TheCrew07

McGehee with another decent day at the plate, he might actually be finally turning it around.

I didn't watch him in the college WS, what's the story with his velocity? Or didn't Steve say anything?

I didn't include Ramirez in my top 10 list... because I have no idea what to make of him. Is he just that good that he can put the bat on the ball regardless of where it's pitched and doesn't need to walk ever? Is he just that selective that he's killing mistakes in every AB? Or is he going to have problems down the road because he's ultra aggressive? His BB rate is essentially 1 for 40 ABs... just 4-5 more walks and I put him in my top 10. As it stands, I have no idea how to qualify him. Regardless of his future as a hitter, the power he's showing is fantastic to see.

It's kind of nice to be on the other side of this type of inning.

Good start to the game so far, minus whatever was going on Morgan in CF.

I don't think Green is coming up anytime soon. As far as trades go, Melvin is ultra conservative, he only makes trades he knows have very little chance of backfiring on him. I'll think he's more likely to trade for a 3B, a known quantity, before calling up Green in the short-term. I also don't think Melvin (and this might be Nichols influence) is willing to move players around the way we are looking to get the players in the position they will succeed defensively. For example, because Melvin locked up Weeks, in his mind Lawrie became expendable because we had a long-term 2B, so then Lawrie became Marcum... except that most of us on the MiLB forum thought that while Lawrie was athletic enough to play 2B he would probably end up in a corner spot. So Lawrie wasn't necessarily expendable, he could have easily slid over to 3B since the organization moved Gamel to 1B solidifying the corner IF spots for years to come. The organization still had a fall back option in Farris and Gennett working his way up at 2B. Clearly Melvin and Co were never as concerned about McGehee as many of us on this board were, even though they admitted they never expected him to break out like he did. Melvin has a way of backing himself into corners with severely limited options in front of him. Not just a Marcum/Lawrie thing, but in general, it seems that he tends to end up in places that he doesn't see coming, like how awful the starting pitching turned out to be the last 2 years, and now with McGehee regressing... only he's running out prospects to make deals with now, and he still has SS to worry about as well. Many posters on the forum have been high on Green for a long time as the eventual big league 3B, the talk quieted after last year, but now that he's back hitting that drum is getting beat again. Honestly I was always on the Gamel bangwagon, because he had all the tools to be a plus defender, but just never got there. I don't think the organization is as high on Green as we are, they started him in AA this year pushing Wheeler past him, and now they are moving Gamel back over to 3B to get reps. I'm not sure how Green could possibly put up a worse line than McGehee has thus far, and he would likely be a fair upgrade defensively, but it doesn't seem like he's truly on Melvin's radar. I think Melvin will look to address SS first and roll with McGehee hoping he turns it around. If Green is still hitting in mid August and McGehee is still stinking it up, then he might do something about it like the Hardy situation. I don't like Gamel moving back to 3B this season, I'd rather Green get a shot, but McGehee had 2 hits and a sac fly the other day so he bought himself more time as far RR and DM are concerned, he's "on the verge" again...

Why do they have the best odds now than they've ever had as a franchise? Because this is the "best" team? I'm not sure I'd agree with that and even if the team is better than 2008 that logic doesn't seem to take into account how much teams like the Phillies and Braves have improved. I never said winning the lottery, I said significant money, which to me is >=$100 on a $1 investment, then again maybe you don't play the lottery and didn't realize there were different payouts. A quick look at baseball-reference reveals that no team other than the '87 Twins has won a title with a road winning percentage that low through 1960 which is where I chose to stop loooking, there may be another occurrence someplace farther back in history but I doubt it. There's always a chance, but to point to the Twins as proof it's possible is playing pretend as far as I'm concerned, Miller Park doesn't give the Brewers a Metrodome type advantage. The roster as it's constructed today may not even be good enough to win the division.

I'm not in favor of selling, but comparisons to the '87 Twins are way off the mark. Sure a team can get hot and win a couple of series that it shouldn't, maybe even the World Series, the 2006 Cardinals proved that too. However, using a once in a generation anomoly as a standard of performance seems misguided at best to me, throwing out the exception to the rule as definitive proof of possible success? Well I might win significant money from Power Ball tomorrow as well... the odds aren't as long, but you're talking very steap odds against to match the level of success of the '87 Twins. The NL East has far and away the 2 best teams in the NL from where I'm sitting, the AL East has 3 of the best teams in the AL. To win a World Series our pitching staff doesn't match up well with the Yankees or Red Sox, patient teams that don't swing at garbage out of the zone shred our pitchers. We match up much better against teams with a similar approach as our hitters where Greinke especially can get hitters out who are swinging at secondary stuff out of the zone, like the Rays, but it seems unlikely the Rays can make the playoffs given the hole they've dug. To get out of the NL I think the Braves and Phillies are vastly superior teams while San Francisco is slightly better. I think the Brewers match up well against anyone in the NL West and Central, but in a 7 game series I don't think we match up well with Phillies or Braves at all, I'd feel better about a 5 game series against those teams. If the Brewers don't make the playoffs this season then I don't know how anyone could conclude that Melvin's tenure as GM hasn't been a horrible let down. To make 1 playoff appearance with 2 HOF talents on your roster is basically inexcusable, and realistically we should have come up short in 2008 as well. He would have traded away a mountain of assets for one 4 game playoff appearance... sure that's better than the previous GMs did, but not anywhere near as good as it could have been. It would mean that the Brewers didn't even manage to win the division 1 time in his tenure and the central hasn't exactly been the pinnacle of MLB during that time. Selling is out the question, Melvin didn't make all these trades to sell now, his job is on the line. However I do think the talent on this team has been consistently overvalued by many Brewer fans, both on an individual player and team basis. This team has many holes... if we get to the playoffs success will depend entirely on the draw the Brewers get, but our pitching staff just doesn't match up well against the elite teams in either league. People will talk about how if we didn't give away 5-6 games we'd be right there, and while that's true standing wise, those losses don't matter from a match up perspective.

As I said before I'm pretty happy for the Pirates organization which was vilified for spending revenue sharing money on facilities and development so they could start building from the ground up instead of wasting it on FA hacks that weren't going to make a long-term difference for the franchise.

Holy cow, you just scared me. I searched through the draft forum to see where the news was that Lopez spurned the Brewers & is going to college. I was relieved when I couldn't find any, & realized your context was probably "had signed already." At least I hope so. Correct. I was speaking to the fact that he hasn't signed yet, not that he won't sign. It's tough to drop any draftees that haven't signed into the 10.

We have 2 in rookie ball, Arcia is only 16 and I bet he's in Helena next season as a 17 year old. He's a SS prospect in my book until he's moved off the position or proves he's not able to handle it defensively.

Well that's that... at least a minor leaguer hit for the Cycle tonight.

I'll add that most days I feel Wolf outpitches his stuff, I never feel very good about him on the mound, but it's hard to argue against his ultimate results, he's been fantastic for about a year. Greinke isn't unlucky... that's superficial analysis based on personal bias and/or FIP. I'm not sure how any pitcher with a high SLG against can be considered unlucky, because watching the games when he gets hit, he gets hit hard. I've missed his best 2 starts though as I missed Saturday's game, maybe I shouldn't watch him pitch anymore.

I was working on my top 10 post for the MiLB forum, did Wolf just throw the ball away again?

1) Tyler Thornburg - No brainer here, keep tightening up that curve and working that change. 2) Wily Peralta - Has been encouraging lately, not sure I buy Law's 98 MPH blurb from the other day, but I want to believe it's true 3) Kris Davis - My opinions on him are well known, higher OF OPS than Braun! Okay... so it's only A ball... 4) Orlando Arcia - Trumpets blaring, etc 5) Taylor Green - You won me over again Taylor, not flashy, but steady and solid 6) Ruben Ozuna - Youngest OF with the highest OPS in the system as a CF prospect. 10th highest OF OPS overall in the entire organization as a 19 year old, small sample size given he's only played 29 games. 7) Nick Bucci - His velocity is better than I gave him credit for 8) Kyle Heckathorn - I hope he finishes strong 9) Caleb Gindl - Much like Green he's not flashy he's just a solid/steady player 10) Santo Manzanillo - The biggest arm the Brewers have above rookie ball, I'm not sold he's figured it out but his upside in the bullpen is tremendous. He wouldn't be this high if Lopez had signed, I was believer in Scarpetta, etc. I hate having a reliever in my top 10, obviously he could be 1 year wonder as well. This speaks more to the state of the system than anything else. 7/8 are pretty interchangeable for me right now. I dislike the Jungmann pick enough that he'd be in teens and outside the top 10, Bradley would be low teens. D'Vo would be low teens, Gennett in the teens, Fiers in the teens, Hall in the teens, Mittelstaedt in the teens, Walker in the high teens/20s, Gagnon in the middle teens some place, Reed would be in the high teens/20s, and Scarpetta is in the teens someplace. Finally Rivas who I've been supporting for a long time has really pitched poorly this season, he'd be in the high teens/20s I would think if I went that far. I'm concerned enough about Rogers that I wouldn't even put him in my top 20 right now, and he was in my top 10 last season. He's out of options, unhealthy, and hasn't had time to reign in his control. Edit. Forgot Komatsu and Schafer... Komatsu would be high teens or low 20s, Schafer in the mid teens someplace. edit 2. Also forgot Rivera, he'd be a low 20s guy for me right now, though I'll say I'm as intrigued by him as I was by D'Vo when he was drafted.

It's little things like that have always drove me nuts with him. The worst was a couple of weeks back when Lucroy picked up ball with his momentum carrying him into foul territory but Prince still setup on the fair side of the bag and had no way to recover to catch Lucroy's throw as it sailed into RF. I have no idea why he'll predetermine the angle that the ball is going to come in prior to the throw on occasion. Thankfully his bat is extremely valuable.

Wolf definitely thought the umpire was Betancourt and the scoring decision on Prince's misplay was terrible, how is that possibly a hit. At least they got a DP to help limit the damage.

Gamel and Thornburg is way too much for Adams. He's a relief pitcher for goodness sakes, those guys are lucky to be worth 2 wins in any particular season where as starting pitchers can be worth more than 7... If you're the GM of a team and anyone wants to offer legit position talent (which actually contributes everyday) and legit starting pitching talent (worst case if healthy a MLB reliever), you take the deal 100 times out of 100. I'd be upset to give up 1 of those guys for a reliever, let alone 2 talents for 60 innings per season. Relievers are the least valuable assets on any team's roster. If you think about how players become relievers it makes sense because generally speaking they are failed starting pitchers. Maybe they didn't develop a 3rd pitch, maybe they have command issues, maybe they have special velocity but haven't put it together... whatever. The point is there is no where near the value in 60 innings as there is 180+ plus innings. Why would any GM want to give a closer the same money as it costs to sign an average starting pitcher? There's just not good value in relief pitching at all, unless you can trade it for legit talent coming back.

Wow the inactive list... if we lose Salome and then Braddock to mental issues in back to back years I'll be furious. I'm not making light of mental illness, I'm concerned that where there's smoke there's fire and maybe the organization isn't doing everything it could be for this type of player. Zach please come back healthy and effective at some point.

Someone else may recall, but I don't remember a legitimate top pithicng prospect ever giving up 3 home runs in a game since I've been following the minors on this site. In my opinion Arnett is a fringe prospect like a Cravy. He's someone you hope gets "it" eventually but he's not someone you're going to throw on any prospect lists at this time.

I loved the pitch up and out of the zone to get the strike out to end game. That's the pitch I was talking about the other day that Gallardo needs to throw. My father was here helping swap out a toilet and we had to take a break to watch the bottom of the ninth.

Which is why it's time to promote Davis again, all he's done is perform. Hart was a highschool kid, Davis was drafted out of a high profile college program.

Cook is pitching horribly this inning, the Crew needs to capitalize here.

And Rock is back... hooray and stuff.

So Braun reaggravated his injury yesterday? I depise the Brewers' medical team with a passion. Can we not just let players get fully healed before they come back? Baseball does not lend itself to playing hurt.