Ennder

He is most likely directly responsible for Capuano and Sheets getting hurt since he abused them so badly.

Bush probably will. He was a very solid starter until he got hurt last year and was very solid the year before. They can make a pretty clear case that the injury was the reason for the ERA.

I think no matter what he said fans wouldn't be happy and I tend to believe that he started to do them because of injury problems while a player like Sosa probably started doing it just to get better. The whole part about hitting 70 HR without them is pretty shaky obviously.

Ohka, Villanueva, Shouse, Vargas, Linebrink, McClung, King, Mota, Torres Capellan, Obermueller, Jackson, Aquino Melvin has traded for a lot of pitching in his career for the Brewers. A lot of it was bullpen guys and starters who didnt' pan out.

He didn't even earn 1 WAR last year so if he repeats what he did last year this is overpaying him. I really don't think the NL would work for him.

Harts career ISO is .197 and last year was .158, that isn't some huge drop. It is a couple HRs in a shortened season. His BB% hung around 7% until 2008 and then last year it was over 9%. In the minors it was 7% as well. There is no reason to think Hart can't grow into a 9% BB rate. His ISO in the minors was .197 which suggests the career rate probably is closer to his real talent than last year. He isn't going to be a star most likely but he certainly could be adequate or slightly better.

So out of this list I like Baldelli, Loretta or if the price is right Davis/Garland/Washburn. I still think Garland is going to get a 3 year deal from someone since he is young so he seems the least likely. I'd be intrigued by Smoltz or Bedard as well but I have no clue about their health status. I'd also love Damon with Hart traded but I don't see it happening. Damon would be the perfect fit for this lineup as we are going to be OBP starved with Escobar, Gomez and Hart playing every day.

Well I don't think Melvin could know Capuano would get hurt and lose velocity right after trading for him? I said Wolf not Davis btw. Capuano was considered relatively hard throwing when we got him. Wolf is right on the edge of being a hard thrower, he's gained velocity since his injury. Sabathia was obviously also hard throwing.

88-89 MPH is pretty hard throwing for a LHP so Capuano and Wolf would both count as hard throwing. Though obviously it would be the low end of hard throwing.

So expecting Hall to beat a .606 OPS when he had a career line of like .780 is having Brewer colored glasses? Braun pretty much hit his projections exactly so not sure why you included him. Fielders 2009 was almost exactly like his 2007 so was pretty expected and most projection systems had him over .950 OPS. There is a middle ground with the pitching you know. It can be an area that people didn't think would be strong but still did worse than they probably should have. A combination of all the various projection systems came up with an 82-80 record for the Brewers with an expectation of between 75-88 wins, 740-815 runs scored, 730-808 runs allowed. The actual results were 80-82 with 785 runs scored and 818 runs allowed. We hit the runs scored pretty much spot on, our runs allowed were above expectations. The record came out relatively close because we actually won more games than we probably should have last year. I think most of Brewerfan.net was in the 83-87 win range.

From 2004-2009 the Brewers have averaged 4.7 R/G allowed. The league average in the NL over that time span is 4.7 R/G. I'm not sure horrid is an accurate term for them. Two years ago we tied for the 2nd lowest ERA in the NL which doesn't seem horrid either. We have had 2 really bad years in pitching, 2009 and 2006. 2006 was mostly because of a really bad bullpen, 2009 because of a rotation that all put up the worst seasons of their career at once. During that time frame we've lost tons of innings to the front line starters as well. Two injuries to Capuano, the Sheets injury, Gallardo going down for a season. Yeah injuries happen to everyone but it the fact it was the front end starters certainly has an impact. The biggest issue with our pitching was a lack of development at the minor league level which people give all the credit to Jack Z for on offense and all of the blame to Melvin for the pitching for some reason. Given the fact we've had all of 2 effective starters(counting Sheets is being generous too) we developed ourselves in his tenure and that both of them missed large chunks of time with injuries I'm impressed with what Melvin has done if anything. Add in the fact we have developed very little in the way of bullpen arms and most of them have been castoffs and FA pickups and I just can't agree with you at all. We built the position players first through the draft and that left a hole in pitching. It is hard to rebuild an organization as bad as the Brewers had in a short period of time, you are going to have holes in it. I blame Melvin for Suppan and Gagne(I'll give him a pass on Riske since he got hurt) but not much else when it comes to pitching. I can see arguments for trading LaPorta for a lesser pitcher who had more years left or Hardy for a high risk pitcher instead of Gomez but they aren't no brainer type arguements. It really depends on what else was available and there is no way to really know.

Lets match them up by CHONE projections then using R150. C Jason Kendall - -25 1B Billy Butler - 24 2B Chris Getz - -8 3B Alex Gordon - 11 SS Yuniesky Betancourt - -16 OF David DeJesus - 8 OF Scott Podsednik - -9 OF Josh Fields - 1 DH Jose Guillen - -8 CHONE says the Royals will be -30 R150 on the season not including the DH who is also negative. C Zaun - -12 1B Fielder - 39 2B Weeks - 11 3B McGehee - -6 SS Escobar - -7 OF Braun - 33 OF Gomez - -8 OF Hart - 3 CHONE has the Brewers at 53 R150 on the season. We would have to replace Fielder with the worst hitter in baseball to make our lineup as bad as the Royals most likely.

Edgar Martinez probably deserves to be the first one.

The Brewers will need at least one SP next year as well so you are really comparing Wolf's deal to a 1 year deal for Myers+1 year deal for someone next year. The 3rd year might be a problem with Wolf so won't disagree with that part. I'm not really conviced signing two huge injury risks and moving Suppan to the bullpen is a bigger upgrade than just signing a real SP either. Seems to me that Suppan still ends up starting half the season that way

You expected Parra and Bush to have ERA's over 6 and Looper and Suppan to each have their worst ERA in the past 10+ years and every fill in starter to post a 7+ ERA? The rotation preformed way below any reasonable expectations for them. If they replayed 2009 1,000 times it wouldn't surprise me if our rotation never pitched that poorly again it was so far outside expectations. It might not have been an amazing rotation paper but it wasn't a 5.37 ERA rotation by any means.

Dawson's OPS+ from 1988 on was 114 and his OBP was a meager .319 after 1987. There are players who give 'empty average', Dawson gave 'empty HR'. He just wasn't that great of a player. If you want to measure players by HR/SB and to a lesser extent RBI(he didn't consistently have good RBI totals) then I guess he deserves to be in. If you want to measure players more in depth he doesn't make the cut.

http://www.fangraphs.com/...-alnl-gap-a-gm-disparity

Because teams have been beating down his door all off season to hand him a multi year deal.Because he would have almost certainly turned it down and even if he didn't it isn't the end of the world. We go into the season with substantial question marks at SS and 2B and the extra depth would have been nice anyway. Going into the season with Weeks as the starting 2B is a huge question mark give his wrists.

Dawson - .287/.328/.568/.896. .378 wOBA, Raines - .330/.429/.526/.955. .419 wOBA. This isn't even close to an argument given the disparity in their stats, Raines was significantly better. Raines was also better defensively and on the base paths. This is the same old argument though, are HR/RBI more valuable than all the other parts of a baseball player combined. The MVP usually comes down to HR/RBI and more times than not it isn't the best player. At least they are starting to get it right a little more now. After 1987 Raines put up an OPS of .786. Dawson put up a .796 and Raines was with a .378 OBP which makes it more valuable than Dawson's slugging heavy one. He did it over a larger number of PA as well and again playing better defense and better baserunning.

I would absolutely love to add Damon for the right price. Especially if it means moving Hart for a pitcher.

It would be a more compelling argument if Raines hadn't had a MUCH better year than him 1987. Dawson shouldn't have that MVP either.

I dunno, I hate the Morrow deal. I think they spent too much on Figgins. It is a mixed bag so far.

The only mistake they made with Lopez is not offering him arbitration.

Dawson was about the 9th most deserving person on the ballot, just pathetic.

Suppan was the least of our problems last year. He had two cruddy starts to begin the year and pitched just like his other seasons the rest of the way. He was better than Parra and bush and equal to Looper results wise and better than the guys who tried to fill in for injuries. If we really wanted to see more of Narveson last year there were plenty of chances. We brought Parra back up before he was ready, pitched Bush even though he was hurt, brought Suppan back from his rehab before he was probably ready. They did all this because of lack of depth and not trusting Narveson. Not having Suppan last year would have made the team worse. Of course if we had spent the money we did on him on another player that would make the team better.