SeaBass

Ain't over yet but not feeling good here.

What a crap fest this inning turned into.

This. Sogard should not be getting 2 starts a week over Arcia, I'd rather they try to fit him in more at 2B to get him at bats if that's the goal. Ultimately he's Eric Sogard so his bat really isn't bringing much to the table whether he has it working or not, benching the best defender on the infield to try to get Sogard's pop gun bat in the lineup doesn't seem like it should be the preferred way, lefty/righty splits be damned.

I feel like it will be Barnes or Albers. Or it might just be a committee thing. I don't think doing it by committee would be awful at all actually. Committee until someone rises to the top. Maybe it's my own irrationality but I really don't want Jeffress in the closer role. Not a stats thing, I just haven't felt that confident in him since his return and I think that if how he's being used now is working don't mess with it.

15 runs scored last two games and only 1 team HR on the season. Fun to see some good hitting with RISP.

Great start to the season, only complaint is the off day on a Sunday.

This Yelich guy might be a keeper.

Not Brewers related but still MLB and spring training related. Legitimately entertaining play by Mookie Betts, mic'd up while playing defense. The fact Betts has a mic on makes an otherwise standard play kind of awesome. https://twitter.com/iamjoonlee/status/978697625439531011

I didn't think I was being that silly but ok. They did have a chance to claim him outright off waivers and if I remember right weren't the Tigers rumored to not pull him back? Big contract but I wanted the guy.

Fully aware he had the no trade, we're wishing here though right? Or are these supposed to be more plausible? Clearly JV made the right call if he had other options.

Past seasons wish: they had traded for Verlander last year in August after he cleared waivers. Or just claimed him outright. Like I wanted them to at the time. This off season wish: Right after trading for Yelich and signing Cain the rumors were theyd trade for Archer and sign Arrieta. Just the thought of that happening made me feel like the Brewers were becoming the new Yankees.

docduany have you watched Westworld? Literally sci-fi western.

Meh, I don't regret the Sabathia trade. Sheets get injured shortly after and there that went. Lost to eventual WS champion. The Grienke trade you can make a case for, but we also traded him for a good return so it's not like the pieces they gave up were never replaced. Went to NLCS and lost to eventual WS champion in 6 games. There's only 1 alternate result better than that (ok, 2 results). If they could stop getting beaten by teams that go on to win the World Series just think what this team could've been!

Maybe but a lot of guys aren't at risk for being expensive until 2021 or later. A deal is going to happen much sooner than that. Cain will be around at least 3 years and Yelich most of his 5 years unless the Brewers window has closed unexpectedly. So we're back to the usual suspects: Santana, Villar, Thames, Broxton. Braun if the Dodgers want him, which they don't. I think Stearns has a price in his head that he's willing to pay in a trade and he's just waiting for a partner to like that price enough to make something happen.

OK, I'll play. What would that look like exactly? Anderson Davies Hader Ortiz F. Peralta All were acquired with trades and all could help, hopefully, at the big league level. Then there is Nelson, Suter, Burnes, Woodruff who were all drafted and groomed. This is a good list of guys who can fill out a rotation. All are young or were young, controllable talent. I hope we continue this type of acquisition approach because it will keep us out of terrible contracts for a small market team. I agree with this, but with the caveat that these acquisitions were made by trading away the Brewers established players as part of the rebuild. The Brewers aren't going to be looking to trade their important players away in deals like that while pushing for the playoffs and beyond. Santana has been identified as expendable but there's not a lot of other guys most of us are going to want to see dealt from the major league club. Anybody want to see Shaw dealt? I don't particularly want that to happen. So near future trades are going to be more prospect heavy in cost to the Brewers than the trades that got them those players. Which I think is the issue 82brewcrew82 was getting at.

Farm prospects are currency. It's a fact of life. Using the farm to improve the major league club is how it's done, whether it's a prospect that earns a promotion or is traded for established players. Trades are especially important for a club like the Brewers that find it difficult to compete on the free agent market. I understand lots of people value having farm depth and want to keep it that way. But it is not a necessity, it is a luxury. It's a cycle. In my opinion, which I fully appreciate others holding an opposing view, I try not to get over-attached to the idea that we "must" keep the farm stocked. As we have seen, re-stocking the farm doesn't take an obscenely long time if you have a talented GM overseeing things. Yes it would be great to maintain a happy medium, but I'm more than willing to part with valuable prospects for young, controllable talent that's going to help the major league club for several seasons. Buh bye Brinson and co., best o' luck to ya, thanks for netting us Yelich. I am a fan of and like to watch the Milwaukee Brewers play baseball, not the Timber Rattlers or the Sky Sox.

I think he means trades, which is how the Brewers have historically improved their pitching. Their big free agent pitcher signings haven't been rousing success stories.

@BobMcGinn Ex-#Packers SS Morgan Burnett's three-year deal with #Steelers contained modest $4.25 million in guaranteed money. The package is worth $14.35M. His cap number for 2018 is $2.417M. Huh, tells you what the Packers thought of Burnett. That's not much money at all.

We could just take up being fans of the Orioles so we can watch superstar ace pitcher Alex Cobb singlehandedly carry them to a WS title. That's an option.

You use an acronym for so long that you forget what it actually stands for. Wins replacement... good enough. I can understand a replacement level pitcher being dreadful... cant understand how a quality pitcher is deemed to make such an insignificant difference. What is the baseline set for a team of all replacement level players... as if if you have 25 replacement level guys you will win X games? This made me curious. So the 1965 Mets had 40 wins and the 2003 Tigers had 43 wins. Those are pretty much the worst win totals in the modern era. There are teams with less wins but they're from even longer ago than that Mets team. I feel like pretty bad teams get wins totals in the 50's or 60's. So you can have an objectively terrible team and still reasonably expect around 60ish wins. Unless they're historically bad. It's fighting for those extra 25 to 30 wins that separates the winners from the losers.

162 Sorry, couldn't resist.

I'm seeing Buster Olney reporting about deferred money being involved in Cobb's deal as well. It's a non-factor. Deferred money actually saves teams money.

Ok so... They signed a 32 year old OF to a 80/5 deal that is backloaded and defered to keep buying power open. As you said, inducates they clearly were looking for more otherwise you'd reverse that deal. You'd front load it and push for better value down the road. Then Yu goes to the cubs. We offered low, and were reported not to be all that invested. Fair enough. No reason to backload cain. Lynn goes for a prove it deal. You wouldn't assume Cains backloaded to make a 10-12 mil add. That still keeps us under 110 so if we really wanted Lynn well we could have offered him enough to lock him in. No reason to backload cain. Then Arrieta signs a disaster of a contract. Maybe this was our all in guy. That would make some sense but that would take the highly unlikely event of Boras caving and Arrieta basically falling in our lap for it to happen. Not a good or likely plan. Cobb then comes in for a reasonable deal. You've already backloaded cain. You dont do that for giggles. You do that for buying power. The whole team gets more expensive as the years move forward. You dont save now to pay then unless you are making a push now. Yet, no cobb. Salazar Archer Lynn don't cost enough to change cain. Arrieta was a hail mary... cobb was there to be had. That's puzzling. Its not that they added cain that confuses me. Its how they structured cain only to accomplish nothing else that confuses me. Long window, no more buying, you front load it. Short window, buying power now, you add the finishing piece. They signaled push with the way that deal is structured... then flinched. That's puzzling. If Arrieta was the shot it was wildly optimistic. If cobb was the shot they scrooged it when bidding 7mil more probably gets it done. If I'm backloading cain... im not putzing around on that finishing piece. I'm locking that down. 16/4 cobb, cut yo, 109 mil... lets roll. It's understandable to be puzzled, I just don't think pointing at the Cain signing is the winning argument folks are projecting it to be when trying to support the moves they wanted to see the club make afterwards. I do also feel a little let down they couldn't get something done. Not necessarily Cobb, but something. Saying Cobb's deal is reasonable is a subjective opinion, which you are entitled to but that leaves lots of room for disagreement. I saw one legitimate report that connected the Brewers to Cobb all off season and all it said was they had been in contact with his representatives. So they checked in on him early in the off season and that was pretty much it, every other thing said about the Brewers and Cobb was mostly speculation, with a bit of rumor and trolling mixed in for good measure. Thing is, Cobb ended up getting his asking price. It took a long time but he got what he went into the off season wanting. If the Brewers liked his asking price way earlier when they actually checked in on him they would have conceivably signed him before they signed Cain. So I don't believe they flinched he just wasn't someone they particularly wanted at the price it would have taken to get him. They still have room to make moves. Lot of season yet to play out.

I'm catching up on 3 or 4 pages of this thread but what's getting to me a bit is that the people that are... puzzled (going with that word rather than attach emotion to it) that the Brewers didn't make a significant pitching acquisition all seem to want to point back to the Cain signing as the reason not getting a pitcher puzzles them so much. They signed Cain on January 25th. That might as well be 100 years ago the way this off season has played out. Clearly the Brewers had ideas, they knew what they wanted to do. They wanted more pitching. It just didn't happen. Hindsight, sure, I'll concede that if they knew they would fail to add a pitcher they may not have signed Cain. But I think it's reasonable to say that they felt pretty confident they'd get a pitcher. Again, it just didn't happen. They can't return Cain to Amazon for a refund. Lick your wounds and make a new plan. That plan didn't include spending big money on middle rotation starting pitching.

I think the folks that are angry the Brewers didn't commit $60 million over 4 years to Alex "the Messiah" Cobb should be much, much angrier that the Brewers didn't sign Lance Lynn for 1 year at his $12 million price tag, even if they would have had to pay him up to $15 million to pry him from the Twins.