monty57

I agree that sending McGehee down could have bad consequences, so I think the move doesn't have to be that drastic. Simply bring up Green to "soft platoon" with McGehee. All your losing is the bad SS (Counsell, Wilson or Betancourt) who would be replaced by Green. Green wouldn't be "thrown to the wolves," as he'd be eased in by starting in a platoon. You wouldn't garner mutiny by McGehee's friends on the team by sending him to the minors (if that would be an issue, as they have to know he's been terrible). If both players are bad, you're no worse off than you are now. If one player plays well, he gets the majority of the playing time. If both play well, then we've gone from a terrible situation to a great situation.

So you think by trading Fielder, who we will lose anyway, Axford, who while good is replaceable by K-Rod, Greinke who has an ERA over 5 and Marcum that we will go back to laughingstock status? I think a first-place (or near first place) team that puts itself up for a fire sale will be laughed at by everyone in and around baseball... Everyone that is except for the suckers that have been buying tickets. They'll simply stop buying tickets to games, which will take our $90-ish million payroll down to around a $60-70-ish million payroll. Talk to people off this site. People who don't live, sleep, eat and breathe Brewers baseball. It's hard to convince long-time fans that we're not the "same old Brewers." These fans were lied to (or at least felt they were lied to) for years by the Selig regime. Trading Fielder, Axford, Greinke and Marcum right now would send fans screaming for the door, and rightfully so. I don't know if you've ever run a business, but even if "selling" now was a good baseball move, it is certainly a bad business move, as Mark A would immediately lose all of the goodwill he's worked so hard for since taking over the helm. Posters here may scoff at the "casual fan," but their money is as green as ours, and they outnumber us by a long-shot. Without them, we cannot have a successful franchise. Many of these fans can't name our own prospects, so trading a potential league MVP in the middle of a pennant race for a group of prospects wouldn't go over well. Maybe, just maybe, if all the prospects you would get by trading Fielder, Axford, Greinke and Marcum pan out, and we find ourselves in a pennant race again in 3 or 4 years, some of these fans might think about coming back out to a game. Until then, it'd be really easy to get good seats to a game, and Attansio's new "demand-based pricing" would blow up in his face.

The linked article said the Mets would pick up a "substantial" portion of Beltran's contract, while the ESPN crawl last night said they would pick up all of it. They're certainly looking for some top-tier talent in return, and the Brewers aren't in position for that. Just upgrade SS and bring up Green and I'll be happy.

Why do they have the best odds now than they've ever had as a franchise? If that was in response to my post, I said: " the Brewers have better odds of winning the World Series this year than they have had in most of their existence." They had better odds of winning the World Series in 1982, when they were in the series, and in 2008 when they were in the playoffs, but there haven't been a lot of situations in the Brewers existence where they've had better odds at making the playoffs / winning it all than they have right now. The roster as it's constructed today may not even be good enough to win the division. True, but then again, it may. That said, I would be surprised if no more moves are made prior to trading deadline. It shouldn't take much to pry someone like Jamey Carroll from the cash-starved Dodgers. If we pay the salary, we probably get him for little-to-nothing in terms of prospects. I'd certainly rather do that than trade away Fielder because we may not be able to beat the Yankees in the World Series.

Yes, winning the World Series is hard. Only one team each year does it. The odds are against any individual team winning the World Series, so by the logic of this thread (the odds are against the Brewers winning the World Series, so they should sell), then every team should sell every year. If you can see the flawed logic in that, then you can see the flawed logic to this whole thread. In reality, the Brewers have better odds of winning the World Series this year than they have had in most of their existence. If you would like to trade that away, then I'd have to disagree with you, as would probably 99.9% of the 3,000,000 or so fans who walk through Miller Park's gates. Off the top of my head, selling now would: 1) Alienate the fan base 2) Destroy your chances for the playoffs now and potentially in the future 3) Cost yourself revenue from the playoffs this season and from a diminished fan base going forward 4) Upset your television execs who apparently just signed a bigger-money deal with you, as they'd benefit from the increased viewership of a playoff race. That would likely lead to ad execs being wary of dealing with you in the future 5) Make future free agents wary of joining the Brewers, or signing off on being traded to the Brewers if they're on the no-trade. I remember being laughed at for being a Brewers fan. We were a joke of a franchise and that's probably why we averaged around 10,000 or so fans per game in the mid-90's to mid 2000's. It has been a long road back to respectability, and "selling" now would be a big step in returning the Brewers to laughing-stock status. If we lose the rest of the games this month leading up to trade deadline, or if multiple key players get season-ending injuries then sure, we think about selling. In almost any other case it would be a terrible move.

I'd prefer a team that can compete every season, not one and possibly two season before dropping off significantly. Since the dawn of free agency, how many teams can do that? Really you're looking at the Yankees and Red Sox, and even they have been beat out by the Rays in the recent past. The Braves did it when they had the Superstation backing them. Who else is a playoff contender year in & year out? The Twins have done a good job of being "competitve" in a small market, and St Louis is in the hunt fairly often. The Cubs made a big World Series push a few years ago, and they're paying for it now. The Phillies (most losses of any team in history) are good now, but they signed a lot of top-heavy contracts to win while the sun's shining before they'll probably flounder while some of the contracts work their way off the books. I guess everyone would like to open Spring Training with the World Series realisitically in their sites, but that's not often the case. I'm happy the Brewers have a good team this year. I'm happy they should have a good team next year. I hope they'll make moves between now and 2013 that will make them good beyond next year, but I don't want those moves "for the future" to take us out of playoff contention today. All is not perfect in Mudville, but it's certainly better than it's been for most of my life, and I don't want to spend too much time lamenting what could be when I could be enjoying what is.

I know it's sometimes easy to dismiss the playoffs if you don't win the World Series, but I'd bet every fan on here can name the playoff appearances the Brewers have had. With the Brewers' history, the chance to win the Central is huge, even if we don't make the World Series, and I wouldn't just dismiss the team and say they're an automatic one-and-done. We have a very good starting rotation, one of the best 8th/9th inning combos in baseball and a lot of offensive talent. Anyone can win in the playoffs, and Marcum, Greinke, Yo, Wolf give us a good chance to win any series. If we decided the future looks bleak, we would likely wait until after this season and then trade off some combo of Marcum, Greinke and Wolf, who would all command decent return this offseason. More likely, I think they'll try to extend at least one of Marcum and / or Greinke, pencil Gamel in at 1B and use some of the Fielder/Hawkins/Betancourt/Saito/Counsell money to find a real SS. The Central's weak and will get weaker when Pujols leaves St Louis. We'll have a good shot at the playoffs again next year even without Fielder.

It is murky, but what I'm saying is that I don't believe K-Rod will be "designated 8th inning guy" the way Roenicke would like it. I'd guess it will be a situation where Axford is "usually" the closer, but doesn't always get the save oppotrunities when both are rested. K-Rod will "usually" get the 8th inning, but not always. I'd guess that there will be times when Roenicke uses Axford to set up for K-Rod, or just gives K-Rod the 9th when both pitchers are rested. While I don't think this is the best way to do it, I don't think K-Rod would have waived the option unless he was promised to be at least part-time closer. That said, Axford is going to be on the team past this season, so Roenicke needs to make sure he doesn't feel like he lost his job. There will be periods where the pitchers will be overused and periods where they will need work. You're correct that K-Rod couldn't be both "8th inning guy" and closer, so Roenicke will actually have to manage the pen to make sure his pitchers get rest. This scares me a bit, because Roenicke certainly appears to be a manager who likes to designate specific roles (Closer, 8th inning guy, LOOGY, etc) and not veer from those roles. I'm sure Roenicke would prefer to simply name one of them closer and one of them "8th inning guy," so it will be interesting to see how it plays out. It is a perfect situation to put Axford in the closer role, and K-Rod in the old "Marmol role" of entering in the most critical situations. I just don't see it happening. Boras would be in an uproar if his star client continually appeared in the 5th-7th innings. The way baseball's pay scale is set up, guys who appear in those innings don't make the money of the guys who appear in the 9th inning. The "Save" stat may not be important in judging a pitcher's talent, but it certainly adds to his paycheck.

What I meant is that Axford could get 70% or so of the save opportunities, and K-Rod the other 30%. Not a "closer by committee" situation, but some days when both are rested, K-Rod will get called on. I don't think this is the best way to handle it, but I think K-Rod waiving his option was done with some kind of guarantee that he will get to save some games.

I refuse to believe DM is stupid and doesn't understand they need a lefty in the pen. I would guess that any lefty we acquire (either through trade or bringing someone up) would replace Dillard, but I'm still concerned that any injury to a starter will hurt us badly as Estrada was our #6 starter, performed well as a fill-in at the beginning of the season, and now is not stretched out to start. Estrada should go back down to start in the AAA rotation, and Loe / Dillard should be able to handle the "long guy" role for the few times this season we need it. In the meantime, would it be worth bringing up Narron? Unless Estrada gets stretched out, Narron is likely our #6 starter. Seeing Marcum leave with a sore shoulder yesterday once again awoke my concerns that we are really close to seeing Narron as a regular starter at the Major League level.

While it makes tons of sense, K-Rod won't be used in the "critical situation" role. He's going to be a free agent and wants to be able to "prove" he can still close games, so he and Axford will be Closers A & B. Axford will get most of the opportunities, so he can feel he hasn't lost his job, but K-Rod will get plenty of closing opportunities and will be the "8th inning guy" for the rest of his outings. Higher profile, higher contract after the season. As for the 6th & 7th, I hope/expect most of the times we have a lead in the 6th inning, our starter is still pitching. Then Saito/Hawkins can take the 7th leading to K-Rod/Axford. When we're up or down big, I expect to see Estrada, the "long guy" to eat up a few innings and rest the 'pen. When we're down a few, I expect Loe and Dillard with a spattering of Saito/Hawkins, only seeing Axford or K-Rod if they haven't pitched in a few days. Yesterday's game where we saw Saito and Hawkins pitch instead of Loe in a 4-2 game gives me hope that Roenicke is coming around and realizing that Loe isn't better than Saito or Hawkins.

I've been pretty hard on Loe, but my gripe is mainly over the way he's been used. As it stands right now, he deserves a spot on the roster, as he's better than other options we have. However, I worry that as long as he's on the roster, Roenicke will continue to believe that he's our 3rd best reliever behind Axford and K-Rod. If was nice to see Hawkins and Saito enter the game ahead of Loe yesterday (when we had a 2-run lead to hold), and if that trend continues, and Loe is used mainly when we are down in games or when three righties are due up in the inning, then I think he can provide value to the Brewers. If Roenicke names Loe his "7th inning guy," then Melvin needs to replace Loe (or Roenicke) with someone else.

Baldkin, thanks for the link to WPA. Sorry for all the long-winded posts. I think it's a mix of frustration at Roenicke's leaving Loe as the "8th inning guy" and being in a sleep-deprived state when typing the posts. Basically, I'm glad that Roenicke now has no excuse to call Loe his 8th inning guy, and I'm happy that Melvin is showing that he is going to upgrade this team heading into the "2nd half." If we can find an upgrade at SS and make the seemingly no-brainer move of calling up Taylor Green, we would have shored up most of our notable holes.

First of all WAR is not an abstract stat at all, you can easily take the time to learn how it is calculated. People do not just watch games and then arbitrarily assign some WAR to every player based on their guts. Arbitrary has multiple meanings. I didn't intend to say it was made up or non-factual. I meant that WAR does not take situations into effect. If a reliever enters a game when their team is tied or winning and leaves with their team losing, that is a reality which WAR does not consider. Like most statistical measures, it measures performance but not situation. Also, WAR compares all relievers equally, when a "setup guy" or "closer" should not be compared to a "mop up guy." Actually going over the game log the count is 8 I don't have time or a fast enough internet connection at present to go through every game log to see the exact number of times Loe has come into a game with the Brewers tied or ahead and gave up that lead or tie, but he has seven losses and one save in seven opportunities, so I said "about 10." I'll trust scrapiron that the number is 8, which I consider "about 10." You are saying if we replaced Loe in these 10 losses with anyone they would have been perfect and turned all those games from losses into wins. and You're saying that, if RR had put somebody (anybody?) other than Loe in as our 8th inning guy, we would be ten games better. We would be 59-33, the best team in baseball, a game and a half better than the Phillies, with at least a ten-game lead over St. Louis, if only Loe had not pitched the 8th inning. No I'm not saying that. I didn't say I was measuring anything in a relative manner. He entered games with a tie score or a lead in the 8th inning and exited with the team losing. Sure no one's perfect, but he's still accountable for what he's done. If you do want to measure him in a relative manner (not that that would help the Brewers' win/loss), then measure him against other teams' setup guys, and not some mythical "replacement relief pitcher," which of course is going to be worse than I'd ever want to see as a setup guy for a playoff-caliber team. The bottom line is that Loe has blown a lot of leads for the Brewers. To look at this in a relative sense, let's take a look at the Phillies. As a team they have three blown saves. Loe has six himself. If the "8" number from above is correct, and we had K-Rod as the setup guy instead of Loe from day one, we would probably have 6-7 more wins than we currently have, and we may well be ahead of the Phillies. We would certainly be several games up on the Cardinals. Of course K-Rod isn't "waReplacement level." If we had "waReplacement player" we'd be in the same boat we're in. I don't want a "replacement player" setting up Axford, but unfortunately that is what we've had with Loe. Actually going over the game log the count is 8, with three of those losses he's been tagged with being two 2-1 losses and one 1-0 loss. I blame the offense in those contests more than Loe. If the offense had scored more runs, Loe wouldn't have been in the game. You are going to have games where the offense scores 0-1-2 runs. In those games the pitchers have to fill their roles. In the above examples, the starters and any relievers leading up to Loe filled their roles. Loe didn't, so he is most at fault. The Brewers are only 8-11 in games Marcum has started, so if he would have just thrown a shutout every outing he wouldn't have cost us those 11 games Many of those losses were because we had a lead when Marcum left and the ball was handed off to Loe. Everyone has a role on a team. Marcum has fulfilled his role most of the time. Loe has failed at the "8th inning guy" role, although he certainly has the ability to be okay if used correctly. Stats like WAR take things in a vaccuum and assume situations will even out over time. For the "setup guys" and "closers," the situation's almost always the same, and one run is much more important for them than it is for a "mopup guy." If Loe had been pitching this season as a middle reliever (and was used sparingly against LHP), his results may indeed look better. He has been used in critical situations, and he has failed in these situations enough that we needed him to be replaced. We now have a very good replacement, and it will make the team a lot better. "About 10" games is too many if considered on a relative basis, but I'll stand by the assertation that the way Loe pitched as an 8th inning guy cost us more games than we would have saved by putting an average SS on the field instead of Yuni. Again, this is in a "this is what actually occurred" sense and not in a situational vaccuum sense.

I know it's already 20 pages in, but I'll throw in my two cents: 1) First off, great trade. We've always been on the opposite side of these deals, or we've watched bigger money teams taking from the smaller market teams (the Aramis Ramirez & Kenny Lofton for Bobby Hill trade comes to mind), so it's good to see Milwaukee getting one over on New York. 2) Sure SS and 3B may be more pressing needs, but we just got a significant upgrade for basically nothing. Having K-Rod and Axford also means that Loe should definitely not see the 8th inning in close games. I don't care what an abstract stat says, putting Loe in the 8th inning has cost us around ten games this year. That boneheaded move has hurt us more than anything else this season, and it hopefully will be cured with this acquisition. 3) By costing us almost nothing (monetarily or in top prospects), we should still have the ability to add a SS, and this trade just verified to me that Melvin isn't blind to our problems, and will work to correct them. If we could use the same financial leverege to land Reyes or Furcal, I'd be thrilled. Just getting an average player will help the team substantially. 4) As to why the Mets would do this, I'll give my best "real world example." Assume you and your spouse have good jobs and have taken on payments for a house, cars, RVs, motorcycles, you name it. Now you lose your job, and you can no longer make all the payments. You may very well be willing to give the motorcycles, RVs and anything else away to anyone who will take over the payments just so you don't go into bankruptcy. You're willing to take some losses to save more important assets. Certainly not a perfect comparison, but the Mets owners lost money in the Madoff fiasco and now are in financial trouble. The "toys" they bought a few years ago are too expensive for them now, so they need to divest themselves of some of the expensive ones in order to not lose the franchise.

"Things can change during the season but Carlos is our center fielder," said Roenicke. "I think (the trade) adds to the depth on our bench. That was Roenicke, not Melvin. I'll agree that Roenicke seems clueless on many occasions, but I doubt Melvin would have traded for Morgan if he truly thought Gomez was the answer. Especially considering the fact that they benched Gomez last year. Yuni was part of the Greinke deal, and was probably forced on us. Add that we're on page 45 and still no one has come up with a valid option that was available at SS prior to the season, and I can't bag on Melvin too much for having Gomez and Yuni on the team to start the season. Now, there is an obvious need to upgrade the SS position, and since we're in 1st place nearing trade deadline, I'd guess something will happen. I just hope it happens sooner rather than later.

Calling up Green and dumping any one of the 3 SS players may be the only potential upgrade. That would be a big one. Taking Loe out of the "8th inning guy" role in favor of some mix of Hawkins/Saito/Braddock would be the biggest upgrade we could make, although it may not truly classify as an "upgrade" so much as an "adjustment." Replacing Kotsay with one of the .900-OPS guys in AAA would be a good one too.

In just the recent Twins series for example, twice he failed to get to balls hit that i'd guess about 90% of major league shortstops turn into outs. In both cases, it came with two outs that should have ended the inning, but the Twins ended up scoring a total of five runs after the innings stayed alive because Yuni moves like he has on 10 pound ankle weights. This happens a lot and his bad defensive stats back up my eyes. In the first inning of the second Arizona game, K.Johnson hits a ball barely to the right of Yuni, he whiffed yet again and the guy came around to score and kept the inning alive longer in which four runs scored. Therein lies the paradox with "defensive stats." They are all based on someone's guess of what other defensive players would do in the same situation. I'm not saying Yuni's a good defender... he's not ...but since I assume you watch most of the Brewers' games, I'd say your guess is probably as good as the person paid to make the guess, so really the defensive stats don't prove anything more than your eyes. Back on topic, does anybody know the number of days McGehee would need to stay down in the minors for him to not get an arby hearing? It would be interesting to see how that plays out should the circumstance arrive. I posed that question earlier as well, and it will be interesting if we send him down and it causes him to be pre-arby again next year. It could certainly be argued that he deserves to be sent down, but Melvin could get black-listed by the union if it looks to them like McGehee's being sent down just for monetary reasons (after the Hardy case).

It's not just Loe facing lefties. He's bad against righties too when he gets the ball up. The thing is you can tell whether Loe has his good stuff or not from the first batter he faces. So I would assume that Hanel, who has been in the 'pen forever, ought to be able to see if he's on and relay that information to Roenicke. If we didn't absolutely need to label someone "8th inning guy," then using Hanel's judgement might be a sensible alternative. Those six guys have accounted for 36.4% of Milwaukee's plate appearances thus far. That's including pitchers hitting so they've accounted for an even higher percentage of the team's position player PA's. Doing a quick and dirty calculation of OBP, I get .273 cumulative for those 6 guys. Calculating slugging would take pretty long but considering that only 2 of those guys have slugging percentages over .330, it's safe to say that their cumulative slugging percentage isn't too pretty either. edit: I went ahead and calculated slugging percentage for those 6 as well. I get .320. So, their cumulative OPS is .593. If only we had anyone in AAA who were hitting the ball well hwo could replace some of these guys... Doug hired Ned because of his enthusiasm; that was made clear. In Macha, I'd guess that he was looking for a strategic improvement. In Roenicke, I think he was turned on once again by enthusiasm. I think Doug looked at Scioscia's success with the Angels and Maddon's success as a manager after his tenure under Scoscia and thought that being a Scioscia underling was a magic formula to becoming a successful manager. Either that or they shared a moment over the soft-spot in both of their hearts for washed-up veterans. For all those times when someone sarcastically asks if fans would prefer a computer manager... at this point, it'd be worth a try. I'd take the Angels' rally monkey over Roenicke.

If Casey were sent down to AAA, and Gamel/Green did well at third, prompting Casey to spend the rest of the season at Nashville, how would that effect his arbitration status?

A .690 OPS would be rank 11th among shortstops. I understand that almost all of that is offset by awful defense...but it's worth pointing out that that isn't a terrible line for a SS. I agree with just about everyone that I would be happier if Yuni wasn't playing SS...but I don't think that problem has a solution unless Melvin makes a tradeBut you are comparing his best month to what everyone else has done all year. For the year, Yuni's at .604, only leading Ian Desmond of Washington. I knew he wasn't a good hitter, but I expected a lot more from Yuni at the plate this season than he has shown. He has been bad.

That has to do with Roenicke managing like an AL manager, where we constantly pinch hit for lefty/righty matchups and bring in defensive replacements, so that we end up with nobody left on the bench when the pitcher's spot comes up late in the game. At that point in the game, Morgan and Braun were the only players left on the bench, and Braun's hurt, so Morgan got the call. It could have been really bad if Braun had to bat in the 9th. If he has to go on the DL (not looking likely, but still a possibility), it would've pushed his timetable back quite a ways. To your point, I agree that Morgan could've started. I'd have rather seen him in LF than Wilson.

To be fair, it would have been hard for any GM to account for Hart, Greinke, Lucroy, Hawkins, Braddock, Parra, Saito... did I miss any ...getting hurt at the same time to start the season. Blaming a GM because they "should have seen the injuries coming" is getting a bit nit-picky. I am frustrated that we're watching a bunch of gimps playing far too much when we have better players in AAA, but much of the angst here and elsewhere is because Melvin has assembled the most talented team in the NL Central and we're blowing it. Some is on Melvin for not making a few seemingly no-brainer moves. Much is on Roenicke for things such as continuing to play Loe in the 8th inning even though everyone's healthy and playing Kotsay in CF even when Morgan & Gomez are healthy, etc.

and a bullpen based on a wish and a prayer that a 41 year old Saito still has it and a bunch of other retreads and hopefuls..... I don't think the bullpen would be bad if Roenicke would just realize that Loe isn't the "8th inning guy," and he shouldn't be used against lefties. If we have Axford as closer, Braddock, Saito, Hawkins as 7th/8th inning/tight situation guys, we have a good back end to the 'pen. Roenicke's use of Loe (and of Green when he was here) has cost us more than anything else this year, including Betancourt and McGehee.

and has always struck me as being close to Miller Park without a roof, I know someone who used to work in baseball, and he told me the stadiums were built on the same basic design. Miller was the last park built on that design, and I believe whatever they call the White Sox stadium these days was the first one built on that design.