TheCrew07

PLEASE NO!!!! I already did the feeling of impending doom already twice this game.

I wonder if there are Twins fans bemoaning all those lucky runs the crew just scored.

run big man run! WOOOO!!!!

WOOHOO!!! A real rally

Why am I still rooting so hard?

Spend millions of dollars of pitchers at least in their mid 30s that throw about as hard as me as well as relievers. I meant a new plan.

Well Axford is warming up, so I doubt that's the plan. I don't think Macha has a plan at this point. I wonder if Melvin has a plan?

Michael Corleone: Just when I thought I was out... they pull me back in.

Rickie's slump is getting pretty old now, it's been a month.

I think it depends entirely on the situation. In Milwaukee's case I think the evidence is pretty clear that Melvin tends to favor trading for high floor/low ceiling type players. You know the majority of them will contribute in some fashion, but none of them will likely be an elite player. If Milwaukee was in TB's situation with the rotation, I would happily take back Moore and Colome because we wouldn't have a pressing need at the MLB level and 1 of those 2 youngsters is going to become a good pitcher down the road. Until Milwaukee has enough impact pitching talent, I will personally always be a quality over quantity guy. I completely understand that even super prospects flame out, but we just can't continue to roll with a rotation of 1 impact pitcher and 4 guys. We continue to have a plethora of back of the rotation starters in the organization, but we don't have anyone that would truly make a difference outside of Yo, especially in a playoff series. Wolf can maybe give us a quality outing, but I don't think he's someone you can count on to lock the opposition down through out the playoffs. So as far as this specific case of Fielder is concerned, I absolutely want impact talent back, and I want the player ready to go for 2011. In a pure talent sense, I think anytime you're trading a franchise talent you need to get impact talent back. I believe this is especially true if you're a small market team drafting outside of the top 10 as it's very difficult to replace that elite talent later in the draft. If a small market team doesn't trade for the talent, then the team is basically limiting itself to the draft because a team like Milwaukee just isn't going to compete in FA with the big boys for established impact talent. So in our case we're always dealing with potential impact talent, trying to evaluate prospects, or should be in my opinion. This is by far the biggest issue I have with Melvin as a GM, he's a patcher, he likes to apply band aid solutions when he thinks the team is competitive, but I think that building rotation remains a constant priority regardless of where you are in your MLB talent cycle. A small market franchise can never quit looking forward and just focus on today.

Well no offense to Agent 39 intended, Brewer just hasn't put it together in baseball, but could still have a football career if he enrolls in the fall. All things considered it might be best for him if he walked away from Baseball. I was really excited about him again after his AFL stint but it just hasn't worked out for him. I wouldn't be surprised if he was walking away from the game, the flip side is that his current BA at Huntsville is the highest of his career, so it would be a shame to walk away now when he's performing relatively well at the plate in AA. Obviously I don't have any inside information either way but I would definitely understand if he was walking away from baseball.

Ha that's funny. I was just PMing with a fellow poster and we are discussing Escobar, I literally just sent back a message telling him that Escobar still seems immature to me. I believe he still has some growing up to do but I think ultimately he'll be fine. His erratic throwing annoys me most, he can make a running play to his right and throw back the wrong way across his body on the run and have it hit Fielder right in the chest, then he'll airmail the easiest throw he has to make in a game because he's in too much of a hurry to get the ball off.

It would really make my day if both Rogers and Heckathorn had good outings tonight.

Colby posted about the debate in the draft room, but he never painted it as solely Z vs. Melvin, I'm not sure where that has come from. Melvin certainly would offer input, but it's not his show to run. The way I read it was that the room was fairly split with both sides arguing for their guy.

Capauno was/is a mid rotation starter, he's a crafty lefty, he's not blowing people away like Sabathia, he's a pitchability guy. JDLR had that kind of talent, but didn't find his stride till 2008 with a different organization, regardless he was the first and last pitcher with impact talent acquired and that was in 2003. Cordero is reliever, I'm not sure how that's relevant to the discussion at all. Who is etc? Bush? Jackson? Villy? Cody? Butler? Vargas? Ohka? Etc is spot on because none of those guys are top of the rotation talent either, they are all basically the same template pitcher. Butler is the only pitcher in the group that consistently works/worked above 90 MPH.. Based on what exactly? Every season good young pitching is moved, sometimes for pitchers, sometimes for hitters, acquiring it is all about timing and a willingness to give up value to get value. The simple truth is that every time a position player performs the majority of people around here aren't willing to trade him. Unfortunately we aren't going to get an impact pitcher trading away spare parts. Very few people wanted to trade Hart when he was hot, very few wanted to trade Hardy when he was going well, very few people were willing to trade Fielder until recently, very few posters are willing to part with McGehee. Every time myself or someone else brings up that sort of idea we've been basically dismissed as idiots. So I ask, how exactly do we acquire impact pitching post Sabathia trade if we won't trade a MLB piece who's performing? We don't have enough impact talent to spare in the minors anymore and while we do have some very nice depth, most of it has been greatly devalued like Gamel, Cain, and Salome. If we won't give up value, give up a piece that might hurt, then nothing is ever going to change. I really like the state of pitching in the lower levels of the minors, but we've been here before as an organization in the summer of 2003, we had studs from Huntsville all the way down to Helena. 2 years later Jones and Parra were hurt, Hendrickson was ineffective, Wilhelmsen was out of baseball, Eveland was struggling, Sarfate couldn't throw strikes... our pitching depth seemed to evaporate overnight. The reason I post about TB isn't bandwagon jumping, it's about organizational philosophy. The have true legit impact pitching depth, every starter in their rotation is as good as Yo, and most have better stuff. They have Hellickson waiting in AAA, they are loaded down through Colome in A ball. Sure they drafted high, but so did the Brewers for over a decade. The difference is that they traded for 3 impact starters (Garza, Kazmir, and Jackson) bridging the gap to when the young talent would be ready. If the talent pans out like in TB's case, then they easily moved Kazmir and Jackson to make room for that young talent. If the talent wouldn't have worked out they still would have been covered by the pitchers they originally traded for. I'm not willing to rely solely on the farm system yet, leaving it to chance hasn't exactly worked out well in the past. Forget about wins/losses for a minute and just look at how the organizations are being built... I'd much rather be TB, Baltimore, or Texas right now than Milwaukee. I'm not sure how the job Jon Daniels has done in Texas continually flies under the radar, they are going to be a force for years to come, just like TB. Those organizations keep adding impact talent while maintaining their youth, the Brewers just keep getting older.

Once again what does Melvin have to do with the draft? Seid makes all of the selections, just like Jack Z made all of the selections before him.

I should have phrased that better, I was working on the idea of impact talent, of which we had Sheets, and now we have Yo, and Yo compares more favorably to the pre 2004 Sheets. I just don't think a team can legitimately compete for a WS with 1 impact pitcher and 4 guys.

Wuss!

Another pitching interview, another positive mention of Lee Tunnell, I'm firmly convinced he's the man and I can't wait till he gets out to Helena and Steve can do some more 9 minute interviews with him. He's a wealth of information.

Wisconsin Timber Rattlers Pre Game Audio Chris interviews utility IF Michael Marseco who's always an entertaining interview, maybe a broadcasting career would be in his future? They discuss his hitting, what he learned last season playing at 2 different levels, and his surprising strong arm for being such a little dude.

Thanks for the update coach and good luck in the post season.

I often wonder if people are just in denial regarding Melvin because they like the job he did turning around the franchise? Instead of being objective about the entire body of work there always seems to be an excuse in these arguments. There was no to know player X was going to fall off, Z didn't draft enough pitching, and so on. Melvin has a done a great many good things, but he's also had some very poor moves, and his inaction regarding the organization's pitching issues should be grounds for dismissal on it's own. He's had 8 seasons and while he immediately upgraded the rotation to league average, he hasn't done anything permanent since. I won't even get in to how badly he's missed in FA other than to say it's really sad when Jason Kendell is our 2nd best FA acquisition. Melvin is ultimately responsible for franchise, that's the bottom line as far as I'm concerned. Is spending 90 million to be below .500 acceptable? Should it be in the league's smallest market? This whole situation reminds of that kind of dream where something is coming at you but your feet move in slow motion and you aren't able to get out of the way. This dilemma was entirely predictable, I started posting about it in 2008 and unfortunately I'm not able to see into the future, I was just honest with myself and objective about the state of the rotation and pitching within the organization. I've crapped on every single trade and FA signing in what seems like forever, it's literally no fun being this frustrated with my favorite team. We just needed 1 maybe 2 impact pitchers to team up with Yo and we could have made a serious run, and we had the ammunition to make those deals along the way but went a different route. I still firmly believe that Melvin traded away multiple playoff appearances for a single chance at the playoffs and thank god the Mets collapsed for a second straight year or we wouldn't have anything to show for this first wave of talent at all. It's truly depressing when I let myself think about it, I had convinced myself we had enough positional talent assembled to make a legit run at a WS, but we were lucky to scrape into the playoffs once. Usually I distract myself on the Minor League forum on days like this but the pitching was so bad tonight on the minor league as well that there's nothing positive to post over there either. I think I'll take out some frustration on some poor saps in MW2.

So is this discussion about closers supposed to make me feel better about Hoffman? What if I don't like the entire closer concept and would rather my best pitcher work the toughest part of the lineup or biggest situation?

Well this is the Suppan we know and love.

I started the year concerned about Howell, but right now I feel better about him than Arnett. I'm up for sending Arnett back to EST and bringing up Seidel or Adams (shouldn't his suspension be over soon/already as I'm too lazy to look?)... or just forget the tandem thing with Heckathorn and give both him and Lasker their own rotation slots.