HiAndTight

I think they should do something. But I also think it's just as likely something will be done TO them that will force their decision(which is why you want starting pitching depth to begin with). Lets say someone goes down with an injury, you bring up Nelson and your left with just Fiers as your pitching depth. And "just," is no knock on Fiers, I simply mean you only have one guy you can reasonably count on to pitch effectively. Given the history and age of this staff, it was a overwhelmingly good bet you were going to need a 6th and likely 7th, even an 8th starting pitcher at some point in this year. And we're only a third of the way through the season. I also agree that Nelson is being "wasted," in some respect down in AAA, but he's also down there refining his changeup, the pitch that could help him become a legit #2 starting pitcher in the big leagues. That's a luxury most pitchers of Nelson's caliber don't often get. Either way, I really like Garza, I think he's a much better pitcher than his numbers thus far indicate, and I think we're going to be happy we signed him provided he's reasonably healthy over the next 4 years. I don't think his signing has caused us any problems and I don't think it stopped them from signing anyone else they were really interested in because they signed him later on, and they were still aggressive in trying to sign Abreu in the 6/60 type range.

Re: The old adage "you can never have too much pitching" I'm sure the people of Huntsville loved having Taylor Jungmann back to start the season, and the people of Nashville love watching a rotation that is better than the Brewers have trotted out for much of their existence. However, the Brewers are position-player thin throughout the organization, while their pitchers sit in the minors through their mid-20's, and if they ever get their chance it will be in a bullpen role or because of injury, as we have our entire MLB rotation under contract through at least next season. That's probably "too much pitching." To point, happy 25th birthday Jimmy Nelson, born 6/5/1989. Hopefully when you celebrate your 27th birthday, it will be as a Brewer when they finally figure out their logjam. That you're probably better than at least half the pitchers toeing the mound at the MLB level doesn't matter, because you can "never have too much pitching." Jungmann will turn 25 in December. Fiers turns 29 in 10 days. Mills is already 29, and apparently we'll lose him soon if he isn't called up. Pena is 25. Blazek is 25. Hellweg will be 26 in October. Burgos will be 27 in August. At the AA level, Suter will be 25 in August. Gagnon turns 24 this month. Cravy turns 25 next month. Hall turns 24 this month. Barnes is 24. Moye will be 27 in September. Single A Brevard? Wagner is 23. Johnson is 23. Magnifico is 23. Bradley turns 24 next week. At least Lopez is only 21. That's our minor league starting pitching. Granted most will never make the majors, but good God, our AA squad is probably older than some MLB staffs. Meanwhile, we're so thin with position players that we've watched Overbay and Reynolds play nearly everyday at the MLB level with retreads like Bianchi, Falu and Herrera getting too many PAs off the bench. Edit: The headline on milwaukeebrewers.com is "Pitching pool catches Crew's eye entering draft." Where the heck are we going to put them? Rookie ball for the next few seasons? There is only ONE pitcher in that entire group though that has forced the issue and he just turned 25 years old and will almost certainly be up this year and starting next year. Again, I hate guaranteeing things in such a volatile game, but I can pretty much gurantee that if Nelson continues pitching well, there is no worry he's going to be pitching in AAA at the age of 27. Plus, while many of the pitchers you're mentioning are pitching well, not one of them has really been "held back." Nelson has the unfortunate bad luck of pitching in a system that has a very solid big league rotation in front of him, but this is the same guy who sported a BB/9 of 5.4 last year in AAA. I could go down the list with nearly every one of these guys. Jungman hasn't kicked down any doors, nor has Bradley to this point. Pena-25 years old, but his command is SO incredibly erratic, what are we supposed to do? Hellweg, command has been equally poor, but he's also gone under the knife now for TJ. Mills-He was a minor league free agent. Fiers is 28 and was given a shot a couple of years ago and didn't seize it. I like a lot of these guys, I really do. But we're not talking about a group of elite, dominant young starting pitchers who haven't gotten the promotions they deserve over the last couple years forcing them to toil away in obscurity down in the minors. And I'm not sure what solution you could offer to this would be? Should we have a age deadline in which we have to call a guy up by or move them to another organization? Obviously this isn't what you're suggesting. And finally, I believe the comment about the lack of position players is a false equivalency. We're not lacking young talented position players BECAUSE we've got these pitchers who have created this logjam, we're lacking young talented position players because the position players haven't played as well as the pitchers. You have two guys on this list who are 1st round picks and both have had ample reasons to be held back(yet neither have really moved that slowly). So you could argue we should have drafted position players I supposed, but at the time pitching was a big need. But who among these pitchers that you've mentioned are highly regarded enough to bring back the position players we need? Nelson is likely untouchable, and you'd have to get a really nice offer to trade Fiers at this point. But Mills, Bradley, Jungman, all these guys just aren't the type of pitchers you target. They're the type of pitchers you keep in your system and hope they develop.

It's obviously a unique situation. As has been pointed out, there isn't much room for Estrada in the pen, and I don't personally believe that Estrada has much trade value. Maybe if you made a mutually beneficial trade with another contender you could pick up a decent utility IF'er who could be a substantial upgrade over what we have. Normally, I think you'd be alright with Estrada, even with his warts. His HR's and the fact that because he relies on command, when he misses his spot, he often gets hit hard as evident by his big HR rate. But when you have a guy like Nelson who by all appearances is ready and ready right now and someone I believe could come in and not only equal Estrada's performance, but just MAYBE be a guy who can give a team that's already in first place a boost, I think you really have to try and get him into the rotation. I'm not saying Nelson is going to come in and be a Wacha like pitcher....but he at least has the talent to be a difference maker in big games down the stretch. He has the big velocity and throws a heavy ball racking up the ground balls, he seems to have solved any control/command issues he has. It looks like his slider has turned into a plus pitch. The only concern from his limited MLB time is that he is primarily a two pitch pitcher(three pitches if you count a 2 and 4 seamer that moves a lot). Frankly, as mentioned above, I'd prefer to trade Gallardo as I think his value would be SO much higher just because his track record is much stronger, but I think it's unlikely. So to answer your question, I would like to see Nelson in the starting rotation by start of July, but I'm guessing it's going to take Estrada struggling a bit more than he has in order for him to lose his spot in the rotation. He hasn't pitched well, but he also hasn't pitched poorly enough that as an organization I think they're going to pull the plug on him yet. I don't believe they're "painted into a corner," however. They've simply got a good big league rotation and a couple of pitchers pitching REALLY well in AAA who might force a very serviceable starter out of the rotation. If that's being painted in to a corner, that's a corner I really would have liked to have seen the Brewers in for the past several years.

I think the K's per 9 are the main reason for concern and the belief that Yo's sliding a bit. His HR rate is also up and his BABIP is down. Yo's going to have to keep getting ground balls and hopefully his HR rate will return to normal to make up for the decreased strikeout rate.

He has one sac fly. Hence the lower OBP.

The Brewers have finally developed a pretty good group of young pitchers and are on the cusp of having a respectable farm system again...particularly if our young players continue to develop as they have so far this year. I understand where you're coming from as it's going to be very difficult to beat a team with pitchers like Kershaw and Greinke in the first two games, but I'd rather go with Lohse, Garza, Peralta and Gallardo than give up a big package for a rental, even one as good as Price.

At 180 innings pitching how he pitched last year maybe he would have been a 2.2 WAR player....but he didn't pitch 180 innings and never has. This year he's got a 5.45 FIP and has a negative WAR(-.4). So if you want to extrapolate his WAR out last year, then this year he's on pace to be worth roughly -1 WAR. But I guess it's a fundamental difference of opinion. I appreciate what he's done for the team given his limited ability, but he's gotten worse the last 3 years. And if you're another team looking at Estrada in the off-season(in season his value is higher) how much are you willing to pay for a guy with his track record even without having to give up a prospect in return?

First of all, since when has it become a problem to worry about having too many starting pitchers? Man, we signed one of the top FA pitchers on the market and we've had the good fortune to have our young pitchers continue to develop and pitch very well. This is hardly a problem, this is an enormous luxury, especially given the rotations we've had in the past. As for using that money to upgrade 1st base or other positions, we tried. We offered Abreu a 6 year 60 million dollar deal and the Brewers have said they have the money to add players if they're competitive. So I don't think the Garza signing has hurt us. Garza still has really good stuff, and has been a bit unlucky this year.

This is the correct answer. If someone is starting Randy Wolf, how can a min.wage guy like Mills not get a shot? For Nashville, he is averaging more than a strikeout per inning and doesn't have much of a lefty/righty split. You have to question how many innings he has in the tank as a starter this year, its been since 2011 since he pitched a lot. It sure would be nice to have Mills as an insurance policy, if we end up packaging Fiers in a deal to someone - then you have more than Nelson in reserve. Mills getting a "shot," with another major league team and Mills providing something valuable in a trade are two entirely different things. I wouldn't be surprised if he does get a shot given his early season production. I also think just dismissing what he's done thus far(ie, teams aren't going to be "fooled," by 60 innings) discounts how good he's been and the fact that not every player develops on our timetable. Especially left handers. He's not 35. He just turned 29 years old. These are his prime years. So I wouldn't be surprised to see him on a 25 man roster this year and to pitch reasonably well. But I doubt you're getting anybody who's more than a fringe type prospect.

Weeks is 2 for 22 with 10 K's since he peaked at .365 on May 15. I wouldn't get too carried away by his 3 week hot spell earlier. He's probably still no better than a .230/.310/.400 high strike out hitter when all is said and done. Weeks is now 4-6 with 5 runs and a walk since you posted this on May 28th. I don't know that using one small sample to say that another small sample is invalid makes a lot of sense. Weeks has been playing very well this year. He's also hit some rockets even during that 2-22 stretch that were right at players in the 4 starts he got over those 22 at bats(and he also has a very high BABIP) I have no idea what he's going to be when all is said and done, but right now, he's playing very well. For a team like the Brewers to get to the playoffs, they're going to need some unexpected contributions. I'm hopeful that Weeks has one of those types of years this season.

Like the general disdain for managers, I think this is dead on. If you have a good player, seldom are you going to just get rid of him unless he's nearing Free Agency and you have no chance to keep him. Very few teams operate the way some on here would like, ie, trading Gallardo before last season when his value was really high. That said, the shine has come off Gallardo a little bit. He never quite reached the ceiling I'd hoped for from him(a high end #2 starter) but he was a very good starting pitcher. I think he's sliding right now and I think in theory it'd be a fantastic move to trade him and slide Nelson right into that starting rotation. I believe Nelson is ready and I also believe that Garza is a better pitcher than his numbers show thus far. The problem, as Monty pointed out is that the "safe," move is holding onto your starting pitchers. If we trade Gallardo and Estrada struggles as he gets to 150-160 innings, and/or Garza gets hurt and as a result(or even if it's not as a result, but just the perception) Melvin would get killed. The truth is a shot at the playoffs is rare for the Brewers and because of that, I doubt they'll actually trade a starting pitcher. Even if it does make a lot of sense.

10 million dollars allows him to live a very comfortable life for both he and the rest of his family for the rest of his life. Accepting that money when, to date, he's made maybe 1 million dollars is really easy to pass up when you're a pitcher like Bud Norris and you've earned 10 million dollars throughout your career and will likely make another 5-10 million next year while Singleton has never been thought of as an elite prospect. Good luck to him, and if he has a good career, he'll be able to be a FA when he's 30 years old. I looked it up, and he did get a decent signing bonus back in 2009 as an 8th round pick ($200,000), but there's no way he's earned one million yet. Many non-40-man minor league players make below the poverty level, and even once you've been put on the 40-man the first-year minor league salary is just $40,000. I doubt he has earned more than $300,000 in his career so far (including his signing bonus). Players who flame out in their pre-arbitration years really get screwed. Players who never reach the majors are even worse off (at least in the majors you are on the $500,000 minimum yearly salary for a couple seasons). Pretty good money for playing a game, but considering these guys have played baseball their entire adult lives and have no tangible employment skills, <$300,000 is not exactly a nest egg you can live on once you get cut out of baseball and suddenly find yourself looking for a job. The MLBPA does not care about minor league players. You're right. I didn't even bother to look at what his signing bonus was, though I didn't think it would have been even 200K. I also absent mindlessly figured in this years minimum wage forgetting he had just been called up. But even if he had made a million already that doesn't change much for me. I don't know what type of background he came from, but you buy a house, a car and what do you have left? Turns out he was drafted as a 17 year old kid. It's not like you're real smart with your money at that age. I don't know enough about MLBPA and the minor leagues, but it's clear that Bud Norris doesn't care about Jon Singleton in particular here and shouldn't be sticking his nose in, nor should Mark Mulder(though I didn't see his comments, I just saw someone mention he also had a similar opinion). The kid, if he's smart, can have a family, send those kids to school, and just imagine the weight that is lifted off of you when you no longer have to worry about those things? Now hopefully he's smart and doesn't buy 5 Bentley's, but these guys should let Jon Singleton worry about how Jon Singleton earns a living.

10 million dollars allows him to live a very comfortable life for both he and the rest of his family for the rest of his life. Accepting that money when, to date, he's made maybe 1 million dollars is really easy to pass up when you're a pitcher like Bud Norris and you've earned 10 million dollars throughout your career and will likely make another 5-10 million next year while Singleton has never been thought of as an elite prospect. Good luck to him, and if he has a good career, he'll be able to be a FA when he's 30 years old.

I agree that I thought he was going to struggle because he was an older pitcher, but I also thought that even if he was good, the Brewers just weren't a good enough team for it to make a real difference. It was a good signing in retrospect. I was definitely wrong on this one. And like other signings, I think Mark A was the one who pushed this, so for the blame placed upon him for pushing Suppan and other signings like Gagne, I think he deserves a lot of credit for this one. Lohse has been great, the Brewers are contending this year, and if they did struggle or fall off, you could turn around and trade Lohse and easily make up that 1st round pick. He's also one of the very few guys who I believe has made a significant impact in the role of "experienced veteran," outside of just his impact on the field. He and Garza seem to have a pretty aggressive and contagious competitive spirit that rubs off on younger pitchers.

Gallardo--coming off an injury filled year that was mediocre at best (the secret is that he's been worse this year) Lohse--Just turned 35 Peralta--Coming off a poor season Estrada--Constant health concerns Thornburg--7 starts with an xFIP of 4.43 in 2013 at MLB , a fairly poor showing in AAA and questions about whether he has the body to start in MLB (seems to have started to tire right now) Nelson--Terribly wild in his first time in AAA in 2013 Hellweg--Had no control. Fiers--Huge questions about him being able to have his stuff work at the major league level over time. I would argue that Peralta was coming off a poor season given his age and how he improved, but if you look at the end of the last couple of years, we pitched really well down the stretch, particularly young pitchers and then those guys when counted on struggled. These were all extremely valid concerns at the time, Garza became available at a cheaper price than I think many anticipated and we signed him. I don't expect 800 innings over the next 4 years, but he did give us options. Nelson has continued to develop, Fiers has bounced back. Pitchers throughout the system are having success at their levels and are being brought along at a relatively slow pace. And for the record, there are still questions about how good Fiers will be at a big league pitcher, Peralta looks good, but it's still just May, Lohse didn't go Benjamin Button on us, Hellweg remained extremely wild before TJ, Gallardo is not the same pitcher he was, Estrada IMO isn't that good, and Thornburg....well, his body IS still a concern. Until he can prove he can stand up to the rigors of a 162 game schedule as a starting pitcher, those questions will remain.

I would guess it varies from pitcher to pitcher. If a pitcher drops to 86-87 which Estrada would do if he continues on the pace he's on, they often end up out of the league. Agreed. I think there is a good chance that Estrada isn't tendered this off-season. He's been a nice little piece to our staff, but I think we have better options and enough depth that he's just not really worth 5-6 million. I have no problem with signing Garza. Endaround is right. We weren't certain what we'd get from Nelson, Thornburg, Gallardo, there were a lot of question marks coming into this year that look pretty good so far this year, but we had no idea about going into this year. But Brewcrewdude, I think you just pointed out how Roenicke just can't win. He lets Garza stay in to try and get one more hitter. It doesn't work out so he left him in too long. He takes Garza out and he should have left him in there. Vs Baltimore he was at 115 pitches, but he was facing the #8 hitter, and he still had his velocity. He was throwing 94-95. And the thought was(IIRC) his spot was coming up next inning, so you have to burn up either two relievers, or take out a position player. He did end up having to double switch taking Maldy out of the game for Overbay, but I understand the logic. But aside from that, I agree. Garza still has an FIP under 4.00, he's throwing the ball fairly well, he's just struggling with the big inning and his command a bit. I thought coming into the year he was the best pitcher on the staff. I'm not going to completely change my mind this early. Though Lohse is again pitching very well.

If making that much now means you lose more later maybe it isn't so cut and dried. Not only are you assuming that a 22 year old kid is willing to give up half a million dollars and would prefer to pitch in the minor leagues(when he's repeatedly said that making the Brewers was a dream come true) but you're making an assumption that this is going to cost him in the future. Again, having major league coaches working with him, being around successful major league pitchers, and throwing simulated games may not be as good as pitching every 5th day in the minors, but it is certainly helpful and it may very well prove beneficial when he goes back down to the minors. Either way, I don't think it's reasonable that Wang would rather be making the the pittance a player in Brevard County as opposed to 500K because you believe that he may believe it may cost him money next year. If you go back and read the protocol for being on the DL they also have to update the progress as they go. The idea that we can hide him for more than a month for a dead arm diagnosis, all the while giving him the same workload as he is getting now, stretches credibility. First of all, who said anything about giving him the same workload they're giving him now while he was on a minor league stint? Second, please show me in the "protocol," where it says that a pitcher can't spend 30 days in the minors? Stretches credibility? It's a reality. I'm curious why you're not questioning Henderson's DL stint? What's the diagnoses on him? His shoulder hurts. Nothing structural. The flaw in your assumptions here, aside from the past history is the fact that this is an inexact science. How often does anything in any sport that is both against the rules and, as you claim, widespread never have a single incident of someone getting caught? Let alone nobody ever being so much as accused of it. You seem to be saying that is because it is sort of accepted practice. I just don't see that as realistic. People who are going to stretch the rules tend to eventually stretch them to the breaking point. Hell on this board alone someone suggests a player get a phantom injury almost every single year. If teams routinely do that just to hide players who would normally be exposed to other teams we should defiantly see a significantly higher number of non traceable injuries for players who are out of options. We should also at least hear of cases where other teams accuse other teams of doing it. As far as I can tell that is not the case. The fact that not even Mr. Conspiracy theorist himself Tony LaRussa accused anyone of it should tell you how little it happens. Wait, the fact that Tony LaRussa has never accused anyone of(I'm actually not even sure what conspiracy we're talking about as we're talking about putting a player on the DL) should tell me how little it happens? I honestly don't even know how to respond to this. Nor do I know how to respond to the fact that because you say that people suggest putting people on the DL and they haven't gone means that all of the sudden Major League Baseball is going to launch an investigation into whether a 22 year old kids arm is tired or hurt. On a common sense level how long do you think other teams would tolerate losing out on players they can use through means they know are against the rules? Combined those things lead me to believe it isn't widespread. In fact I would say it is almost nonexistent strictly based on the fact nobody so much as gets accused of it let alone caught and penalized. I don't know, how long are teams going to tolerate players going on the DL? I suppose as soon as you can prove that someone's arm doesn't really hurt or that it's not tired, then perhaps you'll have some major blowback. What I think contradicts your "common sense," argument is that because Major League Baseball HAS NOT penalized anyone for putting a player on the DL means that they're all the sudden going to penalize people for this. Here's the bottom line. Diagnosing a tired or sore shoulder is an inexact science. I think it stretches credibility to think that Major League Baseball is going to launch some wide scale investigation because the Milwaukee Brewers put a 22 year old Rule 5 draft pick on the 15 day disabled list, but not only that, but that they're going to suspend and then fine the team's training staff for doing so despite the fact literally never done so in the past and it can be literally impossible to prove that a player's arm IS NOT tired and or sore.

First of all, I think your definition of "such unethical behavior," and mine differ greatly. I don't think if the team and or player goes to the team doctor and says, "my arm doesn't feel right," he's going to argue with them and say, "well, everything looks alright and I won't commit fraud by signing a form to place him on the DL." I had a fairly long athletic career with a LOT of injuries. My team doctor in college would tell you to take two weeks off if you told him your knee was sore. I'm sure others have had similar experiences. Doctors are NEVER going to make a decision that exposes them and the player to more liability. Lets say they want to put Wang on the DL and he goes out and pitches a week later and now he has structural damage? This is why it's absolutely not "unethical," behavior to sign off on a 15 day DL stint for a pitcher. Doctors also work for the team. I REALLY find it hard to believe they would go against the trainers, coaches, GM and not sign off on a request for something as straight forward as a dead arm. Second, do you REALLY believe that Wang would rather be making 1200 bucks a month, or do you believe he'd rather be making half a million dollars for the year? I'm not trying to be insulting, so I'm trying to word this carefully, but I think it's a little naive to think that Wang would prefer to be sent back to the Pirates so he can pitch everyday rather than be around a big league club pitching even sporadically and making more money this year than he'd make if he pitched in the minor leagues for the next decade. Third, you do realize that if Wang goes on the DL he can still throw side sessions? You do realize he's probably getting better coaching. That when he comes off the DL he can pitch in the minors for a full month? So yes, I think Wang is probably smart enough think about his future. To know that while his development MIGHT be stunted, or slowed, he will have a full year of service time accrued by the end of this year and he will have earned about 480K more than he otherwise would have. And then of course, again, there is the fact that nobody can name a single time that major league baseball has ever denied a request to put a player on the DL. I don't recall the Chipper Jones thing, but I think for the most part these types of moves wouldn't make news. I'm sure guys went on the DL yesterday. You just don't hear about it unless they're big name players(like Chipper). Conversely, if the office of the Commissioner stepped in and denied a team a DL request, THAT would likely be big news and I'm sure you'd about that as it's never happened(as far as I know). But you're right, not only does every pitcher probably have some lingering issue, the shoulder is so insanely complex that you can go to several different doctors and get several different diagnoses. Some will say rest, some will say it's fine, some will say you need surgery. I've had 5 surgeries now on my shoulder. I had cadaver ligaments put into it, screws and other things. The shoulder is so complex, I can't imagine any Doctor saying, "no, I don't believe you're hurt, your shoulder looks fine." Things can be wrong without even so much as any inflammation.

Without going into great detail I think you're drawing conclusions and parallels because that's what you want to see. The injury rate has more to do with the type of pitchers the Brewers are targeting than anything special they are doing from a development or treatment standpoint. You want them to be progressive when they just aren't, they are an extremely conservative organization not on the cutting edge of basically any aspect of professional baseball. They aren't the worst at anything, but they certainly aren't the best at anything either. Many of the pitchers they've targeted haven't even made it as far as AA, others had significant injuries, you arbitrarily limited your focus to TJ surgery because it's a hot topic, but shoulder injuries are actually the pitcher killers. Frederickson, Lintz, Adams, and Lasker never made it out of A ball from 2008, Lasker dealt with a plethora of injuries, Adams was suspended for a drug of abuse. Arnett, Heckathorn, and Hall were the "upside" picks from 2009. Arnett hurt himself outside of baseball but it didn't matter by that point, Heckathorn is a poor reliever, and it turned out that like Anundsen before him Hall didn't have projection left. 2010 was the Dylan Covey debacle, Jimmy Nelson, and Tyler Thornburg. Obviously Covey didn't sign and wouldn't have been a great pick regardless, I'm happy with Nelson and Thornburg, 5th rounder Matt Miller never made it out of A ball. In 2011 they picked Jungmann, Bradley, Lopez, and Gagnon. Bradley has yet to make it through a full season, Lopez is finally out of the tandem system for the first time, Jungmann is what he is repeating AA, and Gagnon is pitching well in AA. 2012 was Zach Quintana who hasn't been all that impressive in A ball so far but is still in a tandem system and Tyler Wagner whom I really like. From last year's draft you have a bunch of guys that haven't even really had a chance to be injured. Devin Williams who is at least 2 years removed from being out of the tandem system, Barret Astin who is nothing special, Taylor Williams whom I like the most on the current T-Rat staff, and Josh Uhen who was already hurt in college. Astin and Williams are in the tandem system in WI. If you look at that list of pitchers what you don't have is is a ton of big arms like Peralta, you have a bunch of above average to average arms. Relievers won't get injured as much as starting pitchers to start with, nor will pitchers in a tandem, which is the whole point of the tandem. If you are so ineffective you don't make AA then you aren't really throwing enough to be injured in the first place. The commonality for the most part from those drafts is body type; The Brewers are targeting big bodied guys early and going with less prototypical guys later. Eventually I think many of those guys will get injured, that's the nature of the beast with pitching, it's not an ergonomic motion and most pitchers apply additional unnecessary stress with problems in their deliveries which will have an effect over time. Pitchers like CC Sabathia are rare, and that has more to do with genetics than anything special Cleveland did when developing him, and the same is true of the Brewers. They've been targeting big bodied workhorse types because statistically those guys have a better track record of health. If they had drafted Taylor Guerrieri instead of Jungmann we'd have a pitcher with more upside but who has already needed TJ surgery. It's almost entirely about the player, little of this has anything to do with the Brewers' development system. Finally including position players show the overall approach to injuries that the organization takes, I'm not sure when we're talking about possible treatment methods the Brewers are using we'd arbitrarily limit the discussion to pitchers. They've treated the pitchers in the organization exactly the same as the position players when it comes to injury diagnosis, treatment, and rehabilitation. If you want a true sense of what the organization is doing you need to look at all of the available data, regardless of position or injury type, to see if there is something unique going on. The organization just isn't that good at injury prevention or treatment, regardless of the organizational spin you'll get out of the TV & radio broadcasts or JSO. Even when they won that silly award for the least amount of DL time it had more to do with having a roster full of ascending young players than anything the training staff was doing at the big league level at that time. The lack of impact talent could be a developmental issue, but I think it's more of a draft philosophy issue. They focusing on a body type for injury prevention rather than attempting anything progressive from the developmental side. Actually, it looks like he's just repeating the very raw data and it happens to contradict the perception that the Brewers are inadequate here or there...(or I think you've stated pretty clearly at just about everything on every level of the organization). The second bolded part, you argue first that they push players too hard. Then you argue they're very conservative. Direct contradiction. But what I'm really curious about is how do you know what their approach is to rehabbing players? It seems like YOU'RE drawing conclusions and parallels because that's what you believe. And you can list names of pitchers who never made it for days for every single team in the entire league. The topic-Hoffman. The question-Can the Brewers bring a guy back from a TJ surgery and keep him healthy. The evidence seems to suggest they can. I'm just baffled how you can so readily insult the entire organization without...as far as I know being a part of it. I came out of school with several good friends starting their careers in Milwaukee. Some of us moved on, others have stayed the course. I know people on their training staff and I would certainly challenge your entire guess that the award they won is "silly," or that they're not good at injury prevention because....young pitchers got hurt. I just can't remember the last post where you were not critical of the Brewers and almost literally everything they do.

I would certainly enjoy this scenario if it played out as well. However...lets wait until he actually does it before talking about it. And if it was just one HR that was golfed out, that'd be one thing, but he leads the league in HR's by a pretty big margin and his FIP is 5.43. That's just not good. I think it's more likely that Estrada doesn't get offered a contract next year than he brings back any prospect of consequence. He just gets hit hard. Right handers have a .925 OPS against him this year. His BABIP is just .242 well below his career average. He's getting hit harder as he's losing FB velocity. He does a remarkable job at having some success with what he has. But I think with the Brewers young arms, they're far more likely to just non-tender him, save 5 million or so and go with Jimmy Nelson next year than they are to get a top 100 prospect for him from some NL team. I do think he could have success pitching for the NYM, SDP or a team like that. But his three year trend is not that of a player that teams are going to have to give up a legitimate prospect for. I don't really disagree with anything you've said here, but the topic at hand is Marco Estrada 2015...and beyond. Does he really strike you as a pitcher that's going to age well as he hits 32, 33?

I don't recall any particular instances like you have here, but just in general he really does a good job of articulating his baseball knowledge. And he might have started out a little rough, but I think he's been pretty good. And he's kinda funny.

Again, lets use our imagination and say that it's possible that MLB is really strict and polices DL stints to the extent that you're suggesting. That it would be considered "cheating," in baseball to declare that a pitcher has a "tired arm," something that routinely sends players to the DL in baseball. In your own argument, you're saying that the player that's being sent to the DL would have to "intervene on the players behalf." Why on Earth would Wang want them to do this? Because he'd rather be pitching for a few grand a year as opposed to earning service time on a major league roster making half a million dollars a year? If the players union is going to intervene, there has to be an aggrieved party. The only one you could even argue is an aggrieved party in this case would be the Pirates the players union wouldn't have any stake in fighting for them. I think this is an extraordinary reach. I won't say anything with absolute 100 percent certainty, but I would guess there is about as close to a 0 percent chance that MLB would act any differently if Wang was put on the DL than they have with the countless other players who have been put on the DL, including a nearly identical situation in Milwaukee in the recent past with Matt Ford.

He also said that was the first time in his entire tenure here with us that the contact play has backfired on us. So I'm not sure he's actually caught the end of all our games. Actually that's not really what he said at all. This is; RR "Last night there was a line drive to hit to the shortstop and they doubled us off. In the three-plus years I've been here, that's the first time that's happened to us." So it's a funny insult, but it's also just simply NOT what Roenicke said. RoCoBrewFan: You really would have pitched to Reynolds as opposed to one of the Brewers pitchers(it wasn't even a certainty that Gallardo was going to hit due to RR's concerns about his ankle until the IBB to Reynolds). And while Gallardo is absolutely a decent hitting pitcher, he was hitting .077 this year prior to that double and again, he was hurt. And of course they were on the road in a tie game, so there is almost no margin for error. The odds of walking Reynolds and having Gallardo bounce one off the wall are a LOT-LOT lower than having Reynolds go up there and hit his 13th HR of the year. I don't know that I've seen a move that was more of a no-brainer all year long than that one. Other moves Showalter made were..dubious at best, but that one was pretty obvious.

I am absolutely with you on the last paragraph. We are a less talented team than probably 6 or 7 teams in the NL. So we're going to have to do things better and we're going to have to have some players play beyond expectations. But I just totally, totally disagree with the bolded part. First, Garza is NOT our worst starting pitcher. That honor belongs to Marco Estrada. Estrada has a 5.43 FIP, Garza has a 3.86. Garza is not pitching as well as he could, but he's historically been a very good pitcher. Estrada has a .240 BABIP, Garza a .297. And of course Estrada leads the team in HR's. But this argument that he didn't take Garza out because he has these set roles in the BP have been dis-proven time and time again(including tonight). Your veteran pitcher who's pitched in big games and has been a very good pitcher throughout his career was still throwing well. Segura had a costly error and I agree, you still have to get out of the mess. Garza didn't. That's on him. But this is what I'm talking about with regard to how managers just cannot win. You trust your proven starter and he gives up the lead, you're an idiot for taking him out. You consistently yank them early and you're stressing the BP. I had no problem giving Garza one more hitter, especially when it was the #8 hitter in the lineup. And Roenicke has used his relievers in so many different situations this year and been very unconventional(relative to the most managers) that I don't see how you could even begin to argue that his thought process had anything to do with not bringing Smith in because he's the 8th inning guy and it was only the 7th inning. Smith has 11 appearances in the 7th inning this year and 16 in the 8th. So he's used him whenever he's needed him. This team has the least established "8th inning guy," or "7th inning guy," or literally any Brewers team I've seen in the last 15 years. The ONLY difference is some of those teams had pens so bad that nobody could keep their job as the SU man. Roenicke has said he has several guys he's confident going to in SU situations. Henderson when healthy, Smith, Thornburg, and Kintlzer, and we're going to need all 4 by the end of the year. Henderson coming back healthy would be a big boost, hopefully by the end of June. For the record, I'm not "whitewashing," anything. I simply find it absurd that RR is costing us a shot at the playoffs and I think there is a lot of knee jerk type reactions to relatively routine He extols Falu, a bad hitter, because Falu doesn't strike out. Hmmm . . . Why is it patently moronic again to fetishize bad hitters who make contact? Does Falu's game-ending double play ring any bells? This one...I don't even know what to do with. When did he "fetishize," Falu? I'm just going to assume you're using "fetish," in this instance to mean have an irrational or over the top commitment to a player as opposed to other definitions. Falu has TWO plate appearances and literally BOTH times he was the LAST guy to get an at bat. So I would argue there is absolutely zero evidence that he has some strong commitment to Falu. Could you show me where he was signing the praises of Falu? Who incidentally has historically been a pretty good hitter for average. One double play is so irrelevant in the large scheme, ESPECIALLY given the fact that his only other choice would have been to bring in a pitcher, I don't know what it has to do with anything.

If we're going to go off how many Ground Ball hits Weeks has in 28 at bats, then I'm going to point out how many bullets he's hit right at the CF'er, or to LF. Weeks has hit some bullets that have been hit right at guys the last two weeks. Anyway, Gennett hasn't hit left handers in his entire minor league career, nor did he hit them last year when he did face them on a semi-regular basis(though still a small sample size). So it's not like the Brewers just decided since he was a lefty he was a platoon player and now that he's just struggled in 20 PA's this year. It's that he has always struggled vs left handers.