Thurston Fluff

Ben sheets was a two pitch pitcher as well. While Jungman may not be Sheets, to say his two main pitches are average is pretty far off the mark. His problem was never his stuff. It was always location. Which is why you can't just go off of his minor league numbers to project what he is going to be in the majors. It should come as no surprise that he is improving his location given his age and time in professional baseball. Nor should the fact that he does better than his minor league numbers indicate he would since he gained some control. I have no idea if he can maintain his control over the course of the season, or his career for that matter, but he has the stuff to be more than a back end of the rotation guy.

I refuse to accept a Cub fan as an American hero. Even when he says things that make it seem like he is.

There is no reason a rebuild has to be for 5 or 6 years with only a two year window of winning. The Brewers made it a window by trading prospects for players that were only under control for two more years. Or half a year in Sabathia's case. That assumes players who would have been that good but cost controlled for longer were available. Teams don't usually give up top end pitchers with four or more years of control. If they do the cost would be higher than what Greinke or Sabathia cost us. Which in and of itself would reduce the amount of years we would be competitive. Had a reasonably priced young ace pitchers been available for what we paid for Greinke was available I have little doubt they the Brewers would have traded for them. It goes back to the idea that you can rebuild through the draft alone. I just don't know if that is possible. The Cubs had a total rebuild that everyone says was very well done. Yet they failed to get enough pitching. If htat sound familiar it should. They are in exactly the same position the Brewers were in with the Braun, Fielder, Hart, Hardy and Weeks wave of players. The only difference is they have the resources to buy the pitching we had to trade for. They also have the money to pay for them when they hit free agency. Which is why I am skeptical that a total rebuild will get the Brewers any closer to long term success than the last one did. We have to find another way. I think that is what they are trying to do by keeping Melvin on in another capacity. Take what he has learned in his past efforts and add a new GM to compliment a new way moving forward. Make sense to me instead of just starting over and reinventing the wheel.

I think I'd wait for more than half a season with a winning record before I claim how well it worked for them. Especially the Cubs who didn't exactly get there solely through sucking for years on end. Buying Lester in the free agent market has something to do with it too. Bryant, Soler, trading Cashner for Rizzo, trading Scott Feldman for Jake Arrieta, trading Samardzija for Russell. It's like some of you don't want to admit that taking a step back to take two steps forward can actually work. No I am saying it is a bit premature to say it worked so well for them. A few injuries, stagnated careers, free agent busts or free agent losses and they are in the same position the Brewers are. What happens if Lester stumbles? If Bryant's thumb acts up? If Castro leaves via FA? If Rizzo's career path is similar to Weeks? We do accept there are times when a rebuild is necessary. That is not the same as saying you start to rebuild at the first sign of trouble. I simply am not interested in sucking for 5 or 6 years for a two year window of winning. That seems to be what some here would do. I would personally go through trying to win as long as there was a viable shot to win. Sometimes that means signing a guy like Lohse instead of hoping that first round draft pick someday becomes better than Lohse. So be it.

I think I'd wait for more than half a season with a winning record before I claim how well it worked for them. Especially the Cubs who didn't exactly get there solely through sucking for years on end. Buying Lester in the free agent market has something to do with it too.

That doesn't get us any closer to measuring relative value of an offensive player vs defensive one though. If the best defender only saves a few runs per season over an average one but the best offender creates a bunch of them v average then the value of a player who saves runs at a higher than average rate, while being more than a single run created, may not be as valuable.

I agree we should look to see if it is indeed undervalued. But we should be careful not to just assume it is because it is hard to define. It could just as easily be overvalued as undervalued.

Brewers bullpen catcher does some pretty heavy double duty. Bullpen catching and gluttonous eating. http://m.mlb.com/cutfour/2015/07/02/134341308 Not sure if I'm proud or horrified he's one of us.

Not to hijack the thread but yes to all this. Especially the overreaction to a tie in an exhibition game. I think the real problem then was Selig's popularity. Or more to the point lack of it. There was still some resentment on the players part over the previous labor troubles and the PED's were a major shadow over his leadership. I always felt it was more about bashing Selig than it was having to declare a tie in a meaningless game.

Aramis Ramirez was just named NL player of the week. The stories of his demise might have been greatly exaggerated. Perfect timing since it should ease other team's concerns for a trade. I think his heating up will give teams confidence he is still a viable starting option and was just off to his usual slow start.

Some of his salary is tied to staying healthy. Not saying that is why he would do that but it is the only reason i can think of why he would.

But he has found elite talent. Jonathan Lucroy and Carlos Gomez are two of the very best at their positions. Braun is back to being one of the best RF in the game. Isn't that elite enough? Exactly how many is one team supposed to be able to develop at a time? How many teams actually draft and develop elite talent on both sides of the ball at the same time? You only have so many picks and other teams get to pick some too. Look at the Cubs. They did very well drafting and developing elite offensive talent. Yet they didn't have much pitching coming up with it. So little in fact they had to buy their ace. What would the Cubs future look like if they had to trade three of their prospects to get the level of pitcher they just bought in FA? Is the fact we cannot buy our ace and had to trade for one supposed to show Melvin isn't as good as Epstein? Of is it simply the situations are not the same? Which once again goes back to why it would be wise to keep him on in some capacity. he already knows the limitations of this club. While he may not have the answer as to how to succeed year in and year out I think he is probably closer than anyone we can find to get us there. Just to update Arcia has been named Baseball America's 8th best prospect. If that isn't elite talent I am not sure what is.

I think some of the criticism of pitching, while fair, is outdated. A team that could realistically field an entirely homegrown starting rotation if they wanted to cannot be all that bad at drafting them. They used to be terrible at it but have done a much better job of developing pitching in the past several years. While they may not have hit on an ace yet they sure have hit on some good mid rotation pitchers. A couple upper rotation ones as well.

LaPorta was already gone. Trading Fielder after the 2010 season would have brought back a big return. Considering his true greatness, I can understand keeping him through to free agency, but such a move should have been the rare exception not the rule. JJ Hardy was pretty good. Hardly a superstar. Big difference I think you are overestimating the return we would have got for Fielder. If you recall they looked into what they could get for him and decided to keep him and trade prospects for pitching. That was at least in part because the return just wasn't enough.

They had Escobar waiting in the wings. Could have gotten a great return for Hardy after the 2008 season. Couple that with no need to trade 3 top prospects for Greinke who put up a pedestrian 103 ERA+ in 2011 and those 2 moves alone could have really changed the Brewers for the better. No need to overpay for Lohse & Garza when a now 25 year old Odorizzi is out pitching the entire Brewers roster. Escobar wasn't waiting in the wings. He was in AA and not nearly ready to play in the majors a year earlier. You don't just trade players who are productive because you have another more than a year away from being ready. Not on a team that was coming off it's first playoff appearance in 20 years and had legitimate hope of getting back anyway. As far as the return we got for Hardy; while we may have been able to get a deal that looked better at the time, trying to argue we could have ended up with more than 6 years of a legitimate 5 tool all star caliber, gold glove center fielder for three years of JJ Hardy is pretty far fetched. It wouldn't have mattered if they traded him a year earlier it would have been tough to end up with a better result. He was never going ot net us a young ace pitcher under team control for five or six years. As far as Odorizzi out pitching the entire Brewers roster he sure as hell didn't do it the past couple years. Basing your argument on one half a season while ignoring two whole years is tenuous at best.

Because we can all see how great Jack Z is running the whole show now. Considering the high picks he was working with Jack Z did a good, not great, job drafting when he was here. Had he found any pitching to speak of to go along it I would say great. Given he has done next to nothing to improve Seattle as GM I find it hard to believe the success of the Brewers is mostly due to him. In fact I would say the decline of the Brewers has as much to do with him as anyone. If he had found a few pitchers in his entire time here maybe we wouldn't have had to trade half the farm to get some.

Rich150 I agreed with pretty much everything in your post but felt these two lines were perfect. Saying he ran this team into the ground without also acknowledging he was the one who brought it up from there is misleading at best. I would go so far as to say he is the single most important person in our rise to relevance over the past decade. That he had to do it by setting our team up for hard times for a couple years is the only mark against him IMHO. Yet pretty much everyone was on board with that at the time. I have no doubt if he was a bit younger and wanted to he would be able to do it again. Perhaps with the experience of the last round he could even improve on that. Which leads me to my next point. I am glad he is moving up not out. He led this team to higher ground than any other GM before him. This was the second franchise in which he did that. It would be a shame to start over with someone new and waste all the knowledge accumulated over that time. Giving a new person the GM role will mean new blood and a new perspective even while we keep the old experiences. If Melvin leaves entirely we only have one of those. This way the new GM brings with him new ideas and surrounds himself with new people but doesn't have to reinvent the wheel. This is not Sal Bando who had no business running a high school athletic department much less a major league franchise. Melvin is a highly respected man throughout baseball whose time has come to change roles.

If you want to use an example of taking the totality of offense and defense into account you can probably find a better example than the overused Kotsay in center one. There was as extreme a lack of offense the other center fielders provided as Kotsay had on defense. I didn't like the move because I thought it would have been better to try to win a 1-0 game than a 7-5 game. But that doesn't mean I thought there was no logical reasoning behind it if you take into account the totality of offense and defense. That said I think Doug does underestimate defense.

I think any GM who is pure sabre or pure traditional scouting is shortchanging their franchise. I also don't think there are many that only do one or the other. It's hard to find a guy like Perez if you only look at numbers. It's also hard to find value if you never evaluate what is actually valuable. The only way to do that is to do some math once in a while. Together you can find more than either can do alone.

If you have to pay him anyway and can't get anything for him why not? He can be the mop up guy. Considering how quick a hook Counsell has having a guy like him in the pen isn't a bad idea.

I don't think it's a bad idea to send Jungman back down. He has some things to work on and can do that there as well as here. We are not necessarily trying to win games and he can digest what he learned here a little to help him come in stronger his next time up. To me it would almost be like having an off season to reflect on what he did and what he needs to do in the future. I don't think we'll have to worry though. Even though Lohse hasn't cooperated so far I think he will still be traded. Some team will take a shot on him due to his track record if they don't have too pay much. It would be better for us to trade him even if we had to pick up his salary just to get something back in return. Even if it is nothing more than minor league fodder.

Once again you cannot use it as an excuse to get out of a punishment. A drunk driver cannot use "I am an alcoholic," to get out of the punishment for an OWI Especially when it was his second or third one. Similarly, using the gambling addict card does not negate the need to enforce the well known punishment for gambling on baseball. Indeed it does the exact opposite. As anyone with an addiction will tell you the first thing you have to do is accept the consequences of your actions. If he really is trying to address a gambling addiction he should simply accept the punishment and move on with his recovery. I would wish him well and hope he keeps his life together. If he isn't trying to deal with it then he certainly doesn't deserve to get out of the penalty for his actions.

Thanks. I knew I would recognize the name as soon as someone said it but for the life of me could not think of which one.

Probably the best we could hope for is a Casey McGehee scenario where he puts up better major league numbers than minor league numbers for a few years. Those type of players do exist but I don't think you can find them if you only look at numbers. Sometimes there are situations where you see a player who should be doing better than their numbers indicate. If you think they have the ability you kind of have to ignore their results and go with what you think they can do based on skill set. But to find out you have to give them a shot. A team in our position has the luxury of taking a flier on that type of player.

Years ago someone posted about living in Italy and said if any of us go there we should look him up. We are planning to go sometime in the next year or so and thought I'd add a day or so in his area. For the life of me I cannot remember who he is. If I can find him/you and the logistics work out I promise to bring Brewer gear of your choice.