SoCalBrewfan

I don't know that you can credit / blame Wade for the pick. Houston's SD used to be one of Jack Z's lieutenants of course, so in an alternate universe that could be us.

If you told me that on May 1, Gomez and Escobar would both have outslugged Fielder thus far, I'd be thinking we were either really, really good or really, really bad. Turns out we are both all at once?

Yeah, there's your closer for the next six years minimum, Milwaukee. Woah Solvd? But let's not be hasty...I'm sure there's an expensive and fading free agent available who's been through the wars.... Seriously, I'm afraid to notice that the guy is doing so well. Must...not...raise...hopes...

Escobar starts his swing too early to take walks. Hopefully, it will come with maturity...you don't walk off the island. By the island here do you mean Venezuela? Or is Latin America just considered one big island? Perhaps a reference to Gondwanaland...

Though it seems he's been given the job in CF to lose, Gomez is not exactly a sure thing at this point, so I'd imagine that the vets Gerut and Edmonds are around in part as insurance for him. It's not out of the realm of possibility that one or the other (or even both) get a lot of time this year. Personally I hope it doesn't come to that....but surely Melvin recognizes that there's a chance that Gomez flops badly. Edit: Looks like Tbadder had the same idea while I was typing...

IIRC colbyjack looked at a draft prospect recently and illustrated how one printed comment quickly became repeated over and over again, though it was (in his opinion anyway) inaccurate. (It's not a new phenomenon...Steven Jay Gould wrote about the common comparison by textbooks of an Eohippus to a fox terrier, which was both wrong and not helpful, as most students reading the comparison didn't recognize the species.)

Knock on wood, but depth, particularly pitching depth, has a way of evaporating quickly. I'll be delighted if we use no more than six starters over the coming season, but it rarely seems to go that way. The sixth and seventh starter, whoever they are, will be called upon, because of injury or ineffectiveness. They won't start in the rotation but they might end the season there.

I think the lesson of several recent Brewer seasons is that your sixth and seventh starters will see action, sometimes extensive action. I don't know that anyone besides Gallardo and Wolf are guaranteed to be in the rotation. I'm not surprised that we've sat tight for a while...we're now reaching the point where teams and players want to get things settled, so prices should be coming down and pieces should fall into place. Seems like Melvin is playing it coy, believing (rightly IMO) that there's not that much difference between the available starters, so you take who you can get for one year at a modest salary. I would be almost stunned to see a multiyear deal for a pitcher at this point...my guess would be one year plus some sort of option, either a cheap team buyout, a vesting option, or a mutual player/team option. See the Looper deal, for example.

Thanks for the thoughtful response...I am certainly not intending to be confrontational or disagreeable in saying Ellsbury isn't special. He's a decent player to be sure, though how good depends to a certain extent on how you read his defense. I think he's a guy who gets overrated though, because of things like his steals and the prominence with which he appeared on the major league scene. (And perhaps the letter on his cap?) Thus I think it's hard to value him properly in a deal. The relative certainty of his performance does enhance his value, and Doug Melvin in particular seems to value guys like him. I could quibble with the analysis of Cabrera. For example, I'm pretty sure that Miller not being in the top 100 in 08 didn't reflect his lack of value, as he wasn't eligible for BA to list him as a prospect any longer...in the 07 list he was ranked #10, just behind Maybin at 6 (and ahead of Lincecum). And there's a nonlinear scale for prospects IMO, so the truly top-tier prospects are very valuable commodities...two recent top ten guys in one deal is pretty amazing. But all that aside, and the place where I think most people could agree, I think the general lesson of deals of established stars, and thus a potential Fielder deal, is that it's very tough for the team giving up the star to get enough value in return for such a deal to make sense...even more so for a team that fancies itself a contender. (Unless you trade with a Bavasi, that is....sadly that's not currently an option.) Just adding Cs doesn't make a deal better for a team that's already got some talent on board...again that might be different for teams at different points in the cycle.

or Prince I might give up something like Ells, Lars Anderson, Michael Bowden, and another prospect (not named Westmoreland, Kelly, or Reddick). That night bot be quite enough though. I'd be interested to hear your thoughts. I just don't think Ellsbury is that special, so if he's a key part of a deal I pass. Lars Anderson seems like a middling prospect at this point. If Boston is constructing an offer with those guys and second-tier pitching I think you hang up without even making a counteroffer. Maybe a team like San Diego with huge holes at multiple spots would feel differently, and be looking to make a Sexson style deal for multiple patches, but the Brewers would be carving a big hole in the heart of what they should be viewing as a possible playoff team...and at the moment Fielder is one of the better hitters around...he's the rare commodity, and one for which a team like Boston should (IMO) be willing to pay quite a premium. A team trading for Prince shouldn't be able to do so without giving up something they'll miss...and I don't see anything the Red Sox would miss in this offer.

2B in the low minors and college rarely make the bigs ... Belly was a SS they moved to 2B. If you're trying to prove your point, Belliard isn't a strong piece of supporting evidence. Ron Belliard played only a single game at short in the low minors...he got a few more games in AAA but not many. Gorman Thomas probably played more shortstop in the minor leagues than did Belliard. Belliard was indeed a shortstop in high school, but that doesn't mean a lot...as a pro he was never viewed as anything other than a second baseman. Historically 2b has certainly not a place where you see a lot of prospects, but I think that's changed a bit, perhaps as offensive expectations have increased. In the very recent past, a bunch of guys like Weeks, Cano, Utley, Uggla, Orlando Hudson, and Howie Kendrick moved through the minors as 2b, never really being viewed as shortstops as I can recall. Durham, too, though that's a bit further back. In fact, there might be more guys in that category playing second in the bigs than there are 'failed' shortstops...Roberts, Felipe Lopez, Zobrist, and Aaron Hill are former SS that I can remember, but I can't think of a lot of others right off the top of my head. (I'm sure there are others, who will occur to me after I post.) But in a broader sense the point stands, in the sense that a lot of minor league 2b have a combination of offensive and defensive skills that don't give them much of a fallback position....a failed 3b could play OF or 1b, a failed SS or CF might have several options, but most 2b have too little arm, range, and/or bat to fit anywhere else. That is part of the issue with Dykstra I think...seems like he failed his trial in CF, and from what I've read he doesn't have the arm for anything but 2b or one of the high-offense slots. This was definitely a lost year for him; he's certainly got time to remake his prospecthood, but he's got a lot to prove at this point. Farris you might be tempted to put in a similar category, except that it sounds like he's got better defensive tools than most 2b, and could maybe have enough arm and range for short. I haven't seen the guy in person, but it sounds like he's not really blazing fast, but is still a great basestealer. Seems like he could in principle profile as a potential utility guy, or even a Chone Figgins / Mark Loretta type (i.e., a guy who is close enough to starting quality at multiple positions and plays enough at two or three spots to be essentially a regular player). If the Brewers see him that way, though, they aren't doing much to advance that goal...he has only played a handful of games at other positions as far as I can see. I have to say that I am pleasantly surprised so far with the new draft era. It remains to be seen how these guys play out, but I'm happier with the first Seid draft than I was with the last Zduriencik draft...Jack Z had some nice picks but I always felt like he threw away decently high picks shooting for the moon on tools guys who were long shots to deliver on their promise (Brewer, Fredrickson, etc.). That second round in 08 looks pretty lousy right now, with Lintz, Dykstra, and Adams all falling out of the top 30 in one year if I'm reading right.

The defense is a big deal, to be sure. Melvin didn't seem to care about defense a while back but seems to have seen the light in that respect...Cameron was a great asset with the glove, and if the team had decided to move on Gomez is one of the few guys who can step in to Cameron's shoes defensively. It's just hard to feel good about a guy with that offensive profile...and particularly it's hard to construct a lineup with offensive players who have a lot of improving yet to do while another year of Fielder's contract ticks away. It also seems a bit early in the offseason to conclude that Hardy would not bring a pitcher of any value. Has the world series ended yet?

What? Is this for real? So we're not resigning Cameron, and we're planning to have somewhere between two and four automatic outs in the batting order next year? You could argue that we will have four years of control of Carlos Gomez, as opposed to two years of Hardy, but the years don't mean so much if the player isn't very good. I guess we're shooting for great defense and lots of 3-2 games, which looks like a great plan with our pitching. Sigh. The only way this move could get better is when they start batting Gomez leadoff.

JP's only bad moves had to do with releasing costly vets, Reed Johnson, Frank Thomas(?). Also, he was able to get the White Sox to take Rios, which was considered a pretty good move for the Jays. So he got somebody else to take a bad contract that he himself gave a player? I guess that's like successfully applying a tourniquet after plunging an icepick into your thigh. Same with Thomas...who was to blame if he was overpaid exactly? Ricciardi had ups and downs as a GM...they have some nice pitching now, but have not done a good job with the position players at all. For a number of years the system there suffered while their draft was mainly lower-ceiling college guys...Aaron Hill has turned out to be pretty good, but they didn't really do much to stock the lineup until shifting gears with the Travis Snider pick. I like their recent drafts more, but it was probably already too late. Ricciardi also was a PR disaster...as the face of the team he was really awful, and if he's not a genius, it's harder to put up with that kind of crap. Towers did pretty well on the major league level, pulled off some real heists and build a good pen for cheap, but if you're going to run a team on a budget and hope to win you need a farm system to produce now and again. He got very little from players the Pads drafted or signed...a couple of decent starters like Headley, Kouz, Hundley, but so far those guys look like Corey Hart types (by which I mean solid regulars more than stars)...if that's all you get from the draft you have a lot of ground to make up. I might think about taking Towers over Melvin, if he has somebody smart to run the draft...both are in a group of decent but not great GMs. I'd rather have Melvin than Ricciardi though. A sobering thought, in case the Hendry era were to end: either Towers or Ricciardi would likely be an improvement for the Cubs.

I like Byrd, and have had interest in him in the past. But signing a Byrd after he's had the good numbers in Arlington is much less attractive a proposition than finding a guy like him who hasn't had the opportunity and is still cheap. Of course finding the cheap guy is harder...but signing Byrd now just seems a bit like signing Sarge Jr...a player with some value but who is probably going to be overpaid going forward.

o baby-faced Bucci is fiery- I like it Guess that's the 'assassin' part of baby faced assassin. At least in part. I personally had no inkling before this year that Bucci was a guy to watch, but he's clearly opened some eyes this year...in the org as well which is of course a lot more important.

Is that our Uli catching for the Neth. Antilles? (How many Ulrich Snijders can there be?) They were a bit overmatched I would say, but they'd be tougher with Jurrjens and Andruw Jones, though, I bet. And maybe Hensley Meulens?

According to the newest rankings, Lopez isn't type A or B. He was A in the last ranking so this one can't be right, can it? Something is amiss with that link...in the link I found from mlbtraderumors, Lopez is the last type A on the list of NL infielders. http://www.scribd.com/doc/19505409/Rankings-090709 As for Kendall, his OBP the last three years are .301, .327, .331, so it's optimistic to say he gets on base 35% of the time...his slg over those years are dismal. Nobody in their right mind would project a .350 obp for him next year, unless he's playing in Colorado Springs or something. He's a very good player over the course of his career, and a lot of guys like that remain useful into their late 30s...but he's also caught a lot of games, and he's not good enough any more that he can afford to lose much more value due to injury or aging. If he's one win now, discount him a bit for continued aging, and that's, what, a .75 win player? That would justify $3M, with a decent change that he remains at one win and is worth more like $4M. But there's essentially no chance of much better, and (I would guess) a very good chance of much worse.

For the second time, MLEs are not proprietary. Some methods of projecting *future* performance are, but the basic MLE method has been out in the public realm for over 20 years. Different places will use slightly different calculations, but the basic method is pretty straightforward. See, for example: http://www.baseballthinkfactory.org/btf/scholars/czerny/articles/calculatingMLEs.htm

Remember those were the pre-season grades...he is revisiting that list. Dykstra is a guy a lot of people liked out of the draft, and it's not at all clear that this year is of any value in evaluating the guy. He was promoted very aggressively to Wisc, and given everything else on his plate, it's perhaps not surprising he had issues. Anyway, it's surely not the same list as he would produce now...it's fair to say, for example, that Cole Gillespie wouldn't be there. http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/wink.gif A few places it seems that he wasn't aware of injuries that might soften some of the criticisms. A lot of promising young farmhands had lost seasons due in part to injury, making for a disappointing year.

MLEs were developed by Bill James in the 1980s. They are not proprietary. Maybe you are thinking of the PECOTA from Baseball Prospectus? Historically speaking, MLEs correlate approximately as well with future major league performance as real major league seasons do. Usually this year's stats give you a good sense of next year's stats for most players, but JJ Hardy can tell you that it isn't always that simple. Real players have fluke years (good and bad), breakthroughs where they turn tools into performance, major injuries...those can all lead to big differences between projections and performance. All an MLE is trying to do is compute what a player's performance would have looked like in a tougher league, with different parks.

News about the Rays, and their winning ways http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/wink.gif : http://www.baseballthinkf...bomb_at_tropicana_field/ It is also nice to see Rick Vaughn still in baseball...

One thing that is predictable about Melvin is that he will focus on a weakness and attempt to correct it. In listening to Melvin the past month, every time he's spoken, he's mentioned the HR rate of the pitching staff.i/i] Yeah, I tend to agree with that, though I don't know if that necessarily means Marquis or Piniero. Makes you think Looper might not be back as he's the worst offender...I thought that deal would be ok and I suppose it has been, but I'd rather put those dollars elsewhere going forward.

I do think however that it does say something about character, no? Whatever happened to the attitude of "Come Hell or High Water, we're going to get the job done!"? It just doesn't run deep with this management system and it seems to have rubbed off on some of the fan base. I don't think you're in any position to comment on the character of a bunch of people based on what they write here. If anything, I think more of the character of people who are able to be thoughtful and moderate about sports and argue their position without insulting the person they disagree with. But if you want to think less of my character as a result, I think I'll find a way to go on without your approval. Somehow. 2008 American League Champions found a way to get the job done. Then, in 2009, weren't satisfied, but added to team and continued to set themselves up to be better..not subtracted. You keep talking about TB as a model. I like what the TB regime has done of late, but let's be honest here...this is a franchise that's surpassed 70 wins exactly twice. Whether they can maintain long-term success, particularly without the benefit of annual top-5 draft position, remains to be seen. It's hard to see any team that's been a year-in-year-out contender while staying in the bottom tier of payrolls. The Twins and A's, probably the two best examples, have had a lot of ups and downs. So what does a down year tell you? Is Billy Beane now a loser? And as for their offseason proving something...I'm honestly not sure what you're referring to. What are those big TB moves that added rather than subtracted? I see additions of Burrell, Shouse, and what, Randy Choate? Gabe Kapler? Subtractions Edwin Jackson, Hammel, Floyd, Hinske. (Now they've sent out Kazmir as well.) I don't know that it is a clear net win in terms of talent. The big add, Burrell, was a move I liked, but that hasn't worked well so far...Cliff Floyd in 08 was better than Burrell this year. Is that the plan you're holding up to show how Tampa is smarter, or rather how they don't accept mediocrity? 2/$16 to Burrell and sign some ex-Brewers? Ultimately I guess I just don't get what you're arguing. It seems to be all about attitude, and apparently of the fans as much as of the team management. OK, we can all pound the table next to our keyboard and refuse to accept mediocrity. Raaar. Better? It's a lost season for this team, which stinks. It's particularly stinky to see great years by some of our key guys 'wasted' due to a poor surrounding cast. It might well get some people fired, or rather some more people as it already has cost Castro his job. I think the demotion of Hardy and the dumping of Hall suggests that there will be some changes this offseason....I don't know how else you read those moves. Melvin has strengths and weaknesses as a GM. He's neither the second coming of Branch Rickey nor a total failure. Even the past year he's made some nice specific moves (Hoffman, Coffey, McGehee) but this has to be viewed as his biggest failure in Milwaukee given the expectations. He may well be coming to the end of the line here...if we don't get more playoffs out of the Prince Fielder era it's a big disappointment, and Melvin knows as well as anyone that the boss could justify pulling the plug after this year. But however that goes, Braun and Gallardo will be around for a while yet whatever happens to Prince, so the near term future of the team is still promising. I'm personally glad they didn't gut the farm system again for a midseason deal, given the breakdowns in the rotation and the issues with Weeks, Hall, Hart, Hardy.

Oh, I agree...I'd only offer arby to kendall for the pick. If there was the slightest chance he'd accept I'd run away screaming.