monty57

Reds are clearly focused on this year and why not while the Cubs focus is more like 2014. It's probably a good deal for both, and hence not good from a Brewer perspective. I still think the Cubs end up with Fielder because he'll still be in his prime 2 years from now too. The Reds thought the division was their's last season, and their pitching let them down, so they're obviously pushing for the division this year, and are willing to give up some of their future to win now. The Brewers are playing for the division this year, after which they will likely lose 3/5 of their rotation. They are also blocking their best position prospects with players who may or may not be good in a few years, when the team will have a lot of big contracts on the books. The Cardinals are old, and are playing for the division this year, even after losing the best hitter in baseball. In a few years, they will be even older and will have a lot of big contracts on the books. The Pirates have some good young talent, but haven't won anything in a generation. The Astros are leaving the division. Yeah, I think the Cubs would be in a good position in a couple of years if they stock up on some young pitchers and sign Fielder. They'll get a load of young players for Garza, and will have money as their bloated contracts continue to fall off the books. This was a much better move for them than it was for the Reds, especially if the other prospects ever make the majors. If they continue to make moves like this, if they do sign Fielder and if they can sell their strategy to their fans, they'll be front runners for the division in 2-3 years.

I suggest giving Aoki 50 games in LF to start the season. They do play baseball in Japan. It's not the MLB, but it's not cricket. He is a guy who many thought would cost $10+MM for a posting fee and probably $10MM/year. Melvin sounded surprised to get him for the $2.5MM posting fee, but just because it happened doesn't mean he's suddenly a scrub... he's been one of the top players in Japan for a while now. If we can parlay the low posting fee into a relatively inexpensive contract, then I can't imagine we wouldn't jump at the chance to add a talented player. I believe it was mentioned in this thread, but the NPB went to a new ball this past season & offense was way down across the league. I recall reading somewhere that Aoki's 'decline' was right in line, percentage-wise, with other top players & the rest of the league. Not to hijack the thread, but did the Rangers think of this before posting $51MM for a Japanese pitcher?

Completely agree. Unfortunately, I could see Roenicke and the new-look Brewers to give their former top prospect (the guy they previously wouldn't trade for CC Sabathia) about 6 weeks to "prove himself," before dumping him for the latest expensive vet.

A lot can happen this offseason, and we'll have a much clearer picture as to the post-2012 Brewers in a month or two. Two things I think are very likely this offseason are that we will make a big effort to extend Greinke, which would give us a solid 1-2 punch for several years, and Melvin will find a SS who will be in place for at least a couple of seasons. If these two things happen, and Gamel and Green play to an acceptable level, then we will simply need to focus on pitching next offseason. Melvin has had more success in trades than in FAs in regards to pitching, so in addition to extending Greinke, I think Melvin will try to acquire one SP in a trade (probably for Hart and/or prospects next offseason or by "selling" Wolf/Marcum/Hart mid-season) and will rely on the legions of pitchers we've selected in the past few drafts to fill out the rotation going forward. I said this on Nov 11, and this offseason has taken turns I wouldn't have guessed. We did get a SS, but only for a season plus an option, and we haven't extended Greinke. We did spend a lot of money on a 3B for three years, which will block Green. I think this will help us win this season, but will have a big effect on our team's future. Now, we have four players (Braun, Weeks, Yo, Ramirez) who will make $48.5MM in 2014. If we extend Greinke, we'll have around $65MM locked up in five players. Plus, Axford, Lucroy and I believe Gamel will be in arby, and if Narveson is still around he'd be in his final arby year. It is also likely that we will sign Aoki, and that would be at least a 3-year deal, so he'll be on the books for a few million in 2014. That would put us into the upper $70's for our 1B, 2B, 3B, C, LF, CF, closer and 2 SP. Even if we have a $100MM payroll in a couple years, that would leave around $20MM for SS, RF, 3 SP, an entire bullpen except closer and our whole bench. K-Rod forced us to back-load Ramirez's contract, and at $16MM in 2014, he will be pretty much untradeable, so we really have to hope for our young pitchers to come through, not only to fill out the rotation, but also to comprise the majority of our bullpen. If we have to start throwing $10MM deals to SP or $5MM deals to relievers, we won't be able to cut it. Melvin's moves this offseason have shown me two things. First, he still thinks we have a good shot at winning the division this year. Second, he has faith in the pitching we have coming up through the ranks. That said, I still think he will be quick to sell this season if we aren't leading the division. We could do a very quick "rebuild" if we were to trade Greinke, Marcum, Wolf, Morgan and possibly Hart mid-season.

I still say that Yuni was a clear upgrade over Escobar. Imagine the thread that'll pop up if Ned eventually names Yuni the starting SS in KC.

Im expecting an OF version of Jamey Carroll. Are you saying that just to upset RockCoCougars :-) I'm just saying that there needs to be a reasonable range of expectations for him and the Brewers need to cover themselves for the lower end of expectations as best they're able. That's a valid point. I think the Brewers were surprised to get him with a $2.5MM bid. It's basically an auction, and sometimes you get something you didn't expect to get. Melvin admitted that he doesn't know much about Japanese players, and now he's sending Aoki to Arizona for his scouts to get a first-hand look at him. I'd guess they also have guys watching film on him around the clock as well. We won't have a perfect read on him, but Melvin is going to try to gather as much info as possible before negotiating. As theavrock said, this is Japan's top hitter. That doesn't mean he's assured success, but it means something. Aoki is a downgrade from Morgan, not sure how people can see otherwise. No one can make a line-in-the-sand statement over how good Aoki will be. There isn't enough data on Japanese players transitioning to MLB ball to be able to know how anyone will perform. Personally, I see Aoki and Morgan as similar players, but I think Aoki is the better player. One of Morgan's biggest faults is his absolute inability to hit LHP, forcing the manager to sub him out when the opposing manager puts in a lefty. We no longer have Prince, so I could see managers using lefties against Morgan just to force Roenicke to take him out and burn his bench. We saw in the playoffs that while Morgan is a good defender, he's certainly not great. Aoki is supposedly one of the better CF's in Japan. Niether of the two have strong arms, so they're probably a push there. Aoki will probably have a better batting average, while Morgan walks at a higher rate, leading to similar OBP numbers. Neither have much power. I was fine with a Morgan/Gomez platoon, but if we can get someone who can play everyday and put up numbers similar to what Morgan does against RHP, then I'm glad we got him... assuming we aren't paying too much money. Throw in that we should get something in trade for Morgan and that we should get some additional revenue from a big Japanese fanbase watching, and I think it's a good deal.

Good signing. We needed someone who could back-up SS, and now we have the guy. I hope he's healthy and makes the MLB team.

Most MLB players have better strike zone recognition then your average 12-year-old. Yuni is either one of the exceptions, and cannot determine if a pitch is going to be a strike nearly as well as most MLB players, or he has the "you don't walk off the island" mentality and refuses to change his approach. I have no problem with players swinging at the first pitch when it's a strike. The problem is that Yuni swings and makes contact with a lot of pitches out of the strike zone, which are very hard pitches to drive, leading to weakly hit grounders or pop-outs to the right side of the infield, and only forcing the pitcher to throw one or two pitches.

Juan Pierre's career line is .296 avg / .345 OBP / .363 SLG / .708 OPS. He's not worth some of the big contracts he was given, but he's not as bad as the reputation he seems to have. If the OBP = 1.5 SLG formula is correct, he's fairly valuable. I'd be pretty happy if we could pick up a guy for a couple million a year who gets on base 35% of the time or so and play decent CF defense (albeit with a weak arm). Yeah, I'd love to have .800+ OPS guys who hit 20+ HR all over the field, but that's not realistic. Most teams can use a guy who gets on base 35% of the time with some speed at the top of the order. I guess I'm kind of seeing Aoki as a Nyjer Morgan who can hit lefties as well as righties, has a little higher average and plays a little better defense. He fits a need while Braun is out, and is an upgrade over Morgan when Braun's back, at which time Morgan will be expendable, so hopefully we can get something of value back in trade. I don't think Melvin expected to win the bidding war, but since we did, it's worth doing some due diligence to see if we can improve our team relatively cheaply.

No, he'll wait until he's around 40 and then bring him back. Such positive, insightful posts. Thanks.BREWCREW5, your last post prior to this one was: "Dude poops excellence. I don't care what anyone says." Were you being positive or insightful in that post?

You really have to be at the game to truly appreciate why so many people dislike Yuni. It's hard to see a MLB player on "your team" watching routine ground balls roll by without even taking a step in that direction. McGehee (not a good defender) was at least running and diving for grounders. Yuni just wathced them. Then he'd walk up to the plate and hack at a "pitcher's pitch," which even good hitters couldn't drive, and as expected would pop it up to the first baseman. Of course the "SABR guys" are going to see that he has no range... he doesn't even try for the ball. Any scout could tell you the same thing. I also haven't heard many scouts say that swinging at anything the pitcher throws is a good strategy. It doesn't take a calculator to see that Yuni is pretty bad. As long as balls are hit right at him or pitchers make mistakes and throw him a meatball on the first pitch, then Yuni looks okay. He can drive fastballs over the middle of the plate, and he doesn't make many mistakes on balls hit right at him (or on throws from the second baseman while turning two). It seems that if he'd hustle a little more and listen to his hitting coach and show a little patience at the plate, he could be a decent player. That, as much as the poor stats, is what makes him hard for me to watch or cheer for. His physical skills got him a big contract. His lack of hustle and refusal to listen to everyone who has told him to change his approach at the plate is what has gotten him labeled the worst player in the league.

Gindl probably is the power bat: 17 HR in 112 games in Brevard County... 15 HR in 126 games in Nashville. That sounds an awful lot like 20 HR power over a full major league season - so, use Gindl as the backup corner OF and 1B. If we start the season with Aoki in LF, Morgan/Gomez in CF and Hart in RF, then I agree that Gindl would make a good 5th OF. I'd prefer that to the $800k vet Melvin usually picks up for that role. The only problem I see with it is that Roenicke would never play the rookie, so when Hart or Aoki needs a day off, Roenicke would play Morgan in RF/LF with Gomez in CF. Over the 50 games, Gindl would probably see 15-20 PAs. In the likely event that he doesn't put up good numbers in 15-20 PA's over two months, people will say that he can't hit MLB pitching, and isn't really a prospect (see Gamel, Mat).

No, he'll wait until he's around 40 and then bring him back.

2014? i guess my thought on this discussion is that is two years out we could also have guys like Tyler Thornberg, Willy Peralta, Taylor Green, Logan Schafer, Caleb Gindl, Taylor Jungmann, Jed Bradley contributing to the the MLB roster, or some combination of these players and other prospects. I also wouldn't be at all shocked if guys like Morgan and/or Narveson are gone by then. Brewers have a great roster Right Now. They have had a lousy team for practically my entire life. I am not that worried about sacrificing 2014 budget a for an opportunity to succeed in 2012, when the window of opportunity seems better than it's been for decades. That is not to say I'm conceding 2014, I think they could be good then too, but I guess I'm not that worried about the 2014 budget right now. Who knows what the budget amount will even be by then. It seems like every year Brewers fans assume this team is still living in the Selig days, like we don't have any money to spend, but check it out the 2012 payroll is going to be $100M. Yes, 2014. That's only three seasons (two offseasons) away. I too am glad that we should have a pretty good team this year, but that doesn't mean we should forget about the future. We are seemingly moving away from a strategy of developing our own players from the farm to the MLB level. The signing of Ramirez (which blocks Green) and potential signing of Aoki (blocking Schafer and Gindl) is more proof of that. A few years ago, we made the playoffs with a mostly home-grown team. Since then, Lucroy is about the only new home-grown guy who's played any significant role for us, with Gamel probably getting a shot this year. We have a limited budget now (although it seems to be growing a lot this offseason) and will have a limited budget in 2014, when four players will be earning $48.25MM. Adding one rookie every two seasons from the farm won't be enough to keep the budget down. Melvin knows a lot more about our finances than I, but it seems that at some point, we're going to hit a wall if we keep signing high priced FAs and trading our prospects for high-priced veterans. We nearly made the World Series last year, and have a pretty good shot at the division this year. Maybe that's worth the probable sell-off we'll have to have at some point in the future, maybe not. I have faith that Melvin knows what he's doing, but as I said, I do think it's worthy of discussion. Honestly, I think the worries of the 2014 budget will cause us to have a fairly quick trigger finger to have a massive fire sale this year if we're not leading the division come trade deadline, and at the very least having four players making around half your payroll will make it more difficult to extend players like Greinke, and could very well mean that we'll lose 3/5 of our starting rotation after this year. Like you, I think we have some good pitchers coming up, but will we be able to replace Grienke, Marcum and Wolf from our farm and still believe we have any hope of success over the next few years? Or, will we sign a 2nd tier FA pitcher, which has not been Melvin's forte in the past? Or, do we extend Grienke and have around $65MM locked up in five players in 2014 with a relatively weak minor league system trying to fill the other twenty spots? Or, do we trade away more of our farm to keep the MLB team running? All of these options have "warts." I hope it ends up being worth it.

I guess all that money does its work on a guy's ego. But when your skills are declining, and you were just lucky enough to have your number come up at the right time, you might be better off just expressing your gratitude and then shutting up. I have a feeling that if someone turned down a bigger offer from another team in order to remain a Brewer, we'd all be pretty happy, and would think he was a pretty stand-up guy to give us a "home-town discount" instead of taking the most money. That said, I'm glad Melvin moved on and signed Gonzalez right away. Other than the Braun deal, I'm pretty happy with this offseason.

The closest MLB comes to "approving" a drug for use is the "therapeutic use exemption" process, but that process provides no privacy to the player at all. In fact, it requires him to fully waive his privacy with respect to the need to take the medication. A TUE must be issued to a specific player given his specific medical condition and treatment program, as supported by documentation from the physician, and it covers only a specific substance. If a specific drug is not on the list, why would a player even apply for a TUE? And why would MLB grant a TUE for something that is not believed to be banned? The moment they issue a TUE for something not on their list is the moment they will begin to be flooded with TUE requests for everything and anything not specifically on the list by players and agents who "just want to be sure". That's simply not what MLB wants and it's not going to happen. I could see players pulling the Bill Bellicheck move, where he got in trouble with the NFL for not reporting an injury, so now he puts nearly every player on his roster on the injured list as "probable" every week. If Braun is found to have taken something which a doctor gave him the green light on, and is suspended for not telling MLB about it, the players union should tell the players to send a request to MLB every time they take an aspirin for a headache or drink some Gatorade. If the system is as stacked against the players as you have illustrated throughout this thread, then maybe getting 1,000 requests a day from players will force the MLB to look a little closer at the entire process.

The problem with trading Morgan is that we don't have a lot of needs anymore. We have a fairly weak farm system. I'd guess that if we trade him mid-season (after the potential Braun suspension), we would probably get a prospect in return, and I'm fine with that. Morgan has more value to the Brewers than he does on the trade market. I doubt that he'd bring back much in a trade, largely because of his reputation as a flake at best -or a cancer at worst. If Meltdown Bradley continued to get jobs with his antics, teams would take on Morgan. The Milwaukee fans' reaction to last year's antics probably helped his case a lot... teams like selling merchandise, and the T Plush merchandise was hot in Milwaukee last season. If he continues to put up decent numbers, which he should if Roenicke continues to use him correctly, he should be very tradeable once Braun returns.

I'd rather trade Nyjer. I think that's the most likely option. If Braun beats the suspension, trade Morgan now. If Braun is suspended, my guess is that we will start next year with Aoki in LF, Morgan/Gomez in CF and Hart in RF. Once Braun is back, we'll look to trade Morgan and move Aoki into CF. If Morgan continues to play predominantly against RHP, then he should be able to put up decent numbers, and someone in need of a CF should be willing to trade something for him. Mid season, it would likely be a prospect. Of course, as I mentioned earlier a lot can happen in the first two months of the season which could change this. Things are falling into place nicely, as Aoki gives us a decent option for a leadoff hitter. A lineup of Aoki, Hart, Braun, Ramirez, Weeks, Gamel, Lucroy, Gonzalez, pitcher looks pretty good to me.

Wasn't Darvish the player who spoke out against the posting system and contemplated not coming to America to play until he was out of contract because he doesn't think the Japanese team should make money by essentially selling him?

Here's a link to what constitutes libel (print) and slander (verbal). http://www.medialaw.org/C...ibel_FAQs/Libel_FAQs.htm Important parts: The defamatory statement must also have been made with fault. The extent of the fault depends primarily on the status of the plaintiff. Public figures, such as government officials, celebrities, well-known individuals, and people involved in specific public controversies, are required to prove actual malice, a legal term which means the defendant knew his statement was false or recklessly disregarded the truth or falsity of his statement. In most jurisdictions, private individuals must show only that the defendant was negligent: that he failed to act with due care in the situation. and While on many of these issues the burden of proof is on the plaintiff, the primary defenses to a defamation claim are that the statements are true, are not statements of fact, or are privileged. Braun would have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the reporter at ESPN knew that what he was reporting was false. Burnzy24: Braun could make pretty decent argument that there ESPN recklessly disregarded the truth if in fact all along it was his medication that caused the failed test No, Braun would have to prove that the ESPN reporter knew that the medication caused the failed test and instead said that something else caused it. Since no one outside of Braun, MLB and the testing facility know what caused the failed test (if even they know), I think the reporter has a pretty good defense that he didn't know what caused the failed test, and therefore did not recklessly disregard the truth. He printed what he believed to be the truth (and what actually may be the truth). Burnzy24: This is considering that audio interview that was linked in this thread with T.J Quinn who was one of the two reporters who broke the story admitted that he intentionally left out of his story the statements made by Braun's camp, categorically dismissed any of Braun's claims as false, and basically stated that the fact the MLB has never overturned failed test means that Braun is guilty. IIRC, he said that Braun's camp would not show evidence or expand on answers, so he left it out. Showing a bias is not proof of malice, or else we would not have any media in this country. Which is unbiased, Fox News, MSNBC, CNN, ABC, NBC, CBS, The New York Times, The Washington Post? Plus, I believe there is a distinction between a "news piece" and an "opinion piece." Any case would have to be in regards to "news" reported by ESPN, and not something said as an opinion by a commentator. The news is that Braun failed the tests, and that appears to be true. If true, that is supposed to lead to a 50-game suspension, so no slander there. Seemingly every athlete to ever fail a test has said they were innocent, so it would be hard to prove slander if the author wasn't stopping the presses when Braun said "This is B.S." Actually, I believe ESPN has quoted Braun's claims. It's not slanderous if a host says he doesn't beleive the claims. It is very, very hard to win a libel or slander case, and Braun just doesn't seem to have much of a case. He did have an initial positive and the subsequent test showed exogenous testoterone. If that is indeed fact, or were the facts as a reliable source leaked them, then what did the reporters say that was in reckless disregard for the truth? I feel very bad for Braun that this got out. I'm not an attorney, but if if Braun is proven innocent, and I were him, I would try to get MLB to issue a statement of fact, so that the public knows the truth, and would try to find out who leaked the story and go after that person, and that person's employer. However, I believe that if he tries to go after ESPN for slander, he will almost assuredly lose. If he's really upset with them, maybe he could work with the players' union to write something in the next contract that would disallow ESPN from using his image :-)

ESPN will not be sued. It is virtually impossible to win a lawsuit against a media outlet for defamation of character, libel or anything of the sort. Plenty of people in the entertainment industry have been wrongly drug through the mud by the media, and they just have to take it. Braun would essentially have to prove that there was malice, which would basically take a statement by the president of ESPN saying they purposely went out of their way to ruin Braun. The media has "worked with" politicians to set things up pretty nicely so that they can say or do almost anything and not be liable for their actions. ESPN's biggest worry would be that people would stop watching, but I'd bet that the next time the Badgers played a game on ESPN, everyone in Wisconsin would tune it, so that's not much of a worry. Now, the person who leaked the story could be sued, and if they worked for MLB, MLB could be sued. However, "protecting their source" is something the media does quite well, so I doubt the person who leaked the story will ever be found out. And, if you were Braun, would you sue MLB while you are still playing?

I like Hart, but I'm not averse to them trading him for the right return. However, unless Braun is found innocent, I don't think now's the time to make the trade (unless money makes it an absolute necessity), as an OF of Aoki, Morgan, Gindl for 50 games would not strike fear in the hearts of opponents. If he were to be traded before the season starts, I doubt he would be traded for a "MLB proven" SP, unless it was a trade which included on of our current SP, for which we'd need a huge return. I think we'll wait to see how the first part of the season plays out. If we're not at or near the top of the division we'll see a lot of moves mid-season, with guys like Hart, Greinke, Wolf and Marcum being dangled for youth. If signed, someone like Aoki could help us win this year, and also gives us a relatively inexpensive lead-off hitter for a few seasons, and depth allowing us some flexibility. To some other points, -many knowledgeable people are saying Aoki would be a LF due to arm strength, but how much arm strength does a CF need? Morgan has a weak arm, so how would Aoki compare to Morgan? -I highly doubt Braun is going to 1B. He's not nearly as bad as some on this site make him out to be. If anything, he'll move to RF, allowing a weaker-armed player (Aoki??) to play LF. -Gamel is probably going to get a lot of leash at 1B (at least if Melvin has any say in the matter). He has no options left, so they either stick with him and see how he does for the season, or else they give up on him. Since they've now blocked Green and potentially blocked Schafer/Gindl, Gamel is the only real hope of having an impact league minimum bat for the foreseeable future (Lucroy's in the "good for a catcher" club, but isn't going to win any batting titles). -I don't know how the Japanese stats would translate to MLB, but I would like having a guy who hits LH and can play everyday, makes contact and gets on base at the top of our order. The problem is that if he can't play CF, he would play a position currently occupied by two of our best hitters. It may make sense to trade Hart, but is Aoki good enough to justify trading away a player of Hart's caliber? -This also shows a limitation of statistical analysis... we will probably never have enough Japanese players in the MLB to allow for reasonable expectations, so unless the system changes, teams really have to rely on their "old school" scouts to make any kind of determination on these players.

I doubt that the best hitter coming over from Japan would sign with a team that was looking at using him in the "Kotsay role." If he signs, there will probably be some type of guarantee that he'll be starting (maybe not binding, but at least an informal promise). That said, he should be assured of 50 games in LF to start the season if Braun is suspended. If not for the suspension, the easy answer would be to trade Morgan, or (as Briggs mentioned above) trade Hart for a big haul. With the suspension, and with hopes of the playoffs, I don't know if we trade someone right away... Aoki, Morgan/Gomez, Hart could keep us afloat for 50 games. Going forward, a lot can happen in the time Braun may be suspended, such as an injury or a really good or bad start by the team, which could impact what we do from there. If someone gets hurt, we need the depth. If we get off to a really good start, we have more talent on the bench when Braun's back. If we get off to a terrible start, we could look at trading Hart while he has 1.5 years of control left and would bring back a lot in terms of prospects. If no one is hurt and we're somewhere in the middle record-wise, then the best bat plays between Aoki, Morgan and Gomez, but I'd guess Melvin would be working the phone to put together the best trade he could for (in likely order) Morgan, Gomez, Hart and Aoki. As for the price tag, the posting fee would be essentially what we won't be paying Braun during the suspension, but even with that, we have to be getting pretty close to tapped out financially, so it will be interesting to see what Melvin does.

I read that they're already around $100MM in salary. At this point, we couldn't even sign Prince if he'd agree to do a one-year deal.

Practically everyone has herpes these days, What???