Nefaste

I was actually really encouraged by this, to me it sounds like he's saying that they've got a signing bonus both parties are willing to agree on, the Brewers have just told him that they want to see how quickly he recovers and what he looks like after it heals before being willing to pay above slot.

Angel Salome is really starting to click at Brevard. .320 AVG, with .843 OPS, he's obviously recovered from the broken bone. I like the 12 BB, 20 SO in 181 at bats as well, not spectacular, but plate discipline seems to be there and getting better. Between him and Palmisano, we've got a really great chance at home grown (which also means long term) production at the catchers spot. Not to mention guys like Whiteside or Lucroy possibly making their mark in the coming years. Could be a real advantage for the Brewers.

I'd be okay with a raw toolsy guy like Brewer taking a year or two just to learn how to hit. If he can move that schedule up a bit, he can become a top prospect REAL quick. Quite honestly guys like him are really hard to watch early on for me, because every 0-4 or 0-5 box score (and they come often with these types of players) makes me nervous that our latest "5-tool prospect" is all flash and no substance. But I pull hard for them, because the once in a blue moon they turn out, they tend to be spectacular.

Capellan has decided to return to Nashville, but is maintaining his request for a trade: Click here for article Choice Melvin quote from the article: "His agent said he is ready to go out and do what he is supposed to do and shut up," Melvin said. "I can accept that at this point." Something tells me that Melvin was emphasizing the "Shut up" part. Talk about undermining potential trade value....

Come now Brian, we both know Mr. Ballouli's stunning good looks mesmerized you, no shame in admitting it.

With his solid bat and glove play in the CWS, if the draft was held today, do you think he would go higher?

Regardless of how Davis is pitching, he's getting hosed on those calls, and it's obviously affecting pitch selection.

Are you kidding me? How about Isaac Palencia, whose rookie ball 1.055 OPS in the massive sample size of 34 AB's leads me to nominate him for the Brewerfan 2nd Annual Catching WHOA SOLVDD award.

Jenkins OPS now .001 over Lee's

Even though I hate watching our sketchy offense struggle so much, seeing JJ Hardy starting become the hitter we knew he could be over the past month has been a real treat. He just looks so much better and more confident at the plate.

Would've preferred a 3TO there (hint, hint), even the strikeout

Palmisano really looks like he's picked it up the past month or so, good to see him back on track.

Lowell just made a good play, gotta tip your cap.

Hey Colby, according to Callis' Pre-Draft Blog: www.baseballamerica.com/t...eblog.html Weaver has until midnight Monday (not Tuesday) the 30th of May to sign. Is that a misprint by Callis?

Agreed. Mark A. has made it pretty clear he's a hands off kind of owner, at least for the time being (until he gets his feet wet). The man is an experienced executive, and Executive Takeover 101 states that you should send clear signals of your willingness to change, to improve an organization, and to listen, then promptly step out of the way and don't rock the boat while you get your bearings. I hear you scoop, but pitching is so darn important, even if it is like banging your head against a wall, you have to just keep, well, banging your head against the wall! No team finds post season success without top flight pitching, and top flight pitching never comes cheap, especially to small market teams. I don't think that means you have to find it in the first round, but I think the chances are quite a bit higher if you do within the first three. Yovani Gallardo comes to mind as a recent nugget mined in the second round (or is the nugget mining reserved purely for Doug Melvin?) Regardless, in my mind, "best player available" remains the best rule of thumb. I also am a big believer in spending big on pitchers who have dropped due to various problems. Nick Adenhart comes to mind as someone I really wish the Brewers would have taken a chance on. Tommy John surgery that early means he comes back with fewer question marks, and it generally has pretty good outcomes. Even if a first rounder flames out, a guy like Adenhart can come out of nowhere and really make a draft a winner.

I believe that if Weaver, or a Boras client, or just a potentially expensive high end pick in general was going to be taken, that Mark A. would at the very least be informed, and probably involved in financial discussions in the days leading up to the draft. I mean it can be a $5 million decision when dealing with Boras clients with high demands. This could be even more true if the Brewers decide to compensate for the loss of a 2nd round pick by taking an expensive option in the 3rd round that may have fallen due to signing demands. Then again he may just say "You've got $6 million for all 50 picks, split it up how you want to".

Jenkins has always been a streaky hitter (in between injuries). I'm going to give him plenty of sample size this season to see what he can do at this point in his career. That said, if he produces .800 OPS or below this season, I'm going to advocate dumping him.

Better Hawk has that surgery now, he can get it over with and come back at 21-22, and still have a few years to get his pitching together.

I'd like to apply for the role of spell checker for the front page. I really do appreciate people who take the time to write those pieces for free, but some of them need a bit of polish. I'm not an English major, but someone with a dictionary and some time could do the job easily.

Yup

Did Kenny Durost retire? According to his player profile he did: www.brewerfan.net/ViewPla...ayerId=574

I've seen a lot of these high school/college pitching comparisons done, over varying time periods by various sports writers (Neyer, Callis, etc). And all of them suffer from small samples, simply because of the nature of what they're studying, successful major league pitchers during the modern baseball era. There certainly seems to be a small advantage in drafting college pitchers, but how much of an advantage has varied widely in those various informal studies. That just reinforces my suspicion that we simply don't have enough data, that's recent enough, to make a judgment call on high school pitching as a whole. Compounding this problem is that you're dealing with a moving target. Drafting styles, "Moneyball" conceptions, ongoing advances in sports medicine, all these things are changing the way drafts are done, which can have unforeseen ripple effects on which players get chosen, and how much success is seen immediately. Statistics from 1990-1997 (aka 14-7 years ago) as seen in that study, may already be too outdated. The way I see it, as the game continues to get richer, and bonuses get bigger, there is a definite shift toward youth that's being led by the players as much as the teams. This is simple economics, we all realize it, it's the way the game is played. Let's play a little game of our own here. We'll take two imaginary pitching draft classes, one from 10 years ago (it could be any time period in the past really), and one from today, all numbers rough and hypothetical Draft Class 10 years ago ----------------------------------------- 100 high school pitchers that are "high potential" prospects, all get drafted 40 sign with teams 60 go to college, and 50 of those eventually get drafted 29 of the HS players make the bigs (~71%, which conforms with the study Callis cites) 41 of the college players make the bigs (82%, which also conforms to the study) 70 players in total from that "high potential" draft class make the bigs, a 70% success rate. Now, if you were a team that concentrated on college pitching, you'd have a larger pool of good prospects to eventually choose from. You'd have a better chance of getting more of these "blue chip" prospects, and a higher percentage of those college prospects would succeed. You'd eventually come under the impression that college pitching was the way to go. But wait, something about the game shifts, the amount of money becomes more appealing, and players are skipping college more and more... Draft Class Now ----------------------------------------- 100 high school pitchers that are "high potential" prospects, all get drafted 70 sign with teams 30 go to college, and 25 of those eventually get drafted (same drafted percentage as above) 50 of the HS players make the bigs (~71%, which conforms with the study Callis cites) 20 of the college players make the bigs (~82%, which also conforms to the study) Once again, 70 (and 70%) of the players succeed in making it to the major league level. No difference in total player pool. But all of a sudden a team that concentrates on college pitching is fighting over a much smaller pool of players. Even with the higher percentage success rate, the overall talent available has dropped significantly. Your options are narrowing, while other teams are enjoying, and competing with, the 50 HS players that do make the bigs, regardless of the higher failure rate. There are a couple caveats of course. The college pool is significantly improved by the addition of players that emerge as prospects while in college. This is offset by the shift that occurs when colleges are forced to fill their rosters using worse players than in the past, as more and more average high schoolers sign with major league teams as well. This leads to less emergence of new prospects. Also creating a shift is the fact that the best of the best, the cream of the crop if you will, of the top 100 high school players are usually the ones that sign out of high school. While the lower end of the top 100 players think they can wait for a better deal by going to college first and proving themselves a bit more. This in my estimation is what leads to the other statistics in the aforementioned study. The equalization at higher performance levels: 15 (30%) of the college RHPs were average or better at the MLB level 11 (31%) of the HS RHPs were average or better at the MLB level If the best of the best are coming into the big leagues out of high school, even with the higher attrition rate, they're going to have an equal shot at success by sheer talent alone. So while a college player may be less likely to fail due to injuries, he has a higher chance of being less skilled at the game (this obviously doesn't apply to an individual, but will begin to become apparent as an overall drafting strategy selectively picks players from college). The point of all this is, you have to face the current realities, not the past ones, and assuming things are still the same as they were may burn you. If Jack Z. is drafting high schoolers out of some sort of intrinsic sense of where the game is going, or out of some sort of heavy duty statistical analysis, it doesn't really matter. As long as he's keeping up with the market for players now, and not basing his decisions on old information. So far he's had success, let's hope that continues.

I just watched it over at MLB.com, the camera didn't quite keep up with the ball, so you miss the stab, but it still looked darn impressive. Even the Reds announcers kind of laughed and said it was just "that kind of night".

Two points, 1. This is a site & message board dedicated to every aspect of the Brewers organization. This includes all forms of discussion including criticism. As long as the poster does not use obscene language or unfounded personal attacks, they are free to discuss both the good and bad parts of the organization and its players. Rogers8Fan hasn't broken any forum rules, and even if his personal observations were misinformed or based on hasty conclusions, he's still free to present his opinion. 2. Even though MLB is based around a game, it's ultimately a multi-billion dollar business. No one here really wants to see any of these kids fail or get injured. But there are tough decisions that have to be made by the management of every team, and as evidenced by Rogers' signing bonus, a single decision can have multi-million dollar implications. Following along with such decisions is what being a fan is about. And since teams must have objective observation and criticism of each of the players they draft, it's fitting that fans should look to have the same sort of discussions. Obviously our sources of information are not as good as the teams themselves, but we draw from what we can, and I don't think there's anything wrong with that. If any of you have personal insights that you think draw a better picture of the player in question, feel free to share them.

It's also worth noting that as Jack Z. said, this was a big DFE draft. Which means even for Jack's drafting style this was probably excessively highschool oriented. I wonder if there's been talk among Brewer management as to possibly starting another minor league team. With all these young players, it's going to be a continuing theme that we're going to have to take longer looks at these guys before moving them up or cutting them. An extra team at the lower levels would probably be a good idea.