TheCrew07

Escobar, Salome, Gwynn, and Periard/Braddock is more like it for 3 years of Peavy.

From the THT website. FIP (Link) Fielding Independent Pitching, a measure of all those things for which a pitcher is specifically responsible. The formula is (HR*13+(BB+HBM-IBB)*3-K*2)/IP, plus a league-specific factor (usually around 3.2) to round out the number to an equivalent ERA number. FIP helps you understand how well a pitcher pitched, regardless of how well his fielders fielded. FIP was invented by Tangotiger.

I would hope that you would research your opinions a little bit better in the future. Salome has an absolute cannon for an arm and while we've seen some poor reports on his speed after his ankle injury, he ran a sub 7.0 60 time prior to the draft per coach32sm, his high school coach. Angel's upside is beyond that of Lucroy's, I've always been on Angel's bandwagon, I only feel better about Lucroy (who by the way played poor defense at the time he was drafted) because he's becoming the total package. Angel has risk associated with him, but it's minimal as long as he's in the minors, the upside is worth being excited about. As far as freak/experiment comment, that's so wrong I'm not even sure how to adequately address it. He was drafted because his raw tools are fantastic.. When trading prospects I haven't seen many deals that weren't upside orientated, meaning that the teams are giving up equal upside.. Garza for Young, Hamilton for Volquez... Kennedy doesn't have similar upside to Salome and while the Brewers may deal Salome for a pitcher if they are desperate, that's a way better deal for the Yankees because even if Angel doesn't make it as a C they can still get his bat in the lineup as a DH. Yes there aren't many short players that have had great careers... so what? Assuming Lucroy owns up AA as he should, he could be catching in the majors in 2010. Lawrie (not Lawry) isn't sure to be catching prospect and would likely get to the majors quicker playing a different position. We have 2 very nice catching prospects, but I'm not willing to unload them today for the sake of sacrificing some depth, just because there's a deal, doesn't mean it's a good deal. The Brewers need more pitching no doubt, but let's do deals that make sense for the team longterm. If the team determines that Lucroy is the better option and trades Salome that's fine, I just hope the return is more than Kennedy. If we burn through all our depth for temporary solutions and bottom of the rotation starters, what's left to acquire any meaningful talent? STL won a world series by shortening their rotation, who do the Brewers shorten their rotation to this year? I love Yo and Parra, always have, but I'm not sure that either one will be healthy and effective come playoff time. Are guys like Bush, Kennedy, Suppan, Looper, etc going to carry us through the playoffs? Who are we going to shorten our rotation to? As a site there isn't much patience around here, we want everything now. This team will be competitve but to what end I don't think any of us really know for sure, many of us might be chasing goals that aren't in the cards for this team.

Angel gets 3 times the pub from MLB and MiLB than he ever did from BA... the haters!

You're right I had totally forgotten about Bailey... poor guy. If he ever approaches his potential CIN is going to have a real nice rotation, but it doesn't seem likely at this point... there's ups and downs, but he's been bad and worse.

And so did JDLR... it's funny End mentioned his pitches because I was going to suggest his secondary numbers have always led me to believe that he'd be better off as a reliever, well that and my bias towards pitchers that throw heavy sliders, I'm always waiting for their arms to fall off... Parra already has better control and because of his injury history he's still growing into his role, Perez has been up since 2002. I've seen enough of Perez to be uncomfortable with his erratic nature... is he the guy that blew away 239 batters in 2004 or is he the guy who had an era over 6.5 in 2006? Apparently he's reworked his mechanics some, I'll give him his due there, I just don't see him being a sub 4 ERA pitcher year in and year out. I'd rather go low risk with a couple of reclamation projects than be on the hook for him plus a draft pick. He's going to resign with the Mets so this isn't really an issue but he's the type of a guy a large market can take a chance on, he's right on the border for me as a med/high risk type of player. Talent will only carry someone so far with me, much like Weeks... the talent is obvious, but the results often leave something to be desired.

If I was a Yankees fan, which I'm the furthest thing from, but if I was and we traded Hughes for Cameron I'd be awfully pissed. Cameron has value, but that value is limited in that he's essentially a rental player and the Yankees do not care about draft picks. Next year they'd have to go out and sign another FA pitcher or give Kennedy a shot again. I'm not a big Hughes guy at all, but he's the only one of the top 3 pitchers in the minors in 2006-2007 that hasn't done anything of substance at the MLB level yet. Lincecum and Yo have taken off... and I remember almost every pundit had them Lincecum, Hughes, then Yo. Hughes started out very strong then hurt his hamstring (wasn't it?) and has never been the same since. I don't get the Yankees at all, Hughes is becoming like Niemann forever stuck in AAA. At least TB has 4 young studs in front of him and a very capable 5th... the Yankees just signed 3 pitchers for their rotation... makes no sense. Burnett will likely get hurt though and Hughes will pitch. I'd rather not acquire either, in fact I'd rather not ever deal with the Yankees. I could live with a Kennedy acquisition if it didn't cost much prospect wise as in Gillespie and an A baller, but if we're going to target an arm like him, why not go after Niemann from TB instead? We have a history of dealing with them, and Gross and Balfour both did a nice job for them last season... they owe us for Gross deal anyway! I know it doesn't work that way but man that trade stinks a year later.

The only problem with comparing Perez's age to Parra's is that Parra lost most of 2 seasons in the minors and then came up to MLB and promptly got hurt getting hit by a pitch. He hasn't logged nearly the innings of Perez and I still think Parra is going be the better pitcher next year. There just aren't many LHP with Manny's natural talent.

Cause Davis is in his prime? I like DiFelice even though he scares me some, because I worry about him getting RHB out. Anyone who's watched Pena pitch knows why the organization is hanging on to him, go watch his inning from the AAA all star game last year. The results stunk because he wasn't locating, but my goodness the velocity and movement on his pitches was impressive.

I've ready some very cool articles/posts in my time here but Powell's farewell letter to BF.net "is the top of the mountain"... for all you B&B fans.

Well a 4.96 is about as close as you can get. He's not bad, he's just not good either, he's averagish, was below average last year (injury induced or not)... and he's the highest paid player on the team to be our 4th or 5th starter. I argued that Suppan doesn't have negative value yet, because I don't think it's fair to take contracts signed before this off season and compare them, but I also see where people are coming from, he's very replaceable except his salary doesn't allow the team to replace him. I'm not sure the data supports a lack of performance due to injury, unless he pitched injured all year. He didn't pitch deep into games with the exception of August, where everything about his line improves dramatically. He still made 31 starts, just pitched 29 less innings than 2007 with exactly the same BAA and nearly the same WHIP because he gave up 30 HRs in those 31 starts. I might be pessimistic in this case, but what exactly suggests that Suppan will get better in the twilight of his career? G GS W L SV CG SHO IP H R ER HR BB K ERA WHIP BAA April 6 6 1 1 0 0 0 34.2 40 23 20 5 11 12 5.19 1.47 .294 May 5 5 2 3 0 0 0 31.2 30 13 9 3 18 21 2.56 1.52 .256 June 5 5 1 2 0 0 0 27.0 34 17 13 1 11 20 4.33 1.67 .315 July 4 4 1 1 0 0 0 21.0 33 22 22 6 7 8 9.43 1.90 .367 August 6 6 5 0 0 0 0 42.0 36 14 14 8 9 16 3.00 1.07 .232 September 5 5 0 3 0 0 0 21.1 34 21 20 7 11 13 8.44 2.11 .382 edit. More telling I think is look at how he did by team, how many good teams did he pitch well against outside of STL? G GS W L SV CG SHO IP H R ER HR BB K ERA WHIP BAA vs. BAL 1 1 0 1 0 0 0 1.2 7 6 3 0 2 1 16.20 5.40 .583 vs. BOS 1 1 0 1 0 0 0 6.0 9 4 4 1 2 1 6.00 1.83 .360 vs. MIN 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 7.0 7 2 2 0 1 5 2.57 1.14 .280 vs. ARI 2 2 1 0 0 0 0 12.0 16 8 8 2 4 6 6.00 1.67 .333 vs. ATL 3 3 2 1 0 0 0 21.0 18 4 4 0 9 13 1.71 1.29 .234 vs. CHC 3 3 1 1 0 0 0 15.0 25 14 11 4 4 8 6.60 1.93 .373 vs. CIN 5 5 1 1 0 0 0 28.0 27 15 15 5 5 11 4.82 1.14 .250 vs. COL 1 1 1 0 0 0 0 5.1 4 2 1 0 5 3 1.69 1.69 .211 vs. FLA 1 1 0 1 0 0 0 5.0 8 3 3 1 3 5 5.40 2.20 .364 vs. HOU 1 1 0 1 0 0 0 6.0 11 8 8 2 1 3 12.00 2.00 .423 vs. LAD 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 6.0 9 4 4 3 2 4 6.00 1.83 .346 vs. NYM 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 4.0 9 6 6 1 2 2 13.50 2.75 .474 vs. PHI 2 2 0 1 0 0 0 10.2 13 7 7 2 7 4 5.91 1.88 .351 vs. PIT 3 3 2 0 0 0 0 17.0 16 11 11 4 4 7 5.82 1.18 .258 vs. STL 2 2 1 0 0 0 0 14.0 14 4 4 1 7 7 2.57 1.50 .275 vs. SD 2 2 1 1 0 0 0 13.1 11 7 6 3 6 6 4.05 1.27 .220 vs. WAS 1 1 0 1 0 0 0 5.2 3 5 1 1 3 4 1.59 1.06 .143 .

If Suppan continues to slide it's likely he's in the bullpen or they just cut him in 2010. Periard, Jeffress, and Braddock would be available in theory by 2010 so they'd have some options. Outside of a trade for pitching before opening day 2009 I'm not sure how they can afford to put him in the bullpen for 28 million over 2 years, they need to get innings out of him if at all possible. I guess they could jump him without acquiring another starter with Villy, but it's been made pretty clear this offseason that Melvin views Villy as a reliever. I know it's just a video game, but I've probably simmed through the 2008-2012 seasons with the Brewers 15 times in OOTP 8 and 9 which has a projection system as it's model (it's an easy way to kill a couple of hours here and there). Every single time he was ineffective in 2009 (5ish ERA) and horrible in 2010 (6ish ERA) and I just can't get past that nagging feeling of impending doom when I think about him. With the lack of trade options the club had at the time of the Suppan signing it made sense, they really didn't have any other way to plug even average quality SP into the rotation besides FA. I think we're a different place now with Hardy approaching FA and Fielder regressing defensively, not to mention a couple of expendable bats in the minors with some upside. We've reach a point where we have realistic trade possibilities and I'd like Melvin to be a bit more aggressive on the trade front, doesn't matter if we're swapping prospects or moving MLB types, just be aggresive to acquire pitching. It's worked out very well for TB, it's going to work out well for Cincy, let's get some solid young starting pitchers and go from there.

Villy and Parra are both young pitchers with the same problem, they nibble too much. The difference between them is that Parra is LH and his stuff is significantly better all the way around. I hope Parra picked up some pointers from CC about attacking hitters because in my opinion he wastes too many pitches. I was pleased what he was doing in the middle of the season so I have great expectations that he'll trust his stuff more. Villy pitches differently as a RP, or at least he did last year, he didn't spend so much time trying to paint the corners with fastballs as a RP. I realize location is everything for a pitcher but there's a fine line to pitching, a SP isn't able to give away an extra 5 pitches every inning and pitch effectively into the late innings. I have no problem with a our young starters hitting the 100 pitch count in the 7th, hitting it in the 5th drives me nuts.

Nelson is the better hitter, he has much better plate discipline.

I couldn't remember which thread the team's payroll was being discussed vs Mark A's comments that the team was sitting around 85mil currently and most of the posters had the payroll in the 76-78 range. It just occurred to me that Mark was probably including the budgeted signing bonus figures for next year's draft picks which is why he was 7-8 mil more than the actual salaries. I believe the Brewers spent right around 7 million on the draft last year.

Sign me up for Mulder on a MiLB deal. I love a good comeback story. If things don't work out.. oh well.

link to support what brewjihad posted. http://www.rotoworld.com/...ain.aspx?sport=MLB&id=387

Some of us were also hoping for a trade...

When you talk about a prospect's ceiling, it's nothing more than absolute best case scenario on a given player's career. Again the Boggs comparison for Gamel came from a Don Money pregame audio interview during the 2008 season. Coach32sm who had both Salome and Man Ram in high school believes that Angel will become Pudge and has stated such on numerous occassions. He's also said in the past that Angel is the much more disciplined worker of the 2 and from the pic he gave us of Salome without a shirt on I have no reason to doubt his opinion on their relative work ethic. Angel's arm is fantastic, if he can straighten out his pop times and blocking he's got a long career ahead of him because his bat will play. That's a big IF though, it's definitely not written in stone. I'm not going to defend Escobar beyond what I already have and right now I don't feel as good about Jeffress as I did Parra when Parra was coming off of back to back injury plagued seasons. What does Gamel have to do with Fielder today? Furthermore no single player is going to come in and match Fielder's offensive production regardless, but upgrades at C, 3B, and 2B are possible. It's been stated numerous times that it's not a player vs player comparison when discussing moving Fielder, it's Fielder vs whomever + a pitcher. When discussing Fielder I don't think it's fair to just focus on his offensive production either because his defense is so poor it negatively impacts the entire infield and the pitching. If Gamel would replace Fielder at 1B he would likely play much better defense so his offensive contribution wouldn't need to be as great to replace Fielder's overall value. The point is that the second wave of prospects while not as highly touted as the players that came before them are a very talented bunch in their own right. Gamel spent most of the season leading the Southern League in batting, and Salome finished as the Southern League batting champ. Even with Gamel's extended slump (likely due to injury) he still finish with a 932 OPS and Salome finished with an OPS of 974. You can make the overinflated BABIP argument if you wish, but those seasons were better than Dan Uggla, Russell Martin, Andy LaRoche, Chin Lung Hu, Skip Schumaker. equal to Evan Longoria 931, similar to Braun 956, Justin Upton 955, and Shane Victorino 951. All the while at the same age (22) or younger (with the exception of Upton who was 19 and Longoria who was 21) than than the players I listed that I thought most everyone would know. If you're interested enough I'd recommend comparing their seasons against the Southern League's top 20 prospects each year going back to 2004. These kids can hit, if they can play D or not is still in question, but I have no doubt they can hit the ball.

Atlanta = Spends, Baltimore = has spent ... I'm not sure if the others qualify as icons. Hunter probably does, but there's a difference between being the face of the franchise and one of the faces of MLB. The 3 pitchers in Atlanta were, but Maddux didn't come up through the organization. Ripken played most of his career prior to what I would consider the Modern Era at this time, the disparity between the have and have nots has widened since the 80s. The YES network and TBS are a huge competitive advantage for the Yankees and Braves, the Brewers will never get that much revenue from a local TV contract. What one person considers an icon is totally subjective and I understand that... I was thinking along the lines of Arod, Griffey, Bonds, Jeter... players that MLB actively markets/marketed around. However, I'm not sure that citing large markets who spend is a good example when I'm talking about small market teams retaining their stars. Hunter is the one player on that list I'll cede as small market, but by the time his career is over he may have only played half his career with the Twins. If we're talking about a player's "best years" then MN definitely got his best years just like we did with Sheets, but Sheets has never been an icon in MLB either. Santana is an icon in the sport and MN had absolutely no chance of retaining his services, just like the Indians and Brewers had absolutely no chance of retaining CC's services.

If College football is the NFL's minor league, then it's A ball and down. There are way too many flame outs in the draft to make that claim hold up, the draft is just as much a crap shoot in the NFL as it is in MLB and MLB has 5 levels of the minors to wash players out. I'm not going to hate on one sport for the other when they are extremely dissimilar in almost every way. The point should be that in baseball a small market team has virtually no chance of hanging onto to an icon in the sport for the majority of his career. Arod, Giambi, Bonds, Sabathia... who was the last icon in MLB that spent the majority of his career with one team? Jeter? Who plays for the largest market in the game? That's the issue that needs to be addressed in my mind, there has to be a way for every team to realistically afford 1 high priced and home grown talent, but even with the Brewers having a payroll around 80 mil a season it doesn't make sense to pay 1/4 of that to any single player in the current system, there realistically isn't enough money to go around to the other players if a deal like that were to happen.

As far as Gamel goes, the Boggs comparison came directly from Don Money himself when asked if Boggs was a fair comparison for Gamel, and Don doesn't throw praise around lightly. When you listen to his pregame audio he isn't the type of guy who just praises every single player, he's quick to point out flaws in all of the kids he's coaching or has coached. His actual quote was something along of the lines of Gamel will hit like Boggs but with more power. I think the disconnect here comes from people who avidly read the Link Reports and listen to the pregame audio vs those that are just looking at stats and what the gurus have to say about a prospect. Gamel is an impact bat at the MLB level, in that I have absolutely no doubt, I trust Money's opinion much more so than Law, Sickels, Callis, etc... I much more inclined to accept MLEs, CHONE projections, etc for players who've stagnated at AAA like Crabbe than players like Gamel & Escobar who are still growing as players mentally and physically. Escobar's ceiling is probably right around Reyes if he fills out his body and everything goes his way, but he'll likely end up somewhere below that. If Escobar = Izturis it would be a flame out of epic proportions. Escobar could easily put up Izturis' career line in his first season, if Hardy got hurt he'd likely put up a line better than that next season. Izturis is as pessimistic a projection as Reyes would be optimistic. Again projections don't mean all that much for MiLB players. Salome has a long way to go defensively to be a MLB catcher, but he's got tremendous potential and Pudge in his prime is probably an accurate assessment of Angel's ceiling as a player. As catching prospects go I'm more comfortable with Lucroy at this time because he's the total package offensively and defensively. Angel has all the tools, he just needs to start getting defensive results that match his toolset. Jeffress to Gooden was obviously a stretch, Jeffress could very well end up a bullpen arm down the road. I'm not sure where I'd pigeon hole his ceiling at this point in time, I'd have to think on it for a while. It's way too early to tell anything about Lawrie or start drawing comparisons before he's taken a single professional AB. Obviously I'm high on him but I don't see how there's enough data to support any type of conclusion other than he's a very good athlete and terrific hitting prospect. Again a given player's ceiling doesn't mean anything, it's just their potential, which has nothing to with the actual level of performance they may attain. People were very quick to anoint Fielder, Weeks, and Braun (the Hardy and Hart debates raged for years) as saviors of the franchise as they were shooting through the system, but are equally quick to dismiss this second group which somewhat boggles my mind. I realize our shift as a website has gone from the future to the present and I wonder if people just don't spend as much time anymore on the prospects because the MLB team is finally having success? There are impact players in this 2nd group, and this second group lines up almost perfectly to fill the existing & soon to be holes on the MLB team. Well with the exception of starting pitching, but if Jeffress and Braddock can have healthy and effective seasons at AA this year maybe we're better off than I think.

I can see why people like that Fielder plays hard on the field, it's admirable quality. However his diving to make tags is just not a smart play, and never has been. How many 1B at any level have we seen dive to make tags, or come off the base to make a tag when they didn't necessarily have to? There's nothing fundamental or smart about those plays and while they are "good effort" plays, I hope I never see him do that again. It's not safe for the pitcher, the batter, or Prince himself when that mass of humanity is flying through the air, it's a recipe for disaster. His poor decision making in the field has already cost this team more than many around here are willing to accept. I don't think Prince's offensive woes early last year had anything to do with weight gain and everything to do with swinging off of his back foot trying to hit home runs. I do believe his weight gain has negatively impacted his play in the field. I believe he's a premium offensive player who's a defensive liability and will never sign with Milwaukee long term and as such I see him as a prime candidate to help the organization address it's lack of SP depth. I'm not sure why a team like LAA wouldn't be interested in moving some pitching for him. I don't know anything about his character off the field, I don't know him personally, but he isn't someone I'd champion to kids as someone they should try to emulate. The only player in the field that fits that mold for me personally is Hardy as he's fundamentally sound all the way around. I'm into guys that get the most out of what they have and I don't see that from Prince.

I understand why people aren't high on Escobar and I'm not one to quibble over rankings as they are so subjective but I do take issue with Gamel being the lowest rated of the Brewer prospects and barely in the top 100. His improving defense/defensive shortcomings at 3B aside, how do we know he wouldn't make an excellent 1B or corner OF if he fails at 3B? His bat will play anywhere for goodness sake. Salome who has similar upside but no defensive flexibility, does everything unorthodox, and is arguably a worse defender is 15 spots ahead of him? It makes no sense and anyone who follows the minor league forum knows how much I like Angel. As far as impact prospects go, Hardy was usually viewed in the middle of the class... Upton and Greene seemed to always be liked more, some lists had guys like Crosby in front, Ramirez was seen as a boom or bust guy by many. I'm probably forgetting the some other big propspects in that SS group at the time but those are the names that always stuck out for me, and I think Hardy has turned out pretty favorable by comparison. The point is that prospect ratings basically mean nothing because they are done mostly on upside, and it's impossible to know how far any given player is going to progress. I'm very comfortable with our next wave, I just wish we had more pitching in it.

I understand why people aren't high on Escobar and I'm not one to quibble over rankings as they are so subjective but I do take issue with Gamel being the lowest rated of the Brewer prospects and barely in the top 100. His improving defense/defensive shortcomings at 3B aside, how do we know he wouldn't make an excellent 1B or corner OF if he fails at 3B? His bat will play anywhere for goodness sake. Salome who has similar upside but no defensive flexibility, does everything unorthodox, and is arguably a worse defender is 15 spots ahead of him? It makes no sense and anyone who follows the minor league forum knows how much I like Angel. As far as impact prospects go, Hardy was usually viewed in the middle of the class... Upton and Greene seemed to always be liked more, some lists had guys like Crosby in front, Ramirez was seen as a boom or bust guy by many. I'm probably forgetting the some other big propspects in that SS group at the time but those are the names that always stuck out for me, and I think Hardy has turned out pretty favorable by comparison. The point is that prospect ratings basically mean nothing because they are done mostly on upside, and it's impossible to know how far any given player is going to progress. I'm very comfortable with our next wave, I just wish we had more pitching in it.