TheCrew07

counting tthis year 2, he has to be up for good by 2012. Burning that option last year was kind of dumb, I still disagree that anyone would have picked him up coming off of 2 shoulder surgeries.

I just got done watching the MLB game on the DVR and man does Fiers look good. A very nice curve and he located VERY well. I realize he wasn't facing the regulars for Cleveland but I was impressed, he also threw harder than I expected. Most of his FBs were 90, I saw 1 at 91 and 1 at 88, all according to the FSN gun. My guess is that he will continue to move quickly through the system.

This should be grounds for dismissal from the site. What a wonderful thread this is, and I'm just reading it for the first time today. I'm an "I'll try anything once" kind of guy so I'll have to think long and hard to find something new that hasn't been mentioned.

Peterson is one entertaining dude, and insightful.

The answer is 70... because only half of them will be legit.

Lucroy with love for Axford, Braddock, Rogers.... Salome with some love for Rivas... our young catchers rule. Cain talks about not playing sports and starting to play baseball as a 10th grader. Gamel talks about his injury (the link took me to Cain's audio) and the interview cuts out before the end.

Well I'm sure he thinks that it is true... even though I would say a HR is a HR regardless of the conditions. However just like he believes half of Suppan's HRs aren't legit, I think 75% of what Macha is quoted as saying is pure garbage. In fact, I think he's gotten progressively worse since his "zim-zam" quote last year, he's the first coach in this state since Rhodes that I felt was completely overmatched by his situation. Do me a favor and quit Ken, or better yet do yourself a favor DM and just fire him. I promise I won't write anything negative about you for he entire season Doug if you just do me this one favor.

I've been looking forward this show for a very long time, and I've had the DVR set since Thursday night. The pacific theater has never really gotten it's due in my opinion, it was a much different war against the Japanese than it was in Europe... I would like to see modern film making revisit the subject before the veterans have all moved on. No I don't consider Pearl Harbor to be worth much as movie, loosely based on a shred of history all the way around, with a horrible romance plot in the middle, I'm hoping The Pacific starts a trend. There were much better movies from the 50s and 60s that covered the events Pearl Harbor touched on.

Stetter has been less than outstanding this spring.

I'm in a difficult position in that I'd love for Cain to explode again this season... but it's a difficult position in that Cain proving himself yet again and Gomez struggling would make the Hardy trade rather pointless. Cain could also play some RF, but I'm not sure he'll hit for enough power over the course of 162 to be anything more than a CF.

I wish Iribarren all the best with Texas, hopefully he can find a 25 man spot with some organization, he's good enough to be an MLB player for someone.

I'm a little bit shocked that no one has picked up Ryan yet. He's not the most projectable guy in the world... I understand that, but he's been effective as a reliever, and I sincerely hope he gets a shot some place.

I'm a little bit shocked that no one has picked up Ryan yet. He's not the most projectable guy in the world... I understand that, but he's been effective as a reliever, and I sincerely hope he gets a shot some place.

Escobar with a 2B, I wonder if we'll read in the paper tomorrow Macha's theory about Escobar hitting for power causing him to go into a mini slump again. Seriously, suggesting 1 HR is the cause of an 0-10 in a player's first extended call up may be the dumbest thing I've ever read.

Gah the T-Rats opener is way too far away...

I hear you on the drafting argument, our resident BoSox fan has made that claim on multiple occasions, and I just don't agree. Recently of course the Rays have drafted much higher than the Brewers, but it wasn't so long ago that both teams were regularly drafting in the top 10. Weeks, Fielder, and Braun were all top 10 picks. The difference that I've tried to highlight is that of organization philosophy... even while the Rays were drafting pitchers high, they were making some outstanding trades to acquire front line pitching. They knew they were not going to be able to compete player for player with the other teams in the division but they understood that pitching was king and they could compete by building the best rotation in the division. The Rays built from the starting rotation out, they were aggressive and jumped on opportunities to acquire pitching when they presented themselves. I'm not really talking about the steal that was Kazmir, I think any GM would have made that trade, more about the 2 Jackson moves and Garza. Young for Garza (and change both ways) was a pretty aggressive deal, and I think a pretty fair deal at the time. I feel badly for the Twins that Young has never panned out, maybe there was something to the PED talk though you'd think he would have gotten nailed for it at some point. At any rate, there are some other organizations I admire around baseball... I know I talk about the Rays quite a bit, but that's because I view them similarly to Milwaukee, and they've done exactly what I've been preaching Milwaukee should do. Like I said in another post, I was shocked to discover that a team I had always written off had an awesome plan going prior to 2008 when I first really started thinking about payroll management and the best way to build a team. I was looking for organizations deep in pitching, then that led to how they acquired their talent, which led me to trade histories and draft analysis, and eventually led me to Cots and payroll analysis. That's why I started talking about trading for up and coming pitchers then, why I wanted to trade Fielder for Shields, and so on. I had these notions floating around that the team was going to stagnate that I couldn't put into words, and here was TB doing everything that I felt the Brewers should be doing. I never intended to beat the drum against Melvin's policies, it just sort of happened the more I studied what other organizations were doing... DM just isn't outside the box enough for me, he tends to follow market trends instead of set them, and I think a small market team has to be on the cutting edge. I like what Cleveland is as an organization, I've heard glowing first hand accounts from a former player and Bryson's comments comparing Milwaukee to Cleveland were telling as well. Have I agreed with every move they've made? Not really, but I'm really into their organizational philosophies on a number of levels. I like what Colorado has done over the last 5 seasons, I love what Toronto is doing now, I think Cincy is on the right track (if Homer Bailey figures it out that rotation will be outstanding), and believe it or not I think the Nats are on the right track too. I have a hard time giving Cashman credit, he gave away 1 draft to acquire 3 all stars, that's a pretty obvious move... who wouldn't take 3 known players in the top 5-10% of all baseball over 3 draft picks? I do however agree that Epstein is pretty good, though they've made some puzzling moves lately, he's arguably done the best job of all the big market GMs in terms of payroll and building the farm system, Boston definitely has a good thing going. I'm not going to hold a contract like Ortiz against him... I do understand players with that body type tend to decline quickly, but it's pretty difficult to accurately predict when that was going to happen, which is part of the risk factor involved with Fielder. Going into last season I warned that the Brewers were rapidly approaching the point where they would have the worst rotation in the division, I just didn't think it would happen that fast or the Pirates would have yet another fire sale. STL and Chicago can address the rotation through FA in addition to having some very intriguing pitching prospects. The Cards have just drafted Shelby who sits atop their prospect list, a very projectable pitcher from Texas. Garcia pitched at AAA last season though he hasn't been durable he's been pretty effective when healthy, Lance Lynn looks to be a nice back of the rotation starter, and they seem to have a future closer in Eduardo Sanchez who also finished last season at AA. The lame Cubs have Andrew Cashnerwho finished the year at AA, Jay Jackson who pitched himself all the way to AAA last season before a demotion for breaking team rules, and Chris Carpenter who was plagued by injuries during college but pitched his way to AA last season. Cincy has done a nice job acquiring talent and I hope for their sake that Volquez recovers because that situation was so thoroughly botched, and the rehab hasn't gone any better. Cincy also drafted Leake last season who has an outside chance of cracking the MLB rotation this season, but likely in 2011... as well as Travis Wood who tore up AA last season, Maloney who saw some MLB time but I'm not all that high on stuff wise (think Cody with a better arm), and Boxberger who was a supplemental pick out of USC last year and has the best fastball in the season. Houston has some intriguing arms, 5 of their top 7 prospects are pitchers of various projectability, not bad for an organization with a terrible farm system prior to 2008. I like some of the Pirates young arms like Brad Lincoln and Tim Alderson (from the Giants), but who knows what will happen with them, it seems like I always like Pittsburgh's young arms and they flame out, get hurt, or get traded. Even Alderson has some major red flags, like his K rate and declining FB velocity for example. If we're realistic and assume that 1 out of every 3 or every 4 pitching prospects are going to succeed then it's pretty easy to see how perilously thin the Brewers could be at MLB going forward. An injury to Yo and we're sunk, fluke or not, we've have no other pitchers of that caliber ready to contribute. Our closest projectable pitcher who is stretched out enough to enter the rotation is Rivas who hasn't pitched in a regular season game above A ball yet. We're competing against 5 other teams, 1 of which is a major market team and 2 are iconic franchises, we need to arrive at a place where we we have better pitching and more of it than our immediate rivals. Nearly every player I listed for CIN, STL, CHC had success at AA or higher last season... our best pitcher above A ball last season was Butler and he's been hurt thus far this season. Surely not all of those guys will have great careers, but there's no guarantee any of our younger prospects will either.

With Yuku's relative lack of support concerning the most annoying bugs we've been dealing with over for well over a year, is there a better alternative? It's seems like they are hung up on their own agenda without providing adequate support to the product most of us are utilizing. Every forum I've ever been a part of was Ezboard (now Yuku) based for obvious reasons so I don't have any experience outside of the current host.

I guess if you expect all of us to agree 100% on any particular topic then yes, no GM can win, no single player can win, and in fact no point of view can win. That's the nature of the beast with these sites. I don't think you'll find many people that don't believe Melvin did a great job turning the Brewers from a miserable franchise into an average MLB franchise, which I believe is where we are today. The question becomes how to get to that next level and of course this is where the vast majority of the debate arises surrounding Melvin. I've beat around the bush on this next idea because I have no way to prove it, it's just my gut feeling, but I honestly think that Melvin was burned trading for a couple of projectable pitchers between Texas and Milwaukee and has become gun-shy. His track record suggests to me that he's now into high floor players.... those players mitigate the risk somewhat, but generally speaking those players also have low ceilings. I'm just not able to get behind his pitching philosophy, especially when it's been an organization wide issue since he took over. He didn't work to assemble similar pitching talent to the hitting talent, and that's why we took a step backwards last season I think his deadline deals open him up to criticism as well... were Lopez and Linebrink going to be the guys that pushed the Brewers over the top? How was Linebrink going to have a meaningful impact in less than 30 IP? Was offense the problem last season? It's not about him making trades, the team has to make trades to plug holes because FA isn't an option. I have a real hard time believing he genuinely thought that either trade was going to make a difference, at least with Linebrink we were getting comp picks on the backend, with Lopez there was nothing. My cynical take is that those deals were more about PR than they were about significantly improving the MLB team. From where I'm sitting he pissed away assets for little return and I say that even though Evan Frederickson is one of the MiLB players I follow religiously, he's one of my boys. Finally, I think it's very fair to criticize the return he gets on his FA signings. Cameron was a great move.... but the way he burns money on the bullpen and for averagish starting pitching irritates me greatly. I've been on the record for quite a while now that I believe there is better value in signing position players than pitchers, and DM seems to have a knack for identifying hitters, so I'd rather he focus on trading for pitching and keep the continual stream of guys like Pods, Branyan, McGehee, Kapler, and so on coming. I guess if I had to sum up Melvin in one sentence I would say that he's an excellent evaluator of hitters who struggles to identify pitchers with significant upside and doesn't spend money very efficiently. I also think these lists are always completely subjective and it makes no difference to me if Melvin was rated 1 or 32, I'd still feel the same way about him. His ranking doesn't validate or disprove anyone's opinion, including my own. Without going into great detail I'll just say that Melvin isn't close to my personal top 10. Personally, I think he's in the middle teens some place and Jack Z would be right there with him. Z seems to have a similar approach but also has more money to spend. If I had to pick one guy to be the GM of my team it would be Andrew Freidman from the Rays, a young guy who seems to be a good mix of the old and the new, and I love how he built his team from the rotation up. In fact, there isn't one move that organization has made that I would disapprove of... even though the Burrell move has backfired so far, they didn't overpay for him and it's a short deal, and as I've said I fully expect every GM to miss on contracts from time to time.

I DVR'd the game and watched it in it's entirety when I got home. I thought both Bush and Parra left pitches up in the zone and got hit hard at times, generally though it looked like Parra was making an effort to work the lower part of the zone. Parra's FB is pretty darn straight and when he leaves it up he generally gets hit hard. Every pitch they hit hard was a FB catching too much of the plate between the thigh and belt, so I'd agree that on the surface nothing much has changed. However, I thought his best inning was the 3rd and he made some progress as the game moved along. Villy didn't look all that sharp again today and he struggled last spring as well, it will be interesting to see where he ends up.

but he needs to keep the ball on the ground and use his speed.... Macha will not be happyl

Say want you want, the offer to CC wasn't serious competitive offer, in the end it wasn't even close... it doesn't matter if we are bidding against the Yankees, BoSox, Dodgers... whomever... they will always be able to go 3 or more years longer than the Brewers and tack on an extra couple mil per year to boot. It's just the reality of the situation.... No kidding they were on the hook if he signed, isn't that the case with any contract offer in any business segment around the world? It would have been the steal of the century to get a pitcher of CC's caliber locked in on 5 year deal. From the perspective of the payroll, the contract was as far as the team could go in dollars and years, and in that respect it was a serious offer, but it was hardly competitive and I seriously doubt anyone in the organization truly expected CC to sign it. I believe they expected CC sign to that offer like I believe the organization demoted Hardy solely for performance reasons. It was a savvy PR move, but that was about it. As far as Fielder is concerned, signing him means the organization has to completely change the way it spends money, which means either Melvin makes a 180 or they find a different GM. They cannot have Fielder signed to big money, Braun signed to moderate money, a significant portion of the payroll wasted on the bullpen, and they certainly won't be able to afford to be paying our worst starting pitchers the most money. I've seen nothing from Melvin to suggest he'd even consider changing the way he spends money, in fact I see him continuing to do what he's always done. This situation isn't as black and white as people make it out to be and while I would welcome a Fielder contract if I thought it would be bring about the changes in player management I've been harping on the last 2 years, but I just don't see that best case scenario panning out. I think the end result would be a financially crippling situation because Melvin doesn't lock up key talent early and spends money way too inefficiently. 33% of the payroll tied into 2 players requires and entirely different strategy in team building and payroll management than what this team has done over the last 4 seasons. Melvin's strategy is great for turning an organization around, but it doesn't really work over the long term, nor does the MLB team reach that elite level of a perennial contender, there's simply not enough talent for the money being spent. Again I wouldn't mind Fielder locked in to a reasonable market deal, but I don't believe the situation is as simple as paying him for his talent either.

... and I thought that calling a good game doesn't matter and the pitcher was always in control... Why I'll agree that when calling a game is the best thing you can say about a catcher the effect is probably overstated, like in Kendell's case who I thought didn't call a very smart game at all, pitch selection and location are still the most dominant factors in game. The fact remains the way the game has played hasn't changed much and the little nuances of the game are actually where the wins and losses take place, regardless of what a study (and I use that term loosely} might say. I still believe Moeller was instrumental in helping Sheets find himself during the 2004 season, I know he couldn't hit but the dude knew how to set up and attack hitters, the Brewers should bring him as a coach to work with the youngsters.

It's pretty insulting to make an offer for half the years of the other team bidding, regardless of the dollars, and think the player is going to accept the offer. Until the Brewers can compete with the total package, it's not even worth discussing.

Isn't that what I've been saying all along? His size doesn't enable him to do the things he does in the field, his natural athleticism does. With proper training he might even pickup half a step, I don't want to take this too far off track but proper strength training doesn't make athletes slower and less nimble, it's make them quicker and stronger, and when combined with proper stretching techniques it can make them faster. There are a couple of organizations that get it, they want their players to become the best athletes possible which is why I brought up Cleveland and Brantley... no one in Cleveland is telling Brantley too keep the ball on the ground and use speed, nor did they send him to winter ball. Instead they wanted him to focus on becoming a more well rounded athlete and develop strength so he's more than just a singles hitter (which is what he's good at right Ken?), that's the approach I wish the Brewers would take throughout the entire organization. I remember lots of talk about how baseball players shouldn't lift weights through the 80s and early 90s... the only true part of that idea was that athletes in general should not train like power lifters or body builders. The idea should be to build strength and increase flexibility, which in turn helps the player become a better athlete, not to hit ground balls and waste time playing winter ball.

Wow he's still such a twig... I really hate him playing winter ball. Get in the weight room and become a better athlete like Brantley dang it!