monty57

Ryan Braun- LF ($8.5M) Norichka Aoki- CF/RF ($1.25M) Corey Hart- RF/1B ($10M) Rickie Weeks- 2B ($10M) Aramis Ramirez- 3B ($10M) Jonathan Lucroy- C ($1.9M) Alex Gonzalez- SS ($4M) TOTAL(7 players): $45.65 Million I don't believe Gonzalez's contract is guaranteed unless he makes a certain number of starts (which of course he won't). However, you've missed Gallardo, who will make $7.75MM and Wolf's buyout of $1.5MM which is part of the "guaranteed" money for 2013 if his option isn't exercised. I figure committed money to be at $50.9MM for seven players plus Wolf's buyout. I understand that we're getting some new money from the TV deal, but we will also likely see a drop in attendance after this season. In an "all in" year, we were budgeted for around a $90MM payroll, but Mark A allowed it to push around $100MM after K-Rod accepted arby because he wanted to sign Ramirez. I would expect payroll for 2013 (not an "all in" year) to be in the $80-90MM range. It will probably be less if we allow Greinke and Marcum (assuming healthy) to play to free agency, as we will have to funnel money to the "draft reserve" to sign the extra draft picks we'll receive. Forgetting the draft reserve, and giving ourselves the most "wiggle room" possible, let's say we have $90MM to play with. With $50.9MM eaten up in seven players, that leaves us $39.1MM for the remaining 18 players, or $2.17MM average per player. Axford is hitting arby, and even with some blowups this year he'll get a big raise, so let's say $2MM. Gomez and Morgan are in arby. I don't know what will become of them, but they'd probably earn around $2.5MM for Gomez and $3MM for Morgan. Unless he's traded, Parra will be back for his final arby year at around $2MM. Kottaras and Ishikawa are both first-year-arby-eligible and would probably get around $1MM. Narveson is our final arby eligible guy, and he's a big question mark... do we want to risk paying $1MM or so to a guy coming off a shoulder injury? If we offered arby to all of them, that would be around $12.5MM for another seven guys, putting us at 14 players for $63.4MM, leaving us $26.6MM for eleven guys or an average of $2.42MM each. If we don't offer to all of them, we'll need to find talent somewhere, so even a replacement for Ishikawa will probably be around $1MM. The real way to save money on the guys above would be to trade away Morgan and Gomez and let Schafer man CF, saving around $5MM. I assume Narveson will not be offered arby, and can only hope he proves me wrong, as he was a decent, cheap option for a rotation spot. Now we get to the cheap talent. The guys who can keep the Brewers competitive because they can pay key roles for league minimum salary. We have Gamel, Green, Dillard, Estrada, Fiers, Maldonado, Maysonet, Perez, and Ransom. Not really awe-inspiring. The saving grace here will be if two or three (or four) of our young pitchers make the jump from the minors to the majors for 2013. If we don't "sell" this year, I think the only way Greinke is a possibility is if we keep all of the above pre-arby guys and pick our 3/4/5 starters out of Fiers, Estrada, Thornburg, Jungman, Nelson, etc. Even if we push the payroll to $100MM, we may be able to afford a Randy Wolf-type for our #3. We would still be a much worse version of this year's team, so I don't think Attanasio would risk losing a bunch of money for a team which could easily end up fighting the Cubs for last place. More realistically, I think we'd go to the free agent market to pick up a pitcher or two for the rotation and several arms for the 'pen. Then we'd spend the rest of our money on another stopgap solution at SS and on the bench. ...or, we could make some trades this season to bring in some good pre-arby guys which may allow us to have more money to spend on upgrades elsewhere. If we could trade Greinke, Marcum, Hart, K-Rod, Loe, Vargas, Gomez, Morgan, Parra, etc and bring back some talent in return, we could have a lineup starting with: SP: Gallardo ($7.75), {pitcher from trade - $480k}, {pitcher from trade - $480k}, Fiers/Estrada/Thornburg/Jungman/Nelson, etc - $480x2 = $960k for a total of $9.67MM for rotation 1B: Gamel $480k 2B: Weeks $10M SS: {From trade} $480k 3B: Ramirez $10M C: Lucroy $1.9M OF: Braun $8.5M, Schafer $480k, Aoki $1.25M That would leave us with around $50MM to "play with," which would probably allow us to re-sign Greinke in free agency if that was the path we chose. All we'd need to do is use our significant trading chips and pick up two young SP and a young SS. Maybe it's not as easy as it sounds, but it would sure help the Brewers for 2013 and beyond.

Brewers people telling other teams that decision on sell/not sell will rest totally with owner. They think Greinke least likely to be moved So they'll trade everyone who will bring nothing back in return but will absolutely crush any remote chance they still have of making the playoffs, but they'll hold on to the one piece* which could have any chance to bring back a return that could make us respectable in the coming years. *If Marcum's not hurt badly, he could bring back a good return or get picks, but if he needs Tommy John, we'll get nothing for him. Also, by "least likely" I'd assume they mean "least likely of all the players who will be free agents at season's end."

If there was no such thing as free agency and we didn't have to worry about losing players, then I would be shouting that this team still has a chance and not to give up. There is free agency and we are losing a lot of players at the end of the year, so that slight chance that we could make a "miracle run" for the playoffs is outweighed in my mind by the reality that if we don't do something to help future Brewer teams, those future Brewers teams could be pretty bad. The players we're losing could be used to help bring back some talent which could help make these future teams better. That, and that alone is why people are saying "sell." Not because they are unaware of the fact that teams have made "miracle runs" in the past.

This could be why they're taking so long to announce the starter, as they probably want to wait to see what the doctor says about Marcum's elbow. If he's only going to miss a start or two, then they will probably have to DFA someone to clear a 40-man spot (I doubt Lucroy will go on the 60-Day). My fingers are crossed that the answer isn't Marcum to the 60-day DL in need of Tommy John.

What it should do is cause you to question the validity of defensive metrics based on small samples. WAR is trying to estimate the value of a player's performance over a certain period of time. It is NOT trying to estimate the true level of talent of a player. For batter stats, sample size doesn't matter. A single is a single, no matter if it was a line drive one hopper to the CFer or a 8 hopper groundball between 3rd and short. The batter is given the run value of an average single in an average base/out situation. For defense, it's different. We don't know if a defender saved a hit or botched a sure out, so we make an educated guess based on the trajectory and speed of the hit ball. That may work reasonably well over thousands of fielding opportunities but there is just too much noise after even half a season. Long story short, in-season WAR numbers are very suspect when they are heavily influenced by the defensive run component. I'm even suspicious of single year WAR values when they include double-digit defensive run values. It seems to me like the defensive component should be regressed. With more and more teams employing extreme shifts, I believe that is a huge issue these days. I've heard the creator of UZR downplay that concern by stating that defensive positioning is a player skill, just like any other defensive skill. I agree with that in principle but often, the team is dictating a player's position, not the player himself. Since they have all this data, why don't they just peg the starting point from where the player actually started the play instead of where a 3B "should have" started the play?

This news stinks, and I really hope this is something small and he only misses one start. I figured that Marcum could either be traded for a really good prospect, or he could pitch out the season and have us offer the one-year deal so we'd either get him for another year or get two good picks for him. If he needs TJ surgery, we couldn't trade him and we wouldn't be willing to offer him a one-year $13MM deal, so we'd basically just pay him this year to not pitch and then lose him for nothing. The only "bright side" I see is that maybe this gets Greinke thinking that there is some risk to pitching for free agency and that gets him back to the negotiating table... but I doubt it. The other side of that is that this shows how much risk there is in signing any pitcher to a long-term, big money deal.

With the Marcum news, let's hope this doesn't turn into a need to fill two SP spots. If it does, and Thornberg is brought up to start tonight, then what do we do? Do we keep Thornberg up and either send Fiers down or put Estrada in the 'pen, or do we just give Thornberg one start and then put Fiers and Estrada in the rotation?

At some point, you have to take maximum advantage of a window. Well, they almost destroyed their financial flexibility and left their farm in shambles, so I guess they could've went all the way and completely destroyed their financial flexibility and left their farm completely devoid of talent. That would make being a Brewer fan really fun for the next decade. If "the best team on paper" always won the World Series, then the Yankees would've won about 15 straight World Series. They don't, so to me "going all in" at the expense of the future isn't a good strategy. Remember that this year is supposed to be an "all in" year for the Brewers as well, but things often go against some teams and for others. The odds of winning in a "window" are small, and then you're terrible and have no chance of winning. A team with budgetary constraints that is sitting on the wrong end of the "uneven financial playing field" can't try to beat the guys with seemingly unlimited resources at their own game. If "going all in" means signing potentially-franchise-crippling-contracts and trading all your prospects, then I never want to see the Brewers "go all in." We've fallen in love with our own guys to the extent that we believe that no one else could fill their shoes unless they're Cy Young winners or multiple-time All Stars. That's not the case. If you build the system right, there should always be players waiting to contribute. Sure that means occasionally trading good players while they're still good to bring in young talent at positions of need. That's how you remain continually good as opposed to being terrible for years at a time, then having a "short window" before once again being terrible for a long time. Prince Fielder is a .900 OPS 1B. He is a good player. He is not some once-in-a-lifetime player around whom the fate of the entire Brewer nation revolved. This thought of a "window while we had Prince" was man-made. Melvin tried trading Prince, but his expectations were way too high. No playoff team (the ones who would trade for one year of a player) can afford to give up two young pitchers from their MLB rotation. When no GM would match these unrealistic expectations, Melvin decided to sacrifice the future for a shot at the World Series. Because he lost track of the long-term in favor of the short-term for a while, we're now in a position where we could be pretty bad going forward and I still hear cries of "we're still in it this year, we should trade more prospects for a shot at the playoffs." If we had traded Prince, maybe we wouldn't have had our "magical 2011," which ended in our raising a "Division Champions" banner in front of the World Series champs this season. What would've happened had Melvin decided to trade Prince instead of "going for it" is purely speculation. I would guess that we would have recieved a young MLB pitcher and a good prospect for him, and we probably wouldn't have made the Marucm and Greinke trades. We'd have Lawrie at 3B, so the Ramirez deal wouldn't have been made. We'd have Escobar at SS and the pitcher we received in the Prince trade for the foreseeable future, with Odorizzi nearly ready to step in along with the rest of our talented young pitching. In other words, maybe last year wouldn't have been a playoff year (or maybe it would have, we don't know), but the future would be a lot brighter, and a lot of the "wasted money" (to the topic of the thread) wouldn't be wasted, as we would have a lot of financial flexibility going forward.

I want to see the Brewers to actually sign one of their own stars once they hit that free agency year. I don't. If they're a "core" guy, then extend him prior to him getting close to free agency. If a player doesn't want to extend when all the risk is on him, then he obviously is going for the big money in free agency. That's not the Brewers' fault, but they could get really hurt long-term if they try outbidding the big money teams for superstar players.

Right, which is why having so much money already committed and still having so many holes to fill will make next year pretty ugly unless we are able to sell this year and get some good pre-arby guys to fill some of those holes. The thought of picking up a couple of starting pitchers, a bullpen and a shortstop in free agency isn't going to happen. Just a guess, but we probably have something like $20MM to fill around 10 holes on the roster without many good pre-arby guys to help out. If we don't sell this year, get ready for another year of Cody Ransom/Cesar Izturis/Edwin Maysonet-type players getting way too much playing time.

I don't know how the OF will shape up next year, but adding another CF probably isn't the answer. Here's my guess: Trade Hart and Morgan. Braun in LF, Gomez/Schafer in CF, Aoki in RF. Gamel stays at 1B. The Brewers probably won't contend, so trade Hart while he has 1.5 years of service and could bring back a top prospect. Morgan is a redundancy and will probably make $3MM next year, so we should try to get something out of him rather than just not offering arby at season's end. Schafer is probably our best all-around CF, so he should play. I wish our best prospect was a slugging RF rather than a CF, so that Aoki could play CF, but if he can continue to get on base at a .360-.370 clip and OPS near .800, I'm fine with having a RF leadoff hitter.

Any time you extend someone, you're assuming a lot of risk. I generally like extending players, but I think there are two mistakes Melvin sometimes makes in extensions: 1) He sometimes waits too late to extend and then has to pay market value for the player as opposed to signing the player when they still have mulitple years before free agency (more risk on the player means less money as the team assumes the risk). There's a lot more risk in extending pre-arby guys, but that's why you get such a big discount. I think there's less risk in Lucroy flopping and the club being out something like $13MM over five years as opposed to Weeks flopping and the club being out $30-40MM. In addition to the pre-arby guys, if he wanted to extend Greinke or Marcum, he should've done it the day the trades were made and they had two years of "risk" before they became free agents. 2) He needs to figure out who the "core" guys are and only offer extensions to them. Just because someone like Prince turns you down doesn't mean you have to make an offer to Casey McGehee. We got very fortunate that he turned Melvin down. Most players aren't "core" players. We need to build a farm so that when "non-core" guys get close to free agency we have the ability to trade them away and replace them with a rookie playing for league-minimum. Trading the "non-core" MLB player gives us a less expensive MLB squad with more financial flexibility allowing for us to maintain our core, and it re-stocks the farm. The mess we're in now is due to (for lack of a better word) greed. We had a good MLB team capable of contending for the division every year and a decent farm system. Instead of "settling" for being in the playoff race some years (when we trade "non-core"/blocked minor leaguers for MLB upgrades) and out if it others (when we trade MLB guys for minor leaguers), we decided we needed to go "all in." When you go "all in," you not only trade away minor leaguers, but you also need to keep all your current talent so you extend guys like Weeks to market-value deals, and you pay top dollar for free agents. This depletes your farm (no cheap talent coming up), blocks prospects who could be starting for league minimum (Green, Schafer) and financially handcuffs you with big guaranteed contracts.

As long as he starts getting some of the younger players more playing time so we are prepared for the future we are ok with him as a manager. I have no faith we will see that though. Well, our first hint is that Estrada is going to be in the rotation when he's back from injury, so we'll probably see Fiers sent back to AAA. Throw in that Taylor Green can't seem to find any playing time, even when Weeks is playing poorly (I'll be nice) and Ramirez is injured and can use a day off here & there. When Ramirez was out Ransom played 3B with Maysonet at SS, so I guess "two time minor league player of the year" Green is somewhere below Ransom on the "future of the team" depth chart. As I stated earlier, we don't have much pre-arby talent, but the little we have should be getting some playing time to see if it's any good rather than wasting away behind players we know don't have much future. I guess that is unless we're planning on having Estrada in the rotation next year and Maysonet / Ransom at SS/3B. If that's the case then I hope we blow up the whole thing and play for three to four years from now.

By all accounts, the Brewers get new TV money next season, and no one knows what that is. A New York newspaper article hinted that our previous deal was for $10MM, and "the new one triples that." So I'd guess about $20MM/year in new revenue. That's pre-tax and certainly won't all be added to MLB payroll. I'm not sure that a payroll in the $100 million range is unsustainable with attendance in the 3 million range. That's two part. First, a payroll in the $100MM range may be sustainable if we can continue to draw 3MM fans, but since many/most other teams are getting bigger TV deals, that $100MM won't buy what it used to. Second, with the way this season's going, I highly doubt we get 3MM fans next year, and maybe not for a few seasons. If I had to guess, I'd say next year's payroll will be around $80-90MM. The "real" value of that will probably be what a $60-70MM payroll would've bought several years ago. A ton of money is coming off the books this off season. Yes, but we still have around $51MM is committed to seven players plus Wolf's buyout. Throw in a few arby players worth keeping and a couple pre-arby guys that'll stick, and we'll have well over $60MM committed and we'll still need to completely rebuild our starting rotation and bullpen, find a shortstop and fill out the bench. I don't think that it's absurd to give Greinke something in the low 20's. Then we'd have our whole budget accounted for and still have holes in the rotation, bullpen and SS and still have no depth at most positions. We be a watered-down version of this year's team. Let Wolf walk, and stop wasting money on the bullpen and guys like Ramirez. Until we can "grow" guys on the farm, Melvin is always going to have to pay too much on the bullpen, as any free agents are expensive. As long as Roenicke's around, we'll be budgeting $5MM or so for a couple of vets to be the "7th and 8th inning guys," and more than that for a closer when we aren't fortunate enough to find a good one off the scrap heap. I agree with you that I really hope we are able to start generating homegrown bullpen guys, but until we can, we'll be wasting valueable resources there. As far as Ramirez, I'm with you, but we're stuck for $30MM over the next two seasons and until we start trusting rookies, we'll continue to max our payroll out with guys like him. You are going to have to pay for starting pitching anyway and there will be a ton of open spots in the rotation. Bottom line, would you rather have Marcum, a guy like Braden Looper and a rookie or Greinke and two rookies? If I had to choose, and assuming Greinke's a lot more expensive and a lot longer deal, I'd take Marcum. There would be a lot less risk in a lower money/fewer year deal, and Marcum's pitched as well or better than Greinke has for the last few years. However, I wouldn't assume that the savings would be spent on "a guy like Braden Looper." Just because we picked up Looper and he sucked doesn't mean that any money not spent on a blockbuster contract will be wasted. That's really all beside the point, because I think Greinke and Marcum are both all but gone. I'd trade Greinke, Marcum and Hart which I believe would bring back at least three "Top 100" prospects. If possible, I'd focus on a couple of pitchers and a SS. We could have Gallardo, {trade}, {trade}, Fiers/Thornberg/Estrada/Jungman/Peralta/Nelson/other. We'd then have a lot of money to fill in holes add depth. "Going for it all" has put us in a position where the next few years will be difficult, but not impossible. "Buying" this year will probably cripple us, while "selling" would make the rebuild go a lot quicker.

I just want people to think about things a bit differently. This team ain't goin' nowhere right now. I'm with you on this, but not necessarily on Marcum. Since coming back from his surgery, Marcum has been as good or better than Greinke. Greinke had one monster year, and his stuff's "sexier" than Marcum's, so Greinke will get a huge money deal and be worth more to us in trade, but he may not be more valueable to a team. Personally, if I had a choice of Greinke at a Matt Cain contract or Marcum for 3 years / $30-40MM, I'd take Marcum. Unfortunately, I think the ship's sailed on both of them and would be pretty surprised to see either of them pitching for the Brewers beyond this season. Therefore: 1) I'd shop Greinke now, and we should be able to get a really good return for him... probably a Top 50 prospect. In my opinion, he should be on the market now. 2) I'd shop Marcum, but if I couldn't get better than the comp picks (a first rounder and a sandwich pick) then I'd offer him the one year deal at the end of the season. If he accepts, I'm fine paying him on a one-year deal. In the likely case he rejects it, we get the picks. 3) I'd also shop Hart. An All Star with 1.5 years of relatively inexpensive service time remaining should get a really good return. 4) Guys like K-Rod, Veras and Loe will leave for nothing after the season's over, so we might as well try to get something for them. I don't expect too much, but we could get something, and at the very least should get salary relief. As to everyone else on the team, if an offer came in, I'd listen. It would be really hard to pry Braun, Lucroy or Gallardo away, but never say never. The first three trades listed above should net us multiple "Top 100" prospects. If we add this to our current system, we could quickly boost our chances of being a competitive team in the near future.

Imagine that, a guy not 'testing the market'. Can't blame the guy for taking the sure money on the table...he was probably gun shy after he got sent to Nashville for a few weeks to knock his service time back. Because of how Hardy had played the prior few seasons coupled with his depression troubles, that was a pretty risky signing by Baltimore, and I hope it works for them. I'm not surprised at all that Hardy would jump at the extension at the time it was offered. Generally speaking, when a player gets to the final few months of his current contract (or into his final arby year), the team is not going to get a discount to sign a player unless there is a lot of risk affiliated with said player. In my humble opinion, the time to extend a player is when there is still a lot of risk on the table for the player, so the team can get a substantial discount in return for taking on the risk, like we did in Braun's original contract, and recently with Lucroy.

And this is where you have to look at Melvin a little bit. Going into the season with Izturis as your primary back at all of 2B, SS, and 3B is asking for disaster if any regular starter goes down, which obviously happened. We're $10MM over budget and still had no money for depth or to fill holes, so we end up with some bad players and we're totally at the mercy of the injury bug. That happens when you refuse to trade players away, and instead either lock up talent to "market value" contracts (putting most of your resources into a few players) or lose players to free agency, and then refuse to trust rookies to play vital roles on the team. That in a nutshell is why we can't extend Greinke, as it would just make the problem worse with even less talent surrounding our dwindling group of talented players. Those who were/are proponents of the "go all in when you get a shot" strategy over the "build for the long term" strategy will now see what happens after you've "taken your shot." We've got a lot of money tied into a few players and very little pre-arby talent to help out. Our "shot" fell a little short last year and completely fizzled this year. I hope Melvin has the wherewithal to sell soon to recoup something for the future. As to Roenicke, whether it's the second half of this season or next season, we'll soon get to see if he can manage with young players. If he can't, then he's not the manager for the near future of the Brewers.

If the Brewers make no moves and don't exercise Wolf's option, they will have $50.9MM committed to seven players (Braun, Weeks, Lucroy, Gallardo, Ramirez, Hart, Aoki and Wolf's buyout) with another seven (Axford, Gomez, Ishikawa, Kottaras, Morgan, Narveson, Parra) arbitration eligible, potentially adding another $13MM or so if they kept all of them. They currently have nine guys (Gamel, Dillard, Fiers, Estrada, Green, Maldonado, Maysonet, Perez, Ransom) who will still be pre-arby next year, but most of those are journeymen, so we don't have a lot of pre-arby talent, even with some pitchers coming up. We will have four question marks in the rotation, a bullpen which needs a complete overhaul and we'd still be looking for an answer at shortstop. If they signed Greinke, that would mean around $75MM would be committed to eight players (plus the money attributable to arby & pre-arby guys). We'd have three question marks in the rotation, a bullpen which needs a complete overhaul and we'd still be looking for an answer at shortstop. Only we'd have no money to fill any of these other holes. Even with the new TV deal, we are very likely going to have decreased attendance after this season, so I doubt we'll have over a $90MM payroll next year unless Attanasio really thinks we'll be a playoff contender. Therefore, I don't think we could afford to have $75MM going to eight players and still field a team. The only way I see us being competative in 2013 is if we sell this year and get some MLB-ready pieces. If we trade Greinke, Hart and Marcum for some "Top 100" prospects who could be on our roster next year, then there is a possibility we could contend in 2013, and we'd be young and inexpensive, so we could get better over the next few seasons. If we could get anything of value for K-Rod, Morgan, Loe, Veras, etc, then that would help too. By trading Hart, we would have $40MM committe to six players, so we would have some financial flexibility to add pieces where needed. The big X-factor is what talent we would get in trade for Greinke, Marcum and Hart. Greinke and Marcum's return would have to be greater than a first rounder and comp pick, so I'm assuming we'd at least get a Top 100 prospect for both of them. Hart is an All Star with 1.5 years of relatively inexpensive service time remaining, so I'd assume we'd at least get a Top 100 prospect for him. I don't know if this would be enough to make us a playoff team in 2013, but adding three (or more) near-MLB-ready Top 100 prospects into our system to go along with the good young pitching we have coming up and the MLB "core" we have locked up would go a long way to making us playoff-competitive for 2013-2019. I'd take punting this season and maybe being a little down next year for that scenario.

Pertaining to the first post, our two RH hitting OF's are Braun and Hart. I definitely wouldn't trade either for a 28-year-old middle reliever in the last year of his contract. Now, if he was a throw-in to even salaries a little bit in a Greinke-for-Profar deal, then I'd be cool with it :-)

I see this is your first post, so welcome, but huh? Trade Gallardo and the money we owe him? 2013 - $7.5 2014 - $11.5 2015 - $13.0 ummmmm, no- I will pass on that. He isn't an ace but he is a good pitcher. Also, Marcum a 3-4? You aren't the first one to call him this but come on really? If anyone thinks Yo is a 2 maybe 3 but yet his ERA & WHIP are all worse than Marcums in 2010, 2011 and this 2012 year is kidding themselves. Marcum is a 2 - 3 talent. And the stats show he has pitched better than Gallardo our so called 2. Also, it is completely unkown what our minor leagues hold. We could just as well have 2 numbers ones than we have none. It's really hard to predict Major League success based on minor league success. So I wouldn't be so quick to judge our minor league system as having not 1 person capable of being an ace. I pretty much agree with everything you said, but I wouldn't put an absolute "no" on trading Yo. I don't want to trade him, but if someone calls with a ridiculous offer, I'd have to at least consider it. Latos brought back Volquez, Yonder Alonzo and Yasmani Grandal. If we could get a good "MLB proven" young pitcher and two top 100 prospects, it would be pretty tempting to trade him.

I'd also explore a trade of Marcum. If you can't get a decent return for him I say you keep him, offer him the one year at the end of the season and hope he turns it down so you can get two draft picks. Marcum is an interesting case. Greinke's "stuff" is sexier, and he's got a Cy Young on his shelf, so someone will offer us a lot of young talent for him. Probably far more than the draft picks would be worth. Meanwhile, Marcum has been just as good as Greinke has for the past couple of seasons, but since he's not as "sexy," he might not bring enough in trade to justify trading him. If teams don't offer much for him, I'd definitely offer him the one-year deal, as I'd be happy to have him on a one-year, $13MM deal, or I'd be happy with the extra draft picks. Wolf is another interesting case. He has bad numbers this year, but mostly from April (6.84 ERA in 5 starts). He has been better lately (3.20 ERA in 3 June starts) and has enough history that someone may be willing to trade for him. His option could be a bonus (they'd be trading for 1.5 years of service) or a negative if they plan on buying out the option. The "interesting part" is that if he continues to pitch well enough that another team would want him, we may want to retain him for next year when we'll need starting pitchers. However if he pitches poorly enough that we'd buy out the option, no one would want to trade for him. Personally, I'd put every one of our MLB players except Braun, Lucroy and probably Gallardo on the market and see what other teams would offer. If we get enough offered, make the trade.

I'd say the Twins made a bigger mistake with Hardy, as they got rid of him just before he started hitting. If we could have sat him on a shelf and not paid him for two years and then picked him up just before he remembered how to hit, it would've been great, but I can't fault Melvin too much for trading a guy who was then dumped by the team we traded him to. For me, Melvin's "biggest mistake" won't be known for a few years. If we "buy" rather than "sell" this season, don't make the Wold Series and end up with a barren wasteland of a team for the next few seasons, then I'll say his biggest mistakes were the moves which limited our financial flexibility and drained our farm system all to open a "window" which didn't end up with a championship. Any one move can go right or wrong, but a methodology of putting all your cards on one or two years had better pay off in those one or two years, or it has to be considered a failed strategy.

I never like it when a star athlete's career is ended with injuries, especially an athlete I've cheered for, so I'd love for him to be able to make a comeback.

Welcome aboard. We still have plenty of seats open, but I bet we'll be filling up quickly.

Does anyone really know what he's thinking? Does he? I'll try. I think he's a very organized person, and wants to have everything laid out in a nice, easy order prior to events taking place. As long as everything goes according to the pre-game plan, everything is A-OK. When something doesn't go according to plan, sparks start to shoot out of his ears and his head spins. That's why he's so renowned about his Spring Training schedules. Every minute of Spring Training is laid out in perfect order and everyone knows what they're supposed to be doing all the time. That's perfect for Spring Training, or for a bench coach in assiting his manager. It's kind of like a business owner having an accountant to keep everything in order so that he can focus on making decisions. It's probably not an ideal trait for the person who actually has to make the split-second decisions and react to things as they're happening on the field.