All-Time Brewers Team

[Ennder]

Carlos Gomez vs Gorman Thomas is a close race in CF. Gomez was a much better player over a much shorter time. He put up a total of 19 WAR for the Brewers, Gorman put up 18.5 in much more time. That is probably giving him too much credit for defense as well, Gorman was below average out there imo. Cameron only played 2 years for the Brewers and one wasn't even a full year, it just isn't enough time to include him in the list.

[coolhandluke121]

 

Not a fan of Gomez at all but Cameron barely outhit him during their respective times as a Brewer in terms of OPS+ 111 to 110. In terms of defense they each were about .5 dWAR every year except for Gomez's 2013 which was off the charts good for some reason. I'd say strictly on stats they were pretty equal. Then factor in Cameron being well above average at everything and Gomez being a hyperactive headcase full of flaws, I'll take Cameron easily.

 

This is just punishing Gomez for playing with the Brewers when he was young. Cameron had some struggles at the plate before hitting his stride too, but it was for another team. Gomez's best year with the Brewers was far better than Cameron's. Even if that was his only year with the crew, I'd have him ahead of Cameron. I think he led the NL in WAR from the middle of 2013 to the middle of 2014. In any case, it's a moot point assuming Cain has at least one more good year, which I think he will. I'm not sure how to rate Thomas's longevity against the other 3 because I suspect he was overrated for HR's and RBI's while sporting a mediocre OBP and playing so-so defense at best.

 

I have Cooper ahead of Prince. I don't think analytics had caught up to the damage Prince's defense did to the infield because throwing errors went on everyone else's rap sheet even though his lack of reach was the issue in many cases. He also had that annoying thing where he didn't want guys on base to steal when he was batting, and he was vocal about not liking the way Macha wanted them to play more disciplined baseball even though they clearly needed it. I think he was a bad leader despite his reputation for leading the locker room. To me, that's more about being the alpha male than actually being a good leader. His foolish decision to try to get an out at home against the Cardinals in a 2011 game arguably cost them a trip to the world series, as the Cardinals went on to score several more runs in that inning and win in extra innings and eventually won the wild card berth by one game. That still sticks in my craw as being just one of many examples of the way they underachieved during that era.

 

Molitor at 2B and Cirillo at 3B seems like the obvious plan to me. I'll put Yelich in somewhere by default. Just can't see a guy like Jenkins, Oglivie, Lezcano, Vaughn, or Hart an all-time team. If you're putting guys like them in there, you should probably just pretend you've never thought about it and hope nobody asks.