State of the Brewers

Now is as good a time as any to give you my mid-season summary of the Milwaukee Brewers. I'm going to try to break it down an organized fashion. See Baseball Reference and Fan Graphs for all the stats. (Ed. Note: I wrote half of this a few days earlier, so some of the stats are a few days outdated.)

OVERALL: The team currently sits at 47-42, tied with the St. Louis Cardinals. The team has struggled as of late, losing 7 of 10, including blowing back-to-back five run leads. If you check out Baseball Reference's expanded standings, it is interesting to note that they are better record-wise, than they have actually played (BR has them at 45-44, 2 games behind Cincinnati and St. Louis). Based on my preseason, overly simplified expectations, I have the Crew 4 games behind the imaginary, playoff bound Brewers. I'm getting a little worried because of the way they have been losing. But, if you told me they would be tied for first 99 games in, I would take it. Baseball is just a frustrating game.

1B: Prince rates as the 9th best player in the NL based on WAR, and 2nd best 1st basemen (behind Votto). No problems here. He's been great. Defensively, he is still below replacement, but he is a beast at the plate.

2B: Weeks is the 18th best player in the NL and the best 2nd baseman. Can't argue with that. Even though it feels like he has improved his defense, he is actually WORSE than Fielder defensively based on his position, which is a little surprising.

SS: Yuni is fucking terrible. He is a -.4 WAR, which means he is WORSE than someone that you could walk onto any AAA team to get. He is fucking terrible on defense, where he is on pace to COST the Brewers 17 runs due to his defense this year (for comparison sake, Hart is predicted to SAVE 8 runs, and nobody would accuse him of being good). Batting wise, his OPS is .612 (league average is .703), and his OPS+ is 67 (100 is typically considered average, and adjusts his OPS number for ballpark factors). The bottom line is that he is fucking terrible in every aspect of the game. To top it off Roenicke has hit him FIFTH two recent games. If the Crew doesn't play someone else at SS for at least 1/2 of the rest of their games, they cannot possibly make the playoffs without being damn near perfect everywhere else. The solution is really not on the roster I don't think. Josh Wilson has been better than anyone else, but I think that is probably due to a small sample size than anything. However, as bad as Yuni has been, I can't imagine it would be too costly to get someone better. Even if that someone isn't great himself.

3B: McGehee has been worse than Yuni if that is even possible. The only reason it is hard to give up on him is because he had never been this bad before (whereas Yuni has always been bad). But this can't continue. Statistically he is arguably FAR worse than Yuni. Again, Wilson has been decent, but not decent enough to play both 3B and SS at the same time, and he probably isn't a starter. We need to get a 3B too probably. (Ed. Note: He hit a game winning, pinch hit 3 run homer two days ago. He still sucks).

LF: Braun is the 3rd best player in the NL (Behind Matt Kemp and Andrew McCutheon, again based on Wins Above Replacement). He is a stud. Interestingly, he is above replacement defensively, but I don't think WAR is a great indicator of defense especially in the outfield. I'm in love with him in a probably not sexual way.

CF: The Gomez/Plush combo is awesome to watch. Probably the two most exciting players to watch on the team, because you have no idea what is going to happen at any given moment. Gomez may overrun 3rd on the triple and break his neck falling into the dugout, or jump over the CF wall to make a catch. Plush may hit 5 triples (Plushdamentals!), or murder the home plate umpire. Offensively, there is no contest here. Plush has been nothing short of great offensively, while Gomez is nothing short of terrible. Defensively, Gomez has been spectacular. His defense is so good, that he nearly makes up for how bad he is offensively. For that reason, I don't have a huge problem with a 70/30 or so split (with Plush given the nod where there is a question). If I had to have one it would be Plush, but Gomez is a guy that can play some.

RF: Hart has been serviceable. It doesn't feel like he's been serviceable, because of how good he is when he is good, and because it looks like he's drunk and not trying when he plays bad.

C: Lucroy has struggled defensively, but he's been slightly above average offensively. For a catcher, I actually have some confidence in him when he bats, which is saying a lot. Also, banged Randy Wolf's wife.

Bench: Josh Wilson is the only bench player that adds anything to this team. Kottaras is a back-up catcher not named Wil Nieves, so he gets a pass, and occasionally runs into one, so he stays. Gamel has nothing else to do in the minors, and has gotten no legitimate shot yet, so he stays too. If you want to use a roster spot for a defensive replacement not named Carlos Gomez, Counsell has some value, but he should never face a major league pitcher again. Kotsay is simply awful in every aspect, and has obviously blackmailed Roenicke into his absurd amount of playing time (Including continuing to start in LF with Braun out and batting 5th for no reason). Brandon Boggs should be on this team in place of Kotsay. There is probably someone on the streets that is at least as good as Counsell.

Starting Pitching: I'm down with our starting pitching. There isn't one guy out of the five I would replace. Marcum has been tremendous, Yo, Wolf and Narveson have had a few hiccups, and a few gems, but overall, pretty good.

Greinke has been frustrating, but I'm here to tell you that he is pitching much better than it looks and than what his ERA (5.66) shows. I'm here to tell you that his strikeout per 9 innings of 11.72 is absurd. That his 1.84 walks per 9 innings is absurd. That he has been ridiculously unlucky. Case in point, there are two "advanced stats" that try to take the effects of fielding out of the equation when evaluating a pitcher. One stat is called BABIP, which stands for Batting Average for Balls in Play. The theory is that by taking BB/K/HR out of the equation, and measuring the results of the remaining balls hit into play over a long period of time, you can approximate if a pitcher is good/bad/or just unlucky, in a given year. Historically, the average BABIP is around .300, meaning about 30% of non-homeruns end up as hits, and most players will fall or rise towards the average in a given season. Greinke's career average is .309. This year it is .341, which is really high for him. What this means is that in the future, is that less balls should fall for hits than normal going forward. That or the the defense will completely fuck him over. But I tend to think positively (right?).

The other stat is xFIP or Expected Field Independent Pitching. Basically, xFIP takes the fielding component out of pitching entirely and only counts things a pitcher can control: walks, strikeouts, hit by pitches and home runs. Through a formula, it then calculates how good a pitcher is on an ERA scale based on what the ERA should look like if everything else (defense, timing) was average. It is widely known to be the best predictor of future performance for pitchers. In 2010, the MLB average was 4.23, which I think, if you know about ERA, is pretty average. Zack Greinke's xFIP in 2011 is 2.16, which is fucking incredible. How incredible? The second best starter in MLB is Roy Halladay, who has a 2.42. Cole Hamels is third with a 2.66. So Zack has been INCREDIBLY unlucky, and INCREDIBLY good so far. It just hasn't turned into results...yet. If these stats mean anything at all, its that Zack could be looking at a 2008 Sabathia-type second half.

Relief Pitching: I don't have any major complaints about anyone in the bully right now. The only complaint would be the manager's use, which I will get to in a minute. I think we are fine as currently constructed. Ax is a beast, rest of the bullpen is normally pretty above average.

Manager: Ron Roenicke is a mystery wrapped inside a conundrum. On one hand, I LOVE that he has a more aggressive attitude, at least insofar as he allows/encourages being aggressive on the bases. It has benefited us for the most part, and if nothing else is really fun to watch. He seems like a likable guy, and isn't a boring guy to listen to. It is possible that he feels likable, because for the most part, the team has been fairly successful. I imagine I would like him a lot less if the team was 5 games under .500.

My beef with Run-Run is the same beef I seem to have with all managers. I HATE his use of the bullpen, and his rationale behind it ("He's my 8th inning guy."). And I HATE his irrational love for certain players, when those players deserve no love (Kotsay, Yuni). The most infuriating thing to me is how he pitches Loe in every game no matter what (probably a slight exaggeration). Loe is clearly capable of getting guys out in the right situation, and has done it for long stretches at a time. But sometimes his sinker doesn't sink, or he goes up against a bunch of lefties in a row even though he clearly can't get left handers out. I'm sure bullpen management is harder than it looks, and the bullpen isn't going to win every game. But you can't give answers like: It is the 8th inning and Loe is my "8th inning guy", after you put him in against 3 straight left handers and they all hit the cover off the ball. He's gotta be flexible.

In the end, I'm on board with Ron for now. But mostly because they have won two in a row.

SUMMARY: After the research, I feel our biggest issue is the left side of the infield, McGehee and Yuni. Something has to be done there. I'm not advocating spending a ton of money/prospects on a blockbuster fix, because frankly I don't think we have either. However, I don't think we can continue to run Yuni and Casey out there for a majority of the games and survive. In Prince's last year, continuing on the "all in" movement requires us getting at least one player that doesn't suck, and plays 3B or SS, and can play every day. If we don't, I think this effort will be wasted.

Great Tickets In Theory

As many of you may have heard, I received my 2011-12 Green Bay Packer Ticket assignments earlier this week. If I was given the choice of one game, I would've wanted to experience the home opener against the Saints, in order to see what kind of party the NFL put on, and to see the additional pageantry of the opening game after a Super Bowl win. Well, I may have gotten my wish, as I was notified that I will be receiving tickets to the Saints game, as well as the Lions game on New Years Day (or as I am going to call it, the Cold As Shit Bowl, which may actually be a college bowl game).

The concern of course, is that I receive what is probably the most interesting game on the schedule (the Bears game being the other obvious great game on paper) and the game will not be played. Or the schedule gets messed up in some fashion, and it turns into "just a game" against the Saints and not a super-duper special game. Which would fucking blow.

I'm not one of those people that would kill myself without the NFL (although I may just drink a gallon of vodka to fill in those 10 hours or so of football every Sunday, which may lead to an earlier death), but I'm also not one that is going to try to ignore it because they are all greedy assholes who don't care about me.

Of course they don't care about me. Do movie producers care about me? Do restaurant owners care about me? Do airlines care about me? Oil companies? Hotel operators? Bar owners? Postal workers? My doctors? Insurance carriers? I guess what I'm trying to say is that at the end of the day, the only people that truly give a shit about you, your thoughts, your money, etc., are your friends and family. Gigantic corporations don't care what you think, because they provide a product or service that nobody else does. In this case, there isn't another NFL. The idea that caring or not caring about the lockout is going to fix anything or change anyone's mind is ludicrous. I am personally not enabling anything. Sure, collectively I may be part of the problem, but the only way to truly affect a billion dollar business would be for EVERYONE to not have anything to do with the NFL until they fix the labor issues, and THEN to not embrace them when they came back. And this is impossible. Unless or until there is somewhere else to get the Green Bay Packers. And there is not. Nothing is going to change regardless of what I do.

I guess what I'm saying in rambling, incoherent fashion is that begging the NFL to come back is not the wrong thing to do if that is how you feel. And if you think that not caring is the right thing for you, go for it. But now that I've got these sweet ass tickets, and and the lockout is hitting closer to home, that is all I really want. So c'mon baby, come home to daddy.

BREW CREW HANGOVER

Sweet walk-off suicide squeeze yesterday.

PREDICTED RECORD: 31-21

ACTUAL RECORD: 28-24

VERDICT: Remain calm.

VACATION

I'm headed back to Omaha on Thursday for the first time in 5 years. Going to check out some of our old favorite restaurants, likely hook up with old pals and get drunk like it's 2006. Should be fun. Driving not so much, but it will definitely bring back happy memories. Not exactly a two week trip to Europe but these things happen when you have crippling student loan debt.

Brew Crew Hangover: Sweep Edition

I'm going to start a new feature here (until I stop blogging for like a month again). I'm going to tell you how many wins the Brewers have compared to how many I expected them to have preseason, then I'm going to tell you if you should remain calm, panic, or celebrate.

Predicted Record: 27-20
Actual Record: 24-23
Verdict: Remain Calm

Pretty close to what I expected, even with the peaks and valleys. Going to have to score some runs more consistently, and going to have to win more on the road. (ED NOTE: Hart and Fielder just CRUSHED two balls to dead center in the first. 3-0 Crew).

OTHER BREWER RELATED NEWS

Erick Almonte (on the 7-day DL with a concussion because he got hit in the head with a batted ball during BP), got hit in the face with a throw during BP. Man, that SUCKS.

RANT ON SPORTS TALK RADIO

I love me some sports talk radio. But is it too much to ask that you have any fucking idea what you are talking about? How is it that I can work 50-ish hours a week, maintain a healthy relationship, exercise on once in a while, make love to a microbrew on occasion, and play what I would consider to be an above average amount of video games, and STILL know more that guys whose JOB it is to know things about sports. For example, and this is hardly a felonious offense, but it was merely the latest. On the "Green and Gold Today" on ESPN Milwaukee with Bear's favorite writer Jason Wilde, and Bill Johnson, they were discussing the lockout, because let's face it, there isn't anything else to talk about. The topic was "What will people follow if there is no NFL?" Baseball, college football, UFL, etc. Typical, generic sports talk topic. Well, I'm not going to complain about the topic, because I write a blog like twice a month and have a hard time coming up with new things to write. It is pretty hard to talk for three hours. Alas, when discussing college football, one said to the other "Has there been any talk of playing college games on Sunday if there is no NFL?" The response "I'm not sure."

Fucking. Seriously. Is this really THAT obscure of a topic? My point is, that I shouldn't know a tremendous amount more than you do about a sports topic, when you talk about sports every day and get paid for it. In this particular case, if it was a baseball or golf question, I would give them a slight pass, because at least this show is football oriented. But do you really mean to tell me that they don't follow ANYTHING but Green Bay Packer football? Even in their free time? I just can't accept that as fact. And these are two relatively good radio guys. There are far worse example. I don't know, maybe I just follow sports closer than most. If that is true, I'm available to host any radio show that anyone wants. And I will do it for half of what the current guy gets paid. I have absolutely no idea why I just wrote 200 words about this.

Invisible Brew Crew Hangover--Post-Rapture Edition

Interesting question: If the Brewers play the Rockies on a Saturday night in front of a sellout crowd, but arcane and preposterous MLB blackout rules prevent anyone from seeing it that wasn't there, did it really happen? (takes a hit off of a spliff) That shit is DEEP. Really though, it is 2002. We should be able to watch whatever game we fucking want and not be force-fed some Cubs-RedSox bullshit. In case anyone didn't see any of that last night, the teams wore what I assume were 1918 throwbacks. The Red Sox wore pure white unis and hats, with no logos of any type. It was awkward. The Cubs had grey unis with blue pinstripes. The hats were logo-less. The jerseys had the wierd logo that looked like a rectangle with UBS written in it. Upon further review it was a rectangular C wrapped around the other letter. It was dumb. Also upon further review, these are two of the three douchiest fan bases in baseball (Yankees being the third.)

Anyway, the Crew did in fact play, and defeat the Rocks thanks to what appeared by all accounts to be a sweet pitching performance from Shaun Marcum. I'm aware of this thanks to my Blackberry and MLB Network. I'm far too lazy to listen to the game on the radio while at home due to lack of a decent radio setup/and comfortable/sensible place to listen. Today, the Crew goes for a sweep. Which would be pretty impressive considering the Rocks are putting Ubaldo on the mound. However, Ubaldo is doing his best Zack Greinke impression this season (i.e. ERA hovering around 6), so all is not lost. I will definitely be watching/napping despite the fact that it is 70 and sunny right now on my patio. It is supposed to rain again today though, and clearly De Pere, WI is actually Seattle, WA.

GOLF

Speaking of Seattle, I tried to golf yesterday. We made it all the way to the 4th hole before it started to rain, and ended up having to take a rain check for the back nine because it was pouring. Kept up my stellar 55 average on 9-holes. I would guess I will probably have my tour card by August.

NBA

Nice game last night. That is about all I got on it. I will watch Bulls-Heat when and if it is convenient tonight.

RAPTURE

I'm pretty excited to hear what excuse the rapture asshole guy has for why he "miscalculated", and how he is going to explain away the numerous sex-related felonies he committed yesterday in the name of (SportsBottle's) god.

TWITTER

If you aren't on twitter, and aren't following me, you are missing me spitting hot fire. Sign up and follow me at@ juicelaw_WI. I would describe it as random one-liners that I may have put into a blog post if I blogged more often. If you are interested in Bear live-tweeting his experiences inside of a bar in River Falls, WI, which generally includes completely random people that I don't know tweeting back to him from the next stool, you should follow him at @bearflash. If you want to read UCSB616 get into verbal jousting over the lockout with respected journalists, active players and b-list celebrities, follow him at @UCSB616. If you want to continue to read nothing from Twinkie, you should follow him at....well fuck, I don't even know his Twitter handle because he doesn't use it.

I've got to admit that I enjoy Twitter far more than I ever expected. I like it better than Facebook because I don't have to censor myself. Because censorship is bullshit.

Reviewz

Wanted to chime in quick on a few topics while my neighbor stands next to his pickup truck in his jorts enjoying a Busch Light.


BREWERS


Truthfully, I'm not that disappointed with the Brewers. I just took a look at the schedule. I predicted preseason that they would probably win around 87 games, and be deep in the hunt. Of course, I'm an idiot. Anyway, based on my predictions, I have them at 24 wins after last night's game. They now have 21 wins. So they are perhaps three games worse than I had hoped. But there are like 120 games left. They will go on a random 7 game winning streak at some point, and get right back where they should be. But they gotta stop getting shut out. Pretty frustrating. Thankfully they come home and aren't playing at 1 a.m. starting tonight.


My take aways so far: Ryan Braun is my hero (although the recent shoulder injury is concerning), Zach Greinke is fun as hell to watch pitch (until he gets randomly hammered for 5 runs when he runs out of gas) and Prince is still fat. I love/hate watching Carlos Gomez turn a double into a triple, and then overrun third base and get tagged out, or make a cartwheel diving catch in center, and then strike out on a pitch 7 feet outside. Human roller coaster. Corey Hart got fat. Looking forward to the two extremely drunk Brewer games I've got planned in late June/early July.


NBA

I've actually watched almost every second of three conference finals games, and the 4th qtr of Game 2 of Mavs-Thunder. Game 2 of Heat-Bulls actually got the wife's seal of approval to be watched. And she HATES the NBA. I'm just saying that it has been entertaining.


MOVIE REVIEW

"Bridesmaids". Actually pretty good. I laughed really hard quite a number of times. It isn't quite the female version of the Hangover, but it is worth seeing. At this point, I don't think I would ever recommend seeing any movie at the theater. Seriously, it cost us like $40 for two of us to go. You could rent FORTY fucking movies from RedBox. I like going to the movies once in awhile, but if I'm spending $40 I'd rather go out to eat. I would definitely watch this at some point though. The fat chick is really, really funny.

BEERS OF THE MOMENT

"Thunder River Amber Ale". It is good. It is an amber ale and they are really hard to fuck up. What is odd is that after further review, Thunder River is brewed by "Green Bay Brewing Company", which is actually the same as Hinterland, which is much more expensive. Either way it was good.

"Somersault" by New Belgium. Pretty standard pale-ish ale with some citrusy type flavor. It was good. No complaints.

Exhale

Well there we go. Yo is a Cy Young contender and the Crew is sure to turn this 7 game losing streak into a 12 game winning streak after yesterday. Championship! Thus is the ebb and flow of the 700 game MLB season. I'm still concerned that the Crew hasn't hit at all for the last week. Big early season game today. They sort of need to steal this series after shitting Houston down their legs. Gotta score more runs though. Headed to the Keg on Wednesday afternoon for a game against the Padres. Headed down with my old man and his union cronies. No word on whether legs will be broken or not.

NBA PLAYOFFS

I find it incredible that no NBA team has EVER come back from a 3-0 deficit. If the Lakers demise is a foregone conclusion, then why are we wasting our time even playing game 4. There should be a rule that series are a best of 7, until a team wins the first three, then it is a skunk, and it is over. While I'm not the biggest NBA fan, I do follow it, and watch portions of games here and there. But I won't be going out of my way to watch any more games in this series until it gets to 7. Why bother?

GOLF

I finally got out for 18 yesterday. I'm not very good. 110 on 18 holes isn't getting me to the PGA tour. But considering I haven't touched a club in at least 8 months (Wisconsin weather rules) it could've been worse.

MOVIE REVIEWS

Watched a couple of older-ish movies from my DVR that I hadn't seen before.

"Youth in Revolt": I enjoy Michael Cera even though he plays the same character in every movie/TV show ever. I just find that character funny. Zach Galifianakis and his beard were in the movie as a alcoholic truck driver that is banging Michael Cera's mom. Steve Buschemi and trailer parks were also involved. I enjoyed the movie. I would recommend it, but I doubt I would stop to watch it again if it was on cable.

"The Hurt Locker": Supposedly won an Oscar. I'm a little Iraq movied out to be honest. There have been something like 10 million movies made about this, which I guess makes sense since this "war" has been going on for 10 years. It was a solid movie, but not very unique. It is an Iraq war movie. No idea why or how this won (or was nominated, I don't watch that shit) an Oscar. It is worth watching if you like desert war movies. I wouldn't watch it again.

BEERS OF THE WEEKEND

Lienenkugel Limited: Kind of dog shit. A cross between Leinie's original, which is awful, and Honey Weiss. Don't bother. Thank (Sports Bottle's) god I only drank one. I'm not sure what the idea behind "limited" was. I can tell you one thing, it will be limited to one in my stomach.

New Glarus "Two Women": Not as good as it might sound. It should be called "Two naggy ass fat women". New Glarus is always a conundrum to me. They make some absoultely delicious beer: "Fat Squirrel", "Spotted Cow", "Totally Naked", 'Back Forty Bock". And some really, really bad beer. This one would be in the second category for me.

I'm off to get fat at brunch. Peace.

Packers Draft Review

I liked it. How is that for analysis? Actually, I would've like it more if we would have taken about 3 more TEs. Seriously. After the draft, McCarthy said: "I like the TE position." You fucking think? Realistically, Thompson and McCarthy have earned my absolute trust, and I don't have the right to question anything they do. I felt like they drafted some players that may help ease the potential losses of James Jones, Brandon Jackson. And drafted others to create competition. It wouldn't shock me at all to see either only a few of the draftees make the roster, or for all of them to make it, and for some players that we assumed were safe to be cut. I'm excited about Randall Cobb. He will hopefully add a speedy, dynamic playmaker that we haven't exactly had. Not that we don't have playmakers, but we needed a guy that could return kicks and add an underneath speed element ala Desean Jackson or Percy Harvin. Obviously, I'm just hoping we get a homeless man's Percy Harvin (minus the migraines). Anyway, lockout is back on, so we will see these guys when we see them.

BREW CREW HANGOVER

-Grienke is back next week! Championship!
-Kammeron Loe decided to get some work in on the side this morning because he hasn't been pitching enough.
-Carlos Gomez got thrown out by a busboy trying for a second omelet at brunch.
-Ryan Braun is fucking good.

BEER(S) OF THE WEEKEND
-Pearl Street Brewery Downtown Brown: not very good at all to be honest. Disappointed.
-Hinterland Door County Cherry Wheat: spectacular. Tastes like cherry pie filling in your mouth, but strangely not sweet, and no aftertaste.
-Titltetown Victory Ale: super tasty. A dark brown, but not heavy.

WEATHER

I'm never going to be able to golf this year. I resolved I was going to do it more. Bought half of a pass to get BOGO 18 holes at various courses. And it has been raining, cold or 70mph winds every goddamn weekend. Maybe next weekend.

I Smell a DL Trip for Yo

Today marked the fourth straight below average (at best) start for Yovani Gallardo. His ERA has gone from 1.20 to 5.70. I've looked into some of the advanced stats to see if he might be incredibly unlucky, but based upon my very average understanding of these stats, it appears that he has just sort of sucked for the last month. And you know what that means? That's right! Everyone's favorite game: the phantom injury!!! This happens, especially to pitchers, every year. Guy comes out, struggles in a few starts, gets shelled and obviously has lost his confidence, and rather than embarrass him by benching him or sending him to AAA (which I absolutely NOT suggesting they do with Yo), the player is suddenly injured and needs a 15 day DL trip. Jeff Suppan was famous for this. He went on like a dozen random DL trips in his time in Milwaukee (although his might be related to the voodoo doll I had).

Anyway, I bet Yo is on the DL within the next two days.

PS. Ardolis Chapman is fucking ridiculous. Dusty Baker is either an idiot for not using him in a bigger role (closer or starter). Or Dusty Baker has learned from the long, long line of careers he has ruined, and his trying to keep his innings down. Either way, Chapman seemed to have figured things out in the past two days. When you can throw 178 mph, and follow it up with a 90mph slider for a strike, hitters are fucked. That's analysis.

Tired of Uncle Sam

Tax season is officially (well I guess only technically, you could be one of those idiots in line at the post office at 11:58 p.m.) over. If you haven't guessed by past posts, my real job involves taxes for a few months per year. By real job, I mean the one I get sort of paid to do. Unlike my other jobs, which include: blogger, professional asshole, guy who bitches a lot, sports enthusiast, video game participant, beer connoisseur, and sex machine (just ask Sports Bottle). Unfortunately, I rather enjoy the jobs I do not get paid for, and not so much the one I do get paid for. I'm probably like 99.9% of America in those regards. I'm not complaining, I'm just saying that I'm waiting patiently for the residuals that Bear has assured me are in the mail, to start rolling in, and for UCSB616's job offer from Herm Edwards and ESPN.

While I wait, I'm going to make an effort to post more. You've heard it before, I've said it before, and it probably isn't any more true this time. Fuck off. As the other "members" of this blog can likely attest to, it is much harder to come up with stuff to write about than it looks like. Said task has been made harder by the advent of Facebook (in 2001, member since 2010!) and Twitter (homeless people were on before I was). I tend to waste one or two potentially great blog topics on a 120 character zinger. Which is funny because it isn't that much funnier when I stretch it into 10,000 words. Meaning perhaps I should stick to Tweets. Fuck it, I'm not going to do that.

I have found that baseball is a very easy sport to blog about, because something new happens every day. I love to blog about the Brewers, especially when something terrible happens like last weekend. I'm much more efficient being negative.

We are 15 games in, and the Crew is 7-8. Can't say I'm that disappointed. Looking at the schedule, I would've expected about 8-7 at this point. Really, we could be 12-3 or some such, but such is the fickle nature of baseball. I realized this evening as I was watching Rickie Weeks fuck up a simple double play against the Phillies which eventually led to a 1-0 deficit, that I haven't blogged about my least favorite Brewer yet this year. There are many candidates, but first I should get the qualifications out of the way. It needs to be a player that routinely seems to fuck up, and/or play well below their physical gifts/potential. This player also needs to play much, much more than is warranted, and would lead one to wonder if they have some kind of nude photo of the manager and/or the manager's daughter to use as black mail. In the Ned Yost years (other than Ned Yost himself) my least favorite Brewers were: Rickie Weeks (who has since totally redeemed himself and become one of my favorites), Jeff Suppan (who stick sucks donkey cock), Derrick Turnbow (aka Turnblow) and Eric Gagne. See, it is much easier to hate closers because they have such an obvious effect on game outcomes. I hated Weeks because Yost would stick him in the leadoff spot even though he hit about .200, and he was an abortion at 2B. I hated Suppan because he was terrible.

Right now, the following are on my list: Randy Wolf, Carlos Gomez, Mark Kotsay, Yuni Bettancourt and Erick Almonte. I'm taking Wolf off the list because he dominated in his last outing. I'm removing Kotsay and Almonte because even though they are truly terrible, they are fill in players, and will eventually be in Nashville or bagging groceries. I don't have a great feel yet for Yuni. He doesn't seem to do anything very well, but his suckiness might just be so absolute that I don't realize how bad he actually is. Plus, I had really low expectations for the Yuni era. That leaves me with Carlos Gomez. Gomez is fast, and he plays reasonably good defense (mostly because he's fast). But he is a moron. He is a terrible baserunner despite his ridiculous speed. He can't hit ATT ALL (he just got an RBI double as I type this), and Roenicke keeps sticking him at the 2 spot. He frustrates me to no end. In addition, he's got Tony fucking Plush, who is nearly as good on defense, probably as fast or faster, is a good baserunner, and can actually put the bat on the ball. In short, he's got Plushdamentals. I hate that Gomez plays over Plush for no reason.

On to this weekend again. What a disaster. Swept by a bad team. Can't happen. And what the fuck is up with Yo? He was awful yesterday. We have to get the game tonight because we get Halladay and Lee the next two games. And we can't get swept again.

OTHER RANDOM THOUGHTS

-CP3 is fucking awesome. Lakers will still win the series, relax.

-I purchased the new albums from Foo Fighters and Rise Against this weekend. The new Foo is absurdly good. The Rise Against album is solid too. One thing about Rise Against, and I've only heard the album before this one and maybe I didn't dissect it, but it seems like almost every song on this album is a political anthem. I didn't get that from the last album (although there were certainly a few). The music is great, but it is sort of a stressful and intense listen. No?

-Beer of the night: Mighty Arrow, the spring seasonal from New Belgium. A tasty pale ale if you are into it.

-Weather is calling for 6 to 10 inches of snow. This could be its own blog post. It is fucking April 18th. Seriously UCSB616, don't fucking move from California permanently. I realize there are a lot of problems there. But the weather is perfect. As awesome as we are in the midwest, the weather isn't worth it. It isn't. It is almost fucking May and I don't feel comfortable putting away my snowblower. Also, it was 40 with 30mph wind today.

-I did about 2 seconds of research. It seems that Tony Plush was created by Nyjer Morgan. The twitter feed is obviously not him, but he is a fascinating dude.

The Plane Has Crashed Into The Mountain

"This team is toast."--Tom Hardicourt. I really couldn't have said it better. Pity poor Hardicourt for being forced to watch this shit on a daily basis. At least I can change the channel. He ends the article with "They are embarrassing themselves." Wow.

On the bright side, guess who's not going to work, but going to Miller Park with a bunch of drunken factory workers? This guy! And who is going to a game on Saturday? This guy! And who is going to the second annual Brewers-Cubs, try not to get murdered because not only are the FIBs drunk, but they are also bitter because the Cubs are somehow worse than the Brewers, game in September. Wheeeee!

Seriously, fucking trade Corey Hart right this fucking instant. And listen REALLY hard on Prince. That is all.

LEBRON

Like I'm not watching that shit tonight. Although "sources" have already leaked that he is going to the Heat. Although it has already been definitively reported that he was going to Chicago, New York and Cleveland this week too, so I don't take alot of stock in "sources". Also, whoever wrote the article on ESPN.com that I didn't read that said that this was worse than anything He Who Shall Not Be Named has done to America, is an idiot. Le Bron hasn't done this six straight years.

Free Agent-mares

I had vivid dreams about NBA free agency last night. The dreams were so intense for some reason, that I woke up feeling like I hadn't slept at all. And I don't know why. Its not like the Bucks are going to sign LeBron. I legitimately think that the possibility of LeBron and Wade playing together is so fascinating to me, that I couldn't wait to find out. Of course, I woke up and realized two things 1) The NBA isn't that great, and draft/free agency are the two best parts. The season itself is boring. 2) The NBA I guess cares about rules, unlike the NFL when guys sign $100 million dollar contracts 30 seconds after midnight, when there is no way you could even read a contract that long, or even sign it, that quickly, because nobody had done shit by 6am. To be continued I guess.

BREW CREW HANGOVER

Lost two of three to the Astros. Can we stop this charade of pretending we are going to make up a 9 game deficit? Because the Astros are really bad. Thank You.

What a Bust

Went on a Brewer bus trip yesterday and it was disappointing to say the least. The Crew lost, which sucks. I knew only 4 other people on the bus, and none of them got drunk, which made my desire to get drunk awkward and pointless. The people that I didn't know were all in their late 30's, early 40's, and were white trash. On the bright side, at least I don't have to pretend to be interested in soccer anymore. Although, I did find it very interesting that the U.S.-Ghana game was on all of the TVs in the Miller Park concourse. Miller Park is still the best stadium I've been to as far as the overall experience when you take tailgating festivities into account. This post was rambling and incoherent.

In other news, five straight wins does not a playoff team make. I still believe the worst possible thing that could happen is for the Brewers to go like 15-5 in their next 20, get to about 6 back, and think they have a shot. They don't.

OJSFA draft, the 5th annual, and the longest draft in sports, begins in earnest next weekend with the keeper portion. Bear has the honor of starting.

I swear I'm not on LSD. This was an absolute waste of a post.

Oh Come On!

Here are what I feel are the relevant stats for Trevor Hoffman. Last season, he pitched 54 innings, and gave up 11 earned runs. This season, he has pitched 13 innings, and has given up 19 earned runs. He has not given up more than 19 ER in a season since 2001. He was 34 years old then. He is 43 now. So let's not bother arguing about whether he is done. Because he is D-U-N.

What I think is important to note is the club's reaction to what has happened. Which has been nothing. And THAT is why Kenny Macha needs to go. Because someone needs to step in and say "Hey, Trev, you've been great. But your ERA is over 13 and you can't get Betty White out. So do us a favor and either retire or take a Suppatical (fake trip to DL)." And Kenny isn't willing to do it. Macha needs to go not because his personality sucks. Or because a manager is somehow supposed to convince Major League players to not suck. He needs to go because a manager's job is to put the team in the best position to win. And he is unwilling to do it I guess. Is this a reaction to an 8 game losing streak? Probably. But that is MY job as a fan.

I look forward to Willie Randolph's first game as manager on Friday night.

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.

Quick Things

Before I get to the really important stuff, I've got a couple of thoughts:

-The above HR celebration was the best one I've seen in quite some time. It is a really good thing the crew isn't letting something like a 14 game deficit get them down.

-I'm pretty surprised that Brohm and Sutton got cut. And I'm surprised that we kept 3 FBs. Also, Deshawn Wynn has nude pictures of Ted Thompson's daughter. There is no other logical explanation.

-Badgers were so-so. Tolzien looked really, really good actually. Running game was surprisingly bad. Defense had some nice moments. Officiating was a disaster, and made the game alot closer than it needed to be.

-I am ridiculously pumped for the NFL to start.

Points of Interest (Or Not)

-Nothing big to write about today, so I'm going straight up list style.

-I sort of watched most of the Brewer game yesterday. Color me not that fucking interested. Other than that one inning, it wasn't real exciting.

-I'm far more interested in whether Tyrell Sutton is going to make the Packers, or if Desmond Bishop is going to beat out A.J. Hawk for starting MLB. Is that so wrong?

-I don't have a real good feel for either of the above questions, because I've watched both preseason games through a haze of booze.

-Friday we got invited to sit in the back yard, drink, and watch the Packers v. Cardinals. I've got no desire to ever drink again (hang over day three), but I was going to watch anyway...

-In my fantasy baseball league with the old dudes, I've basically got $75 riding on the matchup this week. 2nd place in regular season gets $75, I'm in second 2 games up, and I'm playing the third place dude.

-Madden '10 update: Packers went 13-3, lost to the Giants at home in the NFC Championship 28-23. I got dominated by their defense, but took the Pack inside the 15 with under a minute left, and proceeded to have TWO dropped TD passes (Ruvell Martin and Jordy Nelson), and two other incompletions. It was a driving snowstorm, and there were piles of snow surrounding the sidelines, which is pretty cool. I pulled a Ted Thompson and drafted a WR in round 1, even though I had one of the best receiving corps in the league. Traded away Poppinga and Harrell for cap space (because I used the space up re-signing Kampman and Jennings. Which is why they have so much space now, because Thompson isn't a fucking idiot.) To start season two, Raji (pro-bowler as a rookie) tore his pectoral and is out for the year. And I open against the Giants.

-Some bitch was riding three inches away from me all the way to work this morning. I wanted to fucking slam on the brakes and kill both of us.

-I now have 3 NFL and 1 college fantasy team. But I only care about the one that has Kevin Walter starting at WR.

-I hope to (Sports Bottle's) god that the NFL forces the Cowboys to spend $2 mil to move that scoreboard. That would be awesome.

Dells Debut

So tomorrow is going to mark the fourth consecutive Saturday that I get black out drunk. For a man my age, with a real job, and a house, and a wife (thank (Sports Bottle's) god no fucking kids), it is an impressive feat. Very difficult to do, especially since it was probably around 2003 the last time it happened.

Yes friends, this weekend is Schmock's bachelor party. It is taking place in Wisconsin Dells. I have never been drunk in Wisconsin Dells, which makes it one of the few "major" destinations in Wisconsin that I have not been intoxicated in. In fact, it has probably been about 15 years since I've been there at all. And every trip involved just going to a waterpark and going home. It is, after all, the waterpark capital of the world. So I will get drunk in Wisconsin Dells, which is nice. I imagine the party to fall somewhere in between falling asleep cuddling Worm at 8 p.m., and paying prostitutes to do a group golden shower on Schmock. The possibilities are endless.

I really have no idea what to expect, because I have never been there before. Each city in Wisconsin has its own ebbs and flows to drinking. They are hard to describe, and generally if you are good at it, you end up blacked out regardless, but if you have spent significant time drinking in various Wisconsin hamlets, you understand what I mean.

I'm not really sure what my point is other than that I'm getting up at like 5:30 am tomorrow, to drive to a strange town to drink all day.

VEGAS UPDATE

The shit is on bitches. Sports Bottle, Richard, a bunch of strange homosexual men and I are headed to Vegas in late October. I intentionally spent an extra $45 on a plane ticket so I could a) drive an extra 3 hours, b) get zero sleep on Monday morning, c) start drinking at 9 a.m. on a Thursday, and d) join the mile high club with Sports Bottle. Now that the tickets were finally booked, and if you haven't done it in a while, is super motherfucking stressful and time consuming, I can get back to blogging instead of working as opposed to checking plane ticket prices and not working.

PS. Plenty of space available on the gayest Vegas trip ever. And yes, I'm talking to you Twinkie.

BREW CREW HANGOVER

Hey, they didn't lose last night. And the pitching staff didn't give up any home runs. Too bad the mighty Washington Nationals are up next. The funny thing is, as bad as the Crew has been, Braun and Fielder have been carrying my fantasy team. Oh, and I haven't watched a whole game in like 2 weeks, and it has been not stressful.

NEW BLOG

unkownqbdiary.blogspot.com had a pretty good first, and likely last post. I agree with much of it, except that He Who Shall Not Be Named is definitely to blame. And I wish bodily harm on him. Or at least bags of bodily fluids. His "fans" are fucking annoying as shit. (EDITORS NOTE: Did you realize you fucking spelled "UNKNOWN" wrong in the title of your blog? UnKOWN is going to make it difficult to find my man.)

Pity Bill Castro?

Bill Castro was one of the casualties of Doug Melvin's murderin' spree yesterday. He was canned after 18 years on the team. I'm not saying Bill Castro is a good pitching coach. I'm not saying that a pitching coach does or doesn't affect the results that a pitching staff puts up. I'm just saying that he had Jeff Suppan, Braden Looper, Mike Burns, Carlos Villanueva and Seth McClung starting games for him this year. And he was the one that took the bullet instead of any one of these pieces of shit. Oh, and hopefully they weren't comparing this year's results with last year's. Because last year we had Ben Sheets and CC mutherfucking Sabathia. Being a pitching coach (like any coach) and having any success, depends alot on what you have to work with. And the cupboard was pretty bare at starter this year, due to injuries and general shittyness. Firing Bill Castro is like firing a writer for not finishing a book on time, when you took away his laptop and replaced it with a calligraphy pen. Or letting a WR go when he didn't produce like last year, because he lost a fucking leg in the offseason.

But life's a bitch, and I'll get over it.

At Least Training Camp Starts Saturday

We just totally jumped into a time machine and stepped back to the mid 1990's last night. I knew it was a bad omen when we had a Pat Listach sighting. Jeff Suppan was Mr. Hyde last night. The entire bullpen was shit. Josh Willingham turned into the Babe Ruth-Barry Bonds-Ted Williams three-some love child (At least I had him in my fantasy lineup!). The sad thing is that we actually hit a little last night for a change, and it didn't matter. I think we are totally and completely fucked. An 8 run loss at home to one of the worst teams of the past decade will do this to a guy.

I am seriously starting to harken back to the times between about 1995 and 2006 when about July 28th, a young man's fancy would turn to analyzing 10-yard outs of dudes in helmets and shorts, and my investment in the Brewers involved looking at the 9-3 loss in the box scores in the morning paper. Of course, I didn't have cable for most of that time, and FSN didn't start showing almost every game until around 2004, and then I didn't even live in Wisconsin, so ignoring the Crew was alot easier. And the Crew was always about 20 games out by this time and there were no expectations because we were a poor team, with a shitty owner that hadn't been to the postseason since 1982.

Alot of that has changed now, so quitting is going to be increasingly difficult. I'm not quite to the point where I am not going to watch nearly every game. But it is going to be alot easier to switch in The Real World knowing that the Crew is probably getting their asses kicked. 4 games out is by no means done. But 4 games out in 4th place makes things alot harder. The Crew needs to win out in this series. And not waste any prospects in a trade. And hope for the best. I am getting fucking pumped for football season.

ASIDES:

Also getting pumped for the drunkest month of my life since 2003 that begins Friday. 2 bachelor parties, one fantasy draft, one Packer preseason game. I might die. And/or get divorced.

Michael Vick is getting jobbed.