xisxisxis

I think it's a good practice to have in place standard criteria for evaluating players and contracts (especially for a team like the Brewers where 1 bad contract can really be a toxic event). However, it's also important to recognize how a player might be different. I use the term "mid-level" in reference to Grandal, but he really has performed at an elite level for awhile (>5WAR catchers are rare). I like that we've added a player like Narvaez, but there are valid reasons to believe he may not come close to Grandal's numbers, especially when including defense. I understand the Brewers downgrading pitch framing for upcoming changes, but I also think they are jumping the gun on the timeline for "robot" strike zones. Baseball moves slowly on even the most obvious changes that expecting a revolution like this to just fly through is a bit optimistic. I actually would have been really happy with signing Grandal AND trading for Narvaez with Grandal as the primary catcher, but taking on more 1B/DH work over the years to reduce strain. That's my 2cents and obviously Stearns is going to use that money for other positions (if he does use it), but I doubt they get the same value from those other signings/moves. And once again we are +4 years into the Stearns era and we need to see more value coming from the Farm System to really have a case where we have the payroll flexibility to go all out to pick up a missing piece through FA.

Unfortunately the current Brewerfan is criticizing = griping. And of course another thread with condescending posts by mods reminding us of the date. Thanks, if I only knew how to read a calendar I would be so much happier... This offseason is different from the last 2: 1) there is very little midl-evel talent to be had. 2) more FA are signing early and especially in the mid category where the Moustakasis and the Grandals of the world reside. There aren't going to be "deals" to be had in mid-January and after. Osuna and Castellanos are going to get head scratching deals when they finally sign as each previous signing makes the sellers market even better... Having said that, my only real complaints so far this offseason is them walking away from Grandal at the price he was signed for. You don't get 4WAR players for $18M AAV often and declining Thames thinking they will get him cheaper when they very well could pay more for similar production.

This could be the deal that makes Briggs a Cubs fan...

There's a clearance rack at Walmart? I thought everything at Walmart was clearance...

If the options are Braun at third, trading for Kyle Seager (and not getting any big prospects like Sheffield or Dunn because the Mariners are allowed to pick up the salary), or trying to get in on Donaldson... Maybe Braun is the right call. If you need late-inning defense, Arcia comes in at short, Urias slides to third. trolling again? I thought from the beginning that clancy was a response bot that Brian created and let loose... Nothing I've seen since has changed my mind...

Attention to detail is such a boomerism... If you put in Chase Anderson and Brent Suter it ruins the whole premise of the post...

Why do they need a "top of the league rotation". If there's anything *we* should have learned about baseball is that there is no single winning formula to win a world series. Each team is unique in how they combine different aspects of the team together to win a world series. Two teams from the last 5 world series have won with WORSE starting pitching that the Brewers had in 2018 and 2019. TWO! It's possible using the current approach to make it to the World Series and to win. Yes, the Brewers need to do much better developing their own talent across the board. One of my few gripes with Stearns is that he took to long to clean out the ineffective player development/scouting. Will he put the right people in place? Who knows, but there really isn't much downside movement that is possible so chances are they will do better.

MadBum has a ~.830 OPS against the last 2 years away from the best pitchers park in the majors. It would be stupid for Stearns to give away an $850M contract when you can get that level of production from 50% of the 1 year signees. It's not that they shouldn't spend the money ever, it's that they shouldn't spend it on a player who isn't worth it.

if he has a full no-trade deal then this is the best xmas present ever...

I'll repeat a post from a different thread: The 2019 Milwaukee Brewers had a starter fWAR of 8.7 The 2018 Milwaukee Brewers had a starter fWAR of 8.7 Both teams played in the post-season. Two World Series winners from recent past had lower starter's fWAR: KC Royals (8.6 in 2015) and SF Giants (8.5 in 2014) It should be clear right now what David Stearn's idea of an optimal starting rotation will look like.

Both of those pitchers were miles and miles worse than Anderson last year. Their upside is also much, much greater. Like I said, we will see. Hope I'm wrong. Based on what? There's a camp of Gausman supporters that have been consistently disappointed. Gausman is going to the best pitcher park in the majors so he can hide his deficiencies when he goes into FA next year. Nelson is pretty much toast. He might be able to be successful as a RP, but very very few pitchers who have their shoulder reconstructed ever make it back to close what they were before. "Much, Much" greater upside just isn't clear to me.

He's our Gio replacement as Gio's pricetag is very likely out of our range given the current market. Can't believe Brett is just 31 as it seems like he's been around forever. Still waiting for a 3B and 1B, but the pitching market seems to be heating up more than batters so I can see Stearns making sure he isn't shut out of SP options.

The 2019 Milwaukee Brewers had a starter fWAR of 8.7 The 2018 Milwaukee Brewers had a starter fWAR of 8.7 Both Teams played in the post-season. Two World Series winners from recent past had lower starter's fWAR: KC Royals (8.6 in 2015) and SF Giants (8.5 in 2014) It should be clear right now what David Stearn's idea of an optimal starting rotation will look like. This signing is great as it fit's in with his overall strategy of finding value and provides a cost controlled piece that either slots into a rotation spot or is another of the starter turned RP that have been very successful for the Brewers the last 2 years. In a world where Tanner Roark can get a $24M contract, this is a steal, steal, steal, steal, steal...

That's why Lyles will get 2/$16M and Strasbourg will get over $100M. They aren't equivalent. If you look at production and say Lyles gives you 2WAR over that $16M and Strasbourg give you 12WAR/$100M then you are pretty equivalent in return. The difference is for that $100M commitment you have 2 times the chance that a career ending injury occurs before he gets to 12WAR or his injury past continues and he only hits 8 WAR. Then you just lost a lot of money.

GMs don't do everything, especially rank low-level prospects in a team in a different league 2000 miles away. They rely on scouts and talent evaluators on their team to assist when making moves. I would bet $1000 that Stearns didn't even know Freddy Peralta's name at the time he was discussing options with Seattle. That doesn't mean I don't respect the job Stearns does, but blindly assigning all success to him is just plain wrong. And the guys who were advising him on prospects during the Lind negotiations probably were fired when the Brewers cleaned house earlier this year on the scouting side. So that didn't save their jobs. As others have said, it was easy for Stearns to walk away from what the Rangers were offering if he wasn't willing to give the same money to Chase Anderson. This offseason is going to be different as the free agent market is weak in the mid-level talent and loaded with meh talent. Teams are aggressively going after the mid-level to low-level talent as there aren't a lot of options and soon we'll be looking at very bad options across the board. As things are going the odds of a Hader trade are going up. edit: Stearns may have heard of Peralta while with the Astros in his capacity there, but that might only change my bet to $500.

Troll...

Size wasn't a factor in any as even the largest (close to 50% of Brewers revenues) had very fluid financial management. The biggest factor is how the "partnership" was created initially and the "power" that the managing partner has and how the partners can change/influence the managing partner. I don't know the Brewers structure, but I would be shocked if Attanasio didn't set up everything where he pretty much has free reign to do what he wants. If the structure is in place and clearly detailed in the partnership agreement you can easily neuter the secondary partners and have legal backup for the neutering. With respect to spending, there's quite a difference in viewpoint even among those who advocate the Brewers can and should spend more. I wouldn't advocate that the Brewers go after top tier free agents as it just isn't a winning formula for a small market team and it really is an overpay for the return. I really think they made a mistake last year not going after Miley and Gio prior to them signing with other teams. Going into the season with 3 rookies and no plan B was a recipe for disaster. For about $12M they could have signed both and they would have been watching the Cardinals face the Nationals in the Play-in-game preparing to face the Braves in the playoffs. The Brewers got lucky that the Yankees cut Gio otherwise last year they wouldn't have even seen the play-in-game. That $12M investment would have been recouped easily by the playoff payouts/revenues. I think that's worth the risk of maybe only breaking even instead of pulling in $15M in profit. Even if it risks they would lose money, they have made plenty in previous years when payroll was low. And while the market size is important to overall revenues the Brewers were #2 in 2018 in dollars of revenue per fan. Only the SF Giants made more revenue per fan. The Brewers were #2 in all of baseball with $111 per fan (data from wtmj.com article that used Forbes data), beating out every other larger market except 1. The fans of the Brewers have already shown they will support the team as if it's won multiple world series in the last decade, it would be nice if the owners took a hit in their pocketbooks for a few seasons to get ONE...

You may have missed the McCourt ownership years, but spending did not keep the Dodgers on top every year. Sure it helps. I don't know where it doesn't at least help, but when you have bad/stupid people at the top even money can't overcome that handicap.

Except that you're wrong. I have been a consultant for several private companies/partnerships and for every one of them there is little separation of personal and company finances. One competitor to a client had a perfect separation where all debt was in the company and all assets were in their private accounts. In a publicly traded company there are rules. In private ownership it's the wild west where almost anything goes. What's really interesting/funny about this discussion is that the one thing at Brewerfan that would command a clear consencus is that David Stearns is a very smart, good GM, who has been very successful creating winning teams with limited resources. Yet most people against spending money quote statistics based on your average GM and their success with more money. If there ever was a GM who could use that extra budget successfully it would be David Stearns. Not every decision he makes works perfectly, but he is the one of the few GMs in baseball who would be successful with maximizing that extra money. But let's just ignore that and quote statistics loaded with decisions by a huge excess of not so bright GMs.

Did Haudricourt detail how he came to that conclusion? 1) The Brewers are a private entity and they don't have to report any financial details to anyone except the IRS; 2) There are thousands of ways for a entity to claim a paper loss while making a "profit" so if the info is being passed on by the Brewers, it isn't worth the storage space on a hard drive, which by my calculation is $0.00000002

Yes, by definition trades are even. The argument is how each side values what they traded and what they received (or what fan's in general perceive). While the "Trade Values" site is "nice" almost all of the data on value is subjective.

It is very team dependent. If you are the Cardinals or Dodgers, who've been great at draft and develop that pick has a lot more value than to the Brewers. I give credit to Stearns for realizing the value to the Brewers is much lower than the perceived value others view for that pick and to leverage it to get MLB caliber players. If one day the Brewers actually can hire competent people for their draft and develop pipeline, their will likely be a different view of the value of the early picks. Basically if you are so bad at using the 71st pick then it has much more value to trade to another team that values that pick because they can get value out of it.

Maybe 2015 was his "Arcia Year" (adjective - when a player has a year that is inconsistent with his previous and past performance that leads GMs to give said player numerous chances to reclaim their Arcia Year performance, but ultimately fail. sometimes confused with "career year", however, "career year" implies that the player had a successful career, "Arcia year" does not.)

What GM's crap doesn't stink? Would you rate every single move Stearns has made as a winner? In my opinion he had a pretty crappy year from the end of 2018 thru most of 2019 and I still think he's very good, but he has and will continue to make mistakes. I'm no Preller fan, but the Padres have one of the top rated farm sytems because they were able to identify good prospects when they sold off any asset during their rebuild. Sure the Hosmer contract will go down as a really bad deal, but sometimes when you have money to spend and there isn't much left to buy a GM will waste the money. Heck, was anyone going past 7 years for Bryce Harper? The Phillies believed they had to go to 10 even though the market was terrible. Money to burn sometimes leads to money wasted. It will be very interesting to see how Stearns uses the $40M saved so far in a free agent market that is pretty much crap (I don't recall as bad a free agent crop in a long time). In fact, Thames is one of the best low-cost assets in FA and we just released him for nothing.

Pablo Sandoval. Was pretty useless for next 3 years after his "collapse" (3.2 fWAR to -1.2 fWAR, followed by -0.2, -0.8, 0.1). The Brewers were able to get Shaw so cheaply because he had a "down" year in 2016 (down being 1.3 fWAR in 530 PA) and the Red Sox wanted more consistent production for a team with WS aspirations. He'll be 30 YO next year. Will they non-tender him? I doubt it as they can always cut bait in spring training with minimal $ damage (~$800K at that point) if they aren't convinced he will be productive in 2020.