2013 FA arms

[JohnBriggs12]

Throw Sean Burnett in the bullpen mix as it's reported he's turning down his mutual option.

[Bnowell4evr]

I like both of the lefties from Washington. Mike Gonzalez is pretty much only a loogy at this point but Burnett isn't a total liability against right handed hitters. I just hate the thought of giving 4M a year to a reliever who pitches 50 or 60 innings.

[JohnBriggs12]

I like both of the lefties from Washington. Mike Gonzalez is pretty much only a loogy at this point but Burnett isn't a total liability against right handed hitters. I just hate the thought of giving 4M a year to a reliever who pitches 50 or 60 innings.

 

Huh? It was the failure of the guys that throw 50-60 innings that was the difference between being a playoff team and not being a playoff team in 2012. With the salaries they are lopping off in the pen, the total investment in the pen is low enough that they can easily add at least 2 moderately priced quality relievers. Nobody's suggesting they go and give somebody $9-10 million per year. Certainly the higher price doesn't guarantee anything as with K-Rod, but it betters the odds.

[Bnowell4evr]

I like both of the lefties from Washington. Mike Gonzalez is pretty much only a loogy at this point but Burnett isn't a total liability against right handed hitters. I just hate the thought of giving 4M a year to a reliever who pitches 50 or 60 innings.

 

Huh? It was the failure of the guys that throw 50-60 innings that was the difference between being a playoff team and not being a playoff team in 2012. With the salaries they are lopping off in the pen, the total investment in the pen is low enough that they can easily add at least 2 moderately priced quality relievers. Nobody's suggesting they go and give somebody $9-10 million per year. Certainly the higher price doesn't guarantee anything as with K-Rod, but it betters the odds.

 

Its just my preference on how to build a roster. I believe in using the majority of the teams money to build a rotation and everyday lineup and using cheap pre arb guys to fill out most of the bullpen. Relievers are so up and down from year to year that its foolish to commit major money to the pen and last years top 4 relievers in FA is just a reminder how much of a crap shoot it really is. Out of Papelbon, K-Rod, Bell and Madson only Papelbon panned out and the Brewers history signing relievers isn't much better (Riske, Gagne, Hoffman, K-Rod, Hawkins, Saito). You could argue that Hoffman, Hawkins and Saito were decent signings but Hawkins and Hoffman were only good for 1 of the 2 years here and Saito spent the majority of his 1 year in Milwaukee on the DL.

 

To go a little bit further in depth I've seen early payroll estimations for the Brewers at around 65 million which leaves us with around 20-25 million to spend this winter. Instead of spending another 8-10 mill on a couple relievers to go with the 5M Axford is expected to receive in arbitration I would prefer to go in house with Thornburg and Rogers and then try to sign Zack Greinke with Anibal Sanchez being my plan B. I'm also intrigued by the possibility of Josh Hamilton if we strike out on Greinke and Sanchez so signing a couple relievers would kill any of those plans dead in the tracks.

[JohnBriggs12]

Brownell4ever,

 

The 2012 Brewers are proof you can't win with a lousy bullpen. Period. If the Brewers had a lot of young short relievers with dominant stuff, I'd agree with you, but they don't. The pitching depth within the organization is with starting pitching. That means they won't have to allocate as much resources on starting pitching as they have recently with the likes of Suppan and Wolf. FA starting pitching comes at a much higher premium than relief pitching. Both carry risks. Because this year's failures in the pen are so fresh, we tend to overstate the unreliability of building a pen using FA. The same can happen when you pay big money to starters. What can happen when you sign a bunch of high priced starters is that you could end up having to discard a young cheap starter ready to blossom into a fine starter and those guys are gold.

 

Save the money. Bring in another veteran? Sure. But make it a guy who you won't have to pay much but might payoff big or be used in the pen if the young guys prove they belong. I'll throw another name out there that fits: Francisco Liriano. True his numbers (ERA specifically) have been below par (in the AL mind you) but his peripherals (167 K's in 157 IP) suggest he still has decent stuff. Maybe, just maybe, his future is in the pen. Plus he's only 29.

[Bnowell4evr]

Brownell4ever,

 

The 2012 Brewers are proof you can't win with a lousy bullpen. Period. If the Brewers had a lot of young short relievers with dominant stuff, I'd agree with you, but they don't. The pitching depth within the organization is with starting pitching. That means they won't have to allocate as much resources on starting pitching as they have recently with the likes of Suppan and Wolf. FA starting pitching comes at a much higher premium than relief pitching. Both carry risks. Because this year's failures in the pen are so fresh, we tend to overstate the unreliability of building a pen using FA. The same can happen when you pay big money to starters. What can happen when you sign a bunch of high priced starters is that you could end up having to discard a young cheap starter ready to blossom into a fine starter and those guys are gold.

 

Save the money. Bring in another veteran? Sure. But make it a guy who you won't have to pay much but might payoff big or be used in the pen if the young guys prove they belong. I'll throw another name out there that fits: Francisco Liriano. True his numbers (ERA specifically) have been below par (in the AL mind you) but his peripherals (167 K's in 157 IP) suggest he still has decent stuff. Maybe, just maybe, his future is in the pen. Plus he's only 29.

 

Between Thornburg, Henderson, Kintzler and Rogers I'd argue that we have 4 who fit that description. Each guy averages over 8 K's/9 so far in the pros and has a FB that averages over 92 MPH. If you don't think 92 or 93 is hard enough you have to think that pitching out of the pen would help raise Thornburg and Rogers velocity a tick or two. Throw in a Rob Wooten who I think ends up in Milwaukee before the year is over and you got 5 cheap arms who can be shuttled back and forth between the minors and pros barring ineffectiveness. There's something effective about a motivated reliever who's future in the big's lives and dies with each pitch he throws compared to a dude who's guaranteed to collect a check no matter how good or bad he pitches.

 

The same could be said about the starting pitching and I agree with you about our pitching depth but its not elite depth. Other than Peralta (who has his own warts) everyone else seems to project as 3-5's. I look at that pitching depth as an opportunity to splurge at a top arm in in FA because our cheap pre arb guys would balance out the costs compared to what we've had in recent years. I know your reservation about big contracts to FA pitchers and I can see anyones concerns with tieing up a bunch of money into a guy who plays 1 every 5 days and has injury risks just being a pitcher. However the elite arms (Sabathia, Halliday, Lee) seem to pan out a lot better than your #3-5's in the Suppan, Looper, Wolf, Davis mold. If you're gonna spend in free agency then spend it on the best instead of paying a ton for mediocrity.

 

If we don't go elite FA route then I would hope to see us going after at least 1 (preferably two) of Francisco Liriano, Ervin Santana, Scott Baker, Shaun Marcum, Brandon McCarthy and Dan Haren. Everyone of them has #3 or better potential and should be available on 1 year deals to regain their value. Even a guy like Daisuke Matsuzaka intrigues me if the price is right.

 

Just please don't go after Kyle Lohse or Ryan Dempster! Multi-year deals to aging pitchers with sub 90 mph fastballs haven't work too well for us.

[monty57]

There are a lot of things that draw me to the idea of signing a one-year stopgap pitcher. Let's look at someone like Haren. Let's assume (as an earlier poster postulated) we are able to get the Angels to "give" him to us if we take on around $5MM of his salary, akin to the K-Rod move in 2011.

 

Our downside risk is basically set at the salary we're paying (around $5MM). We don't give up any player of significance, and we aren't locked in for multiple years. If he fails, we're out some cash that is well within budget. Signing him would allow us to start Rogers (who we'll lose if he's not on the MLB roster) at #5, where he could be skipped every so often to keep his innings down, and we could start Peralta in AAA where the coaches could keep him on an innings limit. By montioring these pitchers' innings, we won't have to shut them down in September during (hopefully) a playoff run. Again, if Haren doesn't pitch well, there's no problem dumping him (we'd only be out the money) and bringing up Peralta or someone else from AAA.

 

But there's also a good chance that he will not fail. If he succeeds, the upside is huge. First, at his best he's good enough that he could be the piece that gets us to the playoffs, and sets us up nicely with some good pitching matchups in the playoffs. That, of course, is the ultimate goal. However, even if we aren't making a playoff push, if Haren is healthy and pitching well, we could pull off another "Greinke-style" trade and bring back some good young talent, so if he pitches well, we would be a big winner, whether the team is a playoff team or not. Then, going into the 2014 season, we will have a lot better read on what we have in our young pitchers. We could easily be looking at a situation where we have "too much" good, young, MLB-ready pitching.

 

 

That's low-risk, high-reward, which I think is a really good option this offseason when we already have at least five MLB-ready pitchers. There's no reason to go high-risk (long-term and/or big money deal) in our current situation.

 

Finally, if we are able to get a one-year, lower-money (or incentive laden) deal, we will be able to use some money to fix our biggest weakness, which is the bullpen. We saw this season that even with good starting pitching, you're still at the mercy of a bullpen blowup. Again, I don't want to go long-term in contracts, but we'll probably sign a couple of $4-5MM guys to put at the back of the bullpen, and we'll finally have a some guys like Henderson and Kintzler who will have options available to give us some roster flexibility, which has been a major problem for the past few years. Like our starting pitcher situation, I think we will be able to fill our bullpen with guys from the farm in a season or two, at which point we will be able to stop signing $4-5MM free agents, but we're not there yet.

[MNBrew]

I know I've said this often over multiple other threads, but Liriano is NOT a pitcher the Brewers should aim for. Incredible stuff, yes. But zero "ace" mentality. I've watched him throughout his entire career in MN. He can deliver a few brilliant starts, but the vast majority of the time he's anywhere from not great to putrid. He's basically a more advanced version of Manny Parra -- million dollar stuff, 50-cent confidence -- which is the whole reason we need to be moving on from Manny Parra.

 

Baker's also highly likely to re-sign with the Twins, and while Marcum's usually good when healthy, his health isn't fully reliable.

 

My gut says it's worth the efforts to land one of Tampa Bay's good SP, which they have in abundance. And we do have (arguably) replaceable bats to pull off such a move.

[Invader3K]

Jake Peavy just signed a two year extension with the White Sox, so cross him off the list.

[Bnowell4evr]

I know I've said this often over multiple other threads, but Liriano is NOT a pitcher the Brewers should aim for. Incredible stuff, yes. But zero "ace" mentality. I've watched him throughout his entire career in MN. He can deliver a few brilliant starts, but the vast majority of the time he's anywhere from not great to putrid. He's basically a more advanced version of Manny Parra -- million dollar stuff, 50-cent confidence -- which is the whole reason we need to be moving on from Manny Parra.

 

Baker's also highly likely to re-sign with the Twins, and while Marcum's usually good when healthy, his health isn't fully reliable.

 

My gut says it's worth the efforts to land one of Tampa Bay's good SP, which they have in abundance. And we do have (arguably) replaceable bats to pull off such a move.

 

I know Tampa has needs in the outfield with Upton being a FA, DH with them buying out Luke Scott's option and catcher if they don't pick up Molina's option. I wonder if Schafer, Gamel, Maldonado and an arm not named Wily Peralta or Taylor Jungmann would be enough to pull if off.

[MNBrew]

With TB, it depends on the pitcher we're targeting....

 

- If we're talkin' Shields, I think you go w/ Gomez, Gamel, & Rogers. Or Hart + maybe Rogers.

- If we're talkin' Niemann or Hellickson, then Gomez & Rogers.

 

I just don't think you need to do a beyond-Greinke type of package for an SP who's Greinke level or less. In other words, I don't think they have to include Maldonado at all.

 

(I'm also not crazy about trading Rogers, but he's the most logical "sell high" type -- not just w/ regards to potential/performance combo, but definitely including his health in that equation.)

[TooLiveBrew]

With TB, it depends on the pitcher we're targeting....

 

- If we're talkin' Shields, I think you go w/ Gomez, Gamel, & Rogers. Or Hart + maybe Rogers.

- If we're talkin' Niemann or Hellickson, then Gomez & Rogers.

I like your conservative approach in these offers. I definitely don't want to see the Brewers dealing away anyone like Peralta or Thornburg unless they're getting someone of Shields's caliber for more than two seasons.

 

Is Hart+Gomez too slight an offer for Shields? I realize each guy only gives you one guaranteed season, but Hart would also net you a comp pick. That's not bad for two seasons of Shields... probably wouldn't be enough, but I don't think I'd want to move any young SPs right now unless it's the perfect deal.

[monty57]

I believe Hart will only accept a trade to a team who plays Spring Training in Arizona (his wife's family lives in California).

 

That said, whether or not the offer is "too slight" or not simply depends on what others are offering. Tampa may not accept an offer of less value than they want, but if no one offers more, then they either have to take the offer or hold onto the pitcher. Using Marcum and Grienke as proxies, I think Melvin may shoot too high on his offers. That worries me about possibly targeting someone like Shields. I think Melvin would give up good, young MLB ready talent (i.e. Peralta, Rogers, Schafer, Gamel, Morris) when I would much prefer that if he's receiving two years of "MLB proven" he give up guys like Gomez/Estrada/Hart.

 

There's a reason Tampa would not want the guys with 1-2 years left on their contact, and would instead ask for guys with 5-6 years of "team control" remaining. There's also a reason Tampa can continually compete with a limited payroll in the toughest division in professional sports.

[Mass Haas]

I believe Hart will only accept a trade to a team who plays Spring Training in Arizona (his wife's family lives in California).

 

I believe the limited no-trade aspect of Hart's contract expires in this final year, meaning he could be traded to a Florida spring training team at this time. Sorry, no link yet, but remember that pretty clearly from interviews and such at the time.

 

Not that I'm suggesting that...

[monty57]

Mass Haas, I trust your memory on anything pertaining to contracts, MLB rules, etc far more than mine. Good to know that if the Brewers do test the market on Hart that they will be able to field offers from all potential suitors.

[wisniewski]

Rosenthal had this column late last night about the Angels aggressively pushing Haren and Santana hard around the league, which is common knowledge, but the one interesting nugget I gleaned from the entire piece is how 'other teams are already in serious discussions involving trades for SP'

 

EDIT: And for the record, I don't endorse Melvin going after either Haren or Santana (especially staying away from Santana), just posting for conversation sake regarding the quote below.

 

http://msn.foxsports.com/mlb/story/Expect-Los-Angeles-Angels-to-make-trade-Ervin-Santana-Dan-Haren-103012

 

Then again, Dipoto is not operating in a vacuum. A number of teams already are engaged in serious trade discussions for starting pitchers, exploring options that are more appealing than Haren and Santana, rival executives say.

[wisniewski]

With TB, it depends on the pitcher we're targeting....

 

- If we're talkin' Shields, I think you go w/ Gomez, Gamel, & Rogers. Or Hart + maybe Rogers.

- If we're talkin' Niemann or Hellickson, then Gomez & Rogers.

I like your conservative approach in these offers. I definitely don't want to see the Brewers dealing away anyone like Peralta or Thornburg unless they're getting someone of Shields's caliber for more than two seasons.

 

Is Hart+Gomez too slight an offer for Shields? I realize each guy only gives you one guaranteed season, but Hart would also net you a comp pick. That's not bad for two seasons of Shields... probably wouldn't be enough, but I don't think I'd want to move any young SPs right now unless it's the perfect deal.

 

That said, whether or not the offer is "too slight" or not simply depends on what others are offering. Tampa may not accept an offer of less value than they want, but if no one offers more, then they either have to take the offer or hold onto the pitcher. Using Marcum and Grienke as proxies, I think Melvin may shoot too high on his offers. That worries me about possibly targeting someone like Shields. I think Melvin would give up good, young MLB ready talent (i.e. Peralta, Rogers, Schafer, Gamel, Morris) when I would much prefer that if he's receiving two years of "MLB proven" he give up guys like Gomez/Estrada/Hart.

 

There's a reason Tampa would not want the guys with 1-2 years left on their contact, and would instead ask for guys with 5-6 years of "team control" remaining. There's also a reason Tampa can continually compete with a limited payroll in the toughest division in professional sports.

 

I worry about the bidding for Shields and honestly I feel like it could have the potential to get silly. GM's see the dependability with IP and Starts, and the improvement of SO/W, and fall in love. After Greinke and Sanchez are signed I can potentially see a GM that loses out making a panic trade and sending something silly to TB for Shields. In this context and in this vacuum (and I'm not using this as a platform to beat the Jackson drum again) I'd feel much more comfortable giving up that first round pick for Jackson than giving up a huge package for Shields and creating a different hole in the lineup.

 

And, as TLB mentions above, I also worry about moving one of those young arms in a deal, especially when the return is only 2 seasons (or less) of a SP in return.

[monty57]

I hadn't really checked Haren's numbers, and going off of some of the posts here, I was expecting a monumental failure from him in 2012. Here is his line:

 

2012: GS 30, IP 176.2, ERA 4.33, WHIP 1.29, K 142, BB 38, HR 28, K/9 7.23, K/BB 3.74 GB/FB 0.70

Career (season avg): GS 28.6, IP 188.2, ERA 3.66, WHIP 1.18, K 158.5, BB 39.5, HR 21.9, K/9 7.60, K/BB 4.01 GB/FB not tallied, but always in the 0.70-0.90 range

 

He is a flyball pitcher, and he gave up a few more HR than normal. His numbers were certainly down from his previous two tremendous seasons, but not nearly as bad as I was expecting. If there is something out there that doesn't show up in a stat line (i.e. he got hurt and lost a lot of velocity) then I can see the trepidation, but if the Angels are trying to dump him in order to shore up money to sign Grienke, and we could land Haren cheap, I'm all for it.

[TooLiveBrew]

If there is something out there that doesn't show up in a stat line (i.e. he got hurt and lost a lot of velocity)

 

His avg. FB velocity fell to a career-low 88.5 mph per his FanGraphs page. FanGraphs also has an interesting look at how his back injury impacted his performance in '12.

[monty57]

Thanks for the link TLB. That article was written on July 5. Here are Haren's pre- and post- All-Star Game splits.

 

pre- 17 GS, 103.2 IP, 122 H, 24 BB, 1.415 WHIP, 86 K, 7.47 K/9, 3.58 K/BB, 4.86 ERA

post- 13 GS, 73 IP, 68 H, 14 BB, 1.123 WHIP, 56 K, 6.90 K/9, 4.00 K/BB, 3.58 ERA

 

I know, small sample size, but if it was indeed his sore back causing his bad first half, it could be his back got better, leading to a second half more in line with his previous two years' numbers.

[wisniewski]

Some tidbits from Melvin via Brewer Nation:

 

"There's a few names out there. We've talked about adding a starting pitcher. . Mentioned Edwin Jackson by name. "We need to add to our bullpen though, too."

 

"I don't think that's going to happen." -Melvin when asked if there's any chance Greinke could return to the Brewers.

[wisniewski]

Royals landed Santana:

 

The Royals have acquired Ervin Santana from the Angels, Ken Rosenthal of FOX Sports reports (on Twitter). It's not yet clear what the Angels are obtaining in return for Santana.

Read more at http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2012/10/royals-acquire-ervin-santana.html?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter#Qi8UXFZGFK1G6frr.99

[Bnowell4evr]

Some tidbits from Melvin via Brewer Nation:

 

"There's a few names out there. We've talked about adding a starting pitcher. . Mentioned Edwin Jackson by name. "We need to add to our bullpen though, too."

 

"I don't think that's going to happen." -Melvin when asked if there's any chance Greinke could return to the Brewers.

 

- Melvin talked about how he could go in house for his rotation but then the team would be spread to thin if an injury occured so he will probably look to FA for a starter. Mentioned Edwin Jackson like you said and also refered to Lohse as the 2nd best starter available and never mentioned Anibal Sanchez.

- He specifically said its time to give Rogers and Peralta a shot in the rotation. Almost made it seem like Estrada and Fiers would battle it out for the 5th spot in the rotation with the other guy joining Axford, Henderson and Kintzler in the bullpen as a long reliever.

- He said we can expect 3-4 new guys in the bullpen this year. He mentioned he wants a lefty but not if isn't a quality one.

- It didn't sound like he was too keen on testing the trade market as he doesn't want to give up his young arms. Then he talked about having 8-9 guys between AA-AAA as legitimate prospects who will pitch in the big leagues.

[wisniewski]

Nice, thanks for the expansion on those blurbs BNowell. Good stuff.

[xisxisxis]

It didn't sound like he was too keen on testing the trade market as he doesn't want to give up his young arms.

 

Melvin's on the far side of 50 so his arms aren't young anymore. I would be impressed with his dedication to the team and organization if he did give up an arm to make a trade happen.