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I sort of lost track of Jimmy Nelson in the mix of really fun SP prospects to watch. Nice to see him coming out strong. He's another guy who has mid to top of the rotation stuff if he puts it all together. Go Downward Thunder!

My bright spots: -Jean Segura... a SS that can defend and hit. Looks like a legit leadoff type. -Nori Aoki.. a nice core piece playing well. -Braun.. he's just unreal. -Peralta/Estrada.. nice bounce-back outings! Looks great. Definitely excited to see how they roll this year. -Lohse.. I'll reserve a bit of judgment for now as it's only been one start, but he started off fantastic. -SP prospects: Burgos, Hellweg, Nelson, Jungman, Thornburg, even Bradley have started off really well and have some serious potential to positively impact our starting pitching. (I think this is the most pivotal year for prospects since Prince/Braun/Weeks were coming through)

Your post is very well thought out and I applaud the kindhearted debate. I'd argue that the Brewers approach is very similar to the Rangers. They had a run and are now re-loading for another potential run. The Rangers have a bigger wallet the Milwaukee, but I can see some very similar concepts in practice. Cliff Lee trade, CC Sabathia trade. Braun locked up, Andrus locked up Lock up core pieces: Hart, Weeks, Gallardo v. Kinsler, Young, Harrison Take a shot types (I'd argue that the Rangers REALLY hit the jackpot on this): Aoki, Nyjer v. Hamilton, Cruz Fill in holes with Free Agents (I'd argue that the Rangers can spend a lot more then us on this): Ramirez, Lohse v. Darvish, Beltre Both the Rangers and the Brewers are somewhat taking a breath this season to re-load their window. Maybe I'm delusional, but I see them as very similar situations.

It's not a solution. It's a band-aid. The "plan" was Hart with Gamel as a backup. Gamel isn't in the "prospect" mold anymore, he is what he is and he fits the mold of a cheap backup. Green was probably plan C. Gonzalez plan D. Yuni is Plan E as a temporary measure. Once you get to plan E, it's safe to say that the plan is completely screwed and you just make do until Plan B/C/D are doable. I personally think Melvin is avoiding bringing up Morris or Halton to keep them in the minors for evaluation purposes. They are options next year if Hart is gone.

Really? I see a very distinct plan. A difficult one, to be certain as small market teams will always be WELL behind the curve, but, there's definitely some planning here. Outside looking in (and I don't presume to know a tenth of what Attanasio and Melvin about business and management of a baseball team).. the strategy appears to me to be: 1. Lock in your core. If you find a piece that is likely to be your within your core, lock it up if at all possible for as long as possible to avoid free agent losses. (Braun, Weeks, Hart, Gallardo) 2. Because you don't have unlimited resources, you need to be a bit risky in "projecting" the core to catch them before they potentially "blow up" and get too expensive (Lucroy, Gomez) 3. Identify holes in the core: Fill those holes by: - Using prospects (who seem to be overvalued) to acquire fill-ins who aren't hugely expensive (Greinke, Marcum, Sabbatia) - Acquiring cheap free agents (Gorzelanny, Saito, Hawkins) - Flyers on cast offs, question marks (Nyjer, K-Rod, Aoki) - And as much quantity as possible within the minors in spots that are problematic (SP: Hellweg, Peralta, Rogers, Burgos, Thornburg, Fiers etc). - Use very cheap veteran MLB backups to keep the prospects in the minors playing every day. 4. When a hole looks huge and no options appear imminent in the minors, go for mid level free agents to fill it (Aramis, Lohse) as long as it doesn't break your budget.

Hellweg is the cherry on top!

If this is 100% the case, then the Brewers have a massive problem in talent evaluation in the organization. There is absolutely no reason, beyond a case like Rogers's arm not being live, that a GM and manager should need Spring Training to evaluate the talent they have. They should have had a very solid idea coming into ST, and then used players' current form to help decide rotation order, etc. As it stands, with regards to the pitching, the only plan seems to have been to throw mid-level money at the bullpen & hope everything else worked out. Earlier in the offseason when Edwin Jackson was available without the cost of losing a first-round pick, there were many posters here who advocated signing him in the interest of adding stability & depth to a young & inexperienced rotation. Melvin played the 'you don't want to get burned in FA' card at the time, & stuck to his guns that the talent the Brewers had in-house was good enough to rely on for 2013... and then wound up guaranteeing over $30m to a pitcher through his age-36 season (along with losing a first round pick) because it was clear the rotation needed more depth & stability. If Melvin needed ST to show him that his front office's talent evaluation of the pitching staff was wrong, then that's yet another indicator that it's time for the Brewers to move on & make some changes in the front office. Isn't that really speculative? Here's an alternative scenario: The goal for the starting pitching staff was: 1. Gallardo 2. Estrada 3. Peralta 4. Rogers 5. Fiers Narveson was an option B and Burgos an option C. Hellweg/Thornburg are option D/E, but they would much prefer to keep them down at AAA. The brewers are monitoring the Lohse situation as he's a decent option, but, presumably his "Boras" price (4 years, probably a pretty hefty AAV) is outside of what they want to pay. They are comfortable with their internal options at that point and are content to not panic and let the chips fall where they may. Spring training is about to end and Boras is getting a little worried. The asking price goes down on Lohse to a spot that, while not comfortable, is acceptable to Melvin/Attanasio. They get Lohse. Rogers goes down. Lohse plugs in instead of Narveson as option B. Narveson is injured, Burgos is pitching well and probably doesn't need any seasoning. If Rogers doesn't come back and Fiers can't regain his form from last year, Burgos comes in as an option. The plan for the next year transforms into: Gallardo Lohse Estrada Peralta/Rogers/Hellweg/Burgos/Fiers/Jungman/Thornburg (pick the best 2).

Well...that might be a minor issue, but the real reason is that Melvin and Roenicke didn't have an MLB-ready #3 first baseman after #1 and #2 went down. Got it! How could they have neglected such a pivotal slot in our organization. Quite obviously, championships are won and lost by the #3 first baseman. Good call.

I may be throwing out a radical idea here, but, could our lack of success so far this year be attributed to the fact that our top 3 offensive players are injured? I'm probably wrong though and I'm sure there's overwhelming evidence that carrying 12 pitchers compared to 13 would have provided a drastic difference in our success this season but I thought I'd throw out a radical counterpoint.

I'd argue that Suppan and Looper weren't "fixed" to begin with from the Cardinals. Suppan barely squeaked over average in his time with the Cardinals (hovered around 1 WAR) and Looper was the same if not a bit worse.

I really love this deal. I believe this is the kind of "buy low with an opportunity to score big" move that a small market team has to make to win big. Olney tweeted that the present day value (considering deferral money) of this contract is around 9.5m per year. Why? Because of the draft pick, mostly. Overvalue of draft picks/prospects is the trend that Melvin is taking advantage of here. At that rate, you have the potential for an unmitigated "steal". This guy has been lights out the last two years since changing his approach. He's got a 2.2 WAR in 2011 and 3.9 WAR in 2012. That's worth a hell of a lot more than 9.5/year. Is there risk? Hell yeah, there's risk, but, there is also a serious reward side of this as well. Consider that Zack Greinke has had WAR of 1.4, 2.1 an 1.2 the past three seasons. It's the calculated risk moves like signing Aoki, extending Lucroy/Go-Go and now this that makes/breaks how we compete going forward. If nothing else, it buys time for guys like Burgos, Thornburg, Nelson, Jungman, Bradley, Rogers, Peralta and Hellweg to prove themselves. It'll be interesting to see if we get boom, bust, or something in between. Either way, it's a pretty calculated risk that certainly falls "below" market value for someone who has been a pretty damn good pitcher (and would appear to be a pretty good veteran presence) the last two seasons.

Brilliant post. I think you hit the nail on the head here. Prospects are, in my opinion, severely overvalued. I had not thought of a "moneyball" type angle on that however. I appreciate the insight.

My point is... That is a bias that skews thinking. The facts are there and people ignore this data because Estrada doesn't fit into the stereotype they have concocted for a top of the rotation starter. The facts are in the last two years Marco Estrada strikes out a batter per inning despite throwing high 80's/low 90's, doesn't walk ,any batters and is trending toward (and maintained last year) a sub 4 era. His stats have been on a good solid increase over the last two years as well, and we are over 220 innings so sample size is starting to become irrelevant. He's a control pitcher with a hella good change up. I think I'd be more surprised from the data that exists on him if he didn't have similar numbers to 2011 and 2012 then the alternative hypothesis. In short, don't let the "throw hard" stereotype get in the way of real data.

If Estrada threw 95, you'd be willing to buy a successful number-similar season, I bet. Right?

Don't ignore Jesus Sanchez. Quietly (apparently REALLY quietly), he had a 1.63 ERA between AA/AAA this year.