MNBrew

I'd vote for... Alomar, Blyleven, Edgar Martinez, McGriff, McGwire, Palmeiro, Raines, & Lee Smith I'm on the fence about Parker & Morris, & I witnessed Morris' '91 Game 7 in person. Rationale: Alomar -- offensive & defensive stud Blyleven -- no more of a "stat compiler" than Robin Yount, & stuck on many lousy teams; 287 wins, 3,701 K's, 242 CGs, & a 3.31 ERA make this a no-brainer; clearly HOF-worthy in my book Edgar Martinez -- one of the game's best hitters, and as deserving as a DH as Paul Molitor McGriff -- dominant power hitter & run producer for a long, long time McGwire -- Gaylord Perry can be in without folks flinching but not McGwire? Perry was a caught-in-the-act & known life-long cheater, which is more than McGwire was (McGwire wasn't career-long), and I still think Perry's career stands on its own 2 feet. I'm not into double standards. McGwire's one of the best HR hitters ever; hit 49 HRs as a rookie, so his base-level power was exceptional and on a level few ever achieve. You could never honestly or accurately quantify how many of his HRs occurred only because of PED-type assistance. Palmeiro -- 500 HRs, 3,000 hits; ditto the Perry rationale & double-standard rejection noted above Tim Raines -- One of the best leadoff hitters & SB guys in history; power, RBIs, & OPS are irrelevant discussion points here Lee Smith -- One of the best closers of all time, and the best closer not in the HOF; huge save totals & career dominance in bandboxes make accomplishments all the more impressive

Scattered thoughts after reading the posts in this thread so far: I see this Boggs thing as a depth move. No way in heck am I seeing him as a cinch for a roster spot. Hinske would be a guaranteed roster spot (my terminology). Boggs has played in 114 MLB games. He's a nugget-mining special. Hinske's a 9-year MLB veteran of over 1,100 games. Hinske has 10x the GP & PA of Boggs. They're of totally different statuses and it's not even close. If Boggs pans out, great. If not, he's not exactly highly coveted, so we might not lose him off waivers if we try to get him down to Nashville. Roenicke may be quite intrigued by Gomez's positive tools that he wants to have him competing for a spot in ST. Or he may be completely unthrilled by his character and/or on-field weaknesses, and thus not be concerned about losing him. The non-tender deadline will tell us something about this, and that's not far away. Won't break my heart at all if he's gone. Talk all you want about Hardy as a 25-HR SS. But the last time that happened was in '08 -- three seasons ago from this upcoming year. So many 'round here got so glued on the idea that Bill Hall would be an annual 35-HR hitter, but hindsight's showing that was a career year, just the perfect alignment of the planets, and so far from what Hall is on an every-year basis. I'm not suggesting Hardy didn't have the ability to sustain that. But after what he's done the past two year, I'm at least comfortable in saying that Hardy's not the same player anymore.

Wish we were hearing something . . . well, we are, but it doesn't seem to include the Brewers. Vazquez seems a "surer" than Pavano anyway, has a much better overall track record than Pavano, and the Gagne-esque safety net of the expectation of a one-year deal. I'm not down on Pavano. But I do think Vazquez is a better pitcher.

HTR's right. We're hardly a month into the offseason, and the first month's usually not where most of the action occurs. That means there's a long way to go and a whole heck of a lot that could happen. Prince may well be here next year. Or he may not. We all want to read the tea leaves, and it's sure fun to speculate. But it's just way too soon to know what's actually going to be.

I like the Hinske idea a lot, as well as bringing back Counsell & Capuano. I suspect Melvin will continue to look for upgrades. Should Hinske & Counsell sign, I'd be SHOCKED if he looked at his bench right now and figured, "Okay, that's it, we're all good now." Esp. given Gomez's knuckleheadedness, I wouldn't be surprised to see him non-tendered if other talent proves better or even just a better fit.

Why? A number of folks seem to think this, but it seems mainly based on conjecture about what the market might actually bear for Prince. I'm curious about your rationale, largely because I believe Fielder's far better of a hitter than Floyd is a starting pitcher.

I agree - the problem is that he's going to get at least a 2-year deal, so he'd need to repeat those results for a few years in a row. I'm less optimistic about that.FWIW, once he was traded to the Twins in '09, Pavano also pitched increasingly better as the season went on. I only mention that because his positive trend is more of a one-plus seasons thing, not only purely last season.

The problem is that there are no assurances, but IF (and that's a big "if") Pavano could get the results in 2011 that he did in '10, he'd represent a significant rotation upgrade over Bush & Parra. I still think I'd rather have Vazquez, but you could do a whole lot worse than Pavano. (edited for omitted word)

Fielder has worked out around Orlando w/ Rickie Weeks & others in the past. I don't recall where in FL he lives, but if it's not Orlando, it's obviously not a ridiculous drive from his house to get there. A lot of athletes live out near Windermere, which is west of Orlando. Ken Griffey, jr., Shaq, and a number of PGA golfers come to mind. But I know there are many more.

No, I don't think so. I don't think the issue w/ Gomez was the lack of a Spanish-fluent coach -- at least it was never known as an issue in MN, where there are no Hispanic/Latino coaches, either. Liriano, Casilla, etc., those guys don't complain about it. Gardy's a great manager, a good communicator, and language-based things don't come up as problems with the Twins. My hunch is that the true issue was more about the personality & characteristics of Macha. I still wonder how much bringing up the language thing is a reflection on Gomez, too: As I mentioned in another thread, he's been playing baseball -- working -- in the US for at least 8 months per year for the last 7 years. That's total English language cultural immersion for 2/3 of every year for 7 years. You'd almost have to try hard not to become reasonably fluent over that long a period of time. But again, I think the bigger issue was Macha's approach to his players and the way he chose to (or not to) communicate. Everything we've heard about Roenicke is that communicating isn't a weakness of his.

For sure: Lee Vazquez Capuano Maybe: Bedard Garland A word on Capuano before you laugh yourself silly at the suggestion: I think Cappy's a perfect fit. Depth matters a ton. And realistically, we're going to need a 6th starter (and quite possibly a 7th, 8th, maybe even 9th or 10th starter), and if Capuano's on the team as long-guy, spot-starter, and injury-replacement 5th starter, you've already got a proven guy here, and not just purely young guys in the 'pen. And if Narveson bombs, Capuano becomes your #5 and you don't lose anything -- and you may even be better off. I saw the comments earlier that Attanasio sees Narveson as a keeper, and I agree. But I think you cover all bases better by creating good competition for the #5 starter spot, too. Personally, I'd rather see Cappy as the #5 than Narveson (nearly 2 years off after TJ surgery #2, and he still clearly pitched better than Narveson). But I want them both on the team.

I think the point is that while Farris isn't as strong a prospect as Lawrie (though he's solid), and thus would make more sense to move, the whole reason to consider trading Lawrie is that he'd likely bring a much greater return. I like what Lawrie could become, but if Weeks is gonna be here long-term (and possibly even if he isn't), it wouldn't hurt to see Lawrie turned into some serious pitching.

I've felt all along having Peterson back would be the right move, and everything pointing that he might not be back has made me nervous. But I've had two new hunches/interpretations hit me in the past hour: 1. Everything we've heard about Roenicke leads me to think that if Peterson wasn't an option at all for Roenicke, he would've just been let go immediately. The fact that that hasn't happened means Peterson must still be a legit candidate. 2. I first thought Melvin's "feel free to look around, too" thing to Peterson was basically Melvin holding the door open and waiting for Peterson to walk out. Now I'm not so sure. I'm thinking it's Melvin saying to Peterson, "Hey, beyond Dale, we've given Roenicke freedom to choose his coaches and that. We've told him we would like to keep you on the staff and that, but that the choice is his. If we're going to give him that freedom, we'll give you the same degree of freedom because it's only fair that that be a two-way street and that."

Capuano would cost less and pitched last year. There's no guarantee Washburn can get guys out after a year off. I'd only go the NRI route.

What the market is and what Uggla wants the market to be may be two very different things. Eventually teams hit their spending limit and more guys than not don't get what they (or their agents) think they should anymore -- which I like a lot.

As good as CC was/is, I think Lee is better right now and I'd love to see Doug Melvin & the Brewers do anything I could to offer him the best deal. No one thinks it'll happen, including me, but they have the room to do it whether they trade Prince or not. And if you're gonna spend serious FA money, I'd rather aim for the highest and forget the JDLR's of the world. Remember that with good drafting & some right moves & good timing, even though they're saddled with Zito's killer contract plus Rowand & Guillen, the Giants won the WS w/ a payroll under $100M.

Like The Truth said, it's not a popular opinion around here, but I really like both Miller & Morgan.

I've read this once, maybe twice, around the BF.net forum. But I don't recall hearing it anywhere or reading it in the JSOnline or any other print media (tangible or online). Where did any possible confirmation of this notion come from?

Passing judgement? We are trying to make predictions about how he's going to run the team, and then stating what we like/dislike about that potential style of managing. Nobody has actually said he's a crap hire, doesn't know what he's doing, or it won't work out. Just expressing some apprehension about some of his tendencies. We shall see how he handles this team and how it plays out. But what you're saying above is that it's never okay to predict what an individual will bring to a team until he plays/coaches. If we traded for Albert Pujols, could we express excitement over him likely bringing 35-45 homers to the team, even though he hasn't yet? If the Packers signed Randy Moss, could we express doubts about his locker room presence? Nobody has written Roenicke off yet. Pardon me. I misspoke. Your reaction was to points I wasn't intending to make. What I meant was to say, "Passing judgement about Roenicke's preferred style at this point in time seems a bit silly." And I said it because that theme has come out multiple times over this & other relevant threads.

Some folks' absolute paranoia 'round here about the running game strikes as somewhere between humorous, intense, & annoying. Passing judgement about Roenicke now seems a bit silly. I want an aggressive offense in all respects. I'm optimistic we have a better chance of achieving that under Roenicke. Who knows? Maybe I'm the one out to lunch. Or maybe it's just that I'm willing to give the team some time to play before I make up my mind on what I think will happen.

me: While there were plenty of games in which the Brewers' offense went bananas, this "top offense" was also SHUT OUT 14 TIMES, which was terrible. logan: Is it? How many times was every other team in the league shutout? Without context numbers are meaningless. Yes, 14 shutouts is a lot. I'm not comparing it to other teams. I'm saying 14 shutouts for a supposedly "top" offense is neither consistent nor acceptable. It's not an assertion that requires comparative analysis. That's a large number of games for any team to have absolutely zero chance to win: You score zero runs, you won't win, period. Sure, the Brewers' overall offensive numbers were strong. But as has been extremely well documented and discussed, the Brewers' offense was quite inconsistent. logan: Macha did fine overall with the offense. Then you & I simply have different expectations or standards. It's been made clear he had certain tools in his toolbox, so to speak, that he refused to use. Gee, Ken, no thump tonight? Gonna try something different to create some runs? No? Then I guess your team won't have much of a chance tonight, huh? Plain & simple, the Brewers ultimately would've had a better record in 2010 if they'd scored more runs. Yes, the largest part of the problem really was the lousy pitching for much of the year. But since the pitching was so consistently underperforming, the offense needed to do even more to help overcome that. Macha's conscious decision to limit his tactical options on account of risk aversion cost this team chances to win more games. (Note that I'm saying he cost the team chances, not games, though clearly the occurrence of the former eventually leads to the occurrence of the latter.) The '92 Brewers were a very solid & well-rounded offensive team which had several guys w/ excellent offensive seasons. Part of what made them good was that they also had 256 SBs and wreaked havoc on pitchers' & catchers' concentrations by being such base-stealing threats. Sure, they ran into some outs at a nearly 30% CS rate. But they advanced runners 256 additional bases' worth, which is huge. And it was a total-team approach: 11 guys w/ 10 or more SBs, including 3 w/ more than 30 SBs (Listach - 54, Hamilton - 41, Molitor - 31). Even Jaha & Seitzer were in double digits. logan: Gomez had DL time, was platooned and he was really bad at getting on base. He only had about half a season worth of PA. 18 SB for half a year isn't to bad for a guy with an OBP under .300. True, true, & true. For a guy w/ decent speed, I can accept your logic. But again I'm not comparing Gomez to his contemporaries. I'm comparing Gomez's results to his skill set & ability. My points is that Gomez has uber-elite speed and easily should've had double as many SBs for that number of PAs even w/ his lousy OBP.

Giving this thread a little bump, I found THIS on mlbtraderumors.com tonight: The Marlins are focusing on an extension for Dan Uggla before they return to negotiations with Ricky Nolasco on a long-term deal, reports Clark Spencer of the Miami Herald.Larry Beinfest tells Joe Capozzi of the Palm Beach Post that relief pitching will be a priority for Florida in the offseason. “In terms of addressing the bullpen, we’ve kind of opened up ourselves to every avenue, whether it be free agency, keeping one of our own free agents or looking elsewhere. We are cultivating trades,” Beinfest saidOkay, we have some decent-to-good & proven bullpen arms that could help sweeten a potential Nolasco-to-Milwaukee deal (whether McGehee as earlier suggested, or Gamel, or whomever): - Villanueva & Coffey are both potential non-tenders, but when they're good, they're tough to do much of anything against. They're potentially "disposable" in terms of being decent trade "assets" or "sweeteners." - McClendon is another possibly include-able arm. - Parra -- no questioning the talent lurking somewhere in there, just the head/concentration/composure and the execution.

I really liked how Narveson got his game together in August & September, but I REALLY want Capuano back -- at least to be given a shot to start; I don't think any team would guarantee him a rotation spot.

The problem with our "top offense" wasn't total numbers. While there were plenty of games in which the Brewers' offense went bananas, this "top offense" was also SHUT OUT 14 TIMES, which was terrible. When the power switch is on, the balls are flying out, and the team's hitting like there's no tomorrow, you don't necessarily need much of a running game. The dumbest thing about Macha is that the 2010 Brewers, whose offense was very "feast or famine," had more tools/skills at its disposal than he ever made an attempt to fully use. Macha simply & blatantly refused to utilize some of those tools when the "power" tools weren't clicking. Last winter Macha even said they'd run more, but that turned out to be just a line. In the end, speed was one very under-utilized skill that MAY have helped (note that I'm not asserting that that would've guaranteed different results, only that Macha pretty much didn't even try). Somewhere mid/late year, he even mentioned that in 10 years of managing, he'd never attempted a single suicide squeeze. Carlos Gomez has as much or more speed than Pat Listach (54 SBs in '92), Darryl Hamilton (41 SBs in '92), and possibly even Scotty Posednik (70 SBs in '04). However, Gomez got 7 of his whopping 18 SBs (40%) in the last 3 weeks of the year (SB #12 came on Sept. 11th). Gomez is one of the fastest Brewers ever and he had 11 SBs on Sept. 10th. Regardless of his DL time, 11 SBs with his totally sick speed is absurdly poor under-utilization. I'm also inclined to think that Sveum's comments at the end of '08 and again this offseason about taking a more aggressive offensive approach, including using the running game more (SBs, hit & runs, etc.), aren't rooted at all in ditching the power game but rather in utilizing ALL the team's various offensive skills to take better advantage of any opportunities to score, not just the meat-pitch fastballs or hanging sliders over the heart of the plate.

- Most of Roenicke's playing career was in the NL.- Most/all of Roenicke's minor-league coaching/managing was for NL teams. - The type of ball Scioscia's teams play is fairly similar to the stereotypical NL style. Roenicke's hardly a guy w/ only AL background. Reactions along the lines that he is seem to be knee-jerk in nature and lacking in depth of observation. I want whoever will make the right bench coach for this team, period. If the guy's savvy & a quick learner -- as various associates also comment that Roenicke is -- then the extent of his NL background won't much matter. Guys in each league aren't totally clueless about the other league. Oh, and I think this is an excellent hire. Watching how the Twins do business up here, w/ both Tom Kelly & Ron Gardenhire being "really? how boring" sorts of internal hires, and remembering some of the larger-than-life, over-the-top shenanigans involving Valentine in his former managerial stops -- especially NY -- much as he could've been good, I'm REALLY glad it's not Bobby V. There clearly would've been a bigger "splash" factor. But sometimes those are the guys who don't wear as well over time. Roenicke's a Scioscia protege. That says a ton to me, as do the lavish praises being tossed out from all corners of the MLB world.