RollieTime

I’m hoping they add Nate Griep to the 40. Relief pitcher that throws fastball, changeup, slider with a little bit of a funky hitch in his motion and then explodes at the batter. I think a reliever with deception, 3 pitches, and who has done well at every stop and is now in AAA, deserves to be protected. I don’t see why he couldn’t fit in the back end of the bullpen or one of the first arms brought up on the shuttle this season. Especially making minimum for a number of seasons. We have a hard time developing pitching as it is and with the value of relief pitchers these days, he’s not a guy they should risk losing.

Having a massive increase in merchandise sales from this rebranding could definitely bring in some extra cash to be put toward the payroll. So in a way, it could help with upping the payroll and having the space to bring in an extra piece or two if not for the rebrand.

I think they knocked it out of the park! Love the jerseys and all the different logos they will be incorporating on the jerseys. The two home jerseys are both very nicely done. The blue road jersey pops and looks great. Not a fan of grey jerseys at all, but this one turned out about as nicely as it could. The barley baseball is really cool in my opinion. Definitely my favorite logo of the bunch. I also like the Wisconsin outline logo, but would like it a lot more if it didn’t have the baseball in the lower corner. It looks out of place and throws the rest of the logo off. All in all though, it’s a job well done! They get an A+ from me on this! I didn’t like them altering the ball in glove logo, but I can look past it now with how amazing the jerseys are! On a side note, was anyone else sitting and waiting for the Brewers to announce the signing of somebody like Moustakas while unveiling the uniforms or was that just me?

Really like this idea. If he gets hurt at any point for an extended length of time, he won’t be eating up much of the payroll since he’s not reaching the incentives. If he pitches well and is healthy all season, he gets rewarded. He has shown to be a solid mid rotation arm that is on a pretty team friendly deal that doesn’t have much risk with it. If we could work something out for him, I would be all for it. Especially if it only costs us a fringe prospect or two.

Minnesota will probably drop to the 16-20 range. Baylor will probably move back a couple spots to the 15-18 range. They did lose to a top 10 team by only 3 points so I don’t see them dropping too far.

I would think so. They are sure putting on a clinic tonight. Fun game to watch!

Not a bad proposal. Taking on Perez’s contract of 2/$28.4 million and Merrifield adds almost $20 million to the payroll. We would have our catching situation figured out, outfield locked up, and if Braun moved to first full time, it could make some sense. If one of SS or 3B was addressed and the rest was put into bringing back Pomeranz and bringing in a starter, I could live with it. I would be comfortable rolling with Shaw in this scenario if SS was addressed.

Sure, but he's going to be way more expensive than people realize. You'd need to have multiple solid trade chips to have a chance of getting it done without a major one and even then I doubt the Royals do it. Would have to start with a bid of say, Burnes + Turang + Grisham. I would probably do that, but I would prefer moving Peralta over Burnes.

Whit would fit in perfectly in the Yelich window and is under contract for 4/$21 million with the 4th year being an option year at $6.5 million. He can take over the Perez role while playing almost every day and giving different guys days off as needed. One option is using him in right field most of the time, moving Yelich to left and Braun to first full time. Whit would fit at the top of the lineup nicely with Cain and Yelich.

Now do all the raises a bunch of our players are going to get. We have I believe 10 guys arby eligible? Nelson, Knebel, Gamel, Shaw, and Suter are getting little to no raise with Nelson and Shaw being real possibilities to be non-tendered. Claudio and Guerra are probably getting slight raises. Arcia, Davies, and Hader are the only 3 that will see much of a jump. It’s probably more accurate to say we have around $40 million to spend. Remove Thames then and my example fits. Anyway, Stearns always pulls off some interesting move that nobody saw coming. Whether that’s trading Davies or Hader this offseason, who knows. Maybe Knebel is tendered a contract, but let go before the season if he’s not healthy, freeing up some money. Maybe he will go out and trade for a guy like Merrifield on a team friendly deal to play all over the field and fill in where needed (who fits perfectly as having a contract that runs through the Yelich window and will be in his prime for a few more seasons).

The Brewers had $47 million come off the books already not including their decisions on Shaw, Nelson, or possibly Guerra. Heck, maybe Knebel’s medicals are really bad and he’s let go. You never know. But as it sits right now, you could realistically bring back Moose for $13 million, Iglesias for $7, Thames for 5, and sign one of the catchers late to pair with Pina for $2-$3 million. Bring back Pomeranz for $7 million. That brings the offseason total to around $35 million. They only have “limited resources” to a point if you’re bringing back both Moose and Grandal. Then yeah, it’s tough filling all your holes. But if you let someone go, you can realistically fill all your holes. There’s still roughly $12 million to put into the rotation like bringing Lyles back for $5 million or so and bringing in another arm like Miley or somebody else in February looking to just get paid to play on a one year deal. All of that could realistically get done while retaining Shaw and Nelson as well. Moving on from both of those guys could free up roughly $8 million more that could be paired with Wade Miley money (if he isn’t brought in) and have a good rotation arm brought in at the $13-$15 million range. There is a lot of flexibility they have right now that could be used to address pretty much every single concern if someone like Grandal isn’t retained while only increasing the payroll by maybe a couple million in the example provided above. Sometimes I feel like people don’t realize how bad Arcia has been offensively. Replace his .220 average with a guy hitting .270 and it’s the same as replacing a .260 hitter with a .310 hitter. It’s huge. If you let Grandal go, but give SS a boost, the offense will be nearly the same. Grandal hits some homeruns and draws a ton of walks, but Pina isn’t exactly a black hole himself. He has a higher batting average than Grandal for his career and is great defensively. Pina did hit 7 homeruns last year with a juiced ball in only 158 at bats. Could be possibly be one of the guys that greatly benefits from the juiced ball and hits 20 homers in a season if given 400-450 atbats? For under $2 million, he’s a pretty dang good option. IF Pina stays healthy, which is a big if, I don’t see why he couldn’t push 18-20 homers this season with the juiced ball. This offense would be fine without Grandal if SS is upgraded.

Really tried to backtrack, but there did seem to be some implication. Wasn't thrilled about Yelich's reply, though. Came off as overly defensive and didn't really make much sense. I can understand why he would be frustrated with being called a cheater when his entire life revolves around the game. He’s telling Darvish to be better than how he’s acting by implying Yelich is cheating against him. He continued on in a little bit of a snarky way and said that people don’t need help facing him. That’s a much milder jab than implying an organization is cheating at a whole. Which is something the Brewers are facing for literally no reason other than a St. Louis writer stated so. Also, I think you can look at every professional athlete and they will have a little arrogance to them. I don’t see anything wrong with what Yelich said.

Definitely foreshadowing a Hader trade. No doubt about it.

Yelich definitely should of won. Him and Trout were the most deserving and they only got half of it right. Yelich definitely would of won if he didn’t get hurt. It’s a shame that they got it wrong. Yelich deserved to be the MVP in back to back seasons.

That was an intense brawl. I don’t see any way Garrett is not suspended the rest of the season at the least. Pouncey I don’t think should be suspended, but I’m sure he will get suspended something like 4 games. He definitely played a part in the brawl, but what do you expect a guy to do when an opponent yanked off your QB’s helmet and smashed him over the head with it? To stand around and do nothing? Obviously guys are going to step in and retaliate in some way when something that extreme happens to a teammate. I just think at some point you use common sense and say it was in defense of a teammate and with what happened to him, his teammates have the right to stand up to that behavior. That’s like a person attacking you on the street and beating you up, you hit them back, and you’re getting arrested too. That wouldn’t happen. It’s self defense. You’re protecting a teammate in this situation and it should be looked at in that way.

I hope they bring back Moose and should give him a 3 year deal to get it done. Put the money from Grandal into pitching for someone like Wheeler. People can talk about large deals all they want, but I don’t see a guy like him getting $100 million. What about a 4/$70 million? Pair him with Woodruff and bring back someone like Lyles on a one year deal. Woodruff, Wheeler, Davies, Lyles, and Houser could be a good rotation. If Grandal walks though, they need to address SS. Going from Grandal to Pina means you need to do something at short. Can’t have a bottom of the order of Pina, Arcia from the last two years, and P. We will continue to have an inconsistent offense with a bottom of the order like that. Especially if Shaw is given an opportunity to come back and might see time at first and could find himself in the 6 hole in this lineup. That could be a really gross bottom half of the lineup.

Sad that the coach has to continue to live through this. It’s unfortunate for the kid, but that’s the risk you take playing any sport. Fluke injuries happen, but blaming a slide on a coach when the kid could of made his own decision to slide a couple feet earlier could of prevented this from happening. Whether it was 6 feet or 8 feet, it shouldn’t matter. Maybe the kid was told to slide at 15 feet, but it took him a couple steps to process what was said and then slid late? Who knows. If a coach is yelling to plow over the catcher and he gets hurt, sure. I could see a case for that. But sliding into a base?

The RISP was more so to point out how the Astros became so successful almost overnight compared to the Brewers being “linked” to “cheating” when they have been one of the worst in striking out, average, and hitting with runners in scoring position the last few years. It was more to show how I see no way the Brewers are actually stealing signs. There is always a possibility of a runner on second relaying signs to the batter and what not, something some teams do. I know the Astros were doing that before and that was verified in the past couple years too. I don’t see the Brewer doing that with how bad they are at hitting with runners in scoring position. I should of clarified my intent with the RISP before. All in all, the Astros have been linked to doing multiple different things for stealing signs while the numbers suggest there’s no way the Brewers are doing that. If they are stealing signs and still performing this bad, especially with runners in scoring position and the pitcher throwing high leverage pitches, I wouldn’t want to know how bad they truly would be without stealing signs. Especially with the talent they’ve had in the lineup the last 2-3 seasons. I just don’t see any merit to them stealing signs whatsoever.

I mean we did have like 4 or 5 aces so...

I'm hinting towards believing that I wouldn't entirely discount the Brewers (or any other organization) from trying to do whatever they can to gain a competitive edge & that Fiers hasn't been here since the current regime took over so he wouldn't have any first hand insight into what they may or may not be doing. Looking at the 2016/2017 Astros it looks like their massive improvement in K% was primarily driven by a change in personnel & playing time... Among players with at least 100 PAs, you have Colby Rasmus (417 PAs, 29.0 K%), Jason Castro (376 PAs, 32.7 K%), Luis Valbuena (342 PAs, 23.7 K%), Carlos Gomez (323 PAs, 31.0 K%), Tyler White (276 PAs, 23.6 K%), Tony Kemp (136 PAs, 19.9 K%) & Teoscar Hernandez (112 PAs, 25.0 K%) in 2016 being replaced by... Carlos Beltran (509 PAs, 20.0 K%), Brian McCann (399 PAs, 19.2 K%) & Nori Aoki (224 PAs, 12.9 K%) along with Alex Bregman (15.5 K%) & Yuli Gurriel (11.1 K%) combining for 1,190 PAs in 2017 vs only 350 PAs in 2016. League average K% at home in 2017 was 21.3 vs 22.0 on the road for a 0.7% difference. Astros K% at home in 2017 was 16.7 vs 17.9 on the road for a 1.2% difference, so it's not like they had some crazy split compared to the league as a whole. Some of it can be personnel related for sure. It’s actually about a 6.7% decrease at home. While not significant, is still quite an improvement. Is it though? So if you were facing a guy throwing 95 and you knew when it was going to be a fastball or a changeup/slider, that would not help you as a hitter in never having your timing wrong because you know what’s coming? How about a reliever that only has 2 pitches? You don’t think it would help a batter immensely if he knew a fastball or slider was coming and would never be off balance or out in front on a swing because he KNOWS what’s coming? Sorry, but an MLB hitter would be way more successful at the plate knowing which pitch is coming. I think a large part of it can be attributed to sign stealing and that it can’t be totally dismissed almost like it seems like you’re doing here.

Maybe the Brewers weren't doing it when Fiers was here & Melvin was GM. Fiers was traded before Stearns was hired though, so he likely wouldn't have any knowledge of anything covert going on since then. Not exactly sure if you’re actually hinting toward believing that Stearns has implemented this coming over to the Brewers or not... Looking at the numbers though, the Astros pretty clearly started stealing signs in 2017. Stearns came over after the 2015 season, so he would have no part in this whole sign stealing thing that Houston has done the last 3 seasons. Plus, I personally don’t think Stearns is that stupid to do something like this or put himself in a bad position in an organization engaging in this type of behavior. In 2015, the Brewers struck out the 11th most in MLB. Astros at 2nd most in MLB. In 2016, the Brewers struck out the most in MLB. Astros were the 4th most in MLB. In 2017, the Brewers struck out the most in MLB. Astros struck out THE LEAST in MLB. In 2018, the Brewers struck out the 6th most in MLB. Astros struck out the SECOND LEAST in MLB. In 2019, the Brewers struck out the 5th most in MLB. Astros struck out THE LEAST in MLB. Average with RISP 2015- Brewers 9th best. Astros 7th worst. 2016- Brewers 4th worst. Astros 11th worst. 2017- Brewers 5th worst. Astros BEST. 2018- Brewers 10th worst. Astros 2nd best. 2019- Brewers 2nd worst. Astros 10th best. If the Brewers were stealing signs, they wouldn’t strikeout nearly as much as they do. In the season that they won the World Series, the Astros went from striking out one of the most in the game to the least in MLB. I remember hearing a segment about that back in 2017 after the Astros won and thought it was a pretty crazy stat. Obviously knowing what pitch is coming would help with that. Also, with runners in scoring position, the Brewers have consistently been in the bottom third of the league while the Astros went from being in the bottom third of the league to top 2 for 2 seasons in a row. It’s pretty obvious what they were doing. I think the numbers speak for themselves that the Brewers at no point during Fiers’ tenure with Milwaukee, or at any point after, were stealing signs. While it is painfully obvious the Astros were up to something with how drastic their change was in not striking out and them all becoming much better hitters as an entire unit. Do you actually think Stearns has implemented something to cheat in some way to give the Brewers an unfair advantage?

Completely agree. Who would have guessed that a Cardinals beat guy was told “by multiple players” that the Brewers are one of the teams stealing signs electronically. [sarcasm]I wonder what organization those multiple players are with, maybe a division rival of the Brewers?[/sarcasm] My thoughts exactly. I’m guessing he got his “information” from the group of Molina, Carpenter, Wong, and Bader.

*RollieTime Logs Out* *RollieTime Laughs * We will see if anything happens with that. I figured the Brewers would be linked to this because Stearns came from the Astros. I recall La Russa accusing us of cheating with the lighting system in Miller Park in the past. I believe in 2011? This could be another attempt at the Cardinals trying to start something. Also, If Fiers came out and said how the Astros were stealing signs and that was on a championship team, I see no reason why he wouldn’t continue on and mention us if there was any merit to it. Since he hasn’t mentioned any type of culture like that was present in Milwaukee, I don’t think the Brewers were doing it. Obviously every team is trying to pick up on guys tipping pitches and whatnot. That’s not a big deal. The big issue is using electronics and stealing signs in other means like that and relaying information to the hitter while he is batting.

Mejia would make sure we don’t have a black hole at C while making the minimum for a couple more seasons, allowing more financial flexibility instead of needing to sign someone to pair with Pina. Miller could take over the Perez role and back up 2B, SS, and 3B, and make minimum the next 2-3 years as well. Depending on how effective his bat is, he could be the everyday SS. That is his main position. I obviously haven’t seen him play, but scouts say he has good range and good hands at SS as is. He just has an average arm. He could probably come up right now and be as effective as Perez was for us. He’s probably opening the season in AAA and could be the first guy up once an injury arises. Or if Arcia continues to struggle, we have a legit prospect ready to replace him and not need to worry about cycling through the DFA wire to find something mid-season. And then Patino has a ton of upside. I don’t see any reason he couldn’t be a bullpen piece at the least come August. He’s in AA already and throws 98 with multiple plus pitches. He’s young, but looks like a fast mover through the system.

Astros stole signs electronically in 2017. Mike Fiers among others admitted that the Astros were stealing signs. “That's not playing the game the right way. They were advanced and willing to go above and beyond to win“. The culture around the Astros is absolutely pathetic. What a sad time to be an Astros fan. That entire franchise is just a mess. For me at least, it’s crazy how fast an organization can go from being one you could pull for to being one you despise. They could lose 100 games a season the rest of my life and I would laugh. What a shame for anyone to be associated with that organization in any way.