XZero771679666304

Yeah, you can easily say the same thing about Lester. That's how it is with top tier FA pitching, but as others have mentioned, one of the luxuries afforded to the FO because of having this glut of young, cheap positional talent is the ability to grab more than one of the high priced targets (assuming payroll will increase as the renovations progress and revenue increases). I'm not advocating signing Price, but if that's what the FO decides they want to do, there's not a lot preventing them from doing so.

Even more so than Lester, imo. As you point out, he's been making comments for while now. Then Epstein/Hoyer talked about "not getting all the SP in one offseason. Maddon's hiring, for me, was the clincher. The Cubs seem to be Price's clear preference, and if the Cubs don't make a serious run at him, I'll be stunned. It has the feel of inevitability.

It actually went like this, didn't it? http://i.imgur.com/nviEYK6.gif yes.

So was the one to Bruce. Looks like a big zone tonight.

to me the worst of it is he's such a nice guy, I feel like a jerk for hating his pbp so much. it's just awkward. and hughes isn't the same this year either, he just sounds sick and/or tired. I love pat. but I think some changes are in store for the radio team. I felt the same way about Joe Carter's color commentary. And I remember Pat being a lot better. And [expletive] [expletive] of fuckery.

The most amazing thing about it is that this gets asked every game. These past two games are the first ones I've listened to on radio (out of necessity) in years. What I've heard of Ron's pbp is some of the worst I've heard in my life. Most of the time he seems incapable of actually relaying what is happening. I'm sure people in the Chicago area are used to this, but it's sort of stunning to me that he's allowed to do it. I can't wait until this series is over so I can get back to the TV broadcasts, because this is just painful to listen to.

Why do they have Coomer do pbp at all? It's just excruciatingly bad.

He's undergoing a little babip correction, it's not like he's been exposed and is up there flailing helplessly or something. And it's not like we were going to get a .900 OPS out of him regardless.

huh? He's having a bit of a cold stretch. .143 .250 .214 .464 over the last week. Hopefully he'll bounce back to his career levels soon. Seemed odd to say after he hit a ball about 380 feet to the opposite field and barely missed a HR remember, even in game threads, there's like a 50/50 chance at best that mojo actually is watching the cubs Montero has really scalded a number of balls that went for outs recently. I'm not too concerned.

This post feels like it should be from mojo or omc. Where the hell have you been I've watched every game not versus the DBacks. The Arizona games are the only ones I get completely blacked out of. I had EI before this year (I have MLB.tv now) and didn't have access to the radio feed. Now I'm kind of thankful, because it's awful.

I'm blacked out so I am listening to the radio feed for the first time in years. Who is the clown in the booth with Pat? He is awful.

You should be, you bastard.

I would say that those two things have a lot to do with each other. I'm not even saying teams need to full on tank, but when you find yourself in a position where you're heading into a year (or couple years) where competition looks like a real long shot you might be better served by looking to make the team a couple years down the road a lot better, as opposed to trying to keep the coming year's team simply palatable. Doing both isn't always an option, especially when you have limited resources. Milwaukee isn't going to win in the next year or two. The don't have enough big league talent, they don't have the money to get impact talent, and they have no impact players in the pipeline. What they do have is two guys they can turn into young, MLB ready talent, and a few they can parlay into role players and lottery tickets. Or they can hold on to them, maybe win ~75 games this year and next, and then get nothing or next to nothing. I mean, is there really a choice there? This isn't the 2012-14 Cubs where there was (probably) a lot of money left unspent. Teams with resources and smart management can make the "let's maximize every season" model sustainable and effective. But smaller market teams, even the smart ones (Rays and A's, for example) have to be willing to give up on a season here and there. If the Brewers wait until late next year to do anything, their path to being good again gets longer.

They don't. Both Houston and the Cubs only tanked for 3 (though both were bad before doing so) and they both look to be at the least decent this year. If you need 5, you're an inept franchise. Right. But you need a plan (especially if you're a mid-small market team). If you just kind half try, you end up mired in mediocrity for a really long time. We've seen plenty of examples of that over the past 20 years. Like the Brewers from 1993-2006. Or the Reds for almost all of the 2000s. Or the Royals and Pirates for two decades.

That's a nice sentiment, but it happens all the time, especially to smaller market teams. And Milwaukee really emptied the tank trying to win before their window closed. But they won't have to wait that long, if they play their cards well. Maybe not to win as in make the playoffs, but be decent. I just think the division is going to be too stacked at the top for them to to crack the playoffs in the next few years. I'm not one to take any consolation from being decent, though. If you're not competing for playoff spots, you're losing, and one kind of losing is not better than another. They might not be in this position if they had drafted better in recent years, but that didn't happen. But I'm not a Brewer fan, and I'm glad for it.

Or you could record the Cubs game and watch it as soon as the Bulls game is over.

They're not going to compete for playoff spots over the next few years whether they fire sale or not. They don't have the talent or resources to stand much of a chance against the Cards/Cubs/Pirates in the short term. So they can fight in futility and be simply bad for several years, or they can fire sale and be awful for a couple years. Their fans will recede into the woodwork for a while, but they're fair weather, and they'll come back if they get good again. Gomez and Lucroy are the two big trade chips they have, and they need to cash them in. They're also the ones the might stubbornly hold on to, but they're not young kids anymore, and both will reach FA soon. If they get serious about re-infusing the club with young, premium talent, they're the ones who will have to go. Unfortunately for them, both have been injured. But if they wait until next year, they lose value because they will be short term rentals to the team acquiring them. The rest of their vets should go, but they're not going to bring premium returns. Braun is nigh untradeable at this point. But if I'm being honest, I don't see a lot of winning for them over the next five years or so regardless of what they do. The might as well set up for the future beyond that as best they can.

Based what little I've read, Mark Attanasio seems to be under the delusion that they have everything they need, and he doesn't understand why they are losing. I think he's laying most of this at the feet of Roenicke, and Melvin to a lesser degree. I think he thinks the Brewers can still compete this year. The best thing that could happen for the Brewers is if they continue to tank to the point that management is dispossessed of any notion that the current roster should be kept together. That team's window is firmly shut, and they need to burn it down. Or I could be wrong and they want their long term choice in place when the returns from the fire sale join the team.

Absolutely.

Some people say they know there are going to be growing pains with such a young roster, but then seem to forget it. It's going to be an up and down year, but it should be entertaining.

Edwards with a nice outing, too, giving up nothing with two strikeouts in two innings.

Up to the Pirates series, the Cards played one of the weakest schedules in baseball, and then won three consecutive extra inning games. They're the best team in the division, but they're also due for a correction. It may or may not come against us, but they're not going to keep playing .750 ball.

Is whiffing on strikes better than whiffing on unhittable pitches? Is it better to be Brett Jackson/Junior Lake/Mike Olt or Javier Baez/Corey Patterson? What is the sound of one hand clapping? It seems to me that Soler is pressing, and if he shores up one particular area of the zone (low and away, where he is making no contact at all), he'll be fine. We're not talking about a guy who is swinging at 40-50% of balls (like Lake or Baez), or who is unable to hit good strikes (he's not a contact machine, but did a pretty good job of it last year in a similar sample size). Right now, I see a guy who usually shows decent-good plate discipline who is mixed up and pressing, putting himself in bad situations. If this doesn't begin to resolve itself over the next few weeks, I'll get more concerned, but as of now I don't see the same cause for terror that I did with the guys you listed.

Very frustrating that K-Rod threw a hanger down the middle to Russell, and again to Soler, and neither drew a swing. The way their ABs ended didn't help.