JohnBriggs12

Think about it. Macha's only history with Parra is watching him make 27 starts last year in which he posted a 6.36 ERA, a 1.829 WHIP, an opponents BA/OBP/SP of .306/.386/.479. Deep down, I don't think Macha has a whole lot of confidence based on what he's seen.

Saunders is also Canadian and who monitors Canadian talent more than Melvin and Ash?

Where was that posted anywhere? I'd settle for even one post of that variety as proof... The actual points that have been made literally 100s of times by multiple posters were: 1) the team already had plenty 5+ ERA depth at AAA and adding more guys of similar quality didn't mean that the team had better depth as evidenced last season 2) the top of the rotation needed upgrading, not the bottom, again see #1 3) going forward our starting pitcher depth should be the true prospects in AA and AAA who are already on the 40 man. My point is that all spring we've heard how important it was to keep all 4 guys competing for the 4th and 5th rotation spots with the implication that they were caught short last year. Considering that in reality Burns was pretty much as good as 3 guys in the Brewer rotation didn't speak to depth being the issue, but to the fact that performance of the guys who were supposed to be starters was the real issue and all 3 of those guys are still in the picture.

I still don't understand why he's not It's likely they see him as a guy who if he concentrates on 2 pitches could be dominant out of the pen. There's nothing wrong with that. They are going to have to save money somewhere and not paying closers $8 million + is a good idea.

While he's the poster boy for "we need to keep all our 5+ ERA starters because heaven forbid if we are forced to call up another Mike Burns", I might point out the Brewers were 4-4 in the 8 games he started.

I think the Zaun/Kottaras combo should provide some offense as well as Escobar and certainly Weeks beyond Fielder and Braun. I still think McGehee will be adequate and they have some protection there if Gamel gets healthy. But that's not enough to be sure if they are getting little out of RF. I still wonder why they aren't at least considering Jermaine Dye. He had an .894 OPS vs. lefties last year. True, he'd need to be removed late for defensive purposes but as a platoon partner with Edmonds, I'd think it's a better option than what they have. I don't think they'll cut Hart because Attanasio has trouble with letting go of the home grown guys. When he was interviewed late last year, you could see how painful the thought of Hardy going elsewhere was. It hasn't been discussed much on here, but I suspect Attanasio is more meddling than we realize. We all remember it was dinner at the Attanasios that led to the signing of Suppan and he may be behind the keeping of Suppan.

Normally I would agree with that sentiment but this case is different. You don't win as many games as possible by not putting your best players on the field. I've seen enough baseball as have many fans to know Suppan isn't their best or even 2nd best option. This is being driven entirely by Suppan's contract and the hope, however slim, that Suppan if given one more chance will at least partially vindicate Melvin (and Attanasio too) for what was a really bad signing. Macha's stuck in the middle here. He wants to please his boss. Melvin's not going to lose his job even if Suppan makes 15 starts and has an ERA of 10. Attanasio thinks he walks on water.

Exactly. Ask yourselves if they just went from the end of last year into this year, would there have been any reason to remove Narveson from the rotation? Remember at the end of 2009, he was in the rotation. Yes they did add two starters and subtracted one, but Narveson has been outstanding this spring too. There's no justification for him not only being the 5th starter. Heck he should be the 4th starter. Being in Arizona, I'm not quite sure Melvin, Macha and company quite have a read on the depth of angst and virtual unanimity among Brewer fans on this issue. On this and any other fan forums, there's almost no Suppan defenders. I'm not sure booing will get the point across but what else can fans do when management is so oblivious to the mood of the fans?

Suppan must have surrendered some simulated HR.

I think Del Howell is a guy to keep a close eye on.

Not if you've watched Zack Braddock pitch.

Haudricourt's blog certainly could be intepreted that he thinks Soup is cooked. I certainly will be checking back a lot today.

The difference between the Mauer and Fielder situation isn't that Fielder's offense is any less important to the Brewers than Mauer's is to the Twins. The difference is Mauer is unique and would have commanded a lot more back had the Twins traded him In marketplace where half the teams won't go and many of those with the resources have a guy in place, Fielder has equals, 3 of whom's contracts are up the same time as his. Since the Brewers won't be bidding on his equals either, and his trade value is not likely to result in a one or two year turnaround, the focus has to be on signing him and hoping guys like Weeks, Hart and Bush can be replaced with pre arby guys. Frankly I think it's a lot easier replacing 3 guys making $5 million each than it is one guy making $15 million.

J.D. Foster, Ph.D., Norman B. True Senior Fellow in the Economics of Fiscal Policy in the Thomas A. Roe Institute for Economic Policy Studies at the The Heritage Foundation wrote this on February 22nd: "The Fed's actions in the recent credit crisis have led to the creation of a mountain of excess reserves held by banks at the Fed. If unleashed on the economy too rapidly, these excess reserves would almost certainly trigger an extended period of rapidly increasing prices. Fed officials have repeatedly expressed an awareness of the inflation threat and a determination to ward off higher inflation if needed." He goes on the say later: "there are sound substantive reasons for concern that the Fed will misjudge the situation for a long time. A view (which endaround expresses) that appears to be widely held inside and outside of the Fed is that sustained economic weakness provides sustained resistance to inflationary pressures. Even granting that an underperforming economy and a high rate of unemployment provide a degree of insurance against inflation over a period of time, that period is not indefinite. As the United States has learned painfully in the 1970's, if monetary accommodation is generous enough and long enough, inflation has little trouble igniting even with a high unemployment rate." In layman's terms he's saying the Feds actions in preventing a banking collapse have poised the system in such a way that economic recovery when it happens is likely to set off significant inflation. I think this is a view that's pretty widely held in the economic community and that it's exacerbated by $1.6 trillion deficits.

There's just no reason to trade him. If you think Narveson deserves a spot in the rotation and you don't think Parra is suited for the bullpen there is. Obviously you don't give him away, but for the last 1 1/2 seasons, he's not been a capable major league starting pitcher. As for who you'd get back? Well, Michael Saunders would be my target. Might not be able to pry him away for just Parra though. Brewers need to start lining up guys as replacement for Hart.

Hart might have been better off had he lost his arby case. It may be a case he's put extra pressure on himself to prove he was worth the higher number. Regardless, he needs to put up solid numbers this year or it will be his last as a Brewer. For what they'd have to pay him next year, they could probably find more consistent production on the open market or hopefully from an internal option such as Cain. If the Brewers are in the heat of a race come July and neither Hart or Edmonds has really been productive, the Brewers could make a move then.

The interesting part is that the D-Backs have some interest in Suppan. Snyder's name is thrown out there because it's a pretty close total dollar match, not because the Brewers need him. Now if the D-Backs are that interested (and they are still looking for another starter), why not agree to pick up all but $1.5 or $2 million and just deal him for a body. Better yet, balance out your bench by adding Inglett with Suppan for Ryan Roberts who's basically a right handed version of Inglett.

The only quality guy produced over the past decade is Gallardo. Sheets was drafted in 1999. Parra isn't a quality major league pitcher yet and may never be. That's a terrible record and much worse than the Brewers themselves did in the 1990's under the much maligned Sal Bando. Drafting is an issue, but the fact that no pitcher taken after the 2nd round has made any impact at the major league level is indicative of problems in player development. By contrast, in their own division, the Cubs have a 38th round pick in their rotation, Randy Wells, and a 6th rounder, Sean Marshall, as a valuable swing man.

Wasn't the buzz last year that Lasik surgery would cure Bill Hall? The Corey Hart situation with him winning big in arby coming off a very mediocre year and following up with an atrocious spring would probably be the focus of everyone's attention if not for the rotation situation. If the Brewers aren't thinking about replacing him, they should be. Whether that's internally or externally and when remains to be seen. I think he'll get well in May (as Hall did last year) and 125-150 AB's to sort himself out. But if he's struggling by Memorial Day, with say .225/.280/.375 type numbers, then there's change coming. Whether that's Gerut, Edmonds, Cain, or someone not currently in the system will be the question. They might even think about moving McGehee to RF if and when Gamel comes back assuming he's swinging the bat well.

I'm certainly not as leery of Narveson as I am of Parra who's WHIP since the first half of 08 is 1.76. I'm also not so sure they couldn't get Parra through waivers if he blows up again in his last spring outing (not that they'll try it). I wouldn't say the same for Narveson. This whole process has me baffled. Take a look at the spring OPS against numbers and if you based it on that, it would be easy picking out your rotation: .574 .601 .611 .643 .705 .846 1.019 Obviously, there's more factors involved and spring numbers are often misleading, but the the top 5 are far and away better than the bottom 2. By the way, in order, those are: Gallardo, Bush, Wolf, Narveson, Davis, Parra and Suppan. Oh and the guy who's going to lose a 25 man spot to allow them this silly notion of keeping all 7 on the roster has an OPS against this spring of .637.

I'm not so sure this game isn't merely meant to showcase Suppan and hope against hope he pitches well enough that some team will be willing to take him for pennies on the dollar. I think essentially naming Bush the #4 starter was Suppan's death knell as a Brewer. I hope it's not just wishful thinking.

Haudricourt certainly caused a lot of angst by speculating Suppan was number 4 yesterday after he's clearly been the worst of the 4 guys competing. Thankfully as he has been many times, he was wrong. If Narveson's ticketed for the pen, isn't it slam dunk that Parra is number 5? I mean, they aren't releasing Parra, and they aren't going to have both Parra and Narveson in the pen. So it's down to the last right handed pitcher in the bullpen. Do you go with the much younger Villanueva who at times has been very good out of the pen and shaky at other times but on balance has shown enough to be useful and who's been okay this spring, or do you go with an aging starter with very little relief experience who hasn't gotten anyone out this spring and surely won't be around in 2011, just because the other guy can be sent down? I'd cut the cord with Suppan. I don't think Parra's earned the 5th spot over Narveson who's out-pitched him since last September 1, but I can understand the reasoning. If Parra starts out well, then everything is fine. If he's anything close to the train wreck he was at times last year, they'll have little trouble slipping him through waivers mid-season and replacing him with Narveson. Meanwhile, Parra can be on a shorter leash with Narveson to back him up.

Speculation is that the Giants will release Fred Lewis who is out of options. Anyone else out there think they'd rather have the 29 year old Lewis who has solid OB skills (.355), has hit 3 HR this spring, over aging drama queen ex Cardinal and Cub Edmonds as backup and potential competition for Hart?

How many times have we read this spring about the need to maintain depth, inventory etc. of starting pitching. Besides from the obvious that releasing Suppan now does not deplete the depth beyond this year, but nobody mentions that there's plenty of depth still out there that could be had: Washburn, Looper, Pedro, and now Chad Gaudin who was just released by the Yankees. If suddenly the Brewers were to lose 2 starters which is quite unlikely, the option of bringing in a veteran still exists.

That's really interesting. I've been apologetic of Suppan because I thought his skills weren't as bad as his contract. Apparently things are pretty grim now. If he really is such a disaster, the Brewers should ignore his salary and make the best performance-based decision. You don't want to waste 14.5 million, but I bet the Brewers would happily pay 14.5 million to make the playoffs, and that may be what it comes down to. This is a good example of how "just one more year" can come back to haunt you. Remember the extra year we had to shell out to get Wolf? Let's hope we're not having this same conversation at the end of his contract. I've always believed that scouting isn't rocket science. If you've ever seen Suppan pitch from the high priced field level seats, you can't believe he can get major league hitters out with that stuff. Yeah he knows a few tricks that can get through a lineup twice if he's got his command and he can get a couple "at-em" balls, but once any fatigue whatsoever hits him and his command slips just a little, he's completely helpless. It's not just that his fastball doesn't have much juice, but you combine it with no late movement and look out. That's not likely to change whether he's starting or relieving.