bill hAll Star

I wouldn't be surprised if Tampa just cut Span and he went back to SF for a very small contract. Could be wrong about that. I don't think Broxton is an everyday CF so they would need a platoon-mate (like Span).

No, but you’d want more than 2-3 years at arbitration prices when the window opens up. It’s not a complete deterrent especially since an extension could be signed, but it’s a real consideration.

I don't have a strong opinion on Brinson's stock, but are we sure the Marlins would want Brinson or Santana? Seems a bit sad, but if Yelich/Realmuto get dealt, the Marlins can kiss any competitive baseball goodbye until about 2022 at the earliest (probably can do that anyways). At that point, Santana would be gone or Brinson would have two years left. They could flip either of them later, but I think they'd be asking for mostly potential stud players that still need 2 years of seasoning.

I'm not a fan of "going all in" yet and therefore am noted as not being a huge fan of acquiring Yelich or Realmuto or both, but... I'd take on Prado and/or Chen to make this happen for less prospects. If we're gonna do this, then let's still try to hold on to more of the future. Maybe the ship has sailed on that as a sweetener because the Marlins have already shrunk payroll enough that they can probably let those guys' contracts rot and go away as they rebuild, but if they're still willing to do it, I'd use some our flexibility to take on those contracts and hold as many prospects as we can to still have a window 3-4 years from now if this swing for the fences is a miss. There's still a bit of a salary crunch for 2019 and 2020, but it could probably be done.

I'm not cheering to tank. We've crossed that bridge. If various injuries occur or things go south and we're 40-65 at the trade deadline, then yes, I will cheer for the #1 pick for just 2018...but if we aren't getting close to competitive in 2019 then I will begin to get impatient.

Agree. Sky isn't falling for me, but if the Cubs make one more bold move, I just think that waiting it out one more year to see what we have makes sense. That isn't to say we still couldn't compete with the Cubs anyways. They could still sign Neil Walker, one of the expensive pitchers, or a reliever and I'm cool with it. Just don't mess with the farm system. I think 2019 we'll either have a very known, promising group and proceed accordingly or sitting back in 2018 will be a blessing in disguise if we find out that some of the guys like Shaw or Thames were fool's gold and that we need to retool anyways.

It's not like we can just wait and we'll eventually be the only team in the NL Central with good players. When the Cubs window closes and they go into rebuild, the cardinals/pirates/reds will still be there and have good teams. We're not turning our team into a 95 win team this year without decimating the farm system. Yes, those other teams will also have good teams, but we'll be at a point when all of the recent prospects are in the majors and we have a wave waiting after them plus money to spend. If the Reds turn into a powerhouse by 2020, so be it. It will be a great race. I'm just not dealing prospects for shorter-term control players to try to beat a high payroll juggernaut for 2019. Heck, we still may beat them but I'm not getting into an arms race. There's a good chance that we're looking back in 8-10 years with zero playoff appearances if we do that.

Cubs brass just landed in Dallas to talk to Yu Darvish. If they sign him, just wait this thing out. Too much of a chance we'd lose any arms race we'd get into.

I'll take 3/$20 over 2/$10 if I've got a good player. Give me that extra year at a fair price. And each year is an option year if it goes really, really south. The way it works out for Realmuto is basically what Lucroy had left on his deal $2/10 with a 1-year $10 million option. That option is very likely to be exercised and the team is happy about it. If Realmuto suffers a career ending injury opening day of 2018, he can be non-tendered at no cost and basically be a 1 year/$4.2 million hit for 2018. Lucroy was a 1.5 year deal for the Rangers, essentially. Luc had one insanely good season (age 28) and was off to a pretty good start in his age 30 season. Realmuto is putting up consistently good seasons and will only be 27 next year. His numbers would take a bit of an uptick if he played in solely hitter's parks as Luc has for his career. Lucroy had OPS+ of 90 (first full season at 25), 132, 116, 131, 96, 123 (120 with Brewers prior to trade), garbage in TX then 115 with Rockies. JT has posted 92 (first full season at 24), 111, 109. His numbers on the surface would uptick, like Shaw leaving Fenway, but OPS+ adjusts for park factors. Lucroy was consistently good and made 2 AS games. I'm not saying I'm against targeting JT I'm saying he's not better than Lucroy (or what Lucroy was at that age I should say) nor should he command a similar return. Oddly enough, I'm not arguing for targeting JT. I stated on the previous page that I have no interest in giving up value for shorter control players right now. But I do think that he'll put up a close body of work to Lucroy by the time he's 30 if he stays healthy. He also is supposedly a good defender as Lucroy was.

I'll take 3/$20 over 2/$10 if I've got a good player. Give me that extra year at a fair price. And each year is an option year if it goes really, really south. The way it works out for Realmuto is basically what Lucroy had left on his deal $2/10 with a 1-year $10 million option. That option is very likely to be exercised and the team is happy about it. If Realmuto suffers a career ending injury opening day of 2018, he can be non-tendered at no cost and basically be a 1 year/$4.2 million hit for 2018. Lucroy was a 1.5 year deal for the Rangers, essentially. Luc had one insanely good season (age 28) and was off to a pretty good start in his age 30 season. Realmuto is putting up consistently good seasons and will only be 27 next year. His numbers would take a bit of an uptick if he played in solely hitter's parks as Luc has for his career.

I don't know if this would factor into Marlins' thinking at all. I know you may be responding to earlier in the thread where somebody mentioned we'd have too many catchers on the 40-man, but the Marlins would just have to wait for us to be forced to DFA one of the guys on your list. Or they could just sign Jeff Mathis for a year. This type of thing shouldn't really be on the Marlins' mind while they try to deal Realmuto. Sure, we'd probably just throw one of these guys in if we made the deal but it wouldn't be of much value since we'd probably be backed into cutting one of them anyways.

Well, shoot. If you have this season already figured out and we are destined for mediocrity should we even suit up and play it? Understanding and being realistic about stuff like this is literally what makes a good GM and organization. The Astros didn't trade their farm system for 2 or 3 years of players in 2013. They still suited up and it meant something. To answer the question, they should suit up because it is still entirely possible to win the division and it is also more important to evaluate which players are best to keep around and develop for the years that I would hope they can win the division. If the Brewers are 6 games up on the Cubs at the trade deadline but have a giant hole at catcher, sign me up for this trade.

This writer has Brewer goggles on. The trades are not incredibly far off in value. I think the D-Backs hang up the phone on both offers. The issue here is that the D-Backs are at the back end of Goldschmidt's contract so I think they want to win and win now. I just don't understand the point for the D-Backs here, though. If they're trading Ray or Walker it's for single-A prospects as they kick off a lengthy rebuild. If they trade Ray for Domingo Santana, they're likely back to the 2016 D-Backs that lose every game 12-10. They strengthened their pitching and I doubt they rob Peter to pay Paul on a trade like this. They're better off trying to bring in Jose Bautista for 1 year or something like that.

I guess here is the debate I am having in reference to my post earlier in the thread and really for any player with under 4 years of control (and I'd even argue I don't want someone with 4 years). Let's first grant an optimistic projection of a team with no Nelson for most of the year of 85 wins. The Cubs are projected 90-93ish, the Cards high 80s, the Pirates I think will bounce back and be at low 80s, the Reds in the low 70s. Say you deal Ortiz, Supak, and 2 higher upside A-level guys for Barraclough and Realmuto. Now you're maybe at an 89 win projection. Are you confident that you'll take down the Cubs yet? If not, now you have to unload 3-4 more prospects to get Archer. Or you have to go out and sign a free agent like Lynn (I'd actually be OK with this part). You start pushing more and more chips on the table when you realize that this team still cannot safely be projected above the Cubs and maybe Cards even with Realmuto and another major piece or two that we've dealt for in 2018. If you don't win it all this year with those players added, you're now looking at Realmuto joining the giant group of players (Nelson, Davies, Shaw, Thames, Braun, Knebel, Santana, other acquired 2-3 year control guy, Villar (if he rebounds), and some support players), most of which are already on the back end of their prime that are free agents after 2020 or a few of them after 2021 and you've already cut into your farm system. So given that above paragraph going into 2019...are you going to sit on another ~90 win team (if most things go right) or are you going to push the rest of the chips from your farm system on to the table to try to beat the Cubs who may have just added Bryce Harper? So I say no to Realmuto. I'd make a call to see if Jeter or their GM is drunk and gives him up for a song, but I'm taking the long view. If we do anything, it should be in free agency.

I agree with your main point on just letting this thing grow organically, but I do think it's dangerous to expect further growth from someone like Knebel. If he has a season better than the one he just had and it is repeatable beyond 2018, then he can start preparing his Hall of Fame speech.

Is there anyway we could include Braun and $$$ to get more prospects? This might be the last chance Stearns has if he wants to get Braun out. Obviously it would depend on prospects and money involved. If we could get Buehler and some lower minor/high upside guys that won't be on the 40 man for a few years that would be amazing. Pay all of Kemp's salary and Braun's this year. Next year Kemp would be on the books, but not Braun and the year after that DS would have money to burn for extensions or FA signings for a run at the WS. I think it would be tough because it seems that the motivation for the Dodgers doing this is to clear up room for (maybe) this year, but more importantly next year. Adding Braun mostly offsets Kemp's salary even if you're suggesting that we pay some of it. I think the Dodgers are still thinking to 2019 when they want to maybe be in play for one of the big free agents and Braun would also be there in 2020. I think Braun would likely have negative value in this trade because of 2019 obligations. More likely to just take Kemp and the prospects and cut Kemp. Braun may be a better player at this point but it's close. So if I'm the Dodgers and I want an iffy RH-hitting veteran outfielder, I'd just keep Kemp for the same price but one less year. I realize some will come on and say that Braun is still "OK" at defense and Kemp is very bad, but that could change in a hurry as Braun could easily begin to fall off on defense.

I stand corrected. I'd eat all of it this year and take half of next year's if that gets it done if we get a good prospect or two in return. Still seems like something I'm not sure we'd line up with, though. Kemp and Braun on the same roster (maybe?) would be...something.

Where is this notion that "we are sitting out this year" coming from? It's December. I get that they passed on the higher price relievers but they are involved in negotiations with lots of teams about starting pitching and all the top FA are still out there. Is it the talk about dealing Santana? My take on that is they have a plan to add a FA bat and get major league talent in return for Santana. How is that construed as "taking a year off"? Certainly if they were to add Realmuto, that's not "taking a year off" even if Santana was the trade chip. The FA crop has quality bats in it. How about dealing for Realmuto and signing JD Martinez? I'm not suggesting we are completely out of the running, but I don't see many ways that I'd call us odds-on likely to win the division at this point of the offseason save for something that tears apart our future. This would actually be part of that plan.

If we're sitting this year out as it appears we are, I don't see making this trade. You could basically call it 2 years of control. Probably will go for a little bit more than I'd be willing to offer.

Oops, I read "Broxton" instead of "Brinson" but I do think that both trades would require more. I retract most of what I said. I don't think the Marlins would be interested in Santana which is why I poo-pooed it a bit but I do think Brinson is something that would interest them (and a little bit more) but I read Broxton.

This entire post pretty much sums up my opinion of Yelich. But the bold part is where he becomes a top 20 talent in baseball. He would become the Brewers version of Anthony Rizzo (.300/.400/.500 with 25-30 HR). I wouldn't deal a bunch of prospect depth for an OF but Santana-Ponce type for Yelich or Brinson-Supak for Yelich I would have serious interest in. Well, sure, I'd also like the part where a team that trades a guy that "could be our Anthony Rizzo" for a lesser player of similar contract/age status or for our scraps/a relief prospect.

To add, I think we lost most of our opportunities already. There are some rebuilding teams that probably wouldn't attach much. Sure, the Tigers would like to get out from under Zimmermann and the Marlins would like to dump Chen, but given that both teams are in 3-year rebuilds and they've emptied out a lot of other large contracts, they'll probably sit on those unless they get an offer that does not require them to add much. In the meantime, they'll just pray those guys can recover their value. The competitive teams that wanted to get under the tax threshold or free up some cash to make a move (Yankees, Dodgers) are mostly done now. Teams like the Marlins I think are close to where they want to be in their stated goal of dumping payroll. I don't really believe it to be a possibility, but the Giants and Red Sox are the teams remaining that may want to dump some money. The Red Sox don't seem very likely because your only options to take on $ are Pedroia, Hanley, and Price. Price's contract is too long for a franchise like the Brewers to take on. Pedroia and Hanley are still productive enough and franchise players that I don't think I can see Boston ownership jettisoning them to the equivalent of Siberia. They have Sandoval and Rusney Castillo pay obligations for several years still that I'm not sure can be transferred. I think the Giants just will kinda play this thing out and already dumped Matt Moore, but if they wanted to stay under the threshold and had their sights on Darvish, JD, or Moose, they have a few guys we could take. I'd consider any of Melancon, Pence, Span (those 3 would have to come attached with something of value) or just absorbing Samardzija (which seems counter intuitive because he is a part of their productive team).

Unless LA is trying to sign another big free agent, I don't think so. They're under the threshold now. They may unload Grandal or Kemp in another deal, but I don't think they'd sweeten the pot too much. Other than that, yeah, I've been looking into trades where we absorb contracts. I was wondering if we could get something in the Kazmir/McCarthy realm, but alas, not in our plans.

This move more intrigues me because we get a more clear picture of the blueprint. 1. If it wasn’t already certain, we won’t be dabbling in the Cobb/Darvish/Lynn/Arrieta sweepstakes. The team has 4 known starters, Nelson, and a lot of swingmen. You don’t add another vet swingman if you were seriously considering someone from the above list. 2. There are now 2 paths: Path A - 90% likely: theory listed above. Stearns is generally standing pat because the roster was a bit of a mirage. Could still sign Walker and a reliever at a bargain price, but nothing over 2 years at a bargain. Path B - 10% likely: Gallardo was signed for cheap depth because some combination of Woodruff, Hader, Burnes, etc is involved in an Archer trade and we want mlb depth given that we’ve just emptied 2-3 of the 5 or 6 young guys that’ll factor in this year and/or next.

I don’t think they would given that would put them back in the luxury tax zone. Where they just got out of.