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July Transactions; Latest: OF Ryan Knox back to AA

MassBrew

By MassBrew,
in Brewers Minor League Talk

MassBrew Wisconsin Timber Rattlers

MassBrew

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Indianapolis OF/1B Doug Jennings has been activated from the restricted list.

 

Right as scheduled, July 12th.

 

While not confirmed, we imagine this means Ryan Knox is on his way back to Huntsville, just in time for David Krynzel's tour of duty in the Futures Game. Maybe even in time for Saturday night.

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MassBrew Wisconsin Timber Rattlers

MassBrew

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You are correct, bork, Ryan Knox did not have to go back to Huntsville. Indy's roster is set just as you state now.

 

And Huntsville has its 12 position players as well. Short on outfielders, but try telling that to someone in High Desert and getting some compassion there.

 

I think the simple assumption was that Knox would head back based on specifics we had read out of the Huntsville Times, and that other moves would be made at AA.

 

You are definitely going to go through periods of the year where each affiliate is unbalanced. Huntsville's fortunate that Luis Martinez and Pedro Liriano can be expected for 6-7 innings each and every time out. Let's say Martinez is uncustomarily roughed up tonight. While not Power 50 superstars, Huntsville bullpen arms like Ryan Miller and Matt Parker are big-league candidates. There is potential for trouble in such a currently short pen in terms of use, not in terms of wins and losses, which is secondary.

 

In the High Desert broadcast the other night, it was mentioned that LHP Jeff Hundley would be the perfect High Desert candidate to go to AA. He's 26 years old, has AA and AAA experience in the Angels' system, and has pitched well as of late. Basically just looking to suck up some spare innings for the Stars...

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batman First Round Pick

batman

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According to the Stars' broadcast, the Brewers signed LHP Doug Davis yesterday and sent him to Huntsville. He'll pitch tomorrow night and probably will be moved up to Indianapolis thereafter. Davis was designated for assignment by the Blue Jays, where he had made 12 starts, but he refused and became a free agent.

 

This isn't exactly high-profile, but Davis looks like a great pickup. He's 27 and is another product of the Texas system. His ESPN profile is here.

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MassBrew Wisconsin Timber Rattlers

MassBrew

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Batman, just wanted to say that if I didn't have to kiss my daughter goodnight, I would've closed that six minute gap between our posts.

 

Then again, I wouldn't trade that kiss for the world...

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batman First Round Pick

batman

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If I had a daughter, I probably would have kissed her goodnight, too. Your tardiness is forgiven http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/happy.gif.

 

It'll be interesting to see if he makes his way to Milwaukee in short order... with Nance struggling and Foster back down again, they might want to give another lefty a chance.

 

Melvin must have a pager that alerts him to any release of a former-Ranger. The guy's automatic.

 

~Bill

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Jopal78 First Round Pick

Jopal78

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" He's apparently got a great cut fastball, but had injury problems. "

 

And with 30 walks and only 27 strike outs he apparently could not get the ball over the plate in Toronto too.

However, with a good fastball he already probably can do just as well as Burba (of course Dave hasn't set the bar very high! http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/laugh.gif )

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mothershipconnection First Round Pick

mothershipconnection

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His 5.10 career ERA at least indicates that he'll prevent us from having to endure another prolonged Rusch of Ruby loss streak. This is seemingly a can't lose situation: a guy who can stop the bleeding for peanuts. My only question is: does he have a Wright of Roa-like clause in his contract requiring his addition to the 25-man within a specified timeframe? I would assume he would have asked for that given that we got him because he demanded his release rather than be sent to AAA.
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MassBrew Wisconsin Timber Rattlers

MassBrew

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Taken from the Link Report for Monday's games:

 

2003 32nd round pick Bill Lewis, a middle infielder out of TCU, only appeared in one game with Helena early on. Helena staff could only confirm that he is injured at this time, but had no update for us on the nature or severity of the injury, or whether Lewis was officially placed on their DL. We'll see if we can follow-up with the big league Brewers.

 

Ask and we shall receive:

 

Lewis' shoulder has been bothering him. He has been working on strengthening it the past few weeks and should be back shortly. He has been officially on the DL since 6/21.

 

Thanks again to the folks with the Brewers helping us out with our occasional inquiries.

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MassBrew Wisconsin Timber Rattlers

MassBrew

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We referred to this Baseball Prospectus piece back on June 23rd, but it probably bears mention again based on Jeff Housman's promotion from Beloit to Huntsville:

 

Noteworthy Prospects: The Brewers have already gotten some good returns on middle-round collegians from last year's draft. First-rounder Prince Fielder is the star of Milwaukee's Class-A affiliate in Beloit, but they're getting value out of their 21st and 33rd round picks as well:

 

Jeff Housman was taken at #979 out of Cal State Fullerton. He pitched in 19 games for CSF last year, starting only two. He had a high strikeout rate and he whiffed twice as many as he walked:

 ERA W-L IP H BB K HR 4.89 0-4 35 50 15 32 4

A college reliever with an ordinary statistical profile, he's flourishing in the pros. The Brewers have him in Beloit's rotation, where his 1.54 ERA is third in the Midwest League. His strikeout rate is down to 5.4 but his strikeout-to-walk ratio is well over 2-to-1. There's a potential problem veiled by that ERA. He has allowed only 51 hits in 70.1 innings, a figure as pretty as his college rate was ugly, and maybe as misleading. Your take on it depends on how much of a DIPS proponent you are. But Housman has allowed only two home runs, so even if the improvement is a bit inflated it's not a total illusion.

 

Josh Alliston was taken at #619 out of Long Beach State, where 27 of his 29 appearances last year were in relief. Unlike Housman, he's still working out of the bullpen, but like him, Alliston has improved substantially on his last year in college. His statistical profile last year was very similar to Housman's:

 ERA W-L IP H BB K HR 4.53 2-4 45.2 45 19 46 5

This year Alliston has struck out 37 in 36 innings, allowing only eight walks and a single home run. At 6'4" and 200 pounds he has the size scouts like. So does Housman, who is 6'3" and 180. At their age, they need to be pushed to Double-A and to survive it before Zduriencik should feel free to crow.

 

If the two pitchers work out, should Zduriencik take credit? Some days you get the bear and some days the bear gets you, and maybe anyone can be the blind squirrel who gets lucky a couple times every draft. But GMs aren't cynical enough, modest enough, or dumb enough to pick blindly. They do try to make their picks count. Zduriencik or his scouts saw something in Houseman and Alliston that made them take a chance on these two instead of the hundreds of others who had yet to be drafted. This might be giving him too much credit, but maybe Zduriencik knew that Cal State Fullerton had the nation's fourth-most difficult schedule last year, and that Long Beach State's was sixth. Strength of competition is everything in college baseball. Houseman and Alliston were good in the significant sabermetric categories, put up their numbers against strong schedules, and are doing well in the pros so far. It's a bit early to draw conclusions about them yet, but these are two more anecdotes in favor of the projectability of college stats.

 

Stathead wannabe's can learn more about "DIPS" referred to above, at this link:

 

www.baseballprospectus.co...acken.html

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PeaveyFury Biloxi Shuckers

PeaveyFury

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On another note, does Milwaukee even realize they have a team in High Desert anymore?

 

If they realize it, would they admit to it? I sure wouldn't want to take responsibility for that mess.

 

Ok, serious question time: Our developmental contract with HD expired after last season, and then, even though we were fully aware of the park effects, etc, we renewed it for 2 more seasons. Since then, we have skipped all of our decent/good pitching prospects over HD right to Huntsville, presumably for them to avoid the park effects/possible confidence problems and such. If we view it as such a problem, why in the heck did we RENEW THE CONTRACT?

 

I simply can't believe that we would have been better off looking elsewhere. Were there no other options?

 

Also, congrats to Housman. Any word on who might replace him in Beloit?

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