TooLiveBrew

This is concerning to me (specific tweet link). Like I was saying, from what Ash said, it sounded like the Brewers were really trying to undercut Rickie's value. If they let him hit FA because they were trying to lowball him, I'd be upset.

Ryan Howard signed a contract extension with the Philies prior to the '09 season. The first year of that contract covered his final arbitration-eligible season, and his salary was $15M. Of course, that was Howard's age-29 season whereas '11 will be age-27 for Prince. I think if you look at the rest of that 3-yr. deal Howard signed, along with the 5-yr. extension he signed last year, you get a pretty accurate look at what kind of deal Prince will be after in FA. My crude guess at this point is in the 6/$135M -- 7/$160M range. There's no way I want to see the Brewers spend that kind of money on him. Unless there's a massive bidding war, I think the first team to go 7/$150M will land him.

With the Fielder & Parra arby-avoiding deals getting done, I'm expecting we'll be hearing about Rickie very soon. Kam Loe & Shaun Marcum are the only other arby-eligible players that haven't signed deals yet for '11, so maybe those two one-yr. deals get done, and then Rickie? It was really good to hear that the only discussions btw. Genske & the Brewers lately have been multi-year, but the Crew has to be careful to not try to play too much hardball. A healthy 2011 from Weeks sees him easily matching or beating the Uggla deal in FA. The way Ash was talking tough about how Weeks hasn't come close to Uggla's production, while completely neglecting to mention the vast difference in defensive value, just sounded too heavy-handed imo.

Glad to see this done. Not a surprise, but not a backbreaking contract, either. EDIT: Heyman actually with two tweets on the Fielder contract. He now has the highest ever single-season salary in Brewers history (passing Greinke's '11 salary). The deal includes several performance bonuses: - $100K for MVP, $75K for 2d place, $50K for 3d - $50K for ASG selection in fan vote, $25K for being named to team - $25K for LCS MVP - $25K for WS MVP - $50K for Gold Glove So, if I did my math correctly, the maximum possible value for this contract is $15.75M EDIT 2: Whoops, that third tweet I'd listed is from TH, not Heyman. Heyman just re-tweeted it. Curse tweeting.

Definitely good riddance to a poor sportswriter. Hopefully the JS can find a competent replacement. I'd like to hope for a good replacement, but for now I'll settle.

Even if Moreland is looking good, I think the Rangers could do well to sign Prince & deal Moreland (or just keep him around to DH & play some 1B). A middle of the lineup of Hamilton, Fielder, & Cruz is insanely good.

In all do respects to Gamel, he really hasn't shown that much in his opportunities in the bigs. His offense was lg-avg. for the 3B position as a rookie in '09. He had all of 17 PAs in '10. He didn't light the world on fire like Braun, but prospects tend not to. I agree with others that trading him for a bullpen arm is a bad idea.

I don't really understand this deal for the Reds. They already had a good amount of cost certainty with Votto, without the risk of guaranteeing him money. If this deal appeases him enough to sign a long-term extension, then I guess I get it. Aside from that, it's a pointless contract.

Moon is excellent. And I've heard nothing but excellent reviews of HtTYD.

And another comp. pick for the Rays. They now have 10 picks before the second round, and 12 of the first 90.

That's a really good summary of it, glad you liked it homer. "Intense" almost doesn't capture how powerful the film really is. EDIT: And I think this movie finally made me take notice of how great Darren Aronofsky really is -- Black SwanThe WrestlerThe FountainRequiem For a DreamPi He's also working on the next Wolverine movie (The Wolverine), & a film adaptation of Machine Man. Both films are due out in 2012 as of today.

If Branyan would be open to it, I'd love to see the Brewers sign him. I agree that getting Gamel time in AAA to work at 1B would be valuable. Plus, it's The Muscle!

But if you're asking us to not be fans who by the way tend to use their heart/gut/emotion sometimes in making assessments on other teams (and by the way your assessment is just as much an opinion as my own) then what is the point of this site? To discuss & hopefully learn, for me. And while mine is also an opinion, it's based in facts about the Yankees, and not exaggerations to make a more dramatic point. I obviously never said anything about "stop being a fan!", that's just more exaggeration. If you hate the Yankees, and want to root against them, more power to you. I just don't think it's this outlandish idea, though, that you could also either inform yourself more about them, or just not employ so much hyperbole. Like logan stated, there's reason enough for smaller market fans to loathe them. To echo you, this is a fan board. I disagreed with what you had to say & had a counter-point to make. Was I supposed to just take your point as gold & quietly nod in agreement? Didn't Cashman say about a week ago that they were going to keep their first round pick - saying they were willing to lose it for Cliff Lee, but no one else? So nice to see the Yankees scrambling. Yes, he did. I agree that this is a bit of a desperation move. I'm really surprised Cashman decided to burn that draft pick for Soriano. I just think it shows how bad the offseason has been for them. One angle on the signing, though, is that it allows the Yankees the flexibility to trade Joba Chamberlain in a deal for another SP, if there's a team out there that wants to gamble on Joba's upside.

It's a depressing thought, but I think there's a really good chance Prince could wind up signing with the Cubs. Wrigley is perfect for him, and they'll have the cash & position available. Plus Prince would know he'd be playing defense if he signed with a NL club. From the MLBTR list of teams, BAL, LAA, LAD, CHC, & NYM are the teams to which I'd narrow the field... my gut says to go even further to just LAD/CHC/NYM since I think Prince will want to play 1B instead of DHing. But he's the kind of bat for which teams would restructure plans, so who knows? Pretty hard to predict at this point, but there's just something about the Cubs that stands out for me (sadly).

If I am a Yankees fan I look at this offseason and worry a bit. This was the year where people turned them down no matter how much more money they offered (Wood, Lee), couldn't stop their competitors from improving by running interference like they usually do and running up the prices on the market, couldn't use any of their supposedly solid minor league prospects as valuable trade chips to improve pitching via trade, nearly lost their star, HOF closer to the hated rivals and had to dramatically overpay to keep him, seriously damaged relations with the star face of the franchise (Jeter), couldn't convince an aging pitcher to stay unretired for the team AND still had to give up a first round pick on a Type A who isn't going to be a major factor ultimately if their starting pitching can't go 5 deep. Alright, I understand that you hate the Yankees, but far too much of this is overstated. Boston reportedly made Rivera an offer, the Yankees didn't "almost lose" him to the Red Sox. He made $15M/season from '08-'10, the same amount for '11 & '12 is not a dramatic overpay. He's the best relief pitcher in baseball, even at his age. The Yankees handled the Jeter drama about as fairly as they could have. The dude was holding out for delusional money, and they wound up still paying him a huge chunk of change. You cited the Rivera contract as the drastic overpay, when the Jeter deal actually looks a lot worse. If the Yankees had actually played hardball with Jeter, they probably could have had him for $10M/year or less. The guy re-signed -- there's no way you can spin that the relations between the two parties matter now. What, he's just not going to try now? And I honestly don't know what to say about it somehow being the Yankees' fault that Andy Pettite might retire. He hasn't made his decision yet, and he just finished his age-38 season. Just silly to hold that against the Yankees in any way imo. I don't disagree that giving up a first round pick for Soriano is a bad idea, but it's not like he isn't also a studly reliever. Heck, their best prospect is a DH-projected guy. No wonder teams weren't running out to steal that guy away. Jesus Montero is arguably the best prospect in all of baseball. That's how good his bat is. The reason he wasn't traded is that the Yankees view him as untouchable. Every other franchise in the league would fall all over themselves to get him if the Yankees said they would be willing to move him. I don't begrudge anyone resenting the Yankees; they're the lightning rod for how screwed up MLB's financial state is. But I don't think it's too much to ask for some measure of objectivity. EDIT: Whoops, definitely not Miguel Montero. Sorry, Jesus.

This smacks of a 'Um, we really couldn't get anything else done' kind of move. The Yankees have not had a good offseason. I really like Soriano, but it's a huge price to pay, including surrendering your first-round pick since he's Type A.

Haha, that's awesome http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/smile.gif I think those would be my reasons, too.

That is why I think it is important to place some emphasis on a team's recent ability to develop talent. Excellent post, Patrick. Like I mentioned in my first response to Buc in this thread, I'm assuming there are probably 5-ish teams that would be in the running for worst MiLB system... and they're probably basically interchangeable. The Brewers don't have a great system right now, the reasons for that being obvious. I'm not going to get worried about the farm system being ranked so low, though, due largely to your point about the Brewers having developed talent well in recent years. I know you aren't discussing this part, cj, but rankings saying the Brewers have the 30th-best out of 30 MLB farm systems =/ saying the Brewers don't have any talented players. I liked monty57's take on this discussion in the Greinke thread: Of course, when ranking MLB's 30 farm systems, you're inherently separating MLB & MiLB. It would be interesting to see someone like Callis do organizational talent rankings, assessing talent at all levels, but that seems like it would be boatloads of work to do.

Right there with other exciting teams like Delaware State & Presbyterian!

FanGraphs posted a piece by Jonah Keri today, titled "Brewers' Defense: Roadblock to a World Series?" It's a good read, but most of what he discusses has already been addressed in the Greinke thread & MLB forum.

I was thinking about Escobar today, and I wonder what others think about the comparison to Orlando Cabrera, in terms of offense. I'm guessing Escobar profiles to be a better defender than Cabrera has been, but the career slash line of .274/.320/.395/.715 looks like a reasonable comp. heading forward. Escobar might develop into a better hitter than that, but not without adding muscle imo. EDIT: Maybe Escobar's own MiLB career line is a better guesstimate -- .293/.333/.377/.709. Probably will wind up somewhere between those two slash lines.

Judge the system on it's ability to provide depth and impact players not who has better ones. Sure, but you're omitting the fact that our players have to go out & compete against those other players eventually. Who the other players in the league are is 100% relevant, I'm surprised you'd suggest they wouldn't be. As far as comparatively speaking if somehow all other farms went downhill for a couple season's does that make our players better? Of course not. No, but it would make our system better in a 1-30 ranking, and that's what this discussion is about.

Has there been an official announcement on who the PTBNL is?

How do you (<- generically) get "Frankie" for Eulogio? I had a roommate in college from Chile named Francisco -- nickname "Poncho". I never understood that either.

You're just comparing the system against an arbitrary standard, though. If the criterion is "Do I like the system, personally?", then you can answer any way you like. However, when you compare the Brewers' system to the other MLB systems, which is obv. how they're ranked 1st to 30th, you see that it's a bad system right now. Basically every team has the quantity & quality of players the Brewers have right now, but just about every team has more of them &/or better quality. I'm sure down at the bottom there are probably a handful of systems you could argue are the worst, just like at the top there are probably a few that could be ranked #1. But when making a list & ranking the systems, someone has to come in last. There are really zero impact bats in the system right now -- Kentrail Davis is probably the best pure bat right now, & there have been a lot of questions about just how much power he'll hit for as he progresses (fwiw I like Davis). The clear-cut best arm in the system has a looong injury history, & questionable mechanics in terms of long-term health. I think you're vastly overstating the talent in the minors. The talent the Brewers have is talent that every organization has, essentially, and they lack any true impact-type prospects. It's really not surprising to me that the system isn't highly regarded right now.