JohnBriggs12

Last year in the first half, he had a .368 OBP at Huntsville. So there is almost no difference. He had a terrific 2nd half when moved up to Nashville. He's been on fire in June: .408/.429/.620, so it's logical to assume he'll have better overall numbers this year, playing a full year at AAA. The statement "much worse" is a gross exaggeration. In fact, Schafer's AAA numbers in 112 games are significantly better than what Morgan did in his 128 games at that level. Schafer's line: .314/.374/.486. Morgan's line: .302/.361/.367. And it wasn't as if Morgan was a kid in AAA either. The bulk of his AAA time was when he was 26/27.

I would rather have seen Hernandez start the 10th inning today than Manny Parra.

Replace him with Schafer now. No excuse for that. He thought the count was full.

He's now in the AAAA category as far as I'm concerned. His trade value is as the secondary guy in a multiple player deal and that's my guess what will happen. Teams with very limited payroll will have interest. My guess is he ends up in Oakland or Seattle (Jack Z connection).

To amplify pedbadger's point about the misinformation out there, not 15 minutes ago, the knucklehead hosting the White Sox pregame show in talking about Braun, mentions him having failed an HGH test. Oh really? Testing for HGH requires taking blood. What a moron.

Greinke, Gallardo, Wolf, Estrada, Fiers are your 5 starters with Marcum gone. So no, Hernandez isn't taking a spot for Thornburg. Dillard and Parra have proven incapable of providing multiple clean innings and that's stressed the pen. I believe it's as simple as that. McClendon is just an extra arm until Estrada gets activated on Tuesday. I would guess either Dillard or the almost never seen Perez will surrender a roster spot for Livan.

So you don't believe that he is a competent RF or even LF anymore? He has had a better career UZR/150 than Braun, the only difference is that Braun makes flashy plays and Hart is more conservative in the field. He is at absolute worst "average" in RF and is becoming a dang good 1B which should only increase his value. The only reason he is playing 1B is because of Gamel's injury. Now thats not saying that I don't prefer him at 1B with our current roster, but not many teams have the OF depth that we have. Heck, we have 2 guys in AAA that could be 4th OF's right now for a lot of teams. I love Hart, but I think that he will price himself out of Milwaukee if he can continue to put up .275/.335/.480 with 25-30 HR and 75-90 RBI. Considering what Ethier and Werth have got in recent years, I could see him fetching at least a 4 year deal with anywhere form 35M-55M. They didn't move him to 1B just because of Gamel's injury. They wanted to look at him there in spring. Gamel got the job for this year, but he had to produce to keep it and they were never sure he would. The injury was unfortunate but they can't afford the luxury of trying Gamel out there again. Hart can still play corner OF, but so can most 1B. He's lost most of the speed he once had when he was accumulating that UZR rating. He's playing with a bum knee as it is. Another year of almost exclusive 1B play and teams will look at him like he never played the OF. Other than the Cardinals, how did teams view Lance Berkman, once he became primarily a 1B? They got away with him for a year in RF but he went right back to 1B when Albert left. Ethier has a Gold Glove. Werth can play a little CF. That Hart can function doesn't put him on par with either of those two.

Haudricourt says Veras has a groin strain. By my count until somebody is DL'd they now have 14 active pitchers. Somebody is going to have to be taken off the 40 man. Ransom? Maysonet? Dillard? Perez? Izturis is supposed to be returning too and so is Ishikawa. I would presume Ishikawa coming back means Green gets optioned. Any number of ways they can go here. Estrada is scheduled to start Tuesday also.

Hart is now a 1st baseman and most certainly projects as one from age 32-34, so I don't think Werth and Ethier are correct comparables. As a 1st baseman, his numbers look pretty much in line with Adam LaRoche. LaRoche hit .261/.320/.468 with 25 HR and 100 RBI as a 30 year old in 2010. Those are certainly Corey Hart like numbers. All that was worth was a 2 year $16 million dollar deal with an option from Washington. I think Hart's worth a bit more than that, maybe 3 yr/$33 million, but nobody is going to offer him Werth money. Werth's been a bust so teams aren't likely going to try and repeat that. Roache won't make his pro debut until 2013. I think his timetable is more like 2015 at the earliest. Coulter is likely targeted for 2016. Even if one of those guys moves to 1B, a 3 year deal for Hart covering 2014-2016 isn't going to be major block.

"If the Brewers were going to take a chance on an expensive, long term sign, I think Greinke should be the guy" I couldn't disagree more. Number one, Greinke is a pitcher. Pitchers break down. How much return have the Mets gotten from Santana for $137 million? He's been good when he's been healthy but he missed all of 2011 and parts of other seasons as well. Secondly, Greinke has one Cy Young year and hasn't been close any other year. He may get chosen for an second All Star game this year but as good as he's been, he's still allowing a hit an inning. That doesn't say "Cy Young #2" to me. Yes the Brewers need a top of the line pitcher, but you can let your team needs cause you to make foolish decisions that could hamstring a franchise for half a decade. The Brewers placed a value on Greinke and I'm sure that it is quite generous, but they are shying away from Matt Cain type money and well they should. They got Greinke in the first place by having the pieces to deal for him. That's what they should focus on instead of pretending to be a big market team.

Closer to home the Brewers traded Jim Slaton who was entering the last year of his contract in 1978 for Ben Oglivie who up to that point was a Brewer killer. Then when Slaton filed for free agency after one year with the Tigers, the Brewers signed him and both players went on to be key members of the 82 AL champs.

He's got perhaps the best fielding percentage of all time at SS (.985). He owns 11 gold gloves. That in and of itself is worthy of serious HOF consideration. Throw in almost 3,000 hits, and it's a virtual lock.

I have been a Directv customer for 10 years, the last 6 of which have included HD. The loss of signal weather issues are few and far between. It takes a pretty big storm for a signal loss, and then they usually lasts no more than 10 minutes. If I am watching an over the air channel, I simply switch to the antenna.

He's lagging a bit in the AS voting no doubt from the backlash. I've always felt that he was given something he thought was clean and it was either mislabeled or he failed to do his normal due diligence (in the midst of playoff hoopla) in checking it out before hand. That or he's completely innocent, and the victim of storage issues causing a false positive. Now despite escaping the suspension, he's got one big strike against him. I don't think he's foolish enough to rely on masking anything at this point. Another bad test and it will betray those that stuck by him.

Tools and OBP are wonderful, but you have to wonder what Ben McMahan must be thinking after outhitting Dishon .313 to .220 and outslugging him .476 to .307.

I wasn't overly optimistic coming into this season, but there's a lot to like. The fact is they are only 6 1/2 back of a Reds team that isn't that good. That is after their bullpen and specifically their closer, frittered away 3 or 4 games over the past 2 weeks. That looked to be the strength of their team prior to the season, and I'm reasonably confident it still can be. The injuries rather than devastating them actually have opened up opportunities and guys have taken advantage of them. Fiers, Maldanado, and Aoki have shown they belong in the big leagues. Hart looks like he's played 1B his entire career, and his move has helped the OF defense. Ramirez is showing he's still has life in his bat. Even Maysonet and Ransom have looked solid defensively and gotten a few hits here and there. If Weeks can turn it around and there's some recent signs he may, and the back end of the pen gets it's act together, they could very well have a run in them. Getting back to the issue in the forum though, that doesn't mean dealing Morgan and replacing him with Schafer is a move strictly for next year either. Same goes for if they dealt Kottaras or found someone to take Wolf.

Since the start of May his line is .200/.379/.244 and he has 1 RBI. Yes he's got an amazing eye at the plate, but it's produced 4 runs since May 1st (3 RS, and 1 RBI). All the walks are great but he needs to hit the ball occasionally too. When he's going well, he does both, but those stretches are fairly rare. Maldanado's driven in 15 runs in just 16 more AB's over that time. I'd be looking to package Kottaras and Wolf together in a deal. I don't think the return would be great but a team reluctant to take on the rest of Wolf's salary might if you included Kottaras.

Sorry, that's not the guy I compare him to. Nor is Ozzie Smith. The guy he compares with is Luis Aparicio. Aparicio is in and Vizquel will eventually join his fellow countryman, maybe not on the first or second ballots but not too many after that. He played in the steroid era, and lots of guys will be kept out because of it. That helps his cause.

I mentioned this in the game thread but Melvin gave away a pretty handy guy in Villanueva prior to 2011. The Brewers got nothing in return when no PTNL was ever named Why? Because he was ready to get $1.4 million in arby in 2011 and Melvin didn't want to pay it? I'm frankly still scratching my head over that one especially seeing Parra still out there. Villanueva isn't your classic mid 90's flamethrower that everyone seems to covet (though did anyone notice he was consistently hitting 92 last night), but he's durable (unlike Parra), can go multiple innings, handles lefties and righties equally, and has stretches where he's very, very good (again unlike Parra). He's also a guy who's very competitive on the mound. Who can forget that time he confronted Albert? He's a FA after this season. For a reasonable price, I'd like to see him back. He's still only 28.

He's been pitching in Huntsville so it shouldn't be much of a factor, but the game time temperature was 94 and he's going to be jacked up for his first major league start. Toronto's starter was gassed in the 3rd inning.

adambr2, Regarding SS, I'll go farther than you. The combo of Ransom and Maysonet has been solid enough that I'd just let Izturis go.

It's even more aggravating when you realize the best reliever on the mound so far tonight for either team should still be Brewer property. Melvin just gifted him to Toronto prior to last season for a ghost PTNL.

I like Bourn a lot, but really Schafer is their most major league ready position player, and I think he's capable of starting next year if not later this season. He's got a .312/.372/.472 AAA line in almost 500 at bats. I'm in the minority but I think if Gomez played every day, he's progressed to where he'd hit .250-.260 and with 15-20 HR. I could live with that. He's not the ideal leadoff or #2 hitter, so hit Lucroy behind Aoki or a yet to be named SS there. Money that would be spent on Bourn, I'd use for a Anibal Sanchez or other starting pitcher.

It's 6 of one and a half dozen of the other, but Fiers would be my choice assuming another solid start in his next time out. He's been starting since day one this season and shown he can go 7 innings. The bullpen has worked a ton lately. Looking ahead to 2013, why not just groom Estrada for a bigger bullpen role anyway? Yeah they need starters, but they need relievers too.

Who's a situational pitcher? I count one, Perez, and he'd be the guy replaced. The problem is the guys that can go multiple innings, Parra and Dillard, can't do it very well and the one inning guys have been to put kindly rather erratic this year. When Estrada returns, that adds a better choice to the pen to cover multiple innings be it Fiers or Estrada.