TheCrew07

AAA is not a developmental playground for prospects, it's a storage space for MLB depth. Once a hitter adjusts to the junkballers who know how to pitch at that level there is nothing more to be gained unless you are working on a positional switch. For most part our hitters will face better arms in Southern League than they will in the PCL. I'm all for 1 level of the minors at a time until AAA, it's not a proving ground of any kind. 3 years ago Nelson Cruz was just another AAAA player, some guy who dominated AAA but couldn't hit big league pitching. Then all of sudden he finally hit well in a short window, got a greater opportunity to play, and he's been an excellent MLB hitter. He's not a late bloomer, he's just a guy who never got more 330 PAs in any season, he hadn't hit well in 470 PAs and was written off, but that's not even full season of PAs. People are doing the same with Gamel and he's gotten even less opportunity, a whopping 194 ABs over 4 years. Schafer is going to be 25, Gamel is going to be 26, our older players in the minor leagues don't need further seasoning, they need opportunity in MLB and the room to fail and grow from it. I'm alright with Schafer revisting AAA given the status of the MLB outfield, but not because he needs more seasoning, because I like having depth. As I said previously if a really good deal for Morgan comes along you take it and go with Schafer as the other half of the platoon. As for the Gomez benching argument. I could get behind that if he was only getting like 150 PAs per year and teams were giving up on him after April every season. However he's accumulated 1678 PAs, he's had plenty of opportunity to grow as a player, but he's basically been a flatline from year to year. I'm not sure what he'd gain from AAA other than confidence, but he doesn't seem to lack confidence, he doesn't carry himself the same way Escobar was in 2010 for example. Maybe he just puts on a good show but I've never thought confidence was his problem. I don't put much weight in the ST thing at all, I don't even listen to ST games so I have no context for those ABs.

It doesnt matter to me whether Melvin had any say in Yo or not. You still did nothing to explain why you credit Jack Z for everything but dont acknowledge his almost complete lack of success drafting pitching left Melvin's hands tied. Well that's garbage as I've taken Z to task plenty of times for the lack of pitching, just because I didn't do it in this particular thread doesn't mean I haven't acknowledged the situation. That being said, Melvin as the GM is ultimately repsonsible for filling those holes. I've explained my opinions on Melvin literally dozens of times in various posts across the different forums, and I basically laid out a summation again in this thread. For the record: Melvin has done some good things. He made a dire medical situation better, he left Jack and most of the entire scouting staff alone. With one trade he quickly turned a putrid roster into a somewhat competitive team, the MLB teams fortunes steadily improved until 2006. Melvin did not build this team, the scouting staff that was raided in 3 different moves did, those scouts and Z are now gone. Most of the nuggets that Melvin found he didn't actually "find", he already had a relationship with those players from Texas. He just went with talent that he already knew which was better than the poor talent that we had. A solid plan to be sure, but obvious given the situation at the time. Melvin used the farm system to continually buy rental players just about every year since the Linebrink trade. His 3 signature deals (Sabathia, Greinke, and Marcum) are all a result of assets left to him by the scouting dept.There aren't many tradeable assets left in the farm system anymore so I'm curious what the future holds. Instead of using expendable pieces to acquire assets with longevity, he chose to acquire a plethora of players with less than 3 years of service remaining to the MLB team at varying costs. This has effectively shortened the window as it's not enough to just plug rotation spots, with finite resources we need to maximize our return. This is why we had the same holes year after year, as acquiring Sabathia didn't plug a hole and stop the bleeding, it was simply a bandaid move. Now we have quite a few contracts expiring all the same year, a maxed out payroll, and system full of starters that profile like 3s with 2 upside best case. I have no problem with an entire rotation full of 2s, but at the same time I'm not going to project best case scenarios for all of those young prospect pitchers either. As good as Z and his staff were at drafting hitters, they were that bad at drafting pitching. Z doesn't get a pass for that, but he certainly provided enough hitting prospects that Melvin could have addressed the organizational wide need for impact pitching long before trading for Sabathia. The lack of talent was so obvious to even someone like me that in late 2007 I switched my entire focus towards acquiring young cost controlled pitching. Instead of addressing that need, over the years he's tried to plug holes in the rotation with aging averagish pitchers who largely failed miserably (though the Wolf contract is looking pretty solid even though we're paying him all that money to be our 4th starter). I knew from his trade history that he wasn't likely to make the kind of risky moves I was advocating, but he completely lost me when he continually pointed to Rogers and Jones getting hurt as the reason why the organization has struggled to develope pitching. Best case scenario if you have 4 legit impact prospect pitchers you hope that 2 will live up to hype and contribute to the MLB team. Furthermore he had known for years that those guys were injured, suddenly in 2009 and 2010 it's a major problem and reason the MLB pitching was so bad? No, it was simply an excuse for a lack of action. When you only have 3-5 impact pitchers in the entire organization and 3 of them get hurt and a 4th has continual elbow/emotional problems (Braddock), maybe we should look outside the organization for some young impact pitchers via trade? Gallardo made it as a starter and has been as good as advertised, Parra turned out to be a head case and got injured, Braddock didn't make it as a starter and continues to have issues, Jones never made it all because of injury, and it's not looking good for Rogers to make it as a starter either. There was a time when we weren't sure if Braddock, Parra, Rogers, or Jones would pitch for the Brewers again, the situation has been dire for a long time. I'm actually pretty happy that Parra and Braddock contributed to the big club at all. Finally Melvin hasn't adapted his base philosophies at all, he hasn't proven to be flexible or malleable in any way. I thought there was hope early on, I used to be a big fan, he hired a statistician early on and quickly turned around the team's fortunes. However he's never looking to exploit the market, when we needed pitching the market was focused on OBP and SLG only teams like Tampa exploited that situation, now that the pendulum has swung back towards pitching and defense he's still primarily focused on SLG. Once the team got competitive he stopped building and started patching, playing whack-a-mole with holes on the MLB roster from year to year. He's also been slow to adopt incredibly successful measures like offering contracts to players who are still making league minimum to buy out FA years and buy wins at a reduced rate. Instead he waits until arbitration or FA and spends the greatest possible amount to acquire those wins. I was hopeful when he signed Braun and Gallardo to team friendly deals that he was turning a corner but then he offered McGehee a long-term contract and extended Braun again into his late 30s. People have gotten tired of me pointing to Tampa, but Freidman was truly an innovator, I would have loved for Yo to be signed to the exact contract that Shields was signed to. With that kind of contract you always have the flexibility to move on if the player starts to decline or you have better talent available. I would love to be able to cycle pitching the way they have dumping Kazmir, Garza, and Jackson at the perfect time. It's great that our payroll is around $100 million, I would have never thought I would see that for the Brewers in my lifetime, but what exactly are we buying with all that money? It's simply irresponsible to have a significant portion of your payroll tied into your relievers and continually sign aging players to 8 digit/year contracts. I'm all for trading prospects and spending money, but I've never been a fan of FA or rental player trades, especially as the talent well in the minor leagues has started to run dry. I've been looking for ways to get younger and more dynamic athletically, get impact talent back into the system, while becoming value conscience at the same time. Under Melvin all we've done is get older and more expensive every year. It's not about spending money, it's not about maxing out the payroll, it's about the value you get on the dollar, and making the playoffs doesn't wipe away all of the other negatives. I firmly believe the Brewers need a GM that can get out in front of market trends instead of following them and be flexible enough to adapt his strategy. That was genius in what Beane did, he let go of convention and looked for a different way... Beane wasn't right about everything, but he dared to go against the flow. That's what Freidman did in Tampa as well. Every part of the game of baseball is derived from the pitching, if you control young, talented, effective pitching, you control your games and you control cost, maximizing $/win. Freidman exploited the market and bought pitching cheap and then when the market swung back he was in position to sell it at a premium price. He didn't buy CY pitchers, they did their homework and bought prospects at incredibly reasonable rates, it can be done. So to summarize, Z and his scouts provided the positional talent foundation of the 2005-2011 Milwaukee Brewers and provided enough talent that Melvin was able to make numerous trades to improve MLB team, including trades for 2 CY winners. The one glaring weakness for Z's staff and the scouting dept in general has been impact pitching, the organization has suffered from a serious drought impact pitching for a very long time. On the other hand Melvin has failed on a consistent basis to plug holes in a cost effective manner, he hasn't signed our home grown young players at the appropriate time preferring to go year to year, he's failed to acquire any young impact player via trade, he hasn't addressed any organizational holes for the long-term via trade, he continually buys talent at the wrong time (when he should be looking to sell similar talent), and finally he's failed to replenish the talent well at all. Basically he operates like he's a large market GM even though he's in the league's smallest market, and we enable him because people from WI tend to be incredibly loyal to our teams. The Brewers should have a payroll like Oakland but the fan support is so great the Brewers can afford to spend like a mid market. It's not just the Brewers obviously.... Packers are one of the most popular teams in the NFL, the Badgers enjoy great fan support, Marquette enjoys good support... it's what we do, we're loyal to our teams, maybe to a fault. The only team that doesn't enjoy that kind of support is the Bucks, but if they built a good young core and started to compete consistently I bet the support for them would come back as well. I've said it numerous times but I'll say it again, I'll take TT's organizational building philosophy over Melvin's whack-a-mole philosophy every single time. It's not about what you spend, it's about how spend it... We can win with young talent, plenty of young teams have made it to a WS, sooner or later one of those young teams is going to break through and win one. With Melvin at the helm I fear we'll always teeter on the edge of competiveness until the system is completely barren (we're pretty close now) and we have to start over from scratch, he's only been looking at the organization from one angle for too long.

I've seen enough of Gomez that I'm not willing to buy into any hype surrounding some magically turn around for him. He is approaching what should be his peak years as a player but he's shown no noticeable improvement at the plate at all. On the bases he's still a liability, for every extra base he takes via steals, 1st-3rd, or scoring a run when other players on the roster wouldn't have gotten the extra base he gives back by making very poor decisions that lead to outs on the bases. By far the best part of his game is in the field and he's gradually reduced the boneheaded plays of throwing to the wrong base, though he still does on occasion. Gomez generally takes good routes to balls in play and has a strong throwing arm. Morgan isn't going to significantly improve at the plate either, he's an excellent LH option as part of a platoon. He's not going to give much power or walk at a high rate, but he does hit for a high average and make consistent contact. In the field he really struggles on balls straight back over his head but has good range to the gaps, and an average arm at best. For 2012 I'm fine with the platoon as it existed at the end of last season. However if the opportunity presented itself to sell high and trade Morgan for a legit prospect I'd be willing to take the upgrade from Dykstra to whatever prospect we received back and move Schafer up to MLB to be the LH portion of the platoon. I'm all for giving a fresh face or 3 a chance every season, I'm not hung up on veterans by any stretch. Melvin only has a contract through 2012 so I wouldn't expect any type of bold move that would run the risk of blowing up in his face (even though I don' think Schafer carries much risk), as such I think we'll see the Morgan/Gomez platoon again for 2011. As it stands he has a team that should complete for the playoffs in 2011 which will likely earn him another contract extension much to my dismay. Short of the Brewers falling apart and Melvin selling multiple MLB pitchers for a prospect like Mike Trout I don't see the CF situation changing all that much. There will be some sort of platoon with Gomez(barring injury), Carlos just isn't good enough to be an everyday player and doesn't carry enough value to be moveable for anything of value.

Unless you guys provide some sort of link to backup the Melvin selection of Gallardo I don't buy it at all. Here's a link to Colby's post on this subjectwhich I've linked to a couple of times a year, every year since 2008. Quoted below so I don't have to keep searching for it every time I need to reference it.

Are you going to post a list?

I had forgotten about this thread so I apologize for not responding. No, the big name players are never worth what they sign for. There is simply no way 50-60 innings per year is valuable enough to justify an 8 digit salary, much less a high 7 digit salary. It doesn't matter if it's only a 1 year contract like the case with Gagne, I'm done with wasting that kind of money on the bullpen. I played the 1 year justification game with the Gagne situation and I was wrong for doing it, and I certainly wouldn't support that kind of move now, hence my criticism of K-Rod accepting arbitration. Also, no I'm not saying the players in the example I used are equal talent, I'm saying it's impossible to convince me that relievers carry enough value to be worth that kind of money. Bad contracts are handed out to all kinds of free agents every season, being productive vs some other over valued free agent doesn't justify any contract. Nor would I support Melvin spending on player X because he's better than player Y who makes $Z per year. I have a simple thought about the payroll, the most valuable players should be making the most money and someone who will only contribute the bare minimum number of innings where an arbitrary rule applies doesn't fit that criteria for me personally. I've posted often that in general I've felt FA hitters are better value than FA pitchers, but the Ramirez contract is pretty troubling. Backloaded for 16 mil we aren't going to be able to move that contract if the need arrises, plus the deferred money and option, yuck. Getting back to the original point, in no way am I in favor of extending pitchers at a market rate into their mid 30s. Axford will be 30 or 31 when he's done with arbitration, no reason to sign him to anything, let him walk for compensation or trade him for better value. One last time I believe that starting pitching > position players > relievers > closers because closers are so over valued for what they actually do. If I can get a legit stud pitching or position prospect for a closer I make that deal 19 out of 20 times. Maybe 20 out of 20 depending on who the prospect was each time, but the young man would have to possess some serious warts for me to worried about not getting equal value.

Hulet has been writing there a long time... I'm not sure why he's putting any stock in Bradley's AFL work, that's a hitter's league, there's a reason the Brewers wanted out of High Desert. Bradley gave up 2 HRs in 8 innings, of course his ERA is going to look bad. According to the comments, by Jim Breen in particular, he's spoken to Bradley and he was informed he's starting in the FSL next season. That seems awfully aggressive to me but I guess there is a legitimate chance that Jungmann starts that high as well. I hope they know what they are doing because I'm still significantly bothered by Jungmann's lack of wow factor when I watched him pitch. I just don't get excited about any player that doesn't stand out in one way or another. I'd rather not have both guys go down to Florida and put up ERAs in the 4s or worse as they work on stuff. At the very least I would have liked to see both guys pitch in WI once in person to form a better opinion of each... oh well. We'll see how it turns out.

The 2011 Escobar was likely going to be an upgrade over the 2010 Escobar, I'm not sure what the 2010 Escobar has to do with anything to be honest. Yuni was part of the deal to acquire Greinke, that's it... No GM in baseball would have traded Escobar for Betancourt straight up. Escobar was a better player in 2011 and will be a better player in 2012. Once again I agree that Escobar was as bad as he could possibly be in 2010, but there was more to the situation than Hardy just stinking up the joint in 2009, and Escobar was better than Hardy in 2009. Escobar will never hit like JJ, he doesn't have the power, but it's not like JJ set the world on fire in 2010 either. This all goes back to identifying who your core players are, locking them up prior to arbitration so you can buy out some FA years cheaply, and moving on with everyone else. It's clear that Melvin doesn't really have a set plan in that manner... many speculated that Fielder would have jumped on a contract when he was in tax trouble and posted as such here on the site at the time, trying to lock up McGehee (really Doug?), trading 2 MLB SSs in 3 years, Braun's 2nd extension, etc... With Melvin every year is it's own vacuum. What holes do I need to plug this year? There hasn't been a discernible long term plan. I might be his most vocal critic, but even I don't believe there was anyway Melvin could afford to sign JJ and trade Escobar when his payroll was already nearly maxed out. If JJ would have performed in 2009 he would have signed an extremely lucrative FA contract the following winter. If JJ was in the long-term plans he should have been offered a contract in 2006 or 2007 but Melvin didn't even make an attempt, he seemed to prefer to go year to year with everyone. I wish he'd operate more like Tampa locking up those young guys to good contracts that are movable if better talent comes and aren't paralyzing throughout their duration, but Doug just hasn't taken that tact. The way the team has been operating swapping Hardy for Escobar was inevitable, they needed the salary relief.

LHP that don't crack 90 aren't not high ceiling players. That's like claiming a RHP with an average FB velocity south of 90 is a high ceiling pitcher. Nor does Gross being a QB at Auburn mean he was great athlete relative to his peers in MLB. He had a great arm and a decent eye, but wasn't special in any other way, which is why he's out of baseball. Where someone was drafted in the MLB draft has often times has nothing to do with how talented the player is, draft position and talent are not necessarily tied together. There are numerous reasons for that in the past, signability, shortest path to the majors, etc. Especially in the post Moneyball era when a handful of teams tried to copy what Oakland had done and ruined their farm systems because they ended up very little impact talent... the same position we find ourselves in today through a different set of circumstances. I'm still shocked that people see legitimate talent traded every year and truly believe that Melvin did the best he could and we never had a shot at that talent because the price was too high. As if we got a discount for Sabathia, Marcum, and Greinke? I would argue we overpaid in every case and seriously overpaid for Greinke. Acquiring young impact talent is all about timing and willingness to think a little bit outside the box... slightly downgrading 1 position but vastly improving another for minimal cost, thus making the team better as a whole. Unfortunately it doesn't seem that many people are ever willing to downgrade any position that's being "productive" which means many deals are simply not possible because you have give up legit talent to get legit talent back. If you'll never trade a MLB player who's productive with a decent contract then you'll never get that impact talent back. He clearly has a preference when making trades. When trading for prospects he's looking for players that will likely contribute to the MLB club, he's not making deals for a high ceiling pitcher in the low minors like Neftali Feliz with a huge arm and upside but without a prototypical body. He's looking for pitchability guys, players with good control, that will likely fill a role someplace down the road and aren't as likely to flame out. Sometimes that's all you are going to get for the piece you are giving up, sometimes not. Mostly Melvin prefers trading for established MLB talent in quantity. He's also willing to overpay to get a name player for a position of need as in Sabathia, Marcum, and Greinke. Getting Villanueva for Estrada and Franklin was fine, there was no way Melvin was going to get anything with upside for those 2 turds. Overbay wasn't a turd, he was a MLB average 1B in an era when prospects carried little value and pitching prospects in particular were viewed with great cynicism (anyone who follows the minor league forum will remember the "there is no such thing as a pitching prospect". The Sexson, Overbay, Lee, and Davis trades were all the exact same deal. The Sabathia, Marcum, and Greinke trades were the exact same deal. The trades for Lopez and Linebrink were the same meaningless rental player deals for a team that wasn't going anywhere. As I said Melvin's philosophy hasn't evolved over time, he firmly believes that being average at every position with a few impact players sprinkled in is enough. It's been in print and he's talked about it numerous times in radio/tv interviews as well. He believes every team has a major hole or 3 someplace so he can be competitive with those teams by simply not being below average anywhere. Truthfully he's right, you can compete and be right around .500, maybe get to 90 wins with some breaks. The problem is that once you reach respectability, you stop building towards anything special and start maintaining what you have. The Brewers aren't building to be elite, they are maintaining to be competitive. Melvin didn't draft any of the players the team built it's foundation on, baseball is not like the other sports, the scouting director is in total control of the draft in baseball, not the GM. The GM is kept in loop, but that's about it. The best move Melvin made was retaining Jack Z when he took the GM job. The scouting department handed him Weeks, Braun, Hart, Hardy, Fielder, and Gallardo but that scouting dept is no longer intact, it was raided and many of the best scouts are now with other organizations. Melvin then traded the little impact talent he had left from those people for Marcum and Greinke. His other marquee move was also gifted to him by the farm system when he acquired Sabathia. I don't see any genius in what he's done, it's all so obvious it was predicted up to a year in advance on our own transaction forum. He's not an innovator in any way, he's a very conservative GM that sticks to a constant philosophy. The "we don't know what was available" card has been way overplayed around here over the years, and is an incredibly weak defense given the talent that has been traded around MLB. It's just as easy to say, "how do you do know he wasn't offered player X?". It's an empty standard to judge a GM by. Teams have been interested in Hart for years, San Fran was rumored to have offered Matt Cain for him prior to 2008. Atlanta was linked to Hart as recently as last year...Teams make mistakes offering up players all the time. How many teams are kicking themselves that they didn't jump on Buchholz when he was being shopped in 2009 (yes I'm aware he got hurt), or Niemann when he was being shopped in 2008, and so on? Go back and look at the transaction forum, very few posters were interested in young pitching even though we desperately needed as an organization, everyone wanted Sabathia, then they wanted Peavy, then they were upset when the pitching imploded in 2009 and 2010. When people looked at Texas they talked about trying to trade for Millwood when Texas system was loaded with better pitching talent in the minor leagues. Unfortunately Melvin agreed, because those were the types of deals that he was pursuing and continued to pursue through last off season. I think Melvin's 2 best moves were Pods for Lee, and Dykstra for Morgan. K-Rod could have been a great move as New York basically gave him away in order to get rid of the option in his contract, until Melvin offered him arby and it was accepted. Now we're stuck paying a former name player who's really a finesse 8th inning guy like a starting pitcher (unless he gets traded again but now teams know Melvin has been backed into a corner). The Hairston deal was good value given the situation, but it's hard to hang your hat on a move for a utility player. Melvin clearly had his best year as a GM in Milwaukee last year, every move he made worked out perfectly, but there's no way he can repeat that success. He doesn't have the trade pieces available for impact talents and he's over budget on his payroll, nor is he going to luck his way into another K-Rod or Morgan situation where he gets critical pieces for basically nothing. How would the season have gone with Gomez as the everyday CF instead of the platoon? The acquisition of Morgan made Gomez' injury a virtual non factor in the season. Everything went perfectly for Melvin in 2011 and it still wasn't enough to get to a World Series. Now he's run out of resources to sustain the MLB team through manner which he's been operating since 2007. He has no talent flexibility, he has no payroll flexibility (thank you K-Rod and Ramirez), and he has no impact prospect talent to barter with. His obsession with veteran players will end up being his undoing at some point, I just hope it's sooner rather than later. He has 1 year left with a veteran team, then we'll see how good he really is.

1. Peralta 2. Thornburg 3. Green 4. Bradley 5. Gindl 6. Schafer 7. Lopez 8. Arcia 9. D'Vo 10. Jungmann 11. Manzanillo 12. Heckathorn 13. Ozuna 14. Gennett 15. Bucci 16. Scarpetta 17. Rivera 18. Fiers 19. Hall 20. Khris Davis 21. Walla 22. Rizzo 23. Rivas 24. Kentrail Davis 25. Perez 26. Morris 27. Kintzler 28. McClendon 29. Ramirez 30. Roberts 31. Meadows 32. Farris 33. Dennis 34. Garfield 35. Wheeler 36. Prince 37. Mittelstaedt 38. Haydel 39. Mondesi 40. Reed 41. McFarland 42. Gagnon 43. GoForth 44. Houle 45. Dowell 46. Jenkins 47. Strong 48. Keller 49. Toledo 50. Milton Gomez After Mondesi I just ranked this year's draft picks in the order that I liked them, hard to form an opinion on most of those guys, especially the ones who didn't play, I just don't have enough knowledge of the players prior to the draft to form any sort of opinion I'd be willing to back up. I'd throw Ortega in there someplace and remove one of the older fringe players who project as a backup if I really thought about where he should place, I'm intrigued by him statistically without knowing much about his stuff. Carlos Sosa is another player who's statistically intriguing, though he was only used in relief through both his stints in the DSL, but he could jump to Helena for 2012.

Monty I just want to say that I really like your quote.

Loved this response...."There’s this ridiculous site that says he was worth $6M over the last two years!" At any rate, I still say that Yuni was a clear upgrade over Escobar. Hopefully, Gonzalez will be an upgrade over Yuni. I guess that depends on what you're looking for in a player. Alcides was one of the best defensive SSs in baseball last season. While he certainly regressed in 2010 under Macha and appeared to lose all confidence in himself, he rebounded slightly last season. He'll never hit for power until he works at it, he's not going to naturally fill out his frame, but his body type can support an easy 20 lbs of muscle without effecting his mobility at all, maybe more. He's 6' 1"-2" and only 185 lbs, he's a toothpick for a professional athlete. According to baseball-ref Escobar was exactly league average last year, he was a 2 WAR player. Yuni's late season surge made him .7 WAR player. Over at fangraphs, Betancourt was at .5 WAR overall while Escobar was at 2.2 WAR. The difference is largely the defensive calculation which differ between the 2 sites. Unfortunately many people have a mental image of a whipped Escobar who didn't play defense or hit like he was supposed to in 2010. I completely agree that his body language was horrible, but I've always believed and posted that 2010 was Escobar at his absolute worst. I still have no idea why Escobar could go 0-10 taking pretty good ABs while Gomez would do the same with horrible ABs and Macha would sit Escobar. It was just no way to help a young player grow into his role, they need to have the leash to overcome failure, and Alcides was just never given that much rope. There may have been more to the story behind the scenes that we don't know about (attitude/accepting coaching issues so he deserved to be disciplined), but on the surface the MLB coaching staff did everything they could to stunt his growth. Alcides may never post an OPS in the low .700s like I thought he would. I thought he'd hit around .270 with 30ish doubles and a HR rate just below 10. His walk rate never supported an OBP higher than 60 points above his average (at his peak), he was never going to be an OBP guy. Even though his OPS was about 80 points lower than I would have expected he was clearly the far better player in 2011, and it wasn't even close. Basically it is insulating to continue to claim that Betancourt was an upgrade over a much younger, more athletic, and more productive player when the evidence overwhelmingly supports the contrary view. Alcides deserves better, he was just the guy that replaced Hardy, and that player was going to have to hit like JJ to be accepted by the general populace, which wasn't going to happen. Hardy spent his injury and off season time wisely, he continually put on muscle while Escobar wastes his time playing winter ball, and the Brewers encouraged him to do such. Yuni had plenty enough talent to be better, but he wouldn't even attempt field a ball in the proper manner. My impression from watching him was that he was a lazy waste bender who never wanted to play a ball straight up, instead always off to the side. He would never bend his knees, he would never setup a better angle for himself, his reaction time was poor, he was just terrible. Cirillo pointed out what many of us had been saying about Yuni all along on a telecast when they were playing the Rockies... Tulo does everything incredibly fundamentally sound, Yuni B does nothing that way, they even played the videos side by side. In my opinion Betancourt earned every bit of criticism he received on this site. For me personally Betancourt is right up there with Alex Sanchez as the most frustrating Brewers of the modern era.

We used to do top 25 lists, I think Colby was involved but obviously doesn't have time for that anymore given his sweet PG gig.

There's no way that's true, and reasonably priced is a pretty loose description... There are usually a couple of veteran hitters on the market every year in the 20-30 HR range through FA. Hart isn't a perennial 30 HR/year hitter, you can't just project his stats and say if he played in 150 game he'd do such and such, it's not like he's had seasons of 100 or less games. He's been fairly healthy and is aging as a player, some decline should be expected. Furthermore that statement is off base because the only way to acquire young impact pitching is to develop it or trade for it, there is no FA market to acquire young impact pitching. Historically the Brewers are horrible at developing pitchers, which is why I've been mostly talking about acquiring young impact starting pitching since the 2007-2008 off season. The simple truth is we need more contracts like Yo's and less contracts like Wolf's. It's not about the "small market mindset" as some would put it, it's about the fiscal reality of the situation. It seems that many times payroll flexibility is equated to roster flexibility which I think is a pretty narrow view and couldn't be farther from the actual truth. True roster flexibility is about depth of talent more so than financial flexibility, though at least in the Brewers case the financial component will always play significant role. If the organization is deep in talent decisions can be made not based solely on cost, but with other goals in mind such as acquiring a different position of need, better defense at a position, perhaps 1 player projects to have a higher OBP, RH vs LH, and so on. When we're essentially 1 deep or worse everywhere, we don't have any true flexibility talent wise and end up making decisions based almost entirely on cost. There's no picking and choosing between various players to create the best possible team, we just roll with what we have. It's no secret I'm not into buying wins at the going market rate or signing players entering the steep part of the injury nexus curve to long term contracts. I don't want to get into the whole proven vs unproven argument again, I think it's a completely baseless and unrealistic claim. It's prudent to cycle talent if the opportunity presents itself. I don't think many people realize how badly the scouting dept was gutted, this isn't the same scouting staff Jack Z had when we drafted many of our current players. We lost a guy or 2 every year culminating with Z's departure where he further raided the staff. If we are no longer drafting and developing impact talent, then we have to trade for it, because we aren't able to afford it in FA. Hart, Hardy, and Braun were my favorite Brewers coming through the system... My thoughts on trading Hardy were well known and many of those same arguments against trading Hardy (or any proven player) keep getting recycled every time some one suggests trading an established and successful member of the current Brewer team. The reality is that in the grand scheme very few players are irreplaceable, those that are such are typically HOF players, they don't come around very often. Of course there will be sentimental and personal bias towards a certain player, like a McGehee for example, who was a favorite even though he clearly wasn't as physically gifted as his peers. However when talking about what's best for the team we need to abandon that personal bias and strive to be as objective as possible, we all know how that situation played out. I can get behind the idea Hart has been overshadowed, but this isn't like someone claiming he won't be able to hit because his elbow isn't in the proper position. He's 29 years old, and while we aren't able to accurately predict his drop off as player, neither can we realistically point to his history and make definitive claims about his future production either. It goes both ways... sports are a young man's game, and it doesn't matter which league, any player's production will peak when the mental side of the game meets his physical skill, health permitting of course. Ken Griffey Jr played in 160 games as a 29 year old and 145 as a 30 year old, then was never the same. Who would have predicted such a severe decline in games played going into his 31 year old season? He didn't play in 140 games again until his age 37 season when he posted an .869 OPS. I'm not suggesting Griffey and Hart are similar talents, I'm suggesting that all players regardless of age, talent, or experience carry risk. It's up to us to qualify what's an acceptable risk, but I think many people allow sentimental attachments to players to cloud the issues. If you are a GM carrying a 30 year old player who's productive but not elite and someone offers elite talent at a position of greater value (starting pitcher), in my opinion you should take the deal 19 times out of 20. Rid of yourself of the contract and cycle young dynamic talent back into the organization. If value falls the way I think does in that starting pitchers > position players > relievers > closers then I'm entertaining any deal for the back of bullpen that allows me acquire an impact position player or starting pitcher. I have no interest in playing any reliever, especially a closer, the same money as a starting pitcher to pitch 1/3 to 1/4 of the innings. It's horrible value to do such. I don't play the justification of salary game where I'm combining various players together to make it look like a player who's overpaid is actually good value. I'm more prone to evaluating each player on an individual basis. As far as the Brewers are concerned, Yo and Braun are the only 2 players whom are untouchable. The Brewers can live without anyone else given the right price. Hart is in the same position that Hardy was coming out of 2008 when I was championing moving JJ for pitching, Corey is the most productive and attractive trade piece the organization has. It's nothing against him personally as I said he was one of my personal favorites, but at some point it's going to be time to move on from every player currently on the roster. It doesn't matter to me when we move on, just that we get the best possible value when we do.

1 in 6

That's pretty easy... Instead of buying aging impact or veteran talent with our prospects, sell our players at the appropriate time to keep cycling fresh young talent back into the system. Have the payroll setup where the most valuable players actually make the most money. and no K-Rod is not one of our most valuable players, no reliever is. Quit maxing out the payroll because you can, many years we've spent money just to spend it. Quit offering contracts to players that shouldn't be part of the organization's long-term plans like McGehee, Helms, etc. Lock up our young core players prior to arbitration buying out FA years like Tampa has continually done. Gallardo's contract and Braun's first extension were wonderful moves. Don't ever sign another player to Braun's second extension where the production won't match the dollars at the end, the contract isn't movable. Remove Reid Nichols from his position. Give young players a chance to succeed. Quit making moves for rental players using draft picks compensation we never get as justification for the move, hopefully the collective bargaining agreement has changed this practice. Quit targeting high floor/low ceiling young players in trades. Quit signing FA pitchers to market value contracts, especially relievers. Quit signing players over 30 to deals 3 years or longer. Quit building teams solely around SLG. There is no such thing as "good enough" pitching, we need a good young stable of impact arms to remain competitive long-term, building that stable should be his primary focus. Quit playing whack-a-mole with roster spots from year to year. For example, trading 2 SSs in a 3 year window to end up with Yuni was incredibly short sighted. None of this had to go down the way it did, the dominoes didn't have to fall this way, he just chose to make them fall the way they way have. In short he operates this franchise like he's in a much larger market, only looking at each year's MLB team, he leaves the organization building to people that haven't proven they are capable of doing it which is one of the reasons the farm system was so bad coming into last season. Philosophically I want him to be Andrew Friedman or at least have evolved his philosophy over time, he's certainly not Friedman, and his philosophy really hasn't evolved, his moves for the 2011 season just worked out wonderfully compared to the moves he made in the past. Sabathia wasn't enough in 2008, we got lucky with the Mets collapse, the Brewers earned the division title and post season berth in 2011. The simple truth is that since Melvin isn't likely to change anytime soon, he is who he is, I just want him to move on to a different opportunity. Success isn't sustainable the way he's constructed the roster.

I'm pretty sure the Brewers think they'll be awarded an extra option for Scarpetta and a couple of other players. It was on the minor league forum someplace.

Oh come on. Please. As usual, your analysis here is very smart, IMHO. But do you have to aggrandize yourself and broadly insult everybody else in this way?I didn't know what that meant and had to look it up, good word. I assure you that wasn't my intent, I tend to get blasted for being a Melvin hater or playing with revisionist history when my opinions haven't changed much since 2007. The posts in this thread about winning the payroll war and why should it matter what Melvin pays someone because it's not our money make it pretty clear that many people still haven't taken the time or don't care to understand the other side of these arguments.

Gah we had to defer money for Ramirez? The last thing I want to do is be paying him a couple of mil per year while he's no longer on the club.

Normally I wouldn't be excited about swapping a position player for a reliever which I believe is a backwards move value wise, however given my dislike of the McGehee situation going all the way back to the summer of 2009 I'm relieved that he's gone.

On the surface I'm not thrilled about this signing. I'm not crazy about the years, and I resigned myself to the idea that we'd be paying an 8 digit salary for him at the end of last week. I haven't read any of the thread but based on history I figure I'll be in the minority once again since I'm not raving about what a genius Melvin is. I would have preferred to give youth a shot at 3B instead of going the much more expensive proven veteran route. I don't despise the deal, I'm just apprehensive at the long-term prospects of the signing. It's not an organization killing contract if he gets hurt and doesn't play, but I can't help but think we overpaid and he won't hit like he did last year for the duration of the contract, nor do I expect him to play more than 130 games in any season. He seems to have a DL stint or 2 every year and he's only getting older, I should probably check baseball-ref to see what he's played but I really don't have the time to fully research him right now. A defensive upgrade would have been nice, but even if he's a small step down from McGehee (which would be admittedly horrible), he's a net + using 2011 stats which is all most people will care about.

I hope that was supposed to be in blue.

Are we traveling down the road of another "true fan" discussion? As in somehow if you weren't totally supporting Braun you were disloyal and not a true Brewer fan? Personally speaking, I'm much more loyal to people I have a personal relationship with than those I don't. In fact if I don't know you at all there's no way I'm going out on a limb to support your credibility. I don't know Ryan personally, he plays for the team I root for, but there's no way I'm going out on a ledge for him especially given the history of PED denials. This may not even be a PED issue and could possibly be misreported as was the case with Salome, it's all way too fuzzy at this time to make definitive conclusions either way. I would think the majority of people assuming guilt are doing so because not PED suspension in any sport has ever been overturned. I wouldn't have pegged Rogers for the type of guy that would earn a suspension, but he failed a second test to earn his. I'm just at a point where nothing surprises me anymore. As I said in my initial post, I'll reserve further comment on the matter until more details come out but my initial reaction was negative.

As long as we get a better haul this time, I'm fine with that comparison. We got a great haul for Overbay, if we could get the same for KRod it's be a steal. Pace certain posters, the Brewers got a cost controlled starter and a solid pitching prospect. The prospect (Jackson) busted but Bush provided great value for his years here for the money he was paid.That's just so wrong on so many levels. Any pre-arbitration player is cost controlled, the pitchers I advocating taking instead of Bush and Jackson were also young and cost controlled. Gross was young and cost controlled as well, the issue wasn't the cost. Furthermore, Bush wasn't highly paid because he was never very good, it's nearly impossible to overpay an average/below average player prior to free agency. The issue I've always attacked was the ceiling of all of the players involved. For the record I would have been fine with taking McGowan, and that move would have backfired horribly, I would have been terribly wrong given the health issues that emerged post trade. So in the sense that something is better than nothing, I guess one could claim the deal was a "great haul". From a pure talent standpoint the deal was quantity over quality, 3 high floor/low ceiling players for an established MLB 1B. In Toronto's system at the time of the trade McGowan was the highest ceiling MLB ready prospect, he had everything to be a top of the rotation starter. Marcum was the best pitcher of the 4 (and he was still topping out in the low 90s at that time). Jackson was nothing more than finesse lefty with a funky delivery who was highly drafted, and Bush was a bulldog who got the most out of what he had, but he always had the worst arm and poorest stuff of any of the RHP in this discussion. Melvin took the 2 lowest ceiling starters and position player who never profiled to be an everyday MLB player. That was, is, and always will be my problem with Melvin, he doesn't trade for true high ceiling prospects. He trades for established MLB talent or high floor players without much of a ceiling. Sure they all at least give you *something* in MLB, but they don't ever help you build towards anything significant. I'd rather miss on a couple of trades than have a rotation full of 4/5 starters like we had all those years because we made the safe/conservative trade every time. I'd beat the "cycling talent" drum again but most people just don't care enough about anything other than the MLB team to have a meaningful discussion about the subject. Queue the, "he did the best he could" apologist posts...

Honestly I'm no longer surprised when negative news comes out about any player on any team I actively root for, it's one of the reasons I don't really attach myself to players anymore and simply identify with the team. I'll wait to comment further until more details are released, but my initial reaction was along the lines of "it sure is wonderful we have him signed through 2030". Yes I know 2030 is an exaggeration. I hope for his and the Brewers' sake that this is all a huge misunderstanding, but I'm not optimistic that's the case given the history of similar claims over the years by various athletes in various sports.