The Bring up Taylor Green Thread

[TooLiveBrew]

The only thing that even remotely makes sense to me is that Green is on the PTBNL list. That also makes me irate to consider, but there's no other explanation that makes sense to me as to why he hasn't been called up.

[Tbadder]

Okay. Based on 1) a little too old to be a true prospect, 2) only half a season at AAA, and 3) injury prone. I just think there's as much chance that he's adequate as Casey coming back. And since Casey has actually done it for a season and a half I really think it's a push.

 

And if Green is the PTBNL I think that 30 innings of K-Rod is a better deal especially with the 8th inning meltdowns the Brewers have experienced this year.

 

And as far as the argument that he's a top prospect well, prospects fall and rise continually. Hey he might be good--play him. But a TOP prospect--no way. a prospect, maybe, give him a shot.

[FVBrewerFan]

I agree TooLive, have been fearing that's the case. Here's my question. In these PTBNL deals, can a GM call back one of the names on the list? Is that "legal" and/or would that be considered to be a "dirty move" by the Mets?

 

This list was thrown out there, but typically it's not some sort of formal documnet. It's more "Here's the type of guys we may throw your way." I would think that's something they could negotiate, unless DM just doesn't like Green as a prospect for some reason.

[logan82]

And if Green is the PTBNL I think that 30 innings of K-Rod is a better deal especially with the 8th inning meltdowns the Brewers have experienced this year.

 

That would really suck since most of those meltdowns are directly the result of our manager being an idiot. So basically our manager acts like and idiot so we lose something of value.

[jmeks23]

If Green were on there why wouldn't they just take him right away? What do they need to scout about him. He's tearing the cover off the ball at the highest level of the minor leagues and he's not all that old. Have you seen the Mets lately? They are a glorified minor league team. They would've taken him in a heartbeat and then only had 1 PTBNL.

[Tbadder]

Green, like Caleb Gindl, is putting up decent numbers at Nashville without much fanfare, positioning himself for a MLB backup role in the near future. He's played third base almost exclusively since 2007, but he's good enough at second to have played there while Eric Farris was manning shortstop. Green has a well-rounded base of skills, hitting for a decent average and surprising power, plus a walk rate that's rebounded to its 2008 level. If he's lucky, he could have Casey McGehee's career; more likely, he'll have the career McGehee was ticketed for before breaking out in 2009: a 2B/3B reserve. Interestingly, the McGehee parallel even extends to dabbling at the catcher position.

[And That]

3) injury prone

What do you base this on?

 

Here is the list of Taylor Green's major injuries:

• He broke the hamate bone in his left wrist in August of 2008.
• That's it.

Beside what ended up being about 3 months of games on the shelf for the hamate thing, he's spent 33 days on the DL in 5 years in the system. If that's injury prone, that term has a much lower threshold than I was giving it credit for.

1) a little too old to be a true prospect

What does "true prospect" mean?

[pebadger]

The Mets may be a glorifed minor league team, but they'd probably be within a game of the lead (or better) if the played in the NL Central and got to play the Cubs and Astros on a regular basis. Asit stands rightnow playing in a superior division their record puts them on par with the Reds who are only 3 games back.

 

The NL Central is not good. Thats what makes the Brewers failre to take advantage of the situation so disappointing. This is much, much more likely to end up like 2007 than 2008, if only because the wildcard simply isn't a very realistic option at this point. None of this is about assigning blame anymore. It's simply about finding ways to improve. Other than the K-Rod move, this team has not improved at all and, because of injury or lack of production, they are regressing at some spots. If this continues, even if they stay right in the thick of things, the Brewers will be extremely vulnerable to simple twists of fate at the end of the year. The prize is there to be seized. The time to open an advantage is now. I don't want to read any more stories about sunglasses and the like in September, when the real issue is that significant holes in this roster that some have been talking about even when the team was riding high earlier in the season. The team has some star power, but is only really being kept at the top of the standings by the shortcomings of their divisional competitors at this point.

[TooLiveBrew]

Responding to TBadder's post here:

 

I'm wary of players who don't have a complete season at a level unless they're overpowering the league like Nick Ramirez, and I hardly think Taylor is overpowering AAA.

 

I want to start by saying this is all meant in a civil tone. Typically, a highly-drafted college player having success (or even dominating) in Rookie league ball isn't an indication of much. For comparison's sake, Ramirez is only three years younger than Green, & is only now at low-A ball. If Ramirez is not only able to move up to Nashville & begin his season there in three more seasons, but also post a mid-.900s OPS, the Brewers will be extremely fortunate & probably have their first baseman of the future.

 

Green hasn't had "injuries", he's had one injury to his wrist, & is fully recovered now. In all of AAA, there are three players (Brett Lawrie is one) who are younger than Green with OPS rates better than his .942; his OPS is 16th-best overall. This is made all the more impressive imo since Green is just two seasons removed from the surgery to help repair a compression fracture in his wrist. I realize that you may assume Green's production at AAA is nothing special, but the reality is that it's actually quite impressive.

 

 

surprising power

 

It's not surprising unless you didn't expect him to return to pre-compression fracture form. He's a talented hitter who's entering his prime.

[jmeks23]

The NL Central isn't good, but either is the NL East after the Braves and the Phillies. The Nationals, Mets, and Marlins all suck. The NL Central just seems a lot worse because 1) The Pirates are tied for 1st and 2) There's more teams.

 

As far as playing the Cubs and Astros, that's a lame excuse. First of all, the Brewers have barely even played the Astros this year, and have only played the Cubs like 2-3 times. So if all you need to do is beat up on those teams to be good then I guess the Brewers still have a pretty good shot.

[TooLiveBrew]

The NL Central just seems a lot worse because 1) The Pirates are tied for 1st and 2) There's more teams.

 

Don't forget 3) The Brewers, Cards, Reds, & Pirates are all significantly less talented than either ATL or PHI

[And That]

In all of AAA, there are three players (Brett Lawrie is one) who are younger than Green with OPS rates better than his .942; his OPS is 16th-best overall.

And most of the players with a higher AAA OPS play their home games in pretty extreme hitter's parks. Nashville has one of the few pitching friendly parks in the Pacific Coast League. IIRC, Greer is actually more pitcher friendly than most International League parks as well.

[pebadger]

There ARE only a few good teams in teh NL. And only a few more in the AL. That's the nature of baseball these days.

 

The Pirates are 15-6 versus the Cubs and Stros. That is why they are in the race. The Brewers have opportunies against those clubs coming up, but they have the almost the exact same number of games against them as the Cards at this point. They altenate playing them this week before the faceoff next weekend. And the Brewers have been bad against the Cubs and 'Stros this season so far (6-7 against the two worst teams in the NL) so I don't know that we can take them as a given.

 

Steering this back on topic, that's why it seems to me that at least giving Green a shot at 3B seems to be a no-brainer unless something else is going on organizationally. It's damned near impossible to be worse than McGehee at this point. Simply improving a little bit may be all this team needs to give themsleves an advantage. Not only have the Brewers not given Green a shot they haven't really even explored Wilson or Counsell as options (and probably with good reason). It's simply dumbfounding that in a race that will likely be decided by very incremental improvements by whichever team makes them, the Brewers have seemingly decided that their best option is to hope one of the worst everyday players in MLB simply "snaps out of it" when all the evidence is pointing very strongly in the opposite direction.

[Tbadder]

I would never believe anything other than your comments were meant in a civilized tone. This is the reason I try to tread the middle path and qualify what I say. I don't think Taylor Green will be any better than Casey, but there's a chance he will be. Hence my comments on "play him" and he could be lightning in a bottle. I just don't think it will happen. A discussion forum is only effective if it honors multiple points of view, knowing full well some of those will be correct, incorrect, or somewhere in the middle. Thanks for letting me have my say.

[FoxyFoxes]

I wish we could email this thread or some posts to Melvin/Attanasio. Sigh.....

[monty57]

Green hasn't had "injuries", he's had one injury to his wrist, & is fully recovered now. In all of AAA, there are three players (Brett Lawrie is one) who are younger than Green with OPS rates better than his .942; his OPS is 16th-best overall. This is made all the more impressive imo since Green is just two seasons removed from the surgery to help repair a compression fracture in his wrist. I realize that you may assume Green's production at AAA is nothing special, but the reality is that it's actually quite impressive.

 

That puts things in perspective pretty well. Just because AAA isn't the majors doesn't mean it's easy to post an OPS around .950. It takes a pretty special hitter to OPS over .900 at any level. Considering Green is still relatively young, playing in AAA for the first time, and apparently finally healthy from his wrist injury, I'm excited to see what the kid can do.

[adambr2]

I just don't understand how McGehee is getting the star treatment. Basically, the leash he's getting is so long, you'd automatically think that he was either a top, top prospect for the future who was having some big 3rd year struggles after exploding his first two seasons, or, a 10 year proven veteran with multiple all-star game appearances. McGehee is neither. Better players and prospect than him (Weeks, Hardy), had to take their lumps in Nashville when things just weren't going right in Milwaukee, and it's puzzling to me that McGehee is an exception, especially with a potential replacement OPS'ing .942 in AAA.

 

To put it another way, Hardy wasn't nearly as bad as McGehee, and Escobar not doing nearly as well as Green, when they made the move in 2009. Hardy had a better OPS when he went down, and even when he was bad, he was never a defensive liability like McGehee is.

[Invader3K]

Maybe McGehee has incriminating pictures of Doug Melvin. Can't think of any other logical explanation at this point.

[GoudaBrew]

I emailed TH to see if he would ask DM if Green was being considered to replace the struggling McGehee. He responded as:

 

"It has been asked and tgey [sic] say they aren't ready to give upo [sic] on McGehee."

 

So, as most have assumed, Casey has earned an extremely long leash in the eyes of DM and Co.

 

Oh and Tom has a hard time typing on his Blackberry.http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/smile.gif

[MillerBombers]

I emailed TH to see if he would ask DM if Green was being considered to replace the struggling McGehee. He responded as:

 

"It has been asked and tgey [sic] say they aren't ready to give upo [sic] on McGehee."

 

So, as most have assumed, Casey has earned an extremely long leash in the eyes of DM and Co.

 

Oh and Tom has a hard time typing on his Blackberry.http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/smile.gif

I guess in my eyes I see giving up on him as cutting him. By sending him down you are giving the opportunity to get right while giving the team an opportunity for improvement. It is just like any business, are you going to sacrifice the entire company for one individual? NO!

[adambr2]

I've asked the same thing and been told that they are skeptical of Green.

 

What bothers me about this move (or lack thereof) is that they don't have to "give up" on McGehee. Just send him down to Nashville, as mentioned, and let him work on things there and see what Green has got.

 

If you give Green 3 weeks or so and he's not producing, and McGehee is swinging a hot bat in Nashville, fine, switch them back. But what does it honestly hurt to try? Seems like they're just being stubborn at this point.

 

I get the impression (and this is nothing but speculation on my part), that Roenicke has been pleading on McGehee's behalf like I think he was with Nieves for quite some time. I get the feeling that he tries to be a lot more hands on when it comes to personnel moves, whereas Macha just more worked with whoever he was given.

[The Truth]

McGehee's relatively strong enough April (.739 OPS, .278 BA) likely skewed Roenicke's thoughts into thinking "he'll come around". I have to think they are looking at trade options

 

With Gamel getting reps at 3B in AAA it seems clear that the Brewers look at Gamel as being a better option than Green.

 

We now have several pitchers hitting as well or almost as well as Casey. Can Narveson play 3B?

[TheCrew07]

And if Green is the PTBNL I think that 30 innings of K-Rod is a better deal especially with the 8th inning meltdowns the Brewers have experienced this year.

 

That would really suck since most of those meltdowns are directly the result of our manager being an idiot. So basically our manager acts like and idiot so we lose something of value.

Worded slightly stronger than I would have, but this is the point people tend to overlook. Loe isn't the problem, Loe pitching a ton and pitching in poor match-up situations was the problem. He's a very effective reliever when used properly, but basically anyone can see when he's not locating his sinker down in the zone and when that happens he's extremely hittable. K-Rod is a name, I won't take that away from him, but he's hardly the same pitcher that lit up the radar gun in the mid 90s in his prime. He's certainly effective, but he won't be a difference maker in so few innings when common sense could have improved the Loe situation.

 

I want to like RR, I really do, but he does a couple of things that just happen to be my pet peeves so he angers me from time to time. Macha was the only Brewer manager I actually loathed, but I think it's fair to say that Loe's failure was as much if not more on RR than it was on Loe. I'm not one of the posters around here that's going to make excuses for players that are underperfoming and even I will acknowledge how poorly Loe was used, seemingly because he was hot to start the sesason and RR didn't trust anyone else.

 

Given the organizational hole at 3B, trading away Green would be collosal blunder at this point. I've avoided using the term "myopic" in regards to Melvin and many of the trades and posters because it seems too strong (or maybe I just don't like the word), but I think Melvin and many people who contribue on the trade proposal forum have a myopic view of the organization. Some posters on this site have been in win now mode since 2007, it seems the majority are this year because "we're all in", which has me to the point I'm ready to gag from reading it everywhere on every Brewer related site I might stop at. Many posters will be in win now mode next season, and the season after that, and I understand that to a certain extent that's just the nature of the beast, but I don't understand the lack of patience.

 

One of the more statistically orientated posters (I honestly forget who, I think it was Sam but can't say for sure) asked in 2008 if people would be willing to take an intentional small step back after Sabathia and Sheets left in 2009 to take another leap forward in 2010 pitching wise. The posts were overwhelming negative towards the idea, but I just never understood the lack of patience, the general tone of the conversation was Melvin had money available and he should spend it. We aren't some long suffering fan base and the organization isn't particularly strong from top to bottom yet many act like the Brewers owe them something. Furthermore many believe prospects are valueless (my all time favorite unsupportable "hasn't proven anything" argument" and we'll always have a continual stream to trade away, but that's not the reality of the sport for a team like Milwaukee that's already stretching it's means as far as they can go.

 

Taylor Green has value, his poor performance is directly atributable to the way the organization mismanaged and mistreated his wrist injury. It's certainly not his fault they made him wait until the following season to have surgery hoping it would heal over the winter. Again, I don't make excuses for poor performance but he was so obviously hosed over by the training staff that it is difficult to ignore the reality of what happened. He's not a top prospect, but McClendon is a decent relief prospect and Green's upside is probably that of a league average 3B so that's way too much to give up for any reliever, especially since we aren't pulling draft compensation when he walks. It's one thing if you can spin McClendon and Green into Heckathorn and Odorrizi, but it's another to spin then into Frederickson and Dykstra, or nothing at all other than the 30 IP. Yes I know Melvin spun Dykstra into Morgan to essentially save that situation, but it goes back much deeper than that and I won't rehash every move that has led us to this point yet again.

 

There's simply no good, supportable, and logical reason why the Brewers cannot break in a couple of young players every year and maintain a high level of success. The only reason that hasn't happened is because Macha was a dunce and Melvin traded away the rest of the 2nd wave for pitching this off season. Many other teams break in rookies during pennant and WS runs every year, and they don't possess some magic formula that the Brewers are somehow lacking, and not all of those prospects are successful out of the gate either. The only magic is the common sense to give young players the room to fail and grow while continually working to build their confidence. Any good coach can do that... Evidence of 1 player's success or failure has nothing to do with the next prospect which comes along. Braddock isn't struggling this year because Parra failed before him and Eveland failed before Parra. Some guys make the leap and maintain their confidence, some guys don't.

 

The Brewers thought they got lucky and struck gold with McGehee, and they did for a season and a half, but it's poor roster management and organizational planning not to address the situation given the options readily available. In fact if Melvin did put Green on the list knowing how McGehee has struggled this season and how far away any legit 3B prospect might be from Milwaukee then this trade would be a microcosm of every problem I've had with Melvin since 2007. He's never looked to build to anything, only patch what he already has, and duct tape is only going to get you so far before it all comes crashing down. That's why I'm not having much fun this season, I know the Brewers need to win because Melvin has nothing left in the minors to prop himself up with, but with that winning Melvin likely saves his job and status quo continues for another 3 years. He took the team out of the gutter but then proceded to completely empty the tank and put us in position to fall right back down because he made all those moves without ever trading for solution we'd control more than 2 years that possessed any kind of impact talent.

[LouisEly]

Given the organizational hole at 3B, trading away Green would be collosal blunder at this point.

 

While maybe not a colossal blunder, I think it would be a significant blunder because if anything the Brewers need LH balance in the lineup and Green could help provide that. Especially next year when Prince is likely gone. That is what bugs me about not calling him up - the ability to add a LH bat to the lineup against RH pitching.

 

Taylor Green was on a PTBNL list before though...

[MillerBombers]

Given the organizational hole at 3B, trading away Green would be collosal blunder at this point.

 

While maybe not a colossal blunder, I think it would be a significant blunder because if anything the Brewers need LH balance in the lineup and Green could help provide that. Especially next year when Prince is likely gone. That is what bugs me about not calling him up - the ability to add a LH bat to the lineup against RH pitching.

Taylor Green was on a PTBNL list before though...

Yes he was, the Indians took Brantley over him in the CC trade. However, given our 3B situation at the break this would be at least a significant blunder in my opinion.