adambr2

Maybe if he puts together a few more nice starts. It would come down to how much salary we're willing to eat, I think.

2 starts isn't much to go on, but if the Mets were willing to take his remaining $10M or so this year off our hands, I'm sure we'd gladly accept. I think it's more likely the Mets just claim Milone, or send us cash/PTBNL (minors filler) for him.

I totally agree with taking a shot with Braun but why do it for Bandy instead of Franklin? Bandy has a pretty decent power bat.

Would have preferred Knebel there but I'm glad at least he was willing to go to one of his best and not 'save' then for later.

I guess the lineup figures after all the run support they've given Wily this year, they're taking tonight off.

I remember him hitting a HR once. That's the only positive thing I ever remember him doing.

Yeah, especially with Braun out, I don't really get it. Aguilar and Franklin are horrendous. There's no need to look for a way to work one into the lineup everyday with Braun out. Broxton has had a rough start to the year but he's really not that far off. His OPS is around .600, it would not take that long of a hot streak to get it up to his career mark of .731 which would be perfectly acceptable for an elite CF glove.

It doesn't even need to be about 2018. There's no reason Shaw can't help us in 2019, 2020, and even beyond if he proves to be the best option. Shaw is not a 34 year old on the last leg of his career. The guy is 27 and under club control for 5 seasons. For someone who is already at least an average MLB regular, that is a good thing. I want Stearns to take the best deal, and he DID get a pretty nice prospect too. Shaw is also a nice piece. The best deal isn't always going to be a top 75 prospect in High A ball. Controllable talent at all levels.

I would rather DFA Aguilar than Franklin. Neither can hit, but at least Franklin is versatile. Also only been 2 starts but there should be no hurry to DFA Garza as long as he's pitching well.

We literally traded Smith, who was injured earlier in the year and having a mediocre year for Bickford like 5 months earlier. You could make the argument that Jeffress got us Ortiz (or at minimum Cordell, who I'm not a huge fan of but is a decent enough prospect.) I'm saying a prospect like Bickford or Ortiz (not necessarily a pitcher) but a prospect of that caliber would make more sense for us to acquire at this time for one of our trade pieces than acquiring Shaw would. We have no idea if an offer like that was even on the table. Smith was a lefty traded at the deadline. Thornburg was traded in the off-season after building up some value down the stretch as a closer. And we don't know yet what kind of value Dubon and Pennington will end up having. Dubon is arguably already a more highly rated prospect than Bickford.

Don't forget Hochevar was 1st overall and he amounted to a BP arm, and not even an elite one. I have no idea who Greg Reynolds is (#2), I wouldn't say Brad Lincoln or Brandon Morrow (#4/#5) were world beaters either. 8, 9, 12, 13, 14 were mediocre to total busts too. I don't even trust that Brewer management would have picked Kershaw, Timmy, or Scherzer anyway. And it's not even certain that our system would have developed them into the players they became. In 2007 we took Matt Laporta. Madison Bumgarner went 3 picks later. We picked Jungmann right before Jose Hernandez in 2011. Still gotta make the right picks. Look, if it's July 30th and you're 20 games under .500, then by all means tank away and sell, sell, sell. But why would you want to tank your entire 162 game season every year right when it begins before you even know what you have? It's not a good way to build relationships with your players, coaches, and fans, that's for sure.

The fact that he's a 27 year old average player with little upside on a rebuilding team and we went out and sought a trade for him? I completely disagree with the way Stearns is handling this rebuild and I don't know if he has Attanasio in his ear telling him not to bottom out but it's like they're afraid to lose 100 games when that would be infinitely better than losing 86. I agree with a lot of what you say many times but I cannot get behind this mentality at all. No rebuild is created equal, but the goal here is not to lose as many games as possible to get the highest possible draft picks until we can pinpoint when we're ready to contend again. There's a lot more at play. If you're perennially losing 100+ games, you're likely to see fan interest falling, and sometimes it's hard to get it back. That's obviously going to affect revenue, and potentially, free agent interest when we're ready to contend again. They are not afraid to lose 100 games. They went out and sold their all-star centerfielder, their all-star catcher, their top 3 bullpen arms, a good left fielder, their starting shortstop, and they attempted to sell Braun, all in the course of the last two years. Maybe this isn't an 86 loss team. Maybe it's an 80 loss team. That's still not good enough, but it's a lot easier to figure out how far you need to go when you're an 80 loss team versus when you're a 100 loss trainwreck. I also think you're putting too much stock into draft position. Corey Ray was mocked #1 in many mocks last year, and no one would have argued had he gone #1. He went 5. Kyle Lewis, despite the injury, might end up being the best player from that round and he went #11. Unless you have a no-brainer, can't miss #1 like a Bryce Harper, which most drafts don't, it's way too early in the evaluation process to worry about a few draft spots. Obviously, earlier is better, but not at the expense of everything else. There's long-term goals, obviously, but players and managers still have short-term goals to win games, even if championship aspirations aren't realistic. You really set a bad precedent if you're the FO who tosses all that out the window and ignores all short-term goals at the expense of frustrating your players, coaches and fans. I also don't agree with your evaluation of Shaw. He's never going to be a star in this league, but he may be fully capable of being a 30 HR, 2.5-3 WAR player with good defense. That has value, very good value, actually, especially for a cost-controlled player. And if you determine you're further away than you thought, the roster is always fluid, and you can look to trade him later. He's 27. There's absolutely nothing set in stone that says he can't be part of a playoff Brewer team at age 30 in 3 years. He's part of the evaluation process right now. In any event, who is he blocking? Lucas Erceg is not exactly knocking the door down to the MLB club this year. I am stunned that anyone completely disagrees with the way Stearns is handling the rebuild. The rebuild appears to be going about as well as could be expected. This is a young team, 5th youngest before they cut Milone, probably younger now. It's not like they are doing this with a team of aging vets. I think you would even admit Thames was obviously a very smart move. I have no issue with Shaw. He wasn't even the main piece in the deal, and I think they wanted to make sure to cut bait with Thornburg now before more injury issues arose, which appears to have been right on the money. Obviously, Stearns isn't batting 1.000, nor has any GM ever done so, but what isn't he doing that you would like to see him do? I just don't understand. Not every trade made it going to be straight up players for young prospects.

What's the problem with Shaw? Should be good for 25-30 HR and serviceable defense at 3rd. Can't have a Braun or Thames at every position. The guy is 27, its not like he couldn't be here for a few years. Difference between #9 and #13 in the draft or whatever difference Shaw makes is relatively meaningless.

This is a whole other conversation, but in my opinion the 'closer' is one of the most overrated and silly positions in professional sports, and it blows my mind that most teams continued to be married to one year after year like sheep, and pay highly disproportionate prices for them. In our case I would guess we are hoping that we can take advantage of that and sell Feliz at the deadline, but I don't have a ton of confidence he's going to be worth much.

Escaped, and don't get me wrong, this is one of the most satisfying wins of the season, but Feliz is just brutal to watch.

What did Perez do? Not understanding here...

That wasn't even a bad pitch. Shaw just golfed it out.

SHAW!!!!

Go sit down, Santana, you have no case there.

Wow nice agility there Hernan!

Are you sure it was called? Can't imagine Pina with 0 career sac bunts makes that call on his own. And he's not exactly a bunt for a basehit guy. Nice inning by Drake.

Also going to be costly tonight was a very dumb decision by Counsell to sac bunt with nobody out and a runner already at 2nd with a very hot hitting Pina to set it up for Aguilar. Just not smart.

Screw this bullpen. Seriously.

These reliever walks in close games with no one on are just maddening. Is there no one in this pen who can simply throw strikes?

And just one more run now from blowing another big lead...