danzig6767

Prime example among many others that quite often top 100 prospects don't pan out as hoped for. Had say the Red Sox traded him in a deal for a veteran two years ago which many of their fans thought was wasn't fair value, they'd have been upset. Now he was traded for cash. For the Brewers in their current situation though, it makes perfect sense. Try and pick up as many as possible these type of once well thought of players who struggled in the higher levels of the minors or in the major, and then hope the strike silver or gold. The Brewers are likely going to be bad to really bad next season, but it will be fun to see if any of these small deal players develop better than what they were picked up for.

1. How exactly would MLB go about with a plan to limit salaries which wouldn't involve collusion? 2. The players are getting this level of money only because the owners are raking in huge revenues via monster cable TV rights packages, along with national TV money and cash from attendance. Maybe at some point the huge boom in TV rights bubble will burst, but right now at least, sports of all kinds be it pro and college are getting massive TV contracts because it's something which most viewers watch live vs recording shows on their DVR and fast forwarding right through the commercials. That fits me to a tee. I DVR nearly every show i like, but watch many sporting events live. 3. As for MLB salaries being higher compared to other sports, that's about to change with the NBA. Starting next season as the new NBA TV contracts kick in, their salary cap will rise dramatically in kind and thus will player salaries. So the top players in the NBA will make 30-plus million a year and the rest of their players will also see salaries rise just as will happen in MLB to where hypothetically just a slightly above average starting pitcher will command 15 million per or more. The NFL players don't get the same level of money as MLB and NBA players do, but that has a lot to do simply with roster sizes. The overall pie of NFL salary money has to be split between 53 players, but only 25 in MLB and 15 in the NBA.

No, probably not. But Ramon Flores was ranked what, >20 in his own organization? I don't like the return, especially at a position as easy to fill as OF/1B. Hopefully Stearns views Flores as being wildly undervalued and he proves me wrong. What were you expecting in return for Sardinas who if he's the starting shortstop for a team, it will only be because they are totally devoid of talent at the position? He's not special defensively and has a fly swatter bat. I'm sure Stearns let other teams know that Sardinas was available. If there was more demand for the guy, Stearns would have gladly accepted a better return.

I'll be very surprised if Lind isn't traded at some point before the season and it being at least 50/50 Lucroy is also traded if Stearns gets a good offer.

Yea, Flores may only be a 4th OF type, but i wasn't a fan of Sardinas either. A slap hitter with solid, but not great defense. He was never going to be the starting SS here and looks like he wasn't valued highly elsewhere.

Do you think that Detroit is the only team Stearns spoke to about K-Rod being available? If there was a top 50-100 prospect out there for Stearns to grab in return, do you think he decided, i'll pass on that? Stearns had to find a team that 1. Needed a closer 2. Likely a team considering itself a contender enough and also having the money to where they'd be willing to pay K-Rod money for that closer role next year, along with trading a player/players. 3. A team covering the first two above that also thought highly enough of K-Rod. When you start going through each team in baseball to see who might fit those things, the list will shrink to a small number of teams. Plus, even though he's been really effective and last year K-Rod's secondary numbers like WHIP and K/BB were better than his prime years with the Angels, my guess is that some teams out there simply fear his age could lead to decline at any point and would prefer a gas throwing closer vs how he gets guys out mostly by an elite changeup even though his fastball sits in that 89-90mph range.

For the precise reasons that you laid out so well above, that is exactly why I would prefer the Brewers keep Will Smith so that he can be part of a great bullpen once the rebuild is completed The problem with that though is odds are likely that Smith will be reaching or near reaching free agency by the time the Brewers hopefully are a legit playoff contender again. He was already granted Super-2 status, so Smith is now entering the arbitration phase of his career, meaning the days of him being a cheap bullpen arm will be ending soon. Unless Stearns turns the Brewers into a good team sooner than most expect, at best Will Smith will be entering his last year of arbitration or a free agent to be season by the time the team is good enough to win 90 games or more. I've been saying for a few years now that the importance of bullpens in today's version of baseball have been underrated by many. Clearly teams need a solid to good rotation first because in the rough grind of a 162 game MLB season, it's really hard to make it into the playoffs without at the very least, a solid rotation. Once in those playoffs though, i've felt for awhile that the old long held belief that teams can't advance in the playoffs without multiple very good to elite starters no longer is true so long as a team has an elite bullpen and two good starters, regardless if they aren't a true ace. Obviously having multiple great starters helps a lot, but far from 100 percent required. History of late has shown this. With extra off days and the season coming to an end, managers in the playoffs can use their better relief pitchers more often compared to the regular season. Can yank a struggling starter sooner, especially if the team has a pretty good swing guy to bridge untill the 6th-7th inning where multiple hard throwing, low ERA, low WHIP, good to great K/9-K/BB relief pitchers are waiting. Hell, if a team has an upper-tier back end of the pen, unless there is a true stud ace on the mound, it can often be bad for an offense to see the starter exit the game come the 6th or 7th inning. Quite different from around say 10-15 years ago when a number of teams built offenses with a core ingredient of trying to wear down good starters so as to hopefully get into the bullpen by the 6th or 7th inning. Now a good number of teams have multiple 93 to 98 mph power arms in the pen with stats better than most of the starters in their rotation.

I think winning is really important to him as it is to most athletes, so my guess if if Stearms came to him saying X contender made a trade offer, Braun would waive his no-trade clause unless if maybe it was in a city that he/his wife just didn't want to live in for whatever reason.

Relievers are sort of weird in that very few are so dominant that they are actually game changers. Kimbrel has been like that. Same with Chapman. In fact, those two guys, along with Mariano Rivera, are probably the most dominant closers in baseball over the last 20 years. They are in a class by themselves - and clubs will overpay for them. But very few fit this mold, and K-Rod isn't close to that elite group (not even taking into account his age and past abuse issues). Teams pay through the nose for rare, elite talent. K-Rod is a good reliever, but he's not worth that much. It doesn't mean someone won't want him, but I don't think anyone is going to give that much for him. That's a big overpay for a true contender, but for a Boston team who only won 78 games last year and finished last in their division, it's beyond ridiculous. My guess is though that we'll see quality relief pitchers get more money than ever before given how important bullpens have been on winning playoff teams. FWIW, I agree that bullpens are more important today than anytime in baseball history given how most teams/managers use them, but most well run teams will do best to build strong bullpens mostly out of young pitchers they develop vs overpaying in free agency or in trades. Sports are often copycat so teams see the amount of success other teams have had in the playoffs the last 4-5 years by having a lock down back end of their bullpen, even without a great rotation. This i think will lead to more money being spent on relievers, regardless that in most cases, the upper tier bullpens haven't been really expensive. Instead, many very good pens have been put together with younger hard throwers who were converted from being starters because thy lacked more than two pitches. Maybe Stearns could shop Will Smith and land a high quality prospect?

With Giannis starting to expand his skills into a more consistent scorer at the young age of 20 and hopefully Parker fills his potential as a scorer by say next year, the main thing i see the team will be needing out of a PG is a guy who can defend, be a solid distributor, and be a quality three point jump shooter, a skill which MCW likely will never possess. In today's NBA, quality offensive teams almost always have multiple good jump shooters not just for the points those shots provide, but also to provide badly needed spacing so that defenses can't just pack the paint and cut off driving opportunities for guys like Giannis and Parker who they themselves aren't consistent jump shooters. With Giannis, Parker, and MCW on the court at the same time, that's three guys which defenses can just sag off of on the perimeter and basically say, go ahead and take that jumper if you want because we like our chances much more that the shot will be missed vs playing tight defense and potentially getting beat off the dribble. As for Middleton, i agree with you completely. He's the only reliable shooter in the starting lineup, provides some badly needed spacing, and he's a good defender who can play both SG and SF. That said, IMO it's next year where some important decisions need to be made. With good health, we'll have a full season to gauge where Giannis and Parker are at in their development. A full season of MCW. Bench guys Mayo, Vasquez, Bayless, Copeland, and Plumlee come off the books. Should make for an interesting offseason.

I'm 6'1 and never had problems with push ups once i started doing them regularly. Why does height matter so much? My dad wrestled in high school and talked about how instead of pumping a bunch of iron, most wrestlers got strong without bloated bulk via things like tons of push ups and pull ups. I followed his advice and used to do countless push ups and pull ups. It got me really strong without risking injury which can happen if guys lift weights the wrong way. I remember initially after only 10-15 push ups, my arms were absolutely burning. It was pathetic. Then after roughly a month or maybe a little longer, i could bust out a set of 40-50 at a time without my arms feeling like someone injected gasoline into them and i also didn't need to pay/then drive to a gym to work out. Some guys just want the bulk which free weights provide, but i agree with you in that if a person wants to get significantly stronger in multiple areas of your upper body without the strain which improper use of weights can cause and also avoid a gym membership, sets of push ups and pull ups everyday or nearly everyday can really do wonders physically and make you look better for the ladies. That said, i've never been able to do the watch your diet deal. I eat pretty much whatever tastes good to me, but do get plenty of nutrients because i do like eating veggies and tons of fruit along with all of my daily meat, like fried foods, and also have a long time love affair with quality ice cream. Thankfully though i was blessed with a good metabolism so that i'm 45 and weigh only about 10 pounds more than when i was 18. Got really lucky on that front.

There is also the randomness factor which can play a big factor at times. KC easily could have lost to Houston down 6-2 in the 8th inning and a bunch of seeing eye singles and a bad hop on a potential double play ball kept them alive. FWIW, i'm not saying KC was a lucky champion. I thought they were very deserving of the title, but often teams need some luck on their way to a ring. Going forward, yet again a playoff team with a top tier bullpen won it all. This is a trend, not a fluke. Teams need a good rotation to get through the grind of a 162 game schedule and thus secure a berth into the playoffs, but i believe we've now reached a point in today's version of baseball where in the playoffs, having a top tier bullpen is nearly as important or maybe even as important as who your starters are so long a team has at least one really good starter.

Davis was also part of the Will Myers trade which Dayton Moore got killed over and Davis was the throw in compared to James Shields. Sometimes you just don't know what's going to happen in major trades, including ones that initially look one sided. Often enough, it can be guys who were mainly thought to be the throw in to a trade who end up being the best player, while the key piece plays fairly mediocre. Hell, in the Sabathia trade, it was Brantley who ended up being the best player Cleveland got and Cruz was largely thrown into the Texas trade. Stuff like that happens fairly often.

I feel so bad for Jays fans. It had to be excruciating enough just to strand a guy at third down by a single run in the 9th, but then for the ump to call that 2-1 pitch to Revere a strike had to be an extra gut punch. Maybe Revere would have ended up striking out anyways, popped out, or hit a grounder right at a drawn in infielder, but in that spot turning what should have been a 3-1 count to 2-2 instead on that pitch in that situation was a big favor to Davis and the Royals. Man, if that exact scenario had played out the same to the Brewers, i'd have been in the fetal position. I love sports, but being heavily infested into a team can be so cruel sometimes. I'd much rather my team get blown out in a game like that than lose in such agonizing fashion where you are just praying, please don't strike out.

Clearly a time down the road will come where cable and network stations aren't the sole bidders for the broadcasting rites of professional sports. That time isn't now though. Whether it's the NFL, NBA, MLB, and college football/basketball, nobody currently can come close to paying the huge amount of money which cable and network stations are paying for broadcasting rites, especially given the extra value which sports bring today because most viewers watch sports live vs recording shows on their DVR and zooming right past the commercials as i do with pretty much every show i watch besides sports. Just look at the huge contracts which all of the pro sports leagues have signed in the last few years and that doesn't also include the huge contracts teams in the NBA/MLB have signed in local markets to broadcast nearly all of their teams games. Pro sports overall have never been so well off financially. Come 4-5-6 years down the road once some of these TV contracts start to expire for each league, odds seem likely one or more of the streaming services will try making a plunge into acquiring broadcasting rights to whatever degree for pro sports, but it's going to be very expensive and a cost/benefit model will have to justify that cost. The thing is though with technology advancing so quickly and the potential for sizable shifts in the market among the current main streaming services, it's just so hard to tell multiple years down the road what streaming service could/would bid on pro sports, what the exact model by then would be in place to broadcast those games to the most number of people, and how exactly viewers would pay for the content. It will be interesting to see how this eventually plays out because advances in broadcasting technology will force change, it's just a matter of when and what it will look like.

Absolutely unbelievable, Murphy goes yard again for the 6th straight game to put the Mets up 8-1 and he's also 4-5 on the night.

Or, like most people, they only have one option. Our only option for cable is Charter. They jacked up my rates and took away channels after the first year. I called to complain and threatened to leave and was pretty much told they couldn't care less about my problems. Hey, i can only go by people i've known over a number of years now who will complain about their cable bill or be surprised when i tell them what i pay in comparison, yet they won't call around or switch because they don't want to spend the time calling and/or don't want to bother switching because they think it will be a big hassle, when in reality it only takes an hour or two for installation by a new provider and if you demand it, installation is free. Obviously for people like you who live in areas with only one provider, that sucks because you don't have the type of competition for customers as is the case in the Milwaukee county area. I get stuff in the mail all of the time and sometimes even phone calls from the various cable providers asking me to switch over, usually including 100-300 dollar gift cards along with competing or better rates. The moronic thing about that is over the years whether it's say Time Warner or U-Verse, a promotion will end that got me to switch to them and then they'll try jacking my rates way up, so i'll switch to someone else and often soon after switching someone will call saying hey switch back to us and we'll do this and that for you vs just offering that initially so i wouldn't have left in the first place. So stupid.

Yea, Theo certainly deserves credit for trading for Arrieta, but no way did he envision getting Cy Young quality pitching from Arrieta. Sometimes a GM simply gets lucky in pro sports where a player becomes much better than you could have imagined after picking him up via a trade, waivers, or in later the draft.

I pay for cable simply because so many of the sports i love are on cable from the Brewers, Bucks, college football, college hockey, some NFL games, etc and i also love being able to DVR nearly everything i watch. While i do dislike having to pay for so many channels i never watch in my cable package, with U-Verse, Time Warner, and Dish all fighting so hard to keep or switch over customers, i always use that to my advantage to keep or get a better deal. Whenever my 1 or 2 year promotion with a cable provider ends, i shop for the best deal and switch providers if i'm offered something better. A few months ago i switched from Time Warner when U-Verse not only offered a better price and overall package for broadband/cable, they also threw in a 300 dollar pre-paid Visa card. When that promotion ends, if U-Verse tries over charging me on a new promotion, i'll call other cable providers. Some people for whatever reason allow these cable providers to way over charge them because i'd assume they are simply to lazy to make a few phone calls, make the providers compete for you, and switch if needed to get a better deal. Hell, a few years ago i was only paying 68 a month for 18mb internet and a good cable package through Time Warner and at the same time my mom way paying 130 a month for basically the same package.

Could coaching have helped him develop a different approach or change his mechanics in certain situations that led to the higher strand rate? Could it be possible that the lower BABIP, HR rate, and HR/FB % was a result of him tweaking his mechanics or changing his approach that led to hitters not being able to pick up his pitches or not tipping his pitches as much? Could coaching have helped him alter his mechanics which resulted in more movement on his pitches which led to hitters not being able to square him up as much? Fewer HR/9, HR/FB, etc., is a result of hitters not hitting the ball as hard off of him. I'm not convinced that is purely random. Fewer strikeouts could be the result of a different approach in certain situations. I watched Estrada pitch 3-4 times with Toronto. His pitching mechanics looked no different than with the Brewers and he threw the same pitches. He was mainly fastball/changeup and once in awhile mix in a curve. Look at his stats overall for three years as a Brewer and this year with Toronto, nothing much different except his ERA which can be impacted to a degree by a variety of factors out of his control. Last year with the Brewers, Marco gave up more homers than he typically does, thus a higher ERA than his two previous years here. He did though give up fewer hits than innings pitched as he also typically does and his K rate pretty typical. His walk rate did climb last year though with the Brewers at 2.6 per 9, but it stayed there with Toronto. I won't say pitching and hitting coaches are irrelevant, but i do think lots of fans wrongly place to much blame on them when their team struggles to pitch and/or hit well. Here and there these coaches can have a really noticeable impact on a player like Sveum did with Gomez, but that's more the aberration than the norm for a veteran player. Pitching coaches seem to have more impact than hitting coaches at times, maybe helping a guy learn a new pitch. In the case of Marco though, to me, his lower ERA this year was most likely pure randomness which happens with nearly all veteran from year to year. Where if you look over say a 3-4 year stretch for a hitter and his OPS numbers are .790/.830/.770/.840 and a pitcher is 3.30/.4.10/.360/.390. Marco has made himself into a very solid major league pitcher, but he does throw a straight as an arrow 88-90mph fastball and thus all he has to do is just miss by an inch or two, leaving the ball over the plate and it then often gets crushed.

I'm just happy for Estrada. I have a soft spot for guys like him who weren't born with a special gift in baseball, but slug through many years in the minors and eventually become a solid to good major league player. I became a Toronto fan even before the playoffs started and was happy to see Estrada come through with a huge start for them to keep the Blue Jays alive. He learned how to through an elite changeup and that's allowed him be good enough to start game three of the playoffs with an 88mph fastball.

That Toronto crowd was the loudest i've ever heard in a baseball stadium through a TV at least. Helps obviously though that the roof was closed. What a game to watch. I became a Toronto fan before the playoffs started and then decided bet money on them to beat Texas. Sure wasn't looking good after the first two games, thought they were likely toast. Glad i'm no Texas fan. First they lose a World Series when in back to back innings vs the Cardinals, Texas was only one strike away from winning and then today three straight errors on ground balls. Some serious gut punch losses.

Lots of hitters have good and bad months during a season, Davis is far from being alone in that. When i look at him, i see a guy with a .809 OPS over 1029 at bats. My guess is that over say the next 2-3 seasons if his numbers were to be averaged out, an OPS a little over .800 would be his most likely landing spot. Have seasons where one year it falls a little under .800 and one or two more where it's in the .825-.850 range. During those seasons he'll have some down months and better than normal months, just like most big league hitters have. Usually only the select special hitters are able to be consistently consistent, avoiding the type of slumps most non-elite hitters often go through because they aren't special. Hitting baseballs vs MLB pitching is hard to do, even more so in today's game with so much quality pitching and bullpen specialization. It should be expected that a lot of hitters will struggle during stretches and potentially for a variety of reasons.

As just an overall baseball fan, i enjoy the one game and done format. If the Brewers won say 93-98 games though and were bounced after only one game, it would be a lot tougher to stomach than watching other wild card teams i don't care about see their playoff experience end after a single game. Baseball is different than the other pro sports given the 162 game season. For hardcore fans who watch around 120 to 160 of those games, it's such an investment both in time and emotion. Then to see your team make the playoffs, it's gotta be an extra empty feeling for that season to end with only one playoff game. That said, even though football is my favorite sport, there is nothing IMO quite like following a good baseball team that eventually makes the playoffs, especially when a division or wild card race is tight. Every night a game is on which as a fan you get invested in, regardless that it's a 162 game schedule vs the shorter schedule in other sports. This is why i always hope baseball fans try to enjoy the journey as much as they should vs just looking at playoff results if their team exits early. All of those nights of exciting, tense, and free entertainment while following a good team over 162 games.

That's not the only way. The NBA is going to a system where they simply seed home court in each conference by record. Baseball could take three division winners as automatic playoff berths and two wild card teams, but seed things by record to where the two teams with the worst records play in the plain in game vs automatically making the two wild card teams play each other. Ideally, the schedule would be cut to 154 games and then make the wild card play in best 2 out of 3. Won't happen though because of money.