Thurston Fluff

The way the question was asked means there is no reason to watch the next nine years. How many people who say they would trade one WS next year for nine years of suckitude are really going to be happy watching games in 2024 just by looking back on that one magical season? I loved the Brewers 82 season but it didn't help make the 90's Bando era teams any more fun to watch because I knew we had no chance and no future until he was gone. I seriously doubt winning it all would have done any more for me. Frankly the idea of knowing the outcome either way ruins the whole point IMHO.

I follow the Brewers for more than just seeing the team win a WS. While I would love to see it happen, I'm not so sure I would give up 9 seasons of good baseball for one year if complete success. I guess if I knew the team would suck every year after 2018 I would go with a decade of good baseball. Mostly because I wouldn't be able to enjoy a WS the way I should knowing the next decade was going to suck. I don't think the 2024 me would be all that happy just reliving 2018 over and over again while watching putridity on the field. If the question was, would I take a decade of bad baseball knowing at the end we would win it all, at least I'd have something to look forward to. As it was stated it's not worth the price. Thankfully it isn't a problem I'll have to deal with since the question isn't based in reality.

I just started watching Comrade Detective on prime and it is quite funny.

Well said. Our staff has a lot of unknowns but so is Arrietta's current ability. Nobody knows how far and how fast someone will decline but we already started seeing signs of it. That is a pretty expensive risk.

He ditched Cleveland knowing he was going to be traded to a contender either way. He did so because Cleveland wouldn't promise he would be a full time catcher the final year of his contract. I don't blame him for wanting to maximize his value after playing most of his prime years for far less than his actual value. Dude was one of the top catchers in the game and they wanted to make him an average first baseman in a free agent year. I would have said no too. People seem to remember a silly comment he made far more than how much he contributed to the team and how little we paid him for it. Had he been getting paid what he was worth I doubt we would have got back what we did.

Trailer Park Boys. New season starts at the end of the month!!! Decent.

Great I bet the couple dozen balloons I just bought with the old logo sell like crazy now. Get them while they last!!! I still have some of the 90's era logo left. What are the chances anyone will feel so nostalgic of 90's era Brewers teams to ever buy them? p.s. anyone interested in reliving their childhood baseball experience through balloon art?

If Woodruff pitches as well as Davies did at the start of last season then he should be in the minors until he gets it figured out. I don't care if we sent out worse pitchers in the past. The whole point is to get better pitchers so we don't have to trot those types out again. If there are better options than Woodruff to start the year then use them. When Woodruff becomes the best option then bring him up. Personally I am not at all worried about Woodruff. I think he is better than he is looking early on in spring. I don't think he's one of those guys who needs a great spring to win a rotation spot. They have enough information on him that what he does in one month of exhibition games isn't going to move the needle much, if at all. If they feel he's the best option a not so stellar spring stat line won't hurt him.

Things are starting off well. We are pace to be the only team in history not to lose a single spring training or regular season game all year. Cubs are firmly in the rearview mirror and the way forward is clear. Who would have thought we'd be in this position already? Seriously though it, is nice the games are starting. This has been a boring offseason. There are so many interesting storylines to follow this spring it's nice to finally be able to argue over things happening on the field.

I doubt this was meant to be made public. I think this is a case of people being asked to brainstorm regardless of how much sense it makes. I could see someone pointing out sometimes the least interesting players are is the most interesting points in the game asking how to change that. So they all throw out every possible idea to change that and this was one of them.

As others have noted, the pace of play has changed pretty drastically over the last 20-30 years. It would be more likely to get worse than better if MLB didn't step in and try to do something about it. I don't think the pace is the problem. What there is to do when there is no action is. If I have my phone and am in a good atmosphere I really don't care if I am there for three vs three and a half hours. The key for me is providing a good atmosphere that caters to casual viewing.

I think the idea of shaving time off games is a misplaced idea to attract the next generation of fans. They think millennials have too short an attention span to sit through a three hour game. I think the exact opposite. If baseball caters to people who spend as much time looking at their phone as they do their surroundings they'll find a day at the park is exactly the right pace to do both. The idea that you don't have to have your eyes glued to the action every second or risk missing something seems very compatible with baseball. MLB would be better served if they created apps to instantly watch something that just happened than trying to make everything happen at a faster pace.

I'm not quite ready to go to zero. There are times the catcher and pitcher aren't on the same page with signs. You'll see a pitcher clearly throw something the catcher isn't expecting and the catcher goes to the mound. That to me can be a safety issue. The catcher or ump taking a fastball to the head should be prevented if possible. Other than that I agree. Strategy, pitching mechanics or how to pitch to a certain hitter in a certain situation should be done in the dugout or pregame.

Teams are privately held and don't require published financials. Forbes has made estimates of team revenues, I've also seen that player salaries have steadily averaged 56% across all teams. I doubt anyone has any specific numbers on other expenses though. I for one would be extremely interested in seeing what team financials look like. This seems to be a lot of the problem when it comes to collective bargaining in most businesses. I've always been suspicious of claims of poverty when they refuse to opens their books during negotiations. If they really weren't making much money one would think they'd be the ones who want to open them books.

But would you give a 5-year contract? With the total amount being less than expected for 5 years, the 6th year shouldn’t matter. Yeah I mean he could have gotten 5/125 and no one would have batted an eye. 6/126 is obviously better for the team. Same argument people were making against Cain's 5th year when he could have gotten 4/80 and it would have not surprised many. The problem with that thinking is it borrows from one year to pay for another. If in four years he's paid more than he's worth it hurts that team. The fact he was worth more a couple years ago doesn't change that. To be a perennial contender we cannot do that sort of thing. The Cubs may be able to do that but no way is it right for us. The only way I'd pay that much is to frontload it so the overpay comes in a year where we could afford it.

Darvish was probably the best bet to be a legit top of the rotation guy and I wouldn't have minded the Brewers signing him. That said I am not all that sold on him as an ace for the next four years, let alone six. Arieta even less so. At this point if they go after a FA I would look at Lynn if we can get him for three, preferably less, years. How much per year would be less important. I would prefer to go with what we have and see where it takes us though. Maybe we don't have the best pitchers but we have a lot of capable ones. Counsell seems suited to that sort of group so let them play and see what happens.

Just to add to what Young guns pointed out, the angles and footwork are different. Some of what makes great defenders great is repetition and anticipation. I don't see how shifting them around that much helps facilitate that. If there is someone who has a particular problem that has to be taken into consideration and you have a Perez type of player to swap with there might be some advantage to it. I don't think it's best to do that like defensive shifts are used though.

I bought a frozen turkey breast. The Instructions say no need to defrost before cooking. It has a plastic package of gravy froze inside it. Anyone else see the problem?

If Susac had stayed healthy it might have been a different story. If he can stay healthy he could still put together a decent career. Kind of early to write him off. After all Pina was an afterthought until he was 30.

Well he was considered the Brewers' catcher of the future a year ago at this time, and has a top prospect pedigree. We are very quick around here to write off players we don't like as trash. Maybe Susac never amounts to anything at the MLB level, but to imply he has no talent is wrong. He was considered what? By who? That year he spent as not the backup to posey after he played in the majors showed SF didn't even see him as more than a scrap backup. It showed they felt a high end left handed reliever was more valuable than a guy who would never be more than a backup catcher for them.

Well played sir. Well played.

As an employer I would be more concerned about his response. I get that he was going with the advice from a job searching website- as though the internet is all knowing- but that wouldn't really comfort me. This is a person who is about to go into the real world where he will be expected to analyze information and make appropriate decisions. Sending his boss a link to an internet site about why he did something, for lack of a better word odd, isn't likely a winning strategy. If he's a good guy it might be a good teaching moment. Learning never ends. Nor does teaching.

How can you even take WAR seriously when Suter projects to pitch 143 innings of 4.8 ERA and has the 5th highest WAR for pitchers on the team with 1.2? Numbers...out...of...a...hat = projections I have been arguing for years not to take WAR seriously. Yet it is the single most used stat in baseball these days.

It’s been overstated so many times that Braun’s contract hurts us. Well it didn’t stop us from adding over $20M to our outfield for years to come a few days ago. Not only that but if 1WAR = $8M, I think Braun will probably do alright in getting the value out of that contract. Also you may want to check out who the Cardinals are paying money to over there in St. Louis. Lol The reason we can pay that now isn't because we just got done selling off every expensive piece we could. The reason we did is because every other veteran player we had was valuable enough compared to their contract to get good value in return. Now we are good enough to win which made these moves possible. Braun couldn't get us anything of because of his contract. So now we sit here with a guy who can only play 120 games a year, making more than the rest of the outfield combined and we now have to figure out what to do with Santana. Who BTW may very well be better than Braun at this stage. But that isn't hurting anything. My point about the Cardinals isn't that they never waste any money. It's just we want to have that string of success. In my mind the best way to do that is not to pay players more than they are worth in any given year. When it comes to judging the value of a contract looking at WAR over the life of the contract is next to useless. It doesn't take consistency into account at all. A player can be great one year, suck the next and it's the same as if he consistently produced year in and year out. When building a team for the long haul every GM in the world would take player B over player A.

We'll see how that plays out in years 4 and 5 of Cains contract. There is a pretty good chance we have that bloated contract on the books when we need to have the money for another player at that time, but will be strapped. I might be wrong, but so could everyone else. But you’re more missing he point. He will be nothing but a bonus in terms of the value of the contact by then. In year three he will, most likely, have made the contract worth it. And $18M in 2021 isn’t going to be holding the crew back if in contention just like Braun isn’t present day. You’re just looking for reasons to hate this because your beloved prospects are gone. I think the point is if we are working towards always being a contender we should never knowingly overpay someone for the year they are playing. Braun's contract already hurt us. Imagine if the money spent on him the past four years were spent on players worth that much money. To me the contract's total amount is only half the issue. How it's structured is the other half. Knowingly overpaying someone at the end of the contract for gains at the beginning of the contract creates a cycle of a couple years of good teams followed by a couple years of terrible teams. The goal is to be St Louis not Pittsburgh.