TheCrew07

He was up in 2009, he just rode the bench and didn't hit very well as a pinch hitter which is unfortunately what people seem to remember.

There's nothing about McGehee that I would qualify as "high ceiling". He actually over achieved so much early his MLB career that I don't see anyway he rebounds to those numbers. He could certainly play better than last year, but he maxes out as a league average player for his position because he's just not very talented. I thought he looked another 10-15 lbs heavier last year and for someone who's not nimble from the start, he certainly didn't himself any favors. I would have traded Casey after both 2009 and 2010 and argued as much many times on this forum. Sell him before the bottom falls out... which of course it did leaving him with very little value.

I really like how Baldkin put this. I used to be one of those guys that said and posted "it's only a 1 year deal", I did that when all of us knew that we vastly overpaid for Gagne. I've moved well beyond that phase now though, as my ultimate concern is value on the dollar, there is no justification for having your 8th inning guy making that much money. I guess if you're the Yankees and your closer, starting pitchers, and many of your position players are making more than that it could make sense to pay your 8th inning guy a 7 digit salary. However to start combining slots saying the 8-9th will "only" cost us X number of dollars is irrelevant, no matter how you slice even in a best case justification Melvin would still be paying for 2 innings per game what he pays to starting pitchers for 6+ innings per game. It's horrible value on the dollar, regardless of how good Axford and K-Rod are as pitchers. The pitchers in your bullpen should never be among the highest paid players on your team, even the Mets figured that out which is why we got K-Rod for so little prospect wise.

It's too bad we can't trade McGehee for Wade Davis, that's a deal I would definitely get behind.

Who ever had Gamel as a top 30 prospect in all of baseball? I'm not sure he ever cracked the top 100 on any major lists. Really, never cracked the top 100 on any major list? If you didn't remember a simple google search would have yielded the truth.

People think the Payroll won't stretch much farther because the team needed the playoffs to be in the black in 2008. Many posters on this site severly overestimate the break even point for this team. The new TV contract will help some, but it's not like was a 20 million/year revenue spike for the team. The team has done very well expanding it's revenue streams, there is no more "mom and pop" type business culture around the Brewers, but the reality is that the local market will only support a payroll so high. While we don't know the exact number, likely between 90-100 million with the new tv contract, the Brewers have made it clear they are a tight enough line that ticket sales largely determine if the team will be profitable or not. Yes the team can borrow against the value of franchise to go higher, but that's not a sound buisiness strategy year in and year out. Attendance is already about maxed out, it's very tough to sell out every single home game, we shouldn't expect attendance to exceed 3 mil on a yearly basis or push up towards 3.5 mil, nor should we expect the team to magically find enough new revenue streams that they could add significant payroll. Mark A's personal wealth, whatever that numer is, means nothing... he doesn't pay the players out of his own pockets. The business does, and when all is said and done the business will have a break even point as all businesses do. I'm not sure where the concept of the "deep pockets" owner came from, but many people are taking it way too literally, as in the owner spends his own money to play the players, really the concept is about teams that are willing to spend money on players. Brewers as a corporation didn't spend under the Seligs but they spend money under Mark A's group, the difference is how the organization is run, not how relative wealth between the two principle owners.

Deferred money is the worst trend in Modern baseball. If don't have the money to spend up front, don't offer the contract.

hooray the best throw away phrase in baseball discussion, "unproven players".

LHP Evan Frederickson, a mega-bust of a sandwich pick in '08, was released last March. That's some serious hope http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/smile.gif. Ha! I meant Davis and Heckathorn, but some how Frederickson came out.

Hall... please no. While he has positional versatility he's not a plus defender anywhere, his range was his best asset in the field and that will only decline with age. He always had a suspect glove and inaccurate throwing arm to go with poor instincts for the game... throwing to the wrong base, making outs on the bases... we already have Gomez to fill that role which Hall left when he moved on. You know, the super athlete who never put it all together and makes as many irritating plays as he does good plays. I'd rather have a savvy veteran in that role who understands the game and his limits rather than a flash in the pan super athlete who's best assets are steadily declining with age. No I'm not saying I'd prefer Counsell to Hall, but there has to be someone out there that will make the fundamental play and have a good approach at the plate for cheap. I want someone who can think his way through situations rather than get by on pure athleticism. I'm sure that won't make sense for many people, but it's how I feel. I get that people around here really liked Bill Hall, I never was a fan and he will always be my personal least favorite Brewer of this era.

Not that draft choices aren't epically important to rebuilding organizational depth, but this should be another hard lesson about expecting some great draft choice compensation when working with these rental players. Hopefully the new CBA means an end to the rental market, but while some teams have had great success with compensation picks, the Brewers haven't. I fully expect K-Rod to decline arby, I don't remember a single Boras client whom hasn't, but if he were to accept arby and Fielder would sign with a bottom 15 team, while the MLB team would be alright organization building would take another significant hit. I like Seid, though I think he has quite a bit to prove yet, but it's tough for him to replenish depth with supplemental round and an extra 2nd round pick. The Brewers historically haven't had much success with compensation picks. I'm still holding out hope for Davis and Frederickson though.

Passersby... plural. My goodness. I don't even want to guess what went through their minds when they saw the accident, I would hope most people wouldn't see it as opportunity to take advantage of someone.

The next 5 seasons? The statistical prime for vast majority of players is over by age 30, most players between 28-29. For the 2012 season Fielder, Braun, and Greinke will be 28, and Gallardo will be 26. It's not like the production of the older players is going to fall off a cliff, but sooner or later they will all miss significant time with injury. Fielder and Greinke have been incredibly durable thus far, but their bodies won't hold up forever. Every pitcher eventually gets hurt and Fielder would be a medical marvel if he made that body type last the duration of his next contract. Braun already has issues with this and that, little nagging injuries every season that he doesn't seem to overcome, the frequency and severity of which will only increase as he gets older. I have no problem with the notion that Gallardo will be peaking here over the next 2-3 seasons, but the rest of the guys are not likely to put up their peak numbers over the next 2-3 seasons, never mind the next 5. It wouldn't surprise me if Greinke's 2009 was the pinnacle of his career at age 25. I'm not saying he'll be ineffective, I'm just saying what I've always said, that on average he's not as good as his peripheral numbers suggest he should be. He has the talent to be low 2 ERA pitcher, but he'll be anywhere from low to high 3s in most seasons. I'm not sure we can project Braun to improve on or repeat his 2011 season either. I'm not talking about the MVP, I'm talking about the .994 OPS. It's not like he adds additional value with his glove, his lack of anything resembling a defensive instinct will only hurt his value as he gets older and he makes less plays since he's not able to recover utilizing superior athleticism anymore. As far as Fielder is concerned, I'm not sure he ever tops his 2009, his 23 year old 2007 was also very impressive, but I think he's a much better all around hitter now than he was then. He also had an extraordinary 2011 by any measure, his every other year on again off again mega success won't go on forever, especially as he gets older. I think any team that signs him should be hoping to get a Teixeira like slide out of him. Mid .900 OPS through next season as a 28 year old, then a productive but slow decline, and remember that Fielder also doesn't add any value with his glove. I'm alright with people making absolute statements about young players peaking through years 4-6 of their career, hopefully all of our young players are ascending as MLB players. However once we get to the upper 20s age wise, that's the time to think about flipping players or letting them walk, not the time to think about signing them to lucrative long-term deals. I'd rather lock them up in year 2 or 3 year before arbitration and then buyout FA years through their 30 year old season than be signing 28-29 year old players to long term deals. Keep till they hit the steep part of the injury nexus and then replenish the talent well, just like Toronto did with Marcum. I'm all about maximizing production vs contract and I hold no sentimental notions that any player should be a Brewer for life, and no I don't think the Packers should worry about that concept either. Though I will say that DD can hang on as long as he wants if he takes the veteran minimum and doesn't mind being the 5th receiver. However that's not how it works in baseball, FA players don't get paid for what they are going to do, they get paid for what they have done, which is the entire problem with the system. There's no MLB player taking a reduction in pay during his contract to stay with his team since the contracts are guaranteed. Futhermore, It's simply not as clean as taking their previous 3 seasons and projecting a slow/steady decline, as the body ages it's impossible to project what injury they will get and when, how it will impact their production, as well as how a decline in physical skill will impact their career. I feel Braun's second extension was a mistake and I feel that resigning Fielder or extending Marcum/Greinke would be a mistake, and it has nothing to do with their talent. It has everything to do with their age, the financial system in baseball, and maximizing opportunities to cycle young impact talent back into the organization.

I'm not sure what you mean by "in fairness"? I was still holding out some hope he could become productive, but regardless he was prospect who killed whatever good will he had left with the organization with the crash. Yount also hurt himself on a dirt bike but didn't report it as such, which is who I was actually thinking of.

I personally prefer baseball-reference's way of doing it, I have a really hard time with FIP calculations being considered a "true" result. I find it interesting that Cooper had the best 1B season in Brewer history, I didn't realize Rickie's 2010 was that good, and I'm glad I'm old enough to have watched Yount and Molitor in person.

I'm not sure we can go to the "unlucky" card, we don't know any details yet. For example, if he was drag racing or something along those lines then he's lucky to be alive. I'm not suggesting he was doing something of that sort, it's just that I work with teenage boys and let's just say by default I'm skeptical because most car accidents involving the young men I've been around have more to do with bad decisions than a deer jumping out in front of them. What they tell their parents and their parents believe in most cases is a far cry from what actually happened. I'm personally in wait and see mode, if he was at fault I'll be upset, but this wouldn't be the first time a promising prospect hurt his chances because he got injured operating a motor vehicle of some sort. edit. forget it, I see there were additional details posted I was unaware of. edit 2. it would be nice if the baseball would take to you back to an older edited post as well as new posts

hyperbole... and how likely is Axford to repeat last year's success? What if he pitches 3 wins below this year, is the drop off from 3 to 5 using your unsupportable 5 that much to kill a deal? There is no way any relief pitcher, no matter how good or when he pitches, is as valuable as a middle of the order position player by any measure. WAR, WPA, VORP... use whatever metric you want, use the eye test, use common sense, use whatever measure you choose, relief pitchers are the worst value in baseball because the good ones get paid like starting pitchers to throw 60-90 innings under a specific and arbitrary set of criteria. He's my closer... he's my 8th inning guy... he's this, he's that... bah, relief pitchers drive me nuts. Just take the damn ball when they hand it to you and do your job. The truth is that the negativity towards trading productive players while they have maximum value comes from the simple fact that many people are unwilling to give up anyone who's productive for fear of the unknown. It doesn't matter what reason or what excuse is offered, the same arguments every time, even though the end result has been so obvious. We hang onto these players through their peak so we end getting nothing for a Hardy (sorry, Gomez is nothing), riding out a Hall contract, trying to extend McGehee, while trading away our best prospects to acquire players from other teams at the same points in their career... on the verge of getting very expensive and heading into the steep part of the injury nexus. We should be selling those players and not buying them, what sense does it make to dry up the talent well? This practice makes no sense from any long-term organization building standpoint and only makes sense if you narrow your view of the entire organization to the MLB team for a single season. In finite window like that people can justify anything they want and ignore the domino effect of the moves that are made from season to season. Which is what many posters on this site do, the 2008 Milwaukee Brewers, then the 2009 Milwaukee Brewers, and so on... Acquiring Sabathia led directly to the bad rotations in 2009 and 2010, but people only want to acknowledge 1 side of the equation, or treat the effect as if it were the cause. We got to the point of the 2011 off season by buying high on name players and constantly trading down in value, Melvin's trade history isn't some mystical yellow brick road to success. It's actually a lesson about mediocrity... even though the 2011 Brewers were successful, the success isn't sustainable. Everything, and I do mean everything, broke the Brewer's way this season and it wasn't enough to get back to the WS. I don't care about the franchise record in wins, we certainly weren't beating up on the AL East, we beat up on 3 of the worst teams in baseball to get to where we were. The starting pitching was incredibly healthy and the only major injury to a position player of consequence happened to Weeks at the perfect time when the pitching got hot and the team was in the weakest part of their schedule. Maybe the 2012 Brewers will share that same fortune but I doubt it, everyone is a year older and for players in their and passing their peaks, that's not a good thing. I say it again, if someone offers you a top young starting pitcher or legitimate hitter for a closer you jump on that deal immediately and don't think twice about it. Always trade up in value... I don't care about experience, I care about talent. We've had way too many feel good stories like Pods, Clark, and McGehee but not enough talent from top to bottom in this organization to sustain anything. I'm a "next man up" type of guy... I love what the Packers have done and continue to do, lock up a core, lest the rest walk. Sure there are growing pains, but sometimes young/inexperienced make game changing plays just like the player they are replacing. Talent is more important than experience... Gomez has plenty of talent but I would have taken Cain over him 100 times out of a 100 coming into this season. I called my shot in 2008 when I said if they didn't trade Fielder when his value was peaking they'd never get it done. I called my shot the following year with Hardy, now I typically don't care enough to even argue about this stuff anymore (except when I'm feisty for whatever reason) because it's obvious nothing is going to change with Melvin at the helm. His strategy doesn't evolve, it just gets recycled. He traded for one young starting pitcher and the deal blew up on him in TX, and he's never made a move on an unproven/limited success player like that again. He's a large market GM in the game's smallest market, every string he pulled in 2011 was perfect, not a single move backfired, I highly doubt that success repeats itself for 2012. Sports are a young man's game, Melvin only acquires experience or high floor players, I'll take getting younger and more dynamic athletically just about every single time. Axford isn't young, nor is he irreplaceable, replenish the talent well and set the organization free.

You realize Drabek was traded for Halladay right? That's the kind of talent you're talking about here. Green isn't even an above average 2B defensively...

This is exactly how I feel. I'd trade Axford for a young starting pitcher tomorrow. As I've previously posted on numerous occasions I wouldn't extend either Greinke or Marcum for various reasons.

Of course Arcia could jump to Helena at 17, which would be awfully impressive. A latin SS who walked 30 times as a 16 year old, my goodness... the 2nd highest total on the team. He walked more than he struck out, stole 13 bases, hit 6 HRs, and had the highest OPS on the team... I just love this kid and I've obviously never seen him play, and historically I haven't cared about the DSL team at all. The 15 errors in 64 games wasn't great, but wasn't horrible either.

They usually pick up a guy like that before spring training for AAA, he wouldn't necessarily need to be a 40 man addition though. Unless you mean draft a SS in the rule 5 draft, in which case I would be surprised considering you can pick up defensive SS who can't hit at all pretty easily.

This is just terrible news, I was intrigued by him as a prospect just because of his heritage, there aren't many MLB players or legitimate prospects from Europe. He jumped on my radar in 2008, his strike out rate above AA would have been appreciated by many 3TO fans on this site. Very sorry for his family's loss, especially if the brother was really the murderer, unfortunately this is just another sad reminder me of how lucky I am to have the family that I do.

I get the whole size thing, but isn't players growing out of the SS role in MLB more a conditioning issue rather than a physical truism for lack of a better term? NBA (well used to be NBA) point guards are typically right around 6' 4" and super athletes, are we really suggesting that an athlete of that caliber cannot play MLB SS? Tulo isn't a freak like some have suggested, he's maintained his flexibility and is incredibly fundamentally sound. Put him and Yuni side by side and you get the picture of how a SS should field the ball, bending his knees to get low to the ground, keeping the ball in front, and a rocket arm. Contrasted by a lazy waist bender who never bends anything but his waist, plays everything off to a side, and who gets by on natural on fielding talent enough to some how hold down a MLB starting SS job. This whole notion of "too big" in baseball drives me nuts because it's a stigma going back forever. Like how lifting weights automatically means your body will tighten up so you'll loose flexibility so our young players are better off playing winter ball instead becoming better athletes. While that may be true of power lifting and body building, it certainly isn't true of athletic weight lifting which is as much about flexibility and explosiveness as it is strength. Historically baseball has been way behind the athletic curve, most of that is probably due to the freakishly high number of games and travel schedule. Athleticism is independent of frame, if you have 2 athletes, all things being equal except one is 6 inches taller, the taller athlete is going to cover more ground because of stride length, and thus if we're talking about SS, he'll have more range. As for Gennett playing SS, I don't see how that's a viable option given he's struggling at 2B. Like Geezy said, if you watched him play at all you thought to yourself "he has major work to do at 2B" not "wow he makes 2B look easy".

As for your assessment of Thornburg, I'm not going to defend college or high school coaching, especially in regards to pitchers, it's one of the reasons I prefer high school arms, those young men simply haven't had the opportunity to get abused twice. That being said, a couple of 130 pitch outings for a seldom used arm early in his career while certainly stressful by appearance, may not have been. I've always used the cube for college pitching stastics, but I don't recall the pitches ever being broken down by inning so we knew exactly how many stressful innings he pitched. If he was going 17 pitches for 8 innings he hits that mark, but none of those innings would have been extremely stressful, it's all relative. Furthermore you neglected to mention what an excellent athlete Thornburg is, which besides his rocket arm, is my personal favorite quality. He also flat out competes, if you haven't watched it I recommend you watch the video of him playing the outfield his freshman year. I've seen a ton of players go over the fence in a variety of sports, but I've only seen 1 land on his feet... As for Jungmann, I thought I had said everything I had to say about him in the draft forum but I'll quick summarize here. Your write-up reads like what Jonathan Mayo wrote about him for mlb.com, but that's not what I saw. He was working 88-93 on the ESPN gun, which I've been told is 1-2 MPH fast. I also disagree about good life on his FB, he featured the 4 seam the most, and 4 seamers just don't move horizontally much. He didn't locate his 2 seam FB at all, he maybe threw a couple of strikes with it in the 2 games I DVR'd, the game I watched at the bar I wasn't paying close enough attention to him to offer an opinion other than he generally wasn't impressive. He does compete well and I'm not concerned about his velocity because if he fixes that short stride he'll easily pickup more velocity. However, I don't think a compete overhaul of one's lower half is such an easy thing to do, he's likely been pitching with that stride his entire life and muscle memory (instinct) takes 1000s of repetitions to overcome. At a clinic a couple of years ago a strength coach cited a college study which ball parked 12,000 perfect repetitions for the average person to learn a knew instinct. Anyone gifted enough to play professional sports is far above average athletically, and even it's truly only half that number, 6,000 perfect (perfect being the key) repetitions on average, how many will he need? We're still talking about a year or two worth of repetitions to get to the point where he doesn't have to think about it anymore. Finally, I don't see there's any way Jungmann is up in 2012, even if he masters new mechanics over the winter, his secondary stuff is average at best. If it was that easy to learn plus pitches, every professional pitcher would have them. If he comes up with only improved FB command and slightly better velocity than he's shown thus far with the same secondary stuff, he's gonna get rocked. Most hitters are FB hitters anyway, and why would a hitter look for anything other than his FB? The curve he featured in the tourney didn't have much bite at all, college hitters were easily getting a piece of it. MLB hitters will know they can foul that pitch off if they get fooled and kill his FB. I didn't know much about Bradley at all, but I like his video and the reports that have been posted since he started pitching this fall. I'm partial to southpaws anyway becauser there simply aren't enough of us out there. I know many people would like the Brewers to push pitching prospects more, but I'd rather their stuff develops to the point they can get hitters out immediately at the next level, regardless if they were drafted as a HS or College pitcher. Even in the minor leagues teams scout well enough that you'll only fool them once, then you better have more than smoke and mirrors to get people out. Austin Ross should have been a fine case study for that point this season. Assuming Jungmann and Bradley both start out at A, they should both have success because their FBs are good enough to get A hitters out, but that won't necessarily be the case as they progress through the system. I would rather everyone starts out in A ball and earns it at each step, even if they only spend a couple of months in WI they can easily be in AA by the end of that first year or start in AA the following year, just like Thornburg. Let them get a year to adjust to the grind and work on mechanics before we rush them to AA. The Southern League is no joke, even though the home stadium kind of is, I like the career path Thorny is on for top pitching prospects coming out of college.

I highly doubt Lopez is ready by 2014. I could be wrong, but that's an awfully aggressive career path for a young pitcher, and the Brewers have really been looking after their young arms.