LouisEly

I like the K-Rod move but am frustrated we needed to make a move based on our manager misusing players. I think we acquired players who will help us but like many other posters I am not confident that DPR will use them properly. So who was RR supposed to use in the 8th inning? Saito and Hawkins were hurt and missed a lot of games, and all of his lefties were hurt/medically unavailable and missed most of the season. If Loe shouldn't be facing lefties, then who should he have used in the 8th inning? Estrada? Dillard? McClendon? He wasn't misusing Loe; Loe just isn't that good, and his career stats indicate that 2010 was the exception, not the rule, and RR didn't have any lefties to use against lefties. They needed to get a legit setup man, or at the minimum someone who is good against lefties, and they got that in K-Rod.

Well then Morgan against lefties hurts the team too, because he can't hit them. Either way, he hamstrung RR by DFAing Carroll. Given that roughly 70% of pitchers are right-handed, it's not that big of a deal.

Escobar is being talked about as a gold glover at SS, but his bat is terrible. However Yuni cant hit much and cant field so I would rather have Escobar. No, the choice wasn't Escobar or Yuni. The choice was Escobar and (name a free agent starting pitcher who was willing to come to Milwaukee) or Yuni and Grienke. Those with a crystal ball who were willing to risk Capuano's injury history, bravo. But no Yuni means no Grienke.

Back to the point of the thread... In the last 8 months Melvin has traded for Grienke, Marcum, K-Rod, Morgan, Hairston, and Lopez. Debate if he overpaid for any of them, but when you make that many moves in 8 months I can't call it disappointment. The knock was starting pitching so he went and got it. Unfortunately it cost him his rangy but somewhat error-prone young SS, but the upside is not having to start a Jeff Suppan in the playoffs. He needed starting pitching and went out and got it. He needed a CF and went out and got one. He needed a setup man who was decent against lefties because all three bullpen lefties he started the season with were medically unavailable, and he went and got one. He had an all star 2B go down for likely a month so he went out and got one. His backup CF went down so he got one who also can play SS and 3B. Hard to be disappointed. Yeah Yuni and Casey haven't been good, but the combined games missed by Grienke, Hart, Saito, Hawkins, Parra, Stetter, Braddock, Kintzler, Braun, Lucroy, and Weeks have had more impact than the below-average play of those two. Melvin has had a MASH unit like job this year and only has so many trading chips to use.

Someone posted an idea that maybe Green is being held back because he may be part of another trade... ... so what if Green is traded for an upgrade at SS and a LH RP? What about Green to the Dodgers for Furcal and LH RP Scott Elbert? They get a young pitcher with upside back in Elbert and the benefit to LA is taking Furcal's contract off the books. Furcal has to be at least a Type B, possibly Type A, so the Brewers may also get a pick or two back to help restock the system.

Yes - a sprain is a mild tear. A "tear" is a major tear.

"Hes the player to be named later for K Rod so he cant be called up." Correction: He's on the PTBNL list, along with a few other guys. The Mets are taking their time deciding which one they want to pick so he can't be called up. I have a feeling that Kintzler is on the list as well - fits the profile of "guy who has been in the majors and has had some success". Would fill a bullpen role that the Mets need too. But they are waiting for a medical diagnosis, thus the delay in selecting the players. I did not know Green was not on the 40-man. You would have to think though that with Weeks down and McGehee struggling that if Green wasn't on the list he would be on his way to Milwaukee.

You want a mustache ride? Just Axford!

Once again how much of that was the players and how much was the manager? If Loe shouldn't be facing lefties, then he's not good enough to be the setup guy and they need someone better. If he isn't good enough to be facing lefties as a setup man, then who should? Hawkins and Saito have been hurt and can't be relied on to be healthy. Braddock isn't healthy between the ears and can't be relied on. So who is left to pitch those high leverage innings? Estrada? Dillard? McClendon? If Loe isn't good enough then they need someone else! There is simply no way 1 reliever is a bigger problem than having 2 of the worst players in the league at their starting positions every inning of every game. Because in a majority of those innings one or both of those position players may not be involved in as much as one play or one pitch, and some of those ABs/fielding chances may come in 11-2, 8-1, 12-3 games where it makes no difference in the outcome of the game. When the setup guy comes in he is involved in every single pitch when he is in, and usually it is in a high leverage situation where there isn't more than a 3 run difference in the score. That's why; the pitches, plays, and runs involved with the setup guy - while overall fewer than the position player - have a lot more impact on the outcome of the game. "High-leverage" - those are the key words. People estimate that McGehee and Betancourt are around -1 WAR each. That to me means two additional losses. Loe has seven blown saves and seven losses; seven times he entered the game with the Brewers in the lead and exited with the Brewers no longer having the lead, and seven times he entered the game with the Brewers not losing and exited with the Brewers losing and not able to overcome the deficit and end up losing. No reliever is going to be perfect, but you can't tell me that seven blown saves and seven losses is well below average for a setup guy. If he only had 3 blown saves & 3 losses the Brewers could have four more wins. 4 more wins > 2 more losses. That's just math. The Brewers at one point had five more blown saves than league average. If they convert four of those - just to get to league average - that's four more wins. McGehee and Betancourt mean two additional losses. Again, 4 > 2. I just don't know how to explain it.

1) Peralta 2) Bradley 3) Thornburg 4) Jungmann 5) Schafer 6) Green 7) Lopez 8) Scarpetta 9) Heckathorn 10) Fiers

Everybody keeps saying that Michael Fiers is bullpen depth at best, and every year at every level he keeps giving no reason to not let him keep starting. Nice to see Mike Walker add some power to his solid OBP. Rob w00ten appears to have picked up right where he left off prior to TJ surgery. Have to plagiarize Taylor Green off of someone else's list. Great to see him finally recovered, and a LH bat at a position of need is never a bad thing. And did anyone expect this much out of a 3rd round pick? Thornburg, anyone?

Maybe he's just unaware of how bad the left side of the infield is. If the Brewers were just league average in blown saves they could easily be four games up in first place.

Given the organizational hole at 3B, trading away Green would be collosal blunder at this point. While maybe not a colossal blunder, I think it would be a significant blunder because if anything the Brewers need LH balance in the lineup and Green could help provide that. Especially next year when Prince is likely gone. That is what bugs me about not calling him up - the ability to add a LH bat to the lineup against RH pitching. Taylor Green was on a PTBNL list before though...

"If Melvin truly wanted to make an impact he would have traded for someone who can contribute 9 innings every day instead of a guy who will only contribute 1 inning when the Brewers are already winning." The reason he made the trade is because the guy who was in that situation had a tendency to turn the Brewers already winning into the Brewers already losing. Did it seven times I believe.

Schafer also walked; great to see him get off on the right foot. I hope you knocked on wood when you typed this...

You know how there are things you look back on and wish you would or would not have bought? Not for financial gain like stocks, but just stuff. Half the stuff you bought you wish you hadn't, and half the stuff you passed on you wish you would have bought? With Borders starting to liquidate their retail stores today I thought of a book I remember seeing at a Waldenbooks when I was a teenager. Don't know why I didn't buy it - probably because as a teenager I didn't have a lot of money, but peed plenty of it away on worthless 1987-88 Topps baseball cards. Maybe it was because I was sure my brother would have stolen it. But it was a unique book that would be priceless to have as a coffee table book now as an adult. This adult-themed book would tell you to skip two pages ahead and place your fingers in a certain position on an outline on the page. Then it would tell you to turn back a page, and there were strategically placed holes in the page that when your fingers were in that position would complete a mildly dirty picture, usually making a "rear-end" in the picture. (If you put the palm-side tips of your middle and ring finger together and just look at the tips, that will give you an idea - kind of like putting two pumpkins next to each other.) If anyone has that book and wants to sell it I will pay top dollar for it. If you happen to know the title, or know of a similar book I can buy as I'm sure this one was out of print long ago, I will send much good karma your way. Grow old? Yep. Grow up? Never!

Silver lining - Arnett's GO/FO was 7:3 and four of the hits given up were ground balls. But three home runs... yikes. Let's hope he was working on something specific.

Again, realizing I just jinxed him, so far it's Fiers being Fiers.

In this article on JSOnline it says that Alderson is the person who instigated the trade - he called Melvin, not vice versa: http://www.jsonline.com/s...s/brewers/125539643.html So Melvin wasn't proactively looking to improve the bullpen; he just decided to take the call from Alderson, listened, and found the deal too good to pass up.

Turk, thanks for your input. IIRC, the book on Fiers is that while he doesn't have a lot of velocity he has a lot of movement on his pitches and very good control. I'm not saying he's the second coming of this guy, but another guy who didn't have a lot of velocity but lots of movement and great control is Greg Maddux.

Thank you for posting this. Should also note that the talent level in the bullpen would seem to indicate that they could improve going forward. The talent level at shortstop would certainly not lend itself to much improvement and third base isn't much better than that.I guess I'm confused by two things: 1) How is the "talent" level of the bullpen indicative that they can improve, but McGehee's numbers the last two seasons (.859, .801) are not indicative that he can improve? By "talent" are you referring to Loe, who has had one good season in the majors (two if you want to go back to 2005) - doesn't 2010 seem to be more the exception than the norm for him? Are you referring to Estrada, who has had zero good seasons in the majors? Are you referring to Saito, who is 41 and can't stay healthy? Is Hawkins going to improve on his 1.08 ERA and 1.12 WHIP? I get the doubt that Betancourt will improve, but McGehee has a better ML track record to suggest improvement than most of the bullpen. B) Why are position players compared only to players of the same position for WAR, but all relievers are lumped together? I think it's pretty clear that relievers have specific roles now, and you shouldn't lump closers in the same bucket with mop-up guys, long relievers, and LOOGYs. Maybe Loe is +0.4 WAR (really hard to believe a guy with 7 losses and 6 blown saves halfway through a season is +0.4 WAR) compared to all relievers, but that comparison shouldn't be made. He needs to be compared to other setup men because that was his role. You don't compare SS to 3B just because they are on the same side of the infield; you shouldn't compare all relievers. Here's my half-rear-ended comparison (and no, I don't care about FIP, xFIP, blah, blah, it's late and I want to go to bed). Loe's ERA is 4.50; that means over say 72 innings a season he will give up 36 earned runs. K-Rod has an ERA of 3.16; that means over those same 72 innings he will give up 25.25 runs, a difference of almost 11 runs. Isn't that pretty close to the run differential that is estimated for McGehee and Yuni? Now, here's the fun part - given their specific roles, few of those 72 innings will be in situations where the Brewers will be > 4 runs from their opponents, often 2 runs or less. So those runs are far more important than the run differential of McGehee or Betancourt, which may be games that are close and may be games where they lose 12-2 to the Yankees or 12-3 to the Reds or Red Sox or beat the Astros 14-7 or the Nationals 11-3. Loe or K-Rod aren't pitching in those games.

Kintzler Gamel fits the statement too... and he could move to LF or RF.

It will be worth a lot more than $14M to Mark A. if the Brewers make the World Series. Heck, it might be worth close to that just to get into the playoffs. 45,000 fans/game... if the average fan spends $200/game on a ticket/concessions/parking/souvies... that's $9M in revenue per game. I don't think Mark A. is going to hold anyone back.

Darn you pogo, that was my guess. I'm going with Khris Davis and Manzanillo. My dark horse is Arnett - it allows the Brewers to save face by saying they traded him for K-Rod if they really feel he's a bust. His last couple of starts have been very good, better than the numbers show especially from a ground ball to fly ball ratio.

If Loe's WAR this season is +0.4 then I have lost all faith in that stat. Maybe compared to all relievers but compared to all setup men he has cost the Brewers way more wins than the average setup man. No way Loe is +0.4 compared to all setup men.