Big Reed

how about a couple of analogies? Hardies and McDonalds are located right next to each other. hardies is the new burger joint in town. I've been to a hardies before. i know what their food tastes like. it only takes me one minute more to go to hardies. but i prefer going ot Mc Donalds. I like their menu and their service. Don't try to force me to go to hardies and eat their food just because they are the new web site in town. I took a look, and I prefer McDonalds. Signing up for the lambaue leap is kind of like going to best Buy and having the clerk ask you if you want to also sign up for their frequent buyer card. i don't want to take the time to sign up for their card. I admit it would only take a minute to do so. and it annoys the heck out out of me everytime i go to best Buy that the clerk asks me if i want to sign up for their card. yes , i'd get valuable coupons that i'll never use if I sign up. Every time we have a football post on brewerfan, and somebody says you should go to lambeau leap reminds me of that annoying best buy clerk. last analogy. Smoking kills. Don't do drugs. Wear a helmet if you ride a motorcycle. Wear a seat belt. Ruffles and beer will make you fat. chocolate will give you zits. Sit up straight. don't slouch. exercise more and eat more fiber. Rules rules rules. locking football threads and forcing people to talk football at lambaue lep is like your wife and/or mother forcing you to go on a diet! yes mother, if you say we must go to lambeau leap to talk football or be grounded for life, i guess we'll have to go to lambaeu leap to talk football. However, the reality is that most of us will be rebel and go out of our way not to do what we are ordered to do even when we know it's in our best interest to do so! it's the American Way.

the problem with griffey is that when he's good and healthy, people come to see see him play and cincy would never part with him while those people are coming to the ballpark. the time to trade for griffey is when he's injured or coming off an injury and his salary seems to be a liability to the reds. the problem with that scenario is that when he's injured, the brewers would have no real need or desire for him.

That's why i would go after weathers- especially if the reds tell him thanks but we're going to go with Guyardo as our closer now. the reds signed hermanson in the off season to a minor league deal and announced they thought he would be their closer. he didn't make it out of Spring training. While i'd like to see the brewers go after weathers, i think their #1 target should be a veteran lefty reliever. Unfortunately, usually the good ones are not on the trade market.

Somebody to think about and the reason why. Weathers. he's a great reliever and accepts whatever role is given him. he could be a closer, 8th inning guy or 7th or 6th or whatever. there is talk out of cincy that Guyuardo (sp - was i close?) will be ready to return in june. this same talk seems to believe he will reclaim his closer role, and Weathers will revert back to being a set-up guy. What does cincy need that the brewers have? They need young starting pitching. they could also probably use a young prospect. I read yesterday about the Cardinals trading todd ziele a little past his prime to the Cubs. So interdivison trades do happen. i'd still like to see the brewers add a quality veteran leftie for their bullpen. i realize they are few in number and the cost in terms of what we'd have to give up is usually high.

if you create an optimists thread, pretty soon, you'll have to create one for the lions and kiwanis and Civitan, Shriners, and odd fellows too.

don't forget the postal rates went up to 41 cents. or your laundry will be returned dirty. Where there is Drama - there is reed. I didn't start it, but i'm sure this thread will soon be locked because of my intervention.

my thoughts are that if we offered sabathia arby, we could get a first round pick from the team he signed with and a suplemental pick because he would be a type a free agent. if we used those two picks on college pitchers, they could arrive next year and pitch at about the same level in the minors as the pitching prospects we would have to give up to obtain Sabathia. Now, i' m curious. Did texas offer carlos lee arby?

the indians have made it known that if they fall out of contention, that leftie Sabathia would be made available in trade. They do not plan to resign him once he becomes a free agent after the year. this could be a situation of where the brewers could rent the services of Sabathia for a couple of months. We could give cleveland a couple of prospects for him. and then offer him arby to get a couple of first round picks to replace the prospects we gave up to acquire him. essentually, we give away a couple of AA/AAA prospects for a couple of A/AA prospects and have the services of Sabathia for 2 months.

I could see trading capellan and or graffy or one of our other minor league prospects for a leftie reliever specialist. I'm not sure what other areas would need an upgrade.

if the brewers are still contending in july, who would they trade at the trade deadline? and who would they trade for ? I look at our starting pitching and i see 5 qualit y guys with yo and charlie wanting t o take a spot. I look at our relievers and see Cap at AAA. Dessens and Acquino haven't bee n great. I look at the catching and it seems fine. prince, Weks and hardy will not be traded. I could see braun being called up by july. the outfield already has too many players. So would we trade for a long reliever? or a speedy lead-off guy? Would we make a blockbuster deal? Would we go after some old guy like moyer? and who would we be willing to unload ? graffy? parra? jackson? inham? I could see trading capellan and or graffy or one of our other minor league prospects for a leftie reliever specialist. I'm not sure what other areas would need an upgrade.

I have to wonder if Cabrera is Sheffield's roommate or cousin? or if Sheffield was his mentor when he was coming up through the marlins' system? he sure is begining to sound a lot like him. He 's dissing the Yankees just like Sheffield did when he left. he wants to play for the Cardinals? but he's only willing to play third base? The last time I checked, the Cardinals have a very popular and capable third baseman named Rolen. A quick inventory of sports shops in the St Louis area will reflect there are a lot of Scott Rolen jerseys sold. I doubt Rolen is going anywhere any time soon. Cabrera is developing a really bad 'tude just like Sheffield. fortunately for him, he can still hit. once his hitting skills diminish, don't expect any major league teams to come calling offering coaching or front office positions. I think the Yankees are better off with AROD. AROD is a class act.

I doubt the A's would be willing to trade any of their relievers. Street is kind of fragile, and Hardin is not really the healthiest of starters. if the y expec t t o compete , the y wil l need t o keep al l of their pitchers. Your proposal was fair. i just don't see oakland going for it. i think an additional problem is that oakland would not make any type of deal where they would be adding salary. So the brewers would have to eat $3 million of mench's salary. Oakland is not the team to try to unload mench and has salary.

cantu was recalled yesterday when iwana (sp) was placed on the dl. obviously, unlike Capellan, cantu took his demotion as a wake up call, shut up, stopped complaining and played baseball at AAA.

i often times see a player designated to extended spring training. usually that player is one of the higher draft picks on a team. and many times that player will go from extended Spring training and then skip a minor league level I'd like to know the real purpose of extended spring training. is it a place where players go becausse of injuries? they didn't get enough spring training? Do they go there if they are switching positions and they'll get more attention than going straight to a class a team? do they go there so they won't count against a roster size? is it like a tryout camp for newly acquired palyers? and the coaches send them to a certain league based on their performance? Does it have anything to do with a player's options clause? can a player go to extended spring training and not use up one of his options? I ask because i've seen first round picks sent to extended spring training. i've see both AA and AAA and even some major league players go to extended spring training. I'm just wondering what extended spring training can provide a player that playing for a Class A or AA team can't provide?

sorry, I don't believe in having to type my sarcastic jokes in a different color just so that people will know that they are a joke. this entire thread has been just one long joke. i think the serious posts of this thread should be colored blue or maybe pink..

Did i just hear a mench and Cappelan trade rurmor for Manny? Manny is currently on pace to have 0 home runs this year. i think we'd be giving up too much. but to get rid of Capellan, I'd do it.

that's exactly the wrong mentality. we need to stop trading our best player for nice prospects and hope they develop in a few years. What we need to do is figure out a way to keep our best players and not trade them away. and we don't need to trade our best players for prospects if we make smart decisions on draft day.

ryan- you need to back up just a tad.. you said if we want to contend year after year, we need to make astute trades focused towards the future. We have yet to contend once in the past 25 years. Do you consider 81-81 contending? We need to be a contender first before we start making astute trades with the future in mind. We've been making trades looking at the future for the past 20 years. it's now time we make astute trades looking at the present. We've never done that before. Contenders make trades looking at the present. contenders give away the future to win now. i'd like to see some of those type of trades.

the question should be do you always want the brewers to have lots of highly thought of minor league prospects? or do you want the brewers to contend for a major league title? the brewers' last highly AAA prized pitching prospect didn't fair too well(hendrickson). there's no assurance if we traded sheets for some pitching prospect, that prospect would fair any better than hendrickson did. Do you want the brewers to be a AAAA team and always rebuilding and always trading away their best players? or do you want the brewers to keep their star players and build around them? the brewers can save a lot of money by constantly trading their best players for other team's prospects. however, eventually, a major league team should concentrate at winning at the major leageu level rather than always winning at the AA and AAA levels. if you want to trade sheets away before he becomes too expensive- go ahead. it's been done by the brewers before.

Looking at tucker and Florida's other prospects, i think i'd want more or somebody better than tucker. it's funny to read that another team believes melvin is demanding a lot in return for Capellan. and then i see the name tucker, and i ask myself, "that's a lot?" he hasn't eve n pitched a t the AA level yet and his stats at single A were not overly impressive. at least Capellan had great AA stats before we traded for him.

iluvlamp: i did not post in the Imus thread. I'm now glad I didn't. however, i posted a couple of posts today in that forum Brian provided a link . it's my hope these two posts can be a start of a civil religious discussion. if things remai n civil, i might post some political related threads.

julio is out as the closer for florida. gardner was sent dow n t o AAa and tankersley was brought up. Look for tankersley or owens as the new florida closer. the marlins manager has said he won't reveal his plans.

it was pointed out last year that manny's salary compared to some other player's salaries received lately is kind of a bargain. However, i would have to ask, do we have a door in our outfield that goes to a bathroom? if not, I would think that should only cost $10,000 to install. if we signed manny, would we be forced to shift hall to third base? i know corey hart played third in the past. maybe we could shift Corey to third and play manny in left. or right. although manny playing centerfield would be a very entertaining adventure.

thanks brian. i thought we used to have a site that talked about political events and religion. unfortunately it looks like it hasn't been used much in the past 2 years, and the threads have been deleted. I enjoyed our discussions on religion, I realize this is a baseball site, not a political one, and establishing a political forum on a baseball site is not a great idea. but i think some of us would like to challenge each other's thinking. if that old site is still open, perhaps we could use it. political forums are very hard to moderate because of the cultures we come from. What may be common place language to one ethnic group may be offensive to another one. and sometimes when you think honesty is the best policy, others don't want to hear it. And sometimes to engage in debate or solicit feedback, you must come close to the edge. but in going to the edge is where you really learn how to accept different cultures.

brian, i know you hate drama. but it would appear that many of your brewerfan posters including myself love drama and political debate. I felt bad that the imus thread went to 5 pages and it was locked before i could contribute to it. would you give any thought to opening a forum or political website for just drama and political posts? it doesn't have to be brewer related or affiliated with brewerfan. Didn't brewerfan use to have another site to discuss politics and religion?