Randy Wolf to Sign with Brewers, 3 years plus club option/$29.75 million

[endaround]

Isn't Wolf a better starting pitcher than anyone not named Sheets or Gallardo that the Brewers have had in what? 10 years? 15 years? Decades?

 

(Besides our brief rental of Sabathia)

 

Davis was very good here.

[valpocrewsader]

Isn't Wolf a better starting pitcher than anyone not named Sheets or Gallardo that the Brewers have had in what? 10 years? 15 years? Decades?

In 2004 and 2005, Davis posted 3.39 ERA / 1.3 WHIP, 3.84 ERA / 1.3 WHIP. I highly doubt Wolf pitches that well in 2010 and 2011. Wolf will also struggle to match Capuano's 3.99/1.39 and 4.03/1.25 from 2005 and 2006.

 

So no, I would say Wolf is not likely to be the best non-Sheets/Yo/CC starting pitcher we've had in 10 years or more...

[Ennder]

Depends on whether you are just looking at 3 years of ERA or career talent or what. Davis had a 3 year run of something like a 4 ERA. Capuano had a 3 year run of like 4.35 ERA. Wolf might match those he might not, depends on how much luck he gets. If you use something like xFIP he is probably more likely to match it as both of those guys had better ERA than peripherals.

[endaround]

Davis' FIPs: 3.57,3.98, 4.38. His xFIPs 4.04,3.80 4.62. Its very unlikely Wolf matches those.

[The Truth]

Thanks for reminding me of Davis' effectiveness in '04 and '05. I tend to underestimate Davis in general (and especially the years he had as a Brewer) and look more at the 1.5 or higher WHIP he's had each of the last 4 years...

 

Davis has never really approached Wolf's 1.101 WHIP of last season though, and Wolf's SO/9 is consistently better than Davis' too, most years... Davis' career WHIP is 1.492, Wolf's is 1.315

 

I still tend to think of Wolf as a better overall pitcher than Davis, but yes I'd be thrilled if he put up the stats that Davis did as a Brewer in '04 and '05, and I don't expect him to

 

Looking at Davis' career stats makes me hope the Brewers sign him in a January bargain deal

[thebruce44]

Davis has never really approached Wolf's 1.101 WHIP of last season though

 

Wolf also had a very low BABIP and a high %LOB. I would expect him to be around his 4.3ish average next year, and I think he is being paid that way.

[Ennder]

Davis' FIPs: 3.57,3.98, 4.38. His xFIPs 4.04,3.80 4.62. Its very unlikely Wolf matches those.

Wolf's career xFIP is 4.24 and it has been in that same range over the past 3 seasons now. That matches it just fine.

[danzig6767]

Davis has never really approached Wolf's 1.101 WHIP of last season though

 

Wolf also had a very low BABIP and a high %LOB. I would expect him to be around his 4.3ish average next year, and I think he is being paid that way.

Yea, if Wolf was a consistent 3.25 ERA guy, we wouldn't have been able to sign him for only 10 million per.

[TheCrew07]

Why you should be happy with this signing:

 

Should the Brewers get surprised and get a "no" from Wolf, it's my understanding that their fall-back position is Jon Garland, who pitched last season for Arizona and the Dodgers.

So I should be happy because we ended up with the lesser of 2 evils? This is why I'm quickly losing faith in Melvin, on one hand the organization says they'll move prospects for pitching, on the other hand it never happens... Instead we continue to sign aging pitchers with declining skill sets and health to stop gap a rotation. Wolf is a notch up from the Suppan signing, but Garland would have been nearly the exact same thing. Apparently we aren't learning from history at all?

 

As far what Melvin should have done, how far back do you want to go? Ohh I don't know how about not blow assets to acquire Lopez or Linebrink? How about selling high on one of our SS last off season liked I whined about? What about trading for Jackson when TB dumped him for a Corey Hart equivalent? What about the Overbay trade where we took quantity over quality? My opinion of the Sabathia deal is well known and I don't think I need to rehash it for the 50th time but I've always felt that was mistake in the long term. What about buying low on a guy like Kazmir? The team had limited assets and needed to spend them in the best possible way... and while I'll concede a difference of opinion in regards to the Sabathia trade, can we honestly say Melvin has spent his assets at both MLB and MiLB in the best possible way? There are literally dozens of possibilities of deals that could have happened, but after DM backed himself into a corner coming into this off season I don't think anyone is surprised he's signing FA pitching again. I'm not going to be very forgiving simply because DM did this to himself... while anyone is like to be better than we what we had, he's ultimately responsible for this mess and I'll not going to give him props for doing the obvious.

 

This is the same garbage I've been posting about for the better part of 2 years now: a team like Milwaukee cannot afford to throw away assets on rental players because we end up spending too much for pitching through FA. We needed 3-4 years pitching starting in 2008 to go with the current core of hitters, not 4 years from now when the draft picks will be ready. Getting back to the topic at hand, in the end it doesn't matter if the pitcher got a market deal or not, the Brewers will never be able to acquire top flight pitching talent through FA. This about the overall talent level of the team, and these signings limit the upside of team in a very real way. I've stated it many times but I want to compete for a championship and I do not buy the notion that you just need to get to the playoffs to have a chance. What you need a solid team defensively, offensively, and 3 capable starters and then we realistically have a chance. Pitching > Hitting, every team in the playoffs will have a capable offense and the way the Brewers are currently constructed I don't seem them winning a 7 game series on offense. While I realize that getting to the playoffs is a goal, lately I'm left wondering to what to end? We can reach the post season with average or slightly above average starting pitching, but if we don't have a talented 1-3 to shorten the rotation to we aren't going anywhere. I would rather 3 #2 type starters at the top of the rotation than a 2, a 3, and then 3 5+ type pitchers. Signing players better than we had is all well and good, but I think looking at the situation that way is a pretty narrow analysis of the situation.

 

I don't think there's any sort of long term vision for the team, it's just what many people around here do when talking about the roster: going year to year playing whack a mole with the holes in the team driven by the position players more so than the pitchers. DM is much more concerned about the lineup than he is about the pitching staff, unfortunately DM also finds good enough replacements that we remain competitive but the team will never truly be dominant, with Fielder and Braun or without them. At least if he failed miserably he might have to adjust his approach a little bit, this way he's having just enough success he can keep it going. If you are a small market team and you build your pitching staff through FA all you're really doing in the end is limiting your upside and flexibility. The players the Brewers can afford to sign for the rotation will have been established to be average or tick above, and on the downside of their careers. That means our rotation will always just be "okay" and we'll never get over the hump to great unless this next pitching wave supplies an entire homegrown and studly rotation, and best case scenario we're still 2-4 years from that possibility.

 

I think hitters are vastly more productive for the dollar so I would have rather we traded for pitching and if need be sign a position player through FA to fill a hole. However that's exactly the opposite philosophy of DM, so I'll likely be frustrated with the front office for the remainder of his tenure here in Milwaukee.

 

Wolf may be a good value, but I thought Looper was the best value on the market last off season as well (note that I argued against signing him as well. 3 or 4 years ago it was much easier to acquire pitching than it is today, Doug doesn't set the market trend like TB did, he just follows it.

 

I think that fact that the only talented pitcher DM ever traded for while in Milwaukee was a player in his first deal, a player who's now pitching for the Rockies says it all about what should have been done over the years. JDLR wasn't a guy in A ball struggling to throw strikes, he was a guy in AAA struggling to locate his pitches. Personally I'd rather have the A ball pitcher because you have more time with him to find himself. So while DM went after talent, he went after the most boom or bust talent possible... a player nearly out of options with great stuff but control issues. He did the exact same thing with Capellan, but Cappy never had the stuff from day 1 that he was advertised as having. Apparently all he learned from those was that control pitchers are a safer bet and now we have a bunch of averagish velocity guys who can locate? This situation has been a long time in coming, we never had pitching to go along with the hitting we were developing. With Hardy behind Hall there was no reason not to move Hall, just like with Escobar behind Hardy, there was no reason not to move Hardy. Instead he let history repeat itself and bungled the situation with 2 tradable assests... in the end we are eating a year's worth of salary, get below replacement level production while they were here, and are left with a talented but very questionable young CF... meanwhile the rotation still stinks. Maybe that's my biggest issue with entire situation, I keep seeing the same patterns repeat themselves.

 

Finally, people want to bring up how Milwaukee can do things because another team did, like the Colorado example in the sign Fielder long term thread. This exact scenario is precisely why those situations will never apply to Milwaukee. As long as DM is around we'll always have way too much of the payroll tied into our least best players on the 25 roster. We don't allow ourselves to have the flexibility of making the playoffs with a $54 million payroll, we seen to always have too much money invested in FA pitching. Spending can help with success, but it certainly doesn't guarantee success and I'm not to be happy with my GM because he's spending money. I'd he rather he acquire talent, and since we can't compete with the teams on either coast for FA talent, we need to make good personnel decisions at every step along away to maximize the talent pool for the MLB team. For example, I don't care how good Hoffman is or that he's a name player, remove the name and just look at salary vs production... is 50 IP in an entire season ever worth the kind of money closers gets on the FA market? Where is the value in spending money on the bullpen in comparison to the starting pitching or the position players? I think too often the discussion becomes about production in a player vs player sense when the situations are never that black and white. For example is Hawkins really a better option than Axford at this point in time when production and salary are both weighted equally

[DSFastball55]

The point is that the tightfisted tactics of the Twins have scored them tons of division titles but literally nothing else. There has to be a middle ground between the consistent mild success of the Twins and the WS titles followed by terrible seasons of the Marlins.

 

I would just like to point out this outstanding effort from a few pages back. Sorry, but this is a terrible attitude to have. When you get to the playoffs, anything can happen. I don't think it's a realistic goal to have the best roster in the league. You gotta start somewhere, any playoff-level team should make a Brewer fan happy (with increasing levels of happiness the further into the playoffs we go).

[DuWayne Steurer]

The point is that the tightfisted tactics of the Twins have scored them tons of division titles but literally nothing else. There has to be a middle ground between the consistent mild success of the Twins and the WS titles followed by terrible seasons of the Marlins.

 

I would just like to point out this outstanding effort from a few pages back. Sorry, but this is a terrible attitude to have. When you get to the playoffs, anything can happen. I don't think it's a realistic goal to have the best roster in the league. You gotta start somewhere, any playoff-level team should make a Brewer fan happy (with increasing levels of happiness the further into the playoffs we go).

Good point slobberknocker. There've been more than just a handful of wild card teams that have won world series. Heck, the Cards got there (but lost) with an 83 win team. With short post season series in which anything can happen, the goal HAS to be to simply build a team to get to the playoffs. If you go by the law of averages, a team should win the WS once every 8 times they make the playoffs. Using only WS titles to measure how succesful a team has been is a poor way to judge the organizational philosophy for the team building process.

[Invader3K]

Crew07, I think you make some valid points, I have to admit. At the same time, I don't know what model is out there that the Brewers can realistically follow. The Twins get brought up time and again, but they never go far in the playoffs (something you seem against), and the Marlins model doesn't seem sustainable. Even Billy Beane's team hasn't won anything in a few years.

 

It seems like you want Doug Melvin to invent some new sort of system...or rather you want him to have done it 3-4 years ago. Well, maybe we just have to wait for the next GM to come up with some new ideas. I think as a fan who attends the games I have to say that Melvin seems to be trying his best to win in what is basically a broken economic system. I'd rather buy tickets to see this team that is genuinely trying to win than one that would probably be in rebuild mode again already.

[kramnoj]

Instead we continue to sign aging pitchers with declining skill sets and health to stop gap a rotation

 

This description doesn't fit Wolf, who had a career high in IP with 214.

[Ennder]

The Twins making multiple playoffs has more to do with how terrible that division is in general than how great they are at building a team.

 

Instead we continue to sign aging pitchers with declining skill sets and health to stop gap a rotation

 

You certainly aren't talking about Wolf here, he is aging but if anything his skills have been improving as has his health.

[sargennm]

The point is that the tightfisted tactics of the Twins have scored them tons of division titles but literally nothing else. There has to be a middle ground between the consistent mild success of the Twins and the WS titles followed by terrible seasons of the Marlins.

 

I would just like to point out this outstanding effort from a few pages back. Sorry, but this is a terrible attitude to have. When you get to the playoffs, anything can happen. I don't think it's a realistic goal to have the best roster in the league. You gotta start somewhere, any playoff-level team should make a Brewer fan happy (with increasing levels of happiness the further into the playoffs we go).

Anything can happen? Maybe, but it never happens to the Twins. Their approach doesn't pay off. All of those division titles and playoff appearances and they haven't made one World Series appearance. There has to be a better way. Falling lock step in their methods and expecting a different result is literally insanity.

[logan82]

Are you assuming Fielder isn't going to be here in 2011? I don't think Melvin signs Wolf to a 3 year deal if he plans on losing Fielder after one more year.

 

Suppan, Hall and Riske contracts going away should be enough to cover salary increases, as well as possible savings at C.

No, I am not making that assumption. I would assume Fielder leaves after 2012. Fielder probably eats up(not literally I hope) a good chunk of that money coming off from Riske and Hall by himself. Bush got $2.55M his first year of arbitration, seems a pretty safe estimate for Parra. Maybe a little low. Gallardo is likely to get even more than that.

 

Hopefully Wolf will never be as bad or cost as much as Suppan.

[kramnoj]

Gallardo and Parra start to get expensive in 2011. It may seem like we will not be hamstrung by these deals right now, but all our young players are going to get more expensive. A million here, a million there will start to add up the next couple years. Suppan and Fielder dropping off will probably be offset by those guys.

 

I'm just trying to make sense of this post. No big deal, but I can't understand why you are talking about Fielder dropping off in 2011, unless Fielder is supposed to mean Hall.

[logan82]

I'll go back and edit. I meant Suppan dropping off in 2011 and Fielder in 2012.

 

It was really cool that Doug Melvin came out to L.A. and visited me and made it well known that I was his priority and he really wanted me there.

I wonder if he got dinner at Mark Attanasio's house as well. I really hope not. The parallels are getting scary. Link

[LouisEly]

As far what Melvin should have done, how far back do you want to go? Ohh I don't know how about not blow assets to acquire Lopez or Linebrink? How about selling high on one of our SS last off season liked I whined about? What about trading for Jackson when TB dumped him for a Corey Hart equivalent? What about the Overbay trade where we took quantity over quality? My opinion of the Sabathia deal is well known and I don't think I need to rehash it for the 50th time but I've always felt that was mistake in the long term. What about buying low on a guy like Kazmir? The team had limited assets and needed to spend them in the best possible way... and while I'll concede a difference of opinion in regards to the Sabathia trade, can we honestly say Melvin has spent his assets at both MLB and MiLB in the best possible way?

 

I respect your opinion; I will however address these one at a time:

 

1) The assets used to acquire Lopez were A) an OF who, as much as I liked him and his ability to get on base and his very underrated athleticism, defensively is probably limited to LF where he is stuck behind Braun for five years or 1B where he is stuck behind Fielder and even if Fielder were moved offensively he would be below average at 1B and thus as an asset to the Brewers he is basically a PH; and B) an A-ball reliever who hadn't been able to cut it as a starter for his first four years. For that they got a guy who got on base over 40% of the time and kept them in the Wild Card chase. So far neither of what we gave up can be considered an asset yet.

 

B) The assets used to acquire Linebrink so far are a LOOGY, a pitcher who was left off of the Padres 40-man roster, and a pitcher who was added to the 40 but now is facing surgery. So far the only one to play in the majors is the LOOGY, and technically the only asset yet. The other two would have yet to help the major league club if they had been kept. People fell in love with one of them because of a great quote, but this year his ability to miss bats decreased significantly and he got rocked pretty good at AAA. Put yourself on the other side of that coin - what if you were a Padres fan and you traded Linebrink in 2007 and for him the only player you got in return who has contributed in the majors was a LOOGY, one of the two minor leaguers was left off the 40-man, and the other is facing surgery? I don't think the Padres fans are real giddy about that trade either.

 

3) There was no evidence that A) Escobar was ready to start the season in the majors or that B) Hardy would regress as much as he did, and C) due to salary Escobar was the one they wanted to keep long-term. They thought that with Hardy they might have another shot at the playoffs, and had Hardy, Kendall, Suppan, Looper, Bush and Parra just performed just to recent averages and/or not gotten hurt they probably would have made the playoffs.

 

4) Jackson/Overbay - no one other than DM knows what was available or offered. We cannot speculate here based on rumors or what-ifs. Everyone knew we wanted to trade Overbay so we cannot have expected much.

 

5) Sabathia - the biggest asset given up was a guy who could only play LF or 1B and would have been stuck behind Fielder and Braun. None of the other pieces have done anything yet. Sabathia carried the Brewers into the playoffs, and had Weeks not dropped that easy throw they might have beat the Phillies in that series. We'll have to agree to disagree, but LaPorta can be replaced and I'll take that playoff appearance for what we gave up any day of the week and twice on Sunday. You also have to add Kentrail Davis and Max Walla to what we got in return, and Kentrail Davis may be the best prospect involved in that whole deal.

 

6) Kazmir was due to get real expensive real quick, and only twice has he gone over 150 IP in a season. He may be quality, but durability is a question and $12M/year for a guy who 4 of his 6 seasons hasn't been able to give 150 IP is a big risk. If he can't give 150 IP, that means more starts by guys like Burns, McClung, Villanueva, etc., which negates much of Kazmir's value.

 

7) No one other than Melvin knows what was available to him for what he was offering. And no one is giving up good young pitching for marginal prospects. So far LaPorta is the only quality prospect we have given up, and for that we got the playoffs. I guess we will have to agree to disagree there.

[The Truth]

And LaPorta, despite a .917 OPS in Triple A in '09, has been nothing special so far in MLB, and just might be Adan Dunn'esque in the field

 

That and, even for someone who respects stats as much as I, it is tough to quantify the value longterm of making the playoffs for the first time in decades, which we wouldn't have done without Sabathia. The increased attendance in '08, which led to increased revenue, is directly related to that playoff appearance

[HiAndTight]

Thank you LouisEly.

 

It was a rather lengthy post and while I understand Crew's concerns and issues, it's obviously very easy to go back after the fact and debate about whom the Brewers could have signed, could have traded for.

You can do that every year for the draft as well. "Well rather than draft(Fill in the blank) we could have drafted Pedro Alvarez in the 36th round.

Hindsight is always 2020 and I think you're being way to critical of some of these moves. Questioning DM for tradeing for DLR in his first move because he was too much of a bust potential? Getting on him for not trading Hall at his peak value? The same for Hardy?

 

Well obviously those are moves looking back we'd love to have made. Think about what we could have gotten for Capuano and Hall when Hall hit 35 and Cappy was a All-Star? But nobody would have wanted to move them and blow up the team.

 

 

 

At the end of the day he signed the 2nd best pitcher on the FA market to a pretty affordable contract. Should he continue his late career boom, he could end up being a very nice addition, he signed Latroy Hawkings a late inning reliever with a fantastic arm.

 

Both moves have a domino effect and make this team better for next year. Now grab Mulder and add anotherh low risk/high reward type signing*cough*Mr.*cough*Sheets, and you have the potential for a above average rotation, a very good bp and a playoff team.

[rluzinski]

I really wish people would stop mentioning that Wolf was supposedly the second best FA pitcher. Even if it's true, it's irrelevent. I want to know projected production over the life of the contract vs. cost.

[Thurston Fluff]

I've wanted him for a couple years now. Just always liked him. A lefty with a record of success. What's not to like? I thought the only chance we had on him was last year when he was coming off an injury. I know he likes the west coast and there are teams who both need pitching and could afford him there so I wasn't sure the Brewers would have been on his radar after last season's success.

Now we have at least two lefties in the rotation which should ease the load on Stetter a little. I think this signing helps the pen somewhat for that reason as well as his ability to log a lot of innings.

[Invader3K]

Now we have at least two lefties in the rotation which should ease the load on Stetter a little.

 

That's a great point I hadn't even thought of yet.

[TheCrew07]

You write way too much dude. I think it drowns out your opinions because you seem delusional.

To each his own.