danzig6767

It is true that at some point, a new arena will have to be built for the Bucks to stay here long term. That said, there are other cities in the NBA with very poor fan bases and/or need a new arena. Memphis has major problems drawing fans and interest. Sacramento badly needs a new arena also and has major problems drawing fans. Charlotte is another city with a terrible fan base. Milwaukee needs a new building. The problem for the NBA though is even if some of these teams wanted to move, there aren't exactly a line of viable cities with an arena that want an NBA team. MLB has/had some of the same problems when trying to blackmail cities into funding new stadiums. At some point, a time gets reached when there are more current teams sticking a gun to the head of taxpayers than there are viable cities wanting a pro sports teams that also will provide a free stadium.

I agree and that's not overstating things. Between his immense talent and great personality, he has helped generate a buzz about Bucks basketball that hasn't been around since we made the ECF under Karl. Look at tonights game, the kid put up 29/7/4 and it didn't seem like an abnormally good game for him. Think about that for a 20 year old rookie. He's special, good but not special talents simply can't do what he's done through his first 10 games of a rookie season. Plus, he's doing this after spending most of last year watching games on the bench in Europe. If Brandon had the look just at me attitude that many proclaimed before the draft, the city might not embrace him closely even if he performed great like he has. He is nothing like proclaimed though, Jennings seems like a grounded kid who wants to be great, but share credit with his teammates and badly wants to win. If the front office over the next few years can put a really good team around Jennings, that kid is going to own this city like no athlete has here in Milwaukee for quite a long time.

Devastating injury for the Bucks. It will hurt them some offensively, but he's the backbone of their defense and him being out will hurt the defense big time. Then there is the rebounding which has been a big strength so far and Bogut is clearly the best rebounder on the team. Jennings is great and the face of the franchise going forward like a very good quarterback is to a football team, but Bogut is like having a quality offensive line, their importance can get overlooked to a degree until an offensive line is bad as our Packers know full well.

Deep in mediocrity. I think Hughes and Bohannon is an above average duo. Next year though could be a real problem at guard.

Depends how he plays when he gets back. First of all, Redd will be a defensive downgrade from Bell. On the offensive end, obviously Redd is a vastly superior player. That said, if Redd comes back and hurts ball movement by to many iso's, pounding the dribble, and taking shots from Bogut, that mixed with his defensive struggles could hurt the team more than help. One thing though that eases concerns i have about Redd coming back is that a strong coach like Skiles is in charge instead of say Stotts. Skiles has shown numerous times that he'll bench or limit the minutes to anybody on the roster if they aren't playing like how he wants. I agree that many folks out there overrate how good of a jump shooter that Redd is at this point in his career. His three point shooting percentages have declined, just as all of his jump shooting overall has. With that though, he has got significantly better the last few years at scoring in the paint and drawing fouls. In fact, i think that is his best strength now offensively. On this team, we do need a jump shooter more than a guy dominating the ball to much in an effort to score a lot of points. With the ability of Jennings to draw extra defensive attention and Bogut drawing double teams, if Redd is content to be mostly a jump shooter that makes defenses pay for doubling either Jennings/Bogut and here and there scoring in the paint, then he can be an asset. I'm curious to see if he buys into that role out of a desire to win over racking of lots of points.

I think Redd badly just wants to win, it's just a matter if he can change his ingrained ways after so long of him being the focal point of the offense.

Tell that to Josh Gasser. While I'm not about to predict an NBA career for the kid, he's clearly got talent (2-time All State honors from the J-S), he can shoot, play D and rebound. Sounds like the perfect Bo Ryan type kid. That said, I'm guessing Bo's original plan was to have Diamond Taylor back up the point for at least a year, so the move-in day fiasco has left them a bit thinner than we'd all like. As for the other guard spots, Jarmusz and Rob Wilson (who I'm hoping for a Leuer-like progression from) can play either the 2 or the 3. My bad, i certainly brainfarted in forgetting about Gasser. No question the Diamond Taylor situation was unexpected, he wasn't some kid with a sketchy backround where him getting in trouble shouldn't be a surprise. As for Jarmusz, he strikes me more as a SF type given i rarely ever see him handle the ball. His game largely consists of playing defense, being sound about turnovers, and hopefully sticking open jumpers when available. I'm not really worried about the SG spot, it's PG where they look scary thin after Hughes graduates unless Gasser can play some at the point.

Yea i wonder what Ryan is doing roster management wise. Hughes and Bohannon are gone after this year and Taylor could end up being the only quality guard on the roster with the ability to handle the ball well. If Taylor got hurt and any team pressed, who would bring the ball up the court? Not only does next years Badger team look terribly thin at guard, there are no guards in the 2010 recruiting class. They are going to have like 5-6 centers and one point guard on the team, very strange. Plus, from what i've seen of Taylor, he's not a Hughes like penetrator that can get into the lane and create his own shot. As for Marquette, Buzz has certainly done an amazing job at recruiting for an unproven coach. His first class was very impressive given how/when he was hired and Jones/Blue were both high level recruits for the 2010 class. He has one more opening for that class and many rumors are saying highly regarded PF prospect Tarik Black has Marquette in his top 2 or 3. If Buzz could reel in Black, a three man class of Jones/Blue/Black would have to be top 5 in the country. They do need some size though so Black would be a huge get and then they need to hope 7'2 Mbao can eventually develop into something useful.

Agree on Bogut. After this many years here, i've just come to accept that these kind of lazy games by Andrew aren't going away. He is what he is as a player skill wise and half-assed effort on some nights. As for Jennings, he did take some bad shots late in the 4th and OT. I think it's from a mix of him being so hot from three that it clouded his judgement on whether it's bad shot selection and simply him being a young kid off to a fabulous start and he got caught up in the moment. I suspect Skiles will go over the game film and show Jennings options that would have been better than fade away threes. I'd want the ball in his hands for these last shot situation, but hopefully Skiles will tell Jennings to instead attack the paint and make the defense have to react. If he can get a decent shot up in the paint, go for it, but if not there likely will be teammates open after the defense collapsed on him. For incredibly fabulous as he's been so far, we can't forget Jennings is only 20 years old and only 8 games into his NBA career. Many of the best learning experiences for a young athletes come through failures. I'd be more concerned with his shot selection in those situations tonight if i thought Jennings was mainly just a me first selfish player, but i don't think he is.

Eaves has recruited a lot of talent over his time, especially defenseman, but except for the year of winning it all, i think overall to often his teams have underachieved.

I'm going to hope for the best that Gomez shows some progression as a hitter given his age, but i have a bad feeling about how this whole offseason is going to shake out. If the catcher spot isn't fairly significantly upgraded, we could be looking at tons of out making between the C/SS/CF/P spots in the order and it's hard to expect Fielder to repeat his fabulous season. I'm not going to sit here and punt next season before it starts, but i really really hope Doug doesn't make some mistake on a FA pitcher with long term ramifications in his desire to win next year given the current makeup of the roster.

While i get frustrated with the haves and have nots system in baseball, imagine if we were in the AL East like Baltimore, Toronto, and Tampa have to deal with? Year after year knowing that you'd not only have to beat the Yankees and their obscene payroll to win the division, you'd also have to beat out the ultra rich Red Sox.

I can't stomach watching the Yankees either and the we'll just buy the best players roster. I watch some of the other series though, except that i generally don't tune in until roughly the 6th or 7th inning if the game is close.

I had an LCD, but wasn't thrilled with it so i sold it to a buddy and bought a plasma instead. The plasma just has a sharper more vibrant picture.

Is Mike Cameron the most consistent hitter in baseball? Since 1999 his OPS has never been lower than .759 or higher than .837 In that stretch, if you take out his .759OPS in 2007, every other year, his OPS is a near lock to be in between about .775 - .825 give or take a few percentage points.

I do think many fans can over estimate the importance of pitching or hitting coaches, but if some are a little better at their jobs than others, i do question if it makes financial sense to let a better one go over say an extra 100 grand. If they though are as nearly irrelevant as being implied and there is little to no difference between them, why bother even having a pitching coach?

Thanks for the link Colby, that was a great read and i didn't find much of anything Simpson wrote that i disagreed with. While others here obviously disagree on a cap and whether they like say the NFL economic model better, something Simpson talked about and others here mentioned that badly needs fixing is the MLB draft. If small market teams are already going to deal with being bent over the sink via having such vastly lower payrolls, it's a double ream job by them having to deal with the draft setup where top talents can make it hard for small market teams to draft them along with international young players being basically free agents for larger market teams to bid on.

Why don't the Packers then have to overpay to get players to stay in a city far less desirable to many pro athletes than even Milwaukee is? I don't know if you've ever been to Green Bay, but in terms of things to do, it makes Milwaukee look like New York. Yet, i never hear of players dying to bolt to play in a more exciting city or demanding extra money to be willing to stay. Hell, some have taken hometown discounts to make sure they can stay a Packer. Granted, the Green Bay Packers are both a historic franchise in the NFL and have consistently won over the last 15 years, but a huge reason for that has been a league economic model which has allowed for the Packers to compete financially for players with the big market teams. Without that economic system in place, the Packer franchise would have become like the Brewers and other small market baseball teams, a talent feeder for the rich NFL franchises. Another example is Pittsburgh. At one time, the Pirates were considered a great franchise in baseball, not a small market franchise. Yea, they've had terrible management since baseball became the haves and have nots, but it can't be denied that the economic model in baseball today makes them small market and hard to afford players as they reach free agency. On the flip side, the Steelers can compete financially from year to year in the NFL, able to always keep their core players. This has allowed them to become a model and highly successful franchise in the NFL, their good drafting rewarded by being able to keep their core players from year to year. Put baseball's system in place there, no chance the Steelers would have stayed a consistent powerhouse as they have in the current and past NFL. A big reason top players leave small market franchises isn't the cities, it's hope. They know that even if their small market team makes a competitive offer, it will eat up a large chunk of that teams payroll, thus limiting that team and his chance at sustained success. Most athletes want to not just get paid, they want the chance to win. But because of the economic system in the NFL, players are willing to stay in small market franchises because they know that those teams can still win each year if management does a good job, those teams have the financial resources to keep and add quality players. Much less need for top players to flee to large market teams if they want to win.

As much as i cringe watching Suppan pitch, i can live with him being the 5th starter. Odds are if we replaced him with some random other 5th starter, we'd be looking at fairly similar poor production given the overall dearth of starting pitching in baseball and lack of pitching prospects in the Brewers system at the higher levels.

Based on what? The Packers play in by far the smallest market in all of professional sports, yet can you name even just one really good player that they drafted/developed in the last 10-15 years that they didn't have the financial resources to keep if they had wanted to, including some that had Rosenhaus as his agent? They did trade Javon Walker, but that wasn't because the Packers couldn't afford to pay him. They traded him because after being drafted he asked for a longer rookie contract so as to get a bigger signing bonus, then after getting it, a few years later he wanted his contract ripped up for a better one. The team told Walker that he had to play one more year under his rookie deal before he'd get an extension which lead to him holding out and an eventual trade. That's a far cry though from what the Brewers face with Fielder where they know that Boras will be able to shop Prince to the larger market teams once he hits free agency and thus, we'd never be able to make a competitive offer without in turn eating up to large of a percentage of our payroll. We could end up facing the same thing with Gallardo, especially if he continues his development to ace status, arguably the most valuable commodity in the game. There in lies my biggest problem with baseballs economics. If though the Packers had the equivalent of a Fielder and Gallardo on their team a year or two from free agency, i'd have little to no fear about them being able to afford both given Green Bay would have the revenues to pay both and the salary cap prevents even big market NFL teams from just buying tons of players like the Yanks, Red Sox, and Mets can do. I know that the only way those type of young talents would leave the Packers wouldn't be because we couldn't afford them, it would only happen if they didn't like spending so much time in a tiny almost entirely white city. Hell, even with the tiny city status, i can't remember the last player who left by their own choice vs the team simply disagreeing on how good the player thought he was. BTW, You brought up Sabbathia. Imagine how Cleveland fans feel. They draft and develop to young left-handed ace starters in CC/Lee, an incredibly hard thing to do, yet because of their small market status, had to pawn off both of them, something large market teams largely don't even have to consider. You don't see that as a bunch crap for the fans of Cleveland to have to deal with and that they won't be terrified the next time a young stud they develop gets anywhere near free agency?

Yea his weight and the DH had something to do with the talk of when he'd have to be traded, but just as much or more had to do with who Fielder's agent is. Everyone knows that hometown discount doesn't exist in the world of Boras and thus, we'd never be able to come close to matching any free agent offer for Prince that a team like say the Yankees, Mets, Angels, or Red Sox would throw at him. This terrified thinking isn't just on the Brewers fans either. Fans of other small market teams often have to start stressing once any top young player near hits around his 4th year of service time, when are we going to have to trade him if he won't take a hometown discount. In the last 15 plus years following the Packers, not a single time has that thought process/fear entered my mind as a top young talent neared free agency that the team wouldn't have the resources to keep those young talents. Not once, but go ask fans of small market teams how much confidence they have about keeping their top young players. What are you talking about here? It's not exactly a CIA classified secret about how long teams can control a player along with compensation picks for losing free agents. Yea, that system has thankfully saved all these small market teams from wasting money by keeping their own good younger players. Instead they've been able to trade away their really good players they drafted/developed and we've in turn seen all the winning it's lead to for the small market teams while the big market teams who acquire and then pay these players have suffered badly through so much more losing than these lucky to be small market franchises. The standings in most seasons prove this as the big market teams who can retain the players they develop and snatch away similar players from broke teams just toil at the bottom of the standings and while most small market teams who are saved from "wasting money" on players they developed usually win the playoff berths. Obviously spending a bunch of cash won't guarantee winning in any professional sport. The Knicks in the NBA have long had a huge payroll and sucked royally via poor decisions on who they spent money on. Same in baseball, plenty of bigger market teams have spent quit lavishly and still didn't win. That usually though came more from going into free agency and spending to much on slightly better than average players and/or overspending on players in their 30's, not from keeping the players they drafted/developed. That's my biggest peeve with MLB. It's one thing for small market teams to not be able to shop in free agency like big market teams can, but what really sucks is that so many small market teams also end up having to trade away top young talents they developed once free agency nears simply because they can't make competitive financial offers, so they trade the guy away vs getting nothing but a draft pick or two in return. Draft picks that are from from a sure thing to pan out.

Is Pat Gillick still the Phillies GM?

It's what bothers me most about MLB. I can live with not being able to afford not being able to keep any piece we want like say the Red Sox and Yankees can do, plus add quality players on top of it. What really blows though is how often small market teams have to sell off young studs they drafted and developed once free agency is near. That's what's different between the NFL and MLB. The Packers didn't even have to consider trading off guys like Aaron Rodgers or Greg Jennings out of fear they might not be able to afford them once free agency would get near. If BJ Raji develops into a stud defensive lineman, i don't fear at all that we'll be short on financial resources to pay him. That stuff never even enters my thought process with young quality players the Packers draft. With the Brewers though, we've been talking about when Fielder will need to be traded nearly since the day he proved to be an immense talent. Before Braun took that below market deal, fans were wondering by his second year in the league only if we'd have to trade him in a few years. Just imagine if Braun hadn't chose to take that 6 year deal, we'd all be terrified that it was likely a matter of when he'd need to be traded. It's ridiculous and so frustrating.

Yep The NFL system doesn't punish small market teams who draft well like MLB does. The Packers haven't had to trade away a single quality young player that they really wanted to keep as that guy reached free agency, unlike the Brewers. Greg Jennings was going to be a free agent after this year and as one of the better young WR's in the game, many teams would have went after him in free agency if available. Packer fans though never once had to endure the oh will we have the resources to be able to keep Jennings crap like we as Brewers fans have to fear whenever we develop a stud young player and he's nearing free agency. One of the best young QB's in the game Aaron Rodgers locked up also long term. Packer fans also don't have to fear some Scott Boras boogy man because he's the agent for one of the young good Packer players. Yea, as the Packers got to be a good team over a number of years, here and there they had to let a player go as the team got pressed against the cap. That was a rare instance though and it never involved a young high quality talent reaching free agency. It's very rare that a small market NFL team loses a very high quality young player to free agency out of their inability to afford the player, it's only that player wanting to play elsewhere and even that's fairly rare. No model is perfect, but as a fan of both the Brewers and Packers, it takes me less than a second to know i prefer the NFL model because i know that if the Packers draft and develop well any high quality young talents, they'll at the very least have the financial ability to keep them past free agency and i won't have to go through this nonsense like we Brewers fans face each time we have a young stud nearing free agency and talk ends up being which big market team will we have to trade our young stud to. It's beyond annoying and why i'm a bigger Packers fan that Brewers fan.

Gerut has a career .218 BA and .648 OPS vs lefties over his career