adambr2

It's possible he wants to leave such decisions to Counsell. Though I'd be telling him by now...'I'm not going to tell you how to manage the guys I give you, but if you're not on the same page as me, I'm going to find someone who is.'

I've been a Counsell supporter, but I'm at the point where I hope Stearns goes and finds his own guy at some point. It's apparent, IMO, that Counsell's managerial style isn't consistent with Stearns' vision for the franchise.

If we were doing them a favor taking Puig and his salary off their hands, they would have let us do it. They had that option.

Just turning it on now. Nice to see young Santana rewarded for his performance yesterday.

Pujols 2016 numbers: .268/.326/.467 to go along with 29 long balls and 108 RBI. I'd say Albert is still "above average" by 1B standards... Along with the stats you listed above, I'll add a .793 OPS and a 1.1 WAR for Pujols. Carter is .228/.325/.497 with a .823 OPS and 1.3 WAR, and 32 HR. Seem very comparable to me.

I really can't understand this statement. So basically, because Nieuwenhuis and Flores are younger than Braun and not that good, that means Puig must not be all that good either? 'Younger' is about as far as the similarities go. Puig is many times more talented than Nieuwenhuis, and has a superstar upside, while Nieuwenhuis has a career 4th OFer upside. I should hope at this stage of the rebuild that Stearns is more in the market for superstar flyers rather than 4th OFers. Nieuwenhuis IMO is actually not a great fit for this team, as his ceiling is limited and he's taking a ton of innings away from the young talented OFers on our team/system. He would have been a good fit on the 2011 Brewers, a younger better fielding Kotsay type.

Yeah Braun/Puig makes a ton of sense for both. Not straight up but as both part of the deal

Maybe they will revisit in the offseason. I'm not surprised it didn't happen now, but I appreciate that Stearns is exploring avenues like these.

As others have said, Torres probably didn't clear waivers, and Boyer either didn't clear or wasn't worth a hill of beans. I'm disappointed we didn't trade Nieuwenhuis, however. I can't believe there wasn't a contender out there willing to give up a lottery ticket guy in Rookie league for him.

I don't know if I'd even refer to Pujols bat as 'above average' anymore by 1B standards. He's basically Chris Carter now, which is fine if you're paying Chris Carter level money, not so good if you're paying Albert Pujols level money. The whole point of any of this discussion was that you can't say for certain that Braun won't have some level of decline as he ages. Yes, there are always going to be exceptions like Ortiz, but those are the exceptions, not the norms, and that's being reflected in the trade market for Braun.

He came into tonight's game hitting .283/.387/.547 at Miller Park. No explaining it but might as well roll with it It's not that I think he sucks. It's just that he has no future value with this team. Why he's still here is a mystery to me. I would have thought he'd be worth something and anything would have been better than nothing.

I have no idea what Counsell is doing with Kirk, better production than expected aside. We're not thinking of doing something crazy like offer him arbitration next year, are we?

You don't like the Gomez and Fielder comparables? Ok, how about David Wright? Josh Hamilton? Adam Dunn? There is absolutely no way you can predict with certainty that a great player with an injury and PED checkered past won't hit a wall in his mid 30s and decline significantly and suddenly. Not even if you type it in all caps. Adam Dunn? come on what's he got? Like 1500 more Ks than Braun? Josh Hamilton. Not 8 years of consistent batting like Braun. 3year run only. David Wright is simply injuries that continue season after season post 30. He's never proven over 5months of play to have come back. As to McCutchen, 1 poor season to a great career. You're looking at being 10% down on his numbers over his career numbers. HRs are on pace for normal. Doubles and walks are a little down. Mind you he isn't even 30 yet. Give an offseason to review tape, or adjust his swing. Maybe he has a personal problem we don't know about. Whatever it is, for a 10% decline in numbers I'd wait for a 2nd season of that performance before officially calling it a rapid decline. We wrote Segura off, and he's batting the best ever in his career with a minor hand adjustment in setup supposedly. I never said McCutcheon was in rapid decline. TPlush gave a great example with Pujols. He has not OPSed over .800 since his age 32 season. What about Ryan Howard? The list is endless of star players who declined significantly in their 30s. How many examples do you want? You can't just find a reason to discount all of them and try to separate them from Braun and pretend aging won't affect him the same way. As for Jean Segura, we are talking about the effects of aging on star players. A good 26 year old SS having a big rebound year has absolutely nothing to do with that. No one thought Segura was old and washed up in his mid 20s.

As far as I know it's midnight tonight for postseason eligibility. Can still trade after that, they just aren't postseason eligible, which is irrelevant for anyone we might acquire but probably very relevant for any deal for Braun or a reliever.

Knebel isn't the kind of guy we should be looking to move IMO. He's young, controlled, has more upside than what he's delivering at the moment, and wouldn't bring back a thing in trade. If they managed to get Torres or Boyer or Marinez through waivers and want to deal them today, I'm all for it.

Give me one example of when that has worked for us this year late in a game. Just one. And you don't have to go with Maldonado if you don't want to bunt. Could have called a PH.

Sac bunting is pretty much the most awful thing in baseball. You've got a rally going, the other pitcher can't throw strikes, you have all 3 of your outs yet, you've got 2 on, and you willingly squash this momentum and spot the other team an out when the tie run is already in scoring position. And the worst part is you know that they're going to do it and you know what's going to happen after.

I don't care how good of an idea that Bill and Brian said it was. Sac bunting to get a runner to 3rd with 1 out has not worked out at all for us this year. Like, ever. We always, always follow it with a K or pop out.

Puig's decision on whether or not to opt out will be entirely value based. If Puig were to outplay his contract, he'd opt out, and the Brewers would likely offer arbitration to keep him, not let him walk for nothing. If he bombed out and knew he'd have a sour market, he wouldn't opt out. It's tough to imagine a scenario that he both opts out AND the Brewers decline to offer arbitration. (speaking all in hypotheticals, of course)

Heading to the 10th vs. the Cardinals. Anyone here who is not reasonably confident that we end up losing this game?

Who is that tool in CF that just caught the HR and dabbed like 3 times?

I'd rather have Captain Kirk than that clubhouse cancer... Puig is about 1000x more talented than Kirk. I'd take a shot at it at this point in the rebuild. He could mature at some point. If it doesn't work out, let him go.

A mystery team has claimed Puig. Only things known right now are that it's not the Braves or Marlins. If it's not the Braves, only the Reds, Padres, and Diamondbacks would have priority over us. Any chance the mystery team is us?

I know some of your points go beyond this, but I really don't agree. McCutcheon has a higher career WAR than Braun, despite being 3 years younger and having 2 less seasons played. He plays a more premium position. He has never had less than a .364 OBP in a season, with the last 4 years at .400 or higher. He was voted among the top 3 in the MVP race 3 years in a row. Up until this season, he's been the definition of consistency. If you want to argue that Braun is a superior hitter; sure, I guess I can kind of agree, though I'd still say the career comparisons are pretty insignificant. But to say McCutcheon isn't in Braun's HOF class? I can't agree with that at all.

Andrew McCutchen is/was a pretty good hitter. Braun is a better hitter, but the difference isn't so significant that we can just assume that McCutchen's dropoff can't happen to Braun. Braun is also 3 years older already. Also, you say health is his big concern, not his ability to hit, as if the two aren't related. Injuries can and have hurt his ability to hit in the past. I'm not going to assume that a 35 year Braun dealing with constant nagging injuries would be a .240 hitter with HR power in the teens, but I certainly think it's within the realm of possibilities.