paul253

Yeah I agree with TheCrew. It'd be one thing if you've actually had some success at the major league level before. But what, he has a good year in Triple A and expects to play 4 days a week as a September callup? Give me a break. If I were Melvin I'd release him.

I've been reading a lot lately about Baltimore desperately needing a big time hitter in the lineup, ideally one who plays first base. Fielder obviously fits perfectly with that, but having only one year left on his contract may prevent Baltimore from giving up something too good for him unless they think they can resign him. Would Jake Arrietta or Zach Britton be asking too much for Fielder? Maybe Chris Tillman?

I understand that you need to stock up on arms in the minors, but at some point you need to get that impact pitcher. You can't just continue to hope all of your prospects will turn out. Two years of Greinke is worth quite a bit I think. In the time he is here, you can still draft high ceiling pitchers and try to trade for some too, but teams aren't as likely to give up good young pitching any more. He mentioned the Kazmir trade a few years ago. That was an absolutely horrible trade by the Mets, and I don't think it's likely a deal like that will happen again. We dangled our best offensive player last season and we got offered Daniel Hudson. Not that Hudson isn't a good player, but it goes to show hard it is to acquire the type of pitcher he says we need to acquire. That leaves the draft. I am really high on next years draft due to the combination of two top 15 picks and a good pitching crop. But the fact remains if you are going to compete year in and year out then you need to hit on your draft picks. Lately the Brewers haven't hit on their pitching, though it does seem like it's getting better. So you have two options if you want to try to compete. 1) Free agency and 2) Trades. I have been calling all along for the Brewers to trade for good young pitching (I've mentioned Michael Pineda for Prince Fielder several times). But if you can get that ace pitcher, I think you have to go for it.

Melvin acquired all of 1 young projectable starting pitcher in his tenure in Milwaukee, this fact has been well documented previously and I see no reason to revisit the issue here. I will not argue the results of Melvin's tenure. However, it seems a little odd to on the one side argue how important it is to develop our own pitchers then on the other point out how fruitless those attempts have been the last few years. It's not like Melvin and Co. haven't tried. It seems like you should be arguing more for Melvin to lose his job due to his inability to develop home grown pitching. Parra has no value as a starting pitcher, no one is going to take him in a a trade and think they can insert him into the rotation. That's simply not true. Look at some of the guys they started last year and their results. Luke Hochevar (17 starts 4.81 ERA), Sean O'Sullivan (13 starts 6.11 ERA), Kyle Davies (32 starts 5.34 ERA) Brian Bannister (23 starts 6.34 ERA) Bruce Chen (23 starts 4.17 ERA). Overall team ERA of 4.97. You can look at those results and automatically declare Manny Parra useless to them? Look to move the organization forward And you think trading one or two pitching prospects for one of the better pitchers in all of baseball, whom we'll have for at least two seasons, is going to equal this organization moving backwards? all we've done is spin our wheels since 2007. That's because we have no pitching! So why aren't we going out and getting pitching? what matters is the value we've gotten back. And the value we've gotten back from a lot of our pitching prospects in the past few years has been zero. Admittedly Odorizzi, Rogers, and Jeffress have more upside than most we've had lately, but in the end you're still talking about a guy who hasn't pitched above A ball (Odorizzi) and older prospect who is just now coming back from significant injuries (Rogers) and a guy who has yet to have success as a starting pitching above A ball and whose control is a serious question mark (Jeffress). I like Rogers and Odorizzi as much as anyone, but there are far from sure things. And I think Jeffress eventually ends up in the bullpen, which will kill his trade value. we end up with the same exact problems the following year. There's no magic here, if you don't address a hole with a long-term solution, it remains a hole. The rotation is in the exact same state as it was in 2006 and 2007. No progress has been made. You are completely missing the point. Pitching was a huge problem last season, and we MIGHT have one guy (Rogers) ready to start in the majors in 2011. That means you'll have to find pitching from somewhere for 2011. If you acquire Greinke, you are not hurting your 2011 team at all because you aren't trading anyone who would be starting in 2011. He would be a significant upgrade to the staff. He would also buy you some time until the prospects actually are ready to pitch in Milwaukee. There are some decent guys in AA ball and below next year and will be ready about the time Greinke would leave if we get him and doesn't want to extend. And don't sleep on the fact that unlike most stud pitchers, Greinke does not want to pitch in a big market like New York or Boston. If we can offer him enough money and are winning, there's a good shot he would stay in Milwaukee. What? I've been talking about the Rays since prior to the 2008 season, their pitching pipeline was obvious Yeah you are taking the team that has the most success in all of baseball and comparing them to us. That's fine, but you can't expect every organization to be run like TB. Also, as I've said before, teams like TB and Cincy have been lucky to have a good, young outfielder (Young and Hamilton) who they had no room for and were able to flip for pitching. Milwaukee doesn't really have anyone like that. Possibly McGehee, but that's about all. Every MLB regular was once a prospect, Yes they were. And every Major League has at least 5 farm teams full of prospects, the vast majority of whom never make it to the major leagues. I said when we acquired Gomez, CF wasn't an organizational weakness, it was only a temporary weakness at MLB until Lo Cain was healthy. Not sure why you are using Gomez as an example as he seems to disprove your point. We trading an established Major League Player (Hardy) for a prospect with a high ceiling (Gomez) and the prospect has done nothing. Perhaps Melvin knew Hardy's production was going to drop off significantly, but the Brewers certainly did not get someone worth much of anything. At some point enough is enough and it's time for a new strategy, at some point we need to cure the disease instead of continually treating the symptoms. So again, I ask, what do we do until then? Throw out home grown pitchers (like Parra) simply because they are cheap? You say we wasted 2 years of the current core, but how bad would it been it instead of free agent and scrap heap guys we only used guys we developed on our own? We really aren't in that much of a disagreement here. For one, if acquiring Greinke would take two or all of Odorizzi, Jeffress, and Rogers, I probably wouldn't do it. I agree that we need young, cheap pitching. And I agree we need to focus on drafting high ceiling pitchers as opposed to "inning eaters" and college guys drafted simply to get their quicker. That being said. You can't rely entirely on home grown guys, especially if they are not producing. Again, if you have the opportunity to acquire one of the best pitchers in all of baseball, you do it.

I think it's kind of funny that Melvin already had 5 years to acquire some quality starting pitching with longevity to go with the current position players and hasn't done it, and now people want to raid what's left of the farm for one last gasp with the same guy pulling the strings? Good luck with that. You're comparing drafting pitchers to trading for them. Melvin has made all of one real player for prospect trade to acquire a pitcher, and you know what happened. Just because he hasn't had success drafting and developing pitchers doesn't mean he will miss on Greinke. Pretty much everyone agrees that Greinke is one of the best pitchers in all of baseball. I think you are underestimating what he'd do to this team. Gallardo would move down to the #2. That's huge. Wolf would move down to #3, and so on. And you'd eliminate your worst starter. Parra isn't good enough to start for us and yet KC would take him as a starting pitcher for Greinke? Really people? Calm down. Nobody is suggesting Parra would be anything more than a throw in. Someone whom KC can put in the rotation right away. You're acting like all of the deals proposed here have Parra as a centerpiece of the deal. If you want the Brewers to contend every year then we have to start developing enough top of the rotation talent to maintain the rotation from within, we aren't ever going to get there trading those players away to go for it with 1 CY quality starting pitcher at a time. What happens if we give away all that talent and the pitcher gets hurt? Then what? And until then what? We watch the talented portion of our lineup walk away in free agency or become so expensive that we can't afford to sign any quality free agents while we wait and see if any of this pitching is going to develop? The pitching isn't coming next year. Why is it so out of the question to obtain someone, particularly someone who is so friggin' good? It doesn't matter what the prospects do or don't do down the road, the question should always be does this make the organization stronger? It absolutely matters what the prospects do down the road. Pittsburgh has been pretty good at developing their own starting pitchers and look at where that has gotten them. Don't you think the Brewers wish now they had traded Ben Hendrickson and Luis Martinez when they were still prospects rather than having them turn out so poorly they couldn't even crack the rotation? The best thing for the future of the organization doesn't always mean hoarding as many prospects as you can because a lot of those prospects fail. Nothing is more valuable than quality starting pitching, but the trick is to acquire it prior to a player being "established", because then the player costs too much to acquire and to retain. You are making this process sound WAY easier than it really is. You are taking two of the teams that have most success recently and using them against us. The Reds were in an awesome position a few years ago of having a really good outfielder that they didn't have room for and turned him into a good young starting pitcher....good for them, but we aren't so lucky right now. Also, Chapman is ultimately going to be a reliever. I would not have wanted the Brewers to spend that much money on a reliever. The idea should be to acquire young starting pitching that you can then flip later on for more young starting pitching if you aren't able to afford the player any longer. That's really no secret, but again, you are making it sound a lot easier than it actually is. But in the meantime, what are we supposed to do? Just wait and hope our young pitchers turn into good enough pitchers so we can eventually trade them for more young pitchers? No...you need to go out and get the most talented players you can. From where I'm sitting it looks to me like we mortgaged the future in 2008 on Sabathia and if the Mets wouldn't have collasped this first core of players wouldn't have even netted us a single post season appearance. So you honestly think this team would have been better off with Michael Brantley (.626 OPS last season in Cleveland), Matt Laporta (.668 to go along with a .221 batting average) and Rob Bryson (relief pitcher who pitched in AA last season) than with what happened in 2008? Do you realize what kind of positive impact that one playoff appearance had on the team's attendance for basically two years? That in turn brought in more money for them to acquire free agents. I mean pitchers who can post a legit low 3 ERA year in and year out. We don't need an ace, we need 3 or 4 #2s in the rotation. We have 1 in Yo... who knows what Wolf will be next season, so we need 2 more legit top of the rotation starters to hope to compete for the division much less in the post season, otherwise we're just wasting our time. We don't match up with Cincy today, and that's with Chapman pitching in relief and Volquez coming off surgery, how will we match up next season trading what little surplus we might have for just Greinke? I'm just curious, but since you seem to have all the answers, where all of these young top of the rotation starters who are going to post low 3 ERA's year in and year out going to come from? Trade for them? Good luck. We couldn't anything more than Daniel Hudson for one of the top offensive first basemen in all of baseball (though I am actually kind of wishing we too that deal) Teams just don't trade away young pitching anymore. Also, we do need an ace, because by default it helps the rest of the staff by eliminating your worst remaining starter. Look, everyone on this board knows the importance of pitching. But you make it seem like the Brewer's brass still hasn't caught on. You can't just go get a good young pitcher. It takes time, and usually some luck (having the #1 pick the year Strasburg or Price were in the draft) The Brewers have some help coming, more than you seem to care to mention. I am really high on Mark Rogers and Jake Odorizzi, but I think Jeffress is expendable. But additionally, Rivas, Peralta, Scarpetta, and Heckathorn have all shown some promise. Next year's draft is loaded with pitching I believe and we have two top 15 picks. The year after that it's possible we could have extra first round picks from Fielder, and maybe even Weeks leaving. I am only seen one poster here who I really disagreed with and that was because he said he'd trade any three prospects, which I wouldn't do. But if you have the chance to get one of the best pitchers in all of baseball for two years, you do it. You don't worry about whether or not he'll get injured. I'm not suggesting you overpay, but you make a reasonable offer, and you improve the team.

Yeah you're right. I forgot to include Milwaukee getting a prospect or two in addition.

OK, rethinking this a bit in light of the comment from Heyman. I wonder if Parra, Odorizzi, Green and a lower level pitcher would do it? Yeah I was thinking Parra would be an obvious choice. You could throw Jeffress in there too. Ugh....If there was some way to keep three out of Jeffress, Rogers, Rivas, and Odorizzi I'd do pretty much whatever it takes. I really liked what I saw from Rogers last season and I think once he builds up some arm strength he'll be a pretty reliable starter, a solid #3 at worst. If we could make this a three team deal with the Brewers getting Greinke, KC getting Parra, Jeffress and a prospect from the Fielder deal, and a third team getting Fielder, that would be ideal.

Not so sure why that is sad... (sad they failed?) No sad because we wasted second round draft picks on them.

Others have already pointed out that Prince and Weeks could both be gone by 2012 and Hart and McGehee are perennial question marks. I'm just curious by why is McGehee a perennial question mark? Because he isn't as young as most players with his experience level? Until his production actually drops off significantly, let's give the guy some credit. The other thing I don't get is why so many people have already given up on competing in 2011. Mostly because they have no faith in Melvin to acquire the pitching we would need to acquire in order to compete. If we swing a deal for Greinke I will immediately change my outlook for 2011 and strongly suggest they keep Fielder. When he walks, you use the two picks to help restock the farm system.

We are still building up our talent base to be consistently good. Isn't that how you thought of the team when Fielder, Weeks, Hart, Hardy, Gwynn, Gallardo, and Braun were all coming up? The farm system was rated as the best in all of baseball when those guys were coming up and what did it get us? One playoff appearance which was only because of a mid season trade and unhuman-like performance by Sabathia. You cannot win in baseball without pitching. We still don't really have any at the major league level, and the offense is about to drop off significantly with Fielder leaving. As much as I would love to hold on to Odorizzi, I don't think you can bank on him being a solid major leaguer quite yet. He's one injury from dropping completely off the prospect radar. If we can get Greinke without mortgaging the farm, which I don't think we'll have to do, we should go for it. I would make my offer something like this: Either Gamel and Odorizzi plus something or Lawrie and Jeffress plus something. I really like Rogers and don't want to give him up.

If that's what it takes to get Greinke, I'll pass. Lawrie and Gamel are everday players that are going to produce above average numbers and Odirizzi is a young stud that we can wait patiently for another year and a half. Just to clarify, he said Lawrie OR Gamel, not Lawrie AND Gamel. Also, I think Odorizzi is more like 2-3 years instead of a year and a half. If I could get Greinke for Gamel, Odorizzi, Green and an A Ball pitcher, I'd do it. But the Brewers would really have to hit in the next draft with two top 15 picks. If they trade for Greinke you'd have to believe they'd hang onto Fielder, meaning probably two more first round draft picks in 2012.

Kind of sad that two of the "toolsy" second round draft pick shortstops quit to play other sports after failing miserably at baseball. Give them credit though for having the guts to move on and do something that will (hopefully) make them happy.

I think in general the player for prospect trade favors the player. In this case, we're talking about one of the best pitchers in the game and we'd make a huge improvement in the rotation. That being said I'd only be willing to trade two of what I consider our top five prospects (Lawrie, Gamel, Odorizzi, Rogers, and Jeffress) plus a few others.

Is Scheppers projected to be a starter? I noticed he pitched mostly out of relief this past season. I'm not sure how interested I would be in receiving a reliever in return for Fielder. We have a few guys in house that can slide over to first base so I don't think it's really necessary to get a first basemen in return. I would trade him for the best major league ready pitcher or the two best pitching prospects you can get for him.

I read that Boston may still be hot after Adrian Gonzalez. With San Diego's success this past year, it's not out of the realm of possibilities that they may keep him one more year. If that's the case, would Boston be interested in Fielder? I'm not sure that Ortiz will be back and he could easily slip into the DH role.

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Are you willing to sell, or do you strictly want to trade?

Can someone explain to me how this tournament works? It seems to me like there is never a set number of teams in it because if you have a winning conference record you are in right? Also I heard on the news last night one of the sports guys say something like "Franklin might be the best team in the state but they are PROBABLY going to end up playing in Division Two". Why isn't it set in stone what division they play in? Isn't it based on enrollment?

Quotes like the one from Buster Olney really irritate me. It's unknown whether Milwaukee would have enough to satisfy KC's demands? Between Odorizzi, Gamel, Rogers, Jeffress, and Lawrie, we have plenty to meet their demands. It's just a matter of would we meet their demands.

Wow that is crazy. I'm glad that the district only put 500k towards it. I guess if people are willing to pay for it you can do whatever you want right? I went to Shorewood High School. Their football team is a national laughingstock. Yet they still paid all this money to redo the field and the bleachers..tax money And the kicker...the year it was done they didn't even have a varsity team. What a joke. Instead of disbanding their football team or using the money to start a youth football program in the community that will actually improve the talent of the kids coming in and get them interested in football, they did that. As far as the tourney goes, Homestead and Arrowhead have had a nice little rivalry the past few years. I wouldn't mind seeing them match up again at some point.

I'll admit I've really been going back and forth on this, but now I am back in the go for Greinke camp. He'd be here for two years, which is huge. I think the emergence of Mark Rogers is really what put me over the top. I am now more ok with trading Jeffress than I was a few months ago. And honestly if they resign Weeks you don't really need Lawrie. You have the opportunity in the next two years to restock the system with two first round picks this year plus possibly two and a comp the year after that. If Weeks walks they could have 5 picks before the second round depending of course on the CBA that Colby was talking about (it's weird but I've been calling for them to fix the draft for awhile and the year they could finally do it could really, really screw the Brewers over). Anyway, if I were Milwaukee, I'd offer something like this: KC can pick either Rogers, Jeffress, or Odorizzi KC can also pick either Gamel or Lawrie KC can pick one of the following lower ceiling prospects: Garfield, Gindl, Green, Bucci, Butler (basically insert your own names here). I just don't feel like you can give up both Rogers and Jeffress because then you are back down to not really having any home grown pitchers prospects near. I have been a big Rivas fan for a while, but I can't see him being that top of the rotation guy that I can see the other two being. Odorizzi is still probably at least two years away and will likely be breaking in right around the time Gallardo's contract is up. You still don't really know what you have with Peralta and Scarpetta, though both seem like they could be contributors. Anyway, if he accepts a trade to Milwaukee, I think they have to make a strong push to get him.

It's really irritating that the Cubs farm system is steadily improving, damn you Tim Wilken. Knowing the Cubs they'll probably get Greinke for 2 average minor leaguers that have been hyped up....similar to Bobby Hill and Hee Sop-Choi. They seem to make the best deals for established players.

I'd like to think that #3 and #4 type pitchers don't really cost $5-$10 million I meant actually $2.5-$5 each and then two cheaper players replacing two more expensive players, which would bring the total to $5-$10 million. I was thinking of the Loopers, the Suppans, the Dave Bush's when I made that statement. I think we all agree we'd have to deal at least one pitcher between Odorizzi, Jeffress and Rogers. Between the three of them I'd pick Jeffress. I was real high on him until I saw him pitch in Milwaukee. Whereas Rogers seemed to have a real smooth, easy delivery, Jeffress seemed to have a lot of movement in his that would make it harder to repeat. I'd guess Roger's control has a better chance of improving than Jeffress', but that's just a guess. So we start with Jeffress. Then we'd probably have to add either another one of those two or Lawrie. I'd prefer it to be Lawrie because we can resign Weeks and then we'd be mostly set at the positions Lawrie can play. Plus I think it's easier to draft and develop hitters than it is pitchers. So Jeffress and Lawrie. Since those are both advanced, high ceiling prospects, I think you can add a third, lower level, lower ceiling prospect....whether it be a pitcher or a hitter. I think we then keep Prince for a year, let him walk and take the two picks. That would hopefully get us two first round picks for the second straight year, plus a comp pick. That should be able to help ease whatever blow we take from trading for Greinke.

As mentioned, prospects are a crapshoot. One of those players will probably never really contribute to the major league roster. One will probably be an average relief pitcher. You hope[/i] that the other turns into a #2 pitcher. I don't know. I think two of them will contribute to the major league roster next season, at least one as a starter. I think by 2011 both will be with the team all year. Even if they only turn into #3 or #4 type pitchers, they can still have a positive affect on Milwaukee by not forcing Milwaukee to overspend on free agent pitching. Just being on the roster and in the rotation could conceivably save the Brewers $5-$10 million a deal, which could obviously be put elsewhere. The other, Odorizzi, is the Brewers top pitching prospect. Obviously his future is more up in the air because he'll only be in A+ ball. I think Rogers and Jeffress both have the ceiling of a #1 and I think Odorizzi has the ceiling of a #2. I'm not saying I wouldn't trade any of them, just that I wouldn't trade all of them. And let's not overpay for Greinke. I know he's a pitcher and I know he has one more year on his contract that Fielder does, but if all we can get for Fielder is a pitcher with #3 upside, I don't think it will take three #2/borderline #1starting pitching prospects to get Greinke. If I was KC and Milwaukee offered me Rogers, Jeffress and Odorizzi, I'd take it in a New York minute.

I've done a lot of weird things in my sleep. One time a few years ago I woke up by sitting straight up and gasping for air. I sat there for about three seconds then got out of bed because I thought i was going to throw up. But I only took about three steps then fell down to all fours and was just kind of kneeling there for a minute or two til I caught my breath. I have no idea what, if anything, I was dreaming up and I don't know why I was gasping for air, but it was kinda weird. Also, one time in college, I was sleeping in my dorm room with a loft. The loft was set to the highest level, so it was only about 2 1/2 to 3 feet off the ceiling. I woke up one day in the middle of the night on my back. My eyes were open, and I was looking directly at the ceiling. I was aware of the fact that there was a ceiling there. Then for some reason without even thinking, I sat straight up. This of course caused me to drill my head on the ceiling. That really woke me up. And after wards I thought, what the heck did I do that for?