HiAndTight

Not sure how reliable the metric is (at least in terms of quantifying things as +/- runs), but Lucroy has been #1 or #2 by a wide margin every single year he's been in the majors. So whatever the metric is measuring, it consistently likes something Lucroy is doing (i.e. it's not just a fluke from one season's data). And that seems to gel with his non-stats reputation too. I thought he was 1st last year and was rated lower the year he was hurt, and his first year as a full time starter. If he has been 1 or 2 all 3 years he's been our main guy that would lend a bit more credibility to me, but I still question just how credible and viable a statistic on pitch framing can be for a catcher. Some of it may be ignorance. All the same, I need to see Luc throwing the ball better before I can buy into him being an upper tier defensive catcher. And I think he's had a very good start to the year doing just that. Perhaps someone could enlighten me on just how they arrive to the conclusion that Lucroy is elite at framing pitches. I did read a fangraphs article last year(but again I thought that was just last year).

Considering that Gomez bypassed Boras and signed a 3 year FA extention where he wont get paid anymore than 9 million which is the 3rd year of his contract, which screams he wants to be here and I will take a discount, I'd offer him 7 years at 15-16 million. Based on his past I'd think he's take it and I would do it ASAP. That's 105-112 million total. Brauns contract wont be a burden in my opinion, and he's one of the few I believe that can actually live up to a contract like that. So we'd then have Gomez for another 10 years for a total of roughly 140 million dollars? I love Gomez, but that deal scares me. And he signed that deal after having a decent offensive season(while playing great defense). But he hadn't gotten paid yet. I hope you're right about it happening as a result of him wanting to be here, but I think it was just a chance for him to secure himself while still being in line for another payday by the time he was 30.

I understand this fear given the way the Brewers have operated in the past, but I think the Brewers, and in particular Mark Attanasio are smarter and are going to protect those young arms moreso than the last couple times they were in contention. Of course on the flip side, the way the Brewers have operated in the past, I have my doubts they'll seriously consider trading any of their good starting pitches if they're coming off good years. I don't think the major league roster as been as badly mismanaged as others on here believe over the last 5-6 years, but they have never once been a team that's moved a guy coming off a good year(ie a year too early as opposed to a year too late).

This is the course of action I'd follow. Lohse comes off the books in 2016 as well, but Estrada will be getting more costly. You think about extending one of those two perhaps, but all in all, a Garza type deal is about the Brewer ceiling for starting pitchers. To stay within budget ideally they need room for one or two pre arby starters in their rotation. I certainly don't want to extend Gallardo right now for...a lot of reasons that have been covered, but I can think of even more reasons to NOT extend Lohse or Estrada either. Especially Estrada. He's a guy who's never-once had a full/healthy season as a starter. He's not a power pitcher and he's going to be 33 the first year of any extension. So that being the case, why would we even consider extending someone who would cost so little to sign if he were a FA right now, is still unproven, and who has never been anything but a 4/5 starter at 30 years of age? Lohse, even if he has another two outstanding years, how much is he going to get as a FA? He's going to be 37 years old and he signed for 3/36 when he was coming off an outstanding two year run in St Louis. 63 starts 30-11, 3.11 ERA, 1 World Series win, 1 NLCS loss and he won big games for them. So I can't find any possible scenario in which it'd make sense to extend Lohse right now either. We've got a pretty nice looking team playing really good right now. But I don't think there is a single player on this team worth extending right now save for Segura who won't and Peralta who wouldn't for what I think would be worthwhile for the Brewers. We can sign guys. I'd rather sign a guy coming off a big year(ie, an aging Lohse coming off a big year after next season) and maybe have to overpay him in a 2 year deal than hope that Lohse has 4 more years in his arm(assuming it's only a 2 year extension) or that Estrada is going to suddenly be able to pitch 200 innings and will continue to do so for the next 4 years.

I agree. But the obvious result of our early season approach is that teams are going to change up their approach. Gomez had an AB vs Liriano that looked just terrible right after a 4 pitch walk to Gallardo because he went up their hacking early. Hard to complain about anything Gomez has done, but if we don't see a return to the mean, we're going to end up having a really bad offense when we face smarter teams. In fact I think this Cardinals series will be a good snap shot of what we're looking at. The Cards are obviously a pretty smart organization when it comes to pitching, and I doubt given how we've hit early in the year that you're going to see many good, hittable first pitch strikes with men on in this series. And Logan, I agree it's more about how the team is constructed. But even so I still believe we'll have to see things level out.

The Boston announcers had the opposite tone. They repeatedly talked about how it was the Brewers' aggressiveness that resulted in success. Even by that point the Brewers were around 25th in MLB in walks. They are currently 27th in walks and last in the NL. Then again, last year the Brewers finished dead last (30th in MLB) in walks. So I admit that maybe it isn't a new coaching decision. Obviously I don't have any proof, but it can't be a coincidence that every hitter in the lineup has been swinging away at 0-0, 0-1, and 1-0 counts. It's easy for the coaches to tell the hitters to take pitches on those counts--which obviously isn't happening. Well, the Boston announcers are just commenting on what they're seeing, and I agreed that the Brewers have had a lot of success swinging early in counts this year. Attacking with RISP. But that doesn't mean it's coming from RR. If anything it's more a result of how the roster is constructed. But even setting that aside, I just think the Brewers have been doing a good job getting pitches early in the count, not missing them and driving in runs. If they're going to continue to be one of the better offenses, they're going to have to walk a lot more. At least in the middle of the NL(I'm not as concerned with their MLB rankings as their NL rankings). Davis, Ramirez, Braun, Segura, Weeks..all their walks are way down. Things will obviously level out a bit.

I don't really buy into the whole pitching framing thing. Of course I think some catchers are better than others, but because one season Lucroy rated the best in a new metric, I'm not going to put much weight on that. That said, he has looked better IMO defensively early this season. His release has looked quicker and his ball has been on the bag several times to nail base runners. I'm not even going to bother to look at what his CS% is this early on, and I'm not saying that just because he's looked better with the eye test early on that he's actually improved significantly, BUT, if he can become a better defensive catcher, then he may end up being the biggest bargain in the game the next couple years(one of the biggest anyway). And 4 years is a lifetime for a catcher. One thing that I've advocated in the past would be trying Lucroy at 3rd base. I think he has the athletic ability, the feet, soft hands and obviously the arm to play 3rd. Now it's anyone's guess if you combine all those qualities and they end up equaling a viable 3rd basemen, but I think that could help him have a longer career. Of course he doesn't have a big frame, so he may be the type of catcher who can stay behind the plate and catch 130 games a year for 10 years. But again, as with Gallardo, I think the Brewers would be wise to let him play out these next 4 years. Or at least let him play out the next couple years and if he's developed even more in that time, then consider extending him. But as a rule, I'm a huge fan of extending guys early on in their service time because the reward far outweighs the risk. But now you're talking about signing a guy into..what..his age 35 season? 9 more years? I agree with the poster who said that the Braun move will likely end up being a burden, but even that move was an extremely rare move with mitigating circumstances. At the time he was the golden boy, the face of the franchise, and that was likely the best bet to keep him in Milwaukee his entire career. But if that move didn't work out(or is at least one they'd like to have back at this moment) I can't imagine they'd jump into one with Lucroy. As for your idea about an extension for Carlos Gomez would make more sense at this point in time, but with Scott Boras, how much would you have to pay to extend one of the best players from the start of 2013 until now in the entire game? I would guess he'd want 7 years 130 million? I don't know, but I highly doubt the two sides could come together.

I'm all for extending guys most of the time, but Gallardo just isn't the type of guy I want to extend at this time. He's got a lot of millage on his arm, he's still got a year left after this year, and he's lost some velocity. I think for a pitcher who's not a #1 and doesn't have the upside to be a #1, I'd rather just let this year play out, pick up the option and then at that point, offer him arbitration and let him walk. I'm also not all that concerned with losing 3 of our starting pitchers in two years. A lot can happen in the meantime. We have Thornburg, Nelson and Will Smith, all of whom I believe can be really solid pitchers. Especially Thornburg at this point, the guy I had the least confidence in coming into the year given the change that he's shown this year which has been just filthy. I see no reason why Smith can't be a legit 2/3 type starter. Nelson has everything you're looking for. Peralta. We'll also have a lot of money coming off the books, so we can sign someone. I just honestly don't have a ton of confidence in Gallardo. I don't believe he's going to age particularly well if his FB velocity drops to 88-90.

I don't agree that it's clearly a strategic coaching plan. In fact in Boston, RR was still talking about the importance of being patient and taking pitches. So...I'm going to chalk this up to just a small sample size. It's really been awesome, and I don't know if the stats even back this up, but just how often they seem to be jumping on pitches early and pulling the ball in big spots. But this team doesn't have enough power to continue to win with an OBP that ranks 15th. They're going to need these guys to draw walks. Davis is SUCH a huge key to being able to continue to win games. He has to resemble the guy who hit walked 10 percent of the time(actually he was usually closer to 11-14 percent. You forget(at least I did) just how good he's been at drawing walks based on how he's looked thus far this year. He's actually looked bad to me. Like a guess hitter who hacks at everything that looks good(leaving him susceptible to sliders in particular).

I think you were always going to be disappointed if you had high hopes for Wang this season(insofar as being a "useful pitcher in the bullpen," qualifies as high hopes). I just hoped that they'd find a way to keep him on the roster, and that he'd show flashes of why they picked him up. I know this has been repeated a dozen times over, but we're talking about a guy who's pitched a total of 12 games, 11 starts, 47 innings in rookie ball. And while I don't disagree with the two games you're talking about when they had big leads late in the game, in both cases, Henderson was the one who came in, and in both cases, the Brewers scored very late adding 5 runs in the 8th and 9th in a 9-4 win and adding 4 runs late in the 10-4 win. At this point getting Henderson squared away was a bigger deal than getting Wang innings(more immediate need). So I can understand that. Absolutely. It also doesn't make much sense to me just due to the simple fact that the Brewers are rolling right now as are their starters. They've been dominant. It wouldn't make much sense to be to bring in Wang for 2 innings before you go with Peralta or Estrada. The Brewers are obviously playing over their heads right now. I don't know if they're a 90 win team or a 75 win team, but I do know they're going to have a lot more opportunities moving forward to pitch Wang.

10-2...everything has gone almost as well as it could have....Crew07, take a breath and enjoy this. I literally can't recall seeing a post in which you were just happy and didn't absolutely bash how the Brewers went about doing ANYTHING. A-Yes, the Brewers are having Wang throw side sessions. At least they had him throw A side session. B-No, I wouldn't pitch him in a close game In Boston, Philly or back at home vs the Pirates(or the opening series of the year). C-The Twins were a 69 win team and started the year out 3-8 the year they picked up Johan Santana. Totally different situation. Though I'm not sure what you mean by "even the Twins," with regard to Santana. He was a pitcher who pitched 160 innings the previous year and was slated for AA when he was picked up. Not anywhere close to where Wang is. By the way, the Twins were 2-28 in games that Santana pitched in. And yes, I genuinely DO believe that pitching one inning of Wang in these close games COULD "torpedo," a Brewers victory. I don't know what you mean by could one inning torpedo EVERY Brewers victory, but I assume you're exaggerating for affect. I'm also completely baffled as to how the Pirates are holding all the Cards regarding Wang when....the Brewers have him. He's on the Brewers 25 man. Personally, I think they definitely COULD have used him in two different games this year. I would have been comfortable using him when we won 10-4. Of course the 10-4 game was a 6-4 game through 7 and we pitched Kintzler, scored three runs and then got Henderson some work. Something of a pressing concern. And the 9-4 win we scored 5 runs in the last two innings and again got Henderson some work. So I think this is way too reactionary. So I can't point to one single game and say, "why the hell didn't they throw Wang there?" We haven't had a short start, we haven't had a game we ran away with early, or one in which we got behind big early. THINGS-ARE-GOOD. 9-2, pitching is outstanding. Our starters are going deep, our relievers look absolutely filthy so far and several of them can throw multiple innings. I'm sure they planned on getting Wang into games earlier(actually RR said as much) but our success and a string of close games combined with trying to get Henderson right has thrown a bit of a wrench into things.

Taillon wasnt going to make the majors until late summer unless a number of other pitchers all exploded quickly. If Wandy/Volquez fail they have Jeff Locke to throw in there still, Taillon wasnt going to factor in the rotation until next year, so yeah, its a blow to their rotation in the next two years, but its not catastrophic by any means. Tallion was at roughly the same place coming into this year that Cole was at last year. I won't pretend to know when he would have made the big leagues, but I do know that for a team like the Pirates, they needed either someone like Liriano to come back and replicate his huge bounce back year, or one of the top young power arms in the game to throw well and burst into the big leagues. Every year there are several young pitchers who are key to their teams playoff chances, both getting in or winning once their in. I would guess the Pirates were hoping that Tallion would dominate in AAA and be ready for a callup. Losing that....at least to my thinking is a significant blow to them.

Mark Attanasio came out and talked about the process of signing Lohse(and Garza for that matter) and how in both cases, he was the one who brought it to Melvin. It was Attanasio who wanted to sign both. In the case of Lohse, Melvin was the one who was skeptical because of the loss of a 1st round pick. Not to mention of course if you have the 1st round pick, you can't "give it away," for any signing. And I think they're a whole lot more than ONE injury away from being a 55-60 win team.

The problem with this statement is the assumption that spending that money on Garza is somehow stopping us from spending on the draft or on international FA's. They've got an agreement for 3.5 million dollars to sign one of the top international FA's, and there just isn't that much room to operate any longer with regard to the draft as the slotting process is fairly rigid. As for Nelson or Thornburg, neither are Gerrit Cole type starters. Both COULD be good starting pitchers, and they'll be given the chance to be starters for the Brewers. Matt Garza isn't standing in the way of them. Marco Estrada is more likely standing in their way. You seem to be making a lot of assumptions with regard to Garza signing that simply do not seem to be there. And if the Brewers DID have a bad 1st half, I would certainly hope they would be more willing to dump many of these players as well. Gallardo, Garza, Lohse, ARam, K-Rod, etc...but actually rooting for it? That's baffling to me as a fan. If I had to bet, I wouldn't bet this team is better than a 85 win team, but there is more than enough talent on this team and enough younger players who could really establish themselves this year(Khris Davis, Will Smith, Peralta, Gennett) that this team is close enough with the additional WC spot to at least potentially compete.

I'm willing to give them more than 6 games before I declare Henderson a "waste of a roster space," or determine that Wang won't be allowed to pitch unless it's a blowout. I'm sure they'd like to pick and choose their spots with both Henderson and Wang right now. And especially with Wang, try to get his feet wet before throwing him into any close games, though I would imagine they're going to try and limit his high leverage innings as much as possible unless he pitches better than expected throughout the year. Of course having multiple pitchers capable of starting in the BP also helps eat up innings as well. Things will work themselves out. We've played in 6 close games thus far as well. Your top relievers are always going to pitch more in those games. Plus with the days off, I have no problem with how they've used anyone thus far. I'm sure they looked at the Red Sox series as being a bigger series than your normal 3 game series the 1st week of April.

None of this has changed. They said right after opening day that RRR talked to Henderson and told him he wasn't "the closer." So we still have a defined closer and that's K-Rod. We're almost certainly going to use him the same way we've used our closers in the past. And while the save is definitely a "overglorified stat," I don't think it's ridiculous to have a set closer. We've seen time and time again that pitching the 8th and pitching the 9th are two very different things. We're nowhere near a situation where we matchup our relievers as you're advocating for on here.

I would agree, though I don't see that coming through in this decision. They're taking a guy who'd stalled out and done very little and hoping that he can become the next player to move to the mound and have some success. Are they better off just washing their hands of him at this point, or at least giving this a try?

Maybe it's as simple as us disagreeing, but as I laid out in the OP, the "now" timing would be to sell as high as possible & capitalize on the prized service time. Naturally it downgrades the positional side of the MLB club in the short term, but as is probably evident from other posts, I wouldn't manage the MLB roster/organization in the same way that Melvin & Co. do. If you're netting an elite-talent-tier SP under team control for 5+ seasons, the team could be even a bit better than it is today. To what end though? Are you going to talk to the players you're going to trade for and ask them if they'd be willing potentially to sign team friendly deals IF they have a really good year and a half? I would think that would obviously not happen. So what are you going to do then? Keep trading anyone who won't sign a Lucroy/Braun type deal(even adjusted for the money flooding MLB) this early into their careers? You're never going to get any momentum. We control him for 5 more years as it stands right now. Plenty of time to move him down the road. As for them "learning their lesson," from Prince as several have said, what lesson? They had a very good team AND they tried to trade Prince and had a very lukewarm trade market for him. So instead they kept him and made a very legitimate run at a World Series. I don't know what lesson there is to be learned there. They tried to sign him, he didn't want to, they then looked to trade him, couldn't find a worthwhile deal, added some pitching, nearly won it all. Worked out pretty well for us. And it could work out even better if Haniger and Coulter end up becoming solid big leaguers.

When have they been killed by it? Bill Hall didn't work out. Yet Ryan Braun certainly did, as did Lucroy, Gallardo. Someone else can add up what they THINK those players would have gotten if they went year to year rather than the Brewers signing them in their pre-arby years. I think Luc's 5 year 11 million dollar deal taking him to his FA year and Braun's 8 year 45 million dollar deal saved or will save the Brewers what they spent on Hall a couple times over. They've been pretty good about signing young guys to very smart, team friendly deals.

A deal like this trickles down to all levels of pay (other than the first three pre-arby years). So I do think it affects the Brewers. Younger players going to contract will say they are practically as good as him and deserve 90% of his contract, etc, etc. Which in turn will guys you want to resign and guys that are young enough to effect arby comparisons. All of which pertains to the Brewers. Really? There are going to be young playerS who are going to try and argue they're "practically," as good as Miguel Cabrera and are going to try to argue that because of this deal, even as soon as their 1st three years of arbitration they should get 90% or 27 million dollars a year? Who are these players do you think? This is a guy who's coming off 4 years with an OPS+ of 178, 179, 164(the year he won the Triple Crown by the way) and 187. I'm guessing you're in no real danger of this influx of young players who are going go try to make the argument they're basically the same as Miggy and as such should get 90 pct of his deal, just as you didn't get the same argument when Arod signed his deal or Jeter signed his 189 million dollar deal.

You sell a winning team to the fans by putting a winning team on the field. For the Brewers that means being smart with their limited resources. Ok, you also ignored the other aspects of this deal he talked about. Cabrera may very well end up being one of the top 2-3 greatest right handed hitters of all time. He could very well be closing in on 3500 hits(or more as that would be ~150 a year over the next 10) and 700+ HR's. The Tigers will make 110 million a year before they sell a single ticket, jersey or beer just from the national TV deals and their own local TV deals. So signing a player of Cabrera's caliber is more than just paying him for his on field production(which is why they were undoubtedly not interested in a 4 year extension). It's about capitalizing on all the baseball value he has left, especially in the short term, but also about capitalizing on his marketability as his career winds down. It's plausible that he could end up with the most hits in Tiger history(which obviously would be a pretty damn remarkable feat) and the HR record as he moves to DH if he is still playing reasonably well during these option years(41 and 42). There's a whole lot of money in that. So basically this is a lot more than just a baseball deal. I'm also not sure why there is so much outrage and insults being hurled towards the Tigers.

I just never heard this (34%?). I just tried searching, but couldn't find anything that talked about how much teams share from their TV contracts. So, I'm not sure where you are getting this from. I found this article from 2012 that states: "The money from each team’s local TV deal is mostly kept by the team. " http://www.letsgotribe.com/cleveland_indians_2012_2013_offseason/2012/10/31/3581100/new-mlb-tv-contracts-to-impact-salaries Money may be "pouring into MLB", but that doesn't mean that every team is reaping the same benefits. I think it means that the rich are getting richer and are driving up the prices for FAs. Even if High and Tight is correct (and I don't think he is) and that "34% of TV deals get shared in many cases". That would mean that out of the $340 million per year that the Dodgers are getting, $115 million goes to revenue sharing. Let's say that there are 25 teams that share equally in the revenue sharing money. I'm not sure if that is anywhere close to the truth, but for argument sake that means the Brewers would get about $4.6 million of that...enough to pay for K-Rod and couple of pre-arb guys. Not really what I consider a "huge chunk". Meanwhile LA still has an extra $225 million per year on their TV contract alone which I'm guessing is 8-10 times the amount of TV contracts for teams like the Brewers, Pirates, and Royals. The Dodgers were ONE singular example. The Angels, the Rangers, all these teams signing huge deals are paying about a third of it into revenue sharing that gets distributed. And it's Selig has had slow progressively increasing revenue sharing since the last CBA. The Brewers are getting a whole heck of a lot more than 4.6 million dollars from other teams local TV deals. So it may not be a huge chunk because you're making assumptions that aren't true(More than 1 team is paying in and 25 teams aren't receiving the money).

Please quote your source. You don't think perhaps you're being a little bit intellectually dishonest here? You really expect me to pour through the threads going back to the end of last season through the first couple months of the off-season and cite the NUMEROUS comments where people were talking about how our budget was in the low to mid 80's? Hell, there was literally a signature someone had where I said I thought the Brewers were capable of spending closer to 110 than 80 million in a thread in which I had this exact discussion.

I wouldn't be up in arms or anything, but I'd much rather have Gorzelanny than Duke. We'd have to get a pretty nice complimentary piece this year in return. Duke doesn't get nearly as many K's, Gorz has been much more reliable. In terms of WAR, I'm sure the difference would be negligible, but I like Gorzelanny quite a bit more than Duke. Even vs lefties Duke isn't that good. Lefties OPS vs him over his career is about .750 and was about the same last year. Gorzelanny has a .655 career OPS vs lefties, and last year it was .600.

Peralta's second half differed from his first half due to luck. His FIP in the first half was 4.32 and in the second it was 4.26. He K'd more batters but started give up a bunch more fly balls leading to home runs. ZiPs FIPs projections: Garza: 3.65 Estrada: 3.75 Gallardo: 3.75 Lohse: 4.09 Smith: 4.10 Peralta: 4.36 Given that putting Peralta in AAA can buy another year of his prime, Smith pitching allows for a left hander in the rotation, and it allows for both Thornburg and Peralta remain stretched out to come to Milwaukee when a starter goes down; Peralta in Nashville makes perfect sense. First of all, this is the second thread in a row in which we're getting pretty far ahead of ourselves in terms of controlling a player for an additional year. That was the logic for making a trade for Wang in another one(another year of team control). Peralta is 24 years old, is coming off a season in which he was pretty successful for his first full season in my opinion, and we're going to move him back down to AAA now for a completely unproven lefty that we just traded for who had an ERA around 5.48 with a 1.63 WHIP and only 6 K/9 IP. And projections don't mean a whole lot to me for older players, but they mean almost nothing to me when you're talking about a young pitcher like Peralta and a whole lot less when you're talking about a reliever who you'd be moving to starter switching leagues. That said, I like Smith a lot. And I think if history holds, he'll have an opportunity to start when Estrada or Garza goes down for a stretch.