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The article specifically states Heyward would play CF. I think more would have to be added, such as the Cubs taking on a little bit of Heyward's money for 2018. Say the Cubs took on $8 million of Heyward's $28 this year. That means the trade nets the Giants about $20 million in room this year. Assuming that the Giants want to spend up to about $185 million (they spent $180 last year), now they've got about $20 million to play with. As it stands, they will already have a higher payroll than last year with no external additions. If they want to go to the lux tax, now they have about $35 million to play with. They're getting upfront salary relief at the expense of taking on Heyward's longer deal. Of course, they're robbing Peter to pay Paul. They want to contend this coming season and weakening their pitching staff. Maybe they think they can make a splash elsewhere that would make more impact. Also of note: Heyward has a no-trade clause. Maybe he doesn't want to go to the Giants. Also also of note: Denard Span is nothing special anymore, but he's still under a hefty contract for another year with an option the following year.

That trade is a bit disappointing from the Brewers' standpoint (the Cubs trade, I mean) unless Samardzija is really not as good as we thought anymore. His xFIP was very good in comparison to actual results this year, so the Cubs would be stealing in this trade at the cost of more $ up front. It would annoy me that it improves the Cubs and also helps them not feel the pain of Heyward's contract 4 years from now as they need to open up a new window or retool again. The Giants are likely giving up long-term flexibility for some short-term relief and in the process probably giving up the better package. They're basically trading 3 years @ $35-40 million/year for those two in exchange for 6 years of Heyward @ $28 this coming year and then $20 each year after that. While the Brewers could throw in Braun, Broxton for Samardzija would be just fine assuming the Giants liked Broxton. Braun for Melancon or Heyward for Melancon is a wash money-wise, though I understand Braun does provide a little bit of value. The Giants could probably dump Melancon elsewhere separately. They'd probably rather have Broxton's final 4 rookie deal years over 6 of Heyward's in exchange for not getting to dump Melancon. In short, I disagree with the logic that the Broxton/Samardzija deal only accomplishes 1 of the 2 (CF help and dumping contracts). Pulling the switcheroo on these 2 trades means you're basically not acquiring Heyward's bad deal but you're keeping Melancon's. I'd rather have Melancon's shorter contract if you asked me.

We’d need a very, very deep bullpen because 3 of those starters won’t go more than 5 most nights.

I think Hader being in the rotation is entirely up to him having an offspeed pitch. If he can't throw it for strikes, even if he starts and is gung ho about the role, he will not last more than 4 innings most games, even if he has not given up much damage...teams will just throttle his pitch count.

The report is one person and since Roy or his family have not jumped out and yelled "he's alive!" is very telling right now. It was his personal/hobby plane that he had just gotten brand new. Lots of videos/pics on twitter of him flying it around. They didn't deny that it was him at the press conference a few minutes ago.

His plane went down in the Gulf of Mexico. Not confirmed yet that he was flying it, but he likes to fly it a lot. UPDATE: now officially him

I disagree to some extent. A Ponce/Perrin/Suter/Jungmann/Woodruff/Fiers/Estrada is still valuable for the Brewers. In 2017, Matt Garza was paid $12 million or so for an ERA in the high fours. Get that down to $750,000 or so for a 4.75 ERA, and that frees up $10 million for farm system, scouting, additional coaching, or free agents at other areas of need. But if you get a guy like Suter, delivering a 3.42 ERA as he did in 2017... or Jungmann re-discovers his 2015 form (3.77 ERA), that becomes a huge boost. Right now, Brent Suter and Brandon Woodruff are the two biggest bargains in the 2018 Brewers' starting rotation. If the Crew can keep Angel Ventura in the fold and Bubba Derby, plus Corbin Burnes and Luis Ortiz... they don't need to hit the free agent market for a borderline pitcher. The thing is, the odds of those players actually succeeding as we hope is low. I think even Suter is destined to come down a bit, but I digress. There is a finite amount of $ that we can put into scouting/development before returns do not grow proportionally and...where do you spend the money then on the roster if not at pitcher? The bullpen? You are going to overpay bullpen or a 2B to come in if you want to get a good player. Matt Garza did that last year for $12 million and the payroll was still only $65 million. At a certain point you have the choice to roll with AAAA players at a position or spend money. We're not going to raise a banner for "$60 million payroll that won 84 games" in 2019.

How can you bundle Ponce as a #5 Ceiling? Perrin has productive numbers for a '15 late round pick. Solid year this year. Can't lable him a #5, you know what that is calling for? A 5+ERA ability and not lower. Wilkerson aside from his stint in AAA in '16 has an under 3.5ERA in every stop in the minors. Now, he's 28 so I'll give that #5 ceiling some thought, but a #4 seems more appropriate. Jungmann is a definite agree as #5 ceiling. I'd move on and use the 40man spot towards someone with a higher ceiling. I agree on looking to add a SP via FA because clearly we are thin and need more stability. I just don't agree that Wilkerson/Perrin/Ponce options are of #5 ceilings. Ponce in particular I'd argue is a #4 Floor with a #2 easy potential. Arguing a guy is a #4/#5 is splitting hairs - they're still basically depth guys. It's a nice boost if any of them are more solid rotation pieces, but it doesn't move the needle for me. I have almost zero research on Ponce and don't have a strong opinion, but he's striking out 7 batters per 9 right now in high A ball as a 23-year-old. Never say never, but #1/#2/#3 guys are generally far beyond that.

Same paradox mentioned in the other thread about Knebel and signing Davis. The market for a Thames trade may develop after Morrison signs. If not, a team would just prefer to sign Morrison instead of give something up for Thames. After that, maybe you can trade Thames but now you run the risk of having nothing to sign in his stead.

A few issues: 1. The room to make a signing is more now than later. Yes, a hefty 4-5 year deal does eat into "later" but I think there is room to make a move now. 2. You said it - most of those guys are 2+ years away. While I'm not a major fan of most of the pitchers available, most of them would be a 4-5 year deal. It's likely that Nelson is gone in 3 years or is ineffective. Davies might be gone shortly after that. Suter could fall off the face of the earth. There would still be room for all of the guys you mention even if they did go 4/$100 on Arrieta. I would like to have 6-7 MLB caliber starters each year and then slowly phase in the cream of the crop in that younger group you mention. 3. I think there's some overvaluation of our own guys. I don't think the Brewers have to spend to go all in to win the World Series in 2018, but I just think we'll have lost seasons giving Aaron Wilkerson a key rotation spot. Let him be depth, fine, but I think we're fooling ourselves if we think guys like that are going to play a role. I think we've done our evaluation in previous minor league seasons. We can all be excited to see these guys pitch in the majors and then not be surprised when they're replacement level. Dubon, Wilkerson, Jungmann, etc. are all talked about as "the young guys" when they should more likely be depth players that maybe one will emerge as a good player from - the rest will end up being AAAA guys that are nice to have in case of injury over the next few years. If we think giving all of these guys a shot is a thing - we're likely just saving Mark's ownership group $40-50 million bucks this coming year and wasting everyone's time. The latter part of the list - Ponce, Ortiz, Peralta, etc. - I have no real opinion on...but they're a long ways away. I hope they're all around for depth and the cream will rise and fill the inevitable open rotation spots.

What are the reports on Hader's changeup? If he can't reliably throw that before the season, then we know the answer to his success as a starter before the season even starts.

I'm not sure if a team would be motivated to trade 3-4 top prospects for Knebel, who, if he performs, is basically on a 4 year, $40 million contract instead of just keeping the prospects and signing Wade Davis for 4/$60 million. Could still trade Knebel but it would really be lucky if Davis was still sitting there and the Brewers could sign him.

I'm assuming if Bumgarner was on the market that somebody else could easily trump our offer of elite prospects. If we really won out on the bidding, we'd be back in the toilet in 2020.

Swarzak started pitching well because he went from a 4 pitch guy down to a slider/fastball guy - and the slider is really good. He wasn't great his first year doing that with the Yanks, but he I think part of his 2017 success was keeping that formula and ramping up the velocity. He now throws his slider 50% of the time and 95/96 fastball 50% of the time instead of the 92 he threw when he was a starter. There's an explanation for his "fluke" success at a late age. Sure, I'd like to offer him a performance-based deal but somebody's going to offer him something fully guaranteed so I'm assuming it's not worth offering that.

If that's what Chatwood really will cost, sign me up for that over Arrieta as well.

I'd prefer to have Braun/Domingo there or some other sort of platoon option, but given that Aguilar has pop off the bench, it's not the absolute worst thing in the world. He's the first guy off the bench when you need some pop if he's not playing 1B. I don't like him in a full season against RHP but he can still slug against righties off the bench if he has to.

$36 million for 3 years for a good player is not some sort of salary where the Marlins are just going to give Gordon away.

Aguilar exposed to an entire season of 75% right-handed pitching would not be good on his numbers. I'd expect something like .240/.325/.480 with bad defense. The homers may be there, but I'd be looking for the next option if we really dealt Thames.

I think Swarzak's success can be attributed going to throwing his slider on over 50% of pitches starting in 2016. He did it in 2016 with a bit less velocity and struggled a bit in a smaller sample of games. In 2017 he was dominant for most of the season. I'd bet on him at least being a good pitcher, but I'm not sure how long his arm can sustain it, either.

We had to watch Garza, Lahse and Suppan pitch They were still in the top 5 options to start for the Brewers in the majority of years that they pitched for the Brewers. Note: I despised the Suppan signing and it's not like I was a huge fan of Garza or Lohse.

Honest question: What was the collateral damage of signing Garza, Lohse, and Suppan? The draft pick we gave up for Lohse and the inability to get Manny Parra, Chris Narveson, and Wily Peralta into the rotation? The part of it that is harder to decipher is who they may or may not have been able to sign/keep, but honestly other than an argument of "reliever X would've been better than paying Suppan's $ in 2009" I'm not sure who we missed out on.

I’m fine if they trust letting the young guys play, but I am definitely not opposed to bigger money. I think there is some overvaluation with our own system as to what it can do at the MLB level. I love the depth, but if you do nothing with the rotation, you get an injury or two and you’re throwing Taylor Jungmann out there as your #4 with an unproven Woodruff at 3 or something like that. You’ve probably got an 84 win team with the same roster sans Nelson. That’s not terrible if you have the right vision, but I just think there are things like “wanting to see what the young guys can do” are destined to underwhelm. I have little excitement in seeing Dubon come up. I have a feeling Jungmann and Guerra’s “let’s try this again” years don’t excite me. I love the depth of the system but nobody knocking on the door save for Brinson and Hader if he gets it right move the needle, and that’s fine. If you were forced to go 3 years with Walker and he regresses at the end, don’t be afraid to go to Hiura. If Arrieta falls off that cliff in year 4, make him a $25 million setup man and bring up Peralta. I think the Brewers have a somewhat unique situation given they did not tank for elite players but have a deep farm system. Spend your money to acquire players and keep shuffling the waves through. I’m not sure I see a 4 year window of 100+ win seasons, but I see a way to consistently win 85+ games for a decade and strike when the iron is hot. Keep the contracts short and keep your system depth. I won’t say we have the magic farm system pixie dust to work the same magic as the Cardinals, but I see an above average team for many years to come with depth at most positions in the organization and the ability to spend to fill the gaps.

Yes, the Marlins want to slash payroll. No, Gordon's salary is not a 2017 Pujols-esque burden on a payroll. They'll get fair offers. To add after that, though...I guess maybe I was tricked by "top 30 prospect or two" which made me think higher-rated MLB prospects. I would just take any Marlins prospects out to call this a somewhat fair deal. If the Marlins want to stay competitive (they have a lot of good offensive players), I do see the idea of Thames helping them out without Bour, but the Marlins probably would just rather leave that aspect out of it. Bour probably makes $5 million more than Thames in 2020 if Thames is kept, but I think the crunch for the Marlins is more of a short-term one. They'd live with the better player 2 years from now since their salary should be considerably slashed. I'm not really a fan of Gordon as I've noted given age with style of play, but Woodruff/Jungmann (just pitching depth) for Gordon may be somewhat close to fair. I don't think Woodruff has an extremely high ceiling, but he's an affordable seemingly MLB-caliber pitcher. This is all assuming that the Marlins want to still quasi-contend for the NL East while they reshape things.

About the only reason I could see getting him for nothing is if the Dodgers are dead set on getting below the luxury tax threshold. They'll find ways with fake DL stints to keep him around for depth or a trade chip later in the year, probably. With how scarce pitching is, there will likely be a market.

Even though I don't like Gordon's age for his skillset, I don't think that his contract is one that will basically just be pawned off for nothing. Someone will give up value for him.