Fear The Chorizo

Morissey's just catering to the audience reading his paper - Cub fans will always view Sheets as on par with the injury problems they had with Wood and Prior, when it couldn't be farther from the truth. Wood and Prior's injuries were almost entirely arm-related, while Sheets had the torn lat and a pile of random, non-arm related injuries that pitchers aren't regularly associated with. Put it this way, Harden's at the stage of his career that Sheets was when he signed his first contract extension with the Brewers, when he was in the middle of logging 200+ innings a season and actually putting up similar numbers to an unbelievable Cy Young season by Randy Johnson. Maybe the overall number of DL stints are comparable, but the comparison should stop there - Harden is much closer to Mark Prior than Sheets from an injury standpoint.

I'd put that June 14th game into the category of "games the Brewers made a charge, but didn't quite get over the hump" (another would be the 6 run inning to tie the Nats, only to lose 7-6). It was definitely a downer, though, and I would like to erase Taveraz in a Brewer uniform from my mind.

16 Brewer wins have been by 4 or more runs this season. # of games the Brewers lost by 4 or more? Exactly 16. That 83% has been there all season. One would think that replacing McClung with Sabathia every 5 games should increase that percentage as the season rolls along, especially if the bullpen continues to show improvement.

Any pitcher's numbers are going to suffer when they're not consistently pitching in Oakland - the Coliseum has way more foul territory than any other stadium, so a ton of those foul balls that make their way 5 rows into the stands at Wrigley, or Miller Park, or most anywhere else get turned into outs. Harden has the stuff to overcome that, but pitchers who pitch to contact like Gaudin are going to suffer a bit.

On the flip side, games that the Brewers appeared to steal, trying to follow the same criteria that I used to identify games they seriously squandered: April 17 against the Cards - Crew scores 3 8th inning runs off the pen and Prince hit his 1st dinger in the 10th to avoid the sweep April 23 against the Phillies - Fielder hits a 2 run homer in the 8th against hamels, and Turnbow actually notches a save May 1 against the Cubs - big Braun double after Wood created a jam for himself and blew a save. Yo's injury severely dampened this win after the news broke the following day May 9 against the Cards - Weeks delivers a 2 out, 2 run single as Izzy blows another save July 2 against the Dbacks - Brewers look pathetic against a spot starter for the Dbacks, only to score a run in each of the last 4 innings to get the win - Torres slithered off the hook by getting a double play ball to end the game. Not quite as many on this list as the other side, but there were also a ton of games that could've gone either way in which the Brewers were able to come away winners. There were also a good number of games where significant Brewer leads where whittled away to set up late inning theatrics, including a quite a few blown saves that led to walk-off or extra inning wins early on. Many of the games which Milwaukee "stole" were still relatively close games, and while overcoming one-run deficits isn't exactly stealing a game, I tried to view the games from the opponents' perspective as best I could. I'm not intending to say that the Brewers "blew" all of the games I listed to start this thread - just pointing out games I remembered that stung worse than the other losses did, and trying to point out any similarities. Mota being the gas can that burned the Brewers in many of the more recent "bad losses" led me to think starting this thread was worthwhile. I think the two games that stand out the most to me are the 6-5 Dbacks loss and the 6-4 loss to the Rockies.

I always point to 2007's large number of games the Brewers lost that seemed destined for wins as the difference in the division last season - The Cubs did right the ship, but Milwaukee more or less handed them the division with all the blown 3+ run leads late in games during the course of that season. This year, there hasn't been as many significant meltdowns, but I wanted to try and put together a list of games that were especially tough losses to stomach and see if there were common denominators. April 20 against the Reds - Lost it in the bottom of the 10th when Gagne gave up solo shots to Encarnacion and Bako, followed by another run after Yo and Harang turned in great pitching performances. May 4 against the Astros - Saw the Brewers blow a 6-2 lead against Houston, with yet another Gagne blown save mixed in. May 10 against the Cards - good comeback to tie it, only to lead to Gagne giving up 2 more 9th inning runs May 14 against the Dodgers - Combo of Milwaukee relievers and poor defense coughs up 3 9th inning runs in another late inning loss - Mota gets credit for the blown save and loss May 17 against the Red Sox - 2nd game of doubleheader squandered away late due to shoddy defense June 6 against the Rockies - Sheets' quality start completely squandered as Mota's entrance in the 8th led to a 5 run inning and a 3 run blown lead. June 27 against the Twins - Very entertaining game, but a tough one to swallow with McClung not being able to keep the Twins from continuing to get back into the game, and Mota/Kendall falling in love with high fastballs to Joe Mauer after getting him down 0-2 in the count July 3 against the Dbacks - too fresh in all our memories, up 5-0 heading to bottom nine and couldn't get an out before the Dbacks plated 6. Mr. Mota started the fun, albeit with 2 infield hits, he did walk a guy to set the inning up for the meat of the Dbacks' order. Many of these tough to swallow losses had similar scenarios - The Brewers' offensive inability to tack on runs against opposing bullpens/middle relief and late-inning blowups of their struggling relievers. The frequency of Turnbow+Gagne's presence in the early season meltdowns has been more than replaced by Mota since mid-May. Some of the early season woes were solved once the bats started generating more runs, and the bullpen has been strengthened with Torres' success. Still, the weak links appear to be an inability to tack on runs after generating big early leads against opponents' bullpens, and even moreso the presence of Mota in late inning-high leverage situations. I'm hoping common sense sent the memo to Yost that Mota isn't to be used in these situations anymore, and that while he does need to pitch, he needs to be kept on a short leash. I would hope Brewer management realizes that if Mota's the weak link, they need to cut ties/trade him - I think in house options to replace Mota's innings are more than available, especially if Gagne continues to show good command. McClung should shift nicely back into that middle relief role after the allstar break. Mota's got a dollar amount tied to his name, but so does Turnbow, who is giving them nothing right now as well - the Brewers need to realize what they gave up to acquire him (Estrada, which equals nothing in my mind), and make sure he doesn't cost them any more games. He's got good stuff, but if he isn't commanding it or if he's tipping hitters as to what's coming, he's this year's version of Turnbow.

since all the talking heads appear to have a similar take on the trade, they're probably wrong, but... in reading alot of the articles/blogs out there breaking down the trade, nobody's claiming the haul of players Oakland received is outstanding, but they're not necessarily calling it garbage, either. alot of baseball people also seem to think that Harden may be on the verge of breaking down again - 2 starts ago, his fastball went from 94 down to below 90 by his 60th pitch. Harden's last start yielded slightly better velocity but horrible command, he needed around 100 pitches to get through 5 innings. The sentiment seems to be that while Beane didn't get a huge haul of prospects, he may have made the trade because he was worried that Harden wouldn't give better value to the A's on the mound or in a future trade due to his health issues than what the Cubs were offering.

You also can't "Add on" starts to pitchers stats when they can't stay healthy enough to pitch more than 10 starts in a row before heading to the DL.

Beane's been known to trade away damaged goods (Mulder, anyone?) before they lost all apparent trade value. Still, on paper it's a great trade for the Cubs - it does leave their ML roster/bench a little thin if the injury bug keeps nipping at them.

Can we please stray from the norm and abuse Redman like the rest of the league apparently does?

To try and keep perspective on this, my guess is Mark Rogers could probably throw from 45 feet on flat ground right now - heck, I could throw offhanded from 45 feet on flat ground. Until there's a timetable on when he's progressed to the point of extended long toss followed by getting himself on a mound, we probably shouldn't start projecting when he's back in Milwaukee.

An ACL to a pitcher isn't as important as it is to a running back, or a point guard - while it does need to be strengthened to the point of having no issues with overcompensating other parts of the delivery and abusing the arm/shoulder, but by no means does it need to be a yearlong absence from the game. I would think the Brewers' brass wouldn't even bring this up as a possibility unless they have no worries about rushing Yo back and reinjuring something. Yo being able to have his arm strength by September isn't the issue - his arm is healthy. If his knee recovers well enough, he'll be able to continue on a throwing program to build his arm up. If he's throwing from 45 feet now, it's ahead of what I expected his rehab to be, and the only thing keeping him from continuing to ramp it up is his leg/knee strength. Definitely not something the Brewers should be counting on, but I think it's something that's got to be explored if it looks like Yo's progressing well with rehabbing that knee.

I'm still thinking of it as a pipe dream, but the notion of the Brewer rotation with Sheets, Sabathia, Yo, and Parra around mid-September does have a nice look to it.

If Ellis is available, would Milwaukee think of packaging Weeks plus blocked hitting prospects (Nelson, etc) for Ellis + Harden, or Ellis + Street? Ellis would be a big defensive upgrade to Weeks for this season, and he's not that bad an offensive player - is he a free agent after this season?

That article pretty much looks like a writer grabbing at straws - pretty sure any other team looking to trade for quality starting pitching has given Beane a phone call or two by now, too.

I wouldn't mind the Brewers skipping/pushing back Parra's next start, since C.C. is slated to pitch on his next scheduled turn and the guy C.C's most likely to replace in the rotation is pitching tonight (McClung). I'd give Parra a start against the Reds on the weekend series and maybe push Suppan out to give him some extra time off, too. Depending on how the schedule looks following the allstar break, if the Brewers can line their rotation up to include C.C., Sheets, and Parra slated to pitch 3 of the 4 games against the Cubs the end of the month, I'd be more than pleased. Parra has thrown a ton of pitches to get through the innings he has thrown, and Suppan's been scuffling lately, much like he did last summer - I think both could use a bit of a break around the All-Star break to be ready to roll in a few weeks.

I tend to agree that his price tag will be too high, and it may be that teams actually trying to trade for Harden find out that unless a Haren-like package is put together, Harden won't be going anywhere - at least until the offseason.

I'm wondering if Melvin has talked to Beane about how available Rich Harden will be as the trade deadline approaches. After acquiring Sabathia, the starting rotation got a huge boost - I'm wondering if it's possible that the Brewers would have any interest in trading for Harden as well. I keep hearing how interested the Cubs are in him, but I think there's a big difference between being interested and actually being able to put together enough in a trade to acquire him. Unless the Cubs include several young arms from their major league roster, I don't see them having enough. The A's would probably be looking more at bats than arms, which is something the Brewers still have plenty of in their system. Harden wouldn't be a rent-a-starter like Sabathia is, so I'm guessing it would take more to pry him away from Beane - he's shown to want to trade pitching away approaching their FA year moreso than when they're still in salary arbitration, so Harden may cost too much in terms of prospects. What sort of package would be needed to make Beane listen? Would going after Harden be in the Brewers' best interest, factoring in how much they would need to give up? I'm thinking any trade involving Harden will depend on where the A's are at in the standings around the end of July. A rotation led by Sheets, Sabathia, and Harden resembles more of an all-star team instead of a mid-market staff, and a rotation next season with Harden, Gallardo, and Parra anchoring it (along with Suppan, Bush, etc filling in spots 4-5) would be far from a rebuilding pitching staff.

Remember folks, it's still relatively early in the trade season - there are about 3.5 weeks for teams to become sellers and for the Brewers to continue adding pieces...I'm hoping for a bullpen arm and another infielder wielding a LH bat.

Can I get a thread lock for this, please? for some perspective, the Brewers currently have a record one game poorer than their record last season - it's exciting to trade for a quality pitcher, but nothing's automatic in baseball...especially trying to project playoff rosters in early July.

I believe the Indians want some additional time to scout a short list of players Melving and Shapiro would have agreed to include as the player to be named later. Probably 4-5 prospects in the low minors who Cleveland scouts just want to see play more games before deciding who best fits their needs.

About a month ago, Russ wrote: "Until the Brewers can close the gap to around 4 games (and there's at least a reasonable chance of that happening), if the Cubs are playing the Cardinals or any other team ahead of the Brewers in the wild card race, I'll be rooting for Soriano and Zambrano to shut em' down!!! Does that get me excommunicated? http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/smile.gif Will I get a big red "C" painted on my chest and be forced to wear a foam Cubs finger? " So now the Brewers are effectively tied in the loss column with the Cardinals for the wild card lead, both teams being further ahead of the rest of the NL wild card probables, and sitting within 3.5 games of the Cubs...oh, and they just happened to pick up C.C. Sabathia to hopefully more than plug the gaping statistical hole in their rotation that Gallardo's unfortunate injury had left. I guess you don't get excommunicated now unless you continue to insist to root for the Cubs (at least until the AS break, when they're not really playing teams considered in the WC race). This thread is really entertaining to read through in its entirety right now - here's to hoping that the Brewers continue to play good baseball the rest of the season. It may prove to be true that the Brewers can't catch the Cubs this regular season, but it sure didn't take them very long to get right back in their rearview mirror.

When LaPorta was drafted last season, there was plenty of thought that he may be used as a trade chip with how the current crop of Brewers' position players was entering their window of contention - obviously that has proven to be a correct prediction. While LaPorta and Green's absence from the Brewers' minor league system is obviously a blow, there are 6 draft choices from the first 2 rounds this year and plenty more draft picks coming up next year to try and fill the void - I'm also pleased that the cupboard is far from bare even after this trade. It may mean only 2 more wins for the regular season, but if the Brewers find a way to reach the playoffs, it greatly increases their chances of doing something. I also think that if Yovanni was still healthy and being the solid #2 Brewer fans were hoping for, that there would have been even more urgency to make a trade like this - I'm hoping that mentality leads to another trade or two to solidify the bullpen if some of their current relievers continue to struggle.

the diamondbacks red-hat section. annoying from afar, but when the broadcast cuts part of every 1/2 inning for a stupid interview amongst a group of 70-somethings, it's beyond tolerable. then again, listening to Darron Sutton for more than 2 straight minutes isn't exactly therapy, either.

Just when it looks like the Giants are putting together a win, a 5'1" gnome hits a homer for the cubs