danzig6767

If you're that super drunk, call a cab or suffer the consequences if you harm or kill another person. This guy gets no sympathy from me.

And walks lots of batters

People really need to stop with talking about sliding Hart over to CF. It seems like sometimes people think that just because an outfielder has some speed, then that guy can play CF. Hart is already a below average corner outfielder, putting him in a premium defensive position like CF would make an already poor defensive team an atrocious defensive team, especially if Gamel was put in RF where he's still learning the position. An outfield alignment of Braun in LF, Hart in CF, and Gamel in RF would have to easily be the worst defensive outfield in all of baseball. That would be added to an infield defense with now Betancourt at SS which likely will end up being one of the worst defensive infields in the league. As for Upton, i really really wish we had the resources in talent/money to try and acquire him because he's blessed with incredible talents and BJ has also had extended stretches of brilliant and productive baseball in every facet of the game. This would maybe be the chance to steal a huge talent at a reasonable price and if he rebounded to have a year like 2007 or 2008, wow our team could be an absolute beast. Oh well, the resources are gone now, but went to the more pressing need of starting pitching.

I could see the Red Sox maybe being willing to shed the contract for Cameron, but after Boston's injury plagued season last year and the bank vault of revenues they have, i can't see any reason they'd be willing to get rid of both, especially Scutaro. The 5 million Scutaro will make this year is near pocket change to Epstein, so why trade a guy like Scutaro who can provide a great option at 2nd/SS in case of any injury and he can give starters at those spots days off to rest without having to put in a cheap scrub type of backup infielder. If Boston had to live in the financial world that many teams have to live in, having a high quality backup infielder who makes 5 million dollars simply wouldn't be feasible, but Boston lives in a near Yankees like financial world. I'd keep Scutaro if i was Epstein unless an offer was made that filled a more pressing need for this years team, not a prospect. Sure prospects matter for a team like Boston, but when they have a need, this offseason clearly showed that Theo can just open the Boston checkbook to fill the need.

I don't know, between Jennings, CDR and Dooling, he had 3 more solid shooters on the roster. It's just that one of them has also been hurt (CDR) and Dooling forgot how to shoot for the first 6 weeks of the season.CDR wasn't a good perimeter shooter his first two seasons in the NBA, his best skillset by far was as a slasher and finishing on the fast break. So far he's shot well from the perimeter with the Bucks, but it's only been 11 games, we'll see if it can continue.

I was wanting to believe that Melvin was forced to take Betancourt in this trade, but now i'm starting to wonder if Doug asked for Betancourt to be included.

Yea, one the biggest weaknesses on the roster Hammond built in the offseason was questionable perimeter shooting and when Delfino went down, it left the roster extremely short on perimeter shooting. As for trading Maggette for Turkoglu, i and most Bucks fans would be all for it, doubt the Phoenix front office would be though.

When the trade was made, i was one of the suckers who thought maybe just a change of scenery and another year of experience could help bring out better the physical gifts that Gomez possesses. In the end though, the guy is just has a very low baseball IQ and it's hard to see how that can been helped/fixed.

If the Phillies can manage to win another World Series or two over the next three-four years while also winning a ton of games during that time, i'd say it will be well worth whatever potential dead money they'll be facing on the tail end up these long term deals.

Just out of curiosity, when does assumed regression due to age become a valid argument in your opinion? 37? 39? 41? Just regression or the level of regression that some are implying that Pavano is going to have in 2011? I can't say I blame anyone, but I think too many posters on here are scared off of FA pitchers that are in their 30's because of the bad taste that Soup left in all of our mouths. If a guy is coming off a fantastic season at 41 - why should we assume he can't perform at a high level again at age 42? Perfect example is hoffman - many thought he was done in 2009 and many Brewer fans didn't like the signing and he went out and shocked even those that liked the signing. Then he shocked us again this past season - I think we all thought he'd regress, but nobody thought he'd completely fall of a cliff. Every player is different and they all hit a wall with performance at a different age. Contract length for older players is an entirely different beast and I don't think Pavano is worth the risk of a 3 year deal at all - He's been good over the past 2 seasons, but not good enough to warrant taking that risk. Pavano should be solid this year and even he does regress slightly, if he can put up a 4.00-4.25 ERA and eat up close to 200 innings it would be huge for this team. What makes you believe that if Pavano regressed, that 4.00-4.25 ERA is the worst case possibility? An ERA above 4.50 has been more the norm over his career than last season was and there is also the defense factor. Pavano doesn't get many strikeouts (only 117 in 221 innings last year) and thus the ball gets put in place a lot, not exactly a good thing given the poor defensive team that the Brewers are. If Pavano was a Brewer next year, i'd put numbers of 4.00-4.25 ERA as the likely best case scenario, not worst case.

That's why it makes me sick when ESPN so often licking the boots of Cashman and Epstein as being these great crafty GM's when pretty much every offseason they simply either open their checkbooks to buy very expensive free agents or trade for very good players on teams who can no longer afford them. Wow, what strokes of genius to be able to sign big checks. Then if an expensive move or two doesn't work out that would nearly cripple other franchises, they can just sign or trade for someone else to cover for that mistake. In the draft, they can afford each year to get upper tier guys who slip for financial reason, but that's not a concerns for the Red Sox or Yankees. Next year Friedman will have to try and compete with a total payroll less than teams built by Cashman/Epstein that are paying more in yearly salary to Gonzalez/Crawford and Arod/Jeter alone. It's gotta be such a bummer and so disheartening to be a fan of any AL East teams besides NY and Boston.

Why would the Braves trad a solid pitching prospect for a terrible player like Gomez and a loogy who struggled last year in AAA? Maybe there still are teams out there who value the supposed upside of Gomez, but his stats have been incredibly consistent in a bad way. Not a shred of improvement in any aspect of his game and Gomez doesn't strike me as being able to change his mentality at the plate.

I'd be more concerned if Upton was a type of free swinging hitter that rarely walked, but that isn't the case. As i said in a previous post, he has 314 walks in 2435 career at bats. His poor OBP the last two years was driven primarily by poor batting averages, but the two years prior, Upton posted on base numbers of .386/.383, largely because of his higher .273/.300 batting averages. BJ has been unlike Carlos Gomez where batting average and BB numbers consistently stunk in each MLB season. When Doug traded for Gomez, one argument used in favor of the trade by some Brewer fans was that small market teams sometimes need to take a chance on big time athletes with some high level talents, but that have not performed up to expectations because they can be had cheaper than at earlier times. I tend to lean that way and Upton at least has shown extended periods of brilliance on the field, is still only 26, and should be entering into his prime years. If Cain was traded somewhere, i'd be absolutely thrilled if Melvin was able to acquire Upton to play CF, even if it wasn't in a bigger trade to get Garza.

How much money is Upton roughly supposed to make this year? Unlike Gomez, Upton does have some history of fabulous production even though that production has lessened over the last two seasons. If somehow we acquired him in a major deal with Tampa and Upton had a bounce back season in the .800 plus OPS range to go with the speed he has, that could be a real coup for the Brewers. Upton's raw tools are off the charts and again unlike Gomez who has some of the same raw tools, Upton isn't clueless at the plate as evidenced by his 314 walks in 2435 at bats, pretty good power for a CF, and two years with a .273/.300 average. For a fairly small market team like the Brewers, acquiring a still pretty young guy like Upton with his huge amount of natural skills would excite me almost as much as Garza because if we got lucky and BJ returned to his 2007 form, the Brewers would have added one of the most dynamic players in the game along with another quality starter. I really like the idea of trying to steal a big time talent who struggled some the last two years because without those struggles, a player like Upton would basically be off limits to the Brewers unless we had drafted him.

Even if Boras isn't Lee's agent, i'm sure multiple other agents have learned and followed the tactics of Boras. Feed the desperate media for a story with claims of new huge offers for their client and then said media member breaks this socalled big scoop by saying a source told him this when everyone knows it came from the agent who is trying to get teams to raise their bids to the player/agent. Granted, i'm sure that sometimes the agent is actually telling the truth to the media guy about an offer on the table, but just as often it's likely bogus as we saw with Damon last year for example. FWIW, i'm not blaming agents for doing this, it's their job to try and get as much money as possible for their clients. Baseball GM's then have the job of trying to decipher when media reports of certain offers being on the table are bogus or legit.

One stat about Crawford i found interesting is he has 409 SB's in his career and only 293 walks, don't see that very often. Speed though does things besides stealing bases, Crawford is able to use that asset in other ways on the field. That said, i saw this on the wiretap earlier today. That would be insane

Hopefully it's about a 6yr deal at 100 million http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/smile.gif

I may have asked this before and if i have and forgot, forgive me. How can it be that in a country with 300 plus million people and the countless number of people around the world who play baseball, why can't there be even just be 30 good catchers in the world each year, much less 60 to fill the starting and backup jobs? I was a catcher all through little league and briefly in high school until the coach threatened cave my face in, it's such a fun position to play. You're in on every play and when you look at MLB, if you have just decent catching skills and can hit .265, you'll be rich and have a job into your 30's. I just don't get it and how scrubs like Nieves could have managed to keep a job in the majors for seven seasons? Scrubs like Jason Kendall are still deemed good enough to get a starting catcher job even though he can't hit at all? A quick glance showed me that 7 backup catchers last year got between 200-300 at bats and posted a sub-.600 OPS number. Someone explain to me why so few catchers can be competent behind the plate and also hit at least somewhat decently because i don't get it?

I just really hope we don't get some bad luck and Marcum regresses. If he pitches like he did in Toronto and Wolf pitches more like he did after the All-Star break, the Brewers should have three quality starters. Narveson has the chance to be a decent No.5. Obviously we'd need at least one more decent starter to round out the rotation, plus there is the likely chance that at least one of the five starters misses some time via injury.

Good for Gillick, well deserved

I wouldn't assume at all that at worst the Brewers could get extra picks for Marcum and use those picks to get someone as good as Lawrie. Odds are much higher that even if we got a pick or two for Marcum , any first round pick would turn out to either be a bust or fringe prospect.

Interesting. I didn't realize that OTA broadcasts weren't 1080P -- with a little bit of research, that appears to be the case. Yeah, no reason to reach beyond 720P in this case then. Thank you. Power consumption was something I thought about, but according to the charts I've seen it's a difference of less than $2 per month. Glare is a legit concern. Their living room has a large bay window on a wall that's perpendicular to the TV, but that's it, I think they should be okay. I've managed to make do with my plasma despite having windows on the wall opposite the TV and only 12 feet away. Definite glare sometimes, but not the end of the world.... Plus, when it comes to plasma glare, you really only notice it much when watching a movie or show with lots of black or dark backround to it. If say you're watching a day Brewers game though, the glare is barely even noticeable. For me, i have my plasma in a place where the big window is behind the TV so i get pretty much no glare. Considering i got my 50' Panasonic plasma for only 650 dollars and how fabulous the picture is after i played with the settings until i got it how i wanted, i'm thrilled with the purchase. Glad i waited a bit to for getting a 50' because around two years ago my uncle bought a 46' Sony Bravia LCD that set him back around 2000 bucks and my plasma has significantly better picture IMO.

I don't see Melvin now refusing to take calls about Fielder, but i do think this trade increases the chances that Prince will remain a Brewer until at least the trade deadline unless Doug gets some offer he feels that he just can't refuse over the ext few months.

One positive is i'm relieved to hear that the Brewers didn't add another decent prospect in the deal as i feared when the first reports were prospects traded for Marcum. Time will tell if Lawrie becomes a very good major league player that we'll regret trading, but he doesn't strike me as some near can't miss prospect.

If Lawrie is in the trade, it won't be just him we gave away. Good starting pitchers under a cheap contract for two years aren't traded away easily.