Fear The Chorizo

An All SEC Final squashes that momentum. I'd argue the all SEC Final is a product of the flawed system - if you call it a "playoff", you can't leave two of the five power conferences out of it altogether. Plus there's the fact that UCF beat a now 4-loss Auburn team yesterday - the same Auburn team that was everyone's shoe-in 2-loss playoff representative had they beaten Georgia in the SEC title game. Had Auburn won the SEC title and the Badgers beaten OSU, I think there would've been a legit chance that Alabama would've still been selected and an undefeated WI would've gotten snubbed from the CFP since their "best" win would've been against a 3-loss buckeye squad. I wouldn't have put UCF in the final 4, but they were ranked #12 coming into their bowl game as the only undefeated D1 program - Frost's comments yesterday about suppressing their poll rankings are spot on. To me, yesterday's slate of games just looked so bad and annoying, and made the collusion between ESPN, the SEC, and the CFP obvious - all on ESPN aside from the ND game, all with the stupid "Finebaum room" scroll across the ticker pimping the "talking head" show the SEC network had on during these games, all with an SEC school playing in the game. I get that ESPN was the network dumb enough to shell out a mountain of cash for CFP game broadcast rights - but you'd think someone there would realize how bad jamming an SEC team into each of their New Year's Bowl games looks when they have the obvious financial interest in the SEC network. I cut the cable cord last year and frankly was thrilled to not watch any football yesterday aside from ND/LSU. I'm sure Alabama looked like a well-rested, healthy, and prepared club last night - must be nice to have a playoff spot without needing to add to the wear and tear and risking further injuries by actually playing in a conference title game, and having an extra week to prepare than anyone else.

Even with Michigan losing by beating themselves again, outcomes of games today should go a long way towards adjusting this system, or at least perceptions of conferences for 2018. UCF beating auburn drives that home in a big way. Would love to see a sooner clemson title game.

Long way to go this New Year's Day, but it's shaping up to be an 8-0 bowl season for the Big Ten - and could be an epic pantsing of the SEC all across their home network.

Hornibrook's arm will always be a limitation, but college quarterbacks don't have to be top 5 NFL talents to win. His 3 losses as a starting QB in college have been at Michigan by 7, home against OSU last year in OT, and against OSU in the Big 10 title game by 6. For all his warts, the kid makes plays more often than not when he needs to. Fumagali graduating is a big loss on offense, but the Badgers always seem to find TE's that can play. Getting Cephus back in their WR stable and Taylor back at RB behind a dominant OL will make their offense really good next year if Hornibrook keeps progressing and key pieces stay healthy. If their defense doesn't fall off the face of the earth due to the graduations/early NFL entries, they'll be right back in the mix next season. Three tough road games at Iowa, Michigan, and Penn State should be enough to silence most of the cupcake schedule ?s that this year's squad dealt with, too. Big Ten 7-0 in bowl games with only a winnable MICH / South Carolina matchup left...pundits spent about two months arguing over which 1-loss teams had the "best" loss on their resume. After recent results, there's no arguing that the Badgers' one score loss against the Buckeyes looks the best right now among the teams that were battling for playoff consideration down the stretch. One can argue endlessly whether a 2-loss OSU Big Ten champ deserved to get into the playoff over Alabama (I think they should have been), but with how bowl season has played out, I wouldn't be surprised if after the Jan 1 games there's alot of people thinking that the Big 10 title game probably had 2 of the nation's 4 best teams this year playing each other - and it's a shame neither of them got a shot at the national title. Go to a 6 team playoff, same committee approach with the top 2 teams getting a bye.

If Bucky wins this game, there won't be many better bowl wins this year - regardless of what happens during the CFP games...Badgers are basically playing a road game tonight. I've long thought Miami was overrated ever since dismantling the Irish, and the beatdown Clemson put on them erased all doubt, but they're still a quality team - particularly when playing in Miami. A win like this would be huge for WI.

The Big10 could easily run the table in bowl games this year - that typically would send a strong message that the league was vastly underrated this season...if the conference was the SEC or ACC, at least. regardless of how it's perceived nationally, it'd be great for the conference to finish bowl season off strong and at least give them something to pump up preseason hype machines for next year's week 1 rankings - since that ranking is still the most important one for college football, unfortunately.

The example I generally give, and yes, I know Kershaw is 8x more valuable than Davis, but if the Brewers had a 24 man roster that won 88 games and had a payroll of $20 million total...Clayton Kershaw comes by and says, "I'll come chase a World Series ring, 1 year, $100 million." Mark OKs the deal as he is willing to pay $120 million this year. I would say absolutely not as a GM, because setting that sort of precedent leads to more problems down the road with that 20 million, 24 man roster. once several of your budget friendly starters are no longer affordable to a team due to changes in the pitching market directly influenced by themselves years earlier. And I get that the above example is an over the top scenario - That said, a GM good enough to field an 88-win team for 20 Million would be smart enough to tell Kershaw and his owner to pound sand at that contract request.

Why not save that money and use it towards retaining their premier offensive players approaching free agency in future years, or extend some of their young pitching to buy out a few years of free agency to lengthen their competitive window? There are countless better ways to spend $ on players compared to wildly overpaying for a bullpen. Contracts like this not only impact the team who issued it, they impact every team's future payroll by setting new market goalposts. That's the biggest problem I have with this contract, longterm it prices a team like the brewers even farther from both signing impact free agent talent but also from retaining premier homegrown/acquired talent through their prime years. Good on Davis and his representation for finding a team dumb enough to give him that contract.

True, so then there is absolutely no reason to use it as an argument to justify paying 17 million a year for a reliever through 2020.

Young pitching is fickle, and counting on too much of it to contend over an extended stretch while it's cheap to have budget to blow elsewhere is a recipe for very inconsistent seasons...just ask the mets. Add in the fact that it's colorado, where good pitching dies, and this strategy is even a bigger risk. There is nothing that justifies throwing 17 million per year for 3 seasons to a reliever on the wrong side of 30, particularly when he is not hands down the best closer in the game. Not even close to it, actually. Is there any way other team owners can file a grievance against the rockies for colluding with the players union to unduly drive up player contract costs? Only sorta kidding...

Holy smokes that's an absurd contract.

They are also stuck in a free agent market where many of the high payroll teams that gobble veteran starters up are intentionally slashing their payrolls to get under luxury tax penalties and set themselves up to throw huge dollars around next offseason. If there ever was an offseason where the brewers landed a big name starter at a reasonable price, this would be it.

If he's healthy, Logan would be a great addition to the pen. Always liked him as much more than a LOOGY coming from the left side.

Machado wants to go back to playing shortstop. That's exactly my point - why Chicago would trade away Russell or Baez, two more than capable SS's with several more years of team control before hitting free agency, to bring back 1 year of Machado at SS before being forced to fork over huge $ to resign him, is craziness. If I'm the Cubs, I'd be much more inclined to include some of their young position player talent in a trade for starting pitching, not for more position player talent that's about to get crazy expensive.

One would think any Cub deal for Machado would force them to throw the money truck at him after giving up more of their young talent...which would also hamper them from going after other free agents next offseason. If there are no other serious offers, why not wait until the deadline and try to acquire him for even lower value? Also, if they really wanted him, why not just wait until next offseason and sign him as a free agent then? I don't see him as a fit for the Cubs as they are currently built, seeing that both Russell and Baez are solid shortstops, and Bryant is their 3B.

The "problem" really starts presenting itself between 2019 and 2020, when prospects 1-2 years younger than the list you provided find themselves in the same situation. Also, we're not taking into account the high-talent prospects who will likely force themselves onto the 40 man much earlier than the steady progression made by some in minor league development (Burnes, Hiura, etc). The Brewers could jump through a ton of hoops to retain as many of these players listed over the next year, only to find it even more difficult 1 year from now. There will be plenty of competition for roster spots, and plenty of trades/moves that jettison players to other organizations.

As usual most of you missed my point which was the addition of two starting pitcher value FA opens the door for discussion of using Woodruff in a deal. Not Woodruff, but the signings of Chacin and Gallardo absolutely open the door for discussion of including other younger pitchers potentially facing 40-man issues this next year for trades. Think Jungmann, Lopez, Diplan, Peralta. None of these arms would headline a deal, but they'd have value if included with other prospects in exchange for MLB talent. With 5 catchers and seemingly alot of questionable relievers and veteran prospects appearing to have marginal ceilings currently on the 40 man, I expect a ton of roster churn between now and opening day.

The jury is still out on Woodruff after a decent but not dazzling 8 major league starts. To get them over the hump in the next couple years, a more proven guy would make sense, while preserving studs like Hader and Burnes. Woodruff in 2016 was basically Burnes in 2017 - meaning he's a "stud" that's 1 year further advanced in his development than Burnes. Sure, Woodruff could prove to be inadequate as a MLB starter...but the Brewers can't glean that from 8 big league starts last season, which also happened to come well after his original intended debut due to injury.

Wily Peralta career WAR = 1.7 (6 years MLB experience) Chacin's career WAR = 17.1 (9 years MLB experience) - WAR from 2012-2017 seasons = 10.8 agree to disagree on this comparison

Looking further at Chacin's splits, this is a guy that got tagged during the season's first two months, then finished pretty well for a back end of the rotation type of starter - his OPS against was sub-700 from June through the rest of the season. His opening day outing at the Dodgers (3.1 IP, 9 ER, 2HR), April start at AZ (6IP, 7ER, 2HR), and May start at NYM (0.2IP, 7ER, 1HR) demolished his chances at a solid ERA and really skewed his home/road splits. Impossible not to have better numbers pitching at Petco compared to road parks as a Padre pitcher, but these three dumpster fire starts on the road make his #'s look much worse than they typically were. That being said, he's not a guy who will consistently give you deep starts - if he's a rotation regular, you're hoping to get 5 solid innings and have the pen ready to roll not soon afterwards. He's a good rotation option provided you're not expecting him to be more than a better than average #5.

Hader logged ~50 MLB and ~50 minor league innings last season, so a 150 inning limit for 2018 is likely. If he starts the year as a reliever, he's probably pitching 12-15 IP per month. Doing that through June would give him roughly 45 IP. Shifting him into the rotation near the end of June would allow him to get ~18 starts from July-September. At 6IP per start, that gives him 108 innings, bringing his 2018 total into that 150 IP mark. They can always play with timing a bit, and a mid-season transition from the pen to a starting role would need to include some piggyback starts to stretch him out, but if he stays healthy this is the route I'd prefer they take with Hader next season.

Hader's done it for what, 4 months at the MLB level? Of that time, he really only started getting put in high leverage situations for about 2 months-worth of games. I said poor man's because there isn't a track record there - yet. I doubt he falls flat on his face, but let's see what his production is after teams have faced him 4-5 times.

The biggest question to me on Hader starting is the number of innings he would be able to log this year. Because of that, I could see the brewers starting him off in the pen, but giving him plenty of opportunities for multiple inning appearances during the 1st half of the year, ramping him up to the point where he could slide into the rotation at some point later in the year. You've got to give him every opportunity to start in order to find out if you have either a poor man's Sale or a poor man's Miller. Either would be fantastic, but Hader starting is more valuable to the organization.

So what you're saying is we've turned what should be about a 5 post thread that ends with everyone thinking "meh, hopefully Yo finds a way to salvage his career with a good spring training - if not, who cares?" into 6 full pages of angst? Yup, it's December...

Archers hr rate through his entire career has hovered around the league average, meaning that he doesn't need to be exceptional in that category to put up the quality pitching numbers he has during his career. Many of the ace caliber pitchers listed in the post above saw their hr rates jump significantly in 2017 as well. Why? Because everyone is trying to hit hrs now. Signing Lynn will cost the brewers 20 plus million over 4 yrs at least, that's a dumb move for a small market team that has prospects whose best value to the organization is trade bait. I would much rather have archer than Lynn for the next 4 seasons.