It’s been a tough weekend to be a Brewers fan. To keep things simple, I’ll just list off what made it so hard.

1. Losing a 7-1 lead to one of the worst teams in baseball.

2. Losing Corey Hart for a month just as he’s starting to come around.

3. Having Bill Hall return so quickly without getting many at-bats at Nashville. So much for a chance to turn it around.

4. I hate disagreeing with Doug Melvin, especially on something I normally love, which is his ability to find the free talent out there and turn it into something useful, but I can’t help but think that Corey Patterson may be stretching it a bit. Claudio Vargas, on the other hand, was exactly what he needed to do, get an arm for a player we’d never use again anyway, most likely.

5. Ending the weekend under .500 isn’t a great way to show that things are turning around.

That’s all I have, for the moment. Hopefully I’ll be posting about some positives next time around.

UPDATED BELOW!!!!!!

With all the hubbub surrounding Roy Halladay I thought I’d chime in (again) on trading for him.

As of right now the Crew is 2.5 games out of first place in the Central and 2.5 pitchers out of a halfway decent starting rotation. Getting Halladay would be pretty much exactly the same as C.C. Sabathia in the “pitching godsend” department. I would hope that Halladay would propel the Brewers to a second-straight playoff berth,

But are you ready for years of mediocrity afterward? Take a look at Brewers 2010 contracts if Halladay’s traded:

Halladay: $15.75m
Jeff Suppan: $12.5m
Prince Fielder: $9m
Bill Hall: $8.4m
David Riske: $4.5m
Total: $50.15m

Assuming the Brewers’ payroll sticks around $85-90 million, you have 60% of your payroll stuck in five players. None of this even takes into account the arbitration salaries of Corey Hart, J.J. Hardy, Dave Bush, etc. Of course this assumes Alcides Escobar is traded to the Blue Jays, as Hardy wouldn’t since Toronto wants the younger, cheaper talent.

With the money we wouldn’t save, we’d definitely wouldn’t be able to resign Mike Cameron or Jason Kendall when they hit free agency at the end of the year, meaning there would be a replacement-level CF and Mike Rivera behind the plate to begin 2010. In addition, next year’s rotation would be Halladay, Suppan, Parra (IF he’s not traded to the Jays), Bush, and Gallardo with no available depth in AAA and no prospects to speak of or depth in AAA in case someone gets injured. That rotation looks good on paper, but the only pitcher without an injury history is Halladay. I wouldn’t trust it to last an entire season.

The current core of young talent the Brewers probably won’t keep (Hart, Hardy, maybe even Weeks) begins to phase out at the beginning of 2011, so the Brewers could be entering a rebuilding mode if their current prospects take the Jeremy Jeffress route and don’t pan out the way they planned them to. They’ll be Blue Jays if the Brewers get Halladay, meaning that a prolonged slump in 2011 is inevitable. Are you prepared to sacrifice the well-being of the ballclub 2-3 years down the road if the Brewers try to add 1-2 wins to this year’s team? Is 1-2 wins going to be enough to win a mediocre division in 2009?

I couldn’t tell you that, but throwing away millions of dollars in worthwhile talent to satisfy this year’s needs aren’t worth it in the long run. It’s too much of a long shot at this point to justify trading for Halladay; if the Brewers didn’t have as many holes as they do now the trade would definitely make sense.

One thing that’s never been mentioned was how awful last year’s offseason went for Milwaukee. Remember how C.C. Sabathia and Ben Sheets were going to net the Brewers 4 first round draft picks in last year’s draft. After both Mark Teixiera and Sabathia both signed with the Yankees, an odd MLB rule only netted the Brew a supplemental first rounder. When nobody signed Sheets because of his injury, the Brewers didn’t get any compensation. Going 1/4 is never going to help bolster a weakening farm system.

Trading for Halladay would turn the 2011 Brewers into the 2001 Brewers, basically.

UPDATE: Reports are just confirming that Matt Holliday was just traded to St. Louis for a package of prospects including Brett Wallace. This trade makes the Cardinals without question a legitimate contender and sacrifices their future; Wallace is an up-and-coming phenom. More reason to hang on to prospects now, because in 2011, this division is going to be even more decidedly mediochre. Neither the Cubs nor the Astros have farm systems either, so in a couple years it may be a three-horse race between the Reds, Brewers, and Pirates.

So Derek Jeter has been a better shortstop in 2009 than Jason Bartlett. Instead, teams who have large markets can just vote up their players to see them.

There’s not really anything wrong with that, but just plan on taking any posts that are really bitter about Gallardo and Hoffman with a giant grain of salt. Besides, there’s something more important and relevant to the Brewers than the All-Star game anyways.

Ryan Braun said after yesterday’s loss to the Cubs that “We’re at the point right now where it would be important for us to go out there and acquire somebody.” Obviously he was implying that the starting pitching is trash right now, it’s no fun to be losing by 100 runs after the third inning, and Doug Melvin needs to make a trade soon.

The trade market though seems to be limited to Javier Vazquez and Doug Davis because so many teams are still in it and the teams that aren’t don’t have the parts the Brewers need. All this has been said before, but the fact that so many teams are looking to buy the parts they need makes the market essentially “who will pay the most to get the spare parts they need.” I fear, along with quite a few other people, that so many buyers in a market with so little to sell will result in someone overpaying for an average pitcher like Doug Davis.

One of the things that Melvin has consistently said is that there has to be a better option available for the Brewers to pursue in order to make a move, otherwise there really is no point. I’m not yet convinced trading for one of the available pitchers is really a good option at this point compared to internal options. Here’s why:

Javier Vazquez would cost too much. He’s probably the best pitcher available on the trade market right now who isn’t an oft-injured Erik Bedard, sporting one of the best years of his career with a 3.05 ERA and 130 strikeouts in 112 innings. Naturally, he’s going to get the most return if he’s traded and deservedly so; how much Atlanta gets back for him depends on just how far one team is willing to go, and I fear that the Braves will ask for Alcides Escobar in addition to Corey Hart and if the Crew politely declines the Braves will then move on to the team who would give up that much.

That’s not to mention that Vazquez is even on the trade market at all. Atlanta’s tied with the New York Mets in the NL East, only 4 games back of Philly. They could just as easily be buyers instead of sellers at the deadline if they do well in between now and the All-Star Break.

Doug Davis isn’t that good. Davis has been super hot lately, tossing seven innings and giving up one run or less in his last three starts. However I’m not convinced that when he does come back to earth that he’s a much better option than the Brewers have internally.

So far this year Davis has a 3.15 ERA, which is really pretty good. But considering the prospects the Brewers would have to give up to get him, I’m not quite convinced he’s the best posible option.

Davis is a full run below what his FIP (Fielding Independent Pitching) would indicate, implying that he’s been lucky — extremely lucky, also, since Chase Field in Arizona is a pretty intense hitters’ ballpark. One would naturally expect that number to regress back towards the norm. He’s also been lucky in regards to his other stats too — his batting average on balls in play (BABIP) this year is the lowest of his career at .278 and his left-on-base percentage (LOB%) is nearly 79%, a number way too high for a pitcher of Davis’ quality. One would expect him to get worse and not better. His three recent starts should only be regarded as a mirage and not representative of what he’s going to do for the rest of the season.

By the way, just as an aside, I’ve never understood why a pitcher throwing three straight starts really well is “improving his trade stock.” If anything I’d expect that pitcher to have a little regression and have a couple of poor starts, which would make the trade not worth it. Why do teams look at two hot starts and determine that a pitcher is going to do that well for them for the rest of the year? I don’t know if people realize how lucky the Brewers were last year when C.C. Sabathia ruled for the better part of 3 1/2 months straight.

Anyways, I’m not so sure doing something from within the organization isn’t the answer here. Manny Parra on the other hand has been doing pretty well in AAA and has been on the extreme end of misfortunes while in the big leagues this year. Just like I expect Doug Davis to regress back to what he does, I expect Parra to do better than he has been. This means getting lucky.

Parra so far has stunk to the tune of a 7.52 ERA, but his peripherals imply he’s been on the extreme end of misfortune, as his FIP is just over 5 and his LOB% has been barely over 60%. These numbers aren’t a far cry from Doug Davis, but he’s just been on the other side of the luck equilibrium.

Just as a totally made-up and hypothetical scenario, imagine Doug Davis having an ERA one run worse than his FIP. That would mean his ERA for the rest of the season is about 5.1, give or take a little bit. Now reverse tha trend for Parra. His ERA would be about 4 for the rest of 2009. Parra would be the much better option, and he wouldn’t cost the Brewers unreplacable parts in their farm system.

I know it’s a fallacy to assume that just because someone’s been unlucky with their pitching that they will become lucky and balance it out. However it is reasonable to think they won’t continue to be as unlucky and instead pitch as to what their career statistics would imply. If Parra’s fixed his walking problem, he should be back out there to the tune of a 4.5 ERA or so, which would be better than what I’d expect Doug Davis to do.

If Parra comes back at full strength and Dave Bush comes back into the rotation, the Brewers will be just fine. Gallardo, Braden Looper, and Jeff Suppan have done a fine job with the rotation in a mess as it is; soon they will be at full strength.

Some thoughts after a totally acceptable 1-2 home series against the Cardinals…

The Brewers have been linked to trading for Jake Peavy to compliment the starting rotation and become this year’s C.C. Sabathia. Actually these articles don’t explicitly mention the Brewers having any interest in Peavy, but simply that people assume the Brewers are frontrunners for the pitcher since he prefers the NL Central out of all other divisions, the Brewers could use another elite pitcher, and the earlier trade the Padres made with the White Sox fell through due to Peavy’s no-trade clause. There’s been no word from anyone in the Brewer front office confirming or denying interest in trading for Peavy although it has been hinted at that Mark Attanasio has the payroll flexibility to add a few extra dollars mid-season to try and push Milwaukee to the playoffs for a second straight year.

Peavy is a soon-to-be 28 year old pitcher with outstanding stuff and fantastic statistics, boasting over his career more than a strikeout an inning and only 430 walks in over 1300 innings pitched. The only season where he had an FIP higher than 3.6 was his 2003 campaign — his first full year in the bigs. So far this year he’s continued his dominating ways as He would be a fantastic addition and result in an addition of approximately 2 wins if Suppan was the odd man out — two wins can mean a whole bunch in whether or not a team makes the playoffs, look at last year — but it would end up handicapping the entire team for years to come.

Peavy’s current contract is not like Sabathia’s was in which we can let him go to free agency at the end of the year. Peavy has a backloaded contract that would pay him on average $16 million/year for the next three years with an absurd $22 million club option in 2013. The Brewers would be on the hook for $15 million in Peavy next year as well as $12.5 million locked into Jeff Suppan. With players like Corey Hard, J.J. Hardy, and Rickie Weeks eligible for arbitration next year, one can assume their salaries are going up and with the only significant salary drop next year being Mike Cameron, spending $27.5 million on a terrible pitcher and a good one when there are better options available will wrap the boa around the franchise’s wallet.

Next year isn’t the only time he would set the franchise back. A $16 million salary in 11 and $17 million in 12 would only further cause too big of a dent in years to come when players’ arbitration cases get them more money and other non-arbitration players are able to increase their salaries. Not to mention free agents that will get more money in an ever-expanding market. Unless we could in turn trade Peavy to someone with the extra money to spend, it’s too big of a hit to our wallets. His contract is too fat.

It’s not even guaranteed Peavy would be pitching then, considering his awful pitching mechanics putting awful stress on his elbow. He’s a giant injury risk and for the costly price he’s paid right now the investment is nowhere near worth it.

I really hope management is able to resist temptation here, it’s really not worth it.

There’s only so long I can put off evaluating the performance of the Brewers so far under the excuse of it being an absurdly small sample size and thus totally useless to look at throughout the season. 3 weeks still isn’t nearly enough of a sample size to make me ever legitimately wonder if a player is having a breakout year or has fallen off a cliff — that’s why I’m waiting to say anything about my impression of the team’s direction and value until at least two months or so into the season.

With that said, the 8-10 start this season isn’t anything to be worried about. Any record this early in the season is too early to think anything of — just take a look at the Pittsburgh Pirates this year as an example. PECOTA projections think it will be business as usual for the Pirates in 2009, making them a 97-loss team for yet another year. However, so far this year they’re 11-7 with the best pythagorean record in the major leagues. The team is clearly playing over their heads right now and I’ll trust an advanced computer projection system over an 18-game span where not even every pitcher has had a chance to make four starts yet. Keep in mind the Brewers as of May 18th last year were four games below .500 and they ended up making the postseason. Even my recent post on the team’s OBP doesn’t actually contain any merit because of this.

That’s one of the reasons I said we should stick with Jeff Suppan when he was awful his first two starts.

However, here’s what I’ve seen so far:

-J.J. Hardy has been really unlucky so far. Through his first 16 games, Hardy hit a paltry .177/.235/.339 with 15 strikeouts and 5 walks, making him a virtual black hole in the middle of the lineup. Hardy is typically a hot-and-cold hitter, but I’d argue he’s doing alright with himself. He’s suffered from a paltry .182 BABIP and his LD%, while it is lower than it was in 2008, it’s not enough to be significant (14.6 to 15.5) and his GB% is lower than normal and he’s raised both his FB% and HR/FB rate, he should be doing approximately the same as he did last year. Unfortunately those balls that he’s hitting hard are finding gloves. That will change at some time throughout the season.

-Corey Hart has changed his approach, and it’s going to make him much better. In 2008, Hart had 27 walks over the entire season. So far, in 2009, he already has 9. That puts him on pace to walk 82-83 times this season. Now, I don’t expect that number to stay that high, but considering his recent approach of taking a pitch or two and the added ability to lay off an outside slider I think new hitting coach Dale Sveum is helping him recognize pitches and become a good, patient hitter. A good Corey Hart is a good way to start a repeat playoff season.

-Mark DiFelice is my favorite pitcher. He only cemented his position when he came into the game in the 10th inning on Saturday night with the bases loaded compliments of Carlos Villanueva and got a flyout off the bat of Miguel Tejada and held a one-run lead the next inning to earn a huge win. Not to mention his sparkling 2.84 ERA from the bullpen has been one of the few bright spots so far. A little look into his statistics prove that he’s a legit player, too: 11/3 K:BB ratio and a 0.96 WHIP in 2009. Coming from the bullpen, however, he does hold a full 100% left-on-base percentage, so his ERA might be due for a little blip up, he’s definitely got the pitching skills to become a major part of the bullpen this year. If only the Brewers still had time to stretch him out and turn him into a starter…

-My Bill Hall Fan Club status is still a little tentative. Without the Bill Hall-patented “epic blinks” Hall seems to be seeing the ball much better than last year, raising his OPS by .100 points and turning into a .341 wOBA player at third and his small-sample sized defense has made him much improved over last year’s Bill Hall. However, this increase in average likely is related to his far increased BABIP, when in fact .333 is on the other side of .300 as last year’s numbers. He’s doing a marginally better job at seeing pitches while keeping his other peripheral stats virtually the same. The judgment is still out there to see if he’s actually improved his hitting ability or his increased average is simply a product of luck. Stay tuned.

The Brewers managed yet another 1-2 series loss this weekend in the new Pitchers’ Heaven Field, salvaging a two-run win yesterday after suffering a couple of bad 1-run losses on Friday and Saturday. The Crew’s luck remains a little bit slim to start this season, already going 1-4 in one-run games and a pythagorean record one game better than their actual record, but it of course is early in the season and with 150 games left to go I’m convinced along with everyone else that a 4-8 record isn’t indicative of the team’s early play. The win also came on the heels that Trevor Hoffman should be back by next weekend. Although that makes me optimistic considering the closing struggles of Carlos Villanueva, who really needs Hoffman when Todd Coffey can just pitch the last 8 outs of every game and preserve a tight game.

Jeff Suppan finally put forth a good effort, going 6 innings and giving up only 2 runs, hopefully causing the Brewer faithful to give him a little break and at least let him settle into the season before running to the wayside. Two starts is never enough to adequately judge a pitcher on and just because he had trouble locating his pitches to start the season doesn’t mean he’ll be able to adjust and come back down to normal levels. Now, I’m not saying he’ll be the #1 ace on the team, but it’s unfair to pin the entire blame of the pitching staff on one guy who had two poor starts. Let’s let the man earn his money for now and only throw him to the wayside if he gets demolished at the rate he had been in his first two starts. I’m really glad he was able to take two steps forward yesterday.

If you would have told me at the beginning of the season that Yovani Gallardo and Craig Counsell would lead the team in on-base percentage 12 games in, of course I would have been surprised. I would have then surmised that the majority of the Brewers have started off scuffling; with the exception of Corey Hart and Mike Cameron, every Brewer starter has been significantly below their career averages and are bound to bounce back. What’s especially pleasing to me about the offense so far is that these seem to be BABIP-driven and not necessarily due to a terrible plate approach, circa Corey Hart in September last year. Take a look at these numbers:

Ryan Braun: .222/.340/.356
Prince Fielder: .175/.327/.325
Corey Hart: .279/.385/.558
Bill Hall: .278/.333/.389
Jason Kendall: .129/.243/.161

My favorite part about this season has been the way the coaching staff has seemingly made this team able to take a walk every once in awhile. Most of these OBPs are more than .100 points higher than their averages, meaning that their patience at the plate hasn’t been sacrificed. Most of these OBPs are as high as their career averages, meaning that if their batting average starts regressing towards normal levels, then we may have an incredibly elite offense this year. Think about it. If Prince Fielder gets on base at a .400 clip with Braun and Hart surrounding him, this offense may be impossible to stop. Even Jason Kendall is putting in a good word despite being sickening when he’s standing at the dish.

Bring on the hits, I say. Be patient — the offense will come.

We’re getting pretty close to the day where pitchers and catchers report for duty and people start anticipating the first day of spring instead of dreading the upcoming remaining month or so of cabin fever people in the upper midwest tend to experience.

We’re also getting pretty close to the day where Corey Hart could get ripped apart by the organization that employs him in an effort to save a million dollars. Hart is asking for $3.8 million while the Brewers offered $2.7 million; the hearing date is either the 17th or 18th — no more than a week away.

Hart is a career .277/.323/.485 hitter who finished 2008 below those numbers (mere .300 OBP) due to an absolutely miserable September (.173/.192/.245) that nearly “helped” Milwaukee choke away their playoff birth. Hart’s stats last year may not imply that he’s worth the $3.8 million he’s asking for, but when looking a little deeper, I wouldn’t mind the investment either way as long as certain circumstances happen.

Hart has never been a patient hitter with his tiny walk rate (4.2% in ’08, only 27 walks in 612 ABs), but he’s always been able to make up for that with a little extra meat in his swing. For the second straight season in 2008, he hit 20 homers, and with that big frame, has potential to amass more power as he gets older and works his way into the big leagues for good.

But his 2008 was a big regression in more than just his initial stats. His ISO shot down over 50 points into 2008 and his OBA went way down to .327, which is essentially league average for MLB — far below average for a supposed power-hitting corner outfielder. He was just barely above replacement level — with a 0.28 WPA, he wouldn’t deserve to be paid as much as even Milwaukee’s offered him. One main thing, to me, was the root of all Hart’s problems in the majors last year:

Outside swing pct.:
2006: 22.3%
2007: 25.7%
2008: 31.7%

Outside swing pct. measures the percentage of balls outside the zone that Hart swung at. 2006 can be considered a bit of a small sample size, but Hart’s consistently swinging at more pitches he shouldn’t be and that makes anyone a terrible hitter. Pitchers adapted to him by throwing him less fastballs that he could jump on and threw him a steady diet of sliders that dove low and outside and he bit every single time. Instead of taking some time off and calming himself down, he decided to add fuel to the fire right about at the point where Milwaukee began panicking last year about their playoff slide.

I’m not going to sit there and walk, though. I’ll eventually find it, and hopefully we’ll still be in it.”

So if Hart is such a poor hitter, why am I advocating him to be part of the team next year? Simple: because a great majority of his flaws can be corrected. Manager Ken Macha hinted when he was hired that he tends to delve a bit into statistical analysis and should be able to see the value in taking a walk and being patient. Pitchers throw Hart first-pitch strikes — whether he swings at them or not — more than almost any other hitter in the majors. If Hart can adjust his swing, tempo, and patience, he has the potential to take all of that early pressure off of him and he can become more relaxed of a hitter.

This just depends on whether or not hitting coach Dale Sveum will teach Hart to walk and not hack and whether or not Hart buys into the system. If Hart can take first pitches and be more selective at what he swings at, he can make a huge improvement in his swing and power and become an elite talent in the major leagues.

$3.8 million for a one-win player isn’t a bad bet either, and we can at least assume that Hart will attone for his miserable September and have a bounceback year anyway. Projections have him at about a .275/.330/.480 player, which makes me think he has nowhere to go but up. If Hart can harness his ability to take a pitch or two, he has a legitimate chance at becoming an elite hitter on the Brewers instead of an overrated corner outfielder. With the patience comes the higher on base percentage as well as the respect from pitchers who will start throwing more fastballs to Hart that he can send to the gaps. It all depends on the coaching he receives in spring training — he needs to drop the hacker mentality.

Video time:

Sorry for no activity– daily life, prepping for school, running a bunch of errands, and generally being hectic contribute to my lack of posting. While there’s been no real posting lately, I can say that I’ve virtually finished my 2009 pitching preview and will post it first thing Monday morning. A few newsworthy things:

Apparently the Brewers were thinking about chasing Dunn. Even though the internet is in love with Adam Dunn, I like this move. Two reasons for this– it’d be taking on way too much in salary considering the arbitration cases of the five Brewers who are eligible (more on this later), and even though replacing Corey Hart with the Dunnotron would greatly improve the team, watching a lineup of Prince Fielder, Ryan Braun, Adam Dunn, Bill Hall, Mike Cameron, and Rickie Weeks would undoubtedly set the record for most strikeouts in a single season. We’re one step away from putting Jose Hernandez back at shortstop. It’d make me cringe.

One of the things the article mentioned was that the Brewers were considering sending Cameron to the Yankees instead of replacing Hart with Dunn tit-for-tat. The plan would’ve involved shipping Cameron off, moving Hart to center, and putting Dunn in right field. I’m not sure the increase in salary (Dunn SHOULD command $15 mil/year or so, considering his ability) would justify the incredible dropoff there would be in shipping an excellent defender in Cameron off and replacing him with an average one in Hart. Remember, one of the things that makes Mike Cameron a very valuable commodity is his sublime defense. Trotting out a daily outfield of Braun, Hart, and Dunn would sure let batters tee off towards the gaps and ultimately make our pitching staff worse.

In other stuff, J.J. Hardy signed for super cheap and Dave Bush signed for cheap enough. Considering Hardy is one of the best shortstops in the game, grabbing him at the price of a tiny bit more than Nick Punto is awesome. One of the knocks i’ve always had on Hardy is his range, but his positive UZR numbers so far in the major leagues are significantly awesome to the point where it’s almost set in stone about a major leaguer. If there’s any way that I need to eat my words, it’s one where a great player turns out to be better than he actually is. J.J. “Makes Me” Hardy.