Hmmm.... (Vargas pitching well)

[Hate those Rodents]

Vargas pitched well on Tuesday, comes back on short rest Saturday to go seven innings for only two runs on four hits. Brilliant move Doug! Brilliant!

 

http://mlb.mlb.com/news/gameday_recap.jsp?ymd=20080524&content_id=2762357&vkey=recap&fext=.jsp&c_id=mlb

 

Edit: Please use a title that at least alludes to the contents.

[jazzytrav]

And when exactly did he ever do something like that for us? I don't blame Doug for letting go of Vargas. At the time we had a lot of starters, and Vargas was at the bottom.

 

Seven innings for Vargas must have taken about four hours...

[Hate those Rodents]

Who are the "a lot of starters" we had? And what are you basing Claudio being at the bottom of the totem pole? Results from last year? Spring Training performance? If it was either of these two, you are completely wrong...

[lukevan]

Gallardo

Sheets

Villanueva

Parra

Capuano

Bush

Suppan

Vargas

 

We had 8 starters for 5 spots (not to mention McClung) and no room in the pen (except for maybe 1) due to acquiring guaranteed major league relievers Mota, Torres, Gagne & Riske. In hindsight they should've held on to Vargas but it can't be viewed as much other than a fluky situation with season ending injuries.

[AJOHNSON104]

There is a tendency to question moves based on a good performance or two, or more so to question them based on hindsight. The reality is that the rotation was discussed numerous times on this message board before and during Spring Training and I don't remember very many people saying Vargas should be in it. A few had him in the bullpen, but many wanted him traded or released. Melvin made the decision to release him when other options didn't arise and saved significant money in the process. It may turn out to be a bad decision (not likely based on his historical performances), but you need to look at what they knew and when they knew it.

[yfinn6]

At the time Vargas was released we had Sheets, Gallardo, Capuano, Bush, Suppan, Parra, and Vargas. 2 of them had to go, you could have argued that Bush, Capuano, or Vargas should have been cut but then it was Vargas. Our rotation still looked promising but two season ending injuries later and now the move looked like the wrong one. Not much Doug could have done.

 

I don't think cutting Vargas was necessarily the right or wrong move, if he cuts Capuano and then Cappy got injured he would have looked like a genius. But if he cut Bush and Bush had a few decent outtings we'd be saying the same thing.

[sgtcluels]

Topic could use a good editing. Hmmmm isn't very descriptive.

 

And Vargas was by far the odd man out, it wasn't a bad at the time, but injuries and under performance has eaten away our depth.

[kramnoj]

If you're going to criticize Melvin for Vargas having one good start (he is 1-2), you should praise Melvin for Seth having a good start.

 

Vargas at his best is a league average pitcher who has started 30 games once, and only pitched 167.7 innings in that season. At his worst, he is basically a replacement level pitcher who is now 30 years old and probably didn't have a future with the team. Melvin misjudged the market by giving Claudio a contract and not being able to trade him, but I don't think he made a bad decision in cutting him.

[jazzytrav]

And if we are gonna look at one performance and try to prove something by it, you can't ignore that his previous outing he went 5 innings and gave up 4 runs, and before that he went 6.1 with 2 runs but walked 4. Maybe some of that sounds better than what Parra has done for most of the year until now, but based on all known information, Vargas was the odd man out. Right now his WHIP is 1.04, but for his career it's 1.45.

[DonMoney4Mgr]

Just another example of Melvin making horrible decisions in regards to pitching; Bush, Zach Jack, Soup, Inman, Eveland, Doug Davis, and now Vargas. I'm sure whatever he decides in regards to Sheets will be the wrong one. Thanks Doug.

[kramnoj]

How would you justify calling Soup's signing as horrible? He is a league average pitcher and he has a league average contract for a current FA. He's also one of the best 5 starters that the Brewers had last year, this year, and presumably next year as well.

[TooLiveBrew]

Screw objectivity -- let's just cherry-pick on Melvin any time anything bad happens with our SP! Why bother mentioning when the pitchers do well? It's less fun that way I guess. Vargas is chum. The fact that he had one decent start tells us nothing more than that he had one decent start. I'd rather evaluate a pitcher on more than one start, like others have mentioned.

 

I look forward to seeing the thread 'Hmmmm... Pt. 2' started when Vargas goes out & gets rocked... and Melvin absolutist-ly labeled a pitching genius!

[zzzmanwitz]

Did vargas ever go 7 for us last year? I'm too upset to actually look it up myself.

[DougJones43]

Vargas pitched well on Tuesday

Since when is 4 runs in 5 IP considered "pitching well"? That translates to an ERA over 7.00, and he lost the game.

 

Let's re-visit this at the all-star break. Vargas is a terrible pitcher. Two good starts (with one bad one in between) doesn't change that.

[trwi7]

Did vargas ever go 7 for us last year? I'm too upset to actually look it up myself.

I know he went 8 innings late in July against the Cardinals.

[Brian the Automator]

Vargas pitched well on Tuesday, comes back on short rest Saturday to go seven innings for only two runs on four hits. Brilliant move Doug! Brilliant!

 

Were you one of the people that were pulling for the Brewers to hang on to Vargas when there was a SP numbers crunch before the season started? Because frankly, I don't remember a soul who did.

[Gopher74]

Were you one of the people that were pulling for the Brewers to hang on to Vargas when there was a SP numbers crunch before the season started? Because frankly, I don't remember a soul who did.

I was, but I don't see how you can fault Melvin now. I wanted them to keep Vargas as insurance and put him in the long relief role. The role now filled by McClung. That was really the only place they were going to use him at. Either that, or hope he accepted a demotion.

 

I just thought that his change looked much improved. But again, it's just really two good starts, and the logic was pretty solid.

 

[TooLiveBrew]

Wasn't the reasoning/rumor on why Vargas was let go precisely that he wouldn't accept a bullpen role or demotion? Maybe I'm making that up.

[uwisfan]

I thought the Vargas demotion to the pen was a non-issue. I know they floated it out there that "someone like him doesn't deserver the pen", but I don't know what that means exactly aside from justifying their position.

 

As much as I'm a fan of the Brewers brass, you have to start wondering about their evaluation when it comes to their internal pitching decisions the past few years.

 

They didn't want to keep Doug Davis, who is now getting $7M per as a #3-type and putting up better stats than all but Sheets the last 2 years. But they were wiling to snap up Suppan for $10M+ longer term.

 

They didn't stick it out (or maybe develop him fully?) with Eveland, who has a 2.90 ERA and just finished a complete game. Man, how many pitchers aside from Sheets has gone 9 this year?

 

I realize it made perfect sense at the time to drop Vargas. But you take the risk of the Linebrink trade and add it all together, you start to get concerned about their pitching evaluation. The franchise has been too "snake bitten" for too long when it comes to pitching.

[logan82]

Brian the Automator wrote:http://mlb.mlb.com/news/gameday_recap.jsp?ymd=20080524&content_id=2762357&vkey=recap&fext=.jsp&c_id=mlbWere you one of the people that were pulling for the Brewers to hang on to Vargas when there was a SP numbers crunch before the season started? Because frankly, I don't remember a soul who did.

I was. I wanted to send Parra and Villy to AAA in order to keep Vargas. I wasn't sad to see Vargas go, I just would have shifted players to keep him. I can't fault Melvin for moving him though. He thought Villy and Parra would help the MLB team more than Vargas.

[SoCal Brew Crew Fan]

Blaming DM for this is pure 20/20 hindsight baloney. He was no better than the several other options they had at the time for the 5th spot and he would have cost a great deal more. If they would have known that Cappy & Yo would have gotten hurt and their other 5th options were that bad...they probably would have kept him. He still is no better than a 6 inning at best 5 ERA guy.

[Fatter than Joey]

Wasn't the reasoning/rumor on why Vargas was let go precisely that he wouldn't accept a bullpen role or demotion? Maybe I'm making that up.

 

I don't think so, I think DM held on to Vargas longer than he should have because he thought he could trade Vargas.

 

Releasing Vargas when he did cost the Brewers some money -- that is the only real questionable thing DM did with regard to Vargas.

 

I would have rather kept Vargas as insurance and started Parra/Villy in AAA, but I didn't feel that strong about it.

[jwill535]

Bringing up Davis is the inverse to bringing up Sexson in regards to trades. Davis was a 5ip 100 pitch guy that walked a ton when he was traded, and performed as such for Arizona for a couple years. It was not until his few starts this year that he has shown the promise that we all thought he had.

[logan82]

Did vargas ever go 7 for us last year? I'm too upset to actually look it up myself.

Here it is.

[jazzytrav]

To elaborate a little more Logan, he went one game of 8 innings...a game where he gave up 9 hits and we won 12-2. The only other time he went AT LEAST 7 innings he gave up 6 runs on 12 hits.