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bill hAll Star

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Everything posted by bill hAll Star

  1. bill hAll Star
    Yes, you are correct. And that is exactly what they will do. Yep and they could end up with Darvish and Chatwood again. Great pitchers don't make free agency all that often and when they do they are already older and cost a lot. And other teams like the Yankees dodgers etc will have the money to spend too I'm one that agrees with this in general that the Cubs are slowly weakening and I don't think I'd go all in for 2018 anyways, but I wouldn't write their pitching off completely. Starting pitching matters less, they have one of the best defenses in baseball, and someone like Darvish could put up a great season next year. Lester/Darvish/Smyly/Hendricks/Quintana/Montgomery - I think Chatwood maybe goes to the bullpen. I think a lot of those guys are on the wrong side of the regression curve, but they can probably find 5 serviceable pitchers out of that list yet again. And they can probably try to overpay one more. 2020/2021 those contracts start running out and guys like Lester start getting real old...hopefully they won't have figured out anything from their farm system at that point.
  2. bill hAll Star
    I know this comes up time and time again - and for the record, I'm one that thinks that Santana and Arcia are good enough hitters no matter what and I'd be fine with it...but...Colorado Springs/PCL. Oh I completely get it but they were sent down to figure it out. Good stats are at least an indicator something positive happening. Unfortunately it's impossible to know for the most part. But yeah, putting the bat on the ball and probably hitting it hard is at the very least is not a negative thing.
  3. bill hAll Star
    I know this comes up time and time again - and for the record, I'm one that thinks that Santana and Arcia are good enough hitters no matter what and I'd be fine with it...but...Colorado Springs/PCL.
  4. bill hAll Star
    I am still retroactively a fan of the CC trade as I had never seen the Brewers do anything relevant in my lifetime and we needed it. He had a great run. It was cool. That said, even with his injuries, I'd maybe have taken 6+ years of Brantley, especially since they got more like 8-10 years given he was able to be kept given his injuries keeping him in Cleveland's price range. My heart would take the CC trade, my brain would probably take Brantley. And now that I've at least seen the Brewers play in the playoffs, I don't have a desire for a shortsighted trade/move that probably won't even pay off and really could blow up in our faces. Also, CC came attached with a comp pick (that we kinda got screwed on via the Yankees/Teixeira/weird MLB loophole), but we at least got something with that. We'd get nothing for Machado after the season.
  5. bill hAll Star
    Correct. Not even sure why this would have to be said. Pitching depth has been key to our success. We have no Nelson, a bad Davies and an average Anderson and yet, success. Sure our pen was great but the starters have done their jobs too. That's all true but no one can predict pitching year over year, let alone the "4-5 year window" It wasn't that long ago that Nelson was a true ace and Anderson was a sub 3 ERA starter combined with the greatest closer year we have ever seen including Rollie in Knebel. Now all three are question marks. When you have a chance to win you take it. I'm not really as certain about our chances to win even with Machado. The Rays (during their solid run several years ago) and Cardinals rarely traded depth of pitching very often. If they ever did, it was a "sell high" on a guy currently in the majors for another MLB contributor (longer term).
  6. bill hAll Star
    Not good.
  7. bill hAll Star
    Castro hasn't played SS in almost 4 years. He was an average defender back when he played it. I can't imagine he'd be any better than throwing Brad Miller out there consistently. What's the point, then?
  8. bill hAll Star
    Miller/Villar platoon is probably as good as any non-Machado player. You'd have an OPS of ~.800 with that platoon. CC can not function on a strict platoon. Always trying to be cute with something else. Plus, Villar is in the dog house, and can't seem to get any established playing time. Well, maybe that's because he's already in the platoon (when not on the DL). Villar has an .892 OPS against lefties this year. He didn't take advantage in some of the 2 week runs where he got consistent time against RHP. Villar has a .760 career OPS vs. LHP. Miller is also a .760 guy against RHP.
  9. bill hAll Star
    Miller/Villar platoon is probably as good as any non-Machado player at 2B. I'm fine giving away mostly nothing and displacing some guys in the 2B/SS situation, but it's easier said than done. We're talking 60 games. If everyone holds their projected value (again, I'm giving Saladino a higher projection), you might have like a .5-1 WAR difference with Iglesias or Escobar in the fold? Maybe? That assumes the newer version of Saladino.
  10. bill hAll Star
    I'm the same way. Although, I am conductor of the Saladino hype train. I would much rather take a Dozier rental at 2B for much cheaper than a Machado. I think we've both contributed to the hype on here. Can we be co-conductors?
  11. bill hAll Star
    He's #4 in a Dodgers' system similarly ranked to the Brewers. Probably a comparable prospect to Phillips and Ray. Would either of those guys be off limits in a Machado deal? We need to put some of these prospects in perspective. The grass is not always greener in someone else's system. Diaz is not even close to Hiura's value as a prospect in my opinion. I'm not familiar enough on the scouting level other than the ratings on Fangraphs (Hiura has a better future value, but I think the report was done before the season started), that said, Diaz has caught Hiura in AA batting production at basically the same age. He also plays a more important position and is apparently a good defensive player. So it's possible that he could be close to Hiura's value.
  12. bill hAll Star
    I'm going to plant my flag yet another time: Yes, if I was forced to just pick the players for my team in a draft, I'd take a handful of the non-Machado guys over 2018 Tyler Saladino. Maybe Eduardo Escobar and a handful of others. We're now approaching 100 plate appearances and his weak contact rate is still below 10%. I think we may have a .270/.335/.420ish hitter that plays decent/good SS defense on our hands. I'm not giving up something for Jose Iglesias to supplant that even if he is a defensive wiz. I am going mostly off of a LouisEly post that they brought his leg-kick back, but he seems to be making some strides at being a hard contact guy. I'm not painting him as the next Machado, but we may have something about as useful as 75% of the names out there for SS replacements.
  13. bill hAll Star
    I didn't really mean that offer verbatim. But I agree with the fact that our offer is out there and some of this "the Yankees are now in the lead!" stuff is press release bluffing put out there by the O's. I think Stearns has an offer and will basically leave it as is. If the O's like it, they'll take it. If not, we'll keep our players back.
  14. bill hAll Star
    Agree with this. There is always the risk of some team truly getting a bit desperate and beating our offer, but if that is the case...so be it.
  15. bill hAll Star
    Noted on another board, but the Tigers can't be that motivated to dump Zimmermann's deal given their payroll slowly shrinking anyway with the remnants of the past going away. The Brewers cannot take on $60+ million (if you include Machado) for 3 months of Machado even if Zimmermann is improved. Don't really care if Zimmermann may be a decent pitcher for 2 years after that. The O's probably don't want Castellanos. They want closer to MLB-type players, but Castellanos is a FA after 2019.
  16. bill hAll Star
    I think you're being overly dramatic in how many quality prospects are on that list. Agree. I haven't glossed over the list again in too much detail, but I think after the Yelich trade and some recent clearing on the 40-man that we probably will have only a 1 or 2 prospect overflow, if that.
  17. bill hAll Star
    If only it was as simple as you make it out to be. Machado guarantees us nothing in terms of winning the division or making a run in the playoffs. Of course I'd like our odds a bit more this season. The Cardinals played to be a ~90 win team for 20 years and won 100+ a few times. They won the World Series in seasons where they had 83 wins and 90 wins. There's an argument to be made that if you get in the playoffs 5 times with pretty good teams, it's better than making it 2 times with great teams. If we think the core we are building is a 90 plus win squad then I wouldn’t be opposed to riding this out and hoping we get hot in October. I’d lock up CC and DJ and make them our LaRussa and Duncan asap. I'll add that my personal opinion is that I'd be fine trading some middle-type prospects for Machado (Pillips, Ortiz, etc.) We seem to have the organizational depth, development, and baseball mind (Stearns) to be Cardinals-lite. We probably don't have the payroll or luck/opportunity to do it for 20 years, but we might have a nice 10 year window where we can hopefully make the playoffs 4-6 times.
  18. bill hAll Star
    If only it was as simple as you make it out to be. Machado guarantees us nothing in terms of winning the division or making a run in the playoffs. Of course I'd like our odds a bit more this season. The Cardinals played to be a ~90 win team for 20 years and won 100+ a few times. They won the World Series in seasons where they had 83 wins and 90 wins. There's an argument to be made that if you get in the playoffs 5 times with pretty good teams, it's better than making it 2 times with great teams.
  19. bill hAll Star
    What if they don't get one? What if the right deal never materializes? Are we comfortable missing the playoffs by one game again knowing we enter next season with all of our assets and cap space? What if they don't make a move and win the division? In my opinion we have too much depth in our system with many guys blocked (OF.... few Pitchers) that we need to do something to improve team for a run this year. Machado, Escobar, Merrifield etc.....we can make a trade for someone who will help team win this year & not hurt future at all. Like earlier rumors Phillips & Ortiz are good prospects but buried a bit on depth chart & will have little impact on us moving forward losing them "Too much depth" has literally been the reason that the Brewers are this good, in my opinion, and I hope the plan for the future of the Brewers.
  20. bill hAll Star
    This sucks, c'mon DS, just get this thing done...you are parting with...PROSPECTS, that's all they are. Unless you think you are giving up the next Trout or Harper or Kershaw, who really cares?? Best available bat, Crew in great position as is..Get it done. Cain, Odorizzi, Jeffress, Brantley, Escobar were all just "prospects" that were not Trout-caliber players. Yet they'd have combined for probably 60-70 WAR at relatively minimum salaries from 2008-2017 for the Brewers. Debate on how good the non 2008 or non 2011 teams would've been, but one can argue that we'd have made other or more playoffs with those guys (or none, of course).
  21. bill hAll Star
    Brewers have a top 10 starting rotation in the MLB. I wouldn't say its lacking. Its lacking, if you are wanting to compete in the playoffs. Other than Chacin, Gurrera, Anderson, we have nobody that can pitch to hot hitting teams like the dodgers, astros, yanks, bosox. And it isnt like these 3 can be expected to go thru orders 3 times. Only decent for at most 5 innings. Our BP will be fine when Albers comes back. We gotta pick up machado and give the orioles what they asked for (broxton, arcia, CB). Then pick up an ace that we control thru 2020. That will secure a playoff run for the next few years. Yes, I'd rather have deGrom throw 7 innings, but I'm assuming if we make the playoffs it will be games like: Peralta 4, Hader 2, Burnes 1, Jeffress 1, Knebel 1. We're not going to throw Chase Anderson out there and hope he can throw 110 pitches. We're going to bullpen game almost every playoff game. Anderson could start and we'll see how far he gets - but if it's 2 innings and he hits trouble, there are enough off days in between playoff games to heavily mix-and-match. Would I rather have deGrom and then the bullpen? Sure. But the Cardinals and other teams as far back as 10-15 years ago have won like this. And it's becoming even more of a strategy now.
  22. bill hAll Star
    Their motivations (right now) are: 1. To keep contending this year. 2. To shed some $ so that they can acquire a need but remain under the luxury tax threshold. That said, the one thing you're right about is that they probably aren't giving up Smith. Maybe they'd give away Panik to somebody or attach Hunter Pence to something of relative value, I don't know. If I'm correct in my assumptions, they're going to have to do something that is a bit uncharacteristic. They may have to give away Melancon (and pay 90% of the next 2 years of his deal) or give Pence away (and pay a bunch of this year). You don't normally see established vets that have a connection to the franchise get dealt away a competitive year for nitpicky financial issues often, but it's obviously a business.
  23. bill hAll Star
    If we're eating the money, no need to add organizational 14-20. Heck, I'd even say Barnes/Jennings for Dyson/Smith. We're slightly upgrading on both ends and paying $2.5 million to do so. That seems fair. We're doing them the favor. If they don't want it, they can see if someone else wants to do a deal. We had to give up the OF Cordell for Swarzak and Smith is worth much more than him. To a contender, Jennings and Barnes are worth much more than Cordell. Jennings is very good LOOGY. Barnes is an MLB reliever. I know that people like to overreact to a handful of innings for Brewer relievers when they're left in in situations that they shouldn't be because they are on the lower half of the stacked Brewers bullpen, but they have value. Smith is an upgrade over Jennings. Dyson and Barnes could go either way, though I'd lead Dyson...but he's been very shaky in recent years. So we can upgrade and pay the $ to do so.
  24. bill hAll Star
    I want to be greedy, in that I want to keep the Taylor Wiliams who is helping now. So how about 2 of Barnes($559K) / Houser($Min) /Jennings($750k) and an organization #14-20 for Dyson and Smith? Giants save ~$2.6M 2018 dollars and have cheaper MLB bullpen pieces to fill their pen and add a prospect and we get the best player, Smith. I don't suppose the Giants could still sell it like they were competing if they did it though - so might have to wait till end of July to see if they lose more ground. I figure you get a year and a half for Smith, so it has to cost more than Swarzak last year. So maybe Barnes/Jennings=Dyson and Houser+Stokes=Smith? If we're eating the money, no need to add organizational 14-20. Heck, I'd even say Barnes/Jennings for Dyson/Smith. We're slightly upgrading on both ends and paying $2.5 million to do so. That seems fair. We're doing them the favor. If they don't want it, they can see if someone else wants to do a deal.
  25. bill hAll Star
    I'm not sure if Dubon is really as good of a bet as Arcia. Dubon doesn't have a ton of power. His peripherals to me look like he may end up as a similar majors bat to Arcia but maybe with a bit more certainty. I would like to see him in the MLB but I'm not betting on him to be a great hitter. I'm in the minority but I'm somewhat intrigued by Saladino. He's not going to turn into Lindor, but I think there's something to bringing back the leg kick and hitting the ball harder and on the ground less. I could see him being a 15 HR guy with a .270/.330/.415 line. Maybe I'm delusional from the small sample of plate appearances this year, I don't know. I'd rather count on him as the super-utility guy, but I could see him being a one year stopgap at SS if it came down to it.
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