adamds22

Our starters have been getting it done lately for the most part. I don't know the stats for runs scored each inning by our opponent but my guess it is pretty swayed towards the end of the game.

I don't like the whole Olt for Grienke idea, do we really want a guy that K's in 25% of his AB's in the Minors?!? We already have a few of those guys on the team (Weeks and Hart). Granted I don't know much about him but I think we need to steer clear of something like that having possibly 3 spots in the lineup that K a ton would not be a good thing.

And they won't, this team with the holes we have is not at all a complete team. Our bullpen is a mess, our starting rotation is up and down and injured, some of our core players are not even coming close to their expectations and our replacements aren't doing very well either. For us to even make .500 I think we would have to have a handful off players figure out how it is to play baseball again and its been half a season and some of them still haven't figured it out so I doubt they will flip a switch and perform at their career numbers. Management needs to see this and concede that this year is not going to be our year and get ready to build a team for next year that can out perform this years team. Hopefully some of the players like Weeks, AmRam, Ax perform like we expect them to but we need to start looking for a SS, fill what ever holes we are going to end up with in our rotation and fill up that bullpen for next year. If that takes trading Hart, Marcum, Grienke, KRod etc then they need to start figuring out what they can get for these guys and soon. Yes we are set to sell 3M tickets again this year so selling would not look good but we've already sold a majority of those tickets, you may take a hit towards the end of the season and fall short but if we restock and field a capable team next year we'll be back to the 3M mark again. If we field the same team next year that will not be the case at all.

He's a cost controlled player and did pretty damn well at 1B this year until his injury, if we don't trade Hart at the deadline we need to move him back to OF next year and put Gamel at 1B. If we are to restock this team in any way we need money and signing Hart to an extension would just take up more of that money when we have a capable Gamel ready to play 1B for a fraction of the cost. I personally do not think we should sign Hart to any kind of extension unless he took a pretty big hometown discount. I like the guy but we have a lot of depth at OF and a lot more glaring holes than any of our three OF spots.

Honestly the best possible situation right now for the Brewers future is to get swept, that would hopefully be the nail in the coffin as we would be 9.5 games out and hopefully go into sell mode. If we stand pat or try to buy we are likely going to be pretty bad next year and maybe the year after. I hate to say that and I actually think this team is kind of close to being decent again, especially with Lucroy coming back, Marcum and Estrada will be back. We've lost like 3/4 of our June games by 1 run thanks to our bullpen. We're close but definitely not doing much this year so we need to start looking to next year and beyond. Let's get this club a contender again NEXT year instead of running practically the same team out there minus a good portion of our rotation and expect better results.

What I would like to see is trade Greinke and/or Marcum with the hopes of returning at the very least a top SS prospect (Profar(rangers), Machado(Orioles), Segura(angels), Hamilton(reds), Hak-Ju Lee(rays)). Bring up Thorny/Peralta to replace the arm that we lose and I honestly don't think we are much worse than we already are. Maybe a few wins but you replace the anemic SS options we have now. If we trade anyone we almost have to get a SS in return, we have nothing ready to come up (unless they give Bianchi a shot) and there isn't much out there available in FA. That gives the younger guys some experience under their belt going into next season and I'm not 100% sure how the whole service time thing goes but I think by the time we trade either pitcher it would be past the point where it would change their arby eligibility if we wait to bring them up till next year. I think everyone here agrees at the VERY least one of Greinke, Marcum, Wolf is gone next year. We can't rely on Narveson coming back 100% so we are going to have some major holes to fill in the rotation. We've already discussed that we have a lot of big contracts on the books for next year so rather than Melvin and Co. "going for it" next year and breaking the bank on some old FA starter or two to fill in the gap, we bring in a Thorny/Peralta/Fiers/Estrada/Narv to fill out the rotation and rather than getting their first major league start next year, trade the pitchers who won't be keeping next year and plug our in-house guys into the rotation now to see what we have.

As to next year's team, I have said that I don't think Gallardo + Greinke is that much better on a year-to-year basis than Gallardo + Marcum. The first pair gets us maybe an extra win or two a year for a significantly higher cost. If we had extended Marcum for a much lower price (in $ and years) than Greinke, I thought we could go into next year with a team which could at least be as competitive as it would have been if we'd "broke the bank" to sign Greinke. Now I think the "window" to extend Marcum is pretty much gone, so we could very well lose both Greinke and Marcum. The only argument I have against this comment is sure Gallardo + Greinke probably only equals a couple extra wins throughout a season over Gallardo + Marcum, our ultimate goal shouldn't be to simply MAKE the playoffs, it should be a WS. When it comes to playoff time a 1/2 of Gallardo/Greinke is significantly better than a 1/2 of Gallardo/Marcum when you consider they will be squaring off vs the 1/2 of the likes of the Nationals, Phillies, Braves, Dodgers etc.

I don't think we make the playoffs and we do need to sell certain pieces however at the same time I don't think we can have a fire sale either. Obviously the biggest and first piece is ZG, they need to meet with his agent now and find out if they have or are willing to give him what it takes to resign him. If not you absolutely trade him ASAP to get the biggest return possible (easier said than done). Outside of him you need to make a lot of people available but in situations like Weeks, Ramirez you'd be selling low and/or taking on salary, if that is the case I'd rather pass on trading them and hope they figure it out between now and next season. Staying put: Braun, Gomez, Aoki, Weeks, Ramirez, Luc, Yo, Narv Most likely staying put: Axford, Marcum, Parra, Estrada (I don't think anyone in this group will be traded but could see maybe Ax and Marcum if the deal is right and selling extremely high) Listen to all trade offers: Hart, Morgan, Wolf, Kotteras, any other reliever (gotta listen to all the offers for these guys, would be nice to get something for Wolf/Morgan) Must Trade: ZG (unless of course contract talks progress and the Brewers think they can sign him) If the Brewers let him walk for two draft picks I will be quite pissed and that would be a HUGE mistake on the Brewers behalf. If we don't trade him by the deadline I fully expect him to be a Brewer next season and beyond. You would hope that Brewers management isn't that stupid to just let him walk. The rest of the guys I don't think would net us any return that would be worth anything or we don't have anyone we can plug in for the rest of the season ie SS so our hands are kind of tied in that situation and we will have to ride out what we currently have.

We do have a pretty weak schedule the next 4 weeks or so. We could be right back in it after these next couple weeks (Home vs Pit, Cubs, Padres and Away vs KC and Min)

Any reason why they decided to put Gamel on the 15-day DL and release Braddock now? Seems weird to me since Gamel is all but done this season why not just put him on the 60-day DL and either release Braddock now if that's what they felt needed to be done or hang onto him until you absolutely need to release him.

Agreed 100%, this is getting ridiculous. IMO we need to not delay the inevitable and move Ramirez to 1B now, bring up Green and deal with the bumps.

If the goal here is to win a WS, you need elite pitching at least out of your top two. When it comes down to the big games pitching trumps all. We have the chance to lock up our top two starters for awhile, when it comes to a big playoff series we won't get anywhere with Gallardo, B Pitcher, B Pitcher. No matter how good our offense is I don't see us getting very far if we even make the playoffs with Gallardo being our only true ace. Now you throw in Gallardo, Greinke, B pitcher. Our chances to advance in the playoffs go up quite a bit. Like someone said above, I think it is a lot easier to fill in your gaps with your farm system (especially our farm system) with position players, I agree that I think one or more of the Ramirez, Hart, Weeks combo is probably gone next season (likely Hart) but we have a lot of OF depth right now. Granted not a lot of big name prospects but I'd rather take my chances that a Gindl, Schafer, Green have the ability to produce closer to who they are replacing over a Jungmann, Bradley, Peralta, Fiers being even close to what Greinke is capable of doing.

Please don't be Boras....

I think the Brewers are moving more towards a we are going to be competitive and challenge for the division every year than a "we're all in this year" type of a team. We've increased payroll a ton in even the last 5 years so I don't think the Brewers are going to be a one and done team anytime soon. Sure there will probably be down years and maybe I am just overly optimistic but we are building around the right players and locking them up early. Yes we may lose 3/5 of our pitching staff next year which if we do we probably won't contend in 2013 but that doesn't mean that we won't be right back in contention in 2014 and I personally HIGHLY doubt that the ownership lets 3 starting pitchers walk after this season. As far as Hart, this is the reason we have 3 CF's right now. Yes we won't be as productive but who is as productive when their starter is out with an injury. In my opinion we are way better off than most MLB teams as far as OF depth goes and hopefully Hart will be back shortly after the start of the season. There is no need to trade any of our OFers right now, maybe at the All-Star break if we see what we can get out of some of the unknowns (Gindl, Schaefer, Akoi). Couldn't hurt to give these guys some time to increase their stock at the same time. We have a lot of unknowns in the OF this year behind the 4 starters which we know what to expect from and I'm not sure we would get much benefit out of trading Gomez or Morgan.

Statement from MLB Executive Vice President for Labor Relations Rob Manfred: “Major League Baseball considers the obligations of the Joint Drug Prevention and Treatment Program essential to the integrity of our game, our Clubs and all of the players who take the field. It has always been Major League Baseball’s position that no matter who tests positive, we will exhaust all avenues in pursuit of the appropriate discipline. We have been true to that position in every instance, because baseball fans deserve nothing less. “As a part of our drug testing program, the Commissioner’s Office and the Players Association agreed to a neutral third party review for instances that are under dispute. While we have always respected that process, Major League Baseball vehemently disagrees with the decision rendered today by arbitrator Shyam Das.”

Adam McCalvy ‏ @AdamMcCalvy No suspension for Ryan Braun, who won appeal by a 2-1 margin. MLB releases statement saying it disagrees. Coverage at MLB.com.

All the ESPN guys are tweeting that Braun won now too!!!!!

Tom ‏ @Haudricourt I've been told AP is reporting Braun lost his appeal. Believe me, Braun won.

Tom ‏ @Haudricourt Players union officially announces that Braun won appeal, saying parties agreed to announce it despite usually confidential process.

Tom H just tweeted, blog on JS Ryan Braun has won his appeal of a drug suspension and will not be suspended for 50 games.

Heyman just tweeted it too: Braun decision expected by the end of the day, as karl ravech 1st said Starting to sound like we'll actually have an answer today....

According to @karlravechespn the Braun decision is imminent and will come down today. We will keep you posted...

Who cares about HR's, we lost Prince and possibly playing without Braun for 50 games, there is no way we get close to the HR output we did last year. That being said not having to rely on the HR to score runs might actually help us become more consistent. Last year we had our dry spells where we weren't scoring a lot of runs because Prince or Braun weren't hitting HR's or the people ahead of them weren't getting on base or whatever. This year I think it is up to RR to utilize our team speed more than we have in the past. We have Braun, Morgan, Gomez, Hart, Weeks and Akoi who can all steal bases and we may have to rely on more of a station to station approach than get on and let one of our big guys hit you in. I feel like we could actually have a better offense not having to rely on hitting HR's to score our runs. I think this season we'll really see how well RR manages this team because the offensive philosophy is going to be quite a bit different, especially if we lose Braun for 50 games. Not to mention our Defense should be quite a bit better with Aram replacing McGahee and Gonzalez replacing Yuni.

I can only imagine, I was at the NLCS clinching game for the Rockies the year they went to the WS (I wouldn't call myself a Rockies fan by any means) but the intensity during that game was easily one of my top 5 sporting events I have ever been to. That being said I could only imagine being at a game for my team, last weekend makes me wish I still lived in WI! Go Crew, let's sweep!

They need to average 42,433 to tie the single season attendance record....probably not gonna make it but should be close.