Brewers Opening Day roster, etc.

by Jeff Sackmann on Dec 9, 2005 5:11 PM CST in Milwaukee Brewers News

Long time no see, friends o' the Crew--been a busy time in my life, got a lot of irons in the fire, but I'll do my best to stick around and contribute to the great job Jacob has been doing around here.

I thought I'd start my return by looking at who the Crew will feature come April. Of course, many question marks remain and there are still deals to be done. It wouldn't surprise me at all for Melvin to pick up another young guy to compete for the #5 pitching slot (a la Chad Gaudin to the A's last week), and Billy Hall always comes up in trade talks when teams are slumming (so they think) for a stopgap shortstop. So, here goes.

Position players:

Damian Miller, C
Chad Moeller, C

Prince Fielder, 1B
Rickie Weeks, 2B
JJ Hardy, SS
Russ Branyan, 3B
Jeff Cirillo, IF
Billy Hall, IF

Carlos Lee, LF
Brady Clark, CF
Geoff Jenkins, RF
Gabe Gross, OF
Corey Hart, IF/OF

Pitchers:

Ben Sheets, SP
Doug Davis, SP
Chris Capuano, SP
Tomo Ohka, SP
Dave Bush, SP

Derrick Turnbow, CL
Danny Kolb, RP
Matt Wise, RP
Dana Eveland, RP
Jorge de la Rosa, RP
Justin Lehr, SP/RP
Rick Helling, SP/RP

At this point, speculating on the makeup of the pitching staff is a bit ridiculous. Just about anybody listed in the bullpen could be hurt or have a bad spring, leading to the inclusion of any one of Mike Adams, Jeff Bennett, Jose Capellan, Kane Davis, or Ben Hendrickson. I'd particularly like to see Adams have a big spring. I was looking at a thread on Baseball Think Factory a few days ago from right after the Pods/Caballo trade and was shocked at how far his stock has fallen from Opening Day 2005 -- this guy was our closer-in-waiting after a killer second half of '04!

Just imagine--we'd never need a starter to go more than five innings again -- Wise and Adams pitch the 6th and 7th, Kolb gets the 8th, and Turnbow the 9th. Of course, the best laid plans...but I'm not sure there's a better bullpen in baseball. Heck, give Eveland the 5th inning every day and switch back to a 4-man rotation! Maybe that's going a bit too far.

Russ Branyan has come up a lot in trade talks (to the Pirates?); he's very replaceable on this team, with Billy Hall possibly the starting 3rd baseman. That would open up a spot for...I don't know who. Maybe Corey Hart becomes a backup IF and Dave Krynzel gets the call, maybe Zach Sorenson comes up as...I don't know what purpose he would serve.

Long story short, Doug Melvin has built a very inexpensive, very flexible team. In anybody goes down early, there's someone credible to step in, except for maybe at catcher, where we can wonder about the merits of keeping Chad Moeller around for another year of batting .206.

So, y'all, what's next? Do we stand pat? Do we focus our energies on laughing at the Cubs?

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My guess

(and this isn't really stemming from anything)

is that we're about done. I don't think there is anyone left on the offense to move except for Russell the Muscle, and he might even stay if Melvin et al. decide that we need power off the bench.

I think the team is shaping up nicely. My only two concerns are:

I'm in the group that thinks Bill Hall was the team MVP from last year, but I wish we had a legitimate 3rd baseman and kepy Billy as the supersub. Not that we'd go after a superstar or anything (though I wonder if No-Mah could play third...hmmm...), but I think KM's own Joltin' Joe Randa would be the perfect addition at third, if there were a way to get him.
We have a lot of fringy pitchers, quantity over quality, I guess. Even if we don't get a good FA pitcher, I don't think our pitching is any worse than last year, starting or relieving. And maybe the hope is someone will emerge out of this group. Mike Maddux will need special assistants to be able to work with all of these guys.

At some point, we're going to have to think about the outfield. This is Lee's last year in his contract, right? I wonder if he has any inclination toward re-signing? If not, do we trade him before the deadline, or just let him walk after the end of the season? How much longer will we have for Jenkins, considering his age and salary, and (I think) our prospects in RF? Last is Brady, who although he had a great year last year, has neither the history of long-time success in center nor the youth one would hope for given his lack of experience. Somewhat surprisingly, though, Krenzyl (or however you spell his name) seems to have fallen off as a prospect.

I guess that we have our infield of the future, but our outfield is heading into a period of transition. I'm thinking there's a 25% chance of our 2007 starting outfield matching our 2006 starting outfield.

by roguejim on Dec 10, 2005 8:32 AM CST reply actions

Good idea re: Nomar

you'll see I've written a few more words about that :).

I'm not so keen on Randa -- he rebounded nicely last year, but he's getting up there in years; I'm not sure he's better than Bill--defensively, perhaps, but not at the plate.

by Jeff Sackmann on Dec 10, 2005 8:00 PM CST reply actions

Joltin' Joe

Oh, sure, but we're only talking about a stopgap until Rick Braun is ready! :)

by roguejim on Dec 11, 2005 12:05 AM CST up reply actions

True...

...I'm not a fan of Randa even as a stopgap, but I just looked at his stats and I see it probably makes more sense to agree with you than to agree with me!

Oh, and our new uber-prospect's name is Ryan Braun, unless you were hoping this guy would pick up a glove and hit 30 dingers for us in '07.

by Jeff Sackmann on Dec 11, 2005 1:53 PM CST up reply actions

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