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Seems a bit low for Hardy. I would have thought he would be projected closer to his career line of .262/.323/.428/.751. Edit: I also question using the R/150 column at all. Hardy at -1 and Escoar at -12 makes little sense given their projections. I know that column is park neutral and the other projections are for players in their park, but Miller Park is neutral and the Twins new park should probably be assumed to be pretty neutral for the next year or 2. Given that and the other projection, I would think Hardy and Escobar would be a wash offensively instead of a win difference. Escobar's advantage in OBP should more than make up for Hardy's advantage in SLG. Post edit: The only thing I can think of is that he forgot to scale the stats to 625 PA before plugging them into his linear weights formula. The result would be adding about 150 PA onto Escobar's batting line(75 for JJ) without adding any production.

I agree the Brewers are probably a team that will be building towards a 85 win total every year. Some years we will get guys having good years or make a big mid-season acquisition and be up around 90 wins and other years we will have injuries or big under performing guys and be around 80 wins. Even this year we would have been projected to be around 85 wins if we had signed CC. Cc over Looper is big, but we probably would have traded Cameron and not signed Looper or Hoffman. Edit: I was going to say 85 wins seems a tad high, but it looks like Russ just used it as an example. It shouldn't be surprising if the Cardinals and Cubs are projected with more wins for 2010 than the Brewers. The Cardinals and Brewers were projected with equal wins or us with one win better than the Cardinals before the 2009 season. We are probably projected to be worse at SS, CF, and all our rotation spots right now than we were before the start of the 2009 season. Bush, Parra, and Gallardo were all worse than expected so I would think their 2010 projections to be worse than their 2009 projections. Escobar/Gomez 2010 will have a lower projection that Hardy/Cameron 2009. The only spots where I think we will get higher projections will be 1B, LF and possibly 3B. Who we pick up to fill our rotation will be the one place we can improve. Looper was expected to be at least average so we will need somebody better than average.

No, I don't think Mark A. would pocket the money. I do think that they might be counting on smaller attendance and revenue this year and decrease payroll.

Doesn't sound like Melvin is as interested in Lackey as some hope. Sounds more like Lackey's agent was trying to drive up his price. Link

Correct me if I'm wrong but aren't most free-agent pitcher about "that age?" Since they can't be free-agent until after 6 years in the bigs, and many pitchers reach the big at age 24, on average, then wouldn't most (note: I didn't say all) free-agent pitchers be, on average, 30 years old (or older, with a sprinkling of younger ones)? You are right, most pitchers are that age. Just one more reason that you can make a generalization that big money on free agent pitchers is a bad idea. It isn't even the money so much as the years.

McGehee only had his knee cleaned up, not fixed. He might still have problems.

I wondered about that after I typed it - thanks for the correction. The point still stands that Looper could potentially earn a raise through arby and even if not, the risk is very real that his arbitrated salary plus the $1M buyout would be more than $6.5M. Just for future reference, Cot's Contracts has a link to the CBA and crib notes on it. My only real concern with this is DM has to come up with someone that is equal to Looper for about the same cash. That certainly can be done, but to me he is putting himself a bit behind the 8-ball in trying to replace Looper (I assume Suppon) and still build more depth then we had in '09. I know, before we probably wanted 2 guys for depth and now we need one more to fill out the rotation. 3 pitchers unless we are counting on Burns, Narveson or some other minor league guy.

If they offer arby and he accepts, he'd be guaranteed at least 80% of last year's salary That only applies to players who are pre-free agency. even things as simple as talking with John Lackey's agent go a long way. I wouldn't read to much into that. My guess is that if you are an agent and have a pitcher as a client, Melvin talked to you. Lackey is 31 and a type A free agent. I want no part of a $10M+ per year deal for a guy that age over the next 4-5 years while having to give up our 2nd round pick.(We are in the top half of the draft order so our 1st is protected.)

I think you don't offer Counsell, Vargas, or Catalanatto arbitration because there is no compensation if you do. All you do is guarantee they will get paid more than last year. Patterson you pretend is just Macha's imaginary friend and don't acknowledge his existence.

I don't think Lambic is a style I would like. Not a big fan of fruity beer. I would still like to try one or two at some point.

Cameron and Lopez. If either accepts it wouldn't be the worst thing in the world. We would probably still get good value for either over a one year contract.

I think we end up with a Looper type situation again this offseason. We end up with the odd man out instead of a quality guy. Most of the FA pitchers are over 30 and we don't really want to be tied to them for more than a year or two.

I never understood the concept of backloading. A dollar today is going to be worth more than a dollar a year from now in most cases. Payroll will typically rise year after year. That may not be the case this coming year. Contracts are usually back loaded or increase gradually year to year. Contracts that are front loaded are unusual.

I guess I should have been clearer that I was responding specifically to this statement. Gamel does not have a spot, unless we trade Fielder. Gamel can play 3B, RF or go to AAA. No idea why anybody would think he has no spot. There are plenty of alternatives for Gamel.

I didn't know Gamel was out of options and couldn't play in AAA for another year.

it's years 3-5 that would get me nervous, especially if they choose to backload the deal. What do you mean if? When does a player sign a contract that doens't get much bigger in value by then end?

Is anybody going to watch this? It is a miniseries on AMC starting on Sunday November 15th. I am not sure how much is taken from the original series. I am to young to know much about the original and probably wouldn't be interested if not for the Iron Maiden song.

I have to admit I am not a fan of many if any of the New Glarus Unplugged beers. I think their lineup outside of those are all really good to great. I like that they do the Unplugged series. Nobody I know who tried the Old English Porter liked it. I think out of 3 bottles(no idea where the 4th went) there was a total of maybe half a glass drank. I am glad that they brewed it so I got a chance to try a porter like it was originally intended over a century ago. I am sure other breweries are doing the same, but New Glarus makes it easily accessible to me. I would prefer a Lambic made in Wisconsin, but I meant something I could find in the Madison area. I am not familiar with Lambic's at all. Looking up Lindeman's it looks a little familiar and is probably something I can find at the Woodmans like TLB suggested.

Yup, you are correct. Cran-bic is an unplugged beer. I might have misunderstood what was said during the interview or he considers the Unplugged series a R&D series, which it really is. Who else makes a lambic that would be easy to find in the Madison area?

Doesn't seem like anybody has considered that the Brewers might cut salary for 2010 instead of spending all the money from expiring contracts on new players.

If you want the New Glarus Lambic you will have to go to the brewery to get it. Their R&D series isn't sold in stores, at least not that I have heard. News on the lambic.

Our problem wasn't strikeout prone hitters or anything to do with our offense at all. Our starting pitching sunk us plain and simple. With even an average starting pitching we probably win at least 85 games. 1-We get more speed on the team to manufacture runs. There were so many games we lost the past years because we could not manufacture a run (tack on a run). Going from a 2 run lead to 3 is huge. Cameron was the same type of hitter as Hardy...steaky, pull, and strikeout We scored plenty of runs. We didn't do a good job preventing runs and that was little fault with our defense. 2- We can spend money on pitching instead of trading for a young unknown pitcher. If we made the trade for Harang and kept Cameron, that is $20 million...What kind of pitcher are we going to get next with the the little we have left? Melvin put himself in this spot with Suppan and Hall...we have to deal with it until 2011. The free agent starting pitching is underwhelming at best. The best guys to sign are more than likely to be the ones with injury concerns because we might be able to get then on one year deals. Being stuck with almost any of the free agent pitcher for more than a couple years would probably look like the Suppan deal by the end. 3 - We are better defensively. Maybe, maybe not. We are probably about equal on defense going from Hardy/Cameron to Escobar/Gomez. If we are better it is very minimal at most. I agree we had to trade Hardy, but even if this trade is equal value for equal value like Russ thinks, we still traded a valuable resource for something we really didn't have a strong need for instead of taking Hardy and packaging him with a couple other players for pitching which is our real need.

with lasers on their heads.

Borderlands is still consuming a lot of my time. I have played through the mage's origin story and the first castle of the story. The tactics system reminds me a lot of the system used in FF12 gambit system, which worked really well. I have yet to play around with it much though. I am playing on hard and have only been wiped out twice. Once because I didn't equip my characters with items and the other time because I just wast really paying enough attention and one character died then things snowballed from there. Still, I wouldn't really call it "hard." I was in Walmart today and saw "Star Wars: The Force Unleashed: Ultimate Sith Edition." I didn't know this was coming out. I played the original on my brothers PS2 this summer. Anybody know if this is the same game or a different game? The cover is way different than the original, as are many of the photos on the box. (this was for PC by the way.) Same game with 3 extra levels(I think 3, Hoth and 2 previously downloadable levels.) and some other extras.

Interesting what he had to say about JJ. We have known for a while JJ probably needed more rest than most young players because of his back and shoulder.