winning drive is no more important than a Wednesday practice.  Maybe Tom Brady wasn’t joking when he said “It’s only 11 and 0.”  Now it’s 12.

Cordero a Red, and not terribly smart

“I would have liked to stay in Milwaukee, but it’s not up to me.” Those were the words of ex-Brewers closer Fancisco Cordero, according to this Wisconsin State Journal article.  You see, I always thought it was completely up to the player, when signing a free agent contract.

Nevertheless, the Brewers find themselves without a closer and without a lot of options.  They had already lost setup/middle relief guy Scott Linebrink to the the White Sox… now the back end of their bullpen has nobody left but Derrick Turnbow, who is hardly an ideal candidate for the closer job on a team that should compete for first in the division.  It will be interesting to see if the Brewers take a shot at any number of unreliable free agents or give the hometown hated Turnbow another go.

The “other” local sports team…

Oh, I just checked and saw the Brewers blew another game late.  Six runs given up in the 7th/8th innings.  Cubs are winning 8-0 and are going to move to 3.5 games up on the crew.  I am going to try hard not to even look at the results of the remaining games.  Time to pretend this season never happened.  It’s not that they didn’t have a good year when compared to the last several (should have their first winning season since ’92), but in the scope of the season it is such a letdown.  They’ve completely regressed from a team with strong pitching, aggressive offense and consistent play to the same old Brewers.  Once again, we’re looking at an injured Ben Sheets, starting pitching that can’t make it through 5 innings, an overused and unreliable bullpen, an offense that leaves men on base too much and relies completely on the home run and shaky managing (at best).  Oh yeah, and another second half of the season collapse.  I know there aren’t a ton of options out there for quick change, but we can’t have the status quo continue while all of our young stars are reaching their prime.  If the pitching and one-dimensional offense don’t improve we could potentially put all this talent to waste.  One thing I know for certain, this team cannot afford to have next year bring more than 29 losses by relievers (as they have had this year and last).

Ryan Braun Watch

Well, the Brewers are still completely bombing the 2nd half of the season.  Now the Cubs and Cardinals are right on our tail and short of a division title, there’s no way we’re taking the wild card (the Brewers would be 3.5 games back in that race right now).

To make matters worse, the one potential bright spot amongst all this terrible play, seems to be fading.  As of this morning, Ryan Braun needs 205 at bats over the remaining 41 games in order to qualify for the batting title.  For those without a calculator, that’s an even 5 at bats per game.   Looks impossible unless the offense goes absolutely insane for the remainder of the year (the kind of stuff that only happens in video games).

Can’t find a Wii, but at least the Brewers won

So we’ve got the Brewers coming up big late in a game for a change (way to be mega huge in the clutch mr Braun) and “Cross-your-fingers” Cordero holding on to a 3 run lead.  Looks like the Cubs are a few innings away from being a game and a half back.

On top of that, the Packers are on their way to a meaningless preseason win.  Rogers is actually putting together a few halfway decent drives and looking like a semi-competent QB.

Not such a bad night.

Downside to all this?  We’re getting up at 5:30AM to drive to a store an hour away, arrive when it opens and hopefully buy a Wii.  The word on the street is a shipment will have arrived with the systems on board.  I will now proceed to pound on every piece of wood I can find.

Brewers again

Is it time for regular season football yet?

Brewers just blew another lead late. Good thing the Cubs already lost. I know a 3-0 lead going into the bottom of the 6th isn’t a sure thing for any time, but it seems to be a certain loss for the Brewers.

I need to subscribe to one of those mega stat websites. I really need to know how of the Brewers losses this year came as a result of blown leads in or after the 6th.  ESPN says they have a 7.59 ERA from the 7th inning on this year.  Relievers are responsible for 20 of our 53 (soon to be 54) losses.

Batting title

Ryan Braun has to average just over 4.8 at bats per game to qualify for the batting title.  Seems out of reach.  That will be something to check back on in 20 games or so.

Brewers are done?

I just stopped following the Brewers-Cardinals game after Turnbow gave up the run to tie it up.  That guy is a disaster.  The entire bullpen is a disaster.  Evidence by another losing road trip and the fact that the crew has blown late leads in 5 of their last 11 games.  The starters aren’t surviving past the 6th inning, even if they do, our setup man and closer have been shaky at best.

To top it off, the offense is either great or in shambles, depending on Yost’s mood.  One day we have an order that goes Hart, Hardy, Braun, Fielder, Jenkins, etc… the next day it will be Weeks, Council, Graffanino, Mench… or some other disgusting concoction.  I realize we have respectable depth, but that is no reason to throw out any hope of winning by never having a consistent day-to-day batting order.  The lineup is all over the place and you can’t sacrifice offense for playing time.  You especially can’t do this when you are leaving pitchers in for 5 run innings on a regular basis.  The bleeding has to stop soon.  The Cubs will be caught up with us in a matter of days.

If there is another second-half meltdown prompted by a terrible road record, weak offense and poor pitching and the Brewers fail to make  the post-season, everyone will say that the team is too young and not ready.  However, they are ready.  This team has been working to this point long enough.  The rest of the division is getting better (well, most of them) and if we don’t claim our spot on top of the central at the end of the season, we may not remain competitive next year.  The fact of the matter is, if the Brewers blow this season, it will be due to the mismanagement of Ned Yost.  If he feels the need to make so many foolish calls due to our great depth, than maybe we need to trade players away to eliminate the problem.  Something needs to be done.  Eventually people have to catch on that when the “regular” batting order plays, we win (unless Turbow/Cordero blow it).  There has to be a middle-ground between getting players at-bats and completely changing the lineup every other day.  And more than any of this, nobody in Milwaukee can take another disappointing season.  The Brewers right now, are gazing down that path.

Doug Melvin to Ryan Braun: We’ve got a problem

Brewers call up third baseman Ryan Braun – MLB – Yahoo! Sports

This is the news that Brewers fans have been waiting for.  I think every fan is willing to give up some defense at 3rd in order to get rid of that horrid Graffanino-Counsel-Pitcher spot at the end of the batting order.  I can’t wait to see what this kid can do.

Brewers beating up on the Dodgers

5 runs so far in the top of the 6th alone.  If Hardy gets on base, they’ll be on the 2nd time through the rotation this inning.  This is how you start out a tough West Coast trip!