RockCoCougars

Sorry, but that's impossible, you do realize that the league is hitting .385 against him, don't you? I'm starting to think that most high-school pitchers could put up better numbers than Soup. I'd be willing to do a deal where the Brewers dump Suppan on the Mets, and give them a million or two on salary relief for Perez next year. Perhaps Mark A. can negotiate something in the deal where the Mets are forced to give Soup a 'chance' to save face, before they do the sensible thing and cut him.You do realize that Perez walks over 7 per 9?Yes, but there is at least a small chance that a pitcher can 'fix' control issues. You cannot 'fix' velocity, age, and lack of movement. Probably 90% Perez would be a washout here, but I'd still take the chance (especially considering the fact that Peterson is here anyway) if he only cost a million or two next year, a middling prospect or a veteran bench guy or reliever.... and allowed the team to move Suppan. This would basically be a PR move for both teams. The Mets need the roster spot, they could placate the clubhouse and fans, and claim a little salary relief. They could stash Suppan on the D.L., then maybe use him once or twice before they cut him in a month or so.

Sorry, but that's impossible, you do realize that the league is hitting .385 against him, don't you? I'm starting to think that most high-school pitchers could put up better numbers than Soup. I'd be willing to do a deal where the Brewers dump Suppan on the Mets, and give them a million or two on salary relief for Perez next year. Perhaps Mark A. can negotiate something in the deal where the Mets are forced to give Soup a 'chance' to save face, before they do the sensible thing and cut him.

I'm glad to see that the local media has finally jumped onto this bandwagon. Should be an interesting next few weeks. My guess is that Mark A. will demand Soup be stashed back on the D.L. now that there is some room back on there. This will help him keep a shred of dignity and shield him from abuse from the fans/media. I still say in the meantime, if I'm Macha, I'm running him out there all the time in close games as a type of protest to management. Heck, make him the closer.

I highly doubt that the Tigers would have any interest whatsoever in Suppan- even if the salaries match exactly. The only way I could possibly see the Brewers could make this work is if they threw in a fairly decent prospect and/or ate a little bit of salary. The only point of even doing such a thing would be to acquire Willis without having to court him on the free agent market, and I'm not sure if that's even worth the trouble considering the fact that the Brewers seem to have a backload of mediocre to bad starters already. If the Mets would like to eat salary, I'd prefer the Brewers to go after Perez with Suppan, but Perez is under contract for next year, so they would have to eat a lot. Suppan + another player or prospect(s) for Perez + money would make some sense for both teams, as an 'unknown Met' is calling for Perez to be released.

I'm not even joking here- I think that Bill Hall could pitch better at this point than Suppan. He certainly throws harder, and from what I saw, had more movement on his pitches as well. If he was allowed to throw his curve, I don't think that it would be hard for him to outpitch Suppan.

Hopefully Mark & Doug are in the middle of their break-up call to Soup as we speak. I'm somewhat optimistic that is the case, due to the delayed corresponding move.

People were spoiled with Hardy's defense, and I never really understood the 'limited range' criticism. How soon we forget Jose Hernandez.

I'm tired of this '13th man' nonsense. If the goal is to win games, you should be able to count on every player on the roster to play at a major league level. You don't just keep a guy stashed away for garbage time, especially with this rotation. If I'm a lame duck like Macha, as long as management insists on keeping Suppan around, I'd run him out there in situations like yesterday, let him embarrass himself, and send a message. For heaven's sake, for as much criticism as the Seligs and Bando/Taylor took, they were even willing to part with high paid garbage like Hammonds and Navarro at this point in the season.

Enough is enough. I cannot believe that Suppan still has apologists on this board. Attanasio, if you are reading this, I don't care if Suppan is your business partner, wine drinking buddy, etc.- cut the cord. This is ridiculous, and there is no doubt in my mind it's Attanasio's call. Any sane baseball executive would have cut Suppan in spring training, if not last year. Personally, I won't be attending any more games until Suppan is gone- not stashed on the D.L.- gone. I encourage the fans who do attend the games to boo this clown out of Milwaukee. This is easily one of the worst blunders in Wisconsin history, and I'm tired of seeing politics and/or pride causing it to perpetuate.

It's time to DFA Suppan to free up a 40 man spot. I'm tired of this team mishandling guys like Estrada. Suppan brings absolutely nothing to the table, and he's not needed anymore as a spot starter. He's just a mop up guy out of the pen. If he's kept, it sends a terrible message to the rest of the team. Obviously he's one of Attanasio's favorites though.

You never know what would have happened had they kept Cruz. As others have said, he most likely would have fallen on his face and been gone anyway. That said, we will never know because he was never given the chance here. My guess is that Melvin settled for the deal that Texas offered because he didn't want the perception that he was giving up on the season, by taking Mench he theoretically got major league talent back, but absolutely no prospects for one of the best hitters in the league. I will give Melvin props that Cordero bounced back and solidified the bullpen the way that he did, that said, if Cordero bombs like he had done in Texas that season, the trade goes down as one of the worst in franchise history. This trade is a perfect example of one of the problems that I have with the management of this team. Either go for it or rebuild, enough of this halfway stuff. I'm still trying to figure out what they were doing last July and August. They stood pat at the deadline when they still had a chance, then they tanked and started making moves like sending Hardy to the minors trading for Weathers, etc. I don't know if it's ownership or Melvin.

The key word(s) there is 'with Texas'. Had he fell on his face with the Brewers, that is one thing, but he was never given a chance. Instead, they decided to waste a good 500 at bats or more on Shrek. I hated the trade when it was made, but I didn't think that Shrek would be as bad as he was. I will admit that I didn't like Cordero much either. Melvin is lucky that he put everything together again once he got to Milwaukee, because they had buried him in Texas. How many teams dealing a veteran have to sweeten a deadline deal with a prospect?

As I said, the trade could have been Cordero/'good' prospect for Lee. If not, Melvin should have told Texas to forget it and moved on. The Rangers could have kept Shrek as 'insurance' for Lee. With both Hart and Cruz waiting in the wings, there was absolutely no need for Shrek at the time the trade was made, but Melvin wanted him for whatever reason. Once again, as with the 'Suppan Signed', I wish that we could bump the 'Lee Traded' thread. This is not hindsight. There were lots of us who were upset when Cruz was included in the deal. The waivers issue is not really applicable, because the fact is that the Brewers didn't even give Cruz a chance.

Ironically, stealing Cruz from the A's for Ginter may have been one of Melvin's best deals. Unfortunately he canceled that out because of his man-love for Shreck and/or Nix. I wish that we could bump the topic from when that trade happened. Many were apprehensive or flat out angry about including Cruz in the deal. If Cordero was truly the main piece in that deal, and Cruz was a throw in, why not just trade Lee for Cordero and a prospect? I'm sure the Rangers would have done that since Cordero had pitched his way out of the closer role down there.

These injuries really aren't too bad. No one of substance is out, except for maybe Gamel. Actually guys like Hawkins and Davis being injured might be a plus, and the injuries to Edmonds, Gerut, Zaun, etc. aren't really a big deal. Does anyone want to see Riske come off the D.L.? I didn't think so. As I see it right now, the only problem with these injuries is that there is no room on the D.L. right now to stash Soup away if he happens to get 'hurt' when the Capuano deadline comes. This is nothing. If you want to talk handcuffed by injuries, there was about an 9 year period from 1983-1991 where the team was definitely handcuffed by injuries.

I'll take my chances with that as opposed to Suppan or Vargas, both of whom have ERA's well over 6. I'll agree that Loe might not be very good, but at least he has a chance to not be terrible.

This might be for the Cappy post, but at any rate, would it be possible for the team to cut Riske while he is injured if he agreed? I'm pretty sure that's not the case, but it would be nice if they had some kind of injury agreement like the NFL has. I don't see Riske having any value whatsoever to the team at this point anyway.

Didn't Palmisano get stabbed while out drinking in Beloit?

If this team loses either Capuano or Loe to keep Suppan and Vargas, how can you not criticize Melvin? Neither Suppan or Vargas will be back next season, why not give these guys a shot? I'm just hoping the fact that the recent moves with the pitching staff have been working out nicely will give Melvin the guts to cut the cord with Suppan, I just don't get why they are keeping him around. It has to be the money, because there isn't the 'who would we replace him with?' apologist exuse this year.

I found it pretty surprising that Mesa won like 25% of his career games the year that he won 21, it seems as though he was around forever (though I always confused him with Jose Mesa). I was wondering if he held some kind of obscure record highest % of career wins by a 20 game winner in that season. I thought of a few other guys like Fidrych, but he only won 19. Herb Score was another one that I though of, and fits the bill though, winning 20 of his 55 career wins in 1956. I wonder if any other 20 game winner had a higher % of their career wins in the career season.

My guess is that Jeffress probably picked up his little 'habit' once he got rich overnight. He may have dabbled a bit in H.S., but with the long bus trips, Day's Inns, etc. he probably had a lot of free time and extra cash to get into trouble. Plus when you get rich quick, you tend to have a lot of new 'friends' pounding down your door. Personally, I have more of a problem with Melvin and co. not 'vetting' Eric Gagne, who showed up on the Mitchell report about 4 days after he was signed. It's not like his name was completely out of the blue either, because there had been talk for a long time that he was a juicer. Had he waited a week, Melvin probably could have saved $5 million or pursued another player.

Melvin has picked up a lot of talent off the scrap heap, but to this point, none of them have sustained success for more than a season or two. It's not like he stole a guy from another organization like Santana or George Bell in the Rule 5, or in a trade like Sandburg to the Cubs, Pedro Guerrero to the Dodgers, or Bay to the Pirates. None of these guys have turned into players who can be counted on year in and year out, after initial success, they have tended to fade away. It looks like McGahee may turn into something, but actually the best nugget that Melvin mined is now playing for Texas.

Having lived up there, I concur that John Gordon is brutal. He should be working the state fair circuit hawking the newest gadget. Dan Gladden- "Dazzle" is also pretty clueless and annoying. Herb Carneal was good though, when he was south of 80 years old. Like the Brewers with Bob Betts, the Twins also had a great P.A. announcer at the stadium, his name escapes me at this point, but he died a few years ago.

Why is this a Sheets discussion? Because Melvin made absolutely no attempt to extend his contract before or during his all-star season, thus creating the 'Sheets didn't want to play here' situation. Instead, he paid 40-some million for a pitcher better suited as waiver wire fodder.Wouldn't you be upset if your workplace brought in an incompetent with a lesser resume than you and then paid him more than you make right from the get go, without a willingness to negotiate a future pay raise? Heck I'd want to leave too. Again, this isn't revisionist history, lots of people knew that the Suppan signing was a mistake when it happened. I have a feeling that a lot of the Sheets bashers/Melvin supporters here would have been on the 'just a DH Bando-wagon' back in '93 for Molitor, especially when he started slowly. You would have been crowing about that and how the Brewers were able to use the money they would have had to give Molitor to pick up a left handed power bat with Kevin Reimer, and other solid veterans such as Tom Brunansky (coming off a 117 OPS+), Dickie Thon, and Bill Doran. After all, Molitor was undependable and hurt all the time anyway, missing almost 500 games with injuries! Now, the starting rotation has been terrible for two seasons, and that's not Melvin's fault somehow. I guess that replacing Sheets and Sabathia with Braden Looper was a deft move. This isn't even getting into the ridiculous signings of Hall (which I admit that I was in favor of), Gagne (questionable, but I was semi-OK until the steroid news broke like two days later, then I wondered why Melvin hadn't done his homework) and David Riske (stupid from the get go). That's not even mentioning the off season signings, extensions and trades from this past off-season- all of which are looking dicey at best at this point. At what point should Melvin be held accountable for these mistakes?

Get it done. Replace Vargas/Suppan with McClung/Capuano. The issue with Macha won't be an issue anyway, because Ken will most likely be gone this week. I like the two new arms in the bullpen, and with Seth, they'd have another one.