Brett Myers agrees to terms w/ the Astros

[yoshii8]

According to Brian McTaggart of MLB.com he has agreed to sign with Astros pending a physical. This could be a very good under the radar signing. However, I'm not a big fan of Brett Myers, mostly because of his domestic abuse issues, so I'm glad he didn't sign w/ the Brewers.

[RockCoCougars]

One year /$5 million with a mutual option. Another deal that makes it look like the Brewers jumped the gun on Wolf. That said- like Soup, I'm sure Randy is a good dude and model citizen.

[ecjimg]

......That said- like Soup, I'm sure Randy is a good dude and model citizen.

Shouldnt that be in blue?? I cant get past the "youre a %+*#*+" interview.

[TooLiveBrew]

Another deal that makes it look like the Brewers jumped the gun on Wolf.

 

I don't even know what to say, except that this couldn't be more untrue.

[Pudster13]

TooLiveBrew wrote:

 

I don't even know what to say, except that this couldn't be more untrue.

As the rest of the free agent market has shaken out, it is undeniably apparent that the Brewers most certainly did overpay for a pitcher of Randy Wolf's talent, both in dollars and in the number of years on the contract.

[TooLiveBrew]

So who do you propose the Brewers should have signed to match the talent we got in Wolf? The reality of the FA market is overpaying, whether it be for 3 years of a quality SP in Randy Wolf, or for one year of so-so guys like Myers. I'd rather get the better talent, and I think Melvin did a good job of getting the most talented player the Brewers could realistically afford (as in, not Lackey)

[RockCoCougars]

So who do you propose the Brewers should have signed to match the talent we got in Wolf? The reality of the FA market is overpaying, whether it be for 3 years of a quality SP in Randy Wolf, or for one year of so-so guys like Myers. I'd rather get the better talent, and I think Melvin did a good job of getting the most talented player the Brewers could realistically afford (as in, not Lackey)

All I know is that I'd rather have one year of both Myers and Harden or even Washburn or Garland on one year deals then just Randy Wolf for just a million or two more. This way you can fill two holes in the rotation instead of one with a third to a half of the money that was committed to Wolf. If the team was able to fill two holes maybe we wouldn't hear the 'Suppan is our best option as a fifth starter' next year when he is stinking up the joint. Let's face it, Suppan's 'career norms' are not what a winning baseball team has in their rotation.

 

I don't put much faith in argument that guys like 'Myers and Harden will likely be injured' argument either since Wolf has pitched 150 innings something like 2 out of the past 6 years. The fact of the matter is the team outbid itself on Wolf, giving a three year deal a guy coming off a career year pitching in Dodger Stadium in a weak offensive division. The only other team with any interest in Wolf was the Mets. If Wolf pitches like he did last year, things will be OK, but that could very well be his career season. With the limited budget, this team should be buying low on guys, not buying high. Take some risks. I don't like the fact that Wolf is going to be 34 and has a history of TJ surgery either.

[Invader3K]

The Brewers may have overpaid slightly for Wolf (aren't most free agents overpaid?), but it wasn't a gross overpayment like some on this board try to make it out to be.

 

Wolf is a better pitcher than Myers anyway.

[RockCoCougars]

The Brewers may have overpaid slightly for Wolf (aren't most free agents overpaid?), but it wasn't a gross overpayment like some on this board try to make it out to be.

 

Wolf is a better pitcher than Myers anyway.

I'm not arguing that Myers is better than Wolf. If they were both available for the contract Myers signed, I'd take Wolf in a heartbeat. The problem that I have is that the Astros committed only half the money for a third of the time to Myers meaning they have committed less than a sixth of what the Brewers did for Wolf. Like I said, if Wolf pitches like he did last year for the entire contract, it's money well spent. If he gets hurt or tanks, it's going to look like the Suppan deal. Personally I'd go for the guys willing to take a one year deal, because they will have motivation to pitch well for their next contract. Too much complacency with 3 year deals. I also don't like the fact that so much money was tied up, when the team should be saving everything they can to at least try to resign Prince. Same thing with Hawkins. Why did they need to go more than one year? If Valverde ends up signing for about the same money, I'm going to have a coniption fit on here.

[Thurston Fluff]

I'd rather they go with the best available pitcher than skimp by once again and ruin the season when those guys don't pan out. At this point quality matters as much as quantity. I also like having a guy around for three years with the associated cost certainty so this team can actually build as opposed to repair. Wolf is the most certain pitcher we could reasonably expect to get. He fills a need and will do so at as consistent a rate as can be expected for three years. All the others would be fillers whose performance could vary wildly from one extreme or the other. We know have three of five starters under our control for three years. That should buy us the time we need to develop our own. No other could do all those things for the price Wolf is.

[valpocrewsader]

Just because Option A is 10% better than Option B, it doesn't make it wise or worthwhile to pay 100% more for it. As more and more FA pitching deals are announced this off-season, it's becoming increasingly apparent that this is what the Brewers did -- paid double for a slight upgrade. (We need to be careful not to overstate the improvement Wolf represents compared to the likes of Penny, Myers, Harden.)

 

When I look at Wolf's contract, I see about a 5% chance that he outperforms it, a 50-50 shot that he underperforms it, and 45% chance that he more-or-less lives up to it. To me, that's a bad deal for an organization like the Brewers. We need to be more bang-for-buck conscious, focused on players and skills that might be undervalued. And when we do splurge and spend serious money, it needs to be for short terms (Gagne, Hoffman) or for players a heck of a lot more talented that Randy Wolf.

[Ennder]

The Brewers will need at least one SP next year as well so you are really comparing Wolf's deal to a 1 year deal for Myers+1 year deal for someone next year. The 3rd year might be a problem with Wolf so won't disagree with that part. I'm not really conviced signing two huge injury risks and moving Suppan to the bullpen is a bigger upgrade than just signing a real SP either. Seems to me that Suppan still ends up starting half the season that way

[Invader3K]

Seems most people present two alternatives to Wolf: Sign a couple hypothetical "injury guys" (forgetting they would be as expensive or more expensive than Wolf's first year), and hope to hell they are available to pitch in MLB by the All-Star break. Or, the second option is that Melvin should develop powers of premonition and find "the next Javier Vasquez" via trade. I think I'd rather look at reality and be reasonably happy with Wolf for now.

[TheCrew07]

Seems most people present two alternatives to Wolf: Sign a couple hypothetical "injury guys" (forgetting they would be as expensive or more expensive than Wolf's first year), and hope to hell they are available to pitch in MLB by the All-Star break. Or, the second option is that Melvin should develop powers of premonition and find "the next Javier Vasquez" via trade. I think I'd rather look at reality and be reasonably happy with Wolf for now.

Yep, that's exactly what we mean, Melvin should see into the future and never make a mistake... Seriously is that what you people take away from our posts about this stuff because if so you aren't bothering to read the posts or making an effort to understand what is actually being said, I'm sure I'm not the only poster who grows weary of being misrepresented.

 

I'll simply continue to say what I've always said... Melvin is a good GM, he did a great job turning around a horrid franchise, he's an excellent nugget miner and a very good judge of offensive talent. I'm not getting into people's subjective ratings of who's the best GM in baseball, or a ranking of GMs, that means nothing to me. I simply know that it's much harder to go from 82 wins to 100 wins than it is to go from 62 wins to 82 wins. As good as he's done with the offense, the organization (which he's ultimately responsible for) has done that horrid with the pitching, not just the last 2 years, but going back 6 or 7 years.

 

This is not about what Melvin has done to make the team competitive, this is about taking the next step. Those of us that aren't high on these FA signings are looking beyond a hole or two in the rotation or the bullpen. Most posters around here just want to play whack-a-mole with perceived holes on the roster, see hole A plug it with FA player B because we can afford him. That's why people didn't want to trade Hardy and talk about how trading a current position player creates a different hole that needs to be filled instead of looking at the overall improvement in the team. I believe that pitching holds in the ultimate power in baseball, I want to build the rotation first. I realize it's more compelling to argue about position players, but I honestly believe many people are missing the forest for the trees around here. While trading for pitching may have the appearance of creating a hole, it's actually trading from an organizational strength to address an organizational weakness, which is what any smart team should be doing with it's assets. Instead we've continually wasted assets on acquiring rental players and position players, so we keep ending up in the same situation 1 year to the next, with the same holes in a marginal rotation.

 

I'm struggling with what is so difficult to comprehend about wanting to acquire a starting pitcher with a higher ceiling than what the Brewers can afford in Free Agency? You get a Sabathia type when stuff meets pitchability, so far Melvin has acquired mostly pitchability type guys with lower ceilings and marginal stuff. Some of those guys worked out well, some not so much, nobody is asking him to see into the future, just to quit being so conversative with pitching and working only through FA or the scrap heap, especially since many of us view FA pitching as the worst possible value on the dollar. I'd much rather he takes a chance on a pitcher that has the stuff but hasn't mastered the pitchability, someone with some upside. Many posters have made good cases for various trade targets to this end over the last 2 years, it's not that hard to go out and find pitchers that have the stuff but haven't gotten the results, it just takes research time (which many aren't willing to do) or a good working knowledge of the minor leagues. However, the same people that want FAs are the same people that don't really seem to follow prospects or the minors and talk of trading for "established MLB pitching".

 

By signing FA all Melvin does is limit the potential of the rotation because he's inserting averagish pitchers for multiple years and as I've stated many times I'm not into 1 and done the playoffs. We can make the playoffs with a very average rotation, but what teams are we realistically going to outscore in the playoffs? We might win a short series, but a 7 game series is a different matter. The rotation lacks a bullpen saving starter, so while Wolf is an upgrade, it's marginal because the rotation as configured will still leave way too many innings for the bullpen, the pen will wear down, and next off season people will again be posting about upgrading the bullpen, when the root cause of the bullpen issues is actually the starting rotation.

 

If Yo becomes more economical with his pitchers and Parra figures it out we'll be in very good shape, but as much as I like Parra I'm not willing to bank on him. As far as Yo is concerned, he's had the same issue since AA, and I don't feel comfortable counting on him to give us the same innings that Sheets did when healthy just yet. It's very difficult to predict the learning curve of young players and I'd feel much better with another starter who has legit top of the rotation stuff in the rotation, if for nothing else just to even out the odds some. I didn't expect Looper to pitch as bad as he did, but I heard many of the same arguments around this off season as were posted last off season... time will tell of course but the team isn't necessarily any better off signing anyone this year than they were signing Looper last year. Anything from age to injury can derail the season any pitcher so while I think Wolf is a better pitcher, I'm not going to claim his acquisition has made the team significantly better for the 2010 season as anything can happen. On paper sure the team is better... but unfortunately we don't simulate the games.

 

I'm a 30 something, but I'm hardly excited when the small market team I root for is spending signficant dollars on 30 something pitchers for the rotation or the bullpen... for all the reasons mentioned 100s of times in various threads on this forum.

Wolf isn't Meyers, but Melvin didn't wait to see where the market would end up, he basically set the market, I don't find the idea that Melvin overpaid for Wolf outrageous at all, it seems rather plausible to me in fact that he did overpay by a significant amount. I wonder if his pitcher signings are largely driven by his "stats guys" as he's called them, they all profile in a somewhat similar fashion and a solid argument could be made about them being the best pitcher the Brewers could afford at the time fpr the money, regardless of age or stuff.

[RockCoCougars]

Seems most people present two alternatives to Wolf: Sign a couple hypothetical "injury guys" (forgetting they would be as expensive or more expensive than Wolf's first year), and hope to hell they are available to pitch in MLB by the All-Star break. Or, the second option is that Melvin should develop powers of premonition and find "the next Javier Vasquez" via trade. I think I'd rather look at reality and be reasonably happy with Wolf for now.

Why can't Wolf be considered an "injury guy". Before last year, he's hardly been durable the past several years. Even making the assumption that he's past his TJ surgery, it isn't out of the realm of possibility for a mid 30's pitcher to come up with some new injury. Heck, I don't think Suppan had ever been injured until the past few years (though I'm not so sure that they were physical injuries vs. "mental breaks").

[Ennder]

As good as he's done with the offense, the organization (which he's ultimately responsible for) has done that horrid with the pitching, not just the last 2 years, but going back 6 or 7 years.

 

From 2004-2009 the Brewers have averaged 4.7 R/G allowed. The league average in the NL over that time span is 4.7 R/G. I'm not sure horrid is an accurate term for them. Two years ago we tied for the 2nd lowest ERA in the NL which doesn't seem horrid either. We have had 2 really bad years in pitching, 2009 and 2006. 2006 was mostly because of a really bad bullpen, 2009 because of a rotation that all put up the worst seasons of their career at once. During that time frame we've lost tons of innings to the front line starters as well. Two injuries to Capuano, the Sheets injury, Gallardo going down for a season. Yeah injuries happen to everyone but it the fact it was the front end starters certainly has an impact.

 

The biggest issue with our pitching was a lack of development at the minor league level which people give all the credit to Jack Z for on offense and all of the blame to Melvin for the pitching for some reason. Given the fact we've had all of 2 effective starters(counting Sheets is being generous too) we developed ourselves in his tenure and that both of them missed large chunks of time with injuries I'm impressed with what Melvin has done if anything. Add in the fact we have developed very little in the way of bullpen arms and most of them have been castoffs and FA pickups and I just can't agree with you at all. We built the position players first through the draft and that left a hole in pitching. It is hard to rebuild an organization as bad as the Brewers had in a short period of time, you are going to have holes in it.

 

I blame Melvin for Suppan and Gagne(I'll give him a pass on Riske since he got hurt) but not much else when it comes to pitching. I can see arguments for trading LaPorta for a lesser pitcher who had more years left or Hardy for a high risk pitcher instead of Gomez but they aren't no brainer type arguements. It really depends on what else was available and there is no way to really know.

[endaround]

Melvin brought in Davis who gave the Brewers three years of excellent pitching at below market price. Melvin brought in Capuano who provided 3 years of above average pitching on the cheap before his injury. Now maybe he should have known Capuano was on borrowed time and not moved Davis. He brought in Bush. Bush of course is one of the pitchers you wish Melvin would target, young talent with upside under team control. Now why Bush had by far his best year at 26 and has trended down since then is up in the air. But can we stop with the idea that Melvin hasn't brought in pitching?

[trwi7]

Melvin brought in Davis who gave the Brewers three years of excellent pitching at below market price. Melvin brought in Capuano who provided 3 years of above average pitching on the cheap before his injury. Now maybe he should have known Capuano was on borrowed time and not moved Davis. He brought in Bush. Bush of course is one of the pitchers you wish Melvin would target, young talent with upside under team control. Now why Bush had by far his best year at 26 and has trended down since then is up in the air. But can we stop with the idea that Melvin hasn't brought in pitching?

 

Except he wants Melvin to target hard throwers. Which of the three you mentioned is a hard thrower? Bush and his blazing 88 mph fastball?

[Ennder]

88-89 MPH is pretty hard throwing for a LHP so Capuano and Wolf would both count as hard throwing. Though obviously it would be the low end of hard throwing.

[danzig6767]

As good as he's done with the offense, the organization (which he's ultimately responsible for) has done that horrid with the pitching, not just the last 2 years, but going back 6 or 7 years.

I blame Melvin for Suppan and Gagne(I'll give him a pass on Riske since he got hurt) but not much else when it comes to pitching. I can see arguments for trading LaPorta for a lesser pitcher who had more years left or Hardy for a high risk pitcher instead of Gomez but they aren't no brainer type arguements. It really depends on what else was available and there is no way to really know.

I agree that in general, the biggest key for any small market team pitching wise is to draft and develop it which has been a major short coming under Jack Z. Some of that the result of bad drafting and some bad luck with injuries to drafted pitchers. That said, there are other ways to acquire pitching besides the draft or free agency and Melvin hasn't been able to make shrewd moves in the trade market to acquire pitching even if it isn't an easy task given how valued pitching is.

[trwi7]

88-89 MPH is pretty hard throwing for a LHP so Capuano and Wolf would both count as hard throwing. Though obviously it would be the low end of hard throwing.

Capuano's average fastball speed with the Brewers: 88.2, 86.4, 86.8, 86.9

 

Davis' average fastball speed with the Brewers: 85.0, 87.3, 87.3, 85.6.

 

Only one year out of 7+ between the two lefties has averaged 88.

[Ennder]

Well I don't think Melvin could know Capuano would get hurt and lose velocity right after trading for him? I said Wolf not Davis btw. Capuano was considered relatively hard throwing when we got him. Wolf is right on the edge of being a hard thrower, he's gained velocity since his injury. Sabathia was obviously also hard throwing.

[monty57]

Davis and Capuano both pitched well for the Brewers. Who cares if they threw hard? I'd love to have someone who could go out there every five days and be reasonably likely to pitch 6-8 decent innings. Not counting the playoffs, Wolf pitched 7+ innings 12 times last year, and pitched less than 6 innings 5 times. That can really help the bullpen, and is one of the big things we missed last year. As TheCrew said, Gallardo's got good stuff, but cannot be counted on to go late into games. Giving the 'pen a night off here and there is huge. Hopefully Wolf can help with this.

 

One thing that seems to be forgotten is that we need five starters, and we will need five starters in 2011 and 2012. Signing Wolf may stop us from signing someone like Myers, but it will not preclude us from making a trade for a young "high upside" starter, if that trade exists. Wolf will hopefully provide some stability to this year's rotation, and be a veteran part of the rotation while the young pitchers fill in over the next few years. Continually signing one-year deals is continually trying to catch lightning in a bottle, and while you limit some risk, you eliminate payroll certainty and open yourself up to market risk. This is the ultimate "plug hole A" strategy. Trading for high upside guys who've worn out their welcome somewhere can pay off big, but it can also lead to Capellan / de la Rosa situations.

 

I guess I'm not too upset that Melvin tends to build a core from a conservative strategy, and takes some shots with the likes of Capellan, Turnbow and de la Rosa, and "scrap heap" guys like Davis. I guess I'd liken it to building a stock portfolio around blue chips, and only using "money you don't mind losing" betting on penny stocks. The bottom line for me is that very few teams are willing to trade away a "can't miss" pitching prospect (unless it's for someone like Prince), so we need to get our top-line starters through the draft. It seems that lesson has sunk in with the Brewers' brass, as we've got a good core of young pitching talent coming up, and spent a lot of high picks last year on "big pitchers with good stuff." We just need a bridge to get us there, and I think Wolf is probably the best Melvin could do, as he seems to be the best mix of good pitcher with limited chance of blowing up that we could get.

[valpocrewsader]

Sign a couple hypothetical "injury guys" (forgetting they would be as expensive or more expensive than Wolf's first year)

Wha?? Sheets and Bedard are yet to be seen, but this statement is already untrue for Harden and Duchs. (Duchs was probably a bit of hometown discount, but his true market value would've easily been less than the $10 million per that Wolf is getting ... probably less than the $7.5 million Harden got.) We can talk about the "injury guys" being more expensive than Wolf when it actually happens. And even then, it would probably come with the attractiveness of a 1-year deal. *bangs head*

[TooLiveBrew]

Oh, I see. So we sign Duscherer, who didn't realistically appear to be on the market... hope he is fully recovered after only managing 11 IP in 2009 (after only 141.2 in 2008)... and take the high 3's or low 4's FIP type production for one season in a best-case scenario. And then are priced out of retaining him beyond one season & then play the 'find the diamond in the rough!' game all over again next offseason.

 

Or we sign Wolf, who's been able to turn in two consecutive full seasons heading into 2010, sign him to a reasonable deal, and get high 3's to low 4's FIP production without having to find the diamond in the rough again next season. *bangs head*