bill hAll Star

For paragraph one - for every Shaw there is an Aguilar (he got it going after struggling) or better yet, an Anderson or Chacin (2018) or Knebel who people wanted to fire to the sun because they were bad for a month or two. Shaw/Hiura seemed to have some financial stuff behind it but might be the one glaring thing...but people don't think about all of the times that a good player was stuck with and returned to form. I like the inclusion of Cain in this because apparently we've been playing him too much. There's a group of fans that have been banging the drum of, "Grisham is hot! Play him even against lefties!" That was 2 weeks ago when he had a solid slash line. Grisham has been shielded from lefties and now has put up a far worse line than Cain on the season. This is because if you play good hitter often, he will likely be better than a "hot" bad hitter over time. Not that Grisham is a bad hitter but I don't think he's a stud just yet. As for the batting order thing - I think there are studies that say your best hitter should hit #2. I don't have the data for you right now but I trust that they've got some data behind that.

Counsell has excellent bullpen management and isn't an old school tough guy like Clint Hurdle. I'm still a fan. The original post is literally all fan cliches that are generally debunked or nowhere near provable. If Thames hits 4 homers in 2 days against righties, he's on the bench against Clayton Kershaw. Sorry.

I am assigning nothing to Cain personally. I am saying though is if one personally thinks Cain is washed up at this point replacing him is effortless offensively. It is almost impossible to do worse. I am just saying for Mr '92's sake he isn't that crazy if he 100% is in belief Cain is a goner offensively because a .675 OPS is pretty horrendous for an OFer. And I am definitely NOT advocating Tyrone Taylor in any form. That's fine, but even if one scout or fan believes that Cain is washed up, the reason he was paid $75 million dollars is to provide more than $15 million/year of value (2018) and to have a chance to do that again. A, "I judge things only by how much a player is paid" group can all celebrate when the Brewers bring in Juan Lagares for $3 million next year. It's a damn certainty that he will probably cap out at 1 WAR. *BUT* he will only be paid $3 million. If we could just cut Cain's salary this offseason at no cost, I'd think about it...there could be uses on 3 players that may fill CF, SS, and C admirably if we're really on a budget but I'm not sure we need to if Attanasio wants to spend on some of those positions even with Cain. But we probably can't do that so the option is to trade him for an equal risk or pay down some of the salary in prospects or cash.

I totally understand the complaints for Braun's 2nd deal being bad and would tend to agree. That said, I'm wondering between this and the Cain discussions: what are you looking to spend this money on? I am a fan of tanking if it applies. I also see that Mark doesn't want to and I think they've done a decent job at quicker rebuilds. My question is, imagine that either there's a tank or whatever build path and the Brewers have amassed 6-7 good, young players and a handful of role players. These 12 players combine to make $35 million/year. Here's the thing: Assuming the Brewer payroll is going to be between $100 and $130 million, given that the cost of those 12 players will rise as years go by, what can you sign? You may get the random, lucky Moustakas or Grandal opportunity that has come up in the CBA transition where that level player is a 1-year guy... ...But guess what you've saved that money for? To sign/extend someone like Ryan Braun at age 31 or a Lorenzo Cain which will become...BAD CONTRACTS. Sure, maybe you could do a Verlander trade when he only has 2 years left (but just one) and pray that it works. But the market isn't Houston, we can't tank and have 7 great, young players, acquire Verlander and Greinke, and pay/keep all of them to be on a path to cross $200 million for 5 years. I know the response will be, "why yes, but you can sign these good players that I will list here for 2-3 years" when those perfect deals that work out are few and far between. Even the Padres who have a very low salary for a bunch of studs coming up or just reaching the majors had to go out and pay for 5 extra years of Machado once he passes his prime. Even the Trout/Machado contracts when you have the off-chance of a premium player hitting free agency in his mid 20s, you are forced to pay 5 years too much.

Come on. Tyrone Taylor? I mean Lorenzo Cain is notably below a .700 OPS...speaking just offensively that is pretty easy to outdo. So if you were really confident Cain is over the hill not coming back replacing him offensively would be a job a blind squirrel could accomplish. I think the thing you are doing is assigning a near-certainty to Cain being washed up. The one thing that is a near certainty is that someone like Tyrone Taylor would struggle to put up a .650, maybe .700 OPS. I really don't have a strong opinion on the matter, you may be right about Cain. The issue that for every time that you're right about a Cain being washed up, you're also wrong about Braun's bat (the threads early the last few years) or any other guy like Carlos Santana that has had a renaissance. There is a nonzero chance that Cain is a superstar next year. There is a zero chance that Tyrone Taylor is a superstar. This is why Cain is being paid the money he is even if the odds of something like that happen become lower and lower every year.

Well, obviously, they have to. They don't just toss dollar amounts into a BINGO machine and pick one out. But as another poster said the $8mil WAR that is commonly used is ridiculous. Not to mention another dozen odd things go into valuing a player that you just simply can't quantify with stats. Merchandise sales they will bring in, value of them after they retire if a major contract. Some teams value certain things over other things. I mean the amount of guys who go in and get what WAR says they should is a rarity. It would be hard to really figure out what players actually seem to get per WAR...because sometimes guys get big contracts for consistency, versatility, just came off a huge year, among other things where taking his previous 3 year average wouldn't exactly be useful and predictive WAR formulas are so flawed you can't really use that either. Like I said before going off WAR Perez has been a $10mil a year player recently. The only person on this planet who thinks Perez is that valuable is Clancy (seriously, he once proposed a contract with similar yearly rates). If I was throwing darts at a wall I would say the actual value for 1 WAR is probably in the neighborhood of $4mil-$5mil (in a very general sense). That seems to be more in line with what guys achieve. That seems like a sweet spot for your typical player in the 2-3 WAR range. 4-5 WAR players probably overshoot that and <2 WAR players probably undershoot that a bit. You're embellishing the Perez thing a bit. He was a 1.1 WAR guy in 2016 when he stole 34 bases and hit 13 homers in 3/4 of a season all while playing decent defense around the field. That might actually be worth $8m. The next 2 years he was .6 WAR. Is it insane that a decent utility guy makes $4.5 million? That's a bit high but not out of line. This year he was -.2 WAR. So in Hernan's 4 years with the Brewers he's been "worth" 4 years, $16 million and he actually had one "good" year even if it was filled with empty stats. Again, I think this $8 million per WAR factors in that an average team probably already has 10 WAR worth of players across 4-5 guys at a cost of $10 million total that are on rookie deals/early arby.

Right, if we went by these WAR values everyone would have a $200+ million payroll. I'm guessing that it factors in the idea that some star players are still making $500k or $3 million on rookie deal or arbitration, no? Regardless, I'd like to ship away the overpriced veteran so that we can have some extra cash on hand to...sign another overpriced veteran.

Have we banned this guy yet?

Sure, as long as he is providing defense he isn't a horrid player to have. Problem is we also have a player like that at SS and potentially C again if Grandal leaves. I think it is a problem when you have 3+ "well he has good defense at least" players. That's what really makes an offense crap real quick. I don't think trading/clearing Cain is going to solve that. If you clear Cain out...where do you get the 2 WAR guy to replace Cain and maintain depth if Braun/Grisham/Yelich miss any time? That'll cost money. To get a player of very good caliber, you'll have to spend big and likely for several years (like Cain!). If Jose Iglesias scratches that itch, having Lorenzo Cain is probably not going to get in the way of signing him. Maybe they'd luck out on another year of Grandal to a one-year deal but once again, Cain doesn't have a ton to do with the other position player to fill in.

Oh sure, many. I mean Braun is still rocking it even with a history of being crippled with injuries. Given he has never fallen off a cliff statistically like Cain has...but thus he still hits well for 35. That being said many get into their 30s and just lose it, often. Not saying Cain can't rebound or even that I would be shocked...but teams aren't going out and investing $51mil to find out. The only reason we are optimistic as fans is because he is stuck on our team. If you went and asked fans of other teams what they thought of Cain at 3/$51mil they would tell you to take a hike in a flurry of laughter. If Cain was on another team not a single person would be jumping to propose a trade taking on Cain and his entire contract...maybe a few people, but I think you get the point. He can make 3/$51 for the Brewers and be a 1.5-2 WAR player by defense alone and the Brewers can still win the division, playoffs, World Series, etc. I don't think it is an end-of-the-world imperative to shed a guy because he may be overpaid. Christian Yelich is making an average of about $10 million over the life of his Brewers deal and he's a 7+ WAR player. These things even out and the good teams have more on the Yelich side of things than the Cain side...but they have guys on the Cain side. If his contract could be erased, would I do it? I guess. But I don't know if it's going to inhibit the Brewers from making most of the moves that one would expect over the next few years and there's still upside.

Not only do I think Cain may recover some value on offense next year, there's generally a "this guy is making too much money, this is really bad, get rid of him" type of analysis without the context of the roster/window/etc. Of course I am not advocating that I'd like to just have a bunch of bad contracts, but The substantial contracts on the books for 2021 are basically: Yelich, Christian and maybe a handful of arbitration players (plus Cain). Your options of trading Cain are: -Trading him for a different player that has similar contract/risk (pitcher?). -Maybe some sort of salary dump, but that would be very hard to find. -Eat a bad contract, get an OK prospect. Point being, unless the Brewers have their eyes on a massive signing this offseason, I don't think it's stopping them from making any moves. Hopefully, if there is some situation where they want to bring in a pitcher for 2020 or bring back Moustakas or Grandal that Attanasio is willing to go back up to or over $130 for 2020 because they can maneuver the payroll pretty easily after that. So I'd probably just hold on to Cain and hope he gets more luck on offense and returns to a 3+ WAR player. I think if the Brewers salary-dumped Cain this year, the fans would say, "ahhhh, there we go...now we don't have that overpaid player so I'm happy." I have a feeling they'd have a hard time finding much better talent or risk to slot into that average of $17 million/year saved over the next 3 years. If it's a premier player, they'd be signing up for the same risk over 3+ years. If not filling with a free agent or other trade acquisition, they just bought the Brewers ownership group a new yacht.

They can easily just start with Faria and Black as their swing man and deep bullpen guy, respectively. If both or either struggle, they can be DFA'ed. They may both clear waivers and go back into the Brewers' system. That's about the caliber of Aguilar and Dubon. Yes, Dubon can be optioned which would've been nice but Aguilar was also out of options and might not make Tampa's cut next year, either. If Stearns picks up a starter I don't see Faria in the mix. Woodruff, Davies, Anderson, Gio, new = starters I wouild put Knebel-Wahl-Black-D.Williams-Hadar-Pomeranz (because he's LH)-Suter-Lyles-Peralta-Houser all ahead of Faria right now. It certainly is a possibility if Stearns does nothing, but I'm optimistic he'll do something. Pomeranz, Lyles, and Gio all could be back next year but FYI all of them are free agents.

They can easily just start with Faria and Black as their swing man and deep bullpen guy, respectively. If both or either struggle, they can be DFA'ed. They may both clear waivers and go back into the Brewers' system. That's about the caliber of Aguilar and Dubon. Yes, Dubon can be optioned which would've been nice but Aguilar was also out of options and might not make Tampa's cut next year, either.

A lot of the best relievers are guys that have high K/9 but a lot of them have a very low GB%. Juice the baseball and keep telling more and more guys to launch the ball and there is a dropoff from some of the elite relievers.

At this point I'm equally interested in giving Black a tryout for next year since he'll be out of options.

The juiced ball maybe makes that HR/FB% look not as much luck-based. Should probably be down from that high # a bit, sure, but if the ball stays like this, maybe not so much.

44-16 against BAL, CWS, DET, KC, LAA, SEA, TEX, TOR 27-31 against everyone else. And in "everyone else" their interleague games are lumped in so there is some Miami in there. Usually, "well of course good teams beat the bad teams" is a thing but this year is different. A good deal of those AL tanking teams are historically bad.

In this case you are correct, as it appears the Twins haven't adjusted their rotation. But really ... scratching your head? It is pretty obvious that several teams have adjusted their rotations this season in order to match up lefty pitchers against this lineup. Frankly, Perez has been bad the last month ... so bad that he would be the type who would otherwise be skipped in a rotation to keep the other guys on their regular schedule. But that isn't going to happen against an offense that seemingly struggles to hit pretty much any lefty. I'll just agree to disagree with you that the RH/LH thing is overblown. This team was built to hit righties, and it seems like they are facing an inordinate amount of lefties this season as a result. That may not truly be the case, but in my small mind, it seems that way. Lorenzo Cain career: .842 vs LHP/.730 vs RHP Jesus Aguilar career: Basically even against both, actually better against RHP. However, he used to be a platoon bat that hit lefties well and was expected to be good against lefties. Braun career: .986 vs LHP / .858 vs RHP Hiura is a good, right-handed hitter Pina actually had reverse splits in his career but is a righty Grandal has been functional vs LHP the last few years Moustakas has shown he can hit lefties the last few years Yelich is still good against lefties It was built to be neutral. Sometimes sh** happens and cannot be fixed with a magic wand or "common sense."

Cruz would've gotten 2 ABs in this series at most, anyways.

The team for 1.75 seasons now has generally outplayed their Pythagorean run differential as well as outplayed a lot of the projection systems. For most moves, I think the fans are generally the ones with less logic/common sense here*. A lot of moves have been to pick between bad player A and less bad player B and they have generally put enough duct tape on the thing to keep their heads above water. * - Other than maybe the Hiura move, which may have had monetary motivations behind it. Shaw almost single handily destroyed this team THIS YEAR. Same with the early bullpen shuttle, Barnes Williams Petricka Wilson etc., way way way way way way too LH hitting dependent. Why is Arcia still in this lineup instead of an upgrade, which easily could have been done at the deadline. Galvis is an upgrade by war and could have been had for salary. I could go on and on but isn’t that enough? DFA Perez? Then call him up to put in lineup vs LHP instead of calling up a player that is hitting .525 vs em. It’s like he and Counsell have a secret drinking problem that’s causing the both to go from the best in the business at their respective jobs to the worst almost overnight. Of course this is just my opinion and doesn’t necessarily express the views of this board. Somebody posted above - all of the right-handed options just happened to not play well this year. Cain, Aguilar, Braun (not mashing lefties). The bullpen has been hot garbage outside of Hader and maybe a few solid options. It's the easiest thing to do in the world for fans to do is get mad that Counsell picked X pitcher...except they cannot comprehend that pitcher Y would've been a worse option. For every time Shaw has destroyed the team, the "high school diploma, common sense fan" would've DFA'ed/cut one month in 2018 Chacin, 2019 Albers, 2019 Anderson. They are not perfect in decision making but there is logic and reason if you get yourself out of, "I'm gonna be unreasonably mad every time my team loses" mindset.

I think this team has proven this year that they don't always make the moves that you, me, any of us (or really, logic and common sense) dictates that they make. The team for 1.75 seasons now has generally outplayed their Pythagorean run differential as well as outplayed a lot of the projection systems. For most moves, I think the fans are generally the ones with less logic/common sense here*. A lot of moves have been to pick between bad player A and less bad player B and they have generally put enough duct tape on the thing to keep their heads above water. * - Other than maybe the Hiura move, which may have had monetary motivations behind it.

I'd lean towards keeping Thames and paying up for Mous after non-tendering Shaw Disregarding deferred payments or very small buyouts, etc. Grandal mutual option $2.25, Mous mutual option $3 Braun $17, Cain $16, Yelich $12.5, Anderson $8.5, Thames $7.5, Knebel $5.5, Nelson $4, Davies $4.5, Guerra $3, Pina $2, Claudio $2, Arcia $2.5, Gamel $1.5, Suter $1.5 and 11 @~$600k That's roughly $95 million for the 25 man. There are many decisions made like declining Guerra, Nelson, Pina, Claudio, Arcia. I left out Jeffress for $3.5 which they'll probably take. I could see either overpaying Mous for 1 year ($12-13?) or locking him into a 3-year deal as that is probably what they believe the window is 3/$28? I could see Attanasio going up to $130 next year. Pure conjecture but most of Braun's money is (maybe?) gone in 2021 among other things, though if Braun continues to play fairly well, I could see them essentially taking the $12 option given $5 of it is already dead with the buyout. Everyone is currently mad at Cain's contract but that's currently the only substantial money currently out there that could be bad in 2021 and beyond and I'd hope that isn't what inhibits them from helping a competitive year in 2020. Of course plenty of trades will be made but I can see the ~$30 million to go around spent on $10-15 for Mous, $7 for another starting pitcher option, $4 for relief help, $5 sprinkled on smaller contracts. They'd need a RH option potentially to spell some 3B and 1B if Braun isn't doing most of the 1B platooning.

I would actually love to see Stearns call up the guys that the handful of posters are always pining for (Orf, Freitas, etc.) and in an interview the next day said, SOMETIMES IT JUST CLICKS and then walked off the stage.

Imo, Stearns chronic miss management of the roster has cost this team wins this year. WHY IS DAVID FREITAS NOT UP AND PLAYING? WHY? As Briggs has pointed out already, Freitas is destroying LHP. He’s destroying all pitching, and has been all year > .376 .454 His stats not inflated like so many others in AAA because of the juiced ball because he’s NOT a home run hitter, which makes his stats even more impressive than other PCL’er’s. K% > 14.7. BB% > 12.3. That’s Grisham level plate discipline, just what this team needs, especially vs LHP. I would have traded Grandal at the deadline for a lottery ticket just to get his bat into this lineup. Those have been his ratios basically up-and-down in the minors and yet whenever he gets to the pros he does nothing.

I think you quoted the wrong person. I did not say that.