gregmag

Glad to hear Denson was tossed, because I was worried from the box score he might have gotten hurt. Picking up from TooLiveBrew, fast-tracking Denson sure looks like a smart move right now. He's 19 in low-A; he's actually five months younger than Arcia, so only about a half-year off our franchise's current gold standard in terms of age for level. He's holding his own, drawing a ton of walks, and flashing power that seems very likely to get more consistent over time. He's starting to look like a very exciting prospect.

Wow, it's the Colby throwdown we've all been waiting for. Rasmus: "I'm just trying to help my team and he didn't like it -- so sorry about it. I'm not here to try to please the other side, I'm here to help my team, and I had an opportunity where I could, and I took advantage of it." Maybe that's why the Cardinals let him go cheap. Lewis is a whining idiot. This is probably all anyone will ever remember about him.

Bill James used to talk about the wisdom of picking a guy up for the prime of his career. I remember he used Darrell Porter as an example -- the Brewers essentially trained him, and then KC got him for the meat of his career. This is like the opposite of that. The Brewers got something for Jeffress when he still had some prospect luster, watched his value tank, and then somehow picked him up for nothing when he was on the upswing. If he works out for us, it's got to be one of the weirdest player development coups we've ever had.

This is important. What I don't know (working lo tech right now) is how many games our division rivals have against the Cubs. The trade helps all contenders who still have to play them a bunch. I get Briggs' point; I know I'll be bummed out if I'm 80 and the Brewers are in a full rebuild. The big question is what tradeoffs the Cubs are really dealing with. I don't think the MLB draft is the NBA draft, where outright tanking for draft position makes sense, at least not in any given season. If you have big money and great scouts, I think you can rebuild without bottoming out. If you're strapped for cash, though, it makes more sense to tear down. The thing about this trade is that the 2014 Cubs are as dead as dead can be on July 4. All four of the other teams in the division are markedly better than the Cubs. When that's the case, any resource that's good for this season only needs to be cashed in. I don't think many Cubs fans will care that this year's team just went from dead to deader.

Do you think Estrada would be able to control his homertastic tendencies out of the pen? That's not a rhetorical question; I don't know the answer. It does seem important.

I keep forgetting that Zach Quintana is only 20. He's been great 3 of his last 4 appearances, which isn't a lot but must be his best stretch ever. Coulter is really scuffling now, but his overall numbers remain strong. Hope he can get back on track soon.

A fair question here is whether there's much precedent for platoon guys (it would have to be lefties, just by the numbers) making the ASG as position players. I don't know the answer. I'm also not sure what other contextual factors ASG selection has taken into account. Do guys ride their RBI totals in when they hit behind huge OBP guys? Do more than the minimum necessary number of Rockies hitters make it? If the answers to those sorts of questions are sometimes yes, then we could at least have a discussion about what makes a player not complete enough to qualify. I agree that easing Gennett in against lefties next year makes a lot of sense. It would be nice to have a competent RHB utility guy who could provide some flexibility, but I think JohnBriggs is right that we should give him a shot at developing more against LHPs. The platoon this year is a brilliant confluence -- we were already paying Rickie, and it's made sense to let Scooter do what he does best without having to struggle against LHPs. Any comparison of Gennett to Molitor at this point is, IMHO, way off base. Molitor, as Baldkin points out, got a much earlier start on his career. He put up his first decade of numbers in a tougher offensive environment than we have now. Also -- you have to be old to remember this -- Molitor started out as a very good and versatile defender. Gennett, like almost any player, would have to develop like crazy to sniff Molitor's air.

I don't see either the Reds or Pirates as that big of threats. Pirates rotation isn't nearly what it was last year, and even with Polanco, who has all of 3 extra base hits in 80 ABs, their lineup doesn't compare with the Brewers. As for Reds, does anyone really believe 33 year old mostly career minor leaguer/middle reliever like Alfredo Simon can repeat his first half? Reds will certainly be in the wild card mix, with that awesome back end of the bullpen of Broxton and Chapman, but if the Brewers stay healthy, I don't see the Reds making up 7 games. I don't know if I'd write them off so quickly. They were without Latos for quite a while and Votto for a little while. They have at least some strength in every aspect of the game -- offense, defense, starters, pen. Also, they've tended to play very well against us, which could allow them to make up a lot of ground in a hurry. I'm not writing off the Cardinals either. They have all the assets they need to trade for whatever they need. They have a few bats that could heat up. The reports on Wacha are very ambiguous, because his condition is tricky to treat, but he could be back for much of the season. Lynn should be okay, and Miller could get on a roll at any time. As long as they have Wainwright, they have enough talent around him to make a run.

Small minds think alike -- I got a laugh out of that as well.

What a great day up and down the system.

Great. MLB basically invites the league to do whatever they want to Braun, while giving Kirk Gibson a free pass to be a petulant scumbag. I hate sports sometimes.

Yeah, plus we sold high on Nori. Thank you Khris Davis.

What fact? I don't see one in there. I see no reason to think Scooter would blossom against LHP if he only got to face them. That's pure speculation. OTOH, the Brewers have given him a big job, and he's doing it really well. We don't need him to hit LHPs this year. Let him spend a full MLB year in his relative comfort zone, then maybe think about stretching him.

Crew, I wish you wouldn't dismiss people who disagree with you as engaging in lazy analysis or homerism, but you do it constantly, so I guess I should stop wishing. The argument in your post, as far as I can tell, has no actual content, aside from tossing off a few anecdotes and disparaging people who appear to have have thought about this issue much harder than you have. As for whether the Cardinals' offense has untapped potential, I'm really starting to wonder. Holliday and Molina are at points where we could expect them to decline. Carpenter, Adams, and Peralta seem to be hitting up to their abilities. Wong should get better. I'm not sure what to think about Craig and Jay. I think they may need a real contribution from Taveras if their offense is going to get them anywhere. Their pitching still scares me more, even with the injuries.

I've been very hard on RR, but as I'm finally getting to watch a lot of games, I'm trying to judge him more fairly. He's growing on me. He seems to try to use his players to do what they can do, rather than playing up his own style, which is huge. I am afraid he's going to burn out Smith and Rodriguez, but obviously he's aware of the problem. I just haven't found much to second-guess lately. Also, there's nothing like some exposure to Kirk Gibson to make you appreciate RR on a personal level.

You see what you want to see and stack whatever numbers you need to feed your Weeks bias; you always have. Scooter has been outstanding; I'm thrilled and impressed at his development. Weeks' overall season numbers remain decent, and he remains a better percentage bat against lefties.

In fairness, I looked at their fan board yesterday after the Luc video. One guy complained about it, but three others rejected that view and said they thought it was funny and complimentary (which I think it is). There really are a lot of decent and smart fans here. St. Louis resembles Milwaukee more than any other city I know. People here take incredible pride in their team. I think they like being a smaller-city team that consistently outplays the big-market teams. The Brewers, in a way, suit Cardinal fans' image of their own team even better than the Cardinals do. I think that causes some cognitive dissonance. Also, they can just be arrogant, because they've won a lot. The unwritten rules garbage is just a particularly annoying product of that arrogance. (The unwritten rules fixation also tends to be a white thing, and the Cardinals are pretty white. Not that there's anything inherently wrong with white people; I myself come from a long line of Caucasians.)

Cardinals have already lost their game. Also, the Brewers are now tied with San Francisco for the best record in the league, a game behind Oakland in the loss column for the best in baseball. No retaliation! Let's just keep playing great.

Congratulations, Kirk. You're a man! You lose like a man loses, and you run your team into the ground like a man . . . Oh, forget it. You're just a miserable, worthless tool. Once we leave town and stop bothering to hate you actively, no one will even remember you exist. Enjoy the cellar. Also, I really hope Tony LaRussa was watching this game. Tony I'll never forget to hate for ten minutes.

I'll say the same thing I've always said about Estrada. It's not about being down on a guy, it's about being realistic given his pros and cons. Neither Estrada or Fiers are players a team should look to build around. Fiers doesn't throw especially hard, doesn't have a plus pitch, and is already 29 years old. He relies almost entirely on location be successful, though admittedly his plus command has gotten him to this point. He is however replaceable, in the same way that Estrada has always been replaceable. He's not someone you build around, he's someone who's "good enough" until someone better comes along. Fiers is a big league pitcher, but he doesn't have to be a starter to provide value if there is someone better. Nelson isn't going anywhere until he's past super 2 status, the percentage of which is now 22% or 23% (I forget and I'm too lazy to go look). The old number was 17% which put the date at the end of June, he's down in the minors for at least 4 more weeks. I don't really care who pitches until Nelson comes up, all of the options are very similar to me. I didn't suggest Feirs was someone you build around. I said he was a better option than Estrada and a guy who has value. I think I'm close to where you are on him, maybe a bit more optimistic, but I'm not arguing he's a world beater. The poster above had suggested he was a dump/DFA candidate, and someone else suggested he was interchangeable as a starting option with Gorzellany. Those were the comments that got me wondering. Estrada has been in full meltdown mode, and I'm reasonably confident that Fiers could do substantially better than Marco right now. Even if you think Fiers is only replacement level, that's a lot better than the Estrada we're trotting out right now. It's a marginal improvement, sure, but we're in a pennant race. If there's a decent chance that Fiers keeps us in one game Estrada would cough up, which I think there is, we should replace Estrada with Fiers until we're ready for Nelson.

I'm curious why people are so down on Fiers. All the guy has done this year is pitch great at AAA and then get called up to the majors, where he's barely pitched so far. I understand that he melted down last year, but his overall track record in the majors and minors has a lot more good than bad in it. I'm not saying he's better than Nelson; I'm with everybody else who wants to see Jimmy in the rotation. But I think Fiers would be a better bet in the rotation right now than Estrada, and I think he has value going forward.

It seems like he's just all turned around now. It seems like he's constantly letting pitchers get ahead in the count, then chasing stuff out of the zone. I think his first half last year demonstrates that he has the talent to be a better hitter than he's showing right now. Then, teams didn't know how to pitch and play him, and he also had some exceptional luck (like his HR/FB). Now, teams have adjusted, and he's also having some seriously crappy luck (like last night). The luck will even out, and that will help in the long run. But he needs to refine his approach in a big way if he's going to hit. I think he can do it. He's a young guy who's going through a miserable time at the plate. Maybe it will sink his bat, but I'm hopeful.

Thanks for that link, TC07. Very cool, and interesting to see that Gatewood and Harrison came through that program.

You are... I'm well aware of his OPS and what he's done, as an FYI I look at every player I cover last 10 games just about every other day, in addition to watching and listening to every game I can. I would ask if you have you watched any of the games? It's nice that he's doubling so much of late for his 1 hit per game, but he's not having consistent ABs like he was when he was really on earlier this year. Is a .280ish BA good enough for Clint? I honestly don't think so, not in A ball, if he was Taylor Brennan absolutely, but his ceiling is well beyond that. He seems... well angry mostly, I noticed it yesterday. He's going to get pitched around, he's the most consistent threat in the line-up so he's going to have to adjust. I don't mind a little red-ass from a player, in fact I kind of like it, but I think if Clint settles in he's a .320+ hitter at this level, he should ultimately be a 1.000+ OPS guy this year and I think he will be. This is his line since May 1st which is what I was referring to... I could have elaborated better but I've been making an effort to try and keep my points shorter this year. [pre]Rk G PA AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB IBB SO HBP SH SF GDP SB CS BA OBP SLG OPS 2 Clint Coulter 35 154 124 28 32 7 1 7 28 22 1 29 7 0 1 2 1 2 .258 .396 .500 .896[/pre] Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Original Table Generated 6/11/2014. Yes the power and walks are there, but the consistent hard contact is not. It might not be fair but I have the bar set higher for Coulter than any of the other position players in Wisconsin as he could easily be 1 of the 3 best overall hitters in the league this year. I understand he's leading the league in OPS, I also look at the league leader boards on a very regular basis (see my Taylor Williams post from the other day), my commentary is about the consistent quality of each AB. I understand I'm nitpicking him but he's got the potential to be *that* good. I've never set the bar that high for a Brewer hitting prospect in A ball before, not even Lawrie, but I believe Clint is special. Sounds like I'm not imagining things at all, but carry on.

Maybe I'm imagining this, but I think you've been a bit quick a couple of times this year to say that Coulter's in a slump. In his past five games, he's 3 for 18, but with 5 walks . . . certainly not the greatest five games of his life, but I wouldn't say it's enough to remark on. In his past ten games his OPS is over .900. A month ago I had Haniger down as our most disappointing position prospect this year, at least among guys who had been healthy. He seems to have gotten the memo from somebody. Wow.