adambr2

My two cents on today -- 1) Houser's absence is just killing this bullpen. It's just had so many effects, and is causing them to lean heavily on Hader, which is probably not helping with his struggles. Before, they at least had one more reliable bridge to gap the late innings. Now they have no one -- they can matchup lefties with Claudio, but other than that, it's just straight winging it after the starter leaves. Houser isn't a good enough starter to justify how much his loss to the pen has hurt us. They've got to find a way to get him back in the role he excels at. Faria is not the answer. Pomeranz has been fine, but he's clearly not a guy they want to lean on. They can lean more heavily on Devin Williams, they can call up Black, these are options, but to be clear, they are just lottery ticket moves. Just because Williams and Black have great stuff does not mean they will automatically translate into late inning options. They need Houser back in the pen. 2) On that note, I really don't know how they're going to be able to hang in there with this pen the rest of the way. I can't imagine that guys like Suter and Wahl are really going to move the needle much. They really need a guy to step up in a big way. I'd say Corbin Burnes, Freddy Peralta, and Jimmy Nelson have the best chance of making that happen, but I'm not holding my breath on any. Two weeks ago I thought we finally had another late inning guy in Peralta, and now he's taken a step back. 3) Thames seems to have a knack for the big late inning walkoffs. Well done. 4) Somehow, it's a 4 game winning streak. We'll certainly take it any way we can get it, no style points at this juncture of the season.

Thames likes those August walkoff homeruns. I was at it last August when he did it. Well for a 9 inning game with no delays, this was certainly one of the longer ones I've ever seen.

This bullpen is an absolute joke. It's the main reason the answer to the "will we win the division" thread is a resounding "No".

In general I still feel very good about Hader. The issue with him is constantly having to rely on him in unfavorable situations (3 straight days, multiple innings, etc) simply because we can't count on anyone in the pen at all. There have been so many guys who have been given opportunities to step into a high leverage role this year. Barnes, Williams, Jeffress, Burnes, Peralta, just to name a few, and for the most part, none have been able to see it. It's one of the reasons I absolutely hate having Houser back in the rotation. He was far and away our #2 guy in the pen, and now it's back to just throwing crap at the wall and trying to get through the late innings.

In 2 outings for Faria he hasn't been even a little impressive.

I believe your first outright doesn't require waivers, you just lose your roster spot. I don't think it works like that. Pretty sure any player has to clear waivers to be outrighted.

He was worth over 30 fWAR in 6 seasons for us. I would call that a little more than just a solid player. I am glad we didn't pay him but he most definitely deserved big money. He's probably one of the most underpaid guys for his career production that you'll ever find. And Lucroy's reasons for exercising his NTC to Cleveland are no one's business but his. Maybe he just didn't want to be in Cleveland. These NTCs are a right earned by the player and it's their contractual right to use them. If Ryan Braun were traded to Boston in the offseason and refused to go, no one would be questioning why or vilifying him for it.

"I want to win and I don't see us winning in the foreseeable future. I want to go to a World Series. That's what all players want. Rebuilding is not a lot of fun for any veteran guy." "Yeah, absolutely. I want to win," he said. "It's not guaranteed that I'm going to win if I am traded. But I'm going to be a 30-year-old catcher (in June). I can't put numbers on how much longer I'm going to play, but as players we want to win. I don't care about the money; I just want to win. That's the bottom line." "If I stay with the Brewers, I'm not going to go out and dog it," said Lucroy, who has limited no-trade protection in his contract. "I'm not going to be a bad teammate. I'm not going to be a bad clubhouse guy. I'm not going to be bitter. It's just part of the game. "Right now, I'm planning on being with the Brewers. I'm not going to think anything different until something happens. It might and it might not. No one knows. I'm going to go out every day and compete with whatever team I'm with. I still can't believe there are Brewer fans upset enough over these comments to wish ill upon the best catcher in our team history. Also never mentioned in these conversations is his emphasis in the last two paragraphs that he understands the business part of things if he doesn't get dealt and he's going to continue to work hard and be a good teammate either way. If anything, I respect him more for his candor and honesty. If these comments really make you dislike Lucroy, please don't ever get upset when a player gives a fake, canned answer to avoid making headlines.

Speculating is a horrible thing to do on an internet message board, but I'm going to do it anyway....They got in a fight, Lucroy punched a door or wall or refrigerator or something... broke his hand...and got one last word in to his wife... If your speculation is correct, as a married man myself trust me when I say he is likely still paying for that decision to this very day.

I don't care if he lied about the suitcase thing, but it seems really weird if it were made up for your story to involve throwing your wife under the bus. There are a million stories you can make up that don't do that.

Lucroy's production while he was a Brewer was worth about $250M in WAR on the open market. He made about $12M as a Brewer. He was an absolute star, greatest catcher in franchise history and had by far the best years of his career here. Looking in retrospect, he's actually underrated for how good he was for us. He was 99% a model citizen here as well. He did more than enough in my eyes to forgive any honest comment he might have made about playing for a rebuilding club.

We always own the Bucs or they always own us. It always seems to be one or the other and you never know which it's going to be from season to season. Anyway, much needed sweep.

I remember Villar's early games as a full time 2B in 2017. There was mass rioting, and the general consensus is that he was never going to be able to man the position fulltime. We've survived some pretty weak defensive 2B over recent years with Weeks and Gennett. I'm not overly concerned about Hiura. I don't expect him to be a strong 2B defender but I would guess he'll eventually be in the passable range and his bat will be more than good enough to compensate. This is not a Braun at 3rd in 2007 type disaster. Hiura will be able to stay at 2nd.

Yes, but at least half those options sound terrible.

https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2019/08/diamondbacks-to-designate-greg-holland.html Can be acquired for just a waiver claim now. We all know how it went for him in St Louis last year, but he was lights out in Washington and isn't far removed from being one of the game's best in Colorado the year before. His numbers this year aren't even that bad. Not good, but given the juiced ball factor, not someone you think of being in DFA limbo with a 4.54 ERA, mostly from a higher walk and HR rate this year. Still striking out close to his career numbers of 11.5/9 IP. With the complete lack of depth in our pen and time running out I think this is one that we need to take a chance on.

Really felt like Supak had earned the opportunity to get the ball today. You have to wonder how much they think of him when the stars are aligned perfectly for him to get the start, he's already on the 40, and they literally picked a very weak pen over him getting the chance today. In any event, let's get that sweep.

But did it work? We could start Matt Albers at shortstop and bat him cleanup and we still might win the game. That wouldn't make it a good idea.

Good. Shaw has had a tough enough year without idiots piling on unwarranted. That seems like an unthinkably terrible idea on Counsell's part. 1st and 3rd, I could see it. In the 8th, the bases are loaded, where is Shaw going to go? The other team is not stupid. So your plan is to try to draw a throw on a play that the other team knows the runner literally cannot advance because there is nowhere to go? I almost hope that Counsell is just making that up to cover for Shaw rather than him actually deciding that was a good idea.

To be fair, if West does his job and correctly calls the 3-2 pitch to Pina, we get the 4th run anyway.

Huge break. That was awful baserunning by Shaw. And good to see Grisham knew to immediately break for home when he saw Shaw in the rundown.

Hahaha, what?

Who would you have put in? Hard to believe there isn't a single pitcher on the team faster than Grandal.

You weren't kidding. Holy cow is that guy slow. What was Counsell thinking?

Should already have 1 in with nobody out after the Grisham double, but, you know, Joe West.

Yeah, you're wrong, Joe West.