LouisEly

There's talk that teams may try to move him to a starter because he has a cleaner delivery and throws more strikes than Nick. He doesn't reach 100mph like Nick, more in the 96-98 range, but I wouldn't be surprised if the plan is to move him to a starter.

Jon Duplantier. A bit of an injury risk, but in 111 IP this year he struck out 148 and gave up only 77 hits. Walks a little high (47). Missed all of 2015 with a shoulder injury. "Duplantier has regained his 91-96 mph fastball and maintains it deep into games. His heater is tough not only because of its velocity, but also because his extension in the front of his delivery makes it appear faster and it features run and sink."

Corey Seager went 18th and Michael Wacha went 19th in 2012. So far they look to be better picks than Kyle Zimmer at #5. GMs do make mistakes.

Then what's the point? Underdraft early to save on bonus pool money, so that you can give it back to the same guys later who should have been drafted earlier? Is this a sign that the draft needs to be revised again?

I'm not upset that they didn't take pitching - I understand that there were risks with Puk and Groome. But if they wanted to go OF, I agree that Rutherford would have been the better pick. Lowe would have been better too because at least he has a chance to stick at 3B, and if he doesn't, he's athletic enough and has a strong enough arm to play CF.

Ray has the 8th highest OBP... ... on the University of Louisville's baseball team.

Can the criticism of Bruce Seid stop now?

[sarcasm]Hey, there are three OF spots - we need three of them![/sarcasm]

Welp, the Cubs didn't get to where they are by drafting pitching in the top 10. Maybe that's the new Moneyball.

I'm curious what the difference is between Ray and say, Jungmann or Bradley? Is Ray a high-upside guy, or is he the position version of the high floor/moderate ceiling college pitcher that people say/said those two were/are?

Found a new 3rd/4th round guy - Will Smith, C, Louisville.

I think that's part of the point - they've had a number of pitchers who have been awful (Peralta, Jungmann, Freeman, Goforth; Anderson and Davies started off awful but have been very good as of late) but are still winning 47.5% of their games. That being said, they are still 10th out of 15 teams in the NL and trading Lucroy and Braun is a distinct possibility.

Speaking of Nolan Ryan, if pitchers during his tenure were held accountable for throwing at batters how many games would/should he have been suspended during his career?

Diaz and Gatewood are All-Stars, but Allemand isn't?

The Brewers passed on Sonny Gray for the same reason that 13 other teams passed on him - his height. If Gray was four inches taller he would have been a top-5 pick. He's struggling this year too. The Brewers have a higher career WAR (1.0) from their first round picks that year than the Cubs have from their first round pick who was picked three spots ahead of Jungmann (-0.1). Hasn't stopped the Cubs from competing. Are people calling out the Cubs for botching their first round pick that year? The biggest issue is that the Brewers were lobbying for change to the draft and subsequently went with roughly slot value picks so as not to look like hypocrites - they couldn't argue for change and then give a guy well over slot value to sign. Remember, the draft bonus pool wasn't implemented until 2012 - teams could still spend whatever they wanted. The other issue is that the Brewers had to draft a college player with the #15 pick because it wasn't protected; any HS player picked who had an agent worth his salt would have asked for the moon. If you rank the 2011 draft by signing bonuses, Jungmann drops from #12 down to around #18-20 (I did an analysis a while back but don't still have it), and Jed Bradley drops to around #21-23. Players who were drafted after Bradley with a higher signing bonus included Joe Ross, Blake Swihart, Brian Goodwin, Josh Bell, Austin Hedges, and Matt Purke. Several players were drafted after him with the same signing bonus (Alex Meyer, Robert Stephenson, Daniel Norris). Players that signed for roughly $750K or more over slot included seven of the first eight picks, Alex Meyer, Joe Ross, Robert Stephenson, Blake Swihart, Brian Goodwin, Kevin Comer, Josh Bell, Dillon Howard, Dan Vogelbach, Daniel Norris, Charlie Tilson, Austin Hedges, (Andrew Susac was ~$700K over slot), Brian Brickhouse, Matt Purke, and Greg Bird, and that's just the first five rounds. Those were not going to be Brewers draft picks if they weren't close to slot. The reality is that the Brewers allocated their limited resources towards the major league club that year instead of the minor league draft because 1) they were legitimate contenders for a World Series and 2) to support their point that the draft needed changes. No, it wasn't this fantasy that it was quick-to-the-majors high floor guys; it was where to allocate resources and sticking to slot-value guys. If you go back and look at the mock drafts and rankings, Jungmann and Bradley were consistently projected to go in the teens. They were drafted where they were projected to be drafted. The year before they took a HS pitcher - why would their strategy suddenly change the next year? It was a different era because of the lack of a bonus pool, and with the rules of today in place you would have seen some guys drafted much higher than they were.

Testing is an inexact science. I'll let others in the scientific community chime in on that. If you want testing to be more exact you would have to draw a significant amount of blood on a weekly basis from every player, and that is just not feasible - both for the testing, and for the long-term integrity of the arterial tissue. That's why they do urine tests, which aren't an exact science. If the cheaters are ahead of the testers, then how does anyone get caught? Wouldn't it be common knowledge what you need to do to not get caught? The reality is that you have just as much evidence to support your stance as someone does to support the opposite. What do I think happened with Braun? He was on a team that had a legitimate chance to win the World Series, he was hurt, he wanted a shortcut to get healthy and help his team get to the World Series, and the testers were ahead of the cheaters. He was tested as much or more than any player in 2012; that is part of the collective bargaining agreement - if you test positive you get tested more often, regardless of whether you are found "guilty" or not. That's in the CBA. And he had perhaps his best season ever in 2012. Look at what he is doing this year. He is a great player, and always has been. What I think happens is that there are guys such as Bosch and Conte who are looking to make money and try to convince players that "their science" can't be detected by testing. But, as we saw with Braun, they are wrong. It's the randomness of testing and the inexact nature of urine testing that contributes to not getting caught more than it is the cheater being ahead of the testers.

If all goes well, here is what I would like to see: 1 (#5): any of Groome, Puk, Pint, or Lowe 2 (#46): Ben Rortvedt, John Duplantier, Lucas Erceg (can Joe Rizzo move to catcher?) 2b (#75): Hunter Bishop, Jameson Fisher, Ben Bowden 3 (#82): Zack Brown, Jesus Luzardo, Matt Krook 4 (#111): Logan Ice, Keegan Akin, Brigham Hill

For a high-floor, quick to the majors safe pick, Nola is sure doing OK.

Shields has also benefited from pitching half of his games at Petco Park, a very pitcher-friendly park, whereas Garza has been pitching half of his games at Miller Park, a notorious launching pad.

Please elaborate. What is "recoverable" and what is not? I just dumped my old laptop. It was always a second computer, kept hardly anything important on it, just school stuff mostly but there may have been legal forms (W-4, etc.) in PDF form that were on it. Didn't wipe the hard drive (don't have the original Windows disk, bought refurbed off of eBay), but I uninstalled most of the non-Office software including Firefox and I deleted my Windows profile and created a new one instead.

Wish he had been back sooner, given that the White Sox are absorbing roughly what Garza is owed in salary to take Shields. It's June now, trade market for starters is going to heat up. Hopefully Garza can start heating up as well.

Congrats Game05! I know it's been a long road traveled for you. Hoping that people (and by people I mean the media first) realize that the real evil in society is not the police. Not sure which bugging you thread this belongs in, but a friend of mine always says, "What are three positive things that can come from this?" So I'll put it in this thread: 1) I get to leave St. Louis - this week! 2) I can resume drinking Leinenkugel's and not feel conflicted 3) I get at least the month of June off and get paid through the summer The downside... interviewing again, with not much experience in the new field.

If the Brewers take Carl Crawford off of their hands, quite possibly. Now, salary isn't as big of a deal to the Dodgers as Arizona, but look at what ARI had to do to get Arroyo's salary off of their hands, and that was only $14M ($9.5M + $4.5M buyout of 2016). Crawford is due $43M; that is some serious negative value. Taking Braun out of the equation, what would the Dodgers have to give up to get someone to take Crawford off of their hands? Now take that and add Braun's value (keeping in mind, Justin Upton got $133M and Braun is owed $96M, so market value is likely more than what Braun is owed), and if the Brewers take Crawford in a trade then some serious value better be coming the Brewers way.

If not for one bad inning by Blazek (if he only gives up 3 runs instead of 5) and one bad inning by Jeffress the Brewers would be .500 right now.

Oh God, I've had the same issue with Forbes. CPU spikes to 100% when I've gone there and just locks the whole thing up. And yes, I've gone through the privacy settings. There is one setting referenced in the pcworld article that you have to go to a Microsoft website to set, and apparently it won't keep unless you let your browser accept all 3rd party cookies. Sigh. Really, I would not mind my internet bill increasing $10/month to just not have to deal with this crap. And advertisers did it to themselves; I don't mind ads, as long as they are not obtrusive, don't interfere with my experience, and are legitimate, safe ads and not scams or trying to trick me into something. Websites accepting ads that have an obnoxious blinking "CLICK HERE", are made to look like I have an email/Facebook notification or show the President making an outlandish statement to try to trick someone into clicking on it, or worse yet redirect you to spyware or scamware in a desperate attempt to capture any revenue they can are the ones responsible for people using ad blockers. If they only accepted trusted, legitimate, unobtrusive ads then ad blockers would not be an issue. It's not ads that people are trying to block, it's the negative impact on their internet experience that they are trying to block.