MadScientist

Leaning towards the Nats, but just really happy this didn't turn out to be a Yankees-Cardinals series.

The Brewers did give him a credible offer, it's just that the damnyankees gave him an incredible offer. Probably for the best, the Brewers would likely have treated him the same way in 09 that they did in 08, causing his arm to fall off and be an albatross contract for four years.

Ya, I'm really surprised at the love for Perez here. His hitting stats are terrible and his approach at the plate is even worse. He seemed at least average defensively at any spot you put him, which is worth something, but overall just a bad baseball player. Even for as pointless as the "Brewer Wall of Fame" or whatever they call it is, if he makes it it will take away whatever significance that thing has. Might as well put Hank the Dog and the Happy Youngster up there too. Probably because many of us have been around long enough to have endured utility players such as Jeff Bianchi, Caesar Izturius or even a starter with the initials YB. Perez was never great, but he played lots of positions credibly and at least initially hit better than some of the brewers previous utility players. That said, he has steadily declined the last three years and it's time for the Brewers to see if they can do better.

Enough with the flood warnings.

The Brewers were a ~500 team with Yelich, and as soon as he went out, they turned into the best team in baseball. The Angles were out if it when Trout went down and went into free fall without him.

I see this a lot, but it actually has little to do with expanded roster. In fact, he actually crunches playing time. Grandal catching every day, no rest for any of the starters really. Uses the same, top 7 or 8 relievers over and over. Hes not using 35-38 guys, he's using 25. And really, 20 as much as humanly possible. September has been about the 3 pitching acquisitions, Suter and Hiura coming back, and the team as a whole putting their game face on, and that part is definitely due to CC. But Suter's availability (8 games, 17.1 innings) was in addition to the other arms that had been in the pen. Same with Woodruff's 4 innings. Plus the "unused" pitchers of Williams, Williams Faria, Burnes and Nelson add up to 15+ innings. Even if most of them are mop-up situations, it still saves the other arms for higher leverage situations. So saying CC does well with extra arms available is accurate. However it is also reasonable to say CC gets the most out of the staff during the regular season. It is also true that the whole staff is doing vastly better this month, but it is impossible to know how much was just from player improvement and how much increased rest helped.

Usually I don't like the idea of athletes having addictions and chasing highs, but in this case, go for it Eric.

I find it crazy that no one seems to care about this yet using steroids makes you the biggest criminal of all-time. This player had the muscles in his arm artificially improved with a surgery in a provable way with his velocity, yet no problem. How is this not considered cheating? Artificially gain some unquantifiable advantage from whatever Braun took, suspended. As someone who is not up in arms about PEDs I've made that same point over the years several times. It's all about the integrity of the records and how folks 70 years ago didn't have this etc, you can't take some extra testosterone or you're the devil. But you can take a ligament from another human and insert it in your body. Another one is laser eye surgery or even just contacts in general. Is not the medical advantages of ACL/Knee surgeries now not an performance enhancement not available to Mickey Mantle (who had his career hurt by fluke knee injury). Note, this isn't argument that these things shouldn't be allowed, as I fully agree they should. It's an argument that the obsession and holier than thou attitudes about PEDs are a bit overboard, imo. Comparing surgical repair of injuries and PED's is just ludicrous. The ban on PED's has absolutely nothing to do with comparing records from 70 or 100 years ago. It does have to do with player safety. The side effects of PED's are significant: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anabolic_steroid#Adverse_effects, but they do give players a competitive advantage. Either they need to be banned or they become de facto mandated. There are many drugs that players can take to help them heal and recover. Only the ones that can be used/abused for performance enhancing are banned. We need to add comparing PED's to surgery to the banned topics.

Never say that about the Cards. They keep combing back worse than an army of zombie terminators.

MLB will have to ban him or this stain will be on them as well. They will have to do it quickly because just putting him on paid administrative leave will not be close to enough. They do not have to wait until the legal process grinds through this. By this time next week, or sooner, he will be out of baseball forever. They can push this through quickly, I can't see the union stepping up for him. It's also the only way the story goes away quickly for baseball.

Nats-Cards = Go 15+ innings for each game. (Failing that some 21-19 games would be good).

More to the point, there's a very real possibility that the painkillers prescribed by the doctor do deal with the pain for the surgery was sufficient for Skaggs to become addicted. Besides prescriptions being for far too many pills, the instructions will say a maximum frequency whereas other medicines, like antibiotics, say the schedule you need to take them. If you take the opioids at the schedule on the bottle, there is a good chance of becoming addicted.

That estimate is almost certainly comically high. I don't dispute people do it, but most people make the smart choice to have 1 or 2 or have a DD. As far as a DUI not being an indicator of a drinking problem, I can agree...once. After that, you've got a drinking problem. I do have friends with multiples and every one of them can't cut themselves off. The amount of people who drink alcohol, period, is exaggerated because drinkers tend to put it out there. Random fact, but while the USA has the highest ratio of binge drinkers, it also has the highest % of its population that doesn't consume alcohol at all - about 50% of its adults. yea the number is high as I didn't factor in how much carpooling at a normal game. 35K people doesn't mean 20K+ in cars, so that was my mistake in the estimate. So rephrase that thousands of people are operating at DUI level every game. It's not hard at all to be above .08. Still, you know what I meant in that it's just such a big part of WI culture and obviously for Brewers specifically the tailgating plays right into it. FYI:Quick google says 7% of WI population has a DUI. Of course factor in how many in the population are below 20ish years old and that percent goes up quite a bit. Frankly, I was expecting higher. That number of DUI per game is still beyond ludicrously large. You are seriously suggesting that 10%+ of the people who drive to the game get plastered enough (at MP beer prices) to still be impaired an hour after they are done drinking (no sales the last couple of innings). If it were anywhere near that level, the police would just test everybody leaving the game. They'd be irresponsible not to.

I remember a lot of people here being upset over Gallardo's DUI, and people only stopped being upset over Jeffress's drug usage after it came out that he suffers from seizures and the pot usage helped control it. But yes, if he does well, his personal problems will be overlooked, at least as long as he doesn't repeat them.

Seriously? If you get busted 3 times for drunk driving, how many times do you think he did it without getting busted? 10, 20, 100 times? More? 3 DUIs is for 100% certainty, a drinking problem. So maybe he made the bad decision to drive after drinking a lot of times and only got caught 3. But it's a decision thing, it's not a drinking problem thing. I'd bet pro athletes are out getting hammered often on non-gamedays, I'd bet a lot drink a heck of a lot more than Jung Ho Kang...they just don't drive and nobody knows. Getting drunk regularly is the definition of a drinking problem. Driving afterwards just adds a catastrophically stupid component to it.

Stearns has been here long enough you would think those guys would have been gone by now. Any hard-core refuse to adapt types are probably long gone. However, it's likely that they are doing some heavy internal review and cross-checking and this batch isn't making the grade. Without insider knowledge, we'll never know.

Nelson, Woodruff or Chacin could be moved to the 60-day IL.

Given that 2 of the 4 players acquired are going to AAA, this barely qualifies as buying, more like standing pat without looking like you're standing pat.

He's the reverse K-Rod.

Used as a loogy he may have value. Try to get an inning out of him with righties coming up and they are playing with fire. I hope Maddon likes playing with fire.

I don't have a full list but these really stick out: Glen Braggs - Coming up I thought he'd hit like Wade Boggs, but with power (or in modern terms, like Braun or Huira). Instead he was league average. Larry Hisle - Big ticket FA that was brilliant for 1 year then got injured and provided nothing. Ben Hendrickson - Little Ben was so dominant in AAA, but was useless in the show.

That's the way to bust a slump Cain.

Saladino = game changer.

With a huge amount of luck. This was speculation before the MRI. Knowing Brewers pitchers, it will be career derailing.

Wily Peralta is available.