(Image: Benny Sieu-US PRESSWIRE)

Jim Souhan of the Minneapolis Star Tribune had an excellent piece Tuesday about Carlos Gomez and his emergence as an All-Star caliber player in 2013, in which Gomez attributes his success largely to the lack of restraint on his swing and approach to the plate.  Gomez, a former Minnesota Twin, found that swinging harder rather than swinging calculatedly for base hits or going to the opposite field allowed him to boost his production at the plate.  The Milwaukee Brewers led the NL in 2012 in home runs, finishing 4^th in all of MLB in that category.  Looking at the 2008-12 regular seasons, the Brewers finished within the top 10 in MLB in home runs in each year, and finished 5^th or higher in three of them.

That’s a lot of home runs.  The question is: what’s the point?  Sure, Milwaukee baseball in the MLB Brewers era and probably before as well has been fixated on the beauty, strut and swagger of the long ball.  But games like Monday’s versus the Twins don’t really count for anything other than an L in the win-loss column.  Carlos Gomez bashed two glorious home runs off his former team, and Jean Segura contributed his eighth of the year, but that was all the Brewers could muster, despite chances to move runners over and score ‘manufactured’ runs via walk, base hit, fielder’s choice, etc.  The opposition will allow Milwaukee to homer all day long if the end result is the Brewers have fewer runs.  The Brewers’ homer-happy approach is certainly a cultural, institutional thing with this franchise that would be hard to reverse or change.  It’s unclear to me how this came about, but even now you hear things like: ‘This is really an American League club disguised as a National League one; they like to wait for the home run’.  I usually smirk at that comment, but that latter part is true in a lot of ways.  Just when I think the Brewers are being really crafty and stealing a lot of bases and doing the little things, the script is flipped and they’re all out there trying to crush one into the seats. 

Gomez is a great case study of the benefits and detriments of this tactic.  He has flourished with the Brewers in part because they’ve unleashed his furious swing and let him hack away.  He nearly hit more home runs in 2012 than he had in the years 2008-11 combined.  That power surge has been brilliant and Gomez may be the rare player where it truly does no good to try to teach a hitting method of taking the ball the opposite way, hitting for the gaps or hitting it on the ground.  He’s the perfect Brewers player and it’s no surprise he’s found a well-suited home here.  In contrast to other current and former Brewers hackers, though, Gomez has shown that with a lot of plate appearances, he can put up some good overall numbers.  In 2008, Gomez had 614 plate appearances with the Twins and slugged 7 homers with 59 RBI and 33 stolen bases.  Those RBI and SB numbers were not approached or surpassed in his career until he again received over 400 plate appearances in 2012.  The difference this year, so far, is that Gomez is hitting for average as well (.331), whereas in the past he’s never hit higher than .260 (2012).  Whether Gomez can keep raking and ‘accidentally’ get the base knocks when he’s not pummeling balls into the bullpen remains to be seen. 

As for other Brewers players, some players have the gift of home run power, and are truly good hitters (Braun, Ramirez, Lucroy when he’s right), while others perhaps shouldn’t try to hit the home run every time at the plate.  Segura has shown some flashes of great power early this year and that’s really been amazing to see.  Occasionally his homers appear to be aided by smaller ballparks (seven of eight of his homers have been at Miller Park or GABP in Cincinnati).  He’s also hitting the ball well overall and doesn’t normally pull the ball, so his propensity to sometimes try to jack one out of the ballpark can be overlooked, for now.  But what about the others…does every Brewers player try to hit the home run more times than not?  If you watch Nori Aoki, you can see he’s trying to uppercut the ball a lot of the time.  Alex Gonzalez, Yuni B, Martin Maldonado and Corey Hart all seem to prefer trying to hit the long ball rather than spraying base hits.  Trying to hit a homer is not always bad by any means, but when it’s the preferred method of approaching at-bats, it can be dysfunctional at best and disastrous at worst.  It’s largely a one-note negotiation, and when every player in the lineup attempts to one-up each other with home runs, the result is a very uneven offensive display night in and night out.  Unlike Gomez this year, many hitters end up with a failed at-bat when trying to hit the home run and missing it (fly ball, pop-up, strikeout, etc). 

The Brewers’ track record speaks for itself: two playoff appearances since the 1982 season, and the majority of that time has been filled with poorly played, fundamentally flawed baseball.  There have been many, many home runs in that time, including some memorable moon shots by Russell the Muscle Branyan, Richie Sexson, Geoff Jenkins, Rob Deer…the list never ends.  It’s a beautiful thing to watch when it works, to be sure.  When the whole team is in a groove, the Brewers can flatten opponents.  But the odds of regression are high.  The Crew is the kind of team that will beat an opponent 15-2 in the opening game of a series and then score 3 runs in the remaining games (due to a power outage most of the time) and lose two out of three.  Ultimately, a strategy that leans too heavily on the home run is a strategy for losers.  If you can’t figure out how to score runs in other ways and, of course, properly execute on the field when presented with those opportunities, the house eventually pulls an ace and you lose.  These guys can’t hit home runs every night, no matter how hard they try.  All of this reminds me of infamous hacker Chuck Carr.  The outfielder reportedly was questioned by Milwaukee’s then-manager Phil Garner in 1997 after popping out to third on a 2-0 count after being instructed to take a pitch.  He replied about himself in the third person: ‘That ain’t Chuckie’s game.  Chuckie hacks on 2-0’.  Carr was soon released by the Brewers, although it’s a miracle he wasn’t put in the cleanup spot, the way this franchise adores hacking away.  Maybe someday, maybe with a new regime in charge of personnel, this team will at least sway toward filling in the lineup gaps between true power threats with guys that can hit for average and make the smart baseball plays when presented with men on base.  Sometimes a grounder to the right side is all you need, and all you should try to accomplish.

Apologies for being a bit late getting these out! I think I said Thursday, and it is Sunday. A good day for an ice cream cone.

Part 2 - Solutions for Fun With Anagrams – Diane Firstman (Value Over Replacement Grit)

TEDDY HIGUERA – HUGE TIRED DAY

BURKE BADENHOP – BROKEN PUB HEAD

TOM TREBELHORN – BROTHEL MENTOR

GEORGE BAMBERGER – ROB BEGGAR, EMERGE!

ROBIN YOUNT – RUN INTO BOY

PAUL MOLITOR – OIL UP MORTAL

PRINCE FIELDER – PREFER NICE LID

Once again, many, many thanks to Diane Firstman for lending one of her great talents to The Brewers Bar in providing anagrams! For more on her work, here is her bio and other information. And make sure you check out her site, - where you will be welcomed by the phrase "We are the VORG. Replacement is futile." You also can find her on twitter (appropriately under the neame @dianagram).

(Photo: Milwaukee County Sheriff/AP)

Yesterday, JSOnline’s Don Walker reported that Yovani Gallardo pled no contest to DUI – or operating a motor vehicle while intoxicated if you want to get technical.  Gallardo’s blood alcohol content was 0.22, easily exceeding the legal limit of 0.08.

Whenever a celebrity gets arrested, there is often speculation that they won’t have the same criminal justice experience as regular folks would.  At first blush, it seems that Gallardo’s sentence isn’t anything exceptional:

According to online court records, Gallardo was fined $865 and will lose his driver's license for seven months. In addition, Gallardo will have to use an ignition interlock device for a period of one year. Such devices, which require the user to exhale into it like a breathalyzer, is required in Wisconsin for first offense operating while intoxicated offenders with an alcohol concentration of 0.15 or higher.

Although it doesn’t appear that Gallardo is getting special treatment, it begs the question – is ordinary treatment appropriate?  Is suspending a driver’s license for seven months suitable punishment for a first offense?

One presumes Gallardo won’t have any trouble getting a ride to work during those seven months.  That might not be so easy for the average person.  Taking the bus to work, or having to get a ride from a friend-colleague-spouse would be an inconvenience at best, and more likely a serious burden.  What about people who have young children in day care?  Is taking the bus a reasonable option for them?

What about running errands?  Everyone needs to go grocery shopping, pick their kids up from school, and do all sorts of other chores that require driving.  Not everyone is going to be able to find alternate transportation for these kinds of activities for seven whole months.  I would guess most folks in those circumstances are going to drive anyway, even with a suspended license.  They’ve been put in a position where their easiest option is to break the law.

If the purpose is to discourage drunken driving, a several hundred dollar fine is enough for a first offense (which I understand is $300 – Gallardo was subject to additional fines for his level of intoxication and lane deviation).  The law should assume that it was a one-time lapse in judgment.  Penalties like suspending a driver’s license or requiring an ignition interlock device are more appropriate for repeat offenders.  But for a first offense they are excessive.

Certainly, none of these penalties for a first offense will be especially onerous for someone in Gallardo’s position.  As for the rest of us, it’s easy to see how they could be needlessly disruptive, and even encourage additional law-breaking – which would not make the general public better protected from drunk drivers.  If the law isn’t going to make us safer, it’s a pretty lousy law.

Much has been said and written about Paul Molitor’s messy breakup with the Milwaukee Brewers back in the early 1990s, but the organization retired his No. 4 in 1999 and he remains a well-respected icon of the franchise to this day.  Of course, he’s been mostly affiliated with the Minnesota Twins for the last decade, the team with whom he played his last years in the big leagues as well as the team that represents his hometown of St. Paul.  Last offseason there was a big shakeup in the Twins’ coaching ranks.  Manager Ron Gardenhire and pitching coach Rick Anderson were retained, but a number of coaches were fired and new people brought in as Wisconsin-native GM Terry Ryan pivoted towards the future.  Interestingly, Molitor, who was a candidate for the Twins’ manager job when Tom Kelly retired more than a decade ago, did not receive an offer from the Twins organization at that time after many people thought he would be a great fit for Gardenhire’s coaching staff in 2013.  Molitor himself said he would ‘probably be open’ to interviewing for a position in October of 2012 and said then that coaching at this point in his life might be a fit.  ‘Timing-wise for me, I might have an interest’, he said.  Perhaps there was a stigma attached to Molitor’s candidacy for a coaching position on the Twins in 2013, in that Gardenhire would have Molitor sitting there as the heir apparent in case the Twins got off to a bad start. 

Well, the Twins got off to an OK start, but have since faltered badly, and are currently on an eight-game losing skid.  Their 18-25 record is still better than the woeful Brewers, though, who are at 18-27.  The Twins and Brewers have a lot in common and I’ve sometimes thought that in some parallel universe the teams could be combined to form a regional superpower (or if, say, history had been different and Wisconsin and Minnesota were somehow one big state called, I dunno, Wissota).  Anyway, Ron Gardenhire’s hot seat is about as hot as Brewers manager Ron Roenicke’s.  In the case of Gardenhire, he’s not signed beyond this season but he’s been the manager of the Twins since 2002, and he’s guided the team to a lot of success.  There’s been little indication from the Twins’ front office that they plan to fire Gardenhire regardless of how this season plays out.  That would seem to mean Molitor would have little chance of hooking on with the Twins as manager or coach in the near future.

On the other, the Brewers are in a downward spiral that few teams could match in terms of the breadth and depth of ugly, horribly played baseball.  This is just my speculation, but my guess is that Molitor would probably only agree to manage in three places, were he inclined to take such a job: Minnesota, Milwaukee and Toronto.  Those are the three teams he played for in his brilliant, Hall of Fame career.  Molitor has spent time as a hitting coach with the Seattle Mariners and also has served as a roving instructor for the Twins for many years.  It’s unclear how strong his desire is to shed the freedom and flexibility of an instructor’s role for the pressure and shackles of a big-league manager’s job, but with the winds of change possibly, though not likely, swirling around the Brewers these days, I wonder if Molitor could end up as manager of the Milwaukee Brewers one day.  It’s unclear how good of a manager Molly would be, given that he has little experience in the role.  Surely, having the guy known as ‘The Ignitor’ calling the shots couldn’t hurt a team that often appears uninspired and lethargic.       

(Some jabroni comes back to Section 118 in the middle of the fifth inning…obscuring the view of other fans just as Carlos Gomez hits a two-run double off Zack Greinke.)

It’s my understanding that at one time, fans attended baseball games in what we would now consider formal attire.  While few would argue we should return to the rigid customs of that era, there is something to be said for courtesy.

Without getting histrionic about how American culture is in decline because people use foul language in public, watch too much reality television, look at dirty pictures on the internet, etc., can we agree there are some behaviors that must not be tolerated?  If there is any conduct more vulgar and shameful than returning to your seat in the middle of an at-bat, it does not immediately leap to mind.

Bloody hell, would it kill you chumps to wait just one more blasted minute?  Your seat ain’t going anywhere, sucker.

I’m not even saying that no one should leave in the middle of an at-bat.  Sometimes the beer you drank in the parking lot creates a sense of urgency that won’t wait as a hitter fouls off multiple pitches, or the pitcher is working from the stretch and taking his sweet time.  If you have to leave suddenly, that’s forgivable, because the need to leave can’t always be controlled. 

But when you come back can be controlled.  Just wait until the at-bat is resolved.  It will only take a moment, and you can get down the aisle and back to your seat with plenty of time to spare before the next pitch.

I’m not even going as far as suggesting you wait until the break in between innings.  Waiting until the at-bat is over is almost nothing to ask.  This is baseball – every pitch is important.  If we’re sitting in our seats, we want to see all the pitches, because you never know when something really important is going to happen.  We don’t want your melon head blocking our view, even if it’s just a slider off the plate that doesn’t even get a swing.

It’s been said that good manners cost nothing.  Bad manners don’t usually cost much, but if you return to your seat in the middle of an at-bat while I’m sitting behind you…don’t be surprised if you’re approached by security about the anonymous text they received that said you were using audible racial slurs.

(Update 5/24/13: Upon reflection, it occurs to me there’s no possible way I’ve never returned to my seat in the middle of an at-bat.  “If there is any conduct more vulgar…” blah blah blah, I’ve probably done it at every Brewers game I’ve been to in my life.  And it took me two days to realize it.  Boy, I’m an oblivious ass.  With that in mind, I feel I owe it to posterity to unequivocally acknowledge my hypocrisy here.)

(But still, don't return to your seat in the middle of an at-bat.  Otherwise, you're no better than an oblivious ass.)