HiAndTight

I'm curious what move do you believe the Brewers could have or should have made at 1st base? We looked pretty stocked there not long ago with Hart playing very well at 1st, Mat Gamel was an exceptional hitter and by all appearances looked like he was going to be a good big league hitter, and I still believe he would have been had he not gotten hurt. He had almost a perfect left handed stroke. As of 2012 we had Hunter Morris who certainly looked like the answer at 1st base putting up a line of .303/.357/.563/.920 in AA with 28 HR's and 113 RBI's at age 23. Corey Hart put up a line of .284/.348/.518/.866 in 2011 and 2012 combined with 57 HR's, 165 RBI's and a OPS+ of 131. And Mat Gamel was raking in AAA in 2011 to the tune of .310/.372/.540/.912 28 HR 96 RBI in 128 games, almost all coming at 1st base. So I don't think this is the result of poor planning so much as it's the result of bad luck. Hart looked like he'd be a top 5-8 1st basemen going into last season before he hurt his knee. Our fall back Gamel blew out his knee for a second straight year, and Morris certainly regressed. That didn't leave us with many good options. Ike Davis for Thornburg would have been foolish. Logan Morrison I suppose would have been a good move. The biggest mistake I believe he made was not offering Hart a little bit more money, but you yourself said that was understandable. 1st base has been a black hole, but I just don't think you can put that on Melvin. He has to have more to work with in the minor leagues. I'm also confident that Morris will be given a chance if he keeps performing well in Nashville and it's too soon to say the Brewers have no interest in giving him a chance.

He chose Milwaukee over Washington, and IIRC at the time, the biggest reason he mentioned was because he wanted a chance to be competitive, but the thing I remember was him citing the Brewers decision to keep Prince Fielder as the biggest reason he believed they were more of a contender. I also believe he mentioned Marcum, but I don't believe he ever said waived his no-trade because of Marcum. I do believe the Brewers should have made a stronger attempt at trying to sign Greinke when they traded for him. That's my only issue with that deal. I think we did very well in that we didn't give up players who ended up being stars for him, and we got back a pretty good haul, and of course won 96 games. But I certainly would like our rotation a lot more right now if we'd signed Greinke at the time of the deal. And I'm guessing we could have done a 5/100 deal when we traded for him. Not much more than the cost of Garza+Estrada and you'd have Nelson in the rotation. That'd be 3 power arms with Lohse and Gallardo.

That's entirely debatable. The Brewers won the division by 5 games, and would have still had a more than reasonable shot at the wild card if you replace Marcum with a hypothetical league average starter. We actually won the division by 6 games and led Atlanta by 7 for the WC. Given the opinion of Estrada on this board, I think it's safe to assume most believe that he would have been good enough as our 5th starter to make the playoffs. Here's my #1 issue with Marcum. He was a soft tossing, injury prone pitcher nearing 30. He's 32 years old right now and out of baseball. If you're going to take a player like Brett Lawrie, I think you should have tried much harder to get a better return. The Pineda for Lawrie trade is one. And I think there is a pretty strong argument that you're more likely to succeed with power arms in the playoffs as opposed to the soft tossers. Hitters become more focused as the intensity rises. I'd certainly rather go with Pineda and his 95 MPH fastball than Marcum's 86.9 MPH average fastball in a post-season series. Even with the benefit of hindsight, I'd still be just fine with the Brewer going for the 22 year old stud than Marcum. And who knows who we could have gotten back had we actually shopped him to more teams than just Toronto. So even if you believe the trade was ultimately worth it, I would think one would at least have to question the return.

Perfect example of the idiocy of some of these coaches. I don't know if this kid is a pro prospect or not, but either way I find it asinine and ridiculous...as did David Price and THEE Tommy John by the way. http://www.detroitnews.com/article/20140515/SPORTS05/305150111/Tommy-John-David-Price-lash-out-high-school-coach-allowing-pitcher-throw-194-pitches I also agree that the specialization in sports is hurting baseball players. What's wrong with good athletes having fun, playing basketball, football, wrestling, whatever it is they enjoy? I've coached some kids who loved playing multiple sports but their parents decided that they were going to focus on one sport so they could be great. One parent took his kid out of Basketball and Football, two sports he enjoyed more strictly because he was a lefty. Wasn't even one of our 4-5 best pitchers(which turned out to be the coaches fault of course). Give these kids arms a rest. Put the ball down after summer and play another sport. Pick it back up in March. If you want to play catch or throw from time to time in between, fine, but you don't need to be throwing every day of the week year round.

http://www.brewcrewball.com/2014/5/8/5694912/yirver-gilbert-lara-brewers-international-signing-pools Interesting article here that states the Brewers are one of 4 teams expected to exceed their allotment for international free agents with the other three being in the AL East(NYY, Boston, TB). Also talks about how much the Brewers apparently love Lara's power potential.

For someone who hasn't gotten a chance to see Lopez pitch this year, can anyone update me on his scouting report? I saw he got 10 GB's to just 1 FO today. I know when he came in there was a lot of excitement over his projectability and long term potential. What's he hitting on the gun if anyone knows? I know it's early, but it just seems like that thread where people picked their "breakout performer," from our farm system this year is making a lot of people look smart. This has to be one of the best starts to the year for our young prospects we've had in a long time. Few injuries thus far(knock on wood), and guys are either maintaining and slowly progressing or making some pretty significant jumps.

We traded for K-Rod who put up a 1.85 ERA for us and we added Hairston who started every game in the playoffs that year over Casey McGehee. They also added Nyjer Morgan who had a very good year for the Brewers that year putting up a OPS of .778 playing CF which would be good for 4th on this current team(among regulars). And the difference between McGehee and our current 1st basemen is that McGehee bought himself some time by posting a line of 291/.346/.477/.823 the two years prior. With Reynolds offering value not only with his ability to play 1st but also 3rd(and the fact that he's a low BA, high K guy) as well as the Brewers efforts to improve the 1st base position prior to the year, AND the fact that they always seem to try and add something, I would bet they try and make a move to add somebody. They also led the league in HR's and had the 2nd highest OPS that season. So while there is no excuse to go with Yuni on a playoff caliber team, it was a little more palpable with a couple guys who put up OPS's near 1.000 and a couple more who were in the .800's. This team has far more question marks. We don't have the stalwarts like Weeks, Braun, Prince and Hart. And given how aggressive Mark A and Doug Melvin have been when we've been competitive in the past, I have to imagine we're going to try and add someone this year. Again, even if it's a Martin Prado type guy.

You do realize it's still MAY, right? Do you not remember the Brewers teams that jumped out to huge leads only to see them evaporate to the Cubs? This Cardinals team is more talented. And they have depth in the minors unlike the Brewers. They have depth everywhere. They've dealt with injuries as well. And the Brewers are 17th in runs scored and 70 runs behind the Rockies right now. I think the chance of the Brewers finishing 1st in runs scored is HIGHLY unlikely. Even if you're just talking about the NL I really doubt they finish ahead of teams like Washington, LAD(obviously Col) among others. Perhaps that's the reason. He certainly looks like he's ready to play in the big leagues. But the Cards seem to have a pretty good handle on when to bring guys up and they realize it's a long season. I was also under the impression they wanted him to work on his defense in CF before handing him the job. Piscotty is another very, very talented young OF'er they have ready in AAA. Even AFTER losing Shelby Miller, Michael Wacha, Trevor Rosenthal, Matt Adams, and Carlos Martinez to the majors last year, they have arguably the top overall prospect in the game and a consensus top 5, as well several other very good prospects and the 6th overall rated farm system according to baseball prospectus. This is what worries me about the Cards. They have a major league roster full of flame throwers and good hitters, and they have a number of talented young studs they can plug in for guys who struggle and not only not miss a beat, but they might get a big bump.

At age 21 he put up a 3.5 WAR Age 22 he put up a 4.5 WAR Age 23 he put up a 2.0 WAR despite playing just Thus far this year he's put up a 0.7 WAR. Ramirez during that same time period has put up WAR's of; 2.7, 5.5, 0.9, -0.1 Now WAR is certainly not a flawless metric. Far from it. But it's used by many on here to judge players. I would also mention that I would prefer Ramirez to Lawrie over this same time period, but lets consider that Ramirez was also guaranteed 50.6 million dollars from 2011 through 2014 and that money very well could have gone to say Jose Abreu. Or it could have gone to signing Greinke. Or improving the team elsewhere. He certainly hasn't lived up to expectations, but those were also extraordinarily high. He was mentioned along with Trout and Harper. I don't think he's looked bad. I don't think he's looked as good as we thought he would and he's struggled with injuries as well. I think he's shown signs of being a franchise type player. Also remember Ryan Braun didn't come up until he was 23 years old. I'm sure he'd have struggled a bit if he'd have come up 3 years earlier. I'm certainly not dwelling on the trade. It happened, we won 96 games and very well could have won a World Series had David Freese not become Ted Williams(but right handed) in the NLCS. But I also don't agree with the Lawrie bashing and playing up what a bad guy he was. Yes, he was immature. He was 20. He was supremely confident and exceptionally talented. Jeff Kent and Barry Bonds were bad guys. They helped their team. Roger Clemens isn't exactly Mr. Sunshine. 7 Cy Youngs. Ted Williams was a jerk. Greatest hitter of all time IMO. And team chemistry is nice. It's better that guys get along than not. But it's insanely overrated in baseball. Baseball is at it's core an individual sport. It's a series of individual matchup's. Other than the pitcher and catcher and maybe the 2nd and SS, the rest of the sport is one on one matchups.

There were some concerns, but those seemed to be exaggerated after the fact. And while I understand you're not missing him much comment at the moment, he's an average 3rd basemen in the AL East right now....but he just turned 24 years old. I still believe there is significant upside there. an average 3rd baseman with potential for upside for an established top of the rotation SP in Marcum for 2 full years? Good deal. A-Marcum is by no means a "top of the rotation starter." He was a good starter, but a high 3's ERA in the NL is a low 2/high 3. His ERA was not in the top 40 of MLB and his FIP over his two years was also in the high 3's. Incidentally, his WAR with the Brewers was 4.3 vs 10.7 thus far for the Jays costing the Brewers ~11.7 million vs the 1.45 million that Lawrie has made. B-We didn't get him for two full years. We got him for one year and then an injury plagued year. C-He played a big part in the Brewers not advancing by pitching so, so poorly in that post-season by giving up 15 ER's in 9.2 IP Game 3 vs AZ 4.2 IP 7 H 7 ER 3 BB 3 SO Game 2 vs STL 4 IP 7 H 5 ER 1 BB 1 SO Game 6 vs STL 1 IP 3 H 4 ER 1 BB 1 SO That was the deciding game of the series. This is actually a much stronger argument as to why he was NOT the top of the rotation starter you believe he was. Ace's comes through in the playoffs. Soft tossers often times get roughed up more often as hitters focus more and are more locked in. But you're STILL missing the main point here. The post you're quoting makes no mention of the Marcum for Lawrie trade, only what I think if Lawrie. The comments I DID make regarding the trade dealt with the fact that I felt at the very-very least the Brewers could have gotten back a better pitcher in return. Lawrie's stock was skyrocketing at the time. Immediately following the trade he was mentioned with Trout and Harper favorably. At the time of the trade he was one of the elite young position prospects in the game who appeared to be MLB ready. Has there been a poll on the subject that states more fans believe this was a good move? That of course sets aside the fact that most fans aren't very informed when it comes to baseball. Most casual fans would take a .300/.325/400 player over a .255/.355/.500 hitter because they value stats like BA and RBI's. Most casual fans believe that Wins is a good gauge of a pitchers worth. Finally, lets not combine Greinke with Marcum. Greinke was an ace. A dominant pitcher(still is). Now Grienke also pitched poorly in the playoffs in 2011(not nearly as poorly as Marcum) but he was dominant last year and obviously has pitched like an ace through his career where Marcum never did. I will grant you that the 2011 season was fantastic and Shaun Marcum was a big part of that. I accepted the fact that we made what was in my opinion a terrible trade and enjoyed watching the Brewers win 96 games that year. But we got a whole lot more out of Zack Greinke than Shaun Marcum.

This is a huge pet peeve of mine. I recall reading literally the exact same thing in the season we traded for K-Rod by a poster on here. It's extremely unlikely and it'd probably be dumb for the Brewers to give up what it'd take to get him, but they do have the pieces and there is a CHANCE this could happen. What pieces do they have? Bautista is an MVP-caliber player under team control for 2.5 more seasons. You're talking top-25 prospects at a minimum. Nelson is a fringe top-100 prospect, at least coming into the season. I don't see how you can compare K-Rod, who the Mets were looking to dump, and a player like Bautista. We couldn't even field a competitive offer for Bautista if he was a free agent after the season, much less so given his contract situation. I never compared Bautista to K-rod, I simply pointed out that another poster said almost literally the exact same thing when we were looking to bolster our bullpen and the idea of trading for K-rod came up. That was it. As for who we COULD trade for Bautista? I don't know, any number of players. Peralta, Segura, Gomez, Nelson, Coulter, Taylor. I'll leave it at this, I don't believe it's going to happen, I think it's extremely, extremely unlikely. It's simply a pet peeve of mine when someone states with that degree of absolute certainty that something will absolutely not happen, not chance, no way, never.

Yes, pitchers are more prone to injuries. However as we're seeing, Braun is also prone to injuries. The difference is, when you're a competitive team, a pitcher makes a much bigger difference in the playoffs than a pitcher. Especially if we're talking about arguably the best pitcher in the game(pre TJ Fernandez). And if we were offered Trout for Braun, I would do that in a heartbeat. We'd have 6 years of Mike Trout. He may very well put up a higher WAR in those 6 years than Braun will for the rest of his career. Trout is a once in a lifetime type talent. Again, what part of the Marlins history would suggest they'd trade young cheap player for a 30 year old player who's going to be earning 20 million dollars a year? Even if Braun was as valuable as Stanton and Fernandez(with Fiers) why on earth would they part with those players as opposed to multiple 20 year old can't miss top 20 prospects? And Ramirez is a FA after this year, so the Brewers can't trade him in the off-season. Finally, while I've argued for years that the Brewers would be able to be more competitive financially with the biggest markets, they'll never be equal to them. The Yankees make as much as 400 million a year from the YES network. Sure, a big chunk of that (34%) goes to revenue sharing, they still keep a ton. So we're likely never going to be able to sign a player like Stanton in free agency, nor should we. Any trade with the Marlins will likely consist of young players going TO the Marlins and older/more expensive players coming to the Brewers. Nothing they've done over the last 15 years save for a one year spending spree which they immediately sold off suggests they'll do otherwise. Instead of losing a very good hitter in Stanton, they get a guaranteed controlled one that is a once in a lifetime player in Braun. You put way too much stock in these injury's. Don't worry you will shortly change your mind very soon, because Braun will start hitting. Teams will be lining up for him one by one. The trade deadline is in July btw. The Brewers will pick up Ramirez option. You do know he has a option, right? OR they could just go with the young, extremely talented OF'ers they've got in their farm system and trade Stanton for more talented young players who don't cost 20 million dollars and are 10 years younger without injury concerns. And yes, I realize Ramirez has an option. You do realize it's a mutual option, correct? Meaning if he has a big year, he's likely to opt out, and if he has a bad year, the Brewers are likely to pass up paying him 14 million for next year. And you make these statements as if they're fact. Ryan Braun and the team has said that his thumb injury is not going away. Hands and wrists are what give a hitter his bat speed, power...everything. So I'm not sure I'm putting too much stock into it and that it will just go away when Ryan Braun has said that it won't just go away and he's worried about it. But you believe other teams will just ignore that and be lining up to give us younger, equally talented players for a guy who has a huge stigma surrounding him after the scandal he was involved in and the injuries he's been suffering? There is a difference between having confidence that everything will work out for the Brewers and the reality that other teams are looking at.

There were some concerns, but those seemed to be exaggerated after the fact. And while I understand you're not missing him much comment at the moment, he's an average 3rd basemen in the AL East right now....but he just turned 24 years old. I still believe there is significant upside there.

Is this your way of saying you don't care about or want to discuss Brett Lawrie? I was just being nice to Stache. He's complained about MLB Tv not working for him to me before and I just wanted to say I'm happy it's working and he can watch the games. I meant it. On Lawrie, I was in favor of the trade when it happen and I still am. He has a HUGE attitude problem and he's a player that never would have signed an extension with us due to his never ending hate of being kept in the minors. He should have just shut his mouth, but lord knows he can't do that. He will be a good player while he's on the field and not suspended, injured or slumping. Not a player the Brewers should have kept. The trade needed to happen, and it got us to the playoffs. Mission accomplished. His "never ending hate?" And even if he wouldn't have signed with us, he was ours for 6 years. And he's still just 23 years old. I also would disagree that HE got us to the playoffs. Pineda had a 3.42 FIP that year to Marcum's 3.76. I'm guessing we'd have made it to the playoffs if we'd made that trade which was rumored to have been offered. My bigger problem however is labeling Lawrie as a bad guy. This is an excuse for a terrible trade in my opinion. He was 20 years old. He was upset he didn't get called up. So what? At the very least we could/should have made a better trade for a oft-injured soft tosser who was 30 years old. At best we should have kept him as he matured(as most do from the age of 20 years old on). Whatever his opinions where about how he was handled, I don't believe you could question his effort on the field. Finally, I'm not interested in a bunch of choir boys filling out our 25 man roster. I'm interested in guys who can hit, run, field and are good at baseball.

Estrada gets no respect here for some reason. He's a very solid and cheap pitcher but two freak hamstring injuries have convinced everyone he's an injury prone fluke. If you'd like to know why I don't think as highly of Estrada as you do, then by all means ask. No need to fabricate an argument to try and make a point. -Estrada is 30 years old. -Estrada's fastball has lost a MPH the last 3 years to the point he now sits at 88 MPH. -He's never once pitched more than 138 innings in his career. -He also gives up a lot of HR's. He is a very solid and very cheap starting pitcher. And I respect him at about that level. What I don't do is take his peripherals over smaller portions of a season and then try to extrapolate them and compare them with a pitcher who consistently pitches ~200 innings and makes 30+ starts a season. But perhaps you could explain to me why you have so much respect for a pitcher who through the age of 31 has a cumulative WAR 3.1? Marco Estrada is a nice pitcher. If however you can use him and get back a talented young player while also giving your own talented young pitchers who have proven they're ready to pitch in the big leagues a opportunity, it seems to me at least, like a logical move.

Yes, pitchers are more prone to injuries. However as we're seeing, Braun is also prone to injuries. The difference is, when you're a competitive team, a pitcher makes a much bigger difference in the playoffs than a pitcher. Especially if we're talking about arguably the best pitcher in the game(pre TJ Fernandez). And if we were offered Trout for Braun, I would do that in a heartbeat. We'd have 6 years of Mike Trout. He may very well put up a higher WAR in those 6 years than Braun will for the rest of his career. Trout is a once in a lifetime type talent. Again, what part of the Marlins history would suggest they'd trade young cheap player for a 30 year old player who's going to be earning 20 million dollars a year? Even if Braun was as valuable as Stanton and Fernandez(with Fiers) why on earth would they part with those players as opposed to multiple 20 year old can't miss top 20 prospects? And Ramirez is a FA after this year, so the Brewers can't trade him in the off-season. Finally, while I've argued for years that the Brewers would be able to be more competitive financially with the biggest markets, they'll never be equal to them. The Yankees make as much as 400 million a year from the YES network. Sure, a big chunk of that (34%) goes to revenue sharing, they still keep a ton. So we're likely never going to be able to sign a player like Stanton in free agency, nor should we. Any trade with the Marlins will likely consist of young players going TO the Marlins and older/more expensive players coming to the Brewers. Nothing they've done over the last 15 years save for a one year spending spree which they immediately sold off suggests they'll do otherwise.

His fastball is pretty straight. But he locates if very well(from the limited sample I've seen). But I was more referring to his change which at least to start the year looked filthy and his curve ball. I do agree think the idea that whoever throws harder is "automatically better." Obviously it's a liiiittle bit more nuanced than that.

I've believe it was only a matter of time(*and health) as to when Lawrie put it all together. He's just simply too talented and too young. The Marcum for Lawrie trade is one of the worst I can recall the Brewers making, and the only thing that made it bearable was the fact that we went out and added Greinke. I would have much preferred taking Pineda back, even though he's dealt with constant elbow/shoulder injuries. It'd sure be nice to have Lawrie right now to play 2nd, 3rd, or the OF for us. I do have to admit, it hasn't bothered me to see him struggle with injuries/performance thus far. Is this your way of saying you don't care about or want to discuss Brett Lawrie?

Have you ever watched Weeks field 1st on a bunt? He's a disaster. If the Ramirez injury forced a move for Weeks it should be to 3rd. You think that might have something to do with the fact that he's using a tiny, tiny little glove and is sprinting over from his position at 2nd base to try and get to 1st in time to cover? Very few 2nd basemen look "good," covering 1st base. I must have missed the majority of this conversation, but I do recall some posts suggesting that because of Braun's failure at 3rd they shouldn't try him at 1st(Which I wholly disagree with as I don't think the two positions are really comparable at all). But the difference is that Braun, if moved to 1st, would play there 162 games if healthy. Weeks would merely play in LF on occasion and is not the face of your franchise.

Award bonuses are in contracts because it is a workaround for the prohibition on performance-based incentives. The only statistics they are allowed to incorporate are appearance-based, like PA/IP, and those are clearly meant as a proxy for health. I can see how you could argue that a secondary purpose of PA requirements is to incorporate a performance proxy for players that completely fall off a cliff, but my original point is that when Weeks signed his contract nobody had that in mind. There was no other Brewers 2B on the horizon and Weeks looked like he was a perennial All-Star. The intent of everybody involved when the contract was signed was that Weeks would get the option if he was healthy. There's nothing wrong with declining an option, that's part of the game. But the issue here is that Weeks was guaranteed $11M if he hit 600 PA this season. They sat him just long enough to ensure that he can't meet that. And indeed there is virtually no way he can hit that anymore even if he starts every remaining game. So, coincidentally, he is getting more playing time now. If the 2013 performances of Weeks and Scooter had been closer, then he might have a plausible grievance for the MLBPA to file on his behalf. I'm not saying he does - the Brewers had legitimate reasons to justify sitting him. But my point remains that from his perspective he is getting screwed. (Ok, my last post on the issue, sorry for cluttering the thread!) I'm just not sure how you speak to the "intent," of the option at the time it was signed, OR the fact that nobody had the thought in mind that Weeks might perform poorly enough that THAT may in fact be the reason for him to not reach 600 PA's. Weeks was very good the year prior to signing his contract, but his career numbers prior to that year where; .247/.351/.415. Those are average numbers for a 2nd basemen. You're argument then combines the fact that nobody thought Weeks may fall off a cliff with the fact that there was nobody on the horizon. I would argue that when you're talking about a 4 year deal you have no idea who may or may not be "on the horizon," but lets just look at Gennett's numbers the year prior to Weeks signing. .309/.354/.463 and a OPS of .817. That was for a guy who was a projected early round pick who we gave early round money to for a signing bonus. So I absolutely believe the vesting option was put in place to protect the Brewers from Weeks seeing a sharp decline as much as it was for his health issues. Both were a serious concern for the 5th year of a large deal for a guy who'd only had one big year up until that point. He had a combined WAR of 7.4 up until that point. And to me there is no coincidence at to when the Brewers started giving Weeks more playing time. It was when he started to earn it again, plain and simple. He was absolutely terrible and Gennett was very good. It would have been far more questionable to start the season giving Weeks the at bats simply because he was a veteran over Gennett. And I don't think there is any basis whatsoever, regardless of how each would have performed last year to file any type of grievance whatsoever. I think you're reaching regarding the intent and making assumptions regarding what everyone thought at the time of the Weeks extension.

I understand your broader point, and I like Nelson a lot. But there's one very basic problem with your argument here. Any fool can fail at the major league level. Only a few people can succeed at the major league level. That, I think, is why LouisEly's argument above is so important. If we conclude, because of Fiers' bad stretch, that his good stretch is a mirage -- if he only had success because hitters hadn't seen him twice -- then it makes sense to discount his success. Otherwise, I think Fiers pitched enough dominant innings that we should consider him a mid-rotation MLB starter. I think that's what he is. As for the assertion made elsewhere above (I won't call it an argument, because it's characteristically proclaimed as fact, like anyone who disagrees is just stupid) that Thornburg is simply more talented than Fiers, I guess it depends on what you mean by talent. Talent, for a pitcher, seems to me to involve something like a combination of velocity, movement, command, pitch assortment, stamina, and mental makeup, not necessarily in that order. After some number of innings, results conclusively prove talent, because the only object of a pitcher's talent is to get hitters out. Neither Fiers nor Thornburg has thrown that many innings yet. For now, Thornburg wins on velocity and Fiers wins on command. The rest looks to me like it's still up for grabs. I think the problem with YOUR argument here is that I'm not discounting his success, nor do I doubt he can be a middle of the rotation type of guy. He may even have some years where he's even better. However, I believe Nelson is the more talented pitcher and the better option. I think he's another Wily Peralta type pitcher, but I think he's more polished at this point than Peralta was when he was called up. As for who's more talented, Thornburg vs Fiers, I guess our definition of talent differs. I think Jeremy Jeffress is more talented than Fiers. Talent is obviously only a fraction of the equation, but I think when you're talking about just pure talent, it's...at least a hard argument to make that the jury isn't in between Fiers and Thornburg. There's obviously a question as to who will become the better pitcher. But Thornburg just has a better arm, and he gets a lot of movement. Fiers is more of a Arroyo type pitcher who've very smart adding and subtracting and locates his pitches very well, but there is a reason that guys like Fiers don't go in the 1st round. Either way, at this point, Thornburg in the big leagues pitching well, Fiers in the minors starting and dominating, who's more "talented," isn't all that important to me at this point. It would be if we're talking about a draft pick, or two guys pitching in Brevard County, but not two guys who are already big leaguers.

The Marlins trade goes against absolutely everything their franchise does. They're not going to add a big priced player who's 30 years old, has an injury that by all accounts may never be fixed. And they certainly aren't going to give up a guy who's arguably the best young pitcher in baseball, EVEN if he's having TJ surgery this year. And on top of that, another top prospect. All for the right to take on all the risk associated with Braun and to start paying him in his more expensive years, and get back one prospect who's rated among the top 100? I am a little concerned about how Braun has looked at the plate this year. I still believe he can hit .300 and be a great player, but the issue as it appears to me is that with that thumb, he's not able to check his swing at all. So he has to decide earlier if he's going to swing and I think that's going to drop his walk rate. I also think that even if he still hits for power, I don't think he's going to slug quite as well as he has. If we were to trade Braun, I'd be alright with trading him for maybe Tavares and Carlos Martinez from the Cards. Or a package like that. A position prospect who could be very good and a young power arm who could be very good. It'd obviously be guys who are unproven because...if they're already proven why would the team trade them away? And the Cards are a team that could really use Braun right now. You look at the best prospects in the game and almost all of them are on teams like the Twins, Astros, teams who'd have little interest in adding a guy like Braun right now because they're not built to win right now.

Why wait until mid June? I'm guessing that they could sign him about 2 minutes after they make their selection on June 5th. He's working out and training right now, similar to Lohse last year. Maybe he plays 7-10 games in the minors, he's ready ~June 15th. That's a full month before the ASG break, and 6 weeks before the trade deadline. I don't think they're going to wait much longer to upgrade at 1st base.

I don't. I think that's about what you're looking at given Estrada's history, and especially given the way he pitches and the park he'd be going to. The guy I'd like to target if we're talking about the Rangers is Jurickson Profar. I still believe he's going to be a REALLY special player. He's 21 years old, hadn't shined thus far in the big leagues, the Rangers have players who can replace him(he's on the DL right now which helps). I'd be happy to trade Gallardo for Profar straight up. I doubt the Rangers would. But I'd at least see what they want. He's a HUGE ceiling type guy. I'd certainly trade Garza for him as well as a couple prospects. Not sure how much they like Garza, but before anyone says if they wanted Garza they could have signed him, things have obviously changed regarding their pitching.

This is a huge pet peeve of mine. I recall reading literally the exact same thing in the season we traded for K-Rod by a poster on here. It's extremely unlikely and it'd probably be dumb for the Brewers to give up what it'd take to get him, but they do have the pieces and there is a CHANCE this could happen.