JohnBriggs12

Exactly. Remember baseball is a business not a fantasy league and you don't deal the guy who'll be in the forefront of the marketing campaign for 2019 and beyond.

Always overlooked on the Bucks is John Henson. Henson is a terrific athlete and none of the previous coaches knew how to get the most out of him. He's the guy keeping Maker on the bench. I love that Budenholzer gave him the green light to shoot 3's. He gave Henson what he needed. When coaches tell guys "don't do this and don't do that because we don't believe you can do it" it affects their entire game. Henson's playing the best ball of his career right now.

If Stearns did what he did in 2018, he'll want 4-5 interchangeable rostered arms to fill the last spot in the pen, rotating them often. Olczak logically likely fits into those plans. It's a proving ground for young arms and it saves the pen overall.

Not saying he would be a bad choice, however isn’t he extremely old school ? Does he fit what our GM is looking for with his analects based coaching concepts? Huh? The Cubs got nothing out of Darvish and Chatwood, lost their closer for the last 2 1/2 months, and still had the 2nd best ERA in the NL and won 95 games despite their offense scoring 0 or 1 run in more games than any team in the NL. Pitching is pitching.

There's reports circulating in the Chicago media that Jim Hickey is out as Cubs pitching coach. Hickey's got a long successful track record. Brewers could do a lot worse. As coaches go, he won't be cheap.

Well the Mariners 2018 season kind of mirrors the Brewers of 2014. Not unlike the 2014 Brewers, they have a lot of guys in mid career getting expensive and tough intra-division competition. Brewers waited until a horrid start to 2015 to start looking to sell. Mariners have a ton of money committed to very few players. Brewers at least had guys who were on back ends of team friendly deals to trade. Not so with the Mariners. I think the Brewers have the bullets to get Paxton. It's going to take at least one of Burnes, Woodruff or Peralta for certain. Maybe they'd take the their choice of those three plus Santana, Ray and low level arm with upside too. That's a pretty substantial price but if Stearns views Paxton as the ace the Brewers are missing, it's conceivable.

MLBTR has Ramos projected to get $36/3. He certainly carries an injury risk, but his ceiling as a hitter is certainly on par with Realmuto. Brewers could afford to let Schoop and his $10 million go and just start the year with Perez at 2B if they added a bat like Ramos behind the plate.

Rather than sign Brantley and be forced into making room for him by dealing Jesus, why not spend a lot less and bring back Gerardo Parra for OF depth? Having Parra and Santana to be OF backups would allow Brewers to use Perez strictly as an IF and unload Thames who's only role was as occasional fill in for Braun in LF.

Personally right today, I think Christian Bethancourt is a better player than Nottingham and I think keeping him in the organization should be a priority. Nottingham was fine as a fill in backup when there were short term injuries, but Bethancourt is a legit major league backup catcher right now. That's not to say there aren't others out there that fill that bill too, but Nottingham still needs work to make more consistent contact. That being said, assuming Kratz wants to continue playing and after his postseason, why wouldn't he, I think you bring him and Pina back. That wasn't a bad combo and they handled the staff very, very well.

I have a hard time believing any team is gonna come close to $400 mil for Machado. Just don’t see it. Granted it’s over 13 years....just seems like too much for a low character individual. A team would be insane to give any player 13 years at $30 million per year. Maybe 10 years with an option, but definitely not 13 or 14 years.

Juan Nieves is available. So is Bosio.

Not the hitting coach, the assistant hitting coach. Cubs batters 2017 | 108 wRC+ Cubs batters 2018 | 107 wRC+ How much of that one point decrease in wRC+ can we confidently attribute to the assistant hitting coach? Cubs batters in 2017: 223 HR 822 Runs Scored 1,401 K's Cubs batters in 2018: 167 HR 761 Runs Scored 1,388 K's I believe only the Orioles had more games where they scored 1 run or less than the 2018 Cubs

I think it will be a pretty safe bet that Olczak will be in the last bullpen arm rotation of 3-4 guys that rotate between minors and Milwaukee with the bulk of his innings coming at AAA.

I did see him play in person, once, well actually twice in 1965, the last year the Braves were in Milwaukee. Thanks to the magic of Baseball Reference, I found the date was August 1, 1965, in a Sunday doubleheader that the Braves swept behind stellar pitching from another recently departed player, Tony Cloninger and a young lefty the Braves had then Wade Blasingame. At the time my hope that the Braves could somehow win a pennant in the lame duck season in Milwaukee and shame baseball big time. There was a crowd of nearly 15,000 that day, one of the bigger crowds of that season and we all felt the same way. I was 12 going on 13. That was the last Milwaukee Braves game I saw in person. McCovey took an Ofer for the doubleheader, but my lasting memory of that day was the crowd in unison loudly booing the southerner manager of the Braves Bobby Bragan who represented all the management scoundrels who were taking baseball away from Milwaukee. I'll never forget it. Until the Brewers win it all, that sticks with me. McCovey was an imposing figure in those days. His B-R page says 6'4" 198. Maybe that's what he was in high school. He was easily the most intimidating hitter in the NL along with Frank Howard until Howard was dealt to AL.

Well Dozier's out there as a FA with the potential to hit 30 HR. Lowrie's coming off a career high 23, and has the advantage of being a switch hitter. With Lowrie turning 35 in April and Dozier coming off a Schoop like 2018, neither would break the bank in terms of money and years. LeMahieu might be the best all around 2B on the market and he's going to command at least a 3 year deal though I don't think his AAV will be outrageous in this market. If the thought is to deal Hiura as part of deal for a top of the rotation pitcher, LeMahieu might be the way to go.

I've actually been in Gibson City taking a back road to Champaign. It's considerably closer to Chicago and St. Louis than Cincinnati. Gibson City is 262 miles from Cincinnati. It's 115 miles from Chicago and 183 miles from St. Louis. If you get 100 miles south of Chicago, it transitions to Cardinal territory though not Red territory.

Assuming the plan was to return Shaw to 3B, the question comes down to which guy do you see rebounding from a poor 2018. Do you take a chance that Schoop, with a new hitting coach and being more settled in will bounce back as a 27 year old and just 2 years removed from an All Star season, or do you take a flyer on Dozier on a short term deal who had similar issues to Schoop after being thrust into the middle of a hot race in a new league. Dozier's never been a high average hitter, but he'll walk more than Schoop with similar power.

If the Brewers are willing to spend 2 years and $20 million on a FA, I would hope they could get a little better fit than Moustakas. Why not use that money and sign Dozier and allow Shaw to go back to 3B? They need more RH pop.

He does have a changeup but he very rarely brings it out as a reliever. You really have to watch close, because it usually gets by the guys in the booth and he'll throw it like no more than once every 4 or 5 appearances. It's not a bad pitch either, but one time through the order there's no reason to bring it out.

Hager was in camp with the Brewers last year too and made a nice impression. He's got a shot at a roster spot depending on who doesn't return. Would be nice having a guy with options to fill in when necessary.

Schoop had been in the Baltimore organization since he was 17 years old. Suddenly after the hottest week of his career, he goes from a last place team into a pennant race in a new league where his playing time shrinks. Judging him on 124 AB's is a risk. He missed a grand total of 2 games in 2016 and 2017. It's a tough call, but if you bring him back, you stick him at 2B and let him play everyday which is his comfort level. If by mid June it's clear he hasn't returned to form, and Hiura is raking at AAA, you make the move.

My brother was in Arizona last week and saw Hiura get the golden sombrero. Making contact is tougher than ever but for a guy with such an advanced hit tool, it's a bit concerning, unless he's using the AFL to get a bit more lift. I hope that doesn't mean he sacrifices contact too much. As a pro during the regular season he has 204 hits and 140 K's. I think we'd all take that.

IMO, Guerra should be sent straight to the bullpen for 2019. He looked really good there and could be a guy that gives you multiple innings. I think he holds too much potential value for the Brewer's pen, so it doesn't make much sense to trade him. I would be hesitant to deal Davies, too. He will only be 26 and has shown he can be a good, mid rotation starter. They would be selling him at an all time low value, too. Anderson is really the only one that makes much sense to move this offseason, IMO. If they feel they need to move more SP's because of a possible surplus, the other guy I would look at moving is Peralta. I'm sure that is unpopular to many, but I guess I'm a Peralta skeptic. His control is still pretty erratic and he seems like one of those guys that could start to struggle once opponents start seeing him more. I understand his fastball is good, but it's tough to get by on one pitch in the long run, especially when the control isn't that good. Just my opinion, maybe I'm way off! I'm with you on Davies. It would make no sense to sell low after an injury plagued season. Look he's getting stronger. His fastball was touching 92 fairly frequently when he returned in September. In prior years, he sat at 89 and topped at 90. Personally, I think it was mistake not to have used him as a starter in the postseason as he had the freshest arm on the staff. I didn't buy Counsell's reasoning about guys who aren't big strikeout guys being subject to bad luck. A lot of that bad luck has do to over shifting in my opinion. Davies looked really solid in September getting a ton of weak contact. Yeah some of those fell in for hits, but I'm not sure trying to turn hard hit balls into outs rather than ensuring soft contact turns into outs makes all that much sense. As for Peralta, there's no need to move him at this point. His remaining options enable them to park him in AAA if the rotation is too crowded. Fact is he allowed just 49 hits in 78 innings. If he lowers his walk rate by one walk per 9, they have something very special. Anderson and maybe even Chacin are the guys to consider trading. Chacin's value is at an all time high. Anderson is at worst a solid 4 or 5 for most teams.

I don't see it. They have guys in the system they can go to as the revolving mop up reliever in 2019. Derby, Olczak, and Ponce come to mind. They'll need Houser's roster spot to fit one of those guys in and find room to fit the other two.

I had Cub fans tell me they were rooting for the Brewers because they couldn't stand the Dodgers either. I'm pretty much ignoring the Series with two big market teams. I look at it this way. Brewers extended the season until Oct. 21. The NBA season has started. College football and NFL are in high gear. College hoops is 2 weeks away. There's not much left of the golf season in these parts. In less than 5 months I'll be sitting in Maryvale soaking up the sun and watching meaningless baseball for clues of the season ahead. Life's good. The Brewers took us on a nice ride. In a few months it all starts all over again. It's about the journey for me not the destination.