TheCrew07

It's always better to hear it before/during even if it's a bit painful, then having 40 people come up to you once the relationship is over telling you how happy they are you're free of that relationship. Speaking from experience having been where your friend is, I appreciated the few people that were willing to be honest with me up front and over the years I've grown to value those friendships more than the others. Sometimes it's true, we really miss what's happening right in front of our own eyes, and I'd rather surround myself with people who have guts enough to tell me I'm full of crap... which is quite often obviously.

Cain just keeps on hitting... I expected him to struggle early like Gamel and Escobar, but other than his error the other day, he's been as solid as we could have hoped. edit. I see in the box he's only hitting .200, I thought it was better than that.

Does "play to his ability" make you feel better about it because that what I meant? The point is, I'd tell Rickie the same thing I tell every player I've ever had that was criticized by team mates, parents, friends, whomever... If it bothers you that much don't give them anything to talk about, period. Rickie is above replacement level... yay or something. His tool set far exceeds his results thus far, the bar is set much higher than replacement level for him given his natural abilities. At worst he should be a .270/.360/.480 guy with his bat speed, his patience, and his running speed, he could easily OPS in the upper 800s and lower 900s if he'd make any sort of consistent contact with the ball. All of the things written in articles about Weeks this spring are exactly the same things that we discussed on this board over the winter... he's off balance, through the zone to fast, doesn't make consistent contact, bat wiggle issues, the turns on DPs, etc, etc... I'm not comparing Weeks to his peers, I'm judging him against his natural athletic ability, the same way I do for any player. I could care less about replacement level, it's a made up statistical benchmark that has no meaning between the lines. This is why I end up liking guys like Brady Clark when most people around here can't stand the guy, because he got every single last bit out of what he had to work with. There's no better compliment than that for anyone, he/she got the most out of what they had.... I loathe wasted talent, probably because I grew up a coach's kid and still coach myself, and no one on the Brewers gets less out of more than Weeks and Hall. Weeks doesn't get grief because he's a bad guy or doesn't work hard, he gets grief because he keeps making the same mistakes over and over and over. I'm not questioning his work ethic, I still maintain that he's always trying to do too much instead of just taking what comes to him, which is why I don't like him leading off regardless of the perfect lineup. Working hard hasn't exactly helped him achieve his desired results so far in his career, and why should we expect anything less from him than he expects of himself? I'd rather Rickie be the best player he can be, but as long as he continues to do things like booting the routine turn he'll be a lightening rod for criticism, because he's earned it.

There really aren't that many "good" seats, not like Miller Park. I've taken in mostly football games at the dome but probably the best seats I've had were down the 3B line first row in the upper deck. No one is your way and you can see everything. They are way better than the top row up behind home plate, those seats sucketh.

He's been regular contributor on the minor league forum for a couple of years now.

Not really no... metrics treat all misplays equally and when Ricky screws up DPs, that's a huge blow. I feel he's below average defensive, around average offensively, and playing vastly below his potential. Posters are going to go the extremes on every single topic here. Had Weeks performed evenly remotely close to his talent level this wouldn't even be a topic. I'm not one for boo-hoo so and so is being picked on... do your job and people have nothing to say, it's that simple. I'm not very sympathetic by nature, I'm not going to defend Hall when people rag on him either, they've earned their warts, it's no one's fault but their own.

MiLB player break camp after the big club don't they? Is he pitching in any of the scrimmages yet?

MiLB player break camp after the big club don't they? Is he pitching in any of the scrimmages yet?

MiLB player break camp after the big club don't they? Is he pitching in any of the scrimmages yet?

It's not undue criticism... his talent is obvious, so are the lack of results relative to his talent.

There's always a chance, but it's small I would think.

Pitched well in a recent scrimmage

am I the only one from the 80s disappointed that some good music made this list?

I didn't discuss Escobar at all, I made the point about AA and MLB being the 2 significant jumps in a prospect's career, salary, and the return for Hardy and Fielder when they walk. This is not an Escobar issue, the prospect behind the players doesn't matter, in Fielder's case we don't even have one, the prospects aren't the issue, roster management is the issue. You pulled a fragment on a side issue that I clearly stated I wasn't going to take the time to research, what's the point in that? Then you used Fielder who actually came up and DH'd mid season, Adam Jones, and Chipper Jones (who I was right about) from 93... It's much more telling if a prospect fails at AAA than if they succeed, AAA is pretty much a storage area for minor league vets, MLB players on the comeback trail, and players that are depth like Green, Wright, Neimann, etc... Hart was wasted repeating AAA, his treatment before he broke through remains a mystery, I have no idea why they played inferior players over him 2 years in a row but that's another topic entirely. How would you build the roster and why? I don't need a refresher on why people don't like Escobar, it's abundantly clear. Most of my post was devoted to roster creation and value. What's the proper way for the smallest market to build it's roster and maintain a mid market payroll? Does signing vets approaching FA like Hardy make sense if the pre arby window was missed? Does it make it sense to resign him with 2 propsects in the pipeline behind him? Do you address the rotation with filler and wait on the kids or do you aggresively look to make some moves? Forget about Escobar, he has very little to do with the point that we've been trying to make.

Fielder was and up and down that season the writing was on the wall for O, Chipper Jones flew the minors and was behind Pendleton when he was in AAA, I think in 93 (was a huge Braves fan then), Adam Jones former SS now CF Adam Jones? He was once a nice prospect in Seattle's system but his star has faded somewhat. I have no problem with Escobar getting time in AAA but the point is that AAA isn't some grand step up... if players perform at AA they'll perform at AAA in general. Pulling 3 examples, and Adam Jones is the only top prospect that spent 2 seasons in AAA at that, when I clearly stated I was working off the top of my head isn't all that impressive. I could probably name 50 prospects that didn't spend a full season without looking it up... If a prospect is blocked such as Escobar with Hardy or Fielder with Overbay it's all good, the point of that paragraph was that AAA doesn't prove anything more than AA. You missed the entire point of the post as usual. Instead of being snarky, offer a solution for once, instead of always pointing out what's wrong with someone else's opinion but never offering your own...

I might be missing something, but why is AAA suddenly a proving ground? The biggest jump in MiLB is A+ to AA, the only good reason for stashing top prospects in AAA is further development, but AAA itself doesn't prove anything about a given player's readiness. Without researching it off the top of my head and thinking about the top prospects in the game I don't recall any spending 1 full year in AAA, let alone 2. I know players I've advocated acquiring like Neimann have spent 2 years in AAA, but he's not my definition of a top prospect so we're on some shakey ground here, what I consider a top prospect might different from someone else. The way I see it the team can have 4-5 contracts that average 10 mil per any any one time, then there must be a sliding scale of pay for the other 20-21 players on the active roster, which means the more Braunesque deals for young talent the better. I'd like our pitchers to get deals similar to what TB did with James Shields, and I'd like to see 2 or 3 key position players locked up as well. The problem that I focus on is getting the best possible talent for that 90 mil. I'm not talking about pure athletic ability in this case, I'm talking about results because I think a guy like Taylor Green will be more productive than Weeks has been thus far. I think the Brewers would be wise to prioritize their spending based on need. From my point of view Hardy is a luxury because there are 2 good prospects in the system right behind him, Fielder isn't a luxury, the system lacks a power prospect of his caliber, but there's a long list of reasons why he isn't a good fit. All prospects have risk, some greater risk than others, but a team like Milwaukee isn't going to be able to rely on proven on talent at every position and remain competitive. Braun made sense to lockup, Yo and Parra will make sense, Hart maybe, Hardy doesn't because by the time he would leave as FA the team will know exactly what they have in Escobar and Brewer. If they know sooner, then they should move Hardy sooner... I'll always take prospects over draft picks, always. Draft picks do not excite me at all, never have, I guess that's obvious but I'd rather have a known quanity than a draft pick who's value is somewhat nebulous. I believe it makes sense to sign players for security when the talent is special or they aren't many options in the pipeline for that position. A case can be made that Hardy's talent is special, but again if he was going to sign an extension would have happened already, it truly appears that we missed our window with him. The team offered Braun, Fielder, and Hart already, nothing was offered to JJ, Melvin has made it clear that an extension hasn't even been discussed with him and Hardy's agent has brought up the possibility with the team, it's simply not going to happen. Another big part of that talent for 90 mil is pitching, I'd rather the team focus on high talent pre FA pitching like the Rays have done. The new TB front office (well relatively speaking) has done a fantastic job assembling that rotation, and 2 of their better pitchers were acquired in trades. They had Kazmir, Garza, Shields, Jackson, and Sonnanstine in '08 and in '09 they'll have Kazmir, Garza, Shields, Sonnanstine, and Price. The worst pitcher on their staff was/is essentially Dave Bush, I would love for us to be in that position. We spend so much time debating runs created around that we end up ignoring runs prevented which is equally valuable. I would rather upgrade the talent level of the rotation first and use our prospect depth to plug position holes then hold the status quo dumping multiple prospects for rentals and signing averagish pitchers to fill holes in the rotation. I honestly believe post season baseball is about pitching and defense, and while the Brewers rated out well defensively as a team last year, the numbers don't tell the whole story. Take Braun for example, while he didn't have an error on the books, how many balls did he misplay both ways letting balls get through him or drop in front of him? Sometimes he wasn't aggressive enough, sometimes he was overly aggressive, he never seemed to put it all together for an extended stretch. He's servicable in LF, but he's not a great defender yet, and probably not as good as his metric(whichever you choose) says he is. I hope people understand what I'm getting at... the team made some horrible defensive plays that in reality cost them the series with Philly while Philly played spotless defense. Good teams will make you pay for your mistakes, it's very difficult to give away outs and runs and win playoff games. The way the team is built offensively, I think they'd be better off working on a consistent starting rotation than trying to plug offensive holes, because many of our prospects on the way are similar hitters to what we already have, not many are going to take BBs as much as we'd like. With better pitching it's easier to survive the ups and downs in the offense from game to game... it just common sense from my point of view. If we don't make trades for pre arby pitching then we are pretty much going to be stuck with what we have hoping that 3 or 4 of the young pitchers pan out, and pitchers get hurt so often it's hard to count on any particular one, especially given how I feel about the Brewers' training staff. Hardy isn't moving positions because he doesn't have to and the organization isn't going to move Escobar because they don't want to, it really is that simple and everywhere I look(Bf.net, BCB, JS Online) I keep seeing people suggesting these position switches when Melvin, Hardy, Escobar, and Ash have all made it clear in print, video, and audio interviews that position switches are highly unlikely unless a major injury occurs. If signing Hardy isn't going to happen, and it appears highly unlikely at this point that it will, then the discussion should become how to get the most possible value from him. Do we ride him out to FA or does the team try to move him to plug a hole somewhere else? What's the most valuable solution? That's where the debate should be, not Escobar vs Hardy, that's not the issue and it really hasn't ever been the issue. Hardy is moving on the same way Fielder is going to move on, it's not 15 years of losing mentality, it's realistism given the financial demands the players will make in FA. To keep our best talent we must lock them up early, it didn't happen, so it's time to shift focus. Peole can throw around PECOTA, CHONE, MLEs, whatever else they want projection wise, it's all irrelevant because the discussion isn't either/or in a player sense, it's not Hardy vs Escobar or Fielder vs Nelson/Gamel, it's draft pick compensation vs players/prospects. Again just to make my point clear the discussion really is Draft Picks vs Players/Prospect because neither player will be signed as a FA. That's why posters like myself talk about Escobar plus whatever... because losing Hardy is inevitable, the question we're working on is what is the best "+"? Maybe for a guy like X the question becomes Brewer plus whatever? The point it doesn't necessarily matter whom the replacement player in the dicussion is, getting the best value in return for losing a Hardy or Fielder is the crux of the matter.

Ha! The Perculator will do the trick, it only took 20 seconds of the song and I was being asked "What the hell is that?"... apparently it scared the cats into bed with Bridget... too funny.

Today the Girl Scout Cookies were delivered to the office and I'll be in heaven for the next 2.5 days, as I do well if they last me that long. I seem to find myself snacking on them if they are anywhere near me.

You should have blamed your cats... the cats are my scape goat for everything... missing remote, the terrible 2 knocked it under couch... missing keys, the cats must have been playing with them... I do laundry and always have 1 sock I'm unable to match, well obviously the cats were playing with it behind a piece of furniture... You get the idea. Instead of a rational explanation, always go to the irrational... it's much more sporting.

He meant the USA and had they won it would have been the NL

Anyone could replace his defense and there's no replacing his offense. Why would you build around a player who's 1) a Boras client, 2) will never give you a home town discount, 3) Makes every player on the infield and the pitcher worse? 1B gets a bad wrap, it's still important as just about every infield play will finish at 1B, it's just that usually 1B can scoop and catch a throw Fielder doesn't do on a consistent basis. Fielder moving on has always been inevitable, he turned down a Braun type deal last season and a solid argument can be made that he's too risky for the Brewers anyway as he's a 2 tool player (power and average) and given his weight fluctuation year to year. Fielder's play at 1B was so bad last season it's hard to even quantify how much of his offense he negated... his play alone made him one of the bottom 3 defenders in the league, not to mention the scoops and misplays that don't get factored by metrics into his defense but affect the other IFs and the Pitcher. I agree that other players need to be locked in, but not players we have 2 prospects in the pipeline for and not someone who's better off being a DH for an AL team. The key here is to lock in players early like with Braun... the longer we wait the more expensive they get. I would think Yo is a prime candidate and I wouldn't seeing Parra bought out of a year or 2 of FA either if he gets through this season healthy and effective. Hart has an outside shot but it takes 2 to tango and he didn't take his offer last season either, but either way Hart is an interesting case. I argued for locking up Hart throughout the season last year, but in rethinking my opinion recently it occurred to me that he may not have a position on the team. If Gamel were to get moved out to the OF, I'd much rather have Cain in CF than Hart, and there's no way I'm taking Hart over Braun. I've always been a Hart guy, I like that he's a heads-up player, an athlete, has some power, has speed, has a decent arm... but I'd take Gamel and Braun over him in the corners and Cain has the potential to be special in CF. If Gamel sticks on the IF then I wouldn't mind seeing Hart get locked up, but if it doesn't happen this season or next off season it's not going to happen.

How does changing out talent limit the team's playoff aspirations? Adding a couple of kids per year, even if they struggle a little bit would they hit worse than Kendall or pitch worse than Suppan last year? A yearly influx of youthful talent is a good thing, not a negative, and doesn't mean the team is perpetually building towards a 2 year window to be competitive. Some prospects will hit the ground running, some will struggle... last year's roster was hardly perfect, this year's is less perfect... even if a prospect will struggle you can have holes in your lineup and still be a playoff team. Is swapping Cameron for Cain that big of a deal? Gamel for 3B platoon? Salome/Lucroy for Kendall? Maybe Green for 3B and Gamel to 1B? Green over Weeks? Lawrie over Weeks? Escobar for Hardy? I guess I just don't see how the world ends by moving Hardy or Fielder for pieces needed elsewhere like the starting rotation. Many of those moves hold the status quo with good or better defense and upgrade the offense with much more productive players. The only downgrades offensively would be at 1B (inevitable) and SS (maybe temporary), with upgrades at the other positions. Defensively Gamel and Salome I'm not so sure on today, but they have time to get it straightened out. Lucroy is the full package and only a level behind Salome, either player is a huge upgrade over Kendall offensively and Lucroy is as good defensively. Cain is an excellent defender, Gamel or anyone really would be an upgrade defensively at 1B, Green would be a solid 3B/2B, Escobar is the real deal at SS, it remains to be seen how well Lawrie will play defense but he's such a good athlete I have confidence in him as well. The way I see it this is only a big deal because we grow attached to the players we have and many people around here don't care to follow the minors or prospects. We've grown especially attached to the initial group of players because they delivered and got us to the promised land for the first time since '82. This was always inevitable, it's the way baseball works for small markets. Our competitive advantage lies in the draft and selling our players to the larger markets for more prospects. The large markets competitive advantage lies in the FA market, where they can afford to pay the Arods, Fielders, Teixeiras, Sabathias, and so on. They don't rely on development, they sign the cream of crop as their skills are beginning to decline, but they know exactly what they are getting. Even with the Yankees advantage while they've been competitive, they've sure had some collasal flops on the FA market. I think being a fan of small market teams means that you sort of have to be a fan of prospects and be willing to jump into the unknown as they are our lifeblood. Established marquee type MLB players aren't really our concern, our concern is maximizing value on the dollar and making all our pieces fit. To say the Brewers will fail because the Twins never got over the hump doesn't really hold up, they done well developing sound players, but only a few players good enough to be stars, and not all together. They've have good pitching and a decent offense, this year they may have great pitching and really surprise people like the Rays last year. The Twins haven't failed, they just haven't put enough talent together at one time to make it work, we've already done that, and the team can be better than last year's team going forward.

I'm not picking on you, but you continually ignore the financial ramifications of signing Hardy or any other FA for that matter. Halladay was mentioned, his contract is about what Hardy would make on the FA market, how could the team afford both even for only a year? Peavy is often talked about around here as well, but his contract starts escalating in hurry, all the way up over 20+ per in his last season. It was great to get Sabathia, but that shouldn't be the expectation or the goal going forward... just look how much acquiring Sabathia cost, only to get bounced in the first round. In fact, had the Mets not collapsed yet again the Brewers would have been on the outside looking in even after CC's excellent work. The idea here should be to keep a revolving door of high quality talent around some key pieces, there can only be so many high paid players with a 90 million payroll. I can accept the fact that many Brewer fans just wanted to get into the post season again no matter what the cost, but there is simply no way the team can trade away prospects for rentals every year and remain competitive. Acquiring Sabathia meant that the team didn't have the ammunition left to acquire a more permanent solution to the rotation without giving up Hardy/Fielder (which many here are unwilling to do) or dumping 2-3 of our remaining prospects. The problem with dumping the prospects is that they will fill the remaining holes on the MLB roster almost perfectly at a very affordable salary. The Brewers are not and will not be players in the FA market… they can afford to sign average players, but the value per win just isn't there, the elite players will always price themselves out of what Milwaukee can afford. Mark A's net work isn't relative to this discussion, he does not and will not pay players out of his own pocket, the business pays all salaries, and like all businesses the Brewers have a budget they must work around. I've yet to see anyone anywhere lay out a salary structure where the team can lockup Hardy, Fielder, and Hart to market contracts in addition to Braun's deal, plus lockup Yo and Parra, stay under 90 million per season, and remain competitive. Even if someone can find a way to make that work there's no high priced closer that people seem to want every year, no Halladay or Peavy type, everyone else has to bare bones MLB minimum cheap every season, especially as the escalators on the contracts kick in. Maybe in the future they'll get the players staggered somewhat so that they all won't be at their most expensive at the same time, but when players come up in groups together, their salaries will escalate together if they perform edit. sorry for all the edits, took me a while to figure how to fix the weird font size issue that popped up at the end of the post.

Working on the assumption that "anything" is better than "nothing" I hope that someone signs Sheets so the Brewers get some sort of compensation. I sincerely hope this year's off-season has made more posters aware of the risks regarding compensation picks, that nothing is guaranteed, especially if the player you acquire gets injured. I love draft picks as much as the next person, I'm very into the minors, but there are no guarantees that the rental player will bring a greater return than his performance on the field. I know Sheet's wasn't a rental, but every time someone suggests a rental deal the draft picks are always part of the "upside" when there's a significant amount of risk to receive any compensation much less a 1st and a supplemental.

An excellent summation of the situation by sbrylski06 as usual, just an excellent post. I don't think the chances of Hardy regressing are very high but if you can spin him for a top of the rotation talent and have Escobar the team is much better off in the long run. There's another prospect right behind Escobar in Brent Brewer that may factor into the situation before all is said and done as well. If JJ was going to be a centerpiece for Melvin to build around he would have been signed already ala Braun, it really is that simple. They tried to extend Hart and Fielder in addition to Braun, but never even discussed it with JJ... that to me has always been the most telling... JJ is replacable. It stinks for me personally, I always though of the 3 between Hardy, Fielder, and Weeks that Hardy would be the one to stick around. In the end maybe none of the 3 will have long careers as a Brewer... Fielder will be gone, Hardy will be gone, and Weeks hasn't lived up to the hype and is very replaceable.