Twins extend Pablo Lopez for four years, $73m

[Fear The Chorizo]

Until Yelich's contract no longer takes up ~20% of the annual Brewers' payroll, I honestly don't know why people are surprised there isn't a 2nd megaextended player making $20M+ annually for the next 5+ seasons.

I'll be upset if any one of the 3 get a contract extension from the Brewers, because in all honesty they're too close to free agency for the Brewers to get any sort of team-friendly discount and they won't just extend 1 or 2 more seasons than current team control through the 2024 season.  Plus, the two pitchers are already injured and Adames is a good/not great player who won't be worth whatever contract he winds up signing in a couple offseasons via free agency.  Paying older players huge sums of guaranteed money to cash checks as their performance declines is not how small market teams should operate in this system if they have any hope of being consistent contenders.

Any Brewers' extensions happening in the next couple of seasons need to be issued to players in pre-arbitration with the intent of keeping them Brewers until they reach~30 yrs old.  The Brewers already have control of Woodruff, Burnes, AND Adames until they're either over 30 or pushing right up against it - let that play out and either pay them what they're worth in arbitration or trade them if a more valuable package presents itself next offseason (or even next year's deadline)

[Playing Catch]

It seems to me, that the overarching organizational strategy is to avoid rostering replacement level or below players, and to sign at market value, or accept the risk of, extending players that can reasonably be expected to be 2.0 - 3.2 WAR (or even 1.0+ depending on the risk/cost) players at the end of the contract. For TOP dollar guys, I believe the Brewers could reasonably expect that those players would not meet that threshold in the last year or two of the deal (or maybe even longer).

I also think the Brewers know that 5+ WAR players simply don't come along very often. I would not be surprised if the Brewers, instead of extending or trading Burnes/Woodruff, will instead simply let them walk after 2024. The WAR-value that they provide in ONE season playing for arbitration salaries is very difficult to get back in a trade for prospects. I still expect that one or both will be traded before then, but there's an argument to just let them finish their contracts and let them move on.

Same thing for Adames, although I suspect his performance this season will be the bellweather season for whether he's going to be good (2.0 WAR) past age 30 or not. I suspect not. I think it is likely that the Brewers trade him, as the ability to get back fair value for him in prospects will be more likely.

Teams have recently mitigated the long-term risk in favor of adding $$$ to the annual budget, as that money can be fairly expected to have a really strong return in terms of on-field performance in the last year of the contract.

[brewers888]

18 hours ago, Brock Beauchamp said:

That’s possible. Unfortunately, it’s hard to see this team being good in 2024-2025 without them and if they’re not extended, they can’t be allowed to just walk.

Especially Burnes. 

If we let Burnes and Woodruff walk as free agents we will be a last place club as this system just doesn't have the pitching to replace ace caliber starters. I would move Burnes as soon as this deadline and both no later than this offseason to get as much as possible in return and hopefully some good young arms will be part of the return. Until their is a salary cap we should never let stars walk away for nothing and yes I consider the compensation draft pick as not nearly enough for players the caliber or Burnes and Woodruff. 

[brewers888]

I question if this ownership is going to be willing to do any extensions going forward unless they are incredibly team friendly and extremely cheap such as the Peralta and Ashby deals. In other words I do not see any 50 million plus long term deals going forward from this ownership group. Hopefully I am proven wrong but I just don't see it.

[Fear The Chorizo]

28 minutes ago, brewers888 said:

If we let Burnes and Woodruff walk as free agents we will be a last place club as this system just doesn't have the pitching to replace ace caliber starters. I would move Burnes as soon as this deadline and both no later than this offseason to get as much as possible in return and hopefully some good young arms will be part of the return. Until their is a salary cap we should never let stars walk away for nothing and yes I consider the compensation draft pick as not nearly enough for players the caliber or Burnes and Woodruff. 

The same thing was said around 6 ish seasons ago to want to extend Jimmy Nelson once he took off in early 2017, and then they extended Chase Anderson and brought in stopgap free agent vets on shortterm deals like Chacin, Miley, and Gio Gonzalez...plus they had serviceable starters like Zach Davies....thank God they took the approach of avoiding a longterm extension to Big Jimmy D and then let the youngsters coming up from the minors see what they could become as MLB starters (Peralta, Woody, Burnes).  Then in 2018 they had among the best (and most cost-effective) pitching staffs in the league.

Nobody was clamoring for the Brewers to extend Burnes and Woody the instant they got up to MLB, either, because they weren't highly pedigreed pitching prospects who were can't miss frontline starters until seasons 2 or 3 of their MLB careers.  There are other arms in the Brewers' system who arguably profile better than what those 3 were as prospects - and they'll hopefully get the same opportunity as Woody and Burnes did when they stepped into roles formerly occupied by veteran pitchers when they were ready for the Show.

[YelichPosse]

2 hours ago, Fear The Chorizo said:

The same thing was said around 6 ish seasons ago to want to extend Jimmy Nelson once he took off in early 2017, and then they extended Chase Anderson and brought in stopgap free agent vets on shortterm deals like Chacin, Miley, and Gio Gonzalez...plus they had serviceable starters like Zach Davies....thank God they took the approach of avoiding a longterm extension to Big Jimmy D and then let the youngsters coming up from the minors see what they could become as MLB starters (Peralta, Woody, Burnes).  Then in 2018 they had among the best (and most cost-effective) pitching staffs in the league.

Nobody was clamoring for the Brewers to extend Burnes and Woody the instant they got up to MLB, either, because they weren't highly pedigreed pitching prospects who were can't miss frontline starters until seasons 2 or 3 of their MLB careers.  There are other arms in the Brewers' system who arguably profile better than what those 3 were as prospects - and they'll hopefully get the same opportunity as Woody and Burnes did when they stepped into roles formerly occupied by veteran pitchers when they were ready for the Show.

This is a good take. Peralta took a while to develop slowly after the Lind trade. Burnes and Woody both came up and yes these guys have good stuff. But I don’t recall them being ‘can’t miss’ arms either back in 17-18 time frame. Maybe I’m mis remembering. I believe we have the coaching and pitching lab that will develop a nice surprise or two on the starter front - who’s not on our radar.