Dollarbill13

I think Oxy is underestimating the difficulty of staying in a rundown long enough for a guy to advance two bases while another is in a rundown. If a guy is in a rundown between third and home, there is a very real possibility of running into a double play if you have the batter try to advance to 2nd or a runner on 1st try to advance to 3rd.

I agree. The whole JoePa thing causes issues too since Penn St. apparently won 100 or so less games. It's not like they will go back and re-evaluate the teams that Penn State played and redetermine how the bowl games should have played out, etc.

The big wild card for Hart is that his contract is up. He's on pace for $14.5M of production this year (per fangraphs). If you consider his production to be similar next year, he'll have a net value of $4.5M. After that, it just comes down to how well he'll age vs. what his next salary will be. Both are just guesses, IMO.

I find this comment from Melvin to be kind of strange. Not that we shouldn't go into the year and give our young pitchers a shot but the FA SP market seems a lot deeper than in most years...

Regardless of whether Hart is on the team next year, Gamel should be. If they bring back Hart, Gamel can at least play Ishikawa's role as a LH pinch hitter and a spot starter at 1B. At this point, he'd probably at least need to show some success in the majors before he'd have much trade value.

That would be a cool lineup but I think trading Fielder with two years left was unlikely and we probably would have been better than a 65 win team in 2011, especially with how Lawrie played last year.

Green was misused this year, no doubt. I wish they would have given him at least a couple starts per week at 3B and had Ramirez play 1B once or twice a week to give Green a little more opportunity. I don't really have a problem with not giving him a starting spot as his .336 average was heavily driven by a very high .360 BABIP. I don't think sending Schafer back to AAA was really a punishment, either. He had less than 200 ABs in AAA last year, which was his first run at it. He's doing okay this year but his plate discipline seems to have declined. There's probably no sense in keeping Morgan next year so Schafer should be a pretty solid 4th outfielder (I can't see them not having Gomez as the starter next year, right or wrong).

I don't think we can assume he'll maintain this year's pace of about 5 WAR. If he puts up 4 WAR in 2013 and 3 in 2014, that would still exceed the dollars left on his contract (although the dollars won't line up with the production on a year by year basis). I still think it comes down to whether you think we can be competitors in 2013. If you don't think so, his production next year won't really have that much impact so he (and we) would be better off producing it on a more competitive team. Personally, I don't think we are that far off in 2013. We're not nearly as bad as our record suggests and that is coming in a year where just about everything has gone wrong. We probably shouldn't go drop $25M on Grienke, but just make a few tweaks here and there to improve the team. I'd listen to offers on Hart & Ramirez and if we could get a good group of prospects, then go for it. If not, then keep them and give it a shot in 2013.

In no particular order: Sheets' 18K game Jenkins' 3 HR game (I think against Montreal?) Glendon Rusch walkoff bunt over the 2nd baseman's head Javon Walker winning the sausage race Branyan game tying HR against Joe Nathan. Even though we lost, it seemed like the whole crowd new a bomb was on the way.

So our #2 hitter won't bunt every time the leadoff guy gets on? What a shame

I disagree. Weeks and Aoki have similar OBP skills but Weeks has far more power. That can get wasted to some extent hitting leadoff.

I bet it wouldn't take paying half his contract. We could pay $6M which would leave the trading partner with 2/24 left on the deal. Much better than what you could probably get in free agency and pretty likely (IMO) to create surplus value for whoever gets him.

We are 2nd in the NL in runs scored. I don't think the offense is to blame at all. I would have loved to see Taylor Green get a shot at 3rd this year but an .850 OPS like Ramirez has put up would have been pretty lofty expectations. Green's numbers in AAA last year were outstanding but a lot of that had to do with his .360 BABIP. His previous two seasons BABIPs were in the .270s. I don't necessary blame him for not feeling comfortable giving the starting job to Green. Last year was Schafer's first full year above A+ ball. I don't see the problem with giving him a full year at AAA to see what he's got before giving him an OF position, when we already have 12 cheap CFs on our team. Our starting rotation has a 3.97 ERA this year compared to a 3.78 ERA last year, with the primary difference being Randy Wolf. Losing Greinke hurts our rotation but losing Wolf's 5.45 ERA and replacing him with one of our young guys should help the cause. The biggest issue is obviously the bullpen. Last year they were awesome and this year they are terrible. I didn't expect Axford and Krod to maintain a sub 2 ERA but I don't think anyone foresaw this kind of collapse. The good news is that if any group of players can be replaced for a very low price, it's the bullpen. If we go out and spend a bunch of money on a proven closer, I'll be pretty mad. I'd much rather see them take the shotgun approach and throw a bunch against the wall during spring training and see what sticks. Unfortunately, there is a lot of variability in reliever performance and they pitch many of the high leverage innings. So a large change in performance can happen without any real cause and affect a disproportionate amount of games.

And to be fair, it was really only the first two weeks of April that he was really bad. His OPS from April 18-30 was around 1.000. The Brewers were 5-5 before April 18th.

TC07, I completely understand where you are coming from with the value discussion and how it won't matter if we have Hart or Ramirez if we can't pitch. However, using the theory that they won't matter would say that we should trade them for whatever we can get. There are two reasons that I think that is the wrong decision. First is that we have to at least respect the business aspect of things. We've seen what can happen to attendance if we suck and whether we like it or not, Mark is the owner of a business and ultimately he needs to make sure the business stays viable in the long run. Second, and probably most important from a fan perspective, is that I don't think we are as far away from competing as many people think we are. With as bad as our season has gone, we are currently sitting on a .500 Pythagorean W/L%. We have something like $20M to spend this offseason so if our young pitching performs, we can be right in the thick of things next season. That's why I maintain that I'm open to trading Ramirez and Hart, but we would need to get something good for them. Also, with regards to risk, you are absolutely right that veterans do carry more risk in that with a major injury, we could essentially lose a $10M or $20M player. Baseball Prospectus puts this into their "Attrition" and "Collapse" rates for each player. For example, Ramirez had a 4% collapse rate and 8% attrition rate entering 2012. That's not insignificant for the amount of money we are paying him. A bunch of prospects could flame out and it wouldn't cost us nearly as much money as it would cost by losing Ramirez. That will be a risk with acquiring any player and the risk increases as players age. I think we probably all agree that the Brewers can play in free agency from time to time but need to be smart about it. We can't build an entire team of age 30+ players and we probably won't be able to put together a World Series team full of 24 year olds. Unfortunately, given the new draft and international rules, we'll be very limited with the amount that we can exceed slot or spend on the international market. Is there any limit to the number of minor league affiliates a team can have? Could we have three AAA teams? That might be a way to rage against the system...

I'll try to be brief: 1) I don't think the "Pay now & take a tax break" holds much weight since any gains/losses would offset in the two scenarios by 2014. Why wouldn't you rather have an extra $10M now (even if it declines to $7M after taxes) than having $0 now and gaining $10M in two years (which would still decline to $7M after taxes)? 2) I don't think the casual fan's perspective should matter except to the extent that their anger about a trade might hurt revenue. We're assigning value to an intangible asset so explaining a "profit" really just comes down to the production you expected when you made the purchase vs. the production that was received. 3) You are pretty much right that an extra 5 wins this year is pretty meaningless (at least in terms of playoffs, we have no idea what it means for revenue) but there's no way to know that going into a season. Also, if we are able to get some good pre-arby player(s) for Ramirez, then I'm all for it. I question the suggestion that we should essentially give him up for nothing.

If we traded Ramirez this offseason and ate $10M of his remaining contract, we would still have "profited" by paying only $16M for 5 WAR plus whatever package we'd receive in return. Let's say he puts up 3 WAR next year and we want to unload him before 2014. We could eat say $12M and have "profited" by paying $28M for 8 WAR. Ultimately, aside from the time value of money, it doesn't really matter what year a guy is scheduled to be paid. It's just about the total WAR that he produces vs. the total dollars that you pay him. Deferring payment just provides extra flexibility during the contract.

I know I'm in the minority here but he'd really only have to produce about 6 WAR over the last two seasons of his contract for the last two years to have "zero value". Considering ZIPS has him finishing 2012 at 5 WAR, I don't think its unrealistic to think he'll produce positive value over the last two years of his contract.

Thank you for providing a definitive answer. Would someone who is just suggesting that it's in our best interest to trade Hart or Ramirez also be delusional or only those who think Melvin actually will trade them?

I'd rate the Greinke trade an 8.40 but drop it down to 4.60 for not trading anyone else.

I agree with this. Unless he comes back right when he's eligible and can put up a low 3's ERA for the rest of the year, I wouldn't make the qualifying offer. If the best case scenario happens, then I'd probably go with the qualifying offer. If not, either offer a 1 year deal at a lower price or let him go.

Lee's BABIP allowed this year is .319 compared to a career rate of .296. He's striking out 8.5 per 9 compared to 9.2 last year. The 8.5 number is still the 2nd best in his career. Cliff Lee seems to just be showing signs of bad luck for the most part this year. The problem is his contract. I don't know that he'd get more than 3/72 on the free agent market. There's not a lot of sense in giving up a good prospect PLUS paying market value for the guy. If the Phils were willing to eat some of his contract AND we were in a position to "win now", I might be willing to take on Lee. I don't think either is the case right now, though, so he's probably better suited going to a larger market that can afford him at $24M per year.

Trade Hart, move Ramirez to 1B, sign David Wright. Easy Peasy.

I think the most logical thing is to look at Corey Hart. If we aren't going to be in it next year, now (or in the offseason) would be the time to unload Hart. Maybe to the Dodgers for Zach Lee and a couple other prospects... We'd probably be looking at a .500 at best season next year but would have a large wave of prospects that should be ready for 2014.

Now that Richy Weeks is hitting better we could maybe get something for him.