SoCalBrewfan

That's not possible. Rookies can't handle the pressure of an important game! Congrats to Green for making a good first impression.

For no particularly good reason, I'd now guess McClendon and either Khris Davis, D'Vo, or Lee Haydel. Fiers would be a bit disappointing, but I wouldn't be surprised if the deal hurt just a tiny bit from the Brewers' side... Soon all will be revealed I guess.

Jed Bradley, though...I like it. And the growing legend of Santo M continues to grow. Also it seems like a good sign that Kintzler is on the roster. Also, I assume this means we can rule out Wheeler, KeDavis, Gennett from Mets PTBNL consideration?

It's clearly a commentary on the current Nashville manager and his odd lineups.

Wait 'til the St. Louis series; maybe they'll have Tyler Greene up from AAA to counter our Taylor Green.

Yay! I approve heartily, and think Green could play a role, if he's allowed to. With 29 games to go, a pretty safe lead, and the level of performance from our infield, what's the O/U on games for Green the rest of the way?

Off topic, but... If Jungmann or Bradley see the majors before 2014, they'd be in the top 1% of P's ever drafted. Not realistic. I'm not suggesting that anyone be penciled into the 2013 rotation, but this statement gave me pause. A college pitcher from the top half of the first round might well be in the bigs three years later. You can look it up. From the 2008 draft, Matusz (4th overall) pitched in the bigs in 2009. Aaron Crow (9th overall) didn't sign and went into the draft again in 2009, but still hit the bigs in 2011 and made the all-star team. Andrew Cashner (19th) made his debut in 2010. Ryan Perry (21th) made the Tigers in 2009. Schlereth (26th) debuted in 2009 and has bounced between minors and majors. Two college pitchers have yet to debut, but both were later first rounders, Fields at 20 and Friedrich at 25. All the college pitchers from the top half of the 1st round in 2009 have already pitched in the bigs (including Crow), though Alex White has only a few innings this year so far. The three pitchers from the bottom half of the first round have not, but the two not named Arnett are at least closer (one in AA, one in AAA). Chris Sale from 2010 is already an established big leaguer. Sonny Gray and Trevor Bauer from 2011 are already in AA and look like they could pitch in the bigs in September if so desired. Guys who sign late might be a somewhat different story, but a quick path to the majors for a top 15 pick on a college pitcher is not exactly an outrageous expectation...in fact it's one of the reasons for using a high pick in that way. Though I suppose that you would say that a college arm from the top 15 picks would be among 'the top 1% of Ps ever drafted' in terms of readiness for the majors...half of the first round is .5/50 which is indeed about 1% of the draft. So I agree with everything but the 'not realistic' I suppose.

What is Gamel doing in that Fiers picture? Actually, don't answer that...I don't need to know.

reporters covering the brewers have stated that the brewers seem confident that they'll be able to appeal for one more option year for cody scarpetta. Ah, ok, I hadn't read that before. Thanks.

This is Cody Scarpetta's last option year, due to the odd circumstances of his signing. That means he's got to stick with the big club next year or be exposed to waivers...though he might not be ready for prime time, he does have a big arm and so he'd be a good flyer for a team short of pitching. For that reason I would guess that he'll be a September callup, and they'll take a serious look at him to get a sense of whether they could stash him in the bullpen next spring.

Thanks, Toby...I suppose I could have checked myself but I wouldn't have had the answer that quickly! I don't think they'll want to lose de la Cruz now when they can just option Dillard for the remaining ten days until rosters expand.

Someone commented that de la Cruz is out of options...I didn't know that but it seems plausible given that he's been around the block a time or two. If so, you'd have to assume that Dillard will be optioned ahead of him...he's already used his option for the year and has no real role on the team that I can see.

Gosh, that's a wall of text. tl;dr version: If not the very worst, we have certainly been in the bottom few, and a close comparison to the bottom few doesn't make us look appreciably better. Still no As, very few Bs, and Cs don't matter in the rankings because everybody has them.

I don't quite get the emotional reaction. Shame to the team? I don't see it. (Especially since we don't know the details yet.) He broke the rules, knowingly or not, he'll serve his penalty, then you see what follows and move on. I imagine we're paying for his surgery and recovery anyway...seems wise to at least see how he recovers before cutting bait. If he can still hit the mid-90s he'll find a home somewhere; we will need major league relievers going forward so I'd see if he can be one of them.

The team OPS is fine but we have such extreme values in the lineup, with two 950 ops guys, maybe two 800ish guys depending on the day, and then a bunch of 600s. I'm sure somebody has studied that; run the simulation and see how that compares to a 'balanced' lineup of nine 750s. I'd guess off the top of my head that the variance in our R/G is higher than most, but don't know how to find that without doing it myself.

I thought I had read that both would not pitch until fall leagues; that might mean the signed 2012 contracts so they would not even be eligible to debut this year. edit: too long winded-scooped by sessile

I don't really feel like engaging in mud-slinging, but I think there's two things you can mean when you talk about prospects...the narrow definition of potential future stars or a very broad definition of anyone who could fill a role on a major league roster. Perhaps it goes without saying, but the prospect watchers like BA tend to get most jazzed by players who look like they could be above average major leaguers and all-stars, and that's what distinguishes top systems from weak ones. It's not all that hard to find a player to fill, say, the Kameron Loe or Josh Wilson role. Even if you don't grow your own, these complementary players are typically not that expensive if your GM is on the ball. It's very hard to find a good starting pitcher like our top four, or an all-star middle infielder like Weeks, and if you don't have one they don't come cheaply. (As recent history illustrates...) So by far the greatest value comes from players that could be in the latter category. In some sense a large fraction of minor leaguers could be considered prospects, but the majority of them are low grade prospects (Sickels uses A, B, C grades, and has way more Cs than Bs, with very few As). Even if you argue that we have a lot of Cs, that doesn't make a system even mediocre because most teams can say the same. The very best prospects are disproportionately valuable, and the BA rankings reflect that. Most systems have guys who are at least decent bets to fill complementary roles like Loe or Wilson, and the Brewers are no exception, with a bucket of potential fourth outfielders or fifth starters. What has been in question, and rightly so, is whether there was anyone at all in the system who would be as valuable as Hart or Lucroy, or even Carlos Gomez. Given that Green and Schafer were still recovering from injuries, Davis and Gennett were in A ball, and Gindl has always been questioned for his stature and tweener status, there wasn't a single position player you could consider a sure thing to get more than a cup of coffee much less become a major league regular. Pitching was a bit stronger, but Peralta was barely out of A ball, Scarpetta lacked command, Thornburg was just drafted, etc. A guy like Fiers, or Gindl, is going to be questioned every step up the ladder until they prove they're something special, and history suggests that most of the guys like them don't make it. (Much as I root for both of them and like their chances.) Many of our guys have taken nice steps forward this year, but the number of grade B or better prospects, guys who are good bets to be major league regulars, is still very small. Some of the few that were relatively highly ranked (Rogers, Rivas, KeDavis) last offseason have slipped or stalled, and Gennett and Scarpetta still have obvious question marks. We added some nice draft choices, but most teams did as well. I don't think you can say definitively that it's the worst system in baseball, but it's hard to argue that it's not among the very worst. Even weak systems can provide pieces to teams, by the way. The Astros, A's, White Sox, and Marlins were the rest of the bottom five in BA's list this past offseason. They all delivered talent to the parent team this year, in some cases pretty valuable pieces. The Astros I thought were a terribly weak system, but from that system they are playing Martinez and sometimes Bogusevic in the OF now, Altuve and Paredes in the IF, have received decent innings from Melancon and Rodriguez, have Lyles in the rotation. They added a bunch of guys in trades, and will move up a bit despite graduating a number of players. The A's have an awful system but delivered Jemile Weeks and (briefly) Tyson Ross and Faustino delos Santos...they still have Grant Green and Michael Choice, but will be in the conversation for worst system. The White Sox, also awful, are using their top two prospects, starting Morel at third (that's not so great thus far) and have Sale as a valuable lefty in the pen (wish we had him). They might be last next year, but they still have Reed, Viciedo, and Flowers as major-league-ready guys who look pretty good. Florida's system provided a fourth OF type (Bryan Peterson) and some decent pitching depth (Hand, Dunn, with Ceda possibly playing more of a role), with only Hand being one of their top ten preseason. Still a pretty weak system. In comparison, this year the Brewers have gotten almost zero from the farm system (McClendon?), except through trades (McClendon again?). Fortunately the big league roster was such that we didn't need a lot (though there have been some obvious holes), and we were willing and able to make trades to add pieces we didn't have in the system...Melvin deserves a bunch of credit as we seem to have turned grade C or (at most) low B guys into Morgan, Hairston, and K-Rod. (Cutter Dykstra finally pays off!) So we know we didn't and still don't have top-tier talent (still at most one top 50 guy), and the evidence suggests that we didn't have significantly more major-league-ready depth than the other bottom-dwelling systems. So on what basis could we argue that the system was better than Callis said before the season? And if we do manage to pull all the way up into the mid 20s this offseason, as I suspect we will, some will be because of Peralta and Thornburg moving up and Green being healthy, and the addition of pitching in the draft, but some will be because we didn't graduate anyone to the bigs and the other low-ranked systems did...

There's a local newspaper down here in California that covers some things, and they had an article on Ron Roenicke, suggesting that he's a manager of the year candidate. It's a bit provincial, though...these small-town papers tend to focus on local kids and connections to the local teams: As a result, Roenicke (pronounced REN-eh-kee) is a leading candidate for NL manager of the year along with two other former Dodgers. (The other former Dodgers being Kirk Gibson in AZ and Charlie Manuel in Philly.) http://articles.latimes.c...18-ron-roenicke-20110818 Interestingly, Roenicke was also written up in another coastal newspaper recently: http://www.nytimes.com/20...e-la-russas-tactics.html The reason I post this is that Roenicke is getting noticed, and in a positive way, by the national press; I wouldn't have noticed this attention by reading the JS Online. The team's success is of course attributed to the manager, fairly or not. But I was a bit taken aback to hear our guy touted as a potential manager of the year. (Though Gibson has to be a front runner for the NL award if the DBacks win the West, doesn't he?) Both articles talk about his demeanor, which I think is a breath of fresh air after Macha's grumpy grandpa act. Whether that makes any difference in the standings is hard to know, but I like the tone Roenicke has set, even when the team was struggling. I was glad to see us take the professional road against the Cardinals, with memories of Yost v Larussa still haunting me. The LAT article lays out something else that has been exasperating at times, but I think is valued by the players: he's not going to yank a player he sees as established for a minor screwup...or a crappy first half for that matter. And that, so far, is a very consistent signal . . . you have to fail a lot before Roenicke loses faith in you. (See, for example, Loe and the 8th inning.) While we're at it, it's a bit surprising to see how many successful managers had pretty much instant success, winning a division or even pennant in their first season. Or, perhaps, how many managers got a long leash because they started off on a winning foot and that success came to define how they were perceived. It will be interesting to see how Roenicke's reputation evolves; a lot of folks here are very critical, but I think baseball people think very highly of the guy.

The numbers coming in on some of these guys make Jungmann's alleged $2M request seem like he was low-balling himself. Nimmo got $2.1M one pick later, Springer was over $2.5M one pick earlier. And some late picks also over $2.5M....wow.

So maybe Jungmann does get his $2M. Heck, he could probably get more... Thanks to our twitter followers for keeping the rest of us appraised of the situation(s)!

Yep...and I think the last part (frustrating fans and making players look bad / greedy) is by design, to put pressure on the players and keep costs down.

Hm, maybe Rodon's money just became available? Sorry to lose out on Rodon, but it sounds like he felt a bit stiffed on draft day so I'm not surprised. Wonder what the final offer was...

I think it's a bit silly to tell a 21 year old kid he should not worry about a few hundred thousand dollars here or there, or label him a problem when he's probably just following the advice of an advisor/agent. In the context of sports chat it's easy to get to the point where $500K doesn't seem like a lot of money but this is real money for these kids and their families. Lower picks have already signed for over $1.5M, so it's clear that Jungmann will be well over that, but I imagine that he'll fall short of $2M; these contracts will start falling like dominoes once a few more come in to mark the trend lines, but nobody wants to leave money on the table so they all wait to use other signings in their negotiations. I can't blame any first rounder for trying to maximize their payday, particularly a young pitcher like our two picks. Any one of them could easily blow out their arm in their first professional start, making this their only big contract ever. The Brewers' two picks, as college pitchers who threw a lot of innings, probably didn't need the extra workload this summer anyway, so I don't really see that a lot is lost by signing late in those two cases. Plenty of other players could have benefited from the partial season of pro experience though; the system is a bit ridiculous as it has evolved.

Possibly he was watching as Felipe Lopez started at third and slipped below .200, and in a fit of rage decided to chuck it all and go to culinary school. I was pleased to note that he got a hit or two off Drabek, but after a check of the numbers it looks like he's got plenty of company in that regard. THough who knows given the guy pitches in Vegas...have I mentioned lately that I'm glad our minor leagues play in reasonable places?

given that all of our prospects are tearing the cover off the ball in AAA, along with several journeymen, I have to wonder if it's genuine or if it's a creation of the PCL That's a wise caution. However, it's worth remembering that the PCL, while a high-offense league, includes two quite different sets of ballparks, and while the design of the parks might be a bit of a factor, it's mostly altitude that gives the split. Nashville and most of the low-altitude teams of the old American Association play as pitcher's parks within the context of the PCL. The old PCL includes pretty extreme hitters' parks like Albuquerque, Salt Lake City, Colorado Springs, Tucson, Reno, and Las Vegas. (Tacoma and Portland are western teams but at lower altitude and each plays more like Nashville, Memphis, or New Orleans.) That said, the league as a whole is one of the highest run environments in the minors, and they get those road games at altitude, so even a guy playing in a neutral park by run factor (e.g., Fresno, Oklahoma City, Round Rock) has stats inflated compared to, say, the other AAA league (International League). Usually you'll see a vast difference in hitting and pitching stats based on that split. Right now Las Vegas and Reno have TEAM batting averages of .310; Nashville is .283, and most of the low-altitude teams are in the .270s and .280s. Reno has scored 840 runs, Oklahoma City is at 522 (Nashville is 643). The pitching of course goes the other way; Colorado Springs has a team ERA over 6. Nashville is 4.38, third-best in the league. There's various numbers out there, and the ones I know best come from BTF (the ZiPS guy compiles them); his list includes all the minors so the link below is easier to read, including only the PCL. In the list, 1.20 means that the park inflates offense by 20% relative to the league (which again is already high). Nashville weighs in at 0.95 so cuts offense a bit (5% doesn't sound like a lot but in most leagues a lot of parks are very close to average...the PCL is odd in that the 'average' parks are more uncommon and there are lots of outliers, again due to the geography). Multiply that by the league numbers and you'd get something like 10% higher run environment for a Nashville player than he'd experience in the major leagues. Albuquerque is more like 40%. (!) http://rainierscurto.word.../baseball-for-breakfast/ So I'm quite a bit more impressed by the 1000 OPS put up so far by Taylor Green than I am by the slightly higher OPS put up by David Cooper in Las Vegas or Ryan Langerhans in Reno, but there's still a little bit of air to be let out. It used to be that Brewers farm teams in places like El Paso and Denver, later High Desert, gave us skewed numbers for minor league hitters, giving us fake phenoms who always disappointed in the show. Now we're closer to neutral, except for Brevard County which is just about to pitchers what High Desert was to hitters.