Brewers Acquire Jesse Winker and Abraham Toro from Mariners for Wong

[CheeseheadInQC]

26 minutes ago, Hopper said:

Imagine the shock, when opening day sees Winker as our starting right fielder, Toro as our starting 3B, and Urias as our starting 2B.  Frelick and Turang still in AAA, waiting for their shot, while we run Toro and Winker out everyday, far past the time when they should be replaced.

(Yelich continues to be our starting LF, while another aging vet is picked up to DH most days)

Negative, yes, possible, also yes.

Like another poster mentioned a few pages back, I have lost faith.

I know what you are going for, but I think Toro starting against righties to start the year can be justified as more than a service time thing, and I think it is going to happen.

It seems as if with the shift going away, the Brewers are targeting lefties with lower strikeout rates but low BABIPs thinking those players could be value plays this season. Toro is in that category. Are they outsmarting themselves? Perhaps. But the reasoning seems sound enough where I have no problem with them testing it.

[Robocaller]

4 hours ago, monty57 said:

Overall, I don’t see how we’re significantly worse. I’d say we’re probably about the same as we were last season, with a lot of off-season to go. 

that seems to require the rookies to all produce pretty well, which is far from a certainty.

[Robocaller]

43 minutes ago, Hopper said:

Imagine the shock, when opening day sees Winker as our starting right fielder, Toro as our starting 3B, and Urias as our starting 2B.  Frelick and Turang still in AAA, waiting for their shot, while we run Toro and Winker out everyday, far past the time when they should be replaced.

(Yelich continues to be our starting LF, while another aging vet is picked up to DH most days)

Negative, yes, possible, also yes.

Like another poster mentioned a few pages back, I have lost faith.

Who's our DH if Yelich and Winker are both in the field?

[sveumrules]

Yelich in LF, Winker DH.

Jesse is -39 DRS | -22.7 UZR | -31 OAA for his career.

Christian is at -10 DRS | +5.5 UZR | -6 OAA since joining the Brewers.

[titletownking]

4 minutes ago, Robocaller said:

Who's our DH if Yelich and Winker are both in the field?

Hiura in this doomsday scenario

[wallus]

35 minutes ago, sveumrules said:

Yelich in LF, Winker DH.

Jesse is -39 DRS | -22.7 UZR | -31 OAA for his career.

Christian is at -10 DRS | +5.5 UZR | -6 OAA since joining the Brewers.

That's gold glove candidate (somehow) Christian Yelich. 

[brewcrewdue80]

1 hour ago, LouisEly said:

I've said this before, but I look back at the 2016 White Sox.  They parlayed Sale and Quintana into Dylan Cease, Michael Kopech, Eloy Jiminez, and Yoan Moncada. 

Burnes and Woodruff can be replaced.  It's not impossible.  Going with a couple of comp picks is the likely much bigger loss.

You're forgetting one important aspect.  Chicago is a big market and can fill in holes with $$$ like what Milwaukee needs right now or extend players keeping them on the team.  Stevetheump.com/payrolls has the White Sox at 181.6 Mil payroll at the moment and Milw at 122.3 Mil.   Last season at 126Mil to Milw's 87.7 mil.  And for what it's worth, the White Sox haven't made it passed the Division series in the playoffs, so still 2 steps away.  After 1990  Cincy, Pittsburgh and Milwaukee have a combined 0 WS appearances. 

Since 1982 the 3 teams have produced 1990 Doug Drabek-Pitts,   2020 shortened season Trevor Bauer-Cin and 2021-Corbin Burnes Cy Young winners.    Any kind of thought that trading away Cy Young winners/vote getters will return equal future quality is mostly fantasy.  The traded players the White Sox gained have accomplished 0 ALCS or WS, 4 or more seasons playing with the Sox.   That sets the stage for where Milw trading such decent players begins because you know $$$$.   It also shows how long it will actually matter before the players traded for payback the success.  I'm sticking this 2years out with Woodruff and Burnes. 

[LouisEly]

24 minutes ago, brewcrewdue80 said:

You're forgetting one important aspect.  Chicago is a big market and can fill in holes with $$$ like what Milwaukee needs right now or extend players keeping them on the team. 

 

I'm not forgetting anything.  I'm simply saying that the Brewers are much more likely to find two more TOR-type starters by trading Burnes and Woodruff like the White Sox did with Sale and Quintana than letting Burnes and Woodruff ride out to a QO and a comp pick, like you suggested, and the White Sox payroll limit has nothing to do with that.

[wibadgers23]

How many weeks into the season would Frelick and Turang have to stay in Nashville to gain the extra year of service time?

[UpandIn]

55 minutes ago, wibadgers23 said:

How many weeks into the season would Frelick and Turang have to stay in Nashville to gain the extra year of service time?

They usually play the 162 games over 186 days I believe.

171 days or fewer is less than 1 year of service time. So a couple weeks. Or you send them down for a couple weeks at some point(which can be tough with a guy like Frelick if he starts out hot). 

[Hopper]

3 hours ago, Robocaller said:

Who's our DH if Yelich and Winker are both in the field?

an aging vet, as I mentioned in  the post...

[brewcrewdue80]

1 hour ago, wibadgers23 said:

How many weeks into the season would Frelick and Turang have to stay in Nashville to gain the extra year of service time?

Mentioned this in terms of Frelick, that if they didn't start the season with Frelick on the roster they may as well keep him down til after the trade deadline. 

Any player with less than 60 days of MLB service coming into the season who placed on at least two preseason Top 100 prospect lists at Baseball America, ESPN or MLB Pipeline now receives a full year of service time if they finish in the top two in Rookie of the Year balloting.

 

Rutschman was on the roster for 138 days and would not have earned a full service year in 2022 if not for his top-two finish.

 

So you have 2weeks or more depending where they finish in the ROY voting.  A team is compensated with a draft pick if the prospect is on the roster from opening day and finishes in the top 3 in votes(again need to be top 100 on the lists)

Typical Super 2 often requires 2years and 120-130 days on a roster(though it has been lower/Hader when at 2.115)  As someone mentioned a season is 172days but there is about 185 days in that season. So you would look at 71days to most likely not accrue the roster time for Super 2 status.  But generally about 1 week more so 64/65 days then.

[rickh150]

4 hours ago, Brewcrew82 said:

Teams have literally called them about the Big 3 over the last few weeks. The offers obviously weren't to their liking and they still want to contend this year, so they subsequently withdrew them from the market. I wouldn't assume that they don't have a plan. 

We are literally right in the middle of the Winter Meetings and free agency. Teams Plan A and B have not come to fruition, and teams are looking to get better somehow. Yet we say we no dice… we are not even going to talk about moving them because we are focused on competing in 2023. That’s fine and all(I would be excited if we added payroll and really went for it in 2023 and 2024)…. but the Hader, Renfroe, and Wong trades do not suggest that. It’s more like we NEED desperately to cut payroll in 2023 and get spare young parts for the future like a seller would.

Mixed messages. Not a great master plan, IMO. Right now, I do not see how we add huge pieces in FA or make any significant trade for 2023 specifically.
 

Blah since July 31…

[sveumrules]

41 minutes ago, rickh150 said:

Blah since July 31…

July 31?

You didn’t think the team was blah when they were going 25-27 for the two months leading into the deadline after the franchise best 32-18 start?

Hader lost 4 games with an 8.31 ERA over 19 appearances during that stretch.

I’d say that is notably worse than blah.

[UpandIn]

1 hour ago, brewcrewdue80 said:

Mentioned this in terms of Frelick, that if they didn't start the season with Frelick on the roster they may as well keep him down til after the trade deadline. 

This makes very little sense to me. It's one thing to keep a guy down for a couple weeks to gain an extra year of service time. It's another to keep a guy down who projects to be one of your best players for the first 5 months just in case he fits into what at the moment is a poorly designed incentive for draft picks. 

You have to be willing to bet on him winning a ROY award(or top 3 finish) in order to be willing to forgo the extra year. So why does that translate to the trade deadline?

Carroll, Walker, Alvarez, Cavilli, Perez, Painter, there are a LOT of extremely talented rookies.

They could also start him on the OD roster, see how he's playing. I don't think it's either OD or after the trade deadline though. That feels...hyperbolic. 

[Brock Beauchamp]

6 hours ago, LouisEly said:

I've said this before, but I look back at the 2016 White Sox.  They parlayed Sale and Quintana into Dylan Cease, Michael Kopech, Eloy Jiminez, and Yoan Moncada. 

Burnes and Woodruff can be replaced.  It's not impossible.  Going with a couple of comp picks is the likely much bigger loss.

Exactly... but it should be noted the White Sox gave away Tatis Jr just a few months previous.

As I keep repeating, the Brewers were amazing at developing Burnes, Woodruff, Hader, Peralta, Lauer, et al.

Can they do it again? That I do not know.

[Brock Beauchamp]

6 minutes ago, UpandIn said:

This makes very little sense to me. It's one thing to keep a guy down for a couple weeks to gain an extra year of service time. It's another to keep a guy down who projects to be one of your best players for the first 5 months just in case he fits into what at the moment is a poorly designed incentive for draft picks. 

You have to be willing to bet on him winning a ROY award(or top 3 finish) in order to be willing to forgo the extra year. So why does that translate to the trade deadline?

Carroll, Walker, Alvarez, Cavilli, Perez, Painter, there are a LOT of extremely talented rookies.

They could also start him on the OD roster, see how he's playing. I don't think it's either OD or after the trade deadline though. That feels...hyperbolic. 

I think people are over-stating the effect of the RoY rule. It was well-placed mainly due to its proximity to the 2020 Covid season. I think the effect of so many prospects being called up as an effect of this rule is going to be minimal going forward. The rule saw a big benefit from "lost" 2020 prospects being escalated through systems in 2021 and then promoted immediately in the 2022 season because they literally lost a year of development but not physical ability. I don't expect that to happen again.

[Robocaller]

4 hours ago, UpandIn said:

 You have to be willing to bet on him winning a ROY award(or top 3 finish) in order to be willing to forgo the extra year. So why does that translate to the trade deadline?

You can send him down during the season if it's clear he's not going to be top 3, to control his service time. You can always use the "we want him to get more regular playing time, or work on X" as the excuse.

 

[Outlander]

After thinking about the Brewers moves so far I really wish they never traded Renfroe. I think it is correct that Winker is more of a DH and if that is the case could still have Renfroe in RF and a guy that hits lefties. In some ways this seems like the last chance for this group of players to make a playoff push so could have had Renfroe for one more year in the middle of the lineup like they are doing with Winker. Could then have some sort of platoon of Taylor/Mitchell in CF with Frelick ready to step in if the CF struggle or somebody else in the OF/Winker gets hurt. 

[brewerfan82]

Just a slight side tangent... I feel like a lot of people are misinterpreting the team's direction (or "lack of direction") based on their moves starting with the Hader trade. I don't think they're in sell mode or sending "mixed" messages.

Practically every move can be explained by the need to "more efficiently reallocate payroll while still remaining competitive":

• Hader's estimated to make $12M+ this year and we had Williams ready to slide into his closer spot
• Renfroe's $11M was replaceable with Mitchell/Frelick/Wiemer at or on the cusp of reaching the big leagues
• Wong's $10M was better allocated in a big DH bat in Winker as we have Urias/Turang/etc. able to step in at 2B for less and I don't think they'd find a bat in FA with Winker's potential at his cost
• Holding onto Burnes and Woodruff are necessary to maintain arguably the league's best starting rotation as we wouldn't be able to replace their production if they were traded now (and there's no way we'd be able to replace their talent on the free agent market)

Not making Adames available in a trade is a little more suspect, as you could move Turang into SS, but I think they may feel that's spreading the middle infield a little too thin at this point to do.

It'll be interesting to see how the rest of the offseason goes, but I don't think they've really done anything to indicate they're drastically cutting payroll, they're just being more efficient with the resources they have available to them. It'd be nice to be able to hold onto "established/projectable" players, but replacing them with younger/more affordable talent when they can and reallocating those funds to other team needs is probably their best chance at sustained, long term success.

[brewcrewdue80]

12 hours ago, UpandIn said:

This makes very little sense to me. It's one thing to keep a guy down for a couple weeks to gain an extra year of service time. It's another to keep a guy down who projects to be one of your best players for the first 5 months just in case he fits into what at the moment is a poorly designed incentive for draft picks. 

You have to be willing to bet on him winning a ROY award(or top 3 finish) in order to be willing to forgo the extra year. So why does that translate to the trade deadline?

Carroll, Walker, Alvarez, Cavilli, Perez, Painter, there are a LOT of extremely talented rookies.

They could also start him on the OD roster, see how he's playing. I don't think it's either OD or after the trade deadline though. That feels...hyperbolic. 

Just gotta finish top 2.  How many more days missed does he need to avoid that potential? 138days for Rutschman got him to 2nd.  You're likely waiting 3 more weeks for Super 2 avoidance, but is that enough? What if all those top guys are also kept back til then?  Lemme go look at Roy the last decade or 2.

 

Okay. Winners last 15 years latest dates started 3 from AL- Wil Myers June 18th 88gms played, Carlos Correa June 8th 99gms played, Yordan Alvarez June 9th 87gms played. There were a few just over 100games. But Frelick playing 100 or more games must mean they started him Opening Day.

I'll have to see on 2nd place finishers the 3 latest starts, but you gotta be thinking based on the 3 winners you aren't giving Frelick over 75games played if you didn't begin him on Opening day.

Live updating.

Gary Sanchez finished 2nd 53gms played, TreaTurner 2nd 73gms played both in 2016. Lindor finished 2nd with 99games played to Correa.

 

Oh and I mention trade deadline for 40man roster implications. You don't play Frelick before deadline you save 1 on the 40man for moves while also insuring he doesn't finish top 2. I guess in reading on this, if any top 100 prospect had below 60days this year, they would still qualify for opening day Roy for 2024. That means....

 

[monty57]

16 hours ago, Robocaller said:

that seems to require the rookies to all produce pretty well, which is far from a certainty.

True, but last year we depended on former star veterans (McCutchen, Cain and Wong) to all produce pretty well, and that was far from a certainty as well.

It's not like the rookies are replacing superstar talent. The bar is set pretty low to outperform some of the production we got at certain positions last year.

I kind of look at RF/DH as a combo. We lost Renfroe and McCutchen, but should get better offensive production from Winker than we did from Renfroe (Winker's "bad" last season was still about equal to Renfroe's "good" last season), so Frelick/Mitchell (whoever gets RF) is comped to McCutchen's offensive bar, which was a 98 wRC+. Defensively, Frelick/Mitchell should easily surpass Renfroe. Overall, I think we'll get better production from RF & DH in '23 than we got in '22.

In CF, the bar is set so low from the Cain/Davis/Taylor fiasco that Frelick/Mitchell should be able to add positive value vs. last year.

The hardest comp will be whether Turang (if he gets the starting 2B job) will match Wong's '22 production. Wong was horrible to start the season, but got hot after he was platooned in the second half of the season. He ended up with a 2.5 Fangraphs WAR, which is more than Turang is expected to provide. He's capable of it, but I don't think he should be expected to match Wong's '22 results.

[monty57]

1 hour ago, Outlander said:

After thinking about the Brewers moves so far I really wish they never traded Renfroe. I think it is correct that Winker is more of a DH and if that is the case could still have Renfroe in RF and a guy that hits lefties. In some ways this seems like the last chance for this group of players to make a playoff push so could have had Renfroe for one more year in the middle of the lineup like they are doing with Winker. Could then have some sort of platoon of Taylor/Mitchell in CF with Frelick ready to step in if the CF struggle or somebody else in the OF/Winker gets hurt. 

I doubt we had the payroll flexibility to retain Renfroe and do the Winker/Toro deal. Trading Wong and Renfroe netted us something like $10M in savings.

[monty57]

20 minutes ago, brewerfan82 said:

Just a slight side tangent... I feel like a lot of people are misinterpreting the team's direction (or "lack of direction") based on their moves starting with the Hader trade. I don't think they're in sell mode or sending "mixed" messages.

Practically every move can be explained by the need to "more efficiently reallocate payroll while still remaining competitive":

• Hader's estimated to make $12M+ this year and we had Williams ready to slide into his closer spot
• Renfroe's $11M was replaceable with Mitchell/Frelick/Wiemer at or on the cusp of reaching the big leagues
• Wong's $10M was better allocated in a big DH bat in Winker as we have Urias/Turang/etc. able to step in at 2B for less and I don't think they'd find a bat in FA with Winker's potential at his cost
• Holding onto Burnes and Woodruff are necessary to maintain arguably the league's best starting rotation as we wouldn't be able to replace their production if they were traded now (and there's no way we'd be able to replace their talent on the free agent market)

Not making Adames available in a trade is a little more suspect, as you could move Turang into SS, but I think they may feel that's spreading the middle infield a little too thin at this point to do.

It'll be interesting to see how the rest of the offseason goes, but I don't think they've really done anything to indicate they're drastically cutting payroll, they're just being more efficient with the resources they have available to them. It'd be nice to be able to hold onto "established/projectable" players, but replacing them with younger/more affordable talent when they can and reallocating those funds to other team needs is probably their best chance at sustained, long term success.

I agree, and would add that next year we probably will have to trade some bigger names. It will be nice going into '24 if guys like Mitchell, Frelick and Turang already have a full season under their belt, and maybe some other guys (Gasser, Wiemer, Small) will have some additional MLB experience as well.

I'm generally optimistic, but if we held onto Renfroe and Wong for this season, they would be walking as free agents at the same time we'd be looking at trading a host of other players. Most of our current potential rookie starters would still be potential rookie starters. At some point, we need to give a chance to our top prospects, and it seems wise to spread that out over a few years instead of doing it all at once.

[nate82]

15 hours ago, wibadgers23 said:

How many weeks into the season would Frelick and Turang have to stay in Nashville to gain the extra year of service time?

For Super Two Status for 2022 it is set at 2.128 years of service time.  So I think around June would put them in a safe spot to get that extra year of service time. 

https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2022/11/super-two-status-set-at-2-128-years-of-service.html

We won't know what 2023 will be set at until November of '23. 

 

I don't believe Turang will be on the opening day roster with Toro being included in this trade.  I think Toro, Brosseau and Urias will platoon at 3B and 2B to start the year.  I wouldn't be surprised if Urias is the permanent 2B if he is playing well.  Third base could be an issue though with Toro and Brosseau.  I am not sure Turang would be able to fix that as I don't think he profiles all that well at 3B offensively.  I think at best you could have a Mark Loretta type with Turang at 3B though with less power and more speed. 

It maybe best to extend Adames and give him SS money to play 3B and move Turang to SS with Urias at 2B.