liveforoctober

So last year between Hoskins/Vaughn/Bauers Brewers' at bats (not counting Mona and others) ... they combined for a 2.9 WAR at 1B. I do know that number is a little funny for a few reasons (Bauers in LF, etc) I would put that as the benchmark for the group this year again and I have relative confidence they will get that production. Limit Bauers' AB against LHP - but keep Vaughn rested. I don't expect Vaughn to hit .300 again or even close to it ... but whatever alteration the Brewers made to him AND getting him out of that White Sox situation clearly changed the player and I would be pretty stunned if he cratered all the way back to his CWS numbers.

Do you follow our minor league system much?

Lots of reasons to sign players in the minors even if/when both parties understand the player will likely never sniff the Majors again.

Turning 35 this year. When will his power fade? When it does he is a below replacement level player. Can't play defense and can't get on base - two things our front office yearns for. His last full season in Cincy in '21 he put up -.7 WAR (ESPN)! Pass for me at $15+mil. Hopeful for him that he has another great power season and parlays it into another contract or the Reds pick up his option. Glad we are not the ones rolling the dice.

Definitely. I meant more so the 3 of them arriving at the same time, from the same position, all as MLB worthy prospects more so than "we have 3 top 100 guys". The ceilings of Made, Pena, Pratt, and now Williams definitely far exceed what was expected from them. This is more so just a response to any worries people may have about having too many good guys. During the Peralta trade lead up I saw a poster comment and say "how many prospects do we really need?" ... and the answer, within reason, is all of them. We want all of them. If the Brewers have the chance to acquire another Top 100 SS that is bound for AAA this year with surplus value - I hope they do it.

I think the other thing that always comes true is the MLB hit rate of prospects. The forever example moving forward is the trio of Frelick, Wiemer, and Mitchell coming up together. So many convos of having the outfield of our future set. One worked out, one didn't, one can't stay healthy. 3 blossoming prospects and we hit (thus far) on 1/3 of them. So the excitement of having a farm system with Williams, Pratt, Made, Pena, Wilken, Fischer, etc ... is that I'm confident we have 2 guys in there somewhere who will be really good big leaguers for us on that side of the diamond. Just a matter of seeing which ones can get to the finish line. IF we end up with a surplus... awesome, then we have some moves to make to supplement elsewhere.

IMHO they are grooming Quero to be their everyday catcher as soon as next season and they need to know if he can do it - he needs to play every day.

If he was brought up he would sit the bench 6 days a week..

What an amazing problem. Speaks to the crazy depth of our farm right now. Latest rankings after the trade have Blake Burke as our #30 prospect and that's wild - he had a really good year last year. Anyway, in my head you don't disrupt the rocket ships in your system if you have any. The Brewers have one for sure in Made and one possible in Pena. It makes sense to me that you move other pieces to accommodate their timeline. Neither one of those guys has any use for Appleton pitching anymore. They belong in AA at a minimum. Figure out the rest of the guys after that. Dream scenario for MKE is Ortiz has a good camp, Pratt has a GREAT camp and Williams proves he can play short. Then another big league contender suffers an injury and they call us desperate. I'm not predicting or hoping for it ... but I think a good Jett Williams spring training probably puts Pratt on notice. Made is coming and Williams is here. Another side quest - I've never thought about Ortiz at 2b as a utility guy. We know he can play 3B and SS. IS it possible Jett wins the job and Ortiz could fall into the Mona role?

Anything is possible but he instantly becomes the best position prospect in our system that can help us Day 1. I can't imagine him getting dealt. If anything I would say this makes Pratt available. Best case scenario for both Pratt and Made are late season call ups... but Jett just needs a good camp and he is probably on the OD roster and getting 3+ starts a week all over.

I'm not sure this makes much sense though. You are saying that only 8-10 teams (from your prior response) have a lab with advanced equipment that measures pitching metrics? ... and of those 8-10 teams the smallest market in baseball is one of them? "Brewers' pitching lab" is almost assuredly metaphorical. The same way "Mike McCarthy's QB School" in GB was metaphorical. Sometimes it's ok to give credit to people too! Chris Hook has been here for a long time - we just signed him to an extension last year.

Baty seemed to be the most popular name thrown around pre-trade. I saw a lot of Duran as well but I am not sure that was realistic because it likely would have required prospects as well on our end.

I wasn't trying to be smart with my question, it's a legitimate thinking exercise. None of us know anything but there are some decent assumptions to work off of IMHO. The teams looking to acquire Peralta were already limited, right? Very unlikely a rebuilding team is going to trade for one year of Peralta. They are looking to offload their own vets for youth. So the teams we are trying to trade with are teams hoping to contend in 2026. Of those teams, the only way you are going to pry away a starting caliber player from them is if they have a MLB ready player to backfill that spot because why would a contending team purposely create a hole? (I assume there is a bit more flexibility in that 2nd part because the big spending teams can buy a replacement if one is created, etc - but the premise is still pretty solid IMO.) So the question remains, if we wanted a starting caliber player at a position of need (I'm assuming we are talking CF, SS, SP?, 3B?) ... which contending team had a guy available to us that 1) was an obvious upgrade to our current situation and worth losing Peralta over and/or 2) had a capable fill in on their own roster to make our target expandable? I say this all to more or less say "I wish we had gotten a plug n play guy at a position of need" is a good thought but looking at the landscape of our trade market ... I think the options available to us that fit that formula were vastly limited? Maybe even non-existent? Which is why I asked, if there are guys out there that this board hasn't collectively identified (of which there were few) ... I'd be interested to hear it to consider. In my mind, which is often very wrong, we were trading Peralta and getting some kind of prospect haul back in return - because those were the assets that were available to us for him.

What was the position of need you were hoping for and who was the player you were targeting that is obviously better than the guy we currently have in place & therefore worthy of losing Peralta?

I just have two thoughts on this. I'm partially agreeing with you... 1) It has been mentioned multiple times by others and it would not surprise me if the Brewers move fully into a super piggybacked rotation. It worked so well with Priester last year and every one of our current starters has a hint of a reason to be 'protected' (injury past, moderate workload limits, etc). So if Arnold announced he wanted a pool of 8-10 guys on the MLB roster who can start games and go multiple innings it wouldn't shock me at all. Trading assets to get a 4th lefty in the pen (Hall, Ashby, Zerpa, Koenig) probably isn't a coincidence either. We have great piggyback pen options right now. 2) Last year I wasn't overly concerned with pitching depth to start the year with Freddy, Cortes, Civale, Quintana, etc ... and we had to call up Elvin Rodriguez to spot start our 4th game of the season. Tyler Alexander started our 8th game of the year. We had to trade considerable assets for Quinn Priester (thankful we did!) by the 2nd week of April in part because we needed a starter. All that to say the season comes at you fast. The more starters the merrier. We have so many young guys, another vet voice in their ear all season long might be a great thing. Heck, sign Quintana and put him on the 60day DL immediately just so he can be in the dugout with us. Activate him if you need him.

So if we are using/believe in BTV's current numbers, Duran is worth approx. 41.9 and Peralta is 26. The closest 1 person add on to the deal to balance it is Luis Pena (15.1). So Peralta and Pena for Duran. If you want to puzzle together a set.. it would look something like Peralta (26), Fischer (9.1) and Payne (5.9) Or Peralta (26), Dinges (7.3), Burke (3.5), and Meccage (4.2). Those are the waters you would be swimming in to get Duran.

*edited* I don't need to pile on. Welcome back man.

How many balls do these great giant shortstops dive and get to with their amazing reach that our physically impaired guys corral routinely because their quickness/agility got them to the spot on time? Ozzie didn't seem to mind being under 6 feet. Vizquel didn't seem to care. Didn't bother Luis Aparicio much. Jimmy Rollins never could get over it, etc etc

Just seems a fool's errand to get upset over a hypothetical. If the Red Sox confirm they offered us "X proven bat player" for Peralta and we turned it down ... Now you have substance to stew over. I'll take back my stance if someone is just wishing we could have gotten a MLB proven bat.. but if someone is upset with WHO we got back position wise, without evidence of alternatives it is wasted energy IMO.

Quintana turns 37 on Saturday and with the lockout looming I just can't fathom him getting anything beyond a 1yr deal. He was still worth 1+ WAR for us last year and with our philosophy of not letting our starters see a lineup a 3rd time ... he was good to give us 5+ IP when he threw. I'm very open to exploring other options and if someone wants to throw $8mil at Jose then have at it. But if he can be brought back for that same $4-$5mil range - there are worse options. I know his end is coming ... but if he has 100 innings left in him I'm ok being the recipients of them. There are worse things than all of our young starters spending another year talking to and learning from Jose Quintana.

Which ones were offered to us for Freddy that we turned down for Williams, et?

This is true if Peralta finishes next year top 5 in the Cy Young again and we get no improvement from any of our 32 big league arms under the age of 26. Or... A full season of Patrick, Miz, Henderson, Ashby, Gasser, etc all combine to replace him in the aggregate and we no longer have to give OF at bats to Daz Cameron and Drew Avans, etc and POSSIBLY upgraded Ortiz so our short term is stabilized while our long term is healthier. Both things could be true. Is it really more fun living with the first mindset when you don't know which one is going to be true?

Sproat sits 95-98. Hits 100. Colin Rea might not be the best comp?

Only 40 man rosters are locked if I'm not mistaken. Minor leagues should play.

Watching Devin Williams close games for Freddy Peralta in New York is going to be trippy.