TheCrew07

Rain washes out Rattlers @ Beloit on Friday By Chris Mehring / Wisconsin Timber Rattlers BELOIT, WI - Friday's Midwest League game between the Wisconsin Timber Rattlers and the Beloit Snappers at Pohlman Field has been postponed. The teams will make up the game as part of a doubleheader on Saturday. Game one is scheduled to start at 4:00pm. There will be a 30 minute break at the conclusion of game one. Then, game two will start. Both games are scheduled for seven innings. You may tune in to both games on AM 1280, WNAM beginning with the Miller Lite Pregame Show at 3:40pm.

Rivas stinks, I'm jumping off his bandwagon.

I don't even know what to say.

now postponed.

Count me in the "I don't care about mascots and logos" camp. We look around for reasons to be offended these days, and in the case of "Indian" type mascots, you can't even get a consensus between the various tribes or members of a specific tribe in case after case; Illinois, Florida St, Cleveland, Atlanta... "Offensive" and "insensitive" are often thrown around, but who gets to determine what's truly over the line or who's just being thin skinned about nothing? Why isn't the cowboy insensitive? Because it's an over the top depiction of a white man? What about the minuteman? Or the mountaineer? Are the Angels too religious? What about Greek mythology and the Argonauts because after all Warriors wasn't PC enough for Marquette? There are 2 colleges that still have their mascot as the Aztecs, but is that okay because they weren't primarily a North American tribe? What about all of the colleges that have Beavers as their mascot, we all know the modern double meaning? How about the Patriots? Quakers? Saints? Knights? Spartans? I could go on and on, there are probably an average of 2 or 3 potentially offensive mascots for every single letter in the alphabet.

You're entirely missing the point. I wasn't talking about Sabathia, I was talking going through that same scenario with Prince. Sabathia was always going to be about the picks because the Brewers couldn't resign him. Fielder doesn't have to be about a token contract offer and draft picks coming back, I think that would be the least best scenario, which is why I'd rather move him for prospects if at all possible.

He was offered back of the rotation starters for Hardy after he held onto him too long. I've never seen anything in print regarding offers for Prince. I was never in favor of trading Hardy at the deadline which coincided with him being at his lowest possible value. He didn't fail with Sabathia, he got exactly what he wanted and most fans on this site and in Milwaukee wanted, a playoff appearance. When you trade for a rental the only 2 outcomes are resigning the player or taking the draft picks. The failure in the scenario I suggested would be holding onto Fielder while we never make the playoffs with him and hoping to get a first round draft pick back when someone signs him, remember that if 1 of the bottom 15 teams were to sign him, the pick then becomes a 2nd round pick, but we do get the supplemental pick in the 1st round either way. Fielder was a top 10 pick, hopefully the Brewers perform well enough that they will never have the opportunity to draft that high again. The only way the Brewers can acquire elite talent is through the draft or through trades, the Brewers simply aren't able to afford elite players in FA. However, it's very difficult to acquire elite talent outside of the top ten picks in the draft. I would much rather take a couple of elite talents back who are prospects, then try to get lucky lower in the draft and end up with comp picks like Frederickson and Dykstra. Compensation picks don't guarantee elite talent coming back, they don't even guarantee AA level talent coming. By trading Fielder for established prospects at least you're trading for players who've likely already have had some measure of success at AA and are extremely talented. Obviously being talented doesn't guarantee MLB success, plenty of super prospects who succeeded at AA or higher have bombed, but I'd rather take my chances with 1 of the prospects becoming an elite player than 1 of the draft picks becoming an elite player.

If the Brewers lose in Petco and no one sees it, did it really happen?

Prince has had a very tough start to his season. I didn't think the Brewers could have worse luck with injuries to positional players than they did last year, but it's looking like I was wrong.

This has to be Cleveland hating on their own team, I don't know anyone who hates Cleveland, but then again most of us are biased because a pitcher from my home town pitched for them and has nothing but great things to say about the town and the management there.

I hate to be captain obvious but Arnett won't have success till he starts throwing more strikes. The stuff is there, but no pitcher is going to have tons of success pitching from behind to every single batter. He didn't throw a strike till pitch 7 today, he's walked 2 and struck out 2 so far this inning, edit. A nubber up the first base line, Arnett makes an athletic play to field it, the throw goes in the dirt and short hops Halton who bobbles it, ruled a hit. On the very next pitch a ball gets through Garfield (ruled a WP) so a second runner scores. This is exactly the kind of stuff that happened to Arnett in Helena last year, for whatever reason the team plays horrible defense when he's on the mound. I'm sure he's partly to blame, but I've never consistently seen a young prospect pitcher give up so many questionable/unnecessary runs.

I was just listening to the T-Rat pregame show on my way home and Chris announced that Heckathorn will be getting first start tomorrow night. Originally he was going to pitch one more time in relief but Hook and Tunnell decided to get him rolling sooner.

So based on "probably" for the last 5-6 years we're going to give Melvin a free pass assuming that there was nothing he could do, and that's why he did nothing? What in his history as a GM suggests that he'll trade for high ceiling players either in Texas or Milwaukee?

If Hoffman gave up those runs in the 8th inning what would be difference besides the offense having an extra inning to get the runs back? He would have blown the lead regardless where he pitched. Personally speaking, I'd like to match up my best pitcher against the more important situation and the best hitters. The 9th inning isn't any more important than any other inning.

It would be really nice if Arnett started to get on a bit of a roll here.

I've been pondering this question since it was posed. I'm become progressively more frustrated the last 2-3 seasons as my own opinions on the direction of the franchise began to change. Macha certainly hasn't helped but I thought had bottom out after this off season which was miserable for me personally, how could get it get worse than ultimately trading the player I wanted as the focus of a pitching deal to be traded for an extremely undisciplined CF? Well the obvious answer would have been to see Macha regress and go back to defined bullpen roles, Suppan to the rotation, Parra pitching once in the first of the week of season, blowing 4-6 very winnable games, Gomez batting 2nd, and so on... it's become a never ending litany of frustration. I guess because I was so vehemently against resigning Hoffman, signing Hawkins, signing Wolf/Davis, and trading for Gomez this first month of the season has been my worst fears coming true. I'm not rooting against those guys, I desperately want them to succeed now that they are here, but there was a reason I didn't want to spend money on aging pitching. Wolf has been pretty decent, hopefully Davis can build off his last start, I have to believe Hoffman will turn it around, I think Hawkins is going to be up and down all season... I wanted to get younger as an organization, and we just ended up getting older, and the idea that we might just get a single playoff appearance out of the first wave has been eating away at me for a long time. I guess I am demoralized, but not solely from the start of the season, from the direction of the franchise as a whole.

Odorizzi gives up back to back singles, then Paciorek misplays a foul ball that should have been an out, the next pitch to the #7 hitter one hops the wall in CF and the game is now tied. edit.bunt sac and then sac fly and the T-Rats are down 3-2

Nieves pitched well tonight. 5IP 3H 0R 3BB 5K

Wisconsin Timber Rattler Pre Game Audio. My apologies to Chris and Charlie, I missed the start of the interview as I didn't realize how late it was. Chris interviews Field Coordinator & Catching Instructor Charlie Greene. I missed the start of the interview but they discussed being an injury away from promotion, a brief mention of Jonathan Lucroy being the next in line, the jump to full season ball, and the grind of being an everyday catcher.

I'm guessing if you asked anyone on this board at the time, no one would have wanted him. The consensus was that he was pretty much washed up.I'm not picking on you Invader3K, I'm just responding to the idea you posted because it's been thrown around quite a bit in the past. The problem here is that we don't truly know who's available and at what price. If my choices were Gomez vs Liriano... I'm going pitching and hoping to get lucky, I despise the Gomez deal, posted such at the time, but now that it's done we need Carlos to harness his physical gifts. You'll see I didn't post in the linked thread because I didn't have a strong opinion either way. I was intrigued by the reports over the winter, scared by his lack of results for 2009, and hoping Melvin would make a move for someone younger, Well my "hoping" hasn't gotten me anywhere with Melvin, I've been hoping for over 2 years now. The same thing was said of Edwin Jackson last year about how no one was calling for Melvin to trade for him. Well there was absolutely no reason to believe he'd be the one to go, I spent all winter talking about Neimann, but if I had thought Jackson was available I certainly would have looked to acquire him. I was disappointed when Melvin didn't make a move for Kazmir, I didn't think he was finished. Granted he's been on the DL and wouldn't be available to help the rotation at the moment, but at least he still has stuff. I guess my point is that beyond the obvious big name pitchers that are nearing the end of their contracts or their team has gone into rebuilding mode, it's very difficult to pinpoint other players who may be available given the proper situation. The truth is that the trade possibilities are rather limitless once the deal extends to a 3rd team and we never even know all of the players who were available around the league and were discussed, we only know the few names that actually end up getting traded. I don't want to turn this into another "Melvin only signs average FA pitching thread" but I do find the notion that people should have to call their shots for a trade idea to be realistic off the mark. If the deal is so obvious we can pick up on it and pretty much call the trade before it happens, well then it didn't take much imagination or creativity to get it done. It's like if a deal isn't completely obvious then the conclusion seems to become that Melvin had no realistic offers, and I just don't think that's the case. Hardy, Hart, and Braun were my favorite Brewers and I would have traded Hart and/or Hardy in a heartbeat if there was an offer on the table for a projectable young pitcher. I'll always trade hitting for pitching because I believe that pitching is more important than hitting. I'm happy for Liriano and hope he continues to progress, he's been the poster boy for negative results following TJ surgery for a long time, and I'm a sucker for a good comeback story anyway.

I'd say no he's not injured. He just has a razor thin margin of error, as do all control pitchers. If they aren't able to locate, they are going to get shelled. Trevor doesn't have a 3rd pitch and his FB is arrow straight. I realize I argued against his signing so I might appear biased, but is it really so surprising that he's capable of extreme lows given what he throws? It's not so much about being able to maintain velocity as it about being able to hit spots. If you're looking for a smoking gun with his FB velocity I don't think you're going to find it there. Suppan's velocity held steady for 2008-2009, and he was hitting 89 in his start for the T-Rats, his velocity is down .3 in his limited sample so far this season. Is he done? I don't know, but I do know that I've been done with Macha since last season and I'm approaching that point with Melvin as well. .

I've made no secret of the fact that I was disappointed Braddock was converted to relief. Generally speaking I think that a relief role is better suited for starting pitchers that fail in that role, like a Gagne for example. However, I think JB12 nailed it, and it's the same reason Macha rode Gallardo so hard last season. Neither Melvin or Macha has job security, and I haven't seen any long term planning out of the organization as a whole since around 2007. X also astutely championed Braddock for a role in the pen last season because that was the shortest path he had to the majors. I’m not a fan of the idea, I’m not a fan of the bull pen in general, but I do understand the reasoning behind it. If they are going to call up a player now, I’d rather it be Axford, he’s old enough that I’m not concerned about his arby clock and super 2 status. I do not want to be paying Braddock extra money because he’s the “closer” and reached super 2 status, I’d much rather keep him down until the end of June. I do realize that every win counts, especially since we’ve given so many games away already, but I just wasn’t sold this was a playoff team from the start. Since I personally don’t believe this is a playoff team regardless, I’d rather the team takes the most effective approach to roster management.

I've intentionally downplayed Cappy's return because the odds are so firmly stacked against him, but it's incredibly hard not to be excited about and for him. He's such an excellent man looking to beat the longest of odds in baseball. What a fantastic story it will make if he can make it all the way back. That being said he should dominate A ballers, which is what made Suppan's rehab starts so troubling the last 2 seasons, any MLB quality pitcher should roll over kids in A ball. I'll be extremely curious to see how things work out for him as he continues to move up the chain on his way back. Congrats on an excellent debut Cappy.

He's a bad hitter who throws the ball away. not to mention he's not capable of hitting at the top of the order because of his ground ball percentage... what do you expect Macha to do if Gomez isn't playing?

Yep all of the great players we've acquired via trade... like Gomez? Capellan? Maybe Bush, Jackson, and Gross? Koskie? Mench? Lee? Cordero? Vargas twice? Estrada? Where's the upside for the rotation? Where's the other elite pitcher we desperately needed with this core of position player? Bush is the only player that even played here more than 3 years and while he's one of my guys, he's hardly a core player. Lee and Cordero were probably the most all-around talented players, but they weren't going to be part of 2008-2011 runs when the team was going to peak. Gomez is gifted athletically, but he's not a significant talent on the field, in fact I'm struggling to come up with with a single positive he brings offensively other than his speed. Melvin has done very well on the waiver wire no doubt, but those moves weren't made with getting starters in mind, those were moves were aimed at creating depth. He got very lucky to strike gold with McGehee and Davis, Pods was a 1 year wonder, Turnbow was a flash in the pan as was Clark. I tend to equate waiver wire claims with FA, the only cost to acquire is monetary but you are correct it's technically a different lane... If you're honestly suggesting that Melvin thought he was going to get significant production out of a waiver wire claim I think you're clearly biased. You can argue semantics all day long but my point still stands, he doesn't trade for players of significant talent, and outside of the drafting process, that's the only other means the team has to acquire said talent. I'm not talking about rental player deals, the same holes are left behind the following season, I'm talking about lasting solutions to problems as they present themselves. The truth is that the closer the team got to breaking over the top, the more conservative he became as GM. Sure he hasn't given up anything the team will miss, but who has he acquired via trade that we couldn't live without?