Thurston Fluff

I totally missed the annual passing of Fangraphs projected win total this year. There's always next year I suppose. Hope all who celebrated had a good time.

The same talking heads who complained yesterday will talk about how smart a move it was a if Pratt makes a couple great plays this week. This is what we all wanted. The Brewers to matter enough that people talk about the smallest of "controversies" surrounding the team. It was the same when we didn't get Skubal. It just means people are interested enough in our team to talk about more than the box score.

There is a special place for BF fans to talk politics. That may be where this should go. https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/brewerfanpoliticalscene/general-discussion-f64/

If they close those loopholes do we still need a salary cap? It would be nice but a hard cap is going to be very messy and very well could mean a cancelled 2017 season. If the owners can get those loopholes closed it might mean the soft cap with enhanced revenue sharing could level the field enough to be relatively fair. This might be a good thing to be coming out now. It gives owners a reason to believe getting their house in order is a better option than demanding players give in on the one thing they are least likely to give in on.

If they close those loopholes do we still need a salary cap? It would be nice but a hard cap is going to be very messy and very well could mean a cancelled 2017 season. If the owners can get those loopholes closed it might mean the soft cap with enhanced revenue sharing could level the field enough to be relatively fair. This might be a good thing to be coming out now. It gives owners a reason to believe getting their house in order is a better option than demanding players give in on the one thing they are least likely to give in on.

To be fair it would have been a gesture of sportsmanship if the fans had thrown the ball inadvertently thrown into the stands back on the field.

Six man rotations are not totally normal these days. We'd need our starters to average seven regularly, not do it on occasion, for cost to the bullpen not outweigh the benefit to the starters. I think a six man rotation would be good if we did it all season and had six starters who could average 6-7 innings per start. That would limit each starter to 27 starts instead of 32 and limit the bullpen to 2-3 innings a game. I think as it is now we can go with a five man rotation and skip/push back a start for the starters here and there. The starters would still limit their innings and the bullpen wouldn't get overtaxed to do so.

Great. Now what about the past week?

I agree the offense has been the problem lately but the pitching was supposed to be the thing that could offset it. It hasn't. I think the six man rotation is because we have so many games in a row. The bullpen is only seven deep but they have managed to make it deeper with more creativity then ever. I think the biggest problem right now is the extra day off and only going five innings. Miz and Henderson were the only two to give us more than five inning in their last start. Henderson gave us the longest start with 6.1 innings. If they'd all be giving us 6 it'd be one thing. 6 as the high water mark quite another. If they get the extra day they need to be averaging more innings per start as a group.

It's hard to argue facts. I wonder if the way they play is because of who they have or who they have is because that's the way they want to play. I think he's wrong that it's harder for the team to get hot due to their style. We've seen them get hot as a team often enough to know they can. We've also seen them tear apart top end pitchers with their approach. It's not like they never do it. Just gonna take a hot streak and a little luck. Like it always did.

I thought the Dodgers would be the odds on favorite to win it regardless of who they, or we, got. I'd still think they were if we got Skubal they stood pat. That said, I thought the Brewers did enough to give themselves a legitimate chance to beat the odds. The Dodgers could only get so much better. They were always going to trot someone out with a good chance of going six innings with two or fewer runs. Now they probably added a 5% better chance of doing so. We boosted our chances of doing the same by a larger percentage by keeping our young arms fresher.

Whomever said that probably wasn't saying that at the time of the trade any more.

I don't think you're doing your argument any favors by claiming Frias is in the same category as Made.

Miz, Harrison and Henderson as your starting three with a more than capable Drohan, Gasser ready if necessary. Much more depth in the pitching staff as a whole. Coming into this playoff run having gotten the losing in the first round monkey off their back. I felt the team had a let down after finally winning a playoff series that partially contributed to their dismal showing. There's also the experience of knowing what it takes during the season to be ready for a longer playoff run. Which is why getting an innings eating starter plus two bullpen guys was such a big deal. The key was not finding players who could compete with other elite pitching staffs. It was making sure they were not burnt out come playoff time. This is not the 2025 Brewers team.

In a vacuum yes. I've said this before and I'll say it again. Prospects have a different value based on circumstances. Just like some teams prospects are more valuable as trade chips -the Dodgers for example- some prospects on a team have more value as a trade chip that other lesser rated prospects on that same team. I don't think the Brewers were interested in trading any of their blue chip prospects so I'll take the top 10 out of the equation. The Brewers outfield prospects are not as valauble to the Brewers as future players as their pitching or catching prospects. If the choice was to give up Dubanewicz and Dorchies or Ragsdale and Frias it would look like an easy choice to give up the former. But we'd also be giving up our number 4 and 5 pitching prospects. Both of whom will probably have are larger role on the 2028 tams and beyond than either Ragsdale or Frias would have. If you want to argue they could have got more for them fine. To do that you'd have to argue there was more out there that could have been had for those two. If you want to argue other teams paid less for more fine. But you'd have to argue there were better players available for the specific players the Brewers were willing to give up. If you want to argue we could have got more for them in the off season fine. But you'd also have to say they should have just not have tried to upgrade the rotation or get a left handed reliever at all. What you can't say is the Brewers left better options on the table for the players they were willing to give up. That would require them being entirely incompetent. I think we can all agree they are not.