TheCrew07

I think you over estimate his current trade value by a wide margin. Who's going to trade a #2 starter for a 1 year rental of a SS coming off of a down year? The window to trade Hardy for any meaningful MLB pitching was missed, high ceiling prospects might be a pipe dream. If Hardy is traded for MLB pitching it will likely be some soft tossing smoke and mirrors back of the rotation player just to irritate the hell out of me. When I was talking about Hardy for Buchholz (a prospect, not an established MLB pitcher) I was working on the theory that he would actually go on a tear and get his average up over .270 at some point. Instead he's down in AAA and hitting .160 something after today's action, he hasn't rebounded at all. If I was an opposing GM I'd be looking to buy low on Hardy as he's not someone I'd be initially willing to lock up long term, I'd want to see him play through August before determining if I would extend him or hope for some compensation. Then again, if he stunk he might accept arby and screw up that plan as well. He's become a wait and see player, was 2009 and outlier or the beginning of a downward trend?

Funny you mention Ritchie, he's one of my bullpen sleepers. He's not your typical crafty lefty which is what I would peg Meadows as after having seen them both pitch in person multiple times. Ritchie works in the low 90s but hasn't put up the eye popping numbers BB and K wise that other relief prospects have this season or in the past, but he's definitely someone I'm intrigued by. I believe I mentioned in one of my T-Rat game summaries that I was surprised by how hard he threw. He could be a good middle reliever down the road though, outside of his shiny ERA, I thought his stuff was better than his peripherals would suggest as even with all the BBs he still has a very decent WHIP. My Brownstein pimping is a reflection of me tuning in most of Helena's games since the season started, he always seems to do something big when I'm listening... a diving catch, great defensive play, timely hit or base steal... i get the feeling he's another one of those glue type players like a Sanchez who I came to really like watching him play for WI this season. I also really enjoyed his audio interview with Steve that I didn't link due a computer issue capturing the audio that day, as well as his post draft interview linked in the draft forum, he just strikes me as a very likable young man and I've found it easy to root for him. I love his versatility and willingness to do whatever is asked of him, I've already posted he's likely a utility player at best, it's not like I suggested he's a top 20 player. I don't recall mentioning he should be on the p50 at all, just that I personally liked him more than Farris, which really isn't saying much as I pointed out there are an easy 30 players in the system I like more than Farris.

What an exceptional piece by McCalvy... you sir, are the man. I think he sums up perfectly why I root so hard for both players, it's disappointing to find out that Jones' velocity is down around 90mph, but not unexpected given what he's been through. Melvin's "lets throw him in AAA and see what he can do" quote was pretty interesting, I hope he finishes the season strong. In making it to the AAA rotation, he's already made it farther than I thought he would have 2 years ago given the multiple surgeries.

wasn't Seidel throwing in the upper 80s lower 90s out of high school? edit. And Billings didn't walk anyone tonight..

Actually the biggest difference between the Brewers and the A's/Twins has been the pitching, not the pieces available to move, every team has to start someplace. Each team had a couple of stud position players, but they built themselves on much better pitching and made more timely player moves than the Brewers have (with the exception of the Santana move which apparently Melvin didn't learn from). The Brewers had every opportunity to match that, Melvin just hasn't been as aggressive, we didn't need to keep every player from Hart, Hardy, Weeks, and Hall to remain competitive. The Brewers could have easily parted with one or two of those players to acquire pitching in addition to getting better talent out of the Overbay trade from Toronto. Maybe the move for Sabathia wouldn't have been necessary and LaPorta could have been moved for a Sheets replacement... we'll never know what could have been done, only that nothing was done except making moves for rental players. I've been very consistent in my approach and my posts... too many of us on this site have been obsessed with the handedness of the lineup and fixing holes in the lineup... missing the much larger problem that's always been looming. I say again this situation shouldn't be a surprise to anyone, even if all of the hitters would have performed the pitching would have been averagish at best and a "1 and done" in the playoffs has never interested me.

The way things went down the Brewers weren't going to get anything more for him than they did. However, the situation was handled in the least best possible way, if you're sending a player down, then keep the player down until he figures it out or you decide he's done. Why send a player (3B) down for less than week to recall him to play RF, to DFA him a week later? It's as silly as recalling Parra because they needed a pitcher instead of letting him work all the way through his issues, to bring him back after 1 good start still puzzles me.

Through completion of Yesterday's action Yo has thrown the 3rd most pitches in the NL this season with 2694, only Wainwright (2767) and Jiminez (2711) have thrown more pitches.

It doesn't make sense to bet against a prospect because we should want them all to succeed, but my hunch is that his OPS will continue to fall and his SLG will be right around his OBP which is basically utility infielder territory. He just doesn't hit well enough regardless of average to be an everyday player with Weeks and Lawrie in the system.

With all the promotions out of Helena this season, that offense has gone from potent to anemic in less than 3 weeks.

Ha! You Bowman haters you! Excellent work as always gentlemen. Scarpetta has had 2 excellent games in his last 10, 0BB and 9Ks, and 0BB and 10Ks.... the problem is consistently as he'll walk 4 or 5 out of nowhere sometimes. Once he solves that part of his game, he'll have helium, I have no doubt. He should be rated behind Peralta as long Peralta is a SP, Peralta's stuff is just better, so he has more upside. It doesn't mean Peralta will be a better pitcher than Scarpetta, just that a pitcher who's consistently in the mid 90s has more upside than a pitcher who works in the low 90s. Personally I'm not huge on slider pitchers, they have TJ written all over them, I actually prefer Scarpetta's repertoire to Peralta's, but I agree with the staffers on both player's relative rankings... and really, what's 5 spots on a list between A ball pitchers?

People were saying they wouldn't trade Hoffman, I pointed out that if the Cubs were dumb enough to give us Vitters, we take that deal every single time.

Sure I trade Hoffman, I want Josh Vitters please thanks... we'd be crazy not to make that deal today. Vitters might not stick at 3B either much like Gamel, nor is he LH, but I'll take all the impact bats and arms I can get and figure it out later.

Melvin is a decent GM, but he does not take risks, and to acquire projectable starting pitching that's a necessity as young pitching is always risky. Overbay - MLB ready talent in Bush, Former #1 draft picks in Jackson (soft tossing lefty), and Gross bypassing superior talent in the system who had been drafted lower Marcum, or a more projectable pitcher in McGowan. Kolb - Capellan... seriously Kolb was a "hot commodity" (that's a stretch Ennder, he was a scrap heap reclamation project as a reliever) and we got swindled into Capellan? Our scouts must have been in the stands with radar guns and knew the truth... Sexson - Cappy (MLB ready, prototypical crafty LHP) De La Rosa (the only pitcher DM has acquired with top of the rotation stuff) JDLR had all kinds of issues including never throwing enough strikes even at AAA. Capellan - Cody (soft tossing LHP) Franklin - Villy (soft tossing RHP) Junior Spivey - Ohka (back of the rotation starter) Davis and Eveland - Vargas and Estrada. While Vargas reaches the mid 90s, his control was suspect and he was a back of the rotation starter Gross - Butler... Butler has some tools, he's probably a #3 best case, not a bad haul for Gross, but sort of a confusing trade for the reasons RobertR has mentioned. For many of those deals he wasn't going to get top of the rotation pitching... Franklin, Kolb, Capellan, Spivey, Gross, Davis (selling low) and he used the Sexson deal to retool the organization, so I give him a pass there. The only deal he's made where he had a chance to acquire meaningful starting pitching was Overbay and the farther we get from that deal the worse it gets for me. Other than Overbay, it's not the deals he's made that have been the problem but rather the fact that he hasn't acquired any pitcher with enough stuff to be a legit 1 or 2 other than Sabathia who was never going to be anything more than a rental. His inactivity addressing an obvious hole, not only at the MLB level, but throughout the entire organization is evidence enough. He built the team in Texas the same way, he's a conservative GM, he makes almost exclusively low risk moves. He's great a building a franchise quickly, his theory on "average" players is spot on, but you aren't going to win a championship with a league average rotation. So again I'm not sure if my personal goal of a championship meshes with what Melvin is actually trying to build towards, I really don't know, but if we aren't in it to win a championship, then what exactly is the point? It's been the same argument 2 years in a row now out of the same people, "You don't know what Melvin was offered, etc". That's a garbage argument, other teams are out there making deals for pitching every year. It's the same as the "creating a hole" argument. It's so much easier to acquire a reasonably priced position player than a pitcher, look at the production difference between Cameron and Suppan... and Suppan is more expensive. You move a position player to fill greater position of need, it's not creating a hole, it's getting the best value out of any given situation and good business. It can be done, the Rays kind of ruined it for everyone being so aggresive acquiring pitching. Teams are now looking to mimic that success, yes it's much more difficult to acquire pitching now than it was a few years ago as the game has changed. However deals are still made every off season... I missed the Jackson trade as well... I honestly thought Sonnanstine was going to be the odd man out, my exact comment about the Rays was "... when Jackson is your worst starter you have an awful good rotation". I wanted Niemann, he was ripe for the picking, he would have been better than Looper. Did Melvin even bid for Jackson knowing Tampa had to make room for Price and possibly Niemann? That's the root issue here, we needed to acquire ascending pitchers with enough talent to hold a top rotation spot, not overpaying for declining stop gaps hoping for one more good year in the sun out of them. What if DM had acquired Marcum instead of Bush and Jackson? Can we say for sure that the dominos would have fallen the same way? Yost was pretty careful with young arms, would Marcum still have gotten hurt? Would Yo have been on the mound that fateful day at Wrigley to get hurt? What if we wouldn't have had to burn the LaPorta package on Sabathia but could have used it to target a different pitcher this off season to replace Sheets? Would Sabathia have been necessary with Sheets, Marcum, and Yo? The idea here should be about possibilities, those that are critical of Melvin's pitching moves are looking at what could have been, instead of what actually happened. The possibilities are pretty limitless if you allow your mind to open to the idea that more could have and probably should have been done instead of summarily dismissing it. The trends here are clearly defined, it's pretty obvious how Melvin is going to go about his business, it's reasonable to suggest he needs to change his approach if this team is going to get better. He's not been a trend setter, he's been more of a follower, looking to mimic what other organizations have been doing. I'm no great seer, I had no idea when I was beating the trade Hardy drum all off season that he would be terrible in 2009. Why would I root for my favorite player to be terrible anyway, if we hung onto him I wanted type A compensation for him. I was making a value argument about replacing 1 player with 2 players above replacement level and it got spun way out of control as many people on the MLB forum don't adequately understand how to measure prospects or value, they want to apply sabermetric analysis to them, and the minors and evolving players are way to nebulous for that sort of analysis. There's no waiting for a prospect to be "ready" if you want to get the best possible value out of a deal, because once the whole baseball world knows the prospect is "ready" they also know you have to move one of the players which in the end lowers the trade value of both parties. In addition the MLB player's salary and contract length also need to be taken into consideration. Hardy was never going to be more valuable than he was last off season, even he hit as well in 2009 as he had in 2007 and 2008 because he's becoming expensive and approaching FA. I'm not sure how many people on the MLB forum have a subscription to BA, but there's a couple of good articles from July that I've been sitting on. The one I like best is here. I admit it suits my philosophy to a "T" because I want to build around a rotation, but I thought it was interesting to see how multiple GMs value pitching, neither the Os or Nats are in a similar position talent wise to the Crew with their position players, nothing of value they are willing to move (Hall in 2006, Overbay, Hardy, whichever) so they've taken a different tact I thought this blurb was worth noting as well, because Hughes has been a regular target on the transaction forum.

Where you been dude?! Yay for other people pimping Rivas so And That and I don't have to anymore. Good for young Mr. Dennis, you know who else is having a pretty good season in Helena but doesn't get much love is Chris Ellington, I know he went 0-4 tonight, but he's become a box score name for me personally. Scarpetta has been really good sans July 25th since the break, if he can find some consistency with his stuff he could move fast. Once he quits giving away free runs with BBs he'll be in very good shape. Lucroy didn't get his double, too bad, but he did extend his hitting streak. I don't recall Green ever slumping this hard for this long, he was hitting so well earlier, here's hoping he gets back on track soon.

Wright... no offense intended but I don't see him having a future as a SP. Romanski could start in Appleton, but Helena is probably his likely destination without any game action as a pitcher since he was drafted. Off the top of my head that seems to be what they've done.

If we failed to protect pitching... projectable pitching like Rivas, I might have to give up my Brewer fan card because the organization is going in a direction that I couldn't possibly and wouldn't want to understand.

I was just thinking about '10, and I'm going to make this short because I have to get up north for football practice, but the pitching is going to get pretty fun to follow. AA - Huntsville Rogers Anundsen Rivas Bowman Merk A+ - Brevard County Scarpetta Peralta Frederickson Seidel Periard? A - Wisconsin Arnett Heckathorn Odorizzi Howell Bucci Krestalude Burgos Rosario Wisconsin will have enough pitchers to piggy back 4 spots in the rotation if they wanted, I'm not sure that makes given the college arms but they did do it with Frederickson this year. Does Meadows go back to relieving? Where does Periard slot, AA or A+ to start? If AA which pitcher returns to A+? What about Jeffress when he comes back? It seems that Butler will be in AAA just based on a pure numbers game, along with Cody, Hand, and Jones. Obviously I was only looking at pitchers whom I expect to remain in the rotations.

Wow the Angels spent more than the Crew even with a token signing.

I'd guess this Lawrie promotion is a move for the AFL?

Ha, come on now Briggs, you know just as well as I do that Farris could get 5 hits with 2SB's every game the rest of the season and X still wouldn't call him a prospect. No use trying to sway him.Farris is not a top prospect, he's a marginal prospect. With the 3 players signed today he's closer to 50 than he is to 20.

There's probably something to that as the Sheets situation likely left them under budget for the draft picks allowing them to make some moves they otherwise wouldn't have.

To your first statement, you aren't understanding the concept, the idea was Hardy was valuable and we needed pitching, not that he would stink and now he's replaceable. To your second statement, Edwin Jackson? It's not even about last off season, it's about not addressing a glaring need over the course of DM's tenure as GM. He got us to respectable in a hurry, but he's not going to get us to the next level if he doesn't become more aggressive. edit. Forgot to add, Hardy's trade value wouldn't have gone up regardless, it was going down because the closer he gets to FA the more expensive he gets and the less service time a team trading for him gets.

So the problem as you see it is simply we don't know if Melvin shopped him and what the offers were for? However, you agree that given his history he was probably looking for MLB pitching coming back. I think the MLB talent coming back is the biggest issue here, if he's not able to get a top of rotation pitcher already in MLB, then he should have lowered his sights and started looking talented at prospects who would be in AA this season who could have helped as injury depth this season and have made the jump next season. Why not a different trade for a player like Niemann as depth as I pointed out when Wright was acquired? The whole world knew the Rays were going have a surplus of quality arms. Did he even call to inquire who the Rays were willing to move and what it would cost? What good are Wright or Green as depth? Niemann was a better pitcher, is a better pitcher, and throws much harder than either and wasn't able to crack that rotation. Jackson was traded off... there were possibilities out there besides Sabathia and Looper. If a MLB pitcher isn't available, then he's got to target projectable prospects, it's simply unacceptable to point to some key injuries as an excuse... injuries happen to pitchers in every organization. Rogers got hurt 3 years ago, Jones in 2003 or 2004, Braddock has never pitched a full season... it's not like this situation caught DM by surprise, he should have seen it coming and have done something to remedy it. It's true we don't know what deals were out there, but he hasn't acquired a single pitcher with top of the rotation stuff since 2003. I feel he missed badly for Overbay with Toronto, we've seen other teams swing deals pitching, but the Brewers stand pat and make mediocre FA acquisitions and rental trades that plug holes but do not address the fundamental issue with the organization, which is the lack of top of the rotation talent above A+. Maybe he couldn't get anything for Hardy (which I'm skeptical of, especially when a trade is expanded to a 3 way deal), I think it's much more likely that he wanted to ride out Hardy and that he hasn't been actively seeking projectable pitching, because that's what his history as a GM suggests.

He hasn't been bad, he just hasn't been great and earned the promotion he thought he would. He was likely humbled a little bit and will be better off for it. He wasn't the best position player in the league, though one could probably make the case he's the best remaining position player in the league. There is simply no way he repeats, you have to stink up the joint like Brewer did last season to repeat a level, as I wasn't sure they'd have him repeat after his awesome run through the AFL. Lawrie will be in BC next summer, book it.

Lame, I was hoping he wouldn't sign and we'd have a chance at him down the road.