adambr2

Wow, that's a loaded draft.

It's really not, as those concerns about him being a reach were expressed at the time of the draft, not just now that he's struggled. I understand why people love the upside of Kodi's arm, but he always carried a high risk. He was a very aggressive, boom or bust pick. There was always the likelihood that even if he makes it, it'll never be as a starter. No one is writing him off yet but there needs to be some major improvement in the near future on his walk rates if he's ever going to progress further.

I'm flabbergasted with the success that Jed Bradley has had since we traded him. To me, it's an alarming red flag with regard to our minors coaching to see that drastic of a change just by changing organizations.

I'm more excited about this team than I have been in a long time and I'm sure I will be going into 2017. OF: I really, really like Broxton. Best case scenario I think he's capable of a 20/60 HR/SB season with gold glove defense. While he probably doesn't hit that mark and likely won't be quite as good as he was in the 2nd half, I think he's a 3 WAR player. Brinson is probably ready, but I think you've got to wait until midseason for service time reasons. Santana probably holds down RF and we end up with a Broxton/Brinson/Santana OF after the break if Braun is traded. IF: Unless blown away by an offer for Carter, no reason not to bring him back. I hope to see Scooter traded and Villar go to 2nd full time, where I think his defense is best suited and his offense will play very well there. I agree with others about possibly seeing a name we might not know yet at 3rd next year. I prefer Perez as a super utility guy. Just think how valuable Villar, Broxton, and Guerra are to our team, and these guys weren't even on anyone's radar a year ago. If we add 3 more guys along the same lines in 2017, we could contend sooner than people think.

I wanted Baltimore to win, but seeing the awful 'conventional wisdom' of saving your closer for a lead on the road in extras take one on the chin was a justified moment that will hopefully lead to change in said wisdom. I am absolutely blown away that here in 2016, with an encyclopedia of information and statistics at our disposal, there are actual award winning managers that still believe that you should save your closer on the road in extras and use your inferior pitchers to try to protect a tie game.

I am certainly still rooting for Medeiros as well, and I have probably been overly harsh on him. I was just really disappointed in his High A season this year. I thought he was going to be a breakout player in the system.

Marco Estrada's name isn't brought up very often when we discuss guys we sold too low on, but it probably should be.

My brain on first glance read 'David Stearns fired,' I just about fell out of my chair.

I do agree that if you're going to reach for a kid like Medeiros at #12 as part of a bonus pool strategy, you had better be right about him. So far, the Brewers scouts have been very wrong about him. Maybe a career out of the pen can still be salvaged, but when your walk rates are so bad that you can't even find success in Brevard County, that's not a good sign.

Gomez would have had that.

Too bad Fielder retired, or you'd have Lucroy, Gomez, Fielder, and Jeffress all on the same squad.

Gallardo. (I made the same mistake in a tweet earlier this year.) I guess I was thinking in terms of a true ace, which IMO Sheets was the one and only. I always thought of Gallardo as a solid #2, but not a #1 starter.

Prince Fielder has got to be right up there. At least Howard's contract was not nearly as much and he was at least able to finish, or at least well, stumble to the end of his contract. To the Tigers' credit at least they were able to pass along some of Prince's contract to someone else before it was too late.

I've always gone back and forth as to whether Jeffress should be considered a successful 1st round pick, or just lumped in as a successful scrap heap pick up. One of those rare ones that benefitted us in major trades twice, though I don't believe he was considered a major piece in the Greinke deal IIRC.

The long Achilles heel of this organization has been to develop good starting pitching. It's sadly no exaggeration to say that this system has produced one true frontline starting pitcher (Sheets) in the last 25 years. Just for historic reference, I looked back at our top pitching prospects from 5 years ago. It's not a pretty sight. You've got Peralta, who at least has had his moments. Then you've got Cody Scarpetta, Kyle Heckathorn, and Nic Bucci. It makes me wonder if we should pause a little bit on the expectations of our current pitching prospects, or if it's simply that the prior generation list simply wasn't up to par with the ones we have now. Or if there is a systematic coaching problem with our pitchers down on the farm.

I always found it ironic that Joe Morgan, who hated all things money ball and saber, is pretty much the prototype for the kind of player advanced analytics would have loved.

All that said, mistakes aside, a nice shiny 3.1 WAR for Villar this year. I think we'd take that from just about anyone, and certainly none of us expected him to be this good this quickly. It's a great start and the fact that he still has things he needs to improve on shows he can get even better.

Counsell mentioned in his post season press conference that his players were asked to push the envelope on the base paths this year, that this was by design, to get a feel for their capabilities. Villar probably took that further than Counsell intended but I thought it was worth mentioning and probably helps explain why Villar generally didn't face any repercussions for his mistakes. With that said, I don't remember much of anything egregious by Villar on the bases the last couple months.

1. Lewis Brinson 2. Isan Diaz 3. Josh Hader 4. Corey Ray 5. Luis Ortiz 6. Phil Bickford 7. Brandon Woodruff 8. Brett Phillips 9. Trent Clark 10. Marcos Diplan 11. Jorge Lopez 12. Lucas Erceg 13. Cody Ponce 14. Gilbert Lara 15. Jacob Nottingham 16. Ryan Cordell 17. Jacob Barnes 18. Freddy Peralta 19. Brent Suter 20. Nathan Kirby 21. Kodi Medeiros 22. Monte Harrison 23. Wei-Chung Wang 24. Taylor Williams 25. Devin Williams 26. Clint Coulter

I think several of their recent drafts and trades have shown an emphasis on acquiring lefty bats. Other than Brinson, all the top bats in our pipeline (Ray, Clark, Phillips, Diaz), are lefty. Villar also looks like a long-term piece. I don't think there's a need right now to proactively look to acquire lefty bats, but if more such pieces come our way in a Braun or other deal, so be it.

I'm not totally surprised, but I really don't understand how they can justify Ed Sedar keeping his position every year.

http://www.espn.com/espn/feature/story/_/id/17671554/phil-coyne-pittsburgh-98-year-old-usher Pretty amazing. Been an usher since 1936 just missing to serve in WW2. Now 98 and still says he'll be back working next season if healthy. The things this guy has seen.

I don't see Peralta getting traded as others have mentioned. I think teams will be looking to pay for the 5 ERA pitcher he was, and he's been better than that since returning. I think he's a much better hold candidate that could be worth much more if he has a 1st half next year like his last couple months this year.

I can understand those who think we'll take a step back next year, but i think it could go either way. I'm excited for a full season of Broxton, and I think Nelson and Peralta certainly have a ton of room for improvement. On the other hand, most of our prospects won't be arriving next year. I think we can expect to see Hader and Brinson in Brewers uniforms next year, but not until mid season. I'd say 70-75 wins next year, around .500 in '18, contenders in '19.

My thoughts go beyond 2017 in a couple cases, but here goes: STAFF: The only guy I'd say needs to be gone yesterday is Eddie Sedar. Counsell is the guy right now, and that's fine. Whether or not he remains the guy when this team is ready for the next step, we'll see. LINEUP/BENCH: In the OF, I think your future guys are Brinson and Broxton for sure. Braun is the best trade candidate we have. I know there's sentimental value to keeping him around, I get that, but now isn't the time to be sentimental. He's had a great year, he isn't part of our future, it's time to cash in. I do like Santana, but I'm not exactly sure where he fits in yet. I'm not crazy about his D, especially with so many outfielders in the system. I'd like to see how his glove would play at 1st. But I'm not sure that's in the cards. I'm still hoping Phillips will end up as that 3rd OFer, for now. Obviously the hope is for Ray to rise quickly and become a star, but he's still too early to project. I think Cordell will be a very good 4th OFer. As for the IF, we're set at SS with Arcia, and for now, I would send Villar to 2nd and trade Gennett now. Diaz should end up hopefully being our 2B of the future, but in all likelihood we don't need to worry about that until 2019. It's possible Villar ends up at 3B then, but I like how his bat plays much better in the middle. We'll see. Perez is our supersub for now, which is a good role for him. At catcher, I'm hoping to see Susac get a crack at the every day job next year and see how he does. I see no reason not to. It's still a rebuilding year. I haven't given up on Nottingham, either. PITCHING STAFF: I'm really not concerned with building a bullpen, I think that will come pretty naturally. I think there are a lot of high upside arms on our team/system that project to be pretty good relievers if they don't make it as starters. Not to mention a lot of arms like Medeiros and Lopez that aren't panning out now that could maybe have their careers salvaged in the pen. Knebel and Barnes will be here a long time, Marinez looks like a pretty solid multi-inning righty and I think Bickford might make a hell of a closer if he doesn't make it as a starter, kind of like the Thornburg route. Speaking of Thornburg, I'd certainly entertain offers for him and Torres and bite on any overpay, otherwise be content to wait and see if we can get an inflated market for relievers again next deadline. The rotation might be what determines it all. If it comes together right, I think we have a World Series contender in a few years. If it doesn't, coming out of the rebuild as soon as hoped will be difficult. We don't really have a surefire ace prospect in our system. The 2017 draft is supposed to be loaded with arms early on, so hopefully we can find ours. What we do have are numerous guys who have #2 upside. Hader, Ortiz, Bickford, and Woodruff are coming soon, maybe even Wang again. If we can get a couple #2 types out of the lot and at least a back end guy, we should be in good shape. There are also guys at the lower levels like Ponce and Diplan, who are too far away to be projectable, but have upside. Some of these guys won't pan out, but we're playing the numbers game, and I'm confident it will work in the end. One last thing...the FA market for starting pitching is very dry this offseason, so it's something to keep an eye on. Obviously anything would do for Garza, including salary relief, but if you can get a high prospect for Guerra, and maybe even a decent prospect for Anderson, it's definitely something we should be listening to. In my opinion we should always look to take advantage of inefficiencies in the market for buyers as sellers, like we did trading Will Smith.