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

[Axman59]

I love looking back at Brewers trades, both short term and long term, to see how they play out.

We are now just past the mid-point of the 2023 season and both Contreras (68 games played) and Ruiz (85 games played) have been regular starters. The score is:

Contreras: 1.4 WAR

Ruiz: -0.1 WAR

(baseball reference)

#winning

[Brewcrew82]

4 minutes ago, Axman59 said:

I love looking back at Brewers trades, both short term and long term, to see how they play out.

We are now just past the mid-point of the 2023 season and both Contreras (68 games played) and Ruiz (85 games played) have been regular starters. The score is:

Contreras: 1.4 WAR

Ruiz: -0.1 WAR

(baseball reference)

#winning

You can add the 1.3 bWAR we're getting from Payamps to that comparison, too. 

[owbc]

13 minutes ago, Axman59 said:

I love looking back at Brewers trades, both short term and long term, to see how they play out.

We are now just past the mid-point of the 2023 season and both Contreras (68 games played) and Ruiz (85 games played) have been regular starters. The score is:

Contreras: 1.4 WAR

Ruiz: -0.1 WAR

(baseball reference)

#winning

Stolen bases:

Ruiz: 43
Contreras: 1

[Axman59]

9 minutes ago, Brewcrew82 said:

You can add the 1.3 bWAR we're getting from Payamps to that comparison, too. 

Good point.

[Axman59]

1 minute ago, owbc said:

Stolen bases:

Ruiz: 43
Contreras: 1

If this were Fantasy Baseball Ruiz would have some positive value. But thankfully the Brewers play in the real world.

[jerichoholicninja]

Ruiz is basically Billy Hamilton - can't hit for power, can't get on base, plays average at best defense, but can steal a lot of bases. I suppose there is some bit of value to a player like that but not a whole lot.

[owbc]

30 minutes ago, jerichoholicninja said:

Ruiz is basically Billy Hamilton - can't hit for power, can't get on base, plays average at best defense, but can steal a lot of bases. I suppose there is some bit of value to a player like that but not a whole lot.

80 steals/year adds a ton of value. It's why Ruiz has 1.5 oWAR despite a .640 OPS. 

The real mystery is how someone that fast has -1.3 dWAR playing center field????

[nate82]

13 minutes ago, owbc said:

The real mystery is how someone that fast has -1.3 dWAR playing center field????

Bad jumps and reads would be my guess.  Speed can only help you so much especially when a ball is going 90MPH+. 

[adambr2]

So, every time you see an apparently lopsided deal like this go down in your favor, you're obviously excited but there's always another part of you going, "OK, there's got to be something more we don't know." Like maybe Ruiz is just way highly more regarded as a prospect than the public consensus? That was my first assumption and it would also put new perspective on the Josh Hader trade. 

But, so far, this trade looks exactly how we would have expected to and I still don't understand it. Maybe if there was some big salary implications attached, but there isn't. I am not sure how or why a prospect like Ruiz is worth a young AS caliber catcher plus other pieces. I still don't get it. 

[nate82]

10 hours ago, adambr2 said:

But, so far, this trade looks exactly how we would have expected to and I still don't understand it. Maybe if there was some big salary implications attached, but there isn't. I am not sure how or why a prospect like Ruiz is worth a young AS caliber catcher plus other pieces. I still don't get it. 

The A’s really liked Ruiz.  That is the explanation for the A’s side of this trade.  Which makes it even more confusing as Ruiz was actually used to get Murphy for the Braves.

Yeager and Payamps was the return for Ruiz.  Which makes some sense.  Now how that means the Brewers get Contreras out of this deal no idea.  The only big salary was Pina but that wasn’t all that big.  So the Brewers got Contreras for nothing in this deal essentially.

[ClosetBrewerFan]

4 minutes ago, nate82 said:

The A’s really liked Ruiz.  That is the explanation for the A’s side of this trade.  Which makes it even more confusing as Ruiz was actually used to get Murphy for the Braves.

Yeager and Payamps was the return for Ruiz.  Which makes some sense.  Now how that means the Brewers get Contreras out of this deal no idea.  The only big salary was Pina but that wasn’t all that big.  So the Brewers got Contreras for nothing in this deal essentially.

Oakland's GM should be fired for this trade.  It was a universally jaw dropping .  No one felt Contreras for Ruiz was a reasonable trade and somehow the Brewers got two more players on top of it.  Just stunningly bad trade by Oakland.

[Outlander]

Ruiz was traded for a couple of All Stars in a span of a few months, plenty of people felt he had high value, just not the internet.

[Brewcrew82]

William Contreras has already surpassed his fWAR from last year (2.5)....Charlie Greene and co. have turned him into one of the best all-around catchers in the game. 

[rickh150]

Its not all Contreras fault, but throwing out only 15% of base stealers is not impressive.

[sveumrules]

22 minutes ago, rickh150 said:

Its not all Contreras fault, but throwing out only 15% of base stealers is not impressive.

I’m seeing 48 SB / 10 CS for William for a 17.2 CS%.

League wide there have been 1957 SB / 507 CS for a 20.6 CS%.

Contreras has thrown out two fewer base runners than average.

[BlightyBrew]

44 minutes ago, sveumrules said:

I’m seeing 48 SB / 10 CS for William for a 17.2 CS%.

League wide there have been 1957 SB / 507 CS for a 20.6 CS%.

Contreras has thrown out two fewer base runners than average.

Just curious of those 48 how many are from the Reds?

[Lathund]

A decent chunk of Contreras SB comes from 2-3 games where they ran wild. But from what I saw of those games, they really were running on the pitchers involved. There were only a handful of those steals where he even had a chance at getting the runner.

[CheezWizHed]

With so many variables of the pitcher, runner, catcher, and SS/2B, it is hard to distinguish the catcher's responsibility from the others.  I know they have pop times for how long the catcher takes to get to 2nd, but a rating of accuracy would be nice too (perhaps there is one in the depths of catching metrics?).  

At least you could compare apples to apples. 

Edit: and of course they have this already: https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/leaderboard/catcher-throwing

[rickh150]

12 minutes ago, Lathund said:

A decent chunk of Contreras SB comes from 2-3 games where they ran wild. But from what I saw of those games, they really were running on the pitchers involved. There were only a handful of those steals where he even had a chance at getting the runner.

I agree… some he had no opportunity to throw a runner out.

His arm strength and pop time are both below avg, but his exchange time is average.

https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/leaderboard/catcher-throwing?game_type=Regular&n=q&season_end=2023&season_start=2023&split=yes&team=&type=Cat&with_team_only=1&sortColumn=seasonal_sprint_speed&sortDirection=desc

[rickh150]

2 hours ago, sveumrules said:

I’m seeing 48 SB / 10 CS for William for a 17.2 CS%.

League wide there have been 1957 SB / 507 CS for a 20.6 CS%.

Contreras has thrown out two fewer base runners than average.

I Think I only had 2B throws… 28 for 33.

[markedman5]