Around The League Thread

[Kerb Hohl]

**** Reds.

Its somewhat comical how bad their pitching is. Its also somewhat comical how bad Lester has been. This is the danger the cubs are going to have to play with going forward. Signing vets to big money deals and them never coming close to earning their salaries.

You're acting like this is a novel idea. Of course they rarely do. The Cubs just won a World Series last year and probably will win the division with Zobrist, Heyward, Lackey as replacement-level players and Lester pitching as a #3/4 instead of an ace.

Of course they're a big market so they can absorb more of them, but the Brewers are going to have to dip their foot in the pool on this to a smaller degree.

If the Brewers sign 2 good players to elite player contracts next year and win a World Series they could bankrupt the franchise for all I care.

Eventually teams run out of gas on this (see: Tigers, Rangers, Angels never got off the ground, Royals signed the wrong guys, Giants)...but I'll take 5 years of LCS and WS appearances for it if it comes down to signing a few overpriced players now that we've built our system.

[wichmae]

Cmon Reds.

[Turk Nowitzki]

I'm just following along online and through Twitter but this game seems bananas. 12-10 Reds, heading to the bottom of the 8th.

[Turk Nowitzki]

Nice work Reds.

[coolhandluke121]

Rockies are gonna lose too. At the end of the day, the Brewers will be 1 game out of first and 4.5 out of both wild card spots, with nobody else closer to the WC to pass. That's key because that means only one of Arizona or Colorado would have to struggle for the Brewers to catch them. Arizona has some injury problems (surprise, surprise) and the Rockies aren't very good IMO, so I'm cautiously optimistic.

[El Duderino]

Rockies are gonna lose too. At the end of the day, the Brewers will be 1 game out of first and 4.5 out of both wild card spots, with nobody else closer to the WC to pass. That's key because that means only one of Arizona or Colorado would have to struggle for the Brewers to catch them. Arizona has some injury problems (surprise, surprise) and the Rockies aren't very good IMO, so I'm cautiously optimistic.

This coming road trip very well could determine whether the Brewers stay alive in the playoff race.

Finishing say 4-5 or 5-4 would be ok, but some sort of 2-7 type of trip could hard to overcome. We do though have seven games left with the Cubs, so who knows. Anderson coming back and pitching well would be big.

[tski1972]

the AL wild card is going to be nuts.

[blazza18]

Gennett hit another grand slam again. He has a higher slugging % than Thames and Braun lmao.

[Iheartfootball]

I can't believe the Reds sing sell high on him. This is the highest his value will ever be. He's gotta be worth something for a month or so.


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[ReasonablySober]

I knew Judge had been struggling for weeks, but holy ****. 37 games?

During his strikeout streak, the right fielder hit .178/.337/.370. For the sake of Judge and all who appreciate the large sweet dinger boy, may the end of the streak begin to signal an end to his struggles.

[coolhandluke121]

Gennett hit another grand slam again. He has a higher slugging % than Thames and Braun lmao.

That's just a shame. Imagine if they had had him instead of Villar all year. It's hard to blame them for giving up on him, but he did show some excellent slugging ability for a 2b when he was a Brewer.

The one reason you might be able to fault them is for their faith in Villar. There were lots of tense arguments about "selling high" on him because we don't know what kind of offers were available. Personally, I had absolutely no faith in him. I think people that dense and stupid find a way to fail no matter how talented they are, and that's true in any career. So I wanted to trade him for anything they can get, and I find it really hard to believe that no gm would have offered something of more value than what I expected him to ultimately have. I know some people think gm's wanted to see more success before they offered much for him, but that's only if you're holding out for an offer worthy of his 2016 stats, which you have no business doing.

[wichmae]

Gennet is also benefiting some from hitting in Great American Park. Miller park is a hitters park as well but GABP is probably tops in baseball. Gennett was a nice change of scenery guy for the Reds just like we had with Villar last season. Now lets see if their smart enough to maximize his value before he regresses to the norm. IM guessing the Reds arent that smart.

[Kerb Hohl]

Whatever your opinions were of Villar, the process of getting rid of Gennett was sound.

1. He was a platoon 2B.
2. He is bad at every other position. He's a "utility" guy now but he's an average corner OF and a terrible 3B.

His numbers are up because:
1. Great American Ballpark.
2. He is being nearly 100% shielded from LHP.

He's actually starting to cool down a bit.

[coolhandluke121]

I don't think anyone believes this is the real Scooter, but it's a whole lot of salt to throw on the "Villar sucks" wound. He would have had 2b against rhp's all to himself and Hernan could have played against lhp's. I'm sure his OPS would still translate to ~.800 at Miller Park.

[Kerb Hohl]

I don't think anyone believes this is the real Scooter, but it's a whole lot of salt to throw on the "Villar sucks" wound. He would have had 2b against rhp's all to himself and Hernan could have played against lhp's. I'm sure his OPS would still translate to ~.800 at Miller Park.

You've vocally supported Stearns though and I think the idea is that you trust the process of someone that you think is doing things right...

I think most GMs in the league, even with a negative view of Villar, would have assumed that Villar would put up a .700-.750 OPS at worst with more positional versatility...in which case, Scooter's roster spot just doesn't make sense. On top of all of that, they weren't even able to trade Scooter. That tells you how much the rest of the league valued Scooter. Sure, they knew that the Brewers had no place for him anymore, but if somebody thought Scooter was really this valuable, they'd have found a way to trade for him.

Point is, the process was right. One or two out of 10 moves you make like this will blow up in your face against the grain of the "right" thing to do.

[Kerb Hohl]

Might be too little, too late, but it's starting to become possible to consider the Marlins as a Wild Card threat.

[El Duderino]

I don't think anyone believes this is the real Scooter, but it's a whole lot of salt to throw on the "Villar sucks" wound. He would have had 2b against rhp's all to himself and Hernan could have played against lhp's. I'm sure his OPS would still translate to ~.800 at Miller Park.

You've vocally supported Stearns though and I think the idea is that you trust the process of someone that you think is doing things right...

I think most GMs in the league, even with a negative view of Villar, would have assumed that Villar would put up a .700-.750 OPS at worst with more positional versatility...in which case, Scooter's roster spot just doesn't make sense. On top of all of that, they weren't even able to trade Scooter. That tells you how much the rest of the league valued Scooter. Sure, they knew that the Brewers had no place for him anymore, but if somebody thought Scooter was really this valuable, they'd have found a way to trade for him.

Point is, the process was right. One or two out of 10 moves you make like this will blow up in your face against the grain of the "right" thing to do.

Yep

I'm sure the Pirates regret the Broxton trade, the Indians regret waiving Aguliar, Boston badly regrets trading Shaw for a guy who hasn't thrown a pitch for them, etc etc.

Think about it this way with Scooter. Stearns shopped him around the league and couldn't find any takers before then waiving him. If other GM's thought Scooter would hit anywhere near like this, Stearns would have received something in a trade, even just a minor piece. That's baseball. Things like this happen all of the time.

[coolhandluke121]

I don't disagree with any of that, and I agree that Scooter didn't earn that consideration. But again, the one place where you can fault them is not their failure to believe in Scooter but rather their faith in Villar. We've argued about it ad nauseum, but some of us wanted to trade Villar for the best package they could possibly get regardless of whether the return was even remotely worthy of the numbers he put up last year. I know most gm's wouldn't have given up much, but they wouldn't have given up something.

No matter what the average gm thought of Villar, I almost guarantee that my opinion of him was lower than 90% of theirs or more. I watched the defense and the base-running errors and concluded that he was gonna be trash. That's where I fault the Brewers. Keeping Scooter would have just been a bonus, but at least they would have kept him. Asset management is they game they didn't play well in this case. I'm not a draft guru or scout or anything like that and I probably would lose a good deal of money betting on baseballl, but if there's one thing I've always been really good at in every sport I'm a fan of, it's listening to those little nagging doubts about a player and wanting to cash in on him much earlier than almost anyone else. I've been accused of being excessively negative and pessimistic and wanting to trade nearly every young player the Bucks and Brewers have ever had (not true - I just get in a lot of protracted arguments about certain players so that's the reputation I have), but I haven't really been off-base in my skepticism.

[BUCKnation]

Poor Rich Hill, losing his perfect game in the 9th on an error then finishing off the no hitter only to go to extras

[BUCKnation]

And then he goes out there in the 10th and gets walked off by the first batter