[DJ's left nut]

Originally Posted by BigRedChief

Again, Go visit the Cubs boards, they are sooo unhappy with their club not doing something about their pitching. Their owner not spending money while making money hand over fist from the team and all the shit he's built by the ball park. Sound familiar? Their owner has publicly said we don't have money to spend.

The Cubs have something like 45% of their payroll plowed into their starting rotation and 3 guys each making over $20 million. That doesn't even speak to Hendricks new deal or the money they torched on Chatwood (or the prospect capital they plowed into Quintana). Cubs fans can be as pissed as they want but the Cubs shot their bullets. This was the approach they favored for a half decade when they were throwing all their draft capital at offense with an eye on buying their pitching staff.

I don't actually disagree with the approach given the volatility of pitching, but Cubs fans have little to bitch about. It isn't as though the Cubs haven't tried damn hard to address that rotation/bullpen.

Brewer fans are upset that their bullpen is going to ruin their season. Pissed off at ownership for not at least attempting to fix that issue that everyone sees as their weakness.

Their bullpen was in great shape until injuries happened - there's only so much you can do when 2/3 of the back half of your bullpen goes down during training camp.

We all know Martizez is heading to to the bullpen when he returns. Our bullpen besides Hicks sucked most of the year, they had their moments but mostly gave up may too many leads. Martinez/Hicks/Miller/Reyes is the most talented bullpen in baseball. Period. If they perform to their talent level, and stay healthy, they will add at least 4 more wins this year.

If they put Martinez AND Reyes in their bullpen they have done so much to blunt their top competitive advantage that they'd deserve the 86 win regular season that comes of it. They absolutely have to figure out a way for Martinez and Reyes to be in that starting rotation by the ASB. You run a starting 5 of Flaherty, Mikolas, Martinez, Reyes and....me....and you'd have among the most dynamic rotations in baseball. With the potential of Hudson and even Wacha as your 5th starter, you have a better than average chance of winning 2/3 of your games down the stretch.

The starting pitching has to get healthy and break right for them to do any damage. If their plan is to put 2 of the 3 most electric arms in their system in short relief roles, the organization is just as stupid as I thought it was.

I'd put the over/under at 88.5 and barely take the over at 89.