SoCalBrewfan

They are on the record as looking at internal options, and they have enough ammo in the system that it's more than just a negotiating posture. At one point, they had six starters with various levels of major league success, including Garland, Weaver, Saunders, and Santana behind Lackey and Escobar. So they're really looking to fill one hole, thought there's certainly questions about Santana at this point. Dustin Moseley made some starts last year and was projected as a reliever, but he's a decent option in the short term. Nick Adenhart and Nick Green are highly ranked prospects who did well in AA, so they're really on the brink anyway.

I should clarify that the three years refers not to service time but to time since major league debut...not that it matters much in this case. Also, as I understand it, with only a few more weeks of service time, Vargas will hit the five years' threshold...I believe 172 or 180 days is a full season so he'll hit five years in April if he makes the big league team. At that point he would have to consent to a minor league assignment.

In reference to the question above, here's something I posted on the transactions forum about our vet pitchers and optional assignments: As noted, it's not just unusual to option veteran players...it's often not possible. Players with a lot of experience can veto optional assignments...Capuano, Vargas, and Bush all fall short of the service time requirements but they are close (Vargas with 4 years / 157 days is closest to the 5 years.) Players with more than 3 years service time (including Capuano and Bush as well as Vargas) must be exposed to revocable waivers. If a claim is placed, the waivers can be revoked, but as I understand it, that would prevent the optional assignment...and often be the precursor to a trade. See the sections in this transactions glossary on Options and Waivers: http://mlbcontracts.blogspot.com/2003/01/transactions-glossary.html And

Yeah, I'm not being clear there. I'm looking at keeping 12 pitchers to start with, with a guy or two in a swing role early. So maybe Bush or Vargas gets a couple of starts but is eventually ticketed for the pen when Gallardo returns, and the OD pen is Gagne, Turnbow, Riske, Mota, Torres, Shouse, plus two of the extra starters, one of whom will start a few times in April but then move to the pen full time when Gallardo is activated. 3/31 @ Cubs (#1 starter) Off day 4/2 @ Cubs (#2) 4/3 @ Cubs (#3) 4/4 vs. SF (#4) 4/5 vs. SF (#1, four days rest) 4/6 vs. SF (#5, or #2 with three days rest) 4/7 off then comes five straight games, so you need a fifth guy for sure in there, presumably 2-3-4-1-5 on five days' rest though 4/14 off then 13-game stretch before 4/28 off day, followed by Cubs series and Cameron return If they keep a guy like Bush in the pen, and get some longer outings from the starters, maybe they can avoid a 13-man staff?

My guess would be an opening day roster with both guys and 12 pitchers. I had originally thought that Kapler, Gross, and Gwynn would start the season in Milwaukee, with Gwynn optioned to AAA or Kapler dumped when Cameron comes back, but they may like what they see of those two. I think Dillon fits as a backup to Prince as well as general reserve IF/OF/PH. I doubt they'd go with only one infield reserve, and I don't see Nunez as a real alternative. But I wonder what they'll do with the arms...there are three off days and 12 games in the first three weeks, so they could go with four starters and an eight-man pen (maybe including two of the extra starters) for the first half of April. There are then 13 straight games, though, after which Cameron returns. I could see them sending the fifth starter to AAA so he stays in a regular rotation turn, then activating him for Saturday April 19 vs. the Reds...with the off days the first four guys would pitch with full rest before that point so they wouldn't need a fifth starter until that game. That would work best if the fifth guy was Parra or Villanueva who have options, or maybe if it's Gallardo. I don't know if the timetable would work with making Gallardo the guy they activate on April 19, with a couple of minor league starts before that, but it might.

I don't know that we'll get a lot, but a team like Boston is smart enough to recognize that one of our starters would look a lot better with a good D behind them. Also, a good portion of the value of a guy like Lohse or Bush is the innings...for a team like Boston or Philly, there's real value in certainty and mediocrity, in terms of a guy who can put up 180 innings of league-average pitching and give the offense a chance to win games. Capuano is less certain in some ways because he was hurt last year...Vargas has a history of not working a lot of innings. It does seem that Melvin, and many of the posters here (myself included), misjudged the market for pitching, though. (Though a final determination on that question may have to wait a few weeks.) For the three vets in question, their numbers from last year are not pretty, but I would imagine that GMs recognize the impact of the Brewers' defense on those numbers at least to some extent. And terrible numbers didn't stop a guy like Jason Marquis from getting a guaranteed deal. Based on recent offseasons, a guy like Lohse had reason to believe he could get 3-4 years and many millions per year. Indeed, Silva, who is not a lot different from Lohse in terms of overall track record, did get that kind of deal. I would have guessed, and still would guess for that matter, that a one-year commitment to Capuano or Bush would be appealing to a good team given the free agent market, but it seems that the market has changed. In some ways I don't think it's a reflection on the pitchers as much as it is a matter of two other factors. First, the value of prospects and pre-arby major leaguers has gone through the roof. That's especially true for small market teams, but even teams like Boston, New York, and the Los Angeles teams are holding their prospects close. As salaries have gone up and up, the 0-3 guys are a better and better bargain, and teams seem less reluctant to play kids ahead of mediocre vets. When there are comparable free agents available, as with Lohse, an increasing number of GMs are not willing to give up talent for veterans. The other factor is Melvin's unwillingness to settle for less than he thinks his players are worth. He doesn't seem to want to sell low, which might be wise or stubborn or both.

He's going to stop the depression. Genius! Actually no. Have you ever heard of short-selling?

If you were looking to add a second-tier catching prospect, Toronto would be the place to go...they've got Thigpen and Diaz who both have a significant amount of AAA time, and Brian Jeroloman who will be in AA this year. Each offers something a little different...Thigpen is a 1b/C who bats RH, could play infield or outfield corners in a pinch, career .280 BA in the minors with a .370 OBP but not a ton of power...could be a very nice bench player at the very least. Diaz looks like a good defender, high batting average guy with no walks, doubles power at most. Jeroloman bats lefty, low BA but gets on base like crazy (.421 OBP in the Florida State League?!), and has a great defensive rep, but again isn't a power guy...you'd think that skillset would get him a long career as a backup at the very least. Given that the Jays have Zaun and Barajas in the majors and a hot prospect coming up the ladder in JP Arencibia, I'd think they'd be more than willing to deal one of those guys.

Someone needs a scholarship to charm school I think. Narveson is a former top prospect who had injury problems, including TJS. He went from St. Louis to the Rockies in the Larry Walker deal in late 2004, as noted above, so that 'waiver' doesn't indicate he was a non-prospect being dumped...in fact he was the top lefty in the Cardinal system at the time and the key player in the Walker trade. (Less key was Luis Martinez, I guess...remember him?) Should we start penciling him in the rotation in the near future? Not in my opinion, no. Is he a 'prospect' any more? Not in the way most people use the word. Is he a possible contributor down the road? That remains to be seen, but he's got more going for him than some of the flashes one sees in the Arizona sun. (I'm mighty glad we're no longer in the situation where a few spring training successes will give a guy a ticket to Milwaukee in April. Ben Ford and Adrian Hernandez come to mind.)

The lack of interest in Lohse may bode poorly for the return the Brewers would get for dealing a mediocre pitcher or two. Certainly the market for league-average starters has looked different this year. But Lohse being signed for real money is good news if you're hoping for a good return in a possible SP trade...as the 'free' options diminish, and as in-house options either stick up the spring complex or break down physically, a guy like Capuano or Bush becomes increasingly appealing. Before Lohse signed, a GM could rightly think, why give up a prospect when I could just pay a few more dollars and get a similar pitcher in Lohse for a year. Now the best veteran FA pitcher is, who, Jeff Weaver? Freddy Garcia?

Oops...should note that it's not three years of service time for the optional waivers, but three years since first appearance on a major league roster. In any event all three pitchers more than qualify.

As noted, it's not just unusual to option veteran players...it's often not possible. Players with a lot of experience can veto optional assignments...Capuano, Vargas, and Bush all fall short of the service time requirements but they are close (Vargas with 4 years / 157 days is closest to the 5 years.) Players with more than 3 years service time (including Capuano and Bush as well as Vargas) must be exposed to revocable waivers. If a claim is placed, the waivers can be revoked, but as I understand it, that would prevent the optional assignment...and often be the precursor to a trade. See the sections in this transactions glossary on Options and Waivers: http://mlbcontracts.blogspot.com/2003/01/transactions-glossary.html And

It has a cold, unfriendly stadium Boorish cubs fan with chip on shoulder visits Miller, acts like he owns the place, wonders why the locals aren't charmed....stunning turn of events.

Narveson was a high draft pick and former top prospect in the Cardinals org, one of the better lefty prospects around at one time (maybe '02 or so?). He had serious injury problems within a year or two of being drafted, though, and has bounced around quite a bit since then, leading to the peculiar look to the back of his baseball card....

Among others, yay for Merle Haggard. And Elliott Smith, RHP, and Wilco. And an extra big yay for Guy Clark...always trust your cape. In that vein, the Late, Great Townes Van Zandt, probably my favorite songwriter and lyricist of all, a bit of Rex's Blues: Legs to walk and thoughts to fly eyes to laugh and lips to cry a restless tongue to classify all born to grow and grown to die So tell my baby I said so long tell my mother I did no wrong tell my brother to watch his own and tell my friends to mourn me none I'm chained upon the face of time feelin' full of foolish rhyme there ain't no dark till something shines I'm bound to leave this dark behind Could probably quote a half dozen more but words on a screen don't do it justice of course...

Thanks for posting those numbers... They project the Cubs to score 845 runs? Wow. That's up from 751 last year, and would make them basically the best offense in the league...not sure I see that offense as a hundred runs better. It's also interesting to see the Brewers going from 779 runs allowed to 765. With the defensive changes I would be tempted to expect more of an improvement... I'd take 87 wins and a playoff berth, though. Yeah, I'd take that.

Thanks for posting those numbers... They project the Cubs to score 845 runs? Wow. That's up from 751 last year, and would make them basically the best offense in the league...not sure I see that offense as a hundred runs better. It's also interesting to see the Brewers going from 779 runs allowed to 765. With the defensive changes I would be tempted to expect more of an improvement... I'd take 87 wins and a playoff berth, though. Yeah, I'd take that.

Thanks for posting those numbers... They project the Cubs to score 845 runs? Wow. That's up from 751 last year, and would make them basically the best offense in the league...not sure I see that offense as a hundred runs better. It's also interesting to see the Brewers going from 779 runs allowed to 765. With the defensive changes I would be tempted to expect more of an improvement... I'd take 87 wins and a playoff berth, though. Yeah, I'd take that.

Our own Ronnie Belliard weighs in as well...sorry.

The PCL as a whole is pro-hitter but Nashville is one of three parks that are very skewed to the pitchers by league standards (multiplying park and league numbers gives an overall PF of about 95 IIRC)...Tacoma and New Orleans are better known, perhaps, but Nashville has had a similar park factor to New Orleans. http://www.baseballamerica.com/today/features/040408parkfactors.html Or see this thread: http://www.baseballthinkfactory.org/files/oracle/discussion/2007_minor_league_park_multipliers/ I think Palmisano could probably be an adequate big league backup this year (the standards for backup catchers in Milwaukee are admittedly not high), and I wouldn't be suprised to see him come up if Kendall is hurt. But I'd bet good money that they keep Munson as a LH complement to Kendall though, and give Palmisano AAA time. While I'd like to think Munson would help, and he's showed some pop in AAA and even the bigs, I don't know that he's had big platoon splits. He's not played 3B since 2004, so I don't think that's really an option any more. I would love to have a good lefty hitter who would get one start per series or so, and I think frequent days off would help Kendall (who has caught a lot of games in his career), but I don't know what Yost will do. I would guess that Rivera would move on.

It seems very likely that they'll carry Munson as a LH complement to Kendall...that's not exciting but neither is it a disaster. Gross seems like a lock as 4th OF / lefty bat off the bench. Counsell brings flexibility, good defense, a bit of OBP, and the situational stuff Ned loves so much. Those guys are typical bench quality players, relative to their positions. LH bats are helpful given the preponderance of starters who bat RH, though I don't know that they'll do a lot of pinch-hitting for position players other than maybe Kendall. It's difficult to project the rest of the bench until they resolve the LF/3B situation, though...Gwynn is a possibility as a speed / defense 5th OF, but he could also be in AAA or be part of a trade package for a 3B, for example. An OF of Braun, Hall, Hart might be complemented nicely by Gwynn and Gross, both LHB who are good defenders. In that case, Dillon might have earned a job for the last spot, and that possibility is increased if they get a LH hitting 3B like Blalock...Dillon can play against some or all LHP, and he's very possibly the only RHB on the bench. Rottino and Dillon are similar, so I doubt they keep both. If Braun sticks in the infield and they bring in an OF, on the other hand, they probably have another infielder who can play a good defensive 3b, with a LH bat preferred...that would seem to leave out Rottino in particular. If they move Hall back to the infield and Braun to left, there's another string of needs that are slightly different.

Peavy wouldn't be a free agent though until 2009, right? He wouldn't be in next year's class. He could have been...as of now the club holds a no-brainer option for '09, but it sounds as though he'll be extended before that is an issue. In any event, the crop of FA pitchers next year is deeper than this year, though I think it's likely that most of the good ones don't make it to the open market. List of free agents next offseason can be found here: http://mlbcontracts.blogspot.com/2002/02/2008-09-free-agents.html Sheets doesn't belong in the same sentence as Sabathia, Peavy, or Santana in my opinion. Santana is way ahead of the others at this point. But Sheets, Peavy, Sabathia aren't as far off from one another as you seem to think. Which of those three guys do you think has four straight years of ERA under 4? Career ERA+ (i.e., ERA but correcting for home park and league) for the three are 113, 119, 116, respectively. Career WHIP 1.21, 1.19, 1.26. (And Sheets' 1.21 is better than Peavy's 1.19 given their respective home parks and defenses.) When Sheets has pitched, he's been as good as the other two, and sometimes better. But the fortunes of pitchers ebb and flow, and can turn on a dime. A year ago, Peavy was coming off a 11-14, 4.09 season. Now of course he's the defending Cy Young winner and as valuable a pitcher as there is. Sabathia's value is high now as well, but if you are going to talk about a baggy uniform and conditioning for Sheets, what do you say about CC? The guy's logged a lot of innings for his age...what's his future hold? Three years ago Sheets looked like the best of the bunch. Of course he's older and hasn't thrown 200 innings for a few years, but he's also seen a reduced workload on his arm that may actually extend his career. Or he could be done in six months, as could any pitcher.

Actually that deal makes out evenly per year. What I meant is that it's a lot less guaranteed money, though the average annual value is nearly the same. For better or worse, these are the deals that Sheets and teams are likely to use as benchmarks...though I think they're upper limits given the concerns about durability with Sheets. I'm surprised though, since the market for an average plus starting pitcher seems to be around $10-12M/year (see Suppan / Meche / etc). There's less room between that and Peavy than one might have guessed; maybe there's some hangover from the Zito deal (and Schmidt, etc., etc.) or something. Maybe crazier deals are yet to come, but I thought there was so much money floating around that we'd see silly dollars flying already. It does make deals signed a couple of years ago seem like great bargains, though...Lowe, Escobar, Beckett, for example. Further, it points to something that's been suggested before: it is pretty rare that top of the rotation starters are hitting free agency. Peavy was one of the names fans and writers were eyeing from the next off-season's FA class, saying, hey, Silva ain't much, but wait 'til next year when Sabathia, Sheets, Peavy, Santana hit free agency. I wouldn't be surprised if almost all of those guys were extended before they hit FA...those that do might well be regarded as damaged goods as suggested above, perhaps as Zito should have been. The fact that a guy like Peavy is unlikely to hit the market ought to make Santana (and Sheets) all the more valuable in trade.

So it looks as though Jake Peavy is hammering out an extension with the Padres that's on the order of 3 yrs / $50 - 54M. That is, of course, substantially less than the extension Zambrano signed (5/$91.5M). Peavy appears to have given a bit of a discount in order to stay in San Diego, as he's about as valuable a property as one can find, durable and effective...could easily get $20M on the open market I assume. From Peavy's point of view, he gets to be where he wants, has a lot of guaranteed money, but he's also young enough that he can expect that he might still hit the market after this deal should he so desire. OK, so what does that mean as far as what Sheets might expect? There have been a number of discussions about extending Sheets, with wildly different assumptions about what he might expect. He's neither as durable nor as effective as Peavy over the last few years, though it's closer than some might guess, and you could argue that Sheets at his best is every bit as good. Sheets is in a little different position than Peavy, in that he's already made a lot of money, so he might well be willing to gamble on a free agent payday over the certainty of an extension. He's three years older than Peavy, so he might well have only one chance to be a big-ticket free agent...and if he's determined to test the market of course it's unlikely that you'll prevent that. Anyway, just a thought while everyone waits out the winter meetings rumor mill...

Wow. Milledge and Church might put up similar offensive numbers next year...if they were similar in other ways it might make sense for the Mets as a realignment from RHB to LHB. But consider that Church is 29 and Milledge is 22, loaded with tools, has more defensive value...down the road this could look very ugly to Mets fans. They'll be screaming for sure...they were thinking Milledge straight up for a stud pitcher at one point. Fascinating. Gotta go read primer now...they'll be howling for Minaya's hide for sure.