bill hAll Star

I certainly hope he's able to do that. There will be an adjustment coming to the National League. He has never seen these pitchers before, so he will likely need a season to acclimate. His recent OBP + SLG pairings: Lind's OBP and SLG since 2009: 2010: .287 OBP, .425 SLG 2011: .295 OBP, ,439 SLG 2012: .314 OBP, .414 SLG 2013: .357 OBP, .497 SLG 2014: .381 OBP, .489 SLG I'm hoping that his recent trend continues. We have to hope it does, because if he reverts to old form, that's a big drop off in production that we can't afford. I'm being positive about this. I hope he shows us that this was a wise move. I'm just trying to look at it from as many different angles as possible. Looking at the infield right now, it's construction is just too precarious for my liking. An injury to Lucroy, and we're in deep trouble. I will look more at our options for Scooter's platoon mate. His mate, and the contingency plan if Ramirez goes down are my two biggest questions right now. Assuming his injuries don't flare up, those numbers will stick. In the lesser years (I took 2011) he had 27% of his ABs against lefties, meaning he was basically an every day player. In 2014 only 10% of his ABs were against LHP. So if the Brewers do the right thing and platoon him (and he's healthy), I'd bet on the "upward trend."

'Stache, it's 2014 and baseball has changed. Look at Oakland's team the last year. How do you think they led the league or were near the top in runs the last 2 years? Answer: platoons. Lind is possibly our best hitter in the lineup against a righty. He can ride the pine when we face Gio Gonzalez...it's really quite simple.

I'm not comparing Reynolds of 5 years ago. I'm comparing his total production over the last five years, just as I am comparing Lind's production over the last five years. Or, did you suddenly think that Lind, after hitting .237 in 2010, .251 in 2011, .255 in 2012, and .288 in 2013--suddenly turned into a .321 hitter? Whenever you are making a comparison of two players, you always look at more than the last year. Because basing a decision off of a one year comparison, especially when both players being compared are veterans, is absolutely silly. In a platoon as he was allowed to do last year, he may well be an .850 or better OPS guy as he was last year. May not have a .321 batting average but if he's on base around .350 and a SLG of about .475 or .500, that is really good.

No need to go anywhere else for a RH platoon. Rogers, Jimenez (might not be a terrible corner guy), and LuCroy could do it. Defense isn't that great with Luc/Lind but very solid.

If we were really in it to win it, I'd still consider making Lowrie my "big ticket" free agent for this offseason if we have one. I think having a guy that can platoon at SS and 2B is huge. This is an oddly constructed roster where we do not have a superstar at several positions, but I don't see how we're going to upgrade at a particular position this year. Example: you can't displace Davis. I'd maybe bring another LH bat in to platoon more with him, but I don't know how you'd improve for him. Scooter is fine at the 2B platoon for cheap. In the rotation, I don't know if there is anything attainable that is "better" than what we have 1-5. Obviously guys like Scherzer are out and modest upgrades are going to be overpriced. Long story short, I'd pay Lowrie 3/27 maybe. If you want to win this year, take more of Segura's responsibility away. He can be the platoon-mate at SS/2B. Also bring in Kelly Johnson as he'd be cheaper. I'd then see something like that. C - Luc/Maldonado. Luc plays 1B off and on. 1B - Kelly Johnson/Jimenez/Lucroy/Matt Clark/? - doubtful, but Aramis and Braun in play there. 2B - Gennett/Segura/Lowrie 3B - A-Ram/Johnson/Lowrie SS - Lowrie/Segura (I know his splits weren't even great against LHP, but give him some AB vs. LHP and crappy RHP). LF - Davis/Parra CF - Gomez/Parra RF - Braun/Parra 5th OF - Clark This is a bit hand-wavy, but if LaRoche isn't in play, I want to have a lot of platoon options. Let Parra play 4 days a week in the outfield. Twice for Davis against tough righties and work him in a bit for Gomez and Braun for rest. I'd love to trot Gennett, Johnson, Parra, Lowrie, and maybe Matt Clark if we think he's a long-term bench piece against Mat Latos or Lance Lynn. No more of this 7-8 RH batter stuff against those teams. I guess one downfall of this is that if Segura doesn't improve, your platoon-mate for Scooter is Segura, who is almost as bad as just letting Scooter hit every day.

What about picking up Kelly Johnson and Jed Lowrie? Against LHP - 3B - Lowrie, SS - Segura, 2B - ? (Weeks for cheap or their last utility guy) OR 3B - Jimenez if you believe he will have OK splits, SS - Segura, 2B - Lowrie Against RHP - 3B - Johnson, SS - Lowrie (with Segura mixed in), 2B - Gennett I think you could take Aramis' money and go buy 3 platoon guys that are lefties/switch. 2 of them that play 2B/SS/3B and one that is a 1B/OF guy. Either LaRoche at 1B (more expensive) or ask the Dodgers to give Ethier away for the right to only pay 10% of his contract and try to buy low there.

1. Hire a manager that doesn't lock into having "an 8th inning guy."

No comments on this gem? He's not that bad against lefties, but we have currently better guys at getting lefties out compared to Broxton over his career. "It's a mentality thing, except for all of those stats that clearly say it's not a mentality thing." Broxton over his career has been pretty good against LH hitters (not as good as others that we have) but Ron probably cost us several games by making Smith the "8th inning guy." He ended up being batting practice against RH hitters once they figured him out. I just don't get it. Like, it's 2014. It's pretty easy to prove it isn't just a mental thing as a "closer" or "8th inning guy." The term "closer experience" makes me want to throw my computer or TV out the window when I hear it.

That's a blessing and a curse. He's going to probably go the way of Ubaldo and the likes soon enough. Starters that throw 98 are destined to either get TJ surgery early in their careers or have to completely reinvent themselves as 92-93 MPH guys.

I think the runner was safe, but we have benefited on a couple of calls like that this year, so I'm going to just let it slide. Some of those "inconclusive" ones that seem nearly conclusive but they can't say for sure.

Willy Adames is also going to TB (very young, highly touted SS prospect from DET).

It's analysis of the trade. It's better than linking Peter King articles where he talks about Beane letting go of a "big hitter" for Lester. We are actually objectively analyzing this thing.

Gerardo Parra coming to MKE and Anthony Banda going to ARZ as well.

Just saw that clause that he makes league minimum if he misses time for that elbow injury. Interesting.

Yeah, so the Red Sox are covering most of the $ for Lackey? That seems to make it quite a bit better for STL then.

I've always seen Halton as a AAAA guy. People keep bringing up his decent OPS in the hitting-inflated PCL while he's in his late 20s. I think in the MLB he struggles to hit .700 against even just lefties.

Yeah, but he has to return to norms next year at least a little bit, right?

I don't know a single knowledge fan who DOESN'T use BA as a useful statistic. It's never lost it's value. Never once found a bad offensive player who hits .330. Now your mistake in your[sarcasm]obviously sincere attempt to not be snide[/sarcasm]was making the argument that batting average is a useless statistic as opposed to OBP is a more valuable statistic. Player A bats .330 Player B bats .315 Who is a better hitter? Player A has 4 HR and an OBP of .345 Player B has 35 HR and an OBP of .410 Don't you know a bit more once you see that? And therefore, batting average is a secondary or tertiary stat.

The heck? Wouldn't you want to score the most runs and not care about a tertiary stat like batting average?

All 2014 stats: (right-hander vs. LHP/left-hander vs. RHP) Kyle Vogt (Blanks/Stephen) OPS splits: .890/.920 Jonny Reddick (Gomes/Josh) OPS splits .831/.843 They also get away from the burden of having to play Cespedes every day because they're paying him big bucks. Those are their 2 corner OF platoons and you can throw Moss/Gentry in there (Gentry is more of a defensive guy, though).

Take a look at platoon splits and you'll realize this isn't such a bad downgrade for the A's from Cespedes (overrated) to Gomes/Reddick and Blanks/Vogt or Gentry/Vogt. This assumes that Gomes can DH most of the time. Billy Beane FTW.

For a very small price I'd take Reed. He's an OK reliever, but there are issues (he's a fly-ball pitcher). We need a right-handed reliever. If K-Rod blows up, the season is probably over anyways. That said, if he needs to be replaced, I'd just put Smith, Gorzy, Thornburg (when healthy), Jeffress, or Henderson back there. It's just an inning of relief work. We don't need to pick up a guy from the pool of guys that have "done it before." I'd rather just put a good reliever in and not worry about that mythical "closer experience." At this point, Smith, Thornburg, etc. are all better relievers than Reed...so if an MLB team is tied to the idea of a closer and K-Rod is out of that role, I'd rather it just be the best pitcher, not some guy just because somebody else pigeon-holed him into the 9th.

I'd take Eric Chavez from them as a deeper bench option.

He probably has minimal value elsewhere given that somebody else would be have to feel the same way we do (bullish on his renaissance this year). I am under the assumption that he's just one of those 29 year old guys that is polished enough at this point to be a good AAA player but a poor MLB one. That said, I am saying this without watching him or hearing a scouting report, but could he be a guy that we found an adjustment with or something? He looks like he was a reasonable prospect coming up with a good K/9 and good K/BB ratio. He got mauled by the PCL and eventually the Al East in his short stint up. Does anyone know if there is something we found in him or is this just a lucky streak where he is beating inferior competition?