What return could we expect for Hardy

[MNBrew]

You know, the OPS thing is so disproportionate when Escobar has such a relatively small sample size, is a developing 21-year-old upper prospect, and doesn't hit HRs like Hardy....

 

For all you ragging on Escobar's OPS being worse than Hardy's, Escobar triples in his 1st AB and now has an OPS of .708. One triple and he suddenly greatly distanced himself.

[Never Outhustled]

Wouldn't AAA be a great place to work on plate discipline? Sending him their to work on it, and defensive consistency too.

[Invader3K]

You say that like he didn't already spend a ton of time in AAA. I assume he'll also play winter ball too.

 

The fact is Hardy is going to get traded this winter, assuming Melvin gets some kind of reasonable offer.

[kramnoj]

Hardy is one of the best SS in the major leagues who had a bad year. And if they jettison him for that bad year, well, I don't know.

 

Melvin has no need to jettison Hardy. Having an extra year of control gives him flexibility. That being said, I do think it's best to trade Hardy this offseason. I don't have confidence that this is a fluke for Hardy. I think Hardy is far more sensitive than the average pro athlete, and having Escobar as an understudy doesn't sit well with Hardy, I don't think. The worst thing that could happen is for Hardy to come back and continue to be in a funk where he worries about his future.

[Hate those Rodents]

Yep, another half-year of this type of production out of JJ and he becomes another Bill Hall that we'd gladly shed the contract of for a wiffle ball tee and an incrediball.

[dadofandrew]

There's 5-6M reasons to trade Hardy. Sure, you can pay everyone that, but eventually, you run out of cash and have no money to improve the staff.

[TheCrew07]

Wouldn't AAA be a great place to work on plate discipline? Sending him their to work on it, and defensive consistency too.

Sure to but to what end? It's easy to say send him down to the minors to work on stuff, but what actually happens down there development wise other than guys playing and taking batting practice every day? How much individual fundamental work do they get? I would really like to know because the more I think about it, the more I wonder if baseball development isn't mostly left up to the player in the minors. With that in mind, would more minor league time even matter if he doesn't truly care about it? I thought I knew everything as a teenager and into my early 20s, I think most of us did and got a rude awakening at some point, that's just sort of the nature of the beast and maturing as an individual. As tough as I was on Prince regarding his defense last season, he's been very good this season... he came in looking like he dropped 25-30 LBs, and it appears he cares about defense now. Sometimes I think the player needs to be on the highest stage and be roundly criticized for the message to sink in. I don't mean to suggest Fielder reads bf.net and happens to care what we've both said about his defense, but it was pretty common knowledge around the game, and national pundits discussed it as well. Escobar just doesn't strike me as the type of player who's going to get appreciably better without being pushed. His AAA season was essentially the same as his AA season, minus .030 of AVE and a different mix of XBHs. I should probably mention he stole more bases this year as well, but I really don't care about that at all to be honest, base stealing is king of a "blah" skill to me right now. In AAA he'll always be the flashy guy who makes sloppy plays in spurts, but who's still considered the best defensive SS in all of MiLB... so maybe he'll make improvements, I'm just not sure I buy it, because he's already had success to a certain degree.

[kramnoj]

X ellence has been adamant that Escobar will be better at 29 than at 23 and that the Brewers should use him accordingly. I don't know if he has laid out why exactly, but someone else mentioned Ozzie Smith, and he had an interesting progression with the bat.

[Hate those Rodents]

Braun and Fielder would have helped us more a year later. Gallardo would have helped us more a year later. Etc. Etc. Etc. He is right though, but really you could say that about any good player.

[kramnoj]

Braun and Fielder would have helped us more a year later.

 

How would Braun have helped more a year later?

[TheCrew07]

I have no doubt that X is absolutely correct with that assessment, but this issue isn't really a "best case" scenario. Best case would have probably been riding out to JJ to FA because we had enough pitching to get the job done. Unfortunately, we have 1 overworked #2 in Yo, and 4 #4/5 pitchers plus Hardy tanked horribly this season so we're about as far from best case as it gets. If Escobar proves valuable I see no good reason why the team wouldn't want to lock him up and buy out some FA years to have him under contract through his peak as a player, we could easily control both Escobar and Gamel until they are 30.

 

In a perfect world you keep Esky down until JJ moves on via FA, I just don't agree that letting the situation play out that conservatively was the best course of action for DM. If I'm going to take a risk and move an All-Star for some pitching, I'm going to bet on a prospect like Escobar who keeps making incremental gains and is ascending. Maybe there was no deals, maybe there was... at the time Hardy was clearly the more valuable player both in production and trade value, but now if he doesn't rebound he's about as valuable as Hall... similar production for 2ish mil less per year.

 

The offense has done well with Kendell, Hardy, and Hart sucking, we simply didn't need to keep all of our bats to remain competitive. I truly do not understand the obsession with these position player arguments when the issue is so obviously with the pitching. Coming into last off season the biggest issue with the team was going to be the pitching, the pitching still is the issue, and the pitching will continue to be the issue until the holes are addressed with some quality long term solutions. I'm not talking about trading every single player before they reach FA, not at all, I'm hoping the Brewers reach a point here talent wise where's that sort of scenario is very plausible. I don't think we're there yet as an organization, we still have some glaring holes to fill, and I still believe DM needs to be more aggressive in his pursuit of pitching, his best moves have all been relatively safe trades.

 

He traded surplus prospects for a Cy Young Rental and he traded a reserve outfielder in Gross for a 2nd round pick that was sort of an enigma and who really struggled last season in Butler. However those deals were mostly the type of move that's he's always made,,, He traded Kolb who was a surplus reliever for Capellan, traded garbage Franklin for Villy, traded surplus in Overbay for MLB ready talent, he traded lower ceiling surplus minor league pitching for Linebrink... do we see a pattern here? The vast majority of DM's moves are low risk from the Brewer perspective, but even a low risk move can fail, see the Davis trade.

 

Escobar vs Hardy isn't about production or service time in a player vs player comparison, it's about building the best possible team for today and tomorrow.

[Hate those Rodents]

Braun and Fielder would have helped us more a year later.

 

How would Braun have helped more a year later?

Fine. I'll let him be the one exception, but you get the obvious drift that basically ANY player is going to be more valuable if you wait a year, so we could whine about any player that's every come up through the system practically. Which is why it is a little funny to me that a few ONLY do this with Escobar.

[endaround]

Who only does it with Escobar? Many here complained they brought up Hardy too early. The difference with Hardy and Escobar vs Weeks, Fielder, Braun, Hart, and even Gamel is those later 5 destroyed AAA pitching before getting called up. In addition those later 5 were all expected to outproduce the incumbent player.

[Tbadder]

We'll see who is right very shortly because Hardy will be traded. I say it's gonna be for junk. I'm betting either:

 

a) a Corey Hart like outfielder, or

b) a Braden Looper type pitcher, or

c) a decent reliever

 

I'm hoping it's some minor leaguers with upside. But I can't see anyone giving up a decent arm for this guy.

[Hate those Rodents]

Oriole fans seem to like the idea of JJ for Guthrie. Not sure if you guys would or not, but I think he'd make a nice affordable #3 starter for the next two years and maybe beyond. Stats aren't great this year, nor our JJ's, but the past two years they were just fine.

[TheCrew07]

Who only does it with Escobar? Many here complained they brought up Hardy too early. The difference with Hardy and Escobar vs Weeks, Fielder, Braun, Hart, and even Gamel is those later 5 destroyed AAA pitching before getting called up. In addition those later 5 were all expected to outproduce the incumbent player.

The only way the Escobar situation is similar to Hardy at all is because they both play SS and we've never had enough pitching as an organization, that's it.

 

JJ was brought up prior to the rest of the core, which didn't make any baseball sense at all, there was only a PR angle to be had there and I guess Melvin didn't want to sign a stop gap SS. Hardy only had 3 full seasons in the minors, Escobar has 6, as he started at Helena as an incredibly raw 17 year old. The state of the big league club was vastly different now and going in 2009 than it was going into 2005. The situations couldn't be more different in terms of development, state of the MLB team, and state of the organization.

 

Again I say if Escobar turns out to be the real deal, why wouldn't they just buy out some of his FA years prior to arby? It's not like we have to be locked into a 6 year window with him. Furthermore, and I hate to be constantly repeating myself, the replacement player for Hardy didn't have to be Escobar, they could have gone more offensive and called up Gamel sliding Hall back to SS, or signed a stop SS, or whatever. I honestly believe that people have been arguing so vehemently against Escobar they've missed the biggest issue here which is pitching talent.

 

There was a very small group of posters on this site that wanted to move a position player for pitching this off season, none of us thought that Escobar was a perfect fit, but Hardy was the most logical solution to our problem. He was coming off of 2 really good years for a SS, had 2 years left prior to FA, and was the most expendable player on the roster. Our most valuable position players coming out of 2008 were Hardy, Fielder, and Braun. I continue to be on the fence regarding a trade of Fielder, when last season I was all over that bandwagon, but since we moved LaPorta there isn't another talented 1B in the system, and I like Gamel best at 3B. Braun was signed to be the face of the franchise, he's not going anywhere in a trade, so that left Hardy. Fielder situation to me is pretty grey, at this time I'm inclined to ride him out into FA and take comp picks for him, but the Hardy situation was black & white and an easy call given the other alternatives.

[Never Outhustled]

The reason I say Escobar will be more useful at 29 than 23 is because he is currently a below replacement level player. If anyone expects him to be a below replacement level player at 29, then I don't know why were even talking about this guy. I think he could be real good at 29.

 

Counsel is better than Escobar right now, its really that simple. Hardy and Escobar are unconnected. Hardy if we don't get a good offer, should be our starting SS next year. If we do get a worthwhile offer, which I'd expect, then Counsel should get the starting job he's earned. When Escobar becomes a worthwhile hitter in AAA, bring him up. Rushing players when we have viable alternatives is pointless.

[MJLiverock]

You are assuming Escobar will hit poorly next year and that Counsel is going to keep his career year stats of this year and not return to a .240/.320/.310 line he put up for many years. I would hope that if Hardy is traded Escobar is the starting SS and Counsel if not retired resumes his super sub/PH role.

[Invader3K]

A baseball team can't always be a meritocracy, like it or not.

[Hate those Rodents]

Just a hypothetical question here that I know would never happen, so please don't focus posts on this....

 

But if JJ is traded, about what date next year would Escobar have to stay down until to delay his free agency a year? Thanks guys. It's been fun preveiwing possible moves this off-season the past few days as I sit on my laptop after surgery. I think I've posted more the past two days than I have all month.

[kramnoj]

He will have less than 3 months of service time, so he could come up in July.

[Hate those Rodents]

Thanks Kram. I doubt we'd keep him down there that long under almost any condition, but maybe if Lopez and Counsell both return, we'd keep him down there provided JJ is expectedly dealt.

[TheCrew07]

Escobar is below replacement level based on...? Less than a month of ABs in his first extended yet sporadic stay in MLB?

 

Leaving his big night at the plate out of it, because his production is going to swing heavily with sample size right now, how is that a fair representation of his talent? He's not capable of putting up a line like Andrus over a full season? Andrus has been hot this month and pushed his OPS up over .700 for the year but is still -.8 WAR with the bat, but Fangraphs has him still as a 3.0 WAR player right now. In an incredibly small sample which doesn't include his game today Escobar is only a -.1... he's essentially exactly a replacement level player in his first month. Andrus put up a .645 OPS in his first month.

[Hate those Rodents]

The Hardy support and Escobar attempted downplaying...............let's just say I'm to the point where I'll just nod my head up and down and walk away.

[Greg Pappas]

MLBtraderumors posted an article from prospectinsider.com, in the article the author calls for the mariners to make a play at JJ Hardy. Hardy to put it lightly, is coming off of a down year, with that said he has upside, some people, consider him to be an above average to good defender at short, and he has something that is lacking from this years shortstop free agent class, power. There are a number of teams that will be looking for a new shortstop this off-season including the Mariners, Royals, Twins, Nationals, and Orioles among others. So my question is what can the Brewers expect to get in return for Hardy.

 

Hi guys, been awhile... for those of you who do not know me, I am an Orioles fan and staff member at OriolesHangout.com. I come here not as a representative of the site, but on my own. I like your site, as it has a similar feel as ours> respectful and knowledgeable fans.

 

I'd like to get your views on this off-season as it relates to trading Hardy to Baltimore, and what you'd want in return. Personally, while I'd prefer to keep Felix Pie, as he is really starting to play like the young star he was projected to be, I thought with Cameron's likely departure, a void in CF could be filled quite well with the 24-year old Pie. There are certainly other options, but what are your thoughts ?