TheCrew07

Unless you are talking about a Price, Strasburg, or Prior type, someone who's got top of the rotation stuff and MLB ready coming out of college... college pitchers with polish means high floor/low ceiling type players to me. We just aren't going to get that kind of top tier college pitcher drafting in the teens, unless one falls to injury or signability, in which case we probably aren't taking him anyway. We have a plethora of 3-5 starters in the system, but we have little legitimate impact talent. I guess it depends on what you mean by polished, I would guess you're talking offensively with position players because I'm struggling to come up with a college bat that was MLB ready defensively. LaPorta wasn't even ready as they tried to convert him to the OF to build his value, though Cleveland has him playing where he belongs. Teams that went the polished college player route throughout their drafts killed their systems, even Oakland. You might graduate more players that way and you'll certainly win more games through the minors, but I'd rather have a losing record at every single level with 3-5 legit prospects on each team than win the way Helena did. Yes graduating someone is better than graduating no one, but then what exactly are we building towards? More mediocrity? Honestly that's my greatest fear is that Seid tries to replenish the system quickly with that kind of college talent, making a bad situation that much worse. I'd rather he continue on the patient developmental approach. As far drafting guys without a position, anyone drafted this summer is likely at least 2 years away from contributing. There will be plenty of holes to be filled by the time these guys arrive. The only players we have under contract more than 3 years are Braun and Lucroy, we'll potentially have openings at 3B, SS, 2B, 1B, CF, and RF by the time these draftees would be ready. Gamel certainly has the potential to stick someplace, but until he proves otherwise attitude questions will continue to dog him. I say this, if the bat is that special, you take the bat position be damned, even if you have to trade him for a different piece down the line, grab the talent. Looking at our system, what hitters can we feel really good about? Kris Davis is about it for me personally, he does everything well, is ascending with age and level, and gets glowing reports for his work ethic. They could slide Braun over to RF to make room for Davis, or maybe Davis ends up playing 1B if Gamel stinks it up. It just stinks that his arm is weak enough that RF isn't an option, he'd make a nice replacement for Hart otherwise. Erik Komatsu probably deserves to be in the conversation, I'm just not sure where he fits either because I'm not sure he'll for enough power to be a starter at a corner OF spot. I definitely wouldn't mind his OBP skills and limited power in the line-up someplace, we could use a couple of hitters like him, but again I'm not sure where he fits.

Bill said something negative for once and I missed it? I'll have to switch from gameday, I was watching a movie.

Anyway you want to spin it, fans aren't entitled to anything. An entitlement is a guarantee, neither the team nor MLB make any guarantees along the lines you suggest. Fans may feel entitled to certain things, but that simply isn't the reality of the situation, and never has been. As a fan you are purchasing a product, that's it... a pair of jeans, a coke, a pepsi, whatever product you want to choose. Your "rights" only extend as far as you have the ability to choose which product you purchase or if you want to make a purchase at all, but you have no say in how the product was produced or what it contains. You many look for products that contain certain items, but in the end the only true power you have is to buy the product or not. Some season ticket holders may think they are shareholders, but they are most assuredly not. As Americans for whatever reason a very large group of us walks around thinking they "have a right" or "are entitled to" things that simply aren't true. People have come to this message board claiming that they had the "right" to say whatever they wanted to say, free speech, etc... and none of them have lasted very long. The drama surrounding how the Super Bowl tickets were awarded and were made available was an excellent reminder for me of how far some people's sense of entitlement as a fan goes this last winter.

Yea well that's my ceiling too.

Actually as fan we possess no entitlements what-so-ever.

There has to be a mistake, there's no way that many players are Type A, and there is no way Gomez is a type A based on his defensive value alone. edit. What do FA rankings have to do with RR anyway?

No, his defense is still putrid because he still doesn't get very good reads off the bat or take good angles to the ball. He makes up for some of that with his athleticism, but I think he's clearly still below average. That's why for a relatively gifted runner he doesn't cover as much ground as he should out there, it takes him a while to get moving in the properish direction. Early in the season I can think of at least 2 balls that hit off the bottom of the wall when he was running to his left that he should have easily caught if he didn't underrun the trajectory and have the ball sail over his head. I say properish, because anytime he's running looking back over his shoulder like a receiver would he really struggles to take good routes to the ball. In fact he's overrun a couple this year and had to reach back across his body to catch them, not to mention the ones that get through him or over his head as I previously mentioned.

If Scarpetta's FB is reaching 95 MPH these days then I'm actually kind of peeved at his lack of results, that would give him 2 plus pitches, there's no reason for him to struggle at the start of each season and settle in later the way he does. Lee Tunnell should spend the next 2 months with the AA club working on Peralta and Scarpetta.

I think you accidentally linked Evan's stats twice there Mass... I bet you were trying to link ? I agree of course, but he probably gets it everywhere he goes and is tired of his more famous namesake.

That right there is why I can't stand Bill at all. Gallardo isn't locating well, he's only thrown a little over half his pitches for strikes. The zone has something to do with that of course, but he's also gotten some gimme strikes he didn't deserve.

I didn't see either the SS or the 2B moving to cover a base live, so I thought I missed something. I just watched it again, no one was covering 2nd, so even if Mota fields it clean there is no double play.

As I said in the game thread today, I really want to like RR. He does things that are puzzling with the line-up, like Gomez in the 2 hole, Kotsay in CF, Lucroy batting 8th, but other than that he does everything wrong that every manager does wrong... defined bullpen roles and all that pitching garbage. I'm not sure it's fair to blame stupid base running on RR, Gomez and Braun have been making outs on the bases for their entire careers. Hart used to be a pretty heads up baseball player so I'm not sure what to make his gaffes out there, maybe he's lost a step and doesn't realize it. As all managers are pretty much the same, I prefer the Brewers have someone who relates well to young players and works hard to teach them the game and improve their skills. Young players need room to fail and then grow, it's unreasonable to expect consistent production out of them. Our life line as an organization is going to have to be to draft and develop players, so we need management in place that will nourish that talent as it arrives. Macha turned failure into a punishment, failure should be about learning to adapt and overcome, not about looking over your shoulder to be replaced from the game. If Escobar went 0-10 he was sat on the bench, now instead of thinking about how to beat the pitcher, he's pressing to get a hit so he can keep playing... it's an entirely different mindset. Once a player adopts that attitude, it's extremely difficult to overcome it, regardless of age or level. I believe the mind is absolutely key to success in sports, more so than physical skill. I often wonder what would have happened to Hardy who seemed a tad fragile mentally if Yost had treated him like Mach treated Escobar... Attitude is everything... through personal experience, reading, and listening to numerous presentations i believe it to be true. That is why the NFL has invested so much money trying to develop tests that will help bear out the guys who will keep working vs the players that will take the money and run. With that theory in mind, I want someone as a manager who works well with young talent, will learn from his mistakes, and adapt over time. I'm not sure I can make any definitive statements about him today, but he appears to handle the players well which is a plus. Once Lucroy moves up to the 6 hole so our best hitters are getting the most opportunities in the game, and if Kotsay never sees CF again then I'll be pretty pleased. I loved the squeeze call tonight, it was very creative, I would have never thought Lucroy would bunt, much less execute a near perfect bunt, and I've followed him religiously since he was drafted. I'm much more concerned with the GM than I am the manager, I think in MLB the managers have minimal impact compared to the other team sports. In baseball their job is more about managing personalities than it is about managing the pace, flow, and style of the game. The pitchers dictate all of that themselves, the rest is pretty easy to understand... if the ball comes your way you catch it and throw it to the appropriate base. At the plate... see ball hit ball.

Ross has only given up 15 ER all season, but he's given up 9 over his last 4 starts and hasn't made it out of the 6th in any of them.

No, I understood what you're saying, you explained yourself well, I just don't agree with your reasoning. It all depends on how your rate his tools and how you project him, but rarely is there agreement in the draft room like you suggest. A couple of guys are going to be sold on the player (an area scout and a CC for example), a couple of guys maybe not so much and want to go a different direction. That's why the baseball draft is very interesting, so many different opinions, including the SD's. to wade through and come up with a pick. They do line-up the draft board, but even then they have some interesting debates, like in the case of Cordier vs Gallardo in 2004 as Colbyjack posted a couple of years ago: Most of the player-by-player arguments at certain slots are debated among the crosscheckers and scouts. I do know there was a big debate in the war room between Ryan Sweeney and Tony Gwynn Jr. in 2003, and between Yovani Gallardo and Erik Cordier in 2004, but again, that wasn't because of any involvement of Doug Melvin as far as I know. Teams do what you suggest in the later rounds all the time.... in the 20s they start looking to fill out roster spots on the rookie teams so they can field a complete team at each level. Personally I like a player to have 1 stand out tool, then I want dynamic athleticism, however with BPA you're also going to get a good mix of players who aren't necessarily toolsy, but are good performers. SS might be a position of need, but if you project the guy to be a 2.5-3 WAR player at his peak (if he pans out perfectly) and there is someone with a much higher ceiling available, I know where I'm going with that pick. With all the draft picks that flame out in the first round, it's more important to get the right player than it is to get the position, admittedly sometimes the most talented player isn't the best pick for a variety of reasons as X alluded to.

I was totally surprised the squeeze at the end, what a wonderful call that was. I have had some issues with RR, but I'm still on the fence, probably because I want to like him, he seems like a good guy.

Paul you need to mix in a paragraph or two on these long posts if you could please. You're looking at the MLB team and trying to plug prospects like you would with football, but it's never that simple because players are usually at least 2 years away from contributing when drafted. What others are saying is build the strongest system possible with the most impact players you can possibly get regardless of position. In the end you'll end up with holes in the organization, say SS for example... just because there wasn't a good SS prospect at the top of the board when it was our time to draft. That's okay though, the idea is to develop enough depth that you can trade for a more permanent piece some place. I realize Melvin hasn't done that to this point, but there's nothing a Scouting Director can do but build the deepest system possible. The Brewers are in no position to be drafting for MLB need, the system is in terrible shape. I agree with BPA and grabbing as much impact talent as possible, let the chips fall where they may. While I'm not excited by the idea of more no glove all bat players, I think the end result is more a function of the way the Brewers develop players than a problem on the drafting side. At some point the Brewers will have to do a better job developing more well rounded players that are at least scratch defenders. Blowing the Arnett and Covey picks has really gimped the system, they need to nail the first round this year.

Brock Kjeldgaard? He's 25 in A+ and he still has a horrible strike out rate, I was intrigued by him before he started in WI, but I don't follow him at all anymore. i had hoped they had found a diamond in the rough after converting him but it just hasn't worked out, even though he's currently enjoying a nice hot streak. If I were to make an organizational depth chart at 1B between the players at A-AA, he'd be dead last. I will say he's made a nice improvement to his BB rate this season.

If Gomez was a long term idea, it was a horrible one because he had already established enough of a track record that it was obvious he wasn't going to hit. Escobar obviously wasn't a long-term solution, it's silly to make that claim considering he was only the starter for 1 full season. If you think the idea is to extend both Greinke and Marcum, that's fine, but I don't agree. However I was speaking to FA... yes he signed Suppan to a 4 year deal, which was horrible, but everyone else was a temporary solution. Clearly there hasn't been a long term plan in place, just patching the roster year in and year out. If the long term plan was always to trade 2 MLB caliber SSs in 3 years, than that plan was also a terrible plan. The idea for a small market team like Milwaukee should be to buy as many wins at a discounted rate as possible. There's nothing "discounted" about free agent pitching, especially upper tier FA pitching. There's more value in hitters, as they don't cost as much and contribute on a daily basis, but we aren't getting any kind of hometown discount with Greinke or Marcum... we aren't even the home town.

What does early season success during his transition to the NL mean for the long-term? I would wager not very much. He'll be 30 when his contract is over, the perfect time to collect a couple of draft picks and move on. He's already had 1 TJ surgery, 1 more and his career is over. It's far better to cut ties with a player too early than too late in MLB, simply because the contracts are guaranteed. He could pitch till he's 40, or he could be done in his next start. I hate to keep repeating the same facts but injury risk go up exponentially with age, it's a very steep curve. Signing pitchers over 30 isn't a solid plan, we're much better off building around youth than operating the way we have, that's how we ended up with no pitching in the first place.

Melvin doesn't strike you as a guy who does stop gap measures? Seriously? That's all he's done since 2007.

My claim? Since when did I ever care where JJ batted in the line-up? He's the one who cared...

There's just is no good reason to assume causation. With what you are suggesting, Braun is in big trouble next year. There have been a number of studies that looked at production as a function of BOP. The problem of course is that it doesn't matter what studies show... if the player believes he won't be successful batting in a certain spot in the order, he won't be, it's a self fulfilling prophecy. Like Hardy with the 8 hole...

And your point is? Lucroy once hit 20 HR in a single MiLB season, considering he played a bit more than half the season and hit half his HRs in the FSL, that's darn impressive. Just because he didn't show much power last year, doesn't mean he's a slap hitting Kendell. Personally I always thought he'd be a .750-.800 OPS guy. In other words an average to above average league wide hitter at C, which is extremely valuable. He has almost as many extra base hits already this season (31 games) as he had in his 75 games last season. I don't believe his rookie stats represented his true talent level, nor does the .900 OPS he's carrying now, but easily a better hitter than the 8th spot in the lineup.

So now numbness in both hands, lingering in one, isn't carpal tunnel after all and requires another look? How shocking... It's getting really old, this phantom diagnosis, mess around for a month, then get a real diagnosis type thing. This happens way too often, as does players returning from injury too soon, or trying to play through injuries, only to get re-injured or injure something else. If this was an isolated case... well anyone can make a mistake... but this has been going on for years at every level in the organization. I asked our trainer last night about Rogers' diagnosis and he laughed out loud, I really wish the players in the Brewers organization got the same care as even the college kids playing for UW do.

I'd rather try to acquire someone like Chris Davis who couldn't stick with the Rangers than a retread like Ortiz if Gamel doesn't pan out.