Wednesday, March 24, 2010

Chris Snyder for a Pitcher?

Hey everyone,

I have a rumor here for you, Diamondback catcher Chris Snyder to the Brewers. Word on the street is that the D'backs are looking for some pitching, and they could ease the Brewers' current logjam in that category.

There was an attempt to trade Snyder to the Blue Jays over the winter for former Brewer 1B Lyle Overbay but things fell through when the Jays became over Snyder's troubled back.

Snyder is under contact for the next two seasons but is owed a hefty $11.25 million.

Not sure how I feel about that. Doubt the Brewers would want to take on any money, so really unless they send Suppan and some money I don't know how else this would work.

Oh well. Enjoying some nice Wisconsin weather while the Crew is enjoying their Spring Training off day. Less than two weeks now... Brew Up!

Friday, March 19, 2010

Stolen Bases

Hey everyone. A quick tidbit for you all.

So manager Ken Macha has said that the Brewers will be running more this season, after a near stationary stance on the base paths last season. I've commented on this before, about how there are so many guys on the team capable of 20+ stolen bases. Truly, this includes Braun, Gomez, Hart, Weeks, and Escobar. Actually, all of whom have stolen at least 20 in a season (either big league or minor league).

Put how is this panning out? Well, to date the Brewers are 23 and 4 for stolen base attempts in big league camp. And the only person to be caught stealing that will actually make the team is Counsell. Gomez leads the pack with 7 bags, outfield prospect Lorenzo Cain has 4 and 2B Rickie Weeks has 3. That is a team success rate of 85% (very good), and an average of 1.58 attempts per game.

Last season the Brewers as a team were 78-40, a 66% rate of success. Also, that is an average attempt rate of .73 SBs a game. I know this is just spring training, but I really do the Brewers will both try to steal more bases this year, and have a better success rate. Of the three regulars that are different than last year we exchange Mike Cameron (7 of 10) with Carlos Gomez (14 of 21 last year, 33 of 44 two years ago), J.J. Hardy (0 for 1) with Escobar (who was 42 of 52 in 109 games at AAA last year), and take a bit of a downgrade at catcher with Kendall (7 for 9) to Zaun (0 for 2).

Home runs should be down only marginally from last season, we are probably losing 10 or so at both center and short, but picking up 5 or so at catcher, if Weeks is healthy 10 at second, and maybe even 5 or so at right with a healthy Hart. Homers should be there, and if 78 and 40 jumps to maybe 110 and 30 it will just mean that many more runs... and lets just pray the pitching isn't as bad as last year (it can't be, can it?)

Warming up in Milwaukee, it's almost that time. Brew Up!

Thursday, March 18, 2010

Some '09 Stats Fun

Hey Everyone, it's a feature!

I've decided to take a look at some 2009 pitching stats. Nothing too complicated, no WAR or FIP numbers, but some hopefully decent things to think about heading into the new season.

The Best K/BB ratio on the team was headed by 3 relievers: Hoffman, DiFelice, and Coffey (in that order), all of whom came in over 3. The next best guy was (in a limited role) actually Chris Narveson at 2.88. The best of full time starters was perennial leader Dave Bush, at 2.41 Randy Wolf came in at 2.76, up from his career average of 2.29.

The only person on the team (Axford and Swindle don't count) who stuck out more than a batter per inning was Gallardo, who K's almost 10 per 9 innings.

The best ground ball pitchers on the team were Todd Coffey, and then Jeff Suppan, Manny Parra, and Braden Looper. Todd and Soup were near had close to twice as many grounders as fly ball outs, and Manny and Looper were closer to one and a half. On the same note both DiFelice and Narveson had twice as many fly outs as ground outs, with Hoffman and Stetter not too far behind them.

Little less relevant perhaps but still interesting is the wild pitch category. Suppan, though he only throws about 45mph led the team with an even dozen, next was Yo' with that biting curve, followed by... Julio Lugo? Yea, and he only face a whopping 25 batters...

Gallardo had 19 bases stolen against him, and only two runners were thrown out with him on the mound, high leg kick I guess. Best in that category were Suppan and Looper, who allowed only 6 and 5 SBs respectively. Both also had 3 caught stealings. Also, they were the only starters last year who managed any pick offs (2 and 3). Just for comparison and fun, Chris Capuano in his career of 124 games allowed only 13 stolen bases, had 13 men caught, and picked off 28 (roughly 1 in every 5 starts, including 12 in one season, though he did also have 4 balks that year).


Well that's it for now. Have fun, enjoy the game on MLB Network tonight. Brew Up!

Sunday, March 14, 2010

Iribarren Lost on Waivers to Rangers

Yesterday second baseman/utility man Hernan Iribarren was claimed off of waivers by the Texas Rangers. An interesting note here is that earlier in the off season the Brewers claimed utility man Joe Inglett from Texas.

Hernan was actually one of the longest tenured Brewers in the system, having signed out of the Dominican in 2002. He mostly played second with some center field, but had also tried his hand at short and third. He hit well over .300 in his long minor league career but only .185 in two brief Big League stints. I guess that problem with him was his lack of greatness at anything... he hit for average sure, but no real power, not an exceptional fielder, not really a utility guy... Oh well. The Brewers have an experienced utility man in Inglett now (Joe also has over 600 at bats in the Bigs) and Hernan gets to try his hand at making the Texas club, where he may have a decent shot. I kind of got the vibe about Iribarren was somewhat like Gwynn Jr., seemingly a decent player, but lacking certain tools and just never held in a high opinion by the front office...

Wednesday, March 10, 2010

I'm an awful blogger - Thoughts on Prince

Hey everyone. I pretty much suck. I'm disappointed in myself for my lack of work on this. I still read baseball stuff and think baseball stuff but just haven't put in the time to write baseball stuff. I've missed a bunch of good stuff, and have never gotten around to like any of the features that I wanted to do. I was really excited to write about the Jim Edmonds signing but never did.

Oh well. I'm back, somewhat. I'm still really busy with school, but I'm between jobs now so hopefully that will give some more time. My main topic today is concerning a Prince Fielder extension, which is probably a main topic for almost everybody in the whole world.

Prince is currently under contract for the 2010 season at a fairly reasonable $10.5 million. He is eligible for arbitration (and therefore under team control) for one more season.

The bottom line here is that if Prince Fielder is not signed to an extension he MUST be traded. The time frame could still be argued about, but it must happen. This year still has some hope so I don't think you could find many people shouting for his current trade (even at this years deadline...). Next off season makes the most sense to me, as it would net a larger return than waiting until the trade deadline, and would give us one more calender year or so to get an extension done. To let Fielder fly for just the draft picks would be irresponsible, and Fielder would net a Sexon like haul, and for those of you who don't know that deal fueled much of the team for some time, and its repercussions run to the present (Sexon got Overbay (amongst others), Overbay got Bush, Jackson (who was sent to Cleveland in the Sabathia deal) and Gross (who was sent to Tampa in exchange for the highly touted Butler).

So here comes my proposal for a Fielder contract. 4 years-$80 million dollars. Could structure it something like $16m, $20, $20, $20, then a $25m mutual option with a $4m buyout. I also think something just like 4 years $20m per would be fine, or 18, 20, 20, 22. Mutual options kind of seem like they're the new thing right now...

My theory here is it gives the Brewers an additional 3 years breathing room within which they can work with Wolf, Gallardo, Parra, and some of these up-and-comers like Axford, Butler, and maybe even Jeffress. However it does not get them stuck into something too long term. Why would Fielders agent Scott Boras be OK with this? Well for a couple of reasons. There is an absolute glut of free agent 1st basemen in the upcoming two years (Gonzalez, Martinez, Lee, Berkman, Pujols, Overbay, and Dunn amongst others...). Also, Prince is young enough that after this four year deal would only be 30 (maybe 31...) and should actually be entering his prime years, where another 4+ year deal would seem very possible.

From a money standpoint for the Crew I don't think it would be too big of a deal. Yes, I was one of the few people out there who was opposed to the Sabathia deal, and it was solely for money reasons. However, GM Doug Melvin has echoed my thoughts some what when he talks about the difference between hitters and pitchers. Also very important is the combination of Braun and Prince in the 3-4 holes. In 3 years or so the Brewers could still be largely home grown talent and still be raking. A lineup of something like Cain, Escobar, Braun, Fielder, Lawrie, Green/Gamel, Lucroy would be pretty nice, and three years from now many of those guys would not even be in arbitration yet, and when they are getting ready to get to that point, and hopefully coming into their own as hitters Prince will be ready to say bye-bye after his deal. Also I'm sure everyone remembers that we have over $20m coming off the books next year with Suppan, and Riske departing, and the end of the Bill Hall payments. Beyond Braun there is nobody long term except for Wolf, who has 3 years on his deal, and Hawkins who has 2011.

I had some more points to work with but this is getting pretty long and I think I hit my main ones. I'm going to try and get more stuff done, I feel guilty writing on here when I should be writing papers...

Have fun listening to Uek and the Crew, it may be crummy in Miltown, the weather may be awful in AZ too, but spring training still warms me on the inside. Brew Up!