And That

Just watched for a bit, but I think Diplan got swinging Ks on all three of his pitches - fastball, curveball, change.

Free Colin Walsh.

Couple of quick observations from the T-Rats games the past few days... It looks like Torres-Costa lobs the ball up there, kind of reminds me of Brian Shouse with his low-mid 3/4s arm slot and overall wonky delivery. He doesn't have the prototypical side-arming LOOGY frisbee slider, though, or at least he didn't throw one. No gun reading, but I'd be shocked if he hit 90. Owenby seems to have decent velocity, but has a number of moving parts in his delivery. I could see how it would be difficult to repeat. Harber was throwing 92-94 by the stadium gun, and that seemed to be legit by the eye test. Drossner was 90-91, and also showcased a big ol' 12-6 curveball. By his box score line, it would look like he was throwing darts, but he had a lot of deep counts... command was not all the way there. I'm going to drop a Chad Ogea comp on Alex Farina. Delivers pretty square to home plate with what looks like a short-arm throw. No velocity reading, but I'm guessing he was 90-91 max. Monte Harrison appears to have lost little to no speed post-ankle surgery. He scored the only run in yesterday's game from second base on a groundball to left field, with the left fielder playing about as shallow as a left fielder is going to get. Probably ill-advised, but he beat the tag because the throw was a little up the first base line. I am more impressed with Max McDowell every time I see him.

Hader has been allowed around/a little under 90 pitches mostly this year, he's just been extremely inefficient.

The Royals were responsible for developing exactly two members of their rotation last year, plus Herrera and Holland in their bullpen. It's not impossible to have a very good pitching staff if you're not the one developing talent.

Guerra could be a possibility, as is Hader. Lopez and Houser started last night so they'd be on normal rest, but neither has been exactly scintillating so far.

Per MLB app alert. I don't know that Colorado Springs is the best place to work on a curveball, but godspeed.

This is the most true thing in this thread. Undoubtedly teams want to amass as many top-end pitching prospects as possible, but on the other hand look at what got Houston to the playoffs last year: Dallas Keuchel: 7th round pick, never a top 100 prospect, 493 minor league IP Collin McHugh: 18th round pick, never a top 100 prospect, 657 minor league IP Scott Feldman: 30th round pick, never a top 100 prospect, 215 minor league IP Mike Fiers: 22nd round pick, never a top 100 prospect, 483 minor league IP Lance McCullers: 1st round pick, top 50 prospect, 262 minor league IP Scott Kazmir: 1st round pick, top 10 prospect, 278 minor league IP Vince Velasquez: 2nd round pick, top 80 prospect, 296 minor league IP Roberto Hernandez: NDFA, top 80 prospect, 683 minor league IP Neither Keuchel nor McHugh, the two mainstays of the rotation, were well-regarded prospects and have spent more than 1100 innings in the minor league between them. Hernandez (nee Fausto Carmona) was well-regarded but spent a lot of time in the minors. Feldman got to MLB quickly despite being a low round pick. We all know about Fiers. And then McCullers, Kazmir, and Velasquez were all high-end arms. To bring this back to the Brewers, no doubt the pitching outside of Nelson has been disheartening. But the lesson from the Astros is that pitchers without a world class pedigree emerge and can anchor an MLB rotation. Granted the Brewers haven't exactly been a shining light of the ability to develop these kinds of guys, but for every Lopez and Hader we hope and dream on, a guy like Jon Perrin or Angel Ventura could step up and make significant contributions. It's just all extremely difficult to foresee how it'll all play out. Developing pitching is a crapshoot. I'm not worried about the Brewers' future mound hopes despite the lackluster start to the season by the big league staff and some minor league prospects. The Brewers have ample time to iron it out.

Ben Sheets?

If I understand the rule correctly, you can't move someone to the 60-day DL unless you need the 40-man roster spot for someone else.

Perrin throws a little harder than Fiers and maybe has a little more movement, but his delivery doesn't appear to be as deceptive. And just a minor correction, he throws a slider, not a curveball.

Not only the curveball, but Jungmann's change was complete garbage today. Have to wonder if they'll make a move with him soon.

In 24 innings this year, Perrin has struck out 29 versus 0 - zero - walks. I watched him pitch for one inning yesterday, the inning with the pop fly 30 feet behind third base that no one saw. I believe TheCrew had a radar gun on him last year that clocked his FB in the upper 80s/low 90s, and without Mehring giving any velocity readings I'd have to guess, but it looks like he was throwing about that hard last night. It looks like he has a change-up and slider (slurve?) mix. None of his offerings were super impressive, but his command certainly was. He also seemed to repeat his delivery pretty well and maintain arm speed on the change/breaking ball. But again, that was from one inning of work.

I'm not advocating for or against it, that's a financial decision for the Brewers to weigh. Like I said, people would be beating down the Brewers' door if they put it out there that they were willing to eat that much money to move Braun. But would those offers be worth it? Who knows.

I was inferring neither of those things. I infer that you were reading things into a statement in order to disagree. To summarize: At 80%, window breaking. At 5%, probably not window breaking. And not an either/or. Also, this seems to disagree with your stance from about six weeks ago.

Braun's trade value to other clubs is also directly tied to how much of Braun's contract the Brewers would be willing to take on. If the Brewers were willing to pay 80%-90% of the remainder of the contract, I imagine there would be teams jumping through Stearns' window trying to get a deal done if Braun keeps this up for another month or two. If the Brewers aren't willing to kick in much, or just pay the deferrals, probably not so much.

re: Honeywell, I don't believe it's ever been proven that the screwball is any harder on the pitcher's arm than a curve, but the terms "screwball" and "prospect" together make me extremely nervous. And makes my elbow hurt a little.

Metropolitan populations: Seattle: 3,733,580 Atlanta: 5,710,795 Boston: 4,774,321 Milwaukee: 1,575,747 There just aren't as many people to draw from for the Brewers.

The Angels are right up against the luxury tax and have stated that they are unwilling to break the threshold and pay the tax. IIRC, they only had a few million to spend as of the end of spring training.

It also depends on the Brewers' internal analysis of Braun's future contributions to the club. If they think his back is going to give out before the end of the year, they'll obviously take a worse offer than if they think he'll be a 5 WAR player for the next 3-4 years. Besides the incoming offers being unknowable, the Brewers' own valuation of Braun is unknowable with any precision.

Probably true, though as the saying goes, it only takes one offer.

No stadium and too close to Milwaukee. They'd be competing against themselves for attendance.

First, can the bolded part. Second, as discussed a number of times previously, the primary motivator of the ownership is to increase the valuation of the franchise, not really to have the Brewers entity turn a yearly cash profit. In terms of taxes, it may actually benefit some member of ownership to have a loss. These are all rich dudes - I don't imagine they care that much about whether or not they're paying Braun $20 mil this year, as long as they get to sell an ownership stake for a 300% profit at some point in the future. If Braun has potential value as a trade chip, it makes sense to wait until you're getting commensurate value back, or close to it.

Nottingham is doing just fine. I've seen maybe half of his ABs... he doesn't look over-matched, he doesn't look frustrated, he's striking out and walking at about career norms. He's just had absurdly bad luck as it seems everything he hits hard - and he is hitting balls hard - gets caught. He's also looked at least competent behind the plate and just last night he made a really nice throw to nab a runner trying to advance to 3rd on a wild pitch. Strike right on the bag. And don't forget about Bubba Derby. I imagine the Brewers are very pleased with the early returns, especially with how Santana/Braun are performing.