adambr2

Well, if we were going to go the way of Fiers, I'm surprised that Josh Stinson's name wasn't at least brought into the discussion, who is also already on the 40 man.

Well, I can say now with Lucroy out that THAT definitely makes a big difference. Ouch. I'm not sold on RR and never have been. I'll say for sure at this point that if he could turn this team around and make the playoffs this year, I'll be on board for sure.

Is Kottaras really that bad defensively? I hear this a lot, so I'm just looking for a little more elaboration on that. He's got a weak arm, but he seems to block balls okay, at least he did tonight, and he seems to "call a good game", though maybe I'm just making that up in my mind to justify his defensive shortcomings. I don't know, from the eye test I don't think he has been that bad this season, but maybe it will be more obvious when he's starting pretty much every day.

As someone who has had a boxer's fracture, and did indeed lie about it, (I was 19, I punched the hard floor of a college dorm room drunk. However that is certainly not what I told my parents or doctor), I think it's probably something fabricated. I'm not saying Lucroy's version is impossible, it's just pretty unlikely. Anyway, like I said before, it really doesn't matter. If there's any more to this than what we know, it'll never come out anyway.

Not that it really matters, but especially for a guy who gets hit in the hand with baseballs every day, the whole sock/suitcase story seems pretty unbelievable. I suppose it's possible, but outside of an extremely heavy suitcase hitting you in just the right spot, I'd find it hard to believe that a suitcase falling from a low-sitting hotel bed onto your hand would result in more than about 3 seconds of minor pain the vast majority of the time. Not saying he's lying, (and it really doesn't matter), but I think it's entirely possible that the real story is more embarrassing and this was the best story he could come up with on the way to the park. If true -- pretty crazy, especially with all the injuries so far.

Well, we beat the top team in MLB in their park. For at least the next 24 hours, we can feel good about that.

Gotta be a hot gun. I can't see any physical possibility that he just added 3 mph of velocity overnight.

This is why I resist getting excited about any hot start for Gomez. Every year, he has a hot stretch at some point and people say, "Gomez really looks different this year." Then eventually he goes back to looking like the same Gomez who is good for elite defense and pinch-running and not much else, and settles into the .288ish OBP that he's carrying right about now.

T-Plush has been healthy all season and has not had a single RBI in his first 2 months. That's unreal.

Who would have thought last August how much we would miss Jerry freaking Hairston right now?

I think you are under valuing Greinke by a lot. The Brewers would definitely get Profar for Greinke without adding a B type prospect. Just look at what the Rangers gave up to get Lee for one season and no the idea of getting draft picks wasn't really on the Rangers minds when they traded for Lee. I could see the Brewers getting the same type of players that the Mariners got back in return for trading Lee. I believe Ryan is going to be very aggressive this year and get someone that will be the #2 behind Darvish and there will be no other pitcher that is going to be on the market that is going to fit that bill. Garza comes to mind but the Cubs seem to have this fascination that they are going to get two A type prospects in return for Garza and I believe the Cubs are going to ask for Perez and Profar for Garza and I see the Rangers turning that down and going with Greinke if the Brewers accept Profar and a B type prospect for Greinkie. I don't think you can fairly say this. It was always part of the equation. Part of the package that you had to give up for buying expensive rentals at the deadline was the knowledge that you were also trading Type A compensation (1st or 2nd + sandwich pick) to the buying team. I don't think there was ever a trade where this came into play where it was just ignored. Now a rental is strictly a rental. If you aren't likely to be able to re-sign them, you get nothing for them other than what they give you during the couple months that they're there. No comp if they weren't with you all year. And I think that definitely would be a consideration to a buying team when trading for Greinke. Of course, if you can get multiple desperate teams involved, that's another way to drive up the value.

To me, Peralta's numbers in AAA this season are pretty irrelevant to the discussion of whether or not he should be the interim #5 right now.

9 under .500, and it's not the top pitching prospect in our system, or the high-upside arm in Huntsville. It's the AAAA pitcher who has enough upside to spend his career bouncing around between MLB and AAA. I will say I'm disappointed, but definitely not surprised.

I didn't even realize until the postgame that Morgan was jogging down the line to 1st on his bases loaded DP, looking back to see what happened at the plate with Weeks. Completely inexcusable. If he's running all out for 90 feet, he's safe at 1st and at least we have one more shot with the bases loaded.

Yeah, I don't think a mental break is the answer in this case. I think this is just one of those things that Weeks is going to have to play through and hopefully turn it around at some point this year. Even if he finishes the year batting .215, if he hits .280 with a .400 OBP in the second half, you still feel pretty good about him going forward. At this point that's about the best we can hope for, his end of year stats are unlikely to be very pretty no matter what happens at this point. I don't think sitting on the bench thinking about how much he's sucked this year is going to do anything for him at this point, and it doesn't do anything for the Brewers either since they have no reasonable alternatives.

This was probably Melvin's best move of the offseason IMO. The deal for Lucroy is looking like a bargain.

I completely disagree with this and if they do "sell" it will likely be the Carlos Lee trade all over again. Big league players. I think that would be a big mistake. As it stands right now I think they are more than a couple big league players away from contention next year. Trading guys like Greinke for established big league players in a selling year rather than young players with tremendous upside who may be ready in 2014 defeats the whole purpose of selling IMO.

Is this something that will keep us from being sellers at any cost, no matter what the offers might be for Greinke? 99% of people here would understand in a selling situation, that if the season is lost anyway, there is little difference between winning 70 games and winning 75 games. Problem is, the majority of fans at Miller Park won't feel that way. (and frankly, many fans aren't really interested in going out to the park to watch a team that isn't playing for contention). The team is very dependent on attendance to maintain this high payroll. I'm not sure the ramifications if they only sell 2.5M tickets vs. 3M, but I imagine it can't be good. Still, if they can't win now with what they've got, attendance is going to drop anyway, so you may as well do everything you can to reload if it comes to that. Mark and Doug have some very difficult decisions to make. Since 2007, they've developed more of a culture of "contention" for the Brewers and making any obvious "sale" at the deadline is a clear step back from that philosophy. I do not think they will be afraid to sell, but I think they will value "MLB ready" over "upside". In this case, I think that would be a mistake as I think the rotation will be too broken next year to return to contention with potential losses of Greinke, Marcum, and Wolf. Thornburg, Jungmann, and Bradley offer hope, but probably not until 2014.

Izturis and Ishikawa are replacement level players. Their loss is of no significant value to the team. Gamel is better, but Gamel/Hart isn't any better than Hart/Aoki. Losing Narveson was somewhat notable. There isn't a huge difference between Narveson and Estrada as starters, but it also hurt our bullpen depth pulling Estrada out of it. Losing Gonzalez probably hurt the worst, not because Gonzalez was even close to our best starter but because the dropoff between him and Izturis is pretty significant. Almost every team has injuries to some degree. We've had a lot more than most, but the majority of them have been non-significant players, and we weren't playing well before the rash of injuries. My point I guess, injuries have had an impact for sure, but they aren't an excuse for a 19-28 record.

This team has no fire, they get no momentum, nothing. Every time they look like they're taking two steps forward...they go and take three more back. Nine games under .500 and now 4 games in LA against the Dodgers await. This is not a playoff caliber team.

[sarcasm]Yeah hes good for 162 games[/sarcasm] RR gets too much blame for this crappy team And too much credit for a 96 win team that had a lot more to do with the talent level on the team than him.

Because then Randy Wolf, our #4 starting pitcher, would have to have (gasp) Lucroy catching for him.

Do we really need to see more to know that we got bad Veras today? Bad Veras is painful to watch.

This inning starts with Nyjer. You have a chance to put the game away, bases loaded and 1 out, you don't have a single RBI on the year, and you blow it again.

I like how Ron switched out Loe for Veras as the last second here to try to give some sort of impression that there is a method to his madness.