Fear The Chorizo

when's gorzelanny going to be back healthy? got to think when he's ready to come back the Wang experiment might be done...injuries and poor approach have really turned this offense into a below average lot, and the pitching honestly isn't good enough to keep them winning without more run support - pitching's going to burn out at this rate. If Wang can't even get himself out of an inning he blows up because he throws too many pitches, he's not worth killing the rest of the pen because he's simply too far away from being a MLB pitcher

Is there a precedent for this? Johan Santana says hi...not that I expect Wang to turn into Johan Santana

Wasn't Lawrie's big WAR #'s early in his career largely due to some weird defensive zone rating/efficiency flaw that gave him insanely high DWAR? He's still young and could still turn into a star, but at this point in his career it's just as likely that he has another 1-2 subpar years and becomes a MLB journeyman that nobody but Brewer fans think twice about. Greinke opened that season on the DL, and for the first 2 months Marcum was the best pitcher in the rotation. Without him they would've dug themselves a pretty decent hole to crawl out from, seeing that they were around a 0.500 team well through May or even June that season, if I remember correctly. The brewers maybe win the wild card that year without Marcum, but they don't win the division...

This team has a chance to contend and if Melvin doesn't make some substantial moves over the summer I think it will be a fireable offense. so since summer doesn't start for another month, why are we so crazy about this right now with a 5 game lead on the division? the can't do anything in LF right now because their star RF can't stay on the field and their star CF's serving a suspension with a balky back...both currently taking up 25 man roster spots. They can't do anything significant at 1B right now because Ramirez's injury is forcing Reynolds to play every day at 3B, and it's frankly too early to start dealing pitching depth with hopes of acquiring a 1B capable of significantly improving offensive production over there. Let summer get here before jumping off a ledge. And let's hope the 3 best hitters on the team (Braun, Gomez, and Ramirez) get back in the lineup every day. If they don't, none of this 1B/LF crap matters because the team's going to struggle offensively.

With regards to Braun not playing - he's just coming off the DL from injuring his oblique without a rehab assignment. An oblique requires rest to heal, so he's probably a bit out of game shape, and playing on a horrible weather day isn't going to help it, and likely could cause it to flare up if it isn't loose/warm. It's about 45 degress at the start of this game, with rainy conditions. It was actually sleeting/flurrying on my way into the office by O'hare earlier today. If RR wants to give Braun the day off from playing RF in miserable conditions that could increase the chances of tweaking that oblique, fine by me.

If the disaster of having Overbay and Reynolds playing 1B can manage to keep this team in 1st for the next 3 weeks, the Brewers could sign Kendrys Morales without giving up a draft pick, suddenly that black hole isn't nearly as glaring, and message boarders like us will need to find another position/roster spot to gripe about. Francisco hits baseballs very far on occasion...he also strikes out at an outrageous rate and could never come close to playing adequate defense anywhere on the field. Had the Brewers been an AL team I think he's on this team instead of Overbay to start the season, but since they are an NL team I'd rather have a player that can at least play the position defensively at an acceptable level. Reynolds is the RH offensive version of Francisco, but he also is much better defensively at multiple positions than him.

try to deal some of these AA/AAA arms that are creating a logjam for some of these pitchers with bigger upsides. If guys like Bradley and Jungman dominate their current level, they need to be pushed up a notch and given inning regardless of who's currently there. It's good to have a plethora of "back of the rotation" types scattered among higher minor league levels, but under no circumstance should arms like that impede development of top-15 draft picks.

If the Brewers MLB pitching staff continues to stay largely healthy, and some of their minor league pitching prospects continue to pitch very well, there's going to be a natural position of strength for the Brewers to include guys like Fiers, Pena, Estrada in trade discussions for several reasons. 1 - they need to start making room at the higher levels of their minor leagues or the majors for prospects with more upside that deserve promotions. Bradley absolutely needs to be bumped to AA. Jungman likely should shift up to AAA. Nelson or Fiers are deserving of MLB innings. Other pitchers currently in those spots could be moved for position player prospects that wouldn't need to immediately go on the 40-man roster. Another option would be to dangle an arm like Jungmann as trade bait and see what he could get back position-prospect wise...especially if the club doesn't project him to be much more than an average starter at the MLB level. 2 - they are also likely to have enough MLB arms getting healthy that would otherwise require DFA-ing or exposing veteran pitching to waivers. When Gorzo and Hendersen are back healthy, what will happen to Duke, Kintzler, Wooten, Figaro, etc? Why not add an arm or two from that group to a pitching prospect to try and get more hitting, too? I don't think making one of these sort of trades makes sense today, but if the pitching continues to perform like it has throughout this organization, the Brewers almost have to try dealing some of these arms. If they don't it's likely they'll be poached via waivers in the near future when some of these roster decisions are forced to happen.

sail south to Belmont Harbor, then walk about 1 mile west/northwest to get to Wrigley. That's about as hassle free as it gets, but not sure about the boating budget! As someone who lived in that area for many years, if you want to avoid hassles getting in/out, the best way would honestly be to just drive to skokie, take the yellow cta line to transfer with the red and take it south to addison.

Verducci or those experts couldn't be more wrong, IMO - if they want to prevent pitching injuries using mound elevations, they should raise the mound. having the added elevation creates more momentum from the legs, back, and other parts of the body that put less stress on the arm...if pitchers revert back to mechanics that don't strain the arm & elbow as much. Tommy John was on a Chicago radio show this morning and brought up several points. Pitchers today more than ever finish off pitches looking like Tiger Woods swinging a golf club - their landing foot is initially bent when it hits the ground but they end up straightening it to generate more torque to max out velocity as they release the ball. Back in TJ's era pitchers tended to keep that front leg bent and truly used their legs and back to preserve their arms. Nolan Ryan, that era's ultimate power pitcher, let the ball go with a bent leg and his back was often parallel with the ground on release. Looking at some quick video of Jose Fernandez, he releases the ball with practically a rigid landing leg and is much more upright with his follow through - that's putting much more stress on the arm. That's the mechanical trend for many of today's pitchers, because it does maximize velocity. He also mentioned that weightlifting has created pitchers with inflexible wrists/forearms, which adds strain on the elbow every time a pitcher releases the ball. Not necessarily bodybuilding type weights, but even strength training at youth/amateur levels. TJ's a strong advocate of the "Job" arm exercises, which are performed with super light weights and designed to build up flexibility and strength throughout the pitching arm. TJ more or less said it was his rehab regimen that made the TJ surgery successful. That regimen included those Job exercises and tons of throwing when his body/arm told him he needed to throw/pitch. He's also a huge proponent of leg strength & endurance training. Any type of typical upper body weight training using the arms/shoulders is something that leads to inflexibility in that wrist and foream area, especially if flexibility drills and stretching aren't part of that regular training.

sounds like Braun's departure was indeed nothing more than phasing him back in...good sign there wasn't a recurrence of the injury, but not great that they're going to need to ease him back into playing everday they gotta do whatever it takes to keep him in the lineup...with Aram being gone and Gomez facing a few game suspension they need Braun to be available

Cards continue to be ranked towards the bottom of the league in team HR, SLG, and OPS...They definitely have enough pitching to win many more than they lose, but at some point they need to start scoring runs. Adams off to a very good start this year, but only 4 BB in 146AB. Craig has been slow to get going this year...seems like he explodes for a game or two and then nothing for a week. Peralta has 1/3 of their team's HR. I would think Taveras will be getting the call at soon this season, and if there are bats with some pop on the market come trade deadline time they definitely have the minor league ammo to improve their club without mortgaging the future.

Except Hoffman's not a major league pitcher yet - arguing that the Brewers have a good record at preventing big league pitchers from blowing out arms doesn't work in this case, because as TheCrew posted, many of the better arms in the Brewer organization have blown out well before they even reached the big leagues for any significant amount of time. Mike Jones, Nick Neugabauer come to mind. In another draft year when Hoffman would be the clear leader of a thin pitching crop, maybe you take him with a bum elbow at 12...not this year though, when a majority of the top 15-20 players rated highly in the draft are pitchers and there is alot of argument who's going to end up in the top 10, there are other options with high ceilings that I'd much rather the Brewers select than a college arm who likely won't get a shot at full minor league pitching season until 2016 due to arm surgery.

I don't think Hoffman falls to 41, and I want no part of drafting a college pitcher with a bum elbow as high as #12 with the other prep/college arm talent available at the top of this draft. I hope some team picks Hoffman before Milwaukee's pick so they don't have the choice. Of all organizations, I think the Brewers would rank right near the bottom in terms of being able to effectively develop a pitcher that will need significant rehab before he ever pitches a professional inning. The Brewers should absolutely swing for the fences in terms of high ceiling/boom or bust type talent this year, if only to get a player like that in their system for a change. I think there will be enough healthy players fitting that description at #12 for them to pick from.

I don't think Hoffman falls to 41, and I want no part of drafting a college pitcher with a bum elbow as high as #12 with the other prep/college arm talent available at the top of this draft. I hope some team picks Hoffman before Milwaukee's pick so they don't have the choice. Of all organizations, I think the Brewers would rank right near the bottom in terms of being able to effectively develop a pitcher that will need significant rehab before he ever pitches a professional inning. The Brewers should absolutely swing for the fences in terms of high ceiling/boom or bust type talent this year, if only to get a player like that in their system for a change. I think there will be enough healthy players fitting that description at #12 for them to pick from.

Wishing the Brewers had signed Arroyo this offseason...not for him to pitch, but to prevent Arroyo from facing the Brewers, repeatedly owning them, and causing me to want to break things. He's the exact type of pitcher a free swinging team like the Brewers can't hit - not patient enough to force him into throwing alot of pitches and never really getting good pitches to hit.

That was a rough weekend to be a Brewer fan...I remember listening to that game, particularly as that inning unfolded, while fishing at the family cabin. One of the few times I've heard my father drop the 'F' bomb happened that day, and I think we both fought the urge to pull the plug out of the boat and sink it so we had other things to worry about than listening to the Crew go down in flames that September. Thank goodness for the Mets being the Mets to end that season!

its been 3 days since they put him on the DL Retroactive means they can start his arbitrary 15 day DL stint from the point Braun last appeared in a game, regardless of when he's formally placed on the DL. So yes, Braun's technically been on the DL for only a few days now, but the 15 day period was set back to start on April 27. So, he's eligible to come off the DL on May 12th, and all indications currently are that he'll be in the lineup that night in Milwaukee.

RRR was on the radio this morning saying Braun told him last night he felt really good...RRR went on to say he expects him to take BP over the next day or two, and if there aren't any issues he'll probably come off the DL and jump right back into the starting lineup on the 12th.

I know it's early and Javier Baez of the Cubs is very young to be playing in AAA, but he's gotten off to a horrible start this year - he hit a ton of HR in spring training but also showed those red flags of poor pitch recognition and being too aggressive. Is he being rushed a bit too much? Is this a product of him being ticked he didn't make the opening day MLB roster? He's hitting 0.150 and has 3 times more strikeouts than hits... He's got great ability offensively, if he swings at strikes - if he'd be in the majors right now teams could get him out without coming within a foot of the strike zone. For a top 5 prospect MLB-wide, it seems like the plate discipline aspect of his game hasn't been given enough scrutiny. I recall many of the Cubs' other prized hitting prospects of years gone by having very similar problems.

Yost was terrible at leaving a starter in 1 inning too long, and not having a reliever warming up to start that inning...so by the time he actually brought a reliever in, the starter had either already given up more runs or got himself into a terrible jam. I don't think Yost had the best of bullpen talent to work with which is what led to some of the problems, too. When you take a tiring starter out and bring in the equivalent of a gas can in to try and put out the fire, most of the time it's not going to work. That being said, I remember the combination of questionable bullpen choices and ridiculous double switches being noticeably bad with Nedley more often than not. It's one thing to manage a bullpen 'by the book' and look foolish pulling/inserting relivers based on what inning it is. Every manager does that on occasion. But Yost managed a bullpen by a book that nobody's been able to find, let alone read yet...come to think of it, maybe it's an appendix of the "unwritten rules". That decision with Shouse against the Phillies pretty much got Yost fired because of how crazy it was.

If Wooten's still feeling good I'd rather him start the 9th...see if you can get 2IP out of him and only use 3 pitchers in a blowout game. that said, we'll probably see KRod for som godforsaken reason.

shoot, or for Wooten to get thru the final 2 IP

Would be nice for Wooten to get thru the 8th unscathed then hang another crooked # up in the home half before giving Wang a shot to close out the game.

heart of the order for Dbacks up to start this inning, I don't mind using Smith all that much in this spot. I will mind if Wang or Wooten aren't used to at least start next inning if the lead is 5+ runs.