Gopher74

Oh absolutely. Not that I'm saying anything that others don't know, but when you bring in a top of the rotation type starter, it moves everyone else down one notch, making them that much more valuable for their slot. Whereas Washburn was a poor number 2, he's a solid number 3, Silva a good number 4, ect..ect.. Now do that to the Cubs rotation, a rotation that I believe to be inferior to ours, but with Bedard as the ace, make Zambrano a number 2, Lilly a 3, Hill a 4, and then Marquis/Mashall/Dempster or Lieber a 5, and that's a very good rotation, one that's better than ours possibly.

This could be an absolutely huge deal for the M's. Now they're rotation which had a ace in King Felix and then resembled a poor mans Sox rotation with an abundance of 4's(Sox's had 3's), and now they've got two potential aces in Bedard and Hernandez go to with Washburn, Silva, Batista along with young studs Brandon Morrow, and Ryan Feierabend. That's a very good rotation now with a left/right power arms combo at the top of it. It's got the potential to be very good, and with Sexon, Beltre, Vidro's still a solid offensive player, Ibanez is solid, Kenji Johjima's a very decent catcher, Ichiro's obviously a stuperstar. The one question I have now is do the M's consider moving Clement to LF now so that they can get that extra bat in the game when he's not catching? Either way, I think this makes them a very viable contender in the NL West. And before someone points out a possible contradiction here, when I spoke about how Bedard could possible suffer a drop-off next year, I still think that's very possible. I think it's possible he's a 3.50-.375 pitcher rather than the dominant ace he was last year. But at worse, a 3.75 starter who gets 215 K's is still pretty damn good. Very big time move.

Oh absolutely. And given how mature Prince is, and how he's seems to truly be "his own man", I don't think that Boras and his prvious dealings are going to guarantee that Prince is gone. Prince is a smart man. He'll have an idea of what he's worth and if the Brewres come close to that, and the Brewers are a winning club, AND the Brewers have retained Rickie as he will be a FA one year prior to Prince, then I think we've got a better chance than people will give us credit for.

Sheets deal was for a whole lot less than half. In fact, the different between half of 150(75) and what Sheets got(about 40) is almost the same as what Sheets got. Still, what he wants isn't what he's going to get per say. Buster Olney speculated that he may take a deal that would pay him 20 million over 6 years, or 23-24 over 5 years. Honestly, I think when you consider that you're going to be paying Suppan 25 million over his final two years, and that you'll definitely be abel to trade Santana at any point in his contract provided he's healthy, it's really not THAT bad of an idea. And finally, to Ender, yea, the Twins have always placed a premium on defense, but I believe they're starting to deviate from that just slightly in looking for more power, the one skill that's seemed to do them in year after year. I would think a package of Bill Hall for CF, Manny Parra, and then two good prospects, Gillespie+Gamel would get the deal done. So if we could sign him for say 6 year 125, then I'd be all for it. Let Sheets and Suppan go next year, and that is pretty much what he'd make. Santana Sheets Gallardo Suppan Villanueva/Bush/Capuano? LOL....of course, it's not going to happen. My scenario that is, but to the OP, it's an interesting idea obviously.

This is an interesting question because I think this off-season is going to give us more new impact players than we've had in a while, or then weh'll have in the next few years. I think as others have mentioned Cameron is huge because he's allowed Hall and Braun to move to different position, thus improving our defense a great deal. Gange is a guy who is now in his second year back from injury which is usually the year a guy is "all the way" back, and he did a great job in Texas last year. But I'm going to go with a guy that nobody else willy most likely. I think that Salomon Torres is the guy who's going to make the biggest impact by himself. Torres is really in my opinion the most overlooked acquisition of the off-season. He's a guy who can easily go 90 innings, and do it very effectively. Last season was a bit of a down year, but frankly, if it wasn't, we wouldn't have been able to trade for him, or any of the other players we added. Hell, Cameron turned down 3 years and 36 million early last season. But anyway, I think that Torres is going to assume Villanueva's role from the first half of last season, a role that was absolutely huge in us getting out to a 8 game lead. He'll allow us to get from the 5th or 6th inning and get the ball to the back end of our pen, he can come in and pitch the 7th, 8th or even 9th as he's been a closer before, and he's proven to have a rubber arm in the past. IN short, he fixes what I believe to be the biggest problem with our team last year aside from Braun's D, which was the middle relief. When we had Villy and Wise throwing the ball well, we were a very good team. Wtihout those two, we blew a lot of big leads. And finally, I think that he, as well as Riske, hopefully Mota and Gange will allow Yost to give Turnbow the hook when he's simply not on. Last year it was so painfullly obvious when Turnbow just didn't have it many times within the first 5-8 pitches, yet because we only had a closer to follow him up, and you can't have your closer pitch multpile innings on a regular basis, you have to leave him out there and just cross your fingers. Now if he's not getting the job done, bring in Torres, Mota, Riske, even Bush, Vargas or Capuano and Turnbow's ERA should plummet. I see him as a result posting an ERA in the mid 2.00's again this year.

How is "boat gas" twice as expensive as car gas? It's the same thing. It's sometimes more expensive on a lake because it's easier for boaters to gas up, but it's not different gas. I assume that's what you're talking about, correct?

Man, I had a feeling we were going to regret not getting the deal done with Weeks when he was an 8th rounder for us a couple years ago. He sounds like he could be a great CF prospect for us, and it certainly would seem like it might be a reason to entice Rickie to stick around? Who knows, maybe he'll be around for one of our supplemental picks this year? It'd be nice to have him in our system.

Nobody you know goes out for so much as a drink before or after the game ever? Hmm..that seems kinda odd to me. I guess we just travel in different circles. I obviously love watching the Brewers play, but I think that there are a lot of people who, like me, want to make it a complete evening. I know that when Cubs fans come up they often stay over, go to Summerfest, German Fest, whatever the case may be.

Absolutely no question I'd go with Hanley Ramirez. Hanley's a superstar player who in addition to having great speed...not Reyes type speed, but close to it with 51 SB's in the last two years, has exceptional power, and is just a fantastic hitter. The guy's kinda hybrid of Arod and Reyes in my opinion. To be honest, given a choice between he and Miggy as the guy you're going to build around for the long haul, that's the guy I'd have chosen.

I don't think it has much to do with the fact that they're black, I think it has to do more with the fact that they came up together. And they did do a little segment on how close Hart and Prince were, but it was more so about how close their wifes were, so perhaps that plays into her answer a bit. Prince certainly seems to be very close with Rickie. Either way, I don't agree that it has anything to do with them all being black to be honest with you, they were just the three most well known players coming up, and the "hope" for the future, so of course they're going to do corny little segments on how good their chemistry is.

A lot of people. I almost never go to a game without going out after the game for a couple Beer's, or a bite to eat. And if you come in from out of town, you're likely staying at a hotel, and you're definitely going out to eat.

They should use Fukudome. Or at the very least bat him second. It'd seem to me that DeRossa could handle the 5th spot just fine, and Fukudome would have a chance for a real big time breakout year with Lee hitting behind him and Soriano hitting in front of him. As I see, it, this would be their best lineup with Soriano hitting 1st, since that's not gonna chance. 1-Soriano 2-Fukudome 3-D. Lee 4-Aram 5-DeRossa 6-Sota 7-Pie 8-Theriot But hey, to each their own. I hope they find a way to to work Fontenot back into that lineup.

Can you imagine if Taylor was still the GM? I can only imagine how badly he's screw this whole thing up. He'd have traded Prince because we had Brad Nelson at 1st base, and he clearly was the safer of the two choices. I'm sure he'd have dumped Weeks because thank god we had Junior Spivey and that guy was an all-star. Hell, we'd have been every teams favorite trading partners, sorta like the Pirates are now. But yea, getting Jack Zduriencik may have been one of the top 5 things to ever happen to the Brewers. 1-82 Series 2-The Big 3, Yount, Molly, Gumby. 3-Miller Park 4-Mark A 5-Jack Z/Doug Melvin Soon to take over the top spot, the 2008 World Series WIN!

Yea, but how much longer are we going to hear that about Bush? The bottom line is that he doesn't pitch up to his peripherals. The fact is that he's simply not as good as his peripherals would suggest. And I think there's a big difference between Villanueva and Bush. Villanueva's more reliable and more consistent at this point whereas Bush could go out and give you 8 Innings of 2 hit ball, or he could go out and give up 6 in the first inning. I doubly don't understand Melvin's comments based on what he said before about all the new aquisitions being able to go two innings at a time. it would seem the bullpen would need less of the converted starter/long inning kind of guys. Just saying that they CAN go 2 innings doesn't mean that they will everytime out, it means that he's got a bullpen that's versatile which is always a good thing. And it's always better if a guy is able to go 2 innings, such as Torres, Riske, and Mota can. I would think there's enough info on Villy to prove he should be a starter. This really disappoints me. I thought Melvin was smarter than that. I guess we all have blind spots. I think maybe we should wait and see what actually happens before we try to interpret what he said and call into question his intelligence. All the Escobar talk reminds me of Melvin touting Rottino. I hope it's not that kind of "kiss of death". I'm really rooting for this kid. I hope he "fills out," gains strength, and becomes an all around offensive player to go with that slick glove. I don't recall Melvin talking up Rottino as much as you do apparently. I do remember him praising him for his work ethic, and his versatility, but I guess I don't see a very clear correlation between the two. Rottino was never really anymore than a utility type player who was never going to be a big part of our future. That's why they moved him to catcher so that it'd increase his value. He's a player who's going to hopefully fill a niche for us. Escobar is a player who could be a future start for us. Anyway, I think it was more Yost who was a fan of Rottino. I just remember him really talking him up in ST the last couple years about what a hard worker he is, and how when they tell him to do something, he does it without any questions asked, and is willing to do whatever it takes to help the team and get better as a player. But like I said, he was never in the same league as Escobar. He was more of a "little engine that could" and Escobar is the blue chipper.

Great points. The back end of the lineup now has Kendall over Estrada, and hopefully with that, you'll see an OBP from .296 to .340 and if Bill James is right, nearly .370(not likely, however Kendall has a recent history of having a good year, bad year, good year). I'm of the opinion that JJ Hardy is going to see a dramatic rise in his OBP this year, hopefully up to the .350 or so mark. And if we can get OBP's of .350 out of the 7th and 8th spots, Weeks is going to have a lot more chances for RBI's, and with the inevitable breakout season that he's going to experience, he may well be able to push the 75-80 RBI mark. Overall though, I think we should have a much improved OBP. 2007 OBP by spot in the lineup/2008 projection 1-.369 Weeks-.390-.400 2-.329 Cameron/Gross/Dillon-.350 3-.362 Prince-.425 4-.382 Braun-.375-.385 5-.312 Hart-.380 6-.323 Hall-.330-.340 7-.306 Hardy-.335-.350 8-.317 Kendall-.345 I think this is pretty telling of just how atrocious we were last year in terms of OBP. You can just see Estrada's fingerprints all over those 5-6-7 spots, can't you? So you remove Mench(.306), Jenkins(.319) and Estrada(.296) and you replace them with Cameron who's been at .353 and .342 2 of the last 3 years and that's playing in Petco Park, the biggest pitchers park in the league now, Kendall who's always been a great OBP catcher, and Dillon and Gross who are both OBP type guys. I could see this team being north of .350 for team OBP next year.

Oh, I absolutely agree with that. The franchise was absolutely poorly run in the 90's. Bando was really the undoing of this team. At least prior to him, we always had at least a passable farm system. Maybe not a top 10 every year, but we had some top prospects. In the 90's and before Taylor hired Jack Z, it was real ugly. It was one blown draft pick after another. Chad Green, JM Gold, Antoine Williamson, David Krynzel, whatever. Just year after year it was a bad pick after another. I will say that they started to turn it all around prior to selling the team when Taylor hired Jack Z. Everyone seems to universally accept that we didn't start to turn things around until Melvin came on board, but it was my opinion that Dean Taylor is someone who really does deserve a great deal of credit for the Brewers recent resurgence. He's the one who brought in the man who got it all turned around for us. But in any event, the Brewers downfall really came under Wendy Selig-Prieb. I always wonder what would have become of the Brewers had Bud continued to run the team. And UndraftedFA, I absolutely agree wholeheartedly. Selig's gotten such a bum rap(and by the way, I don't know why, but your comment about him not having a "pretty face" just made me laugh out loud behind my computer. That was hilarious. But people in Milwaukee really ought to have more respect for the guy who brought and kept baseball in Milwaukee, and built Miller Park, ect..ect..ect...

Two different posts. The post in which I was talking about BABIP was in response to a post by Trwi talking about Soto's BABIP the last three years in Iowa. He even says Soto. For those wondering about Soto. Respectfully, I'm not certain what you're confused about.

Yea, at this point I think I have to remove myself form that discussion, less I earn myself a strike. My only real beef with what the Selig's did from a money standpoint was their last season as owners and their money grab. Ask the taxpayers to build a park and after the city paid to build it and fans filled it, that last year they cut the payroll to 20-25 million and did a quick cash grab on the way out knowing they were going to sell the team. Call me naive,but I do not believe that Bud was doing anything at all with the team after he relinquished control in the mid 90's. I want to say it was 94, but I'm not quite certain. So, to Danzig, again, I was speaking more about the 1970-1994 stretch. We certainly were not a 100 win a season juggernaut, but we were a respectable team and pretty well run in my opinion. I also don't believe that Angelos spent more money, relative to the Brewers payroll during those years. Bud let the team go out and do what it needed to do. I still believe that letting Molitor go was a giant mistake, but be that as it is, I still think overall, the team did a very good job under his leadership.

Well, that's certainly not a 136 million dollar player. A .268 BA and a .312 OBP does kinda prove his point, and that's far better than what he does in the 3rd and 4th holes. I agreed with his take on Soriano, I just don't agree that Lou has any other motive behind naming his starting lineup already.

Ok, first of all, to make a post like that and then say, "not to start an argument" is ridiculous. C'mon. You're smarter than that. How can you say that Milwaukee isn't "worthy" of a baseball team? Seriously, Milwaukee was setting record for attendance and hitting the 2 million mark before anyone else was. Milwaukee has always supported a winning team. As for Bud Selig, I guess I was looking for something more than "nuh-uh" in response. Again, while he was the owner of the team, the Brewers were generally among the league leaders in payroll. Now you can just say they weren't, but that doesn't make it true. He put money back into that team and they were competitive for the most part while he was there. So I guess I'd ask you to tell me exactly how or when he made those profits that you don't begrude him of at the expense of competitiveness? Just saying it doesn't make it so. And Bud Selig is not Wendy Selig, or her moron husband. Oh, and finally, I'm just left shaking my head in general. Miller Park shouldn't have been built? That's what I love. It gets voted for and then it's a big rip off when it gets built. So is it a big rip off when someone gets elected that you don't like? Hell, that's how it works here. That's kinda how the whole democratic system works. Either way, to say that Baseball is only for the large markets and that it should be taken out of the smaller markets, which incidentally is pretty much the midwest save for Chicago, is just ridiculous. So much so that it's not even worth going any further into. (cleaned up formatting and shortened quote --1992)

I really doubt that had anything to do with it. I think it was simply meant to show the team and fans that unlike last season when there was so many question marks surrounding the team and that they will not get off to a slow start this year. I don't think it was to point out how much he wishes Soriano wasn't on the team or whatever. I think if he wanted a better leadoff hitter, he'd tell Hendry that. To do it this way would be ridiculous, and frankly, I think it'd be beneath Pinella.

It was actually .486 in the big leagues this year. http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/wink.gif http://www.baseball-reference.com/pi/bsplit.cgi?n1=sotoge01&year=2007 Baseballreference has him at .474. Either way, it was incredibly inflated, and should be at least 150 points lower next year.

Let us not forget his "slightly" above average BABIP in the big leagues last year at .474.

Probably because being a fan under Bud Selig's regime was pretty dang good? Probably because he usually had the Brewers among the league leaders in payroll? Probably because he WAS a great owner while HE ran the team. It just drives me nuts when people take shots at Bud Selig IN MILWAUKEE. Without Bud there is; -No Milwaukee Brewers. If you'll recall, he's the one who fought to bring them back to Milwaukee. -No Miller Park. -No Revenue Sharing -No BASEBALL IN MILWAUKEE!!! Seriously man, do not hate on Bud. He was a great owner who didn't have the money to keep up as the game moved into ridiculous levels, but he wasn't an owner who took all the profits for himself. Again, remember, he gave up control of the team in what, 94? From 70-94, the Brewers, especially when you take into account the early expansion years, it wasn't so bad to be a Brewers fan.

I absolutely agree. Assuming he has another season like last year, I'm guessing that he'll still be a 6 million dollar a year pitcher, but if we could get him for 4 years 24 million with an option for a 5th year for 10 million and a 2 million dollar buyout bringing the total to 4/26, I think he'd be worth it. With Gange(10), Turnbow(3.2), Mota(3.2), Shouse(2.0), Vargas(3) all coming off the books next year, you'd certainly think that we'd be able to afford it. That's ~22 million dollars. Add in Torres who's set to make a little over 3 as well, and who I believe is going to make the Brewers pick up his option with his play, and I think we could again revamp our BP next year, yet this time stabilizing it a little more for the long hall. Riske, Cruz, Torres, Luis Pena, Stetter. LOL...then again, maybe it's a LITTLE too soon to be thinking about NEXT years pen!