JohnBriggs12

Wearing glasses didn't seem to bother Frank Howard back in the day. Maybe Hart should give ol Hondo a call and ask him where he got his glasses.

84-78. 3rd in the NL Central. I'd like to be more optimistic but I don't like what's going on this spring. The focus isn't where it should be. Management is spending too much time trying to correct what happened wrong last year and preventing it from happening again while assuming that what went well will continue to go well. To me that's like driving with your eyes on the rear view mirror. Brewer brass needs to focus on getting better when and where they can and not be so reactive to history. If somehow between now and the start of the season, they announce Bush and Narveson as the 4th and 5th starters and Suppan is released, then I go up to 88-74. I don't see them winning the division though. RF is a huge hole and they don't seem to realize it. It figures to become more glaring if Gomez, isn't all that productive offensively (I think he'll be fine defensively). There were all kinds of corner OF bats on the market and they never even sniffed around for one. I like the bullpen, but sense that Hoffman won't come close to repeating his 09 and they spent a lot of money betting he's the same guy. There's big disaster potential if he's not. The bench to me is blah. No way Counsell approaches his 09 numbers. Inglett is just a guy. Gerut will be more valuable starting. Edmonds has potential to be a distraction as much as a help. No right handed bat is in sight. Positives: Escobar will contend for ROY. Weeks will come close to fulfilling his enormous promise. McGehee will be solid even with slightly diminished numbers. Gallardo and Wolf should give them a solid 1-2 in the rotation. Zaun isn't Kendall and Kottaras seems to be adequate. There's a lot to like on this team. It's management that's my biggest concern.

Who does Edmonds think he is, Brett Favre? If he wants to play then fine. If he thinks he's earned the right to make out the lineup card, let him go elsewhere and bring in Jermaine Dye or let Adam Stern who's had a better spring stick around. I'm sure he won't mind the inactivity.

It's rare that anyone would choose to sit on a rooftop in mid April so I'm not surprised they cut the price. I would think they'd have to cut it even more. I've been to Wrigley in April and save a mouse or two, there's not a soul in sight on the rooftops.

I'm starting to think Rick Peterson's ego is playing into this. Any rational baseball fan looks at Suppan at age 35 and realizes he's had a pretty good career, but he's clearly past his peak (which wasn't all that high) and the downward trend is almost certain to continue. There's been an awful lot of ballyhoo about Peterson since he took the job. I believe he's telling Macha and Melvin that he can "fix" Suppan and because Macha has faith in Peterson and Melvin wants to improve the legacy of what was a bad signing, both are listening.. Now Peterson may have fine pitching coach credentials, but if you're telling me a guy like Suppan with 396 major league starts and 2,410 major league innings is going to learn any secret formula from a pitching coach who in his playing career had 4 games above A ball, I'm not buying it. Suppan is done. Hoping he's not because he's costing you a lot is foolish.

With regards to Villanueva, he was a starter in the minors. In AAA, at age 22-23, he was 7-1 with a 2.77 ERA and a 0.96 WHIP. None of the starters penciled in there this year have those credentials. If one did, we'd all be calling for him to be in the Brewer rotation. Speaking of which as a major league starter, he's 6-12 with a 4.81 ERA and a 1.45 WHIP. That ERA and WHIP are better than Parra and Villanueva's a year younger. With the lack of prospects at the AAA level, if you're going to send him down, why not see if he regains his form as a starter? He's only 26. You can always just put him back in the Brewer pen if he's needed there. As for TH's breakdown, I'm with logan3825. How can anyone justify a rotation spot or a roster for Suppan? What if he gets hammered in his last 2 spring starts? They better plan to start Suppan only on the road, because it will get ugly.

Villanueva might well be optioned but there was no way they were going to do it on March 23rd. They are basically down to 13 pitchers now. It would be premature to option a guy who would be your final cut with more than a week left. Sure it looks like they want to keep Suppan, but what if he gets blasted 2 more times? Or what if a guy comes up with some soreness between now and opening day? Hawkins has already had such a setback. Villanueva hasn't exactly been bad this spring either with a WHIP under 1, 10 K's and 0 BB.

He should have done his homework prior to signing with the Brewers. He never had an inside track on a job. Brewers pen was pretty full when he signed and they had 7 guys vying for rotation spots including 2 lefties with no options. Brewers did him a favor by showcasing him at least.

I'm not concerned. Braddock showed enough this spring to be a viable alternative if Stetter struggles (and I think he'll be all right) and at least either Parra or Narveson is going to be in the pen.. Right now it looks like it's down to Suppan or Villanueva for the 12th pitcher and they're leaning toward Suppan because Villanueva has options. Schoeneweis will probably find a job somewhere. Old lefty relievers generally do.

I think a Royals fan would probably say just the reverse. Certainly, neither is a prize but by far Guillen's best year in the last 4 seasons was 2007, when he was also in a contract year. He may not be able to duplicate that at age 34 anymore, but the guy is more like to spike up from 2009 than is Suppan. Plus he plays a position of relative weakness on the Brewers, RF, and at worst would give them something they don't have right now, a right handed bench bat.

It's nonsense to think you can keep 1 much less 2 guys "stretched out" as "long men" in the pen. First of all there is no such thing as a "long man", unless you consider 3 innings of relief long. Unless the starter doesn't get out of the 1st inning, which even with the Brewers poor starting pitching didn't happen once in 2009, no relievers in the NL go more than 3 innings for the simple reason that with 12 man staffs, there's almost always more than one guy that could use the work and in the NL managers aren't going to let their relief guy bat more than once before he starts hitting for him. So the Brewers may go into the season with 7 stretched out pitchers, but a month into the season, they'll have 5 like everyone else.

I agree. Kottaras could be a nice compliment to either Lucroy or Salome in another year.

With Gamel on the DL to start the year and Iribarren gone, they just needed another middle infielder at Nashville. They had an extra catcher.

There's a lot of differences between Mauer and Prince's situations. Mauer is unarguably the best catcher in the game, a premium position. Prince is right up there with the best 1B, but he's in a group of 4, all of whose contracts expire at the same time. In other words right now the supply of premium first basemen is plentiful vis a vis the number of teams that are both in need with the cash available. On the other hand, it's clear Minnesota is where Mauer wants to be and it's also obvious that there was more pressure on the Twins to keep him than perhaps there is on the Brewers to keep Prince. Keeping the Prince/Twins analogy going, the right price for Prince is probably halfway between the $14 million per year that Morneau makes and the $23 million per year going to Mauer. I also think the right number of years is 7. So for me Prince would be worth $130 million over 7 years, with a $20 million option for an 8th.

I proposed a Suppan/Lowell deal in a thread back in December. As I said then though I think the Red Sox would need a "sweetener" because they have little use for Suppan. Lowell at least would figure to be a positive contributor. That the Brewers are scouting him is a sign they aren't terribly comfortable with Inglett and/or Edmonds and might prefer a right handed bat off their bench and to back up Prince.

Nobody would be talking about a platoon if Hart were swinging the bat better this spring. That being said, nothing Edmonds is doing is screaming starter either. For most non-roster guys, a .259 BA, with 9 K's in 27 AB, would get you a "thanks for coming, here's your airline ticket home". I'd take Gerut over him. As for Edmonds, I say thanks but no thanks, and give Jermaine Dye a call. I know Dye can't play much OF anymore, but for a bench bat and a guy who could back up at 1st, I'd rather have Dye. Yes, he had a bad second half last year, but Dye's a guy who's been given up for dead before and after this tough offseason, he's got a lot to prove. By the way, is anyone else less than impressed by what Inglett is doing?

Any team that gets down to it's 8th or 9th starter is in trouble. You don't win a pennant by having the best 7th, 8th and 9th starting pitcher. If this team is going to win it needs 200+ quality innings from Gallardo, Wolf and Davis. If one or two of those guys go down, it won't matter. Forget the AAA for a minute too. Rivas, Rodgers, are probably ahead of all but one or two guys at AAA anyway.

But it only takes one or two injuries for that to change quickly...If a team loses one of their top 3 starters, Suppan isn't going to make up that loss. They do what the Brewers did in 08. You plug in guys from your system and hope the injured guy comes back or you stay close enough to deal for a quality arm at the deadline. Most teams have one or two guys close to ready in their systems that they'll go with if a 4th or 5th starter goes down. Suppan simply has next to no value. Brewers will be fortunate if he lands a major league job of any kind so they can save the major league minimum portion of his contract should he be released.

I agree. You can always find a use for a guy as a 25th man even if he's not hitting much if can play several positions. Given that a guy like Looper has been getting only minor league contract offers, Suppan's value is nil.

Pure talent wise, I'd take him over Hart. Endaround is a bit overstating it as nothing has come out in the past couple years but prior to that he wasn't exactly been a model citizen.

My memories are all negative. He cost them a division title in 2006. Had he pitched to his 2005 form, they'd have been close enough that they would have kept Lee for the remainder of that year. Kevin Mench would never have been a Brewer and Nelson Cruz might be in RF today instead of Corey Hart. His failures set into motion a lot of bad things.

Jeff Suppan. He can refuse a minor league assignment.Well, he gets his money either way, so why should he care? I wonder if the Brewers could possibly trade Bush, or trade Suppan (while eating a majoirty of his salary). I mean, some team out there must have a use for one of them, you would think. Trading Bush, while not implausible given he's a FA after this season, would result in Suppan getting a rotation spot at least initially. I just don't see them using him for mop up duty. Given that Bush will be a FA, is making over $4 million, and might not be any more appealing to teams than Jarrod Washburn who can be had for no players, I don't see much in return. Same goes for Suppan unless they pick up 90% of his salary, and really what's the point. They aren't going to get either a top prospect or a guy that could help them unless they could package Hart with them to try to upgrade in RF marginally, ie: Bush or Suppan and Hart to Royals for DeJesus.

Not really, no. I'd rather have 3. They could use a 2nd lefty in the pen anyway. Assuming the last 2 spots are down to the 2 lefties and Bush, I'd be inclined to give Bush one spot and use the extra lefty in the pen. Stetter's been shaky this spring, but he's got options too. Braddock and he are really interchangeable pieces at this point. Schoeneweis might be a luxury but really, the 2nd lefty could just as easily be Narveson or Parra for that matter especially because they need to stash an extra starter in the pen somewhere and I'd rather have Villanueva than Schoeneweis in the pen. Nightmare scenario for Brewers is for Melvin to keep Suppan, have Narveson (a Cardinal draftee) get claimed by the Cardinals who are scrounging for a 5th starter and have Narveson out pitch Suppan while helping the Cards beat out the Brewers.

With Parra, Bush and Narveson all throwing so well, what logical reason is there for keeping Suppan? All 3 of those guys seem easily capable of pitching to Suppan's career norm. As has been pointed out over and over, Suppan's cost is a fate accompli. It makes no sense for the Brewers to sacrifice a guy (2 of whom they control past this year) so Suppan can try to justify his contract. He's gone after this year anyway. Haudricourt doesn't grasp it. Hopefully Melvin does.

Nice move. Not sure either guy will have a significant major league career, but I'll certainly take a 24 year old lefty AAA starter over a 25 year old reliever who's never been higher than AA.