RockCoCougars

That's too bad. I saw this earlier today. I think he got his start with the Brewers when Uecker was shooting Mr. Belvidere. Did he ever do local sports for any of the Milwaukee stations?

Thanks for getting my hopes up. I thought you were talking about Bill Michaels.

Still trying to figure out why Melvin didn't wait until the offseason to mess with Hall and Hardy. He killed the trade value for both of them when Suppan is the one who should have been jettisoned.

I'd sign any of the three on a one year deal with a mutual option for a second year like Looper got last year. I wouldn't give multiple years to any of them. I'd go to about $6-$7 million. My order of preference would be Garland, Washburn, Davis. I'd still prefer the team reconcile with Sheets, but I digress.

I'd go with Morris, Dawson and probably Lee Smith and Blyleven. I get into this argument every year, but t my opinion, Dawson was a much better player than Raines, I don't care what the Sabermetrics say. Had Dawson not torn his knees up, he may have been counted with the all time greats, but he still put up HOF numbers in my opinion. Raines had a few years as one of the best in the game, but tailed off in the late 80's and was pretty much a role player for the rest of his career. Jack Morris was one of the best pitchers of the 80's and in my opinion Game 7 of the 91 series cemented him as a HOF. Lee Smith was the most feared closer of his day and pitched most of his prime years in bandboxes (Wrigley and Fenway, though the shadows in Wrigley probably helped him with all the day games)... I doubt that Smith will get in however, because it seems like closers in baseball will be treated like kickers in football for enshrinement... though I think Smith was better than both Fingers and Sutter. I've softened on Blyleven a bit... even though I don't think he was ever really one of the best players in the game, and was pretty much a stat compiler, the fact that guys like Don Sutton and Phil Niekro are in make it hard for me to shoot him down. I don't get the love for Edgar Martinez, his numbers were really no better than Don Mattingly's and he DH'ed for most of his career. In my opinion, another DH - Harold Baines was a better player, to me he falls short as well. No to Alomar, if he had a couple more big years maybe, but he fell off the face of the earth quickly. Spitting in the umps face didn't win him any points with me either. If you want an under appreciated 2B, Sweet Lou Whitaker is your man, but he falls a little short most likely. think that Trammel and Larkin deserve some consideration as well, because they put up big numbers playing shortstop.

Plenty of low upside, over 30 year old starting pitchers who can't break 90 on the gun left out there. These guys are just Melvin's type, and you have to believe that he is salivating over some of them......that is, if he isn't able to bring back the Looper.

I would say no. They really didn't improve their pitching staff much, unless you feel that Randy Wolf is a difference maker, which I don't. Plus it looks like Suppan is still in the rotation, which is bad. As far as the offense goes, dumping Kendall was addition by subtraction, but swapping Gomez for Cameron and Escobar for Hardy were lateral moves at best.

If this is such a small transaction, why is it being talked about so much (not just here either)? Why is it taking so long to develop? If it's minor league and low risk, why not just sign him with the invite to spring training? Why do they have to watch him throw first? Transactions like this should happen out of the blue and be in the small print "Transactions" section of the newspaper, they aren't dragged on for weeks. I think that either Mulder is trying to milk a couple of million out of somebody or the team is using this to dangle a "name" player to help satisfy the casual fan. If they want to smokescreen this, why don't they just sign Tom Glavine for God's sake? He'd have a more realistic chance for success, and as far as I know hasn't retired yet.

So in your opinion, Wolf is good and Harden is mediocre? Actually, I feel just the opposite is the case. Going further, I would call the Wolf signing a perfect example of a "mediocre team signing a mediocre player to a mediocre (bad) contract".

I agree. I find it somewhat disconcerting that of all the pitchers on the market with past ties to Macha/Peterson with the A's, the Brewers chose to focus on Mulder and not Harden, Duchscherer, or even possibly Hudson.

Instead, we are getting a hometown shunning from Sheets. Have to wonder what is going on with the management of this team.

Every signing of a starting pitcher makes the Wolf deal look worse. Melvin definitely jumped the gun, and the market for starting pitching turned out to be way down. Kind of like when you buy something at one store and then a week later you see an ad in the paper where it is on sale somewhere else for about half of what you paid.....only in the Brewers' case, Melvin threw away the receipt and the box.

Though he's cheap, left-handed and throws hard, I'm not as big of a Parra fan as many on here are. As we found out last year, he's not a #2 starter. In my opinion, he's best suited as a #5 starter at this point...... even better as a piece in a trade, but I'm afraid that ship has sailed. I will say that I'd rather give him another chance than another 34 year old free agent who can hit 89 on the fast gun on a good day.

Marquis is no great shakes, but he looks like a right handed Sandy Koufax compared to Suppan. It's very frustrating that for the price of Suppan/Randy Wolf, the team likely could have signed three serviceable starters to go with Gallardo next year.

Melvin has done a lot of good for this franchise, but this offseason has been very frustrating. He needs to stop sitting on his hands and do something. I'll give him the benefit of the doubt on the Hardy trade even though it was a gamble, but everything else outside of the Zaun/Counsell signings has been questionable. I mean, come on, his underling was able to dump Carlos Silva for God's sake. Melvin needs to stop hiding behind his flimsy payroll excuse and start doing something. By the way, that excuse falls on deaf ears for me as he just shelled out 8 figures for a guy with questionable credentials who had no other strong suitors on the market. I think that Melvin could have waited back and found something much better with the added payroll flexibility he would have had, but I guess that money was just burning a hole in his pocket.... The first thing that he should do is get creative and deal Suppan. It could be done, but it will take some creativity and yep, gulp, salary eating. They were so quick to give Bill Hall away for nothing when he brought much more value to the team, if for nothing else playing several positions with adequate defense. For Heaven's sake, get out there and find a good pitcher so this fanbase doesn't need to watch Suppan trotted out there every fifth day again.

You better get used to it because every time a Wisconsin team makes (or doesn't make) what appears to be a stupid (or at least suboptimal) move, Suppan is going to be brought up. He should be because signing him is arguably the worst move in Wisconsin sports history. Their are other contenders, of course (trading Kareem, dumping Sheffield, taking Surhoff over Bonds, hiring Bart Starr as coach, etc.), but by crippling the first good team the Brewers have had in a generation, he has really earned any negative comparisons thrown his way.Kind of off topic, but an interesting take. Suppan definitely ranks right up there with worst blunders in Wisconsin sports history. My take..... The Kareem trade was unavoidable because he wanted to go, and it actually helped result in the good Bucks teams of the 80's by bringing Winters and Bridgeman to town. Had David Meyers not retired, this trade could have actually been tilted for the Bucks. The Sheffield trade was also unavoidable, but because Bando pretty much got low return for him, it would rank right up there. To be fair, Sheffield, albeit quite young, hadn't really played to his potential before the trade and was coming off a mystery illness (if my recollection is correct). Top 10 for sure. The Starr hiring was probably not the best in hindsight, but I think there have been worse hires in state history. I would actually argue that his predecesor Devine was a worse hire. The thing with Starr was probably that they let him hang around too long. I get a kick out of the Surhoff/Bonds thing because 20 years ago it was Will Clark. Simply put, the baseball draft is a crapshoot, Surhoff had a long career and outplayed most #1 overall picks by far. I don't count that one as a blunder. Anyway, Suppan is definitely Top 5 in my opinion. My vote for #1 is the Packer's selection of Tony Mandarich over Barry Sanders, Deion Sanders and Derrick Thomas. Number 2 would probably be the Paul Molitor debacle. Number 3 would probably be the Bucks drafting Kent Benson (this could have been number one if he hadn't been traded for Bob Lanier). If we are going with college sports as well, I would put Don Morton and the veer in the top 5 as well. How did this guy get a head coaching job in the Big 10?

I disagree with this 100%. If Suppan were a FA he would sign for more than $1.2M with some team. He isn't a good pitcher but his value isn't negative either and the idea that they faked an injury has pretty much no merit either imo.I'm absolutely convinced that Suppan would be out of baseball in 2010 if not for his contract. The guy is positively brutal out there on the mound. Last year, in 160 innings he actually walked more guys than he struck out- with a WHIP approaching 1.7. Those numbers suggest negative value to me. His 88 MPH fastball, straight as a string, isn't fooling anyone (that is when he's able to throw strikes). The Brewers need to cut and run with this guy. They simply can't afford to go into another season with him in the starting rotation, giving him 10 starts hoping that he gets by with smoke and mirrors or has found the fountain of youth or something (even though he wasn't very good when he was young either). By all accounts he is a great guy, so I think a lot of people put the blinders on when looking at him. Jim Abbott was a good dude too, but the Brewers only gave him about half a season before they let him go. Keep in mind this was when the team absolutely stunk, but Abbott was on a low money one year deal. Let's not fool ourselves and pretend that there is any reason beside money that Suppan will be on the roster and likely in the rotation next year.

Mountain Dew Throwback is apparently available now. My wife picked some up at Pick n Save.Thanks for the update, I'll be hitting Woodman's tomorrow to see if it has reached our area.

Suppan has negative value. Let's face it, if he was making 1.2 million next year instead of ten times that, he'd be cut in spring training. If he can't be traded, they should just fake another injury for him, but make it season ending this time. This would allow the team to save face somewhat and also save Jeff from embarrassing himself further.

I still contend that the only reason that the option was picked up last year is that Melvin thought he had a deal in place with the Yankees for Cabrera. The Yankees left him holding the bag though when they wanted to force Igawa in the deal as well.

In every Suppan post, I have to give my Jose Guillen suggestion. I once doubted the fact that the Royals would be this stupid, but based on the fact that they just signed Jason Kendall to a multi-year deal, I'm not so sure anymore.

It was a no-brainer not to offer him arbitration. I have no doubt he would have accepted, and probably would have gotten in the $12 million range in 2010 based on his stats. No way would he have gotten that on the open market. Remember last year, Melvin had buyer's remorse after picking up his option for $10 million.

So now they will have two guys they have to give roster spots and innings to because of their contracts.

I disagree, he was very good during the stretch run in 2008 and he was pretty solid for the first half of last year. Most of his bad numbers came from his starts. The frustrating thing for me is that he seemed willing to accept a non-roster invite and the Brewers shot it down, most likely due to politics. You can't have enough pitching and arms like his are rare. Stupid move if you ask me.

Don't sign reigning NLCS MVP's to four year contracts..... Seriously, I think the key is drafting and developing young pitching. It's tough to win without a deep pitching staff. You can crunch sabermetric numbers all you want, but Billy Beane wouldn't have been so smart without Zito, Mulder and Hudson. The primary reason that teams like the Twins seem to compete every year is that they have abundance of young arms that they can bring up. We saw the opposite of that last year when the Brewers best option was Burns. As for offense, I would try to find 2-3 players to build around, lock them up long term and then use young cheap guys and sign bargain veterans that fall through the cracks to fill the remaining positions.