MNBrew

According to the roster on the Brewers' website, Casey McGehee will now be wearing #14. No more #52 for him.

Watching the Nationals too much could cause regular trips to Walgreens, too. Maybe there's an under-the-table or subliminal partnership or something.

For those of us who grew up watching Boston in the '80s, that's similar to their road look at that time. No names on the back, as I recall, and the "Boston" on the front was very plain. Still, it's a pretty boring look. They may be along the lines of "classic" in some folks' minds, but that doesn't keep them from being boring. - I do like the red Texas look. - I like Washington's updated look LESS than the previous look. Maybe it starts with the cursive W. I'd rather see them establish their own identity than try to hang onto part of an identity that was never theirs OR latching onto the last version of the Expos' look, which was corporate and boring (not unlike most of their teams who wore that look, too). - Baltimore's orange-on-black without any sort of trim? Yuck. - The Twins' retro alternates are okay but hearken back to a time when they just weren't so good. Makes me think of my Bombo Rivera & Sal Butera baseball cards. - Dig the new Rays alternate jersey. - I liked the Pittsburgh vests. As one of few teams that had them, there was an appealing character about them. The sleeved gray & white jerseys point out the overall blandness of their jerseys. I think it's worth pointing out that the Brewers had "Milwaukee" on their road uniforms not just on the '78-'93 unis, but also on the '94-'99 ones, too -- up 'til '94 as suggested earlier in the thread. They lost "Milwaukee" when they went to the current design. Ajay, I almost fully agree with your old logo/new colors & similar sleeve patch ideas. I was touting that same idea a few years ago when Attanasio left us hanging for a few months that September by stating there would be a new uniform design coming that winter. Unfortunately, all we got was the retro look, nothing really new or forward-thinking. On the Brewers' powder blue, those things were gone in the mid-'80s -- and not a minute too soon! When Willie Randolph manned 2B for a year and finished in the top 10 in AL batting ('87?), the road unis were gray.

Albeit indirectly since he left via free agency and has since returned, Craig Counsell is still a Brewer. So is Dave Bush. It's not over yet.

I suppose that's evidence that the Twins thought he's gone cliff-diving. It wouldn't be unheard of for a corner IF to collapse at 32, but it would be unusual. I think it's still pretty likely it was just an off year. I watched Lamb up here with MN last year. He just plain stunk. Punto had an off year in '07 but they hung with him and he had a great '08 and earned a good FA contract to be their starting SS this year. That was no off year from Mike Lamb last year. If the Twins had believed that was the case, they wouldn't have chosen to eat the rest of his '08 contract AND his $3.5M salary for '09. The Twins wanted so badly for him to take over 3B, yet he was so unproductive & terrible that they released him when no one claimed him off waivers. I can't remember the last time the Twins released a player before he was in the last year of his contract. The most pessimistic project a .263 BA for Lamb this year? The guy hit .235 last year with no power and was just plain bad, and he's also been horrible hitting against most team's minor leaguers in spring training. Bag those projections. If Lamb's lucky (and if we're lucky), he'll get a chance to hit .263 for some other organization this year -- in AAA.

Doug Loman was the best hitting prospect at the time but never recovered whatever bit he did have going at the big-league level after fouling a ball off his face. Once he went down, as I recall, he was never back up and I don't recall him surfacing in the bigs with any other teams. (Edit: The dubious foul ball happened in a game at Detroit. Struck out looking foolish on the next pitch. Never played well thereafter.)

Billy Spiers and Darryl Hamilton (though Hamilton moreso) were decent hitters but not power hitters. Not everyone hits with power. Therefore, since their SLG would've been WAY below league average, their OBP would've been better than league average. They were solid lineup contributors, especially Hamilton. Spiers only would've been run out of town by people that live & die primarily if not solely on stats, and fortunately most GMs rely on more than just pure numbers.

Yes, but if you can catch Brian Cashman at the right vulnerable/desperate moment (granted, "desperate" for the Yankees can mean something entirely different than for the other 29 teams), you could get a pretty good return. Plus, part of JB12's point is the financial flexibility that could well come in handy -- perhaps sooner than later, especially if the bullpen doesn't start making some better things happen consistently, and esp. again when they're not just pitching to other teams' AAA players.

I might be wrong on the Baltimore part. I looked up Adduci on Baseball-Reference.com and saw the Brewers eventually traded Pyz to Baltimore. I'm pretty sure the guy I'm thinking of came a few years before Pyznarski. Too bad my couple years of Vancouver Canadians team sets are so deeply buried in boxes right now. The answer might well be in there but it's too late at night for that quest. Turns out I was right, too, on Adduci in '88: 0 BB, 3 SF for a .266 BA and .258 OBP. Rich Becker came up with the Twins with short stops in NY & Baltimore before the Crew signed him as a free agent. Never could stand the guy because Tom Kelly had this irrational thing for him over one of my HS contemporaries, J.T. Bruett, whom Gophers coach John Anderson described back then as the most talented Gophers player since Paul Molitor. Should've lasted a lot longer if it weren't for some lasting hamstring issues.

Very underrated Brewer and pretty much earned more of a shot than he actually got -- and really he had the tougher catch than Robin did at the end of Nieves' no-no.

Jim Adduci came along in the Paul Householder trade, as I recall. I loved Adduci. Fantastically smooth swing. Would've been beaten down nowadays because one year his OBP was worse than his BA -- more sac flies than BB -- must've had crap for an eye at the plate otherwise. Adduci had two of only a small number of hits for the Crew the night I was in the front row behind the backstop in Cleveland watching Odell Jones nearly no-hit the Tribe (which was his first start filling in for Higuera, who only went one inning the Monday before against Toronto, which I was also at, and Odell came out of the 'pen to start the 2nd and pitched 5 great innings --- seems to me Fielder started at 1B then McGriff came in later and homered right after my buddy commented, "Every time I see this McGriff guy, he hits a home run." . . . anyway, that was a really cool Brewers stretch back in May/June of '88). Love the Tim Pyznarski reference. I was bonkers about that guy. Thanks to The Sporting News (when it still had actual news, was still the baseball bible of its day, and wasn't an SI wannabe) and What's Brewing?, I also closely followed Lavell Freeman and his .390 or .400 BA at El Paso that year -- then he couldn't make it anywhere of consequence above AA in spite of his cup of coffee the end of that year in Milwaukee. There's another guy (no, not Steve Stanicek -- I do remember him, and definitely not Steve Kiefer -- someone more of on OF/1B type guy like the Pyz) I can't remember -- was a similar AAA potential star who never made it into anything. Like Pyznarski, we got him from somewhere else. Pyznarski came from either the SD or Baltimore organization, I'm pretty sure. The other guy -- I haven't been able to remember him for years -- came from the other, I think, and a few years earlier (don't hold me to that one). Like Pyznarski, too, I think he was a AAA MVP type of player. I think his last name may have started with the letter B, but otherwise I'm totally stuck.... any help out there?

For all the goodwill & positive intentions behind it, it's not MLB so I wish it would go away. Lots of hype over something about which I couldn't care less. Racine native Vinny Rottino playing for Italy? Stretches like this happening all over. Ridiculous.

The team's website just happened to update the numbers today: click here to see the whole roster Green has #70 and Gagne has his #38 back (it was never assigned to anyone else yet since FA began).

Not a highly consequential question, but the Brewers' website lacks this info: Esp. for those in Arizona, does anyone know yet the uniform numbers of these new Brewer pitchers? Nick Green Braden Looper Chase Wright Thanks.

Sorry if this is redundant with another thread. With all the talk of the Brewers losing Sheets & Sabathia, I started wondering if they're actually in any worse shape than they were with the rotation at the start of 2008. And I'm not sure they are. top 6 starters, '08: Sheets Gallardo Parra Bush Suppan Villanueva was in there 'til May-ish top 6 starters, '09: Gallardo Looper Bush Parra Suppan McClung Things could go a lot of directions. But I don't see a huge difference if everyone pitches at least half decently.

When that's the baseline, losing the draft picks is a blow but signing Hoffman & Looper does bring things back up some. Of course, it's really mostly just Hot Stove banter anyway to fill the time 'til Spring Training starts to turn things from talk into substance. If the Brewers are looked at as having had a tough offseason, then if they do well they'll just get that many more props. And without Yost, there may not be quite so many 8-game losing streaks to endure that always seem to come along just as the Brewers' annual strong start begins really catching the national media's attention.

As statistically grounded as projections are, now matter how you slice it, it's still conjecture. And I simply choose to see it differently.

However unlikely, I'd still love to see the Brewers trade Cameron to NY for Cabrera & something, then sign Abreu. >That's a way to make the team worse. Defensively? Sure. Offensively? Not necessarily at all. It's still subjective viewpoints and projections, which though frequently correct are not automatically right. Imho Cabrera's the type of guy a rebuilding team should take a flyer on, but not a team that's re-loading to be competitive again this season and/or next like the Crew. Cabrera's the sort of guy a rebuilding team vests their hopes in. He's the sort of guy a contending team brings in as a reserve, which is what I'm proposing. And it's all moot anyway since Abreu supposedly has just about signed with the Angels today (LINK).

I keep tending to agree with Paul. You can trump up certain "deep" or individual vs. team stats all you want. But since when is a 100-RBI, 20+ SB All-Star OF suddently only worthy of platoon or 4th OF status? (Apply the same standard to Cameron and the logic really doesn't fly.) Perhaps RBIs aren't the ideal stat. But they're not meaningless, either. Abreu knocked a lot of guys in. The Brewers had boatloads of guys on base & usually couldn't hit 'em in for squat. Abreu is strong in some of the glaring areas where the Brewers need to improve. About the only one he's not is defense. But he's no Luis Gonzalez (paper arm) or Manny Ramirez (butcher with the glove who used to have one of the most feared OF arms in the AL), either. However unlikely, I'd still love to see the Brewers trade Cameron to NY for Cabrera & something, then sign Abreu. Money's a wash if not a slight improvement for the Crew at Abreu's rumored figure these days, and they get OF depth and possibly an additional pitcher in return. Hart moves to CF. Hart's no Willie Mays. But he's nothing near Izzy Alcantara, either. He's a solid athlete with good speed. It wouldn't be the end of the world OR the Brewers' playoff chances if Hart moved to CF in such a deal. To me it makes so much sense that it'll certainly never happen. A move like that at worst makes the Brewers a different team. It may well also make them a better offensive team by how they'd improve on their '08 weaknesses (namely lefty-right, Ks, BA, & OBP).

I love how geographic proximity and market size combine to make those teams constantly worthy of most of ESPN's attention. The Yankees threw the most money at 3 of the top 4 free agents. But they're still the Yankees. I think it is funny they still had to outbid themselves in order to finally secure Sabathia's signature. The Mets signed the highest-ceiling, currently best closer on the market. But they haven't signed a new starter or changed much other personnel from the team that choked up the division & Wild Card again. The Red Sox signed 3 past-their-prime big-name players whose track record, credibility, & post-injury discounts stand to make Epstein & Co. look really shrewd if they pan out. I'm guessing the Brewers ended up on that list not so much for losing CC & Sheets, but for losing them AND losing the draft picks they thought they'd get by the two aces signing elsewhere.

It's not uncommon for fringe players to end up with numbers more of their own choosing after some time in the bigs. This seems to happen at least with at least a couple players every ST, just not ones with as much experience as Parra has under his belt. Gary Sheffield first had #1 and then #11. Dave Nilsson had #13 and then #11 before he ended up with #7, and I think he may have had #14 in there very briefly, too. The weird thing with Nilsson is that all those numbers were during his time playing in Milwaukee, not just ST. Some of these switches can happen at the end of ST, too, once certain players are released or traded. It's one of those inconsequential things I watch like a hawk, too.

Whew. I think you're painting with an extremely broad brush. I believe the blame is mutual and with the balance really somewhere down the middle. I'm not suggesting you're wrong for casting stones at the owners. But such broad-brush statements that suggest a total mistrust of the owners and total defense of the players don't give fair justice to the complex and thoroughly "gray area" issue that the MLB labor situation really is. The owners have doled out plenty of foolish contracts over the years that they technically didn't have to give, to be sure, with any number of other questionable moves that would give most folks serious reason to question anything from their business acumen to their basic intelligence. At the same time, you can't blame any business owner for wanting to ensure a profit margin in any scenario. They didn't gain the financial wherewithal to become owners by being total financial dunderheads. In all reality, the MLBPA -- first under Marvin Miller and then under Donald Fehr -- knows full well how strategically successful and dominant their grip has been on the owners. Not that the owners didn't still eventually sign the contracts. But when the players clearly had the upper hand, the owners knew eventually the players weren't going to come out on the short end of the stick. But the players and their union haven't always helped themselves, either. Yes, they've done an admirable job of bringing up players' salaries to levels reasonably in line with the revenues of the sport. But they've also been obnoxious about crying foul and using some of their highest paid members to protest quite publicly, and all in the name of keeping a lid off the top of the market, all while the less-well-off majority's well-being and best interests really weren't given much consideration. The MLBPA has evolved from a LABOR union (remember when B.J. Surhoff's rookie salary was about $38K? of course that still didn't count fringes & benny's like his substantial daily per diem or the cost to his owner for his medical care & insurance, work-related travel & lodging costs, etc.; but still, that was pretty small jing for the dough MLB was making) into an ENTERTAINMENT union with standards or at least stated negotiation points that should make any self-respecting LABOR union NOT want to consider themselves a related organization. And on the later running discussion point, the fact is that any team's paying at least a few hundred employees at least something respectable over 80 games' worth of dates, plus lots of year-round staffing that never takes the field but who is completely essential for running a MLB team. The fact is, that's a whole lot of overhead you just can't throw aside when discussing gross revenues, net profits, expenses, and any other related terms. Nate, I appreciate the passion & sincere thought behind your points. But I think you discredit yourself and your points when you ignore the dictionary and invent your own definitions, and even more so when your definitions are the opposite of the correct ones.

I'm not concerned about allegiances. I want a top-notch announcer. And I don't think we wanna get too hung up passing judgement before the hire's made and we get to hear how he actually does. If it's Provus, maybe he's a dud with Santo but will work great with Uecker. Maybe not, sure, but still maybe so. Those of you concerned about the criteria of having MLB experience and getting a retread: First of all, that's unnecessary labeling. Second, when Jim Powell was hired, he had a little MLB experience having subbed with the Twins a little in '93 & '94, but that hardly made him a re-tread. Don't get too hung up on stereotyping. It's like part-time players who've been in one organization forever but never made any great MLB impact in spite of some sporadic decent playing time, finally get let go, then get signed by another team and gets described as a journeyman. Part-timer, role player, or utility guy, sure. But hardly a journeyman at all. Common label but incorrect/dumb usage.

I used to do a lot of cross-country driving and I listened to a lot of teams' radio broadcasts over the years. Few hold a candle to Uecker & Powell. You two are the best. I thought the Brewers' radio team was in for a slide when Pat Hughes left. Pat was fantastic with Bob, too. But no, this new Jim Powell guy turned out to be every bit as good if not better. Jim, you're a total pro. Too bad for us that you'll be gone. But our loss is Atlanta's gain, and congratulations on this "perfect storm" that gives you the chance to go back to GA.

It's too bad it took such a severe downturn in the economy for MLB owners to finally come to their senses and quit handing out "stupid money" to mediocre players. Carlos Silva, for instance, has never been a $12M/yr pitcher. If it were this offseason that he were on the market, he'd likely be looking at a $3M salary, which is actually far more commensurate with his performance. Would the MLBPA cry collusion? I wouldn't put it past 'em, not for one second. They're notorious for pressuring the owners but taking none of the blame for it. The "market correction" is happening all over the financial world. No reason baseball should be immune. People have said there's only so much money out there. We may have finally found where that limit is. Unfortunately, apparently too many players & agents still seem to be in denial about it. When enough still-capable players can't land jobs because their salary expectations are too high, maybe the point will finally sink in.