5th worst off season according to Wall Street Journal

[MJLiverock]

Even if Aoki only bats .230/.290 with little power and Green bats .250/.310 and hits for 8-10 hrs I still think thats pretty solid from the bench. when you look around the league who has the potential for better bench than us? not many teams imo. There are a lot of people that wanted to start Green this year and others wanted to trade Morgan when we signed Aoki. I think we have 1-2 starting caliber players (Gomez & Green) another with starter potential(Aoki) and a defensive wiz(Izturis) with an average back up catcher. That sounds pretty nice to me.

 

RockCougars summed my feelings up on the bench well. Izturis brings nothing to the bench, he is possibly the worst hitter in baseball, most of the Brewers starting rotation would provide a better pinch hitter than Izturis. His defense over the last 5 years or so has ranged from negative to great, call it above average but really adds nothing when the guy they brought in to start at SS is supposed to be here for D so there is no need to pull him late. Aoki is Morgan 2.0, Green may provide some lefty with pop but it is a guess at this point especially when counting on a young guy who has never had the role of PH, sporadic playing time. Gomez is fine as PR defense but no discipline and not exactly the guy I would calmor for if a timely hit is needed. Does the team really need 3 guys for defensive purposes in CF? It's not like any of them need to be pulled for defensive purposes and unless they plan on pulling Hart from RF for one of them late there is redundancy there. I see a lot of question marks and a pretty much useless guy (Izturis) and as Ender hit on, no one there to win the game with one swing of the bat.

[MVP2110]

Ok but compare it other benches around the league and I pretty sure we have one of the better ones

[TooLiveBrew]

I admit I didn't read the WSJ article, but did I comprehend the thread correctly that WAR +/- was the rationale in ranking the offseasons? Because the WARs the Brewers are adding in Gamel, Green, etc. are super-high...

[TURBO]

Ok but compare it other benches around the league and I pretty sure we have one of the better ones

 

 

Then my question to you would be:

 

Name one team that our bench is obviously better than theirs?

 

I think we fall in the lower half of the league, not the worst, but I highly doubt with little to no power or pinch hitting ability, that we would fit into the upper half.

[MVP2110]

I think we have a slightly better bench than St.Louis and Cincinnati if Green & Aoki play to expectations and slightly worse if they don't. Obviously a lot is still unknown but to say right off the bat that our bench is a weakness without seeing what Green & Aoki(2 players that some fans wanted to be starters) can do is a little premature. Bench players are bench players for a reason. If a player could hit and field he would be a starter.

 

And who says we have no pinch hitting ability? Aoki was a top hitter in Japan. People didn't want Green up for his defense. And Conrad has decent pop. With 2 Defensive/pinch runners for late in games. I really like our bench

[Ennder]

I consider our bench below average but a lot of it just depends on what Aoki is and how good Green plays. The rest of the guys are more or less useless to me, we don't really have anyone but Green that I would be excited to see PH at any point. Most teams at least have a couple of guys who would be viable starters in half of a platoon, not really seeing it with most of our bench.

[Baldkin]

I consider our bench below average but a lot of it just depends on what Aoki is and how good Green plays. The rest of the guys are more or less useless to me, we don't really have anyone but Green that I would be excited to see PH at any point. Most teams at least have a couple of guys who would be viable starters in half of a platoon, not really seeing it with most of our bench.

 

Green, Aoki, Kottaras, Gomez? Izturis is the only one who really isn't anything, and he'll be the backup SS and that is it.

 

Looking within the division (just using MLB's depth charts):

 

Cubs:

D. DeJesus, Reed Johnson, Jeff Baker, Adrian Cardenas, Steve Clevenger

Reds:

Ryan Ludwick, Chris Heisey, Todd Frazier, Wilson Valdez, Devin Mesoraco

Houston:

Jason Bougouis, Jack Cust, Brett Wallace, Marwin Gonzalez, Humberto Quintero

Pirates:

Nate McLouth, Casey McGehee, Alex Presley, M McKenry, Chase d'Arnaud

St Louis:

Allan Craig, Tyler Greene, Daniel Descalso, Tony Cruz, ???

 

I would take our bench over any one of those.

[TooLiveBrew]

I'm sure that I'll get laughed out of here for this, but I think that the Yankees got a steal in Ibanez. He's pegged as the semi-regular DH though (correct?), so I highly doubt that he would have bypassed that opportunity to come off the bench for the Brewers.

 

I'm starting to covet the Yankees bench (Andruw Jones, Chavez, etc. potentially Branyan and Hall).... except for Dickerson.

Hah! I just noticed this post now.

[monty57]

Does the team really need 3 guys for defensive purposes in CF?

 

No, which is why I think we may use Braun's potential 50 game hiatus as a testing ground for Aoki. If he doesn't look overmatched, then I think we could trade Morgan away when Braun returns and move Aoki into Morgan's role. Then we'd have room to bring up a decent bat who could also back up corner OF/1B. The whole drawn-out Braun things has kept us from picking up the $800k vet I expected, so I don't know who this "decent bat who could also back up corner OF/1B" may be at this point.

 

In regards to the bench, I think a person's opinion will depend on their opinion of Green and Aoki. An optimist will see a good prospect in Green who could be at least an average MLB 2B/3B, and a Japanese batting champ who should be a good MLB leadoff hitter with Gold Glove-caliber defense. A pessimist will see a so-so prospect who could easily flame out and some foreign guy who has never faced a decent pitcher. I lean more towards the former, so I think our bench will be okay, although I would prefer a better RH bat, and I don't want to see Green wasting away on the bench as he probably will. In that regard, I would probably like to see Conrad replace Green on the bench, but I don't know that we have the 40-man space at the moment.

 

I am starting to get over my absolute starvation for anyone who could play defense which I had after last season's playoffs. Therefore, I can now see how bad Izturis is with a bat, and I will once again wish that we could have someone in the minors who could step in if our starting SS gets hurt. Izturis is fine as a bench player who will get a rare start. If Gonzalez gets a serious injury, our offense will have a gaping hole in it named Izturis. It's a bad thing when I have to worry about the offense dropping off if Gonzalez gets hurt :-)

[MVP2110]

The thing with that is I don't see much of a downgrade in the bat department going from Gonzalez to Izturis. Gonzalez has a crappy bat with ok power. Izturis has a crappy bat with no power.

[Thurston Fluff]

It's hard to figure out the value of rookies and defense in the best of circumstances let alone in comparison to someone with a very different skill set. Prince and Gamel are very different players as are Yuni and Gonzalez. While one may be better overall I don't even know how to begin to compare the two styles of player to get to a degree of difference needed to interpret worst off season. Then trying to judge a slight upgrade in one area making up for a downgrade in another adds another layer of uncertainty. I think it's more about baseball being around the corner and media outlets needing something to hype when everything has already been said than any great insight.

[Ennder]

Cubs:

D. DeJesus, Reed Johnson, Jeff Baker, Adrian Cardenas, Steve Clevenger

Reds:

Ryan Ludwick, Chris Heisey, Todd Frazier, Wilson Valdez, Devin Mesoraco

Houston:

Jason Bougouis, Jack Cust, Brett Wallace, Marwin Gonzalez, Humberto Quintero

Pirates:

Nate McLouth, Casey McGehee, Alex Presley, M McKenry, Chase d'Arnaud

St Louis:

Allan Craig, Tyler Greene, Daniel Descalso, Tony Cruz, ???

 

I would take our bench over any one of those.

 

I'd have to look a little closer but I would take most of those benches over ours(probably not Houston and maybe not the Cardinals). I'd put ours right smack in the middle of that bunch with the Reds at the top.

[MVP2110]

When looking at those benches. Chicago has Dejesus. He will be starting in right for them. One of Ludwick or Heisey will be starting in left for Cincinnati. Pittsburgh and Chicago I think are right there with us for best bench in the league. But I think we are definately ahead of Houston and St.Louis and probably Cincinnati as well

[xisxisxis]

5th worst off season according to Wall Street Journal

 

I'm devastated. I can't wait to see the annual baseball offseason review at the Food Network. I hope they don't trash us too....

[Baldkin]

When looking at those benches. Chicago has Dejesus. He will be starting in right for them. One of Ludwick or Heisey will be starting in left for Cincinnati. Pittsburgh and Chicago I think are right there with us for best bench in the league. But I think we are definately ahead of Houston and St.Louis and probably Cincinnati as well

 

I was just going off the depth charts at each team's page on MLB.com. I have no idea who projects to start for each team beyond that.

[trwi7]

5th worst off season according to Wall Street Journal

 

I'm devastated. I can't wait to see the annual baseball offseason review at the Food Network. I hope they don't trash us too....

 

Awesome.

 

I think our offseason got a little better today.