nate82

Bush on the open market would get at least $5m. Brett Myers got $5m from the Astros and was injured for the most part last year. I don't see how Bush wouldn't get at least $5m or more.

As I stated in a thread in the transaction forum that Gabe Gross maybe a good option to have platoon with Hart in RF. Not only could Gross be a platoon partner with Hart you could also have him sub for Braun against a tough right hander when Braun needs a day off. Though I would rather have Nady or Damon over Gross the cost savings of Gross who would cost around $1-2m compared to Nady who will probably cost around $4-6m while Damon will command a little bit more than that somewhere around $10m sounds about right for him. I believe you could get the same production out of Gross with a platoon with Hart that you could get with Nady or Damon full time at about the fraction of the cost. Unless the Brewers get blown out of the water with a deal that sends Hart for a young pitcher I don't see the Brewers going after someone like Nady or Damon. I would rather target Gross or Church and have them platoon with Hart but that probably means the Brewers wouldn't be able to pick up another starter though at least no one significant maybe someone like Bedard who the Brewers could get on an incentive laden deal but that is about it.

I wonder if bringing back Gabe Gross would be a good idea. Though he bats from the left side of the plate I wouldn't mind having him platoon with Hart in RF though I would rather have Church platoon with Hart in RF. Wouldn't be a bad pickup and he would be the 5th OF who can play any of the OF spots and could play LF every once in awhile when Braun needs a day off against a tough right hander also he would come very cheap probably around $1-2m.

Possibly but I haven't really seen much or heard many rumblings lately about the Brewers and a trade. The last I heard about a trade involving the Brewers was with the Braves and that didn't work out because the Braves were not interested in Hart. I believe the Brewers will talk with Sheets one more time to see if he has brought his price tag down and if not they will go in another direction possibly Bedard, Davis, Washburn, or Garland whoever the Brewers can get at the lowest price is who the Brewers will end up with. I think the Brewers could get Bedard the cheapest with an incentive laden contract probably at a base salary of $3m with $2-4m in incentives with a mutual option for the next year at $8m with a $1m buyout if the Brewers decide not to bring Bedard back. If a trade does go down I would expect it to involve either Lucroy or Salome though I would rather see Hart traded because there is an excess of corner OF that could easily replace Hart's production on the market (Nady, Damon, Church, etc....).

I'm sorry but without Duchsherer's home town discount it does get up to Wolf's signing numbers. Lets say the Brewers get in a bidding war with the Rangers over Harden now instead of Harden signing that $7.5m he gets $9m. Now the Brewers also go out and get either Duchscherer, Myers, Bedard, or Sheets (as for Sheets he wants to be paid as though he pitched last year healthy). Now that is going to cost at least $5-8m for 1 year. Now we are at a total of $14m for two pitchers who may not even pitch a full season or may not even be effective. Harden you can expect him to give you about 160IP a little bit less for Duchscherer, Bedard, and Sheets probably somewhere around 140IP. With Myers you are probably looking at 160IP all of these pitchers are going to be taxing the bullpen. You better hope that the bullpen can stay fresh for the whole year because those pitchers are going to need the bullpen a lot. Out of all of those options none of them can be counted on to provide as many innings pitched as Wolf will be counted on to pitch. You can expect about 200IP from Wolf in 2010 while none of the injury prone guys will get you anywhere close to 200IP. The best thing for the Brewers to do in the off season was not to get 2 injury prone pitchers that is just a recipe for disaster. The Brewers needed to add a sure bet (Wolf) to give you a lot of innings and a player coming off an injury. I believe the Astros overpaid for Myers $5m is a little bit too much for a guy who didn't pitch much at all last year. Harden got about what he deserved while Duchscherer took a home town discount. Now for Sheets I don't think Sheets will be signing any time soon until his demands are lowered right now Sheets wants Wolf type of money maybe even more and probably for a longer term. I think the Brewers will be able to get Bedard for around $3-5m a year and that they will be able to fit it into their budget though it will be tight. I don't think Sheets will sign much before spring training starts and that will be at a even more reduced price than what Myers and Bedard will get or got.

Duensing will be 27 entering this season so he is definitely not a player you would be looking to be trading for as the key player in a trade for Gamel. If you are trading Gamel you are going to be trading for someone who is a lot younger than 27 years old or for someone who is an established #2 or #3 type of a starter with 2 or 3 years of control left. I don't see Duensing + being a logical trade for the Brewers involving someone like Gamel maybe a Hart + trade for Duensing + but not Gamel.

Thank you but no thanks. Swarczak would be OK but not what I would expect in return for Gamel. Blackburn is a 4+ ERA pitcher no matter what league you put him in. I do not see why you would target Blackburn in return for Gamel. Liriano makes more sense to trade for than Blackburn does. At best Blackburn is a #4 type of a starter while Liriano at best is a #1 and at worst would be a #4 or #5 type of a starter. Liriano definitely has more value to the Brewers and other teams than Blackburn. Blackburn is nothing special while Liriano can be an ace.

The top 3 players in the Cardinals roster will make a total of $47.5m according to Cot's. That is Carpenter, Pujols, and Holliday. 2013 maybe a huge problem year for the Cardinals when Carpenter and Wainwright I believe will be Free Agents. Not only that but I believe Pujols is going to be asking for Arod type of money in his next contract. So somewhere between $25-30m a year for Pujols. Now add in Pujols making lets say $25m a year that is $42m for Pujols and Holliday in 2011 adding in Carpenter's raise to $15m that will be $57m owed to 3 players. I don't see the Cardinals getting anyone in free agency for the next few years so it basically is going to be Pujols and Holliday or bust. I doubt the Cardinals are going to have as good of pitching as they did last year. They had a lot of players overachieving for them last year in their rotation. They were the favorites before Holliday signed this deal. I still don't see the Cardinals repeating the success that they had last year though.

Chapman definitely isn't MLB ready yet. At least as has been stated previously that he just doesn't have the command yet. There have also been some mental questions about him. At that price he wouldn't be a bad pick up but he definitely will be starting his career in the minors. I believe the Yankees have said that he would start in high A with them. Others haven't really hinted at where he would start at but I'm guessing somewhere in A or AA baseball. I don't think the Marlins are really serious about Chapman but you never really know about the Marlins. I think it will be down to the Angels and the Yankees.

I don't think Liriano is done I think he is just starting to get back into form. He was throwing his fastball higher than he was in 2008 and he regained a lot of speed on his slider once again along with his change up. I would expect Liriano to continue to improve and he is a candidate for a comeback player of the year in 2010. He won't be the old Liriano that broke onto the scene in 2006 but he should be throwing in the low to mid 90's once again. It looks as though he is just starting to come back fully healthy from his injury in 2007. Season Team FB SL CT CB CH SF KN XX PO Total * - - - 51.3% (92.3) 30.6% (86.2) 0.0% (87.5) 18.1% (83.6) 3.1% 2005 Twins 47.9% (94.8) 36.0% (87.1) 16.1% (84.6) 21.4% 2006 Twins 43.6% (94.7) 37.6% (87.7) 0.1% (87.5) 18.7% (83.5) 2.0% 2008 Twins 53.6% (90.9) 26.4% (83.7) 20.0% (82.0) 2.2% 2009 Twins 56.3% (91.7) 26.7% (86.2) 16.9% (84.7) 1.6%

Myers was injured last year. Also Alfredo Amezaga would be a nice utility player or a 5th OF. Amezaga can play every single position IF or OF minus catcher and pitcher. Not a great bat but he does still have plus defense if he could be signed for the league minimum he wouldn't be a bad pick up. I believe the Brewers will sign one more pitcher other than Mulder. I hope it isn't Davis or Washburn unless that means Parra starts the year in AAA and I'm not sure if I would like that or not or if that would be possible. I wouldn't mind getting Myers, Bedard, or Sheets those are the top three that I would like to see the Brewers go after.

I don't believe Cameron was talking about a team as a whole though I haven't been able to read the whole article yet so I might be misrepresenting it here. But he is correct when you are comparing player A to player B when Player A is being replaced by Player B. So you can compare Cameron to Gomez, Hardy to Escobar, and Looper to Wolf. You can't really compare 2009 Bush with 2010 Bush on talent alone. Just my thoughts on that.

Well Prince would have to be traded after this season in order for him to be gone and I am not sure he will be traded at all next year or this year though it could be possible however unlikely though. I am also going to have to disagree with you that Sheets price will not be increasing just because more and more are being signed. Pineiro doesn't even have the health issues that Sheets has and he hasn't gotten a contract yet and it is unlikely that he is going to get what he wants and it is very unlikely that his price will go up either. Meyers, Bedard, Sheets, and others are still available and I wouldn't be surprised if any of those three and others sign for less than what Duchsherer signed for.

We are talking about first base here. Not a premiere defensive spot here. We are talking about first base here. OK enough of the Allen Iverson parody there. I don't think there really is going to be much of a problem for Glaus at first base.

No problem was just explaining how I got the numbers. I do agree that most of our players will sign before they go to arby only Hart is the one I believe is the most likely to go through the whole arbitration process. I think you are right but you haven't to remember we are still in a down economy where corporations and consumers are not really spending all that much so I don't expect the Brewers to increase payroll or to even keep the same payroll as long as they are around where they normally are and are not dropping off considerably salary wise I am OK with that. I do believe the Brewers will add one more starting pitcher besides Mulder. There are options out there for the Brewers and the prices for the players that are still out there right now will go down. Sheets, Meyers, Bedard, Duchsherer (I probably spelled that wrong), Pineiro, Davis, Washburn, and Garland are still available to be had. All of those pitchers have their warts but the price of those pitchers will be coming down considerably in the next few weeks I wouldn't be surprised if half of those players signed for considerably less than what they thought they were going to get either in years or in money. I'm just hoping it is either Meyers or Davis but I'm not really excited about either of those two though.

I love gamefly but lately they haven't been coming back as quickly as before. I guess it is due to the Holiday season that they are not coming back as fast.

Those were all estimated amounts except for the players who signed. I haven't updated the spreadsheet I was working on for all of the players. I believe I used 1/4 of what the player made last season if they were arby eligible the year before. If it was their first arbitration then they got what I consider the safe minimum amount which is either 1m or 2m. I haven't updated Wolf's new numbers either yet. Zaun's contract according to Cot's is at 1.4m for next year not taking into account the signing bonus which would put his contract value at 1.9m. If you take what Bush got last year which was 4m and multiply that by .25 you get 1m. So 6m is rather close to what you can expect Bush to get I doubt he gets anything lower than 4.5m and I believe he will probably get something more closer to 5-6m. Villanueva is a little high but it is hard to determine what he would get in arbitration and I believe Coffey will be signed before he goes to arbitration and that is the amount I believe he will be signed at or rather close to it. I didn't update Vargas either which I should probably do. As I explained above about my arby figures. Same with Vargas just haven't updated that yet and the same with Wolf. The misc is for minor league transactions. As for Coffey as I have stated above I believe he will be resigned by the Brewers and avoid arbitration. Villy is a little high but I think it is rather close to what he is going to be making. Probably more along 1-1.5m but I wouldn't be surprised if he got $2m. All of my arby figures are very generous.

I will still take Hughes over Joba as a starter. Joba has a fastball and a work in progress off speed pitch. While Hughes has his fastball and an average off speed pitch. Hughes is definitely more developed as a starter than Joba is. Joba is more suited to the bullpen than Hughes is but that is just my opinion on that matter.

When I did mine I didn't include the buyouts and the other financial burdens. So far I have this: Player Salary Jeff Suppan $12.50 Prince Fielder $10.50 Trevor Hoffman $7.50 David Riske $4.50 David Bush $6.00 Rickie Weeks $4.00 Jody Gerut $2.50 Ryan Braun $1.00 Craig Counsell $2.10 Todd Coffey $3.00 Carlos Villanueva $2.00 Manny Parra $0.50 Greg Zaun $1.40 Yovani Gallardo $0.50 Mitch Stetter $0.50 Alcides Escobar $0.50 Mat Gamel $0.50 Casey McGehee $0.50 Chris Narveson $0.50 Claudio Vargas $2.50 Corey Hart $4.50 Randy Wolf $9.25 Carlos Gomez $1.00 Latroy Hawkins $3.00 Total $80.75 other Bill Hall $7.10 Braden Looper $1.00 David Weathers $0.40 Misc $2.00 Total $10.50 Other + Total $91.25 That is also not adding in either Salome, Lucroy, Treanor, or Kottaras as the back up catcher. So you can add about $1m to the payroll.

Can you link on this? I haven't heard this yet. This is only logical at least to me. Joba is the better relief pitcher while Hughes is a better starting pitcher. If the Yankees were not willing to get rid of Hughes last off season in a package and during the trade deadline I don't believe the Yankees will be giving him up at all. Also I believe the Yankees will be going hard after Cliff Lee once he hits free agency next year. That is going to be one big bidding war between the Mets, Yankees, and the Red Sox for Lee next year. I doubt the Yankees will resign Vazquez though so they will still have a spot open for both Joba and Hughes next year also. I just do not see a fit.

Actually the Giants are not willing to part with Bumgarner at all. It would take a lot more than Gamel to bring back Bumgarner probably something around Lawrie and Gamel plus our best pitching prospect to get Bumgarner. The Giants really do overvalue their pitching prospects. For example last year the Giants wanted both Hart and Hardy and in return the Brewers would have gotten Sanchez who IMHO is no better than Parra (potential wise). I don't think the Giants will be looking to part with Bumgarner anytime soon.

I love Hughes but I believe it will take a Fielder or a Braun type to get Hughes from the Yankees. I believe Chamberlain is probably more attainable than Hughes is though. Chamberlain reminds me a lot of McClung though just with better stuff so I'm not sure I would touch Chamberlain. He may become a good closer but he is definitely not a starter he is more suited to being in a bullpen role than as a starter in my honest opinion. If Hughes could be had for a Gamel, Braddock, and another prospect I would be somewhat OK with that. I wouldn't really like it but I believe this is a kind of a trade the Brewers need to make to become more competitive plus having a rotation of Gallardo, Hughes, and Wolf for the next couple of years is a nice rotation. Also having Gallardo and Hughes at the top of the rotation for a long time solidifies the rotation for awhile at least.

Currently reading this book. I read the first one he wrote "Army at dawn" and liked that one and currently like this one. http://jamiemalanowski.com/blogwp/wp-content/uploads/2008/12/day_of_battle.gif

The Braves were stated earlier in the offseason as having no interest in Hart at all and I doubt they would have had any interest in McGehee either. It takes two to tango. If the Braves were not interested in any players other than Gamel why should Melvin make a trade then? It doesn't really make any sense to trade away a player like Gamel for Vazquez when you are only getting Vazquez for 1-year.

I wonder what it would take for the Brewers to get Gaudin from the Yankees? It shouldn't take too much to get Gaudin from the Yankees. Gaudin will only make about $3-4m next season and he will only be 27 years old heading into next season. Probably would be a good #4 or #5 starter in the NL. He did have a FIP of 4.16 pitching for the Yankees and the Padres last year.