TheCrew07

I'm going to take the counterpoint on Hamels, partly to play devil's advocate and partly because I'm not sure quite what to think about him. What if Hamels has been worn down? He pitched around 190 IP as a 22 year old, 183 in his first full season as a 23 year old, and 227 as a 24 year old. Maybe it was too much stress too early for him and he's on a Woods/Prior like career path? You might be thinking to yourself what's so bad about those IP? Consider this, as a 19 year old he pitched 101 innings, as a 20 year old he had all of 16 IP for the season, and as a 21 year old he pitched in grand total of 36 innings for the season. He pitched more innings in 2006 between the minors and majors than he had in the rest of his career combined, he never had a chance to get stretched out properly. On the surface acquiring him looks great, his contract is very reasonable at 7ish mil in 2010 and 10ish in 2011, and of course he's been very successful in the past. Maybe he just had a down year, I'm sure there's plenty of people out there that will believe he just had a tough season. I'm thinking that maybe his arm couldn't quite handle the workload and he's going to have issues going forward, or maybe he didn't work very hard in the off season after his stellar 2008 on the field earned him guaranteed money. I'd feel better about Melvin acquiring Morrow from Seattle than I would acquiring Hamels. It's hard to argue with the results Hamels posted in his first 3 seasons, but when I realized he was struggling a bit this season I instantly thought of his huge jump in IP. Had he been in my system I would have went out to 100 IP in 2006, then probably 150 in 2007 getting him some time in the pen to limit his IP, and then let him loose in 2008. That tremendous jump in IP is just always a red flag for me personally.

It's not about a specific pitcher, it's about "no pitcher". Look at all of the assets Melvin has moved over the last 3 seasons, where's the long term pitching solution? Every single time he makes a move it's the same posts on both sides. The simple truth is that he hasn't made a single move on the trade front with any long term SP solution as the end result. He's done absolutely nothing but sign retread FA pitchers and acquire rentals... way too think outside the box Doug. I called my shot on this a long time ago, my biggest fear is that Melvin would waste the tail end of the first wave treading water with FAs and reject pitchers waiting on the young arms to make it to the show, I've seen no evidence to the contrary thus far. He keeps trading for bats, and traded our best trade pieces for a rental bat, rental pitcher, and a CF that has some upside but is a definite downgrade from what we had. Again if Gomez was the plan, then why not just go with Cain or Schafer? Neither one is going to hit very much next year (regardless of how much I personally like both guys), both play good defense, and neither one would have cost the team anything to acquire. To me this is very black and white and it has nothing to do with Hardy's value vs Gomez value vs Cameron's value or any of that other stuff.... it's about pitching. If the end game here is to free up salary to sign more averagish, over the hill pitchers then I've simply had it with Melvin. He would have repeatedly demonstrated that he doesn't have the guts to put a good enough package together to go after a young arm that could make a difference.

I haven't had time time yet to read the entire thread yet, the first page (50 posts) but this pisses me off enough I just wanted to vent. I realize that I've bagged on many of Melvin's moves so it might appear that I don't like the guy when that's not the case, I just think he keeps addressing the symptoms instead of the actual problem. Until I started to seriously evaluate the pitching situation a couple of years ago Melvin could pretty much do no wrong in my eyes. He did a fantastic job turning around the franchise and no one can ever take that away from him, but I have no idea why he thinks he can trading assets away without acquiring meaningful pitching? How does acquiring a good defensive CF who won't hit enough a solution to any issues with this team? If he wanted to do that why not Cain or Schafer next year? How does trading one good defensive CF for another address the pitching situation at all? We're basically holding the status quo defensively, downgrading offensively, and keeping a horrible pitching staff intact? I could see if Braun was playing CF or something... but we had Cameron. This is the plan Doug? Seriously? Sure we're saving money on Hardy and Cameron, but to what to end? I'm not into FA pitching but i could understand if Lackey was the target, beyond him, what pitchers on the market are worth spending money on? Pitchers like Davis and Washburn, they might be upgrades today, but what about in 2011? I've made cases against them previously and this isn't the thread to rehash that sort of thing. I saw that And That simply posted "I'm devastated".... I feel pretty much exactly the same way. It feels like my worst fears are coming true, I'm really struggling to get behind Melvin's vision here.

People will take me to task for this I'm sure, but until he makes it through a season healthy I'm just not going to let myself get excited about him anymore. I REALLY like him as a prospect even more now that he's reaching the mid 90s on occasion, but I also kept hoping for the best from JM Gold, Mike Jones, etc... I thought with him finally getting a proper diagnosis and having the nerve surgery he'd take off and have a healthy successful season, instead he got hurt again. I have no idea if he's not into off season conditioning, that seems to be the area the organization puts quite a bit of blame on for pitching injuries, and it's been mentioned in the past for Zach as well as the injuries to so many of the latin pitchers in the organization. I honesty have no idea if it's an organizational excuse or there is something to it, but until he's fully healthy for an entire season I'm off the Braddock roller coaster. Initially I was vehemently opposed to his transition to the bullpen, he has too much upside... but if he's unable to stay healthy pitching so few innings as a reliever I've accepted the idea that maybe being a reliever is the only way he'll ever help the big club. He won't help anyone on the DL, so maybe being a reliever will help him stay healthy long term?

The pitchers sure are having a tough go of it, I was looking at the ERAs for the league, it's ugly, and almost universal across the board.

Do you use Outlook by any chance? If your .pst file gets over 2 gig it will allow you to receive emails but not send them. I stumbled into this a couple of weeks ago with one of the users I support who's never deleted anything.

Brewjihad I admire your zeal to explain WAR and the dollar. However, the point about the dollar value that you're missing is that many of us think the FA market is not a good measure what every team in the league is willing to spend per win. As the league is top heavy, only certain percentage of the teams are paying max dollars for the best talent. Everyone else is trying to maximize production for the dollar... 1 fair market contract for a player can burden a small market team like Milwaukee as evidenced by Suppan, and when was the last time any team in the bottom half of the markets signed a marquee FA? Just looking around the site at the leaderboards, many FA players are signed to deals that are around 60-75 percent of their fangraphs' value. Every year 3 or 4 players really get paid, and they get paid so much that it pulls the average up so high that the value fangraphs is putting out there is actually significantly higher than than player's FA contract value, even for a guy that performs like Sheets does when he's healthy. No one is giving him $18 million per year, just like no one is paying Kapler $5.2 or whatever. I'm just talking players that performed well here and excluding players that have had down seasons since signing their contracts. Mostly though you're right, I just ignore the dollar value until someone comes here and points to it as justification as to why someone is worth X because that's what their fangraph's $ value is. That sort of analysis really gets under my skin, because it's flawed from the start... given the sliding scales of economy from the Yankees all the way down to the smallest market here in Milwaukee, and the disparity between salaries of players prior to hitting FA and after hitting FA. The entire system is on shakey ground at best given all of the "adjustments" that really can't be proven to be true. In the end, it's just an opinion, there's simply no way to prove the adjustments, park factors, etc to be true in a classical geometric or calculus type proof, it's all just theory. WAR is fine for what it tries to accomplish, but it shouldn't be a stretch to see why so many of us have a problem with the methodology involved in arriving at the $ value, even a casual glance between Cots and Fangraphs should be a enough to bring pause to a thoughtful fan. I'm not usually one to gripe without offering a solution, but in this case I'm not sure how they'd arrive at a more accurate value each year, which is why I've posted in the past that I wish they would just take it down. I've thought about this quite a bit and they'd probably have to adjust each signing as a percentage of the teams payroll and adjust for market size, the end result being some reduced rate for contracts signed by the Yankees and such while allowing the full value for teams like Milwaukee. There's just so many ways and so many holes in trying to analyze the contracts in that manner that I'd actually just rather guess and hope to be close or settle for being wrong.

That's just it though, the Brewers are never going to be able to match years, which is what many of us said all along. Baseball contracts are guaranteed, the player is always going to take the best total package, it's always going to come down to years and there's simply no way the Brewers should ever hand out a 7 year deal to FA pitcher unless he's 24 years old.

Since his name has been spelled wrong in 2 of the last 3 posts it's actually "Buchholz". Clay is a 4 worst case and a #1 best case, he has legit velocity on his FB, a huge sweeping curve, and a good change... he has 3 plus pitches. He also throws a slider which last I read was a pretty average pitch. I personally think he'll be similar to Yo results wise, he's a sub 4 ERA pitcher with the potential to be special. As far as unbiased scouting reports go, most everyone that does that sort of thing charges for it now but here's BA's take on him after the 2007 season. Here's a Driveline Mechanics breakdown of him as well, between the 2 that should tell you everything you need to know. My only knock on him if you look at the Hardy for Buchholz thread from earlier this season was his lack of IP in his career... but in 2009 he finally got up over 150 IP and broke 190 so he should be good to go for the future. It's also puzzling that for whatever reason Boston seems reluctant to commit a rotation slot to him when he's clearly more talented than some of the other pitchers in Boston's rotation.

Being the 2nd best starter on the 2nd worst staff in the league isn't exactly a compelling argument for him. He's 36 years old, expensive for his production like all FA SP, and declining. While I have no doubt he's the type of veteran pitcher that would interest Melvin I personally have zero desire to see Washburn in a Brewer uniform. Why when we are about to finally get out from under Suppan's contract would we saddle ourselves with a 3 year deal to a pitcher who will be 37 by the end of that contract? Washburn looks to be a 4.5-4.7 ERA type pitcher depending on his rate of decline for next season. The outliers in his last 6 seasons are his 2 contract years when he posted ERAs under 4. His K/9 has always stunk but he walks very few batters so ends up with a good K:BB ratio, and gives up more than his share of HRs. Any spike at all in his BB/9 rate and he immediately becomes a suspect SP. He's not exactly the model of durability either, his IP are all over the place from year to year... not surprisingly his best years were his 27 and 28 year old seasons, and he's been up and down since. Washburn figures to get 7-10 mil per year so when taking his salary into consideration in conjunction with his production I want no part of him. He's basically a league average to slightly above average pitcher... and I'm just not into paying for mediocrity ever. If Melvin wants to spend then go after someone with talent like Lackey, buy something significant. Paying double digit millions for averagish pitchers who are on the decline is the least best way to improve the pitching staff. edit. I typo'd his age, he's actually 35.

Why is the "you don't know enough about the metric" card always played in these discussions? If that's the base assumption then it simply isn't possible to discuss the matter intelligently. Most of us understand perfectly well how WAR is calculated and how they arrive at the average $ figure per win and simply don't agree with the methodology involved. Just like UZR, no matter how they tweak the metric it will never be fool proof because it's based on a zone concept where fielders share zones and there are simply too many "what ifs" to definitely measure defense. It's not that metrics don't have value, they all have value in their own way, it's just that too often they are thrown around as facts or absolutes when they are nothing more than complicated opinions. They are a piece of the puzzle, not the puzzle itself.

I had forgotten about NL Central this week, thanks BK. Most of the other information is stuff we already knew, here's the paragraph I found most intriguing. Here's the link to BA's subscriber content if you have a subscription.

Did anyone else sign up for the Old Republic beta? I beta tested EQ and WOW, so I figured I'd give it a shot but this time it appears the selection process is random based on system qualifications.

If he's worried about trade value then why put it in print at all? We're just supposed to assume it came from the organization but they don't want the information publicly acknowledge it? If it were me I just wouldn't have said anything.

It's descriptive, but based on a league average, and there are too many teams that aren't able to and shouldn't spend that kind of money per win. The league is too top heavy for that kind of analysis. I have no problem with WAR itself, but the way the dollar representation is misused drives me nuts.

I just have a problem with his speculation when he's in a position to get real answers. Does the organization think Lucroy passed up Salome? Is that just speculation based on Lucroy's AFL assignment? I would personally like some details, and it's impossible to know if that's just speculation on his part or an organization move.

Where/when did I say that? That is one of my fears if a veteran catcher is brought in though.

The "in times like these" commercials that are running on sports radio stations up here in the Fox Valley are driving me nuts. There are like 6 of them now, and I hear one in just about every commercial break. Is internet crime really on the rise? Suddenly there are more pedophiles lurking the internet because the economy is bad? Group muggings are a regular occurrence because of the economy in Green Bay? It's just fear mongering is all, and the NCPC should be ashamed of itself.

Actually, it does matter the pitcher's age, or more importantly where they are at in their physical development. I have no desire to rehash the injury nexus discussion, there is a ton of information floating around the web on the subject. I already acknowledged the injury concerns with pitchers, I've argued vehemently against FA pitchers in the past, but what does any of that have to do with the point about I made about signing our young stud pitchers to James Shields' type contracts? Maybe people just don't get how brilliant that signing by the Rays was? At the end the of the deal the pitcher is always pitching on a 1 year contract... year to year with the multiple team option years, it's the perfect deal for a small market club. It doesn't matter if it's a position player or pitcher, if our plan isn't to maximize a stud player's length of service with an organization while minimizing his cost, then our plan stinks and we need a new plan. Especially when it comes to pitching... the organization doesn't have a great history of developing pitchers, so why not maximize a particular pitcher's service time with the organization when we actually hit on one? If he becomes replaceable he can always be traded away later, but as much as I like Butler, Rivas, Rogers, Bowman, Periard, Anundsen, Arnett, Heckathorn, Bucci, Krestalude, Lasker, Odorizzi, Peralta, and Scarpetta can any of us say with certainty that any of those young arms will be better starting pitchers than Yo? How many of those guys will wash out or end up in the BP? What's the arrival date for a particular pitcher? What if they get injured and derailed like Rogers? Just because we have a flood of pitching depth on the way doesn't mean we should go year to year with a player like Yo. He should still be locked up as if we do in fact end up with a surplus of arms at the MLB level, then the club can make the decisions on which pitchers to trade based on talent and what's best for the organization, instead of basing a move primarily on service time.

I've had Dish Network going on 4 years now. Within the last year, my DVR died on me. I received a replacement and it functioned for about 2 months then died. The 3rd DVR was dead out of the box, and now the 4th DVR has been working for 3 weeks. Being a computer guy I understand refurbished parts and was done being angry about their spotty effectiveness years ago so I wasn't upset with Dish as they have a business to run, more so the people who do the repair work. When I called for the 4th DVR, I requested a new DVR instead of refurbished, still a got a refurbished unit, but this one appears to have been fixed properly so we'll see. I actually still have my original receiver, it's upstairs in the bedroom on an SD TV and still going strong. Other than getting refurbished DVRs, I have no complaints, and since I added local HD channels and got the new dish that points at the newer HD satellite, I very rarely even lose my picture in weather anymore. If I do happen to lose my picture it's never longer than a minute or two after significant lightening overhead.

1. They don't need to get the draft picks to develop good players upfront. Who wouldn't trade 3 draft picks in a single draft for a package of Teixeira, Sabathia, and Burnett if they could afford the salaries? It hurt them in the 2009 draft, but will not affect the 2010 draft and was a very smart move... instead of losing their first round pick 3 straight years signing one player at a time, they loaded up on FA in a single draft year and only gave up 1,2,3 in 2009. 2. If they ever let a player walk in FA they will still get compensation picks just like everyone else, comp picks have kept systems like the Dodgers and Red Sox strong even though they are players in the FA market.

Twobrewers isn't the first poster who's brought this up and I'm curious, has there been any good information in print either way about insurance on contracts? It would seem to me that the insurance company wouldn't make money insuring every single FA contract, especially when it comes to pitchers as the injury frequency is so high. I could see the Brewers getting insurance on a contract like Suppan's because it's double digit millions and the high premium may be deemed as worthwhile, but Riske's is a relatively small contract because he's a RP. If the Brewers are insuring every single large contract then our salary estimates are off because they have to budget not only to pay the contract, but the premium on the insurance policy as well wouldn't they?

Arnett is a project, he's not polished... He's not a project like Frederickson, but he's got plenty to work on. He could absolutely move fast if he gets his mechanics straightened out and develops a solid 3rd pitch. Remember that the organization characterized Odorizzi as being ahead of Arnett development wise because he had almost a full season of pro ball already. They weren't going to mess with Arnett at all until instructs this fall per this audio interview. For those that don't follow the minors this interview offers excellent insight into how the organization would like to develop pitchers. Assistant General Manager Dan O'Brien's comments about Odorizzi and Arnett are in this audio interview around 2 minute mark.

Carter has been amazingly consistent (with the exception of this last season when his OPS dropped to a .823), he'll get a shot with someone.

That's a pretty narrow assessment of the situation with starting pitchers. We aren't talking about signing a FA pitcher in his 30s, we're talking about signing a pre-Arby player to a long term deal, there's a huge difference. Even if Yo would go down with TJ surgery and we'd lose him for a year chances are he'd still comeback to be an excellent pitcher. The whole point of signing players early is they that they give up a fair amount of salary for the long term security, it's a not a home town discount, it's a give and take. A James Shields type contract makes perfect sense for him. You buy out a year of FA upfront and go with team option years for the next 3, making it a 7 or 8 year deal. If he gets injured, the risk is mitigated with the option years. If he stays healthy then great, we'd have a very cost effective front line starter and if the kids behind him pan out and he becomes expendable his contract would be perfect for a trade. There's no downside here and he's all we really have at this point in time. The benefits of locking up the core players to long term deals far outweigh the risks; I'll take cost certainty and longevity (being able to keep our young players until they are 28-30 years old) over going year to year in arbitration every single time. The only difference between pitchers and position players is that when dealing with pitchers the final years should not be guaranteed, the final 2-3 years should be option years given the risk of injury. Even if the team would have to go guaranteed with Yo for the entire length of the contract, it's a risk I'd be willing take... for the 12 -14mil we'd be spending in that last year for his services, the team would never be able to replace his production for that money in Free Agency. We should be stockpiling young quality starting pitching depth and minimizing the value of the 1 pitcher we have doesn't seem like a good start... at least to me.