3and2Fastball

We don't know 100% for sure that the Brewers couldn't have made the playoffs without Marcum because we don't know what other pitchers were possibly available via trade. And I suppose we could look at who the Brewers could have signed via free agency. Plus of course Marcum imploded when we needed him most in the playoffs! We definitely would have benefited from Lawrie at 3B in the 2nd half of 2011 when Casey was a black hole at 3B Keeping Lawrie would have prevented us from overpaying for Aramis Ramirez too I think it was a horrible trade and I'm concerned that the Brewers front office didn't seem to realize that Lawrie could play 3B or (even going into the 2011 season) thought so highly of McGehee that they felt Brett Lawrie didn't have a position. If Marcum pitches like an All-Star in 2012, including in the playoffs I still will think 6 years of Brett Lawrie was a foolish price to pay for 2 years of Marcum

In general, pretty brutal. He does make an occasional good play in the field but if Gonzalez is hurt for an extended period of time I would think Melvin would trade for SS.

Thanks so much. This place is awesome. I'd be thrilled and pretty surprised if Aoki turns out to be as good as Morgan. I'm not a huge Morgan fan due to his antics but there is no denying his production on the field. A .363 career OBP vs RHP in MLB is very helpful to any team. And Morgan had a .370 career OBP as a minor-leaguer (vs both RHP & LHP). I wasn't able to find Morgan's minor league splits but I bet they are off the charts!

There really haven't been very many Japanese hitters in MLB and most of them have pretty glaring discrepancies between their Japan stats and MLB stats. The most glaring example, of course is: Tsuyoshi Nishioka of the Twins, who put up a .226 BA and a scary bad .278 OBP last season. This was after hitting .346 with a .423 OBP in Japan in 2010! (Nishioka has a career .380 OBP in Japan) Kosuke Fukudome had a .443 OBP and .963 OPS in Japan in 2007, his MLB OBP has been a solid .360 but with just a career .760 OPS. I wasn't able to find So Taguchi's complete Japan stats, but his batting average in Japan appears to be fairly similar to his MLB stats (career .279 BA, .331 OBP in MLB) Tadahito Iguchi provides interesting insight: before coming to MLB, Iguchi's last two years in Japan he hit .340 with 27 HR's and 109 RBI's in 2003 and hit .333 with 24 HR's and 89 RBI's in 2004 (both seasons in Japan). He had a couple of fairly productive seasons with the White Sox in 2005-2006 before bottoming out in 2008 with a .232 BA and .292 OBP (his career MLB BA was .268 with a .338 OBP). Really not awful career stats by any means, but what is interesting is that has since gone back to Japan and in the last 3 seasons (2009, 2010 and 2011) he has posted a .281 BA and .389 OBP in Japan. In 2009, the season after hitting .232 with a .292 OBP in MLB, Iguchi hit .281 with a .391 OBP in Japan! The next season he hit 17 HR's, drove in 103 with a .412 OBP Akinori Iwamura put up OK to pretty good MLB stats (he got on base well), .267 BA, .345 OBP but only a .720 career OPS. What is interesting about him is his huge power drop off coming to MLB: this is a guy who hit 44 HR's in 2004, 30 HR's in 2005, and 32 HR's in 2006 (all in Japan, with batting averages over .300 each of those years), then he goes to MLB and hits 7 HR's with Tampa and a .770 in 2007 (his age 28 year). .729 OPS the next season and 6 HR's Kazuo Matsui posted a .267 BA, .321 OBP, and .701 OPS in his MLB career. 32 career HR's in 7 seasons. Kazuo Matsui hit 33 HR's in 2003 alone in Japan. (in 2002 he hit 36 HR's with a .332 BA in Japan). Kazuo Matsui had 7 straight seasons of batting over .300 in Japan until coming over to MLB in his age 28 season Of course, Ichiro and Hideki Matsui have been very good to great MLB ballplayers. But even Ichiro had elevated stats (especially power stats) in Japan http://www.japaneseballplayers.com/en/player.php?id=ichiro Check out Hideki Matsui's Japan stats, the guy was hitting like Mickey Mantle over there http://www.japaneseballplayers.com/en/player.php?id=matsui My point here is not at all intended to be racially motivated. It is more that Japanese stats, so far, should be taken with a grain of salt and might be a lot more comparable to US college baseball stats than AAA or AA stats

Aramis Ramirez is a reliable pro who, if healthy, will produce. He's good for 25 HR's, 90 RBI's and a .350 OBP year in and year out. He's also equally solid vs LHP & RHP so he never needs a platoon.

Gonzalez will be OK. Certainly an upgrade defensively over Yuni B. My concern is: is there anywhere in the organization that we have an heir apparent at SS?

Who would that be, in that case? Schaefer & Gindl (and Aoki) are all LH hitters

I actually like the idea of Gomez starting full-time because of his defense. My concern is that Aoki might not be able to hit, period. If he's a guy off the bench or getting spot starts, I don't think he should be placed in that position until he can actually show that he can hit MLB pitching or AAA pitching.

BA is a great announcer. Does that mean we get Craig Coshun for Saturday's televised spring training game vs the Angels? Ugh. I like Coshun as a pre-game and sideline reporter but not so much as a play by play guy.

I've always liked Escobar's potential. He has a plus glove. SS is such a premium position of need in MLB right now that, depending on the $$$, this makes a lot of sense

First of all, thank you for this fantastic resource and entertaining and informative forum. You all *rock* more than Week's bat as he awaits a pitch.... I'm a die-hard Brewers fanatic My questions are in regards to Nori Aoki and how his development or lack thereof somewhat relates to Logan Schaefer: it is clear that no-one really knows what the Brewers have in Aoki. If it turns out that he cannot hit MLB pitching (so far in an extremely small sample he hasn't) can the Brewers send him to Nashville? The Brewers seem to at least know a little of what they have in Schaefer: great glove, and some potential with the bat. He could be the Brewers center-fielder of the future and if he continues to develop he and Gindl could make Gomez & Morgan expendable by the spring of 2013. With Corey Hart possibly/likely to be out for the first week or three of the season, isn't it a huge roll of the dice to go with Aoki if he continues to struggle at the plate in the spring? I know it isn't wise to put too much stock in spring training stats usually, but with Aoki that is all we have to go on. Wouldn't it be wiser to go with Schaefer or even Gindl and send Aoki to Nashville (again I don't even know if that is an option, I suppose it should be) Interested in your thoughts. Thank you