TheCrew07

I'll see that and raise you someone who embraces teaching the game the way minor league coaches/managers do. Someone who's willing to toss an inexperienced player out there and help him through his struggles, instead of penalizing him for not getting hits by sitting him on the bench. Young players require patience, and I think that was Yost's greatest asset... if somehow we could combine the best aspects of our last 3 full season managers into one guy we'd have nearly the perfect manager for a team like the Brewers.

How Trading International Pool Space Works

More on Soler including his suspension and Gerrit Cole of the Pirates is discussed at length. Thursday Prospect Notebook

This is interesting, the more statistically inclined will really like this. The information is really nothing new though, we have known for a long time that Space Coast Stadium in BC surpresses runs. Nashville might come as a surprise given the PCL's reputation, though it's essentially neutral. Minor League Ballparks Cheat Sheet: Intervals And Park Factors For Each Organization If that wet your whistle make sure to check this out, specifics for each park in each league, it's an article from earlier this year. Minor League Parks Drive Performance

Was just coming here to post that, lame weather. I really hate exchanging game tickets for some reason and they may not play tomorrow either, so I'll have 4 games worth of tickets to exchange... boo!

BA's weekly feature that I would generally skip in favor of the hot sheet chat last year. Prospects And Draft Chat With Jim Callis

Hald works in, out of trouble for Cards

As mentioned earlier in the thread... Cubs' Soler ejected in Daytona loss

As someone who's followed the Rangers as a organization very closely for some years I disagree with you. First, the Rangers have much greater financial resources at their disposal, they are major players in Latin America and can afford large contracts to marquee players. Historically the Brewers haven't done much internationally and there's just no way we can compete for marquee players in FA, that's been repeatedly proven. Second, the Rangers are an extremely progressive organization when it comes to developing talent, they are out in front, trying new things with pitchers, forcing position players (even Profar) to learn multiple positions, and so on. The Brewers on the other hand have been slow to adapt methods only picking proven trends and tend to do everything in a much more conservative manner from a development standpoint. Third, Daniels adjusts on the fly, buying and selling players with a long-term goal in mind, for example, he wouldn't trade any of his top prospects last year for Greinke, he's been to 2 World Series and knew better than to give up Profar or Olt for a couple of months of a marquee pitcher. However, he's also sold high on players like Teixeira and bought high on players Lee depending on the situation, but he always trades from a position of strength to do so. As I pointed out in a different thread Daniels has been very good at creating multiple options for the construction of his MLB roster. Texas has the farm system, progressive development strategies, financial clout, and finally an aggressive GM to maximize the resources they have on hand. By contrast the Brewers haven't drafted well, traded away an entire wave of prospects for 4 total years of 3 different pitchers, aren't all that active in Latin America, don't have the financial resources to sign marquee contracts, and Melvin is on the opposite end spectrum when it comes to valuing talent... Daniels is always chasing impact players, Melvin is chasing replacing player A's production with the most affordable player he sign in player B... there's a wide gulf between those 2 concepts both in quality of talent and length of team control. I'm not sure if it was in this thread or another but someone posted something about favoring the "big market strategy" because the Brewers haven't proven they could draft and develop the necessary talent. That's absolutely true from a pitching standpoint, but the problem is that the"big market strategy" never has been and never will be sustainable for Milwaukee. As we have witnessed eventually the prospect well goes dry and then what? You end up with an aging and expensive MLB roster with little talent behind it, eventually the pay out paces the actual production and it all comes crashing down like it did for the Cubs. Then what? We rebuild and start over? I honestly despise that notion, I want no part of a rebuild. We aren't able to plug our holes with marquee FAs like those big market teams do. If they don't have a prospect to fill a position or traded the prospect away, they just spend $100 million on someone, but that's not our reality as a franchise. I want no part of that strategy, I'm actively campaigning against the moves that make a complete rebuild necessary, but we've been on that path for a long time. More often than not we need to be sellers, we need to cycle talent until we can get to a place where we can sustain a MLB roster from within and look to FA to provide role-players, not key pieces to try and build around. Our pitching problem keeps coming back around because it's just been continually patched through trades and poor FA signings... Sabathia less than a year, Greinke less than 2 minus DL time, Marcum less than 2 minus DL time... we traded all of that talent for about 4 years worth of innings from 3 different pitchers, that's not good value for the Brewers. The problem of course is that there are only a couple of deals a year for young pitching and if you get beat to the punch by TB or some other organization that's effectively cycling pitching then you're left making the trades Melvin has done. Signing the FAs we've signed from a pitching standpoint has been a joke really... if you sign all league averagish starters then league average is the best your rotation is going to be. However come the playoffs how do we match up a rotation with 1 #2 type starter and 4 #3 or worse starters against rotations that have a true Ace and a couple of #2s? Pitching is king in baseball, good pitching almost always defeats good hitting, there's no such thing as "good enough" pitching in a playoff series. Over the course of 162 games sure you can beat teams and win enough games with that kind of rotation but come the playoffs with all of the rest in-between games it comes down to individual match-ups... How do our best pitchers match up against the other team? That's the key point for me and has been since 2008, how do we acquire enough impact pitching that we can control for at least 3 seasons to compete against the big boys? We can't sign it in FA, we can't continually trade for it because the prospect well runs dry nor can we afford to retain the players in FA, and the same problem just keeps coming back around, so what's left? The obvious answer is to trade MLB veterans that you can part with (yes it may negatively impact the current season to do so, though as Greinke's trade proved the loss of one player is generally overstated) to acquire what we need the most, impact pitching for the starting rotation. We could have traded a couple of Hart, Hardy, Fielder, Axford... whomever at their peak value to go after pitching but we didn't, and here we are, with the same scenarios repeating themselves over and over. Once we get enough pitching everything else will fall into place, the problem hasn't been the position players, the problem has always been and continues to be our pitching. We've only been in the top half of the NL in pitching twice in Melvin's tenure, and both times it was after he traded for short term CY quality marquee pitching. There has to be other paths or different options, I refuse to accept that this is the best we can do... 1 homegrown top of the rotation type and bunch of aging vets or inexperienced guys with marginal stuff behind them sandwiched around 1-2 years of a marquee player acquired via trade which we have no hope to resign. I would have much rather traded 1 or 2 of our position players along the way to acquire enough pitching talent to be a top 5 rotation year in and year out than mess around trying to out slug the opposition 2 out of every 3 years. As I said even if we get to the playoffs where do we go? How do we match-up? For a small market team like Milwaukee young cost controlled pitching has to come first and then we go from there... that's the only way we'll ever be able to compete talent wise with the best rotations in baseball and the only way we'll ever truly compete for a WS. Aggregates and sample size are meaningless in the playoffs, it all comes down to the individual match-ups. We don't match-up well today with any of the best teams from a pitching standpoint, we don't get enough innings out of starting pitchers leaving too many innings for the bullpen. I'm not talking about this early 2013 season stuff, I'm talking about the average innings per start for each pitcher in the rotation in their career. Build a solid young rotation, put the excess pitching in the pen, fill in the remaining holes from the positional side and away we go. It's much easier to get good value from mid tier position players in FA than mid tier pitching. Doing those things we achieve the flexibility that matters most, flexibility of talent, and with that will also come payroll flexibility and the ability to take on the salary of a "key piece for the stretch run" that so many covet.

Very detailed article on the process and exact figures for what looks to be a 4 round 120 player draft coming. International Bonus Slots Another Sign Of Draft Nearing

Be 3 inches taller and throw with more standard mechanics... most prospect gurus haven't backed off the reliever label yet. They may ultimately be right, I'm certainly not a fan of everything he has going on in his delivery, but I'm KISS principle guy so I value simplicity.

Cingrani... darn him. Also a Gallo update for those who championed him before and during the draft last season. Wednesday Prospect Notebook

A Pirates prospect Lambo cycles into Altoona history

T-Rats already postponed.

Your right it doesn't matter to give runs away and make bad defensive plays that ultimately cause another player injury... it's all Axford and the rest of the pen. Who exactly assembled the bullpen? Who constructed the roster and the organizational depth? Your right though, it's all on the pitchers in the bullpen and RR... Melvin is blameless even though he assembled the bullpen, signed the veteran bench players, and hired the manager. The season is far from over but at some point it would be nice if you would at least acknowledge the reality of the situation and quit making excuses for Melvin. It didn't have to be this way... none of this was written in stone and there are other options available to help remedy the nightmare we find ourselves in. We aren't going to win many games over the next 6 weeks starting 3 SS, 2 of which don't hit, and 1 of which can't even field at 1B on the IF. If Ramirez is actually back in 2 weeks great but I'm not going to hold my breath hoping for that to happen. His knee never fully healed after the first injury and if he continues to play on it without letting it fully heal then all season they are going to be rolling the dice on another DL stint and possibly a more severe injury. It would be so great for Ramirez to blow out his knee and miss an entire season, especially his most expensive season... Then again the Brewers have one of the best medical staffs in MLB and they don't have a history of letting guys play hurt which ultimately negatively impacts the team and player do they? You know, because they won some meaningless award for having the least DL time when they had one of the youngest teams in baseball... it wasn't the players being young and healthy, it was because the medical staff which couldn't repair/rehab a simple ACL tear was that good. Never mind the litany of misdiagnosis and poor treatment practices over the years at all levels of the organization... it's the coaches, it's the players, it's the posters overreacting... it's anyone but Melvin and his staff. There was quite a bit of venom directed at those of us who wanted to flip Axford after 2011, now the dude can't get a kind word from anyone, funny how 170 games will completely flip the opinion of people about the value of a player. I still maintain his issues are mostly with pitch selection and occasionally with his arm slot. The higher his arm slot the better he locates but regardless that curveball is not a plus pitch, he really needs to quit throwing it so much and start mixing in his slider which is a plus pitch more often. Maybe the slider stresses his arm too much or something along those lines but then he better get to work on a change because even though his curve has marginally improved, it's a very average pitch and obviously hasn't been working for him.

Now that I'm home I went looking for BA's take on the international draft and stumbled across this: International Reviews: Milwaukee Brewers Ben Badler did a real nice job summing up what I was going to say: I just don't see the Brewers ever going over the pool cap and getting taxed and/or giving up draft picks to do so. The Brewers have never been big players in Latin America and I wouldn't expect signing Lohse to change that one way or the other, especially with the new bonus cap rules in place. From a talent perspective it would be nice if they would hit on 1 guy per season out of Latin America but thus far only Escobar and Peralta have made it to MLB, though I'm high on Orlando Arcia who's playing for the T-Rats as well. Colby will likely have more insight into the rumor mill regarding the international draft and what the Brewers might do than I would... historically they haven't done much though.

I've been watching it since the first episode, I was pretty excited for it as I used to be huge History Channel nerd... now that the channel is more "reality" based I tend to watch H2 more often instead. Many of my friends were upset because apparently Ax-Men was bumped for 3-4 weeks by Vikings? Regardless, I like the show though I'm admittedly pretty easy to entertain, I'll watch most anything at least once and give it a shot. I will agree that the main story line has been predictable thus far since the conflict was pretty much the focus of the first episode, but there have been twists in the side plots every week so it's not like we're sitting there being able to predict everything that is going to happen. The character I most struggle with is Rollo, I want to like to the guy becauase in the end it appears he's honorable, but he's done things in just about every episode that make me cringe.

Rumor has it that the international draft is being negotiated, it was a link on the MLB forum a while back.

Ohh I know, as do I, and I didn't mean to suggest you were being negative. I still follow the careers of all the minor league players I grew attached to like Escobar, Cain, Odorizzi, and so on, it's just that sometimes when I post that stuff people take it the wrong way because I've been vehemently against those trades.

That's just it, and playing Betancourt at 1B cost us a mild injury to Segura, in addition to at least 3 runs thus far off the top of my head. I'm not sure we can count on the Ramirez situation being temporary given that he never fully healed from the ST injury and the Hart situation is certainly no longer temporary. It's unreasonable to go weeks with so little offensive production at key run producing slots and just because a guy is playing 1B or 3B doesn't mean he should hit 5th if he should really be batting 8th in the line-up, that's just dumb. We aren't getting better defense playing middle infielders at corner infield positions and part of that is the fact that Betancourt isn't a very good athlete relative to his peers and has always been a lazy defender. Yes injuries stink and are unpredictable, but trying to utilize MI at all positions is asinine. It didn't make sense to convert Gonzales to be the 1B just because Morris struggled in ST, not even for a month. It's not like one day all these guys were healthy and the next everyone was hurt, this situation has slowly developed and progressively worsened since the offseason. Hart has surgery but we're okay because we have Gamel, then Gamel reinjures the same ACL, but we're still okay because we have Halton and Morris in AAA and Green. Morris hits poorly in ST, fine send him down, Halton never seemed to be a serious option, but then Green gets hurt, and a light hitting SS becomes our 1B by default? There were more options available than that and resigning Betancourt was the least best option available. I would rather have Morris or Halton struggling (who knows maybe they wouldn't) against MLB pitching than watch Yuni B play anywhere in the field. So what if Morris struggles, at least he'll give maximum effort and maybe be better for the experience, it doesn't take much to hit for a sub .700 OPS, just about anyone can do that. I agree that Rogers' lack of velocity was not predictable, but the organization certainly knew about the problem before we did. I wasn't in favor of signing aging pitching depth, I would have rather went into the AAA staff to cover Rogers out of ST, but regardless from which angle you value depth, make a decision and stick with it. If we're going young then fine give them room to fail and grow, if we're going old again then fine but get the best total value for the package, don't get pinned into a corner at the end of ST and sign an aging pitcher to a 3 year contract which also costs us our first round pick. I don't see why Burgos isn't a valid SP option or why Thornburg can't be considered? What about Hellweg later in the season? There were multiple angles on the pitching front just like there other solutions out there than having aging and light hitting SSs cover injuries all over the field. There's been no flexibility, no creative problem solving, it's just been "we have these guys as bench players so we're going to use them". The little things that Gonzales got wrong like having the incorrect foot on the base I could live with defensively, but offensively it made no sense to play him at 1B for any length of time. The best way to plan for the unexpected is to have legitimate depth, and no we don't have to be 5 players at deep at every position to have such. 1B was the most crowded position in the organization and yet Gonzales was the best option? I just don't believe that. Kris Davis looks bad in 1 game and all of a sudden he's not ready, he's overmatched, and he needs to be sent down? I've always been curious why baseball doesn't seem to tolerate the struggles of young players much at all. If the guy doesn't hit right away he's garbage... but I'm off track... The point is to have viable depth signed and sitting in AAA, unless of course you have a legitimate prospect at that position, and it just so happens that we do have 2 players in AAA fully capable of playing 1B even after all of the inuries. We didn't need to waste a roster spot on Yuni B, nor do we have to rely on middle infielders and catchers to cover all of the positions as a result of the injuries. It appears the organization doesn't want to take the chance of losing Rogers... okay, but why should 1 roster spot crause such a domino effect to force so many middle IF types being utilized as depth at spots beyond the MI? It just doesn't make sense and further suggests poor planning and organizational skills... this stuff isn't linear, it's not checkers... just because you have a plethora of SS/CF/MI types doesn't mean that's who should be your MLB emergency depth at every position. I would much rather have an inexperienced player get their feet wet and be better off for it in the future than recycle an out of position "has been" or a "never was". We aren't talking about 21 or 22 year old players, we're talking about players already in their mid 20s. Who cares about a month of service time? We don't lose them until they are 31/32 years old regardless which is exactly the proper age to moving on from someone.

I was just making an effort not to beat that drum.

Penalties For Exceeding Pools Depend On International Draft International Bonus Pools For 2013-14

Kolten Wong of the Cards discussed. Tuesday Prospect Notebook

The act continues... Hamilton puts Bat, legs to good use

Most of you are saying "Who?", he was a Braves and Pirates top prospect for a while, I had honestly forgotten about him as well Memphis' Romak smacks three homers