bill hAll Star

Remember that Fiers was included for that Gomez package.

I don't know why I'm still responding, but why are you posting on here still if you're this angry about the current plan that almost everyone else seems to be on board with? You're selling us a fantasy in other posts of trading for Charlie Blackmon, Alfredo Simon, and other washed-up vets to try to beat the current Cubs...so, there's that.

The Cubs have not abandoned their plan as suggested by someone above in this thread. The benefit of a full-scale rebuild like this is you have 3 years of very low salary players and even more wiggle room a few years after to go with it. They are a large market so their payroll was big to start and has much more room to grow, but they had a "low" payroll by their standards and were able to squeeze in some vets short-term while guys like Kris Bryant make 500k annually. 2-3 years from now, they'll pay Arrieta, give Schwarber/Bryant extensions beyond their arby years if possible, etc. In the Brewers' case, let's say that Phillips, Arcia, Lopez, etc. have the team on a very promising track in 2018. Assuming they don't make any stupid moves from now until then, they'll have payroll at about $55 million (Braun plus a bunch of pre-arby contracts). Assuming their budget at that point is $110-120 million, they can go out and sign or absorb short-term role players and even sign a mega-contract if they really choose to (not advocating that they should). If they really signed one fairly massive contract (plus a bunch of 3 year/30 million type vet filler deals), the mega contract would essentially just replace Braun's once they need to start paying guys. Of course, I'd prefer they even play it safe on bigger contracts and only sign support players and try to sign their own pre-arby. However, the point remains that if you have a nuclear rebuild and have 5-6 stud players all making league minimum, you have a short term window to supplement said players with short-term fillers on the positions that you missed at during your rebuild.

Nieuwenhuis never had to adjust from altitude to sea level every time he took a road trip and he almost never faces LHP. Take a hitter out of Coors and there's not the constant adjusting. I think Nieuwenhuis is the best option on the Brewer roster, but even if he puts up decent numbers, his trade value won't approach Blackmon's. Maybe you'd be okay with Segura for Blackmon? Seems Rockies are in need of a SS. The Rockies have their heir apparent at SS ready (Trevor Story) to go whenever they ship Reyes off. They don't need Segura. Even if Blackmon is a .700 hitter when he adjusts to sea level instead of the .650 hitter he has been, it's not worth the effort. Not to mention he's going to be hated by fans after 40-50 games for being an "All Star" that is teetering on being sent down when he arrives in Milwaukee.

Haudricourt was worried about who the CF would be last year to finish the season. I get it...I don't even live in market anymore (used to have season tickets) so I would have much less interest in what I'd have to watch on a day-to-day basis for 2016-2017 with a nuclear rebuild while he has to watch/write about them daily, but who is there to currently replace Lucroy should be the least of our concerns.

I'm not very high on Peralta and his trade value, but I wouldn't bring back Charlie Blackmon. He's AAAA fodder that is dressed up as an All-Star at Coors Field, just like DJ Lemahieu. Maybe a AAAA CF like Blackmon would be fair return for Peralta given Peralta's stock being down, but I'll pass. There's at least an ounce of a chance that Peralta "figures it out." Blackmon is a finished product mid-.600s OPS hitter. In terms of making room for Lopez, I don't really care about that either. He'll have a spot in the rotation when he needs it. If we're dying to get him a spot at some point this year, we can move a lower ceiling guy like Jungmann to a long relief role - unless he's really tearing it up.

Well, I would agree that if Lucroy put up a good, healthy season last year that the trade would make sense. But you're unloading current help/the rest of your farm system for .50 OPS points and maybe a moderate upgrade in pitch-framing (Castillo seems to be a decent defensive catcher by what I've seen)...and that's a risk at this point with Lucroy. There's a chance that you're basically getting the same player as Castillo back and giving up value to do so.

Diamondbacks - They seem to be pretty happy with Welington Castillo. I'd rather just have Castillo + Lamb + Shipley than Lucroy if I were them. Twins - I am not saying they wouldn't go for Lucroy, but they seem to be happy with John Ryan Murphy and Suzuki sprinkled in. Hicks looked pretty promising, at least as a good OF with a very plus RH power side bat (wrong side of the platoon). If they were going to trade him away, I'd assume it's for their starting catcher.

Can somebody explain to me what the major advantage the team would have if they moved the fences back? I get the idea of a defense-first team with contact hitters faring better in more cavernous fields, but I can't imagine it paying off at all next year, if at all.

Most of the trades for MLB guys are either stopgap throw-ins of salary dumps (Pina), low-ceiling AAAA for low-ceiling AAAA (Flores) trades, or buy-low MLB guys (Cecchini, Villar) that we have room for on our roster but didn't have room on the other team's roster.

I get the idea of building your team around what your ballpark is like and that being advantage - especially going forward for the Brewers...but what would that do for the 2016 Brewers? Braun and Davis would be terrible guys to trot out for this strategy. Segura and Scooter's decent power would be minimized. I think whatever gains there are for pitchers would be washed out by marginal losses from Lucroy and others.

Per all of the usual suspects on Twitter. Have his personal issues now been cleared up enough to be on the move?

See: Braves, 2015

If the Brewers can net arguably the best player in baseball when he hits his prime (and hopefully can keep him beyond 6 years) out of a window of 7 years of draft picks, and every other one fizzles out - I'll take it. Your point, to me, does not diminish the high draft picks, rather it says that you need to use all avenues to rebuild (which is likely what you mean).

I have replied a few times to your arguments in the rebuilding/tanking debates so I won't go too much in to that, but I do have to comment on this one. I don't think more than 10,000-20,000 fans even know who Jason Rogers is right now. Some might have been to a game last year that he played in and don't remember that he's on the team or anything about him. When the Brewers are competitive again, this will be like being disappointed that the Packers didn't keep irrelevant NFL talent, yet moderately nice story Samkon Gado around into the very successful 2008-2012 range of years when he was in his late 20s. I can guarantee you that there will be more heartwarming stories/players on the team when it is good again. Even if your worst fears are realized and the team rebuild is a colossal failure, there will be more try-hard players that came from nothing that get a spot on the roster for 2 years. This is the same thing about people holding on for dear life on sentimental cheering/leadership value of Lucroy. We'll have another fan favorite after Lucroy, I promise.

You do realize with the current team makeup that aside from making a Zambrano/Soriano/Lilly-type splash that Mark A. doesn't have the money to spend, trying to beat the Cards/Cubs will be even more futile for the next 10 years if we don't rebuild (tanking just goes along with it)?

The direction is what matters. If the team is getting back towards .500 ball with a ton of young players - this is what I want to see. If they are honestly contending in 2018, then wonderful. I think the realistic expectation is that 2018 is the beginning of the window. 2016 is a nuclear wasteland roster year, 2017 is the beginning of young players entering, 2018 is when everything begins to come together. I agree with most you say on this but honestly if this team is around .500 with young talent and with daylight busting through the seams by 2018 than we have the wrong leadership in place. We might have a roster full of turds this season but there are guys that are not that far away from the majors. A lot of pitchers included in that mix. I think you're overvaluing a little bit how likely some of the prospects we have are destined for success. Also, guys like Phillips, Hader, etc. are not going to be that good right away. As someone else noted, it took the Braun/Fielder/Hart/Weeks/Hardy era 3 years to get into the playoffs and they needed an MVP-type 2 months from Sabathia.

Honestly, this is about what I would expect: '16: 65 wins '17: 68 wins '18: 77 wins '19: 85 wins '20-'25: Expect 90+ wins/year. That seems crazy to plan for a decade out, but it's the state we're in. Given what Stearns was handed after '15, the only way you don't end up trying to win and winning 73-79 games for the next 3-4 years while moving nowhere for the years beyond that would involve Attanasio spending about $500+ million in total $ on future free agents.

The direction is what matters. If the team is getting back towards .500 ball with a ton of young players - this is what I want to see. If they are honestly contending in 2018, then wonderful. I think the realistic expectation is that 2018 is the beginning of the window. 2016 is a nuclear wasteland roster year, 2017 is the beginning of young players entering, 2018 is when everything begins to come together.

Where do you see this team in 2018? Still unloading veteran talent for what 2023? The Cubs could lose both Arietta and Lackey opening a slight window of opportunity that's likely to close quickly. Cole might become too expensive for Bucs. Arcia should be established by then. Phillips figures to be here, and Davis and Braun could still be around banging. I see the team being projected for .500 ball in 2018 with a bunch of very young players and a few vets brought in with our cash savings since nearly everyone will be a rookie/2nd year player. Maybe they have a Cubs-esque "1 year ahead of schedule" season that year, maybe 2019 is the year. The important thing, though, is that they have 5 or more guys that could be All Stars one day all coming up with 4, 5, or 6 years of team control remaining and a completely loaded farm system of a few more guys following them. Couple that with a stockpile of AAAA helpful players that the Cards and Rays always seem to have so we aren't supplementing the team after injuries with Yuni B.

More than would be worth it. We have no reason to go after a mid rotation starter right now with Nelson, Peralta, Davies, Jungmann, Lopez, Pena, Houser, Hader and Garza either in MLB or close to MLB ready. Odorizzi's a proven starter who's controllable through 2019. At some point this team is going to have to compete. I'd be fine trading for Odorizzi and dealing Peralta. So trade for the next "Odorizzi" that will be controllable through 2022. He'll be a "proven starter" probably by 2018 and we'll have 5 years of control after that instead of just probably 1-2 when our competitive window hits with Odorizzi.

These kind of posts are why I love Brewerfan.net Thank you for the smiles a long the way. i wasn't really joking. my point was that they should try to find a guy in his mid 20's with some potential rather than a guy on the wrong side of 30 on a 1 or 2 year deal to try to squeeze a few extra wins on the season. I like the suggestion of Fuyenmayor from KC, its the least KC could do for us after us helping them with a title. If they get someone in the late 20s/early 30s, it's going to be solely to move him at the deadline or next year. Of course there's a miniscule chance that they completely turn Alvarez's career around and sign him to a 3-year extension or something (not saying I'd want that), but this will simply be a reclamation project of a veteran with a ton of potential. I can pretty much guarantee you that the 1 or 2 veterans they'll add in the next few weeks/months will have nothing to do with moving the needle from 65 wins to 67 wins. I prefer this method given that chances are if they get the "Keon Broxton" at 1B, he very likely will end up being a AAAA player anyways. They can go ahead and try to grab the Keon Broxtonof 1B in a trade or something and let him play a platoon role or come up after Alvarez is dealt.

Given that the Brewers payroll has been reduced to nothingness, why not take Alvarez, trade Davis, and then trade Alvarez down the road? I'd take that over just playing Davis out of place at 1B and only getting one trade return. Might as well trade Davis and still take the boom/bust pickup in Alvarez to add possibly more prospects down the road.

I think Davis is already at a disadvantage for 1B being a shorter player. Then factor in the assumed fact that he probably isn't good at fielding grounders or errant throws and you might have a very bad defensive 1B on your hands.

I know that some don't like the idea of wasting Santana's arm at 1B, but is it possible that Santana will now play against all lefties at 1B and then get spot duty for Braun/Davis at the corner OF spots against RHP? (EDIT: actually, he can play all 3 spots) vs RHP C - TBA, Luc for now 1B - Alvarez (lefty signing) or Cecchini 2B - Scooter SS - Segura (?) 3B - Cecchini/Villar OF - Braun/Broxton/Davis most days - Santana can sub for any of them sporadically. vs. LHP C - Luc for now 1B - Santana 2B - Walsh SS - Segura (?) 3B - Villar/Middlebrooks OF - Braun/Broxton/Davis