paul253

Definitely like this move. Even though hes not Cy Young Candidate, it definitely improves the rotation. Suppan gets bumped to the bullpen. Hopefully Narveson can stick around one way or the other. I imagine Suppan gets the first start when an injury sets in, but the depth is better than last season too (Chase Wright and Nic Green!). The team is pretty much set now except probably the 5th outfielder spot.

It was interesting that they started with the "Events happen in real time" statement again. Wonder how long that will stick around before they drop it again. IIRC they say it at the first episode of every season and then drop it. I thought it was ok. It always takes a few episodes to set up the characters and the plots. I'm sure the last few will be really good seeing how they can actually kill Jack if they want to, which they never could before.

Look past ERA.... look at the peripherals, look at the age, why would we want any of those pitchers on a multi year with those peripherals? The only problem is you also have to look at the alternative to not signing anyone, which at this point is probably Suppan, although I suppose Narveson could get a shot.

To put the Hardy trade into context, it would have been like trading for a young C with Salome at AAA and Lucroy in AA. I'm no Gomez fan, but this isn't exactly accurate. By 2 center fielders, I assume you're talking about Schaefer and Cain. First off, they will both start in Hunstville, so it may be two more years until they are even major league ready. Neither is as close as either Lucroy or Salmoe is. Second, Lorenzo Cain is just as valuable as a right fielder as he is a center fielder and can easily be moved. Plus, one could be used in a trade. As far as Fielder is concerned I have no doubt that Melvin will ride him out into FA, offer a contract that some large market will add 60 more million to and 2 or 3 more years and the Crew will take the draft picks, just like Sabathia. I doubt Melvin will settle for draft picks unless the Brewers take such a step forward this year that the playoffs in 2011 are expected. I will be furious if Melvin settles for draft picks. This team will be better off with 2 or 3 very high ceiling prospects under control for years than one last season with Prince.

Basically, draft well Thats what I was thinking. Next years draft is going to be huge. They don't have any extra picks so they have to hit the jackpot with their first one and draft well overall in the first 5 rounds. I'd like to see a shortstop or first basemen with nice power potential (a lot like LaPorta) taken next season. The first wave of players (Weeks, Hart, Hardy, Fielder, and Braun) have had their run and the second wave (Lawrie, Gamel, Escobar, Cain, Schafer, Lucroy) need to come in and fill their shoes. We need to develope a wave after that in order to continue being successful.

If I were Milwaukee, I'd work on signing Gallardo first. As bad as we need Fielder, I think Gallardo is more important. Plus then you can kind of gauge how much money you'll have available to throw at Fielder. Also this years development of Josh Butler and Mike Jones is really important. If one of them can hold down a rotation spot in 2011 it would be very beneficial and would allow us to save a lot of money from Bush. You'd have 4/5 of your rotation set in Gallardo, Parra (most likely), Wolf, and Butler/Jones with another wave of guys (Rivas, Anundsen, Arnett, Scarpetta, Rogers) not that far behind. As Nate mentioned, Hart can be replaced for cheap. Weeks can be replaced for cheap. Catcher and Centerfield will still be cheap. Third base will possibly be cheap with either McGehee or Gamel. Shortstop will still be cheap. Really the only position players who would be making a ton of money would be Braun and Fielder if you resign him. I would make Prince a legitimate offer, maybe even go over market value, to keep him. Braun and Fielder in the lineup for 4 or 5 more years would be this decades verrsion of Yount/Molitor.

I've found them in plenty of restaurants but I was looking to have some I could make at home.

Last I heard Badgers were up 2-0 in the first. So far so good

Does anyone know where I can buy frozen cheese curds in the Milwaukee area (preferably the north or west side)? I've looked at Sam's, Costco, Pick N Save...nothing. I'm looking for something in like a 2 or 3 pound bag of them. Any ideas?

Jeff Suppan should pitch as much as Elmer Dessens did a few years. Only in games where we are up by a ton or down by a ton.

I would certainly assume, or at least hope, the Fielder will be either resigned or traded. I realize we won't get "fair value" in a trade for him, but we'll get a heck of a lot more than we would by letting him walk and taking compensation picks. Even trading him at the deadline isn't going to bring in as much. As good as he is, I just hate the idea of not getting 2-3 top prospects whom we'd control for years and years unless there's a real good chance he'll lead us to the series. As far as the salary goes, its nice to see a lot of these bad contracts starting to come off the books. Suppan has been killing us for years, as has Halls and Riske's has seemed that way because he can't stay healthy.

I still think the crew will make another play for John Maine once the Mets add Pinero I don't see the fascination for John Maine. His numbers just scream pedestrian. The only pitcher I'd substitute him for is Suppan, and that's just certainly not saying much.

I'd love to get them both. I am wondering though. I've been hearing for weeks now that Mulder is a foregone conclusion to come to Milwaukee, but if that's true why hasn't he signed yet? And is there a chance another team could come in with a better offer if he is indeed pitching that well? Personally, I'd make a run at both of them. If Mulder signs a minor league deal, there's really no risk. And Bedard is certainly a better option than Suppan, assuming he can actually pitch.

I don't think that's an insignificant improvement. Just imagine that plus a step forward from Manny Parra.

It'll be great for baseball if Minnesota can sign him long term. I really hope they get it done.

Don't go posting stuff like that over in the Bucks thread. They get really upset. Haha...too funny

Another weekend, another lack of tv coverage for Badger Hockey. But hey, at least we get to watch the Bucks get their butts kicked again both Friday and Saturday. Seriously, the NBA needs to just go away.

I am very excited about Cody Scarpetta. I hope the Brewers push him this year as opposed to the one level a year that most prospects see. Obviously his performance will dictate this, but I don't like seeing someone held back if they have dominated at least half a season.

Isn't 2011 a little bit of a rosy outlook for Rogers? He pitched 2 innings at a time in A+ this past year. I am sure he'll pick it up some in Huntsville next year, and I know he is running out of options, but I cant possibly see him in Milwaukee before 2012.

I would rather see Heether and Irabarren on the roster than having Melvin throw money at a free agent, especially since we're not even sure he has money to go out and get another starter. I think both would be servicable enough to hold down a spot. It's not like either of them are top tier prospects anymore so I am not as concerned about them sitting on the bench as I would be with Gamel or Lucroy. Especially when you can option one of them (Heether) who could play everday in Nashville and be called up in a moment's notice without any effect on the 40 man. I was under the impression he was out of options and would have to pass through waivers to go back to Nashville?

You are stating concern over the Brewers 'calling it a day'. I am not at this point. My concern is based on seemingly repeated comments by him that make it seem as though he has no money left to spend. I do think that he'll make another move or two, but nothing all that significant. Trading Hart for anything of value seems like a pipe dream. John Maine's name was thrown around earlier, a guy with a career ERA of 4.22, so if that's the type of player we can expect in return I am not all that excited. I am still hopeful he'll sign a starter, but the more or more free agents that sign the fewer and fewer options he has. I guess we'll have to see.

I think Melvin made a nice first step in getting Wolf. It's not easy to get players of his caliber without having to trade away parts and/or prospects. I don't think he's done, so I really don't see the point in evaluating the team in January just so we can complain. I agree you on the point about getting Wolf. I think it was a great move. I also agree you can't evaluate a team in January, but there are several reasons I did bring this up now. For one, they already used their main trading piece in JJ Hardy, so a big trade is probably unlikely. Second, Melvin has made it sound as though he basically has little to no money left to spend, so another big free agent signing is unlikely too. I would certainly expect, though, that money can be found for another starting pitcher like Garland or Davis. Third, the pitching staff last season was absolutely awful, and I can't understand why he thinks keeping four of the same five starters is going to lead to any sort of drastic improvement. While it's true Gallardo and Parra are young and certainly have a chance to improve, look what happened when he expected too much of Parra last year. You can't base your entire off season on assumptions that certain players will improve, which seems to be what he did last season. I feel as though he is making the same mistake he made last year. Right, except that the stats you dismiss are what leads to wins & losses. Things like Looper getting a boatload of run support are not related to his own performance... but I know you're actually aware of that even though you continue to act like it's irrelevant. I am not dismissing any stats. I am just looking at results. I am not comparing Looper to Wolf. I am comparing Loopers results to Wolfs results. Thats why I said that as bad as Looper pitched, the team was still 6 games over .500 when he started. That's also why I said replacing his results with whatever Wolf would have had would still more than likely not have led to a playoff birth last year. It seems like you are dismissing last years results (wins) in favor of statistics. So while I absolutely agree Wolf is an upgrade over Looper, I just don't think it's enough of an upgrade to call it a day. A 4 or 5 game improvement over last year is good, but it probably isn't good enough. This is not how it works. You gain wins by improving individual player performance, and that's exactly what bringing in Randy Wolf does. Again, couldn't agree more. But you have to improve more than just that one spot, which was my point from the very beginning. You need an improvement to Suppan too, at the very least. Garland, Davis, Sheets, Washburn will all more than likely be better than Suppan was. So go sign one of them!

This was a bad argument when you brought it up a while ago, and it's even worse imo now that you're trying repeating it. Nevermind the extra stress Looper's crappy pitching put on the bullpen, right? Why is it a bad argument? Because you don't like it? I am simply responding to the point that someone made that had we had Randy Wolf last season instead of Braden Looper we would have been close/closer to making the playoffs. You can look at stat after stat after stat, but the bottom line is wins and losses. The Brewers won more games than they lost with Looper, and they still finished 11 games behind St. Louis. Replacing Looper with Wolf would not have gotten us to the playoffs, and if you think it would have you are insane. If you think that if we had a pitcher that would have pitched an extra inning here and there and "saved" the bullpen that it would made an 11 game difference, you are again insane. Last season in the same number of starts Wolf pitched about 20 innings more than Looper. That equates to about once every five games the bullpen would have been spared about 2/3 of an inning. Would if have helped? Sure it would have helped. Would it have been the difference between playoffs and no playoffs? Of course not. So since my arument is so terrible, do you believe that we would have made the postseason with Wolf instead of Looper? If not then I don't undestand exactly what your problem is. Probably would have been almost 4 wins if we had Wolf instead of Looper last year. 123 runs vs 81 runs in similar innings. We should probably replace Gallardo though. We were only 16-14 when he pitched. He kind of sucked, right? No offense but why don't you at least try to understand what I am saying? I am not arguing Looper is a good picher and I am not saying Wolf is bad. And despite your lovely comparison I am not suggesting that the team record of a pitcher indicates how good of a pitcher he is. Again, I was responding to a specific point using specific names and numbers. The Wolf signing was a good move, but all I am saying is Melvin needs to do more. You are not going to win 11 extra games replacing Looper with Wolf. So we may win 4 more....great. Now go and replace Suppan with someone who is capable of getting us 5 additional wins...now we are getting somewhere. Toolive I am curious, do you think Melvin has done enough so far to address the pitching staff? Are you satisfied that signing Randy Wolf, letting Looper walk and keeping everything else the same(as far as the rotation goes) is going to make that much of a difference?

Actually if we had Wolf instead of Looper last season, we would have been much closer to making the playoffs. I'm not sure about that. As bad as Looper pitched, the Brewers still went 20-14 in games he started. They finished 11 games behind the division winner and 12 behind the wild card winner. If we had simply replaced him with Wolf, and everything else played out the way it did, the Brewers would have had to go like 31-3 in games he started in order to make up the 11 game difference. I realize it's not that simple but you get my point. Simply replacing Looper with Wolf would not have gotten us to the playoffs last season and I highly doubt it will next season. The Brewers, unless they have something else in mind, aren't even replacing their worst starting pitcher from last year.

My assumption is at some point next season you'll see Josh Butler, Mike Jones, and possibly Zach Braddock pitch in Milwaukee. As for the rest, I can't really see anyone making a significant impact before the 2012 season.