Fear The Chorizo

This is exactly why the Brewers' pitching is far from being decent - last year we'd be talking about bumping back Dave Bush to face Pelfrey, and have Sabathia or Sheets go on regular rest against Santana....now we're talking about lining up our best starter (who at this point profiles as a #2-3 until he gets some more experience) against Santana and push back a guy that currently looks like batting practice to face Pelfrey (a pitcher that normally doesn't have the on-paper advantage against an opposing starter).

The obvious difference between this year and last year's starting staff is there aren't any shutdown veteran starters in the rotation that can dominate hitters. I think expecting Gallardo and Parra to be consistenly lights out is asking too much of young pitchers. The staff is full of guys who would make good #4 and #5 starters on contending teams - guys like Gallardo and Parra still project to be #1,#2 type starters, but there's just not enough experience there to expect them to carry the staff the way Sabathia and Sheets did for most of 2008. not having veteran studs in the rotation exposes the bullpen more, and the last thing this pen needs is to be overworked. Not having big strikeout pitchers even amplifies the walks problem - BABIP will eventually cause those walks to score when pitchers can't get guys to swing and miss. For the Brewers to come close to 90 wins, they need to score tons of runs offensively, and the pitching needs to throw strikes and limit the damage by not walking guys into big innings. So far this formula hasn't been close to happening.

six games is far from enough to make any solid conclusions, but from what little we've seen so far: 1. Weeks looks to have benefited from reducing his bat waggle - he almost seems surprised at times at how easy making solid contact can be when he's got his hands in the right spot to swing. He seems to be reacting to the pitch more than relying on perfect timing and pitch recognition...that can all change but I'm encouraged so far. 2. Suppan is really starting to look like the black hole in the rotation many worried that he would become after signing that contract. It's only two starts, but he got hit pretty hard by a mediocre-at-best Giants offense and appeared determined to nibble at a shoebox-sized strike zone against the Cubs last night. His stuff isn't good enough to get guys out when an ump squeezes him. He was signed as an innings-eater, but he's turning into more of a bullpen-killer. He can just as easily bounce back and string solid starts together, but he needs to throw strikes to have any prayer of being above replacement level...at 10+ million a year, that's unacceptable. 3. The bullpen needs to be protected - it's early in the season and there have been some bright spots, but there are too many guys in the pen who walk hitters and get themselves in trouble. There doesn't appear to be anyone out there who could be a good "stopper", someone who can get out of jams the starter created. I think that's part of the reason why Macha's had a slow hook so far this season. Getting Hoffman back will improve the pen a bit, but the starting pitching needs to do well enough to limit the # of outs the pen needs to get game in-game out. 4. Braun's timing appears to be out of whack - could be the injury thing (thumb or torso), could just as easily be rust from limited AB's in the spring - he's been late on hittable fastballs and early on offspeed...I think another week of AB's will get him back on track, as long as he's healthy enough to benefit from seeing more pitching. 5. The bench is questionable - way too early to say the bench is weak, but I'm hoping to see better results from the guys who aren't every day players 6. The Brewers need another front line starter if they want to contend - again, too early to base this off only 6 games, but I think going into this season many of us already felt like in order for the Brewers to be legit playoff contenders in 09, they need to acquire another ace to take the strain off their young starters, keep their bullpen fresh, and take some run-scoring pressure of the offense. If the Brewers are close enough in late May, I can see Melvin making a play for a starting pitcher who could fill that role. 7. Teams are going to force the Brewers to hit righties as much as possible - in only the second series of the season, a team adjusted its rotation to keep a lefty from starting against them.

There are enough off days and odd-numbered series for teams throughout the course of a 162 game season that by the time mid-May rolls around, every single team's pitching staff isn't matching up #1's, #2's, #5's etc. There are also enough off days to set rotations up for opponents and to give tired arms extra days off or missed rotation turns. This really isn't a big deal at all. I actually like the mentality of not proclaiming Gallardo and Parra as the Brewers' horses - IP is going to be an important number for those two.

I think comparing teams' K/BB ratios are more important than just looking at how many times a team or player strikes out - in the NL last season, the teams with the best K/BB ratios were: Braves/Mets - 1.65 K/BB each Cardinals - 1.70 (probably entirely due to Pujols) Cubs - 1.86 Dodgers/Phils - 1.90 The Braves are actually the outlier in this group, because the rest of them were playoff-caliber teams in the NL, with the Mets losing the WC to the Brewers on the season's last day and the Cardinals just overachieving to maximize their season in spite of having a crappy pitching staff. These were the only NL teams with K/BB ratios under 2 - the Brewers were essentially tied with the Dbacks and Pirates with a ratio of 2.18. Only the Giants, Astros, and Padres had worse ratios in the NL. In the AL, only the Royals had a lower K/BB ratio than the Brewers (2.56...absolutely atrocious with under 400 walks!). It's easily assumed that the AL ratios should be lower since they don't have the pitcher's spot in the order striking out at an absurd rate like NL teams do. Reducing K without sacrificing power is a difficult thing to do. I think it would be far easier for the Brewers to increase their walk rate and improve their K/BB ratio - that would improve their offense significantly as well.

Neyer definitely looks foolish in the article - I think the implication is to put Escobar at 2nd after putting Weeks in left, trading Fielder, and moving Braun to 1st. Let's see, let's trade away our sole LH impact bat who we just locked in at a certain cost for the next two seasons - then we can move an athletic LF back to the infield where his speed will be negated and his shaky glove emphasized, and combine that with having 2nd and left field played by guys who haven't played 2nd and left field before, both of which wouldn't be good enough offensively to be pluses at those new positions...no wonder Neyer's a writer instead of working in a baseball front office somewhere. these are the type of articles that make it obvious that real games need to start being played soon - less time for some of these "experts" to come up with dumb ideas while they focus on their "that's nasty/touch 'em all" segments or coreographed demonstrations on their miniature studio baseball field.

FTJ - by saying Weeks is "meh" defensively, I meant that he's gone from horrible to really bad - I wasn't implying he improved defensively enough to be considered even close to league average.

Rickie's physical talents jump off the scouting report, but IMO he was never given enough developmental time in the minors to work on his weaknesses as a baseball player so that they wouldn't be constantly exploited at the major league level. Weeks was talented enough to excel in the minors despite his weaknesses, because minor league pitching wasn't consistent enough to constantly attack them. He always hit well enough for people to overlook his defensive shortcomings at 2nd (the whole "bat will play" theory) - now that he's not an elite offensive 2B at the major leage level his defensive issues are magnified. He had a ton of collegiate fanfare prior to being drafted, but many forget that Weeks came from a relatively small D-1 college and there were some questions about the level of competition he faced while piling up his gaudy offensive statistics. Scouts were about 50/50 as to whether he should be moved to the outfield or remain at 2B after being drafted - he's improved from being atrocious to meh defensively at 2nd, but it will be near impossible for a middle infielder to become a good defender when he has stones for hands and an inaccurate throwing arm. I think the Brewers should have tried him in the OF from day 1. However, I don't see how the Brewers can think of changing his position at this point, because they don't have a solid alternative at 2nd within their organization - and plenty of possible outfielders developing in the minors.

I agree that Corey Hart will probably be the first of the group to be dealt, simply because corner outfielders are much easier to find, and the Brewers already have their cornerstone in Braun playing the other corner OF position. The J.J./Escobar SS dilemma will more than likely be sorted out this season - if J.J. has another solid year, he'll all but price himself out of Milwaukee if he takes things to free agency (at this point why would he not?). If Escobar continues to show progress at the plate in AAA, he'll make it easy for management to trade Hardy for maximum value - i.e. pitching. At this point Hardy's the more valuable player overall because of his offense, but Escobar is superior defensively, and it wasn't too long ago that J.J. Hardy was viewed as a glove only SS prospect who had the potential to produce some offense. Escobar is superior athletically, and he has the tools to be a plus offensively. Escobar's value is more to the Brewers than Hardy's, because he's under Brewer control alot longer than J.J. If Alicedes struggles this year in AAA, then the Brewers go into 2010 with Hardy still at short in his free agent year, and give Escobar another year of offensive development in Nashville. This option may be more attractive to the Brewers should Hardy become a Type A free agent (they got burned this last offseason, but the extra draft picks are still gold to small market clubs)

#1 was the scenario in which Boras screwed Ramirez out of more upfront money this season - had he kept his meddlesome hands off Manny's old contract there wouldn't be the problem of his client currently not having work. Boras figured the market would allow him to get out of the deal he didn't do and parlay it into a huge deal (a la Arod's opt-out last offseason) that would give him his big commission and Ramirez a long term deal north of 9 figures. He figured wrong.

Boras and Manny have screwed each other twice, and they apparently don't understand that yet. #1 was forcing their way out of Boston and out of Manny's old contract that would have paid him 20 Million + in 2009 - Boras assumed the economic climate would be good enough to get Ramirez 4-5 years and 100 Million + more guaranteed money. He was flat out wrong. #2 has been the recent negotiations (or lack there of) with the one team that's willing to pay close to what Manny wants. 25 Million and 45 million for two years is guaranteed money, whether it's deferred or not. It doesn't take a genius to realize that the reason the Dodgers want to defer so much of that money is that they don't have it now, and hope to use the increased revenues Manny would probably bring to them to pay him further down the road. If I'm the Dodgers, I tell Boras and Manny to go pound sand until they come to their senses and realize where the economics of baseball and everywhere else currently are - if it's upfront money that Boras and Manny are so adamant about, it makes no sense for Manny to sit out 1/2 a year and not get paid a dime by anyone.

It doesn't make sense for the Brewers to rush Gamel, who has very little experience above AA - they have 4-5 other players with big league experience who can play 3rd base, and the jury's still out on whether Gamel can play that position at the major league level. Let the guy get healthy, pace himself through training camp, and make him force a decision by excelling in AAA this season.

I'm having a hard time understanding why this is different than a player being drafted/signed/acquired by the Brewers who happened to root for a different team growing up (probably true for about 99.5% of players in baseball). If this guy doesn't understand the need to leave his life's rooting interest at the door when he gets ready to call a game, he wouldn't have gotten this job. I'm sure it was easy for him to play homer during his part in Cub broadcasts when he was working for the Cubs radio network - but he had nothing but good things to say about the Brewers during his interview this morning...I'm going to give him the benefit of the doubt until he does something with the Brewers to make me regret the hire.

So does this leave the Dodgers with no other choice but to sign Manny? In a way it may leave Manny with no other choice but to sign with the Dodgers - depends on how you look at it. All these potential teams Boras insists on having shown interest in Manny are signing cheaper players who play similar positions as Manny. The gms of the other big boys in NYC have publicly stated that they're done making offseason moves. What else does that leave for Manny? The Giants, whose best offer won't come close to what LA's already offered, or the Dodgers, who IMO would be better off giving Boras and Manny a deadline to accept any of their previously made offers, or move on without him if he's going to be persistant.

I think the issue ESPN misses is that while critiquing offseason success/failure, they should take into consideration how competitive teams look to be on paper compared to others in their own division. Did the Brewers have a rough offseason? Any team that loses it's #1 and #2 starters from last year's playoff team would probably fall into the category of a bad offseason - but the Brewers don't have to play and beat a team like the Yankees to get into the playoffs this coming season. Compared to the rest of the teams in the NL Central, only the Cubs look superior on paper - and they will have alot of question marks, especially if/when injuries start exposing the lack of depth on their roster. There's maybe 5 teams that can say they had a very productive, "good" offseason that drastically improved the look of their team on paper. The rest of the league's teams either lost depth, talent, or a combination of both, or were poor enough last season for nobody to care about them. Right now I'd give the Brewers about as good a chance at getting into the playoffs in 09 as I would have given them making it at the start of last season. Last season proved that personnel moves to improve a team's postseason chances don't stop on opening day, and I think that the Brewers will have as good an opportunity to improve their team via trade as any other organization looking to do so.

On paper I personally think every single team in the NL Central got worse this year than they were going into last year. I completely agree. And, the Reds and Brewers are the two teams that have enough young, pre-prime years talent to be able to improve enough to offset their paper regressions. I also think the Brewers and Cardinals would have the most to offer in a trade to substantially improve their team during the season. On paper, I don't think the Cubs have regressed enough to question them as the division favorites - throw in a few injuries that expose their currently glaring lack of depth and add a key trade by the Brewers or even Cardinals, and who knows? It does stink that the Sheets' injury appears to have cost the Brewers a shot at draft compensation for him - then again, I feel worse for Sheets. To think that last season at the All Star break he was probably looking at contract offers approaching twice the amount of his last deal, and now he'll have to probably sit out the entire 2009 season without earning a penny, and probably lose his chance at another big payday.

Sad, even. This is Ben's prime. Nope - this was supposed to be Ben's prime. Ben's actual prime was 2003-2005. So, as it turns out quite a few of the conspiracy theories actually had some merit to them. You really have to wonder what the team doctors saw/didn't see, and whether Sheets and his agent did their due diligence to get additional opinions - if he does need surgery in order to continue pitching, he could have been 5 months into his recovery by now if he got it done right away.

Is it a bit of a gamble for Sheets to wait? At this point I think the only thing Sheets is waiting on is an offer - something that aside from the arbys he declined from the Brewers I don't think he's received yet this offseason. He may have no choice but wait.

Peavy's an attractive option for the Brewers - the problem might be Peavy refusing to wave his no trade clause to Milwaukee to get the negotiations started.

With Boras throwing out the threat that it doesn't pay to play chicken in contract negotiations, I wonder if he ever looks in the mirror and realizes that's exactly what he's doing with Manny and the Dodgers right now - the GMs of the other teams supposedly interested in Manny all came out yesterday and said they want nothing to do with him. That leaves the Giants and Dodgers. The Giants haven't even made an offer, and if they did it wouldn't be close to 25 million for 1 yr. If I'm the Dodgers' GM, I send Mr. Boras a memo with the parameters of all three offers they made Ramirez during the course of this offseason and give them until the end of next week to pick one. If they reject them, I'd tell Mr. Boras to have fun talking Manny into playing in the Northern League next season for peanuts so his skills don't erode before next offseason.

A tidbit posted on ESPN Insider this morning basically rules the Rangers out of pursuing Ben Sheets. Also cites several "really, really good baseball people refusing to go nowhere near Sheets, while other pitchers without his credentials are being pursued". The justification for that being strong speculation that he's damaged goods. The report also added that if Rangers owner Tom Hicks wanted to commit to signing Sheets, there's no way he wouldn't be able to give him an acceptable offer, either by contract length or dollar amount. If the team that currently employs the pitching coach that knows exactly what happened to Sheets last season doesn't want to even make a "below market value" offer, that's not exactly a ringing endorsement on his health. Lots of articles talking about what a potential bargain Sheets would be for teams if they sign him this offseason, but that goes out the window if he can't pitch. If the Brewers actually have some salary flexibility, I don't see why you use that up before the season starts on a guy who might give you 150+ quality IP, but could just as likely give you 50 IP and head to surgery. The best thing for Sheets may be to see what the market looks like in June - it would take some large stones for him to sit out that long, but then again if he gets no offers at all he really doesn't have much choice.

Maybe Boras is holding out for Varitek money Seriously, a one year deal at 25M is a great deal, especially if the economic outlook improves next offseason. Especially when it's becoming obvious that there aren't any other potential destinations for him aside from L.A., and a payroll-sapped Giants team. Reports indicate that the Giants only want to do a 1-yr deal, too, and it probably wouldn't approach 25M.

Maybe Boras is holding out for Varitek money Seriously, a one year deal at 25M is a great deal, especially if the economic outlook improves next offseason. Especially when it's becoming obvious that there aren't any other potential destinations for him aside from L.A., and a payroll-sapped Giants team. Reports indicate that the Giants only want to do a 1-yr deal, too, and it probably wouldn't approach 25M.

Maybe Boras is holding out for Varitek money Seriously, a one year deal at 25M is a great deal, especially if the economic outlook improves next offseason. Especially when it's becoming obvious that there aren't any other potential destinations for him aside from L.A., and a payroll-sapped Giants team. Reports indicate that the Giants only want to do a 1-yr deal, too, and it probably wouldn't approach 25M.

Unless Hendry trades with the Marlins or Pirates during their cost-cutting periods, he makes horrible trades - he's got no ability to buy low-sell high when it comes to player evaluation unless a team's desparate to unload salary.