Harold Hutchison

Last year, inspired by BrewCrewBall.com's offseason plan, I drew up my own: viewtopic.php?f=63&t=36093 ARBITRATION Jimmy Nelson - TENDER Zach Davies - TENDER Stephen Vogt - NON-TENDER (minor-league deal with NRI) Hernan Perez - TENDER (sign to five-year, $20 million extension) Corey Knebel - TENDER (sign to five-year, $30 million extension) Travis Shaw - TENDER (sign to six-year, $36 million extension) Domingo Santana - TENDER Jonathan Schoop - TENDER Dan Jennings - NON-TENDER Xavier Cedeno - TENDER Erik Kratz - NON-TENDER Tyler Saladino - NON-TENDER FREE AGENCY OPTIONS Mike Moustakas - Exercise Joakim Soria - Decline Jeremy Jeffress - Exercise Jordan Lyles - Decline Wade Miley - Extend QO (re-sign to 4-year, $40 million deal) Gio Gonzales - Walk Curtis Granderson - Walk RELEASE Matt Albers Total spots taken on 40-man: 31 RULE 5 PROTECTION OF Troy Stokes Jr., IF Jake Hager, RHPs Cody Ponce, Jon Olczak, Bubba Derby, Trey Supak, Conor Harber, and LHP Quintin Torres-Costa to 40-man. Total spots taken on 40-man: 39 RULE 5 DRAFT Select C Patrick Mazieka from Mets Total spots taken on 40-man: 40 TRADES Minnesota Twins Twins get: 2B/SS Jonathan Schoop 1B/OF/DH Eric Thames Brewers get: UT Willians Astudillo - to 40-man RHP Bailey Ober LHP Erik Cha Detroit Tigers Tigers get: RHP Chase Anderson OF Keon Broxton RHP Aaron Wilkerson Brewers get: IF Kody Clemens LHP Trent Szkutnik Total spots taken on 40-man: 37 FREE AGENTS IF Asdrubal Cabrera (3 years/$18 million) LHP Tony Sipp (2 years/$10 million) 40-man Roster addition Keston Hiura Final 25-man roster: cf: Cain lf: Braun rf: Yelich 1b: Aguilar 2b: Shaw 3b: Moustakas c: Pina ss: Arcia bench: Mazieka, Cabrera, Perez, Astudillo, Santana rotation: Chacin, Miley, Burnes, Woodruff, Davies bullpen: Knebel, Sipp, Hader, Jeffress, Peralta, Cedeno, Guerra Other notes: Jimmy Nelson, Keston Hiura, Jake Hager, Troy Stokes, Tyrone Taylor among those optioned to minors.

Hager and Moore are two I liked a lot... Good to see the Crew getting Hager back for 2019.

I think making the QO to Miley is a good idea. If Miley passes, the Crew gets a pick to help re-stock the system. If he takes it, then the Crew has a good starting pitcher for 2019. It's a win-win.

When, in high school?? I thought I had seen he'd played first early in his career with the Marlins. I was mistaken - might have crossed it up with another player.

This exactly. It's a team full of flawed and bad hitters. We have absolutely no clue what Coles does behind the scenes, but unless he's telling the guys to take pitches over the plate and then flail at anything the pitcher throws with 2 strikes I'd give Coles 5-10% of the blame for the hitters sucking. A team full of flawed, bad hitters. Reeeeeally? Don't we have 2 hitters in the top 5 of the mvp voting? Who exactly are these bad, flawed hitters on the roster on this team that made the nlcs? The offense has been feats-or-famine all too often. I don't think the hitters themselves are flawed, but there is a limited capability for some things, like moving runners over or getting a run in. Our best hitter had a cold stretch in the NLCS. Others struggled as well. Even then, it's not a bad idea to try to improve those fundamentals. Some of these are skills that can be learned.

We've seen 1B/DH types sign for basically nothing in free agency but ours is going to headline a better player at a position of need? Aguilar has four years of control, and would be cheap for 2019, and relatively cheap in 2020. That would be worth something. Thames becomes a backup 1B/OF, Braun takes over first. Or Brantley to first. Heck, Yelich's played first.

Yeah, I am usually on the overly optimistic side of things when it comes to players returning from injury (I was making a pitch for acquiring Garrett Richards just a couple of days before he broke again this season). In the case of Jimmy Nelson, I am not expecting him to ever return to the breakout performance we saw in 2017. That season was amazing, but it was also a pretty significant outlier from his three previous professional seasons. I think he will indeed make a return to the mound at some point, but next year in his age 30 season I expect him to struggle to regain his command and overall ability to pitch. I hope that ends up looking like a silly statement, but I can't imagine the Brewers are expecting him to return to the mound looking like the pitcher he was when he suffered the injury. I think Nelson spends a fair bit of 2019 in the minors, using an option year. Better for him to get on track in San Antonio as opposed to Milwaukee.

It's never a bad idea to be a constant trend-setter. Then you're calling the shots against the bigger teams.

That might be the case... that and Nelson.

I'm more in love with the BB/K ratio, and the ability to his for average. It may not be .400, but if he is a .300 hitter with those OBP skills... he'd go well with Yelich and Cain over the long term. Wasn't thames like a .340 hitter in Korea? We all see how that translated to the US. Wang is younger, has more upside. He will get better, being 24 years old. Thames wasn't awful in 2018, racking up a 106 OPS+, and posting a good walk rate. His BABIP went down about 25 points - pretty much showing the difference between the .247 average he posted in 2017 and the .219 he had in 2018.

I'd rather go for the guy with the best hit-for-average tool and good OBP skills.

My guess is he can still be taken, but any team can just stash him on the 60-day DL all season.

Big-time gut punch for that guy... really like him, and hope he pulls through.

In some ways, the first two trades make the third more palatable. Nottingham and Dubon are for all intents and purposes replaced by Mazeika and McNeil. Houser is replaced by Wahl, while Diplan is replaced by the younger version of himself in Perez. Cecchini, Santana, and Cha are added to the mix. Nottingham's had some offensive struggles, while Mazeika is a high-contact hitter. As for why the Mets would do the first trade: One or both of DeGrom and Syndergaard could be dealt by the Mets this off-season. They'd want some sort of solid starter with control to replace those two.

I'm more in love with the BB/K ratio, and the ability to his for average. It may not be .400, but if he is a .300 hitter with those OBP skills... he'd go well with Yelich and Cain over the long term.

Get him, move Braun to first, and now the Crew could move Thames and Aguilar for prospects. Ray also becomes a trade piece.

I'd consider using one - just to get him pitching regularly. The Crew has the depth that Nelson can get back into form at AAA. I think Davies still has one as well. Again, same principle, depending on how Spring Training goes.

From the Hanshin Tigers of the NPB Central League: https://www.baseball-reference.com/register/player.fcgi?id=itohar000ken Delivered a .399 OBP, hit .292, is 25. Plays shortstop and second base. Had only one homer, but knocked 29 doubles and four triples. Most impressively, he had 85 walks against 70 strikeouts. If he could be acquired (posting? purchase?), I think he'd be what the Brewers are looking for at second base - and later the bench.

If the Crew either trades or lets Soria, Vogt, Jennings, Lyles, Anderson, Thames, and Schoop walk, they'd have about $40 million to work with. Use $10 million or so for Kikuchi, then maybe look at getting Michael Brantley for the outfield and moving Braun back to first.

I guess I said yes on Vogt without really taking the price into account. You may be right though. I doubt there would be much competition for him out there, so there is probably a good chance he is non-tendered and brought back as a non-roster guy. They really seem to value his presence and leadership. That injury is a rough one for a catcher, though. I think he eventually ends up back in Milwaukee, though, if his health is good. I was actually kind of a toss-up on Jennings. It will be interesting to see how they view Quentin Torres-Costa and Ramirez. If either of those guys are added to the 40-man this offseason, then Jennings may be gone. I saw protect at least QTC and let Jennings go. Ramirez, too, if possible. One thing with some of these bullpen arms is that if they are better bats, the bench can last a little longer, or the double-switch becomes an option. Or why not let Woodruff pinch-hit, since he's shown the capability to blast one out of the park?

Jeff McNeil becomes the Brewers' backup 2B. In 2018 he posted a .328/.381/.471 line - a left-handed Cirillo with more speed than pop. https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/m/mcneije01.shtml Gavin Cecchini has seen two cups of coffee, but is a solid SS/2B with a track record of hitting for average in the minors: https://www.baseball-reference.com/register/player.fcgi?id=cecchi001gav Mazeika is a catcher, good OBP skills, and was high-average hitter until this year: https://www.baseball-reference.com/register/player.fcgi?id=mazeik000pat Bobby Wahl is a Knebel-esque pitcher, two cups of coffee with the A's and Mets: https://www.baseball-reference.com/register/player.fcgi?id=wahl--001rob Bryant Perez was in the DSL in 2018: https://www.baseball-reference.com/register/player.fcgi?id=perez-000bry Erik Cha, a rookie-league left-handed reliever: https://www.baseball-reference.com/register/player.fcgi?id=cha---000eri Ruben Santana is a switch-hitting IF prospect: https://www.baseball-reference.com/register/player.fcgi?id=santan003rub

Suter was also proving very valuable until his Tommy John.

It's not so much that they don't trust them, it's a lot more that the analytics that this team uses has determined that this is the best approach to playoff games. Very few pitchers don't get more susceptible the more times they see a hitter. Even DeGrom does. (.420, .523, .606, and .742 OPS against the 1st-4th times through the order). Even as constructed our pitching was good enough to win a pennant. If we had hit in the NLCS, we'd be going to the World Series tomorrow. Next year we've got a whole wave of new options for the rotation and the presumable return of Jimmy Nelson. Plus, you may see guys like Brown, Diplan and Supak step into the late season roles that Burnes, Peralta and Woodruff had this year. So I say hang onto the bats, particularly the right handed ones. That's what is going to take us to the next level. The pitching is already there. The rotation was patchwork by the end of the regular season: Nelson's recovery took longer than anticipated, and he remains a question mark going into 2019. Davies only had 13 starts (you expect a starter to have 32 or 33 based on a five-man rotation) due to injury Suter was gone for the season around July with a Tommy John Chase Anderson missed time with injury Wade Miley missed about half the season Freddy Peralta was, for all intents and purposes, shut down on September 1 So, I look at the rotation, and I see four guys who missed a lot of time in 2018 or who will miss time in 2019 due to injury (Nelson, Davies, Suter, Miley), one who had some missed time, but also regressed in giving up homers (Anderson), and then there is Peralta, who was shut down, and thus off the board. Do I see potential with adding Burnes and Woodruff? Yes. I'd like to add Kikuchi and bring back Wade Miley (he'll come cheaper than Gio) to solidify it. But those are moves that don't gut the system.

Kikuchi, Realmuto, and Miley are affordable thanks to the dealing of Schoop, Thames, and Anderson, while letting Soria walk. That's $32.5 million, give or take. Nelson and Davies are on the outside looking in - mostly due to missing so much time with injury this past season. The Aguilar-Nottingham package is really a good one for the Marlins - they get a first baseman and a replacement for Realmuto. Diplan and Houser give them a couple of arms (one major-league ready), and Dubon is a good option at short for them (the Crew gets McNiel and Cecchini, a pair of high-average professional hitters from the Mets in the Anderson-Thames deal).

Totally agree. I didn't get too upset last night because I think we have such a bright future now. This late season run was amazing and a lot of fun. Sucks to fall short but this feels a lot different than 2011. In 2011, there was this sense that Prince Fielder was going to walk, and there was nothing that could be done about it. In 2008, the same applied with CC Sabathia. Nothing like that this time... there is much more talent across the board.