And That

I agree that relief pitchers have inherent lower value than starting pitchers due to the smaller number of innings they'll pitch in the big leagues if everything turns out well for them. A starting pitcher who can pitch 190 innings of 4.00 ERA ball is more valuable than a reliever who can throw 60 innings of 3.50 ERA ball. With that said... In the past, I've often been down on the value of relief pitcher prospects too. However, something the last few years of watching Doug Melvin build a bullpen have taught me is that perhaps I should value them more than I have. A small-mid payroll level team like the Brewers have to parse their spending more effectively than clubs with bigger payrolls. One of the places where the Brewers have spent a good chunk of money recently is in the bullpen - I don't think this is really a tenable practice moving forward as the offense and starting pitching gets more expensive. And really, except for a couple guys at the end of the bullpen, why overpay for the limited number of innings that 4th-7th guys in the pen are going to get? Developing effective (and hopefully exceptional) young, cheap relievers should be (and I think, is becoming) a priority for the Brewers as they have to realign more of their payroll costs out of the bullpen and in to rotation and everyday lineup. While people have cringed at a signing like Gagne or a trade like the Linebrink deal, those things were brought upon the Brewers by the ineffectiveness of their farm system in developing relievers. They develop literally two more decent relievers in the past two years, we still have Inman, Garrison, Thatcher (less the value of Frederickson and Dykstra, the comp picks) and whatever $10 mil would have bought us instead of Gagne last year. Relief prospects may not have a ton of intrinsic value as they relate to other types of prospects unless they are really dominating type guys, but they have a lot of value to a payroll-conscious team like the Brewers. I suppose you could argue that this logic follows the claim that I'm assigning more value to a prospect due to team needs (which I disagree with - if a guy is a good prospect, he's a good prospect whether he's blocked or not), but with so many teams at or below the Brewers' payroll level, relief prospects have a lot of value around the league. That's why I think guys like Aguilar and Dillard (and Pena when he's on) definitely have a claim at being amongst the best of the Brewers' prospects.

I spent nearly 3 hours in Archiver's today with my bride to be, designing our wedding invitations that we will at some point be making. This leads me to make three points: -It's amazing how much less expensive it is to make your own wedding invitations. -When we were looking at rubber stamps (which will no doubt add some degree of flourish and pizazz to our invitations) I saw Christmas stamps with words like "NOEL" and "JOY" and it occurred to me, has a guy named Noel ever married a girl named Joy? -Long Island Ice Tea at Tony Roma's are not very good, even when you have a few.

Fielder will be that much more valuable in the trade market if and after he hits 40+ bombs in '09. I think there's about a 99% chance the Brewers trade Fielder before he gets to free agency. They'll get a ton of value for Fielder (no fat pun intended) in the trade market if he's healthy and performing, whereas they get a couple picks if he leaves. I get the feeling that trade won't occur until next offseason, so yah, I hope he hits at least 40 bombs, and hits .290. The more trade value the merrier.

FS5 Touch Hockey is the only thing you need. I've played Fieldrunners and Chopper quite a bit, too. Ocarina is kind of fun. My fiance and I love using Urbanspoon to find new places to eat. And I use Remote a lot because I have wireless speakers and can control iTunes from the room the speakers are in (which is not the same as the room my computer is in).

I have the Brewers at around $75 mil right now, which might be a few million on the high side. http://images.yuku.com/image/jpeg/82835a1d4eb09ddbda8991e82d86dc0f7ecfbdd.jpg Like I've mentioned before, I still think they'll trade Cameron to the Yanks so the Yankees don't have to live through Damon playing CF. They may have another $6-7 mil to play with without trading Cam assuming the "cap" is $80 mil. If it is $85 mil, they have more than enough room to sign a good starter.

According to MyHeritage celebrity face recognition, the celebrity who most resembles me is supermodel Gisele Bündchen. I'm sure she's impressed. The celebrity who was second closest to me is David Hasselhoff. I'm not sure what to take from that.

According to Tim Brown, the Dodgers have offered a 1 year+2010 team option deal to Hoffman. No word on the money, or any of the specifics of the Milwaukee offer. I still think the Dodgers' "offer" is a bargaining ploy by Hoffman's agent, and if the Dodgers said Hoffman would be given a legitimate shot to win their closer's job, this deal would already be done IMO.

Super 2 has to do with arbitration, not free agency. You're a free agent after 6 years on the roster (or DL, or restricted list, or bereavement list, etc.).

I think they are using LA as just negotiation tool. I thought of this too as soon as I read of LA's parallel interest to ours. Well, either that or vice versa. I hope this all gets decided soon - if the Brewers don't sign Hoffman, I have a feeling Melvin will trade for (and overpay for) a veteran closer.

Probably not - they wouldn't be facing the same batters for one thing. Villy also throws both pitches harder, especially his change.

I'd say the Brewers have plenty of depth if they sign Hoffman, but beyond Hoffman, Villanueva and Riske, I don't necessarily see the quality. They have a number of guys that could be good, but also might suck. To that end, I'm pretty confident Lyon would not suck, hence I think he would be a good addition. Given his "bad" year last year, I also think he might come a little more cheaply, something in the Riske range. If/when the Brewers trade Cameron, they'll have enough money to make two good additions to the bullpen, and still add a starter. If they end up not trading him (which would surprise me, but also be fine with me), then yah, you sign Hoffman and a starter and then see if you have any money left for another bullpen guy.

Lyon's Type B status means nothing to the Brewers. They don't have to give up anything. I believe Cameron is still going to be traded to the Yankees, and I think that Hoffman and Lyon will be had (by someone) at pretty big discounts. So yes, I think they might be able to squeeze in Hoffman, Lyon and a starter. But you might be right about going after Hoffman and a better starter than the one they'd get if they signed Lyon too.

Hoffman has always been talked about as a one year deal guy, and I'd certainly take him at one year, but two years, or two and an option, make more sense for the Brewers if he'd sign it. He is not an injury risk and he doesn't rely on velocity so his age at the end of a two or three year deal doesn't bother me one bit. Plus with the market the way it is, wouldn't you want to lock in a guy you might not ordinarily even be able to get to a deal that will maximize his unusual value to you? I hope they sign him, but I hope it is for more than one year. I'd be thrilled with two years and an option. If Hoffman signs, it must put to rest any interest the Brewers have in Juan Cruz. However, I'd still like to see them go after Brandon Lyon or re-sign Guillermo Mota at the very least. Hoffman+Lyon, coupled with the signing of a Looper or even Jon Garland (who I suspect might be starting to look at a one year deal) or Paul Byrd gives the staff enough depth for the time being.

For every 100 Jeffress types that make it, 1 Jaime Moyer type make it. Moyer is literally one it at least a thousand. Jeffress has 15-20 MPH on Cody and is eons younger in baseball years. Cody might make it, but unless he gets injured, Jeffress will see big league time.

Just tried to watch it for the first time and it turns out it is on the Comcast Sports Tier in the Twin Cities. Oh well.

Link to MLBTR. Very good deal for the Rays, assuming Burrell passes his physical.

Was his name Mick Fleetwood?

I guess it depends on how big of a net one is willing to cast with the term "average." If you go strictly by the median production, no, he might not be. However, I think a valid case can be made that he's certainly just about average. And you have to include the clowns - their production is legitimate production, even if the production was barely legit. For my money, I expect roundabout average production from him next year... I think his batting average is bound to rise some - this is a guess, but even if his BA rises to his career average of .245, he has an average OBP and is closing in on an average SLG. I also think he has the potential to hit maybe 30-40 points higher than '08, and that would put him above average in the OPS department. So part of his averageishness is still potential - almost any upswing at all and he is beyond refute, average. The other piece of this is his defense. As endaround just mentioned, UZR/150 has him below average (they seem to have most 2B at or below average from what I quickly looked through), but most metrics have him at or slightly above average. With more than the UZR data point, I find it tough to argue he's definitely below average defensively and once again I think it's fairly easy to say he's about average, give or take. If he isn't average, are there 8 second basemen in the NL right now that you'd take over him without a second thought? I'd take Utley and Uggla for sure. If Hudson stays in the NL and at 2B, him also. That's three. DeRosa is gone to the AL. Weeks has a significant advantage in OBP over Barmes, Phillips and Sanchez. I'd probably take Kelly Johnson or Rafael Furcal over Rickie, but they're close. Felipe Lopez is about the same. Ronnie Belliard maybe? I have a hard time coming up with eight. He's obviously not in the top tier of second basemen, but he seems to be in and around the large second tier. Finally, FWIW, fangraphs has him with the 6th highest WPA among second basemen last year (and it's a positive number).

Not only have I driven it from Milwaukee-Phoenix, I have driven it from St.Paul-Milwaukee (for Kopps and say hi to Brian)-Phoenix. And I've driven back and forth from St. Paul-Phoenix two other times. It's not that bad. It's not the most exciting drive in the world, but if you do it I would at least recommend taking different routes there and back. Like, say drive through Texas there and up the Rockies in to Denver (I-25 north from Albuquerque to Denver is awesome). If you're dedicated, you can do it in 24-25 hours.

FPS Football '96 is still my second favorite football game of all time, next to Tecmo SuperBowl. Their baseball game was a favorite of sim leagues before OOTP, too. OOTP has been expounded on enough by Sam already, so I'll just quietly add my vote for best baseball sim out there.

I think it's possible I forgot to put on deodorant this morning.

Floyd's average fastball in '08 was 90.9 MPH, and in his career he averages 91.0. Dissecting one game's worth of stats only gives you a vague idea of his fastball velocity. If you caught Ben Sheets on a bad night last year, you might make the mistake of saying he only throws 89-91. If you caught him on a good night, maybe he throws 95-97.

We had no chance to sign Sabathia and Torres retired - both of those things were totally out of the Brewers' control. If you want to demerit their offseason success a few nothces because the Yankees threw Monopoly money at CC and Saloman wanted to spend more time with his kids, you are certainly more than welcome to, but I don't because it wasn't plausible to retain either. The Brewers could have thrown a few million bucks at Branyan, but he understandably wanted a much better shot to play every day, and Jack Z. gave that shot to him. I believe the crux of the argument in this thread is that the Brewers haven't gone out and gotten anyone to really bolster the team. My point was, the same thing is going on in Boston and most places around the league.

Patrick, I believe the difference between all the acronyms you listed are just what local authorities call the offense. They are all essentially DWI.

It would be pretty hard to arrest anyone for drunk driving if you are not allowed to test them scientifically for drunkenness. I'm not a legal expert by any stretch, but I would guess the answer to why the police are allowed to legally extract blood from your body on suspicion of drunk driving has to do with the government's ability to control who is allowed to legally drive (i.e., through driver licensing and the criteria needed to get one). The government *allows* you to drive and may take away that privilege. Testing for drunkenness seems to be within their jurisdiction of potentially taking away the privilege to drive. If they weren't allowed to test objectively test for drunkenness, their authority over drunk driving wouldn't have a whole lot of teeth.