Cordero to Reds; 4 years, $46 million

[dadofandrew]

Crew, just curious how he could have faced #8 that much more than #7 or #9?

[adambr2]

Closers better than Cordero:

 

Valverde

Saito

Jenks

Putz

Nathan

Papelbon

 

 

 

Of that list, Cordero is not even in the same area code as Saito or Putz. Closers about on the same level as Cordero:

 

Hoffman

F. Rodriguez

Izzy

Accardo

 

Cordero is an overrated closer who cashed in a huge paycheck off the most overrated stat in baseball, saves.

 

2004 was the only year Cordero was ever an "elite" closer. He was elite for a year from mid '06 to mid '07, pitching absolutely lights out. He had a poor second half for us and was an abysmal closer on the road.

 

I'm not saying it wouldn't have been nice to keep him or that he won't be missed, but Cordero is not an elite closer, and I don't expect him to pitch like one for his 4 year contract. Top 10? Yes. Top 3, which is the financial offer we gave him? Not a chance.

 

Good riddance to him. Cincy has far more problems than Cordero will solve.

[GenoSeligPrieb]

"Don't talk to me about loyalty. If the Brewers were "loyal" wouldn't they have picked up Jenkins option?"

 

Oh come on now.

 

Geoff Jenkins was on the DL for weeks, months at a time throughout the earlier parts of this decade, and the Brewers kept him around at every turn.

 

Whether it was Sal or Dean or Doug throughout the years, whenever the Brewers' ridiculous budget dictated that we keep only ONE slugger, be it Greg Vaughn vs. Geoff Jenkins, or Jeromy Burnitz vs. Geoff Jenkins, or Richie Sexson vs. Geoff Jenkins, or Carlos Lee vs. Geoff Jenkins, GJ was selected, out of loyalty, every damned time.

 

With his embarrassing donkey kick and his axe-chop of a swing against lefties, he stopped being an everyday player, years ago. Despite this, the Brewers front office kept him around, as a gesture of goodwill, a reward for services rendered (such as they were) in past years. And you're accusing the BREWERS of being disloyal to Geoff Jenkins?! That's ridiculous.

[Robideaux]

You really think they kept Geoff around all this time because they felt a sense of loyalty to him? I think its because he put up a career OPS of almost 850. They didn't have anybody else better. The litmus test for "loyalty" would be if they picked up his option this year despite the fact that a younger and cheaper alternative (Gross) can probably match his numbers. Do I want the Brewers to do that? No, of course not. I want them to win. Do I think the Brewers are being "disloyal?" Maybe, but I don't care. I want them to win.

[Robideaux]

Just to clarify, I'm not accusing the Brewers of "disloyalty" per se. What I'm saying is that fans hold players to a higher standard than they hold their team. Players are expected to show "loyalty" to the team they happened to play for when their contract expired. They are expected to take less money to stay with the team. We do not hold teams to the same expectation.

[dadofandrew]

I just wanted to mention Valverde had a 6ish ERA in '06. To label him better than Frankie after a good season seems silly, ditto for Saito, who I like, but has not done it long term. Rivera is clearly better than him though, or certainly his equal.

 

Hoffman has faded, and Accardo has not proven what he can do over time either. Frankie might blow out his arm the next time he picks up a ball, but he's been very good for ages now. That consistency is what got him $46M, just like Suppan last year.

[trwi7]

I guess I just don't get it. Everybody here was up in arms over how terrible our bullpen was last year and how it needed to improve. We don't know how much payroll is supposed to rise next year but some here wanted to pay a guy who was part of our "horrible bullpen" two times more than what he made in 2007 further hindering our abilities to improve the depth of the bullpen.

[Oldcity]

I just can't believe all the backlash when we aren't even into December yet. Still a week away from the Winter Meetings.

[Fatter than Joey]

I think that's a good point, too. Where would the 2007 Brewers finish if Cordero wasn't absolutely gawd-awful in June and July?

 

Looking at the game log (4 games)-- 2 games in June and 2 games in July. Assuming you can pin 100% of the blame on

Cordero -- For example the game in TX, there was a misplay by Fielder that should have ended the inning.

 

More often than not Cordero did his job in June-July -- He wasn't god-awful. In fact in July outside of 2 games, he faced

the minimum batters in nearly of his outings.

 

You take away those 4 games and he ends the season with a 1.28 ERA

 

Clearly the much scarier thought is where the Brewers would have been in 2007 without him.

[logan82]

Clearly the much scarier thought is where the Brewers would have been in 2007 without him.

Could say the same things about Turnbow. I agree with others who have said the big thing about losing Cordero is losing our depth in the bullpen. Cordero only looked bad in the middle of the year because he was otherworldly the first 2 months of the year.

[Fatter than Joey]

I just did this by recording the spot in the order of every batter that CoCo faced

 

The problem with this, is that by the 9th -- I am sure the pitcher was rarely batting in th 9-hole, in fact I would assume Cordero was facing a LH PHer, so looking at the position is not the most accurate.

 

I know people that have turned down 30% raises because they wanted to stay in their hometown

 

Cordero played 18 mos. in Mil. -- Mil. just isn't his hometown nor is it a place he played a long time.

 

I don't know what charity has to do with it, but I really don't buy that how much money he would be able to give to the United Way was a factor in Cordero's decision.

 

Cordero comes from a country (DR) where the GDP/capita is about $3.5K per year -- He could double 3000 people in the DR annul income for the next 4 years. While I do not pretend to know his charitable leanings -- I am sure there are not dozens of college graduates making 100K/yr in the Cordero family -- and I am sure there a lot of cousins/children in the Cordero family getting educations and better opportunities.

 

He had a poor second half for us and was an abysmal closer on the road.

 

As I pointed out earlier -- he had 4 bad games in June/July. They all happened on the road -- that is luck. In Aug/Sep he gave up 1 R on the road, in Apr./May he was unscored on, on the road. If you look at the gamelog, you can see that he didn't get a lot of road pitching -- due to all the Brewers road losses.

 

Cordero wasn't perfect -- but he was not poor in the 2nd half -- nor was he abysmal on the road -- check his game log.

 

Crew, just curious how he could have faced #8 that much more than #7 or #9?

 

Interesting observation Al -- my guess is that he faced "6-7-8" the most often and "8-9-1" the second most, or something like that. Probably just a seasonal fluke.

 

We don't know how much payroll is supposed to rise next year but some here wanted to pay a guy who was part of our "horrible bullpen" two times more than what he made in 2007 further hindering our abilities to improve the depth of the bullpen.

 

Carl Crawford plays for a horrible team but is a great player -- same for Cordero with regard to the bullpen.

 

Cordero is an overrated closer who cashed in a huge paycheck off the most overrated stat in baseball, saves.

 

I know the buzzphrase for the week is "stat is overrated" -- which is true -- however, I don't care what metric you use, K/9, BAA, WHIP, IR/IS, etc -- Cordero over the last 18 months is one of the best relievers in MLB -- and will be paid as such. Cordero has done a lot more than accumulate stats.

[adambr2]

I know people that have turned down 30% raises because they wanted to stay in their hometown Cordero played 18 mos. in Mil. -- Mil. just isn't his hometown nor is it a place he played a long time. Not the point of this -- just pointing out that not everyone books out of town for more money. I don't know what charity has to do with it, but I really don't buy that how much money he would be able to give to the United Way was a factor in Cordero's decision. Cordero comes from a country (DR) where the GDP/capita is about $3.5K per year -- He could double 3000 people in the DR annul income for the next 4 years. He could, but I don't think he will. Do you? He had a poor second half for us and was an abysmal closer on the road. Cordero wasn't perfect -- but he was not poor in the 2nd half -- nor was he abysmal on the road -- check his game log. I did. He had an ERA that was WELL over 4 in the second half. For a supposedly elite closer, yes that's pretty poor. Crew, just curious how he could have faced #8 that much more than #7 or #9? Cordero is an overrated closer who cashed in a huge paycheck off the most overrated stat in baseball, saves. I know the buzzphrase for the week is "stat is overrated" -- which is true -- however, I don't care what metric you use, K/9, BAA, WHIP, IR/IS, etc. -- Cordero over the last 18 months is one of the best relievers in MLB -- and will be paid as such. Cordero has done a lot more than accumulate stats.

I use WHIP and ERA, mostly. Cordero over the last 18 months is a good closer. He's one of the best if you decide to throw out his last half of 2007.

 

Especially at his age, I don't expect him to be an "elite" closer over the next 4 years. I hope no one is shocked if he isn't even the Reds closer in 2 years.

 

Some closers get paid based on past reputation because of everything they've done: Rivera, Cordero.

 

Some closers just want a shot, someone's going to be getting one.

[TheBrewer]

If you take a look at the Reds boards they think getting Cordero will get them into the playoffs. I mentioned on a Reds board that they could've gotten say Riske at half that amount and inserted him into the 9th inning.. this was their response::::

"As for Riske, we have Harang, Arroyo and Bailey as starters. We needed a closer more. "

It's interesting how their fans are so .. baseball smart lol. Ha, that really speaks volumes.

[RyDogg66]

Very rarely was Yost going to bring in Cordero to get the toughest outs in a ballgame. With runners on 2nd and 3rd, a two run lead and one out in the 7th, those outs were handed to the likes of Wise and Turnbow or Shouse. Cordero usually came in with nobody on, nobody out, and as likely to face 6-7-8 batter has he was to face 2-3-4.

 

I thought all along that it was a given that he was bolting this offseason, and I thought that it would be fine. This team has only so much money and IMO the 7th inning and 8th inning pitchers are just as, if not MORE important than the closer, as like I said, the 7th and 8th inning guys are usually the ones that stop the bleeding more than the closer.

 

I'd much rather have a bullpen that looked like this:

 

7th inning guy - Very good.

Set up guy - Excellent.

Closer - average

 

than a bullpen that looks like this

 

7th inning guy - below average bum

8th inning guy - erratic and undependable below average bum

Closer - Excellent and lights out.

 

By NOT paying a closer 12 million a year for the next 4 years, I think we are in a position to make the bullpen deeper and much better. If we can get a guy like Riske or make a trade for players such as Fuentes, Soriano or Chad Cordero I think we will be in great shape, and I EXPECT Melvin to do just that. No worries folks, the offseason is young. Plus, I like Dave Bush in a closer/set up role as well I think Melvin could explore that as well.

[DuWayne Steurer]

I think that's a good point, too. Where would the 2007 Brewers finish if Cordero wasn't absolutely gawd-awful in June and July?

 

 

You take away those 4 games and he ends the season with a 1.28 ERA

 

Clearly the much scarier thought is where the Brewers would have been in 2007 without him.

 

I can cherry pick too. Take away Turnbow's 4 worst outings, and his ERA for the season drops well below 3.00.

Everyone's bashing Turnbow, and praising Cordero, when the difference between them is a handful of outings in which Turnbow gave up several runs (mostly because he was left in by Yost long after the damage was done). One fact is that Turnbow had a higher percentage of outings than Cordero in which he was unscored upon, yet people continue blaze away at the guy, while bemoaning the fact that we didn't pay Cordero more than the Reds. (FTJ, I know you're not in the latter group, btw).

 

I'm just saying, if you cherry pick stats, and throw out "bad outings", you can make any reliever look like a Cy Young.

[Scooter1027]

Very rarely was Yost going to bring in Cordero to get the toughest outs in a ballgame. With runners on 2nd and 3rd, a two run lead and one out in the 7th, those outs were handed to the likes of Wise and Turnbow or Shouse. Cordero usually came in with nobody on, nobody out, and as likely to face 6-7-8 batter has he was to face 2-3-4.

 

I thought all along that it was a given that he was bolting this offseason, and I thought that it would be fine. This team has only so much money and IMO the 7th inning and 8th inning pitchers are just as, if not MORE important than the closer, as like I said, the 7th and 8th inning guys are usually the ones that stop the bleeding more than the closer.

 

I'd much rather have a bullpen that looked like this:

 

7th inning guy - Very good.

Set up guy - Excellent.

Closer - average

 

than a bullpen that looks like this

 

7th inning guy - below average bum

8th inning guy - erratic and undependable below average bum

Closer - Excellent and lights out.

 

By NOT paying a closer 12 million a year for the next 4 years, I think we are in a position to make the bullpen deeper and much better. If we can get a guy like Riske or make a trade for players such as Fuentes, Soriano or Chad Cordero I think we will be in great shape, and I EXPECT Melvin to do just that. No worries folks, the offseason is young. Plus, I like Dave Bush in a closer/set up role as well I think Melvin could explore that as well.

I agree with this entirely. I think we can get by with an average closer, the key now is to use some of this extra cash to go find someone to be our "relief ace", a guy to be used in the 7th-8th with regularity who shuts people down. I think Cleveland demonstrated this best with a below average bordering on bad closer in Borowski, but having Betancourt pitch 80 brilliant innings in all kinds of high leverage situations during the course of the game (and not being pigeon-holed to the 9th). The Cubs did it too with Dumpster closing, but Marmol and Howry doing the real high leverage work. There aren't a lot of Betancourts/Marmols out there, but we need to find something similar, and then Melvin can kind of make do at the closer positions (he's certainly done it before with the likes of Dan Kolb and Derrick Turnbow).

[Fatter than Joey]

I'm just saying, if you cherry pick stats, and throw out "bad outings", you can make any reliever look like a Cy Young.

 

Sure -- you are right of course -- and it is not my intention to make Cordero to look like Cy Young -- rather look at the distribution of runs scored.

 

Personally I would rather have a RP do this.

 

1IP 5ER

1IP 0ER

1IP 0ER

1IP 0ER

1IP 0ER

 

Than this

 

1IP 1ER

1IP 1ER

1IP 1ER

1IP 1ER

1IP 1ER

1IP 1ER

 

I think in the second case you could make a claim that a RP "had a bad month" whereas in the first case, the RP just had a terrible outing that happened to occur in a month. In the context that "Cordero had a bad month" or "Cordero was abysmal on the road" I think it is appropriate to look at how the runs were scored and see whether the ER/Hits/BBs where spread out over a time period, or if they just got raked hard in one game.

 

The difference between Turnbow and CoCo is that Turnbow creates his own jams, which rarely happens with CoCo, and in 2006 Tbow basically got shut down because he was so unreliable. Turnbow just is not as good of a pitcher as Cordero is.

[DuWayne Steurer]

Turnbow just is not as good of a pitcher as Cordero is.

 

But he's also not as bad as everyone is making him out to be. Especially by your definition of run distribution.

 

Don't get my wrong, I think there's got to be a better option for closing than Turnbow, I'm just saying that his ERA doesn't tell the complete story.

[Fatter than Joey]

Don't get my wrong, I think there's got to be a better option for closing than Turnbow, I'm just saying that his ERA doesn't tell the complete story.

 

Agreed on both counts. I think Tbow could be used effectively in a BP.

[Hart Of Milwaukee]

Honestly, if it was me I would have paid the extra 4 million, but I understand Melvin couldn't simply do that because he didn't know what the other offer was. Let me put it this way, it will probably cost us two to three premium prospects to trade for a good quality closer if Melvin so chooses, so in essence I would have paid it, in order to keep players like Gamel/Escobar/Irrabarren/Ford. In my opinion, 4million dollars is worth it, because you can keep more quality prospects, which we could have used to bolster the bullpen even more, or get another outfielder, or possibly a solid 3rd baseman. I also don't like the position this puts us in trade wise, because teams are going to be asking up to the sky when we ask them for a good bull-pen arm, because they know we are desparate!

[Brian the Automator]

I also don't like the position this puts us in trade wise, because teams are going to be asking up to the sky when we ask them for a good bull-pen arm, because they know we are desparate!

Not really... as long as there are two teams looking to deal a reliever, there's competition.

[DrWood]

I just hope Melvin has a dang good plan B. I know closers are considered overrated, but why is it that all of the good teams have a pretty dang good one?

The Cubs won the division with Ryan Dempster as closer. The Indians won with Joe Borowski as their closer. If you have a good bullpen (like both teams did) then you can basically put anybody in their in the 9th inning with nobody on and a 1-3 run lead to get 3 outs.

 

that's only true if you have other guys in the bullpen that are doing their job. Anyone you have confidence in?

[JJHardy7]

I don't get how Cordero is getting hated on for taking more money. What did you expect Cordero to say? When asked about the situation, he said what he should've. These guys know it's a business and they still have to please fans. Cordero has no significant ties to Milwaukee. I'd leave in a second for $4 million extra dollars. I don't think it's fair to compare $40k to $45k or whatever increase you want. $4 million will always be $4 million. Who cares what he does with it. If someone wants to pay him that, he has every right to take it. If you're going to blame Cordero for taking a deal that is only $4 million more, blame Melvin & Co. for not offering only $4 million more.

[Blazer25]

I will see your

 

http://www.cbc.ca/gfx/topstory/sports/baker1109.jpg

 

and raise you

 

http://www.madison.com/images/articles/wsj/2007/07/04/48091_thumb.jpg + http://www.survivinggrady.com/sveumclass.jpg

Post of the year FTJ...post of the year.

 

I laughed for a good while at that one. Very appropriate picture of Nedly as well.

 

Kudos!

[TooLiveBrew]

I use WHIP and ERA, mostly. Cordero over the last 18 months is a good closer. He's one of the best if you decide to throw out his last half of 2007.

 

Using those two stats has a good chance to mislead you. Toss in at least FIP/xFIP if you'd be open. You're right, much like the 2007 Brewers, Fransisco Cordero played pretty well in the first half (if even that long) of the season.