Biggest Impact of New Players This Year...

[razzzorsharp]

Just wondering who you guys think us going to have the biggest impact this year (positive, I should say). I think I got everyone but who knows, I also narrowed it down to the 40 man roster and not non-roster invitees. Also, I was looking at players coming in from different organizations not the minors.

 

Randy Choate

Eric Gagne

Guillermo Mota

David Riske

Saloman Torres

Jason Kendall

Eric Munson

Mike Cameron

Gabe Kapler

 

 

The player I really like to break out and become a great set-up man is Riske till he takes his turn as the closer. On the opposite end I dont think Kapler will make the team, not that that's not much of a shock.

[paul253]

Mitch Stetter isn't coming in from a different organization is he? Personally I think Gagne is going to have the biggest impact. Hopefully it's a good impact though, because if he fails at closer, I don't know whats going to happen.

[sbrylski]

I would say, in terms of improvement over last season's team, Mike Cameron is the biggest impact acquisition due to the defensive chain reaction as well as his solid offense. Eric Gagne should also be very important for this team, but at best he's replacing Cordero, so he's not really an improvement in that regard.

[Ennder]

Definitely Cameron because he'll bring us 3 wins just on defense alone with the defensive switches.

[ILuvDaBush]

I've got to go with Gagne. If he solidifies the closer role, that will be the biggest impact to this year's team from outside sources. But also, any of our new bullpen acquisitions could be considered an impact acquisition...except Choate.

[razzzorsharp]

Whoops on Setter. I will change it.

[TooLiveBrew]

It's Cameron, no question imo.

[Gopher74]

This is an interesting question because I think this off-season is going to give us more new impact players than we've had in a while, or then weh'll have in the next few years.

I think as others have mentioned Cameron is huge because he's allowed Hall and Braun to move to different position, thus improving our defense a great deal.

Gange is a guy who is now in his second year back from injury which is usually the year a guy is "all the way" back, and he did a great job in Texas last year.

 

But I'm going to go with a guy that nobody else willy most likely. I think that Salomon Torres is the guy who's going to make the biggest impact by himself.

 

Torres is really in my opinion the most overlooked acquisition of the off-season. He's a guy who can easily go 90 innings, and do it very effectively. Last season was a bit of a down year, but frankly, if it wasn't, we wouldn't have been able to trade for him, or any of the other players we added. Hell, Cameron turned down 3 years and 36 million early last season.

 

But anyway, I think that Torres is going to assume Villanueva's role from the first half of last season, a role that was absolutely huge in us getting out to a 8 game lead. He'll allow us to get from the 5th or 6th inning and get the ball to the back end of our pen, he can come in and pitch the 7th, 8th or even 9th as he's been a closer before, and he's proven to have a rubber arm in the past. IN short, he fixes what I believe to be the biggest problem with our team last year aside from Braun's D, which was the middle relief. When we had Villy and Wise throwing the ball well, we were a very good team. Wtihout those two, we blew a lot of big leads.

 

And finally, I think that he, as well as Riske, hopefully Mota and Gange will allow Yost to give Turnbow the hook when he's simply not on. Last year it was so painfullly obvious when Turnbow just didn't have it many times within the first 5-8 pitches, yet because we only had a closer to follow him up, and you can't have your closer pitch multpile innings on a regular basis, you have to leave him out there and just cross your fingers. Now if he's not getting the job done, bring in Torres, Mota, Riske, even Bush, Vargas or Capuano and Turnbow's ERA should plummet. I see him as a result posting an ERA in the mid 2.00's again this year.

[brettac1]

Gagne will get most of the media love as a reason for why the team is so much improved.

 

Cameron, in reality, will be the reason. But he's pretty used to being undervalued everywhere he goes.

[Time for a Miller]

I think Cameron will have the biggest impact and probably the biggest positive impact. As previously mentioned there is a defensive fall out from his taking over in center field. I think the impact a relief pitcher has is limited since he won't pitch a high number of innings where as Mike Cameron will play a majority of the time.

[JohnBriggs12]

I'm going to say Riske and Torres will have the biggest impact if they can keep Turnbow out of high leverage situations. To me the two guys that made the difference for the Cubs last year were Marmol and Howry. Marmol was spectacular for most of the season. Howry, though never spectacular, was dependable and solid in game after game for Cubs allowing more than 1 run just once in 39 appearences after the All Star break. The Brewers couldn't match those two guys shutting down oppenents and getting to the closer.

 

I think Cameron will have an impact on defense, but it could well be offset on offense by making the lineup too righthanded.

[ILuvDaBush]

Indeed. Look at the Indians and their combination of Perez and Betancourt. It didn't matter that they had Average Joe Borowski, as Betancourt and Perez completely deflated any hopes of late inning heroics until the janitor could come in and sweep up any remnants of hope left.

[splitterpfj]

As a group, I think the new bullpen guys are positioned to make a big difference, but the question is about one individual, so the answer has to be Cameron. The team defense was a major problem last year, his acquisition obviously makes the CF position better in that regard, but it also gave Hall and Braun the ability to play where they can do the most good defensively as well.

[Gopher74]

I'm going to say Riske and Torres will have the biggest impact if they can keep Turnbow out of high leverage situations. To me the two guys that made the difference for the Cubs last year were Marmol and Howry. Marmol was spectacular for most of the season. Howry, though never spectacular, was dependable and solid in game after game for Cubs allowing more than 1 run just once in 39 appearences after the All Star break. The Brewers couldn't match those two guys shutting down oppenents and getting to the closer.

I think Cameron will have an impact on defense, but it could well be offset on offense by making the lineup too righthanded.

Turnbow will and should continue to pitch in high "leverage" situations. I don't get why people are so down on Turnbow. The fact is, he was great the vast majority of the time he came on last year he was great. It's again, just the few times that he wasn't good that he was terrible and he really blew up. But that doesn't change the fact that he got the job done far, far more often than he did not.

 

Howry gave up a run in 18 of the 78 games he appeared in last year.

Turnbow gave up a run in 15 of his 77 games he appeared in last year.

 

Yet Turnbow's ERA was 4.63 whereas Howry's was 3.22.

 

Obviously that's just one tiny little aspect of the equation, but the point remains that Turnbow's good a very high pct of the time. You say that Howry's consistent, and I would say that Turnbow appears to be in his own way consistent. He's consistently very good. He's also consistently very bad WHEN he's bad.

 

And that right there is what I think Torres, Riske, Mota, and Gange can rectify. As I've said, you can see very quickly when one Turnbow doesn't have it. He comes out and his fastball is straight, his slider hangs and goes right down the middle, and that's if he can get it over the plate. But when he's on, he's every bit as good as Carlos Marmol. Bottom line if Turnbow's a guy that we absolutely need this year to play a pivotal role if we're going to have a good Bullpen.

As for the lineup being "too" right handed, I don't see how it's possible for him to off-set the defensive upgrade by making the lineup "too" right handed. First of all, it assumes that without Cameron, we'd of had another left handed bat in the lineup. That's not really the case. It was going to be Hall at CF, Braun at 3rd, and then MAYBE a platoon in LF of Dillon and Gross. So the question is, would Cameron's production be bad enough as compared to those two, that it'd even come close to negating the defensive upgrade? I cannot envision a scenario in which he could even come close to offsetting the huge defensive upgrade.

[Gopher74]

Indeed. Look at the Indians and their combination of Perez and Betancourt. It didn't matter that they had Average Joe Borowski, as Betancourt and Perez completely deflated any hopes of late inning heroics until the janitor could come in and sweep up any remnants of hope left.

That's the reason that I hope the Cubbies move Marmol to the closers role. Playing against, or rooting against the Cubs, it was always so painful to watch them in the middle to later part of the games they were leading because you just knew anytime they got up on a team and that team started to get a rally going they would bring in Marmol and that was likely the end of it. Meanwhile, they'd add another run, and then Dempster would get to start a fresh inning, and his outings were far easier.

 

Howry and Wood are still a formidable duo if Marmol is the closer, but Howry's hittable, and Wood's a giant question mark.

 

The team defense was a major problem last year, his acquisition obviously makes the CF position better in that regard, but it also gave Hall and Braun the ability to play where they can do the most good defensively as well.

Yea, that's one way to look at it. To look where other players are moving as a result of his signing, but I took at as who was going to have the biggest impact themselves.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[danzig6767]

1. Cameron

 

2. Torres next if all those innings as a Pirate and age haven't caught up with him.

[Nottso]

+1 for Cameron.

[NeedMoreFans]

I'm probably overvaluing this aspect of the game, but I'm going to say Jason Kendall because of how he will handle the pitching staff throughout the course of the game. I thought I read somewhere that the staff last year didn't necessarily like the way Estrada worked with the staff and called games, but Kendall is fantastic with that part. He may not hit well or even throw a lot of runners out, but I think having him back there instead of Estrada will help. Plus, I see him hustling a bit more, which, could possibly mean he gets an extra couple of hits over the course of the year that will mean something.

[JJHardy7]

I'm probably overvaluing this aspect of the game, but I'm going to say Jason Kendall because of how he will handle the pitching staff throughout the course of the game.

 

I'd probably go with Kendall too -- and I might be overvaluing it. Cameron is suspended the first 25 games and he's not a spring chicken either and eventually that will catch up to him in CF -- hopefully not this year though.

[Tbadder]

I think Gagne. If he succeeds, he's gonna net us some major draft choices again. Cameron will never give us that advantage. On the field though it's gotta be Cameron. Moving Braun is gonna be huge in my opinion, and Cameron is due for a good year at the plate, surrounded by hitters and playing in a slightly offensive positive stadium. But it could also be Kendall. Because I really believe he's just broken down. Munson is gonna spend a lot of time behind the plate. I'm guessing 75 games.

[TooLiveBrew]

Howry gave up a run in 18 of the 78 games he appeared in last year.

Turnbow gave up a run in 15 of his 77 games he appeared in last year.

 

Isn't that only counting the number of ER, though? I'd bet Turnbow let waaayy more inherited runners score than Howry.

[JohnBriggs12]

Gopher74,

 

The stat you pointed out about Howry allowing a run in 18 games vs. 15 for Turnbow misses the point entirely.

 

Look at this comparison:

 

Howry # of times allowing

 

1 Run 10

2 Runs 4

3 Runs 3

4 Runs 1

 

 

Turnbows # times allowing

 

1 Run 5

2 Runs 3

3 Runs 4

4 Runs 2

5 Runs 1

 

Turnbow allowed 3 or more runs 7 times compared to just 4 times by Howry, not once in the second half.

 

It's not how many times you allow a run it's how many runs do you allow. Allow one run and you're still in the game, often still ahead. Allow 3 or more like Turnbow did more often, you are either blowing what should be a safe lead or making it very difficult for your offense to recover.

[Fear The Chorizo]

I think the issue people have with Turnbow isn't that he only had a certain percentage of bad outings compared to so many more dominant outings, it's that for the past two seasons after the all-star break, he has really struggled. Part of the blame can go to Yost to "burning him out" by pitching him in every high-leverage late game situation, but most of the blame has to go to Turnbow (Cordero was also in many of those games, and he was solid throughout the season). It seems that when the calendar's rolled into July the past two seasons, Turnbow forgets how to throw a slider for a strike, or even command his fastball. His stuff is so dominating that once he starts struggling with command, hitters are going to sit with the bat on their shoulder and make him throw strikes. I think his 2nd half struggles have more to do with him being a mental midget than arm fatigue or other physical factors. Getting the amount of bullpen arms with decent career numbers that can be late-inning options, I think, is the largest overall improvement of the roster compared to 07.

 

Since this is a thread talking about the biggest impact of an individual player, I gotta go with Cameron - 25 game suspension or not, his signing moves Hall to third and Braun off third, drastically improving the defense at two key positions (CF and 3B), while allowing one of their best hitters the luxury of moving to a position that a good athlete like Braun can play well.

[Ennder]

Gopher74,

 

The stat you pointed out about Howry allowing a run in 18 games vs. 15 for Turnbow misses the point entirely.

 

Look at this comparison:

 

Howry # of times allowing

 

1 Run 10

2 Runs 4

3 Runs 3

4 Runs 1

 

 

Turnbows # times allowing

 

1 Run 5

2 Runs 3

3 Runs 4

4 Runs 2

5 Runs 1

 

Turnbow allowed 3 or more runs 7 times compared to just 4 times by Howry, not once in the second half.

 

It's not how many times you allow a run it's how many runs do you allow. Allow one run and you're still in the game, often still ahead. Allow 3 or more like Turnbow did more often, you are either blowing what should be a safe lead or making it very difficult for your offense to recover.

 

I would think this points to the fact that Yost doesn't know how to manage the bullpen more than anything. The reason RP's dont' let in 3+ runs very often is because most managers yank them before they are in a position to do that and then replace them with another good RP instead of someone like Spurling.

 

That being said I'd rather have Howry than Turnbow any day of the week.

[RU Rah Rah]

Maybe Kendall? Of all the newcomers, I think he's going to be the most involved overall -- in terms of handling the pitchers and providing 1/9 of the offense (more or less). Over the course of 120-something games, the upgrade over Estrada will have to count for something (provided, of course, that Kendall proves to be decent).