Friday, January 19, 2007

Top 5 Brewer Issues

We are a mere 28 days until Brewer pitchers and catchers report for duty….never too early to talk Brew Crew baseball.

Here are my top 5 issues coming into the spring.

1) Red Bull. Seriously, after CoCo Cordero is there anyone in the Brewer’s bully that you feel confident when they take the bump? Shouse, I guess. D-Bow? Wise? Capellan? Botallico? Crim? Haas?

2) Ouch! Milwaukee looks solid on paper, but do you trust the health of Sheets, Jerry James, Weeks and Koskie? I don’t.

3) Molasses. As in, slow as molasses. Other than Rick Weeks, can anybody steal a base? Rick had 19, the next highest was Carlos Lee with 12. In case you haven’t herd, Lee now plays in Houston. Who can go 1st to 3rd on a single? Score from 1st on a double? Rick, JJ and that’s about it.

4) Yost Infection. Look, Ned is a good guy and the players love him. I’m just not buying his Xs and Os. Pitching changes, lineups, pinch hitters…Ned is below average in my opinion. He’s not Jerry Royster, but he’s not Sparky Anderson either.

5) Staff Infection. Most are high on the Beer Maker’s rotation. The Sporting News even ranked it the 5th best in the NL. I’m not so sure. Sheets will get hurt, Vargas sucks, and even 2006 All Star Chris Capuano had a clunky 1-8 record with an ERA over 5.00 after the break. Doesn’t this make you nervous?

We will see how Spring Training pans out on these issues. Nubs Matera is predicting “at least a Wild Card berth.” I hope he’s right, but I wouldn’t bet on it.

1 comment:

Nubs said...

Chopp,

Your pessimism disturbs me.

The pen is strong with T Bow, Wise, and Capellan. Plus I wouldn’t put it past Doug/ Ned to put Vargus back there and start Action Jackson in the 5 hole.

As for speed Hall has plenty of it, and quality base running has as much to do about technique and fundamentals as it does speed.

Ok, I guess you can question sheets but I like to think the glass is over served rather then half empty. The rest I am not worried about. JJ & Rickey were both fluke injuries last year. They will be back. I am more worried about Koskie’s phantom concussion. But This might mean hall gets to play 3rd were he belongs. Then you can have an outfield of Hart, Tony Jr., and jenks/Gross in RF. I like it.

So stop getting down just because you backed out of your 10 pack and gave up your playoff ticket priority.

CREW 2007!