TheCrew07

Have you read both articles? If so do you agree there is a huge difference in context and tone between the 2? If not... then I'd be curious why. Reading McCalvey's article I didn't get the feeling Braun was directly attacking the organization and his teammates, reading the cherry picked quotes in TH's article, that's exactly how it appears. McCalvey's piece was very even handed... TH's leaned towards sensationalism, and to his credit, it's worked wonderfully by the responses here and on the MJS blog itself. None of the above excuses Braun for being classless, nor does absolve Melvin for being equally so retaliating in the press, this a lose/lose situation.

That's all he's done to this point, and that appears to be most likely scenario again this season. The Peavy rumor is just that... until we get a long-term solution this issue isn't going to go away. Also Peavy would have created as many problems as he solved, he was a health risk, still is a health risk, and his contract is an albatros if that option year needs to be gauranteed.

This just keeps getting worse. People keep applauding Braun for running his mouth and for his antics, DM was right about 2 things, this isn't the first time Braun has said something, and as other's have pointed out I've never heard a pitcher in the organization say anything about the offense, so his comment about the 1-0 and 2-1 was spot on. I'm not into Ryan's flamboyance, it just rubs me the wrong way... it started for me with the home run antics, escalated when he was laying down in the field because he finally made a nice defensive play, then the wining about the shadows, and now this. Yes the team needs pitching, no one has beat that drum louder than I, but realistically if they do anything with the bats on Friday the Brewers leave Chicago with a split, is he still saying anything then? Others have said Braun signed a contract so he has every right to say whatever he wants, I thought TLB nailed that point, by guaranteeing the contract the risk is all with the Brewers. Braun didn't sign a home town discount contract, he gave up some money on the back end to get himself the guaranteed money on the front end. It was a reasonable deal for both sides... That being said, just because Ryan the best player on the team and signed a deal that secured his financial future doesn't entitle him to say whatever he wants about the stadium, the general manager, or the team... I'd say he should carry himself with some class, but he's just not going to. I have no doubt that TH's crappy reporting is partly to blame here, McCalvey's article was much better written as usual, and actually provided some context around the more inflammatory comments made by Braun, the tone was much different between the 2 articles. Article content aside, I don't mind Melvin stomping on Braun at all, he could stand to be humbled a little bit. I just don't think it's in the best interests of the organization to have this going on in public and I have no interest in seeing this deteriorate into another Farve/Thompson debacle.

Prospect love? What? First off, me wanting to keep prospects around has everything to do with replacing our FA losses in the next couple of seasons, not because I'm in love with certain players. In fact, my 2 favorite players in the minors will likely never play for Milwaukee. That comment is so far off the mark it's clear you don't understand what I've been saying for the last 18 months. It's not that I love prospects, it's that I view all our players in the majors and minors as assets, and I want to get the best possible return on the investment. For example a bad investment would include paying market value for FA pitching, for all of the reasons posted in 100s of other threads, a worse investment is paying for the bullpen, because now you're getting 70 innings instead of 170 for the same money. I do enjoy watching kids develop, but I'd trade them all tomorrow for a World Series championship, this team just isn't that close, nor was it last season. Sometimes I'm going to want to move multiple cheap assets (prospects) to acquire a major asset (MLB player), sometimes I'm going to want to trade 1 major asset to acquire another if I don't think we have enough of the cheap assets. I'm going to go whichever way I think represents the best total value for the Brewer organization, not the MLB team. I'm interested in sustained success, I want no part of the Marlins model. 2nd. You and Peavy both keep going back to draft picks, and I've clearly stated numerous times that they have no value in this scenario and why, they will not help the team quicker than the players already in the system. We can play the "what if" scenario all day every day about the talent of the picks... that's a discussion about the minor league system, not about the hole in the rotation, and it's a discussion that goes nowhere. Draft picks are irrelevant to the conversation about how to best plug a long-term hole, which is the part that people don't seem to be getting their minds around. When Gallardo went down, if Doug was going to make a move, it made sense to me to target a good pitcher with a 3 year contract and I posted that at the time. Why you ask? Because we were down a top notch pitcher in Yo, this year we'd be down Sheets, and so on.... that one pitcher would have eliminated multiple problems down the road. Instead we filled the hole with Sabathia and made playoffs, yay... now we are right back where we started... down a pitcher, regardless of Bush and Parra. No big deal, we have a redundancy at SS with an All-Star and a top prospect, lets move a premium player in Hardy and get the pitcher we need.... wait, we can't do that, he's a fan favorite, Escobar's BABIP is too high and he won't be as valuable offensively, blah, blah, blah... so we sign Looper and don't really fix anything. Here we are in the race and whining about the rotation after we missed our window with our best chance to acquire meaningful talent. Now if we trade for a rental this season we'll be right back in the same boat at the end of October... My entire problem with this nighmare scenario that we're just treading water, we aren't actually improving the core of the ball club, we keep carrying over the same issues from one season to the next. I realize part of that is being a small market team, but tthe market size isn't the core issue in this case. You cannot plug a hole in the rotation 1 year at a time. It's not like we had Price or Hansen waiting in AAA where we were looking at a 1 year stop gap, our best pitching prospects finished last season on the DL, in rookie ball, or A ball, and many haven't pitched over 100 innings yet in their professional career. Assuming they get pushed out 25 innings per season we're still 3ish years away from a home grown rotation, if they get their 100 innings this season. Are we to make a rental player deal every year until 2011 or 2012? What about in 2011 when both Bush and Suppan are gone, do we make 3 rental player deals? The draft picks don't matter, they never have for the purposes of this discussion. We had 1 hole last year, we rolled it over to this season (Looper wasn't a significant acquisition and I argued that point all winter) and now we have 2 holes this year. We'll probably 2 holes next year and 3 holes in 2011. Until we start plugging a some quality solutions with longevity into the rotation, the problem continues to exist, putting a band aid on it doesn't stop the bleeding or fix the root issue. Finally, and I'm probably into the 100s with this comment, but I'll say it again, I believe in building a team from the starting pitching up. You do what you have to do establish the best rotation in the division, develop as many bats as you can and go FA with rest, do the best you can with relief. For example, it doesn't make sense to me to pay Suppans fair market value to be the highest paid player on the team, but be in the bottom 1/2 to bottom 1/3 of the talent on the 24 man roster. A team like Milwaukee has to pay it's best players the most money, we can't afford to frivilously spend on mediocrity, our plan has to be better than. It's much easier to get your money's worth out of signing a FA position player than it is a FA pitcher. I hate to keep pointing to Tampa, but they really are the best example of what I'm trying to say, and finally a baseball GM's thinking aligns with my own. They've aggressively gone after pitching to build a great rotation, now that they have some pitching depth, they are dealing pitching to fill holes on their roster. It's much easier to trade 1 pitcher for 3 bats than it is to trade 3 bats for a pitcher, when you have pitching you're always dealing from a position of strength. If Melvin keeps doing what he's done then it's going to be a long couple of years, or they are going to rush kids and burn them out before their time. Developing pitch takes patience, the same way I don't want to risk Yo's arm pushing him after pitching so few innings last season, I don't want to see Braddock, Peralta, Rogers, Scarpetta... any of the young kids pushed. It doesn't do any good to get those arms to Milwaukee only to have them Neugy out on us once they get here because they were pushed too hard. We need them to be healthy and effective, not only for their careers, but for the team because there is no easier to way to acquire pitching than to develop it yourself. My biggest fear is that Melvin will keep doing the FA thing with stop gaps so the team never really gets over the hump and that there will always be that temptation to push the young pitchers faster than they should.

Unfortunately my roadrunner has been garbage since about 4 PM (I was playing XBox live at the time), Chris interviewed Cody Adams which I'm sure most of us would have been interested in and Brett interviewed John Curtis and discussed his AA pitchers (Braddock, Jones, Wooten, and Aguilar). Due my connection being up and down sometimes the buffer would recover, sometimes it wouldn't. Both interviews start late, and both are choppy in and out. I can post them anyway if people wish?

Why is their current season relevant to the conversation when the moves should have happened over the off-season or last season? The point is that once we give talent up, that's it, we don't have an unlimited pipeline of talent to trade away, so we have to spend them wisely. It's rather hypocritical for posters that wanted to keep Hardy and were in favor of the Sabathia deal to bemoan Melvin now for a lack of top of the rotation talent when we need to trade for it to acquire it. I've said it before, and I still believe it to be true, most people are treating roster management like it is checkers... making one move at a time, piece by piece, looking for a king. Roster management is much more like chess, we need to be thinking 10 moves ahead because every piece you sacrifice you don't get back, and each move has an effect on every subsequent move. This chain of events was very predictable and obvious, it shouldn't be a surprise to anyone.

The T-Rats face off against Tim Melville today, that should be a familiar name for those that follow the minors and the draft.

Yes, I've been watching them closely all year... the players we just drafted are irrelevant to the discussion, they are no closer than 2 years away at an absolute best case scenario. The prospects we gave we no longer have to trade, I think this is the issue that many here are missing. It's not that we traded the prospects away, we should have, we had a nice surplus of bats... but once they are gone we don't get them back. So we traded 3 arms to SD, and 2 bats and arm to cleveland, and we still don't have a bridge to our pitching talent in A+ and below. We're heavy 2 position players right now, Green looks to be a bit redundant (though I love his bat and he's LH) and we have a spare prospect catcher we could deal. Unfortunately the 2 of 3 teams the Brewers could match up well with already have young stud catchers in Baltimore and Atlanta, making a rental of Bedard out of Seattle the best we're probably going to do. Which stinks, because I really like Morrow and have for some time. It's not about hording prospects as some continually like to spin it as, it's about using our limited resources in the best possible manner. Even if we rent Bedard for this season next off-season it will be the same song and dance. Only this time every one knows Escobar is ready and Hardy is a 1 year rental, Hardy never had more value than he had last off-season to the Brewers. We don't have enough prospect bullets left in the gun to pry away a young starter either. Assuming we rent Bedard the total tally at minimum would be Thatcher, Inman, Garrison, LaPorta, Brantley, Bryson, Salome, and Green. No I don't consider Jackson a prospect and intentionally kept him off. We would have moved 8 trading chips for 1 playoff appearnce, maybe 2 (I really think this year is stretch the way things have unfolded), and we're still going to have the same hole in the rotation next season, and 3 holes the season after. I'm not going to debate the value of a playoff appearance, but for that many pieces it sure seems like we could have at least landed 1 long-term solution. We'll get 3 MLB SP out of Braddock, Butler, Rogers, Peralta, Scarpetta, Jeffress, Frederickson, Ordorizzi, Arnett, Rivas, Bowman, Watten, and Adams... which 3? No idea, but the sheer number of legit prospects gives us pretty decent odds, and those are guys that have ceilings as 3s and up, we have plenty back of the rotation depth as well.

Again what team are we going to outscore in the playoffs?

Short of trading Hardy for a starter, what else was he going to do this off season or thus far? Seriously, some of the same names that wanted no part of trading Hardy are now calling out DM? There's no having it both ways, the team is already up around the 90 million threshold, was he realistically supposed to spend 170 million on Sabathia? Over 100 on Burnett? Sabathia's 20 mil offer became Hoffman (my thoughts on spending on the bullpen are well known), Looper, and Cameron, there's isn't a pile of gold sitting in the corner waiting to be spent. Have we lost sight of the fact that we're still the smallest market in baseball that manages to maintain a 90 million payroll? The team has stretched about as far as it can go. Unloading the farm for Haren doesn't make sense, and Z has to be willing to take the right deal from us for Bedard or it's not happening. Maybe Toronto would be willing to part with a couple of very successful young arms between AA and AAA but I'm not sure how realistic that is given the severe injuries suffered by Marcum and McGowan last season. By the way, if you want evidence as to why you shouldn't push young arms look no further than Toronto's string of serious injuries to it's young starting pitching over the years. There's no magic way to fix pitching depth other than to trade for it, and we've spent prospects on rentals the last 2 years. This situation was entirely predictable given the past moves the team made, where was top of the rotation talent going to come from without trading for it? The free agent market? Who are we going to outbid? We were always going to be in this situation until the kids work their way up, and we're 2-3 years away from an influx of pitching talent. We needed to move prospects or a position player for a talented pitcher that we'd control for 3 or more years, and we did neither. He acquired Sabathia and many of you got your playoff appearance that you so high cherished, this was the cost... if making the playoffs meant that much to you then you should be alright with a mediocre rotation this season. Likewise if you didn't want to trade Hardy this off season, then you should be alright with what we have. We'll have a minimum of 3 and maybe 4 (depending on Parra) rotation spots open in the next 2 years, where are those pitchers going to come from? We have nice back of the rotation depth in AAA and AA, how do we acquire meaningful talent to bridge the gap to Braddock, Peralta, Scarpetta, etc?

Why does our window close this year? how about some realism? Braun doesn't have much common sense or class, he's a "look at me" type of guy and if he wasn't a Brewer he'd be right up there with Arod for me, I doubt I'll care for him once he leaves. It's not just his comments, it's also his actions on the field. I'm glad we have his production in the line-up, but he's just not my type of person. His comments were over the line.

I posted about it briefly, the game actually got rained out... well they delayed it for 2 hours and then called it and I was dumb enough to drive down and sit there and wait. They wore the jerseys the following day for game 1 of the double header, I probably should have posted something int the trade forum about it.

Lintz is pitching tonight for AZ

It was announced before the balloting was completed that they'd only be taking pitchers would could actually pitch. If Yo stays on schedule he pitches right before the all-star game. Given his workload, I'm alright giving him extra rest if it works out that way.

If the Brewers make a move for pitching it's likely that at least 1 40 man roster player will go in the trade, thus they wouldn't need the 40 man to complete a trade. Koshankshy has no future role in Milwaukee, this is a no brainer, you ditch him, add and promote Heether, and bring Gamel back down.

Another learning experience, I tried recording off of my laptop but didn't realize that it was recording off of the open mic on the laptop, which totally killed the quality and you can actually hear me playing on my other computer while I listen to the audio. Thankfully I didn't saying anything... http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/smile.gif Once again I apologize for the inconvenience. Steve interviews pitcher Andre Lamontagne and they discuss his college career and transition to pro ball.

Nope, he was just coaching 1st base today getting the day off.

No Lo Cain in WI today, perhaps on his way back up to AA already?

Chris was sneaky and surprised me by going right into the interview, the other affiliates start after a commercial break, so I was about 10 seconds late starting to record.? My bad, I'll get it down here eventually.? Chris interviews Trey Watten regarding last night's excellent performance.? Trey prefers ground outs to strike outs, an interesting listen... The audio starts with Trey mid answer to the first question.

I didn't mean to suggest that Morrow was the only one, just that I was disappointed by that move specifically.

Hand gives up another HR to Halman, that's 7 HR in the last 11 innings. On a side note, check out Halman's stats from last season... wow. As I'm linking Halman's stats, Hand give up another HR to Hubbard.

I was disappointed by Morrow's move to the bullpen, but it makes sense given his diabetic condition.

Brett interviews Seattle prospect Mike Wilson who led the American League in HR during spring training.? They discuss Spring Training success, Griffey Jr who was assigned to be Wilson's mentor, and injury recovery.

Horrible start to the Game in Huntsville for Donovan Hand, he gives up 3 doubles and a HR in the first 4 batters, by far Hand's worst outing of the season. As I'm typing he gives up a 2 out single, it's not over yet.

Luis Pena is starting today for West Tenn against the Stars.