vetter

But if you have Yu Darvish's contract on our books right now we're basically effed. Same If Keuchel is bad and you have 20 mil on the books for 4 more years. MKE just can't take those risks, nature of the small market. I agree and I think that's why Keuchel and Kimbrel aren't signed with anyone now. Small markets know they can't afford the risk associated and bigger payroll markets that could afford realize that their upside isn't that much better than cheaper or younger alternatives that are out there.

The reality is they spent money on Moustakas because they didn't think they needed to spend it on pitching during the offseason. There were ample pitching resources available that Brewers passed on because they thought their internal options were sufficient.

I hear you my friend. It just sucks that timing-wise they felt all three were ready in the same season when we're supposed to be contending for a WS and then the worst unfolds. What further compounds the misery is spending $18M to lease Grandal for a year if it turns out we can't even compete. I think Grandal is a fantastic addition and money well spent but not when our pitchers don't give us a fighting chance.

I'm with you on Miley, but this is pretty revisionist. To develop young starters you have to play them in the majors. I didn't like Peralta, but it's hard to argue that at the end of last year, there wasn't reason to be optimistic about all three guys. These guys didn't come up in April, they were making meaningful contributions in a pennant race. I don't think anyone saw this kind of trouble coming. Basically it was a worst case scenario that happened. Even in my preseason nightmare, at least one guy would be a reliable starter at this point. The Knebel thing sucks. The timing of it sucked worse. I get it they need to play in order to develop but why would they commit 3/5 of their starting staff on unproven starters that still don't have a third pitch when we're supposed to be in contention for a WS? And that at the expense of gutting a big part of their bullpen from last year. Yes it's a nightmare scenario but no shocker. The decision makers of this organization must have forgotten we made it to the NLCS last October because they've approached the starting rotation as if we won 65 games and we're rebuilding. If the Brewers want to be contenders, they can't patiently wait for these young guys to get it together. Not if they want to win this year. Meanwhile, Cincinnati acquires a handful of proven, stable starting pitchers over the offseason who are already developed. No, they're not huge names and they're not overwhelming but their team ERA is second overall in the majors. But what's really frustrating is after all of that, they follow the same tired old playbook and start Peralta today. What do they call that when they do the same thing but expect a different result...oh right :-(