Come on Brewers, this bench is awful -- how about some changes?

[monty57]

Kotsay's probably the least of the concerns right now, but it's magnified with Braun out.

 

I completely disagree. Kotsay is a major concern as long as DPR keeps running him out there as much as he does. Even when everybody is healthy Kotsay keeps getting playing time. Kotsay is holding the bench hostage. He needs to go.

Let me restate that: Kotsay is a big problem which could easily be solved in-house. However, relative to McGehee and Yuni, Kotsay is less horrible because he is a 4th/5th OF, which McGehee and Yuni start every day.

 

Kotsay has a .638 OPS in 142 ABs

Yuni has a .612 OPS in 284 ABs

McGehee has a .585 OPS in 312 ABs

 

All I'm saying is that McGehee and Yuni have hurt the team far more than Kotsay. I agree that Kotsay should be replaced by any of Boggs, Gindl, Katin or Carroll, and I hope it happens soon. How McGehee is holding onto a starting spot when Green is tearing up AAA is incomprehensible to me. If he is not replaced, he could go on record as having the worst season for a 3B in the modern era.

[JohnBriggs12]

The bench has nothing to do with the team faltering over the past week. The starting pitching has failed. The bullpen has failed. The defense has failed. The manager has failed. Weeks is 4 for his last 33. Fielder has 1 RBI in the last 7 games. Why on earth pick now to dis the bench?

 

Kotsay on the other hand has started 3 games in the last week, He's 5 for 12 with a HR and 3 RBI.

 

We have to get away from making the bench or Betancourt the scapegoat every time this team struggles. Good benches don't win squat. You win because your starters are better than the other guys and they manage to stay relatively healthy and productive. When the guys you count on to produce, don't, you won't win. Bench players are bench players because they are not good enough start. Expecting them to play up to a starter's standard is plain silly.

[rluzinski]

Kotsay on the other hand has started 3 games in the last week, He's 5 for 12 with a HR and 3 RBI.

 

Is the point of this thread to see who's been good or bad recently or to identify areas ripe for an upgrade? SS, 3B and #5 OF are begging to be upgraded, 2B and 1B are not.

[Never Outhustled]

The bench has nothing to do with the team faltering over the past week. The starting pitching has failed. The bullpen has failed. The defense has failed. The manager has failed. Weeks is 4 for his last 33. Fielder has 1 RBI in the last 7 games. Why on earth pick now to dis the bench?

 

Kotsay on the other hand has started 3 games in the last week, He's 5 for 12 with a HR and 3 RBI.

 

We have to get away from making the bench or Betancourt the scapegoat every time this team struggles. Good benches don't win squat. You win because your starters are better than the other guys and they manage to stay relatively healthy and productive. When the guys you count on to produce, don't, you won't win. Bench players are bench players because they are not good enough start. Expecting them to play up to a starter's standard is plain silly.

 

While this is mostly true, it does have to be stated that if the Brewers had Jon Jay as their 4th OF and the Cards had Kotsay as their 4th OF, the Brewers would have a 2 game lead instead of being 1 game back. Most back-up positions are inconsequential, but 4th OFs usually get at least 250 ABs a year, so their as valuable as 1/2 a starter.

[monty57]

The starters obviously have more say as to how a team performs over a season. However, I don't believe we're in a position to find a new first baseman who will out play Prince, or new starting pitchers who will outplay our current staff. What we can do relatively easily is:

 

-stop trotting Loe out in tight situations. He's fine when used correctly, but setting him in stone as the "8th inning guy" is not using him correctly. We have better options for tight situations.

-bring up Green to platoon with or replace .585 OPS / bad defense McGehee. If this continues, McGehee will go down as one of (if not the) worst 3B in history!

-bring in a 4th/5th OF with the potential to hit over a low-.600 OPS while being an asset rather than a liability in the field. Kotsay may have had a couple of decent games (although the ball bouncing off his glove for a triple on a routine grounder probably single-handedly lost us a game), but he has been a bad player this year, while we have numberous players doing well in AAA.

 

I'm not upset over what's happened the past week, as any team has down times, and I'm certainly not going to get upset with Prince because he's had a down week. I just can't understand why we continue to accept mediocrity when we have better options for free in our system. For that reason, I'm not overly upset with the SS situation, other than that we have three bad SS's taking up space, so one of them should be sent packing. If we are able to find a better SS, great, but the other moves can easily be made to make us better now without giving up a thing.

[joepepsi]

While this is mostly true, it does have to be stated that if the Brewers had Jon Jay as their 4th OF and the Cards had Kotsay as their 4th OF, the Brewers would have a 2 game lead instead of being 1 game back. Most back-up positions are inconsequential, but 4th OFs usually get at least 250 ABs a year, so their as valuable as 1/2 a starter.

X cellent point. It's worth noting that Boggs, although 2 years older than Jay, has had a much better minor league career. The difference is in organizational attitude.

[xisxisxis]

The difference is in organizational attitude.

or aptitude. What keeps driving me nuts is that we have "solutions" to the most of the issues in the organization. It's not like Melvin actually has to do any work to solve the problems. The lone exception for a in-house fix is the relievers. If Loe wasn't the designated goto man for the 8th a lot of the late inning losses would correct themselves. Really poor roster judgement on Melvin/RRs parts. Any time you are "all-in" with Yuni Bettancourt as your everyday SS means you just bet your hole pot on a pair of 2's......

[danzig6767]

While this is mostly true, it does have to be stated that if the Brewers had Jon Jay as their 4th OF and the Cards had Kotsay as their 4th OF, the Brewers would have a 2 game lead instead of being 1 game back. Most back-up positions are inconsequential, but 4th OFs usually get at least 250 ABs a year, so their as valuable as 1/2 a starter.

X cellent point. It's worth noting that Boggs, although 2 years older than Jay, has had a much better minor league career. The difference is in organizational attitude.

This is how you end up in a game with Josh Wilson starting in LF.

[joepepsi]

Didn't Morgan PH against a lefty last night? So he wasn't good enough to start against a lefty, but in a crucial part of the the game he was good enough to PH against a lefty?

[yoshii8]

I believe RR's explanation on why he was starting Wilson instead of Nyjer was something like, he is hitting so good against righties I didn't want to mess him up.

[monty57]

Didn't Morgan PH against a lefty last night? So he wasn't good enough to start against a lefty, but in a crucial part of the the game he was good enough to PH against a lefty?

That has to do with Roenicke managing like an AL manager, where we constantly pinch hit for lefty/righty matchups and bring in defensive replacements, so that we end up with nobody left on the bench when the pitcher's spot comes up late in the game. At that point in the game, Morgan and Braun were the only players left on the bench, and Braun's hurt, so Morgan got the call. It could have been really bad if Braun had to bat in the 9th. If he has to go on the DL (not looking likely, but still a possibility), it would've pushed his timetable back quite a ways.

 

To your point, I agree that Morgan could've started. I'd have rather seen him in LF than Wilson.

[JohnBriggs12]

Can we put to rest the notion that Kotsay doesn't deserve a spot on the bench? He's a veteran major leaguer who's been in tough situations in big games. He may not put up huge numbers but he's not going to embarrass himself either.

[endaround]

Yeah he would never let a ball go under his glove or anything like that...

[JoeHova]

Can we put to rest the notion that Kotsay doesn't deserve a spot on the bench? He's a veteran major leaguer who's been in tough situations in big games. He may not put up huge numbers but he's not going to embarrass himself either.

That's debatable. He was embarrassing himself earlier in the year. A good game or two doesn't really mean much because every pro athlete haas a good game from time to time, no matter how bad they are relative to their peers.

[danzig6767]

Can we put to rest the notion that Kotsay doesn't deserve a spot on the bench? He's a veteran major leaguer who's been in tough situations in big games. He may not put up huge numbers but he's not going to embarrass himself either.

That's debatable. He was embarrassing himself earlier in the year. A good game or two doesn't really mean much because every pro athlete haas a good game from time to time, no matter how bad they are relative to their peers.

I'll be the first to admit that i was one of those people who wanted Kotsay replaced and that he looked pretty washed up during that 0-18ish stretch. He has really surprised me though at the plate the last 6 games or so. He's not

only getting hits and a few home runs, he's actually driven the ball

hard on a couple of outs.

 

I'm skeptical that he can keep this up,

but given that it looked to be a lock that he was staying on the roster

the rest of the year regardless if he had continued hitting terrible,

it's encouraging that he may not be as completely washed up as he looked

in that 0-18 stretch he had. Hopefully Kotsay can avoid looking brutal as he did for awhile and come up with some big hits going forward because all i care about is the Brewers winning games, i'll gladly eat some crow if he's at least reasonably productive going forward. We'll see.

[RockCoCougars]

As I said on the other thread, I don't get the Kotsay hate when Counsell has been much worse. If anyone needs to go, it's Counsell. I don't want to hear the 'no replacements' argument either, keeping both Counsell and Wilson is overkill.

[danzig6767]

As I said on the other thread, I don't get the Kotsay hate when Counsell has been much worse. If anyone needs to go, it's Counsell. I don't want to hear the 'no replacements' argument either, keeping both Counsell and Wilson is overkill.

No argument from me. I didn't get the point of having both Wilson/Counsell on the roster when Wilson was picked up, and nothing since has changed my mind. Weeks never gets/needs a day off. Roenicke has shown that he's going to play Betancourt close to everyday. Counsell hits so so poorly that Roenicke for good reason doesn't want to play him at third much even with McGehee in that epic slump. Wilson never gets starts and is the last pinch hitting option for Roenicke. So why are both staying on the roster?

 

Yea, if Betancourt suffered a serious injury, Counsell couldn't handle playing everyday at SS, so Wilson likely would have to be the guy kept. With that being the case, i just wonder if Melvin doesn't want to waive the hometown guy like Craig?

[RockCoCougars]

Counsell is slugging .212 for heaven's sake. He needs to go. If they want to save face, maybe he could get 'injured'. Otherwise, if he thinks that he can still play, you have to send him packing. It's cool that he's from Wisconsin, and I'm sure that he's a good dude, but it's clear that he's done.

[logan82]

If Counsell hit right handed there would be no reason to keep him. All 3 of our SS are huge piles of suck. His defense stinks and a couple good games at the plate isn't going to change my mind about his offense. We have readily available players in AAA that could replace Kotsay. Therefore we are going to see more calls to replace Kotsay instead of Counsell.

[Invader3K]

Supposedly Luis Cruz has an out on his contract with the Rangers on July 14th, and wants to come back to the Brewers. Maybe sign him, and get Counsell to take an early retirement with a bench or office job of some sort so he can save face.

[endaround]

Last I heard Cruz has already been released, is playing in Mexico and soon is on his way to Japan.

[mothershipconnection]

The difference between Counsell and Kotsay is that Counsell had acceptable offensive numbers for his role until 99 ABs of crap this year. Kotsay hasn't justified his roster spot for about 6 years.

[RockCoCougars]

The difference between Counsell and Kotsay is that Counsell had acceptable offensive numbers for his role until 99 ABs of crap this year. Kotsay hasn't justified his roster spot for about 6 years.

How do you figure? Counsell has been in MKE for what, 5 years in all? Of those, the only good season that he had at the plate was two years ago when he first changed his stance. He's been mediocre at best the rest of the time, and this year he looks like he is conjuring the ghost of Ray Oyler. I know that he's a really easy guy to root for, but he's just not a MLB caliber player anymore. When is the last time that he pulled a fastball? Lots of weakly hit balls to the left. The bat speed is gone, and he hasn't looked great in the field either, as should be expected from a guy who will be 41 soon.

[JoeHova]

Mediocre is actually quite good for a bench player. Anyway, by bWAR, Kotsay has been below replacement level 7 of the past 8 years. Counsell's only year below that threshold in that time is this season. Also, Counsell has some good will built up from being a Brewer for 6 years. Kotsay is just some scrub who has been here a few months.

[Funketown]

Counsell looks like he has completely lost it at the plate, but we need to remember that the guy only has 116 plate appearances. Saying he is completely finished right now is like saying a starter is toast in late April. Aging is, for the most part, a smooth process as far as it pertains to baseball skills. Counsell is almost certainly a worse hitter right now than he was last season, or the season before, but to expect him to hit .172/.274/.212/.486 going forward is hugely pessimistic. He is still a very good defensive player at three positions, and at SS and 3B he is very valuable to this team as a 6th-9th inning defensive replacement, especially as his bat doesn't project to be significantly worse than Yuni's.

 

I just don't see Counsell as being redundant; as a late inning defensive substitute and occasional starter at SS for Yuni, he is a pretty nice piece to this club. Ultimately the club has more use for him than Wilson, who is at best an average defender on the left side of the infield. We've seen how embarrassingly bad this team's defense can be, and I think it would be a big mistake to get rid of a very good defensive infielder simply due to his struggles over the course of what amounts to about three weeks of playing time.

 

(FWIW, Zips projects Yuni with a .295 wOBA, Wilson with a .292, and Counsell with a .287. I personally don't think Counsell will be that productive, but I don't think he'll be significantly worse than Yuni or Wilson. Of course, as a fan I tend to overvalue recent performance and undervalue performance from earlier seasons.)