monty57

Oh, I agree BUC, and I'm glad we made the trades. Going back to the offseason, I understood the moves and why we brought Yuni on board, since there weren't many other options out there. I have always worried that this season is basically Yuni or bust. I don't trust Counsell to perform as an everyday SS, and we have no one else in the system to step in if Yuni gets injured or fails. Our one option (although not a great one) was Luiz Cruz, and we let him go so we could keep Reed, Counsell, Kotsay and Almonte on the MLB bench. As I mentioned above, I just wish we had a "Plan B" in place. Even if Yuni were playing well, there's always a chance he gets hurt.

This seems to be a misconception, this year isn't all in at all. We traded for pitchers with multiple years left that can easily be flipped next year for very good prospects or we could pursue extensions for them. Given his base running and defense we can replace Fielder next year and still have a playoff hopeful team. Maybe the better terminology would be "I can't believe that this is what we have at SS in a year in which we did so much to upgrade other positions and are seemingly making a big shot at the playoffs." It's a matter of semantics. Sure, we're not going "all in," and I agree that we have many scenarios where we will continue to be good beyond this season, but Melvin was certainly trying to make a splash last off-season to greatly improve this year's team. This has been re-hashed many times, and maybe Yuni was the best option available, but it would certainly be nice to at least have a "Plan B."

Casey, wouldn't you agree that Hart isn't an ideal #2 hitter? If I think of "ideal #2 hitter," I think of Robin Yount much more than Corey Hart. Right now, with Weeks at #1, Braun at #3, and Fielder at #4, with the choices for #2 being Hart, McGehee, Yuni, Lucroy or Gomez, Hart is probably a good choice, although an arguement could be made for Lucroy. I take Roenicke saying that Hart may not be there all season to mean that once Morgan's back, he'll be the #2 hitter in the lineup (at least against RHP), which I am perfectly fine with. At that point, McGehee/Hart can man the 5/6 spots in the lineup.

...ultimately I think there needs to be a definitive move made at the deadline if this team is truly going to go for it. It doesn't have to be a blockbuster for someone like Reyes either, just a serviceable bat and good defender. DocBucky, I think you just said something which every poster in this 30 page thread would agree with. Yuni has gotten every chance to succeed so far this season, and I wouldn't be surprised to see Counsell more if Yuni's offense continues to be as bad as it has, as bad offense is harder to hide than "limited range" defense... even "casual" fans will be calling for Yuni's head soon. If we are indeed in the race come mid-to-late July, I would be very surprised if we don't do something to change our SS situation.

That's certainly debateable, but basically it's like choosing between getting a stick in the eye or a sledgehammer to the crotch. Sure, Counsell should play a little more instead of Yuni, but neither is a good option. Yuni has been playing much better defense than I would have expected and hitting much worse than I would have expected, but my original expectations were pretty low for him all-around.

If Kotsay is relegated to just pinch hitting against RHP I wouldn't have as much of a problem. The only problem I have is that Boggs is still probably as good hitting as Kotsay with the added benefit of being able to play defense. If we didn't have a better option Kotsay would be fine. As it is we have Boggs, Morgan(when he comes back), and Gamel in AAA. I prefer Gamel stay in AAA though. I hope when(if) Gamel comes up for inter-league play he actually gets a chance to play instead of Kotsay. Boggs is intriguing. I wanted him around from day 1, and I would like to see what he's got, but there is no certainty that you'd get more than you will out of Kotsay, so I'm not going to get bent out of shape about it. I will agree with you that Morgan should have played more when he was healthy, and I expect he will play more when he is once again healthy. I wholeheartedly agree on Gamel. When/if he is called up he had better get regular playing time and not get Macha'd. And really, it shouldn't be 'when', but 'right now' that Hart stops getting benched in favor of Kotsay. Yes, the results show us that at this point, Kotsay has been more productive offensively, but I don't think anybody realistically expects Kotsay to touch Hart offensively. I agree with this, but will caution that we don't know what we'll get out of Hart. "Bad Hart" is still probably better than Kotsay, but Hart seems to be a guy that will give you a .750 (SLG heavy) OPS for a season or an .850+ OPS for a season. There doesn't seem to be a middle ground. That said, he should definitely be starting every day at this point, and should be the regular #2 hitter at least until Morgan returns. I mean if the Padres defense played well last night two of Kotsay's hit would have been outs instead so we are still seeing a huge flux in his stats. ...and if he were playing in any park other than SD, one of those two "outs" would have been a three-run HR. It's all those little variables that makes any "predictive stat" an educated guess. It doesn't take that much to make a bad player look good or a good player look bad, particularly for a part-time player over the course of a season.

That is as far as you really need to go. If you don't care to look at potential causes or circumstances and simply want to be black & white then yes. He had a horrific year in Oakland (.575 OPS) in 2007 in 56 games. Why? That year makes no sense. Potentially, he was injured, or maybe he just hit a bad streak... it's only 56 games afterall. In 88 games in Atlanta in 2008, he posted a .758 OPS, and then moved to Boston, where he was terrible for the remainder of the season and the beginning of 2009. Why was he bad in Boston? Was there a circumstance or was it simply a bad streak. Regardless, it caused his 2009 season to only account for 67 games. He then went to the White Sox where he had a good end to the season, but a bad 2010. All in all, this accounted for 340 games, or roughly two full seasons. Are you so certain in your analysis that you feel there is absolutely no room for error over a four year period in which someone only played 340 games? Have you accounted for probable extenuating circumstances which caused him to only play in 340 games over four seasons? That is all most people are really concerned with. Maybe people should be concerned with more. Was he injured at all during this period? Was there something going on in Boston which caused his poor play? Was there anything else which could have caused for a few periods of horrendous play during a four-year period in which he didn't have all that many games played? He only had a .320 OBP over 2008-2010. That's only slightly below average for a MLB OF. Plus, with such a limited number of PAs, the standard deviation would be quite high. Finally, his OBP was .340 w/ Atl, .286 & .291 w/ BOS, .349 & .306 w/ Chicago. Something screwy went on in Boston, bringing his numbers down. Then, he had a down year last year. Maybe this was predictable due to aging, maybe it was simply a down year, which everyone can have. That was hitting a large majority of the time with the platoon advantage. Which he will also have with the Brewers. So far this season he's had 73 ABs vs RHP & 4 against LHP. He only had 173.2 innings in the field over 2009-2010. So because Ozzie decided to DH him in favor of Juan Pierre and Carlos Quinton (two superior defenders), that proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that he can no longer play the field? Remember, the Red Sox & White Sox are in the AL, where they have a DH. The Brewers are in the NL where there is no DH. Kotsay has helped the Brewers offensively this season, and Roenicke has to play him in the field if he wants his bat in the lineup. I don't disagree that Kotsay is below average as an all-around MLB OF. That doesn't mean that he has no value, or that he shouldn't be on the team. He has actually been valuable to the 2011 Brewers. You can simply chalk that up to limited sample size, which may be true. However, it is also possible that you are basing you preconceived notions of Kotsay on limited sample sizes, incomplete knowledge of situations and the fact that the White Sox manager used Kotsay as a DH when he had better options for corner OF. Melvin obviously saw something in Kotsay, and to this point, he seems to be winning the debate.

Many posters on here scream that we need more players on our team that have a decent OBP. Kotsay's OBP is .378 and these same posters scream whenever Kotsay is inserted into the lineup. I wouldn't bet that he'll keep a .378 OBP all year, but it's certainly not out of the question for him to be around .330 at season's end. For point of reference, that would put him around average for OF in baseball in 2010. That doesn't make him great, but it does make him about average at one very important aspect of the game (OBP). He had a bad year last year and only played in 235 games from 2007-2009. Other than playing terribly in Boston, he looked pretty good elsewhere during that '07-'09 period. How can anyone say that they can accurately predict his 2011 offensive potential given his last few seasons where he often only played 50-60 games? It is quite likely that he could put up a decent OBP this year, which is a good thing given the way this Brewers squad is made up. As far as defense, he's obviously lost a few steps, but I think many here put way too much faith in "advanced defensive metrics" to try to state exactly how good or bad a player is. Please keep in mind that these are very subject to bias. There have been a number of studies showing that if a person goes into a situation believing something true, he or she will subconsciously err on the side of what they believe to be true. To the best of my knowledge, the "advanced defensive metrics" rely on a person watching the game who has to determine whether or not a player "should have" made a play. If the person watching the game believes that the player is a bad defender, he is going to be more likely to err on the side of stating that a certain play "should have" been made. If the person watching the game believes that the player is a good defender, he is going to be more likely to err on the side of stating that the same play "shouldn't have" been made. Additionally, the same subjective methodology means that they have to decide where the player started the play, which is not always going to be clear, but makes a big difference as to whether the play "should have" been made. To me, this makes these numbers nice, but not nearly as accurate as some make them out to be. This is not saying that Kotsay is a good defender, but I think his deficiencies are probably being overstated. He'll probably play back a little, allowing for a few more singles in order to not give up the extra base hits, but he has played a lot of CF, so he should be able to get good reads off the bat and take good angles. He certainly is a downgrade from Gomez, but on offense he is a significant upgrade. In last night's game, Roenicke started Kotsay, who came through offensively in a big way, while not hurting us defensively. When we had a lead, Roenicke replaced Kotsay with Gomez defensively to help maintain the lead. There, I've defended an unpopular decision to replace one bad player with a few good aspects for a different bad player with a few good aspects. Fire away.

My vote would be for Lucroy and anyone not named Wil Nieves. If Rivera sticks this year and plays reasonably well, I could see him back next year. Otherwise, it's probably between Kottaras and Maldanado. If I were GM, I may just ask Wolf who he prefers, as the backup catcher could simply be designated to Wolf with Lucroy catching everyone else.

I'm guessing it's something like "(I'm just a) Swingin" and certainly not "These boots are made for walkin" or "Walk this way"

No. I agree that it seems a little unlikely that Green is anybody's favorite player but it would also seem unlikely that a 4th string catcher is anybody's favorite player, yet that is the case. So, you never know. Maybe some kid out there is named Sean Green and likes having his namesake on his favorite team. Or somebody went to Green's high school or met him at a minor league game or he helped them change a tire on the side of the road or whatever. That poor kid was probably getting teased at school, leading him to ask his parents if he could legally change his name to Ryan Braun.

Meilvin obviously liked Kotsay this offseason, as he gave him the contract. Kotsay currently has a .360 OBP, and has filled the role of reserve OF/LH bat off the bench better than I would have expected coming into the season, so I doubt anything has changed Melvin's mind. I too would like to keep Boggs, and I think it's a possibility that he stays. I think Nieves is gone when Braddock comes back, so Boggs will be here a while. I think Almonte is gone when he's off the DL. The question will come when Morgan's ready... will Melvin / Roenicke keep Boggs or the 13th pitcher?

Does someone who follows the minor leagues know anything about Zealous Wheeler's injury status or if Farris has spent any time at SS? It would certainly be nice if one of those two could be called up at some point in the season.

I know there's a slide chart which shows the relative difficulty of different defensive positions, but I it's more complicated than that. You can't simply move someone from a more difficult position to a less difficult position and expect them to immediately be a good defender there. I much prefer the idea of giving Gamel a full season at 1B in AAA and having him play full-time there for Milwaukee in 2012 to the thought of the "musical chairs" game of moving some combination of Gamel, Hart, Braun and McGehee to different positions. Plus, even if players could simply move right on the slide chart, how would you figure that Gamel would be able to play corner OF if he can't play 1B (a leftward move on the chart), especially considering that he has spent his whole life at a corner IF position (3B), so 1B should be more natural to him than corner OF? A lot can happen between now and then, but as things stand right now, it really looks like Braun LF, Hart RF, Gamel 1B, Weeks 2B, Lucroy C, McGehee 3B and our entire starting rotation and most of the bullpen return. The questions will be who (and how) will we pick up for SS, and will we stick with Gomez/Morgan for CF. Fielder will be hard to replace, but it is nice that he's really the only significant player we'll lose and most of the rest of the team will remain intact.

Joe Morgan was a Red. That ought to be enough for some on this board to hate them.

Since Rivera's better at every facet of the game than Nieves, and he has that "veteran presence" which Roenicke likes, I agree that this means Nieves' time in Milwaukee is limited. I hope he is replaced by another position player (Morgan), but I won't believe we'll go to a 12-man staff until I see it happen for longer than a few days.

One positive at the plate which shouldn't be ignored is that while Gomez's approach still isn't that sound, he drew his 12th walk today over 137 at bats so far this year. He now actually close to that 1 walk per 10 at bats ratio that most deem as pretty acceptable for a hitter. He's taken 6 walks in 37 at bats this month. Obviously is very questionable as to if he will continue doing this, but he's taking walks at a higher rate this year than at any point in his career. What's amazing though is how he hits for near the same batting average every season, between about .230-.250, give or take a few percentage points. So even if he keeps drawing walks at this somewhat improved pace, he'll only get a more acceptable OBP is he can get his BA at at least .260 or above. Last season, only 28 batters in all of baseball posted an OBP of .370 or higher, and only 38 posted an OBP of .360 or higher. I think many on this site have their sights set way too high on what an "acceptable" OBP is. If your idea of acceptable = one of the top 5-10% of all players in the MLB, than you are often going to be let down. If Gomez can play elite defense and get on base at a .320-.340 clip, I'll be thrilled. If we can put someone with a better OBP in the #2 hole, that's even better.

To me, Roenicke's biggest fault this season was not playing Morgan enough when he was healthy. He probably should have been playing almost every day vs RHP. Doing this, he could have hit Morgan or Kotsay (who does get on base fairly well) in the #2 spot over Gomez, and only bat Gomez #2 vs LHP. That's really my only gripe. Other than that, I may not have done things the same way as Roenicke, but I don't have a lot of issues: -He has been hamstrung with injuries, which will hopefully subside one of these days. -I personally have no idea how in-shape Hart is... I'd like to think that he could handle playing more, but maybe he can't. He certainly has been less-than-stellar in the limited time he's been healthy, so it's hard to say that playing Kotsay over Hart has hurt the team to date. It shouldn't continue, and I don't think Roenicke has any intentions of keeping Hart on the bench long-term. -Bullpen management is always going to be scrutinized. It seems that Loe is getting overused, and Green got used in a lot of situations he shouldn't have, but there have been instances such as Saito and Braddock, where there have been pitchers in the 'pen unable to work. Maybe there are other things we don't know that have caused some of Roenicke's moves. -I certainly would have had Boggs on the bench all season, but I can't fault Roenicke for this... that has to fall on Melvin, who makes the final roster decisions. If you are not given a RH option, and Kotsay and Morgan both stick vs LH pitchers, then I guess I can't fault Roenicke for putting Almonte in RF vs LHP. Going forward, he's already stated that he wants to bat Hart #2, so hopefully that will happen soon, erasing two early season issues (Kotsay in RF & Gomez #2). Lucroy is healthy, erasing one of the early-season black holes (Nieves/Kottaras). Greinke is healthy, erasing the rotation shuffling he's had to do all season, and hopefully leading to longer SP outings / less need for the bullpen. Hawkins is healthy, erasing Green from the roster. Almonte probably won't be back on the MLB roster this season. In other words, most of the things people have complained about could soon go away, and everyone can once again focus all of their hatred on the one remaining source of angst... Betancourt.

I agree with the others that Almonte will be gone once he comes off the DL, and that Kotsay will be on the team all year, unless we're out of it and get an Edmonds-style trade at the end of the season, where Melvin feels he's doing the veteran player a favor by trading him to a contender. Briggs, I'd like to believe that the Brewers would stop using the 13-man pitching staff, but I don't think it'll ever happen. They finally tried going with a "normal" roster for a few weeks this year, and quickly jumped back to the 13-man staff. Since we keep hearing is how taxed the bullpen is, I think Boggs will once again get sent packing when Morgan's back. One of these times Boggs will get claimed by a team in need of an OF. Of course, all of this may be moot if Loe's arm literally falls off from overuse while other bullpen members sit idly by.

I think Katin's name somehow gets blocked by a filter on Melvin's computer. Otherwise, I don't really see a reason why he hasn't gotten any consideration while we've been in need of a RH bat on the bench for two seasons.

Russ, in another thread (I think somewhere in the middle of the very long Betancourt thread), you listed the average OBP for each spot in the order. If I recall correctly, most of these averages were in the .320-.340 range. There is no reason to believe that Kotsay cannot get on base in that range for the season. In fact, he's done it in 2 of the last 3 and 9 of the last 11 seasons, and yes, he is doing it again this year in a limited number of PAs. Kotsay has lost a few steps, and doesn't have much power left in his bat, but getting on base isn't his big fault. Time and again on this site, I read how OBP is far and away the most important thing in baseball, and how players who don't take walks should be banished from baseball. However, seemingly just because people want to dump on Kotsay for everything, people are now ripping him for everything, including for taking walks instead of going 5 for 5. Meanwhile, whipping boys of the past, Carlos Gomez and Corey Hart are now seemingly deemed irreplaceable. Gomez is still a good defense, bad offense player, and Hart is still someone who has had a couple of really good years and a couple of really bad years who is now also coming off an injury that kept him out for two months and caused him to be in a position that he has not had the PAs most players need to get their timing down. I fully expect that Hart will start almost every day in RF going forward, even if he is "bad Hart" this season, and I would certainly rather have someone better than Kotsay getting the starts, but to this point he's done alright for a fill-in, and the team is certainly not going to suffer immeasurable harm because one of its worst players (Gomez) sits on the bench for one day. I guess the frustrating thing is that people are stating that "predictive statistics" (which is certainly not an exact science) somehow proved without a shadow of a doubt that Betancourt and Kotsay could do nothing well. People now use this preconceived notion to bash Kotsay and Betancourt for everything, even if they do well. They are certainly not good players, but it gets frustrating seeing how everybody dumps on them for everything. Why not rip Fielder, whose defense this season has probably cost us more games than Kotsay and Betancourt combined? Why not rip Hart for taking two months to come back from a minor injury and then stink up the joint in both the minors and majors since he came back? Why not rip McGehee for his slow start? Why not rip Braun for his terrible May? Why not rip Yo for being bad in all but a few starts this season? Why not rip a lot of things that have combined for far more of our 2011 record than Kotsay & Betancourt?

This argument has been so overused on this site over the last 3 years... has an argument as unsupportable as this ever had more run? It's literally been used in every thread we've had for trading an established MLB Brewer player for a prospect in season. The only other statement that's close is the proven/unproven thing, we're certainly dropping plenty of cliches into a single thread here. The obvious point that someone else made is that possibly in the short term Trout + Gamel > Gomez + Fielder. In the long-term there's no doubt that 6+ years of Trout and 5 years of Gamel is worth more than 2/3 of a Fielder season + whatever the team gets out Gomez. I struggle with the fact that a concept so simple is routinely dismissed or ignored, the merits of a deal of this type is are obvious. C'mon Crew07, in my posts, I've said that the Angels would only think of making this trade if they already had an extension in place for Fielder (a la the Mets trading for Santana a few years ago). I then said that if the money isn't an issue for the Angels, 6 years of a young, proven MLB superstar in Fielder is worth more than six years of Trout, who may be great, but may also not make the transition to become an MLB superstar. Prince is really, really good. Most "top prospects" do not end up being anywhere near as good as Fielder. Most "non-top prospects" do not end up being anywhere near as good as Fielder. The odds that Trout (or any other prospect, I'm not picking on Trout) ends up being as good as Fielder are very slim. There is some merit to being proven vs. non-proven, but I certainly don't mean that every MLB player has more value than every prospect, that would be asinine. Someone who has been in the top three in MVP voting twice and just turned 27 four days ago, when he became one of the youngest players in history to hit his 200th HR has proven much more than someone OPSing over 1.000 in AA. For the Brewers, of course the trade would be a no-brainer, as obviously for the Brewers 6 years of Trout is worth more than the 1/2 season of Fielder the Brewers have left. I just don't see the Brewers "shopping" Fielder until they feel they're out of it. Melvin often seems very loathe to trade MLB players mid-season. I've been very frustrated over the past few seasons that Melvin seems to always want to "buy," and never to "sell." That is why I say that the Brewers won't trade Fielder unless they're out of it... not that I don't think the trade would benefit the Brewers long-term.

I agree with RockCo that the Brewers probably won't trade Fielder unless they're "waving the flag" on the season. Who knows what either Trout or Gamel would bring to the team this year? Either one (or both) could do what most rookies do and flounder for a while. So, if you're the Angels, why would you not only trade for Prince when you are just going to have to give him the highest FA offer anyway I don't see the Angels doing it unless they had a deal worked out to extend Fielder. I don't think Fielder will work out a deal before FA, but if he would, the Angels could go for it. As to why the Angels would do it... to have Fielder help them shoot for a World Series this year, and to not have to get into a bidding war they may lose for Fielder in the offseason. As to the point about an extended Fielder being worth more than Trout, of course it's my opinion. However, Fielder is already proven to be a very valuable player at the MLB level, and he's still young, so it's not like trading for the 32 year old Soriano the Cubs got in FA. Trout may well be the next coming of Willie Mays, but he may also be the next coming of countless top prospects who fail. If the years are equal, and the money isn't a factor (i.e. if Fielder would fit in the Angels' budget without hampering other deals), then I stand by my statement that an extended Fielder is worth more than AA ball Trout. Barring injury, you're pretty certain to get around 200 HR and around a .400 OBP from Fielder over the next six years, but no one has any clue what Trout will bring.

Barring us trading someone I don't want to trade (Braun, Greinke, Marcum, Yo, Weeks), I don't see any way we would be able to swing a blockbuster trade which would net both Wright and Reyes. However, here are two thoughts on the players: -Unless things really turn around quickly this season, I certainly don't want to trade what's left of our farm system for a 1/2 year rental of Reyes this season. However, he is a possibility after the season when he's a free agent, and we are no longer paying Prince Fielder. We don't have any SS in our system, so Reyes would definitely help us there for a few years, and it's possible we could afford him monetarily without having to give up any minor league talent (okay, maybe a draft pick). -I guess the closest I could come to landing Wright would be a deal centered around McGehee & Hart, allowing us to bring Gamel up to play RF and get his feet wet before his transition to 1B next season. In addition to filling Wright's spot at 3B with a decent, inexpensive player in McGehee, this would allow the Mets to trade Beltran, who I believe is a FA after the season, and have an All-Star to replace him in RF. They would save a lot of money, and still have some talented players on the field (McGehee, Hart and whoever they get for Beltran).

The Brewers would have to give the Angels some insurance. Carlos Gomez comes to mind. If this were to come to fruition, the Brewers certainly wouldn't have a need for Trout, Gomez & Morgan, especially with Schafer and others waiting in the wings. I guess the possibility of this trade happening would be determined by how certain the Angels were that (A) they were going to the playoffs this season and (B) they would be able to extend Prince. I don't care if Trout's the #1 prospect in baseball, an extended Fielder (proven MLB superstar) is worth more than a rookie Trout (unproven future potential). I would hope that any trade of Fielder would include a high-upside minor league pitcher, who could step in when Greinke, Marcum and Wolf are all due to leave after next season. While not cheap, a pitcher in the minors should be attainable, unlike the young, MLB-proven arms Melvin was apparently targeting last season.