RockCoCougars

Exactly. My guess is that any team that needs pitching is probably watching the Brewers' situation, but they are hoping that they actually keep Suppan and a talented arm gets caught up in a numbers game. Why would anybody help the Brewers by taking Suppan?

I don't know why, because usually I am a pessimist, but I think that for a change, a lot going to break right for this team. No significant injuries, the offense clicks, the starters get the job done well enough until mid-season when another fairly big name arm is picked up. I'm going to say that both Fielder and Weeks end up in Top 10 of the MVP voting. Next to weeks, Zaun is the surprise of the year (channeling Eddie Perez)- having a career year at the plate, I'm going to say at least 12 home runs. Braun will have kind of a down year a la Fielder in 2008, but still put up numbers that would be great for most players. Hart will continue to struggle and be supplanted by mid season by Gerut, who will put up solid numbers. Gallardo will log an entire season, winning 17 games. Parra will end up having a surprisingly solid season after a slow start. Wolf will be solid, but not spectacular, Doug Davis will struggle however. The bullpen will be mostly solid as well. I guess the key word here is 'solid'. I'm going to say 94-68, 1st in the division, 4 games ahead of the Cubs.

Unfortunately, that's not the case. With all guaranteed contracts like Suppan's, the signing team is basically on the hook. They can't straight outright him to the minors because he has over 5 years service time and can refuse while still collecting his salary (Hall could have done the same thing last year, but showed a good deal of class and accepted the assignment). This forces the teams hand to either keep the player on the active roster or let them hit free agency while paying their salary. The only way that the Brewers could theoretically get their money back would be if Suppan was DFA'd and another team claimed him and took on his salary for 2010. We all know that the odds of that happening are slightly less than the Brewers going 162-0 this season.

I don't see what good it will do the Brewers or Suppan to send him down to AAA. First of all, why would Suppan toil in AAA when he could go home and hang out with his family in the restaurant and still get paid? It's not like he's a young guy who has any hope of getting another big contract, this is likely his last year in the league, unless he wants to take a camp invite next year for the league minimum. As for the Brewers, I don't think they have any need for his skill set at this point, better to just cut ties. Hopefully, they make the best decision for all involved and release him.

Why should Suppan be immune to getting booed out of town- because he seems to be a nice guy? He took the big money and didn't live up to his end of the bargain. Gagne, who was nowhere near as bad- and didn't make as much money was booed mercilessly, Hammonds was run out of town on a rail and Hall was sent to the minors. Sheets was booed off the mound his last game after pitching with a torn muscle in his arm. The idiots who booed him were the kind who said that he 'is always hurt' or 'is lazy and doesn't train enough'. At least Sheets was major league caliber when he actually played. Who's to say Suppan didn't take the contract for granted and let himself go like a lot of players do after 'getting paid'? He's been busy messing around with the restaurant and other things out in California. He was almost average his first season here, and has been completely terrible since. If he's truly been injured the past two seasons, who's to say that's because of a lack of conditioning? If the Brewers keep him, they had better only use him in road games, because it's going to get ugly the first time that he goes out and gets rocked at MP. I don't boo much, because I think it makes you look stupid, plus I don't want to get into that debate again. That said, if deserved and I am there, I will join in the booing. It's gotten to the point where it's not even really about Suppan himself anymore. A message needs to be sent to management. All I can say is that Suppan is lucky that he signed with the Brewers and not the Yankees or Phillies or somewhere where the fans would give him a really hard time.

What's new? Apparently, they haven't seen much of him the past two years, because this has been the case for a while.

That would be a dream come true. I'm sure the Brewers have tried to make a face-saving trade of Suppan, a la the Billy Hall dump. I'm guessing the problem is that no one wants any part of Soup, because the odds are that he will actually have negative value- where a guy like Hall had some value because he could play multiple positions and pinch hit. I can't see the D-Backs doing this because Snyder has some value backing up and pinch hitting. The Brewers would really have to sweeten the deal with a good prospect to even get the D-Backs to think about it- then they could rationalize it as a Snyder for prospect trade (but like I said, it would have to be a pretty good prospect for them to eat that kind of cash). I think the only way that Suppan could have been moved was for a guy like Milton Bradley, where because of 'circumstances', there was no way the team was keeping him. That might have worked, but the Brewers luck was bad in that he wasn't going to get moved to a division rival. The only place Suppan would be a worthy trade target would be the NBA, because he'd be an 'expiring contract'. Too bad MLB doesn't have a salary cap.

I'm glad to see this move. I think this has something more to do with his 83 mph fastball than his wife. He might be a good guy going through a tough time, but the goal here is to win baseball games. Hopefully this is a good sign that Suppan is next.

Point taken.....but the savings in center field theoretically allowed the team to sign Wolf by freeing up most of the salary needed to sign him. Though I am a little more cynical about that signing than most here, it would be hard even for me to argue that adding Wolf shouldn't bolster the rotation, hopefully adding wins on that side of things.

Maybe no one is arguing this here, but every indication in the press is that the team plans to break camp with Suppan in the rotation. There is absolutely no logical reason for the team to anchor themselves to Suppan besides the contract.... though I'm beginning to think that he 'has something' on Mark A. My argument is that he can be cut with no problem, because even if starters get injured, almost any 'guy' should be able to outperform him. You mentioned Villanueva.....why can't he be 'stretched out' in the minors for the first few weeks of the season so he can be a swing man and make spot starts if needed? Frankly, the main reason that I don't want Suppan around is that Macha won't have the temptation to use him. All that said, it seems that the team will foolishly follow through on my prediction and that Suppan will be given at least 6 or 8 starts to 'work things out'.

Blue text indicates sarcasm. The original poster might have been expressing sarcasm, but that's my general view of Cameron, hence the black text. I'd much rather have a combo of Gomez and Edmonds for a third of the price. Edmonds is only a few years older, but has been a much better hitter over his career than Cameron. Gomez is much younger, and probably at this point the equal or slightly better than Cameron in the field. For the price, I'll gladly take either option over Cam.

Exactly. Granted with good defense, but that will be replaced adequately by Lopez.

While Suppan may not be the "worst pitcher" ever to play, that doesn't mean that he should be in the majors- or more specifically, on the Brewers' roster. The guy has nothing left, and doesn't miss any bats. For Pete's sake, pitchers hit .250 off him last year. Of the "good starts" of his that I remember from last year, lots of it was luck- atom ball line drives right at somebody, smoked one-hop double plays, and fly balls to the warning track. Not from last year, but I remember one start I think from late 2008 in San Diego, which was probably a "quality start". There were about 6 long drives, most or all were outs, and most or all would have been out of Miller Park. His stuff isn't fooling anybody, and if the powers that be keep him around, the fans aren't going to be fooled either as to the real reason why. Keep somebody that actually has the talent to get batters out themselves, not someone who depends on guys to "miss" pitches.

I don't care that he is 'trying his hardest'. The fact is, he is basically stealing from the Brewers as the highest paid player on the team, and deserves to be booed off the field if he makes the team. Sheets gets booed off the field in his last start after pitching with a torn muscle in his arm, shortly after Suppan was hidden on the D.L., somehow though Sheets comes off as the lazy out of condition one, while Suppan is 'trying really hard'. On another note, what exactly were the injuries that kept Suppan out parts of the past two seasons? I'm not so sure anyone really knows. I'm hoping it gets so ugly with the fans that the team is forced to do something with him. Most of us have had enough. I don't care how much money was spent, the guy has cost the team games, and possibly even playoff appearances due to his albatross of a contract. Yes, the brass was stupid to give him that contract and to keep him around, but he hasn't lived up to his end of the deal in the least. Seriously, I don't think booing will affect his performance in the least. Can he get any worse? No way would anyone give back $13 million or whatever, but the honorable thing to do would be for him to retire.

What exactly did you see in Bourgeois that you liked? I thought that he was brutal, and looked completely lost at the plate. Going further, considering the #5 outfielder last year at this time was Chris Duffy, I think that Edmonds is definitely a step up, no matter how old he is.

He must be one of Mark A's favorites...either that or has pictures of someone doing something incriminating. Look how he's been treated with kid gloves, while when others struggle, they are DFA'd or sent to Nashville immediately. If Suppan is kept, I hope his 'welcome' on Opening Day is twice as loud as the one Wes Helms received. Not that Soup is a bad guy, but he's a bad player, and a message needs to be sent to management.

Sounds like posturing to me in the event he doesn't make the team. If he's that he didn't make the roster, he will make the "choice" to retire.

I bet you're thinking of U.L. Washington. He was the dude that played with a toothpick in his mouth. I think that he was wrapped up in the Royals mid-80's cocaine scandal. Most of Ron Washington's career was also during the 1980's..... I find it impossible to believe that he never once did coke during his playing career, then did it on a whim in 2009 at the age of 57- a week or so before a random drug test, mind you. If he's telling the truth, he's the second most unlucky guy in the world next to Gary Condit.

Let's just forget about any pipe dream in trading Suppan and getting a team to pick up any of his salary. Honestly, what does he bring to the table? There are scores of minor league pitchers around baseball and probably dozens of guys without jobs right now that could outperform him. It's time for this team to man up, admit their mistake, and release him now. The definition of insanity is to keep trying something that doesn't work again and again hoping for different results. Quit fooling around with him, he's taking innings away from guys that should be looked at and evaluated in this environment. Even if he was buried in the bullpen, what point is there in wasting a roster spot on a guy who should only see action in blowout losses. I certainly wouldn't want to see him jog in from the bullpen in any type of close game, or even with the Brewers leading by 5 or 6 runs.

Well maybe that's good if he used the HIFO method which is defined as, "a distribution method in which the inventory with the highest cost of purchase is the first to be used or taken out of stock". If Suppan was taken out of stock, I think that would be a good thing.

Seems real plausable that a 57 year old ex-MLB player got bored and decided to try coke for the first time then was unlucky enough to get busted.

Yes, but Sanchez had no talent. Why not give Dukes a low risk deal and can him if he becomes a problem?

Maybe the A's will realize their blunder and trade Sheets to the Brewers for Suppan. After all, only 2 of the 4 bombs hit off Soup this weekend "should have been" home runs.

Come on, man. Soup was just pitching to his career norms....he's a fine innings eater/5th starter. Seriously, no way will this team unload Suppan. Macha seems to be quite the apologist for him. Instead of Soup, I'm going to start calling him 'The Coaches Kid', because he seems to be the only player in this organization who is not held accountable for poor performance. Bush is as good as gone, because they aren't going to pay him that kind of money to be a long reliever.

So basically in the games that he wasn't terrible, he had a sub 4 E.R.A.? Any regular in the majors would look good if you dropped their worst 1/3 or so games. I'm not buying the fact that Suppan was physically injured anyway. Let's face it, Suppan was one of the worst, if not the worst starting pitcher in baseball last year, and in my opinion, he can not be fixed due to his age and lack of physical talent.