Doug Davis returning to Milwaukee, 1 yr. $5.25 with mutual option

[SDOwen28]

But many have overestated Cameron's offensive contributions

 

It's the other way around. You continue to drastically undervalue his offense.

 

 

I see slight upgrades at 3 positions, C, SS and 3B.

 

How is 3B upgraded? McGehee turned in a career-type season, and we have the same personnel. Are you meaning that you think Gamel is going to take a step forward in 2010 & outproduce McGehee's 2009?

 

Cameron is and has been awful offensively. Yeah great he hit 20+ HR's but hit .250 and strike out a ton. Plus he ran us out of countless innings on the base paths. You could count on Cameron for a week, then he was done for 2-3 weeks. Now he was great defensively but Gomez close enough to him defensivley. You take away the HR's, I dont see much of a difference, besides clubhouse leadership.

 

I think McGehee will be better this year, he was nicked up all last year. Now, if he does not come back from that injury, then we got worse. but I am banking he will be healthy. You can tell when a hitter is getting lucky and when he knows what he is doing, McGehee was not getting lucky.

 

I dont know what is not to like about this team giving our team payroll and the bad contracts we have. I dont think Melvin could have done a better job this offseason. I did not think he could add what he did with what he had to work with and hang on to our top prospects.

[Invader3K]

I think people are under selling McGehee a lot. I realize he had what was probably a career year last season, but I don't think he's going to drop off badly like some seem to think around here.

[rluzinski]

The offense is projected to do worse in 2010. I have it at something like 5 less SLG points and 10 less OBP points. Real rough but I can't see anyone finding valid evidence that suggests its not worse.

[TooLiveBrew]

How is 3B upgraded? McGehee turned in a career-type season, and we have the same personnel.

Hall had 214 at bats of a .606 OPS.

*shudders* I guess I'd blacked that out of my memory.

[TooLiveBrew]

Cameron is and has been awful offensively.

 

No, this is so wrong it's not even funny. He was top-10 in terms of MLB CFs last season.

 

 

You take away the HR's

 

Yeah, take away the most valuable thing a hitter can do. That's useful. Hey, if you take away Fielder's HRs, he's really just Casey Kotchman. What a bum!

[trwi7]

Cameron is and has been awful offensively. Yeah great he hit 20+ HR's but hit .250 and strike out a ton.

You do realize the guy replacing Cameron is a career .246 hitter with a much worse OBP and SLG%, right? Also, if Gomez was given the same number of at bats as Cameron last year, he would've been on pace to strike out 125 times. Not a far cry from Cameron's 156.

[homer]

The Brewers offense won't be as good unless there are some pleasant surprises (like McGehee last year). But I don't think it will fall off a cliff or anything. At worst they should still be a top 5 or 6 offense in runs scored.

[Invader3K]

I have been in the camp that says Mike Cameron is a bit overrated on this forum, but he definitely was not "awful offensively" last season.

 

The big knocks on Cameron are generally that his batting average isn't stellar compared to his salary, and he isn't "clutch".

[rluzinski]

Yes, if you live in a pretend world where HRs don't count and strikeouts count for 2 outs, Cam and Gomez are pretty close, offensively. http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/smile.gif

[Trowekamp]

The offense is projected to do worse in 2010. I have it at something like 5 less SLG points and 10 less OBP points. Real rough but I can't see anyone finding valid evidence that suggests its not worse.

rluz is this mostly by switching out cameron for Gomez? or where else do you project them to be worse?

[strawbossisevil]

The offense is projected to do worse in 2010. I have it at something like 5 less SLG points and 10 less OBP points. Real rough but I can't see anyone finding valid evidence that suggests its not worse.

I think everyone realizes this, however I think it's up for debate how much to put on to those projections.

 

Weeks, for example. If he hits like he did last season, there is no downgrade at 2nd. I imagine, however, the projections all have him hitting less.

 

Gomez is another one. Who honestly knows what we have in him. He is such a young player and has to this point not lived up to his talent. Projecting someone his age with his skill-set is extremely challenging.

 

The same holds true for Escobar. It's hard to take any stock into the projections because no one can really know how he'll perform offensively.

 

Add on top of all those that the typical projection probably deflates Prince's and Braun's numbers from their performance last season.

 

If we were a team of 30 year old players, I'd probably take a lot more stock into the projections. But I think the youth on our team makes projecting them with any sort of accuracy close to impossible.

[RockCoCougars]

Cameron is and has been awful offensively. Yeah great he hit 20+ HR's but hit .250 and strike out a ton. Plus he ran us out of countless innings on the base paths. You could count on Cameron for a week, then he was done for 2-3 weeks. Now he was great defensively but Gomez close enough to him defensivley. You take away the HR's, I dont see much of a difference, besides clubhouse leadership.

 

I think McGehee will be better this year, he was nicked up all last year. Now, if he does not come back from that injury, then we got worse. but I am banking he will be healthy. You can tell when a hitter is getting lucky and when he knows what he is doing, McGehee was not getting lucky.

 

I dont know what is not to like about this team giving our team payroll and the bad contracts we have. I dont think Melvin could have done a better job this offseason. I did not think he could add what he did with what he had to work with and hang on to our top prospects.

Agreed on Cameron. He was the king of the meaningless bomb, a-la Marquis Grissom, meaning that the game was generally already decided when he hit them. How many of his home runs were not solo shots or meant anything? Most of what I remember about Cam is cursing at the TV after he struck out again. Add in the fact that he's 37 years old and I'm glad that he's gone, especially at that salary. I've argued this here many times before, but I think he's one of those guys that illustrates the weaknesses of evaluating guys on generallized stats like OPS alone. Look at his stats for last season in clutch situations. Last year, in 'Late and Close' (meaning after the 7th inning in a tied game or with the tying run on deck) situations, he had 87 plate appearances with zero homers and 3 RBIs, a batting average of .239 with 21 whiffs. Brutal. Similarly, in situations with 2 outs and RISP, he hit .232 with 21 whiffs. Those are Jose Hernandez numbers if I've ever seen them. I don't want to hear about his OBP percentage either. I'd pitch around him too if Jason Kendall was coming up next. From mid-July to mid-August, he drove in a grand total of 6 runs playing pretty much every day. Say what you want about RBI's being meaningless, but even his staunchest fanatics here have to admit that is horrible.

 

Let's face it, Cameron is basically Jose Hernandez with a great personality. I won't argue the fact that he's a good guy, but he's not a $10 million ballplayer. I don't care what Fangraphs says. I don't want to hear about his defensive value either, because I'm confident that it will be replaced adequately by Gomez.

[TooLiveBrew]

Agreed on Cameron. He was the king of the meaningless bomb, a-la Marquis Grissom, meaning that the game was generally already decided when he hit them.

 

I think you mean a-la Alex Rodriguez, until a sample of 68 plate appearances in the 2009 postseason (compared to 9,611 in his regular season career) completely changed that supposed concrete truth.

 

 

How many of his home runs were not solo shots or meant anything?

 

I'm assuming you're only grousing about his time as a Brewer. 18 of his 49 HRs came with men on base (37%). Since I don't believe that there's such a thing as a HR that "doesn't mean anything", I won't bother trying to determine what types of situations would or wouldn't mean anything to you.

 

 

Most of what I remember about Cam is cursing at the TV after he struck out again.

 

Exactly.

[SDOwen28]

Cameron is and has been awful offensively.

 

No, this is so wrong it's not even funny. He was top-10 in terms of MLB CFs last season.

 

 

You take away the HR's

 

Yeah, take away the most valuable thing a hitter can do. That's useful. Hey, if you take away Fielder's HRs, he's really just Casey Kotchman. What a bum!

Top ten...overall? Maybe. I said he has great defense but I can list many that are better offensively. 20 HR's is nothing to brag about. 40+ is...Hart hits around 20. Is he a great offensive player? I bet 20 of the homeuns came in 15 games too...hits them in bunches. Its sad when the most valulable thing a player does offensively is hit 20 HR's. Im not even going to get into his bad situation hitting, never could get the guy from second over because he was either a) striking out or b) rolling over the ball to third/ss.

[Funketown]

For reference, here's what each position posted last year.

 

C - .242/.331/.317/.648

1B - .299/.412/.602/1.014

2B - .303/.377/.474/.851

SS - .247/.306/.355/.661

3B - .267/.330/.439/.769

LF - .309/.373/.530/.903

CF - .241/.329/.432/.761

RF - .270/.340/.425/.765

Using Chone projections, with some of my rough projections for plate appearances, here is what I punched out:

 

C - .237/.333/.378/.711 (Zaun 300, Kottaras 150, Lucroy 200)

1B - .294/.387/.577/.964 (Fielder 700)

2B - .256/.351/.414/.766 (Weeks 400, Counsell 150, McGehee 100)

SS - .287/.333/.384/.717 (Escobar 600, Counsell 50)

3B - .261/.327/.408/.736 (McGehee 400, Gamel 200, Counsell 50)

LF - .303/.365/.552/.918 (Braun 600, Gerut 75)

CF - .267/.329/.402/.731 (Gomez 500, Gerut 150)

RF - .270/.332/.453/.785 (Hart 500, Gerut 150)

 

It looks marginally worse, but nowhere near as weak as many on here are making it out to be.

[Hate those Rodents]

I think it's a good thing that the pessimism here has reverted back to the Gomez-Cameron debate and of some hitters possibly having worse years as opposed to our starting pitching being poor again. That must mean (since it is a Davis thread that should be geared around our rotation) that we are going to be much better in this area, and with that I agree.

[rluzinski]

I think everyone realizes this, however I think it's up for debate how much to put on to those projections.

 

They are just a good, unbiased statistical guess. I hope I've never sold them as anything more. I think educated brewer fans have a lot of information to add to those projections, however. Over the long haul, that added information is generally going to raise as many projections as they lower. We can guess that they are all underestimating the talent of the Brewers but that seems more like wishful think that anything else.

 

Weeks, for example. If he hits like he did last season, there is no downgrade at 2nd. I imagine, however, the projections all have him hitting less.

 

It was over 162 PA, so I think common sense suggests that Weeks shouldn't be expected to match those numbers. Hell, I'd say his projections might be too optimistic after you consider his injury (something projection systems don't do).

 

Gomez is another one. Who honestly knows what we have in him. He is such a young player and has to this point not lived up to his talent. Projecting someone his age with his skill-set is extremely challenging.... The same holds true for Escobar. It's hard to take any stock into the projections because no one can really know how he'll perform offensively.

 

I agree that a guy like Escobar is much tougher to project. I disagree about Gomez to some extent, however. At this point, the fact that he was a hyped prospect at one point in his career adds very little to the story, imo.

Add on top of all those that the typical projection probably deflates Prince's and Braun's numbers from their performance last season.

 

They do it because typically, that's what happens to a player that had an elite season. After Prince's 2008 year, many were convinced that Prince was that good. Now after 2009, some are convinced he's THAT good. Projections do a good job of taking that step back and looking at all the data.

 

If we were a team of 30 year old players, I'd probably take a lot more stock into the projections. But I think the youth on our team makes projecting them with any sort of accuracy close to impossible.

 

You can look at Marcel projections and they have something called a reliability factor. The higher the factor, the less data there was to make the projection and the more those projections were simply regressed to the mean. Take a guy that's had 500+ AB over the last 3 years and that's the best you can really do, though. Knowing what a 30 year old did when he was 25 has shown to not help statistical projections.

 

All I'm saying is that the projections suggest the Brewers' offense won't be as good. If you think otherwise, I won't call you wrong.

 

 

 

 

[Ennder]

I think everyone realizes this, however I think it's up for debate how much to put on to those projections.

 

They are generally the weighted mean of many different outcomes so they aren't claiming to be correct. For a player like Gomez the range of outcomes is just huge so the projection isn't going to be right all that often. For a player like say Doug Davis the range is a bit smaller and they tend to be more accurate. The best use for them is really that they aren't biased.

[Funketown]

Top ten...overall? Maybe. I said he has great defense but I can list many that are better offensively. 20 HR's is nothing to brag about. 40+ is...Hart hits around 20. Is he a great offensive player? I bet 20 of the homeuns came in 15 games too...hits them in bunches. Its sad when the most valulable thing a player does offensively is hit 20 HR's. Im not even going to get into his bad situation hitting, never could get the guy from second over because he was either a) striking out or b) rolling over the ball to third/ss.

Why does it matter whether or not Cameron hits home runs in bunches, and what evidence do you have to back this notion? Certainly, when speaking about individual games, the first HR is the most value, the second less valuable, the third even less, and the fourth even less (at this point, the game has probably been won). But what difference does it make if he hits a homer on April 6th versus June 7th?

 

Besides, here are Cameron's HR's by month while he was a Brewer:

 

5/08: 7

6/08: 5

7/08: 3

8/08: 9

9/08: 1

4/09: 5

5/09: 6

6/09: 1

7/09: 3

8/09: 4

9/09: 5

 

Make of it what you will.

[valpocrewsader]

Wow, this thread got hijacked bad. Can we go back to talking about how exciting our rotation is now and what a joy it will be this year to hold game tickets for studs like Wolf and Davis?

[TooLiveBrew]

Top ten...overall? Maybe.

No, not maybe. 2009 ranks among qualified CFs --

 

OPS: 7th

RC: 6th

wOBA: 8th

[logan82]

Cameron was top 10 on offense, top 5 overall.

[hawing]

Cubs suck. Doug Davis owns them. God bless us.

 

http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/wink.gif

[Invader3K]

Wow, this thread got hijacked bad. Can we go back to talking about how exciting our rotation is now and what a joy it will be this year to hold game tickets for studs like Wolf and Davis?

Better than tickets for studs like Suppan and Looper...

[brewmann04]

I think we should all be Happy Doug got us a second starter who is an upgrade over Suppan. I like the making of our rotation so far for 2010.