JohnBriggs12

I think Ethier would be a great target. They could sure use a lefty bat if Fielder leaves. Morgan or McGehee? Granted Casey's value is low, but Ethier is a FA after next year. Brewers like Schafer a lot and still have Gomez, so Morgan, as special as he's been might be expendable and this might be the time to deal him.

With 2 off days between Wednesday and the playoff opener, I think they can go with 3 IP (45-50 pitches) for each of Greinke and Gallardo if they need a win and still come back with either to start on Saturday. Personally, I'd go with Gallardo in the opener. He's been on fire recently and will be slightly more rested. Plus he has playoff experience and that is key in the opener.

After starting for 142 of the 159 games, anyone who thinks Yuni won't be at SS for the playoffs is delusional. It's one thing if a guy is slumping badly but Yuni's hit .256/.272/.423 with 3 HR and 8 RBI over his last 28 games, and numbers like that didn't get him benched during the regular season. Defensively as Brian Anderson said yesterday, he's been "better than advertised". Granted he was "advertised" on here as the worst ever, so one could interpret that as faint praise but I don't think that was BA's intention. 3B is a different story. I've defended McGehee more than once, but he's slumped badly in September. Much like the Giants benched Pablo Sandoval last year, it's quite possible Roenicke would go with Hairston there with maybe a start or two for Green though I doubt it.

Assuming he can get ever back into the country after having used a false identity for so long, Oviedo or whatever his name is, is likely going to face a long suspension.

Take if from someone who has questioned the stat geeks. Whitlock is right on the money. Check out the threads that discuss Mark Kotsay for instance. Because some stat geek came up with "Wins above Replacement" as a measure of value, and Kotsay has been marginally negative on this for the last several years. the argument (and if you refute it you are an idiot) is that Kotsay is completely worthless and doesn't belong in the game. The true stat geeks are zealots. Sabermetrics is their religion.You believe you learned everything there is to know about baseball about 30 years ago. I haven't. You are always certain that your opinion is correct. I don't. Who's the zealot?Try 50 years ago. Baseball isn't that complicated. I knew at 9 years old when he had about 150 career HR, that Hank Aaron was a HOFer. I'm guilty of believing my opinions are correct. The difference is I realize they are opinions.

Take if from someone who has questioned the stat geeks. Whitlock is right on the money. Check out the threads that discuss Mark Kotsay for instance. Because some stat geek came up with "Wins above Replacement" as a measure of value, and Kotsay has been marginally negative on this for the last several years. the argument (and if you refute it you are an idiot) is that Kotsay is completely worthless and doesn't belong in the game. The true stat geeks are zealots. Sabermetrics is their religion. Other examples of stat geek beliefs that you can't argue with them about: RBI totals are random and thus useless in measuring a player's value. A high BABIP is good luck and a low BABIP is bad luck. Wins and losses are completely out of a pitchers' control and therefore also a useless stat. And this is my personal favorite: "Walks are as good as hits". I have a theory about that one that goes back to youth baseball. We use to yell at the guys on our team that couldn't hit "a walks as good as a hit" when they were up to bat. What we meant was "We all know you can't hit, so take pitches and maybe the guy will walk you". Apparently those guys took us at our word, and all of them convinced themselves that walks are indeed as good as hits, and became stat geeks.

That is a total non sequitur. This years team had an MVP candidate playing 1B and thus could afford below average production elsewhere.. Any way you cut it, Gamel is an unproven rookie who'll turn 27 in his rookie year. Unless you can guaranty a huge upgrade at 3B and/or SS, you'd be foolish to entrust the 1B job to a rookie. The issue is how do you shore up 1B irrespective of other positions. If you go out and sign Jose Reyes, obviously you stick with Gamel. But assuming at best you place another rookie in Green at 3B and just a guy at SS, that's not enough of an upgrade (if any at all) to offset a Fielder to Gamel downgrade.

Lucroy still needs work on blocking balls. The Brewers staff has a lot of wild pitches and some of that is on the catcher. But other than that, he does a fine job defensively.

Ramirez would be down my list. Don't let his numbers fool you. He was awful most of 2010 and only started hitting this year after the Cubs were well out of it. Berkman would make tons more sense and he's looking for a one year deal. Plus you'd be taking him from your main rival. If I had to settle for a RH bat which isn't ideal, Cuddyer is a guy worth considering at a lot less than $50 million.

My ranking: 1. 1982 It's not my personal favorite Brewer team, but it was the best season. 2. 1979 This was my favorite team. They were a Larry Hisle shoulder injury away from having a 100 win season. 2nd best record in entire AL. Many memorable games. 3. 1978 A close 2nd to the 79 team. 4. 2011 Great record but compiled against much weaker competition than the top 3. Also not nearly as entertaining. 5. 2007 Yeah I know they won in 2008, but the 2007 season was more fun as they spent a lot more time in 1st place, Fielder hit 50 and Braun debuted with a bang. Honorable mention: 2008,1992, 1987, 1989, 1973, 1996 I left 1981 off completely. That season was a contrived, make up the rules as you go, abomination thanks to a midseason strike that robbed us of baseball in the heart of the season.. Brewers had best overall record in division but still had to play a phony round of playoffs that was added after the strike ended. Yankees had best record when strike hit, and had zero incentive in 2nd half. What kind of mess is that?

I believe the plan going forward, assuming the loss of Fielder, is to try to sign Greinke to a long term deal and have he and Gallardo atop the rotation through at least 2015 and have the rest of the rotation filled out by quality pre-arby arms. Financially, that is certainly doable even with Greinke commanding a substantial amount. The key to remaining contenders will be health of the top two and having at least 2 of their young arms emerge as quality major league starters within 2 years. If they can come up with 2 solid everyday players from their current crop in the minors, that should be sufficient as long as Braun and Weeks are under contract.

Here's 2 more lines: .216/.262/.376 .638 .254/.299/.360 .659 What do those lines have in common with the others? They were also produced by starters on Brewer playoff teams. The top line is Ted Simmons, the everyday catcher from 1981. The bottom is Charlie Moore, the everyday RF from 1982. The lesson? Virtually every team, even the successful ones, have players that under-perform in a given year or are below average offensively. Successful teams are driven by the offensive stars and the pitching. This team has won 90 games and could end up with more wins than any team in Brewer history. My angst over McGehee is minimal given that fact.

Be careful what you wish for. Sounds like there are attitude issues here.

Marcum is poorly conditioned according to who? I doubt he can bring back a young ML ready arm by himself as what would be the point of a team searching for pitching to give up theirs. He could probably fetch a highly touted MLB ready position player depending on the team and whether or not they believe they can resign Marcum. If it's just for a 1 year rental I don't see any team giving back a great deal as teams are hoarding prospects like gold. Some of you are grossly undervaluing Marcum's ability and his value to this team. He might not be an ace in the likes of CC or Wainwright but at least a 1A type and he's the best pitcher on the Brewers staff right now. He's pitched better than Greinke the last two seasons and he's flat out better than Gallardo. I'm not saying don't trade him at any cost, but I think the return would likely be less than what his value is. If they're looking to lessen the blow of losing Fielder to me the best bet is to keep their rotation in tact and hopefully work out an extension with Greinke or Marcum and when the other leaves they might have one of their prospects ready to step in. I know what the numbers say, but Marcum isn't in the class of Greinke or Gallardo. Greinke and Gallardo are workhorses fully capable of 220 inning seasons, 200+ strikeouts and dominating opponents. Marcum is a guy with plenty of moxie that will get you 6 solid innings, but the 3rd or 4th time through, hitters start to gauge his stuff and he's not able to counter that. As for his value to the team, I like to look at the team's records in games started by the pitcher. Brewers are 18-7 when Greinke starts, 18-13 when Yo starts, 17-13 when Wolf starts, 15-11 when Narveson starts, 4-3 when Estrada starts, but just 15-16 when Marcum starts. The Brewers have lost more of Marcum's starts than they've won. I'd be hard pressed to call him more valuable than either Greinke or Gallardo. I'd rather pay the extra $3-5 million per year for Greinke.

Fielder's time in Milwaukee helped revive the franchise. The fans did everything they could to keep him. They showed their love for the big guy by showing up in droves in one of the smallest markets in the game in the midst of a terrible economy. They wore his jerseys, they cheered him with all they had. It will indeed be a sad day when he leaves. I still have faith in Attanasio to make a good faith effort. But with the way baseball is structured, it's against all odds.

Bought tickets to Tuesday night a month ago in anticipation of that being the clincher. They need a big weekend for that to happen now.

He's a rental. His happiness in a role he'll have for another month is so far down the pay no mind list, it's ridiculous. It's in his interest to pitch well now. It's in the Brewers' interest he pitch well now. Nothing else really matters.

Lawrie was traded because he brought back a quality arm the Brewers desperately needed. I don't think any opinion, positive or negative regarding his character played any role whatsoever. The real burning question is had the Greinke deal happened first, would the Brewers have even made the Lawrie for Marcum deal? I'm not so sure they would have. Remember Melvin was wooing Pavano before the opportunity to deal for Greinke presented itself. I think had he gotten Greinke (a bigger fish than Marcum) first, he would have preferred to add the second arm without giving up another top prospect.

The Brewers are nicely positioned if Fielder leaves to focus in on the big fish who is Greinke. Marcum is a nice pitcher who fit this year's team perfectly. But they've drafted with the obvious intention of producing young, talented, and cheap starting pitching that will allow them to allocate most of their starting pitching resources to the top 2 guys, Gallardo and Greinke over the next 4-5 years. Paying a guy like Marcum "almost top dollar" to be one of the two centerpieces is aiming too low in my opinion.

Sellers hasn't hit much in the majors and he posted only a .955 fielding percentage at Albuquerque. I don't think he's the guy I'd go all out to get. I still think the Brewers will bring in a vet on a one year deal to play SS, perhaps even Yuni (at less than his option price), rather than risk dealing for an iffy proposition at best. Yuni has been far from the disaster defensively he was being portrayed on here.

From a playoff perspective it's a good thing that a little pressure has been put on them. To have any chance in October, they will need to regain an edge and this may be exactly what the doctor ordered. I know one thing about the lineup. Morgan should be in there every day regardless of lefty or righty.

"Sal Bando destroyed a decade of my life" Boo hoo! John McHale destroyed my youth. He took the best franchise in the game in the late 1950's, and made them irrelevant through some of the worst deals in the history of the game (check out Joey Jay and Juan Pizarro for Roy McMillan deal sometime), then collaborated with an ownership group from Chicago, planted here by the owner of the Cubs, and lied to the Milwaukee fans about the intentions to move the team. Now that was a guy worth getting worked up about. Bando was a poor GM. There have been lots of them. He was hindered by ownership too.

Money doesn't sugarcoat or coddle guys. He also doesn't say one thing to a player and another to the media. How refreshing is that? He's been in professional baseball for 46 years. He knows what guys get away with in AAA won't work in the majors. I completely disagree with the comment that Nyjer Morgan wouldn't make it with Don Money. Morgan is goofy, but he's very smart between the lines and plays with his head in the game. Sometimes teaching the game requires some tough love. If Gindl is focusing too much on his numbers and not playing the game well, it's Money's job to point that out. As for Gamel, Money knows that the some of the traits Gamel exhibits won't go over well when he's struggling as everyone does in the majors from time to time. He's trying to help the guy.

I'd consider that deal but I wouldn't pay any of Wolf's salary. There isn't much quality at all in the FA pitching market. Teams that need starters are going to have to deal to get it and guys like Wolf who have been productive at a reasonable cost are going to be in demand.

Unless you can extend Marcum for a contract similar to Wolf's I just don't see it. Marcum is a middle of the rotation guy, not a top of the rotation guy. A good middle of the rotation guy to be sure, but so was Wolf who was coming off a year when he had a 3.10 ERA. Last year the DBacks unloaded Edwin Jackson to the White Sox with a year and 2 months left on his deal and got back Daniel Hudson. Now it's hard to imagine another GM dumb enough to give up a young pitcher of that quality, but you never know.