John Barry's Sports Blog
True Blue Brew Crew
Memo to Doug Melvin: Ryan Braun was only saying what the rest of us die-hard fans have thought for the last month and a half. You need to make a move, and you need to make it now. If highly-regarded prospects Gamel and Escobar need to be included in any package, so be it. Quit saying there are no deals to be made. Baloney! Look at the Pirates. Teams are always looking to dump salary and take on hot prospects. And aim big. Go after Roy Halladay. So what if he costs you an arm and a leg. If it's your best chance to do anything in the playoffs, and you continue to draw nearly sold out crowds to Miller Park, take the risk. But please do something. I can't handle any more Bill Hall appearances or Jason Kendall wearing down once again because you refuse to give him any rest. Braun was out of line in bashing his teammates, but someone had to. Hopefully Doug, you got the message.
Jul 10, 2009 at 11:03 a.m.
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I agree they need to get Billy Hall a spot on the bench that he can glue his butt to! Or send him down to AAA. He is not helping the team any,so loose him! we do need some good pitchers though, They need to keep their eyes open for good ones to put in the pen. However, I love the brewers and am still hoping for a winning season!! Go Crew!!!!
Jul 10, 2009 at 9:42 a.m.
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I agree with you to a certain point John, but throwing in your two most prized prospects isn't good for the organization in the future. I think there is a way to bolster the pen, and to do it with prospects in the lower leagues. The Brewers have been rated as the best team in regards to developing their own players in the past 10 years. Which goes to show that they do have a lot of talent in the farm system. But they have invested too many years in the development of Escobar and Gamel that it doesn't make good baseball or business sense to move them. Halladay is the top prize this year, much like CC was last year, and the Brewers shot the moon last year and landed CC knowing there was only an extremely thin chance to re-sign him. I don't know how many times you can do that. There were grumblings that they may go after Javier Vasquez from Atlanta 6-7 but a 2.95 ERA, or a Dan Haren from the DBacks or maybe both if they can swing it. Haren would be costly, but if you bolster your team like that, then loosing some of your top prospects isn't so devistating.
Forget about moving Bill Hall. They can take his $6.9 million salary and let him swap stories with the batboy about how he hit 35 HR's in a season. You would think for a guy that in the past three seasons has struck out 31% of the time, he would find it in his heart or for his own good, reason to change his approach to hitting. But no, not Bill Hall. He thinks they're dissing him, but he's the one that's laughing on his way to the bank. Hopefully he has a different profession that he's going to look into, because the only team that would pick him up would be the 1983 Cubs. Remember the good ol days of Lee Elia.
They could also ship out Gerut, trade Villaneuva to the AL. We have to have some more flat billed rag arms in the farm system that could do more than pitch batting practice in the 7th/8th innings.
Jul 10, 2009 at 9:31 a.m.
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the tools are there. just something missing. namely a 4 and 5 pitcher:) or a 3 4 an 5 for that matter:) but if parra an bush can be competetive an we can trade for a pitcher we more than have a shot. get our offense hot at the right time and no one can stop us...other than our own pitching staff:) i believe...
Jul 10, 2009 at 9:03 a.m.
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JOhn I agree, Up until last year I have been a season ticket holder, this year a 20 game holder. The Brewers need to make a lot of changes, and I mean a lot, Iam not going to single out a few players everyone knows who they are anyway,
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