Surhoff5

They once gave Joe Judge a B+ Grade and of course this: Jets hire HC Adam Gase: A+ Grade....I don't think they have much credibility.

Well there was this from you...unless of course you meant that in a good way Hopefully this isn’t Avisail Garcia 2.0.

Can’t believe we traded our top prospect for Escobar

That's a good point. A starting pitcher might draw in more people than a batter. I'm not going to pay that much to see a guy get four ab's no matter how great he is. I will pay to see a great pitcher pitch six or seven innings. This for sure. Its hard to pay for to see a hitter when as great as one is, it can just be so variable from night to night. However, I will pay to see Sheets, Woody, Burnes, etc. when on the bump for the Crew. I also enjoy watching guys like deGrom, Kershaw, etc when they come to town.

Robert Murray was let go from the Athletic for some reason, but he still breaks more news than any other Brewer beat reporter. I really hope the Athletic finds someone new for the upcoming season.

Switch hitter, but is much better as a lefty stick. I think I like Thames better, but it is pretty much a wash. I like Thames better too, but I think it's pretty clear Stearns is trying to get away from such a strikeout prone team. Urias, Garcia, Sogard, and Smoak do not strike out a ton compared to who they are replacing.

I like Thames better too, but I think it's pretty clear Stearns is trying to get away from such a strikeout prone team. Urias, Garcia, Sogard, and Smoak do not strike out a ton compared to who they are replacing.

I think his point was that Choi is cheap and basically produced as good as Thames this year. He would have been an ideal lefty replacement for a fraction of the cost. I agree its not a bad move or huge loss, but it would have been a perfect fit. Except that it's totally a "hindsight is 20/20" argument. Thames and Choi have nearly identical skillsets, so there is really no way that the Brewers would have hung on to both of them the last two seasons. I get the feeling that the Brewers originally signed Choi to a minors deal as insurance against a big Thames regression in 2018. When Thames came out of the chute fine, on top of Aguilar knocking the snot out of the ball, it made Choi expendable. Their attempt to catch lightning in a bottle with Brad Miller obviously didn't work out, but it made a ton of sense at the time. Oh I am 100% in agreement that this is a hindsight argument and I certainly don't think he is a big loss.

I think his point was that Choi is cheap and basically produced as good as Thames this year. He would have been an ideal lefty replacement for a fraction of the cost. I agree its not a bad move or huge loss, but it would have been a perfect fit.

Grisham for Dom Smith -- 1B solved

Not saying we will or won't, but would everyone here rather lose something like 9-1 rather than 3-2? I don't want a good game, only to lose a heart breaker.

Wow, I might go to Vegas after looking at my predictions.. Hopefully the Wildcard loss is the one I get way wrong.

I walked away for ten minutes, what did May do tonight?

I am not sure where they ranked overall last year statistically as starters, but while the players sucked at face value some had really low ERAs to help us way more than you would have expected. Miley was a 2.67 ERA on the year Gonzalez gave us 2.13 ERA in a short period Chacin a 3.50 ERA on the year Even the guys people hated (Guerra/Anderson) floated around 4.00 ERAs I know I expected some more stability and more than one guy throwing throwing 175+ innings, but not sure I was expecting better results overall because last year they really weren't that bad if I recall. EDIT: Found the stats. We were 11th in baseball by starter ERA and had the 4th most quality starts. That isn't the easiest to improve on. So you keep saying this year was predictable, but was last year predictable then too? I mean they had arguably a much worse staff going into last year than they did this year. Nobody saw Wade Miley's improvement coming or that Chacin would be one of the best pitchers in the NL after April. They had Suter in the rotation to start and outside of Clancy, nobody wanted that. Basically baseball is completely unpredictable, and while this year has sucked, it is what makes baseball great.

I think we are pretty much on the same page. My only thing is that you could have just as easily said that about Woody as you did about Burnes starting the year in the bullpen. They had to let those two guys start in my opinion. A small market team like the Brewers needs to develop young pitching. Burnes was a disaster, but I think if you asked most people before the year, he was much more of a guarantee than Woody...and I am the world's biggest Woodruff fan. I also agree that they should have resigned Miley and that Peralta should have been nowhere near the rotation. That is my only complaint of the offseason. He was just so cheap and according to some sources, wanted to be in Milwaukee. If they would have resigned Miley, I am guessing it would have been Davies to the bullpen (considering he was our #5 to start the season)... but to have him and Anderson as depth would have saved them from regression/poor performances.

There's a very good chance that the entire reason the two big one year additions were possible was that they rolled the dice on the starters, as in there not being the funds to really sign both Moose/Grandal and a starter or two. Spending money on starters would've meant rolling the dice on inferior options to Moose/Grandal in that scenario. Free Agency wise, sure, I would venture to guess that is pretty true/accurate. Though, again, guys like Gio Gonzalez and Wade Miley could have been had for very little. Now I am not trying to say that in retrospect...but it was two veterans that could have easily solidified a spot in our rotation that pitched well for us last year. There were and will be trade options available and as much as our farm system lacks we can still make notable/major trades with it. Not to mention last offseason we could have used one or more of those "roll the dice pitchers" we ended up using as a major piece to a trade. Peralta and Burnes both probably had quite high trade value last winter. I like Stearn's general thought of "his price" or not overpaying so to speak. At the same time this team is a ticking clock and it will likely go from contender to rebuilding faster than one would generally hope. We have some big time championship quality pieces right now (Yelich/Hiura/Hader). Probably best to not constantly try and piece together a rotation of prospects and over the hill veteran types. Woodruff/Davies/Anderson is a good start. I think ideally you sign Lyles/Gonzalez (or some other vet) to fill the #5 spot and acquire a more top of the rotation arm to fill the other spot. I am not saying full fledged ace, but something a bit more flashy than the Davies/Anderson's of the world. I don't think that is particularly hard to pull off. I suppose Houser has time to make the Brewers comfortable with him getting one of the spots, but it is easier to acquire in the winter and have Houser/Suter/etc. fill in when injuries happen (or just poor play) midseason. One of our young guys will get plenty of starts and likely an extended look in 2020 whether they start in the rotation or not. Right now 3 of our original starters are on the DL, 1 is in the bullpen still sucking, and 1 sucked so bad he is in the minors now. I guess my problem with this thinking is that if they signed Wade Miley and Gio, who was going to be out of the rotation? Chacin was a lock after the way he pitched last year. I think Burnes was a lock considering how he pitched out of the bullpen during the playoff run and his prospect status. Davies and Woody were going to be given every chance to start. I have never been high on Freddy, but they had Chase out of the bullpen in case one of the guys failed. Unfortunately, two of the young guys bombed and Chacin pitched worse than he has in a few years. In the last three years, Stearns has thrown a hodgepodge of starting pitching at the wall. In 2017, Nelson and Anderson pitched like TOR pitchers. In 2018, it was Chacin and Miley. In 2019, it was Woody and Davies early on and Anderson lately. I don't think it's a bad philosophy. Its just everything else went wrong this year, including the bullpen blowing up. How many of the guys that were traded or signed in the last couple years have been good?

You weren't kidding. Holy cow is that guy slow. What was Counsell thinking? Probably that he only had Shaw or a balky back Yelich to run? Unless we know for sure a pitcher is faster?

You are the same guy that wanted to trade Hiura for Kluber this past off season. That is the perfect example why GM's don't make reactionary trades. Stearns knows what this team needs, but he is going to do it only if the value is right.

Wisconsin residents have been downright spoiled in just about every sport. Uecker, BA, Matt Vasgersian for the Brewers; Matt LePay and Mike Lucas for the Badgers; Wayne Larrivee, Larry McCarren, Max McGee, and Jim Irwin for the Packers; Jim Paschke, John McGlocklin, Eddie Doucette, and Gus Johnson for the Bucks. Those are some of the best in the business. I agree we have been spoiled, but you lost me on the bolded one above. Mike Lucas is as awful as it gets. Sadly, his radio show is even worse than his color commentary.

And he's gone. @Brewers RHP Burch Smith has been recalled from Triple-A San Antonio. RHP Deolis Guerra was designated for assignment. The 40-man roster is at 39.

So Hiura posted a 121 OPS+ in 17 games and "mashed", but yet Thames has posted a 122 OPS+ in over 50 games and you may want to cut bait with him? Literally six days ago, Hiura wasn't mashing and if it wasn't for his awful defense on the double-play last Saturday, he doesn't hit the tying HR off Vázquez. I am not saying I agree with the decision, but if you take a step back, you can see where the Brewers are coming from. He started a bit slow and has improved since starting slow his first few games beyond a promotion. It's also really weird you are trying to minimize that fact that he hit a HR off Vazquez...that's incredibly impressive regardless of if it relates to an error. I bet Shaw couldn't hit a HR off Vazquez is he had 100 tries right now, heck he might not be able to even foul a pitch off against Vazquez in 100 AB right now. Hiura isn't as consistent defensively as he needs to be, but he's still better at 2b than either of Shaw/Moose. I am not trying to minimize at all. It was incredibly impressive, but it doesn't happen w/o him costing the team four runs (yes I realize Woody could have pitched better after it happened). I just think you are the one trying to minimize how bad he was defensively. Moose UZR/150 at 2B is -3.9 and Hiura is at -30.4.

Just wondering how you felt about Arcia last year, Santana last year, Anderson last year/ST this year, Davies last year, Knebel for parts of last year, etc. Non-superstar players go through dry spells/turn things around. I can't even tell you if that's going to be Shaw/Aguilar. I understand that maybe they could stash Shaw in AAA instead, but otherwise, the Brewers believe Shaw is closer than what he was the last few years rather than the guy that has struggled/been unlucky for 40 games. If they start chopping guys for bad 40 game stints, they'll get to a point where they are 1 injury away from having to call the corpse of Kendrys Morales to start at 1B. They like to maintain organizational depth. Sometimes that involves tough decisions. We're in an unusual situation where we have a lot of established guys that aren't hitting, and a young elite prospect came up and mashed for 3 weeks. It's not like the other option is throwing Perez in at 2b. If that was the case, I'd be more open to giving Shaw a chance. And my stance on him is more time in AAA to find his swing, or we cut bait with one of the 1b to keep hiura around and let shaw start more at 1b. The best decision is to let him see slightly worse pitching in AAA for a bit and try and figure things out there. The decision yesterday made the team worse in the short run and the long run in my opinion...so I'm really struggling to see how it's a win. So Hiura posted a 121 OPS+ in 17 games and "mashed", but yet Thames has posted a 122 OPS+ in over 50 games and you may want to cut bait with him? Literally six days ago, Hiura wasn't mashing and if it wasn't for his awful defense on the double-play last Saturday, he doesn't hit the tying HR off Vázquez. I am not saying I agree with the decision, but if you take a step back, you can see where the Brewers are coming from.

You beat me to this!! I guess two run deficits are more high leverage than three run deficits.

I can certainly see giving DJ credit for helping Cinci's pitching staff turn it around...albeit in a very small sample size. However, for the Brewers, all of these guys worked with DJ last year. So if he taught them pitch sequencing, different pitch types, or certain types of mechanics, wouldn't they be able to retain that information? Chacin is a vet, Anderson is a vet, Davies is a vet. I am sure they can tell when their mechanics are off. Couldn't they help the young guys if they didn't retain what he taught/showed them? I am not saying there is no direct correlation, but I guess I am just questioning how they could lose all the information he passed along?

I am right with you. I never believed in the Peralta hype, but always have been a huge Woodruff guy. I thought Burnes would take his lumps this year, but would be the best of the three by the end of the year and in the future. I guess Burnes still could be, but I did not expect the lumps to be this bad.