What if the Brewers had signed CC Sabathia?

And instead traded Cameron for other pieces and used the $20 million dollars to sign multiple other pitchers?

Oh, and if I remember correctly, Hoffman being out (injured) is why Julio was on the team in the first place.

Half a dozen teams in the MLB would have signed CC for 5yr/100 million dollars. Heck, the Indians were rumored to offer nearly the same deal in the 2007 offseason.

They purposely left some flexibility in the payroll, once Sabathia didn’t sign, for the purpose of adding a player at the trade deadline. Just because they didn’t actually make a signficant move doesn’t mean the dollars available to do it were gone. It’s pretty obvious they wouldn’t have signed Hoffman or Looper, but I don’t think the 20 million salary of Sabathia would have had to be offset dollar for dollar. They might not have brought Counsell back and they might not have been able to deal for Lopez, though, and with as valuable as Counsell has been this year the point might be valid anyway.

However, by resigning CC Sabathia, bigger named free agents would be more open to sign with Milwaukee. Kind of like if CC was resigned, it was a sure thing Ben Sheets would take a pay cut and resign with Milwaukee. Also, with CC here, more games would be sold out and plenty of CC jerseys would be sold to bring in extra revenue. If needed, the Brewers could possibly raise ticket prices. Would we have been able to sign Trevor Hoffman? Possibly, cause he wants a World Series ring and with CC on the rotation, we would have better odds. Without CC, we were projected to finish .500 at best. With CC, we were predicted to return to the playoffs. So, my point is, with his salary, there are other marketing and sales that would be adjusted and the Brewers would be better situated. I will say this though, at least Milwaukee tried to resign CC Sabathia and gave him a great offer.

Or that the Brewers are 14-10 in Looper starts? When you say that the Brewers gain 5.1 wins by replacing Looper with CC, are you saying the Brewers would have been 19-5 if CC started those games?

Maybe I don’t understand WAR so much, but for this exercise, isn’t it more accurate, if talking about wins, to look at how many wins Looper actually has? He certainly doesn’t deserve the run support he’s gotten, but nevertheless, in the June 3 game against Florida, if we score 9 runs, it doesn’t matter if CC pitches a gem or if Looper doesn’t make it out of the 5th.

with the last sentance in the “summing up” paragraph. I was listening to the radio after Tuesday’s game and somone called in and wondered why Melvin didn’t sign Derek Lowe. I don’t know where people (not necessarily anyone here) get the idea that the Brewers can just go out and sign the most expensive free agents out there. We aren’t the Yankees with a bottomless checkbook and Melvin did the best with what he had.

Melvin probably wouldn’t be taking as much heat for this season if Weeks was healthy and Bush hadn’t been hit by Hanley Ramirez. Our record would probably look a bit different.

I’m not sure about this ‘wins replacement value’ and other new fangled stats you kids come up with. It sounds like an interesting stat, but does it include the tendency for Sabathia to be the medicine for what ails a tired bullpen? He’s pitched 33 more innings than Looper so far, about the equivalent of never having had to use Mike Burns.

But I think the overall argument is solid – we couldn’t afford him no matter how good he is.

The Starting pitchers struggles have leaked to the bullpen as they’ve had to carry more and more of the load. Having a workhorse like CC could have helped perserve the bullpen to add more WAR to the pen.

Our bullpen wouldn’t be as exhausted as it is today. If you want to go on about Looper’s wins, that’s fine. That’s the reason I don’t give him such a hard time, but it’s not strictly because of his performance. As of 2 weeks ago, Looper lead all MLB pitchers in run support. Maybe it’s a superficial thing, I don’t know. As far as Sheets resigning, that’s what I heard. It was a rumor, not a fact. Also, if CC had resigned, ticket prices would be increased and as loyal fans Milwaukee has, the seats would still be filled up. Especially if we wanted to watch CC pitch. Our bullpen is struggling largely because we are lucky if we can have our starting pitcher get through the 6th Inning!!!

Addresses some of the popular complaints about him…

http://www.620wtmj.com/shows/llama/52117287.html

I thought the trade fell through because the Brewers weren’t willing to pay a portion of his contract… not because they didn’t want to make the trade.

I do think that the pitching staff this year, in spite of the fact that so many guys are having their worst years simultaneously, was pretty obviously deficient at the beginning of the year. I also think that its obvious deficiency and eventual implosion are pretty damnin indictments of Melvin’s work as a GM in Milwaukee.

But I don’t think it has much of anything to do with mistakes made by Melvin this past offseason. There just weren’t a lot of good choices to be made once CC went to New York and even if, in some alternate universe, CC had resigned with Milwaukee, Bush would have gotten hurt, Suppan would have been Suppan, and Parra would have been Parra. It’s not like his signing would have been a panacea for the rotation, though it certainly would have delayed (though probably not eliminated) the implosion of the pen.

The rotation problem this year are Melvin’s fault because (aside from YoGa and Parra, at least arguably) this organization has been terrible at selecting and developing starting pitchers. It’s not unreasonable to expect that over the course of 5 years and 250 or so draft picks that at some point Melvin would hit on a guy in the middle or late rounds who could turn into Dave Bush at least and suck of some innings with slightly above replacement level pitching. This team hasn’t done that under Melvin’s watch, and it’s his responsibility. If they had done that, even twice in Melvin’s time, It wouldn’t have been necessary to throw cash at Suppan or even Looper and we wouldn’t have to rely on guys like Villy or Burns to bail us out when injuries occurred. Worst of all, Melvin’s long history of failure to select and develop rotation prospects in house meant that in one of the few years where the heart of this team, Fielder and Braun, was together and playing at a high level, the rotation just wasn’t good enough to keep us competitive let alone give those championship quality 3 and 4 hitters the chance to compete for a title.

That’s why I’m mad at Melvin about this season. And that’s why you should be too.

I agree with most of what’s been said by most of you. I also wish that Melvin coulda/woulda/shoulda done more about the bottom-feeding starting pitching we’ve had this year. One thing it does is that it makes us more appreciative of his AWESOME deal to pick up CC last year. One of the best deals I’ve ever seen in my lifetime as it turned out in the results. How many other guys picked up at the deadline did as much for their new team to make the playoffs as CC did for the 2008 Crew. The other thing this year’s pitching situation does is it makes us appreciate Ben Sheets and what he brought to the team. He was no where near my favorite Brewer. But he was a quality starter when healthy. When he was on, he was on. Man, what a curveball!!! My other thought, however, on the current situation with the Brewers is that, yes, I wish DM could have gotten more pitching without emptying the barns down on the farms. But did anyone foresee our offense being as anemic as it has been. Yes, RB and PF are having great seasons for us, as they should. But who else has done much with maybe the exception of an occasional good game by Counsell or McGahee? Go down the list: Weeks (injured), Hart (disappeared/now injured), Cameron (ok numbers for him, still WAY too many whiffs), Hall (adios buddy, my 13-yr-old hits better than you do), Kendall (who’s this guy kidding when he says he thinks he can still hit .290 or .300??? if it weren’t for his catching skills he’d be outta the game), and Hardy (has reality hit you between the eyes down in AAA JJ?). If anyone other than Ryan (I can’t keep my mouth shut long enough to swing the bat) and Prince (show me the quickest route to the opposing team’s clubhouse) could actually help offensively, we might be able to overcome the lack of solid starting pitching. But we have become way to dependent on the home run, and not enough guys are hitting them. My only complaint against KM is that I wish he’d let our guys run more (with the exception of Ryan “why do they always INTBB Prince after I steal a base” Braun). That’s my take on our current state of the BREWCREW nation.