brwrsfan

Probably get killed for this one, but does anyone think the Brewers will consider moving Santana as opposed to Brinson? I know he's young and his offense last season was great but I think he'd bring back more, given that he's done it at the MLB level, and still has 3-4 years of control. Santana's OF defense also leaves a TON to be desired IMO, so perhaps an AL team might make more sense. An OF of Braun/Brinson/Phillips would certainly improve the defense - or in some cases maybe even Brinson/Broxton/Phillips. Just throwing it out there. If we're going to get an ace type, we're going to have to give up someone big.

I like the effort, but I'd have to give him a B on that project. He forgot the Cardinals on the "don't like" side. No excuse there. Haha What's funny is he actually came home and told me that he wanted to put the Vikings in the "don't like" and the Badgers in the "like" but that they didn't have those as options. I haven't yet taught him about the Cardinals, but he very much knows he dislikes the Cubs, Vikings and Bears (and also Michigan and Duke). It was very cool of the Brewers to do it. I tweeted it to them after he brought it home and it just took on a life all of it's own. They asked me permission to use it on other social media. They posted it on FB and it got over 5000 likes. They then asked me for our address and they sent him a huge box full of stuff - signed ball by Scooter, bobbleheads, couple of hats and then a handwritten note inviting him to be the "Play Ball" kid. They obviously didn't have to do any of that - and I sent them several thank you emails and tweets, but how do you thank a franchise (or media relations dept or whoever) for giving a kid a once in a lifetime moment?? It was pretty awesome - and easily my favorite Brewers game I've ever attended (and I was at NLDS Game 5, among several other memorable ones). Never thought I'd say that, especially about a game the Brewers lost, but sometimes there are thing bigger than the game, and for me, this was definitely one of those times.

This is an easy one for me, April 29th against the Braves. For the Brewers, this game was rough - they blew two separate 4 run leads and wound up losing to the Braves. I think Matt Kemp hit 3 HR too. So why is this my favorite? It's a long story, but my son was the "play ball" kid on this night. He was only 4 at the time (now 5) but he's gotten really into sports and this was a very cool, once in a lifetime type experience. We got to hangout on the field before the game, hi fived some players, all kinds of cool stuff. He's also had some speech problems in his young life (he's fine now) but he had to go to speech therapy and stuff, so to see him go from a kid struggling to talk or say basic things...to standing in front of 30K people and tell everyone to "play ball" was a pretty cool moment as a father. Certainly something I'll never forget - hopefully he's old enough to remember it forever too. The Brewers did a write-up about it and everything: https://brewers.mlblogs.com/homework-kid-visits-miller-park-be35d4cf8d55?gi=700ca0e6b58d

Colorado has a tough schedule down the stretch yet. 7 games against both the Dodger and Diamondbacks, plus 3 against Miami. They do play SF and SD a bunch of times, but both of those teams are playing somewhat better baseball lately as well. Given how they've played the last week or so, I'd be highly surprised if they can go .500. It's certainly within reason to think the Brewers could easily make up 2.5 games. But as others have said - the Brewers can only control their own games. Just keep finding ways to win games and let the rest sort itself out.

I thought about this recently as well...what are everyone's thoughts on resigning him? He's had a down year, but what would his potential free agent contract look like? He's been a solid left handed bat for his career, has some pop, can play all over the infield. He is going to turn 32 in September, which is slightly scary I guess. Thoughts? If we did sign him, that pushes Villar into a backup role (but probably still starting 2-3 times a week as Walker can move around).

I'd be shocked if the Brewers DFA Villar. The obvious move is sending Sogard down until September 1. Tonight aside, Sogard has been absolutely awful since he came back. There's plenty of bullpen guys that could go too. We have too many guys out there as it is. I wouldn't miss Drake or Torres

Trade is officially a ptbnl. Haven't seen how much cash they sent us.

If it's not Sogard it would likely need to be a bullpen guy.

I was just there for the series at the end of last season. Swanky's is definitely a cool bar, you'll find a TON of Brewers fans there. There are also a ton of bars in the stadium and a bunch of breweries in the downtown area as well.

Maybe Blazek to the rotation and dumping Guerra? If it's not a bullpen guy, either someone goes on the DL or Phillips goes back down. Neither of those seems logical. A Phillips/Brinson platoon makes a ton of sense.

He wasn't exactly sharp last night either. This whole thing is just very strange. Calling him up after playing 1 inning, not announcing moves. It sure seems to me like a trade is coming, but maybe it's just all coincidence and we just decided having 13 pitchers is silly.

I'd be pretty happy if they went 5-5, anything above that would be great. Looks like we're going to hit Scherzer for sure. And possibly Strasburg, depending on what they do with the rotation. I think 2-2 in Pitt, 2-1 in Philly and 1-2 vs Nationals. Anything beyond that would be amazing. Anything less than that could spell some trouble, with the Cubs series looming at home after this trip.

Oh they're all important. But losing yesterday, tough matchups ahead and a tough road trip in general - especially at Washington, it would be nice to get off to a good start.

You're getting your wish... Villar Thames Braun Shaw Santana Vogt Arcia Phillips Suter This one feels really important. Coming off the loss yesterday, get the roadtrip off to a nice start. Also the pitching matchups after this one are a bit dicey and Marte is about to return. Don't feel good about this series in general.

The problem for me...Scahill just isn't very good IMO. He shouldn't have been kept over Blazek, and I certainly don't think he should have been used in a 1 run game yesterday. Coming off the break and with our bullpen relatively rested - why go to your worst relief pitcher there? He should be reserved for mop-up duty. Seemed like a perfect spot to let Hader pitch the 6th and 7th potentially. If he wasn't available, then Drake or Hughes. Or let Webb just start the inning. There was no reason to go to Scahill in that spot. As stated above, every game is big and it just seemed like poor managing that cost us runs yesterday. Hopefully we can shake it off tonight - this Pirates series scares me for some reason. Be nice if Atlanta can shut the Cubs down too.

I always go back and forth on Epstein. He definitely deserves some credit ending the droughts of the Cubs and Red Sox. And he has made some good moves. But with any big market team - being a GM is typically so much easier. They can easily fill holes through free agency (see Lester), when they do make mistakes (see Heyward) it doesn't bury them. They essentially have unlimited cash for the most part. They can sign whoever they want in FA, they typically will never lose a marquee FA if they really want to keep them. It's just so much easier. Has he made some good trades and draft picks? Certainly. But having money just makes it so much easier to rebuild, fit in new pieces, etc., and he's had that luxury his entire career as a GM.

Does Cooper have any trade value? Admittedly, I don't know much about him but he seems blocked for the foreseeable future at 1B (can he play anywhere else?) and he's putting up monster numbers in AAA. If stats really matter, would seem like a very prime sell high type of candidate.

Agree 100% on the first part. The Brewers have about 15 games before the trade deadline. A LOT can happen in those games. 5.5 game lead is great, but it's not insurmountable by any means. Highly unlikely we make a big move in the next two weeks. I think we'll see where we're at come the end of July and make a decision in the last couple of days.

I tend to worry about all of them if they're within 10 games of us - but my immediate focus is always on the teams directly behind us (at least until the lead is only 1-2 games). So right now, it's the Cubs and Cardinals. More importantly though, the Brewers just need to win their own games. If we just keep winning, taking series, avoiding the long losing streaks, we'll be fine. We need to play well and win games against the teams at the bottom of the standings - like the Phillies coming out of the break. We still have two series with the Nationals, one with the Dodgers, Rays and Twins. So I'd expect we have some losses coming there. And probably the most important thing of all, is that we have to do well against the divisional teams. We still have 12 left with the Pirates, 10 with the Cubs and 8 with the Cardinals. The season very well might come down to how we perform in those 30 games.

It's hard to see a solution either. Nobody is going to really want Mirza, Delly or Henson with those contracts unless you throw in draft picks, which would be a mistake I think. It would be even worse if we hadn't managed to amazingly dump Plumlee last year. Maybe we can swing another lucky trade like that but we may be stuck for awhile, at least until they get to the one year expiring contract stage.

Just like Thursday...story was Jay pitching, not the Brewers pounding the Cubs to extend the division lead.

Last season was pretty magical for them - almost everyone on the roster had a career year. Schwarber got hurt, but other than him, it seems like every other player was basically healthy the entire season. Everything Maddon did seemed to work, even when it was a bad decision. Were they really THAT good last season? Probably not. This year...just about every player is having a below average season. Could be a WS hangover, could be a regression from last year, could be clubhouse issues. Who knows. But for the most part, the talent is all still there. I fully expect them to get hot at some point this season - let's just hope we also get hot or the Cubs get hot too late for it to matter. The Pirates are sure doing their part to give them a win today, man have they played poorly this afternoon. Are they really THIS average this season? Probably not. As others have said, even if we go on to win the division this year, the Cubs are still going to be the favorites the next couple of years IMO. There's just so much talent on the roster and they'll have plenty of money to spend in FA to upgrade the roster if need be. At some point though, that could start to backfire. They're going to have to start paying their own guys (do they keep Arrieta this year??) and some of the big contracts might cause issues down the road (Lester for example). They may be down some this year, but they still have half a season to go. Any talk of them being down or anything like that is probably very premature. They have a pretty easy schedule the rest of this month, as their next 19 games are against teams below .500 3 vs Pitt (40-46) AS Break 3 @ Baltimore (40-45) 3 @ Atlanta (41-43) 3 vs St Louis (41-44) 2/2 vs White Sox (37-47) 3 @ Milwaukee If they're going to make a run, this would seemingly be the time for them to start it. If they're still struggling when they come to Milwaukee, that could very well be a chance to bury them. But we'll see in the next 3 weeks or so. Brewers just need to focus on winning their own games and the rest will sort itself out.

Agreed. We're up 7 in the 5th inning, yet I feel very nervous with this one. Anyone else have that feeling?? Nope, this game has Josh Hader 3 inning save written all over it. I gave Larrivee's "Daggar" call when Braun went deep. Ha, well I hope you're right certainly. Let's go Aguilar, just a sac fly here is fine.

Agreed. We're up 7 in the 5th inning, yet I feel very nervous with this one. Anyone else have that feeling??

Big out on Rizzo. Come on Davies. Get out of this inning with just 1 run in and it'll feel like a big win.