CheezWizHed

I hadn't heard anything about Patrick's nerves... something from one of his interviews?

Patrick and Drohan and now Drohan and Patrick? I'm glad Shane is getting a chance. He really seemed to be impacted by the Brewer's pitching clinic and getting his stuff aligned. Good to see if he can be a #3/4 SP.

They have a lot of resources, so I'd be for that... Granted, when the Bucks are out of contention, I don't mind cheering for San Antonio... Kind of funny how their history of superstars are all centers.

Yes, I agree with Jim. I'm sure Gasser, Crowe, and Henderson wish they could remain on the 25-man roster like Woodford... but I'm sure those three prefer their long-term role over Woodford's (i.e., being an expendable arm)

And a 2 month DL stint...

Yeah, I wasn't saying there would be two teams in one city. There is plenty of precedent that when a city gets an MLB franchise, the AAA team normally moves. The Twins and St. Paul Saints are unique, though. The Saints were pretty well established as an Indy league team when the Twins turned them into the AAA affiliate. They had enough popularity to manage both.

Yeah, I don't mean that the intensity or focus of the playoffs is the same as 6 games mid-season. But if you compare the health and availability of players on both teams during those two times, and you will find a big difference. They walked into the playoffs healthy and in a good state. Woodruff was shelved. Priester was fighting his wrist (ultimately TOS) issues, Contreras hit a wall with his broken finger and playing nearly every game that season. It was a pretty big swing for both teams.

Why wouldn't another city get the minor league franchise? We used to have Denver as our AAA affiliate, but then the Rockies were awarded, our AAA moved to another city.

I find the Brewer's approach to not exactly be this; and yet, be brilliant at the same time. They tend to take a player a bit lower in the consensus rating and sign him for less than the slot. Then find a tough sign later on that they can "steal" at a lower draft pick level. Almost like trading down in the NFL. We (the fans) tend to think that the player drafted at #19 must clearly be better than the player drafted at #20; and #20 is clearly better than #21, etc... But that is never fully the case. So if you have buckets of players (players with similar talent) and try to get multiple players from that bucket, you get two options to get good players instead of one good option and one weaker option (from a lower tier bucket). Intuitively, it would seem like your 1st round pick (taking someone lower on the consensus board) would result in more busts. But the Brewers seem to manage great 1st round picks despite doing this (remember how bad the Brewers used to draft when in the top 10 yearly??). It's like they are playing 3D chess! First round picks signed as underslot: Andrew Fischer (signed 5 picks at round 11+) Braylon Payne (signed 5 picks at round 12+ including Tyson Hardin) Brock Wilken (allowing us to sign Cooper Pratt) Eric Brown (allowing us to sign Jacob Misiorowski) Sal Frelick (actually overslot signing). Eric looks like a bust. Brock will get a cup of coffee at the MLB level at least due to his power, but I'd say low probability to stick. Sal made it. Payne and Andrew are tearing it up and look every bit like good MLB players. Plus you snag pseudo first round picks in Pratt and Miz. Hardin looks like another great find. Yet, it seemed like there is always plenty of complaints (at least Braylon, Brock, and Eric) about the first round pick despite a pretty high hit rate.

Saying the Dodgers have more talent is fair. Saying 3-4x is way over the top. We just played a toe-to-toe series while throwing out our #4, #5, and #6 SPs at them. Yes, last year's sweep still stings, but they were also healthy and we were not. The reverse happened mid-season (maybe that was the Dodger's plan?) and we swept them. Is there a gap? Yes. But it isn't as big as people think.

Nolan Ryan was just a special dude. He pitched 26 consecutive years (plus one brief cup of coffee when he was 19 years old) in an era where pitchers were out there for 200-300 innings. At 44 years old, he put up 5.2 WAR and was still exceeding 100MPH on the radar gun. In 1973, he had 383 Ks in 326 IP (a modern-day K/season record). He had one season at 89 IP; after that his lowest was 131 IP. In his 26 full seasons, he averaged 207 IP per season. Like you said, pitchers have a higher K/IP rate these days, but could you imagine someone putting in 300 IP in a season today? Or Ryan pitching "only" 6 innings/game? I was never a specific fan of the guy, but you have to marvel at what he was able to do over such a long period of time.

The thing to remember with the Ryan/Johnson era of radar guns is that they changed where they measure the pitch velocity in 2017. Ryan's FBs were measured near the plate while Miz's FBs are measured closer to the mound. That gives modern FBs a +2 or 3 MPH to the previous era. I would guess Ryan throwing today in his prime would be neck and neck with Miz.

But how will Chris Carpenter explain this to his son???

I stopped watching ESPN years ago... but I can't believe they just showed 3 people who report on sports for a living Googling if Murphy won the NL Manager of the Year award the last 2 years on a row. Embarrassing.

Matt Wise says, "Salad is dangerous!"