TheCrew07

Fans here on Brewerfan.net? Fielder could pull James Shields by himself... so either of those guys could easily pull Cain. I'm not all that high on Cain to start with so I wouldn't like a trade that acquired him, but either Hardy or Fielder is enough to land a quality starting pitcher on their own. Edit. To move Hart for quality pitching would be tougher, unless you they could pull a guy in AAA or AA who's ready to make the jump. I have some names I like, but I don't necessarily see a match with those organizations. For example, Neimann wouldn't be a bad return from TB, but they don't really Hart, and Neimann would likely fall between Parra and Bush statistically so he's not an impact acquisition. Escobar will not be moved by the organization unless Hardy signs a long term deal, but maybe a Hart/Salome deal could pull a McGowan, McGowan is exactly the type of pitcher I'd like the Brewers to pursue.

If Hardy signs long term then that discussion will stop, however until that happens it is reasonable to discuss how to get the most of value out of players like Hardy and Fielder who haven't signed and probably won't sign given their situations/agent.

Which comments are you refering to? The Brewers have been very complimentary of Brewers work ethic and leadership skills After he was bumped up there were 3-4 thinly veiled shots from his former teammates (including Lucroy) and his former manager, they are in the link report threads, if I get time this afternoon I'll go search through my comments because I know I quoted one and mentioned it in my comments. He has 2 more years to develop. Thats a ton of time. True enough, but his offensive issues aside, when is the last time any Brewer farm hand made significant defensive progress from the time they were drafted? Gamel is the only one I can think of who's currently in the system or who's come through the system recently that's made a significant improvement from one year to the next. Braun, Weeks, Fielder, Salome, etc... There is no history of players becoming more fundamentally sound as they progress through the system. I don't want to bag on the kid, because I like Brent, he's awfully toolsy, but he reminds me somewhat of a Bill Hall with much better speed. Obviously I haven't seen him play first hand, but when I look at his numbers and think about him as a player, Hall is always the first player that comes to mind. He may very well turn out to be a 4 tool prospect, but his defense at this time leaves quite a bit to be desired, and the 2 players in front of him can flash the leather. Hanly Ramirez never hit more than 8 homers in the minors, the same number Escobar hit last year, and he was the centerpiece of a deal for Josh Beckett and Mike Lowell. Emilio Bonifacio carried pretty high trade value twice in the last 6 months, and he was never a top 50 prospect. Michael Bourn was the center piece for Brad Lidge. As usual another excellent point, but I think the big difference here, at least in my mind is that the Marlins were taking the best available deal for established MLB players, not specifically trading prospects for prospects. The Brewers on the other hand shouldn't be looking to acquire soon to be FA players that they have no hope of resigning. We'll have to agree to disagree about Emilio, Rauch isn't exactly the type of player I'd be looking for. Bourn is simliar stat wise, but is an OF is he not? He also had MLB time if I recall correctly, but again I wouldn't be targeting relievers with prospects, to each their own if you'd like to target a closer type. When I think about prospect deals, I'm thinking Hamilton for Volquez, Young for Garza. Can you land pitching without power potential? Absolutely, can you land dominant starting pitching without power, I don't think so. Look at our deal for Sabathia, LaPorta (SLG & OBP) and Brantley (Ave & OBP)... A slugging prospect with holes in his swing and a perfect complimentary player in Brantley. I guess it all comes down to what we'd like the Brewers to target, as you know I want young #2 type starting pitchers who are long term solutions as I think they have the greatest relative value to the Brewers. Hardy's last two seasons are reminiscent of Ripken/Trammell/Tejada. Escobar seems more like a Tony Fernandez/Renteria/Orlando Cabrera type at best. All these players are good ss, but if you have a ss who puts up Tejada or Ripken type numbers you don't mess with him until he gets too expensive Another good point made by joepespsi, but if Hardy isn't in the organization's long term plans and he doesn't seem to be, then how do they get the most value for him? It's funny because out of the 3 of Hardy, Fielder, and Weeks I always thought Hardy would be the guy that stuck around. However he can get big money on the FA market and didn't sign a deal buying out his arby, so I think that there's a very real possibility he may be the first player to go. Working on the assumption that Hardy will not sign, what's more valuable, 2 draft picks, a deadline deal for talent, an off season deal for talent? Melvin is on record as being of the opinion that the best value for position players comes in offseason, and I'd rather get established successful prospects or young MLB players back than draft pick compensation. At least if they deal for talent the organization has a better idea of what the players will be, draft picks don't really excite me at all as they are so hit and miss. I'd rather one have 1 really solid prospect than 2 draft picks, that's just how I'm wired, again this all comes down to what you believe the possibilities are so I don't think there's a right or wrong answer at this point in time. Edit. My memory stinks, it was a combination of the "Your 2008 WV Power" thread and Link Reports, my post I was thinking of came from the WV thread and is here with the Lucroy quote.

I know you really like Brewer, and I've sung his praises in the past, but he's so raw and the comments from his former teammates this year have given me pause. He also won't be ready in time to replace Hardy. I think for a prospect to pull a stud MiLB pitcher he needs to be power prospect... defense and average just isn't valued enough for that. In theory I'd still rather move Hardy and get a pitcher + than a 1 for 1 with Escobar, Hardy has greater value.

I think there's a whole segment of the brewerfan.net fan base that isn't in love with Escobar, and only a few of us that think he has the potential to be a special player. Endaround and I have argued this to the point I don't even want to discuss it anymore. Escobar will likely be a top 20 prospect on the BA list, not that BA is gospel as I won't necessarily agree with where the Brewer system is ranked, but they are the premier authority on MiLB. He's a fantastic prospect and I think trading him will be counter productive to the long term health of the franchise as the Brewers will need a significant number of quality contributing prearby players year in and year out to remain competitive. The greatest trade value is in trading established MLB players, not continually thinning out the system for rentals and to plug holes. Teams that can afford 20 million per year salaries are playing on a different level, they can afford to plug holes in FA which isn't a market the Brewers will ever be players in unless baseball's economics change. Generally speaking I think the Brewers should be sellers, acquiring as much young talent as possible and then flipping the surplus when needs arise. I really like the idea of trying to get ahead of the curve talent wise, especially with the pitching. I don't see the Brewers competing for World Series until that happens, the club doesn't have the means to build the rotation necessary any other way. Hardy is an all-star shortstop. Escobar will never be. That's simply your opinion and if you want to make a trade for pitching Hardy is the vastly more valuable trade piece.

Huh? So it's okay for the players, the employees, to get filthy rich but it's somehow wrong for the owners to make a buck in all of this? The truth is that no one truly cares about the fans and sports in general are becoming too expensive as a family event for the middle class. Where does it stop? How does it stop? I can get behind most of what you say but to debate the merits of your post we'd have to do it on another forum as it is social economics. Are you really suggesting that the owners take more than their fair share in the other sports? This isn't professional sports in the early part of the 20th century when players had to hold down 2nd jobs to support a family. Depending on what article you read and what sport we're discussing the players get 40 to 60 percent, that seems pretty reasonable given the fixed costs of operating a franchise. Just to maintain the facility alone probably eats up 20-25 percent of the income, lights, cleaning, heating, cooling, employee salaries, general maint, etc, etc... I'd be really curious how much it costs to operate miller park for a season when all employee salaries, front office salaries, utilities, and so on are considered. It wouldn't surprise me at all if the Brewers are a 150 to 160 million enterprise per year with a gross profit between 2.5 to 4 percent. The budget wouldn't be a fixed, they'd need to have to wiggle room both ways depending on attendance, injuries, and many other factors but I think any percentage under 5 is very reasonable. They wouldn't be making as much profit in a year as their highest paid employee... I remember reading somewhere that the Packers have around $150 million banked (maybe someone told me when I was there, not sure) and I remember thinking that was very low for a team that was accused of taking money and being happy selling out stadiums with a crappy product on the field all those years. I always thought that was sort of funny because there was no owner to profit, the profits just go right back into the organization. I guess I'm not surprised that somehow the owners always come out the bad guys when a team like the Packers without an owner can get accused of gouging the fanbase for profit, but that strikes me as a cynical view. I'm sure there are cases where the owner or ownership group are gouging as much as they can, but I don't feel that's the norm in any sport. I'm not very educated on the NBA because I despise the one on one nature of the game, but I'm a huge fan of the NFL and NHL, and the salary cap in the NHL most affected my favorite team, the Red Wings. I don't see how the salary cap in any of the other sports has had a negative impact on the games in any way. The salary cap rules are usually structured so the team that drafts a player has the option of retaining his rights for the duration of his career if they so choose. The player still gets paid and the fans get to grow attached to a player because they know he'll be their guy for a long time, the league gains some measure of consistency in this environment. MLB is the exact opposite, the Brewers have no chance of keeping of marquee player they draft around past arbitration unless they buy out a couple of years of FA, any large market team can just offer 1 or 2 more years for same amount of money and the player walks... after all who's going to leave 20 to 40 million on the table? Would any of us? What's so special about Milwaukee?

Nate you're assuming we care about right/left, which I don't, I want the better combination of players.

you're right Joe, my mistake, I should have caught that.

You're hung up on the name, which doesn't really have anything to do with the concept of signing average pitchers on the decline because that's all the Brewers can truly afford. Good to Elite pitchers get contract lengths and money far beyond the Brewer's means.

I'm a trend guy, probably didn't need to say it since I do all the time, but TLB just nailed why I'm not of a fan of this deal. It's one thing to be inconsistent, it's another to trend so negatively that you've lost 100 points of OPS in 3 seasons before you're 25. I would rather a young player start out cold like Hardy and ascend, then a player start out hot and decline. When was the last time a player that descended at the start of his career managed to turn it around? There must be a couple, but I'm drawing a blank right trying to come up with one and don't have the time to sit down and research it. Descending players are the devil and scare the heck out of me.

Invader I'm not sure you're entirely getting the point here. Obviously the system didn't produce enough pitching, but instead of flipping our excess hitting for a long term solution, we flipped it for a rental, and now we're right back where we started. In small market it would seem prudent to be paying your best players the most money on the team. Unfortunately the Brewers can only afford to sign a roughly league average pitcher, as pitchers age, their skills tend to decline. This means that the Brewers can only afford to sign an average pitcher who will likely decline to below average over the course of the deal. That's paying for mediocrity, knowing that your highest paid player is not your best or most productive player. Is the Suppan deal crippling in it itself, no... but it certainly doesn't help. A second deal would be absolutely crippling because the team would have over 25% of it's payroll tied into the last 3 spots in the rotation I just don't see how that's good business. I think that's a horrible way to plug holes, where as I think TB figured out exactly what a small market team should do. They had to give up an excellent prospect to get Garza (Young, I know there was change both ways) and basically stole Kazmir, but both deals were essentially hitting for pitching. They still have Neimann in AAA who's a 3-4 type pitcher, Price who will be the next Sabathia, and a deep system behind them. TB is now ahead of the curve, a place where I would like the Brewers to be... an already solid rotation to go with some impact bats and a deep system. I'm not into waiting around hoping guys like Jeffress, Lintz, Scarpetta, Bowman, Peralta, Ordorizi, and Fredrickson pan out while plugging in average declining pitchers to market contracts in the meantime, I'd rather a acquire a good young pitcher who will have value in the future as a trade piece or as a type A FA, not a player who's value will decline as his salary escalates. When they signed Suppan they didn't have the ammunition to make deals, now they have the ammunition and I'll be very disappointed if they continue to operate as they have in the past. Down the road if we end up with a surplus of pitching as these kids mature then we can turn around and flip them for bats like Tampa is looking to do with Neimann. This usually seems to get spun at creating one to fill another, but really it's dealing from a position of strength for a position need. Yes it creates a short term issue, but long term we end up with a better team. I'd like Melvin to be flexible and it honestly ticks me off that he said trades are complicated... well no crap it's easy to throw money at someone in FA so it looks like the team did something. We were in the perfect position to deal for young a SP and instead the team chose a marquee player and probably the playoffs, but if that means we're right back to where the team was when they signed Suppan, then I wonder is a playoff appearance the best this franchise is going to be able to muster? Fans like FA signings and mid season deals because that's what the big boys do, and that's where press tends to focus. I just don't think operating in that manner is in the best interests of the Brewer franchise because we'll always be where we are right now, behind the curve without the resources to plug holes with marquee FAs.

I'm not going to hang my hat on Brewer just yet... he still has a ton of holes in his game.

What good pitcher can the team sign for multiple years at 12 million per? It's not the player per say, it's what the Brewers can afford to pay... I guess the point we're trying to make is why eat up a significant portion of the budget paying for mediocrity? If mediocrity is the best we can do, this team will never win a championship, some how we must get ahead of the curve, and I don't see the Brewers getting there by spending money on FA pitchers.

I grew a huge brewer fan, on the farm we always had the radio going with the game on. However in the late 80s and early 90s as I was in High School and College I got away from the Brewers as my true sports love, UW, began to take off. Going to school and then living/working in MN didn't help either, in the mid 90s it was tough to follow your teams if you weren't in state, especially baseball with no radio or tv coverage at the time. In '97 I moved back to WI, and one day during the summer of '98 I was driving back from an account up in the sticks and stumbled across a day game on the radio, I had totally forgotten WDOR in even existed, I was messing around seeing what was out there as my rock stations weren't coming in that far north. Well it took about 5 minutes and I was laughing along with the banter on the radio, and that sort of hooked me back. I gradually got more and more into the team and in 2002 I was totally frustrated with the team (we now had games on FSN yay!) and I thought to myself that I hoped the Brewers had something going on in the minors, something to be excited about and look forward to. Much to my dismay I couldn't find anything intelligent about the Brewer minors except for the spin blurbs on the MLB site about how JM Gold was going to make it back and so on. I changed my search a bit and somehow got a site article from Brewerfan.net at the top of my list. I was thoroughly impressed with the interview, started bouncing around the main page, clicked the forum link, and I was literally "wow'd", which doesn't happen often. I was able to find exactly the information I was looking for, including a ranking of minor league players, I was in heaven. I lurked for a long time, almost a year, then started posting. Brewerfan has pulled my love of the Crew right up and along side of the Packers and all things Badger, and I've found that I enjoy following the minor league side as much as the MLB side. In fact, MiLB is probably more intriguing, I find myself researching other teams minor league system and following the top prospects in all leagues, which is something I never intended getting hooked on. I'd say thank you, but I'm not sure all of the time I spend on bf.net is a good thing...

IIRC the Brewers had over $110 million in debt when the franchise was sold. People do understand that if the team operates in the red, they have to take out more loans which increases the debt load... this is simple economics. The net wealth of the owner is irrelevant, and always has been. The large markets have owners with deep pockets, but more importantly they have huge revenue base, the Yankees even have their own network... that's where the competitive advantage lies, in the market size, because the larger the market, the more revenue you can generate. Mark A thought they would lose money acquiring Sabathia, so hearing they came out slightly in the black is a good thing. This is our team people, don't we want them to fiscally sound like the Packers? I don't think it's fair or reasonable to expect the team to have a payroll around 90 mil every single year. If the farm system can start producing consistent pitching to go with the hitting then maybe the payroll will level out in the 80-90 range for multiple years. We should be proud that the smallest market in baseball has a mid market payroll not complaining about the players that got away because the team felt the $ wasn't worth the risk. The economics of baseball are still an issue, and both the players and the owners are to blame. Though I do think that the player's union in baseball is way too powerful but that's another topic entirely.

The point as far as late season pitching goes is that it's great if a guy helps get you get there, but if he doesn't pitch when you get there, what chance do you have? Is getting to the post season good enough, or is advancing the ultimate goal? I posted last year coming into the players that I'd feel better with Bush on the mound than Sheets, only because I'm always worried that he's going to pull something, get a blister, etc, etc... It's not really fair to Ben I guess, he's a very good pitcher but I just don't trust him anymore and never will again. After all of the abuse I took for supporting him with my friends and family when people were calling him Teddy Sheets I've come around to the opinion that it's not the injury itself, it's the frequency that becomes the issue. It all comes down to trust, and like it or not, every significant Sheets injury has coincided with a Brewer collapse, so I don't think people saying Sheets wasn't there when the team needed him most is a stretch at all. He was basically the anti-Favre, the best player on the team with the most DL time, and that's probably why many of us don't trust the guy.

Dang I always liked Ryan.

A further point on Joe's thoughts... That's the entire issue with FA pitching, I've made my point on guys like Suppan making the most the money on the team and being in the bottom 3rd of the talent pool many times. Now people want to go out and spend more money on another FA pitcher... I guess I could live with short term deal, but another 4 year deal would be absolutely awful in my opinion. Keep your money and pay the best players on the team the most money... I'd rather the team not panic and overspend trying to compete for the division and WC in 2009 if the opportunity truly isn't there. Many of us think it may be there for 2009 but things have to fall properly and the team has to remain healthy. This year's team was about 2 or 3 players away from being a WS contender, next year's team will be about 4 or 5, but starting in 2010 the talent significantly jumps up again. I'm not talking about being 62 -100, I'm talking about being around average for a season. As good as Jack Z was, he never got enough quality starting pitching to Milwaukee, we cannot undo what's been done, and in my opinion there's no good reason to reduce flexibility by paying FA pitchers market value contracts..

If you try harder you could get a post about signing Sheets into every thread on the forum.... It's pretty clear you think the Brewers are solely to blame for Sheets not coming back and the team won't be competitive, but is it necessary to post the same thing over and over and over?

just because it doesn't make sense to you, doesn't mean it's not possible. It may be unlikely, but it's not out of the realm of possibility. Maybe they give up Morrow for 3 hitting prospects... it doesn't have to be Fielder. The quickest way to rebuild when your farm system stinks is to trade premium players for good prospects. Z has no history, so it's difficult to project what he would do, or how close they think they are to being competitive, or what their rebuilding plan would be. They thought they would be competitive this year just like Detroit going into the season so I think Z could go either way. Hughes is selling very low for Fielder, the Yankees would have to package more value for that deal to be anywhere close to even.

It comes down to motivation, if acquiring Fielder puts Seattle in better position to compete sooner, why wouldn't Jack Z entertain the idea? He may very well not want to give up 6 years for 3, but the Brewers gave up 12 years of LaPorta/Brantley for 3.5 months of Sabathia. It all comes down to how quickly Jack Z is supposed to field a competitive team and what sort of window they are looking at. Seattle's farm system isn't very deep, so Z's options are pretty limited right now, I don't see how assuming Seattle would deal is any different than assuming the Yankees would deal. It's not like good teams are the only teams that make deals every year, if a GM thinks a deal makes his club better, he pulls the trigger, regardless of what the fans think they should do. Hughes isn't good enough to pitch in the Yankees rotation now, why would the Brewers trade Fielder for him when Fielders is equal in value to a guy like Shields? I was as high on Hughes as I was Yo, but he's been rather uninspiring in the bigs. Not that he's not capable of turning it around, but I don't have the faith in Hughes to step in and be a top of the rotation guy like the Brewers need. edit. I should add that as far as Seattle is concerned I really like Morrow as a trade target.

That Gross deal looks pretty crappy in hindsight.

I've stated it many times, Fielder or Hardy would be fine by me, I believe in building from the SP on down. We have offensive talent in the system, we do not have any top of the rotation talent above A ball beyond Jeffress and he'll arrive just in time to push Suppan or Bush out the door. I'm not necessarily opposed to Millwood if we're discussing his production as opposed to other FA pitchers, but I'd rather not go the FA route at all. Again I'd rather spend money on bats and keep the rotation as young and inexpenisve as possible for all of the reasons I've explained at length in other posts.

I don't really get this deal at all, the Rangers need more pitching and neither guy is someone I'd do flips for... this is kind of a meh deal to me. I hope this was just exploratory... as in whom would each team be willing to move. If they want to acquire pitching from Texas they should target Neftali Feliz as I've been coveting him for a while now. edit. I would hope that we'd acquire someone on Yo's level or better to slot in front of Parra, not someone vastly more expensive who would slot behind him, Parra is where I have my bar set.

You keep treating this like we're discussing Hardy vs Escobar, when that isn't the case. It would possibly be Escobar + a pitcher vs Hardy, or Gamel/whomever + a pitcher vs Fielder. Runs prevented are just as valuable as runs created, and we have many internal options available in the coming years to help the offense, but we have a serious lack of quality starting pitching in the upper levels of the minors. My primary concern isn't the 2009 Brewers, my primary concern is a building a young roster that extends the competitive window as far as possible. I prefer an organizational view, the Brewers are thin on top notch starting pitching and have quite a bit of hitting, so it makes sense to move one for the other. To acquire a young #2 type pitcher it's going to cost a player of Fielder or Hardy's caliber as we have to give value to get value. I haven't seen anyone say that Escobar should be the opening day SS next year as it would start his clock earlier than many of us would like, but if Hardy will not change positions and sign long term, then the only way he's part of the solution is if he's flipped for another quality player. If Hardy is flipped, then Escobar would have to play, it's that simple. Escobar isn't pushing Hardy out, Hardy would be pushing himself out the door if he's inflexible. If Hardy wants to play SS and get his payday, well I just don't see that happening with the Brewers. It doesn't make sense for them to commit 14/15 million per to a SS when they have a capable replacement. I have no interest in watching both Fielder and Hardy walk in FA for compensation picks, I'd rather have young studs to replace their value than take a chance on draft picks. Realistically how many big contracts will the Brewers be able to carry? It would seem to me that they'll need to have a couple of young cheap players breaking in just about every year to make the financial situation work. On the offensive side of things we have Gamel, Green, Salome/Lucroy that could help plug holes in the next 2 years. If they all play on the IF for example I think Green would be an upgrade over Weeks offensively, Gamel over this year's 3B, Salome/Lucroy would be a huge upgrade over Kendell. The only place Gamel wouldn't be an upgrade offensively is 1B, but even there if he can scoop a ball his ultimate value is greater than that of Fielder. From an organizational standpoint it's not so much about player vs player, as it is possible roster vs possible roster. How do they fit all the parts together to make the best possible team? I don't think it's a stretch to think the Brewers could be a better team without Hardy or Fielder, though if Melvin misses on the trade the team could be much worse, but that's why he makes the big bucks, to make those decisions. I guess in the end I'm all about flexibility and a more long term view of the franchise than I am about 2009, or replacing offensive production immediately.