Mark A: Fix Brewers Pitching... who goes?

[chadomac]

I agree, I don't mind keeping Narveson if he's the 5th starter... but we better be getting two pitchers better than Randy Wolf in the offseason. Wishful thinking, probably.

[logan82]

"If you took those guys and you started them, their innings would

probably pile up to the point where you'd get into July and say, 'These

guys have enough innings,'" Macha said. "If you took a year and you

pitched them out of the bullpen, say for 70-80 innings in

multiple-inning stints, kind of like the Yankees broke in Phil Hughes,

then you have a starter for the next year."

So by Kenneth's plan we cut innings down for Rogers to make him a starter? How about we just leave these guys in the minors for a year to build up their innings?

[trwi7]

So by Kenneth's plan we cut innings down for Rogers to make him a starter? How about we just leave these guys in the minors for a year to build up their innings?

 

I laughed reading that. Yes, Hughes went from 116 to 110 to 70 to 105 innings before starting full time this year, but the Yankees handled him terribly. If they would've just kept him in the minors instead of sticking him in the bullpen, this could be his second year at least as a full time starter.

 

Rogers is going to be at about 120 innings after the season. Let him start next year in the minors and get about 150 innings and then, assuming he's healthy, he can start 2012 in Milwaukee with a 175-180 inning limit.

 

Jeffress is much tougher. He's going to be at about 50 innings between the minors, majors and AFL. You just hope he can get to 100-115 innings next year and then maybe 150 by 2012.

 

I just hope the team doesn't get desperate in an attempt to "win" next year and they keep Rogers and Jeffress in the big league bullpen when they could be starting in the minors, not accumulating service time and getting ready for more valuable roles when we're actually ready to compete.

[thebruce44]

Yea, as exciting as it is to have these guys on the team right now, they are definitely still a year or more away from being solid contributors at the MLB level.

[Never Outhustled]

Rogers is going to be at about 120 innings after the season. Let him start next year in the minors and get about 150 innings and then, assuming he's healthy, he can start 2012 in Milwaukee with a 175-180 inning limit.

 

Rogers is at 117 innings, with at least 1 start coming, maybe 2. He already at a 53 inning increase from last year, and is as strong as ever. Continue to monitor his pitch count next year, and start him at AAA, but his number of starts for next year is of no concern. He could easily finish next season in the Brewers rotation, right into the postseason.

 

Jeffress is a different situation. He requested to relieve because he believes it helps him stay clean. Why is protecting his arm a concern, but not his mental health? Shame on the Brewers if they move him back to starting. Maybe in a few years, but not now. Also, Jeffress, unlike Rogers, needs significant development to become a starting pitcher. We have plenty of pitching prospects who will be ready by the time he's ready to start in the bigs.

[LouisEly]

The team has soured on FA pitchers, but they should pursue Tim Hudson.

He's throwing as hard as he ever has, he's dominant, and he has a

positive history with Rick Peterson.

 

Nope, can't do that - he's over 30. Can't bring in any pitchers over 30.

 

While Fielder has the most value, the Brewers are best dealing McGehee and/or Hart. I know I'm going to sound like a broken record here, but they need more LH balance, and Melvin has stated that in the past. I get that Fielder is an impending FA, but I'm not convinced that the Brewers can't get a deal done with him, especially with $35M coming off the books after the season. The best thing would be to move McGehee to one of the low-payroll teams packaged with a prospect or two for pitching. I don't know about Gamel at 3B, but adding him to Fielder in the lineup would be ideal. I do see the point of moving Hart to 1B and Gamel to RF if they trade Fielder. But they would need to make another move to get another LH hitter in the lineup somewhere.

 

Adding pitching is important. Let's not overreact to it by dumping Fielder just because he is their most valuable trading chip. Rogers and Rivas are knocking on the door, and Rogers could very well break camp as their #5 (allowing them to skip a few starts of his to limit his innings increase). Jeffress could easily be moved back into starting. Peralta looked good at AA, and Fiers and Lamontagne showed promise at AA too. They'll have Rivas, Peralta, Fiers, Lamontagne, Scarpetta, Heckathorn,

Butler, and Merklinger at AA or AAA next year if they need to call

anyone up. The pitching will arrive soon. How about McGehee and Narveson to a low-payroll team for an upgrade over Narveson? Florida need a 3B and Nolasco is entering arbitration... McGehee + Narveson (or a prospect) for Nolasco would seem to make a lot of sense. Gallardo, Wolf, Nolasco, Capuano... Rogers?

 

The other option is utilizing their payroll flexibility to trade for a guy who has one or two years left on a current deal from a team looking to dump payroll. We all saw how little in return Oswalt, Haren, and others commanded because their teams were looking to dump payroll - they may be able to get good pitching for very little in return if they can take on salary. The Angels will have over $50M committed to their starting rotation next year not including whatever arby raise Weaver gets. They might be looking to trade Piniero or even Santana if they can't afford Haren/Santana/Weaver/Piniero/Kazmir. The White Sox might want to move Buehrle, and if he doesn't have a no-trade clause with Milwaukee he could be a trade target. Point being, they just need one or two guys for one or two years until Rogers/Rivas/Peralta/Fiers/Lamontagne/Heckathorn/Scarpetta/Merklinger arrives.

 

Yes, pitching is important, but I'm not convinced they need to mortgage Fielder for whatever they can get.

[LouisEly]

It wouldn't take much for the hitting to fall back to average and then what do you have?

 

JB, I think part of that problem is the lack of LH/RH balance. With Fielder being the only LH hitter in the lineup, it's too easy to have a good RH starter pitch around Fielder (or bring in a LOOGie late in the game) and stymie the rest of the lineup (see Zambrano, 9/10/10, and Dempster, 9/11/10). I really do think that the one thing that will cause the hitting to fall back to average is to trade Fielder.

[endaround]

Hart likely won't be moved. He has the right to demand a trade next spring if he's traded and that jist makes finding a partner much more difficult.

[logan82]

Even if we get the two best FA pitchers on the market(highly unlikely) we very likely wouldn't be a playoff team next year. That makes Fielder's only value to us pretty much what he can bring back in trade or we get in picks for him. Fielder isn't signing with us. Nor should we sign him to a ridiculous $25m/year contract.

[JohnBriggs12]

hitting is the last thing this team needs

For a team where hitting isn't supposedly needed, this team has sure put together some impressive scoreless inning streaks.

[JohnBriggs12]

Even if we get the two best FA pitchers on the market(highly unlikely) we very likely wouldn't be a playoff team next year. That makes Fielder's only value to us pretty much what he can bring back in trade or we get in picks for him. Fielder isn't signing with us. Nor should we sign him to a ridiculous $25m/year contract.

Your premise is seriously flawed. The current team, with Bush and Parra instead of "the two best FA pitchers on the market" since May 22nd is 50-49. The significance of that date is that it was the following day when Axford recorded his first save. It was also around the time Lucroy took over as starting catcher and Loe and Braddock were added to the pen. If you replace Bush and Parra with pitchers of even average quality, you could contend with this lineup. I might add that both Braun and Fielder have significantly underperformed.this season so even in the event in some dropoff for Hart and McGehee, the odds are that would be offset by bouncebacks from Braun and Fielder.

[MJLiverock]

Fielder has not significantly underperformed. His season is right about average for him, not as good as last year but better than 06 and 08 and nearly as good as 07.

 

since 2006

OPS: .831 1.013 .879 1.014 .903

wOBA .354 .417 .370 .420 .393

wRC+ 115 157 129 163 149

 

His RBI's are down this year but it hasn't really hurt the offense because McGehee has been picked them up. The only reason McGehee is approaching 100 RBI's is because Prince has left them there for him to knock in.

 

Braun is about the only guy offensively who is underperforming expectations. Hart is definately outperforming, Weeks is doing better than many expected but may be able to keep it up, and McGehee is doing better than most expected.

[Kelbysdaddy]

with the massive amount of money coming off the books this season, sign cliff lee to a 7y/120-130m deal and pick up jake westbrook on a 2 or 3 year deal. i doubt any team is going to give up the package the brewers need for prince so the comp picks are looking more and more likely. with a much more solid rotation and keeping prince, at the very least next summer will be alot of fun.

[PrinceEatMeat]

with the massive amount of money coming off the books this season, sign cliff lee to a 7y/120-130m deal and pick up jake westbrook on a 2 or 3 year deal. i doubt any team is going to give up the package the brewers need for prince so the comp picks are looking more and more likely. with a much more solid rotation and keeping prince, at the very least next summer will be alot of fun.

I'd be all for this, and I think almost everyone else would be too. I just don't see the Brewers even putting in an offer on Lee. It seems logical based on the fact that we are looking for a real 1/2 starter, and we won't get one for Prince. However, I just don't see us doing it. I think we'll take the 3/4 for Prince, and sign a 3/4 like Westbrook. Then we'll have Gallardo, Wolf, Prince trade, Westbrook, and Narveson maybe as our rotation. That's probably not gonna cut it. Lee, Gallardo, Wolf, Westbrook, Prince trade would look a lot better in my opinion.

[Milltownhooker]

Trade Prince for prospect. Flip some prospects for Jaime Shields. Try to sign Westbrook. And give Gamel a chance at RF. So I'd go with rotation of

Yo

Shields

Wolf

Westbrook

Capuano/Rivas/Rogers etc etc

[nate82]

Trade Prince for prospect. Flip some prospects for Jaime Shields. Try to sign Westbrook. And give Gamel a chance at RF. So I'd go with rotation of

Yo

Shields

Wolf

Westbrook

Capuano/Rivas/Rogers etc etc

Just say no to Westbrook. I would rather see the Brewers resign Suppan than sign Westbrook.

[Kelbysdaddy]

Trade Prince for prospect. Flip some prospects for Jaime Shields. Try to sign Westbrook. And give Gamel a chance at RF. So I'd go with rotation of

Yo

Shields

Wolf

Westbrook

Capuano/Rivas/Rogers etc etc

Just say no to Westbrook. I would rather see the Brewers resign Suppan than sign Westbrook.

you're insane

[RockCoCougars]

Though it would pretty much be a classic Melvin signing (he could take the Looper/Davis 'black hole' spot in the rotation), I'd pass on Westbrook. No more old pitchers signed from the Cardinals- not to mention that his arm is held together with duct tape at this point.

[Team Canada]

with the massive amount of money coming off the books this season, sign cliff lee to a 7y/120-130m deal and pick up jake westbrook on a 2 or 3 year deal. i doubt any team is going to give up the package  the brewers need for prince so the comp picks are looking more and more likely. with a much more solid rotation and keeping prince, at the very least next summer will be alot of fun. 

I'd be all for this, and I think almost everyone else would be too. 

Signing a 32-year old pitcher for 7 years, how could that possible go wrong?

We have the money to do something, but outbid the Yankees for a crazy number of years is not one of them, nor should we.

 

[Teatoe993]

Just because we have a ton of money coming off of the books doesn't mean we should go back to spending foolishly.

[Never Outhustled]

Signing a 32-year old pitcher for 7 years, how could that possible go wrong?

Well, in his defense, he did say 7 years/$120 million. I was thinking 5 years $130 million, so in his scenario, we could just cut Lee if he became in-effective, and treat the money like deferred payments. However, Lee won't except that deal.

 

There is much better FA buys in position players this offseason, but not every team that needs a hitter can afford to sign Werth, Crawford, or Beltre. The Brewers can, so they need to deal a 2nd position player to take advantage of that. I'd rather have the pitcher we get for McGehee and Werth or Beltre than McGehee and Westbrook.

 

Oakland is a team that could use McGehee, and they have the 2nd best team ERA in the majors.

[JohnBriggs12]

Though it would pretty much be a classic Melvin signing (he could take the Looper/Davis 'black hole' spot in the rotation), I'd pass on Westbrook. No more old pitchers signed from the Cardinals- not to mention that his arm is held together with duct tape at this point.

You can't look at it as a blanket "no more old pitchers signed from the Cardinals" because 2 guys proved to be bad signings. The Brewers apparently followed that philosophy last off season by shying away from Joel Pineiro who signed for less years (2) and less per year ($8 million) than did Wolf and who's had a better year.

 

Ruling out a guy just because he pitched for the Cardinals is foolish. Would you pass on Adam Wainwright if the price was right? Every guy is not the same. That goes for Westbrook. He's a bit of a risk but on the other hand, he's another year removed from his injuries. It would depend on his price in dollars and years not that he's on the Cardinals.

[And That]

Westbrook is a good groundball pitcher who has the same velocity he had before his injuries. If we could get him cheap for a year, sure.

[PrinceEatMeat]

I'd like to see Lee signed, only because I don't think we'll get the pitcher we want for Prince. I'm right with you guys though in that a 7 year signing is a little too long. I really don't see us having a shot at him anyway, so I think it's a moot point. I think Westbrook is realistic, but Melvin might be trigger shy due to his past failed signings. I think we'll just end up with another 3/4 starter for Prince, and maybe another 3/4 for another one of our bats. That will leave us with Gallardo and basically 3 starts who should be #4's, and probably someone in the 5 spot who wouldn't be in most teams rotations. I hope something better comes along, but that's my guess. Unless we develop some starters soon or break bank for an ace, I don't think our rotation will improve enough to compete.

[thebruce44]

While its fun to speculate, does anyone here really think we have a realistic shot at Lee? If they do, I think they are kidding themselves.