Fear The Chorizo

Maybe I'm wrong in general about this, but I feel like last year around this time the general sentiment was that the rotation was good enough with a mix of guys like Chacin, Anderson, Davies plus adding two of Peralta/Burnes/Woodruff, plus hopefully getting Nelson back before the trade deadline. Then Spring Training happened and many were geeked at the fact all three of the young pitchers won opening day rotation spots. Then April happened and we all wondered where it all went so horribly wrong. Then September happened and the Brewers wound up winning 89 games and a wild card berth to make the postseason a 2nd straight year despite having hardly any quality contributions from guys who were the perceived best starting pitchers in Spring Training 2019 down the stretch either due to injury (Woodruff) or poor performance (Chacin, Burnes, Peralta), or both (Nelson). This offseason it seem like the Brewers have actually amassed a deeper group of starting pitching options, now have alot more confidence in Woodruff being a quality starter, and aren't requiring immediate rotation contributions from the likes of Peralta or Burnes if they don't show they're ready for that workload during Spring Training. I actually like their rotation outlook much more than where they were at last year at this time.

Hader can be as bitter as he wants to be - if he wants bigger raises he's got to continue pitching great over the next four seasons the Brewers have his rights controlled. That's just how this process works. He may have complained earlier about his league minimum salaries the past two seasons - but I'm pretty sure I also heard nothing about his team approaching the Brewers publicly asking the sides to work out a longterm extension that would have paid him more money upfront and perhaps bought out a season of his free agency. And honestly by the time he reaches free agency he'll be 30, so the Brewers may be inclined to not want an extension beyond that age, anyways. It wouldn't surprise me if at some point the Brewers and Hader agree to a contract that guarantees his salary over the next 4 seasons - it wouldn't buy out any free agent years but it would also avoid going through the arbitration process over and over again. I believe that's what they did for the final 2-3 seasons with Prince/Boras. However, if the Brewers are hesitant to dole out significant new money beyond the current CBA deadline, I'm guessing they'll continue to take this year to year until there is clarity on any new arby process....or perhaps they have tentative plans to trade Hader following the 2021 season (which is the current CBA's deadline) - that would likely be when his pricetag would begin getting cumbersome for the Brewers even if no changes were made to the arbitration process.

https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/28685366/braves-lefty-cole-hamels-shoulder-discomfort Not exactly a good start to 2020 for Mr. Hamels...who'd of though a late 30's starter with a ton of tread on the tires that has shown a propensity to getting injured the past 2-3 seasons isn't worth an $18M flyer? It could be some weird way of avoiding a chunk of spring training by a cagy vet...but it's likely that the Braves aren't going to get their money's worth out of this signing.

With the perceived parity amongst the top 4 NL central clubs, there just won't be enough wins to go around between them to all wind up over 0.500. Particularly because I feel the combination of the Dodgers and a pretty strong NL east aren't going to provide easy wins outside the division to inflate the NL Central clubs in the standings. Between the Brewers, Cards, Cubs, and Reds, the 2 healthiest clubs across the season probably wind up winning 86-94 games and the two unhealthiest clubs likely finish at or below 0.500. The Reds get the biggest bump in the standings due to their offseason and recent trades, however I feel like their record has the most uncertainty even without factoring injuries. Basically these projections reflect the fact that the perceived best rosters in the division (Cubs and Cards) have gone backwards this offseason, while the Reds have improved and the Brewers overall have treaded water to what their 2019 outlook resembled last February. I'm going to be optimistic and say the Brewers stay healthy at key spots on their roster and finish as a 90 win ballclub, and they are one of the two NL Central clubs to outperform their early February wins projections, much like they've done over the past 3 seasons. Brewers 90 wins Lots of moves that essentially reshuffle the deck and look to outproduce poor 2019 production from 3rd/1st. Full year of Hiura's bat paired with Yelich...very questionable rotation now anchored by Woodruff with intriguing bullpen depth. On paper, I think they're better than last season with less reliance on young starters at the MLB level who hadn't yet proved they belong. Reds 87 wins All the moves look pretty good on paper, but their pen is still suspect and relying on Bauer to anchor a pitching staff is a gamble. Their defense could be keystone cops-esque at times. Cards 80 wins I don't love their lineup, and at some point guys like Molina are falling off a cliff. Pitching is solid but thinner than usual if there are any injuries to the youngsters they leaned on heavily last year (Flaherty in particular) Cubs 76 wins I'm guessing more moves are made by them before the season starts, potentially involving Bryant or Contreras. Still a talented roster, but really lacking quality depth and many of its most expensive players are on the wrong side of their primes. If they get off to a slow start I can see a firesale coming at this year's deadline Pirates 64 wins really the only division team in full rebuild mode - they'll be interesting to track to see if players like Josh Bell become available via trade at the deadline. It sure would be nice to have neither the Cubs or Cards be a postseason factor as the calendar rolls into September this year!

Generally agreed, but they also paid him in recent years largely for past performance when he was making peanuts and putting up rookie of the year and mvp level numbers. To me th downside of the deal was losing 2 full years of his prime at below market value prices when he dealt with the hand/thumb issue and his suspension in 2013. Knowing that if they didnt extend him when they did, he wouldn't have been around the past 3-4 seasons makes the deal worth it, imo. He's still a good player and the deal hasn't crippled the organization from making other moves.

I wouldn't be. I'd be resting on my 4 world series championships in 16 years and trust in the team to make good choices. If the Red Sox want to do a 1 year rebuild this is the perfect way for them to do it. They may be down a bit in 2020 but the team will be better in 2021+ for it. Sure of course big pic their titles are in the bank so can't be too mad. But, if I was their fans I would be mad that not paying a 27 year old MVP is not the way to reset and get under the tax. Seems they wouldn't have been able to do it this year, but have it as a goal over the next few years. Do things like try to dump Price, Evaldi on someone, wait for Pedrois money to drop off, I think they have like 10 mil on the books from a Cuban that flopped, I think one of Hanley/Panda might still be on the books. Do Brewers style bargain shopping to fill out your roster. You should have been able to get under in the coming years. Maybe work out the extension with him to be backloaded and early years be lower. But just jettisoning vets with bloated contracts without including a valuable player like Betts as the centerpiece would mean the red sox would probably be on the hook for most of those other contracts, and still not get under the luxury tax limit. Trying to slowly drop payroll over a few years basically makes the retooling take longer and gets fans restless for more drastic changes to get the team on the right track more quickly.

Either he gets traded at the 2022 july deadline or he doesnt get traded at all. It's pretty simple.

It's not about whether they can afford to do it, it's about whether it makes baseball sense to do so I would think it makes baseball sense to try and retain a 27 year old MVP. Not when doing so only guarantees you 1 more season of him on an aging roster in payroll hell, and keeping said roster in tact for 2020 all but guarantees the red Sox will have major difficulties even doing a proper tear down/rebuild. It's not just the luxury tax penalty...its losing high draft picks in perpetuity, too.

Then also imagine that if they dont reset their luxury tax this offseason they probably never would unless they want to blow it up early 2000's astros style and wind up subsidizing most of the Rays' payroll for the foreseeable future. Instead of resigning Betts next offseason, let's just throw $30Mil in a hole and then still need to sign a great corner outfielder, plus continue losing draft picks! It's not about whether they can afford to do it, it's about whether it makes baseball sense to do so

Both QBs generally played uneven at best and made some bad throws. Garappollo's numbers looked pretty good until the 4th quarter rolled around aside from that terrible interception - then when KC sold out to stop the run he made some bad decisions on play action passes that led to batted balls and incompletions when the 49ers could have salted the game away. Any type of pressure totally throws him off his game - it's unfortunate the Packers' D couldn't even come close to slowing down their run game. It was also very satisfying watching Sherman get run past like he was standing still on that big pass play late in the game...I think he's a great corner who has had a great career, but he can't get out of his own way with his attitude looking to slam all the "doubters". Mahomes actually played pretty poorly - if he has a good game KC probably rolls the 49ers. It was nice seeing what their outside speed mixed with a great TE did to take advantage of the 49ers in coverage when Mahomes could buy a little time and not make a bad throw. Packers just didn't have the personnel to really make that gameplan work in the NFC title game, although it was frustrating that the really didn't start trying a spread-em out, hurry up approach until it was way beyond too late.

At the end of 2018 Grisham was 19th in our system and no where near the top 100. Houser was 16th and no where near the top 100. Devin Williams wasn't listed. At the end of 2017 Peralta was our 9th rated prospect and no where near the top 100. At the end of 2016 Woodruff was our 25th rated prospect and no where near the top 100. Also heading into 2016. Brinson was 14th, Diaz was 97th, Harrison was our 16th best prospect and Yamamoto wasn't listed. By the end of 2017 they were worth Yelich. This system has a way of vaulting someone from off the radar to top 100 in half a year. Then a half a year after that they are graduated. The track record of that looks pretty sustainable. The guys doing the rankings on the other hand look very, well, uninformed. I don't blame them. MiLB is a beast to cover and getting film on the minors must be a complete chore. That doesn't excuse the fact that their rankings aren't worth jack. Their rankings are simply the best options in a sea of guesses. Guys suck at ranking college football draftees and they are going to play in the NFL the next fall. Film of them is everywhere to be found. This is a great post and observation - Looking back at when the Brewers' system was actually considered among the very best in baseball just 3-4 years ago, almost all the names of prospects who gave the system that level of prestige have amounted to zilch as impact MLB players - several of them were very possibly traded at peak value to get Yelich. Even if Diaz, Harrison, Yamamoto and Brinson wind up making a couple all star game appearances between them during the course of their careers it's a huge win for the Brewers acquiring an MVP. Others were dealt towards the end of their minor league eligibility to help bolster the MLB roster during postseason runs (Ortiz, Phillips, Medeiros, etc). The minor league system needs to be viewed more as a tool that helps improve the MLB roster and not just as another component of an organization that gets judged separately for how good it is based on rankings services that are too heavily weighed by recent draft positions - some of that comes from drafting/developing quality players internally that wind up contributing at the MLB level. But simply due to the sheer number of prospects, an equally big part is knowing when to improve overall talent in the organization by moving talented prospects with questionable MLB ceilings at their peak value for proven MLB talent. The current Brewers' system is very young/undeveloped in terms of their top prospect list - partly because collegiate players like Hiura rocketed through the system in such a hurry there wasn't enough time for his true value to influence how an overall system looked on paper. An arm like Rasmussen will never be considered a top 50 prospect due to his age and injury concerns - but everyone knows if he stays healthy he's already a MLB reliever at worst with a pretty high ceiling. A guy like Small isn't yet considered a bigtime prospect because he wasn't throwing high 90's and didn't have enough minor league innings to dominate in higher minor league levels as a college draftee yet. Without even drafting any studs this coming June, I can see their overall system outlook moving into the middle of the league simply from prospects they already have staying healthy and getting another season of development in higher minor league levels that would better establish their potential as MLB contributors.

Good bullpens can be developed consistently by adding a couple of veteran arms/camp invite signees looking for bounceback years as long as you have a couple studs to solidify high leverage innings. The key is maintaining the roster flexibility to churn through a number of the scrap heap relievers that don't pan out and replace them with guys who do. Stearns has done a very good job at building a good bullpen ever since the disaster that was their pen the 1st half of 2017 hampered their postseason chances, and he's done it without spending big in free agency or prospect capital so he can afford to prioritize those avenues with starting pitching/position player roster spots. Their pen was pretty good last season even after losing Knebel and Wahl before opening day and having a diminished Jeffress towards the back end most of the season. Hader alone made the 1st half bullpen good despite his occasional struggles to keep the ball in the park, and the addition of Pomeranz made it a strength again down the stretch. We all remember how the wildcard game ended - but if not for a HBP off the knob of the bat and a fluky shattered bat single up the middle the Brewers probably win that game. The Brewers currently have a good number of mid-high minor league arms to help solidify bullpen depth if/when they need it, too. Stearns now has a track record pointing to having a really good pen by August of every season, which has been a big part of why they've played very well in the last two months of recent seasons and put themselves in postseason position.

I think it opens the door to get a haul at the deadline if they are struggling and want to sell as part of a quicker rebuild. Doubtful they move him now knowing if everything breaks right they are still a talented team.

This team is just an absurdly good regular season winning machine

Considering the only two teams that have improved their rosters on paper in the division from last season are the Reds and Brewers, yes absolutely. From a projections standpoint, the 2020 Brewers' roster is better than the one which won 89 games despite their best starter missing a few months of the season and their best player shattering his kneecap in early September. I agree that getting Knebel back to serve as frequent closer and allowing Hader to return to his inning 7-8 relief ace role would be huge in improving the bullpen. The rotation has question marks, but last year's rotation was largely a train wreck for a good chunk of the season and the Brewers found a way to piece it together and earn a wild card berth. Their lineup looks better on paper despite losing Grandal and Moose. If contender means having a 100-win roster on paper, then no...but then again 100 regular season wins doesn't guarantee you anything in the playoffs.

So nobody wants to think "Hey, he stopped playing when it didn't feel good and the Brewers proactively got him stateside so he could be evaluated well before camp starts to make sure there's nothing serious going on with his wrist"?? The injury didn't appear to occur with a slide into a base or hit by pitch that typically causes wrist fractures or potential serious ligament damage requiring surgery - for all we know it's soreness towards the end of winter ball. Cause for some concern - sure...but my goodness people have to calm down.

Wouldn't surprise me if they wind up at/near the top of the division standings. Also wouldn't surprise me if Miley and Bauer get into a spring training fight over Astros-related sign stealing and spin rates and they open the season with two of their "on paper" rotation anchors on the disabled list and the whole thing implodes before Reds' management even has a chance to see if it works out. A post was made earlier in this thread that I really agree with - the time is about up for the Reds' current baseball ops staff to put up a successful MLB season and make the playoffs. Seems like alot of these moves were made with that in mind trying to throw together a "go for it" year at the MLB level before the overall organization is ready to take make that jump and potentially preserve their own jobs beyond 2020. More often than not, teams that try to chase wins in free agency without a really good foundation in place wind up leaving a gap in their roster construction that becomes a fatal flaw of the team - in the Reds' case it's probably two-fold: team defense and bullpen. If they don't absolutely mash, they're going to disappoint.

Pretty much the exact same thing was posted or alluded to by quite a few posters the past 3 offseasons for the Brewers, and they managed to find ways to avoid losing 100 games. Here's a link to figure it out yourself: http://m.brewers.mlb.com/mil/roster/40-man/

Another mid market team investing in the product the fans pay to see. Interesting concept. What's interesting about that concept is trying to make the point of the Brewers not signing free agents or investing in their club to make them competitive on the field. That's totally inaccurate, particularly since Stearns became GM. Not to mention Cincinnati, while not the Yankees in terms of market size, is a larger market than Milwaukee.

I think this sets the Reds up really well to get a ton of calls starting in late June by contending teams looking to add starting pitching depth at the deadline. I'm not buying this roster gelling enough to truly be the class of a division - no matter what the Brewers/Cubs/Cards have or haven't done yet this offseason. They were everyone's darlings to make a jump in the division standings last offseason and it got them 75 wins. The teams in front of them are still good teams with talent - making a 10-15 win jump from 75 into playoff contention is a bigger hurdle than going from mid 60's to mid 70's.

Those Cub stats are the statistical outlier in a big way for Castellanos - granted, not playing home games in Comerica will improve his stats wherever he plays... so I'm sure his Cincy stats will look pretty good. He's probably around a high 0.800s OPS offensive player playing half his games in Cincy. NL Central will once again be pretty competitive with a bunch of teams that project to be slightly better than 0.500 clubs beating each other up. I'm interested seeing what his contract winds up being. Also interested to see how Cincy starts the year - if their mishmash roster doesn't gell and they fall on their faces I could see them being sellers in a hurry with some pretty good trade pieces.

Until the Reds actually make a jump and play winning baseball for a season, I'm not convinced anything they do puts them into contention - seems like everyone has been waiting on them to become a good team that competes for a playoff spot forever. IMO they are the Mariners of the NL - a team that isn't afraid to make alot of moves but at the end of the day looks more like it's chasing its tail than building an organization that can consistently win. As for the rest of the division, totally agreed that all of the Cards, Cubs, and Brewers have appeared to take a step back up to this point in the offseason. The Brewers appeared to have retooled their roster in a way that replaces guys they lost with a decent mix capable of meeting or even exceeding last year's offensive production. Pitching is still a question mark, however their staff wasn't exactly lights out last season and I'd argue they are less reliant on the younger more unpredictable arms than they were in 2019. The Cubs and Cards, on the other hand, still have holes to fill on their rosters - I'd expect the Cards to make another move or two to solidify their roster, while it wouldn't surprise me to see the Cubs go into 2020 with what they have or even trade Bryant or Contreras and view 2020 as a soft rebuilding year. Castellanos can hit, but his ceiling appears to be that of a 3.0 WAR player who plays bad defense wherever he's stuck in the field on an NL club...I just don't see him as a fit for the Brewers with Garcia in the mix. It's interesting that he still isn't signed, though...

Yes, hearing from many outlets that his oldest daughter was on the flight with him heading to a bball practice/camp. Appears that the pilot, another adult and their early teen child headed to the same activity were also onboard. Just tragic

Hoping his daughters or wife arent among the others killed. Just terrible that 5 people lost their lives no matter who they were, but it would be horrible if multiple family members died. I'm guessing Kobe didnt just get on chopper rides with random people, so it's likely the others killed have some sort of familial or business relationships with him if there were more passengers than pilot/crew.

It bothers me that this is shaping up to be a way that the Cardinals are going to acquire him for peanuts. I dunno, if the rockies really do get to the point they are going to trade him, there would be at least 10 teams making offers and they would take the highest bidder. That might wind up being the Cards, but it would cost alot...and I think regardless of where he goes, Arenado is opting out as long as he stays healthy. That means there would be a lot more teams interested in him for 2 years instead of 7-8.