Matthews for Suppan?

[PeaveyFury]

I don't get what adding an extra year of a bad contract would do to help the Brewers. Paying your 4th OF $18.5M for the next two seasons just isn't a good plan for a team looking to shed payroll in order to add SPing.

 

But as Haudricourt mentions in his blog and MNBrew mentioned above, if the Dodgers pick up part of Pierre's contract to even things out, it actually lowers the Brewers' payroll commitment for this year, owning around 6-7 million for Pierre instead of 10-11 for Suppan. Yes, it would be at the expense of some flexibility next year, but that's the trade off they have to weigh.

[Yeti73]

Pierre absolutely has more value than Soup does. If we're signing two more SPs as Melvin has said, that leaves no place in the rotation for Suppan. He doesn't want to go in the pen and I don't think he has the right makeup to be a RP (but I don't have any metrics to prove that). Pierre at least would offer us something off the bench and depth in the OF. We don't have much OF depth in the minors that could step in if Gomez stinks or Braun gets hurt.

 

I'm all for it, but can't imagine the Dodgers would go for it.

[MNBrew]

If the Dodgers are indeed willing to take on a bad contract, and the Pierre-Suppan swap is a real possibility, I completely see Pierre as the lesser of two evils.

 

Losing Suppan is addition by subtraction in spite of our need for pitching. The key is the need for better pitching. I'm willing to roll the dice even w/ Narveson.

 

Pierre hit .308 last year w/ a .365 OBP & 30 SBs, playing better while starting. Defensive questions in CF notwithstanding, I'd take that gamble & figure out the 2011 payroll aspects later.

[fondybrewfan]

I guess I don't really see the point from a dodgers perspective. Pierre has a bad contract, Suppan has a bad contract but Pierre certainly seems more valuable than Suppan does at this point. I have a hard time believing that the dodgers don't have 5 starters that are better than Suppan right now.

 

If I were the Brewers I would probably do it in a heart beat. Although Pierre is a terrible CF but good LF. Of course being a good defensive LF doesn't do the Brewers a whole lot of good.

[JohnBriggs12]

Pierre is a terrible CF but good LF.

 

Not really. There is nothing wrong with his fielding either in CF or LF. It's his arm that's the issue. To the extent it's easier for runners to take the extra base on him in CF, then yes, he's better off in LF.

 

But offensively he does a lot of things. He's a great bunter. He puts the ball in play. He doesn't run quite as much but he can still steal a base. He's extremely hard to double up.

 

Furthermore, if he were to have a solid year in 2010, his salary for 2011 of $8.5 million might not be impossible to move if say the Brewers kicked in $2.5 million of his salary. That potentially would make it a complete wash with Suppan.

[fondybrewfan]

I was kind of including his arm strength in my valuation of defense. He probably has pretty decent range but his arm in CF would be a major concern. Teams would take extra bases constantly.

 

I think he would fit in pretty nicely on the offensive side, he would be a solid #1-2 man. As long as the salaries are wash at worst it makes sense for the Brewers to do it, not so much for the Dodgers

[endaround]

The benefit of Pierre is it puts Gomez in AAA where he really should be. An extra year of Gomez would be worth it assuming salaries are evened out.

[And That]

Can the Dodgers afford to pick up the difference in salaries? They already didn't offer arbitration to all those players. The McCourts' divorce might wreak havoc on their payroll flexibility this year.

[TooLiveBrew]

4th outfielder? The guy who's making the lineup is Macha and Gomez is a young guy who hasn't proven himself. Pierre would probably be the starter in CF. I'm not sure if that should be in blue or not.

The reason I said that is that there really isn't a point in trading for Gomez if you're not going to get him everyday PT in order to develop. I didn't consider what endaround posted, though -- that Gomez could get some time at AAA.

 

 

At this point in their careers, Pierre is a significant offensive upgrade over Gomez.

Unless Gomez takes a step forward, which is obviously what Doug Melvin thinks is going to happen. Whether it's from coaching or natural progression (or more likely a little of both), I wouldn't be that surprised if Gomez hits better than Pierre in 2010. Fwiw, the CHONE projections think Gomez (.262/.324/.385) will be close to Pierre (.289/.336/.371) next season.

[logan82]

We need at least 7 pitchers. Trading Suppan while he is one of those 7 best makes no sense. If this was a year or two from now when some of our pitching prospects will be breaking into the majors(hopefully), trading Suppan and non-tendering Bush would make a lot of sense. I never liked the Suppan deal and will be glad when we are no longer paying him, but we still need him.

[Roderick]

If you can unload all or the vast majority of Suppan's contract for a low-level prospect,

You can't. That is why the Brewers will have to take back an equally bad contract.

 

And it sounds like the Dodgers are kicking some money, all the better.

 

The Brewers can actually use Pierre, if they trade Gomez or Gomez needs time in AAA. Whereas I hope Suppan doesn't pitch any innings where the game is on the line next year for the Brewers.

[Invader3K]

I posted about this in another thread, but Haudricourt said on his blog that the Brewers, "have no interest in Pierre."

 

I wonder if a swap with the D-Backs for Eric Byrnes could be an option? Could be something to consider if they do trade Hart.

[nate82]

It looks as though the Tigers are looking for a third team to give the Dodgers a pitcher but want to dump Carlos Guillen. Maybe if the Dodgers or Tigers would offer some cash to the Brewers to pay for some of Guillen's contract next year the Brewers could swing a deal of Suppan to the Dodgers, Pierre to the Tigers, and Guillen to the Brewers.

 

I'm not sure Guillen could play the OF he did play some OF for the Tigers last year and he wasn't all that good but he only played 42 games in the OF last year. Not sure if he really could play the OF in Milwaukee or if Guillen may just be a DH now because of his age.

 

If the Dodgers or the Tigers would pay about $8m of Guillen's contract ($1m for this year and $7m for next year) I think it could work. Guillen would cost about $6m then next year and it would be the final year of his contract.

 

Not really sure this would be a good deal for the Brewers but it would accomplish getting rid of Suppan. Other than that it doesn't really make any sense for the Brewers to do this deal. It doesn't really help the Brewers all that much if they would make this deal unless Hart would be traded for a pitcher and I would rather have Gamel playing in the OF than Guillen but Gamel could start the year at AAA playing the OF and when the Brewers felt he was ready they could replace Guillen with Gamel in the OF.

[JohnBriggs12]

The Hawkins signing is one that has me thinking. The only possible way of moving Suppan is to partner him with an affordable guy that the other team wants badly enough to be willing to take Suppan and some of his salary too. Could that guy be Coffey?

[flosses like fossas]

getting back to the matthews idea (since pierre has been moved, anyways)... how far out would it be for the brewers to attempt to add to a suppan for matthews swap to get pitching value out of it? how much would the brewers have to include to land joe saunders or jared weaver or ervin santana?

 

adding hart to the deal might make sense since anaheim let vlad walk and there has been some trade talk about juan rivera. who else might the brewers add? would the angels have enough interest in what the brewers have? might it make sense to add gamel to such a deal in exchange for young, affordable pitching?

[Ennder]

The Brewers cannot afford to trade a major league pitcher unless it saves them a LOT of money or they get one back. We still don't have enough SP depth as it is. Trading bad contracts to get Suppan off the team makes no sense at all.

[Invader3K]

Yeah, I think we just have to drop this idea at this point. Everyone seems to be obsessed with the idea of removing Suppan, but we don't have anyone to legitimately take his place at this point. Yeah, it sucks that he's making all this money this year, but there's nothing that can be done about that now.

[TooLiveBrew]

And just about every team has at least one contract like this. Like Invader said, it sucks, but it's reality unfortunately with sky-high FA salaries.

[logan82]

Suppan isn't really the problem either. His contract is. I f we had him for about $8-9M less, I doubt there would be anywhere near as many upset people. His contract is horrible and he isn't great, but he is still one of our 7 best starters.

[Invader3K]

I think the main thing that frustrates people is that Melvin and Attanasio should have seen this budget crunch coming, and have seemed unwilling to do anything to alleviate the problem (eg. upping the pay roll and taking a loss for one year, or trying to buy out Suppan's contract with deferred payments, etc).

[kramnoj]

I've been thinking about a restructure of Suppan's contract. I don't really feel he should be bought out, as he at this time appears to be better depth than what is currently available. But if it came to be January, and a decent pitcher could be had for $5-6M, it would be disappointing if the Brewers couldn't be in on it.

 

At this point, of course, its just a dream, so I don't know what would be reasonable. Suppan is guaranteed $14.5M, what if the Brewers paid it out as $16M over 4 years (adjust as necessary for NPV, that was just a guess). Or it might be better to just split it up over the next year or three. I don't think it's impossible for the Brewers to find themselves in the next couple of years where they won't be able to spend their budget, because it would be tough to spend it wisely.

[HiAndTight]

At least Suppan is a consistent, durable, innings-eater.

 

Suppan is NOT an innings eater.

 

Suppan was 46th in IP last year (161 IP) -- He made 30 starts last years, most of the dudes making 30 starts were around 180-175 IP. In fact, the majority of pitchers making 25-29 starts pitched more innings than Suppan.

 

If you are only capable of a ~5.30 ERA (over the course of a season), you won't, or at least you better not be racking up a lot of innings.

And this was the lowest total since the 1998 season.

 

Also, I don't know where you get he's only capable of a 5.30 ERA. Again, worst ERA since leaving KC and 2nd worst ERA since 1999.

To take the guys worst year ever when he was injured for a big chunk of it and say this is all he can possibly do really isn't fair.

 

He's not a stud, he's not a very good pitcher, but he's not THIS bad.