A Swing and A Drive

As depressing as that may have been, nice work Young Geezy! Thanks for putting in the time to post that. This HAS to be a focus of improvement for the Brewers newer front office. Other teams draft and develop decent SP all the time. Brewers can't just say we suck at it and give up! (by drafting toolsy OF every year for example, lol) Stearns can certainly build a good offense with the Travis Shaws of the baseball world. Come on Scouting department... Let's do this!

Sometimes the sun shines on every dog for a day! Happy for Scooter! Wonder if he's the shortest player to every accomplish it as well.

1.7 Adam Haseley, OF, Virginia

Wow, I think we have uncovered an organizational weakness that is the lack of developing STARTING PITCHING that spans at least 2-5 decades! Brewers new front office, please make it stop... ...starting next Monday!

Here's a link to the 2017 BCR MOCK DRAFT VIDEO through the Brewers first pick. Thoughts? Which player would you select if the first 8 picks played out like that?

1.6 Austin Beck, OF

Side note: I just realized that Warren Spahn won 20+ games 9 times for the Milwaukee Braves. Incredible.

I don't even know how I'd rank the Brewers current starting 5 on talent, but I have a feeling that Zach Davies could become a Bill Wegmen-esque, sneaky-good, long time Brewer and crack this list at some point in the future. lol

The Brewers would be silly to move Hader to the pen this early in his career. I'm 100% percent certain that they are committed to developing Josh as a starter. Any minor league bullpen appearances would be to just limit his innings, etc.

I like 3B Ryan McMahon as a potential trade target for the Brewers. 2B Forrest Wall could also be a buy low candidate. I'd also be interested in RHP Mike Nikorak in that regard. (former 1st rounder recoverng from Tommy John)

I agree with Cheez-Wiz on this. Having a loose, yet focused clubhouse is a key for a winning team. In any business, people perform better if they are enjoying themselves, IMO. Ask the "3-times this decade" WS champs the San Francisco Giants how important a leader like Hunter Pence is to the team? I think Counsell will prove to be a great manager over time. Side note: I noticed the Brewers are 6-3 on Sundays so far this year. I certainly don't miss Ned Yost's old "Sunday Lineups" where he'd give all our top hitters the day off every Sunday for some weird reason and our lineup would be completely terrible. Don't remember too many W's on Sundays. lol

1.5 MacKenzie Gore

I actually think the Rays would look to get at least one established MLB player in a return for Archer. Don't think that package even gets it done.

Would love to see others Top 12 Brewers SP rankings. And for those of you that disagree with CC being on the list, I think it just demonstrates how the Brewers have ZERO Top of the Rotation pitchers that have had any sustained success with the franchise. Considering our only former CY Young starter (Pete V) won all of 40 career games for us. And a player like Jeff D'Amico won all of 29 career games for us. So as silly as it seems for a franchise nearing 50 years, the magnitude of CC's 11 dominant wins in 2008 start to seem relevant in this discussion, IMO.

These guys just missed my Top 12. Wegman was just too average of a SP, IMO. Bosio was a bit better but I kinda left off for being such a jerk, actually. You could argue Bosio could slot in anywhere after the top half of the list I suppose. Since NO Brewers SP has had a long, dominant run with the Brewers, I gave more weight to the guys who had a short, but significant impact on Brewers postseason success (i.e. CC, Sutton, Greinke, and even Eldred as the Crew had exciting near-miss of playoffs in 1992 and he was a huge part) Would love to see Brewers draft/develop a SP in the next few years that is sitting on Top of this List in 15 years. Wouldn't be asking too much. lol

Fingers doesn't qualify. This ranking is for Starting Pitchers. Higuera only had 3-4 good seasons as a Brewer and none of them were as dominant as Sabathia's 2008 season with the Crew. Higuera also never led the Brewers to the postseason. The more I look at the numbers, the more I believe that Ben Sheets may have actually been the best Brewers SP. He had more IP and K, a similar ERA and superior command. (Sheets 3.8/1 SO/BB ratio, Higuera 2.4/1 SO/BB ratio) Hard to believe how low of a SO rate Caldwell had, yet was still effective.

Did you know that Wily Peralta's current 47 wins ranks 16th all-time for the Brewers franchise? We all love the Brewers, but that's just pathetic. And quick, without looking it up, who's the Brewers All-Time leader in Wins? I'd bet most Brewers fans wouldn't guess correctly. And can you guess how many career wins 1982 AL CY Young winner Pete Vuckovich had with the Brew Crew? Hint: It's less than Peralta! Got me to thinking on how we'd rank top 12 Brewers Starting Pitchers of All-Time: Obviously, guys like CC and Greinke probably had some of the highest talent, but let's rank based off their entire Brewers career/impact. Here's mine, with a surprising #1... RANK Name Wins Losses ERA IP BB SO Notes 1. LHP Mike Caldwell 102 80 3.74 1604 353 540 Yankee killer, #2 starter on '82 AL Champs 2. LHP Teddy Higuera 94 64 3.61 1380 443 1081 Great prime, 20 game winner in 1986. 3. RHP Ben Sheets 86 83 3.72 1428 313 1206 Great command, 18-K in one game Brewers record 4. RHP Yovani Gallardo 89 64 3.69 1289 474 1226 Brewers all-time leader in strikeouts 5. LHP CC Sabathia 11 2 1.65 130 25 128 2008 Brewers ride him to first playoffs in 26 years 6. RHP Jim Slaton 117 121 3.86 2025 760 929 Brewers all-time leader in Wins 7. RHP Zack Greinke 25 9 3.67 294 73 323 ACE of 2011 NL Central Champs 8. RHP Pete Vuckovich 40 26 3.88 533 228 266 1982 AL CY YOUNG Award Winner 9. RHP Moose Haas 91 79 4.03 1542 308 800 #3 starter on 1982 AL Champs 10. RHP Jim Colburn 57 60 3.65 1118 309 495 20 Wins and 3.18 ERA for early 1972 Brew Crew 11. RHP Don Sutton 26 26 3.86 487 123 313 HOFer and key '82 stretch run acquisition 12. RHP Cal Eldred 64 65 4.51 1078 448 686 Magical '92 rookie season: 11-2 with a 1.79 ERA Decided I couldn't stretch this list to 20 SP without crying in my soup. lol

Rob Deer should be somewhere in the Top 20. Loved that guy. I'd almost argue that CC Sabathia had more of an actual impact on the franchise then Teddy Higuera did. If fact, it's a little sad but I'd have to say CC deserves a spot in the all-time top 20 players in Milwaukee Baseball, and that's with pitching all of only 3 months. I'd also say that Ben Sheets should be on par with Higuera as well. They have similar career stats with the Brew Crew. I'll also like to point out how much being a Brewer fan sucked between the end of Higuera's prime and the start of Sheets prime. The Brewers starting rotation for about that 12-15 year stretch had nothing that even remotely resembled an "ACE" starter. And I'm not certain they were even able to trot a true #2 or #3 MLB starter out to the mound for the better part of my entire youth. (with apologies to Jeff D'Amico) I feel that the Brewers are now at the stage of needing another "homegrown" ACE. Desperately. Here's to hoping that J.B. Bukauskas somehow slides to the Brewers #9 overall pick on June 12th!

As far as simply presenting all the facts about Braun to my son and letting him decide... Well my son is too young IMO and still needs to be taught certain things. It's called parenting, teaching or mentoring. Without guidance, he may well "decide" that he would be happy if the Brewers win the World Series and he doesn't really care if any Brewers cheat in order to do it. I would simply explain to him that the game of Baseball has been around for nearly 200 years and that 99% of the players and teams have achieved greatness by playing within the rules of the game. There is simply no reason why the Brewers cannot do the same. It's called integrity.

And some Brewer fans are huge Braun apologists. And that's certainly their right to be. No one should be taking anything personally. Opinions are like.... ...everyone has one. Reading others perspective on the Brew Crew is what makes Brewerfan.net so popular of a forum.

The only joke is not moving forward and becoming a better person when you do something as dumb as he did. He's done that. He can't do much more than he already has for it. Doesn't mean you have to forget the mistakes but to hold a grudge or hate the guy because of it after he has clearly changed his ways in his life is a bit silly. Doesn't shock me though. Like I said, people love to tear others down, especially celebrities/athletes. If they ever make a mistake, "normal" folk pounce as if their crap don't stink. Taking PED's when it was banned was dumb. Lying about it when caught instead of taking responsibility showed his true character. Don't want this clown to be my son's favorite Brewer, baseball player or athlete. Simple as that.

Can't say I am surprised then if some Brewer fans did not accept his "BS Apology". That's their right.

Could you also get him to apologize to us for this? Ryan Braun, February 2012 "If I had done this intentionally, or unintentionally, I'd be the first one to step up and say 'I did it.' By no means am I perfect, but if I have ever made any mistakes in my life, I have taken responsibility for my actions...I truly believe in my heart, and would bet my life that this substance never entered my body at any point." He then blamed others for tarnishing his name, and that he was putting the game ahead of himself: "There were a lot of times when I wanted to come out and tell the entire story, to attack everybody as I’ve been attacked, as my name’s been dragged through the mud as everything I’ve worked for my entire life was called into question. There were a lot of times I wanted to come out, tell the entire story, but at the end of the day I recognized what’s actually best for the game of baseball and I put that ahead of what was actually best for myself." He claimed he was fighting for others that were wrongly accused: "I’ve always stood up for what is right. Today is about everybody who’s been wrongly accused, and everybody who’s ever had to stand up for what is actually right...I will continue to take the high road because that’s who I am, and that’s the way that I’ve lived my life. We won because the truth is on my side." And wanted everybody to know that he was the victim: "I am a victim of a process that completely broke down and failed the way it was applied to me in this case." But instead of taking the high road, he then suggested that the test collector was up to no good and wondered aloud if somebody was framing him: "What could have possibly happened to it during that 44-hour period (before the collector took the urine sample to FedEx)? There were a lot of things that we learned about the collector, about the collection process, about the way that the entire thing worked that made us very concerned and very suspicious about what could have actually happened...We spoke to biochemists and scientists and we asked them, ‘How difficult would it be to tamper with somebody’s sample?’ And their response was that, ‘If they were motivated, it would be extremely easy.’" Ryan Braun....does leading the league in throwing others under the bus (or the FedEx Truck) increase your WAR? This guy is a joke.

Sorry to laugh, but we're now down to being optimistic that Braun will retire early because he seems like such a great guy and hero that he'll just leave the game altogether to spend time with his family? Maybe until he is ready to walk away from the game and leave millions on the table, Braun will be nice enough to waive his no-trade clause also if his die-hard fans simply sends him some nice emails asking him to? "And if it's not asking too much, could you also turn this water into wine and get Tim Tebow's autograph for me? Thanks Ryan. You're the best!" LOL

This is a fair assessment. Some pitchers have their peak seasons between 23-27 years old, but it's the true 200+ IP Top-of-the-Rotation starters who can sustain their prime from 28-33 years old. Brewer fans may remember thinking that Yovani Gallardo was a shiny new "ACE" for our contending team in 2008, ripe from the minor leagues with one MLB season of 110 Ip under his belt. Yo was only 22 in 2008. He simply didn't have the MLB experience or consistency yet to head a playoff caliber rotation. Without CC (who was 28 that summer BTW), Brewers have little chance at the playoffs that year, even if Yovani was healthy the whole season. Yovani had his peak career seasons at 25 and 26 years old. Those are the only 2 years of his career where he had over 200 IP. He's now still only 31 years old and his career is likely barely hanging on. I would say that Yovani never really reached his ceiling of a true ACE, mostly due to the fact that he could not sustain his consistency. And those are the type of pitchers that are the greatest commodity in baseball. The trade market for these types of pitchers prove it every July.