KeithStone53151

I think counsel made a big time mistake pitching swarzak in the 8th. Hader would have been a reasonable option, otherwise as much as it sucks you gotta let drake or torres or Guerra pitch and give knebel a clean 9th. That way we would have at least had 1 of knebel swarzak available today. I would guess neither are available and hader might not be either. It absolutely would have been better if we cashed in one of our many chances at a big inning and made the decision easier for counsel

I get that he crushes lefties, I just figured a day off to freshen up against the cubs might matter more than this game.

The back end of the Giants bullpen is pretty good. And it's a tough place to score, so 3 runs is a lot. And the Rays have played well all 3 games they've played against the cubs and have won 2 of 3, they also aren't quite out of the playoff race just yet. There's a very real chance tonight goes well on all fronts for the crew.

I thought they'd give Villar a start tonight to be honest and him leadoff. I also thought Braun might be given a day off before this 4 game set to freshen up a touch(I would anticipate Braun sitting either Friday or Saturday since not today). I was expecting Villar, Perez(LF), Santana, and the rest the same as is. This lineup is about par for the course for Counsel against lefties though.

I would bet they let him get closer to 170 next year, possibly a bit more depending on the circumstances. You're right though, they'll have to utilize days off to skip him here and there. Fortunately all of Anderson, Davies, and Woodruff won't really have an innings limit of any kind next year. There are many ways to limit innings to keep a guy's innings down, if he does start I'm sure they'd have no trouble managing his innings to keep him in the rotation most if not all of the season.

Beat writers quoted Stearns as saying Nelson will miss "a chunk" of 2018. Hard to say how much that is, my guess is close to half the season. This likely locks Hader into a rotation spot, and a decent chance we make a free agent signing as well.

This is spot on. Revenue sharing should be better for smaller market teams. Total baseball revenue and interest would drop significantly if it was an 8-12 team league of big markets instead of 30.

That falls into the "good trade for both teams" category as Segura rebounded very well and got Arizona a lot of value in trade. That said, Chase turning a corner this year makes this trade extremely good for us. It was good as is with getting Diaz, Chase is starting to look like likely the best player of the trade.

Right. Us making a $5 million error is about as impactful as the Dodgers making a $30 million error.

I thought this argument died in the 2000s. It's a weak excuse that covered for the cheap/bad ownership the Brewers had in the 1990s and early 2000s when the sport grew past the point where Selig could afford it. Mark Attanasio has proven that with deep pockets and good stewardship a small-market team can do just fine. No the Brewers will not be able to sign big free agents, but neither can teams in at least half of the markets, and the game has really evolved beyond that anyway. With front offices, including ours, getting far more savvy about controllable years or locking down players early, the day where the success of a team is determined by a free agent signing is waning. And this system only works without a salary cap. If there was a salary cap, there would be all kinds of road blocks in the way of building a team by locking down young talent. The only way I'd ever support a MLB salary cap is if it was a NBA-style soft cap with tons of exceptions and some form of the Larry Bird rule. And I'd say the NFL cap has been bad for the sport. The NFL is awash in mediocrity and the games are suffering. The on-field product is extremely mediocre because the hard cap is anathema to real team building. And, no, I don't care that all 32 teams can theoretically "be in it". I want something watchable on a Sunday to Sunday basis. Baseball doesn't have the same issue. This is ridiculous almost across the board. All the advantages small markets have with controllable years, etc...big markets have that too with very very few disadvantages...and they still manage to get their hands on the highest priced prospect talent along with big time free agents. Our margin for error with franchise building is much smaller than big markets, every mistake is magnified. We need to be significantly better and luckier than big markets to compete with them. And considering they can pay more for better scouts and the best GM's and other baseball people, that isn't likely. I'm personally terrified that the Red Sox will get fed up with Dombrowski and offer to double or triple Stearns salary to work for them. We hit the jackpot with him, but I feel like he'll be farmed by the big markets the same way Fielder, Greinke, and CC were.

At the time of the trade, I felt like Phillips was a highly touted version of Logan Schafer. He's proven to be a bit more impactful in just about every way(while striking out more), I hope he gets a chance to hit regularly at this level. It's going to be tough to earn that opportunity consider our options.

It would be especially nice if we could light up the scoreboard and save our late relief for those games.

I get more bent about his lineup decisions and tinkering too much with that. Once in a while I feel like he makes a bad decision with the bullpen but overall I think he has a good sense for when to pull guys. The most recent gaffe I remember was leaving Barnes in to face votto with 2 on and 20+ pitches in to his outing. The Wilkerson decision baffles me, but in fairness like you said...these bullpen games up to this point have been a success.

Josh Hader has walk 2 guys and struck out 26 in his last 15.1 innings of work. Considering his BB rate the few months prior, he's surely doing his part to drop the BB rate of the team.

I'm not sure why, but I thought we faced him twice this year and he wrecked us both times. I looked at 2016 numbers and he went 0-2 with a 4 something ERA and over 1.5 whip against us last year...against a worse team. I guess after 3 minutes of additional research I can buy the "fluke" much more easily.

If he isn't making this start, exactly what start do you think he's going to make? Him not starting today is a crystal clear indication that he isn't being brought up to start but to pitch in relief. Whether it's today, tomorrow, whenever...it will be in relief. I really shouldn't have had to spell this out for you...should have been very easy to piece together yourself. This is actually really funny now. Especially the condescending overall tone. It's almost like Counsell made the decision to start Wilkerson tonight just to spite you Whoops. Seems to be a lot of this going on here lately. Ha! Counsel must read these forums, or he just does weird illogical things to mess with us. Clearly I was wrong on this one, apologies for the tone. It's also possible that they are only planning on using him 2-3 innings regardless and making this a bullpen game. Him/Jeffress/Hughes/Barnes/Hader to get through the first 7-8 innings. I'm so curious, and I've been so skeptical of Counsel lately. I thought he had made mostly solid or at least reasonable decision up until the last month or so. Maybe after the last start he realized starting Jeffress was silly and to use the actual starting pitcher to lead off the game with Jeffress coming in second. We'll never know the reasons, Counsel can find a way to put a win on the board...I don't really care what he does.

Knebel and Hader seem to have improved their command significantly over the last month, with how often they are used that helps. I also can't remember that last time I saw Torres pitch, I believe he has a bad BB rate. The BB trend is definitely helping keep runs off the board.

The Rockies actually just swept the padres the most recent series, they have not been losing much. We really needed to win these first 2 games, as we are highly likely to lose today. Unknown Wilkerson pitching against Brault, who has owned us both on the mound and at the plate this season. I'm expecting a very annoying result tonight, so I'm hoping cubs/rockies can lose so we keep pace.

I would like to see pina get a bit more playing time, but that's not a big concern. I care much less for Thames leading off. I would rather see him batting with men in base the way he's swinging it. Phillips sees a lot of pitches as well and is the logical candidate given these 8. It should not be arcia either. I like the 2-5 that we currently see. Today is must win with brault on the mound tomorrow

Braun has a 294/390/627/1017 September slash line with a 289 BABIP. How is that possible? I agree with most here that I suspect Braun gets hot down the stretch. 4 games against the cubs in miller park, he feeds off all that booing. In Miller Park there will be plenty of cheers that the result will likely be a ton of noise every at bat. Anywho, I think that's part of the reason he does so well in chicago and pittsburgh, 2 obnoxious fan bases that boo him like crazy and he feeds off it.

Unlikely since Hader is likely to be in the rotation...and Swarzak will likely get paid.

Has anyone noticed how Thames has looked most of this month? He seems to be hitting everything very hard. I just checked his september stats. 357/438/786/1223 with 8k in 31 AB. He's had a decent amount of off days this month, I wonder if the extra rest and/or work in the cage with Coles has helped him? I watched him hit a rocket for a single and a rocket for a line drive double play yesterday. Both were hit hard enough to be extra bases if placed better in the outfield. He should be in the lineup against most RH pitchers the rest of the way, I also like him batting in the 5/6 area of the order over top of the order.

You could say the same about teams playing the cubs. They've basically won every game the last 2 weeks except they couldn't beat us once...

Agreed on 88. If we sweep, 8-5 is more manageable and going past that...9-4 or 10-3 to give us that much better of odds is a bit more plausible than 13-3 or 12-4.

Where has it been stated that Wilkerson is even pitching in this game? I missed that part. If he isn't making this start, exactly what start do you think he's going to make? Him not starting today is a crystal clear indication that he isn't being brought up to start but to pitch in relief. Whether it's today, tomorrow, whenever...it will be in relief. I really shouldn't have had to spell this out for you...should have been very easy to piece together yourself.