adambr2

Claudio is junk.

Pulled up Gameday and we were tied 2-2. Opened it and Davies gives up another dinger and it's 3-2.

What does this mean? No one has said anything remotely close to either of these things.

I think we are trying to get away from bad OF defense. If we wanted a good OF bat and were willing to sacrifice defense I think we would have just stuck with Santana. Melky is a pretty bad defender, really don't want him in there every day. A lot of the proposals I see just seem like moves for the sake of moves to me without moving the needle much. We certainly aren't a struggling offense that needs to shake things up or anything. Many of our improvements offensively will hopefully come from within from guys like Shaw and Hiura.

He'd be a nice addition but it seems like a nearly impossible match. I can't think of too many situations where two top contenders made an in season trade to try to be mutually beneficial. They would also want something that could help them right now and I'm not sure what we could give in return that wouldn't hurt us too.

Even though like I said I think there's no chance Bellinger was ever in the Braun talks, I'm going to post this lineup for fun: 1) Yelich LF 2) Cain CF 3) Bellinger RF 4) Hiura 2B 5) Moustakas 3B 6) Grandal C 7) Shaw 1B 8) Arcia SS The order can be whatever, I just tried to split the lefties up, but that's going to be a historically good offense, is it not?

I wouldn't have an issue giving up Ray, but I am probably lower on him than most. I think he's a bust and would just like to get some value for him while we still can. And yes I know I could still be wrong about Ray, just my opinion on him.

Do they need it or do you just want to see it? They've averaged 5.25 runs per game since he was sent down. yeah respectively this argument is weak. I'm ready to pull the plug on Jesus, move moose to 1st and hope Shaw gets it together. How does this help? Thames isn't the problem here. They need a righty 1B, not a lefty. And Moose has played 35 career innings at 1B, I doubt he would be moved there in the middle of the season. Far more likely in this proposal that Shaw goes back to his original position at 1B and Moose goes back to his original position at 3B.

The Tigers have made it pretty much known that they are open for business. One of the guys likely to be dealt is Shane Greene. Greene is a tough player to value, he doesn't have that strong of a track record. That being said, he's certainly been one of the most dominating relievers in baseball in 2019, and has the strikeout ability to profile as a late inning weapon in any role. The extra appeal for Greene potentially is that he is under club control in 2020, so you'd potentially add him to a very talented bullpen in 2020 that would already include Hader, Jeffress, and likely the return of Knebel at some point. Given the extra year of control for Greene and the very high demand for quality relief pitching I would expect the required price for Greene to be at least the level of a Peralta or Turang. Something centered around a Corey Ray type would probably have to be supplemented with strong additional pieces.

The Cardinals still owe about 300 million dollars in future guaranteed money to Fowler, Molina, Goldschmidt, and Mikolas. That has to make them a little bit nervous given the ages of these guys and their current productivity.

I am not too surprised that many are picking the Cubs to win the division. I would have put us around the same odds before the Kimbrel deal and after the Kimbrel signing I would give them the slight edge. They have four high end bats in Rizzo, Bryant, Baez and Contreras, and the rest of the lineup behind those 4 are pretty decent. Their bullpen once Kimbrel is full go, should be pretty decent. With that said, their depth in general stinks. Their average starting pitcher age is about 67, and guys like Bote and Caratini could come crashing back down to earth anytime. They don't have great injury insurance in the minors. They're not going to get a bunch of David Bote miracle performances every year. Like always, I would expect they'll improve at the deadline by taking on salary that other teams don't want and spending money they say they don't have. They don't have much of a farm to deal from, so they'll continue to make the Hamels type deals at the deadline and probably luck out with it like they always do. Speaking of Hamels, they are walking on some eggshells with that rotation with the depth they have. It's a durable bunch to be sure, but at the age of those guys it could come crashing down via injuries or regression at any time. They really count on great starting pitching to win, they need their starting 5 healthy and effective. Any disruption to that and they could really struggle. Not that our starters aren't valuable, but we really don't count on them to win. We can deal with injuries to our rotation and it just doesn't move the needle back much like it would for them. Obviously we would be screwed with any extended absence from Yelich, or to a lesser extent Hader or Grandal, but everyone else we can cover fairly well with depth. All in all I wouldn't be shocked to see either team win the Central and I expect both teams in the playoffs just like last year.

To call Yelich a cheapish All-Star really understates his value. There are 68 All-Stars in baseball every year, Yelich is at the very upper echelon of those players. Yelich is one of the top 2-3 players in baseball. He was the league MVP last year and is having an even better year this year. He will very likely go down as one of the greatest Brewers in franchise history. So you're not comparing those 4 players to a cheapish All-Star, you're comparing them to a cheapish MVP. And secondly, we are so far away from those 4 being even replacement level MLB players, much less above average MLB regulars. (And I realize you didn't say otherwise). Harrison and Diaz have had nice seasons so far after both disappointing in 2018 in the minors. Yamamoto has had one career MLB start, Harrison and Diaz have never even stepped out onto an MLB field. MLB is littered with pitchers who dazzled in a debut and then fizzled, and littered with players who performed at a high level in the minors but couldn't translate that to the majors (Lewis Brinson is one of those guys, so far). The odds of all four turning into above average MLB regulars is incredibly remote. Not impossible, but very, very remote. Just go back to our top 4 prospects from 4, 5 years ago and see how many of them turned out to be above average MLB regulars. I am not saying the Marlins did poorly in this trade, and I have no reason not to hope that all four do well in Miami. There doesn't have to be a loser in the trade. But I mean, comparing Christian Yelich to the likely trajectory of our franchise on holding the 4 prospects instead, it's not even close. We won a division title last year and came within one game of the World Series. We are highly likely to have back to back playoff appearances for the first time in ...ever? I don't know. We have a very good chance of being a perennial playoff team for the next 3-4 seasons, minimum. All of those things have incredible value to our franchise, and there's no way we're even sniffing the playoffs right now much less competing for the NL if the Yelich trade never happens. And barring the highly unlikely scenario in which one of the 4 traded to Miami turns into a star level player as well, we probably aren't getting there anytime in the next few years with the 4 we dealt.

It's entirely possible that Shaw's 2019 will end up mostly in San Antonio trying to figure it out before starting fresh next year. His past track record certainly states a case for some time to figure it out, but it isn't enough to guarantee him anything. I wouldn't have thought Domingo Santana would have spent a great portion of 2018 in AAA after his 2017 season, but that's exactly what happened. Things change. Unfortunately that is not an option we have with Aguilar. I am surprised they have not tried to go the phantom injury followed by an extended rehab assignment route. That makes Aguilar's performance all the more troublesome really, knowing he is almost certainly 100% healthy. Surely they would have used anything down to a hangnail as an excuse to give him some time on the IL by now.

The following regular 1B have an OPS at least 62 points less than Eric Thames this year: Justin Smoak Paul Goldschmidt Jose Abreu Eric Hosmer Joey Votto Thames has not been an issue, and since there probably isn't anyone who wants to see Aguilar playing every day, trading Thames should not even be something we are pursuing right now.

It's not just you, OTB. I thought we would take a step back this year, too. And the odd thing about it is...you look at the individual performances and you think, well, we SHOULD be taking a step back. Cain has regressed, Aguilar and Shaw have significantly regressed, and the young pitchers besides Woodruff have regressed. Chacin has regressed. The pen has been okay, but not like last year. Yet, here we are. I would say hitting homeruns in free agency with Moose and Grandal has been the biggest factor. Yelich is doing his thing again, but this isn't a one superstar can carry a franchise sport. But it's definitely a well managed team, greater than the sum of its parts. You look at rosters like the Nationals and Mets, definitely less than the sum of their parts. We're on pace to win 93 games, and I don't really have any reason to think that's not a reasonable goal at this point. In fact, one could reasonably argue for several reasons (easier schedule, adding Hiura again at some point, hopeful positive regression for Aguilar, Shaw, Cain, Burnes, Peralta, etc etc) that we should be performing better than what we've put on the field so far.

Results notwithstanding, Jeffress doesn't have it tonight. Really playing with fire.

Thames had no prayer.

Those are the chances you just can't miss out on to win in places like this. Have to put that in play.

11 years after the CC Sabathia trade, we finally get to benefit from Michael Brantley.

He's actually been a lot better than his stats will show the last few games, but his problem has been that the few mistakes he has made every game have all been compounded into one inning.

I can't believe that just happened.

Seems like Brewers fans feel this way every time a veteran comes around. The vast majority declared Hamels and Verlander done and washed up. Often times these veterans get re-invigorated with being on a good team. Kind of amazes me that it takes playing on a contender to motivate some of these guys. (I don't put Verlander in this category, but Hamels I definitely do). Anyone can be invigorated playing on a contender. If you still had that ace ability and you're sitting there going through the motions on a losing team and performing poorly, what does that tell me about how you're going to handle adversity?

2 might be all we get.

Well that was nothing if not totally predictable as to how far that leadoff double was going to go.

Verlander not apparently all that intimidated by Shaw's .171 average.