LouisEly

Perhaps players in the majors need a manager who stands up for them, has some discipline, and supports them. I don't think Macha excels in any of those. Doug, I nominate that for post of the year. You'd be amazed at how motivated people become when they have a manager that stands up for them (and how demotivated they become when they have the opposite). And that my friends cannot be quantified by statistics.

Not a big deal at all - they just need to get him to the majors quickly. He can be stretched out down the road. C.J. Wilson of the Rangers was strictly a reliever from 2006-2009, but they moved him into the rotation this year and after 11 starts has two complete games and a 3.62 ERA.

The Mid-major schools like Utah, Boise State, TCU, etc., have to be doing cartwheels because the dissolution of a conference means one less automatic bid, which means one more at-large bid. It will certainly foul up the BCS bowl games.

I like the idea of taking a flyer on a couple of guys like Alex Jones who are recovering from surgeries that are relatively successful statistically. Who knows, maybe he can be like Axford and with a little more recovery time and maybe a tweak to the delivery can become a legit prospect in a year or two.

James Nelson? From the scouting report - no lie: "Physical Description: Nelson is big and physical, a bigger version of Jeff Suppan." NOOOOO!!!!!

Conventional wisdom states that they should only have him throw X% more than he did the year before. There are two ways to do it - throw more pitches but fewer starts, or more starts but fewer pitches per start. Personally, I think the thing is to see him go a full season, so I'd rather see him throw fewer pitches and go more starts than more pitches and fewer starts. Step 1 is to stretch him out over a full season; once he succeeds with that, then we'll worry about throwing 100 pitches in a start.

Ironic that a couple of weeks ago after a certain incident I almost posted about finding where this guy was and signing him. If he isn't on that teams 40-man, I still think they should do it.

When the Brewers made him the 14th overall pick, "the whole house was just shaking from shouting and jumping up and down," I thought he was going to say this was because an earthquake hit right about the time he was drafted. True - I was in my car so I didn't feel it, but my roommate said it shook the house pretty good. Second one today - the one that hit at 2:17AM last night woke me up (small - 3.8 - but really close to the epicenter).

Quotes like this are the reason I've lost faith in Melvin... like FA was his only choice? Well, unfortunately because the system was completely void of starting pitching prospects, yes it was his only choice. Sadly, any internal candidates would have pitched worse (see: Dana Eveland and Ben Hendrickson), so FA was his only choice.

Damn you X, I was just going to say: * Height: 6'2" * Weight: 200 lbs. * Bats: Right * Throws: Right * Scout's report filed: 2/13/10 Scouting Report Fastball: In this early showcase outing, Covey didn't have the velocity he's shown in the past, but he touched 93 mph. He can reach back and blow away a hitter when he needs to. Fastball movement: He usually has some heavy life to his pitch, with sink and bore and late giddyup. Curve: He throws a power curve, up to 80-81 mph. It's a plus pitch, maybe a 70 on the scouting scale. Sounds eerily like both Gallardo and Sheets. Gallardo - 6'2" 220, Sheets - 6'1" 220. Both have excellent over-the-top curveballs and work consistently around 92-93 but can reach back and go 95-96 when they need to. Me likey. Nice to see Law state that the Brewers were on to Loux. Apparently, so were the Diamondbacks.

I'm sticking with Loux - good fastball but don't need a great one when you have a plus change like he has. Among top 6 SPs in NCAA in K/9 and H/9. No objections to Biddle if your reports are correct, but I would love for him to be their 2nd round pick. 1st - Barret Loux, RHP, Texas A&M 2nd - Zach Cates, RHP, Northeast Texas (juco) (Paxton if he's still available) 3rd - Marcus Littlewood, SS, HS Some other names that intrigue me: Peter Tago, Todd Cunningham, Addison Reed.

I'd prefer, frankly to take the draft choices than throw the dice on Melvin's judgement. So that the Yankees can sign Fielder and the one free agent ranked higher than him, and thus the Brewers get a sandwich pick and the Yankees second round pick? I don't get the love for draft picks. If the Brewers let Fielder walk and take the draft picks, 1) it will be at least four years before the draft picks will have any impact on the team, and B) if they have any impact at all. IIRC, given the rules it is impossible for the Brewers to receive a pick in the top half of the first round for a comp pick; if a team in the top half of the first round signs a Type A free agent I don't believe they have to give up their first round pick - the team gets either two sandwich picks or a sandwich and that teams 2nd round pick. So looking back over the last decade, here are the Brewers first round, sandwich, and second round picks excluding players taken in the first 16 picks in the draft: 2000 - none 2001 - JJ Hardy (2nd) 2002 - Josh Murray (2nd) 2003 - TGJ (2nd) 2004 - Gallardo (2nd) 2005 - none 2006 - Brewer (2nd) 2007 - none 2008 - Odorizzi, Frederickson, Lintz, Dykstra, Adams So as far as past draft picks where the comp picks would be, they have two busts (Murray, Brewer), three probable busts (Lintz, Adams, Frederickson), one suspect (Dykstra), one prospect (Odorizzi), two average major leaguers (Hardy, TGJ), and one star (Gallardo). Those are not good odds - the chances of getting a Gallardo or Odorizzi are less than the chances of getting a Brewer, Adams, or Frederickson. I think they can do better than that with a trade. I'll leave out the 2009 class as it is too early to tell - Heckathorn looks good, Davis & Garfield look OK, Walla & Arnett look bad. Which statistically is what happens - you only get 3-4 major leaguers out of any draft. I'd rather take my chances on a getting a return like the Cardinals did for JD Drew (Wainwright, Marquis, Ray King), or like what the Rangers got for Texeria (Saltalamacchia, Andrus, Feliz, Harrison - the Brewers don't need young catching or SS, so instead of Salty and Andrus they could get more pitching), then end up with another Brent Brewer and Cody Adams. And if they can't get good pitching in a trade, get good position players and then focus almost entirely on pitching in the draft like they did in 2004 and 2008.

For record, AAA pitching isn't more advanced, it's just a different type of pitching than what you'll typically see in AA. It's more about finesse with AAA pitchers than power arms which are typically in AA. Yep, AA is more power arms and AAA tends to be filled with not-quite-good-enough-to-be-major-league junkballers. But prospects need to be able to hit both as they will see both in the majors. Some TV analyst a day or two ago said they always used to throw junk to the young hitters because young players are fastball hitters. Makes sense, especially if they spend little time at AAA.

Katin's first game back after surgery to repair torn knee cartilage and he legs out a triple? Dude is an athlete. If the Brewers start dumping players for prospects in July I hope he gets a chance to see if he can be a RH bat off the bench. In the "pleasant surprise/hope they've finally found it" category, soon-to-be 21-year-old Cutter Dykstra with a .385 OBP and 21-year-old Shawn Zarraga with a .407 OBP. The power numbers have yet to come, but this is a good start for these prospects who both struggled last year.

I don't think we've ever traded anyone (in the last 15 years) for a prospect the ended up being an above average player. Just within that 15 year threshold, I'd say that Burnitz (acquired for Seitzer) was an above-average player, as was Richie Sexson (for Wickman et. al.) Lyle Overbay... maybe when you factor in defense he was slightly above average. But to your point, those were some time ago, and those are very few examples.

Heether is not on the 40-man, Suppan is on the 40-man. And Suppan is a pitcher and Heether is a corner IF. They were trying to clear a 40-man roster spot. In order to do that they have to put Heether on waivers. If Heether isn't the last position player on the 40-man, he's the second-to-last. Maybe they flipped a coin between him and Cruz and said loser gets put on waivers. (Cruz is younger though.) In reality, Heether is competing with McGehee, Gamel, and Green for the 3B spot in Milwaukee, and is probably behind all three on the depth chart. Thus they did him a favor and let him get a chance with another organization. As far as a RH hitter, Cain is only a phone call away and Katin is a better OF than Heether. Edit: You know how there was this "tree" of derivatives from the trade of Seitzer/Burnitz/etc.? Maybe we should start a tree of players who have been screwed by Jeff Suppan.

According to what I was told, it was only produced in a very limited quantity as their special 20th anniversary brew and not supposed to be for sale to the public. If you can find it you might want to save a bottle, as from what I heard it is a one-time thing and not something that will be regularly brewed. Thus the high price.

So how many of you can say you have had this: http://images.yuku.com/image/jpeg/22515d988b341bc456ae8df18c1a8b3747a57b5.jpg

I was just going to say what Corbeau said. PEDs definitely exist in HS, but according to my research are more prevalent in college. Like Corbeau said, colleges have access to a lot more resources. Colleges also have far more wealthy boosters, who are another source of resources (shoes, cars... I'm sure plenty of boosters are doctors or have connections to gyms/trainers). A wealthy booster can work with the same personal trainer as a college athlete, and it would be difficult to detect or enforce because the athlete isn't working directly for the booster. The other thing is that high school players are given a longer leash because they are younger, so there isn't as much of a need for immediate performance. If a guy is 18 they will look at him and say, "he's just 18" and not have as high of expectations/need for immediate results as a 22-year-old college player. Oh, and to go back to TheCrew's point, there is no way they can have the resources to test for it at the college level. Thus why the concern for it.

Between injuries and ineffectiveness, I don't think I have ever been as unenthused by a Power 50 as I have been by this one. Great job as always, and here's to an infusion of talent next month.

As others have said Loe may be just as bad as Suppan, but MLEs are often wrong one way or another so at least Loe has a chance to be better. I'll take replacement-level over Suppan, because he has been below replacement-level. That coupled with the booing, and a change needs to be made. If nothing else, to keep a majority of the fan base from rioting.

The difference is that the few extra balls he gets to that Hardy couldn't don't offset the balls both can get to that Hardy makes plays on that Escobar doesn't. Exactly. Personally I think range is overrated, and I would like to see an analysis of how many additional balls you get to a year that you can make a play on and get an out versus just stopping it from getting into the outfield and thus maybe preventing an extra base being taken if that. Particularly with this team, when the opponents are hitting rockets off of their bats from pitches thrown by Suppan, Davis, Estrada, Hoffman, Hawkins, etc., range doesn't really help that much.

They can turn around and release Suppan, creating a roster spot. The Brewers can throw in a mediocre A-ball player to make it worth their while.

Good point about Riske and Hawkins. Coupled with Loe, we can cut ties with Suppan and have some spaghetti to throw at the wall to see if anything sticks. After a great first outing, Estrada has been awful since so he needs to take what he's learned and make the necessary adjustments in AAA. Loe can replace Suppan right now on the 25 and 40, and if he isn't any better then they still have Riske and Hawkins to replace him and Estrada. Heck, what Chris Smith did last year in the majors is leaps and bounds better than what Estrada and Suppan have given them, so I'd take him right now. Point being is they have options in Loe, Hawkins, Riske, and Smith to try in hopes of being better than Suppan. They can put Zaun on the 60 or DFA/outright Luis Cruz or Heether, which coupled with the release of Suppan gives them up to 4 spots on the 40.

"Selling high" is mostly dependent on having ML-ready replacements in the minors. If you don't have an internal replacement it makes "selling high" a real gamble. If you don't have a ML-ready prospect it raises red flags as to why you are trading someone; having ML-ready prospects can do the opposite in that it can mask red flags that you may have about a player. That's the problem with Hart - while Cain has gotten off to a good start, I'm not quite sure he's ready to make the jump. I'd like to see Cain sustain success for a whole season before being comfortable jumping him from AA. No one else really jumps out as being "ready" as the org is thin on OF prospects, particularly with Schafer and Katin on the DL. Hart seems to be at his "high" point, however who would we replace him with? McGehee is a different story though because of Gamel. However with Gamel recently off the DL and finding his swing in the minors I think he'll need another month before he's really back, but it makes a trade of McGehee more feasible down the line. With Taylor Green in AA it also makes young, cheap 3B an area of depth for the Brewers. If there is anyone that I would definitely move it would be Villanueva. I don't think they can get much for him, but I think he is at his high point.