|
|
November 2008 - Posts
-
Something that seemed vaguely true over the past few weeks was put into words by ESPN.com columnist Jayson Stark: There are more closers than there are teams looking for them this off-season.
Available as free agents: Francisco Rodriguez, Brian Fuentes, Trevor Hoffman, Kerry Wood and, depending on how you look at them in your bullpen neighborhood, Jason Isringhausen, Brandon Lyon, Eric Gagne and Juan Cruz. There's also Chad Cordero, who is coming off shoulder surgery and is iffy for Opening Day.
Also, potentially available on the trade market: J.J. Putz, Bobby Jenks, George Sherrill, Huston Street, Jose Valverde and Matt Capps.
Of course, the Brewers almost certainly aren't in for going after the top of that market:
The Brewers will be aggressive -- "but they need two starting pitchers (to replace CC Sabathia and Ben Sheets)," one GM said. "So I don't know how much they can allocate for a closer." It's hard to say just how much this unnamed GM knows about the Brewers' intentions in terms of finding a closer. They do have some in-house options to fill both the rotation and the closer spot. Yovanni Gallardo will take a rotation spot and Ben Sheets could still conceivably end up back in the Brewer rotation next year. Seth McClung could start or close, and Carlos Villanueva could possibly do both also, though he's not really much of an option to start long term and he doesn't have classic closer stuff.
Ultimately, though, the pitching staff is thin. They probably do need another 200 inning, below league average ERA type pitcher, and those are not cheap. If one isn't available at a reasonable price (either in dollars or players), the glut of relief pitching on the market may allow them to compensate for the inability to improve in that way by building up the relief corps at a cheaper price. A lot of time is rightly focused on trying to build a pitching around having the starters eat a lot of innings so the weaker pitchers in the bullpen don't have to pitch many key "high leverage" innings. If you can't get the starters to chew up the innings, you can have some success making the back of the bullpen better. It's not the best option, but it is possible. If the team can get a late inning arm or two and then slide everyone else back to earlier roles, that helps build the whole staff.
The most important thing to take away from the glut of relievers on the market this winter is that it gives the team a lot of alternative ways to strengthen the pitching staff and it also gives them time to make the final decisions.
-
There are many Brewer farm hands playing in one of the various winter leagues running at the moment. MLB.com has made it easy on us this year, giving us a page for each franchise. The most notable development for the Brewers so far is, unfortunately, how many guys who were supposed to be on the field are down and out with injuries. This is especially true at the premier postseason destination, the Arizona Fall League, where top prospects Mat Gamel, Angel Salome, Taylor Green and Jeremy Jeffress have all gone home for the year after seeing limited or no action.
There have been some notable performances (all stats are through action on 11/20):
- Lorenzo Cain, long a guy known more for his tools and projectablity than his production, is following up his strong regular season with a fantastic postseason. He's hitting .333/.382/.635 with 5 HR and 4 2B in 63 AB's, which represents a pretty good power surge from previous performances. Some of that is probably the parks he's playing in, but it's a positive development none the less. Next thing he needs to improve on is taking more walks, because 4 in 67 PA's isn't going to cut it.
- Brent Brewer is finally starting to show a little bit of the promise that led to his being selected in the second round of the 2006 draft. His regular season was disappointing, but so far in Arizona he's hitting .300/.344/.700 with 3 HR and 3 2B in 30 AB's. That's a very small sample, but any positive with Brewer at this point is going to stand out. He may be playing himself into a promotion to AA to open next year.
- OF prospect Caleb Gindl is having a solid, though unremarkable run in Hawaii. Fellow OF Logan Schafer is having a similarly decent run in Hawaii, though his walk rate is trending up, which is good.
- Until very recently, SS Alcides Escobar was having a terrible time in the Venezuelan Winter League, but 11 hits in his last 31 AB's has his line up to a moderately respectable .235/.305/.318. On the positive side, he's taking more walks than he generally has in the past. Still, that sort of production doesn't exactly scream "ready for the big leagues" does it?
- On the pitching side, one of the few top arms in the system having a good run is Omar Aguilar, who is following up a breakout campaign this last year with some good pitching in Arizona. A 12/4 K/BB ratio and 1.21 WHIP in 11 2/3 IP is pretty good for a guy in Arizona with less than 40 innings over A ball under his belt.
- Before being shut down with a tired shoulder, 2006 first round pick Jeremy Jeffress was getting hit hard in Arizona. His health and productivity are key to the Brewers right now, as he is one of the few impact pitching prospects left above rookie ball.
- Also in the "disappointing" category would be Alex Periard who's serving up HR at an alarming rate in Arizona and Cody Scarpetta is having trouble finding the plate in Hawaii.
- On a positive note, under-the-radar lefty reliever Mike Ramlow is following up a season where he opened a few eyes with a sound showing in Hawaii, though his walk rate in uncharacteristically high.
All in all, there isn't too much to get excited about here. A bad showing in one of the fall leagues doesn't mean much for long term projection. A strong showing, however, may get you a longer look in spring training with the major league club and a poor one could have coaches and front office types longing to see a guy in the minors a bit longer. It's hard to say for sure what any of these performances mean until we see where they land to open next year.
-
One of the longest held beliefs of the Sabermetric community is that the vast majority of major league managers are not using the assets they have in their bullpen to the greatest possible effectiveness. The major argument is that most teams use their best reliever as a "closer" save specialist, meaning they will be used to for 3 outs with a lead of 3 or fewer runs for the majority of their appearances. Some may get in for 4 or 5 outs from time to time and most will be used in "non-save" situations occasionally when they have been idle for a while and need to stay sharp. Most of the time, though, they get three outs in the 9th. The problem with that usage is, of course, that very often those are not the key outs in a game. How many times has an inferior reliever been brought in to face the oppositions best hitter in the 7th or 7th inning representing the tying or fall behind run? How many times has the "closer" been asked to face the 7, 8 & 9 hitters in a weak lineup with a 3 run lead just to get a save? Shouldn't a teams best reliever be used to get the hardest and most important outs in games and not used in easier situations simply for the sake of adding a save to the total? The arguments for the closer are not without some merit, especially the ones about guys wanting to know their roles and have a general idea of when they might be used. These are not machines being asked to perform a computation, after all. It is also true that very often the 9th inning does turn out to be the toughest situation in the game and that giving up a run in the 7th inning in a one run game isn't the same as giving up a run in the 9th inning of a one run game. Managers deserve some credit for coming up with this current bullpen useage system, they just haven't been flexible enough in it's employment. With that in mind, how can the Brewers best build their bullpen for 2009 now that their 9th inning specialist from last year, Salomon Torres has decided to call it a career? - Assuming that Carlos Villanueva and Seth McClung are both headed to the pen (and Melvin is on the record saying that Villanueva will be and McClung might be) the team would be well advised to keep in mind that both of those guys are capable of going more than one inning at a time and that using them as a classic save specialist is probably not the best way to go.
- The Brewers are going to need a LHP for the pen and would probably be best served with twol. The question is whether or not it's worth it to bring back Brain Shouse. At this point in his career, he's great against lefties and terrible against righties, which means that his uses are pretty limited in tight situations. Mitch Stetter is waiting in the wings, but his walk happy nature makes him less than a sure thing.
- David Riske's ability to come back from his trouble filled 2008 will go a long way towards determining how the middle relief will shake out. The Brewers need him to step up and earn his paycheck this season.
- There are veteran closers on the market this winter, like Trevor Hoffman and Jason Isringhausen, but they are also well past their primes and will probably command a premium for their names alone. If one of them could be had at a bargain price, however, it would allow the Brewers to go into spring training with an established situation in the pen, at least until the players prove their worth early on.
- Besides Mitch Stetter, the Brewers will head to Arizona with several options from the farm system to take a look at. Tim Dillard has the stuff to be long term big league reliever, though he has yet to show that he is ready to pitch in key situations. Mark DiFelice is a long time minor leaguer who strikes out a lot of batters and walks very few, but his lack of velocity leaves him vulnerable to the long ball. Luis Pena is coming off of a disappointing campaign in AAA, but still has the electric stuff to pitch late in games if he can harness it. Omar Aguilar has top notch stuff and he's been groomed as a closer in the minors. If he can build on his impressive 2008 and cut down on the walks, he could find himself closing in Milwaukee before the end of the year.
Melvin said in a radio interview on 1250 WSSP last week that he was going to wait a while to address the bullpen situation, which means that he's probably not interested in any of the top guys unless their price comes down later on and that he's willing to go with internal options, at least to a large degree. There are some very useful arms already under team control both at the major and minor league levels. If Melvin's track record is any indication, though, he'll probably end up bringing in multiple cheap options for a look see in spring training. It makes sense, because the best way to build a bullpen on a tight budget is to acquire as many cheap options as you can, throw them at the wall and see what sticks.
-
In the biggest little hire of the week, the Brewers surprised no one when they went in house and hired Bruce Seid to replace the departing Jack Zduriencik as scouting director. Those are big shoes to fill. Judging by lack of responses to the story on the JSonline blog (the story has so far generated three, compared to the fifty-five that a post about Ned Yost and Willie Randolph not being considered for the Mariners manager job generated since then) this is flying almost totally under the radar amongst Brewer fans. This is understandable, because very few fans have ever heard of Bruce Seid and there really isn't much to say about the hire other than he was hired by a good scouting director and hopefully he's ready to take over the reigns. Still, it's not an understatement to say that the job that Seid does hiring and evaluating the recommendations of his staff will probably have a much greater impact over the franchise's fortunes for the next decade than any other move that's been made or will be made this off season. The Brewers, like just about any team not playing in New York, Boston, Chicago or LA, are only going to be able to consistently contend when they have a steady stream of talent coming up through the farm system ready to contribute at the major league level. This all starts with scouting, drafting and signing the right players, and that is largely the province of the scouting director. There's more too it than just that because keeping the talent flowing to the majors involves some other people too. Most important, the overall emphasis within the organization needs to stay strongly on player development. That means efforts have to be made to develop and keep healthy the prized talent so that it can contribute some day. The general manager needs to know who to keep, who can be traded away and when the right time to break someone in is. Most important, the team needs to commit the money to sign the talent found by Seid and his staff and they need to commit to allowing many of these players come up and contribute, even if that means they have to take some time to "rebuild" every once in a while. There is an understandable temptation for those running a franchise to, having rebuilt from the ground up in a long an laborious process, put everything they have into squeezing out a few extra wins when they feel they have a contender, because those wins can make all the difference in making the playoffs and winning in them. The vaunted Oakland A's under the watch of Billy Beane fell into the trap of allowing their farm system to dry up while pushing for contention every season. Everyone thinks that the famous Moneyball draft in 2002 was an exercise in trying to be the smartest guy in the room. In reality, it was trying to squeeze as much talent out of a shoestring budget as possible. It would be a shame if the Brewers allowed the same thing to happen. Everyone knows that the Brewers of 2008-09 will not have one of the top few picks in the draft, which is how they aquired some of the key talent that makes up the major league sqaud now. That makes it tougher to find true superstars, because more often than not those guys have talent that stands out to everyone. What the Brewers of 2008-09 have that the Brewers of 2002-05 didn't have was a lot of extra picks in the top end of the draft. If used correctly, those can help fill out a roster and build a contender. The Brewers just need to make sure they keep developing talent as a top priority and fight the urge to allow it to become an afterthought. Money may not be able to gaurantee success for the big market teams, but failure to develop talent in house will gaurantee failure for those not in the big markets.
-
Alright, it's been a while and there is lots to cover so I'll fly through some of this stuff quicker than it deserves.
- Ken Macha was hired to be the new manager of the Brewers. On the plus side, he has an impeccable record of winning as a manager in his time in Oakland. He shepherded young pitching staffs while keeping them relatively healthy and isn't a fan of giving up outs, which give me hope. On the downside, his departure in Oakland raised a lot of questions about his ability to connect with players. Oh, and if you're a fan of "Fire X" sites, here is Macha's from his time in Oakland. It's not flattering, obviously, and even gets a little "blue" at times. Interestingly, Macha only received a two year deal, which means that Melvin is hedging his bets and possibly trying to give Macha an incentive to get along with players. The next few years are big ones for the franchise, because they represent the culmination of the tenure for a lot of the homegrown "core" before many will have to leave to seek greener pastures. If Macha can push the team for a few years of big success before wearing out his welcome, then this will be good. If, however, the problems getting along with players surfaces in that time, a very valuable and possibly rare opportunity could be squandered. Cross your fingers.
- Former interim manager, bench and third base coach Dale Sveum will be the new hitting coach for manager Ken Macha. The job of hitting coach is generally overlooked until the team slumps offensively, so it's not an easy gig. Fortunately for Sveum, he built up some good will helping the team make the playoffs in the waning days of the 2008 season, so maybe he'll get a little pass from the fans for a while.
- Unfortunately, pitching coach Mike Maddux will not be back for a seventh season and will instead be taking the same job with the Rangers. On balance, his tenure with Milwaukee has to be considered a success. He rarely had a lot of depth or high priced talent, but he managed to squeeze many useful seasons out of modest and/or unrefined talents. Good luck to him, because he is going to need it working with that staff in that park. In related news, longtime bullpen coach Bill Castro will take over in that position. His 17 years in the pen saw far more good years than bad and he's earned the shot to see what he can do with the whole staff. The success of his tenure will almost certainly rest on how well he is able to develop the young talents at the big league level and currently in the minor leagues.
- The final piece of coaching news just hit today, with the job of bench coach going to former Mets manager Willie Randolph. So manager Ken Macha will have two men passed over for his position (Randolph and hitting coach Dale Sveum) on his staff, though if that were likely to present a problem they probably wouldn't have been hired. Randolph had quite a bit of success as the Yankees bench coach under Joe Torre and almost certainly wasn't as bad a manager as Mets fans believe. He should be a valuable asset for Macha to draw on.
Moving on to player news: - Nearly as soon as the Brewers made the call to pick up Mike Cameron's 10 million dollar club option (a smart move) rumors started to swirl about a possible trade with the Yankees involving Cameron. It seems like a legitimate sort of rumor and clearly there have been talks between the teams. Cameron is someone that the Brewers should definitely consider trading if the offer is right, but that "right offer" almost certainly needs to include some young pitching. There isn't much to get excited about in Melky Cabrera or Wilson Betemit, both would be useful as role or platoon players but neither is likely to ever be a plus starter and that is what the Brewers would be giving up in Cameron at this point. If the Yankees are serious about getting Cameron, it should cost them a guy like Ian Kennedy. Granted, he hasn't been good thus far in the major leagues, but he is not yet 24 and has been mostly impressive in the minor leagues. He could probably benefit from a lower pressure atmosphere than New York to break into the major leagues and the Brewers could use a young potential mid rotation starter.
- The Brewers have apparently offered CC Sabathia something in the neighborhood of 100 million dollars for 5 years. This is probably no where near enough to actually get a deal done, which is fortunate because it is also probably too big a risk for the Brewers to take on one player, especially an overworked starting pitcher. Such is the life of a small market team.
More Posts
|
|