TooLiveBrew

I think in a few years, people will accept the juicers for what they were. Me too, but I think the question is will the voters of the BBWAA finally get over this notion that only a select few were 'juicing'? Until the crusade of Bonds & McGwire & Clemens & Canseco being the faces of some relatively small group of cheaters is put to rest, I doubt anyone with steroid ties or WOAHs will get in. What's really interesting to me is that if you adjust for context, Barry Bonds & Roger Clemens are arguably the best hitter & pitcher to ever play. Both guys performances stood out as 'roided-up men amongst 'roided-up boys. It's a tricky question to me because on principle I agree that I don't want cheaters in the HoF. However, we already have cheaters & racists (etc.) in the Hall, and then on top of that is my belief that Canseco's estimate of ~75% of the league using PEDs is probably right-on (if not low).

Man alive, you can't just spring this on me without warning. I almost instinctively smashed my keyboard at that memory. We're such a great support network for one another. I almost threw up in my mouth when I read twi's post. sbrylski's signature is awesome.

Hardy can just make so much more money as a SS. Perhaps the Brewers will be the team to give him his first big multi-year contract, perhaps not. But I think it's a certainty that the contract will come at SS dollars, and I'd think Hardy was a bit wacky if he didn't insist on that. Why move over for some unproven rookie when you're highly compatible at the position, and are easily top five (likely top three) offensively in your league. Right on. As long as J.J. doesn't suffer some tremendous injury/ies, his value post-arbitration is going to be almost as high as it gets for a position player.

Rob, Weeks has not warranted anything for someone to say he's going to have a better year let alone a "break out" season. Last year at some point I brought up this same exact situation, yet everyone insisted this would be his year(08', once again). A year later and we are STILL saying the exact same things. Why!? How long can we hang onto him? Personally I would throw some competition his way. A perfect example, Ray Durham. I'm not using him exactly, but last years scenario made Weeks realize he's very replaceable. Durham is a far inferior fielder & weaker hitter at this point, and Weeks was better than Ray for the entire time after he came over from SF. Weeks is cheap & roughly league-average. Basically any alternate solution you can come up with is just going to cost a lot in terms of salary and/or prospects (to acquire someone if it's via trade). Not to mention that it's unlikely to improve that much over Rickie anyway. To me the Weeks thing is just like Sheets's health/durability. People just fight & claw their way against seeing anything aside from what they already think they know or want to see. Weeks just isn't bad -- he's not. He's not the butcher people continue to claim he is in the field, and he's not the loser they say he is at the plate. The funny part to me is that 'we are STILL saying the exact same things' about Rickie that are just either untrue or blown out of proportion. Like I said orginally, I'm largely indifferent because he's not horrible and he's not an asset, he's just kind of there, and he's there with a reasonable salary relative to his production. Well-said. The only thing I add in here is that I feel the same way, but that on top of all that, his upside as we've seen is pretty huge. At this point I guess I'm over hoping or even expecting to see him tear it up for an entire season, but as long as he can mix in some of those flashes of brilliance at the plate he'll continue to at worst be a league-avg. player.

Except that Lamb is a terrible fielder, and Fld % is an awful stat by which to evaluate defenders

On the muppet line, you can also watch the episodes on dvd. My wife got the one with Mark Hamill from her sister. Pigs in Space plus you get Mark gargling a song with a muppet in kilts. TLB, as a fellow SW aficionado, you would appreciate that one. Oh man, I finally watched this episode. It was cringe-worthy bad at many points. Great to watch, though!

No -- looks like Sheets is higher, per an article from USA Today (11/6/08): 13. Ben Sheets 79.038 ... 17. Derek Lowe 75.430

Ha! Hijacked back to its original topic... thanks for posting that, sveum. I'm still a true believer in Rickie's talent, & naiively think he's going to have a strong season at the plate in 2009.

Just want to say thanks to Patrick for taking the time to compile the rankings & sort out that list. A great read as always -- I've never not learned more about our top prospects from your articles.

I've been using 9 for a week + now, but only as a participant in someone's league. I can't speak for the 'commisioner-y' features, but... so far so good from the GM angle. It's cool imo that you don't have to download a separate league file (updates are done in-game), but my only experience was with OOTP 6.5 & the no-file aspect may well have been around before v.9

I see the same player, but I see a kid who's making incremental steps in his offensive game as he starts to scratch his vast potential. Is he a 5 tool prospect? I don't think he'll ever hit for enough power to be considered a 5 tool prospect, but he's a heck of a 4 tool prospect. I think we agree on Escobar in general then. It's one thing to look at their raw stats, and it's another to put those stats into context and account for their natural talent. I just don't think there's a one size fits all way to judge prospects, I like some because they are toolsy, some because they get results, some because they are a combination of the 2. Very much agreed. Alcides seems to fit the latter mold -- his athletic ability is often cited, yet clearly he's been producing tangible results, too.

Tampa Bay doesn't really have room for Gross in that OF now. I hear we have this pitching prospect named Josh Butler...

I wasn't picking on you at all, but I'll address that point. I know... I just get confused when people react adversely to that fact being highlighted. Why is it luck instead of talent? It's not about a separation of the two. It was both luck & talent, but you can't look at a season where a guy had a BABIP nearing in on .400 (.380) & treat it as a reliable indicator of his talent level... or reasonably say, 'Well, that wasn't luck..' I'd just like to be clear & say that stating, 'Escobar had a lot of good luck in his 2008 stats' is not stating, 'He's overrated', or 'He just got lucky', etc. This is why I made the comment I did. I just don't understand why people think that being objective about a highly-fluctuating stat like BABIP (which in addition hasn't been shown to have much if any skill involved in its fluctuations) is crazy or biased somehow. No one is saying that any of those kids will hit over .300 in MLB but somehow people will acknowledge that Gamel and Salome are talented while Escobar gets pigeon holed like he's talentless at the plate, as if he's fully developed, when in fact he never worked on his offensive game at all until the Brewers signed him. And I can remember literally no one making the claims that I put in bold above. Looking at his 2008 production & seeing trademark red flags of which to be cautious, is not equal to saying 'Escobar is talentless' or 'Escobar is fully developed at the plate'. I do think it should be pointed out that in 2008 he mustered a line of .314/.341/.419/.760 v. RHP (401 AB) with a .355 BABIP -- a .341 OBP with a .355 BABIP. I think of the discussions people have had in the ML forum on Aaron Miles's 2008 when I see that line. Yes, Alcides is young & not fully developed. But there's enough concern imo that thinking he should be MLB-ready next season isn't accurate. Honestly, what do you find disagreeable about people pointing out that Escobar had a .380 BABIP (an entirely un-sustainable rate), & just 31 BB over 548 AB last season? Those are two red flags in player evaluation/valuation. Whether I like Escobar or not (which I do... a lot), I have no problem accepting that his extreme 2008 BABIP made him look better than his talents (at this point). I don't think we have a good idea of what kind of production to expect from in 2009, and especially if that season is to be spent in Milwaukee against far tougher pitching. His MiLB offensive trend is upwards, the kid is improving as he should be, he's as talented as the other 2 players and is starting to grow into his body some, he's not a finished product and it irks me that his trend and natural talent get ignored in these discussions. Where does it get ignored? I just haven't seen the same overt negativity towards Escobar, I guess. The only thing that concerns me about Escobar is his low BB rate, since he doesn't have (nor does he project to gain) much raw power. I'm downright anxious to see what kind of impact his defense alone will have once he is ready for big-league pitching... and what kind of offense he will indeed contribute. He appears to only really lack that raw power in terms of being the perfect prospect.

that particular discussion is pretty stale. True -- though not sure why you're so averse to the notion that Esco had some great luck at the plate last season... that's basically just fact. My point was more that his defense would be wasted a bit if not at SS. I view Escobar as Hardy's eventual (2010?) replacement at SS.

Or the reality is that he's fine at 2B for offense, and below average for defense, and cheaper than any other proposed solution. It seems you won't let the facts stand in your way, though. And no, Escobar at 2B in 2009 isn't a viable solution imo.

Is this the trend? Get a high draft pick. Let him mature in the minors for 3 years. Then, after 3 years in the majors, when he might be just about ready to hit his stride, trade him because we won't be able to afford him anyways? The reason Prince gets singled out is that his defense is so bad that it makes him just an above-average player if he has a season like 2008, and other teams will likely still be enticed by the 50-HR potential. I think it's just people wanting to sell high on Fielder, but I agree with you in that I'd rather not ship Prince off just yet.

Cano can play 2B better than Rickie Weeks Not according to the defensive PBP metrics that I've seen. Cano has rated out worse than Weeks in many.

I'll just duck in here with my obligatory OMG I <3 BELTRE comment. It would be a dream to add him & lose Hall, but as RoCo said, Hall's contract makes that pretty unlikely.

Clearly the Brewers made him an offer he couldn't refuse

And aren't they obligated to spend ~ $40M this offseason? That's what a Braves-fan acquaintance says.

Anyway, Weeks led the majors in misplays+errors by a 2B with 59. Can you get access to how he rates out here -- "They also track "good plays", which uses the opposite definition of part B of a misplay." And thanks for sharing those numbers... good stuff.

This might deserve its own thread, but I ran across some interesting caveats in some of the contracts as I was skimming them. Matt Holliday - Can not play football until after 2010 Beltran - Requires the team purchase him one of those machines that throws tennis balls with numbers on them. Percival - Gets a Vintage Auto I agree it's thread-worthy (hint hint! http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/smile.gif). The notes I always like to see are the guys that have charitable stuff written in their contract language. Iirc Sheets had some good stuff... and Braun of course comes through: Braun to donate $25,000 annually to club charity

Lets not forget that he still is 41 years old and his best pitch is a 74 mph changeup. Unless I've missed new reports, it's still regarded as one of the best changeups in the game. The velocity really isn't super important when the m.o. is changing speeds. Though I do think that in general we shouldn't be expecting the Trevor Hoffman that his reputation is built upon. I'm not enough of an expert to know all the why's & how's, but his FIP was an unspectacular 3.99 in 2008... even with a bit of good luck on the .268 BABIP (career .280). One thing I see is that both his LD% was down & GB% up outside of career norms, so perhaps that's where the lower WHIP came from relative to FIP? Not sure. The team didnt want him back when he was healthy. Based on what? Didn't they wanted to offer him arbitration after the season & go from there?

Sounds like Oswalt was certainly interested. Unfortunately, the team wasn't. http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/wink.gif This also isn't really about Ben Sheets to me, I could care less whether we sign him or not. I'm not some huge Sheets fan with posters of him hanging around my house and whatnot. We could be talking about any other pitcher and this is what my opinion would be. In general fans seem to think that pitchers are a lot healthier on average than they really are and in Sheets specific case the fact that one injury bridged two seasons seems to make people think he is more injury prone than he really is. I think there's such a strong opinion among many fans that Ben Sheets is so injury-prone, and that it's largely due to the emotional investment we make in following the Brewers. When it's pointed out that perhaps Sheets isn't all that much more injury-prone than people believe, I think many can be quick to assume the people trying to contextualize Sheets's health are just apologists & out to take on the popular view just because it's popular. Really imo, it's just that the popular view on Sheets's durability tends to gloss over some important details. Now, from that point, the discussion tends to degenerate into, 'I can't believe you're trying to say Sheets isn't injury-prone!', but when he's examined amongst his peers, the reality is that he's not this huge injury freak. The Burnett example is a great one. Why he's considered a better choice than Sheets is baffling. Is it that he's played (basically) on the East Coast his whole career? Because that's all I can come up with. The guy makes Sheets look like Iron Man.

I'd love to have spent that much on Smoltz to take some heat off Gallardo and Parra. Yeah, seeing that deal, I wonder if Melvin was just rebuffed by Smoltz (or if he even contacted him). Baldelli also signs with the Red Sox on a one-year deal. That's a couple of nice moves by Theo & Co.