SRB

That's exactly the bad mentality that I'm sure Melvin has. The fact that we keep winning one-run games does not excuse having the offensive holes and useless bench that we currently do. I know nobody is going to make major trades this earlier in the season, and it doesn't make sense to sign Morales until after the draft, but there are a lot of little things that he can and should be doing. Our starting LF has a .253 OBP, we have zero competent bench OF, and our starting 1B has an OPS approaching .500. Is it really that hard to find a 1B/OF closer to replacement level, at least? Kyle Blanks is just one recent example of that type of guy traded for very little.

Maybe they're waiting until after the draft to sign Morales so they don't have to give up a pick. I hope so! I wish they were taking these serious offensive deficiencies more serious even now though. Somebody like Kyle Blanks would have been a solid add. This team has a chance to contend and if Melvin doesn't make some substantial moves over the summer I think it will be a fireable offense.

It's May, and seven of nine players in the lineup tonight have an OBP below .300... When are Melvin & Co. going to do something about 1B/LF???

He had a great AA season in 2012, and a pretty poor AAA season last year that sort of derailed his prospect status. When you can only play 1B you really need to crush minor league pitching in order to project much value. His stats have looked a little better this season so far, but personally I don't think he's the answer at 1B. Probably better than Overbay though, might as well see what he's got.

Award bonuses are in contracts because it is a workaround for the prohibition on performance-based incentives. The only statistics they are allowed to incorporate are appearance-based, like PA/IP, and those are clearly meant as a proxy for health. I can see how you could argue that a secondary purpose of PA requirements is to incorporate a performance proxy for players that completely fall off a cliff, but my original point is that when Weeks signed his contract nobody had that in mind. There was no other Brewers 2B on the horizon and Weeks looked like he was a perennial All-Star. The intent of everybody involved when the contract was signed was that Weeks would get the option if he was healthy. There's nothing wrong with declining an option, that's part of the game. But the issue here is that Weeks was guaranteed $11M if he hit 600 PA this season. They sat him just long enough to ensure that he can't meet that. And indeed there is virtually no way he can hit that anymore even if he starts every remaining game. So, coincidentally, he is getting more playing time now. If the 2013 performances of Weeks and Scooter had been closer, then he might have a plausible grievance for the MLBPA to file on his behalf. I'm not saying he does - the Brewers had legitimate reasons to justify sitting him. But my point remains that from his perspective he is getting screwed. (Ok, my last post on the issue, sorry for cluttering the thread!)

This is a huge pet peeve of mine. I recall reading literally the exact same thing in the season we traded for K-Rod by a poster on here. It's extremely unlikely and it'd probably be dumb for the Brewers to give up what it'd take to get him, but they do have the pieces and there is a CHANCE this could happen. What pieces do they have? Bautista is an MVP-caliber player under team control for 2.5 more seasons. You're talking top-25 prospects at a minimum. Nelson is a fringe top-100 prospect, at least coming into the season. I don't see how you can compare K-Rod, who the Mets were looking to dump, and a player like Bautista. We couldn't even field a competitive offer for Bautista if he was a free agent after the season, much less so given his contract situation.

Bautista has been the best hitter in the AL this season and is under team control through 2016. Brewers definitely do not have the pieces to get him. Zero chance. Not going to happen.

In a perfect world maybe, but the Brewers are trying to contend this season and currently have sub-replacement players at LF and 1B. I think Davis will turn it around, but Lyle Overbay really needs to be replaced ASAP. I don't know what potential options better than Moreland are out there.

Doesn't "spare" imply we have two of those? Pretty sure our other 2B neither has a >.800 OPS, nor an incredible OBP.

That's really not true, because contracts in MLB are not supposed to be tied to performance whatsoever. They used his poor performance in 2013 as a legitimate but opportunistic justification for sitting him for the first part of the season. I suspect they only asked him about trying new positions after it was clear he would miss the vesting cut-off. I'm sure Rickie was confident all along that he was good enough to be in the lineup, so the fact that they were only letting him pinch-hit must have seemed a clear attempt to avoid the option. Reasonable strategy on the part of the Brewers, but unfair from Rickie's perspective. And oh look, he now had a >.400 OBP and is close to having the best offensive line on the season of anybody on the team. Good thing they sat him just long enough to avoid that option... But we are all talking in circles here so I'll agree to disagree.

Thank goodness! MLB.com was/is listing 3-2 as the final score and had me worried. Glad they're wrong.

I don't think there's anyway the Brewers would trade for a prospect like Gallo right now. Brewers need MLB offense. But the Rangers are still an intriguing trade partner. Mitch Moreland might be somebody to target. Would you do Estrada for Moreland and then promote one of Fiers/Nelson (or convert Thornburg)?

That's Coop in the on-deck circle. Different cover. The one SI lists as a national cover involving the Brewers is the one with Yount turning a double play with Lonnie Smith sliding into second. From the angle the figure in the background has to be Oglivie (in LF).

Ok, evidently my research was entirely incorrect (and/or excluded regional covers). The two Brewers covers according to the SI database were: 2011 (Ryan Braun, Prince Fielder, and Nyjer Morgan) 1982 (the World Series issue, with Robin Yount in focus and the silhouette of Ben Oglivie in the background)

Mike Fiers (MIL) for Scott Van Slyke (LAD). Boom.

Awesome! I'm assuming it's not a regional cover or something, right? Here's some (extremely difficult without looking it up) trivia question for everyone: By my research, Carlos Gomez is now the sixth active Brewer to appear on the cover of Sports Illustrated. Who are the other four? (Hint: it's not four separate covers) (Note: one of the six is not clearly identifiable from the cover alone) 1) ??? 2) ??? 3) ??? 4) ??? 5) ??? 6) Carlos Gomez (2014) *Edit* Oh, the MLBlogs link ruins three of the five... Don't look if you want to guess!

Why should any player, especially an underperforming, aging player, ever assume that he will be guaranteed playing time if he's healthy? He can make it up in his own mind that he's being 'screwed', but no player in any professional team sport should ever make an assumption of playing time given. Especially a guy who's put up the numbers (and defense) that Rickie has the past few years. A guy pushing into his 30's, sporting negative WAR 2 years running, with significant playing time, doesn't get more playing time, he gets less. I think we are talking past each other. When Weeks signed his contract, he was an oft-injured but elite 2B (arguably the best 2B in baseball from 2010-11 on a WAR/game basis, coming off a 5.8 fWAR season when he signed the contract). Nobody foresaw that in 2014 he would be benched for a (previously) non-prospect like Scooter Gennett. That simply was not the purpose of the PA-requirement. I know people on here may disagree on fairness/policy grounds, but the entire contractual framework in professional baseball is designed under the principle that money is guaranteed regardless of on-field performance. That is what the MLBPA has fought for and that's what distinguishes baseball from some other sports. The Brewers are fully within their rights to point out Weeks's bad performance and to bench him, but he's still getting screwed. If he had been a healthy player throughout his career, the $11 million option would have been guaranteed (or at least would have had a guaranteed buyout). He was oft-injured, so they negotiated a PA-based option. He's 100% healthy, but he's still not getting it. Nothing wrong with what the Brewers are doing, but I don't see how you can't empathize with Week on some level?

Fiers should be in the major leagues. It was unfair in the first place that he got sent back down for a handful of bad starts. Unfortunately/fortunately there's no room for him in the rotation right now, and even when a SP gets injured it's not clear who will be first in line between Fiers/Nelson/Thornburg. (This season so far is kind of suggesting that the Brewers should have passed on Garza on spent that money on offense instead, but oh well. Really wish we had landed Abreu...)

The Royals are not going to trade Moustakas for cheap. They held on to Alex Gordon for years and turned him back into an All-Star player. The cost to the Brewers would be prohibitive (if the Brewers even have sufficient non-MLB pieces to get the job done in the first place).

I don't know that I've ever seen any explicit language that states that plate-appearance based vesting options are specifically to safe guard against health issues. I can't imagine any team would be interested in paying Weeks 11 million dollars next year, based on his production from the last few years. A .700 OPS 2nd baseman, with middling-to-poor defense is not a guy you want to be paying top - 5 at his position money. A team making sure that option doesn't vest is doing smart business (IMO) Who is disputing that it's smart business? Of course it's the smart thing for the Brewers to do, but from Rickie's perspective he's still getting screwed. In his mind I'm sure he's still better than Scooter, and when they signed the contract nobody was thinking that Rickie would be 100% healthy but would be deliberately relegated to a PH-only role this season. There is no explicit language because (I'm pretty sure) they are prohibited by the CBA from including that kind of performance-based language in the contracts. That's why teams use things like PA as a proxy for health and award/all-star voting as a proxy for performance. The downside for the player is that what was likely intended as a proxy for health is now being used as a (fully legal) excuse to duck the option. It's very obvious that they were sitting him for the first fifth of the season. Now we are past the point where there is no way he can accumulate 400 PA and they are going to start using him more and more. So suddenly they ask him to play LF (now, once he will no longer get his option to vest)? I absolutely want the Brewers to do this, because I don't want to pay Rickie $11M next season, but from his point of view I would be irked too.

They really need to bolster that bullpen. I hear Derrick Turnbow and Eric Gagne are available.

Melvin is 100% correct that certain players (like Hart, Fielder) are more valuable to AL teams because they can keep them in the lineup as DH. As a result, AL teams should be able to in theory outbid NL teams for free agents. It's not like Milwaukee could have signed Prince if Detroit didn't have a DH though. He's probably just trying to build leverage here. Which, in turn, means there are probably active discussions with Morales/Boras.

I'm one of the biggest and most consistent Weeks supporters on this board. I fail to see how inferring that he might rightfully be "irked" about the Brewers screwing him out of $11 million is "Weeks-bashing" The Brewers didn't 'screw' him out of anything. They are under no contractual obligation to provide him a specific number of at bats. He agreed to the stipulation that vests his 2015 option. If he's not playing good enough to earn playing time, why put him on the field? Yes, he's had a few hits the last few days, and the result is he has raised his OPS over .730, which is almost completely driven by batting average. (same as Scooter Gennett, actually). Given Week's small sample at this point, any hot or cold streak is going to swing his numbers wildly in any direction. An 0-fer in 2 straight days (which he is more than capable of) will drop his OPS back below .700. The larger body of work that he's put forth for the bulk of the last 2 years, aside from these 50 plate appearances is that he's showing eroding skills at the plate. I'm not sold on Gennett (far from it, actually), but Rickie's bad past few years, coupled with his very poor fielding don't show me why the team should feel obligated to play him daily just for the sake of providing him another big payday. The purpose of a guaranteed contract in sports is to ensure pay regardless of performance. The reason there are PA-based options is that it is the best objective proxy for health. I never said that the Brewers violated the contract, they didn't. But that doesn't mean Rickie isn't getting screwed. Same as K-Rod a few weeks back when he suddenly became the set-up man.

I'm one of the biggest and most consistent Weeks supporters on this board. I fail to see how inferring that he might rightfully be "irked" about the Brewers screwing him out of $11 million is "Weeks-bashing"

Bad Lyle!!!