adambr2

Chance to fall behind the Astros tonight...that top 5 pick next year is well within our reach.

Yeah I don't get the hype on Scooter. He's strictly a slap hitter who doesn't bring great speed or great defense to the table. I can see him probably being a nice pinch hitter off the bench. That has value, but not much Hearing Michael Hunt describe a prospect who profiles as a bench player as a "can't miss prospect" was depressing.

Well, again, it would've been different if we signed Prince longterm and then traded Hart, Weeks, & Gallardo after the 2011 season. That would've been something different to tell the fanbase: in order to sign Prince we had to trade away some other key players, but look at all the great prospects we received for those 3.... Subbing in Prince for Hart, Bianchi/Gennett for Weeks, and ??? for Gallardo, I don't see us being any better than we are now, or having any better of an outlook for the future. We have to acknowledge that the odds of Prince being effective into his mid-30's are very remote. We had better hope under that scenario that the prospects gained from Hart, Weeks, and Gallardo yielded a treasure trove of prospects, because we probably wouldn't otherwise be competitive again until Prince left and sure wouldn't have any financial flexibility until then.

It's also a little different to say that now when we clearly have no choice but to rebuild than 8 months removed from an NLCS appearance. It's fairly easy to justify selling off good players for prospects to your fanbase when you're rebuilding. Much harder when they reasonably expect you to contend.

Well I disagree strongly. I think guys like Gallardo, Weeks, and Hart are exactly the kind of players that teams like us need to sign and sign early in order to compete, and not blow their entire payroll on guys like Prince who are negligibly better than similar players at their same position and command tons more money. It's easy to look back at Weeks now and say that was dumb. It wouldn't look that way, especially at his salary, if we were looking at stats like in 2010 when he was MORE valuable than Braun OR Prince. I still say Prince is not the kind of player you build a franchise around, and that's exactly what you're doing when you pay him $25M + a year. If we learned anything from having Braun and Prince together it should have been that it didn't mean a lick without pitching. Our offense actually got BETTER the year after Prince left. Now obviously that's not because he left, but what does it say about his true value to us? And as far as comparables to Fielder who are better bets for the future, especially at the price, there are Chris Davis, Joey Votto. Paul Goldschmidt, etc. Not all have remained as healthy as Prince, but at 1B, we are also talking about a much less premium position than CF or SS, for instance, but paying premium player money. Prince is by no means a complete player, he's strictly bat only. So $25+ is an awful lot to pay for a bat-only player who isn't even in the top 10 in the MLB in OPS. Again, saying we should have traded Gallardo at the deadline last year is strictly "shoulda coulda woulda" IMO. We were already looking at losing Greinke and Marcum, he was our only remaining ace, signed for multiple years for pretty cheap, and we surely were not looking at a long rebuilding process last year, which is exactly what that move would have signaled. Yes, I would have traded Gallardo, Weeks, Hart, Axford, Marcum, Hardy, Casey McGehee and Bill Hall at their peaks if I could predict the future. Now I understand GM's need to show a little foresight and on some of these guys, the red flags are more glaring. But you can't just go back over every formerly All-Star caliber player on the roster and say we should have traded him before he declined.

We pay Rickie Weeks $10 million We pay Corey Hart $10 million We pay Kyle Lohse $11 million We pay Aramis Ramirez $10 million That is $41 million just for those 4 guys in 2013. I would argue that yes, we should have overpaid Prince. Kept our #17 overall pick instead of signing Lohse, traded Hart & Weeks and have a stronger system as a result of selling high on those guys, and yes we would indeed be better off for now and in the future. We're paying Gallardo 7.75 million, he's another guy we could have sold high. We're paying Axford $5 million, that is another stupid signing The only reason we "could not afford Prince" is because we way overpaid for overrated players Aoki Segura Braun Fielder Gomez 3B that we would've had millions left over to spend on Lucroy Gennett/Bianchi platoon with a much more solid core of young players (including pitchers) from trading Weeks, Hart, Gallardo, Axford when their stock was high would indeed be a much better Brewers team for now and into the future So you're upset about paying Aramis, and yet you completely ignore what I said about Aramis being a BETTER player than Prince last year. Aramis is at the tail end of his career, but Prince is going to be 30 next year. He's probably peaked, and decline can be expected in the near future, particularly defensively. The idea that Prince Fielder is worth $25M+ per season is absolutely ludicrous IMO. Should have sold Gallardo high? C'mon man, you're just trying to re-write history here and playing the hindsight card on every single player on the roster. Gallardo was a young ace when Prince left. The idea of trading Gallardo to free up money for Prince was never ever on the table. Traded Hart, traded Weeks? All 100% hindsight. We had no idea that Aoki would pan out in RF full time, and Gennett and Bianchi were nowhere near MLB ready players when Prince left. That still doesn't change the fact that such a contract for Prince is a horrible value and would cripple us financially even with the rest of the roster. It's also a huge assumption to think that the prospects we "got" for Gallardo, Hart, Weeks, and Axford would fill out the rest of the rotation and roster and give us the pitching we need now. Our problem hasn't been a lack of pitching prospects, it's been the fact that for whatever reason, they aren't panning out in our system. You speak of overrated players, but as Brewer fans, we really tend to overrate Prince Fielder and look at him like a top 5 MLB player that he isn't, simply because he was a product of our organization. Prince is a solid player with one really good asset -- his bat. He's 275 pounds and every other part of his game will soon become a deficiency -- on the bases, with the glove, etc. I can't fathom why anyone would think it was worth not only paying what Detroit paid him, but MORE. Prince was not going to take a hometown discount to stay here. That's not what Scott Boras clients do. Look at the Angels with Albert Pujols. That contract is going to devastate them for years. No matter how you feel about Prince, the chances are he's going to be right there with him in a few years. People look at Prince Fielder and think that he would look really nice in the lineup right now, especially with our first base situation so far this year. They don't look ahead at all.

Some of the players that you listed are good players. Some were and really aren't anymore, and some, like Suppan, were indeed mistakes. Ramirez, for example, last year was a more valuable player than Prince. People don't really appreciate how good Ramirez really was last year. I'm frustrated as any with the direction of this FO, but I don't understand why so many Brewer fans carry this illusion that we dropped the ball big time by letting Prince Fielder walk. We could not afford to pay Prince Fielder $25M a year. If we had done that, we would be in worse shape than we are now. We would still be a bad team this year. A duo like Braun and Prince will only carry attendance so far. The bottom line is winning. If we had signed Prince, we would be a bad team with some crippling contracts. Even deferred, the end years of Prince's contract would probably carry some devastating backloaded salaries. We wouldn't be looking at a 2-3 rebuilding plan. We would be looking at a 5-7 year rebuilding plan. Prince is gone. We are in a bad enough position with crippling contracts right now. We are not a 29 year old Prince Fielder away from competing. Add a Prince Fielder contract to our current situation and our future outlook becomes less optimistic.

We'll never know, but we still would've had a good team with a legitimate shot at the playoffs, plus we would be in much better shape as a franchise at this point. That's still 9 more games than the Brewers got for Fielder after 2011. Hudson had Tommy John surgery, which isn't uncommon for a SP, and he should be back this season. He's 26 and still has (I believe) three more seasons of "team control" remaining. Meanwhile Detroit fans are enjoying Prince's HR's while we're fighting for the #1 draft pick. But, it's not about Hudson in particular. I just used him because using any name that wasn't specifically named in a "valid source" as having been offered will get someone chastised for making things up and being unrealistic about "what's out there." Melvin insisted on receiving two MLB-proven SP in return for Fielder. Since Fielder only had one year remaining, he would only be traded to a perceived contender, and what contender could trade two SP from their rotation? Melvin's expectations were unrealistic, so instead of trading him for one young MLB starter or probably two not-yet-MLB-ready SP, we settled on destroying the future of the franchise for one playoff appearance. NOT signing Prince is one of the worst moves Melvin and Attanasio made. Fielder is the kind of player - with Braun - who is a franchise cornerstone. Offer a 7-year, $184 million deal - and use deferred salary the way the Brewers did with Braun. The three biggest mistakes over the least five years, IMO, were as follows: 1. Not signing Fielder. 2. Losing patience with JJ Hardy 3. Trading Lawrie for Marcum. I very strongly disagree on #1 and #2. First of all, the absence of Prince Fielder is not why we are 15 games under .500 this year. We're a bad team without him, we'd be a bad team with him. Same as when we had him -- we were good when we had pitching, bad when we didn't. And on that, Prince isn't even the kind of player that you offer that kind of money to. 7 years/$184M? Over $26M per season. That's franchise crippling. Prince is a 4.5 WAR player last year with a .930 career OPS who is a liability defensively and will be a much worse one in the coming years. That's a very good player. It's not the kind of player that you make the highest paid one in baseball. For perspective, Aramis Ramirez was more valuable than Prince Fielder last year. On Hardy, we didn't lose patience. He was approaching free agency and we had the heir apparent already in the system. That's part of the way a small market team should build. We got, as it turns out, a very good player for Hardy.

All suspensions for banned substances are unpaid. So....they would shave 5M+ off the payroll this year.

If this actually goes through, Braun would be one hit away from a lifetime ban. Wrap your head around that one.

I don't necessarily think he wouldn't. But it definitely compromises his stature as a Brewers legend. I'm just very turned off by how vigilant MLB was on this. It wasn't an investigation. It was a witch hunt.

I'm not quite ready to take ESPN at face value anyway. They've been wrong on this before, and I have a hard time seeing this fly with the powerful MLBPA. MLB couldn't nail Braun for a suspension when they had a bottle of hot urine. Now I am to believe they can nail him and 20 others based on a sworn statement from Bosch? I can't see the MLBPA just letting this go.

106 games left this season and it's a lost season anyway. May as well get it started now and go into next season with a fresh start. On the other hand, who knows what sort of tactics -- bribes, intimidation, that MLB used to get the information they wanted. Not defending Braun, but I'm disgusted with Major League Baseball's agenda-like approach to this. If they approached fan concerns with the vigor that they approached this with, they would have changed the highly outdated blackout restrictions years ago.

From what I've learned from this FO, they'll emphasize major league ready over upside. I wish it wasn't true, but it is. I'd be more surprised to see them land a very young and years away from the bigs potential ace, than a package similar to Dave Bush/Zach Jackson/Gabe Gross.

Why was Braun not in the game?

I find this somewhat encouraging, actually.

http://mlb.mlb.com/mlb/official_info/um ... _rules.jsp Under Citizens Bank Park I don't see anything that definitively says that that rail is a home run. It's not very clear, though. This is the most similar play I can find, even though it's in RF, not LF. But it was not called a HR. http://deadspin.com/5937991/adam-laroche-hit-a-ball-about-as-far-as-possible-without-hitting-a-home-run

With all due respect, I think if we came to Jack Z with a trade proposal of Estrada/ARam or Estrada/Weeks for 2 top 100 prospects like Paxton and Romero and another high ceiling talent, we would be laughed off the phone. Why would the Mariners want an aged, expensive 3rd baseman, albeit still productive? They aren't really in a win now situation. And Weeks? He's worth nothing. Some team might take him on in a salary dump move, but we'd still take on some of his contract and get little back in value. I'm not totally in disagreement with you on Estrada, but I highly doubt the league has the same perceptions about him as you do.

No Adam, the idea is that these two teams have been lousy already and have already torn down their ML players and turned them in to the All Prospects team Mustache is oohing and Ahhing over. And part of being able to do that is to literally have No ML talent on your ML team say for 1st-3rd year players who haven't reach Arb yet. It's laughable to me that Houston/Miami are allowed to operate below 40mil in team payroll. I'm pretty sure they will have revenue sharing sent their way each at or above 40mil without a Single Paying Fan watching a home game! Where is that money put in to on the Ballclub? If the team doesn't spend as much money as they are to get in Revenue Sharing then they shouldn't have any money sent to them. It should be forfeited back. Back to the comparisons. I just don't agree comparing the Minor Clubs of two teams that just dealt away ML talent for Propsects in return. Yes Miami has Fernandez missed pick by Milw. Yes Houston has Correa from a #1 draft pick the season after we went to the League Championship Series. Then you mix in the guys they traded for and yeah their minors are better than ours. I don't think you can compare the minors to teams who went bellyup with trade dealing/Offseason trade. Trading away ML players for Prospects in the last 2 years without being in the Playoffs. You want to compare the Rangers to Milw, sure that's on equal ground. But Losing teams who've traded for the future already and had successful 2011 drafts it's just not even going to remotely be close comparing our club to theirs. The truth is 2010/2011 may go down as worst picks in back to back seasons ever by the club in comparison to the players selected around and after Covey/Jungmann/Bradley. And no one should be left in the organization responsible for those draft picks. FWIW, We like to hoot and Holler at Tampa but they have zero 1st picks playing for the ML club since 2007 draftee David Price. And only Taylor Guerrieri in 2011 is looking to join the club any time soon as a solid pick. They got their Prospects from the Shields Trade, the Garza Trade, and Enny Romero was a Latin Signee. After them the 1st round picks none of them are top 100 propects nor appear any better than our picks. We've hung around the .500 level the last few seasons now so we haven't traded away players for Prospect Talent...Outside of Grienke last year. and Segura in return became an immediate ML player vs. sitting in the Minors to be oohed and ahhed about as a top prospect for a couple years. We've traded for players and not traded for prospects it leaves us where we are. Miss a couple drafts Rogers/Covey/...etc. yeah we're barron of top prospects. I'm not defending Melvin or Seid or anyone. Just not a fan of this comparison in topic as basically, to be where Houston/Miami are today, we'd have to give back the 2011 season have traded away our ML Players in 2010/2011/2012 or this offseason for that matter to be where they are today. And succeeded in what amounts to our 2011 draft picks vs failed. After this season/offseason and where we stand in Prospect land is when I can take it seriously. What comes to us from Trades/ How our 2012 picks progress that evaluation relates more importantly to me. 2010/2011 is a huge Failure. But with Roache/Coulter/Haniger/Taylor progress and our return in trades the outlook can be drastically different at this point next season. I mean think about Oscar Taveras. he was 97th? ranking in pre-2012? Then had a big year leaped to #3. What's to stop Roache/Taylor at least seeing some kind of leap like that with exceeded expectations? I'll end my rant. I enjoy comparing Minors among teams, one because it's a headstart look in to who's the future in Baseball. Just comparing the State of our franchise to two teams who've torn their ballclubs about.... Well, lets compare the teams when Braun/Gomez/Hart/Gallardo/Estrada/Lohse/Lucroy/ARam/Weeks are all traded away leaving us with Segura to be the Face of our Franchise. That's what the left over equivalent would be to Houston/Miami state of the Minors. I get that we have MLB pieces that we could flip for prospect talent, but none of that changes the fact that there are teams that DO have good MLB players and still have a really great farm system, better than Houston's or Florida's. Having a great team and great prospects aren't mutually exclusive, and you don't need to draft high to accumulate a great farm. I don't agree that you can't compare the two. I would only say you can take into consideration that one farm has been aided by a fire sale, but again, there's still plenty of good minor league systems that haven't. As far as Coulter and Roache, it's far too early to evaluate them, and they could take a big leap, but the early returns aren't encouraging at all. Combine that with Seid's track record, I'd say bust is more likely than boom right now. The best young guys on our team (Segura, Gomez), were never even in our system at all. That's not encouraging. Of the trade bait you listed, Weeks is worth nothing, I doubt Estrada is worth much, Gallardo's trade value is declining with every start, Lohse and Ramirez may possibly bring something but we'll be required to eat a good piece of contract, and Hart will need a great month after he returns to have any reasonable value. Braun or Gomez would be worth a ton, but they don't have the guts to trade either. Any reliever on our team would be fair game as far as I'm concerned. Given Aoki's age I wouldn't at all shy away from dealing him in a rebuild.

Hamels has really struggled this year. So I am expecting him to probably go 7 innings with 1 ER today.

It's hard for me to root for the team right now. I don't root against them, but I feel like giving glimmers of hope to Melvin and Mark is not a good thing right now.

It's comforting to know that our GM does not recognize the name of the likely 1st overall pick in next year's draft. Particularly when he himself (Melvin) drafted him in the 16th round a few years ago.

Melvin: (paraphrasing) "We have so many good pieces with Segura, Gomez, and Braun, that if we go out and find another pitcher, maybe a team that another one has given up on, and develop him, we should be fine." Yeah. Because we're clearly one piece away, and we have a ton of past success taking talented started pitchers that haven't figured it out elsewhere and developing them. He did make a reference to getting better for "the future", which gives me hope that he understands the reality that there is no more playing for this year.

The idea that you can't compare our farm system to theirs because they have a much lower payroll and have been drafting higher is silly. The Cardinals have the best farm system in baseball and have had much more recent success and have a higher payroll. Texas is right up there as well. Yes, it's easier to acquire great prospects when you're always picking high, but to say a team picking lower can't be compared would excuse our poor scouting, drafting, and development.

I really hope they don't try to sell us Narveson and Hart as the "fix" for this team.