Eye Black

It appears there is going to be a future feature on the site to propose three way trades, is that correct? Speaking of three team trade possibilities, Anthony Castrovince of MLB.com wrote a trade proposal article in which he included the below proposal for a three team trade involving the Brewers. I used your current values to grade out the perceived fairness of the trade... Milwaukee gets: RHP Trevor Bauer (39.2) Cleveland gets: OF Trey Mancini (28.9); RHP Dylan Bundy (9.3) and RHP Mychal Givens (3.0) Baltimore gets: SS Brice Turang (16.6), OF Tristen Lutz (17.4), RHP Zack Brown (3.2), C Mario Feliciano (3.5), RHP Nick Sandlin (1.2) and SS Marcos Gonzalez (0.6) Using those current values: - The Brewers would give up 40.7 in value and receive 39.2 in return. - The Indians would give up 41.0 in value and receive 41.2 in return. - The Orioles would give up 41.2 in value and receive 42.5 in return. It looks like Castrovince actually came up with a fairly even trade proposal in terms of value according to your site.

Thanks for your willingness to join the discussion and answer questions about your website. A couple of things I’ve wondered: 1) I know beyond considerations regarding player ability, salary, and years of control you also take into account things such as options remaining and other potential roster management elements (i.e. likely rule 5 protection) that can affect a player’s value. What have been the most difficult player attributes to quantify in terms of value? 2) Have you received any indication of front office members being aware of your site? I’m sure some are, but curious if you’ve received feedback from any of them up to this point?

IMO, the single biggest determining factor on whether the Brewers compete for a championship over the next three years will be their ability to internally develop impact starting pitching. They aren’t in a position to sign a top of the free agent market type starting pitcher such as Gerrit Cole. They don’t appear to have the type of young assets needed to acquire an impact starter under control for multiple years. Relying on reclamation projects can help fill out a rotation, but isn’t likely to yield a top of the rotation type unless you get fairly lucky. Hopefully Woodruff continues to take steps forward, but the reality is they likely need a couple more of the young pitchers in the system to become reliable mid-to-top of the rotation types.

Adrian Houser: Batter (Braves) vs Pitching Stats Max Fried: Batter (Brewers) vs Pitching Stats

Taking another look at the list of July trades the Brewers have made with Stearns at the helm makes me think they prefer to make significant moves in the off-season (i.e. prior to season) and are more apathetic to trading in-season. I know they’ve been in the mix for guys like Jose Quintana and Manny Machado, but they really haven’t executed any headline stealing type moves in July. I know those moves are difficult to come by (and in the case of Quintana I’m glad they didn’t make a deal), so maybe it’s more related to an unwillingness to overpay when bidding against other contenders. Back in 2017 they were leading the division by 5.5 games on July 15th and they made no substantial moves other than adding some relievers for cheap. I don’t know if there have been enough seasons under Stearns at this point to say it’s definitely a trend, but it will at least add to my surprise if they make some significant move this season. One thing I’ve never been able to really make up my mind on is whether I believe adding a significant piece in July offers any type of emotional boost in the locker room. You hear players allude to it at times saying something along the lines of the front office believing in them or being committed to trying to win. Just today, the head of the Rays front office, Chaim Bloom, said “what we think of this group and the way they’ve played so far it certainly motivates us to want to help them out however we can.” It was interesting to hear him say that because historically the Rays aren’t a team making big deadline deals to acquire win now players. I am not trying to be critical of the Brewers front office when I say this, but I do wonder if there are times when you can be too cautious with sticking strictly to your internal valuations. Overall, risk aversion for a small market team is probably an important attribute to practice if you hope to sustain longer term success. That being said I think there may be times when you have to compromise those ideals for the present day.

Obviously most teams that are going to be buying haven’t made their moves yet. As they continue to play below .500 baseball it is hard to believe they will be in on any of the pricier half season rental type players at this point. Barring a total collapse of losing something like 10 of the next 14, I think they’ll make a very minor move or two. If they do add anyone of significance it will likely be a player under control beyond this year, but I agree it doesn’t seem overly likely a big splash is on the horizon right now.

Me tuning into to watch Brewers baseball every day with high hopes...

If the strike zone mirrored a dart board, Burnes would be hitting the bullseye with regularity.

Two of the three hits against Burnes on 0-2 pitches.

Per Joel Goldberg: Homer Bailey has been traded to Oakland for Kevin Merrell, a left handed hitting infielder in the minors. Merrell will report to AA Northwest Arkansas. Will not be added to Royals 40 man. Merrell was a first round draft pick of the A’s in 2017. Merrell was a first round selection of the A’s in 2017. Homer Bailey was obviously also a 1st round selection way back in 2004. Per the Baseball Trade Value website they had each player with the following value: Homer Bailey = 1.5 Kevin Merrell = 1.4

On Grandal’s HBP to the foot he ran nearly to the dugout on his way to first base as he presumably tried to run off the pain. I wonder what’s the craziest route a player could take without the opposing team complaining they didn’t use the base path to get to first base.

Here is the article Adam McCalvy wrote on the stance adjustment, Inspired by Bellinger, Braun reworks stance

Jhoulys Chacín: Batter (Giants) vs Pitching Stats

The Orioles were in the playoffs as recently as 2016 and played in the ALCS within the past five years (2014). They also appeared in the playoffs in 2012. One of my fears is that this current Brewers core ends up a blip on the radar that nobody remembers having success similar to how it seems many people view the Orioles despite a good run. I think a lot of casual baseball fans would get this trivia question wrong... Which of the following teams hasn’t played in a league championship series over the past decade: the Brewers, Orioles, or Nationals?

The founder of the Baseball Trade Values site, John Bitzer, has joined our forum to answer additional questions regarding his site in this location, Baseball Trade Values Q&A Thread.

Lots of national writers were speculating about the possibility of a trade, but according to Jon Heyman...

We can use this thread to post and speculate about on-going hug watches leading up to the 2019 trade deadline. The biggest hug watch at the moment is Ken Giles who didn’t come in for the Blue Jays to close in the 9th inning of a 2-0 game with the Yankees (and then 2-1 with runners at the corners) today.

The Rays and Rangers just completed a one-for-one trade... The Rays traded away INF/OF Nick Solak who was the #93 overall ranked prospect according to FanGraphs and in return received right-handed relief pitcher Peter Fairbanks from the Rangers. The value attributed to each on the Baseball Trade Value site is as follows... 2B Nick Solak - 6.4 RHRP Peter Fairbanks - 5.7 So fairly close value according to the website.

I just don’t think fire sale is the right term for what the Brewers would be trying to accomplish by selling. The idea of a “Baseball Fire Sale” is to trade players away for the mere sake of salary relief more so than any sort of valuable return. It’s a financial reset of sorts where you start over with younger, cheaper players. I don’t think the Brewers primary motivation would be to shed expensive contracts, I think they would be looking to receive some value from players that aren’t likely to be part of their plan in 2020. Like we’ve both stated, the Brewers are several losses away yet from the idea of selling becoming a reality.

I would add the Padres and the Angels to the mix of teams that could use a short-term offensive upgrade at the catching position.

Going into yesterday’s game I felt good about the fact that Chase Anderson had very good career marks versus the current Giants batters (has held them to a .612 OPS). Today is sort of the opposite as Zach Davies has struggled somewhat against these same Giants hitters (.840 OPS), albeit in just under 50 total plate appearances (so not a great sample). On the other side of the coin, Madison Bumgarner has a .666 OPS against the current Brewers hitters (131 plate appearances). That number seems fitting for Bumgarner.

Zach Davies: Batter (Giants) vs Pitching Stats Madison Bumgarner: Batter (Brewers) vs Pitching Stats

You bring up a point that I've been considering for weeks now, "suspicious of his influence on a pitching staff". As much as the loss of Derek Johnson has been discussed as the cause of the underwhelming performance of the majority of the pitching staff, I have wondered if Grandal could be part of the problem with the staff? There has been an underlying theory following Grandal for a while that pitchers don’t like throwing to him. As far back as five years ago in San Diego there were three starting pitchers that wouldn’t (or at least didn’t) throw to him in Tyson Ross, Andrew Cashner and Ian Kennedy. However, after he went to the Dodgers, Zack Greinke said the following about Grandal: Then last year the Dodgers obviously benched him in the playoffs, but that was seemingly due to the defensive issues and not a mismanagement of the pitching staff. I haven’t really heard much out of the Brewers pitchers this year one way or another. I still side with the idea that the Brewers pitchers struggles aren’t directly attributed to Grandal in anyway, but I’m open to being proven wrong. It would certainly be fascinating to get a candid answer to that question from those within the pitching staff (something we won’t likely ever get).

Trading players on expiring contracts like Grandal (and Moustakas) isn’t a fire sale. They have just 16 games remaining in July. I agree that they would need to lose a lot more games (probably at least 10+), but I don’t think 10 games out would be the parameter for selling. If they end up greater than 6.0 games out of both the division and wild card with several teams between them and the playoff position, then I would be disappointed if they didn’t engage in the concept of selling. I’ve brought it up before in the sell thread (link), but the 2016 Yankees are a good example of an average team that used a few trades at the deadline to improve their future outlook.