danzig6767

This

Both Freeman and Pena have control issues. As for velocity, Pena is in the lower 90's, not high 90's.

Yea, his approach at the plate looks better. The only bummer for me about letting Scooter play pretty much everyday is that i was looking forward to seeing Walsh get a few starts a week at secondbase.

Pena is 27 not 22 and rarely has been good in either the minors or majors. He has had a good arm though, so his overall crappy results didn't doom him as it would have someone else with a lesser arm. After about 10 years in the minors and majors, at some point a pitcher has to actually be productive. The guy just can't throw strikes often enough and he doesn't throw in the high 90's either.

Stearns i'm certain talked with Melvin, Counsell, and others in the organization about Rogers before trading him. Plus, there had to be guys who Stearns brought in to fill his scouting staff who knew about Rogers given pretty much every organization has people who scout of all of the minors. So this wasn't some situation where Stearns just took a look on a piece of paper at Rogers age, minor/major league numbers, and then after watching a few minutes of film decided, hey let's trade this Rogers guy because i don't know him as well as Carter. By that logic, how then would he be well versed enough on Broxton, along with the myriad of other players he brought in? And besides all of that, a different team could have ended up signing Carter before the Brewers did. This trade was similar to many other moves Stearns made. He liked the long term potential more of Broxton who was a late bloomer compared to Rogers. Time will tell on how well Broxton develops. To me it was a very low risk move given the limitations of Rogers and there being at least some chance that Broxton does develop into a worthy everyday CF.

Many great jobs? How many everyday taxpayers funding hundreds of millions in tax dollars land a great job at a stadium or basketball arena? This isn't some auto or whatever plant with say 500 to 1000 people or more getting good pay and benefits on a full time job. Most people working inside a stadium or basketball arena are selling concessions, collecting money in the parking lot, scanning tickets, an usher, etc at relatively low pay. They are also even less than a typical part time job. Outside of extra playoff games, it's only 81 games in baseball, 41 in basketball, and 10 in football including two preseason games. Plus, most of the time when states or cities try to lure away a business, it's via some tax breaks, not spending 500 million dollars building them a state of the art new facility, and better jobs come with it than seasonal part time jobs pouring beer and scanning tickets. I fully get that there is also some emotional aspect to sports teams and the sports fans in those cities/states which gets factored in. It just really bothers me at the gall of so many of these very rich sports owners today and their swimming in billions leagues when they ask for new stadiums or arenas, especially given the financial times which so many citizens and cities face. So incredibly tone deaf. Even worse when they try holding a city hostage over a building which isn't falling apart, it's just not making them enough millions compared to fellow owners who more recently blackmailed the city they play in. Jealousy sets in and they think, i want my new free toy also. Out comes the blackmail gun. Rinse and repeat.

And i yawn at your laughing. A large amount of pure assumption. I like Santana a lot and was thrilled Davis was traded to open a spot for Davis to play everyday, but baseball history is littered with prospects who would hit really well in the minors, but never were able to consistently put it together at the plate in the majors. This includes prospects who were much higher rated than Santana ever was. Hell, Stearms picked up a couple of guys for pretty much nothing who once were highly thought of, until they no longer were. There are other prospects who struggle in the majors for awhile, but then later put it together. Look in our division for example. The Pirates Gregory Polanco was a top 20 prospect before getting his shot in the big leagues. In his first two years, he's posted a .650 and .701 OPS. Will he ever live up to his prospect projections? Maybe, maybe not. That's why he was prospect and nothing more though. Like i said, i am a big fan of Santana and have high hopes for him. I've also watched baseball long enough to have seen tons of well thought of prospects get their chance in the majors. Some do well quickly when given an everyday shot, some struggle for a year or two before things finally click, some who only became a mediocre player, and some who never put it together at all. Hopefully Santana lands in the first group, but it's by no means a lock.

Forgot to add this for irony sake. Ken Kendrick the D-Backs owner, he sits on the board of the Goldwater Institute, a conservative think tank which espouses limited government, except clearly though when hundreds of millions of government dollars would flood into his already wealthy pockets. No surprise how often people like him are complete and utter hypocrites.

What it takes for cities to stop being held hostage by owners in all pro sports is simply to say no more to these ridiculous owners and leagues. There are a pretty limited number of realistic options left for teams in the NFL, NBA, and MLB to move to. So if every city said no more, build your own stadium or arena, we'd find out that in most cases the threat was more bluff than reality of moving. Granted, no city wants to be the one who actually loses their sports team, but it's not as if there are a bunch of realistic relocation options for each league. Take the NBA. There is an obvious reason why they haven't offered Seattle an expansion franchise and they tried so hard to get new arenas built in Sacramento/Milwaukee vs getting either to sell to a bigger Seattle market. The NBA instead badly wants to keep Seattle twisting in the wind so as they can keep using Seattle as a gun to the head of future cities with an owner claiming they just have to have taxpayers build them a new arena. After Seattle, relocation options get slim. Because nearly every city and/or state ends up caving though in all three pro sports, it just emboldens other owners to claim they also need hundreds of millions from taxpayers. They pull this crap even though these leagues are swimming in money like never seen before. In an economy where mainly just the super rich are benefiting, like sports owners are, it takes major sized balls to cry poor and still keep asking for hundreds of millions from taxpayers to build new stadiums/arenas simply because in many cases, these owners feel their current stadium or arena no longer makes them enough money. Hopefully more and more cities say no and these leagues reach a point where their threats are shown to be more of a bluff which was called.

He's easily the guy i'm most excited about among the outfielders Stearns brought in.

Of course there can be. If my kid were to say, how come X person can do this or that, but i can't, my answer would be simple. Because i said so, that's why. End of story. Not difficult to do. Same if i'm coaching a Little League or youth basketball team. If a player or players on the team wants to behave in a manner which i personally don't find proper and he says, well X pro player does it, i'd tell him i don't care, you have to play under rules i've set or you don't get to keep playing. FWIW, when i coached Little League, i never had a problem getting kids to listen and respect rules i set for conduct. The vast majority of kids want to listen and just play. The bigger problem overall was a handful of parents in the league who would complain that their kid wasn't being used properly or yelling at umpires. Thankfully the league would stand behind the umpires and gave a parent/parents one warning for getting to belligerent and if there was a second incident, their child was kicked out of the league. The ridiculous behavior to often by parents today at various youth sporting events in my opinion is a far bigger problem than any behavioral issues with the actual kids, and of the kids who are brats, most belong to those same boorish parents.

A player can avoid that. If he's up against certain teams or pitchers, they know who will likely throw at them if they do any show-boating. So it works both ways. Sure, go ahead and stare down a pitcher after you hit a HR. But then accept the consequences. That's baseball to me, for better or worse. I don't want to sanitize the game and make everyone play nice. We seem to want the players to police this stuff themselves, but then want to dictate how they police it. I don't agree on the bolded part. Often it's completely random on why one batter gets thrown at vs a different batter doing something similar, what players do or don't get thrown at, and depending on if a certain pitcher or manager has their panties bunched up that given day, so they'll be more inclined to feel slighted over whatever. Baseball is a game, not MMA fighting. I don't see how anyone can justify intentionally having a pitcher throw a baseball at a batter over a petty emotional slight when the potential is always there that the pitch could not only injure the batter, it could hit the batter in the face or head. Then if worst case you have that batter writhing in pain on the ground with a shattered face or concussion, what is the pitcher going to say in response? Well, he deserved that shattered face since he watched his previous home run for four-five seconds instead of what i deemed acceptable of only two or three seconds. There is a reason most sports leagues try to take "policing of the game" out of the hands of it's players as much as possible, particularly when it comes to intentional actions which could lead to injuries, including a serious injury. Hockey being the most obvious exception, and the older i get, the more silly the fighting and brawls come across. It's one reason among others why i now only watch playoff hockey.

That's on the parents and coaches of the kids, not pro athletes. I have a kid and have coached Little League, never did i think it was that hard to get kids to follow rules placed for them. Set guidelines and the consequences if those demands aren't followed. Gotta stick to those guidelines and the consequences though because most kids will very quickly pick up on authority figures who set rules, but often fail to follow up on the consequences aspect. There are all kinds of things in life which adults are able to do, but kids aren't. It's up to parents and authority figures to set those guidelines, be it sports or a wide variety of other activities. Parents who can't control their kids and instead blame societal influences for why their kid or kids behave like brats are simply weak parents. Until maybe a child reaches his/her late teens, a parent/parents, they hold all of the power in the relationship. Simply use it and a kid will behave.

So players in all pro sports should be robot like forced to conform to mainly just one accepted form of behavior, so as not to offend those who seem to feel pro athletes can only celebrate in one fashion? Any MLB player who gets all bent out of shape and feels disrespected over incredibly minor things like how long a batter looks at his home run, if they flip their bat, a pitcher gets all ampped on the mound after a big strikeout, etc etc etc etc, they badly need to grow some thicker skin. These are grown men who are fortunate enough to play a fun game for a living, while also getting paid dollar amounts for a few games that is often more than many people make working a whole year. Talk about searching hard for reasons to feel slighted. There are about 750 major league players each season. Among those many players, there is nothing wrong at all with them displaying their wide array of different personalities, from very reserved to very flashy without some acting like those type of flashy personalities are ruining the game.

That's one great aspect of pro sports, you'll have a variety of personalities on every baseball, basketball, football, or hockey team. Some are naturally quiet and reserved. Some are highly passionate. Some are more cocky. Some are a mixed bag depending on circumstances. For every Manny Ramirez type there is a Robin Yount type of personality. There is a loud Cam Newton in football playing against a reserved Peyton Manning. There are countless conflicting personalities in each sport and most good teams have a nice mix of personalities. What there doesn't need to be in pro sports is a bunch of robots all being forced to conform to mainly just one accepted form of behavior. Fans watching should be able to decide on which players they want to gravitate towards in who they like best, and for whatever reasons without throwing a fit over certain players who don't act in a manner some fans don't prefer or break out the kids today just don't get it line. Once i start complaining about how younger people play sports, the music they listen to, how they dress, etc etc compared to my youth, i really hope that i'm on the last legs of my life instead of still likely having decades left to become an even grumpier curmudgeon.

I'm right there with you, having turned 50 myself this year... I think it is a generational thing for sure. It is somewhat of a generational issue, but i'm 45 and have zero issues with celebrations today. Same for friends my age who i attend games with. I also think this nonsense of retaliating over petty slights by throwing rock hard baseballs 90 plus mph at hitters which Gossage holds onto as a badge of honor is something i'd come down hard on if i was commissioner. A player could potentially suffer a serious injury from that and all over a petty slight. Passan on Yahoo summed up my thoughts on Gossage perfectly https://sports.yahoo.com/news/why-angry-old-man-goose-gossage-is-wrong-about-baseball-s-past--present-and-future-052208311.html "Goose Gossage, a giant bag of gas that somehow figured out how to grow a mustache, f-bombed his way through the landscape of modern baseball Thursday. In an interview with ESPN, he managed to deride the single best moment of the 2015 season, tie the actions of one man to the shame of an entire ethnicity, advocate for concussions, praise pitches intended to injure opponents, yearn for the days that left pitchers' arms in shambles because of overuse and disparage people far smarter than he'll ever be. It was a glorious festival of buffoonery"

Doesn't take much pizazz to say he shoots from 3 and the defender doesn't bother even trying to stop him. BA can do that just fine. Sure it does. By your logic, then anyone can call a baseball game like Anderson does. FWIW, I think he does a solid job calling college basketball games, along with Brewers baseball, but i'd take Gus Johnson over Anderson any day for basketball. This year Gus was under contract to only call 20 Bucks games and i don't know if he'll continue working for the Bucks, but i hope he does because for me, a Gus/Marques duo would be near perfect.

The one for me with Bill is about 1-3 times a game, it's a lock to hear him say "how could he take that pitch" on a ball slightly off the plate which was rightly called a ball. Then if the Brewers aren't getting enough baserunners on, he'll complain that the hitters are swinging at to many balls off the plate. Hmmmm. As for BA, i like him overall. He is a bit bland, but i'm fine with that for baseball. For say the Bucks in the NBA, i'd prefer a different type of hometown announcer. I'd love to see Gus Johnson take over the Bucks announcing job full time, with Marques remaining the color guy. A perfect combo.

Ticket revenue on game day is split between the two teams playing, not exactly sure is it's a clean 50/50 split. Where teams can make extra money though is via their stadiums. Take the Packers. They get to keep every penny from say all of the tours of the stadium, their Hall of Fame, parking, and wide array of other events which draws Packer fans to Lambeau Field. Same with any new development owned by the team. Jerry Jones in Dallas makes a ton of money hosting a bunch of college games and other events in his massive new stadium. That said, the extra money doesn't gain much of an advantage on the field because the NFL has a fairly hard cap. There are various accounting tricks which teams can use for a year or two to spend above the cap, but eventually that team will have to cut multiple high priced players and could lose promising young players who reached free agency because of many millions in dead cap space obligations.

Going forward for both Davis and Oakland, i think the two biggest keys will be 1. Was that great second half of last year with all of those home runs more a fluky outlier or can he be a 30 plus homer guy if given 500-600 at bats each year? 2. Was his increased walk rate last season that was more in line with his walk rate in the minors something he'll continue with Oakland because odds are he'll remain roughly a .250ish batting average guy? If he does keep his walk rate more in line with last season, that would allow Davis to carry a decent OBP vs a bad OBP if his walk rate was more like his 2014 season. I think the power is very legit and thus he will be a 30-35ish homer guy for Oakland if he stays healthy enough to get 500 plus at bats, i'm less certain though about where both his walk rate and batting average numbers will roughly sit around over the next few years to combine for OBP stats.

They already have Miguel Montero and he's signed through next season at 14 million per.

I really doubt that if a team or two has strong interest in Smith, that they first need to see how he does in spring before making an offer. He's already proven the kind of stuff he has in real games. Yeah, but I was thinking more in terms of what the opposition will think they can deal for him. We all know that spring stats are meaningless, but people still look at them as meaningful for some reason. If he's lights out early in the spring and someone asks about him, there won't be a lowball offer. If Smith is shaky early, Stearns may get an offer, but not one he likes. Maybe I'm overthinking it, but I don't think he gets dealt in the spring if he gets knocked around 3 or 4 times. The only thing which i could see possibly scaring other teams would be if Smith's velocity was down significantly during spring games and stayed that way all spring.

I really doubt that if a team or two has strong interest in Smith, that they first need to see how he does in spring before making an offer. He's already proven the kind of stuff he has in real games.

Even if Hill has a pretty good first half of the season, we aren't going to get some highly thought of prospect at the deadline. This is just Counsell pretty much saying, for now at least, Hill is the favorite to start the season at thirdbase unless someone else steps up and takes the job away. I'm not going to care much either way this early in the process. Guys like Cecchini and/or Middlebrooks likely will get a chance at some point to show they deserve at bats.

To be fair, Lind only has one year left on his deal while if Rogers becomes a solid player for the Pirates, they control him for another five years and multiple of those years will be at pocket change money.