So, Kameron Loe and Chris Capuano have out clauses in their contracts coming up. Here’s how I’m thinking the Brewers should deal with the situation:

– Bring up both Loe and Capuano, and insert one (or both!) into the starting rotation (Cappy gets first dibs because he’s a better story for the press). Remove Parra/Estrada and replace him with Capuano, remove Narveson and replace him with Loe.

When Capuano and Loe come up to the bigs, bring down Braddock and Estrada (both have options).

Rotation becomes Gallardo-Wolf-Loe-Capuano-Bush. R-L-R-L-R.

Might as well separate this post into a few separate sections…

A) BREWERS WIN!!!

B) Gregg Zaun’s going on the DL, Jon Lucroy is going to get called up. Carlos Gomez will be back today, probably for Adam Stern. These are all acceptable moves, although I’m not anticipating seeing Lucroy get the starting nod over Kottaras yet. He’s still too young and needs some more seasoning – his bat isn’t quite there yet. I like Lucroy as 2011′s starting C.

C) Zach Braddock might get called up? Both good relief prospects are coming up at about the right time. I agree with what Al said (see below) that the Brewers are a week with a fresh pen away from being good again.

D) Miller Park Drunk/Al’s Ramblings did a back-and-forth about Doug Melvin.

I’ve always been an avid defender of Melvin myself… which is weird. I generally come from the Seattle Mariners/Baltimore Ravens ‘defense first, offense second’ philosophy of building a team. Melvin’s is obviously the other way around. I’d recite exactly why I still like Melvin as the GM, but that link did as complete a job as I ever would.

The one thing neither of them talked about is the current minor league system as it is. There aren’t any starting pitchers near a major league waiting in the wings, and prospects like Brett Lawrie, Jon Lucroy etc. are still at least a year away from making it. Many Brewers farmhands that we’ve had for cheap these past few years are now a year or two away from free agency, and we don’t have near the firepower waiting that we once had.

Which makes me question… How much of our team was built by Doug Melvin, and how much by Jack Z’s impressive scouting? Melvin doesn’t exactly have the best track record with signing free agents vital to the team’s success. In other words, Melvin’s great at signing below-average, undervalued, bargain-bin players like Zaun, Counsell, Edmonds et al, but when the pitching staff needs one more anchor or we need another solution in the bullpen Melvin tends to miss with more players than I’m comfortable with.

All this talk about firing Melvin seems silly to me, because he’s only in control of so much of what happens. If Bruce Seid ends up becoming a poor scouting director, the blame is going to fall on Melvin, much like the poor play of a team will cause the firing of a manager. It’s best to take all the ‘dependent metrics’ out of the equation when evaluating Melvin, and insofar he’s about as good as his track record: average to above-average.

Hoffman’s gonna take a few days to work out kinks.

I’m glad I didn’t watch the game yesterday, as I’m sure I would’ve been as frustrated as anyone watching Hoffman blow it again. He’s been missing his spots by a ton, now that I look at the replay.

However, I don’t know if

All Macha would say is Hoffman is done for now because he’s going in the repair shop. Macha said pitching coach Rick Peterson has some new scouting data and info that shows Hoffman is in need of a mechanical adjustment in his delivery. Macha said Hoffman has lost his arm slot and is coming too much over the top, stopping his pitches from moving as he wants and affecting his location.

Macha said Peterson talked with Hoffman about that very problem a few weeks ago but didn’t say why it was not resolved. Macha also admitted that at age 42, Hoffman might have to make adjustments.

is anything more than management excuse for his terrible pitching. He’s either going to get better in these next couple days, or he’s completely cooked and can’t locate his pitches anymore.

Not that I won’t give him another chance.

Thought I’d post a little rumor that fell into my lap today. Don’t take this as truth obviously, but something to think about:

Inside source with significant previous hits (had the Wolf, Braun, and Gallardo contracts a few days before they were announced) says he has the Brewers offer to Fielder:

It is a 7 year deal w/ a club option for the 7th year, but that option vests if Fielder finishes in top 10 of MVP voting.

Total guaranteed is $109 mil

if they pick up 7th year or if it vests then the total guaranteed is $128 mil.

Has full no trade clause and a hotel suite on the road.

There are a bunch of incentive built in for all-star, gold glove, mvp, etc. which range from 50k to 150k

Now, who knows whether this is true or not, but if it is, I don’t see Prince accepting. A couple weeks ago he saw his player comp Ryan Howard snag $25 mil/year for an extended period of time… I don’t think he’d be OK with $19 mil/year, even if he was willing to accept a hometown discount.

Add that to all the times we’ve read Ryan Braun or Fielder himself say that he’s going to get paid a bunch of money someday, I suspect the Brewers might trade him this offseason for pitching + prospects and restock for 2012.

Truly desperate times by Tom H.

Desperate times call for desperate measures.

And, make no mistake about it, these are desperate times at home for the Brewers.

Manager Ken Macha loosened the pitch-count leash on his starting pitcher Saturday merely to get him into the sixth inning and lessen the burden on an overtaxed bullpen. It didn’t work, with either starter or relief corps, which is how things are going for the Brewers at Miller Park this season.

Letting yet another close game get away in the latter innings, the Brewers’ home woes continued with a 10-6 loss to the Philadelphia Phillies as a second consecutive sellout crowd watched in dismay.

…

Before watching his woeful pitching staff take another beating – the Brewers have surrendered 47 runs during this 0-5 home stand – Macha admitted that continuing to lose games at Miller Park was bad for business, bad for morale, bad for him, etc.

“Our organization is driven by attendance,” said Macha, well aware that the team has no chance for a third consecutive season attendance of 3 million if this madness continues.

Is it just me, or are people really reaching with this team?

It’s the middle of May… the Brewers are 6 games under .500. All it’s going to take is two weeks of hot baseball and the Brewers are right back in it.

And two weeks of hot baseball is just itching to come out. Take a look at the ‘worst’ (keyword: unluckiest) pitching staffs in baseball, sorted by both BABIP (Batting Average on Balls in Play) and HR/FB% (Home Runs/Fly Ball rates). These stats average out to about .300 and around 10.5%, respectively:

5 ‘worst’ pitching staffs, by BABIP:
Brewers – .336
Pirates – .327
Astros – .325
Angels – .322
Diamondbacks – .322

5 ‘worst’ pitching staffs, by HR/FB%:
Diamondbacks – 14.0%
Brewers – 13.2%
Angels – 12.3%
Pirates – 11.7%
Phillies – 11.6%

These will get better. Doug Davis has a .415 BABIP against him, despite having consistent peripherals compared to the rest of this year.

The Crew has had an unlucky month-and-a-half pitchingwise so far. Leave it up to the media to overreact to it. I’d be willing to bet they’ll be over .500 by the end of June.

Since school began taking over, I haven’t had the time to write about the Brewers… that doesn’t mean I haven’t been following them. Although posting will continue to be sporadic until I actually finish, I’m going to write as much as possible.

As everyone knows by now Doug Melvin traded J.J. Hardy for Carlos Gomez in a trade made to free up some money and solve the CF logjam. I defend the move, personally… even though I really like Mike Cameron it’s pretty clear keeping him is more of a sentimental move than a proper business move, and since baseball is a business, saving the money trumps keeping friends. The ~$7MM the Brewers save by bringing in Gomez will be spent on pitching, and the ~2 wins or so they lose should be more than made up for if they bring in a pitcher or two worth as much as they have left in their pockets. Let’s take a look at what next year’s payroll is going to look like realistically…

Conveniently Al’s Ramblings already took a look at the 2010 payroll. Here’s what he had to say:

Without buyouts and Hall, they are at $37M with guaranteed deals. Add in estimated payroll from guys not eligible for arby, you have Yo, Parra, Escobar, Stetter, DiFelice, McGehee, and I’ll add in Narveson…that’s seven guys at about $450K per, so that’s $3.15M, so a total of $40.15M for a dozen players.

Realistically, one catcher will be very cheap, be it a backup or a youngster. So will one utility IF. That’s 14 players for $41.05M. Weeks, about $3.75M in arby. Hart, about $4M in arby. Gomez, about $1.3M in arby (as a super 2). That’s 17 players for $50.1M. Coffey will likely get about $1.5M in arby…$51.6M for 18 players. You can probably pencil in Counsell or another backup IF for about $1.5M…19 for $53.1M. There’s two reserve OF spots still open, Gerut would probably get $2.5M in arby, but we do not know if he’ll remain. I’ll budget $3.5M for the pair of bench OF’s…21 for $56.6M. That leaves the catcher’s spot, a bullpen spot, and 2 SP’s remaining. Also, one of the commitments for next year is Dave Riske, who will probably not contribute ’til midseason, if at all. If the two bullpen openings are filled with guys like Carlos V, McClung, or the like, they’ll probably cost about $3-4M. We’ll use $3.5M for estimates, and that’s $60.1M. I keep thinking a veteran catcher of some sort will be brought in, at a cost of $2-3M. Again, splitting the difference, we’ll use $2.5M, the total is $62.6M.

How much is payroll? Well, Doug always says Mark never gives him a budget of $X. Last year’s Opening Day payroll was about $80M, and I’ve seen numbers used in the $85-90M range for last year…with additions such as Lopez, and including DL replacements. Assuming no increase, that would probably mean they “could” spend from $17-25M on these two SP’s that Doug is supposedly looking for.

Of course these are all estimates and ‘what-if’s regarding holes being filled, so obviously this $17-25MM number should be taken with a grain of salt. But let’s take a look at a couple of hypotheticals…

Trade for Edwin Jackson

Jackson is a young, cost-controlled pitcher still in arbitration. Despite all the trade talks and the talk of Detroit needing to grab some salary relief, it’s really unlikely he’d be “salary relief” since Detroit is a $120M+ payroll and Edwin still has two years of arbitration left. Likely the Brewers would have to take on one of their bad contracts or give up good prospects to pry him away… my guess is probably at least Mat Gamel.

Normally this wouldn’t be a bad thing but Edwin isn’t that great of a pitcher in the first place and giving up a highly touted prospect or taking on a bad contract in addition to him would be silly. It’d likely mean taking on Curtis Granderson’s ~$26MM remaining salary as well, and he’s looking more and more like a platoon player only. Now that the Brewers have Gomez, Granderson would be a significant downgrade. Besides, the Mariners are going for him too, which might cause an unnecessary bidding war.

Verdict: No thanks. We already have Suppan and Hall to worry about.

Sign a free agent, like Doug Davis or Jarrod Washburn.

Both Washburn and Davis are so-so pitchers who have been underrated by being in lower market areas (or in Washburn’s case, getting old). They’re not going to impress Brian Cashman or Theo Epstein, but they’re perfect for a mid-market team looking for a slightly above-average pitcher for a cheap price.

Davis himself might be a little overpriced, as people have noticed they might get in a bidding war with Seattle over him, and anything over a two-year deal is probably giving up too much for him. Seattle’s looking for pitching just as much as the Brewers are… and with their recent ‘defense-first’ mentality (trading for Franklin Gutierrez, resigning Jack Wilson), they can afford to sign an average pitcher, much like what Doug’s planning to do. Jack Z came from Milwaukee.

Washburn on the other hand had his value skyrocket in the middle of the year and then had it plummet after he was traded. He no longer was the beneficiary of a great D and pitcher’s park in Detroit, and he started regressing. Now his ceiling is a two-year deal worth about $10MM… just the kind of deal Doug should make. He’s getting old, which is turning some people off, but he’s a soft-tossing lefty, which means he should age well, and a fly ball pitcher with Gomes patrolling center is a recipe for success.

Verdict: Bring in JW.

I don’t think there’s much hope left this season. The future doesn’t sound too great right now either.

Losing by 8 at home to the lowly Nationals is obviously the low point of the season. Tom H. has a new article up touching on the problems of the currently overworked bullpen, which one starting pitcher isn’t going to solve. I’ve long since advocated not giving up too much for a starting pitcher, and that’s only reinforced now that the pitchers are consistently awful. Rambling Al agrees that it’s no longer time to be buyers, and even toys with the idea of selling.

Selling would be interesting for the Brewers right now, but I’m not sure I’d sell any of those three guys. When Cameron signs somewhere else the Brewers will probably get a compensation draft pick at the end of the year. Hoffman’s too valuable and fun for the team to get rid of, and we need Braden Looper just to get through the rest of the season. J.J. Hardy would net an interesting return, but I’d wait until the end of the season since Alcides Escobar’s bat isn’t major-league ready quite yet and needs the rest of the year for some seasoning in AAA.

Obviously everyone’s disappointed in the awful Brew Crew play, but is it really that unexpected? Coming into the season all projections were at about a .500 team, and they’re pretty much around there right now. I don’t think anybody expected the pitching staff to be this bad, but they’ll have another hot streak sometime down the road and creep up back into playoff contention, I’m sure. They just happen to be mired in a super long slump right now.

Until then, keep hopin’.

Good post over at Dan & Steve about Yovani Gallardo’s excessive pitch counts and his being the victim of Ken Macha’s abusive management. After his excessive 126-pitch outing on May 25, he’s proceeded to also have starts of 110 pitches, 105 pitches, 116 pitches, 107 pitches, and 118 pitches in consecutive starts. Considering the rest of the starting rotation’s inability to pitch decently, and the state of the bullpen when Gallardo usually starts, it’s understandable that Ken Macha would try to extend Gallardo a little bit extra to squeeze those extra couple batters out of him while he still can. Even with a 4-run lead in the 8th inning, apparently it’s necessary to let the pen rest a little more to preserve the win. But at what cost to Yovani? Could his arm blow out from overuse?

I’ve taken a look at Baseball Prospectus’ Pitcher Abuse Points (PAP) across the majors to see just how much Yovani’s getting overworked. It appears he’s getting worked like a horse, but he’s not the only one. Take a look:

Boy, I’d really love to have Jim Leyland as manager — he’s doing a good job blowing out Justin Verlander’s arm, and new phenom Edwin Jackson is headed towards that route too.

Obviously having Gallardo as #11 on that list is a little concerning as to his health and arm strength down the road, so we’ll see exactly what happens. But the organization has done a good job at limiting Gallardo’s innings count throughout his career so far and he’s had no history of shoulder or arm problems that would force Milwaukee to use him more conservatively than most.

Along with that, I’m not so sure Macha will continue pushing Yovani to the limit once the starting rotation settles down and the pitching become decent, if not stable. A temporary increase in workload at this time in the season isn’t going to ruin a pitcher; the increased workload over the rest of the season will, since Yovani still isn’t used to this kind of workload. Remember in 2007 he was mostly shut down due to an increased workload (after 178IP) and he spent most of 2008 on the shelf after a torn ACL. So he’s probably not going to be able to work any more than 200 innings this year. Right now, he’s on pace to surpass 100 innings his next start; it could be 110 innings by the All Star Break.

In other words, the Brewers should plan to use him conservatively for the rest of the season unless they really want to blow out his arm.

The St. Louis Cardinals have lost to the Milwaukee Brewers four out of four times so far this season, and going back to season the Brew Crew have beaten them up to the tune of a 9-1 record in their last ten meetings. Milwaukee’s kind of treated them recently as if they were the Pirates, and the Brewers’ second 1-0 victory over the Cardinals this season likely won’t put a good taste in the Cardinals’ mouths.

The one-run ballgame was highlighted by Bill Hall’s 10th inning single into the gap with Casey McGehee on third and two outs. Immediately after the game-winner, Hall and the rest of the Brewers decided to run into the dugout (watch the video) and celebrate there. This being a far cry from the Untuckem philosophy that has earned the ire of people in St. Louis. Take a look at what Ryan Franklin, the Cardinals’ closer, said awhile ago:

“Well, they’ve got a little flair about them that some people don’t care for,” said closer Ryan Franklin. “But that’s just the way they are. So yeah, I think it would be more fun to beat them than it would be the Padres or something, just because of what they do after they beat you.”

Today after an emotional victory the Brewers immediately decided to run into the clubhouse instead of untuck the shirts and high-five each other walking into the dugout. They also didn’t do the awful, shove-it-in-your-face celebration by mobbing the guy who hit the game winner at first base after the winning run scored. Instead, they ran directly to the clubhouse so as to not “offend” St. Louis.

The Cardinals’ TV announcer has referenced the way Milwaukee celebrates their wins as unclassy or unsportsmanlike as well. Of course it’s not actually unsportsmanlike, since they do it with every team and it’s a tribute to Mike Cameron’s dad and doesn’t do anything to show up the other team at all. There’s a false pretense in baseball that says any form of celebration in baseball is unheard of and unsportsmanlike — staring at a home run, for example, is objectionable and baseball old-timers think you must run the bases at full speed. Pumping your fist Joba Chaimberlain-style after a big strikeout is just as awful of a thing to do.

Be it America’s pasttime or not, it’s still professional sports and these players get paid millions of dollars to perform at a high intensity and doing things like gazing at your success or pumping your fist at a swing-and-miss is something I’d expect out of my team whether it was in a pennant race or not. Hell, Alfonso Soriano and the rest of the Cubs outfield untucked their shirt when they beat the Brewers at Miller Park earlier this year just to mock Milwaukee and there’s no way I would ever have any problem with that. It means he’s competitive. It means he wants to triumph just to troll them. Competition is good for the game, dormant 1920s polite attitudes are not anymore.

Now, whether or not the Brewers held off on untucking ‘em to not offend the Cardinals or not is unclear, but they shouldn’t care either way.

For me, personally, yesterday’s Memorial Day victory provided a much needed pick-me-up after an awful weekend in Minnesota. I live in Minneapolis, so naturally I used my internship at Fox Sports North to gain a free pair of four tickets to Friday’s game and buy cheap seats for Saturday’s. On the walk back to the bus from the Metrodome I took the liberty of crawling through a hole in a fence to get to a private wooded area to relieve myself since the nearest bathroom was still 30 minutes away. The next day, I woke up with a blotch of red on both of my elbows. The next day, it spread everywhere else.

After having to watch an embarrassing Brewer sweep I ended up covering 1/3 of my body in poison ivy and am going to have to spend the next week or two being a hermit and spreading myself with hydrocortisone lotions every hour to stop myself from itching my limbs. Thank goodness I have something to look forward to — another walkoff tomorrow would be perfect.

From pools of xylophone clear
From caves of memory
I saw the children at heart
That we once used to be
Borne on foaming seahorse herd
Compose with trumpeting shell
- XTC – Mermaid Smiled

The Brewers have put together one of the more memorable starts in recent history, riding a current 21-5 monthly hot streak that has propelled them to a three-game lead in the NL Central and a busty 11 games over .500 less than two months into the season. They’ve done it with being awesome in general: the fourth-best OPS+ in the NL as well as the third best ERA+ so far — only the Mets and Dodgers can argue that their team stats trump Milwaukee’s and they just happen to be the other best teams in the NL.

Many of the stats this year compared to last year’s team are really inflated in a couple of key areas. OBP is the only stat that’s really jumped at me offensively, as a 27-point jump in OBP tells me that walking once in awhile has become a high priority and that leads to more baserunners and eventually runs. 5.11 runs/game is much better than 4.63. On the pitching side, the pitchers’ ERA has stayed virtually the same, however the team’s WHIP is much higher due to an increase in walks: Brewer pitchers this season have issued over 3% more walks per batter than they did in 2008. In other words, perhaps the pitching is due to regress a little bit. Perhaps we need to take this start with a grain of salt.

So without further adieu, let’s take a look a couple players who could see some regression over the next few months of play:

Dave Bush
Bushy this year has thrown 53 innings of excellent baseball, posting a 3.74 ERA and 1.08 WHIP and 38 strikeouts to only 11 walks. Before last night’s start, however, his deeper statistics seem to tell a different story: so far, he’s regressed in many of his main statistics last year and has only gotten lucky. His FB% has shot way up, GB% way down, and a not-insignificant increase in LD% means that his pitchers are more meaty than they should be. What’s mainly keeping him afloat is luck — a .243 BABIP and loomingly large 75% LOB rate mean that he’s benefited from timely outs and lucky baseball paths. This all has led to a 4.86 FIP, meaning that if he continues to pitch the way he is, 5 IP 6 ER and a big, fat L won’t be an uncommon occurrence.

Craig Counsell
It’s not a secret by now that Counsell has never been a beefy hitter, but he’s been pretty hot to start the year so far, batting way above his .256/.345/.346 career line, batting .324/.413/.456. His good hitting has been due to a hot streak and seeing the ball well — his general swing percentage is down significantly from his career, but all of his contact percentages are up. This means that Counsell is being much more selective at the pitches that he swings at, and when he does, he’s not swinging and missing. He’s also getting a little extra punch from a high .356 BABIP, which is getting him a little extra beef. Watch for him to regress back to career norms, but if his pitch selection stays the way it is, I’d be happy to see him stay at 2B for the rest of the year.

Ryan Braun
Even my favorite player is prone to benefiting from a little good luck every now and then. Braun has put up some crazy good statistics on the back. Brauny’s been ridiculous so far, putting up a .323/.451/.571/1.023 line with 8 dingers and a surprising 5:6 K/BB ratio. I really thought he’d strike out more. Braun also has an inflated BABIP (.368) and has a couple of other funky things that are odd with what you’d expect.

Braun’s line drive and fly ball percentages are way down from last year, which tells me that his stats should regress from last year, not go the other way around. What’s made him so effective however is that he has a wonderfully high HR/fly ball rate (25%), which definitely is not sustainable throughout the rest of the season. In other words, his ground balls are finding holes, as evidenced by his high BABIP, and his fly balls are finding the seats. Which is just fine with me. But expect him to come back down or go back into a slump for a little while.

Braden Looper
The biggest free agent signing the Brewers made last year has done a pretty good job so far for the Crew, going 4-2 with a 4.26 ERA — even when Blooper’s not on or doing too well, he’s kept the Brewers in games instead of totally imploding, and the Brewer offense has generally done a pretty good job of keeping him afloat recordwise. However, Blooper has benefited from a lower BABIP as well (.285) and his FIP (5.48) is the worst it’s been for him since his opening year in 1998 with the Cardinals. The reason his BABIP has been so bad is that he’s dramatically increased his walks and home runs so far this year, which has in turn increased his WHIP. I half-expect Looper to cut down on his walks and become better through the year, otherwise the Brewer offense may not be able to pick him up for the rest of the season.