TheCrew07

I said that I would never put a reliever in our top 10 again after rethinking my position on value a couple of years ago, however given the current state of our system Manzanillo is probably a top 10 prospect if he keeps up his current pace. I'd be hard pressed to identify 10 players who could have a greater MLB impact than him, especially with Jungmann, Bradley, Lopez, and Reed unsigned.

Zach hit 94 a couple of times last night before he was pulled, but it's not good that he usually tops out below his average FB velocity last year. Pitchers just don't lost that much velocity from 1 season to the next without injury or some sort of other problem, it's not natural. It could be a sleep thing, I don't know, I've never dealt with anything like personally or worked with a player going through that sort of thing. As And That noted his slider isn't all that good this year, he's not locating it and it's not the same quality of pitch as it was in the past. I'd like him to develop a good change as well, but he needs to get his bread and butter stuff figured out first.

I'm not sure that's true at all, I think they have vastly different ceilings as players.

My biggest pet peeve is those people that have to try to get all the way to the end of the lane that's being closed and try to force their way into traffic at the last second, thus actually causing the traffic jam. If everyone would just move over in a timely manner traffic would keep moving, although at a much slower pace than highway speed, at least we'd all still be moving forward. A couple of weeks ago I was going over Tower Drive bridge here in GB (I43, 2 lanes on each side of the road) and for once everyone had moved over and traffic was moving along about 30 MPH with no stops, you could see lane closure from over a mile away (it was about halfway up the bridge) so people had plenty of time to move over. I had to be about 1/4 mile from the actual lane closure when some dude comes zipping past in the closed lane. Well he was still there at the lane closure point when I went past, no one let him in which I personally thought was fantastic, then the people in front of me even flipped him the bird, which had me laughing out loud. At least for 1 day, that kind of person got exactly what he deserved. I spend quite a bit of time on the road, and this was the first and only time I've ever seen this situation work out the way it did.

Well I think I've seen enough, off to do other things.

That last pitch wasn't bad, it was knee high on the outside corner, that was just a good piece of hitting. That being said, I don't like the Braddock who tops out at 93 and doesn't locate his slider.

... and now a balk... come on fellas.

I move that whenever Arcia is mentioned multimedia should accompany his name such . I blame Mass, I'm unable to get past blaring trumpets. In fact, if he ever gets to Milwaukee trumpets blaring better be his walk-up music.

Morgan is the slipinest CF... ever... boo.

To quote major league, "I think you can go get him now..."

Well that's not a friendly graphic, every Rockie has a hit.

Hart way to pull a Braun, throw the dang ball to 2nd.

Casey come on, that was awfully good pitch to begin running to first... what are you doing?

If Davis ever gets promoted I'd like to see Mittlestaedt bumped up, there's really no point in him spending more time in WI.

Normally I'd be pretty happy about the other team extending the inning by not pitching to Prince, but I just don't have faith in Hart, McGehee, or Betancourt to do something productive on a consistent basis. Corey needs to go on one of those 22 game tears and I'll feel better about him...

I won't say never, but we certainly haven't seen any marked improvement over the years with him.

Wow I thought that was a hit for sure... not sure if I should give credit to McGehee or not, it takes him so many extra steps to get rid of the ball... and based on that replay, I shouldn't, cause the runner was safe and the Brewers got a break.

Do you think it's because he doesn't trust his stuff, goes for the K, or doesn't trust the defense? I think he, like Greinke, doesn't command his FB consistently. The difference FB wise is Greinke leaves his up and over the plate, while Yo leaves his off the corners. I guess it could be called nibbling, because he's not attacking hitters like a power pitcher, he's simply trying to locate on the corners. He doesn't have big velocity, but it's good enough that he would probably be better served being more aggressive over the plate, especially up with 2 strikes. I'm not suggesting he should groove pitches but he doesn't have to be so fine either. Sheets was a master of that with the catcher whom shall not be named, getting that strike out on 93-94 FB up and out of the zone. I know Bill likes pitchers to spike the ball in the dirt, but if it doesn't start out looking like a strike, no MLB hitter is going to swing at it and it's just a wasted pitch pushing a pitch count up.

His pitch count is always too high... that's one of the only things that's holding him back.

Geez that was a bad pitch, that curve didn't break but 2 inches... what a hanger.

Davis only has 2 flaws in his game, he's not a plus runner and his arm is average at best, he does everything else well and it's laughable that the organization continues to hold him back. There has to be an agenda here, such as timing his arrival to Hart's expiring contract or some other such nonsense that isn't being talked about by the organization. Either that or Nichols is just a clown and shouldn't hold his position, which I've always felt was true anyway.

What's the organization's major flaw been for as long as any of us can remember? I submit it's developing pitching at rate that can even sustain the team at all. Look at how many of our pitchers came through our own system, look at how much it cost to acquire our pitchers, look at how much it cost to acquire Sabathia. We'll never get over the hump trading pitching for hitting, it's that simple. The organization hasn't been able to develop pitching of any kind on any sort of consistent basis. I understand many posters just want to win at all costs, but that's not any way to sustain the success of the MLB team, even on a short term basis. Look at the other prominent small market teams, how many of those teams have made 1 deal for pitching like we have? Yet we've made 3 of those deals, and still people want to continue to make those kind of deals. Is it because those moves get all the headlines? There's a different way, and unsung way, in which talent keeps cycling back to Milwaukee and the organization can sustain itself without maxing out the payroll year and year out. In fact I keep reading how Mark A. is a deep pockets owner... as if the money for the team is coming directly out of his pocket? It doesn't cost him anything if he puts the team in the red, he can just borrow against the value of the team to make payroll. We want to play like the big boys that get all press and all of the analysis, even though that's not our reality, we don't have that kind of money at our disposal and never will. The state (mostly the Milwaukee area) has done a fantastic job supporting the Brewers by any measure, which has enable the payroll to sit around 90 for years now, but where else can the team go to get revenue? What's left? We have to be smarter than those teams to compete with them and make our assets go farther. Certainly risks have to be taken along the way, but Milwaukee cannot continually cycle away prospects and maintain success at MLB. It's a 25 man MLB roster, every starting position player and pitcher simply cannot make 8 digit salaries, there's not enough money to go around, not even high 7 figure salaries, even with a 90 million payroll. The team needs a yearly influx of productive and cheap talent to make work it, somewhere we have to buy wins at a discounted rate, because we don't have payroll to buy enough wins any other way. People hope we traded relievers and a possibly a starter like Fiers to get K-Rod but are talking here about letting someone like Hawkins walk. If we don't have the prospects to replace his productivity, then we're back spending market value on more relief pitching, in addition to a FA SS, in 2013 (if not sooner due to injury) we'll need more starting pitching, and the beat goes on. Do we not see this same cycle of events repeating itself over and over? The Brewers haven't excactly hit home runs trying to replace the talent we graduated to MLB and traded away, we've simply run out of resources, that's why the system is rated so poorly. We have some nice players in the system, but it's nothing like having Hardy, Hart, Weeks, Fielder, Gallardo, Parra, and so on in the system all at the same time... and yes I know Parra failed, but that doesn't diminish his talent or prospect status, we don't have a LHP anywhere near his quality in A ball or higher. In fact we only have 1 starting pitcher in the entire system who's been consistently dominant at every stop. It's time to stop the bleeding, this is a slow death. If Melvin can swing deals for blocked position players like Farris... by all means make a deal, but enough is enough, especially pitching wise. None of what the Brewers have done is sustainable... the payroll isn't sustainable without 3 million fans, but 3 million fans isn't sustainable without a winning product, and if there isn't enough talent on the team then they won't win. A marginal win costs somewhere between 4-5 million dollars on a yearly basis, how many wins can we buy paying market value with 90 million dollars of payroll? Simple math tells you 18-23 wins... that isn't much. If every team truly wins and loses 60 games, that puts us right around where we've hovered the last 2 seasons, average to below average with 78-83 wins. 3 million fans aren't going to come out on a consistent basis to see that. This stuff isn't rocket science, it's simple math and common sense. Furthermore, we don't want to be signing guys into their 30s, we want to be trading them as they approach that age or letting them walk to free agency bringing up younger/cheaper/healthier and hopefully just as productive players from the system to replace them. It might take a year or 3 for each player to start producing on a consistent basis, but young talent blossoms at it's own rate, we're unlikely to get same instant level of production that we did with Fielder and Braun. Those guys were just that special.

Without doing research my guess would be some sort of system like Total Zone which has enough holes you could drive a dump trunk through it.

I love those multiple option years in deals for pitchers.

Or McClendon.But would McClendon be able to pitch for them right away? I was under the impression that since he's on the 40 man, he wouldn't be able to pitch for them. Is that an incorrect understanding? No, any player on the 40 man simply cannot be called up to the active roster prior to the trade. After the trade for each player is completed, the Mets can do whatever they want with each guy. edit: Meaning if McClendon is the guy the Brewers won't be able to add him to the active roster and then still trade him to the Mets. See this post.