RockCoCougars

Close game last night. If Bogut hits the bunny, we may be celebrating the first win in Phoenix since '87 today. With Redd out, this team needs to pick up another shooter.

If that's Melvin's plan--to count on Cappy, who hasn't pitched in a MLB game since 2007, and Mulder, who has pitched in 6 games since 2006--he may as well update his resume because he'll need it going into 2011. If the Brewers get anything decent from those two, consider it icing on the cake. But if the Brewers intend on relying on them, it will be a long season. I believe Melvin is playing coy right now. As the price tags for the remaining FA pitchers drop by the day, Melvin will eventually add a servicable if not decent arm to the starting pitching staff. Exactly. The odds are 95% that neither Capuano or Mulder will be able to pitch effectively in the majors anymore. That's why I've said that if Melvin wants to snow the fans with a 'name' lefty, he may as well sign Tom Glavine. He hasn't retired yet, and has a better chance of effectiveness than those two. Don't construe this that I'm advocating the team sign Glavine, but expecting Mulder or Capuano to do anything at this point is a pipe dream. I will say that I'll be upset if the team wastes more than a league minimum plus incentive deal on Mulder, which is my fear. Why else would they be making such a big deal (scouting visits, etc.) about what amounts to a non-roster invite?

I've always found it odd that Leno pulls such big ratings. No one that I know admits to watching him. Apparently somebody finds him entertaining.

Toshiba laptops are not the fanciest things in the world, but they are priced right and I've been pleased with their battery life and durability.

Since he's going to be in the Central, here's hoping that he's more Ariel Prieto than Livian Hernandez.

Bought 6 more 12 packs today, so overall a total of 8 cases. At this rate, my basement is going to be a 'Dew Cellar'. I've bought a couple of 12 packs of the Pepsi as well. Hopefully you guys discount them (even more than the current 3 for $9.88) when you are closing them out like you did this summer. If that happens, I'll really stock up.

Redd looked great last night. Taking it to the rack and getting the calls. Hopefully he's getting back into the swing of things.

I wouldn't do a second year unless it was a mutual option type thing. I may bump the Twins offer by 1.5 million or so. That said, I'd prefer Garland. Both Washburn's second half last season and the thought of him pitching in Miller Park concern me a bit.

Why can't Wolf be considered an "injury guy". Before last year, he's hardly been durable the past several years. Even making the assumption that he's past his TJ surgery, it isn't out of the realm of possibility for a mid 30's pitcher to come up with some new injury. Heck, I don't think Suppan had ever been injured until the past few years (though I'm not so sure that they were physical injuries vs. "mental breaks").

I'm not arguing that Myers is better than Wolf. If they were both available for the contract Myers signed, I'd take Wolf in a heartbeat. The problem that I have is that the Astros committed only half the money for a third of the time to Myers meaning they have committed less than a sixth of what the Brewers did for Wolf. Like I said, if Wolf pitches like he did last year for the entire contract, it's money well spent. If he gets hurt or tanks, it's going to look like the Suppan deal. Personally I'd go for the guys willing to take a one year deal, because they will have motivation to pitch well for their next contract. Too much complacency with 3 year deals. I also don't like the fact that so much money was tied up, when the team should be saving everything they can to at least try to resign Prince. Same thing with Hawkins. Why did they need to go more than one year? If Valverde ends up signing for about the same money, I'm going to have a coniption fit on here.

All I know is that I'd rather have one year of both Myers and Harden or even Washburn or Garland on one year deals then just Randy Wolf for just a million or two more. This way you can fill two holes in the rotation instead of one with a third to a half of the money that was committed to Wolf. If the team was able to fill two holes maybe we wouldn't hear the 'Suppan is our best option as a fifth starter' next year when he is stinking up the joint. Let's face it, Suppan's 'career norms' are not what a winning baseball team has in their rotation. I don't put much faith in argument that guys like 'Myers and Harden will likely be injured' argument either since Wolf has pitched 150 innings something like 2 out of the past 6 years. The fact of the matter is the team outbid itself on Wolf, giving a three year deal a guy coming off a career year pitching in Dodger Stadium in a weak offensive division. The only other team with any interest in Wolf was the Mets. If Wolf pitches like he did last year, things will be OK, but that could very well be his career season. With the limited budget, this team should be buying low on guys, not buying high. Take some risks. I don't like the fact that Wolf is going to be 34 and has a history of TJ surgery either.

One year /$5 million with a mutual option. Another deal that makes it look like the Brewers jumped the gun on Wolf. That said- like Soup, I'm sure Randy is a good dude and model citizen.

Agreed. It's not going to be fun watching Hardy have a good year next year for the Twins. We can only hope that Gomez can step up and play to his potential.

Staub did put up some pretty good sabermetric numbers. At any rate, I think I'll put my annual anti-Raines rant to bed. Not sure why I feel the need to do this each year (used to be Tony Perez), but it's been fun debating with you guys.

So did Rusty Staub. Is he a Hall of Famer?

I wouldn't feel right about trading Gamel just because Ken doesn't like him. Certainly not for the mediocre pitching that the Twins can offer. Give the kid a chance to play every day first, unless he can be moved as part of a package for a legitimate #1-#2 guy.

Dawson - .287/.328/.568/.896. .378 wOBA, Raines - .330/.429/.526/.955. .419 wOBA. This isn't even close to an argument given the disparity in their stats, Raines was significantly better. Raines was also better defensively and on the base paths. This is the same old argument though, are HR/RBI more valuable than all the other parts of a baseball player combined. The MVP usually comes down to HR/RBI and more times than not it isn't the best player. At least they are starting to get it right a little more now. After 1987 Raines put up an OPS of .786. Dawson put up a .796 and Raines was with a .378 OBP which makes it more valuable than Dawson's slugging heavy one. He did it over a larger number of PA as well and again playing better defense and better baserunning. Huh? Dawson won several gold gloves playing right and center while Raines and his pop gun arm never sniffed a gold glove and was mostly hidden in left field. I'll give you the fact that Raines was a better base stealer, but Dawson also stole a ton of bases on those Expos teams. Say what you want about RBI being a meaningless stat, but Raines never got 75 once in his career. Even Ozzie Smith was able to do that. Keep in mind that Raines was not exclusively a lead off hitter either - especially after the mid-80's. I don't care what his OBP was, Raines was not a HOF.

Thats what it comes down to with the Beaneists. Dawson didn't take a lot of walks, so his OPS was relatively low. If follows that simply because Raines had a higher OBP he was the better player. The fact is that after 87, Raines was a pretty ordinary player. He was never anything to write home about in the field ether. Maybe Bill James has some stats that show Raines should be in, but if he is in you have to put Kenny Lofton in as well because they are almost exactly the same guy except that Lofton was a centerfielder. In my view Lofton is not HOF and neither is Raines.

I grew up watching Dawson, Raines, and Rice. Not only would I put Dawson on the bottom of that with the ol' stinky eye test, He was statistically the worst of the 3 as well. Raines' on base percentage was staggeringly better. I wouldn't even say there was any year where Dawson was a DOMINATING player. 1987? My 15 year old kid would have hit 30 homers that year, I think the numbers clearly show that 87 was an aberration for most players. Dawson was a very good player for a long time, but he wasn't a dominator, and he wasn't as good as Rice or Raines. Dawson hit 400 homers and stole 300 bases during a time when 400 homers meant something. He won one MVP and finished 2nd twice while playing in Montreal. He won a rookie of the year. Before his knees totally went to pot, he also was one of the best defensive outfielders of his time, with one of the best arms ever. Yes, his power numbers were aided somewhat by 1987 and playing several years in Wrigley, but that's negated somewhat by him playing over half his career for the Expos in cavernous Olympic Stadium.

Dawson is a solid and deserving selection. He was certainly a better player than recent inductees such as Jim Rice, Tony Perez, Bruce Sutter, etc. My guess is that many of the people who feel that Dawson is not deserving (and perhaps Tim Raines is) were too young to watch him during his prime.

So McGehee, Counsell, Hall or Hardy could not have finished the season at 2nd base? Why was Lopez acquired, shifting Counsell and McGehee to third, blocking Gamel .... especially when a starting pitcher was more needed at the time? Why did the team feel that Escobar was ready to play regularly and Gamel was not? Why did Melvin acquire David Weathers, which bascially cancelled out the savings from the Hall "salary dump" when the team was obviously out of the race? All of these questions shout "no plan" to me.

Hardy and Hall both had a replacement player available largely because the team traded for Lopez instead of a pitcher like Pavano. This made absolutely no sense to me especially considering the team didn't even offer Lopez arbitration. Further confounding is why a guy like Jason Bourgeois was brought up to replace Hall. He was never in the team's future plans and ended up performing worse than Hall would have. Going further, Melvin has picked up exactly one starting pitcher while losing one this offseason, meaning he has done absolutely nothing to improve starting pitching depth (adding "available options"). This makes no sense, and frankly I am worried that this team has no plan.

Why doesn't this principle apply to Suppan then? He made more than Hardy and Hall combined. Over 10% of the team's total payroll. I guess the argument basically is, "outside of his really bad games, he pitched to his career norms..... which suck" - or "we knew he was bad when we signed him".

In my opinion, getting Suppan out of the rotation would be addition by subtraction. The guy has been downright brutal for the past two years and I would bet that many waiver wire pickups (someone like Jeff Weaver) would have outperformed him somewhat. As far as Hall goes, I will agree that he was tradeable because the Red Sox won't have to pay him anything. That said, the Brewers ate almost his entire salary when they didn't have to. There was no reason whatsoever for the team to jump the gun and trade him during the season. Do you think that it took months for Melvin to craft the trade for Flores (is he still even with the organization?). Worst case is that you have to cut him in the offseason, best case is that you make a deal like Boston did today. As for Hardy I disagree that messing with his service time by sending him to the minors increased his trade value. Maybe for a small market team like the Twins, but had the Brewers played out the string wth Hardy and he got into a hot streak, they could have leveraged things somewhat by using the Hardy/Escobar situation as a smoke screen. They could have played the "we don't know which one we want to keep" angle. Once Hardy was demoted, every GM in the game knew that he would have to be moved in the offseason. In conclusion, the main problem that I have with Melvin is that he seems to sit on his hand for months and then make rash decisons seemingly on the spur of the moment. Case in point, the August purge of Hardy and Hall. At that point, there was no need to do anything. Another example I would use is the Wolf signing. Given the market that we have seen, I would bet dollars to donuts that he would still be out there unsigned had the Brewers not signed him. This sort of rash decision making causes me to question whether or not Doug is truly pulling all the strings or if there is another person who sometimes steps in.

Hall & Hardy killed their own trade value, and Suppan was needed (just as a body) given the state of the rotation in 2009. I guess I shouldn't be too surprised that someone found a way to slam Melvin, though. Who is at fault for the "state of the rotation" in 2009? I would say the blame lies at the feet of Melvin. Otherwise, what is the excuse? Dave Bush getting smoked with a line drive? Melvin is the person who felt comfortable entering the season with Parra as his #2 and Suppan as his #3. Not sure what the point was of demoting Hardy and giving Hall away for nothing when the team was out of the race by any stretch of the imagination. They should have showcased those two guys with the hope that they would finish strong (probably wouldn't have happened with Hall but very well could have with Hardy). Instead all they did was waste service time for Escobar. I posted the same thing at the time of the purge in August and people countered with "Bill Hall has no value", etc., etc. Apparently the Red Sox feel that he does. On the other hand, it would be difficult to find a taker for Suppan even if the Brewers paid 90% of his salary. I'll withhold judgement on the Hardy trade for now, but I have an uneasy feeling about it for whatever reason.