HiAndTight

I don't think they'll keep Gamel in AAA again next year unless his play in ST'ing obviously warrants it, ie, getting hurt again and not telling the team or taking care of his properly or just having an awful camp. I do really hope the Brewers don't view McGehee as their future 3B though. To me it'd be foolish to put McGehee at 3rd and Gamel at 1st. They have to see how much Gamel's improved, and how much brighter his future looks than McGehee's(though Casey's proven me wrong so far, I still can't find it in myself to be convinced he's just going to be a perennial .280-ish/.350 ~.800 OPS guy who can hit 25 or so a year. Not to mention I think those are the low ends for Gamel.

Didn't the previous poster Mass JUST say essentially the same thing? I've noticed there's a lot of "piling" on here. If one person makes jumps on a guy, then others have the green light to do the same. Anyway, I don't see why it was a bad trade at all. Linebrink shoring up a big weakness as the Brewers were trying to go for it, and at the time it did-not look like we needed "a lot more" than a Middle Reliever about 1'-2 games out at the time IIRC about 100 games in and in first in the WC race, plus a 2 top 45 draft picks for a Loogy, and two guys who've had next to no impact on the Pads roster despite being in the ideal place for soft tossers to have success AND despite the fact that the Padres have completely over-hauled their rotation in the past year or two. The fact of the matter is these guys have very limited value and again, since they've done next to nothing in the meantime save for Thatcher, a loogy, I don't think we'd have gotten a whole lot more for Linebrink. I remember wanting to see Inman moved at the time(along with a lot of others) as he was an ideal "sell high" candidate. And as it turns out, that was the height of his value.

I'd make the Kazmir for Wolf trade IF in addition to making this trade straight up, the Angels sent back 4 million dollars for Kazmir. In which case we're spending 10.5 on Kazmir, and we're saving over 20 million on Wolf. Kazmir would probably do better in the NL, and it's possible he could bounce back. But this is really the only way I'd be willing to trade for Kazmir. And of course, he probably has a no-trade and would refuse a trade to the Brewers anyway.

Well of course most of us on here would probably prefer we go with a 65-70 million dollar payroll the next couple years and throw an extra 10 million at draft picks and international signings. I've been in favor of this for a long time. This is basically a "video game" type thread. No way we're going to be able to get all the players we want, even if we're offering the salaries they want, a great deal of them aren't going to come here. Trades we think are good, ie, the Prince to the Rays trade I suggested may not interest the Rays. To be honest, if I were running this team right now, I don't know if we'd have a 65 million dollar payroll next year. I'd go after the Latin American players like the A's have been, I'd also draft like the Red Sox, grabbing the most talented player regardless of sign-ability. But since the thread is "How would you go for it next year", I just played along, like most, despite few actually WANTING to do this.

I can see Green being comparable to McGehee overall. He's a Mark Loretta type player in my opinion who has the potential to hit for more power. He's having a rather mediocre type season, but I'm still a big fan. As for what the Braves would be willing to give up for McGehee, I don't know that anyone's going to be able to answer that with Casey. There's likely so much variance in opinions regarding McGehee out there, and with the Braves, I fear being one of the better run organizations, they won't be as high on Casey as other teams. Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in.....Simply put, Casey McGehee > Chris Dickerson. Maybe, but that wasn't the point. The point was a lot of guys pass through waivers as there are a LOT of guys being passed through right now, and the assumption is that a team is going to pull their guy back off the waiver wire, so unless they're serious about trading for a player, they may pass through. By the way, I don't think it's all that obvious that Dickerson is clearly inferior to McGehee. Defensively the edge goes to Dickerson by a HUGE margin. Dickerson's not a base clogger, draws more walks and is more athletic.

To re-sign after this year or just for this season? If it's a matter of not being able to afford Prince this season, I'd definitely be willing to pay them 10 million for his contract if they were willing to give up Garza+Moore for Prince+McGehee and a filler. McGehee may have some value to them as I don't believe they've got any real viable 1B option coming up and he could play over there.

I've seen this speculated, but I never saw any Ben Sheets quote in which he was ruling out Milwaukee or anything of the like. What I recall was that he said before the '08 season that he was waiting for the Brewers to call and then during the '08 season that he was going to test the FA market. Do you have any links on this by chance?

I certainly hope not. Gerut is terrible. He started 71 games in 2008 and was solid that year. Aside from that, and 2002, his rookie year and before he suffered his knee injuries, he's been AWFUL. I'm not sure why 2008 is exalted so much and yet the 371 AB's since then which he has posted a ridiculous 73 OPS+ with a line of;.223/.269/.374 and a .643 OPS is ignored? Now he didn't play in '06 and '07, and was terrible in the few AB's he had in '03, '04, '05. If Dickerson DOES turn out to be comparable to Gerut offensively, then I would agree, there's nothing to be excited about. Of course I think he'll be substantially better AND is several years younger. As for this trade, how many more people are going to ask RockCoCougars what he would have expected we get for Edmonds? He has said several times it wasn't that we didn't get enough back from Edmonds, it was the reaction to Dickerson by many on here. Now I personally am not that excited about this trade, but a big, athletic bench player who has a nice OBP, good speed and can play D is pretty much exactly what I hope for in a minimum salary left handed bat off the bench. If he hit for power consistently, he'd be a good regular, so while I don't agree with him, again, he's said several times it's a matter of the reaction from everyone to him, not what we got for Edmonds.

Scott Kazmir's about the best candidate to go from "Shoulder Fatigue" to "Getting an MRI" to "Just a mild strain discovered" to "Labrum surgery and future in doubt" right now. I think you're seriously over-valuing Scott Kazmir. He's got negative value right now, so it has nothing to do with our players value in this thread. It's all about Kazmir's value.

Sure they would turn that down. You are basically sending them Rivas and Casey. All of the others don't have much value. I think Hart would have at least as much value as Casey. Even if the Royals didn't want to keep him and pay him, which they could easily do as his contract certainly isn't cost prohibitive, but even then they could turn around and trade him. I agree this isn't going to get Greinke though. Arnett? At this point he's nothing more than a "why not, he was a 1st rounder" type guy. He has very little value. Loe I can't seeing having much value, Parra has very little other than again, taking a fliar on him because he's got a good arm. Again though, like Prince, you could trade Casey and Corey, get back whatever prospects you can, turn around, trade those prospects+Rivas and probably Lawrie for Greinke. At that point I don't see that being worth it. You're giving up way too much. It would be helpful if it wasn't for Dayton Moore, a notoriously difficult GM to deal with(along with Sabean and Colletti).

Agreed. Look at Bill Hall this year. Putting up a pretty nice year for a utility player in the American League. .800 OPS, 15 HR's and he's played all over the place for that team this year. I don't understand what about him suggested he wasn't a "winner"? This of course is early in his career when you say you initially felt this way.

Agreed, we've finally got a lot of young power relievers. We should have at least 4-5 guys in our BP the next several years who are promoted from within, not signed from outside the org.

I'd be surprised if Riske's contract hasn't been mostly covered by insurance. Maybe Hawkins' too. FWIW, I still think Riske was a good signing, given what we knew at the time.I agree. I don't think we can call it one of the worst signings in our history simply because he hasn't been healthy. There were few signs at the time that Riske wouldn't be a very solid and reliable FA signing. He was coming off several very good years and had maintained an impressive LOB%. Some just don't work out. It really seems like the Brewers are not only making bad decisions, but getting incredibly unlucky with some of these. Hawkins was overpaid, BUT, he was still another experienced late inning reliever that could throw in the mid 90's, was coming off a couple fantastic years, and had experience closing games. And while we now see we've got a lot of talented young relievers, I don't think the picture was nearly as rosy coming into the year. Axford was a big question mark, Braddock was coming off a great year, but hadn't stayed healthy, Kintzler, McClendon, Loe hadn't showed enough/antyhing to suggest they could contribute. I suppose part of that is knowing your own system, but a bigger part is guys exceeding expectations.

I doubt it, but it'd probably be dependent upon what was offered. If they were willing to give up Shelby Miller for him, then yeah, I'm guessing we'd be alright. But it'd obviously cost quite a bit more for the Cards. Hey, maybe we wait a couple days though...by then the Cards might have a better record. They're 1' games behind right now.

Agreed, we're looking at a guy who right now is on pace to put up a season of roughly .285/.350/..475 and a .820 OPS with 25 HR's and 103 RBI; 106 R's. Moving forward I believe Gamel's a much-much better bet to out perform Casey, so I think this off-season would be an ideal time to move him. Packaging him with Prince, if the team that we're trading him do has a need, might be the best way to go. By the way, who's the 2nd player you've got in mind here? Are you refering to Lawrie, or Green?

Yeah, I think IF Tampa's ever going to make a move like this, when better than next season? Prince is going into a contract year, they've got 4 incredible young pitchers coming up along with James Shields, Jake McGee, Matthew Moore, Nick Barnese, Alexander Colome and others. That's 4 MORE guys who have very good arms and all could/should be #3's at worst if they reach their ceiling. They're also losing Pena this year and are going to have a huge hole in their lineup without replacing him. Prince at DH and McGehee at 1st gives them some production that at the moment, they look to be lacking next year. We throw some money in there to make the Prince trade a little easier to swallow. Of course I think extending this trade to include another young arm is where the Brewers are going to benefit the most, even if that isn't likely to be Matthew Moore.

I don't understand why you think any team trading for Prince would "demand" 7-8 million dollars. We're not talking about trying to dump a bad contract, we're talking about one of the premier power hitters in the game who would have a ONE year deal. Not to mention, we'd likely trade him prior to arbitration, so there wouldn't be the cost certainty to work with. Now paying half his salary, or roughly half his salary could certainly help net a bigger return, particularly if we're talking about trading him to the Rays...which is where I'd suggest, but I would say most teams that would be interested in getting him would obviously be teams that stand to be very competitive next season and would be able/willing to take on his salary. Anyway; For starters, I'd obviously Fire Macha. Not because I think he's been particularly bad, I believe there's very little variation between managers, but I'd like to see someone a little more excitable. Nothing more than a chance of pace. Bobby Valentine would be a very good choice IMO. Trade #1-Prince+McGehee+Kentrail Davis+8 million to Tampa Bay for Matt Garza+Matthew Moore *This may be a bit ambitious, but it would certainly be a big leap to focusing on starting pitching and defense. If the Rays balk at the idea of trading Moore, McGee or Colome would be serviceable second choices. #2-Sign Garza to an extension. 4 years 32 million with 2 team option/vesting options for 13 million in '15 and 15 in '16. 3 million buyout in '15, 2.5 in '16 for a total guaranteed value of 4 years 37.5 and a possible total of 6 years and 60 million. #3-Sign Weeks to an extension. 5 years 40 million. Longer and probably a bit more than many would prefer, but I'm convinced this Rickie Weeks is the real Rickie Weeks. #4-Bring Gamel up, have him settle in at 3rd base. Send him to the AZ Fall League to play extensively at 3rd as well. His D appears to have improved enough that he can be average at 3rd in the Big Leagues. #5-Move Corey Hart to 1B. #6-Sign Austin Kearns(RF) 2 years 8 Million and Eric Hinske 1 year 3 M. He plays in RF, Brett Lawrie plays both RF and 3B next year in AAA. #7-Sign Christian Guzman(Utility IF'er) to a 1 year 2.5 million dollar deal. #8-Sign Henry Blanco to a 1 year 1 million dollar deal. We need a good Defensive catcher as our backup. #9-Free Agent Pitcher. One of Javier Vazquez 2 years 18 million, Brandon Webb 1 year 8 million with Team Option for 1year 12 million, Brad Penny 1 year 7.5 million. Guys with high upsides to SHORT term contracts that we can handle for this year. Low Risk, HIGH reward. I, like all of you am NOT a fan of the low risk, low reward type deals. The only thing dependable soft tossing, FB innings eaters give you is a high draft pick. #10-Gomez starts the season in AAA. To be honest, I believe he'd have to accept the assignment, but I'm not certain. I'd try to convince him to accept with the knowledge that he would have a chance to earn his way back up. He's still got the chance to become an exceptionally valuable player, but he's a loooooooong way away from realizing that at the moment. #11-Sign Rafael Soriano to a 2 year 20 Million dollar contract. Now, that's a LOT of signings, but again, aside from Garza and Weeks, they're all 1-2 year deals. Obvious emphasis on DEFENSE and pitching, with more on Defense. Lineup 1-2B Weeks 5.5 M 2-3B *Gamel 450 K 3-LF Braun 3.5 M 4-1B Hart 6 M 5-CF Cain 450 K 6-RF *Hinske/Kearns 3M/4M 7-C Lurcoy 450 K 8-SS Escobar 450 K Total Cost Lineup= 23.8 M Bench *Hinske/Kearns LF/RF *3/4 M Henry Blanco C 1 M (SH)Christian Guzman-SS/2B/3B 2.5 M *Chris Dickerson-OF 450 K * Joe Inglett-Utility IF/OF 450 K Total Bench Cost= 4.4 M Rotation #1-Yovai Gallardo-3.25 M #2-Matt Garza- 5 M #3-Randy Wolf- 9.25 M #4-FA Pitcher- 8.5 M #5-Manny Parra- 1 M Total Rotation Cost= 27 M Bullpen CL-Rafael Soriano 10 M SU-Zach Braddock 450 K MRP-Carlos Villanueva 1.5 M MRP-Todd Coffey 1.5 M MRP-Kameron Loe 450 K MRP-LaTroy Hawkins 4 M-Starts season on DL LR-Jeremy Jeffress 450 K Loogy-Mitch Stetter 450 K Total Bullpen Cost= 16.25M Total Player Cost 2011=71.45 Total "Dead Money"=4 Million Total Costs= 77.35 Million Now you have 10-15 million more for; 1-Mid-season trades; 2-Free Agent Negotiations 5 Million. For instance, perhaps Soriano may cost 12 million this year on a one year deal. 3-Mid-Season Callups Now obviously the problem here is there are a LOT of moving parts. Rather than the 1 big move to go out and get a Cliff Lee, I went another way and made several smaller moves to address our defense, and lock up a couple younger players. I'd personally stay away from a deal to Cliff Lee for 6-7 years at 25 million, and I agree it'd be better to sign Lee for 25 than Suppan, Riske, Hall, Hoffman and Hawkins for the 41 or whatever it would take. But you seldom get the benefit of hindsight and moving forward I'd rather improve our defense in a few spots, add a couple talented starting pitchers and lock up our young guys than put ALL of our eggs in one basket. Plus this gives us a lot of flexibility when Lawrie, Odorizzi, Covey(4-5 years), Rogers, and the rest of our next wave comes up.

Exactly, I'm simply not buying that they're going to lose money this year. He ALSO said that we were going to lose money the year we traded for Sabathia. Now I wouldn't be shocked if we didn't MAKE a lot of money this year, but I don't buy they're losing a ton. Now when you include the Brewers new TV deal, that will be a nice new source of income.

I've been thinking about this one for a while. The Rays are supposedly looking to move either Shields or Garza. Shields has a much more desirable contract, but obviously he's not nearly as good as Garza. The Rays have one helluva rotation, basically throwing 4 Gallardo's out there, all of which have 5-6 years of service time left, so they're about as loaded as a team can possibly be on the mound without spending half a billion dollars on pitchers. Price, Niemann, Davis, and Hellickson form just an incredible 1-4. Which is why I think the Rays MIGHT be more inclined to move Garza rather than Shields as he gives them cost certainty, he's pretty dependable, and with such a great 1-4, Garza allows them to fill another hole. My thoughts are a trade centered around Prince for Garza. Now with Prince having just one year left, this would be a pretty bold move on the side of the Rays, and with their payroll, I think they'd want another young hitter they can control for a long time. Not a Lawrie obviously, but someone who can project to be league average and cheap for the next 4-5 years. So something like perhaps Prince+McGehee for maybe Garza and another pitcher. Obviously Matthew Moore would be the ideal choice of prospects, but that would require at the very least Gamel and likely Lawrie. In liu of Moore, Nickolas Barnese would look to be a nice choice as well. He is going to have a lot of trouble cracking the Rays rotation anytime in the near future. Luckily for us(or not) he likely wouldn't have any such issues in Milwaukee if he pitches well. He's a guy who pitches to contact, good arm, walks very few(1.9/per 9) has decent K numbers(7.4 this year, 8.5 for his career). Not a great GO/FO ratio at 1.25, but solid enough. I would hope that Melvin would inquire about what exactly it would take to get Moore with Garza and at least consider that. Perhaps again, Prince+Gamel(who I would absolutely hate to see go as I'm one of his biggest fans and believe he's going to be a helluva player) or maybe Prince+McGehee+ someone like a Kentrail Davis? I know the Rays have a need for Corner OF'ers with Crawford leaving, not much in Right at the moment, even with Jennings coming up. Anyway, thoughts? I think Garza could fit the description of a #2 starter, which we obviously desperately need. Trade for him, offer him maybe 4 years at 30 million buying out the last three arby years, two option years at 13 million per with vesting options based upon innings pitched bring the entire value to potentially 6 years and 56 million? Something along those lines. Similar to Yovai's deal, except Garaza will be one year ahead of Yo if we were to trade for him in the off-season.

Can you name some? I'm just curious who you might be referring to? We've seen numerous Brewers prospects who put up the worst year of their minor league career at AA. LaPorta, Salome, Escobar, Gamel Seems to be pretty premature to include those guys in the list of guys who haven't translated their success to AAA or the big leagues. Gamel has hit very well in AAA and performed adequately in his first taste of the big leagues despite being put in a position to struggle due to the way he was used. Escobar is a rookie this year and has been coming around as of late and had success in AAA. Salome is a unique case, but it's also too early to write him off. LaPorta's had a ton of success in AAA and is now starting to put up some decent numbers for a 25 year old rookie in Cleveland. On balance, AA is generally viewed as the most difficult transition you'll face on your way up the minor league ladder. You'll obviously see guys at every level who failed to perform as well after moving up, but I think you'll see fewer at AA than the other levels, save obviously for the jump from AAA up to the big leagues.

Not really, it shows how excited we are to see a power arm that can hit triple digits and finally appears to be figuring things out, albeit in a small sample size, but nonetheless, success in a small sampling is preferable to failure, is it not? And you're the one throwing out the 7 innings. I don't believe anyone's said, "because of the 7 good innings". No, it's an accumulation of his efforts this year, what we know of his ability and the fact that he's now a reliever and not a starter.

Yes, and don't forget how you can't throw inside vs pitchers if you're not good enough to go command your pitches. Just ask Carpenter. Of course....that must not apply to when he's pitching to Gallardo. But yeah, Pujols and his little routine at Home is pretty annoying. He reminds me of Brett Favre. Just playing that good old boy role. One day we're going to find some of his dirty little secrets.

I can't wait to see him in Milwaukee this September. Me too. He could be our version of Neftali Feliz. I'd prefer him to be our version of Stephen Strasburg, but I suppose that's a bit ambitioushttp://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/wink.gif. Seriously though, I would prefer to see him start, and I think he'll go back to starting next year with Nashville. It's simply a matter of when the light goes off for him. It's the same for a lot of powered armed young pitchers. They've got the weapons to dominate, it's an issue of learning how to pitch, how to attack, and having the confidence to do so. Jeffress coming up and throwing some nice clean innings in Sept could go a long ways to helping him gain that confidence for the Brewers next year.

Agreed, I understand that 1B is pretty far down on the list as far as defensive value goes, but I think it's pretty highly underrated. You look at what Derek Lee does for the Cubs, or did as I haven't paid as close of attention to them this year, but he saves that IF a lot of outs and a lot of runs. Now it's obviously a bit ambitious to expect Hart to be able to do that right out of the gate, but he should be a substantial upgrade from Prince after he gets back in the groove.

How do you figure he righted the ship? In 2 of the last 3 outings he gave up 4 ER in 1 2/3 innings. And how do you get a dead arm after pitching a total of 18 innings this year to date thanks to his suspension? How about because you've only pitched 18 innings this year to date? You do realize that the time a pitcher pitches IN the game isn't the only time he throws/pitches, right? Man, just from reading this thread, you're on some over the top mission to bash Jeffress as much as humanly possible. We get it, you don't like him. But I would say it certainly does appear based on VERY early results he has in fact, "righted the ship". 5 IP, 0 BB's 5 K's and 3 H allowed. 5 innings is 5 innings, be it 5 good innings or 5 bad, but all things being equal, I'd rather see him continue to dominate than struggle. I get the very sincere impression you'd rather see the kid struggle badly. I guess I'm just not of the same mind that you throw a kid away because he's had a problem with pot of all things when he's 21 years old.