2019 Misc MLB News

[CrewFanBrewMan69]

Of course he goes 3-5 in his first game and also has a near miss HR.

[JimH5]

I hope Lucroy doesn’t record a hit and commits an absurd amount of errors with the Cubs, especially against the Brewers. The Brewers clearly made the right call trading the guy, he’s been league average at best ever since, and we got a piece back that was used to acquire the NL MVP. Very weird to be a Brewers fan that wants him to get “redemption” against the Brewers when he wanted to be traded and Stearns obliged him.

 

He just wanted to get paid and to play for a contender. The same as any of us would want. At that point in the franchise, it wasn't clear when the team would be good.

 

And being a baseball fan means accepting 60 or more losses per year. If one of those comes at the hand of a former star, so be it, and good for him. He should have some joy considering all he gave us.

[adambr2]

I don't care if he lied about the suitcase thing, but it seems really weird if it were made up for your story to involve throwing your wife under the bus. There are a million stories you can make up that don't do that.

 

Speculating is a horrible thing to do on an internet message board, but I'm going to do it anyway....They got in a fight, Lucroy punched a door or wall or refrigerator or something... broke his hand...and got one last word in to his wife...

 

If your speculation is correct, as a married man myself trust me when I say he is likely still paying for that decision to this very day.

[pacopete4]

We sure fall in love with our own. Lucroy had a couple of nice seasons for the Brewers but overall was just a solid player. He didn’t deserve big money from us (or anyone). Instead of being a leader on a young team, he wanted to be dealt to a contender and made that clear. That resonates in a clubhouse. When being dealt to a contender, he scoffed at having to beat out another catcher the following year. Now I see a Brewers “fan” that wants him to have success against us in a season where we literally need all the wins we can get?

[adambr2]

"I want to win and I don't see us winning in the foreseeable future. I want to go to a World Series. That's what all players want. Rebuilding is not a lot of fun for any veteran guy."

 

"Yeah, absolutely. I want to win," he said. "It's not guaranteed that I'm going to win if I am traded. But I'm going to be a 30-year-old catcher (in June). I can't put numbers on how much longer I'm going to play, but as players we want to win. I don't care about the money; I just want to win. That's the bottom line."

 

"If I stay with the Brewers, I'm not going to go out and dog it," said Lucroy, who has limited no-trade protection in his contract. "I'm not going to be a bad teammate. I'm not going to be a bad clubhouse guy. I'm not going to be bitter. It's just part of the game.

 

"Right now, I'm planning on being with the Brewers. I'm not going to think anything different until something happens. It might and it might not. No one knows. I'm going to go out every day and compete with whatever team I'm with.

 

I still can't believe there are Brewer fans upset enough over these comments to wish ill upon the best catcher in our team history. Also never mentioned in these conversations is his emphasis in the last two paragraphs that he understands the business part of things if he doesn't get dealt and he's going to continue to work hard and be a good teammate either way.

 

If anything, I respect him more for his candor and honesty. If these comments really make you dislike Lucroy, please don't ever get upset when a player gives a fake, canned answer to avoid making headlines.

[adambr2]

We sure fall in love with our own. Lucroy had a couple of nice seasons for the Brewers but overall was just a solid player. He didn’t deserve big money from us (or anyone). Instead of being a leader on a young team, he wanted to be dealt to a contender and made that clear. That resonates in a clubhouse. When being dealt to a contender, he scoffed at having to beat out another catcher the following year. Now I see a Brewers “fan” that wants him to have success against us in a season where we literally need all the wins we can get?

 

He was worth over 30 fWAR in 6 seasons for us. I would call that a little more than just a solid player.

 

I am glad we didn't pay him but he most definitely deserved big money. He's probably one of the most underpaid guys for his career production that you'll ever find.

 

And Lucroy's reasons for exercising his NTC to Cleveland are no one's business but his. Maybe he just didn't want to be in Cleveland. These NTCs are a right earned by the player and it's their contractual right to use them. If Ryan Braun were traded to Boston in the offseason and refused to go, no one would be questioning why or vilifying him for it.

[Eye Black]

Lucroy had a couple of nice seasons for the Brewers but overall was just a solid player.

In 2014 at age 28 he had the third highest WAR in the National League (6.6 bWAR), finished 4th in the MVP voting, led all of baseball in doubles (53), had a .301 BA / .373 OBP / .465 SLG slash line, and was considered an elite pitch framer. That season probably deserves a different adjective than “nice” in my opinion.

[JimH5]

We sure fall in love with our own. Lucroy had a couple of nice seasons for the Brewers but overall was just a solid player. He didn’t deserve big money from us (or anyone). Instead of being a leader on a young team, he wanted to be dealt to a contender and made that clear. That resonates in a clubhouse. When being dealt to a contender, he scoffed at having to beat out another catcher the following year. Now I see a Brewers “fan” that wants him to have success against us in a season where we literally need all the wins we can get?

 

True, my fandom doesn't line up perfectly with yours, or within the parameters of what you deem acceptable. Isn't that something...

 

The Brewers (aka "we" in your parlance) might need all the wins they can get, but they're not going to win them all. And the Cubs aren't going to lose them all, either.

 

Recognizing that, would you rather the Brewers lose on a Schwarber walkoff, a Jason Heyward game saving catch, a(nother) Jose Quintana gem, or a Lucroy clutch hit?

 

The Lucroy outcome would be bittersweet, while every other loss would just be bitter.

 

He was a great Brewer. And my admiration for him didn't end when he left the team. How dare I wish good things happen to him.

[PeaveyFury]

How dare I wish good things happen to him.

 

I mean, I suppose it's possible to root for a team to lose while rooting for a player on said team to still do well. But I also think it's fair to question whether those interests inherently don't lineup real well.

 

But I don't fault Lucroy for wanting to win, and I certainly don't think the Brewers did him ill in a way that should cause Lucroy or fans of him to want him to 'stick it to the organization' or anything like that either.

[OldSchoolSnapper]

I don't particularly have any special love for Lucroy. I just thought his comments were benign and that it was within his rights to not go to Cleveland because of Gomes, because his ex gf lives there or because he didn't like the smell. It was an existing clause in his contract. Why players are just supposed to give up things in their personal interests just to be jolly old team players always blows my mind.

[pacopete4]

I don't particularly have any special love for Lucroy. I just thought his comments were benign and that it was within his rights to not go to Cleveland because of Gomes, because his ex gf lives there or because he didn't like the smell. It was an existing clause in his contract. Why players are just supposed to give up things in their personal interests just to be jolly old team players always blows my mind.

He has every right to do it and did. But someone has every right to question him about it too. He spit out his quotes on all a player wants to do is win a WS. Well that was obviously a lie because he would’ve jumped all over that trade at the time as Gomes was abysmal that season. But it is what it is. I don’t have any ill will towards him (or any player) just think he’s kind of a tool and is a bit overrated by many Brewers fans.

[Baldkin]

I enjoyed this article.... can't believe it's been 25 years.

 

https://sports.yahoo.com/august-11-1994-scenes-from-a-lost-season-042806980.html

[JimH5]

How dare I wish good things happen to him.

 

I mean, I suppose it's possible to root for a team to lose while rooting for a player on said team to still do well. But I also think it's fair to question whether those interests inherently don't lineup real well.

 

But I don't fault Lucroy for wanting to win, and I certainly don't think the Brewers did him ill in a way that should cause Lucroy or fans of him to want him to 'stick it to the organization' or anything like that either.

 

I just think that in the aftermath of the Braun scandal, the organization leaned heavily on Lucroy as a marketing prop. Braun was the face of the franchise as the homegrown MVP superstar in the mold of Yount and Molitor. He was front and center the main attraction, a great player, a good guy who signed a long term deal to be the next Hall of Fame Brewer.

 

And then he failed a drug test and all of that blew up and he became radioactive, and he left a void in their whole publicity campaign. Braun was suspended. He was off of billboards and stadium posters and program covers. He had an untradeable contract and was booed at home and on the road.

 

And so they turned to Lucroy to be their next showpiece guy. He was great with the military. He was an overachiever. He worked his way from being an unknown to an All Star. He was quiet and stoic. He put in the hard work at the most demanding position and got beat up with foul tips and squatting. He was concussed. He was sort of the AntiBraun.

 

And he never made more than $3 million with the team, while they still found money for Lohse ($11M per) and Garza ($12.5M per), and were still paying Braun his $20M seasons.

 

And then when it came time to extend Lucroy, the guy who helped them rebound from the biggest scandal in the history of the team, they decide to cut bait.

 

It's a business, for sure, and he did fine in making money in his post-Brewers career. And it was probably better for the Brewers, too, to not be tied up to a 30+ year old catcher during a rebuild. But the Brewers really, really got more than they paid for in Lucroy, both as an on field performer, and in a guy who brought them back from a low point in public perception.

 

So I root for him, even though he is now a hated rival. To me, he represents every hardworking guy who was overlooked by his employer. Sometimes it's good to see them come out on top.

[sveumrules]

I don’t have any ill will towards him (or any player) just think he’s kind of a tool and is a bit overrated by many Brewers fans.

 

Overrated? He's objectively the best catcher in franchise history.

 

I don't see anyone saying he's HOF.

[OldSchoolSnapper]

Man, that 2011 team was good. All this Lucroy talk sending me down memory lane. As much as last year stings, I never got the feeling they "should" have beaten the Dodgers and they definitely wouldn't have been favored to beat Boston. But that 2011 team was realistically the best in baseball.

[jerichoholicninja]

After lighting it up the first couple months Jonathan Schoop has turned back into Jonathan Sch-uck. His OPS is a little over .600 since the break and he appears to have lost his starting job.

[Lathund]

In 6½ seasons with the Brewers, Lucroy averaged 5.5 fWAR. In total fWAR from 2010-2016 (Does include his first half season with the Rangers) his 37 is second only to Buster Posey (44) among catchers, and 8th most overall behind Trout, Posey, Cabrera, Cano, Beltre, McCutchen and Votto. If that's the standard for "solid", I wouldn't mind a team full of even "pretty solid" or "decent" or "OK" guys.

[nate82]

MLB published the 2020 schedule and the opening day series is against the Cubs.

[tmwiese55]

MLB published the 2020 schedule and the opening day series is against the Cubs.

 

Just looking at this. Being that we have a dome, what is the point of opening on Thurs and having Friday off? Friday opening days are kind of the best you can ask for, I think 2012 vs STL was a Fri opening day and it was by far the best opening day experience I've had. I also want to say they started the game at 3 or 4 as well.

[madbad2000]

Dang it, the Brewers finally come to Baltimore for a series the year after I move away. I would highly recommend a road trip to Camden Yards.

[stoutdude04]

I think the wife and I may travel to Boston for the weekend series. Possibly San Diego, but we went there for our honeymoon, so I doubt she wants to do that again

[BruisedCrew]

MLB published the 2020 schedule and the opening day series is against the Cubs.

 

I also see that all 3 home Cubs series are on weekends.

[MrTPlush]

MLB published the 2020 schedule and the opening day series is against the Cubs.

 

Just looking at this. Being that we have a dome, what is the point of opening on Thurs and having Friday off? Friday opening days are kind of the best you can ask for, I think 2012 vs STL was a Fri opening day and it was by far the best opening day experience I've had. I also want to say they started the game at 3 or 4 as well.

 

I would guess everyone starts Thursday and they want us to match?

[TURBO]

Reds claimed INF Freddy Galvis off waivers from the Blue Jays.

 

Galvis was sporting a career-high .743 OPS with 18 home runs through 115 games this season for the Blue Jays and holds a relatively inexpensive $5.5 million club option for 2020, so it's a bit of a surprise that Toronto placed him on waivers. It's even more surprising that he made it through all of the American League contenders in the waiver claim order before falling to the Reds. The 29-year-old should get semi-regular action between shortstop and second base in Cincinnati, and he could maybe move into a starting role next season. He'll meet up with the team on Tuesday in Washington, D.C.

 

Source: Shi Davidi on Twitter

Aug 12, 2019, 1:17 PM ET

[Zad Fnark]

Cards can asst hitting coach, Mark Budaska.

 

https://www.mlb.com/cardinals/news/cardinals-relieve-mark-budaska-of-duties

 

Scapegoat?