bill hAll Star

Teams with "bad contracts" are ones like Miguel Cabrera or Chris Davis spanning 3-5 more years. Or Pujols. The Rockies' contracts barely make a dent in their long-term outlook is the point. Some people will say, "lol Wade Davis isn't worth $17 million next year" but the reality is that they probably have room to sign some guys next year and if they really wanted to could sign a 10 year/$300 million player the following year and stay within their usual budget. The sign of a team that needs to rebuild with horrendous contracts is not one that has a pretty blank slate after 2020 is all I was saying. One could still argue that they don't have enough to compete next year and not enough coming up in the minors, that is a fair argument. Arenado and maybe Blackmon are the worst contracts but neither of those are concerns in the 2-3 year outlook. Jumping on my own take here, if the Rockies truly did want to just do an ownership cash grab next year, their relievers would be interesting: Davis' road ERA: 0.96 McGee road ERA: 1.32 Shaw road ERA: 3.42 Those are the "bad (read: not that bad anymore)" contracts, all of which are only on the hook for 2020. If the Rockies want to just line their owners' pockets or hit a reset button, I'd be interested in grabbing one of those guys and paying a % of the contract while not giving up much of anything.

Teams with "bad contracts" are ones like Miguel Cabrera or Chris Davis spanning 3-5 more years. Or Pujols. The Rockies' contracts barely make a dent in their long-term outlook is the point. Some people will say, "lol Wade Davis isn't worth $17 million next year" but the reality is that they probably have room to sign some guys next year and if they really wanted to could sign a 10 year/$300 million player the following year and stay within their usual budget. The sign of a team that needs to rebuild with horrendous contracts is not one that has a pretty blank slate after 2020 is all I was saying. One could still argue that they don't have enough to compete next year and not enough coming up in the minors, that is a fair argument. Arenado and maybe Blackmon are the worst contracts but neither of those are concerns in the 2-3 year outlook.

Do they? They went out and overpaid a bunch of relievers because their assumed good, young pitching staff was making $5 million COMBINED per year last year and pretty much this year. So sure, Wade Davis, Shaw, etc. were overpaid for relievers but I saw their intent. However, next year is the final contract year for Davis, McGee, Shaw, and Murphy. Desmond is on the books in 2021 for $8 million. So I do get the idea that they might not have much upward mobility at this point, it's not like they're cash-strapped forever. If their owner wants to spend up and win next year, he can. The following year they are a blank slate other than Blackmon and Arenado, basically. I don't think contracts will be holding them back.

There are legitimate gripes potentially on Khris Davis and a few others, but I only have to go back about 11 months to recall when people were clutching the, "I KNEW we shouldn't have traded ____" where "____" was Villar, Luis Ortiz, Jorge Lopez, Phillips after they all were doing OK for tanking teams or were overvalued prospects (Ortiz). Or there's the fun case of guys like Miguel Diaz. I suspect that Cooper may one day fall back with this caliber of player, the fans that are still crying about Khris Davis or Scooter's other forgotten complaints, which comprise about 90% of total complaints.

He would but I'm assuming there will be an inflated trade value on him. I get that most GMs understand how Coors Field affects overall stats and can see that he's a good player outside of it, but I'm assuming the Rockies will be asking for a lot.

There is always the weird situation like LeMahieu absolutely crushing the juiced ball while no longer being with the Rockies, but odds are that Story will end up like Tulowitzki (without the long contract and injuries)...he'll be an above-average shortstop, not the superstar he's being shopped as. The only difference with him and Tulowitzki is that he's younger and will have a few extra years of solid productivity...BUT, after 2021 that production will either be very expensive or on another team.

I realize that Aguilar is having a down year with this same advantage, but I'd suspect if Cooper was hitting .265/.340/.450 and 8 HR in this half season...nobody would care. I hate to keep bringing that up but the timing of him getting full-time playing when they changed the equipment drastically for baseball is also a factor. Ditto on Scooter with the first go-round of the juiced ball. Not that these guys can't hang in the majors but they changed scenery right when the game changed. I'm sure Cleveland would say the same about Aguilar who started clubbing the ball with the Brewers right when they juiced it the first time.

I get the point and also understand with this next comment that I am too young to have enjoyed the 80s/early 90s Brewers, but I bet if you did those success calculations since Attanasio took over, they'd be outkicking their coverage in terms of market size. It would likely show exactly what Mark is. Not a terrible meddling owner but does like to keep driving to win "this year." That would probably explain not being patient enough to build for a steady stream of dominant prospects (other than 2004-2009 after taking over). However, overall, making the playoffs 3-4 times in 15 years is probably par for the course for a market of the Brewers' size. Bump a few unlucky/poorly run teams like the Mariners down and some well-run smaller markets up, but I'm not really surprised by it.

My goodness, what pitch did he learn how to throw once he got to the pros? And whoever taught him that pitch, offer him a promotion here. Are you suggesting that he was a subpar minor league pitcher that suddenly blossomed in the pros? He had an unlucky ERA in AAA over 27 innings this year and was otherwise unhittable prior to that.

I'm a massive Giants fan for the next few days. 1. Beat the Cubs a bit more. 2. Take one more seller out of the trade market so that: a. The Brewers don't do something stupid and trade the rest of the farm system for Will Smith. b. Some other team (hopefully in division/league with the Brewers) mortgages their future for a player from a different team given that there are now ~20 teams buying and ~10 (if that) selling. The Giants being out of the selling market is going to make prices go even higher for other teams selling. Obviously (b) is conflicting because maybe the Cubs trade everything for some rental and win the division by 1 game with his help but I'd otherwise prefer these teams to just empty out their farms and help the Brewers in 2020 or 2021 with a weakened farm system.

I can't believe that I am somewhat OK with Sogard, but I think the juiced ball does different things for different approach players...and Sogard may be benefiting from it.

One of the bigger regrets I have is not posting, "in, before he is compared to our current pitching." But that is the point. The Brewers dropped him (presumably over money), and it weakened the overall talent of the pitching staff. Lyles isn’t a world beater but he’s effective at soaking up innings and keeping his team in the game. The last couple spots that n the Brewers staff haven’t been able to do that Going into when they decided this before the season, given that Lyles probably needed to/wanted to be on an MLB roster, would you have taken Lyles over Burnes, Woodruff, etc? To start the year they had Chacin, Woodruff, Anderson, Davies, Burnes, Guerra, Hader, Knebel, Jeffress, Peralta, Albers, Claudio. That's 12 pitchers right there with Nelson eventually coming back. Albers they needed to keep and Claudio was acquired later, but even one with a negative outlook on him wouldn't complain about a guy that could/should be a LOOGY being there. So the problem has been injuries and minors depth. They ended up spending the money on Gio once injuries hit anyways who is probably functionally the same as Lyles other than the fact that he's dealt with more injuries this year. They had roughly 13 MLB pitchers already. I don't know what Lyles' situation is but I'm not sure they wanted to just stash him in the minors for $2.5 million even if they could.

If he ‘stinks’ what does that say about Burnes, Wilkerson, Burch Smith, Jay Jackson, Alex Wilson, Petricka? One of the bigger regrets I have is not posting, "in, before he is compared to our current pitching."

*Ehem*

Trade for Will Smith, Mad Bum, Ken Giles and Marcus stroman The Dodgers would still be heavy favorites.

That won't happen, even if Joseph comes on and calculates that Greinke is a negative value contract...it would still take good prospects to get the Dbacks to move him. Your best bet is to look at the Astros trade for Verlander as a comparable. The Tigers paid a chunk of the contract but got some good prospects back in return. It's not a perfect comparison but should be a good template to look at. Second this, and the other element is that while teams will openly try to get out of contracts, I feel like Greinke's might be one where optics matter. The Marlins were filleted (pun intended) for being cheap but even at that, the Stanton move made sense in some ways. Yes it was probably cheap as heck, but in theory if the Marlins were doing an earnest rebuild, you don't want a mid/late 20s Stanton making $30 million in 2024. Teams will of course attach something to get rid of completely dead weight. But this one would be an All-Star pitcher with only 2 years left. Yes, he is a huge risk to decline and has been, but the theoretical trade of Ray attached to Greinke to get rid of him would be, "we're rebuilding as of today and by the way, we are just going to pocket $70 million in the process" because Greinke's deal probably won't get in the way of a competitive D-Backs team in 3-5 years. To look at the trade, as Keith says, we'd probably have to throw some prospects in. If the haul isn't absurd, this wouldn't be too crazy of a trade, though you're basically trading Moose, Grandal, and said prospects for Greinke/Ray in 2020. I doubt we'd be spending money to fill 3B or C next year. Has a huge risk of backfiring, but it's pretty likely that we're blowing things up in 2021 regardless unless some better luck/MLB talent is injected in.

To add to the post above, a lot of Saladino's exposure to the majors was in the pre-juiced ball era. Perez has played a ton in the juiced ball era (2nd half of 2016 through 2018) and has also gotten the benefit of, but has not taken advantage of, the double juiced ball era (2019).

I don't know if it's been bad luck or bad management, but I wouldn't sell if I was the Nats, either. They have one of the better rosters in the NL on paper. Last year their bullpen destroyed them and this year it's not much better, but given a healthy team I'd stick with it. They at least are in WC contention and might catch the Braves soon.

Maybe a bit of reaction time, coordination, and throwing accuracy. If I recall, a lot of Braun's issues were terrible throws. Moose could still just be quicker to jump to a liner to his left and get his glove to the ball bouncing at his hip without dropping/bobbling it as well as make an accurate throw to 1B.

This is kind of a false choice, though, no? I'm looking at Taylor Williams and Justin Barnes out there in the bullpen and the schedule says the Brewers have 3 more days off in the next 3 weeks after having a day off yesterday, with a relatively easy schedule, and I don't think the Brewers need to have two basically mop-up relievers out there right now. If it comes to actually needing that 8th bullpen arm, that's where I make the decision on Hiura/Shaw/Aguilar. The can can still be kicked. Well, somewhat. I think they are OK with Thames or Aguilar being a bench bat depending on matchups or who is hitting well. But Hiura cannot be a bench bat and I don't think they want to make Shaw a bench bat -- yet. They want to give him one more shot against some mediocre RHP to get it going again. I think that is the logjam for now. I guess you can start Shaw at 1B most nights against RHP but they probably want one of Thames/Aguilar hitting a bit more regularly.

Just wondering how you felt about Arcia last year, Santana last year, Anderson last year/ST this year, Davies last year, Knebel for parts of last year, etc. Non-superstar players go through dry spells/turn things around. I can't even tell you if that's going to be Shaw/Aguilar. I understand that maybe they could stash Shaw in AAA instead, but otherwise, the Brewers believe Shaw is closer than what he was the last few years rather than the guy that has struggled/been unlucky for 40 games. If they start chopping guys for bad 40 game stints, they'll get to a point where they are 1 injury away from having to call the corpse of Kendrys Morales to start at 1B. They like to maintain organizational depth. Sometimes that involves tough decisions. We're in an unusual situation where we have a lot of established guys that aren't hitting, and a young elite prospect came up and mashed for 3 weeks. It's not like the other option is throwing Perez in at 2b. If that was the case, I'd be more open to giving Shaw a chance. And my stance on him is more time in AAA to find his swing, or we cut bait with one of the 1b to keep hiura around and let shaw start more at 1b. The best decision is to let him see slightly worse pitching in AAA for a bit and try and figure things out there. The decision yesterday made the team worse in the short run and the long run in my opinion...so I'm really struggling to see how it's a win. See, this is what I'm kinda getting at. Yes, sometimes you have to either decide that Aguilar is what he is and that if something happens, he is replaceable on the waivers/bag of baseballs trade market. I don't know if that's what he is yet but I don't think so. But say we just say, "I'm done with this Aguilar crap! He stinks!" and cut him. Now imagine Moustakas really breaks his hand. Here's your infield: 3B: Shaw, SS Arcia, 2B Hiura, 1B Thames What happens if you face a lefty? What happens in a rough patch where Thames pulls a hammy? Now you have zero reliable bench and are putting Nottingham or Braun at 1B or you're starting to make the Doug Melvin calls to the Yuni/Overbay types (Kendrys Morales).

Because they're not sitting Shaw and Moose. They will play 3B and 2B respectively. Anytime you can start a guy with a 550 OPS, you have to do it. Just wondering how you felt about Arcia last year, Santana last year, Anderson last year/ST this year, Davies last year, Knebel for parts of last year, etc. Non-superstar players go through dry spells/turn things around. I can't even tell you if that's going to be Shaw/Aguilar. I understand that maybe they could stash Shaw in AAA instead, but otherwise, the Brewers believe Shaw is closer than what he was the last few years rather than the guy that has struggled/been unlucky for 40 games. If they start chopping guys for bad 40 game stints, they'll get to a point where they are 1 injury away from having to call the corpse of Kendrys Morales to start at 1B. They like to maintain organizational depth. Sometimes that involves tough decisions.

First of all, if Shaw has an option, this move does have service time manipulation on it. However, Hiura did strike out a lot. I'd take him over Shaw right now but I think Hiura could struggle a little bit here if he stayed up. This staff has some balls, though. Obviously teams have to stick with bad/cold players on their roster, but Albers, Chase Anderson, Schoop, Claudio, Drake (for an extended period), Jennings, etc...I feel like other reactionary teams would appease fans more. They trust their guns and they think Shaw still has something left in him and they're not dumb enough to cut bait on Aguilar, Thames, etc. if they think those guys will be useful. Someone will get hurt and figure this out. Or if nothing else, someone else will get "hurt" and figure this out in a few weeks.

He had me at, "professional hitter."

The pitching is rounding into shape, same as it did last year, and the offense is still frustrating as heck, same as last year. Give me Encarnacion even if it means losing Aguilar. Which, quite frankly, I don't think would be as big of a loss as many are making it out to be. The offense is scoring a lot of runs and I'm assuming your concerns are "home run or nothing" leading to several lifeless games we've had. I don't know how much Encarnacion will help that unless we are certain E5 is that much better than Aggy (this year) that we hit the "HR or nothing" strategy hard enough that we basically don't have any off days.