OnTheBlack

Tampa Bay was a very good team in a great league last year. A league in which 97 wins was only good for the 2nd WC spot and 90 wins left them 18 back in the division. They traded their best pitcher(Archer) and got a massive haul in return. I have been against doing the same with Hader, but I think it's something we should start to consider. I don't want to give up Turang, Hiura, Burnes. I'd trade Grisham, but that's is out of ignorance as I know little about him beyond what you can read on the back of his card and on scouting reports. My ideal way forward would be to try and move Moose, Grandal, Anderson, Thames, save some money this year, try to acquire a couple big league ready(or close to) players for the next 2-3 years(the Yelich window) and then go out and spend money next year in a loaded FA market to get a guy like Cole, and then spend to get Will Smith. I'd guess that'd be 6/160 and 2/12. I'm not a "Brewers can spend 180 because they only spent 70 this year" type guy, but they have money coming off the books with Braun and the players I mentioned and they can afford to spend on a pitcher when they have so many young, talented pitchers. Cole and Woodruff give you a 1-2 punch and I believe you throw Burnes in there and you WILL have a great 1-3 with a plethora of 4/5 options and you have a lot of BP options. Hader is great, but we get back Knebel, Wahl and we have a lot of arms coming up this year and in a years time, who knows how many more may be here? Rasmussen? Even Snell could be a left handed weapon late in the year for us(that's very optimistic, but my point is we have a ton of arms and should be able to find 7-10 good arms in the org and if you sign someone like Smith to pair with Knebel, Jeffress, Wahl, that's potentially a very good BP). I am sure many will disagree and if the price gets too outrageous, I wouldn't give up any flexibility for the next few years to sign him. But if not him, I wouldn't touch Strausburg with a 10 foot pole given what he'll likely command(though his stuff, even with his velocity now in "just" the mid 90's is ridiculous). And while there are several other good vets, they don't fit the mold that we need. That's the most likely path to a true contender in MY opinion. I'm sure many will disagree.

So you take the guy who's been the worst and you make SURE that he never pitches in low leverage situations? Why? I'd think you give him a few outings in lower leverage situations and hope that he can figure it out and start hitting his spots. Unfortunately or fortunately, some pitchers are just better the more stressful the situation and conversely subconsciously “let down”in low leverage situations. Some elite closers are like that. I’m convinced he’s that way. There aren't "low leverage" situations when you're fighting to stay in the major leagues. That's just not how athletes function. Could that be applicable to maybe Craig Kimbrel who hasn't pitched in 5 days and needs to just get some work? Or with someone like...Aroldish Chapman? Maybe. No way that happens with a guy frankly doesn't deserve to be in the big leagues this year based on what he's done. If he can't get himself up for ANY situation, then he just doesn't have what it takes to be a big leaguer. So...I really hope you're wrong on that end. When a guy with an 8.85 ERA comes into a game after being called up, he'd BETTER be ready to go no matter what, not just in games with a one run lead.

I don't think I ever heard Roache referred to as 'toolsy'. Dude had power - nothing more. Coulter wasn't much different - although he did have a strong arm. Well....let me say it then. Coulter was very toolsy. I don't think Roache was, but Coulter was a very-very good athlete. I was a big fan and very disappointed that he couldn't stick behind the plate. I think he could have stuck behind the plate and then his bat would have looked much better. But, that horse has been put down and I kicked it several times now. Coulter was a decent hitter last year, but NOT as someone who played any of the corner positions.

You're welcome. I like how I say Dubon looks like a utility guy - and then he goes and pops 2 HR and raises his OPS by 40-50 points. Does that mean if you say Grisham profiles as a AAAA guy, he'll turn into Hank Aaron? Uhh....wow. I guess it actually does!

Harrison was a consensus top 75 prospect at that point, #48 IIRC on Baseball America. Grisham is 2 years old...but Harrison was at low A and then HiA. So that makes up for the age. Harrison hit for a higher average but lower OBP. I'd like to see Grisham with a higher BA, but power and walks work fine for me. So does he get the same level of respect as a guy who was 6'3 and a recruit to NeBraska as a WR'er? Does he get more as he's more productive at a higher level....at least up until now? I suppose that's really not that important, but when you see a guy built like a...well, an NFL LB'er, it's probably a bit easier to envision his success. Speaking of which, Monte is having a big year down in AAA for the Marlins farm club.

Regarding Brogdon, from ESPN; The "toxic" offer sheet seems a bit like the poison pill from the NFL like when the Seahawks had Walter Jones, a HOF LF and Steve Hutchinson a HOF LG and the Vikings signed Hutchinson to a monster deal, but it said that he would be the highest paid player on the OL for the duration of his contract....and that was obviously not going to happen in Seattle where you had at least as good of a player playing a much-much more valuable position. You'd think leagues would have eliminated these ways of working around the intent of the rules. BUT, a contract in which Brogdon makes the most this year and then makes less in future years could be beneficial to the Bucks, couldn't it? The Bucks cap situation isn't going to improve much. The Cap will go up, but Middleton will likely earn more yearly, we'll have young guys we need to retain and obviously the biggest, we'll have Giannis set to make the SuperMax. Plus, if Brogdon makes...for arguments sake 20 this year and 15 in the final year, he's that much more valuable an asset. I've also seen a report in which the Bucks have a "max out" number on Brogdon and teams may exceed that as it's possible teams are willing to pay him 20 million a year. I don't like the idea of the Bucks waiting on Brogdon. Make a good offer right out of the gate. I don't like the idea of teams going out and bidding on Brogdon. Make him an offer, a fair offer so he knows he's wanted. Give him 4/55 or 4/60 and hopefully that gets it done. Also in the article it says that there are multiple teams lining up to offer Horford the 4 year 100 million dollar deal he is seeking. I'm a little surprised he'd have that much interest or that Philly may be one of the teams interested when they've already got Simmons and Embid and it's require them to let Harris or Butler walk. That'd be a bigger problem IMO than the Raptors running it back with Kawhi. I was really hoping we'd play Philly as I thought we could exploit their lack of depth and Embid's poor conditioning, but if you throw Horford in the mix and then they presumably keep Reddick, McConnell and Butler for the sake of argument, that team would give Giannis a lot of trouble.

We are waiving you to sign And That to a mid level exception. But which MLE are you signing him to? Ok, I'm sorry. I really do just want to talk BB, but some times it's down a rabbit hole and I can be guilty of keeping a petty argument going.

Yes, he’s in my top 3: 1.) Hiura 2.) Rasmussen 3.) Grisham 4.) Turang 5.) Dubon Turang is not the 4th best prospect in this organization. I'll give you Keston, but he's a better prospect than anyone else. In fact I think there's a very good chance he becomes the best player currently in the organization. Rasmussen has been a great story. No way he's passed up a 5 tool SS prospect who's producing. And I need to see more than a few months of Grisham's production before I'd give him the nod as well.

Wow, why is it so hard for you to understand that you can't do this? You realize your continued insistence on this undermines all your other arguments about the financial situation, right? Use cap space, get the room MLE. Period. The owners are being cheap, just as I feared. See, no matter what, you were right. Had they kept him, you'd have been right as well. No, they're NOT being cheap. They're just not being over the top stupid which is something YOU don't seem to be able to comprehend. Now...lets see all those teams who are lining up to pick him up off waivers. There's a "good" chance of that, right? Pretty sure there is almost zero chance of that just as there was zero chance that he was ever going to do anything but waive him. That was the reason they made that trade in the first place. Try just mouthing the words "I was wrong" before you actually say them. I know it'll be hard for you...maybe even impossible, but you really should try it.

For what? Who's "buying" Shaw now? You're taking a guy who's been a stud, but through 81 games has been beyond awful. This is the absolute definition of selling low. Never know what other GMs think of a player. Some may see through the 81 game struggle especially if he starts hitting in AAA. Yeah, I'd sure take a chance on him bouncing back if I was a bad team. But the return is gonna be peanuts. I'd rather we hold onto Shaw and simply hope that he figures it out and goes back to being our 3B of the future(The near future). Or if he gets going again at the big league level, then trade him.

For what? Who's "buying" Shaw now? You're taking a guy who's been a stud, but through 81 games has been beyond awful. This is the absolute definition of selling low.

You want to give up on the entire season for 4 guys who aren't even out of A ball? Losing Hader leaves CC with zero closing options and losing Grandal severly limits an already shakey offense. Honeywell isn't even going to start pitching again until sometime next year! I doubt the Rays clean out the farm for a reliever and a rental anyways. I would because the value we receive far exceeds what we're giving up. Not that I think the Rays would entertain that deal for even a second. No, when do any of the realistic trades work out with the Rays? They ask for the moon and occasionally get it(Archer trade). That'd probably be the worst organization to deal with. I make that deal and even throw in something else as well. I don't believe we should sell now, but if the opportunity ever comes up to add elite level propsects for guys who aren't going to be here long term, I'd do that in any year other than the ones we're clearly one of the most talented teams in the league..and that's not this year. The best we can hope this year is that we hang around, and get hot like we did last year. I enjoy the later just fine, but to actually win a WS, to beat what the Astros are throwing out there or the Yankees and Sox are usually throwing out, we're going to need better starting pitching.

Yeah, but you didn't think all those things would happen. That Peralta, Burnes, Chacin would all be bad, Nelson after a year and a half would look as bad as he has and on top of that, you lost a dominant BP arm and another potentially dominant BP arm. Davies pitching well until recently and Woodruff have been huge keeping our heads above water. We're getting to the point that if we can't get the starting pitching to improve, DS's picking up another still won't be enough.

Yeah, I'm not sure that even if Schoop had performed like he has this year that he wouldn't have gotten non-tendered. We'd still be looking at a guy who's OBP is ~.300. Moose has been amazing for us this year. He's having a career year at 30. I actually thought he was a couple years older as well. I wasn't a huge fan of that signing at the time, but we'd be in big trouble without it.

It's not just FB command. Burnes can't throw his "stuff" for strikes when he needs it. He gets behind in the count and has to come in with a FB that catches too much of the plate and the Brewer OFs watch another ball sail out of the park. He has shown the same thing as a reliever. He needs to stay in AAA and get his mechanics corrected to where he was last year. It's his fastball. It's almost always fastball location when a young pitcher with elite stuff struggles and that's exactly what it is with Burnes. I'm sure he can throw his pitchers for strikes. That's not really the point though. It starts with getting ahead with the fastball like it does with everyone. He's not doing that right now. So hitters can lay off his other 3 pitches and sit FB and then when he has to throw one, they're ambushing it. It's pretty simple to see, obviously not as simple to fix. When the guys dominating...as he's done for stretches this year, it's all about his FB.

So you take the guy who's been the worst and you make SURE that he never pitches in low leverage situations? Why? I'd think you give him a few outings in lower leverage situations and hope that he can figure it out and start hitting his spots.

But do you shove talent into a need (where he's not succeeding) or play the long game. I play the long game on Burnes. Peralta Hader there is reason to point to the pen. 1 success 2 pitch mix. Burnes there is no reason to put him in the pen but a short term need for bodies. I'm with you on Burnes and I could still see him given another shot in the rotation this year depending on what happens, but I'd rather see him refining his stuff in AAA right now. He's just waaay too talented and we need home grown starters with his type of upside way too much to take a 2nd year from Burnes and use him out of the pen.

I hate saying it because Nelson was the exact type of guy that you want and you need, but I can't see him coming back and being the guy he was. The chasm between where he was this year in his few outings and the pitcher he was when he got injured was enormous. He was breaking out and developing into an ace-type pitcher when he got hurt and now...like you, I just hope he can have a successful career and he can earn a good living, but I don't think the Brewers can count on getting anything from him. I'm just curious, all the talk about them changing his mechanics, I haven't looked at them from before vs now, but whatever he changed, it completely changed the movement he used to get on his FB. It wasn't just the velocity, his ball didn't have that late life. Again, I wish him good luck, but it gonna be two years pretty soon and there's not much light at the end of the tunnel.

Aside from the pettiness and being condescended to for not being a real fan like Luke, I really hope they can bring him back. He's insurance against Bledsoe being bad in the playoffs again. I never said he's worth 4.5 million per year, but I'll bet that's probably right around what he'll get. Now just renounce Mirotic and they can actually use some salary cap space to sign there players and THEN(the and then part is key here) use the MLE for teams over the cap but below the tax apron.

I never said he would wouldn't be waived so stop with that nonsense. I said he shouldn't be waived, and I've already been proven right about his value because of the fact that he was literally the 2nd-best player in the playoffs on a 60-win team. Where you're completely lost is on his real value if you think he's only worth $4.5m after the way he played the last 3 months of the season. It's okay though. Sometimes it's hard for casual fans to understand how valuable a guy like him is without the flashy numbers. I'm cautiously optimistic that the Bucks understand it too, but if not, they wouldn't be the first team to over-value box score stats and underestimate intangibles. I didn't say he would be claimed either, just that there's a good chance he would be. He might be waived or he might not. He might be claimed or he might not. I don't have a strong opinion either way. My argument is, and always has been, about what I think he's worth and how valuable he is, not about predicting what's actually going to happen, so knock it off with turning it into that. I've been talking about how good he is since January while everyone else thought he was just an average back-up PG on an expiring contract. I've been saying they should keep him at his current contract because they can't afford to lose him, not because I have any insight into whether they're going to or not. I have no way of knowing if they'll keep him or not. I have no way of knowing if he would be claimed on waivers. I can only speculate. I think some team will see that he's an asset on his current contract, and I hope it's the Bucks... but I'm not inside their heads. His performance in the playoffs proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that I had a pretty good understanding all along of how valuable players like him really are, and trying to turn it into an argument into predicting what happens with him is just deflecting the fact that you were completely wrong in your assessment of his value. Pretty much everyone acted like I was nuts in January when I said they should keep him on his current deal. This is just comical. You telling ME that I'm not accurately valuing George Hill while you're claiming the Bucks in their financial situation SHOULD pay him 19 million this year and then at the same time just lying and making up a number out of....I'm not really sure where you got the 4.5 million that I valued Hill at. THIS is how no matter WHAT we're talking about, you always find a way to tell everyone and repeat it over and over and over that you told everyone so. You create a strawman argument and then argue against that. I've agreed with you that we should try to bring Hill back. You're too obtuse to see the distinction between me believing that we should try to bring him back and that we should pay him 19 million. I mean....the things you call yourself an expert at are almost cute. You're an "expert" at telling how much body fat a guy has because you have really good eye sight and you found a chart of body builders online and now you're an expert on NBA players values while us laymen or "casual" fans(and EVERYONE else) thinks that if we don't pick up George Hill, no other team is likely gonna jump at the chance to pick him up on waivers and pay 19 million for the right. But I'm curious, what is VanVleet worth? 25 million? I mean..I'm not an expert like you, but he played outstanding D on Curry and hit quite a few big shots in the playoffs. He's GOTTA be worth at least what Hill is, right? He HAS to be worth more than the guy who was bad last season, bad in the playoffs last year, is getting older, but was good in the playoffs, no? In fact, I'd go so far as to say the Raptors should just try to give VanVleet the Max(sadly he can't get the supermax because the laymen who vote for things like All NBA look at superficial things like shooting pct, points and the like). It's taken 9 pages here and how many other comments for you to even acknowledge the fact that Hill COULD be waived because it's just a few days away from it actually happening. Yet when I say we should use up the cap room we actually have to sign players, him included because I think we need a veteran PG, just not at an objectively stupid number, and THEN(those are big words and THEN) use our MLE, I don't know what I'm talking about? Please tell me why you don't get a MLE in that scenario? And if you could once, try using the words that were actually used by me, don't just make things up and create figures and then attribute them to me. I'll make it REALLY simple for you though because you're clearly confused here. The primary objective in the trade for George Hill was clean up the financial situation. Nobody in the NBA is paying Hill 19 million or 10 million next year. I am curious though, if there ANY scenario that could take place, ANY sequence of events in which you will NOT have been right? Because I've seen you claim you were "right" about everything, regardless of how wrong you ACTUALLY were. How about this, if Hill makes closer to 19 million than the 4.5 million you made up and claimed I said he'd sign for, you were right. If he makes closer to the 4.5 that I never actually said, I was right.

Is that how the conversation went? I think you forgot about 6 lines in there where you claim you were once again right(without actually being so). You claim Hill has somehow "proven" that he's worth 19 million dollars. Really? Because he averaged 10 PPG and was a good, reliable backup in the playoffs? No, he hasn't proven anything close to that. He's proven he's a valuable veteran ball handler and that's important. NOT that he's worth 19 million a year. Especially when we're trading away first round picks to clear payroll. It's actually really a ridiculous claim to suggest he's "proven it" given what he's done over the 2 years as a whole. You want to pick out about 15 games and value them MORE than the playoff games he played last year, exponentially more than the regular season games he played this year(or the year before that for that matter). Again, as I've tried telling you, just saying something is true, doesn't make it so. And you can't use the MLE if you use your cap space to sign players first? Please show me in the CBA where it says that. But it looks like I'm right. As I've been saying for 9 pages while you've been clinging to this pipe dream that we were going to pay George Hill 19 million that he's getting waived, we're renouncing Mirotic and we'll use the cap space we have to try to sign Lopez at the very least and then still have the MLE.

Wouldn't Ryan Braun to the Dodgers have been a August move? I thought he was placed on revocable waivers and Puig had passed through(or more likely the other way around). I agree, it just made the game more fun. And guys get hurt. Let teams pick up another piece if the need in a slightly more difficult manner(and on a 48 hour time limit). This makes little sense to me.

Can you name a guy in this situation who's come back, pitched and not had a TJ surgery in the very near future? Masahiro Tanaka I'd thought Tanaka had had one. I thought wrong. Knebel did get 4 years out of his. I guess my point was when you hear about this, guys are pretty much always going under the knife. Knebel likely goes with the platmate rich injections again if he wasn't set to be a FA after next year. I'm sure there's a few others, but of the last 100 pitchers who waited and went that route, I'd guess 4 or 5 actually succeeded and came back and even then you've got Knebel who needs the surgery(though he looked pretty damn strong, so there's nothing that says he wouldn't have needed it either way at this point). I just kinda meant this almost always ends up in Tommy John. But good examples. I thought about Knebel and was wrong about Tanaka.

I'm curious, have you ever gotten a chance to watch either play? Or are you just watching their box scores and evaluating them? Yes, i’ve watched them play baseball. And I stand by my comparison. Ray. How many times have you actually watched Corey RAY play. I should not have asked about both of them. How many games have you watched Ray play an actual game? Because as has been pointed out, they look absolutely nothing like Broxton outside of their box score.

Besides the fact that, you know, Broxton stands nearly 4 inches taller, has a much longer swing, and, of course, bats right handed. But other than that ... twins! Honestly, they are completely different types of players. Ray generates his power with a short, quick stroke, not unlike a player like Ray Lankford. Broxton's swing is long and powerful when he makes contact. Sort of a very poor man's Devon White or Mike Cameron. This was why I asked. I meant to ask if he'd seen Ray play, because asking if he'd seen "them" play gives him the out as we all watched Broxton play. I think a LOT of people form very strong opinions about players based on their box scores and then make these comps that shows they obviously haven't. If you didn't play at Appleton, I've probably not watched much of a guy other than some AB's on Youtube(which isn't "watching them play).