SRB

Please just hit it into the air.

Well, when he negotiated the contract the intent was clearly based on health concerns (i.e. if he was healthy in 2014, he would get the $11 million option). He's healthy, and he's still not getting it. I think there is a legitimate case that Scooter has played Rickie out of a job, but I can still 100% understand why Rickie would be pretty irked.

I would say that Rickie is just angry that the Brewers are deliberately screwing him out of $11 million by not playing him over the first part of the season, but I seem to remember he was equally opposed to a position switch years ago too. Maybe it's a pride thing, I don't know. Anyways, I'M still #TEAMRICKIE

TheCrew07, all fair points. My original post was merely in response to the contention that the Brewers would be an especially bad organization to develop Hoffman. The details of the Brewers pitching development program are beyond my knowledge, I was just pointing out that there is compelling evidence that the Brewers not only are not especially bad, but might actually be especially good at working with pitchers to prevent future TJ injuries. Other factors may contribute to their low TJ rate (like the pitchers they target in the draft, as you argue), but the point remains that there is no reason to think the Brewers are in a worse position than anyone else to draft Hoffman, and if anything they may be in a slightly better position given the possibility of pitching-development medical expertise that you and I are unaware of directly. I find it more plausible that the Brewers emphasize practices in pitching development to avoid TJ injuries, rather than that have developed some way to divine TJ-risk in advance of drafting somebody, since TJ seems like an equal-opportunity menace that is not correlated to body type really. The fact that the Brewers may be above-average at preventing pitcher injuries does not imply that they will never have a TJ case or will never have pitcher injuries requiring DL time. There's no magic technique. Haven't the Brewers been near the top of the league in preventing MLB pitcher DL stints over the last few years too though?

See my subsequent post. They are near the best in the majors at preventing TJ injuries at all levels, not just the major leagues. I don't think Mike Jones's injuries from over a decade ago are really relevant to the current Brewers development/medical staff. Hmm... I'm not sure what you're arguing. That there are no SP in the Brewers minor league system? I don't disagree with you that they have been terrible at drafting quality pitchers, but I fail to see any unique characteristics that would somehow make Brewers pitchers immune to TJ injuries. Nor am I aware of any correlation between "big bodied" pitchers and protection against TJ injuries. Yes, TJ surgeries does not cover all possible pitcher injuries, but it is a convenient proxy. I don't pretend to know the details of the Brewers development system, but it seems that they have always emphasized certain medical aspects of developing and evaluating players (e.g. I remember reading about their system for evaluating pitcher injury-risk and their belief that they had tweaked Gallardo's delivery to make him particularly "good" at being less injury-prone), and at least one metric seems to bear that out. Maybe that means they are better at drafting less-injury-prone pitchers to begin with, but even if that's the case it suggests they know what they're doing with regard to pitching mechanics, and it doesn't change the fact that the Brewers have overseen some impressive rehabilitation campaigns in recent years. I think you're the one dead set on believing that the Brewers organization is simply incompetent at everything.

Ask and ye shall receive.

I was just using MLB pitchers as an easier-to-track proxy, but here is some better data: Over the last three years, the Brewers have had six TJs (all minor leagues), which is the third-lowest total (the lowest is four TJ). The median over that span is 15.5 total and the average is 13.3. Clearly the Brewers are far above-average at preventing TJ injuries. I could not disagree more. The fact that Rogers came back and pitched in the major leagues (and was briefly a top prospect again) is a huge success story. Capuano is a huge rehabilitation success story too. I fail to see how any of the position players are relevant to the wholly separate issue of rehabilitating injured pitchers and preventing future injuries, which are the key concerns with Hoffman. Maybe the broader concern is that whatever the Brewers do to keep pitchers healthy also stunts their upside as players. It seems that Atlanta is toward the top both with developing young pitchers and then having those pitchers get injured. Not sure where the right trade off lies.

I suspect there are some personality/clubhouse issues with Francisco. Seems slightly unusual for a 26-year-old with huge power (even if he's a poor overall player/hitter) to be with his fourth organization since 2011, each time let go for basically nothing. [sarcasm]We need Overbay's gritty veteran leadership in the clubhouse.[/sarcasm]

I know very little about football, but I can confirm that Ha Ha Clinton-Dix is a A+/80 name.

Why is that? The Brewers seem pretty poor at developing pitchers in general, but if anything their one strength is the medical angle. There was a recent infographic regarding the "Tommy John epidemic" and the Brewers are the one team in MLB with 0 major league Tommy John surgeries over the last X years. (Obviously Hellweg was a recent minor league casualty, although he wasn't really developed by the Brewers). They've helped numerous pitchers return from debilitating injuries (e.g. Capuano, Rogers), so maybe I am over-generalizing a complex issue but I trust the Brewers to be able to develop a rehabilitation case like Hoffman. At least, as well as they develop any other pitcher (arguably not well).

Wasn't meant as an insult toward Jimmy Nelson, who is obviously doing great (and was a second round pick), but if your #1 prospect is on the level of a Jimmy Nelson (borderline top-100), I think your farm system is still in trouble. I don't think a low-ceiling, high-floor sort of pick is adequate for the Brewers right now. Then again, one could argue that taking a gamble on a potential bust is not the right path either, since then the Brewers are left with nobody. I'm glad to have Jimmy Nelson, I'm just not glad that he is the top prospect in the Brewers system right now. (Though Tyrone Taylor may be knocking.)

I'm not sure they can afford not to. Taking a boring pitcher whose ceiling is Jimmy Nelson is not going to help turn the farm around.

To answer my own question, I guess Lucas Giolito was a similar situation and he only fell to #16 due to concerns about his elbow, and then had TJ right after signing. Slightly different situation, but who knows, maybe Hoffman will be in play at #12.

What happened with past top draft prospects who had TJ surgery right before the draft? Interesting to put yourself in the Brewers position. On the one hand, that kind of risk seems very un-Melvin/un-Seid, but on the other hand Melvin must know that what the Brewers farm systems needs more than anything else is impact talent (as opposed to yet another "high-floor" college pitcher in the mid-first-round...)

Don't look now but Rickie is getting close to outhitting Scooter on the season... *Edit* Ok, not quite yet, but Rickie has the better OBP and a couple more basehits and he will be. Weeks has been much better after his awful start to the season. .257/.333/.286/.619 .283/.319/.398/.717

Despite being a mediocre team that got extraordinarily lucky with a bunch of 1-2 run victories in April, it is indisputable that we still have the best record in baseball!!!

After the June draft then I think they 100% will go after Morales. In fact, if they hadn't already missed a first-round pick last season, I'm guessing Morales would already be a Brewer. Hard to lose a first-round pick two years in a row, but Melvin loves buy-low bargains and the current Overbay/Reynolds tandem is more of a rebuild-year stopgap than a 1B solution for a contending team.

Incompetence or not, I have a certain sense of nostalgia for the Yost Years. (Macha, not so much...)

I think bunting is often stupid too, but I don't get why historical run expectancy values are always used to make the argument. Surely the identity of the batters at the plate, on deck, and in the hole dramatically change the run expectancies in a given situation?

Why does that bother you? You realize V = 5, right? I don't know. I can only debate our XXV man roster so many ways. This MMXIIII season is so exciting, that I can't contain myself to not use roman numerals where they aren't normally. I'm all for pointless pedantry, but: (1) it is commonly referred to as the "Rule V" draft even if the rules themselves now technically read "Rule 5"; (2) rules are commonly numbered using roman numerals, unlike your examples; (3) the reason "Rule V" is a common alternative is because the original manifestation of the draft, dating back to like 1904, was under Rule V (not Rule 5) of the constitution of the National Association of Professional Baseball Leagues. (PS - it's the MMXIV season)

I wish they would just DL A-Ram sooner rather than later. Clearly dealing with something.

The Reds are way more dangerous than St. Louis

Why does that bother you? You realize V = 5, right?

Regarding this situation never happening before, remember that the only reason we were able to acquire Wang was due to highly unusual circumstances. Assuming Wang is a legitimate SP prospect (the Brewers seem to think he is), 99% of the time that type of player is not going to get left unprotected and thus would never enter the Rule V draft. The reason Wang was eligible was due to the unusual circumstances of his injury and the Pirates voiding his original contract. So the Brewers sort of have an unprecedented opportunity to "draft" a young SP prospect, with the strategy being contingent on them stashing him for the season. If all second-round-caliber pitching prospects (or however you qualify Wang) had to be placed on 40-man rosters when they were still at the Rk/A level, then a lot more teams would have to leave young prospects unprotected, and you might have other examples of teams trying to poach one via the Rule V draft.

Reds have a better offense at basically every position except maybe SS (and Peralta has not been great). And Votto is the only MVP-caliber offensive player between the two teams. St. Louis came into the season riding on the helium of their unsustainably luck 2013, but those fumes are quickly evaporating.