Thurston Fluff

I didn't mind Yuni B. when they got him. We needed someone to (try to) play shortstop and he didn't need to be great at it. He was supposed to be a stop gap and nothing more. The tradeoff was worth it as the 96 wins proved. Hell he even played ok in the post season. My only real problem with the Melvin was when he brought Yuni back the next season.

I didn't mind Yuni B. when they got him. We needed someone to (try to) play shortstop and he didn't need to be great at it. He was supposed to be a stop gap and nothing more. The tradeoff was worth it as the 96 wins proved. Hell he even played ok in the post season. My only real problem with the Melvin was when he brought Yuni back the next season.

Which shows how they viewed him compared to others. As his 6.05 FIP shows, he was not good. Shouldn't be a surprise he is the first to go. I doubt he will be the last.

No, I would look at bringing up Jorge Lopez next for the bullpen Next move should be Wang. Woodruff got roughed up pretty badly in his last start (tho that happens in CS) and Lopez has an ERA over 5 in AA. 40 man status shouldn't be an issue. They'd have to make room by DFA'ing guys anyway. Garza won't be out much longer so no rush for another starter tho someone other than Espino would be fine with me. I'm with you on the Espino experiment. I was pulling for him but he seems more like a AAAA player that a legit late bloomer to me. It would have been a great story if he came up and Guerra'ed it but I don't think it's going to happen. The good news for him is he got his 15 minutes. The bad news is he didn't do much to warrant more than that.

You missed my point. Hader is a premier talent. The guy Counsell used instead is a fringe major league pitcher. It's comparable to bringing up Braun in 2007 and sitting him in favor of Counsell. Counsell has done a fine job this year but that doesn't make him immune to criticism. They've had trouble closing out games. A lot of that is on the pitchers but some of that is on the manager. Plus in last night's game they had a 4 run lead entering the bottom of the 7th. It was not a high leverage situation until Drake was roughed up. Hader is a very good talent but he is not the next coming of Chapman or Kimbrel as a reliever. He could be very good and will probably have a nice career as a starter but he seems more like a two or very good three than an actual number one type to me.

Reading the Stearns comments it looks like this is more than just a call up until they activate Garza. Like some others here, I am not opposed to using him in the pen to start with. In an ideal world I'd rather they leave him in AAA for the entire season for service time considerations but our pitching needs help.

There Is no need to rush anyone up just because they are the top prospect. In fact there is more reason not to because he is the top prospect. The team is doing better than expected and the offense is a major reason why. It is doing so with Thames and Franklin playing regularly so isn't a problem. I really hope the team stops rushing players to the majors like Melvin did with Weeks, Hardy and Fielder. If this administration feels the same way there is no guarantee Brinson won't be back in AAA for a couple months next year as well. I don't know that Brinson or Phillips would be qualified as rushed at this point. Yes the Brewers are hitting, but Broxton and Franklin are not. Furthermore a Santana, Broxton, Thames/Franklin OF might be the worst defensive OF in baseball. Braun will be a defensive upgrade over Thames and Franklin and that says it all. Ultimately I supposes it doesn't matter as this is a rebuilding year, but I think we really don't need to see anymore of Franklin, and it's not fair to our pitching staff to put that OF out there day after day if you have better options at CS. Phillips has all of 175 ab's in AAA and struck out in 60 of them. I don't see how calling him up for good now is anything but rushing him. Brinson has a full season plus in AAA but, as Homer pointed out, he is not exactly lighting it up away from Colorado Springs. I don't think it's a stretch to say he is not totally ready. Even if he was what is wrong with keeping him down like the Cubs did with Bryant? Why trade a year when we might need him more to play at a time we don't need him? I wouldn't mind at all if he is in AAA past super two next season let alone now.

Given how often the Cardinals take somebody else's castoff and turn them into near all stars this probably seems newsworthy to them.

There Is no need to rush anyone up just because they are the top prospect. In fact there is more reason not to because he is the top prospect. The team is doing better than expected and the offense is a major reason why. It is doing so with Thames and Franklin playing regularly so isn't a problem. I really hope the team stops rushing players to the majors like Melvin did with Weeks, Hardy and Fielder. If this administration feels the same way there is no guarantee Brinson won't be back in AAA for a couple months next year as well.

I think it should be the opposite way. High School graduation marks the beginning of adulthood. After high school the person is in charge of their lives and have the ability to choose any path they want. Their parents cannot legally control them (assuming they are 18) and every decision they make from that point forward is that of an adult. That is about as big a deal as any they will have in their entire life. Graduating College or tech school is just about them moving from one phase of adulthood to another.

That was my immediate thought as well. Scooter? To be fair, Thames is tested so often because of a rule that players who are out of the majors or minors for a certain amount of time are subject to more testing. Baseball has no such rule for little people.

I wonder if they plan on giving Peralta a start or make another move on thursday.

If every pitch was easy to learn, had the movement it should and could be located where he wanted every pitcher would throw every type of pitch. I'd guess most pitchers have tinkered with a lot of different pitches and stuck with the ones that work for them.

I think the trades for Marcum and Greinke are two very different things. Greinke we gave up the farm for. Marcum was traded for a single player that didn't seem to be a fit here in Milwaukee. Had we traded for Marcum and just went with Estrada instead of getting Greinke I think the team would have been almost as good that season and a better future to boot. I am all for trades like Marcum but not nearly as inclined to trade the farm again any time soon. Full disclaimer; I was all aboard with Greinke at the time. It's due to how it turned out that caused me to change my mind on that sort of trade.

Melvin showed that as well with players like Scott Podsednik, Casey McGehee and Chris Narveson. As far as signing guys that handcuff the future I don't think you can just assume Stearns will not sign players like Lohse or Garza just yet. So far he hasn't had any reason to sign established players like Garza or Lohse. Add in the demand to win in a couple years and we'll see if the temptation to sign known commodities is overwhelming or not. Stearns may or may not do that but it is too early to know he won't.

I get rebuilding, but I don't get wasting opportunities when they present themselves. If the Brewers are fringe wildcard contenders in July, then I could probably get behind a trade like this one. However, if they somehow found themselves in 1st place by 4 or 5 games, as a fan I would expect them to trade some of those future pieces to get proven talent and solidify their position for a post season run this year. If the point of rebuilding is to possibly be in contention at some point down the road, why would you waste the opportunity when you know you are in contention now? I think there are many that want to believe that there is some magical rebuild formula that will allow the Brewers to contend for 4, 5, 6+ years. Remember not that long ago when the Brewers had all that home grown talent on the roster? They already had a one time #5 BA prospect in Ben Sheets on the team, then they added a #8 and #11 in Weeks and Fielder along with a #16 in Gallardo. They had other highly touted prospects like Hart and Hardy join the MLB team around the same time. Seemed like it was going to be a golden age with possibilities of contending for several years in a row. In reality the success was a sporadic (2 playoff appearances), Fielder eventually became not affordable (and not really a good fit in the NL), Weeks never really fully lived up to his prospect status and had injury issues, same with Gallardo. Sheets became injury prone. Hart fizzled out. In reality, I'm not counting on the Brewers to be in solid contention in July. However, if they are, I don't understand why you would not ride that success because you are afraid of risking future success that may or may not happen. I think you are misreading the goals. Judging from Stearns and Attanasio's comments the point is to be contenders for a long period of time, not just at some point down the road. That requires a different mindset than going all in every time the team does well the first half of a season. All the latter does is lead to a season or two of competitive baseball surrounded by years of being uncompetitive. I for one, would rather stay the course and have more than one or two bites at the apple before it disappears. I think Milwaukee can be more than a small market team who can compete once every ten years or so. The fans have shown they will come out in large numbers and the TV contracts are going to follow suit if the networks think the team is going to be good for the length of the deal instead of two out of every 10 years or so. If the team manages to compete year in and year out like the Cards do, the money will follow. When that happens, the job of maintaining success gets easier. If we spend too much of our future assets going all in on any given season then we stay in the cycle we are in now. That won't grow the franchise from where it is today.

I assumed that was the case already. Seems odd they would allow a home team (or any team) that kind of latitude. It's much more difficult to find each team's local forecast in the NY offices than it is to review any given play, from every game being played, in real time, at said NY offices.

I'm of the same mind. That was something that used to be more common. My theory as to why they don't any more is teams don't want to waste a year of control for for so few innings.

I don't think it's one thing. Anderson and Davies have to have very good location to succeed and have not been doing that as well as they need to. Peralta's fastballs are good enough to get by without great location but he doesn't have the offspeed stuff/location to be effective IMHO. Nelson I think is doing pretty much what you would expect out of a mid rotation pitcher. You can't expect mid rotation talent to be an ace just because you don't have better options. Garze meanwhile, has been better than expected. As far as the short outings go some of that has to do with Counsell. He doesn't let pitchers go deep into games all that often even if they are doing ok. He'll pull a guy in the fifth with 90 pitches and 4 earned runs when he could leave them in for another inning. Some managers will try to squeeze another inning out of starters in that situation some don't.

Yes, I have. Jim Rome brought it up a couple times and some weekend guy, I don't remember who, sarcastically said something to the effect of -he must have stopped after the Cubs found out- after Thames cooled off. To be fair it was kind of hyperbolic of me to state it as him single handedly doing so. Mostly because they are bound to lose some of the national luster much like the Red Sox did after they got overly annoying. But I think it will be used as a prime example of how the Cubs went from lovable to hateable for quite some time. A catalyst to the transition of perception might be a better way of putting it.

I agree. A million dollars is a lot of money. In terms of team salary it might be a drop in the bucket ... but maybe Mark A. can greenlight another upgrade at Miller Park because of the gift the Mets just gave us. Improving the ballpark with the million will help this franchise/city long term more so than if Milone pitched in our minor league system for 4 more months. Great day! Given how many teams are buying their minor league affiliates maybe it would be wise to use that money to buy a AAA club. I did a little looking, according the Forbes the most expensive AAA team was valued at $49 Million in 2016. While a million saved is not all that much comparatively speaking that is for the most expensive minor league team. Most of the teams on the list turn a profit as well so some of the money is recuperated. A million should be a sizable chunk of the upfront money needed to get the financing needed to acquire a team.

My father in law lived in winneconne forever. Nice, tight knit, little town with very friendly people. The Finn and Feather is pretty popular with decent food/atmosphere. They also have a riverboat that goes out regularly for additional fun. It has great fishing and the lake is really nice in that area. Like all small lakes it gets green later on in summer. I honestly don't know much about the school other than most people I know who went there liked it and it is fairly small. It has a very nice swimming hole that I think was man made. It combines the elements of a pool and beach pretty well. If you have young kids it is nice and safe. Very scenic overall but the police tend to be pretty strict when it comes to speeding and such. Another place close to Winneconne and very similar in most respects is Omro. If you are looking for small town, Mayberry style living both are pretty much up your ally.

Will Smith underwent Tommy John surgery, Tyler Thornburg hasn't thrown a pitch this year and isn't expected back until May 25, and Jeremy Jeffress has a 5.59 era and a 1.55 whip. Which goes to show bullpens are always a question mark. Kind of the great equalizer in baseball. You can't buy a great bullpen as easily as starters. It might be why they are so valuable at the deadline as well. When going good, relievers have a huge amount of value to contending teams. Teams are willing to overpay during the season to win now. During the offseason that isn't always the case.

I'm not a fan of "random" drug tests but it is the situation the sport put itself in. People are going to question this sort of thing. Knowing that, if he is clean it's better for everyone he is getting overtested so publicly. Think of how good a story it would be if he keeps taking it in stride and turns up clean. Dude could single handedly turn the Cubs national image into the bad guys. If that happens a Brewer legend is made.

Given last season's reliever market at the deadline I wouldn't hold my breath on finding a useful one without giving up prospects. I also would not want them to give up prospects to try and get a wildcard this season. If they appear to be ready to contend use free agency to shore up a weak area and make a run next year while also keeping the farm system stocked for a longer run at relevance.