Thurston Fluff

I agree. If he cold be serviceable at first and left he could take over the 4th outfielder job next season and he could get a starters level of ab's.

If that was the case it should have shown up before now.

Or the pitchers are good at getting weak contact. I think it's probably all of the above but we shouldn't just assume the pitchers didn't have anything to do with it.

You know this how? Just because Turang is the best second baseman doesn't mean second base is his best position.

Both came up as shortstops but were blocked by Adames. It's hardly a stretch to think the best position for both is shortstop. In either event only one of the two would be moved.

A- Just because you don't think Durbin is the answer doesn't mean they did nothing. It just means you didn't like what they did. Which leads me to... B- While others just trust all the moves the team makes you don't seem to trust any moves the team makes.

Glad to see fans here are giving PECOTA's Brewers win projection all the time it deserves here.

Maybe but Sheffield wanted the big city and bright lights he was never going to get here. He wasn't happy he got drafted by Milwaukee to begin with. It's hard to blame one move for something that started off poorly. At most I'd say it was the final straw as opposed to the prime factor.

He couldn't stay healthy. The article is nice and all but it doesn't absolve the fact Sheffield was the problem. Had the Brewers trade Molitor to keep Parker simply because Sheffield wanted him he'd have been the most hated man in Milwaukee. I seriously doubt that would have helped his productivity. Not to mention it's just plain old bad management to allow one player to dictate who stays and who goes.

It does but I know the people who posted it.

This isn't mine. I'm not close to this level but I thought it was worth sharing. It is entirely made up of balloons.

That might be part of it. I think it might be more a symptom than a cause. In general large corporations are slow moving and don't react to changes as quickly as small places can. When helium got scarce the prices shot up a lot in a short period of time. Party City didn't adapt like small places did. The change from a helium balloon arch to an air filled one for example took us about a day to adjust. We called a local awning shop and had them bend us some conduit and never had to say no to anyone. It took them months to stock and sell the framework for arches. Even then it was a DIY and not very easy to do. Not only were they slow to adjust their solution was not very good. Large places also set their prices higher up. When the circumstances change on the ground it takes time to trickle down. They always relied on volume to make up for a narrow profit margin so when the price of helium quadrupled in a few months they were losing money because the changes in prices rose slower than the cost of the product. Another semi-related problem is most large places project inventory out a lot further than small places do. When they buy balloons that need helium it could be for next year. Suddenly they have inventory locked in that can't be moved. Which is all to say a private equity firm would look at that and decide to cut their losses but it was due to the built in weakness of a large scale entity more than it was consolidation to maximize profits.

My hope is more cable networks go bankrupt to force MLB to centralize all games into a single streaming source run by MLB. By centralizing all the money in one service all the teams would have an equal share of the revenue.

There was no gaslighting going on. More bites at the apple is the exact opposite of going for it. The team never claimed it was going for it any particular year more than any other. The goal was to be a viable contender every year. They've done a pretty good job of that. If they continue there is a greater chance of having a run than going for it in a small window does.

Don't know what else to say than it's sad news. I guess the glass half full part of me thinks he had an incredible, full life. That he could do what he loved to the very end is the cherry on top.

lLast season they lost two aces and their manager and they were playing rookies or second year players all over the field. It would have been the perfect time to let Bauers or Black play if they viewed the season as a transition or minor rebuild. Yet they signed Hoskins and Sanchez.

I don't believe their thinking changes from year to year. It's more about how to get to the same goal they have every season than what they want out of any particular season. Overall I think it's a mistake to view it as windows of opportunity that open and close depending on the status of the current roster. I also don't think the front office views it that way. looking through the windows of opportunity lens leads to holding onto players you should let go or acquire some that doesn't make sense for the long term. There will come a time when the team fails to find enough talent for a team to be competitive for a couple years but it won't be due to them intentionally going for it in a single window at the cost of the future.

Kind of crazy how baseball changed it's tune on associating with gambling companies in such a short period of time.

How much trust would anyone have that they'd be able to follow through if they did? Cost certainty is even more important when you're dealing with unstable income sources.

I'm not concerned if they don't make any more moves at all. It might be nice to have a little more certainty/experience on the infield but there's enough there to think we could manage. The overall depth everywhere else offensively, defensively and pitching is good. It makes for a boring off season but when has the most exciting team in the off season ever won during the season? If we are limited payroll wise I'd rather they save some for in season trades that use it all before we know where we'll need help due to injuries or ineffectiveness. Now that I said that, watch them sign Roki Sasak or something equally crazy.

Am I the only one who doesn't know if Black is capable of playing decent defense at first or not? It seems like everyone just accepts Black is not good enough to play first but how much time and information do we have to know that for sure? He's a young, athletic guy who hasn't played a lot at first. It seems premature to make any valid assessment going forward IMHO.

What sometimes gets lost is a more balanced field would force the large markets to find and develop players better. If all the teams were forced to do what the Brewers do to field a good team how much better could the overall talent base be? As it is why waste time scouting and developing a Jackson Chourio when you can just buy a Juan Soto in his prime? How many Jackson Chourios does baseball never find or develop because only a few teams feel it's worth the effort when they can just buy the best of a smaller group.

I'm all for revenue sharing but the devil is in the details. 20 years ago it would have been much more straight forward. Everyone either had a local station or cable contracts. With cable dying out and live streaming still developing as a sports market it's hard to predict what the future of local revenue is going to look like in five or ten years. For example, streaming makes it possible for teams to develop their own service and sell directly to the customer. If a team starts it's own service and has two years in the red but starts making a profit in year three when should they be expected to kick in? Seems unfair to make them take all the risk then have to share the profits before being compensated for the previous losses. If they never turn a profit because they tried something innovative how long should the rest of the league share their profits? We're at a point where innovative thinking can make the sport as a whole pore profitable. Would sharing revenue help or harm innovation? Maybe it's time baseball did all games in house and do away with local contracts altogether.

Just heard Party City is closing all stores. I feel bad for the employees to get the news just before Christmas but it's hard not to feel a bit of pride in our operation. They started in 1986 which was three years after we did. Outlasting a major corporate entity in the same field shows maybe small mom and pops places have a place in our country after all.

Give him away as in trade him for a bag of balls. If the other team wants a couple million as well so be it. Not my preferred outcome but if it's either do that to free up some money to spend in a position of greater need or keep him and hope it all works out I'll go with the former. What I don't want is for the team to chase it's loses. Accept it didn't work out and salvage what you can to field the best team possible. That all assumes that they think keeping him isn't the best option moving forward.