TheCrew07

If Parra doesn't figure it out this organization is going to be hurting, LHPs who can run the ball up there in the mid 90s just don't come around all that often. I'm not sure we need Kennedy as depth. If Jones comes back we'll have some depth at AAA between Cody, Jones, and Butler, and at AA we'll have Rivas and Rogers. I'd much rather see Rivas and Rogers cover MLB innings for a couple of weeks than more guys who lack projection. I don't think the organization would hesitate to reach down to AA either. We're finally reaching a point where we'll have some quality arms to fall back on.

Who's ever said that? The point I think you missed is that many of us think Melvin did an excellent job going from nothing to something in the rotation including myself, but we've been past the building from scratch phase for 3 or 4 years now. Debating the ceiling of the pitcher's acquired is exactly the point, we've had a revolving door at the back of the rotation without ever inserting anything into the front of it. The same thing can be said for the depth... many here championed the Wright and Green acquisitions as "good depth"... if either throws a MLB pitch for this organization we're much worse off than we have been. How much worse off would we be if Parra hadn't made it back from injury? Again, give me some free reign to develop an idea... but instead of getting 3 prospects of C quality from Toronto, say we acquired one of the Bs in Marcum or McGowan? I would have happily settled for 1 B prospect over 3 Cs. Maddux had a great deal of success simplifying the mechanics of other hard throwers like Kolb and Turnbow, McGowan would have been in that same mold, except as a starter. Marcum was a more talented Dave Bush at the time, slightly better fastball and control. How sweet would our rotation have been with Sheets, Marcum/McGowan, Yo, Parra, and Suppan last season? Maybe Yo doesn't get hurt in Chicago, maybe Marcum doesn't require TJ, maybe McGowan doesn't need shoulder surgery already... there's no guarantee the dominoes would have fallen the exact same way.. What if we would have never had to trade LaPorta for a rental and could have built a package for a different longer term solution to replace Sheets? There were many other possibilities out there, other teams have made deals for starting pitching. Melvin had/has limited resources, he's got to get the most out of them when he flips them, and I don't think it's fair to assume he's always gotten the best deals. He's rolled the dice on a couple of mid rotation guys in Capellan and Butler, but where's the talent beyond that? In some ways it's a question of depth, in that the organization didn't have enough pitching to start with, but there has also been a serious lack of talent when acquiring pitchers. DM has had very limited opportunities to acquire decent pitching and he used his best assets to acquire a rental. I've argued that point to death in the past, I was more concerned with the rotation this season than a playoff appearance because I didn't think we were going anywhere. I realize I'm in the minority, that many people enjoyed the playoff baseball and in some ways the appearance validated their fandom. I honestly don't know why I didn't care as much as the rest of the gang around here, maybe I"m wired differently. I just think the Sabathia move may have been preventable if Melvin had been a little more aggressive. He had his opportunities to possibly remedy the situation along the way.... Maybe he tried to move Hardy for pitching this off season like I wanted but I highly doubt it. Melvin doesn't make bold moves, he makes the obvious moves at the obvious times. I'm not upset with him for moving on from players like JDLR or Lehr, they didn't perform well enough to stick around. I guess my biggest issue with this whole scenario starts with how the team was built, it wasn't built from the pitching staff up, it was built from the position players up, so we've never had enough quality pitching or depth to go with this first wave of prospects. I see Tampa trading away a top position prospect for a pitching prospect and I've been jealous, that's the type of move I've wanted the Brewers to make (and no I didn't expect Young to fail, I do feel for MN). I've never cared as much about the handedness of the lineup, the OBP in the lineup, or any of that other stuff, I've always been concerned with the starting pitching. Even on the minor league forum every box score I look at the pitching lines first, then scroll back up and see what the hitters did. The vast majority of my baseball reading has been centered on pitching... I'm not into the standard pitching metrics like FIP or PAP... they don't tell you anything you can't see from watching the game... I'm into Pitch FX... movement, location, velocity differentials between pitches, K rates, BB rate, Ground Ball rates, and all of the applicable ratios in-between. I learned a bunch of tough lessons from Little Ben, I was sure he was going to be good, but I'm a more educated fan now, which is why I was never very high on a guy like Cody. Now as I look back I'm ashamed that I was excited that we acquired Zack Jackson because he was a 1st round pick, a Capellan because he was a highly rated prospect in a good system, a Villy because he always got hitters out. Now I'm into stuff, a pitcher's pure physical talent, and looking back we just haven't acquired many starting pitchers that actually had velocity and good stuff, and when we had opportunities to get more talented players it appears DM went a different direction. I do end up liking a guy like a Dave Bush because he's so relentless on the mound, I'm into guys that will furiously compete, but I still understand that's he's not all that physically gifted a pitcher. It's not that I don't see the value in guys like Bush, Looper, and Suppan, it's that somewhere along the lines here I set my sights higher. I still think Suppan made sense at the time he was signed, the Brewers didn't have surplus talent which is the only time Melvin seems to want to make a deal, so they had no other way to get pitching. What I mean is that he wasn't going to trade Weeks or Fielder for a stud pitcher like MN did moving Young for Garza, he was going to move the less valuable MLB player after the prospects proved they were ready. I didn't like Suppan as a pitcher, there's just no margin for error, and as the velocity differential between his pitches continues to decline he has even less margin for error. I do think though that the Suppan contract highlights the disparity between pitching and hitting and quite well.... for 12 million dollars we're going to get much greater production out of a position player than we will a pitcher, pitching is just too expensive per win on the FA market. DM, knowing that the FA pitching market stinks for a club on a small budget should have had a better plan in place, there was no good reason for the pitching situation to get as bad as it did this season. I still don't see a compelling reason why the team had to sit on every position player that proved they were valuable given the state of pitching in the organization. I guess DM and I just don't see eye to eye on these ideas at all.

I must be a jinx tonight, I just tuned into Helena as Stang drops a ball in CF. He first broke in, then broke back and dropped the ball which has now been scored a hit.

I thought I'd check in on some MiLB games before heading to my meeting tonight. Rivas with a stinker, only 3 IP and gives up 4R. I forgot the playoffs when I was thinking about his IP, if BC gets past the first round he could conceivably get 18 more IP this season (1 start remaining on the season 2 playoff starts), which would push his total up around 149. That would be quite the jump in IP. edit. WI's nondescript lineup puts up a solid 5 runs, but the pitching staff manages to give up 4 runs in the 9th and they are now in extras. edit. Leadoff double against Ohlmann in 10th over McPhearson, sacrifice'd the runner to 3rd. With one out Isom elects to intentionally walk 2 batters loading the bases and switches to Almonte. edit. Walk off HBP on what I believe was a 1-2 count, WI loses.

Capellan is an interesting case. First off Kolb was a cast off reclamation project, those of us that who were fooled into thinking we were getting something special (including myself) were seriously mistaken. In hindsight, we should have known better as the Brewers were looking to move a mediocre reliever with 1 good season and would be out of the league in 2007. How did the organization miss that his velocity was a full 5 MPH slower than advertised and that he basically wasn't a very good pitcher. Didn't our scouts watch him pitch? Were their stalker guns broken or something? I never saw him throw a pitch more than 93 MPH, either our scouting was inept and Melvin got swindled, or they knew exactly what they were getting in which case us fans seriously over valued that particular acquisition. I don't include Capellan as a high ceiling prospect because he simply wasn't one, and I'd like to believe that the organization knew what they were getting in him. If they didn't know his velocity was down and his command wasn't good all the way around, then there's little hope of acquiring any pitcher on the rise that might be a good trade target because the Brewer organization simply stinks at evaluating pitching. I'd like to believe the Brewers took a shot on a guy they knew had some issues hoping they could turn him into a middle of the rotation starter and just missed. It's not like losing Kolb was any great blow to the organization, in fact we let him come back and stink for us 1 last time before parting ways. Regardless, Capellan never exhibited any top of the rotation stuff (velocity, pitches, or command) in his stay in the Brewer's organization, so if he's our shining example of Melvin's hard work to acquire meaningful pitching, all he really shows is how inept Melvin and the rest organization were and maybe still are evaluating pitching.

I could have sworn when we got him he was pitching in the mid 90's but I could be wrong I kind of forgotten about him. But De La Rosa is not a soft tossing player though. I guess you could put Vargas in there also. Others you can add to the list: Jose Capellan, Greg Aquino, Seth McClung, Danny Kolb, Scott Linebrink, and Francisco Cordero you could also add Justin Lehr to the list when the Brewers acquired him he had an average fastball of 92.7. All of these players are hard throwers and Not all of the players Melvin has gotten are soft-tossing, knows how to pitch, pitch to contact guys.I was talking about starting pitching? What do relievers have to do with starting pitching? Lehr may have started this week against the Brewers, but he was a reliever in this organization. Actually Melvin has taken the opposite approach to to relievers, he gets all the hard throwing arms he can off the scrap heap and throws them against the wall to see what sticks. JDLR remains the single young high ceiling starting pitcher Melvin acquired in Milwaukee, and he was acquired prior to Jones and Rogers going under the knife. I'm not sure why I keep having to post this same idea, it's incredibly straightforward... There is a wide gulf between having great stuff and being a good pitcher. To revisit the Overbay trade for the last time... Jackson, Gross, and Bush were high draft picks, but they simply were not the upside picks that the Brewers were making during that same period, they didn't possess impact talent. Ennder is fond of saying we traded an average 1B for an average SP, but that's how the players ended up today. Overbay was traded for 3 very average prospects at the time, it was a quantity over quality deal, neither of the pitchers had "stuff" and Gross while being a patient hitter with some pop, wasn't an impact talent in any sense. Jones and Rogers getting hurt didn't screw up the franchise anymore than giving up on JDLR did. There was plenty of time between those events and this season to acquire a talented starting pitcher, it just didn't happen. Just 1 talented pitcher may have been enough...

I thought I had said all I had to say about this other threads but I really dislike the whole take about "we don't know that Melvin didn't try". This also isn't about last off season, so I beat the Hardy drum, yay me, I could care less that he didn't make that deal, but I do care that he hasn't made any deal for top of the rotation talent outside of Sabathia who was a rental. Jones was hurt in 2003 again in 2004, Rogers in 2006. It's not like other organizations don't loose young pitchers to injury as well, this problem has been a long time coming. When you don't have enough high ceiling talent in your organization and you aren't able to buy it in FA, if you won't trade for it then how are you going to acquire it? This is pretty simple logic from my point of view. We didn't draft enough top of the rotation talent, we aren't able to afford Sabathia types in FA, so the only avenue we had to acquire it was trades. Other teams have made numerous deals for pitching in Melvin's tenure in Milwaukee, there have been deals out there. I will agree recently the market shifted making it tougher to acquire young arms but that doesn't give him a free pass for acquiring a ton of pitchers with mediocre stuff. All of the pitchers he's acquired were 4s and 5s stuff wise.. for example it's only determination and pitchability that makes Bush a number 3 instead of a 5, his stuff just isn't that good. It isn't revisionist history to say that the team could have parted with Hart, Hardy, Hall, or Weeks... it's simply much easier to buy production out of position players than it is to buy pitching. I'm very much an acquire the pitching and buy the bats type of guy. I'm deathly afraid that Melvin will go after an Ian Kennedy type rather than a Phil Hughes type as his history suggests he's favors acquiring pitchers with average stuff who know how to pitch.

You sure had trouble getting started. To bring up any one month sample of proof as to why you are correct is ludicrous. Continually bringing up Farris' p50 ranking is ludicrous. You're correct. Somehow I missed that he's the everyday second baseman for BC and was last season for WV. Then again, maybe I was projecting to him to MLB where there are 2 vastly superior bats and 1 similar player performing better than him offensively at a higher level already in the system. Weeks is a vastly superior talent at MLB, Iribarren is the similar player outperforming him at AAA, and Lawrie is also a vastly superior offensive player in the system. Utility player does not equal every day second baseman for Milwaukee, Farris is the 4th best 2nd bagger in the entire system. Right now he's a utility player without any utility, he has very little time at any other positions. I'm guessing you don't have a solid grasp of what it takes to project as an everyday player in MLB. Brewer is a superior athlete who's time is running out on, he's projectable, and he absolutely shredded the AFL last season. Prince is a similar player at a more difficult defensive position. Dennis hits well enough to project as starter, Komatsu I'm not sure about, Haydel I'm not a big fan of. Gindl absolutely has the tools and hits well enough to project as a starter, Gamel my opinions are well known, Green is someone I'm high on, I'm just not sure he has a position in Milwaukee either. I listed more than 30 players in the system that I liked better than Farris, you won't find Brewer, Komatsu, or Haydel on that list. You can add Hall, Davis, and Gennett to list I already submitted, I think they have more upside than Farris as well. You're equating base stealing with speed, they are not the same thing. Haydel actually is a better runner than Farris, he's a faster player, though Farris steals more bases. I have no issues with his base stealing, it's just that his numbers will decline as he approaches MLB and faces better pitchers and catchers. He doesn't have the tools to sustain that SB rate or percentage as he moves up. Darren Ford stole more than 60 bases as well, stealing bases doesn't make or break a prospect. Maybe you missed the part about Iribarren's defense in that same list? You're missing the point here, Iribarren is a superior hitter than Farris and he's viewed as a utility player, he's a tad slower runner and doesn't steal as many bases, but he's a similar player to what Farris will be. Are you just looking for things to complain about? I said "makes nice adjustments", that was intended to be a compliment, of course making adjustments is a key factor for continued success. I never said that. What I will say is that I have no interest in continuing a circular debate with you, as you've proven that you're willing to say the same things over and over and over. I'm not a fan of repetition on a message board, nor am I a fan of continually having to make the same arguments to dispute another poster's opinion. Circular debates are not fun, in fact I find them tedious, time consuming, and uninteresting, and I generally skip right past them when reading threads. If you're into that sort of thing that's fine, but saying I'm not able to defend my position when clearly I can is a disservice to the truth. This is a link report thread, I'm not sure why you feel it's necessary to bring the debate back up in a different thread. Everyone understands how you feel about it, I don't think this is the thread to debate it, nor do I feel you're genuinely interested in an intelligent debate, it appears you'd rather continually rant about a subjective list. My boy Bowman didn't even make the list, I'm not going on and on about why he's a better prospect than X, Y, and Z players though am I? I'm more interested in the particular editor's comments about the players each time through to see how they match up with my opinion than a specific ranking for any particular player. Feel free to get the last word in, not that you wouldn't have anyway, but I'm done with this. Or something.

Enough with the terrible stat argument, I chose ERA+ because it's simple and everyone can understand it without having to go look it up to see how it's calculated. It also perfectly illustrates the point I'm trying to make without having to go through and break down peripherals year by year which is how I really make my evaluations on pitchers. Suppan has been on a steady decline as a pitcher since his peak season. I'm not going to debate the degree of decline because that's completely subjective. Whatever path he took to get here, he stinks, he's below replacement level by any measure or metric anyone would choose to use. The problem has been everyone else who's pitched in his stead has actually been worse, which is exactly why I was critical of the Wright trade, the Looper signing, and Green waiver claim. Hopefully if they need depth next season the system will be able to provide some adequate replacement pitching.

It doesn't matter what stat you use, Bush, Looper, and Suppan don't have any margin for error. It's not a stat thing, it's a stuff thing. I thought Bush was clearly the best pitcher of the 3, while Suppan was clearly the worst. As for Suppan, here's his 5 year run on ERA+ 119 108 97 87 79 I don't need to be a mathematician to see where this is going... I've also pointed out this trend numerous times.

Farris got hot at the end of last season too.. you just won't consider the other side of this argument at all, and honestly it's not worth debating. He makes nice adjustments as at each level as the season progresses but if your ceiling is that of a utility player, your going to be rated similarly to a relief pitcher, which he is. Right now he's not an everyday player in this system, where's going to play and over whom? Iribarren is better defensively and has had a better year at the plate in AAA and he's unable to crack the MLB lineup. Is Farris better than Iribarren, Weeks, or Lawrie? If he has a big season in AA next year he'll move up the list and rightfully so, but he's a younger Iribarren with a ton of SBs for an organization that doesn't believe in running. It's a meaningless skill for Milwaukee unless things change with the big club. Cameron Garfield was 10 for 21 in June. That's a .476 BA for number 35 on the Power 50. One super hot month doesn't prove anything, never has and never will. Ohh, and 18 year old Garfield is still out SLG Farris even after his horrible July and is only down .12 in OPS. Finally, while Farris is a plus runner, he's not a plus plus runner, he's not going to steal 60 bases in MLB for anyone, even if he leaves the organization. Maybe if you whine about his power 50 placement enough he'll actually become a top prospect.

I don't think it's wise to pin the failures of the team on one starter, but Suppan's been in steady decline for 3 years. I went through all of the trends & numbers in earlier posts, I still feel it should have been fairly obvious what kind of pitcher we were going to get. Unfortunately we have too many pitchers that don't have a whole lot of margain for error because their stuff isn't all that good. Looper, Bush, and Suppan all have very average stuff and when they make mistakes they get hit hard. I've always taken issue with the idea of an "average" pitching staff and still do. I didn't think the staff would be as horrible as it had been, I thought Bush would be a 4.5, Looper a high 4, and Suppan a 5+ ERA coming into the year. In the end it's not Suppan's fault he got the money he did, I never liked him as a pitcher, but if I were him I would have signed that contract.

Really? I didn't realize one position either way was the difference in a sub .500 ball club. Once we get some pitching the team will be fine.

I saw this chat this morning before I went to work. Bruce didn't really give us anything to go on, I was disappointed. Very generic answers without any specifics that we'd be into.

If it's true that he's consistently working in the mid 90s, I haven't done him justice since hopping on his bandwagon last season.

I can think of 1 great play he's made, and what's so special about making routine plays? If you're actually in attendance at the games you can see how often he turns his shoulders the wrong way off of the bat. In his 2 years in LF I can count the times one hand he's gotten a good jump on a ball when I've been at the game. Maybe I just keep catching him on "bad" days, but I doubt it. How many misplays on routine plays has he made over the last 2 years that have given the hitter an extra base? Those don't show up as errors but he's given up extra bases just the same.

If Javier is any kind of prospect he needs to get bumped past rookie ball next season, he's already 21.

I just wanted to add that prior to tonight's action, Lasker has just 8 BBs against 36 Ks in 43 IP. Not only does he have great name, but the young man can pitch. Hopefully he's added a tic or 2 to his fastball since HS.

He does have pitchability... or something. Is it funny or sad that's probably not far from the truth.

Well McPhearson clearly didn't belong in WI, I have no idea what they set him up to fail, and yes I'm going to hate on it every chance I get.

Speaking only for myself, he only has 37.1 IP on the season. If they intended on stretching him out and guaranteeing his innings he'd be a starter so he could pick up 25-30 IP in the AFL, typically they get 5-6 starts if I recall correctly. I don't see him jumping from 50 IP to 140 IP in one season, especially since he was on the DL again this season for the 3rd season in a row. For example Rivas is making the jump from 90 to around 140 this season, but he's been healthy the last 2 years. If they ease up Rogers' pitch count a bit he's currently at 57.2 IP but could pick up another 20 IP in the AFL and be in the 80 range, he could push out to 130-140 IP next season as well. Going forward I just don't see them more than doubling Braddock's IP when he's unable to remain healthy.

I should have been more clear, I in a hurry and just should have waited to post until I had more time. Braddock being on the taxi squad cements the idea for me personally that he will only be a reliever for the organization going forward. As others have pointed out he'll essentially be on the same regular relief schedule he's been on all season. Could that change in 2010? Possibly, but I doubt it given he once again had health issues this season... all things considered the data would seem to strongly suggest he's a reliever. Add in the fact that many talent evaluators think Peralta's future is in the pen as well that essentially eliminates 2 of our higher ceiling pitchers from the starting pitching list. I'm not saying Peralta is a reliever for certain, but I'm open to the idea that it's a strong possibility he will be one. With Jeffress doping again and suspended plus the strong possibility that Braddock and Peralta are relievers, that basically leaves Rogers as the most projectable starting pitcher in the organization. Rogers has become our best pitching prospect as of today. We do have some depth following behind him of various quality in Jones, Butler, Rivas, Cody, Anundsen, Periard, and Bowman who will all likely be someplace between AAA and AA next season. It's just that projectablility wise the focus is already starting to shift towards Arnett and Heckathorn who will likely only be in A ball next season. As good as things looked on June 1 for the organization starting pitching wise, recent events have tempered my enthusiam. The idea of taking 3 pitchers who can reach the mid 90s consistently out of the list of possible starting pitchers has been very disappointing for me. I'll continue to hold out hope for Jeffress, and continue to hope that Peralta will stick as a starter, but I'm no longer counting on either player to be starting pitcher. I hope that made sense, it's not so much Braddock or the taxi squad that I'm disappointed in, rather the entire situation.

I'm dumb, sorry dude.

Lame Nix, play good defense elsewhere. edit. Though I should that was quite the risk, he was in awfully shallow RF, if that gets past him the game is over.

Is it wrong if I pimp Rivas again? I haven't rooted for anyone coming through the system as hard as I've rooted for Jones and Rogers this season. Keep up the good work Mike and next year when you start a game at Miller Park I'll send TH some hate mail, just don't make me look like a douche, I do that well enough on my own.