gregmag

No matter how many times you repeat this, and no matter how snotty your tone becomes, the statement doesn't come any closer to actual analysis, as opposed to hidebound bias. Let's go over the very simple points you're either failing to consider, willfully ignoring, or being outright dishonest about: Nottingham "doesn't seem to figure in" a conversation about catching for next year for a very simple reason: He's not quite 21 and a half and in his first year at AA, his second year above rookie ball. At no point in time did anyone project Nottingham as part of the MLB roster in 2017. He could be hitting .400 at AA and he wouldn't be up before September 2017. Making the point you made in a thread about the 2017 catching situation isn't discussion. It's trolling. Nottingham, again, is 21 at AA. He hit well last year; he has hit poorly this year. His defense this year has been weak. Scouting reports have stated that he is working hard on his defense and improving. Talent evaluators continue to rate him as a strong prospect. From these facts we can conclude pretty much nothing solid about his future. Being a star catcher is still within his range of plausible outcomes. So is being a total bust first baseman. It's too early to know. IMHO his poor offensive season has dimmed his prospect luster, but only incrementally. Others might reasonably disagree, but I don't think any reasonable person would pronounce him a bust. Khris Davis is an outstanding home run hitter. However, he does nothing else well. (RBI are worthless for evaluating hitters, because they depend on a combination of factors the hitter doesn't control and factors other stats already count.) He doesn't hit for average. He's a mediocre fielder. He can't throw at all. He can't run. He doesn't draw walks. He doesn't supplement his homers with doubles. He is the quintessential one-tool player. His one tool is probably the most in vogue among "boy geniuses" and others right now (though OBP, where he has regressed badly, is more important), and that gives him some value. But he wouldn't play every day on a contending team. His mighty dingers, combined with his rotten everything else, have produced 1.3 whole fWAR so far this year. Khris Davis is 28. He is at an age where players, especially narrowly skilled players, rarely improve and routinely start to decline. His presence on the 2016 or 2017 Brewers would have zero relevance for our playoff hopes, because those hopes don't exist. Most important, we all knew nearly all of these facts when the trade happened. Nottingham has lost a little bit of luster. Davis has regressed in OBP. That stuff is marginal. There is no solid reason to judge the trade any differently now than at the time. If you liked it then, you probably like it about as much now. If you disliked it then, you probably dislike it about as much now. If you want to have a serious, informed conversation about Nottingham's likely MLB role, we may be able to start that conversation in about a year.

Free talent is good. Also, yay submariners, especially submariners who get results. We definitely have bullpen opportunities available.

Villar and Perez are both 25, and they're both breaking out. Certainly either or both of them could regress severely. However, there's legitimate reason for optimism. A lot of players improve dramatically at about the age these guys are, and a fair number of them can sustain that improvement for several years. Players in their early and mid-20s are still developing. The thing I like about both of these guys is that they have broad skill sets. Perez is doing basically everything but walk. Villar is doing basically everything but play good defense, which a move to 3b or 2b should help with; hit homers, which may still come; and run the bases like a sane person. To be fair, Gennett is only 26, and he's showing great improvement as well. However, he's less impressive right now than the other two, despite being a year older; and unlike them he has zero positional flexibility. I agree with others that, based on what we know now, he's the one to deal in the offseason. I don't think Perez has the bat to stick as an everyday RF over the other guys who will be coming up, but he looks like he could fit in at 2b or 3b (whichever one Villar plays less well).

This is great to see, and I'm proud for all of us that he felt that way. I can't say it better than others have. I love the guy, I hate to see him go, and I hope he's lights out for Texas. Thanks for sharing the message Josh.

He's playing 3b because his team has a prodigy at ss. He still has two thirds of a season as the regular ss on his trade resume, if that's how they decide to go. Two months at 3b doesn't take that away. The bigger problem, as SoCal said, is that there's decent evidence he was a bad ss. Glad you're back Rluz!

I've been a Suter skeptic, but he's earned a shot. We have two starters who are pretty much dumpster fires. I'd like to see what Suter can do.

Thanks for starting this. It's a good way to think about the state of the rebuild. What I love about where we are is that we have great depth at all the key defensive positions save catcher, and even at catcher we have some possibilities. ss: Arcia. 2b: If Gennett can hold this year's improvements, he'll be a strong bridge to Diaz. Heck, if Perez can hold this year's improvement, 2b is one of his positions, though I like him as super-utility. 3b: This is looking better than six months ago. If Villar is for real, his bat absolutely plays here. Perez is another possibility. Then we have Erceg / Gatewood in the wings. I wish we had someone at the upper levels, but this position isn't the black hole it was. cf: The parade -- Broxton hopefully develops as a decent placeholder, then Brinson, Phillips, Ray, Clark. The beautiful thing about this is that these guys project well enough that we can spread them around and potentially have an all-cf outfield. c: Susac and Pina have a chance to establish themselves. If they don't, we don't have a lot in the pipeline until you get to the low minors: Nottingham (I'm not ready to move him off the position), Feliciano. We have the makings of a strong 2018 rotation, but health and development would have to break really well. The depth chart, looking to 2018, seems to look something like: Nelson, Guerra, Davies, Hader, Wilkerson, Lopez, Woodruff, Wang, Ortiz, Bickford. That's leaving out guys who are hurt now, assuming Peralta and Jungman don't come back, and discounting the possibility that younger guys might climb the ladder ahead of schedule. That's not bad, but I don't feel nearly as confident about the rotation as I do about position players.

I have watched him since he played his first game with Brevard County. No need to panic, no need for concern. Sure, there are growing pains and he said after his first game, there is a big difference between college and pro ball. He knew it was going to take time to adjust and he deserves that time. He is not taking wild swings, he's making plays in the OF and he will be everything a 1st -round pick should be, at least in my estimation. As you said, it's a small sample size, but he has shown glimpses of what he's capable of. I think he will be fine. Not only that, but he's got his head on straight and he's a down-to-earth kid. One of the best interviews I've done in my two years covering the team. This is fantastic to hear. Thanks for the information. What everyone is saying here tracks with my instincts, but I'm glad to hear people who know more than I do say it. It's an aggressive, challenging placement, and he's holding his own. I like the approach. If he hit like a monster right away at A+, he'd instantly become our top prospect (at least once Arcia passes the PA threshold). As it is, he's still top-5ish.

There's no way casual fans care about this. They don't know Arcia, and as someone pointed out, he's a glove-first guy. Maybe they're going for a narrative like "yeah, we keep trading away our stars for minor leaguers, but see -- they eventually become major leaguers." But I don't even see that. The idea that they would do this to sell tickets seems very unlikely. I think it's a baseball move. I like the point someone made above that this gives Coles a chance to work with him. This also starts to form the team we hope to put on the field when we're good again. They want to get Arcia some experience so that he's settled in by 2018. They want to see if Villar works as the everyday 3b. Perez has done a nice job, but right now he's a utility player on a good team, and I imagine they'll move him around the diamond. I'm all for the tear-down and rebuild, but part of a rebuild is building. I imagine the FO has a pretty detailed plan about how to put the major league pieces together to field a competitive team in (I'm guessing here) 2018 or 2019. If that's at all right, then it makes sense to take the first steps now in putting that team together.

Then maybe I've been better at keeping it to myself lately than in the past, which would be good.

I understand where you are coming from but I completely disagree, actually it's about a quantity of quality prospects. I've beat on the Overbay trade so many times but I'll use it as an example again. At the time of the trade so many people including myself thought we cleaned up because the Brewers got 2 first round picks and 1 second round pick, but the players were actually nothing special: A back of the rotation pitcher, a never was pitcher, and a 4th outfielder. It was amazing how quickly my opinion of that trade turned completely around as I realized the MLB draft at that time wasn't about talent as much as it was signability. The scouting reports were so underwhelming I was wondering why the Brewers didn't target Marcum or McGowan who were much better prospects, and Marcum was similarly close to MLB as Bush. It was a classic Melvin "mlb piece" trade, and the more I read and learned, the more I despised those quantity deals, and they have become the antitheses of my organization building philosophy. You can have 20 Darren Fords in your organization but none of them will ever be Lorenzo Cain, 4 and 5 tool talents are pretty rare and those players simply are not physically gifted enough to reach those heights. Prospects do absolutely fail, as do many flash in the pan MLB players, so the trick is to mitigate the risk with multiple impact prospects, an organization like Milwaukee can't throw them away buying short term solutions because the Brewers don't possess the financial resources to plug the holes left behind with talented Free Agents. Instead of having 1 or 2 pitchers that could be top of the rotation types we need to have 5 or 6 because surely some fail and/or get injured, and we need to continually develop our own top of the rotation pitching. The problem with the Brewers is that there's only ever been 1 stud pitching prospect at a time so when they get hurt or flame out, there's nothing left. Melvin blamed Rogers and Jones' injuries for the reason the Brewers had a bad rotation, but it was actually the lack of projectable arms which was the issue. The Brewers have never been good enough developing pitching to be able to count on such limited numbers of true prospects. We need 5-6 legitimate top of the rotation starting pitchers scattered through the minors at any given time and we aren't there yet, even after today. If you have 10 Dave Bush type pitchers in your organization you can probably field a full rotation or close to it out of that 10 by the time they reach MLB, but that rotation isn't going to win you a championship nor is that group filthy enough to provide shut down relievers. If Hader and Bickford fail as starters we're almost assured of quality relievers, in relief Bush type pitchers are nothing more than cannon fodder middle relief. The Brewers have a ton of CF depth now which I think is awesome, I would love to have a similarly athletic outfield as the Pirates currently do. I get people want true corner outfields but I've been chasing pitching and more dynamic athletes for a long time and now we have a GM with a similar philosophy. I care less about HRs than I do about run prevention, get on a base and good things will happen. Because I vocally disagree with you a lot (and silently disagree with you more than that), I just want to say that I strongly agree with everything you said here, and IMHO you said it all very well. We don't have anybody in the system who projects as Trout or Kershaw, but we now have a bunch of guys who have a chance to be stars, frontline players on a championship team. Like you, I love the glut of athletic CFs, especially because most of them seem to combine athletic tools with solid-to-advanced OBP approaches.

Okay: We traded some guys, but we didn't trade more guys. Who's a candidate for a post-waiver trade? I assume Braun clears waivers because of his salary, though I don't think the market is there for us to trade him. Garza flies through waivers, but no one will want him. Carter? Boyer? Torres? Newhouse (I can't spell it the Dutch way; I just can't)?

I'm looking at our 40-man . . . Am I missing something, or do we have no LHPs on the 40-man (other than Capuano and Nolin on the DL)? I'm guessing Scahill or Magnifico will be the other addition to the 25-man.

"Word"? What are the odds TH had heard either of these names before noon today? If you're going to repost secondhand information, at least source it.

I don't think so. In this case we can know the MLB rankings by the midseason top 100. They had Brinson at 21, Ray at 37, Hader at 45, Ortiz at 63, Bickford at 65. I assume that's the order in which they'll line up behind Arcia.

This seems to be up to date before the last trade. Bickford at 4: http://m.mlb.com/prospects/2016?list=mil

It was symptoms caused by epilepsy that hadn't been diagnosed. I think the doctors finally figured out what was going on when he was with the Jays organization. Yes! Now I remember. Thank you!

That's a relief! Hoping a contingent type as Sabathia trade was. Gives Gallo time to play for Rangers while not helping the Brewers this season. Then switch if the Rangers won the division lets say. That'd be nice What are the rules on PTBNLs re: 25-man, 40-man, 2016 draftees?

IIRC Jeffress was self-medicating for a condition -- anxiety? -- for which he wasn't getting proper treatment. IIRC Agent39 had the story. You can make whatever moral / ethical judgments you want about that scenario, but if it's accurate (I'm being very careful here because I'm going from hazy memory), we have good reason to think the problem is firmly in his past. Relatedly, JJ as far as I've known has been a great story for the Brewers. He came in, worked hard, did the jobs he was asked to do, moved up the ladder to closer, enjoyed great success, and now has helped to bring in a couple of key players for our future. I'll miss his talent and his presence, and I hope he blows the doors off in Arlington.

After the Indians fiasco, holding him until the winter makes somewhat more sense than it did before. Recovering from a busted trade like we did last year requires massive luck as well as skill.

I've been deeply depressed for the past day and a half, so thank goodness for this. Who could dislike this trade, other than Pina and Pinto?

I'm rooting for Broxton. Fun player with a great attitude and a range of skills. Who knows if his recent success will last, but it's great to see.

We get it. You don't like Nottingham and you don't like Stearns. Could you either attempt to back up your assertions with actual analysis, say something you haven't already said fifteen other times, or just spare us?

Today's roller coaster ride, unless Stearns fabricated all the leaks himself, tells me that he found the market, asked high, did his due diligence, and calculated that the price wouldn't rise in the winter. I'm thrilled if the fourth is one of the good arms, disappoined if not, but that's based on the conventional view of what the market was. The process story reassures me that Stearns did his job.

Ever read the responses most guys like him get on twitter? I dont blame him, that place is a cesspool. I just use it to follow news and sports and I never tweet. He has been a condescending, self-impressed, lazy jerk for as long as I can remember, which goes back way before Twitter existed. On topic-ish, does playing Luc help the "we hold all the cards, we don't have to trade him" narrative?