Brewers trades by WAR since 2010 (from Reddit user)

[monty57]

I posted this image in another thread, but I thought it would make for good discussion in it's own thread. It was put together by a Reddit user who is doing this for each team. It shows the WAR-based value given up and received in each trade since 2010, ranked from best (Brewers received the most net WAR) to worst (Brewers gave up the most net WAR). 

[monty57]

Not surprisingly, our best trade was acquiring Yelich for a bunch of guys who combined for negative WAR.

Our worst two trades were when the Brewers wanted to "go all in" for Fielder's last year in 2011 by trading away the farm to acquire Grienke and Marcum.

[bjkrautk]

2 immediate reactions from looking at the chart,

1) Surprised Rowdy's WAR is as low as it is (after a full year), since I don't really think of him as being a replacement-level player.

2) I've never seen the Grienke deal put into those terms before....didn't realize it had turned out that poorly for the club in the long-run.

[Outlander]

That Jonathan Lucroy trade is misleading with zero since they ended up with Yelich in the off season and Swarzak as a rental but I understand those trades are listed separately. No regrets on the Mauricio Dubon for Pomeranz trade even if it looks like a loss. The Greinke trade is bad but overall the positive outweighs the negative.

[owbc]

Besides the "all-in" for 2011 the Brewers are absolutely crushing it on trade return. 

The two worst trades of the Stearns era are guys who racked up most of their WAR playing DH in the AL when the NL didn't have a DH. 

[monty57]

48 minutes ago, owbc said:

Besides the "all-in" for 2011 the Brewers are absolutely crushing it on trade return. 

The two worst trades of the Stearns era are guys who racked up most of their WAR playing DH in the AL when the NL didn't have a DH. 

Yeah, since this only goes to 2010, it just captures Melvin’s “all in” years, so he looks bad on this chart. Stearns’ philosophy of always wanting team control back in any bigger trade should assure that he doesn’t get “fleeced” in a trade. Even a role player should give you some value over 5-6 years. 

[Brock Beauchamp]

Adjust that chart to only the Stearns era and that's damned impressive.

[NBBrewFan]

1 hour ago, owbc said:

Besides the "all-in" for 2011 the Brewers are absolutely crushing it on trade return. 

The two worst trades of the Stearns era are guys who racked up most of their WAR playing DH in the AL when the NL didn't have a DH. 

That's the key being the smallest market in baseball.  You gots ta win da trades,  If not, we aren't hear arguing about what this team needs to make it to the playoffs or make it to the World Series.  We'd be arguing about how we get enough prospects to get to 0.500.  Both Stearns and Dougie have made the winning possible and we have a picture to show it.

[owbc]

 

1 hour ago, Brock Beauchamp said:

Adjust that chart to only the Stearns era and that's damned impressive.

It makes one wonder if we should be making more trades...

...or maybe we're making the right amount, since it takes two to tango. 

[Brock Beauchamp]

8 minutes ago, owbc said:

It makes one wonder if we should be making more trades...

...or maybe we're making the right amount, since it takes two to tango. 

I think more of the latter. When negotiating with 29 other GMs - at least 20 of which are as smart as Stearns - you have to wait for the right moment and trade. You have to work in the margins and be right a lot of the time and that means waiting for the right opportunity.

[UpandIn]

3 hours ago, NBBrewFan said:

That's the key being the smallest market in baseball.  You gots ta win da trades,  If not, we aren't hear arguing about what this team needs to make it to the playoffs or make it to the World Series.  We'd be arguing about how we get enough prospects to get to 0.500.  Both Stearns and Dougie have made the winning possible and we have a picture to show it.

Eh, the Lauer/Urias trade I'm happy with...and we've "lost" that one as of now.

The kinda "told ya so," with the "all-in" trades are a bit mis-leading. We got back Segura for Greinke(plus two pitching prospects who have high upside) and then Diaz for Segura who we helped flip to get Yelich. 

I don't know what the Sabathia trade looks like, but it's gotta be overwhelmingly in favor of Cleveland and I don't think you can quantify that just by WAR only with the team. Hell, if the Yankees don't swoop in to sign Tex, that may end up being the greatest sequence of transactions in Brewers history!

 

I don't think the takeaway is don't go "all in," which is really just code for being aggressive, it's pick your spots and understand it'll cost you in the future. 

[Brock Beauchamp]

22 minutes ago, UpandIn said:

Eh, the Lauer/Urias trade I'm happy with...and we've "lost" that one as of now.

The kinda "told ya so," with the "all-in" trades are a bit mis-leading. We got back Segura for Greinke(plus two pitching prospects who have high upside) and then Diaz for Segura who we helped flip to get Yelich. 

I don't know what the Sabathia trade looks like, but it's gotta be overwhelmingly in favor of Cleveland and I don't think you can quantify that just by WAR only with the team. Hell, if the Yankees don't swoop in to sign Tex, that may end up being the greatest sequence of transactions in Brewers history!

I don't think the takeaway is don't go "all in," which is really just code for being aggressive, it's pick your spots and understand it'll cost you in the future. 

I think the message here is "go for it but temper expectations by also looking forward at the same time as you're competing".

Which is why I believe more in the Brewers strategy than the Padres, even though being a San Diego fan is a lot of fun right now. Maybe it ends in a trophy, maybe it doesn't.

[UpandIn]

12 minutes ago, Brock Beauchamp said:

I think the message here is "go for it but temper expectations by also looking forward at the same time as you're competing".

Which is why I believe more in the Brewers strategy than the Padres, even though being a San Diego fan is a lot of fun right now. Maybe it ends in a trophy, maybe it doesn't.

Sure...and I believe they were probably trying to do that. I think they got Ruiz to flip him for another bat(complete guess on my behalf) and then when the trade Attanasio talked about fell apart, Stearns had to try and salvage the BP and quickly moved to get Bush and Rosenthal.

BUT, with regard to Soto, never wanted that type of deal. I'll be honest, I didn't even want the CC type of deal. If you're gonna "go for it," it's gotta be a Bryan Reynolds or a stud with 2+ years left and not the over the top haul Soto would have cost.

Still...I see what I think are a lot of residual passive-aggressive comments relitigating the Brewers deadline moves(in response to more aggressive-aggressive comments) doing the 'see, going for it hasn't worked out,' in response to the, 'Mark A won't spend money,' comments. 

 

I view what the Brewers are doing now to what they did in the early days of Rodgers(sports are a bad match, but I'll get there). They were building great for the future, little bad luck. Then, Finley and Collins career ending injuries. Now, Yelich and Hiura career altering...issues nobody would expect. But they were always kinda playing it safe, looking at the big picture and you always just wanted that ONE move. Not one that'd wreck your cap or blow up the farm, just a little more urgency. 

Sometimes, you've gotta go out and force the action a bit. You can still win a trade even if you "lose it," and again, CC. 4.9WAR for CC(which is crazy in ~3 months). 24.0WAR for Brantley is a big loss, but that was also a big season. Even the Rays have made the occasional "go for it" move...in their own small way.

This year was just NOT the year to do that. There was almost nothing available offensively, but there's a lot of rigidity among some.

And to be honest, Stearns has done a little of that. Yelich, Cain AND they had a 9 figure offer on the table to Yu Darvish that year. 

[Ulice Payne]

30 minutes ago, Brock Beauchamp said:

Which is why I believe more in the Brewers strategy than the Padres, even though being a San Diego fan is a lot of fun right now. Maybe it ends in a trophy, maybe it doesn't.

Yes; this.

Trading Hader was the right trade at the wrong time.  I agree with the trade in a vacuum, but the greater return can't be worth the added jeopardy to this year's division title.

As for the Melvin transactions, well, it was a dirty job, but someone had to do it.  28 years without playoffs.  If we hadn't experienced it, it would almost be unimaginable.  Melvin had to get them back to the post season.  It almost didn't matter what it cost.

Hope Padres fans are enjoying this.  Sincerely.

 

[UpandIn]

1 hour ago, Ulice Payne said:

Yes; this.

Trading Hader was the right trade at the wrong time.  I agree with the trade in a vacuum, but the greater return can't be worth the added jeopardy to this year's division title.

As for the Melvin transactions, well, it was a dirty job, but someone had to do it.  28 years without playoffs.  If we hadn't experienced it, it would almost be unimaginable.  Melvin had to get them back to the post season.  It almost didn't matter what it cost.

Hope Padres fans are enjoying this.  Sincerely.

 

Agreed. And all those prospects, it was the throw in that really ended up playing well elsewhere. People weren't big fans of Lawrie even though he accumulated a pretty good WAR, but it was mostly based on his defense.

The trade I didn't like was Sabathia. I thought Greinke would have been better at that time(and they were shopping him). Team control. But CC got us into the playoffs and no other pitcher that year would have. 

Also with you on the Pads. I hope they enjoy what they've got now. It COULD really crush them in the future(or they re-load and they're fine, who knows, but it looks like the prior). But that's for 3 years from now. 

I also DO think the Brewers can still win it. The way Bush looked tonight? Absolutely filthy. Get him, Rogers and Rosenthal going with the starters, we could easily get hot at the right time. Get in, you got a chance.