RockCoCougars

However, we are in a situation where we are going to lose a pot of talent at the end of the season... probably more than any season in Brewer history. This is a myth. Outside of Greinke and Marcum, who else of any value won't be under control? K-Rod, Gonzalez and Wolf have been non factors.

If Bonds was put on the market for a trade back then I highly doubt it would be because he was a clubhouse cancer the reason he would be put on the market is because he is an asset. The team is going to sell an asset if they believe it is going to bring more assets back in return. Teams hardly ever trade a player away because they are a clubhouse cancer. Funny that you mention this because way back in the day, (I'm thinking 89/90 off season) there were rumored talks of a Bonds/Sheffield swap that Harry Dalton turned down.... I don't think that Bonds was really considered a 'cancer' back then, but he certainly wasn't performing up to his abilities yet. As for Sheffield he had been perfecting the art of being a cancer during his rookie season, and that 'talent' certainly helped him get traded a few times. As for Upton, he had a nice season last year, but I think that he's a tad overrated. Nowhere near as overrated as his brother has been, but overrated.

Teams (generally multiple teams) collapse every year for various reasons. Heck, anyone who's been a Garner/Yost era-Brewers fan should know that all too well. Going further, they'd have never made the playoffs in '08 had the Mets not imploded. Knowing this, I'm not concerned about all the teams ahead of them or the probabilities that some website has for a playoff appearance. I want to know what the odds that the Brewers can win 48 of their last 80 games, because if they do that, I'd be willing to bet they make it (and maybe win the division). I think that those odds are slightly better than 1 in 20, especially considering that they won 52 of their final 80 last year. No matter what, the first 9 games are crucial.

One team can fall apart. Two might. But I severely doubt all 4 teams in front of the Phillies will. The Brewers don't just have to get hot. They have to get hot AND be hotter than 8 other teams just to make the wild card. I'm personally not convinced that the season is lost with 80 games left. Let's face it, they are chasing the Pirates. Kick the probabilities around all that you want, but what were the probabilities last year on this date that the Brewers would end up 25 games ahead of the Pirates (who they were neck and neck with at the time). Yes, they are behind a lot of teams, but look at some of those teams right now. First, they are right with Arizona and Florida, and we've seen first hand how flawed those teams are. The Dodgers are playing terrible ball right now and has anyone seen the Mets bullpen- (probably just as bad as the Brewers)? That leaves the Braves, Cardinals and Reds. The Brewers will get plenty of opportunities to gain ground on the latter two and the former collapsed big time last season and currently have a very leaky starting rotation. Bottom line, the Brewers are probably going to have to play around .600 ball the rest of the way to get into the playoffs. I'd say that's possible, not likely... but not as unlikely as some here seem to think. No matter what, for those calling for a slew of trades, nothing is going to be done until the end of next week at the earliest. If the Brewers play like crap against the division teams, I'll join the sell bandwagon, but there is no reason that they shouldn't be able to handle the Pirates and Cardinals at home.

I didn't say that I wanted him to be a reliever forever. If he's going to be babied the rest of the way regardless, may as well do it from the pen in Milwaukee. He certainly appears to be a better option than Dillard, and I wouldn't be surprised if he steps into a starting role soon anyway.

No problems with the move whatsoever. The bullpen has been trash, and maybe this will help during this big stretch of games. From what I've seen, many project Thornburg to be a reliever at some point anyway. Even if they plan on starting him down the road, lots of guys have started in the pen before becoming very successful starters.

The lack of news on this is very disconcerting to me considering the fact that we are almost a month out. It's also looking like any trade scenario involving Marcum is pretty much a pipe dream at this point.

Why would they do that when they can just get rid of him and end their headache? They just need to dump him ASAP for the best package, and let someone else deal with him. I definitely wouldn't touch him for any significant package if I was a team other than the Nets though. He seems dead set on going there. If he gets traded somewhere else he'll probably be a problem again, and then walk in the offseason. Too big of a risk for anyone other than the Nets in my opinion. Mostly just for cap space and spite. If the Magic were to move Howard now, they'd have to take garbage salaries back in return. Additionally, he's going to have a very difficult time getting that huge deal without a sign and trade. He's pretty much a rental guy at this point anyway, and he's killed a big chunk of his residual trade value anyway at this point with his prima donna behavior.

Machado is not a realistic return, particularly with other decent pitching available. The package I listed would be a very nice return, if anything it is too optimistic, certainly not "scraps." To me, picking and choosing from an organization after they hold back their best prospects is taking scraps. Why would they want Baltimore's junk pitchers, neither of whom are good enough to pitch for them in the majors this year? Are we back to the Dean Taylor era and trading for Jamey Wright and Jimmy Haynes again? I bet both those guys were on B.A.'s prospect list at one time as well. I'm leaning toward just taking the draft picks unless someone wants to move an impact guy. If that's not realistic, so be it. Draft well, and you will have your own 'Top 100 prospects' ...as Baseball America seems to fill this list out with guys based almost solely on draft status after they find those with the eye popping minor league numbers.

I don't want the Orioles scraps for Greinke. Either they part with Machado, who won't be ready until 2014 best case, or they will have to go to Plan B. I could care less what Baseball America thought of a guy when they were putting together a list. I've watched both Matusz and Britton pitch, and both are pretty much garbage- especially Matusz. Don't know much about the other guys, but like I said, I'm not taking scraps.

EDIT to remove Greinke comment that I somehow put in this thread. At any rate, I blamed the managers of the game more than I did Selig. Though the talking heads from the media flew way off the handle, besides gamblers who really cared about the result of the game at that point anyway?

Personally, I quit caring about the ASG at about the same point in time that a lot of the players did (some point in the early/mid '90's). I bet that I haven't watched a full ASG since the 80's, and don't plan to watch more than a little of it tonight. I did catch some of the HR derby last night though and wish I would have Tivoed it, and kept it around to self treat insomnia. What a snooze. Not only was the coverage during the event annoying, the predictable 'controversy' created after the event (Cano) is a non story as far as I'm concerned, created by the media to attempt to draw interest to the game. As for Rosen's comments, of course the game has been watered down. There's almost twice as many teams (and players) as there was way back when he was a kid. I bet that he didn't complain when Bob Allison or Tony Oliva started. I think that there is something to the over saturation argument. There is 24/7 coverage of baseball these days. It's not a big deal to see anyone play on TV anymore. Heck, when I was a kid, the Saturday Game of the Week was must see TV. Back then, you only followed guys through the Sporting News, or the blurb that you might get in the local paper. You might get to see some guys play once or twice a year tops outside of the ASG and the post season. Cable and later the Internet changed all of that.

Who would want Howard? The guy is the biggest cancer going in sports right now, and he obviously knows that he will never win unless he rides someone else's coattails. If I'm Orlando, I'd wait for the guy to start whining about a trade come training camp and then suspend him for insubordination.

I'm not sure that deal is going to look so hot in a few years.

It would take a ton to land Upton, and I don't think that he'd be worth it.

We've talked about this before, but in my view this 'walk' is way too restrictive for a franchise with exactly zero W.S. trophies. I also tend to think that many of the voters are pretty clueless when it comes to knowledge of Brewers history based on the voting results. Who is the moron who votes for Obermueller every year? I agree with the notion that bare minimum one or two people should be inducted each year. Scott and Higuera seem like the first two logical choices.

If the Orioles don't want to give a shortstop that likely wont be ready until 2014 at the earliest (when they already have one locked in), well, they can pound sand. If these teams are going to hoard shortstop prospects, then let them go for their plan B.

What an awful reason not to trade a player or to not want to trade a player from a fan's perspective. BTW: Ishikawa - .247/.317/.479/.796 Hart - .251/.314/.498/.812 Well, that's not my primary reason for wanting to hold onto him. He gives great production for his pricetag. $9 million for someone who is probably going to hit enough homers this season to have averaged around 30 the past three years. That's a steal, and I'm not giving him away for some fringe prospect, just because some rag says they are "Top 75".

Somebody somewhere on here said that we could get a 'Top 75 prospect' for Hart, and they were in for that. That's not selling high if you ask me, not even close. It would take a ton for me to trade Hart this season, if for no other reason than I'd have to watch the brutal Green/Ishikawa mashup at first for the rest of the season.

On the bright side, consider that the Cardinals bullpen blew game after game last season until they were double digits back. Then, the pen got better, the team got hot and the rest is history.... A guy can dream, right?

I don't know if it would be made public if Braun was asked. ESPN would certainly make a story out of the fact that he was ducking a possible negative fan reception.

Why these active pro athletes have Twitter accounts is beyond me. Call me an old curmudgeon, but what good can come out of it? I guess that they need to stoke their egos with 'followers' or something.

Interesting. Sounds like the whole process has changed a bit then. I wonder what kind of 2013 salary we'd be looking at with the new system. Marcum is going to have to get back soon and prove that he's healthy if he wants to get a multi-year deal for good money.

Even though he's a free agent, they can still offer him arbitration. If he accepts, they work out a one year deal, if he declines and signs somewhere else then the Brewers get pick(s). This is how they got stuck with K Rod. They did the same with Sheets when his arm was hanging by a thread, and got lucky when he didn't accept (but they didn't end up getting the draft choices either). At least I believe this is still the case unless this has also changed in the new CBA?

Every day that goes by makes it more unlikely that Marcum is going to bring anything. Has anyone heard a status update since he had the painful throwing session a week or two ago? I've got to assume that they've ruled any major injury out, but you can never be sure. We may be looking at a Sheets like arbitration situation in a few months. Let's say that Marcum pitches very little the rest of the season and/or comes back ineffective. I can't think that he'd bring too much in arbitration, but he might be forced to accept.