gregmag

That's true, and I was about to post the same thing. You never know but you almost have to wonder with a change of scenery could he have further benefitted from going to the Indians organization in that trade? Good luck to him! Wasn't Luc on that list as well? The most detailed version I heard of this story, which somebody posted here well after the fact (I'm sorry my memory isn't better), was that the teams agreed that the Indians would get Brantley if we made the playoffs and Green if we didn't. I have no idea whether that's accurate. At the time, the information I recall seeing here was that Cleveland just got to choose between the two. Some of us, I have to say, hoped fervently that the Indians would take Green. No disrespect to him, because I also hoped fervently at a lot of points that the Brewers would give him some kind of real shot. But a lot of smart people (really smart, I'm not being snarky) badly underestimated Brantley.

Shortstops whose bats play down the defensive spectrum are never blocked.

Is Hill a salary munch to facilitate getting Diaz back?

I don't mean this as a knock on DM, and maybe it's just that this part of a rebuild isn't rocket science, but it's kind of weird to say "somewhat obscure, not yet rumored move [x] would make a ton of sense," and then a few days later move [x] actually happens. Cecchini, Carter, arguably Middlebrooks, now Liriano all feel like that to me. Not that any of them is an obviously brilliant, can't-miss move, but they were out there as classic "buy low, maybe get lucky" targets for a rebuilding team, and we went out and got them. It's nice to feel like we have a firm plan. The same thing in reverse works for Peterson. You look at him, and you can't figure out what he really gives you. In past years I feel like three or four guys like that would always be taking up space on the roster. But now you look at the roster and see that Peterson is pretty clearly the least useful guy (for us) there, and pretty quickly he's gone.

Love the guy. I too see this as a transition to coaching move.

I like the DH. I don't think there's a slippery slope problem. The worst offensive position other than pitcher at any given moment (they change, which underscores the point) is always far closer to the best offensive position than to pitchers. Pitchers, as a group, specialize in and contribute to run prevention far more than any other players. Pitchers, as a group, can't hit, and this has been true for decades. I don't buy the "increased strategy" argument. Bill James made this point a long time ago: Having pitchers hit doesn't increase the strategic intrigue of the game. It diminishes what managers can do and thus prompts some very predictable button pushing. "Gee, do I let the pitcher with the .350 OPS try to drive in those runners in the 7th inning, or do I use one of my competent hitters and then bring in one of my eight relief pitchers?" I just don't find that kind of strategic drama entertaining. The best argument, I think, for letting pitchers hit in the NL is the idea that the leagues should be distinct and different. It's fun to have two different variations on baseball to watch, even if the team I follow works under the variation I don't like. The problem, though, is that this train left the station a long time ago. Interleague play and league jumping have pretty much trashed the boundary between the leagues. Eliminating the DH in the NL is just the next logical step. I think jerichoholicninja makes a great point about transition time. You can't just spring this on the league in one offseason. I assume there would be some transition time.

I just now realized how close "Kyle Wren" is to "Kylo Ren." Poor guy. Maybe we should start calling him "Ben."

Former major league players with talking head gigs on TV aren't the GMs we're dealing with. Former players also tend to get judgmental about what they perceive as unprofessional behavior. Basically, and ironically in this context, they like to mouth off. So no.

And we'd still suck. Plus we'd have to forego giving some young players a look in order to pay veterans that we wouldn't sign if we were allowed to make smart baseball decisions. Plus the revenue floor would inflate veterans' salaries by forcing more money into the salary structure.

Thanks to everybody for the detailed trade proposal analyses. I've fallen off badly in my knowledge of other teams' prospects, so this thread is an education. Re: Lucroy's comments, I'm less put out than most people. The guy is blunt. I remember during a playoff series against the Cardinals, LaRussa was doing some of his typical mix of whining and lying about the Brewers (I can't remember the details; his nonsense has all congealed in my brain), and Lucroy was the guy who stepped up and called him on it. I think that blunt style sometimes embodies leadership. But I understand others' point that sometimes it doesn't. What I don't understand is the argument that Lucroy's statements will have any kind of important consequences. If the theory is that uninformed fans will make more of the comments than we might think they warrant, how do we figure uninformed fans are reading Brewers features in the J-S in January? Even if those fans are aware of and thinking about Lucroy's comments, I doubt many people could read his whole, rather roundabout statement and take much of anything away from it. If the idea is that some fans didn't know the team was rebuilding, I'm glad someone told them. Nobody should be under any illusions. The idea that these statements affect his trade value makes even less sense to me. Do we really think any GM in baseball, especially those who are thinking seriously about trading for Lucroy, didn't already know that (a) he's blunt; (b) he's probably not the happiest of campers, given that the Brewers publicly rebuffed his extension talk a year ago; © like any normal, competitive veteran, he'd like to win a championship; and (d) he's fully and painfully aware that the Brewers are rebuilding? To the people who matter in the trade calculus, none of this stuff is remotely news.

What you think of Segura comes down to what you think of his defense. I don't have my Baseball Prospectus book in front of me, but they love his offense, so they have him with minor but positive value. Fangraphs doesn't like his defense, so they have him at replacement level. Any discussion of Segura's value should at least acknowledge that difference of opinion. Obviously he hasn't produced anything offensively, but we aren't in the golden age of ss offense any more. Segura was at the bottom of starting ss offensive rankings last year, but a lot of other guys were pretty bad. I agree with the point that wasting money is wasting money, but I think the import of our low salary structure is that we don't have to panic when a guy like Segura gets arguably overpaid in arbitration. As most people seem to be saying, the smart move with him is to let him hold the position until Arcia is ready and then see what we can get for him. Nobody's saying cut him; I think that's the only point about the money. We can afford to wait the situation out.

You wouldn't let 26 year old Jungmann go for a 23 year old CF with speed, and enough on base skills (53 BB as a rookie) to be your leadoff hitter for the next 5 years? I'd make that deal in a heartbeat. Jungmann is at best a number 3 and more likely a number 4 starter. I just don't get the thinking that every deal has to be a veteran for multiple prospects with questionable futures. One good reason you don't get that thinking is that nobody has ever said it. As usual, rather than engage people who disagree with you, you're ignoring their actual points and making up stuff to try to make them sound stupid. Pretty sad. That said, I think Jungmann for DeShields would be a fair trade. It's ironic that you talk about "questionable futures" as if that concept only applies to guys who haven't played in the majors yet. I don't think DeShields will age well at all, given his body, his reliance on speed, and his lack of power. I haven't watched him play, but defensive metrics seem to hate him. Your assessment of Jungmann seems reasonable, which means both guys are likely to decline from what they showed last year. I wouldn't make the trade for the Brewers, because we don't need DeShields. He's probably -- not definitely -- better than what we can put out in cf this year, but in another year I bet he couldn't hold the job. Jungmann has a somewhat better chance to help our next good team.

Hate this. He hasn't done squat since The X-Files.

There are two reasons we know the character clause is really a factor that the HOF has employed coherently in the past. One is the one people have already mentioned: there are some grade A scumbags in the Hall of Fame. But we also have to consider the opposite problem. If character really matters, where are the HOFers who only got in because of their high character? Where are the pretty good players who got over the line because they were awesome human beings? Dave Cameron was a very good player, but I always heard people talk about him as one of the finest people in the game. Fred McGriff, as a player, is about the best example you could imagine of someone whose numbers don't quite, but almost, get him in. He was supposed to be a great guy too. Where are the arguments that character should count in his favor? The answer is that nobody ever makes that kind of argument, because no one would take it seriously. Character doesn't really count, unless you need an excuse to keep someone out, at which point character means whatever you need it to mean. In law we call that "standardless discretion." It's the classic characteristic of illegitimate legal systems, and it's why the steroid nonsense has cost the HOF so much legitimacy. With Pete Rose they at least tried to construct a coherent story about why he should be out. With the steroid guys they've failed to do so. For me, what's deeply messed up about the idea that character matters for the HOF is that it perpetuates a myth: the myth that athletes aren't just stronger and faster than normal people, they're better. Hero worship of athletes is stupid. Pro sports have always sold the myth of the heroic athlete, but athletes aren't heroic. They're just strong and fast. They play heroes on TV, in games that have nothing to do with real life, where character is formed. We should recognize the HOF for what it is: a collection of people whose character we can generally assess as average, but who were really good at baseball.

One or two of these faded prospect reclamation projects will probably establish themselves as something much more useful than they've been before now. Being far from contention this year gives us the luxury of time to audition them. Why wouldn't we take advantage if that? The ones that don't show anything will be gone, because we haven't made long-term commitments. This isn't about tanking. It's about using roster spots as a resource to find guys who can help.

I think Briggs is mostly right, except for the part where GMs still care about RBIs. Braun seems like a guy whose value is a decent bet to improve this season. If he happens to catch fire, he's a deadline sensation. Of course he could crash, but this isn't exactly a "sell high" moment.

The goal is to build a sustainable contender. If you already have some of the pieces of that contender in place, that will happen sooner. You have to think not just about the pieces you don't have but the resources you do have. If things break right, the Brewers by the end of next season could have a bunch of "next good Brewers team" guys ready to contribute at the MLB level: Nelson, Jungmann, Davies, Knebel, Santana, Arcia, Phillips, Lopez, Hader, maybe Reed, Barrios, Houser. I'm not saying all those guys will be ready, and I'm not advocating pushing them all to the majors. But they could all be ready and here. If they are, then we just may have to live with winning some games. It's kind of like the Bucks' situation last year. What matters is building a winner. Draft position matters, but so does developing your players. If the players develop quicker than expected, that's a good thing, even though it hurts your draft position.

We've talked about this before, but wasn't his problem at 3b more his arm than his feet? He has said he'd play anywhere but 3b -- which is hyperbole, but it suggests he'd be willing to move, and 1b is the only plausible move for him. I care about this issue more if a lot of our OF prospects pan out, and we'll learn a lot more about that this season. Brew4U is of course right that the young guys haven't proven anything in the majors, but that fact doesn't add much to the discussion; you certainly don't ignore prospects when you're making a medium- or long-term plan, especially when you have so many in the pipeline. Bottom line: IF keeping Braun in the OF ends up diminishing the value of our young OFs, and / or requires us to spend useful assets to fill 1b, and IF Braun can play a decent 1b, then I think he should move there. We'll know more about the first two things as time passes; we'll never know about the third unless they try it (or say why they aren't trying it).

I'd love to know more of the thinking behind moves like this. In particular, guys like Hagadone and Middlebrooks seem like they need some kind of significant change in approach to have any hope of succeeding. I don't think you sign guys like this as AAA filler, because if they fail then they aren't even good AAA filler. It also seems hard to believe that you'd sign guys like this just hoping that they'll randomly figure it out on their own. I have to think our scouts have looked at these players and said "I think I know what's wrong with his approach, and I think there's a nontrivial chance that our particular group of coaches and instructors can fix it." But we really have no idea.

I think the substance of what you're saying here is right and important. I don't think it fairly characterizes what this poster has been doing. But to focus on the right and important part, I love when people do what you're describing: carefully critique the way someone uses particular information to prove a particular point. That kind of critique can add a lot of value to the discussion.

One thing that's going on in this discussion, and in this offseason generally, is a contrast and sometimes clash between two somewhat opposed strategies: the "buy and flip a veteran" strategy and the "revive a faded prospect" strategy. Melvin didn't really do either of those things, because he wasn't rebuilding for most of his tenure and also because he is who he is. I don't actually think the Alvarez deal most people are proposing or supporting would be a Melvinesque move. A bad Melvinesque move would be to give a multi-year deal to somebody whose stock was slightly higher than Alvarez's stock seems to be. In fairness, a good Melvinesque move in exactly this situation was the Lind deal, which included flexibility but wasn't decidedly about flipping him. What most Alvarez-wishers are proposing is a one-year deal with flipping him as the decided goal. That approach has benefits, but given the option (which we may or may not have with our current 1b situation) I'll almost always prefer the "revive a faded prospect" approach. In this case, I'd rather give up some assets (devil in the details, of course) for Jonathan Singleton, in the hope that he becomes a player we can actually use, than sign Alvarez for a year. On the other hand, Stearns has picked up a lot of faded prospects for revival already. Maybe doing a sign-and-flip at this point would be good way to diversify strategies.

Braun is NOT a liability in the OF. he can play LF or RF (he's better in LF clearly). i don't care what nerdy analytics you can dig up to support what you're saying - use your eyes as well (my eyes are what tells me Davis has the worst corner OF arm i'll ever see in my life). and Khris Davis is NOT a legit bat. he has legit power and literally nothing else. while his BB rate rose this past season in fewer ABs his K rate rose. he's proved at this level not to be a high OBP guy, not to have an understanding of the strike zone, not to hit line to line, not to hit for a solid avg, not a contact hitter and has not showed any consistency whatsoever. he's had 3 months over the past 2 seasons that have resulted in the majority of his power numbers (best tool). and that doesn't even include his avg at best defense with brutal arm. yes, you're correct that now is the time to move him especially after his final 2 months last year. but not because it's when you can maximize the return rather he's the opposite of what this team is becoming and because room needs to be made for Santana in RF. Please, I beg people, stop relying on wOBA, WAR, etc. That's part of the evaluation process but too many people use it as the final say. There isn't 1 GM that would take Khris Davis over Alex Gordon. Davis also had a higher wOBA than Heyward too lol You keep writing these posts where you wrongly insist that everyone here relies slavishly on analytics, insist that we should trust your eyes, and further insist that you know better about everything than everyone else does. Wrong, wrong, and wrong again. Stop. Please.

Great read. Thanks (as usual!) for linking I was just about to post that; very glad you beat me to it. With all respect to the many fine regular commentators here, and to the excellent Adam McCalvy, Breen is writing the smartest, most interesting Brewers commentary I can remember reading. The BP Milwaukee site in general is a great addition to Brewers journalism, and some other guys there have written some good things, but Breen stands out even among that group.

I understand them fully. The money is completely fictitious to them...the players are merely names. With no actual responsibility or feet being held to the fire you can type until your heart is content that losing 100+ games a year is acceptable. Who's going to fire them for suggesting it? The funny part is merely a few hundred miles to the west the Twins have had 4-5 years of absolute terrible baseball, and despite an unexpected good showing last year the fanbase did not come out in droves. As a matter of fact, they had LESS FANS ATTEND GAMES even though they contended for a playoff spot than they did in 2014. They have had LESS FANS ATTEND GAMES every single year since their 2010 playoff sweep to the Yankees, which is about 33% less (3.1 million vs 2.2 million). Did I mention their stadium is brand new and one of the best in the league? Oh right, that didn't seem to help draw the fans in either. Apathy is the absolute worst thing a fanbase can have happen to it, and what the folks that sit behind their keyboards and make imaginary minor league trades, draft picks, and fire everybody on roster that isnt 22 years old don't understand is that the Brewers do not have a strong devoted base of fans to draw from. If the team loses 90 games for 4-5 years there will be no Brewer fans at the games, and they may not come back. Sure there will be a few diehards, but it would take another several years of winning just to bring the old fans back, let alone create new ones. You can do a rebuild, but it cannot last too long. This needs to be done in 1-2 years or they will have serious issues on their hands paying the bills. MA can't just pull money out of his bee-hind despite what some seem to believe. You're sitting at your keyboard typing inconsequential message board posts too, just like the rest of us. Please spare us the pretense that you have some special wisdom or superior moral fiber, because all I'm seeing is an argument, and not an especially persuasive one. Do you really think you're special or unusual on this board for wanting the team that's the board's sole subject to thrive? If I thought you were right that weakening the major league roster right now to strengthen the prospect talent base would send the franchise into a death spiral of fan apathy, then I'd sure agree that we shouldn't do it. But I don't, because the premise is highly speculative, utterly unspported, and logically unlikely.

This is beautiful. If someone had told me we could flip Rogers for a guy who's ready for a starting shot in cf but who's blocked on a playoff team, plus a big sp prospect whom that playoff team grabbed 18 months ago in the second round, I would have laughed my head off. (OTOH, if you had told me before the offseason that we'd trade for Betancourt and Broxton, I would have sobbed.) I love Rogers. The man worked hard, seized an opportunity, and established himself as a legit mlb bench bat. But he has never provided any actual evidence that he's a starting 1b. I would trade him straight up for Broxton 10 times out of 10, but the Pirates have different needs at this stage. I hope Jason kicks all manner of butt.