BADGERJOBOB

I agree that pitching is the key but it is safer to spend big money on hitting then it is on pitching. Signing Greinke to a big money 5 year contract is a much bigger risk than spending it on a great young hitter. I would only offer Prince the big contract if I felt very comfortable that 2 of my minor league pitchers are going to be able to step it up over the next couple years and if I see Gallardo take that next step up to be our ace.

I guess I am one of the very very few but you do what you can to sign a hitter like Prince if you have any faith in the Brewer's minor league system and the players we just drafted. We need replacements for Greinke, Marcum and Wolf in 2013. I think Gallardo can take a step up. I think one of the two college pitchers we drafted in the first round will be a solid impact pitcher in 2013. I think you need one more pitcher from your minors to take that one big step and then you try to sign one solid pitcher to fill in the starting rotation. I would save money by moving Hart and filling his spot with Gamel and signing a defensive shortstop that doesn't require a lot of money. If we lose Prince, the Brewer offense will take a huge step back and push us back towards .500 baseball.

I found some interesting Jackson tidbits today. From CBS sportsline: His June no-hitter seemingly forgotten, the common perception is that Jackson is having a much worse season than he did last year. With his ERA having grown by more than a run, it's easy to see where that perception comes from, but substantial increases in his strikeout and ground ball rates are among some of the positive developments Jackson has seen in 2010. With more ground balls come a few more base hits, at least on balls in play, but his .324 BABIP is probably about 15 to 20 points too high. Expect a correction for Jackson over the weeks to come. http://milfbl.baseball.cbssports.com/news/13775455/by-the-numbers-oswalt-dicek-treading-lightly Another CBS sportsline analysis: Jackson's return to Fantasy prominence is perhaps even more surprising than Daniel Hudson's arrival. In his last 29 starts leading up to the trade -- eight of them late last year -- he compiled a 5.41 ERA and a 1.50 WHIP.The longer it went on, the more his performance over his first 25 starts last year, when he posted a 2.86 ERA and a 1.19 WHIP, looked like a fluke. But pitching coach Don Cooper knew better. Doing his best rendition of Rick Peterson on Victor Zambrano, he saw a mechanical problem he thought he could fix. And unlike Peterson, he delivered. "He got in bad habits," Cooper said of Jackson. "He was collapsing more than he should. When you collapse, you get under pitches, around pitches. (Stuff) can get flat. Some parts of the plate can be much harder to attain." So can some numbers, no matter how good the stuff is. But when he's hitting his spots and staying on top of his pitches, Jackson can be as good as anybody, as he has shown with his 1.35 ERA, 1.25 WHIP and 24 strikeouts over 20 innings in three starts with the White Sox. What shouldn't go unmentioned here is the fact Jackson's pure stuff rates among the best in baseball. Always has. Only now, for perhaps the first time his career, he has the coaching to help him make the most of it. http://milfbl.baseball.cbssports.com/news/13771940

Who said anything about taking out best and worst starts? I only mentioned his very last start cost him 0.3 of an ERA because you seem to think he sucked for the last 3 months. I am all for actually looking at all his starts for the entire year. If you looked at all his starts from start to finish, he had a pretty good year overall. He didn't have a season like Ubaldo Jimenez is having this year where he was lights out for the first two months and not so good the next two months. Jackson had 4 very good months of pitching. His ERA bounced in the 2-3.00 ERA range for four months which is a significant part of the year. Yes, he tailed off at the very end (most of his September starts and 1 October start were bad). Maybe because he never pitched more than 180 innings his arm was tired. I don't know but to write off half the season is disengenious. So yea I can say "Ahhh, no" because you are not quoting statistical stats correctly. Your guessing without looking but if that floats your boat to prove your end of the arguement, go ahead. And yes last year could have been a huge fluke but you wanted one example of why anyone would trade for him and offered 4 really good pitching months that you then dismissed so it still fits your arguement.

Ahhh no. I would say a 3.36 ERA for the entire year minus the last game is a very good year overall and I would love to have the Brewers with 5 starting pitchers who pitched all season and finished the year sub 3.63. Jackson finished top 10 in AL ERA last year in pitching 33 games. You can say it was only half the season but there are not a lot of pitchers who can consistently do it all year long. Jackson had a good year overall last year. You don't like him. Great. Got it.

Depends on how you want to look at it. End of May 2.30. End of June 2.49. End of July 2.64. End of August 2.96. End of September 3.36. And only pitched one game in October where he was brutal pushed his ERA to 3.62. I really don't know much about him or his contract so I can't tell you if he is worth trading for or not 9depends on the package deal) but he did have good numbers last year for most of the season. He is only 26 years old. He has always had good stuff. Mid 90s fastball. Projected as a front of a rotation pitcher but he has lacked consistency and I think control has always been his problem but again I don't follow the guy.

Can anyone give me a stat of Edwin Jackson's that makes him look like a valuable pitcher? He can dominate some games but the guy has a 5.16 ERA this year with a 1.50 WHIP? No way in hell the White Sox put that offer in for a one year rental of Prince. The value of a 1 year rental with one world series run of Prince is lower than 1 1/2 years with 2 world series runs. Last year 33 starts 214 innings pitched. 3.62 ERA and 1.26Whip. Maybe it was a fluke year, a one time thing but he did have a good one last year.

Does Melvin value Edwin Jackson more than Hudson in a win next year mode? We have good young pitchers who will be up in our system in 2-3 years but that doesn't help us in 2011 and 2012. Does Melvin do a deal for Jackson, Vicedo(sp?) and Beckham to us for Prince? We get a major league pitcher who will be 27 at the end of the year. A replacement for Prince in 2012 and a young potential big time player in Beckham who can take over third base for us next year or packaged in a deal for a good young arm that is close to MLB ready (Beckham or Lawrie to Seattle maybe for one of their arms?). I know Williams said that Beckham was not being traded but there are tweets that he is looking at a big deal.

Sounds like we won't activate Hawkins until Saturday so it does look like someone will be moved. Who do you think it will be? Logical choices are Hoffman and Riske. Do we get anything of value for either one of those two?

Sounds like some on here want Melvin to trade Hart and Prince just to trade them and make changes. No need to trade them if you don't get any good value for them. I would rather keep them then get a bag of balls for them. Worst case scenario is they are on our roster through 2011 and we get draft pick compensation for them. Not ideal but not the end of the world. We get more high picks, and that gives us a greater chance we can find our own Mike Minor like prospect who can get to the majors quickly. Anyways, it looks like Jayson Werth has value this year and his contract is up at the end of this year so we can probably get decent comp from Prince/Hart at next year's trade deadline if we get a good offer. Prince will hit, Hart is a question mark but I would be ok with rolling the dice on him. Its not the end of the world if they are still Brewers next week. I am sure if Melvin can get a Baumgardner or Hellickson or someone of that talent, a deal will be made.

Edwin Jackson on the market with a very manageable salary. How do we get him a 3 way trade. Beckham and Hudson plus for Prince. Beckham and what for Jackson?

I think when all is said and done, Prince will be a White Sox before the deadline. Williams likes to think outside the box and desparately wants to make a big deal. He will figure out a way to get Prince and I think in all likelihood this ends up being a 7 or 8 player blockbuster deal. I can see Prince, Parra and a minor leaguer going to Sox for Beckham, Dan Hudson, Dayan Viciedo and solid young minor league pitcher (A level) with potential for upside. And if we do get Beckham, are we able to spin him off in another package deal with Hart for top level arms say Madison Baumgarner who is ready now and say Sosa who is maybe 2 years away? Out: Prince, Hart, Parra, Beckham In: Baumgarner, Sosa, Hudson, Viciedo, Single A level solid pitcher Starting rotation next year: Gallardo, Wolf, Baumgarner, Hudson, #5 pitcher Have Sosa (future starting pitcher with upside) and Viciedo (future firstbasemen) coming up maybe 2012. Along with Odorizzi and Heckathorn replacing Wolf and #5 pitcher, our starting pitching should be set for the next 4-7 years.

You can't just look at his two losses and say well his bad stat lines didn't have an outcome on the game. You have to look at his overall affect on our pitching staff and the roster. Him taking a pitching spot on this team cost the Brewers games. In other words, would we have won more games if we had another effective pitcher in the bullpen. If Braddock was here all year does he get used in the 7th or 8th inning to keep a lead or stay in a close game? Does Hoffman or Hawkins have a shorter leash with another arm in the bullpen, etc. Suppan has been horrible and was never used in meaningful games because he was horrible. He contributed to our bullpen being overused. He cost us games, I just don't think anyone is really able to quantify how many games that might be. What I can say is that we would be less then 9 or 10 games back that we are now.

Yea that would not be good. I think if Hart is traded, we would hopefully see an outfield of Braun/Cain/FA outfielder with money saved from any Hart/Fielder deal. An established veteran who can get us through a year or two until someone from the minors is ready to step up. Also, while home runs are great, nothing wrong with manufacturing runs. Yes we lose a lot of home runs if we trade Hart/Fielder but this club relies way too much on the home run and we do have 3 other players on this club who will hit 25 plus home runs. We need more diversity with our offense. High on-base guys, speed guys, good hit and run guys. A good on-base guy with some speed and a manager who actually uses the speed, the bunt, the hit and run, the double steal, basically what he has at his disposal and we can get by offensively as long as we greatly improve our starting pitching. The question is, can we greatly improve our starting pitching by trading Hart/Fielder.

I don't consider that a haul at all. Hudson projects as a number 3 pitcher. Is that what we really expect to get out of a Prince trade. One potential number 3 pitcher? This team needs pitching, and by pitching I mean good pitching, high projectability not average albeit cheap MLB ready pitching. If we don't get more than a number 3 pitcher than we might as well just keep him around another year and a half and roll the dice with additional draft picks that we can spend on yes cheap pitching, and focus on average arms, average potential that is close to MLB ready (YUCK!). And while Beckham might be great, we have hitters in the minors and we have McGehee blocking him at third with Gamel in the mix as well. Last thing I want is to start another round of musical chairs of moving players all over the field and in essence continuing the status quo of deteriorating our defensive capabilities for offensive potential. Pitching and defense first and foremost and we can worry about offense later.