coolhandluke121

No kidding. That needs to be in the playbook more often. I realize you can't do it on a regular basis because of bullpen workloads, but the value of a far more promising plate appearance in a high leverage situation should not be underestimated. It's way more important than milking one more inning out of a pitcher who, the way things are going, might have to be pulled next inning anyway. Oh, would you look at that.

Freddy Peralta gives me that same vibe. Would consider trading him (in a few years, assuming his value goes up) or trying to turn him into K-Rod for that reason. Yo's prime ended really early, as scouts predicted it would. I think it would be cool to see him back, but I'd rather try Woodruff. I still think their best baseball is a few years away, and they should be trying to stay in the wild card picture while simultaneously developing young pitching talent. If they clearly had superior veteran options, I might think differently, but a lot of their vets are almost as likely to bomb in any given outing as some of the young guys.

If the 4+ walks per 9 last year didn't prepare you for this, you weren't paying attention. Should have sold high.

His resume isn't that impressive. He had a brutal -0.9 fWAR season as recently as 2016. I don't think we can afford to keep Albers on a team that is both contending and relying heavily on its bullpen. And an FIP under 3.5 in 4 of his last 5 seasons before this one. There's still a good chance that he's better than the alternative the rest of the way. This is just like Sogard and Drake. If better players grew on trees, the Brewers would have them. They're not just going to cut a bad player with some track record of success for a bad player with no track record or pedigree. That's kind of impulsive. If they see something wrong with Albers, they will DFA him, but he probably deserves a chance to redeem himself considering the alternative is probably even more of a crapshoot.

They need a full pen until rosters expand, but I can't see a DFA. Alberts isn't Sogard or Drake; he has a decent resume. I don't think you DFA him because of a few terrible outings after an injury. However, his conditioning may be a factor in his performance, as a more fit player would probably recover better. I suppose I could see it being a really tough decision, with them ultimately going in another direction because of fitness. But I don't consider that likely.

But it's more fun to overreact to the people overreacting than it is to have a balanced perspective like this.

I tried gel once and hated it, but I try to sleep without A/C whenever possible and it still wasn't good enough at diffusing heat. I couldn't really judge whether it's better than ordinary memory foam or not because it's kind of an all-or-none thing; the heat is either insufferable or it's not, and I still found the gel to still be insufferable for thermoregulation. I do use a memory foam topper on my latex mattress in winter, but I could do without it, whereas I can't imagine doing without my latex mattress (or buckwheat pillow).

We got spoiled by the back half of the bullpen earlier this year. Not unusual for a guy to flounder coming back from injury - especially a guy who doesn't stay in shape even when he's healthy. I'd be a little worried about possibly using Nelson or Davies this year because the Brewers can't really afford any implosions while they wait for them to work off the rust. Would rather use guys who have been pitching. Not loving the Schoop trade right now, and not just because of his bad start as a Brewer. Villar was good at 2B against LHP's and they had Shaw/Moustakas. They need Arcia's defense. Still think Williams (and Barnes and maybe Houser) will be solid relievers for a long time, but you're gonna have some outings like this.

I am always a little worried about a guy who won't take a pitch. They can have some good years early, but if they don't adjust when teams stop giving them pitches to hit, that's a huge problem. Look at Hernan. He looked like he could be a decent player in 2016, but opposing pitchers just toy with him now. Schoop is obviously a lot more talented, but he's going to be a frustrating and inconsistent player if he doesn't take more walks.

Baseball is not about superstars except maybe when it comes to having aces in the playoffs. Look how the Mariners won 116 games after losing Griffey Jr., Randy Johnson, and Alex Rodriguez in the span of a few years. Having elite players try to compensate for bad players is not as good as having all good players. That said, of course I would give up a lot if it didn't create too many gaping holes in the current roster. But Cain and Yelich are already 2 of the best outfielders in the entire National League, and the Brewers have a strong chance at having the best cumulative record in the NL over the next 5 years... so why mortgage what it would take to get Trout?

"Do you think he'd accept a 3-year, $30m extension now so we don't have to let him get to free agency and risk losing him?" -Doug Melvin and Mark A.

If he reads the writing on the wall, you'd think he'd be more open to finishing his career for an AL team instead of riding the pine for the Crew. I don't know what team would want him though. Seattle has done some weird things in the past. Indians have a short-term need.

I was just in north central wisconsin. I saw a TON of brewer gear. They are Brewer fans, but their standing relative to the Packers is an embarrassment. The Brewers can be in the thick of a playoff chase and newscasts here will still start with a Packers training camp story about some rookie free agent who probably won't even make the team. The Brewers went 21-7 in August of 2011 and there were a few times the newscast out of Green Bay just gave the score at the end of the sports broadcast without a single highlight or detail from the game. (I teach in NYC and spend a lot of time in NE Wisconsin in the summers.)

Sure. Now that he's not automatically starting and hitting 3rd in the lineup, there's not much to complain about in terms of his ability to contribute as a bench player. Since getting out of his salary is not an option anyway, it's not a question of Braun vs. what you could get for his salary in free agency. It's Braun vs. the Broxtons and Hernans of the world. It's not quite an open-and-shut case anymore, but he clearly still deserves a roster spot until/unless Santana gets it together.

Yep. I will say this - playing hardball like that could have an indirect positive effect on your negotiations with other teams. But still, you gotta make that trade happen. Bluff like you don't want to trade him and act like you're relenting. Then hang up the phone and laugh at LAD for taking on that risk. Oh well. He's better than Perez against LHP's I guess. "If he's healthy." So sick of saying that though, LOL.

Too bad the Angels are out and the Nats are not likely to be buyers as each of those teams could, in theory, make a claim... That's outdated. His 10/5 rights kicked in last May. That's why some of us were so disappointed they didn't do the LAD deal in 2016.

You don't just "let him go" in that situation. Technically I'm almost positive you work out a trade with the first team that claims him. You can trade him for a used jock strap, but it's still a trade and therefore he can block it. What good is a no-trade clause if the player could be dumped in a waiver deal? The Brewers and Braun can negotiate some kind of buy-out after the season. If he's not gonna get any playing time, he might consider it, but he's still gonna get some pa's this year. Santana is a big question mark in all of this but I do think he'll bounce back and be ahead of Braun next year.

Lots of people hated the fact that they retained Sogard, Drake, and Perez and acquired Logan. Were those people expected to remain quiet because some other posters didn't like guys who turned out to be great bargains? I love the front office but they're far from 100% right. People here have a right to try to out-guess them and that's part of the fun. If we had somehow run a simulation to compare our moves to theirs over the last 2 years, of course we'd all be destroyed by their track record, but it's still interesting to have our own ideas and see how they hold up. There are lots of people posting here. They're never going to have a unified voice, nor should they, so don't ascribe one to them. Everyone has a right to an opinion about a player. For every move, there are going to be some people who don't like it, but it's generally not the same people over and over again. As long as people have evidence for what they are saying, you should be fine with people having strong opinions even if they turn out to be wrong.

Bethancourt and Bandy are basically proven duds at the MLB level. Stranger things have happened, but I very much doubt they're going to emerge as legit MLB players. Their stats at Colorado Springs mean basically nothing. Kratz is 38, didn't even make the majors until 30, and is somehow miraculously having one of his 3 best seasons. The bottom could fall out any day now. Pina has a career .300 BABIP, so don't expect a lot of regression there - especially since his ground-ball % is 5 points higher than the last 2 years and soft contact % is about 10 points higher. There's not a lot of talent at the position at all. Fortunately most of the other NL contenders have their own problems, but catcher is possibly the weakest position on the team.

Villar played a full year of SS at the major league level and was arguably a slight positive there (good range trumps excessive miscues most of the time). Schoop is obviously a better hitter than Villar, but his career OPS+ doesn't exactly blow Villar's away. I think if they were going to play a 2B at SS, we would have seen more of it already. I think this is mostly for platoons and double switches and to have a deeper bench. I think if they keep Arcia at SS, they can still have a top-5 defense with Shaw at 2B and Thames in RF, but they must be very careful when it comes to SS, CF, or C.

Memory foam is overrated IMO. It doesn't breathe and I hate sleeping warm. You will waste a lot of money on a/c on nights you wouldn't otherwise need it if you use memory foam. That said, it is probably the most comfortable for pressure points and joint pain, but only until it breaks down, which doesn't usually take long - especially since it's usually a total scam (2 inches of memory foam on top of 10 inches of polyurethane or something like that). Synthetic foams are filled with little air pockets to make them "cushiony", but air pockets eventually flatten. 100% latex is sustainably soft because it's part of the molecular structure of rubber. Latex mattresses don't go bad if you keep them clean and dry. They don't have anywhere near as many synthetic chemicals as most other mattresses (usually just latex, a fire resistant cover which you can remove, and a cotton cover), and they're hypoallergenic unless you're allergic to latex. Bed bugs supposedly hate them, too. They're very comfortable, although people with a herniated disk supposedly have trouble with them. They don't shake when your partner shifts in bed. They are floppy, heavy, and hard to move, and you need a strong foundation but not a platform (there should be slats underneath with small gaps so the bottom can breathe). Inner spring mattresses are junk IMO. All kinds of suspicious, cheap, synthetic cushioning to put lipstick on a pig of a support system. Coils are very cheap and mattress manufacturers are making a killing on people who buy them. You're paying for a bunch of air for gods sake. I guess the gold standard is buckwheat. I have a buckwheat pillow and it's amazing. It conforms exactly to your shape and then stops moving completely. The hulls cling to each other in a way that allows them to move when you're trying to carve out a comfortable sleeping position, but stops them from sagging once you're settled in. And unlike memory foam, they breathe because they're concave. I'm thinking of getting a buckwheat mattress as well, but I spent $1500 on a latex mattress from plushbeds.com 5 years ago and it's working well for me. It should last 20 more years at least. Bottom line, I recommend natural bedding materials, and not just on principle - they're actually the most comfortable and durable in my experience.

The Brewers made smart, incremental upgrades without giving up anything that's hard to replace. Unfortunately, a lot of other playoff contenders in the NL did the same. It won't be easy to win a wild card game, but they still have a chance at the division and they have about as promising a 5-year outlook as any other team in the NL, big markets included.

So does he replace both Perez and Villar? I could live with that. I have stuck with Perez for a while but he keeps getting worse every year because everyone knows you don't have to give him a single pitch to hit and he hasn't adjusted. Saladino is still needed as the only legit back-up SS. He can be a defensive sub at 2b and injury sub at all 3 spots as well. I'm down with letting Broxton take Perez's roster spot but I guess they might still decide they need that versatility.

It might not be the same people on both sides you know. Always gotta guard against the tendency to treat this forum like it should have a personality of its own. Just because 50 people demand a trade and then 50 different people complain about the trade they make doesn't mean there's any contradiction there. The hundreds of people who post here don't owe it to you to have a unified voice. Decent trade. They bought low on a pretty talented player. For this year though, I would have been fine with Villar against LHP's with Perez and Saladino for various mop-up duties (defensive replacements, spot start against LHP's, emergency injury replacement, pinch-run, etc). With Moustakas in the fold and reasonable injury luck, they weren't going to have to give scrubs very many pa's anymore regardless.

So they sell low on Cole and McCutchen just to turn around and do this... As a Brewers fan, I'm very happy to see the Pirates and Cardinals trip all over themselves in the last year. They both had pretty bright futures and could have been great up-and-comers in the central in a few years. They still could be, but I think it's going to take them a while to recover from some of their recent blunders.