gregmag

Man, Lucroy has to be getting frustrated. Greg.

Sheets has gotten hurt a lot, although there's no actual cause to think he'll get hurt this year. Parra has a terrible health history. Gallardo is too young and too valuable to be a workhorse. Even if Dave Bush has no chance of becoming more than a 4/5 guy -- and I'm with those who think he has some chance, but it's diminishing -- he's still a very important guy to have around. There's a very good chance that at least six guys will make substantial numbers of starts for the Brewers this year, and Bush is one of our top six (Narveson has to show a lot more before we have any real reason to believe he's better than Bush). Even at his worst (i.e., last year), Bush is very good as a 4/5. If enough bodies drop that he becomes our third best option, then we have a problem unless he beats the odds and gets better. He also has a very good health record. Greg.

I would assume major league teams would pretty strongly prefer to have stable affiliations. You know who you're dealing with in ownership and management, you know the facilities, you know the league and park effects, and most of all, you don't have to worry about losing an affiliate-shifting game of musical chairs and ending up with a really bad situation. I can think of a lot of aspects of running a major league organization that have less potential to cause headaches and soak up resources than having to move minor league affiliates around. Greg.

Mass, I missed that, and it is a point in Katin's favor; thanks. No disrespect intended to him, btw; I mainly wonder whether his more recent arrival and rise, combined with the travails through which Nelson has struggled for what seems like the last decade, may sometimes lead people to place more distance between them than perhaps their abilities warrant. And Al -- top 5 for Brantley? Reading that makes me happy; I've been toning down my statements about him just a bit, because some folks here have made good cases for caution. I'm glad somebody is out there on the other side, saying damn the torpedoes. Greg.

Excellent list. Thanks to the P50 crew! A few comments / nitpicks, all about outfielders: Lorenzo Cain, to me, is the most mysterious prospect at the upper levels. I just don't know what to expect from him. My gut tells me he's a flame-out risk, but then I look at what he did two years ago and realize how many things he does pretty well. This seems like an important year for him, and I suspect getting him out of Brevard fairly soon might be a good idea. 25-year old OF Brendan Katin put up an .800 OPS at Huntsville last year. 25 year-old OF/1B/3B(?) Brad Nelson put up a .787 OPS at Nashville. Neither guy is noted for his defense. Nelson has been at AAA forever, but he was coming back from a serious injury, so it wasn't like he could just coast. Katin has never had the big breakout year that suggests he has a peak we haven't seen. Katin is ranked 26th; Nelson is ranked 45th. I don't get how the difference is that great. A bunch of the Brewers' OF prospects are old enough, maybe even a little on the ripe side, for their levels -- LaPorta and Gillespie are 23 at AA; Ford, Chapman, and Fermaint are 22 at A+. Nothing wrong with any of that, but those guys are all at the point where they really need to produce in order to maintain their current rankings. OTOH, Cain is 21 at A+ with the likelihood of moving up, Gindl is 19 in A-ball, and -- my personal favorite -- Brantley is 20 at AA. Those three guys still have plenty of rope; if any of them puts up serious production, given their ages and levels, I would think he would move up very quickly. Greg.

Huntsville is just going to be so much fun this year . . . Is it too early to label Steve Hammond's performance a statement game? He has a lot to prove and a lot to gain by doing so, and you can't start the climb much better than he did. Mike Brantley led off, played CF, got on base three times, and hit a double. One game proves nothing, but it's a perfect illustration of what he needs to do. He's still 20. Greg.

A couple of things: First, I did a thing last year where I looked at some successful low-power, high-OBP big leaguers and examined how much power they put up in their early minor league careers, at comparable points to Gwynn's career so far. It was anecdotal, unscientific, and informal, and I have no idea where the post is, but the sense I got was that Gwynn was pretty far behind guys like Lofton, Brett Butler, Carew, etc. when it comes to power development. As others have said, guys like Lofton and Gwynn Sr. actually have/had some pop. Gwynn could still develop more power, but the clock is ticking. I don't know of anyone who has gone from Gwynn's established level of power at age 24 to developing enough power to start for a good team. Second -- and again, others have said this, but some people don't seem to be hearing it -- we Gwynn skeptics aren't focused on his lack of power because we think everybody needs to hit home runs. I agree that Gwynn could start and be an asset with a .400 OBP and a .400 SLG. The thing is, nobody puts up those numbers. If you have as little power as Gwynn does, the pitchers aren't going to walk you, so getting to that .400 OBP will require enough flares and bunts to put up a .350 BA. That just doesn't happen. Gwynn doesn't need big-time power, but he needs enough power to put up a big-time OBP, and he's nowhere near that right now. Third, others have done a good job of defending Bill Hall for what he is, but I want to add a good word for his contract. If, as Russ posited, Hall puts up his career numbers and plays a decent 3B, that makes him a legit starter on a contending team (at a position, incidentally, where the team in question can't develop or find anybody else). As such, he's an absolute bargain. Melvin was smart, and the Brewers were lucky, to lock up a few of Hall's prime-age years for so little money. Greg.

That article says that LaPorta and Gillespie will play the corner OF positions, with Brantley rounding out the OF. Is that right -- is Brantley going to start in CF? If so, that's huge for him, but I would have thought Gillespie would be in CF. On the other hand, I don't think Brantley has ever played RF, and LaPorta is obviously anchored in LF, so I kind of expected them to play Brantley at 1B. Does anyone know the story? Greg.

As somebody noted, Sexson and Lee were short-term rentals for the teams that got them. You can't compare the player we gave up, with no time factor, to the time-limited performances of the players we got. Even if you write off Sexson's injury the year after we lost him to bad luck, Arizona got a year of Sexson, and we got two good years of Capuano and two good years of Overbay, whose unexciting future we then flipped for Bush and Gross. That's a nice return, and Tomo Ohka (picked up for Spivey, who also came over for Sexson) helped for a bit too. For two months of Carlos Lee (himself a brilliant return on the rotting corpse of Podsednik plus a decent reliever in Vizcaino) we got a year and change of championship-caliber closing plus two high draft picks. That's an insanely great return. The Davis deal looks more and more like not much for not much (unless, as someone pointed out, Eveland puts it all together); a loss, but not a huge loss, since Davis was about to get expensive. I think the full extent of Estrada's suckitude legitimately surprised most of us. I've prattled on before about how much I hate the Linebrink deal, but if the Inman naysayers are right, then it may not look like a disaster in retrospect. Wayne Franklin for Villanueva was, of course, genius. Overall, I think Melvin has done an excellent job of deciding whom to trade and when, and getting back parts we could use. Greg.

Funny we should both mention Krynzel on different sides of this argument . . . but I think you're off the mark. First of all, when Krynzel was with the organization, the Krynzel vs. Gwynn debate was a lively one. I thought Krynzel was a better prospect than Gwynn for quite a while, and I think I had decent reasons for believing that. Krynzel tantalized us with glimpses of quite a few skills -- hitting for average, a little pop, speed, defense. The problem with him, ultimately, was that he never put those skills together with any consistency. There were some indications that he was kind of a flake; I don't know whether or not that's fair, but for whatever reason he never developed. The reason I think your Krynzel-Gwynn contrast doesn't hold water is that, aside from his skill set, the reason Krynzel got some love around here was that he was a first round draft pick. A lot of us were slow -- maybe too slow -- to give up on a skilled position player who got drafted #1 in an era when the Brewers generally knew what they were doing in the draft. That error, if it was an error, does nothing to support John's strange assertion that people are somehow harder on Gwynn because of his bloodlines. (Now, if you're saying people only think Gwynn got drafted #2 because of his bloodlines, that's fair; but that just comes back to our contrary point that Gwynn's name has worked too much in his favor from day 1.) As for why the particular concern in this thread was never directed at Krynzel, it's very simple -- nobody ever handed Krynzel the starting CF job. If the Brewers had ever done that, a lot of us (even those of us who cut Krynzel a lot of slack) would have said the same things we're saying about Gwynn: He hasn't earned it; he isn't good enough. Greg.

hart and hall were part of this group and neither were mentioned with the WEEKS/HARDY/FIELDER trumpeting, yet both have turned out to be pretty good. maybe the same thing can happen to tony jr. Well, Hall predated those other guys, and those of us who spend way too much time geeking out on the Brewers' minor league system have been talking about Hart for years -- Fielder and Weeks were ahead of everybody, but Hart was right there with Hardy and, um, Dave Krynzel. With all due respect, Krynzel's name in there suggests what's wrong with your logic: the fact that a guy played with good prospects doesn't make him a good prospect. Gwynn has never done anything in the minors remotely comparable to what Fielder, Weeks, Hardy, or Hart did. Greg.

You have it just the opposite. If his name was John Smith, there wouldn't be the venom towards him by some there is here. Huh? Everybody I know loves Tony Gwynn Sr., and by all reports the son has inherited a lot of the father's great personal qualities. On what basis do you suggest that his good name does anything but help him? The only way in which your point makes sense is that, if his name was John Smith, there wouldn't be any reason for people to criticize him, because he wouldn't be getting opportunities he hadn't earned. He would be seen as what he is, a low power, more speed good defensive OF, with the potential to hit for a decent average. That's exactly how most of us who don't want him starting do see him. Nobody questions his defense. Offensively he's a liability, because his extreme lack of power means he has to hit .300 to have any chance of being useful. If he hits for a merely decent average -- say, .280 -- he'll drag the offense down, because his lack of power also means that he'll have a hard time drawing any walks. He's young enough that he could still experience a power spurt and render these criticisms moot, but if he stays at his present skill level, he's going to have a hard time hitting enough to be more than a 5th OF. There have been hundreds of thsoe guys in MLB over the decades who've made nice careers, many of whom were starters at some time or another. True enough. There have indeed been hundreds of bad hitters -- heck, thousands -- who have had careers. That doesn't mean any of them were good players. And yes, many of those bad hitters have gotten to start -- for bad teams. Again, I hope Gwynn gets better, and realistically, he could. He's a good guy; I'm pulling for him. But right now, he has no business getting significant action for a contending team. Greg.

The #5 hitter leads off more innings than anybody besides the leadoff man (because the #5 is the most likely to lead off the second inning). Therefore, the #5 hitter needs on-base skills as well as slugging. Hart is a better OBP guy than Hall. This is a bad move. Greg.

That's a really, really good analysis. In fairness to the Brewers, you can say that they made a four-year deal, got basically what they wanted out of the first year, and have a great deal of flexibility over the final two years (assuming Suppan doesn't collapse or get hurt this year), because -- as several people have said -- big-budget contenders would happily pay his salary if they needed his skills. So this year is really the one you have to live with, and if he gets slightly better results this year, the deal doesn't look bad at all. Gopher: I'd say the reason Gallardo is an injury risk is that he's a 22 year-old who will be asked to pitch a full season in the rotation. He hasn't done anything at all to earn the "injury risk" label, but he doesn't have to: pitchers that young, with that kind of workload, just get hurt at alarming rates. The team will need to be careful with him, but the temptation to ride him will be incredibly strong. Greg.

Now I have seen it all. Ennder is looking at BA, not OBP. Okay -- let me make my semiannual attempt to debunk the myth that statheads don't care about BA. Statheads do love OBP. We like SLG a lot too. Getting hits contributes to both essential elements of offense: getting guys on base and bringing them around to score. Put even more simply, BA is a big part of OBP. So if you love OBP, you have to care about BA. What statheads (and I know I'm overgeneralizing and presuming to speak for lots of people, but what the heck) don't like is the historical tendency to overvalue BA. Twenty years ago, lots of people didn't even know what OBP was, let alone that OBP is more important than BA because it reflects more information. Some people still argue that a hitter can't help his team if he hits .220, even if he also walks 100 times and hits 40 homers. Statheads aren't stupid enough to think such a hitter is just as good as another guy who hits .300 with 100 walks and 40 homers; of course that 80 points of BA is huge. But statheads get that the .220 guy can help his team. Please tune in next week for "why statheads care about strikeouts as an indicator but not as a result." Greg.

Joepepsi made the point about Vargas that takes him out of the running for me -- the guy simply can't keep his pitch counts at a level where he doesn't shred the bullpen. A good #5 starter (as opposed to a good starter whom a team is fortunate enough to have as its fifth option) burns some innings at a level that gives his team at least a chance to win. Even last year, and despite the W-L results, I'd say both Cappy and Bush did that better than Vargas. As for Cappy vs. Bush, people have made good points both ways; in the end, I don't think the choice matters much. Our leading rotation options include a guy who somehow gets hurt every year, a 22 year-old who probably shouldn't pitch 200 innings and will start the season on the DL, another young guy who has never started for a full season, and yet another young guy whose health record before last year was deadly. Then you have Suppan, who would be in this thread's conversation if he didn't make so much money, and then you have the guys in this thread's conversation. If there's a way to keep seven of these starters around -- Parra in AAA, Villy in the pen until the first body falls, whatever -- I'd do it. BTW, I've been away, so maybe 20 people have said this already, but isn't there a sense in which Yo's knee injury is a great thing? Obviously I'm sorry for his pain and wish him a fast recovery, but his arm is fragile gold; an injury to any other part of his body that just requires some time to heal obviates the temptation to overuse him. Greg.

The thread title seems a bit misleading, but I can understand how "yet another gratuitous shot at people whose cautious optimism that Capuano can help the team in some capacity I reflexively trash on a weekly basis without actually considering their point of view" could have seemed a bit long. But to answer the "question," yes, if Capuano pitches badly over a meaningful number of starts, and there's someone better in the wings to replace him, I would put the better pitcher in the rotation. You sure got us dumb Capuano fanatics with that one. Well played. Greg.

Gindl is 5'9", Salome plays the toughest position on the diamond, and both guys are substantially younger than Crabbe, with more room to develop. Al's argument wasn't just about size -- it was about size plus ceiling. I'm not sure he's entirely right, because Crabbe might well be a better stopgap than our other in-house options in the event Weeks got hurt. But I certainly agree that a guy with Crabbe's size and talent, who apparently can't play ss or 3b, is very unlikely to have a MLB career. Greg.

The Dbacks were 90-72 last year and tied for the division lead. You can think they were a sub .500 team because of pythogorean W/L but that's an opinion, 90-72 is fact. Pythagorean W/L is a fact too. Whether it's a more relevant fact than actual record is a matter of opinion. That said, yes, when I hear "sub-.500 team," I assume we're talking about the team's actual wins and losses. But that's semantics, not a difference between fact and opinion. Greg.

Background checks that relate to a job's duties make sense to me. Certainly financial checks on the umps make sense. But I haven't seen anyone explain what justifies seeking out the sort of personal information reported here, especially information about political activities. (Of course the Klan and its members have broken many, many laws throughout the group's history, but mere membership isn't a crime.) No business, any more than the government, should be digging up personal information without any job-related cause. Greg.

I really like Parra, maybe more than most people, and Villanueva. I would be very happy going into next season with both guys in our rotation. But neither one has really shown that he can be a consistent mid-rotation starter. Villy has done it for parts of two seasons, but only parts, and his peripheral numbers have been so-so. Parra, of course, has a major injury history. I'm not saying "they haven't proved it because they haven't done it," which always strikes me as a weak argument without more. I'm saying that what they have done leaves us with good reasons to doubt whether they can do it. If we could get Haren for those two guys plus a top prospect, I would make the deal. If we could substitute Cappy or Bush for one of the youngsters, all the better. Greg.

With all due respect, why do people keep saying things like this? Baseball is a really simple game: score more runs than you give up, and you win. Score a whole lot more runs than you give up, and you have a good shot at winning a championship. So: Scoring runs is half the game. Preventing the other team from scoring is half the game. Pitching is part -- the biggest part, but not the whole thing -- of preventing the other team from scoring. Defense also plays a big role in that. But let's say pitching is 75 percent of run prevention (I'm just pulling that number out of my butt; I'll happily stand corrected by someone who has the numbers). That makes pitching just under 40% of the game. So why would you say that the three most important things in baseball are pitching? Where does that idea even come from? Put it another way. There's a pretty high likelihood that our expected three best players next year are Fielder, Braun, and Gallardo. If your maxim is right, then -- given the opportunity -- we should trade Fielder and Braun for the best pitchers each would bring. Should we really do that? Of course, if you're right, then the most we'd be able to get for Fielder and Braun are some teams' fourth-best pitchers, since nobody should want to trade one of their top three pitchers for a hitter. I don't get it. BTW, no disrespect intended to the original poster (or to anyone else). I would never trade Braun for Cain, but I respect the logic behind the idea. Greg.

The trade was terrible. We gave up serious value -- future MLB value or present trade value, take your pick -- for what many of us correctly predicted would be a negligible return. The fact that you're a contender doesn't mean you should trade just any prospects for just any veteran; it means you've got even more reason than a noncontender to use all of your resources wisely. I'm all for using pitching prospects as trade bait, but (a) I think DM undervalued these particular pitchers, and (b) 20 innings of 2007 model Scott Linebrink ain't squat. For DM, whom I generally respect a whole lot, this was a rare bonehead desperation trade, and its failure was the least surprising thing to happen to the Brewers all year. Greg.

What do we know about Rolen's health? Assuming his medical prognosis for a comeback is solid, I would love this deal -- he could really help, and his skills are sufficiently balanced that he's a fairly good risk to hold value into his 30s. I like Capuano and think he will bounce back, but I'd say that's about the right price for calling him expendable. Neither Flores nor Franklin excites me much, but another BP arm is another BP arm. It might be a little more fun to roll the dice on Franklin -- there's no GOOD reason to think his absurd WHIP from last year is sustainable, but he's only been back in relief for two seasons, so it's always possible he has figured something out. I think at this point I'd also prefer a RHP who can stand up under Ned's abuse to another lower-inning LHP. Greg.

Can you really say anyone "look very foolish" based on a conjecture about what will happen over the next three years? Isn't it quite conceivable that a pitcher with Suppan's level of ability could tank within the next year or two? It certainly has happened before to pitchers his age. More broadly, is it ever really necessary, or appropriate, in a friendly baseball discussion to claim that those who disagree with you "look very foolish"? What value, exactly, does that insult add to the discussion? Greg.