MNBrew

College for him is 2 hours from home every day, not through-the-night bus rides from one small town to the next all spring in some unfamiliar (& potentially distant) part of the country.

With a major-league medical staff, I doubt the Brewers were scared at all about Covey's diabetes. If it's a new enough diagnosis, I'm wondering if it was Covey who was most scared about his diabetes. Covey was home-schooled. It's not uncommon for there to be a higher level of sheltering of the kids in those situations, which could mean the diabetes thing may have really throttled Covey's comfort zone. If the diabetes thing spooked him, he may have felt a whole lot more comfortable being in college at San Diego -- only 2 hours from home -- for the whole next academic year rather than being a long way away from home and all that would go with the first year of pro ball. The latest BaseballBeginnings tweet says the Brewers did not pull their offer, btw. LINK

While it'd seem highly unlikely, he still has just under 2 hours to change his mind. That the Brewers would make such a firm announcement to the media a few hours before the deadline could prove to be a clever negotiating ploy. Unless you're simply looking to blame Melvin for everything including short of (and since) the great flood in the Old Testament (Noah's ark), you've gotta figure the Brewers knew what their ideal was, as well as their reasonable comfort zone and their all-out max. That the Covey family would have demands so far beyond what the Brewers might find within the realm of reason -- and especially if their side also says it's not the money -- then I see the fault of this more likely on the Coveys' side, not the Brewers'. (That the 18th pick signed for $2.3M earlier this afternoon may have led Covey's dad to expect over $2.5M -- over 50% above slot, which, though the slots are good money but maybe a little conservative in some senses, still approaches the realm of the unreasonable and quite possibly unresolvable.) I have another theory on this, but I'll hold back on saying it 'til the Coveys explain their choice (assuming they do). I'm anxious to hear what they say.

The Twins have been talking about DANNY Valencia for a couple years. He's the best 3B prospect they've had since Michael Cuddyer when he first came up (and moved to RF that fall & the playoffs because they ended up so shorthanded). The Twins also know he's not the 2nd coming of Mike Schmidt or Scott Rolen.

Our best power hitter -- among MLB's most elite -- and our best position prospect for a couple minor-league pitchers is grossly inadequate if you're not talking Felix Hernandez in return. And since Seattle just extended him, and based on other reasons already stated in this thread, I don't think Seattle is much of a match for Prince at all.

Hardy is the SS the Twins have needed for several years. They know he's been injured a lot this year (duh), but I believe Hardy has one more arby year and his 2-year totals are nothing that would justify much if any raise through arby. So I'd be extremely surprised if the Twins didn't have him back next year.

So you think Gamel's going to throw the ball into the stands(or simply make an error throwing the ball) about as often as McGehee misses a GB or can't get to one that most 3rd basemen can? I'm not sure what that's based off of as Gamel looks to be much improved at 3rd, not to mention he has far better range. HiAndTight, I tend to agree w/ you most of the time. But the way I see it, jwill535 has a valid point because, despite any differences in range, Gamel's chronically an error-making machine at 3B and has 14 errors in 66 games thus far. That's not terribly far off the pace that got Braun moved to LF. IIRC, many of Gamel's errors are due to his footwork and throws. So jwill535's hardly making an absurd point at all, and I totally agree with his point of view here.

Arbitration hearings occur in February. Prince wouldn't necessarily have to sign any '11 deal before then, and I'd think if he gets traded, it'd be well before then. I think the notion's totally erroneous that the Brewers would have to send any cash along in a deal involving Prince. You only see cash included when the contracts in question are known entities, and usually overpaid ones at that. You've just gotta figure that any team who'd take on Prince in a trade would have a decent guess as to what they'd have to budget for his 2011 salary -- and may already have moved players or salary in order to make it possible to acquire him.

Tonight was further evidence that Dave Bush just isn't what the Brewers need any longer. It's not a perfect parallel at all, but he's kinda turning into the pitching version of Bill Hall: - always some legit promise and a number of decent stats, but - also several scary stats & trends... ...but most of all... At the end of the day, he doesn't do enough to help the team win enough of the time -- no matter what the other numbers say. In Bill Hall's early days in the bigs, I often contended that everything about him indicated that he wasn't the sort of player who you typically see on a contender -- he's just not a winner. As time goes by, and especially since his injury in FL last year, I feel more & more that way about Dave Bush. And for that reason, I'd be disappointed if the best the Brewers can do this offseason includes bringing him back.

Macha's just a terrible manager. Ugh. Nice motivation. Nice leadership. Coffey mainly stinks lately and Melvin pitches him like he's still going well. Really, were there no other options?

Wish I could find somewhere Coffey's stats since he came off the DL. The guy hasn't found the strike zone nearly as well since getting hurt, and he's been mostly terrible. Bases loaded 2B to the pitcher, then walks the bases full again? Generally speaking, Arizona stinks much worse than the Brewers, and the Brewers have been on a decent little roll again. So Arizona comes in and wins 2 close ones right away, then stuffs one in the Brewers' faces? Nice inspiration from the manager! I was SO tempted to drive the 350 miles to see at least one of these games w/ the discounted tix after the last homestand. So far I'm SO thankful I didn't.

Don't know how you can trade Bush this winter when he'll be a FA -- I made the same incorrect assumption in a previous thread. With Prince not likely to re-sign after 2011, I see Gamel as a young & potent bat they need to hang onto. I do see Tampa as a team with good SPs to spare, relatively speaking. With Burrell gone & Pena a FA this winter, too (I believe), and therefore a potential opening at 1B for next year, Tampa & the Brewers could be a good match. . . . .Fielder for Garza/plus, which has been discussed somewhere in the massive Fielder trade thread (I think).

No, Baldkin, I'm not going to finish the quote. I could've quoted the whole article. Cherry picking, igor67? No, because I wasn't claiming that advanced defensive metrics are a crock. My point was that there was finally someone backing up at least to some small extent statistically that the "traditional" stat of fielding percentage isn't laughably worthless as many of you make it out to be. I'm entitled to my opinion just as you folks are to yours. Because I don't agree doesn't make my viewpoint inherently wrong. Stats can often be made to say whatever you want them to say, regardless of how nobly they're approached.

Going back 15 years or more, I've long felt that defensive stats are far more elusive and subjective than offensive stats. At least on sites like this, defensive stats have gained such huge clout over time and are often regarded as having gravity and credence comparable to any concrete offensive stat that exists. So I've found it both refreshing and affirming to read two articles (the second linked from the first) discussing that defensive stats are, in some ways, still as elusive and subjective as they were viewed to be two decades ago. Tim Marchman's SI.com article For instance, fielding percentage often seems to be viewed as absurdly basic or incomplete if not antiquated or even obsolete. But, quoth Marchman, "From 2002 through 2009, for example, the correlation between team winning percentage and team UZR was .19 -- less than half that of fielding percentage." Colin Wyers' BP article Around here my viewpoint probably remains part of a rather small minority. But it is nice to know not everyone well-versed in so-called advanced defensive metrics believes them to be all they're cracked up to be. Alright, rip away....

Clearly the most rare of all the feats listed considering that Sandberg never hit for the cycle.Well, I saw someone do it and I thought I remembered it was Ryno. Now I have to go look it up.

I liked Edmonds a lot, plain and simple, and it became pretty obvious he was liking the Brewers & Milwaukee, too. But I think this is a good move for a few reasons: - improves OF depth for next year & possibly beyond, - encouraging reports on his bat, defense, & speed, and - assuming Gomez is brought back next year, this would be a good indication that Jody Gerut, his not-healing bruised heel, and his mostly terrible bat WON'T be back next year!

They've said before about Vazquez that he's not someone built to succeed in New York, and that he's much more comfortable in other markets. The previous time he pitched in NY, his stats took a serious dip, too (14-10 record, but 4.91 ERA and the fewest strikeouts of any year right around that point in his career). Yes, he could be on the career downslope. But he's also shown that pitching for the Yankees has an adverse affect on his performance. It's hard to know which is the more prevalent factor.

The odds certainly are stacked against them -- hugely, to say the least. However, to use the overused cliche, the game's not played on paper. If they get on a serious roll (careful not to hurt yourselves laughing at that one), you never know what can happen. A week ago, they were 10 under .500. Now they're back to 6 under. Next up is Arizona. Taking 3 out of 4 from them is possible, maybe even a sweep, if the Brewers play as well as they're capable of playing. . . . Sure, it might not happen. But it might. They're in a stretch of a lot of games against non-dominant teams. If they can make serious hay, they may just have a chance, however slim.

The difference between the Brewers of 2010 vs. the building Brewers of 4-5 years ago is that whereas Dave Bush used to be rather assured of a spot in the rotation, now that's not so much the case. Bush had to earn his spot in the rotation this year in ST. I'd figure in 2011 that would be no different. Much as it's counter to many folks' recent assertions about Melvin's intelligence, the Brewers ARE smarter enough now not to be fooled by certain stats. As evidence, last year, Braden Looper leads the team w/ 14 wins. Do the Brewers bring him back? Heck no! He gets bought out and isn't even in the majors WITH ANYONE in 2010. I wouldn't be totally surprised if Bush is still wearing a Brewers uniform in 2011. But what Dave Bush hasn't shown much of over most of his Milwaukee tenure is substantial improvement -- and maybe not even much at all, really. Given that, I wouldn't be terribly surprised if he's not back, either. One thought did cross my mind in reading this thread, though: When the Brewers are considering proposals to trade Prince this winter, I wonder if adding Bush into a deal would help solidify that much more the return they'd get on their elite slugger. . . . You've gotta figure that for many teams, as LouisEly deftly points out, having Dave Bush in their rotation would represent an appreciable upgrade.

When Melvin makes plays for big-time FA pitchers but they don't want to come here, is it Melvin's fault? Or is it Melvin's fault that his budget doesn't allow him to add $60M to his offer to Sabathia? I give plenty of credit to Melvin for hiring such a huge-thinking pitching coach with a whole system in mind. Why was this such a good fit & logical choice? Because I think Melvin realized the system was failing to develop quality big-league pitchers and the routes he'd been routinely trying up 'til now to supplement that talent haven't panned out very well at all, so he HAD to look at the whole thing differently. I hold Jack Z. highly accountable for drafting so many pitchers who either blew out, flamed out, or got hurt. Yeah, he drafted lots of great bats. But he drafted a lot of great hitting poor defenders and too many pitchers who could never get things straight and have enough success in the minors, let alone the majors. The trade thing? It takes two to tango. You don't accept other teams' roster dung to move your junk, and you don't offer give away everyone in exchange for each above average SP who might be available. I'm 10 pages from finishing Moneyball. I like many of the theories therein. But re: DePodesta, realize the book is made to highlight mainly the guys & his perspectives that succeeded, not those who failed. I am surprised DePodesta has only had one shot at being a GM. However, I hardly think he'd do any better in the Milwaukee market & with the Brewers than Doug Melvin. (And since when can you figure throwing a bigger contract offer at Andrew Friedman is all it'd take to get him to Milwaukee from Tampa? There's SO much more involved! Why would a smart GM like that want to leave a successful organization challenging the might Yankees for the top of its division and the whole AL for a team in the Brewers that so many of its fans feel has such a hard time ever getting far out of neutral?)

If you can identify ahead of time which games they will and will not be hitting HR's or doubles, then by all means, turn on the running game when they won't be.I just don't think you can do that. Of course you can't. But if you make basestealing more a part of your game all the time, you've got a functional option already in place when the power part isn't happening. What this different mindset would seem to do is help reduce or balance out the all-or-nothing factor that's been so much the Brewers' case in recent years. And they have the tools to do it this year.

Yes, the Brewers' main offensive weapon is the HR. Their record when they don't hit HRs, though, is atrocious. Those sorts of times are when they need to make things happen -- create opportunities to have better chances to score when they aren't happening so easily on their own. The whole reason this relative lack of running is such a problem this year in particular is that they need to find more ways to create runs when they're NOT hitting HRs. SBs are one way to do so, and one this team has a the skills to really make the SBs happen. The problem is that Macha hardly takes advantage of that asset. The point is utilizing as many ways as you can to gain an advantage. The more "diverse" your offense -- the more different things your offense can be quite good at -- the better chance you give your team to win. By being SO (and often solely) reliant on the HR, Macha limits the Brewers chances to score more runs and, therefore, ultimately, to win. TLB, I agree w/ you on many things. But I don't believe the 75% SB success rate thing to be foolproof, iron-clad, and gospel, much as many believe it so. How do you possibly hurt yourself when you're successful gaining an extra base 2 out of every 3 times? I will agree that some of the "extra" outs create do hurt. But gaining the extra base 2/3 of the time will help you more than making an "avoidable" out hurts you 1/3 of the time. . . . Inevitably, you have to approach baserunning aggressively but still smartly & sensibly. But Macha just basically ignores it as an option altogether.

Can anyone either remember the date of that Brady Clark catch or come up with a link? I remember seeing that highlight and thinking it was at least as good if not better than Edmonds' jaw-dropping catch referenced above (he was an Angel & it was against the Royals in KC, IIRC). Escobar's play against Bobby Ryal of AZ last year and his one against Houston's Chris Johnson just this past Sunday come to mind, too. The OF going through the fence was Rodney McCray playing for the Vancouver Canadians sometime in the '80s. I remember thinking back in '87 that Jim Paciorek's diving catch in LF in the middle of Nieves' no-hitter was actually a more spectacular & no-hitter-saving crucial catch than Yount's. But Paciorek wasn't the heroic Brewers name Yount was, & it was somewhere in the middle innings as opposed to so late in the game. (Sorry for the multiple edits. Didn't want to create 3 consecutive posts as more thoughts arose.)

I know it's not fashionable to advocate stealing more bases, but.... 1. The 2010 Brewers seem to have more team speed and more genuine SB threats than any other Brewers team since 1992. Yet they have the 4th fewest SBs in the National League. Only two guys are in double digits (Braun w/ 13, Gomez w/ 10), and barely so at that! (Even w/ his crappy BA & OBP, Gomez should still easily have 30 SBs by now with his unbelievable wheels!) 2. With 54 SBs and only 19 CSs (74.0%), the Brewers are practically at that "deal-breaking" 75% success rate. Only Philly (61 SBs & 11 CSs), Florida (63 & 18), & the Mets (93 & 28) have better success rates this year. 3. The '92 Brewers stole 256 bases. Yes, they were caught 115 times (a "mere" 69% success rate -- how dare they run so much!). But those '92 Brewers were a constant threat on the bases and I remember on so many occasions that that seriously messed their opponents up. ELEVEN players, including all starters, stole at least 10 bases. It was an available weapon that they used to the fullest. Macha is blatantly contradicting his offseason pledge to run more. In doing so, he's shooting himself & the team in the foot with his unwillingness to utilize one of the team's biggest natural assets. The 2010 Brewers aren't good enough to be able to afford under-utilizing any of its strengths, yet thanks to Macha's utter stubbornness on that point, they undeniably are! There are a number of reasons I don't think Macha deserves to manage this team any longer. His unwillingness to utilize the team's natural speed with an aggressive running game (SBs, hit-and-runs, etc.) reduces the Brewers chances of scoring more runs & winning more games, which to me makes this failure one of the most glaring.

You're certainly entitled to your opinion, but I could not possibly disagree with this more. Selling our entire farm for a guy like Halladay is the exact sort of move Melvin has to pursue? Seems to me like it's the exact sort of move that can bury our franchise for the next 5 years. So if that trade had gone through, we are around what, maybe around a .500 team this year? Then we're down a few top 10 prospects including probably some pitching prospects, and things are looking mighty bleak at the moment. The reason BF.net values prospects very highly is because of how important it is for a team like the Brewers to have their players succeed in their first 6 cost-controlled years. Also, the Sabathia situation was very different. We were a top NL team at the time looking for the extra pennant push. I'm not saying there isn't situations for these kinds of things to happen, but for a franchise like the Brewers, it has to be the exception, not the rule. We are not a team structured that can afford to cough up our top prospects every couple of years for the top rent-a-pitcher on the market. The Yankees can afford to do that. Not us. Do you see teams like the Rays, Twins, and Marlins unloading their farms for the top pitcher on the trade block? No, because they develop their own top pitchers. We have to as well, there isn't any other option, and I think they are beginning to realize that. The thing you're missing -- perhaps because I didn't say it -- is that I'd bet 99% of the time the Brewers would make a play for an elite pitcher, they wouldn't get him anyway. Melvin never stated what he offered Toronto, and I'm guessing it wouldn't have been ONLY prospects but, like what Texas gave up for Cliff Lee, 3 players, and at least one would've been a major leaguer. By definition, while the acquisition of Halladay would've come at a significant price, it's hard to assert as fact, which you implied, that it would've equated to selling off all our top prospects. I do wonder, now with all the wasted money coming off the payroll after this year, if the Brewers don't have at least a financial chance at Cliff Lee. If you can get a stud pitcher w/o giving up anything to get him, and you have the wherewithal to do it, you at least have to make that run. . . . That said, I'm not delusional enough to think this has a very realistic chance of happening. As DM often says, you have to consider all possible avenues to improve your team. Clearly, though, and above all, it must start by developing from within. You just do what you can after that.