JohnBriggs12

With the Brewer bench exclusively LH, and Braun facing a possible suspension, it appears there's room for another RH bat, especially if Aoki is not signed. I haven't read a word about Nady, who is a FA, all winter but he certainly fits the mold of guys Melvin has picked up in the past. He can play either corner OF spot and is a platoon possibility with Gamel at 1B. Boras is his agent and with K-Rod signing for less than anticipated, is it possible he's negotiating a deal for Nady with Melvin?

The most dominant aspect of this team relative to the rest of the NL is it's late inning relief and it comes at a price tag that is very reasonable. There's no reason to trade K-Rod unless they are out of it or unless someone is willing to give up a young middle of the rotation starter. I was expecting a deal in the $10-11 million range. The $8 million should leave room to give Aoki around $3 million and get that deal done.

Gonzalez will make Betancourt look a lot better offensively. Gonzalez strikes out a lot more and he won't be anywhere near as proficient as Betancourt, who led the league in sacrifice flies, was at getting runners in from 3rd with less than 2 out. Usually guys that strike out at the rate Gonzalez does, tend to draw some walks because they swing and miss and get deeper into counts. So if Betancourt's approach frustrated you, Gonzalez' surely will too. Defensively the difference won't be as noticeable as people think either. But I'm going elsewhere for who I think the fans will be on. I think they will be on Aramis Ramirez, a notoriously slow starter, and a guy who'll make errors in bunches. That isn't a good combination for winning over new fans. Even when Ramirez warms up, it's usually too late, and he'll be remembered for getting out of the gate slowly. Throw in Braun's possible suspension and you have the makings for real angst. Two other guys who will see wrath of fans quickly if they don't get out of the gate fast are Marcum and Weeks, both of whom failed miserably in October. Fans will be pining for Fielder, believe me.

I would have already moved him. Why not find out what you have in Peralta and Fiers before you spend a ton on long term deals for Greinke and Marcum? Plus you might have gotten something in return for him that helped this year. There would always be the option of trading for another veteran if you were in contention too with the salary flexibility dealing Wolf would have given them. Despite making a fair amount of moves, this was a very cautious offseason for Melvin. That's not surprising because he's lately he's not been a guy who employed a strategy of selling high despite his experiences with Hall, Hardy and McGehee. In fact he's only sold high on players because of contracts ending like Sexson, Lee etc. My feeling is that this year that strategy will bite him big time.

The only uncertainty is Gamel. Other than that, we know exactly what we have in every single one of the players on our roster. We know that Weeks, Hart, Ramirez will be our power guys when Braun comes back. We know that Braun will be an absolute stud when he comes back. We know what we have in Gomez/Morgan, Gonzalez and Lucroy. We know that our Starting Rotation is stacked. We know that our BP is stacked. I'm not sure what you mean by "this many uncertainty's" Our pitching rotation will keep us in the hunt until Braun comes back. Our offense is still stacked as well. If Aoki doesn't pan out, I'm sure DM will sign a veteran OF that can hold the ground until Braun comes back. We have good young pitching coming up. We have some decent position players that we can rely on in the future such as Gindl, Green, Schaffer, amongst many others that will be servicable MLB players. Do we have a Prince Fielder in our minors? Not at this time, but with the amount of offensive power that we currently have for the next 3-5 years, I'm not worried about power. We need pitching to stay relivent. DM is finally understanding this and is running this organization as such. I would not be surprised to see us extend Greinke. I would be surprised to see us extend Marcum (but hey, he was awesome until the late season breakdown...maybe another year of working out and getting his arm back to normal will help him become a dominant pitcher again). Seeing that our pitching and our offense is still Playoff built, I doubt that the Crew will be out of the race come July 31st which means that in most likelyhood, either Marcum and/or Greinke will walk at the end of the year and we'll get draft picks for them. If that's what it takes for the Brewers to get into the playoffs again, I'll take it. We have a great squad and it can make some noise come October. You assume way too much. Especially that the rotation is "stacked". Things never stay the same. Not a pitch has been thrown in spring training. Guys come up with arm troubles every spring throughout baseball. Assuming this won't happen to the Brewers is being pie in the sky. So is assuming that just because a guy pitched well the previous year, he will duplicate or better it this year. Plus this rotation wasn't as "stacked" as you think it was last year. They were 6th in starting pitching ERA in the NL. That's with a pretty solid pen that didn't allow too many inherited runners to score. Without Fielder and if Braun's out 50 games, they need to be better than 6th. I don't see it myself. The clear strength of this team (and everything is on paper right now), is the back end of the bullpen. The pair of K-Rod and Axford on paper is as good as any in baseball. We have no idea how guys will perform with no Prince in the lineup. He took a lot of attention from opposing pitchers, who now can focus on other guys. We don't really know what caused Marcum's implosion last year. Was he hurt, Is he still hurt? Will Greinke continue to get 5.5 runs a game in support?

For all you younger than say 55 or 56, this may come as a revelation. For many years, Pepsi was the cola of choice at County Stadium for a very logical reason. That is because the Atlanta based Coca Cola Company was prominently behind the Braves move out of Milwaukee to Atlanta. I can tell you that back then, the County board was in no mood to sell Coke products at County Stadium. Now I do not recall when exactly Coke returned or for how long (I primarily remember Pepsi through most of the early Brewer years), but long enough after the Braves left that most fans would not have been aware of the controversy or Coke's role in pirating away the beloved Braves. Now you know the rest of the story.

What has DLR accomplished that would have been worth having him around stinking up the joint for most of 5 seasons? At least when DLR was around, the Brewers didn't fashion themselves as serious contenders. And by 27 DLR started turning it around. Parra is 29, has never shown any sign that he's improved significantly and he's coming off a season lost to injury. I don't get the comp at all. Letting DLR go was the right decision then. He was out of options and the Brewers were very close to contending. And don't kid yourself, $700K is significant to any business the size of the Brewers. I know, I work for just such a company. It doesn't make or break them but you don't throw it away either.

Without Parra, the Brewers won 96 games last year. With him, the previous year they won 77. Coincidence. I think not. It's hard to make a case they missed having a lefty in the pen when they won 96 games and the division by 6 games. I don't care how hard he throws or how many guys he's struck out, he's had numerous opportunities, and he's posted an awful career WHIP of 1.64, opponents have feasted on him for a .286 BA, and and .806 OPS against. I would rather see them take another shot at Braddock, non roster invite Juan Perez, or Dan Meadows, who I'm sure at some point will get camp invite too. I would have non-tendered Parra and not looked back.

Baseball is making the same mistake Penn State did. No matter how well a guy did in his job, eventually he's too old and will start cutting corners including not keep tabs on his subordinates. He'll also start assuming it's his job for life and he can do anything he wants. That's way too much power for a guy who'll be in his late 70's

It would depend on whether they are making room for a pitcher, or an everyday player. I can't imagine Zelous Wheeler would be any more secure than Farris. Farris wasn't awful offensively but a big part of his game is running, and he was coming off a leg injury the year before that limited that part of his game.. He could bounce back this year.

Not sure about that. As of now his only competition is Cesar Izturis. I'd rather have Bianchi than Izturis with the knowledge that Izturis is on a minor league deal and Bianchi has an option remaining as well as more upside than Izturis. Let him play at AAA. I'm fine with Izturis, who I think will be starting more games than people think. If Gonzalez struggles (which I believe he will) no way they let that contract vest at the 525 plate appearances. Hopefully Bianchi can do what Taylor Green did and show progress 2 years removed from major injury, and then be a factor for 2013.

That's being talked about more and more inside baseball. Most think Boras would want more than $20 million though. There's several teams that could get involved if Boras cried uncle and indicated he'd accept such a deal. One of those teams you would think would be are the Brewers. Sure they are at their budget for payroll this year, but they have movable pieces making significant dollars, specifically K-Rod and Wolf that would free up room to pay Prince for a year. They might have to ink a veteran like Garland or Pineiro cheap to compete for Wolf's rotation spot with guys like Fiers and Peralta. The trade off of a thinner staff is the prospect of having a middle of the order of Braun, Fielder, A-Ram. I've not been excited about A-Ram but as 3rd banana he'd have less pressure and Ramirez thrives with less pressure.

Those lists are so arbitrary. Scooter probably isn't on the list because his name is Scooter.

If the guy could actually produce I'm okay with it though those ugly AAA numbers suggest otherwise. Whether or not he's a great guy is meaningless to me and how do we really know anyway? We're not around him.

How about $14M for a setup man? It will be interesting to follow the effectiveness of Madson and K-Rod this year.Madsen's deal will be used by Brewers to make a case for lower arby award for K-Rod. No way he gets anywhere near $14 million. My guess is the Brewers will offer around $10.5-$11 million.

That's good value on it's face, but away from PNC, Maholm has a career 5.03 ERA and his career ERA at Wrigley is 5.48.

I didn't vote because really beyond the top 15 who really knows, but I'm shocked some had Gennett who would be my #2 or #3 out of the top 10.

Your selections are right on the money. Joe Torre definitely belongs. I'd throw one more Braves name from his era out there too: Tony Cloninger. Cloninger won 43 games over a two year period for the Braves in 64 and 65 and despite lame duck management doing everything it could to prevent the Braves from winning the 65 pennant and embarrassing all of baseball with a World Series in the soon to be empty County Stadium, Cloninger kept hope alive for fans like me praying for a long shot miracle to keep the team in town by winning 24 games that year. He'll always be one of my favorites as will Wade Blasingame from that same staff.

37% isn't ignored. Trammell will eventually get in though it might take the veterans committee. His numbers are close to Larkin's but just a tad below and Tiger Stadium was a pretty good hitters park. With Larkin off the ballot. look for Trammell to rise. Trammell suffers too because he was behind Yount first and then Ripkin at his position in the AL and never really was considered the top guy.

The plan is to start the year with 29 year old Brian LaHair who did as much mashing in the PCL as Rizzo and more than Gamel for that matter at 1B. If LaHair hits well, they've created more value they can deal to eventually make room for Rizzo.

So does Crandall who was the easily the best catcher in the NL for 5 or 6 years. In fact, he made 11 All Star games and started 9. Granted for 3 of those seasons, they had two games, but still he was arguably the top NL catcher in the era between Roy Campanella and Johnny Bench.

That's his OBP/Slugging and its hardly special. His BA vs lefties is .268 and he's fanned 28 times in 71 AB's (very small sample). If they truly wanted to platoon Gamel, which I don't think they do, they'd get a veteran, not a career minor leaguer like Conrad.

Its not an appeal. Appeals occur after final judgment is rendered. No final judgment has been rendered and he hasn't been suspended (ie found guilty). Final judgment in this case only occurs after Braun and his lawyer present a defense to the failed drug test via a hearing. The hearing is the players right under the CBA. It's called a hearing and not an appeal for a reason. The failed drug test is simply evidence that he broke the policy. The hearing allows the player to poke holes in the veracity of the evidence and offer evidence that counters the conclusion that he broke the rule.

"Katin could be on the roster as 5th OF" He's a minor league FA and not in Brewer system any longer. Almonte will be back in camp as will Rivera as RH bench bat options. I doubt either makes team out of camp but you never know. I would think Bill Hall actually would be a perfect option. He could play LF some in Braun's absence, and allow them to send Green down for some AB's once Braun returns. Burrell or Gomes might be 2 other names worth considering.

Yovanni Gallardo attended HS in Ft. Worth so it's a stretch to say he's a foreign player and he's also the ace of the staff. Still, how many people do you see with Greinke jerseys compared to Gallardo? Prejudice shows up more with role type players. The Betancourt stuff was disgraceful. Yeah he has limitations as a player. Most do. But the vile directed toward him (by some, not all) was way out of proportion to his level of play or to any negative effect it was having on a franchise record breaking team that won 96 games.