HiAndTight

I think people are vastly understating how easy it will be to replace Middleton, especially with a bunch of relatively unproven players. We're talking about replacing Middleton with a bunch of guys who are 3-4 inches shorter than him and not nearly as long. As for his pace of play, he's fine in the open court, but he is better in the half court relatively speaking. Where did the Bucks struggle the most? There's also Middleton's versatility. Just having other guys who play on the wing doesn't mean they're capable of doing it at the level of Giannis. And speaking of Giannis, do you really think he's all that interested in the repeater tax? The impact will certainly be of consequence to him when it comes up in 4 years, but it's likely very low on his list of priorities now. Two future 1sts no longer available to us, and the Bucks having to convince Giannis to sign with us next off-season, counting pennies with your only other all-star is just not a smart way to play it. This is why I don't think Hill's back. I like the 5 pct ideology, but IMO, you've got a 5 pct chance to win a title as long as Giannis is on your team. So you have to balance one year vs the next 4-5. In that scenario, you hope Wilson can take over for Mirotic and he is let go, you try to sign Lopez, but if he's not willing, there are other less effective bigs you can target for less money. Some of whom probably won't be the liability that Lopez was in the playoffs. And then you use the MLE on what hopefully will be either Hill or an upgrade to Hill(again, Beverly would fit that bill here). Bring back Middleton, Brogdon, draft Porter is he's available at pick 30 and hope he can get a little tougher and improve his defense, but he's already a very good passer and can shoot the 3 according to scouting reports. After that, the Bucks will likely be a favorite for many players who get bought out during the year as long as they remain competitive, so the team they have going into camp wont' be the team they finish the season with, so you can make some adjustments and tweaks there. But I just don't see where you're going to be able to find a long, 6'8 SF who can shoot, score and pass(Middleton's passing is very underrated) and defend like he can. Certainly not among the collection of guys we have. The Bucks were outstanding this year with Middleton, Brogdon and Giannis on the court together. At 27, 26 and 24, there's no reason to think that won't continue and actually improve as Giannis improves the parts of his game that are lagging a bit behind. And there are teams that I believe will offer Middleton the max. The Kings would be in a perfect place to do it as they already have an incredible young core that would benefit from a guy like Middleton. I don't really think you have much of a choice. It's either keep Middleton or risk not only taking a BIG step back this year, but next year in the playoffs and allow the questions to start creeping into Giannis' mind about the future of the team.

Calvert Hall baseball star Jose Torres taken by the Milwaukee Brewers in MLB draft Glenn Graham, Baltimore Sun "Torres said he has a dollar figure set that will determine whether he signs a contract with the Brewers or goes off to North Carolina State." Quotes within... Is this one of those long shot prep picks? I mean, it sounds like it, but I don't know if that's based on his own level of confidence or the scouting communities.

I think we need to maybe pump the brakes a bit on this. While Grisham is coming on, all five guys currently have a number of questions marks around them. To me, we shouldn't be looking to replace a Brewer legend and lineup mainstay for 13+ years with questions marks. Question marks tend to be adequate placeholders, at best. With that said, time will tell. Stay tuned. Agreed. Far more likely that we trade or sign someone to take over for Braun than one of these guys does given all the information available ATM. Or perhaps Gamel simply slides into the lineup. Or Braun continues to hit well, but play a limited number of games and he re-signs with the Brewers. Lots of things up in the air(don't really think the last one will happen, but it does seem more likely now than it did last year).

He's still in Appleton...he's older for that league and he was drafted last year. So don't you think you're just slightly overstating the case here a bit? I'll answer the question. Starter, starter, starter(Unless we need one to make a big trade). They'll all start since having a number of catching options is good...but I wouldn't possibly be able to predict if the oldest guy playing at the lowest level is going to be the eventual starter or not. We've seen guys like Angel Salome who drew Ivan Rodriquez comps fall away for "lesser" prospects in guys like Lucroy. Lets just see how they develop.

We're talking about two guys who've got hundreds of regular season games(~1050 for Moose and 550 for Shaw). Why are we talking about minor leagues? That's got nothing to do with anything. Also, why are we breaking down Mouse to JUST his home OPS? If he was .835 at home and .737 overall, then he was boardline unplayable on the road, right? I haven't looked that deep because when you're talking about the sample size these two have, I don't think it's that important to break it down further than just the bottom lines(ie, home, road splits, minors). They've both got suffecient histories to form opinions. Shaw's been the more productive offensive player in the shorter time. You want to mention mitigating factors, that's fare. But it's also worth pointing out that Shaw has two 4 WAR seasons(the last two), Mouse has just one back in 2015. I hope he has a second this year, but the point is, Shaw's still had a pretty impressive run. And it certainly seems like he DOES have as long of a leash as some are assuming(though unless you're CC or DS it would be impossible to try to state factually one way or the other how long of a leash a player has). I will say, I'm impressed by Mouse this year. And especially since he looks like he's carrying an extra 6-10 pounds

Absolutely agree with you on Moose. He's having a career year, but we're talking about a guy who's been a .251/.307/.431 hitter with a .737 OPS for his career. It'd be great if he could keep doing this, but I think things level out for both of them. And one of them we control for the next 3 years, the other is a FA after this year.

He's got a pretty sweet swing and bat speed. I don't know, called it skilled and hard working if you want, but back to back 4 WAR seasons =very productive. And he was extremely productive for the Red Sox before they gave up on him too early and have lamented the move ever sense. So it'd be foolish for the Brewers to do the very same thing after he's been so productive. But, I guess the adjective is up to you. I think he's that talented.

I'm not talking about him being wild with his breaking stuff, I'm talking about just the way the pitches moved. Hist fastball used to have that late movement...I just didn't know what they meant by his fastball has different movement and it's affecting his breaking stuff when I heard it. It was hard not to see the difference from watching it. This could go down as one of the saddest-non career-ending injuries I've seen. The guy was on the precipice of becoming a perennial all-star, an ace, the first we'd developed since Sheets and he gets hurt sliding back into first...and it's right when the one thing the Brewers are lacking in their window to compete is a big ace who can throw 200 IP a season and start the big games. Sure hoping he can continue to strengthen that shoulder and keep getting better.

He did qualify it by subtracting taxes(though less than they would likely be). There's also a reserve fund(I'd imagine) that they have going. Anyway, the Brewers didn't think Kimbrel or Kuechel were worth what they wanted. That's what it comes down to. I would disagree if Kimbrel was one year...even if it was 1 year 13 million, but not the next two years. I've been in the minority in not believing that Kuechel would be a huge addition to this club. I like our staff for the most part. We need a couple impact relievers at the trade deadline and we'll see what happens to Aggie and Shaw in the meantime and how Hiura performs when he invitably gets called back up, but we're sitting in 1st place on June 9th and we've spent on elite FA's the last few years. Really hard to be upset about the way the Brewers are doing things. Oh, and one more thing. This idea that we can just slash payroll, thereby ensuring the owners make money in the years that they're not competitive, that's a great idea in principle. But the Brewers have spent big chunks of money each year they weren't competitive to build minor league systems, they improved Miller Park...things of that nature. Also, if you were an investor, would you really want to go 3-5 years without any income?

Sorry, you just can't run a small market ballclub like that. We can't try to compete with the Cubs and Dodgers on their turf. We don't have the financial resources they do, and the Dodgers have the farm system to blow any trade offer we make out of the water. That doesn't mean we can't make smart, calculated, aggressive moves to try to improve our weaknesses -- and recent history indicates we will. But we can't try to play the one-up game with the Dodgers and Cubs. Won't work, and the end result will likely be a return to the 2012-16 seasons. We don't need to beat out the Cubs and Dodgers. We just need to be better than them for a short time in October. We can try to improve our weaknesses. We can give ourselves a chance to beat them in the playoffs. But trying to go toe to toe with them over 162 games is a fool's errand. Great post. And by doing just what you said, not trying to constantly one up teams like the Cubs and Dodgers, we're in a position year after year to be competitive. We have an owner who's already stretched the payroll, who'll add more payroll. But we're not going to be able to match them. The one area I would like to see us do better in is developing from within. The Dodgers are just ridiculous at it. We haven't had a talent like Walker Buehler develop and come through our system in decades and the Dodgers have him right after they had Kershaw and on the mound and when they have guys like Bellinger, Seager and others in their lineup. But we just have to put ourselves in a position to be competitive. If we're able to do that year in and year out, as the Cardinals have, we'll hopefully be able to break through at some point. Plus, again, even if we matched the Dodgers and Cubs on paper, the NL is still playing second fiddle to a couple far more talented AL teams.

It was just one start so you obviously can't read too much into it, but looked much-much different. Just didn't get the fastball movement, he wasn't getting that run...I have to admit, I was hopeful, but this was a little discouraging.

Well liked > YES, zero doubt. But secretly, players breathe a sigh of relief to not be around someone struggling THAT MUCH for as long as he has, has to be uncomfortable, what do you say to him? I don't know, how are your friends dealing with your message board struggles? But seriously, they just talk to him. He hasn't become a leper. I don't think his struggles are making other players not want to be around him because it's uncomfortable.

Nope. You have to be reading the standings wrong...or you just aren't paying attention. Our season ended today. No possible way after the schedule we had to start that we could be tied for 1st with the Cubs.

Stearns & co OBVIOUSLY not anything close to bumbling idiots, that was hyperbole to its ultimate. IF IF IF IF the breakeven payroll this year is 155 million. And next year 170 and the year after 175. But back to this year > IF it’s 155, what’s wrong with a 150 million payroll? Answere that question please, anyone? Why do you demand answers but refuse to actually answer questions asked of you?

I tihnk we generally do agree. But I'm not comparing him to Jeffress at all. I don't think Jeffress was ever THAT good and he had one absurdly good year. Kimbrel has had 6 or 7 as good seasons and when he's struggled, he's still been great. And I really do think it was just a few weeks. Like I said, Sept he had one bad outing and was dominant in the rest. Now you've got 1/3 of an inning where you gave up 4 Earned and 9 other innings in which you were dominant. He could regress this year though just for the simple fact that it's June 6th and he hasn't been a part of a big league club yet. So in that regard, he is especially risky for the Brewers. We don't need him, and there's always a risk with a guy who starts the year this late.

Ok, I gotta ask, why is it you DO NOT want two legitimate aces, but you're soooo incredibly upset about not signing Kimbrel?? You have shown you give almost zero regard to the future of the Brewers, either fiscally or with with regard to our farm system, just that they win now so that Uecker and Selig get to see them win(which didn't really work out for the Tigers,but lets ignore that). Why yes to Kimbrel, no to Scherzer and Greinke? Kimbrel > no prospects given up, 8 inning game for the next 425 games not including playoffs. Scherzer > prospect capital too high, regression candidate next 2 years. Greinke > too much money, big time regression candidate. Soft heart for the man that created the brewers mlb franchise, the true biggest of all crew fans, paced thousands of miles sweating out brewer victories, and why is Ueck still talking brewer baseball? I can’t be the only one that wants to hear Ueck call the last out of the series victory. I have stated multiple times the following: When the team is potentially championship caliber > up payroll to break even or beyond. When team is competitive > make a fair profit. When team is rebuilding > cut payroll to nothing and make massive profit, but putting away $ for the large payroll year. That’s how we win a championship. The first scenario, with a payroll of 150 160 170 180 million. Ok, Scherzer, who's pretty much been following in Verlander's path is a candidate for regression and Kimbrel's not. Greinke who's redeveloped his game and is still one of the best pitching without the velocity, also a candidate for regression, Kimbrel not. Greinke....too much money. Really? But you JUST shows your fool proof way to spend the Brewers to a title for Selig and Uecker! There's no such thing as too much money! You've watched them for 50 years! Ucker and Selig are older! Money? Pfft....c'mon, if you're going to go with an all in now narrative that you've preached, you can't turn around with a straight face and say getting an ace that would likely cost very little in prospects is "too much money." I mean, everyone else pretty much can because it is too much money, but that hasn't been a concern for you in...well, really any post yet. So why not suddenly?

Yeah, all that shows me is a guy wasn't great for a couple weeks out of cherry picking stats to support a narrative. He was dominant in Sept except for 1/3 of an inning in which he gave up 4 Earned. 9 IP, 15K's 0 ER's the rest of the outings. You take a guys worst stretch and you can alter the realities of a lot of different players. There is very little actual evidence to support that Kimbrel's anything but a dominant reliever. And we have no idea why teams passed on him other than what they've said(or done in the past). The Braves are a notoriously cheap franchise. The Red Sox were not going to pay the luxury tax again(something you can sell to your fan base a bit more easily if you're the defending champs and you plan on going over it again in the near future). Oh, and he was originally asking for over 100 million dollars. That'd seem like a more likely reason a given team passed on him. I don't believe teams were passing on Kimbrel at 3/43. Using this logic, why did so many teams pass on Grandal? We got him cheap. Like I said, Kimbrel being great and it not being in the best interest for the Brewers to sign him can BOTH be true. Either way, stomping your feet....especially if said feet have been around and were adults during the late 70's/80's because we DIDN'T sign yet another high priced FA seems foolish to me.

Ok, I gotta ask, why is it you DO NOT want two legitimate aces, but you're soooo incredibly upset about not signing Kimbrel?? You have shown you give almost zero regard to the future of the Brewers, either fiscally or with with regard to our farm system, just that they win now so that Uecker and Selig get to see them win(which didn't really work out for the Tigers,but lets ignore that). Why yes to Kimbrel, no to Scherzer and Greinke?

That may have been something... As I said, if I'm the Cubs, I don't mind punting a rough 2019 IF Kimbrel returns to his prior form in 2020 and 2021. If Kimbrel doesn't... Thinking it over more... while good Kimbrel is a huge plus if he is at his pre-2018 form, his contract becomes an albatross if he is struggling. The Crew could do better with young guns called up, even if they don't reach Kimbrel's ceiling. He was also pretty dominant in 2018. Whip under 1.00, BAA of .146, FIP of 3.13, 13.9 Ks per 9 IP. If you just get his 2018 season and not the all-time great pre-2018 stats, you're still getting a great reliever. So this really hurts to see the Cubs get him. It would have hurt to see the Braves or Phillies get him as well. And this would have allowed to use Hader much more effectively IMO, it would have had a big ripple for the whole pen. There's another side to this though that people aren't considering. Do we have any idea what the Brewers actually DID offer? We're just assuming that because the Cubs signed him for this much money that he would have signed with the Brewers. Chicago objectively is a more desirable destination than Milwaukee. Not for me personally, but for big time FA's, not hard to imagine he would pick the Cubs over the Brewers. Either way, this would have been great this year, but costly in the future as everyone has pointed out. The BP issues as this year. Next year we should have Wahl and Knebel coming back and who knows who else will emerge. Houser, Webb, it's really not even worth guessing. We've got a lot of good young arms. Even Snell could be a guy contributing by the end of next year. The Brewers aren't "pinching pennies" for profit as some want to suggest, they're spending their pennies(though I find it comical we're talking about 45 million dollars as pennies) where they can to sustain success. AS someone who wanted Kimbrel, I don't really see how you can get upset over that.

Boston couldn’t bring him back, 45 million contact would have cost them extra 23 million, because of the tax, the reports are saying his workouts in front of scouts and executives were “electric “ Good closers are very desirable so if he was "electric" why was he unsigned so long? I guess time will tell. I really don't get the point to this type of argument. Are we honestly trying to say that Craig Kimbrel just isn't that good? That the Brewers didn't want to use up all their remaining resources on Kimbrel is a perfectly valid reason for not signing him. That Kimbrel isn't that good...it seems kinda out of touch with his entire career up to this point. We didn't sign Patrick Corbin....was that because he just that good or because we just simply can't afford it? This is ALMOST as bad as "I've been watching the Brewers for X number of years and they owe me," argument. Kimbrel can be great and the Brewers can have decided to not sign him for other viable reasons. The two aren't mutually exclusive.

what about the year where we were ultra aggressive and took a bunch of high profile HS kids, but none signed. Was that 2011 with Rodon? Yes, 2011 with Rondon. Same year they took Jungman and Bradley. Didn't look to see where the other HS kids ended up going after Rondon was picked 3rd overall a few years after the Brewers took him in the 16th round, but I know at least one was picked in the 5th round.

FVV, Hart...but are there any out there this year? There's the PG from Purdue, Carsen Edwards. Didn't stand out in the couple games I saw parts of Purdue play. He can shoot the 3, but he looks like primarily a scorer. Just say Edwards on a list now and he should be available around our pick. I actually think he'd be a good gamble on, projects to me like a solid backup PG option. Tough to expect him to be a starter due to his height. And yes he is probably jmore scorer than PG, but frankly that's just how the PG is played now anyway. It's not the Bob Cousy position anymore to just distribute, you need guys who can create off ball screens and hit shots. His shooting is there and could see a very FVV like career for him. Similar size and everything. His teams have done nothing but win at Purdue so I wouldn't call him a chucker. Actually think he's a great fit here especially if they lose Hill. Edit-Double Post.

FVV, Hart...but are there any out there this year? There's the PG from Purdue, Carsen Edwards. Didn't stand out in the couple games I saw parts of Purdue play. He can shoot the 3, but he looks like primarily a scorer. Just say Edwards on a list now and he should be available around our pick. I actually think he'd be a good gamble on, projects to me like a solid backup PG option. Tough to expect him to be a starter due to his height. And yes he is probably jmore scorer than PG, but frankly that's just how the PG is played now anyway. It's not the Bob Cousy position anymore to just distribute, you need guys who can create off ball screens and hit shots. His shooting is there and could see a very FVV like career for him. Similar size and everything. His teams have done nothing but win at Purdue so I wouldn't call him a chucker. Actually think he's a great fit here especially if they lose Hill. It's not played that way as much anymore because there are few guys who are good at it. But that's still definitely the preference. Guys like Kidd and Nash early in their careers, before they could shoot(or Ball right now) are still in demand. But with the more positionless Basketball being played, I agree, we don't need a PG per say who can run the offense and move the ball, but we need better passing in the half court as a team. That was one of Horsts priorities going into the draft. You just look at Houston, watching one of the greatest Point Guards going to waste, even in his mid 30's...and I'm not even saying they should change all that much, it's just Paul is such an awful fit for them and a perfect fit for us, it's too bad he's making 40 million a year, or I'd take Houston up on their offer to make anyone on that roster available.

I thought that you lost a players Bird rights if you did either, but I hope I'm wrong. Just logically speaking, it wouldn't really make sense to retain a players Bird rights if you waive that player. I do have a little bit of confidence that Middleton will stick around based on the way he was talking about the future in Milwaukee, how "we'll" be back here and the like. The standard we've used in the past with regard to how we value guys is kinda thrown out the window this off-season. A 7th seed doesn't give serious consideration to giving Middleton 30+ million a year or bringing Hill back. I just hope Horst has a clear understanding of roughly what these guys want and how eager they are to come back. This is also probably the sport that has the strongest case for paying players based on playoff performance. A guy has a bad series in MLB, you kinda throw that out and go off the whole body of work, NFL, it's one game. Post-season in the NBA, you find out a lot about the players. Hill was pretty bad last year in the playoffs, but aside from that, he's been a better post-season player than regular season player. Going back a year, people would have Mirotic a priority to re-sign after his post-season, now, I doubt most Bucks fans care or they'd be upset with giving him 4/48. These are great little profiles or write up's on these guys.

I'd argue they should have signed Giannis to a max the first time around and made it a 5 year deal. It may end up working out better for both sides, but when you have a superstar like Giannis, you don't make the mistake the Wolves did with Love. I'm not a fan of asking a guy like that to take a little less to keep talent around him. Particularly on his first deal. I REALLY hope they don't even think about trying to give him less than the Supermax next year unless he's firmly on board with it well in advance. Some of those moves they made...they look worse in retrospect than they did at the time. I was never a fan of the Vasquez trade, but if he doesn't get hurt, he's a pretty solid backup PG. The deals they signed when the cap went through the roof, those are the types of deals that were made across the league. With regards to Parker, that hurts the most. Hitting an HR on Giannis and then getting the #2 pick should have provided the core for this team. Instead, we got a very talented scorer who tore his knee up twice, never got going and now seems to be a pretty irrelevant player. I can't blame them for Thon either because that type of risk is the type of risk that netted us Giannis. But getting every single one wrong and not getting any luck just backed us into a corner. I think Horst has done an amazing job at fixing some of those bad deals by dumping salary though. I'd imagine a great deal fo the trepidation also comes from the fact that the last time the Bucks were in this position, they let a coach with an enormous ego blow the team up so he could get a guy well past his prime to come to Milwaukee even though he didn't want to. This time...we've got Giannis. As long as Giannis is saying he wants to stay in Milwaukee, I'm going to feel pretty confident.