SoupTown

So, the concenus is to just 'hang in there' for a while. We cant trade anyone, because we dont have anyone 'ready' to fill in for them. Well. I am tired of the 'ready' of the guys that are here. So, we should just glide out the year. Trade nothing. Pretend that 2013 was dress rehersal for 2014. 2013 we had bad luck, hey. 2014 we will have good luck with the same players and leap into the playoffs. I actually like the construction of this 2013 team. But I grossly overestimated the quality of the players. They are just NOT GOOD. They are evil or criminals. They just aint good. I want YOUNG and CHEAP 'aint good'. I detest OLD and EXPENSIVE 'aint good'.

Honestly, cant Doug just 'give up' for 2013. I can see it now. We will wait until the 31st at 11 pm and announce 'some things we had worked out fell through'. I would assume a team wanting a piece from us will give a tiny bit more NOW than they will in one month. It is obvious that you sell every piece for what you can get. K-Rod is worth NIL, NADA, NOTHING to the Brewers. Why would they possibly even put him on the field one more day. Maybe Doug can hold onto him long enough so he has three or five horror outings in a row. Actually Doug did that last year or what it the year before. I am so, so tired of not caring. What K-Rod and Ax do. I dont care. They can do nothing to save 2013 and they are gone after this year. Aoki. Give the poor guy a chance to play somewhere where it matters. The same with A-Ram. And we have three relievers Baden, Gorza, Gonze.... let them be FREE. Doug did good with his bullpen build. Doug is always good after the horse has bolted. Be kind to decent players and let them go somewhere useful to them, to the team they go to, and to the Brewers (for whoever we get back). Now if the other 29 teams will offer nothing for our guys that are not here 2015+, then they are worth nothing. Doug will say 'I could not get good value for all my quality players'... then the same combination of quality players will put up a 100 loss season. Us great fans can indeed put up with a 100 loss season if it is with youngsters who give us hope. It is just too, too cruel to see a 100 loss season with a bunch of VETS who can never improve. Please, Doug. Please, Mark. We are not dumb. Please put our team out of its misery. Let them all be FREE. Let us fans be free. You are sorely hurting. re our beloved team... We are BAD. We are EXPENSIVE. And we are OLD.

The insanity of our management is even confusing the intelligent posters here. The question... if you are trying to develop Morris for 2014 onwards, is it better to give him 350 at bats in MLB or 350 at bats in AAA. To be honest, the management have done ok in most aspects this year. But the absolutely stupidity and non forward thinking they have put at the first base situation is stupid and non forward thinking. I am of the opinion if Doug and Mark wave the white towel and do the right thing (trading as much as they can and playing the younger guys) the fans will appreciate and get behind a 'year and a half' of going cheaper and younger... for the hope of the 2015+

Since our drafting and development have gotten us here (I agree it is why we are where we are)... AND the same mob that draft and develop are very much unchanged... it does not give much hope for the future.

It is amazing, is it not. No matter how you look at it, our management seemingly loves to over pay for poor, old players. How many times will we pay $2 to $4 mill for a player that seems a shoe in to perform worse than a 400k rookie. And the $2 to $4 mill vet has NO CHANCE to improve. You know what you get. The 400k rookie will give you (90% chance) what the aging vet will give you... AND AND AND you have a chance the rookie will have upside and produce more than the $3 mill vet. And, and, and if you save $2.5 mill 4 or 5 times a year, you suddenly are not in a panic about your team salary. I guess it is just a very complex concept for our management to grasp.

Great comments by RRR yesterday re our First Base situation.... the .511 OPS, lowest in the majors. A couple of (paraphrase) point ruined my day 1) there was NOTHING else we could have done to address the situation; all we did was correct and we were damaged by bad luck, mainly 2) the .511 OPS at First Base really does not matter, because our over production at Short and Center Field make up for it. Yes, RRR and managment. You did the best to your full extent re point 1). And yes, of course if Segura and Gomez play great, it means other players playing bad (to their career norms) is OK. There is no need to try to improve.

I followed Hart closely through the minors. Hart was actually dissed quite a bit over his minor leauge career by most the old timers on this board (even going back to the ESPN days if I recall correctly). The point was Hart's number improved as he advanced each level. He did not hit the A+ wall, or the AA wall, or the MLB wall (and become a AAAA player). His stats, his presence, improved at he rose each level. Now that Gennett is a MLB player - at a decently young age - maybe he can actually IMPROVE. Maybe he will not be the 'nothing' that, like many here tabbed Hart to be. Mabye Scooter will be a 'something useful'. At least paying 400k a year for a couple years is not a huge investment. Sorry, the management did not consider the same 'bet' with Morris or even Halton.

Strange how it takes a PHD-like argument to convince some (and still not our management) what was the most obvious, common sense baseball organizational decision of 2013. What a waste of a year. And even when management could have derived a positive, benefit from 1st base, they go down the lose-lose path. How sad.

Maybe we can catch a break and end up with hard working guy who improves as he moves up... sort of like Hart did. After 27 at bats his .444 slugging is a decent start. And, of course, a guy (especially a small guy) will be a lot stronger at age 25 to 27, than his 21-24.

The problem is metal bats. They have proved a robustly struck ball gets from home to pitcher - faster than a human can react. The simplest first step is to ban metal bats across the game entirely. Or to only allow bats that mimic wood. One day a parent will sue because their pitcher son was put into a dangerous situation - not protected. Wood bats make the game more proper as well. I am so sick and tired in non MLB seeing pitchers win a battle... jam or get the outside of the bat, low and away, only to have the BAT propel the ball to the shallow outfield for a hit... when the batter was completely beaten. When I was in Little League the smallest bat was a 28 inch 28 oz wood bat. Most kids, even 11 and 12 years old were swinging 30 or 31 oz bats. But if you are giving strong 15+ year olds bats that weigh 26 oz and the ball bounces off like a rocket, you have bastardised the game.

I guess if there are 30,000 people that will show up every game to watch backup shortstops and catchers play 1st basd to the tune of .402 OPS.... well, who cares. .402 OPS. I am pretty sure you could dig up (from their grave) a number of HOF players and they would do better than .402 OPS. We are not talking OBP. We are not talking SLUGGING. We are talking obp PLUS slugging. re Hart not coming back mid April... well, only Corey tried to con re that. Any person with a brain would have listened to medical advice. For Doug to say 'oh, surprise on me...' I will say back: 'Dougie, do you understand that a .402 OPS for the most offensive position on the diamond is bad; Dougie, it is really, really bad; Dougie if you dig up a HOF corpse, I am pretty sure it will beat that .402' This is our management. Amazing, hey!

One thing I like (maybe just an accidental good thing) is that a number of the college pitchers selected were NOT work horses. It is almost nice to hear of guys who throw low 90s, are a work in progress, and did bullpen work, and therefore had innings limited. To me, they are almost the 'high school' type. You are not really sure you know what you are getting. But maybe with some solid application they will improve. But that brings me to fear of the Brewers pitching development people. They don't seem to be real good at their job.

Should we then not just go to the Cards, and find their top 10 people in the organization and offer them all 200k pay rises. So you have spent 2 mill to completely transform your organization.

Management played their hand early. Morris raked MORE last year, than he is now. Management decided better to have backup shortstops and backup catchers at first base. They simply decided that. What Blind Freddie could see was: 'call up Morris to start the year; when Hart is back, then send Morris back down'. In this way you have a real first baseman for a couple months. You expose the kid to MLB. He learns. He is likley gonig to be better than backup shortstops and backup catchers on offense AND defense. And when he goes back down, the service time stops again, so he is not a super two. Just call me Blind Freddie. I posted the above scenario at the start of the year. Our organsation is in the poo because our managment is not the brightest lightbulb in the clubhouse. That is just what way it is. They do some stuff wisely sometimes. But often they decide to play the wrong people in the wrong postions who are incapible of performing. They are forever constructing lose-lose vs lightning in the bottle scenarios. Oh well.

Nice audio with Nelson. Nice to hear..... 'fast ball is the main pitch, I go with the sinker more, now'... 'my change is not a show them pitch, but a 'I get outs' pitch'.... 'my slider has always been my go to pitch'. So, at least Jimmy talks the talk - great to hear a guy explaining his confidence in all his pitches. I sure hope he gets to throw some inning in Milwaukee this year.

I guess I am just hoping to have a guy near average (all around) for 400k a year for the couple of years after Weeks goes. A team surely needs more average 400k guys than below average 10 mill guys. I agree with all, Weeks has an amazing upside. Lord knows what is going on. He just fell off the table like a Doug Jones or Trevor Hoffman change. And no one knows why? Actually, I bet 'somebody' knows 'something'. Heck, it could be the only black guy on the team thing. It could be his mate went to the Tigers. It must be something. It is seemingly impossible to go from being so good (for a about season) to so bad. re Scooter, I hope the 'age 27' thing helps. It would be great if he had a couple of 'career years' of .770 OPS in 2015 and 2016 - then we let him go. (kind of like I just checked brewerfan.net main page to confirm Scooter's age (23) and I see some guy Billy Hall as the team leader in OPS and RBI and RUNS.

I love the BA PG sans scouting dept idea. I was thinking that just before I read, xis. But I hope we could come to an arrangement where we don't have to pay the subscription.

re the hit batter, I think the point is two fold; from time to time, for sure, the Cardinals hit batters; that is just fact; but, on top of that, they are happy to pitch 6 inches inside, and if they miss by a foot more... who cares the recent stats have shown the Crew are hit more than any other team; and the Brewers hit less than any other team; therefore the Brewers are obviously 'too kind' and do try to keep players hanging over the inside of the plate; it is just a Brewer philosophy vs a Cardinal (a most other teams) philosophy; statistically it is provable

on queue!

It is interesting that our hottest batter is hit by the Cardinals. Why did they not hit Weeks or Lucroy? The Cardinals will do this sort of thing forever, until somebody stands up to them. It is just 'their way'.

that is one weird agent; he has been sitting on the offer for a month because he 'doesn't know' what is a good contract for Jean; because Segura is a Brewer for six years I hope he is the best of the best; but his agent should realise he is playing with Jean's livelihood; the guy is young enough to have TWO big paydays; the one he could have now, guaranteeing him for life; then the one around age 30 for his last five years I hope Braun gets in his ear; and now that the offer it out (the fact of it) there will be chatter about it

The point I make re 'if we are bad this year, we will be bad for next year, and even the year after' is this: where does our UPSIDE come from between this year and next and the next. Our team is very 'etched in stone' and there really is no one in the minors you could point to, to come up and have a great year in their first year or two. We seem to have a bunch in the minors that may 'grow' into average type guys. Well, on paper, our team is above average everywhere (if you consider the starters are my thought of three 'number twos'). So if our 25 guys this year are no good, they aint gonna be no good next year, and there is no one in the minors to help a lot. Anyone saying we should trade our free agent signing after 5 weeks, is saying we should not have signed him. So their opinion does not count. I agree in July, if we stink, then the entire MOB can be considered for trading. Which is what I said. Throwing the towel in now... after five weeks, is likely not the right thing to do. Hence, 'I see no reason you would consider trading Lohse' (now)

RRR was upset he had to keep Burgos in for two more outs? If one of your relievers cannot throw, why would you not have a guy on a plane in time for the game. It is easy to manage when every starter goes 6 or 7. Maybe you can tell how good your manager is when things do not go according to your cookie cutter plan. Who is planning to start tomorrow? Which starter needs their bullpen today? I don't have an answer. But surely the answer from the Brewers every game cannot be... we give up, the other team is just too good, we played some good teams, we had some bad luck. Maybe the Crew need to take a seven game stretch and say 'we are going to play this like the world series... all stops pulled out'. Because the current approach is not working really well. Can we have another 9 game win streak please. We are needing it.

I agree that Gennett is not a playing upgrade over Weeks. But $11 mill to half a mill. That is your upgrade. So really we need to wear Weeks' contract over the two years. Let him play. But I honestly forgot about Bianchi. So, my belief is you play Weeks part time. Do you want his 2013/2014 plate appearance to allow the 2015 $11 mill vesting in his contract. Or a 2014 600 plate appearances. So, if we give Bianchi more time, just maybe we have a MLB 2nd baseman. If you give Gennett a month of platoon time, then you are setting yourself up that in 2015, the guy is not completely fresh to MLB. There are a few intelligent things we can do with the bad situation. Playing Weeks every day is NOT ONE OF THEM.

I have three guys that I never followed much, until this year, and they maybe, maybe can be OK. Brent Suter, a leftie starter in A+, out of Harvard!. I read he is a low 90s thrower. And I guess a Harvard guy is not dumb. So maybe now 100% baseball, his stuff and brains together may be something to keep tabs on. Alan Williams, a leftie relieve in AA. He has always had good metrics (high K per 9, with good control). Only 23 years old. My new fav, Adam Weisenburger as a catcher in AA (at 24) has been noted as the best defensive catcher in the organisation. But he cant hit much. But this year, for some odd reason, his OPS is .964. And he is walking more then K'ing. Early days. Is he another Maldanodo. All D, cant hit... then we find out he CAN HIT. Hmmmm, and I see a Minnesota boy. Maybe a late bloomer - given you dont get much chance to bloom in the Northlands.