Brewers recall Gamel, Villanueva, and Jeffress [Latest: Gamel needs toe surgery]

[thebruce44]

I think the team is sold on McGehee as the 3B at this point. There has been some speculation and rumors that the team may offer him a long term contract soon. I think Gamel either ends up at 1B/RF or gets dealt. Just my hunch.

I don't agree with it, but in the end I think the right move is to get Mat's LH bat into the lineup regardless of where he is playing.

[Invader3K]

bruce, you may be right. With how the team was talking about Gamel as a possible future outfielder, I could easily see Hart moving to first and Gamel getting the chance to be the everyday starting right fielder.

[jerichoholicninja]

I think it's about time we stop moving guys around. Whichever one (Hart, McGehee, Fielder) is traded this offseason that is the position that Gamel will play. Just wondering why everyone is so set on McGehee at first. I know he had knee issues which effect his mobility but moving him to first to replace Fielder will be a negative for the team since it will be a reduction in offense and probably defense. Casey will be learning a new position and, for as much as we liked to blame Prince's problems on his lack of height, Casey's listed as only 2 inches taller than Prince (which I'm not buying, I would say they are the same height). Also Gamel is listed as an inch shorter than Casey.

[logan82]

I know he had knee issues which effect his mobility but moving him to first to replace Fielder will be a negative for the team since it will be a reduction in offense and probably defense.

 

If Fielder is moved there will be a reduction in offense regardless of who plays where. We should not get caught up in the "will a guy hit enough to play a position" stuff. Gamel at 3B and McGehee at 1B will yield the same offense as McGehee at 3B and Gamel at 1B. As for the defense, I think that Gamel has the tools to be a better defender than McGehee. It isn't like McGehee is a very good defender at 3B. He is slightly below average to average. He isn't very athletic so I don't see him improving. Either McGehee or Gamel at 1B would be learning.

[DHonks]

just curious, but how did the M's manage to improve after trading Griffey? How did they improve after losing A-Rod? I support keeping Fielder and letting him walk, but there is precedent for losing a good hitter and improving

[greeg35]

just curious, but how did the M's manage to improve after trading Griffey? How did they improve after losing A-Rod?

All other things being equal, you replace a hitter with one that is worse, you get worse. All other things must not have been equal.

[Oxy]

just curious, but how did the M's manage to improve after trading Griffey? How did they improve after losing A-Rod? I support keeping Fielder and letting him walk, but there is precedent for losing a good hitter and improving

I don't know how the exact transactions broke down but in 2000, their first year without Griffey, they had Aaron Sele, John Olerud, and Mike Cameron contribute to a 12 game improvement from the year before (79 wins to 91 wins). Then they added Ichiro, Bret Boone, and a young Joel Pineiro while ARod left and Freddy Garcia matured giving them that monster year with 116 wins. Amazingly, the year Arod left, his WAR was 11.0. So, somehow, a 91 win team jettisons an 11! WAR player and improves an already good season by 24 games (ultimately 35 games trying to replace ARod).

 

My guesses other than the names above?? Defense and bullpen. EDIT: oh, and of course, steroids. Barry, Bret (Boone), and Brady (Anderson) would all be on my top 5 uglies of the steroid era.

[logan82]

I write this with the disclaimer that I believe fielding percentage to be almost useless for outfielders, catchers and infielders with the exception of infielders with many many errors like Braun circa 2007.

 

I thought I would look at various statistics on our steady defender at 3B this year. I of course mean Casey McGehee.

 

Fld% 15th out of 19 with 17 errors and a .954%

RZR 16th out of 19.

OOZ 19th out of 19

DRS 16th out of 19(closer to worst than average)

UZR/150 16th out of 19(but closer to average than last)

 

Pretty damning in my opinion. McGehee is worse than average in all cases and doesn't pass the eye test either. Unless Gamel is Braun bad(and most indications are he is not) I say we have little to lose by putting him at 3B instead of McGehee. In fact I see little or no justification for McGehee staying at 3B. He needs to move to an easier defensive position.

[Oxy]

I write this with the disclaimer that I believe fielding percentage to be almost useless for outfielders, catchers and infielders with the exception of infielders with many many errors like Braun circa 2007.

 

I thought I would look at various statistics on our steady defender at 3B this year. I of course mean Casey McGehee.

 

Fld% 15th out of 19 with 17 errors and a .954%

RZR 16th out of 19.

OOZ 19th out of 19

DRS 16th out of 19(closer to worst than average)

UZR/150 16th out of 19(but closer to average than last)

 

Pretty damning in my opinion. McGehee is worse than average in all cases and doesn't pass the eye test either. Unless Gamel is Braun bad(and most indications are he is not) I say we have little to lose by putting him at 3B instead of McGehee. In fact I see little or no justification for McGehee staying at 3B. He needs to move to an easier defensive position.

The problem with this is that you can't use rankings to qualitatively determine how well he played. They really ARE meaningless. At the very least, you'd have to include some maxes, mins, medians and quartiles to see how close ranking 15th was to 10th...or 5th... or 1st, whatever. Perhaps there is a huge spread there, I don't know, but even if there was, those stats are notoriously unreliable.

 

I'm not saying that Casey is a good or even average defender--he's not. I'm just saying that he could be the WORST 3b in the league and still be fine defender if the difference between the best and the worst is, say 5 runs over the course of the season. I know there are others on here who could break it down better than I could, but basically those rankings don't mean squat.

[logan82]

The stats and the eye test say he is a bad defender but he is fine? Not following the logic here at all. There is a big difference between a good and bad defender or we could just put anybody anywhere.

[kramnoj]

Pretty damning in my opinion.

 

It's only damning if you compare him to a pool of 19 players. If you compare him to the number of teams that have to field a 3B, he looks decidedly average, except for OOZ.

[logan82]

I went with only qualified players. I seriously doubt that all 11 players added to take it to 30 3B would be worse than McGehee, which is what it would take to get him to average. If you disagree, I have no problem with that. There stats are there to look up, post them and prove me wrong.

[kramnoj]

Casey's UZR/150 this year was -4. That's not anywhere near bad. It's slightly below average.

[thebruce44]

Casey's UZR/150 this year was -4. That's not anywhere near bad. It's slightly below average.

I thought you hated UZR.

[kramnoj]

It's interesting how perceptions form. I'd encourage you to find a post where I even hint at hating UZR.

 

But it doesn't even matter if I like UZR or not. logan used it, while shrinking the pool of players, to somehow claim that he has damning evidence about how bad Casey was defensively this year. The actual stat, which compares Casey to all players who played at 3B this year, says something quite different that what logan claimed.

[thebruce44]

kramnoj[/b]]It's interesting how perceptions form. I'd encourage you to find a post where I even hint at hating UZR.

About a week ago, in several posts that moderators deleted, you chastized me for posting Braun and Hart's UZR from this year and drawing conclusions from it (even though I felt I didn't).

 

Here it seems to me you are drawing conclusions from 1 year of UZR for McGehee in order to dispute someone's opinion from stats and the eye test. This is especially troubling when McGehee was -22.0 UZR/150 last year, yet you didn't include that in your post. I know he had surgery, but he didn't look improved on defense to me this year. I personally find it hard to come to the conclusion that McGehee is slightly below average at 3B because of a -4 UZR this year and find it odd that you came to that conclusion.

 

Edit: For completness, Google allowed me to find your deleted posts, though I don't know if a link will work. Here is a copy/paste of the relevant parts:

 

UZR is so subject to small samples that Braun and Hart both improved by the end of the season...

 

The fact that defensive stats can change in such little time means that quoting them and putting enough meaning in them ...

[kramnoj]

Here it seems to me you are drawing conclusions from 1 year of UZR for McGehee in order to dispute someone's opinion from stats and the eye test.

 

logan is trying to use the fact that Casey being 16th out of 19th in UZR/150 in 2010 is evidence that Casey shouldn't stay at 3B, because he can't handle it. All I am doing is presenting the actual evidence that by UZR/150, Casey didn't perform badly in 2010. I in this argument am not taking my own position on UZR, I am merely pointing out that Casey's UZR performance in 2010 doesn't support logan's claim.

 

I personally find it hard to come to the conclusion that McGehee is slightly below average at 3B because of a -4 UZR this year and find it odd that you came to that conclusion.

 

I am not taking the position that Casey is slightly below average at 3B. That is what UZR says about him in 2010.

 

This is especially troubling when McGehee was -22.0 UZR/150 last year, yet you didn't include that in your post.

 

Given that I was responding to a post talking about 2010 stats, including 2009 stats wasn't relevant. Why do you find that odd?

UZR is so subject to small samples that Braun and Hart both improved by the end of the season...

 

This isn't an example of me hating UZR. This is me acknowledging the limitations of UZR.

[TooLiveBrew]

I in this argument am not taking my own position on UZR, I am merely pointing out that Casey's UZR performance in 2010 doesn't support logan's claim.

 

It seems like you're disagreeing just for the sake of disagreeing. Here's what he actually said about McGehee:

I think that Gamel has the tools to be a better defender than McGehee. It isn't like McGehee is a very good defender at 3B. He is slightly below average to average. He isn't very athletic so I don't see him improving.

...

McGehee is worse than average in all cases and doesn't pass the eye test either. Unless Gamel is Braun bad(and most indications are he is not) I say we have little to lose by putting him at 3B instead of McGehee. In fact I see little or no justification for McGehee staying at 3B. He needs to move to an easier defensive position.

...

The stats and the eye test say he is a bad defender

logan appears to have Casey pegged somewhere between "bad" & "below average". He thinks Gamel should be played at third since he believes Mat has better tools than Casey. You agreed that McGehee's performance in 2010 was below-avg. Are you really going to this much trouble just to rally for "not good" over "bad"? It's clear to anyone that wants to read logan's posts that he isn't calling Casey McGehee the worst fielder in the league or anything like that. This just seems like an argument over semantics, and not anything constructive.

 

 

logan is trying to use the fact that Casey being 16th out of 19th in UZR/150 in 2010 is evidence that Casey shouldn't stay at 3B, because he can't handle it

 

logan isn't trying to use that, he *is* using that -- just not as his entire argument. He's saying McGehee shouldn't be there because he isn't an asset there on defense, and that he believes Gamel could be (& that it's worthwhile to find out). He used UZR to help support that position, not as the only basis -- and it's easy to see that from his posts. I don't understand what's gained from nitpicking this so much.

[Oxy]

The reason that I am defending Casey is because I don't have faith that the alternative is going to be better. Right now Casey hasn't really shown a downside at the plate. I fear that if we plug Gamel in at third, we'll see a more erratic player in every regard, and overall slightly lower production. People talk about Gamel having a much higher upside than Casey--and I just don't see it. I see a guy who might have a career year someday of .290/.360/.490 and 25 home runs. Meanwhile, we already have a guy who has pretty much done that twice., who is cheap, and reliable. I can very easily see Gamel putting up a line of .240/.310/.420 with 10 homers overall, a .600 OPS against lefties, and very poor defense. That just won't cut it.

 

At the same time, this discussion has pretty much run it's course. Ultimately, I hope Melvin pulls off a trade and we can improve our pitching staff and go with whoever is left over. I am just really hesitant to have a line-up that starts Cain, Escobar, Gamel, LuCroy, and no Prince Fielder everyday. That could end very badly.

[kramnoj]

Are you really going to this much trouble just to rally for "not good" over "bad"?

 

What trouble? All I said was that being 16th out of 30 teams isn't bad, and that a UZR/150 of -4 isn't bad. Anything else I said was in response to another post.

 

It's clear to anyone that wants to read logan's posts that he isn't calling Casey McGehee the worst fielder in the league or anything like that.

 

Strawman. Where is this coming from?

 

This just seems like an argument over semantics, and not anything constructive.

 

Semantics? Words have actual meanings. Casey was slightly below average in 2010, and not at all good in 2009. We don't have sufficient evidence to say that he can't handle 3B. A UZR of -4 certainly isn't proof of that.

 

logan isn't trying to use that, he *is* using that -- just not as his entire argument.

 

Saying that something is 16th out of 19 isn't proof of anything. If I were to list the 19 most prolific posters here and said that you were 16th best in terms of offering insight, that's not damning in any way. That wouldn't tell anything about what kind of distance separated you from #1 or #19. It's meaningless without context.

 

Listing rankings without context and using that to support the idea that Casey shouldn't stay at 3B is silly. And the actual context contradicts the claim.

[thebruce44]

kramnoj[/b]]Here it seems to me you are drawing conclusions from 1 year of UZR for McGehee in order to dispute someone's opinion from stats and the eye test.

 

logan is trying to use the fact that Casey being 16th out of 19th in UZR/150 in 2010 is evidence that Casey shouldn't stay at 3B, because he can't handle it. All I am doing is presenting the actual evidence that by UZR/150, Casey didn't perform badly in 2010. I in this argument am not taking my own position on UZR, I am merely pointing out that Casey's UZR performance in 2010 doesn't support logan's claim.

 

I personally find it hard to come to the conclusion that McGehee is slightly below average at 3B because of a -4 UZR this year and find it odd that you came to that conclusion.

 

I am not taking the position that Casey is slightly below average at 3B. That is what UZR says about him in 2010.

 

This is especially troubling when McGehee was -22.0 UZR/150 last year, yet you didn't include that in your post.

 

Given that I was responding to a post talking about 2010 stats, including 2009 stats wasn't relevant. Why do you find that odd?

UZR is so subject to small samples that Braun and Hart both improved by the end of the season...

 

This isn't an example of me hating UZR. This is me acknowledging the limitations of UZR.

So once again, I find myself feeling like I am in an argument with you while we seem to agree on the main topic. In regards to the bolded part though, I think you missed the main point of logan's post. It was peppered with disclaimers and tons of other evidence besides URZ to make his point. You end up agreeing with his main conclusion so I don't really see where you are going with this.

[kramnoj]

You end up agreeing with his main conclusion so I don't really see where you are going with this.

 

What do you think his main conclusion is? Given that he said that Casey needs to move to an easier position, I disagree strongly.

[thebruce44]

Oxy[/b]]The reason that I am defending Casey is because I don't have faith that the alternative is going to be better. Right now Casey hasn't really shown a downside at the plate. I fear that if we plug Gamel in at third, we'll see a more erratic player in every regard, and overall slightly lower production. People talk about Gamel having a much higher upside than Casey--and I just don't see it. I see a guy who might have a career year someday of .290/.360/.490 and 25 home runs. Meanwhile, we already have a guy who has pretty much done that twice., who is cheap, and reliable. I can very easily see Gamel putting up a line of .240/.310/.420 with 10 homers overall, a .600 OPS against lefties, and very poor defense. That just won't cut it.

 

At the same time, this discussion has pretty much run it's course. Ultimately, I hope Melvin pulls off a trade and we can improve our pitching staff and go with whoever is left over. I am just really hesitant to have a line-up that starts Cain, Escobar, Gamel, LuCroy, and no Prince Fielder everyday. That could end very badly.

I agree that the discussion has pretty much run it's course, but I also feel the need to point out a few issues with your stance. I respect you opinion, don't get me wrong, but some of the evidence you present in how you arrived at it is fairly slanted. I won't pretend to know how your mind works, but it makes me think you dug yourself in on a stance and aren't looking at the data completely objectivly.

 

 

I see a guy [Gamel] who might have a career year someday of .290/.360/.490 and 25 home runs. Meanwhile, we already have a guy who has pretty much done that twice., who is cheap, and reliable.

 

I know MLB equivalencies are to be taken with a grain of salt, but Gamel's MLE line was .270/.330/.516 this year for an OPS of .846 (vs your predicted career year of .850). His OBP's in the minors have been '05-.369, '06-.359, '07-.378, '08-.392, '09-.367, '10-.388. I think you are selling Mat very short if you think his career year would involve an OBP of .360. He simply has too good of an eye at the plate for that to happen.

 

Meanwhile, McGehee has not done that twice. His line for the last 2 years is .291/.346/.477 for an OPS of .823. 27 OPS points is too much for me to say he pretty much did that already.

 

I can very easily see Gamel putting up a line of .240/.310/.420 with 10 homers overall, a .600 OPS against lefties, and very poor defense. That just won't cut it.

Again, I respect your opinion, but find it hard to imagine someone objectivly coming to your conclusion. First of all, Gamel does very well against lefties. The site minorleaguesplits is down for some reason, but through each stop in the minors Gamel has handled lefties as well as or better than righties. Second, in 148 sporatic plate appearances last year Gamel put up a .760 OPS. You are suggesting a .730? That seems very pessimistic in my mind.

 

There are typically growing pains with any prospect breaking into the majors, so I can understand some of your concerns. The numbers you are throwing out there in regards to Mat and Casey seem very skewed though to bolster your position.

[thebruce44]

kramnoj[/b]]You end up agreeing with his main conclusion so I don't really see where you are going with this.

 

What do you think his main conclusion is? Given that he said that Casey needs to move to an easier position, I disagree strongly.

 

You make it sound so simple and remove all the qualifiers in order to find something to disagree with. He didn't just say that McGehee needs to move to an easier position. He said he thinks Gamel could be the better defender so if chosing between the two, Casey should be moved to an easier position. Thats a pretty large difference.