monty57

My argument to that relies solely on the rumored premise that the current "PEDs" are not performance enhancing, but instead help the player heal better. I do not have any idea if this is true, but it is a rumor that is out there. If this is indeed the case, then they are no more "performance enhancing" than cortisone, and they should probably be taken off the banned list, as we all want to see the athletes at top "non-enhanced" form on the field rather than resting a strained oblique on the bench. One big "problem" (I guess some wouldn't see it as a problem) is that "PED" is a catch-all phrase. What's being used now certainly isn't as performance-enhancing as what was being used in the Sosa/McGuire/Bonds era. Those were like Steve Rogers/Captain America drugs turning 150-pound pinch runners into hulking, record setting home run hitters. It would be nice if there were some kind of gradation so the guy taking cough syrup wouldn't be classified with the guy taking super soldier serum.

They are going to have money to spend in FA too so it's going to be tempting to try and compete in 2016. I agree that the potential is there, but it sounds like they're actively shopping Garza, and they wouldn't do that if they were planning on piecing together another team to "compete" in 2016. If they're going to rebuild, I wish they'd trade both Gomez and Lucroy, but I doubt Lucroy will be traded. As far as Gomez goes, he's probably going to be traded. Whether that's this season or the offseason will probably depend on the offers they get this year. With all of the other "chips" they have, it may make sense to package him with someone else. The other names you mentioned (Lohse, K-Rod, Parra, Ramirez, Broxton and Garza) may not bring back a ton on their own, but one could be a really good "sweetener" in a deal with Gomez to bring back several high-end prospects.

Funny, there was an article in the NY papers today talking about how the Brewers, and Gomez in particular couldn't believe that someone ever traded Syndergaard. I thought it was ironic, since the reason the Brewers are thinking about trading guys like Gomez is so that they can get talent like Syndergaard into the system. People have mocked the "top prospect" lists over the past few seasons, claiming that the Brewers shouldn't be ranked so low, but all you have to do is look at someone like Syndergaard or Bryant to realize that these guys are light years ahead of our prospects. The Mets/Toronto trade is exactly the model of what we need to do. The Mets traded R.A. Dickey to Toronto for Syndergaard, who was in low-A, and d'Arnaud, who was in AA. They were able to get more talent by dipping into the lower minors and waiting for them to grow. We have enough "chips" to get lots of prospects back, but hopefully some will be in this category. I'm perfectly content watching a below-average MLB roster for a couple years as long as I know we have some potential studs making their way through the system. And heck, who knows, maybe someone like Jungmann, Sardinas or Taylor will shine when given the spotlight. I think Syndergaard is untouchable. The thought of blowing up years of patiently building a solid block of young talent in order to go for it this year makes me cringe. The Mets are set up for years of success. Why waste it to gain a slight improvement this year? The posters saying Segura-for-a-lesser-Mets-prospect are probably closer to the mark. Segura has some years of control left, which the Mets would like, and wouldn't cost them a top prospect they're unwilling to give up, so it's feasible that it will happen. I am not as high on Segura as some, and we have MLB-ready depth at that position, so if we could turn him into a promising SP prospect, I'm all for it.

I am hoping this was a RR culture that can be fixed in AAA. I just noticed the Brewers are 3rd in the league in strike outs, 26th in walks. Thats some plate approach. Gennett has always been that type of hitter. It had nothing to do with Roenicke. Probably more to do with the type of players the Brewers draft and develop, and their desire to get big bats to the majors without forcing (or allowing) the player to improve other areas of their game (like plate discipline or defense) before moving up.

I can't see him ever being the guy people look up to again though. Not the way he was. Time will heal the wounds for most people, and if Braun plays well, he will probably be looked at for his baseball career more than the "unseen asterisk" by his name. But I agree that he won't be the "face of the franchise" the Brewers hoped he would become when they inked the second extension.

I do not and will never buy into the thumb issue being the sole reason for the fall off. I try to be a bit more open-minded. He did have surgery, so there was undoubtedly something wrong with his thumb. If he plays well going forward (not small sample stuff like his cold and hot times this year), then it will certainly appear that his down year last year was in large part due to his thumb. Unfortunately for the Brewers, that will take time, so if their plans are to sell off assets soon, it makes it harder to trade Braun. I would guess he will be a Brewer until at least this offseason, and probably for longer than that. But, if he plays well the rest of the season, he at least opens the door to someone trading for him. the man is a habitual liar I just know about the one case. Are there more, because calling someone a "habitual liar" means you have knowledge of a long line of lies about many things. I've known some habitual liars. They lie about everything, even if it doesn't seem to benefit them, and they easily get caught up in the web of lies by anyone who actually knows them and listens to them. It sounds more like animosity towards someone you used to admire who let you down than anything else. While that's understandable, it doesn't make him a habitual liar. So I must admit my projections for Braun going forward are based on 2013 to today. Why not include 2012 (.983 OPS), when he was healthy and subjected to heightened drug testing? And, if you are including 2013, then you probably like the .887 OPS he posted before getting hurt that year. Or, do you mean after that, where you are only including the time frame in which he was playing with an injured thumb and hit for something like a .360 OPS before getting suspended? I don't know what Braun will do the rest of his career, and even if he plays well, I don't like that the Brewers have to pay him until something like 2030... that's crazy! But, please try to be objective, or at least try not to cherry pick things to fit a narrative. I don't like the general direction the Brewer brass have taken things the past few years, but I have to admit there have been some good moves. You don't like Braun because of what he did, but try to admit that he still has some talent. My biggest reasons for wanting him traded are that eventually he will be old (by baseball standards) and I don't want to still have to pay him for a decade or so after that point. Add in that the team probably won't be good for the next few seasons when he could still be a good player, and there isn't much reason to hold on to him. It's sad that at one point he was one of the most valuable commodities in baseball, and now I'd be happy with a "meh" return, but such is the nature of things when dealing with the negative value of a big, guaranteed contract.

Coming up, everyone said Gennett made good contact, but didn't take any walks and had little power. In the majors, pitchers will dine on players who will swing at pitches out of the strike zone. I'd guess that if he started taking a few of those pitches, he would start getting better pitches to hit. The Brewers should probably give him an Oakland A's style ultimatum that he will not be called back up until he starts showing more plate discipline. From Fangraphs: Current Baselines: The major league average O-Swing% changes slightly from year to year. The chart below shows the major league averages from 2005-2008 for both batters and pitchers. 2002 18.1% 2003 22.2% 2004 16.6% 2005 20.3% 2006 23.5% 2007 25.0% 2008 25.4% Scooter Gennett: O-swing (contact): 2013 43.1% (73.8%), 2014 40.1% (75&), 2015 48.1% (73%) Z-swing (contact): 2013 71.5% (92%), 2014 73.3% (92.6%), 2015 68.9% (91.6%) First pitch strike: 2013 66.1%, 2014 57.6%, 2015 55.1% He swings at a ridiculously high percentage of pitches out of the zone, and he makes contact with them (kind of like Yuni B). Pitchers seem to realize this, and have stopped throwing as many first pitch strikes. Get him to swing at a bad pitch and hit it weakly somewhere for an out. I think this is a lot more of pitchers figuring out how to get him out more than him "pressing." He just needs to learn to take some pitches. If he can't do that, he may have a short career.

I love that Braun has been so bad the last two years that the name Yuni can get put into a thread about him. I don't. I liked it a lot better when his name was on lists with a bunch of Hall of Famers. As I mentioned in another thread I would assume he has similar value as Heyward had If we could get someone like Shelby Miller (young potential ace with around a year's service time), I think the Brewers would jump at the deal. He's probably not tradeable right now until he proves it was the thumb that was the problem. If he can put up a .850 OPS or so this season, it would be interesting to see what he'd bring back. In that scenario, he'd still be a valuable player, but his contract could have negative value (paying him for around 16 years), and his image has some negative value. I don't know what he could bring back, but he could make himself tradeable again and for the Brewers that could be the important thing.

While I disagree with you on how bad he is in right that isn't my point. The value of defense isn't the same across the board. The corner outfield spots are probably the two of least value compared to offense. So when taking into consideration the overall value of a player you have to take into consideration the weighted value of offense vs defense for that position. An above average defensive shortstop makes up more of the total value than an above average right fielder. A right fielder can be a gold glove defender yet it won't move his value needle much at all if his offense is below average. True to a point. A truly horrid OF that lets balls that should be caught go over his head for a triple (turning outs into doubles and triples) is probably more detrimental than a bad SS who lets some balls get by him that end up being singles (turning outs into singles). This of course is bearing in mind that while there are some SS that are worse than others, truly horrid fielders aren't put at SS, while there are some really bad fielders put in the corner OF positions.

It would also improve if he could hit for an OPS over .700, which he hasn't done since his hot first half of his rookie year. If he is a "hot commodity" now, it is because other teams see the team control and the potential. If we hold onto him for another year or two, and he proves himself to be a mid-.600 OPS guy with limited team control remaining, I don't think we'd get much in trade. Even if he hits better, once the team control goes away, we probably wouldn't get more than we could get today. With Sardinas, Gomez, Herrera and eventually Arcia all waiting in the wings, I think we're taking a big chance if we do not trade Segura by this offseason. Assuming, of course that the market for him is as hot as it is rumored. In regards to Gennett, this is sad, but not totally surprising as he was never considered that great a prospect. I hope he can figure it out, as he should be a nice guy to have around while he's young and inexpensive during the probable "lean years" ahead, and he's certainly an easy guy to root for.

No more than you can give me a reason to believe that we are not under-performing. Almost every single player on the team is performing under their 3 year average by a pretty large amount. It was a high variance team going into the season which is why I said they weren't really a projectable bunch. I'd believe a .750 OPS out of Braun, I'd believe a .900 OPS too. I'd believe a .750 OPS out of Aramis, I could see an .850 OPS too. I could see an entire rotation of sub 3.60 ERA guys, I could see any or all of them at 4.00 ERA+ too. I mean I'd be shocked if Maldenado is really a .479 OPS player. I'd be surprised if Scooter was at a .474 OPS at the end of the year. Those 2 alone have massively under-produced. I'd be shocked if Lohse remained a 6 ERA pitcher all year. These are so far off of expectations that they seem like flukes. Lohse could just lose it and be a high 4 ERA guy, I doubt he will but he could, but a 6 doesn't seem reasonable. That's what I was getting at. When I looked at the stats, I expected a bunch of players to jump off the page as to how their underperformance was sinking the ship, and by them simply playing more to their average the team would naturally be better. I've said all along that given time this team would get hot and, if no changes are made, they would end up just short of .500, even with the cold start. I'm starting to wonder if that's true, or at least if that's the likely outcome. There are a couple of guys that surely will improve (Gennett, Lucroy), but there are a couple that have overperformed (Lind, Parra). I expect a few more to play better, but none are really "givens," and none are such huge leaps that they will turn the team around, unless Braun goes completely nutty and posts a 1.000 OPS the rest of the season, or Ramirez realizes he isn't retired until after this season. The starting pitching has gotten worse since I wrote that post last week, so I guess getting to where I hoped would be an even bigger improvement than it was a week or so ago.

You're exactly right, there are opportunity costs. There are opportunity costs for investing in major league players instead of prospects. And there are opportunity costs for investing in prospects instead of major league players (not competing, not giving free agents a reason to sign here because they think the team is not likely to or trying to compete which makes the chances of competing even less). They thought the opportunity costs of not going for it were greater than the opportunity costs of not investing in prospects. Prospects are the future, but the future is always unknown so in business you always discount future values. There are zero guarantees for the future. Sure you can say they could have done both, but the reality is that they didn't have the resources to do both. They would have had to make perfect decisions about every player to sign to the major league club and every prospect to give high signing bonuses to. But no team, no GM, no director of scouting makes perfect decisions. They didn't have the resources to allow for the extra cushion needed to account for the percentage of decisions that would not pan out. That's what a high payroll gives you - the resources to make up for the bad decisions that are invariably going to be made. If they tried both they would have built the major league club half-arsed and the farm system half-arsed and neither would accomplish anything. The only had the resources to do one thing whole-arsed. Good managers (whether in baseball or any other business) have to be able to do this. They know the future will come, so they plan accordingly. Making excuses for why "we can't" is what constitutes a business doomed to failure. The "real world" comparable to prospects would be research & development. Most new product ideas fail, but that's why you pay big money to constantly have lots of researchers working on lots of new products. Do you think winning companies like Apple or Pfizer would ever give up their R&D departments so that they could sell more iPads or Lipitor today? 3M is known for saying "we pay people to fail," because they want their R&D dept to constantly try new things, even though they know the vast majority of them will fail. When asked why he didn't give up after so many failed attempts at the light bulb, Thomas Edison said "I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work." Henry Ford is famous for reinvesting almost every penny he made back into his company, knowing in his heart that eventually it would pay off. Instead of buying a big, fancy house and new truck when he started making money, Sam Walton kept the same small house and same old truck in order to reinvest his money into his second, third, etc Wal-Mart stores. Who knows what the future would have been if a new house and new truck would have been more important than opening that second store. I'm sure there are similar stories to this to pretty much every successful business, but I doubt any of them said "we need to forget about the future so we can sell more product today." Not thinking of the future is the most "half-arsed" thing you can do in business. I think Melvin has a lot of positive traits (I'm not a Melvin hater), but in this sense, Melvin seems to act more like a bureaucrat then a general manager, getting a payroll budget handed to him and making sure to spend every penny of it. I doubt that there's once in the past decade that he's left any money on the table. You would think that occasionally not spending the money on payroll would be a better option than spending the money.

We acquired Broxton under that impression taking on his salary of over that amount. I would be wary of using our acquisition of Broxton as an example of why something is a "plus." :-) I think the debate here is likely what's going on in other GM's offices. Some probably see him and his contract as a positive addition while some will see him and his contract as something to steer clear of. Good for the Brewers that if they decide to trade him they only need to get one GM/owner on a playoff hopeful team to see Garza as a good acquisition.

I say lets go with 2B - Gomez SS - Sardinas 3B - Herrera Maybe off topic, but I wish they'd go with the promising Gomez at 3B for the rest of the season with Ramirez as "RH bat off the bench." It won't happen, but it would be nice to see what we have in Gomez rather than the constant reminder of the $10,000,000 mistake of exercising the option for an over-the-hill Ramirez. I think Herrera could be a quality utility guy, while Gomez could be an answer for third base for the next few seasons. On topic, it will be interesting to see how Counsell handles this. I have little doubt that under Roenicke, Sardinas would become very good friends with the MLB bench, waiting for that 8-run game when he could be subbed in late. If the Brewers have future plans for Sardinas, I hope Counsell will start him the majority of the time he's up.

I would assume not. I would assume Lohse is traded off for whoever gives them the most salary relief. Which means they already will be in the market for another free agent pitcher next year unless Thornburg shines when given that spot. Plus you still have to see if Nelson and Fiers deserve a spot in the rotation next year. I doubt Melvin wants to try and fill more than one rotation spot considering his lack of starting pitching options on the farm. It's okay to have Jungmann as a second or third option as a rotational filler, but I wouldn't want to rely on throwing him out there 32 times next year unless the Brewers have a fire sale this year. This is why I feel that if the Brewers trade Garza they will go into "full rebuild" mode. There is no way they are going to pretend to go for it if they lose both Lohse and Garza from the rotation. If they hold on to Garza, they'll probably throw a little more duck tape on the jalopy (sign someone like Uribe to play 3B and another 35-year-old SP for the rotation) and tell the fans we're shooting for the playoffs in 2016. When it doesn't work, they'll look to trade Gomez a few months before he hits free agency next year.

What's worrisome is that I was just looking at the team's stats, and I don't see a huge chunk of what could easily be called "underperformance." On the pitching side, Lohse has been bad, but is that underperformance or age? We didn't know what Fiers would do, so a 5 ERA isn't certain to drop. Nelson and Garza are just above 4, so maybe they drop that a little, but it's not far out of line of what we may expect, and Peralta is around 3.5 which is about what's hoped for. In the bullpen, Broxton has stunk, and Cotts has an ERA over 5, but the rest of the guys (at least from an ERA standpoint) have pitched fairly well. I know ERA is probably a bad judge, especially in small samples, but they also generally have decent K:BB numbers. Really a drop in HRs is the only thing I could see making a significant difference. On the hitting side, Lind and Parra have overperformed and Davis is about up to expectation. Braun and Gomez have probably underperformed, but aren't bad. Herrera and H Gomez have actually done fairly well as subs. Segura is right around his career levels, and I didn't count on much more from Ramirez than he is providing. Gennett should improve, and getting Lucroy back (and hitting better) will help. All in all, there is certainly room for improvement, but I don't see a whole lot jumping out that says "we're bound to improve." I guess this really depends on people's expectations. I don't expect a lot from guys who are well past their prime, so Lohse and Ramirez don't surprise me. Segura, Davis and Gennett are very different types of players, but I don't expect any of them to be .800 OPS players, and I wouldn't be surprised of Segura and Gennett are in the high .600's to low .700s (especially if Gennett hits vs LHP). Braun, Gomez, Lind and Lucroy should all be above .800, so there is some room for improvement there, but probably a drop off from Lind. Can someone give me reason to believe that we are an underperforming team that is bound to improve, or are we really overvaluing guys who just aren't that good, and we don't have enough talent around our good players to really be that good?

You have a point with Brewers drafts improving with the new CBA. However, I disagree with your stance on the Pirates and Brewers. It was an easy decision for the Pirates; they were a bad team then (99 losses in 2009, 105 losses in 2010, 90 losses in 2011) and it would have been pointless to put money into the major league team. But the Brewers were contending for the first time in almost 30 years. They didn't have the resources to do both. They chose to invest in the ML team in an effort to "go for it". From a business standpoint, they thought that contending and winning would yield greater revenue to be able to reinvest in the franchise in the future. Yes, you can pick apart individual transactions such as Gagne and play the would've-should've game, but the point is that they had to choose one or the other. They couldn't do both. Now the tables are turned. The Pirates were contending the last two years for the first time in 22 years. If the same draft system was in place, would the Pirates have invested in draft picks the last two years with their limited resources? I don't think so. The Brewers didn't sign players they drafted when they were bad like Garciaparra and Giambi, so it wasn't only when they were good. When they were good, I would guess that they could have trimmed $1MM off the MLB roster without hurting the team much every year in order to draft better players if they wanted to put some emphasis on the future, but that would have gone against everything Attanasio has done. I think that you can certainly put resources into both a good MLB roster and the draft, and in listening to Pirates executives I absolutely think that they would still be focusing resources on the draft if the previous system were still in place. I'd be shocked if the Pirates ever go "all in," which is why I think they will be an interesting team to watch to see if they can be a continual playoff team for the long-term using that strategy. But to the example of Gagne, these are the types of "opportunity costs" that exist on these deals. I hear people say "I don't mind that deal because it's just money," or "...because it's short-term," but that money could have been used elsewhere. Melvin/Attanasio seem to think that if there is money to spend, and if they have some talent on the roster, all available funds must go to the MLB payroll, as if there is a 1:1 correlation between spending money and winning. There is always a lot of wasted money on Melvin's MLB rosters (I'm sure he's not alone in this), so I definitely think that a little more fiscal responsibility would have allowed the Brewers to think both "now" and "later."

Segura is a different category for me - if he'll sign an extension, I'm fine with him staying right here. Even if he won't, I think the team could wait a full year before they get serious about dealing him. Segura's both young and good, and he plays a position that can be tough to fill - there will be demand, now or later. I'm fine with the team signing him, or keeping him here until Orlando Arcia is in place. The Brewers have H. Gomez, who has actually looked decent at SS at the MLB level. Gomez was a decent prospect who had some injuries. He's healthy now, so I wouldn't be surprised to see him perform as well as Segura going forward. Plus they have Sardinas and Arcia both at-or-near MLB ready in the minors. This is really the position where the Brewers have the most depth, so if someone is willing to give us a big return for Segura, he should be dealt. As to the extension, they went down that road with him, and he didn't want to extend. Glad they took their shot, as I really like extending good pre-arby guys, but if the player's intention is to play it year-to-year to free agency, the team has to accept that and make their plans accordingly.

if anyone calls on Lohse, A-Ram, Broxton, or Parra, they should listen If anyone calls on Broxton, they should immediately lose their job. If they call on Lohse or Ramirez, it's to see if the Brewers are willing to hand them over for nothing in order to save $1-2MM. Again, it's too early to write off this season but more importantly is the outlook for 2016 equally as bleak with a returning core of Lucroy, Lind, Segura, Davis, Gomez, Braun, Peralta, Garza, Nelson, and K-Rod and $40 million lopped off the salary by departures of Ramirez, Lohse, Broxton, and Parra? Seems to be they are poised to go into 2016 with a significantly better roster than the one that broke camp this year. I wouldn't say "significantly better," but then they lose Gomez for nothing, and have lost a significant amount of Lucroy's trade value. The main reason for hopes of a sell-off this year is that we actually have trade chips. If we hold out, we won't have anything worth trading to restock the system, so instead of a rebuild that hopefully only lasts a couple of season, we're in for a decade of horror. I don't think we have the prospects to make up for the losses of Gomez and Lucroy over the next couple of years, added to Braun a couple more years into his 30's. So, are our chances for a championship so great next year that we accept one more year of Gomez instead of trading him for probably 6 years each of two Top 100 prospects? There's probably no chance Lucroy gets dealt, and even though we have a couple of SS in waiting, Segura is probably not going anywhere. Really, the "fire sale" being discussed is likely to be the schmoes mentioned in your quote above plus Gomez. But, that one trade of Gomez could do a heck of a lot for the team's future.

If you go back and read the original Lohse signing thread I was hardcore against it and said some very mean things about him and the Brewers organization. However, watching him pitch has changed my mind. If I look at it as simply the numbers Lohse out up, he was worth the money and the pick. When considering the fact that it didn't even lead to a Brewer's playoff appearance, though, it maybe wasn't the best use of resources. Not that I have any faith in this organization that they would have drafted the right player and developed him correctly though. I don't know about that. They have been drafting pretty well for a few years now. Starting in about 2012 the draft started to turn for us. They picked up Arcia in 2011, I think. Coincidentally, Brewer drafts started getting better when the new CBA came out, disallowing teams from throwing a bunch of money into the draft to get better players. The Brewers could have taken advantage of this tactic while it existed, but instead put all of their available funds into the MLB roster so that we could have important pieces like Gagne instead of wasting the money getting talented guys in the draft. Instead, the Brewers' strategy was to target "signability" picks and we see how that worked out. Melvin was one of the biggest critics of the previous system, which allowed small market teams like the Pirates to snag a lot of talent later in the drafts. His complaining was answered, and now that there is a "pool" of money for each team, and teams like the Pirates can't pour excess money into the draft, the Brewers are doing better. I wish that instead of complaining he would have just taken advantage of the system as it was set up.

But you do not get to sign pitchers like Lohse at the age of 28 for only three years and the money we gave him. That's not realistic. The price would've been way more and the length would have been too. Which is why we should generally steer clear of the free agent market, as by nature you have to be the highest bidder in order to get the player to sign. Being a low-revenue team, the Brewers cannot afford to pay above market value for talent on a regular basis. If, as seems to be the case, Melvin cannot compete for younger/better talent, and instead has to promise over-the-hill guys an extra year or two to get them to sign, then we are doomed to always have guys who were formerly good but are past their useful lifespan making eight figure salaries. With our payroll, we can't win with these type of guys on the roster. For most of these deals, we shouldn't consider it 3/$33MM, for an average salary of $11MM but rather 2/$33MM for an average salary of $16.5MM since most of the older guys we've signed (guys like Suppan, Wolf, Ramirez) have been okay for the first part of the contract, but useless in the final year(s). We would be best off just cutting these guys prior to their final year, so they aren't giving us negative value and wasting a roster spot that could be used on a more productive player. Relying on these type of deals for key players is not a good strategy, and if we can't afford to get younger, better players in free agency, we should implement a strategy that allows us to get younger, better players in other ways. We need to trade Lohse now, while Melvin might be able to find a GM who believes that since he was decent last year, and the peripherals are there, he will bounce back. It's possible that happens, but if it doesn't and he's still sporting a 7+ ERA a month from now, he will have lost any trade value he may now have. There is a very good chance that age has caught up with him, and he won't bounce back. With the start we've had, and playoff odds right around 0%, we can't take the risk of losing a chance to trade him (assuming that chance still exists).

Pick out just about any bad year and you'll find a good 20-25 game stretch where they played like a playoff team. It is doing it consistently that is the issue. Yeah, this team over the past few seasons has just seemed to be more "streak-prone" than most, and the timing of the big hot streak and big cold streak has determined whether they are buyers or sellers at the deadline. I don't know what has caused this excessive "streakiness." Maybe it was the manager, maybe an over-reliance on home runs, maybe the lack of a true "Ace" (although they had Greinke for one of the streaky years), maybe something completely different. I still think that if left alone, this team will end up somewhere just shy of .500, but I don't think that relying on a super hot streak to get to the playoffs would be their best course of action at this time. It would require their annual "big hot streak" to come before the break to get them around .500, and then another "hot streak" in the second half to get them from around .500 to being a playoff team. The odds are pretty small of that happening, so I think they're much better off at least finding trade partners for some of the big salaries that are going to be FAs, not that any of them other than maybe Parra are helping their trade status. To topic, I think a big part of bringing Counsell on is to help mentor the young guys that come up as the old guys are traded off. I hope the thought process doesn't change just because they have a bit of a hot streak leading up to the trade deadline.

Nor will it change the fact that when the contract was signed Lohse was already at an age where most players have retired, and he was signed to a 3-year deal, taking him to an age that gave him a really good chance of falling apart before the contract ended. That he pitched as well as he did his first two years has defied the odds. It was far from certain that they were signing a "steady, above average pitcher for 2-3 years." Had the Brewers signed a pitcher similar to Lohse, who was 28-years old to the same deal, I doubt many people would have been too upset. Had they signed him to a shorter deal, it would have made more sense. At the time of the signing, I figured we'd probably cut him in his final year, eating his salary while he faded into retirement just like all the other 30-something FA pitchers we've signed to multi-year deals. If he does better than that, I guess we "win." If Melvin continues to sign average-ish 30-something year old pitchers to 3-4 year deals, we will continue to get a year or two of decent pitching followed by a year or two of a worthless over-the-hill lump, and I'd guess we'll still have people giving all sorts of justifications as to how it's worth it to waste money in the final year(s). To date, Lohse has turned out to be one of the better of the 30-something free agents Melvin/Attanasio has signed, but I can't agree that it's a good long-term strategy that should be continued. That this particular deal also cost us a draft pick is just icing on the cake for me.

What good is signing a 3 win player to a 75 win team if you stop there? The signing got some additional fans to buy tickets, which is what seems to drive Attanasio, and the expected dropoff of ticket sales going forward is probably the reason the aforementioned Lohse and other expensive players' names have already come up in trade rumors. The Lohse deal was not to popular with many people when it occurred. Thanks for the link Logan. I'll quote myself a couple of times Re Lohse: "Sorry, I was adding a year. I thought he was 35 now, which seems to be the age most pitchers collapse. I feel a little better, but I still don't expect much in year three... really anything better than a "here, we'll pay you not to play" would probably be good. I'm hoping for an ERA sub-4 this year (please!!), sub-5 next year and "don't bring the ship down with you" in the final year." Re "the future" (this was in 2013): "As I said, I want to just focus on this season. Although we're less talented than we were 12 months ago, we still have a shot at the playoffs. Even though we'll be less talented 12 months from now (albeit with a $100MM+ payroll), we may still have a shot at the playoffs next year. I just don't want to think beyond that anymore. It gets me sad, and I want to be excited as a new season is about to begin." Lohse outplayed my expectations last season, but I wouldn't be surprised if he's "hit the cliff" this year. Hopefully he can turn things around at least somewhat, and isn't a 7 ERA guy all year. As to "the future," I think I was pretty easy to see all this coming. I went into a lot more detail in the linked thread, and I think I was pretty spot on. I had forgotten about the CBA rule change regarding the draft, which is probably the reason we started to get better in the drafts. Prior to that, we put all our money to max the MLB payroll, refusing to pay "overslot" value. This led to us settling for "signability" picks, which is probably a big reason we had such terrible results in the draft during our "window" years. Meanwhile, teams like the Pirates took full advantage of the ability to sign good talent later in the draft and pay them more money, building up the farm system they're now feeding off of.

A competent manager doesn't leave Broxton in for the entire 8th inning tonight. I figured he was hoping by throwing so many pitches Broxton would throw his arm out and he could get a competent RP on the roster.