Matt Breen

Mattingly played 6 full seasons where he was pretty average (at least as a hitter). Before that, he had two very good (but not great) years, and before that 4 great seasons (all +.900 OPS). Sadly, Mattingly was done being a great player at 26. I think people let those first few magnificent years color the fact that Mattingly wasn't that good for 1/2 of his career. Puckett didn't have a good year until he was 26 years old. In his second to last year, he had a .902 OPS (at age 34). He was, consistently, a better player. He didn't have the high notes like Mattingly, but he was better for a longer time. Both guys won a ton of gold gloves, but CF is probably a more important to have a great fielder than 1B. Personally, I don't think either should be in. Neither quite had the staying power I like to see. But if I had to pick one, I'd say Puckett, for 10 good to great years as a CF.

Deal is backloaded. $3 million in 2010 $5.5 2011 $6.5 2012

http://sports.espn.go.com...lb/news/story?id=4785125 3 years, $15 million. Added contract terms to title --cc

i read a couple of weeks ago that playing time was the most important thing for him, and could probably be had for around $3 million - maybe even less.

Does anyone know why Randy Winn went off the deep end this past season? He was a solid hitter - nothing great, but solid the previous years. And then he goes and posts a sub .700 OPS and any semblance of power disappears. I know he hit righties last year really, really bad - i mean worse than Kendall bad - a .384 OPS against them! But he's always been pretty consistent - even with last year's 'performance' included, his OPS the past three years is .757 vs lefties and .753 vs righties. Just curious if anyone has a clue as to what happen. He's 35 - so maybe age just has caught up with him. However, I always liked Winn. Switch hitter, very good defender at the corners (fangraphs has his RF ratings the past four years as 21.2, 9.8, 17.8 and 17.4), reliable (149 games or more every year for eight straight years), a little speed. If the Crew thought he'd rebound to more of a .750ish OPS guy, I think he would be better than Hart. Not the upside Hart has, but more consistency and far better fielding. Plus, if you gave him a starting job, he'd probably only cost a few million dollars - and Cory could be dealt for pitching help (assuming someone wants to deal for him). As a switch hitter, he'd probably slot it well after Weeks in the #2 slot. I like the idea of improving defense (a lot, in my opinion), and not giving up that much at the plate. Plus the switch hitter would be a nice addition.

yeah, that was my thought. they don't need hart at all now.

When I did mine I didn't include the buyouts and the other financial burdens. So far I have this: Player Salary Jeff Suppan $12.50 Prince Fielder $10.50 Trevor Hoffman $7.50 David Riske $4.50 David Bush $6.00 Rickie Weeks $4.00 Jody Gerut $2.50 Ryan Braun $1.00 Craig Counsell $2.10 Todd Coffey $3.00 Carlos Villanueva $2.00 Manny Parra $0.50 Greg Zaun $1.40 Yovani Gallardo $0.50 Mitch Stetter $0.50 Alcides Escobar $0.50 Mat Gamel $0.50 Casey McGehee $0.50 Chris Narveson $0.50 Claudio Vargas $2.50 Corey Hart $4.50 Randy Wolf $9.25 Carlos Gomez $1.00 Latroy Hawkins $3.00 Total $80.75 other Bill Hall $7.10 Braden Looper $1.00 David Weathers $0.40 Misc $2.00 Total $10.50 Other + Total $91.25 That is also not adding in either Salome, Lucroy, Treanor, or Kottaras as the back up catcher. So you can add about $1m to the payroll. I agree that some of the arby figures look high. Vargas signed for 900k if the salary page is correct - not $2.5. And I doubt Bush is getting $2 million raise after last year. Maybe a small raise, but not a 50% raise. I believe McClung got $1.6 million last year in his first year of arby - so I doubt Villanueva will get more after having a worse year than McClung did. I'd say around $1 million. Coffey seems high by 1/2-1 million. Gerut, Weeks and Hart are probably not that far off. Zaun is low by 1/2 million. Not a huge deal - but it does between Vargas, Bush, Villy and Coffey, you could trim $4 million off the total.

I think it's a great move by Seattle. Bradley can still hit. Silva can't pitch - plain and simple. He sucks, and having him on the team is just eating a roster spot. He's worse than a AAA pitcher. With Bradley, they get him in a low pressure environment. If he works out - great. If not, just cut him and be done with it. It's a sunk cost, so if he starts being a problem, he's gone. Otherwise, you get a good player - which was never going to happen before with Silva.

Ryan Church, if healthy, is a very solid RF if you platoon the guy. He would be a solid left handed bat in the lineup - but he's shown little ability to actually hit lefties, so he's not a full time guy. He's also considered a very good fielder - much better than Hart. Corey's UZR/150 ratings in RF have been -9.1, -5.3 and +6.7 the last three years. Church's has been 19.4, 6.9. 23.0, 20.8. Gerut's RF numbers are pretty small, so they don't really work well with UZR. But his CF numbers are generally good over the past couple of years - 9.6 and 12.2 - so he would probably be more comparable to Church as a fielder. Plus his ability to play CF is great. I worry about Gerut as a hitter. He, frankly, sucked last year, after being great in 2008. Which is the real player? His splits over the past two years show him actually hitting lefties better than righties - but it's only a sampling of 600 ABs (100 vs lefties, 500 vs righties). I know Church had some injuries last year, and hit poorly (but not as bad as Gerut). If he's healthy, and if Hart is dealt, I would prefer Church due to his quality fielding and lefthanded bat - he's hit righties to a tune of .755, .815, .866 OPS over the past few years - and last season's was influenced by his injuries. If I had my choice of the three, I'd probably go with Hart, due to his ability to play everyday and (I feel) higher upside than any of the guys. But if Hart is dealt, Church would be a viable option in a platoon situation (assuming he's healthy). He had back and neck problems last year - and I'd make sure he's got a clean bill of health.

I'm happy we kept Bush. If he's healthy, he'll be better than anyone how we can get for $5 million or less.

Gomes hit righties well last year (.859 OPS), but in all honesty, it's probably an aberration. The previous three years he hit righties to a tune of .648, .731, .595 OPS. He kills lefties - always has. As a fielder, he gets pretty bad ratings from Fangraphs. I'd pass unless it was cheap. I just don't trust him to repeat last year.

I think McClung's desire to be a starter hurt him - he made it known that's what he wanted. I thought he flourished as a reliever - as some have pointed out. I would like to have had him back. Perhaps simply said, 'Seth, you're a reliever. Can you deal with that?" If not, part ways. I think he can be a solid reliever, but no big deal. Oh well, best of luck to him.

I thought Jon Heyman did better on his 'winnes and losers' article: http://sportsillustrated....inners.losers/index.html He puts the Crew as 'winners' - but like people said, with caveats. Ultimately, he said we're better and have a chance to contend, so despite the steep price.

http://www.mlbtraderumors...-sign-jason-kendall.html Two year deal.

I've seen some recent discussions about the best philosophy about building a team. Having a lot of money is probably the best option - but it's not available to Milwaukee. So, there's sort of this two way approach: School of thought 1. Some people point to smaller market teams like the Twins and the A's and note their successes, while their detractors point out lack of World Series titles and quick exits from the playoffs. The general thought is that this kind of team builds from within, make good drafts, makes key trades/signings only when necessary, keeps the team within a budget. It builds a more steady 'good' team, but one that is rarely outstanding. School of thought 2. This is more in the thought of 'going for broke' - loading up a team when you see the opportunity. Trading prospects for proven talent, making bolder signings, etc. This leads to the occasional magical year, where you develop a 'great' team that can win you a World Series - but it frequently is followed by sell offs of talent as the team can't maintain the level of payroll. The Florida Marlins are frequently brought up as an example. So what's the answer? Is it worth it to try and 'go for it' and make some dramatic deals to try and make a play for the World Series? I decided to look at the last 15 World Series winners (basically, since the last strike, when the economics of the modern game have developed to what we have today). I looked at the rank in spending a team had the year the won the World Series, the two years before they won, and the two year after they won. This gives you a 5-year time span seeing how a team ranked in spending. The results are as follows (year is followed by team that won the series, then five numbers - the middle one being the ranking the year the team won the World Series). 1995 - Braves - 6/3/3/3/5 1996 - Yankees - 1/2/1/1/2 1997 - Marlins - 25/15/7/20/30 1998 - Yankees - 1/1/2/1/1 1999 - Yankees - 1/2/1/1/1 2000 - Yankees - 2/1/1/1/1 2001 - Arizona - 9/7/8/4/10 2002 - Angels - 19/22/15/12/3 2003 - Florida - 26/25/25/25/19 2004 - Red Sox - 2/6/2/2/2 2005 - White Sox - 22/15/15/4/5 2006 - Cardinals - 9/6/11/11/11 2007 - Red Sox - 2/2/2/4/4 2008 - Phillies - 12/13/12/7/NA 2009 - Yankees - 1/1/1/NA/NA Looking at this, it shows a few things: 1. The Marlins are the only team to really 'buy' into a series and then have a sell off - in 1997, moving up in spending steadily, then going down just as steadily. 2. The Marlins have NOT done it twice, as people like the say. Yes, it was done in 1997 - but the 2003 win showed a team remarkably stable in the pre and post World Series spending levels. The club won with cheap young talent (which they've steadily moved as they got too expensive). 3. Spending is (other than 1997) remarkably consistent for each World Series winner. Very rarely are teams jumping up or down 10 spots before or after a win. The White Sox jumped 7 spots in two years heading up to their win - the biggest jump other than the '97 Marlins. Otherwise, most teams kept within 4-5 spots of spending prior to their wins. 4. A few teams rose dramatically AFTER winning the World Series - notably the White Sox and Angels. This may be the team simply getting the most out of a bigger market. 5. No team dropped more than a couple of spaces AFTER winning the World Series - again, other than the 1997 Marlins. This only looked at World Series winners. Not all participants. There is nothing conclusive, but I have the following observations: 1. Believing that teams can do the 'Florida Marlins' thing and do a sudden splurge on spending to win is misguided in the fact it only happened once - not twice as people often believe. 2. If World Series wins is the goal, then spending heavily on players for a one or two year push has not shown much success - with only the Marlins significantly increasing payroll to buy a winning club - and then having to disband it as the team lost money. It has not happened again - 1 of 15 to me is a bad bet. 3. The Brewers have established themselves as a low/mid tier spending team - 19/15/17 over the past three years. There are few teams like this that have won - with the White Sox and Angels the closest examples. But these are both far larger markets, so I don't know if that kind of growth is possible. The Brewers could possibly force themselves up a few notches into the low teens, but it might be harder to sustain. My feeling is that the team is best off by showing steady competitiveness within their division. Keep people interested in coming to the park, buying jerseys, etc. Then, when you feel you have the chance, you roll the dice every now and then (like the Sabathia trade). Maybe take on some salary, make a signing, etc. This means you never get to sign three guys like Teixiera, Sabathia and Burnett in one year. Maybe one - but not three. And you don't deal your top three prospects for one or two guys - maybe one prospect, but not much else. In the end, you have a consistent core of quality young talent (cheap) that can be meshed with more expensive pickups when the time is right. Still, we have to be able to spend. No team in the lower 1/2 of the salary structure has won the series, other than the 2003 Marlins. I will say that I wish I had the time to look at FAILED teams - teams that did make dramatic grasps at winning - teams that overspent for 1-3 years in an attempt to win it all - only to have it all collapse when they didn't make it. That would probably take a lot more work. Again, this is just something for people to chew on. I'm sure others can draw some interesting conclusions from the information.

Another option if you deal Hart is to try Gamel in RF. I'd love to see the lefthanded bat in the lineup. Don't know how instinctive he'd be out there, but he seems athletic enough, strong arm, etc. Maybe try him out in spring training and if he's not ready, left him spend some time at AAA until they're comfortable in RF to bring him up.

Yeah, it's hard to swallow the price. But what are the options? You can get a Looper-type guy for $5 million. Or maybe a Jon Garland type for $7 million or so. None of these guys are particularly appealing - especially at the price. You can take some flyers on injured or older guys - Smoltz, etc. But that's a big risk. Or go with some young guys - but what young guys? Perhaps we could make a trade or two, but people don't tend to give up young pitching easily. And we'd have to offer something back. Wolf had a very good 2009. Certainly expect some regression, but hopefully, he could keep his ERA sub-4.00 and be a solid #3 type guy.

Heyman says the brewers have offered a 3 year deal. http://twitter.com/SI_JonHeyman/status/6453236810

The Brewers could backload the deal - $5/10/10 million or something like that - in order to soften this year's blow before we are rid of Suppan's contract. Then, if Wolf bombs, we can continue to have an albatross contract for a couple of more years.

Yeah, Jim Breen keeps producing some solid stuff - and lots of it. Always good things to read.

I cringe at saying this, but I say you bring back Counsel, even at an inflated cost of $2 million a year - maybe even for two years. Why? Alex Cora - and inferior player - is getting $2 million. Omar Vizquel is getting $1.375 million. As much as I hate to overspend on insurance, that's what Counsel is - we have an injury prone 2B in Weeks and a rookie in Escobar - having a reliable back up is essential. And if we keep Gamel in the minors, he can spell McGehee at 3B. Ideally, I'd keep this to a one year deal, but I'd cough up $2 million in 2010 and $1.5 in 2011 if I had to.

Time is your best tool when you hold all the cards in your hands - like Sabathia or Matt Holliday or Mark Teixiera. But when you have chinks in your armor - which most guys do - you sign faster, especially in times like this - money is tight for teams, and many will wait until prices go down before getting serious. Edgar Renteria at $9 million a year anyone? The point is that most teams don't have the money for more than one big signing - and every time one guy goes off the board - it shrinks the players options. I do think Wolf has enough leverage to string things along if he desires - but remember, Wolf had a 3-year $28.5 million offer from the Astros last year (which he rejected), but when the market settled, he had nothing like that. He might be motivated for one last big payday. Probably in the 3-year, $27-30 million range. Of course, without having to give up a draft pick, some other teams might get in the game as well, driving up the price a bit. All it takes is one team to get enamored with player to make their price go through the roof.

For what it's worth riveraveblues.com (a yankees site) considers what it would take to get johnson. He's under no illusion that it would be easy: http://riveraveblues.com/...fter-the-big-fish-20278/ The Gamel, Salome and Lawrie package would likely be comparable. He puts out Joba Chamberlain (or Phil Hughes) and Jesus Montero plus some lesser prospects.

Mauer was just unbelievable. He elevated his game when it was already one of the best in the league. The only drawback was missing the first month with an injury. Without that, he would have been even more amazing. Voters totally got this one right.

A backup INF of Counsel and Heether would have a solid look to it. I'd like for him to get the chance. Cheap, OBP type guy, plays multiple positions. What's not to like for that slot.