Ennder

Is there any support that says it isn't flawed? If you compare a Rockies player to a Padres player we know that the park plays a factor but I don't think OPS+ adequately accounts for the factor. OPS itself is pretty flawed too(underrates OBP) so when you combine the two things you get a pretty poor number for comparing two players.

No I think it is borderline useless. Park factors aren't so simplistic that you can universally apply them to every player. Some parks are hitter parks but they don't increase SLG just AVG, some are hitter parks for righties but pitcher parks for lefties. Some suppress AVG overall but raise it for gap hitters. OPS+ is a very flawed method of trying to adjust for parks. Does 2 healthy years out of 5 sound good? I could have easily said he was healthy 2 of the last 6 too. Fact is he hasn't exactly been the picture of health in his prime, why would I want to hope he is when he is 32?

Beltre was better than Fielder last year when you add in defense so I think it is a fair enough deal. I think Fielder was a down season though and will be more valuable next year. Beltre is a decent enough target though since in general fielding is where the value is these days.

OPS+ is borderline useless http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/smile.gif, but I agree with you that park effects do matter and they have suppressed Ellis somewhat. My problem with Ellis is his stats really come from one single season. He has been a worse hitter than I'd expect Weeks to be in 4 of his 5 full seasons. He'll be 32 years old next year and has 1 fully healthy year in the past 4. Looked up some things and it seems like his defense would be a big enough improvement to make him someone worth replacing Weeks with. However Weeks was also above average using the same numbers so I guess he isn't the person I'd want to replace. Weeks actually came out more valuable than Fielder since Fielder was so terrible defensively and got the nasty 1B positional adjustment.

Fielder will be the starting first basemen in 2009, doesn't make sense to trade him after what is most likely a down year. I think we trade him in 2010 or 2011 and Gamel becomes our 1B because he won't stick at 3B.

Ellis has a SLG heavy OPS. His career line is .265/.337/.407/.744 and 3 of his last 6 years has had an OBP of .321 or lower, his stats are harder to predict because he has gone good year, bad year, good year, bad year etc. Hudson is a better offensive player as his stat line is more OBP heavy, I also don't really believe in OPS+ so I'll take the higher base OPS most of the time. Hudson has had more of a classic growth pattern so I like that he is more projectable/reliable. Hudson is also considered one of the best defensive 2B in baseball so not sure why you would call him average.

I would love to see us go after Vazquez. I don't think Willis is any better than Suppan so not so much interested in that one.

I'd call them even assuming Gallardo stays healthy to match up with Verlander. Miner is pretty comperable to Bush with most of Miner's success being as a RP. Galarraga was completely a product of his .237 BABIP, when that reverts to normal we are looking at a #4 or #5. Porcello is obviously the wild card here.

For DeJesus keep in mind his development has been slowed down by injuries and he was supposed to be the player from 2008 eventually. However looking at his splits scares me a little and he had 3 pretty terrible months and then 2 incredibly hot ones and his BABIP was a good bit higher than his career rates. I could easily see some regression out of DeJesus next year. I still think selling Hart right now is bad timing. He is a better player than he showed in 2008, he just isn't as good as 2007. I don't know what happened in the second half to see his BB tank so much but his BB rate was acceptable in the minors so I'd expect them to at least rebound some in the majors with experience. Remember that 2008 was Hart's first full season. I think Hart for DeJesus is a pretty fair trade and it might help our team since it adds a LH to the team but I'm not sold that Hart isn't going to be the better player of the two.

Wasn't Doug Davis a waiver wire guy and Podsednik and Brian Shouse. As for Coffey it depends on which one shows up. If it is the guy who had over 7 K/9 in 2006/2007 I'd want him for sure. Regardless a guy like Coffey is useful in the bullpen since he usually has over a 50% GB rate. One interesting thing I see in his stats is he didn't throw change ups this year for some reason. In the past around 7-8% of his pitches were change ups but this year it was only 1.4%. He went slider happy and it doesn't look like the results were good.

Second Basemen Geoff Blum, HOU Miguel Cairo, SEA Ray Durham, SF Mark Ellis, OAK Marcus Giles, COL Mark Grudzielanek, KC Orlando Hudson, ARI Tadahito Iguchi, SD Jeff Kent, LAD Felipe Lopez, WAS Mark Loretta, HOU D'Angelo Jimenez, STL Nick Punto, MIN Jose Valentin, NYM *Jose Vidro, SEA *Jamey Carroll, CLE There are a lot of players on that list that would be worth bringing in on a short term contract to share time with Weeks or Hall in a platoon of sorts at 2B. The only name in that list I could see outright replacing Weeks with is Hudson. The rest of them are limited playtime players, not better than Weeks or platoon types. Weeks value is low right now so I still say the best option is keep him for another year and hope he breaks out.

What was Sveum's reasoning for it? Kendall, Hart and Hall(vs righties) led off?

That isn't really abnormal for Suppan though. His ERA jumps all over the place because he gives up so many hits and his K/9 hits under 5 a couple months each season. The biggest abnormality is the huge HR allowed numbers he had after his injury. He gave up 18 HR over his final 76.1 IP which is way higher than normal. My guess is the injury had something to do with his subnormal year. Before the game he left with the elbow problem he had a 799 OPS against and 4.30 ERA. (.791 OPS against and 4.63 ERA for career) From that game on he had a .900 OPS against and a 5.79 ERA. I think the two are probably related somewhat.

I'd say Orlando Hudson fits that line very well. .282/.346/.433/.779 for his career. He had an .829 OPS in the second half and his April/May struggles were almost completely BABIP related. This isn't really accurate at all.

Yeah I can agree with that. Back when we made the trade I agreed it would probably be a 2-3 win upgrade but that easily could mean playoffs vs no playoffs so it was worth it. If he is a 3-5 win player next year that is likely the difference between making and missing the playoffs as well.

If we start Escobar at SS for some weird reason he'd probably be best off batting 8th since he would likely be worse than Kendall. He might lead off for us late 2010 or in 2011 though, but to be a good leadoff hitter he'll have to take more walks than he has in the minors so far.

Suppan pitched pretty much exactly like his career rates until September when he was just terrible. My guess is his arm wasn't healthy in september but there is no way to know for sure. I would expect him to have something like a 4.50-4.75 ERA next year.

Just have to point out that our grades are eerily similar~

CC started 17 games for the Brewers in the regular season and in 9 of them it is unlikely he had anything to do with the win. How many of those other 8 games would have been won without him is hard to say. The scores were... 3-2 3-0 4-2 4-3 3-2 4-3 4-2 3-1 Most likely we win close to half of the 4 run scored games and like 33% of the 3 run games even with McClung starting so that is roughly 3 more games where he didn't matter. So he really changed maybe 5 games and that is with him pitching way better than anyone could reasonably expect and that total could easily be 3 or 4 instead of 5, no way to know. Granted the rested bullpen etc helped as well but really expecting him to be worth more than 4-5 wins on average for a season is stretching things.

2 victories for half a season so 4 wins over a replacement level pitcher for the season. 4 wins by one player is pretty darn huge.

Player A is slightly better than player B in that list, it is about as even as you can get. Add in above average baserunning and an average defensive 2B which is what Weeks was this year statistically and you get a slightly above average 2B. Probably more accurate to just call him average though, I can agree with that.

I'll go with the opposite disclaimer, my ratings are on how the players did and don't really care much about expectations and I do take position into account. Kendall - C+. Offense was pretty terrible but his defense was superb. Fielder - B. Defense is pretty terrible but still a strong offensive year more than offset it. Weeks - C. Defense improved this season and offense was roughly league average. League average second basemen. Hardy - B+. Offensive team MVP when you take position into account. Pretty average fielding. Hall - F. One of the worst players in baseball this year. Braun - B+. This would have likely been an A if not for the injury slowing him down. Was worried about the defense but he looked fine out there. Cameron - B. Very solid year by Cameron overall though the Sept slump hurt him like many players. Hart - D+. Regressed and really struggled in september tanking the offensive side of things. Average defensively. Bench - B-. Branyan, Kapler, Durham and Rivera all provided nice production off the bench. Gwynn was terrible again and Counsell slipped offensively and defensively this year. Sabathia - A. Couldn't ask much more from him. Sheets - A. Was every bit the ace expected out of him. I didn't expect him to break 200 IP given his last 3 year innings totals. Still one of the top 14 pitchers in the NL on the year. Parra - B. Very solid year from Parra, he unfortunately hit the innings wall. Bush - C+. Lucky second half BABIP saved his year but still did a decent job overall. Suppan - D+.Terrible september destroyed what was a decent year. Not bad for a #5 starter. Bullpen - B-. The way the media talked about it you would think this was an F but this bullpen was pretty average overall. Villanueva, Torres, Shouse, McClung and Stetter were all pretty solid. I'll give Riske a pass since the injury obviously was at fault. Mota was about what I expected. Gagne and Turnbow were pretty terrible at times and really tanked the overall bullpen stats(52 2/3 IP of 6.66 ERA between them, 95 IP of 6.06 ERA when you add Riske). Yost - F. One of the worst managers in baseball yet again. Abused the starters for no good reason and mismanaged the bullpen yet again. Batting Nix 3rd is the kind of bonehead move that led to me really disliking him. Very happy he is gone. Overall - A. First playoff games in 26 years says it all.

While I agree that moving from A to AA is a harder step than AA to AAA, it still is a significant step. There are plenty of hitters that excel at AA and fall flat in AAA and plenty that do well in AAA and fall flat in the minors. Escobar does not have a skillset that is going hold up in a AA to MLB transition most likely. I would expect Escobar to be one of the worst hitters in baseball next season if he were thrust into the Majors. It would be even harsher than Hardy's rookie year. Sadly that might be an upgrade over Hall who was brutal though.

By far the weakest position on the team is 3B, Hall has to go and I would hope no team is silly enough to give him a starting job. He is ok as a utility player who faces lefties mostly though. Too early for me to give up on Hart and Weeks was an above average 2B this year so I can live with him. Only other really ugly spot on the team was Counsell who slipped offensively and defensively. I'd like to see us replace him as the utility infielder (with Hall would be ok though I'd rather have someone else left handed in the role). Of course if Kendall's defense slips back to his 2007 rates he'll be completely useless and could be the #2.

If that was in response to my post I full agree. I was just saying that we need 3 guys better than Dave Bush and we have 2 of them in Gallardo and Parra. If I had to label those guys I'd call Gallardo a good #2 and Parra a good #3. Bush is a good #4 and Suppan is a #5. We could use that ace to be our #1 for sure but even another #2 or #3 is good enough to make it a good rotation.