HiAndTight

And Greinke's in the midst of putting together a historical season for the Milwaukee Brewers right now IMO. It's early, so those 8 ER's in 1 2/3 innings vs the Cubs are still greatly inflating his numbers, but if you take them out, he's got to be among the top couple for early Cy Young candidates. And again, the Brewers won't make a more important decision for a very-very long time, and I don't think they've made such an important decision for a LONG time. Perhaps dating back to the Fingers trade. To sign Greinke could POTENTIALLY give us an elite staff as our young pitchers are eased into their roles and allowed to perform as young, extremely talented pitchers often do. Dominate for stretches, get rattled here and there and blow a game. But as our #3/4/5 pitchers, that is more than acceptable. To get that out of your #2/3/4/5 pitchers, or to sign a pitchers to an inflated contract(with the exception of Edwin Jackson...there's a guy I'd LOVE to see in Milwaukee for 4 years and 40 million with or without Greinke next year) puts too much pressure on a team that looks now like it can only hope to be above average offensively and defensively in the near future. Meaning they have to be great on the mound. The POTENTIAL of Greinke/Gallardo/Thornburg/Peralta/Fiers gives us that while leaving Rogers, Manzanillo when healthy, Wooten, Ax and the rest of the list giving the bullpen a big boost.

We all understand baseball economics and how large market teams are going to have more money. There's a lot of words to explain what we already know. However these aren't things that are all the sudden changing. The Yankees have had the "YES," Network, Boston's had HUGE TV deals, as have the Cubs and other teams. You're talking about the LA teams and the Rangers, all three teams that have recently signed new deals, but two of the teams have MASSIVE, MASSIVE debt, especially the Dodgers who paid 2 billion plus, and didn't even get all the parking rights, and the Rangers who have a good amount of debt. And those teams have spent a ton of money in the last couple years. So I don't know why you're constantly trying to diminish what the Brewers have done in being able to generate revenue. The thought the Brewers would be able to draw 3-3.5 million people, even AFTER raising payroll and carry a payroll of at least 110 million dollars 5 years ago was impossible to think of. That's got very little to do with the overall baseball trend which I believe you exaggerate. Bottom line, the Brewers rank a whole helluva lot higher in revenue than they have any right to for a team of their market size, and we don't always have to look for doom coming down the road or how little that means. That means a lot. It means the Brewers have done a great job at putting together a team, and not a thing has changed, and if he DOES sign a Santana like type deal that will just further point to the fact that things aren't trending nearly the way you seem to think. We haven't had out of control salaries and they've been relatively stagnent for the very top contracts for the last decade plus. You have outliers like the Pujols deal. One of the greatest hitters of all time, or Prince who's 28 and was signed by a billionaire owner who is old and just wants to win ONE contract. But it's like we forget about the Mike Hampton deals, the Mo Vaughn deals, Albert Belle deals. This isn't like when a quarter used to buy you a soda. Inflation isn't that extreme. Even Yu didn't get that much more than Dice-K and everyone was pretty much in agreement Yu was the much better prospect. And really, if you DO want to stay up there and compete financially with the big boys, you'd better re-sign Greinke, because if you don't, this team's future looks pretty bleak and there isn't going to be a whole lot of people going to the park to watch a 90 loss team.

Clearly, no one actually can see into the future. If you cant tell that all I am doing is predicting that he will never stop being a free swinger in the same way that you are predicting he will stop being one then I don't know what to say. His age doesnt really matter, what matters is his 1700+ PAs with a 5% walk rate. How many examples can you find of players like this who then upped their walk rate to 8-9% for the rest of their career? You think he has improved, I think he is just having a hot streak. He has improved slightly in his 2 weeks worth of PAs this season, swinging at 8% fewer pitches outside of the zone with an 8% higher overall contact rate. However, he also has seen about5% more fastballs this season and 6% fewer curveballs compared to his career average. His walk rate is very important, if he never takes his walks he will never get enough hittable pitches to keep up his current pace. Another small but simple example of what I've been harping on. 1st pitch slider on the black that he can't do anything with. He lays off. Next pitch is a fastball he can do something with and drills it into center. You see, some people honestly think this game doen't even require watching, only reading box scores and then using advanced metrics to make definitive statements on what a player is or isn't. What I'm saying, is if you actually WATCH the guy play, screw the numbers, he's coming up to the plate and approaching his at bats differently. Not a hot streak as he wasn't "hot," before he went on the DL. And I know it's mind bending for someone to actually WATCH a player(I refer to Estrada last year when his velocity jumped and everyone said he was a fluke for about 2 months). No, he was a different player. Numbers are HUGE when trying to decide what player to sign, to predict what a player is going to do over the course of a season, etc..etc..but talent has been found in this game for 130 years without them. Watching a player's a lot more important than being able to rattle off why he won't keep it up because he hasn't in the past. And he VERY well may not keep it up. I'm just saying if he continues to have at bats like he has, which hasn't got a thing to do with him being "hot," and I'm sorry if I haven't articulated clearly enough yet that's not what I'm talking about, but I don't know how else to make it clearer, then he's going to be a much more effective big league hitter.

You have a case, but it is still Peralta in my book. Similar stuff, results and age with Wily at a higher level and some modest big league success. Really cool question, Paul. And overall what an awesome place for the Brewers to be in as an organization. Honestly, at this point, I think I lean Thornburg... but it's really close. Peralta's consistently been at higher levels relative to age, but Thornburg's career MiLB 2.37 ERA is just really, really impressive. I can't wait to see him reach his ceiling as just another RP! It's obviously close, but I think Thornburg may rank lower, but I honestly think he has the upside to be an ace for a stretch in his career. I think Wily Peralta has more of a Jamie Garcia type upside(in terms of numbers, obviously they pitch very differently as a RH'er and LH'er). Of course those are ceilings. Peralta likely won't be a #2 like Garcia arguably is and Thornburg probably won't be an ace. But I think Peralta has a better chance to be reach that ceiling than Thornburg. Higher risk, higher reward for TT, more of a safe bet with Peralta. Still, I'll always take the higher reward players, especially at the higher level as that it what playoff teams are built on. Re-sign Greinke (I'm going to end all my posts like that from now on....like that Roman Senator who ended every statement with "destroy Carthage," so as to make it the top point of emphasis so they'd never forget how important it was....I know I'm a broken record, but re-signing Greinke just totally changes how I look at ALL these pitchers. You hit high on ONE of them, Bradley becomes an Andy Petitte type pitcher who throws in the lower 90's, Thornburg becomes an ace who can hit the upper 90's, and so on taking a ton of pressure off those pitchers and even the second tier guys, allowing Peralta to be a #4..kinda like Edwin Jackson is in Washington now(though again, a very different pitcher, just how he fits in).

I don't get this logic. It's like saying you're tempering your enthusiasm because of random pitchers who have absolutely no connection to the players we have now, and the pitchers developing him. Yeah, we've had pitchers who've flamed out or gotten hurt. It's just a part of young pitchers weeding themselves out. I see no reason why you shouldn't be encouraged by our two 1st round picks in one of the deepest drafts for college pitchers in a while, the success of Nelson a guy who throws in the mid 90's who consistently pitches deep into games, Brooks Hall, my personal favorite among the BC guys, a project-able young pitcher.... Frankly, I think TC07 can pretty much take the positive and put a negative spin on anything.

Back to the main point though, I was more on the moving the guys up. As for Toledo, just looking at the numbers, I don't really see the eye popping numbers for a guy his second year out of college that makes it just imperative that we get him in the starting lineup. Is this a guy like Keeler type guy with a huge arm? Obviously better production, but what's his upside? Because a 23 year old doing what he's doing in LowA is nice, but I don't really see the eye popping numbers given his age. Give me some perspective on him. I know he was a guy from Florida that we were high on who was project able, but haven't seen what he's throwing or what he throws. Haven't seen him pitch for the Rattlers yet.

Agreed. Problem solved. The Brewers(Doug Melvin) stated last year that they wanted to be very aggressive with Tyler Thornburg, so I'm hoping he is in AAA by the middle of June or so as long as he continues to pitch effectively. I've heard some who think he's still 2-3 years away from being a big league pitcher(which not to rehash the argument, but I think is crazy unless he gets hurt if he continues on his own trajectory). And if the world does come to an end for the Brewers after this season and Greinke leaves, then I think Thornburg, Peralta, and everyone should be moved very slowly or deliberately for service time. If not, bring them up as soon as they can help the club. A little perspective by the way, we're 3 games off last years pace. We're without Prince, lost our SS and are even worse there, but we also have an all-star 2nd basemen hitting .150, that likely won't continue, Aram is a slow starter, we've had some struggles from starters that most LIKELY won't continue, and some relievers have underperformed.

I don't agree with that at all. Gomez gets a better jump and just has much better speed than Morgan. He covers a lot more ground going back, forward and throwing the ball. And by the way, when you say he's "only, " better at coming in on balls and throwing, well, he has a HUGE advantage throwing the ball than Mogan does. So I don't see the two being all that close. In fairness Gomez may be the best defender in the game in CF while Morgan is simply a well above average CF'er.

Well I'd make Braun untouchable because having a guy like that locked up at a reasonable price makes his value more than any team could reasonably offer. At this point, I just want to build around Braun and Greinke. Greinke has shown himself to be durable as long as he doesn't get hurt. I'd be fine with giving him a Matt Cain contract right now and then rebuild by trading the rest of the guys. It might mean we have a down year in 2013 but with our SP depth in the minors and the haul that we'd get from Hart & Weeks, we should be back to competing in 2014. Well in that case, I'd keep Gallardo. That doesn't sound like a bad idea either. But there needs to be a plan in place in which we are trying to legitimately WIN a World Series during Braun's prime years, and while that might sound obvious, the fact is, I think they're trying to stay as good as they can while still drawing as good as they can. But paying what it takes to re-sign Greinke with Braun and Gallardo with the arms we have coming up and then tearing the rest down and rebuilding, more of a "remodeling," seems like maybe the best idea. But I fear if they lose Greinke, Marcum will be signed, I don't trust his injury history or long term talent for that record and I think we'll slowly fall from a 90 win team(which I still think we're capable of being) to an 80 win team, to a 75 win team and so on before we have to cut salary because attendance has dropped.

No he hasn't, he has 1 walk in 54 PAs, he is the same player as ever who has had some hits fall early in the year. He was and is a free swinger who will never be above average with the bat. Saying, he does still have value Again, I'm still LOVING the way people talk down and declare that something "NEVER," will happen with a 26 year old. Thank you Obi-won for your undeniable look into the future. But again, lets just wonder if it's POSSIBLE that I'm not talking about the walks(which I don't believe I've brought up once) and that I'm simply talking about him not swinging at terrible pitchers early on in the count, working himself into an 1-2 count or whatever it may be and then flailing away at the next pitch. He HAS improved a great deal at that, and while I've been adamant about not using stats thus far THIS season, you seem inclined to do so. At some point people need to realize that baseball game, at least baseball played over one month isn't told on a spreadsheet. If you compare his approach this year compared to last year when he was hitting the ball well for short stretches and it's different. He'll never walk a lot, nobody has said he will. But if WE MUST use stats instead of watching the actual games and put forth an actual counter argument, I don't recall who it was, but he already showed how Gomez is swinging at balls out of the zone a lot better and making better contact within the zone. The exact point I'm making. To expand on THAT, the point I'm almost making is that he doesn't need to be a good hitter. Just a league average hitter and with his base running and defense, and ability to hit with some power makes him a very valuable player. But I see you've skipped over every single point that's been made, declared nothing will ever change and that in a 54 AB sample size think pointing out stats is useful. His numbers haven't even been of significant consequence to me at this point, it's been about how he's approaching his at bat. And I realize it's tough with his incredibly terrible track record, and I'm in no way saying anything will or WON'T happen as an absolute fact(I wouldn't pretend to be so insightful as to be able to make a definitive statement as to what a 26 year old supremely talented kid WILL or will NOT do.)

Long shot, but we're talking about Josh Beckett, we're talking about these other pitchers, but I think one that's flying way under the radar is Johan Santana. He was the best pitcher in baseball for a long period of time up until he got hurt. His numbers thus far this year are; I'm sorry, my mistake. He put up those numbers in 2009. So far this year, he's putting up BETTER numbers. 2.92 ERA FIP2.42 xFIP3.29 He looks to be back to where he was. He's averaging 90 MPH on his fastball, and with a guy with such a filthy change and such a great pitcher all around, it seems like the Mets may be willing to part with a pitcher who has just a couple years left of elite level pitching(hopefully since the Mets are not a winning team(or aren't a realistic contender this year) it seems as though if the Brewers could POSSIBLY get him if they're willing to pony up a large portion of the money owed to him. If Santana makes roughly 24 million per year, and the Mets were willing to eat half of that for say...Jungmang and a lesser prospect, a Khris Davis or even a Scooter Gennett, would anyone on here be willing to take that chance? 3 1/2 years left, so by the time a trade would be ironed out, we'd be looking at just roughly 42 million dollars over that period of time while giving up a very good prospect, and another B- type prospect. Thoughts? If Santana continues to pitch like he has this year...and his entire big league career, you could almost make Gallardo your #3 pitcher. Injury risks are obviously significant because he's coming of one. Or hell, if we're really in an all out rebuilding mode, Thornburg, Peralta+Gennett+Fiers+K-Rod(to even out the money a LITTLE bit) for Wright and Santana? How off the mark is that? Aram moves to first, pitching, defense and offense fixed. Santana isn't that expensive moving forward, so a Greinke extension still would NOT be off the table(you'd just have to move Hart). Wright costs just under 10 million a year unless I read costs wrong. Hart, Wolf, K-Rod, Marcum, Morgan, Gonzalez should be at a minimium 2 million cheaper next year and will likely have to settle for a one year deal at about 1.5 million. That's about 45 million coming off the books. 20 million in new TV revenue, ADDITIONAL TV revenue. Radio money...totally unsure how much that adds. Ticket prices up 2+ dollars a ticket and we're well ahead of our pace last year when we ended up drawing roughly 3.4 million. That's over 7 million. The money IS there..even to re-sign Greinke. Of course you'd be looking at a roster full of minimum wage players like Gindl, Schafer, Thornburg, Fiers, Estrada(not quite min, but close), Narveson who'd be cheap, Gamel, Green, Lucroy would be cheap, etc..etc... You'd have 65 pct at least of your paryoll tied up into Braun, Gallardo, Wright, Santana, Greinke and likely Weeks and another 10 with Lucroy, Gomez, Narveson, Veras, Parra and Gonzalez. Could we squeeze a contender out of 25 pct of our roster being minimum wage guys? Greinke Gallardo Santana Thornburg Narveson/Estrada Pen Axford Manzanillo-hopefully he'll go Ax on us. Veras Parra Fiers Estrada Kintzler Henderson McClendon Rogers Rivas Wooten Williams(throws gas, in HiA now and dominating with a big fastball). Dillard, and several I'm forgetting, including a couple of guys who could be had for cheap on minor league deals. The BP is the biggest enigma in all of sports. Lineup Aoki/Gomez Wright Braun Aram Weeks Gamel Lucroy Gonzalez With Aoki Kottars Green Jamey Carroll(traded for this year) And Ishikawa. That's about a 115 million dollar payroll. I said in 2008-2009 that we'd be at 110 by the time next year came around, but I've been a few million short the whole time, and assuming we're in the red, that is without a shred of a doubt that we can afford such a figure....NEXT YEAR. And probably then next 2-3. It's how that team performs and how our farm system develops that dictates if we becomes the Indians from the 90's to the Indians from the 100 loss days in the 2000's. And....end ridiculous fantasy and lets talk about the reality of ACTUALLY getting Johan Santana, not Wright, Santana and re-signing Grienke.

You're talking about a guy who threw 193 IP last year and put up a line of 2.89 ERA 3.57 FIP 3.58 xFIP While playing in the NL East. And a guy who's got a Smoltz like reputation for coming through in big spots and who actually has an affordable contract. And his xFIP thus far this year is just 3.58 again. 40 innings wouldn't make me backoff a guy who is as talented as Josh Beckett. We're talking about a guy who has come through in some of the biggest games of post-season history and has been absolutely dominant. What are the Red Sox lacking? Catching. Kottaras is one guy who'd be a tiny piece of the deal. Wily Peralta whom I believe is the guy with the lowest ceiling between TT, Bradley, Jungman, Lopez, Hall and possibly even Nelson, and then throw in K-Rod, giving them MUCH needed BP help. And in turn, they're on the hook for the rest of K-Rod's deal, and we get Beckett for roughly 32 million over the next 3 years. Really hard to argue that's not a good deal. Greinke/Gallardo/Beckett/Marcum/Wolf with Estrada back into the pen. And come August, I'd LOVE to see Thornurg in the pen pitching 2 innings at a time and, I'm not that familar with Bradley vs left handers, but if he gets the bump up to AA, I'd like to see him used the last two months as a reliever, keeping some stress off his arm and used more as a loogy. A L/R/L trio comes up and he comes in(if he can prove himself in AA). Full staff come August/Sept Greinke Yo Beckett Marcum Wolf BP Estrada Loe Thornburg/Rogers Bradley-Loogy Veras Thornburg(who could end up being an Adam Wainwright type addition where he can let it loose for one inning running it up there to 97-98 with nasty secondary stuff facing guys just one time). Or Rodgers if he can put it together. Or Parra if he can continue to improve. Thornburg coming in and dominating would be the key to the whole thing though. We'd need him to be able to dominate ala Wainwright. Axford The Angels made some drastic moves last year, and they paid off. Beckett IS BUT ONE OPTION. That is all. Nothing more. ONE-SINGLE-OPTION.

Oh, and one more thing. Hamilton's put up HUGE WAR numbers in those limited numbers of games played. I'd argue that with the Brewers OF depth, they may be as well equipped as most teams to withstand an injury to an OF'er for a period of time. Not to mention that numbers a little skewed by one year. He's played 156 games, then 89, then 135 then 121 as well as just about every game this year. And worst come to worst, he could be our 1st basemen of the future. His bat will play until he's 40 IMO. I doubt his legs will. Though I've maintained he won't get a contract through age 40. He'll get one through age 37 or so. Which is a safe risk. And for the record, I don't really believe this is going to happen, I'm simply saying, that if the Brewers wanted to push, really push for a WS, they DO have the money right here and now to sign both these players while sacrificing others that can be replaced by league average players. A potential lineup could include CF-Aoki 2B-Weeks 3rd-RF Hamilton 4-LF Braun 5-3B Aram 6-1B Hart 7-C Lucroy 8-Gonzalez *We could also trade Hart and go with Gamel at 1B while saving 10 million dollars, or a little bit more than what we'd be paying Greinke over what he's making this year. A more likely scenario. With Gindl/Schafer replacing Hart the following year Gennett replacing Weeks the following year Aram entering the final year of his contract and possibly Taylor Green replacing him....at 3rd. And you roll the dice that you are one of the lucky teams that gets two good long term contracts that hit and you put yourself in WS contention. You have get rid of a lot of fringe core pieces, but it IS possible. It is HIGHLY unlikely, but it is possible, even for those fans who cry poverty and constantly question how we can ever sign a marquee Free Agent. Well, the answer? We've never been in anywhere NEAR the same fiscal health we're in right now. And we'd be risking that by making these two moves. Hell, I'm not even behind the Hamilton move that much. Just trying to make the argument we could make it work these next couple years and if finances get tight, we have big contracts coming to an end. And when Aram puts up a cumulative line of .285/.350/530 with 58 HR's and 180 RBI's the next couple years, I'm sure he'd be moveable to a team that wants or needs a 3rd basemen moving forward. And ALL OF THIS assumes that we don't get a break out performance from ANY of our toolsy minor league players. We all know with 4 picks in the 1st round this year(two supp and 2 regular 1st) plus our picks last year, the D'Vontey Richardson's, the other talented players contributing anything. I don't know, there are a million different ways this thing can go, but the bottom line is that we can't truly contend without Zach Greinke in the next few years, so if you can't contend, I contend you might as well move all pieces that have value, pieces that you wouldn't offer arbitration to(and right now I'd offer to Marcum and Greinke if Marcum continues with the season he's having as I doubt he'd take the 1 year deal, even at 13.5 over the security of a 5 year 65 million dollar deal, let Wolf walk and as I said, start a fire sale and fill that farm system up with as much talent as you possibly can.

Exactly. These connections made are extremely flawed IMO. I don't think we'll sign him, but when CC left we didn't have nearly the revenues we have right now, and the guy he credits with saving his career would be his hitting coach. Prince signed a contract I'm almost certain is 3-4 years longer and probably 100 million or close to it more expensive than Hamilton will get. 6 years 125 million is around what I think Hamilton will get. And frankly, we could swing that deal and a Greinke deal for 5 years and 115. We'd have to let Hart leave or trade him(most likely trade for a solid prospect), look to trade Weeks next year if he got off to a hot start and go with Gennett saving us around 20 million. Wolf, K-Rod and Marcum would save us roughly 30 million dollars. You replace them with Peralta, Thornburg and Wooten for example and a cost effective reliever, or perhaps you move a Kyle Heckathorn to the pen where he can crank it up to 95-96 and you're spending 1.5 million where you were spending 30 million. And really, you're only talking about adding maybe 9 million for Greinke from what he's making this year, and 25 million for Hamilton. So that's 34 million in added costs without Weeks in the equation and 50 million in money coming off the payroll(roughly). It's so incredibly unlikely, but it IS possible. Depends on how serious the Brewers are about a WORLD SERIES. And then we'd still get Gamel back next year, bring Gonzalez back at about 2.5 million next year and trade for a guy like Jamey Carroll. You could still....if you step through the closet into make believe, end up with a lower base salary than we had this year. And AGAIN, I repeat myself, but, in terms of revenue' We went from around 10 million in revenues according to Forbes to nearly 20 million which means we made twice as much last year when we spent about 96 million. -We had 20 million in ADDITIONAL TV revenue. -We have a new radio contract coming in....no idea how much that adds, but I'm guessing it's at the very least in the millions. -We raised ticket prices over 2 dollars per ticket and we're drawing much-much stronger than we previously had in our record breaking season last year leading to as much as 6-8 million dollars in additional revenue. And lets keep in mind, Mark A has made 240 or so million dollars over the last 7+ years which is 30 million a year in ADDITIONAL revenue that doesn't get counted in the conventional sense. So do we have the money? Sure we do. there are just 29 other teams that might throw a little wrench in our plans sadly...

Well my opinion would certainly be changed if we could snag a guy like Profar or Machado(the top remaining prsopect I believe from the top 100 list) or Profar who has to be among the top 3-4 at worst, giving us a Castro type SS for the next 6 years. I just don't believe that's realistic. I mean...I guess with the Rangers it's possible. They have the money to sign Greinke and they obviously had the biggest need we have. And we could expand the trade and trade away a Greinke/Hart and perhaps another arm like K-Rod while paying his salary for Profar and Martin Perez with the stipulation that the Rangers are allowed to get a 3 day negotiating window to sign Greinke. But even there, how realistic is that? They've got Hamilton to worry about this off-season...though Hart could replace him with all the offense they've got. And I don't know who the Rangers backup Catcher is, but I'd even throw in Kottaras to get that type of haul in return. But is Greinke/Hart/K-Rod(+6 million or whatever)+Kottaras enough to get Profar and Martin Perez back? Not sure. The Rangers are desperate to win and Greinke would move to the front of that rotation, but even with all the money they've got...there is a limit. And I totally throw Machado out of the equation. Great idea, but you usually don't trade away a budding superstar when you're the O's. They have no reason to trade for the players we have other than Braun or Gallardo and why would we trade either? Maybe if Machado was off to a Starlin Castro start Braun could even be discussed, but even then you're talking(IMO) about a guy like Bundey and Machado or something absurd that's video game like. I just want ONE extreme or the other. Not lose Greinke and keep spending 100+ million, likely 110-115 and still be a 80 win team. If we lose Greinke, I'd honestly make NO player untouchable. The haul you could get for a Braun could be franchise changing. Same with Gallardo. Blow it all up. Move Hart, Weeks(if he bounces back, otherwise wait till next year as I just don't believe he's NOT a good player anymore), Axford, and throw everyone out there. We could play our cards right and have as many as 10-12 top 100 prospects coming into next year and many of them would be in the top 25. But of course the FO would never go for that and never even consider that as our attendance would dwindle to probably about 1.8-2.0 million. But at least we'd cash in at the height of many of our players worth. Though trading Braun would rip a big chunk of my heart out of me and it may lose a lot of Brewers fans for the long term future.

Are you really suggesting that talking walks is more a result of your stance than your ability to take pitches outside the zone and have a good eye at the plate? And it has nothing to do with how he starts his stance. It's about where he is when he's ready to make contact with the ball. Otherwise wouldn't everyone come out and get into some type of yoga stance? I mean, I don't think I've ever heard a more ridiculous idea for dismissing a players ability to draw walks, especially one of the greatest in the history of the games at doing so.

This is a nice thing to watch for - sort of like when we had Hardy, Braun, Prince and Rickie all coming up together. And there are other guys that could develop as well. Makes for a decent future if even 1/2 of them turn out to be serviceable guys. But having Greinke is really important, as you pointed. None of our other guys have the 'ace' potential like he does. At least not yet. I just hope he's interested in being part of it. Well, I would argue that we do have pitchers that have ace like potential. I'd argue though that around MLB each system has several guys with "ace," like potential. I think Peralta, Thornburg, Bradley, Jorge Lopez, Brooks Hall and even Jungman who people say has the upside of a #2 has ace like potential. We just all know how unlikely it is to reach that potential and most are more likely to be #2-#4 types. Higher end #2/3/4's. You get to a point where you're ascending and it's as much fun to watch your team try to win as it is to watch your team bring up the future and watch these uber talented young core pieces get their first taste of the big leagues. I can't think of anything more boring than an 80 win team without some superstar potential in the minors. So right now the most interesting thing about the organization to me are the Brooks Halls, the Arcia's, the Rivera's, Richardson's, Gennetts, and obviously the rest of the pitchers we've talked about. I just want both. I want Greinke so we still have the potential to be a playoff team, and I want all the picks we've had and are likely to have coming up develop a couple of those superstar prospects. NOTHING makes me more sick than to think that we could have Mike Trout right now if not for the terrible rules that gave the Angels the #1 pick of the Yankees over Sabathia and gave us their 2nd rounder, and Brett Lawrie. Just close your eyes and imagine our pitching prospects with the potential to have a Trout/Lawrie/Braun/Hart/Weeks/Aram/Lucroy/-SS with Greinke/Gallardo/Wolf/Estrada and Peralta filling out the rotation. But..hindsight being what it is...is...not fun at times.

He knows most of our impact talent (Jungmann, Bradley, Thornburg, etc.) is a 2-3 years away. How do you argue that Thornburg is 2 maybe 3 years away? He's dominating in AA right now. Players regularily jump from AA to the big leagues, so to suggest he's even 2, much less 3 years away is absurd. And Jungman and Bradley could both easily end up in AA this year putting them in play for next year. Which is also ignoring that we've got out TOP pitching prospect in Peralta ready to go and waiting for the next phone call, a pitcher with upper 90's stuff who gets GO's. Overall I just think you're superimposing your own belief system for his. "He knows that these players are this far away,"(something that absolutely nobody knows) and that we don't have any impact players(I doubt he decides where he's going based on the top 100 prospect list) and we do have some very good offensive players. It never ceases to amaze me how quickly people forget about a player and write them off after a short period of time of struggles such as Weeks and company. But if Greinke IS this guru of the minor leagues he professes, he'll see we've got some pretty good young OF'ers, and defensive upgrades in the minors. It's YOUR view that Aram isn't a good player moving forward when he's shown almost no signs over the last several years that he's a viable middle of the order hitter,and he's not exactly 40 years old. Weeks is in the midst of the worst slump of his career and still has an OBP around .300. If Greinke is in tune with everything as you seem to think, I'm guessing that'll play a role. Not to mention, Greinke's also made it known(actually made it known, not us gleaning his opinion from almost nothing) that he prefers the smaller market at times throughout the trading process. So where are the small market teams that have the upside the Brewers do with Greinke on other teams? The Pirates? The Royals? They're possible I suppose, they should have some money to spend. I don't doubt there will be a lot of teams that will show interest, but I think in the end the Brewers will have the money to sign him and have to get it done, and I suspect Mark A will also want to. I don't care if we're paying him 1 million a year until he's 72 like we need to sign him above all other moves we've made or are likely to make in the near future. This is all aside from the fact that I don't understand why exactly you think Greinke has all this insight into the downside of the Brewers, but none of the upside, including increasing revenues and a team coming off a NLCS game 6 loss to the Cardinals just one year ago. So I doubt he looks at the Brewers as a team that can't win considering that he was IN contract talks until Matt Cain signed(suggesting you're 180 degrees off here), and we have won, they won last year after starting off in a similar fashion.

Actually spending some money on someone would help. [/b [sarcasm]Yeah, it's not like the Brewers have a 103 million dollar payroll this year when we had a 27 million dollar payroll about 7 years ago....[/sarcasm]

And I agree with that philosophy. I was leading the charge to trade Hart for Bumgarner when it was rumored to be on the table a couple years ago when it was coming up and Hart was having a great 1st half. I wanted the Brewers to completely rebuild a few years ago when Prince was two years away from his walk year using Lawrie among others are our core pieces(I still think that Lawrie trade will haunt us for YEARS to come). But when we ended up getting Greinke, a guy that I openly pined for when we ended up getting CC(simply because I thought he would allow us a much wider window and the Royals were openly shopping him at the time). Greinke to me is the biggest move the Brewers have made the last 25 years and will make over the next decade. We all know how hard it is to crawl out of that habitual cycle of being the bottom feeder. We went through it for the better part of..what, 26 years with a decent year here or there? I just think Greinke's got a Cy Young or two left in him and he is such a dominant pitcher that with the young arms we have coming up, we can be a team similar to the Rays if we can hold onto Greinke. Just a guy I think will cripple this franchise if we lose. AND I think we're going to just blow Braun's prime years without Greinke. WITH Greinke...again, I've thrown this out there a dozen times, but could you imagine the potential in 2 years? Greinke, Gallardo, Thornburg, Peralta, Bradley as your starting 5? With Fiers, Jungman(who frankly could knock out either of the last two) and still having a number of impressive arms coming up. Of course there will be Tommy John's in there and other issues, but the truth is, we've got the pieces to build AROUND Gallardo and Greinke and put forth a GREAT dominant, potential league best rotation. Take Greinke out and we could have an above average rotation without any real outstanding position players on their way. It'll be the worst day in Milwaukee since Molitor left if Greinke leaves as a FA as well.

Agreed. You put him on base, and if the average times a team will score with a man on 1st and 0 outs is lets say 28 pct(and I'm not sure if that's the actual number, but lets just say that is it). With Ricky on 1st that had to be 15-20 pct higher.

I don't agree with this at all. Clemente had a career line of .317/.359 /.475 with an OPS of .834 Henderson had a career line of .279/.404/.419 for an OPS of .820 I think Henderson had a much greater impact on the game, and his overall numbers took a big hit because he wanted to play so long. But the guy scored more runs, stole more bases than anyone and was the greatest leadoff hitter of all time. 6 times in the top 10 in MVP voting, 3 times in the top 3 including 1 MVP. Now take this into consideration. Clemente tragically died when he was 37 years old and started playing when he was 20 years old. Henderson started playing when he was 20 years old. If you just take Henderson's career through age 20, it looks like this' .287/.406/.435 OPS of .842 with 244 HR's and 1186 SB's. So the exact same OPS, a couple more HR's, about 1140 more SB's(which I realize doesn't fall under the best "hitter," of all time, but I think it needs to be taken into consideration how often a walk was a double to Henderson). Given the choice to play for my team for their entire career, I'd take Henderson. Clemente wasn't really a power hitter and he was a #3 hitter while Henderson was a leadoff hitter who hit about 60 more HR's and from ages 20-37 were nearly identical players.

There is a reason that the Brewers are leading the league in HBP this season and two of the past three, and it's not some crazy statistical fluke. They simply do not protect their hitters. Or they've got guys who hang out over the plate like Weeks who's consistently among league leaders. I don't buy the argument that other pitchers know that the Brewers won't throw at them, thereby encouraging them to retaliate and hit guys themselves.

You call it defeatist, I call it reality. The Brewers can't compete to keep their own talent. Was it defeatist not to make a legitimate effort to re-sign Sabathia or Fielder? Because we both know a serious offer was not made in either case. It is defeatist to me. This team is currently fielding a payroll in the range of $100 million, a good chunk of which has been fueled by the attendance boom. There is no way that they are losing money either. If that's the case, and they are getting more TV money next year, there is no reason whatsoever that they should not be able to make a realistic offer to Greinke. I get the feeling that they have lowballed him thus far. Greinke is not going to get a contract in the Pujols/Fielder range. No one will give a pitcher more than 6 years. At most, he will get something like Cain got- maybe 20% or so more at the extreme, the Brewers can afford that. Bottom line, if the Brewers have two ace quality pitchers, they should be in the mix for the next several years. If they let Greinke walk and then resign Marcum for much cheaper, I'm not going to be sold the bill of goods that their PR machine churns out over the winter, because it's a profit maximizing move, not a solid baseball one. In that event, Attanasio had better get his bean counters out doing a marginal revenue analysis based on an attendance drop in the event of a 65 win season. The Brewers' extra TV money is rumored to be around an additional $20MM/year. Larger markets are also getting extra TV money to the tune of $130MM/year. What happens when everyone gets a sudden inflow of new money without a move in supply or demand (there are still the same players out there and each team still needs 25 of them to field a team) is that prices go up. Sometimes dramatically. This is why Fielder, Pujols, Votto, Cain, etc got their huge deals, and it is likely to continue for a while. If the prices move "x" and the Brewers increase in revenues is less than "x" because other teams' revenues went up at a much more rapid pace than the Brewers', then the Brewers will have less "real" money to spend relative to other teams. In other words, they may have a $100MM+ payroll, but it will buy less talent because the talent is much more expensive. The talent which is not getting more expensive is the pre-arby talent, which makes this talent much more valueable on a relative basis. The trend of extending pre-arby guys to "buy out" some free agent years can also work in the Brewers' favor. The problem is that we have been trading away or blocking our young talent recently, so we don't have a lot of pre-arby guys hanging around. Trading some of the guys we're losing anyway could be a way to increase our supply of what is rapidly becoming the most valueable commodity in baseball. First of all, these teams getting 130 million per year in TV money aren't the norm, they're the minority. The Dodgers, Angels, Yankees, Sox, Rangers...very few teams. And the Brewers are going from the worst TV deal in baseball to an obviously much better one. And you're also comparing 20 million...which is how much ADDITIONAL revenue this will add to our existing TV deal to the 130 which is the total other teams are getting. This TV deal in total is worth a helluva lot more than 20 million in total. And it couldn't be more defeatist to just declare that we're in rebuilding mode. No, we're NOT. Not WITH Greinke. With Greinke, we're the same team for the most part we are right now with better health and time to allow our young arms to supplement our big league talent. Schafer, Green, Gamel, Gindl, Gennett are all guys who can make an impact at the big league level and could do so in the next couple months and over the next 6 years. Our pitching continues to improve in the minor leagues a great deal. And moving forward, we should be able to sustain a 110 million dollar payroll at least. We're at about 103 right now, and again, without listing the reasons, after making a lot of money last year(a lot relative to the "we could lose money argument Mark A put forth) and drawing that much better this year, and after higher ticket prices along with that, TV money and the new Radio contract, 115+ wouldn't surprise me in the short term. Now these things seldom continue at this rate. Look at the Indians. They sold out how many games for how long? There is going to come a time when fans lose a little interest unless we're one of the top teams in the NFL every year and our attendance will decline. So I don't think ranking as high as we do in payroll is just the way things are now, but I DO believe they're the way things will be for the near future. And with Weeks, Hart, Ramirez, and other high priced players on the roster, if we do start to see steep declines in payroll, we can adjust accordingly. But I don't understand why we'd be waving the white flag WITH Greinke. Again, Greinke, Gallardo, Thornburg, Narveson and Peralta could very well make for a very good rotation next year. Extrada and Fiers also get thrown into the mix with Bradley, Jungman, and Nelson as rotation options the following year or two. What's more, signing Greinke doesn't preclude any additional upgrades anywhere else. I personally would feel comfortable going back with Gonzalez next year at SS and certainly hope that Gamel gets the gig at 1st base again as I think he's still the future there despite the whole freaking line of crap he's had to suffer through. WITH Greinke, the Brewers just need a couple tweeks and health and they should be a contender for the duration of his contract with he and Gallardo fronting the rotation, Braun, Lucroy, Gamel, Weeks, Hart, good OF rotation, regardless of who it is, Schafer, Gomez, Gindl, Morgan(likely gone IMO) and Aoki(who I think could and should be getting a lot more PT). I just don't see why we'd be in a rebuilding mode WITH Greinke. I also agree that trying to compare Greinke to either Prince, OR CC is ridiculous. The situation here is entirely different. The Yankees were going to sign CC and made that clear well before that season even started. There seems to continue to be this delusion out there that these are the same Brewers of old that can't compete financially in any situation. I'm not sure what more the Brewers have to do in order to dispel that myth.

Yes, it is, because if you've read ANYTHING I've said on the subject it hasn't had a single thing to do with his numbers this year, it's had to do with his approach to the game. Similar to if Marcum would have come out of the off-season with all his talk about trying to gain velocity by using his legs more and gotten his fastball up to 92-93 from 88. I wouldn't even bother looking at his numbers over 4 weeks of time.....that's going to show you next to nothing. I'm not concerned with Weeks thus far because of his numbers and I'm not encouraged because of the numbers Gomez has put up. I'm simply looking at his adjustments. And AGAIN-they maybe short lived. There hasn't been any question about that whatsoever. LITERALLY-all I'm saying is that we're dismissing Gomez as a future piece for the Brewers a little bit too soon-AND that he's looked much better after changing his approach thus far this year.