Futures Game 11:30 AM Central ESPN2; Set Your DVR's (Mat Gamel)

[battlekow]

Joe Sheehan on Will Inman:

Today, Inman provided a great lesson in the value of observation versus stats. He's had solid performance lines in his four professional season, and the stats make him look like a midrotation prospect. In person, he's…awkward. I'm not sure how you get to the third-highest level of your profession and still do things the way Inman does, but he has. He has the longest arm action I can remember seeing, the kind of motion you cringe while watching. It also should leave him very exposed to lefthanded hitters. I could see him as a Jeff Nelson reliever, which limits his innings and lets him chew up righties. Anything else…unlikely.

[Never Outhustled]

I still think the Linesink trade was horrible

Don't you mean potentially horrible? It's not horrible if these minor leaguers don't make a major league impact. In fact, it could turn out to be a great trade for the Brewers if Inman and Garrison turn out to be the low impact players most scouts would expect them to be, and Evan Frederickson and Cutter Dykstra fullfil there vast potential.

[uwisfan]

right now its way too early to call it a busted swap as pointed out. It helped bolster their bullpen for a shot at the playoffs and its tough to say Inman/Garrison are superior to Dykstra/Frederickson. Right now the deal still looks pretty even in spite of the moaning you'll hear from Maas. Hopefully the front office knew enough about these guys in their internal scouting to prefer the draft picks.

 

As for this year's CC deal, it can ONLY be good if the Brewers make the playoffs. There were just way too many dear trading chips for them not to win. And its totally fair to judge this by the outcome rather than potential as Doug should have a lot more insight into how the Brewers stack up to the wild card competition than us fans.

[Mass Haas]

Right now the deal still looks pretty even in spite of the moaning you'll hear from Maas.

I'm going to put the kibosh on this take right now. Heck, I had more of an issue with the lack of giving Joe Thatcher a test-run in Milwaukee first than I did the loss of the two kids. Folks need to stop mis-representing my take on this just because I'm providing the service of updating Will and Steve's linescores. As noted earlier, I stopped politicizing that thread long ago.

[dadofandrew]

I would tend to agree with Sheehan's assessment of Inman as a reliever. He did not look very good, that's for sure. He also looked very short...not a good sign for a RHP.

[Postseason2006]

What? Did you watch the game? He may have a funky delivery but he threw his fastball for an awesome K after throwing a huge yacker. The Melvinites are out....

[TheCrew07]

I would tend to agree with Sheehan's assessment of Inman as a reliever. He did not look very good, that's for sure. He also looked very short...not a good sign for a RHP.

I guess that depends on what you were looking for. He's not going to wow anyone with his stuff and his delivery is certainly long and funky... so I can see why scouts wouldn't be impressed. However, he located extremely well, mixed his pitches well inside and out, and showed pretty good reflexes so he appears to be a good athlete. He's just a kid a that knows how pitch but doesn't look like pitcher... if that make any sense.

[jjfanec]

What? Did you watch the game? He may have a funky delivery but he threw his fastball for an awesome K after throwing a huge yacker. The Melvinites are out....

I don't think you have to be a "Melvinite" to question Inman's future as a pro. John Sheenan's comments about him echo a couple other scouts assessments of Inman. I remember one saying back of the rotation kind of guy and another saying he would have to be a reliever. I could see either after watching him. I was surprised with how many breaking balls he threw. He located them very well, but he has seemed to struggle with that this year at times. He gets high pitch counts and has struggled to make it past five innings, so while he puts up very good numbers he does have some things that look to maybe limit him in the future. Obviously, he could figure all that out and become a great major leaguer but I just wanted to point out you don't have to love Melvin to question Inman's future.

 

[colbyjack]

I gotta admit, after watching Inman pitch yesterday I thought to myself "maybe that's why they dealt him."

 

The arm action works for him, but you really have to be concerned about his durability down the road. That extension has to put a tremendous amount of pressue on his pitching shoulder.

 

I'm not trying to be a Melvin apologist, and I'm not going to re-earth my thoughts on that trade, but it reminded me of how people always defend Billy Beane for trading certain pitchers when he does (such as Mark Mulder).

 

Anyway, it was nice to see some players we're familiar with play. Taylor Teagarden's throws from behind the plate were incredibly impressive.