monty57

So the Brewers would need to go 53 - 36 to get there. That's a .596 winning percentage, which is better than any team in the National League has posted so far this season (the Dodgers are at .581)

Considering Green can't play SS it seems a stretch to wonder why Green doesn't get in there ahead of those two stiffs. Green has done nothing to show he is better than Ishikawa so I don't get the constant complaints or calling RR an idiot for this situation, especially when Ishikawa was on the DL for most of the recent games. I do remember RR was some sort of fool in the complainers eyes for keeping Ishikawa over Conrand, then became and idiot when Conrad played and was terrible. Hart has now taken over 1B, Aram is at third, Weeks at 2nd, where is Green going to play? It isn't like he is some uber prospect that the team has to get in the lineup. His minor league numbers are remarkably similar to Ishikawa's and Ishikawa has outproduced him at the ML level. If the team finally throws in the towel and admits the playoffs are pipe dream then fine, try to get Green in as much as possible just to see if he can hack it at the ML level but at this point I can't complain about Ishikawa getting some AB's over him. As to comparing Green to Izturis and Ransom, I was referring to games where Ramirez sits and Izturis plays SS with Ransom at 3B. If Green was ahead of either of them on the depth chart, then he would play third, while either Izturis or Ransom played SS. In a small sample this year, Ishikawa has outhit Green. However, who has more of a future to the team? If the Brewers have any confidence in Green, and if there is any desire to have him contribute in the future, then I think he should get more playing time. I guess I look at this year and the future, and I can't fault Roenicke too much for only worrying about winning games this year, but Ishikawa hasn't done much in his career to show that he's someone we should bank on long-term. Green may not be an uber-prospect, but he is one of the only decent position prospects we have, and we are in dire need of getting some quality playing time from guys playing for league minimum. If Green never gets a chance to play, we'll never know if he could be someone who can give us quality for league minimum. I apologize for "hijacking" this thread into a Taylor Green thread. That wasn't my intent. I basically just wanted to use Green as an example of another potentially decent prospect who is sitting behind a lesser talented individual(s). To topic, I think Fiers is more talented than Estrada, and I really don't want to see him dumped into a position like Green where his talent is wasted in an "end of the bench" role. Green is now the guy who gets to pinch hit if we go into extra innings, and Fiers would be the long guy who would only pitch if we are up or down a lot of runs and the starter goes less than five innings. In my opinion, neither role is where you want to put a player who may play a significant role in future years.

It's right up there with Izturis, Ransom and Ishikawa all being ahead of Green on the depth chart. They've already said Estrada's going to start, so the big question is whether Fiers will be sent to AAA to continue his progression as a starter or if they think they "need his arm in the bullpen" so much that they make him a reliever for the 2012 Brewers. My solace lies in the fact that they just brought Livan in to be the long reliever, which is where I'd see them putting Fiers, so if I had to guess I'd say they're planning on sending Fiers back to the minors.

With the lack of pre-arby guys on the MLB team, it would certainly be nice if Rogers could help out. If we do go into "sell" mode, then it would make sense to bring Rogers up to see what he can do. I'd rather he "get his feet wet" in meaningless games this year than next. At this point, it would be amazing if we could see Rogers' name as a regular starting pitcher for the Milwaukee Brewers. It would be a minor miracle if we could get six years of starts out of him. After the Youkilis deal is seems apparent that teams may not be able to get much due to the new rules pertaining to draft pick compensation While the new rules may indeed suppress value, the Youkilis deal may not be a good proxy. Everyone knew that Youkilis was upset and the Sox had to trade him quickly and you never get full value in that situation. However, to topic, if values of vets are so suppressed that a "so-so" prospect can bring a really good veteran "rental" player, then Rogers may be able to bring back a really good veteran "rental" player should we go that route.

While I love the Rays and what they have done they have gotten lucky in their trades. No way does any GM in baseball trade for Zambrano let alone gives up a top prospect for a pitcher like Zambrano was. Zambrano wasn't this big time pitcher he was an average to possibly an above average #3 or #4 pitcher. The Rays got lucky in terms of a team overvaluing what Zambrano was worth. It was labeled as a bad trade when it went down and it was labeled as a bad trade after. What is really funny is the Rays making that bad trade into another good trade when they sent Kazmir to the Angels. Again this was another organization overvaluing a pitcher who was obviously in decline and was overpaid at the time and coming off some questions in terms of how hurt or bad his arm was. It's funny that as much analysis as people put into trades, it's really as simple as two people talking and coming to an agreement. If you have someone you want to move, you target some guys you like and make some phone calls. The worst that can happen is you don't make a deal. Like a lot of other things in life, you just have to make the phone call. You can't convince yourself the deal won't be made, so you never pick up the phone. The Rays are obviously willing to make the calls, and that has allowed them to make some deals that other people thought would never happen.

It'll be interesting to see what happens when Marcum's healthy. The Brewers seem set on keeping Estrada in the rotation over Fiers, and unless he's up against an innings limit, I want Fiers to continue starting so he's ready to step in next year. Looking to win this year, the best thing may be to put Estrada or Fiers into the pen. Looking to next year, I think the best thing will be to send Fiers back to AAA to keep starting. Call him back up if someone is injured or if they trade Greinke/Marcum.

I wouldn't want you starting on my team either Monty. No, you wouldn't. Probably not even if it was a beer-league softball team as I gave that up years ago. However, that wasn't my post you were quoting, it was HiandTight :-)

NOTE: I hear that the Brewers will or have offered Zack Geinke a 6 year / $125 million contrat. that from the referenced Bill Michaels blog. So, if it's true, and if Greinke accepts, what do we do from there? Next year's committed contracts (from Cot's): Weeks $11M, Hart $10.333M, Braun $9.5M, Ramirez $10M, Gallardo $8M, Aoki $1.25M, Lucroy $850k, Wolf $1.5M buyout. That's $52.4M committed to seven players, and Greineke's $20.8 would push us to $73.2M for eight players. We have Axford, Narveson, Ishikawa and Estrada going into year 1 arby, Morgan ($2.35 M this year) and Kottaras ($700k) into year 2, Loe ($2.175M), Veras ($2M) and Parra ($1.2M) going into year 3 arby and Gomez ($1.9625M) going into Year 4 arby. Dillard, Gamel, Green, Fiers, Maldonado, Ransom will still be pre-arby, as will guys in the minors who may come up. (Note that Cot's and Brewerfan's salary page differ on some players, such as Estrada, Loe & Veras' arby status) Melvin / Attanasio know what the Brewers have to spend, but I don't know how we're going to field a competitive team with $73MM going to eight players and very little cheap talent. If Cot's is right, we'll have around $10MM going to Loe, Veras, Parra and Axford and another $5MM or so going to Morgan / Gomez. We're pushing $90MM for 14 players! That's with only two SP spot filled (Gallardo/Greinke). Can we compete with Estrada and two rookies in the rotation when we're a below .500 team with Marcum and Wolf in the rotation? The only way I can see this working would be for us to immediately trade Marcum and Hart for some good, MLB-ready prospects who could step right in and contribute for league minimum. Otherwise, we're going to have the same team that's playing right now without Marcum, Wolf and Gonzalez and with very little money to spend for upgrades. I should be excited about the possibility that Greinke could be extended, but it opens up a lot of questions. I don't want to see us become the teams of the 90's and early 2000's where we have a couple of guys to get excited about surrounded by a bunch of guys who shouldn't be on a major league roster. After all, the combined records of the teams Greinke has been on is 581-787... he certainly can't win it alone.

Problem is, no way you get a quality SP or SS for Hart. It depends on whether or not you're willing to offer Hart a one-year / $13MM deal. I would offer that deal to him, so I think his return should net at least the comp picks which the receiving team would receive if they offered him the one-year deal. If you can't get better than that in return, you hold onto him for the next year and a half and then offer him the one-year deal. That's why I'd dangle him on the trade market now and in the offseason to see what you're offered. I probably wouldn't trade him next year unless a team were willing to lose a first rounder for a couple of months of Hart, which probably won't happen, so if he's traded, it should be now or this offseason. As far as Gamel is concerned, for those of you who want Greinke back at basically any cost- then Gael is exactly the type of player you need around. Exactly. If we are somehow able to trade some "chips" for some young league-minimum guys who can start for us, and we trust the few pre-arby guys we have (like Gamel) then we will probably have the financial flexibility to do other things, like make a realistic attempt at re-signing Greinke. If we relegate Gamel to a bench role and extend Hart, then we lose financial flexibilty, and we'll be a watered-down version of this year's team. Extending Hart would probably mean that unless we traded Braun or Yo we wouldn't be able to afford any other "expensive" players until Weeks and Ramirez fell off the books. For example, I'm sure someone would want Ramirez. A proven power bat. I would gladly get rid of the last two years of that contract PLUS get some talent back in return. Due to the back-end-loaded nature of Ramirez's contract, I doubt anyone would trade for him unless we eat a lot of his contract. If we could trade him right now and get something back in return, I'd do it in a heartbeat.

I think the main goal in any DH discussion is that both leagues need to play by the same set of rules - not doing so creates roster disparities that I think aren't good for the game. I agree with this, and I think if one is to win out it will be that both leagues adopt the DH, because the union wouldn't go for getting rid of it. In addition to the in-season disadvantages mentioned above, the NL is at a disadvantage in the off-season, as most NL teams aren't willing to offer deals like those tendered to Fielder and Pujols, as they don't have the option of moving them to DH when they can no longer play the field. Pitchers would have to hit, as purists of the game have always wanted. I ask this as a serious question: Is it "purists" or simply "people who are used to watching NL baseball?" The DH was adopted in the AL in 1973. Are there fans of AL teams who are still clamoring to get rid of the DH, or is it just that after watching baseball played a certain way for years and years, it seems like that should be the way it's played? As Brewer fans, we have a unique view of this, because we remember cheering for a team with a DH that moved to become a team without a DH. I always thought baseball was better with a DH... until the Brewers moved to the NL, at which point I thought it was fun to watch the Brewers playing in the NL. Really, I just like watching the Brewers, and don't care if they have a DH or not, as long as they stay in Milwaukee. Personlly, I think the Commisioner's Office is trying to wean the fans into getting used to a DH, at which point it will be implemented in both leagues. Maybe the Astros will be a good proxy. If a bunch of Astros fans stop watching baseball or begin cheering for an NL team, then we'll know that fans really care about watching pitchers hit more than they care about cheering for a particular team. If Astros fans remain Astros fans even though they will be using a DH, then I think it's safe to assume that other teams' fans would do the same.

Probably just shows that 40 ABs received in a sporadic fashion over an extended period really have a wide variance and shouldn't really be used to determine if a player is Hall of Fame caliber or should be booted from the league. Conrad is better than he showed during his time as a Brewer. I'm not too worried that he's gone, but I won't be surprised if he does a good job elsewhere. This is in the same ballpark as Gamel only getting sporadic PAs a few years back and Green only getting sporadic PAs now.

What's changed is now they know Hart can play there... ...The relative merits of extending or not extending Hart have nothing to do with Gamel. Gamel will have to earn his way onto a roster and into a lineup. Those two statements are contradictory. We know Hart can play first, which is the position Gamel plays. If it makes sense to trade Hart (which I think it does), then it makes it more likely that Gamel is our first baseman. If we don't trade Hart, or even extend him, then Gamel would essentially be fighting with Aoki/Gomez/Morgan/Schafer for playing time, as Hart would either play Gamel's position (1B) or he'd play RF, taking time from one of the OF's. What happens with Hart dramatically effects Gamel's future. The relative merit of trading Hart is based in large part on the value we could receive in trade. If we could get a long-term answer at SS or SP, then I would certainly trade Hart for that SS or SP and name Gamel my first baseman. We would then have pre-arby (league minimum salary) guys playing key roles in multiple positions, which is something we need to have if we want to be able to pay big salaries to guys in other positions. Also, for once I'd like to get something in return for a player rather than watching him walk as a free agent. As to extending him, since the end of the "steroid era" I'm leery of signing/extending anyone into their mid-30's, especially someone with recurring knee problems.

To kind of go along with TheCrew07's post, I think some things the Brewers are missing are: 1) The willingness to trade for young guys with a lot of service time remaining. Melvin seems to prefer trading for "proven" guys. 2) The willingness to trade away guys when they are nearing free agency to bring in talent and allow the young players to play. Melvin has either held guys to free agency or extended them, even when they are so close to free agency that they're basically signing a market deal. 3) The willingness to put their faith in rookies, even in an "all in" year. Instead, the Brewers have traded away young talent for guys who are nearing free agency, and have blocked prospects who are seemingly ready to contribute. Melvin built this team with the farm system, and has since been in an "all in" mentality, with a reluctance to trust in "non-proven" players. He's used prospects as trade chips, which has left us with a lot of our payroll tied up in a few players, a weak farm system, and very little pre-arby talent. With a limited budget, if we are going to have a lot of our money tied up in a few players, we need to have a continuous stream of pre-arby talent coming off the farm and playing a key role for the MLB team. We don't have this, as we have traded it away and have not traded "non-core" players to re-stock the system. It would be pretty easy to re-stock the farm system quickly if we decide to trade Greinke, Marcum and Hart for good young players with a lot of service time remaining. We will be bad for the foreseeable future if we decide to let them all walk in free agency. We will continue to be "so-so" if we decide to trade them for guys with 2-3 years of service time remaining. I'd like us to choose option #1, but I wouldn't be surprised to see Melvin choose one of the other options.

It'll be interesting to see what the future holds. I'd imagine that Maldonado will go back to AAA when Lucroy's back, but what do we do this offseason? Kottaras will be arby-eligible so he'll probably make $1MM or so next year. Do we just release him for nothing after this year or do we offer him arby?

I like Hart, but I think he needs to be traded while his value's high (with the new CBA, the value goes down significantly once the receiving team can no longer get comp picks). Whether that's now or in the off-season, he should be traded for a young SS or SP who can help our team for league minimum next year and into the future. For next year, we should pick up a RH bench player who can play 1B/corner OF. Gamel should be the "everyday" 1B with the aforementioned RH player giving him some time off and providing "injury insurance." We will always need inexpensive guys playing key roles and Gamel is still an inexpensive guy who should be able to hit. I don't see how his getting injured this year changes anything. If he can provide decent production for league minimum and we are able to get some good production from other pre-arby guys, then we can be competitive in the future. If we continue doing things like extending aging players to expensive market deals which block potentially productive league-minimum guys, we will lose financial flexibility and have a large portion of our payroll tied up in a few (aging) players and therefore have gaping holes elsewhere on our roster.

I doubt the player's union, owners or fans would be fine with the David Ortiz's of the world getting pulled before they get a PA and having a vastly inferior hitter batting clean-up because a pitcher had a bad outing. They also wouldn't like pitchers risking injury by throwing 150+ pitches because the DH was batting 3rd the next inning. They wouldn't like burning through two bench players to do a LOOGY matchup. It would be a nightmare to implement this rule, and fans would revolt as they continually watched pitchers giving up 10 run innings simply to "save the DH." It's good to do some brainstorming "let's throw all ideas out there," but this one's never going to happen. I grew up watching the Brewers play with a DH, and since then I've watched the Brewers in the NL without a DH. I'm fine with either style, and I certainly wasn't bemoaning the fact that the pitchers weren't hitting during the Brewers' recent interleague games. I think the move to season-long interleague play will probably mean an eventual move to a DH in both leagues. If/when that happens, there will be some complaining, and then the world will go on as normal and 99% of the people who complained will continue to watch baseball.

Nothing againgst Hernandez, but this is just another way to keep a potentially useful young player in AAA. Hernandez will take the long reliever role, Estrada to the rotation, Fiers to the minors when Marcum's ready. Then Green (who's behind Random in Roenicke's book) will head back when Ishikawa returns.

To me, the only question is this: Will you get more for him at the trade deadline or in the off-season? Unless I'm mistaken, the only way they can trade him this offseason is if they offer him arby/sign him to a deal. If they don't want him on the team next year, there is obviously risk in signing him to try trading him.

The team this year is not great. If we do not "sell," and we extend Greinke, then we will essentially have this year's team minus Marcum, Wolf, Loe, Veras, K-Rod and maybe Morgan & Gomez. All those positions would have to be filled from within the organization in order to pay Greinke, and we don't have much pre-arby talent to fill these roles. In other words, we would probably be pretty bad. If we "sell" and bring back some MLB-ready guys who could step in and play for league minimum, then I think we'd probably be able to have the financial flexibility to at least make a good effort at signing Greinke while still putting some talent on the field around him.

To me it comes down to what you think you could get out of Morgan in trade and what your plans are for him this offseason. If we're not planning on offering him arby (he'd probably make $3MM next year), then if we don't trade him we will lose him for nothing. In that case, it make more sense to me to trade him for something this season rather than letting him play out the season and just lose him. The value received in trade simply has to equal a half season of Morgan's play, plus we'd save a little over $1MM. Morgan's not going to bring back a star prospect, but to a team looking for a CF, 1.5 years of Morgan should be worth something. Maybe it's only a middle reliever/setup guy, a "high upside" A-baller, or a bench bat, but even that could have more value to the Brewers than Morgan if we are planning on dumping him at the end of the season anyway. Of course, if Melvin wants to offer Morgan arby, then this is moot. If that happens, Schafer's career path is going the route of Gamel and Green.

We're not really in the same situation. The Braves have an abundance of young pitching and two good young SS. They are right on the cusp of a playoff spot, and don't have boatloads of talent leaving at season's end that will turn them from a playoff hopeful to a bottom feeder. They have young talent on the MLB roster and a strong minor league system. They are in a position where they can trade some of their "blocked" parts for that extra push to get them to the playoffs. I don't know if the suggested trade is too much to ask for Marcum, but the Braves were talking about looking for a good, veteran SP before Beachy went down, and are now desperate for one. Minor is talented, but hasn't looked good this season so I doubt the Braves want to count on him, Delgado and Jurrjens for their playoff run. If not him, then maybe one of their other MLB-ready SP would be available. Meanwhile, Pastronicky has some talent but was demoted for a younger, more talented player so there's really nowhere in the organization for him. To your analogy, the Brewers don't really have a comp for Minor, as they don't have a lot of depth anywhere in the minors, but Pastronicky is probably a better comp to Maldonado than Lucroy... the 2nd best young player the team has at a position who could be a starter if a team doesn't have a good option, but probably won't be a star. I'd be happy to have Pastronicky since we're woefully thin at SS in the system and we could have him on an inexpensive deal for 5+ seasons, but he's trade bait for the Braves.

I don't know the new rules. What kind of draft pick(s) if any would the Brewers get if Hart played his contract through 2014 and then left for another team? I'm not an expert on this, but here's the basics as I understand them: To get picks, the player has to be offered a one-year deal set to a certain formula (I believe that this offseason the one year deal would be around $13MM). If the player accepts the one-year deal, it's binding. If the player rejects the deal, the offering team will receive the first round pick (if the signing team has pick 11 or worse) or the 2nd round pick of the signing team plus a "sandwich pick" between rounds one and two. The player has to be on a team's roster for the entire last year of the contract to receive any picks, so the Brewers would get picks if they hold him through free agency and offer the one-year deal (and he rejects), or if they trade him this year or this offseason, the team they trade him to would get picks if they offer him a one-year deal (upping his trade value). If they were to wait until next season to try to trade him, the receiving team would not be able to get compensatory picks. Therefore, the reason I advocate trading him this season is that the return should be substantially better than a first round and sandwich pick, as the receiving team would receive 1.5 years of an All-Star RF/1B plus they would get a first round and sandwich pick when he leaves. As an added bonus, we'd save around $15MM in salary to Hart and $3MM or so in signing bonuses to the draft picks while adding pre-arby (inexpensive) talent to the MLB roster. I like Hart, but I'm sure I could learn to like the Top 50 prospect he'd probably net in trade.

That's a good observation. I'm not convinced that if Greinke (and/or Marcum) is traded that the Brewers will be looking for A or AA ball prospects, regardless of their ceilings. The rotation is looking like a complete mess for next year. The Brewers do not control Greinke or Marcum. If Wolf keeps pitching like he has so far over the course of the season, there is no way the Brewers can pick up his option for next year. Who knows what shape Narveson's shoulder will be in, if anything you'd have to consider 2013 a rehab-type year for him. The top minor league option heading into this year (Peralta) is having a bad year and if you want to pencil him into the major league rotation for next year you probably cannot count on him being anything more than a #5. If Greinke and Marcum both leave, how does the 2013 rotation currently stack up? Gallardo, Estrada, Thornburg, Fiers, Peralta? Free agency? For starters the Yankees, Red Sox and Cubs (and others) will be heavily involved in looking at free agent starting pitchers. I don't see the Brewers having much of a chance to add much quality when they'll have to bid against the big boys. Because of that I wouldn't be surprised if Melvin passes on higher-rated prospects playing in the lower levels and trades for major league pitchers or starter prospects that are so advanced that they figure to stick in a major league rotation in 2013. Not the approach I would take, but I think there is a good chance the Brewers will prefer this strategy. If they don't trade for MLB pitching or nearly-guaranteed MLB pitching it will almost be like they've given up on any chance of winning in 2013, which would be totally out of character for Attanasio. First off, welcome to the board. Regarding Wolf, we'll have to see how the rest of the season plays out. He started off really poorly, but has pitched much better since. Some team may trade for him based on his track record and the fact that he's pitching better. Or, we may exercise his option if he continues to pitch well. As you mentioned, we don't have many other rotation options and at least Wolf's would be a one-year deal. Regarding the second paragraph, we have some talent in the low minors, but not really in the upper minors. I think Melvin should look at MLB-ready guys who are either in AAA or are early in tehir MLB careers. I worry that he'll look at MLB-proven guys who only have a couple of seasons of "control" remaining.

I just don't get the damn need to discuss this. I didn't in April after a rough start, in May aftre a better month annnd now again in Maye when we'er just basically recycling the same threads Then don't discuss it. Some of us realize that there is a good chance that next year's team will be bad and are open to discussing ways to make that situation better. I find it interesting hearing what others feel is the best route to go in center field now and in the future. If that's not your cup of tea, that's fine... start a thread entitled "We have lots of money" or "All we need to do is extend Greinke and our future is fine." Back to the topic of the thread... my concern is do we know Schafer can replace Morgan We don't, and that's why I think it would be good to let him take over Morgan's role this season to "get his feet wet." Our playoff chances are around 10%, so maybe Schafer makes that 9.8% or maybe he makes it 10.2%. Just like Schafer could be bad or good, Morgan has been bad and could continue that or could play better. I don't think replacing him with Schafer is a sure-thing upgrade or downgrade. I like Morgan, but he opens an interesting case this offseason. He will probably make $3MM or so in his final year of arbitration next year. If we don't offer him arby, we lose him and can't even trade him. If we offer him arby and can't trade him, we're stuck with him at $3MM and Schafer will probably be stuck in AAA for another year. I thought it made sense to trade Morgan as soon as Braun was exonerated because I felt at the time that Aoki made Morgan expendable. With the way the season's played out, it seems even more sensible to trade Morgan. Gomez and Morgan will combine for around $5.5MM in salary next year, and Schafer will cost $480k. If he proves he can handle CF, then we could save a lot of money which could be used elsewhere. Schafer could provide a really nice answer for this team, but we need to see what we have in him before we'll know if he is that answer.

They know pretty much what they are committed for with salary for next year. Yes and no. They know their current committments, but they don't know what moves may be made. For example: Trading Hart for a pre-arby SS or SP eliminates the committed salary for Hart and fills a hole for league minimum where they may have had $5-10MM budgeted for a FA. Trading Morgan and Gomez and going with Schafer saves around $5MM. We'd have an OF of Braun, Schafer, Aoki for around $10MM instead of Braun, Gomez/Morgan, Hart for $24MM. We would also have a pre-arby pitcher instead of a $10MM free agent. Trading Greinke and Marcum for pre-arby guys would save the money we'd spend on their contracts this year, save the signing bonuses of the draft picks and net us good young pre-arby players to fill vital roles next year. That lowers future payrolls and takes a lot of money off the books that could be used to help teams in the future. "Selling" this year and netting some pre-arby guys who could start for next year's team would probably leave them with plenty of money to "play with." If they really want to extend Greinke, this is probably the way to do it. On the other hand, due to of our lack of good pre-arby talent, "going for it" this year will probably mean hitting free agency in the off season, which will leave them with an expensive, watered down version of this year's team.