Greinke saga takes a new turn

Posted on April 11, 2012 by | 3 Comments

Posted by Steve

Things were starting to seem like they were going in the right direction. Zack Greinke said he wouldn’t need an agent unless he “had a reason to get one.” Why would he have a reason to get one unless talks with the Brewers were progressing? When he hired Casey Close, speculation among baseball media members was that they were on their way to working out an extension. After not hearing anything for a week or so, yesterday evening news broke that the Brewers and Close have “suspended” talks.

“I talked with Casey Close and we decided to let it rest for now,” said Melvin. “That doesn’t mean we won’t talk again at some point but we’re going to let it rest right now.”

Hmm. So much left open for interpretation. “We” decided to let it rest? Who? You and your staff? You and Close? And just as important, why is it “resting” all of a sudden?

With the caveat that this is just conjecture on my part, here’s what I see as most likely:

-Greinke and the Brewers were talking throughout spring. Talks were going relatively well to the point that Greinke found it necessary to start interviewing agents.

-Around the time he settled in on Close, Matt Cain signed his massive deal–a record for a right-handed pitcher. It was about $15 million more than I think anyone expected.

-Shortly after that, other crazy deals started flying around. Obviously there were Votto and Cain’s, but in recent days, we’ve seen Ian Kinsler, Brandon Phillips, John Niese, Carlos Santana, and even smaller ones like Alcides Escobar and Jonathan Lucroy.

-At this point Greinke (or most likely Close) started looking around and seeing the crazy money that teams are throwing around. They can point to the Reds and say, “If those clowns are going to commit $300 million to Votto and Phillips until their late 30s, why shouldn’t I hold out for more?” And you know what? They’re exactly right.

There are reports that teams are spending all this money because there will be a new national television contract for MLB after next season, and it will likely result in a lot more revenue for all teams. It makes sense, because how on Earth else can the Reds spend this money? Their attendance is consistently not good, even when they won the division a couple years ago.

(Aside: New television contract or not, what the hell are the Reds doing? Do they have a plan?  $72.5 million for Brandon Phillips is insane. Just crazy. How much of a bargain does the 4-year, $38 million dollar deal that Weeks signed look like right now? Plus, Phillips is 31 in just a couple months, so he’s older than Weeks. Do the Reds realize that these two players have been a core to a team that’s just about .500 the last three seasons? In other words, they’ll have to add pieces in the future to be a true contender. How do they plan on being able to do that with all that money committed to these two players? It’s good for them short term, as in the next three or four years, but after that? Think about how bad the contracts to Todd Helton and Alfonso Soriano look like right now. In six years, the Reds will have the equivalent of both of those players on one team.)

So, back to Greinke. I’m guessing all these recent contracts resulted in the Brewers and Close being way too far apart at the moment. Breaking off–sorry, suspending talks–seems to be a negotiating ploy, but whose ploy is it?

I actually think it’s more likely that it’s the Brewers. Put it this way. What would Greinke get on the open market? In this climate, I’d say at least $150 million. So if Close is asking for, say, $120-130 million, it’s still a discount by definition. But of course, the Brewers can’t pay that.

Greinke has been saying he likes it in Milwaukee. It’s possible that Melvin is saying, “Alright Zack, we’ll see just how much you like it here.” It would be an understandable move. The Brewers simply can’t afford a $120+ million contract. If Greinke really does want to stay here, it’s likely they’ll lower demands a bit. If he likes it here the way Prince Fielder liked it here (he liked it but not so much that he’d take a discount to stay, which is totally understandable), then he’s probably gone.

This certainly isn’t a good sign, but I’m not losing hope. Before this, and especially before the Cain contract, I felt it was a better than 50% chance Greinke would sign. Now, it’s probably less than 50%, but I wouldn’t say it’s a lot less.

Again, this is pretty much just all my own speculation, so don’t think I’m claiming it’s anything more. But the writing’s on the wall, and this is what it spells out to me.

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Opening Weekend Observations

Posted on April 9, 2012 by | 1 Comment

Posted by Steve

At the risk of over-analyzing something that I saw in the first three games of a 162-game season, here are some thoughts I have after watching the Brewers and Cardinals.

————

The Cardinals still have a great offense, most likely the best in the National League if they stay healthy. Of course, that’s a big if with the age and health history of many of their core players, but still.

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That fact makes Zack Greinke’s performance on Saturday all the more impressive. I’m not going to say that Greinke is now going to have a monster season because he had a good start in his first game, but then again, I thought he’d have a monster season before that game anyway. From the bad luck to reports of his new cut fastball to Ryan Braun saying he looks like a man on a mission, it just seems like he’s poised to make a run at the Cy Young. Obviously, you have to hope the Brewers can get him signed as quickly as possible.

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Ryan Braun is still good. This is in no way surprising, and normally, it isn’t even important that he looks good after three games. But in his strange case, the better he does early, the less of a story his suspension saga becomes.

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Corey Hart was obviously the story for the Brewers. Hard to believe up until 10 days ago or so they didn’t even know if he’d be ready to play in the first few series. He’s locked in. He reminds me of Geoff Jenkins in that he tends to get white hot for stretches and carry the offense. That was actually a conversation I had this weekend: Would you take Corey Hart or Geoff Jenkins? Based on my gut feeling, I thought that they probably had very similar numbers. Sure enough, their career numbers are almost identical, and sure enough, Jenkins is on Hart’s to 10 list of similar batters through age 29 at Baseball Reference.

Anyway, it would be swell if he kept up this hitting for a while.

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If Hart is the positive story from this weekend, the bullpen has to be the negative one. I still ask why Marco Estrada was considered a lock for the bullpen entering spring, but other than that, I am not reading into anything at all. I will wait to see how they look against a non-Cardinals offense before I get worried.

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George Kottaras is handsome and hits deep home runs. He also needs to hit higher than 8th when he starts.

————

Now for my favorite part of the weekend: the Brewers’ defense. This is one where I’m not trying to get too excited after three games, but it’s clear that Alex Gonzalez is a big upgrade over Yun-E. He needs to be hitting eighth, though. Also, I was encouraged by what I saw from Mat Gamel, although a lot of that is just comparing it to how bad Prince Fielder is.

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Posted in Bullpen, Defense, Handsome George Kottaras, Player Cards

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NL Central Predictions

Posted on April 4, 2012 by | 3 Comments

Posted by Steve

Everybody is spitting out their MLB predictions now that the season is just about underway. I might as well do the same, but I’ll mainly focus on the NL Central. Let’s do this in reverse order of projected standings.

6. Houston Astros

Oh, Astros. How incompetently run you’ve been for years now. Thinking about the ‘Stros and their ridiculous run, I wondered whether it could very well coincide with their horrendous overpayment of Carlos Lee. Sure enough, Baseball Reference tells us that Houston’s record since signing Lee is 365-444, good for a .451 winning percentage. Yeesh. Then I thought, ‘Has Carlos Lee ever played on a good team?’ Answer: Yes, barely. He has in fact played in the playoffs. As a 24 year-old, he played in one playoff series with the White Sox. Still, one playoff series in a 14-year career (and let’s be honest, that’s going to be 1-15 after this year) is pretty rough.

Anyway. Houston is likely on the way back up, now that their incompetent owner is gone. They’re leaving for the AL after this year, which in the long run is likely a good thing for the Brewers–they’ll only have to beat out four other teams to win a division instead of five–but short-term, we’ll miss those Astros. They’ve been good for a bunch of wins lately. Still, they’ll be generous to the rest of the NL Central in their farewell year.

5. Chicago Cubs

It was so much more enjoyable last year when the Cubs had a bad GM, a doofus one-and-done manager, and overpaid veterans who hated playing with each other. Now, it will still be enjoyable because they’ll still be bad, but they’re much less dysfunctional. Jim Hendry is gone. Big Z is gone. Mike “Baseball Etiquette Handbook Editor” Quade is gone. In their place is a much more competent team of Theo Epstein and Jed Hoyer. They’re rebuilding the smart way. Enjoy the bad Cubs while you can, because they’re likely to be gone within a couple years.

4. Pittsburgh Pirates

They’re no longer the laughingstock of the division, which says something, I guess. But it’s still been two decades (!) since they’ve had a winning season. With the Cubs and Astros, I suppose they could luck their way to a .500 record this season, but it isn’t likely. Still, they have some young talent down the line (as opposed to years past), so the the future is sure brighter for them than the past. Plus, the extension they gave Andrew McCutchen is starting to look like a bargain compared to some of these recent deals.

3. Cincinnati Reds

There is quite a bit of Reds love this season, and I don’t get it. I really don’t. Even before Ryan Madsen was lost for the season, I felt this way. They had 79 wins last year. Are the additions of Mat Latos and Sean Marshall supposed to add 11 wins? Because other than that, this is the same team that was below .500 last season. I’m sure they’ll be better, but I don’t see them making the playoffs. Plus, they still have Dusty Baker. Check out the latest Dusty Gem. This time he’s working his magic on Aroldis Chapman, the fireballing phenom who got a six-year contract from the Reds before 2010:

Left-hander Aroldis Chapman is headed back to the Cincinnati Reds‘ injury-depleted bullpen after spending spring training getting ready to be a starter.

Chapman, entering his third season with Cincinnati, had hoped to get back into a starting role after spending most of the last two seasons pitching in relief. Manager Dusty Baker said injuries forced the change in plans on Monday.

“That was a very, very tough decision because Chapman could be one of our best starters or best relievers,” Baker said. “It is a situation where with the injuries that we have, starting out early in the season when the starters are lucky to go five or six innings, we had to shore up our bullpen.”

More:

“This early in the year, the bullpen does a third to half the work,” Baker said. “It only takes one dude to have one bad inning. One dude can have a bad inning and ruin hours of work.”

“And if one dude has one bad inning, all the other cats have to pick up the slack. And that gives us some seriously stressed hombres in our pen. They’ll be all, ‘come at me bro!’”

Honestly, Baker is keeping Chapman out of the rotation but keeping Bronson Arroyo in it. Who knows how Chapman would be as a starter, but it really can’t be worse than Arroyo was last season. He was the only starting pitcher in baseball to be below replacement level. And it wasn’t just -0.2 or -0.3. He was 1.3 wins below replacement level. Poor Reds fans.

2. St. Louis Cardinals

I’ve been going back and forth between the Brewers and Cardinals as division winners, but I settled on the Brewers because I hate the Cardinals.

Nah, just kidding. Not about hating them, but about that being my reason. Obviously the loss of Pujols is huge, but they did a solid job in adding Carlos Beltran. And Pujols leaving is likely good for the team long term. I just still come back to other things that seem likely to hurt them:

1. As much as I hate to admit it, the loss of Tony La Russa hurts the Cardinals. Even though he out-thought himself quite often, he was still the best in-game manager at least in the division.

2. The Cardinals are old. The odds of Berkman, Beltran, Furcal, and Carpenter all staying healthy are very unlikely. It’s actually probably more likely that all four miss time than all four stay healthy all year (even aside from Carpenter, who will already miss at least a month). Other players, like Freese and Holliday, have been injury prone. I expect Wainwright to bounce back after missing 2011, but who knows exactly how good he’ll be?

3. They’re still the Cardinals, and they find ways to squeeze career years out of people all the time. I fully expect Lance Lynn to have the season of a number 2/3 starter. Half joking here, but Braden Looper, Todd Wellemeyer, Jeff Suppan, etc. all did it.

Still, that offense is great, even without Pujols. Whether it’s by winning the division or by winning one of the wildcards, I expect the Cardinals to reach the playoffs.

1. Milwaukee Brewers

Call me a homer if you’d like, but I’ll happily explain this pick.

The same pitching staff is returning, and it’s healthy. They were a top rotation by secondary numbers, but bad defense hurt their ERA. They’ve replaced terrible defenders Yuni Betancourt and Prince Fielder. Even though Mat Gamel is a question mark, it’s clear Alex Gonzalez will provide a huge defensive upgrade.

Even though I despise the Aramis Ramirez signing, it should go a long way toward replacing the offense of Prince Fielder for this season, anyway. Casey McGehee was so bad last season that I don’t see why 2012′s Gamel+Ramirez can’t equal 2011′s Fielder+McGehee. This should still be a good offense.

Another reason is health. The Brewers had a remarkably healthy Spring Training, particularly compared to the Reds and Cards. Basically the only injury carrying into the season is Brandon Kintzler, and he was unlikely to make the opening day roster anyway. Meanwhile, the Cardinals are hoping Carpenter is back by May, and the Reds have lost Ryan Madsen for the season. That’s not to say the Brewers couldn’t catch up quickly, but at least they’re off to a healthy start.

Even though I’m picking the Brewers, my guess is they finish with about 89 wins. I’ve been over why I think the Brewers have successfully replaced Prince Fielder, so then why wouldn’t I expect the same win total as last season? Basically, because even though they won 96 games, they weren’t a 96-win team. Their expected win total based on runs scored and allowed (pythagorean record) was 90-72 last season. They definitely had some good luck last season. 90 wins or so is is a better gauge for their talent level, and it’s the level I expect them to play at in 2012.

For what it’s worth, Baseball Prospectus has the Cards as the division favorite and a 76.3 percent chance to reach the playoffs. They like the Brewers too, giving them a 61.4 percent chance. Reds? Not as much–45.9 percent. By the way, congrats to the Houston Astros on being the only team with a 0.0 percent chance of reaching the playoffs! Slogan: We won’t be good. It’s a mathematical guarantee.

Elsewhere, ESPN has their “experts’” predictions, and man alive, do they have a lot of them–49 to be exact. Out of those 49 predictions, the NL Central victor was split fairly evenly between the three main teams. 18 picked the Reds, 20 chose the Cardinals, and 11 chose the Brewers to win the division. Five more have the Brewers winning one of (ugh) the wildcard spots. And two bold predictors, David Schoenfield and John Kruk, have the Brewers in the World Series, although both have them losing.

Aside from the relative parity of the NL Central, the thing that jumped out at me about their predictions were the fact that 18 have the Anahem Angels winning the World Series. Gun to my head, I wouldn’t even pick the Angels to make the playoffs.

Another interesting thing is that all of one person did not pick the Detroit Tigers to win the AL Central. A bad sign may be that said person is David Schoenfield, he of the Brewers-to-the-World Series prediction.

Anyway, I’ll make my picks for the rest of baseball, just because I feel like doing it.

AL East: Yankees
AL Central: Tigers
AL West: Rangers
AL Wildcard: Rays, Red Sox

NL East: Phillies
NL Central: Brewers
NL West: Diamondbacks
NL Wildcard: Cardinals, Nationals

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Posted in Defense, Major League Baseball, Milwaukee Brewers 2012, Projections

Extensions Abound

Posted on April 2, 2012 by | Leave a comment

Posted by Steve

Two monster extensions were signed today in the National League. Joey Votto signed for a reported $200 million, and Matt Cain signed for $112 million. Both are pretty alarming.

First let’s look at Votto. This one is is crazy, because $200 million for a player who is not a free agent is basically unheard of. Unless I’m forgetting someone, the only player who has signed a bigger extension in baseball history is Alex Rodriguez. On one hand, when you compare it to the two $200 million contracts signed this off-season, I’d take Votto and his contract. Votto is better right now than Prince Fielder, and probably better than Albert Pujols as well–if not, certainly his age makes him more valuable.

On the other hand, the fact that Votto is not a free agent makes this huge. Teams are supposed to get discounts by giving a contract ahead of time, but it certainly isn’t much of one. Votto likely would have gotten around what Fielder did if he was a free agent this past year. Secondly, the fact that Votto plays the easiest position on the diamond makes it tough to justify. Finally, I wasn’t aware the Reds could afford a $200 million player. They have a lot of talented players around Votto, and you have to imagine it will be tough to keep many of them now. Certainly, Brandon Phillips will be gone now (not that that’s a massive loss, but still).

Bottom line: Very good deal for Votto, not as sure for the Reds. And of course, not a great deal for the Brewers to have the best hitter in the division (at least other than Braun) stay in the NL Central for life.

Even though the Votto extension is within the Brewers’ division, the Cain extension probably affects them more. It’s because along with Cole Hamels, Cain was the biggest barometer for a Zack Greinke extension. In case you missed it, I discussed the Greinke situation at length at Reviewing the Brew fairly recently. I’ve been over why I thought guesses of $80 or $85 million for Greinke were low, and I hoped he’d sign for $100 million or so. I’ve also been over the fact that Greinke has been a better pitcher than Cain. That all adds up to the fact that this contract is not the best of news from a Brewers’ perspective.

It sure seems like Greinke is  open to staying in Milwaukee, and there were reports yesterday that he is close to hiring an agent (which likely means talks are progressing), but he also isn’t stupid. This will of course have an effect on what Greinke asks for. Any hopes of keeping him for less than $100 million are toast.

They’ll probably have to match Cain’s contract, or at least come close. That makes the decision a lot tougher, as that is about as high as the Brewers should go on any pitcher, but I would still probably do it. Either way, the Brewers front office can’t be thrilled at all about this contract.

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Brewers to extend Jonathan Lucroy

Posted on March 26, 2012 by | 1 Comment

Posted by Steve

The Brewers seem to be continuing their trend of extending their young players before they reach arbitration today, inking Jonathan Lucroy to a four or five year deal. Full details are yet to be released, but to be honest, I have time to do this now, so I’ll go ahead and post on it anyway.

My initial reaction, even before seeing the money: I don’t really get it. I have to think eventually one of these deals are going to come back to bite the Brewers. Gallardo and Braun (the first contract, at least) are one thing. Lucroy is another. He’s not an elite talent, and he has yet to post a season in which he was even average offensively.

He was the seventh-most valuable position player on the Brewers last year (checking in behind Carlos Gomez, who barely had half the plate appearances of Lucroy.). Lucroy’s 1.7 in 478 plate appearances is much less impressive than George Kottaras‘ 0.8 in just 123 plate appearances.

Now I’m not saying that Lucroy is a bad player, or even that Kottaras should be starting (though I wish he’d play more; his bat is seriously undervalued), but I’m just saying this all adds to my confusion about this extension. Few players have done less to earn a lengthy extension than Lucroy has done to this point.

It can’t totally be about defense. Sure, Lucroy is solid defensively when compared to Kottaras, but both catchers are well behind Martin Maldonado defensively. It wouldn’t have surprised me to see Maldonado in Milwaukee this season, but you’d think they’ll make room for him by next season for sure. This deal seems to lock in Lucroy as the starter, but what if Maldonado passes him up? Then this contract doesn’t look so smart.

I’m sure the money will be nothing alarming; it will most likely just take him through his arbitration years, but the Brewers are still assuming more risk than they need to. Like I said, this is a great move with elite players like Yo and Braun. But was Jonathan Lucroy really going to break the arbitration bank? Nope, and that’s why I don’t really understand this one.

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This was inevitable, but that doesn’t make it any less dumb

Posted on March 19, 2012 by | 6 Comments

Posted by Steve

You just knew something like this was coming. It’s been some time since I got to FJM an article, so I’ll gladly welcome this chance.

An uneasy feeling about Braun

Published March 19, 2012 at 11:00 a.m.

Listening to the radio and reading various reports on the goings-on in Milwaukee Brewers camp in Maryvale, Ariz. over the last few weeks have worked up a feeling I didn’t think I’d have again for quite some time.

Excitement for baseball’s return?

It’s not a knot in the stomach, exactly, but sort of that uneasy squirminess that comes a few hours after you took a chance on that milk in your fridge when the expiration date had passed.

Uh…

I mean, it was only a couple days and it smelled okay, so what the heck right? And I’ll only put a little in the cereal.

But once your stomach rumbles as you get jammed up on 94 due to some construction, you don’t think positively – your brain immediately turns to all the worst case outcomes possible.

This is kind of gross, and probably officially a long-winded introduction. Almost Matthew Berry-esque.

I get that feeling hearing about Ryan Braun’s struggles this spring, about the 1-for-15 he carries into this week’s games.

Oh Lord. 1-for-15. 1-for-15!? Let’s pretend for just a second that Spring Training stats mean absolutely anything at all. It’s difficult, but just try.

A 1-for-15 stretch is almost nothing. Players have stretches like that all the time. Let’s imagine that during the course of the season, a player had stretches of 2-for-12, 3-for-18, 1-for-15, 3-for-34(!), 3-for-19, 1-for-10, 1-for-15, 1-for-12, and 1-for-13.

Looks pretty ugly, right?

Those stretches are from a player in 2011. That player is Ryan Braun, and he won the MVP last season. Yet, we’re about to suffer through a column because Braun has gone 1-for-15 in Spring Training.

The MVP will play in back-to-back games for the first time beginning today, and maintains the spring is about the “process” rather than results – always has, always will. He says his lack of success, as well as the boo’s he’s received, don’t concern him.

It’s all part of the process.

For the better part of my life, I’ve believed that and paid no mind to spring training results.

So why on Earth would you start now?

I’ve been to multiple training camps and seen hitters spend days either trying to pull or push every pitch in every at-bat, regardless of outcome. It’s what the spring is for, to work on those things. So yes, to an extent, March is about development.

If by “extent” you mean “the entire reason for,” you’re correct.

But the reason I feel a little anxious about Braun’s issues is because I’ve also seen firsthand the painful and inexplicable decimation of a baseball player, physically and mentally, due to increased pressure and negative scrutiny.

I’ve seen it twice, actually.

Not TWICE!?!?@#@!

The most baffling example came just last year in Chicago, when the White Sox signed Adam Dunn to as one of a series of offseason moves to tell fans the team was “all in” in its effort to win another World Series.

It was a wise move. Dunn’s 10-year average of 35.4 home runs, 88 RBI and .899 OPS put him in the same statistical stratosphere as Hall of Famers Reggie Jackson, Harmon Killebrew and Ralph Kiner, as well as future Hall of Famer Jim Thome.

For the first time in his career, however, there were heavy personal and team expectations placed upon him. In the first four games of the season, Dunn produced, going 4-for-14 (.286) with a homer, five RBI, four walks and three runs scored. Then he underwent an emergency appendectomy, missed a week, and then re-started a year that will go down as one of the worst offensive seasons in modern baseball history.

Not only did he hit just .154 with 11 homers , but his OPS was 300 percentage points lower than his career average. It was mind-boggling.

Dunn is a strange case for sure, but he’s a few years older than Braun and has a very different type of game. Also, I was understating things when I said Dunn was a strange case. His is perhaps the most bizarre/immediate falloff in the last 30 or so years of baseball. Trying to assume that Braun might fall off because Dunn did in such a radical fashion makes no sense.

A similar situation happened to the Chicago Cubs in 2009 after back-to-back playoff seasons resulted in first round exits.

The Cubs brought in Milton Bradley, who was coming off a season in which he led the league with a .436 OBP and a ridiculous .999 OPS. He was also fresh off a two-year stretch where he hit .316, had over a .940 OPS and totaled 78 extra base hits.

True, he was miscast as a left-handed slugger when the Cubs signed him, but no one could have expected a.257 average with 12 homers and a .775 OPS – his lowest output since 2002, before melting down completely and being suspended by the team.

Milton Bradley has always carried the stigma of a good player who’s emotionally volatile. He’s pretty much the Ron Artest of Major League Baseball. Again, I see no reason this could correlate to Ryan Braun at all.

These were two cases where the intense scrutiny both by the home, road and national media just wore them out. They changed what they did at the plate in trying to find a fix and they snapped on fans and reporters. Even teammates became weary of the constant questions about their performance.

Again, two. How many dozens of cases have their been in which players came in with “intense scrutiny” and still maintained a high performance?

If Braun carries these spring struggles into the season, this will only be magnified.

He’s the reigning MVP. He’s the only player to win an appeal of a positive drug test. The commissioner of baseball used to own the team. It’s going to be a three-ring circus if he doesn’t start the season on fire, and the tent will only get bigger the longer he struggles.

Ok, I can find one example that proves my point, so I am going to state it has significance to Braun. I can play this game, too!

Barry Bonds faced that scrutiny/heckling for years and still dominated. Therefore, Ryan Braun will too.

When he slumps – like all baseball players do – he needs it to happen post-All Star break when no one will really notice, or can tie it to this offseason.

The frustrating thing is he seems to have common sense. He admits that Spring Training stats don’t mean anything, and that all players slump–so again, why this column?

The first and easiest reason, on the surface, to dismiss this concern and this comparison to Dunn and Bradley is that Braun is a .312 career hitter with a .933 career OPS who has averaged 32.2 homers and 106.2 RBI in five years. He is clearly a better hitter than either Chicago player could ever be.

I love when columnists provide excellent evidence against the very point they are making.

Yet, he’s never experienced what he’s going to go through 2012, just as Dunn and Bradley never had.

Also, Braun doesn’t have Prince Fielder protecting him in the lineup. This year was going to be different, and more difficult, in that regard anyway. Mix in the increased media attention. Toss in the pressure he’ll put on himself to start fast, to show he didn’t need Fielder or performance enhancing drugs to do what he’s done.

There have been all sorts of studies that show protection does not exist. So many that I don’t even want to take the time to link to them. Google “does protection in baseball exist?” and you’ll find plenty of info.

And don’t forget Braun has gone from baseball hero, loved and respected by everyone, to a tainted player who will be booed every road trip.

And he’ll be the only player to be booed?

Barry Bonds thrived on that because he loved being a villain.

Hey, I just said that!

Sammy Sosa crumbled under similar circumstances.

I’m loving the “it happened once, so…” argument that keeps showing up.

We’ll learn a lot about Braun’s mental makeup very early in the year, and he may well go on to hit 30-plus homers and drive in 90 runs. His track record says he will.

It sure does.

But I’m going to check the date on the milk, because I’ve got that feeling all over again.

Ew.

I’m not sure how serious this is, is sometimes things like this are written to create a stir and create page views. I am reluctantly giving it more attention that it should get due to talking about it here (obviously, a nominal amount, but still–it’s the principle). Still, I enjoy these types of posts, and I miss FJM dearly, so why not.

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Spring training overload

Posted on March 6, 2012 by | 1 Comment

Posted by Steve

Hey, check out this Baseball Reference linker I learned about at Reviewing the Brew! Isn’t it nifty? Anyway…

Spring Training is great for a few reasons: you get a chance to see some younger players, and it’s a sign that baseball season is near. Really, that’s about it. It makes for a fun vacation, but baseball-wise, if I’m not there, I don’t really care.

Things that kind of suck about Spring Training:

-The games are generally boring (again, unless you’re there). Pitchers aren’t always even trying to pitch a good game; they’re working on a certain pitch or something. The games are finished by guys who won’t make the team.
-The games are generally meaningless. Performance doesn’t mean anything. Remember Erick Almonte making the team due to a hot spring training? Jeremy Reed? How long did those performances last?
-Not only are the performances meaningless, but then we have to endure people overreacting to these meaningless performances and placing importance on whether someone had a “good spring.” Remember that spring when J.J. Hardy had like a 1.100 OPS? That was the year he got sent to the minors for playing so badly.
-For every exciting prospect, there are three Brooks Conrads, Travis Ishikawas or Cesar Izturises. I don’t need to see these guys play.
-Nothing good comes out of it, but someone always seems to get hurt.
-And finally, there’s a severe lack of news.

I’m going to expand on that last point. Again, unless you’re there, the only news we have to discuss is what we get from reporters who are there. Within 24 hours of Corey Hart‘s injury, you could find probably six or more blogs discussing how the Brewers might fill right field in Hart’s absence, and they all said the same general thing. Now, everyone is talking about how the Brewers’ offense hasn’t done much in their first couple games. Sorry, but I can’t bring myself to care about that. And I wasn’t going to write a Hart post when it had already been covered plenty. The funniest part is now we’re hearing that he might actually make opening day anyway, so all that speculation could be moot.

The regular season is great, because 20 people can watch a game, and there can be 20 different reactions/opinions/ideas. It makes for interesting discussion. There is just so much more to talk about. In spring training, there are no managerial decisions to evaluate, there are no tense moments, there are no division races.

I see it as a necessary evil. I can’t even bring myself to follow the games very closely. I realize I’m in a minority, but I’ll watch if I’m around, or if a younger guy I want to see is playing (like Tyler Thornburg today), but other than that, I don’t get caught up in it too much.

All I want in March is college basketball no serious Brewers injuries. Give me that, and I’m happy.

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