monty57

Yeah, Morales will be back next year, so the Angels won't need Fielder. They're probably more apt to aim for someone like Adam Dunn who will be a FA at the end of the year. I heard or read somewhere that they were looking at Konerko, but he's probably off the table with the White Sox back in it. It is good to hear that Melvin is working the phones, and the article probably validates what many here are thinking... the extension talks are as good as over. Now we just see whether they get a good offer this season or if we wait until the offseason.

Why do they care about top prospects? If they for some reason would need a 2B in a year, they'll outbid everyone for Rickie Weeks. More likely, they'll pay Cano whatever it takes to make sure he doesn't leave until they want him gone. If they need a catcher, they'll outbid everyone for the top catcher on the market. They want Lee because he is one of the best pitchers in MLB and definitely the best pitcher available. It will help them win the World Series this year and the money involved is not an object. As it stated in the linked article, they don't care about a negotiating window, as they'll just outbid everyone else once FA starts. This will simply allow them to negotiate with Lee sooner if they choose to do so. There is a reason why the Yankees are the most hated team in sports. They have a monstrous unfair advantage over everyone else trying to compete with them. That said, I do agree with the poster above who said that whenever a big name is being traded, the NY media assumes they will be traded to a NY team (see LeBron James). One positive for the Brewers is the Red Sox and Rays may be more willing to spend big to acquire a big bat (aka Corey Hart or Prince Fielder) in an attempt to remain in the race.

I'd hardly consider Hart a "safe bet." He had a .750 OPS each of the past two seasons, which along with his poor defense is about the equivalent of a 5.00 ERA starting pitcher. His last big half season (leading to his 2008 All Star appearance) was followed up by a .650-ish OPS second half. Prior to this season, many posters here were calling for him to be DFA'd, and I thought he'd be given away for nothing after this season. I'd like to believe that he has found the cure to all of his problems, but unfortunately, I think there's probably at least a 50/50 chance he'll have a below average 2nd half and he could very easily be a sub-.800 OPS hitter again next year. As for Parra, right now he is pitching like our second best pitcher, and is finally living up to some of his hype. The reason he has a job is that he has a mid-90's fastball, which is very rare for a lefty and a pretty good splitter. I don't get the "showing no upside" comment, as he has as much upside as about any pitcher in the majors. He just needs to harness his control, which isn't uncommon in young (he was injured and missed significant time, so he's still "pitching young") flame-throwing pitchers. It's definitely not a sure thing that he's figured everything out, but if we cut strings with him right now, Melvin should be tarred and feathered.

iirc, Gamel was hurt during Major League Spring Training, before they ever considered sending him down. Estrada didn't claim injury until the Brewers sent him to AAA. Gamel's injury had me wondering if the Brewers would be so liberal with their ST invites to young players in the future Gamel would've been there no matter what, but in recent years the Brewers have brought top young prospects to the MLB ST "to give them a taste of being with the big league team."

Gamel's problems from what posters have said and I saw of him last year seemed to be mostly his throwing. I think he would easily be able to field at 1B. I would leave him at 3B though since he will be around longer than McGehee and it isn't like McGehee is a good or even average defender. Agreed, I think Gamel is a better defender than McGehee. I don't doubt that either McGehee or Gamel could play 1B, but the most important part of 1B defense is the ability to scoop bad throws. That's something that takes practice, which you don't receive unless you're playing the position. If we are going to move someone there, I'd just rather see it done at the AAA level, when the mistakes don't count nearly as much. You may be correct in assuming the Brewers will move McGehee to 1B, and keep Gamel at 3B, which could be why they're leaving Gamel there in AAA. I don't know who is the better/worse 3B, but if one of them is going to play RF, I'd much rather it be Gamel than gimpy-kneed McGehee. Playing corner OF with bad knees can be done (see Barry Bonds), but OFs have to run, and I don't think that's Casey's strong point.

So far in his short career, Minor has 141K / 39 BB in 113.2 IP. 0.64 ERA last year, combined 3.70 ERA between AAA & AA this season. Seemingly good control and high K rate. I don't know what his "stuff" looks like, but it seems this is the type player I'd love to see Melvin target. Six years of team control of a good, near-MLB-ready starting pitcher would be a nice return for Hart.

I think that's a very pertinent point. If Mark A has been hesitant to trade some of our top names because he's scared of losing ticket sales, at what point will he decide that more people will come because we trade some players in order to see our new players? I'd think it would have to be pretty soon.

Sure, just offer free beer.

That sounds like a team that would win 75 games or so in 2011. Which, I suppose, is fine if it is part of a rebuilding towards 2012 and 2013 You think so? Any of Konerko, Dunn, Berkman or Lee (although he's fallen off a cliff this season) have the capability of hitting as well as Fielder has this season, when we've scored the 4th most runs in the NL. Cain should be an all-around upgrade over Gomez/Edmonds in CF. Escobar ought to be better offensively and defensively, unless every scout who ever watched him was wrong. Hart probably won't hit as well, but Braun should hit better. All told, I wouldn't see a substantial decrease in offense next season from this year with the lineup I listed. Adding Haren to the rotation would be huge. He could be the #1/2 pitcher we've all been clamoring for and would give us a solid 1-2 punch when teamed with Yo. If Parra continues pitching the way he has as a starter this season, and if Wolf reverts even somewhat back to his "norms," they should be at least an average 3/4 combo. We have plenty of options for our #5, which is the spot players like Narveson & prospects should be fighting for. If we could maintain a similar offense next season, while upgrading our pitching significantly, I'd think we'd be better. As this year has shown, anything can happen during the course of the season, but I'd think the lineup I listed would project to be better than a 75-win team "on paper" to start the season.

Funny, I had myself convinced that the Brewers were delaying Gerut's return, as they really don't have a spot for him on the roster. I figured that he'd suddenly be healthy when Hart was traded or someone got hurt. If he were ready to play right now, what would they do... send Gomez down or DFA Capuano? Then what do they do when Yo's back? We really need to look into trading some players soon just for roster space. Regardless, it's definitely an interesting move by Brewer management. At least we know we'll have $2MM freed up by not offering Gerut arby for next season :-)

I'd still like to see them trade prospects (maybe Gamel and 1-2 young pitchers) for someone like Dan Haren (3 years/$40MM on contract & is rumored to be on the market). Then trade Fielder for a high upside AA arm and a decent MLB-ready bat. Sign Dunn/Berkman/Konerko/D. Lee to a 1-2 year deal in the offseason. If there is a good enough offer for Hart, trade him, otherwise hold him to FA and hope for a 1st rounder/supplemental pick for him. Go into next year with Yo, Haren, Wolf, Parra and one of Narveson/Davis/Rivas/Rogers and a lineup of Weeks, Hart, Braun, FA 1B, McGehee, Cain, Lucroy, Escobar. The player(s) netted in the Fielder trade could fit in there as well. We'll also have the good part of our bullpen back for the next few seasons. Another option is signing Javier Vazquez, who is a high strikeout pitcher limiting need for good defense behind him. He would slot in nicely with our lefty-heavy rotation and could be had relatively cheaply ($10-12MM) after a 4.81 ERA this season with the Yankees. By relatively cheaply I mean in comparison to trying to get in the bidding war for Cliff Lee or trying to sign CC Sabathia a few seasons ago. I hate the thought of trading Fielder, as we won't be able to easily replace him, but I hate the thought of losing him for draft picks a lot more, so I think he needs to be traded. For me, Option #1 would be the worst possible course of action for Melvin. If he goes that route, we'll likely lose Fielder, Hart and Weeks the next offseason, making for a long rebuilding period. In that case, I'd rather he do something crazy to try to land a #1 starter, going for it all next year, a la the Florida Marlins model. Honestly, it's looking more and more clear that Hart and Fielder will both be traded before next season starts. I just pray for wisdom for Melvin. The thought of trading Hart for Sanchez, who will only help us for (I believe) one season before he's a free agent doesn't really sit well with me, and looks more like a band-aid move to try to fix our most pressing need at the moment by opening another hole. If/when Hart & Fielder are traded, we need to bring in players that will help us for a number of years into the future.

While I agree with your sentiment, pro sports have a history of valuing the ability to play much more than ethics. The steroids era is a big example of this, as apparently players had steroids in open view and no one cared. In the NBA it doesn't seem abnormal for players to bring guns into the locker room. Players in all sports have "fatherless" children all over the country. The list could go on and on. It doesn't make it ethical, but I'd bet most GMs would do the same thing Melvin did. I hope the best for Jeffress as a person and a player, and want to believe what he's telling the media. Who knows, maybe the "added maturity" will help him focus on improving his weaknesses, most notably control. I sure hope he is moved back into the starting rotation at some point. It would definitely be a shame if someone so physically talented was permanently moved to a less valueable position for a reason like this. That said, I guess I'd rather see him helping the Brewers in the bullpen as opposed to spending the rest of his life in his parents' basement.

I agree that Prince will be hard to replace, and I'd love to extend him, but the timing of Boras' "$200MM contract" comment tells me that he is not going to sign an extension right now, but rather is going to test free agency. At that point, it went from "should we sign Prince" to "what is the best way to maximize Prince's value to the Brewers franchise." Melvin should shop Prince, and see what offers come up prior to the trade deadline. If no one will offer enough this season, then trade him in the offseason. There are valid reasons to believe we'd get more during the season and valid reasons to believe we'd get more in the offseason. I hope Melvin puts the feelers out and gets the best return possible, whenever that may happen. As pie in the sky as I may have sounded in some posts in this thread, I've been calling for this team to start looking at trading off some players for quite some time. We don't have enough talent on this team to overcome the awful start we had. At this point, we'd have to play good baseball simply to end up as a .500 team. I hope Melvin plays SF's public desire for Hart well. He should be on the phone with everyone trying to get a bidding war started. I have to imagine the Padres, Dodgers and Rockies don't want SF to land Hart and would at least like to drive up the cost. A few other things I'd like to see: -We should also see what the market is for other players who aren't part of the future like Edmonds, Counsell, Hoffman and Bush. I don't expect huge returns, but we could get something for them, even if it's A/AA prospects and salary relief. -As bad as he's been offensively, Gomez needs to play everyday so we can see if he's going to be part of the future or if we'll put Cain in CF next year and find a RF in FA or retain Hart. If Gomez is no more than a .650 OPS hitter, and we trade Hart, we'll need to find a RF somewhere. -Parra needs to stay in the rotation as he could be a huge part of the future, and Davis probably should as well, either to see if we can trade him later this season or to see if he finds his form and his option is excersized. -We should probably make a conscious effort to monitor Yo's workload for the remainder of the season. -If we are going to trade Hart/Fielder, I hope they already have in mind what they're going to do with Gamel/McGehee. If Gamel's going to RF/1B, they should move him immediately so he gets as much AAA practice at the new position as possible. As far as I'm concerned, whether we end up with 70 or 80 wins doesn't matter... we're still out of the playoffs. I'd rather win 70 and get some value in return for players who are going to walk then win 80 and get nothing as the players walk.

or better yet take a year of each players best stats and say this is what "could happen", Someone said "at best this is a .500 team." I simply was trying to point out that at best it's better than a .500 team. At best, Fielder and Braun are aroun 1.000 OPS guys and Wolf and Davis are solid pitchers. I certainly don't expect everyone to perform to their best level every year, but I also don't expect most of the Brewers to continue to perform much worse than their "mean level" as they have been to start this season. The Brewers have a lot of talent on the team, as is shown both in the players' "good" seasons and in their "average" seasons. They just have a lot of players who are playing below their "average" levels. You can say they are b.a.d., but please excuse me if I think that is a w.r.o.n.g. assessment. I look at the state of the team and here is what I see... Twelve unearned runs allowed in three games. So at least you're taking a large sample and reasonable expectations into consideration. Yes, it sucks that we had three horrible and extremely untimely errors in three straight games. Do you reasonably expect four unearned runs per game to be a continuing trend? You really "dig in your heels" that this is a bad team because they made three errors in three games? With most of the players on the team performing worse than they historically have, some of them having the worst seasons of their careers, we are on pace to win somewhere in the low-70's. It should be reasonable to believe that if some of the players play a little better (closer to expectation), they will perform better in the 2nd half than they did in the 1st. Maybe they shouldn't put a team projected to win 81 games out there and hope for good luck. Well put. While many believe that Melvin's a failure, I believe that it takes a long time to build a team from absolute wasteland to periennial playoff contender. I think the moves made this season and this offseason are very important. We're finally ridding ourselves of some bad contracts after this season, so we will have money to spend, and we have a core of our team (Hart, Fielder, Weeks) who will be FAs after next year. Not to sound too dramatic, but the moves Melvin makes this season and offseason will go a long ways in determining how good we'll be for years to come.

There definitely seems to be some GM posturing. First SF says they're interested in Hart. Then Melvin says "maybe we'll hold onto him." Then SF says "maybe we aren't that high on him... he could just be on a hot streak." Both teams seem interested and are just trying to play their cards right. Melvin's saying that if we don't get enough in trade we just won't trade him, and Sabean's saying that if we ask too much they'll look elsewhere. Who knows, maybe another team will jump into this. I'd have to imagine that the Padres, Dodgers and Rockies don't want the Giants to land Hart. I agree it's funny reading the comments. "Maybe they'll take Cain and Sanchez off our hands. They both stink." "I sure hope we aren't looking at Fielder, we have enough fat guys on the team." "If we're trading Sanchez, I think we should target Braun."

Ennder, you have a great way of concisely saying what I take far too many words to say. Even with most of our position players hitting below expectations and with our terrible defense, if the pitchers you mentioned were pitching the way they did last season, we wouldn't be having this conversation. We have talent on the team. We (mainly Wolf, Davis, Hoffman, Hawkins) played really bad to start the season. We aren't that far away from being a decent team. It could probably be argued that if we hadn't signed Hoffman and Davis this offseason and had let Suppan go before the season started, we would be a .500+ team right now and in the middle of the playoff chase.

"At best" Pos, Player, OBP / SLG / OPS (Year) 1B Fielder .412 / .602 / 1.014 (2009) 2B Weeks .340 / .517 / .857 (2009 - partial season) SS Escobar Unknown - The average of Bill James, CHONE, Zips & Marcel had him projected for .725 OPS (not "at best" scenario, but a projected scenario) 3B McGehee .360 / .499 / .859 (2009) LF Braun .386 / .551 / .937 (2009) CF Gomez .296 / .360 / .656 (2008) RF Hart .346 / .565 / .911 (2010) SP Gallardo 2.58 ERA (2010) SP Wolf 3.20 ERA (2002) 3.23 (2009) SP Davis 3.39 ERA (2004) 4.12 (2009) SP Parra 4.39 ERA (2008) SP Bush 4.18 (2008) Current 1B Fielder .392 / .479 / .871 (-.143) 2B Weeks .369 / .452 / .821 (-.036) SS Escobar .299 / .327 / .626 (-.099) 3B McGehee .342 / .464 / .806 (-.053) LF Braun .342 / .461 / .803 (-.134) CF Gomez .274 / .365 / .639 (-.017) RF Hart .346 / .565 / .911 (---) SP Gallardo 2.58 ERA (---) SP Wolf 4.49 ERA (+1.29) SP Davis 7.56 ERA (+4.17) SP Parra 4.45 ERA (+0.06) SP Bush 4.23 ERA (+0.05) I know ERA isn't the best measure, but it's quick & easy for this. If all of our players were playing at their historic best, our hitters would, on average, add .069 to their OPS, and the starting pitchers would subtract 1.11 from their ERA. That would definitely make us better than "a .500 team at best."

I agree on the defense part, and if there is any truth to the Hart rumors floating around, our defense could improve by bringing Cain up to play RF for the remainder of the season. We could also play Gomez more, as we're out of it anyways. An OF defense of Braun / Gomez / Cain wouldn't be terrible. Of the SP list, I think we should make a run at Vazquez if he isn't too expensive. He strikes people out, limiting the damage our defense can do. I really hope the scouts are right about Escobar, and he shows the glove we were all promised. The Gamel/McGehee situation will be interesting. I'm not big on moving players all over the field at the MLB level. If Fielder/Hart are going to be moved, Gamel should be moved to a new position at AAA soon, so he can get as much experience at the position as possible. Gamel isn't a good defender, so I'd think there would be a fairly steep learning curve at a new position, even if it's 1B. I'd rather he learn in AAA.

I think we're fooling ourselves here. 1) This is not a mid-upper 80 win team even if they play to their highs. 2) Wolf is not a very solid #3, even if he plays to his norm. Wolf's career: 4.16 ERA, 1,448 K, 656 BB, 1785.2 IP, 1.33 WHIP. That's 2.21 K/BB and 7.3 K/9. There are currently 46 pitchers (min 100 IP) with an ERA better than 4.16, 48 pitchers with better than a 1.33 WHIP, 39 pitchers with K/BB better than 2.21 and 31 pitchers with more than 7.3 K/9. His "norm" is definitely a solid #3 starter. If you want to only consider CC Sabathia's and Roy Halladay's of the world to be #1's, then maybe you're right. There are probably a handful of elite pitchers in the game. Very few teams have 2-3 elite pitchers in their rotation, and most of those have a payroll in the Yankees/Red Sox neighborhood. With our offense, if we could find a #2 caliber starter, Yo stays healthy, Wolf reverts to his norms and Parra continues pitching the way he has been for the last couple months, we can compete in the NL Central. Our SP has settled down over the past month or so, and to no one's surprise, we're winning more games. We obviously have problems with our pitching staff, but they are much better than they showed early this season. I don't think it's "fooling ourselves" to believe that if Wolf, Davis and Hoffman had pitched like last season, and Parra had been in the rotation from day 1, pitching like he has recently, we would be in the hunt, and probably on pace for a mid-to-upper 80's win season. If just Hoffman alone had pitched like last season, we'd probably be around .500 right now. Other than Corey Hart and Yo Gallardo, pretty much our whole team has played worse than they did a season ago, and that's reflected in our record. So really, you have two choices. Keep doing what you're doing and hope you get "lucky" with a few 4/5 type starters. Or, you go for broke and spend a bunch of money on a stud pitecher, and then trade Fielder for another guy who has the tools to become a 1/2 type starter. I really don't know what else can be done. Until this organization can consistently produce it's own pitching talent it will be difficult at best to be a legit contender. I know you're one of the regulars here, so you have to have paid some attention to the last few years' drafts. We are closing in on years where we will be able to field a fully home-grown rotation. I agree we should trade Fielder, but my worry with "spending a bunch of money on a stud pitcher" is that it would come with a 5-6 year time frame and eat up around 1/4 of our payroll, seriously limiting our flexibility and putting a the team's future on one shoulder. If we can find a stud starter who will sign for 2-3 years or pick one up in trade, I'm all for it.

If a team is willing to trade a player with 1-2 years of control left, they're probably looking for prospects (especially at pitcher, as pitchers normally aren't "blocking" other players). Therefore, if we are looking at picking up that type player, we have to be willing to trade some of our prospects to get him. Conversely, if we are trading players like Hart & Fielder, we are looking for players with more than 1-2 years of service time available, so Fielder / Hart aren't the players we'd use in this situation. It is possible that we'd trade a player for a SP with a few years of control left and (in different moves) trade Fielder / Hart for young players with more service time. I've mentioned this before, but one example of this would be trading Gamel (and maybe 1-2 low-level pitchers) for Dan Haren (I believe 3 years, $40MM left on contract after this season). Then trade Fielder for a young arm and young bat. We've then got Yo, Haren, Parra, Wolf for a few years to complement what should still be a good offense, especially if we sign someone like Dunn or Lee to play 1B for a couple seasons.

Cliff Lee would cripple the Brewers for 3 years or so financially. I just don't see him as a smart move at all. For three years, they could probably do it. The problem is someone will probably offer him a five-year deal, which I'd much rather the Brewers stay away from. As for Corey Hart, I suppose it would help to move him while he's hot but what would it cost to replace him at this point? The farm system doesn't seem to be crawling with replacements even for next year and then you'd have to spend in FA which could cost more than another year of Arby for Corey. Corey's biggest problem is his inconsistency. If he puts up a high-.800/low-.900 OPS, he'll definitely be worth the $7-8MM he'll receive, and we'd get comp picks for him. If he falls back to the .750 OPS he's been the last few seasons, he'll be well overpaid. If we can get a decent return for him, trade him. If not, we're now in a position where we'll need to offer him arby and hope this half-season isn't an anomoly. We could go with an OF of Braun / Gomez / Cain, but I'd really like to see Gomez get everyday play this year to see if he can straighten things our offensively before I'd want to fully commit to him as CF next year. If he's only a RH platoon player, then we might as well put Cain in CF next year and hold onto Corey. It's going to be a bit of a tough road especially considering there isn't a lot of big time minor league pitching prospects to work with in this system and Melvin has to practically restock down there. I may be mis-reading this. Our lower level minor league teams have a lot of pitching, with players like Rivas possibly ready for the MLB rotation next year, and we should have a fully homegrown rotation in a few years. You can never have too much pitching, and I would be happy to see some young, high-upside arms added through trades this season, but we are finally starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel as far as home-grown pitching.

I think we can all pretty much agree that Cliff Lee isn't coming here as a FA. I wouldn't say that as a certainty. I doubt he'll come here, as it would probably be a mistake to sign him to the length of contract he'll probably demand, but I wouldn't say it's unfathomable to think that Mark A. / Doug Melvin use their free cash to bring Lee in. It may not be a good move, but if the Brewers want in on the bidding, they'll have the money to at least be in the hunt. So, what the thinking is, is that if we throw a pile of cash (or prospects) at a veteran impact pitcher, and everything goes right, we might have a shot at contending. I don't like this plan. I'd much trade Fielder in the hopes of improving the club beyond 2011. I'd also rather trade Fielder, as I believe he will bring us back some good players that will make us better next year and into the future. I think the only really bad thing we could do would be to hold onto both Hart & Fielder and spend a lot of prospects and/or money to bring in someone who isn't a long-term answer. If Mark A is really thinking of putting it all on the line to win next year, I may think he's crazy, as it would seriously hamper the team for years to come, probably putting us in rebuilding mode for several years (depending on the prospects who would be traded). For example, if we traded Gamel for a 1-year rental pitcher, and then saw that pitcher walk after next year along with Fielder, Hart and Weeks, we would have a lot of work to do to rebuild the team. However, I doubt he's that short-sighted. We can be competitive next year even if we trade Fielder and Hart, as we will still have 4/5 of our starting rotation, the good part of our bullpen, C, 2B, SS, 3B, LF and CF back next year plus MLB-ready guys like Gamel and Cain ready to step in. If we are worried about the offense, there will be plenty of 1B on the market this offseason (Dunn, Lee, Konerko, Berkman) that we could get for much les than Fielder would cost. This is also why I think Fielder should be traded this season as opposed to the offseason... if you wait for the offseason, there will be a lot of options for teams to pick up a decent 1B. We will have $40-50MM in free cash if Hart and Fielder are traded. With most of the rest of the team back, we should be able to find some way to fill in the few holes we'll have. If we don't go the free agent route, I think picking up a higher-salaried pitcher with a couple years left on his contract (or arby years) could be a good option. We should also get some talent back in the Fielder & Hart trades that could help us.

Ennder hit it on the head. The first step is realizing that we are better than we played early this season. Talent-wise, we're probably around a .500 team, so if we play to our lows (like we have this year), we're a low-to-mid-70's win team. If we play to our highs, we're a mid-to-upper-80's win team. One more solid pitcher gets us a 2011 starting rotation of Yo, #2 starter, Wolf, Parra and the best of Narveson, Davis or guys currently in the minors like Rivas. That's a fairly solid rotation, as Wolf should be a very solid #3 and Parra could be a ridiculous talent to call a #4. The #2 pitcher would most likely come in Free Agency (we should have around $40MM in free cash) or via trade (some mix of Fielder, Hart or prospects). Remembering that we're in the NL Central, the Cardinals shouldn't be significantly better next year than they are this year, and the Cubs have a lot of bad contracts to deal with, so we could easily be in the playoff hunt next season. I still think we have the talent to be a playoff team this year, but we played so poorly to start the season we shot all of our playoff chances, so we should use the rest of this year to be better prepared for next season. That said, the decision on Hart & Fielder relies on what we could get in return in trade. If that return is greater than one season of the player plus potential draft picks, then we should trade them. In Hart's case, the draft picks may be worth the return, but the risk is him regressing next season, so it may be best to "sell high." In Fielder's case, I don't think the draft picks are worth the potential return, so I hope he is traded to maximize his value for the team. Our offense should be able to withstand the loss of someone like Fielder, as that could be somewhat alleviated either with Gamel, or by signing a FA in the offseason. So, yes we can be a playoff contender next season, but we should probably still trade Fielder for the long-term good of the franchise.

The fact that Lucroy is the starting catcher, Ax is the closer and Braddock is getting big innings makes the claim that Macha's clubhouse is where prospects go to die unsupportable. IIRC, Lucroy was given 2 starts over the first 2-weeks (when Zaun was potentially coming back). Then He was given one starter to work with. When Kottaras failed as the starting catcher over his few weeks as a starter, Lucroy was given the starting role. When Zaun went down, Macha basically had to play a young player (Kottaras had a few starts last year with Boston, but is hardly a vet). Escobar is the same case. I doubt Macha had much say as to who the starting SS would be this season. Gomez hasn't been given much of a leash this season. He was part of a 3-man rotation in CF/RF until Hart started playing well, when Gomez was relegated to being the LH part of a CF platoon, so he sits around 80% of the time. For the bullpen, we had Hoffman implode and have a period where he worked with Peterson and wasn't allowed to pitch. Around the same time, Hawkins was injured (and pitching very poorly due to the injury), Coffey was injured and Riske wasn't back. There wasn't much to do other than give a lot of innings to rookies. Axford was put in a save position, succeeded and hasn't faltered once, making it very difficult to move him. If given no other option, Macha will play young players. If they "prove themselves" in this limited window, he will continue to play them. If the "fail to prove themselves" in this limited window, they will be relegeted to the bench or cut. Part of the "rotting on the bench" mantra probably comes from the fact that Macha really likes to play his starters everyday without many days off. In 83 games, Fielder has played 83, Weeks 82, Braun 81, McGehee 78, Escobar 77 and Hart (who started in a platoon) 75. Unless there is an injury or some other circumstance in which the rookie is the only option available, it is very difficult for a rookie to get PT on a Macha team. Take McGehee as an example. He was only given a hadful of PAs for the first month or so of last season. Due to circumstance, he was given some starts, and hit the ground running, so he was set in stone. Capuano had a so-so 3 inning start, and only pitched about 2 more innings for a month. The biggest thing that gets me is the small sample mentality. The first example off the top of my head (not related to PT, but it shows small sample mentality) was Macha saying his team would steal bases as long as they could steal above a 70% rate. When they were 4-for-8 to start last season, he basically stopped running for the season... after all, they were below 70% as a team. He takes small samples to an extreme and I believe this leads to him sticking with players who do well right away and dumping on players who don't hit the ground running out of the gate. If Axford had blown his first save, he probably wouldn't have been the closer. Instead, he saved the game, and now that he's 9-for-9, he'd probably have to blow 5-6 games in a row before he'd lose the role.

While I'd like the Brewers to sell, I don't think they will. If they do, here are the moves I think should be looked at: -Bush should be traded soon to clear a rotation spot for Davis (who, like it or not is going to be in the rotation). -If Davis can show that he's still a decent pitcher, he could be dealt by the deadline. -Counsell, Edmonds, Hoffman and Riske are all gone after the season, so we should see if we can get anything for them. -Prince and Hart should both be shopped this season. If a good offer is found, take it, if not wait until the offseason. Since it's being discussed, I'll jump into the extension talk: -The timing of the $200MM comment from Boras tells me he's not interested in signing an extension. Since that ship's sailed, we need to try to maximize our return for Prince -Hart to me is too all-or-nothing to extend. Plus, Cain is a MLB player, and if healthy will need to be on the field next year. We will either trade Gomez or Hart before next season and Gomez will have little trade value if Edmonds keeps getting 80% of the starts in CF. I'd like to see him get some PAs for the rest of the season. -If the price is right, I still think we should extend Weeks. I don't think it's purely coincidence that our offense was in the dumps when Weeks slumped and came back to life when he started to heat up. He's pretty important to this team, but the longer we wait the more expensive he gets. -I wouldn't extend McGehee simply because he's already in his late 20's, and we have him under control for four more years. That's a lot of additional risk to bear simply to buy out some FA years in the decline phase of a player's career.