TheCrew07

Final: Beloit (A's) 5, Wisconsin 3 Beloit scrapes past Wisconsin Teams combine for 33 strikeouts By Chris Mehring / Wisconsin Timber Rattlers GRAND CHUTE, WI - The Wisconsin Timber Rattlers outhit the Beloit Snappers 13-6 on Wednesday night at Time Warner Cable Field at Fox Cities Stadium. But, the Snappers scored three runs on wild pitches and held on for a 5-3 win over the Rattlers. Beloit (33-25) took the early lead on a bout of wildness by Rattlers starting pitcher Tyler Wagner. A single and a pair of walks loaded the bases for the Snappers. A wild pitch allowed the first run to score. Matt Olson grounded out to short to knock in the second run of the inning. Wagner walked another Beloit hitter in the inning, but got out of the frame without more damage. Wagner would walk two more batters in the top of the second inning, but would not let another Snapper score in his four innings of work. Wagner wound up with seven strikeouts in the game. Martin Viramontes took over for Wagner in the top of the fifth inning. He gave up a one out double to Bruce Maxwell and got the second out on a fly ball to right that was too shallow to let Maxwell move up to third. Viramontes threw a wild pitch to let Maxwell take third base with Matt Olson at the plate and fell behind the Snappers first baseman 3-0. It looked like Viramontes would get out of the inning after coming back to get the count to 3-2. Then, Viramontes threw a wild pitch on the full count offering to Olson. That let Maxwell score and Olson to take first base. John Wooten was next and his single sent Olson around to third base. With the next batter at the plate, Viramontes would throw his third wild pitch of the inning and Olson scored to make it 4-0. The Timber Rattlers (24-30) chipped away with single runs in the fifth and sixth innings. Tyrone Taylor doubled with two outs in the fifth. Adam Giacalone had an infield single to keep the inning alive. Victor Roache drove in Taylor with a single behind the third base bag to put Wisconsin on the scoreboard. Orlando Arcia pulled the Rattlers to within two runs in the bottom of the sixth inning. His two-out RBI single drove in Brent Dean and the Rattlers were down 4-2. Viramontes settled in after his wildness in the fifth. The tall righty struck out eight in four innings and kept the Rattlers within two runs. Beloit got an insurance run in the top of the ninth. Daniel Robertson blasted a two-out solo home run and the Snappers were up 5-2. Wisconsin tried to rally in the bottom of the ninth. Taylor singled - his third hit of the evening - to start the inning. Roache lined a double off the wall in left-center with one out to drive in Taylor. Max Walla, who had four hits in his first four trips to the plate, stepped to the plate with two outs and Roache at second. Walla sent a hard grounder that appeared headed for right field and an RBI single. But, second baseman Christopher Bostick made a diving stop in short right, got to his feet, and threw out Walla at first for the final out of the game. The three Wisconsin pitchers combined to strikeout 17 Beloit batters in the game. Four Snappers pitchers combined to 16 Rattlers hitters in the game. The series continues on Thursday evening. Damien Magnifico (5-0, 3.89) is the scheduled starting pitcher for the Timber Rattlers. Raul Alcantara is set to start for the Snappers. Game time is 7:05pm. The Timber Rattlers have their annual Salute to Cows promotion courtesy of Milk Source as part of Dairy Month. There will be plenty of bovine and dairy themed games and promotions around the ballpark. The first 1,000 fans to attend the game will receive a baseball from Milk Source. Thursday is also an Arty's Old Fashioned Thirsty Thursday with soda, beer, and Arty's Old Fashioned drinks for $2 and as part of Miller Summer Kickoff, Miller products are available for $1. If you can't make it out to the stadium, My NEW32's Sports Showdown will be broadcasting the game starting with the pregame show at 6:30pm. The radio broadcast is also available on AM1280, WNAM and timberrattlers.com starting with the Miller Lite Pregame Show at 6:45pm. The game will also be available to subscribers of MiLB.TV. HOME RUN: BEL: Daniel Robertson (4th, 0 on in 9th inning off Jono Armold, 2 out) WP: Austin House (1-4) LP: Tyler Wagner (5-4) SAVE: Ryan Dull (10) TIME: 3:12 ATTN: 4,199 The usual assortment of nuggets from Chris Into the Wild – Postgame post for June 5, 2013 Wisconsin Boxscore So many of these Rattler losses have been self inflicted, the teams' record could easily be flip flopped with more fundamentally sound play, and the pitchers have been just as guilty with the onslaught of throwing errors and wild pitches so far this year. The Rattlers have fallen to 24-30 on the year. As I wasn't home I DVRd the game, I'll post more thoughts on Wagner at a later time. Max Walla has been a pleasant surprise, though he's repeating yet another level. Chris covered the rest of the items I would have talked about in his blog. Wisconsin Recap Very busy game log, the T-Rats only went down in order once, in the 8th. Plenty of "what ifs" in there if you care to look. Wisconsin Gameday

I still think is pretty simple. Ockham’s razor, also spelled Occam’s razor, also called law of economy or law of parsimony, principle stated by William of Ockham (1285–1347/49), a Scholastic, that Pluralitas non est ponenda sine necessitate: “Plurality should not be posited without necessity.” The principle gives precedence to simplicity; of two competing theories, the simpler explanation of an entity is to be preferred. The principle is also expressed as “Entities are not to be multiplied beyond necessity.” Or more often than not the simplest solution is probably the correct one. I love a good conspiracy as much as anyone, I love conspiracy movies and documentaries, love them. However the simplest answer here is that Braun actually cheated in some way and got caught. I wasn't a tremendous fan of the testing process, but I was even less of a fan when Braun started pointing a finger at the sample collector. Then when I came here and posters were postulating theories about the Braun turning down the guy's son for autograph so he tainted the sample... or other similarly petty nonsense... well that didn't sit any better with me. With a complete lack of evidence it's okay create ridiculous theories to trash someone we don't know simply because we'd prefer our star to be innocent? How many of us actually "know" Ryan Braun? There may be a grand conspiracy in play against Braun but that isn't the plausible scenario, it would be an extreme exception to the rule. The simplest solution here is that Braun took something either knowingly or unknowingly (yea I know the Bonds cream and the clear defense) which caused his T levels to be the highest ever recorded. There's too much at stake for the MLBPA and for MLB here, there has to be some sort of actual evidence which none of us know about in play. Calling this a "witch hunt" when Braun could very well be guilty seems disingenuous considering this is his 2nd run in with the JDA, and this 2nd incident didn't originate with a failed test. I agree that journalistic integrity is gone in the modern era, with the ability to instantly push "news" to the masses the goal isn't unbiased reporting of a well researched and well sourced story. Instead the idea appears to be first on the scene, get the scoop, and drive hits on blogs, twitter, websites, and so on then clean up the details later. There's no buffer period waiting all day the story to develop and for the national and local news in the evening or the news paper the following day, the news push is instantaneous via social media. As I said the first time with the failed test I don't think there's enough information to form a definitive opinion either way, I am leaning towards Braun being guilty of something based on the way he and his camp have continued try to redirect attention. His final statement to the effect of "the truth not being good for anybody" suggest that he stood to lose equally from a PR standpoint if the full truth revealed. There's information he obviously would rather not share. This second deal with Bosch... the whole thing is a mess. The older I get I find myself simply caring about the "truth", and that's it. In my line of work and I'm just a senior technician locally for a very large company, I've found that overwhelming majority of people will flat out lie, spin events, or leave out important details when situations arise. Rarely will someone own their mistake and give an honest assessment of what happened, and it's not just not the internal folks I work with, the external customers are actually much worse. If the truth is that Braun was taking something, he's gotten everything he deserved for grand standing and claiming he didn't do anything wrong. If he's somehow been mixed up twice in situations that have snow balled on him through no wrong doing on his part then I would expect him to seek some restitution. I would have rather this all played out behind closed doors as intended without the court of public opinion coming into play but somehow as a society we can't even execute covert military missions anymore without someone blabbing the details and tactics which could put lives into jeopardy. Someone is obviously leaking this stuff, but it doesn't seem to be MLB in either case, the evidence just doesn't support that conclusion. There may be an MLB employee in the know leaking stuff to ESPN who has a personal agenda, but I don't see what MLB has to gain by going down the PED road again with 2 of it's biggest stars? This PED stuff is just a nightmare that's never going to a way. There's too much money in professional sports and too much money to be made by cheating. No matter how good the testing is the biggest cheaters are always going to be 1 step ahead and get away with it unless someone starts talking. If Braun is guilty I do think the proposed 100 game suspension is ridiculous though, how can they possibly nail the athletes twice for the same offense? It should be 50 games for any first time offender.

I'd like one of the HS lefties at 54, both Garrett Williams and Blake Taylor fall in that range prospect wise according to both PG and BA. If Hunter Green falls that far I wouldn't be opposed to him either. Not as big on Rob Kaminsky or Matt Krook, though Kaminsky is fairly polished already, it just doesn't look like his velocity is going to improve much and he pitches 89-92. Taylor doesn't have much projection left either and tops out around 94 but if he could add a tick and work 91-93 I'd be okay with that. edit. I should say that Hunter Green is my top choice, I just don't think he's going to be there when the Brewers draft. He's 6'4" but only 180 lbs and already peaks at 95, he could easily add a couple more MPH. He'll need mechanical work which scares me some, but the projection is tantalizing.

He looks like the same guy to me, ground ball innings eater type. The 2 hits over 7 innings is fantastic and he did it against one of the top offenses in the league, though the SL has been pretty awful offensively from both a team and individual level now that I look. Our own Brock Kjeldgaard and Kentrail Davis are #8 and #10 respectively hitting wise. BK wasn't in our top 30 prospects last year and Davis was #28. Yasiel Puig was obviously just promoted and Christian Yelich has been awful recently, only hitting .171 over his last 10 games, but he still has an .861 OPS good for 3rd in the league. The only other prospect in the top 10 I'm guessing most people on the minor league forum will know is Arismendy Alcantara of the Cubs who's currently tied for 5th with an .848 OPS.

Top 100 Draft Flashback: What Does It All Mean?

I see Gallardo is pitching into the 7th, be still my beating heart! edit. crap I jinxed him.

I should add that a .050 swing in BA isn't all that uncommon. It's pretty rare that hitters will be equal both ways. TLB the disappointing part of that realization for myself was that I must visit baseball-reference at least 4 times a day in season, maybe more.

yea but he started slow last year too.

I agree logan but DM has repeated referenced filling one hole by creating another over the years. He doesn't see the moves working in conjunction to create a better team, he sees it as another problem to solve.

Geez, how did I miss that baseball-ref had added MiLB gamelogs and splits?

Does it matter since he left anyway? I didn't view making the NLCS like some organizational stepping stone, not the same way I felt when the Packers finally beat the 49ers on their ascent to a Super Bowl in the 90s where we had a realistic expectation that we would continue to get better. I knew Fielder was leaving, I knew our pitching issues were far from solved, and I didn't have any confidence that everything would break the Brewers way again from an MLB performance standpoint as it had in 2011. I didn't enjoy 2011 at all from a fan standpoint, we had nothing in the minors behind the MLB team and I spent the entire year fearing it would all come tumbling down. The Marcum and Greinke trades were my low point as a Brewer fan, I was so optimistic in the early to mid 2000s but then when I realized how wrong I had been because the organization didn't have the pitching. I kept hoping Melvin would make trades for young pitching to extend the competitive window but he just continually went with short term solutions which ensured the window was closing much quicker than it needed to. I'm not really any happier now that 2012 and 2013 have happened, I've just made my peace with the FO strategy and I prefer to focus elsewhere. For me it's always been as simple as I would rather have a young, cost controlled MLB pitcher than another positional prospect in the minors. I would have traded Fielder as far back as 2008 for pitching and went with Gamel at 1B, X and I argued that point against a myriad of posters. Fielder's defensive issues severely limited his overall value, he made the entire IF defense worse and by extension the pitching staff as well. All of those missed scoops over the years didn't affect his defensive numbers, rather the defensive numbers of his IF partners. Melvin has never been a great judge of pitching talent, and there were only going to be so many Sabathia deals, so I was willing to give up some offense for impact pitching and better IF defense. Then I made the same pitching arguments regarding moving Hardy in the off-season prior to 2009 and fought the same people on that idea. If we never make a move to acquire young impact pitchers, how will Milwaukee's fortunes as an organization ever turn around? Clearly the Brewers haven't drafted/signed young pitching and developed them or our MLB pitching wouldn't have been so dire over the last decade, we can't afford impact pitching in FA, what else is left? If the Brewers were to can Seid what meaningful change would occur if an in house crosschecker was promoted to take his place? Losing all those scouts and Z didn't hurt from a developing pitching standpoint, that hurt because the positional talent dried up and Melvin ran out of easy trade options. The only way to be competitive year in and year out with our current FO is change the trades the organization is wiling to make. We aren't going to draft better, we aren't going to develop better, we aren't going to sign more impact players internationally, and young pitching would save the Brewers from themselves as there would not be a need to sign the continual stream of averagish aging starting pitching in Free Agency. Everyone in the front office has an established track record now, they are who they are, either Melvin needs to change his organization philosophy, which I sincerely doubt he will, or we'll need to clean house if we want to reach that next level as a franchise. If people are happy making the playoffs here and there by acquiring some short term pitching solutions and having seasons like 2009, 2010, 2012, and 2013 in between I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree. I've always been aiming higher and wanted more than that. I'm old enough to remember 82 and everything between then and 08, I know the pain of being a yearly doormat, but being psuedo competitive is just a small step up in my opinion. We're in the middle slowly sliding backwards, stuck in neutral, whatever other adjective you'd like to use...

I'm not saying Melvin would trade within the division because he doesn't seem to see the big picture very well, I'm guessing he would view that has helping his direct competition. As I've never been sold on Ramirez ability to stay healthy (though he proved me wrong last year), I'd be willing to take risk of Ramirez biting us back in 2014 or 2015 for Stephenson's potential and getting out from underneath Ramirez' remaining contract. The other reason I don't think Melvin would make the move is that we don't have a legit 3B prospect. Francisco or Green could be a stop-gap for a while, but we literally have no impact 3B in the pipeline, though I guess you can say that about many positions given the state of the farm system today. Melvin has repeatedly said that he doesn't see the benefit of trading MLB players to plug a different hole because then he created another hole he has to plug. I'm saying I would help the Reds while we are down and take their best pitching prospect which will hopefully benefit us when we are ready to contend again. Stephenson will finish this season in A+. He wouldn't be ready until 2015 or 16 (which would mostly depend on his yearly inning progression) but he could potentially be an in house replacement for Gallardo. I don't care about creating another hole, I care about solving the organization's most pressing and long-term need, then moving forward from there. As I said on the MLB forum, I don't think the Brewers are all that far away and a good deal for pitching might not materialize this season, but I honestly believe that 2 trades over a 3 year span could potentially make a huge difference for this franchise. It took TB 3 trades in 4 years, I think we have enough back of the rotation types that we could do it in just 2 trades. Stephenson would definitely be a longer-term project which isn't exactly what I'm looking for, I'd be looking for AA guys if possible, but I'd rather get back 1 legitimate talent than take anymore quantity deals like Sexson and Overbay.

MLB Draft Reports: 201-250

2013 HS Top 500 Prospects (Updated: 6/5/2013)

Reds' RHP prospect James Allen profiled here. Allen blazes through eight innings

More on Pirates' SS Alen Hanson, you'll notice that my previous managerial man crush (now Matt Erickson) Frank Kremblas is currently the manager for Bradenton. FSL notes: Hanson draws rave reviews

I covered this in yesterday's LR, here is BA's take which includes more detail and players to watch. As an aside did bf.net drop for everyone last night? South Atlantic League Announces All-Star Rosters

If Melvin were to deal with the Reds chalk me up for Robert Stephenson. I'd help them contend for a WS this year out of spite towards STL, unload Ramirez' contract, and take back their best pitching prospect. While I don't agree with everything the Reds do from a development standpoint, especially with their pitching, I do have an affinity for that organization going back to the 90s for whatever reason. It might be as simple as that I hate the Cubs and Cards so much there isn't much venom left to be directed towards the Reds and Pirates.

Well Cespedes is going to be fine, he's a legit talent, but Lohse... well, he's just more of the same from the Brewer FO. In the end it doesn't matter if it's MA or DM, at some point, after all the money spent, the light has to go on... maybe there is a different and more effective way to build a rotation than this?

Cameron Garfield, Nick Ramirez, and David Goforth get All-Star nods, congrats young men! The Cubs have 4 representatives of their own on the squad and the Pirates will have 3 players on the South team. FSL reveals All-Star Game rosters

I'm not sure you can Lance Armstrong a witch hunt as he was ultimately cheating the entire time and lying about it. In fact as it turns out he was pretty much horrible to anyone that wouldn't go along with his plan.

The Lohse signing certainly isn't looking good thus far in 2013, even if he was pitching well I'd still be pissed about the draft pick and short term move in a season we didn't have a very good chance to contend in. edit. Who am I kidding, I'd piss and moan about the short term move regardless.

I've never understood why people were so quick to assume that Braun wouldn't dope? Is it because he's a Brewer and our guys wouldn't do that sort of thing? The old saying about smoke and fire... well... this is the 2nd time he's been connected. I would think after the whole Lance Armstrong fiasco that most people would automatically swing the other way. If they are going to suspend him might as well do it tomorrow so it doesn't affect 2014 at all.

If Melvin had ever looked to acquire young impact pitching prior to the most recent Greinke trade then that would be a valuable argument. As it stands, he hasn't and he won't unless he's forced to because there are no other options. It's clear that he prefers to trade only for proven commodities as they are much safer, they will have some sort of MLB career, regardless of their ultimate ceiling as a player. Oakland wasn't giving up Cahill for a hitter they would have wanted pitching, they traded Gonzalez who was older and had less years of team control left, which is exactly what Marcum was and why he was traded. We should have been looking for a prospect swap in the 30-60 range on BAs top 100. 30. Gary Sanchez, c, Yankees 31. Casey Kelly, rhp, Padres 2-3, 6.21 ERA, 6 games played 32. Tyler Matzek, lhp, Rockies 33. Jarrod Parker, rhp, Diamondbacks 17-14, 3.78 ERA, 42 games played 34. Kyle Gibson, rhp, Twins 35. Randall Delgado, rhp, Braves 5-10, 4.03 ERA, 26 games played 36. Travis d'Arnaud, c, Blue Jays 37. Mike Minor, lhp, Braves 26-17, 4.00 ERA, 65 games played 38. Brett Jackson, of, Cubs .175/.303/.342, 44 games played 39. Jonathan Singleton, 1b, Phillies 40. Brett Lawrie, 2b, Blue Jays .266/.324/.433, 205 games played 41. Manny Banuelos, lhp, Yankees 42. Jordan Lyles, rhp, Astros 10-21, 5.08 ERA, 52 games played 43. Dellin Betances, rhp, Yankees 0-0, 6.75 ERA, 2 games played 44. Jenrry Mejia, rhp, Mets 1-6, 4.91 ERA, 38 games played 45. Aaron Hicks, of, Twins .173/.246/.335, 50 games played 46. Tony Sanchez, c, Pirates 47. Alex White, rhp, Indians 5-13, 6.03 ERA, 33 games played 48. Trey McNutt, rhp, Cubs 49. Wilin Rosario, c, Rockies .260/.298/.498, 181 games played 50. Billy Hamilton, ss/2b, Reds 51. Christian Colon, ss, Royals 52. Jose Iglesias, ss, Red Sox .260/.312/.362, 51 games played 53. Nick Franklin, ss/2b, Mariners .250/.375/.550, 7 games played 54. Jason Kipnis, 2b, Indians .256/.330/.412, 236 games played 55. Zack Wheeler, rhp, Giants 56. Brody Colvin, rhp, Phillies 57. Jean Segura, 2b, Angels .309/.354/.453, 100 games played 58. Simon Castro, rhp, Padres 59. Wilmer Flores, ss, Mets 60. Miguel Sano, 3b/ss, Twins Personally I would have went after Parker or Minor if I was going to trade Lawrie for a pitcher. Chipper Jones was on his way out in ATL and Ryan Roberts was holding down 3B in ARI, I'm not sure many teams saw Lawrie as a 2B. Though both teams arguably had 2B holes to fill as well. The guy on that list I would have really wanted is Zack Wheeler but San Fran would have had to be convinced Lawrie was a 2B, and again I'm not sure many teams thought he was a 2B. The Giants have been desperate for offense forever but we've never seemed to be able to match up.

2013 Draft: Baseball Bloodlines