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kramnoj

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Everything posted by kramnoj

  1. kramnoj
    No he hasn't. His highest WAR was 1.6 in 2006. His defense has nosedived since then. If he maybe got back in shape but its not like he was more than just a guy who could maybe handle SS. He hasn't what? Been near the caliber of a major league average starter? 2 Wins is about what a major league starter is. I consider 1.6 to be near 2. In 2007, if you use UZR, his defense went from being average to -4. I don't consider that to be a nosedive. Heck that's within the margin of error. We do see a decline in 2008 and again in 2009, but we also see an improvement in 2010. He has reason to get back in shape. He has a $4M team option to play for. And if he puts together a decent season and the Brewers pick up his 2012 option, he's then playing for a FA contract after 2012. Saying he has no hope is just useless hyperbole.
  2. kramnoj
    It's just silly to say that there is no hope. Betancourt has had one bad year. Otherwise he has been above replacement or near the caliber of a league average starter. How many people here were sure that Bill Hall was finished as a major league player? He came back and had a decent 2010. Players aren't random number generators. Sometimes their play is affected by their environment. Sometimes a change in conditions can lead to a change in performance.
  3. kramnoj
    Betancourt's offense has been around replacement level for the past few years. He probably projects to be around replacement level in 2011. So he's not good, and he will likely be overpaid, but he is a better option than what the Brewers had available to them. And if I look at Betancourt, I can find reasons to be optimistic about him. His worst years have been when he is on bad teams and when he has a guaranteed contract. He has a financial incentive to return to the player that was closer to being major league average, and his job is going to be more fun to come to now that he will be on a better team. I have no expectations of him being good, but if he can be more like a -5 fielder and the 700 OPS player he was with the Mariners, he could be a useful player.
  4. kramnoj
    That negates around 20% of the value Zack Greinke adds. That's just his defense. Betancourt is bad. Betancourt's offense has been around replacement level for the past few years. He probably projects to be around replacement level in 2011. So he's not good, and he will likely be overpaid, but he is a better option than what the Brewers had available to them. And if I look at Betancourt, I can find reasons to be optimistic about him. His worst years have been when he is on bad teams and when he has a guaranteed contract. He has a financial incentive to return to the player that was closer to being major league average, and his job is going to be more fun to come to now that he will be on a better team. I have no expectations of him being good, but if he can be more like a -5 fielder and the 700 OPS player he was with the Mariners, he could be a useful player. Edit: Moving the post over to the Betancourt thread.
  5. kramnoj
    Here's an article where Melvin speaks about Gallardo and Parra fitting into the top 3 of the rotation (with Suppan). Yes, top 3 doesn't mean #2. And as reviled as Suppan is here, he's been a better pitcher than Parra has over the last 3 years.
  6. kramnoj
    I think the Betancourt bashing is a bit over the top. He was admittedly bad in 2009, but otherwise he has been above replacement. For 2011, he should be projected in the same neighborhood as Escobar. Granted, he will be paid a fair amount of money to not be good next year, but he should be better than anyone else the Brewers have. Taking on Betancourt was part of the price of getting Greinke, and I'm okay with that. Betancourt probably projects to -12 or -15 with the glove. That's bad, but over 150 games, that's like one run every 10 or 12 games. That's like 1 run every 3 or 4 series. I think we can overcome that.
  7. kramnoj
    Going into the 2009 season, he was comfortable with Manny Parra as his #2 pitcher. Did Melvin say that, or is that you assuming that? Given that Parra started the third game of the season, I think that represents more accurately where his place was in the rotation. And I personally would have put him #4 behind Bush. I was almost ready for a change going into this off-season, but I like what Melvin has done. He's traded away talent, maybe even All Star talent, but he has put together a team that has a real shot at serious contention the next two years.
  8. kramnoj
    The Brewers gave up a lot, but that's the price it took to get Greinke. I like that Greinke waived his no trade to come here. I like that his new agency represents players that have signed extensions with the Brewers. The talent the Brewers now have should be a serious playoff contender, and once a team gets there, anything can happen. The Brewers will miss the players traded away in the future, but I don't think the team could have built a more talented team with current players and players in the minors than the team we have now. This is incredibly exciting. Hopefully the Brewers will be able to extend Weeks and the Brewers can replace Fielder with Gamel in 2012 and we could have a lot of fun watching the Brewers for the next 2 years and maybe longer if the Brewers are winning and Marcum and Greinke sign extensions. I think that people saying Melvin is gutting the farm to save his job aren't being fair. He's trading away talent to build a World Series Contender. This is exactly what his goal should be, and there's no way that Attanasio lets this happen without his consent. We aren't trading away Bagwell for Larry Andersen, we aren't trading away Kazmir for Victor Zambrano. We are trading away good talent, but we are getting a legitimate ace in return.
  9. kramnoj
    I don't think there's any reason to expect this deal to include an extension. The players being traded are the cost of getting Greinke over any other team's offers. I also don't see Greinke signing an extension without having played in Milwaukee and knowing how competitive the team will be.
  10. kramnoj
    Youkilis is playing 3B with AGon at 1B and Ortiz at DH. Boston has no use for McGehee. At this point, McGehee isn't really disposable either. If this is true, Melvin is clearly going for it in 2011, but he also has Greinke and Marcum for 2012. The Brewers would want one of Casey or Gamel to be playing 1B in 2012.
  11. kramnoj
    Hamels is only signed through 2011, but Cots says that he will have a 4th arb year in 2012. So, he's somewhat similar to Prince in that he signed a deal that included some arb years, but didn't include the final year before free agency.
  12. kramnoj
    Will this put to rest the silly notion that the players union controls individual players right to choose where they want to work? Lee took the deal he wanted, even though it wasn't the most money offered. Good for Lee.
  13. kramnoj
    There's just no chance that both 1) he's worth what he'll get over that duration and 2) the Brewers will have the cash to effectively compete with one guy soaking up that much payroll. Do you feel that this is something specific to the Brewers? The Giants just won the World Series with about 30% of their payroll tied up in Zito and Rowand and got about 1 Win of value out of them this year. I don't think Lee would be good value for 7 years either, but I'm not sure why the idea that a team can't compete with x% tied up in payroll has such a firm hold.
  14. kramnoj
    In 2001 he had some arm problems as well but other than that from 1998-2002 he split time between the majors and minors, he didn't have any injury problems. If he didn't have any other injuries, he had curious usage patterns. In 2000 he didn't appear in the minors and only started 15 games. in 1999, he only had 5 IP in the minors, meaning a total of 109 IP that year. In 2002 he had a little over 80 IP total. I will grant that in 1998 between the minors and majors he had 30 starts, so that helps him a little, but for the most part my question remains.
  15. kramnoj
    In 2005 he had shoulder problems, in 2006 he had back problems. 2007 and 2008 were due to the TJ surgery. You would probably need some proof that it was a conditioning problem though given just how often pitchers get hurt. My opinion isn't based totally on that 4 year stretch. The fact that he didn't start that many games at the beginning of his career, and finally got healthy the two years before he became a FA is suspicious to me. Sure, pitchers get hurt, but how many good starters pitched as rarely as he has throughout his career? I just find it hard to believe that a pitcher has started 30 games 4 times in his 12 year career, 3 of those times he was playing for a contract, and it is a complete coincidence.
  16. kramnoj
    TJ surgery doesn't limit someone to 26 starts in 4 years. Or do you have evidence to believe that it does? I think there is sufficient reason to question how much Pavano dedicated himself to be healthy and prepared when he signed his biggest contract. Ben Sheets started 34 games 3 years in a row. He then has a tough 3 year stretch where he started 63 games over 3 years and he was called Brittle Ben. Pavano barely pitched in those 4 years what Sheets was able to do in 2007.
  17. kramnoj
    It is reasonable to think that the Brewers have $10M to spend on a pitcher this season, but right now there really doesn't look to be a very attractive pitcher worthy of that.
  18. kramnoj
    I'll take a stab at it. Arbitration estimates are mine, and could easily be very off. 1B Fielder $15M arby SP Wolf $9.5M RF Hart $6.5M LF Braun $4M RP Hawkins $4M 2B Weeks $5M arby SP Gallardo $3.25M OF Gomez $1.5M SP Marcum $3M C Nieves $.775M (non guaranteed, but Kottaras would make a similar amount) RP Loe $1M arby RP Parra $1M arby 3B McGehee $.5M arby OF Dickerson $.450M SP Narveson $.450M SS Escobar $.410M CL Axford $.410M CF Cain $.400M C Lucroy $.400m RP Braddock $.400M This is 4 SP, the starting lineup, the backup C and a 4th OF and that's around $58.5M if I can add right. So still need 1 SP, 2 RP, 2 Utility players. If those slots would be filled with minimum players, payroll would be around $61M. Here are some other possibilities SP Capuano $4M Counsell $2M If those two were added, payroll with other slots at minimum would be $66m.
  19. kramnoj
    Right, but 2 of those 4 are the past 2 seasons. Yes, but each of those years he was playing on a one year contract. I find it beyond a reasonable coincidence that he managed to stay healthy when he had an incentive to do so, and managed to not put together a seasons worth of starts over 4 years in his last big guaranteed contract.
  20. kramnoj
    I guess it depends on what one expects out of a pitcher to say he had a good season. Pavano has only started 30 games in a season 4 times. Suppan has done that 11 times (or 10 if you want to ignore 2009). They definitely are not comparable pitchers. I guess it depends on each team which would be better to have: a pitcher who is more likely to show up for the vast majority of his starts but not be great, or a pitcher who is more likley to dominate, but much less likely to actually pitch.
  21. kramnoj
    I don't see how that's meaningful in response to my point that neither of the Werth or DLR contracts were groundbreaking. They are both going to be used as data points in future negotiations, just like Wells, Hunter and Soriano could have been used as data points before Werth got his deal and Meche, Pavano, Suppan and I'm guessing others could have been used before DLR. If you are arguing that teams didn't offer big deals the last two because of the economy, that could be something worth exploring. But the economy didn't stop the Brewers from offering an extension to Fielder, Lackey got $82M last year, Beckett got an extension for $68M this year, Lowe got $60M after the 2008 season, Bay got $66M this year, Perez got $36M after 08. Those are just the ones that I remember. I think the only thing that has changed was that more teams had money to spend this year and drove up the competition for some players that have been all stars. It turns out the Nationals really did have money to offer Teixeira, but he chose to take the money and the better chance for a ring.
  22. kramnoj
    Wells & Meche got their contracts in another day & age, when huge money contracts were flowing like water. Recently, only the CC Sabathia's of the world have been getting huge contracts. Meche got his deal after the 2006 season. CC got his deal after the 2008 season. Meche was another age and CC was recently? Crawford's deal is groundbreaking in that he is the first player whose value is tied into things like defense and speed to get $20M. None of the other contracts signed so far have been firsts. Lee's may be, we will see what he gets.
  23. kramnoj
    but there is a huge difference between paying 1/5th of your payroll to one player and paying 1/10th of your payroll to one player. If you can't see the inequities this causes between the big and small market clubs, I'm not sure what to say. I haven't been talking about teams paying 10% of their payroll to one player. If you don't understand that, you haven't read my posts.
  24. kramnoj
    The reason it hasn't happened is because it does not make a lot of fiscal sense. You can repeat that, but I have provided evidence that teams can succeed by doing so. It shouldn't be a deterrent to sign good players to contracts worth their value. It definitely shouldn't be a reason to spend the same amount of money but spreading it out to inferior players.
  25. kramnoj
    These 2 points seem to be contradicting each other Not really. There are still ways to spend money. The Brewers did well with Cameron, Branyan, Kapler. The trick is in being a smart front office that can take calculated, measured risks that have a decent chance of paying off. Spending money just to fill a budget isn't the answer.
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