Thurston Fluff

You would have to draft very differently and never try to get a Ben Sheets type pitcher. Which pretty much means you are always skipping the top pitchers in the draft for lesser pitchers. I just don't see how that makes a pitching staff better. Passing on the next Ben Sheets for two of the next Salomon Torres is not something I am in favor of.

Smoked cheese is very good if you're looking to try cold smoking something.

He was brought in to rebuild so there was never question about what direction to go coming in. What he's done so far is not any differnt than what Melvin did when he first got here. What he does when the rebuild is nearing it's end and we start to be competitive is what will be interesting. Does he keep trying to plug holes through the farm, trade the farm for a year or two window, or just sort of plug holes as they come with mediocre free agents and hope to catch lightning in a bottle?

The acquisition of lefties might just be a product of not having any to start with and wanting to balance the roster out. Or it could be simply because they were the best available and just happened to hit left handed. I'm not so sure it's because they ike left handed hitters better than right handed ones. The sum of the parts approach makes sense to me given our situation. If we can't afford huge contracts it makes sense to have a lot of not terrible options to keep competitive for more than a two year stretch.

Excellent topic for the dead of winter, good call. Couple thoughts -I think trends are something that shouldn't be focused on at all. If you follow trends you are taking your eye off the ball (pun intended.) As much as I hate them, the Cardinals have just done their thing. Sometimes they appeared ahead of the trend sometimes the last remnants of some stoic old school train of thought. It wasn't because they were ahead or behind. It was because they believed in what they did and implemented it regardless of who was doing what where. By doing that they have sustained success as well as anyone. -We cannot be the Cubs. They have a huge payroll and can add more if they want. They built a farm as well as anyone could have hoped but still had to buy several key pieces. Pieces that will cost us a lot more in prospects or cash than we can afford. We have to find a different way forward. -While a small market cannot be the Cubs I am not certain Milwaukee has to stay such a small market. Small doesn't mean static. It can be increased and Wisconsin sports fans travel. If they can just get some success going there is untapped markets awaiting. Considering the aforementioned, I think the best way forward is to avoid block buster trades for a year or two run and just build solid depth. I think more bites at the apple will get us more success overall than boom or bust cycles. If our team is always in the hunt we get more than a chance at one magical year. We get a shot at building our brand throughout the state for the long term, not to mention national respect. That in turn means more revenue to spend which in turn increases better branding and so on.

Seems like Stearns likes to claim bottom of the 40 man roster types then attempts to sneak them through waivers after a few weeks. I guess it's one way to fill out the minors with better talent without using space on the 40 man roster.

KC didn't have a top of the rotation starter or a Braun/Bryant level player and they seemed to do alright.

Maybe I'm wrong but I was always under the impression that they take all the clothes away from the rookies so they had no choice but to wear what was there.

How old school of Stearns to look for relievers on the scrap heap. In today's baseball you're supposed to trade away every asset or pay a fortune for one reliever aren't you? Seriously though with the market for relievers the way it is today finding a few scrap heap guys could really help shorten our rebuild. Either by trades or getting bargain basement value at a position that now demands huge payroll expenditures. Cheap relievers used to be the part of a team that was undervalued now it is probably the most overvalued.

I'd rather have Braun for $80 million over 4. He's still a Brewer right? It's why I don't think Braun's contract effects his trade value like the conventional wisdom says it will. He is worth his contract and there are people out there looking for a top notch player. If he was a FA he'd get a lot more.

WAR does not treat offense & defense equally, they are on entirely different scales as the number of opportunities and impact of those opportunities is different. Last year batting WAR among qualifiers ranged from 58.3 runs (Mike Trout) to -29.9 runs (Adeiny Hechavarria). Fielding WAR ranged from 22.5 runs (Adam Eaton) to -19.7 runs (Alexei Ramirez). Even the best fielder is only credited with about the same value as the 29th best hitter. Is it plausible that the very best defenders in any given season provide as much value to their team in the field as a top 30 or so hitter provides his team at the plate? I believe that is in the ballpark. It still doesn't address the sample size problem. You can't use a stat in a way you know isn't accurate and expect an accurate outcome.

I have outlined why many times before but in this instance it worth repeating. WAR is a single number that should never be used as anything but a quick and dirty reference. It is especially poor to use it when said WAR is heavily defense skewed. It treats offense and defense equally yet they are not equal in a player's true value. The minors are littered with gold glove caliber defenders who never sniff the majors. Yet you can search a long time to find a silver slugger caliber player stuck in the minors forever. That doesn't even touch the fact the use of defensive metric in WAR are shaky at best because they use only a single season's worth of numbers. Even though it is generally accepted that it takes three seasons of defensive metrics to equal one season of offensive metrics. It's a valiant attempt at boiling everything down to one number but it fails to do so. What make matters worse is it seems to have replaced more in depth stats that actually tell us something useful. It is the anti-analytics stat IMHO and shold never be used to asses actual value beyond just a first glance. As far as just switching him back to right they have a guy in right that is pretty good already. Possibly even better than Eaton. Of all the teams out there that could maximize his defensive value Washington the least capable of doing that. In other words this is not a Jason Heyward and the Cubs situation.

What sense does it make to trade for a guy who's defense is a significant part of his value then move him to a position where his defense isn't very good?

I mean...the Brewers traded for Zach Greinke and CC Sabathia not so long ago. We rented them. One rental a bit longer than the other with zero chance of ever keeping either of them. I don't think trading for a pitcher with two years of control counts as a rental.

Prospects flop all the time. You can never have to many of them. If we are fortunate enough to have everyone playing up to their potential we have some great trade chips for our next Greinke Sabathia type deal.

It's kind of hard to use most hot smokers for cold smoke. I've had mine down to about 100 degrees but can't maintain that low a temp. Not to mention it's to high a temp anyway. I rigged up an old fridge for cold smoking.

Doing it by best record without interleague play wouldn't have been perfect, but it's a lot better than just having it determined by luck. Has that been in place in 1982 we might be talking about the Brewer team that won the World Series, not just made it. With an unbalanced schedule you have some teams with harder schedules that others. It would essentially reward the team who played in the weakest division of the weakest league not the best overall team. I am fine with alternating years because there is no way to truly know which team is the best and deserves home field advantage.

Count me as one of those people. It always struck me a odd that people got upset because an exhibition game meant to showcase all the best players ended in a tie because they showcased all the players. On different note does anyone know why the union is so against an international draft? The people effected by it are not even union members. Seems to me that would be a good bargaining chip to get something else union members would actually benefit from. Like a DH in both leagues, an extra player on the roster, a minimum wage boost or any number of other things they could actually profit from. Seems to be the ones who benefit from no international draft is player agents not players.

There will still be draft pick compensation just not a first round pick. Per MLB Network's Jon Morosi, teams will no longer have to give up a first-round pick to sign free agents who receive a qualifying offer. However, draft compensation won't completely go away, as teams over the luxury-tax threshold would lose a second- and fifth-round pick, while teams under would lose a third-round pick, per ESPN's Jayson Stark.

Ditto. I smoke more in the winter than summer. I tend to like colder smokes and it's easier to maintain a lower temperature when it isn't 80 out. I also do some cold smoking when it's real cold out.

I don't think it's as simple as them putting money in some sort of savings account but that doesn't mean using less money on payroll now doesn't effect how much they can use later. My guess is extra money goes to debt service. If they have less debt they pay less interest on that debt. Any money paid to the interest on a loan is completely wasted so the less of it they have the more productive that money can be. If, for example, you double your first house payment and then pay only the minimum after that you take years and thousands of dollars off the total cost of the house. The more and faster you pay it off the less overall you pay for the exact same thing. Same here. The less money that has to go to debt service in future years the more money is freed up to use elsewhere. The other option is to use the money saved in other profit making endeavors that provide more revenue later. If Mark A. uses that money on something outside of baseball that doesn't mean that money made cannot then be used for baseball related things. Tax wise I am don't know what that level of finance is like but it isn't as simple as deducting the taxes paid and saying you have less. You would have to deduct the taxes paid then add in the saving from the things I outlined above and see if it is more or less. It gets even more complicated if they had losses in past years that can be carried over so he may very well not be paying any taxes on that at all. The upshot is we have no idea what taxes are being paid and if those taxes would be higher than the money saved or raised via less interest on debt or profits made on investments made using that money saved.

I am not stuck on what he did five or six years ago. I am stuck on the idea that you think the minimum we can expect out of him- as a 30 year old with little experience in the majors, and hasn't played in a league above AAA level for three years- is league average production. That is just way too optimistic a view of what the minimum can be. I love the enthusiasm. He could do that or better so I am not dissing him. But at some point reality has to play a part. He could really be a lot worse than league average. His floor is much lower than that. If that was his ceiling and he reached it I would be very happy with the deal.

Thurston Fluff said: I think 260/340/810 is closer to his ceiling than his floor. He's bigger and stronger with a shorter and more compact swing now compared to 2013. He's quicker to the ball with more whip. Also changed his stance (feet/base) and hand positioning. He looks much better now compared to when he was 24/25yrs old in MLB To say that is his floor is really a stretch. Though he could very well be better, to say that is the lowest level of performance he can reach is pretty hard to justify. His floor is more like replacement level than a roughly league average major league player. His ceiling is far closer to major league average than his floor.

I think 260/340/810 is closer to his ceiling than his floor.

Low risk contract at a position of need that evens out a very right handed lineup. If he really sucks cut him. If he's better than advertised trade him. If he's what his contract says he is we have a stop gap until we are competitive. What's not to like?