Episode 53 "Victor Santos Edition"

Breakdown of The Show:

Randy Wolf Released! 0:00-16:00
Break
Corey Hart Wants To Stay, Is It Possible? 16:00-33:00
Break
Axford Back In Closer Role 33:00-47:00
Break
Preview/Around NL Central/Chalet Award Winner 47:00-1:03:00

Cy Axford

The NL has a very strong unit of pitchers. From the three qualified CY Young candidates in Philly to the two phenoms on the bay, the NL league’s choice for the pitching MVP is wide indeed. The last place most voters will look for is the bullpen, but maybe they should adjust their eyes to Milwaukee’s ‘pen and stare down the mustachioed phenomenon, John Axford.

Axford is baseball’s leading closer in saves at 40. He is also entering baseball history in consecutive save marks with 37 astounding chances converted. The bullpen savior from last year is also leading Major Leaguer's in games finished. Already having worked 62.2 innings and striking out 73 in that time he has the makings to be the first CY Young reliever since Eric Gagne did it while taking a needle in the ass. Looking at comparable closers who have won the CY Young, if Axford keeps us the work, he could have a good chance.

Looking at a few outstanding CY Young winning closers, Axford has the makings. The last one was Eric Gagne. Gagne’s season is historic with 55 saves in 82.1 IP the only thing Gagne did that year that Axford can’t touch was the remarkable 137 K’s Gagne was able to obtain. Gagne also did not have the same competition in the NL, as Axford is competing with several starters with ERA’s below 2.5 and records approaching 18 wins.

The most comparable is Mark Davis who won the award while pitching for the Padres. Like Axford, Davis had many logged innings beyond his save mark. Davis finished the season with 44 saves, a very reachable goal for the Axe-man, but had an ERA under 2. That is a goal I think Axford needs to obtain to have any hope to win the CY Young.

With one month to go, Axford still has a great chance to become a valid CY Young candidate compared to the pitching company he would be competing with. In order to have a viable chance, he needs to continue his streak of consecutive saves, lower is ERA and continue to strike out batters at a phenomenal rate. The Brewers closer is by far the best closer in baseball this year and deserves to be in talks for a national award outside of the Rolaids’s Relief Pitcher. He has been one the NL’s most dominant pitchers and very much so deserves to be recognized. Unfortunately the climb to a CY Young will be a very steep hill for the Axe Man, but nothing a closer who is constantly faced with adversity cannot handle.

-Brad

Reader Poll Results

"Who do you think should be the Brewers closer?"

Trevor Hoffman: 0% (0 Votes)

Carlos Villanueva: 0% (0 Votes)

Todd Coffey: 20% (1 Vote)

Zach Braddock: 80% (4 Votes)

No More Trevor Time

On May 18th, 2010, Trevor Hoffman's career officially died. Sorry Trevor, you are a Hall of Famer a great guy and were fantastic for the Brewers in 2009. But here in 2010, it is over. And it ended in the blink of an eye.

Single
HR
Double
Walk
Single

Good Night.

Trevor now has an ERA of 13.15 with a WHIP of 2.15. Not to mention a BA against of .356. 5 blown saves, 1-3 record, 8 K's and 7 BB's. You hate to give up on a guy with his credentials, but you can't continue to put him out there with the game on the line when he has been this bad. The Brewers had lost 7 straight (now 8 straight), had a very well pitched game from Manny Parra/Marco Estrada and it was all ruined within a matter of minutes. I believe the time is NOW for Zach Braddock. Braddock figures to be the closer next season anyway, and the Brewers are 9 games under .500, so what could it hurt giving Braddock the ball now?

Reader Poll Results

"Who should be the 8th inning guy when Hoffman comes of the DL?"

Todd Coffey: 85% (12 Votes)

Carlos Villanueva: 14% (2 Votes)

Jorge Julio: 0% (0Votes)

If Hoffman Starts The Year On The DL.....

Seth McClung my get the save opportunities. This according to ESPN's Buster Olney. I really hope this is true. Before the Brewers signed Trevor Hoffman and it was up in the air on who would be the closer I was very outspoken that McClung should get the opportunity. Then we signed Hoffman and I was happy with that. But with Hoffman possibly missing the first few weeks of the season with this oblique strain I think Seth should be option one. He has the closer mentality and the closer "stuff". This would be a great little audition for McClung so after this season or next when Hoffman is gone we could have our closer in waiting. Of course best case scenario is that Hoffman recovers quick and doesn't have to go on the DL. But right now that seems unlikely from everything I have heard and read.

Hoffman And Brewers "Close"

According to MLB.com the Brewers and all-time saves leader Trevor Hoffman are very "close" on a deal. According to the source it is very close to happening. Hopefully it will be official sometime today.

I'm Back! And The Brewers Still Have Not Done Shit.

Well the holidays are over and my move is complete. So we are finally updating VFBC. First off I have decided to no longer post follow ups to the reader polls. Mostly because I'm lazy and because I'm sure people can see the results and don't need me to explain them. I will probably leave it up for 2 days after the poll closes so people can see the final results, then I will put up a new poll. Sound good? Yeah I thought so to.

Well the Brewers still very quiet on the hot stove front. I think sometime this week or next we will see Melvin make some moves, just my gut feeling. With Randy Johnson now signed with the Giants we can take him off our wish list. The Brewers have recently been linked to Derek Lowe as a "mystery" team, whatever that is. I like Lowe a lot and would love to sign him, but I don't think we have the money to throw at him. If he could be had for 3 years $42-$45 mill I would pull the trigger on that in a heartbeat. But it sounds like Lowe is looking for around $16 mill a season and is a Boras client that coupled with his age not sure he is quite worth that kind of money. He is very good, durable and eats innings though. I would now put him behind Ben Sheets as my top two choices for a starting pitcher. Problem is both of those seem like long shots. Because of that I would say some more realistic choices for the Brewers to add to the rotation would be John Smoltz, Jon Garland or Braden Looper. I wouldn't have a problem with either of those three.

As for a closer, I really like Brandon Lyon and to a lesser extent Takashi Saito. Both could be had fairly cheap. The thing with Saito is his injured elbow, that is a concern so he would have to get checked out. But Lyon would be an awesome power arm closer and it would allow us to not have to worry about using Carlos Villanueva or Seth McClung in that role. I really hope Melvin considers one of these two and gets them soon before another team finally steps up and signs them.

Reader Poll Results Part "Deux"

Well I can clearly see the readership of this blog is no where near where I wish it was. In our second ever reader poll I only got a booming seven total votes. Ah well, we will get there. We asked who you would want as closer in 2009 for the Crew. Survey says?!

Seth McClung: 42% (3 votes)
Sign A Free Agent Closer: 28% (2 votes)
Carlos Villanueva: 14% (1 votes)
Trade For A Closer: 14% (1 vote)
Todd Coffey: 0% (0 votes)

Well out of those seven big votes the big red head Seth McClung got three. Had I voted in my own poll I to would have voted for McClung. Of course I have already made my man crush and want for Seth to be the closer in 2009 known in an earlier post. He has all the things you look for in a closer and he is a hell of a lot cheaper then spending big money on a free agent closer. We did that last year and saw how well it worked (shitty). I wouldn't be super pissed if they went and signed K-Rod, Fuentes or Wood. I just think they could spend that money elsewhere on more pressing needs like say 3B, starting pitching and maybe 2B if Weeks is moved. We shall see what Mr. Melvin has up his sleeve. Reader poll number three is up, please check it out.

Closer By Committee And Braun Likes The Pink

A day after Eric Gagne gave up two runs to the Cardinals when he came into the game in a tie situation in the 9th, he admitted he was not worthy of the 9th inning and the closer role for the team. So Ned Yost is gonna go with a closer by committee in the 9th until Gagne works out his issues and can get back on track. Today it worked, Salomon Torres came in the start the 9th got two outs and then with left handed batters coming up Yost went to Brian Shouse who picked up his first save of the season.

I like the idea for now since Gagne clearly needs to figure out whatever his problem is, but it is not a good long term solution because it can wear the shit out of your bullpen as the season wears on. To really be successful we need Gagne to be that guy, he is getting paid $10 million this season for that reason. We shall see how it plays out over the next couple of weeks here.

Well the past couple of years on Mothers Day Bill Hall was the home run hero with that walk-off shot in 2006 and hit a long HR last season in New York, but I think Ryan Braun is the new "king of the pink" as he blasted two home runs today using the pink bat. Braun seems to really be heating up,he has seven hits in the series so far against St. Louis and now has his season AVG upto .281, 7 HR's and 25 RBI's. Also JJ Hardy amazingly looks like he is out of his slump as he was 3-4 today and his his AVG up to .260. Lets hope the rest of the guys also start getting hot so we can get on a roll.

No Worries From Melvin And Yost On Gagne Struggles

Apparently I am not the only one who doesn't want to make a knee jerk reaction to the early struggles of Eric Gagne as closer. GM Doug Melvin and Manager Ned Yost have both said in recent interviews that Gange will remain the teams closer even though he has blown 5 saves in 14 opportunities. When Yost was asked if he would remove Gagne from that roll he said; "Not right now," he said. "That's all I can tell you. I don't have a timetable. I don't have anything marked down that says when the 35th man gets on base I start to be concerned." In his five blown saves, Gagne has allowed 10 runs in four innings. On the positive side, Gagne hasn't allowed a run in his other 11 appearances. I'm glad they are not ready to pull the plug yet on a guy they are paying $10 million this season to close games and pick up saves. I am a life long Gagne fan going back to his early Dodger days when he was first getting going on his 84 straight saves streak. So I was rather excited when the team signed Gagne this off-season, especially since he had so much success as the closer last year in the first part of the season in Texas where he converted 16 out of 17 save opportunities and an ERA of 2.16. Yes he struggled quite a bit in Boston but he was being used in the 8th inning something he was not used to doing. A couple of reasons I want him to keep the closer role a little while longer are as follows:

1. He does have 9 saves which is near the top on the NL, so he can save games and is quite capable.
2. He had 5 saves in a row before blowing one in Cincinnati, that was also when he was used for the 4th day in a row. Something I doubt Yost should have him do. 3 days in a row tops.
3. Although he blew 5 games, he never gave up the go ahead run that allowed the other team to win. He doesn't melt down and lose the game after giving up the tying run.
4. Some bad luck, you hate to blame blown saves on bad luck but he has run into some very questionable umpiring calls and poor defense by the Brewers which could easily give him 11 saves and only 3 blown saves.
5. He still has the closer mentality and is cool under the pressure. Sure we have a few other guys on the team that have closed a little bit in their careers but none have the mental part down quite like Gagne.

Basically his biggest problem that he must solve to turn this around, keep his job and rattle of 15 or 20 of these things in a row is to throw strikes, get ahead in the count don't pitch from behind as often as he has thus far. Especially his changeup which is still one of the best in baseball. As long as he can get his control down and not walk batters he will be fine and this won't be an issue. If he continues to walk guys, he will blow more saves and then yes we may need to start thinking about using Torres or Mota as our closer and the $10 million Melvin gave to Gagne may look like a huge waste of money. I hope that is not the case as a Brewers and Gagne fan.