TheCrew07

I don't think so, now he's got this nagging shoulder thing which will sap his power some. Unless he goes on some unreal tear he needs to stay healthy all season to reach that kind of milestone. Doesn't it seem like every year he has a little injury that affects his swing for a significant amount of time?

Well at least he got the folly part right, nothing much else to say.

For some silly reason that made laugh out loud.

There's no doubt the Brewers care more about offensive progression than anything else, but you'd be hard pressed to get me to agree that they aren't missing opportunity to provide better value to the MLB team. I'll use Weeks as an example, just because he's a player who actually improved to above average defensively. On average we'll probably have players we develop for 6-8 years of service time, regardless of injury. Weeks was up full time in 2005, but didn't provide any positive value defensively until 2009. as such he hurt his overall value every year until 2009. When we have such a limited window for these players to provide value to the MLB team, I'd like to maximize it as much as possible. To do that, we need to graduate competent players all the way around to MLB. There will exceptions to the rule, when it's necessary to push a player hard, but given the state of the MLB team I just don't see the need. Pitching wise, Thornburg could very start next year in AA, dominate AA and be in AAA by the end of the season. If he pitches to a sub 3 ERA in BC I doubt he goes back for more seasoning. I just can't get worked up about Ross as he needs to make adjustments now that teams have adjusted to him. Thornburg could probably go now without a problem, in fact I have no doubt he could, but if he continues to progress he'll be in AA by the start of next season. We still have Rogers (i hope), Rivas, Peralta, Scarpetta, and Heckathorn in front of him. edit. As far as pushing a guy like Komatsu who really doesn't have a spot on the MLB roster at this time, I'll say what I said the first time the promotion issue came up... we're promoting him to what end? From a progression standpoint, for the most part AA and AAA pitching are 2 entirely different animals. In AA you'll have many more true prospects with power arms, so hitters are going to see more of a power arsenal out of the AA pitchers. In AAA you'll have mostly power arms that still don't locate very well or finesse pitchers trying to prove they belong in MLB. So I don't have any problem with hitters spending a full season in both leagues, because in MLB they'll get a steady diet of both types of pitching. For the most part legit prospect pitching isn't in AAA very long, unless you're the Rays and really don't have room for the prospect in your MLB rotation. Most of those pitchers are gone by July because their respective MLB teams need them.

I'll say the same thing I say about all draft grades in every sport, they are meaningless until 4 or 5 years down the road when you can get some historical perspective on how the picks turned out.

Milwaukee Brewers 1st Round Picks.

It's no secret that I'm no fan of Reid Nichols and never have been, but I don't get all the griping about promotions. Yes we all want to see how these guys fair at AA to find out how legit they are, but there's something to be said for refining your game at a level where you *know* you can still have success. For example, if I'm a pitcher working on change up, and I have to throw a set amount per game, I can throw a pitch I might not have confidence in because I know my other stuff is good enough to get the hitter out anyway. I wouldn't want that pitcher going up against AA competition wasting a pitch he wasn't comfortable throwing yet because he has throw X number to get his work in. By the time they get to AA I want them to be comfortable throwing their pitches even if the pitch is still a work in progress. Ross hasn't pitched well in 4 out of his last 5 games, what has he done lately to earn a promotion? As I said previously Thornburg is the true prospect on that team, and it's more important that he's healthy and pitching than what level he's pitching at. As you advance the hitters will just ambush your FB if you can't locate your secondary pitches, so I see no point in pushing someone if their secondary stuff isn't ready for the challenge. Let them dominate where they are while they continue to refine those pitches. Sometimes it stinks waiting 2 years for someone like Odorizzi to get out of rookie ball, but I'm not sure how any of us can make a legitimate argument that Jake hasn't been better off spending the extra year in R ball. I'm alright pushing hitters aggressively if their defense is relatively polished, but pitching wise if he's not ready to handle the next the level you're probably doing more harm than good. My gut feeling is that Lee Tunnell is pulling the strings pitching wise and I have a great amount of respect for the work he's done with our young pitchers, so in this case I'll happily defer to his judgement. This is nothing like having Brantley DH all those years or any of that other position nonsense that's gone on. This is about learning to command your FB, then your 2nd pitch, then your 3rd, then control the running game, and so on. A couple of years ago Tunnell laid out the pitching progression the organization has in place, I think it was a Helena interview. The plan was well thought out, very logical, and much like we teach fundamental progressions in football, so I was pleased. If pitching is a 30 step process (and it's not, but stay with me) it doesn't make any sense to focus on step 25 if the athlete hasn't mastered a basic step like step 5. Again I understand why people want to push players, I even want to know how legit they are, I completely understand the theory behind aggressively promoting young athletes. The flip side however, is that's not how the fundamentals of the game are best taught, and if our MLB team has taught us anything, the recent experience has proven that's it's very difficult to instill those fundamentals the closer the players get to the big leagues, or at MLB. It doesn't matter if we're talking about fielding or base running, regardless of the manager and coaches, our MLB teams haven't been fundamentally sound in any aspect of the game.

Oddly after reading the MLB scouting report late this morning linked to his profile (which was different than the video report I watched yesterday) I feel better about Jungmann, and the MLB scouting report is the one I usually put the least of amount of stock in. Maybe it's just because I was looking for someone to say he has 2 legit plus pitches... He'll be interesting to follow as it sounds like he's gotten hitters out more by mixing his pitches than any one pitch being *that* good. If he can sharpen all of his secondary stuff, or even 2 of those pitches up, he could be a legit top of the rotation starter. I'm still concerned that all of those pitches are "improving" after 3 years of pitching in college, but I do feel better about the pick today than I did yesterday. Is it weird that I want Marcum to show all of our other pitchers how to throw his change up?

This thread has quickly become petty bickering about nothing.

Never had success drafting pitchers in the 1st other than Odorizzi? After reading through the articles on Bradley, what logical explanation is there for the coaching staff at GT limiting him to being a fastball/slider pitcher through his sophomore season? Did that continue after his time on the cape given the success he had with his change? Why wouldn't you let a starting pitcher use all his pitches? Especially if the 3rd pitch is easy on the arm like a change?

I wouldn't say it's dumb, but it's like getting excited about college players who blown away the competition in Helena. Another comparison would be taking a college QBs' stats and saying he'll be a good pro QB because he succeeded in college, if it were that simple a whole lot of GMs in football and SDs in baseball would look a whole lot smarter.

I've been bouncing around reading scouting reports, is anyone aware if Jungmann has a plus pitch? It sounds like his FB has decent movement, but I find nothing about a plus secondary pitch? Lots of talk of improvement in his pitches, but nothing about 2 plus pitches? I thought maybe I was being a little harsh so I went and looked around, he'll get A ball hitters with FB command, but it's a bit unnerving that he doesn't have a second plus pitch listed... I'm struggling to recall a pitcher at any level the Brewers drafted high that didn't at least have 2 plus pitches. I see And That posted the BA report recently. Is the slider a plus pitch or just average? If it's average does that make the change below average? I didn't want to base my entire assessment of him off reports here in the forum and the 1 time I saw him pitch, I'm looking to expand my analysis, but there isn't very information out there. edit. I should add I've read plenty fan type scouting reports calling his curve tight breaking, overstating his velocity, some say the slider is a work in progress, some say the change is located effectively, and so on, but no actual reputable scouting report talking about plus pitches.

Why are people skeptical of pre draft velocity reports? Well that answer is pretty simple... Arnett, Adams, Frederickson are college pitchers who I never saw approach their scouting report velocity in person. Anundsen threw harder in high school than he ever had for Brewers, Heckathorn mysteriously working in the upper 80s during a start last month and has never worked anywhere near where he did in college (Hook said he intentionally holding back working on location)... If he has a dead arm that's not a good thing... the college baseball season is long compared to HS, but isn't much compared to the every 5th day grind of professional baseball. Like I said, he wasn't impressive the one time I saw him pitch, that's all. I don't know anything about Bradley.

Scouting reports said he hits 98, but he sat in the high 80s the other day, that's very average velocity for a RHP. If he's regularly at 93-95 then his upside is a #2 which isn't so bad.

I also saw him in the high 80s and wasn't impressed by him. If he normally sits 93-95 then I'll change my tune if he does that for one of our minor league affiliates this year.

As I've said many times I feared the Brewers would start drafting high floor/low ceiling players to replenish the system quickly, and here we go.

I don't like the pick from a talent standpoint, it's a fast moving pick just like they said they would do in the jsonline, he's very similar to Leake from Cincy polish wise.

The feed is fine for me, must be a service provider deal, I have roadrunner

Anundsen started today for BC and didn't start well giving up 3 runs in the 1st.

Well historically that's always true because pitchers have a high flame out rate due to injury.

I thought the idea was to spend a hitting prospect or 2 to get near MLB ready pitching talent, not spend 3-4 prospects at a time getting temporary solutions to the organizational pitching problem. There simply aren't enough prospects in a system to make the Sabathia/Greinke deals on a consistent basis. I'm certainly down with trading prospects for prospects and always have been, I am not down with continually trading multiple prospects for temporary solutions, the ship never gets righted that way. Out of curiosity, what did the Marcum/Greinke trades prove that the Sabathia trade did not? Or the Halladay trade? Or the Lee trade? Or any trade of a frontline starter for multiple prospects? The concept is hardly new? I really liked the idea of trading bats for pitching when I thought both you and the organization were talking about prospect swaps, the reality of trading 8 prospects for a little under 5 years of service hasn't sat so well with me.

You weren't harsh Mass, and I certainly respect your opinion. Like you I do hope for the best, because if it doesn't happen now, it's not going to happen anytime soon. So far the turn of events has favored the Brewers with significant injuries and/or collapses elsewhere, we just need that to continue throughout the summer.

As a closer Axford has quite a bit of Wickman in him... never a clean inning but seems to get the job done. Thank You Morrison!

i wouldn't be concerned about 3 in a row at all if not for Friday, that was a pretty stressful inning.

Haha no way... does Axford have enough in the tank for 3 straight?