Can't You Smell That Smell?

Oooohh that smell...Can't you smell that smell? Ooooh that smell. The smell of death surrounds yooooou!-- Lynyrd Skynyrd.

Actually, that smell is burning human flesh. Because Trevor Hoffman exited the bullpen on consecutive days and did his best gas can routine. And burned down Miller Park twice. Either that or it is Hoffman's rotting carcass. Either way.

I'm in full on panic mode. Am I overreacting? I dunno. Did I overreact to Gagne a few years back? How about Turnbow? I have a sneaking suspicion he is done.

Could he turn it around? Sure. I would be willing to bet he has gone through stretches like this before, in his 73 year career. But he wasn't 163 years old when he went through them. Sometimes, you just can't do it anymore.

The solution? I think we start with giving him "some time off" away from the closer role, to see if he can get anyone out in the 6th or 7th. If he can, then I have no problem putting him back in the 9th. But at this point, he may have already cost us a playoff spot (assuming we periodically don't just forget to hit, and assuming Soup doesn't magically "earn" his spot back). Give someone else a shot.

The reality? Macha will not let anyone else close unless Melvin puts Hoffman on the DL with some type of mysterious ailment. Macha is extremely old school, and treats veterans with WAY too much respect at times. I just can't fathom how much worse it can get. I mean, say what you want about Turnbow, at least he had a high 90s fastball (although he rarely got it over the plate). Hoffman hardly even throws his change, and when he does it is not a strike. Then he grooves a 82 mph fastball over the middle of the plate, and it lands 450 feet away.

Just not happy at all.

Brew Crew Hangover 4/10

So I got my first real taste of the 2010 Crew. And I have to admit that I was fairly satisfied. I didn't have any obvious beef with anyone in the lineup last night. Everyone did something good. Not everyone produced results (see Greg Zaun smoking two balls that were right at people), but all in all, a pretty good performance other than the end result.

I'm chalking up last night's loss to being unlucky. It really is pretty hard to point to one play that cost the Brewers that game. I suppose McGehee's bobble of a double play ball cost them a run, but he also possibly saved a run with a diving stab earlier.

The unluckiness brings us to Trevor time. He isn't going to be perfect all year. There are going to be games where he bounces a pitch halfway to home plate and something called Nick Stavinoha (sp?) is going to close his eyes and golf one over the left field wall ala Vlad Guerrero(h/t to my brother for the Vlad reference). It sucks but it happens.

So I actually came away with more optimism than negativity last night, which is unusual for me. With all that said, if Hoffman continues to get knocked around, I'm going to be a little worried. I'm not sure I'm confident in LaTroy Hawkins to close games if need be (although he was pretty clutch last night).

One last thing. Any idea why Ryan Braun was wearing a mouth guard? Is he trying to protect his investment (his pearly whites) because he grinds them? Is he going to market them? I don't' believe I've ever seen that before. What are the chances of you getting hit in the face and losing your teeth? I did actually see it once in high school, but I can't imagine the chances are very good. But I digress.

Today is another day. Go Brewers.

Hells Bells is back

So the Brewers have signed Hoffman to a 1 year, 8 million dollar contract as of today. Considering Hoffman made 6 million last year and god knows what kind of prospects would be out there for potential closers, I'd say this is a pretty solid deal. Hopefully we get something worked out in our bullpen as a more permanent replacement over the next two off seasons, until then, let's rock out to AC/DC for one more year I guess.

Oh snap! And there's a mutual option for 2011, didn't read that the first time I guess, doesn't change much either way, maybe 3 off seasons now to find a suitable young closer!

Chris Duncan is the most awkward professional baseball player ever...

Seriously, it's like watching me play baseball, this guy has zero coordination. Also Yadier Molina looks like he's just a fucking asshole. There's just something about him, who knows, he might be the nicest guy in the world, but he just gives me that premonition. Here he is laughing at a baby falling down a flight of stairs.

But enough trash talking, the Crew narrowly avoided a 3rd bases loaded, inning ending strikeout tonight when my boy Prince hustled his huge ass down the line and get an infield hit for the game winning RBI. Hoffman pitched the bases loaded and then Gamel damn near gave me a heart attack when Molina sliced that ball down third, but Mat fielded it perfectly and strolled over to third for the win. We needed this one big time, if we can get a W tomorrow we'll be back to tied for the NL Central lead.

I have complete and utter confidence that Manny Parra has figured it out from his 4 starts down in Nashville.

Oh yea, almost forgot, Shaq is obsessed with your mom comebacks. He's truly a man after my own heart.

Semi-Daily Brew Crew Hangover #11

THAT was cool as shit. I never expected to get goose bumps from a relief pitcher coming in during a 10-5 game, but that is some bad ass shit to come out to a song as cool as Hells Bells. What is odd about it is that you would expect him to come out firing 98 mph fastballs instead of 78 mph changeups. That is about all I got, except that Yost would've made Looper throw one at LaRoche's head immediately following Braun getting beaned, and we would've lost that game because McClung and Villanueva are unreliable at best. So chalk up a +1 to Macha for keeping his cool. And Pirates better watch their fucking backs today, because I have a feeling one might "accidentally" get away from Bush in the first inning.

Jagz, Pacman, Nolan and Hells Bells

I would be remiss if I didn't discuss a few ridiculous stories that are peculating today.

1) Jeff Jagodzinski getting shit canned at B.C. I'm going to go ahead and ask why everyone is making such a big deal out of this. A few things are obviously true: 1) Jagz knew that he would be fired if he interviewed with the Jets, 2) He did it anyway, 3) He was fired. Everything else is sort of irrelevant. I have heard that he had a clause in his contract stating this very fact. Whether he did or not, this is how the real world works, even though D-I college athletics is about as far from the real world as there is. If I went to interview for another job and my boss found out, I would expect to be a)fired or b) have my boss make my life so miserable that I would quit. I don't fault Jagz for trying to get a better job. Its America. I'm quite certain about 90% of people with jobs are looking for new ones. But to freak out on the employer for firing them is stupid. Admittedly the situation is not really a normal one with a college coach given the regular turnover, but if BC wanted a coach to stay in it for the long haul, they had every right to let him go.

2) Pacman got cut. Good for the Cowboys. What killed me about the story is that I was watching SportsCenter last night when the story broke, and ESPN essentially took credit for being the straw that broke the camel's back. This "new information" regarding the hit that he allegedly ordered in 2007 that was somehow unknown to anyone previously, was going to be reported by ESPN on "Outside the Lines" on Sunday. According to SportsCenter, Jerry Jones first heard of it when ESPN called to ask for a comment and "coincidentally" they cut Pacman like an hour later. Funny how ESPN is willing to take credit for shit like this, that probably didn't have any effect on Jones's decision (I mean really? One tie to an attempted murder was OK, but TWO? Two is where the Cowboys draw the line.), yet when they totally fuck up they refuse to take any blame (No examples to cite).

3) I fully support the hiring of Mike Nolan for D-coordinator. By all accounts he is a spectacular coordinator. Plus he is a snazzy dresser. It isn't official yet, so I'm guessing the rumors/positive reaction is going to be enough to convince Thompson not to hire him. Plus it seems way to high profile for the Pack. But if he gets it, I think he can figure out what the team is really capable of doing, and he won't cram a 3-4 down our throats with a bunch of guys that can't play it. Maybe we could run a 2-1-8?

4)Just got word that the Brewers signed 137 year old Trevor Hoffman and his 48 mph change up. That is a BIG signing. He is the most reliable closer we have had since Coco, and probably Dan Pleasac before that. Now if he could only start 30+ games too, we would be set to go. He has the best entrance music since Rick "Wild Thing" Vaughn.

My personal opinion of the Gagne situation

I'm actually glad that Gagne is back in the closer position. I hear a lot of non-sense about the "committee" being 2-0 and gagne having 5 blown saves on the year. I know Gagne isn't pitching as well as we'd like our closer to do, but he's also appeared in half of our games this year already (That's 19 games out of 39 for the non-math endowed people). Since the NL has expanded to 16 teams, the average number of saves for a team has been pretty steadily around 40. The league average for save percentage for the last few years was around 67%, that's 2/3. So I can safely assume an average team will see around 60 save attempts per year. The Brewers are less than one fourth of the way into the season and yet Gagne has appeared 19 times already. That's a lot of work for a closer, especially when you consider that not all of those 60 potential save attempts are going to the same guy. The Brewers blew 20 saves in total last year, we are one quarter of the way through the year and Gagne has blown 5, the team total this year is 7. That seems to be slight ahead of the average, but the league average last year was 20 blown saves. As I've mentioned before we are ahead of the league average on save opportunities for the year as well. Only two teams had less than 14 blown save opportunities last year. Does that make it ok that Gagne has blown these saves? No. However I do think it helps to put things into perspective. Give the averages time to even themselves out and get Gagne a normal work flow. Popping into games 5 nights in a row is going to put a strain on any closer, not just our popular quebecois scapegoat.

Take this into account as well, for every team in the major leagues, only two have a reliever that has been their closer since earlier than 2004, the Yankees with Rivera and the Padres with Hoffman (the latter of which is probably soon to end). The closer position is so damn volatile and so closely scrutinized that sometimes fans forget to take a step back and realize, that's just the way the game is sometimes, no closer is going to be perfect. Granted Gagne is quite far from perfect, but I think before people continue to jump down his throat they should consider this, I don't think there's a better answer than him to be the closer in our bullpen right now. There's a lot of pressure when you are put into that situation and it's not really a spot where you want to be doing trial and error testing on pitchers that are unproven in the closer role.

Also just a little food for thought in contradiction to what I said here, the only team this year without a blown save? The Reds. Of course they've only had 7 save opportunities, so once again take that number with a grain of salt.