What are the Brewers going to do with Jason Kendall?  He can be patient and take pitches all he wants, but .188/.293/.217 just will not cut it, even if he does provide solid defense.  The 9th spot in the line-up is hitting .177/.235/.266, and has more home runs.  Offensively, he's as useful as a pitcher.

Kendall is still a solid defensive catcher.  His range factor of 8.3 puts him in the top-5 in 2009 and last season much was made of his incredible improvement throwing out runners.  But how valuable is that?  According to Dave Cameron's article in the Wall Street Journal, there is little correlation between throwing out runners and run prevention and, "The best way to stop the opposing team from scoring is to avoid putting runners on base in the first place."

In-season ZiPS projections from the Baseball Think Factory project that Kendall will hit .255/.332/.317 for the rest of the season.  Kendall is 35-years-old and the Brewers need to have a plan moving forward.  Problem is that Brewers prospect Angel Salome seems to have left his bat in Huntsville and is only hitting .224/.288/.225 in Nashville this year.  It looks like the Brewers will need to wait for Kendall to start hitting, but better have a plan for 2010 if Salome continues to struggle.  Salome is a better hitter than he's shown this first month, but there are question about his ability to catch in the big leagues and he'll need to hit pretty well to make it worth living with his growing pains behind the plate.

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Bill Hall deserves credit for his improved play this season.  Maybe it's the off season lasik, or maybe Hall is learning how to lay off pitches out of the zone.  Whatever the reason, Billy has done a nice job at the plate hitting .296/.360/.494 with 3 HR and 7 2B, which is in line with his 2005 season when he hit .294/.342/.495 with 17 HR and 39 2B.  Expect some regression since a .360 OBP is 15 points higher than his career best, but everything else is well within reason, so there isn't reason why he can't keep this up.

Hall's biggest contribution in 2009 is stablizing third base.  He can be frustrating to watch, but he gets the job done defensively.  Last season Hall posted a 4.2 UZR/150 (click link for glossary as well), and is currently 3.3 UZR/150 in 2009.  He's playing slightly above average defense and is contributing at the plate.  Don't be surprised if Hall's OBP slips closer to .325 by the end of the season, but at this point it's reasonable to expect 30-35 2Bs and 15+ HR.

At this point, Mat Gamel is not going to play third in the majors and the Brewers don't have another option in the pipeline for at least the next couple seasons.  If Bill Hall has finally figured out how to play at his current level of production, we may see him play out the rest of his contract plus his 2011 option year as the Milwaukee Brewers starting third baseman.

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