Casey and Yuni can't really be that bad, can they??

Unfortunately, yes.  On Saturday, I stumbled across an article that I believe was on cbssports.com that discussed 2011's biggest disappointments so far.  Unfortunately, I can't find the article anymore, but I'm not really talking about those players--it just served as inspiration.

With Baseball Reference's help, I looked at ranks of qualifying players.  My initial thoughts were that with the struggles players like Adam Dunn, Jason Werth and Dan Uggla have been having, Casey and Yuni would rank in the lower quartile or so, but not be rock bottom.

I was wrong.  There are 162 "qualifying" players in MLB.  In OPS+, Casey is 156 with a 66 and Yuni is 157 with a 65.  For comparison sake, Dunn is 144th with a 76, Uggla is 160th with a 61.  The worst player by OPS+ is Chone Figgins (OPS+ of 40.  40!!).  

The real problem is right now, (Yuni's 3-4 day today and his "HR" yesterday notwithstanding), neither player is doing anything well.  Casey is 152nd in OBP (.283) and Yuni is 159th (.255).  Only Uggla, Tejada and Figgins are worse.  Yuni's only saving grace is a LITTLE bit of slugging (he's 136th).  Casey is 151st.  One can easily argue that Casey is the worst player on the Brewers right now.  Casey has history, though, so I'm not ready to entirely give up on him.  Yuni did have ok-ish offensive numbers with KC, but historically, Yuni's never really done much.

In my mind, this puts the Brewers in a very difficult position.  There are no viable internal options at SS (not even really any options that would be a reach or a stretch).  The only solution is a trade.  There are going to be people arguing for relief pitching, but I remain adamant that this is not only a bad idea generally it's also just not necessary.  Braddock remains an option once the team is confident his issues are resolved and Saito if he can stay healthy is a very good 8th inning option to have in the pen.  

Taylor Green is probably a bit of a reach option at 3B, but what does that mean?  We bring him up and Casey goes to the bench, because I'm fairly sure he's out of options and even with his performance this year, he probably wouldn't clear waivers.  I understand the PCL is generally offense heavy, but this isn't rookie ball.  In 66 games so far, Green has a slash line of .309/.374/.544/.918 with 11 HR and 38 RBI.  He has 25 BB and 41 K.  (The walks and K's are a little sketchy, but not too bad).

Since the Yuni problem isn't solved until a trade can be done, which means waiting for sellers to sort themselves out, I am ready to argue that the Brewers promote Taylor Green, giving him the starting job at 3rd for 2 weeks or so.  If it doesn't work out, nothing much has been lost anyway and he can go back to AAA.  If he even hits .260/.310/.430 or something, that would be a huge improvement.  It's not a desperation situation now because of the team's play and standing, but it can't go on for the rest of the season with performance like this.

Please, please, please don't trade for a RELIEF PITCHER!

If you're reading THIS, I'm sure most of you have already read the rumor that George Kottaras is being "made available".  The most likely trade partner is logically San Francisco, which is turning over every rock (no, sorry, no "The Rock" joke here) looking for catching help.

Jim with Bernie's Crew tweeted earlier a suggestion that the Brewers should try to get LHP Dan Runzler.  Jim definitely has his finger on the pulse of more players than I do...but after a review of his stats, I'm not totally convinced.  

This is NOT a criticism of Jim or the suggestion.  It's just a suggestion and we're getting to the time of the year where it's fun just to talk out trade possibilities and throw stuff around.  The concern I have:  Relief pitchers are, for the most part, a dime a dozen.  Sure, we might argue the Brewers bullpen is terrible or has hit the wall or whatever.  But I say Roenicke is flat-out mismanaging the pen.  (Forget Monday night, thanks to Bob Davidson stealing the show).

Hawkins might have a implosion waiting to happen, but until he's used in more high-leverage situations and DOES implode, then his very solid performance this year so far is going to waste.  And once the 10 days has passed, the Brewers need to get Braddock out of time out and bring him back to Milwaukee.  Tell Axford he needs to tell Zach when it's time to wakey, wakey if you have to, but leaving him in Nashville is just stupid.  

From my view, the Brewers biggest weaknesses are shortstop and the bench.  Counsell is DONE (but serves an acceptable role on the team for now as a backup IF).  Kotsay can make contact, but he'd be lucky to hit the ball out of TD Ameritrade Park, much less any MLB park.  Brandon Boggs, meanwhile, is toiling away in Nashville.  

Trade for a SS when the right deal comes along, while getting Wilson a couple starts a week.  Cut Kotsay, bring up Boggs and USE HIM.  I don't pretend this will suddenly solve all the Brewers woes, but I think the Brewers really only have the pieces to make one trade.  History tells us trading for relief pitchers doesn't work most of the time.  The best return is one that improves the biggest holes...and that's what Melvin should be looking at.

Will the Brewers play on the road kill their all-in season?

I didn't intend for this post to simply be a gripe about how the "Brewers can't hit on the road", but those problems can't simply be dismissed as something that eventually come back closer to the mean or that they will just "get better".

The Brewers split OPS on the road is 90.  So, yeah, not good, but not out right atrocious.  We are nearly 1/2 through the season (about a week at home from halfway and a series away from halfway on the road).  So sample size can't explain why the team's BA is 50 points lower on the road and their OBP is 60 points lower.  It might be just be a function of the road stats relative to the home stats.  (The home stats are so good, it makes the road stats look worse than they are).

The NL average slash line on the road is .248/.313/.378/.691 and the babip is .292.  The Brewers road slash line is .234/.292/.370/.662 and their babip is .267.  The babip is a clue to the Brewers poor road record.  (They are "unluckier" than the average road team, which is already bound to be "unluckier" than they would be at home).  The point being, in my view:  A team is generally worse on the road to begin with and the Brewers can't afford to be 10% worse than the average.

Personally, it seems very unlikely the Brewers could maintain their current performance at home all season.  That means that regardless of the reason, the hitters are going to have improve on the road.  And I really don't mean to beat a dead horse here, but 2 generally poor hitters on the team, Yuni and Gomez,  have some of the worst road splits.  Part of that improvement is going to have to come through less use of Gomez (already happening) and a replacement for Yuni.  I simply can't find any alternative to making a trade for a SS, even if he's only incrementally better.  Mevlin is all-in and if he can make this trade by giving up only 1 mid-level and 2 lower-level guy it's absolutely worth it.