Weeks and his fellow young thumpers must improve defensively to avoid being taken out of the playoff picture again. Morry Gash/AP
	FAST FACTS MANAGER NED YOST sixth season with Milwaukee Team Page | 2008 Schedule THE NUMBERS LIE | DON'T LIE 6.75ERA of Eric Gagné after his trade last July from the Rangers to the Red Sox, who mostly used him in the eighth inning. Go figure: When he entered the game in the eighth in a save situation, his ERA was 10.38; when he was summoned in the ninth with a save opportunity, his ERA was 1.96, which was below his career mark of 2.22 as a reliever. This season the Brewers will use their new closer almost exclusively in the ninth. CONSIDER THIS Bill Hall's 35-homer season in 2006 earned him a shiny four-year, $24 million contract, but it may also have blinded the Brewers to a flaw in Hall's game: The righthanded swinger doesn't hit righties very well. His career marks against them are .262/.310/.461, and he's never cracked a .321 OBP against them in any season. Making Hall (left) the every-day third baseman for an already unbalanced lineup (most days Milwaukee starts one lefthanded batter, Prince Fielder) continues to leave the Brewers vulnerable when facing righthanders, against whom they hit 36 points lower than they did against lefties in '07. Lefty-swinging Craig Counsell, 37, isn't the answer in a platoon; G.M. Doug Melvin needs to look outside the organization for an option (Greg Dobbs and Hank Blalock come to mind) that gives his lineup more balance and puts more guys on base. BATTING ORDER POS. PLAYER B-T PVR BA HR RBI SB 2B RICKIE WEEKS R 46 .235 16 36 25 CF MIKE CAMERON R 142 .242 21 78 18 1B PRINCE FIELDER L-R 10 .288 50 119 2 LF RYAN BRAUN R 20 .324 34 97 15 RF COREY HART R 53 .295 24 81 23 3B BILL HALL R 85 .254 14 63 4 SS J.J. HARDY R 69 .277 26 80 2 C JASON KENDALL R 311 .242 3 41 3 BENCH POS. PLAYER B-T PVR BA HR RBI SB OF TONY GWYNN JR. L-R 344 .260 0 10 8 IF CRAIG COUNSELL L-R 388 .220 3 24 4 C ERIC MUNSON L-R 322 .235 4 15 0 ROTATION PITCHER PVR W L K/9 WHIP ERA RH BEN SHEETS 31 12 5 6.8 1.24 3.82 RH YOVANI GALLARDO 55 9 5 8.2 1.27 3.67 RH JEFF SUPPAN 120 12 12 5.0 1.50 4.62 LH MANNY PARRA (R) 130 0 1 8.9 1.41 3.76 RH DAVE BUSH 153 12 10 6.5 1.40 5.12 BULLPEN PITCHER PVR W L S WHIP ERA RH ERIC GAGNÉ 77 4 16 8.8 1.35 3.81 RH DERRICK TURNBOW 157 4 1 11.1 1.32 4.63 RH DAVID RISKE 185 1 4 6.7 1.26 2.46

"Off-season fixes will aid run prevention. Run generation won't be a problem."

Memo to the baseball blogosphere: Manager Ned Yost doesn't want your help. Same goes for radio jockeys, newspapermen and, for that matter, his mother. "I'm not trying to be Mr. Know-It-All," Yost says, recalling an off-season instance in which Lee Yost passed along an article that suggested some areas of improvement, "but I know where we're going, and I know exactly how to get there."

Where his team was throughout the first four months of last season was in first place in the NL Central. An August swoon (9-18), however, ultimately left Milwaukee two games behind the division-winning Cubs. How did they get there? In large part, according to Yost, because of ineptitude in the field. Despite ranking among the league's top five in runs, homers, slugging and RBIs, the Brewers had the fourth-most errors in the NL. Sabermetrically speaking, in fact, Milwaukee was 28th in the majors in park-adjusted defensive efficiency (the rate at which a team converts balls in play into outs). Slipshod fielding cost the Brewers 44.7 runs -- or about 4.5 wins -- last season, the first since 1992 in which Milwaukee played meaningful games down the stretch.

To fix this, general manager Doug Melvin reshuffled the deck. In January he signed free agent Mike Cameron to a one-year deal to play centerfield, though the three-time Gold Glove winner was suspended for the season's first 25 games because of a positive test for a banned substance. Bill Hall was moved from center to third base, pushing Ryan Braun -- who had the alltime-best slugging percentage for a rookie but also the lowest fielding percentage of any major league player -- to leftfield. There, he'll enjoy the cushion of Cameron's still-considerable range and, Yost hopes, the benefits of simple maturation. Reminds the manager, "Young players develop quicker offensively than defensively."

Those changes will certainly aid Milwaukee's run prevention. Run generation won't be a problem, not only this season but also for years to come. Just ask Pirates lefthander Phil Dumatrait. Last Sept. 9 the first five batters in the Brewers' lineup -- second baseman Rickie Weeks (now 25), shortstop J.J. Hardy (25), Braun (24), first baseman Prince Fielder (23) and rightfielder Corey Hart (25) -- went homer, homer, homer, single, single off Dumatrait, then with the Reds. For the season that group combined for 150 home runs. Fielder blasted 50 homers, making him the youngest ever to hit that many. "We hang out all the time," Braun says of his teammates, "and I think that closeness is one of our biggest advantages as a team."

This year Yost will flip Braun and Fielder in the lineup. As eye-popping as Braun's numbers were, there is one that disturbed Yost: only 29 walks, in 492 plate appearances. "We're trying to get him to be more selective, especially behind Prince. We've talked about it, and he'll be moved out of that four spot if he can't adjust," says Yost, who also batted Braun second in spring training to get his young slugger more at bats.

Alas, the development of homegrown arms will have to catch up to that of the young mashers for the Brewers to take the next step. Only 22, righthander Yovani Gallardo, who had a 3.67 ERA after his June 14 call-up, is a keeper. However, after Gallardo, who will start the season on the DL (arthroscopic knee surgery), and perennially injured Ben Sheets, the most proven starters are the high-contact duo of Jeff Suppan and Dave Bush, both of whom were hit hard in the second half. Righty Carlos Villanueva, 24, and especially lefty Manny Parra, 25, who throws a mid-90s fastball and a big curve, could bolster the rotation. For now, though, they represent a small tweak to a roster that underwent several such improvements this winter, changes that won't be enough to offset the more dramatic moves of the Cubs and the Reds. -- Pablo S. Torre

Issue date: March 31, 2008