Austin Nola Signs Minors Deal With Brewers

[Thurston Fluff]

1 hour ago, Playing Catch said:

Just a note to say that teams can't MAKE a guy sign in January. Lots of players wait to sign because their agents recommend waiting for bigger and better contracts/situations. For all we know, the Brewers currently have the best offer on the table for any number of guys, but those guys are hoping some other team offers a bigger deal, or another team is closer to family, or closer to the beach, or the nightclubs.

It bothers me when people act like these players are just playing cards that one needs to purchase and take home. The players decide when to sign, not the teams.

I think the two times big names go are at the very beginning where teams overpay to get their man before anyone really gets a chance to negotiate and mid to late January when teams who lost out on other players start to get nervous. Near the beginning of spring training is when players the Brewers can find bargains as the table turns and players start to get nervous.

[Joseph Zarr]

13 hours ago, damuelle said:

Having retained Navarreto and added Haase, Nola, R. Rodriguez and D. Garcia, I think we’ve nearly re-established our catching depth, though we still need Jose Sibrian or another player for High-A Wisconsin (I think).

 

[jerichoholicninja]

Mod edit: if you have a suggestion on how to better moderate the board feel free to PM a mod or Brock. Thanks.

[Frisbee Slider]

[JefferyLeonard]

9 hours ago, Playing Catch said:

Just a note to say that teams can't MAKE a guy sign in January. Lots of players wait to sign because their agents recommend waiting for bigger and better contracts/situations. For all we know, the Brewers currently have the best offer on the table for any number of guys, but those guys are hoping some other team offers a bigger deal, or another team is closer to family, or closer to the beach, or the nightclubs.

It bothers me when people act like these players are just playing cards that one needs to purchase and take home. The players decide when to sign, not the teams.

I would say it's far more likely they haven't even contacted(let alone offered) Hoskins and/or Chapman then it is they have the high offer. They seem perfectly content in trying to resign Santana to play 1B and roll with Tyler Black and Monasterio at 3rd. If guys want more years then for gods sakes give them more years. Instead of always doing 1 year deals(with an option) give Hoskins 4-5 years. Besides, most of the guys that want more years(if that's what Hoskins is looking for) will take less money per year for the long term security. Have no idea why the Brewers seem so opposed to longer deals with FA's. Especially when it means you almost always get them cheaper than you would on a 1 or 2 year deal. 

[sveumrules]

10 hours ago, JefferyLeonard said:

Have no idea why the Brewers seem so opposed to longer deals with FA's.

As the smallest market in Capitalist MLB, the Brewers ability to eat financial mistakes is considerably smaller than other teams.

One bad long term FA contract could hinder the Brewers ability to compete for multiple seasons.

I’d imagine both the 2021 and 2022 Brewers could have been better off if they didn’t have LoCain making $35M for 1.0 WAR.

Free Agency is the least efficient use of funds in MLB, the Brewers need to maximize efficiency given their geographic and economic realities.

[areacodes]

On 1/5/2024 at 6:26 PM, JefferyLeonard said:

Cumulatively, sure they MAY make a smidge of a difference. But why sign these guys first? Aren't they also going to be there closer to spring training? You have GAPING crater like holes at first and 3rd, and they are out signing guys to minor league deals BEFORE addressing those gaping holes. If they think Tyler Black and Carlos Santana are the answers...the ONLY reason they would think they are the answers is because they are cheap, and fill those holes. Hardly adequately(maybe more middling), but hey, they won't cost much so..you do you Brewers. 

So, in your mind the Brewers should never use rookies and other pre-arby players, even if they could be good, since they are cheap and that makes the Brewers and Attanasio cheap. Instead, they need to spend lots of money in free agency to show they aren’t cheap even if those players would end up only providing a marginal improvement for a much larger cost or are terrible on their own.

[JefferyLeonard]

5 minutes ago, areacodes said:

So, in your mind the Brewers should never use rookies and other pre-arby players, even if they could be good, since they are cheap and that makes the Brewers and Attanasio cheap. Instead, they need to spend lots of money in free agency to show they aren’t cheap even if those players would end up only providing a marginal improvement for a much larger cost or are terrible on their own.

That's not what I'm saying. It's okay to use younger players, all teams do it, but if they go with Black, the whole roster would have young players all over the field. One or two spots okay, but guess what happens in MLB when essentially have your LU is guys that are either rookies or in their 2nd year? You lose... a lot. Unless you get really really really lucky. For some reason the Brewers like to utilize "hope" as their #1 strategy. Hope this guy rebounds, hope this guy Pitches to form etc etc. Since when has hope ever been a strategy? It is with the Brewers for some reason.

[Thurston Fluff]

57 minutes ago, JefferyLeonard said:

That's not what I'm saying. It's okay to use younger players, all teams do it, but if they go with Black, the whole roster would have young players all over the field. One or two spots okay, but guess what happens in MLB when essentially have your LU is guys that are either rookies or in their 2nd year? You lose... a lot. Unless you get really really really lucky. For some reason the Brewers like to utilize "hope" as their #1 strategy. Hope this guy rebounds, hope this guy Pitches to form etc etc. Since when has hope ever been a strategy? It is with the Brewers for some reason.

Hope is not wishful thinking. Hope is that the projection the team has for them based on their knowledge of the player is correct. In other words it's based on the belief they know what they're doing.

[LouisEly]

2 hours ago, JefferyLeonard said:

That's not what I'm saying. It's okay to use younger players, all teams do it, but if they go with Black, the whole roster would have young players all over the field. One or two spots okay, but guess what happens in MLB when essentially have your LU is guys that are either rookies or in their 2nd year? You lose... a lot. Unless you get really really really lucky. For some reason the Brewers like to utilize "hope" as their #1 strategy. Hope this guy rebounds, hope this guy Pitches to form etc etc. Since when has hope ever been a strategy? It is with the Brewers for some reason.

Teams also hope that the free agents they sign live up to their past performance and hope that they don't get injured.

[brewerfan82]

1 hour ago, Thurston Fluff said:

Since when has hope ever been a strategy?

"Hope" is giving a 4-5 year contract to a player entering his age 31 season when he hasn't played in over a year due to a torn ACL that required surgery to repair and hoping everything goes alright.

[JefferyLeonard]

54 minutes ago, brewerfan82 said:

"Hope" is giving a 4-5 year contract to a player entering his age 31 season when he hasn't played in over a year due to a torn ACL that required surgery to repair and hoping everything goes alright.

So let's say they gave Hoskins 4/55 million. Just under $14 mill a year, you mean to tell me that would cripple the franchise if it didn't work? If that's enough to cripple the franchise then Mark has no business owning the team and should sell. Period. 

[sveumrules]

22 minutes ago, JefferyLeonard said:

So let's say they gave Hoskins 4/55 million. Just under $14 mill a year, you mean to tell me that would cripple the franchise if it didn't work? If that's enough to cripple the franchise then Mark has no business owning the team and should sell. Period. 

Of course it wouldn’t cripple the franchise, but $14M is almost 12% of a $120M payroll.

If Hoskins wasn’t able to recapture his past level of performance, that would be a waste of finite resources which would limit the ability to make other moves, yes.

The most recent multi year big money drains for the Brewers were Braun (4.8 WAR for $75M from 2017-20), Yelich (4.2 WAR for $48M from 2020-22) and Cain (1.0 WAR for $35M from 2021-22).

That combined $158M represented about 28.7% of the Brewers $550M in OD Payroll from 2017-22.

The combined 10.0 WAR they got for that investment represented about 4.44% of the Brewers 225 combined position player and pitcher WAR from 2017-22.

[brewerfan82]

43 minutes ago, JefferyLeonard said:

So let's say they gave Hoskins 4/55 million. Just under $14 mill a year, you mean to tell me that would cripple the franchise if it didn't work? If that's enough to cripple the franchise then Mark has no business owning the team and should sell. Period. 

Part of the issue with this discussion is no one knows what it's going to take to get him. Depending on how a 4/$55M contract is structured (opt outs, front loaded or not, etc) it could work for both parties, but we have no idea what he's looking for right now, what other teams are willing to give him, or what the Brewers may or may not currently have on the table.

The consistent complaining about how the team is approaching this offseason when the players you want them to target are still available seems a bit premature. It'll be a more interesting discussion, backed with some more meaningful information, once we see where Chapman and Hoskins go and what their contracts look like. Even then we're not likely to know exactly how hard the Brewers went after either player (assuming they don't get either).

Regardless, it'd be nice to start a new topic to discuss this instead of bringing it up in threads about signing a minor league player that has absolutely nothing to do with it.

[JefferyLeonard]

1 hour ago, sveumrules said:

Of course it wouldn’t cripple the franchise, but $14M is almost 12% of a $120M payroll.

If Hoskins wasn’t able to recapture his past level of performance, that would be a waste of finite resources which would limit the ability to make other moves, yes.

The most recent multi year big money drains for the Brewers were Braun (4.8 WAR for $75M from 2017-20), Yelich (4.2 WAR for $48M from 2020-22) and Cain (1.0 WAR for $35M from 2021-22).

That combined $158M represented about 28.7% of the Brewers $550M in OD Payroll from 2017-22.

The combined 10.0 WAR they got for that investment represented about 4.44% of the Brewers 225 combined position player and pitcher WAR from 2017-22.

Well, there's a simple solution then, up the damn payroll. Smallest market or not, $120 million is plain laughable. I'd also bet that whatever you want to say Hoskins numbers are(unless they are plain brutally bad), would still likely be better(and maybe substantially so) then anyone else they put over there, at least for the 1st couple years. The numbers may not meet what he's getting paid(hint: most players #'s don't), but if they are still better than anyone else they put over there, isn't that money well spent, since it's still making the team better?

Two things can be true at once, that he doesn't live up to whatever contract they give him, but the #'s are still good enough to improve the team. 

[nate82]

3 minutes ago, JefferyLeonard said:

The numbers may not meet what he's getting paid(hint: most players #'s don't), but if they are still better than anyone else they put over there, isn't that money well spent, since it's still making the team better?

Unlikely as Hoskins isn't all that great after you take the HR's away.  He is not a good hitter as he is only a career .242 / .353 / .492 hitter.  His slugging in his last full year was only .462 and his OBP also dipped to a career low of .332.  Would you rather pay $8mm for .242 / .356 / .432 production or $18mm for .242 / .353/ .460 production?  The first is Santana and the second is Hoskins.  Hoskins just won't outproduce Santana by $10mm.  It would be dumb to sign Hoskins at $16mm+ for multiple seasons when you can get nearly the same production and better defense from Santana for far less.  This is not being cheap either the production just doesn't justify the price difference.  If it were Ohtani at $18mm versus Santana at $8mm then yes you take Ohtani at $18mm over Santana but not Hoskins.  You are basically paying double for what Santana costs compared to Hoskins when you are not getting double the production or even better production. 

I think Hoskins will do something closer to what Bell did last year which was .247 / .325 / .419.  You really want to pay Hoskins $16mm+ a season to get that kind of production?  Or how about Conforto last year who hit .239 / .334 / .384 is that what you want to pay $16mm+ a season for?  Black is projected for a .240 / .342 / .401 season which if he hits that would be equal to what Hoskins is likely to put up in 2024.  Santana is also projected for about the same.  Hoskins is not someone I want the Brewers to spend $16mm+ a season for and neither is Chapman.  These players you keep bringing up are just not worth $16mm+ a season.  Let some other idiot sign them for that and only get production out of them that should cost $8mm a season or less. 

Chapman and Hoskins are just not players teams should be investing $16mm+ a season in especially more than one season.  I would rather sign JD Martinez to a one or two year deal at $14-16mm per season than go anywhere north of $8mm a season for Hoskins or Chapman.  There is a reason why neither of these players have signed a contract so far.  No team is willing to meet their asking price and rightfully so. 

[JefferyLeonard]

1 hour ago, nate82 said:

Unlikely as Hoskins isn't all that great after you take the HR's away.  He is not a good hitter as he is only a career .242 / .353 / .492 hitter.  His slugging in his last full year was only .462 and his OBP also dipped to a career low of .332.  Would you rather pay $8mm for .242 / .356 / .432 production or $18mm for .242 / .353/ .460 production?  The first is Santana and the second is Hoskins.  Hoskins just won't outproduce Santana by $10mm.  It would be dumb to sign Hoskins at $16mm+ for multiple seasons when you can get nearly the same production and better defense from Santana for far less.  This is not being cheap either the production just doesn't justify the price difference.  If it were Ohtani at $18mm versus Santana at $8mm then yes you take Ohtani at $18mm over Santana but not Hoskins.  You are basically paying double for what Santana costs compared to Hoskins when you are not getting double the production or even better production. 

I think Hoskins will do something closer to what Bell did last year which was .247 / .325 / .419.  You really want to pay Hoskins $16mm+ a season to get that kind of production?  Or how about Conforto last year who hit .239 / .334 / .384 is that what you want to pay $16mm+ a season for?  Black is projected for a .240 / .342 / .401 season which if he hits that would be equal to what Hoskins is likely to put up in 2024.  Santana is also projected for about the same.  Hoskins is not someone I want the Brewers to spend $16mm+ a season for and neither is Chapman.  These players you keep bringing up are just not worth $16mm+ a season.  Let some other idiot sign them for that and only get production out of them that should cost $8mm a season or less. 

Chapman and Hoskins are just not players teams should be investing $16mm+ a season in especially more than one season.  I would rather sign JD Martinez to a one or two year deal at $14-16mm per season than go anywhere north of $8mm a season for Hoskins or Chapman.  There is a reason why neither of these players have signed a contract so far.  No team is willing to meet their asking price and rightfully so. 

This lineup needs power hitters, BADLY. I'll take Hoskins's bombs any day in this lineup. I'd be totally fine with JD too

[nate82]

5 minutes ago, JefferyLeonard said:

This lineup needs power hitters, BADLY. I'll take Hoskins's bombs any day in this lineup. I'd be totally fine with JD too

If he is hitting below .240 those bombs are going to be meaningless.  I wouldn’t be surprised if Hoskins is more like Tellez going forward.  You really wanna pay $16mm plus for Tellez like production?

[JefferyLeonard]

1 hour ago, nate82 said:

If he is hitting below .240 those bombs are going to be meaningless.  I wouldn’t be surprised if Hoskins is more like Tellez going forward.  You really wanna pay $16mm plus for Tellez like production?

Maybe, but what if...what if he hits .260-.270 with 30-35 bombs? Let's say Tyler Black hits .290 with 15 bombs. What's more valuable? 

[nate82]

1 minute ago, JefferyLeonard said:

Maybe, but what if...what if he hits .260-.270 with 30-35 bombs? Let's say Tyler Black hits .290 with 15 bombs. What's more valuable? 

Well for one Hoskins has only hit above .250 in his career once and that was at .259 so the .260-.270 is not going to happen.  He will be closer to .215 than he will ever be to .260 or above.  If Black hits .290 with 15 bombs that is actually more valuable as he probably hits some more doubles than Hoskins does.  If you can get .290 with 15 HR's with Black then why pay Hoskins?  If Black can even get to 1/3 of the production that Hoskins does then Hoskins shouldn't be making $16mm+ a season he should be making closer to what Santana does. 

Unless Hoskins signs for $12mm or less per year which he won't then it is not worth signing Hoskins.  Would you pay $300k for a regular Mustang or $300k for Lamborghini Huracan?  Basically Hoskins is that $300k regular Mustang in this comparison.  The price per performance is not worth it when you are paying a premium. 

[tmwiese55]

5 hours ago, sveumrules said:

Of course it wouldn’t cripple the franchise, but $14M is almost 12% of a $120M payroll.

If Hoskins wasn’t able to recapture his past level of performance, that would be a waste of finite resources which would limit the ability to make other moves, yes.

The most recent multi year big money drains for the Brewers were Braun (4.8 WAR for $75M from 2017-20), Yelich (4.2 WAR for $48M from 2020-22) and Cain (1.0 WAR for $35M from 2021-22).

That combined $158M represented about 28.7% of the Brewers $550M in OD Payroll from 2017-22.

The combined 10.0 WAR they got for that investment represented about 4.44% of the Brewers 225 combined position player and pitcher WAR from 2017-22.

Essentially this terrible argument comes to that, every large long term deal we've given out to players in their 30s has turned out badly. The vast majority of them throughout all of baseball turn out badly, and many of them horribly.  And someone is advocating that we need to MORE of those and they're cheap and stupid if they don't.  Its just a flat out terrible argument and nothing one can do about. 

For example on better routes in the names thrown out, rather than give out what's likely a terrible contract to Chapman. The smart move is to find the next Chapman and acquire him like Tor did when they got Chapman (I didn't look at the prospects value, I mean on the proven player/controlled for fair money aspect).  This is what MKE should be targeting at 3B, a Chapman of 3 years ago or essentially the 1B/3B version of Contreras.  They tried similar with Tellez and it kinda worked but didn't end up being sustainable, hopefully the next one is better and a bit more proven if they can find one.   Personally, I hope the Cubs give Chapman a 6/150 type deal. 

[JefferyLeonard]

47 minutes ago, tmwiese55 said:

Essentially this terrible argument comes to that, every large long term deal we've given out to players in their 30s has turned out badly. The vast majority of them throughout all of baseball turn out badly, and many of them horribly.  And someone is advocating that we need to MORE of those and they're cheap and stupid if they don't.  Its just a flat out terrible argument and nothing one can do about. 

For example on better routes in the names thrown out, rather than give out what's likely a terrible contract to Chapman. The smart move is to find the next Chapman and acquire him like Tor did when they got Chapman (I didn't look at the prospects value, I mean on the proven player/controlled for fair money aspect).  This is what MKE should be targeting at 3B, a Chapman of 3 years ago or essentially the 1B/3B version of Contreras.  They tried similar with Tellez and it kinda worked but didn't end up being sustainable, hopefully the next one is better and a bit more proven if they can find one.   Personally, I hope the Cubs give Chapman a 6/150 type deal. 

Okay and this is no offense to anyone here, but so many people here get so excited over prospects. I get it to some extent. But, I'm not sure if many people want to admit to themselves that there is a better then average chance they fail or are no better then mediocre at the big league level. Now, I'm speaking just from an offensive perspective here, but Turang is never going to hit much, we all say what happened with Weimer, Frelick fell off a cliff towards the end of the season, Mitchell is an unknown, Chourio SHOULD be okay. What if Black never reaches the monumental levels here people seem to think he will?

Then what happens? That's hurting the organization, because none or only 1 or 2 of them work out. So you're taking steps backwards. And it's going to be really glaring with the rest of the lineup the way it is. You can't live on great pitching/bullpen forever. At some point, you have to be able to hit to win games. The Brewers just don't seem to be all that interested in even TRYING to improve it(even if it fails), and would rather use the "hope" strategy, that several guys figure it out all at the same time. The likelihood of that is very small. You'd think they would know that, but apparently not. 

[Brewcrew82]

45 minutes ago, JefferyLeonard said:

Okay and this is no offense to anyone here, but so many people here get so excited over prospects. I get it to some extent. But, I'm not sure if many people want to admit to themselves that there is a better then average chance they fail or are no better then mediocre at the big league level. Now, I'm speaking just from an offensive perspective here, but Turang is never going to hit much, we all say what happened with Weimer, Frelick fell off a cliff towards the end of the season, Mitchell is an unknown, Chourio SHOULD be okay. What if Black never reaches the monumental levels here people seem to think he will?

Then what happens? That's hurting the organization, because none or only 1 or 2 of them work out. So you're taking steps backwards. And it's going to be really glaring with the rest of the lineup the way it is. You can't live on great pitching/bullpen forever. At some point, you have to be able to hit to win games. The Brewers just don't seem to be all that interested in even TRYING to improve it(even if it fails), and would rather use the "hope" strategy, that several guys figure it out all at the same time. The likelihood of that is very small. You'd think they would know that, but apparently not. 

Players are not defined by their rookie seasons….

Not all guys are going to figure it out, but I’m willing to bet some of them will. Just look at the hit rate for top 3 prospects over the past decade if you want to see what a reasonable expectation for Chourio is.

Main thing is to keep churning up talent from the minors to replace those who bust/depart in FA. Brewers are well-positioned to do that with their deep farm system.

[tmwiese55]

2 hours ago, JefferyLeonard said:

Okay and this is no offense to anyone here, but so many people here get so excited over prospects. I get it to some extent. But, I'm not sure if many people want to admit to themselves that there is a better then average chance they fail or are no better then mediocre at the big league level. Now, I'm speaking just from an offensive perspective here, but Turang is never going to hit much, we all say what happened with Weimer, Frelick fell off a cliff towards the end of the season, Mitchell is an unknown, Chourio SHOULD be okay. What if Black never reaches the monumental levels here people seem to think he will?

Then what happens? That's hurting the organization, because none or only 1 or 2 of them work out. So you're taking steps backwards. And it's going to be really glaring with the rest of the lineup the way it is. You can't live on great pitching/bullpen forever. At some point, you have to be able to hit to win games. The Brewers just don't seem to be all that interested in even TRYING to improve it(even if it fails), and would rather use the "hope" strategy, that several guys figure it out all at the same time. The likelihood of that is very small. You'd think they would know that, but apparently not. 

Wait, all prospects don't work out?   My mind's been blown 

[CheeseheadInQC]

Maybe it was just speculation, but wasn't the talk that Hoskins was looking to do the opposite of a more years for lower AAV deal? Basically that he was looking for a higher AAV 1+1 in order to bet on himself and increase the AAV on a long-term deal after the season.