Monthly Archives: February 2008

My obligatory “I’m reading my new BA Prospect Handbook” post

Posted on February 26, 2008 by | 5 Comments

Posted by Steve

I did this last year, almost exactly a year ago in fact, so let’s make it The Second Annual BA Handbook Post. Things are very different this year for the Brewers’ system. The last four years, it was ranked 1, 3, 5 and 5 in baseball. Because the majority of their top prospects have graduated to the major league team, BA ranked the Brewers at 21 this year. This is why this is such a big draft, as Jack Z will have to take advantage of those extra comp picks to replenish the system. Here is BA’s top 10 list, followed by some players of note.

  1. Matt LaPorta OF
  2. Manny Parra SP
  3. Alcides Escobar SS
  4. Jeremy Jeffress SP
  5. Mat Gamel 3B
  6. Cole Gillespie OF
  7. Brent Brewer SS
  8. Angel Salome C
  9. Lorenzo Cain OF
  10. Caleb Gindl OF

Matt LaPorta LF

The Brewers took a lot of criticism for drafting LaPorta with the seventh pick last year, but not even a year later it appears (shockingly) they knew what they were doing. Granted it was only in 115 at bats, but LaPorta showed serious power with 12 home runs and a line of .304/.369/.696. He went to the AFL, in part to work on his defense in left field after playing first base all throughout college. He doesn’t project to be a good left fielder, but they Brewers just need him to be close to average. It appears he’ll be able to do that. Look for LaPorta to start in AA, and if things stay on target this should be his only full year in the minors before reaching Milwaukee.

Manny Parra, SP

We’ve seen him at the big league level, and even after just a handful of MLB innings it’s easy to see where the hype comes from. There isn’t much to say about Parra–it all comes down to his health. He has great potential, yet he really hasn’t been able to stay healthy for a prolonged period of time. The only goal he should set for himself this year is to stay healthy all year. If he does the rest will take care of itself.

Alcides Escobar, SS

Escobar made one of the biggest jumps from last year, going from #9 to #3. His biggest strength is defense; every report I’ve read says his defense is MLB ready right now. He’s a more “traditional” shortstop in that he doesn’t have much power, but he projects to be a starting MLB shortstop.

Jeremy Jeffress SP

Jeffress is very difficult to rank because of his unusual situation.  He was tested positive for marijuana twice last season, and he will start 2008 serving a suspension.  The Brewers’ 2006 first round pick, Jeffress has the talent to be the number one prospect in the system.  At the same time, you could make a case that he doesn’t belong in the top ten until he cleans up.

Caleb Gindl OF

Gindl started his pro career on fire, as he hit .372 in his first half-season. BA selected him as the player with the best pro debut of Brewers’ 2007 draft class.  They also compare him to Brian Giles; he has an advanced eye, but power may be an issue.

Mark Rogers SP (#12)

The Brewers’ 2004 first round pick (and fifth pick overall) is still a long way from the majors.  He missed all of last season after shoulder surgery.  He had amazing strikeout ability, but had serious command issues.  He is still only 22, and BA claims he still has the upside of a number one starter.  Many outsiders have given up on Rogers as a serious prospect, so this is a big year for his development.

Luis Pena RP (#14)

Despite all the success the Brewers have had developing players, they have had virtually no success developing relief pitchers.  Of course this is partially because almost all pitchers are drafted as starters, but Luis Pena is the closest thing the Brewers have had to a legitimate relief pitching prospect in many years.   He is a power pitcher who dominated in 2007 between A and AA.  In 67 innings Pena totaled 69 strikeouts and 21 walks.

Without giving away too much content (I really recommend the both this book and the BP Manual if you want to learn more about the game, by the way), here are some other tidbits BA gives about the Brewers.  I’ll leave it at the best tools in the system, but they also project the 2011 lineup, list the top prospects of the decade and list their minor league depth chart.

Best hitter for average- Mat Gamel

Best power hitter- Matt LaPorta

Best Strike-Zone Discipline- Michael Brantley

Fastest Baserunner- Darren Ford

Best Athlete- Brent Brewer

Best Fastball- Jeremy Jeffress

Best Curveball- Nick Tyson

Best Slider- Robert Hinton

Best Changeup- R.J. Seidel

Best Control- Manny Parra

Best Defensive Catcher- Lou Palmisano

Best Defensive Infielder- Alcides Escobar

Best Infield Arm- Alcides Escobar

Best Defensive Outfielder- Darren Ford

Best Outfield Arm- Brendan Katin

→ 5 Comments

Posted in Prospects/Minor Leagues

I think we’re long overdue for a cornucopia of thoughts, Grand Branyan style

Posted on February 22, 2008 by | 1 Comment

Posted by Steve

Man, for like a week now I kept telling myself ‘I’ll post tonight,’ and before I know it it’s been almost two weeks since the last post. With spring training workouts underway, I have to say I’m ashamed. And look at the sidebar. It still says 2007 Roster (at least it did when I wrote this). What kind of bush-league, abecedarian, catechumen, half-baked, second rate, smattering establishment am I trying to run here (fun with thesauruses!)?

Anyway, we’re finally past that point where there isn’t much to talk about. And we have the perfect storm: Things to talk about+Extended period of time between posts+Steve on plenty of caffeine after a full week of work=THOUGHT CORNUCOPIA.

Without further ado, let’s get this club bumpin.

  • My BA Prospect Handbook arrived today, so it shouldn’t be tough to guess the topic of my next post. I haven’t had a chance to look through it yet, but stay tuned. Jay Bruce is the featured cover player, but another player featured is Dodgers’ über-lefty Clayton Kershaw. The release of my BP Manual is delayed, so that won’t arrive for probably another week or so. :(
  • Yo’s injury. Heh. Didn’t take long for that pitching surplus to get a little thinner. Obviously the good thing is it was just a minor surgery and it sounds like he’s already feeling decent. It sounds like he’ll miss three starts at the worst. I’m still hoping for a pre-opening day Vargas trade, but that may now be in doubt.
  • Branyan the Manyan is back! This, of course, means brewerfan.net is in an uproar. If you frequented the boards a few years ago when the Brewers last had Russell Branyan, you know the controversy he created. As goofy as it sounds, I honestly do not believe there could be a more polarizing player in baseball for the members of that site than Russell Branyan. Most of the posters there are believers of 3TO, but but some of those who don’t can’t stand the guy. I can’t say I blame them. He’s sort of an Adam Dunn/Jim Thome lite, so when you have a group of people practically worshiping the guy, I imagine I’d be annoyed too if I didn’t care for that type of player. When a thread for a minor league deal is on its seventh page after two days, something unusual is happening. By the way, here are some of my favorite lines from that thread:
    • I’m not even sure what to type now. Think I’m gonna do a bunch of push ups.
    • There’s only one thing to do: bring back the sunglasses avatar.
    • Branyan >>>>>>> strikeouts. Russ Branyan owns the world.
    • My prediction is that this thread gets locked on page 24.
    • I request a minimum of 5 Branyan bobblehead days
    • Branyan makes me blush and giggle.
    • Well hopefully he gets hurt. I can’t believe the love affair with this guy. I was so happy when we released him on January 31, 2006.
    • Greeeaaat…………….. Now I can read a new thread everyday for the rest of the year about this mope tearing up AAA and we need to call him up – NOW. And he should be batting clean up , or lead off , or pitching, or pinch running, or bull pen catcher.
    • Branyan is sort of a cult icon on Brewerfan. He reminds me of that girl you dated in high school. She was very pretty and you really wanted to get to know her. Then you dated her for a while and realized all of her flaws and how you could do much better. Ten years later you run into her and all those old good feeling come up again.
    • I want to change the line at the bottom of the board pages that says “Powered by KickApps, Inc.” to “Powered by Russell Branyan”.
    • If we get 6-8 inches more snow this weekend I am going to make the kids make a Snowmanyan in the yard.
  • One of these days I’m going to make a full post about Ben Sheets and his future with the Brewers. It’s very complicated with his past health issues, and it will obviously be a huge decision.
  • This pitching staff situation is going to be really interesting. I have a feeling people are going to be pretty surprised by who starts the season in the minors. It seems like Manny Parra is all but sure of starting in Nashville, and with recent comments by Ned Yost I wouldn’t be shocked if Carlos Villanueva shared the same fate. More to come on this as well…

I have to run out now, so I’ll cut it off here. Sorry it’s a bit short, but I promise to pick up the frequency of my posts. And who knows? At some point I imagine Dan will resurface.

By the way, as far as the move itself, it’s hard not to like signing Branyan to a minor league deal. Obviously the Brewers are right-handed heavy, so it makes plenty of sense. Also, I like it because I enjoy 480 foot homers.

→ 1 Comment

Posted in Cornucopia of thoughts, Milwaukee Brewers 2008, Prospects/Minor Leagues

Yost not a lame duck after all

Posted on February 8, 2008 by | Leave a comment

Posted by Steve

Doug Melvin recently revealed that the club picked up Ned Yost’s 2009 option. I imagine some people who are not Yost fans may be upset by this, but in reality this doesn’t mean much of anything.

Contending teams usually like to avoid having coaches/managers in the last year of their contract because they want to avoid distractions as much as possible. It makes some sense for the Brewers to do this since it sends a message of support.

The reason I say it doesn’t mean a whole lot is because they can still fire him at any time. I found this quote in the Journal Sentinel from Melvin pretty humorous. Depending on how you choose to look at it, this could make it seem like the Brewers actually don’t have much confidence in Yost.

“People are fired in the middle of contracts,” said Melvin. “It doesn’t matter whether contracts are picked up or not. I could be fired, too, and I have two years left on my contract.”

I also found it amusing that this move was apparently made months ago, and Melvin just hadn’t realized that it hadn’t been announced.

Now Melvin did say Yost’s job won’t be in jeopardy if the team gets off to a slow start, but what’s he supposed to say? “Well Ned’s signed through ’09, but if the team isn’t in first place after May he’s outta here.” Not quite.

Overall I don’t think this is big news at all, but there’s not much else to talk about until Spring Training starts or a pitcher is dealt. I’m not upset with this because I don’t think it means he’s on a short leash. Also, despite the fact that I feel he deserved to be fired after 2007, there’s a realistic chance he improves his managing in his second year in control of a good team.

→ Leave a comment

Posted in Milwaukee Brewers 2008, Transactions

Where the Brewers need to improve part three: In-Game Managing

Posted on February 5, 2008 by | Leave a comment

Posted by Steve

I knew I’d be getting around to this post eventually. A new Yost thread has surfaced at Brewerfan.net in which posters are rehashing all the terrible moves from last season. I decided to carry my resuscitated frustrations from that thread right over to this post. This way I can get it all out of the way in one shot.

Since I know you’re dying to remember them all, here’s a sample of some of Ned Yost’s most inexplicable managerial moves from the 2007 season. The “Ned Yost… Sha-wuuhhh??” category made this a pretty quick project.

A few things separate Part Three from the first two posts about weaknesses of the 2007 team. There are no “managerial stats” that I can research to draw a strong conclusion, and there’s no way to quantify how many wins or losses a manager is responsible for over the course of the season. It’s also important to note that fans of a certain team tend to see more errors from their team’s manager than others. Finally, and obviously, no manager makes all the right moves.

All those things said, there’s no doubt in my mind that Yost hurt the Brewers’ chances last season. Sure the tactic of leaving the closer in the bullpen until you get the lead is a strategy that is employed by several managers, but Yost’s bullpen management overall was, at times, awful. Guys like Seth McClung, Greg Aquino and Chris Spurling should never have pitched in close and late situations nearly as much as they did last year.

Not all of that is Yost’s fault. A lot can be blamed on Derrick Turnbow and Matt Wise fading in the second half. Some can be blamed on Doug Melvin for not assembling a better bullpen. The bottom line, though, was that Yost was often completely lost when managing the pen. That has absolutely has to get better. The good news is that the talent in the pen appears to be improved.

I do think Yost gets a bit of a raw deal at times. His reputation indicates his biggest strength is in motivating players and keeping the clubhouse relaxed. Obviously that isn’t something fans can see on a day-to-day basis. Also, last season was basically the first good team he’s had; it was new territory for him. I admit I would have liked to see the Brewers make a proactive, gutsy move and replace Yost with an experienced manager.  He has yet to prove that he is anything but a decent manager for a young, rebuilding team, but as long as 2008 is his last chance I’m not too upset.

Mark Attanasio and Doug Melvin retained Yost, but they aren’t giving him more than his lame duck year at this point. The Brewers had the talent to win a weak NL Central last season, and Yost’s decisions hurt those chances. If the Brewers have disappointed by the time the All-Star Break rolls around, don’t be surprised to see Ted Simmons take over. Whether it’s Yost, Simmons or anybody else, the managing needs to improve in 2008.

→ Leave a comment

Posted in Milwaukee Brewers 2008, Ned Yost... Sha-wuuhhh??