OnTheBlack

I might buy this if that was when the condescension had started(or for that part even ended, just read this post), but it started long before this. I could go back and pull out the quotes, but if you don't already see them, I doubt showing them again will change anything. To the second part in bold, I am. I was the one who wrote that. I didn't think there was any ambiguity about it. You're trying to say that it's not exaggeration to say the Bucks promising season was "falling apart," by using ridiculous examples meant to be intentionally mis-leading. You could point to losses from the last two weeks and if all you do is mention the negatives, then say it's no small exaggeration to say their season is falling apart with an intentionally skewed sample size. And sample size isn't even the right word. Most like cherry picking from a sample size. They lost to a very good Portland team you cite as an example. You neglect to mention that they then beat them by 43. If you're just trying to have this genuine conversation as you suggest, what point does this serve? They'd beaten Toronto twice. They were 17-8 and coming off a blowout win vs the Warriors(a bigger blowout for whatever that's worth than Portland's blowout of us a couple weeks prior). So you painting a this bleak picture of the Bucks season before Bell absolutely seems inaccurate. Which is what I said in my initial post. I've seen enough of Brogdon trying to play pg for one lifetime. He has some of the worst tunnel vision in the entire NBA, and he can barely even dribble with his head up. Yeah, I don't agree. I think your overuse of hyperbole is showing again as it often does with Brogdon. I think you'd do just fine with Brogdon running the point, particularly given how this team plays with Giannis playing a PF so often, or Middleton or even Connaughton out there as a ball handler. I give about zero credence to this suggestion that Brogdon is this bad gym school type cartoonist caricature when dribbling with the ball in his hand, head down, unable to see the court at all. It just doesn't match up with reality. Though it does match up with previous statements about how bad you think Brogdon is. I'll leave it after saying this. I think the owners "owe" us a good team. I think if we re-sign all our top FA's and decline Hill's option, they'll have done this. I don't think Jason Kidd has anything at all to do with why they owe us a competitive team. I think the fact that you're already looking at the luxury tax and given that you're an expert on it, you already know that after Giannis signs, you could be talking about 60-70 million luxury tax bills as is. So I think it's fair to say that signing Hill could easily impact the signings of not only players on the team right now, but in the future.

I don't think we were holding him back. He had a huge rookie year for us and we still had Peppers and Matthews when we traded him. But coming off that year, it looked like we had a good secondary. We still had our #1 in Shields, both Rollins and Randall looked really solid considering that they were both rookies who started their careers playing different sports and Randall...which is now more obvious, but at the time had moved from safety to CB and it appeared as though he could play there. Same with Hyde. We had two relatively young safeties and nowhere to start him. That one I thought we made a little mistake on at the time, but not as big as it has turned out. Heyward meanwhile had a great year his first year for the Chargers, a really good 2nd and an awful year this year. Also, anyone see him being able to play outside? I did not think he could hold up outside. I thought he was exclusively a slot corner. I think he should probably move to FS. Let James play SS there, Heyward can play zone and be the ball hawk he is. A lot of the moves turned out really bad, but moreso in retrospect than at the time.

I think Lo Cain is changing the way I look at strikeouts a bit. I watch him play and compared to someone like Braun, it almost always looks like Cain is struggling at the plate and just not a very good hitter and then you look up and he's hitting over .300 because of all those nubbers he beats out. Not that you can't see the guy is a huge difference maker with his defense, he's just one of those guys who puts up better numbers than you expect. As for the Cards pen, I think both the young power arms will be elite. They're too talented not to, but one is 22 and was rushed up and the other was dominant and has dealt with injuries the last two years. Hopefully they get off to slow starts and don't hit their stride until we play them another couple series this month.

I wonder if the Packers have taken Polite off their board after his ridiculously bad interview at the combine. Anyway, going back to that 2009 draft, remember how there were questions regarding the Packers possibly picking Crabtree at #9 because Thompson apparently loved him and he was already gone in virtually every mock draft(that may even be the draft the Raiders took Heyward-Bey at 6th or so). Crabtree was thought of as guy who'd become a #1 right out of the gate and many thought he'd go #2 overall? Two points here. 1st, the draft ends up playing out so much differently than we expect. Who knows where Allen goes. I think it's a given Bosa goes in the top 3, but maybe Allen does drop to where we can get him without giving up too much. 2nd, that was one of Thompson's better drafts and he only drafted 3 players who really contributed. Raji at #9 who performed as well as a guy at that spot generally does, Matthews, a guy who was among the best defensive players in the NFL for a good chunk of his career with the Packers, and then TJ Lang in the 4th, a pro-bowler(only twice, but should have made it another couple times IMO). It's kinda interesting to go back and look at how these 1st rounds play out. You end up seeing how few true difference makers there are in each draft and how many of them are taken late in the 1st or early in the 2nd. Maybe trading down and taking 4 or 5 swings is a better idea. Though it's not nearly as fun as a fan.

It's amazing sometimes how condescending some people on this board can be with such regularity. I'll just say this. You're just making assumptions. As the luxury tax that you're a self-proclaimed expert on has a progressive tax...meaning Hill could cost 60 million dollars if they go 15 million over the luxury tax without him, then I'd say you're likely being intentionally obtuse in suggesting the ONLY two options at play here are keeping Hill and not keeping Hill. The Bucks owners said they'd be willing to go over the luxury tax for if their team was competitive. They're likely to be competitive for years to come and if they sign Middleton who may get a Max deal, Brogdon, Mirotic and Lopez, they'll already be in that tax bracket where Hill will essentially cost around 60 million rather than just that 18 million that the owners have to pay for. Problem is, given what the Bucks seem to hope is going to happen, they're going to be in that bracket for the foreseeable future. So that's one way that retaining Hill may impact the rest of the roster. They may decide they don't want to pay more than the 3X a players actual salary once they're 15 million over the luxury tax for the next 7 years(just going through what I believe would be the last year of Giannis' super max deal). Especially for a 34 year old PG I also didn't recall where the Bucks were before acquiring Hill. You seem to be making the numbers fit your agenda, one I honestly don't even think you're that invested in, or rather were that invested in until someone had the gall to challenge you. The Bucks were 17-8 and coming off a win vs Toronto before Hill was a part of the Bucks, their second of the season. As for the "blowout loss" to Portland that you include when you say it's "no exaggeration to say their promising season was falling apart," why neglect to mention they avenged that loss to a very good west team, one of their only blowout losses(15 points) by either mentioning that their very next game they beat Golden State by 23 resting their starters in the 4th quarter they were up by so much; http://www.espn.com/nba/boxscore?gameId=401070847 Or that they came back exactly two weeks later and beat Portland by 43 points http://www.espn.com/nba/boxscore?gameId=401070940 So it seems to me that they were playing pretty well, and while maybe the trade wasn't exclusively about dumping Henson and Delladova's salaries, I think just about everyone both now and then concluded it was the driving force behind making such a trade, otherwise they likely wouldn't have had to include a future 1st round trade. None of this means that Hill hasn't been an asset to the Bucks, but it does show you're trying to manipulate the numbers in order to fit your narrative, and that the discussion is just a tiny bit more complex than the two options being "keeping Hill or not keeping Hill." To the Bucks owners, I'm sure the extra 18 million dollars alone might mean something to them and the franchises future. Then when you factor in that the 18 million could end up costing over 60 million and I'm sure it's not hard to figure out that the decision isn't as simple as you've proposed. The Bucks have two young point guards in Brogdon and Bledsoe. Sterling Brown has shown signs of being a solid NBA 2 guard which would mean one of the two could play when the other isn't and the Bucks could look to trade Ersan, their 1st round pick this year or do what many contending teams do, bring in an aging vet to be their 3rd point guard. Those are also other options to "signing Hill or not signing Hill."

Probably has a lot to do with all the talk about his farm and how he enjoyed working on it. But good for Jordy. Don't hang around and take more blows to the head and move from city to city the last few years. He's a Packer HOF'er(IMO). I COULD see him coming back to the Packers ala James Jones if the unspeakable would happen with our top WR'er, but he's 33. Old for a football player, 2/3rds of his life left and hopefully he invested well and he can enjoy the best years of his life.

Could you expand a bit? The only thing I've seen is that they've been in negotiations, but I don't subscribe to the Athletic.

Exactly. Taylor Williams could be that guy. Think of some of the best closers we've had in the last decade. The Turnbow, Axford types. They weren't guys you were really counting on when they burst onto the scene. Williams has as good of stuff as just about anyone. And you can't afford to take Hader out of the role he's in now. What hurts the most about losing both of those guys is that you could count on one of them to come in and put out a fire earlier in a game....in the 5th or 6th inning and then the other was still there to close after Hader got you 4-5-6 outs. Taylor Williams has given no indication he's earned a high leverage late inning slot. He's got good but not great stuff by today's standards and his command wasn't good enough to stay in the big leagues much less handle the 7th or 8th innings. A -0.2 Career WAR doesn't get it done, and neither does 4.2 BB per 9 innings. Nobody has until they do. And if you want to write off Williams, who exactly has given any indication they can handle a high leverage situation in our current pen outside of Hader? Someone's gonna have to do it. And Williams throws in the mid to upper 90's with a slider that can be dominant at times. And you could have said the exact same thing about Axford and Turnbow when they came in and had great seasons for the Brewers(though they walked even more). Williams has roughly 50 innings, last year was his first full year back after missing parts of 3 seasons and he was dominant in the first half. He has a 60 grade on his fastball and a 60 grade on his slider.... More importantly though, I go back to two points. Who HAS proven they can pitch in high leverage situations in this current pen, and I said pretty clearly, most of the guys who've emerged and had great seasons for us as closers have been guys you wouldn't have counted on going into the season. Either we're not a playoff team and we're going to struggle with the BP or we're going to have to have some guys step up, and Williams has the stuff to do so and he's shown he is capable of being a very effective reliever. Even if he just has the first half he had last year and helps hold down the fort until we can bring in someone else, that'd be good enough for me.

I don't follow the transfers that closely after they leave. Could you refresh my memory?

Not to mention losing out on both Hauser brothers and Herro(who looks like first rounder if he declares now). Hard to blame him for either individually. One brother decides to go to Marquette, the other will. Herro has a chance to go to a Basketball factory and play right away...again, tough to blame him. But perhaps a more up tempo style of play would be more enticing... UW BB looks like it's entering a sustained period of mediocrity.

The trade was perfect for the Cards, no doubt about that. I'd agree AZ didn't get enough back for someone like Goldschmidt, but they did get back a really good catching prospect(not easy to come by) and Weaver was a highly regarded prospect before struggling last year as well. There may not have been a elite name in that package, but maybe the D-backs who've been pretty good at finding pitching see something in the arms they got back others don't and it's hard to put a value on a developing young MLB ready catcher. I do know I wish he'd have ended up in Boston or anywhere else.

Two 3rd round picks for two absolute garbage fires in their first years for their new teams. Nate Solder signing for 4/62 makes you wonder how bad the Trent Brown 4/66 signing after spending one year in New England. It also gives you an idea of the market for tackles. Of course both are left tackles, but would you take either over Bulaga? Solder is the same age roughly. Brown is a giant and much younger, but the 49ers traded him just a year ago along with a 5 for a 3rd round pick. And he spent most of his career on the right side.

The injury concerns with Bulaga are obvious. I don't see him getting beat on a regular basis by virtually anyone however. When he IS out there, he's performing at a very high level. Especially given that Rodgers holds the ball so much longer than other QB's. Bulaga does a good job of running speed rushers past Rodgers and he's strong enough he can anchor vs power rushers. It'd be interesting to see a teams draft board after the draft sometime. They obviously differ greatly from team to team, I'd just like to see how one teams board actually grades guys. Where they have guys like Little for example who is all over the place in draft rankings.

Given our recent injury concerns that have left both of our top right handers from last years dominant BP up in the air and the likely 15+ million that Craig Kimbrel would require, I was looking at the Giants as they seem like a team that may be looking to move relievers as it's unlikely they'll contend this year(they're likely the 5th best team in the West). Corey Ray is coming off a bounce back year, has been a top 100 prospect and has huge upside. Would he be worth trading for Reyes Moronta, a young power arm whom we'd control for 5 years plus Will Smith OR Tony Watson? I don't like the idea of giving up Ray, but I like the idea of going into the year with no SU man or closer. You could plug Moronta and Smith into those roles and leave Hader and the rest of the pen in the roles they were expected to be in prior to the injuries. What's more, if Knebel, who looks like he's headed for TJ surgery, but has apparently been dealing with a UCL issue since 2014 in Texas and Jeffress who's situation might look even worse at the moment DO come back, the pen could be absolutely loaded with two elite left handed relievers and 3 elite power right handers at the back of the pen.

I think he's a really nice breakout candidate. He missed two years, came back last year, earned a role on the team, though was up and down. But his command should be coming back now that he's finally got a healthy off-season to train and a full ST'ing. Also, still holding out hope for Jacob Barnes. He's got the stuff to be dominant. Still, really concerning that we went from looking at Jeffress, Knebel, and Wahl to finish up games to having names like Claudio, Wilson and Fields being tossed around. From potential super pen to 3rd best pen in central. Wow how the Mighty have fallen. Only disagreement I’ve had in anything I’ve read of yours is Barnes.better in 2017 pitches scared. My opinion. Well, we haven't seen him pitch this year. He has the ability to do what Knebel did, throw that upper 90's fastball up and then throw that dominant slider as a put-away pitch. The difference being he hasn't shown he can throw that slider early in the count to get ahead which leads to him being behind in the count and guys sitting on that fastball. But he's young and guys progress.

Absolutely. But there are a lot of ways to add guys. And we don't need to add an ace to this team. You can add a couple complimentary pieces from a KC type team(just throwing out a team that's likely to be bad and selling at the deadline) for relatively cheap at the deadline. The problem may be that we're in SUCH a competitive division, and an improved NL, how much of a gut punch would it be to go out and add an elite catcher, one who's unlikely to be back next year, bring back Moose, have our team set up pretty much exactly how we want it for THIS YEAR(I believe this is going to be the Brewers best chance to win a WS) and then with the tough first half schedule, you find yourself 7-8 games out by the ASB? That may happen either way, but if it happens because we've got unproven relievers blowing leads regularly, it's going to hurt that much more. +1 Unfortunately prob here how reds overrated,pirates stink, cards didn’t improve enough to catch up to us, cubs starters old & gonna regress. Prob is Rockies Phillies Mets Nats braves better. Gonna be tough to get wild card this year so we BETTER win the central. Agree Agree best opportunity to win it all in at least 37 years. Why not go all in? Dayton Moore did and they won the series, with clutch hitting and BULLPEN I think the Cardinals look a lot better. I could see Marcell and Goldy both having big years. I wonder if they see some regression from a couple starters, but they're a big threat. The Reds may not be good enough to beat us, but they're going to be dangerous and they've got several guys who could come up and do some damage come June. And I don't know if you should count on the Cubs to regress. Things went pretty bad for them last year, yet it still took a historic Sept to chase them down. Yu Darvish is likely to be better, Chatwood should also be much better and I doubt Rizzo gets off to such a slow start. I think the NLC is going to beat each other up. Hopefully we can dominate the Pirates like we did for a stretch a while ago and the Reds fall flat.

I think he's a really nice breakout candidate. He missed two years, came back last year, earned a role on the team, though was up and down. But his command should be coming back now that he's finally got a healthy off-season to train and a full ST'ing. Also, still holding out hope for Jacob Barnes. He's got the stuff to be dominant. Still, really concerning that we went from looking at Jeffress, Knebel, and Wahl to finish up games to having names like Claudio, Wilson and Fields being tossed around.

I would put Alex Wilson in that group. Possibly Taylor Williams, but I’m a little leery about him. He would probably be a guy to come in to put the fire out in the 6th for the starter and hopefully get through the 7th unscathed to get it to the backend guys like Hader, Claudio, and Wilson. Once Fields is up, I think he will be a backend guy as well. Fields feels like he could be a disaster. Big fly ball ratio, shoulder injuries cost him the couple months last season. I'd feel better with guys like Williams, Houser, Guerra than Fields.

That the Royals got lucky in winning the WS wasn't the point, the point was that while they may be a bigger market than us technically, we generate more revenue. And comparing their payroll to ours was the point. Also, I don't know what playoff game you went to with a half empty parking lot, but I've gone to most and have never seen that. This cheap Wisconsonite thing is a myth. We spend more per capita on the Brewers than any other fanbase in the league. We support our team.

That's where I am. I actually think his personality and what he brings to the clubhouse is a major plus. I just...don't think he's that good and I don't think you EVER extend relievers with two years left who are going to be on the wrong side of 30 to the type of deal originally suggested. And frankly, I think that out of 100 people on this board, 99 would agree. I think perhaps even the OP may now agree. I would have extended Knebel though if we could get some team options as I think he's going to be dominant for a while, even if he has to have TJ.

Yes, and yes. Okay then it is like 25 days...not nearly 3 months. It would still be problematic either way. I am sure it certainly is something in his past that would hurt his value on the open market. Now due to the circumstances I’d think that problem would be in his past...but that is an assumption. I’m not saying Jeffress is some terrible human or that the league should even be punishing players for things like marijuana...but as it stands those are the rules. You can't get suspended for pot in MLB...which is why I think it's a low blow to bring up "drug problems." Also, when I think of "drug problems," I think of drugs that are actual problems. Not pot. I don't smoke, but almost everyone I know does, from VP's of companies to my 80 year old Uncles. And I don't know that Jeffress has a drinking problem. I know he got a DUI...which sadly is almost a rite of passage in Wisconsin(the laws here desperately need to be changed) and did the rehab thing, but I haven't heard that it's been an issue. Only that the pot has been.

Just for the record, I appreciate the other opinions on this and after reading my posts, I hope my tone isn't coming off as too confrontational. I respect the different opinions and just enjoy the debate and am not trying to offend.

Absolutely. But there are a lot of ways to add guys. And we don't need to add an ace to this team. You can add a couple complimentary pieces from a KC type team(just throwing out a team that's likely to be bad and selling at the deadline) for relatively cheap at the deadline. The problem may be that we're in SUCH a competitive division, and an improved NL, how much of a gut punch would it be to go out and add an elite catcher, one who's unlikely to be back next year, bring back Moose, have our team set up pretty much exactly how we want it for THIS YEAR(I believe this is going to be the Brewers best chance to win a WS) and then with the tough first half schedule, you find yourself 7-8 games out by the ASB? That may happen either way, but if it happens because we've got unproven relievers blowing leads regularly, it's going to hurt that much more.

I can understand where you’re coming from about getting the pitching now and having guys pitch for us all season. But what if Chacin gets hurt and someone like Woodruff underperforms? There wouldn’t be much wiggle room to make it work financially at the deadline if the payroll is maxed out prior to the season starting. Again, this is where I take issue with this logic. You think Attansio is going to spend 150 million and then went it comes down to adding a couple million dollars at the trade deadline to add a piece, he's going to scoff? That seems far fetched. The term in for a penny, in for a pound comes to mind.

I get it ... just saying that there might just be a limit to how much proactiveness they can accomplish. Sure, you can only do so much. However I said on here all along that I thought this team should have been focused on adding a impact reliever as opposed to spending 10 million on Moose, a redundant 3rd basemen who is being forced to play 2nd base. Jeffress was never likely to replicate last years production...you can't blame anyone for Knebel or Jeffress going down, but you did have reason to suspect the BP was going to be weaker than it was last year. Aside from Jeffress just not likely being as good as he was last year, you're taking Burnes who was dominant, Woodruff who was dominant, especially late in the year, and Peralta all out of that pen. With question marks in the rotation, signing Adam Ottavino, a guy as dominant as anyone last year. Grandal was a great signing who to some degree fell into our lap, so I don't think that was being proactive. Signing another dominant reliever to shorten games even moreso would have been more proactive IMO. But we didn't. And who knows, Knebel has suffered with a UCL issue since 2014 in Texas...maybe he's back dominating this year and Jeffress does get healthy and replicate last years success. It just feels right now this team is one dominant reliever away after most likely losing two.