Jopal78

Woodruff pretty much hit the ground running when he debuted in the major leagues in 2017. Since then he figured out how to put major league hitters away as his strikes out per 9 has gone up significantly, and his hits allowed per 9 has decreased. His walks and homeruns allowed per 9, however, have remained pretty constant since his debut. Woodruff made 89 starts in the minor leagues, including72 starts before he debuted in the major leagues Corbin Burnes on the other hand, made 45 starts in the minors total before debuting in the major leagues. Unlike Woodruff he has yet to figure out how to put major league hitters away, as evidenced in games like yesterday's many two strike counts resulted in the batter getting a hit. Perhaps the struggles from this season are attributable to Burnes being somewhat rushed to the major leagues before he was truly ready. With how he's been hammered at the major league level this year, I'm surprised he hasn't lost confidence in his abilities.

Uh, the Brewers are amongst the worst and possibly the worst at developing starting pitching, with but a handful over a span of decades: Eldred, Sheets, Gallardo, Woodruff and depending how liberally you construe the term ‘impact’ Fiers. The best pitching prospects they have are Peralta and Burnes both of whom are major reasons the team is where they are currently. Anyone else either profiles as a back of the rotation starter or is multiple seasons away. Waiting for prospects to arrive (and hope they hit the ground running) to make a championship caliber club, while they have dynamic talent on the major league roster is silly. The franchise already wasted 2009 and 2010 with Braun and Fielder together in their prime. You’d think they wouldn’t do the same thing again. I don’t think trading off players with expiring contracts this year results in the major league team improving substantially in 2020 and 2021.

The one place the Brewers have minor league depth is outfield. Grisham is perfect to be traded. There isn’t a path to regular big league at bats with Milwaukee until 2021. Grisham was heretofore looking like another first round bust until this year. The team should strike while the iron is hot. Likewise Corey Ray is already going to be 25 years old in September and doesn’t have a path to everyday at bats with the Brewers until 2021. An advanced college hitter who’s been in the system for three and a half years with mixed results and injury problems; they’d be wise to trade him off before the bottom falls out of his value. I don’t know if one of those alone would net Will Smith in return. Could always package Erceg with them as another college player with potential and mixed results in the minors with no clear path to regular playing time in Milwaukee.

They need more talent; yet the cupboards are bare at the upper levels of their minor league system when it comes to elite talent. Similar to 2011 when Melvin cashed in their chips to put a championship caliber team together before Fielder left, the Brewers probably need to cash in their chips to acquire veteran talent to compete the next two years at least, and can start a rebuild in 2022 by trading Yelich at the deadline in his last contracted year

I will tell you to get a clue because you’re flat out wrong. If the Brewers flat out released Chacin and Albers after today’s game. Both would have new teams by Wednesday; so you either are impassioned and not seeing reality, or you’re ignorant on how things work

Homer Bailey!!! Was traded today. Get a clue You're really not too smart are ya? If Oakland actually exchanged a player for Homer Bailey, then yes Chacin has plenty of value. This year’s stats not-withstanding he’s a better pitcher at this point in their careers than Bailey is. Ditto for Albers, you’re not going to rebuild your farm on these guys but proven MLB arms to soak up innings have value

Chacin is worth nothing. Albers is worth nothing. If you were a buyer, would you want them? Homer Bailey!!! Was traded today. Get a clue

If there out of the Hunt by 7/31 (and with how they’ve played the last 5 weeks they will be) it would be equally idiotic to hang onto Albers, Moustakas, Chacin, Grandal beyond the 31st. They don’t have to break up the roster but players on expiring contracts in Milwaukee should probably start packing up their apartments

How do you justify keeping Burnes on the 25 man roster. His ear is over 9 and he’s gotten taken apart twice by one of the weakest offensive teams in MLB.

Burnes has given up earned runs in 15 of his 29 appearances. If the GM insists he be on the 25 man roster, the manager should know better than to pitch him in any situation other than mop up duty

Burnes has nothing to offer the big league team. He can’t keep the ball in the park, and when they need innings he throws 25 pitches to get three outs.

What’s the basis for wanting him as part of the future? He throws 98 mph, has a hitter 1-2 then proceeds to throw ten pitches before allowing a back breaking homer on a change up. See ya next year ya bum

Uh, he sucks. They need to option him down and leave him in AAA until next year. Letting him get pounded in the bigs cratered his trade value, and it’s a joke that a pitcher with an ERA over 8 gets opportunities to pitch for a team with playoff expectations. His being on the 25 man is an error on Stearns and

It's worth noting the Brewers really caught some favorable pitching match ups for the first two series after the break. FRI: Shaun Anderson, a rookie who has struggled in his first ten starts, only lasting more than 5 innings four out of the six starts. SAT: Bumgarner: 4.60 ERA, 1.34 WHIP on the road this year, 1.72 HR/9 SUN: Tyler Beede: has gotten beat around to the tune of a 5.64 era with a 1.5:1 walk to strike out ratio. MON:Max Fried is probably the best pitcher they'll face coming out of the break, but he can be had. TUE: Bryse Wilson is making his 4th major league start and has given up 10 earned runs in 14 innings of work.

Davies, Chacin, Anderson, Gonzalez. They all have to pitch better for the Brewers to have much success going forward. Those pitchers taking the ball every 5th day and pitching effectively for 5+ innings would make a world's difference. Houser slides back into the pen where he was quite effective, the shaky middle relief of Claudio, Peralta and Burnes will be less exposed. Last year they got nothing offensively out of 2B (Villar), SS (Arcia), C (Kratz/Pina) and their bench (Perez, Sogard, Broxton, Santana, etc), and were fine. Therefore if their pitching improves the 2019 offense is fine. If the pitching doesn't improve no amount of offense will be enough to offset poor pitching.

Thank you for your voice of reason. You're correct but you miss the point, I doubt any owner who has bought a team in the last 20 years is taking a draw of salary as the CEO. They're all beyond rich to begin with. Its a joke to think Attanasio (who's Crescent Capital Group manages over 25 billion dollars in assets) is somehow lining his pockets with tens of millions of dollars that could be spent in payroll. The Brewers have the worst market in the major leagues. Two legacy MLB teams 100 miles to the south. The Twins 5 hours to the Northwest. Hemmed in by a lake on the East and North sides. With another legacy team the Tigers on the other side of Lake Michigan and a foreign country on the other side of Lake Superior. Their market is basically Wisconsin and the U.P. and perhaps north eastern Iowa. There just isn't a lot of people in their market, so just because revenue is up in the game generally, doesn't necessarily mean the Brewers wallet is extra fat.

Huh? Obviously the players would love revenue sharing by the teams. I'm sure that would mean more money for them in the long run. It just isn't going to happen, and there isn't much the players could force to happen. How are they going to get the Dodgers to give the Brewers part of their local TV contract? They would be picking a fight with the hand that feeds them. In 1994 the owners proposed sharing all broadcast revenues equally among the teams, granting free agency after four years of service time, as well as a salary cap and salary floor, and the players walked out on strike over it. If your for the players in that they need to be better compensated; you for driving a knife into the back of teams like the Brewers. It’s hard enough for teams without a huge media market to win, when LA, NY, Houston and Chicago are spending twice what they are. To further widen the disparity between those teams by paying players more earlier in their careers, cutting their service time requirements before free agency, forcing teams to field mediocre clubs for no other reason than ‘tanking’ is frowned on by the MLBPA, means the Brewers will always be irrelevant turning over their roster every couple years as a talent incubator for the big clubs. The George Steinbrenner owner who pours buckets of his own personal money into his team are all gone. Owners like Attanasio, Mark Walter, Bruce Sherman buy these teams because they’re the ultimate investment. Attanasio, for example, paid 223 million for the Brewers 15 years ago. Major League teams are now selling for close to one billion dollars. Meaning if he sold today he’d likely walk away with a 300-400% return on his money in just 15 years. Dumping his own money into the team only takes away from the return on his investment. Sure, a little here and there happens but it’s temporary and infrequent. That’s the way it is with all the wealth management executives buying up the teams, owning teams is an investment now not a rich person’s toy, and the players are just slow to realize it

Siding with the players? First of all, any sort of collusion or owners keeping the players down is MLBPA propaganda. The facts are 25 of the 30 teams had opening day payrolls of over 100 million dollars. In 2011 less than half the teams had 100 million in payroll commitments so the total money being spent on player salaries has only gone up. The players gripe apparently is that they should be getting a bigger piece of the total revenue. I think baseball has reached a great point where teams have wised up and realized giving long term guaranteed contracts to men as they age into their mid and late 30s is usually a decision they’ll come to regret. And it’s a silly notion that teams should for out a 20 million dollar per season multi year contract because they can. Further many teams are now owned by wealth management billionaires; they’re the last group of people who are going to hand out 50 million dollars for non-contending club to win 75 games instead of 70.

I suppose the real answer to what the Brewers GM should do is driven by what your interest is as a fan: A.) Do you want to see the Brewers be aggressive and do what they have to in trying to make the playoffs when they are a contender (which also probably leads to some lean years down the road); or B.) Do you want to see them be conservative but generally be around .500 year in, year out, maybe catching some breaks once a decade or so and make the playoffs? I'm okay with them being aggressive. It was so much more entertaining to follow the team in 2008, 2011 and 2018 than it was in 2009, 2010, 2013 and 2014 for example. Further, if your drafting in the bottom half of the round its not as though the team is going to be stock piling blue chip prospects year in and year out, so a couple of lean years after being aggressive is probably better for the system anyways.

IN as a wild card.

Do you want to trade Hiura for Boyd? The guy is emerging and under team control until after 2022. There is zero chance he is dealt to Milwaukee without Hiura going over to Detroit. Detroit has all the leverage in this situation. They don't have a real reason to trade Boyd, so I'm sure they will ask for Hiura and say no to any counter-offers of lesser Milwaukee prospects.

FWIW the odds makers put the Brewers chances at a World Series win at 22:1. The only NL teams with better odds were the Dodgers, Braves and Cubs. The Nationals were right behind the Brewers at 23:1. You can conclude the bookies in Vegas believe it’s most likely the Dodgers, Braves and Cubs win their Divisions and the Brewers and Nationals make the playoffs as Wild Cards.

It’s largely a financial issue with the players not a depth issue with the team. If a player is Designated for Assignement, clears waivers and is assigned to the minor leagues as a non roster (40 man) player and they don’t report, the organization isn’t obligated to pay them. For players like H.P. thats serious dough. Even Alex Wilson is at $750,000 so for those type of players it’s a slice of humble pie but reporting to the minors is probably a no brainer financially. Conversely, the Brewers don’t flat out release these players because their contract is a sunk cost and they may as well see if the player can figure it out and maybe deliver something of value

Right on! Milwaukee isn’t going to trade for a good controllable starting pitcher and retain Hiura. As for the rental players, executives know the value of the rental players and teams like the Giants will pick which prospect package they like best for Will Smith, Bumgarner etc

He's a has been. Obviously post shoulder surgeries his arsenal isn't good enough to get major league hitters out, and despite being given plenty of rope by Boston to try adapt his arsenal of pitches to where he can get hitters out, Thornburg has either failed or refused to adapt. Obviously, walking away from $800,000 in salary indicates what he thinks of the Red Sox organization. I'd rather see a pitcher who actually has a chance to help the Brewers soak up those AAA innings rather than a pitcher who on his way out of the game and looking to hang on.