adambr2

I haven't seen anything from Sveum in this year or last that makes me think he's a valuable part of this coaching staff. Yet the guy we had a problem with last year was....Leyva?

Oh man....please don't find a way to screw this up...please please please....

If we don't get at least a tie here, I'm going to be sick.

Really? Seems to me I "joined" the discussion weeks ago and someone's bumping the thread after a bad start to re-ignite an argument. And if you're "not dumb enough" using your words, why bring this up tonight? Ya think just maybe the 19-5 game may be fresh in people's minds and as such that may skew the discussion a touch? I'm not sure what you're saying here, unless you're suggesting that I was baiting you. I don't see anything in my original post tonight that was inviting anything more than friendly discussion. I know you don't like the timing, but this is going to come up over the course of the season because this is something that could potentially have a major affect on our offseason and outlook for '09 and further. And this is why it's absolutely silly to look at career numbers over say the last 3-4 years of a players career when you're talking about the contract he received. From 03-06, the 4 seasons before we signed him, Suppan was unquestionably better than Lilly. He was also better than Silva...huh....this is kinda what I'm talking about. You can pick and chose what numbers you would like to use, but I think that GM's just might use the last 4 years over what a player did in the AL say 7 years ago over the previous 4 years. When you've got to go way out of your way to make a comparison, it's likely not one the GM's made. Lilly was almost even with Suppan every year, while pitching in the AL. The lone exception is 2005. Suppan wasn't significantly better than Lilly from '03 to '06 besides 2005. Because I wouldn't want the Brewers to take on that deal, most certainly does not mean that no other team will take him for the 2 years and 25 million he's owed the next two years. I don't know why you keep saying $25M. He has a $2M buyout for his 2011 team option. Anyone trading for him after this year and taking on his entire contract has to commit $27M minimum.

He's actually had 4 good starts and 2 really, really bad ones, which is fine. But you know that his ERA for the year coming into tonight isn't a very telling stat 30 days into the season, just as much as his new 5.19 ERA doesn't really tell much 31 days into the season. And yet you chose tonight to come back with this argument? It's not even transparent, you come out and say "in light of this bad outing.....". A awful time to try and analyze a 4 year contract. But again, why I'm trying to convey here, when you say that he's never been worthy of the deal he got? It's just not even a little bit true. 200 IP with ERA's in the very low 4's and one in the mid 3's for 4 years before we signed him. I didn't like the deal and I've said that because I prefer power arms, but again, trying to argue that he's only worth it if he "morphs" into something he's never been? Anyway, I'll let this die now. I'll bring it back up after he has another good couple starts....which reminds me...I should have brought it up a couple days ago..... I'm not really sure what you've seen in my posting history that makes you think that I can't objectively analyze whether or not Suppan is tradeable after this season just because he had a bad outing tonight. That really has nothing to do with any of this discussion, it just got me thinking of it. You know I maintained earlier this season that we would have a tough time trading Suppan after '08. I'm done arguing about whether or not Suppan is worthy of the deal he got. It's almost completely a subjective argument. We gave it to him, he signed it, it's done. The real point is, "is his contract tradeable, or are we stuck with his remaining $25M committment?" Yes, he did have his 4 best years of his career right before he signed his contract. And again, 3 of those years, he was playing in front of a defense that probably took off .25 to .30 from his ERA over the average defense. Still were decent years, but at age 34 next season, would you expect that he'd look more like he looked like last year and will look like this year, or what he looked like back then? As far as bringing this up after a couple good starts, feel free. If he can maintain it over the course of the season, my opinion will obviously change. Until then, I still think you are overrating Suppan if you think that $27M is something we can just dump on a large market team that needs to plug in another starter.

May as well hit Turnbow with the news right away. At least it sure won't catch him off guard right now.

Which is a awful idea and not likely a good time to make anywhere near an objective analysis. Which is your opinion, and yet you've joined the discussion. I'm not dumb enough to think that Suppan is going to do this the rest of the year just because he had a bad night, I fully realize he'll have some good outings and bad ones yet this season, and probably end up around his career averages again. That's not even a little true. Of course, when you lose 19-5 this is a real convenient time to bring it up, but his recent success was better than Ted Lilly's, MUCH better than Jason Marquis,Gil Meche, Carlos Silva....how many other pitchers that got similar money? So while you can complain about the deal being an above average market deal, it simply wasn't. First of all, obviously I posted this long before we lost 19-5 tonight. Secondly, Lilly has, at worst, an even track record with Suppan over the course of his career, and almost all in the AL. Marquis didn't get "similar money." He got 3 years, $21 million. Meche definitely got a bad deal, Silva did too, even though he's been better than Suppan in the AL besides one horrible year. Meche and Silva getting bad deals doesn't mean a team is going to want Suppan for 2 years, $27M, especially when you consider the market differences this year. And think, Gallardo only makes 350K. Of course, it's always a VERY bad idea to try and compare a pitcher signed as a FA to one that's still in his 6 years of service time. I mean, would me pointing out Barry Zito prove any point whatsoever? That's the same logic as using what Prince makes right now and trying to argue seriously that Counsell doesn't deserve 5 times more. Obviously. But it's not even close to the same situation. Again, its' a REALLY bad idea to even bring this up after an outing like this as I'm sure opinions will be much different than they were when the team had won each of his games and his ERA was 3.48. Of course I didn't mention Gallardo and Zito, those are obviously terrible comparisons. I'm not going to sit here and use Gallardo's 350K salary as a reason that Suppan makes too much to be traded -- I have a better idea of how MLB contracts work than that. You're right, using Zito doesn't really prove any point either. At the time, Zito was seen as a Cy Young caliber pitcher, which no one obviously ever thinks of Suppan being in the same ballpark as that, and as a result, Zito got Cy Young money. And of course, as we know, the Giants got screwed. Again, a convenient argument on a night like tonight, but Vargas is not a guy who goes 200 IP, and is a much worse pitcher than Jeff Suppan. Vargas is just an example, although he could post a similar ERA to Suppan. But again, that's just an example. The Mets have other, better options than Claudio Vargas or Jeff Suppan. As have dozens and dozens of other star players. So what? There's a difference between a 2 year commitment in the off-season to a pitcher at 2 years and 25 million, and a slugger during the season at 20 million for the next 4-5 years(which is what it was the last time he was actually put on waivers. 2 years, $27 million. Would you want us taking that on for Suppan next year if he were on another team? No, not unless they're eating some of the contract. Again, just because the Yankees or Mets can afford to take on a bad contract doesn't mean they are going to do it just because we want to get it off our books. It's just not smart business. Even the Rangers, who operate on a signficantly smaller payroll than the Yankees, ate a good portion of A-Rod's contract when he was traded to the Yankees. And no, I'm not comparing A-Rod to Suppan.

Unless he pitches like he did his entire time with the Cards. I don't know where this myth comes from that he was never a quality pitcher. He was. Hell, his ERA coming into tonight was 3.48. I'll take 4 good starts and 1 bad from him. He's actually had 4 good starts and 2 really, really bad ones, which is fine. But you know that his ERA for the year coming into tonight isn't a very telling stat 30 days into the season, just as much as his new 5.19 ERA doesn't really tell much 31 days into the season. Suppan pitched in front of one of the best defenses in baseball in his years in St. Louis, which obviously was beneficial to his ERA. Suppan, over the course of his career, is a mediocre pitcher. Sure, he's been a quality starter at times. But 4.62 career ERA starters are a dime a dozen. Now, not all of them can give you 200 innings and will remain healthy year after year. That's positive for him. But it doesn't make him worth what his salary is the next few years. Those extra innings he'll eat up every year are still innings he's going to give up about 4.62 runs every 9 innings.

I don't blame Melvin too much for the Suppan signing -- from what I understand, he was pretty heavily influenced by Mark A. into getting this deal done, and pretty much had his hand forced into this one. Still, it's probably not going to end up being a good deal unless Suppan somehow morphs into a better pitcher than he's been his whole career. I'm not the hugest Dave Bush fan, but we could probably have him in the rotation all of 2009 in Suppan's spot and it's really not going to make any difference in the W/L column. 1) Sheets 2) Gallardo 3) Parra 4) Bush 5) Villanueva would be more than fine, with still plenty of depth likely available. (Capuano, Weaver, Narveson, Jackson)

Gabe Kapler, meet Earth. Earth, Kapler.

I wonder what the statistical odds are of us scoring 8 runs next inning.

He was having a hot night, knocked in 3 runs with a single and a double, so naturally, Yost pulled him in the middle of the game.

Well, couple of grand slams and we're right back in this.

George Webb burgers are still 6 for $5.

Rickie, too.

I would have to imagine that hitting 3 3-run homers off 3 different pitchers in the same night has never been done before, but who knows.

Well, on the bright side, our pitchers only have to burn 8 innings tonight instead of 9.

Billy is either hurting bad or he was really dogging it down the line.

This is the situation that McClung gets every few weeks where he comes in for a few innings and pitches well, thereby convincing Yost and Melvin to keep him for a few more weeks.

I know it's beyond the point of mattering, but did Ned absolutely have to remove the one guy in our lineup that was doing anything tonight? "Whoa, easy now, settle down there Ryan, I feel like you might be starting to get hot."

Braun looked good tonight.

Nice outing, Soup.

Why would they care about Shouse coming in to face Fukudome? Is that really relevant at all at the moment?

Revisiting this again after Suppan's rough outing tonight, let's take a look objectively at Suppan's contract. He's got 2 years, $25M remaining on it at minimum. He has a $12.75M option for 2011, with a $2M buyout. So to any team that wants to trade for Suppan and take his contract, they get their choice between a 2 year, $27M contract and a 3 year, $37.75M contract. Either of those is a salary for a low #1 or very high #2. $13M a year is less than what Harang makes in a year, it's in the ballpark of what Oswalt makes in a year. If Suppan was on the FA market right now at this very moment, and seeking a 2 year deal, do you really think he would be able to land a $27M dollar contract? I doubt it. So why would anyone not only do that, but give something in trade to get him? We signed him to about average market value when we signed him for 4 years, $42M. He was coming off two career years and was NLCS MVP in 2006, so his value may have even been a bit overinflated. I think Soup would need to post an ERA in the low 4.00's for anyone to even want to consider it without eating some of his salary. If he is around his career 4.60 ERA? I just don't see it. He's not at the age where he's going to be projected to improve. Yeah, it's nice that he can be counted on to stay healthy and give you 200 innings, but how much is that really worth? Even if they need pitching, I can't imagine a team like the Mets would be foolish just because they have the finances to do so. There are plenty of good FA pitchers on the market this offseason if they want to wisely invest their money. They could put Vargas in the rotation for a fraction of the cost and probably lose very little over the course of the season. I realize that money is less of an issue for a team like the Mets than it is for a team like the Brewers, but that doesn't mean they're going to throw it around and overpay just because they can. There are plenty of other options for the few teams that might consider taking him off our hands to fill their starting rotation next year, by either free agency or better trades. They aren't reliant on us calling them about Jeff Suppan. Manny Ramirez has been put on irrevocable waivers by the Red Sox in the past free for any taker in MVP-caliber years, and no one has bitten. Different situations, different contracts, but I'm not sure we wouldn't get the same result if Suppan had a year like last year and we went ahead and did that. So I can't see how we'll get anything in return, unless we want to send $7M - $9M in the trade to help cover the remainder of his contract.

He looked like he was thinking, "This guy must be feeling terrible, this should cheer him up a bit."