rluzinski

Would you rather have Gomez in there?

Exactly. I don't remember hearing people whining about giving up Kevin Bass for Don Sutton throughout the 80's, even when Paul Householder was starting in the OF a few years later. Bottom line, even though Sutton was close to washed up at that point, the Brewers most likely don't even make the playoffs without him in '82. You have to give to get. Maybe it's just me, but neither Lawrie or Escobar look like future HOF at this point. Hindsight is 20/20. Trades that result in a post season run are always more forgiving. Losing talent in a trade that doesn't is painful, in contrast.

Let's look at this objectively: Randy Wolf: 2010: 215 IP, 4.17 ERA, 4.85 FIP 2011: 212 IP, 3.69 ERA, 4.29 FIP 2012: 106 IP, 5.60 ERA, 4.45 FIP And his ZiPS rest-of-season projection: 2012: 80 IP, 4.16 ERA, 4.56 FIP He's 35 years old but his average fastball velocity has been exactly the same the last 3 seasons (88.4 MPH), so I don't see anything to suggest he's aging any worse than any other 35 year old pitcher. I think that projected 4.16 ERA would be a hard sell but I believe Melvin could easily sell Wolf as a 4.5 ERA workhorse, which is worth around $10 mil/year, putting the worth of Wolf's projected performance for the rest of the season at around $4.5 mil. Wolf is owed the balance of his $9.5 mil salary ($4.2 mil). He also get's a $250k bonus for being traded. and $125k for reaching 190 and 200 IP. Finally, he has a $10 mil club option for 2013 with a $1.5 mil buy out. Let's assume the other team has no interest in resigning Wolf and he pitches just under 200 innings total this year: $4.4 mil (balance of 2012 salary) $.25 mil (trade bonus) $.125 mil (IP bonus) $1.5 mil (buyout) ------------------ $6.28 mil Damn, he's owed a lot. In that scenario, I'm not sure Melvin could get a middling prospect even if he kicked in all the cash.

Correct. The average fan weights the importance of succeeding in 2012 about 10 times more than succeeding in 2013. if they aren't considering fan reaction, Melvin and Mark A's weighting would be much closer to 50/50 but they have to be careful not to piss off the people who pay to keep the lights on. It's a tough position to be in.

I don't think the Brewers are a bad team. On paper, they could still be the best team in the NL Central. The problem is, they aren't 7 games better than the Pirates AND Reds. And no one is suggesting that there are no scenarios that get the Brewers in the playoffs this year. Those scenarios are simply unlikely. Baseball Prospectus (who estimates the Brewers to be one game better going forward than the Reds and several games better than the Pirates) gives the Brewers about a 2% chance of winning the division and a 5% chance of getting to play one game to make the playoffs. We can argue if those numbers are exactly correct but we all should KNOW that whatever the odds, they are small. We can call this the biggest series of the year in terms of whether the Brewers make the playoffs, and some will probably call several more series "the biggest of the year" before all is said and done. The odds suggest, however, that the series that determined whether the Brewers would make the playoffs this year have already occurred. This next week will simply determine whether we are buyers and sellers, which may have a major impact in subsequent years but will most likely have little impact this year. "Without Votto, expect the Reds to come crashing down a bit." As I pointed out in another threat, we should expect no such thing. He's worth about 1 win extra a month, which is huge. Common sense tells us no player can be worth an average of even 2 wins a month.

A sweep would make it virtually impossible for Melvin to start selling but probably would have little effect on the division race with regard to the Brewers. They would still probably be 4.5-5.5 back and in the 4th place. Baseball is always a lot more fun to watch when your team is at least .500, though.

You can say suggest we are over analyzing this but you aren't really analyzing it at all. You just keep repeating a hypothesis (protection matters) without supporting it with any evidence.

Before today's game, Baseball Prospectus projected the Brewers to be the best team in the NL Central going forward: Brewers: 39-33 Cardinals: 38-33 Reds: 38-34 Pirates: 33-39 http://www.baseballprospectus.com/fantasy/dc/ That has to count for something.

I don't feel like KRod is increasing his trade value!

I assumed as much, since you said it. If you want to claim the bullpen cost the the Brewers the season because it shifts them from a possible contender to not a real contender, that is a more reasonable position. Of course, when the Brewers make the playoffs in 2013 with the aid of some players picked up at the 2012 deadline, we'll have no one but the 2012 bullpen to give credit to, though.

Not really. It's just that the bullpen has easily been the most disappointing aspect of the season so far I don't disagree with that statement at all. I disagree with this one: "The bullpen single handedly has taken down the 2012 Milwaukee Brewers." I do not believe it is a certainty that the Brewers would be leading the division with an average bullpen.

When something bad happens, it's human nature to always want to limit the blame to as few individuals as possible. One person is obviously preferred but a small group can work as well. I guess it just makes it easier to vent our anger/frustration/unhappiness that way?

I don't give a crap about the save stat. I want a win. I'm just glad football doesn't make up meaningless stats.

FIP assumes a league average BABIP for a pitcher. You look at pitchers with long careers and it's clear that being able to suppress hits on balls in play is a real skill, however. The problem is that it takes a HUGE sample size to estimate a pitcher's "true" BABIP. One or two season isn't going to do it. Greinke has 1,400 career IP, though, so it's at least worth taking a peak. League BABIP over the last 5 years has averaged about .297. Greinke has a career BABIP of .314. This year, it's .338. Last year, it was .323. Data source: http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/g/greinza01-pitch.shtml#pitching_batting::none Part of the recent increase can be attributed to Greinke turning into more of a ground ball pitcher: http://www.fangraphs.com/graphs/1943_P_season_full_9_20120716.png Part of it could also just be statistical noise ("bad luck"). Of course, perhaps Greinke has dramatically changed his approach the last couple of years (there was an article about him pitching to FIP a few years ago. Someone would have to dive into the pitch FX data to see if they could find anything interesting, though. Otherwise, it's all just speculation. Long story short, Greinke has a career BABIP that is above average and has turned into more of a groundball pitcher, so I would expect his FIP to be at least a little optimistic. But FIP is not a projection.... it's FIP. I would expect advanced projection systems like ZiPS to take those kind of things into account, however. His current ZiPS projected ERA is 3.03. Before his last two crummy starts, his ERA was 3.17. Now it's 3.57. If Melvin wants to be a little conservative, maybe he assumed a projection of 3.25 ERA and 200 IP for 2013. That makes him worth around $20 mil for that year. Then Melvin has to estimate how much his production will fall as he ages and also estimate the odds of him getting hurt. Finally, Melvin will need to assume some level of inflation. I guess to me, if we are talking about a long term deal averaging $20 mil, I would just let him walk.

You can blow 4 saves in one game and still win, so we need to look at it from another perspective. I think we estimated in a previous thread about a week ago that the bullpen was about 4 wins below average when you simply look at their runs against vs the average bullpen this year. Maybe it's 5 now. That is context neutral, though. But as I mentioned then, context is very important and there's no real way to know what the Brewer's record would have been with a better performing bullpen. They could have given up 40 less runs and actually blown more games. I think 5 wins is a reasonable guess though.

Through his first 28 starts and 111 PA, he had a .245/.303/.391/.693 line and proved that he probably needed more time in the minors. It was essentially one series that proved he now deserves to stay in the majors. The statistical results of 137 PA isn't close to enough PA's to get an accurate estimate of a rookie's hitting potential. You can prove it with pretty simple math. Way to much error in any kind of estimate. Heck, a whole year is even suspect. The sophomore slump syndrome is completely a result of a batter over performing during his rookie year. The ironic part is that he had exactly 138 PA in AAA this year. His line there stands at .198/.270/.347/.617 for the year. I wouldn't take much stock in that, since it's such a small sample. What do you think it proved? Now, if you want to counter that it goes beyond the numbers and he just looks good up there, I think he's looked good as well. It's hard for any batter to look bad while batting .283 though, isn't it? Our observations are biased by the results. Throw in a few memorably long AB's and it's hard to resist the urge to get excited. I don't think it adds to our accuracy in estimating his future performance, however. We can use subjective phrases like "proven himself" and deserves to stay in the majors" all day long. The real question is, how do we project Maldonado to perform in the majors going forward? ZiPS thinks .238/.298/.340 is our best guess. That is based almost completely on his minor league stats, since he has virtually no major league experience. Minor league projections are notoriously not precise. I wouldn't venture to guess, myself. Probably not much better than that ZiPS projection, though. What do you think?

Really, the season was over before this game. Fiers once again dominating is probably what we should be focusing on. I'll take a prearby potential #2-#3 starting pitcher. That is worth tens of millions of dollars. The blown win also takes some heat off of Melvin with regard to holding on to the slim catches of a post season birth. Time for the fans and Melvin to be thinking 2013.

Can this be true, a guy with a .465 OBP and 36 doubles is worth 1 win a month over a replacement player, why the hell do teams pay $15 million + if the difference is this small. I don't believe your fact is correct. I'm saying Votto can turn an 83 win team with a crappy 1B into a playoff team all by himself and you think I'm underestimating his value. Fine. You tell me what you think he's worth.

Ax pitched bad but it his outs were bad and the hits were good. I'm sorry but our 3B is a terrible defender and the other two were bloops. Now, if Ax could actually strike anyone out he wouldnt have to rely on luck and defense but it's still annoying. That said, I have no problem replacing him as the closer but does it really matter? Krod will be the closer and Loe the set up man. How exciting!

Votto might be worth an extra win a month over his replacement. If he's out 3-4 weeks... yipee.

Hey, he's not leading off at least. Progress.... or something.

I didn't say he was hitting "decent", I said "pretty good". And you can compare his numbers to anyone you want but again, the fact that it has occurred in only 136 PAs makes the actual results almost beside the point. To suggest a rookie has earned the right to stay in the majors because he plays great D and has a OPS of almost .800 in 136 PA... You are acting like he is a stud prospect and has nothing left to prove in the minors. Just like any other 25 year old middling prospect after 136 PAs in the majors, he's earned nothing yet. And I agree, he IS only 25 and has potential. That's why I want him be sent down and get more starts.

Really, whether Greinke misses one start or not this season will almost certainly have no bearing on the season. I would hope Melvin realizes this and is willing to sit Greinke if it means a good chance of working out a deal.

This would just so demoralizing if the Brewers get nothing for Marcum AND Greinke.

I would trade anyone for the right package. Hart is owned a little over $4 mil more this year and $10 mil this year. He's definitely worth more than that, however. His production this year is probably irrelevant to the Brewers, so they would only be trading a year's worth of relevant production away. I only skimmed this thread but has it been mentioned that he has a partial no trade clause? I assume that Ramirez would be worth much less in a trade than Hart. I would be a lot more excited to move him for even a middle of the road prospect. I didn't hate the signing when it was made but this year was obviously the best year of the deal.