KeithStone53151

I wouldn't think you'd want to pay $5 million for a depth piece. Garza would be on a guaranteed contract without the ability to be sent down. Next year, we'll have 3 guys locked into rotation spots with Hader, Woodruff, Suter and Guerra as in house options for the final 2 spots. There is some depth there in case of injury. I would like to think Burnes might be ready to contribute if needed at some point next year. Stearns may also see fit to add a high end starter in free agency to lead the rotation, which would lock in a 4th guy to the rotation and leave those 4 competing for 1 spot. That might be a move he makes heading into 2019, but possible this coming offseason as well. I like the idea of adding depth, but moreso in the form of minor league contracts with big league camp invite type adds.

It's not just the Cubs, but the Cardinals and Pirates as well. We play 8 games against the Pirates, 7 against the Cubs, and 5 against the Cardinals of our remaining 50 games(Most of these are in September too). We could potentially have a very exciting stretch run with meaningful games all the way to the finish line. As much as it was difficult to watch the shelling yesterday, the Brewers put together a lot of hits and good at bats and could have easily scored more runs. I feel very good about our next 3 pitching matchups, while the cubs will go to Arizona after one more in SF. Hopefully we use the rest of this week to climb back into the lead!

Villar's value is nearly nil now. Can't see him getting arbitration offer from anyone after this trainwreck of a season. I just threw him in there rather than releasing him when Lowrie or another 2B comes aboard. Lowrie is a fine stopgap paired with Perez until Dubon or Hiura takes over full time a year or so from now. Villar absolutely has value. I highly doubt that he isn't offered arbitration. Sure he's lost at the plate right now and his mechanics are a mess, but talent like that should be given a chance to rebound as the risk is worth the potential reward. He was hitting in the 280s the last 2 years, he would get claimed on waivers in a heartbeat if we let him walk. I would prefer not to pick up someone beyond a rental, unless Stearns is confident he would be able to get value for that person in the off season if he chooses. Villar will get the chance to win the 2b job next year, and Dubon/Perez will be in the mix there as well. We only get so many spots on the 25 man...

Fine. One start isn't likely to change his overall value very much. You're right. He had little to no value before last night and little to no value now. Even when his starts go okay, he rarely gets through 6 innings. Almost every team has young arms they'd want to look at before picking up a Garza. Briggs is spot on. His ERA was far below where his peripherals and the eye test dictated it should be. I was happy to watch him consistently get out of jams and get line drive outs while it happened, but him getting shelled was inevitable. Hopefully he can limit the damage with smoke and mirrors for a bit longer. I'm sure Garza will hold down his spot when Anderson comes back, and Suter will get sent to the bullpen.

He should throw it to get hitters out. But he can't because he can't throw it well enough to do so so he throws the one pitch he can get hitters out with. I get the impression that you think anytime he wants to he can just throw a quality changeup up there but he never does because he doesn't have to. In reality he's not throwing his changeup because it's just not a good pitch. Do they say it's an average mlb offering or do they say it CAN BE an average MLB offering? Pretty big difference between the two. From baseball America: He has the stuff to be a dominant left-on-left situational reliever right away, and many evaluators believe that's what his long-term role in the majors will eventually be. It almost seems like you take it personally when people suggest Hader ends up in the bullpen. I haven't seen very many scouting reports that say he is for sure a starter. Most I've seen at the very least say there are questions as to where he ends up and many say that his best role may be the pen. Regardless of minor league success he just does not have the control or the third pitch that most successful major league pitchers have. Beside, he last thing the Brewers need is a starter who pitches 4 or 5 innings every other start. Could he fix these issues? Of course. But until he does it's too hard for me to consider him a starter. With the success he's had in the bullpen I'd be fine keeping him there anyway. We need a dominant back end of the bullpen to shorten games. I dug a bit deeper and I've seen 45 and 50 grade on his changeup. Fangraphs actually shows it as a 50/60, which I take to mean 50 current and 60 projected. I fully believe he would throw the changeup more often if guys were catching up to his fastball. Regardless, his slider is a very good pitch right now and certainly doesn't qualify as half a pitch. All sources that fangraphs use shows his slider to have had positive value this year, some have the fastball better while others the slider better but both have been positive value pitches. I've seen anywhere from 55-60 grade on the slider. I get the impression most people want no part of Hader in the rotation in 2018 and that's crazy to me. The most likely scenario is he is given a shot to compete for it in 2018, and will be on the short list of 4 or 5 candidates for 2 spots. He has far and away the most upside in the system for a pitcher and people want to relegate him to the bullpen based on 20 innings and not seeing offspeed pitches as often as they desire. He's way too talented to not give him a chance. Sure you may wind up with a Peralta that fails, or you might wind up with a Nelson that works his ass off and improves and fulfills his potential. And the best case scenario for Nelson falls well short of what the best case scenario is for Hader. And no evaluator in the last 2-3 years has said his long term role will likely be a situational lefty. In 2015-2016 most said probably late inning reliever, possible starter. End of 2016 into 2017 many people thought he would stick as a starter with a floor of a dominant reliever. Situational reliever implies he can't get RH hitters out and would be used to face lefties only. His floor in his peak years is a late inning reliever or closer, not a situational guy.

Get out f here with that nonsense about appeasing bf.net posters. It has nothing to do with that. He was fortunate to get out of that jam, but it took him 40 pitches and loading the bases because he couldn't put hitters away with two strikes because he threw almost nothing but fastballs. If he had any confidence at all in his slider, he'd have thrown them more and struck out batters sitting entirely on his fastball. Pitchers with confidence in secondary pitches often use them in 2-2 and 3-2 counts, but Hader doesn't or else he'd thrown his slider more. I have no idea at this point if eventually Hader can cut it as a starter or if he ends up with a career as a relief pitcher, both roles have value in today's baseball with an increased importance of relief pitching. At some point though he's not going to keep getting away with throwing entirely just fastballs, especially to righthanded hitters. He probably wouldn't have achieved the success he has if all he has is the big fastball. Did you ever stop and wonder how he made it through the minor league system with the success he's had if he's a 1.5 pitch pitcher? Did you ever think that maybe he doesn't throw his changeup right now because hitters are consistently way behind his fastball and throwing a changeup is absolutely doing the hitter a favor? What is every scout and every prospect ranking system doing listing him as a top prospect with his non-existent changeup and 1.5 pitches...are they all a bunch of idiots that don't know what they are doing? Or maybe you shouldn't pass such massive judgement on one outing, or even the 20+ pro innings he's pitched thusfar(in a different role then he's used to). He's young, in theory he'll learn from his failure yesterday and be better for it. And just on a side, everyone's favorite comp is Chris Sale. In his bullpen stint his first season, Sale threw his changeup around 7% of the time that season while Hader throws his 5%. Just because he isn't throwing it doesn't mean he doesn't have one. Especially considering most scouts rate it an average mlb offering.

It's not just that his secondary pitches are rarely strikes, it's also that he rarely even tries throwing anything except fastballs. Yesterday Hader had two strikes on nearly every batter he faced, but rarely felt confident enough to trust that he could throw a quality enough slider to get a K. Of his 41 pitches, 37 were fastballs. So Twins hitters kept fouling off two strike fastballs, eventually getting hits, walks, and/or jacking up his pitch count in that long 5th inning. Had he thrown a good slider to any of those guys in 2-2 or 3-2 counts, easy strikeout. He's flashed some really nice outings so far, but he's not even a two pitch pitcher at this point, more a 1 1/2 pitch pitcher. On the rare occasions he does throw a quality slider, batters usually look ugly flailing at it. His change up is non-existent. It's pretty amazing that he's been as productive as he's been throwing almost entirely fastballs. Except it really isn't as surprising as you seem to suggest. His fastball is an easy plus offering, and plays up even more with a deceptive delivery and arm slot. It seems many of you want to seem him throw off speed stuff as if he's currently auditioning for a starter role. His job is to get outs right now. Up until this outing, most hitters he's faced have been completely overmatched by his fastball. Should he have simply thrown off speed just for sake of throwing off speed...or to appease bf.net posters? It's fairly common for starting pitchers to not unveil their entire arsenal first time through the order. He probably should have mixed in more off speed stuff this outing, but it also is fairly common for guys to stick to the fastball on 2-2 and 3-2 counts to give a higher chance of throwing a strike. I'm sure he'll learn from it and adjust accordingly. You should really watch some video or read scouting reports or do some form of research before making such an ill-informed comment that "he's a 1 1/2 pitch pitcher".

Harrison's career line is almost identical to Hernan Perez's last two seasons, and Perez has as much versatility as Harrison. Obviously Perez would not command that type of return in trade, and his salary is a fraction of Harrison's and Perez is under control through 2020. Why would Harrison cost that much? Pittsburgh is clawing back into contention. They've played well since the break and are 4.5 out. They love Harrison over there. I seriously doubt they trade him, much less to a team they are currently contending with. Their roster is built to contend so they could probably use him next season as well. That said, if they plummet in the standings over the next 2 weeks and do look to trade him, the cost on Harrison would not be anything resembling the cost for Gray. He's on probably a market value deal, and the reason Gray demanded what he did is primarily a sellers market. There are a number of solid 2b options available, so they don't exactly have the market cornered.

And Clark doesn't have the arm for right, hence why Clark is plummeting down so many lists. I see the speed, power, on base skills, etc with him. I also see 2 years of batting averages in the 230s and a very high k rate. If he can't hit in A ball or high A, how is he going to hit as he runs into higher quality and more refined pitchers that control the ball in the zone better? I'm way down on him until he starts actually hitting better. I would think Michael Reed would have showed it takes more than OBP skills to produce enough to get to the mlb level.

1. Hader 2. Brinson 3. Woodruff 4. Ortiz 5. Hiura 6. Diaz 7. Burnes 8. Phillips 9. Erceg 10. Dubon 11. Ray 12. Lutz 13. Gatewood 14. Peralta 15. Nottingham 16. M Harrison 17. Clark 18. Lemons 19. Diplan 20. T Williams 21. Bickford 22. KJ Harrison 23. Medeiros 24. B Murphy 25. Kirby

Brewers have already used Guerra option....they can move him up or down as many times as they want the rest of the year without changing anything...... I think there's a stipulation of sorts that if he doesn't spend X number of days in the minors, an option isn't burned. Not sure on the specifics, I assume that's what he's referring to. So if we call him up quickly the option isn't burned. I highly suspect Suter finds his way to long relief when Anderson returns. Possible that Woodruff goes to AAA, highly unlikely they would move Garza to the pen even though that move would make some sense.

3.7 ERA averaging 5.5 innings is pretty much the best possible outcome on the season for Garza. It's not like you are paying $5 million and able to mark down in permanent ink 3.7 ERA averaging 5.5 innings a start. A more likely outcome is what happened the last 2 years, or an injury to the aging vet that has had a lot of injury issues over his career. And again the amount of teams interested in Garza will be very limited. Most rebuilding clubs would rather take a chance on someone in house. Most contending teams will have 5 better pitchers than Garza. You'd have to look for a desperate team with a bad GM and a bad farm to find a taker on $5 million for Garza. Orioles, Angels, maybe the Marlins.

Keston Hiura is going to fly through 3 levels next year and be ready for 2019? I love Hiura and think he can move fast, but penciling him in is jumping the gun. He is mashing A ball pitching as a college draftee. His numbers are almost meaningless. It's far too early to project him to MLB. I think we'll all have a much better feel in May or June next year and have a better shot at accurately projecting MLB arrival. In theory we will have seen a couple months of both his defense and how he handles A+ and or AA pitching by then. You also will have seen a couple months of Villar at MLB and Dubon at AAA.

Nobody knew Molitor was a future Hall of Famer in 1977. Nobody. The way the Brewers franchise works today, Molitor would have likely not been seen in Milwaukee until 81 or 82. I can't remember us drafting a player that was legitimately ready to walk out onto an MLB field day 1. Can you? Braun had defensive issues. Weeks had defensive issues. Fielder made it up in a couple years as a HS pick at age 21. Arcia made it at 21 more recently. The Brewers tend to be fairly aggressive with prospects, this comment makes 0 sense to me.

Perez might be a little better with the bat right now but overall Kinsler might be better. Phillips might be an upgrade over both. IMO, Perez loses his value in any starting spot. He still doesn't get on base enough for that role and his versatility is huge for a bench. Granderson is still way better than Broxton. Broxton doesn't get on base and he strikes out 40% of the time. He's just bad. Granderson would be a definite upgrade. Granderson has lost it defensively. Any boost we gain with the bat is negated in the field. Broxton could get hot at the plate, but Granderson cannot physically get hot in the field. That is the biggest thing for me as well. How much has Granderson lost defensively? That should be factored in. I think having the plus defense in CF outweighs the modest increase Granderson offers in offensive production. If you look at Granderson's number this year, they are not all that great. The OPS is decent, but he's only hitting 225 and his OPS is not that much greater than Broxton. You could talk me into adding Granderson to the roster as a 4th OF type, and sending Sogard back to AAA. He could get a couple starts a week and PH(which he has excelled at this year). The cost would have to be extremely minimal obviously from a prospect standpoint. Something similar to what we sent to Texas. We'd be on the hook for a portion of his $15 million this year, so us paying that down should be worth it enough for them to move him. Sogard has cooled off and doesn't belong on the active roster currently, so we don't currently have a quality LH bat off the bench most days. Sogard getting sent down/cut is more of a WHEN not IF. Kinsler I'm less on board with. I think the Granderson move makes more sense. Perez has been heating up of late and can fill that spot. I think you have Perez play 2b most days and hope he stays hot the rest of the season. Plus I'm not sure how you create a spot for Kinsler if you make the Granderson move without going down to a 12 man pen.

Simply because he's not a liked player. They can spin it any way they want but that's what it comes down to. Garzas value is probably a push based on his contract. He's rocking a 3.7 era averaging 5.5 innings per start and has been incredibly lucky based on most advanced metrics, starting with his career low 6k/9ip. And this is coming off 2 terrible seasons. He's also hit the DL twice this season already and will be 34. 5 million next year is a reasonable price to pay for a #4/5 starter, but a majority of teams would probably rather take a chance on something internal than pay for Garza. Maybe someone like Baltimore might want him, but options will be scarce. Based on his arsenal, I feel like this season is a best case scenario for what Garza is capable of...a 3.7 era averaging 5.5 innings. I personally feel like of our current 5, our odds of winning a game are the worst when Garza pitches.

Been saying for close to a month that I dont see him in the rotation in 2018. I don't want him in the rotation... yet. I have no issues with starting his clock in the pen and having him continue to work on the secondary stuff. The Sale comps on his fastball seem legit. Guys don't see it... can't catch it. If he rounds out the arsenal then he has ACE potential. Not TOR... ACE. Until he does he's very likely a very good starter... 3 range with low ip counts. Instead of taking pressure off a bullpen he'd add pressure to the pen. But having a dude like him who can take the ball from suter davies woodruff when they are rocky and not only put out the fire but carry a few innings. That turns losses into wins. He could be that wipe out weapon even leaning heavy on the FB. We've also seen the price for Miller via trade via contract. It's staggering because its worth it. Hader being a pen weapon... a momentum switch... isn't short changing his prospect status and expected worth in the least. Nelson Anderson Suter Woodruff Davies Garza... until 2 fall off a cliff (garza traded?) there is zero reason to move hader to the rotation. His arsenal says no currently and the need is low. On the other hand... knebel CL barnes 6/7 hughes 6 and I see a pretty big need. Having knebel swarzak with barnes hughes and a weapon in hader has the pen looking impressive as of late. If hader has the upside you suggest, doesn't it seem a bit silly to have hader behind really any of them for a rotation spot in 2018? Especially the back end guys like Garza, Davies, and suter. Sale is worlds more valuable than miller, an ace trumps a shut down reliever all day.

Assuming he can even make it to the third time through the order. Absolutely ridiculous comment. Because he's been getting so rocked this entire big league stint...and he's struggled so much in the minor leagues when guys saw him 2-3 times in a game. He may not make it as a starter, but he won't be the dumpster fire you seem to think. Then again, you'd have traded half our farm for Sonny Gray if you ran the show.

Hader throws FB-CH-SL, currently he throws FB the most primarily because nobody can catch up to it. It's so hard and with deceptive delivery, throwing a changeup is doing hitters a favor. Judge hit his HR off a Hader changeup. It isn't uncommon for starters to try using only 2 pitches to get through the order the first time as to not show the hitter everything. I don't think Hader will have a problem throwing more secondary stuff the second and third time through an order if they start catching up to the fastball. In the minors he hasn't been a guy that's gotten blown up 2nd/3rd time through. If Hader doesn't make it as a starter, it will be command related and not because his secondary stuff isn't any good.

Ok, he's had some success but let's not get carried away. "One of our best starters"...that's simply not accurate. By every metric, he's been worse than Nelson, Anderson, and Suter. He has better numbers than Davies YTD, but he also doesn't go nearly as deep into games and Davies had a rough stretch early on that he's slowly coming down from. He has been better than Guerra and Peralta, but that's saying very little. You can't compare him to Woodruff who hasn't thrown an MLB pitch yet. At best, he's our 4th best starter currently...but I think most would prefer Davies to Garza right now and going forward.

This is the same team that dumped it's everyday 2B for the previous 3 and a half seasons because he was making a little over $2 million. Garza's not in the plans for next year and the market for him just isn't there. They dumped Scooter for Villar because Villar's 2016 absolutely destroyed anything Scooter has ever done in his baseball career combined with Arcia taking over SS. Saving 2M was a byproduct. There's zero evidence the market isn't there for Garza. ZERO. Nobody said Garza is 100% going to be in our rotation next year - maybe some have said they think he's going to still be here but not definitively state he will. People are saying his option will be picked up, because at 5M it absolutely will be. I'll add the Scooter latched on to be a bench player on a 2nd division team, but is now playing full time due to injury and Peraza having a dreadful year. It's not like Scooter was claimed by a good team and immediately thrown in the starting lineup. It will be interesting to see what the market is like for Garza. I'm sure Stearns and co will weigh out things like that prior to deciding on his option. He completely reinvented himself as a pitcher this year throwing way more off speed stuff, and he's had a decent amount of success. I think it is highly likely we pick up the option, and if we can't find a good enough trade in the offseason he could also be held into spring training waiting for a team to have a few SP injuries.

Generally depends on a couple factors. How deep your starting pitching tends to go, how effective your bullpen is, and versatility of position/bench players. Perez and Sogard having great flexibility along with Thames able to play outfield gives us the positional versatility to roll with a 4 man bench. Our starting pitching has been very good, but the bullpen has struggled and the middle relief guys can't be counted on right now to work a full inning. Hughes/Torres/Drake/Barnes have gotten blown up too often lately. Also Counsel overmanaging lately leads me to think we need 8 in the bullpen right now. I tend to agree that Phillips will find his way up towards the middle of August and we'll go to a 7 man pen. We might even go with a 4 man rotation for a bit depending on how guys look. Come september we'll get a couple bullpen reinforcements from AAA and have plenty of options down the stretch. I also tend to agree that one of Drake/Torres/Hughes is on the chopping block by mid-late august. Probably not Hughes, I would think one of the other two.

Anyone know where Vogt is at with his injury? I would think he's a few weeks away, but we sure could use him right now.

I would be inclined to leave Broxton in AAA until their season ends and call him back up in September. I think Phillips will come back up soon once we trim from 13 to 12 relievers(which I think happens mid-august as we have 4 off days in the last 2 weeks of august) or an injury happens. Brinson should be getting the lions share of starts as long as he has quality at bats. It's obvious he's going to have some level of learning curve at this point, but unless he's consistently flailing at bad pitches or something he should get most starts. Phillips when he comes up would primarily come in for defense, PH, PR, etc...anything to help us chalk up wins.

First off filling holes at the All Star break would have helped us win 2 or 3 lost games. Filling holes at 2B and CF wouldn't have cost much based on what rentals are going for..... take a look at what the best bullpen rental (Neshek) cost prospect wise, the best rental bat (JD Martinez) cost prospect wise.... Injuries are playing a factor with the rotation over the last week. Woodruff is going to get a shot. Garza will be back shortly. Anderson will be back in 3 weeks. Hader could start, if wanted. It's not as dire as you make it to be..... This season/division race is not over. The Brewers outplayed the Cubs for the most part this weekend. It was line drive out after line drive out for the Brewers and our pitching really held them down. Also I believe we set a RISP franchise record over the weekend going 0 for our last 32 or something, which involves a lot of luck as we've been hitting ourselves into scoring position often enough. And this is a team without Anderson at the moment and that got 3 innings out of Guerra one of those Cubs games. The Cubs also have 4 tough series in a row coming up, and if their offense doesn't wake up they'll wind up losing a lot of games over the next 2 weeks and bring the entire division(less cincy) back into contention.