Tag Archives: jim edmonds

The last days of Prince Fielder and Corey Hart?

Posted on by

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

Posted on by

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 »

Too early to panic? Most likely

Posted on by

I've kind of gotten the idea that a lot of Brewers fan are really unhappy with how the season has started. Gregg Zaun, Jim Edmonds, Carlos Gomez and Alcides Escobar haven't done much of anything. The pitching hasn't really been very good allowing eleven more runs than the Brewers have scored and I count two games the Brewers SHOULD have won (yesterday and Trevor's first blown save against the Cardinals) that they didn't. To top it all off the poster boy for why 2009 sucked, Jeff Suppan, is making the start tomorrow in the sweep deciding game against the Cubs. It's not a very happy time to be a Brewers fan right now and I definitely understand all of the frustration, but let's not start jumping off the bandwagon just yet. Let's wait until Gregg Zaun gets his second hit before we do that. (Next Thursday good for you?) Seriously though, it's going to be okay. Put the Packers jersey down.

First of all, we expect to be battling the Cubs and Cardinals all season long for the NL Central title. We expect to battle them because they are good. If we lose to them, we are losing to a good team. That's not as bad as it sounds. Even if Suppan pulls a Suppan today we are 3-6 and if he doesn't we are only a game under .500. Hardly a reason to give up on the season and start watching Donald Driver Time Warner commercials on youtube. You have to try and remember that this is baseball and there are at least 250 games left. 3-6 will seem like a distant memory when the team is playing the Astros for the 15th time.

Second of all, after today's game our next five opponents are:

  • The Nationals (WOOHOO!)
  • The Pirates (Yeah!)
  • The Cubs (at home, uhh!)
  • The Pirates again (/makes thrusting motion)
  • The Padres (/takes advantage of a teddy bear)

Ummm, yeah. If after all that the Brewers are like 10-14 I can MAYBE see a reason to worry, but not now. I think they'll be fine and I'm not just saying that because Gregg Zaun and Carlos Gomez are on my fantasy team. I really believe it (and I just made up that fantasy team part because seriously, who would ever draft Gregg Zaun and Carlos Gomez to be on their fantasy team? That would be stupid.)

Besides Prince Fielder hasn't even hit a home run yet. Can we really judge the Brewers season based on a handful of games that Prince Fielder didn't even hit a home run in? I say no.

Corey Hart > Jim Edmonds

Posted on by

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 »