pete

Fausto needs to go to an AL team and not one in the Central.

He was drafted by the Montreal Expos. That's French speaking Canada, right? Maybe someone was a fan there and moved back to France.

Where does Nelson pitch then? Also, I'll believe Henderson can come back when the team breaks camp with him. Thornburg is younger and the homer in me doesn't want to give up, but he's not automatic either.

Stephen Drew hits left handed. Setting aside the hypnotic powers of Bonifacio, which team's backup middle infielder would be an upgrade?

Just a quick perusal of a Bing search of Gomez defense produces comments like "phenom," "sparkling," and "dazzled" along with comparisons to Tulo in fielding with a better arm. I'd say the argument for Pastornicky is that he is less likely to be hurt and profiles as a utility player although I don't know why the Braves don't see him as that any more. An unknown is who will be SS in AAA. If they had some confidence in that player to fill in then they could keep a player like Pastornicky who doesn't look like a regular at SS at this point.

Wow, Tim Dillard seems to be a minor celebrity. I saw Yadiel in there and checked out his feed. He seems to be buds with Javy Baez.

I'd look forward to a game with either of those lineups. I'd guess that RR will put "Gomey" in the 1 spot and Ramirez and Braun will get veteran deference or whatever to be placed in static spots in the lineup. But then RR has more lefty, righty to play with. If he doesn't have a good hot stretch, I could see Segura at 8 but that's a tough spot for a guy trying to get his bat going. Lind would probably do best but that would be under utilizing his bat. I have to say that lineups is another contrast between Maddon and Roenicke. Joe is always moving things around and RR seems to like having things constant. Does it mean anything to say they are both part of the "Soscia tree"? Maddon seems to be a graft. I know when he was with the Rays, he'd do some stuff and I'd think that if other guys did that they'd get roasted.

I can't remember where I heard it and stuff that originates from any org can be positive spin to outright fluff but... my recollection is that Gomez struggled a lot with injuries and is working with the training staff to stay healthy and that they view him as a true shortstop, a big plus... for whatever all that is worth. You know that Melvin is going to love his "pop." RR seems to love Herrera though (am I misreading that?) and the two are competing for the same position.

I hope they find a way to keep Clark too. I'd guess that Rogers is destined for Colorado since he's got an option. Jimenez put up nice hitting numbers in his minors career, but he's one of those take a walk every 20 at bats or so guys. Its just me speculating, but I wonder if part of his off season assignment is to be more selective. He's taking more walks and maybe adjusting to the change? Maybe that's homer optimism.

It's drifted off the front page over at Fangraphs, but I thought I'd throw the url in here. http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/ball-in-play-leaders-and-laggards-national-league-hitters/ It was written by former Brewers' employee Tony Blengino, recently of the falling out with Jack Z. Not all of it is immediately apparent as positive or negative, but there's some interesting data. It is limited to players with 215 balls in play. Reynolds is gone. Only one other player had a higher pop up rate and he had the lowest line drive rate. Heyward is on the pop up leaderboard as well. Jon Jay had a nice season. He was a hair away from the best line drive rate and an incredibly low pop up rate. At least he's at or near the end of his arb years. Segura had a really high ground ball rate. Only 2 players had a lower batting average on fly balls as well. He was close to the bottom of the league on BA of balls put in play. I guess the negative view of that is that he's not barrelling up the ball. But I'd think that even with struggling mechanics and the personal things happening, he was unlucky. Khris Davis had a pretty foul BA on grounders as well. There are also a bunch of NL Central members with some shiny results. Really high averages on fly balls by Mesoraco and Rizzo, Leaderboard rates on LD averages for Alvarez, McCutchen, Snider and Holliday. That's a lot of Pirates, especially considering that the lists seem skewed by Rockies although its also dominated by guys who hit the ball hard. But there on the list of positive results for balls in play is McCutchen, behind Stanton, Goldschmidt and a handful of Rockies. Blengino suggested that the data might indicate that McCutchen could have an even bigger season. That seemed contrary to me as he had a very low line drive rate and great results. That led me to check babip results. For qualified batters (500 PAs?) 1st was Starling Marte, .373 along with a 24 percent K rate, McCutchen at .355 coming in 7th and Josh Harrison at 9th with a .353. Yes they are all fast, but 1 - 7 and 9 in all of baseball is extremely high and bound to come down. That's my positive. They also had a catcher with a career year and great results from now departed Volquez. There are positives for them too, but they've got plenty of question marks. Well, I'm not sure how well I did in presenting a positive. I wonder if some will read this and think "YO PETE, that's some bad stuff too."

Melvin used to mention JDLR as a guy who turned into a good player. It sounded like a lament, but I'm not sure. There's that truism that LH pitchers take longer to develop. If its true, maybe JDLR is one

I'd say Herrera's floor is pretty well known. If EB is at the plate for a Segura DL stint, he's also taking the field. Personally, I'd like to see Gomez, but I have a hard time imagining RR letting go of Herrera. Speaking of utility players, the Rangers signed Adam Rosales. I forgot who signed Descalso, but I'm pretty sure he got a 2 year deal at a few million. Ugh.

I don't think Bonifacio is a SS. I don't think any team wants him playing a bunch of games there. Who is going to be SS in AAA this season... I'm blanking. But if you don't have someone stashed there, you have to have someone on the MLB club. He's not a plus defender anywhere. He's not much of a hitter. I could see him adapting better to the bench role than most though. I doubt he's much better as a pinch runner and base stealer than Gomez or Herrera. Assuming that the small sample of Gennett's MLB at bats and/or the classic use of selective end points of his later seasons in the minors are predictive and he won't hit LH pitching, what's the difference between Gomez, Herrera or Jimenez numbers and Bonifacios? Even assuming they struggle and EB doesn't, its not going to be much. I remember that 2011 season with the Marlins and the blistering hot start he had with the Cubs. Still, I don't think it would be a better team with him.

Just to throw in another factor, I've heard the claim that Coors hitters have bad home and away splits because the environments are so different that the hitters have a hard time adjusting. After they're out of there a while they lose that factor. Holliday was an example cited, noting his suckage in Oakland and eventual really good hitting for the Cards (bah!). Dunno how true it is.

Well, Keith Law is special.

I agree that Lucroy caught too many games, but that's what Lucroy wanted and RR seems to defer to vets. I'd hope he'll spend more time at 1st, but that was Reynolds' spot last season. Maldonado's hitting was discussed elsewhere. I don't agree that he's as bad as made out. For a worthwhile comparison, what is Rosario's slash line as a PH? I'd be surprised if its much different than MM and a big downgrade defensively and you have to make two trades to make it happen. There's also the question of taking Rosario out of Colorado. Setting aside his obnoxiousness, if you can spin the Earth backwards really fast and get Swisher of a few years ago, he might be all right. I'd guess his career is fundamentally over. What Rogers or Clark are is unknown.

i haven't read it yet. I find him to be persistently negative about Brewers drafts, prospects, MLB players, org... whatever. Yes, his negativity is always couched with a sentence or two about how something positive may happen so when there is a discussion of how he thinks little to nothing of Nelson, Fiers, Gennett, Davis and a host of others, the retort is always to recite that sentence. After time passes and he's very wrong, I don't remember him adding insight as to why. If he calls it average, then I believe its better than that.

I don't remember anything specific from BA about Medeiros, but remember to many he is a future reliever and one with strong splits no less. The BA person assigned to the Brewers is on their podcast (free) regularly. He usually bubbles excitement and looooooves Joey Gallo and this or that player. He saw Lopez once and his voice was kind of monotone and he was eh, nothing special, two pitches... future reliever. I'm not sure how different it is from other systems, but it seems like every top prospect list for the Brewers is significantly different. I interpret that as a lot of volatility.

I'm surprised Wang didn't lose prospect eligibility. The tools are interesting for those of us less familiar with some of the players.

My go to site for checking injuries is Baseball Prospectus. It looks like he had sore knees and a wrist during the season and had debridement done to both knees after the season. I'm not sure what that's all about, but a quick check of a medical dictionary tells me its the removal of non-living tissue.

Wow, I checked out the dot org website for the trail. There's some rugged territory in there. I've got some old Ansel Adams books somewhere. It'd be interesting to compare some shots along the way. I assume you're going to carry a pack? Have you done much of that type of hiking? Myself, biking the John Muir Trail bike trail in the Kettle Moraine would be pretty challenging.

Long, long ago... in 2013 he was the minor league player of the year. Who makes that decision? Seid believed in him to the point of lobbying Melvin to promote him to the majors. Maybe, just maybe the guys that watch and evaluate these guys think he can play in the majors and the GM doesn't want to use him. Melvin's also not afraid to bury guys in AAA as emergency backups to his emergency backups. People might have asked for him but aren't willing to risk a lot.

Besides Logan not getting hits in his odd at bats, there is the strong belief that competitive teams must buy at the deadline. Even though he made two moves, there were still callers on talk radio who said he did nothing. Prices seem like they are about 3 times higher then than the offseason, although last deadline there were a few that seemed cheap like Cherington moving Lester.

Seems better than what was going on. There are often negatives related to the way the house is prepared for sale, but other than some theoretical effect on property taxes I can't think of any.

Parra might be worth a reliever. You'll get a whole lot more for Davis. I'd guess that buyers would also look at his minor league OBP which is quite high. I think based on that its reasonable to assume it will improve going forward. Gomez had a .356 OBP, Gennett .320, MLB average .314 Average is always a dangerous stat because its meaning is distorted by the composition of the pool. Gomez is strange because as Brewers fans we've seen him give away so many strikes or even complete at bats.