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monty57

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Everything posted by monty57

  1. monty57
    It would be great if he ends up having a season like Guerra had last year, but I don't think that's the plan. I think they wanted to use the guys they had until Guerra was ready, but with the way Peralta's been pitching, and the fact they are now in first place and facing the Cubs, they didn't want him to get that start. Espino has pitched very well this year in Colorado, and is deserving of a spot start, so he will probably get it. Then Guerra will be back, and Espino will probably go back to AAA. If there are no other needs for spot starts in the near future, he will get passed up by the top prospects, who will be called up to get starts later in the year. This would be his spot to shine. I hope he pitches a great game and gives the Brewers something to think about. Even if that doesn't happen, he was signed as a veteran "AAA roster filler" guy, and turning that into a chance to get a start for a first place team facing the defending World Series champs gives him something to tell his grandkids.
  2. monty57
    We can't make important decisions based on small samples. Believing that Sogard is a long-term upgrade based on a few games is akin to believing that Nelson is now a stud #1 based on his last couple of outings. Let Sogard ride out this hot streak while half our team is injured, but he'll drop back to what we expected when we picked him up. He's capable of being an okay placeholder, but not someone for the long-term plans. Villar has a chance of becoming an above average MLB player, so we need to ride out his bad start to see if he can get things going. 25% of a season is not enough time to make that determination when he has some history of being better. I could see him getting some extra days off, or moving him down in the order, but he should remain our starting 2B. His potential upside benefit for this team, both now and for the future, is too high for us to replace him with someone with little present value and basically no future value in Sogard.
  3. monty57
    I know people get sick of hearing "small sample," but we shouldn't make decisions based on a bad few weeks. Even with the slow starts Broxton is now hitting .261/.325/.470/.795, and Santana is at .280/.372/.466/.838. This is exactly why the Brewers need to give some leeway to young guys with talent. Giving up on them too early could be a big mistake. Even though I'm happy that the Brewers are exceeding expectations in the W/L column, we still need to keep the long-term best interest of the club in mind. We have multiple guys on the team that are in "sink or swim" mode (especially in the pitching ranks), but they need time before getting shown the door. The prospects will be here soon, we just need to be patient for a while longer.
  4. monty57
    From the article: "The Brewers were aware of Carr's reputation as a me-first player before acquiring him from the Florida Marlins in January 1996," Journal Sentinel beat writer Tom Haudricourt wrote at the time. "They ignored it because he possessed the one talent in short supply in the organization: superior speed." If anyone thought that speed was the only talent the late 90's Brewers were missing, they were delusional. Carr's OPS+ in his 50 PA that season was -1. I didn't know it was possible to have a negative OPS+. He personally should have had to pay fans to watch him play.
  5. monty57
    As a general philosophy, I hope the Brewers can keep prospects coming up through the system, trading away the veteran with shorter team control and replacing him with a MLB-ready prospect. Therefore, I would prefer to trade away the "proven" veteran and replace him with the talented prospect. Theoretically, you hope the prospect can provide you as much value as the veteran you traded away, and the prospects you trade for will allow you to retain a stocked farm so you can continue this process in the future. To the real world example, I like Santana, but I think Brinson will be better than him so we shouldn't take a step back at the MLB level if we insert Brinson for Santana. If we can get back several talented prospects for Santana, our farm will remain stocked, even though Brinson has graduated to the MLB level. I'd be fine if a talented OF gets brought up as the 4th OF, but not a potential star talent. Good-but-not-great prospects could be used for that role. I would not want a guy who is proven to be an above average starting OF or someone who is a top prospect in all of baseball sitting the bench as 4th OF.
  6. monty57
    I know Braun could be traded, but I won't believe it until I see it. Now that he's got a full no trade protection, I will just assume he's going to remain a Brewer. I believe that Brinson will be a good player, so I will assume that he will have a starting role before too long. That means that either Broxton or Santana will be traded or relegated to bench duty. Both have shown that they can be quality starters, so I'd prefer a trade and if one of them is going to be traded, I'd prefer to hold onto Broxton (good all around player) over Santana (good player but poor defense). I would think that some playoff-hopeful team would see value in an .800 OPS OF who is still in his pre-arby years, so I would like to think that Stearns would be able to pull off a trade. I think Santana is coming into his own, and will have a lot of good years, so it's tough to trade him, but that's why I wanted to see Braun traded this past offseason. Hopefully, we will be able to get talent back at a position of greater need, and that will help us going forward. I'm not as concerned about holding Phillips, Cordell, etc back a while to see how things shake out.
  7. monty57
    Well, they just swept the Cubs, so lets just wait for Bosio's next press conference. I'm sure the entire Yankees and Rockies teams must be juiced. Otherwise, how could they have lit up the angelic and perfect Cubs pitchers? It couldn't be that the staff is getting old and they all pitched at peak levels last year and were due for a regression. Everyone else must just be cheating.
  8. monty57
    He's 26 and hits arby next year. Being a "bench player," he shouldn't be overly expensive through the arby process, but I wouldn't be upset if they signed him to a "Lucroy deal" for 4-5 years. Guys with his versatility who can hit have value, and since he can slot in anywhere except catcher and pitcher, we should always have a spot for him. I doubt anyone else would have given him that deal. If I recall correctly, Garza was still on the FA market with the offseason passing. Melvin didn't want him and there didn't seem to be a huge market for him, so his agent called Attanasio directly and got the long-term deal no one else was offering. Attanasio's public quote was something like "I know we weren't going to add payroll, but how can you pass on someone like Garza." Moves like this are why I'm glad that Attanasio seems to have had an epiphany after the 2014 late-season collapse followed by the horrible start in 2015, which led to the hiring of Stearns and the beginning of the rebuild. If this thread was started a few years ago, it would have ended up being about 57 pages long. I much prefer where the Brewers franchise is today.
  9. monty57
    To the bolded part regarding Peralta. He won't necessarily get the arby increase if the Brewers let him go and someone signs him as a free agent in the offseason. I could see someone giving him a shot at a rotation if they sign him for a million or so, just not for what he'll likely get in arby. I agree that the likely scenario seems to be that he will just be let go by the Brewers at the end of the season. Whether he finishes the year in the rotation or the pen will probably be determined by his performance, the performance of others, and whether or not we have any injuries. Regarding Nelson, when Guerra's back, they should just send him to the minors to see if he can get straightened out as a starter. If he can't, then we can move him to the pen in the minors and let him get used to the adjustment there before calling him back up. Pitching from the pen is different than pitching as a starter. Some pitchers adjust quicker than other, so I'd like to see Nelson figure this out in the minors rather than the majors. Regarding Woodruff's innings. If the playoffs are the consideration, then I'm sure they could make him the "fifth starter" and find a start or two to skip to limit his innings. I know there are cases where SP started their MLB career in the pen, but there are a lot more cases where that didn't happen. I prefer keeping good starting pitchers in the rotation and don't really like the thought of moving them to the pen unless they prove they're not effective starters. If all we can get out of Woodruff this year is half a season in the bullpen, then don't waste the service time.
  10. monty57
    I think he'll be in the rotation for a while to see if he can build any trade value. If he can put together a couple of months of good baseball (the way he did at the end of last season), someone in need of a fifth starter for a playoff run might give us something for him. If he pitches poorly, then he will be demoted to the pen to open up a spot for one of the prospects. Unless he becomes absolutely lights out in the pen, I can't imagine we'd pay him $6M+ next year to be a reliever. So, I'm hopeful that he can "find it" for the next couple of months and we're able to get something for him in trade. Otherwise, he'll probably be signing a low value free agent contract with someone else this offseason. Typing that last sentence makes it easy to see why hoping for a trade might be a pipe dream.
  11. monty57
    I agree that with Peralta, it's starter or nothing. He had back-to-back subpar outings (4IP, 6ER vs StL & 5IP, 4 ER vs Cin). Other than that, he's been decent. I think that if he continues pitching like he has been so far this year, following up on his good second half of last season, he has value. If we need the spot for prospects, someone would trade for him. If we think we'll need him in future rotations, he still has two arby seasons remaining (he is in year two, but has four years of arby). Nelson should get sent down to the minors when Guerra's ready. Let him work on things as a starter, and if he can't figure it out, convert him to a reliever down there. So, Guerra comes back, Nelson goes down. At the deadline, Garza, Feliz, and Peralta are all shopped around. Unless Nelson is really lighting it up as a starter, Woodruff and Lopez take the open spots when Garza and Peralta are traded, giving them some MLB experience going into 2018, where we will hopefully have a more talented rotation with Guerra, Anderson, Woodruff, Lopez, Hader, and more talent pushing their way up through the minors. Of course, if we're still in the division and WC races in late July, all that might change. But that would probably mean that our current pitching was getting better and/or some of the prospects are already up.
  12. monty57
    Melvin seemed to like "proven" talent over prospects (at least in the later years). Stearns seems like he'd rather trade away a "proven" guy with limited team control remaining and promote the prospects. We just need a little more time to see if guys like Garza, Peralta and Anderson can pitch well enough until deadline that a team would be willing to give up something for them, or if some of our current guys pitch themselves out of the rotation.
  13. monty57
    Not prospects anyway. I could see some of our current MLB staff getting traded if they can perform okay for a couple of months, opening up spots for guys like Woodruff, Lopez and Hader. By next year, I hope some of these guys have a few months of MLB experience, and are in the opening day rotation.
  14. monty57
    To topic, it is odd that Villar is the only guy on the team to play in every game. I still believe he'll straighten things out, and am impressed that his defense seems to be looking better than it did to start the season. But I don't think it would hurt to give him a day off now and then, or to move him down in the lineup until he heats up.
  15. monty57
    The bats in our lineup have thus been outstanding with everyone contributing in the HR department scoring runs. We've had Pina (.986 OPS), Bandy (1.020), and Thames (1.207) outperforming, Braun (.950), Shaw (.847) and Perez (.855) playing well, but not out of the realm of expectation. Santana is doing okay (.774), while Arcia (.666), Villar (.625), Broxton (.594), Aguilar (.541) and Franklin (.344) could all improve. Kirk N (.473) was also pathetic before he was demoted. We could certainly see the catcher and first base positions cool off, but that could be offset with improvements elsewhere. Overall, I think we have a pretty good offense that should get better when Brinson is brought up. We just need better pitching if we want to believe we can be a real playoff contender. Hopefully some of our current guys "swim" and our prospects make good replacements for those who "sink." I agree with what seems to be the general consensus on the Cubs: they're very talented, but last year was ridiculous with nearly everyone performing at their peak, and almost no injuries. They should win the division, but I think they'll be closer to 90 wins than 100, and then they lose Arrieta, Anderson, Davis and Lackey to free agency without much pitching in the organization to replace them. If Hendricks proves to be more of a middle-to-back of the rotation guy instead of the Cy Young caliber pitcher he was last year and with an aging Lester getting a lot of money, their reign could be shorter than a lot figured it would be.
  16. monty57
    He's 7-for-8 in save opportunities with 12K:4BB in 11.2 IP and a 1.03 WHIP. He's effective when it matters, strikes out more than one per inning and doesn't walk a lot. His ERA is high because he had one blow up game when he gave up 4 ER in an inning against a very good team in the Cubs. GM's will not worry about that (and the resulting high ERA). If he keeps pitching well in save opportunities, he'll be valuable at the trade deadline.
  17. monty57
    I have no problem with Lopez coming up basically any time he's needed. It looks to me like he was just screwed up by Colorado Springs. Other than that, he's been a pretty good pitcher. We don't want to send him back to CS, he's already got a little MLB time, and at 24 he's not going to learn much more at Biloxi, so might as well bring him up first. He and Woodruff have pitched over 150 innings in a season, so while they may be limited, they don't have as big of IP concerns of Hader, whose highest total was 126 IP last year. With Guerra coming back soon, barring injury we probably won't see any of these guys for a while, but when the time comes I'd probably go Lopez, then Woodruff, then Hader. However things play out, there are going to be some big decisions to make over the next few months, and I'd guess next year's opening day staff will look a lot different than this year's opening day staff.
  18. monty57
    Since Garza has looked decent, I would have no problem sending Nelson to the minors when Guerra's back to see if he can figure things out. Davies will probably just have to figure things out at the MLB level. While it's nice to see some positive things happening on this team, we still have to realize that this is still a year to figure out what we have for the future. The prospects will arrive, and some of the guys in the current rotation will be gone, but we don't want to act rashly. Nelson and Peralta have the potential to be good MLB pitchers, and the Brewers are trying to see if they can put it together before they send them packing. Both of them had some good starts to open the season, and have had a couple rough starts recently. I think they'll get a few months to prove themselves and if they struggle, they'll be replaced. Garza has even a shorter leash. The guy I'm most interested in right now is Peralta. He was dominant in his first couple starts, but has gotten hit some in his last two. He doesn't have a ton of team control left, so with his upper-90's fastball, if he can be a decent pitcher for the next couple of months he could be a nice guy to trade in July. He just needs to stay on his game for a couple more months.
  19. monty57
    I don't think he said anything that the team should be upset over. He's probably right, so if anything his statements may get the Brewer brass to look into getting better lighting. As to the fireworks, I agree. I was at the game yesterday and my son and I were joking that it was strategic to shoot the fireworks off before the visiting team takes the field so they won't be able to see the ball when the Brewers hit it.
  20. monty57
    Okay, so 30 starts x 7 IP/start = 210 IP in order to be a borderline #2. Seems a bit high to me.
  21. monty57
    I agree that Braun could be a great DH, but I think that he believes that he's a good defender who could be a starting SS or 3B right now, so I doubt that he's seeking out a place where he could be a DH. Not saying that he wouldn't accept a trade to someone like the Angels so that he could be in L.A., but it wouldn't be because he wants to play DH. All in all, I think Braun will remain a Brewer, and if we're going to get "stuck" with anyone, he's not a bad guy to get "stuck" with.
  22. monty57
    Bill and Matt last night were discussing how he would be playing everyday in AAA. Not sure I like that, as it means one of our good prospects will be sitting on the bench.
  23. monty57
    Agree. Brinson can play CF, and Broxton isn't hitting. At this point, it's far more likely Brinson replaces Broxton than Santana. Santana .229 avg / .333 OBP / .438 SLG / .771 OPS Broxton .119 avg / .196 OBP / .214 SLG / .410 OPS Maybe things will change by Super 2 cutoff, but as it stands right now, Broxton would become the #4 OF, with Braun, Brinson, and Santana the starters.
  24. monty57
    Thames is a great story in baseball right now, but because he just tore up Cub pitching their response is to throw unfounded accusations at him that could seriously hurt his image. How would Cub fans (and MLB) respond if Counsell said something like "Yeah, the Cub thing last year was alright. It's too bad they had to cheat to win, but I'll let other people worry about that. We're just trying to win ball games."
  25. monty57
    Right, but that could be said about anyone. All of our top prospects could stink when they get to the majors, but that doesn't mean we should trade them now for "proven" talent. I think you and I agree that putting too much emphasis on "proven" over "unproven" was part of the problem of the past. Thames looks like he should be an undervalued commodity for a while, and that's what we should be accumulating. Players who can play above average baseball at a below average salary are gold. When playing with a limited budget relative to your peers, utility per dollar is very important. No one can predict the future, but I would guess that Thames will provide more per dollar spent over the next few years than most top prospects will provide.
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