5 days and counting!

With Opening Day right around the corner thought I'd check in on brewers.com

what I found was they posted their new commerials.

Some are kinda clever others gavea big WTF? That honor goes to #3 Shotgun.

Looks like Hart likes riding Rickey from behind.

enjoy:

http://milwaukee.brewers.mlb.com/media/video.jsp?topic_id=8953570&c_id=mil

Week 1 of Brewers Camp? Entertaining.

It has been an interesting week for the Brewers in Spring Training, as they have finally hit the field.

1. The Giants are apparently a bunch of tender little guys...they have evidently been stewing for the last six months since the Brewers (GASP!) celebrated after a walk-off home run by Prince Fielder at home plate. The Ginas got back at the Prince by plunking him with the first pitch in his first at-bat of the Spring. I bet they feel better about themselves now! On a different note, I still don't understand the uproar over the bowling pin celebration after the walk-off. Every team celbrates a walk-off. Most teams do some variation of the "everybody jumps around at home plate and pounds the home run hitter in the head" celebration. Some home run hitters throw their helmet in the air as they jump on home plate. The Brewers decided to get creative and fall down. What's the difference? The pre-meditation? Whatever.

2. Mark Rogers, entering his 7th professional season but still just 24, threw his first pitch in a Brewers uniform today, coincidentally in the same game as another oft-injured starter (Ben Sheets) pitched for the first time against his old team. Rogers went two scoreless innings - here's hoping he can continue to climb back from injury.

3. The best news this week? Corey Hart can't see. He's going to go with prescription goggles this season. Sweet. Rec Specs! Hart continues down the path blazed by Bill Hall - remember when Lasik surgery was going to fix Billy? Um, yeah. As I have not been able to find a picture of Corey Hart wearing his prescription sunglasses during a game yet, the Wrong Week graphic design staff prepared an artist's rendering of what it will probably look like.

Enjoy.

Alternate Brewers 40th Anniversary Bobbleheads

Although quickly buried by the news of the Doug Davis signing, the bigger announcement today had to do with the unveiling of the Brewers' 40th Anniversary Celebration.

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And the best news coming out of this celebration? Was it the fact that the Brewers are going to wear those hideous 90's uniforms for a game against the Nationals?

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Ben McDonald was totally awesome.

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No. Amazingly, that's not even the best part of the celebration.

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The best part is that they are going to do some sweet bobbleheads commemorating a great moment in each of the past four decades:

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1970's - "Hall of Famer Hank Aaron hitting his 755th and final home run as a Brewer"

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1980's - "Cecil Cooper’s base hit that was the tying and winning runs in Game 5 of the 1982 American League Championship Series"

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1990's - "Yount recording his 3,000th base hit"

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2000's - "CC Sabathia getting the final out of the final regular season, playoff-clinching game in 2008."
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Now I'm not old enough to quibble with the 1970's bobblehead choice, although Hank Aaron is probably not best remembered as a 42-year-old Brewer. And frankly, I don't remember much of the early part of the 80's either.
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But how about some other great moments in Brewers history in those other decades that were left on the cutting room floor?
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1980's:

- 1988: Dale Sveum breaks his leg in a gruesome collision with Daryl Hamilton, wrecking his professional career. That would be a sweet bobblehead.

1990's: .

- 1990: Brewers and Mariners participate in an epic baseball brawl which lasted about 30 minutes, involved the bullpens emptying twice, and is recounted in some detail here. A perfect commemorative bobblehead opportunity. I think a bobblehead of Tom Trebelhorn trying to avoid getting spiked during a brawl would make a super bobblehead.
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- 1991: Sal Bando is given the General Manager job.

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- 1997: Mediocre, light-hitting CF Chuckie Carr swings through a take sign, and then explained his actions to manager Phil Garner by saying "that's not Chuckie's game. Chuckie hacks on 2-0." A similarly mediocre blog later celebrated the event.
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- 1999: Rafael Roque is the Opening Day starter for Milwaukee. Let's read that again together. Rafael Roque is the Opening Day starter for Milwaukee.
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2000's:

- 2002: Reliever Mike Dejean freaks out on manager Jerry Royster when he tries to pull him, arguing with the skipper for nearly 30 seconds and refusing to give him the ball after loading the bases in the 9th inning. Royster and Dejean, nose to nose? I'd like that bobblehead.

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- 2002: Jose Hernandez is held out of the final four games of the season, in order to avoid setting a major league record for most strikeouts in a season.

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- 2003: Brooks Kieshnick becomes the first player in MLB history to hit a home run as a pitcher, a pinch hitter, and a designated hitter in the same season. The toolbox needs a bobblehead.

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- 2004: Chad Moeller hits for the cycle.

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I think these were all bobblehead-worthy moments for the Brewers in the last 3 decades. What did I miss?

Corey Hart SUCKS but asks for a raise?

Not going to pile on here but hey Corey read a paper, or least watch the news. If you did you might have picked up on a few things like;

1) The country's economy is in the toilet bowl

2) The unemployment rate seems to be increasing every day (unless you ask Obermann)

Oh yeah and if you read the sports section or watched a sports center highlight you might have noticed;

3) You SUCK.

               AB    R    H    RIB    SO     BA    OBP

2008     612   76  164   91     109   .268   .300

2009     419   64  109   48      92    .260    .335

Hart filed for $4.8 million with the club coming in at $4.15 million, a difference of $650,000.

Last year Hart made a modest $3.25 million.

Baseball (sports) salaries sometimes seem to be laughable. Not that the owners need to hoard all the money I just don’t like paying $7.25 for a beer and $5 for a luke warm brat.

That’s all I digress.

A Lot of Stuff Happened Today for the Brewers

So far this off-season, the Brewers have made the following changes to the 25-man roster that they ended the season with:

Add:

Go Go Gomez
Bring Your Z Game Gregg Zaun
Randy Wolf
LaTroy Hawkins
Rickie Weeks (coming off of injury)

Subtract:

JJ Hardy
Jason Kendall
Mike Cameron
Braden Looper
Felipe Lopez
Mark DeFelice (broken)

Probably Gone as Non-Tender Candidates:

Seth McClung
Jody Gerut

Do we like this team better now than where it ended last season? I'd have to say yes. Jason Kendall slugged like .300 last year. And he "managed the pitching staff" to a 5.50 ERA, so that's addition by subtraction just getting him off the roster.

2B is a huge question mark, as it has been every year that Rickie Weeks has been penciled in as the starter.

At SS, JJ couldn't have been productive at the plate if he played his home games at Helfair Field last season. Plus with apologies to Tom Brady, he's the slowest person on the planet. Escobar I'm sure will struggle some at the dish, but he's fast as hell and makes silly plays at SS. I'm good with the move here.

In CF, Cameron was a guy that I liked a lot more than most Brewers fans. But he made $10 million last year. Gomez is a plus defender who hasn't figured out how to steal first base yet, so they're probably gaining some defense while losing a lot of power. Overall probably a bit of a downgrade unless Gomez figures things out at the plate - it's hard to compare the players since they're so different.

Adding Wolf, while they overpaid, gives the Brewers a bona fide major league pitcher in the rotation behind Gallardo. I can't say I love this deal, because I think 3 years is too long, but it probably had to be done considering the backup plan in free agency was Jon Garland. Pass. Plus this will close off any Doug Davis talk - I seriously can't sit through another season of Doug Davis nibbling his way through a series of 3 and a half hour starts. Wolf has also been good against NL Central teams recently.

Finally, Hawkins got two years from Milwaukee, which is a bit of a surprise to me. His numbers look fine, and I recall he was pretty nasty when the Brewers faced him last year, but like Murdock said to me today, I can't get too worked up about a middle reliever. Coffey/Hawkins/Hoffman is potentially a pretty good 7/8/9 in the bullpen.

All in all the team is better than it was at the end of the year, if only because Wolf replaces Looper and his 97 home runs allowed from last year and someone other than Jason Kendall will be doing the catching. The Brewers still need another starter, and hopefully they're not depending on a Mulder type. What would it take to get Javy Vasquez from Atlanta? That's the guy I would target in the trade market.

Glimpses Of My Life

My vacuum cleaner has been working like a turd. Just blows shit around instead of sucking it up. With it resembling Planet Hoth outside, I felt it was a good time to look at that bad boy. Flipped it over, took it apart and found the problem. It was being clogging it up by - no joke - a Bill Hall baseball card. One of those free ones they hand out at Miller Park. Yep, that sonofabitch is still giving me headaches months after leaving the Brewers. Damn you, Bill Hall!

The strong get stronger

Granderson To Yanks, Edwin Jackson To D'Backs, Scherzer To Tigers


By Tim Dierkes [December 8, 2009 at 1:24pm CST]

As chronicled here, a three-team blockbuster trade has been agreed upon between the Yankees, Diamondbacks, and Tigers. The players:

The Yankees receive center fielder Curtis Granderson, who turns 29 in March. Granderson is owed $5.5MM in 2010, $8.25MM in '11, and $10MM in '12, with a $13MM club option/$2MM buyout for '13. That's $25.75MM guaranteed over the next three years. Melky Cabrera could now be expendable for the Yankees, and the Cubs are one possible suitor.

The Diamondbacks receive a pair of starting pitchers: Edwin Jackson and Ian Kennedy. Jackson, 26, is under team control for '10 and '11 and is owed an arbitration raise on this year's $2.2MM salary. Kennedy, 25 this month, missed most of the '09 season due to surgery to remove an aneurysm near his shoulder. As far as I can tell he is under team control for another six seasons. This is the second year in a row Jackson has been traded at the Winter Meetings.

The Tigers receive four players: starter Max Scherzer, relievers Daniel Schlereth and Phil Coke, and center fielder Austin Jackson. The Tigers get five years of Scherzer, six of Schlereth, five of Coke, and six of Jackson, potentially 22 years of control in total. Scherzer, 25, and Jackson, 23 in February, are probably considered the prizes of the haul.
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How did the D-Backs get Jackson? That is huge. I really don't care about the Yankees. But the Tigers picking up Scherzer is a nice pick-up well.

Too busy at work to keep up with the rumor mill, hoping the Chuckie hacks disciples could help get something going on here for my quick pop in procrastination.

So there is your task Hack-Heads. Fill-up the rumor mill in the comment section....

Z Game

The Brewers signed Gregg Zaun to play catcher.

This is notable for only one reason.

Bring Your Z Game

Don't skip the intro.

Interesting Sports Weekend

Let's review the weekend in sports:

1. Brewers trade JJ Hardy for Carlos Gomez. While Gomez's offensive numbers in the majors concern me (let's get that career OBP over .300 next year, fella) at least he has some tools and plays a fantastic defensive CF. I don't hate this trade like some do. Seriously, Hardy isn't very good. What did people expect to get back?

2. Badgers slip by Indiana. Clay/Ball looked good. So did Toon. Badgers secondary did not. Did IU's QB throw an incompletion? Chris Borland might be my new favorite Badger. Can he play corner?

3. Iowa lost to Northwestern. At home. This was just beautiful. Hawkeye fans currently feel like I felt when Minnesota beat Wisconsin in 1993. That is, they feel awful.

4. Navy beats Notre Dame. I think every head football coach at Notre Dame should have an automatic termination clause in his contract if he loses to Navy twice. What, exactly, has Charlie Weis done to deserve to continue as coach? Not that I'm complaining, mind you - I love it when Notre Dame loses to the service academies.

5. Bucks destroy the Knicks. With Murdock blowing kisses to him from the stands, Jodie Meeks has his coming-out party against the Knicks. No, that doesn't mean that he succumbed to Murdock's forward advances - it means that he scored a bunch of points. The Knicks are horrid.

6. 0-7 Bucs beat the Packers. WTF? LOL? Huh? For some reason, nobody started Tampa's D/ST in my fantasy football league this week. I guess nobody saw the two touchdowns coming. Does this finally convince all of the Ted/McCarthy backers that these two fools should be run out of town on a rail? News flash! 2007 was a fluke, engineered by a different QB and aided by lots of good breaks. The reality is that this team isn't very talented, hasn't been very talented since Ted came to town, and it sure as hell isn't well-coached. But it sure is young.

Gary Matthews, Jr? Pass!

No surprise that Gary Matthews wants out of Anaheim or LA (or wherever the hell that team actually plays), as he's the priciest bench player in the league.

Let's just officially end this before Brewers fans start clamoring for a trade to acquire this guy to replace Cammy in CF. Pretty average numbers and one amazing, PEDs, "If Bill Hall can be a team MVP in '06, then damn it so can I" season. NOT what the Brewers need for his price tag. Even if they work out some deal where the Angels absorb what's left of his contract and Melvin flips a minor leaguer, again, they just traded away Bill Hall for the same reason. If they acquire Matthews they may as well overpay for an aging innings eater that had a monster post season who's playing the back nine again.

Brewers look at 2nd washed-up Cardinal

Mulder to Milwaukee?
By Tom Haudricourt of the Journal Sentinel
Oct. 23, 2009 9:52 a.m.
ESPN's Buster Olney speculates on something in his blog today that makes a whole lot of sense to me -- that lefty Mark Mulder could end up in Milwaukee by next season.
Mulder was coached by Rick Peterson in Oakland and Peterson also helped work on his mechanics this year as Mulder sat out the season while recovering from shoulder surgery. Mulder also pitched for Brewers manager Ken Macha in Oakland.
What Mulder, 32, has left at this point is anyone's guess. I do know the Brewers were interested this year when they heard Mulder might be ready to throw for scouts. Unfortunately, Mulder never progressed to that point, so that idea was put on the shelf.
In any event, Mulder would be looking for a make-good contract which wouldn't cost a lot of money. And, as we all know, the Brewers are in dire need of pitching. It certainly wouldn't hurt to give Mulder a no-risk chance to prove he can still pitch.
So, I'll monitor this and let you know if there's any chance of Mulder joining the Brewers before next season.

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To be fair, I kind of like it at the right price. What that is will be interesting to see.

Trade Fielder? Trade Braun? Trade Witrado!

Lately, I'm sensing an interesting dynamic between the two Journal Sentinel Brewers beat writers, senior writer and King Panda Tom H. and junior writer Anthony Witrado.

Witrado, you see, has been doing two main things in his chats and other media appearances ever since the Brewers fell out of contention: Advocating a trade of either Prince Fielder or Ryan Braun this off-season in the hunt for starting pitching, and bitching about Ryan Braun's defensive effort. He's been pushing for a Prince trade for a while now, and has more recently been taking Ryan Braun to task for what he seems to think is his defensive loafing and stat-seeking ways on offense. He's also started saying that he thinks the Brewers are discussing a trade of Braun - he said so in a recent radio appearance on AM 1250.

Most recently an intrepid chatter named Brandon from Milwaukee called Witrado out in the latest Witrado chat (sidenote - a major failure on the part of our blog for failing to ask ridiculous questions of Witrado - our bad):

Q: brandon, milwaukee - when the hell are you going to shut up about trading prince fielder and ryan braun? Nobody is unhappy with anything, those guys are just dissapointed and they expected better (and rightfully so). When youre best player speaks out about the teams performance (expecially the pitching staff) that player(especially if hes doing HIS job) has the right to say "hey we are not playing well as a group". Thats leadership, take notes. and he can say our pitching is bad, just like you, me, and everyother fan will agree this teams pitching staff this year "SUCKED". again, braun DID NOT ask for a trade, so my advice to you is to put a damn sock in it, and stop it with these ridiculous rumors about trading fielder and braun because it WILL NOT HAPPEN!!!!!!!!!

A: Anthony Witrado - Bitter much? ... Also, I'm nowhere near the only person saying these things, including some in the Brewers organization. You might have separation anxiety if these guys leave, but there are docs who can help out with that kind of stuff, I hear.

Haudricourt, on the other hand, has pretty consistently argued against trading Prince at this point, saying that it rips a hole too gaping in the middle of the lineup, starting pitching be damned. I don't recall him even addressing a Braun trade, which makes little sense given the length of time on his fairly team-friendly deal.

Today, King Panda attended the Brewers' season-ending presser. And right off the bat, asked the Mustache about trading Prince or Braun in search of pitching.

The Brewers are willing to do most anything this winter to improve their pitching staff.
Except trade either Prince Fielder or Ryan Braun.

That was made quite clear Wednesday afternoon at the Brewers' annual end-of-the-season press conference at Miller Park. GM Doug Melvin said he might have to sacrifice some offense this winter to improve his woeful starting pitching.

So, I asked point blank if that meant either Braun or Fielder might be sacrificed and Melvin seemed taken aback by the idea.

"That would be a tough one," said Melvin. "I didn't mean it that way. I don't see that happening."

In separate discussions I had with Melvin and assistant Gord Ash after the news conference, they said they just didn't see getting value back in pitching by trading Braun or Fielder, who form the most productive offensive duo in the majors.

"That's the great debate," said Ash. "What helps you more, the No. 1 starter or the top slugger? I'll go with the hitter. There's so much uncertainty wtih pitching. You have to be open-minded with anything but some players are more painful to trade. There comes a time when financial implications come into play but we're not at that point with either one."

Was King Panda finally trying to shut Witrado up about his theories? Show him that his "sources" in the Brewers organization were f'ing with him to make him look silly (sillier?) with his Braun trade rumors? Or was he just asking the question that everyone is interested in going in to this offseason?

Probably a little of both.

I also think that Witrado is going to be somewhere else next season. I think Ryan Braun has that much power - he is going to demand that the Journal Communications trade Witrado's ass off to the Appleton Inquirer to cover the Wisconsin Timber Rattlers or something next season.

So look for a new beat writer next Spring to replace Witrado. Just a hunch.