Could McGehee be the Brewers best chance to net some pitching this offseason?

[benji]

Spend the money? Where, on the free agent market? Because there's nothing attractive there this winter.

Even if they were to trade for an established starter with a contract they brewers will need payroll room.

[dadofandrew]

If you're going to trade someone, trade Hardy who will cost $8M and has a replacement. McGehee will cost $500K and is a nice bench player or starter. To me, those are the guys you happily keep a few years.

[PeaveyFury]

McGehee will cost $500K and is a nice bench player or starter.

 

Assuming he doesn't go back to the production you'd expect from his minor league numbers.

 

I'm fairly surprised Al- aren't you normally wary of the small sample size and big on buy low, sell high? Why is McGehee different?

[trwi7]

If you're going to trade someone, trade Hardy who will cost $8M and has a replacement.

So you think Hardy is going to nearly double his salary from this year after the year he's had? I doubt that.

 

I'm not sure Hardy has the same trade value he had last offseason, if that's the case I'd probably keep him at least until the trade deadline.

[LouisEly]

By and large, a majority of players who get to the majors have that special label of "potential". For a majority of those, the question is whether or not they can make the adjustments to the next level. That is why some prospects with a lot of potential fail, and why some seemingly come out of nowhere and make it. While McGehee does not have the sexiness of a minor league career where he dominated, he appears to be the type who is capable of making adjustments. Interesting that he started in A-ball at age 20, and then made slight improvements when he went up a level to A+, then a significant improvement with jump to AA. Then a bit of a dropoff in the move to AAA, but rebounded; to me his track record says that he makes adjustments when he gets to the next level. Will he stay at .900 OPS? Unlikely. But I wouldn't put it past him to stay at .800.

 

This is why I don't like the proverbial "MLE" stat - it doesn't take into account a players ability, and often times just pure willingness, to make adjustments.

[jeffy]

I find it hard to imagine that Melvin wouldn't trade McGehee for pitching if the opportunity arose. Considering our lack of pitching, our infield depth, and that McGehee's value is at its height so far in his career, he seems like a perfect candidate to be dealt.

If the right opportunity arises, I would hope Melvin would trade any position player on the current major league roster, other than Braun, for pitching. There should be a much lower threshold for a trade to be "the right opportunity", if the player we are trading is McGehee than if it is Fielder, but no one besides Braun should be designated as off limits.

[Invader3K]

I think the fact is, at the end of the season, the Brewers will have a bit of a surplus of infielders. They will need to deal from that position of strength if they will have any hope of acquiring quality starting pitching for next season. McGehee makes sense to deal, because he probably has a lower upside than a player like Gamel or Weeks and may be more of a health risk (I guess Weeks arguably could be, though). I'm not gung ho about trading him, due to the great year he's been having, but if you can deal him for a decent starting pitcher, I don't think there's any real question that Melvin would have to pull the trigger at that point.

[Gobias Industries]

I think it's gonna be tough to sell high on McG. I'm guessing most GM's are gonna be leery of a 26 yr old guy that was never a top-notch prospect putting up big numbers out of nowhere, basically. Of course, there's a chance DM could get lucky and have a GM like Dayton Moore offer us a decent starter for him.

 

If that doesn't happen, I'd rather just hang onto the guy, as he's cheap and versatile.

[Funketown]

Looking at the infield situation, Mcgehee, Hardy, Hall, Gamel, Escobar, Weeks, and Fielder are all under contract for next year. I think the best idea here would be to obviously not do anything until there is a better understanding of Mcgehee's knee surgery results (maybe this is a minor surgery, I don't know about this stuff). If McGehee is healthy, I'd play him in a utility role, platooning with hall at 3rd and playing 2nd for Rickie's odd day off. Gamel could be moved to RF. Otherwise I guess McGehee could move to RF, but I don't see him having enough range to play the outfield.

[Invader3K]

Gamel could be moved to RF

 

I know this keeps coming up...but do we have any indication that the Brewers are considering something like this? The announcers on yesterday's TV broadcast got a question on this (re: Gamel being moved to right field) and down played any chance of that happening.

[FVBrewerFan]

Well, that's what you get with a surplus of infielders and a lack of outfielders. So far I've read about moving Weeks, Gamel, and McGehee to the OF. I've ssen Hardy moved to 2B and 3B. And I've seen moving Escobar to 2B. This is natural, as all of us are trying to make the pieces fit. But to answer your question, I haven't seen or heard anything from the Brewers about considering any moves. Doesn't mean they're not talking about it, just not publicly.

 

I believe Gamel will stay at 3B, Hardy at SS (for one more year), and Weeks at 2B. Escobar will be brought up as a utility guy, playing SS and 2B. Eventually starting if there is an injury, or if Hardy is traded during the season. Hall has to be on the roster, backing up virtually every position on the field other than pitcher. They'll try to move McGehee, and if they can't, he'll be the other utility player, getting time at 3B and 2B until the situation works itself out.

 

That's how I see it, room enough for everyone. Keeping McGehee isn't the worst thing to have, since Weeks health is in question and Gamel isn't a fully proven commodity. Good insurance to have on the bench. Escobar can have time to settle in, I don't think Macha is a fan of throwing a young player into a full time starting roll anyhow.

 

I could be wrong, but I think it's near impossible for McGehee to play OF, and I really doubt they move Weeks out there either. About the only move like that they may consider is moving Gamel to LF and Braun over to RF. Hart is traded, moved to CF, or becomes the #4 OF.

[jazzytrav]

I feel quite the opposite, but that's just from watching the games. I haven't looked into the data on him at all.

Of third baseman who have played 150 innings, he has the worst UZR/150 at -48.3.

Dusty Baker has no idea what you just said.

[nate82]

I could be wrong, but I think it's near impossible for McGehee to play OF, and I really doubt they move Weeks out there either. About the only move like that they may consider is moving Gamel to LF and Braun over to RF. Hart is traded, moved to CF, or becomes the #4 OF.

Right now with McGehee's injury the way it is yes it would be impossible for McGehee to play the OF. Next year if McGehee is healthy he could play LF or RF I would rather see him play LF but moving Braun again may not be a good idea since he has become rather comfortable in LF.

 

McGehee is very comparable to Mark DeRosa where he can play multiple positions. He can't play all of the positions greatly but he is adequate at nearly every position he could play at. If Hart is traded in the off season I would bet that McGehee and Hall would get the chance to play one of the corner outfield spots over Gamel. I don't see the Brewers moving Gamel at all off of 3B.

[joepepsi]

Pretty sure 2010's infielders will be Prince, Rickie, Escobar, Gamel, McGehee, and Counsell.

 

That covers all bases, (pun intended), relatively cheaply, provides good righty/lefty matchups, and adequately covers injuries.

[chadomac]

Am I the only person that thinks McGehee is an awful third baseman defensively? I don't have any stats to back it up, I just have formed this opinion from watching the games.

[mletto157]

Am I the only person that thinks McGehee is an awful third baseman defensively? I don't have any stats to back it up, I just have formed this opinion from watching the games.

Probably. I would say he is pretty average there. Definitely not awful, but also not great.

[Funketown]

Am I the only person that thinks McGehee is an awful third baseman defensively? I don't have any stats to back it up, I just have formed this opinion from watching the games.

No, definitely not. The bottom line is, his UZR/150 says that he has been terrible this year. As was mentioned earlier, given the sample size, that does not say much about his performance in the future at third, but although I don't have the UZR data to back it up, I doubt many premiere fielding 3B's have ever posted numbers like that even in a small sample. Basically what I'm saying here is that both Bill Hall and Ryan Braun can go through an 0 for 30, but that type of performance in a small sample is much more likely to happen for a Bill Hall than a Ryan Braun. Understanding that samples of this size for UZR are similar to 20-30 AB's for a player, it would be ridiculous to conclude that Casey McGehee is a bad defensive 3B, but it is somewhat more likely that he is a bad defensive 3B than a good defensive 3B.

 

Hopefully that rant is somewhat coherent.

[mletto157]

I don't know about that Funketown. The problem with a small sample is that if someone has one really bad game it completely throws off the data. Once the sample gets large enough you can then say if that really was just one really bad game from an otherwise average or even good defensive player; or if that type of game is a common theme and said player really is that bad.

 

At this point all we have to go off in the majors is this year, but we do have minor league performance to go off too - and that data would suggest he's a pretty average defender.

[endaround]

Am I the only person that thinks McGehee is an awful third baseman defensively? I don't have any stats to back it up, I just have formed this opinion from watching the games.

No, definitely not. The bottom line is, his UZR/150 says that he has been terrible this year. As was mentioned earlier, given the sample size, that does not say much about his performance in the future at third, but although I don't have the UZR data to back it up, I doubt many premiere fielding 3B's have ever posted numbers like that even in a small sample. Basically what I'm saying here is that both Bill Hall and Ryan Braun can go through an 0 for 30, but that type of performance in a small sample is much more likely to happen for a Bill Hall than a Ryan Braun. Understanding that samples of this size for UZR are similar to 20-30 AB's for a player, it would be ridiculous to conclude that Casey McGehee is a bad defensive 3B, but it is somewhat more likely that he is a bad defensive 3B than a good defensive 3B.

 

Hopefully that rant is somewhat coherent.

 

The problem with defensive data is that the 0-30 actually happened. By that I mean if we have a .280 hitter on the season we can argue whether that's a good projection going forward but we do know he got a hit in 28% of his ABs. Defensive stats are more like saying guy hit .280 based upon the velocity and direction the ball traveled when it left his bat so we can only estimate he hit .280. I wish Dave Cameron understood this fact.

[dadofandrew]

All defensive metrics seem to be far too high as well. 48 runs seems high unless you have a guy playing 3B who has to run it to a base. I think 3B only average a couple chances a game, so that number seems very unrealistic, as it's just under a third of a run per outing. Last night, Casey made several routine plays, and a very nice one late, so I promise you he was positive, meaning he's even more negative in others? The math just doesn't work.

[Brawndo the Thirst Mutilat]

All defensive metrics seem to be far too high as well. 48 runs seems high unless you have a guy playing 3B who has to run it to a base. I think 3B only average a couple chances a game, so that number seems very unrealistic, as it's just under a third of a run per outing. Last night, Casey made several routine plays, and a very nice one late, so I promise you he was positive, meaning he's even more negative in others? The math just doesn't work.

This is just a small sample artifact, though, and in no way is it an indication that the metric is broken. It's the same thing as when a guy has an incredibly hot first couple weeks of the season, and people say, "he's on pace for 108 HR and 264 RBI!" From a simple mathematical perspective (multiplication and long division = ok, linear regression = huh?), the statement is true, but everybody knows that he won't maintain that pace, and that the "projection" is just a silly curiosity. It's a way of expressing how hot the guy has been, rather than forecasting how well you think the rest of his season will go.

 

If you look at the UZR (not UZR/150) leaderboards at fangraphs for any given season, you'll see that only a couple players usually crack 20 runs or so in either direction. Last year, Utley was the only +20 guy, and the only -20 guys were Abreu and Hawpe. Hawpe was the only player in MLB with a result I'd describe as outlandish (-37.2 runs), and honestly, part of understanding statistical distributions is understanding that you have to expect the occasional weird outlier datapoint that is several standard deviations away from the mean.

 

This year is much the same. Nyjer Morgan (if you combine his LF and CF innings) and Adam Dunn are really the only guys with realistic shots at ending up more than 30 runs from average in either direction (give you three guesses which one is positive and which is negative). Out of the 4 or 5 additional guys who could get to +20 or -20, a couple probably will.

 

I suppose my point is that McGehee's huge negative UZR/150 number isn't a common thing for a player with anything resembling a meaningful number innings for UZR to work with. Obviously, it's much more common over short runs of playing time, because the signal-to-noise ratio just gets too low. McGehee's UZR/150 was +59.2 in 41 innings for the Cubs last year, it's -48.3 in 168 innings at 3B this year, and neither of those results should be seen as useful descriptively or predictively, but neither should they be seen as a reason to dismiss useful UZR results out of hand.

[MarquesJohnson2000]

Macha, at least, seems to think McGehee's injury has affected his defense, so maybe there's hope he would be better if healthy.

[TooLiveBrew]

The announcers on yesterday's TV broadcast got a question on this (re: Gamel being moved to right field) and down played any chance of that happening.

 

That's very reassuring to hear. Gamel has definitely improved at third, and I'm glad the Brewers recognize his value there.

[KCBrewerfan34]

As usual we're fooling ourselves, only a Gamel or Escobar package brings us a #1 or #2, the only guys on the major league roster brings us top pitching would be Braun or Fielder.

[TheCrew07]

That depends on whom you are targeting... if we're talking someone like Cain... ya that's probably fair, but speaking only for myself I was thinking more along the lines of prospect acquisitions. I'm on record many many times with the opinion that the Brewers missed their window to sell high on certain players for MLB pitching.