Big Reed

I still own the original players handbook, monster manual, and dungeonmasters' guide.

that's a very tough spot to be in. From your post, it appears you are keeping pujols, fielder, braun and Webb. and you have upton to either keep or trade. is this right? and you say steals are minimized? one thing to consider is that every team is keeping 4 players, so if you trade a player away, you are basically trading that player for a 5th round pick in a normal draft because the first 4 rounds already are kept. All 4 of your keepers are worth a lot more than just a 5th round pick. if you kept Upton, who would you trade? braun or Webb? Something to consider is if braun or Upton will maintain their previous year's position. does upton still qualify at second? Does braun still qualify at third? Upton is a lot more valuable as a second baseman than braun is at third. there are lots of third baseman. I have a keeper league where I kept Gordon, Braun and cabrera. I plan to play gordon at first and braun in the outfield. I have Upton in another league and will play him at Second for as long as he qualifies. I cant see keeping upton and trading braun or fielder for a draft pick. But, I could see trading braun or fielder for another keeper such as reyes or wright or howard or AROD. I think if you have a lot of brewer fans in your league, you could probably trade Fielder or braun for AROD. another idea is to keep upton if he has second base status and then trade Webb for a draft pick. This leaves you with no pitching keepers, but there are always a lot of unprotected pitchers who come out of nowhere and have great seasons- just like ben Sheets will. in most other leagues, a guy like gagne would go in the late rounds because people will remember his Bo Sox days. it's also my experience that you can trade an above average position player for an all star pitcher. after your draft, you could easily trade fielder or Braun for Santana. you may want to do that now. you're in a very nice position to deal from. just some food for thought.

I would say that this site is the most informative site about the brewers, and is also one of the quickest to post daily transaction information/rumors. If there is a trade about to happen, you can be sure that there is a thread concerning that trade. often times, this site out scoops other real newspapers to bring you the information first. Sometimes information regarding a trade is posted too fast. That's why the site has a rumors forum. yes this site has cliques. All sites do. A lot of the posters on this site are very stats oriented. That's not a bad thing. I personally don't like the use of stats because they are often misused to present only one side of an issue. However, I will agree that stats can provide very useful information to develop trends, comparisons, etc. One thing this site does not tolerate is trash talking among fans. This site frowns upon posters making fun of or degrading other posters. this site is also not a place for the quick one liner satire posts. One thing to remember. it's ok to disagree and have a different opinion than another poster. it's another thing to get into an argument with another poster. baiting and egging on other posters is kind of frowned upon. I disagree with a lot of the posters' viewpoints on this site. However, I respect their viewpoints, and they respect my beliefs. We seldom agree, but we know where each are coming from. Something we all forget is that this is a private site owned and operated by Brian and his friends. This site is not a part of the Brewers' organization. It's not a part of any wisconsin paper or media station.. it's not an extension of ESPN. it's not a part of MLB.com. it's a private site run by guys who have day jobs. And it reflects their values and desires. if this were my site, there would be some things I'd do differently, but it's not. I'm a guest here, and must follow the established rules of posting. I don't post here as often as I once did. I'm not as argumentative as I once was. That's not because of anything anybody here has said to me or about me. I don't post very much about anything anymore on any internet forum. To my knowledge I have zero strikes. I guess you could say I'm one of those people Brian gives a little bit more leeway too. I won't say i've earned any extra leeway, but Brian knows where I'm coming from, so he cuts me some slack. I don't post as much simply because my lifestyle changed. This site is not for everybody. But it is a very well run and focused internet site that also offers a fan forum.

for those that feel Biggio hung around too long, they should review Willie Mays' career. or perhaps Bert Blyleven's. if bert had retired two years earlier, he'd be in the hall of fame by now. many people have indicated biggio actually hurt the Astro's team by sticking around too long. it's not as if the Astros had anybody better than him on their roster or in the minors that could play second base. people here are quick to point out Biggio's stats and his faults.. Were Chris Burke's stats that much better that Biggio should retire so Chris burke could play full time? That's another reason I hate people who use stats. Stats never tell the entire story and are often slanted to the posters' point of view. Burke had an OPS in 2005 of .676 and he was vastly improved in 2006 all the way up to .765, but fell on his sword in 2007 with a devastating .661 OPS.. biggio was obviously blocking burke's path to stardom. Now that Biggio is no longer with us, Chris will finally get his chance to shine. OOps, he's no longer an astro, but a back-up for the dbacks. Biggio never put his personal glory ahead of the team. my guess is that it was the team that insisted that Biggio keep playing. And it was for two resons- they had nobody in their system to replace him, and the team wanted to milk his 3,000th hit for all the marketing money they could get out of it. if you want to blame anybody for biggio sticking around too long, don't blame biggio- put the blame on the rightful owner - the owner of the houston Astros. He's the same guy who gave Clemens a 10 year personal services contract to generate publicity and sell tickets for the Astros.

as somebody else pointed out, I think barry should ask BUD and Don Fehr to join him as his cell mates. They had to have known he tested positive over 5 years ago and kept deceiving the public and congress about it. They are as guilty of perjury and fraud as barry is. fehr probably bought the stuff for barry. and Bud was the guy who first introduced barry to balco. I'm quite confident in 10 years, we will have factual evidence that the balls in the NBA draft with oden were weighted ensuring the bucks, grizzlies and celtics did not get a top 3 pick because of their obvious tanking. If the celtics had gotton the chance to pick Oden, they would never had traded for KG and Allen. That plan kind of backfired in Stern's face. come on barry, just admit you took steriods twice, but you felt real guilty about doing it. You wanted to make your dieing dad happy. You did it for him.

it still seems dumb to me. it seemed real dumb to bat Soriano in the lead- off spot as well. but there are many threads attesting to how stupid cubs managers are. I had thought kendall would make a very nice guy to bat second. batting 8th is just as good for him. I liked yesterday's batting order. but I liked yesterday's pitching even more. In the past we'd jump out to a big early lead only to lose it. so with la russa playing around with the pitcher's batting order, does this mean we'll see Ankiel pitch once more? a serious question who would be better batting 3rd/4th for the brewers? Braun and then Fielder? or Fielder and then Braun? I think Fielder has more sheer power, but it seems like braun has a better HR pace. What advantages would braun have hitting in front of Fielder? and vice versa? hart looks like a great #5 hitter just like a younger palmerio without the juice once was.

I always thought your most disciplined hitter with a grea t average and some power hit third. Wade Boggs hit third. Didn't puckett bat third? Molitor hit third for a while later in his career for Toronto and Minn when he had more power and less speed. . Cooper hit third. Mattingly hit third. braun hit third. Canseco would hit third with McGuire hitting 4th. Frank Thomas hit third some times. Who hits third for boston? Manny? if you have two power hitters, I thought the obvious line-up would be to have the power hitter that could also bat over .300 hit third and the power hitter who is more of a home run guy hit 4th. I thought the old brewers had cooper hitting third and Gorman thomas hitting 4th. Didn't Simmons bat third or 4th? I would never put a guy like pujols batting second. that would be a total waste. Was that post made in jest so that the Cards would have a lousy lineup? You want your guy batting second to be able to bunt, and take pitches for steals, and be able to advance the runner, not somebody who can hit 40 homers. Jimmy Gantner bats second, not a guy like Pujols. With the Cards, you have pujols and Glaus as their power hitters. Pujols can also hit for average, glaus doesn't. it seems natural ala canseco and mc guire to bat Pujols third and Glaus fourth. after all that's what larussa did in Oakland with a lot of success. As far as the brewers, it's a tough call who should bat third. A case could be made for braun, hart and/or fielder. Fielder seems a more natural to bat 4th. but he's a very disciplined hitter who would do well batting third. hart could bat third or 5th. braun could bat well in all three slots. I had thought most 30/30 guys and 40/40 guys batted third, so you would want your 3rd hitter to have some speed. but then again, Soriano has rarely batted third. Didn't bonds bat third for the majority of his career? and sheffield as well? I thought you wanted your best overall hitter to bat third . I guess things have changed. maybe that's why we don't win. To me ted Williams should bat third. jim rice should bat third. George Brett should bat third. willie mays should bat third with McCovey batting 4th. AROD to bat third with a healthy Giambi batting 4th. Yount was a better hitter batting second when the brewers also had cooper batting third and thomas batting 4th. Was that the actual batting order in 82? or did Yount bat third, cooper bat 4th with thomas 5th?

couldn't we trade gross for a prospect and then sign lofton?

I think boras is a very good agent. You don't see Sheffield having his yacht being repossed by any bank. You don't see Sheffield crying that he needs that 3 year $21 million to feed his family. You don't see Sheffield filing for bankruptcy like Vin Baker.. Boras got Sheffield a very nice contract. Boras did the job Sheffield paid him to do. I'd like to know the names of any boras client who isn't set for life? Is sheffield planning on giving back any of that money he received ? Is Sheffield trying to talk his way into getting to do a cell phone commercial with Dwayne Wade? I'm sorry Sheff, there can only be one Sir Charles. Why does Sheff feel the need to speak? how many shoes can he fit in his mouth at one time? Has Sheff given his opinion about Clemens yet? Did I miss that episode of As the Sheff turns?

this is the exact reason i've bee n saying the brewers' window of opportunity is 1-3 years at best. I realize i come off as being very pessimistic. We al l know Prince will ask for more than Howard received in arby, and the brewers will either be forced to pay his asking price or come very close to it. Boras is not going t o give the brewers a discount and prince is not going to sign any 4 year deal for $25 million. Prince is going to command big bucks. that said, they'll have to cut their costs by either allowing some other quality players to leave, or they will be forced to trade prince away for prospects and start rebuilding once more. This is why i like the marlins so much. They splurge for a couple of years, win a couple of championships, and then they rebuild. We all know that day is of rebuilding and saying good bye to prince is coming. it would be nice if we followed the marlin's pattern and splurged for the next two years and won a championship before prince leaves.

Today's version of bert Blyleven could probably be said to be the White Sox Vazquez. he puts up great stats in about 7-10 categories, but he never seems to win as many games as he should. I can't really blame him or the White Sox bull pen. he just always seems to pitch a quality game and lose. Of all the White Sox starters, I like him the most. i'm not sure why. I just do. I brought up lee smith because i knew many people would find flaws in his game. But if we were to look at just wins or just saves, we should be thinking of him in great terms. The save for a reliever means about the same as a win for a starter. 300 saves for a reliever is not as easy as some people would lead you to believe. and lee Smith had over 400. but despite that, we still don't think of lee Smith as a great reliever. Some would argue that Dan Plesac was just as good. Sure, saves are easy to come by. but they were just as easy to come by for Sutter as they were for Lee Smith. And it's not like Lee was on many championship or winning teams. Lee Smith was a closer for the Cubs. no game is a safe lead pitching for the Cubs. But the fact remains, there is more to a pitcher than just wins and saves. however, we also must take into consideration who our audience is. To the casual fan wins are very important- probably the most important stat for a pitcher. however, to a stats geek or a real gm, wins are not as important as quality innings pitched. What's more important? a pitcher striking out 18 players and throwing 152 pitches in the process? or pitching a 4 hit shut out with 2 kos and throwing only 85 pitches? Greg Maddux used to be able to throw 90 pitch shut outs. randy Johnson would throw 135-140 pitches for his 18 Kos. what is the most important stat for a pitcher? wins? innings? ERA? pitches per game? Quality starts? complete games? Should one stat be weighted more than another? I remember there used to be a stat where you would compare a pitcher's winning percentage against his team's winning percentage. If the pitcher had a great winning percentage on a lousy team, he was said to be a great pitcher. but if the team's winning % was higher than the pitchers' , that pitcher was said to be lousy. the mark of a truly great pitcher is to be able to win 20+ games for a last place team. Steve Carlton once lost 20 games in one season. he also won 27 games and a Cy young award while pitching for the last place phillies. Carlton was just as good of a pitcher winning 27 games as he was when he lost 20. Well maybe not, but you get the point. i think wins is an important stat. I think wins is more important than quality starts. i think having 50 shut outs is more important stat than 300 wins. I think having an ERA under 3 is important if it is a career ERA over the course of 15 years. i think all of the stats Jim Palmer produced are vastly over rated. call me crazy, but I thought Dave McNally was the better pitcher. I think Sheets is a far superior pitcher than Cappy. but who has more wins?

one of the problems with barry bonds signing with another team was created by bonds himself. he stated he only wanted to play for a West Coast team. As a dh, that would be the Angels, Oakland and seattle. The Angels alrready have a full outfield and a capable DH in Garret Anderson. The A's can't afford to keep their own players much less pick up the $10 + million contract Bonds wants to be paid. Seattle has jose vidro as their dh. he did pretty well last year. it's sad, but there is no west coast AL team that needs a Dh. That's what happens when there are only 4 teams in the AL west. IF barry wants to play for an NL team on the West coast, he has a choice of the Dodgers or padres. Bonds in a dodger uniform could be interesting. but I doubt kent would allow it to happen. there would be a mutiny among Dodger players. Bonds as a padre would be interesting and also possible. Unless barry changes his position and rethinks playing for some team other than a west coast team, he's going to remain on the outside looking in. A team I could see as a possibility is the Cleveland Indians. Barry has family ties in Cleveland. Cleveland uses a variety of players in it's dh slot. Barry could easily play left field and dh for 100 games and 400 atbats.

obviously oswalt has been the better pitcher than Sheets. the stats clearly reflect it. I like to look at Bert Blyleven and Lee Smith. Anybody who was around during the years Blyleven pitched will say without reservation he was one of the top 10 pitchers in his day - maybe top 5. He was certainly a more feared pitcher than Don Sutton. Nothing against Sutton, but Bert was a lot better pitcher than him. bert didn't win 300 games. he should have. He should also be in the hal l of fame. but, he's not. lee Smith is the all time saves leader. Sure, he gave up a lot of homers. but he did the job he was paid to do. lee Smith was better than Sutter and gossage. but they both are in the hall and Smith is not even close. All three pitchers are from the same era. Smith is a little more recent. For Smith, winning and saving games was not enough. people also expected him to have a low ERA. he got the job done. That should be enough - but it's not. This is why I have such a big headache with stats. if you don't use the wins stats, you could make a very good case that bert Blyleven deserves to be in the hall of fame. he has great stats for complete games, era , Kos and shut outs. But his win /los s stats isn't worthy of induction. On the other hand, Lee Smith had great stats for wins and saves and Kos for a reliever. but his ERA was just a tad too high. People always looks for a single stat that will find a fault in a player rather than the 5-10 stats that make the player look great. people always look for a fault. if a player is a great base stealer, people look for his OBP or slug% and say he's bad. if he has a high average, people point out his numerous Kos. if he has a 370 batting average, wh y should we care if he struck out 145 times and only walked 45 times? but the fact is, we do. no matter how good a player is, we always find some sort of flaw. Notice, i said we , and not you. I am as guilty as everyone else. I have my favorite stats. However, my favorite stats are not other people's favorite stats. That's my biggest problem with stats. Some people love OBP. I thinks it's OK, but I don't think it should be used against a guy like crawford or Pierre to say they are bad players, just because neither has a .400 OBP. i used to love stats. but then people like ross perot came around and twisted every stat that existed for their own spin/purpose. Bill James is no different. Bill James sells a lot of stats books. Which are the best stats? and what can we use them for? I will give Bill James credit in that his player predictions for the last 10 years have been pretty accurate. but his player stats would never have predicted what teams have played in the world series the last 10 years. Based on stats alone, james would never have predicted the white Sox would win a world series or that Colorado and Houston actually made it to the world series or that the Yankees would be on the outside looking in. Player stats and being able to predict them are important. But sometimes a player is better than his stats. you know it and the other team knows it. Sheets is a lot better pitcher than Vargus. I once led my basketball league in FT shooting. I was 2 for 2. if a team wanted to foul somebody on my team, I'm quite sure they would go against my stats and foul me if the game was on the line. As I've gotten older, stats no longer are as important to me as they once were. we've invented some great new stats. but do these new stats translate into wins or championships? or do they just fill up new books with new stats to talk about? In my day, we didn't have the VORP stat. has the creation of that stat made the brewers a better team? or Fielder a better player? If Fielder's VORP was better than pujols' I'd still prefer Pujols. I'd still prefer the championships the cardinals, marlins and dbacks have won to being a very fiscally responsible franchise with a great farm system. i've seen a lot of baseball players with some really great stats come and go. Was Yount better than Yaz? Was Molitor better than Carew? Was Gibson better than Seaver? frankly, it doesn't matter to me. The only stat I really care about is a brewers' world series championship. Pitching wins is a nice stat to measure a pitcher's worth. but so are a lot of stats. In the end, the player's worth is really measured by how much you personally like him. If you hate somebody like Barry Bonds or Pedro Martinez, their stats will never be good enough for you. you will always find fault with them - a flaw - and a stat to prove it. Rather than looking at their career stats, you'll look at what they did lately to find flaws. But if you truly like a player suc h as bill hall or ben Sheets, you will use those same stats to say how great your favorite player will be, and you will make up excuses as to why their past stats did not reflect their greatness. I think Gibson was a far better pitcher than Seaver. I can find stats to prove my case and I'm sure others can find stats to disprove them. So in the end, if your favorite player didn't generate the stats you wanted or expected, that doesn't mean he's a worthless player. That just means he's a player and sometimes stats don't tell the total picture of why you like him. remember, all players have faults and flaws. if you really like a certain player, don't stop liking him just because of his stats. stats are great. but the game of baseball is so much greater!

i would agree Al. but other people seemed to think we should have tried to trade for more starting pitching like Santana, Sabathia, bedard, haran, Willis and the like. frankly, I don't see the real need to trade for additional starting pitching. I guess people wanted to acquire an ace. A move I wouldn't mind seeing the brewers do is to sign bartolo colon and then stash him on the 60 day Dl much like the way the Cards stashed mulder last year. Colon wil take a while to get healthy, but he might be a nice veteran arm to have down the stretch, or a nice commodity to trade to somebody else. I'm quite confident if the brewers signed him, they'd be able to unload him on somebody.

looking back on what I said and what others have added, I have a different view. I still agree with what I said, but for a different reason. yes, trading three prospects for Linebrink did limit wha t the brewers could trade for in the off season as their pitching depth in the minors was not what it once was. the y didn't have any top level minor league pitchers available to trade. their minor league pitching depth definitely took a hit. however, they still had Parra for the immediate future and jeffress for long term. they also still had a promising Charlie Vileunava on the major league roster awaiting a chance. While the brrewers did not have the minor league pitching depth to land a quality player ia a trade this Winter, it appeared the A's, Marlins and orioles were more interested in receiving quality position player prospects verses pitching prospects anyway. Maybin and Jones were the key players each team received. So not having quality minor league pitching prospects didn't really prevent the brewers fro m making those deals. not having any quality hitting prospects and an unwillingness to trade hart was the real reason the brewers didn't pull off a trade. on the other hand, there was nothing to prevent the brewers from going after a quality free agent pitcher this Winter. There were a couple of nice Japanese pitchers available. there were also several other quality free agent pitchers available, and the brewers signed one of them - Gagne. My strategy as a GM would be to go after free agents in the Winter to fill holes; draft the best available player in the draft; and make trades during the year from your depth.

the point that should be made is that the orioles received a top 25 overall prospect in Adama Jones. the marlins received two top 25 overall prospects in Miller and Mayburn. Inman may have been a top prospect for the brewers, but overall, he would have been lucky to be a top 200 overall prospect. Simply stated, Gallardo is the same caliber of prospect as maybin, miller and Jones, and melvin refused to trade him. Melvin should be able to draft a player with the supplemental picks gained from the loss of linebrink that should be as good if not better than Inman.

what's the difference of the brewers playing an interleague series or playing the Pirates during the pennant chase? Both are supposedly meaningless towards the race. However, the brewers might actually win the interleague series. let's face it, the schedule makers can't predict when they make the schedules up what teams are going to be in the pennant races at the end of the year. Who would have thought the padres and brewers series would actually have an impact on who won the NL West and also the wild card? Certainly, the padres would have preferred to play either the rockies or Dbacks in that last series rather than the brewers. Playing the brewers in that last series had the same impact for the Padres as if they had played the Angels or A's. I' m not sure why there are so many fans against expanded interleague play. Expanded interleague play would make it very easy to form two leagues with 3 divisons of 5 teams each. Put Milwaukee in the Al Central and move KC to the AL West. KC obviously wants to move out of the AL central anyway. Moving KC to the AL West makes as much sense as moving them to the NL Central. I'm over 35 and like the dh. I thought NL teams were supposed to be steals, pitching and defense oriented. NL teams win by generating runs in close low scoring games. That's how the NL used to be known. Guys like Mays were known as much for his speed and defense as his homers. Gibson and Seaver would win games 2-1 with no homers. the Yankees would win games 12- 8 with 5 homers. Even Hank Aaron had some speed. That doesn't sound like how the current brewers are designed. the current brewers are a big inning team. that's AL ball. Harvey's wallbangers was an AL team. It seems the brewers are going back to that mentality. For all the people who say they love the NL style of play, the brewers' style of play seems to be a big contradiction. Would brewers fans love the brewers more if they were faster and played better defense with fewer homers? or are brewer fans content to have an AL designed team playing against NL teams? Would brewer fans rather have Prince remain a brewer for life and become a Dh for the brewers? or leave to become a Dh for an AL team? there seems to be a huge contradiction in what brewers fans like for how their team should be designed, and how a normal NL team is designed. I will leave you with this question. if the White Sox were in the NL and the Cubs were in the AL, would more Brewers fans want the brewers to be in the AL or remain in the NL? is the revenue from the Cubs and Cards series the only reason Milwaukee wants to remain in the NL? More money? is that the reason?

I think this signing has more to do with Tavaress than with pods. the rockies were not that excited with Tavaress in the play-offs last year. Some called him the weakest link Rockie. The stats he generated in the season seemed to disapear under the play-off pressure. I think this signing was to lite a fire under tavaress or to have an adequate replacement in place.

I am still not convinced baseball needs a 16 /14 league split because of scheduling problems. I believe two 15 team leagues would work just fine! it's not like the current schedules are that great anyway. to make it work, all major league baseball would have to do is add a few more interleague games. I've often thought allowing the Yankees and Boston to play Tampa bay 17 times each was a very unfair advantage. if teams were limited to playing teams in their division only 12 times, and fill in the difference with interleague games, I doubt it would be very hard to come up with a compatible schedule to support a 15/15 division of leagues. The NFL didn't seem to have a schedule problem when it had two conferences of 15 teams. and nobody complained about NFL teams playing out of conference teams. who knows? you could throw in a double header or 2. And for all he naysayers of a 15/15 split and it's schedule problems, I doubt any of you have actually gone the extra mile to try to generate a schedule, have you? Admittedly, the schedule would be different than what we have today. but I heard a lot of grumblings about last year's schedule as well. a second given in adding additional interleague games is that all of the rules mus t be the same. Either both leagues have a dh, or not. the idea of one league using it and the other not using it was stupid and should have never been allowed. like the Declaration of Independence, it should have been unanomous or not initiated.

I would welcome the switch. i remember the reason the Brewers moved to the NL in the first place was because they thought they'd have better attendance. it was purely a financial reason. i would believe the brewers could have some great rivalries and also great attendance in games against the twins and White Sox. and from a playing perspective, the brewers have always done well against the Yankees and poorly against the pirates.

This begs the qustion about America's double standards. The media is all over pedro's case, but given a free las vegas 2-3 night stay, I'm sure they would take it and gamble to their heart's content and never report their winnings. Gambling is illegal, unless you are in an Indian reservation casino. naturalism is frowned upon in the US, but it not illegal to be natural in europe. and the paparazi are going to be there to take your celebritiy's au naturale picture and reveal it in some adult magazine or web site. There are some drugs in europe that help fight aids, but the US FDA has not approved their sale in the US. So Americans with aids go over to Europe to take their life saving drugs. I didn't like pedro much to begin with after what he said about milwaukee and refusing to play in the all star game here. if he wants to go to a chicken fight, so be it. it's right up there with going to a girls night club until 3:00 Am on the road while being married. I pass this off as poor judgement - found often in many athletes, entertainers and businessmen. I'm more dispointed with Juan Marichal. I had respect for him. he should have known better. You have to know this type of stuff has been going on for the last 20,000 years. i can just see the fun times chickens had on Noah's ark. so.. do they eat the loser? or do they eat the winner? Now I know where those little drumsticks with the broken leg bones come from.

the yankees also signed Ensberg and said he would be given a chance to play at first base. they did not say start at first, but he'd be in the mix.

last year I was about to make a similar post about the brewers starters never pitching past the 6th inning and how they got yanked before they even had a chance to throw 100 pitches in a game. but after doing some research in some box scores, I noticed that brewers starters including Bush, Suppan, Vargus, Gallardo and Cap did sometimes pitch into the 7th and 8th innings. Albeit it wasn't that often, but it did happen. the question that should be asked is how did the brewers starters compare with starters from other teams. We all know how our own starting pitchers faired last year. We all thought Yost had a fast hook and yanked his starters out too early and they could have given us another inning or two. But I have a feeling that la Russa yanked his starters probably faster than Yost did last year. I have a feeling that Braves, Rockies, Phillies, mets, and Dbacks pitchers all probably didn't pitch much past the 6 inning either. And rather than looking at their ace or #2 pitcher, a more realistic view could be gained at looking at their #3-5 starters. Without doing any lengthy research on the subject, I would imagine that the brewers' #4 and # 5 starters were probably two of the best in the NL last year. The brewers' starting pitching problems were not with guys like Bush or Vargus. What the brewers lacked last year was a truly dominating ace and #2 pitcher. I don't expect guys like Bush or Vargus or Suppan to pitch complete games or shut -outs. I do, however , expect Sheets and Gallardo to be able to go 7- 9 innings on a consistant basis with a few complete games and shut-outs thrown in the mix. from a fantasy standpoint, I noticed throughout baseball last year, there were very few complete games or shut outs thrown and quality starts were also down. Even guys like Livan Hernandez had fewer innings and comeplete games. My fantasy advice is don't draft starting pitchers in the early rounds; and draft quality closers before quality starters.

the yankees have a history of signing veterans to nice dollar wise minor league contracts, and then bringing them up if/when they need them. Each year there is always 1-2 familier names on their AAA roster. This move would not surprise me.

rather than addressing a specific need of position, is it possible the brewers may address a specific need for the batting order? or a specific need for defense? In the past few drafts, the brewers have gone after some very talented hitters. But very few of those hitters knew much about playing defense. Is it possible the drafting philosophy might change to go after a position player known for his defense and arm instead of his bat? Then again do any teams draft players for their defense over their offensive skills? I would love the for the brewers to draft a prototypical lead off hitter. I think we have enough hitters who can hit the long ball. I would love to see the brewers drafting a singles hitter who has speed. I would love to see a Icharo, Vince Coleman or Lofton or Lou Brock type of hitter at the top of the brewers' order. I think having somebody who could steal 50+ bases would add another weapon/dimension to the brewers' offense. Perhaps, one would say the brewers already have that player in Tony Gwynn Jr. but he is not really known as a stolen base artist.