OnTheBlack

There is no cogent argument that could be made for this. Best relief pitcher....and I'd argue that I don't really care about best as much as valuable and Hader's not as valuable this year as he was last year. Still, unless we can actually get what some people are proposing...and I really doubt we can, we might as well hold onto him for another year or two and see where we're at then.

I think the BEST we could reasonably hope for is that he becomes as good as Buehler. I don't know how he'd surpass him unless Buehler regresses. Also, as pointed out, Buehler is younger. So why wouldn't HE continue to improve? Buehler's stuff is better. Probably the best in the game. Woodruff's great, but you get way to eager to anoint guys aces or place them over others. I mean...we had 4 aces right now and Rassmussen was gonna be one next year. Have you EVER actually seen a team with 4 aces, much less 5? Just enjoy Woody throwing the ball well.

I don't think Stearns is looking at guys who have good splits vs NLC teams. That's not a great way to build a team. You're going to have either a limited group of candidates with decent sample sizes or you're going to have small sample sizes you're going off of. As for the question, I have no clue what they need. I'd give it another 2 weeks because as of right now this whole team looks bad. Though that happens when a team is struggling.

The Cubs are paying Kimbrel to come in and blow hitters away, not give up soft contact. Even in his one save, he allowed a two out ringing double and a walk, before getting Freddie Freeman on a hard hit ground ball. I'm pretty sure teams are usually happy with both. Even Kimbrel at his best didn't blow everyone away. If that was a Hader game, we'd be talking about how that wasn't on him at all. And if Hader had only thrown a few innings all year, we'd type out Relax in all caps.

It seems like both this year and last he's hit the ball better than his stats reflect. Haven't looked into it this year, but last year he definitely hit into poor luck. That said, I could see him wanting to come back to finish his career with the Brewers. The Dodgers will have no need for him, the Angles may not have use for him(especially if they're gonna use Ohtani at DH). So not a lot of options to "go home" so to speak. So maybe he sticks around to finish off his career with the same team. At probably 35 pct of his current salary.

EDIT: chandler, dudley and kornet was signed but the nets, lakers and bulls respectively. In theory, the bucks have 3 spots to fill.Ideally i'd love to see a veteran big and guard. Its too bad they had to release Wood to make room for Gasol. of the summer league guys, Fletcher Magee intrigues me most as an undersized shooter to come off the bench. Id sign Vince Carter to come off the bench and maybe Markieff Morris, if they want to come in for low money deals to go for a ring. (reviewing bigs still around is pretty ugly, I know Morris isn't much but he is the best I could come up). You have to think that the Sixers are gonna re-sign TJ McConnell, wouldn't you? Of that group, he'd be the ideal guy to add to the Bucks IMO. It's just the Sixers have Bird rights and it would seem so stupid for them to let him go after paying Embid, Horford and Simmons monster deals. Not to mention Harris. But they need a PG. Trey Burke would be a nice option as well, but I think we're pretty covered with Bled and Hill at PG. Ideally, McConnell would come in more of a Brogdon type role and play off the ball and use him more for his catch and shoot ability. But I'm with you on Morris. I think I mentioned him earlier, but while Marcus Morris would certainly be preferable(and worth using part of the TPE on if a sign and trade could be worked out), Markieff Morris would at least provide some help for when we have to match up with Philly and Toronto in the playoffs. A versatile 6'10 PF who can shoot, but also defend Horford/Gasol on the perimeter. It'd be great to sign McConnell, figure out a way to pick up one of the two Morris brothers as well, but our roster is getting pretty deep. And in addition to Fletcher Magee they also signed Luke Maye as an UDFA. Maye shot 43 pct fro 3 as a 6'8 240 pound PF who could also stick. Overall though, I think our roster is just fine as of right now. I think pretty much any of the guys you suggested would be good fits, and if we can sign another guy now to a veteran's minimum, that'd be great, but there will be plenty of chances to pick up guys of this caliber during the season. Via trade, buyouts, etc...etc... I'll be really interested to see if the Bucks do in fact use that TPE if they look like they're just one player away and a significant upgrade becomes available. Their moves can be justified up until now, but if they pass on a really good player they COULD pick up by coupling Ersan and a 1st with the TPE they have and don't, we'll know what they're prioritizing. Edit-Just saw McConnell signed with the Pacers. Also interesting, the Grizz are shopping Iguodala, but may buy him out if they don't get what they want. Now I sure as hell wouldn't want them to spend 17 million on him, but he's the type of guy who could really give our defense a big boost if he ends up getting bought out. Help out against those bigger lineup's. Of course the rumors are he'll end up with the Lakers if bought out, but isn't everyone going to LA or the Knicks?

I'm not certain what this is meant to suggest, but with those minutes, Brogdon was a much better player than Matthews this past year. Wes is great. He's not nearly as good of a fit as Brogdon was...but as long as we can keep Matthews numbers down, we'll be good. What it means is that Wes Matthews played more minutes than Brogdon each of the last three years. This is likely due to availability (a.k.a., injuries to Brogdon), but that's the point - Matthews has been available more. What might be implied is that, why spend $20M/year on Brogdon when you can spend a fraction of that on Matthews and Matthews has been available more than Brogdon. I was curious if it was just that straight forward. Just comparing minutes doesn't really tell you much. Matthews had a -2.3 +/- last year while Brogdon was a +11.3 while on the court. So while I'm a fan of signing Wes Matthews and bringing him back to Milwaukee, it feels like whenever we(or anyone) loses a guy people always look for reasons to argue that it's not that bad. Brogdon vs Matthews is not really that close. I think the really difficult call on the part of the Bucks was they probably needed another year to see how Brogdon could hold up. Up to this point, he played 75 games as a rookie, he had a partially torn quad his second year limiting him to 48 games and then this past year he played 64 games and had a soft tissue injury in his foot. So 2 of the 3 years he's been banged up, but was healthy as a rookie and played in 136 games in college(though he did have a dangerous injury in 2012 that forced him to redshirt). So I get the Bucks hesitation. I just don't see much value in pointing out that Wesley Matthews played more minutes, almost exclusively for a really bad Mavericks team. There's also the fact that Matthews is clearly declining while Brogdon has gotten better each year and just listing their total minutes played means very-very little to me.

There's a reason you usually saw Korver on LeBron teams. Or at least it seems like he was always on LeBron's team or they were trying to add him. He's the perfect type of player to have on your bench.

The bucks only have so much cap room, so I think it is unfair to say this. Matthews did take less money than I think he could have gotten elsewhere to come here. After bucks resigned their guys they only have enough money to some vet minimum deals to round out the roster. I think Robin Lopez falls into this category as well. I wonder, too, if Pau Gasol is still under consideration and even interested in continuing his career? He'd be a nice big to have for limited minutes if healthy. He's definitely interested in coming back according to him and you'd have to think that the Bucks would be a great fit. He's old(obviously) but if you can really limit the minutes, he's another guy who can come in and help in the big moments. I don't think he really fixes the problems we have finding someone who can defend bigs like Horford and brother Marc, but he's a guy who could be really helpful in the half court.

Unless you're talking about Astrols level tanking, and even then it's hit or miss(Brady Aiken) it's amazing to go back and look at past drafts to see just many guys actually pan out. It's like that in every draft, but at least in the NFL and NBA, you're likely to get role players. In MLB, so many guys end up as complete misses. It seems like a good draft produces 3 really good players. A Kershaw, Scherzer, Longoria type draft. A great draft like the Braun draft produces 7-9 in the first 50 picks. But as others have said, the last few drafts are a lot more encouraging. Keston and Turang look like really good first round picks(and so does Grisham this year). But the college arms we've picked in the 2nd an 3rd rounds have been especially encouraging.

I'm not certain what this is meant to suggest, but with those minutes, Brogdon was a much better player than Matthews this past year. Wes is great. He's not nearly as good of a fit as Brogdon was...but as long as we can keep Matthews numbers down, we'll be good.

I agree 100 pct. Keep his MPG under 20 and while we're at it, sit him 10-16 games this year. Some of these moves are playoff driven. Try to build the best team to win a title. Someone said he could slide into the hole that Brogdon leaves and he can help do that, but he's not the same defensive player he was when he was younger and he's not as explosive, but he can help do that. Overall, I think we've done just about enough to protect ourselves from dropping off from the loss of Brogdon.

Every time you check Appleton's box score you see Turang doing something. 1 for 2 with his 21st stolen base tonight. 2-2 with 2 BB's last night and a HR. I see what Grisham is doing and it's awesome...but a guy who can play SS/2B, can fly, takes a ton of walks, hits for a good average. Good battle going for top prospect with Keston graduating, Ray banged up and Brown struggling.

The Angels seems to particularly unlucky. Lyman Bostock was a long time ago, but a tragic death, a 22 year old young phenom and a 27 year old just during the Trout years. It's sad if you're doing something stupid and something happens, but it's all that much more tragic when you're not doing anything wrong and tragedy hits.

This is what I always go to. I was playing some tennis this past year and collapsed. Never had any health issues that I'd known of. I'd always get these periods where my heart would be really fast for 30 seconds or so and I'd ask people if they had the same and almost everyone said they did. Well, it turns out mine was worse. I'd played sports my whole life. Had physicals for HS and College sports and it was never detected. I was lucky, I take a pill now and I'm fine. But I hear about guys who aren't so lucky and it's just heart breaking. 27, great life, just married. It's just crazy how these things can happen. Of course this could have been anything, he could have gotten hit with a ground ball, developed a blood clot. Whatever it was, it's pretty devastating.

I want to see the Bucks sign Jabari Parker. How great would it be for no other team to offer him a deal other than the Bucks and then he's forced to return to Milwaukee for the vets minimum. As for Kaminsky vs Robin Lopez, I'd probably rather we signed Kaminsky. He's got room to get better and there isn't a huge difference between them. If something were to happen to Brook Lopez, Robin can step in and take his place defensively and he's probably a little bit better of a scorer in the paint. I think they'd have been better off not using the room MLE on either one and instead held out to see if we could maybe get a more versatile player. Marcus Morris was pretty unlikely, but Markieff might have been an option. A bit who can defend guys like Gasol and Horford a bit better on the perimeter.

Agreed. If you're going to overpay Middleton, Lopez(both of them really IMO) and Hill, you might as well overpay the 26 year old Brogdon as well. And I don't really get the Robin Lopez signing. That uses your MLE when you could have signed another shooter. The UDFA from Worford isn't going to get it done. Just when it was playing out like I'd hoped it would, they used their cap room to sign Lopez, to sign Hill, they gave Middleton the Max(close enough)....and they were right there. Right on the verge of adding that final piece to get them back and hopefully over the hump in the East. I don't blame them for not taking a bigger swing as I just don't think we're signing FA's in Milwaukee over the places where the upper echelon FA's actually signed. Forbes went over the best and worst case scenario's for each NBA team. I only looked at a few, but they were amazingly close on several. The Heat getting Jimmy Butler, the Nets getting KD and Kyrie, the Pacers getting Brogdon, the Bucks doing most of what they did... https://www.forbes.com/sites/briansampson/2019/06/25/milwaukee-bucks-nba-free-agency-khris-middleton/#4bd2d45213d4 Pretty dang close.

Lots of people. And Yelich will be fine. He was never going to keep hitting .350 and be on pace for 90 HR's. He's struggling now, so people will attribute any struggles he has to the HR derby. He'll be fine. I worried more about Prince or if Moose were to do it.

15th ace, amirite? Plus...we're going to trade and sign another 3 or 4. So we're going to have to be shuffling aces from the big to the minors next year!

Highest paid player in the league is 4.6 million. Mirotic turned down 3/45. So Mirotic would have to be by far the highest paid player to even make it half. That's a lot of money to give up to go home. Dude's in his 20's. If you have a chance to set yourself up for life at that point, I'd say you gotta take it. But who knows what else is going on in his life. Mirotic has made 45 million in his 5 year nba career. I think he could be set for life already if has even a semblance of a clue of how to handle money. Sure, but with taxes and and fees you're probably looking at half that, and you'd still be absolutely right that you should be able to make that last, but still, you're giving up quite a bit of security. It's also not like he's retiring. He's just taking a pay cut. He should still be bringing in millions.

Thanks for the correct info, hoping Bauer and Cole have matured since college. Ha You're going to be very disappointed. Bauer has not. I'm guessing the problem was always Bauer more than Cole...Bauer's a clown.

Highest paid player in the league is 4.6 million. Mirotic turned down 3/45. So Mirotic would have to be by far the highest paid player to even make it half. That's a lot of money to give up to go home. Dude's in his 20's. If you have a chance to set yourself up for life at that point, I'd say you gotta take it. But who knows what else is going on in his life.

He turned down 3/45 from the Jazz to go back home. I guess it was never real likely he'd have come back. With all the teams who cleared cap room, are teams gonna be making stupid deals this year? I know it won't be like a few years ago when the cap exploded, but I don't see Mirotic as being "the guy" the Jazz go after to push them over the top at 3/45. I'm guessing the Jazz will be in on Brogdon now though. That was one of his rumored destinations to begin with...though with Conley and Mitchell that doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me. If we lose Brogdon and assuming these guys are vet minimum salary types Nik Stauskas could be a guy we could add, Austin Rivers, but we'd really have to hope that DDV is a guy that can knock down some 3's and play some defense.

Right. That's why I was advocating you free up the cap space to sign the guys who you don't have bird rights to OR try to sign someone else. Patrick Beverly has hit 40 pct of his last 1000 three-pointers. He was harassing the hell outta Kevin Durant on the block and up in Steph's face on the perimeter. He's probably the best defensive PG in the NBA and he can shoot it. So hypothetically, you sign him for ~3/21, you use the rest on Lopez, maybe Morris is willing to sign for the MLE then(NOT using salary cap space as you'd then be at the cap, which I believe is what Ontheblack was saying, but I could be wrong). I don't think that's what we'll actually do. I could see Collison signing. But I don't think we're going to clear any cap space to sign anyone other than Lopez. I think they'll be able to find a veteran PG later on(or use the MLE on Hill, he did say he was more concerned with winning than money when asked). It's been reported Beverly is looking for 3/40, so that 3/21 is not even close to what it will take. According to ESPN's estimates for players Beverly is in the 10-12 million per year range. So 3/40 is a lot closer than 3/21. Middleton the Max. Brogdon 18-20 million a year. Mirotic would have been 10-12 million a year. Lopez is also at the 10-12 million a year. Hill is at 4-6 million These are all just projections, but it's feeling like this is gonna be another year where guys are really getting overpaid..at least the younger guys. AND it also feels like the Bucks players are going to be move valued because of their big season. Lopez was just as good last year. Now he's in that much more demand? And I like Brogdon a lot and hope he comes back, but if the Bucks really have this figure in their mind that they won't cross, I think he might be gone. And I think he'd be making a mistake unless there is a big difference. He's a good, not great defender. He's big and long for a guard, so he can defend multiple positions, but he's not a lock down defender. His biggest strength is as 3 point shooter. Not many teams will afford him the number of chances that the Bucks with Giannis will. IF that number on Hill is accurate, that should be a no-brainer. But if you're paying Middleton, Brogdon and Lopez a combined ~60-65 million next year, that could be a problem. And I'd imagine we'd be looking to give Ersan away which I don't think is a good idea. He's another vet who helped calm us down in the playoffs.

I'm 100 pct with ya, but this is where I think the values you come up with that may normally be closer to the mark will be skewed. The Giants trading the face of their franchise, the guy who they believe willed them to their last WS title and contributed to two others, I'm not sure they trade him, and if they do, I think they want back our farm and a few kidney's. But if I'm wrong, yeah, he fits the bill. What do you think about taking a page from the Rays and taking a step back, cutting the payroll, adding to the farm instead of stripping it and reloading for a shot next year while putting guys like Burnes and Peralta in the rotation this year so we can actually see what they can do? Add to the farm instead of stripping it and then go for it the next 2-3 years.