Corey Hart wonders why Prince Fielder hates him

ST. LOUIS, MO- Prince Fielder hit his 18th homerun of the season last night in a Milwaukee Brewers win over the St. Louis Cardinals and at least one Milwaukee Brewer is wondering what he ever did to deserve that.

"I thought we'd kind of established that hitting homeruns was my thing this year and then out of nowhere Prince just comes up and ties me for the team lead. He's been the guy hitting them out the past few seasons, but I thought he was going to let me have a turn. It's like I thought we were friends, you know?"

Hart wanted to make it clear that he was happy that the team was winning and admitted that he hasn't been hitting them out as well as he was earlier in the season, but still thinks that Prince could have went about it in a different way.

"You don't see me opening Corey Hart's Restaurant in the 3rd ward, do you? You don't see me having a son with CP, do you? You know why? Because I'm a good teammate, I don't want to step on anybody's toes. Maybe Prince should think about that and start listening when Craig Counsell talks." Hart said, "Craig would never do that to a teammate. Hell, he'd never even hit one homerun. That's how good of a teammate he is. You're lucky to get a hit of that guy."

Hart, who is in the midst of a 16 game hitting streak, says that he plans to hit one out of the park soon, but can't specify a date or location. Hart said "It's going to happen when it happens. I just hope that Prince doesn't hit any out between now and the time I finally hit another one. That would suck."

Hart's teammates are aware of his frustrations about Prince Fielder's recent power surge and some have offered to help.

"I told him that if I could come into the game for the other team when he was playing that I would totally give up a homerun to him, Soup did too before he was released," disgraced closer Trevor Hoffman said. "I like him a hell of a lot better than the Pirates, Cardinals and Reds players I've given up homers to this season. Nick Stavinoha? That guy just sounds like a dick."

Hart said that he plans to take some extra batting practice with hitting coach Dale Sveum and maybe watch The Blind Side for the 48th time this weekend in St. Louis. The story of "big" Mike Oher and his white family is his favorite movie.

"You think they're teaching him, but really he's teaching them. Teaching them how to love."

When asked about the possibility of making the 2010 All-Star team, Corey Hart said that he'd rather just focus on the homerun race between him and his teammate.

"If I make the All-Star team I'll probably just completely fade in the second half of the season like I did last time. I don't want to think about that. I just want to hit more homeruns than this fat, stupid asshole batting behind me."

The last days of Prince Fielder and Corey Hart?

I can't seem to turn on the internet machine without seeing pictures of cute kittens something about Corey Hart and Prince Fielder being traded from the Milwaukee Brewers. Every baseball writer, analyst, talking head and fan thinks that it's important for the Brewers to trade Prince Fielder and Corey Hart. Right now. Corey, because he's hot and will never be hotter (which apparently people who are paid to evaluate talent won't realize, haha suckers!), and Prince because he's good and he's probably not going to re-sign with the team when he becomes a free agent in 2012. This has a certain amount of logic to it and if the Brewers get the right deal then they should probably do it, but I would be  really surprised if one or both was traded during the season.

The reason I believe this lies in the fangraphs post from today by Jack Moore titled "What the Milwaukee Brewers Should Do" (which is weird because it never actually says what they should do), in the post Jack writes:

the contracts of Jeff Suppan, Trevor Hoffman, Bill Hall, David Weathers, Jody Gerut, Craig Counsell, Claudio Vargas, Jim Edmonds, Dave Bush, David Riske, and Gregg Zaun coming off the books, the Brewers will clear around $45 million in salary for next season. If Fielder and Hart are traded, that would be another $15 million cleared. The Brewers will see some raises for arbitration eligible players, but they should have a lot of money to play with in 2011.

Jesus, the Brewers are paying more people not to be with them than Larry King.

With all that money coming off the books as is, there is no need to get Prince and Corey off the books. If the goal is to build this team for a run in 2011, a run that they are totally capable of making, then there is no rush to trade two of the team's best three hitters unless they bring back someone who can significantly help them now. I'm talking a top of the line starter with arbitration years left. I'm talking Yovani Gallardo: the squeakquel.

Trading away Prince and Corey because of the team's poor play this season in return for prospects that won't help this team win next year is a stupid, stupid decision and guess what? Doug Melvin knows that. He'll listen, but he needs to be blown away and I'm not sure there's anyone out there willing to blow him away. At least not during the season. It's why he's a good GM.

/dodges tomatoes

Corey Hart is hot

MLB: Brewers vs Astros May 27Not in the good looking sense, of course.

But in the playing good at the baseball sense, he is killing it right now. (Not only that but he also pairs well with Cold Mountain Creek.) He currently has 9 homeruns in 39 games (compared with 12 in 115 last year) and is really starting to heat up at a time when the Brewers could really use him.

Nobody can be sure as to why this is. You can attribute it to his new contacts, not swinging at the outside slider, the Insanity Workout, luck, working with Dale Sveum more or the inspiration he gained from watching The Blind Side. His numbers don't tell a story of a wholly different player, so you just can't know for sure what it is.

Luckily, I have a theory. The reason for Corey Hart's improvement thus far this season is simple, Jim Edmonds is a Brewer.

Corey Hart has been considered to be one of the Brewers building blocks for years now. In the minor leagues, he was never in danger of not starting and ever since his arrival in Milwaukee the same has been true. The Brewers have simply never had another option.

In 2008 he should have been benched in September (or at least given some rest), but he wasn't. After Kapler got hurt there was no one else.

In 2009 he was given every opportunity to play until an appendix ended his season.

Now in 2010, for the first time since joining the Brewers, he had a threat to his job and he didn't like it. Continue reading »

In defense of Doug Melvin

I don't know how it happened. I don't know when it happened, but somehow at some point I became a Doug Melvin apologist. I don't think that Doug Melvin should be fired. I think Doug Melvin should be signed to be the team's GM forever. As the Brewers have now lost their last 9 games seemingly everyone is calling for the head of Doug Melvin. I don't agree with them. I looked all over the internet and I could only find one other person who agreed with me, his name is Al. (FYI, We did this before the Brewers won yesterday.) Warning, this be long.

MPD: As of this writing the Brewers have now lost 8 games in a row. Of the eight games I would say that five of the games were lost by the starters and two were lost by the bullpen (with the final game being Sunday's against the Phillies which I would say was lost by one centimeter of Corey Hart's bat.) Now, everyone is calling for people to be fired. Some I agree with (Hoffman), some I could care less about because it won't make a difference (Macha) and the final one, I just don't understand. That final one is Doug Melvin, the mustached general manager. People are saying that because he put the team together that sucks right now that he should be fired for it. It's not just casual fans, it's diehards fans too and the argument is is logical. After all, he is the one who signed Doug Davis, Trevor Hoffman, Jeff Suppan, LaTroy Hawkins and throughout his GM career he's never been good with the pitchers. Those pitchers I mentioned are the ones that have underperformed and someone has to take the blame for them, but to me it shouldn't be Doug Melvin. Everyone who has performed poorly does not have a track record of performing this poorly and you can't blame Doug Melvin for that.

Trevor Hoffman has been awful, but he showed zero signs of decline last season. He is throwing the same pitches at the same speed he always has, but he's missing his spots. Does that mean he is done? Or is it something else?

Doug Davis hasn't been great, but he's also faced some bad luck (.415 BABIP.)

LaTroy Hawkins was hurt.

Claudio Vargas? Well, you can't win em' all.

Todd Coffey has had five bad outings and 15 shutout ones, but he's on pace for a lot of innings right now. That can't be good.

In your opinion Al, what has been wrong with this pitching staff, whose fault is it and what can be done to fix it? Continue reading »

Corey Hart > Jim Edmonds

I wouldn't call myself a big Corey Hart fan. In my personal rankings of "Brewers I like to make fun of whenever possible" he ranks right below Ryan Braun. This isn't to say that I don't like Corey Hart as a baseball player, I just think he's, well, mostly pointless. He's valuable when he's good and I like him, but when he's not good I have no use for him. (Unlike Rickie Weeks who struggles and I make ten thousand excuses for.) If Corey Hart falls off the cliff I'll be the first one calling for his head, but if he breaks out as a star I'll be clamoring for the Brewers to keep him. My feelings on Corey are 100% performance based. I don't really care about Corey Hart either way and I refuse to watch The Blind Side no matter how badly he wants me to.

Now, Corey Hart has struggled mightily this spring (something like 1 for 27) and the Brewers spring training invitee Jim Edmonds has been doing pretty well for himself. So well that the Brewers are considering making right field into a platoon with Edmonds taking most of the at-bats against right handed pitching. This makes pretty good sense. A quick look at his splits show that throughout his career Jim Edmonds has killed right handed pitching (career .954 OPS (!)) and that Corey Hart has fared better against left handers (career OPS .854). Beyond that, as a career center fielder Edmonds should be better, possibly a lot better defensively in right. This is the kind of move you like to see your team making. A smart decision based in performance and giving the team the best chance to win. I really want to get behind this move except there is one minor detail that the team seems to be completely ignoring and that's the fact that.. Continue reading »