Oxy

The reason that I am defending Casey is because I don't have faith that the alternative is going to be better. Right now Casey hasn't really shown a downside at the plate. I fear that if we plug Gamel in at third, we'll see a more erratic player in every regard, and overall slightly lower production. People talk about Gamel having a much higher upside than Casey--and I just don't see it. I see a guy who might have a career year someday of .290/.360/.490 and 25 home runs. Meanwhile, we already have a guy who has pretty much done that twice., who is cheap, and reliable. I can very easily see Gamel putting up a line of .240/.310/.420 with 10 homers overall, a .600 OPS against lefties, and very poor defense. That just won't cut it. At the same time, this discussion has pretty much run it's course. Ultimately, I hope Melvin pulls off a trade and we can improve our pitching staff and go with whoever is left over. I am just really hesitant to have a line-up that starts Cain, Escobar, Gamel, LuCroy, and no Prince Fielder everyday. That could end very badly.

And that is precisely why teams should never fast track a player if he still has major flaws, even if he WOULD make the team better immediately. Basically, you spoil them and stunt their growth as a player. While it is possible for some players to remain hungry enough to improve greatly at the major league level, more often complacency sets in because they've already attained their goals, and are successful enough at one aspect of their game to ignore improving their other aspects. A player is much more likely to listen to coaching in the minors where they still have that nugget of getting an everyday spot in the Bigs.

The problem with this is that you can't use rankings to qualitatively determine how well he played. They really ARE meaningless. At the very least, you'd have to include some maxes, mins, medians and quartiles to see how close ranking 15th was to 10th...or 5th... or 1st, whatever. Perhaps there is a huge spread there, I don't know, but even if there was, those stats are notoriously unreliable. I'm not saying that Casey is a good or even average defender--he's not. I'm just saying that he could be the WORST 3b in the league and still be fine defender if the difference between the best and the worst is, say 5 runs over the course of the season. I know there are others on here who could break it down better than I could, but basically those rankings don't mean squat.

One thing to keep in mind here is that if the Brewers get Greinke and hold on to Fielder, they can still flip either one at the deadline if things aren't working out. While it is unlikely we'd actually get anything better than the 2 first round picks for Fielder if we held on to him, Greinke would still hold A LOT of value being under control for the playoff run plus another year. I think we should do whatever we can to get him to make a run next year (while holding on to Fielder), and then recoup whatever we lost to get him by flipping him again if it doesn't look like the playoffs are realistic. His no trade clause runs out after the deadline this year, I believe, so it is possible we could get back in value almost what we lost if we wait till the off-season when we can field offers from every team.

I don't know how the exact transactions broke down but in 2000, their first year without Griffey, they had Aaron Sele, John Olerud, and Mike Cameron contribute to a 12 game improvement from the year before (79 wins to 91 wins). Then they added Ichiro, Bret Boone, and a young Joel Pineiro while ARod left and Freddy Garcia matured giving them that monster year with 116 wins. Amazingly, the year Arod left, his WAR was 11.0. So, somehow, a 91 win team jettisons an 11! WAR player and improves an already good season by 24 games (ultimately 35 games trying to replace ARod). My guesses other than the names above?? Defense and bullpen. EDIT: oh, and of course, steroids. Barry, Bret (Boone), and Brady (Anderson) would all be on my top 5 uglies of the steroid era.

I don't think any of those instances would be considered luck--perhaps the weak ground ball through the hole. Luck would be crushing a high fly ball to left center when a big gust of wind blows it back to be caught on the warning track--or the opposite, a pop fly being pushed out for a home run. Sports is not a roll of a 234895784 sided die. It's people interacting. If a player makes a great swing on a great pitch, that's making the most of the moment. Perhaps he "guessed" that it was a fastball on the outside corner, or perhaps he knew the pitcher's trends and made an educated guess, which is far from luck. Luck has to be purely that, luck. Just because something unpredictable happens doesn't necessarily mean it is luck. In these days of computers and sabermetrics, we are quick to ascribe anything that we can't readily explain from past events as being luck. It's just not true.

Those quotes are outstanding. We have to get this guy, and then sign Sheets to a deal for a couple of mill. I have a feeling Greinke might give him is mojo back and the Brewers would roll into the playoffs.

If I am Melvin, I would offer: 1. Rogers, Jeffress, or Odorizzi 2. Lawrie 3. Any pitcher they want in our system except those above, Yo, Axford, and perhaps Heckathorn 4. Any non-pitcher in our system not on the 25 man roster If I am Dayton Moore I counter with: Escobar, Rogers, Odorizzi, and Braddock, and then throw Yuniesky Betancourt into the deal. If I am Melvin, I silently curse to myself, let things breathe for a few days and go back to the drawing board.

I'm surprised this has gotten as much play as it has. Does anybody remember these awards over the past 5 years? Did they exist? While I agree with most here that Weeks was the team MVP, I certainly have no quarrel with McGehee getting the award. I don't think there are any bonus' written into any contracts based on this. I think it was kind of a way to give some recognition to Casey as opposed to some of the other guys. Hart was an all-star (again), and I don't think Braun or Fielder really give a rip what the Milwaukee press think about them (and only care slightly more what the fans think about them). Plus, those two have had much better years and achieved much better things in the past and will certainly achieve much better things in the future. Hopefully the same can be said for Weeks. Congratulations, Casey, you had a good year.

Not even close. OPS by month. April: .946 May: .824 June: 657 July: .716 August: .934 September: .711 October: 1.000 Look at lefty-righty splits and batting with men on base as well. Also, while I did say this year, I meant to put more of an emphasis over the course of his (albeit short) 2 year career and compare that to anybody not named Braun or Fielder over the course of their career. Although even this year, Braun had that atrocious June and July and Fielder couldn't hit lefties or with guys on base. Weeks' career has obviously been marred by injury and inconsistency (hopefully no more), and there were few hitters in the league who looked worse than Hart at times in the past few years (again, hopefully no more). Casey has done nothing of hit, consistently make routine defensive plays, keep his mouth shut, and even play through injury ever since he's been in the bigs. I'll take him.

I assume that you mean Gamel is as good as McGehee at defense (which is a comparison neither player should be particularly proud of)? McGehee was the most consistent hitter the Brewers had this year, and I get the impression that he provided a stability in the locker room as well as the lineup. To not only think that Gamel would meet McGehee's production, but exceed it seems like quite a stretch. While I love the Brewers homegrown talent, I try to stay as objective as possible when looking at actual production. After lurking here for many years, I have often gotten the feeling that sometimes people's desire to follow a player's career from the day they were drafted all the way through until they flourish in the Big League's sometimes clouds their evaluation of a player's actual production and talent level. The corollary to that is that when the Brewers acquire a player "off the scrap heap" sometimes he gets treated like scrap--regardless of the circumstances of the acquisition and his subsequent production. McGehee is the prime example. Despite almost 2 full years of OPSing over .800 with almost unfathomable consistency at the major league level, many people still think it's a fluke since he never OPSed over .800 in the minors, and especially since he didn't do it for a Brewer's farm club. Ask yourself--if McGehee was a 4th round draft pick for the Brewers 7 years ago, worked his way through an unspectacular minor league career, but won a spot with the club out of spring training and continued to have the success that he has had the last two years, would you still think Gamel is a better option with more upside? To be clear, I love Gamel's upside as well, just not at the expense of Casey. I just think that if anybody has earned a right to his position it is McGehee (unless Gamel suddenly becomes a gold glover). Also--thank you to all the moderators and administrators for running the best sports message board on the internet, and for allowing me to be a part of your community.