JohnBriggs12

He had plenty last year and continues to get them this year, what more do you want? Last year he was sacrificing AB's to Elian Herrera. No reason not to play a 24 year old who's good defensively with developing bat for a career journeyman like Herrera.

I waiting for that comment But in all seriousness, I like Perez.. I just wish he would take a walk or two. The more he hits with power that I believe he possesses the more carefully he'll get pitched. Every pitch he swung on in that AB was in the zone. I'm out of market so I have the game on. Venezuelan players are brought up swinging the bat. It's in their culture. Give him time.

Hernan!!!

It's been about a year now since Attanasio threw in the towel and basically admitted that the team needed a major overhaul. It was hard to fault him based on the team's performance, the falloff in production of Braun from his peak years, lack of top of the rotation pitching, and expiring contracts for key veterans. But now a year later, Braun's been better than ever. They have controllable 1B who on pace for a 50 HR season. They are months if not weeks from the debut of one of the top 10 prospects in baseball. In the meantime, they are getting excellent production from the middle infield. They have nice young corner OF in Santana. The back end of the bullpen has been excellent and is manned by guys with terrific arms who are also controllable a bit longer. The pitching staff has an emerging ace. They have farm system rated in the top 10 by several analysts. They have plenty of payroll room. What are they lacking really? They are lacking competent starting pitching in the 2-5 spots in the rotation. Now the track record of some of those guys here, suggests that they can turn it around but if not, they have some decent arms at high levels of minors admitting that some are off to slow starts, plus a lot more ammunition to acquire pitching than they've had in recent seasons. Look there's no catching the Cubs, either this year or as long as they have a healthy Arietta and Lester fronting their rotation. The Cubs are going to be a force well into the next decade. But the Cards look vulnerable, the Pirates have payroll constraints and aren't setting the world on fire, and the Reds are truly in beginning stages of rebuilding. Just sayin....

He's in DFA limbo right now but will end up being released and available for major league minimum soon. Yeah his numbers this year are ugly (though by Brewer standards about average), and he's a soft tossing lefty these days, but he's put up ERA's of 4.75, 4.74, and 4.70 as a soft tossing lefty the last 3 years in the AL as a fixture in Chicago's rotation. One would assume he'd be capable of slightly better than that in the NL. Even this year, he does have one quality start among his 4, which would be tied for 2nd among Brewer starters. He also has 16K's in 22 innings, all in the AL. He's certainly no worse than Capuano. In 2015, he registered 15 quality starts of his 30 total. It probably hurt him being in a rotation with 3 other lefties too. Not a great flip candidate but heck, look at the teams that picked up Randy Wolf after Brewers released him a few years ago.

Flores had a .902 OPS vs. LHP combined in AAA and MLB last year. That being said, he's going to need to pick it up or he'll lose his roster spot regardless.

I'd feel a lot better about trading Braun if they'd hung on to Davis, who by the way has been heating up for Oakland with 6 HR in the last 2 weeks.

Kudos to Guerra for finally being someone other than Nelson who looked competent starting a game. He was efficient, and mostly effective. Amazing that it took a 31 year old rookie who's spent most of his career in indy leagues and winter ball in Venezuela, but he wasn't in over his head.

Who doesn't think Chris Carter would be a blast to see (and a favorite) in the HR derby? With the likes of Goldschmidt, Rizzo, and others he faces an uphill battle to get named an AS but if he keeps up this pace, who knows?

Look the reason articles like this don't mention what the Brewers could expect in return is simple. The Brewers will save money. Period. Teams won't expect to have to pick up his contract and give any value in players back in return too. It doesn't work that way. Oh they'll include a B level prospect or maybe a back end of the rotation starter or maybe somebody's who's overpaid on their roster, but that's it. That's why Lucroy is a better trade asset if you want talent back that might make you better in the long run. National writers don't realize is the Braun's contract is not a burden in any way for the Brewers who've already cut their payroll down to lowest levels in what a decade? So Brewers aren't or shouldn't be interested in moving Braun just to get out from under the contract. When they ask for a top prospect, teams will shy away. I say lets enjoy Braun's fine season for what it is. Fun to watch! Let's not get caught up thinking trading him will find them the next Clayton Kershaw. That ship sailed when he signed his big money extension a few years ago. We can hope Braun's excellence lasts until this team has added some premier talent around him and is competitive again. There's a reasonable case that it can happen before Braun's skills have fallen off too much.

All plans are based on hope. Since when can anyone guaranty anything in sports, particularly baseball? The Astros were supposed to be this great up and coming team, a consensus pick to with their division this year after making the playoffs last year. Where are they? They look like the 2015 Brewers. Nobody knows what the team or the division will look like in 4-6 years from now. Just because a system has a lot of promising talent, it guarantees nothing. The fact is teams who would like to deal for Braun will consider picking up his contract to be the main cost for them. They won't also give back premier talent. So dealing Braun might save the Brewers from some dead money in 2020 but it won't likely make them better on the field unless the money is used to buy premier talent and with the cost of premier talent, it's not enough. In the meantime, it will make them a lot worse and your prophesy that they won't be able to compete in 2018, a self fulfilling one.

Leicester City, which was 5,000 to 1 prior to the season, clinched the English Premier League soccer championship! If it can happen in soccer, it can happen in baseball!

The Skysox pitchers have been dealing with a lot of bad weather too. When gripping the ball is a big issue, it's very difficult commanding pitches and they get left over the middle of the plate a lot.

Brewers are out of the cellar! They also have a better record than 6 other major league teams including the Yankees and Astros. Last year through 25 games, they had the worst record in all of baseball! Progress!!

Two "flip" guys out there this winter were Latos and Chacin. Latos is big reason Sox have best record in baseball. Chacin looks like he'll garner a nice return for Braves. Brewers opted to keep Garza in hopes they could get something for him. That was never going to happen at his salary level. Cubs showed the value of picking up veteran arms cheap. They turned Scott Feldman into Jake Arrieta.

His value could be through the roof if he hits 40 HR this year and is on that pace next year.

And that's what this positive post thread is all about :-) Honestly, I'm enjoying this season much more than the last few, and it's because I can finally understand the strategy and believe it will bear fruit. I take this year for what it is, a time to audition some players at the MLB level while the future Brewers get "seasoning" in the minors. Hopefully we will get some pleasant surprises like Gennett and Carter have been so far, and we will add a few more bricks to the foundation so we can build on it through the additions from the farm and free agency so in the not-too-distant future we will be back in the playoff mix, only this time with a mindset that the farm is our lifeblood, and not just a place from which to trade. I see a team that if it had 4 decent starting pitchers to go with Nelson could be competitive right now with all but the elites in the NL, Washington, Chicago, and NY. The odds of ever getting to their level are long no matter how much young talent is acquired, but one would think finding 4 competent starting pitchers between now and when the bulk of the talent arrives, doesn't seem all that insurmountable provided they don't continue to sell off their productive players to do so. One or two, or maybe 3 might already be in the system. I never bought the idea that you had to be awful for multiple seasons to build a contending team from within. I still don't.

Perez has over 400 games at SS in the minors and Counsell said he saw Perez was capable of playing there in the spring. With Villar playing virtually every day and certainly adequate defensively, carrying a defensive specialist as a backup makes little sense. Besides Rivera needs regular AB's. We're getting closer to the point where if Villar suffered a serious injury, that Arcia could come up and take the spot.

Apparently Rosenthal tweeted out the teams that are not on Braun's no- trade list. The Marlin telecast included a lot of speculation that the Angels are interested in Braun. But like most who don't follow the Brewers, they still thought the Brewer system was barren. They didn't mention the Angels have the worst system in baseball and couldn't come close to the asking price. Giving Braun away for anything but premier top of the line prospect as the key piece would be insane unless you think Braun won't be productive beyond 2017. The payroll savings angle for a team who',s payroll is a mere $60 million with Braun, is nowhere near enough incentive to trade still one of the premier players in the game.

Flores will hit. Nieuwenhuis though is contact challenged.

Hill/Flores and Hernan have Brewers back in this one. Hill isn't going to hit sub .200 with the way he's swinging.

Looking like it will be Guerra. Hard to be excited about a 31 year old rookie.

That would be my choice. Thornburg ended up in the bullpen in 2014, only because they signed Garza and he became the odd man out despite closing 2013 with some strong starting performances. He's healthy now, able to use all his pitches and he'd be much more valuable as a starter. But why not Magnifico instead of Goforth? Maybe Goforth is just a temporary extra arm and who'll start in Jungmann's spot will be determined later? Hader maybe? Pena?

If they can parlay Lucroy into a quality starting pitcher, add an even more mature Hader to the mix, get a rebound from one of Peralta, Garza, or Jungmann, have another arm emerge from the system, and not turn up their noses to the once good starter who's now out there being ignored in FA and is cheap and healthy as a buy low candidate (like a Latos or Chacin were this year), then anything's still possible.

Houston, for all the talk that they are the Brewers model, to the point where the Brewers hired one of their top officials, is right back down in the basement precisely because their pitching has been worst in the AL this year. Fact is they got lucky with arms that had good years despite not great pedigree which happens, not that their front office were necessarily a bunch of geniuses. Maybe their success last year was more a result of them upgrading the lineup to the point that with good luck with journeymen level pitchers, that they could be a playoff team. Brewers have always relied on that but most years that simply doesn't pan out. Last year the Brewers could have been quite good if Lohse and Garza had good years and they had a little better health with their lineup. They had just the opposite, and that started this whole rebuild movement. Question remains is tanking an overreaction to the failure of pitchers that were prone to fail at some point and will tanking work if you go on the cheap route or don't develop top flight pitching? What if Brewers got lucky and had signed Mat Latos for a few million and plucked Jhoulys Chacin off the scrap heap, and they were along with Nelson in this years rotation along with say, Hader, Peralta or Anderson?