PeaveyFury

Recruiting has really been a remarkable surprise. There was (probably rightfully) a LOT of concern about Chryst as a recruiter, especially considering the successes that Bielema had while he was here. Chryst has, at a minimum, maintained that level of recruiting if not elevated it a bit. They're still not in the same stratosphere as Ohio State and the like, but they've been very good overall.

If the over/under on MVS & St. Brown's performance this year is to merely surpass the performance of Allison/Kumerow, I'll take the over every day of the week.

If the over/under on MVS & St. Brown's performance this year is to merely surpass the performance of Allison/Kumerow, I'll take the over every day of the week.

Or maybe just more time to have more ABs period. It's completely unsurprising that a guy like Holt is starting to revert to career norms, as I'd expect most of the Brewers' horribly under-performing hitters to do as the season extends.

Or maybe just more time to have more ABs period. It's completely unsurprising that a guy like Holt is starting to revert to career norms, as I'd expect most of the Brewers' horribly under-performing hitters to do as the season extends.

Really liked the series overall, but thought the last season was a bit weak. Did what it had to do in wrapping up all of the story lines, but other than Cullen's 'Chuck Norris-like' scene near the end (which was awesome), I thought the final season showed it was a good thing the show was ending. Finished the 30 episodes of Peaky Blinders to date, and I was very impressed with the show. Very much looking forward to the final couple of seasons, but annoyed that like so many BBC shows, it'll take them 5 calendar years to finish the 12 episodes somehow. On to some HBO stuff next. Haven't done True Detective yet, so deciding between that, The Wire, and a Sopranos re-watch.

Really liked the series overall, but thought the last season was a bit weak. Did what it had to do in wrapping up all of the story lines, but other than Cullen's 'Chuck Norris-like' scene near the end (which was awesome), I thought the final season showed it was a good thing the show was ending. Finished the 30 episodes of Peaky Blinders to date, and I was very impressed with the show. Very much looking forward to the final couple of seasons, but annoyed that like so many BBC shows, it'll take them 5 calendar years to finish the 12 episodes somehow. On to some HBO stuff next. Haven't done True Detective yet, so deciding between that, The Wire, and a Sopranos re-watch.

Chris Orr reportedly cut. I wonder if the Packers would look, considering Martin’s injury. I still think Orr is an NFL caliber LB.

Yeah, the bats have big, big names associated with them, but like I said, I'm certain I'd pull a garbage name rather than a Griffey or whomever. ~$160 for a bat is a pretty reasonable price if you pull a worthwhile name, so that seemed interesting. I'm also confused by the authentication- are they saying that they're obtaining pre-signed authenticated items rather than acquiring them from the players? Getting a signed Yount glove sounds awesome, but not if it's authenticated by 'Bob's authentication service.'

Have any collectors here bought anything from Hit Parade? The concept is really interesting- basically, you buy a moderately but not excessively expensive box, and it contains a random auto'd piece of equipment (football helment, baseball bat/glove/ball/batting helmet, etc.). Curious if anyone has made a purchase, and if so, what they ended up getting. There are some really great names included, but I'm sure that if I bought one I'd end up with a crap auto. https://www.dacardworld.com/sports-cards/hit-parade

You've made that clear by posting it 682 times.

Vogelbach was an All-Star LAST YEAR?

Perfect, thanks!

I don't know about crappy. I was thinking more "meh". I don't think it's crappy if it's done by you or me or even as a small-scale/local business logo. With the resources available to the Brewers and American Family, though, that's an astoundingly bad graphics department effort.

Yeah. They certainly made that look astoundingly crappy.

I'm hoping someone here might have a PSA slabbed (after the 2013-ish change in their slabs!) card that you'd be willing to measure the thickness of the plastic slab for me? PSA publishes their width and height, but not depth/thickness. I have mostly BGS slabs currently, and I'm wondering how comparable they are in size. Thanks for anyone willing to check!

That's simply not accurate. The farm system dramatically improved, then they used it to acquire the players that got them to the playoffs the last two years, dropping it down again.

No, wasting talent is wasting talent, and that transcends throughout sports. I'd bet my next paycheck that if you asked Theo, he'd agree that they should have won more. Perhaps slightly more eloquently than Wolf put it, but I doubt he'd argue the point as you are choosing to. The same amount as there have been in the NFL, actually. One need look no further than a team like the Giants, who who 3 World Series titles in 5 seasons between 2010-2014 to note how you can build a sustained winner in modern baseball.

I suppose Epstein can take credit for appointing his scouting director, who is the person actually responsible for the drafting of those players. I suppose he could also get credit for retaining his eventual successor as GM in Boston, who was left to clean up the mess he left there and did so fairly successfully. No, it's not half, as I think it's much more than that. It certainly is under Ron Wolf's logic. Taking an ultra-talented team that should have won more and ending up feeling like you left a lot on the table is exactly where the Cubs are. That team was setup to win far more then they actually did, and you can point right to the top as the reason why. Are Cubs fans fine with one title? Sure. Would Brewer fans happily accept one title at this point too? Sure. But just like Packer fans who now look back at the Ron Wolf/Brett Favre/Aaron Rodgers eras, you realize after the fact that you really should have ended up with a heck of a lot more than you actually did.

Pretty much where I'm at as well. Of course every one of us wanted (still wants?) this season to go better, but I'm not willing to start making long-term judgements after 30-some days. The organization can and will reevaluate in the off season, which is also 30-whatever days away, and the have very little tied up into anything that would prevent them from overhauling the roster again if they want.

Right? This season was a jumbled mess for obvious reasons. I think drawing any conclusions on much of anything based off of 30-whatever games is difficult.

I’d argue you have it backwards- other than maybe Beane, and with a nod to Friedman’s time in Tampa, those are the competent GMs. Stearns is outstanding because he worked with a fraction of the funds those guys did. All you have to do with a monster payroll and deep pockets to eat huge contracts that don’t work out is be competent. Of course, large market GMs have more of a margin of error than small market teams, but to suggest that alone limits them to being competent is baseless. No, it's the generally poor job they did overall as far as actual results and the high amount of whiffs each of them were responsible for that suggest that. I firmly believe that a guy like Epstein is just a guy if he doesn't have the deep pockets of the Boston and Chicago markets behind him. Yep, he used the deep pockets of his owner and bought Chicago the singular World Series title the fans were so desperate to have, while bungling away a more sustained ability to compete. Making them the 'fart in the wind' that Ron Wolf so eloquently referred to 'one-and-done' teams as. And for the monstrous payroll that Friedman has had in LA, coupled with massive free agent signings and a good farm system, by my count he has as many World Series rings as Stearns does. Winning in Milwaukee is hard. There's a huge, natural disadvantage. Melvin was able to overcome that to a degree, and Stearns has proven the ability to elevate that to a much higher new level. To answer the question in the topic title, if anything, the attitude of the fan base this year has caused me to lose more confidence in their ability to accurately identify the qualify of what we have and who we have in control vs. any sort of assessment of the front office's abilities....

I’d argue you have it backwards- other than maybe Beane, and with a nod to Friedman’s time in Tampa, those are the competent GMs. Stearns is outstanding because he worked with a fraction of the funds those guys did. All you have to do with a monster payroll and deep pockets to eat huge contracts that don’t work out is be competent.

Gyorko is on bereavement leave.

Gyorko's been pretty good...