tmwiese55

I generally agree. There is pretty much no one besides Hader right now that I'm not worried about when they come in the game. Anything can happen with everyone else at this point. I'd nitpick the comment that said our pen was just as questionable last year until September-ish. Mid season, I agree. April through like late May though they were very good. Hader, JJ, Albers were all lights out to start the year. Barnes also did very well at the start I think.

I agree that you might as well just throw all low and away sliders, if he doesn't swing so be it.

I've been saying this on here and to people in general for years. I see portions of a lot of other games/broadcasts and our guys are definitely in the upper tier. BA obviously is one of the best in the biz as he keeps getting national gigs. Rock is what he is, but compared to what you hear elsewhere he's miles ahead. You'd be shocked at the amount of dead air you hear on others. Don't get me wrong, when you listen to guys for 160 games a year you're going to get sick of them repeating and using cliches, but that's going to happen with anyone.

Not good. Made a couple low risk signings like Cahill tonight and MAtt Harvey. Buy low 1 year deals try to hit lightning in a bottle. Both seemed like good moves to me in their position, so maybe it could end up better than expected. That Pujols contract just killing them. For DH I'd guess they spread it around a bit. Braun one day, Thames, and one of Shaw/Moose the other. I suppose it also wouldn't surprise me if they used it a way to get Yelich a day off too

You can find a lot of hot prospects who flopped. Probably pretty rare after proving it for a year like this though. But Byron Bruxton pops into my head, can't miss mega prospect who's flopped. Think he'd love 100 mil in the bank. CAn probably go back and look at the top 5 on prospects lists the last 15 years and see tons of guys who never made any money. Nothing wrong with putting more money in the bank than you'll ever spend and just enjoy your life without the financial pressure.

I think for the most part Arcia plays the 'rover' type spot in the shifts. I think the logic would be that since he's farther away his range would be more useful, due to obviously more time to move for the ball. I think Philly experimented with a similar notion in the OF in spring training last year for a while, not sure if they did it regular season. Essentially flip flopping RF and LF based on the hitter. For example, obviously Yelich is a better defender than Braun. So it actually would make a lot of sense to have Yelich play LF vs RH hitters and put Braun in right.

Agree. I think I posted it here but for sure have talked to people about how on paper going into the year our starters should be better and give more innings than what we got last year. Injuries to Nelson, Davies, with Anderson doing poorly led to a mostly patchwork year outside of Chacin. This year should be way better and hopefully make up for some bullpen regression (which started with Knebel/JJ injuries).

Well I think Mets/Nats are clearly 1, 2 in some order. Then a big gap to others. But eyeballing teams I could see it being feasible. Normally LAD automatically would be ahead but with Kershaw hurt and the rest of their guys questionable/unproven I don't think its for sure. Obviously ours are drastically less proven than some others that could trot out experienced guys but yes if everything goes the way it looks now they would have a shot.

Almost sure Nelson had one. So I'd guess Nelson and Anderson in 2017. I'll go with Nelson being the one who got two ETA: Nelson CG was 0 ER but gave up 1 run

I've been saying for years I don't know how guys turn down the 'bird in the hand' of just locking in more money they'll ever spend for the chance at more. Essentially it's kind of like that Deal or No Deal show with briefcases where you're risking near 0 so most people just lock in a good win rather than risk going to nothing. I guess the last couple FA years have turned these guys to my way of thinking on it, just put the 10s of mil in the bank and you don't have to worry about money no more. That's good, one less thing. So now the chances of that colossal payday or much less than 10 years go and they're opting to just lock in.

This is my thought as well. If/when Nelson is going well (first week of May?), send each young one down for ~2 weeks at a time to sort of rotate the three of them in two spots through the all start break pending no one gets hurt or struggles enough to need a demotion. This will help keep their innings low enough to be usable in September/October. Then come mid July, re-assess Nelson progress and maybe give him some time off if needed and then start up the 6 man rotation with rotating AAA/DL as needed to get to September. Now, injuries will probably break this plan, but it seems like an ideal best case scenario option right now. Exactly. I just figured they'd toss them on the DL instead of AAA. I suppose it would help their clocks to be in AAA but really a few weeks isn't gonna matter. on the DL they'd stay with the team, not be traveling around on busses, eating crappy food, etc. Either way works I guess. But yea same thing I meant.

I think they can manage the innings easily throughout the year. First, guys are going to have legit injuries to go on the DL and take a few weeks off. With guys like Anderson, Nelson ready to step in when needed there's no need to force through it. Along with that, I think they'll be proactive on just tossing them DL stints here and there to if they feel they're getting tired/sore at all. Kind of be extra cautious with them, go take a couple starts off and let Anderson fill in. I don't think it will end up as a problem. Well, if it does I guess it's a good problem to have as it means they've all done very well. Eye balling schedule I don't see the log jam of off days like they had late last year to skip guys. But they have 4 straight Thursdays off in August.

Probably would've bet a 1000 dollars on the leadoff walk happening.

Great to see Freddy bounce back from that first start. only 58 pitches through 5. Maybe can squeeze 7 innings out of him but 3rd time through is coming up soon. Could really use a couple badger mutual insurance runs without Hader today

That is the discount. That's exactly what we're saying. Braun did it so that it made sense and Yelich would have to as well or else what's the point. Pretty much as you said in the later paragraph. I actually think you're in agreeance with what I and a couple others just said but just some semantics on the word 'discount'.

I would agree overall it's not the ideal long term strategy for a team to do it for 1-2 year players. I just think at the time their hand was forced by the previous regime and state of the team/farm in that they knew they had this loaded offensive lineup but basically no pitching. So they knew if they didn't add pitching they'd waste all those hitters primes, including having two MVP level hitters at the same time. Having not made the playoffs in 25 years and being a punching bag for small markets to just lose their players they didn't want to trade all those hitters just to perpetually rebuild. So I get it and agree with them doing it. I feel like it also rejuvenated the fans a bit to come out and support the team pretty much ever since, would that have happened if they didn't actually get good for a few years? IDK. But yes, I'm also happy they see that as not the overall long term plan here going forward.

Michael Brantley would have been a big help at a very low price for several years. Same goes for Cain departing in the Greinke trade. I personally think the Brewers lost more chances to make the playoffs than they gained by making those two trades, and I think what they're doing now reflects the fact that Mark A learned his lesson (he has even said this, in so many words). If it's a last-gasp effort to win a title, by all means pull out all the stops, but they were doing this stuff when they had a great young core and a chance to have sustainable success. They weren't terrible trades or anything, but I think they were kind of short-sighted. Now we don't see them giving up much value for short-term patches. Moustakas, Schoop, Claudio? Fine. But they aren't giving away excessive surplus value for short-term rentals anymore, and I'm very glad for that. The Yelich deal is exactly the type of opportunity you hold out for. From 2011-2014 the Brewers got 16.9 WAR out of Carlos Gomez. Brantley was 12.4 WAR over that time frame. Cain was 14 WAR over that time frame. We got better production by trading these guys and getting Gomez. That's pretty much what I've said in these talks over the years with folks who act like we mortgaged the future for those trades. The only really great players we gave up were Cain and Brantley but we were stacked in OF anyway so really it didn't kill us at all. Remember you had two spot filled with Braun/Hart too. Oh and Odarazzi was a solid P. Basically I don't think having Odarazzi and another good OF during the 13-16ish bad run would've made a difference really at all. In 08 who knows what happens if Sheets doesn't get hurt and you have those two aces for the playoffs. '11 you had a 1-0 lead in the NLCS with home field in NLCS and WS. I think they were the right moves. Braun extension at the time was definitely a discount price that made sense to lock in so you have your star player for years. Keep in mind they were sitting there knowing Prince was gone and obviously didn't want the PR of losing both guys. Like I think I said though, if yelich doesn't give a big discount like Braun did then it's pointless to worry about it now with so many years of control. If he wants to tack on 3-4 more years at 15-20 well yea I guess so but if you're giving him 25+ mil then what's the rush.

I think they can do that but I also don't think the team would want to. I'd assume they'd prefer to backload due to the high payroll this year already. Combine that with Braun coming off after next year and they free up some wiggle room then. Thames/Anderson also coming off soon along with every year gets close to the end of Cain's deal. But yea, if that's what you need to do to incentivize him to a discount well so be it.

Along with that as much as we all rip on Albers and Barnes the second half. They were very good for stretches in the first half. When they struggled they got replaced by others such as Burnes/Woodruff but that was all a factor. The key point to it all is the bullpen was extremely deep all year where you could for the most part trust almost everyone up on the major league rosters. Exceptions being as guys tailed off and had a few bad outings before being demoted. Whereas right now we only have 1 guy we can trust and don't have the depth like last year. Pretty much gritting our teeth with everyone else right now but hopefully guys step up along with JJ coming back.

Oh I totally agree. Just that those scenarios are the crux of what they need to correct to get them paid more earlier or to let them hit FA sooner. Not guys that put away 35-50 mil before hitting FA the first time like these two guys. What you just said is basically why so many guys just locked in their money now with extensions rather than this promised golden parachute. They've adjusted, and should. A guy like Moose got caught in the middle. He should've signed an extension with KC like 4 years ago to lock in 50 mil. But back then everyone though they were still getting 100 mil in FA.

I don't see the need to rush into an extension unless he gives a big time discount on it. As much as we can rip Braun's now, he did give a big time discount vs what he theoretically would've got in FA. If you can lock him in at 15-20 per year I mean yea do it, but if you're pumping out 30 mil per year anyway then what's the rush.

The Moustakas types are probably the more pressing example of the issue. Play for nothing (relatively of course) with the promise of FA, then you don't get the big guaranteed contract. That and your guys that hit MLB at older ages so they can't hit FA until 32/33.

I assume Giannis sits one of these B2B games and one of the other B2B coming up. Keep his mins like 30ish or below to finish the year. Home court all the way should be basically done at this point. Just need him as healthy as possible.

You are missing the vastly overpaid part, he isn't worth it. He is 33 and the basketball version of Curtis Granderson. He is fine to have on the team for the playoff run but is easily replaceable next year contrary to what you and Luke believe. I don't think anyone is missing that he's vastly overpaid. Everyone knows that. I disagree on easily replaceable. Think of our G play in recent years. Last year, the guys in this place were Liggins, Gary Payton Jr, and Brandon Jennings. This year its Tim Frazier. Take a look around at minimum contract Gs and see what's out there. Best one that probably would've come available this year was Rivers and I think most would cringe at him. Quickly thinking about the best way to replace now, trading a redundant player like Ersan (assuming Niko is back) for a similar level backup G for similar money seems the best idea I can come up with, though I don't wanna comb through possible fits. One I can think of this year at that space would have been Jerrod Bayless. So Hill or Bayless type guy in that scenario. Or another option is you just trust improvement from Brown/DDV but that's a gamble at title contention. All that said, I'm almost sure they'll decline the option just out of cost. Especially since they'll almost for sure be in the tax so his 18ish turns into several more mil.

So essentially choosing to make your team worse out of principle and to save 3 billionaires some money. If that's your take, that's fine. Another thing to note is that if picked up his large expiring contract becomes extremely valuable leading up to next year's deadline. Any star play that demands his way out between now and then comes into play for the Bucks since we have the perfect contract to trade back.