What to do with Rogers and Jeffress

[TooLiveBrew]

Agreed, start Jeffress off in Huntsville with a quick promotion to Nashville. Both guys should spend most of the season in AAA.

[Tedaldtada]

If Rogers earns a spot in spring training, I say give it to him. JJ should indeed start in H'Ville.

[Invader3K]

I don't see the downside of starting Rogers in the majors next season, if he looks good in spring training. Jeffress should start in Huntsville or Nashville and be a mid-season call-up candidate.

[TooLiveBrew]

The downside is service time. There is really no reason the Brewers should burn a full season of Rogers in '11 when the big-league club is very unlikely to contend.

[CheezWizHed]

So is speeding, yet everyone does it. If the guy wants to take bong rips in the comfort of his own home, and takes care of his business on the field who are we to complain.

 

Drug use doesn't always end in the comfort of his own home. Ask Johnny Jolly.

 

My point was there is a sentiment that "good, he's on the 40-man, so he is safe". Just pointing out that just because he won't be drug tested in the MLB, doesn't mean there aren't other consequences. Lets just leave it at that.

[Patrick425]

I have seen some people mention the "piggy back" idea. I have heard this before involving other pitchers. Has any MLB team ever actually done this and, if so, how much success have they had with it? It seems like it would be well intentioned, but then never work out. If Pitcher A is pitching well after 5 innings it would seem awfully tempting for a manager to leave him in with disregard to the reason why you are piggy backing pitchers. If he brings in pitcher B in this scenario and pitcher B does poorly and they lose the game because of that, the strategy is going to be questioned.

 

Would it make more sense that each pitcher starts on alternative 5th starts (so they start each 10th day) but they don't "relieve" each other? Or, is that too long of a time between starts? It just seems like Piggy backing would be a hard plan for a MLB manager to stick to. They keep their jobs by winning games.

[kramnoj]

I have a memory of LaRussa trying 3 pitchers in a game for 3 IP per game. I believe he tried it towards the end of his stay with the A's, but it may have been more theory than practice.

 

I believe the thinking was that hitters tend to do better as the pitcher tires and as the hitter sees the same pitcher multiple times. If you keep the pitcher fresh and don't allow a hitter to see him for a 3rd time, the pitcher should have some advantages and do better.

 

If it was tried, it didn't last long, mostly because the pitchers used weren't really good anyway.

[DHonks]

I always liked how when Yost used his long men, he liked to get 2-4 innings out of them. So it's sort of in the same mold. Not sure though if anyone has tried it in the majors

[logan82]

It has been brought up before usually in conjunction with lineup optimization. Piggybacking uses up a pitcher who might not otherwise have to be used. Both guys would be unavailable for the day before and the day after at the very least. I don't think it would work until September after rosters expand.

[Invader3K]

The downside is service time. There is really no reason the Brewers should burn a full season of Rogers in '11 when the big-league club is very unlikely to contend.

But you could look at it as him getting adjusted to being a full time starter and being fully ready for 2012. With all of Rogers' past injuries, I don't know if they should be that concerned with using one year of service time at this point.

[Tedaldtada]

The downside is service time. There is really no reason the Brewers should burn a full season of Rogers in '11 when the big-league club is very unlikely to contend.

This has become an almost robotic response to prospect call-ups in Milwaukee. To me, by the time Rogers gets expensive in 2014/2015, we should have viable replacements ready. We have to get into a cycle like that with our youngsters. I think we are on the right track in that regard with all of the high upside pitching we have littered throughout the affiliates.

 

The service time argument is valid for someone like Gamel who is blocked at every position he can play. In that case, burning up service time while riding the pine is detrimental to the team.

 

Truth is, no one really knows if we are going to be competitive next year. I could very easily see us in the hunt, why handicap the team by playing inferior players? We still have to play the games, give me the guys that provide the best chance to win the game that day. Then, hopefully, we can plug in guys from the 2010/2011/2012 drafts. I mean, Mark Rogers better not be our only chance at a #1 SP for the next decade, right? I want to be competitive EVERY year, not just for 2-3 year stints.

 

If Mark is one of the 5 best SP's next ST, I want him in Milwaukee for the whole year, service time be damned. We still would have 6 years of cost controlled years. That is an eternity in the baseball landscape, anything can happen. Sometimes, we just out-think ourselves with this service time stuff.

 

Edit: TLB, this was not meant at a personal dig at you. There is some merit to your argument as well, I would just do it different.

[filthyfrog]

I hate it when people say we shouldn't waste service time on a youngster when we're not going to compete next year anyway. It's way too early to say we can't compete. The offense should be solid with or without Prince, the bullpen should be ok, and we have no idea yet if the rotation will be improved. All it takes is some consistent starting pitching. I'm sure there were people a year ago (and even five months ago) saying the Reds shouldn't waste service time on Mike Leake in a year they wouldn't contend.

 

Now that doesn't mean I think Rogers should open the season in the rotation. I don't think he's earned it. He needs to go to AAA, refine his command, and learn how to pitch deeper into games. If someone is going to get the call out of Spring Training, I think Rivas is more polished and ready for the bump.

 

So I say Rogers to AAA, but only because he's not ready; not because the team can't contend.

[sveumrules]

I still can't believe San Diego didn't move Gonzalez this offseason. I mean even my grandma could tell (as far back as september of last year!!!) that they wouldn't be competitive this year.

[dadofandrew]

Rogers averaged less than 5 innings a start, in AA, and would have to be shut down about August 1st if he did manage 6-7 IP/S an outing. I'd let him begin at AAA as a SP and look to use him in middle relief in the bigs if he does well. If he throws strikes, he can certainly be up a good part of the season.

[TooLiveBrew]

This has become an almost robotic response to prospect call-ups in Milwaukee.

 

It's not just about his salary costs to the Brewers, it's value in potential trade down the road as well. All you really need to do to keep Rogers's service time down is call him up in June, so it's not like he'd have to spend most of the season in AAA (even though I'd like to see him do so unless he forces the Brewers' hand).

[Tedaldtada]

I get trying to maximize a players' value. I'm talking about trying to win more games next season and 2012. If Rogers being in the MLB from game 1 does that, I think it has to be seriously considered, regardless of what the experts are predicting for the team. If you want to try and predict markets, trade values, future player performance, injuries, etc, 5 years down the road, more power to you. I just think the whole situation is much to dynamic for that.

[logan82]

Our team as built was a just over .500 team this year. That was assuming Hoffman, Parra and Davis didn't completely fall on their face which they did. Getting a good pitcher will go a long way towards being better but that probably only puts us at around 83-85 wins. 2012 is when we should have some Impact Talent™ coming up in Lawrie and Odorizzi. At that point we should start to see a shift from an average team to a really good team. Rogers' value in 2016 should be much more than chasing a marginal win in 2011.

[And That]

Rogers' value in 2016 should be much more than chasing a marginal win in 2011.

I agree with you that 2012 looks like it could be "the year" for this team if management doesn't screw it up too badly, but to play devil's advocate here, if this team without Rogers has an upside of 85 wins, couldn't a marginal win make a pretty big difference? It's not likely, though not unheard of, for 86 wins to get you in to the postseason.

[JohnBriggs12]

Our team as built was a just over .500 team this year. That was assuming Hoffman, Parra and Davis didn't completely fall on their face which they did. Getting a good pitcher will go a long way towards being better but that probably only puts us at around 83-85 wins. 2012 is when we should have some Impact Talent™ coming up in Lawrie and Odorizzi. At that point we should start to see a shift from an average team to a really good team. Rogers' value in 2016 should be much more than chasing a marginal win in 2011.

The purpose for having Rogers in the 2011 rotation is not to "chase an extra win". In fact they probably would do better towards that with a mid level FA veteran than they will with Rogers. But it could help Rogers, who will be 25 in January, down the road become a better pitcher by learning at the highest level working with a major league pitching coach instead of getting by on stuff alone against AAA hitters. I don't believe you can ever think 3 or 4 years down the road with pitchers anyway so there's no sense worrying about his value in 2016. He may not be pitching at all by then.

 

At 25 with all he's been through, you'd expect him to have the maturity to handle the pressure part of the job. If he's not, you'd like to find that out soon too and avoid another Parra disaster. Innings wise, you could save them early in the season. If the can surround him with other guys in the rotation that can get into the 7th inning regularly, then they can live with 5-6 innings starts out of Rogers.

[logan82]

He can learn in AAA for a couple months instead of skipping it completely. Missing a couple months of next season spending it in AAA won't hurt him.

 

And That I will get back to you as I have an answer but not the time to type it right now.

[Never Outhustled]

I don't believe you can ever think 3 or 4 years down the road with pitchers anyway so there's no sense worrying about his value in 2016. He may not be pitching at all by then.

Not to mention that we control him in 2016 in either scenario. By letting him have about 8 AAA starts next year, we'd extend his control in 2017. I think he has awesome potential, and I think this team could contend next year if Melvin can do his job. However, for them to contend, they'll need starting pitching depth. Rogers should be that depth. Someone from next years opening day rotation will either struggle, or get injured, and we'll need to turn to AAA for help. If we don't acquire 2 quality starting pitchers for next season, we'll be short on pitching by June, just like every other year.

[TooLiveBrew]

I'm not attempting to predict any of that, just operating on the assumption that the Brewers are going to continue to have to maximize player value since they won't be developing into a big market.

 

 

I'm talking about trying to win more games next season and 2012.

 

I'm all about him being up from day one in 2012, when I think the Brewers will be a contending team. But I'm not at all interested in burning up a full season for Rogers in '11 so he could (best-case hypothetical) add maybe one win over the first two months of the season. Not to mention the fact that this one hypothetical win probably takes the team from roughly 79 wins to 80.

 

 

Sveumrules, I don't think the Padres comparison/suggestion is useful for the '11 Brewers -- that team's resurgence is due entirely to having one great player on offense, one great starter, and a bunch of bullpen guys having career years (seriously their bullpen's performance has been staggering). Just for comparison's sake, the Cards' OPS+/ERA+ is 99/110, compared to the Pads' 94/110 so far this season.

[battlekow]

There's also the point of view that you want to get as many MLB innings out of Rogers as you can before his arm falls off. This perspective applies to all pitchers, but Rogers especially because of his injury history. It's not necessarily one I adhere to--I'm not sure I buy the "only so many bullets" argument--but it's reasonable enough.

[thebruce44]

He still has kinks to work out. Let him work on his change up and location in AAA instead of MKE. At this point, I don't think he is better than a marginal FA, but down the line if given proper time to develop, he will be.

[sveumrules]

I'm just using the Padres as an example of how every year crazy stuff happens.

 

Lots of people around here seem to be already writing off 2011 as a lost year and I guess I'd at least like to wait until May or June of next year to do that.