bill hAll Star

One minor point on that "next 15 games" item: I think the Pirates are going to be the team that chases us down the stretch. The Cards/Cubs/Pirates are all about equally likely at this point, but I think with Marte coming back and the Pirates getting their pitching back under wraps, they're going to make a push and are not a "bad" team that we'll be facing. That series with the Pirates will be huge in trying to bury them.

Going for 3 posts in a row here (all slightly different topics). I do wonder what Tigers ownership wants now that Ilitch has passed away. It's quite possible that the Tigers just let Verlander sit around unless somebody offers prospects plus takes on some or all of the contract. If they're looking to rebuild, they can pretty much just write off 2018 and 2019 so if nobody is offering prospects, if ownership is OK with a $140 million payroll next year, they can do it. In 2020 all they'd have left is: Miggy @ 3 years/$90 million Upton @ 2 years/$45 million Zimmermann @1 year/$25 million Ilitch put them in a pretty big future hole but they might just want to wait on almost all of these guys since almost all of them do not hold any value and have huge contracts.

This is what I'd be curious about and there may be an answer from Verlander or the medical staff. This is Verlander's slider velocity chart, which pretty much directly correlates to ERA/FIP/xFIP over that time. The fastball has oddly been increasing over the past calendar year. http://www.fangraphs.com/fgraphs/8700_P_SL_20170708__pi.png

That's because 99.9% of the time the discussion involves a player in arbitration that has something like 1.5 to 2 years of team control left. 34 year old pitchers still due 92 million dollars aren't discussed very often on Brewer message boards. I still think for this to make any sense at all from the Brewer's perspective, the Tigers would need to pick up 40+ million dollars of that salary and I seriously doubt they'd be willing to do that. $92 million is a bit misleading. He's got ~$60 million left. He'd basically be signed to a 2 year, $56 million deal after this one. We could probably get the Tigers to kick in $5-10 million to pay off this season if we were so inclined. He does have a 2020 vesting option which probably is where you got the $92 million figure, but he'd have to be a top 5 Cy Young candidate to have that vest. If that's the case, I'd take him for 2020 on the Brewers at $22 million and call the trade for the previous years a win. If it seriously vested and the Brewers were strapped for cash trying to sign extensions for their young players going into 2020, somebody would take a previous year top 5 Cy Young candidate regardless of age on a 1-year, $22 million deal in that offseason. They'd probably even give a prospect.

I'm not sure how much the Marlins will need OFers, for whatever that's worth. Yelich may be having a down year but they've got 2 guaranteed OF for the next 5+ years and I'm sure they've got something in the system if Yelich isn't the 3rd.

Quintana is likely going to get knocked around a bit tomorrow as well at Coors.

lol

Quintana likely helps this year, so that cannot be ignored, but he's not a lockdown playoff ace unless he's really on his game. I'd rather hold tight and overpay starting pitchers. I'll probably get stuff thrown at me, but looking at payroll over the next 2 years, if my choice was Quintana or Option B and Option B was that the Tigers were willing to give away Verlander's contract for only a middling prospect if the other team took on the contract...give me Verlander. My vision of the next few years is a great supply of MLB-caliber depth in the minors for lower-rotation pitching and position players and the Brewers overpay for starters. I'd love to not have to overpay for front-rotation pitching, but I am still skeptical that we've got guys that have frontline potential. Anderson and Nelson may change that if they stay consistent. I'd rather keep the pipeline of Ray, Hader, Brinson, etc. so that we've always got cheap options coming up for the next 10 years an we can blow money on overpriced pitching since we'll have some extra coin to spend.

Yeah Cooper's low K-rate tells me that he should at least stand a chance in the majors. If something like that is available where Aguilar can be dealt to the AL for relief help, it's a thought to have. CS probably isn't a big home run boost but a lot of the higher altitude stadiums are batting average boosters. That's actually the biggest aspect of Coors. The fences have to be moved back so there aren't 25 HR/game which leaves a lot more room for hits to drop in (plus the altitude affecting pitches dropping).

I don't think it can be ignored that a lot of Cooper's road games are also played in hitters' paradises.

I'm not sure that the Cards' roster given injuries is a .520 team. They're getting thin due to injury/age/cuts. I do still keep waiting for the Cubs to bounce back but I think their hitters are still having a bit of a hangover and that elite defense isn't there to prop up their aging (Lackey) or overrated (Hendricks) or dead-armed (Arrieta) staff anymore.

Mark Reynolds is not deserving. Also, a note to add: DJ LeMahieu is going to push some of the more hilarious players in the history of sports that lucked into incredible riches. Guy should be fighting for a spot in the majors right now and probably will amass $50-$100 million and 4 or 5 All-Star selections (if he stays in Colorado) in his career depending how stupid teams are when he becomes a free agent. A .750 career OPS for DJ is nothing special and he's only hit double digit homeruns once in his career despite playing at Coors. Outside of a BA that jumped 50 points last year and in turn added 50 points to his OBP I don't even see a smokescreen that makes him look like a really good player. He just made his 2nd ASG (selected OVER Kris Bryant) on name recognition. His OPS outside of Coors is .655, yet somebody is going to pay him big bucks and if it's the Rockies, he may make 4 ASGs. I'm just saying compare this with a comparable player like Tommy La Stella or Sogard who will be forced to fight for every contract they'll ever get again if any. He'll always carry a high batting average because he plays at Coors and therefore will hang around. He's improved probably to an MLB caliber hitter but he'd be a utility fringe roster guy for anyone else.

Mark Reynolds is not deserving. Also, a note to add: DJ LeMahieu is going to push some of the more hilarious players in the history of sports that lucked into incredible riches. Guy should be fighting for a spot in the majors right now and probably will amass $50-$100 million and 4 or 5 All-Star selections (if he stays in Colorado) in his career depending how stupid teams are when he becomes a free agent.

Maybe we could package a prospect with Bandy to get Maldonado back

Senzatela and Tyler Anderson are the only 2 pitchers in their top 7 rotation that weren't top 100 prospects at a certain point and oddly enough, those are the 2 pitchers they have that probably had the best minor league stats (both had ~2.50 ERAs through the minors). Chatwood has known massive H/R splits but is otherwise good. I get that they could cool down given rookie wall and elevation/travel issues, but they also have a lights out bullpen and one of the best defenses in baseball which are huge.

They also have Dahl on the shelf, who, if CarGo is done may take over as the All-Star caliber bat in the OF over there. That said, Dahl may not come back this year the way his injury is progressing. I don't know if Reynolds is going to regress much (but I get what you're saying). His numbers may come down at Coors a bit, but he actually performed worse than I'd have thought there last year. Reynolds is hitting .266/.345/.403/.765 on the road this year which is just barely above what one would expect. His 1.146 OPS at Coors will probably drop into the .950 range eventually.

The two guys from the 2011 season that were ones that made me want to throw things at the TV in Yuni (should never be on an MLB roster) and Kotsay (fine as a backup/situational guy, but his lack of defense and Roenicke's desire to play him in CF) somewhat evened themselves out in the playoffs. Yuni put up an .835 OPS in the 2011 playoffs and I recall some clutch hits. Kotsay had the infamous game where he started in CF, gave up a huge hit due to not being athletic enough, but then hit a bomb a few innings later. Of course, having someone in both spots that were both good offensive and defensive players might have tipped the Brewers over the top, but those guys in the short sample of 11 playoff games found a way to be net neutral (I think?)

That Rockies team is going to collapse in the 2nd half. The Wild Card is still open. Too many young pitchers who tend to wear down later in seasons. I could see the staff wearing down, but they do have a plethora of arms to somewhat nullify that. Gray is coming back fresh soon and Bettis will be there just to soak up some innings. I was wrong about a lot of things this year but was bullish on the Rockies prior to this season. If they can stay relatively healthy, I think they're legit all year. They've got about 8 pitchers that they are spreading the load on and they will probably pick up another modest vet to soak up some innings down the stretch. Back to the Cubs, I still think they'll take the division somewhat easily, but it seems as though playing Schwarber in place of Fowler essentially coupled with all of their veterans in the starting staff decaying a bit has led to A LOT more runs given up. Take away the elite defense and now Kyle Hendricks is rightfully "just a guy" again. If the Brewers are going to make the playoffs, it'll be by winning the NL Central. I still think the odds are quite long but not impossible given what I'm seeing from the Cubs.

If Herrera was up to his old tricks (given 1 year of control remaining), I could see the ever-ballooning price for relievers leaving the price being close to that, as insane as that sounds. Given that he is struggling, the price is way too high. Plus, the Royals are back in the mix and I'm not sure they're motivated to sell anymore.

The Rockies may need another guy down the stretch, but I don't think Guerra is the type of guy. They're either looking for: -An ace or very high end starter that may cost them Rodgers. -Or they're looking for just a guy like maybe buying Matt Garza for $2 million and a bag of baseballs at the trade deadline to eat some innings because they have a lot of young pitchers in the rotation. Their rotation is good. Before the year my analysis was that they were pretty loaded save for the back end of the rotation, but on further inspection, Gray, Marquez, Senzatela, Freeland, Hoffman are all capable or good MLB pitchers. Tyler Anderson is decent and Chatwood is excellent if they find a way to limit his home starts. I don't think Anderson is out that long and Gray should be back very soon. I personally don't even think Chad Bettis should crack the rotation if he returns and they're trying to win other than to just shoulder the load of some innings. In my opinion, they don't have a need at pitcher unless it is a very legit upgrade. Guerra may an OK upgrade over the back of their rotation, but the team control aspect is a bit lost on them. Every pitcher they have right now has 5ish years of control remaining so Guerra's value of being under team control for 5 years is not all that important to them.

Well if you don't like it you could become a fan of another team tha -- *looks around* -- oh, you'd have nobody to choose from. Ages 32-36 are not completely washed up years for most players. I realize that 31 is usually when the decline starts, but I think prior to the PED deal, this was a reasonable risk to make. $20 million (and $17 million at the end of it) per year is under market value for somebody that you'd have expected to be at least a 3 WAR player at those ages. The risk of the contract was low. He still could be moved for something. I don't see how horribly this is affecting the Brewers. Those that live in the unrealistic world would say, "yeah, we could spend $80 million per year on scouting and international development every year until 2020." The reality is that he's just a somewhat large contract on a rebuilding team that is about $60-$70 million under its projected max payroll for the next 3 years. Attanasio is going to splurge in the international market regardless if he wants to. There's only so much you can do with your payroll when you're waiting a year or two to rebuild. If the Dodgers had not backed out, we'd be sitting here today with 2 non-special prospects and we'd probably have tossed $15-20 million per year more at risky players like Neftali Feliz anyways. If we had just let Braun's initial extension expire, we'd be sitting probably in the same spot. Maybe we'd have rebuilt a year or 2 earlier. These are better outcomes but you're also leaving out the possibility that has to be assumed when the deal was signed that Braun was a 4-5 WAR player through age 35 and the small market Brewers missed out on a bargain.

We've already beaten to death why I think your first paragraph here is a bad way of looking at things, but I really don't understand the 2nd paragraph here. We extended Braun in 2011 because he was giving us such an amazing deal on his first contract? I'm pretty sure we weren't just looking to do Braun a solid because his 8 year contract was looking good, and if we were, that's a horrible way to conduct business especially when you're throwing around $105M. It's extremely rare to buy out someone's mid to late 30 years when at the time we already had him under control for FIVE more years. I didn't think it was worth that risk at the time and still don't. So, that's not a situation where we can just shrug and say 'Big deals are going to be horrible their last few years.' We didn't HAVE to give that big extension. And we already know that the Dodgers' offer included McCarthy, Puig, and 2 prospects, and given Braun's contract, age and history, we already know that's not a lowball offer regardless of who the 2 prospects were. Braun's 2nd deal was a good deal at the time of signing I'd assume in most people's opinion. If you didn't want it, that's fine, but a deal that is paying $17 million to a guy at age 36 isn't bad and I think most people liked it. We didn't have to pay him through 40 and before the PED scandal, most people would assume All-Star type hitting until at least age 34 and probably the rest of the way through it. Braun isn't a pure power hitter, but power generally lasts through the late 30s. Are there really any examples of teams passing on deals like this? The Cardinals passed on a Pujols signing because it was going to cost them 10 years from ages 32-42. Braun's extension was ages 32-36 and the money declines at the end of the deal. The Dodgers pulled back that deal, by the way. I have stated that I know the deal and that it was pulled back. I can't think of a successful organization in the majors that hasn't overpaid one of its better players through their later ages. Please find me an example of one. If you want to stretch and say the Cards avoided a Pujols deal (way different than Braun) then I raise you Adam Wainwright, Johnny Peralta, and Yadi Molina's recent contracts. The Royals are one of the more frugal and cheaper franchises to see success and they're sitting on an Alex Gordon disaster.

The argument of "every team has bad contracts" is absolutely valid. There have been minimal opportunities to trade him since the PED fiasco and prior to that it seemed like one of the best contracts in the history of baseball. The Brewers have an excellent cap situation right now. They took a risk by not trading Lucroy for a while, not trading Gomez for a while, etc. and they won on all of those risks. I'm not even sure if they "took a risk" by not trading Braun because for all we know the Dodgers are the only team to ever offer and the Dodgers are the ones that pulled back. All of that said, they've been doing an excellent job managing the rebuild by judging when to trade guys. They're hitting at a high clip. Sometimes players are overpaid or you pay the piper for taking a risk on a player when you're in a contending window. We're paying for it, but every team that has ever rebuild does. The Astros sat on Carlos Lee and Brett Myers. The Dodgers are a big market team and they're sitting on horrible contracts. The Cubs sat out the majority of Soriano's and Edwin Jackson's deals among several others. My best guess is that we got really lowball offers for Braun in the 2014 era and then the one that the Dodgers backed out on in 2016. The 2014 one, though many want to think it was easy, would have probably been a spectacular risk since Braun looked like he was still pretty good and the offers were probably just salary relief. Point is: the money will barely affect the year-to-year payroll at any point. We can still spend if we want to. Those saying they knew Braun's deal would be an albatross: congratulations. I'm going to predict that the last 2-3 years of Bryce Harper, Cole Hamels, and Manny Machado's upcoming contracts will be terrible. About 80% baseball contracts lasting over 2 or 3 years are going to be bad in their final few years. It's almost a guarantee. The only unique thing about Braun is that we thought he was giving us such an amazing deal for a long period of time and then he got caught with PEDs, so his deal may be bad for 3 or 4 years, depending on how you want to spin it...but it's not even that bad.

I think things may figure themselves out in the next few weeks. I'm starting to buy the D-Backs and their rotation. We've got the Dodgers and Cards in the not-too-distant-future. Matz may be back in this set of games with the Mets and the Giants are getting back to being an OK team. If we're still hanging around on June 16 when a string of winnable games comes up, I'll start to worry about Mark doing something stupid.

I was one that was intrigued by Puig's name coming in with Braun for exactly those reasons and I'd still welcome the trade, but I think Braun's remaining salary is being overblown. Would I love to have that extra $18 and $17 million in 2019 and 2020 available? Yeah. Is it going to matter if we end up having to sit on Braun? Not that much. If things go right, our starting 9's total salary in 2019 should be about $20 million. Add Braun and a bench, rest of rotation, bullpen and Mark still has $50+ million to work with in a year that we probably won't want to add a ton of contracts. If we're seriously thinking of adding that much salary that season or the one after, we're probably going to be adding a lot more substantial overpaid risks than what we're sitting on with Braun right now. Heck, your last sentence about Puig is almost as risky as Braun. You noted that if he plays well, we can try to extend him. That may be unlikely, but again, I'd be quite scared of a Puig contract from 2018-2023 or something in that range.