gregmag

Got it. I kind of figured he had to have that kind of story to make your list. Intriguing, but I'm still unsure about betting a 40-man spot on a reliever who's still some distance away.

Got it. I kind of figured he had to have that kind of story to make your list. Intriguing, but I'm still unsure about betting a 40-man spot on a reliever who's still some distance away.

Mass, I tried to think it through before looking at your list, and I came up with pretty much the same group. The only other guys with any sort of prospect pedigree are Scarpetta, Ross, and Garfield, and they all appear to have stalled out at this moment. I don't know what Shackelford throws, but other than 25 innings at AA, he hasn't been impressive. Is he one of those guys who has suddenly figured out how to be a potentially dominant reliever? Heckathorn, from his results at least, also seems like just a body at this point. I would: Add Morris, Nelson, Kentrail Davis, Hall, Richardson, Jason Rogers Remove (in approximate order of dispensability) Yuni, Lalli, Olmsted, de los Santos, Gonzalez, Hart, Manzanillo, Francisco, Halton, Mark Rogers, Axford That's plus six and minus eleven, which if I'm doing my math right would leave room for two further additions (or retentions). DHonks makes a great point about the AFL, particularly as to relievers. I would offer NRIs to Mark Rogers and Axford. Reasoning behind the nonobvious moves: On balance, I care more about holding onto pitchers who have a chance to be MLB starters than relievers. We're flush with relievers, and we can always pick up more off the scrap heap. That's why I'd protect Hall and Bucci while exposing Heckathorn, Shackelford, Olmsted, de los Santos, and Manzanillo. Losing all of those guys would hurt, but I can live with losing a couple of them. 1b is a big question mark right now. I've babbled on elsewhere about why I would cut ties with Hart. Francisco has proved to be a one-dimensional power guy who kills you on defense. Morris has a small chance to be something, and he's been younger for his levels than Rogers and Halton. Those two are quite close, and Halton has the advantages of playing outfield and being ready to contribute now. Ultimately I go with Rogers because he seems to be improving with more chance for growth and because of his power, but I can easily see the argument for exposing him and protecting Halton instead.

Mass, I tried to think it through before looking at your list, and I came up with pretty much the same group. The only other guys with any sort of prospect pedigree are Scarpetta, Ross, and Garfield, and they all appear to have stalled out at this moment. I don't know what Shackelford throws, but other than 25 innings at AA, he hasn't been impressive. Is he one of those guys who has suddenly figured out how to be a potentially dominant reliever? Heckathorn, from his results at least, also seems like just a body at this point. I would: Add Morris, Nelson, Kentrail Davis, Hall, Richardson, Jason Rogers Remove (in approximate order of dispensability) Yuni, Lalli, Olmsted, de los Santos, Gonzalez, Hart, Manzanillo, Francisco, Halton, Mark Rogers, Axford That's plus six and minus eleven, which if I'm doing my math right would leave room for two further additions (or retentions). DHonks makes a great point about the AFL, particularly as to relievers. I would offer NRIs to Mark Rogers and Axford. Reasoning behind the nonobvious moves: On balance, I care more about holding onto pitchers who have a chance to be MLB starters than relievers. We're flush with relievers, and we can always pick up more off the scrap heap. That's why I'd protect Hall and Bucci while exposing Heckathorn, Shackelford, Olmsted, de los Santos, and Manzanillo. Losing all of those guys would hurt, but I can live with losing a couple of them. 1b is a big question mark right now. I've babbled on elsewhere about why I would cut ties with Hart. Francisco has proved to be a one-dimensional power guy who kills you on defense. Morris has a small chance to be something, and he's been younger for his levels than Rogers and Halton. Those two are quite close, and Halton has the advantages of playing outfield and being ready to contribute now. Ultimately I go with Rogers because he seems to be improving with more chance for growth and because of his power, but I can easily see the argument for exposing him and protecting Halton instead.

We have a glut of OFs and no reliable 1b. We have a disgraced but very good LF who, if he has two brain cells to rub together, will do what he's told, and who needs a break from the past. I know Braun was among the worst 3b in baseball history, and I know 1b requires some of the same skills. But I would be stunned if Braun couldn't play a better 1b than, just to pick three examples, Prince Fielder, Corey Hart, or Juan Francisco.

Scooter had an excellent year as a 20 year-old in A ball, hitting .309/.354/.463. Those were indeed encouraging stats. Interestingly, you jump right from a specific focus on that season to talk about his career slash stats -- or, rather, his career slash stats other than OBP. That's not analysis; it's advocacy that cherry-picks helpful information and omits unhelpful information. Scooter has played three minor league seasons since that excellent year at Wisconsin. Each of his three slash stats has fallen at each level: A+ (2011): .300/.334/.406 AA (2012): .293/.330/.385 AAA (2013): .280/.327/.371 Brevard is a tough hitting environment, so the 2011 numbers don't look bad. If that's his true level of performance, he can play. But you have to be a religious believer in the value of BA to like his 2012 numbers, and by 2013 a pretty unhappy pattern has fully asserted itself. If you find that pattern encouraging, then I envy your positive outlook on life. Scooter hasn't been especially young for his levels. Someone can correct me on this, but 20 at A-ball, 21 at A+, 22 at AA, 23 at AAA seems like a fairly normal age/level path for someone whom the organization considers a halfway decent prospect. I agree with your implicit point that he has time to develop, but it's not like he's getting this first MLB shot at 21. I think he needs to improve in order to help a good team; who knows whether he will. But up to this point, he's gotten worse, not better. To say that Scooter's minor league numbers are good for a middle infielder once again ignores the decline in the numbers and also makes questionable assumptions about his defensive value. I think everyone knows that errors are a borderline useless measure of defensive value, and I haven't heard anyone else say that Scooter's defense "has improved every year." If Scooter is a decent defender at 2b, and if he can carry a .720 OPS in the majors, then he can be a passable starter. You suggest those "ifs" will obviously happen; I'm just not convinced yet. Of course, he could be better than that; he could turn into a plus defender with a .750 OPS. Then we'd have a player. All I'm saying is that, based on the information we have, Scooter isn't that guy yet, and he'll need to have a developmental spike in order to become that guy. Look, it's a lost season; we have Scooter; we don't have anyone else (well, Bianchi, but his value is heavily tied up in versatility). Scooter's going to play, and that's great. Let's see what we have. But a fair number of people seem to indulge optimism about Scooter's prospects that I don't see much evidence supporting. If he develops, beautiful. I just don't want us to be sitting on our hands if he doesn't, pretending that an empty .275 BA and mediocre defense is just fine for a starting 2b.

One game doesn't wipe out years of discouraging evidence. But. I know Scooter's minor league stats don't give any reason to believe he'll be a good major league hitter. I also know that young hitters develop and that power is often the last skill to take hold. The good thing for this argument is that we'll get to see, because Rickie's hurt and Scooter's going to play. I'm still not a believer, but I'd love for him to take off, and he's off to a good start.

We all feel good, I think, about c, ss, cf, and rf. I'm assuming Braun will be back in lf, playing at his usual superstar level. We appear to have very good outfield depth with Schafer, Khris Davis, and Gindl. Other than ss, though, the infield is unpredictable offensively. We could be fine. I think we'll see a Rickie-Scooter soft platoon at 2b, and that has a decent chance of working out. But the corners are tough. If Aramis plays, we'll be okay at 3b; but if not, that position could really suck up some runs. If Taylor Green is back and healthy, he could be a pretty important guy. We're almost bound to improve at 1b, whichever of three or four different ways we go. Infield depth could be an issue. I like Bianchi as a utility guy, but if he has to start for long stretches, it could be a problem. The bullpen . . . who knows. I see no reason to be any more confident in Henderson than in Axford after his good year, but maybe he'll keep it up. Most of the other guys this year have been solid, but we've seen the mother of all random fluctuations over the past two years. At this point, I'm completely flummoxed. Which brings us back to the rotation. I think Gallardo will pitch better than he has this year; I suspect Peralta will pitch better overall. Lohse shouldn't fall off too badly. So . . . Estrada, Narveson, Gorzellany, Thornburg, Nelson, Hand, Hellweg. Who do you slot in? If everything breaks right, we could have one of those rotations with a #2, three #3s, and a #4. That will keep us in games, but it may not be enough to contend. We have a ton of credible bodies, and Briggs may be right that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. If we have even a near-normal year health-wise, we have a shot at being good. But that's a huge "if," and figuring out which bodies to run out there is not something I'm happy to have DM and RR doing. It's a very strange moment, and I have a hard time figuring out what I think we should do.

I like the idea of moving Braun to 1b and playing Gindl and Davis in LF. We might as well get something out of Braun's shaming; right now he's in no position to argue, and a shift to 1b might even help with the inevitable "new beginning" meme. Both Davis and Gindl have hit consistently in the minors and are off to good starts in the majors. They deserve a real shot.

I'm of the mindset that "Hope is not a plan." Fair enough, but that raises the question what the plan should be. Certainly the scenario where Gennett provides more production next year than Rickie has this year requires a good bit of hope, because there's no evidence that Scooter is a major league hitter. As others have said, we can't trade Weeks. I think the idea that he may be in decline is plausible, especially because 2bs historically age quickly and badly. Weeks has put a lot of work into his fielding (whatever the results), and like all 2bs he has taken a lot of knocks. But his hot stretches indicate that he still has some serious ability to hit. Right now a continuation of the Weeks-Gennett soft platoon seems to be the likeliest plan for next year, and it may be the best. Put Rickie in the best positions to succeed. See whether Scooter can improve. Both pieces of that plan rely on hope, but I think both hopes are rationally grounded. The alternative would be to cut bait on one or both of the guys we have and go outside the organization. That's great if an opportunity presents itself, but (especially given the sunk cost of Rickie's salary) I doubt we'll find a clearly better solution.

Gomez is every bit as valuable as a top-flight SP, and position players generally fluctuate less in performance. He has been one of the very best position players in the league this year, and it isn't like he's hitting a freak .350 or something to do it. I like Schafer, and I still think he'll get near a .750 OPS at his peak, but the dropoff from Gomez to him is considerable. Filling cf with Schafer is no better than having Marco Estrada in your rotation (which I'm not saying is awful). Gomez is relatively young, he's relatively cheap, and he has a broad skill set. It would be very hard to get value in a trade for him.

Yeah, that's all right. As to the relievers, I just don't think it would take much to exceed their value to a last-place team. If Mike Gonzalez can get you any kind of even fringe prospect, I think you deal him; same with Axford, although he's probably scared everyone away at this point. It's also possible that the Delmonico trade set up unreasonable expectations; Bbut like I said, I'm not looking for world-beaters in exchange for bullpen guys. Your point about the starters is interesting. I think trading Gallardo is a bad idea at this point anyway, but if your premise is right, then maybe there's an affirmative reason to expect a bigger return for Lohse in the offseason. Monty, I think (sorry if I'm remembering wrong), made the opposite argument, that the rest of this season may be the most attractive part of Lohse's contract. I don't know how GMs think, so I don't know who's right.

Right now, the typical top 6 in the Brevard lineup -- Richardson, Rivera, Ramirez, Haniger, Delmonico, Garfield -- are all at least somewhat interesting to follow. Meanwhile, Jason Rogers is the only everyday player at Huntsville who holds any interest at all. I can't remember that ever happening before. Huntsville could be a lot of fun next year, with those guys in a (somewhat) better hitting environment.

Fair enough, but the reason his potential replacements wrecked the train is that plans B and C got hurt, and Doug unbelievably thought Yuni and Alex Gonzalez made sense as Plan D. I'd try any of five or six things before paying Corey Hart $10 million to come back and maybe, if everything breaks right, hit 30 homers and do not much of anything else for a rebuilding team. Heck, depending on the money (a big "if"), I might put up with Francisco for a year at 1b if RR signed a blood oath not to play him at 3b, ever. But ahead of Francisco and Hart on my list are a bunch of our young guys -- none of them a world beater, but all of them cheap with some upside -- and the AAAA vet behind door number 2 (whom I admit could just be Francisco 2.0, but probably cheaper).

To play devil's advocate on Aoki: He's amazingly cheap next year, and his skill set makes him unlikely to decline quickly. DM's right that the usual play is to deal deadline guys in their FA year, not the year before; I suspect the market may not value the extra year of control fully. We do have guys who could fill RF, but in this case they aren't a whole lot cheaper than the incumbent. They are younger with more team control, and I'd like to see more of them. If the Brewers get Gindl and a Davis or two enough PAs that they know what they have, I won't be too put out by the OF situation. The notion of keeping Lohse and especially Gonzalez I don't understand, but I think DM's words were "I'm not motivated," which is often DM-speak for "He's available for the right price." The line in that report that disturbs me is "teams have to make offers." I get that DM doesn't want to be overeager, but I hope he has a strategy for making deals happen. Not trading Lohse would be less than optimal; not trading Gonzalez (and maybe Axford) would be indefensible.

I was about to write something along the lines of Francisco is a major league hitter and Bianchi may not be . . . but I decided to look at Fangraphs first. The usual caveats about quantifying defensive performance apply, and I don't get to see many games, but FWIW Fangraphs agrees with you guys. In terms of overall WAR, Fangraphs has Francisco as worse on a per-PA basis than Yuni, and Bianchi is just over the break-even point. Francisco is undeniably a much, much better hitter than Bianchi at this point (or Yuni), which isn't saying much. But Bianchi would at least have a small chance of improving with more PT, and his defensive value appears to leave Francisco in the dust. Again, I know looking at single-season defensive WAR is hazardous, but in this case it backs up the strong testimony of a couple of eyewitnesses.

I agree, without any snark intended, that Yuni must be a great clubhouse presence. Sometimes guys just keep getting chances their production doesn't warrant, and you just know that those guys can't be jerks. Also, LouisEly makes a good point that Yuni's Spanish is likely an asset in this clubhouse. It's more important to be a good person than a good MLB player, and Yuni has my presumptive respect as a human being. All of that said, the fact that Yuni ever put on a uni (sorry) for the Brewers this year is a dramatic failure of management. If you need more clubhouse guys, find ones who can play, or figure out how to get more leadership out of the guys you have. For one thing, it's a truism in sports that bad players usually can't function as leaders, because performance speaks first among athletes. But beyond that, a good organization doesn't waste a roster spot, let alone hundreds of PAs, on a good guy who can't play. He isn't a coach; he isn't making coach money. What he's making are outs, at a historic pace for his (involuntary shudder) position. I get that the Brewers' 1b and 3b situations were perfect storms in April, with two men down at each position. But for goodness' sake, don't waste veteran money on a guy who has lost games for his teams year after year. If you aren't happy throwing Morris or Halton out there, or making Khris Davis pick up the 1b glove, then find some AAAA guy whom you can pay the minimum and maybe break even in the W/L column. I've defended DM on a lot of scores, because I think he does some important things well. But getting Yuni this year is indefensible.

This is a great thread, partially because I agree that Lucroy has been underrated and partially because of some great comments. On the first part, if his framing is really as good as Fangraphs has argued, then he's even more valuable than his strong bat and solid glove make him. I also agree with the point about his leadership: I think I first pointed that out back in the 2011 pennant run, when Lucroy got up in LaRussa's grill in the media more boldly than anyone else on the team was willing to. I just love the guy. As for the comments: I had no idea Ellie Rodriguez was that good; I love the line about Darrell Porter and 1982; and any occasion to remember WOAH SOLVDD is a good occasion.

I just missed paying attention to his time with the Brewers, but I remember 1977, when he still cast a long (and big!) shadow over the franchise. He was still, at that moment, the best player we had ever had. He's always held a mystique for me. This is very sad news.

Ryan Howard. You could see it coming like a light in a railroad tunnel.

Well, this is one of the less inspiring days on the farm I can remember in a while, except for the Helena offense.

Just to temper the general depression about Gallardo -- he's having an off year. It's possible he's starting a permanent decline, but based on past experience it's more likely he'll substantially bounce back. First, he could just be fatigued from the WBC and/or general wear and tear, which means his velocity could rebound. Second, he could be experiencing the kind of adjustment stress that a lot of pitchers have in their late 20s when they lose some velocity and have to rethink their approaches. He has been very good in the past, and as far as we know he's healthy. His immediate trade value has tanked to the point where we're almost certainly better off keeping him, but that could work out fine.

Thank you -- that irony did cross my mind today. I guess the disconnect is that, as sports fans, we feel more secure condemning people for crimes against the sport than for crimes against the law. That's a reasonable caution in theory, but at least in this instance I think I have better information about how serious Rodriguez's transgressions are than I have about Braun's transgressions. Also, sports fans are mostly guys, and as a group we maybe aren't as conscious about violence against women as we should be, although I think that's getting better.

Monty, I hope you're right about all that, but I worry.

The more I think about this, and read what you guys are saying, the more I think we should hold onto Gallardo for now and be happy about it. Somebody talked about the likely effect of the WBC, which seems very plausible. Yo is having an off year. If he continues to slide, then we lost out by not trading him a year ago, which was never going to happen anyway; but there's a decent chance he comes back strong, in which case we can move him next year for a better return or keep him if the pieces are somehow starting to come together. Ideally we'd be able to deal a pitcher with his contract and pedigree, but keeping him now isn't a disaster. A good veteran starter isn't like a closer; even a rebuilding team benefits from having a guy like Gallardo around.