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kramnoj

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Everything posted by kramnoj

  1. kramnoj
    LouisEly, you should have looked at Raines whole career. Raines slugged .475 and .476 at the ages of 25 and 26 (he slugged .526 in 87, but there was a power spike that year). As far as the jump that you describe from 91 to 92, a chunk of that was actually from a return to normalcy for his batting average. His ISO did increase, but some of that 60 points of slugging is just increasing the batting average. The question shouldn't be why his slugging went over .400, it was why it dipped below it. It's irresponsible of you to accuse someone of doing steroids based on your ignorance of their career. I am not deceived by the number of walks and strikeouts that a guy 5'8" who crouches down in his batting stance gets. As for this, if it was truly this easy, scouts should be recruting guys 5'8" and under and have them do this, because that would be quite valuable.
  2. kramnoj
    One thing that I've read from stats guys is that you need two years of defensive data to equal one years of batting data. So many plays that are made are routine that you need a couple of years to make the data from the non-routine data useful.
  3. kramnoj
    One thing that I've read from stats guys is that you need two years of defensive data to equal one years of batting data. So many plays that are made are routine that you need a couple of years to make the data from the non-routine data useful.
  4. kramnoj
    We don't know what the Brewers budget is for this year. If you just compare the production that Gwynn will bring for the minimum to the production that Kapler could bring for $1M, there's not much question that Kapler would be the preferred choice. But the overall budget has to be considered. That $500k savings may be the difference in what it takes to bring on another pitcher. It's choices like these that teams like the Brewers unfortunately have to make.
  5. kramnoj
    Signing early does seem surprising to me, but I can think of one explanation, however off the wall it may be. Hardy may understand that the Brewers budget is somewhat tied up by the uncertainty of arbitration. By agreeing to this deal early, Melvin has just a little more certainty than he did yesterday. I thought there was a chance Hardy might get $6M or so, so this is $1M less than I thought was possible. That is maybe $1M more that Melvin now gets to spend on a pitcher. That would be quite the selfless act if that is what is going on, but I can see Hardy and his agent using this as a point in their favor in the hopes of a contract extension, or for arbitration negotiations next year. I think it's even possible that Braun's deal had a somewhat small influence on this, but that is probably a little too kum-ba-yah.
  6. kramnoj
    Poor hitting mechanics would cause more ground balls, not decreased strength. You are saying that he hit more ground balls in 2008, or am I misunderstanding your point? Fangraphs shows us that in 2008 his GB% was halfway between 2007 and 2006. I'm not sure why you feel the need to call others desperate. You are the one who accused others of dodging questions but haven't responded to the correction of your claim that Swisher isn't in impact player in the OF. Edit: Also, his home run power did decrease, as his HR/FB rate did not increase, despite the fact that he was playing hlf his games in a stadium that increases Home Runs by 30%. If he was hitting the ball the same as 2006/2007, that % should have increased by a decent margin. You should look at his home/away splits for 2007 and 2008. In 2007, Swisher hit 8 HR at Home. In 2008, he hit 19 HR at home. Looking at his home/away splits, I would be wondering why he performed so poorly on the road in 2008 with an OPS of below .600. But then again, I don't believe that half a season is more instructive than a player's career, so it wouldn't prevent me from acquiring Swisher.
  7. kramnoj
    I won't speak for anybody else, but I don't think Swisher's 2008 was a result of him being smaller than he was previously. Swisher was valuable in 2007, and his ISO in 2008 was very close to 2007. His 2008 BABIP of .251 seems to be much more important. I GISed Swisher, and he does seem to be smaller than his A's days, but not so weak that he can't get the ball out of the infield. He seemed to suffer bad luck, and when your baseline is a .250ish hitter and you have bad luck getting hits, you are going to lose value.
  8. kramnoj
    Swisher had an OPS of .742 last season. Cameron has never had a season that poor You should look at Cameron's age 25 season when he OPSed .621. If you are just going to look at Swishers OPS, you should note that his best years came in a stadium that is a moderate pitchers park. He wouldn't translate to the hitter you are looking for, but then you are ignoring defense. If you don't value defense, there is no way that you will see Swisher as an attractive player, because that is a significant part of his value. Edit: Kramnoj, what about the White Sox? I already discussed this previously, but I wouldn't value the opinion of one GM over the whole career of one player.
  9. kramnoj
    I don't think they offered a contract of any sort at the winter meetings. Sheets has only been offered arbitration, that's it. I didn't say that they offered a contract at the winter meetings. Melvin told TH that Melvin and Ash had met with Sheets and the agent during the Winter Meetings. I only brought up the meeting as some evidence that there exists some basic relationship with Melvin and Sheets, and that there isn't much reason to think that Melvin wouldn't pick up the phone if Sheets agent called.
  10. kramnoj
    Crewin06, do you realize you are completely ignoring defense? Even if Swisher doesn't improve, if he plays a solid corner OF in 2009 he will be worth close to his salary. The other two years are certainly gambles, but sometimes you have to make gambles in baseball to get good payoffs. With a team like the Brewers, gambles like that can sink you or save you, but you need the big payoffs to rise above other teams. As far as teams trading or trying to trade Swisher, I don't see any need to look for nefarious motives. The A's traded him away because he had value. The Yankees may trade him away because they signed Teixeira and right now they have more millionaire players than spots to play them. And they would trade him because he brings a switch-hitter to the Brewers, who are looking to become less RH.
  11. kramnoj
    Again why would we trade Cameron for Swisher instead of just trading Cameron for nothing or low level prospects and signing someone like Bobby Abreu or Adam Dunn to patrol the OF. Neither of those players was really better than Swisher in 06-07, and they would probably cost more than Swisher in 2009. Edit: I also think we need to consider the trading partner here. AFAIK, the Yankees are the only team that has expressed interest in Cameron. In making a trade, the wants of the other team have to be taken into account. Right now, the Yankees probably don't see Swisher or Damon as a full time CF. They really don't want Melky to be a starting CF while one of Swisher/Nady/Damon is sitting on the bench. At this point, I am somewhat surprised that it would be Swisher that would be traded as opposed to Nady, but maybe Cashman knows that Swisher is who Melvin would prefer and wants to make the trade.
  12. kramnoj
    Why wouldn't he? Melvin said that he and Ash met with Sheets and his agent at the Winter Meetings. At this point, Melvin has made an offer that Sheets refused. If Sheets wants to come back and play for one year, he needs to let the Brewers know.
  13. kramnoj
    Too bad either him or Hart would have to play CF, where there both bad. Swisher's UZR stat doesn't show him to be the impact corner OF and 1B defender the media brags him up to be. You're not looking at the whole picture here, either. Swisher's UZR in RF has been 14.2/150 in 201 games. That's not enough data to let us know if that's his true value, but I would certainly call that impact. If you don't, what number is your impact level? As far as Hart is considered, his averagish performance in RF in 2008 wouldn't look good in CF, but he has played there well in the past in limited opportunities, and if his bat bounces back, he would be an overall package of above average to good at CF.
  14. kramnoj
    I would because I'm looking at the whole picture. If you were looking at the whole picture, you would include salary as part of the value discussion. If there is a straight Swisher-Cameron trade, you would mention the $4.7M that Melvin gets to use to get a pitcher now or to save for a mid-season acquisition. As far as strong parts of Swisher's game, it's not limited to offense. He has displayed above average-good defense as a corner OF.
  15. kramnoj
    I wouldn't call a guy with OPS+ of 125 and 127 a small potential payoff. That's basically what Fielder did for the Brewers in 2008. The fact that the Kenny Williams, a pretty savy GM, dumped him for nothing after giving top prospects to aquire him just 1 year earlier should tell us something about Swisher. I think it says more about Kenny than anything about Swisher. It says that Williams is not patient. I think looking at Swisher's whole career is much more instructive than the decision of one GM.
  16. kramnoj
    On the other hand the Brewers could be taking the same strategy in order to get draft choices--short-sighted on their part. Would you rather spend millions of guaranteed money and not have any confidence that Smoltz can pitch effectively? I would rather save that money and see if Sheets falls back to the Brewers, or save money for a mid-season pickup. As far as Penny is concerned, Penny had similar offers and chose the Red Sox because they were one of the best teams pursuing him. I don't really see anything short sighted there.
  17. kramnoj
    Yes Swisher had an OPS that would have ranked 21st out of qualified 1st baseman last season. But you should qualify that by telling people that there were only 22 Qualified first baseman. I could have added that, but what would that change? That there were 22 qualified hitters at 1B last year means that 8 teams didn't have a player play enough at the position to qualify. I'm going to guess that's because for most of the teams, they didn't have a guy who was good enough to play everyday. Edit: I was looking at the comps at bref of Swisher. They shouldn't be taken too seriously, but it's fun to look at the comps and see if there is anything they can show us of the shape of players in the past. Greg Vaughn is Swisher's most similar player at age 27. I thought it was interesting that Vaughn hit .224 at the age of 29 and bounced back to have a productive career for 5 or 6 more years. Swisher is a low average hitter, and that is going to bother some people. But he can be a productive player while only hitting .250. It would be unusual for a player who has been good to be done at the age of 27. I think Swisher is a good risk for the next couple of years.
  18. kramnoj
    Swisher, as bad as he was last year, would have been about 21st by OPS compared to qualified 1B. I don't know what some people consider everyday, but at his worst he would be one of the top 25 or so at the position (probably higher, I haven't bothered to look at all the defensive ratings). I thought there could be a Swisher-Cameron deal when Teixeira was signed, but I thought the Brewers might have to add something to the deal. Not a top prospect, maybe an A ball pitcher without big upside. If there can be a even Swisher-Cameron deal, I think that has to be made.
  19. kramnoj
    I didn't see where Gamel was mentioned, did I miss that? I think it is counting on bounce back seasons from Fielder, Braun, Hart, etc. The 2007 Brewers scored 801 Runs. A projection system is going to wiegh 2007 fairly heavily and then is going to give an uptick in performance for a young hitter.
  20. kramnoj
    I don't see any contradiction in Melvin's statement. He isn't looking to trade Cameron, but he certainly isn't untouchable and would be available for the right mix of helping the Brewers in 2009 and beyond. As far as the promise that Cameron would only be traded to a contender, I think that is fairly obvious. No non-contender would trade for Cameron anyway. I think a Cameron-Swisher trade makes a lot of sense. Cameron is the best CF the Yankees could get and would be a nice defensive boost over their other options. An OF of Braun/Hart/Swisher would be below average defensively but could provide nice offense.
  21. kramnoj
    I made this general point with the Rockies, but it applies here too. The Giants benefit from playing the Padres and in this simulation a Dodgers team that doesn't have Manny. I would guess that the Brewers in that division would project a few wins better.
  22. kramnoj
    Here is one of my favorite offseason toys: http://www.replacementlev...early_projected_standings. SG has been doing this a few years now. I don't know how accurate they have been, but it's a fun topic to discuss. He admits that it's too early to take much from these, with so many impact FA out there and will do a 1000 run simulation with 7 different projection systems in March when teams are more settled. My thoughts. 83 wins I think is fair. It has the Brewers making the playoffs 24% of the time. Some things I think are off. I don't see the Astros as equal to the Brewers. I didn't expect to see the Rockies project that well, but I think they are getting easy wins against the Padres. I didn't see the Angels fall to a losing record. Anyway, fun stuff to ponder and dissect.
  23. kramnoj
    Robothal just wrote something about Kapler: http://msn.foxsports.com/...-Brewers-acquire-pitching Free-agent outfielder Gabe Kapler is drawing interest from the Phillies and Mariners as well as the Rays. Kapler would make sense for the Phillies as a right-handed hitting alternative to left fielder Raul Ibanez and occasional fill-in for center fielder Shane Victorino. Eric Bruntlett currently is the right-handed backup outfielder. The Phillies have three left-handed hitting outfield reserves: Geoff Jenkins, Matt Stairs and Greg Dobbs ... My guess would be that Melvin was waiting on making his one or two big moves before committing $1-2M to a 4th OF. He wouldn't want to prevent himself from filling the bigger need at closer or SP because he spent $1M too much on a reserve role.
  24. kramnoj
    I mean, at least 20 teams should have inquired about his physical status by this point - right? There aren't 20 teams that have that much money to spend this offseason, at least not for a SP. There are maybe a handful of teams. The Rangers seem to want him, but their lack of an offer seems to indicate they may not have the funds to do it. The Braves were willing to offer big money to Burnett but I haven't heard anything regarding Sheets. The Yankees were interested, but got other pitchers. I haven't seen much indication that other teams are willing to spend $10M on a pitcher.
  25. kramnoj
    I'm not seeing this on JSOnline, but I thought I heard Homer say today that Melvin was opening to Sheets returning. There weren't any details to go along with that. My guess is that Melvin is letting Sheets see what his market is, and if there isn't a market out there that meets Sheets expectations, Melvin can make a one year offer that will be higher than anything else Sheets sees. I'm a little surprised that Melvin hasn't made any multiseason offers, but maybe he feels that an offer too low would be insulting and would prefer that Sheets realize from other teams how limited the demand is for his services right now. If the Brewers were able to bring back Sheets and sign Hoffman for a one plus option deal, I would be fairly content with the offseason.
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