So I did the disappointing Brewers, now it's time for the division rival Cubs' off-season review.
Players lost : Henry Blanco, Mark DeRosa, Jim Edmonds, Bob Howry, John Lieber, Jason Marquis, Kerry Wood.
Players Gained : Milton Bradley, Joey Gathright, Kevin Gregg, Mark Johnson, Aaron Miles, Luis Vizcaino.
The Cubs lost one of their center fielders last year, but they replaced the loss of one outfielder with the addition of two. Milton Bradley had an exceptional season last year with Texas and now he is trying to find a new home and hopefully for the cubs, trying to not be a distraction. And Joey Gathright, not the best offensive player, is a very speedy fielder and will provide another good glove in the grass.
Kevin Gregg was an interesting addition, because they could've resigned their own feel good story, Kerry Wood, but instead decided to get a stuggling closer from the Marlins. In his last month as a closer, he gave up 11 earned runs in 9 innings, and then was removed from his closer role. So unless the Cubs are looking to move Marmol to closer and Gregg as set-up, I don't really see the point in this move.
Mark Johnson was just a move to sign a backup for Soto, Miles was picked up to make up for the infielder shortage because of the DeRosa deal and Vizcaino was picked up to "help" the bullpen. In his career, he has only had 4 years with an ERA of less than 4; however, it will make up for the "loss" of Bob Howry, who wasn't very good when he needed to be last year.
It's sad to say, for me as a Brewers fan, but the Cubs will probably win the division again. Their most valuable player that they lost was Mark DeRosa, and they have plenty of offense to make up for that loss.
Next: I don't really know! lol. I'll make that decision when I right the article.
Friday, January 16, 2009
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
The Best NL Cental Offseason Moves
With the craziness of free agency, for the most part, behind us, I will go ahead and analyze the NL Central. Who improved, who got worse, and what I think the division will look like at the end of the year.
I will start with all of our favorite small market team --
The Brewers:
Players Lost : CC Sabathia, Ben Sheets, Brian Shouse, Solomon Torres, Eric Gagne, Guilermo Mota, Joe Dillon, Craig Counsell, Gabe Cappler, Russell Branyan, Ray Durham,
Players Added : Trevor Hoffman, Jorge Julio, Jason Bourgeois, Trot Nixon
Obviously, the Brewers didn't make any huge moves to help solve the starting pitching shortage, but now we do have a closer -- and a great one at that. Travor Hoffman was the best pick-up the brewers got (if not the only good one). He is without a doubt the closer all year and he also helps the starting rotation a little by solving the bulpen problem -- now that the closer role is solved, we can tab Seth McClung for a spot in the starting five.
Jorge Julio is a pitcher with a lot of potential; however, he has some growing to do to get to his peek. He shows flashes of brilliance, but more often than not will lose more games for you than he will win. In his most recent winter league game he allowed 6 runs in .2 innings. Who knows what will happen with this one.
Arguably the best offseason move for the Brew Crew was for the Cubs to get rid of Mark DeRosa and not get Peavy from it.
The Brewers will definitely have some ground to make up, and they won't be the preseason pick to win the division, but the offseason isn't over and you never know what is going to happen next.
Tomorrow: the Chicago Cubs
I will start with all of our favorite small market team --
The Brewers:
Players Lost : CC Sabathia, Ben Sheets, Brian Shouse, Solomon Torres, Eric Gagne, Guilermo Mota, Joe Dillon, Craig Counsell, Gabe Cappler, Russell Branyan, Ray Durham,
Players Added : Trevor Hoffman, Jorge Julio, Jason Bourgeois, Trot Nixon
Obviously, the Brewers didn't make any huge moves to help solve the starting pitching shortage, but now we do have a closer -- and a great one at that. Travor Hoffman was the best pick-up the brewers got (if not the only good one). He is without a doubt the closer all year and he also helps the starting rotation a little by solving the bulpen problem -- now that the closer role is solved, we can tab Seth McClung for a spot in the starting five.
Jorge Julio is a pitcher with a lot of potential; however, he has some growing to do to get to his peek. He shows flashes of brilliance, but more often than not will lose more games for you than he will win. In his most recent winter league game he allowed 6 runs in .2 innings. Who knows what will happen with this one.
Arguably the best offseason move for the Brew Crew was for the Cubs to get rid of Mark DeRosa and not get Peavy from it.
The Brewers will definitely have some ground to make up, and they won't be the preseason pick to win the division, but the offseason isn't over and you never know what is going to happen next.
Tomorrow: the Chicago Cubs
Monday, January 12, 2009
Sorry Sorry Sorry!!!
Well Everyone,
I am so sorry (as previously stated three times in the title) that I haven't made a post since August. I went back to school and had one rough semester. But that's over, it's after the holidays and there's been so much news in Brewers nation, I don't know where to start. But really, that's a no-brainer.
So who else wants a salary cap? Everyone reading this post should - that's assuming that the only traffic my blog gets is from Brewers fans. How many times will the Yankees try to buy a good season by overspending on free agents? I, personally, think it's a crock of sh#% that one team is allowed to spend more than $400 million on three players! Some might argue "The luxury tax evens that out" but the thing about that is, the luxury tax doesn't really make anything even and here's why:
1: The small market teams can't afford to spend a ton of money anyway, so they don't have to worry about the luxury tax.
2: The medium market teams are the ones who get hurt the most, because if they could've maybe found a way to spend enough for the luxury tax to matter, then they just got stopped because of the luxury tax.
3: The large market teams, the reason why the luxury tax was put in place, who have the money to spend on the "Type A" free agents, will pay through their noses for the players, and then the luxury tax is still chump change!
I, for one, am appalled at the player whom we all grew to love. The player who got us to the post season. The player who claims that he went to new york because he wouldn't have been surrounded with enough talent to win in Milwaukee. Yeah right CC! We all know why you really left you money grubbing f*#%! I hope you never get back to Milwaukee and I hope you never get another post-season win (Post season stats: 1-3 7.92 ERA, 22 walks 24 strikeouts in 25 innings pitched). Good Riddance.
Trevor Hoffman -- I have to admit, I didn't see that coming. After not even coming close to getting Fuentes to consider Milwaukee, I thought that next year's closer was already on the roster. I never thought Melvin would go out and spend any decent amount of money on another closer after the Gagne debacle. And, to be completely honest, I wasn't even all that excited when I heard that the Brewers signed him, I mean, his ERA was almost 4 last year, and for a closer who just signed for $6 million, that's huge! He pitched a career low in innings (except for one year when he was injured) and had his third highest ERA. However, I have been looking at his game log for last year and he really only had two bad months. He ended the season pitching very well and it seems that the reason for his high era was really due to about 2 bad games in which he gave up 3 and 4 runs (He had an ERA of 7 in those games and a 2.45 ERA the rest of the year). He had 10 games in which he only gave up 1 run, and he still recorded a save in 3 of them. So after looking at the stats and doing a little bit of analyzing I am happy with the signing, and if you're not, listen to this:
Out of the top 50 pitchers according to saves last year, if you take out those two bad games and use the era from his 44.1 innings(2.45) Trevor Hoffman lands at number 10 according to ERA (reordering the top 50 saves according to ERA).
JJ Hardy avoiding arbitration. Why the hell are you still messing around with this? Ask JJ if he will move to third base to make room for Alvides Escobar to better the team. I have never heard anything about JJ that would make me believe that he would not move to make the team better, but if he doesn't want to move, ask Escobar the same question. If Escobar says no, then even though I hate to say it, you need to start shopping Hardy. Let's stop, for lack of a better saying, pussy-footing around this and see what we can do with a good problem like too many shortstops. This is a problem that should definitely be solved while shortstops are still in high demand and while the brewers are lacking pitching(which will probably be a while, lol). Escobar is almost major league ready, let's get this out of the way.
If anyone would like me to answer a question, talk about something, or contact me for any reason, feel free!
mwebster@bradley.edu
I am so sorry (as previously stated three times in the title) that I haven't made a post since August. I went back to school and had one rough semester. But that's over, it's after the holidays and there's been so much news in Brewers nation, I don't know where to start. But really, that's a no-brainer.
So who else wants a salary cap? Everyone reading this post should - that's assuming that the only traffic my blog gets is from Brewers fans. How many times will the Yankees try to buy a good season by overspending on free agents? I, personally, think it's a crock of sh#% that one team is allowed to spend more than $400 million on three players! Some might argue "The luxury tax evens that out" but the thing about that is, the luxury tax doesn't really make anything even and here's why:
1: The small market teams can't afford to spend a ton of money anyway, so they don't have to worry about the luxury tax.
2: The medium market teams are the ones who get hurt the most, because if they could've maybe found a way to spend enough for the luxury tax to matter, then they just got stopped because of the luxury tax.
3: The large market teams, the reason why the luxury tax was put in place, who have the money to spend on the "Type A" free agents, will pay through their noses for the players, and then the luxury tax is still chump change!
I, for one, am appalled at the player whom we all grew to love. The player who got us to the post season. The player who claims that he went to new york because he wouldn't have been surrounded with enough talent to win in Milwaukee. Yeah right CC! We all know why you really left you money grubbing f*#%! I hope you never get back to Milwaukee and I hope you never get another post-season win (Post season stats: 1-3 7.92 ERA, 22 walks 24 strikeouts in 25 innings pitched). Good Riddance.
Trevor Hoffman -- I have to admit, I didn't see that coming. After not even coming close to getting Fuentes to consider Milwaukee, I thought that next year's closer was already on the roster. I never thought Melvin would go out and spend any decent amount of money on another closer after the Gagne debacle. And, to be completely honest, I wasn't even all that excited when I heard that the Brewers signed him, I mean, his ERA was almost 4 last year, and for a closer who just signed for $6 million, that's huge! He pitched a career low in innings (except for one year when he was injured) and had his third highest ERA. However, I have been looking at his game log for last year and he really only had two bad months. He ended the season pitching very well and it seems that the reason for his high era was really due to about 2 bad games in which he gave up 3 and 4 runs (He had an ERA of 7 in those games and a 2.45 ERA the rest of the year). He had 10 games in which he only gave up 1 run, and he still recorded a save in 3 of them. So after looking at the stats and doing a little bit of analyzing I am happy with the signing, and if you're not, listen to this:
Out of the top 50 pitchers according to saves last year, if you take out those two bad games and use the era from his 44.1 innings(2.45) Trevor Hoffman lands at number 10 according to ERA (reordering the top 50 saves according to ERA).
JJ Hardy avoiding arbitration. Why the hell are you still messing around with this? Ask JJ if he will move to third base to make room for Alvides Escobar to better the team. I have never heard anything about JJ that would make me believe that he would not move to make the team better, but if he doesn't want to move, ask Escobar the same question. If Escobar says no, then even though I hate to say it, you need to start shopping Hardy. Let's stop, for lack of a better saying, pussy-footing around this and see what we can do with a good problem like too many shortstops. This is a problem that should definitely be solved while shortstops are still in high demand and while the brewers are lacking pitching(which will probably be a while, lol). Escobar is almost major league ready, let's get this out of the way.
If anyone would like me to answer a question, talk about something, or contact me for any reason, feel free!
mwebster@bradley.edu
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