OnTheBlack

He sat out last year, so I don't think he'd have to. I'm thinking that appeal would be pushed through real quick and would be just a matter of paper work. But...it's the NCAA, so who knows how the hell they'd rule on anything. Tough position for Chryst to be in though. First of all, just being a decent human being, it's tough to keep a guy on the team that is accused of something like this. You don't KNOW what happened. Second, you don't want to develop a culture where guys think they can get away with crap like Nebraska in the 90's. The stories from that program were awful. Players going out to diners and just accosting women in skirts and whatnot. So I'd hope Cephus would know that as a head coach, you really don't have any room to work within the margins there. You're on trial for sexual assault, you have to be away from the team. People can have their opinions on if charges should have been brought, but once they are... Best case scenario, he can work his way back in with this team and give them another weapon and make the best outta this awful situation.

You'd think. TJ vs a torn ACL from about 6 weeks before the season. The one thing you don't want to do though if rush a guy who's got a leg injury out there as it can cause him to try and overthrow to compensate for the lack of strength in his legs. I'm still excited for the stretch run, but really excited for what next years team could look like. We should have a loaded pen with Wahl coming back, Knebel coming back, Devin Williams, Rasmussen, Houser...etc..etc....

Out of college and even through his first year, I thought he was going to be a solid lineman. Man, that ended poorly. Go back and watch the film of his combine workout and it will become pretty evident why they drafted him. It wasn't a Mandarich-like workout (Mandarich ran a faster 40-time than Jerry Rice), but his agility and athleticism was stellar. Looked great in position drills. Ran a sub 5.0 and put up 31 on the bench. Plenty of reasons to take a chance on him. He just didn't develop for whatever reason. Mandrich was a freakishly talented physical specimen even when you take the steroids away. I mean, he's not getting drafted ahead of the 4 HOF'ers that went in the top 5 around him in that draft...that historically great draft with Derrick Thomas, one of the all time great pass rushers and the closest thing to LT we've probably ever seen, Barry Sanders, arguably the best RB ever, Deion, arguably the best CB ever and Troy Aikman, an obvious HOF QB(though fans now will look at his stats, stats that would get most guys benched in today's NFL and downgrade him, not realizing how much the game has changed). I mean...Blake Bortles is better statistically than Aikman. But anyway, not sure if he was actually faster than Rice as his 40 time has been used as a reason to not judge a player based on their 40, but Walsh had him at 4.59 and Gil Brandt had him between 4.49 and 4.55 in 9 times. Mandrich ran a 4.64...and he did it at 310 with probably a similar amount of body fat. But back to Spriggs, his combine was similar to Lane Johnson's. Johnson ran a bit faster at 4.72, Spriggs was at 4.85...anything under 5 seconds is considered exceptional for a OL prospect. Spriggs was a bit stronger, Johnson a little more explosive, but they were similar. I remember some saying he would be a better fit in a zone blocking scheme at guard or tacklecenter, it seemed like the only knocks against him were that he needed to add some weight and that he needed to improve his technique a bit, but all the physical tools you could possibly want. He was a guy with a ton of upside and you'd have thought worst case scenario, given his athleticism, you could at least play him at guard, put some weight on him and he'd be a elite pass blocker there. You don't like to question a guys work ethic, but...there's really no reason a guy like him shouldn't have success in the NFL. 6'6, long arms, elite athletic ability. The Packers have a pretty good track record of developing offensive linemen and you had the best in the NFL to watch and learn from. Too bad he couldn't figure it out. This was his last chance and he'd been down almost all camp with a trap injury. Another guy in a line of early picks that the Packers didn't get much production out of along with Randall, Rollins, Jones(thus far at least), Dahtone....hopefully they can get that going back in the right direction. Josh Jackson needs to get back on the field.

I have a hard time seeing them cut Kizer. Maybe it's just because he's still got the highest ceiling, but he's got all the tools you could possibly need in terms of physical attributes. That's why I'd hate having to scout QB's though. It seems like it'd be impossible to test how they can anticipate, how they can throw into those tight windows, throw those guys open. I mean, that pass Rodgers completed to Kumerow was ridiculous. A backshoulder from the opposite hash about 30 yards down the field. That's a pretty telling sign that he really trusts Kumerow. But Kizer still has all the arm you could want, mobility and because he inexplicably left college at least a year earlier than expected, he's still just 23 years old. Part of the problem the Packers have had behind Rodgers in general though is they haven't invested almost any draft capital in the position after Rodgers established himself as a star, in large part because they just couldn't afford it. They missed on too many picks in recent years and had too many injuries and holes on the team to be able to draft like Wolf did and take a risk guys of Aaron Brooks ilk in the 4th round. But if you believe they do wash their hands of Kizer, do you think they go with just Rodgers and Boyle? They've gone with 3, especially since Rodgers has been banged up, but they've got a lot more depth now than they've had in a long time.

This feels like beating a dead horse now. I just listed several players the same height who are among the top 10 interior linemen in the NFL. Pettine called the 6'1 300 pound Williams, a guy who's almost the exact same size as Daniels one of the best players he's ever coached. Obviously you have a prototypical size. You'd want 6 guys built like Calvin Johnson. But if you get a guy like Aaron Donald, Jurrel Casey, Geno Atkins, Kyle Williams...etc...etc..you don't get rid of them because they're too short. Arm length is far more important. Daniels arm length was 32 1/2. Donald was 6'1 with 32 5/8. The Packers have Kenny Clark set to get a massive contract, they paid Lowry, Daniels wasn't going to be there next year and according to Pettine, Adams has completely reshaped his body. That's not a good enough reason? This height thing just doesn't seem applicable. Daniels had no problem rushing the passer or playing the run in his career. He got hurt, he was one of the higher paid players...they cut him. Wouldn't surprise me at all if Lane Taylor is gone this year as well. I'll bet there are a handful of other valuable vets cut across the league. Hopefully one is at MLB'er. I'm also not sure what you mean by "up or down," but it really doesn't matter any more. He's gone. They've got a deep DL and a bunch of new edge rushers.

Arcia was never elite. His dropoff in 2019 isnt even in the quoted numbers. ' I never used the word elite in my post. He used to play defense at an above-average level that offset a lot of his offensive limitations. This year, that has decreased dramatically. You seem to think that's the sign of a long-term issue, but I question whether a 24 year old is experiencing permanent physical declines. He's hit better this year, and if his defense does rebound, he'd be above replacement level if he can sustain his 2019 offensive production going forward. I didn't miss the point, I just don't think it was a particularly valid one. As your point was that Yuni was terrible for his career, had a good playoff run which was magnified because it was in the playoffs, people overlooked a bad career? Not buying it. Everyone here knew Yuni was bad. My issue with said point is that Arcia is 5 years younger than Yuni was, and didn't have nearly the crappy career Yuni had had at that point. Arcia has already had a better season in 2017 than Yuni ever had, which is why people still think that there's room to grow for a 24 year old. You seem to think that he's reached his ceiling. As others have pointed out, we gave up too early on Segura because we weren't patient enough, and it is POSSIBLE that they're heading toward the same situation here. I'd also be curious how Segura "always" had a higher upside than Arcia. Arcia was ranked among the top 10 by nearly every scouting service, 6th by MLBpipline. Segura was roughly a top 50 prospect. Arcia is playing in his age 24 season. Segura's age 24 season he hit .246/.289/.326. Not seeing the argument how it'd take "a miracle" for Arcia to develop, but those guys were expected to.

The Jazz made him an offer of 45 over 3 years and he chose to go back to Barcelona. I don't think anyone liked what Middleton got paid, but he was hardly the only borderline all-star player to get a massive deal. Tobias Harris got a slightly larger deal. We overpaid to keep the second best player on the team under contract a year before Giannis is likely to make up his mind on an extension. And I agree, Horst did an incredible job making up for the players we lost while also adding a lottery ticket in Bender and a couple of draft picks that may pay off in the future.

That's good to know. It's going to be interesting to see how quickly he can move through the system and if he can develop that curve to go with the FB and CH.

I'll just borrow a post in response: Arcia was never elite. His dropoff in 2019 isnt even in the quoted numbers. Different aspects of defense deteriorate at different levels. If you look at range for Escobar, he clearly has an age related decrease in his ability to get to balls that are in the "Remote" category. Personally, my lateral athleticism gave way a long time before my forward/back athleticism decreased. Since you missed the point about Yuni, let me try to restate the conclusion first. Funny how the timing of a hot streak can negate a career of crapitude for some. To the point of Yuni having a hot streak, his career was crapitude. To the point Arcia had his hot streak his career is crapitude (worst hitter in baseball during his time in MLB - a not insignificant window; defense that is much more average for a SS than elite = overall crap). Sure, a miracle could occur and he finally gets it, like 0.1% of hitters who were crap their entire careers (MiLB and MLB) all of a sudden become good. At that point the analogy fails, because the "hot streak" was the prelude to a "break out", not just a hot streak in the middle of pretty horrible performance. Is that "reason to think"? no that's a possible outcome, not a probable outcome. As you bolded my statement "How is Arcia like either of those two?", I'll just point out one of the key words: "is". Now "is" is a present tense. You may have learned about this in school. Present tense is the present. Now. Currently. Past tense is previous time, before current (i.e. before present). There's also future tense, which represents future time/events. These will occur later or after the present tense. "Hypthetically" applies to a possible outcome in the future or to an alternate event then what happened in the past or present. Sure, Arcia could by a rare probability become a decent hitter in the future for another team and the Brewers weren't the beneficiaries of that improvement and then Arcia would be like Escobar and Segura. Possible? yes. Probable? no. Which brings me to the difference between 2 very similar sounding, but distinct words: Probable and Possible. These words refer to future events. Possible means it "can be done" without any degree of conversion from a possibility to a reality. Therefore, possible is a boolean or a true/false where something "can be done" or "can't be done". Something is either possible or not possible. Probable is related to a word called probability or likelihood. Probability or likelihood can be expressed as an infinite range of values between 0 and 1, with 0 being absolute not going to happen and 1 being absolute certainty to happen. In practice, 0 and 1 are not events that happen when looking at probability or likelihood. The word "probable" is related to "probability" and is defined as "likely to be the case or to happen." The problem with "likely to be the case or to happen" is that it is subjective. If an event has a likelihood of 0.500000001 then that means there is likelihood that the event will not occur of 0.499999999. Many would not define that as "Probable". In fact, some argue that for something to be "probable" it has to be significantly more likely than a flip of a coin (0.5 probability). To me, I feel comfortable saying that it is possible that Arcia could become an average or above hitter, but it is not probable. Are you being serious or are you just the type of clown who likes to walk around with an air of superiority talking to people in the usual pedagogical tone only those who just love hearing themselves talk like to speak with? This is something people who generally feel insecure with their particular level of education tend to do in an attempt to make people think they're smarter than they are. And my god...I am impressed with your ability to explain present tense and past tense. But wait...you topped it with your ability to differentiate between probable and possible. The question, how is Arcia like either of those two. I really wouldn't think I'd need to hold your hand and walk you through how he's similar to Alcides Escobar if you're looking for players who LITERALLY share similar traits with him, I assumed we were talking about the situation he was in vs where the two other players we traded away. But forgive me, I really didn't think you were asking such a stupid question. My fault for giving you too much credit. Which brings me to a question. Is it possible you'll be able to discuss baseball without the obnoxious tone? Sure. It is probable? Given you still have a quote someone made over a year ago so you can...I don't know, presumably boast about how you were right? I'd say there's a small chance. Arcia Age 22- .277/.324/.407 .731 OPS 1.3 Dwar, Age 23-.236/.268/.307 .576 OPS .9 DWar First 3 full years-.260/.302/.367 .668 OPS 2.6 Dwar in 431 games, but a year younger. Alcides Escobar Age 23(First full year)-.235 /.288/.324 .614 OPS Traded Age 24-.254/.290/.343 .633 OPS 1.9 Dwar First 3 full years-.262/.304/.355 .659 OPS 4 Dwar in 599 games. LIKE Arcia, his Dwar fell his 3 year as well to .6 Yeah, not alike at all. Both players weren't up and down, both players didn't see a drop in their 3rd year in their defensive value, Batting Average and OBP within 2 points, Arcia with a ~30 point edge in OPS. Oh, but then you went through a rather exhaustive effort to try and teach me what present and past tense means. So how is Arcia like Escobar? Well here ya go buddy. Arcia-2019 .230/.298/.373 .671 OPS and a .4 Dwar Escobar-2019 .231.279/.313 with a sub .600 OPS and a -.6 Dwar So I guess Arcia is considerably better. Both offensively and defensively. Now. Currently. In the PRESENT tense. Though I wouldn't have a clue why anyone would be asking how the 24 year old compares to the 31 year old Escobar. I didn't see how it was particularly relevant, so I gave you the benefit of the doubt and assumed you weren't asking a question that stupid. Though perhaps if I'd have read your absurd Yuni Betancourt comparison from one year when he was 29 or your assertion that it would be a "miracle," that he "gets it," I'd have had more context and appreciation for the level of intellect I was dealing with. That's odd. In the same post you said it would be a "miracle."

I mean, the guy is 21 years old. 23 Just turned 23. Like literally the day this thread was posted. That's still plenty young for me to be interested in a talented young arm. The Brewers take a lot of chances on a lot less......

Sure, I think he can ABSOLUTELY match what Griffey did when he got called up. If Grisham, as a rookie can hit .264/.329/.420 with a .748 OPS, just as Griffey did, while playing good defense and providing a spark on the base paths, that's totally realistic. Of course I'm guessing you're simply pouting that we didn't trade away a guy that we drafted in the 1st round, developed and then waited several years for him to develop and once he made an adjustment-we DIDN'T trade him for a marginal upgrade that wouldn't have made a difference. And then I can GUARANTEE that when Grisham or Turang or whoever(Rasmussen, Burnes, whoever) ended up going to Arizona, went to the Mets, went to wherever and became a centerpiece for a contending team, you'd be complaining that we let him go and then you'd want the Brewers to take whatever young players they'd acquired in the meantime and you want to turn around and dump them for these young players when they might become available as they're on the verge of becoming a free agent. It's fine for MLB2K, it's not realistic for actual professional baseball. You can't compartmentalize things as you suggested the other day in a statement that so perfectly describes why most are not a fan of your ideas and why David Stearns does just the opposite when you said, "you worry about today-today, you worry about tomorrow, tomorrow." No, good teams, smart teams...they worry about the future ALL the time. Some...some...SOMETIMES you have a good enough team that you're actually willing to trade away those future prospects in a significant way to go out and get a significant upgrade. This year that wasn't ever likely to happen.

Moustakas has played EIGHT GAMES....in his professional career at shortstop. Those 8 games came when he was 18 years old! The one thing we've done well the past couple years is play good, solid defense. We're adding a potential CF'er and asking him to play LF, presumably a significant upgrade over Braun. But now we want to take our best defender off the field and replace him with a guy who's not only never played there, but only started 39 games anywhere else in the IF in his 13 year career. You have another poster saying that Trent Grisham has to come up and be Ken Griffey Jr. right away or AT LEAST he has to duplicate what Keston Hiura is doing. What in the hell is next? Demand that Ashby come up and be our ace? Throw Grandal into CF because he provide more offense than Cain? There's aren't realistic ways to improve this team. Sadly, the most realistic way to improve this team is to just hope that guys who've struggled...stop struggling.

Woodruff was the ranked 82nd heading into 2017 and 61st heading into 2018 according to Baseball America. 96th on MLB pipeline heading into last season.

It happened when Arcia struggled again this year and the grass started looking greener on the other side. Arcia'll always rank above Jim Gantner for his 2018 post-season run, but Moustakas at short sounds much more appealing. Yeah, he'd be an extremely bat-first option there, but... if he hits like he did this year, is it worth dealing Arcia? Unbelievable. It's like there's a competition between Brewcrewin07 and you right now. How can we destroy the future of this team vs how bad of a defense can we conjure up.

How is Arcia like either of those two? Escobar's defense is elite compared to Arcia. Segura always had a higher ceiling than Arcia and a change of scenery for Jean was probably the best for him given the loss of his child, they aren't comparable at all. Sure, Arcia 'might' improve as a hitter. The risk that he does and you gave up on him too early isn't anything to lose sleep over, while a team that has a contention window needs to upgrade any and every position it can to maximize the return on that window. Most defenders of Arcia point to that hot streak during the very end of the season and playoffs. Sure Yuni Betancourt put together a very good playoffs in 2011. That's doesn't mean he wasn't an absolute horrible player. Funny how the timing of a hot streak can negate a career of crapitude for some... Because it'd mean we hypothetically gave up on him too early as well. Pretty straight forward.

The Royals won't take two bums like Barnes and Williams for Diekman. They would get a better pkg. from any other team interested in Diekman. Diaz is nowhere near the pitcher he was last year. More hits than IPs - 21 ERs in only 38 IPs - 1.6 HRs/9. 3+ BBs/9. Right now I wouldn't give up Williams for him, much less the whole pkg.. Diaz still has a 3.83 FIP and a 3.24 xFIP playing in front of the worst IF defense in the game. Of course his .398 BABIP just MIGHT be contributing to his more hits than IP, the HR rate is 3x what it was last year, over twice what it was 3 years ago. He's 25, he's absolutely filthy and has dominated at the big league level. Diaz, again, 25 years old has a CAREER line of; 231 IP, 2.78 FIP, 14.1 K/9, ERA +135 and a whip of 1.09. 4+ years of team control. His K/BB ration also ranks 8th of 174 qualified pitchers...THIS year. So even despite his struggles(4 poor outings account for 16 of his 22 ER's) he's still got elite stuff. He hasn't lost ANYTHING on his FB, he hasn't lost any velocity anywhere. You're talking about one of the premier relievers in all of baseball and you don't want him? You seem to really make an effort to point out the flaws of every trade target. The perfect player does not exist, but who would YOU go after that you could acquire without giving up similar packages? Edit-Here's a link that goes into detail about Diaz, the 2nd most valuable reliever in all of baseball last year; https://blogs.fangraphs.com/edwin-diaz-is-worse-but-to-what-extent/

What on Earth have you seen from Jimmy Nelson that would suggest he's going to be participating on any productive role on this team?

You would think with the upcoming Free Agent period having one of the best groups of pitchers in it, the Reds would have been better off holding until then and looking for another potential top of the rotation type starter...if they were so inclined. I guess these NL teams really have 2020 pegged as their year. The Mets and the Reds get the two best pitchers traded thus far and both are under .500 and 5 and 6.5 games out respectively of the WC.

Once I'd just like a team to let a player take on another team by themselves just to see how fast they retreat when they realize they don't have backup. And just once someone actually did. I really do hate the Prince Fielder, "hold me back," type of tantrums. Garrett had a problem and he went running into a big crowd of guys throwing.

He exercised his out clause, likely because the Phillies offered him a major league deal. Just really crappy timing for the Brewers, as he'd easily be in the rotation now. Yeah, I went back and found the thread. Really couldn't have been worse timing. You'd think he'd be making his second start for the Brewers tonight or at least in this series had he stayed.

I'd say when he traded for CC and then Greinke and Marcum? Those wouldn't qualify? Adding two of the best pitchers of their generation in their primes and then trading a top 20-30 prospect for another good starter?

Really? We're stating that the Reds will NOT make the playoffs in 2020 despite having a really good looking staff with multiple TOR type arms on August 30th 2019? Do you think that might be just a bit premature?

Harrison broke out in 2017. He's a multi-tool prospect. It takes these ranking services a while to catch up. The fact is the prospect shine dulled a bit on Grisham over the last few years. He has obviously rebuilt it, but I think he is probably up on the ML team before he makes any sort of Top 100 list. Exactly. They have to cover 30 teams and thousands of prospects. So he's not rated in the top 100. That's fine. But people then use those rankings too often as gospel. What's everyone do when you hear about a trade for someone you don't know? You go to MLBPipeline or whatever site and see where they rank on their prospect lists. It's a tool, it's not the absolute authority.

I blinked and I missed what happened. I saw we signed him to a minor league deal, someone said, "hey, what about Shelby Miller? Remember when he was good." And then I saw Smyly on the Phils. Did they dump Smyly after we picked up Miller?

Yeah, that would be big for everyone. If had a good chance to be a leadoff hitter, this would be a pretty obvious answer. But I don't really see the profile for a leadoff hitter in him. I also doubt Cain has 3 more years with a sub .700 OPS.