How does a Brewers rotation of Adam Wainwright, Jered Weaver, Madison Bumgarner and Yovani Gallardo sound to you?

[prophet]

These shoulda coulda discussions are fun, but kinda pointless. Every team could have picked somebody better. It's the same way if you look at your fantasy football team at the end of the year, and realize the amount of points they could have scored with a little bit of hindsight. I mean didn't every team in the majors pass on Pujols, like 16 times?

[LouisEly]

Mike Jones was doing OK until he got hurt; you have to wonder about the jump from 33IP in 2001 to 138 in 2002. Same thing happened with JM Gold; he jumped from 20IP in 1998 to 112 in 1999 and then got hurt the next year, and Rogers jumped from 26 in 2004 to 98 in 2005. I had a friend who played in the Brewers minor league system around that time and he said that the organizational philosophy (at least in A-ball) was to put high school pitchers as starters and college pitchers in the bullpen. The theory was that HS pitchers would get more development and "catch up" to the college pitchers by starting. You have to wonder how much the jump in innings hurt the development of these guys.

 

Go back and look at Nick Neugebauer's minor league numbers. They are both sick and will make you sick. As a 19 year old in 128 innings he gave up 78 hits and struck out 174... but he also walked 134. That has to be one of the most amazing minor league seasons ever by a pitcher. But between the walks and strikeouts you have to wonder how many pitches he was throwing in those starts. Same thing with Rogers - he "only" threw 98 innings in his 2nd pro season, but with 70 walks and 110 K's you have to wonder how many pitches he was throwing.

 

What if they had taken their time with those guys like they did with Odorizzi? Would it be a different story? Gallardo had a big jump in innings from his first year to his second; maybe because he walked fewer he had less stress on his arm, maybe he was the exception not the rule.