Three-way trade with A's, Braves; Brewers get William Contreras

[Harold Hutchison]

3 hours ago, Jopal78 said:

Yes, case in point. Lutz and Castaneda are closer to six year minor league free agents than they are “prospects” regardless of what the lists may say.
 

 I don’t know anything about Valerio besides he came over with Bobby Wahl (remember him) for Keon Broxton. Besides being outside of the top 5 or 10 on those lists doesn’t mean much anyhow. 

Yeah... nobody from outside a top 5/10 list makes the majors.

The recently-departed Brent Suter would like to have a word about that...

[Ron Robinsons Beard]

3 hours ago, Jopal78 said:

Yes, case in point. Lutz and Castaneda are closer to six year minor league free agents than they are “prospects” regardless of what the lists may say.
 

 I don’t know anything about Valerio besides he came over with Bobby Wahl (remember him) for Keon Broxton. Besides being outside of the top 5 or 10 on those lists doesn’t mean much anyhow. 

You picked an odd hill to die on here from the beginning, but this is bordering on nonsensical now. 

[sveumrules]

30 minutes ago, clancyphile said:

The A's have had 13 seasons at or above .500 since 2002, when they went full Moneyball. They've been doing a lot of things right, and Beane's track record is hard to dispute.

Beane’s A’s have definitely had impressive success over the years, especially given ownerships near total indifference to the team’s existence, but twenty years ago he was more or less on an island with what he was doing.

At this point pretty much every team has an expansive analytics department and multiple Ivy League acronym holders in the front office to go along with their massive payroll advantages.

From 2015-17 OAK won the 4th fewest games in MLB, then bounced back to win the 5th most from 2018-21 before having their first 100 loss season since 1979 this past summer.

Will be interesting to see how long this rebuild lasts. They’ve let Semien, Treinen, Hendriks and Canha walk in free agency instead of trading them and even with dealing the likes of Chapman, Olson, Murphy, Montas, Bassitt and Manea recently they still have a middle of the road farm.

[Lajitas]

10 minutes ago, sveumrules said:

Beane’s A’s have definitely had impressive success over the years, especially given ownerships near total indifference to the team’s existence, but twenty years ago he was more or less on an island with what he was doing.

At this point pretty much every team has an expansive analytics department and multiple Ivy League acronym holders in the front office to go along with their massive payroll advantages.

From 2015-17 OAK won the 4th fewest games in MLB, then bounced back to win the 5th most from 2018-21 before having their first 100 loss season since 1979 this past summer.

Will be interesting to see how long this rebuild lasts. They’ve let Semien, Treinen, Hendriks and Canha walk in free agency instead of trading them and even with dealing the likes of Chapman, Olson, Murphy, Montas, Bassitt and Manea recently they still have a middle of the road farm.

Except "Moneyball" and analytics isn't just about using advanced stats, it's using it to your advantage.  The A's use it to identify cracks and gaps that other teams aren't taking advantage of.  To find players that outperform their salaries.

It appears they might be looking at speed as one of those cracks.

[Jopal78]

2 hours ago, MrTPlush said:

I’m not sure what you want me to say when you describe exactly what a prospect is…as not being a prospect.

Prospects have question marks and 90% of them only have a tool or two. Most players are not 5-tool players. You are calling our #14 prospect that played at AA as a 21 year old ‘not a prospect’. I mean…I don’t know if you could find another baseball fan that would look at Valerio and not call him a prospect. He wasn’t protected because he isn’t ready to hit MLB pitching and no one is going to stash him on their roster all year.

I also can’t help you if you don’t know how to see the difference between 27 year old Corey Ray and 23 year old Tristian Lutz. One is a prospect the other is a minor league journeyman. One has been playing AAA baseball since 2019 and the other hasn’t ever played at AAA.

 

Define it for me then. Seems like every player in the minor leagues is a "prospect" by your definition. 

If that is the case, and you think Lutz is still a "prospect" then I can't really help you either. Lutz was drafted out of high school over 5 1/2 years ago. He's going to be 25 during the '23 season yet he hasn't seen AAA.  Sure, he had a nice year in AA as a 24 year old, but big time "prospects" like Jacob Reetz and Andruw Monasterio blew his numbers out of the water. 

Anyways, this is getting way off topic, I'll wait and see: maybe Arnold is a genius getting a couple of diamonds in the rough along with Contreras, or just maybe because they let go of 7 pitchers who pitched for them in the majors in '22, and at least another 5 from their AAA roster they simply needed to add some bodies (sorry "prospects") to the organization.

[owbc]

1 minute ago, Lajitas said:

Except "Moneyball" and analytics isn't just about using advanced stats, it's using it to your advantage.  The A's use it to identify cracks and gaps that other teams aren't taking advantage of.  To find players that outperform their salaries.

It appears they might be looking at speed as one of those cracks.

Precisely, it's easy to see why this trade happened given Contreras' defense may be a real liability if teams go back to a past era of stealing 4 or 5 bases per game. But that's all speculation right now, we don't really know how many stolen bases are going to happen and we don't know if the Brewers can coach Contreras to be better at throwing runners out. 

The A's don't really have a choice, when you have no money you need to think out of the box to try and find value. And if Contreras didn't have a few flaws, the Braves would never have wanted to trade him in the first place. 

 

[Redd Vencher]

2 hours ago, CheeseheadInQC said:

And sometimes guys with those tools improve. Especially on the pitching side. Heck, Cam Robinson was protected this year after not last year because he made those improvements. On the hitting side, Manny Pina was never a star but provided value to the Brewers. He was initially a PTBNL in order to make sure he wasn’t taken in the rule 5. If you see major league traits in a guy, that is a non-negligible value. No one is claiming he is an elite prospect, but it sounds like he might have a better chance than most minor league relievers.

There was no Rule 5 draft last year because of the lockout. 

[Fear The Chorizo]

anyone else really looking forward the 1st time the now Cardinal Wilson C. gets hit by a backup slider next season with his little bro behind the plate?  

[igor67]

Mitch Haniger is a good example of a late bloomer type that Lutz might be. Didn't hit AAA until his age 25 season and even then it was split between AA. Pitchers seem more likely to get the right mix of development in mid to late 20's where they have a nice little career and generate some value. They don't directly alter a franchise, but if you could fill your AAA roster every year with interesting maybes you'd generate 2-3 players a year who could give you 10 WAR careers almost all of that super cheap.

[StearnsFTW]

2 hours ago, clancyphile said:

I would not bet against the A's. They did take the Moneyball concept to an extreme by finding things other teams undervalued. With his speed, OBP skills, and defense, Ruiz is going to be valuable as he gets more time in CF. I think 2 to 3 WAR is not unrealistic, especially if a fair bit comes from defense (see 2018 Keon Broxton). If he posts a .350 OBP and steals 100 bases, then this does good things for Oakland. Keep in mind, Oakland has Langeliers at catcher, and Pina has been solid. 

The A's have had 13 seasons at or above .500 since 2002, when they went full Moneyball. They've been doing a lot of things right, and Beane's track record is hard to dispute.

There's pretty much zero indication that he'll ever be a CF, let alone a CF that creates WAR with his defense.  That was always the biggest problem with him in my eyes.  He's been considered a minus fielder all along.

 

[StearnsFTW]

40 minutes ago, Fear The Chorizo said:

anyone else really looking forward the 1st time the now Cardinal Wilson C. gets hit by a backup slider next season with his little bro behind the plate?  

Only if he reeeeeally leans into it and it hits him on his giant elbow pad like always.

[MrTPlush]

Tristian Lutz is going into his age 24 season. Tyrone Taylor didn’t debut until he was 25. Ji Man Choi didn’t debut till 25, he was a former Rule 5 pick. Brent Suter did debut till 26, I believe. Dan Uggla didn’t debut till 26 (another Rule 5 pick). Garrett Cooper didn’t debut till 26.

Plenty of guys don’t debut till 24+ and go on to be very valuable assets. Actually, feel free to take a look at the below links to see when players are debuting age-wise. Spoiler: 
 

https://completegameloss.com/2020/09/24/mlb-debuts-by-season-and-franchise/

https://www.baseball-reference.com/leagues/majors/2022-debuts.shtml

[Fear The Chorizo]

There's a ton of value for small market clubs to mine out of minor league systems with players who aren't bonus baby 1st round talents, prospects who were positionally blocked, and/or former HS draftees who just didn't develop in time before they had to be shipped elsewhere/released by their original organization - particularly if injuries early in their career were the cause.  The Brewers need to be bigtime players on the prospect/minor league free agent scrap heap in order for them to maximize the talent brought into the organization each year.

Once you get past the players drafted in the top 5 overall picks each year and how they typically jump into the top of these lists, a huge aspect of prospect ratings are dependent on timing of both when guys flash and when other guys graduate off the list into MLB.  Sometimes players force themselves into MLB so quickly the top 100 list doesn't have enough time to course-correct and push them up the ladder.  

[Lajitas]

26 minutes ago, StearnsFTW said:

There's pretty much zero indication that he'll ever be a CF, let alone a CF that creates WAR with his defense.  That was always the biggest problem with him in my eyes.  He's been considered a minus fielder all along.

 

Ruiz's RF/9 in CF in the minors:  2.49

Frelick's RF/9 in CF in the minors:  2.38

If there's zero indication that Ruiz will ever be a CF, what position is Frelick going to have to move to?

[monty57]

Here's how I see it: 

Lets say the Brewers can afford a $120,000,000 payroll. There are 26 players, so that's $4,615,385 on average per player.

League minimum salary is $700,000, so for every league minimum guy on the roster, you can have an $8.5M guy and stay within budget. 

If we want a $26M guy on the roster, that's about 6x our "average player," so you basically need 6 pre-arby guys on the roster for every $26M player on the roster. This isn't exact, we could have a whole lot of crappy $2-4M veteran journeymen, but you get the picture.

Bottom line is that we can't afford many big money players, and if we want them, we need to have a bunch of pre-arby guys on the roster. Some of these guys will be "top prospects" who have been recently called up, but a lot of them have to be guys like Payamps who can get them a little bit of value for around league minimum.

So, for those hoping we sign free agents so we don't have to rely on the rookies, you can't really have it both ways. Having the rookies allows us to have some higher-priced guys.

You aren't going to win with a team full of $4.6M veterans... you probably wouldn't win 70 games. Therefore, we need to rely heavily on our farm, and getting a guy like Payamps thrown into a trade is much more beneficial to the Brewers than it is to a bigger revenue team.

[monty57]

18 minutes ago, Lajitas said:

Ruiz's RF/9 in CF in the minors:  2.49

Frelick's RF/9 in CF in the minors:  2.38

If there's zero indication that Ruiz will ever be a CF, what position is Frelick going to have to move to?

Ruiz should definitely have range, but he's still raw in the OF, as he came up as a infielder. He'll probably take some bad routes to balls until he gets more experience. The scouting reports I read when we traded for him suggested that the scouts thought he could stick at CF, but he needs more reps. 

It sounds like the A's are planning on giving him those reps in the MLB outfield, so I'd expect some highlight-reel plays where he can get to balls other players couldn't, and he's going to have some plays where he looks foolish, simply because he hasn't been in the OF for long. Most players have seen thousands of fly balls by the time they hit the MLB OF. Ruiz will be more like hundreds. Some of those fly balls will be coming at him at speeds over 100 MPH.

[StearnsFTW]

3 hours ago, Lajitas said:

Ruiz's RF/9 in CF in the minors:  2.49

Frelick's RF/9 in CF in the minors:  2.38

If there's zero indication that Ruiz will ever be a CF, what position is Frelick going to have to move to?

Find me any scouting report that says he is a likely CF.  I just looked again.  I found 6 that said he's not.

 

He's probably a LF, and I personally think Frelick is probably a LF too.

Edit to add:  Where are you finding minor league range factors?  I'd be interested to see them.  thanks

 

[Jopal78]

2 hours ago, MrTPlush said:

Tristian Lutz is going into his age 24 season. Tyrone Taylor didn’t debut until he was 25. Ji Man Choi didn’t debut till 25, he was a former Rule 5 pick. Brent Suter did debut till 26, I believe. Dan Uggla didn’t debut till 26 (another Rule 5 pick). Garrett Cooper didn’t debut till 26.

Plenty of guys don’t debut till 24+ and go on to be very valuable assets. Actually, feel free to take a look at the below links to see when players are debuting age-wise. Spoiler: 
 

https://completegameloss.com/2020/09/24/mlb-debuts-by-season-and-franchise/

https://www.baseball-reference.com/leagues/majors/2022-debuts.shtml

Ok, last post on this. You're proving my point: by the time the players you mentioned above debuted in the major leagues none of them were "prospects" anymore if they ever were (unless of course you are defining anyone who plays in the minors as a prospect).  

Further,  Lutz was born in 1998 he's going to be 25 on his next birthday which occurs in summer. You're really arguing semantics. He finished 2022, and his second consecutive season, in AA with a sub .800 OPS that occurring with half his games played at DH. Lutz was drafted in 2017 and is going on 25.... sometimes if it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck it probably is. 

 

 

[UpandIn]

7 hours ago, GreatNWwi said:

And before long 4 teams didn't want him.  It could be more like dating that hot cheer leader only to find out she is a piece of work you can't stand.

 

Not that I think this is a bad pick up but your analogy does not dispute what was said.

 

Yeah...but it really does. A player switching teams in and of itself doesn't mean anything other than...they've switched teams. 

Max Scherzer has been on 3 teams in his last 3 years. Is there literally ANY meaning in that? It's just a bad and kinda lazy argument. It's the same one he used with Renfroe. He just changes the number of teams and or years and that's his entire argument. 

Or how about Riuz? He's now on his 3rd organization in just a few months. Obviously if he was any good...he wouldn't be traded

Lots of players change teams for a lot of reasons. Team control, number of options. Small market teams sign players hoping they'll have a good season so they can flip them. 

If that's the extent of your argument as to why a player isn't good...it's not a good argument.

[Harold Hutchison]

3 hours ago, Jopal78 said:

Define it for me then. Seems like every player in the minor leagues is a "prospect" by your definition. 

If that is the case, and you think Lutz is still a "prospect" then I can't really help you either. Lutz was drafted out of high school over 5 1/2 years ago. He's going to be 25 during the '23 season yet he hasn't seen AAA.  Sure, he had a nice year in AA as a 24 year old, but big time "prospects" like Jacob Reetz and Andruw Monasterio blew his numbers out of the water. 

Anyways, this is getting way off topic, I'll wait and see: maybe Arnold is a genius getting a couple of diamonds in the rough along with Contreras, or just maybe because they let go of 7 pitchers who pitched for them in the majors in '22, and at least another 5 from their AAA roster they simply needed to add some bodies (sorry "prospects") to the organization.

Quite frankly, every player in the minors is. Their exact ceiling, their floor, can be up for question, but there is no real reason to write anyone off.

See Brent Suter - 31st-round pick, on practically zero top 25 ballots among BF.net posters, Yet compare his MLB career to Jed Bradley or Kodi Meideros. We never really know who will succeed, who won't. Much of it comes down to watching the players play on the field.

[UpandIn]

2 hours ago, Lajitas said:

Ruiz's RF/9 in CF in the minors:  2.49

Frelick's RF/9 in CF in the minors:  2.38

If there's zero indication that Ruiz will ever be a CF, what position is Frelick going to have to move to?

Range Factor while in the minors?

That's what we're using to determine who's a CFer and who's not? So if Frelick payed behind pitchers who racked up more strikeouts...he's not as good in the field?

Frelick was a DPOY in the ACC in CF. He's been a CFer coming up. Ruiz was a 2B.

The only real reason so far to believe Ruiz can be a plus CFer is...he's really fast. 80 speed vs 70 speed.

 

One has to develop as a CFer and the other doesn't...according to the scouts. I've never seen Ruiz play CF, so I don't know how good he is. I do know how many times he caught a ball in a small sample size in the minors and how many times he threw people out? That's not gonna tell ya much. 

[Brewcrew82]

9 minutes ago, UpandIn said:

Range Factor while in the minors?

That's what we're using to determine who's a CFer and who's not? So if Frelick payed behind pitchers who racked up more strikeouts...he's not as good in the field?

Frelick was a DPOY in the ACC in CF. He's been a CFer coming up. Ruiz was a 2B.

The only real reason so far to believe Ruiz can be a plus CFer is...he's really fast. 80 speed vs 70 speed.

 

One has to develop as a CFer and the other doesn't...according to the scouts. I've never seen Ruiz play CF, so I don't know how good he is. I do know how many times he caught a ball in a small sample size in the minors and how many times he threw people out? That's not gonna tell ya much. 

This. Frelick is an above average CF (55+ grade). He may not be quite at the level of a Garrett Mitchell, but he'll still accumulate plenty of positive defensive value at the position. 

[JosephC]

If the pro-Lutz crowd wants to bet money that Lutz will amass 150+ plate appearances in the major leagues, I would bet against that and it would take me about 1 nanosecond to make that decision.

 

[Lajitas]

2 hours ago, StearnsFTW said:

Edit to add:  Where are you finding minor league range factors?  I'd be interested to see them.  thanks

 

baseball-reference

[StearnsFTW]

9 minutes ago, Lajitas said:

baseball-reference

Hmmm......I looked but must have missed it in the past.

 

Thanks.