Guys like Bill Hall and J.J. Hardy have taken a lot of heat for the Brewers’ failure to make the playoffs this season. But a quick look at the Brewers WAR pie shows that the team’s biggest problem was a lack of pitching.

Just how bad was the team’s pitching in 2009? Milwaukee pitchers had the lowest WAR of any team in the majors this year (yes, including the Nationals). In fact, the Brewers pitchers were worth a full win less than the Nats.

Fangraphs says the Brewers pitchers were worth a total of $9MM in 2009. Meanwhile, Jeff Suppan alone was paid $12.5MM (and he’ll make $12.5MM again in 2010!).

Here’s a fun fact: Yovani Gallardo’s WAR is 2.8, but the Brewers’ pitchers combined WAR is only 2.2. How is that possible? Milwaukee can thank guys like Braden Looper, David Bush, Suppan and Carlos Villaneuva, who combined for 91 starts and a -1.4 WAR.

Thanks to terrible pitching performances from just about everyone not named Gallardo or Hoffman, Milwaukee was forced to rely heavily on its position players. Just look at this insane breakdown of pitchers’ WAR vs. position players’ WAR:

That pretty much says it all right there, doesn’t it? Despite outstanding seasons from Prince Fielder, Ryan Braun and Mike Cameron, the Brewers never really had a chance. You simply can’t win when your pitching contributes less than 10 percent of overall team WAR.

With the season one-third gone now, it’s become pretty clear which players were only slumping and which players actually just suck at baseball. And yet on every team there is at least one player which for foolish reasons, whether it be an over-developed sense of loyalty, a case of GM-player man-love, a reputation for grit and hustle, or a bloated contract, the team just hasn’t been able to pull the plug on yet. In this post, we have a look at each team in the National League with an eye for the one player who really needs to be cut as soon as possible.

Dodgers – RP Guillermo Mota: This guy looks permanently broken: he gives up too many hits, he doesn’t strike enough guys out, and he walks too many batters. His WHIP is an appalling 1.79 and he needs to be shelved somewhere.

Giants – 1B Travis Ishikawa: The main job of a first baseman is to hit, so when your first baseman is the worst hitter on your team, you are doing something wrong.

Diamondbacks – CF Chris Young: Chris Young was supposed to be one of those guys whose power and speed would somehow make of for his complete lack of any ability to get on base.  Well, now you have a guy whose power and speed have fallen off, but who is even less able to get on base.  It is unbelievable that Young is still on pace for well over 500 at bats this season despite his .220 OBP. He needs to be working out his suckiness in the minor leagues.

Rockies – 3B Garret Atkins: I’ve been advocating that the Rockies trade Atkins for two years now, while there was still some perception that he was a good player, but they waited too long, and now he’s basically untradeable. Few players have benefited more from Coors Field than Atkins, and Atkins also had the benefit of his personal peak coinciding with the Rockies high profile Series run in 2007. But he was always an extremely inadequate defender at third, and now his bat has disappeared as well, even at home.

Padres – 2B David Eckstein: GM Kevin Towers calls David Eckstein the MVP of the team so far this year. He couldn’t be more wrong. Eckstein was only barely adequate defensively and offensively when he was at his peak about 5 or 6 years ago, and now at age 34, he’s pretty much got nothing left.

Cardinals – SP Todd Wellemeyer: Todd Wellemeyer shows that maybe there are limits to what pitching coach Dave Duncan can do. Kind of. Actually, it’s pretty amazing that the Cardinals have gotten as much out of Wellemeyer as they have, considering he was nobody’s idea of good starting pitcher material. But with Mitchell Boggs waiting in the wings, there’s really no reason to keep Wellemeyer around.

Brewers – 3B Bill Hall: Bill Hall couldn’t hit his way out of a paper bag right now. Sure, he hit 35 homers back in 2006, but he’s done nothing at all since then, and he still has no real position defensively. For some reason, Hall still has the image of a youngster who is still developing, but when you actually go look at his age you find out he is already 29 years old, and what you see, which right now is total suckage, is probably what he really is.

Cubs – RP Aaron Heilman: Heilman was once a highly touted prospect, and did manage to throw up a few good seasons, but it’s becoming more and more clear that he’s just not all that good. Nothing about his peripherals suggests that anything is particularly wrong. His velocity is the same as ever, as are his FB/GB rates, his home run rate, his K/9 rate etc., and his BABIP is a very modest .299. Heilman simply walks too many batters, posting an unsightly 6.26 BB/9, and until that changes (if ever), he needs to be in AAA somewhere until he can learn better control.

Reds – SS Alex Gonzalez: Gonzalez was once an elite defender at shortstop, which meant that his extremely weak bat could be somewhat justified, but now he is no longer anywhere near that class, and his bat seems weaker than ever at .209/.250/.302. He needs to be cut.

Erstad is still playing?

Astros – OF Darin Erstad: Yeah, I know, Erstad is supposed to be this super-gritty former football player (except he was only a kicker), but we are a decade removed now from his last actually good season in 2000, and I’m almost surprised to see that he is actually still on a major league roster. He’s hitting .137/.211/.196.  Why is this man still anywhere near a baseball diamond?

Pirates – OF Brandon Moss: Lots of people have mentioned how one good side of trading away Nate McLouth was that it has “cleared playing time for blocked prospect Andrew McCutchen.”  But hardly anyone mentions that one of the players who was allegedly “blocking” McCutchen is Brandon Moss, a corner outfielder who has been playing every day this season despite posting a .310 OBP and only a single home run.

Marlins – 3B Emilio Bonifacio: The fact that Emilio Bonifacio, who has no business being in a major league lineup at all, is actually batting leadoff for the Marlins, despite his .294 OBP, is an indictment of the entire Marlins coaching staff and front office.

Bonifacio whiffs again

Mets – C Omir Santos: It’s a joke that the Mets actually traded away Ramon Castro to clear a spot on the roster for this guy. It’s going to be fun watching as the numbers left over from his fluky hot start rapidly sink toward the Mendoza line.

Braves – OF Garrett Anderson: I laughed out loud when I heard that the Braves signed Anderson in the offseason, and I pretty much haven’t stopped laughing since.  The poor old guy has a .289 OBP to go along with a -15 UZR/150 in left field. At this point you could probably drag Bernie Williams out of the recording studio and run him out there for better production.

Nationals – CL Joel Hanrahan: You can anoint a guy your closer, sing the praises of his “live arm,” and run him out there in save situations as much as you want, but that doesn’t mean he is going to pitch like a closer, just because you really really want him to. In what may be the worst bullpen of all time, no reliever has done more damage in more high leverage situations than Hanrahan. His 1.90 WHIP (for an alleged closer!) pretty much says it all.

Phillies – P Chan Ho Park: Park has looked finished for years now, at least when you look at his peripherals. He managed to reinvent himself as a serviceable reliever in the pitcher-friendly NL West last season, fooling the Phillies into taking him on, but it’s kind of an understatement to say that his game does not play well in Citizen’s Bank Ballpark. The Park-as-starter experiment was basically doomed from the get-go, but ironically, Park has pitched even more poorly this year as a reliever than he did as a starter. This man should be enjoying his retirement somewhere, not getting thrown to the wolves every other night.

I’m not exactly sure what Trevor Hoffman was doing this offseason, but at this point it wouldn’t surprise me if he had been wandering the depths of the Florida Everglades with a map left behind by Ponce De León.

Because since the 41-year-old Hoffman came off the DL in mid-April, he has been pitching about as well as it is humanly possible to pitch.

In 10 games this season, Hoffman has yielded only 3 hits, and has not walked a single batter, while striking out 9. His ERA is 0.00, and his WHIP is a microscopic 0.30.

Most of the games were in tight situations too – 9 of the 10 appearances resulted in saves, including saves three days in a row from May 12 to 14.

After years in the figurative wilderness when it came to finishing games, it looks like the Brewers finally have themselves a real closer.

Back in early December, UmpBump’s Coley argued that the Brewers needed to go all in to try and win now before the current window of opportunity closed.

And the Brewers answered his call.

By signing Jorge Julio. Ba-zing.

All right, fine. Their acquisition of Trevor Hoffman was certainly newsworthy. And despite posting his worst ERA (3.77) since 1995, Hoffman’s still a decent pitcher who should be an asset to a Brew Pen that lost Salomon Torres to retirement.

But he ain’t C.C. Sabathia. And he ain’t Ben Sheets either.

Milwaukee lost their #1 pitcher to some team in New York for some amount of money that I can’t even fathom. And while Ben Sheets is yet to sign anywhere on the market, GM Bob Melvin has stated that it’s unlikely Sheets will be back.

So as of this writing, the Brewers have a rotation headed by 22-year old Yovani Gallardo – who is yet to even pitch 140 innings in a big league uniform – followed by Dave Bush, Jeff Suppan,  Manny Parra, and Seth McClung. That doesn’t sound like a playoff rotation to me.

Parra certainly has upside and could take another step forward in 2009. But we know what we’re going to get from Bush, Suppan, and McClung and it won’t be enough.

Plus, you might be surprised to know that a lineup featuring guys like Prince Fielder, Ryan Braun, J.J. Hardy, and All-Star Corey Hart only scored 750 runs in 2008 – 17th out the 30 teams. How could this have happened? Two words. O.B.P.

The Brew Crew finished 21st in MLB with a .325 team OBP, which resulted in only 2359 ABs as a team with a runner on base, which was 22nd out of 30. If your big boppers don’t get the chances to drive them in, they ain’t going to. And thus far this off-season, the Brewers haven’t done anything to address this. They signed Trot Nixon and Chris Duffy to minor league deals, and that’s it.

However, it’s very much possible that the Brewers offense will be better in 2009. For one, I still believe that Rickie Weeks is better than his numbers have shown. He still strikes out far more than a player with his power level should, but he’s shown us that he has the patience to be a good lead-off option. Corey Hart had a dismal second half (and I mean dismal) that I believe was a fluke (and if he realizes that walking from time to time is a good thing, even better). J.J. Hardy needs to be recognized as a shortstop who’s not far behind the Hanley-Reyes-Rollins group of the NL elite. Not to mention the fact that Prince and Braun are still 25-and-under. This is a team that can hit – and they’ll have to because their starting pitching will be serving them up.

Off-season Transactions:

Added: Trevor Hoffman, Jorge Julio, Trot Nixon, Chris Duffy, Scott Thorman

Lost: C.C. Sabathia, Ben Sheets, Ray Durham, Salomon Torres, Guillermo Mota, Russell Branyan, Gabe Kapler, Brian Shouse, Laynce Nix

Projected Lineup:

C: Jason Kendall
1B: Prince Fielder
2B: Rickie Weeks
3B: Bill Hall
SS: J.J. Hardy
LF: Ryan Braun
CF: Mike Cameron
RF: Corey Hart

Pitching:

SP1: Yovani Gallardo
SP2: Dave Bush
SP3: Jeff Suppan
SP4: Manny Parra
SP5: Seth McClung

CL: Trevor Hoffman

IF Chris Capuano comes back healthy in July, he should help the depleted rotation. But there were two things that Doug Melvin should have done to ensure contention – add to the rotation and improve the team’s OBP. He was able to do neither, regardless of who or what’s to blame. And although there’s still time between now and Spring Training, Melvin’s already said that he’s done with notable acquisitions. I like this team enough to want to be more positive about what they’ve done but it wouldn’t be honest. The Brewers are taking a step back in 2009. And the service time for their young, cheap, talent is ticking away…

Grade: D

- Hot Offseason Action Index -

Late last night, the Brewers and Yankees resumed their earlier trade talks for Mike Cameron. If you’ll recall, the Brewers were reportedly hesitant to trade Cameron because he was a FOCC (Friend of CC). Now that CC is gone, Milwaukee is again looking for a deal.

In November, word was that the Brewers were looking at Melky Cabrera and Ian Kennedy. In this round of talks, it appeared all but certain that a Cabrera-for-Cameron deal would happen, conveniently sending CC’s buddy to NY along with the ace. But then another report surfaced that the Yanks wanted Bill Hall, too — another FOCC — and and the Brewers again suggested they receive some pitching, with the quality of said pitching influencing whether the Brewers would pay any of Cameron’s salary.

So then what happened? Well, according to Ken Rosenthal, the deal ground to a standstill when New York and Milwaukee couldn’t agree how much of Cameron’s salary Milwaukee would pay. Now, if you’re the Brewers and you’re trading Cameron and Hall in large part to dump payroll, isn’t it irksome to be asked to keep paying their salaries, even in part? And if your trading partner is the Yankees — who, if you’ll recall, just snagged the Brewers’ most coveted offseason target by offering him about $60MM more than the Brewers could afford — isn’t it a little bit insulting, too? “You really need to defray the cost of Cameron’s 10 mil salary, guys, because we just gave 161 mil to CC. Oh, and we’re trying to sign Burnett, Lowe, and Teixeira, too. I mean, our hands are really tied here. This recession is just killing us.”

But here’s the real punchline: the pitcher New York suggested? Kei Igawa.

Yowza.

Remember when the Brewers’ biggest problem was they had too much starting pitching? CC Sabathia, Ben Sheets, Yovani Gallardo, Jeff Suppan, Dave Bush, Seth McClung and Manny Parra — so many arms and only five rotation spots!

Milwaukee won’t have that problem this year.

The Brewers have shown little interest in brining back the oft-injured Sheets, who is a free agent. And Sabathia is being pursued by the deep-pocketed Yankees. And the Angels. And maybe the Red Sox and Giants.

Milwaukee could simply go with a rotation of Gallardo, Suppan, Bush, McClung and Parra, and that wouldn’t be the end of the world. But would it be enough to get the Brewers back to the playoffs? Doubtful. Milwaukee just barely made the postseason in 2008, and that was with Sabathia doing his best Sandy Koufax impression. Without Sabathia it stands to reason that the Brewers will take a step back. And they can’t afford to take a step back. Not when they play in a division with the Cubs.

Obviously, the Brewers need a starting pitcher to offset the likely losses of Sabathia and Sheets. Who’s a good fit? Randy Wolf? Oliver Perez?

No, you don’t replace Sabathia. You can’t replace Sabathia.

And therein lies the dilemma. Should the Brewers re-sign Sabathia, they’d be committing roughly a quarter of the team’s payroll to just one player. If Sabathia got hurt, that’d be it for Milwaukee. They’d sink or swim with the big-boned ace.

That’s a gamble. But a wise man once said, “[T]he house always wins. Play long enough, you never change the stakes. The house takes you. Unless, when that perfect hand comes along, you bet and you bet big, then you take the house.”

Does Sabathia represent a perfect hand? I don’t know. Nobody does. Nobody knows if a guy of his girth can continue to pitch at an elite level. But if I were the Brewers I’d pay to find out. Because, as another wise man once said, “You can’t lose what you don’t put in the middle. But you can’t win much either.”*

*See what I did there? I mixed my gambling movie quotes. I started with a quote from “Ocean’s 11″ and ended with a quote from “Rounders.” Mixing movie quotes is a highwire act. A lesser blogger might have bungled it. But you’re in good hands here.

Also, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that the Brewers could use a new back-end reliever. For much of 2008 Eric Gagne closed games for Milwaukee. After that project failed, the Brewers turned to Soloman Torres. Now Gagne is gone and Torres is retired. Maybe Brian Fuentes would be a good fit? Or Brandon Lyon? Or Milwaukee could trade Mike Cameron for a power bullpen arm, and move Rickie Weeks to center field.

Finally, I feel obliged to mention that Corey Hart was terrible in 2008 and if he can’t improve on last season’s .300 OBP then the Brewers are totally screwed. Rickie Weeks, meanwhile, had his usual decent OBP and crappy batting average. If the Brewers can find a way to combine Weeks and Hart into one super player (Rickie Hart? Corey Weeks?), then they’ll be in business.

-What They Need Index-

I haven’t heard any mention of this in the mainstream media, but word on the virtual street is that Prince Fielder is eating meat again.

During a recent chat, someone with the screen name “Prince Fielder” jokingly asked ESPN’s Keith Law, “Which vegatables (sic) are good with ketchup and mustard?” To which Law replied, “I was told Fielder’s back on the carnivorous side of the fence. And welcome back, Prince. Life’s better over here.”

First of all, Keith, you’re not fooling anybody. Eat all the meat you want, that won’t change the fact that you are a Jane Austen fan.

Personally, I was excited to hear about Prince’s vegetarianism. I offered him some tips on living a meat-free life and I defended his diet when people were attributing his home run decline to a lack of protein. Now I’m bummed that he’s gone back to the dark meat side.

I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. Fielder’s inability to keep his hands off the dead animals is indicative of a player and a team without discipline. Milwaukee showed some patience at the plate in their Game 3 win over Jamie Moyer, but as soon as Game 4 rolled around they were back to hack, hack, hackin’ away. I’m not aware of any vegetarians on Philadelphia’s roster, but you can rest assured that if Pat Burrell ever decided to go veggie, he’d go all the way. Every time a meat craving attacked, he’d patiently foul it off until he saw the salad he wanted and then — wham! — he’d devour that salad until it was back, back, back, gone!

Ouchie my arm! (?)

Over the weekend, Ken Rosenthal theorized that the Brewers’ decision to start CC on short rest would hurt him right as he hit the open market. In that outing, Sabathia pitched 5 and two-thirds innings and was charged with the loss. Despite getting tagged for only 1 earned run, Sabathia nonetheless began the bottom of the sixth by giving up a single and a walk, followed by an error, followed by two outs, followed by consecutive pinch-hit singles that scored a total of three runs. Final score: 4-3, Reds.

Today, we received news that temporary-Ned Yost-replacement Dale Sveum planned to pitch CC on short rest again, tomorrow, and could start him again on Sunday. “We’ll just wing the rest of it,” the interim manager said. Well, that’s comforting. Especially, I’m sure, to CC Sabathia’s tired wings.

Last year, Sabathia pitched a career-high 241regular-season innings. His previous career high had been 210 innings, back in 2002, and he hadn’t cracked the 200 mark since. We all saw what happened in the playoffs.

This year, Sabathia is already up to 237 innings. He’s a free agent at the end of the season, and despite the fervent hopes (nay, expectations) of Yankee fans, and despite the fat offer Steinbrenner is sure to offer him, he’s been less than stoked about playing in New York. So speculation about where the hefty lefty might end up has been rife. But it might be a good thing that money isn’t CC’s only object, because another late-season meltdown now could affect his future paycheck. Nonetheless, his agent isn’t worried, and CC, of course, says he wants the ball.

So who’s right? The Brewers, who want their mid-season prize to throw until his arm falls off, or the worriers, who fret that the 290-pound ace is too delicate for that?