Brewers 2009 preview — part 1 (the lineup)

Hey if anybody knows how to fix this blog setup to move this column further left so that the graph doesn’t bleed into the links, leave a comment or e-mail me at cody@czwief.com. Thanks!

It is now officially the offseason — trades and signings, with the exception of Mark Teixiera, are pretty much dead until Spring Training in a couple of months. This is part 1 of a 3-part series examining projections for Milwaukee’s 2009 season. Part 1 will be position players, part 2 will be pitching, and part 3 will be a final projection.

Last season’s offense was really frustrating at times, and especially in the final months. Let’s break down projections and possibilities position by position.

First base

With the small possibility that Milwaukee trades Prince Fielder, it’s safe to say he’s the 2009 first baseman. He experienced a bit of a dropoff in production last year. Most of this can be attributed to his rise in GB%. Take a look:

Marcel projections have him doing similar things in ‘09, with a little bit of a bounceback year. Projections have him at .282/.377/.530/.907, and that hasn’t even taken into account his rumored reports of finally eating meat again. I think he’ll bounce back a little bit and have a pretty productive season.

Using the pretty darn good stats created by Justin Inaz, we can estimate Prince having this kind of year (these numbers similar to VORP values):
Offense: 45
Position adjustment: -12
Defense: -12

Of course, this assumes that Prince is as bad defensively in 09 as he was in 08. That’s a 21 rating, which is similar to a 2.1 VORP. None too impressive, but that’s fine by me. More on why I wouldn’t mind trading Prince later (hint: he’s overrated).

Everywhere else after the jump

Second base

Many people have questioned the ability of Rickie Weeks at second base, citing his low batting average as equivalent to terrible play. Sometimes the disgust of fans is thrown at the wrong person, as Weeks is actually a pretty valuable player — the adjusted VORP numbers I’m referencing noted that Weeks was actually more valuable a player than Fielder was in many less ABs (since he had to give some up to Durham late in the season).

Weeks hit /.234/.342/.398/.740 from the leadoff spot, which obviously isn’t nearly as impressive as Fielder, but when you consider adjusting Weeks’ production to the production of second basemen across the league, well, it’s not actually all that bad. His defense is surprisingly average considering his terrible defense that was widely noted 2 years ago. One of the main things that concerns me, though, is his decline in everything good and increase in everything bad in terms of hitting stats. Observe:

the decline in LD% and the increase in GB% is…not good. Many Brewers players had regressions from 2007 last year and I feel like a universal regression had more to do with the hitting coach Jim Skaalen than anything. Maybe Macha’s new staff will tell people like Braun or Hart to take a walk.

The Brewers *should* stick with Weeks next year. If they do, they’ll get a 2-3 wins over replacement player at second, if Marcel projections are correct and Weeks has a rebounding year next year. Marcel has him at .249/.357/.414/.772, which out of your second baseman is not bad at all.

Shortstop

Many reports have linked teams like the Twins with a desire to get J.J. Hardy, as they needed a shortstop and Hardy is a good, cost-controlled shortstop. Just because teams want him doesn’t necessarily mean that teams like the Brewers are willing to give up a cost-controlled shortstop for multiple more years with 25HR power and a flashy glove in one of the most important fielding positions in baseball.

While Hardy should still be the opening day shortstop, there have been murmurs to get light-hitting, excellent-defense prospect Alcides Escobar in at the shortstop position due to the range of Hardy being slightly limited, and moving Hardy to third where he won’t need as much range but can still show off his cannon arm. Something’s going to have to be done soon, but until we can dump Bill Hall’s worthless contract, moving Hardy to third is only going to make him less valuable and replace the shortstop position with someone who won’t have as much value there as now. I’d go through the projections of the current shortstop/third base situation, but projecting what would happen if Escobar would get thrown in is impossible unless you actually do it.

Third base

Mike Lamb resigned with the Brewers for one year, which is okay because the Twins stupidly decided to pay him like $3mm/year to play like garbage for them. Likely Lamb is going to start the season in a platoon with Bill Hall, who can hit lefties pretty darn well but just hasn’t been able to touch a right-hander since his flukish breakout year in 2006.

While on the subject of Hall, he got LASIK eye surgery recently. That’s cool. LASIK made Jason Kendall’s OPS+ go up by 12 points the offseason as well as made Denard Span into an elite hitter who does an exceptional job at taking pitches outside of the zone and only swinging at those in it. He said so far his vision has gotten quite a bit better and he’s not going to have the problems that he’s had with his contacts all year. You saw how much Billy was opening his eyes really wide and violently blinking too, right?

Anyways, it looks like the Brewers will start out in a platoon, but the recent signing of Casey McGeehee from the Cubs tells me that they’re going to have an open spring training where the best person emerges as 2009’s starter. This sounds suspiciously like the beginning of a terrible start at third base, however, if Hall’s new LASIK surgery can help him beef up his stats at the plate and Lamb/McGeehee can do an acceptable job as backups or starting against right-handed pitchers, then this 3B platoon seems like a good idea.

But what do you think? Is the better option to move Hardy over to 3rd and let the AA-er Escobar plug in at short? Or would you prefer a Hall/Lamb/McGeeHee hot corner with Escobar getting some seasoning in the minors? Personally, I’d go for the latter, just to get his bat some more discipline: in the minors, he strikes out on way too many at-bats for me to consider him a legitimate major leaguer. But we’ll see what happens.

Catcher

Jason Kendall is a terrible hitter, as everyone knows by now, but I heard through the grapevine that Ned Yost found a mechanical flaw in Kendall’s defense that caused him to lead the major leagues in CS% which pretty much was a total reversal of his 2007 season. This caused him to be one of the more elite defensive catchers in the game and significantly made up for his offensive shortcomings. Kendall’s probably going to be overworked in 2009 too, playing in over 150 games for the Brewers last season. Yikes. So, this season we can expect terrible offensive numbers, a good CS%, and a manly lumberjack beard and no batting gloves.

This will probably be the last year of Kendall, too, before the good catching prospects in the Brewers organization begin to emerge as players. Salome still needs to work on his D before he becomes anything close to the major leagues. Rivera’s a good backup, although I wouldn’t mind at all to see him hit in the majors…

The outfield

The Brewers and Yankees are at a dead-end, so it’s safe to say that our starting outfield will be Braun-Cameron-Hart. We can expect a similar offensive and defensive performance out of Braun, and Cameron is still going to be what he is: a low-average, high-power center fielder with really good range in center that defensively will save a few runs.

Corey Hart was definitely interesting (and by interesting I mean terrible) over the last two plus months of the season, hitting into every killer double play as well as a season of .268/.300/.459/.759 out of a corner outfielder with little defensive additions (especially because RF isn’t necessarily a defensively important position). Thank goodness he’s better than that — Marcel projects him next year as having a good bounceback season, somewhere around .280/.329/.483/.812, which is more what I’d come to expect from Corey Hart. That doesn’t mean he’s anywhere near the All-Star that he was in NY and the Brewers should still consider upgrading at the RF position, as an .812 OPS from your defensively average RF isn’t too great.

But where does Mat Gamel fit in?

For those that don’t know, Mat Gamel is an absolute stud prospect who hit .329/.395/.537/.933 in the Southern League for the Huntsville Stars. He’s a third baseman, which would by midseason clear up the Bill Hall/Mike Lamb/Casey McGeehee slugfest that is sure to decrease the value of the Brewers, however, reports from the minors note that Gamel is like Ryan Braun was at third, except even more atrocious.

So what are the Brewers to do?

1) Keep Mat Gamel at third, call him up at midseason to replace Bill Hall.

This move could be a good move depending on where Milwaukee is halfway through the season. If they’re not contending, this would be pointless — and only partially because it would waste a half year of Mat Gamel service time. Bill Hall, as you may recall, is also making $4.8 million this upcoming year — to have him ride pine in a lost season is the very definition of wasted money. Hopefully Hall’s LASIK surgery is equivalent to a bounceback season. I wouldn’t be on board for keeping Gamel at third when the season is lost.

And even if the Brewers were contending in June, unless Hall/Lamb/McGeehee are an absolute black hole, why break up what is successfull? Don’t tell me you’d want to see defensive juggernaut Mat Gamel throwing a ball 10 feet above Prince Fielder’s head in the bottom of the 8th with 2 on, 2 out, and a one-run lead. Yikes.

2) Turn Gamel into a corner outfielder, place him in the field.

Gamel could easily become Braun 2.0. Hart was a terribly right fielder last year, as any replacement level player could almost outplay him, What Gamel loses defensively from replacing Hart with him is more than made up for by his high-OBP, high-power offensive production from a position that usually is one of the more premier offensive positions where defense isn’t necessary.

Here’s a scenario that I would like the most that I could see occuring: Corey Hart spends the first couple of months of the season bouncing back from his black hole performance the last two months of the season with some improved plate discipline (swings at only 85% of outside sliders) and a little bit of power as well. His stock rises, and since he’s at the stage where he’s young, can still develop, and his stock rises, he’d be a good trade fit to another team just because the Brewers could get a pretty hefty return for a young, cost-controlled outfielder who many think is still developing. This would pave the way for Gamel, who would most likely be better. I say this because I personally think Hart is quite a bit overrated and is currently reaching his ceiling.

The more realistic scenario where Gamel moves to the OF is that he spends the entirety of spring training and the 2009 season in AAA learning how to become a fielder and then move Hart to center and put Gamel in RF once Cameron’s contract is up in 2010. In center, Hart’s offensive production would be more valuable considering how premium it is defensively and would make up for his shortcomings when he moved there. A Braun-Hart-Gamel outfield would be a disaster for our pitching staff, but an even bigger disaster for other pitching staffs. When an .812 OPS is your worst offensive outfielder, you really can’t lose. Unless, of course, your field is all Brad Hawpes.

Considering the Brewers’ attempt to gain a multi-year cost-controlled center fielder in Melky Cabrera, this seems to be unlikely.

3) Turn Gamel into a first baseman, trade Prince Fielder.

This is another popular place to put Gamel because his defense seems to be so limited that even a move to right field would spell disaster. There have been murmurs of the Brewers talking with teams like the Giants, who have a void at first base, of trading Fielder, because when he hits arbitration, he may not exactly be worth what his salary is going to jump to and it’s pretty clear that his size doesn’t correlate with defensive range.

The Giants are also led by the genius Brian Sabean, who has made brilliant executive decisions like signing Barry Zito to his ridiculous contract. Despite his free agent shortcomings, his staff also has a pretty good eye for developing talent, with insane pitching prospects emerging in Lincecum, Cain, and Jonathan Sanchez, and other players about to emerge into the majors like Pablo Sandoval. They seem interested in Fielder, and we seem interested in trading him.

Although I’d probably like the return (and positional improvement by replacing Fielder with Gamel) that Fielder would get, it’s best not to cross that bridge until we get to it.

Backups

So, of our 13 slots dedicated to positional players, 8 of them are taken up in the starters. Rivera is the backup catcher, it appears, so that makes 9. Hall’s platoon partner in Mike Lamb or Casey McGeehee makes 10. Tony Gwynn Jr. as a backup outfielder would make 11 — we’d most likely see a backup SS/2B in Hernan Iribarren and the recent signing of Trot Nixon as another backup outfielder would make sense in my opinion, although a pinch hitting option in Brad Nelson wouldn’t be a bad idea either.

Coming up next is my 2009 pitching preview. There’s been a lot of chaos in the Brewers’ pitching system during the offseason, and it’d be nice to see where they stand right now.