RockCoCougars

I suspect that Kurkjian is talking out of his rear again. I'd say that it's a safe bet to assume that Braun will in fact be suspended, so he's playing the odds. If Vegas set odds on a vindication, they'd be pretty high.

Beane has 'street cred' with the baseball crowd. That's far from universal, I'd say. This guy and his supporters are always pleading poverty, and then they go out and make a move like this, for a guy who has never played a pro game on American soil? This on top of giving Coco Crisp the contract that he just did? Meanwhile, he trades his closer for middling guys, because he's getting too expensive.... while he's stuck with Brian Fuentes (who wasn't really that great 5 years ago when he was 'good') for $5 million? According to what I see, at this point, he has roughly a third of his payroll tied up with Cespedes, Crisp and Fuentes. Bottom line, Beane can do no wrong with his fans. He constantly is moving guys. If he makes a good trade like the Mulder trade, he is praised for 'selling at peak value'. If he makes a horrible move like the Holliday trade(s), his hand was forced due to payroll constraints. Meanwhile, he's finished above third once (in the easiest division to win in baseball) since the last of the Big 3 departed. All this while having one of his buddies (yes men) manage the team most of that time. Timing is everything in life. He was handed the keys to a Cadillac, and got lucky drafting two college pitchers right away. Yeah, it was cool that did things like moving Scott Hatteberg to first, but come on. I'm tired of the apologists pleading poverty. Beane gets all the props and street cred, but if there was ever a genius 'Moneyball' GM during this time, it was Terry Ryan. Ryan inherited a mess, with similar or worse fiscal constraints and built that organization into a winner. Bottom line, if Beane hadn't written the book, do you think that he would still have a job with the A's? I say no.

What prospect with comparable numbers to Gindl has "flopped"? Matt LaPorta, I guess. "Decent numbers" is a big generalization -- I suppose you could say Eric Farris has had "decent numbers" if you wanted to. But if we're trying to be more precise than that, what Caleb Gindl precisely did is OPS .862 in AAA as a 22 year-old. You're acting like that's random, meaningless information. I think it's very significant information. Of course past performance is no guarantee of future performance, but that's equally true of major league performance. This generic dismissal of rookies based on nothing more than broad generalizations doesn't make any sense to me. First of all, not all rookies are created equal. Of course age matters. Older players, wherever they have been playing, are more experienced and (presumably) more mature. Aoki is in a completely different category; as someone pointed out, he has been playing under MLB conditions in Japan. Yes, all of the guys we're talking about will need to get acquainted with better breaking stuff than they've ever seen on a regular basis, and that's important. But they all have well-developed approaches, and they've made adjustments already at multiple levels. People often act as if doubting rookies is some kind of safe assumption. It isn't. Going with a veteran can be every bit as risky as going with a rookie. The fallacy is that, if you go with a rookie and he flops, you can look at the foregone veteran and assume that he would have performed up to his past standards. But that just isn't reliable -- look at McGehee and Kotsay last year. It is quite possible that the Brewers could doom their chances this year by not giving enough PT to Aoki, Gamel, Green, Schafer, and/or Gindl. No safe assumption is available, so we need to make smart decisions instead. I'm not saying that Gindl is sure to be a bust. It's probably in the 50/50 range. As I've said, the Brewers have had a lot of guys like this fall flat on their faces in the past. I will give Gindl props for his young age and ability to produce as he's moved through each level of the system. Based on that, he could very well turn out to be a very good player, but even if that happens, odds are that he will struggle some at first. My major issue with bringing him up for Opening Day is that I don't believe that they would let him play everyday during the 50 game window (rightly or wrongly). More likely, he would sit on the bench a lot. I think that it would be better to let him play everyday down in AAA. However, my opinion on this is subject to change if he tears up the Cactus League.

I continue to be baffled by what Beane is doing. He seems to be from the Sal Bando school if you ask me. Kind of a constant retool/rebuild hybrid going on out there. Trading some guys before they get expensive, then turning around and overpaying someone. Signing old guys to plug holes, with 'prospects' flowing in and out of the system constantly. I know that Beane has street cred with the Sabermatic crowd, but you cannot use stats to justify this signing. High risk/high reward, I guess, but most of these international bonus babies have busted over the past 15-20 years. I bet that Beane was the happiest guy in the world that the Angels and Rangers made all the moves that they did this summer.

That arbitrator moved fast.... $2 million seems like the top that this guy should command. He's been pretty good the past few years, but wasn't very good before that. Seems to throw hard though, and I like hard throwing relievers.

Right. I was just commenting on how badly the Brewers bench hit last season. I believe that Counsell alone got 70 some pinch at-bats. I'd rather have someone like Branyan to replace those at bats than carry a Tim Dillard to pitch every seventh game and horse around in the bullpen.

What are we looking at as far as seeding as we stand? I'm guessing that they are headed dead on for a four/five seed unless they collapse down the stretch or win the conference tournament.

Exactly. While any road win in the Big 10 is big, the Badgers' play over the last 10 minutes last night didn't inspire any confidence in me that they are more than one and done at best in the NCAA. To me, these guys seem to have the ability oppose their will on defense against a substandard offense, but if they play a team that gets some torrid shooting or low post scoring, they will get crushed. I know the tournament is all about defense, but you simply cannot have these 4 point/10 minute stretches (or 8 minute droughts) and expect to win. These have been all too common this year for this squad.

If he hits, frankly I don't care what Gamel ingests..... as long as it doesn't spike his testosterone to superhuman levels.

The article states we should have spent A-Ram money to upgrade SS and 1B specifically. Not signing SP or trading for SP. Not signing a RP. Upgrading SS and 1B. Of course we can argue how best to spend money in other places but the article said we blew it by not allocating those dollars to SS or 1B The author fails to mention how the Brewers (at least on paper) did upgrade SS by signing Gonzalez. I would have preferred Barmes, but who else was out there? Rollins. I have a hard time believing this guy would have lauded the Brewers as much as he did the Phillies had they signed Rollins to the same deal. As for 1B, who was out there, Carlos Pena? Pass.

I'm not worried about Jennings. He's a 22 year old kid, and 22 year olds will shoot their mouths off sometimes. If he plays well enough over the next 2.5 years to demand huge interest from the big markets, that's a good thing considering that I was ready to give up on him after the last 1.5 years. I'd have been upset as well if I was bypassed for the all-star team for Deron Williams (Jennings should take some lessons from him, whining to go to a 'big market' is often not all that it's cracked up to be- at least on the court). As for the draft, I think that a given teams' performance in the draft (or lack thereof) is closely correlated with the talent level in the given draft. Some drafts are crappy and there maybe four or five decent players taken after the first five picks and some drafts are stacked to the point that it would be hard to mess things up with a lottery pick ('96 for example). In most drafts the past several years, there have been some good players the first few picks, and mostly garbage thereafter. This still doesn't excuse the Bucks for drafting Yi and Alexander though.

As for Han Solo and Greedo, there are two distinct audible shots in the clip. I always thought it was Greedo that drew his gun first, but Han was quicker on the draw Exactly.

The problem with Schafer is that from what I've seen, he projects to have basically the same skillset as Morgan, give or take. If Morgan was making huge money and/or had trade value, perhaps that's an opportunity, but I don't see either being the case as we stand. As for Gindl, guys with decent minor league stats have been a dime a dozen for the Brewers over the years. A few have turned out, some have been decent, and most have flopped. Not saying that will be the case, Gindl could turn out to be a stud, but as a rookie, I wouldn't count on him for much. Basically, with both these guys I think that it'd be better to let them play every day in Nashville until at least a semi-regular job opens up. If either came north with the team, I'd be willing to bet that they see little to no playing time.

A-We don't know who's going to be on our bench. If Green makes the big league team, you're wrong in your assessment of our bench. OK. Slap hitters, a catcher and a line drive hitter. I see no reason to believe that Green will be a legit power hitter in MLB. B-How many teams out there that are mid market teams have a bench with legit power hitters? Considering that Branyan that signed for little or no money, I don't think market size played a role. Bottom line, the Brewers used pinch hitters for nearly half a regular's 'full season' plate appearances last year. The performance of these guys was very subpar. Meanwhile, for a good chunk of the season, they carried 7 right handed relief pitchers on the active roster. I'd prefer a PH only type guy to bullpen overkill. They are selling the 8th/9th combo as the strong point of the team, so they shouldn't need 7 guys in the pen.

I like Branyan because he helped keep the Brewers in contention early summer 2008. He went on a tear in June when the team was starting to falter. As we sit today, I'd be interested in giving him another shot in the spring solely because of the 'thunder' in his bat. I could care less if he brought his glove or not. The Brewers have a bench of slap hitters.

Why would the Brewers want Rollins for a big money deal? He's always been hugely overrated in my view. Look at his stats since the MVP year, he would have done little to fill the offensive hole that Fielder left. As stated above, I'm not 100 percent sold on Ramirez either, but I would have been irate had they signed Rollins. By the way, this guy also had the Rollins signing on his 'best offseason moves' list.

Kind of like the Zapruder film with the missing frames. After further review, Hans shot first. Anything from the special edition comes with an asterisk if you ask me.

The guy is an attorney, so that actually wouldn't surprise me. I'm sure that his office gets a bloated fee scale from MLB at any rate. Why rush?

Maybe the arbitrator gets paid by the hour, and is just milking the clock?

I'm not a huge fan of the Ramirez deal, but the same guy has the following as the best moves (so take his ranking of Ramirez in context). 5. Edwin Jackson for $11 million - This is kind of bleh for me, as I don't think he's anything more than a mid rotation guy. Not a bad deal, due to being only one year, but nothing to get excited about either 4. Roy Oswalt??? -I guess he's assuming that Oswalt will sign for peanuts somewhere (and finds the Fountain of Youth) 3. The Padres trade of Latos - Time will tell, but unless Volquez reverts back to his one good season form, I think the Reds will win. I think I found the origin of all the Yonder Alonso love though... 2. Marlins sign Reyes for 9 figures - Two words. Contract year. I'd be willing to bet that he never has another year like 2011 (and he couldn't stay healthy then). 1. Cardinals sign Beltran - Older than Ramirez, but I guess that he's not due for a regression? I guess the fact that he did absolutely nothing for the Giants until they fell out of the race, doesn't count?

Guys like Tyrus Thomas are precisely why I have no interest whatsoever in this team tanking. As for the Bucks, over the next month they will be playing a bunch of the Eastern teams that they are competing for playoff position with. I see several winnable games along with several games that a playoff caliber team should win. This stretch of games should be very telling. I will say that this team is much more entertaining to watch again this year. They were nearly unwatchable last season. Very disappointing that they couldn't pull down an rebound at the end against Phoenix the other night.

If this were the case for all prospects then the term "bust" would never have been coined. If all our prospects performed to their talent level then 3B Antone Williamson, RF Todd Dunn and CF Chad Green would all just be putting the finishing touches on their amazing Milwaukee Brewer careers and lining up for induction in the HOF. But that's ok, we still would have the dynamic1-2 punch of J.M. Gold and Mike Jones leading us to the playoffs annually. I'm not saying Gamel, Aoki and Schafer won't all be good. I am only saying expecting them to be anything other than rookies this season is not realistic. I agree. I think people are making risky assumptions regarding the 2012 potential of Gindl, Aoki and Schafer. All have relatively impressive numbers at the minor league level (yes, I consider Japan to be minor league), but all are far from a sure thing. I think that a lot of people have been spoiled by the recent immediate success of Fielder, Gallardo and Braun as along with the success of the batch of prospects including Weeks, Hardy and Hart (all struggled early). I've been a Brewers fan for a long time, and I can assure you that the development of this group of players is an exception as opposed to the rule, at least as far as the Crew is concerned. I've seen many better prospects than these guys fall flat on their faces. I'm all for giving Gamel his shot to start along with giving Green a spot on the major league roster (neither have anything left to prove in the minors). However, while I'm willing to give Gindl, Schafer and Aoki a long look in the spring, at this point, my expectations of them are minimal.

Manny Parra?

Good grief. Again? I guess I will table this until next off season then.

The Brewers hit 185 homers last season. I wouldn't be a bit surprised to see them under 150 this season. Prince hit 38. Gone. I'd be thrilled if Gamel came within 20 of that mark. The much maligned and departed duo of McGehee and Yuni even combined for 26. I don't think that it's a slam dunk by any means that Ramirez and Gonzalez will exceed that. As for Braun, he hit 33. I think that you can reduce that by at least a third based on the suspension. I expect little to no power from Aoki, frankly I'd be happy with a .270 average and defense out of him. I wouldn't count on Weeks and Hart to repeat their homer totals last season, but will be disappointed if they don't. The bench has no power whatsoever at this point either.