TJseven7

Going back to the OP. Was listening to a national sports program a year ago about the death of heros in sports and fan/media bias. He was talking about kc print ripping on teams for drafting character issues in the nfl despite no mention of their hypocrisy in tyreek hill. I called talking ray rice before after video... mixon v other character concerns due to video... joe pas lawn party pre death and threw in that exact Braun v Marte game. Agree agree agree good point good point... braun... whoa hold up! He said that Braun doesn't fit. The way he treated the courier, the way he was smug about getting off the hook... But the interesting part was he brought up fellow reporters who were jewish and livid about his anti-jewish comment at the courier. Stated he had close colleagues/friends who were downright incensed over it and he'll never get forgiven for it by them. True or not that's very much in play and in perceptions. I apologized for not remembering it at the time and backpeddled from that example... granted he also stated they shouldn't cheer marte... but that braun should absolutely be booed. Daniel Tosh has a Kobe joke in completely serious... hate me because im a champion, hate me due to my work ethic... yadda yadda. I think Brauns baseballs Kobe. Wasn't liked by many from the start but that one poorly handled situation just put the final nail in the coffin. Now he's real easy to hate. Watched game 3 with my sisters sports crazy 11 year old. We had a long Braun talk. Me and him have a rule... I'll buy him jerseys of the best players in the game, whom I assume are also good leaders and good people, but no matter how much he loves the jersey, if the player does something that makes them a lesser person, the jersey gets tossed and he gets a new one to replace it of another guy. Although I expect him to get popped for steroids or hgh any day, I'm still happy he has a JJ Watt jersey. Rodgers, Jordy, Giannis as well. Been watch listing Khalil Mack for a few years now. He really liked carolina for awhike and he almost got Kuechly but didn't want a panthers fan for life in the family lol. He won't be getting a Braun one. He was kinda wowed by Yelich and Hader... wonder why. (Currently my most comfortable brewer jersey sits at Shaw but its a close group) Lastly, man I hate the... if you could make 100 mil by cheating you'd do it too take. It's sad that's become such a popular outlook and opinion, and as a cynic I get why. But you don't know how the person you are talking to is wired, so don't point that at people. Saw that pointed at luke and man, lucky it was him and not me. Let's leave it at... I'm the type of dumb egotistical that I'd rather have the deck stacked against me so I know my accomplishments hold value. A stick it type of achievement... followed rules, didn't cut corners, still here type of achievement. Makes me dumb in the eyes of many but don't just assume people would cheat... we all have our messed up motives and some aren't that simple to see. You can decide which is better for yourself. Both have faults. It's like assuming all people who get power will become self serving corrupt monsters. Some people want power because of the opportunity it would present to do good things. Some love results some love legacy both can be completely selfish in the reason why they do what they do despite opposite outcomes. People are messy, but cheating is WAY easier to see. Like reading a player had an issue and cutting to the video. Braun messed this one up bad, and even the 11 year old knows... we root for the Brewers to win and if that means we need Braun to do good so be it. We dont root for Braun. Before I get jumped on for teaching that lesson... we also talked about how he's being a team player and playing a new position, putting the team first this year and has probably stopped cheating.

But the main reason they can't go to 110 is because of previous bad financial decisions. They're still paying guys like Garza, whom they never should have signed in the first place, and Ramirez, whom they had no business keeping after 2012 under the circumstances (they clearly needed to rebuild, he was aging, and his salary was going way up every year). All they're saying is that they're going to stop making bad decisions like that. It won't pay off for years, but it will eventually. I don't know about you, but I still plan to be a Brewer fan 5 years from now (even though they didn't sign the great Alex Cobb) and I'm glad they're thinking that far ahead, even as they try to compete this year. I was told defered money saves teams money. Now I'm being told we are broke because defered money? Something doesn't add up. (Not saying its your stance luke)

If you come right out and say that his 4,000+ career MiLB plate appearances are "useless" for evaluative purposes and all that matters is his ~300 plate appearances last year, then you're proving my point about the irrational affinity people have for him. And it's not like he was even that good last year. An .837 OPS for a 1B who does nothing at replacement level except *maybe* slugging and who plays on the dime-a-dozen side of the platoon isn't worth jack squat. His 4000 milb PA project him at best to be exactly the guy he was in 300 mlb pa. That's the strange part of this. Its not like he was a 320/400/900 guy in the minors who looked shabby in his first mlb stint. He's been this guy at every single level. Incredibly consistently ho hum. That's a replacable 1b. The stance of he wouldn't be the first guy to have weak milb numbers and carve out a spot on an mlb roster... sure but there are a long long list of guys who didnt, or started to and then vanished.

303/362/875 in 301 PA didn't even get a MLB offer. Platoons even stronger by a tick. 265/331/837 in 311 PA is valuable? Doesn't make sense to me.

Ummm.... Even if you take Santanas 2016 stats at 23 and extrapolate them out he's no worse than Aguilar. Im pretty sure you could find a bad stretch in Santanas stellar 2017 that rivals this stretch. You are not benching a 25 year old coming off a monster offensive season to play Aguilar. I can see not wanting to throw Aguilar away for nothing, or hoping after rosters are set that you can sneak him to CS. But he has nothing to do with Santana.

Aguilars not good. He's ww fodder that was cut because he wasn't good. Platoon 1bs or backup 1bs are dime a dozen. They are valued as such league wide.

Choi is added evidence to those who call Aguilar dime a dozen.

"It is far easier to find an OF than a first baseman." Franklin, Kirk, Perez, Broxton, etc etc etc. No its not easier to find an OF that can hit and play OF than it is to find a 1b who can hit and field 1b. 1b is the bottom of the spectrum. PS: the 3 years talk of Braun to 1b was media driven because its a logical progression in his career. I was referencing that to point to the "necessity" talk in Brauns interview. I'll admit Braun to 1b wasn't a consideration until this offseason but that started before Yelich Cain. It was never a consideration before because of a complete lack of necessity... we needed him in LF. We could add scrubs at 1b that could impact offense easier than OF.

I think we're probably just going to have to agree to disagree on all this, but it's not choosing Aguilar over Phillips, it's choosing Thames over Phillips. Braun (and his ZiPS projected OPS+ of 122) is playing near everyday if he's healthy whether that's in a corner outfield spot (with Thames and his projected 125 OPS+ taking most of the time at 1st) or at 1st (with Phillips and his projected 87 OPS+ getting most of the time in RF). In the longrun, yes, I can see Braun at 1st and Phillips being a nice piece of the outfield everyday, but we're talking about this year. If Santana was moved this offseason I don't think Braun plays a single inning at first this Spring. If Santana was traded today... I wouldn't call Phillips everyday either... but the braun start discussion has Yelich 145, Cain 135... If you consider Braun RF starter 120 you have 86 starts for Phillips. I want 24-34 more. Maybe that's every day to you... maybe I should call that everyday. Regardless... thats starts I want taken from Aguilar. Food for thought... Phillips 98 PA 1.4 war Thames 550 PA 1.4 war Aguilar 310 PA 1.2 war. I'd assume that's explained as different ways to skin a cat and I prefer the ridiculous defense in the OF version. Thames Aguilar are bad defenders... Brauns defensive impact will be a minimal difference. Braun isn't santana terrible but he's close in RF... phillips would be a gigantic upgrade on defense.

Link? Just curious how he had worded that, I don't recall ever hearing anything from him that made it seem like a move was likely until after the Cain/Yelich acquisitions and being open to moving positions is a far cry from the organization planning around making him move to a position he's never played before. Speculation does not equal evidence. You seem to fill in a lot of gaps in your knowledge about what's going on behind the scenes with some strangely strong assumptions on your part. I haven't had any sense that the organization prefers moving Braun to first base. In fact they have made several acquisitions in Thames, Aguilar, and Choi the past year and change to fill that position rather than moving him there. Recent comments from Braun have also suggested that this move to first is only while the roster necessitates. It seems like a stretch to assume he wouldn't go back to a more natural position if the outfield allowed for it. I also just don't agree that having Phillips in RF and Braun/Thames at 1st would be a better option than Braun in LF/RF and Thames/Aguilar at 1st if those became our options. Phillips as the 4th OF at any of the three positions as needed would be fantastic, I just don't think he's proven he's ready to just take an everyday job yet if Santana were to be moved. Link October 19th https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.mlb.com/259061492-brewers-ryan-braun-discusses-future.amp.html "I can check, but we had some awful 1B in the past few years." Save yourself the trouble... I did it weeks ago. From Lind on our options at 1b were better than our 4th OF. Saying we could have moved him and aquired an OF is not the point. We could have added a SS and moved Arcia to 2b. You can play the... we could have added X game with anyone. We had what we had, had bargains we could add and the final result left Braun in Left as the best option. Aguilar was free, we arent adding a LF who hits like aguilar for free unless hes defense poor. We arent adding a lhb LF who hits like thames for his deal and Thames is a worse outfielder than Braun. Choi is Thames insurance. We know this. All our 1b options were cheap sluggers at a low spectum defense position. They were all far better than kirk and franklin. Allen you know what happens to OF hitters after defense fades... DH 1B. We've seen it many times. You don't add cain yelich unless you plan to or at least think you can make that move. You understand the risk of possibly keeping santana so you have to have an out up your sleeve. I'm not saying we did this specifically to move Braun to 1b... but we absolutely knew it was an option. If Brinson Phillips stayed, he was moving that way before his contract ran out no matter which way you slice it. On top of that Santanas poor defense was on the block immediately... so we could put Brauns poor defense there? I don't think so. Phillips 4th OF only is a complete waste. Braun in RF is right back to crap defense from RF. Aguilar over Phillips is crazy. Phillips defense alone could surpass Aguilars value. Splitting Braun RF anf 1b to get phillips a bigger sample makes far more sense. Braun says he'll move if necessity merits it. So we add yelich cain. Necessity prior to 2018... zero. Big necessity now. We are trying to trade our poor defending RF before we land either. We don't want Braun in RF either he has poor defense there too. But Phillips is still sitting there on the cusp. A defensive prized RF prospect. Braun does not fit in what Stearns wants in the OF. He platoons perfectly with Thames though. That's not evidence of them wanting him at 1b? Brauns there due to necessity... ok when's that going away? Santana gets traded... oh we have phillips glove to play in RF. That necessity is here to stay.

"He might even be more likely to have a successful year if he's used correctly. I don't understand why people are ready to riot over a guy with a 3.60 career FIP. " Don't care about his FIP one bit but as for using him properly... yeah we could do him some favors by doing that.

Just because milone flamed wouldn't make a smart guy assume its going to happen again... it goes both ways.

As an attempt to stash as many starters into the depth chart as possible... yes. Not because he's good. We kept Milone.

Agreed but until Logan is back he's probably our Loogey.

There was talk about Braun moving to 1st for 3 years but our 4th OF was never better than our options at 1b. It's never been done due to a complete lack of a need. It was inevitable though. I have never seen anyone in the Brewers organization even mention moving Braun to 1B. That all came about because we still have Santana. Well before we added Yelich and Cain, Braun stated that he was open to playing any position but 3b. That if the roster composition required it he'd be willing to switch positions. That was in OCTOBER. So unless you want to believe we already knew then that we'd have cain yelich and be stuck on Santana... or that we had OFs we were dying to play over our options at 1b prior to 2018... you are flatly wrong. Sorry not sorry. The organization never talked about it? Why should they talk about options they have zero reason to consider implementing. Could arcia move to 2b... sure could... but short of us acquiring machado there's no sense in talking about it. You want to ignore where the evidence points so you can pound your fists on the table and accuse this move of being desperate and reactionary, be my guest. That doesn't make your stance correct. I don't care what my stance ends up being... I just follow evidence until I have a stance. This was an inevitable switch, that was on the back burner until it made sense for roster composition. Here we are. Why did we add Yelich Cain while we still had Santana. Cuz we thought we'd trade Santana and assumed we had the option of Braun at 1st. It's highly likely that if we traded Santana Phillips would be up and not merely as some 4th OF, but as our RF and Braun would still get time at 1b. Phillips > Aguilar

Not sure I follow the math... Braun 42 1b Santana 27 with yelich in CF Perez 17 due to Braun at 1b vs lhp 47 and 32 after DH... total 79 162 in RF makes 241. 110 for Braun and 131 for Santana sounds reasonable. Maybe 15-25 starts short of ideal. Any DL time, or letting Thames hit against LHP the games Yelich sits instead of perez fixes that gap pretty quick.

There was talk about Braun moving to 1st for 3 years but our 4th OF was never better than our options at 1b. It's never been done due to a complete lack of a need. It was inevitable though.

That assumes Anderson Davies and Nelson are all performing. Andersons paid, Davies hits arby next year, Nelson hits arby 2 next year. All costs increasing. Who is bumping those 3 onto the trade block before we watch them leave for comp picks? Chacin's getting bumped next year... but you need some big things from suter woodruff burnes to make any of those top 3 expendable. Basically asking the group to go 6 for 6 to be able to cycle a contract to rebuild the farm... before they cycle off and you get comp picks. We are on the same idea... the hader + 1 of peralta williams barnes lets us trade off knebel... rotation kids get promoted into 4-5 and graduate to 1-2-3 bumping one of the top 3 onto the trade block roster flow. But we disagree on the ability to effectively do that. You think we can as is. I think we need one more piece that doesn't cost prospects via trade to get to a point of rotation surplus. You aren't willing to buy that piece that increases our chances at surplus... I am in the right circumstance and I feel cobb was that chance. Im curious as to whom you see being able to crack the top 3 before the top 3 clocks hit zero and how soon you feel that can be done because we know control = trade value.

Phillips has been optioned and they are debating on whether to keep Aguilar. It's not about what I would do. Right because Santana is still here and you'd prefer not to flat cut Aguilar at a time when teams are waivers happy.

So Brauns move to 1st is illogical? You'd prefer to play Aguilar over Phillips? I'm discouting Phillips but you'd make him a 4th OF at the expense of getting Aguilar ABs?

"The point wasn't to compare Cain and Phillips. The point is that Phillips is young and talented. If they are not going to block young players and give them chances, Phillips is that. Particularly when the alternative is to spend 80mil on an aging player." Well they intend to unblock Phillips by trading Santana. When, not sure but its clearly the intent. If thats the desired move Cain's blocking Broxton and we really cant afford 2b and CF playing bad defense and k'ing in the 200s again. Cain just doesn't block Phillips and Phillips is high K as well, fine replacing Santana but not replacing Cain.. Cain's also a pretty rare talent, and there's no given another guy like him hits the market and comes for 80mil. I'm not discounting Phillips in the least but we know that we need to get Ks out of this lineup and Phillips in center doesnt do that. We know we need a professional batter at the top of this lineup and nothing points to phillips being that in the near future. Maybe in 3 years he's proved that he can and Lutz Stokes/Grisham/Ray are pushing Cain onto the trade block. I get the age concern but Cain checks a lot of boxes we desperately needed checks in. As for bull... thames starts 125 games (37 vs LHP assumed) then he's at more PA than last year and that was too much for him. He's not a highly durable player. 60 1b starts is the minimum of what Im expecting for Braun. I've written out the PA math in the 1b/OF stack as a strategy thread. It makes a lot of sense.

And so are pitching prospects so there's a lot of finger crossing to go around.

We are really diving in young here. I'm quite surprised we aren't trying to push through april may with some more vets.

Surprised we aren't going for the 4th arby on woodruff. Good luck kids.

Wow, thought he had a pen spot locked up... Williams a go?