–Take a look at this video. You stay classy, Philadelphia.
You know, for all the joking flak that Philly gets for violence in the stands and being the faux City of Brotherly Love, there are quite a few little incidents that back up the stereotype.
It’s fun for me to hate Philadelphia because I’m still mad about them beating Milwaukee in the Wild Card last year and this play continues to leave a bitter taste in my mouth, but the truth is Philly’s no worse or better than any other major league park with a passionate fan base and you’d be hard-pressed to find a Brewers-Cubs game with the same feel of a game played in St. Louis.
–Coming from Jayson Stark’s latest column is this little tidbit:
Clubs that have spoken to the Brewers report they’ve been adamant in saying they won’t talk about Mat Gamel or shortstop prospect Alcides Escobar, even for front-line pitching. And after that, said an official of one club they spoke with, “there’s a pretty sizable falloff” to their next wave of potentially available prospects (Lorenzo Cain, Taylor Green, Caleb Gindl). That’s one reason Hardy’s name has started to show up on the rumor circuit. But with so little starting pitching worth pursuing, Milwaukee is another club that might not find the kind of pitching it’s hunting for.
With both Jake Peavy and Erik Bedard going on the DL it’s clear the pitching market has thinned to the point where Brad Penny is the best available pitcher that can be realistically traded for. So if the pitching market is so thin, why is J.J. Hardy continually being thrown around in rumors? As I said before, I would be much more open to trading Alcides Escobar over J.J. Hardy because despite a seasonlong slump so far he’s still one of the elite shortstops in the game and Escobar’s survived entirely on hype by scouts so far.
To put it differently, I’d go so far as to say that Escobar is vastly overrated and I honestly wouldn’t mind trading him to get that 5th starter that Milwaukee seems to be salivating over. I would trade Escobar for Red Sox prospect Clay Buchholz, an All-Star pitcher in the making who’s wating away AAA players right now to the tune of 65 strikeouts and 17 walks in 73 innings and is still the ripe old age of 25. He’d instantly be our #2 or #3 starter.
If Bedard remains on the DL, and there is no pitching available on the market, I see no reason not to make a trade assuming Manny Parra can right his ship in AAA. Brad Penny isn’t much of an upgrade at all over any of our other options and if we ended up losing a legitimate prospect like Taylor Green for Penny or someone similar I wouldn’t quite care for the move.
– Jeremy Jeffress has improved since being demoted to Single-A Brevard County but still hasn’t improved his stock enough to me to consider him a legitimate prospect yet. Take a look at his numbers between AA-Huntsville and A-Brevard County:
AA-Hunstvile: 27 1/3IP, 34K, 33BB, 7.57 ERA
A-Brevard County: 28IP, 34K, 18BB, 1.93 ERA
Pretty much the only difference he’s made so far is that he’s been able to cut down on the walks, but to be honest with you I don’t think Jeffress is going to make it to major leagues — and if he does, it won’t be as a starter. I could easily see him being the next Jorge Julio and bounce around teams while continually failing for them with his high walk and strikeout rates. Milwaukee’s pitching depth is thinner than most people think.
