filthyfrog

I think Schafer has already made a pretty nice adjustment. He was terrible at walking in '08 (13 BB in 207 AB) and he continued that trend to start '09 (7 BB in 148 AB in April and May). When he came back to Brevard after the short stint in Huntsville in June, he made an immediate adjustment (36 BB in 330 AB the rest of the year). I really think the week in AA was a wakeup call for him. Either that or Reid Nichols told him to walk or die. We'll have to see if it holds up over a full season at AA, but doubling your walk rate is a pretty dramatic change. Now if only he could answer the questions about his power in the same fashion...

Right, he'll be perfectly on track assuming he stays healthy for the next three years. Unfortunately, you can't assume health for a pitcher. I think he'll only be in Brevard for half a season. If he spends the second half in Huntsville, the team will have a little wiggle room in case he struggles or misses time with an injury.

We've heard a lot about Rogers' off-the-charts makeup over the years and that interview really cements it. You really have to root for a guy that humble and grateful (and talented). And yeah, the splitter is the last pitch you want a youngster to throw. And I don't think sliders are much worse than cutters. They're pretty much the same thing, or in Sabathia's case, they're exactly the same thing.

Regardless of the reason for being added, being on the 40-man makes him more likely to be moved aggressively. You don't want him to run out of options in AA.

The problem with Jeffress is that there's a very real chance that he'll be banned for life and you have to take that into account when evaluating him, just like you have to take the injury histories of Rogers and Braddock into account. But unlike Rogers and Braddock, Jeffress didn't pitch well this past year. That said, I think you could make a good case that Jeffress should be ahead of Rogers. Braddock trumps them both, though, because he's performed when on the field.

Managing injury risk is one compelling argument for "babying" young pitchers, and I'd add that there's a good case for effectiveness. Since the offensive explosion in the '90s, you simply can't have pitchers on the mound when they're not in peak shape. Hitters these days are too good. It doesn't matter how "tough" a pitcher is if one tiny mistake can cost a ballgame. To get hitters out, pitchers have to be at their best. And there are very few pitchers who can be at their physical best when throwing 260 IP a year. I think a pitcher could get away with being 80% 30 years ago. But whether you blame it on steroids, small ballparks, whatever, home runs are too frequent now to pitch at 80%. There's less room for error. Dave Bush is a good example. He certainly fits the description of a player with "1970s toughness," but did pitching hurt help him or the Brewers? No, because when pitchers aren't fully healthy today, they get lit up.

I recently finished Tree of Smoke by Denis Johnson and Indian Killer by Sherman Alexie. Tree of Smoke is probably the best book I've read in the last few years and Indian Killer is good if you like Alexie, which everyone should. pogokat, Eggers is possibly my third favorite current author and Saunders is definitely my second favorite current author, so my Amazonian "you might also enjoy" suggestion if you're not familiar with him is Jonathan Safran Foer. Everything is Illuminated changed my life the way Breakfast of Champions did.

I know there are many savvy minds here who can do a more comprehensive effort than this, but I thought I'd throw together a quick and dirty comparison of our starting rotation as currently configured for 2010 against the abomination that was 2009's rotation. Here are Bill James's projections followed by the 2009 totals. I used Bill James because it's easily available on Fangraphs. SP W L ERA GS IP H HR BB SO ER Wolf 12 10 3.87 34 200 191 24 67 159 86 Gallardo 12 8 3.53 31 186 157 17 84 205 73 Parra 7 9 4.59 28 147 158 13 67 130 75 Bush 6 6 4.29 20 107 112 16 27 74 51 Suppan 7 10 5.09 28 152 175 20 54 81 86 2010* 44 43 4.22 141 792 933 90 299 389 371 2009 55 59 5.37 162 891 999 145 381 658 532 Obviously, the 2010 projections are missing 21 starts, which would presumably be picked up by replacement starters and would probably make the numbers less appealing. And I'm assuming the incumbents will retain their spots in the rotation, although that's far from a safe assumption. I know Bill James is usually very optimistic for hitters, but this looks like extreme optimism for pitchers as well, which doesn't seem to make sense. I'd say this is pretty much the absolute best we could hope for and I'd be shocked if Bush, Parra, and Suppan put up those ERAs. A 4.22 ERA, by the way, would have been 7th in the NL in '09. Another oddity is the 107 projected IP for Bush. Other than last year, he's been extremely durable, so I'm not sure where that's coming from. What do you think? Are these projections reasonable? If so, has Melvin done enough to improve the rotation? Do other projection systems differ dramatically from Bill James? Discuss...

Sorry, I shouldn't have mentioned his name because I really don't want to reopen that debate here. I edited my post so we can move on.

Yeah, I'd much rather hear subjective information from a clearly subjective source than no information at all. I really don't understand the crusade against inside sources lately. If you don't care to read posts from coach or others, don't read them. It's really not that hard. A lot of us really look forward to hearing from them.

I wondered about that after I typed it - thanks for the correction. The point still stands that Looper could potentially earn a raise through arby and even if not, the risk is very real that his arbitrated salary plus the $1M buyout would be more than $6.5M.

There is no way the Brewers offer Looper arbitration. They're already paying him $1M. If they offer arby and he accepts, he'd be guaranteed at least 80% of last year's salary, plus the $1M, and there's a decent chance he'd actually get a raise since he's a durable "winner." It's theoretically possible that the Brewers re-sign him late in the offseason again if he's still homeless and we haven't been able to plug our holes, but arbitration is out of the question.

Although he was pretty bad this year, I think it's reasonable to assume that Looper will be somewhere around average next year. I don't think $5.5M was too much to pay for an average pitcher who might help prevent a repeat of last year's situation where we couldn't find anyone to come up and just give us some innings. I thought Looper's history in the bullpen might have persuaded Melvin that there could be room for him even if not in the rotation, but I guess that would be a lot to pay for a mediocre reliever. Cutting Looper probably won't hurt us, but it does create a hole in an already paper-thin rotation. After meeting with all the agents this week, Melvin must feel pretty confident that he can bring in one of the FA arms. I just wonder if any of them will be significantly better than Looper next year. I'm really not sure.

If Cameron is an elite CF, then why has Elias tagged him as a class B free agent? Elias lumps CFs together with 1Bs, DHs, and corner OFs and doesn't consider defense for that group. So CFs are going to be vastly underrated. Unfortunately, I don't think they can change the Elias criteria until the next collective bargaining agreement.

I don't get the comments regarding Lucroy and/or Salome. Especially on the JS...it's like what Salome did with the bat last year was awful. That's not true at all. Salome's bat was fine when he played. I think it's pretty clear that the concerns with Angel are his defense and his inability to stay healthy. He simply needs more time in AAA to prove that he can stay on the field and handle the pitching staff. Another thing to consider is that adding Escobar and Gomez to the everyday lineup will dramatically reduce our ability to take walks. Adding Salome to the lineup would exacerbate that problem, while adding Lucroy, who has shown excellent patience at the plate, has a chance to alleviate it.

It's hard to really judge performances from the game logs, but it looks like Butler ran into some tough luck with back-to-back infield hits in the 1st and then a "soft fly" RBI single in the 2nd. Could easily have been a scoreless outing. One has to hope he learned his lesson after both of his walks came around to score, though.

I'm wondering if it makes sense to offer him arbitration with a gentlemanly agreement for Cameron to decline thus resulting in the brewers picking up a supplemental pick. I don't think there has to be any sort of agreement between them. Melvin just needs to tell Cameron that he won't be the starter and that if he accepts arbitration, Melvin will try to trade him. No one would accept arbitration under those circumstances unless they had no chance of earning a similar salary elsewhere, which doesn't apply to Cam.

I'm kind of in your camp, Menace. As a big, athletic, hard throwing righty, I like Arnett and I'm glad he's in our system, but the max effort delivery and speculations that he'll end up in the bullpen knock his status down a peg. Then again, outside of Strasburg, there weren't any wartless pitchers drafted this year. Personally, I prefer Odorizzi to Arnett. His delivery is just too free and easy not to love. I think that'll help him stay healthy, command his pitches, and maybe add velocity as he matures. He just has Gallardo written all over him. It's really not fair, but with the Brewers' track record of devleoping pitchers, I sort of prefer low 90s pitchers to upper 90s pitchers. We've seen a ton of upper 90s pitchers come through here and how many have been able to both stay healthy and command their pitches? Yup, none.

I've been looking forward to this article since June. Nice work, Colby. With the caveat that it's way too early to really judge the draft, how do you think the Brewers drafted relative to the rest of the league? Top ten? Somewhere in the middle?

Strasburg allowed 8 runs in 2.2 innings while Butler allowed 3 runs in 2.2 innings. Clearly, Butler is the better prospect. Seriously, has Butler had a scoreless appearance since getting promoted to Milwaukee in September? It's only been five or so appearances, but he's got to be getting frustrated.

I think a lot of people are forgetting that Jeffress is still incredibly raw and unpolished. He really hasn't had much success on the field yet outside of 33 innings in a pitcher's paradise before his latest suspension. And in those 33 "successful" innings, he walked 22 batters. Even if you don't care about the message it sends, adding him to the 40 man roster now just makes it more likely that he flames out as a Brewer and becomes successful for another club several years down the road. He seems a lot more like Jorge de la Rosa and Edwin Jackson than Yovani Gallardo. It's going to take him a while.

Jeffress absolutely should not be added to the 40 man roster until he earns it both on and off the field. If you add him now to protect him from a potential lifetime ban, you're enabling his habit and sending a message to Brewer prospects and youngsters in general that you don't have to worry about league rules because your club will bail you out. Also, from a more pragmatic standpoint, his two most likely outcomes at this point are: 1. Lifetime ban 2. Finds success 5 or 6 years from now with a different organization. If you add him to the 40 man roster before making him earn his way on, you only increase the likelihood of #2.

I don't have any numbers to back it up, but my impression when he first got called up was that Yo threw too many strikes. He seemed to give up a lot of 0-2 hits because he kept pounding the strike zone even when he should have been trying to make batters chase. After the long layoff last year, he seemed like a different pitcher when he came back and that's carried over into this year. He's trying to strike everyone out. But I agree with others that if he can just stay healthy, he'll be fine.

I find it hard to understand why Farris is the player most hotly debated around here lately. Can't we all just agree that he's a fringy prospect who will likely never be an impact player but who has the upside of a Luis Castillo if he shows improvement as he climbs the ladder? He's definitely not someone to pin all your hopes on, but he's someone to keep an eye on because he could be a nice surprise. Does anyone disagree with that? If we're going to debate someone I vote for Brent Brewer who has never done anything well, despite TheCrew07's claim that he "absolutely shredded the AFL last season." Since it was all of a whopping 30 at bats, even TheCrew07's own reasoning discounts that anomaly. He has been terrible at everything other than "being athletic."

I think Scarpetta should be ahead of Peralta. While Scarpetta has a few more walks in an otherwise nearly identical statline, there have been reports of Peralta needing to move to the bullpen in the future. I don't think anyone doubts that Cody is a starter for the long haul. I also think Odorizzi should be ahead of Butler and Anundsen based on his potential, but I realize he hasn't necessarily earned it with his performance yet. I love the bump for Schafer and the debuts of Davis, Heckathorn, Hall, Howell, Gennet, Bucci, and Lasker. Those additions make the list look a lot deeper. And no Tyler Roberts? Did he get any votes?