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15 for those 3 or 12 for Co-Co?
Gagne, Riske and Torres without a doubt.
Way to nail it down, Dan!!! :-)
Boston paid for three months of solid relief, a first round draft pick, and a sandwich pick. They got three months of some of the ugliest pitching I've ever seen and one of the last sandwich picks in the draft (roughly #45 overall). Ouch.
Doug Melvin is giving his manager options.
The Brewers DID blow 16 (or was it 17?) leads of 3 or more runs.
All reasonably capable gents with health, a bit of luck and handled correctly. That last one is the tricky part. Ned freely admits he is "challenged" in bullpen management.
And yet Milwaukee did not sacrifice any of its young position talent. Despite assertions otherwise that this would HAVE to happen.
As for the cash, when your main offensive players are all on the cheap you can spend elsewhere. And the least a GM can do is give the kids the type of support to keep 8-4 leads from evaporating.
If you assume a rotation of Sheets, Gallardo, Suppan, Capuano, Bush
Your pen (assuming 7 relievers) becomes Gagne, Riske, Turnbow, Mota, Villanueva, Shouse, Wise
That leaves the following players out in the cold
Parra: most likely heads to their AAA rotation
Vargas: arb-eligible, will probably be non-tendered
Aquino: out of options, arb-eligible, probably won't clear waivers, may get non-tendered
Choate: just signed to a major league deal, what do they do with him?
McClung: out of options, arb-eligible
Spurling: arb-eligible
Stetter: heading down to AAA
Looking at this last list, the Brewers should just let the Tigers have anyone -- or any combination of players -- they want (besides Parra and maybe Stetter) for Brandon Inge. Makes sense for both teams.
[EDIT] Btw, I find it ironic that all three players acquired in the Doug Davis trade are most likely off the Brewers roster in 2008, with Estrada gone and Vargas/Aquino totally redundant.
I don't mean to harp on you Dan, but 99.9% of pitchers will fall "somewhere between the Texas ERA and Boston ERA of Gagne's 2007 season"
Whenever people use the ever popular, "somewhere in between" phrase, prepare to hear the obvious.
I should have said "somewhere right around the middle" instead of "somewhere in between". I think he'll have an ERA around 3.5 to 4.0, and had his true value distorted by luck in both places.
they did sacrifice Johnny Estrada, not that that's going to hurt the team's future.
Who plays catcher now, anyway?
Sorry Doug ignored your "advice" in giving away talent for the D'backs closer.
Though I am sure you are not lacking for more sage words of wisdom on how Melvin should address the team's issues.
Interesting that while Doug attacks his situation your team's GM seems to be sitting on his hands. Concerned?
Or have you not been paying attention so intent are you on blabbering about other teams?
No doubt - just interesting to me. The closer you are to the playoffs, the less willing you are to take bullpen risks (unless you're San Diego). Torres seems like a bit of a waste though.
Estrada isn't the young talent I had in mind.
Jason Kendall and Damian Miller. The Very White Catching Twosome.
Nonsense. They were going to non-tender Johnny Estrada. The only explanation for that trade is that they actually do believe there's a chance -- worth spending $3M on -- that Mota can be salvaged and then help them.
To which I say . . . good luck with that. Har-de-friggin'-har.
Might have, how knows? I don't think he was hurt, I think he had luck and confidence issues.
The Brewers were obviously interested in Valverde. They just didn't want to give up what it would cost to acquire him in a trade. If you read the reports that came out of the Milwaukee and Arizona papers, it was Melvin who approached the Dbacks about Valverde, and found his asking price too much. So heck, maybe Melvin does seem to have the brains to take my advice, just not the balls to act on it.
And I'd argue that my advice in post 19 (acquiring Inge) is sound. He'd cost less than Rolen, in both talent and salary, and he'd tremendously improve the Brewers infield defense. And he's a much safer bet to stay healthy for 500+ ab than Rolen. But then most Brewer fans seem to think very little of Inge, so by extension their GM of similar mental disposition.
Finally, have YOU been paying any attention to the Dbacks before you start blabbering on how they've sat on their hands? Everyone knows their main need is a solid middle of the rotation starter; so far, they've made a three year, $27m offer to Kuroda, who's coming to AZ this week to visit with the team, and they've also spent several days trying to acquire Dan Haren. I also know they've kicked the tires on Clement and Colon as potential one year stopgaps, and have also checked in on the price of Eric Bedard, but found it to be a bit prohibitive. They inquired about Matt Garza but passed when the Twins asked for Justin Upton. They tried to do a three way trade at the winter meetings (presumably to net them a starter from Tampa) that fell apart. In other words, they haven't been sitting on their hands. They just haven't been out there spending tons of cash on the first random reject to cross their way. In short, no, I'm not concerned.
So Harveys, maybe you should be the one paying more attention, and doing less bullying.
What bullying? Because someone has the temerity to ask you questions instead of responding to your constant, incessant provocations in all of their varying forms?
Shocking as this may seem some of us can discern legitimate baseball talk from someone intent in creating strife and discontent where previously none existed.
Your reputation precedes you and whenever you show yourself in a Brewer-related thread I am always at the ready.
You have been duly informed. Speak reason or speak not.
It's an interesting idea. More than any other team, the Brewers might benefit by trading some offense for defense. The ideal solution, of course, is for Braun to work hard all winter and come into camp ready to do the job himself. Just don't know how realistic that is. (Not criticizing his work ethic, but if it were easy to play ML defense he would be doing so already.)
Regarding Inge, the Brewers have an OBP issue. Inge's defense is offset by his lack of OBP.
Melvin told the writers that was his reasoning on Inge.
I have objection to Iguchi.
OK, Harveys, what is not reasonable about post 19? Please, educate me. Better yet, please let me know how you'd sort out the Brewers bullpen situation? Please let us know how you'd manage it if you were Melvin? Or how you'd manage it in-season if you were Yost?
Suit yourself. Hopefully that doesn't interfere with your ability to engage in and "discern legitimate baseball talk". And I'm sure that by "legitimate baseball talk" you mean a whole bunch of ridicule and profanities directed at Ned Yost. Best baseball analysis I've seen here.
Doubt it. He's on the trading block for sure, but he's at least an adequate #5 starter and probably still has value on the trading block. He's probably a better value than what's out there in free agency.
You're most likely right. Originally I meant to say "will probably be non-tendered if not traded". My guess is some team will want to look at him as a back of the rotation guy, but I won't be shocked if his trade value is rather limited. He'll probably make over $4m in arbitration next year, and he's not that good of a starter to begin with.
Actually, I was having a bit of fun tossing some of your alleged humor in your direction. Your responses disappoint. Not nearly the thick-skinned josher I expected.
I have no interest in playing babysitter. Just wanted to dabble in your odd world. And alas, you responded no better than others you delight in antagonizing.
Informative though.
translation of the edit: "Dbacks pwned the Brewers."
Given Levksi's track record, are you really surprised?
I wonder how much money Melvin has left to spend on getting the left handed on base guy he wants.
Given Levksi's track record, are you really surprised?
Surprised that someone would have a knee jerk reaction to seeing his name in a Brewers thread, totally overlooking the actual content of the post? I guess not.
I think too many people are way too judgmental. Yeah, he's snarky, and likes to tweak, and probably isn't as funny as he thinks he is, ;) but the guy's content and contributions are more often than not pretty much correct. I see a lot worse going on around here on a daily basis. The personal attacks that are rife on this site are far worse than the teasing Levski likes to give out over some teams personnel movements.
And I'll dispute your statement about my humor. I'm not as ass-slappingly, belly-achingly funny as Harveys (who, turns out, was only stoking a fire for kicks and giggles), but I'm one damn funny mo-fo. I can bring a roomful of out-of-towners at the Comedy Cellar to their knees in 3 minutes with my jokes (granted, most of them would beg me to stop)...
Blowjobs from groupies should always be welcome.
And they get plenty of value for the $15 spent on admission.
Haudricourt: Gagne deal is for one year
He reports Gagne might get about $10m
LOLOLOLOLOOOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOOLOOOLOLOLOOLOLOLLLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL
That makes it a bad deal unless Gagne becomes something similar to Gagne v.2003.
Possibly, but given how much the Brewers can spend, it's not a great idea for them to take an expensive gamble like this. They could probably find value similar to what Gagne is likely to put up from inside the system. Melvin is spending a lot to gamble that Gagne is really good next year.
Indications the last few months seem to be Sheets, Gallardo, Suppan, Villanueva - and then who is ever left/not traded of Capuano/Vargas/Bush/Parra fights for the 5th spot, and a couple could go to the pen (Bush, perhaps Parra unless they want to keep him in AAA) to serve there/wait for the Ben Sheets injury.
Seems unlikely, with the premium on pitching. Even $4m/1yr for a back-end rotation guy isn't unreasonable in the current market. No sense giving usable pitchers away, even if they're far from world-beaters (once the Santana/Haren/Bedard stuff settles down, how rich are Silva/Lohse going to be?). Teams are dying for pitching - Vargas would be St. Louis' - what - number three guy? If they go to arb with Vargas, they still have the ability to trade him.
It's a split contract, actually. $75K if he's in the minors.
DFA'd towards the end of the year, cleared and outrighted to AAA.
Their core is still pre-arb, so now's the time for a one-year slight overpay. Attansasio's basically admitted they're making money - MLB revenues are strong and the Brewers' attendance has turned around the last few years - so the days of $30ish million payrolls are in the past.
It's been over 25 years since the last playoff appearance - there's no need to be timid, when the worst case scenario is that you spent too much on Gagne for a single year. There's not much else on the FA market that would do much for the Brewers, so I have no problem with spending the money on Gagne - it's not like there's many better options to spend the $$$ on, and it doesn't harm 2009.
There are two scenarios here. 1) Gagne fails, either he gets hurt or he is ineffective. In that case a 1 year deal is worth more than the 2 year deal for sure. 2) Gagne is effective. This most likely pushes him into type A FA level which means the Brewers get 2 picks for losing him which makes up the over pay. Either way I strongly believe a 1 year $10M deal is better than 2 year deal would have been. They overpayed by about $2M but it made good fiscal sense to do it one way or the other.
I skipped over a bunch of stuff, so apologies if this has been discussed, but: Gallardo is the 2nd guy? Really? Already?
Actually at this point it looks like it's going to be Kendall and either Mike Rivera or Eric Munson (or maybe even Vinny Rottino). I'm cheering for Rivera in that scenario (actually I cheer for him in any scenario, I like him a lot for whatever reason). Doug apparently told Damian they don't have any interest in bringing him back.
I actually like this Gagne deal in theory, even if it's for $10 million. With so many young, good players, it makes sense for a small-payroll team like the Brewers to pay a little extra in order to secure short-term contracts with free agents. They don't want to be saddled with too many long-term deals when Fielder, Hart, and Braun (among others) start getting expensive. It would be terrible if re-signing Cordero had ended up costing them a Fielder or a Hart down the road.
well they did didn't they?
Towers cleaned their clock in the Linebrink trade too ..
just stating facts.
I'll agree with that.
Good signing for the Brewers.
Melvin still is up 3 touchdowns on the D-Backs when you factor in the Sexson trade.
They still have the 6th through 8th to cover... Too much bullpen depth is rarely a problem.
Fortunately the guy that forced that deal through is gone for 3 years now.
No they didn't. Doug Davis(4.72 xFIP) had about the same year as Cladio Vargas(4.89 xFIP) last season except Davis had a good defense/bullpen behind him and vargas had a miserable one. Doug Davis would have had a 5+ ERA for the Brewers last year. Estrada played hurt so he is hard to judge as happy as I am to see him go. He was still a better option than Rivera which would have been the Brewer C. The other people in the trade probably will never make it in the majors.
Linebrink brought the team 2 draft picks that are as high or higher than the prospects they traded went, so until we see how all those prospects pan out there i no way to judge that deal. The Brewers missed the playoffs by 2 games and getting that RP migth have pushed them into the playoffs so the idea was a good one. It most likely comes down to Inman which most scouts don't think will be anything but a #4/#5 type pitcher even though his minor league numbers look better... though any pitcher can look good in San Diego.
I'd like to see the Brewers get either Crede or Ensberg and then trade for Coco Crisp. Shuffle the young guys appropriately and then deal off the excess. Improving the defense should be the number one priority.
Does anyone actually watch him pitch? If you are a fan of the team he is pitching on every inning is like waiting for impending doom, he sometimes avoids it, and you pray he doesn't come out for the next inning. The fifth inning last year, with the stellar .368/.425/.482 against line, looks particularly fun.
Whatever deal he has cut with the devil has to expire soon.
In the American League his name is Igawa. Check out his interleague stats from last year.
http://www.baseball-reference.com/pi/psplit.cgi?n1=davisdo02&year=2007
I Split G GS GF W L S CG SHO IP ERA H R ER HR BB IBB SO HBP
+-+------------+---+--+--+--+--+--+--+---+-----+------+---+---+---+--+---+---+---+---+
Inter-League 4 4 0 1 2 0 0 0 19.1 8.38 31 18 18 5 13 0 13 1
He should send thank you cards out to the other NL West teams and pray he never leaves that division.
So the Brewers got taken for his luckbox season last year? Congratulations...
With all the players in LA and SD seeing his act again this year, I bet his ERA is north of 5.50 this season.
As for Gagne good for the Brewers....they addressed a need without a long term commitment. Now if the whole team is down in Surprise taking grounders and catching flyballs right now through the start of the season their defense may be passable for a good SEC conference game.
I am not at all claiming any kind of "ownage" over the Brewers/D backs deal. Each team got what they needed out of the deal, kind of, so it was a good deal. But I think you are confusing xFIP with actual results. xFIP is simply an experimental metric designed to predict future ERA, it is not a metric to measure the actual value contributed by the pitcher.
By any objective measure, Davis contributed more than Vargas in 2007. He started 10 more games and threw 59 more innings.
PRC, or pitching runs created:
Davis 79
Vargas 47
Pitching VORP
Davis 28.6
Vargas 8.6
It should also be noted that Davis had a DER of .682, while Vargas was at .690 Milwaukees defense might have been bad, but Vargas might have received somewhat better defensive support than a lot of the other pitchers on the staff....for example Suppan had a .682 DER and Bush had a .680 , and Capuano .670
Davis isn't easy on the eyes, thats for sure, and certainly his WHIP would seem to indicate he will need to allow far fewer baserunners in the future if his ERA is to stay below league average. But in 2007 Davis pitched out of a lot of jams, and was far more valuable, and got far better results for Arizona than Vargas did for Milwaukee. It wasn't even remotely close, and xFIP is no way to try to determine their actual contributions.
I wasn't trying to determine contributions, I was trying to determine how good they actually were and for that xFIP is a much better tool than say VORP or ERA. Davis had a very luck driven ERA in the low 4's. You are correct that Vargas had a minor injury and missed time and then was put in the bullpen but that wasn't really something the GM's could count on. To me those two pitchers were pretty interchangable so it is hard to say one team owned the other in the deal.
Milwaukee is this close to making the playoffs, closing a tight gap when you have one, maybe two roster spots left should not be held up over $1-2, even $3 million dollars for one year.
Geez, milwaukee made close to $50 million in profit last year, they sure can afford it. And if their primary goal is to get into the playoffs in 2008, instead of getting every contract for the exact "right" figure, then this is a good signing. I sure hope their goal is playoffs in 2008.
I wasn't trying to determine contributions, I was trying to determine how good they actually were and for that xFIP is a much better tool than say VORP or ERA. Davis had a very luck driven ERA in the low 4's. You are correct that Vargas had a minor injury and missed time and then was put in the bullpen but that wasn't really something the GM's could count on. To me those two pitchers were pretty interchangable so it is hard to say one team owned the other in the deal.
Davis had a 4.64 FIP, Vargas had a 5.09 FIP. Davis was better than Vargas in 2007 by EVERY measure that one might reasonably to use to measure the quality of their pitching. Again, xFIP is to help you try to predict FUTURE ERA, and is in no way a better tool than VORP or ERA to measure "how good they actually were".
I honestly feel you are misapplying this metric. The main reason that the gap between the 2 looks smaller with xFIP is because xFIP thinks that Vargas should be allowing fewer homers than he has been, and that Davis should be allowing more than he has been. But if you go to each pitchers THT page and look closely at their HR/FB rates over the last 3-4 years, I think you will see that is not really the case.
And once again, I will repeat....neither team owned the other.....I already said that.
I believe shoewizard adequately addressed torn-cuff's points. I don't care how you twist xFIP wrt Davis/Vargas, Davis alone had higher VORP than Estrada + Vargas + Aquino combined (if you'd allow me to combined VORP here). So the Dbacks gained more from the trade than the Brewers. That is a fact, but we're not talking about pwn4ge here either; this is not another AJ Przhevalsky trade. You'll also note that the Dbacks released Krynzel and Eveland missed 07 with torn ligament in his thumb. But ironically, I still think Eveland will be the most valuable player moved in that trade over the next 5 years. Just watch. Eveland will make that trade a pwn4ge.
54
NTN, thanks for the corrections. God knows I need to be paying more attention to what in the wide wide world is happening to the Choates or Spurlings of baseball. Otherwise Harveys may show up ready to beat me up with a pitch fork.
The Brewers will have to make two roster moves soon, to add Riske and Gagne on their 40 man roster, so a couple of the relievers in post 19 may be gone soon. I read somewhere that WhatAMench and WiseGuy might find themselves DFAed. Surprised to see WiseGuy's name thrown in the speculation, but he is getting expensive and he's probably pretty fungible these days.
>:O
I was under the impression Gagne had a pretty good change.
I didn't see much of him this season but I would think that as he gets farther away from his elbow surgery he would become (more) willing to use his breaking ball.
Well, you wouldn't because there was obviously something wrong with him at the end of the season. Either he had a tired arm, or he was hurt and not admitting it, or something. Whatever pitches he had that made him dominant he did not have pitching for the Red Sox.
Whatever the problem was is either going to be resolved or its not. I expect his ERA this year to either be in the 2's or in the 6's. I don't think he's going to be somewhere in the middle. So what you are paying for is the chance that he's going to be great, which is something different than paying for a guy who is more predictable, but with less upside.
Like he was in Texas?
It's alot of money, more than I'd pay, but heck, it's only one year.
In the games I was watching, he had no control, as you said, but I also wouldn't call the movement "sick". It was okay, the curve and change were pretty far short of spectacular.
That said, I agree that he either had a mechanical issue or he was hurting. If he resolved whatever the issue was, he'll be fine, possibly great, but there's no guarantee that he'll resolve the issue.
It wasn't a matter of a small sample size. When some as good as Gagne normally is struggles taht much, there's something wrong.
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