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kramnoj

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Everything posted by kramnoj

  1. kramnoj
    It does not inspire confidence that he went 6 years between good seasons. Wolf doesn't have to be good to help the Brewers. He could be average, and it would be an upgrade. It's not asking much for Wolf to be averagish. It's not likely that he will be healthy and good, but he should fairly easily upgrade the Brewers.
  2. kramnoj
    We should head off the idea that 2009 was by far a career year for Wolf, as 2002 was very similar. We shouldn't expect a repeat, but it would be wrong to be under the impression that he has never pitched that well before. Wolf has been mostly average to above average. It's likely that the Brewers will regret a 3rd year (and could easily regret the whole contract), but he seems like a reasonable gamble for the Brewers for the next 2 years.
  3. kramnoj
    From http://www.jsonline.com/blogs/sports/78722797.html "Assistant GM Gord Ash confirmed that middle infielder Luis Cruz was claimed off waivers from Pittsburgh to play shortstop at Class AAA Nashville last season. With Alcides Escobar moving up to the major league team, the Brewers didn't have an obvious candidate to take over at short in Nashville. "We didn't have a Triple-A shortstop or Double-A shortstop," said Ash, who indicated Class AA Huntsville shortstop Yohannis Perez did not impress. "It was a position of need. Cruz has an option left (for the minors). Middle infielders are hard to come by."
  4. kramnoj
    Mets officials are denying this now. There is a thread over at bbtf that also speculates Bradley to the Rays and Castillo to the Cubs, and then the Cubs would sign Cameron. But it just seems to be baseless speculation at this point.
  5. kramnoj
    This is reportedly done, but as details are lacking, I figured it could go here for now. Link: http://www.phillyburbs.com/news/news_details/article/92/2009/december/07/burrell-traded-to-mets.html "Former Phillies outfielder Pat Burrell has reportedly been swapped twice this morning, eventually landing with Phils division rival the New York Mets. The Tampa Bay Rays traded the slugging left fielder to the Chicago Cubs then the Cubs dealt Burrell to the Mets. Names of other players involved in the deals were not immediately available."
  6. kramnoj
    Wolf took a paycut because the Astros offered him a 3 year deal and then backed out. After that, Wolf was a guy that looked like he had a contract year after pitching a total of about 260 IP the previous 3 years and so was considered somewhat of a risk. With the economy tanking, he wasn't high profile and was dumped into the bargain bin of pitchers.
  7. kramnoj
    TH is essentially mocking people for speculating on a signing... It seems as if someone else is doing the mocking, TH is passing it on. No one here said it was rumored, people just are guessing. Get a clue, TH. It's best to get facts straight, before telling someone to get a clue. From the linked blog I see some posters on the earlier blogs tonight say they have inside information that the Brewers have a three-year deal with free-agent lefty Randy Wolf, who on Tuesday night was not offered arbitration by the Dodgers as a Class A type. Someone in TH's blog said it was a done deal, per the first page of this thread. TH is responding to that. As for the comment that TH passes on, I wish it provided more information. Because other than the fact that there isn't a deal for 3/$27M, I didn't learn anything else. I don't know if the years are off, if the dollars are off, and if they are off, which way they are off.
  8. kramnoj
    Actually, I think he's talking about the guy who hit .320/.401 for us last year, .310/.383 overall last year and who for the last year and a half has been a great 2nd basemen. It's not even a year and a half. It's 194 games. In the other 100 games in 2008 he was hitting in the Hall/Kendall territory and he's been a below average hitter all but one other season before 2009. I think he's proven he's not the player that posted those career lines. His time in Washington in 2007-2008 was longer than his last 3 stops combined, and he OPSed like the 2009 version of Hardy in that timespan. That doesn't represent what he has been for most of his career, but it does help demonstrate that that using less than 2 years of data isn't enough to get a firm evaluation of a player.
  9. kramnoj
    Would anyone be bothered if they had to find a place to play a .300 hitter with on base skills? You can't be talking about Lopez, of the career .269 average and career OBP of .338 can you? If you think this is any evidence of Melvin not being able to do more than one thing at a time, you are completely wrong. Lopez doesn't play a position that the Brewers desperately need for 2010, and he would be eating up resources that need to be used on pitching. Melvin not wanting Lopez back is only evidence of proper use of resources. As for not offering arbitration, it was a move where the reward is a 2nd round pick, and the risk is getting a player that you don't need and don't want to pay. A 2nd round pick can provide value, but most of the time doesn't. In this particular case, the risk, however small, outweighed the reward, in Melvin's mind. I don't agree with it, but he wants every available dollar for pitching, and that's a reasonable goal.
  10. kramnoj
    I defintely should have provided a link, here it is http://www.boston.com/sports/baseball/redsox/extras/extra_bases/2009/12/red_sox_owner_j.html Selected quotes "Change is needed and that is reflected by the fact that over a billion dollars have been paid to seven chronically uncompetitive teams, five of whom have had baseball's highest operating profits," Henry responded in an e-mail. "Who, except these teams, can think this is a good idea?" Henry wrote that baseball "needs slotting for amateurs, a worldwide amateur draft and most importantly, an effective competitive balance tax that directly addresses disparity once and for all for baseball." Here's how Henry's system would work: "It's a very simple approach in which payroll tax dollars replace revenue sharing dollars and go directly to the clubs that need revenues in order to meet minimum payrolls that should be imposed on each club receiving revenue. Further, players would have to be protected with a guaranteed minimum percentage of overall revenues. This would be a very simple and effective method in reducing top payrolls and increasing bottom payrolls with no tax on revenues," Henry wrote.
  11. kramnoj
    Money determines the winners, and the few anomalies we have doesn't make up for the year in year out frustration, the year in year out sense of inevitability. How does this represent any hold Boras has? The Yankees would spend the most money in the current system because they can, it has nothing to do with Boras. You can certainly blame Selig for not having a more equitable revenue sharing program, and there are recent comments from John Henry that indicate he is interested in change. The most interesting thing about the new CBA could be the fighting between the owners. Reaching a deal with the players may be the easiest part.
  12. kramnoj
    I think what I'll remember most about the Bud Selig era is how Scot Boras and the like consolidated their hold on baseball. What kind of hold are you referring to? An agent negotiates a deal between a team and a player. If the team doesn't want to pay the player, the agent can't force them to. Baseball has never been healthier, there's no reason players shouldn't get paid their fair share.
  13. kramnoj
    I think his biggest mistake was not letting the strike go longer. That wasn't a mistake, as a federal judge ruled against the owners and ordered play again under the previously expired CBA. I'm not sure how much of a role Selig really played. He was the interim commissioner at the time. He was more of a figurehead than a leader. I've become more of a fan of the sport under Selig's stewardship and I've liked the changes that he has made. I don't know how much Selig had to do with MLBAM, but the decision to consolidate all team websites through the league and equally share revenue was certainly a good one. I think MLB's website is quite good and the introduction of the MLB network and the work that was done beforehand to try to get it on most cable systems went fairly well.
  14. kramnoj
    I've said this before, but do we always have to walk on egg shells around here? Like I said earlier, there are certain realities of the modern internet that people should accept before posting on a public forum. What benefit is there to not walk on eggshells? What positive discussion can't be done, in a polite and respectful manner? As far as accepting realities, there is no need to lower the bar to what the mass public normally does. The administrators can moderate behavior to a better standard. This site is better for it's standards.
  15. kramnoj
    The poiint that you continually will not acknowledge in any thread or any discussion about the economics of baseball is the economy of scale. If you can show just one example of that, that would be great. In regards to the situation discussed, we can retroactively look at how much money the Rockies spent and how much money was committed to Helton, and how they were able to be successful. If you are able to lock up an elite player, and if your system can produce good young talent around the elite player, you can make it to the playoffs, even if that player is eating up a large portion of the payroll. Of course there is a risk in dedicating that much to one person, if they end up stinking or injured, it's hard to recover, but there is risk in just about any approach to building a team. I would rather take risks with elite players than hope for above average performance from a cluster of lesser players.
  16. kramnoj
    The 2 situations are completely dissimilar in just about every way possible. Yes, the situations are different, but it doesn't have much to do with markets, as originally said, and has more to do with team approach and where the teams are right now. The Brewers are almost out of the big contracts that have weighed them down recently, which won't prevent them from signing Fielder if they think it's the right decision.
  17. kramnoj
    Thanks for the excellent finds, battlekow. At this point, having Lucroy be the main guy is the most compelling and exciting choice for me.
  18. kramnoj
    I'm not sure what the point of 44 is. Milwaukee has been able to outdraw the Rockies recently and has had higher payrolls. The point that could have been made is that Colorado paying Helton $16.6M recently is different than what the Brewers will be paying Fielder, but B-Ref and Cots show the Rockies estimated payroll in 2007 as $54M with Helton making about 30% of that. So having one contract be a large portion of the payroll is not going to prevent a team from making it to the WS, if there is enough decent cheap talent.
  19. kramnoj
    so his value is a little bit lower than that of what Becketts was and remember the Marlins also traded Lowell and at the time he was a rather good and serviceable 3B. Lowell had negative value to the Marlins at the time. He was coming off a year with an OPS+ of 77 and was owed $18M over the next 2 years. This situation isn't comparable to CC. It would be exciting to get him. The cost would probably be higher than some will like, but if we can get him to the rumored extension, that would be a nice move.
  20. kramnoj
    If anyone is interested in seeing an example of the total cost of non player expenses, this article gives some outdated information: http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=1325 This article is from 2002, and the least that teams spent was $35M and there were a few that spent over twice that much. The lowest percentage seems to be about 31% of operating revenue, and 2 teams were over 75% of that.
  21. kramnoj
    Lucroy is going to be 24 next year, he's not exactly young. I'd rather just assemble the best possible team for the whole season rather than spend an extra million or more to play with Lucroy's service time. That million would be better spent on pitching or saved for a possible midseason move.
  22. kramnoj
    I would imagine Melvin is thinking the same thing he thought last year. He will encourage Counsell to explore the market and see if there is enough interest in his services to tempt Counsell to either leave his family or uproot them for a season or two, and if there's not, there's a spot as the Brewer UI for $1M.
  23. kramnoj
    I don't know if Lowe really has much trade value. He was below average last year, and next year he is going to be a 37 year old that is owed $45M over 3 years. I guess his value depends entirely on how much money is available to spend on FA pitchers around the league and how many teams are competing for arms. Lowe might have negative value at this point.
  24. kramnoj
    You can look at the FA projections here: http://www.baseballprojection.com/2010/free2010.htm Kendall is projected here to OPS .626 leading to a contribution of -25 runs, almost 2 wins worse than either Lucroy or Salome. My line of listing Lucroy/Salome was not meant to represent a timeshare, although it's easy to see it that way. I just meant that either one of them are projected to have practically the same offensive value. Given Melvin's statements about becoming more comfortable with Lucroy skipping AAA, it is attractive to me to look at this and see that a Lucroy/Rivera catching combo for about a million total would be the best and also cheapest solution available to the Brewers.
  25. kramnoj
    But Lopez batting at the top of the Brewer order made the Brewers a significantly better offensive team in August and September. His loss figures to be much more significant than Hardy's or Cameron's. That 66 game stretch may have been the best in his career. Even if Lopez is brought back, we very likely would lose that production.
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