Orioles Acquire Corbin Burnes for INF Joey Ortiz, LHP DL Hall and 2024 Competitive Balance Pick

[True Blue Brew Crew]

Signing a starter with the money saved on Burnes is the only way the Hoskins signing makes sense. Otherwise that was flushing money right down the toilet with this rotation.

[SF70]

The organization just fixed their 2 biggest needs — plus fielding SS, that can also hit & future playoff starter.

Adding the comp pick to this years draft just gets even more talent added to a farm system that even after graduating Chourio-Black-Gasser, should remain among the top 5-8 systems in the game.

Incredible time to be a Brewers fan.

[torts]

15 minutes ago, SF70 said:

The organization just fixed their 2 biggest needs — plus fielding SS, that can also hit & future playoff starter.

Adding the comp pick to this years draft just gets even more talent added to a farm system that even after graduating Chourio-Black-Gasser, should remain among the top 5-8 systems in the game.

Incredible time to be a Brewers fan.

My kind of post!

[BruisedCrew]

Is anyone taking the position that this trade will make the Brewers better this season?

[boringname123]

11 minutes ago, BruisedCrew said:

Is anyone taking the position that this trade will make the Brewers better this season?

The biggest issue for the Brewers the last few seasons has been the discrepancy in the quality of their pitching (high) and hitting (low). This trade successfully addresses this issue by dramatically lowering the quality of their pitching without increasing the quality of their hitting. 

[Fear The Chorizo]

16 minutes ago, BruisedCrew said:

Is anyone taking the position that this trade will make the Brewers better this season?

At the moment, no, but I don't think the Brewers are done.  If they do nothing else, this trade does make them better next season and beyond.

[Jopal78]

Maybe they use their new surplus money to sign as many vets as they can to one year deals: Greinke, Hyun-Jin Ryu ,JD Martinez, etc. Make the talent drop off somewhat less.

[homer]

I think I'd feel differently about this if the Brewers had a healthy Woodruff.

[Austin Tatious]

DL Hall is someone I followed since his draft year.  He was someone I had on my short list for the Brewers back then.  I want to say that was the Hiura year but I’d have to double check.  He’s got very good arm talent and was always a top 100 prospect.   I have to wonder why he was never able to get stretched out so I can’t comment on whether he can be a starter.  But he can be very strong reliever at a minimum.  

That 34th pick can be huge.  If you convert that into a top 100 prospect, then you’ve received three top 100’s.  

[wildcat83]

Every year I’ve been saying the Brewers just need to get to the playoffs with their big 3 healthy and they have a punchers chance.  Well, that hasn’t worked.  I have no issues with them moving off Burnes, especially with him disgruntled.  The return seems fine for 1 year of a regressing SP.  Yeah, he could post another Cy Young type year, but he could also repeat last year, regress more, or get hurt.  The “run it back” approach hasn’t worked, glad they’re shaking things up a bit.

[jay87shot]

Ortiz has a Nico Hoerner type comp to me relatively unspectacular but a guy who can be a positive contributor in every game. 

DL Hall is probably an Ashby comp for me, great stuff, with experience and minor editing could be a huge success.

The pick is solid just a wild card, with how solid our last couple drafts have been I am ok with the gamble. I am going to count this as a borderline top 100 prospect value we just may have to wait until midseason 2025 for that value to come to fruition.

[Lloyd330]

1 hour ago, True Blue Brew Crew said:

Signing a starter with the money saved on Burnes is the only way the Hoskins signing makes sense. Otherwise that was flushing money right down the toilet with this rotation.

But what if all along they knew that they could turn around and trade Hoskins at the deadline for another top 100 prospect plus more

[SeaBass]

26 minutes ago, BruisedCrew said:

Is anyone taking the position that this trade will make the Brewers better this season?

From the day the season ended the expectation always was that the Brewers would not have Burnes on the roster in 2024. Now the expectation has come to fruition and for some reason people are surprised. As some said, they should have traded him sooner. This was never going to feel good.

[liveforoctober]

1 hour ago, BruisedCrew said:

Is anyone taking the position that this trade will make the Brewers better this season?

It is in my very humble opinion that we should maybe wait until opening day and see the total domino effect these moves have on the roster before declaring.

[homer]

Depending on how things shake out they may be better if they pitch for weak contact:

“If the Brewers go Ortiz at third, Adames at short and Brice Turang at second, that’s the best infield defense in baseball even with Rhys Hoskins at first,” the scout said.

[monty57]

2 minutes ago, SeaBass said:

From the day the season ended the expectation always was that the Brewers would not have Burnes on the roster in 2024. Now the expectation has come to fruition and for some reason people are surprised. As some said, they should have traded him sooner. This was never going to feel good.

Exactly. The Brewers couldn’t waste the opportunity to add a ton of future value for the “feel good experience” of holding Burnes until he walked in free agency. 
 

I said from the start of the offseason that I expected a MLB ready pitcher in return, and they got one. Fangraphs has Hall slated for 1.3 WAR, but that’s with him spending around half the time in the ‘pen. Hopefully he can get around 2 WAR as a full-time starter. Add in Hoskins’ expected 2 WAR, and you’ve matched the expected 4 WAR from Burnes for less money. Throw in another top prospect in Ortiz, and you’ve got 12 years of discount-priced production to add to the loads of young talent already on the roster. 
 

Woodruff got hurt. That’s no one’s fault, it just happened and we have to deal with it. Hoskins signing was akin to the Avi Garcia signing. It wasn’t an “all in” move, it was a “we don’t have an MLB-caliber 1B on the roster, so let’s get one” move. Hoskins was a free agent, so we’re paying him what he’s worth. Burnes is playing on a seriously discounted deal, so he had tons of surplus value. That’s why it makes sense to trade Burnes while signing Hoskins. 
 

As of right now, we’re probably about the same talent level as we were to start the offseason (Woodruff was already hurt then). However, we should have more balance between pitching and hitting and a lot of reason to believe that we won’t take a big step back after this season is over. It also opens the door to an Adames trade prior to opening day, as Ortiz should be able to match his production. Or, if there isn’t a big market for Adames, we could take a bit of a step forward offensively by replacing Turang with Ortiz. 

At the end of the day, we’re still a good bet to win the division this year, and we have a lot better chance of being really good over the next 5-6 years as our young, talented players mature.

Finally, if the team feels that Amazon is going to make sure they get paid their TV money this year, they might have some extra cash to add another veteran starter. The rotation does have some questions, so another proven arm couldn’t hurt. We won’t have much payroll on the books for a while, so a 1-3 year deal should be easy to cover. 

[Harold Hutchison]

Worst case for the Crew? DL Hall joins Devin Williams, Abner Uribe, and Jacob Misiorowski to create a bullpen nightmare for 29 other MLB teams in 2024, with Hall/Uribe/Misiorowski sticking around through 2929. We're talking a pen that makes the 2018 Crew's Nasty Boys of Knebel, Jeffress, and Hader look hittable.

This current team looks a lot like the late 2017-2018 Crew. A couple of bigger holes, but could catch fire and make a run. Still plenty of time for another move or two.

[homer]

Maybe this team will be like the 2018 team with starters going 5 - 6 innings and then a lockdown bullpen the rest of the way. 

[Fear The Chorizo]

Just now, homer said:

Maybe this team will be like the 2018 team with starters going 5 - 6 innings and then a lockdown bullpen the rest of the way. 

Down the stretch, quite possibly...and getting their next wave of young arm talent mlb exposure from the pen - just like woodruff, burnes, and Peralta.

I like the idea of somehow adding one more vet starter to this roster via free agency for early season rotation depth and then just letting the kids play.

[MrTPlush]

47 minutes ago, homer said:

I think I'd feel differently about this if the Brewers had a healthy Woodruff.

Yah, that probably torpedoed any shot of the Brewers holding onto Burnes and going all-in with them all.

I think people are really underrating the #34 pick. That is a REALLY good selection to have. That’s basically a first round pick and adds a lot of bonus pool money. Whoever we select isn’t some lottery ticket…that’s a legit prospect with really good potential.

[sveumrules]

1 hour ago, BruisedCrew said:

Is anyone taking the position that this trade will make the Brewers better this season?

The odds of Hall and Ortiz (projected around 3 combined wins) outproducing Burnes (projected around 4.5 wins) are pretty low, though not absolute zero either.

Crazier things have happened. If someone got out of a DeLorean before last season and said the only two things they knew about the 2023 Brewers were that the offense was going to crater from a 103 wRC+ (11th) the year before down to a 92 wRC+ (24th), and that Woodruff would get hurt and only throw 67 IP, I don’t think many would have predicted the Brewers adding six dubs onto their 2022 total and winning what was forecast as a tight division with relative ease.

No matter how 2024 shakes out, this trade was made primarily for 2025 and beyond where Hall and Ortiz will hopefully be stacking wins compared to the absolute zero we’d surely be getting from Corbin at that point.

[brewerfan82]

Serious question... For those worried about the "mixed signals" and "lack of direction" shown this offseason, even if the Brewers had decided it was in the best interest of the team to trade Burnes going into the offseason and knew he'd be gone, what is the downside of signing Hoskins? Are you just worried about draft position?

Otherwise, I don't see any reason to complain about a team that is looking out for it's longterm health while also fielding a competitive team in the present. I could see the argument if we had some big time first base prospect that was getting blocked by the pickup, but that isn't the case (maybe in a year or two, but likely not for the duration of Hoskins contract).

This is still a pretty decent team on paper with a lot of exciting young talent and the division is still wide open. I don't see a reason to completely tear down the roster and not try to compete this year just because we have some expiring contracts that have/or may get moved to help the future of the franchise.

[StearnsFTW]

8 hours ago, KeithStone53151 said:

I feel like the Brewers could trade for a cy young pitcher every year if this is the going rate for 1 year of a cy young pitcher, it's so darn cheap the farm would have no trouble keeping up churning out solid middle relievers and hernan Perez 2.0.

If you have to exaggerate to this degree to make your point, maybe your point is questionable.

Anyway, with regard to your other comments, if there are no other significant moves before spring training, I agree that the direction is a little confusing.  I have a strong suspicion that they're not near done.

 

[KeithStone53151]

7 hours ago, Brewcrew82 said:

That's interesting because holding Burnes and losing him for nothing is more likely to lead to mediocrity or worse long term imo. 

We got two top 100 prospects and a first round pick. That's fair value for 1 year of a top 10 MLB starter.

Calling these guys top 100 prospects is quite hilarious, Both guys have struggled mightily at the MLB level to this point and are barely still on prospect ratings. This is not an argument in good faith. It would be more accurate to say these guys were previously top 100 prospects that are trending towards being busts.

[Harold Hutchison]

13 minutes ago, MrTPlush said:

Yah, that probably torpedoed any shot of the Brewers holding onto Burnes and going all-in with them all.

I think people are really underrating the #34 pick. That is a REALLY good selection to have. That’s basically a first round pick and adds a lot of bonus pool money. Whoever we select isn’t some lottery ticket…that’s a legit prospect with really good potential.

Better yet, find someone who will sign under slot - and the Crew can replicate what they did in this most recent draft: Get a Cooper Pratt or Bishop Letson.