monty57

WTP, I'm not calling for a Hart trade, but I think we need to keep an open mind about him. He is not someone like Braun, around whom you build a team. When/if the time comes that we have a corner OF at AAA that looks to be a solid MLB player, we can do one of four things: 1) Trade Hart and promote the prospect 2) Trade the prospect 3) Keep the prospect in AAA until Hart's contract expires 4) Bring the prospect up to sit the bench. If the prospect is MLB ready, I don't like them wasting time in AAA, and I don't necessarily like the idea of getting draft picks for a player if you could reasonably replace the player and get more in trade than you could expect from the draft compensation. Therefore, if our OF prospects continue to develop, at some point we are either going to have to trade Hart or trade the prospects. Either one could be a viable option, depending on the circumstances, but since the Brewers are always going to be constrained by a "mid-level" budget, it may at some point be feasible to trade Hart and promote a prospect. While for the most part I was against extending Hart, Werth's offseason FA contract makes Hart (a similar player with a much lower salary) a fairly valuable trading chip at some point in the future. There are a lot of moving parts, and therefore there are thousands of possible scenarios which could develop. I hope Melvin is at least open to listening to offers for Hart when he feels someone like Komatsu, Gindl, Schafer, etc is ready to step in.

Not trying to be sarcastic at all. The sentence "If the Brewers pushed their prospects a little we could see whether or not Komatsu were able" gave me the impression that Paul is hinting that we should put Komatsu in the majors now, before he's probably ready, and let him sink or swim. I don't think we should do that, especially when we are in first place in the Central, and especially when in an earlier post Paul mentioned trading Hart for a A/AA prospect, which would lessen the talent on this year's team and hurt our chance at the playoffs. Playoff teams don't trade their All-Stars for prospects mid-season... they trade their prospects for All-Stars. If that is not what Paul meant, than I mis-read his intent. I wasn't trying to be sarcastic. As I mentioned earlier, I'm fine with trading Hart "when we have someone reasonably capable of replacing him for a lower price and we can use the trade to increase our talent level elsewhere." That may be this offseason, it may be next season's trading deadline (probably only if we're out of it), and it quite likely would be after next season, as our prospects will certainly be MLB-ready by then.

If by "pushed" you mean sending them to the majors before they are ready, then I don't agree. I don't believe they'd trade him this season for a AA prospect, pinning their playoff hopes on an untested (and not highly rated) rookie. The Brewers have several OF prospects who have the potential to make Hart expendable, but I hope they wait until they are reasonably sure that they're ready before pulling the trigger. That may be this offseason, in which case Hart would be a nice trading chip, and the salary relief (along with losing Prince, Yuni, Hawkins, Saito, Counsell, etc) would go a long ways towards improving our team for the future. Hopefully the money will go to land a top-of-the-line SS like Reyes, Rollins or Furcal, but there is also the possibility of trading Hart for a good, young SS and we'd have extra cash for doing something like extending Marcum and Greinke.

Did not expect that to happen this season. Crazy.And if it were to happen, I thought it would be closer to .700 than .600.

It's not like he's using a guy with a .590 OPS to pinch-hit as the tying run when there's a .750 OPS guy available. But Roenicke can't pinch hit with Green, Boggs, Gamel, etc unless they're promoted. Therefore, he has to use the .590 OPS guys he's been handed. Oh wait, wrong topic.

When do we trade Corey Hart? When we have someone reasonably capable of replacing him for a lower price and we can use the trade to increase our talent level elsewhere. -We certainly aren't going to trade him this season -It is a possibility this offseason, if someone from the minors looks ready to step in and we get a good offer for Hart. -It looks very possible after next season, as the prospects will no longer be knocking, they will be pounding the door off the hinges. While I believe Hart to be replaceable, I certainly don't want to trade him this offseason for an A/AA prospect if I believe his MLB replacement would be a downgrade. If some combination of Gindl/Schafer/Komatsu/etc could reasonably be expected to provide similar value at a cheaper price (not relative value, but absolute value) and we could use the salary relief to sign a top-tier SS and we picked up a "can't miss" AA prospect, then that would be hard to pass up.

Sure, if some other team were dumb enough to claim him instead of waiting a few days and picking him up for league minimum. Edit: Actually, let me restate that. We'd be completely off the hook if some team claimed him. I believe KC is already paying us for the 2012 buyout.

Doing something like throwing high fastballs could lead to more K's and more flyballs... flyballs which may be outs in KC but HRs in Milwaukee. Plus, we don't have great OF defense, especially when Kotsay and {cough, cough} Almonte were out there. Earlier posters said it was his fastball that was the problem this season, and maybe this is part of it. A hard hit ball to a good OF in a spacious stadium leads to an out. A hard hit ball to Mark Kotsay in Miller Park is either a HR or extra bases.

Or you're committed to the notion that Betancourt does anything well enough to stick ahead of Counsell & Wilson. That's basically comparing three turds and deciding which is the shiniest. Counsell's not good, but he's left-handed, so he stays. I'd try moving Wilson to AAA as insurance, and I doubt anyone claims him, so we could probably get him there. If we think we don't need insurance, and are confident in Counsell playing every day, or having Maysonet in a MLB platoon if we have an injury, then we cut Betancourt. Really, if we lost any of our three current MLB SS's, it wouldn't be too big a deal. Bringing up Green makes us a better team, and if brought up he should be given the opportunity to play and not stuck to rot on the bench.

Their being Type A is what causes them to cost so much. The trading team could hold onto the reliever and receive a first rounder and a supplemental pick. If traded, this right is transferred to the team which receives the Type A player.Therefore, the price tag has to start at that value, and any marginal price increase is determined by the value of the player for three months. There are also present value/future value considerations as well as service time and possible "flame out" considerations, but the statement above is as clean as I could put it. Since we really don't have any former 1st rounders left worth trading, any trade for a Type A would probably cost us 2-3 of our top 10-15 prospects. As another poster stated, since Heath Bell would cost at least close to as much as a Type A SS, if we were to trade away prospects, I would rather trade them for a SS than for a reliever, as the Brewers need to replace Yuni far more than they need to replace Axford.

I am all for bringing Taylor Green up at this point. My question is who's place does he take on the 25 man roster? I would say Counsell or Wilson. I think I would rather have Wilson than Counsell. I'd look for a way to sneak Wilson to AAA so we have him in case of injury. He's not playing anyway, so might as well get his reps in at Nashville. It's not like Maysonet is the answer. It's unreal that we're nearing the end of June and we're still arguing over roster moves that should of been made right out of spring training. Ugh. It makes me want to puke What gets me is that we have in-house solutions at 3B and backup OF and we're not using them. SS is harder because we don't have an in-house option, but why we continue to keep three bad SS's on the MLB roster instead of bringing up either Taylor Green as a LH option at 3B or Boggs as a good, switch-hitting bat off the bench is mind-boggling. We're forced to watch Casey struggle everyday and see either Wilson or Gomez as our primary RH bat in crucial late-game situations, so I'd be happy to see either of those things remedied. Both of them getting fixed would be even better. A secondary result of this poor roster management is that with Wheeler healthy, Green is playing 2B and Farris is sitting the bench. He may not be in the future plans for the Brewers, but at least he's a good trade chip. Some GM would really value those high SB numbers, which he can't pile up on the bench. Bringing up Green makes sense for the Brewers' roster (very important) and Nashville's roster (not as important, but still something the GM should consider).

Because of the size of the outfield at Kauffman Stadium and the strength of the Royals’ outfielders, relative to their infielders, it sometimes made more sense to induce fly balls. So in realizing that the Brewers have no strengths on defense, he's just trying to strike everyone out. He does need to realize he's not in Kauffman Stadium anymore... in Miller Park those long fly balls are called home runs.

Because of the size of the outfield at Kauffman Stadium and the strength of the Royals’ outfielders, relative to their infielders, it sometimes made more sense to induce fly balls. So in realizing that the Brewers have no strengths on defense, he's just trying to strike everyone out. He does need to realize he's not in Kauffman Stadium anymore... in Miller Park those long fly balls are called home runs.

For those looking at trading for Reyes and then extending him, wouldn't it make more sense just to hold onto Fielder through the year and then sign Reyes in the offseason? Fielder is putting up an MVP-caliber season, so I don't like the idea of trading him away unless we were either getting someone who is obviously better (? who's that ?) or someone who is very good and is already signed to a team-friendly deal (or is pre-arby). Tulo would fit in the latter category, but why would Colorado make that deal? If we could find a deal for the superstar pre-arby guy, then we should do it, but it's probably unlikely. Unless they're out of it, I don't think there's any way the Brewers trade Fielder this season. Moves like that which backfire are what get GM's fired. Could you imagine what would happen if we traded Fielder, he continued to mash and we missed the playoffs?

The more I think about it, I think we're underestimating what it will take to acquire Hardy, even as a rental. Hardy currently projects as Type A, so the O's will automatically get a 1st or 2nd + a sandwich 1/2 pick if they do nothing. Any offer they accept from us is certainly going to have to top that perceived value, which from our farm system, isn't going to be easy. That's the important point. Rollins, Reyes and Furcal are all FA's, so I don't know if JJ will be Type A or not. If so, he is going to cost about as much as Reyes. I think it'd be a extraordinarily poor move for a team to give the moon to the O's for a couple of moths of JJ, given that he can go stone cold as quickly as he can go red hot. And that's the risk and why paying top dollar would scare me. There's no doubt Hardy would improve our team, but would the marginal upgrade for a few months be worth giving up the farm? The fact that we'd potentially get the Type A compensation would help offset the loss, but with our bad luck in recent years' drafts makes me shudder at the thought of trading away some of the few pitchers who have shown promise. On someone like Hardy, we pretty much would have to wait until the deadline both to make sure he's stayed healthy and productive, and to make sure we're still at or near the top of the playoff pack. Winning the division would take some of the sting off of trading some of the limited talent we have left in the system. I would certainly hate to pay a lot for Hardy now and then have some injuries that cause us to fall out of the race anyway, or have us trade for a Type A player only to have him fall off the cliff and end up being Type B or worse.

I could see a bottom dweller offering him a MLB spot based on his potential, but if he wants to work things out in the minors, the Brewers might be an option for him. We have a playoff caliber team with little starting pitching depth. If he were to go to the minors and put things together, he would have a good shot at seeing the rotation. Now, if he does indeed have injury issues, then we'd better be awfully sure what we'd be getting into before thinking baout bringing him on board. If there were known injuries, wouldn't the Angels have to DL him so that he continued to accrue MLB time?

I'm sure we could get them to trade Miguel Tejada for him... maybe even Bill Hall.

Lots of good points of view in the last few posts. While Doug is to "blame" for Yuni being on the roster, he is also to "blame" for the rest of the roster which gives us a realistic shot at the playoffs this season. I think Yuni's on the roster because KC made sure he was added to the trade. We have a limited budget, so we were in no position to simply dump him after the trade, plus there really weren't any other options out there. That said, it appears that everyone knows that SS is this team's weak link. The feel-good remedy of benching Yuni for a Counsell/Wilson platoon really wouldn't solve anything as we'd be going from bad to bad. The Brewers will likely be able to bump up the payroll if they believe they're realistically in the playoff hunt, so although Melvin was capped out to start the season, he will have some funds if there is a SS out there he can grab. However, I wouldn't expect a monumental move like trading for Reyes, as we don't have the bullets to trade to get him. We'd need to send better than the Mets would get in FA compensation, and we probably aren't in a position to do that. Furcal's injury actually could help the Brewers land him if the Dodgers think there's a possibility he won't be Type A. Otherwise I'd look for someone we can pick up for almost nothing just for agreeing to pay the salary... someone like Jamey Carroll of the Dodgers.

While I agree that we could find a better bench player, the whole Yuni saga showcases how poor our system is when it comes to shortstops. If we cut Yuni and play Wilson/Counsell, then we are hoping that Wilson can hold out for the rest of the season. If he gets hurt, then we would be forced to play Counsell everyday, which his body likely wouldn't hold up to. Assuming Wheeler can't play an adequate SS, we don't have anyone at AAA who could step in and be better than Yuni. Yes, the mythical "replacement level" may be better than Yuni, but it doesn't mean we have any "replacement level" players in the system. In other words, we're probably better off holding onto Yuni until we can find someone else who can play SS. In the best case scenario, we'd find someone who could play at the MLB level, and we could sneak Wilson to AAA. At this point, I'd be happy if we could find a decent AAA SS who could be insurance. We could then dump Yuni and bring up someone like Green who could help out at 3B and as a bench bat or Katin (if he's healthy) as a RH bat off the bench.

He's not exactly what one would call a slick fielder. Yeah, I don't figure he is. Relative to our other options, is he a good enough fielder to fill out the SS spot until we can find someone else? I don't know if this should be here or in the "Rumors/transactions" forum, but looking at teams in the bottom of the standings, here are some possible options: Hardy, Furcal (on DL through June w/ oblique) and Reyes have all been discussed. Florida has Emilio Bonifacio, who is still in pre-arby, but is blocked by Hanley Ramirez, so he's being used as a utility guy. He's making $425,000 withs a .716 OPS and .338 OBP. Jamey Carroll is a 37-year-old utility guy who's making $2.3MM with the Dodgers, posting a .751 OPS and .376 OBP. Career numbers .751 OPS and .357 OBP. He may be too old to play everyday, but seems to be able to play SS and hit and probably could be had cheap if we picked up his salary. Jason Bartlett of the Padres probably isn't an option with what we'd have to trade, as he signed a 2 yr contract w/ year 3 option this past offseason, but the Padres are another bottom-dweller that might look to shed payroll (he's signed to $4MM this year and $5.5MM next year with buyout of $1.5MM in 2013 - I don't know the 2013 salary if it isn't bought out). That's about all I could come up with at first glance. I think the obvious move is to bench Yuni and start some sort of Wilson/Counsell platoon. If we can find someone else, then Yuni can be sent packing and no one in Brewers nation would shed a tear.

Zealous Wheeler is healthy again, and I know he played a little SS to start the AAA season this year. Is he a viable option once he's got some AAA reps in?

I was playing ball with my five year old today, who is just learning how to swing a bat. He said he was Ryan Braun, but after he swung and missed at about five straight pitches, he said "I'm not Braun, I'm Betancourt... no hits." So there you have it, even a five-year-old can tell Betancourt is terrible.

I figured DiFelice was called up to start in case Marcum can't make his next start. DFAing Herrara was the easy call, and they'll wait a few days to see how Marcum's feeling. A backdated DL trip could be necessary around the time Saito is ready to go. DiFelice isn't good against lefties, but they really don't have many options if Marcum is hurt. On the other note, Roenicke is going to be in a Macha-esque "Zim Zam" when Saito's back. How will he ever take Loe out of the "8th inning guy" role?

That was my thinking exctly Stevo. Now we have to either bring up one of our less-than-stellar AAA pitchers or let Estrada start, knowing he can only go around three innings. I don't think we have the bullpen right now to start Estrada, but that's probably the route we'll go. Roenicke's already poor bullpen management will be put to the test, as he'll have to decide who can go the day or two prior to Estrada's start, and the day or two after the start.

Yeah, 11.81 K/9 is ridiculous. I think an important point was Russ' response to ninja's post. It's a guess, but if Greinke's only throwing 40% of his pitches for strikes, but he's not walking people and he's getting a lot of strikeouts, than it would seem that he is falling behind a lot of batters. Batters have access to all the stats we do, so they know that when Greinke gets behind in the count, he throws strikes. Therefore they tee up and swing as hard as they can (13.5% HR rate) but swing and miss a lot. With his stuff and his ability to throw strikes with any of his pitches, he can get batters out even when they know a strike is coming, but if they guess right and get a fastball down the heart of the plate or a hanging curve they can hit it hard. His numbers this year seem very extreme (11.81 K/9, 1.91 BB/9, 13.5% HR/FB, 56.9% LOB, 5.23 ERA) so something's got to give. I agree that it appears he's pitching pretty well, but maybe the X-factor is simply that he's getting behind too many batters and he's unwilling to walk anyone. I kind of think Greinke may have the opposite mentality of someone like Doug Davis. We always heard that Davis "wouldn't give in to batters." He'd rather walk someone than throw a pitch down the middle of the plate. Greinke has much better stuff than Davis, so maybe he "gives in" and throws the ball down the center of the plate, knowing that there's a good chance the batter will still strike out. No one's stuff is good enough that they can continually throw pitches down the center of the plate when the batter is expecting it and get away with it all the time, so this could lead to some rather extreme numbers.