bill hAll Star

I think part of the Cubs letting him walk is they've already put down a lot of their chips in 2015 and 2016 and now they do run the risk of crippling their payroll. The Brewers have a window where they could spend on one of these guys and it wouldn't kill them. No to trading prospects for guys like Archer. I'm not dying to do this, but I'm OK signing a guy this offseason for 4 years. The payroll opens wide up again in 4 years then when Braun and Arrieta leave and I don't think this strangles our payroll short-term, either.

This is the case with basically every free agent, ever. Yes, Arrieta presents slightly more risk as a pitcher and as one with declining velocity...but who are we saving the money for? If not Arrieta this year, we'll be thinking about signing some other 3.75 FIP/ERA guy for $100 million next year, pushing the contract burden a year further down the road.

High $ amount, shorter(er) # of years and I'm OK with it. 3 years is a pipe dream, 4 maybe max.

One of the issues with restoring Broxton's value is that you'd mostly just have to play him against lefties. He's destined to make a lot of outs against good RHP. Most teams also know that Aguilar plays on the short side of the platoon. Most teams probably just wait until the Brewers are forced to DFA Aguilar if Braun does truly move to 1B part-time.

While I would love to acquire Abreu, with Braun not going anywhere and being willing to move to 1B, you have to explore this option prior to using assets to acquire a 1B. Best case scenario...Braun is average at 1B, and the OF opens up for Santana, Phillips and Brinson to play everyday. Thames becomes an elite bench bat, backup 1B with Braun getting time in the OF when Santana/Phillips/Brinson need a day off. In theory if everyone stays healthy and Braun plays 1B, you'd have: 1B Braun 50, Thames 110 (Braun vs. LHP, Thames vs. RHP) RF Santana 100, Phillips 60 CF Brinson 130, Phillips 30 LF Braun 70, Santana 50, Phillips 40 I left 2 games up in the air at each position. Thames probably takes some of those in the OF or Perez/Villar/utilty. That would mean Phillips faces 20-30 lefty starts but is out there for his defense. Brinson gets shielded from some tough righties.

No way. I realize I'm advocating for other 30+ year-old players, but that one has a higher probability of being a complete dud. I may be overreacting to one bad year, but he had a few when he was in his 20s and catchers fall off fast.

I think Colorado might be souring on Murphy a bit because he can't contact the ball. That said, they'll definitely give him a chance. We saw what Iannetta could do in that ballpark for a few years if he just made some contact. Lucroy was still bad on the road after being dealt to Colorado, so I'm not sure they're high on him either, we'll see. Someone will bite on either a high-ish 1-year deal or a longer one.

I think there's a bit of nostalgia with Lucroy here. 1/$12 would maybe be worth a "show me" deal since we have short-term $ to spend, but I'd much prefer to upgrade pitching and maybe 2B. Going 2 years with Lucroy at that kind of money just isn't wise. He was 31 last year, which is generally where the slide happens for catchers if it hasn't already happened in their late 20s. He got a nice boost from Coors Field last year, but I'm not sure I'm willing to throw one of our few darts for improving the team at a catcher that could end up being worse than Pina/Vogt.

Oops, I should have read the actual article. I'd still take him at that price.

Holy crap...Chatwood at 3/$10? He comes with risk, but where do I sign? I'm also not a major fan of Lynn, but if you can do it for only 3 years, sign me up.

Yes, and if your owner allows you to, I don't blame them. The other option would have been to sell off Mous, Hosmer, etc. earlier than they did. The fool's gold run they had before the deadline this year did them in a bit. The optimists view of it would be that Kennedy and Hammel do well enough in front of that defense and Gordon lived up to the deal on offense. Maybe they'd have still been competitive in 2017 and then they could decide to re-up the big 3 and see what happens 2018-2020. Their farm isn't anything special and they weren't going to make any sort of free agent splash or trade. This was pretty much their only path other than selling everyone off after 2015, which is an impossible sell from an ownership standpoint. Even after 2016. They probably knew Gordon was an overpay but now that they're going into what looks like a lengthy rebuild, he'll be gone when it matters. Yordanno's death hurt their chances in recent years and not selling off Mous/Hosmer/Cain were probably the only negatives. This was inevitable otherwise. They were either going to be seeing if they could overpay the gang to compete after 2017 or they were going to be cleaning house regardless.

Woah, Luc at 4/$50 million? I'd have to think that the best offer Lucroy gets is 2/$20 million, and I may be even overshooting that.

I get the suggestion, but something is up with him (not even a velocity dip so far). Maybe he's just a guy that gives up more medium/hard hit balls in the juiced ball era. That and a decreased K%. I do agree that these are interesting guys to look at as buy low candidates while we have short-term $ and want rotation depth. It was the same reason I argued for Verlander at the deadline (if it was the assumed salary dump at the time). I'd love a salary dump trade because you get the older pitcher with less years of commitment...but the upside does not seem to be there for Hammel.

You've done a good job at summing up my exact thoughts in less words than I could. I will make one correction - Anderson is now under our control for 4 more seasons.

The problem is I think it is much more likely to fall to 76-86. I don't think the upside is there on most of those guys. First, I just wanted to say it's nice to have debates like this without name calling, taking comments out of context, etc. Must say, it's very refreshing! Here's what I'm trying to figure out about your position. (And to be fair, not just you, but a lot of people who would be at least open to signing an Arrieta or someone for 4 years/ $100MM.) If you believe they are closer to 76-86, do you really think Arrieta is worth another 15wins or so it would take to win the division? Not to mention being a legit WS contender? I don't want to tank. But I also don't want to start spending real money until the rotation is more settled, and most of the position players as well. You have to get the fire started a little before you throw the big wood on it. The Cardinals model is fine, but you have to get there first before you can maintain. My issue is that I have a strong belief that the rotation won't be "more settled" by just letting it figure itself out over the next 2-3 years with what is in house. Chances are we'll end up with 3 solid/good pitchers and then a few good 4/5/rotation depth guys. Even if it does go better than we think, we will have to decide to pay Davies, keep a 32/33 year old Nelson/Anderson 4 years from now. That seems like a long way off, but those guys will probably all be priced out of the Brewers or not worth keeping at their age if they are as good as we hope. I think the idea of signing somebody right now (doesn't have to be a bigger ticket/longer signing like Arrieta or Lynn) not hurting much is that Braun and Arrieta/Lynn/Cobb/whoever will basically be off the books in 4 years. Help now, help later. I'd probably still go with a 2 year signing and hope for a Charlie Morton transformation, but I think the room is there right now if they want to spend on another rotation piece and/or 2B or relief pitching. If Burnes is truly kicking down the door or Ortiz/Peralta are kicking down the door in 2 years, we can deal with our overflow of pitching at that point. Nelson/Anderson/Davies are all entering or at the back end of their prime right now. I wouldn't mind trying to win now with them while still being ready to hand the baton off to Hader/Ortiz/Burnes/Woodruff 2-3 years from now. And of course, in that process, the guys I mentioned in the 2nd list will help in the 1st window. I'm just not counting on all of them to meet high expectations right away (plus some of the depth like Wilkerson/Suter/Derby). I think we can spend right now for 3 years (and maybe one guy for a 4th) because some big bills will come due 3 or 4 years from now. Now if you say, "I'm ready to spend" 2 years from now, you start to dip into the years where you have a lot of your core to pay higher arby to or to keep them around. It probably makes more sense to spend on 2 year guys, but if you want the better players, you do have to go to 4-5 years.

Amen to this. The ship has sailed on tanking and becoming the Astros or Cubs of several years ago. However, we have a deep farm system and money to spend. To me, we should have a 10 year window here of consistently good teams. Generally, we should not be dumping prospects for a rental but I would not be afraid of spending our $ and letting the prospects take over when guys like Shaw become free agents at 32 or 33. We can go in for a rental if circumstances are right in a given season.

I think the way Sabathia finished the season, there will be at least 5 teams lining up to offer that contract to him. And I think CC would choose a lot of other places over the Brewers for that price.

The problem is I think it is much more likely to fall to 76-86. I don't think the upside is there on most of those guys. The compounding problem is that we're not the Astros or Cubs of 2014. We're not sitting here waiting on Bryant, Rizzo, McCullers, Correa, etc. We have a bunch of older "prospects" like Shaw, Nelson, Anderson, and Knebel. We've got a 3-4 year window with those guys plus the wild cards of Hader, Phillips, Brinson, Arcia. It's probably an 80-85 win base that could go up given our depth, free agent signings, and Hader or Brinson turning into stars. There's another wave after that that will very likely have good players and organizational depth, but I also don't see a bunch of blue chip talent in that group. Even if it does, it's still 3 years away. If we wait this year out and the pitching staff fails, we're not giving ourselves much help. "Oh, well Burnes/Ortiz/Wilkerson/Derby/etc. are still in our minor league system" is not "don't worry, we're gonna wait this out because Correa/McCullers/Bregman are coming up." Save for maybe Burnes, there aren't any high likelihood #2 or #1 starters on their way up in the next 3 years. We're just going to keep saying, "not yet, let's see if this next unspectacular, yet solid group of guys can randomly produce some TOR pitchers." I don't care if Suter is "blocked" from a rotation spot. I don't care if Burnes has to come up in 2 years instead of 1. If any of the guys in the minors are truly this good, they'll be banging down the door in AAA and we'll have no choice...and we'll probably have an opening due to injury or something like Woodruff being a bust in the rotation and moving to the pen. That's how things go. If this crop of 8-10 pitchers that we think could be MLB guys (most being low ceiling) but aren't yet really produces 5 or 6 really good pitchers to go along with Nelson, Anderson, Davies all still remaining good pitchers we can deal with that problem then by making some deals...and it's a great problem to have. Letting a bunch of guys with #3 starter ceilings "try out" in the majors and inevitably producing mediocre results does nothing for me and is just as much of a waste of time as you all think signing Arrieta or Lynn and being a projected 87 win team this year or next does for you guys.

If you believe that, that should start spending a lot more money right now. I don't believe it. A big part of the success last year was due to Shaw, Thames (early), Sogard (one month), Pina, Nelson, Anderson, Knebel, Swarzak (late.) I am not sold on any of those guys repeating what they did. Certainly not Nelson, of course. Swarzak may not even be here. Not saying they won't, but they had the best season from all these guys. Sure, if some of them regress other guys like Arcia and Villar can have better seasons. But if I add it all up, I just don't see a team ready to compete for the WS. Even if they added a couple really good BP arms and a rotation arm. I agree, a rebuild rarely sticks to the original plan. Sometimes it takes longer, sometimes you have success earlier than expected. I just happen to believe last year's success was fool's gold. Fun season, I enjoyed it thoroughly. But I don't want decisions based on last year's success as though we make a tweak here and there and we win the WS in 2018. I'm just not seeing it. If most of those guys falter, the team is 3 years away anyways and I don’t even think we have the NEXT level of prospects to be excited about that wave (who knows at this point). So unless you want to tank, which I think is long gone as an opportunity, what is wrong with spending money right now? Say they sign Arrieta to the 4/$100 deal dreamed up by MLBTR (not advocating that specifically, but say we did). Yes, there is a draft pick to consider, but otherwise, what’s the harm? If you really think most of this wave of contributors is overrated, 75% of this contributing group and total salary will be gone after 2020 and, in theory, Arrieta would have one year left with a bunch of pre-arby players. We won’t be losing anyone if we spend some money right now. We’re not able to tank anymore. We are in a unique situation with great minors depth but a lot of guys in the Shaw/Knebel/Nelson category where we can be pretty confident in letting them walk at age 32 or 33, if they even maintain the level of play that makes us want to keep them. At positions where we don’t have someone for 1-2 years (2B, bullpen, a starting rotation spot), I’d rather spend some money and let the prospects break into the position or be there for depth. I don’t want to hand a role to Wilkerson, Dubon, etc. and try to “see what they can do.” They aren’t high ceiling players. Let them be nice depth in case of injury and make them force our hand to bring them up. If you go the former route and let those guys have roles, you’re really going to dig into your system if there are injuries.

It's not that I have too much confidence. It's that guys like Hader, Woodruff, Williams are ready now, and Burnes should be real soon. Will all of them, and the guys that follow all be great? Of course not. But they are still rebuilding. So I don't care how many rookies/ young players are on the pitching staff. The more the better. We don't know who will be a #1, #3, etc. The only way to find out is let them pitch. The longer we wait, the longer this rebuild will take. Sure, we can trade for or sign a stop gap or two, and we'll feel better. Maybe we win 84 games instead of 81 or whatever. Get the young talent up, position players too. Let's not fall into the trap this organization has so many times thinking they're ready to compete for a WS title. They're not. The difference to me is that the opportunity for tanking is gone now. Playing the young guys and letting them figure it out is still generally good practice, but the "sign a guy to win 84 instead of 81" doesn't bother me much. If we were an early stage rebuilding team and signing a guy to win 73 instead of 70 - now that is kinda stupid. I think most of those guys will get their chance regardless if they are good. Woodruff will be in the rotation, Hader most likely will be - and I doubt anyone else really should be, but they'll show us or get a shot due to injury/underperformance if they really do deserve it. Am I shooting for the World Series this year and signing every free agent imaginable? No. But it wouldn't kill me if we overspent on Lance Lynn, even if I know it's an overpay (assuming the deal is short). I'd prefer a 2 year/$15 million type risk signing a la Charlie Morton or maybe a bit more $ on Chatwood. I don't think guys like Burnes will be ready so soon. And just by the power of odds, if Burnes is ready mid-season and is a stud, it's just as likely that Nelson is done/ineffective for his career or Hader is not a starter or Woodruff underwhelms or somebody gets hurt for a long period of time. They have some space to spend money now so I wouldn't mind a surplus of arms. If we wait 2-3 years and let these guys pitch, chances are that 2 or 3 emerge as solid rotation pieces along with what we already have...but then our assumed space to spend is mostly gone and we're sitting with Davies/Nelson/Anderson all nearing the end of their tenures.

Yeah, mostly this. Woodruff could be the next solid prospect that turns into a consistent #2 starter for 5 years, but I'm not banking on that. The odds are more likely that he is probably a #4 or he even is a higher ceiling guy that has to go back and forth to AAA a lot until he refines some things. Hader could be Blake Snell early. Great stuff but lack of that 3rd pitch means hitters pitch count him in the 4th/5th every game. I'm OK letting Woodruff and Hader start the year out in the rotation, but there is a large amount of risk there. Throwing Wilkerson on the fire is too much for me. I know we likely aren't aiming to win the World Series this year, but I think there is little risk in signing a vet and letting the cream rise on the younger guys. If Wilkerson, Hader, and Woodruff are all really that good right away, we'll know...and at that point, it's a good depth problem to have.

If Guerra is not back to form, that's a very shallow pitching staff. I hate to be cruel about that projection, but that team might win 70-75 games. Where is Woodruff? Yea, substitute Woodruff for Guerra Jeffress for Neshek Otherwise I would be fine with this. Looks like a 70 win team? So did the pitching staff before the start of the 2017 season. And that was before Peralta flamed out, Guerra was injured/ ineffective, and Nelson went down late in the year. Not to mention multiple implosions from various bullpen gas cans. No, I like this to start the season. Burnes up by June. I think you're being a bit too rosy on the "we had bad events in 2017 with low expectations and still did well." I'd argue that we had very positive luck on W/L in 2017. We won a lot of the games that -Peralta was 6-2 in games he started. Only one of the losses was his fault. -We lost every game Peralta was a reliever in but 1...but most of those he was in for were when we were getting smoked regardless. He factored into the losing effort for his first 3 or so games and then collected garbage after that. I think it can be agreed upon/expected that we'll have a reliever implode in 2018 as well and lose us 2 or 3 games before being demoted even if we have a deep bullpen. -The bullpen won most of the days that Nelson would've pitched or at the very least pitched well. -Guerra was so-so. He was pitching horribly but he somehow survived with 3 runs through 6 innings in a lot of his early starts. He was instrumental in the post ASB stretch of failure. So, Guerra had a bad stretch, Peralta blew a few games, Nelson being out for a month I'd almost call a wash. Do you really think that we wouldn't have worse hiccups with Wilkerson in the rotation plus Woodruff and Hader, guys that we cannot be certain will consistently go 4 or 5 innings? Jimmy Nelson now will miss most of the season. Will Chase Anderson pitch like a borderline ace again this year? I think the pitching luck will be much worse this year unless we're proactive. Everything that went "bad" is pretty normal for a given season. There is wayyyyyy too much confidence in our prospects/system. We have great depth but not many guys I want to count on in a rotation near-term. Hader is the one true legit prospect but he's a risk given that he can't throw a 3rd pitch right now. Woodruff looks like he could be a #3 but he could get washed out of the rotation as well. He hasn't shown long-term MLB staying power. His pitch counts got up there early. I do not want to count on Wilkerson to be an MLB starter to open next year.

If Guerra is not back to form, that's a very shallow pitching staff. I hate to be cruel about that projection, but that team might win 70-75 games. Where is Woodruff?

I'll echo: not right now. I'd maybe go in if the Brewers were seriously in the mix/division lead at the deadline. Keep the farm in tact right now.

I think that the relatively effective finish from CC probably guaranteed that he wouldn't come at a sneaky "buy low" 1-year price of 1 year/$7 million. If it's gonna be one year, somebody will probably bid $10+ million now and probably go multiple years. Who knows what he wants - maybe he's made enough money and is willing to go somewhere that he just wants to if the offers aren't wildly different. And if that's the case, as much as he said he liked it in MKE, he'd probably rather NYY or a few other places before coming here.