Brewers talking with Jeff Suppan

[rluzinski]

It's certainly possible but I don't think so.

[twobrewers]

Dang it...I missed my chance to actually provide a bit of a scoop!

 

I was in the airport last night picking up my brother from LA. I was casually paying attention to the passengers unloaded when I thought I saw Melvin. He was traveling very light. Had a phone up to his ear as soon as he got off the plain. I thought...that HAS to be Melvin.

 

I was going to post it last night (This was at midnight that they landed) but I wasn't 100% sure. And I didn't want to be the guy who started the rumor...

 

Oh well...still exciting times to hear the Brewers are active again.

[Never Outhustled]

One other thing that I was pondering.. Suppan appears a little overweight to me. Those guys tend to hit a wall and go downhill really quickly. I suppose that David Wells could be an exception, but he has been on and off the disabled list for the past several years.

 

I'm suprised you see Suppan as overweight, as he's known for his work ethic and commitment to conditioning. Melvin stated early on that he's willing to go after Suppan at his age because of this.

[homer]

I think Suppan is an upgrade but the question is.....do we get Suppan from 2004 - 2006 or the pre 2004 Suppan? His WHiP wasn't very good with STL but his ERA was pretty decent. As has been mentioned, he may have been a product of a good STL defense. If he does not get that kind of support behind him in MKE, will he revert to his KC numbers?

 

All in all, I think you have to take the risk - especially if you think the Brewers playoff window is three years.

[dadofandrew]

I think it's pretty obvious the Crew's depth was rather weak, as they had to go get Graffy and Bell. Depth can also easily be looked at as AAA vets, which was "ok" at best.

 

The funny thing is, if Mark A says we need to improve the bench and to spend what it takes to do so, why would Doug not do it?

[RobertR]

There's no team in baseball that won't have problems if three starting infielders get hurt. At least not if the three players are good players. Heck, the Brewers were lucky that they had Hall on their bench to plug in last year. It's nice to have an All Star caliber player on the bench. And, it's safe to say, Graffanino and Counsell aren't All Star caliber players. Braun is the key to the Brewers depth, not Graffanino, Counsell or Cirillo. Heck, if three players go down again, the Brewers are likely to have to consider Gwynn or Drew Anderson or some AAA middle infielder after Braun and Rottino.

 

Not to mention, the middle infielders had nothing to do with the bullpen collapsing in July and perhaps necessitating that the Brewers pickup a relief pitcher in Cordero instead of a player that could have a longer term impact.

 

Edit: Really, how many teams could survive the loss of three starting infielders that were expected to be good (Hardy, Weeks, and Koskie), two starting pitchers (Sheets and Ohka) one of whom is an Ace, and have their closer implode? Frankly, it's a testament to how well put together the team was that they still treaded water and didn't lose close to 100 games like old Brewer teams would have.

 

Robert

[rluzinski]

There's no team in baseball that won't have problems if three starting infielders get hurt.

 

And the fact the Brewers had Bill Hall waiting to fill one of those posts is amazing. How many backup infielders capable of having an OPS over .800 should a team have on their roster? How many do they have this year? ZERO.

[RobertR]

I'd put forth the argument that the Brewers have 1 backup infielder capable of an .800+ OPS. Ryan Braun.

 

Of course, that has nothing to do with signing of veteran middle infielders, one of whom might be lucky to put up a .700 OPS.

 

Edit: Let's look at the performance of some of the Brewers depth last year.

 

Hall .899 OPS

Cirillo .784 OPS

Gross .857 OPS

Hart .796 OPS

Rivera .783 OPS

 

Frankly, I doubt you'll find a single team which had 5 bench guys perform better than that group did cumulatively.

 

Robert

[reillymcshane]

This is on ESPN - Same kind of info - the team has offered Suppan a 4-year deal.

 

 

 

story

[greeg35]

I wonder what the most viewed thread in bf.net history was.

[lovehate]

If he actually signs this thing could go to 50 pages and 50,000 views, (cue Joey Lawrence "whoa")

[lukevan]

It seems like a stretch to call Bill Hall a bench player at all in 06. He was starting four of five games even before Hardy was injured.

[Invader3K]

Bill Hall was the "super utility guy" in '06.

[reillymcshane]

While Suppan isn't the greatest thing since sliced bread, I would welcome him because he would make the team better.

 

If you added Suppan, went on the assumption Sheets is fully healthy, and Vargas is in the rotation, here are last year's numbers (I doubled Sheets 17 starts/innings/etc.):

 

 Player IP ER BB K WHIP ERA Sheets 212 90 22 232 1.09 3.82 Capuano 221.1 99 47 174 1.25 4.03 Bush 210 103 38 166 1.14 4.41 Suppan 190 87 69 104 1.45 4.12 Vargas 167.2 90 52 123 1.44 4.92 Team: 1001 4.22

 

The 4.22 ERA would be 3rd in the NL. 1001 innings would be most in the NL, and help pen's work load. Are these numbers reachable? I think so. Health is the key. But if we had injuries, Carlos V. Galardo and maybe someone else is ready. A solid staff would help the bullpen from getting overworked (and I think the pen is questionable at this point), and it would mean even if we hit 'averageish', we'd have a good shot at a winning season.

 

I guess a similar signing was Esteban Loiza last year by the A's. They added a sixth starter in him, and it paid off well. When they had injuries (Harden and Loiza himself), they were able to use Saarloos and Halsey - not great players, but passable players who kept things under 5 runs a game and thus kept them in games. They only had 5 games started by 'extras' in the course of the year. In contrast, the Brewers had 27 games started by 7 players, with only Carlos V. looking decent (I actually hope Carlos is in the rotation, but that's just me at this point).

 

An 'average' starter - who clocks in 30 games and 190 innings and gets a 4.5 era, is actually a nice commodity. NOthing great. And at the price, it's not the most comfortable signing. Still, I think it would help.

[dpapo]

ESPNEWS and MLB Radio are both reporting that the Mets have also offerred Suppan a contract. So, the Mets may be going after both Zito and Suppan.

[Invader3K]

We need to quit whining about price. He would add depth, and you can't have enough of that when it comes to a starting rotation. We can either pay 10-12 million/yr for Suppan this off season, or cry that we can't afford the next guy for 14 or 15 million/yr next off season, while ringing our hands that the market is inflated and that MLB needs a salary cap.

 

You can always trade him later, and trade someone like Jenkins right now for salary relief. It's just signing one guy to play for the team, not proclaiming that this is the guy who's going to take us to the promised land and be "the franchise" for the next four years. Geez.

[RobertR]

That's a reasonable point. That said, Hall was clearly part of the Brewers' depth and was able to step into a bigger role upon Hardy's injury. Hardy's injury arguably improved the team.

 

Really, I think the Brewers weathered most of their problems fine until the bullpen collapse. If the bullpen hadn't of collapsed, they probably could have held on to Lee and made a run at it, even with Bell at 3B. Replacing Lee and Koskie with Mench and Bell was more than the team could handle. And a large part of that stemmed from the bullpen taking the team out of the race. I would have loved to have seen what the team could have done in August and September with Lee, an effective Turnbow, Sheets, and Villanueva.

 

Edit: I'm much more positive above adding Suppan than I am about worrying about middle infielder depth. Starting pitching is valuable and we all saw how much the Brewers struggled with the injuries to Sheets and Ohka last season. There's no such thing as too much starting pitching.

 

Robert

[RockCoCougars]

Quote:

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You can always trade him later

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That's probably what Dalton was thinking when he signed Higuera (a much better pitcher than Suppan) in '90. The end result of that was losing Molitor. If Suppan were to get hurt or go Jaimie Navarro on us, they will be stuck with him, and hence will have a convenient excuse for their inability to put a competitve offer on the table for Hall and/or Sheets.

[dadofandrew]

The bullpen certainly wasn't a strong suit, but I'm not sure if "collapse" is the right word. Turnbow's collapse did make us use Lee to get Cordero, but overall, while not strong, I just don't think it fell apart.

 

I'd point to the Ohka/Sheets replacements as more telling than the bullpen...of course, they could easily be related, as the 'pen was asked to do more because of the lack of SP's going deep into games.

[steve267268]

Quote:

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Last year at this time the bench was Hall, Cirillo, Hart, Gross and Moeller. Rivera proved to be an upgrade over Moeller.

 

I'm a lot more impressed with that group than the current one.

---

 

Two of those guys (Hart and Hall) are starters now. So i don't know where you are going to get two more guys like Hall and Hart from.

[steve267268]

Suppan is not going to be anyone's #2 starter. Maybe Pittsburgh. And he's definitly not going to be an ace. What he will be, like many have said, is an insurance policy in case someone else goes down. He is a quality arm, nothing more. We have to spend this money.

 

Right now we have this

 

Sheets

Capuano

Bush

Vargas

Villanueva

---------------------------

Jackson

Gallardo

Hendrickson<-----------------!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

Adding in Suppan puts more space between our major league rotation and guys like Hendrickson. Having Suppan last year might have put us in the playoffs. I doubt that we will lose Sheets and another starter this year again. But if it does happen, i'd rather have

 

Capuano

Suppan

Vargas

Villanueva

Gallardo

 

than

 

Capuano

Vargas

Villanueva

Gollardo

HENDRICKSON

[RobertR]

The bullpen had a 36% save percentage in July. By far the worst in the NL. Nobody else was close to being that bad. Flip it around to them only blowing 36% of their save opportunities, and it's still bad, but it was worth at least 3 games in the standings alone. Convert 10 of 11 like a team with an All Star caliber closer is supposed to do, and the Brewers pick up 6 wins in the standings in July alone.

 

Collapse is the only word that I can think that's appropriate. No matter how you look at it, the Brewers ranked near the bottom in all bullpen categories by the end of the year, even with Cordero being very effective over the last 2 months.

 

Robert

[Invader3K]

Steve, that's a great point. We don't even have Eveland or De La Rosa to fall back on anymore.

 

I really don't want to see Ben Hendrickson start for Milwaukee again, and I doubt anyone here does.

[TooLiveBrew]

Quote:

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What in the world do you talk about for five hours?

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Let's look at it this way -- it was obviously a wine & dine session. The fact that it went so long tells me there was some good food, good chat, but most of all, some good wine & booze http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/wink.gif

 

If they were able to chill & hang out like that, I really like our chances....

[Invader3K]

They should've slipped something in Jeff's drink to get him to sign on the dotted line.