adambr2

It was not a good trade, but that Davies bit in the end might cause Ken to pull a muscle reaching to make a point. Why? They got a fantastic year out of Davies and then used him to get Yu. Seems like a legitimate point to me. They handled Davies perfectly.

The Padres absolutely destroyed us in that deal. I know people want to say "let's just wait", but...realistically . That's going to look like a loss now or 3 years from now.

Not sure they sold high on JP. He took a beating these last two outings. I could agree they bought low on Adames, though. I think we would have loved this acquisition before this season. I could talk myself in liking this trade, I just don't really know what the plan is with Urias now and I am not sure what we are going to do with an already questionable pen. But there's a lot to like about Adames. He is 25, has had a pretty good career so far, was a top 100 prospect and is controllable. Maybe we just felt the value was too good to pass on.

So are we basically throwing in the towel in on the guy we gave up Grisham for already? I don't mind Adames personally as an acquisition but I'm not a big fan of trading with the Rays. Feels like every trade they ever make ends up being highway robbery in their favor.

Lol. An already questionable bullpen just got worse.

What the heck is that like? I feel like we have at least 10 or 15 on our 40 that could be dumped tomorrow and never be missed.

Totally agree with Plush. Don't think it's illegal, it was being discussed at the federal level. No doubt it's a gray area, both ethically and legally, but this is a global pandemic. There are a lot of ethical and legal gray areas being crossed. We've been giving away tax dollars for the last 15 months anyway. This one will pay for itself with herd immunity. Many people who aren't vaccinated aren't necessarily against it, they're just apathetic. An extra grand in their bank account will change many minds.

I saw a side by side of 2 pitches thrown to ohtani, one was around shoulder height while the other was ankle height...apparently both were hr. I'll edit my post and add the link if I can find it tomorrow. The guy is a walking cheat code. I'm just so glad he didn't end up with the Dodgers. Or Cubs. Or any NL team. The Angels are always harmless enough, somehow. You would think a team that starts every season with Mike Trout and Shohei Ohtani on their roster could figure out a way to win.

Andy Haines frantically Googling "jeff hoffman reds scouting report stuff velocity 2021" as we speak.

I'm not sure I would sell Peralta. He's 24 and controlled and looking really good. I would need something that looks like a clear and obvious overpay to deal Freddy.

Certainly an argument can be made Stearns has tinkered too much but let’s be at least honest: Eric Thames, Jesus Aguilar, Ji-Man Choi, Jonathan Villar, Moustakas, Grandal (short timers but he brought them in and they were terrific), Brad Miller, Stephen Vogt (good player couldn’t stay healthy), Manny Pina, Granderson was great as a bench player, Kolten Wong, and the aforementioned Cain, Yelich. He drafted and developed a TOR arm and traded for another. I don’t think Stearns is some genius but he’s done enough to demonstrate he knows what he’s doing. Every GM makes mistakes at times. For example, it was Doug Melvin who included a player as a throw in on the Carlos Lee deal, who has played 17 years in the majors and has 425+ homeruns You're using Brad Miller as an example? Who OPSed 75 points under his career average here and then got DFAed and then was very successful elsewhere? Granderson? Choi? Pina has done perfectly fine here, but a backup catcher with 5.5 career WAR is your example of Stearns being a cut above other GMs? Some of these guys were good to be sure, like Grandal, but almost every name you mentioned was signed, did exactly what they have done their entire career here, and moved on. I was asking about great position player signings that demonstrate the prowess for evaluating talent that some people are speaking of in regard to Stearns, not a list of position players that were acquired during the David Stearns era. Also, the Carlos Lee/Nelson Cruz trade was a bad one for sure, but it should be noted that Cruz was subsequently DFAed and passed on by every single team after that before breaking out.

Derail ahead warning, but you got me thinking who exactly has Stearns acquired of all the great pitching we've had. Of the current team, Freddy Peralta is it. Woodruff, Houser, and Hader were all part of the organization when he was hired. Burnes was part of his first draft but i don't know how much you can credit Stearns for the pick. He's certainly made some short term acquisitions that have worked out well with Miley, Lyles, Pomeranz but the core of the pitching was already in the organization before he was got here. I was just talking about position players in this instance, but yeah, Freddy was a homerun for sure.

Imagine having a player that was both Brandon Woodruff and Christian Yelich in one player. The Angels are so lucky to have Ohtani.

Who are all these great position player acquisitions that Stearns has had that has given him this mastermind reputation that is so good that people refuse to believe he can be at fault for poor hitting talent now? Shaw? Sure, I can buy it, at least the first time. Cain? Meh, for a year anyway. Narvaez? I guess if you only want to count this year and throw out last. Yelich? Of course. Anybody else? I see one absolute homerun, one or two other wins and then a lot of meh to bad. Looks like a lot more perception than reality to me. Even every position player prospect he's ever acquired in big deals has has limited success at best and been pure junk at worst. Go right down the line -- Phillips, Santana, Brinson, Cordell, Urias, Susac, Dubon... almost exclusively junk.

Donaldson is good. I don't think the Twins are going to love the idea of signing him to a big contract, trading him to us for peanuts and then paying him to play here.

Unless you're implying that David Stearns has dementia, this isn't the best comparison. Ok, I also brought up Melvin. I mean come on, you know what point I'm trying to make. Theo Epstein? It is plenty possible for GMs to go from extremely successful to much less so.

It's not just 'hitting below career averages', it's coming here and cratering. If it happens with one player, it's perfectly fair to assume that you missed something. When it happens with 7-8 players, that's a gigantic problem, and indicative of a larger issue. My point all along has been that the 'larger issue' has to either be that the Brewers' talent evaluators SUDDENLY got real bad at evaluating talent, or that something the coaching staff is doing isn't working. Again, as I've stated all along, the latter feels far more obvious, unless you truly believe that Stearns and the F.O. suddenly got terrible at their jobs. I mean there are numerous, obvious examples of bad signings that didn't work out here and went on to either Asia or performing poorly elsewhere. I don't even know how it can be debated that Stearns made some bad moves trying to patch together a lineup in 2020, overpaid almost every single one of them and whiffed on all of them besides Gyorko. Yes, I think Stearns and the FO have done a bad job recently. It doesn't mean I think they have always done a bad job or that they always will. All of those things can be true. Is it really that illogical that Stearns and the F.O. did a good job earlier in their tenure and did a bad job the last couple years? Things and circumstances change. Sometimes the methods you used to do are no longer effective. 10 years ago Ted Thompson could have walked through Green Bay and had most of the city bowing to him. 5 years ago he was widely considered to be a poor GM and well past his time. Even Doug Melvin brought out different perspectives from fans at different times in his tenure. In the mid to late 2000s I think he was widely respected. By 2015 I think most Brewer faithful were ready to move on. I'm not saying we should move on from Stearns, but I don't know why there would be an assumption that because he did a really good job at one time, the players working out now must not be his fault. I think there is probably blame to go around, and again, I'm fine with replacing Haines, but to me, recognizing that there is shared blame for our poor roster is far more logical than assuming that Haines is just so terrible at his job that everything he touches just craters.

It doesn't "defy all logic," and you must not watch a lot of televised NFL football then. Because a color analyst usually says it every single time there's a false start inside the 10, that the offense really doesn't mind those kinds of penalties because they have more room to work with. I'm honestly kind of surprised the other person's comment met this kind of resistance because this gets brought up in games all the time. When an offense is right up to the goal line and can't, or is unlikely to throw, the defense can more or less float 9 guys in a tight space and it can be very hard to throw into. When you have 20, 25 yards to work with, you have more options. As far as a team not taking a false start on a 2-pt conversion, that's not the same thing. The clock is of no consequence on a 2-pt conversion, the run is an option, there is no next play or field goal alternative, etc., and those plays are practiced all the time. I specifically emphasized when there is no option to run as a caveat. Why would running not be an option from the 3? Maybe from the 5. It's definitely an option from the 3. To me anything inside the 5 you at least force the thought of a run, and that makes a difference. Not sure how having 20-25 yard windows with 1 play to run is ever a good thing, those are extremely tight windows to try to fit a pass into from that far out and will be killed by a good zone defense almost every time. Being at the 10 or 11 versus the 5 or 6 maybe is better, I don't know? I doubt it makes much difference right there. I realize announcers frequently say things like the offense doesn't mind that false start down there but announcers blurt out cliches all the time.

I just think the implication is that Smoak, Sogard and Holt were bad signings and bad reads by DS on how much productivity they still had left in their careers, rather than guys who fell apart via bad coaching here. Again I'm fine with a closer look at the coaching staff both in Milwaukee and on the farm. I just personally think the implication that DS hasn't made numerous bad signings in the last 2 years is clearly wrong. You said yourself previously that it's not a GMs fault if Jackie Bradley Jr. comes here and suddenly hits below his career average. I'm not sure what the job of a GM is if not to judge hitters based not on what they've already done, but by what they will do in the future. Anyone can evaluate based on the past. If a GM can't be blamed for signings that clearly don't work out the way he had hoped, what is there that they can be held accountable for?

Well assuming you have a 50/50 shot of converting the 4th, then a 50/50 shot of converting the 2, then a 50/50 shot of keeping Brady from driving into FG range, then a 50/50 shot of winning in OT, that only leaves you with a 6.25% chance of all 4 happening. Obviously those are just rough estimates and there are other small possibilities and variables but it illustrates how many things you still need to go right to win a game down 8 and what I meant by there were no good options.

Well assuming you have a 50/50 shot of converting the 4th, then a 50/50 shot of converting the 2, then a 50/50 shot of keeping Brady from driving into FG range, then a 50/50 shot of winning in OT, that only leaves you with a 6.25% chance of all 4 happening. Obviously those are just rough estimates and there are other small variables and possibilities but it illustrates how many things you still need to go right to win a game down 8 and what I meant by there were no good options.

No, being on the 10 is way way worse than being on the 3. The window you need to fit a pass in from 3 yards out is pretty small compared to at 10 yards out and a QB run from 3 yards out is always an option. In fact if there's any spot where it's most difficult to gain 10 yards it's from the 10 yard line because the endzone endline works as an extra safety over the top. Not sure I agree. I've heard a lot of analysts and coach-analysts say the same thing. That 5 yard penalties on 1st and goal actually help the offense because the back of the defense isn't sitting with their heels on the back of the end zone. Especially when a team is almost for sure passing, it becomes a tight space full of defenders. So why don't teams always take a 5 yard penalty anytime they want to go for 2? From the 2 or 3 yard line, the defense at least needs to respect the possibility of a run. In fact I believe the percentage of successful 2 point conversions is much higher on running plays.

Then again it’s May, the Brewers have been a M.A.S.H. unit all year and have played a killer schedule of almost exclusively winning or contending teams. They could be in first place come July and absolutely be buyers. Teams would love to get their hands on Aaron Ashby or Felciano so they do have ammunition to acquire players it depends on the targets. I’d be more concerned about selling because it would mean their players are all underperforming which tanks their value. Unless doing a major rebuild, the only pitchers on expiring contracts aren’t likely to bring anything significant in return: Boxberger, Brett Anderson Feliciano and Ashby are nice prospects, I never said they had nothing, just not a great overall farm to buy from, they're just not going to be in the running for the top guys on the market unless they're willing to deal guys like Mitchell. They have not really played a killer schedule, it has been almost exactly average and isn't really a major contributor in what their current record is. They had their two best pitchers going into two games against a subpar Royal team and still couldn't get a game. At this point we don't really have the injury excuse to fall back on, Wong has been back, Cain has been back, Narvaez has been back, Yelich is back. The few guys who are still left out on IL are supplemental contributors like Peterson, Robertson, who aren't really missed. We're currently healthy and we are still losing games. We were a M.A.S.H. unit indeed in April but we had a good month. The chances of them being in 1st on July 1st is almost certainly contingent on starting to get contributions from Hiura and Yelich; without that happening the odds are slim.

I don't think they're in a great position to buy and I don't think they're in a great position to sell. I hate doing nothing, but they're not in a great spot. I don't think they can do much more than hope that their underperformers come around. Yelich has to be better, Hiura has to be better. Urias has to not be a bust. Some bullpen help and cheap 3B help is probably reasonable if they're within striking distance in July, but they don't have a great farm to buy from.

If I remember right, there was quite a bit of "we should be selling" talk in 2018 as well. I'm personally glad they chose a different path. I think if they are anywhere close to .500 at the deadline, they'll be buyers. And if this team isn't close to .500 at the end of August, that would be a massive disappointment. Don't know when. They were 8 games over. 500 on May 20th, 2018, 13 games over on June 20th, and 11 games over on July 20th. There were ebbs and flows to be sure but they were pretty much in it the whole way. This team is under .500 on May 20th. I just think 2018 was a lot better overall team.