adambr2

I will never for the life of me understand why you can't bring in a key reliever this early in the game. This was a very high leverage situation in the game with the score still 5-5 and multiple runners on, no matter how early.

Get good pitching, can't get a key hit. Get key hitting, can't get good pitching.

Of the strategy to give Turner another chance to do damage, Counsell said, “It’s J.J. against a right-handed hitter. It’s a chance to get out of the inning on one pitch. “J.J. was trying to get him to chase (a curveball) but left it over the plate. Pretty lame explanation IMO as: 1) Turner, going by career stats, is better vs RHP than LHP. It's not like this was a Will Smith vs. Corey Dickerson situation. 2) You already had the chance to get out of the inning with 1 pitch when it was first and third. You didn't need to walk another to accomplish that. Like I said, I've been generally happy with Counsell, but he overthought this one, plain and simple.

Only I didn't say fudge. I'm surprised Counsell had Jeffress walk Seager after Jeffress made him look like an idiot last night and after he looked like an idiot a couple times tonight. You already have the double play set up after the IBB to Utley. I have no idea what Counsell was thinking in the 10th. You already have the DP set up, you want to load them up for the guy who has killed you all night rather than the guy Jeffress has owned? Not only that, but you have no margin for error with the bases loaded so Turner knows he needs to throw strikes, and Jeffress is a guy who has command issues at times. But at least with just 1st and 3rd, you can afford to try to make him chase a few. All those disadvantages for the minimal advantage of gaining a force at home, which really doesn't mean much anyway since you're going to try to turn 2 the traditional way on any routine groundball, and anything hit too lightly for that will probably not leave you enough time to get the lead runner at home anyway. I have been pretty happy with Counsell as a manager generally, but that was a dreadful decision.

An 0-2 pitch and Jeffress gives up the game winning hit. Not blaming the pen, though. Can't piss away as many scoring opportunities as we did and hold on forever. Disappointing to waste another Davies gem.

The hypocrisy of Dodger fans is pretty remarkable. Please spare us the idea that you care about the moral implications of PED use when Braun comes up when you're going to give Manny Ramirez standing ovations.

Can't expect Thornburg to be perfect every outing. If we lose this game, it won't be about that, it will be about our chronic failures to drive in runners from 3rd with less than 2 out. We should have more than 2 runs today.

Does anyone have any news whatsoever on Rymer Liriano? Our CF is a black hole. Broxton and Nieuwenhuis are awful.

Can't watch, but on the radio they made it sound like Carter would have been safe at home if he would have gone in with a half decent slide.

You can just see us coming out of this with only the 1 run.

I don't know if he just can't bunt or if the opportunity never really presented itself last year but Gennett had 0 sac bunts last year. 8 in 2014 though, so you'd think he can bunt. My guess is they just felt a lot better about Scooter swinging away against a lefty than they did with Broxton /Davies, which I can understand. Scooter has had some success against LHP this year.

Longest tenured veteran here and you pull that with 1st and 3rd and 1 out. Terrible.

We have Nelson through his age 31 season. I could see an extension - get a year or two extra of control. You can still trade him if you want at some point. But there is the risk of a Peralta-like collapse, and then you're stuck with a fairly large contract. Jimmy just turned 27, so he is likely approaching his peak years. While some people feel Jimmy can be a #2 type, I see him more as a mid-rotation guy. He's slowly, but steadily gotten better, but I'm not counting on him being lots more than what he is. Sure, he might have a year or two where he exceeds that #3 'slot', but then again, he might have a year or two where he has falters. But a solid #3 is a good guy to have. Nothing wrong with that. If the club feels that Nelson is a good gamble to keep producing, locking him up for an extra year or two is fine, in my opinion. I also wouldn't fault them for not doing any such deal, but if it happens, I'm good with it. I agree with it being a gamble, but it's also a gamble with big upside. If Nelson suddenly turns into a 3.00-3.25 ERA guy, he could demand quite a bit even in arbitration, and might price out of our range once he hits free agency. Of course, like you said, if he has a Peralta -like collapse, we'll be kicking ourselves. I really don't see Nelson quickly turning into the non-tender candidate that Peralta has, but you never know. So certainly any contract offer to Nelson would need to reflect that level of risk in the form of a team friendly deal. Give us a nice discount that still guarantees you financial security for life, or bet heavy on yourself and hope to break the bank later and not wind up like Wily. Leave it up to Jimmy.

I don't think the Brewers were actively looking for a way to rob Garza of the $13M option. If you want to stay in a MLB rotation, it helps not to be one of the worst starters in baseball. The fact that we were rebuilding and wanted to try younger starters was just added incentive to take him out of the rotation, but I don't at all believe they would have done it even in rebuilding mode if Garza had done anything to justify keeping his spot. As far Garza on waivers, yeah, he would have to pitch out if his mind between now and August for someone to willingly take his contract off our hands.

I disagree. Especially this summer where there isn't going to be much available in terms of pitching. There's Rich Hill who will be a FA at season's end. Making a youngish, cost controlled starter available in this market is probably the smart thing to do. Not saying you have to trade him but if there was ever a time a team was going to overpay, this summer is it. I just don't think Nelson is highly regarded enough to bring back the kind of talent that it would take to make it worthwhile, even with the demand for starting pitching. Maybe I'd be surprised at his value, but right now I would peg Jimmy at being worth maybe a low top 100 plus an organizational top 10, and I just don't think that's enough to justify the loss. If we could buy out his arbitration years plus maybe 2 free agency years right now for a reasonable team--friendly price, I'd be all over it.

We're not going to be a playoff team, but this has been a much more fun year than I thought it would be.

Nothing is ever as impressive as they make it seem. Brian follows that exaggeration with another about how Villar could hit 20-25 homeruns. I never heard anyone say that. I honestly have no idea why he's so highly regarded as an announcer. He says just as much dumb stuff as Schroeder does, it's just not cranky old athlete guy dumb stuff. Well, he's already on pace for 15 and they think his power is still developing. 20-25 might be a stretch but not by much. 15-20 is very realistic.

If he can play anywhere in the infield, OPS around .800, and give you 15 HR and 50 steals, Jonathan Villar is going to be one hell of a valuable player.

Can't watch, but on the radio it sounded like it was pretty obvious Counsell should have won the challenge and it should be 6-5. Did they give any kind of explanation?

I think Jimmy's recent regression validates the concerns people have about how he is going to be valued as a trade asset. He's not an ace and isn't going to be treated as such. At this point in time he is a middle of the rotation starter with perhaps #2 upside. We are probably better off hoping he discovers that upside with us rather than exploring what I think would be a disappointing market for him. Right now I think he's probably a better candidate for an extension than a trade.

Not much. I don't think 8 starts is going to be enough to enamor anymore with him enough to part with a top 100 prospect, for example. By himself I would say he's worth a couple lottery tickets at this very moment. He could be included in a larger trade to increase a package in a blockbuster deal for a Lucroy or Braun, similar to what we did with Fiers last year. He's a little bit of a catch-22 because I could see him being worth a good deal more by this time next year if he can keep it up for that long, but by that time we might be better off just holding him.

Too bad it wasn't the 7th or later so we could have just asked nicely to challenge it anyway in the odd system that is MLB replay.

Garza was okay. His last season wasn't defined by just one bad start, however, and he isn't going to prove himself again with just one okay one. Knebel has been awful since his return. I hope we don't regret dumping Ramirez.

Although his cost controlled element is a nice benefit, I really don't think 2 months of good play makes a guy who was worth a Cy Sneed 2 months ago into someone who is going to fetch us as good of a return or better than Lucroy. I also didn't get from the OP that we had to assume that we were eating no salary, but if so, I can understand why you kept Braun out of your list, even though I think he's well worth the money. I also don't think Knebel is anywhere near our most valuable reliever, but obviously, you're valuing control very highly.

He is pretty much at exactly where we would have hoped he would be at if we HAD completed the trade last year.