adambr2

Braun honestly looks apathetic out there.

You need to relax my friend, your bitterness just can't be healthy. Hard not to be. I look forward to Brewer baseball all winter, only to find that this is the product we're going to get this year. It would be different if we had a future to be excited about right now, but we really don't.

Lohse's ERA is up to 4.37. And he'll be 35 this year. And we will still owe him about 30 million bucks after this year. And it also cost us our first round pick in a couple weeks. We sure are a first class organization.

I'm actually tired of hearing him and others basically say "we're actually really good, honest!" after every game. Rings awfully hollow after awhile. Prove it or shut up.

When was the last time a team got swept in 2 straight series' against the same team? Has it ever happened?

This isn't necessarily true. Playing the window isn't an inevitable part of the process to put together a winner. I think that's probably something we want to believe in our minds to make ourselves feel better about the situation we are in now by remembering 2008 and 2011 with fondness. Oakland and Tampa Bay have a lot less payroll to work with than they do, they don't play for a window, and their process works just fine. I don't necessarily have a problem with doing it, as long as they accept that the situation they are in now was the inevitable conclusion of it. I can't say I'm sure that they will accept it. They may just throw some band-aids on next year again and hope for the best, which is just going to prolong the agony.

I'm not sure he really has a choice anymore. Attendance is already falling, and the losing isn't going to help. No one wants to come see a 19-32 team. And that's going to cost him money. So just trying another major patch job through free agency or trade won't be an option either. He isn't going to jack the payroll up and operate at a loss. And he doesn't have good enough prospects to bring back significant improvements in trade. If there is a realistic short-term solution to the Brewers' problem, I don't see what it is.

Mark A. was obviously very much at least partially behind the Suppan signing. It's also believed that he was behind signing Gagne. I'm guessing, but don't know, that he probably steered Melvin away from trading guys at their unsustainable high points like McGehee, and encouraged trades such as Lawrie for Marcum. The "problem" with Mark A. is that aside from the rich business man, he is just like us. Oh sure, he sees the Brewers as a business, but he's a fan too. He enjoys seeing them win for the same reasons that any other fan does. And like any other fan, he has ideas about what he think would be good for the team. The big difference is that he actually has the power to implement his ideas. The problem is that even though he does have a right to do this, he's not really qualified to do so.

I don't know anyone could look at our farm system and say with a straight face that it's "not bad". Going back to 2008, I could make a realistic case that LaPorta, Parra, Escobar, Jeffress, Gamel, Salome, LaPorta, Cain, Brantley, Lucroy, Green, and Gillespie were all as good or better than anyone in our current system. Even of that list, Lucroy is the one and only to become an established big leaguer for us. The rest either flamed out or were used as trade bait. So I think if Melvin and Mark A are drinking the Kool-Aid on the current system, they really are deceiving themselves. Our best pitching prospect is really struggling badly in AAA. Hunter Morris is a nice prospect, but he's no better of one than Gamel and certainly less of a prospect than LaPorta was. Scooter Gennett is basically the second base version of Tony Gwynn Jr. I get that people just want to see Weeks replaced, but Gennett, if he starts, just looks like a replacement level player to me. I don't see the hype. I don't know how anyone could look at our system and not think that it is exactly as bas as the experts say it is.

I will always be grateful for the great things Mark A has done for the franchise and turning us around for awhile and helping us get back to the playoffs. That doesn't mean he gets a free pass for life and is held blameless for his role in this debacle.

It really doesn't matter who is GM anyway. If Mark A. won't give them full control over personnel decisions, they're just a puppet.

The talent is insufficient and the pitching staff is no where near as good as the 08' team even with Suppan in the rotation. People forget that Sheets was the best pitcher in the NL for the first half of the year and Parra actually was rather good in the first half of the year. Right now there are three Dave Bush's on the team and not a single Sheets so your W/L expectancy is going to go down. I don't think this team was going to be this bad but they were a .500 team at best to begin the season and leaning more towards a team that would finish below .500. How far below .500 is debatable as a lot of things can happen between the start of the season and the end of the season. A team can go very cold in the beginning of the year and then warm up for a month or two. This team right now doesn't have the pitching it had in 08' and it is not even close. This is where there is a huge discrepancy of talent between the two teams the pitching is bad in the rotation and it is killing the bullpen. The bullpen maybe better than what the Brewers had in 08' but it is absolutely getting killed by its starting pitchers who on a normal basis can barely make it out of the 5th inning everyday. The Brewers bullpen has already thrown a total of 173.2 IP so far this year!!!!! only the Astros, Blue Jays, Twins, Pirates, and Rockies have thrown more innings than the Brewers bullpen. Only the Pirates and the Rockies have a winning record of those 5 other teams. There is not much an offense can do when your pitching fails to go longer than 6 innings on a consistent basis. If your starters are only going about 6 innings every game that means you are putting out your worst relief pitcher more than you should be. The manager is not the problem it is the roster construction that is the problem. MA made a mistake and went with Lohse this off season and thought he would put the team over the top or make them more competitive. Lohse is not that kind of a pitcher to be leaning on to do that as he is not an ace nor is he a #1 or #2 type pitcher. He is not going to carry a team to victory by averaging 7+ innings every start and keeping the team in the game. Lohse is not a Sabathia, Sheets, or even a Greinke type of a pitcher and this is what this team is missing. Without a pitcher like that you are looking at a best possible outcome of a .500 team maybe a little bit over if everything goes right. Now everything is not going right for the Brewers and this is the scenario where if everything does not go right for the Brewers they are a sub .500 team and you are looking at a team that is probably in the discussion of being in the bottom 10 of the league. The offense is great but the pitching is not and your offense is only going to take you so far. I believe Roenicke is actually perfect for this team that has been constructed and going forward Roenicke is the answer as he is a perfect manager for younger players as he manages to their strengths. You need a manager who has an aggressive approach for younger players as they play more aggressive. Roenicke would be a bad manager if you want to keep on doing what the Brewers have been doing and that is adding more and more veteran players. First of all the Brewers are not a young team. The days of this team being a bunch of kids running around is long over, the core of the team is made up of established veterans. Obviously there are exceptions, like on any team. But this is the 13th oldest roster in baseball, statistically. Pretty middle of the pack, but not young anymore. The Braves, Nationals, and Cardinals by comparison have far younger rosters. Secondly, I don't understand the correlation between having young players and needing an aggressive approach anyway. I could just as easily argue that the aggressive approach contributes to our struggles with RISP as players may try too hard rather than waiting back and being patient.

I've seen teams with guys like Jeff D'Amico and Cal Eldred as our "ace", teams where Rickie Sexson was our star, teams where guys like Yuni B would have been our cleanup hitter all year, teams with closers like Doug Jones. And yet if the Brewers don't win 2 more games this month, THIS Brewer team will own the worst month in franchise history. Unbelievable. Something has to be done.

'Greg Jennings of the Green Bay Packers throwing out the first pitch today.' Bob isn't a big Packer fan, apparently.

Yes, he will be the manager until the end of the year and possibly even longer. I don't see MA changing mnangers this time around. The team isn't even as good as the team that Yost had when he was fired. I also believe MA really likes Roenicke as the manager of the team and will have him kept even if there is a new GM. I disagree about this team not being as good as Yost's. Well for one, that team did end up going 90-72. So even if you say the talent is comparable, the performances are obviously not. 2008 team had Prince, Weeks, Hardy, Hall, Kendall, Hart, Cameron, and Braun. 2013 team has Weeks, Segura, Ramirez, Lucroy, Aoki, Gomez, and Braun. Almost every position is an upgrade for the 2013 team. Weeks is worse than that year, but Braun is better -- he "only" OPS'ed .888 that year, very low by his standards. Hardy was good but Segura is better, Ramirez and Lucroy are enormous upgrades from Hall and Kendall, Gomez is a big upgrade from Cameron, and Aoki/Hart is probably a wash in RF. The only big downgrade is at 1st, and that will get better with Hart's return. 2008 had Sheets but not Yo. The rest of the rotation for half of the year looks about the same quality-wise as we have now -- Suppan, Parra, and Dave Bush. Lohse is a better #2 than any of those guys. Of course, 2008 added CC in the second half and he was fantastic. The bullpens are close to a wash. Solomon Torres was our closer in 2008. That was the year of the Gagne disaster. If anything, there's more talent in the pen now. If 2008 was an overall more talented squad, it wasn't by a ton. I think those who defend Roenicke were going to blame the talent level on the team as being insufficient when things unfolded like this no matter what, but I just don't see it. Was anyone honestly, back in March, figuring on us being about 12 games under .500 at this point?

Considering this entire FO at both the MLB and MiLB level need to be gutted, that's fine with me.

3rd worst team in baseball. Is us. Unreal. Hello again, 10 years ago. Although we had a farm system back then.

Well we just got swept. At home. By a bad team that was ice cold coming in here.

(sigh)

I literally cannot believe that Angel Hernandez didn't screw us out of the game on that Segura hit.

I'm not even so sure it's the drafting anymore but rather perhaps the coaching and development. Even the law of averages would say it's almost impossible for the Brewers to miss on this many pitching prospects. Would Madison Bumgarner be struggling in Huntsville right now if they would have drafted him? No way of knowing. But they obviously do need to really scrutinize this deeply and figure out if this is a scouting problem, a development problem, or both. We've seen enough of the status quo to know that a major problem exists somewhere.

Not that I really ever consider anyone unavailable, but Braun is going to be 30 this year. He's probably at the point in his career where he wouldn't want to wait out a rebuilding effort, which is probably the only good option left for this organization. I wouldn't blame him.

If we actually develop our own pitchers and everyday guys why would we want or need to make a Sabathia or Greinke type trade? Yeah, Hunt is just brutal. It's like he has completely forgotten the purpose of prospects in the first place. He thinks the whole point of them is to raise up to be good enough to trade for established big league talent. This was evidenced in 2009 when the Brewers were floundering around .500 at the AS Break and Hunt insisted that the Brewers needed to do whatever it would take to land Roy Halladay even if it meant unloading their entire farm. He said, in an enormous cliche, "The future is always now for a team like the Brewers." I wrote to him and said, "No Mike, the future is not always now for a team like the Brewers. I think you have them confused with the Yankees." I can't figure out if Hunt is serious about the stuff he prints or if he's just messing with us. I have to think he's actually serious, but that in itself is flabbergasting. It's like they took a random drunk fan out of the stadium a few years ago and gave him a column to write.

Going into the pre-season, I didn't think we were a lock to be a playoff team, but I thought we would at least be relevant until September. It's May and we're already irrelevant. We have no top 100 prospects and the most exciting thing that happened to us in the last year was trading Zack Greinke. The situation is bleak, and the future is bleak. This isn't turning around this year, or next. The sooner the FO can face this reality instead of deceiving themselves into thinking they can just throw a few patches on and drive forward into contention next year, the better.

Meanwhile our two first round picks from last year are hitting around the Mendoza line in A ball.