gregmag

Wow . . . looks like I picked the wrong 24 hours to catch up on sleep and get a Christmas tree. If I can just say something gratuitous here -- this board is so freakin' smart (assuming for the sake of argument that I'm smart enough to make the compliment credible). Pretty much everybody zeroed in on the same analysis, which I think is right: (1) you add a number one starter if you can; (2) losing Cain hurts; (3) losing the others hurts a lot less. I'm really glad I have this resource to clue me in on things. I have always been conservative about trading prospects, probably too much so. But when you have a real plan -- when you've resolved to go get guys who can actually win something for you -- then that conservatism flies out the window. This is only the third trade in Brewers history, after Simmons/Fingers/Vuke (30 years?!?) and Sabathia, that I would call a real deal, go for the crown kind of trade. You do what you have to do. Now, of course, what we have to do is get a shortstop. Betancourt don't cut it at all. As for CF, I like Dickerson more than most people and Gomez as little as anyone else, but those guys together at least satisfy the "warm body" standard. I'm much more amenable now to trading Gamel than I've ever been in the past if he can net us a decent shortstop. But DM can usually find a guy every year off the scrap heap to fill a need -- this year, let that guy be a shortstop. I've been so annoyed this week as all my friends in Philly have been talking up their undeserved good fortune. This is very cathartic. We're coming for them.

An interesting thing about those similars is that a bunch of those guys looked great early in their careers and then dropped off much faster than expected. Cirillo sort of did the same thing -- and then he came back to Milwaukee and looked like a new man. Who knows why these things happen . . . people said Baerga partied too hard, but I don't know about the others. I do wonder whether Cirillo might have stayed on a better course if he had just gotten to spend his career in Milwaukee. He still wouldn't have been Yount or Molitor; but, as Warning Track Power is suggesting, he might have been more than he was.

In my humble opinion, some of the comments on both sides of the Lawrie debate have been a bit hyperbolic. What we have here is a guy who hit very well in AA as a 20 year-old. Guys like that sometimes grow up to be Ryan Braun, but I don't think you can fairly assume that anybody will develop to that level. Ryan Braun is an established major league star whose first four seasons compare to the early careers of quite a few Hall of Famers. Even if Lawrie had absolutely dominated AA pitching, which he didn't, you couldn't project him out to that level. Braun is just too good. Lawrie has established a chance to become that good, but he'll have to clear a bunch more hurdles before he gets there. At the same time, I don't think you can say there's a meaningful chance Lawrie will crash and burn. He could crash and burn; anybody could. But Lawrie has built up an impressive performance record to date, and nothing about him suggests a special likelihood of cratering. Not many hitters can thrive in AA at age 20, and I suspect that not many guys who have done so have failed to have good major league careers. Personally, I think Lawrie will end up as a very good MLB hitter at a corner position. If the corner position is 3b, he seems to me like a reasonable bet to play in some All-Star games. I don't see any affirmative evidence, yet, that would lead me to bet he'll become Ryan Braun. For me, trading that player for a number 2 starter is a fair deal, especially given the Brewers' distribution of resources.

I'm sorry to keep beating this horse, but I can't believe anyone is still riding it . . . Dickerson last year had 53 PA for the Brewers. He had been hurt, and he was trying to adjust to a bench role on a new team. If he had gone 0 for 53 with 53 strikeouts, we wouldn't know a single thing worth knowing about him that we didn't know before the season. What we do know about Dickerson is that, even factoring in last year's bad stats, he's put up league average hitting numbers in over 500 PA while getting bounced in and out of the lineup, and he plays CF and runs well. A 29 year-old with that profile has value. He's exactly the kind of guy you want to have around in case you want to trade your stud CF prospect for Zack Greinke. Beyond that, he's a fourth OF, and what more do you want from a fourth OF? He has been a borderline starter when healthy, and that works for me. As for Gomez, he has built up an impressive record of failure in the major leagues. I don't have a database at hand, but I wouldn't think too many guys with an OPS+ of 72 in their first 1400 MLB PA have ever amounted to anything. (It would probably be easy enough to check, because how many hitters that bad even stick around that long?) You're right that Gomez and Cain are very close in age, and that may be important, but Gomez in his life has never shown a hint of what Cain showed last year at the MLB level, albeit in 158 PA.

Well, that's just about as anticlimactic as it could possibly be. But good for Gillick.

I love our prospects; I overvalue them unapologetically. Lawrie looks to me like he'll hit enough to stick at 1B / corner OF in the bigs and thrive. Guys like that are always useful. We realistically could end up regretting this deal in two years. But right now, based not on hyperbole but on what both guys have shown to date, the deal makes a lot of sense. Marcum's numbers are those of a #2 pitcher, and although he hasn't performed at that level for long, (a) it isn't like he had a bad pedigree before 2010, and (b) guys who have performed at that level for years already are either closer to declining or superstars. Lawrie has shown no signs of sticking at a key defensive position. He could turn into Ryan Braun, and you can't say that about everybody, but he hasn't established that level of promise yet. In any event, we have five pretty good, relatively young corner players at the moment (I count Gamel; I know not everyone does). Two of those guys could get hurt, and then we'd miss Lawrie -- although maybe not this year. But we're already short on pitching, and that isn't like a flukish condition. It seems to me like a bold, pragmatic, sensible trade, on both sides.

Dickerson has hit .267/.356/.403 in 527 MLB PA. Boggs has hit .212/.318/.375 in 360 MLB PA. Boggs has barely sniffed the majors since 2008. I'm not saying that Dickerson is a lock or that Boggs is a chump. Boggs has some advantages; he's a year younger and has better secondary offensive skills. I like the pickup. But I think some folks are undervaluing Dickerson because he didn't do squat in Milwaukee. He had been hurt, he got traded, and most importantly he only had 61 PA, 106 total for the year, which is next to nothing. Dickerson has shown substantially more than Boggs (or Gomez) at the MLB level, and at this moment I think he is substantially more likely to help the Brewers in 2011.

I don't think Dawson and Rice were good selections. Now, maybe I'm wrong about that; those have been lively arguments. My point in bringing it up is, what do you do if people get in who you don't think should be in, and then a comparable player comes up? I think you stay consistent. I mean, there are some really bad selections from the 1920s in the Hall; once they're in, they're in, but that doesn't mean you should set the standards by them. So -- because I happen to think that Dawson and Rice weren't good selections, and because I agree that Parker is a comparable player, I wouldn't vote for Parker. Lou Whitaker, on the other hand . . . Alan Trammell too. I would give serious consideration to both of those guys; my gut says they belong. If we did use the argument that guys should get in if they're better than the guys who are already in, then it would be easy -- Whitaker and Trammell are significantly better than Tinker and Evers.

I love, love, love these discussions. I think Simmons is extremely underrated and would be by far the best choice among the listed players. He was a great offensive catcher and good defensive catcher for a long time, and as somebody said, he just had the bad luck to play in Johnny Bench's shadow. I think his absence from the Hall is all about a failure to set standards for catchers properly. I don't think Garvey belongs. He was a flashy player in a big market, but he put up very ordinary numbers for a 1b. Of the pitchers, I'm on the fence about John. Guidry and Blue weren't good enough for long enough, in my view, although if they got in, they wouldn't be the first pitchers to get in with short careers. But they aren't, just to pull an unfair name out of the air, Koufax -- their peaks were short too. Miller changed baseball for the better. The excesses that followed aren't his fault. I hate Steinbrenner with a fiery passion, so I want him out. That's totally irrational on my part, of course. But I think it's tough to evaluate the nonplayers on anything other than subjective grounds. I will say that I don't think Martin belongs. His M.O. was to take over a team, move it forward suddenly -- because he was a genius -- but then destroy its pitching staff, burn his bridges -- because he was a borderline sociopath -- and then move on. Actually, Martin is kind of the managerial Dick Allen. Allen is the best HoF argument starter ever. His numbers are really hard to deny, but on the other hand he appears to have been a genuine cancer who hurt his teams. Oliver was a great hitter for average and not much else, but he did what he did for a long time. For some reason he reminds me of a great scoring shooting guard who was limited in other ways -- maybe a Mitch Richmond type. Al Oliver is to Rod Carew as Mitch Richmond is to Clyde Drexler -- roughly the same category of player, but a critical notch down the pole. It's not a perfect comparison: Oliver had more power than Carew, but not enough to offset Carew's other advantages.

The Bucks have put together this little run because of their depth. The bench dominates one game, then the bench disappears the next game and the starters step up. Two or three key guys are out or off every game (last night: Delfino out, Bogut offensively and Maggette off) and they win on defense and a couple of other guys just putting together good games by their standards (last night: Salmons, Jennings, and Gooden, plus Bogut defensively). I'm not saying that this approach will beat the Lakers, or that it's enough to move them forward in the playoffs; clearly they have to put together more offense. But I'm pretty comfortable saying that their lousy start was the result of the inability to get a bunch of new players integrated in camp because of all the injuries. They have had to learn together on the fly, and right now they're doing a remarkable job.

When Morgan started out, like, 30 years ago, I remember liking him. He has a great mind for baseball and an engaging manner. I just think he got complacent very quickly, and also arrogant -- like his achievements as a player exonerated him from actually having to think anything through. But really, most of the time I'd rather just watch a well-directed live feed with a stat box and a crawler or quick voiceover if something weird happens. Commercials are by design the biggest nuisance with televised baseball, but announcers generally rate a close second. They just don't add anything to the experience.

This is a really good thought, worth a detailed analysis. He appears to have been hurt over the past couple of seasons, and he's arby eligible, so he isn't without risk. His K rate went up last year, but it still isn't great, and the increase could have been a fluke. But maybe he's finally tapping into his potential, and your Bush comparison seems pretty solid on the low end (assuming McCarthy is healthy).

To say that Pierzynski is younger than Zaun and a better hitter than recent Kendall is entirely true. It is also not my idea of an endorsement. Catchers tend to fall off a cliff in their mid-30s. I don't understand why we would sign a mediocre offensive and defensive catcher, who wants real money and a starting job, at a point in his career when he's likely to decline sharply, when we have a young starting catcher we're trying to develop. That seems seriously counterproductive.

The only way a guy can truly prove himself at the major league level is to play there. Gamel has proved himself a very good hitter at AAA. He has shown in a small but not meaningless number of MLB PAs that he can hold his own under bad conditions (playing irregularly). He's still young enough to get better. The Brewers need a hitter and could plug him into the lineup in a number of ways. Why in the world wouldn't we put him in the lineup?

(1) Weeks (2) Gallardo (meaningful dropoff) (3) Braun (4) Fielder (slight dropoff) (5) Hart (6) McGehee (slight dropoff) (7) Axford

I think Ennder nailed it as to Capuano, and PrinceFielderx1 nailed it as to Parra. I also think, partially because of those two other things, that Narveson is a lock to stick around. He's a cheap, serviceable botttom-of-the-rotation guy who has at least a small chance of getting better. I think even if we keep Capuano, we're looking for two starters. Rogers could be one, but he's going to put an awful strain on the pen if he keeps walking guys. I think Parra is done as a starter, at least until he does that thing lefties do where somebody puts him in the rotation out of desperation when he's 30 and he magically puts it all together.

I am not any kind of a reflexive DM basher -- I think overall he has been an effective GM -- but this was a bad trade. Escobar wasn't ready to hit at the MLB level, Hardy was a streaky player coming off a horrible year, and Gomez hadn't shown a thing with the bat. The only thing you couldn't have predicted with some confidence is how quickly Cain was ready. I don't think Hardy over Escobar would have put us into contention, but it wouldn't have cost anything except a little salary to try. Given that we got a better player than Gomez for Edmonds, I'm betting we could have gotten a better player than Gomez for Hardy in-season.

Okay, this is awesome: He's on the smaller side of MLB players (5'10"), and he's a great hitter. From here on his nickname must be Little Pine.

Great observation Briggs. Did Melvin choose Yost? It makes sense that he would have, but my recollection (which may well be wrong) is that they were hired together. A quick search didn't turn up the hiring dates. Does anyone have this info at hand? Also, FWIW, Dean Taylor managed to hire two managers in just three years; Harry Dalton hired six (including Bamberger twice) in fifteen years. Obviously the game has changed, but I think the number of managers a GM hires is at least as much an effect as a cause of how long a GM stays in his job.

His great month is all about that batting average. He's still not walking, and he's hitting for less power than usual. He isn't going to hit .380 beating out grounders. For that matter, he isn't going to hit .280 beating out grounders. Those numbers scream "fluke," and if anything they're bad news for his development, if they convince him that he doesn't need to change his game. Also, I agree that his defense makes him valuable if he puts up a .698 OPS, but only as a fourth OF, preferably on a team that doesn't need an extra increment of power off the bench. All of that said, I'm still holding onto hope for Gomez. He already does two useful things well (defend and run), and his bat could come around. His record gives little reason for optimism, but sometimes tools guys figure things out late. I'm just glad we don't have to count on it. (I'm a guy who believed in Brent Brewer as a prospect.) The potential Gomez / Katin battle for the last OF spot could be one of next spring's most interesting stories.

I'm very sorry about that; I just assumed there was one stat. Thanks for the explanation.

I'm looking at Baseball Reference. I'm not sure what accounts for the discrepancy. Does Fangraphs compound WAR for pitching, batting, and fielding? BR has Gallardo at 2.6 WAR for pitching, 1.2 for batting, and 0 for fielding. That makes up some of the discrepancy but not all of it. I'm not sophisticated enough in advanced metrics to know whether there are competing methods of calculating WAR that yield such widely divergent results. Anyway, that's where I got my numbers; sorry if it's an unreliable source. That certainly explains (debunks) the Wolf change; whatever he is, he hasn't more than doubled his production in a week.

BTW, he's now up to 1.7 WAR. Seems odd that he'd jump 1 WAR in a week, even though he has been pitching great. Instinctively the .7 seemed low to me; 1.7 seems about right. For comparison, Gallardo has 2.6 WAR; Capuano has 0.4; Narveson has -0.3; Bush has -1.5; Davis also has -1.5.

So what's your point? Do we require Cooper's number as well? Thomas' number? Those guys had much more (per WAR, the naked eye, whatever you like) to do with that championship than Fingers did. So did Oglivie, Simmons, and Vuckovich, although Fingers was closer to them than to the other guys. I guess you might mean "HOF + key role in one championship = retired number." I've always thought that was the logic with Fingers, and I get it. I just don't agree; I don't think it's enough. The case for Fingers is only slightly stronger on that basis than the case for Sutton, and I wouldn't retire Sutton's number either. Would you retire Simmons' number if the veterans' committee put him in the Hall of Fame? Could happen.

I think retiring Fingers' number was a mistake. As great a career as he had, and as important as he was to the team, I just don't think he was here long enough. I would go with the "Hall of Famer who spent a substantial amount of his productive career with the team" standard. Aaron is a special case, because you can fairly substitute "in the city" for "with the team." Jackie Robinson is a designated special case. That gives you Aaron, Yount, Molitor, Jackie Robinson. I don't think anybody else is close.