MNBrew

Personally, I think the current jerseys are that, especially the home ones. Totally agree that the current white home ones are classy & classic. The road grays are okay but kinda drab -- that's the gray, though, on any uniform. To whomever responded that they think the current home whites are kinda uninspiring, what the heck are the Dodgers & Yankees ones, then? They're incredibly boring. Part of what I love about the current uniforms is that they're they're subtly modern yet still simple, classic, & classy -- the modern slant being what makes them light years better IMO than the Dodgers, Yankees, Red or White Sox, Cubs, Tigers, etc.

You can trade someone 6 months after you signed them as a FA. That still leaves K-Rod as potential trade fodder in late August if the season is down the tubes at that point. Then Papelbon might (or might not) prove a possible option.

^^^This. There are a ton of ways Weeks could've gotten used to the OF before appearing in a game AFTER spring training was over. He could've been shagging flies in BP for months. He could've come out early with the coaches hitting fungoes to the OF. The fact is, Weeks said "no" to playing the OF. That the Brewers asked him to play the OF & then stated that he refused is a simple fact -- the sort of response typically offered in response to a reporter's question, not voluntarily reported -- and NOT throwing the guy under the bus. I liked much about Rickie Weeks over the years including his work ethic, his professionalism, and his willingness to take responsibility for his mistakes. The guy played as hard as he could and went all-out. But his single-mindedness about not playing other positions, especially in the past year when the team could've used it & he was bound for FA and would've benefited by proving (or improving) his versatility, still seems like a foolish if not crazy stance on his part. . . . Then again, FA & unemployment into the 2nd week of February perhaps finally got his attention & changed his perspective.

Do some of you really think a deal's not likely simply because it's hit the back burner of the rumor lists? I think this requires a little more patience and faith that than. I'd really like to see the Brewers get Papelbon and I've had plenty of moments along the way anxiously waiting for the news to break. That said, I'm not convinced a deal is going to happen, but I'm quite confident that a stupid deal isn't going to happen. Why? This: Doug Melvin has proven to be really good at knowing & weighing the Brewers' needs vs. the worth of the their assets, not overplaying his hand or making the hasty-but-foolish move, and being patient until the specifics of a deal are enough to his liking and amount to a favorable deal for the Brewers (at a reasonable enough price).

Joel Sherman's just a guy with an opinion and a widely available forum for putting it out there. His list and especially his take on the Brewers seems very biased toward trendy, big-market, ESPN-glossy thinking, so his take on the Brewers' winter totally lacks a legit analysis because they didn't either go crazy or go for the wholesale rebuild.

If Perez amounts to something, I'll be pleased, but I won't count on him until he earns the spot. For the time being, at minimum he's an asset with potential to contribute meaningfully -- and that's a good thing. If he produces, even better. If he's an asset leveraged for another better asset, I'd take that outcome, too.

Hard to dislike this given that there's little risk to it. I'm hoping the collective hunch out there is the case, that a bigger fish is still to come, and that this was merely a no-risk depth move.

I'm not keen on this guy, but I think I recall when the Sox signed him that he's more of a 1B who got moved to the OF to accommodate someone else at 1B. Point: I don't care much about his OF defense. And we seem to have 1B sufficiently covered now.

I don't see the need to flip Nelson in the case of a Shields signing. The offense seems pretty well set right now. They were 5th in the NL in runs and OPS last year with basically the same lineup other than the improved 1B situation (and hopefully improved production from SS, RF and a full year of Parra instead of Schafer coming off the bench). And adding Shields would solidify the rotation and allow Fiers and Nelson to battle it out for the 5th spot with the other adding needed protection at AAA. Not to mention, we'll likely need Nelson in a year when Lohse is gone. Ditto what MrAllen said: Why the heck would you think Nelson would need to be traded? Two obvious lines of thought: 1) Twenty days ago Nelson was ticketed for the bullpen. Now that Gallardo's been traded, he's slotted for the rotation. If they sign Shields, Nelson just returns to being a likely BP arm and the 1st SP in line to fill in for injuries/etc. The likelihood of him getting some time in the rotation on that basis alone is greater than not. 2) As splitter notes, we had scored the 5th most runs in the NL. That's not shabby to begin with, and that's also with the offense going down the toilet for the last 1/4 of the season and with the horrid production at 1B. I get the generic "we need more offense" notion based on fears that the issues at the end of last year aren't going to disappear, but who would you replace, and with whom?

Except Ike Davis was being propped as someone who was actually good, but truly wasn't -- everyone knew the secret of that emperor's new clothes! The contract Papelbon got is one he wouldn't get on today's open market given the general shift in thinking re: how much salary closers are worth. As such, his still-great-quality results and his absurd contract are complexly intertwined in spite of the fact that they're completely separate issues. . . . In other words, since he's not Eckersley or Rivera (of course, nor is anyone else), the contract is cause for hesitation regardless of his production.

Couple things: 1. After a bad April, Cotts was still overall pretty good last year through July (3.45 ERA before August, for one). The JSOnline & Brewers.com articles mention he had some bad outings at the end of the year that inflated his numbers. 2. The Brewers knew darn well what they had in Gorzelanny, knew his stats, and still chose to let him walk away, which says an awful lot about how they felt about him. A similar-ish comparison (kind of) would've been folks saying they should've kept Braden Looper after he won 14 games as a starter -- some numbers pretty good (though some others far more obviously not), but numbers alone didn't tell the whole story.

I'd think it's Blazek who's far more likely to lose his 40-man spot than Wooten if/when another reliever is acquired/signed. There are scads of guys just like both of those two out there to be had, though, so I'm not overly worried about what would happen if one or both were claimed. AAA relievers should be even easier to find once ST cuts start happening.

If by the bolded part you mean "he has started games before," then yes. But we all watched what happened the longer he started games. Last year Gorzelanny was rather fragile at least in the sense that they avoided using him in any high-leverage situations. It made his stats look good, but I think there was more to it than the numbers say.... That all seems to point rather obviously to the Brewers saying "no thanks" to him.

So he didn't tweet this? tom ‏@haudricourt 1m1 minute ago so, #brewers have one-year deal major league deal with lhp neal cotts. has passed his physical. don't know money yet. 40-man move necessary. but this is not the only move it was part one of two moves for the pen Nope. Only the 1st line is from TH's tweet. I believe the 2nd line simply is brewmann04's opinion.

TH's tweet from 6:38 a.m. yesterday (1/28): "I get impression #Brewers would like to find way to do problematic Papelbon trade. If that fails, fall-back position likely is K-Rod." My vibe is that if they were set on K-Rod, the deal would've already been done. Melvin's exercising nice patience yet again, in this case w/ Phillly, and I really hope it bears fruit. For all the yelping around this board over the past couple months about Melvin doing nothing, I far prefer later moves that are prudent yet wise vs. early splashy ones that sometimes quickly reek of hasty, impulsive decisions and/or questionable judgement.

Regarding the bolded portion: I think things are changing. The frustration I've had with Attanasio the past few seasons is that I know he's a smart guy, and it was pretty easy to see that the team was getting less talented, but he still pushed to keep the window open. Well, he is a smart guy, and he realized it, but he wanted to try to be good as long as possible, and he now seems to be realizing that we need to get better prospects into the system and see what we have with the young guys. That's why we traded Gallardo for three promising guys who may not be on the MLB roster this season. It's also why we are going with Nelson and Fiers in the rotation... we need to see what we have with the promising arms that are under Brewer control for several more years. I expect we'll sign a reliever, as we have a hole there, and signing a "name" could help fans think we're still "all in." Of course we'll still try to win this year, but I don't think expectations of a World Series are very high, even in the front office, and I'd guess the team probably expects to be sellers at the trade deadline, so we can get a bunch of prospects back for Lohse, Broxton, Parra, Ramirez and the yet-to-be-signed reliever. This year seems to be one last push before we see some major roster turnover, and I hope management can do this successfully, so that we don't have a big collapse when all of our "final year" guys are gone after this year. So while the media will put the Brewers in rumors based on what they've done in their "window" years, I would be shocked to see them sign a high-priced free agent starter like Shields. We stand to enter 2015 with not only Fiers & Nelson in the rotation but also Peralta. That's 3 homegrown guys out of 5, not to mention half the starting 8 (Lucroy, Davis, Gennett, & Braun) -- not shabby for a team that supposedly had a gutted/terrible farm system and most fans on here (not to mention the so-called national experts) screaming that the sky was falling and would continue to do so for years to come! Since Braun we've lacked high-grade blue-chippers that the pundits go nuts about, but we weren't left with nothing like everyone wanted to believe at the time.

Having lived through the powder blue era, when a large chunk of all teams had it, I hope it never returns. Love the classic ball/glove logo but not more than the current logo/colors/unis/etc., which I think are the Brewers' best ever.

This would be like when they brought in K-Rod the first time. Axford was a stud, then Saito & Hawkins moved into the 6th/7th innings, and all of a sudden we had a shut-down BP that turned many games into 6-inning affairs. The deeper the quality goes in your BP, on the whole, the safer your late-inning leads should be. I'll admit I've been on the Papelbon bandwagon for a couple years and was posting at one or both of the past 2 trade deadlines that I wished we would've gotten him.... and that's simply because of how good he is (due consideration for the personality, um, issues that have been widely reported when ESPN switches into tabloid-esque reporting).

The Brewers have had recent years with no lefty in the BP. As long as the righties are sufficiently effective, the need for 2 LHRPs is overstated and not even pure fact.

Papelbon certainly has shown to be a jerk, but I'd take his version of decline over K-Rod's many times over because he's a better pitcher and it's not even close, and K-Rod was also a shaky character suspect when we got him. Also, I believe very strongly that a team HAS TO have a strong bullpen to have a realistic chance to contend & advance. Witness the Giants & Royals last year. Witness the Cardinals vs. us & the world in 2011. Witness the Tigers of recent years as a glaring repeat counterexample. I know the compelling mindset around here is not to throw money at the bullpen. But Henderson & Thornburg, while they could be good, cannot be counted on until they prove they're healthy & capable again, and I'd rather get farther away from the Blazeks & Wootens again as first depth options.

Ah, yes, the Zach Duke/Gabe Kapler type of signing that's totally out of nowhere!

I don't believe you can fully judge whether we're worse off or not yet simply because Melvin still needs to add a couple pitchers (another BP arm and, per Haudricourt, an Estrada-like SP/depth guy). It's possible that after those moves are made, not only might we not be worse off, but we might actually be better overall..... With ST a month away, I still think it's too early to say.

The concern about adding another SP (or more than 1 if you're talking Estrada-types, as TH notes on Twitter) is that if we have only 5 guys who are rotation-worthy, then we've got basically no proven depth if someone goes down, which at minimum is basically guaranteed to happen for at least a short stretch, without bringing Smith out of his BP role and into the rotation, thus blowing open a different hole, or bringing up someone from AAA who's not proven at all yet MLB-wise. Thornburg's no given at this point to even be healthy. Jungmann could be good but he also could easily put up numbers as bad as Nelson's were in MIL last year.

I don't think they'd be trading Gallardo without a corresponding move to bring in another SP. A few panning-out-decently prospects for a year of Zimmermann vs. a single #1 pick for several years of Shields (or Scherzer, whom I'd prefer, tho' he appears DC-bound).... That'll be interesting to see what/if/how all this unfolds.

He spent most of his first 2 or 3 years pitching (very well) out of the bullpen with a few stints in the rotation each year. If he's got his game back, or at least enough of it, I'd take the flyer on him. It's all about upgrading the talent level on hand!