Posts tagged MikeCameron at FanHouse

When you look at the Brewers on paper -- say like when you're trying to make your playoff predictions -- it's easy to get lost in the glare of all the power they possess. Prince Fielder. Ryan Braun. J.J. Hardy. Corey Hart. There's a lot of pop in the lineup, even outside of the middle of the order.

All that raw power makes it easy to ignore the things that Milwaukee doesn't necessarily do well -- like play defense. The Brewers are decent up the middle, but weak on the corners in the infield. Mike Cameron is the only plus defender in their everyday lineup.

The irony, of course, is that Cameron's miscue hurt Milwaukee most in Game 1. His awkward misplay of Chase Utley's sharp liner, which took off in the whipping wind at Citizens Bank Ballpark, led to two Phillies runs. That was all the Fightin's needed with Cole Hamels dealing.

But those runs were set up by a more unforgivable sequence earlier in the third inning. After a leadoff single by Carlos Ruiz, third baseman Bill Hall bobbled Hamels' sacrifice bunt attempt, blowing a chance to gun down the slow-footed Ruiz at second. Then Rickie Weeks dropped Hall's throw at first, spoiling the consolation out and setting up Cameron's gaffe.

The Brewers probably didn't have much of a chance with the way Hamels was dominating, but they made it a moot point with their poor defense. The pair of miscues cost them runs and probably cost starting pitcher Yovani Gallardo, who was on a tight pitch count, an extra inning on the mound.

It's cliche, but you can't give a good team extra outs and expect to win. Milwaukee doesn't have the type of defense or the type of pitching staff -- save CC Sabathia -- where it can afford to make fielding blunders. If the Brew Crew doesn't sharpen its glovework, it's going to be a very short return trip to the postseason.

Every four years, Major League Baseball's postseason intersects with a presidential election. This is one of those years. In the spirit of the season, we here at MLB FanHouse have divided the playoff teams up for a series of debates. Here Pat Lackey and Mullet discuss the NLDS between the Brewers and Phillies.

Mullet: This series may turn out to be the least competitive of all the four first-round matchups out there. There are a lot of reasons the Phillies should take care of the Brewers in three or four games, so I'll start with this one: Brad Lidge is 41-for-41 in save opportunites this season. The Brewers bullpen, meanwhile, has Eric Gagne and Guillermo Mota. You've seen it as much as I have, bullpens win in the playoffs.

Pat Lackey: It makes me vaguely sick to my stomach to point this out, but since mid-July Eric Gagne has a 3.52 ERA and a 1.00 WHIP. He's not the Gagne of old, as his strikeouts are way down (17 in 23 innings over that span), but he's at least done a good job of keeping guys off of the bases for the home runs he inevitably gives up. The Brewers will likely turn to Salomon Torres in a pinch before either of the guys you named and until a couple hiccups down the stretch, he was very good this year.

With the playoff chase coming down to the wire, our MLB editor rounds up the five biggest pennant race stories in Eye Toward October.

- In the Blink of an Eye: Things change at breakneck pace in the middle of a pennant race. The Brewers were headed for the most devastating loss yet Wednesday afternoon, struggling to generate runs for ace CC Sabathia and nearly squandering a bases-loaded, no-out opportunity before Mike Cameron's two-out, RBI single.

On back-to-back days, the Diamondbacks squandered the momentum from a rally in the top of the ninth inning in the very next half inning, turning what might have been two turnaround wins into back-breaking losses -- their wounds salted by a pair of Dodgers wins.

The Red Sox learned just how fleeting momentum is in baseball Tuesday night when Jonathan Papelbon blew a save after Jason Bay's go-ahead home run.

There are plenty of lessons to be gleaned from this time of year, but perhaps none more significant than that: there is no such thing as momentum in baseball. It's like no other game in that way. All it takes is one hanging pitch left up in the strike zone, one crack of the bat, for a season to be saved or lost. It's September, folks. Try not to blink.

Cheap Yard Work takes a look at unheralded hitters who are raking and helps you plan your starting lineup each week.

Jose Bautista, 3B, PIT
Stats: .417/.444/.875, 3HR, 7RBI, 2BB, 1SB

I was going to make a Pirates joke, but you know, they haven't been that bad this year, at least from a fantasy perspective. Bautista has accrued almost all of those above stats over the weekend, so he might seem like too aggressive of a start. How-EVA, he's killing lefties this year, hitting .346/.419/.808. And given that four of the six guys the Pirates will face this week are lefties, he makes a pretty nice spot start in deep leagues.

Juan Pierre, OF, LAD
Stats: .563/.611/.688, 0HR, 3RBI, 1BB, 3SB

Okay, I dislike Pierre as much as anyone, but someone drafted him looking for those elusive steals. And have probably dropped him since. But he's getting decent AB's (16 over the last week) and producing big time with them. If he gets on base over 60% of the time, Joe Torre will play him, especially with Andruw Jones stink-bombing it up. (Although it's worth noting that Matt Kemp is even hotter right now). But if you're ever gonna use him to get those swipes, now is the time.

As your faithful NL Central blogger here at FanHouse, I'd probably be smart to just title a draft named "Ben Sheets Returns!" and fill out the first paragraph with phrases like: "Ben Sheets returned to the mound tonight after ____ days on the sideline with a _______ injury. The Brewers were certainly happy to see their ace, as they ______________." I haven't done that yet. As far as you know ...

Ben Sheets returned to the mound tonight after missing a start with a triceps injury. The Brewers were probably happy to see him pitch against the Cubsl, but they probably weren't happy with how their oft-injured ace pitched tonight . He walked seven (7!) batters in five innings. Still, that was enough for the Brewers because they pounded Jason Marquis and Kevin Hart and built up a lead (10-7) that even Eric Gagne couldn't blow.

Mike Cameron also made his season debut in this one and it went considerably better than Sheets' return, as he went 3-for-5, drove in two, and scored twice. In fact, the entire Brewers' outfield came alive in this one, to the tune of 8 hits (three for Corey Hart, two for Ryan Braun), three doubles (one for everyone), five RBIs, and five runs scored. That's gotta be something the Brewers would like to see a whole lot more of this year.

On Deck is FanHouse's look at the day's most intriguing baseball matchups

Baltimore Orioles (14-11) vs. Tampa Bay Rays (14-11) - 7:05PM Est.

It's the matchup we've been waiting our entire lives for. The series to end all series. The rivalry to end all rivalries.

We approach the end of baseball's first month with two teams perched atop the AL East who are tired of beating the weak and weary "teams" that litter this sport called baseball. They're ready for real competition, and they're ready to decide once and for all: who is the team to beat in the mighty AL East?

No it's not the Red Sox and Yankees (you fool!), it's the Orioles and Rays.

It's Baltimore and Tampa.

It's Garrett Olson and Jason Hammell.

It's your sole reason for living, and it's after the jump.

It's certainly not fair to say that the Brewers are off to a bad start, because 14-10 isn't a bad start. It is fair to say that they're probably mildly concerned to find themselves in third place, even this early, if only because the Cubs and Cardinals have played so well during this first month. Accordingly, they're probably happy to get one of their key off-season acquisitions back this week when Mike Cameron returns from his 25-game stimulant suspension on Tuesday.

The real question now is how the Brewers are going to align their outfield with Cameron back in the lineup. In his absence, Gabe Kapler unexpectedly mashed the ball, with 4 homers and a .577 slugging percentage in 52 at-bats while Ryan Braun (.280 OBP, only .312 SLG) and Corey Hart (1 homer, .391 SLG) have struggled. It would be foolish to bench either of the promising youngsters for a guy like Kapler. Still, it's not something I'd put past Ned Yost.

Maybe the bigger question is what kind of offense the Brewers can expect out of Cameron. There was certainly some question about the signing last year, though it was generally justified as a move that would strengthen the defense (and certainly, Bill Hall at third and Ryan Braun in left is an improvement over those two in center and on third, respectively, last year). Still, the Brewers other big off-season acquisition acquisition has worked out poorly thus far and the they can ill-afford Cameron to flame out in a similarly spectacular manner.

All right, so it's not so much to enhance his performance, but to maintain some sort of peace of mind ... literally. Mike Cameron was suspended for the first 25 games of the season for taking a banned stimulant. Now, Cameron wants to take banned supplements without further fear of punishment. The reason for this is interesting.

Brewers assistant general manager Gord Ash said that center fielder Mike Cameron is applying for a therapeutic use exemption that would allow him to take certain supplements or substances not currently approved by Major League Baseball. But Ash was unaware that Cameron, who will serve a 25-game suspension at the start of the regular season for testing positive for a banned amphetamine, plans to undergo a series of neurological tests on Friday to see if he is still feeling the effects of a 2005 outfield collision.

Cameron told USA TODAY's Bob Nightengale for Wednesday's editions that he had scheduled the extra tests. If they reveal post-concussion syndrome or other lingering damage from a nasty run-in with then-Mets teammate Carlos Beltran, Cameron could qualify for an exemption that allows certain substances for medical purposes.

That '05 collision with Beltran was one of the nastiest things I've ever seen. And certainly, you have to have some sort of sympathy for Cameron in this situation if indeed he's still experiencing effects. But his past transgressions with illegal substances are going to make people wonder. This substance he's applying for ... is it really going to help? (I'm a blogger, not a doctor ... so I have no idea.) Is he applying to take the same substance that got him banned this season? If so, why didn't he apply for this at some point during the last two seasons? And to be fair, did Cameron realize that was an option then?

The current baseball climate of PED's and Mitchell Reports will be an interesting backdrop to whatever the ruling is here.

Saber Bombs are MLB FanHouse's introduction to sabermetrics, those new and sometimes unwieldy metrics that are changing the way we think about baseball. Each post highlights a specific stat, player, team or media member either embodying that understanding, or missing the boat completely.

For the better part of the last week, my fellow 'Housers Matt Watson and Mullet have been wondering just what the Brewers were thinking when they forked out $7 million to Mike Cameron for him to cover center field in Miller Park next year. Their concerns are certainly valid. Cameron is old and his bat has been slipping for a couple of years. He certainly doesn't play center field like he used to and he's definitely suspended until almost May for using stimulants. Still, I think the people are missing the point on Cameron. I think his signing vastly improves the Brewers from a defensive standpoint, and I don't just mean his defense.

Signing Cameron and putting him in center sets off a nice little chain reaction for the Brewers' defense. It moves Bill Hall from center, (where he was very bad last year) to third base and that moves sends Ryan Braun from third (where he was historically bad) to left field. Defense is notoriously hard to quantify, but I'm going to look at a few of the newer school metrics to try and illustrate how this move helps the Brewers. Follow along after the jump for all of the stat-laden goodness.

Just to be clear, I really don't have some kind of personal vendetta against Mike Cameron -- I just don't think he's what the Brewers needed. In a chat with fans on the team's official web site, GM Doug Melvin explains why he felt differently.

millerdrinker: Doug, why didn't we bring in a left-handed bat?

Doug: We could not find a left-handed bat that brought the skill sets that Mike Cameron brought to our team -- Gold Glove defense, outstanding baserunning, clubhouse leadership and a high batting average with runners in scoring position.

Gold Glove defense? Yeah, I'll buy that, though at 35 years old, maybe for not very long. Outstanding baserunning? No complaints here -- he's been successful over 78% of the time he's tried to steal a base. Clubhouse leadership? Umm ... from a guy who's admitted to playing drunk and will miss the first 25 games of 2008 for testing positive twice for a banned substance? Maybe his teammates like him, but there's a difference between popularity and setting a good example.

And that last thing, a high batting average with runners in scoring position? Yeah, strike two. He hit .275 with RISP last year. Even if the ability to hit with runners on was some kind of innate skill that carried over from one season to the next (it's not), .275 is remarkably average. And I mean that literally: the average of all MLB hitters with runners in position last year was .272. Basically, the quality of being "clutch" doesn't exist, but if it did, Cameron wouldn't have it.

Cameron is what he is: a career .251 hitter with a ton of strikeouts who happens to make impressive catches in the outfield. If he were as good as Melvin is making him out to be, the Brewers would have signed him for longer than just one year.