gregmag

Vintage Fiers. The Brewers' pitching depth is a huge, unsung factor in their prospects this year. Omar Garcia had five extra-base hits in 203 ABs last year at Helena. He now has two in 16 this year. If he can add a little power in his age-20 season to go with his other skills, he could be something. I have to admit, I had totally forgotten about Hobbs Johnson. I'd love to see him keep this up, because he has a great baseball name.

That wasn't about politics; it was about science, which the original poster used as a basis of comparison. Except for the line about Proxmire. Whose name, I will point out at the risk of getting banned, was actually Bill, not Bob. Trying to separate "politics" from everything else is incredibly hard. If the exchange above is somehow out of bounds, then this isn't a discussion forum worth the name.

Great thread. The media are making the same mistake (in part) that Braun himself did. They're making it all about Braun. Welcoming him back into the fold is about us, about what kind of fans we want to be. It's like SI said last year: people in Milwaukee tend to be pretty kind, forgiving, inclined to look for and at the best in people. I think that's a pretty god way to be. Plus what everybody else said beautifully above.

I like platoons when they're better than the alternatives, and both the 1b and 2b platoons seem to be that. I understand the concerns about roster flexibility. OTOH, NL clubs often keep pinch-hitters with little or no thought for their defensive value. I'm not sure how what the Brewers have is any worse than that. It would be great, of course, if these guys had positional flexibility, but they amount to platoon pieces / bench bats. A greater concern is that any one or more of these four players presents a real threat to stink up the joint, but hopefully the platoon advantage will help them all. I love the pitching staff. The only overpriced FA in the pen is Rodriguez, and I guess at this point we have a special relationship with him. Everybody else is young and/or a castoff -- exactly the kinds of guys you should get to construct a pen. The rotation looks very solid, with the needle between so-so and very strong likely to move based more on Peralta than anything else. Well, that and injuries, but we've got Thornburg in the pen and Nelson at AAA waiting for their chances.

I think WTP is right. The going rate for established MLB 1bs this winter was outrageous. The Loney and Hart contracts were stupid, and the Mets wanted too much for Davis. That we're stuck without a great option at 1b speaks to a long-term talent development problem, but I don't blame DM for not finding a better solution this winter. Francisco is terrible. I liked the acquisition when we first got him, but he simply can't play defense. His butchery at 1b (let us not even speak of his time at 3b) pretty much wiped out his offensive contributions. Those contributions really weren't much anyway, because Francisco does one important thing well and everything else badly. Not a lot of power-only guys learn plate discipline at 26. Overbay is also terrible. He can't hit anymore at all. But if he has anything left, sticking him in a platoon is probably the only way to find it, and his defense is at least good enough to compensate for some amount of offensive failure. I'm pretty sure our 1b production won't be good, but I'm also very sure it will improve over last year's disaster. These guys are obviously a stopgap. The search for a real solution continues.

Halton's a 26 year-old whose peak performance since rookie ball has been to OPS .852 in the PCL at age 25. His "three positions" (he never played corner OF before last year) are the three least valuable defensive positions, and I've never heard it said that he plays any of them especially well. He's a dime-a-dozen player whom the Brewers have wisely busted down from "roster filler" to "AAA depth," which is still stretching his value.

I'm a Molitor fan like WTP, a guy who grew up watching Cooper hit third like Barney, and a numbers guy like 'Stache's accusation. I also started really following the Brewers in spring 1978, the precise low point of Yount's career, when he claimed to be thinking about quitting baseball for golf. Fans and media, IIRC (I was only ten), had gotten impatient with his slow development, an understandable problem in retrospect for a guy who was the age (22) of a typical MLB rookie but already had four mediocre years as an MLB starter behind him. Then he had a very good '78 but followed up with a so-so '79. All of those things, I think, have caused me to undervalue Robin instinctively. Intellectually I get the respect of peers, the fact that Bill James called him his favorite player of that era, the ss/cf MVPs, the dominant 1982, the defensive value, the power-speed combo, all the good stuff 'Stache points out. Robin aged surprisingly young (you know what I mean), and sticking around for four so-so years at the end, together with his mediocre start as a kid, dragged down his overall stats. But man, he was magic in the 80s. Chop off, really, the first and last three seasons of his career, and you have an absolute beast. He was also a very fun kind of good player, because he did so many things well and played very intense without being a jerk.

I don't get some of the statements here that people are "defending" Weeks, or some of the outright anger directed at him. Those sentiments are fine, I guess, but they don't have anything to do with figuring out what's going to win games. If the Brewers are serious about contending -- I'm not sure they should be, but I think they are -- then they shouldn't go into the season with Scooter as their only option at 2b. If it turns out that Scooter's power surge last year is sustainable, they'll be fine. But if last year's MLB numbers were a bit of a fluke, then he could be a liability. I haven't been high on Scooter's chances over the years. What he did last year certainly increased my enthusiasm. But I can't -- yet -- ignore the prior evidence suggesting that he isn't a MLB starter. I hate the idea of evaluating players based on spring training, but it may be viable and necessary with Weeks this year. If he has really lost it, that should be visible in ST, not from numbers but from simple observation of his bat and feet. If I were running the Brewers to contend, and if Weeks showed signs of life in ST, I'd probably run him out there the first month with Scooter at AAA. If Weeks looks like last year's model, I'd probably get rid of him however I could. Whatever else happens, the Brewers need to have somebody else around who can play 2b and hit a baseball. Can Green still play there?

As a bigtime Brantley pusher back when we had him, I'm confused. Do I say "I told you so" because he's made it as a MLB regular (and despite the fact that saying "I told you so" is obnoxious)? Or do I concede I was wrong because his plus OBP skills never transferred to MLB, leaving him as a very mediocre regular at best? This has to be the most ambiguous prospect outcome I've ever seen.

Wow. Glad you're not building the team I follow. What has Taylor Green ever done to merit playing time at the major league level, particulary coming off major surgery and sitting out a year as a result? He's cheap. That's it. Green can play 3b. Overbay can't. Francisco allegedly can, but he's a disaster at 1b and worse at 3b. For that reason alone, Green would be a better bench option for the Brewers.

I'm on board with the bad character signing plus bad baseball signing judgment. As usual, the discussion here has been very smart. Yes, he wasn't convicted of anything. No, the rest of us don't need to limit our disapproval to people whom the state finds guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, especially in an area as important and rife with dropped charges as domestic violence. It matters, first and foremost, because I'd kind of like for the Brewers, and MLB in general, to cultivate a female as well as male fan base. One good reason for not having an all-white/anglo team -- I mean, if it's absolutely the best team that falls into place for you, then so be it, but how likely is that? -- is to help appeal to fans who aren't white / anglo. Obviously we're going to have an all-male team. But what does it say to female fans when we can't even be bothered to avoid overpaying for relief pitchers with domestic violence raps? On the baseball side, $3.25 million is too much for a decent but not great performer at a position of unpredictability where a good team can usually find bodies. Maybe Doug's still spooked by 2012. At least it's just one year, and assuming he isn't leading us to the pennant come July, hopefully we unload him for another prospect.

ARam could always go to 1B if we traded for a 3b starter today. Good point, assuming ARam is willing to move in a contract year. So presumably they looked around at 3b and didn't see attractive pickup options.

You make a bunch of good points, but I think I feel better about the deal than you do. First, as others have mentioned, the rotation for a season isn't realistically just your top 5. Somebody is going to get hurt, maybe a couple of somebodies. Peralta's in the rotation. Nelson looks ready; he'll almost certainly end up logging serious innings as our number 6 starter. Whether or not Thornburg is ready seems like a trickier question. More time at AAA, which kicked his butt last year, doesn't seem like a bad idea. Again, we're likely to need him at some point. After those guys, the "strength" of SPs in our upper levels gets a lot more questionable. I won't even start to believe in Hellweg until he can get close to 2:1 K:BB. Jungmann could probably come up today and pitch like a borderline MLB starter; maybe he's better than that. Anyway, I don't think this deal in the aggregate disserves our SP prospects. As to your other point -- why a SP and not a 1b or 3b -- I think you mostly answered it: lack of viable alternatives. First of all, I remain convinced that 1b will work out. It's just too easy a position to find guys. I'd do Hellweg or Jungmann for Ike Davis, but I wouldn't look to deal for a Corey Hart type. As for 3b, you can't go out and get a meaningful 3b with Ramirez still on the team. But even assuming you prioritize those needs, at some point you have to ask "What useful resource can I get for a good price?" The Garza deal, assuming he's healthy, looks like a good price for a valuable asset. We can use him now, and it frees us up to trade one of our other SPs for a positional upgrade later. In that sense, Garza's a fungible resource. I've got the Bucks on the brain, where losing is important (and inevitable). A baseball rebuild doesn't have to work that way. We're integrating Segura, Khris Davis, and Gennett into the lineup. Hopefully we can come up with young corner IFs at some point using resources we have and also integrate one or more young SPs. Win some games while still getting younger. Not a bad plan; let's see if DM can make it work.

Yeah, because he was the only guy in the Hall of Fame from that era who did cocaine, right? Right, because that's exactly what I said. Nice strawman argument. No, but nothing you did say is defensible. Let's take your statements one by one: Molitor is a hypocrite: A hypocrite is someone who accuses someone else of doing something the accuser himself has done. If Molitor had said "We should condemn A-Rod because, at some point in his life, he used a prohibited drug," then he would be a hypocrite. Of course, that isn't what Molitor said. He called A-Rod out for using a specific drug that, in Molitor's (and most people's) view, allowed him to cheat at baseball. In addition, Molitor used cocaine as a very young man for a relatively brief period, figured out the error of his ways, admitted his mistake, and moved on. It's apples and oranges. No hypocrisy here. "Part of the criteria for being in the HOF is 'character'": No it isn't: http://baseballhall.org/hall-famers/rules-election/bbwaa. Even if it were, a lot of HOFers have severe and well-documented character flaws, so the character criterion would be meaningless. Molitor is a "douchebag": The statement doesn't deserve a response; it indicts itself and you. I will say that, the one time I was involved in corresponding with Molitor, he was gracious and generous. Molitor was a coke addict: This is the one statement in your post that has an element of truth to it. According to this account of his former agent's book, Molitor called his condition at the end of 1980 an addiction: http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1499&dat=19930927&id=q6IaAAAAIBAJ&sjid=xSwEAAAAIBAJ&pg=6480,4539171. Apparently he quit cold turkey and didn't require treatment, so I'm not sure a physician would have considered him an addict. Your statement is still misleading, I'll assume inadvertently, because your lack of qualification suggests that Molitor was a coke addict in general. In fact he appears to have used cocaine only during part of 1979 and all of 1980 and to have developed a serious problem only in the later part of that span. The judgmental tone of your statement, while it's your prerogative, strikes me as extremely harsh, given that Molitor was a very young man, under a lot of pressure, in an era when cocaine use was rampant in sports and society; quit when he realized the problem was out of his control; and grew up. Overall, you couldn't have written a less truthful, more corrosive post if you had tried.

Wow. I was not expecting this, but then I haven't been paying much attention. I echo everyone's positive reactions. Nelson will end up starting some games for this team, and behind Nelson I think there's a considerable drop-off in likely success. I've been very skeptical of the idea that the Brewers can contend, and I still am, but we've managed to fill most of the obvious holes. 1b and (IMHO) 2b are still question marks, but we have options in both cases that will almost certainly improve over last year. If Garza had cost a draft pick I'd be annoyed, and if Thornburg was clearly ready I'd be puzzled. But this looks like a good pickup.

Wait . . . when did "the Brewers organization" say that Hunter Morris has no future with the team? I doubt he's our future 1b, but he's going to get at least another year to put himself in or out of the running. I like this move a lot better than signing Hart for the money Seattle gave him, a bit less than conning the Mets into taking someone we don't want for Davis. As Soup, I think, pointed out, the difference with Davis is that he has at least a bit of upside. But not enough to pry even Thornburg loose. I'm glad DM didn't panic and came up with a decent patch job. We have enough bats at AAA that this is a good moment for a stopgap solution. In six months we should have a lot more useful information about Morris, Halton, Rogers, and Green, and for that matter Denson if we're looking farther ahead. If all the AAA guys wash out, then we can look for a longer-term fix next winter.

That's really interesting. It completely makes sense from that standpoint. Obviously you have to hope they have more in mind to attract families, beyond the mascot. I've always had a weird, visceral aversion to "Cubs" as a name. I really can't explain why. I never really understood the appeal of teddy bears, so maybe I've just got an anti-bear animus. Anyway, the new mascot amps up that prejudice for me.

I came to this late, so all I can do is play Flava Flav to several people's Chuck D: Gold, Braggs, Neugebauer, Danny Thomas (nice!) . . . it's like a death trip down memory lane. Weeks has actually played right about up to the expectation for a guy drafted where he was. You hope he'll be a Hall of Famer, but that's almost never a realistic expectation. He's been a MLB starter, and he's had some good years. (I would add that you always have to ratchet down expectations for 2bs, because they tend to get hurt a lot and flame out early. That's what makes Gantner such an odd player. He was never great, and only briefly was he really a positive, but he managed to play at a solid, mediocre level for like 50 years. I think Weeks at his peak has clearly been better than Gantner was at his peak. They're almost total opposites as far as their strong points; put the two of them together and you have one of the all-time greats.) BTW, I think Sheets is pretty clearly the second-best pitcher in Brewers' history, in terms of career value. Only Higuera topped him. Sheets is somewhat like Weeks in that injuries had a lot to do with keeping them from better careers, but that happens a lot.

I hope Suppan will look up Jeffrey Hammonds, so that they can get together one evening and reminisce about their careers by the fireplace -- a fireplace in which they can burn money (just like the Brewers' front office) without even noticing it's gone (entirely unlike the Brewers' front office).

Man, I hope Scooter can hit RHPs like a MLB starter. Because otherwise this argument is going to look awfully silly in six months. I'm not being snarky. I often point out that we have to allow for the possibility that young players can develop, and Scooter took great advantage of his opportunity last year. It just seems odd to me that some folks here are so high on him that they're happy to let him go against lefties -- which, even in his magical and rather surprising run last year, he did horribly. If he regresses to anywhere near his overall AA/AAA performance, it could get ugly. Part of this discussion, too, is a tangle of what should happen and what probably will happen. I don't think the Brewers are going to contend, and they might have something in Scooter (at least against RHP), so I'm fine with him starting out as the strong side of a platoon. But even if I wasn't fine with it, it's going to happen; that's pretty clear. I think some folks here are saying the Brewers should play Weeks as the weak side of the platoon to get something out of him. I tend to agree with that. But again, whether it's a good idea or not, it's probably just going to happen anyway. I think Weeks very well may outhit Scooter overall. I hope that doesn't happen, because I'd rather see the young, cheap guy continue to grow. But I suspect it's a more realistic possibility than a lot of people believe. Anyway, we'll see.

I'm hoping this Young noise is just something DM put out there to psych out the Mets in Davis negotiations. Davis is the one guy under serious discussion who has upside. He could flame out completely, but there's at least a chance he'll get back on track. How you feel about this situation depends a lot on what you think the Brewers are trying to do. If you think the Brewers have a chance to contend, then this is a bad spot to be in. If not -- and I'm on the "not" side -- then passing on Hart and Loney was smart, passing on Young would be equally smart, and starting out with what we already have is a reasonable baseline. It's 1b. We're psyched out from last year, but 1b tends to work out because anybody who can play the field can play 1b. Halton/Francisco looks pretty bad, but you can reasonably start with them and then see whether Morris or Rogers shows the goods at AAA or whether an upgrade becomes available later. BTW, just to be clear, I hate Francisco as anything other than a platoon DH on a second-division team. I'm not advocating him as all or part of a solution; I'm just saying I could live with breaking camp with him in a 1b platoon because most of the other options seem worse to me.

I think you're an incredibly insightful guy, and I often learn from your posts. I try to make a point of saying when I do. You know a hell of a lot more about baseball than I do, and I think you probably know more than a great many other people here. But those couple of sentences, right there, show why I think this forum would be far better off if you went away. "An echo chamber where all of you would convince each other how insightful you all are"? Really? If that's what you get from reading this board -- as if you bothered to read with any care what other people post -- then you're even more arrogant and intellectually lazy than you usually come off. People here disagree with each other all the time. Many of us even question, and sometimes change, our own positions and assumptions, which is something I've never seen you do in your hundreds of posts I've read. You pontificate, you whine, you sneer. I've never once read a post where you engaged thoughtfully and respectfully with someone whose views didn't exactly mirror your own. I've never once seen you acknowledge that you learn anything from anyone else. Pretending that you're the only person here who offers opposing views to the hive mind, that you're unique and superior in your understanding of "business and the bottom line," shows contempt for everyone else who posts on this board. You could be a valuable contributor to discussions, but instead you choose to be a cancer.

This, IMHO, is a seriously great post. I think you've perfectly traced a sensible thought process. Of course, JohnBriggs will probably come back with another snide and condescending dismissal, but don't worry about that; you're operating in a different zone. I don't think the Gomez question is at all easy, mainly because -- as you've illustrated -- it involves some difficult assumptions at the margin. But I think you've provided the right template for thinking about it.

Best of luck to him. As far as his public persona, he's one of my favorite Brewers, and I'll never forget his 2011.

I get why people are saying thanks to the Rays, but let's give our FO credit when they deserve it. They had a chance to overpay for Hart and didn't do it. They had a chance to overpay for Loney and didn't do it. For Ike Davis the Mets want Thornburg -- not a world-beater, but a guy for whom we have some hope -- and DM has held out so far, with the Rays having just improved his bargaining position. Meanwhile, DM got a young LHP with at least modest upside for a year of Aoki, and we took an interesting flyer in Rule V. The team has apparently told Braun that his disgraced butt will play where it can do some good, in order to get Khris Davis into the lineup. I like every one of those moves and nonmoves. Granted, none of it is going to propel us into contention. But maybe we've at least been a bit too hasty to assume our FO was bent on making dumb decisions. I haven't seen any this offseason. (Of course, as long as Yuni is without a contract, none of us can really rest easy.)