adambr2

Agreed. Braun finished 2nd to a deserving winner and wasn't even out of anyone's top 4. I think the whole controversy is probably close to being in the past, and he'll win another at some point.

As much as I'd like to say it would be a nice act to just give him some additional incentives to earn it, the line in the sand has to be drawn somewhere. Don't want to set a precedent.

According to Mark A the team will finish well in the red this year and they'll be scaling back payroll as a result. Apparently.

Agree on the inevitability of roster turnover. For some teams, its the only way they can do business and stay competitive. The Oakland A's aren't one win away from the ALCS without it. I have no real strong emotional connection with our players -- sure there are some you grow to like, but at the end if the day I want the best thing for the short and long term interests of the team.

The frustrating part about adding relievers is that it's such a crapshoot. Even guys with well-established careers can turn out to be busts (David Riske), so you just kind of roll the dice and hope for the best. It's a very important area... I think people sometimes try to quantify the importance of a solid reliever and might say, "Well, the starter pitches 200 innings, the reliever only pitches 50"....I just don't think you can quantify the importance of a good bullpen that way. If we ever learned that the hard way, it was in 2012. It's just hard to effectively address because you never really know what you're getting. The good news is that it's going to be hard NOT to improve from this year.

I would love to keep Gomez around, but after this year I think the Scott Boras factor is definitely going to come into play. I think they will probably ride out this last year of arbitration with him and then he'll be gone in free agency.

It would be, but I can't see them going with only one backup for 3B, 2B, and SS and then three first basemen. Just don't think there is room for Ishikawa, unless Gamel is traded or something. The 5th bench guy might be Green.

I'm curious as to what he means by not spending big money on a FA pitcher. Does that just mean that they won't be in the Zack Greinke sweepstakes, or also that they won't be looking at guys like Ryan Dempster, Edwin Jackson, etc?

It was definitely an interesting season and I think the best part of it was still getting that late season excitement of a playoff race. After burying ourselves in the standings in July to the point where even Melvin had to concede that selling was the right move, it was quite an amazing run. Came up short, but they definitely had us believing again. Even though things didn't quite work out mid-season, I think it's important to remember that because we were so bad mid-season, we got our starting SS for the next 6 years, and a pretty darn good starting pitching prospect. I'm sure we would rather be in the playoffs right now, but that's an awfully good consolation prize. This is somehow still maybe a bit overlooked, but we had the best offense in the National League. Give a lot of credit to Narron when people were calling for his head early in the season and most were panicking that this offense was ruined post-Prince. Didn't happen. The offense remains in tact for 2013, so expect them again to be among the best. You would have thought with an offense like that, that we be talking playoffs right now -- also didn't happen. Let's be frank, the bullpen ruined this season. They were the worst bullpen in the NL, and there was no reason for that. It's hard to say who will be brought back from the pen, but it's clearly the area that is going to need the most attention. Axford had a disappointing year, so he will be a big determining factor moving forward as to how much this pen improves. No one else is a sure thing for next year's pen, so there could be a lot of turnover. We'll see. As bad as the bullpen was, the young starters (Peralta, Fiers, Rogers) have given hope to the future. It looked like 2012 was a last shot season, and instead of worrying how they would ever put together a contending rotation after losing Greinke and Marcum, they can now feel good about their chances moving forward. They are likely to make a move or two in free agency to tie up the lose ends, and it wouldn't be surprising if a starting pitcher or two is among those additions. I'm not taking their statement of not going after a FA starter at face value -- yet. FWIW, I think they pretty much have the bench figured out next year, and to me it looks like it'll be a really strong one. They have pretty much already said that Gamel will be the guy off the bench, Hart will keep his spot at 1st, with Gomez in CF and Hart in RF. They are keeping a really good lineup together, and Gamel, Schafer, Maldonado, and Bianchi will be a strong bench. It's going to be a pretty exciting offseason, and fortunately it does look like they are in a position to be able to look at 2013 as a possible contending season. We'll see what happens between now and next spring and especially how the rotation is going to pan out.

I actually think we will have a really strong bench next year. Gamel, Bianchi, Schafer, Maldonado...that's really solid I think. Best of all we don't have to go worry about it in free agency.

Brewers avoid elimination for another day to play another meaningful game tomorrow. That's all you can ask for at this point.

Cardinals coming back. Looks like they're going to eliminate our need to scoreboard watch tonight.

How Livian Hernandez is going to finish up this season on our active roster is beyond me. Worthless.

Final season line on Estrada: 5-7, 3.67 ERA. Not bad for a guy who wasn't in the rotation to start the season and was never really seen as a starting pitching prospect by anybody. EDIT: Check that, 3.64. Didn't think there was any way they were going to send him back out for the 8th, but he sure did give the Brewers something to think about for their rotation next year.

Was that sort of a backhanded comment by Melvin? Brian mentioned to him that Hart has said he wanted to stay, and Melvin said, "Yeah, I've heard that from players before. One of them is a Yankee now, and one is an Angel". I'm sure he didn't mean anything by it, but the response kind of caught me off guard.

Honestly, if you're looking to trade a guy at his peak right now in the offseason, to me it would be Yo. I know that sounds crazy, and would probably never happen. But if you're looking at one trade chip who is valuable enough himself to restock the farm, it's him. He's just been so reliable and really has established himself now. He's also under control for 3 years and is not very expensive for a pitcher of his caliber. He's worth a ton in trade. We have Peralta, Rogers, Thornburg, Estrada, Fiers, etc, etc, all going to be vying for rotation spots in the near future, some with high end rotation upside, and we have more guys that are going to be following them up very soon. Not to mention that you just freed up $20M over the next 2 years to do whatever you want with. I know some people would never get on board with this and I understand that. Just pointing out some of the good points of it.

Here is why this actually makes some sense to me now: - Gallardo is worth a LOT. Much more than we got for Greinke at the deadline. He's an ace pitcher with 2 years left on his deal. If you're looking to fill the gaps in on this team with some talent, Gallardo is the piece to make that happen. - Fiers, Peralta, Estrada, Rogers, and Thornburg are all possible starters next year. And then there are more guys coming to follow them. And who knows what they may do in free agency. Finally, we have more SP talent than room. Clearly if you clear room, trading the one who is worth the most and offers the most in salary relief (I wouldn't trade him solely for that purpose, but it's worth mentioning) isn't a bad idea.

Well, that's the season folks. We literally need at least 12 different games to go our way to make it now. It's just not going to happen. Got within 1.5 and it looked like it might be there for the taking but it just wasn't meant to be. Still a nice finish and at least they were still playing for something until late in September. Got a lot to be excited about for next year.

Take one for the team there, Carlos. Yeah yeah, I know it's instinct to move out of the way. EDIT: Although if he does, it's 7-6 and Segura is standing on 2nd as the tying run with nobody out.

"How do you think Altuve feels about coming out after those two pitches to Aoki?" Probably fine, considering Roenicke has never once retaliated for hitting our players in the history of his managerial tenure. It's not just a coincidence that we blow every other team in MLB away in HBP.

Agree with this although I'd go as high as $2M. There's no way I would give him 2 yr/$8M, so if that's the market for him, no I wouldn't touch him.

All that fight in September only for the Astros to come into MP and snuff us out.

Well if yesterday didn't bury us for good………tonight surely is.

What is the Brewers obsession with Livian Hernandez? Dude sucks. I would rather have Tim Dillard back than this bum.

Should be something thereabouts in 2007. They started 24-10 that year I believe.