HiAndTight

Right, but it was presented as though he had a lot of holes in his swing. I think most players have areas they are susceptible. Even Griffey Jr could always be gotten with hard stuff up an in. As for what the Twins will or won't do, nobody said they'd give up a "dominant" starter for Gamel, and since you say they don't even have one, I'm not sure how they could. I did suggest maybe they would for Gamel, Hart, CV AND Cash to off-set the salary of Hart that it's possible they'd trade us a AAA catcher(Mauer anyone) who's playing very poorly right now, a AAA pitcher who has an ERA of 8 right now, AND a very good young pitcher. I don't know that they WOULD make that trade, but I do think it's ridiculous to dismiss it on it's face and answer for them that they absolutely wouldn't.

1st of all, I just wish you could tell your fan base the truth. And the "truth" is that we're simply not good enough right now to win a World Series. Billy Beane had a great line, he said "you're either very special, or you're trying to become very special, but being somewhere in between isn't a very good place to be". Well guess what? We're somewhere in between, and if we want to become "special", we need to acquire a couple of very good younger players and trade some of the player son our team who are performing well now because the chances are they're not going to continue to perform at such a high level. As for the Twins trade....If I had to guess I'd say they probably don't make it, though I'd have said they wouldn't push their payroll to 97 million coming into the year and do a lot of the things they've done. I think the fact that they're trying to open Target Field up with a bang just might motivate them to make such a trade, especially when you consider the players. Ramos is blocked, and isn't a superstar by any means. Gibson's a great looking young arm, but they're getting two guys with .900 OPS's who are both RH'ed bats in a predominate LH'ed lineup, AND a premier reliever this year. And we'd send them money. If nothing else, it'd get them thinking loooong and hard about it.

Why would the Twins give up Gibson? Simple, they've got a legitimate shot to win a World Series this year. They've got very few issues with that team. However here are a couple. 1-3B where they start Nick Punto, he of the .558 OPS this year. 2-RH'ed hitters. They've got Cuddyer(.773 OPS), Delmon Yount(.752 OPS), and JJ Hardy(.664 OPS). So Corey Hart(.916 OPS) and Casey McGehee's(.896) at two positions of relative need would help them out a great deal. 3-Their BP. Of their top 5 relievers(IP) now that Nathan is out, the best K per 9 is 7.6. I'm guessing a guy like Villanueva who is currently striking out 12.2 per 9, and for his career is 7.9. As a reliever his career line is 9.2 K's per 9 IP, and an 83 OPS+ against. So...in short, the reason they give up Kyle Gibson is because they get 3 players who help them out a LOT this year, and they don't add any payroll(as I suggested we'd pay the difference of Hart's salary as an extra incentive to pry Gibson from them). Why would we give up Matt LaPorta after we took a chance on him and he really started to pan out, or Michael Brantley who looked fantastic for us, or Rob Bryson who was striking out nearly 12 per 9 for us as a 20 year old in West Virgina? Because we were taking a chance to win a World Series. As for Glenn Perkins, again, it goes to the whole buy low, sell high concept. You don't think we could get one guy because he's pitching so well, and you don't want another guy because he's pitching poorly. Well, at some point you have to try and pick a guy up and hope that he can straighten it out with you, especially a guy who's got talent such as Glenn Perkins. I don't know why we wouldn't want him if he's essentially just a throw in at this point. Finally, as for Mat Gamel, actually he does have some success at 3B. He put up a line of .274/..340/.524 and a .864 OPS in 27 starts at 3rd base last year. He was jerked around more than any top prospect I've seen in some time, and despite that his overall .760 OPS is definitely respectable for a guy in his first big league action. Beyond that, just watching the guy should inspire a great deal of confidence. He clearly needs to improve in some area's, but he had exceptional discipline, too good perhaps, he has a nearly perfect left handed swing, he rakes vs LH'ed hitters....and he looked very good at 3B. Of course these were all in small samplings, but my point is to suggest he hasn't had "any" major league success yet is incorrect. Not to mention, we're the Brewers. "He hasn't proven it yet at the major league level" isn't an argument against a guy. You make an evaluation and you come up with an opinion. He's either good enough to play, or he isn't. I think Gamel clearly is. The problem is some seem to have expected Ryan Braun 2.0, and that just wasn't realistic.

Yes, obviously he was a 3B in the minors. I was saying, and not very clearly obviously given the sarcastic "what" that he was moved back and forth between 2nd and 3rd last year. I realize he was a 3rd basemen in the minor leagues where he was considered to be a very good defender.

Well, I am. We're not even close to being there, and again, when you factor in that he was playing hurt last year at 3rd base limiting his range severely...McGehee could barely move at times last year. So we're really talking about less than 50 games into this 3 year sampling to get a reliable amount of evidence. Then when you factor in his minor league scouting reports that are fairly unanimous in their praise for his defensive abilities, and I definitely think we're rushing to said conclusion. As for his FP%, his Minor League FP% in almost 600 games was about .960 as opposed to the .940 it is this year. .960 isn't great, but it's certainly respectable. Compare that to Beltre's .956 career FP% and he was awful out of the gate, Scott Rolen's is .964, Zimmerman is .962....just the 3 I picked at random off the top of my head. So I don't think you can read anything of any value into McGehee's fielding pct in such a sort period of time. Basically McGehee's got 107 starts at 3rd base in his career so far, and of those 62 came on a knee that severely hampered his mobility. I'm not saying that McGehee will turn into an elite 3rd basemen defensively, however I'm definitely going to give him more than 45 healthy games at 3rd when he'd always been considered a solid defender over there prior to now.

I meant that he was moved back and forth and that he was hurt. I realize he was a 3rd basemen in the minor leagues where he was considered to be a very good defender.

As Jim quoted above, Bruce Seid seemed particularly enthused about RHPs Joel Dicent and Jean Capellan. Jose Pena was the Brewers' highest-profile signing in awhile; though he "only" received a $400K bonus, he was expected to get much more than that in the weeks leading up to the signing period and seems to be at least a notch or two higher than the usual talent level of Brewers international signees. Shortstop Andres Martinez received the highest bonus two years ago, at $225K. He's got some promise, though his numbers last year were terrible. Hitaniel Arias and Jose R. Garcia, both outfielders, were the two big signings three years ago, at $450K and $550K, respectively. They've both seen action stateside the last two years and haven't really done much, and to still be stuck in the DSL doesn't bode particularly well for their futures. Finally, OF Ronny Puello, though he was 19--too old to really be considered a prospect in the DSL--put up a 921 OPS last year. I was excited about Pena this year and as I said have tried to follow some of the high profile signings such as Arias and Garcia(I flipped Garcia and Pean in my post), but all I really know about them is they were our higher profile signings, and their sizes, not much in the way of scouting reports. I was also disappointed to see the issues with Santo Aybar this past year. Martinez had a nice debut today, so hopefully he can start off on the right track this year, though again, I know nothing about him beyond his signing bonus. Anyway, this is the first year in about 10 I haven't purchased the BA Prospect handbook. Any of the DSL guys in our top 30 there? Pena make the list like Pascual did a few years ago? Also, is there ANY hope for Rolondo at this point? What happened to him? Did his velocity dip, did he just never develop....I know he couldn't find the strike zone at all, but it looked as though he was at least getting some swings and misses. Is he back on the DSL summer league, did we keep him in extended ST'ing, or is he out of baseball now?

Could anyone here offer any insight on what to watch for out of the Brewers Dominican Summer League team? What legitimate "prospects" do we have down there...who projects to perhaps move up and see Helena this year, or even be assigned to one of the full season teams next year? Obviously it's very early to start thinking about that, but I'm sure there are some who have a pretty good idea. Hitaniel Arias is a guy I've followed the last couple years, and obviously it's so difficult to project these kids when they're 18, 19 years old, but I know he's one we've put a lot of money into. Jose Garcia is a guy we signed just this past year I believe.... Are there any high ceiling arms on these teams that could make their mark on the lower minors in the near future?

Absolutely TERRIBLE call. Really just about the worst call I can remember as well. Especially for a game winning walk, a 10-12 pitch at bat, whatever it was, you HAVE to give the pitcher the call there if it's close, and that one wasn't. It was right down the heart of the plate and while it was on the upper half of the zone, it was clearly in the zone against the 6'5 Derek Lee. That one still pisses me off thinking about it.

I would definitely have LuCroy catch Parra. That splitter is a tough pitch to block and while LuCroy isn't a great defensive catcher yet when it comes to blocking balls, he's quite a bit ahead of Kottaras. As for Salome, I think his chances with the Brewers have just about run out. I don't say this because I think he did anything wrong, he has an anxiety issue, and that's a serious situation, and a very sad one, but with Kottaras looking so good, and LuCroy looking so good, it'll be hard for Salome to work his way in unless there is an injury. Not to mention I think Salome is a guy who will need regular at bats with his unorthodox swing in order to hit well, and I just don't know when that opportunity comes.

It really wasn't that big of a head scratcher. It's easy to go back now and look at what hitters are doing with the benefit of hindsight. Buck was a career .235/.298/.407 hitter in his career, and not a good defensive catcher. I don't see why a 84 OPS+ sub par defensive catcher would have been any less of a head scratcher than Greg Zaun. Kottaras has certainly been a revelation, and with his .202 BABIP, he's been even more impressive, but he's a young catcher with a limited history of success who is also a sub par defensive catcher. Both Salome and LuCroy had issues coming into the year that suggested neither was ready to step into a big league lineup and play regularly. Meanwhile Zaun has a career line of .252/.344/.388 for a .732 OPS and is a solid defensive catcher. Plus he was a left handed bat(actually a switch hitter) who carried a high OBP. So signing Zaun to a 1.9 million dollar deal vs signing Buck to a 2 million dollar deal doesn't seem to be the slightest bit of a head scratcher. In fact, I thought it was a good move, and his .349/.417/.524 stretch with a .940 OPS after his miserable first 6 games made that look like an even better move. So I'm not going to hold Melvin's feet to the fire because Zaun ended up with a fluke injury. In fact, I'm going to give him a pat on the back for finding who I now believe will be our future catcher in George Kottaras, a guy I've been incredibly impressed with offensively. He looks absolutely awful still trying to block a ball in the dirt, but he's getting better at that.

Sadly I don't see any of them getting traded. Again, when a player is playing well a team obviously doesn't want to trade him and most fans are too short sighted to see that that's the best time to trade them. As for McGehee, you're absolutely right about the money issue, for the Brewers, that's a big one, and they're the type of team that needs those type of players. However the fact that he is so cheap is why I believe you could expect a substantial return for him from a team that is in desperate need of a 3B and a RH'ed hitter. But lets just say for the sake of argument the trade I suggested was one the Twins would agree to. McGehee+Hart+Villanueva for Kyle Gibson, Wilson Ramos and Glenn Perkins and we pay the difference in salaries. Would you really not pull the trigger on that? Gibson's a high ceiling arm already in AA striking out a good number of batters. http://www.baseball-refer...ayer.cgi?id=gibson002kyl Ramos is a guy struggling mightily in AAA after a brief big league stint, AND obviously AAA catchers in Minnesota don't have a whole lot of hope of becoming "the guy" up there. And Glenn Perkins is a guy who throws in the low 90's and has pretty solid stuff. Went 12-4 with a 4.41 ERA in 08 for the Twins, but has struggled since. A change of scenery may be what he needs. I know the knee jerk reaction to this is that the Twins wouldn't trade young prospects, but that's a really good team this year, and two good RH'ed bats, plus a guy striking out 12.2 per 9 would really cement that team. And if it didn't cost them any money? Couple that with whatever you may get in return for Prince Fielder, you could conceivably get two high ceiling young arms, a high ceiling young catcher, a reclamation project in Perkins and then whatever else you would get for Prince, at last one more impact prospect. That could turn this whole rebuild process around pretty damn quickly.

I can't imagine anyone would want to pay him roughly 6 million dollars at this point. I think the only chance would be for the Brewers to keep him for 6-8 weeks, hope his ERA is down around 4 at that point meaning he's been pitching exceptionally well, and then whatever team would only be required to pick up 4 million dollars.

Right, like I said, it's unlikely this would work as the Tigers don't have anything to gain, but they also don't have anything to lose. They'd just be dumping Suppan right away. It's worth calling and looking into at least as long as we're not going to release Suppan. Willis still has decent stuff and pitching in the NL again may kick start his career.

And Suppan's FIP is 4.44. I'd rather have neither on the team Well I hadn't even looked at Suppan's given he's made just 2 starts and then has only pitched in mop up duty. In any event, are we going to waive Suppan do you think? If the answer is no, saying you don't want either is besides the point. If we're hell bent on not giving up on our investment, this is at least a way to try and get some return on that investment. Anyway, everyone wants us to DFA Suppan, it doesn't look like we're going to.

What did we learn in those 4 IP that we hadn't already seen in the first starts? Its a rehab sitution. Did we see enough from Suppan with the Trats to bring him up and start him. Its a long DL but 35 IP is enough. Especially when you have an open slot like we did tonight. Toss him into the fire, you'll learn a lot more about him that way. 4.6 IP 6 ER.... could we have done worse? What does Jeff Suppan have to do with anything here? He is completely and utterly irrelevant to Capuano starting in AAA rather than being called up. But you're right. It's a rehab situation. A guy rehabbing from a SECOND Tommy John Surgery, a injury from which it's exceedingly rare to come back from and be effective. Again, neither Capuano nor the Brewers thought he was ready to come back up on the 20th , so even he doesn't have an issue with it, so again, I can't fathom why you do. You need to see how a guy is going to handle coming back and throwing, if he's going to go through a dead arm period, etc..etc.... What's more, using the results from tonights game is also completely aside the point. If you had the ability to know how things would work out before you did them, this game would be pretty easy. And we didn't have an open slot tonight. We had a starting pitcher who had a 3.70 ERA coming into the game on the mound. Anyway, I think we've exhausted this conversation. Suffice to say I vehemently disagree and think we handled this situation just fine. I have no issue with both parties, Cappy and the Brewers wanting to get TWO more starts in before making a decision, so I just don't understand why you do.

Wow. I'd REALLY like to see the Brewers deal Suppan to the Tigers for Dontrelle Willis. Wouldn't make any difference to the Tigers since they're eating the 12 million anyway. We could give them 2.5 million for Suppan's roster bonus for next year. Melvin and Dombrowski have a good relationship from what I've read, so this would really be the Tigers doing us a favor. Certainly Willis offers more potential to earn some of that money than does Suppan. Am I missing something here? Would the Tigers feel as though they owed it to Willis to allow him to look for his own team? Seems as though it'd be pretty straight up. Willis for Suppan with the Brewers paying the difference in salary. His FIP is 4.62 this year, so it's not as though he's completely gone to hell like Suppan has.....

More than the prospects you'd get for Prince Fielder, Eric Arnett, Caleb Gindl and Manny Parra? I wonder. It'd depend of course. For arguments sake lets say you get Casey Kelly+Lars Anderson. I don't know how short a package of Kelly+Anderson+Arnett+Gindl+Parra would actually fall in reality.

Man would I like to see the Brewers payroll drop to about 55-60 million over the next couple years with the idea of building up a reserve to supplement their payroll when they're back in a position to contend. 30 million would be all the better, but that's not likely to happen. With our new TV deal, if we could bank say 50 million the next 2-3 years, it could put us in a position to go out and sign a Matt Cain type pitcher when our next wave comes up. Anyway, I just see Casey McGehee as clearly being a guy who's going to regress a great deal. I think we missed the boat on on Hardy, Hart(though it may be coming around again) and Hall, I'd really hate to see us hold on to him when we could get a important piece for the future only to watch him see a precipitous decline over the next 2 years and wishing we'd done something. I posted a thread about it, and would love to see us pursue a trade with the Twins aggressively and suggested a McGehee+Hart+Villanueva+Cash for Gibson+Ramos+Perkins deal. Of course it helps that I'm still completely convinced that Mat Gamel is going to be a very good Major League hitter. I believe with his swing which again I think is one of the prettiest from a Lefty I've seen in a Brewers uniform in a long time will make him a good offensive 3rd basemen.

I wanted to get a couple of opinions on this. I think one of the keys for the Brewers to sorta regroup and get back to the point where they can honestly expect to compete they're going to need to make a couple of shrewd moves in the near future, something that quite frankly I don't believe has been Melvin's strong point in the recent past. I respect him as a GM, but I think he's failed a times with his timing in terms of trading players. Now the dilemma is that it's obviously very difficult to trade a player when they're playing well. When Corey Hart is hitting HR's every day, obviously helping us win games, nobody wants to trade him. When Casey McGehee is among the league leaders in BA, driving in more runs than anyone in the league, nobody wants to trade him. There are a couple other players I'd also throw into this group. Carlos Villanueva. You won't find a bigger Villy fan than me, and I think he has 4 pitches that make him a better starter than a reliever. I believe we pulled the plug on him as a starter far too quickly as he had some success in that role. However we're coming up on the point where he's going to start making more money, and his value is going to be very high. I could see a number of teams looking for BP help being very high on CV come this trading deadline. Another guy I could see fitting this bill are Todd Coffey, a guy I really love, but who again, is going to start costing more, and we have young relievers who can replace him. Jim Edmonds is another guy who has very little value to us in the long haul, but could really help a team off the bench...though obviously he's on a completely different level than the others. So I guess my question is two fold. 1-At what point do you decide you're going to "sell high" on a guy? Again, it's obviously very difficult, but does anyone here believe that Casey McGehee will continue to perform at this level or even close to it? You're obviously dealing with a lot of potential fall out from an organization if you go ahead and trade a couple of guys such as McGehee, CV, Hart, and then Prince as he's obviously going to be on the market in the near future, but shouldn't what's best for the organization out weigh that? 2-What players on this current roster WOULD you sell high on right now, and what would you expect in return for them? Obviously I think moving Casey McGehee is a move that needs to be made. The Twins seem to be a ideal fit with their predominant Left Handed Lineup. Kyle Gibson would be a guy I would LOVE to grab. Perhaps McGehee+Carlos Villanueva for Gibson and maybe Ramos would be a great deal for us? In fact, if you were to expand that even further and kinda throw three of these guys in and make it McGehee+Hart+Villanueva+Cash(to pay for Hart's and Villy's salary) for Gibson+Ramos+Glenn Perkins, a guy who's fallen out of favor in Minnesota, but who still has good upside and may simply need a change of scenery. Plus, the Twins seem to be resigned to the fact that Ramos will be gone. So while they're usually loathe to trade prospects, it's really only Gibson to try and put a VERY good team over the top. Thoughts?

Trading to the Nationals is definitely a interesting idea. I wonder if we could pry Jordan Zimmerman out of their hands. It would be a huge risk on our part, but he's a hometown kid(SP I believe), has a very high upside...probably not that of an ace, but he and Gallardo could give us two top end #2 starters. A interesting idea to me would be maybe Prince+something...I have no idea what that would be, perhaps a couple arms they could throw into their rotation or pen next year. Maybe Coffey and Narveson, for Zimmerman and Scott Olsen. Not very likely, just throwing it out there. If I'm the Nationals I think I'd want to keep Zimmerman and Strasburg as a 1-2 and then Storen as my closer. That's a helluva trio to build a staff around. But it's possible with his injury and with the Nats trying to become a bigger draw in the DC area, and a contender, they may look as trading for and subsequently signing Prince as a worthwhile trade for a questionable pitcher coming off a TJ injury, and a pitcher they picked up for nothing this past off-season. On the Brewers side, again, I think Zimm is a #2 and Olsen a #3/4. Some risk there, but a lot of upside.

IT's safe to call it a stupid one in my opinion. And this is coming from a guy who really tries to not question Scouting Directors as their wealthy if knowledge obviously dwarfs mine, but this was a guy that right out of the gate you had concerns about. Struggled so badly as Va Tech he had to transfer to San Fran, struggled with the walks a ridiculous amount there as well. Had a good workout and threw hard and we take him early in the first. If you were going to take a big boom or bust guy there, Scheppers should have been the pick in my opinion. I was also a big fan of Montgomery who's in AA and pitching very well for the Royals. Anyway, as long as you have guys like John Axford performing as they are at the big league level, it's never too late to call him a bust...but he is not looking good at all...

Yeah, it's so much cooler rooting for guys who are just genuinely NICE guys...guys who appreciate the gift that's been given them. Even Mark DiFelice who hasn't made a lot in baseball terms has made a INCREDIBLY healthy living, and you can see a true appreciation and humility in guys like that. That's part of the reason everyone loves Cappy. He strikes you as that same type of guy. Of course if you throw the ball like Suppan, you can only be SO nice and still be a fan favorite....http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/smile.gif

I don't understand the issue with Capuano pitching in AAA last night. The whole point was to see if he was ready. He'd thrown all of 21 IP in AAA and fewer than 15 in A+. I don't see it as a "waste" to start him last night for Nashville, it seems like a necessary part of coming back. You have to prove you can handle it. The Brewers pushed the deadline back by 9 days specifically so he could get TWO more starts in. As for him pitching so poorly in 2007, if you look a little closer, Capuano didn't pitch any differently in '07 than he did in '06 or '05. I should say didn't pitch much differently as his peripherals were all in line with the two prior years.

Not that I'm taking one inning for more than it's worth, but in the outing vs the Twins, he did look very good. His change was back and he looked significantly better.