Thurston Fluff

Interesting read on the subject from bleacher report. http://bleacherreport.com/articles/2307450-mlb-international-signing-rules-must-be-altered-with-improved-us-cuba-relations Crazy how we have different rules for different countries. It makes sense when you think about it. Every country is different so every agreement would be as well.

I thought he would have to sign a minor league deal with an invitation to spring training type deal. I get the money isn't big. I would have paid that if he showed he belonged in spring and made the roster. I don't think I'd give him a guaranteed contract at this stage though.

Obviously there would have to be some type of agreement on how to deal with foreign players so there isn't a problem. That said I think you might find a lot of Latin American players would be as happy to play there as here. Partially because I think a lot of them want to expand Latin American baseball in general and partially because the transition from their country would be easier. Same language, similar weather and such make a difference.

Sports in Cuba is considered a national right. Thus the government is willing to spend to support it. Given the priority in spending it has and the probable economic boost it is going to get with normalized relations Cuba should be able to support an even larger baseball operation than it already does. I don't think it is capable of supporting a major league team yet mind you. But I think they could do well there over time. At the very least I think it is a good place for one or more minor league teams. Good weather combined with a good fan base might be an attractive destination for a minor league team. Especially if the major league team is from the south.

That's an interesting thought. While I think their attendance would go way up, they would probably make much less money. I can't imagine Cuba has the economy to keep an MLB team competitive. Apparently neither does Tampa.

I literally can sit here and beg for the Brewers to start Lucroy at 1b vs LHBats and Maldonado at Catcher(figuring 40-48games) which provide Lucroy with added Leg rest throughout the season+an additional roster space not to be taken up by a 1b only RH Platoon bat. Why does that roster spot have to be a 1b only RH platoon bat? Ideally I'd like to see them get a guy who covers both corners, maybe some outfield as well, and give Ramirez a day off here and there.

Are you sure he actually hit those balls? It could have just been caught up in the wind as he swung.

The A's made a bunch of trades last season which led to a 10-17 September. Don't see how making changes for the sake of change really helped them.

One of my favorite episodes from one of my all time favorite programs.

About right for a guy who has some success but not a long enough track record to be relied on too much. He's never been truly bad and has been well above average for stretches. He's a guy who is going to give you something useful every year. I think a guy like him is a better bet than spending that same amount on a hit or miss guy of the Axeford variety.

I was thinking the same thing. I'm kind of pulling for him. Can't say why, just am.

Seems like they are unwilling to part with any of the SP's, which is smart, because it is was harder to buy pitching. I think that is changing now. It seems like everyone has pitching except the Cubs and they have quite a few decent options to choose from if they want to buy some. Meanwhile it takes an act of God to get a guy who can competently handle first base. Let alone find one with some power.

My wife and I own a mom and pops place. Ironically Sams club is one of our customers. They actually have a policy to use local businesses. As RobDeer 45 noted many compensate for not being able to sell things as cheap by providing better service and experience. That is well worth it for some things, not so much others. I would never buy a major appliance at a box store for example. The service you get from the local guys are worth the extra money. TV's, on the other hand, are so disposable these days the extra service isn't worth it. I like going to restaurants that are locally owned. Also think mechanics and dentists are good places to go small and local. The fun thing about mom and pops places is they seem to grow organically. My wife bought some balloons, a helium tank, a gorilla suit and a phone listing and started out of her dorm room in college. I joined later when I went to college and never left. The guy next to us started his grocery store because he couldn't find Korean food when he first came here. So he went to Chicago once a week and sold what he got to friends. It just sort of grew from there. Ditto for the hmong family down the street. Very few quit their job and start up a place. Which is ironic since the stereotypical dream is to get enough money to quit the rat race and start one up. They start up when they have nothing lose. That is not usually the case when you hit middle age and have a family and mortgage pay for or a lifestyle you wish to maintain. It's probably also why immigrants do so at so much higher a rate. Sorry for being long winded. It's kind of an interest of mine for obvious reasons.

The same reason Mark A won't spend more than he makes on the Brewers is why I never buy Brewer or Packer gear. Why would I pay double just for the honor of giving them free advertisement for their product? Perhaps if they were willing to spend just to make me happy I could be convinced to change my mind just so they can make more money.

Lind is set to make $15M compared to LaRoche's $25. Do you also predict LaRoche will be worth paying an extra $10M over two years? I think that's a more important question for the brewers than just who will be better? I'd go with Lind at $15. To be fair Lind needs a platoon mate so it is the cost of Lind + platoon mate vs the cost of LaRoche. However given LaRoche isn't exactly a superstar vs LHP the platoon mate + Lind could realistically match or surpass LaRoche alone for less.

Correct. We have upgraded 1B vs RHP..... again, I'm saying that alone doesn't catapult the 2015 Brewers into playoff contention. More needs to be done to upgrade the 2015 Brewers I guess that all depends on what you mean by playoff contention. They were in contention for the playoffs last year. Gennett, Davis, Segura, Peralta, and Nelson can all be reasonably expected to improve somewhat. That is a pretty substantial part of the team that can be expected to get better to add with Lind. Who is going to play 1B & 2B vs LHP? Someone at least as good as what we had vs LHP last season would be my guess. It isn't like we are replacing Fielder or something. Who is going to replace K-Rod in the bullpen? K-Rod could very well be back. If not then Broxton and hopefully a healthy Henderson will pick up the slack. What options do we have if/when Aramis gets injured? The same as we had this season or perhaps someone better. Very unlikely it will be someone worse. Again it isn't like we are replacing someone who was actually good. We are trying to upgrade from Reynolds. If we can't we can get Reynolds type players all day long. While it would hurt to lose Ramirez for any significant amount of time that can be said of many players on many teams. There are very few, if any, teams who are covered two or three deep at every position. And much of what I just mentioned gets us back to an 82-80 record And adding Lind makes us better than 82-80 all on its own. Considering how little better we have to be to make it to the playoffs that should go a fairly long way toward that goal. Internal player progressions should outweigh regressions by a decent clip so that very well could be enough to get there as is. That does not mean I don't want to improve on what we have but I think we could be considered playoff contenders as is. After all we were contenders last season and just got better.

I'm glad for Duke. He went from possibly being out of the league to set for the foreseeable future in one season. I don't get why anyone would pay that much for someone who really hasn't established himself beyond one good season though. I am not against paying for established relievers who have done it over a significant period of time. I just think that is a lot to pay for a guy who hasn't really shown he is better than the average flash in the pan reliever we see all over the league every year.

Those are all pretty bad, but the Marlins have to burn off roughly $100,000,000 just to get to the starting value of the Votto contract. And unlike Cabrera or Votto, Stanton barely has a track record as an elite-elite player. It's bonkers. He'll burn off more than that by the time he reaches Votto's currant age. In fact he will be almost halfway through that contract by the time he reaches Votto's age. It's about $25 million per year so by the sixth year he will have burned off $150 million of it. While I wouldn't want the Brewers to do it, relatively speaking, this is not as terrible of a contract as some are making it out to be. Especially when you take into consideration how much less $25 million is likely to get you in six or seven years compared to now.

Looking at his contract compared to what some of the others got and it isn't as outrageous as it first appears. The biggest issue with some of those contracts was how much money they would be paying guys in their 40's. He will be 38 at the end of this one. Barring injury, which I suspect they insured against, he could reasonable be expected to still contribute all the way through. Probably not commensurate to the pay but, in 2025 dollars, it might be close.

I can completely understand how someone who is already drunk (especially a man) would think some combination of the following, regardless of the cost of a cab: 1. I can make it home myself 2. I won't get caught 3. I don't want to deal with the hassle of having to come back to get my car tomorrow Of course, absent from this list is any rational weighing of these thoughts with the potential severity of the consequences of attempting to drive home. Anyone dumb enough to drive himself to a place to get drunk without having a predetermined plan to get home is unlikely to make good decisions after he is drunk. I shudder to think of what could have happened due to all the dumb things I did at that age. Not condoning it mind you. It's just people in their early 20's tend to view themselves as indestructible. Sad waste of two human lives.

Based on other teams with similar payrolls to the Giants, it is still possible to have extended either Prince or CC AND still have an additional $20-30M available to supplement the roster in any given offseason. Paying one player $25M is a lot more palatable if you are working with a $150M versus $100M payroll. Neither of them would have helped us this year and we would be stuck with them at that price for an additional few years. None of which are likely to be worth $25 million. The point is paying players like that starts a cycle of having to pay players like that or go through a total rebuild. If teams would take that same amount of money and supplement their roster with good players who don't get long contracts or have draft pick compensation attached to them a team would be better off IMHO. Yet no team with ample money seems to spend that way. To tempting to go hog wild I suppose.

They remind me a lot of the 1980's Angles when Gene Autry owned them.

I agree to some extent. You can't just spend money to spend it. But if you use the additional payroll to supplement your roster with solid role players (Mike Morse, Tim Hudson, Marco Scutaro, Angel Pagan and Jeremy Affeldt) on shorter deals for lower AAV, then you can lessen the loss of return on your investments. I agree with that. Problem is nobody who has money seems to do that. How difficult would it have been to not sign Prince or Sabathia to a deal if we had the money to do so?

That assumes of course we would have had Fielder to extend. Had we always had that money we probably would have spent it on a FA that would have allowed us to be just good enough not to be able to draft that high. Naturally that lower level draft pick would have been given away to sign said FA so we not only wouldn't have been drafting that high we probably wouldn't have had any pick in the first round. The loss of some of those picks would have meant a weaker farm system that would have made trading for Greinke or Sabathia more problematic. Money no doubt helps but I think it has limits. The longer you spend big the less return you get for it.

What if the Brewers had the money to resign Grienke? Or Sabathia? Or Fielder? Then you don't have all of this debate about who should be traded when, and what is an appropriate return for them. Makes the GM's job a helluva lot easier. What would have happens this year is we would have spent 24 million for 3 homeruns 16 rbi a .720 OPS terrible defensive first baseman and an additional 23 million for 46 innings of 5.38 ERA level starting pitcher. WE would have had a nioce season from Greinke but would he really be worth double the money we paid any of our three veteran pitchers? Hell having him in the rotation would have meant we wouldn't have had one of either Lohse, Fiers or Garza. Would trading Greinke's 2.71 ERA really helped all that much more than Fiers 2.13 for example?