bill hAll Star

He got a fluky 140 innings and then a #5 starter and he guaranteed the #5 starter's contract for no reason. *ducks* You're correct, though I still think Anderson is probably worth his 2nd guaranteed year money next year. If nothing else, they can probably trade him for an equally iffy player at a different position.

Well, how about saying that 2018 is a split "last part of rebuild/beginning of contention" year? The Cubs had to play in the Wild Card game (and advanced pretty far into the playoffs) before they went on their division title/World Series run that they're on. Now, I will agree with many doubts about the Brewers given that we've got an older core than the Cubs and some rising teams did, but if they aren't in the playoffs next year or have some sort of reason for optimism given new faces in the rotation/depth, I will start to really worry.

I've thought that for most of the year, Counsell has had good bullpen management. He is managing for 2018 baseball (mostly) and that does leave you with tough decisions at times. He manages leverage correctly. I was mad yesterday that he didn't go for it and yank Guerra after 3 with the rested bullpen. Kapler (full-blown new age manager) did exactly that yesterday but some critics earlier in the year thought he had gone too far. I am equally as tired of people implying that Counsell stinks as a manager because of certain pitching changes he has made that are supported by numbers/probabilities happening not to work out that day. I'm not tied to the hip with him...if they want to fire him and go with even a more new-age manager, fine. But I think Counsell is at least passable and more on the good range. I think a lot of this is a phenomenon of everyone having access to every move a team makes. In the past, maybe 300 people would've read the "Brewers trade cash for Jake Thompson" news on page 7 of the newspaper or maybe 500 would've refreshed the Brewers daily transactions page on ESPN in 2004. Now it's 2018 and 50,000 people following the Brewers Twitter account have seen this and have a take (even more than that have actually seen the news). Here's the thing: Every other team is dumpster diving as well and most former GMs/teams did this throughout baseball's history. I'll bet you ask most other teams' fans and they'll believe that their GM is a dumpster diver because everyone is now privy to deep 40 man moves that have been made since a much earlier era of baseball.

Rebuilding doesn't always have to be 100% tanking. The Cubs signed Lester before their window truly opened and signed Edwin Jackson well before it. The Astros signed several short-term players as their window was opening. The Padres (yes, it was stupid) signed Eric Hosmer while they wait. The Braves made moves for veterans before Albies, Acuna, and their pitching arrived. One of them (Markakis) is a huge piece in their current run. Also, the majority of the "jettisoned bullpen" has done nothing elsewhere and therefore was just a smart move. Will Smith is doing well but he is not included because you stated that this is all about letting most of the bullpen go from 2017. That division record from this season means nothing to me. We had some choke jobs against the Cubs who are equal/slightly superior and I think we match up well against the rest of them. The Reds don't have Winker, Schebler, Duvall, and several other pieces right now so they are not the hard-charging team that is coming of age that they were a month or two ago. The Pirates are not going to always beat us by 1 run. Those are all pretty small samples. Bryant is obviously a generational talent and his numbers were legit but Schwarber only played abuot 60 games there, Hiura has only been there for about 60, etc. I don't think they need a ton of position players in the next few years. Catcher, yes, shortstop, maybe. They've got 2-3 more years before I worry about them not having many bats ready in the minors. This is a somewhat fair point that the organization values hitting prospects and prefers to rely on pitching depth. That said, they still may deal for more ace caliber pitchers or maybe they have a big Attanasio checkbook move left. And again, they have pitching depth that any team in the Melvin era couldn't even dream of. Whether that is enough remains to be seen.

Villar dominated for 4 games @ the garbage that is Texas pitching staff, then went something like 4 for 30, and then hit a HR when the O's were down by 10 runs against the Mets. I'm not really trying to explain it away, but I would imagine he'd have had the same invisible results against a lot of decent teams (and the Padres) that Schoop has had with the Brewers.

I wouldn't have minded leaving him into the 4th or 5th it if there wasn't a very clear reason to pinch hit him in the top of the 4th. Down 4-2, 1st and 2nd, Cubs have just pitched around Pina to get to Guerra...that was our chance. Counsell just doesn't seem to have that feel on situations like this. I know Murphy the bench coach is his friend but what else does he bring to the table. It's like Counsell has nobody in his ear. I dunno, I think Counsell is generally fine at this. He just pulled Anderson at 82 pitches in a big hitting situation after 4 on Sunday. I think this one was, "woah, we're not that progressive yet" type fear of absolute bullpen ball. Pulling him at 43 pitches after 3 innings is either a playoff desperation move or something that only the Rays are willing to do right now. In 2-3 years it will probably be a normal move. And trust me, I was one that thinks he should've done it.

I wouldn't have minded leaving him into the 4th or 5th it if there wasn't a very clear reason to pinch hit him in the top of the 4th. Down 4-2, 1st and 2nd, Cubs have just pitched around Pina to get to Guerra...that was our chance.

Sogard, Saladino, Kratz.... Thanks haha...I didn't even go through an exercise of looking things up thinking "too many to remember" when two of the answers were literally a few weeks ago.

Who have the brewers called up mid season who mashed like this? I don't recall one. Dude looks legit to me. It's hard to remember, I'm sure we have plenty but Sogard most recently. The question is whether his PCL numbers (where hitters generally put up inflated numbers) are legit. If you don't trust them, he's a .240/.310 hitter with 15 HR. If you trust that he's turned a career corner, he's a .270/.340 type with 20-25 HR. Average/bad hitters do this sort of stuff way more than you think. 3 weeks to a month is not a good enough window to judge a player.

The "rash judgments on a small sample of games" posts are running like a wildfire on this thread. Thames, Bote, the Cards...we have it all.

18th round pick. He's a nice MLB utility player that will probably be a .260/.320 15-20 HR utility player type. Most teams have guys like this in their system, this guy just happens to have had the luckiest stretch of his career in his first month. Let's not get carried away with "mash."

Today?? All season it has been poor. Winning is great camouflage. Today is true. All season he's fine on the whole. Not perfect but I feel like a baseball team could go 161-1 and people would still hate their manager. He generally plays leverage/switches pretty well.

If there was ever a an example for someone to use an invention freezes time and live in a moment forever, it's Bote. He probably is a nice utility player with power but it's guaranteed to go downhill for him soon.

Aguilar had a bad few weeks and carried us last week. Braun had a bad few months and has recently been carrying us. Play your best players in the best matchups (which they are generally doing) and it'll all work out. Everyone's going to have ups and downs.

I can't find the specific article anymore, but it argued that the team trading the superstar away almost always loses. For recent examples just think Sale (yes, the book is not done on Moncada/Kopech), Miggy from the Marlins, etc. The team acquiring the superstar generally wins massively in value. Now, that said, I'm not sure how much it factored in the ability for said team to tank. Even if Moncada and Kopech end up being just decent MLB starters, the White Sox tanked, drafted, saved money, rebuilt, etc. and Moncada/Kopech bolstered what they had so one could argue that. The issue is that it's nearly impossible to find a trade for Trout. You have to find a team that's in the mix to "go for it" that has several top prospects in baseball and feels like trading them. That's generally 1 or 2 teams every year. I'd say it's much more likely to overpay to try to build around the best player in baseball and luck into the playoffs/win it all than it is to find a team willing to offer you close to what the value should be on someone like Trout. 4 controllable years of Trout for instance a few years ago as you suggested they may regret would cost, what...something like Hiura, Burnes, Hader, Yelich, Arcia in theory? Maybe a little less? I don't know, really.

Might be a bit of a small sample thing or yeah, maybe the curve isn't right right now. The Brewers have reinvented several pitchers by cutting their fastball rates way down (Miley, Jeffress) so I feel like Soria will fall in line there.

Well, it's not really a crew of humans making decisions based off of analytics. It's just a system/model and it spits out the results with basically no human intervention. Losing several games against easier competition lowers your chances because it inherently hurts your probability of getting to the amount of games required to make the playoffs or win the division (say 93 or 94 in this case).

I'm guessing other GMs also know this. I know that some relievers have gone for a king's ransom in recent years, but a lot of GMs may have been pretty cautious on Knebel's 2017 season given the fire he played with a lot.

Amen. I can understand the “he didn’t have it, make an earlier call” or maybe being made that Hader likely wasn’t available, but the point does remain that Jeffress was used in a more important spot. Maybe they should’ve let him finish it, I don’t know. Then you burn him for game 1 with Atlanta, though.

He’d be the perfect “closer” instead of Knebel. I think most 1-run games lately, Counsell has found a way to use someone else to close the game. So if we just had Knebel with less volatility (exactly 1 run) it would’ve perfect for that role.

Ones that prefer using the superior pitchers in more important/higher leverage situations.

As noted by someone else, Jennings is good against lefties. vs. RHB: .306/.381/.514/.894 vs. LHB: .218/.263/.287/.551 His overall stats are skewed because our bullpen is so deep that Jennings has been left in for the wolves in some games that have gotten out of hand leaving Jennings to get lit up by righties in mop-up duty. Also, if this was game against a better team or if Hader was more rested it may have been him.

Let's take a picture when you post something positive. +1 15 games over .500 and still salty because he thinks every move they make is bad given it isn't tanking.

Agreed...especially when Moustakas started out @SF and against tough lefties @LAD while Phillips started @CWS. Schoop started @LAD and Villar got @Texas. It's like judging a marathon race after a mile and oh by the way we gave the other guy a 1000 ft head start.