Thurston Fluff

I'm so jealous. Paris is great. There is access to the subway every couple blocks which helps a lot since the city is hard to get your bearings in. If you climb the Eiffel tower you will see why. I don't think there is a road longer than two blocks. Don't pour your own wine in the nicer restaurants. It's considered an insult to the waiter. If you go to the Louvre you can find VIP passes in the gift shop that allows you to bypass the usually very long lines waiting to get in. They also allow you to get into other museums in the city. I forget what they are called but if you see a long line go to the gates at the front and there will be a sign that says this entrance for _____ passes only. Go to the gift shop and ask for it. They really aren't all the expensive either.

We needed a little luck to go our way this year to begin with. If the staff remained healthy we stood a chance. Failing that we have to hope someone can step up. I that doesn't happen Doug has to determine if a trade can be made without too much damage to our future teams chances. Maybe it's time to see CV in the rotation again.

We've seen how well minor league players do when playing part time. Melvin is on record as saying he thinks it is better to have veterans in that role. Minor league players are in the minors for a reason. If they are true prospects they should be playing regularly to get good enough to play a major role in the majors. If they aren't true prospects there is little reason to believe they are going to outperform Hall to begin with. If you go the free agent route you either get minimum wage scrap heap crap which I've already shown would be less than a 50/50 chance that we wouldn't actually improve on Hall's production or we pay a larger amount to get Craig Counsell type production. Then the question becomes does a bench player like that contribute so much more than Hall could to warrant using that money there instead of upgrading in other areas. He is not good but he is not useless. Barring club house problems it only makes sense to cut useless people if you have to pay him either way. He very well could be cut at some point next season if we have someone who makes Hall expendable. That will be a nice surprise but it shouldn't be counted on. There simply aren't that many players who can do what Hall can do defensively and provides more offense. If they did they would be starters. Craig712 IMO is right. He should be the Jody Gerut of the infield. I think as the season goes on we will see that happen. If not this season then next. He'll be the guy who comes in once a week to give Weeks or Hardy/Escobar a break.

Again, you are talking about the SS position only. I selected shortstops because that is the hardest infield position to find a quality backup at. Assuming we actually want someone who can play that spot on occasion Hall's biggest value is because he can do that at about the same level as a majority of players currently on a roster. If Hall couldn't play shortstop I would agree he could be replaced with any number of players like Joe Dillon, Freel, or McGehee. You are picking the worst backup position players on a select few rosters. I'm picking the best backup shortstops on those teams not the worst ones. That only goes to show how bad that spot is in the majors. There are teams like Texas who have three players capable of playing shortstop and if one of the backups could be reasonably viewed as a better alternative I listed them as such. Note that I did list the teams I viewed as having better options in an earlier post. You may have missed it because there aren't that many. Of all the teams 11 or 12 have a better option which means a majority of teams have no better or worse options. Of course any player who is on a team now must be deemed better than players who are not on a roster. So I took it as a given any player currently on a roster is better than one who is not. Those players will be gone from those clubs, so why not Hall? couple things. First it is far form certain they will all be replaced. Those who have huge contracts will be the least likely ones replaced. If they have any value at all they will be kept simply because it is already money spent. Better to spend that money on something of minimal value than to spend it on none at all. Second who will they be replaced by? If over half the teams have no better options than Hall then what makes you think there will be better options next year?

I don't think I have to dig to hard into rosters of GOOD teams to find plenty of utility type players better than Bill Hall. Here is a list of GOOD teams that would probably like someone who could play shortstop as well as Hall. The Yankees currently trot out Cody Ransom and his .527 OPS when Jeter takes a day off. The Twins have Nick Punto and his .543 OPS this season when they want to give their shortstop a day off. The Rays don't even have a reserve shortstop listed neither does St Loius. The Cubs trot out the mega reserve Blanco and his 547 OPS this year that pretty much matches his .590 career OPS The Phillies have the mighty Bruntlett and his .416 OPS. That goes well with his .594 last year. The Marlins have a guy whose career OPS is .538. I took his career one because they really haven't used him at all this year. Small wonder why I don't have the time or desire to search for my list of 10-15 candidates that are better. Doens't matter how much time you have. There aren't 10-15 players who we can realistically get who si both cheap and better than Hall for that specific role.

I am sure you are aware that Escobar is ready. Hardy goes down, Escobar comes up. I'm not unchecking that one. We are talking about what to do with him for the remainder fo his contract which runs through next year. Next year it is unlikely we will have both Hardy and Escobar here. My entire point is we have spent the money already and we will need someone to occasionally give the starting shortstop a break? Why spend more than you already have if you don't have to. Especially when you have about as good a backup as you could reasonable expect. He says he is the best 3B in the league, why would he play SS, or CF, or LF (the only other positions he has played)? He can say he's the best pitcher in the league, the best ball boy the best green alien and it doesn't change the fact that he can play all those positions. The reason why he will play all those other positions is obvious. He will be told he has to by his boss. The question is indeed how bad is Bill Hall. My point is Bill Hall is real bad, has been for quite some time, and his production would not be all that difficult to improve upon. And I showed you just how bad reserve shortstops are throughout the league. You can say Hall is bad all you want but that doesn't mean it's as easy as you think it is to replace him with someone better. If you actually took some time to look at the alternatives you would see for yourself that far less than 50% of the teams in baseball today have a better option. If you don't believe me go look for yourself instead of just repeating the same point without verifying it's veracity. I said I would be hard pressed to find someone on the Cubs roster as bad as Bill Hall. I didn't say I would be hard pressed to find someone that, in the history of the Cubs organization, was worse than Hall. It wasn't in the history of the Cubs. It was a guy they traded for THIS year to fix the hole they have on their bench this year. That makes it relevant to the subject. Of course if you don't want to use him I showed you others that are the same or worse on the Cubs so I wasn't all that hard pressed to find one. They are having such problems finding someone who can play even at Hall's level they have had to trade two separate times to find someone. So far the best they could come up with is someone whose career is parallel with Hall. While we can both agree Hall is not close to worth the money he's getting I think you are underrating how difficult it is to find a viable bench player who can fill so many roles on the team. It takes more than just saying he sucks and we can easily find someone better to make it so. Just take some time to actually look what there is out there instead of just asserting blindly that we can find better and you might find Hall is more useful on the team than off it. I think it's time the Brewers just cut ties with him and wish him the best at reviving his career elsewhere because right now he's taking up a valuable roster spot and doing nothing to validate having it besides having a fat contract. Would you rather they have Hall as the utility infielder next year at $8.5 million of a Craig Counsell type that would cost the team $9.5 million? That is what you'd have to pay if you ate Hall's contract and paid for someone marginally better. Now add in the fact that most teams do not have someone better as a reserve shortstop and it is just plain bad management to cut him. Given the way Macha uses his bench I see no reason why you'd want to pay any more than you have to for those reserve guys. They'd play twice a month.

Then I would assume he is not on the Cubs roster... check. No just one of many they have tried so far. They replaced him with someone who has about the same career OPS as Hall does but cannot play shortstop...check. Not relevant, but the Brewers don't need anyone to play shortstop... check. You think the team doesn't need a backup shortstop? When has Hardy ever played every game all year without some sort of nagging injury? Of course maybe next year we will have our rookie play every game but I don't think that is a wise plan. Might want to uncheck that one. So not as bad as Bill Hall... check. Baker's career OPS is 767. Halls is 758. Adding in Halls superior versatility I think it make sup for the 9 points less of production. Check. I do agree with your main point, but it doesn't take away from how brutally bad he has been for years now. irrelevant. His is money already spent. The real question isn't how bad he is. it is how much better can we get while spending the same money. If you care to look at the league as a whole you will find very few teams who have a backup shortstop who is appreciably better. I found these teams with a guy I think is better who plays shortstop. none of them are as versatile as Hall but short is the hardest defensive position to fill so I went with that. Red Sox, White Sox, Detroit, Cleveland, angels, Mats (maybe), Nationals, Pittsburgh, Diamondbacks (about even), Dodgers and Giants. Roughly 11 teams have as good or better reserve shortstops than Hall is. None are as versatile and we have to pay him one way or the other. It is easy to say we can find scrap heap guys who are better but less than half the teams managed to do that.

Hawing I think if you had chopped that down to Manny Acta "was relieved," it would have been as accurate.

I would be hard pressed to find anyone on the Cubs roster as bad as Bill Hall. You didn't look very hard then. They traded for Freel who had and OPS of .640 with KC and .369 with the Cubs. Then they cut him and got Jeff Baker who had a .384 with the Colorado and OPS of .598 with the cubs. Neither of whom could play shortstop which is the hardest position to find adequate bench help at. Lets not forget Andres Blanco and his whopping .547 OPS or even their starting second baseman who has a .665 OPS. Hall by comparison plays better defense at more positions than any of them and still has an OPS of .595. How much is McGehee making? I heard he can play catcher too. great now lets see him play shortstop. Hall has had more success for a longer period of time than McGehee. Why do you think he is so much more capable of sustaining his partial season of success than Hall was? All I'm saying is his money is better spent by keeping him as a veteran utility player than not having him at all. So far I've seen nothing that shows me we can find someone better who will not only be better but be so much better that they will be worth more than Hall's contract plus their salary.

Actually I think it would be pretty easy to find someone who plays better than Hall for the league minimum. You really think so? The Cubs have been looking for someone who could do that all season long. He can play anywhere other than catcher and is has shown the ability to hit left handed hitters. His offense is not good bu this defense is adequate to good all over. Last year we had Counsell hit about as poorly as Hall and we gave him a million to come back this season. I think that shows how hard it is to find bench players with the versatility to play anywhere is.

I have a great deal of respect for Hall. He works very hard without complaint. The season after he was the team MVP he had legitimate reason to make waves about losing his shortstop job to an unproven rookie but didn't. He moved all over the field for the betterment of the team. By all accounts he is a well liked teammate and an all around good guy. Which is why I chose not to poke fun of him or take his comments literally. Sometimes players don't have to be good to deserve some amount of respect. They just shouldn't be allowed to play as often as they want. Bill Hall will be around next year. I don't think it is even allowed to have a contract bought out and certainly wouldn't blame him if he refused to if it was. He has value on this team next year as a utility man. It is a lot to pay for that role but it is money already spent so it is what it is. There is no way the team is better next year by eating his contract. All that would happen is we would have to pay Hall's salary and at least $400,000 more for someone to play no better than he does.

I'm not trying to defend Macha more tying to understand so take this for what it's worth. Considering this is the second manager in two years that doesn't give Rivera much playing time there almost has to be some sort of reason for it that we don't see.

You can check out this AAA numbers here if you like. He has only been bad in only one start but his walks are still too high in all but one game for me to think he fixed his control problems. His last start was much better so maybe he found something. His coming up again has less to do with him regaining his from from last year than it has the lack of other viable options IMHO. Check that two games were pretty good walk wise. Sandwiched between them was the crappy one. Still 13 walks in 24.2 innings of work is pretty high for AAA.

even though he struggled big time this year in the majors, he was solid at AAA. I don't know if 33 walks to 46 K's and a 3.49 ERA in 69.2 innings is really solid AAA numbers. His major league numbers are just awful. He walked more than he struck out and has an ERA of 8. His control makes JDLR look like Greg Maddux by comparison. I'd rather go with McClung than recycle Eveland again. Most certainly would exhaust all in house options first before trying something that desperate. Dude just isn't very good and, a few flashes aside, never really has been.

In a perfect world I think they would like to keep Parra down for longer. The Brewers world is far from perfect at the moment. If he is the best option their hand is pretty much forced. I kind if wish they would keep him down longer and give one of the other guys a shot. none of them have Manny's stuff but if they do come in and pitch well for a short period of time we are much better off making sure Manny is really right. If they don't pitch well it's only one or two starts and Manny can come back one or two starts later. I don't think the Koshansky move was done for any particular upcoming transaction as much as they did it because they figure they will be making a move something soon. He's not going to be coming up and if another team wants him they can have him.

A baseball team is a little bit different that a normal workplace though, namely Braun makes a lot more money than his boss and is arguably more vital to the organization than its CEO (Assumed to be Melvin). Melvin may indeed be his boss but I don't think you can compare this to a normal workplace squabble. Couldn't disagree with this more. You can trade Braun for someone of equal value or more payers to make the overall team more balanced. Great players bring value in either trades or play. Great GM's are the ones necessary if you want to continue to find enough good players to win. Robin Yount couldn't compensate for Sal Bando nor could Ben Sheets compensate for Dean Taylor. Does anyone think Braun would be good enough to compensate for Washington's GM? In baseball the most important figure in the organization is the GM not any particular player IMHO. You can't trade your GM for another of equal value.

Kid? This seems quite a bit demeaning. If he'd stop acting like a kid I wouldn't call him one. Barring rule changes in the game of baseball, we can't have 10 guys play the infield at the MLB level. I guess I don't see the depth the same way as you do. We have a need at second yet none of that depth was deemed good enough to replace what we already have. It may look deep but really how much value is Heether or Iribarren? Does anyone think you are going to get a quality major league pitcher for that type of player? They are not even the type of players you can package together to get one. Most teams who would be interested in borderline major league players will just wait until they are DFA'ed out of spring training or taken off the 40 man roster. At the most they will trade for them in the off season. There really is no demand for that type of player if you want the same thing every other contending major league team wants. As far as the credit for the draft if Jack Z really was responsible maybe he is also to blame for this team's major problem at the moment. We have very little starting pitching now and pretty much since Jack has been here. That makes Melvin have to find the them elsewhere. Had we found more than 2 starters in the past decade maybe the situation would be different today.

Once again, if we want to evaluate a GM, then we need to some how come up with metrics to evaluate his total performance. I don't think you need metrics to see the team has been far better since he has been here than any team since the early 90's. It has been in contention for the playoffs for a couple years and is doing so again. That was what we were told his plan was by Doug himself when he got here. He did so pretty much in the time frame he said it would take and it is playing out exactly as he said it should. We now have a team that is perennially competitive. Any team that is always in contention increases the likelihood of winning a world series. This team is there in that respect. The window of opportunity isn't 2 years. It's the foreseeable future. Unless of course you give up the next batch of players who can keep the team competitive in an all out effort to win now. I hope to God that isn't the case. We can win as easily with Gamel, Parra, YoGa, Cain and Escobar as we could with Prince, JJ, and Hart. The players may change but the level of play doesn't have to unless you get rid of the next generation to fix the shortcomings of this one. I think that is why Doug gets a little peeved when he sees a player complaining. Doug has done his job as well Braun has done Braun's job, as has the entire staff. It has to get a little old when a guy who has been as successful as Melvin has been has to listen to a 20 something kid tell him how to do his job. Being able to hit the ball well does not make one good at building a team. It just makes one a good hitter...and a millionaire. Just like he had to learn to lay off balls outside the zone he has to learn what his role is in the organization. Bill Halls contract, Jeff Suppans contract, Eric Gagne, Kevin Mench, Greg Aquino, Julian Tavares, Johnny Estrada, Vargas... for every win I can give you a loss. Bad contracts are going to happen for any team more so for aggressive GM's who do everything they can to fix holes in the roster. The surest way to make sure you don't sign a bad contract or make a bad acquisition is not to make any at all.

it does not bode well for Melvin's longevity as GM. All-Star player signed long-term generally wins out over the GM that the owner inherited. I think a GM who has brought two franchises back from the abyss has as much if not more pull than one player no matter how good he is. If you want to see what the difference is between good GM's and bad ones look no further than Pittsburgh. Basketball and Hockey are players first leagues. Football is a coaches league quite often you see very talented players moved because he couldn't get along with the coaches rarely do you see coaches go because they don't get along with one player regardless of who he is. Baseball is a GM league. They are by far the most important person in the organization. The one who is absolutely necessary to build a winning team for any mid or small market team. Everybody not stuck in a cave knew the Brewers did not have enough pitching to stay in the race so barring an injury the Brewers were really going to be in a rough spot. Every body also thought the Brewers only had a shot at the wildcard because the Cubs would run away with the division as well. Melvin has lived off of Jack Zs success. Just look at the roster and the players he actually has brought in. If it were not for Jack Z, Melvin would have been gone long ago. Jack Z helped him in Texas? This is the second organization Melvin built from bottom up no the first. As for Melvin going public I usually agree it should be kept private. In this particular instance I think it needed to be done. Braun kind of needs to see what it's like to be on the other end of the public criticism. Maybe he learns what it's like to be called out publicly and stops making inappropriate comments about other players. Melvin did reference this was not the first time Braun made public comments. If Braun can't handle it he shouldn't dish it out. W/O free agency, he would've went nowhere in Texas. The teams that won the division were almost totally built form within. The A-Rod deal often overshadows that fact but when Melvin got there the team was owned by Bush, not Hicks, and was not a free spending team. Add in what he's done while here and it is pretty easy to see Melvin is far more than just a lucky GM riding the coattails of Jack Z. TooLiveBrew wrote: I don't think it's reasonable to start discussing Melvin like all he goes out to do in deals is get rental players & turn them into draft picks. That's all he's done to this point, and that appears to be most likely scenario again this season. Coco and Lee were both in the organization for more than a year but if you want to add them to the rental pile I can at least understand the argument. I don't see any way you can call Cappuano, Villanueva, McClung or Bush rentals since they have all been here multiple years and are still here.

Steveo made a good comment about how Braun was pointing fingers this time around where last season he pretty much called out the whole team, himself included. Saying we are not getting good enough starting pitching is calling out at most five players. So far this year the offense has been as much a problem as the starting pitching. They are so inconsistent that their runs total isn't indicative of how much they actually contribute to total wins. I think the other thing Braun should look at is where the money is being spent on this team. Hardy is making a lot of money to hit at the rate he is. Same with Hall and Hart. If we had the money tied up in under productive offensive players we would have the money to spend on pitchers. Burns and his minimum wage contract is not the problem. It's players making so much and producing so little that makes Burns presence on the roster necessary

I don't think Parra is coming back up until he gets his walks down some. His last start was pretty good walk wise but the one prior to that was down right terrible. I think we'll see Villy or Dillard get a shot before we see Parra.

You do realize that with absolutely nothing to play for Yost benched Hardy during his rookie season right? He did so because he felt Hardy needed to be for one reason or another. Yost showed his willingness to play young players enough that taking one example where he didn't as a way to show he wouldn't have done a better job with Gamel is a reach to say the least. Macha is hands down better than Yost in the game strategy department but Yost was hands down better at handling the bench and helping young players develop. It is one's personal opinion which is more important. Mine is game strategy pales in comparison to maintaining a viable, ready to play, bench and player development. Though I admit to thinking player development should not be part of a major league manager's job on a playoff caliber team. But that is a whole other story.

I'm pretty sure Lou Pinella was on the list too. Haven't you noticed how he's mellowed out now. take one look at his melon and it's obvious. Nobody's head is that big without help.

Or did they just not care? I don't think they had any penalty for a positive test back then, did they? Maybe they didn't care but if they wanted to continue to use them it would have been stupid to test positive on that specific test. That would kick in the mandatory testing program which would make it that much harder to get away with the rest of their career. Maybe they only used steroids because they felt they had to keep up with those who were using them. In that case they may have wanted to make sure they did test postive. I remember a number of the White Sox players initially planned on skipping the test which would be deemed positive so testing would be implemented but were talked out of it by the union. If that was the case why would some of them on that list have been caught afterward? (please ignore I'm arguing with myself) If the list is real why wouldn't players who have been confirmed as users be on it? No Grimsley, Segui or Vina makes it look pretty fake. I have my suspicions about Albert Pujols, hate to say it. Personally I think that is why he isn't creating the excitement around baseball he should with the seaosn he's having. It used to be fun to watch something special like that. Now it just creates suspicion.

Why did this trade happen? Because it's the Pirates and Nationals. Some organizations get better by player development. Some by free agent acquisitions. Some by spinning their wheels in hope that all the smoke will make it appear they are actually trying to do something.