monty57

It was nice hearding Gord Ash say that Thornburg was "on the fast track" during his interview with Bill & Brian the other night. That would lead me to believe he will be in AAA this season, and possibly in Milwaukee next year along with Peralta.

Using Brewerfan's salary page, I see $49MM committed to seven players (Weeks, Ramirez, Lucroy, Hart, Aoki, Braun, Gallardo). That doesn't include the $10MM option for Wolf or any players in arbitration or pre-arby, which aren't committed. It also doesn't include Gonzalez's $4MM, because I believe that was a vesting option based on his playing time this year, which now looks almost certain not to vest. They're committed to $51MM for five players (Weeks, Ramirez, Lucroy, Gallardo, Braun) in 2014. Assuming the Brewerfan page is correct, I'm not sure where they're getting that the Brewers are committed to $59MM in 2013.

At least one of Melvin/Roenicke obviously doesn't think Green is an everyday MLB player. While I'd like to see him get a shot this season to see what he can give us, I doubt he will be given that shot. Meanwhile, the "Melvin-speak" about Ishikawa reminds me of how he talked about Betancourt last season. They know Ishikawa's not a good, long-term answer, but he's going to start this season, so we'll hear a lot of things like "if he gives us anything at the plate it's a bonus because of all the runs he saves on defense." Unless something falls into our lap at first base, I think that if we're going to upgrade anywhere this season, it will be shortstop, #5 starter or relief pitching before we'd upgrade 1B. While I like Trumbo and he would be an upgrade, we have Ishikawa, Green and Hart as options at 1B (and Gamel will be back next year), while SS is down to Izturis and Maysonet with little in the minor leagues, #5 starter is Estrada and prospects (a bad word for Roenicke) and our relief pitching has been pretty bad.

I wondered about that as well. Pitchers obviously had no problem working Prince and Rickie inside, and probably the whole team, as we always seemed to have a lot more HBP than any team in the league. If the thought were that his "hole" in his swing is so small that he'll kill the pitch if you miss, then they would be more worried about that this year because of lack of "protection." Seems like Olney believes pitchers were willing to let the MVP kill them by throwing him pitches "in his zone" simply because they were worried that if they hit him Prince would get an AB with a runner on first. Kind of a weak arguement. I could understand them throwing meatballs to a weak hitter in front of a strong hitter, or occasionally grooving a 3-1 pitch to not walk a batter in front of a slugger, but I can't understand why they'd purposely throw pitches into the hot zone of an MVP-caliber hitter simply to avoid the potential of hitting him. Either way, it appears this "strategy" isn't working so well, and as was probably to be expected, the early season start was simply a small sample, and Braun is once again hitting as we've grown to expect.

I will stake my life savings, my home and everything that I own on the fact that he doesn't get 10 years, I'm sure the people of Brewerfan.net could find a good charity for those funds if he indeed signs a 10-year deal. I doubt there's ever been a 9-10 year deal which was worth it, but teams still sign them. The extra money from the new TV deals is doing what an increase in money supply without a corresponding move in supply or demand always does, which is increase the price of everything without increasing the value. Teams know they're getting more money, so they're spendinging it (probably foolishly), but the players aren't any better just because they're paid more. All it means is that it takes a much bigger payroll to field the same quality of team. The problem as it pertains to the Brewers is that while their "new money" is projected to be around $20MM, teams like the Angels are getting an additional $130MM. With this new money, salaries are escalating dramatically, and will continue to do so until the "new money" is tied up in contracts, at which point salaries will somewhat stabilize. I can't blame Greinke for walking away from the table with the money that's being thrown around. Some team who knows they're getting a new inflow of revenue will decide that players like Greinke and Hamilton are worth record-breaking or near-record-breaking contracts, which the Brewers should not sign. If there was a time to extend Greinke, it was immediately after they traded for him. Now it seems that he's willing to accept the risk of injury this season for the potential reward of entering free agency. This makes pre-arby players even more valueable, and makes it even more logical to trade away some of the guys who are going to be free agents for young, inexpensive talent if we are down in the standings in a month or so. Stockpile young talent and extend the best of them while they're still in their pre-arby years... those contracts are still team-friendly. Right now a lot of owners and GM's have dollar signs in their eyes from the shiny, new TV deals they're signing, so it might be a good time to trade them expensive players for young, "unproven" talent. Of course, that's just my read on the "baseball market," I could be wrong.

Being 40, it's hard to admit this, but in the "post-steroid era," it's hard for anyone over 40 to handle anything. Here is a list of the current players over 40: Jamie Moyer 11-18-1962 Colorado Omar Vizquel 4-24-1967 Toronto Mariano Rivera 11-29-1969 New York (AL) Takashi Saito 2-14-1970 Arizona Jim Thome 8-27-1970 Philadelphia Darren Oliver 10-6-1970 Toronto Jason Giambi 1-8-1971 Colorado Miguel Batista 2-19-1971 New York (NL) Henry Blanco 8-29-1971 Arizona Jose Contreras 12-6-1971 Philadelphia Of course Rivera is now hurt, and with him gone, I wouldn't want to be paying any of these guys anywhere near $20+MM/year right now. With the current trend of huge long-term deals, we could very well see a lot of $20MM bench players down the road. I just hope none of them are on the Brewers. I understand inflation, and maybe a decade from now $20MM in "basball money" will be like $10-15MM today, but it's still a tremendous risk.

I fail to see a legit reason that the Brewers can't do the latter. I was excited at the prospect of extending Greinke, but Brewer brass sat at the table with him and the sides pretty much immediately broke off talks. To me that either means the Brewers offered him a laughable contract, which doesn't seem to fit the Melvin/Attanasio m.o., or it means that Greinke is asking for a monster contract, which the Brewers would probably be best to pass on. This was pretty much the same thing that happened with Fielder, so I would be surprised to see Greinke in a Brewer uniform beyond this season. Therefore, it comes down to whether the value of Greinke as a Brewer this year plus the comp picks we'd receive would be greater than what we could get in trade. As long as we have a legitiamte playoff shot, the value of Greinke as a Brewer remains high, but the longer we stay near the bottom, those starts get less and less valueable to us. Thankfully, they would be extremely valueable to a team in the playoff hunt, so we have an "out" if the season goes the wrong way.

As to "Potential first base solutions," what does everyone think of Hunter Morris? He's 23 and he's hitting .303 avg / .357 OBP / .470 SLG / .827 OPS in AA this season. He hasn't tore up minor league pitching, but what does everyone see for his future? Could he be an option later this season, will he challenge Gamel in the future, or is he going to be a decent minor leaguer who's never good enough for the big leagues?

I have no doubt at all that a team like the Red Sox, Yankees or Dodgers will absolutely break the bank for him, even with all the risk factors, if that happens This will probably come down to the same situation as Pujols and Fielder. He will end up staying in the AL, because a team will offer him 9-10 years and no NL team will touch that since they don't have the option of moving him to DH later in his career. The Dodgers get thrown in because they were just bought for so much money, but Stan Kasten has been in baseball a long time, and I doubt he'd offer a 30-year old OF a 10 year deal, because as part owner he doesn't want to be paying a 40-year-old pinch hitter $30MM / year in the future.

Well, he could get ten from Opening Day to trade deadline (end of July) and then get ten in August and ten in September :-) In his three-year splits, he's hit for a .777 OPS pre-All-Star game and .892 after the All-Star game. April and May are far-and-away his worst months (.707 & .658 OPS). Sept is the next lowest at .856. This year, he's at .645 in April and .673 in May, .652 overall. He'll heat up, but the frustration we're feeling to start this season is the reason all of my Cub fan friends were always frustrated with him, and were happy to see him go. When you put a guy in the cleanup spot, and he hits like Cesar Izturis for the first two months of the season, it's hard to get off to a good start.

I'm one of the guys who's upset Green's not starting, but I always said that I wanted him playing everyday in AAA in case of an injury, in which case I wanted him starting every day in Milwaukee. I just assumed the injury would be to Weeks or Ramirez. I wanted Conrad (not Green) to make the 25-man over Ishikawa. What I'm baffled about is why did they want him in AAA getting everyday playing time if they're now going to call him up to sit on the Brewers' bench behind Ishikawa. It sounds like Ishikawa is going to get the majority of the starts at first, so maybe Green wasn't kept down to get everyday playing time, but because Roenicke/Melvin really think Ishikawa is the better player.

Could it be that a couple million "dumb Cub fans" are correct? We'll get 30 HR out of Ramirez, but 20 of them will come after we've already given up on the season and traded away Greinke, Marcum, K-Rod and Hart?

Until Weeks shows signs of breaking out of this funk (that goes all the way back to last year) I'd move him down and give him a few days off from time to time. It's easy to say "I'd move him down," but less easy to find anyone on the Brewers who is hitting well enough to replace him. Lucroy/Kottaras and Braun are the only players in the Brewers' lineup who are hitting at the moment. Ramirez may be showing some life, but he's not moving to leadoff/#2, and Hart started out strong, but has really cooled off. For his average to fall to .260 he would have to hit very, very poorly. So yes, Weeks' or Morgan's poor averages would be better. To expand on that, not only would Lucroy have to hit far worse than .260 going forward to fall to .260 on the season, but Weeks and Morgan will have to hit well over .240-.250 to get to .240-.250 on the season. I don't have a crystal ball to predict what anyone will do, but it is probably likely that Weeks and Morgan will end the season over the Mendoza line, so they are going to have some stretches where they are going to hit everything, and it's also not likely that Lucroy will hit .370 for the season, so he's going to have stretches where he hits under .200. Expecting Roenicke (or anyone) to predict when those hot and cold stretches will occur is like asking someone to go to Vegas and only pull the levers on the slot machines that are going to pay out - do you pull the lever on the one that's been paying out or on the one that hasn't paid out in a while?

It would be interesting to see a study of this. While I get your point and understand that winning and losing have a lot to do with attendance, it's far from the only factor. We just need to look to the Packers to see that teams can have down periods and not see a drop in ticket sales. I'm a believer that how moves are "spun" to fans and how much they believe it has a big effect on whether or not they'll show up to games. The Cubs will be an interesting case study. They knew they were going to be bad, so they got Epstein and sold the fans on the concept that he was the guy who turned the Red Sox into the World Series champs, so they just needed to have faith and they'd win. If the fans buy into this, they will continue to buy tickets. In the past, we were told the a group of prospects (Fielder, Hardy, Weeks, etc) would turn the franchise around, and we bought into it. Ticket sales went up before we were a winning team. I think that if we continue to falter this season fans will understand "selling" if the Brewers market it correctly. Conversely, fans could turn on the team if we end up .500 and lose a bunch of guys "for nothing" at the end of the season. I'd be more apt to go to a game to see a stud prospect we just traded for play his first game as a Brewer before I'd go to a game to see Grienke or Marcum pitch his last meaningless outing in a frustrating season before bolting for free agency.

I think there's two things there. First, everyone except Prince Fielder needs a day off now and then, so giving him a day off seems like a good idea. However as far as the "isn't producing now" thing, the questions are: 1) Is he a good player? That can best be described by what he's done in the past. Based on what he's done in the past, Rickie is a good player. 2) Is there a physical reason he isn't performing? I don't know, but Roenicke should. I doubt he's putting him out there everyday if he's hurt. 3) When is he going to start hitting? No one knows, but since he is a good player, and all players go through hot and cold streaks, the only way to know when he's going to turn it around is to keep playing him. At some point, he's going to "start seeing the ball," and no one will be able to get him out. So yes, I'd give him a day off, but I'd still put him out there almost every day, and since there's no one on the team other than Braun hitting the ball right now, I'd stick with Rickie in the #2 hole.

I was pretty surprised that Weeks didn't get yesterday off. That would've been two off days in a row (with no Brewer game today) to "clear his head." Oh well, I guess we'll just have to collectivly give it the old "C'mon Rickie, the team needs you" cheer and hope his bat heats up sooner rather than later.

Barring further moves, going into this offseason the Brewers will have four center fielders (Morgan, Gomez, Aoki, Schafer) under their control, an MVP left fielder and All-Star right fielder. They will not have a shortstop and will only have one MLB starting pitcher, with an option on another and a big injury question mark on a third. Hamilton is a great player, and his comback is worthy of a Hollywood movie, but the Brewers will have to use their monetary resources on an area of greater need. Now, if we go on a big selling binge and end up with a bunch of good, young pre-arby players all over the field, then maybe he'd be an option. But even then, it's probably not a good idea for a mid-market team like the Brewers to pay 1/4 to 1/3 of their payroll on a guy who never plays more than 120 games a year. People are throwing the $30MM/year number around with Hamilton... no thanks. So we pay guys like Aram instead? You're right, they shouldn't have made that deal. If they hadn't, they'd have greater flexibility to add better players in future years. However, they did sign that deal, so yes, instead of Greinke or someone else, we pay guys like Aram instead.

I just want to go on record that I've always stated "in a month or so..." or "...in late June/early July," and I've usually included something along the lines of "...if things go right and we're at or near the top of the division at that time we'll look to upgrade." There's no way we're going to sell on May 10, and I don't think any poster on this site is suggesting we start a selloff now. However, if things don't turn around and if we have more injuries or poor play, and we're still scraping the bottom of the division in late June/early July, then I sure would like to get some good prospects back in trade rather than watching Greinke, Marcum and K-Rod throwing meaningless innings prior to bolting for free agency. If we tried to trade for any useful player right now, the other team would ask the world in return, as (just like the Brewers) no one is giving up on the season this early. That would mean the even someone like Yuni would require us giving up someone like Taylor Green. I would be the first to show up with a pitchfork (okay, I'd actually probably just spend less time watching the Brewers over the next few summers) if we traded away any of our few decent prospects for Yuni Betancourt or some 36-year-old band-aid upgrade right now. It's going to be hard enough to field a decent team next year after losing Greinke, Marcum and K-Rod (and probably Narveson). I'd hate to lose any of our young guys who could help the team over the next few years just to increase the playoff odds this year by a smidge.

That team is horrible. I debated with someone on this board last year that I thought the Twins were headed for a serious decline (one of the few takes I have ever gotten right). They dont have a lot of talent in the majors and their minor league system is not good. Just take a look at their current roster and I dont see how people think they should win games Pitching - Their number 1 is Pavano. He would be the 4 or 5 on the Brewers. Their numbers 2-5 wouldn't pitch on most teams barring injuries. Marquis is just an innings-eater. Blackburn has never had an ERA under 4 and the last three years has been pretty brutal. Hendricks should be in AAA. Liriano is a mess. Their bullpen isnt good either. Capps has to be one of the worst closers in the game and the rest of the guys look like Veras types at best. Perkins is decent but even his numbers last year look like an aberration. Hitting - Willingham has been really good for them. No one expected Morneau to stay healthy this year and he is on the DL. Mauer had one year of power and not is looking like a 20 plus million dollar slap hitter (a good slap hitter but not an MVP). Span is solid. Valencia is not very good and no one likes him. Parmalee should be in AAA. The middle infield is ok. Doumit is ok. So in wrap up. Horrible pitching plus an okay at best lineup. I wonder why this team is 8-22. Their run differential through 30 games is -63. The next highest is -30. They are a full run a game worse than any other team! So I'm guessing it was Harold Reynolds and Mitch Williams who said it shocks them that the Twins aren't winning. I like MLB Network a lot more than ESPN, but those two will just say some odd things at times. Kind of like they have to defend something against reality.

I'm not a Roenicke apologist, but what can he do? Here are the Brewers' OBP: Kottaras .500 Lucroy .370 Braun .363 Gonzalez (out) .326 Gomez (out) .321 Hart .314 Aoki .302 Weeks .302 Gamel (out) .293 Ramirez .266 Ishikawa .250 Morgan .244 Green .222 Izturis .222 Conrad .000 The only move he could really make is to move the catchers up, but Lucroy has a career .314 OBP and Kottaras is a career .321 OBP, so is that really a better move than keeping Morgan/Aoki at leadoff and Weeks at #2? Any of those three should be able to get on base at a much higher clip than Luroy or Kottaras. I'd probably give 1B to Green, who has upside, over Ishikawa who doesn't, but other than that Roenicke can't really do much when his hitters aren't able to hit and his pitchers aren't able to pitch. Eventually they'll figure it out, because we do have some good players. At that point I'll start nitpicking Roenicke over some of his moves, but for right now there's not a lot he can do.

I'd say "We're 20% of the way into the season, at 13-18 and seven games back, tied with the Cubs for last in the division. We've still got 80% of the season to go, but we've lost three key pieces. What are our realistic odds at winning this, and how much would adding Yuni Betancourt increase those odds?" I'd probably come to the realization that he wouldn't increase the odds much, and I'd then figure that I'd be much more prepared to make a decision on which way to go (buy or sell) in a month or so, so I would vigilantly scour the market looking for opportunities, but I would not make a trade one way or the other until at least mid-to-late June. Over the next month, our key players could remember they're good, which will cause us to rise in the standings, or we could have more injuries/bad performances which will keep us down in the standings. If we are at the top of the standings in late June, then it may make sense to trade some prospects or spend ourselves into the red to make a push for the playoffs before losing a bunch of free agents for nothing. If we're still treading around last place in a month, we'll need to make the call that maybe this isn't our year and realize that Greinke, Marcum, K-Rod, etc are really nice trading chips. I'm fine with either of those scenarios. I just don't want us to make a few band-aid moves (like trading for Yuni) to keep us around .500 with no realistic chance of winning anything and then watch all of our free agents bolt at the end of the season.

That trade makes sense for both teams, but lord knows the Brewers front office won't make a trade like that/be sellers. This is exactly the type of trade I'd love to see if the Brewers are still out of it in a month or so. I too have doubts that Attanasio/Melvin will do this, but it would really brighten the outlook for the Brewers through 2020 or so. Maybe I'm naive, but I don't think "average" Brewer fans are as dumb as they're sometimes portrayed. They didn't like being lied to by Selig, but they started showing up in droves once the team started showing that they were doing what they could to build a winning franchise, including trading Sexson and signing their high draft picks. The moves were explained to the fans, and they bought into it - it wasn't just about what was happening on the MLB field. They would understand trading someone who was going to leave at the end of the season for a top-notch prospect, as long as it's not about the owners pocketing money, but about getting better for the future. Make the trade, sell it as "We sat down with Greinke and he said he wanted to test free agency and we respect that. We want to win as much as the fans want us to win, but we couldn't pass up the opportunity to pick up a young player who we think will become one of the best shortstops in the league." Many fans are down on Greinke anyways because his ERA isn't where they'd like it and "he can't win on the road," so when Greinke signs a $100+MM deal this offseason, they'll be happy the Brewers got something for him and will continue buying tickets to Brewer games.

I think the Brewers were kind of the guinea pig, and since it worked for them last year more teams are using it this season. Your even starting to see some RH sluggers getting the "LH slugger shift" utilized against them. I wouldn't be surprised to see the shifts become standard operating procedure in MLB in a few seasons.

I don't care that he's better on defense, that is cancelled out due to the fact that he appears to be an automatic out at the plate. I guess that's the million dollar question. Will Izturis be the Gold Glove defensive whiz he once was. If so, then his defense could cancel out his lack of offense (making it a net even). If he plays average-ish defense, then his lack of offense will make him really bad. The problem is, now that defense has become "quantifiable," everyone wants defense, so good shortstops are really hard to find. I really don't want to see us trade away any of our few remaining prospects to land a 36-year-old band-aid. In another thread in the Transactions forum, I went through some rosters looking at teams with SS's in the minors who may be available. I don't see a good MLB fix, so I think we're going to be stuck with what we have this season. However, if we're out of it in July, we could probably use our trading chips (Greinke, Marcum, K-Rod, Hart) to put together a package which could land us a good minor leaguer so that we can solve our long-term need for a decent SS.

Exactly, I don't think it was coincidence that Melvin set up the team to (presumably) be at it's best during the final two years of his career, and then fall off a cliff. With this extension, Melvin has to at least look beyond this season, which may allow him to realize that trading Greinke, Marcum, K-Rod, etc could be a better move than holding them and losing them at the end of the season.