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JohnBriggs12

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Everything posted by JohnBriggs12

  1. JohnBriggs12
    This is ridiculous. They signed Trot Nixon to a minor league deal in hopes that he could be useful off the bench. Nothing more, nothing less. Signing Trot Nixon does not preclude them from adding any other outfielder that they see fit, including Adam Dunn. You might think that and I might think that, but what does Melvin think? There's no indication at all he's pursuing another bat. The talk about Dunn was prior to the Cameron deal dying and the Nixon signing.
  2. JohnBriggs12
    There's no question that this Yankee spending spree at a time when most teams have to hold the line or cut payroll is going to harden this current group of owners for a cap. It's terrible for the health of the game at a critical point in time. The game was starting to flourish because of the success of the Tampa Bays, Milwaukees, etc. That gave all the other small markets hope. Now it appears we are headed again to a period of utter domination of the big markets. Yankees, Red Sox, Angels in the AL, and Mets, Cubs, Dodgers, and Phillies in the NL. This is horrible for the health of the game in general.
  3. JohnBriggs12
    I like Abreu over Dunn too. But the best value out there is Garrett Anderson. I know the OBP disciples are not all that high on him, but he's a tough, tough out in high leverage situations and always has been. Of course now that they've splurged on Trot Nixon, all the problems are solved.
  4. JohnBriggs12
    So there goes the number 1 pick. This offseason has to increase the pressure on baseball for a salary cap. One team has shelved out over $400 million on 3 players. Ridiculous.
  5. JohnBriggs12
    Not to blow my own horn, but on 11/15/07, I posted the following in a thread "Melvin on WSSP" (page 116 of forums) "I don't think physically he's the same pitcher he was in 2005 either. Back then he routinely worked with a 97-98 mph fastball. This past season (2007) he worked mostly 94-95." I'm sure I mentioned this one or two other times, but this is the one I found.
  6. JohnBriggs12
    Losing Bosio in 1993 cost them 23 games. Granted they also lost Molitor off that 92 team but they did upgrade with Jaha replacing Stubbs at 1B. Sabathia and Sheets (when healthy) saved tons of wear and tear on the bullpen. Not only are people concerned about the starting pitching Ender, they are more concerned about the offense going into this season than they were last year. Hall is one more year removed from his big season. Fielder, Hart and Weeks regressed in 08 as did Braun to an extent. Cameron is 36 and we've seen his shortcomings. We've also seen that little offense is likely to come from Kendall. Last year many of us (me included) thought Kendall could still hit .270 or .280. What did hit after a hot April, .220 or so? I didn't even mention the bullpen that has lost 4 veterans. Plus last year at this time the Cubs had Rich Hill and Jason Marquis and an unknown quanitity in Ryan Dempster in their rotation. Now they have Rich Harden, and Dempster who was much better than anyone thought he would be. The good news is Melvin still has time to shore up some things. But when he's proclaiming Trot Nixon as a possible answer, it's hard to be positive that he can do anything significant.
  7. JohnBriggs12
    Here's something else to ponder. The consensus is that barring injury, Looper replaces McClung in rotation. Well in 08, McClung had a .715 OPS against. Looper had a .764. If we could somehow magically replace Suppan with Looper, then it's an upgrade, but all this does basically is somewhat bolster the pen by putting McClung in the pen. If you're going to spend $6-8 million (apparently the consensus of what he'd get) per year, why not just add a reliever? You could get a pretty good quality reliever in this market for that price. Rotation depth could then come from Villanueva plus another guy like a John Parrish who's out there and who's cheap that can start or relieve.
  8. JohnBriggs12
    I have many concerns over this rotation but Parra stands out. He had just 10 quality starts last year mainly because he didn't go deep into games. That's not good for a 5th starter and he's talked about as if he's a number 2. He'll be 26 this season. Youth can no longer be an excuse. He's got something like 740 professional innings. He needs to be a mature pitcher now, not down the road. I'm not sure he is and that worries me.
  9. JohnBriggs12
    Looper wasn't a very good reliever (3.58 ERA, more hits than innings pitched). He was serviceable as a 4th starter for 2 years though with very average stuff as evidenced by his well over a hit an inning allowed. His K/BB ratio is fine but is more a product of low walks, than high K's. This guy doesn't miss bats. A one year deal for a guy like that makes sense. 2 years is a stretch but depending on the cost, could make sense. Anything over 2 years would be insane for a 34 year old with a resume of just 2 average seasons as a starter. It would only take slight regression for him to be a scrap heap type pitcher. Either way, Braden Looper does not make the Brewers contenders. Period. So why spend the cash at all?
  10. JohnBriggs12
    Let me throw a couple sleepers out there: 1. John Parrish. He's been mostly a reliever at the ML level, but started 6 games for the Jays after going 10-1 as a starter at AAA last season. He would be cheap, and if not able to make rotation, would be useful in the pen. 2. Odalis Perez. This guy had 4 more quality starts than Manny Parra in 2008, yet is far down everyone's list. He made $865,000 last year and it likely won't take much more than that to sign him.
  11. JohnBriggs12
    Looper is not a clear upgrade over McClung. In fact it's possible we haven't seent the best McClung has to offer. But if you sign Looper, he'll be in the rotation and McClung likely won't. The Brewers need to add starters that are either clearly better than Suppan or McClung, or cheap enough, that you can use them as your long reliever if they don't beat out one of your starters. Looper doesn't fall into either of those categories. Say he were to get a 3 year, $20 million deal. How much better is Looper than a guy like John Parrish who was 10-1 with a 2.97 ERA at AAA, and 1-1 with a 4.04 ERA in 6 starts for the Jays and is likely to be had on either a minor league or near minimum major league deal?
  12. JohnBriggs12
    I'm not sure what anyone is seeing in his stats that say he's anything more than a 4th starter. He's never topped 200 innings. His BA against last year was .279. How many Brewers hit over .279 last year? 2? His SPA was .438. Not many on here like Jon Garland, but you put Garland in the NL and his numbers would be similar to Looper's and he's 5 years younger. Like someone mentioned, the Brewers are paying over $10 million per year the next 2 years for basically a 5th starter. Why on earth would they want to have nearly $20 million tied up in their 4th and 5th starters? If Daniel Cabrera is only worth a one year $2.6 million deal, Looper is certainly not worth more than double that. A guy like Oliver Perez at least has the stuff to be an above average starter. If you want to spend close to $10 million, go for Perez, not Looper. Heck Odalis Perez who you could get for $2 million or less might be a better value than $8 or $9 million for Looper. By the way, here's an interesting stat. Odalis Perez, who nobody seems interested in, had one fewer quality start (14) than Looper who had 15. Perez did it in 30 starts compared to 33 for Looper.
  13. JohnBriggs12
    Looper does nothing for me. He's 34 (so it's likely he won't get better) and very hittable, much like Suppan. Let's hope they won't pay him more than say $8 million over 2 years. Bush is better. His bat is his one plus.
  14. JohnBriggs12
    I think the best move of Melvin's tenure was signing Braun for 7 years. I still can't believe he accomplished that. Melvin's worst move was signing Turnbow to a multi year deal. That resulted in them sticking with him to the detriment of the team. Turnbow had a pattern of being erratic prior to his big 2005. Given the nature of relievers, that should have been a red flag.
  15. JohnBriggs12
    Lowe is not worth $16.7 million per year. Especially not in this market. Invader3K numbers are closer to his true value but I think he's looking elsewhere.
  16. JohnBriggs12
    Were the oil companies colluding when gas was over $4 a gallon and not colluding now that it's under $1.70? Are the Yankees colluding? It's business and owners are rightfully worried. They are seeing sponsorships dry up, season ticket holders not renewing and suite holders disappearing. Because it's happening across the industry doesn't make it collusion.
  17. JohnBriggs12
    No it's not a young team. It's a veteran team. Some of the veterans are still on the young side, but their still veterans. By the way, Cameron will be 36 on opening day, not 35. Hart will be 27. Gallardo will be 23 and Suppan will be 34. Even Gamel will turn 24 during the season and isn't a kid by any means. Of the guys with a chance to make the team, only Escobar is younger than 23. What really bothers me is that Parra is always talked about as being such a young pitcher. He's 26 and that's not all that young. Over the history of the game, most top players reach the big leagues by 23 or so, with many a year or two earlier than that. You hear a lot of times that people will say, "oh back in the old days, guys had more time to develop etc." That's really not true for the best players. Joe Torre made his debut at 19 as did Johnny Bench. Al Kaline never played in the minor leagues. He went straight from HS to the majors at 18. My recollection of the 60s and 70s were that pitchers were a lot younger. It wasn't all that unusual for the oldest guy in a rotation to be 26 or 27.
  18. JohnBriggs12
    Villanueva is not a long man. He's a credible candidate to close. Dillard's a long shot just to make the team as the 12th pitcher. He'd have no shot at the rotation, Glover or no Glover. McClung is currently in the rotation.
  19. JohnBriggs12
    The downside of these moves is obvious. While there may be little financial downside, if Melvin has checked off "get lefthanded bat" off his to do list by signing Trot Nixon, that is a problem. There are better alternatives even outside the Dunn, Abreu, Bradley threesome. Kotsay may not be much better offensively than Nixon, but Kotsay can still play CF as well as either corner spot, so signing him would make signing Duffy unecessary. Now it's likely that either Duffy or Gwynn will have to make the 25 man roster. The signing of Trot Nixon might result in the loss of both Nelson and Iribarren, both of whom might actually be as good if not better than Nixon at this stage. Could this end up being a good move? Sure. If Nixon returns to being a very solid offensive player and Duffy (who failed in Pittsburgh mind you) turns into a serviceable CF. But it has a downside. If Nixon is the hitter he was in Cleveland in 07: .251/.342/.336, then it will be a waste of a roster spot.
  20. JohnBriggs12
    Except these are the kind of guys you sign in February, not December. You don't build your roster by filling up your non-roster invite list first. Don't mention Trot Nixon and Raul Ibanez in the same sentence. Ibanez has 338 RBI since 2006. Nixon has 84.
  21. JohnBriggs12
    If these guys are the answer, I don't want to know the question. And some of you guys were dreading Mark Kotsay? Nice offseason so far Doug. I guess that new contract you got means you can take it easy. We feared the Brewers would be looking only at 2nd tier guys. These two are 6th or 7th tier guys.
  22. JohnBriggs12
    If you're not going to sign any of the big 3 (Dunn, Abreu, Bradley), and you're certain you want to keep both Cameron and Hart, then Kotsay makes the most sense as he's the lefthanded version of Kapler. He'd likely get at least 80 starts split between RF and CF, letting Hart sit against tough RH, and allowing Cameron at age 36 to get a couple days off a week.
  23. JohnBriggs12
    If you're not going to sign any of the big 3 (Dunn, Abreu, Bradley), and you're certain you want to keep both Cameron and Hart, then Kotsay makes the most sense as he's the lefthanded version of Kapler. He'd likely get at least 80 starts split between RF and CF, letting Hart sit against tough RH, and allowing Cameron at age 36 to get a couple days off a week.
  24. JohnBriggs12
    If you're not going to sign any of the big 3 (Dunn, Abreu, Bradley), and you're certain you want to keep both Cameron and Hart, then Kotsay makes the most sense as he's the lefthanded version of Kapler. He'd likely get at least 80 starts split between RF and CF, letting Hart sit against tough RH, and allowing Cameron at age 36 to get a couple days off a week.
  25. JohnBriggs12
    If you're not going to sign any of the big 3 (Dunn, Abreu, Bradley), and you're certain you want to keep both Cameron and Hart, then Kotsay makes the most sense as he's the lefthanded version of Kapler. He'd likely get at least 80 starts split between RF and CF, letting Hart sit against tough RH, and allowing Cameron at age 36 to get a couple days off a week.
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