Matt Breen

If the club thinks Hart or Cruz is going to suck like you have them, then no, you don't consider dealing Lee. But if the team feels one of them can do better - let's say Hart's .916 OPS at AAA translates into a .800 OPS in the bigs (I believe his MLEs from Baseball Prospectus was something like that), then you consider it if the right deal came along. The team, however, has to be confident that one of those guys could replace Lee or Jenkins. Just like when dealing Overbay they have to be confident Fielder will step in and perform as a certain level.

I think people need to realize that the article talked about average for 2005 - that's qualified LFs in the NL. That's only 11 guys. However, Carlos isn't average if you put in every leftfielder in the league up against him. The sample was simply those guys who had enough ABs last year to qualify. 11 guys. And remember, this is for Fantasy baseball - not real life. In fantasy, it's important in most leagues to have guys who play everyday. That makes your sample 11 guys. Putting that in context, he's average. But if the real world, I'd take Carlos over several guys who's OPS rated above him in 2005. Guys like Floyd (due to past injuries), Gonzeles (age), and Holliday (Coors influence - he's a .730ish OPS guy on the road), and so on. And the same goes for a slew of guys with good OPS that didn't play as much - Reggie Sanders (injury waiting to happen), Randy Winn (fluke - now way he has a 1.071 OPS in 2006), etc. And platooning guys can have warped OPS because they're only playing against a specific kind of pitcher. There are guys who, I feel, are better - Dunn, Burrell, Cabrera, Berkman and Bay. Carlos is a good player. The best - not by a long shot. There are several guys (listed above) that most teams would take in his place. But there's a whole slew of guys who can't come close to what Carlos does - go out and play everyday and hit 30 HR on a year-after-year basis. Carlos is average in the context of the article -- it doesn't mean he's bad or people think he's terrible.

I shudder at the thought that we had worse guys than Kinney and Franklin in the rotation.

Thank you. I think the vast majority of people would rather have a little monitoring like this than just let the wars fester. That's my opin.

As everyone said, thanks.

I found the ZIPS projections for hitters. Interesting to compare: Damien Miller - 35 .249/.321/.387/.706 Chad Moeller ? 30 .236/.303/.355/.658 INFIELDERS Russell Branyan - 29 .251/.342/.494/.836 Bill Hall - 25 .251/.296/.367/.663 J.J. Hardy ? 22 .252/.347/.397/.743 Wes Helms - 28 .262/.333/.417/.750 Lyle Overbay ? 28 .299/.379/.465/.844 Junior Spivey ? 30 .272/.359/.433/.792 Jeff Cirillo- 35 .231/.294/.302/.596 OUTFIELDERS Brady Clark ? 31 .271/.359/.389/.748 Geoff Jenkins ? 30 .273/.341/.484/.825 Carlos Lee ? 28 .290/.355/.487/.842 Chris Magruder ?27 .255/.313/.383/.696

Weeks, Lee, Overbay and Branyon were quite accurate. Jenks, Miller and Hardy were okay. Hall and Clark were quite off. Helms, Magurder, Moeller were all over the place. The fewer at bats probably make them harder to peg correctly. I think the nailing of Overbay's performance was the one that is most impressive. Weeks was pretty good too. Hall I could see getting wrong - he'd never really done well, even in the minors (high desert excluded), so it would be difficult to predict he'd do so well. All in all, they didn't overestimate a players performance - going on the conservative side for the most part.

Thanks, Casey.

If I remember correct, prior to the start of the year, didn't someone post Baseball Prospectus PECOTA projections for 2005? It gave their projections for the Brewer players for 2005, including the minor league players if they played in the bigs this year. Does anyone have those? I was curious how they came out. I remember people were upset up Overbay's projections - I think it was like .270 or something. And they had Branyon doing really well. That's all I recall. I realize they're different from the MLEs - these were future projections, while MLEs are conversions based upon actual performance. Thanks.

Fun article, whether you like the stuff or not. Thanks for posting.

I just read an article on ESPN - link - it mentions the following: Can anyone shed some light on the 'Ultimate Zone Rating' thing? Never heard of it. I assume that a '0' rating is average - meaning Bernie Williams costs the Yanks 44 runs because of his atrocious fielding. Ouch. I wonder where a guy like Clark would be.

Casey, thanks for the work. Wow. I'm trying to figure it all out!

Too bad we're not the real voters.

This happens all to often on these boards, which is unfortunate at times. Many good discussions quickly deteriorate into a few people shooting off post after post about the 'exception' or whatever, completely losing the original idea of the thread.

Thank you, folks, for you comments. I knew this was probably a futile idea, but I appreciate people at least giving it their two cents. Thanks again.

Thanks for doing this one! I asked for this one because I, like people have suggested, feel Bert has gotten hosed over the years. So many people forget (or never knew) how good he really was. You hear his name and say, 'No way,' but then you look at the stats and realize how good he was - and he did it for quite a few bad teams - like a couple of people mentioned. Here's a couple of articles supporting Blyleven's case: Article Article 2

Sounds like a peachy plan. Perhaps a team like Philly would work, since Lofton and Michaels have had 200+ ABs in CF this year.

Question regarding defense. I'll say upfront, I have a soft spot for good defensive players. I realize that several positions get more action (SS for example), some are less challenging (1B for example), so all positions are not equal in thier importance. My question is, how much does it really matter? Specifically, I'm looking Dave Krynzel and CF. How much would his defense make up for his lack of offensive production (assuming he wouldn't hit as well as Clark or someone else - say Hart if they really did move him there). I've heard some people say things like, "Krynzel's defense would save us dozens of hits," or something similar. But would it really do that? Because if a guy's defense saves one or two hits a week - let's say 30 hits over the course of a season - that's pretty significant. It, in my warped theory, makes a .250 hitter a .300 hitter. Why? Normally, we'd just see those saved runs in the lower ERAs of the team's pitchers. Say Krynzel hits .250 - 150 hits on 600 ABs. Let's say his defense saves the team 30 hits over Brady Clark - 'giving' those 30 hits to Krynzel, he gets 180 hits, and thus a .300 BA. I know that's not how it's done, but I'm just trying to find a way to have one set value for a player - instead of two (hitting and fielding). Has anyone done anything comparing what a guy's defense can do for the club with another player? Can you look at Brady Clark and say he gets to x percentage of balls hit to his zone, and then actually translate that into how many hits he has saved compared to another player? Ultimately, I'm curious as to what Krynzel needs to do to actually become a starter in CF for the team. Compared to Clark, would his defense save us 10 hits? 20? 30? I realize people probably won't have fielding breakdowns (zone ratings, etc.) for Krynzel like they will Clark - but just like any rookie, we'd have to estimate what kind of a defensive upgrade (or downgrade) he'd be. Perhaps this is impossible - especially for a guy like Corey Hart, who's not played there much. Not sure. I apologize if this is really confusing. Thanks for any suggestions/ideas/comments.

I kind of feel the same way. The stats board is something I don't look at often. I no doubt miss some good things because of it.

Russ, thanks for doing this - and doing it so it's fairly easy to understand.

I hope Krynzel can finish off the season well - pull back up to .270ish by season's end. The strikeouts totals are troublesome. Perhaps if he could spend 2005 as a back up in the bigs, get a couple of hundred at bats, learn from the new coaches, etc., he'd be ready to play full time in 2006.

Hell with that. I say we thrash him within an inch of his life within the first inning or two. I want nice, big margin wins. Build up the team's confidence, get the bats swinging. Let the bullpen (whom I don't trust all that much) not worry about things. That said, a 5-3 win would be just fine.

Brian, great photo. Thanks.