gregmag

I remember that '78 series Briggs was talking about -- the second game was the first Brewers game I ever attended. And I remember sitting in my dorm in Ann Arbor for the '92 massacre of the Blue Jays, fiddling with my radio dial to get the signal from Toronto. The interesting thing about those two series were that they bookended what, until recently, was the Brewers' sole era of relevance. 1978, of course, was the beginning of a great run. The Brewers had hired Bamberger away from Baltimore, and thrashing that team, one of the powers in the division, announced their arrival in a big way. That was also Molitor's debut series. 1992 was the last year the Brewers made any noise until the (more or less) current team came together. Toronto was the division power that year, and as somebody mentioned, they had just flexed their muscles by getting Cone -- a move that seemed to take some air out of the Brewers. I remember cheering along with every hit (30 total, IIRC) and thinking about Cone, sitting in their dugout charting pitches for his first Toronto start the next day. It was euphoric. Then the Brewers predictably fell just short of the Jays for the division, and that winter the Jays signed away Molitor. That was it. Honestly, those two events made more of an impression on me than all but a few events in Brewers history -- Cooper's hit to beat the Angels in the ALCS, the start in 1987, Braun's homer in Chicago to ice the wild card. Yesterday was an amazing game in its own right; we'll have to see how it ends up affecting team history.

I wasn't around the site much when this discussion originally got going, but I wanted to weigh in. I've been an Alan Moore fan since (shortly) before he started writing for U.S. comics, a Watchmen devotee since the original series came out. I can't for the life of me understand the criticism that the movie dumbed down the story. As somebody who has the comic book ingrained in my consciousness, I want the movie to press my familiar buttons while also doing things that only the different medium can do, visually and rhetorically. I thought the Watchmen movie succeeded brilliantly, much like Sin City and V for Vendetta. The movie owes most of its success to Moore's original conception -- Zack Snyder arguably did just as good a job with 300, but I think 300 the graphic novel (though visually breathtaking) is juvenile and crypto-fascist. That's okay, though; Moore's original conception is one for the ages. The violence in the movie, for me, did what violence is supposed to do -- scared the pants off me and pounded very firmly into my consciousness Moore's view of the ugly world we live in.

I've been away, so I'm sure this has been discussed already, but how good does the team's decision not to offer Lopez arby look now? At the time I was really annoyed; of all the arby-eligibles, I figured Lopez was the surest bet to decline and yield the draft picks. Maybe he would have declined, because he was optimistic, but subsequent events have shown that the Brewers made the rational call based on the market.

By that logic, an individual who spills hot coffee on themselves and rejects the restaurant's fair and generous $200,000 settlement offer to pusue and win a seven figure payday in court is someone we cannot call greedy. I don't think it's very wise to set a precedent that persons can't be labeled greedy as long as an arbitrator or court agrees with them. In fact, there's nothing that stops a court or arbitrator from rewarding greed, happens all the time. I guess we'll each have our different takes on this. My opinion boils down to: player isn't very good, player got an offer for a generous and underserved raise and rejected it, player refused to do much negotiating, player expected (flawed) system to award an even bigger raise that is even more undeserved, player was proven right by silly comparisons of (flawed) system. Player is greedy. Then I assume you have to agree that management is greedy when a player does great things in his first season or two (or five) and management doesn't voluntarily agree to raise the player's salary to what the player would get for that production as a FA on the open market, rather than renewing him at the artificially depressed salary of a pre-arby player. So -- the Brewers are greedy given what they're paying, for example, Yovanni Gallardo, right? I just don't see the benefit of tossing around moral epithets like "greedy" when nobody who participates in the system ever acts based on moral considerations. The system is set up to produce exactly this sort of result in this sort of case. Teams don't renegotiate contracts when a player exceeds expectations, and players don't turn down money made available by a system the owners agreed to, whether the player in question had a good year or not. Are professional athletes overpaid? IMHO, absolutely, and grossly; and also, IMHO, owners of sports franchises don't deserve to be as wealthy as they are. But Corey Hart didn't invent the system -- he's simply extracting value from the Brewers under the rules of the game, just like the Brewers are extracting value from Gallardo.

Wes Helms, finally doing it for the Brewers! Greg.

I agree 100% with my fellow statheads' defense of the year Cameron is having. By any reasonable objective analysis he has played very well. IMHO, however, people are assuming too easily that Cameron will do at 36 what he's done at 35. He has been an odd combination of old and young players' skills, power and walks plus speed and defense, but his skill set seems to be trending old. As recently as 2005/06 he was a .270 hitter over almost 1000 PA; now I think we'd all agree he's a legit .245 hitter. That's fine; with his defense, .245/.330/.500 is great production. But the attrition rate for players in their 30s accelerates for every year of age. Cameron could easily hit .225 next year, with an OBP closer to .310, and at that point he starts to hurt you. He could also lose two steps on defense, or get hurt. 36-year olds do those kinds of things all the time. The trick, of course, is projection. I'm not claiming to have a crystal ball; I'm just listing some of the negative factors, and I think they're significant. I won't be upset if Cameron is the Brewers' CF next year, but I think the FO would be fools not to take his contributions this year with a grain of salt and to look seriously at any other good options that might arise. Greg.

Al, you make sound points in Counsell's defense, but I don't think they come close to justifying his playing time. He hasn't stunk offensively over a small sample; he has -- as Russ just pointed out -- stunk for years. I remember a big debate about whether Counsell's decline-phase offensive anemia should allow him to get starts over a young player who was struggling to establish himself in his first full season -- and the player was Bill Hall! I agree that defense is both important and difficult to measure, but those facts require us to make some bets at the margin. I simply can't imagine any metric by which the difference between Counsell's and Hall/Branyan's defense at 3b could come close to overcoming Hall/Branyan's monumental offensive superiority. To restate the argument in terms of offensive "approach" is just voodoo sabermetrics. Greg.

McClung has done a lot to stabilize the back of the rotation for us this year. That's an area that has sunk some promising Brewers teams in recent years. Balfour's success is impressive, but I'd rather have McClung. In any event, the trade represents a pretty nice job of getting something useful when selling low. The Gross trade, OTOH, I still can't figure out. Greg.

Just back from the ballpark . . . the Cardinals fans I met were really cool -- a couple of older guys, knew a lot of interesting things about the Cardinals in the 1960s. Going to games in St. Louis could not feel more different from Philly. I'm glad I'm back in the Midwest. The thing about Sabathia's game is that he didn't even seem to work up a sweat. He didn't strike out a ton of guys -- he just made every pitch exactly when he needed to. I've never seen a pitcher look so economical. The only showy moment was the Pujols K, and Pujols is really the one who made it showy. I have never seen him look that bad. Weeks is getting it done at the top of the order. Everybody else does their usual bit, and we can win even on a day when our offense is horribly inefficient. Man, I wish I could go tomorrow, but I'm glad I got to see this one. Greg.

I'm going to the game tonight. You want to know how to get a great seat for a virtually sold-out game, less than 24 hours before game time? Move to a new city where you don't know anybody at all; have a toddler and no child care options save yourself and your wife; and therefore buy only one ticket to said virtually sold-out game -- that's how. My parental duties left me with one shot at the series, and I picked Sabathia. Go Crew! Greg.

I'm sorry I don't know where to find this, but does Russ or somebody else have the numbers on . . . I'm not sure what the proper name is for the stat, but run input differential? I know BP does this, looks at the raw inputs for scoring as a sort of second-order pythagorean analysis. The Brewers obviously have changed the dynamics of the race, and I'm curious whether the Brewers' early, extreme deficit in run differential relative to the Cubs might have had something to do with the Brewers' getting less, or the Cubs' getting more, runs than either team "should" have expected from their raw performances. Here's another off-the-cuff hypothesis: maybe teams with a greater percentage of their value tied up in young talent tend toward greater swings away from projections. Young players follow developmental arcs that are somewhat predictable, but certainly less so than the arcs of older players. The same thing seems to be true, for different reasons, of recently injured players -- because they have limited useful samples from which to project. Ben Sheets has been hurt a lot the past few years; Manny Parra has been hurt and young. A reasonable assessment of talent before this season would have put those guys substantially behind somebody like Zambrano in terms of projected value -- and maybe they'll yet fall off -- but in retrospect they're exactly the kind of players who might provide less-than-sound grounds for confident projections. OTOH, the Brewers' young hitters seem not to have deviated much from what we reasonably might have expected; none is really busting out (Hardy seems closest), and Weeks is underperforming somewhat. Again, these are just off-the-cuff thoughts. I believe in statistical analysis, but I also believe that departures from expectations happen for reasons, and that attributing departures to dumb luck -- while it's a more important factor than many people realize -- sometimes provides too ready an alternative to exploring other possible reasons. What fun this is, on so many levels . . . Greg.

I loved Brewer before this year, but heck, I thought Rickie Weeks would be the MVP . . . Mass's "lesson learned," with all due respect, seems very premature to me. If you're going to draft 18 year-olds, I don't think they can all be finished products. Guys like Brewer, as X pointed out, do sometimes turn their skills into results. More generally, I don't think you have to be a "raw tools uber alles" guy to project eventual results from certain attractive combinations of talents, especially in a young draft pick. The clock is certainly running on Brewer, but he did some positive things last year, and the team challenged him this year by throwing him in the FSL. I don't think we'll be able to begin drawing meaningful conclusions about him for at least another year. Greg.

I like this deal fine, because it allows the Brewers to sit Weeks against tough righties and hopefully bring him out of his funk (which may be happening already, but it's way too soon to get happy). The tradeoff for Durham's defense will be fine in those situations -- assuming Ned spots him properly -- and at other times Durham's just the lefty bench bat we need. I still believe Weeks will hit, and this is exactly the level of fix that I think his current problems warrant. Plus, as everyone has noted, OBP is what we need. The team must not have much faith in Hammond. That doesn't exactly stun me, but it's a bit disappointing. Ford has given no indications that he'll hit, and we have better OF guys in the pipeline. It seems like a bit of overpayment if the Giants don't add cash, but I'm not crushed about losing either prospect. This deal also revives a Brewers tradition of being a late (or the last) career stop for formerly good 2bs: Jody Reed, Bill Doran, Scott Fletcher, Dickie Thon (primarily a ss, but played some 2b for Milwaukee), Willie Randolph, Juan Bell if you want to get low-rent. We seemed to have one of those guys every year in the early 90s. Let's hope Durham gives the Brewers what they got from Randolph. Greg.

What I don't get is how some of those who aren't high on Nelson can frame their points with such sweeping certainty. To me, this is one of those classic cases where both sides of the question have evidence behind them. On one hand, Nelson has been at AAA forever, and he performed poorly there before last year. On the other hand, he was a top prospect, then suffered an injury that could very easily correspond with his struggles over his down years, and is now recovered from the injury and having some success. I don't see how anybody can say with much certainty what we have here. Brad Nelson could be a AAAA journeyman, or he could be one developmental step (and 25 year-olds do tend to develop further) from being a MLB starter. Inflexible analysis never did anybody much good, but in this case it's especially unhelpful. I'd love to find a bench role for Nelson and see whether he can grow in it. Greg.

I'm actually starting this topic because of somebody else's insight/opinion, with which I somewhat disagree, so I hope he'll speak up at least to correct me if I give an incorrect account of his views. Al (Dad of Andrew) frequently opines that minor league baseball games (in affiliated leagues) only matter on the level of player development. Thus, any decision that a minor league manager or organization makes that runs contrary to the major league organization's player development strategy is inappropriate. More broadly, anyone (at least any fan of the major league organization) who focuses on the outcomes of minor league games, rather than the ultimate end of player development, should readjust his/her focus to the real task at hand. I have always found this position interesting, and I'd love to hear what others think. Here's my take: Al is 100% right from the perspective of the major league organization. That's a very important perspective, because (a) the major league organization writes the checks, and (b) we here are, after all, Brewers fans. In my view, however, Al is wrong in failing to recognize that lots of other people have legitimate perspectives that might lead in different directions. I'll put this in Nashville terms: -- Nashville fans have no reason to care about the success of the Milwaukee Brewers. They want the Nashville Sounds to win baseball games. We should expect them to be every bit as mad as Brewers fans are happy when the Brewers call up one of their star players during the PCL stretch run. Do the Brewers have a defensible reason for doing that? Sure, but not a reason that we should expect Nashville fans to care about. -- Frank Kremblas would be behaving strangely, by any usual standard, if he didn't direct most of his mental energy toward winning baseball games. The Nashville players, even the prospects, also have good reasons to care first and foremost about winning baseball games. If the manager's and players' desire to win games gets in the way of the Brewers' development strategy, I would assume the onus would fall on the Brewers organization to make necessary course corrections. But I also assume development strategy 101 holds that, more often than not, the best way to develop players is to have them play baseball games that matter in their own right, which should usually harmonize the manager's / players' focus on winning games with the organization's focus on development. -- Most interestingly in philosophical terms (but probably least in practical terms), I don't believe Brewers fans are off base to care whether Nashville wins or loses. This is baseball; none of it actually matters, in the "real world" sense. My kid won't have a happy life if the Brewers win the World Series; the U.S. economy won't improve if Doug Melvin picks up a lefthanded bat. We care about baseball, as fans, because we decide to care, and we decide to care based on a wide range of factors. A big factor, for a lot of us, is familiarity; we grow up reading about the Brewers, and watching their games, and rooting for them. Well, in this day and age, I can follow the West Virginia Power almost as easily and fully as I can follow the Milwaukee Brewers -- so why, in the big picture, is it weird for me to be happy if the Power run off a winning streak, even if the prospects on the team are regressing? (I changed the example from Nashville at the end there because I wanted to maintain some grounding in reality.) I think all of this connects to an interesting discussion about how the minor leagues are organized, in particular the costs and benefits (in whatever terms you please) of big league organizations' control over the minor leagues. I don't know the history or economics of minor league baseball well enough to form a coherent opinion about that issue, but I'd love to hear the views of anyone who does. Greg.

Wow -- the Stars' radio guy really lit into Lookouts' manager Goff. I wish big league announcers, at least the knowledgeable ones and especially on TV, would speak that candidly at times. Kremblas is a whiner because the umps needlessly (in his view) extended the game, causing him to burn a pitcher? I'm familiar with Al's mantra that minor league games matter only for player development, but I honestly don't see how he gets from the mantra to the name-calling. As for debating the substance of the mantra, that deserves its own thread. Hmmm . . . Greg.

Sheehan, in the BP article, takes a much more critical line on Green and Bryson than most of us (including me) have taken. Sheehan has dissed the Brewers at times in the past, and he may not know these players as well as some of us do. But fans (and teams) do tend to overvalue their own prospects, so I find at least a bit of reassurance in reading an account that doesn't value those two players as highly as we do. Greg.

Thanks, Mass! Greg.

I didn't see anyone in this thread say "I'm glad Suppan is hurt." I saw a lot of people say "I'm glad Suppan's going on the DL" (and some say "I don't think he's really hurt," which may or may not be correct but, by definition, does not constitute "cheering an injury"). Those are two very, very different things, and I think both SeriesFinale and Team Canada, with all due respect, are seriously overreacting and (in SF's case) ripping people unnecessarily. Of course, maybe I'm reading other people's posts wrong, but that's what I saw. I'm really glad Soup's going on the DL. That means his problems of late may have a tangible cause that some time on the shelf will ameliorate. I wish he didn't *need* to go on the DL, but obviously he does, or he wouldn't be going. Greg.

For some reason I can't load the Molony article properly; it shows up for a split second, and then I get a mostly white screen. I assume it's free content; if it's kosher to copy and paste, could someone please do so? Thanks. Greg.

Some Cards' fans' reactions . . . http://cardsclubhouse.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=21152 I just moved to St. Louis, and I'll be wearing my Brewers regalia out tomorrow. Greg.

I love this deal, and I'm somebody who utterly hated the Linebrink deal (and still do). If you're going to make a deadline move, you get the best player available -- the Brewers did that. You deal from strength -- the Brewers did that. Bryson is a solid prospect, but the pitching depth in the low minors makes him just another crapshoot guy. LaPorta . . . he's hit a ton, he sounds like a great guy, and I don't mean to disparage him. But he's a straight-up power hitter with little defensive value, and the Brewers are stacked with good hitters who can only play LF/1B. Plus he's not real young for his level, and players like him (lots of power, pedestrian BA, no speed, not much defense) don't tend to age well. I always had in the back of my mind that he might be worth more as a chip than as a piece of the Brewers' future. Even if he turns out to be better than anybody the Brewers run out at LF/1B over the next decade, I doubt losing him hurts the team a lot, and I can't imagine he could ever have lynchpinned a higher-leverage trade than this one. The PTBNL thing is driving me nuts. Green would be a huge loss. We don't really have any 2b prospects, unless you count Hardy/Escobar, which by one measure makes him more valuable than LaPorta to the Brewers. Maybe it's just that I've gotten well slapped around in Green vs. Brantley debates this week, but I'm a believer. I guess we'll see. Greg.

2007 called -- it wants its bullpen back. Greg.

Toby, with all due respect -- and I know you know a lot more about this stuff than I do -- that sounds a bit conclusory, like you're more interested in slamming the door on people who think you're underrating Brantley than in squarely assessing his pros and cons. Maybe I'm just missing something that's as clear as you make it out to be, but I don't see any actual information in your post that warrants your summary dismissal of Brantley as "a good defender" in CF who is some distance from being even "passable." Again, your depth of knowledge and proven track record of good judgment makes me believe you're more likely right than wrong about this, but I would love more to go on if you or anyone else have it. Here are some things I, as someone who doesn't get to watch Brantley play and hasn't seen any detailed defensive stats on him, would like to know more about. Is his arm weak, inaccurate, or both? Exceptionally weak, or just close to average; exceptionally inaccurate, or just close to average? How are we measuring range, and what are the deficiencies in his range -- lateral, getting back on balls, what? Has he improved generally, or specifically in CF this year, has he regressed, or do we have good reasons to think WYSIWYG? Does he display indifference to defense, or is he a guy who might compensate with hustle for a deficit of physical ability? He steals bases, which suggests he's fast . . . but maybe he's just a smart baserunner. Does he have the kind of speed that helps guys play CF, and if so, has he shown any ability or inclination to harness it there? Have guys in the organization, opposing managers, or anyone else said anything emphatic about the state of his defense? I'm a longtime Brantley supporter, but I think everybody is now; the question is how much to like him. I've tried to frame these questions as objectively as I can, starting from the assumption that Toby's negative assessment of Brantley's defense is most likely valid. In other words, I don't mean to stack the deck here, and if anybody thinks that my questions don't allow for recognizing Brantley's deficiencies, I hope to be corrected. Also, I apologize if my questions seem like challenges, as if I'm suggesting someone else has to prove something to me. I don't mean it that way at all; I'm starting from a position of substantial ignorance and would genuinely appreciate further guidance. Greg.

That's fair enough, and I have no basis for doubting it; I also know that he's playing 3b out of organizational need. But it's still an assumption one has to make, because he isn't playing there; guys lose a step sometimes, or lose their knack for a tougher position. My point is that, while I agree that Al presumed too much in asserting that Brantley has clearly superior defensive value, he's also not obviously wrong, and I thought your last post erred too much in the opposite direction. Edit: I don't believe anyone is "argu[ing] with a .293 career average," in the sense of denigrating Green. If I've said anything that makes it sound like I don't like Green as a prospect . . . well, I can't find it, but I withdraw it if it's there. What I would argue is that a .311 career average is meaningfully better than a .293 average, enough to make a difference in a comparison this close. I agree with every positive thing you're saying about Green; I just look at the two players' performances and like Brantley a bit better. Greg.