Carlos Pena

[sheetskout]

I think we will contend as it is now. Although I wouldn't mind Carlos Pena in a Brewers uniform I think that money should be dedicated to resigning pitching. We're kind of up a creek with Greinke and Marcum pending free-agents and Wolf with an expensive option (and really no pro-data on Jungmann or Bradley yet).

[JohnBriggs12]

"We're kind of up a creed with Greinke and Marcum pending free-agents and with Wolf with and expensive option."

 

They'll have freed up $30-32 million in salary to re-invest in other pitchers should they choose to let all those guys walk or trade them at midseason. Yeah they'd have some work to do, but they'd have some money to spend. So they are not quite as up a creek as it might appear. It's not like the Fielder situation where the best they could do to replace him was a guy nearing the end of his productive years.

[DHonks]

We have plenty of ways to save money, as JohnBriggs said. For instance, we don't need two overpaid CF's, a declining RF (not likely yet, but will decline eventually), and 4 well paid pitchers

[MNBrew]

First, I don't want anything to do with Carlos Pena. We don't need his hole-y bat or the highly inflated salary it would apparently command (the latter totally astounds me). Mat Gamel needs to play. Now onto my more prevalent thoughts at the moment:

 

I'm normally on a wavelength similar to Briggs, but this time I'm not. FA salaries are stupid all over again, esp. considering how few are actually All-Star caliber players.

 

I think we're better off trying to re-sign Greinke or Marcum (assuming Marcum regains his usual form, not his mid-Sept-onward form) than taking our chances that we can land other pitchers as good or better for less money. This approach reeks of the "Let Sabathia go; rather than paying him so ridiculously much we're better off w/ two top picks" mantra so many were spouting 3 years ago: Nothing was a given, we lost Sabathia, we only got a sandwich pick & a 2nd rounder, and all in all we seriously lost out. The only difference from then to now is that we have some young starters who give us reason to think they could be good. But those young guys haven't proven a single MLB thing yet, and I wouldn't want to put all our eggs into their baskets yet when the there's no guarantee they'll amount to being plus-contributors to the rotation. Randy Wolf isn't just above average, he's rather good. We'd be doing quite well if Fiers, Peralta, & Rogers/Estrada (and eventually Thornburg, Heckathorn, Jungmann, & Bradley) developed into pitchers as good as Randy Wolf. But you don't have great odds of winning a World Series even with a rotation of Randy Wolfs. You need great starters to go along with your Randy Wolfs.

 

I think Greinke is an elite talent and a proven ace. We need guys like that and we've already got Greinke. A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. I could see if the young pitchers are busting through that perhaps you trade either Wolf (if you extend Marcum) or Marcum (possibly exercising Wolf's 2013 option) to keep reloading the pipeline of young talent, but even that approach has its drawbacks.

 

With Gallardo, Greinke, & Marcum, our Top 3 starters were as good as most any rotation's Top 3 in MLB. Add Wolf and our Top 4 were as good as anyone's. After one year where those guys did well but all arguably could've done better, I don't think you find ways to rationalize dismantling those parts of your team that finally made you good enough to get within 2 games of the World Series (and if they'd kept pitching that way they did all year, we probably could've not only gotten there but won it) for the ONLY time in nearly 30 years. That kind of approach starts seeming to me like a current parallel of rationalizing that you're just as well or even better off if you trade Gorman Thomas for Rick Manning & Rick Waits, but in reality, making such a move signals the beginning of a faster route to the end of being an elite team.

 

To me, as DHonks noted, you've got a well-paid RF and two CFs who may well be able to replaced by equally talented but cheaper young players. . . . Maybe you do trade 1 starter, but only if a young guy's busting down the door. There are other practical, efficient, & positively long-term-minded ways to go before trading high-end starters.

 

I keep thinking of Atlanta. During their run of 14 or 15 straight years of playoff appearances, they always had a Big 3 Starters plus a couple cornerstone position players. The rest of the roster turned over routinely over the years, and they consistently dealt from a position of strength. However that worked, though, that essential core of key players remained quite constant. I think, as much as possible, you keep the talent & production level of your rotation as high as absolutely possible.

 

 

(Multiple edits were only minor word-smithing for increased clarity.)

[CheezWizHed]

We're kind of up a creed

 

Is that an "Office" reference?