TooLiveBrew

So Parra is better because you yell it? I'd love to hear some real expansion on your point, which is an interesting one.

I should've stated "power & run production." RBI are no indication of one's ability to produce runs, rather an example of the opportunites one had to do so. You can look at any elite player and find a year where his RBI were 'down' - which doesn't mean he forgot how to drive them in. The fact that we don't place as much value in all the same stats doesn't make either of us wrong. True - however, I think you're mistaken to select RBI as an indicator of talent/ability. It's not that I don't value them (or HR), it's just that they don't tell you anything aside from whether or not a guy's teammates got on-base. There's actually a pretty good discussion of this in the Statistical Analysis forum ('OPS - overrated stat?') http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/smile.gif EDIT: Hall had an off year, but his only real stud-like power/run production year was '06. Blalock had 4 years of comparable production. That's my point. To boot, Blalock is also nearly a year younger than Hall. But here's a good example of why a counting stat like HR or RBI can mislead you. If you want to define "power" as merely HR, then SLG is relatively meaningless. A big part of "power" imo is XBH in general, with HR obviously being the most valuable. Hall (501 ABs) was able to post 39 doubles to Blalock's 34 (in 647 ABs). If you 'give' Hall the same # of ABs - 647 - his rates work out to roughly 22 HR & 50 2Bs. And again, RBI totals = opportunities way more than any other factor. In that 2005 season, where Blalock had 92 RBI to Hall's 62, look at their performance with RISP & men on base: Blalock - RISP: .278/.344/.396/.740; Men on: .285/.338/.462/.800 Hall - RISP: .238/.309/.418/.727; Men on: .268/.326/.455/.781 While Blalock was better, it clearly wasn't by much, and certainly not enough to explain the difference of 30 in their RBI totals.

You can't use a counting stat like HR to declare 'He has the better power track record.' If you want to point to ABs/opportunities, how about '03 & '04 when, combined, Hall amassed 432 ABs to Blalock's 1,191? That's why trwi7 noted the SLG%s. Also, RBI have little to nothing to do with power. Not sure why those were included. EDIT: 2005 & 2006 look to be the most easily comparable, since Blalock's AB totals were 647/591 (2005/2006) & Hall's were 501/537. It's not even close. 2007 has influenced the way you're remembering Hall a bit, imo.

You're forgetting Braun and Hart, too. No slouches v. RHP. I add Weeks to that list, too, since he was at a .785-ish OPS v. RHP last year, even through his wrist injury.

No need for details for anyone who watched that garbage. And OSU was bad, too.

The Forum Jumps are awesome - but casey, I just want to point out that the banner hotlinke just above them still takes you to the ezboard version. Thanks a million guys, LL.net is going to explode now!

http://img.myyearbook.com/zenhex/images/quiz8/35074/res4.jpg Ba ba da baaaaa!

Whiskey. IRISH whiskey. I'm home.

I had the awesome idea of taking our Springer Spaniel for a walk to her favorite stomping grounds - a local church lot where she can run off the leash. Unfortunately, the snow had the awesome idea to clump up in her feathers (term for part of this breed's - and others' - coat) in the biggest snowballs she's ever gotten... several were as big as baseballs, and intertwined very tightly with her fur. Melting them off with warm water when I got home took as long as the walk. It was still worth it - today's snowfall was breathtakingly gorgeous.

Quite a few scouts did, too. He was horrible in 2007 defensively, and even if he improves more than he likely will (read: little), he's still negating over half of the delicious offensive value he provides. Why do you want to devalue his stellar hitting? That makes no sense. Play to his strength, which isn't being at 3B - we have a division to win in 2008, and can't afford to let arguably our best hitter cancel himself out by refusing to understand that LF is where defense has the least impact - and where you want a fielder as poor as Braun if you have that chance.

Wood - in post #30, I wrote; "I was obviously counting on the 3B vacancy being filled." I don't think anyone here is discussing this bench with the expectation that Dillon or Gross will be starting in any capacity.

Well, I was obviously counting on the 3B vacancy being filled. With Gwynn in there instead of Gross, I don't know if I'd agree. Believe that CHONE projection I posted earlier. Given a full season's worth of ABs, he's a threat to post an OPS in the 850 - 900 range. I recall the ZiPS projection only had Joe at a part-time total of ABs though. I don't think CHONE would be much different. I think that if you extrapolate some reasonable expectations for Joe D. over a full season's worth of ABs, then yes he could post a full-time OPS around what you've said. However, I don't think he'd be able to sustain that kind of output if he actually were to log FT ABs (as opposed to extrapolation). Yet another reason (combined with versatility & great approach at the plate) why I think he has tons more value as a bench player.

Yes. As of today, if our bench can be: Counsell, Dillon, Gross, Rottino, Munson/Rivera... we'd have one of the best in the NL.

Something to keep in mind in regards to Braun would be that his BB/K numbers and BABIP strongly hint that his is due for a slump in production next year, so regardless of position his offensive output probably won't be quite so high next year, which is OK because he can regress and still be an excellent offensive player. I agree fully here. The scariest thing to me is the possibility that he could end up playing a full season at 3B. He, quite realistically, might negate the entire offensive value (or more) he produces in 2008 if that's where we slot him on D. Doug & Co.: Please, please, PLEASE get us a solid 3Bman. Please!

The .360/.450 line that he mentions... That sounds much more accurate. I'd think .375/.450 is plausible (that .360 seems a tad low/cautious). I think a good way for Brewers fans to think about this signing is our of Kendall (disclaimer: I am neither asserting that Kendall is as good or better, nor comparing the two head-to-head). Fukudome fills a specific need/needs for the Cubs, so the fact that he probably won't be a (super)star isn't really a big deal. I'd be ecstatic to add a .360+ OBP at either 3B or LF to our squad.

I disagree. Hey, this is the fun of the forum. Here's an intelligent guy making a case that while implausible has merit theoretically. Bravo I say. Agree here. I really respect that in such a deal-crazy post, you took the time to make sure you made reasonable proposals, fleehaw. Seriously creative post.

Thanks, doa - that I actually am aware of. I mean specifically the correlation between SLG%/ISO & OBP. http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/smile.gif

To the statheads out there... I agree with doa on his SLG% - so isn't the OBP supposed to follow? Not meaning that it too would 'fall off a cliff', but if the SLG is expected to dip quite a bit, shouldn't the OBP be expected to drop more than appx. 10%?

Everyone acts like a trained monkey could play the OF. Good grief. The question of moving Braun to LF has only to do with the simple fact that LF is where you can most efficiently hide a terrible fielder. LF is the position where defense has the least impact. End of story. It has so little to do with skills projecting there, etc. Why do you think El Caballo & Adam Dunn play LF? Ask yourself this: would you rather have a terrible fielder at an important defensive position, or the position that has the least impact? In all honesty if Braun is left at 3B in 2008 he could quite easily (and even with a modest improvement) cancel out 75% of his offense again. It's really likely that his O regresses, and adding in him playing a full season at 3B, you could be talking about neutralizing his offensive production entirely. Oh, but yea - it's ridiculous to talk about moving him to a position where you'd avoid that horrible scenario. I have visions of misjudged fly balls and other awkward looking plays.. Yea, me too. It's called the 2007 blooper reel at 3B.

This is 'the year' as I see it and I'm not sure we can take the chance on hoping he improves if there is another option out there. To this point, there isn't a team in the Central better than the Crew. This is as good a year as we'll get... Not a good time to hope that Braun only cancels out half his offense, which is likely to regress.

Whoa nelly - Blalock is a significantly better fielder than Braun. His metric rankings from his full seasons have him in the upper half of the league, iirc. Just because he's not great doesn't mean he's not much better than Braun. Ryan was catastrophically bad in 2007.

Acquiring Blalock doesn't "Yost proof" the line up though. Nah - I was referring to getting Rolen as 'Ned-proofing'

Agreed on keeping TBow, unless he's part of a big deal. The reason I prefer Rolen is that he doesn't need to be platooned. Ned-proofing for '08!

My perfect deal if you're talking about Blalock would be Vargas + TGJ. Honestly, would it take anything more to get him?

I think this is a smart move by Doug & Co. Set up a guy in whom you genuinely have interest, and start to pursue the trade. But you know Blalock isn't going to be shipped off anytime urgently, so there's no need to worry about your fallback plan if the Rolen deal actually never is revisited. In the meantime, bluffing or not, you tell the Cards, 'You need the deal more than we do.' It's not even mid-December... I think that Rolen/Cappy deal is revisited at least once more before the offseason is winding down.