TheCrew07

I know Rogers still has a suspension to finish, but that's a significantly different rotation than I was expecting if it's true. I haven't been paying very close attention but what about Rivas? I know I was personally overrating his stuff and he got exposed some last year, but he was still better than Butler, Baker, or McClung. Is Scarpetta going back to AA with no options remaining after this year? Is he moving to the pen? I'd rather see Braddock in a starting role to try and regain his velocity, but I've been concerned about that issue since they broke camp last year. I guess I'm left hoping that a couple of guys have minor injuries and will be back soon because I don't see how Butler will be an upgrade over himself, and how Baker and McClung will improve the Sounds rotation over last season.

I think it was pretty obvious that Arcia was going to play in Helena or better this season based on what he did at such a young age in the DSL and his family's bloodlines. Obviously he's one of my favorites, but I did try to be objective when doing my user P50 and talking about his placement. I believed people would come around on him then, and I still do. I placed him where I did because talent wise I couldn't justify placing him any lower to myself. The Brewers under Melvin have been much more likely to push hitters rather pitchers, I don't think this is a surprise and I hate to keep point it out but it's not even unprecedented as Escobar played in Helena as a 17 year old. Without rehashing the entire promotion debate from last season I'll just say that I'm a progression guy. Regardless of position or draft/signing status, or results on the field, every prospect should have progression mapped out for them so they know exactly what they need to be working on and what goals they need to reach to be promoted to the next level. After all, if the young men aren't improving everyday they are losing ground because someone out there is taking that next step forward. I don't have any problem with the pitching progression the team has set up and Tunnell has talked about in various interviews over the years. I think it's a good idea that players hit a certain benchmark before earning a promotion. While every player's goal is to make the show, from experience I'd say most young men aren't very good at goal setting, and a progression system kind of makes it easy for them, setting up incremental goals. For example, I hear all the time on the football side that a player's goal is to be all-conference at X position. When I ask, "How do you get there?" the answer is usually something stat related. Well yes that's the ultimate result, but what I'm really asking is what areas of your game do you have specifically improve on to obtain your goal? Many times they've never even thought about it, running backs just want to score TDs but don't realize how many yards they leave on the field because they missed the hole, read the block wrong, let one defender tackle them, and so on. That's why I'm really into the "Tunnell System" for lack of a better term. Concentrate on fastball command, once they got that move onto breaking stuff, then holding runners, etc. It makes sense to me and it's the way I tend to go about coaching... we just keep working through the technique progressions because I don't have much time for 1 on 1s and every kid is going to be a different place along that path. Give the young men incremental goals and keep them moving forward towards something all the time. I'd like to think they are doing the same thing with the hitters both offensively and defensively, but my gut tells me they aren't and that progression for position players is driven entirely by the offensive side of the game. We've had too many woefully deficient prospects in one area or another (defensively mostly) come up to the major leagues. I'm not talking about holding players down in the minors to be finished products, because I don't think that's a realistic goal, players are really never finished progressing or they end up out of the game. I just don't think it takes much to be competent defender, it's all just "want to"... it can take longer to learn how to take pitches and be more selective at the plate, but fielding fundamentals are pretty basic. Fielding should be the easy part of being a MLB player, it's just you, the ball, and the field. There's no mind games with another player... just catch the ball and throw it the appropriate base, it's as straightforward as baseball gets.

I asked the same question a couple of years ago when I couldn't find them anywhere on the internet but here, he's obviously very well connected, much more so than many people are probably aware of. I'm sure he'll elaborate more if he wants to.

I'm still in and will pick up A and AA everyday that I'm available.

I like this move. While Lucroy isn't an elite player by any stretch, I really don't see anyone coming up through the system who will push him in the near future and he's certainly an adequate MLB starter. The deal reflects his current level of production and isn't an overpay, plus it extends his service time with the MLB team to 7 1/2 years and we'd potentially be cutting bait with him at the appropriate time from an injury nexus perspective. We're a good 3 years from having a replacement catcher if the guys who were in A ball last season start ascending. Garfield didn't play much with that horrible injury, but he didn't set the world on fire in his first go round with WI. edit. I wanted to add that the Brewers have whiffed horribly recently on a bunch of FA contracts and people are still clamoring for them to be players in FA every year. The total money in a deal like this less than 1 year of Greinke, it's a solid move. When signing Braun and Yo for much high dollar amounts the team obviously assumes much greater risk, but those are the types of contracts that the team needs to sign to control costs. Give an elite player long-term security at a discount... if the player gets injured and never plays again it's still better than eating FA contracts for players that get injured on big money deals and never perform as an above average player again. There's still much less financial risk in a deal like Braun originally signed than there is signing Greinke to a FA contract. The dollars aren't even close.

Why do we want him back? What's this fascination with platooning Gamel or having a fall back option for him? He will hit, last year was the first year he had any kind of weird platoon split as a hitter. I'm not saying LaPorta won't ever produce but if people think Lawrie has issues, what does that make LaPorta? I still believe LaPorta is more of a d-bag than Lawrie was, I never heard of or witnessed Lawrie turn down anyone for autographs, especially for a charity auction. I doubt I'll ever get past the story about LaPorta wanting compensation to sign jerseys for said auction. In fact I only saw Bret go out of his way to sign autographs for people when he was injured in WI and sitting in the stands. At least Bret produces which makes any character issues easier to swallow, Matt hasn't even done that consistently in MLB yet, and I doubt he's going to find it sitting on an MLB bench or in AAA. He needs one more season as full time starter to prove if he's ever going to be productive or not, which is coincidentally the same exact thing Gamel needs. I really don't see the match. LaPorta has nothing left to prove in AAA and we don't need him as our full time 1B.

I think the larger problem that's on full display here between the 2 articles is that the Brewers don't really have a solid minor league plan for any of their tweener players. Lawrie is a fantastic talent, but if his position switching was being driven by him and not the Brewers the long standing problem of getting the player to the proper position is worse than I thought it was. If they let him play 2nd because they though they were going to let Weeks walk and it suited his fast track mentality but it wasn't really working out and then were reluctant to move him to 3rd why? Because McGehee was there? I'm not down with minor league players dictating their positions but in this case he was actually correct, he should have probably been a 3B all along. He might be a douche and he might be a me first guy, but it doesn't take much acumen with player development to hypothesize that he his likely destination was 3rd or a corner OF spot. Plenty of prospect gurus wrote it, plenty of posters on this forum agreed, it's not like the idea was revolutionary in any way. If resigning Rickie was always part of the plan why would they have let Lawrie play 2nd at all? If resigning Rickie wasn't part of the plan, why would really good half a season change that plan? I'm not saying one shouldn't be flexible and adaptive, but this just screams of hoping the pieces fall into place on their own, there didn't appear to be any long-term plan for Bret or for Rickie. It seems like this whole relationship was destined to fail from the start... It makes me wonder what a guy with MLB bloodlines like Brantley was thinking when he was an OFer spending all his time playing 1B and DH? Why not start the young man in the field where he's ultimately going to end up playing? Put the talent where he slots best, not because he fills a hole a different position, not because his path to majors is quicker at that position, do what's best for the player an organization from the start. I'm curious as to exactly what the organization was trying to change that he wasn't comfortable with and fighting? Was it his approach at the plate because that should be an easy thing to sell to a player who's all about MLB? I can understand a talent like Lawrie wanting to get to the big leagues as soon as possible, but what I don't understand is the enabling that went on. His family and the organization should have been nipping that in the bud right away. I'm curious if there's even any of kind of progression mapped out for the hitters like Tunnel has setup for the pitchers? Does every kid have goals he needs to hit to continue his progression up the chain or are they just being thrown out there and letting the chips fall where they may because they need to fill out rosters?

I think that ranking is pretty fair. We have a system full of pitchers in that 2-4 range, no one who we could legitimately say is 1-3 guy at this point. They noted Peralta's breakout season, Thornburg's solid campaign, and Jungmann and Bradley in their note about the pitching side. While we have some nice potential for impact players, we simply don't have a Yo in the minors right now. We have plenty of potential, I believe in Thornburg's ability and I think he'll continue to turn heads and I'm hoping Wily's 2011 will be repeated or improved upon in 2012 at a higher level. They also noted that Fiers could contribute to the major league team in the bullpen or rotation this season. Fiers doesn't have plus stuff, but he has plus command, and that might just be enough. The problem of course is that we don't have a legitimate impact player on the hitting side and they correctly noted that Schafer, Green, and Gennett are all in that average starter to role player range. If Peralta, Thornburg, Jungmann, and Bradley put up monster seasons the Brewers will skyrocket in the rankings just based on impact pitching. Then we take youngsters like Arcia who's starting stateside someplace at 17 and last year's high school position player draftees, there is potential for prospect gurus to get excited about our position players again. Kris Davis could rebound and be the Fiers of the position players, and of course we're still holding out hope for Kentrail Davis, Max Walla, and so on.

Lawrie played 2B throughout his time in the Brewer's system above A-Ball. However it was also clear that his defense as a 2nd baseman wasn't ascending as one would hope. i posted a few times about moving him to 3B or the OF. He was a good enough athlete to play anywhere, I even watched him make some highlight reel type athletic plays as a 2B when he was in WI. I think Toronto just did the obvious, they moved him to the corner and put the carrot out in front of him that he could break into the bigs in 2011 with them and Brett made the most of his opportunity. I still think all the the talk about Lawrie's bad attitude from people who largely supported Braun's flamboyance (especially early in his career) was completely off the mark. If you look at the comments made by both players and their actions in a vacuum they are nearly identical. That kind of supreme confidence is hard for me to identify with because I never had it, but speaking in general terms, players with that kind of attitude don't often fail if they have any of kind work ethic. My disdain for the Marcum trade has been made abundantly clear, and maybe if he's in still in the system at the time of the Greinke trade Lawrie the centerpiece of that deal. Again, I've always liked Marcum, I've felt for years that he should have been the primary target of the Overbay trade, he's one of a very select few soft tossers that I've latched onto. If Lawrie would have went for Greinke, then we'd still have Odorizzi, I have a hard time believing Melvin would have given up our best pitching and hitting prospects in the same trade, and I could have lived with that. Monty's point about alternative deals is the part that I think many people tend gloss over in regards to Melvin. The Doug traded Player(s) X for Player Y so obviously that was the best deal the Brewers could have gotten line of thinking. I think that's only been true in a few cases, the dominoes certainly didn't have to fall the way they did, Melvin just has a pretty extensive history of favoring certain types of trades, so those are the deals he will most often make. It doesn't mean there weren't better deals out there or different possibilities, it just means Doug trades for established MLB talent and will pay whatever it takes to acquire it. Outside of 2 trades last season where he picked up players other teams were basically just looking to dump, who's he ever fleeced and gotten the best of in a trade? His best trade prior to Morgan from a value standpoint was probably the deal for Carlos Lee, but then squashed that notion by giving up Lee and Cruz for Cordero and Mench. Realistically how would the Sabathia trade have looked if the Mets wouldn't have totally given away the wildcard to the Brewers in the last 10 games? Yes, yes... I know and I get the playoff appearance, the whole monkey off the back, my fandom was validated, etc... all those feelings, but looking back now, what was all that pride really worth? Was it worth 2009 and 10? I'm interested in sustained success and a WS title, but the only way for the Brewers to sustain success is to continually mix in young talent, to keep cycling fresh young back talent into the MLB team and to balance payroll. Is the current payroll sustainable? I don't believe it is, we simply cannot get older and more expensive on average every single year and maintain success over the long-term. Sooner or later age catches up with everyone. The Marcum trade in particular was like a bad joke because it took us 2 trades to get the right guy and it came so many years after I first started hammering away on the Overbay trade. Instead of getting a guy in his mid 20s with 6 years of service time we acquire the same player post TJ surgery when he's nearly 30 and with 2 years of service time. It was like Melvin was reading the forum and sticking it to me personally because I bag on him so much for the way he values players. I wanted to punch Doug in the eye, say "and that", and walk away... Like I said at the time, Melvin secured his future in the near term with those 2 trades last winter, Mark A will extend him because of the playoff appearance and because of the players Melvin bought with the farm system. Melvin has continued to spend talent even though Seid hasn't proven he's the talent evaluator that Z was and hasn't really replenished the minor league system to this point. We have bunch of nice but not great pitching prospects (there is potential to be sure, but no Yo as of today) at this time, very few impact hitting talents if any, and if Greinke has another CY type season he prices himself out of Milwaukee and then what? Do we end up resigning Wolf or Marcum much to my chagrin? What will the Brewers be in 2013? How much success can Melvin maintain when he doesn't really have the trade pieces to make deals for marquee MLB talent anymore? On average that first wave is only going to get older and likely play less games per season which in turn makes them less productive on the whole, while their salaries continue to escalate. Throw on top of that the very real possibly that Ramirez isn't worth the money by year 3 of his contract, the MLB Brewers could quickly become a disaster. There is a very fine line between being veteran and being old, and I for one don't want the Brewers to end up on the wrong side of that line.

You forgot the caps lock. I think we can all forgive you... this time. Ha... it appears that post in the midst of supreme frustration will follow me around forever. Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought if you had an extra picks you had extra money in your pool? It wouldn't make sense to penalize Milwaukee for losing Fielder by forcing them to pay 2 more players with the same pool of money as they would have had with no extra picks. As someone already pointed out the Brewers have aggressively pursued HS players with strong college commitments in the past, which is why the total spend in some years has been over the current limit. I still think this whole thing is stupid... if you're going to slot the draft then fine, but make players declare for the draft and eliminate the leverage of a kid going to play college ball. If the young man fails to make an impact keep the standard scholarship offer as part of the professional contract, that way the players still have something to fall back on. If I knew I had college paid for either way I'd probably opt to go pro and see if I cut the mustard, there's really no downside. There would be no incentive to wait until the signing deadline to get contracts done in that scenario. For everything baseball gets right, they also get something horribly wrong. I'm not willing to make definitive doom's day scenario predictions until i see how this actually plays out.

sorry for the horrible post, I'm not sure what happened, I cut an entire paragraph out and obviously I didn't read it again before I posted it. not worth editing now.

I guess that depends on what you are looking for in a scouting report. Personally I care about "stuff" first and his delivery second, then I'll go do some statistical analysis looking at IP, highest pitch counts, K rates, K:BB, etc, which is not so coincidentally the same way I evaluate the pitchers in our system. Pretty much every pitcher taken at the top of the draft is going to have a big arm and prototypical frame or they wouldn't be drafted in that position. Yes there were lots of reports that had nice things to say about Jungmann in that sense, but there very few positive reports on his stuff. In fact if you look at the draft forum discussion about the pick the only guru with overwhelmingly glowing report of Jungmann was Mayo, who writes for for MLB and MiLB. I generally take time to read everything I can find on prospects I'm interested in, but I don't necessarily zero on in any single write-up or evaluation as my "truth" regarding a prospect. I'm going to take it all in and then form my own opinion which is going to be based on any number of factors. There isn't definitive right and wrong with this stuff, it's just differing shades of grey based on one's perspective. I'm not one to make excuses for any player, so the whole he was worn down in the tourney excuse doesn't sit well with me, he's been pitching deep in the college postseason since he was a freshman, why would he tire now? He didn't look dominant when I saw him pitch, his secondary stuff isn't great, and I don't like his short stride at all. He has many positive qualities to be excited about, they just don't happen the factors that I tend to zero in on. I could give a hoot where he's placed in top 100 lists at this point, BA's lumping of him and Bradley together in the 70s was laughable, it was a throw away ranking. Most places are going to rate them high because they were high draft picks in a deep draft in a league that's focusing on the position they play. There's nothing wrong with that type of thing, any list is going to be subjective, I'm just going to take the rankings for what they are and move on with life. I'm not going to back away from my initial impression because people write good things about the young man before he's played in a game that counts for real. I want to see him perform over the course of a season, the same way I've done with every other prospect I've followed. Like I said, I'd absolutely love to be proven wrong, everyone knows how much I value pitching, and I'd much rather be hesitant about a guy and have him explode into an impact player than be really excited about a guy and have him tank miserably. I'll happy take a "we told you so TheCrew07" thread in September if my concerns prove baseless and Jungmann flies through the system with relative ease.

The only thing I'll add is that it seems unlikely that a pitcher would improve his command throwing less, which is one of the reasons I prefer any reliever with promise actually works as a starting pitcher in the lower minors. At some point I'd like the organization to get away from the 6 inning pitcher, we have a rotation full of them right now. I'm not sure how you fix that or if you even can, but I hate leaving 3 or more innings to the bullpen every single night. The only good news is that most of our potential impact pitching has become part of the relief core so the bullpen so should be solid for years to come. That being said, any MLB service time out of Mark would be fantastic at this point. It seems that going back to Yo all of our legitimate starting pitching prospects all have the same flaw, they just aren't economical with their pitches and run their pitch counts too high. Parra was probably the best of the group that way and it still irritates me that he's forced his way into the bullpen. LHP that run gas in the mid 90s don't go on trees, I was very high on him once he came back healthy. At some point I'd like the organization to get away from the 6 inning pitcher, we have a rotation full of them right now. I'm not sure how you fix that or if you even can, but I hate leaving 3 or more innings to the bullpen every single night. The only good news is that most of our potential impact pitching has become part of the relief core so the bullpen so should be solid for years to come.

If you haven't already, I recommend you read the Perfect Game top 10 prospects list for the Brewers that Colby linked in this subforum. Colby's colleague, who rated the Brewers' top 10, had a completely different take from yours on Jungmann's less than stellar K rate in college last season: "Another very encouraging thing for Jungmann’s future is the adjustments that he made last year after the introduction of the new bats in college baseball. He began pitching to contact more aggressively instead of going after strikeouts, an adjustment that often takes pitchers years in the minors to fully make." Sorry for the slow response, I haven't been back since the 4th. I read it bro... There were very few glowing reports about his stuff pre draft, only Mayo wrote a glowing report, but he does that for everyone and for good reason, MLB wants fans to feel good about their draft picks, which of course is just good business. As I said I'm sure I watched him pitch his 2 worst starts in college, but regardless it's hard for me to get past what I see when I scrutinize a pitcher. It's one of the reasons I haven't been anywhere near as high on Scarpetta as most on this forum, outside of his curve, he was below average when I saw him pitch in WI, and I saw him more than any other pitcher that year. If you look in the draft forum I thought Jungmann was a pretty decent athlete for that level which projects well, he may be able to make adjustments much quicker than I had hoped. They also had Fiers in the top 10 and the most glowing report on Gennett I've read anywhere. I didn't comment because you summed my feelings pretty well and I didn't want to do a +1 post. It might be easy to confuse my not liking a draft pick for whatever reason with me rooting against a young man, which is never the case. If someone wears the uniform of my favorite team, I want them to have success, even players I despised as completely overrated like McGehee and Hall for example, I would still want them to be successful, I was just extremely bitter when they weren't. I've been wrong before and I will be wrong again, I loved the Arnett pick, another multi-sport athlete with a big fastball and a plus slider... but the FB velocity disappeared with his confidence as his performance waned, hard to be more wrong than that.

Not all HS players are high ceiling, and truthfully I'm not partial where a talent comes from, just get me impact talent to follow... I will say that the likely hood of an impact college player falling to the Brewer's first pick doesn't seem likely.

Encouraging first reports on Jungmann. I would love for him to prove me wrong, however it was likely the first any of our MLB hitters saw him live. The true test for both Jungmann and Bradley is how they perform once the other teams start to get a book on them. I would classify myself as cautiously optimistic right now. Did either of you happen to get any photos or video?

2 things happened in my presence today, 1 happens all the time, the other not so much. The first... why is it acceptable to leave grocery carts all over the parking lot? Most days when I'm working out of my home office I go grab lunch from the Festival Foods deli, so I probably witness this type of thing a couple of times a week. Typically I'm guy that will corral carts in between my car and the nearest retrieval spot because it really bothers that people are so selfish they don't take the extra 20 seconds to return a cart. Today I saw someone literally leave a cart 6 feet from the retrieval area so said something. Her reply was that she was in a hurry and they pay someone to police up the carts in the parking lot anyway. What does any of that have to do with her cart blowing around potentially hitting someone else's car or taking away a parking spot (which is much more frequent) so some one has to get out of their car and deal with the cart just so they can park. Going there are around midday it just bothers the heck out of me, especially when it's an elderly person that has to deal with the cart, in which case I'll go way out of my way to intervene. The 2nd... right after the grocery store I go across the street to Walmart because I need DVDs for work and I left my stack on the other side of town. I just happen to overhear a conversation between 2 ladies about the 1 getting denied a handicap permit. At first I'm thinking what kind of rat bastard actually denies a handicap permit but then I peak around the corner. Well this lady is maybe 5 feet tall, and she's probably at least 3 feet wide, riding around on one of those courtesy scooters. She literally engulfed the little scooter... She proceeds to complain about being out of breath walking from the parking lot into the store and how her appetite has gotten out of control. Well I'm admittedly bitter now so I move on trying to find my DVDs but I do overhear a bit more as I'm zipping around the isles looking for my DVDs (they were moved since the last time I needed them on short notice) and from what I gathered being obese in itself (as in just letting yourself go) doesn't qualify one for a handicap sticker. The more I thought about this, the more it pissed me off. All of the myriad of health problems that she'll eventually have to deal with in the future aside, shouldn't that be a wake up call that maybe your lifestyle needs to be adjusted? Where's the public interest in enabling poor health? I've let myself get overweight, I know a ton of people in NE WI who are overweight, but I drew line at size 36 pants for myself. Jumping 4 sizes was enough, I wasn't going to buy all new jeans/dockers/shorts etc again because I was too lazy cook anymore and ate fast food all the time and stopped working out. I can't imagine not being able to walk 100 yards without having to stop and catch my breath. Then it occurred to me that she'll probably have a significant fall, or some sort of significant health problem, she'll eventually get her permit, and nothing will change... Maybe I'm out of line, but I was pretty irked by the time I got back to the office and I haven't been able to let it go all evening.

I've stayed quiet on this even though the thread title has rubbed me the wrong way from the start. However as more details emerge I'm confident enough in my opinion to say that I believe "Exonerated" is a misrepresentation of the facts of the case. There has been no reproducable/testable medical explanation for the synthetic testosterone in Braun's sample. He's gotten out of the suspension simply on the merits of a chain of custody dispute, it's a technicality of the process, not a vindication or explanation for the ratios in his test result or the presence of synthetic T. In fact, the medical community has as far as I've read and heard completely backed the protocol used to store the sample over the weekend, and have gone to great lengths to point out the consistent manner in which this has been handled. Pebadger has also spent a great deal of time explaining the testing process, both good and bad, it certainly has it's flaws. However, in this case protocol was followed, Braun signed that the seals were in place, the seals were not broken upon delivery, all of the samples for all of the players tested that day arrived at the lab at the same and in the same condition. I don't know Ryan personally, he has been one of my guys for a long time though my enthusiasm for him has waned a bit (his HR antics early in his career grated on me), but as fan of the player I wasn't going to go to bat for someone I really don't know. I was holding out hope for a legitimate explanation as a Brewer fan, instead all he's done is throw the collector under the bus, which has rubbed me the wrong from the start. If you're going to throw stones you'd better come with more than vague character attacks and thinly veiled insinuations regarding what may have happened in that 44 hour window. If you're going to go to the tainted sample card, put some evidence out there that means something instead of this charade about the 44 hour window being a genuine cause for concern when it's standard practice all around the country to store samples in one's home when testing circumstances don't allow for immediate shipping. The obvious solution here would be to only test Monday-Thursday in the future to eliminate "process concerns", but none of this "personal storage" issue has anything to do with Braun's innocence or guilt as long as the seals on the samples weren't broken. If all of the players tested that day had high ratios then something is up, however it appears just Ryan had this problem. As a Brewer fan I'm slightly happy he's available for the entire season, but as sports fan I want some real answers one way or another. I'm not thrilled about the result at all, and while I didn't feel bad for Braun for failing a test, I do feel bad for this sample collector whom Ryan has basically thrown under the bus. It's not classy, it's tabloid character assassination against a reputable member of the medical community. If there were some shenanigans going on I absolutely want the guy held accountable, but on the surface there doesn't appear to be anything wrong out of the ordinary other than Braun failed the test. In fact, I would classify the explanation from the Braun's camp as mere political deflection at this juncture. The only part of this entire saga I can really stand firmly behind Braun is the leak to the media. The process is intended to be confidential, in that regard Ryan was done a huge disservice, and everyone involved definitely needs to address that issue to ensure true confidentiality regardless of the player and his status within the game.

The argument for trading established prior to them hitting FA has been well established numerous times over numerous years on this site. Different posters, different approaches to the argument, same canned responses. To claim ignorance or say that you don't get it simply means that have you haven't put any time into understanding the other side of the argument. It's near impossible to have intelligent conversation about roster management when X percentage of posters will dismiss prospects because they aren't established, Y percentage only wants to spend more money, and Z percentage wants to hang onto players until they have absolutely no value for a variety of reasons. There's very little room left in the grey area where organization building has to take place. Fact is the Brewers are the smallest market in the game, the epitome of a small market. Yes small markets can spend in a perfect storm of fan support and revenue streams, but that hasn't been the Brewer's reality in the past and may not be our reality in the future. How long will the Brewers continue to draw over 3 million fans? Do we as a forum understand how significant and rare that has been in Brewer history? The Seligs didn't spend any money and had the organization over 100 million dollars in debt, we have no idea of the debt to income ratio of the team or any of the finances for that matter. People like to claim that Mark A can just continually borrow against the value of the franchise because that value keeps ascending, but is that a truly wise business practice? Isn't that basically what happened in LA regardless of where the money was going? There is a fine line between being and veteran and being old, and it's much better to get rid of players a year or two too soon than to be holding on to an albatross contract for a player who's no longer performing. Every year under Melvin's tenure the Brewers have gotten older and more expensive, much of that has to do with the first wave reaching free agency, but the simple truth is that's not a healthy financial trend for the organization. At some point you must infuse young impact talent back into the MLB team or we end like Cubs of last year with a ton of bad contracts for under performing players way past their prime. The current Brewer financial model may not even be profitable, but if it is then it's clearly dependent on the incredible fan support the organization has enjoyed the last 3 years. That fan support is contingent on a winning team, and even teams that win year after year like Atlanta eventually see their attendance fall back and level off. Certainly championships can be bought, but not at the payroll level the Brewers are working with. To win a championship in Milwaukee you need to maximize the impact you acquire through all 3 processes: the draft, trades, and FA while maximizing cost per win. You want to buy as many wins as possible below market value and I hate the game people are trying to play with K-Rod and Ramirez... trying to average out the dollars over the years or over other positions to justify the contract. It doesn't work that way, in the end you're still paying X number of dollars for Y number of wins from that position. The Ramirez 16 million isn't really 12 million, it's 16 million plus a 4 million buyout... the contract is not movable unless we pickup a significant portion of the money. The contract is structured the way it because the Brewers can only afford so much in 2012 so they backloaded 2014 to get the average that Ramirez was looking for. I hope hope Ramirez is worth the money in 2012, I doubt Ramirez will be worth 12 million in 2013, I highly doubt he'll be worth 16 in 2014. If you want to aggregate production numbers go ahead, but using the Axford/K-Rod combination to justify the K-Rod salary for a setup guy, which is starting pitcher money, only reduces Axford's overall value when you lump in half of K-Rod's bloated salary for their combined production. I realize trading an established piece to actually become a better team can be a nebulous concept, it can be a difficult concept to see the value in. However cost per win is a pretty simple idea, and an idea that everyone should be willing to embrace, the lower the cost per win, the more efficiently we're spending money, which means the organization is healthier. The idea shouldn't be to just spend money because we can, the idea should be to spend money as efficiently as possible. I get that same people have made the same claims about going "all in" every year since 2008, I just don't think that's a reasonable approach to organization building. I realize that maybe people do that with their personal finances, spend everything they make and spend more on credit cards, but it's not a philosophy I personally subscribe to, nor would want any organization I care for to operate in that manner. I would rather the Brewers be paying significant portions of that debt away instead of operating on the fine line between the Red and Black every year. It's a very tenuous position and one that can't last forever. In the same way we simply can't continue to trade away prospects for limited term solutions, it doesn't matter what the prospects become, it only matters what their value was at the time of the trade. Did we maximize the return for the value we have given up? I think the answer there is pretty clearly no... even Sabathia's acquisition directly led to the horrible rotations in 2009 and 2010. We paid for Grienke like he's a Sabathia, even though he's clearly been a step down for every year of his career but 1. Marcum wasn't equal talent for Lawrie, Cordero wasn't equal talent for Lee and Cruz, and so on down the list. People will point to the market trend and say that the Brewers got a deal for Greinke because pitching keeps becoming more expensive to acquire every year, but I think it's more prudent to keep each trade in it's proper context, where the market was at the time of the trade, than work on flawed justification. Weeks just isn't a very healthy player, Hart isn't aging well, these are legitimate reasons to look to sell high on players. I'm not going to sit here and claim that Gennett is the answer at 2nd, I generally need to see to a larger body of work before I'm ready to make definitive statements about that. However to claim that the dominoes fell the way they did because that was the only way they could fall, and we need to keep player X because player Y is unproven, and statements similar in nature are simply fantasy. Trading for Sabathia wasn't the only answer, nor were any of the moves Melvin has made... they were simply the type of moves that he prefers to make. In the same way that spending money doesn't help you build a strong organization or ensure winning, the only certainty when you spend money in MLB is that the contract is guaranteed so the money is gone. Veterans are no more of sure thing than any prospect, there are risks associated with any move. Opinions will simply come down to however we chose on personal level to weigh that risk. I'll say it one more time, I'd entertain offers for anyone but Gallardo or Braun, everyone else is aging, injury prone, expensive, or some combination of the 3. Identify core players early, sign them to team friendly deals buying out FA years (I realize the team assumes all the risk in that kind of deal), and rotate everyone else through maximizing their value as much as possible, even a Fielder type if they won't sign an early extension. Sometimes we'll have to plug a hole through FA, sometimes we should ride out contracts to FA, sometimes we should trade players early and go with the younger replacement. There is no one size fits all approach, I'm not into limiting options, but that's all the Brewers have done is limit their options through the way they've operated. Payroll flexibility isn't the goal, roster flexibility is the goal, having enough viable talent where the decision always doesn't come to cost, it can come down to what player provides the most value to the organization.

Well I had previously stepped away from the LRs as I found my enthusiasm for the organization significantly waning as Melvin's tenure has continued and my free time was incredibly limited over the last 16 months. However, I'm on the upswing from a time standpoint (I still view the organization's future from an incredibly dubious position) so I'd take the A and AA teams every day to chip in and help out. I've been pushing posters to this forum for years, it only seems fitting that I offer up some of my time to keep it going now. We need someone to get the report started every day, who's facing who, at what time, and the probable pitching match ups. It would be great if someone on the west coast would volunteer to take AZ and Helena once those seasons start. Waiting until 1 AM Central Time for the Independent Record to post the Helena game stories can be pretty taxing with work early the following morning. If we could get 3-5 people working on it each day/night the burden would be significantly reduced and we would still have enough coverage so 1 person didn't have to do it all when people inevitably have other commitments that keep them away for a couple of days or a week. Mass is truly amazing, his dedication and commitment would be easier met getting a group of us together to hammer it out everyday.

That's always been part of the link report. It's not the same as a major league in game thread, but we generally keep a running tab of the big news of the day in that thread around the actual link reports. For certain games it has turned into more of an in game thread, Parra's perfect game, Arnett's first start with Prince stealing a bunch of bases, and so on... For years my windows welcome sound was "Parra is perfect, Parra is perfect!" Typically the more in-game thread posting style is reserved for those special moments. As a group we don't typically bag on people who are performing horribly as you would see every night on the other side, it's a more gentle atmosphere over here. Certainly the higher draft picks like Arnett will draw more scrutiny as pretty much everyone is interested in the lines from that kind of pick/supposed talent, but no is clamoring for a Marseco to be let go because he can't hit in A ball. With Mass' retirement from Link Reporting I haven't heard about a decision being made either way to continue the link report. I know personally that the link report was the first thing that drew me here and is still the one thing I care about most on this site. Without it, there's no way I'd visit the site as often, I don't generally find the topics on the MLB/Transaction side all that stimulating. We can only rehash the same ideas over and over so many times before the conversations get stale... every day on the MiLB side there's something different and exciting happening, which fosters new interesting/discussion.

Zach at least had 10 good starts in his MLB career... they all just came at the beginning... I'm not sure Duke coming out of a woeful system in Pittsburgh or Hendrickson when we've developed exactly 2 starting pitchers who panned out as top of the rotation starters in forever are exactly the same idea that igor7 was working on. There are certain organizations who don't make many mistakes trading players... Altanta made 1 terrible move, trading for Teixeira and giving up my most coveted prospect of all time in Neftali Feliz. Tampa is another that comes to mind, I know people claim they are lucky with their more high profile moves, but look at how Milwaukee's trading history with them has turned out, who got the better end of those deals? The Brewers farm system isn't highly thought of and rightly so, it's nearly impossible to graduate the amount of talent we have to MLB, trade the talent we moved in the 3 big pitching deals, and still have enough impact talent to be considered one of the better farm systems in baseball. Also, as Milwaukee has turned over a great deal of it's scouting department because of the success of the system, those people are not easily replaced, and Seid has to prove that his staff is as good at picking players as Jack Z's was (pitching aside, I'm talking in general terms here). Why should the Brewer's reputation developed under Z be applied to Seid? The Brewer's system is just very difficult to evaluate right now, you have quite a bit of MLB capable talent, but very few potential stars as it stands today. I don't think it's fair to cast Jungmann or Bradley in that light at this moment, it just may not be in the cards for them to be top of the rotation guys. I hope they are, but they haven't really even pitched yet professionally, and no I don't consider Bradley's AFL performance worth discussing. While I really like the depth of talent from a quantity standpoint, I'm more of a quality guy, I'm looking for impact talent, which is why I would rate us towards the bottom. In that sense I'm in "prove it" mode, I'm not into giving the organization or it's prospects the benefit of the doubt... prove to me that you can draft and develop top of the rotation talent and impact bats. The first wave of players that came through were chosen by a different group, what they've done professionally means nothing in relation to the current scouting staff or minor league system. I do think that reputation matters, Colby has regularly argued that the success the Brewers have had developing bats should be enough to gain the organization the benefit of the doubt, and I think it's much easier for the supposed prospect gurus to latch onto a pitching prospect in TB's organization rather than a guy like Thornburg in Milwaukee's. Peralta had some serious warts, while we always thought and hoped he'd be a starting pitcher there was plenty of reason to be skeptical about his prospects as a starting pitcher... max effort delivery, spotty command, and only 1 secondary pitch were the common reasons cited. Let's be honest, he finally emerged for the first time and pitched like we all hoped he would last season, but I'm not sure 1 really good season, even at AA, is enough to vault a pitcher like him in a system like ours into the upper echelon of baseball prospects. He just doesn't have the established track record that many of the guys he's being measured against do. Once a young man gets that reliever label, it's incredibly tough to shake it. I don't agree with the idea at all, I was pretty vocal about certain talent evaluators pigeon holing Thornburg as such last season... until they fail as a starting pitcher there's always hope.

As a group we probably overrate our pitchers. It sounds like Peralta has made steady improvement with his pitches and command as well as his velocity. I'm interested to see him pitch again as it's been awhile. All lists are fairly subjective, it doesn't bother me that Peralta is the only Brewer on the list, nor his placement. We just don't have a Gallardo type can't miss pitching prospect in the system. This will definitely be an interesting year, we could have as many as 4 players on every list next year (Peralta, Thornburg, Jungmann, and Bradley) and it would be nice to have that many impact players in the system again. Of course the reverse is true as well but I'd rather not even consider that possibility at this juncture.

Obviously I like Peralta's slider and velocity, and the reports on his change are encouraging. He was kind of all over the place when I watched him pitch in 2009 so it's hard to draw any comparisons to his current scouting reports but I still think he's a 2 best case. Jungmann... well I just posted about him again in the other thread. I'm not seeing it right now, I'd be happy if he was solid #3, but I'm definitely willing to be proven wrong. Bradley is interesting, we really needed an impact lefty and the reports on him are encouraging even though his results weren't in the AFL and his college career wasn't all that inspiring either. Having never watched him pitch and knowing nothing about him other than scouting reports and opinions posted on the web, I'm hoping for the best. I will say that based on his scouting report I thought he would top out as #2, which would be awesome. I'd like a couple more impact lefties in the system. The idea I was really getting at is that based on results and stuff we have a ton of guys who on average are 3s/bullpen arms and no one with consistent mid 90s velocity and 2 plus secondary pitches and stellar results who's reasonably projectable as a 1. By average I mean I'm not projecting base case scenarios. I certainly feel like we're due for a young arm to mature and make up the difference with pitchability, we've suffered through enough flame outs it at least feels like we've earned the right to experience some sort of pitching success with a #2 eventually becoming a #1, but even a guy like Thornburg looks to be a good #2 best case. And That had some power 50 comments early last year that kind of summed up my feelings on the system, it seemed like every pitcher is/was a #3/BP guy. Obviously Peralta and Thornburg were head and shoulders above the rest but what does a guy like Bucci really project as? Or Scarpetta? Or Heckathorn? Or Rivas? Nelson? etc...

Yep because that's been posted nowhere on this forum, no one has compared Jungmann to Suppan. Perhaps you are confusing the draft day discussion about Nelson being a harder throwing Suppan from the other thread that I alluded to. The pitcher I keep going back to in my mind and can't seem to get myself away from even though their deliveries are completely different is Niemann. Niemann had a better repertoire coming out of college, his slider was considered the best in the draft and his curve was considered above average to plus as well. I'm not sure why my mind keeps drawing that comparison, maybe it's the tall RHP pitcher deal, or someone who was drafted high who was ultimately a mid rotation guy. At any rate I'd be thrilled if Jungmann put up similar career numbers to Niemann, and as I've said many times, I've never seen Taylor pitch in person and only saw him pitch in this year's College World Series and he just didn't have a single pitch with any wow factor for me personally. I'm certain I saw him pitch in 3 of his worst games in college, and I only watched 2 with any level of scrutiny so yes I'm keenly aware of the small sample. However, the only scout who posted anything positive about his secondary stuff was Mayo, and in watching I understand why people weren't impressed. He could certainly improve, he needs to improve, but I don't think he's nearly as polished as he's been billed. I've talked quite a bit about WOW factor, but haven't elaborated on it. What I mean by that is when I watch a guy pitch and I say to myself, "wow that was a great pitch". A FB has to be pretty special to get me excited, like Jeffress and Manzanillo level hard, but usually the secondary stuff does it for me. Take Peralta for example, there were times when his slider looked absolutely filthy, I felt similarly about Scarpetta's curve, every once in a while he'd flash one that would blow me away. Here's a link to the I shot, no one else on that staff really did anything for me. Meadows was amazingly consistent and got outs, but he didn't stand out in any way. In 2010 it was Manzanillo's arm (Wendt had foreshadowed his velocity well) and Odorizzi's relative polish, a guy like Bucci walked the world and weaseled out of jams when I was there so I didn't come away impressed with him. Heckathorn didn't blow me away, Arnett and the rest... well you were just hoping for improvement. Last year the only guy I wanted to see pitch was Thorny and circumstance didn't allow me to get down to a game and see him pitch. Watching the T-Rats bat speed like Lawrie's stood out, no one else had that kind of punch. D'Vo is another, but it was his general athleticism that stood out. A guy who I really liked and still follow was Chris Dennis, nothing he did really stood out, he just seemed to have a good approach and perform well when I was there and his career really hasn't taken off. Gennett is another guy who didn't really wow you with any one thing, just performed very well for his age at the plate, 2B was a different matter entirely. Sometimes the opposing players stand out, like a Mike Trout, he's the most glaring example, you only needed to see him play once to know he was special. I'm not saying that if a guy doesn't stand out he can't be a productive MLB player, however if he doesn't stand out I do think there is little chance he'll be an impact player. Maybe I'll buy a new camera and do some more videos this season, but I doubt I'll see Jungmann or Bradley, unless they struggle mightily in A+ and get demoted.