MadScientist

I wouldn't overlook Bubba Derby in all of this. The BA prospect handbook was just as high on Derby as they were on Nottingham. Throw in Stearns success in Houston with snatching up young pitching prospects before they exploded onto the scene and I'm really intrigued with the guy. I wasn't overlooking Bubba. The A's also received a pitcher, Daniel Mengden, in the Kazmir trade. By age and numbers they are similar, thus my comment that 1/2 year of Kazmir got the same return as 4 years of Davis. Nottingham was the centerpiece of the trade, so the future evaluation of it will be based more on how he develops. Trading Davis was a reasonable thing to do, I just think the Brewers should have been able to get a bit more than they did.

So 4 years of Khris Davis got from Oakland about what Oakland got for a half year rental of Scott Kazmir. To me that seems like the return was low for someone with rare power numbers. If Nottingham works out at catcher, then it is all good, but it has to work out. Either Sterns likes Nottingham a whole lot, or he was somewhat desperate to get a catching prospect in the system. Regardless of how this works out, I will miss Davis's walk up music. It was the only one I liked.

In a season where any player of note could be traded, it makes sense to use the manager in the marketing.

It's looking more like Lucroy will be here for at least the first half of the season, so the May 15th will be ok. As for the chest protector backpack, they didn't show a picture, but if it doesn't have anything specifically identifying it as Lucroy's (the real one doesn't) , they can just drop Lucroy from the promotional names after he gets traded. They previously announced that the alarm clock would have Uecker saying "Get up! Get up! Get outta bed!".

With all that's gone on, I really think the change of scenery will help Segura. I don't think he'll see anything like the start of 2013 again without a full change in approach, but a bump in performance is a real possibility. If he gets his OPS up close to .700, he'll be pretty valuable.

I'm picturing fast moving video with Yakety Sax playing, a la Benny Hill. I can see it now. Lucroy fields a bunt and not trusting anyone else to catch the ball, proceeds to chase the batter all the way around the bases, while he somehow tears the skirt off a ball girl who joins the chase and repeatedly whacks him on the head with her handbag.

You make it sound like the Brewers are putting an infield of Braun, Yuni, Weeks, and Fransisco, and an outfield form the 62 Mets. I just don't see it as all that bad. A downgrade from last year with Gomez in center and Segura at short, but nothing to play Bad News Bears music for every time they take the field. Maybe it's enough to cost the Brewers 1 run every 5-10 games, but that will not be a level that would cause pitchers to freak out(*). (*) I make no guarantees about Garza not freaking out, but he is not a young pitcher they are developing.

One other thing, over the last 10 years defenses have changed to position substantially for each batter. This makes up for a lot of defensive deficiencies. Players don't need as much range or can make up for taking bad routes. Sure top notch defenders helps, but the number of plays where it makes a difference is fairly small. Unless the guy is a total butcher, you can get by with him.

Well if that's your attitude, I suggest you not bet the mortgage on the Brewers winning it all this year. Pitching and defense will look like higher priorities when Arcia, Phillips, and the next wave of pitchers are up. As for defense, the 2011 Brewers have the most wins in franchise history, and their defense was: C - Lucroy 1B - Fielder 2B - Weeks SS - Betancourt 3B - McGhee LF - Braun CF - Morgan RF - Hart I'm not seeing a lot of gold glove material there.

We are less than 3 years removed from a team with Yuni B and Jaun Francisco. How bad could this lot be?

Santana, Houser, Phillips, and Davies are just as likely to be flops as anyone else. Well 3 of those 4 were in Milwaukee by the end of last season, so they are not complete flops. The 4th Maverick. Getting more advanced prospects reduces risk, but to get high ceiling advanced prospects you have to trade higher quality pieces. It will be interesting to what the return Sterns gets for Lucroy, Davis, Peralta, etc. Those should be worth high ceiling, more advanced prospects.

It's not too much of a gamble if the Brewers don't like the return they are being offered for Lucroy. The goal isn't to trade Lucroy, the goal is to get impact talent for him.

In MLB, fans accept this plan as "strategy" because it is a very calculated approach. Even though the parent-club may not be fielding a competitive team, there are a lot of little victories for fans along the way as prospects progress through the minor leagues. In the NBA, it's almost exclusively luck. You either need to hit on your high pick or totally whiff. If you draft an above-average starter (gasp), you're back on the mediocrity treadmill. I think we're less tolerant of the NBA-approach because it just looks / feels desperate and its not much fun watching most lottery picks look out of place against legitimate professional basketball players (your team tanked for THAT?). In the NBA the top 1 or 2 picks can make a huge difference, right away. In football, the top picks are usually good, but only rarely do they change a franchise. In baseball they are probably good, and may help the MLB team in 3-4 years. Tanking makes sense in the NBA which is why they have a lottery, and the other sports don't. The issue described in the article above can be best handled by ignoring Scott Bora$.

Unfortunately, this IS the reality for teams like the Brewers or the Rays. However, the Rays had a stretch of five 90 win seasons in six years. They have more good young talent coming up. You have to be good, or even excellent at drafting. You have to be completely unflinchingly unafraid to trade away talent when it's at the end of it's 6 year team-controlled cycle, and get good young talent back in return. Talent in/talent out. The Rays had Matt Garza at his peak. Instead of re-signing him to a big deal, they traded him to the Cubs for Chris Archer. When Chris Archer is close to big bucks, they'll probably flip him for young talent as well. To operate that way, you absolutely HAVE to be good at identifying that kind of talent, and not having the sentimental attachment to the players on your roster. Is Stearns that kind of guy? We don't know yet. He appears to have NO trouble getting rid of guys, but then he has no attachment to any of the guys currently on the roster. Can he identify talent? We will find out. We will have to agree to disagree, but that is a seriously bad infield likely the worst in the game. The OF you put together I like, but Stearns does not. It features Davis who is likely to be traded, Santana who wont be in CF. We have discussed Braun to death, but I would not be surprised to see him moved. Luc surely will be traded. The Brewers were carried by Davis' incomprehensible 20 HRs in Aug and Sep and were still under 500 during that time frame. No, this team will not be contending for anything positive. Are you suggesting that this will be the worst offensive or worst defensive infield? I don't think it will be too bad offensively, as long as there is a platoon partner with Scooter, and it isn't actually Hill at third. I think someone else will step up and take third. As for Santana in center, Sterns may not think much of it, but Counsell just said he is a consideration there. Without further trades, that gives the Brewers 4 players with the potential of 30+ homers. Decent enough pop to put up runs. Now if Lucroy and Davis do get traded soon, the lineup starts looking weaker, and they will probably finish worse than last year. Anyway this season is not about wins, but about showcasing the vets and developing the younger players. As for the original title of this thread, I don't love the rebuilding process, I hate having seasons that start with the Brewers having no chance. I do love the idea of the Brewers setting things up for a talented MLB roster and a deep, continually fed pipeline. Something that will set the Brewers up for a long stretch of competitive baseball, and maybe, finally a World Series title.

Not to nit pick but it's been done here before. It's how we got the Braun, Fielder era. I guess that depends on your definition of a rebuild. We more or less got the Braun/Fielder/Hardy/Weeks/Hart era by a prolonged period of ineptitude followed by some solid drafting for a change. Maybe if we used the term "accelerated rebuild", it would be a more accurate description of what they're trying to do now. The current team had the luxury of possessing assets that other teams were willing to acquire for other assets that more closely align to when our next competitive window should open. The era before the Braun/Fielder combo didn't have the luxury of having assets to trade to infuse more prospects into the system; instead they mostly had to rely completely on the draft and try to supplement that talent with mostly ineffective free agent signings. I'm not sure you can say they didn't have tradeable assets, but you can say they did a lousy job of selling in lost years. Look at 2002. They were 22 games under at the end of June and 30 at the end of July. They should have been able to trade off Hernandez (All star, 834 ops SS has to be worth something), instead he walked a the end of the season. Mike DeJean had a good year as a closer, but they didn't trade him until the following year when he had a bad year and they got almost nothing in return. Matt Stairs should have been traded as well. 2001 after they fell off a cliff in July, they probably should have tried to get something for Devon White who was having a good final season. I know FA draft compensation was different back then, and they didn't have a piece like Lucroy, but they could have done more. Of course looking at the trades they did do, perhaps it wouldn't have made a difference.

That is a joke right? Missed the blue font? Would probably be a great marketing opportunity. I think he was referencing back before the Brewers hired Roenicke and they said they didn't bring in Bob Melvin for fear that Melvin and Melvin would confuse people. More like a case where the manager puts in one Davis twice in the lineup instead of putting them both in.

It's unlikely that Cappy makes the team, but if he does it will likely be as a loogy or mop-up guy.

That would be more offensive to baseball purists than the DH. Maybe they should ban pitchers from throwing faster than 96 mph (anything over 96 would be a ball). What's killing the game are all these relievers who can come in for an inning and throw upper 90's heat. Maybe teams could designate one "hard throwing" reliever who would be exempt. Think of the strategy involved with deciding when to use your designated hard thrower? I can't see something along this line being offensive to purists. LOOGY/ROOGY garbage is a modern invention, and is less enjoyable to watch than Ben Sheets batting. End of inning or 3 batters minimum (whichever comes first) would be a very welcome change.

Oregon designers? That might be awful enough for me to become a Cubs fan.

Lohse is not in the starting rotation, that is a huge gain in value. Garza is likely to improve, or else demoted to mop-up duty. Those two were a combine 11-27, or 16 of the 26 games below .500 the Brewers were last year. The lineup isn't a world beater, but should be serviceable an has decent pop. Yes .500 is a pipe dream, and they don't make pipes big and strong enough to imagine them competing. The only reasons they may not improve on last year is the attitude that this is a lost season, and that they will sell off what they can after the break.

He should embrace it and use the imperial march as his walk up music. If he could get a bat painted like a light saber, even better.

They got enough grief doing something like that with JJ Hardy (only sent down for a month or so) and he was not preforming well at the time. Davis was one of the top HR hitters in the NL last year. The only way he spends time in the minors this year is if he needs rehab, or in the unlikely event he gets off to a catastrophically bad start.

DH isn't used heavily in HS ball (at least at the lower levels) since the pitches are often the best all-around players and they don't want to take those bats out of the lineup. If the NL does get the DH, should they really be the NL and AL anymore, or just the National Conference and American Conference? As a side note, the Brewers should hold on to Khris Davis until the vote comes through. If the NL does get the DH, his value goes up quite a bit.

What's Ben Sheets up to these days? Agree with the Block comments, he improved, but was lacking as the lead man without someone else providing color. I don't have any particular memories of Levering from last year, but regardless of how he was, he should be better and more comfortable behind the mike this year.

I just can't see this ever happening. It would be a great day in baseball but just cannot see it. It kind of depends on how many teams think they will benefit from this vs how many think they will be hurt. Baseball could always tell teams that if you don't want to share, they can't broadcast images of the other team.