And That

The thing that's weird is I'm pretty sure he would have gotten an NRI. They usually make it a point to announce those. We'll see.

This is Dave Parker's 15th year on the ballot? Wow.

Aaron Heilman wants to be a starting pitcher. I wouldn't give him much money to do it, but another option is another option.

JDLR's signing with the Rockies is confirmed. Another one off the board.

Per MLB Trade Rumors. "De La Rosa agreed to a three-year, $32MM deal. The pitcher maintained flexibility by securing a player option on the third year, while the Rockies added a fourth year club option at $11MM." I'm glad the Brewers didn't offer enough to sign him, if this is what it took.

Vazquez indeed signed with the Marlins.

According to Jon Paul Morosi of FoxSports. Vazquez wanted to play closer to home, and the Marlins seemed like a good fit. I know some here wanted the Brewers to sign him, but I don't think he ever wanted to come this far north.

If we trade McGehee, we still have Gamel. If we trade Weeks (which I don't think is something Doug would even consider unless we are out of it at the trade deadline), we still have Lawrie or Farris. If we trade Jeffress, we just have one less pitcher with big upside. I like Beckham, but why would we trade from a weakness into a strength in order to possibly trade back from the strength into a weakness again? I'm gonna claim Occam's razor here.

Floyd's fine and Beckham definitely has upside still, but why would we trade Jeffress to get Beckham when we: a)need pitching; b)have too many infielders?

Hinske and Boggs would fill two different roles on the team. Boggs doesn't play corner infield, so I don't think Boggs' signing precludes Hinske from being on the team. Edit: Boggs (as well as Gomez and Dickerson) has an option left, so there's definitely room for Hinske and Boggs in the system.

Was coming over here to post the exact same thing. Boggs has never really been on the prospect radar. From what I've read, his defense is serviceable in the OF. Not a whole lot of speed. Probably bad news for both Carlos Gomez and Joe Inglett.

McCalvy confirms the gentleman's agreement. Hoffman will decline the Brewers' arbitration offer and the Brewers will net a pick if and when he signs with another team.

McCalvy breaks the news. I'm somewhat surprised. If Hoffman declines and signs with another club before the draft, the Brewers will net an extra pick in the supplemental first round of the June draft. Earlier today on Twitter, I speculated that the Brewers wouldn't offer arbitration to Hoffman unless they had a handshake deal for Hoffman to decline the offer. Maybe they made a little deal after all. I asked, and neither McCalvy nor Melvin could remember such a dealduring Melvin's time here in Milwaukee.

Segovia was the Phillies' 2nd round draft pick in 2002. He had Tommy John surgery in fall 2003 and never got his fastball velocity back to a consistent low-mid 90's. He has/had some weight issues in the past and needs to keep his conditioning in check. He was the Phillies' 14th best prospect as recently as 2007, smushed between Carlos Ruiz and Kyle Kendrick on Baseball America's list. Segovia has decent velocity out of the pen - low 90's with a slider and changeup.

Yahoo's Tim Brown reaffirms the Brewers' interest in Washburn. Two other teams are interested, too.

Per Haudricourt. Votto wins his first MVP, capturing all but one of the first place votes. Pujols is the runner up, Carlos Gonzalez takes third. Ryan Braun was 15th, Corey Hart was 25th. Frankly, I'm surprised Votto was deemed classy enough to beat out Pujols.

Not exactly the same situation, but I remember at least a few people saying after the Suppan signing: "If he doesn't work out, we can always trade him." Turns out it is hard to move crappy contracts.

Signing Hinske would give the Brewers the depth to trade Gamel or McGehee for pitching if they decide to keep Fielder and make a run this year.

They are rumored to be in on Adam Dunn, too. I think both of those guys have to sign elsewhere before we see them hot after Prince again.

Up?Well, he probably wouldn't have the same dugout drainage issues in Enron Field Minute Maid Park that he has in Huntsville.

However, per the minor league forum, per a newspaper, the owner of the Huntsville Stars is. What a step up!

My takeaways were: - It was great to see Logan Schafer playing again. He's one of my favorites. Wonderful to see him taking walks. IMO, he's about as good a CF prospect as Lo Cain when healthy. - It was frustrating as hell to see Lawrie skip out on the AFL. - McClendon and Kintzler re-affirmed the Brewers' faith in their big league future. It's a tough go for pitchers in the AFL, and they shined. - Dan Merklinger quite probably earned a 40-man spot due to his performance. I comped him to Chris Narveson earlier, has about the same velocity. Upside is a #4/#5 starter or a LOOGY, but clearly the Brewers think he's closer to the former at this point. - While not a condemnation of his abilities, Luetge's performance was less than inspiring. I told myself that a good showing in the AFL would push him squarely into prospect status and into the Power 50. Unfortunately, not yet. I still like him, though. - Love the Justin James pickup, but I'm ambivalent about his performance here. - I'm slightly less not-sold on Mike Fiers than I was before. Thought his curveball may have been a plus pitch going into the AFL, but he hardly threw it. Fastball velocity was better than I thought it would be, but still not great (87-92), and don't know about stamina as a starter. He added a cutter mid-AFL season and it seemed to work. Scouts seemed to be unimpressed on the whole, but he keeps posting boggling peripherals. I don't see him as a starter, honestly, but I think he could end up being a decent reliever if his velocity jumps a few MPH in the pen. - Jeffress was overpowering, especially at the end, and walked more guys than he pitched innings. I don't know if it was progress or not. - Eric Farris is kind of the Mike Fiers of offense. No scouts like his bat, but he keeps hitting, he leads his AFL team in hitting even. His foot speed isn't overwhelming, but he steals a ton of bases at a ridiculous success rate. His defense is really good, almost no argument about it. If he'd play SS, he would probably be a top 10 prospect in the system. As it is, he's blocked by Weeks for about a year and by Lawrie potentially much longer. - I think the Brewers really like Hunter Morris. Like, REALLY LIKE Hunter Morris. Don't know about the 3B thing, though. His comments about playing third is akin to just wearing another glove makes me think that defense isn't his thing. Scouts agree. Which makes him the prototypical Brewers prospect. - In this age of aversion to batting average, the thing that bothers me about Caleb Gindl is his batting average. The further he gets up the food chain, the further the batting average limbo drops. That's troubling. A few years ago, I called him the Will Inman of the outfield. Unfortunately, I think this is where that could be going unless he figures out how to protect the plate against lefties and hit for more consistent power. The good news is that there is a lot of line-drive power in his bat, and he's only going into his 22 year old season. If he can play CF, which I think he could be good enough at (especially with his arm), he won't have to worry as much about his bat. Basically, I'm still as much in flux on my opinion of him as I was when we started the season... no, the regular season, in April.

I agree - the problem is that he's going to get at least a 2-year deal, so he'd need to repeat those results for a few years in a row. I'm less optimistic about that.

If no one gives him a big league deal, I'd have no problem giving him a minor league deal with an NRI. Pretty solid injury depth, if nothing else.

I'm 95% sure he can keep them. Nolan Ryan is now a partial owner of both the Texas Rangers and minor league teams Round Rock Express and Corpus Christi Hooks.