TheCrew07

I don't think Narveson is necessarily part of the solution to our pitching issues, but I'm unsure how much having Cameron back or not will affect the 2010 team. For me personally it comes down to what happens with the rest of the lineup first. If the team goes young with Escobar, Gamel, and Salome/Lucroy all starting then I think you keep a veteran guy like Cameron. If Hardy and Hart come back with McGehee starting at 3B every day plus a FA C then i think the team has to a go a different direction than Cameron just because of payroll concerns. Cameron isn't someone an organization is going to build around, he's not a player who has to be retained at any cost. At 12 million he'd be better value than any starter we'd get for that money but without upgrading the rotation I don't think Cameron's status matters either way. I like Cam, but if I were the GM I would make Cam's status a function of what happens with the rest of the roster first.

What's wrong with Butler, Rivas, Rogers, Bowman, Periard, and Cody as depth between AAA and AA? Why do we have to sign some scrubs just for depth? I'd actually rather use our young kids, they can bounce up and get broken in a little bit making a couple starts, then get sent back down when the original starter comes off the DL. Seems like the perfect way for them to get a taste and get past the MLB experience before being thrust into the rotation for a full season.

It's easier to say he "made a play" than "he got off the ball, beat the block, flattened down the line in pursuit, and made a sure tackle for a loss." While football is simple on the surface, on offense you block and defense you tackle, there's more to it than that when describing the action. Sometimes I'll say "nice hit" or "great catch", it just depends on the complexity of the play. Sometimes I say it for a great defensive play in baseball too, that play Escobar made going to his right where he smoothly got the ball off in one step to get the out at first had us talking about "the play" for a couple of days. It was the most fantastic non diving play I've seen in a long time.

Well Melvin could move McGehee and Counsell could retire this off season thus opening the door for Heether and Gamel. Then at least 1 of them will get a chance to play.

If the Brewers manage to pull some comp picks out of Lopez then my view of that trade will change considerably as we'll have the opportunity to draft better talent than we gave away. However, the deal fixed a symptom, but not the root problem, which is our pitching. A pitching staff is comprised of pitchers that for the most part lack the skills necessary to pitch late into games on even a semi regular basis.

Why are we trading for a C when we have 1 in AAA, and 1 in AA?

The goal shouldn't be playoff contention, the goal should be World Series contention, at least in my opinion. By signing pitchers of marginal talent to market contracts it limits roster and financial flexibility. The Brewers are on the hook for $23 million in 3 players, Hall is in Seattle, Riske will likely not pitch for the Brewers again, and Suppan is declining. To continue to add more mediocrity only limits the amount of money that can be spent on our truly talented players going forward. Melvin needs to stop going year to year with our core players and start buying out some FA years. I'm much more concerned with locking up our core talent than I am excercising Looper's option. Just because the team can spend 90 mil per season, doesn't mean they should. Especially since it will be very difficult to predict the production out of 3B, CF, RF, C, and SS next season. The easiest way to cover uncertainty in the lineup is with very good pitching, I still believe the Brewers will get better mileage by addressing a spot or 2 in the in the rotation more so than acquiring another productive bat. WAR isn't going to back that up on a 1 for 1 type basis (pitcher vs position player), but there is a domino effect throughout the rest of the rotation and bullpen that's very difficult to pigeon hole. I will say this, generally speaking the starting pitches are the best pitchers on any staff, and it makes sense to have your most productive pitchers throwing as much as possible, or put another way the less innings the bullpen has to pitch, the better team the Brewers are going to be. It is unreasonable to assemble a rotation of pitchers, 1 of which will post an ERA under 4, and expect them to get the job done. The offense is going to score runs... but not consistently enough to win games as we've seen this season, nor will Bush, Looper, Suppan, or Gallardo pitch deep enough into games on a consistent basis. I like Bush, I really do, he won't back down from anyone, but he just doesn't have much margin for error and as much as I like Gallardo, he's not economical with his pitches. We're leaving way too many innings out there for the bullpen this season, and I don't see that improving if we retain the exactly same pitching staff. On a somewhat regular basis we'll need starters to pitch through the 7th inning to even out the 4 inning starts, outside of Gallardo, who else on the staff is capable of that? My opinion hasn't changed from last off season, if the Brewers are going to be aquiring pitching, they shouldn't be wasting their money paying for marginal upgrades over the replacement pitchers we already have in the system. We should be acquiring starters around Parra's natural talent level, with that kind of stuff. I'm not talking about Parra's results, I'm talking about his velocity and movement on his pitches, someone with some margin for error... Wright, Green, Dillard... those guys aren't quality depth. Rivas, Rogers, and Butler are quality depth. Going forward depth shouldn't be an issue, the team will be able to reach down and pluck a talented youngster from AAA or AA for the next 3/4 seasons.

You mean like a proven Ace type pitcher who's expensive and and on a short deal? If the Brewers could somehow pull David Price from TB, why would you not want that upside? It would help if you could offer a name, and it better not be someone like Lincecum, because he's just not getting dealt. How exactly do the Brewers acquire cost effective pitching if they aren't trading for upside? In FA when was the last time a mid or small market team signed a true ace? It must have happened, I'm just drawing a blank... to me that's just not a realistic scenario for the Brewers. Nor do I want a Halladay type on a 1 year deal, he's a great pitcher, but I want longevity in addition to performance if I'm moving a player like Fielder, no more rental players please, we'll have even more holes in the rotation after 2010 to plug as Looper, Bush, and Suppan will all be gone. Who knows what we're going to get out of Parra which pretty much leaves Yo as the only sure thing we have going into 2011. Butler, Rivas, and Rogers might all help internally by 2011, but it doesn't seem realistic to expect that, we should probably expect at least of those guys to struggle when they get called up. Scarpetta and Peralta might figure in the mix the following year, maybe a guy like Bowman becomes a solid mid 4 ERA type pitcher for the back of the rotation... I guess what I'm getting is that pitching is so flakey due to health that I'd rather have another very good 1/2 type pitcher for the rotation going into next season, I want 2 pitchers I can count on and I'm willing to take a risk with Parra and this tremendous pitching wave we have approaching Milwaukee going forward. Give me at least a solid 1/2 punch that's locked in for 3 years or so and I'll be estactic with a Melvin for a change. If only Melvin was as good at finding starting pitchers as he is at finding position players like Pods and McGehee...

It's not really a "stats" thing, and is hard to quantify. I do think he K's too much looking and even then he has a K rate similar to Braun, but has walked much more than Braun in his career. Casey is of a put the ball in play kind of guy this year, he hasn't K'd much, but still walks nearly 1/10 PAs, he doesn't seem to make as many "unnecessary" outs... for lack of a better term off the top of my head. It's not that Mat is statistically an undisciplined hitter, I've argued that he's exactly the type of hitter this team needs more of in the past. From watching the games, Mat gives up too many outs with the bat on his shoulder, it's almost like he's trying more to walk in that plate appearance than to put the ball in play, he doesn't seem to like that inside corner fastball at all, I think McGehee has the better approach of the 2 at this time, if it's very close or a strike he just hits the ball where it's pitched and if it's off the plate he takes his walk.. Casey just hasn't made many mistakes at the pate this season. Did that make any sense because I'm struggling mightily to explain this idea? If not just consider me an idiot and move on..

Escobar is below replacement level based on...? Less than a month of ABs in his first extended yet sporadic stay in MLB? Leaving his big night at the plate out of it, because his production is going to swing heavily with sample size right now, how is that a fair representation of his talent? He's not capable of putting up a line like Andrus over a full season? Andrus has been hot this month and pushed his OPS up over .700 for the year but is still -.8 WAR with the bat, but Fangraphs has him still as a 3.0 WAR player right now. In an incredibly small sample which doesn't include his game today Escobar is only a -.1... he's essentially exactly a replacement level player in his first month. Andrus put up a .645 OPS in his first month.

I too liked what I saw, he throws hard with lots of movement. The command was shakey, but there's quite a bit to work with in that young man.

The same way Hall made Hardy expendable? It seems to me I've read this argument hundreds of times before.. Lets not put the cart before the horse here. McGehee has had a wonderful season, I'm extremely pleased with what he's done, but I'm not going to jump on his bandwagon yet. He's not overly athletic, has no track record of success, but he does seem to have a very nice compact swing. Just because he was better than Gamel this season, doesn't make him the best long term option for the team. This could be the first year of a player on the rise, or it could be Hallesque flash before fading back into mediocrity. Mat has more power than Casey, is more athletic than Casey, and bats from the left side, but doesn't have Casey's plate discipline, which is a big plus. I also think given enough time Gamel will be the better defender of the 2 if he can fix his silly throwing issues. If Gamel doesn't fix his throwing issues then maybe there's room for both with McGehee at 3B and Gamel at 1B(down the road) or RF. In no way am I trying to diminish McGehee's accomplishments and contributions, it's just he doesn't have as much upside as Gamel,,, but upside has nothing to do with who will be the better major league player, I just think it's way too early to call that race yet. It's sort of like telling me Narveson is a better pitcher than Parra... well yes... and no...

The only way the Escobar situation is similar to Hardy at all is because they both play SS and we've never had enough pitching as an organization, that's it. JJ was brought up prior to the rest of the core, which didn't make any baseball sense at all, there was only a PR angle to be had there and I guess Melvin didn't want to sign a stop gap SS. Hardy only had 3 full seasons in the minors, Escobar has 6, as he started at Helena as an incredibly raw 17 year old. The state of the big league club was vastly different now and going in 2009 than it was going into 2005. The situations couldn't be more different in terms of development, state of the MLB team, and state of the organization. Again I say if Escobar turns out to be the real deal, why wouldn't they just buy out some of his FA years prior to arby? It's not like we have to be locked into a 6 year window with him. Furthermore, and I hate to be constantly repeating myself, the replacement player for Hardy didn't have to be Escobar, they could have gone more offensive and called up Gamel sliding Hall back to SS, or signed a stop SS, or whatever. I honestly believe that people have been arguing so vehemently against Escobar they've missed the biggest issue here which is pitching talent. There was a very small group of posters on this site that wanted to move a position player for pitching this off season, none of us thought that Escobar was a perfect fit, but Hardy was the most logical solution to our problem. He was coming off of 2 really good years for a SS, had 2 years left prior to FA, and was the most expendable player on the roster. Our most valuable position players coming out of 2008 were Hardy, Fielder, and Braun. I continue to be on the fence regarding a trade of Fielder, when last season I was all over that bandwagon, but since we moved LaPorta there isn't another talented 1B in the system, and I like Gamel best at 3B. Braun was signed to be the face of the franchise, he's not going anywhere in a trade, so that left Hardy. Fielder situation to me is pretty grey, at this time I'm inclined to ride him out into FA and take comp picks for him, but the Hardy situation was black & white and an easy call given the other alternatives.

Lame Yuku just ate another post so I need to be quick. I'm not concerned as much as I am irritated, as walks are my pet peeve when it comes to pitchers. Yo's never been very economical with his pitches, so I've been concerned since AA about how deep he'd pitch into games, but since Macha took over as manager my concern has turned into worry. At least with Yost I knew he was coming out around 100 pitches, Macha seems to care more about the number of IP and his bullpen than the workload of his only quality starting pitcher. It was obvious Yo didn't have it last night, I was pretty upset when he back out for the 6th inning. Since June Yo has gotten progressively worse each month. I've been concerned about his workload from the start and I'm not surprised by the trending in his current season given the lack of IP last season. I just hope he stays healthy this year and next as sometimes abuse injuries/lack of performance manifest themselves the following the year.

I have no doubt that X is absolutely correct with that assessment, but this issue isn't really a "best case" scenario. Best case would have probably been riding out to JJ to FA because we had enough pitching to get the job done. Unfortunately, we have 1 overworked #2 in Yo, and 4 #4/5 pitchers plus Hardy tanked horribly this season so we're about as far from best case as it gets. If Escobar proves valuable I see no good reason why the team wouldn't want to lock him up and buy out some FA years to have him under contract through his peak as a player, we could easily control both Escobar and Gamel until they are 30. In a perfect world you keep Esky down until JJ moves on via FA, I just don't agree that letting the situation play out that conservatively was the best course of action for DM. If I'm going to take a risk and move an All-Star for some pitching, I'm going to bet on a prospect like Escobar who keeps making incremental gains and is ascending. Maybe there was no deals, maybe there was... at the time Hardy was clearly the more valuable player both in production and trade value, but now if he doesn't rebound he's about as valuable as Hall... similar production for 2ish mil less per year. The offense has done well with Kendell, Hardy, and Hart sucking, we simply didn't need to keep all of our bats to remain competitive. I truly do not understand the obsession with these position player arguments when the issue is so obviously with the pitching. Coming into last off season the biggest issue with the team was going to be the pitching, the pitching still is the issue, and the pitching will continue to be the issue until the holes are addressed with some quality long term solutions. I'm not talking about trading every single player before they reach FA, not at all, I'm hoping the Brewers reach a point here talent wise where's that sort of scenario is very plausible. I don't think we're there yet as an organization, we still have some glaring holes to fill, and I still believe DM needs to be more aggressive in his pursuit of pitching, his best moves have all been relatively safe trades. He traded surplus prospects for a Cy Young Rental and he traded a reserve outfielder in Gross for a 2nd round pick that was sort of an enigma and who really struggled last season in Butler. However those deals were mostly the type of move that's he's always made,,, He traded Kolb who was a surplus reliever for Capellan, traded garbage Franklin for Villy, traded surplus in Overbay for MLB ready talent, he traded lower ceiling surplus minor league pitching for Linebrink... do we see a pattern here? The vast majority of DM's moves are low risk from the Brewer perspective, but even a low risk move can fail, see the Davis trade. Escobar vs Hardy isn't about production or service time in a player vs player comparison, it's about building the best possible team for today and tomorrow.

Sure to but to what end? It's easy to say send him down to the minors to work on stuff, but what actually happens down there development wise other than guys playing and taking batting practice every day? How much individual fundamental work do they get? I would really like to know because the more I think about it, the more I wonder if baseball development isn't mostly left up to the player in the minors. With that in mind, would more minor league time even matter if he doesn't truly care about it? I thought I knew everything as a teenager and into my early 20s, I think most of us did and got a rude awakening at some point, that's just sort of the nature of the beast and maturing as an individual. As tough as I was on Prince regarding his defense last season, he's been very good this season... he came in looking like he dropped 25-30 LBs, and it appears he cares about defense now. Sometimes I think the player needs to be on the highest stage and be roundly criticized for the message to sink in. I don't mean to suggest Fielder reads bf.net and happens to care what we've both said about his defense, but it was pretty common knowledge around the game, and national pundits discussed it as well. Escobar just doesn't strike me as the type of player who's going to get appreciably better without being pushed. His AAA season was essentially the same as his AA season, minus .030 of AVE and a different mix of XBHs. I should probably mention he stole more bases this year as well, but I really don't care about that at all to be honest, base stealing is king of a "blah" skill to me right now. In AAA he'll always be the flashy guy who makes sloppy plays in spurts, but who's still considered the best defensive SS in all of MiLB... so maybe he'll make improvements, I'm just not sure I buy it, because he's already had success to a certain degree.

X what's the point in comparing WAR between Escobar and Hardy? Escobar has appeared in 23 games, Hardy 108... how about comparing Escobar's first 23 games with Hardy's first 23 games. I don't get how Escobar is expected to take a significant jump up in his career without facing MLB competition? What's point of continually getting better and tearing up AAA like Nelson Cruz only to struggle in limited MLB action? I don't buy this "earn his way up" stuff either... he's not going to hit for power, he may never hit for power, how's he going to OPS over .800 until he develops significant power? He gets plenty of XBHs, he just doesn't walk enough or hit for power... and neither of those bother me as much as his RHP/LHP minor league splits do. I'm much more concerned that he figures out how to hit RHP than I am what his OPS is.

A trade... I hope. Looper is the most expendable pitcher in the rotation because of his contract. I'd actually take Looper over Suppan if I had choice, but no one is going to take Suppan's contract off our hands. That being said I don't have much faith and I think we'll start next year with exactly the same rotation as this season. Hopefully some of the young arms explode next season like Rivas and Rogers.

I've been waiting for Crysis 2 forever, hopefully the March release date holds, it would be an awesome from me to me birthday present.

I could live with the revisionist history take if this concept hadn't been discussed at length all off season, to make the assertion now that moving Hardy is revisionist history is disservice to the truth, and more truthfully, it's a blatant lie. This pitching issue has been growing for years and I believe it's truly an issue of people not being able to see the forest for the trees. A large segment of this site has been so caught up in minutiae arguing about position player vs position player, handedness of of the lineup, the lack of a true lead off hitter, and so on... while those issues do exist, they weren't going to make or break the pitching. I'm still amazed that the largest issue went relatively undiscussed and dismissed until it was so obvious it couldn't be ignored, and even now some posters have hinted that the situation with the rotation is bad luck instead of a lack of talent of physical talent. It was never about Hardy vs Escobar, it was about which combination of players would bring back the most wins for the Brewers in 2009 and beyond, I have no idea why that's been such a difficult concept to grasp. Not once all off season did anyone say Escobar was a better player than Hardy, the issues run much deeper than that. Cost, years under control, talent, and trade value are all as relevant as the current production of both players. Endaround and Ennder I've seen you both tell everyone else how wrong they are, but I haven't seen either of you offer up a solution of your own though I've been mostly skimming the site since mid August. Can we at least agree that rotation doesn't have enough talent in it? What moves would you have made to arrive at a different outcome? What moves would you make now to rectify the situation? Would you make any moves? As far as Escobar's readiness... that's all garbage as well... ready for what? Was Andrus ready by your defnition? Texas still made room for him and they'll be in the playoff hunt down to the wire. Esky is not going to to hit for power like Hardy, but he's not capable of it yet either. X's point about Esky's 29 year old season being more valuable than his 22 year old season is likely spot on accurate, but the issue just isn't that simple. It's entirely reasonable to assume that Escobar will become a better player as he matures, but with or without Hardy this team was going to score enough runs. I stated earlier I would have been fine with Hall moving back to SS over Escobar to start the season, Counsell would have been a decent everyday option as well. There were other alternatives that could have been considered. I tried to make the point in the off season that I didn't care who replaced Hardy, I just thought that he was the most valuable resource the team could readily part with to acquire pitching. Trading Hardy didn't have to be about Escobar, he was just obvious replacement as most people had written off Hall and Counsell already. The primary issue in the off season was the gaping hole in the rotation, the biggest problem is still the gaping holes in the rotation, and going into 2011 we'll still have 3 holes to fill as the only pitchers under contract will be Gallardo and Parra. How do we best solve the problem? Our own pitching pitching prospects? 1 rental player at a time? Looper types? Target another team's prospects? Target talented pitchers who have underperformed in MLB? When taking the entire picture into account; talent, production, cost in salary, cost to acquire, percentage of team payroll/contract, # of years controlled, current team needs, and future team needs... what's the best strategy? For me personally, we have/had a bunch of bats, and not enough pitching, so I would have preferred moving bats for arms... it wasn't even my idea originally. I was wondering how to acquire pitching without "creating a hole" elsewhere when X made a post on the minor league forum about just drafting bats because the team was good at that and letting other teams develop pitching for us. He wasn't talking about MLB, but I was really intrigued by the idea. The more I thought about it, the more it made perfect sense in the short team... we had a surplus of bats, bats are relatively inexpensive in FA, and I felt we needed a serious talent upgrade in the rotation. I'm no longer concerned about "creating a hole" to fix a problem with the rotation, it's much easier to get an average and affordable position player than it is to get affordable pitching.

What a downer of a season for Helena, capped by giving up 3 runs in each the 8th and 9th innings to come from ahead to lose. I realize all of the more advanced players were aggressively promoted up to WI, but wow. I'm intrigued by Halton and look forward to seeing what he does next season for WI. Other position players I'll be looking forward to watching in WI include Krieger, Garfield, Ellington, Stang, Zarraga, and my boy Trejo. I'll have a passing interest in Dykstra as well I guess, just to see what he'll do in round 2.

It seems odd to drop Jeffress on the list now doesn't it? We're 3 months removed from his suspension, it's not as if they missed it when it happened.

Sorry we have a team dinner every Thursday night, I didn't get home until after 9 and missed the interview.

People keep talking about the slide since the all-star break or the start of July. The slide actually started on June 1... May 31st the team was 30-20. In June the team went 12-15 .444 In July they went 9-17 .346 In August they went 13-14 .481 In Sept they've gone 2-6 .250 The team has played .409 baseball since May 31st if my math is correct. A slow and steady slide to an unremarkable season in every way with the exception of Fielder.