Monthly Archives: December 2008

Posted by Steve

The holidays came early for Brewer fans, and it came as a punch to the gut. The Yankees have signed Mark Teixeira. Why does this affect the Brewers? It does, but not because the Brewers were trying to sign Tex. It’s because he was rated ahead of CC Sabathia as a free agent, which means that the Brewers will only receive the Yankees’ second round draft choice for Sabathia. Yep, for the best pitcher on the market, the Brewers will get something like the 70^th pick in the draft (along with the sandwich pick, which they had anyway).

To my knowledge, Tex was the only player ranked ahead of Sabathia, which means that the only player the Yankees could have signed to bump the Brewers’ pick back to the second round was Teixeira.

Brutal.

Posted by Steve

I am pretty relieved to see that it no longer appears the Brewers will be trading Mike Cameron for Melky Cabrera. That simply wouldn’t have been a good return for Cameron, even with the salary relief. I don’t understand why the Brewers were open to Cabrera as the main piece; if he was coming back with a decent pitcher it would be fine. But Cabrera alone? That’s a substantial downgrade offensively and defensively—a downgrade too large to make up for saving $10 million for one season. If that’s all the Brewers could get for Cameron, he’s more valuable playing center field for them in 2009 than in a trade.

I am clinging to any remaining hope of the Brewers re-signing Ben Sheets. A piece by SI’s John Heyman speculates that the Brewers are “likely” expressing interest. I’m not sure if Donovan has inside info on that or is just speculating, but it’s at least a sign of life.

Additionally, I’d still love to have Adam Dunn, but the Brewers should be competitive even if they don’t make a big trade or signing. I’d feel pretty good about the team if they made two “mid-level” signings—for example, either Randy Johnson or John Smoltz and decent reliever would put them in good position.

I expect the offense to improve even without major personnel changes. As I illustrated a few weeks ago, Hart, Braun, Weeks, Fielder and Hall all fell short of their projections last year. For all of them to have underperforming years again is quite unlikely.

The pitching will certainly drop off without Sabathia, and even more without Sheets. It’s not all doom and gloom there either, though. It may be easy to forget the Brewers were controlling the wildcard before Sabathia arrived and without Yovani Gallardo. In other words, their only clear-cut above average starter was Sheets. Well, they’ll enter this season with one clear-cut above average starter once again in Gallardo. They do need to add a pitcher who’s clearly better than, say Jeff Suppan and Seth McClung (think Dave Bush caliber or better). If that pitcher is Ben Sheets, that’s great. If it’s Randy Johnson, John Smoltz (if healthy) or someone via trade, that’s good too.

Posted by Steve

First, of all, in case you somehow didn’t catch this last week.

So it seems the Brewers and Yankees will be making a trade. Mike Cameron will be headed to the Yankees, and Melky Cabrera will be coming to Milwaukee. That much seems clear right now, but there may be other pieces involved. Personally, I’d feel pretty sick if all the Brewers got for Mike Cameron was Cabrera. Cameron is better offensively and defensively, and I don’t see how the Brewers can trade him without getting any pitching back. But I will not pass any judgment until the deal is finalized.

One thing that would really make things interesting is the Yankees’ apparent interest in Bill Hall. Hall may actually have close to negative value at this point with his contract, so if the Brewers are able to shed Hall and Cameron’s contracts it would at least free up a lot of salary.

Posted by Steve

Generally I’m not one to get too aggravated by Brewers off-seasons, especially this early, but I’m pretty frustrated with reports that came in last night—namely this tidbit by TH at the end of a Sabathia post.

And, on another note, Melvin said he has no plans at this time to make an offer to free agent right-hander Ben Sheets, who declined the club’s offer of salary arbitration. Teams can still negotiate with free agents who decline arbitration if they so choose.

“Maybe Ben feels slighted by it but we haven’t approached them at this point,” said Melvin.

I doubt Sheets feels very slighted, as he’ll have suitors, but I sure do. While the Brewers sit around waiting for CC Sabathia to (very likely) reject them, they are letting their other elite free agent pitcher slip away without any effort. Instead of pursuing a comparable pitcher for a much shorter contract and less money per year, they’re focusing on an incredibly risky contract. Sheets is pretty much as good as Sabathia, would have been more likely to sign in Milwaukee and would be considerably less risky.

I understand pursuing Sabathia, but I don’t understand ignoring Sheets. Here’s my question: What’s wrong with making offers to both of them? I’m not suggesting actually signing both, as that would not be affordable. But make an offer to both, and if one signs, just withdraw the offer to the other!

Instead, the writing is on the wall. In all likelihood, Sabathia will eventually decide to sign somewhere else. By that time, Sheets will have already signed with the Yankees, Rangers or whomever. The Brewers will be left out in the cold and will either stand put with mediocre starting pitching or overpay for Jeff Suppan 2.0 (i.e. Jon Garland) or be forced to trade away talent to acquire pitching.

I’ve done this already, but here’s a quick look at their career numbers

Sheets: 116 ERA+, 1.20 WHIP, 7.6 k/9, 3.85 k/bb

Sabathia: 121 ERA+, 1.24 WHIP, 7.56 k/9, 2.66 k/bb

Sabathia just had an insane half-season that will never be duplicated, and it’s skewing people’s judgment on their true talents. On a whole, they’re extremely similar and it’s blowing my mind the Brewers would rather give a five or six-year deal to one before they’d even consider a two or three-year deal to the other. It really doesn’t make sense, which is once again why I suspect Mark Attanasio is the driving force behind this.

Again, I really don’t mean to be Debbie Downer, but the way this seems to be unfolding is very troubling to me. It doesn’t help that the Cubs not only think they can acquire Jake Peavy for scraps, but can somehow shed Jason Marquis’ contract in the process! How is this possible? If this trade was proposed to a computer in a video game, the interest gage would be dark red. UGH.

Someone please offer words of encouragement to me if you have any. I was knocked out of the playoffs in fantasy football by four points because Jeff Garcia had his highest point total of the year, so this has been a rough 14 hours or so.

Posted by Steve

The Winter Meetings are underway, which equals wonderful. Seems about time for a Winter Hot Stove cornucopia.

There is more news on the CC Sabathia front, or at least rumblings. Doug Melvin is meeting with CC’s agent today, and he will reportedly consider upping his offer. The figure being cited is six years/110 million. First of all, I don’t really see why 6/110 is better than 5/100. Secondly, I already thought five years was too much, so I would definitely not be pleased with a six year contract.

There is encouraging news, though. Multiple sources are also reporting the Brewers may consider adding an opt-out clause after two or three years, which would allow Sabathia the choice to either stay with his long-term deal with Milwaukee or become a free agent early (Alex Rodriguez last year and A.J. Burnett this year are examples of players opting out of contracts early).

This is pretty similar to what I suggested a few posts ago, which was offering fewer years but more money per year. It’s good for Sabathia because if he stays healthy, he’ll be a free agent again at the age of 30 or 31 in a better economy and at a time when California teams are not more focused on offense (Barry Zito’s albatross of a contract will also be ending at that time, which would make the San Francisco a more realistic destination).

It’s good for the Brewers because it lowers the risk. Despite having no serious injury history, injury should be a big concern of the Brewers. Sabathia has been worked a ton in the last two season, and that should be a red flag when considering a six-year deal. With an opt-out clause after two years, the Brewers only truly need Sabathia to stay healthy for two years. If he’s healthy at that time, he’ll almost surely opt out.

Meanwhile, we keep hearing reports of other teams being interested or even of making offers, but the only two confirmed offers to this point are the Brewers and Yankees.

The Brewers’ arbitration-eligible cases developed as I expected. Sabathia, Sheets and Shouse were all offered arbitration and Gagne was not. Each of the three pitchers offered arbitration declined, which means the Brewers will get five high draft picks if they lose all three players. Not bad at all.

While the Brewers’ cases went as expected, I was surprised by many others around the league. Adam Dunn, Pat Burrell, Kerry Wood and Trevor Hoffman were among arbitration-eligible players who were not given an offer. I would have interest in any of those players, particularly Dunn and Burrell. I’m pretty shocked by those two. They are truly elite hitters, and their teams didn’t want to “risk” one year deals in order to get draft compensation for them. The Dunn one is truly mind-boggling when you consider the terrible value Arizona got for him. They traded three players for 44 games of Adam Dunn and now won’t even get compensation picks for him. Their reasoning was they didn’t want to get stuck paying Dunn around $15 million if he accepted. Absurd! Any team should love to be “stuck” with Adam Dunn on a one-year contract. Even if Arizona truly couldn’t afford him, it’s not as if Adam Freaking Dunn wouldn’t have trade value.

Dunn or Burrell, despite their defensive deficiencies, would help the Brewers immensely. The Brewers’ team on-base percentage of .325 was probably their biggest weakness last season. Dunn’s career OBP is .381; Burrell’s career OBP is .367. Burrell would be an improvement, but Dunn is the best fit in my opinion. He’s left-handed, and based strictly on offense, is probably better than Burrell. I’m thinking a bit outside the box here, but rather than get Dunn or Burrell to play left field, I’d try to sign Dunn to play first base. That would allow the Brewers to trade Prince Fielder for pitching, a third baseman or whatever else without skipping a beat with first base production. Dunn has played most of his career in left, but he has played 117 games at first base. Frankly, I wouldn’t be too worried because nobody could really be worse defensively than Prince Fielder.

The Brewers recently signed Jorge Julio and Todd Coffey to one year deals each less than a million bucks. Coffey is probably below league average but happened to throw a handful of good innings for the Brewers last year. Julio has been up and down throughout his career. Obviously both are low-risk, so not much to worry about either way.

While I’m at it, I might as well leave you with a trade idea of my own: Mike Cameron to the Yankees for Nick Swisher. The Yankees are openly interested in trading for Mike Cameron to play center field for them next season. When it became apparent that the White Sox would trade Swisher, I was hoping the Brewers would make a push for him—it seemed like a good buy-low target—but then they sent him to New York.

Obviously the outfield defense would take a yuuuge hit without Cameron, but there is enough in Swisher’s favor to more than offset the loss of Cameron’s great defense. Swisher will be 28 this year and under contract through at least 2011 at a fairly reasonable price (about $23 mil remaining). Cameron will be 36 and will cost $10 mil this year, or twice as much as Swisher this season.

Swisher is coming off a disappointing year, but his version of a disappointing year ended with a .332 OBP, which was still higher than the Brewers’ team total. His OBP in 2007 was .381 and in 2006 it was .372, so 2008 could have very well been a fluke. Swisher is a switch hitter and can play all three outfield positions along with a very good first base. He’s an extremely patient hitter. Finally, and not that this should have any bearing on whether the Brewers acquire him, he rules pretty hard.

Swisher could play center in a pinch, but I would definitely support finding another center fielder if this were to happen. Obviously it wouldn’t be one as good as Cameron, but someone good enough to split time with Swisher and/or Hart in center. Perhaps expand the deal to include Melky Cabrera, who the Yankees were already dangling in a package for Cameron.