Jim Goulart

LHP Evan Frederickson, a mega-bust of a sandwich pick in '08, was released last March. That's some serious hope http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/smile.gif.

Like the Jaws theme -- bum-bum, bum-bum.... K-Rod may be forced to accept Brewers' arby

In this closer-filled free agent market, I can't see K-Rod getting more than 2/18M or 3/24M. If that's the case, why not swallow your pride and "settle" for $14-$15M for one season to set up, and then enter a less competitive closer free agent field in 2013? In an odd way, the Brewers might be able to justify paying the two back-end relievers $15.5 combined, but of course, that defeats the entire benefit a stud cheap closer gives you financially. I really think the Brewers will be questioning their arby offer as of Dec. 7th. Anybody else feel he's going to accept arby, as I do?

LINK Ken Williams is in a great position to deal one or two veteran relievers. By exercising Jason Frasor’s $3.75-million option last month, the White Sox made them four or five deep in right-handed relievers, depending on whether Zach Stewart pitches out of the rotation or bullpen. Williams can listen to offers for Jesse Crain and Frasor, but the most likely guy to get dealt is Matt Thornton. The 35-year-old lefty signed a deal last spring that guarantees him $12 million over the next two years, and remains one of the best lefty set-up guys in the majors. The Yankees, Red Sox, Blue Jays, Cardinals and Brewers are among the teams that appear to be tracking Thornton’s availability. Williams recently added a potential replacement for Thornton, signing minor-league free agent Donnie Veal to a major-league contract, which protects him from the upcoming Rule 5 draft. Left-hander Charlie Leesman is another possibility. Leesman, who was solid as a starter for Double-A Birmingham last season, is working out of the bullpen for Mayaguez this winter. He has pitched well, allowing two hits and one walk over 7 2-3 innings in his last six outings.

C'mon Brewers, get your promising kids out of harm's way....

You may have noticed it's been not quite so chockfull-of daily-news in the forum here over the past month or so. Normally I've always typed "we" when referring to the site's updates, meaning Brewerfan and its staff, moderators, etc., but in this post, I'll be using the first person, to give a personal big thank you to you all. I informed Brian, our site's founder and webmaster, a few weeks ago, that after 11 years of linking, organizing, copying, pasting, and trying to analyze minor league minutia in the form of the Link Report, transaction news, player feature links, etc., it's time for me to "step down". I believe Brian could not have been more gracious in his words to me upon hearing that, and among the many kind thoughts from him I appreciate, the one I'll take with me most is "you don't really see time spans of 11 years in anything online, let alone a complete labor of love like we've built here". That really hit me. Eleven years, especially the in-season Link Report challenge, which offers not a single day off for a minimum of five solid months each spring and summer. If it was going to come together, as it began and then evolved, it needed to be thorough. It needed to be detailed and thought-provoking and hopefully entertaining. It needed to blend in with the forum in combination with the feature articles and profiles to provide a complete picture of the Brewers' organization top-to-bottom, or in the more caustic big-league days of the early decade, bottom-to-top (as to be more hopeful). And it did. Although the Link Report began in the 2001 season, the full Link Report archives currently housed here begin in 2003. I think it's pretty cool that there is this day-to-day minor league history stored away that chronicles the paths that Prince, Corey, Rickie, J.J., Yovani, Ryan, and so many more took to their Brewer debuts, while also detailing the journeys of all of those who didn't quite reach their goal of big league glory, and that your comments, in many instances, discuss them along the way. I must acknowledge and thank individually one gentleman for providing me the confidence and spark to really pursue this endeavor, and that's Jim Powell. Early in the decade (yes, the Allen Levrault - Ruben Quevedo era), Jim was my eyes for big league Brewer baseball -- no MLB.TV package for PC back then, no Extra Innings for cable, just the online radio feed that allowed this lifetime Brewer fan from Massachusetts (please don't ask why or how, it's been explained here somewhere) to suffer through those tough days. Jim picked up on what was going on here at Brewerfan and made sure others knew about it. We shared more emails than I can remember. What a fantastic guy. A quick transition from Brewer audio and a bit of High Desert Maverick audio allowed yours truly to stay up late and pull off the Link Report feat, but at least I had Jim's call (along with Ueck, of course) to entertain me while typing things up. And things got really cool along the way. My inbox became full of really cherished communications with notes of thanks and encouragement from family members of Brewer farmhands, some of those players more highly regarded than others, but all with caring grandma's (somehow I did really well with the grandma's, who were all learning how to use email, I guess) and other family members. There would be a rare downer note, someone upset about something, but in that I normally tried to accentuate the positive, very few. All those announcers beating the bushes as well -- wonderful relationships there, too. The front office staffs working with me behind the scenes to keep me posted on things in as timely a manner as the big league front office would allow, thank you to you all. Nice notes shared with the local beat writers coast-to-coast, from Charleston, West Virginia to Adelanto, California, congratulating them on a particularly well-written or well-researched piece, and in turn, their note of appreciation to me for my efforts. All special. A nice part of this note is that actually, life is good. Health is solid (knock wood), the job is stable, the family is fine (and expanding in 2012, the same calendar year in which I turn a half-century, yikes). It's just going to be a critical year for me in aspects outside my love of baseball, and it will be best if my focus will be on those things, not that they were ever neglected before. My Link Report-season sleep quotient, especially in the early years -- yes, that was slightly neglected... Do know that I'll still be around commenting from time to time, still a huge fan of the Milwaukee Brewers and their farm clubs. I hope others jump in, in such a way this offseason, to keep this Minor League Forum updated with news and notes. That means you, our regular readers and posters, so don't be shy. You won't see me as a major "contributor" on other sites -- I didn't hire Scott Boras, it's not as if I head to free agency like Prince. I'll probably try to keep Brewerfan's Player Index and Transaction Database up-to-date, since I've invested so much time and effort to maintain its accuracy over the years. And I've been tweeting Brewerfan-related updates since last spring (most of you didn't notice http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/smile.gif), but should you choose, you can follow me @Mass_Haas, as I hope to be active there. There are some folks out there doing some really nice things in the Brewer interwebs. Keep it up, I enjoy reading. Keep it up for 11 years, and I'll wink an acknowledgement your way! I'm truly hopeful that this forum will continue to maintain a loyal following in whatever form it will take. I'm confident it will. Thanks Brian, for allowing me the chance to run with this. Thanks Patrick (colbyjack), Toby (And That), and Eric (Sessile Fielder). Thanks to all the staffers and mods and others I've worked with here who are so diligent behind the scenes. As I started this post with, thanks to you, readers and posters. And yes, my wife's been a saint -- thanks, honey.

Baseball America came out with their list of minor league free agents, and we pretty much nailed earlier Brewer projections. Use this thread to discuss your favorite free agent targets. The highlighted names below indicate those former Brewer farmhands now on the open market. The one name that is unaccounted for is 29-year-old RH reliever Jim Henderson, who recently pitched for Canada in their gold medal effort in the Pan Am games. It would not be surprising to learn in next week's transactions from BA that Henderson was re-signed for another season. C Anderson De La Rosa (RE-SIGNED FOR 2012) RHP Robert Hinton OF Brendan Katin Other potential (and likely) free agents: IF Erick Almonte (RE-SIGNED FOR 2012, SPRING TRAINING INVITE) C Patrick Arlis (RE-SIGNED FOR 2012) OF Brandon Boggs (previously designated for assignment) OF / 1B Jordan Brown C Dayton Buller (RE-SIGNED FOR 2012) RHP Darren Byrd (RE-SIGNED FOR 2012) RHP Mark DiFelice (previously designated for assignment) IF Andy Gonzalez RHP Sean Green RHP Jim Henderson RHP Justin James IF Felipe Lopez (previously designated for assignment) INF Anderson Machado SS Edwin Maysonet (RE-SIGNED FOR 2012, SPRING TRAINING INVITE) RHP Roque Mercedes (RE-SIGNED FOR 2012) LHP Sam Narron C Shawn Riggans C Mike Rivera (previously designated for assignment) RHP Jesus Sanchez (RE-SIGNED FOR 2012) UT Juan Sanchez (RE-SIGNED FOR 2012) RHP Zack Segovia SS Hainley Statia (RE-SIGNED FOR 2012) LHP Mitch Stetter (previously designated for assignment) IF Josh Wilson (previously designated for assignment) LHP Chase Wright

FYI -- we're now going to ride out the Brewer postseason first before re-focusing on a new P50 edition. Plenty to focus on at the big league level for now. Enjoy the ride.

This Tuesday, 10/4.

More from I.L.

Instructional League update, includes Tyler Thornburg

According to Baseball America this week, the Brewers and Statia have agreed to a new minor league deal for 2012 -- nice.

Adam McCalvy notes Amaury Rivas' elbow clean-up surgery

Chris Bosio will be the Sounds' AAA pitching coach in 2012.

Two more Instructional League reports via Matt Erickson (via Chris)

Tyler Thornburg replaces Jed Bradley -- Adam with the details.

Cory Provus 9/16 Pre-Game with RHP Mike Fiers

Rattler Radio Blog: Read all the posts from the past week or two, incuding some instructional league notes...

Haudricourt with a summary of the moves

Also D-Backs off to a flying 3-0 start in the 1st inning. Going to need a really sweet homestand to clinch home field.

Can somebody tell me what happened on the fly ball to Morgan that just scored two runs? Uecker said "inning should be over". Thanks.

The Power 50 was once a one-man domain (and bi-weekly, yet -- Toby was a wonderful machine, all for our benefit), but for reference, here was Yovani Gallardo's P50 path (read from bottom to top). And here's the July 10th, 2004 Power 50 in which Gallardo made his debut. Not a bad top four, huh? I counted 24 future big leaguers on that list (many for cups, or even sips, of coffee), and Jorge De La Rosa and Mike Adams have had impact careers elsewhere. Poor Tim Dillard was getting just dropped from the list even over seven years ago. Thought it might be relevant given the Jorge Lopez placement speculation...

Milwaukee is tied to Nashville (and Huntsville, only 90 miles away for you) through 2012. Perhaps beyond if no new opportunities arise; movement among affiliates has been very minimal in recent years.

Back story from a June 2010 thread

Not soon in the "within days" sense, but it will be available last week of September / first week of October. Thanks for your patience.