OnTheBlack

I wonder if Chryst ever considered going with Croan. It would have been a tough situation on the road in Lincoln and it would have been especially tough if he'd done it after the pick 6, I just don't see Hornibrook progressing. Even when he puts up good numbers he's missing. There were a couple of big passing plays vs Northwestern where he underthrew the ball for what would be easy TD's. Some of it may be an at times leaky offensive line, but he made some many obviously bad throws and was lucky to not have been picked off a couple more times. It is pretty amazing they could come out and run the ball all but two times the last...20-25 plays of the game and come away with 3 TD's and then taking a knee. Taylor just looks better and better each week.

Well, you can't really blame them! They lost TJ Watt and Vince Biegel(who everyone loved telling you was more productive than Watt...which he was). I actually think I said every single one of those things sans the OLB'ers outloud watching the game at my Dad's house today. Of course I started out the game saying if Hornibrook looks bad for another week or 2 Coan might get a shot(so maybe tomorrow I'll talk about how Hawkins might get a shot if our starting corners struggle!). The OL needs to get squared away a little bit...they just need to be healthy and they need continuity in there. Get guys healthy and keep them together for a stretch. WR'ers/TE-Loaded, they have young guys they don't even need. And you can put the TE's in there. Penniston is super talented and would be a great #1 TE most years, but we have the best in CFB this year. Cephus and Peavy are stepping up big. AJ Taylor is a really talented young guy. Davis is a big play threat. RB-Taylor looks as good as anyone not named Gordon has looked since Dayne as a young guy. He IS a really quick guy with great speed, but he'll run you over also. Shaw and James are solid, nothing special for a UW back, but Taylor is really the game changer. All their DL is back and they have more depth...their MLB'ers are among the best in the country there as well. The only questions I have is just how good the secondary is...only because we haven't matched up against a good QB and WR'er corp like we'll see vs Michigan and hopefully vs OSU in Indy or in a playoff. Just hope Hornibrook can get his confidence, keep going to the WR'ers more to open it up for Fumigalli and Penninton underneath and Taylor can keep hitting those lanes...this could be a year to remember for the Big Red! Lots of good stuff in here. But you actually believe that Biegel was more productive than Watt? Biegel never had a single season that approached what TJ did when he settled in for his ONE season as a starting OLB. And I was/am a huge VB fan. I think Watt a lot more talented but Biegel was more accomplished. No doubt Watt was better last year than Biegel was at any point...but Biegel was all B1G while Watt was a backup. I was more just cutting off the argument I've heard over and over in order to compare Biegel favorably to Watt by saying that Biegel was more productive.

Of course GM's are smarter and use advanced metrics....everyone does now. But I'd be surprised if they evaluate trades the same way a few writers and people on here do with regards to projected WAR and projected surplus or negative value moving forward. Is this just an assumption because they were bad this year? As of late in the year members of the front office actually came out and said they were NOT rebuilding next year and hoping to rebound and would be looking for some power hitters(though JD Martinez and Bruce were mentioned). Not to mention it just doesn't sound like the Giants to rebuild. Not that I expect the Giants to trade for Braun or anyone to for that matter, but they seem like the most likely to.

He said guards were replaceable and them immediately replaced the ones he had with Sitton and Lang. Then he replaced those guys with Taylor and Evans. Sitton has been hurt as much as he's played since they cut him. They made a big offer to Lang but Detroit offered more. I really don't see the interior of the line as a problem. This made me laugh. He did...you're absolutely right. And I'll be the first to admit I was pretty adamant last year when we cut Sitton we made a huge mistake. But...TT was right. When you look at the players he's drafted for this OL, it's pretty impressive. Bahktari, Sitton, Lang, Tretter, Linsley, Bulaga...and there are several others. The only thing I wish TT would do is be more aggressive in adding talent outside the draft..which in fairness he did this year. Even the best teams need to be lucky as well as good. Hopefully this year all the guys who are banged up will come back and contribute. I think that Bye week is perfect for us. We're gonna have to scramble at times, but getting Bulaga, Bahktari, Daniels back to 100 pct after the bye could really catapult us down the stretch.

And given who is injured, I think it's hard to blame the training staff. Mike Daniels and Bahktari are two of the toughest, most durable guys on the team...and are both out. Probably our 2nd and 3rd most important players. What the injuries really show IMO is how good Rodgers is being able to carry the Packers while missing so many key players.

Who cares if he only plays 113 games if he's 5 WAR? I'd be more inclined to agree with you if I believed he was a 5 WAR player. He'll be 32 years old next year and had accumulated 11.6 WAR his entire career prior to this years breakout. It's not like we're talking about Manny Machado here. It's more like taking a much worse JJ Hardy and asking him to move off of SS and to move over to 2nd base coming off his career year.

I hate to burst your bubble, but there are few better than him in the league. He isn't perfect but no one is. He is a major reason why we have been in the top of the league for years. Agreed. It's amazing when you go back and look at the draft from 4-5 years ago how many busts there are and how hard it is to find productive players. As it stands, the Packers have Nick Perry and Clay Matthews starting and Ahmad Brooks at their top 3 OLB'ers. Not sure exactly what's wrong with that. In this case I think two things can be true, Thompson made the right move for the Packers and TJ Watt could still end up being a dominant player....we got a OLB'er in Biegel(NOT a 4-3 DE) and a young, physical 6'3 Corner.

These things get thrown out there and then they seem to be repeated over and over. Cook wasn't a great blocker, but he was hardly a terrible blocker. Meanwhile people call Richard Rodgers a blocking-first TE, but PFF had Cook rated significantly higher than Rodgers...just for example. He was rated as the 11th and 13th best blocking TE the two years prior to coming to GB(and he was obviously hurt a good portion of last year). And I think we would have re-signed Cook had we been able to sign him for what the Raiders did. I think he asked for more money and the Packers moved on to Bennett. I think a Cook/Kendricks combination would make us more dangerous and make us more versatile. Bennett's a very good all around TE, I have no issue with him and I think he'll get more productive as the season goes on.

I don't see any reason to get rid of Barnes. Maybe we need more high leverage relievers or better high leverage relievers, but getting rid of Barnes would be similar to getting rid of Knebel after last season.

Sonny Gray wasn't that good for the Yankees. An FIP of nearly 5, Walks up, HR's up...I see the last page of this thread and he's been mentioned as a TOR pitcher multiple times. I don't think he is. He's a 3 IMO. Maybe he gets us into the playoffs. But I don't think he gets us any further than that. And there was also the argument that because we won 2 of 3 vs the Dodgers(without Kershaw and several others) or the Nats(again, without Harper and others). But in a playoff series? Also Adambr, you're right. I highly doubt that Phillips would have been sufficient as the headliner...it likely would have taken Brinson plus one of our top 3 young pitchers(Woodruff, Hader or Burnes) plus a couple lower level prospects. I was totally against the prospect of trading away any prospects at the time and even happier we didn't blow any prospects when Nelson went down. It was a great season and a ton of fun, but giving up what it would have taken to get Gray to watch the Brewers face the D-backs in a playoff(Grienke) and then the Nats if by some chance we got past them(Scherzer/Strausburg/Gonzalez)...well, that just seems pointless and premature.

Any reasoning behind why you don't think he'll be an ace reliever? I can maybe see his walk rate being an issue, but mixing 98 up in the zone, an 80 mph curveball, and some deception make life pretty difficult for batters. Didn't he have the highest exit velocity of any reliever this year? Or it might have been of any pitcher with more than 60 innings. I think he'll continue to be a good closer, but I don't think he's in that truly elite group the next 3-5 years.

I would think that at this point, both would be available tomorrow. If they had to pitch, they'd definitely not be available Friday, but it's Sept 20th and we have to take 3 from Chicago to have a realistic chance to win the division.

The scary thing with the shoulder injury like this is how it seems to almost inevitably lead to other injuries as pitchers try to compensate. It's just sickening though. It feels similar to Sheets. You had the buildup, a few good years where he's struggle for stretches, then that one year where he was dominant, then an injury and hopefully there is a different ending for Jimmy. Hopefully he can come back and the same type of pitcher he was this year in 2019 and MAYBE even the same type of pitcher he was this year by August or Sept next year(if we're somehow in the race without him). I would expect the Brewers would be really cautious with him when he does come back. Just would been so much more reassuring if this would have been a UCL tear...we'd at least know he'd be back and be back just as strong.

That was pretty much my thinking. Obviously if he was already that, or if he was a TOR arm, he wouldn't even be in the discussion as he'd be much more expensive. There are several available arms who are more proven, but I was trying to come up with guys who still have some upside, not guys who you're hoping can replicate past success(Darvish, Fister, Arietta, CC, Cashner to varying degrees) but guys who are affordable who have the potential to improve upon those past results. Of course he did post a WAR or 3.6 last year and 2.3 this year. I definitely wouldn't pass on adding a pitcher though so as to not block anyone. You need 7-8 starters to get through a year and you're already going into next year knowing you're gonna need some protection even if everything looks great for Nelson. We've also finally got a stable of really talented young starting pitching options, but obviously we don't want Woodruff, Burnes, Peralta throwing 200 innings next year(or any young arms).

It always amazes me how it's always Capers and McCarthy's fault. It's week two, Rodges has played poorly, we're missing not only our top 2 tackles, but our 3rd tackle(or 4th, but our 2nd string LT) so we're down to our 5th tackle and a guy who played guard in the pre-season..we lose our best defensive player who last week led our defense when they dominated the 2nd best team in the NFC(excluding the Packers). Then we lose Nelson. So we're down Bulaga, Bahktari, Daniels, Nelson as well as lesser players like Brice(who actually played about 80 pct of the snaps last week), Brooks among others. And it's the coaches fault that the Refs blow a call that negated a huge play that would have put us in Atlanta territory with 2 TO's and 1:20 to go in the game? It's the coaches fault that Rodgers throws a uncharacteristic but AWFUL pick trying to go over the top of Trufant in Cover2 Man that leads to a TD? It's the coaches fault that Rodgers throws the ball and it's ruled a lateral(which I'm pretty sure they got the call wrong as it wouldn't have been a forward pass if not for Rodgers getting hit, thus should have been a forward pass per the rules) that gives Atlanta another TD? McCarthy came out with a very good game plan in a nearly impossible situation, they just didn't execute it(losing Nelson hurts) and a couple of big plays completely changed the momentum of the game. As for Capers, it's amazing how great of a coach he is with talent. We have had the top defense with him twice...when we had Woodson, Collins, Raji, Matthews, etc..etc..etc.. It's just so easy and in my opinion lazy to say, "oh, Capers is awful" when the defense performs poorly. What happened to Gus Bradley, the greatest defensive mind of his era(a bit hyperbole, but he was extremely highly touted) after leaving Seattle for the Jags? A defensive coordinator is only as good as his scheme(ours is obviously solid since the man who helped create it is run by more than half the league), the talent level on the field(ours took a massive hit when Daniels went down) and the level of understanding the players on the field have(which is difficult when you have a guy who got here last week playing, a rookie coming in for a guy who played starter snaps last week in Jones and another rookie who had to come in for a veteran in King for House). Atlanta was an elite offensive team last year..yet amazingly the coordinator who led that team last year is in SF which currently has a terrible offense. I remember when McGinn would interview executives from around the league and ask for their opinions on coordinators and they'd say they just can't believe Packers fans are upset with Capers, a HOF coordinator. When Perry, Matthews, Daniels are all on the field, the Packers defense is a very good D. When you start chipping away at those players health and you have big momentum swings in a big game, things are going to look bad. It was an ugly game, but the Packers came out of the first two weeks vs Seattle and on the road as Atlanta opens it's new Stadium 1-1 and I have every bit the confidence in them I did last week. The secondary looks vastly improved, Dix had a terrible game, but has a large enough body of work. They'll be fine if they can avoid the serious injuries on defense. And their offense is always among the leagues elite.

I would hope the guy who studied exercise science in college would understand when to push it and when not to. Let's just hope and pray that when they cut into him it is just some cleanup, pretty please baseball gods. I am hoping just that, but the guy that studied exercise science in college was a guy who was a competitor who needed a major. This guy is a bulldog...and with your shoulder...there is nothing more important than patience. You can feel great and want to get in another inning(simulated) for instance when you shouldn't. There's also the fact that we still haven't REALLY figured out the shoulder yet. You can have three guys and everything can be pretty much healed up and one can never come back the same. Another guy may deal with other injuries indirectly related to a shoulder injury for the following year or two..and then a 3rd guy may be back in look like he never missed a beat. I'm really hoping that Jimmy's that third guy because with all the young pitching we have, he's the ideal guy IMO to be that staff ace. The guy who shows the younger guys what it takes, the guy who instills that same attitude in them about how to approach a hitter and most importantly looks like he'll be in the midst of his prime age wise while the Brewers really expect to contend.

Definitely. But I'm kinda glad they didn't start out with a "Bama or LSU this year(though I think we win the later). Let them get their feet under them...BYU might be a better team than they appear at 1st glance as they've played some good teams close. I think they're a 1 loss team(Michigan) going into the B1G Title game. It's gonna be at a point where Michigan's young guys are really hitting their stride after coming off 3 easy games. Of course they'll also be getting ready for OSU at home and they'll be IN Camp Randall. I really kinda doubt there is any team in a power 5 with an easier route to a spot in the playoff than the Badgers. They should be favored in every game until the Title game. Still..it always seems to be a team you don't expect to jump up and bite you. Iowa, Northwestern in a down year...etc...

Do we have any updates on his injury? Last I had heard is they were having exploratory surgery to see just how bad it is. The problem is as far as they've come with shoulders, they're still just putting you back together and hoping. And Jimmy's personality worries me when it comes to his rehab. You have to be patient in rehab. You can't just work through it...and you know he'll want to. The Clayton Richards suggestion made me think of Garrett Richards. He looked poised to become a ace and a potential Cy Young contender in the near future before he blew out his knee(pretty ugly injury). Then as so often happens he arm injuries. Right now he's back pitching after he was found to have a partial UCL and opted for PRP injections and is back throwing well down the stretch for the Angels. I'd toss him on the list of guys to check on and see if he could be had. I think given our depth I'd go for a Home Run more than a sure thing.

Started the game today with AJ Taylor faking the Jet Sweep and Jonathan Taylor then gashing BYU for some big gains. It definitely seemed like it had the desired affect. They were making sure they had outside contain and it make it easier for Taylor to find some room between the tackles. At some point they're gonna need to at least run the Jet Sweep to give it more credibility and if they get AJ Taylor on the edge with some room, that could be big.

Well, you can't really blame them! They lost TJ Watt and Vince Biegel(who everyone loved telling you was more productive than Watt...which he was). I actually think I said every single one of those things sans the OLB'ers outloud watching the game at my Dad's house today. Of course I started out the game saying if Hornibrook looks bad for another week or 2 Coan might get a shot(so maybe tomorrow I'll talk about how Hawkins might get a shot if our starting corners struggle!). The OL needs to get squared away a little bit...they just need to be healthy and they need continuity in there. Get guys healthy and keep them together for a stretch. WR'ers/TE-Loaded, they have young guys they don't even need. And you can put the TE's in there. Penniston is super talented and would be a great #1 TE most years, but we have the best in CFB this year. Cephus and Peavy are stepping up big. AJ Taylor is a really talented young guy. Davis is a big play threat. RB-Taylor looks as good as anyone not named Gordon has looked since Dayne as a young guy. He IS a really quick guy with great speed, but he'll run you over also. Shaw and James are solid, nothing special for a UW back, but Taylor is really the game changer. All their DL is back and they have more depth...their MLB'ers are among the best in the country there as well. The only questions I have is just how good the secondary is...only because we haven't matched up against a good QB and WR'er corp like we'll see vs Michigan and hopefully vs OSU in Indy or in a playoff. Just hope Hornibrook can get his confidence, keep going to the WR'ers more to open it up for Fumigalli and Penninton underneath and Taylor can keep hitting those lanes...this could be a year to remember for the Big Red!

I was looking at potential FA starting pitchers this off-season. The Brewers have money to spend, but with questions about Nelson and obviously the even larger questions about the team as a whole potentially regressing next year I think you can check off the big free agents. I was looking at potential pitchers in this class and Chatwood stuck out to me. He's not an ace or TOR type pitcher by any means, but he is a guy who looks as though would benefit a great deal getting out of Colorado. His splits Home/Away for his career(below) are pretty dramatic, and even moreso this year) .297.377.467.844 5.31 ERA .241.327.363.689 3.29 ERA Also found an interesting article...it's from earlier in the year, but it shows an uptick in velocity and movement. The later one would expect to only improve away from Coors Field. http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/tyler-chatwoods-new-tyler-chatwood/ No clue what a good deal would be, but one would think he could be had for a relatively reasonable contract given his career to date. He is just 27, so he strikes me as a guy who combined with a change of scenery could have a nice second act to his career. Maybe 3 years 30 million, 4th year mutual option with buyouts? My second thought is a bit more out there. Definitely high risk, but we did pay Feliz over 5 million dollars hoping he would have a bounce back year. Michael Pineda on a 2 year 10 million dollar deal with some type of larger vesting options if he comes back strong in 2019 from TJ. At best he would be back at this point next year, though more likely it wouldn't be until the following year he makes an impact. I am doubting there will be many takers on Pineda and chances are the Yankees just sign him anyway, but I am interested to hear what people think of the idea of Chatwood. At 27 is there still a chance he takes another step as he has with his fastballl up a couple ticks to 94.7 this year.

When he says external money, my guess is he's budgeting for the salaries and potential extensions of our own young players. It's too early for me to start guessing what we'll have to spend in 2020 or 2023, but I have said in other threads given the number of pre arbitration contracts we have, this is a time we could actually go out and spend on a top free agent pitcher if there was one that we liked. Someone like Greinke when he left the Brewers. The problem is when I looked at the future FA pitchers, the only I saw that look like aces are Kuechel who will be 32 IIRC at that point and Kershaw who's not leaving LA. Anyway, I'm gonna hope against hope(and against what I said in my recent posts on the subject) and hope that Nelson's shoulder ends up being a good case scenario(not best, but one in that he's back for the start of next year). Rotation- 1-Nelson 2-Anderson-I'm just ready to admit I was wrong on him. I thought he was nothing more than a journeyman soft tossing pitcher, but if he can keep his velocity in the low to mid 90's and stay healthy all year, he could be a good #2. 3-Davies 4-Woodruff 5-Hader 6-Jungman/FA signing This is the rotation I'd like to see them start the year with. I have Hader in there 5th just so he can get an extra day off every now and then. In a perfect world they'd skip Hader and Woodruff once a month being young pitchers. Then after keeping Burnes in CS and throwing ~75-80 pitches a start until about June -Nelson -Anderson -Davies -Woodruff -Hader -Burnes-Bring him up as the first guy in if someone is injured, OR bring him up in June to pitch out of the pen like Hader did this year and when used, make sure he's given 3 days of rest before sliding him into the rotation down the stretch. I'd like to see a Free Agent, but I'm not convinced the can replicate this success next year, especially with questions about Nelson. So I wouldn't want to spend on a guy like Arietta who wants a ridiculously long term deal from what I've heard him say(I thought I read earlier this year he wanted 8 years..that'd likely be 4 years of a significantly decreased value). Darvish would likely get ~5/150 plus an option for ~30 million. Cashner is gonna cash in on a healthy 5 war season. I think I would look at maybe Tyler Chatwood as a possible FA target. Get him out of Col and his numbers are significantly better. His OPS is about 150 points better away from Coors.

That means almost literally nothing regarding what he said about his command. It's absolutely a fact that unless Hader makes significant improvements with regard to both his command and control within the zone he won't be a starter. I'll take that a step further and say that he can't maintain this type of walk rate and be a successful reliever in the big leagues. Sale also had a better FIP that year and walked about 3 fewer batters per 9 IP. I can't think of a pitcher who walks nearly 7 guys per 9 IP who's had success at the big league level. You see Hader and you see he can be a really good pitcher. His stuff is exceptional, he's deceptive, etc..etc..etc..and I believe he will be. But you can't use pitches thrown and ERA, ESPECIALLY in such a tiny sample size to make any viable comparison or statement about how he can maintain future success without improving. Again, I think he will so I'm not bashing him. But there is no doubt that a starting pitcher cannot get away with that many walks and having to use that many pitches to get outs. It's just not sustainable. Comps with young players are almost always ridiculous like this. Remember when Nelson was drafted and people used Suppan as a comp and most people were then disgusted with the pick? Suppan had a career WAR of 20.4. Nelson had 4 career WAR entering this year. So that's probably why people are overly ambitious with their comps. Realistic ones aren't nearly as fun! I guess the best optimistic comp would be Andrew Miller though. There just aren't that many lanky lefties with that similar delivery who've had success. I think Hader's career has a better chance to be similar to Miller's than anyone else that comes to mind while still falling short, but I'm still holding out hope he can carve out a stop atop our rotation for the next 4-5 or so years. Oh boy, where to begin. Pitchers tend to pitch differently out of the pen than out of the rotation. Using extra pitches isn't as big a deal as they aren't trying to eat up a ton of innings. Also Hader has a very good track record in multiple minor league seasons, so it's not like I'm basing my opinion on him solely on the 25 MLB innings he's pitched in a different role than he's used to, nor should anyone else. Chris Sale is the dream outcome for Hader, and it isn't unrealistic as they are very similar. The numbers are reasonably close, and more to the point is that Sale clearly wasn't a finished product upon starting in his bullpen role at the MLB level. He developed and improved at this level and is now an absolute star. I don't think anybody is trying to say that Hader is good as is and doesn't need to improve. The crux of the discussion is whether he should enter the MLB rotation to start 2018 or serve another role(AAA starter, AA starter, MLB bullpen). My standpoint is, give him the inside track in ST to open in the 2018 mlb rotation. He'll have command issues and some short outings, but we are in a rebuild and he'll learn and develop much more at this level than any of the alternative options. He'll also likely have some very good outings to offset some bad ones and I would think will have a floor of a #5 SP statistically cumulatively next season. And regarding Nelson, you conveniently leave out that Nelson currently has 4 WAR this season already and is only 28. Suppan never had a season of 3 WAR. And using WAR to prove your point that those 2 pitchers were a good comp for each other is...wow. Have you actually seen both pitchers pitch? The only way they are similar pitchers is that they both throw right handed, and apparently their WAR...or something. But that's apparently a thing...find one advanced metric that sorta/kinda proves your point and your standpoint is the bible. Nelson drastically improved his stuff since being drafted and is a power pitcher, which at that point the comp is gone and baseless since that's not what Suppan ever was. How about reading the actual words I used and then replying to them and not other words. First part, the ridiculous comments about Nelson. You do realize that I said when he was drafted, right? The context was that when we try to find comps with younger pitchers or players, we almost always use an unattainable, ridiculous star player...sorta like you're trying to do when you used your Haders 402 pitches .81 ERA vs Sales 392 pitches 1.81 ERA or whatever it was(while ignoring that Hader walked 3 more per 9 than Sale even using your arbitrary number of pitches metric). So my POINT in saying that people were upset when they saw that Suppan, a guy with 20 career WAR(which was behind ONLY Scott Rolen among 2nd rounders that year) was that the bar is set unfairly high. That you think Nelson has "drastically" improved his stuff or is a power pitcher now is totally, 100 pct irrelevant. The point was that comps are almost always unfair and even when you use a comp from a player who was one of the best players in his draft class, people STILL get upset because it's not a superstar. But to answer your absolutely ridiculous and pointless question, yes, I've seen Nelson pitch. He pitches differently than Suppan. Hence...comps for young pitchers/players are useless. And to build on that a bit, not sure it's quite the insult you think it is to be compared to a guy who won 140 games and threw over 2500 innings in the big leagues when you're drafted in the 2nd round.....so again, what he's done now, his WAR this year couldn't be further from the point and has absolutely nothing to do with anything. What's more, IT WASN'T MY COMP. It was a fairly common one that went around here that came to mind that I used as an example. Now, with regard to Hader. Yes, I get that sometimes relievers use more pitches in an given inning because they come into higher leverage situations. I also think I've said in every way possible that I think Hader's a REALLY good pitcher, have said that all year, said that in this thread and in every discussion I said he should be given a shot to start. That he should fail as a starter before relinquishing him to the bullpen. But what is undeniable, regardless of what Chris Sale once did in 391 pitches in the pen whenever is, if he cannot and will not have success as a reliever, much less as a starter moving forward if he walks 7 per 9 innings(which he was when you posted your condescendingly obnoxious reply) and he cannot throw as many pitches as he had been if he wants to be a starter who pitches deeper than the 3rd inning. That really shouldn't be debatable. I also never even so much as inferred I didn't think he could improve. So you can stop "selling" me on Hader and really don't do it by citing how he did in X number of pitches vs how another pitcher did in the same number of pitches. It might be a worse way to judge a pitcher than using a relievers W/L record. But I've always said and consistently said that Hader should start....and if he's to be successful at it, his BB rate will decline. He's got good enough stuff to get by with a higher than normal BB rate, but not 7 walks per 9. So where to start? How about with what was actually said and try to take things in the proper context.

I loved his demeanor after retiring the side and striking out two in his MLB debut. Like it was no big deal. Missed him last night. Can someone give me a little bit of a truncated scouting report. Velo, movement, delivery...

I don't know that he loves him, I think he was one of the only options earlier this year and has since been moved down a bit to a role more commensurate with his performance. His early dominance in March/April probably helped him when he struggled. But his numbers look very similar to 2016 Corey Knebel and he's a 2016 Knebel- 10.47 K/9 4.41 BB/9 4.68 ERA FIP 3.58 xFIP 4.06 2017 Barnes 10.35 K/9 4.20 BB/9 4.34 ERA FIP4.01 xFIP 3.70 I'm certainly not saying that Barnes is gonna put up Knebel type numbers next year, but he's definitely a guy who could provide a huge boost to this pen if he can be just a bit more effective. I think his HR/FB pct will come back down to normal and he'll be just fine. But guys who have fastballs that average over 97 MPH with a good cutter has all the tools to be a closer or SU man. Just has to keep more balls in the park(though, better GB ratio that Knebel and lower hard hit pct than Knebel this year)