TooLiveBrew

I don't agree that his defensive deficiencies are overblown, the guy has really been bad thus far as a big-league defender. However I will say that imo his pitch-blocking skills have looked improved this season. His arm is still a liability, but with his offense I'll take that tradeoff... assuming his improved pitch-blocking is for real & not a small-sample fluke.

One reason I voted Thornburg is that I wasn't expecting him to continue his dominance so soon at AA. But I don't think you can really make a wrong choice in this situation... really a fun time to be following the system.

My vote goes to Thornburg. But it's great to have such a tough decision.

The Dodgers guaranteed Hairston $6M for his age-36 & 37 seasons. Of all the problems I have with how the bench was constructed, letting Hairston walk at that price is definitely not one of them. Now, not picking up Mike Fontenot when he was freely available... that's a different story.

I remember (I hope accurately) that Melvin commented that the Brewers were going to be aggressive with both Jungmann & Bradley if they forced the issue. It'll be interesting to see exactly what "aggressive" means for Melvin & Co.

The gist of the story this same fan related to me about Liberty Media's ownership & acquisition of the Braves from News Corp./Time Warner was that it came with plenty of strings attached. They were required to retain basically everyone in positions of leadership with the org., along with other rules -- Biz of Baseball story, Biz of Baseball follow-up. So it's nothing near anyone complaining about payroll or anything like that. It's Liberty Media wanting to unload the Braves because the tax breaks they got along with the acquisition & stock trade with Time Warner are set to expire after 2012.

This isn't specifically related to Pastornicky, but it's Braves-related & I didn't want to start a new thread. Chatted with a Braves fan for a while last night, & he was venting his frustrations with the ATL ownership situation. Long story short, the current ownership group for the Braves is expected by many to look to slash payroll before long, in an effort to reduce debt in order to help sell the team as soon after 2012 as possible (link 1, link 2). That means more expensive and/or older players like McCann, Bourn, Prado, Jurrjens, Hudson, Uggla, Diaz, Hinske, etc. will either be allowed to walk in free agency or shopped on the trade market. If the Braves are somehow out of the playoff race this season, they could be very busy sellers. But even if 2012 goes well, it seems like they'll try to move the more expensive players still under contract in the offseason.

Alright, I've held off on asking you but at this point i have to know -- are you related to Yuni, or is he just a close personal friend?

We're not classy enough fans, we just don't get the Cardinals Way... which, btw, Pujols embodied perfectly until he signed with another team.

I guess I just don't see AAA time as a prerequisite for MLB success, I'm alright jumping players directly from AA if we have a need. I completely agree, but the Brewers under Melvin have seemed reluctant at best when it comes to calling anyone up from below the AAA level. Lucroy is the only example I can think of off the top of my head, and that was only due to the relatively extreme scenario of Zaun basically getting a career-ending injury. If the Brewers were fine with promoting guys directly from AA, I'd concern myself a lot less with whether or not guys get bumped from AA->AAA.

The nice thing about Law is that he's always so descriptive.

Without seeing any of the pitchers throw any secondary pitch it's incredibly difficult to say definitively if they should be pushed to the next level or not. Yeah, in my response to jjfanec, I noted "if the reports on his velocity & stuff are accurate" -- while I realize it's early in the season, Thornburg has been getting plenty of praise for his secondary stuff so far, not just his FB.

Excellent, I've been looking forward to watching him play this summer.

And Thornburg to Nashville I wouldn't mind that at all. If the reports on his velocity & stuff are accurate, he can work on refining his pitches at AAA just as easily as at AA.

Exactly, this is more about his ability than his stats. He's in his age-23 season, A+ hitters haven't been able to do anything at all against him, time to push him.

Time to bump DT to Huntsville.

Another stellar episode. I really wasn't expecting to see one I liked more than Ep. 4 for a while longer, but Ep. 5 was right there imo. I like how Weiner & co. seem to have reversed the fortunes in the Campbell/Sterling beef. Pete had a particularly brutal storyline this week.

Gindl has put up better numbers than Corey Hart at every level of the minor leagues at a younger age. Gindl is a OBP wonder, something we sorely lack... Gennett will never put up Weeks' power numbers but could duplicate his OBP numbers and play much better defense than Weeks Gennett really still has questions in terms of his defense, I have little doubt he'll continue to hit for AVG though. Gindl also has done nothing but hit, but he's probably going to have a hard time against big-league LHP. I think he could roughly match what Hart does v. RHP, and like you said, w/a higher OBP. I just don't think he can match Hart overall as a hitter. With that said, I think overall Gindl will be closer to Hart than Gennett will to Weeks, because Gindl has a significant edge on defense over Hart. I realize that both Weeks & Hart are not elite big-leaguers, but neither one is too far away from that category. I just don't see guys in the minor league system who I think have similar upside to them. I think overall we have a lot of C/C+ grade prospect bats... probably enough that one or two of them could pan out and wind up proving a C grade too conservative.

I don't think it's likely at all that Gennett & Gindl can fully replace what Corey & Rickie have done as hitters. The system completely lacks any big-time hitting prospect. There are guys who could develop into solid or perhaps good big-league hitters, but very few & most are longshots imo. I like guys like Gindl/Gennett/Green/etc., but I think we're kidding ourselves to say that they should be expected to do anything close to what Hart & Weeks have been able to do. Those are two guys who've turned themselves into well-above average big-league hitters, due in large part to physical abilities & strength that is mostly lacking on the offensive side of the farm right now. The system has a lot of hitters who profile to be useful big-leaguers (and/or guys who could be top hitting prospects if they can remove significant warts from their offense), but none imo should be expected to match or surpass the All-Star caliber offense that Hart & Weeks have provided for the past couple seasons. If one guy out of the current crop of hitting prospects that's currently at AA or higher winds up matching or exceeding the offense from Corey or Rickie, the Brewers will be very fortunate.

Well then you just know *that* much more that it was the correct decision to move.

No problem. Glad you like it.

He signed a team friendly deal a few years ago so who is to say that he won't do the same again? Jayson Werth & $126M. I like Corey, he's become one of my favorite players in recent years, but he's probably going to command a nice price as a FA at this point. I don't expect him to necessarily command $125M, but the new TV money apparently has some owners feeling very frisky.

I realize he may not project to be a star or anything, but I have a hard time not liking Dishon. He was frequently a key player for Helena last season. Zeke DeVoss I'm not sure MiLB even needs to hold the name-madness tourney (or whatever it's called). That's gotta be it. EDIT: Moniker Madness iirc

Yeah, definitely didn't mean to imply that he was working in the mid-90s (or that I thought he was working there). I just assumed -- as I noted in the other post -- that he was a guy who sat in the mid or upper 80s.

The single most important thing I'd like to see changed when it comes to the Brewers is the notion that you have "a window" in which you HAVE to do [x]... or else! Melvin *had* to trade for Marcum & Greinke, because omgprinceisleaving. Now, (according to some) it's that they *have* to re-sign Greinke, or else it's time to totally rebuild. What you *have* to do as a GM, as far as I'm concerned, is build a deep organization. That way, you're not talking about "windows", you're talking about how do you account for letting Player X walk in free agency so you're not overpaying for him. The Brewers are going to have the opportunity in the very near future to walk away from the wannabe-big-market approach they've been working with for the past two or so seasons, and imo it's exceedingly important that they do. The focus needs to be on building the farm system, not spending tons of money to improve the 25-man roster on a year-to-year basis. So to answer the question more directly, if Greinke hits FA, I look to... - Trade Hart. His value will never be as high as it is today/yesterday, since he's only going to get older & have less time remaining under contract. Additionally, the Brewers have good OF depth. I don't want to even have to consider spending big money to re-sign him for his age-32 season & beyond. - Let Marcum go to FA. Even if a contract extension would only be for three seasons (imo the bare minimum, conceivably), that's his age 31, 32, & 33 seasons. Pass. - Exercise Randy Wolf's option for 2013. Yes, it's $10M. But he's a pitcher who's proven himself to be a useful big-league SP, and there will almost certainly be trading partners if the Brewers aren't contending. Keeping him also gives the org. some flexibility with how to break in the young SPs. - Trade Morgan. Not only do the Brewers have OF depth, they have tons of depth in CF. Morgan's under team salary control through 2014, plays good defense & can hit RHP. There's always a trade market for that. - Trade Ramirez. The sooner, the better. The guy can still hit, but the longer you wait, the more risk there is that other teams won't want to pay much to acquire him. Obviously you might be looking at having to eat some of the salary, but make the trade. As HiAndTight alluded to, that's a lot of freed-up payroll. After shedding all of that veteran money, the organization's in a great position to reserve its money for extending young talent (a la Braun/Gallardo/Weeks), or spending on international FAs, etc. Also, I'd like to note that really the only move I wouldn't make if Greinke were retained would be trading Hart. If Greinke re-signs, I think the value the Brewers can get from one more (walk-year) season from Hart would trump what value they could find on the trade market. All the other moves imo are just good moves to make regardless.