MNBrew

Another guy mentioned in that mlbtraderumors.com post is Rene Tosoni, a former Twins OF who got a lot of MLB time in '11 when Twins OFs were dropping like the Twins' loss column was adding up. For all the PT he got, though, he seemed pretty overmatched. I do remember the Twins' broadcasters talking about him as a hitter w/ decent pop in the minors. I'd guess these are depth moves also aimed to fill out the Nashville roster with some AAA vets.

I loved the ball/glove logo at the time & still do -- it's pure genius -- but I'm a firm believer that it should never be anything more than a secondary or alternate logo anymore. . . . Many disagree, but I lived that era already and would rather keep looking forward . . . AND do like the idea of more merchandising $$ for the team by keeping both its 2 longest-lasting logos alive (though I'd sure love the powder blue to remain solely a thing of the past as it has since they ditched it for road grays in the mid/late '80s like most teams were thankfully doing at the time).

The white panel in the Dalton era was only on the batting helmet, never on the cap. Yellow panel was on the road caps, I believe.

Lee's 34 'til late August & has 3 more years on his contract, so that's one reason he'd be better than the 2-year guys brought in 2 winters ago. Hart + Gomez + 2 high-end guys might be too much, but maybe Gomez & 2 decent prospects wouldn't be. Then again, would Philly even remotely consider taking a deal like that? I'd doubt it. As nate82 mentioned, Hart's NTC stipulates any team whose ST is in FL is a no-go. Of course, many, many guys fizzle quickly as they age. But really, any sort of move involves a roll of the dice on some level. Whether the dice get rolled depends on DM's comfort level w/ the risk and the other needs/circumstances at the time. I do think that if DM somehow landed Cliff Lee, Brewer Nation would collectively flip, & probably mostly for the positive. Sure, he's 34, but he's a year younger than Halladay, signed for 2 years longer, and has 800 fewer MLB innings on his arm.

I'm glad you're not the GM of the Brewers. Lee's also getting old, and even though he's under contract until 2015, it won't be long until there's some significant decline. That was a totally unnecessary swipe. And for goodness' sake, the guy's making a salary the Brewers would appear extremely unlikely to bring in at this point even they could even strike a deal w/ Philly in the first place. Everyone's getting old. There are always outliers to the "standard" age-based progressions, and some of them defy those patterns significantly for the better. I remember when Nolan Ryan was a FA and rather interested in the Brewers. Harry Dalton was a fool and didn't think the Brewers needed him. The guy pitched another 10 awesome years and won more Cy Youngs. I could just imagine how lit-up this board would've been at the prospect of bringing in one of the games all-time best pitchers, with many inevitably against it because -- Heaven forbid! -- he was already in his mid-30s. In the meantime, Lee's still an incredible pitcher. And he's also notably better than any pitcher the Brewers have. Like the Brewers couldn't use him? My whole point was the value of the very few "difference makers" out there. We've seen first-hand the difference Sheets, Sabathia, & Greinke make when they're on the mound. Lee's that kind of pitcher. Those are the types of guys who give you a chance not only to get TO the playoffs but also a legit chance to win it all.

Oh, the pesky details of Hart's limited NTC.... It doesn't hurt to dream. That's part of why we spend time here on this board. I still like my idea even if it meant switching the "target" team & potential rotation anchor. Texas? Seattle? I guess those two teams have been tossed around plenty already.

I've read plenty of his stuff and have taken a different angle, however unlikely. As I said, what he described is one way to look at what the Braves pulled off for 14 years of playoff appearances. Granted, they were the exception. But you have to have a model and the Braves had a great one for sustained success. I'd agree that Hart & Gomez for young, controllable, higher-ceiling talent is, idealistically, an ideal way to go, esp. for a market like Milwaukee. My point was more rooted in the idea that it's worth a long-term difference-maker IF you can get one realistically AND, at least more so, if he's a pitcher (and by long-term, I mean definitely >2 years). Leaning mostly on the bats with too many pitching ???'s is what we did in the Macha years and the results were dreadful. Good offense without strong pitching just isn't likely to get you very far even if it happens to get you to the playoffs.

Boy, JimH5, you hit that on the head. The crappy thing there is that for me it would mean buying 2 of 'em -- 1 for collectible purposes (yes, I have a Brewers' cap collection) -- and one for daily wear, meaning eventually for yardwork.

As I mentioned in the Halladay <-> Hart/Gomez/etc. idea thread, and kinda playing off TheCrew07's post above, I'd much rather see the Brewers use Hart & Gomez as the basis of acquiring a #1-type pitcher. TC07 points out the idea of reloading and his illustration brought back to mind the Braves' approach throughout the '90s. There was Chipper and a killer rotation, but over time most of the other positions gradually cycled through, whether with young players or with top players acquired for young players (and/or proven guys) or with the right FA move. To me, if Melvin could find the right team who could use both Hart & Gomez (someone like Philly who could seriously use proven OF bats) and include a promising young player or two without obliterating the core of young talent that's finally providing both promise & depth for the Brewers, it'd be worth it to acquire a Halladay, a Cliff Lee (whom I'd prefer most), or whomever comparable you could pry. The quality of the return would justify the payroll bump. . . . . As TC07 describes, that's a reload that seriously beefs up the pitching, yet which doesn't majorly compromise the offense, and it's that pitching which gives you a legit shot at contention . . . not just for the playoffs, but for a championship. PFx1 would seemingly prefer things as they are with a Hart extension. Less the Hart extension, I'm not afraid of our current chances in '13 either. But I'd feel that much stronger with a proven, on-the-roster-for-a-while ace (like Lee!!!) than I would with the current rotation and with Hart & Gomez still in the lineup. For a team like the Brewers, there's almost inevitably a bit of a gamble that will have to take place with some part of the roster. In '11, it was pretty much only the bench, and that worked. Given the current makeup of the basic/projected 25-man, that gamble is mostly on the rotation. If we could somehow acquire a legit difference-maker for the rotation, I'd willingly gamble on a slightly lesser offense than by gambling quite so fully on the rotation. . . . And I REALLY do like our young starters -- not saying I don't. I just think it'd be completely worth it if you could add a difference-maker SP, especially if part of the cost in the deal are two proven starters a year from potential FA and both have either All-Star credentials or ceiling.

PFx1, unless you've got a view of the Brewers' books, I don't see how you can assert that your take on things is airtight. If your point is that the additional national TV revenue basically covers the cost of Hart, in essence you've still got piles of young guys coming up through the ranks -- beyond the gradually escalating salaries of Braun, Yo, etc. -- who, if they perform well, will start earning nice increases, too, with all those other guys around. So perhaps your point is that the Brewers could comfortably max out payroll on Opening Day, but that's what they did last year (boo! hiss! on K-Rod!) and they had a lot of inflexibility most of the year. On the basis that your take is fully correct, perhaps, then, one of the truly key questions is whether or not the Brewers are best served to operate with no cushion for additional moves. . . . Sure, as noted regularly, Mark A will absorb a loss for truly special players. But as others have said, Hart's certainly fine in many respects but not "special" in that rare, exceptional way. So I doubt that giving Hart an extension that pushes them to the edge of Mark A.'s payroll comfort zone is a likely occurrence.

I do like the thinking, and I honestly think it might have more legs than some would want to think if Philly would ink Hart or even both to an extension. For two years of Halladay, I think that Hart & Gomez is a very fair starting point and is surely the sort of player who could bridge the two years in between now & the development of even more of our young starters. I'd actually love to have Cliff Lee and would gladly put together those two guys & a couple high-end prospects to make that deal, unbelievably treacherous as it might prove to be.

Ditto, RobDeer45. Seemingly very wise moves at very reasonable contract figures. Hard to argue w/ Melvin's BP "extreme makeover" . . . Badenhop for Mondesi jr. was outstanding! Adding Gonzo & Gorzo plus all the addition-by-subtraction . . . Doug Melvin's done dang good work! With Nyjer the only noted offensive subtraction (and where only a tiny something-else might even be needed), there wasn't much to be done to the offense (though again we're still only half-through the offseason). And it wouldn't surprise me to see another move snuck in here or there (Gonzalez or just maybe Figgins for the bench, just maybe the right bargain-rate SP, or something else little-suspected and late which would also mean probably inexpensive ... all very "signature" type moves for Melvin!). I love with Melvin that it's often not about splashy moves, just the right ones, and he's built quite a track record of success that way here in BrewTown!

I totally agree on your ending points (though with the promise of the young pitchers, it's also possible things could go very, very well), but the first quoted sentence.... Yes, of course, Weeks was terrible as he wasn't fully recovered from that badly injured ankle from '11. But from there... - Gomez was better than expected, but only because he'd never come too close to living up to the offensive abilities most anyone in MLB believed he had. But the guy's ceiling has always been super high, so that he finally started to live up to that believed potential doesn't mean a regression is necessarily coming next year given that he's still in the typical "ascent" years before the "standard" peak -- yes, of course he may regress, but I'm asserting that it's hardly a given. (His defense & baserunning were right on par w/ expectations, which very justly were very high.) - Ramirez's 2012 numbers were pretty much right in line with his career norms and he's been extraordinarily consistent, and all the more so when he's played >140 games (8 of the past 12 years ... he missed 187 games in the 4 lowest years, 80 in '09 and averaged about 36 per between '05, '07. & '10 ... granted, more of those "more injured" years are generally more recent, but he's played in 149 each of the past two, so to assume he'll miss major PT is just plain errant (possible, of course, but hardly a sure thing) ... anyway, I digress). So I'd posit that he only exceeded expectations of those who didn't care to believe how consistently good he's been, of those who were convinced his slow start was a harbinger of age-based regression, or, at minimum, of those who didn't believe he was capable of being a Gold-Glove caliber 3B (probably most of us on that last point!).

The initial Paul Lukas post had it correct, that the ball/glove (late '70s/early-mid '80s duplicate look) cap is their alternate cap to go w/ the Friday retro unis. Obviously the sportslogos.net thing is an error that will be corrected if it hasn't been already.

Nothing earth-shattering going on in my thinking, just a whole lot of thoughts at just past the halfway point of the offseason.... While I see plenty of reason to keep Corey Hart at 1B for the next few seasons, I still lean more heavily toward trading him as a way to utilize likely-capable (& hopefully also directly comparable) players already in the system & ready for the bigs AND also to address the financially-rational "needs" (esp. for a low-end market media & media $$ wise) of manageable payroll which retains significant flexibility and increasing the pool of upper-end young talent. To PFx1's last point just above, I think the teams with the best odds in the "crap shoot" are ones who not only capitalize on their greatest strengths but who also maximize their opportunities to add talent. Plain & simple, in most cases the more talent you have, the better your odds. Look at the Cardinals of 2011. Heck, just about every player they had in their lineup or brought in off the bench produced, and same goes both for their starters and their Brewers-decimating bullpen. Brewers' starters hit a rough patch & the Cardinals were ready to attack like vultures hovering over prey (granted, of course, that they were on a late-season run that pretty much no one could stop, esp. once the Braves puked up their chances to earn a playoff spot that easily should've been theirs & that, in turn, would've kept the Cardinals out of the postseason altogether). So by that logic, Hart's a (usually) very solid asset and we all know that (granted, also with a noted hole in his swing and the occasionally mind-numbing lack of restraint when facing a slider headed into the dirt in the LH batter's box). The ultimate question is whether trading him would a) bring enough in return to justify the move in the first place, b) create significant enough payroll flexibility to make other needed/opportunistic moves possible, and c) be accompanied by decent enough production by the player(s) in the lineup in Hart's place. Giving up proven, reasonably affordable talent & good character's not an easy thing to do, and it's complicated all the more by Hart's oft-stated desire to be a career Brewer. I'm still torn. But the Brewers probably have more talented & viable depth at AAA & on the Miller Park bench at 1B than at any other position. Gomez is in a similar position, but moving Aoki to CF or putting Schafer in as the starter post-Gomez still creates other holes (one for a more prototypical power-hitting corner OF in Aoki's case, an "I'm comfortable with him getting 100 starts in case of injury" 4th OF in Schafer's case). . . . . Trading Hart may not ultimately be the best move, but it's still one that holds up so well from a baseball standpoint & a financial standpoint that it's not surprising it hasn't gone away.

I think I agree with most of your points, BCD80, except the 40-man was already full after the Gorzelanny signing, meaning a corresponding move is still coming. (... unless you were suggesting this was possibly the last (needed?) addition to the 40-man, but I wasn't sure since your 2nd paragraph also predicts a possible spring training SP addition...) I agree w/ Mass Haas that Leon's a likely guy to go, though I've also wondered about M. De Los Santos.

According to Jim Bowden on Twitter (linked from MLBtraderumors.com), the Brewers outbid both the Nats & the Reds. That makes it feel like a double-edged victory on two different fronts!

I think you enjoy the (MLB) depth rather than figure out how to get rid of it. Talk about no safety net! Trade Maldonado and you're one Lucroy injury away from Blake Lalli or Jorge Fabregas or some other black hole as your everyday starting C. That thought alone squashes any appeal to trading either one of those guys for at least a couple years. In that scenario I'd rather have Casey McGehee back as utility IF and emergency C, a thought which I'm sure scares most regular BF.net posters (not to mention his new Japanese team re: the thought of playing without him).

How cool! I really like this signing! I couldn't care less what arm any of our relievers throws with as long as they get guys out and don't give up many runs (see: problems of 2012 BP), but signing both Gorzelanny & Gonzalez can't hurt. Narveson, at whatever point he might make the roster, would raise the LHP count to 3. So let's see... Rotation: Gallardo, Estrada, 3 of Fiers/Rogers/Peralta/Narveson/Burgos/Thornburg Bullpen: Axford, Henderson, Kintzler, Badenhop, Gorzelanny, Gonzalez, and 1 of Fautino DLS/Olmsted/Sanchez/Hellweg/Stinson plus anyone who doesn't make the rotation 3 other things I like about this situation now: 1. Many pitchers in that mix still have options left, so there's room for decent flexibility 2. There's also now some very substantial & promising pitching depth at the top of the Brewers' minors... No budding #1 starters yet, necessarily, but still good depth.... And that list doesn't even include the likes of Jungmann, Bradley, Nelson, Bucci, etc. 3. This also means Narveson's comeback would be a bonus rather than a critical piece going into ST.

I don't think folks are forgetting at all. Melvin & Mark A. have said multiple times that the Brewers lost money last year (not that it's all K-Rod's fault, but his accepting arby as a FA and his resulting $8M salary was a killer) and that, in essence, the payroll this year would be more "back in line" with where it needed to be. By starting there, rather than by being stretched to the max, they've got a cushion to add comfortably during the season as opportunity (viable trade targets) & circumstances (success in the standings) justify. Unless Weeks or Ramirez is traded, I don't see the Brewers being in a good position to extend Hart AND still be able to add pieces that fill holes next off-season or beyond.

My point on Estrada wasn't in reaction to any person's single post, but more to that general theme which has been present all off-season.

Not that Weeks was stellar in the 2nd half of 2012, but by all accounts, his lousy 1st half of 2012 was very evidently due to his ongoing recovery from his late-2011 ankle injury. To posit that his 1st half of 2012 suggests a precursor to age-based regression seems to be quite a reach and a rather complete disregarding of his 2nd half performance once he was closer to fully healthy again.

I think the Brewers are a far more likely destination for Alex Gonzalez than for Betancourt.

Two things: 1. The Astros had roughly twice as many wins against the Brewers as they averaged against every other team MLB, so based on 2012 results, one could easily say the Brewers are helped more than any other NL Central team by Houston joining the AL. 2. I don't get why some feel Estrada has something to prove as a starter. Once he joined the rotation in 2012, he only missed starts due to a baserunning injury and he pitched pretty consistently all year. Look at his total numbers over the last 2 years: a 3.82 ERA in 231 IP, w/ 211 hits, 58 BB, & 231 Ks - a 1.16 WHIP & a perfect 1:1 K/IP ratio. His 2011 wasn't shabby at all but his 2012 was even better and he pitched for longer in the rotation. His HR rate is a little concerning at times, but by & large he's proven to be a very solid asset when on the mound. To me, the 2013 rotation isn't Yo and which of the question marks, but Yo, Estrada, and then which of the young guys....

I really don't think a lack of major off-season acquisition is reason to think they need to go all-in on rebuilding. Why? - The Brewers already have a top-level offense AND young guys in the rotation after Yo who've all shown some knack for MLB success AND an improved bullpen. - The moves they've made aren't exciting (Badenhop & Gorzelanny, not to mention TONS of addition-by-subtraction moves), but what matters more is that the players are good in the regular season, not just exciting in the winter (notice how so many Mets & Cubs moves typically don't pan out well once the games count). I think the team's potentially extremely well-positioned. Why? - They very well could add a player or two into the mix at (relatively) bargain pricing once January hits (see: Saito signing in 2011). - They're not loaded with role players who have inflexible contract situations (see: 2012 bullpen). - They have a couple last-contract-year guys (Hart, Gomez) who might be attractive enough to other teams to net a decent return AND they have guys in-house who could step in right away to replace them (Gamel & Schafer, respectively). - The payroll's low enough overall that there's plenty of room in Mark A.'s wallet to make a major-payroll addition later if the right circumstances (standings) & opportunity (deal) arise. All that said, even if I was inclined to go the total rebuilding route, there are nearly 2 months before ST begins and lots of things that could still happen. Why decide now just because other teams are coming to mostly-ridiculous contract terms? I commend Melvin for playing it smart & not overreacting. No GM wins 'em all, but Melvin's pretty shrewd and he has great "equity" in my book to have earned the benefit of a few hundred doubts in terms of my respect for his wisdom & judgement. . . . As one example, Melvin may already know that the trade market would bear a very inequitable return on Corey Hart, so there's no point in considering such a move. . . . OR Melvin may already know that there is a market and has a decent sense of what it'd take for him to trade Hart away, and that if he waits enough longer, some team will likely come around to meeting what DM feels is an acceptable amount of talent/potential in return. . . OR Melvin just knows that pending-FA Hart is a potentially nice trade card to have up his sleeve for later should the right need arise. . . . SOOOOO . . . . is the lack of action at this point a reason to "pack in" any hope of 2013 contention based on today's version of the roster? I just couldn't buy that it is.