danzig6767

He's my number one lottery ticket and the guy among all of these question mark OF pickups by Stearns that i most want to see play. Really good athlete who has shown improvement at the plate in AA and AAA. Walks at a good rate. Hits a nice number/mix of doubles, triples, and home runs. Haven't been able to get a clear read of his defensive abilities in CF, but nothing screamed that he's a real liability out there. Hopefully Broxton can be a Carlos Gomez type of late bloomer at the plate. Now i'm not expecting the guy to become as good as Carlos, but some sort of Gomez-light would be great.

You get this off 37 innings from a former college pitcher in A ball? FWIW, he seems a solid second guy thrown in to the trade, but there are an endless amount of guys who did well in very tiny sample sizes at A ball like 37 innings is and that ended up being the main high point of their professional baseball careers. I'll start getting a little more excited about Derby's future if he pitches really well once he reaches AA ball and then can repeat that success in AAA.

Davis has four years of team control for Oakland, it's not as if he was only a three month rental at the deadline instead. So even if the A's do struggle this year, Davis could end up being a big bat for them the following season if they are better that year or traded by Beane say two years from now if he becomes a consistent 30 plus homer guy. That four years of team control is likely a big reason why Oakland made the trade. Power is down in baseball right now and Davis has plenty of it, along with him being really cheap. I just think they paid dearly. I may be in the minority there. As with any trade like this, only time will determine which team will end up looking more fondly about this trade. So many things could happen. 1. Nottingham not only could end up being forced to switch positions and thus negating a good chunk of his value, as a hitter he only has one good half of a season hitting well and has never done it yet either vs more advanced pitching in AA and/or AAA. He just as easily could end up being a steal for Stearns or guy who had a few hot months at the plate in high A ball, struggles vs more advanced pitching, and/or can't cut it behind the plate as happens often to so many good offense/questionable defensive catchers in the minors. 2. Derby has only thrown 37 minor league innings and is only 5'10. Hopefully he eventually develops into a quality MLB pitcher, be it as a reliever or starter, but the statistical odds are against it as is the case for most pitchers in A ball. 3. Davis went on a home run tear the last two months of 2015 and his walk rate was good. Whether he has finally entered some prime years where he becomes a yearly 30 plus homer guy or remains the really streaky up/down hitter he was with the Brewers is something we'll find out over the next few years. Same for if his improved walk rate last year was more of a trend he'll continue going forward or that will also vary from year to year. Clearly he has to hit well though given his arm in LF is worse than some kids in Little League. Oakland likely got the more sure thing end of this trade since we got two kids in A ball and given players/prospects that young either flame out completely all of the time or only develop into fringe MLB players. Clearly though some young prospects do beat the odds to become good to great MLB players. That's why rebuilding teams make trades like this. They roll the dice by trading more proven commodities for young unproven commodities with upside. To me it's a coin flip as to which team will feel better about this trade 2-3 years from now.

Stearns may not have made this trade exclusively to guarantee an everyday/500 plus at bats job for Santana this coming season, but no question about it that given all of the outfielders who have been acquired since he took over as GM, Stearns really wanted to open up a corner OF spot to give Santana and maybe others a chance to prove themselves vs major league pitching. Odds are Santana will be given the first crack at seizing control of the LF job, but if he struggles badly, there are multiple other guys who Stearns could then plug in to see how they do. Had Davis been kept, he'd have to play pretty much everyday and that would left guys like Santana and others with no place to try and prove themselves. Getting two more prospects IMO was icing on the cake to opening up a badly needed playing time spot in the outfield. A GM can't acquire all of these younger outfielders and then leave them no place to play.

Davis has four years of team control for Oakland, it's not as if he was only a three month rental at the deadline instead. So even if the A's do struggle this year, Davis could end up being a big bat for them the following season if they are better that year or traded by Beane say two years from now if he becomes a consistent 30 plus homer guy. That four years of team control is likely a big reason why Oakland made the trade. Power is down in baseball right now and Davis has plenty of it, along with him being really cheap.

Hmmmmm, i think that the vast majority here are plenty fine with the idea of letting Santana get his chance to play pretty much everyday, whether he ends up in LF or RF.

I'm for this trade, but i'd take you up on this bet in a heartbeat. Davis a legit power and has done so vs big league pitching. The odds of Santana hitting more homers than Davis this upcoming season are small.

Another factor IMO is that this is the best time for the Brewers to rebuild given the current strength of the NL Central. The Cubs should be a 90-100 win team with reasonable health. The Cardinals likely will be really good and the Pirates in contention for playoff berth. So there isn't that we play in what looks like a weak division window that can makes some teams think, maybe we can grab a playoff spot aided by playing in a weaker division, even if our team isn't upper tier. So hopefully if what Stearns is doing works out and in say two years the Brewers have a solid chance to win around 90 games or more, the division won't be as strong overall as it currently seems to be.

This is very true, but they also caught a massive break when the Angels jumped in and trumped the Cardinals i believe 8-9 year 190 million dollar offer to Pujols by an extra 50-60 million. That alone allows them to use all of the money elsewhere in both the present and going forward on better options for 20 plus million a year. Plus, there is no DH in the NL to give Pujols days to weeks off and still keep his bat in the lineup.

To me, a bigger reason to try and trade Lucroy before the season if a good enough offer is made is his contract. Two things are what will make him most valuable to a good team needing a catcher. 1. He's a good all around catcher at a position hard to find good two way catchers. 2. His contract. Lucroy will be vastly underpaid for the next two seasons, making him even more valuable than just the skills he provides. So the longer he remains on the Brewers, the less valuable his team friendly contract gets.

Defense is supposed to be the best skill Maldonado possesses.

I don't buy your theory. If Lucroy were to get traded to any team not on his no trade list, they'd have no more obligation to give him a big contract extension right away than the Brewers do. I don't think he'd be a happy camper either as you put it to stay here long term if we just paid him. FWIW, i'm not naive. Sure he is looking forward to the day of getting a big next contract, but i also believe him when he says that at this point in his career, he would rather not spend the next two years or potentially longer on a team with no realistic shot of the playoffs before the season started. Stearns has said he understands this and if i'm a player on the Brewers, why the hell should i have such thin skin to get offended? Keep in mind, most of the players on the 25 man roster next year will be younger guys either trying to keep a roster spot, trying to earn playing time, trying to perform well to get paid more in arbitration, etc. They aren't going to be instead losing sleep over something Lucroy said on the radio months earlier, if Lucroy isn't traded by then. Plus, so often sports fans try making these silly comparisons between professional athletes and themselves with comments like if i did the same thing as X athlete did, then this would happen to me. Sorry to break it to you, but professional athletes aren't the same as someone working in an office cubicle or a forklift driver. There is a reason why nobody in the media is coming around to ask how you or other regular folks like your job situation. It's because nobody else cares. Professional athletes live in a completely different world for a wide variety of reasons. A large reason among those being that the average worker is easily replaceable while upper tier professional athletes at their given positions are very rare, and thus not easily replaceable. So they can often do and say things that you can't.

He was asked a question and answered it honestly, nothing more to it than that. It's not as if Lucroy put out a demand to be traded and that say he wouldn't show up to spring training if a trade isn't made. Lucroy also wasn't talking bad about his teammates indirectly by saying the team will be bad this year. He was simply stating the obvious which everyone already knows, that teams who strip down as the Brewers currently are doing, they almost always are bad for at least a year or two, it's just a matter of what degree of bad. So he said he'd very much welcome a trade to a better team if the opportunity presents itself, but if not, that he'd play as hard as he always would if a trade doesn't happen. I guess he could have lied when asked the question, even though everyone with a brain larger than a pea would know he's lying about how he feels on this subject. Not sure what the harm/difference is either way, so long as Lucroy does his best if no trade happens before the season starts and i suspect he would do his best until the likely inevitable trade did go down.

I don't have any problem with Lucroy being honest when asked if he'd prefer to be traded given the circumstances. I'd rather be traded also if i was him. He did also say that if he isn't traded, once it came time to play, he'd play as hard as he always does. Why should he lie when pretty much any player in his position would rather play for a team competing for a playoff berth vs on an obvious rebuilding team that has no shot at all of making the playoffs?

The one issue i wonder about when it comes to commercials and people with cable is DVR's. I have U-Verse for cable so i can get my fix of all different kinds of sports which mainly are on cable. That said, i DVR the vast majority of things i watch and so do my friends with cable. This also includes sports pretty often. I'm so used to not watching commercials since i have a DVR, it gets on my nerves on the rare occasions i watch something live and thus can't fast forward past all commercials. So now i'm to to point if say a Packers, Brewers, Bucks, Wisconsin, etc game is on, i just record it and watch something else on my DVR for about an hour. Then i can fast forward past every commercial and halftime if it's basketball or football, without spending much extra time watching the game. Among all of the technology today, it's hard for me to imagine life without a DVR so i can watch whatever i want, whenever i want to, and even so i can pause a show/game for whatever reason at the time. Multiple friends of mine do the same thing. In fact, on the rare occasions i actually watch something live, often i'll find myself grabbing the remote to fast forward when a commercial comes on, but then have to say to myself damn this sucks, can't fast forward.

If Harper keeps playing at an MVP level and given his age, no way in hell he only gets 35 million per on a long term deal. At minimum i'd say 45 million per, especially with Boras as his agent. You'd have multiple big markets fighting all over themselves trying to lock him up if Harper reached free agency. The only way Boras would allow Harper to not hit free agency is if Washington made a silly big offer first.

If he were lefthanded, I'd be hailing this as a nice pickup at the price. His career splits vs RH-- .757 OPS LH-- .777 OPS His batting average RH-- .220 LH-- .216 The only thing he does quite a bit better vs lefties is walk more so his OBP is 35 points higher. That's not irrelevant, but it's not as if he has huge splits like some hitters do and thus has to be platooned.

At this point, i think the goal is just to try and find semi-competent bodies to fill holes where a promising young player isn't yet available, first base being one of those spots. Stearns fully understands that the team will be bad next season, just to what degree of bad will mainly be determined by how well or poorly many of the younger players end up producing. That and if guys like Lucroy and/or Davis are traded before the season starts.

No kidding. Football games today consist of 10 seconds of actual play, the refs standing around talking for 2 minutes, a challenge, a review, the refs standing and discussing things with coaches, then a huddle, then the players get set for the next play only to call a timeout because they play clock is about to hit 0 then after another minute or two another 10 second play. Lather, rinse, repeat. I think a large factor in why football dominates ratings over baseball besides the 16 game schedule is women. I know quite a few women in various age groups that get together with others and watch Packers games and buy Packers gear, but pretty much don't watch or follow other sports. My mom is a prime example. She gets together with a group of her friends and family for most Sunday Packer games, taking turns hosting the parties. On the flip side, i question if any of her female friends/family could name a single player on the Brewers or Bucks. If you were to ask them why, my money is on them all saying that baseball is boring. I love both sports, but get why many find baseball boring. You really need to know the intricacies of the game to sit through multiple low scoring games and still find it interesting, especially if a baseball team isn't a contender. Pro football also has a ton of intricacies built into the game to really understand it well, but for casual fans who mainly just watch their home football team, the game itself can be understood decent enough and inherently has the type of exciting plays in most games to keep those casual fans locked in for three hours a week.

Yea, the main objective is to play mostly younger players to see how they perform and usually that leads to high loss totals. The degree of losing though dictated mainly by how well those younger players perform, which is really hard to predict.

Yea, there are some hitters who strikeout a lot partly because they tend to take more pitches than average, so they don't swing often at boarderline strikes. This leads to both high walk and K totals, kinda like Dunn and Branyan type of hitters. People often think they K so much just because of how frequently they swing and miss, but a big factor is also that they generally avoid swinging at hard to hit strikes, so it results in lots of say 2-2 or 3-2 counts where a walk or K ends up happening. That's much different than a total free swinger who K's a lot, but doesn't walk much either.

Why would you put the no trade clause as the biggest hurdle? To me that's likely a minor hurdle. Braun isn't blind, he can see that the Brewers will be bad to terrible for the next two years and maybe longer if some of these younger players don't perform as well as hoped for, along with if Lucroy is traded. So why would he block any trade which would move him to a team trying to contend for the playoffs vs staying on a Brewers team destined for lots of losing? Maybe there is a city or two out there which Braun would so loathe to play/live in that he'd block a trade to a much better team, but Milwaukee isn't exactly the most attractive city to athletes either. Looking at teams trying to contend next year, it's hard to find many which i'd block a trade to if the Brewers had a serious trade in the works for. Besides maybe Minnesota or Cleveland, it's hard to find another potential contending team i'd consider blocking if i was Braun.

I don't care one bit what happens with the Cardinals or Cubs this year so long as neither wins the World Series. Now that the Brewers are truly rebuilding and have zero shot in the division for at least the next two years, i doubt that i'll muster any hate for how either teams does at all in the regular season, including vs the Brewers. Actually, i hope both teams win 100 plus games, get their fans all excited, and then lose in devastating fashion in the playoffs.

The goal is to play mostly young players and guys with potential upside which may or may not be realized. Often those type of teams end up being bad, to what degree of bad will depend on just how well many of these younger players perform. If say a number of these younger players perform better than expected right away and thus the team finishes with a win total in the 70's instead of the 60's, Stearns likely will be happy because those performances will come mostly from younger players. On the flip side, if the team struggles are deep to where they only win around say 60-65 games, it means a higher draft pick.

If the A's would have had to give up quality prospects to sign Madson, they likely would have passed. It might be that for a few teams, the domestic violence issues with K-Rod combined with what thy viewed of him on the field/his age/contract could have made them pass. Then again, there were a limited number of teams in need of a closer and of those teams, Stearns had to find one or two who thought K-Rod would continue to pitch as well as last season, and were willing to both take on his contract along with trade a prospect or two. If instead of being a 90mph fastball/changeup specialist, he threw 95-97, i do think he'd have brought a bigger return. I just think there is a bias in general towards closers who get outs via blowing hitters with gas compared to change of speed deception like how K-Rod gets his outs, regardless if the softer throwing one has similar stats. Even for myself simply as a Brewers fan, while i really respect how Rodriguez has managed to transform himself from a power pitching fastball/slider closer to a changeup master so well to where his stats were better lately than in his younger prime years, i still got nervous nearly every time he got behind in the count vs a power hitter. That scary feeling of he'd leave a 90mph fastball over the plate to get absolutely crushed. It's less scary subconsciously when a closer with a 97mph fastball falls behind in the count.