Disrespect

Often, in Urban conversations among athletes, the term ‘disrespect’ comes up. It is usually centered around a verbal slight that the athlete has experienced or believes he has experienced. But rarely has an athlete who is the center of attention had others use the word to express their dismay. And never has a Major League team shown such sophomoric behavior and insensitivity than have the Milwaukee Brewers to one of their bright young stars.

Zach Davies is a young pitcher for the Crew whom the Brewers acquired at last year’s trade deadline from the Baltimore Orioles in exchange for OF Gerardo Parra. Many of you probably recall his starts from last September. He appeared in six games for the Brewers totaling 34 innings. He put up a pretty solid 3.71 ERA and 3.81 FIP. His .210 BAA was excellent, which helped keep his WHIP quite manageable (1.21). For those who are not up to speed with the vernacular of the MLB stat wonks…he showed a lot of promise with an amazing amount of poise for such a young pitcher. After he was traded, Buck Showalter, Manager of the Baltimore Orioles called the Brewer manager, Craig Counsell, and told him he was getting a bright young star.

Davies has a slight build (6’0”, 150 lbs) and has a fastball in the 88-91 range. While his build and average fastball is a call his critics give, don’t believe this lack of confidence. Believe the importance he brings to the Brewers as a starter. His change-up is terrific. And he also has an good curveball. But it is his above average command that allows everything to work. Like most pitchers, he needs his command to succeed.

However, he excels in one pivotal area: batted ball distribution. While many today are fly ball pitchers, Davies has always induced ground balls at a well above average rate. It’s an impressive package. Counsell points to Davies’ growing relationship with catchers Jonathan Lucroy and Martin Maldonado as one reason for his recent success. “They’re really getting on the same page and making good choices,” Counsell said. “He’s been on the attack. He’s got all four pitches as weapons. I think he’s really starting to get a feel for playing with the hitter front-to-back, side-to-side. “It’s good stuff.”

Davies used his weapons just before the All-Star break in meeting and beating the Washington Nationals. The Nationals’ lineup features reigning NL MVP Bryce Harper and current NL batting leader Daniel Murphy, who was hitting .347. “He’s a young starter who is learning as he goes and proving as he goes; he’s gaining more confidence, getting comfortable with his stuff, how it plays to hitters and how it needs to be good,” Counsell said. “He’s getting it through experience. It’s not easy to go out there for a young guy and what’s good is that he’s taking everything that’s happened before, applying it and getting better. “

It was interesting how Davies found his way into the starting lineup this season. Matt Garza, 32, was expected to return to the Brewers’ rotation after losing his spot late last season, but he was placed on the disabled list instead. Davies stood out in the Spring as a likely candidate to step into the rotation.

The year before, he faced the Cardinals, always a problem for the Cream City Nine. “He just made quality pitches,” Cardinals manager Mike Matheny said.”He used his breaking ball to steal strikes early in the count. But it was about fastball location and chasing out of the zone with the change-up,” Cardinals manager Mike Matheny said. It left St. Louis’ sluggers frustrated after entering the day second in the National League with 71 homers and a .460 slugging percentage. ‘It’s just one of those where he just had trouble finding the feel on a consistent basis,’ Matheny said. ‘But still, he only gave up only a couple runs, five hits. But he had a lot of traffic and a lot of stress innings.’

Kolten Wong, who struck out twice, said Davies kept the Cardinals off-balance with his change-up. ‘Just something that caught us off guard,’ Wong said. ‘He kept us off balance with his fastball coming in and threw that change-up away.’

That’s the kind of stuff he brings to the game. And he did it once again against the Nationals. That was Tuesday before the All-Star game. On Wednesday morning, the infamous Milwaukee Brewers optioned Davies to Class AAA Colorado Springs to open a roster spot to add first baseman/outfielder Andy Wilkins from that club. It was noted that the team had been playing short-handed on the bench while carrying eight relief pitchers for several weeks. Here, their winning pitcher the previous night in a 5-2 victory over Washington, boosting his record to 6-4 on a losing ball club with a 4.10 ERA in 15 starts, including a 6-1 mark and a 3.24 ERA over his last 12 outings, was ceremoniously banished to the Sky Sox.

Astounding!

Astoundingly stupid.

The Brewers PR spin was that in sending down Davies, the Brewers said he would not pitch for Colorado Springs, which also entered its All-Star break after play on that Sunday. But rather then sending down one of their incompetent relief pitchers, which are many, they pick on the kid…a kid who is a rising star in their own organization. To make matters worse, the official pronouncement from the Brewers was that Davies would not pitch for Colorado Springs. But a player must remain in the minors for 10 days when optioned. Thus Davies would be recalled to pitch for the Brewers on the third day after the break in Cincinnati. That would be today.

But that’s not all. The cheapness of the Milwaukee Nine caused Davies to lose 10 days of major-league service time as well as about $24,000 in salary with the demotion.

To his credit, the mild Mr. Davies, upon hearing the news, quietly told reporters ‘Baseball is a business.’

His agent, the legendary Scott Boras, said the Milwaukee Brewers should not have have sent rookie right-hander Zach Davies to the minors for 10 days to open a spot for an additional bench player. Boras was more direct, saying, “In this game, performance earns respect. After beating one of the best teams in the National League, he was told he no longer was a member of the team. “It’s disrespect for someone who will be a principal part of the organization for years to come, to add a bench player for 10 days. Not exactly a valued ethic. In this game, teams do not send down starting pitchers who are performing well.’

He added, ‘Flying a starting pitcher cross-country interrupts his regular routine and his normal bullpen sessions. This is not how you prepare successful starting pitchers.’

Meanwhile, the Freshman Brewers General Manager, David Stearns, said he meant no disrespect to Davies in making the player move. Stearns said the major goal was to provide another bat for the bench during a period in which Davies would not have pitched for the Brewers. Unfortunately, without experience, young Mr. Stearns created a PR gaff unprecedented in modern baseball management.

‘We certainly value Zach’s contributions to the club and consider him an important part of our starting rotation,’ Stearns said. ‘Given that he wasn’t scheduled to pitch for a 10-day stretch, we wanted the extra flexibility of another player on the bench.’

Baseball purest suggest from a pure baseball point of view, the move makes great sense. Davies, as a starting pitcher who has already made his final start prior to the All-Star break, made it a good decision. He couldn’t be recalled for 10 days but with the All-Star break coming, that wouldn’t even cost Davies a start.

But the baseball side isn’t the only one to consider. We simply can’t forget about the human element. In sending Davies down, the Brewers are costing him service time. That can potentially impact the timing of him becoming a free agent down the road. This is not to say anything of the $24,000 he lost after beating one of the best teams in baseball.

Milwaukee was well within its rights to do this. It’s certainly true that baseball is a business. But good businesses also have business partners. With this move, the Brewers are giving a potential business partner a reason to be upset or frustrated with them down the road. At the moment, Davies isn’t upset (at least not publicly), but Boras clearly is. And you don’t want to make Mr. Boras angry.

It’s certainly a business move, and admittedly, stuff like this isn’t entirely unprecedented. Still, it’s generally not a kind of move pulled by the game’s top organizations. This goes to the root of all that is bad about the Milwaukee Brewers Baseball Club. They are not a class organization. Nor are they a top organization. In all the years they have been in the Majors, they have never won a World Series, a key mark in measuring the quality of a management team. They have a losing record. Again, not a mark of a good management team.

Now, the new management group is making its mark to the world.

They are disrespectful.

Play Ball!

P.S. So how did Davies do upon his return on Sunday, July 17, 2016?
7.0 inning pitched
92 Pitches
59 Strikes
0 Runs
4 Hits
5 SOs
0 Walks
9 Groundouts
4 Fly outs
23 Batters faced in 7 complete innings

Brewers lost in bottom of the 9th as Thornberg, with two outs walks Hamilton. Then, walks Votto. Will Smith comes in, can’t hold Hamilton as he goes to third and gives up winning run with a Passed Ball (Lucroy), Hamilton scoring.
Final score: Cincinnati 1 Milwaukee 0.

Nelson and Davies…And Pray For A Couple Of Rainies

The team that now calls the spaceship, Miller Park, home which is located just a few miles away from the center of Pigsville, is in essence an above average Triple A team. Now before the hounds of Bernie attack, all one has to do is take a look at the product on the field.

◎ It has a fading first baseman who can strike out more than he hits his mammoth home runs.
◎ The second baseman is an average ball player.
◎ The shortstop is one of the surprising players in the game today as he leads the national League in stolen bases and is hitting like…well an All-Star. But he makes so many running mistakes when he is on base, he ignites more fires then he puts out.
◎ The third baseman is a journeyman player on the down side of an average career.
◎ In left field, the best player on the team resides, when he is healthy, which is approximately 66% of the time.
◎ In centerfield, there are two young players who cannot hit in the Major Leagues. They are both ‘tweeners’, with one so bad, on Thursday he actually committed two errors in one inning.
◎ In right field, there is a potential big time player when he is not on the DL. Unfortunately, he has been unable to play more than he has been in the field.
◎ At catcher, you have the second best player on the team and perhaps the third best hitting catcher in the National League. His replacement can’t hit the dugout.
The starting pitching staff is good for 50 wins. Nelson, Davies and Anderson (sic) are the most reliable so far this season. Peralta is in the minors and Garza is in ‘who knows land’. We’ll find out today as he makes his 2016 pitching debut on the 19th of June. ‘Nelson and Davies…and pray for a couple of rainies.’
The relief pitching, while statistically looks good, is not. More times than not, they blow games the team struggled to lead, tied or win. All you have to due is look at this entire weekend against the Dodgers.

The other day (Wednesday), here is the starting line up:
Presley, Nieuenhuis and Flores made up the outfield.
Nelson was on the mound with Maldonado catching.
Lucroy at first, Gennett at second, Villar at short and Perez at third.

How’s that for a lineup, folks.

Their best player in the line up was playing out of position at first.

This was so bad, Milwaukee television never picked up the game. The only way you could see it was if you had DirecTV and tuned into the San Francisco Giant’s telecast or attended the game at AT&T.

The team’s big news on this day was the signing of their second round draft choice a fellow named Erceg.

So, what do the fans think?

‘What’s an Erceg?’

To consider what the fans think is recorded in the team’s home attendance figures… 27,597 on average per game or less than 1 million fans in 36 home games. This is 3,783 less than last year when the team average was 31,389. That’s a decrease of 12.1% in one year. The real problem with this is that in 2014, the team averaged 34,535 per game. The Era of Roenicke has caused the proud Cream City franchise to drift downward from first place to last place in about 21 months. Thus attendance is down 6,938 fans per game (-20.1%). But then again, who cares to watch a minor league team play, unless you enjoy watching the stars from the other teams.

If business is down -20.1% over two years, in any other business, someone’s head would roll. But not with the beloved Milwaukee Brewers. In the Cream City it is called…’rebuilding’. It is familiar to the fans of beer, cheese and brats. This team has been rebuilding since 1970.

On that beautiful day game at AT&T on Wednesday, where there was another sell-out crowd in the City By The Bay, the difference was clear. One was a division leading team and the other looked like an affiliate. The True Blue Brew Crew’s third baseman on this day threw the ball into the stands attempting to complete a double play, a throw reminiscent of those lovable days when Sheffield was trying to have the Brewers get rid of him. It was a pure Sheffield toss-for-freedom-from-the-Man.

Sheffield was the sixth pick of the first round in 1986. When brought up to The Show in 1989, he struggled at shortstop and the Brewers farmed him out due to ‘indifferent fielding’ while he insisted that his foot was hurt. In fact in Denver, he was diagnosed with a broken foot. When he returns two months later, he played third for the Brewers, a move he didn’t like. In 1990, he settle in at third and hit .294, but he was not a happy camper. In 1991, he had a shoulder and wrist injury and the Brewers really made him not like management by subjecting him to not-so-random drug tests as a byproduct of his relationship to Dwight Gooden, who had already been to rehab for cocaine problems. Then Sheffield suggested the Brewers owner, the one and only Bud Selig, who now has a statue of himself outside of Miller Park, had gone back on offering him a long-term deal. Sheffield was about to go unhinged. Fans had to be careful and alert on the First Base side. After being sent to the Padres for nothing (another great Brewer trade), he told Bob Nightingale of the Los Angeles Time, ‘The Brewers brought out the hate in me. I was a crazy man…I hated everything about the place. If the official scorer gave me an error, and I didn’t think it was an error, I’d say, ‘OK, here’s a real error’, and I’d throw the next ball into the stands on purpose.

But that’s all beside the point. We’re talking about today’s Milwaukee Brewers…a team destined for whatever.

You could see it in Spring Training. All these kids were running around. Blasick was not getting a single person out at the plate; there was a tightness with fielding that was due to the over training of infielders in hope that this team did not commit all of the real and mental errors of the Roenicke Era. There was virtually no home runs except for the rookie who wanted to show the world that he was going to make this team. And then there were few appearances of Braun who was making his first moves since back surgery in the off-season. Lucroy was making sounds that he wasn’t happy to be with a team who was destined for a bad season. And, there was no shortstop as he was traded for a #5 pitcher and a tired veteran 3rd baseman. In essence, it looked like the old Kansas City teams that were continually being depleted of its talent whenever the Yankees wanted to restock their team.

At the end of the third inning on Wednesday, the Brewers line score was this: 0 runs 1 hit 3 errors. AFTER THREE INNINGS.
At the end of the fourth inning on Wednesday, the Brewers scorecard was this: 0 runs 1 hit 4 errors. AFTER FOUR INNINGS.
At this point in the game, the Giant’s announcers said that the Fourth Inning ‘must seem like 2 hours to the Brewers. It is an odd line score.’

You think?

At the end of the game on Wednesday, the Brewers line score was: 0 runs 8 hits 4 errors (with the possibility of 2 more errors which were scored hits by the homer official scorer).

This is not a Major League team’s performance chart.

When Sofia Loren said, ‘Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Wednesday…’ the new twist is ‘Nelson, Davies, rain, rain’.

But the sadness of this day was even with Nelson on the mound, the team that he is with, has to hit and score runs.

They didn’t

They were swept out of San Francisco in three games like the Fog in the evening. And in the first three games in Los Angeles, they have lost 2 out of 3. With Garza on the mound today, with memories of his last season, pray for rain in a dirt dry LA should be the first thing you do today.

#watchingattanasio #win63

Play Ball!

And, Happy Father’s Day.

Wily’s Gone!

What a difference a day makes. Yesterday, under beautiful skies at Miller Park, Wily Peralta, the Brewers opening day starting pitcher, beat the New York Mets and hit his first Major League home run to gain a win. Today he has been demoted to the dregs of the minor leagues. Once the powerful hopeful, he is now twisting in doubt on a flight to Colorado Springs. It is the biggest of falls from grace.

The announcement was made Sunday morning. Yet it wasn’t even put on Milwaukee’s website. It was announced through the press. The Brewers have optioned Opening Day starter Wily Peralta to Triple-A Colorado Springs, per a team announcement. There’s no official word on a replacement, though veteran right-hander Matt Garza could be the choice as he has been making his final rehab start earlier this week. Garza hasn’t yet pitched for the Brewers this year because of a back injury. Many think that is a good thing.

Wily Peralta took the hill for the Brewers in their 7-4 win over the Mets on Saturday, striking out four batters and surrendering three earned runs on five hits and a walk in five innings. Given the way Peralta has performed in 2016, that so-so outing counts as one of his best of the year. The highlight of his day came as a hitter, as he blasted a 429-foot home run off Mets starter Logan Verett, his first in the Majors. But something was up when Counsell jerked him in the 6th, with a very limited pitch count. Something was up.

In 66 innings this season, Peralta had a huge 6.68 ERA, the worst mark among the majors’ qualified starters, with 42 strikeouts and 27 walks. His K/BB ratio sits at 1.56, puts him ahead of just eight other starters. Peralta was a more reliable option the previous two years, combining for a 3.93 ERA, 6.67 K/9 and 3.16 BB/9 across 64 starts and 382 innings. At his best, Peralta had a 3.53 ERA, 6.98 K/9 and 2.76 BB/9 in 198 1/3 innings just two seasons ago.

Peralta, 27, is on a $2.8MM salary this year and is slated to make two more trips through arbitration. However, with the new GM, it is possible the Brewers will simply non-tender him at season’s end.

What a fall.

Imagine, at the beginning of April, the big right hander was at the top of his career…making his first Opening Day start. That is an honor for any pitcher in baseball. Today, his career has crashed. It will take a lot of mental toughness to make the fall stop, even himself out and do the hard work of making the climb back up to the Show.

Today the Brewers have Nelson, Davies, Anderson and Guerra. Can they make it happen with this rotation?

So long, Wily. We had so much hope for you.

Play Ball!
#watchingattanasio