Brewers acquire Frankie Montas

[Fear The Chorizo]

3 minutes ago, Ron Robinsons Beard said:

Fedde has been meh. Flaherty has been pretty solid for the Dodgers. 

Yep, you got me before I finished my edit to add Flaherty in there.  Was hoping the Brewers would've gotten him, too.  Still, Montas has been really solid even when compared to him

[homer]

6 hours ago, gregmag said:

Frankie Montas, ladies and gentlemen. Seven innings of brutally efficient one-hit ball, on the road against technically the (now former) second-place team in the division. He was still hitting 97 in the 7th. 

In no way am I saying I saw this coming, but maybe the Brewers brain trust know what they’re doing. 

The Brewers have definitely had more hits on pitching at the deadline than misses.

[sveumrules]

7 minutes ago, Fear The Chorizo said:

I don't know actually, but was curious...

Has their been a pitcher traded at the deadline who has been better than Montas since joining their new team?  Maybe Fedde or Flaherty?

Eflin (35 ERA- | 72 FIP-) was shoving for the Orioles but just landed on the IL.

Kikuchi (61 ERA- | 75 FIP-) has been a scooch better peripherally than Montas (62 ERA- | 86 FIP-).

Lorenzen (67 ERA- | 115 FIP-) & Martin Perez (69 ERA- | 115 FIP-) have been in the neighborhood by run prevention but with ugly secondaries.

Only two starts, but gotta throw one Bradley Blalock (68 ERA- | 69 FIP-) in there too.

[Fear The Chorizo]

On 8/4/2024 at 11:01 PM, shanedog19 said:

I think Arnold has had a really really awful year as GM. He traded arguably the best pitcher in baseball two weeks before the season starts for an extremely mediocre, if not lousy return. Why not hold on to Burnes at that point and he either a) helps the 2024 team win a pennant, or b) wait until the trade deadline and get a much better return? We should either be a legit World Series contender with Burnes, or received a king’s ransom at this year’s trade deadline. Instead we got neither and now we’re stuck in no man’s land. He followed that up with adding a bunch of reclamation projects at the deadline instead of legitimately trying to help the team win a division. It’s very frustrating as a fan.

Arnold could easily win exec. of the year this season.

Burnes has been great, but Fedde and Flaherty have actually pitched better this season and were traded at this year's deadline for less than kings ransom trade packages....and I think Fedde has another season or two of control.  If they held onto Burnes, they wouldn't have gotten much more by trading him at the deadline.....and they wouldn't have traded him at all because they'd still have been close to 10 games leading their division at the deadline, too.

Ortiz for 6 seasons alone is worth 1 year of Burnes, Hall still has an elite arm who could add value, and the Brewers picked a 1b slugger with the comp Pick in this year's draft they got from Baltimore. That's a pretty good haul, tbh.

 

[liveforoctober]

On 8/4/2024 at 11:01 PM, shanedog19 said:

I think Arnold has had a really really awful year as GM. He traded arguably the best pitcher in baseball two weeks before the season starts for an extremely mediocre, if not lousy return. Why not hold on to Burnes at that point and he either a) helps the 2024 team win a pennant, or b) wait until the trade deadline and get a much better return? We should either be a legit World Series contender with Burnes, or received a king’s ransom at this year’s trade deadline. Instead we got neither and now we’re stuck in no man’s land. He followed that up with adding a bunch of reclamation projects at the deadline instead of legitimately trying to help the team win a division. It’s very frustrating as a fan.

He hired Murphy.

[Thurston Fluff]

25 minutes ago, Fear The Chorizo said:

Arnold could easily win exec. of the year this season.

Burnes has been great, but Fedde and Flaherty have actually pitched better this season and were traded at this year's deadline for less than kings ransom trade packages....and I think Fedde has another season or two of control.  If they held onto Burnes, they wouldn't have gotten much more by trading him at the deadline.....and they wouldn't have traded him at all because they'd still have been close to 10 games leading their division at the deadline, too.

Ortiz for 6 seasons alone is worth 1 year of Burnes, Hall still has an elite arm who could add value, and the Brewers picked a 1b slugger with the comp Pick in this year's draft they got from Baltimore. That's a pretty good haul, tbh.

 

That assumes the Brewers would be as good without Ortiz and with Burnes. Obviously Burnes would be better than whomever replaced him but given how productive our pitching has been is the difference between them as significant as the difference between who the Brewers would have playing third if we didn't have Ortiz? Sometimes the fit matters more than the individual.

[wallus]

For the analytics guys, what is Montas doing differently now than he was with the Reds? 

[patrickgpe]

I looked up Wiemer's AAA stats last, they are brutal since the trade. batting .075 since moving to Louisville

 

[adambr2]

I wasn't thrilled with the Burnes trade at the time but it's hard to say in hindsight that it was bad. No doubt this would have been Burnes' last year as a Brewer, trade or not. 

So I'd say getting 6 years of a 3 WAR middle infielder alone makes losing the final year more than worth it. 

[Fear The Chorizo]

Reds' pitching coach must not have been able to get enough out of Montas

[homer]

12 minutes ago, wallus said:

For the analytics guys, what is Montas doing differently now than he was with the Reds? 

He's throwing his fastball harder for starters. 

[adambr2]

"First adjustment we're going to make is that we want you to throw the ball faster"

[sveumrules]

2 minutes ago, wallus said:

For the analytics guys, what is Montas doing differently now than he was with the Reds? 

Looking at pitch usage, they’ve de-emphasized his splitter and slider in favor of more four seamers, cutters and sinkers…

CIN: FA (33.8%) FC (17.2%) SP (21.2%) SI (16.4%) SL (11.4%)

MIL: FA (41.0%) FC (20.5%) SP (10.8%) SI (23.2%) SL (4.6%)

Run Values on the four seam and cutter have gone from -1.3 and -7.0 with the Reds to +2.1 each with the Brewers.

It’s hard to measure command, but that’s what Location+ tries to do and Montas has improved slightly there too from 100 to 102.

In terms of results it’s almost a complete script flip. His 85 K+ | 123 BB+ | 121 HR+ with the Reds were all on the wrong side of average. With the Brewers it’s been 105 K+ | 109 BB+ | 77 HR+

[Team Canada]

12 minutes ago, sveumrules said:

Looking at pitch usage, they’ve de-emphasized his splitter and slider in favor of more four seamers, cutters and sinkers…

IIRC from some of Matt's and others' articles, that seems to be the Brewers MO.

[wallus]

23 minutes ago, adambr2 said:

"First adjustment we're going to make is that we want you to throw the ball faster"

Genius!

[formerlybis]

It's hard to say whether this matters or not, but there was some mention in a recent article about Chourio that the Spanish-speakers amongst the Brewers hang out on the road. He mentioned Montas as part of that group. I don't know the Reds roster very well (i.e., whether there was a group of Spanish-speaking players), but he seems to have been embraced fairly quickly here.

[Playing Catch]

1 hour ago, Team Canada said:

IIRC from some of Matt's and others' articles, that seems to be the Brewers MO.

Throw strikes that don't go out of the yard, and let the kids run after them.

[sveumrules]

7 minutes ago, Playing Catch said:

Throw strikes that don't go out of the yard, and let the kids run after them.

Yup. Have to imagine that pitching in front of the Brewers defense (+64 DRS | 3rd) instead of Cincy’s (-34 DRS | 27th) has made some difference for Frankie too.

[shanedog19]

3 hours ago, Fear The Chorizo said:

Arnold could easily win exec. of the year this season.

Burnes has been great, but Fedde and Flaherty have actually pitched better this season and were traded at this year's deadline for less than kings ransom trade packages....and I think Fedde has another season or two of control.  If they held onto Burnes, they wouldn't have gotten much more by trading him at the deadline.....and they wouldn't have traded him at all because they'd still have been close to 10 games leading their division at the deadline, too.

Ortiz for 6 seasons alone is worth 1 year of Burnes, Hall still has an elite arm who could add value, and the Brewers picked a 1b slugger with the comp Pick in this year's draft they got from Baltimore. That's a pretty good haul, tbh.

 

I'll be the first to admit I was wrong, especially with the Montas and Civale acquisitions. They have been great, and we didn't have to give up much for either. I'm also done playing hindsight on the Burnes trade. We got two players that will hopefully be cornerstones for years to come, and we will win a division and maybe more without Burnes in 2024. The Brewers organization adds players around the fringes while protecting our coveted farm system, which is what we need to do to consistently compete with the powerhouses of MLB.

[homer]

2 hours ago, adambr2 said:

"First adjustment we're going to make is that we want you to throw the ball faster"

LOL yeah it's probably a coincidence but I feel like this isn't the first time a guy came to the Brewers and all of a sudden added a few ticks to the fastball. I have no idea how the pitching lab would go about doing that.

[CheezWizHed]

19 minutes ago, shanedog19 said:

We got two players that will hopefully be cornerstones for years to come, and we will win a division and maybe more without Burnes in 2024. 

How do we win more than one division in 2024? If we win the NL-Central and the NL-East Does that mean we play ourselves in the playoffs?  Or if it is NL-Central and AL-Central, do we get two shots at the WS? 😂

[CheezWizHed]

2 minutes ago, homer said:

LOL yeah it's probably a coincidence but I feel like this isn't the first time a guy came to the Brewers and all of a sudden added a few ticks to the fastball. I have no idea how the pitching lab would go about doing that.

I wonder if certain pitches are more taxing on your arm than others? Thus, avoiding those pitches gives you a bit more for your other pitches (on average over 6 innings).

[homer]

16 minutes ago, CheezWizHed said:

I wonder if certain pitches are more taxing on your arm than others? Thus, avoiding those pitches gives you a bit more for your other pitches (on average over 6 innings).

Mechanics tweak? Revised grip?

[markedman5]

19 minutes ago, homer said:

LOL yeah it's probably a coincidence but I feel like this isn't the first time a guy came to the Brewers and all of a sudden added a few ticks to the fastball. I have no idea how the pitching lab would go about doing that.

Maybe he found some adrenaline when he looked at the standing’s improvement of his new team after the trade? 😎🤷‍♂️

[markedman5]

It’s so much fun being a fan of a team that seems to have a lot of smart people running it.