LouisEly

Say what you want about Melvin, but at least he hasn't handcuffed the franchise with ridiculous contracts such as the ones given to Fielder, Votto, Kemp, Ethier, Howard, etc. He has given the Brewers a lot of flexibility in that area. Also, as a reminder, the GM has virtually nothing to do with the draft, outside of perhaps lending some insight on likely demands from agents he has negotiated with in the past. The draft is pretty much all on the scouting director. While Jack Z could find bats, he couldn't find arms and that has made Melvin's job much more difficult. I was not sad to see Jack Z go. We shouldn't be comparing the Brewers to the Pirates or Cubs right now. Those two teams have had top-5/10 picks for many years, many of them in recent years under much different rules than when the Brewers had top-10 picks in the early 2000's. There is now protection for unsigned picks and compensation in the following draft plus bonus pool restrictions; the Brewers didn't have that protection in the early/mid 2000s so they had to be much more careful/conservative with their draft picks. BTW, the Cubs last won a World Series when there were 16 teams in the league; unlike the Cubs, at least the Brewers have been to the World Series in my 66-year-old father's lifetime. I think some forget how barren the entire system was in 2002 when Melvin took over. To be in the playoffs six years later was a remarkable accomplishment. To sustain that success - as evidenced by not having a top-10 pick in the draft since 2007 - despite resources in the bottom half of the league to me says he is doing a good job. Not a great job, but a good job. It could be much worse.

The last thing the Brewers need is another low-OBP RH hitter.

[sarcasm]Technically they aren't being left on base, they are getting doubled off.[/sarcasm]

This. X3 I'd rather have the winning team. If you have to work the umpires, so be it. Those "strike" calls on Braun were pathetic. All it takes is even slight bias by the ump and you get stuff like this. I don't think that Molina's crying had anything to do with it. I think it is much more likely that the ump had a beef with Braun to begin with, and what Braun said to him after the first pitch coupled with that caused the second strike. Molina was crying about a pitch on the low outside edge of the zone; the first one to Braun was inside off the plate and the second one was on the upper part of the zone (well) off the plate. Completely different locations.

You need to remove Paxton from your list as he didn't sign that year - he signed in 2010. Being 2009 there was no compensation at that time for unsigned picks so the Brewers would have gotten nothing from drafting him. Scheppers was a big injury risk at the time and that has come to fruition as he has been out since early June with elbow issues. Brothers and Boxberger were low upside/bullpen projections right from the get-go (Brothers has never started a game in his pro career, even in the minors); say what you want about Jungmann, but at least he projected as a starter. Arnett and Davis had more upside than those two. Franklin has spent all of 18 games in the majors this year and has a career OPS+ of 86; his minor league numbers were inflated by stops in the launching pads of High Desert and three seasons in the PCL. Skaggs had TJ surgery earlier this year.

Like Gennett, Clark is being set up to succeed this year by not playing him against certain pitchers. That being said, I think a Clark/Rogers platoon next year is the best option because the free agent market is likely going to be thin (with much competition for players, driving up the salaries or forcing longer deals) and the Brewers don't have to trade any talent to acquire them. Other players have gone to Japan and come back better players, and I think that's possible with Clark. He's probably not going to be an .800 OPS player, but he's likely going to be significantly better than Overbay. The addition of Broxton is going to negate most of the cash savings of buying out Weeks, so it's unlikely the Brewers will have a ton of cash to throw at any free agent that is out there anyway.

Say what you want about RRR not arguing the pathetic strike calls on Braun, but at least you don't have a crybaby on your team. WAAAAAA! WAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!! I got called out on strikes and I'm going to cry!!! WAAAAAAAAAA!!!! Go suck an egg, Molina.

Eric Gregg has apparently proven that you can come back from the dead.

So what of the disparity between what football has done with Rice and Peterson? Rice is out of the league, and Peterson is suiting up this weekend. Isn't that disparity on Goodell? Actually, no, it's not on Goodell. Goodell suspended Rice indefinitely because they said the video was "in stark contrast" to what Rice and his NFLPA rep told the league happened. The Ravens chose to terminate his contract and release him, not Goodell. Also, Rice hasn't been found guilty because his wife refused to press charges. You can't be found guilty if no charges are pressed. This whole thing with Peterson just broke at the end of the week. The league is still investigating and gathering evidence. While I do not approve in any way of what happened (and would personally enjoy a severe penalty given to Peterson if for nothing else than fathering so many kids with so many women, but that's a different story), I do believe in due process and not trial by media. Occasionally the media gets it wrong - see: Richard Jewel. One other note - if the player is released before he is suspended or jailed the team takes the salary cap hit. That could have significant financial consequences for a team with someone as highly paid as Peterson.

Just curious, and it's hard to ask this question in writing without sounding condescending, but why do you reward a company that doesn't listen to the wants of their customers with your loyalty? I had a 4S that I received as a work phone in mid-2012 with a new job. It was almost the exact same overall size/dimensions as my personal phone, a HTC Evo 4G that I got in early 2010. However the Evo 4G had a much larger screen, even though the phone was about the same size. I found the iPhone screen painfully small and difficult to read compared to my Evo, and overall I found the iPhone to be inferior to the Evo, a phone using technology that was over two years old at the time. I think that when I got my 4S in mid-2012 the 5 was just coming out with a slightly bigger screen, but still, what took Apple so long to make a product that was more user-friendly? Apple isn't known for doing any customer insights/marketing research, and it shows.

Weeks' salary will be off the books, and I'd bet that one of Gallardo or Lohse will be dealt to make room for Fiers & Nelson, so that's ~$24M off the books from those two. Plenty of room to add a $5M backup SS/3B.

Drew would be a great one year stop-gap to give Segura some time in AAA to get his mechanics in order. Most of the division pitchers are RH (as are most pitchers in baseball) so not hitting LHP isn't a big issue, and if he could hit LHP he would cost a lot more. For his career he is a .664 OPS vs. LHP, which that in and of itself is an upgrade from Segura's OPS this year. Drew would also add some much-needed LH balance to the lineup. I stated earlier this year that I thought not trading for Drew at the deadline, when all it seemed like someone needed to do was absorb his salary, was a mistake.

Just curious, have you ever lived in the southwestern part of the U.S.? And have you watched the ESPN 30-for-30 about Fernando Valenzuela? Funny how the people who live/lived in the southwestern U.S. think it adds value. Those who live/lived there know how important cultural identity is within the Hispanic community.

I am in the MBA program at UW-Madison, and for one of my classes we are to partner with a real company/business and do an assessment of digital marketing needs and a detailed digital marketing plan for that business that will focus on one specific topic of digital marketing - Website Management Strategies (including analytics), Social Media Management, or Sales Channel and Digital Marketing Integration. What I am looking for is a smaller, local business partner (preferably in or near Madison or not too far from Madison) to work with. The company needs to be on the smaller side but not too small (at least a handful of employees, but ideally less than 1000), is not a new startup (has been in business at least 2-3 years), and already has an on-line presence/website. You will either need to come to campus to meet with us (my teammates are international students and have no transportation) or be able to video conference with us for a discovery meeting lasting about an hour. What you get is free consulting from MBA students and a detailed digital marketing plan for your business including a copy of the final report. I would love to be connected to the Brewers... but because my teammates are international students sports will not resonate with them. So the business does need to resonate across cultures - something that is not really specific to American culture that someone from China or India will not understand. If you are interested please send me a PM and tell me some details about your business. You should be an owner/partner and/or the person in charge of marketing/digital marketing for this business and have the authority to talk with us about your current digital marketing presence. Thanks!

Great work as always, colby. I'm sure this is very personal to you as you have had the privilege of speaking with Seid as well as perhaps numerous other Brewers execs who, like Seid, may spend more time reading this board than we ever imagined. You and igor hit it right on the head. If Texeiria gets one less base hit that year, Trout is a Brewer, and Seid's first draft might be one of the best in Brewers history. One other thing that hasn't been mentioned is that in six drafts Seid has had only three picks in the top-20, one of them being this year (Medieros, Jungmann, Bradley). It's hard to expect a team to be in the top half of the league in perceived minor league talent when you are drafting late in the first round or don't have a first round pick. Don't forget the work he did to acquire extra international cap space to sign Lara, I believe the highest signing bonus ever given to a Brewers prospect. And Michael Strong still has a chance to make it from the 2011 draft.

I can understand why. While the picks in the first two rounds of 2009 didn't pan out, he still managed to get two starting position players (Kh. Davis, Gennett) and one starting pitcher (Fiers) out of that draft. That's a good draft. Nelson was arguably one of the 3-4 best picks of the 2nd round in 2010 and the same with Thornburg in the 3rd round. Jason Rogers is turning into a solid player and Yadiel Rivera still has a chance. Truly sad. My sympathies go out to his family and friends.

I read it somewhere in the Link Report. Either for that day - likely from the article about that game - or the next day. Edit: it's in the Minor League Transactions report, post #301

IIRC, Pena left his last start - a short, very unproductive start - with elbow pain/discomfort. Might be hurt.

I'd love to see a stat from the first two games of this series (or even the losing streak) about how many outs the Brewers made on pitches outside of the strike zone (either swing and miss for a K or hitting a ball out of the strike zone into an out). It's not because of swinging at the first pitch. You haven't seen starting pitchers with pitch counts in the 80s and 90s in the 8th/9th inning (with the exception of Kershaw, but that's because he's the best pitcher in the game). They've still been getting into the other team's bullpen in the 6th/7th innings. But they've appeared to be swinging at a lot of pitches outside of the zone deep into counts trying to make something happen. What RRR has said to his team about that, I don't know. That's what's on the manager.

They learned it from Harry Caray. "THERE'S A DRIVE!!!!" (caught by the SS backing up 12 steps)

We should probably close this and start a 2014-2015 thread.

Keep in mind, small samples there for Haniger and Banda. Banda is still in low-A; nothing to get excited about until he starts doing that at AA.

Wild guess, but if it cost decent prospects to pick him up then I'm guessing he wouldn't have made it through waivers unclaimed, when a team could have acquired him for nothing but his salary.

What a nice way to thank Nathan Orf for a great season. Jungmann doing his best Ariel Pena impersonation today. 9K in 5 innings - really good. 6BB - not so much.

Mass, great work as always (who says you are running on fumes?) and thanks for putting this up. Maybe it is the fumes, but you have Shackleford italicized above - I believe italicized means it is his first year eligible, and Shackleford was on the 40-man for the Rule 5 last year, so that means he should not be italicized, right? I've got (in order, depending on slots available) Jungmann, Bradley, Cravy, Goforth, Strong, Weisenburger, Rivera, Zarraga. Darkhorse - Medlen