MNBrew

I prefer the ball & glove logo cap in navy vs. royal, but if they're going to use it, I'd rather yellow stay totally in the past: go navy & gold. I'd prefer gold over yellow 1,000 times out of 1,000 (that, along with navy replacing royal, was by far the best aspect of the '93-'94 offseason uniform switch away from the ball & glove logo!!!). The ball & glove in navy & gold is what I wished they would've done a decade or whatever ago when they brought back the ball & glove for Retro Sundays which after a couple years became Retro Fridays -- that is, if they were going to bring the ball & glove back, I was hoping they would've done so in the current colors. The Retro (at the time) Sunday uniform was and still is pretty blah, and for all of us who hoped for something innovative & cool when they were unveiled, it was highly anticlimactic. Anyway, this new alternate is something of an improvement over the pinstripe retros, but not the complete improvement it could've been. All that said, I still think the current primary M/barley logo ought to remain the primary. It's classy, modern, a nicely updated version of an early '70s M-over-Wisconsin logo (which was about as exciting as, well, nothing), and it has all the needed depth & character to remain both cool & timeless. The ball & glove arguably is the most clever logo of all times -- I totally agree! But nowadays I still prefer it in its secondary role -- highly loved but still secondary. This notion of sentimentality for the old block M, I just don't get that at all. I'm guessing it's because it's the only one that hasn't been overplayed and roots from the one Brewers era that probably pre-dates most posters on this board. (The "Motre Bame" one and its simplified successor are too recent and too well-remembered (and probably too disliked, in hindsight) to be included in the discussion.) As a kid, collecting baseball cards, while I loved collecting an extra Brewers team set every year, I saw more than enough of those plain block M caps that I never want to see the Brewers ever bring it back again. It was terribly plain then & it's even more boring now -- about as exciting as choosing between Pica & Elite font on my dad's mid-1970s IBM electric typewriter, old Colgate vs. old Crest when there was only one flavor in existence for each, burnt orange or puke olive green shag carpet. Some things went away for good reason and should remain gone. I think the block M is one of them.

The other thing that came out in the JSOnline blog today is that the Brewers were already working on acquiring Freeman before Pena pitched on Opening Day. Then they got him and someone had to go, which turned out to be Pena, who as we all know, was very borderline re: making the roster in the first place and may well not have made it if it weren't for so many likely BP guys going on the DL (Smith & Knebel at minimum, Jones & Nolin & Barrios possibly ahead of Pena on the "keep" list as well).

He brings a good arm & some MLB experience & success (not sure the amount of success guarantees anything, but...). Given that 5 BP guys (regulars & candidates) are on the DL, bringing in a serviceable, experienced stopgap is a logical move. I don't necessarily like the move, but I sure don't dislike it. I do like element of a known quantity that he brings vs. the variable that Cravy is right now. Plus, after going 0-8 or whatever last year, it doesn't hurt Cravy to go to AAA and build up his game again all the more. If he's a bona fide MLB pitcher, that'll bear itself out over time and it's not worth sacrificing the long term for the short term.

presley has no minor league options remaining. if the brewers add him to their 25-man roster and then try to outright him to the minor leagues, presley can refuse the assignment (as he's been outrighted before) and declare free agency. nieuwenhuis is in the same boat. out of minor league options, and he's already been outrighted once. if the brewers try to outright him a second time, nieuwenhuis can declare free agency. That original quote's kind of odd because the difference at the moment is that Presley doesn't have to be optioned b/c he's an NRI (presumably without an opt-out clause since we've not heard anything about that, at least not with respect to Opening Day), not on the 40-man roster, whereas Nieuwenhuis has been on the 40-man since he was claimed off waivers. So by that logic, Brew4U, is it right to think you're saying they should keep Nieuwenhuis? I've seen Presley play for a while when he was a Twin. He's got some nice skills. I assume the same for Kirk N. But there's also good reason why guys like these two are fighting to make an MLB roster as opposed to holding down a starting OF job in the bigs, which leads me to think it's really a toss-up and that neither's probably a big-time difference maker on the Brewers, let alone of the caliber to be much of a difference maker on a contending team.

I like that Cappy made the team and I wish Morales had, too. I don't get keeping Boyer, esp. over Morales, but oh well. It's struck me the last couple days that the 25-man roster's likely to have a much higher degree of fluidity to it this year than in the past, and by mid-August, injuries aside, I'd be surprised if the roster doesn't look significantly different than it does now.

I don't think there's any reason to carry 13 pitchers at almost any point in the year, let alone having 13 on the Opening Day roster. There seem to be at least somewhat justifiable reasons to keep almost every OF on the roster, so this one's sure tough to figure out. The only strong-ish opinion I have thus far is that I really don't have much interest in Kirk N. at this point. His K rate seems to suggest he's the OF version of Hernan Perez, and I'd rather not see him make the roster, either.

Since Goforth & Cravy seem to be locks to start the year in Colorado Springs (assuming no further catastrophic injuries, knock on wood), it would seem to be down to Boyer, Capuano, Morales, & Pena for the last 3 spots. A case could be made for each of those guys making the Opening Day roster. Smith's departure from to the DL would seem to give both Capuano & Morales something of an edge since they're lefties, but that's still pure speculation. At least the position player battle for roster spots remains intriguing, is shrouded in plenty of mystery, and is even tougher to handicap.

I can see Pena* but not Boyer. I could see any of Nolin, Capuano, & Morales. I can't see 13 pitchers and hope we don't at any point all year (except in the 2nd game of doubleheaders when they're allowed an extra guy, which seems like a really weird rule to me given that my memories of doubleheaders for the first decade-plus of 1980 & onward were almost always with 10-man pitching staffs -- and that's without counting the few years later in that span when it was in vogue for cost-saving purposes to go for a time with a 24-man roster (yes, the days of labor hell and Donald Fehr and countless work stoppages)). *Edit to clarify: I can see keeping Pena at least to begin with since he's out of options and they'd prefer to give him a shot in-season before risking losing him on waivers.

To the question in the thread's title, I hope so at least if that perception's out there to the extent that it aids him staying in Milwaukee because I don't want to see him traded at all. I'm fine with the rebuild. But I think Braun is a pretty nearly generational talent, still basically in his prime, that you don't give up in a rebuild.

Flores is also a logical DL candidate given the injury he's coming off of and the fact that he won't be ready by the start of ST.

Through at least the early '80s, the Brewers were a team (as were many) that rarely ever had a guy with a uniform number over 50 (thinking about when Vuke was on the team). Pitchers typically had #'s in the 20s, 30s, & 40s. Pitchers with #'s in the teens were less common but still ordinary (think: Vida Blue's #14, Bob McClure & his #10, Atlee Hammaker who even wore #7 for a while, Danny Darwin's #18, Frank Viola's #16, Bob Ojeda's #19, then into the '90s & '00s w/ guys like Scott Erickson on MN who wore #19, Ben Sheets w/ #15 & Jeff D'Amico w/ #13). Nowadays coaching staffs are at least 50% larger than what they used to be (30 years ago, no one heard of a bench coach or an "eye-in-the-sky" press box coach, or a video coordinator, let alone the now-Jason-Lane role of "bonus" coach [my term]), which increases the number of numbers unavailable for players.

Not sure how I did that. Funny that Bobby Hill (the ballplayer, not Hank's son) is only a few years older than Aaron Hill: http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/h/hillbo01.shtml Hank's son Bobby might have the youth the organization's been after, and I'll bet he's cheaper than Aaron.

If you're like me, you were also interested to learn that.... Chase Anderson will wear the same #57 he had in AZ, Bobby Hill inherited Segura's #9, and Jason Lane switched from #57 to #40 to accommodate Anderson.

I'm not sure I agree. As many have noted, it well could do either depending on his health and his game. I'd rather gamble on selling higher and not risk a lesser return. If a trade doesn't pan out, whether for lack of a good match or if the Brewers are just sincere about their disinterest in trading him, we still have a very affordable catcher who may still be one of the league's best. (Side note: Jonathan Lucroy is our catcher. Matthew LeCroy used to play for the Twins. Only LeCroy capitalizes the C. Noting this only because I've seen this a few times.)

I'm not a big conspiracy guy, but I'll admit I've been thinking about it. Now that some time has past, the dust has settled, that trade looks even better. Three young pitchers, but not too young to be lottery ticket types. One who could be a #5 type SP, the other two have an even higher upside. A young OF with options who has a real chance to be an every day player, and oh yea, another OF who's ceiling is an All-Star. That's a huge haul for Fiers and Gomez. There were only two pitchers: Houser & Hader. Who were you thinking was the 3rd?

To be fair, it took 'til 2013 -- the 5th season after the trade -- for Brantley to start showing much of anything meaningful at the MLB level. He didn't exceed a .750 OPS until 2014, when he finally showed he'd become a pretty complete player..... That's SIX years after the trade (incidentally, 2 years longer than it took Lorenzo Cain to do the same), which is a pretty long time given that he started '09 in AAA after being sent to Cleveland as the PTBNL. I don't know that that many really underestimated Brantley. By that I mean that it took a darn long time for him to prove that first Milwaukee's and then Cleveland's faith in his potential was fully justified.

I read it that the DBacks are sending $5.5M. So it is the Brewers must pay Hill $6.5M, but subtract Segura's salary for a net increase of cost of $3.9M. The revised news yesterday was that AZ was sending $6.5M, not the $5.5M initially reported Saturday shortly after the deal broke. That makes a net increase of $2.9M. If Hill's eventually flipped for other assets, then so much the better.

I agree with your full post overall and most of your points, but the gist of the last sentence is oft-repeated on this board and misses a huge, obvious detail: We traded 5 prospects in 2 pre-2011 trades. That's all. 5 guys. - Jeffress proved to be a bust for 3 years until he returned to MIL. - Cain took 3 years to become a solid MLB regular and was an AAA guy on the fringe of the bigs when we traded him. - Nowadays people on this board are still more inclined to point out Escobar's flaws than plusses. - Lawrie made a good initial splash in TOR but has yet to deliver anything much better than that splash in the time since, though he's still viewed as promising overall. - Odorizzi has finally established himself as an MLB starter but hasn't yet delivered consistent top-of-rotation results, either. Trading those 5 guys didn't kill our depth. Rather, those trades proved we had little depth behind them. But if all our obvious/quality depth was 5 guys, the system wasn't good enough anyway and we really had no good depth to begin with, just a little cream on the top that helped us ignore the major void below. For all the assertions that those trades gutted our farm system, I'd counter that 5 players isn't a gutting but rather a revelation that there was precious little to gut in the first place. (That said, there are guys currently in the bigs -- Nelson, Peralta, Davis, & Gennett were in the system already, and Jungmann was drafted in June 2011 -- who've also proven that the issue at that time wasn't a total dearth of quality, just a serious lack of blue chip prospects.) On a different point made a little earlier in the thread, there's a good reason Hernan Perez is an NRI guy this spring and it would be all the more incriminating of all Stearns' other pickups if Perez and his lousy swing-at-everything bat makes the Opening Day roster over the likes of Middlebrooks and several other more appealing IF roster candidates.

Jumping back a few posts, I'd say there's as good or more of a chance that Davies ends up in AAA after spring training as Jungmann. Jungmann pitched quite well 'til he hit the wall. I'd guess it's nothing to be concerned much about at this point. For that matter, though perhaps less likely, it's also quite possible that Anderson also pitches badly enough to end up in AAA himself. From McCalvy's brewers.com article: Anderson, 28, will slide into a Brewers starting rotation that also includes Wily Peralta, Jimmy Nelson, Taylor Jungmann and Matt Garza, with Jorge Lopez and Zach Davies also pushing for a spot in Spring Training.

The numbers currently assigned are what you should expect they'd be wearing this Sunday. The list I keep shows there are... 40 guys on the 40-man 10 guys who comprise the coaching staff (including Marcus Hanel & Joe Crawford) 17 NRI guys (I counted Shane Peterson for the time being since he's still in the organization) 5 retired numbers (4, 19, 34, 42, 44) 1 Brewer alum who's a part-time ST instructor (#17 Gantner) whose # never gets assigned to anyone else ... all of which leaves only 1, 3, 23, 40, 53, & 69 unassigned below #80. So it's not like there's a bevy of available numbers that some of these uber-prospects could shift to. That said, not all NRI guys will stick in the organization, and ditto for perhaps a few 40-man guys (no options left, potential DFA moves, and possible trades), so other numbers will likely become available by the end of ST.

Adam McCalvy's tweet offered his opinion that he thought Shane Peterson's a pretty solid 4th OF. I agree wholeheartedly. He also hit .294 as a PH. Other than Gerardo Parra, we haven't had many good 4th OFs and good PHs in recent years outside of Peterson (noting that Jason Rogers was also a decent PH). I hope Peterson stays. I don't get the bile about this guy. He can hit and generally has decent ABs, the latter of which can't be said for a number of our starters. While I hope he pans out, there's no guarantee Liriano's going to prove MLB-worthy. You don't want just prospects for your bench because many will just rot when they need to be playing everyday, and their development -- and eventually their potential -- will fizzle. In the end, you risk losing a proven-not-great-but-respectable player while your lottery ticket proves to be a dud. In the end, after Braun & Davis there are only a few spots at most for Nieuwenhuis, Broxton, Liriano, Flores, Presley, and Young, not to mention Peterson and prospects Reed, Phillips, Santana, etc. I get the value of competition and (current or once-) promising talent, as well as quantity, but there are only 5 MLB and 4-5 AAA OF spots.

Can't stand the yellow. I never liked it & the royal blue much from the time I started following 'em in 1980. I always preferred navy and gold and was thrilled with the switch in 1994 (I kinda liked the green, too, but am not disappointed it proved to be only a passing thing). When they switched to the current design (1999 or 2000?), I thought they'd finally really gotten it right. Seeing the yellow, I feel that way more now than ever -- primary over retro, gold over yellow! That said, I'm one of many who's longed for the ball/glove logo in current colors. This is a nice step forward but not good enough, not quite right. Navy with yellow seems more like a college or minor league look -- very ordinary & not nearly as classy as the regular navy with gold. I like the ball & glove logo -- it's true genius, really, especially given it dates from 15 years before logos and uniforms got anything near the attention they get now -- but I think the M/barley logo is the best logo we've ever had and is one of the very best in all of MLB. It's classic yet modern, which sounds a lot like "timeless" to me.

I'd guess this: "Brewers" alternates are an option any day, home or road, except... 1) Retro Fridays (current pinstripe/retro alternates) and 2) Sundays (new alternate).

Right there with you, jerichoholicninja. I thought it was weird yesterday not to find the NRI link on the right or just above the roster, but it's there in the drop-down "Roster" banner tab. I also noticed they're all listed as NRI guys (signified by an asterisk) when you click on the 40-man roster link. ... And of course I went back looking for Jungmann to be listed as #26, too. Mass Haas, where did you find that?

This whole discussion makes me miss Darryl Hamilton all over again.