Eye Black

So give us a list of these 3B. Who are the most likely candidates? There is a whole thread dedicated to third base options, Link. Scroll through those three pages and you will come across several trade candidates.

Smoak is projected for a .342 wOBA. He had a .371 wOBA in 637 PA two years ago. His numbers will go up because we have the luxury of soft platooning him with Braun. Not sure what you consider an above average bat? I think Stearns's roster construction is brilliant. All we need now is to trade Arcia and find a quality 3B (in a dream would Donaldson) for in all honest the deepest positional roster in recent memory. Yeah, let me walk my comment back a little as I think I overstated it. I get that they are improving in the margins, and that isn't a bad thing. I don't necessarily think the the current path of the roster construction is poor, but it now seems somewhat contingent on adding a quality every day third baseman. In my opinion, this article's findings ring more true than ever, Where Would The Top MLB Free Agents Make The Biggest Difference?. The lineup with one more hitter that they can confidently insert into the #3 spot in the order would change the complexion of the rest of these moves for me.

With each of the recent moves the overall roster construction seems less appealing to me. I have been holding out hope that an above average bat was going to be added to one of the corner infield spots. This move makes that appear less likely to occur at 1B now, so it's seemingly now down to what else they do at 3B.

It’s not $8-$9 million per WAR, and it’s not linear anymore. Eno Sarris just did a pretty good article earlier this month analyzing that for The Athletic, What all those non-tenders can tell us about how players are being valued The spoiler is 1 WAR is currently valued much closer to $5 million, and no longer applies to just free agency (i.e. the reason for a significant increase in players being non-tendered). They also showed that teams are indeed now willing to pay more “per WAR” for a player expected to be >3.0 WAR than a 1 or 2 WAR player. Here is some of the article text... This year, a whopping 40 players were non-tendered at the deadline, nearly equal to the 46 who were non-tendered in the two previous years combined. Fan favorites like Kevin Pillar, everyday players due less than $5 million like Domingo Santana, and even above-average players like César Hernández all found themselves without a contract. Using the accepted relationship between production and salary, many of those players should have been retained. By looking at free-agent contracts and projected value, a win above replacement is supposed to cost around $8 million in today’s market. Hernández, for example, is projected to be a league-average player, worth around $16 million, and his arbitration-awarded salary was projected to be around $12 million. And yet … he’s a free agent. Something seems off on the accepted framework. One suggestion has been that the relationship between what a team is willing to pay for a player and that player’s value is not linear. In other words, teams won’t pay the same per win for an average player as they would for a five-win player. That makes some sense: There are only 26 roster slots, and there are way fewer five-win players than two-win players. Theoretically, at least, teams would want to jam as many five-win guys on their roster before picking in the larger bin of average players. There are nearly half as many five-win players as two-win players, so why wouldn’t a team pay more for the five-win player even when you look at per win dollars? Sure — but that non-linear effect has not traditionally been seen in the market. Maybe the market is changing, though. Here’s how the dollars per win broke down for position players by three buckets last season. [pre]Proj WAR/YR $/WAR 0.5-1.9 4.69 2-2.9 4.97 3.0+ 5.24[/pre] Teams paid a little more per win for players like Bryce Harper and Manny Machado than they did for Asdrúbal Cabrera and Jonathan Lucroy. But not a lot more. You’d round those to $5 million per win. Wait, that’s an interesting number. It’s way less than $8 million per win. Mostly, that’s because relievers aren’t projected for large WARs and yet get decent contracts, which inflates the overall cost per win. Maybe that means WAR is broken for relievers, or maybe it just means that teams are willing to pay more on shorter deals for that reliever who might be the final piece. Either way, take relievers out, and dollars-to-WAR figure plummets. There is plenty more to the article to support their findings, but this Jonathan Judge tweet included in the story sort of sums it up...

I obviously hope it works out, but I can’t help think this signing reminds me of the Cubs signing of Daniel Descalso last season coming off one of his best seasons. That worked out very poorly for them, hopefully this move proves very dissimilar.

To be fair, I don’t think a lot of baseball writers were spending time chasing Eric Sogard rumors.

He is the type of hitter that thrived with the juiced ball (Lemaheiu, La Stella, McNeil). A guy that previously hit the ball hard to all fields but didn't have the power to routinely get it over the fence. With the juiced ball, some of those went over the fence and many more of them hit the gap because it's harder to shift with guys hitting the ball hard with the entire field in play. Entering last season Eric Sogard had hit 11 career home runs in the major leagues (debuted in 2010). Last season Eric Sogard hit 13 home runs in 396 at bats. Who would have ever guessed a reduction in the seam height of less than the width of a human hair could make Eric Sogard a "power" hitter? Yet here we are... Incredible.

More potential 3B trade options... Johan Camargo (Braves): Switch hitting 3B that currently projects to be on the Braves bench after the emergence of Austin Riley. Injured last year and had a down performance, but put up a 115 OPS+ and was nearly a 4-win player as a 24 year old in 2018. Also good defensively. Has played every spot on the infield as well as the corner outfield. Good bounce back candidate if healthy. Hunter Dozier (Royals): He projects to be around an .800 OPS hitter. He’s not great defensively. David Fletcher (Angels): Very good defensively. Was bounced from 3B by the Rendon signing. Might move over to 2B for the Angels if they prefer his youth over Tommy La Stella. Tommy La Stella (Angels): Left handed batter that had a 119 OPS+ last season. Played 30 games at 3B in 2019. See above note regarding David Fletcher. Miguel Sanó (Twins): I doubt he gets traded, but there continue to be rumblings that the Twins are in on Donaldson and would either move Sano to 1B or entertain offers.

I know for many posters there is an initial reaction to scoff at others that are presenting proposals/ideas/reasoning/opinion that we don't agree with, or in some cases think should be "common sense" in baseball terms. Instead of deriding or mocking their stance it would be helpful if more often we focused on moving the conversation forward by sharing our own stances from a variety of different related angles. For instance here is a hypothetical example of how it can be done... [Reads Proposal] Internal Dialogue: That's such a silly proposal. Public Messaging: I don't think it is realistic in this instance because I think ______ has more/less (circle one) value based on ______. I do/don't (circle one) think the player mentioned would be a good trade target because ______. I think a more feasible proposal to acquire him would be trading players along the lines of ______ and ______.

I think a deal with the Pirates for Josh Bell could make some sense, but I do not believe they will trade him unless someone overwhelms them with a good offer (especially a division rival). Regarding Josh Bell’s low value (9.7) on the Baseball Trade Values site, founder John Bitzer (who posts here occasionally) had this to say about their value assigned to him: I don’t disagree with John that all of those things are true, but I do think Bell is going to continue to be a good offensive player (even by 1B standards) entering his age 27 season and the Pirates are smart enough to know if he replicates last season his value will skyrocket. He is on a team that has seemingly bungled some recent trades and now has a new GM that will likely be cautious in dealing away the teams top players. I think the Brewers would have to “overpay” to get Bell, and I don't think the Lutz’s of the world would be needle movers for them. In order to be serious about an offer the Brewers may have to include one of their last two top draft picks (Turang or Small) as well as at least one other quality prospect or MLB ready arm. The Pirates are said to be in the market for young catchers or catching prospects, so Feliciano may make some sense for them. It is possible someone like Freddy Peralta may also suit their fancy, but in that case the Brewers would have to decide if they would be willing to give up on his talent to add someone like Bell. Ultimately, I think there could be potential to get a deal done with a package that included Mario Feliciano along with at least one of the following players: Freddy Peralta, Corbin Burnes, Ethan Small, Brice Turang.

Part of Wade Miley’s “better stuff” is the fact he went from throwing predominantly four seam fastballs and sinkers as his primary pitches to throwing a cutter nearly 50% of the time after he joined the Brewers. It was a pitch he had just started throwing sparingly during his final season with the Orioles in 2017. He threw the cutter on just 11.5% of his pitches that year. For the first time in his career Brett Anderson started throwing a cutter last season, but at just a 13.8% clip overall. Something tells me we are going to see a lot more cutter usage from Brett Anderson next season. We can try to glean something from Anderson’s past stats, but I have a feeling the pitch usage within his overall repertoire will look different next season.

I really like Jeff Sullivan (formerly a great writer/personality for FanGraphs) and he now works in an MLB front office now (Rays). He used to write draft pick recaps for SB Nation, and he did not nail his Yelich profile in 2010...

Wade Miley tied for 10th highest ground ball rate (49.7%) among all qualified starters last year. The Reds already had two other starters in the top 10 last season, Sonny Gray (7th / 50.8%) and Luis Castillo (2nd / 55.2%).

This should go well...

Just catching up, so sorry if this was posted already. Steamer projects Garcia’s 2020 stat line as... [pre]G PA HR R RBI SB BB% K% ISO BABIP AVG OBP SLG wOBA wRC+ BsR Off Def WAR 131 559 23 68 77 7 6.4 % 23.4 % .191 .323 .273 .327 .464 .331 104 -0.8 2.4 -9.3 1.2[/pre] I am hopeful he can be a little bit better than that Steamer projection, especially defensively.

I’d be ecstatic if the Brewers signed Donaldson, but I just can’t bring myself to start dreaming about it actually coming to fruition. I think there is a lot better chance the Brewers try to find the next Josh Donaldson via trade than there is they pay a $25+ million AAV for four years of Donaldson himself. Random side note, it’s sort of crazy that Donaldson didn’t get meaningful MLB experience until he was 26 years old, and didn’t play a full season until age 27.

If they trade Robbie Ray I think they will definitely require MLB ready pieces in return. With the benefit of hindsight it appears they did well last year by trading Goldschmidt's expiring contract for Carson Kelly and Luke Weaver (forgetting the third piece they received). I could see them similarly using Robbie Ray to acquire younger MLB players with years of control.

[sarcasm]Well Josh Donaldson did ask Yelich for hitting advice this off-season.[/sarcasm]

In hindsight Urshela probably doesn’t belong on the list. Miguel Andujar, and possibly Luke Voit, probably have a better chance of being dealt than Urshela. If the Brewers were willing to deal from the top of their farm system (probably 2-3 of Turang, Lutz, Small, Feliciano, Garcia, Ray) I do think they could put together an enticing enough package to get Mancini or Bell. Bell is now arbitration eligible and his defense eats up some of his offensive value, I won’t be shocked by any means if the Pirates move him this off-season for a good, but not great return.

This is the quintessential article that stands out in my mind regarding Doug Melvin complaining about that very thing...

I’m surprised they DFA’d Freeman, he seemed like a useful enough player (appears he was solid both offensively and defensively) especially with rosters expanding to 26. They must not believe in the talent despite a solid showing at the MLB level last year (albeit a tiny sample of just 217 plate appearances).

I know the site isn’t everyone’s cup of tea (although I like it), but Baseball Trade Values posted a good synopsis just a couple of days ago on why Kluber’s value was so low on their site, Why is Corey Kluber’s value so low on this site? It brings up some fair points. The Indians seemingly never sell low on their players, so either they really like the players returning to them or they know Kluber is likely to be a shell of his former self moving forward. If neither of those things is the case than I don’t understand why they wouldn’t have hung on to him to see if he could rebuild some value during 2020 and potentially trade him to upgrade their team at mid-season (similar to the Bauer trade). I am sort of curious what our resident Indians fan, MadThinker88, thinks of the trade?

The trade market for corner infielders could include (among others)... Josh Bell Carlos Santana Trey Mancini Justin Turner Kyle Seager Yuli Gurriel Miguel Sano Hunter Dozier Giovanny Urshela J.D. Davis Dom Smith Kris Bryant (yes, I know he isn’t going to the Brewers)

+100000000 this thread can be closed down now, along with any other thread. You know why so many feel that way?? Because they get those players on a "good deal". That's all that matters to them. Even if the #'s for that player(after they acquire them) are crap...it's "well at least it didn't cost them much". It's all about the $$ and the value to most. Production be damned! I’ll give the two of you credit, you’ve motivated me to root for the Brett Anderson’s of the world beyond what I ever thought was possible. BCin07, the thing I think you’re missing (aside from an understanding of how to use the quote feature) is the off-season should be judged in its totality versus a reactionary meltdown about finances for every move the Brewers do or don’t make. If we get to the end of the off-season and the Brewers have a sub-$100 million payroll and they have only added role players, then by all means lets have a discussion about how disappointed we are at the outcome and the direction of the team during Yelich’s remaining three seasons. To date the Brewers under Stearns have been more aggressive on the trade market than they have been in free agency. They still have a couple of months to make meaningful trades before the season starts. Stearns even indicated as recent as five days ago that they have had many trade discussions (and believe they have many options). Lets see where those discussions lead before we declare it a failed off-season, a stingy owner, and a front office that isn’t motivated to build a championship contender. If Avisail Garcia is the biggest remaining addition on this roster during the off-season then we will both be frustrated come March. Until then lets access the various remaining possibilities and hope that additional moves are coming that will make more sense of the frugal free agent signings to date, and that will help fill out an NL Central contending roster for 2020.

I’m going to predict that Robbie Ray gets traded this off-season. As the Diamondbacks showed with the Goldschmidt trade, they want to net something for their players on expiring contracts while trying to replenish the MLB team with talent.