gregmag

I’m fine with questioning the Brewers’ decision makers (cough, deadline fiasco, cough), but I don’t see any reason to assume they don’t consider stuff that fans have been talking about since the beginning of time. Hot streaks aren’t some mystical phenomenon that transcends human understanding. Hot streaks happen for reasons, and they end for reasons. The org’s job is to understand those reasons as well as possible and make decisions based on that understanding. I can’t say the Brewers are making the right decisions, but I’m pretty confident they’re following the right process.

If only that were true. These are the same folks who would have traded Turang, Chourio, Mitchell, etc. for rentals at past deadlines. The only way we won’t have to hear them cry about “going for it“ is if we keep doing it their way, deplete our development pipeline, and drop out of contention. We’re not close to there yet, but yesterday was a great start.

I would be very grateful if the mods would stop this troll from starting a new thread every time a media outlet validates his numbingly repeated opinion.

Whatever any of us thinks about this trade, kudos to Brandon Sproat for making such a strong effort to justify it.

Has anyone ever picked up a hitter at the deadline whom you can reasonably argue made the difference in getting that team to the World Series? I asked the hive mind last week about deadline trades that actually moved the needle as far as the 2026 Brewers need to move it — from losing the LCS to winning it. What people came up with were basically some starting pitchers: Cone, Verlander, Sutton IIRC. We could all be forgetting someone, of course, and I certainly can’t sit here and say it’s impossible to pick up a hitter who could get a team over that line. But if a strategy has rarely if ever worked before, I have a hard time getting upset about not pursuing it.

What about Michael Brantley? Or to a lesser extent Mitch Haniger and Khris Davis? (If we aren’t just talking about Cardinals trades; you also get Lewis Brinson and Monte Harrison for your side of the argument!) Like most of us, I’m good with the Sabathia trade, because he was world-historically amazing and was the biggest factor in making the Brewers relevant after years of awfulness. But Michael Brantley had himself a career. He would have been huge for us. It wasn’t an accident, either. People say “oh, he was just the PTBNL,” but he was the designated prize if the trade worked out for the Brewers. We absolutely lost that trade in objective value terms — total wins added.

I would say it’s pretty well understood that when someone here says (like I did too) “this trade is an overpay,” they mean “To the best of my knowledge, which is nothing to sneeze at, this trade is an overpay,” rather than “I am all-knowing, and I declare as holy writ that this trade is an overpay.” You seem to be saying that the first is fine (“the good argument”) and the second is overkill. I completely agree with that. I just think you’re mistaken if you believe anyone here intends the second. Emotions are high, that’s all.

Dude, why do you do this? You make such good points when you stick to civil conversation, even though I probably disagree with you more than half the time. But then you do these things where it seems like no one gave you the talking-to we all needed in kindergarten. FWIW, I thought Joseph’s take on Ragsdale was a bit hyperbolic too. But he’s one of the maybe five most knowledgeable people about the Brewers’ system who doesn’t work for the Brewers. I’ve never once seen him dump on anyone remotely like you just dumped on him. Please stop.

This is a crazy overpay. Just nuts. I could live with Ragsdale, but Frias? God I hate the deadline.

Yes. They also like to buy low on guys — which doesn’t always pan out but which totally confounds people whose whole instinct is to go get guys who are putting up great numbers right now.

Why just repeat the same thing six or seven times in one thread when you can repeat it 37 times in three threads and then start another one just in case somebody out here doesn’t already feel beaten over the head?

You have absolutely no basis for this statement. You’ve done this in several posts — just made up facts out of thin air to support whatever the hell you feel like ranting about. It’s a trade DEADLINE. That means everyone is jockeying for position and playing chicken until the end. If you have any report, evidence, halfway credible rumor, or anything to back up your claim that Arnold loses out on deals Monday that he could have made Sunday because he “hemmed and hawed,” please share it.

Murphy has about a decade on me, but I can absolutely vouch for this.

Perkins struck me as an excellent person. I like him, and I’ve always rooted for him. He was more than a shuttle outfielder. In 2024 he was a credible starter in cf; in 2023 and 2025 he was an important bench guy. The Brewers gave him a career, and he gave the team his best. I’ll always think well of him.

This led me to a trip down memory lane. In 1977, Jamie Quirk put up a 58 OPS+ while getting more of his starts at DH than at any position. In 1982, Charlie Moore was the starting rightfielder on a pennant-winning team. We complain so much about the org’s real or imagined failures to squeeze every ounce of value out of each roster spot. Well, back in the day, teams were like “we have six or seven guys we like; let’s just throw whomever’s in the room out there until we get to nine.”

Son, I came in right when they inexplicably dumped Darrell Porter, setting up the Charlie Moore - Buck Martinez days.

“Anyone who disagrees with me is just whining. You’re only trying to win if you make exactly the moves that I decree we should make. I am morally superior to everyone who does not see the situation the way I do.” This kind of thing is why I would pay good money to just skip the weekend and have it be 6:01 Monday night right now.

It’s hard to engage with this discussion, because your premise seems to be that despite facts that we can all see, your subjective view, which by definition nobody else can see because we aren’t you, proves that the Brewers offense is much worse than the facts indicate. I respect that you see it the way you see it, but you can’t reasonably expect any other person to just take your subjective word for it and spend energy discussing the topic on your subjective terms.

Let’s head to head to head to head Adams, Bitonti, Burke, and Fischer. One of these guys is likely the Brewers’ 1b of the future, and it may be a very near future with Bauers likely gone and Vaughn late in arby. Which one (or more) are you betting on and holding onto? I know you’re up for trading Fischer, especially if some team (cough, Angels) overvalues his shiny production. But which of these guys do you want for the Brewers? If Braylon Payne can control his strikeouts, he’s a potential star. How do we assess his likelihood of doing that? On one hand, his K rate this year is just as bad as last year, about 30%. On the other hand, he has held that rate constant while improving dramatically this year, especially in the power department, and he’s only 19. What does knowledge about past prospects with similar profiles tell us about whether he can fix the big hole in his game?

The first of these sentences is mind boggling. Players tend to improve until around age 26-27. Quality of competition improves as you move up through the minors. Playing when you're still developing against better competition is harder. To be a 22 year-old in AAA is fairly unusual. I don't know other teams' minor league rosters, so I picked two at random in addition to the Brewers: Minnesota and Miami. The Brewers, who are aggressive promoters, have rostered 27 position players at AAA this year (which includes rehab assignments). Five, including Jett, are seasonal age 22 or younger: Adams, Chourio on rehab, Lara, Pratt, and Williams. The Twins have rostered 29 position players at AAA. Three are seasonal age 22 or younger: Gabriel Gonzalez, Walker Jenkins, and old friend Hendry Mendez The Marlins have rostered 29 position players at AAA. One is seasonal age 22: Cam Cannarella, who has had 42 AAA plate appearances. Of the top 100 batters in the international league in OPS, six are seasonal age 22 and three are 21. To take this from another angle, people seem to think Marco Dinges, Andrew Fischer, and Josiah Ragsdale have substantial trade value -- much more than you're arguing Williams has. All three of those guys are 22, all have played most of their games this year at high-A, and all are now at AA. Huh -- why aren't they all instead at AAA like Jett Williams? Presumably because the Brewers don't think they're ready to succeed there. The Mets and Brewers have pushed Williams harder. You think his numbers wouldn't look shinier if he split the season between Wisconsin and Biloxi? So yeah, despite your collegial, self effacing, and on-brand "who cares," being 22 in AAA is generally a huge deal. Development isn't linear. A guy has a down year when he's that young for his league? Not surprising; he's still fairly early on his development curve, and he's playing against more experienced, more fully developed competition. Now, your second quoted sentence provides a reason the general age/level analysis might not apply to Jett: He's short. Your whole sweeping argument that every team in baseball will obviously assess Jett Williams as having minimal trade value boils down to one simple idea: Height is destiny. Everyone can assess the force of that idea themselves. I'll stick to my view that Williams is a hard player to assess, which suggests that teams will likely vary significantly in how they assess him.

No it isn't. It's not some kind of magic cleanser, but it's nuanced. The Brewers sure thought Priester's and Harrison's prospect pedigrees were worth giving up significant value. Everyone in baseball knows that young players' development isn't linear or uniform. Williams made top 100 lists for reasons. This is looking like a lost season that sure isn't helping his value, but different teams are going to make different assessments of how valid the reasons evaluators have liked Williams still are.

Returning to the hill I will die on: Payne is 19, in his second full pro season, and he's one of the best players in High A. Adamczewski is 21, and he moved up to AA just over a month ago. Those are seasonal ages; the age gap between the two is actually smaller, about 1.25 years. So Payne is just about a year ahead of Adamczewski in terms of age for level. That's a big deal in terms of development curves. I'm normally not in the tank for tools, and I'm sure not coming here to bash Adamczewski, whom I love for the same reasons everyone else does. But with Payne, everyone seems fixated on his one weakness while undervaluing his strengths in every other area. Compared to a great prospect in Adamczewski, Payne is younger, faster, massively more valuable defensively, with more power. His K rate at 30 percent is bad, but he has kept that rate constant from last year -- just a tiny bit lower -- while massively jacking up both his power (ISO doubled, from .142 to .284) and his batting average (up from .240 to .288), which bodes well for his ability to continue improving. It's a fascinating contrast in profiles. Adamczewski is closer to MLB, has a higher floor, and has an All-Star ceiling. Payne has higher bust potential with the bat, but he also has more paths to being at least a useful player, and he has a superstar ceiling. I put both of them in the near-untouchable category, but if I only get to keep one, I'm keeping Payne.

P.S. — I can’t for the life of me figure out how to use the sarcasm font on my phone.

But the Cubs DID SOMETHING! They SPENT! They WENT FOR IT! They showed the fans they were serious about showing the fans they were serious about winning. They had an excellent young 3b, and they’ve shrewdly managed their assets by replacing him with an older, less productive, more expensive player AND turning him into a replacement-level utility man. He was only poised to help the team win tomorrow (and a bunch of days after that). Serious teams pay top dollar for PROVEN MAJOR LEAGUE VETERANS who helped OTHER teams win BEFORE.

You’re right, and I think a few more names belong in the conversation, if we limit it to guys at AA and AAA (of course this all may require some revising after the deadline): C: Wood, at least as a backup; Maybe Miller too lf: Adamczewski cf: Ragsdale wild card: Jett - could conceivably end up at 2b, 3b, or cf sp: Hardin