Sept callups [Latest: Macha says 2 pitchers, 1 position player on 9/1]

[RockCoCougars]

It's a joke if Gamel isn't called up and given regular at bats. What did he do specifically to tick off this regime?

[monty57]

Why bring back Villanueva? He's merely a decent AAA reliever. He's no different than Chris Smith. Throw in the fact that he's arby eligible after the season, and he becomes a definite non-tender candidate.

 

I'd love to see the hard throwing Kintzler. It would be great next year to have numerous relievers with both MLB experience and available options. Rather than carrying 13 pitchers when the staff is gassed, just yo-yo the 12th guys between AAA and the bigs. Thats what everyone else does, but Melvin can't because he insists on a proven veteran bullpen filled with guys with multi-year contracts and no options. We finally have a couple of relievers with options, but it wouldn't be a real good idea to yo-yo your set-up man and closer.

 

I'm frightened that Melvin will ignore the young arms he has and sign another veteran reliever this offseason. You would think a good September by Jeffress, Kintzler, and McClendon would prevent that, but Axford's strong finish last year didn't prevent the Hawkins signing.

Great post X,

 

I've been frustrated with the 13 man staff all year. We started the year feeling we needed to stash extra starters in the bullpen since we couldn't send them to the minors. Our bullpen got worn out when the starters were not good out of the pen, so the rest of the pen had to log a lot of games. Since we couldn't send anyone down, we didn't get relief until we started to see some injuries and Suppan was finally let go. The 13-man staff meant that we always had a limited bench, made worse when we had "minor injuries" where players weren't on the DL but couldn't play.

 

We have the opportunity to have a young, cheap and effective pen for the next few seasons, with options to send players down to bring up a fresh arm when necessary. How nice would that be?

[dlk9s]

but Melvin can't because he insists on a proven veteran bullpen filled with guys with multi-year contracts and no options.

From Mark Attanasio:

 

"Doug and his staff make specific decisions and I approve of them,"

Attanasio said. "We used to have as one of our tenets or philosophies

not to sign older players because we were focused on DL days and older

players tend to get hurt more often and are out longer when they do get

hurt.

 

 

 

 

 

 

"We somewhat

abandoned that last off-season because we thought we had an opportunity

to win. We took one of our basic tenets and disregarded it. I think we

went astray with that. I would expect us to have a renewed focus on

younger players next year.

 

 

 

 

 

 

"We're

showing it with the younger players we're playing right now. I think

that's going to continue into the off-season. There are going to be

exceptions. But we struck out on almost every one."

 

[FVBrewerFan]

It's a joke if Gamel isn't called up and given regular at bats. What did he do specifically to tick off this regime?

I don't think so, this is a different situation than last year. If Gamel rides the bench with some PH opportunities and occassional start, it's fine with me. It's not like they're taking ABs away from him, once the AAA season is over he would jsut be sitting on a beach anyhow. Frankly, I would rather see more ABs from Katin and Cruz. Maybe it's just for selfish reasons, but I'm just curious to see these guys at the plate. Cruz will be in the running for UT next year, and Katin will compete for the 5th OF spot- so I just want to see a glimpse of what they can do.

 

As far as arms go, I want to see more starts out of Narvy, Cappy, and Parra. Those are really the guys they need to make decisions about for next year, and I don't want them to miss starts at the expense of Dillard or someone like that. I wouldn't mind shutting down Yo for his final 2-3 starts.

 

 

 

[kramnoj]

Thats what everyone else does, but Melvin can't because he insists on a proven veteran bullpen filled with guys with multi-year contracts and no options.

 

That's one way of looking at it. Another way of looking at it would be to realize that the Brewers really haven't had good pitching sitting in the minors before, and the Brewers have had plenty of low cost talent on the field, so Melvin has spent money in the bullpen in order to improve the team.

 

Now you can blame Melvin for not having better pitching to call up, and you can blame Melvin for the decisions he made, but there really isn't a reason to assume that Melvin will repeat a pattern if he is working with better talent available to him.

[crewcrazy]

Haudricourt has yet to get team confirmation, but he's saying the three called up tomorrow will be Villanueva, Jeffress, and Gamel.

 

I wonder if the current state of the bullpen means Jeffress could get more of a look out of the 'pen than originally planned. They desperately need fresh arms.

[PrinceEatMeat]

Personally, I don't know why we don't just leave Gamel in AAA until their season is over. He won't get many starts here, except maybe a few in place of Hart or McGehee. Other than that he'll just be riding the bench and pinch-hitting like last year. And we all saw how well that worked.

[derflotr]

I think Gamel is beyond the "needs to play every day" treatment. He's major league ready offensively, now they just have to decide what to do with him. Very excited for Jeffress though, can't wait to finally see him in live action.

[craigharmann]

Haudricort tweeted that he got confirmation that Jeffress is for sure. Can't wait!

[PrinceEatMeat]

I'm very excited to see Jeffress pitch. It's gonna be great to see a young pitcher finally contributing to our major league team. And throwing 100 MPH hopefully.

[Never Outhustled]

What I think is cool is that Jeffress earned this promotion by dominating all season.

[danzig6767]

Not that winning or losing games at this point matters much, but how can the bullpen be so taxed after September call up time?

 

Even if the Brewers preferred not bringing up anymore young pitchers, why didn't Doug add another soldier type of arm then just in case a situation arrived of a spent bullpen? After all, this is still a Brewers rotation out there where the sixth inning is like kryptonite and Macha has to start yanking starters.

 

Is it a cost saving issue? If so, what does it cost to keep a guy in the bigs from September 1st through the end of the month?

[kramnoj]

It costs about $70k or so to bring up a player for September.