danzig6767

It's not a gamble with little to no risk. Put Tebow on any minor league team and it becomes a complete media circus instead what the job really is for any minor league team, trying to develop players to eventually make the big league roster. A distraction on an epic level for a 29 year old guy who has zero shot of ever making the majors, much less being an impact-full big league player. So why bother signing him? As for signing him and throwing Tebow right into AAA, are you crazy? He'd be lucky to hit .200 in A ball or the rookie league.

I don't know, Carlos may be done. It happens to players at different times and for different reasons.

Spoken like someone who stares at box scores then creates a false belief. Nobody has to look at box scores to see just how over-matched Flores was at the plate. The countless weakly hit balls said as much or more than his awful stats beyond a nice walk rate. Sure it's possible that if another team gives him one more chance to show that he can do more than hit weak grounders vs major league pitching, maybe he is more productive. I'd bet against it though. Baseball history is littered with guys like him who were even more productive than Flores in the minors, but couldn't cut it against big league pitchers. Given he lacks any other plus skill, Flores faces long odds of sticking in the majors.

I'm not as concerned as you are about what Perez is doing is likely a fluke. He has the type of frame to match with his increase in power as he's matured. My main concern with him going forward is his lack of plate discipline. For any hitter who walks at a poor rate, if their batting average isn't at least pretty high, they will carry a poor OBP. It's more common for low walk rate hitters to stay that way than to improve significantly.

If Carlos Gomez or Braun were blocking Broxton from playing everyday, i'd get not starting him all of the time. It's Kirk Nieuwenhuis though. A guy that's going to be a career backup.

I wish that was Counsell's thinking with Nieuwenhuis and Broxton, but instead it sure seems to me that Craig is worrying to much about trying to eek out every meaningless win possible vs going full aboard with this being a rebuilding year. So that's why he mostly platoons those two vs just letting Broxton play everyday in CF to see how he'd perform with consistent playing time. It's not like teams are going to be lining up to trade for Nieuwenhuis. If someone wanted him, they could have traded for him already. He's a solid 4th-5th OF type given he can handle all three OF positions defensively, draw walks well, and hit a homer here and there, but most contenders already have backup outfielders and even if one would prefer a slight upgrade, they aren't going to give up much for one. So let Broxton play everyday. This is annoying me big time.

That also strikes me as the most ideal infield for next year outside of firstbase, Villar at 2nd, Arcia at SS, and Perez at 3rd. I just wish Perez walked more often. It's been great to see his improvement at the plate and he seems like he'd be a plus defender at third, but if his batting average and/or SLG declined, his OBP and OPS would tank because he draws walks at such a poor rate. As for Villar, the guy is such an OBP beast, he should finish with around 13-15 homers, around 35-40 doubles, and 50 plus steals, the guy has to be an everyday player at either 2nd or 3rd. He's one of the top few best leadoff hitters in the game and that's a major asset for any offense to have someone at the top of the order who can get on base at such a high clip, besides his doubles, homers, and steals.

Davis and his walk rate is hard for me to figure out. Throughout the minors he walked at an above average rate. Since he got into the big leagues though, his walk rate goes up and down quite a bit from year to year. A prime example are this year and last year. In roughly the same number of at bats, last year Davis took 44 walks last year and only 17 this year. Granted while not always the case, most hitters who spent awhile in the minors and walked at a high rate, they also draw walks well in the majors. Davis though has been quite erratic in that regard since called up to the big leagues. For three straight years he's managed to hit for a nearly identical batting average (.244-.251) and he is a big time power threat, but for some reason he can't consistently draw walks like he showed in the minors and last year with the Brewers.

To be fair, he was decent in starts that weren't in Colorado Springs but yeah, he just doesn't have the threat of a third pitch to be a starter. He might do okay against the Braves because their offense is horrible but against a team with a decent lineup, don't see it happening. He doesn't have a first or second pitch either which he can consistently command. Davis throws just a fastball and change the vast majority of time as starter, yet he's productive and his fastball only sits around 90, while Peralta throws his a lot harder. Obviously it's more ideal for any starter to have 3-4 pitches he can consistently use, but if a starter has at least two reliable pitches he can count on, that guy can be reasonably productive. Peralta though can't consistently command his fastball or slider, so even as he can throw 95-96 pretty much all game long, he can't miss bats and that's why he gets the around fewest amount of strikeouts in the league for a guy who throws that hard. Velocity is a nice thing to have for a pitcher, but big league hitters see 95 all of the time, so if a pitcher gets behind in the count a lot and/or leaves that 95mph fastball over the middle of the plate, hitters are going to square up on that pitch.

I don't see a single major league projectable tool for Flores. He's a corner OF with zero power potential. He hits for a low average because he makes weak contact so often. He has mediocre speed. He's not a very plus defender. So what exactly are all of these tools which you see? Flores should be extremely thankful that somehow he's managed to stay on the big league roster this long and thus getting much bigger checks than he should be getting in the minors. Why he hasn't been DFA yet is baffling to me.

You aren't alone, this has been annoying me big time for awhile and especially now that Broxton finally isn't looking over-matched at the plate. Let the guy play everyday and see what he does with consistent at bats.

That sure was some fabulous looking defense tonight from the shortstop/thirdbase side of the infield. If Villar does stick at third next year and acclimates to it well to play next to Arcia, it sure could be fun to watch.

I think that's an oversimplification of what happens. I've long made attempts to convince people that playoff baseball is much different because of the off days... playoff baseball is about best on best more so than who has the best team. This reliever trend which is attributed to KC actually started in 2011 with the Cards. In a series with off days the Brewer pitching simply didn't match up best on best. I've haven't done a very good job convincing people of how different playoff baseball truly is, what appears random really isn't. Being on a roll matters, but not as much as the match-ups do. I know that it happened with St Louis in 2011 given i mentioned it in the post you quoted. They largely rode their bullpen and offense to a title through the playoffs. Boston was fairly similar in 2013. Their rotation outside of Lester was very mediocre, but their bullpen and offense were very good in the playoffs. Then there were the two Royals teams with a mediocre rotation. Between the off days in the playoffs and managers having to worry much less about overuse of their better relief pitchers given the season is ending, bullpens in the playoffs now have become nearly as important as who the starters are so long as the starters don't flat out implode very early in a game. A manager can pull a kind of struggling starter in say the 3rd or 4th inning, put in their fourth or fifth starter who wouldn't start games anyways, and simply try to keep that game close enough until the better relievers can come in. St. Louis, Boston, and KC did that multiple times during their playoff runs. Obviously having some ace starters can be huge in the playoffs. Lester was big in 2013 and Bumgarner was epic in 2014. Even aces can fail though in the playoffs. Great bullpens usually are reliable. Given how hard it is to develop upper tier starters, how expensive they become after six years, and their huge cost in trades, i get why so many contending teams today are trying to build very good and deep bullpens. A basic cost and supply/demand issue. If we lack more than a high quality starter or two and can't acquire another, just get as many of these sub-3 ERA, good to great WHIP, and high K/BB ratio relievers as possible and let them take over still close playoff games from the 6th inning on vs keeping a just solid starter in there who has worse numbers than all of those relievers.

Well, Kirk hitting 4hrs in that last homestand doesnt really equal lost playing time. This is clearly a rebuilding year. Stearns just traded three of the better players on the roster. Nieuwenhuis is likely going to have a fairly long career playing for multiple teams as a 5th outfielder type given he can play all three OF spots, he takes walks, and can hits a few home runs. This shouldn't be the year though where a career backup guy like Nieuwenhuis is preventing Broxton from getting consistent at bats to see if he can hit big league pitching. This won't be found out by constantly giving him erratic playing time.

Counsell is drive me crazy with Broxton. He gave Flores far more chances to get consistent at bats even though Flores doesn't possess a single plus skill and now it's Nieuwenhuis who Counsell keeps playing and in turn preventing Broxton from getting any consistent playing time, even though it's obvious that the older Nieuwenhuis has a ceiling of 5th outfielder type on a good team. This would be driving me even more crazy if i was Stearns. He trades for Broxton and granted the kid was horrific at first, but Counsell has never allowed him to play everyday for an extended length of time to see what would happen. Hell, Broxton is finally showing some promise and in turn doesn't get a start in three straight games.

My favorite Macha moment was Manny Parra was pitching in a game where the Brewers were up around 6-7 runs late in the game and he walked back to back batters, along with falling behind the next hitter. So Macha comes out to the mound instead of the pitching coach and as usual, the infielders also start walking towards the mound. Macha waves off all of the infielders, points at the scoreboard, and then proceeds to light up Parra for not throwing strikes.

Yea, in the end, all that matters is that an offense is productive overall, regardless of what positions are more productive than others. You could look at the top say 5-10 most productive offenses in the game and from team to team, many will differ from each other in where their most productive and lesser productive hitters are. Same thing with pitching staffs. Some good teams may have a better rotations than others, but may also have a weaker bullpen. Good teams can be put together in a variety of ways, but in the end it's mainly just about having more overall good players than the majority of other teams. That and some luck on the injury front.

I definitely prefer what Stearns is doing compared to what Melvin/Attanasio did. That said, an even more epic Braves collapse is the only reason St. Louis made the playoffs in 2011 and their starting pitching was mediocre to bad all through the playoffs outside of a few gems by Carpenter. Yet they still won a ring largely on the backs of their offense and very productive bullpen, including some bullpen arms acquired at the deadline in a trade for a young Rasmaus which most Cardinals fans hated. The playoffs today can often be a crapshoot. Hell, the Dodgers had both Kershaw and Greinke, yet did very little in the playoffs vs teams with inferior starting pitching. Kansas City made the World Series in back to back years with nothing special starting pitching, but a great bullpen. Baseball isn't the NBA where the best few regular season teams usually always make the Finals. The biggest key in baseball is simply getting into the playoffs party. Sure there will be favorites, but fairly often those favorites get bounced earlier than expected because in 5 and 7 game series, baseball can be a very volatile sport for a variety of reasons. That's why for as good as the Cubs are this year, them losing in the first round of the playoffs to an inferior team wouldn't shock me at all.

Villar finds all kinds of ways to make outs on the bases, just like Gomez did. Both guys did the same thing on different teams under different managers. Likely did the same in the minors under a myriad of different managers. For some reason there are people who want to ignore that baserunning and fully grasping time and place when to be more aggressive vs being more cautious is a skill some players simply possess more than others. Baseball IQ in varying aspects of the game differs from player to player. We see hitters all of the time who simply refuse to be more patient at the plate, even after multiple hitting coaches and managers tell them it's needed for that hitter to maximize his potential. They in most cases don't do this because they hate the premise of taking walks. Instead, their brain is just hard-wired to swing a lot, even at the same pitches which continually lead to making lots of outs. As for trading Villar, no way in hell would i trade him unless an offer simply was to good to pass on. Leadoff hitters who can get on base like he does aren't easy to find. The number of dumb outs which he's made on the bases doesn't come close to mitigating how often he actually gets on base compared to most players and anyone else the team would likely find to replace him as the leadoff hitter. Given Villar is instinctively a low IQ overall baserunner, i wouldn't expect Counsell to do any miracles. Just mainly cut down the attempted steals at thirdbase, especially when a conversion won't help much anyways and i'll be ok going forward with the inevitable random brainfarts on the bases by Villar so long as he can keep getting on base at a high clip. Someone with a significantly lower OBP, but who is smarter on the bases will end up making a lot more outs. People go nuts over brainfarts on the bases by Villar, but rarely say anything when numerous hitters strikeout or weakly ground out on the same pitch off the plate which Villar takes for a walk to actually get on base.

This is my thought. Villar is an ideal leadoff hitter and those can be hard to find. If he can just cut down on the bevy of mistakes on the base paths, keep getting on base at a high clip, and play good defense at thirdbase, i don't care that he's not a power guy for that position. Ideally Scooter would be traded and Villar plays secondbase everyday, but i wouldn't be bothered by him at third.

Davies reminds me more of Marco Estrada. Both have a 88-91 MPH fastball, a plus changeup, and pretty good command of both. A pitcher can have a long productive career, even while lacking a power fastball so long as he can command the pitches he throws.

None have to sit if Counsell plays it smart. Arcia at short. Villar at third. Gennett at second. Perez plays nearly everyday in RF to develop him into a super-sub going forward who can play in both the infield and outfield. It's not as if we need to see Flores play anymore. By now it's obvious that he's terrible and has zero future with the team. Nieuwenhuis can play the other corner spot until Braun gets back. Broxton should start in CF the rest of the way to see how he fares and if he has a future with the team.

Hopefully Perez plays most of the time in RF and the Ramon Flores experiment comes to an end. Flores doesn't seem to possess a single tool which makes him worthy of a roster spot, much less regular playing time.

Surprised Goforth got called up....30 walks 31 K's at AAA...Surprised Scahill or Magnifico didn't get a chance. Goforth sucks, give someone else a shot.

You seem to want to create this very heavy trade market for Lucroy with a bunch of prospect laden teams all bidding hard for Luc which simply didn't seem to exist in reality. Just because lots of posters on a Brewers internet forum for months now have been coming up with a bunch of pretend trades for Lucroy, involving numerous teams where we land multiple top 100 prospects in return for him alone doesn't mean that's going to be a reality of what is available/being offered. Outside of Cleveland and Texas, there didn't look to be another interested team who also had a deep farm system, and Lucroy vetoed a trade to one of those teams. Maybe you should stop believing that what fans post on sports forums involving pretend trade proposals is something that real GM's actually get to work with. Not only that, just because certain prospects are rated with a number by scouting services, that doesn't mean teams and their scouts share similar positions. This trade with be graded out in time based on how Brinson and/or Ortiz end up developing, not whether you think they rated high enough on various prospect lists. Same for any trade. Everyone loves the Smith trades and it could end up a bust. This is a tough business for GM's.