kramnoj

Fielder for Belt and and even a second tier pitching prospect might be worth considering when you consider the salary saved could be used for additional pitching We don't know enough about Belt to think that his fantastic stats this season are representative of his value. Gamel had an OPS over 1.100 through June of 2008, he then OPSed about .650 the rest of the season. There were reasons that Belt would have lasted into the 5th round, and he wasn't one of the top 100 prospects headed into this season. It would be foolish to trade away Fielder for a player based on this limited data. As far as the salary that can be used for additional pitching, that only is useful if it's actually converted wisely. I don't think there's enough supply to meet the market's demand, even with the tens of millions that the Brewers have to spend.

That was due to the failure of Hoffman and Hawkins, failures by Davis and Suppan Suppan didn't really have anything to do with where the Brewers are right now. In his loss as a starter, the Brewers only scored one run. True, Suppan didn't perform well in that game, but he could have given up 2 runs and he still would have the same loss. In his one loss as a reliever, Braddock gave up the same number of runs.

I know around here Edmonds was ripped over and over before the season regarding his bad defense. Now somehow he's good at defense? I don't get that at all He's a former Cardinal and Cub who got the reputation of being a diva for diving for balls to get on Web Gems. It's not surprising that Brewers fans on the internet would not be favorable towards him. As far as his defense according to UZR, it was bad in 2008 and had been declining from previous years. And the same size is too small this year to say that Edmonds is now good. All we can say is that he's been a bit above average based on his opportunities.

Hart shouldn't just capitulate to the Brewers because they don't want to pay him what he thinks he's worth. The Brewers could be in a weird position this offseason where they won't be able to maximize their budget. They will have the money to retain Hart if they choose to.

Gomez didn't seem to bust out of the box on his last GIDP and definitely slowed down before he reached 1B. It's not all that uncommon for players to slow a bit coming into 1B, but not running hard the whole way is not going to impress when there's a guy already up who can easily replace you. This is as good as Gomez has been offensively, and he hasn't been special defensively. I would be shocked if Cain can't reproduce what Gomez is giving the Brewers.

It's not really common for a rookie catcher to be a starter. Lucroy has already started more games than Rivera did in 2 of his seasons as the backup. It's far too early to include Cain in this discussion. I think the most likely scenario is that he's up for a few days and gets sent down when Gallardo is ready.

We've obviously strayed from the topic, but Gomez currently has a -.8/150 UZR in CF for the Brewers. Given the limited value of UZR over a season, a half season's worth of stats with that ratio would be more accurately described as average, not below average or bad.

UZR, a play by play statistic, doesn't exist for Mays. But one person has created Wins Above Replacement through other methods and those can be seen here: http://www.baseballprojection.com/war/m/maysw101.htm Mays at his best was +20 Runs, which means that he was worth 2 Wins Defensively in his best year. For his career, he was worth 135 Runs, so over 13 Wins.

If anyone is curious about Elias rankings, MLBTraderumors tracks it with the formula that was cracked by a Tigers fan blogger. It can be found here: http://www.mlbtraderumors...nkings-at-the-break.html Bush doesn't look particularly close to being a type B. Hart on the other hand, is currently a Type A and Weeks is a type B.

That's not quite right. There isn't a dividend check for $100 Million. That represents all the dividend checks that have been paid since YES was created. As far as the rights fees, those are already included in the revenue sharing calculation.

Inglett is a UT, not really an OF. When starting pitchers are used as PR, your team doesn't have enough position players.

It's not about a 3 person platoon in CF. It's about having game flexibility, a RH PH, a pinch runner, a defensive replacement. We don't know how long Cain will be up. He, or hopefully Gomez, would be the likely person sent back down when Gallardo is ready. I personally hope Cain starts on Sunday and wows management enough to let him stay up and Gomez go down. I don't expect it, however

Why do you think it makes no sense? It's normal for a team to have 13 position players with 5 OF. It's not normal for a team to have 13 pitchers with 4 OF.

Per agent39, Cain is headed to Atlanta to join the Crew and will be activated this time. TH confirms here: http://www.jsonline.com/blogs/sports/98611119.html No corresponding news at this time. Could the Brewers actually be sending down Gomez? That seems to be the most plausible, reasonable decision. They could be sending down a pitcher, or releasing one. Or we could speculate on Hart switching clubhouses while he's in Atlanta.

but I gotta think that the revenue from the YES Network is not on that total. You can read the synopsis of the Yankees for 2009 (written this year) here: http://www.forbes.com/lis...York-Yankees_334613.html Forbes estimates that with the increased profits from the new stadium and winning the WS, the Yankees had an operating income of $24.9 million. Regarding the YES network, Forbes included them. Here is the snippet: "YES, the regional sports network the Yankees own one-third of, is the most viewed and most profitable RSN. YES was viewed by an average of 82,000 households during prime time in 2009. YES, which has sent dividend checks to the Yankees exceeding $100 million on top of the $84 annual million rights fee they pay to the team"

If you look back a page Topper posted a pretty good article showing the Yankees spent pretty much the same vs their revenue as league average. I've already addressed the faults of looking at that. Overall I don;'t beleive one season of losses means much. That's good. Forbes has the Yankees with negative $47M in 2007.

99% of the owners want to win as badly as he does. I don't think this is true. Take a look at Forbes 2009 baseball article: http://www.forbes.com/lis...-Of-Baseball_Income.html There's a whole lot of teams that made good money in 2008 while the Yankees and Tigers lost money. Many teams valued profit over competing. Even if it wasn't smart for every team to spend money on the field, they could have spent money in development, scouting, etc.

I'm not going to try to make the assertion that team record with player on the field should be used seriously, but I'm certainly not trying to make the argument that Hall was more valuable than Fielder. But if you are wondering why Macha kept penciling in Hall over Gamel, the records of the team with them on the field may have influenced his decisions.

I'm still waiting for someone to explain to me why Bill Hall got only one less start than Gamel in the time Gamel was up. That is just complete mismanagement. Are you waiting for a good reason, or just a reason? The Brewers went 61-49 when Hall started. 13-17 when Gamel started. And with full disclosure 41-49 when Cousell started. Macha's main job is to win games. Hall performed very badly offensively, but he was still playing good defense for the most part, and the Brewers were winning games with Hall on the field. Macha also probably felt that Hall was going to be better than he showed last year, and his near average offensive performance indicates that was possible, although Hall may have needed to move on to get better.

I'm not just talking about the 105 OPS+, but of course am also including defense. There would be no reason to expect Gamel to outperform Counsell last year defensively. As far as being sure Gamel could do that, it's unclear why you should be sure, since Gamel didn't do it. Unless of course, you go back to assuming that his performing while starting would have been his performance all the time, which goes back to the previous sample size discussion. I agree that the Lopez trade did not need to be made given the talent the Brewers already had. Lopez did great offensively, but it ended up being meaningless.

The Yankees spent 46.9% of their revenue on payroll which is approximately LEAGUE AVERAGE, the same as the Kansas City Royals. Again, this is looking at revenue and one area of expenditures. It doesn't come close to painting a complete picture. It is a myth that the Yankees try to win more than every other team, and it is also a myth that Steinbrenner was somehow spending his own money because he loved winning so much. How many people are saying that the Yankees try to win more than every other team? As far as Steinbrenner spending his own money, that's a more complex question. He was part owner of the Yankees and way obviously heavily influential in how money was spent. If he decided to spend less money, the Yankees would be spending less money, meaning there could have been more funds to pay to himself in salary or dividends. Edit. To add some facts, there was a fantastic series written by the late Doug Pappas over 8 years ago that looked into the business of baseball. One of the interesting things that isn't often discussed with detail is the amount of money spent on things other than the major league payroll. Here is the link: http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=1325 This was 2001 dollars, and the Yankees spent over $83 Million on all things that go to running the off the field business. They were actually 2nd to the Mariners that year in the category. As for other expenses, the Yankees have paid over $25M each of the last two years in luxury tax. The revenue sharing that the Yankees pay is unknown in recent years. In a few minutes of googling, I found one piece that says the Yankees paid $63M in 2004. So if I just take numbers from earlier this decade, I think it's somewhat safe to guess that the Yankees routinely spend $170M+ in expenditures that doesn't go to their players.

It's ridiculous, except for the fact that Counsell was better last year.

While there are some like Loria and the Tribune company that may have done so there are plenty of owners who do care and are investing as much into winning as Stenibrenner did. You spent a whole paragraph trying to disagree with me, when this sentence matches what I wrote. I didn't say Steinbrenner was the only one to care about winning.

I will always remember George Steinbrenner as a selfish coward who was too afraid to compete on a level playing field Have you actually looked at data, or is this an assumption? For example, in 1998, the Yankees didn't even have the highest payroll in baseball. Source: http://www.baseballchrono...l/Years/1998/Payroll.asp Steinbrenner deeply cared about winning and invested in his team, while other owners are happy to make a profit without doing their most to provide a competitive product to their fans.

The link in the 43 doesn't prove anything close to Steinbrenner pocketing more money than any other owner. First off, it doesn't even show that the Yankees make more money every year. Secondly, Steinbrenner doesn't equal the Yankees. The NBC link in 41 doesn't show anything about pocketing money. Revenue doesn't equal profit. Player payroll may not be even half of Yankee expenditures if one looks at revenue sharing, luxury tax and the actual expense of running the business of the Yankees. The Bloomberg report didn't cover expenditures either. The CNBC report actually undermines the assertion as it includes "It’s unknown exactly how much the team profited due a variety of line items, which are not public, including how much they were required to pay in revenue sharing".