Mr. Hart

[TURBO]

Keep Maldanado, I don't know about anyone else, but I LOVE having 2 catchers on the roster who are starter type catchers. Play them both on a regular basis, get them both rest when needed, get them at bats when they don't start, keep them both involved, but hang onto them......for now.

 

What a luxury it is to not have to play catchers that can't hit, or catchers that can't field. we know that each and every day we have a bonafied catcher in there, and to me, that is a wonderful luxury that most teams do not have.

 

Unless some team comes at us with a deal that we simply can not refuse, keep them both.

[danzig6767]

Hunter Morris might be the Southern League MVP this year; I don't think he needs a few more years. If keeps this up in 2013; he absolutely needs a spot on the team in 2014.

 

Morris is a nice prospect, but he does need to keep working on his walk rate.

 

In 2011 he walked at an atrocious rate, taking only 18 free passes over 548 at bats.

 

He improved that amount to 39 walks in 562 trips to the plate last year, so i hope that's an upward trend which continues next season.

[nate82]

While Morris is having a good season he still needs to work on getting his walks up. Still at least at a minimum is 1 year away and is probably more like 2-years away.

[KCBrewerfan34]

Hart can play RF, how is he blocking Morris?

[paul253]

I'm not sure how well Hart can actually play RF though. There was a noticeable dropoff in his defense last season. I'd hate to see how would play starting in 2014. Beside, if he plays RF then he's blocking Gindl and/or Khris Davis. I think Davis has the chance to be better offensively than Hunter Morris.

[KCBrewerfan34]

I'm not sure how well Hart can actually play RF though. There was a noticeable dropoff in his defense last season. I'd hate to see how would play starting in 2014. Beside, if he plays RF then he's blocking Gindl and/or Khris Davis. I think Davis has the chance to be better offensively than Hunter Morris.

 

 

Putting your faith in rookies has cost many GM's their jobs. Hart is a solid and dependable thing, has come up through our organization, and by the way won the game tonight . 2 years for $22-$24 million gets this done, CH can play 1B next year and move to RF if Morris is the goods.

 

This is setting up great for the Brewers, they probably have 3-4 starters on their team. They will have ALOT of money to spend this off-season to re-build this puke of a bullpen.

[paul253]

Putting your faith in rookies has cost many GM's their jobs.

It's like one or two players. Not an entire team's worth of rookies. Unfortunately at some point teams like the Brewers have to put their faith in rookies. They can't keep trading away all of their prospects for one or two years worth of players.

 

Hart is a solid and dependable thing, has come up through our organization, and by the way won the game tonight [smile]. 2 years for $22-$24 million gets this done, CH can play 1B next year and move to RF if Morris is the goods.

 

I almost feel like you want to resign him just because he came up with the Brewers. Would you give $25 million to him if he didn't come up with us? I brought this up before but if you give Hart $13 a million by 2014 you have over $60 million tied up in 5 players. Not something a team like Milwaukee can afford to do. And again, I really hate to think about Corey Hart trying to play RF again after having played 1B for two years. He was never really above average out there to begin with.

[chadomac]

When did Hart say he'd take a two year extension? I think that would be ideal and not much risk.

[KCBrewerfan34]

Besides the fact that Hart's numbers are excellent and he's a terrific 1b, no I have no reason to want him signed because he came up through our system. being a season ticket holder and a HUGE fan of the team I want them to have the best product possible on the field.

 

Having experienced the AZ game 5 in person last year (probably my greatest sport moment and I was at the 1996 Packer Super Bowl) I want that again and Hart definitely is a guy over the next 2-3 years can help us get back to that.

 

BTW are we ouit of this year??

[TURBO]

Hart at 2 years 24 million?

 

Hopefully not!

[KCBrewerfan34]

Hart at 2 years 24 million?

 

Hopefully not!

 

 

I guess you can't take the small market mentality out of everybody. Hopefully, this gets done soon.

[TheCrew07]

Putting your faith in rookies has cost many GM's their jobs.

It's like one or two players. Not an entire team's worth of rookies. Unfortunately at some point teams like the Brewers have to put their faith in rookies. They can't keep trading away all of their prospects for one or two years worth of players.

 

Hart is a solid and dependable thing, has come up through our organization, and by the way won the game tonight [smile]. 2 years for $22-$24 million gets this done, CH can play 1B next year and move to RF if Morris is the goods.

 

First of all, drafting poorly with young players has cost GMs their jobs, not an over reliance on young players.

 

In truth the vast majority of GMs lose their jobs because they overpay declining players and the performance on the field doesn't match the payroll... sound familiar? The 2012 Brewers perhaps?

 

Why do fire sales actually become necessary? How many GMs or fan bases think that a bunch of veteran signings are a bad thing but how many of those situations end well? How long did it take the Cubs to go from "veteran" to "old and tear it all down"? Why does that scenario play out again and again through all professional sports? Is it inevitable is or their a harder way which requires that an organization put development front and center to maintain a talent flow?

 

If we continue along the path that Melvin has established the window will close and a fire sale will become necessary, but it doesn't have to be that way, we just have to be willing to part with productive players and refresh the talent pool.

[homer]

It's better to be wrong on a guy a year early and let him walk than a year too late.

[paul253]

I guess you can't take the small market mentality out of everybody

When you say stuff like this you hurt your argument because you are acting like the Brewers have unlimited funds to spend. Forgetting the fact that you are one of the only people I have ever seen who claims Milwaukee isn't a small market in baseball, I don't understand why you don't accept the fact that teams like the Brewers need to continue to recycle young cheap talent to be successful. Putting $60 million into 5 guys and then having only $40 million or so to invest in the remaining 20 is a very risky strategy. As is relying on guys who are already in their early to mid 30's.

[danzig6767]

Hart at 2 years 24 million?

 

Hopefully not!

 

Hart signing an extension that small would be fabulous for the Brewers and way under his market value in today's economic climate.

 

An extension like that would not only be good value for the team if he stayed for all three years, it would increase his trade value if Melvin ever decided to trade Hart. Plenty of teams would love to have a productive player like Corey on a contract which isn't excessive in salary and doesn't run 4-5-6 years.

[slappzilla]

People who keep pushing the fact that putting stock in rookies can be detrimental are missing the big picture...the Brewers are still a small market team.

 

Small market teams can't always sign the sure thing FA on their team, and if they have a guy (or two) waiting in the wings that could possibly fill the position just as good or close to as good, you roll with the rookie.

[fondybrewfan]

I have to imagine if Hart would sign a crazy cheap 2/24 extension that he would demand a no trade clause. That contract obviously says Hart values keeping his family in one place rather than accepting more money somewhere else.

 

If Hart would sign for 2/24 I really think it is a no brainer and I wouldn't care if they gave him some sort of no trade clause. He could decline and still easily be worth that contract.

[JohnBriggs12]

Two recent examples of highly touted young 1st basemen are Justin Smoak and Ike Davis. Neither has exactly torn up major league pitching. The difference between now and when Fielder, Braun, Weeks, Hardy, Hart, et al. came along is that first of all the first three were all drafted high in round one. So the club already had a ton invested in them. Plus they weren't replacing All Stars or coming into an organization with any recent record of success. Morris should still be young enough to start working at a corner OF spot if you think he's nearly ready offensively. Maybe he's better suited for LF than RF. so that begs the question whether to move Braun. I think they'd leave that up to Braun.

 

Morris is the MVP of a AA league. Part of that was that he was there all season. Most guys putting up those numbers get advanced. The other part was that they ostensibly had a guy just a year older playing 1B at AAA and putting up pretty decent numbers himself: .274/.354/.497. So they have riches in young players at that position. That gives them options in the trade market. Signing Hart to a 2 year extension doesn't hamstring them much. They'll find a place for both of them if they have to.

[slappzilla]

Ike is coming around. Has like 25 bombs I think. Lots of XBH's

 

Smoak still stinks, I agree.

[TheCrew07]

Two recent examples of highly touted young 1st basemen are Justin Smoak and Ike Davis. Neither has exactly torn up major league pitching.

 

What does 1 prospect have to do with another? That's not legitimate evidence of any kind, what do completely dissimilar players have to do with Hunter Morris? That's like saying because Manny Parra failed all projectable LHP pitchers in the Brewer organization will fail.

 

Morris is the MVP of a AA league. Part of that was that he was there all season. Most guys putting up those numbers get advanced. The other part was that they ostensibly had a guy just a year older playing 1B at AAA and putting up pretty decent numbers himself: .274/.354/.497. So they have riches in young players at that position. That gives them options in the trade market. Signing Hart to a 2 year extension doesn't hamstring them much. They'll find a place for both of them if they have to.

 

Morris' .920 OPS was second in the entire league for anyone with over 139 PAs on the season, he was beat out by .004 by a player 1 year older than him. The year Corey Hart was the SL MVP he did with a pedestrian .807 OPS and that was because every other more deserving player was promoted. The position talent was down a bit in the SL this year, but the pitching certainly wasn't, Hunter's numbers are impressive. Hart was young for SL (21) and Morris is 23, but other than that Morris literally blew away the competition, it's wasn't even close.

 

This whole proven veteran production argument wears awful thin upon closer inspection... the production isn't anywhere near as consistent as certain posters would have us believe. How many free agent contracts of any duration have ended well for the Brewers? I can think of 2, Cameron and Hawkins, and Latroy is iffy because he only pitched 1 of the 2 seasons. Wolf was very productive the first 2 years, but the bottom fell out in the 3rd, we just never truly know what's going happen from year to year.

 

It's much easier to dump a prospect making $400K and go with the next guy up than it is to dump Wolf or K-Rod and eat millions. People keep equating production to value and they simply are not synonymous, production in only part of a much larger picture. And the production of established MLB players in the Brewers price range can be just as volatile as these "risky youngsters".

 

Furthermore, Hart is more valuable by himself than combining any of the players together in a deal that would potentially take his place. None of those guys have great trade value, Gamel would have had the most but he's been hurt 3 straight years now. Morris' stock is rising, but not enough that we get any kind of legit talent back in a deal with him included.

 

I don't think extending Hart makes any sense where there are 3 players behind him that can play 1B. If you want to extend him and put him back in RF I could see that as the only guy I'm high on as an OF is Khris Davis.

 

Speaking of which why does Braun get to decide if he's going to play RF? That's not his role with the organization, it's management's job to determine how to put the best team on the field, not his. Why would he fight a move to RF anyway if it made the team he's committed to for the long haul that much better? Who's going to say, "I want to win less games so I can play LF!"? If Davis is an .850 OPS player (and that's a big IF), his noodlish arm only really plays in LF so why wouldn't we make the most out of the assets we have on hand and slide Braun across to get the best offensive production and best defensive alignment possible?

 

edit. Here's the 2003 SL Batting Leaderboard, sort it by OPS and you'll see the where Hart actually fell and the super prospects that were in the league with him that season.

[markedman5]

If Morris is as good as you think he is(and I'm not saying he is not) then why wouldn't he have more value then Hart?

 

Are you suggesting that major league general managers can't do the same analysis that you just did?

 

I think the reason is very simple. Hart is a proven commodity at this level. Morris could be Corey Hart(hell he could be better) but then again he could be Billy Jo Robideux.

 

As was mentioned above...If Morris turns out to be the real deal you can always move Hart back to right.

 

Nobody is suggesting signing him to a 5 year deal.....the guy has earned a 2 year extension at reasonable money.

[paul253]

If Morris is as good as you think he is(and I'm not saying he is not) then why wouldn't he have more value then Hart?

 

It depends on which team you are looking to trade him too. Morris would have more value to, say, the Astros or Marlins, teams that are not close to competing and are looking for cheap controllable talent and not expensive guys who have one year left on their contract. Hart would have more value to teams that feel as though they are a player or two away from a series WS run. Maybe the Braves or Giants.

Nobody is suggesting signing him to a 5 year deal.....the guy has earned a 2 year extension at reasonable money.

 

Maybe he has. But Hunter Morris was the Southern League MVP this year. If he puts up a similar season next year couldn't I argue that he has earned a chance to be an everyday player in Milwaukee? Or if Khris Davis has another monster year at the plate couldn't I argue he has earned a chance? Taylor Green, I feel at least, earned the chance to be an every day player but he wasn't given a shot. Whether or not someone has earned something doesn't always dictate which direction a franchise goes. Corey Hart has had a very good year. But that doesn't mean you have to give him $12-$13 million dollars for two more years. If you have a guy who can put up similar numbers at a fraction of the cost, even if he isn't "proven", maybe that's the better direction to go. Especially if you add in the player you'd get in return for trading Hart AND that other areas you could shore up with the $35 million you saved over the three years Hart would be here (the last year of his current contract plus the two year extension).

 

If I could get a pitching prospect with #2 or #3 potential or a guy who profiles to be a major league regular for Corey Hart (preferably a third basemen) I'd make that trade in a heartbeat. If not, I'd hang onto him next year, see what Morris does, then make the decision on a contract extension later on.

[TheCrew07]

If Morris is as good as you think he is(and I'm not saying he is not) then why wouldn't he have more value then Hart?

 

Are you suggesting that major league general managers can't do the same analysis that you just did?

 

I think the reason is very simple. Hart is a proven commodity at this level. Morris could be Corey Hart(hell he could be better) but then again he could be Billy Jo Robideux.

 

As was mentioned above...If Morris turns out to be the real deal you can always move Hart back to right.

 

Nobody is suggesting signing him to a 5 year deal.....the guy has earned a 2 year extension at reasonable money.

 

I'm not sure what to make of Morris after his break out season, I was simply pointing out that JB12's dismissal of Morris because he spent all season in AA was garbage, and compared him directly to Hart who did get the MVP because much better prospects were promoted out of the league like Cabrera. If Morris would have played anywhere but his hometown I'd be pretty confident about him, but this scenario of a prospect having this kind of support structure playing in his home town for a season just about never happens.

 

Morris doesn't have more value than Hart because right now he's a one year wonder prospect who was actually sliding on prospect lists coming into 2012. My opinion of his ceiling, which I won't even guess at as I didn't think he'd hit 20 HRs coming into the season, is pretty irrelevant in terms of what MLB GMs will value. Teams that can spend will plug a hole with a proven vet in and someone was willing to give up 3 pretty decent upside prospects for 2 months of Greinke, which is something I would never do.

 

Generally speaking MLB players usually carry more value than prospects, unless we're talking the best 1 or 2 prospects in the game over the last couple of years. Super prospects can carry more value than MLB players and become untouchable like Trout, Profar, Bundy, Harper, and Strasburg over the last 3 seasons, but nobody in the Brewer's system is approaching that kind of prospect status. We'll be lucky to have a prospect in the top 50, Thornburg was on the outside looking in after the 2012 draftees were added to the midseason 50. In fact very few prospects reach that status or did in the past, there's been quite the run on studly prospects the last 4-5 years. Generally speaking you could poke holes in even the top 5 prospects on BA's list, but that's been pretty tough with this latest crop.

 

I am legitimately excited about Morris' power surge from June through August but I'd like to see him repeat that pace at Nashville, he only had 3 HR on the season coming into June and then exploded to hit 25.

 

I get that some people aren't into trading Hart but there's little reason to keep him at 1B with so many options available. Just like it didn't make sense to keep Hardy at SS when we only had Escobar ready behind him, I'm not into riding out contracts for draft picks when I don't trust the SD to make the most of those picks. I'd almost always prefer a performing prospect over a draft pick because I can quantify a player, it's very difficult to quantify a draft pick in MLB.

 

I don't mind that people don't agree with my point of view but I do mind the completely baseless arguments against prospects using generic terms... prospects fail so prospect W is going to fail, player Z failed at the same position for a different team so our prospect Y might fail, and so on. Those arguments are complete strawman arguments that never add anything to the discussion. I do understand that many people just don't follow the minors enough to be able to talk intelligently about the holes in a given prospect's game, but if that's the case, then why say anything negative about a guy in the first place? Why do him the injustice of continual invalid comparisons? It's impossible to have an intelligent discussion if both sides haven't done their homework and are unwilling to see the other point of view.

 

For example the biggest issues I have with Hunter Morris are that he's not a high OBP guy, his defense was pretty suspect coming into 2012, and I'm not sure he'll hit for a enough power to be a viable everyday MLB 1B. Which is why I continually point to the fact that we have 3 inexperienced players who could play 1B and between the 3 of them we should be able to find a MLB 1B. I'm not saying Morris is the guy anymore than I'm saying Gamel is the guy, I'm simply saying 1B is our deepest position as an organization so if we want to resign Hart he's better off back in RF and the contract length/money has to be right for it to make sense for the Brewers given the options available.

[TURBO]

Morris should still be young enough to start working at a corner OF spot if you think he's nearly ready offensively. Maybe he's better suited for LF than RF. so that begs the question whether to move Braun. I think they'd leave that up to Braun.

 

Then what do you do with Khris Davis? I would think Davis has to be considered a future outfielder for this team with his bat, same with Morris at 1B...

 

I always see people suggesting we just change positions with our future guys. Switch Davis to 1B, switch Morris to OF. That doesn't make a lot of sense to me. Say we make both those switches, where does that get us?

[TheCrew07]

Posters like myself have thrown Davis into the 1B discussion because he wasn't a very good outfielder in the past and doesn't have a very good arm at all. Normally I'm not an advocate of switching positions, I'd like the team to identify a position for a prospect and work him there so he's MLB ready defensively when his bat is ready. Khris did get kudos for putting hard work into his D in a couple of feature stories this year, but I haven't personally watched him play in years.