The Kyle Lohse Love/Hate Thread

[Ennder]

Everyone is fearful of counting on a few "unproven" players this year

 

Nobody is fearful of this though. They are fearful of counting on 4 rotational spots being filled by unproven players. When you have a rotation that only has 1 pitcher who has ever pitched a full season you are playing with fire. Young pitchers tend to get knocked out of games earlier more often and you run into long term innings issues since they aren't used to a 33 start season yet. I don't think anyone minds having Fiers, Estrada, Peralta or for some Rogers in the rotation, it is having all 4 penciled in that is a problem. This move adds some much needed depth and means one of those guys can struggle and be sent down and we aren't out of luck.

[Thurston Fluff]

This move adds some much needed depth and means one of those guys can struggle and be sent down and we aren't out of luck.

 

I don't know if depth is what we lacked. The Brewers have a lot of depth. The thing I thought might make the rotation of rookies work was because there was enough viable rookie candidates that a couple of them could fail and the team wold still have enough others to step in. I think they were missing rotation anchors more than viable candidates.

[monty57]

Everyone is fearful of counting on a few "unproven" players this year

 

Nobody is fearful of this though. They are fearful of counting on 4 rotational spots being filled by unproven players. When you have a rotation that only has 1 pitcher who has ever pitched a full season you are playing with fire. Young pitchers tend to get knocked out of games earlier more often and you run into long term innings issues since they aren't used to a 33 start season yet. I don't think anyone minds having Fiers, Estrada, Peralta or for some Rogers in the rotation, it is having all 4 penciled in that is a problem. This move adds some much needed depth and means one of those guys can struggle and be sent down and we aren't out of luck.

 

That's not true. Estrada (who turns 30 this season) has been in the Brewers' rotation since 2011 with a fairly successful track record. Narveson (31) is coming off injury, but he's started 63 MLB games (appeared in 95) so he's a proven 4/5 starter. Along with Gallardo, that's three fairly "proven" pitchers. We were looking at two "unproven" guys in the rotation, only one of them being young-ish. Fiers turns 28 soon, so he's certainly not young, and while "unproven," he had 22 starts last year (almost a full season) with some success. Peralta is the top prospect in our entire system, and will be 24 in a month or so. Assuming Peralta starts the season in AAA, our youngest SP will be Gallardo, who is about 8 months younger than Fiers.

 

We also have a 24-year-old 1B who was our minor league player of the year last year, who apparently isn't "proven" enough to start at 1B for a month or so, a 26-year-old CF in whom Melvin has so little faith that he extended a potential one-hit wonder for three years, and we now have two veteran backups for our young SS. I'd say Melvin, Roenicke, Attanasio or whoever makes decisions for the Brewers is very fearful of giving MLB time to any "unproven" players, but especially young, unproven players. It's much easier to just pay someone $10MM a year or so. Unfortunately, we can't have a $250MM payroll, so the more $10MM contracts you hand out, the more guys you need playing for league minimum. The one time in the recent past that it looked like we'd let some "young" guys play, Melvin/Attanasio/Roenicke just couldn't do it, so now we've added $20MM a year to the payroll for the next few years, and I don't think we'll be that much better next year than we would've been without signing either of those deals.

 

In 2009 & '10 many blamed the "albatross" of a contract signed with Suppan for our not being able to add pieces to get us to the playoffs. Bill Hall's "albatross" was blamed for our not being able to sign needed pieces. At those times, we had guys like Fielder, Hardy, Hart, Braun and Yo playing for peanuts. Guaranteed contracts are dangerous things. To me, they can be more dangerous than "unproven." It takes a mix of both to build a winner. Big markets can lean more heavily on the guaranteed contracts, while small markets need to lean a little more heavily on "unproven."

 

I've went on-and-on about the guarantees for next year, but what's even scarier is that as guys like Weeks, Hart, Ramirez and Gallardo leave in the next couple of years, if we don't trust some "unproven" players today, we won't have any proven players to insert onto the roster in the future. We won't have the funds to fill in all the holes necessary through free agency, which is why, in the post you quoted, I said that these moves made today will necessitate more dependance on "unproven" in the future. Add in that the "unproven" guys we're going to lean on are coming from one of the worst farms in baseball, and that's what gets me worried.

 

As I said, I want to just focus on this season. Although we're less talented than we were 12 months ago, we still have a shot at the playoffs. Even though we'll be less talented 12 months from now (albeit with a $100MM+ payroll), we may still have a shot at the playoffs next year. I just don't want to think beyond that anymore. It gets me sad, and I want to be excited as a new season is about to begin.

[JJHardy7]

I guess I don't get what expectations were for this rotation pre-Lohse...

 

Yo - We know what we have here.

Fiers - I really like the guy, but struggled big-time down the stretch last year.

Narveson - Coming off a rather significant injury. I like him much more in the bullpen.

Rogers - He's hurt...my guess is he'll never start a game in the majors again. Relying on him anything more than a #6 IMO is questionable.

Estrada - Might be the #2 of the group...that kind of scares me.

Peralta - I think he's going to be a legit #2/#3...but the Brewers mishandled him so far.

 

So...with that said...why is signing Lohse this terrible idea? I get that he is old, washed up, we stink at signing guys, lost a pick, etc, etc. We did draft Eric Arnett.

 

I'm not a huge fan of this signing, but I am ok with it. We took took many chances in the rotation and they would not have worked out. Now we limit the risk by one spot...and I think this is a huge deal. Yo, Lohse, and Estrada pitch like they did last year we're solid. I do think Narveson's days as a starter are gone. We will need to find 2 other solid guys and I'm guessing Peralta and Burgos will have to be the answer. Still rooting for Fiers.

 

Side note...there were a ton of Brewers scouts at Sunday's game. I was joking with the people I was with and folks around us that if Rogers looked hurt still (he did) and Burgos didn't pitch well we'd be signing Lohse the next day...

[Ennder]

Peralta - I think he's going to be a legit #2/#3...but the Brewers mishandled him so far.

 

Curious how we mishandled him other than him probably not being major league ready right now but close enough?

[danzig6767]

 

Nobody is fearful of this though. They are fearful of counting on 4 rotational spots being filled by unproven players. When you have a rotation that only has 1 pitcher who has ever pitched a full season you are playing with fire. Young pitchers tend to get knocked out of games earlier more often and you run into long term innings issues since they aren't used to a 33 start season yet. I don't think anyone minds having Fiers, Estrada, Peralta or for some Rogers in the rotation, it is having all 4 penciled in that is a problem. This move adds some much needed depth and means one of those guys can struggle and be sent down and we aren't out of luck.

 

That's not true. Estrada (who turns 30 this season) has been in the Brewers' rotation since 2011 with a fairly successful track record. Narveson (31) is coming off injury, but he's started 63 MLB games (appeared in 95) so he's a proven 4/5 starter. Along with Gallardo, that's three fairly "proven" pitchers. We were looking at two "unproven" guys in the rotation, only one of them being young-ish. Fiers turns 28 soon, so he's certainly not young, and while "unproven," he had 22 starts last year (almost a full season) with some success. Peralta is the top prospect in our entire system, and will be 24 in a month or so. Assuming Peralta starts the season in AAA, our youngest SP will be Gallardo, who is about 8 months younger than Fiers.

 

Narveson is not only coming off the dreaded shoulder surgery, in his two years as a starter

 

4.99 ERA/1.378 WHIP

4.45 ERA/1.392 WHIP

 

So even before his shoulder surgery, Narveson was a 5th starter type who walks to many hitters and is prone to serving up home runs. Counting on him to be a reliable member of the rotation is a pretty big stretch to me.

 

Peralta obviously has the kind of raw stuff to excite fans, especially given how few power arms that our farm system has developed. That said, for as well as he pitched in those 5 September starts, we can't forget that he walked 78 hitters in AAA over only 146 innings before getting called up. Excessive amounts of walks have plagued him his whole time in the minors and mainly explains his career 1.410 WHIP vs minor league hitters.

 

It would be nice to hope that Peralta just was sick of being in the minors and thus his being called up explains why he pitched so well compared to his weak AAA numbers, but he sure was far from being a lock to be even somewhat reliable. Rogers even when healthy strikes me as a real long shot to amount to anything in the majors given his career long inability to simply throw strikes.

 

So while i really hope that one of or both of Fiers/Peralta goes out there this season in the majors and has a very solid year, i have no clue what they'll actually end up producing.

 

All of those reasons above are why i can easily understand why both Doug/Mark A. badly wanted to add some stability to the rotation. That said, i can also understand why many here would have preferred say signing Marcum for one year at around 4-5 million vs Lohse at 33 million and losing the draft pick.

[monty57]

I wasn't defending the rotation. I was defending the comment "everyone is fearful of counting on a few unproven players this year" and refuting Ennder's claims that (A) only Yo had pitched a full season in the majors and (B) the guys in the rotation are young.

 

Danzig and JJ, I agree with your assessments, both of which show fear of counting on a few unproven players. There is no doubt that this year's rotation will be better with Lohse in it. I do have doubts that the rotations of the next two years will be better with Lohse in them... that depends on how age effects Lohse and how our MiLB pitchers progress.

 

I'm just saying that making moves like this, paying another player an eight figure salary for multiple years so that we don't have to rely on "unproven" players now, will necessitate greater reliance on "unproven" players in the future. We can only have so many eight figure salaries within our budget. The more we have, the more guys we need playing for league minimum.

[djoctagone]

Kyle Lohse doesn't put fans in the seats. Your average fair weather fan has no clue who Lohse is.

on the day lohse signed, the brewers reported selling 34,000 tickets. they usually sell 7000.

[Ennder]

(A) only Yo had pitched a full season in the majors and (B) the guys in the rotation are young.

 

A) Nobody but Gallardo has started 30 games in the majors in a season before or broken 165 IP.

B) Yeah I should have said inexperienced. The same logic applies though.

 

There was simply way too much risk in that rotation to rely on it. That doesn't mean we had to sign Lohse mind you, it just meant that it was a very obvious need for the team to sign some sort of FA starter to give the rotation a little more depth.

[homer]

I haven't read through the whole thread but has anyone considered that Lohse's success in STL was due to a really good infield defense? I wonder how the Brewers infield will affect his numbers.

[Ennder]

I haven't read through the whole thread but has anyone considered that Lohse's success in STL was due to a really good infield defense? I wonder how the Brewers infield will affect his numbers.

 

The Cardinals defense was below average last year and while Lohse is a GB guy he isn't extreme. The park is probably a bigger factor than defense.

[razzzorsharp]

Kyle Lohse doesn't put fans in the seats. Your average fair weather fan has no clue who Lohse is.

on the day lohse signed, the brewers reported selling 34,000 tickets. they usually sell 7000.

 

Sorry, I bought a group of tickets for my school that day prior to the signing being announced.

[monty57]

(A) only Yo had pitched a full season in the majors and (B) the guys in the rotation are young.

 

A) Nobody but Gallardo has started 30 games in the majors in a season before or broken 165 IP.

B) Yeah I should have said inexperienced. The same logic applies though.

 

There was simply way too much risk in that rotation to rely on it. That doesn't mean we had to sign Lohse mind you, it just meant that it was a very obvious need for the team to sign some sort of FA starter to give the rotation a little more depth.

 

I don't disagree as long as we're assuming that we're playing for today at the expense of tomorrow. We are almost certainly going to be better this year because of the Lohse signing. I will cheer this team on in hopes of a playoff.

 

But, this is similar to Cubs' fans and management saying had to sign Soriano, because they couldn't rely on their other options. They were trying to win a World Series in hopes of boosting the team's value for the upcoming sale. They didn't win, and even though the sale price was still high, they are now going through a long, painful rebuild while they divest themselves of the contracts they "couldn't do without." When moves like this are made, they can help a team in the short-term, but can have negative effects on the future. I hope they don't blow up on us, but there is a good possibility that they will.

 

I don't like the Gomez extension because I feel he's a risky player (he's been a bench/platoon player most of his career, and he may revert to his "old ways"), and we have other OF options who could take over for a fraction of the cost. However, at least Gomez is young and is now signed through his prime. Lohse is already old by baseball standards and is pretty likely to regress over this contract. Combined, the two contracts add $20MM/year over the next few years. That's a lot of extra money for a limited payroll that already has a lot of big, multi-year obligations, especially since neither of these guys are locks to put up All Star performances.

[wisniewski]

So, as I put it earlier, we just dropped a 20% chance for improving the team long term 10% chance of a Superstar long term for aging Lohse at a cost higher than all the controlled years combined of the use of that pick.

 

Ah, so what you're saying is that much like Sex Panther, 60% of the time it works every time? Got it.

 

With all due respect, it's posts like these filled with ridiculously bent and skewed averages and percentages that make it hard to take anything else you write seriously.

 

I often wonder if anyone actually watches sports anymore or if people just have all their sabre metrics and fantasy sports up like a stock ticker all day in an effort to formulate their opinions.

[brewmann04]

I mean come on i usually be the doom and gloom guy here. But The Loshe signing is a good thing and for a long long time Brewer fan it nice to see them making moves to compete.I not so sure about their future we gave up one 1st round pick it not like we gave up the whole draft.

[JJHardy7]

Curious how we mishandled him other than him probably not being major league ready right now but close enough?

 

I don't like how he was called up last year and I felt like we didn't really have a plan for him (same with Thornburg). I'd rather keep the true prospects on a schedule and call up minor league veterans in situations like that...if that makes sense.

 

If we're going to call up a top prospect, I'd prefer they stay up and play on a regular basis.

[Fear The Chorizo]

Comparing ANY 3 year contract to the disaster that was the Soriano deal is foolish - he got what, 8 years with a no-trade clause? And it wasn't just Soriano's contract that screwed the Cubs - they signed 3-4 other high-priced free agents that offseason and gave Zambrano, Dempster, and Ramirez big paper around the same timeframe.

[wisniewski]

I mean come on i usually be the doom and gloom guy here. But The Loshe signing is a good thing and for a long long time Brewer fan it nice to see them making moves to compete.I not so sure about their future we gave up one 1st round pick it not like we gave up the whole draft.

 

I agree Brewmann. I am the last guy to ever be a "fan" of Kyle Lohse, and have been against the idea of signing him since the beginning of FA, but at the same time I really do believe the signing makes sense for the team. Just like Mark A said in his interview, at some point you have to go for a little bit NOW while still keeping an eye on the future. I am looking forward to seeing what Lohse can do in a Brew uni. By no means am I playing the Super Fan card here, but I'm pretty jacked for the season to start.

 

And for all the hand wringing on the money...let's let Mark worry about that. Why do people make themselves miserable worrying about something that hasn't happened yet? Or the probability of not ever happening? I see a lot of emotion in this thread (some of it bordering on irrationally silly) regarding scenarios people dream up that 'could' happen 3 years down the road, but most likely will not.

 

And between Lohse and Yuni signings this week, a large portion of Brewers fans have been particularly insufferable. Almost as if some people are taking this all personally.

[gobrew23]

Curious how we mishandled him other than him probably not being major league ready right now but close enough?

 

I don't like how he was called up last year and I felt like we didn't really have a plan for him (same with Thornburg). I'd rather keep the true prospects on a schedule and call up minor league veterans in situations like that...if that makes sense.

 

If we're going to call up a top prospect, I'd prefer they stay up and play on a regular basis.

What didn't you like about how he was called up? He was on a good run in AAA and when brought up the Brewers inserted him into the starting rotation and he had success. I don't get what is wrong about that.

[monty57]

Comparing ANY 3 year contract to the disaster that was the Soriano deal is foolish - he got what, 8 years with a no-trade clause? And it wasn't just Soriano's contract that screwed the Cubs - they signed 3-4 other high-priced free agents that offseason and gave Zambrano, Dempster, and Ramirez big paper around the same timeframe.

 

Yes, they signed a bunch of multi-year, big money, guaranteed contracts in an effort to win in a "window" when they had a talented team. The additional signings after a lackluster, injury-plagued 2006 allowed them re-open their "window" for a couple more seasons, including two NLDS appearances in the same way Melvin's "re-opening our window" now. Of course these moves eliminated their financial flexibility and forced them off a cliff and into fire sale mode, but they got some playoff memories. They "had to do this" because they couldn't waste the primes of guys like Zambrano and D. Lee... sound familiar?

 

Lohse's contract alone isn't nearly as bad as the Soriano deal, but one could easily compare Braun's current age/contract length with that given to Soriano, and in aggregate we have a lot of big, multi-year, guaranteed contracts on the books. We're playing the "window" strategy the same way the Cubs played it. When Zambrano and Ramirez exercised their opt-out clauses, the Cubs "needed" to re-sgn them to big money deals just like they "needed" to sign Soriano. I mean, c'mon, they couldn't rely on "unproven" players in a bid for the World Series.

 

Fast forward a couple of seasons to see how happy the Cubs and their fans were when Ramirez's contract was finally up and they were able to give Zambrano away (even though they paid most of his salary). Now they're in what, year four or five of their rebuild? We have a lot of similarities to those Cub teams, including how team management and the fanbase are acting. Unfortunately, we know how that played out for the Cubs.

 

It's just the natural progression of the "window" strategy. I don't know, maybe I'm just "irrationally silly," and somehow guaranteed liabilities and age won't affect the Brewers the way they do others. Maybe the mandate by the fans to never accept "unproven" players will work in Milwaukee, when it doesn't work elsewhere. I'm sure Milwaukee's just different.

 

I've said numerous times that signing Lohse and all of the other "win now" moves made by the Brewers recently will keep this team in the playoff race. I don't think we've got nearly the talent of some of our recent teams, but still enough to compete. The strategy is proven to work in the short-term. The Cubs didn't quite make it... maybe we will. I will certainly cheer this team on.

[Ennder]

The Cubs used the sign a bunch of veterans when you don't have good young player strategy. It is completely different and it was pretty foolish.

[monty57]

The Cubs used the sign a bunch of veterans when you don't have good young player strategy. It is completely different and it was pretty foolish.

 

But how is that different than where we are?

 

In the Cubs "first window" (2003-era), they had good, young starting pitching, but by their "second window," they were getting older and more expensive (or Baker had destroyed their arms). They added expensive FA pieces to complement the aging core.

 

The Brewers had good, young position players in their "first window," but by their "second window" (now) they're older and more expensive (or they've already moved on). We're adding expensive FA pieces to complement an aging core.

 

Neither team had/has a lot of inexpensive young talent talent during the "second window," and both teams let their farms suffer.

 

Granted, Braun is better and home grown, but from an age and length of contract standpoint, he's similar to Soriano, who was still a very good player when the contract was signed. Some of the Cubs' contracts were bigger, but so is their payroll. From a "percentage of payroll committed to a few large contracts," the Brewers are right up there.

 

This may be what scares me about the current Brewers (and maybe it's unfounded). I live in Illinois and have a lot of friends who are Cub fans. I saw them going through this, and laughed at the contracts they were signing, because it looked to me like it would crash and burn. They put some good teams on the field, and came close to the World Series, but it did crash, just as expected. We should have a decent team this year and next year, but I see a lot of similarities to the mid-to-late 2000's Cubs teams in how we're putting things together, and also how the fanbase begins to demand "proven" at every position if it can simply be fixed by guaranteeing another big, future liability.

 

Compound this with the fact that every team in our division has boatloads of star-quality young talent, and I think we'll be fighting an uphill battle for a while. Maybe it'll be worth it if we pull a 2006 Cardinals and win it all.

[Ennder]

That was post good young pitching when they went out and got Soriano though and that deal was outrageous. I think you are trying to make something out of nothing. The first 2 years of Soriano they made the playoffs so if they had signed him to a 3 year deal it would have actually been a good one. That was an old team headed in the wrong way already when they signed Soriano. The average age of the starting lineup was over 30. The Brewers roster is much more spread out than that with mid 20 guys in Gomez and Lucroy and early 20 in Segura. The Brewers farm system is much deeper than the Cubs were back then as well.

 

What the Cubs were back then is what the Brewers will be in 3-4 years assuming absolutely nothing changes with the team.

[lcbj68c]

I'll wait until the life of the contract to make a "the sky is falling" assessment. That said, I think Lohse is nothing like Suppan or Wolf. Those two were soft tossers who nibbled and nibbled and nibbled to death. Lohse goes after guys, throws first pitch strikes and doesn't walk guys ad nausem. I can live with the home run ball (remember Capuano?) just fine as long as a guy throws strikes.

[HOF4canrake]

The difference for the Brewers vs. the Cubs is, this "second window" can be extended by the young pitching should they come through. They will have younger, inexpensive guys for a while - mainly pitchers (Peralta, Fiers, Burgos, Thornburg, Segura, Schafer) and they can look to shed some money in the next couple of seasons with Ramirez, Weeks, Hart...

 

and they have tradeable contracts if it's deemed necessary in Gomez, Lohse, Estrada, Narveson...all depending on what the overall plan involves and the progression of the young hurlers.

 

There are still plenty of options for the Brewers moving forward.