Little Slide Rooter

yeah, that's..... odd. I'm thinking in terms of a less than realistic world where he's completely Bosioed into what he was once expected to become.

Here's some encouraging EXT ST stuff fron Saturday, courtesy of The Cub Reporter: I can still dream of a Lester/Arietta/Turner/Hammel/Hendricks rotation, right?

Anything is possible, but trades like that within the division almost never happen. Maybe not pre-season, when both sides are hypothetically on even ground (which is why the Matt Kemp trade was kind of a head scratcher.) Hell, we were making deals with the Pirates every summer in the mid 00's. When a team enters the kind of rebuild mode that the Brewers should be in, it's in their interest to take the best offer on the table.

Just score for the love of God.

That would be because he hasn't pitched in the big leagues since 2011.

Lake, Baxter, Hererra, and Ross comprise a historically inept group of bench bats.

On the plus side, we start the bottom of the 9th with Bryant, Rizzo, and...well, let's just hope they get the job done.

Clutch RBI single when runs are at a premium good. Thrown out at 2nd when runs are at a premium bad.

Before I go on, I'm going to make it perfectly, perfeclty, perfectly clear that I do not want Ryan Braun. However, if there's a team in desperate need of a rebuild, and has the assets to get the ball rolling, it's the Brewers. Braun has a .269/.344/.521/.865 with 12 HR on the year. And it's realistic to expect him to sustain that pace over the next few years. His contract gets very ugly after this year: between 2016-2020, it goes 20/20/20/19/17.) Clearly, the Brewers didn't expect him to age at a slightly less alarming rate than Walter Donovan. Nevertheless, It's not unrealistic to see a free spending AL team pick up a sizable chunk of that and offer a decent prospect package to go with it. The Yankees, Angels, Mariners, Tigers, and Jays are all fits. And in the NL, the Dodgers, Mets, and Nats could potentially take a chance on him, despite being 2-3 years away from DH-hood. Now I get why The Brewers are reluctant to go in all out fire sale mode. Big market teams can tank a few years and continue to generate revenue. But small market guys aren't always so lucky. If the fans turn away in mass, that's bad. And there's already talk of the Bucks skipping town in the near future, and that's following their best season in years. On one hand, it's easy to say that a team should not make decisions to appease meatball fans. But a baseball team is first and foremost a business, and every business must keep its customers happy. But their best course of action would be to move Braun and Gomez for some blue chip help, and agressively shop Ramirez, Lohse, Garza, K-Rod, and Lind for what they can get sooner than later.

The key to online journalism is generating clicks by any means necessary. And Olney seems to good at that.

Speaking of the Astros, it just came to my attention that they have the number 2 and 5 picks in the draft, and a CB pick at 37. Glad to see them in the AL.

I had never heard of Dallas Keuchal until this year. Looks like he was quite good last year, but that's when I was following baseball primarily via box scores. And it doesn't look like he was particularly special prior to that, nor does he appear to have been much of a big time prospect. You act as though I'm asking who's Lance Lynn.

I still don't understand why we'd go carcas picking with the A's and not go after Reddick. Speaking of carcas picking, I'm wondering if the Brewers would be willing to come out of Carlos Gomez. When healthy, he'd be a perfect #2 or #5 bat in even the toughest lineup. 29 with a year under team control Perhaps if moved to left, he'd be a bit less fragile. And if there's a team out there that really needs to rebuild, it's the Brewers.

He's only 27? Christ, I feel as though it was a lifetime ago when last we had him. I didn't realize until now that he only cracked a top 100 list once at #98 in 2010. For what it's worth, he seems to be doing very well for himself this year.

The PCL did not offer Carl Jr. a particularly friendly welcome. Over at the VSL, Carlos A. Rodriguez did what he's always done at the VSL and DSL. Maybe he'll earn another chance on our end of the pond soon.

The sooner he can get his mojo back and we can get rid of Herrera or Baxter or some other crappy bench player the better. i agree, but herrera basically doesn't play. there's no point in calling up alcantara so that he can make one plate appearance per week. if he's called up, he would need to see spot starts at 2b and cf. he's been a lot worse against RHP in his major league career, which doesn't make him an ideal platoon guy with fowler and russell, but i'm not sure if that's just a small sample size thing for mendy. He'd be used as a super sub, and if his future is with the Cubs, it's probably where he'll be. And that's by no means meant as a knock on him.

When prospects "graduate," I don't think they update the entire list so much as push everyone else up another spot and then add two guys to the list. So when Soler and then Bryant were removed, everyone else moved up a spot, and Null and Lockhart were plugged into the end of the list. But I could be wrong.

Is there any future in caring either way about Gerardo Concepcion at this point?

4 runs vs. a solid starting pitcher and a very tough bullpen sounds like a balanced meal to me.

He's 33 and hasn't been serviceable since 2009. The only flier worth reading on Grady Sizemore is an obituary.

Per MLB.com, with Bryant and Soler both off the top 30, Null checks in at 29.

With Theo (and I think Jed as well,) being an attorney in his past life, one thing he excels at is giving a straight answer that's not straight, and he's likely coached his guys on doing the same. IE: And you were how certain before? These are the same guys who draw up every medical consent form that states, in a nutshell that nothing ever goes wrong, except for when it does, which is rare, but very possible, but if it does, we can in no way be held responsible and are still entitled to payment in full.

Mendy's past 10 games: .333/.409/.564/.973. 5BB, 7K, 2HR. I figure worst case scenario, his bat couldn't be any more of a wet noodle than Herrera's.

In 23.2 IP, Carl Jr. has 17/36 BB/K, 1.18 WHIP, and 2.66 ERA. Not sure what his arb. timeline looks like, but being that he's already on the 40 man...

To clarify, there's aren't guys I'd lose sleep over, with the exceptions of Johnson, Vogelbach, Black, and maybe Pinyero, who will be protected regardless. Just guys who could possibly be on the big league roster by year's end (Francescan, Cooper,) or simply those that they might feel the urge to protect (Candelerio, Torrez,) though not ready to make it a full season on a big league roster. The two that are the most intriguing are Paniague and Concepcion, eaxh of whose futures are likely to be decided over the course of this season anyway.