mrn1ceguy

Unbelievably, that's more than they got for Scooter. Well, they got basically $2.5M for scooter by not paying his salary. Take out the minimum salary rate of his replacement, and the brewers in essence got ~$2M for Scooter. So no, they got more for Scooter by getting the Reds to take on his contract. Had he gone unclaimed and we had to pay his salary while he played somewhere, then your statement would have been correct.

I know he is young yet, but I would risk losing Nottingham and protect elsewhere. Either a team is going to have to keep him as their 3rd catcher or play him more than you want as the 2nd catcher - don't see either happening. It isn't like he is finishing strong at AA either, his July and August have been bad. This is assuming that his defense would be in the bottom 25% in the majors - am I right? As for depth, we have four catchers on the 40 man already, and I don't see us dropping one off for next year - unless they feel after he came back Susac did not show enough. I assume Espino, Torres will be off the 40. I don't have any idea where they stand on injuries for Houser and T.Williams - I assume that opens up at least one spot. A 2B will be gone for an opening. I only see Garza traded if we pick up a free agent - so a wash on the 40 man. Figure they resign Swarzak or sign a different Free Agent bullpen guy so a wash. Probably trade an OF, but also probably for someone that will need 40 man protection so a wash. So Dubon, Peralta, and Wilkerson would be the for sure protects, and that may be it, especially if Stearns goes with 39 to see who isn't protected. I would say regardless of whether they add Nottingham to the 40, I see Susac being DFA. His showing this year in AAA & MLB has been quite poor. With having both Vogt and Bandy as backups and Susac out of options, I see the likelihood of Susac being let go is very high. Also, if we can get value for Vogt or Bandy, I could see dealing one of them, adding Nottingham and putting a catcher with mlb experience on a minor league contract in AAA. As to the players currently of the 40, Houser hasn't done anything this year (I don't think) but T. Williams has had a good year in AA so he will definitely stick. I see a strong chance that Garza and Jungmann (and maybe Guerra) are moved in a trade (for something) unless we make a big trade involving Nelson or Anderson. Other people who I think will be gone by FA or released are Torres, Drake, Walker, Sogard, Espino, Hughes, Swarzak (might re-sign) and maybe Jeffress. Also the chance Jorge Lopez, Houser, Yadiel Rivera and Tyler Webb are DFA with the hopes of getting them on a minor league contract. When you add in removing some catchers and maybe trading Broxton (or a different OF), we have a lot of room to protect anyone they want to.

I would prefer Phillips as well, but they must not think he's quite ready despite tearing up AAA recently. If Villar stays hot and plays serviceable D, that will only add to his value as well. I to would love Phillips but I guess its more a issue with balancing the 25 man roster. They don't have any optionable position players and have a full 5 man bench (Villar, Sogard, Aguilar, Perez, Susac). Unless we want to release Sogard (or someone else) or go with a shorter bullpen (also means releasing someone), we don't have a way to bring up Phillips until September. Not to mention there are several pitchers in AAA that will shortly lose their option and will probably be brought up soon (Guerra, Wang, Webb?, Blazek?), roster management the next 2 weeks will be tricky to balance all these needs.

Nope, because I still believe we have as strong a playoff caliber team as we did back in May and June, now with one better bullpen piece. I confident we can string together good starts for the rest of the season (and playoffs) with Nelson, Anderson, Davies, Suter, Garza, Woodruff (if needed). The bullpen has enough talent to be solid between Knebel, Swarzak, Hader, Barnes, Hughes with possible positive contributions from Wang, Jeffress, Drake, Web Jungmann. It's all up to the position players to start hitting again. If they get back to the way they were, we have a playoff caliber team. Adding Gray or Darvish or Quintana doesn't drastically change the starting group (assuming no regression). Adding Wilson or Hand, while nice and something I would have liked, is not essential. Getting Granderson and/or Kinsler would have helped solidy our weakest two spots but pales in comparison to getting all the position players to score the runs they are capable of. If Braun/Shaw/Santana/Thames/Aguilar/Pina/Arcia hit like they had in our stretches of good baseball in June/July, we are playoff bound with the team we have.

Why is pitching Garza making it a throw-away game? Espino I would agree but I saw somewhere on the boards that Garza has been something like the 26th most effective starter in MLB this year. I'd be very happy with him coming off the DL and starting the Wednesday or Thursday game. If not, then I will hope for Hader, Woodruff or similar high-upside starter.

I agree there is no roster crunch for the rule 5 as even the top 7 or 8 (Coulter?) could easily be added especially when you bring up some likely trade candidates (broxton, garza, catchers). Looking at it, the only real roster crunch is at catcher because I see no way they will have 5 catchers on the 40 but they have five players worthy or protection (pina, Vogt, bandy, susak, Nottingham). I fully expect two of them to be traded regardless of if they roll the dice with not protecting Nottingham for no reason other than useable roster management.

If they will package Zimmerman with Fulmer to drop prospect requirements, how about this fantasy baseball-esque monster trade? Fulmer, Zimmerman, Wilson, Kinsler for Phillips, Ortiz, Villar and maybe a small piece? -Fulmer & all of Zimmerman's contract for Phillips and small piece -Villar for Kinsler -Ortiz for Wilson I don't know how to figure out the extra value people use but I would imagine Zimmerman's $74 million sunk cost off-sets most of Fulmer's extra value making it only need just one premier prospect. Then do some combo of villar & a pitching prospect like Ortiz for Wilson and Kinsler. Thoughts?

So you're basically just saying you're right about this and to trust you because you're a smarter baseball person than the rest of us. I think you'll find that most posters here quite frankly, with no disrespect intended to the 'average person', are quite a bit more knowledgeable than the conventional casual fan the you'll find at the ballpark or posting on Facebook. To think you're simply on a different level than all of us is incredibly arrogant and narcissistic. David Stearns and Craig Counsell themselves don't know if Brinson will come in and immediately outproduce Broxton. Have you personally asked Stearns and Counsell if they don't know if Brinson will come in and outproduce Broxton? If not, please explain to me how my point is invalid while yours is valid? Should I send a note to one of my ex-coworkers, who's best friends with Counsell, and have him ask him his thoughts on Brinson (even though Counsell won't respond in detail because that's the type of person he is in general - I know - I've had drinks with him and lunch with his wife)? Should we get a rival NL Central Manager's opinion since these guys all know and have seen the top prospects? A guy I've worked with for 8yrs who I'm close with happens to be best friends with Bryan Price (who also leaves tix for me for spring training games and when they're in town if I want them), should I have him shoot Price a text right now? My co-worker was also drafted 6th rd and won a AA championship throwing to Steinbach with McGwire and Weiss in his IF. He also happens to know an absurd amount about the game. Obviously we talk baseball. I haven't had a facebook account in 2.5yrs and just because people like you believe the majority on this board are quite a bit more knowledgeable than the casual fan doesn't make it true. And to answer your question. No. Me saying I have a different baseball background than the average person, which is why I see things the "average" fan doesn't, is the truth. If Kershaw said he's the best pitcher in the game and understands various aspects of pitching better than "average" pitchers as a result does that make him arrogant and a narcissist? Just applying your basic logic here... There's an absurd amount of players that were better than me and even more people who know more about the game than I do (from both baseball and business sides - and I've also sat down with Schlesinger multiple times in his office and suite discussing the business side and have also sat down with Bob Quinn in the suite as well). I started learning the intricacies of the game in grade school (and through HS) at camps and such led by ex/current MLB players and coaches learning about each position on the field and, more importantly, why to do one thing vs another - one of the instructors I recall was Bill Almon, who I'll never forget because he introduced himself as "the guy who lost his starting SS job to Ozzie Smith". He turned into a utility player and was the first person I learned all IF positions from at a young age. I was recruited by Bando Jr to walk-on D2 (long-story short I ended up going there but decided not play because I was transferring back home, ended up playing a year of D3 then just focused on school because I had no professional career coming nor cared about continuing to play "just to say I played 4yrs of college"). I was an Asst Varsity HS coach at 18. Up until 25/26yrs old or so I played (and ran the team) with and against guys ranging from AAA down to just finishing their HS careers (Jason Jaramillo/Ryan Rohlinger - who both ended up in MLB eventually - and Mike Mueller who went to Auburn then drafted again). I go to spring training every year and actually talk to Brewers minor league coaches as well as scouts. We always sit behind home plate near the top and are surrounded by scouts. This past year we were directly in front of MLB scouts for the Dbacks (also Special Asst to the GM and scout of the year a few years ago) and Os (ex-MLB catcher who made 1 AS game). I spent 6 innings talking baseball with both of them - discussing their thoughts on certain players and why they think that, what they see/what they're looking at. They gave me the gun for 3-4 innings and I reported what the numbers were while we continued our conversations and while they also played with my 1.5yr old daughter. The Dbacks scout gave me his card - said I know what I'm talking about and lets get a drink when he's in town a couple times annually scouting the Brewers. The Os scout also made it known that he wasn't a fan of acquiring Gerardo Parra because he was playing out of his a$$ and is a bad clubhouse guy. I don't just "watch" games. Every pitch I'm watching both the pitchers and hitters mechanics looking for potential inconsistencies, reasons why they were late/early/fouled it off/etc, discussing pitch selection every pitch with friends and why, strategies based on each situation, where players are lined up and why in conjunction with the pitches/locations being called, etc. I never just "watch" a game because I literally can't. That's not how my mind and eyes work. (side note: in 2016 spring training Lucroy held my daughter for a pic and he killed it and was an AS. this year Knebel held my daughter for a pic and he's killing it and is an AS. while we stood right next to the opening of the dugout at minor league field for a AAA game talking to their coaches before the game and during the first couple innings my daughter grabbed both of Cooper's bats and started dragging them away. then she was playing with Dubon's shoes putting rocks in and out of them - they both sat there laughing. Cooper is an AS and having a career year and Dubon was already promoted to AAA. the moral of the story is you can thank my daughter for their success!!) Those are my experiences. What are yours? Seriously, was all this necessary? Your point would stand on better merit without all the name dropping and trying to prove you're better than everyone here.

I think the only real way we trade Garza during the season if everything goes perfect for us. Nelson continues to be great, Garza keeps pitching well, Davies takes the next step, Guerra starts to right the ship and Woodruff gets a handful of fantastic starts under his belt. At that time, I could see trading Garza (for a 7th/8th inning reliever?) to get Anderson his spot back without having to demote woodruff. If we don't look like we have 5 strong (or at least good enough) starters without Garza, we probably won't trade him mid-season.

My 95% is for players with less than 2 years since being drafted (we are only at ~1 for Burnes). If you are coming up that soon, you should be a sure fire team contributor for a long time (ala Braun). Otherwise, you run the risk of what happen to Perez where you are brought up to early, have to use all your options while you figure things out and then get let go. And actually Knebel almost ran into this issue. He was brought up real quick, had his struggles at times to the point we had to option him down last year. If he didn't figure things out this year, we possibly would have had to option him again this year and then risk losing him next year if he continued to struggle. It worked out for us in a great way, but what if he figured it all out in 2 years (for a different team) and not this year? That's not uncommon for a highly rated pitcher to still struggle at 25 before figuring it all out. I don't want to see Burnes struggle in the MLB this year, get sent down a couple times and then get pushed out the door at 26 only to come back as a #3 pitcher for the cardinals. So unless the Brewers are 95% certain he's here to stay, its just too early for him. The other main reason is he doesn't have close to the track record for me to say he's our best or even one of our best options in the minors for possibly only 2 starts. He has all of 27 total games with 5 in AA. While he has been great in those starts and looks very promising, that's not a lot of track record for me to say he's going to be better today than Hader, Woodruff, Wang, Blazek, Jungman, Wilkerson or any of our current 5 starters. Next year when he has 55 starts with 15 in AAA all doing great, absolutely he's our best option. But today, give me one of the other guys for 2-3 starts, Woodruff for 5 and then Anderson is back.

For Burnes, I would say if there is less than a 95% chance he would stay up and be productive the rest of the season and beyond, you don't bring him up because it would burn options. If he comes up for a couple weeks, then get's sent down, that uses up one option. Then if next year, he's not ready to break camp with the team as a starter (or reliever), he uses up option #2 to refine his skill likely in AA or AAA. That only leaves us 1 option in case he ever needs to be sent down to fix things if he struggles (as is common with young pitchers) or you need to use some extreme roster management. If you wait until mid next year (assuming he stays as productive), he has a much better chance of coming up and sticking, leaving you up to three chances to be sent down in case he ever hits struggles like Nelson, Peralta, Davies, Jungman and more have in the early parts of their career. The last thing you want is to have a pitcher who is under 25, has tons of potential but is struggling in the majors with no options to be sent down and work things out. Then you take the risk of not being able to fix whatever is wrong (mechanical tweak, pressure, loss of confidence, ...) and wrecking whatever season this is happening to or likely losing him if you try to outright him. I say he needs a stronger (and longer) track record before bringing up Burnes. He only has a handful of starts at AA, he still has a lot to prove.

Yah, that isn't happening. Unfortunately not even Woodruff era. They aren't going to throw in the towel with some fringe major league arm. Hader or Burnes will be starting on Monday. Burnes isn't on the 40 and won't need to add him to the 40 for several years. The only way they would add burnes this year or next is if he wins a starting pitching spot out of spring or is getting one for the remainder of the year when he is clearly the most deserving of it. For this year, with woodruff likely to get first crack whenever he comes back, the possibility (likelihood I hope) of hader going back to starting and the likes of jungman, blazek, Wilkerson, and even bubba derby or others ready to get their shot (or second/third chance), I see the chance of burnes coming up now at 0%. If he continues to amaze through this year in AA and starts great next year in AAA, I could see him coming up in this situation next year for a long term injury or performance replacement.

I think Cordell's bat is far better than Yuni's. The thing is... if Arcia improves to a .760 OPS, Cordell still looks like he can put up an OPS about 100 points higher. Yeah Arcia's glove is very, very, very good. But is it worth giving up that 100-150 extra points of OPS? And what if Arcia only can get his OPS to the .710 range? I think at some point, it may not hurt to consider getting the extra OPS, plus what Arcia could net in a trade. Someone could very well overpay for the web-gem defense, and the offensive production at shortstop is improved by 20-25% in terms of OPS. Yes, very much yes. I would easily give up 100 - 200 OPS to go from top tier defense to well below average defense (likely, historically terrible defense). Honestly, Villar's defense last year would have to be the floor for anyone playing that position, and even at 0.826 OPS, I would probably take this year's Arcia over last year's Villar knowing you can move last year Villar's bat to a different position (2B). Defense at SS is too important.

Wrong Diplan. I made the same mistake earlier. The diplan listed above is Nattino Diplan (http://www.baseball-reference.com/register/player.fcgi?id=diplan000nat) The diplan who is a top 10 prospect is Marcos Diplan (http://www.baseball-reference.com/register/player.fcgi?id=diplan000mar) I think we have one more year for Marcos Diplan until he needs to be on the 40.

My thoughts on the list: Protect: Jacob Nottingham Mauricio Dubon Aaron Wilkerson Freddy Peralta Nattino Diplan (wrong Diplan) Garrett Cooper (Trade Jesus Aguilar in off-season [medium return], Cooper get's his spot) Javier Betancourt (Trade Yadiel Rivera in off-season [low return], Betancourt get's his spot) At Risk of Losing: Daniel Missaki Devin Williams Kyle Wren Clint Coulter Wendell Rijo Tyrone Taylor Possible Bullpen options worth protecting: Tristan Archer Wei-Chung Wang Yhonathan Barrios Matt Ramsey In addition, there are other minor league FA we may want to protect (Angel Ventura, Nick Ramirez?). Also, some people on the 40 are going to be option-less and we may look to move if we don't think they will make the team (Susak, Yadiel Rivera).

Fun small sample size quirk. With Sogard done for tonight, he has a fun 2017 season stat (through May, technically) of: avg/obp/slg/ops 1.000/1.000/4.000/5.000 Don't see that too often.

But if Broxton has figured it out and can provide top D in CF with > .800 OPS for 5 years, I want him on our next contending team. If in two years Ray or Clark are banging on the door, then I would look to move Broxton. Moving him now considering how good our starting position players are turning out, unless its for a TOR pitcher who will be up by 2018, would be more of a setback then gain for making the team competitive.

I actually disagree and this situation shows why this strategy even exists (even though it doesn't look like it will work this year for the Brewers). People often claim in the off-season for the teams expecting to compete to sign 2-3 of the top bullpen players to high dollar contracts and not have to worry about greatly over-paying for relievers at the deadline. Teams don't do that because they can't afford to get stuck with an expensive reliever who under performs for 40 or more innings like Feliz is doing right now. So instead, the non completing teams sign these relievers to one year deals and the competing teams can then overpay for 30-40 innings of whichever 2 or 3 relievers are performing well from the non-competing teams and the left over relievers who aren't performing (i.e. Feliz) can be "stuck" with the non-completing teams. Being stuck with the bad reliever is an acceptable risk when the reward is considered. In the grand scheme, we leveraged 30-40 innings to a risky reliever who could potentially turn into a great haul (top 100 prospect) at the deadline whose poor performance (if he doesn't perform) likely doesn't change the outcome of our season. If he succeeds, we get more long term talent. If he fails, we waste 30-40 high leverage innings to a bad reliever, he gets demoted to a mop-up role mid season and we waste a few millions. This only works because of the high flame out rate and the contenting teams can't afford to be stuck with a high cost / poor performing reliever. While this strategy didn't work this year, it shows why it exists and will be something the brewers will likely be involved with again (hopefully as the contending team).

These are always fun, I'll toss this out. August 1, 2017: -Guerra -Davies -Anderson -Woodruff -Peralta (Garza Traded, Nelson sent to AAA) April 1, 2018: -Davies -Anderson -Woodruff -Hader -Nelson (Guerra traded, Peralta released, Nelson on his last chance) August 1, 2018: -Davies -Anderson -Woodruff -Hader -Ortiz (Nelson to bullpen or traded)

Well, since Puig has restored alot of his value since the middle of last season, I'm not even sure the Dodgers would do a Puig/Braun even swap. Puig bats right-handed as well, except is younger, cheaper and still hasn't reached his prime yet. Puig makes only $6.5M this season, $7.5M in 2018 and is still ARB eligible for 2019. I'm actually curious if Brewer fans would even want them to.... BF.netters...please chime in with a vote of Yes or No to this question: Would you trade Ryan Braun for Yasiel Puig straight up if the Dodgers offered it today, with no other players involved or money changing hands? Why or why not? No for the simple measure that I think Braun will outperform Puig over the the 2017/2018/2019 seasons. Add in that it doesn't solve the OF logjam nor does it improve a weakness area of the team (Pitching), I say no.

Since someone else brought up Gonzalez blocking Bellinger at 1B, it gave me a new thought for a possible trade proposal. To help alleviate the cost concerns of Braun, would the Dodgers be interested in moving Gonzalez as part of a 3 team trade to make room for Bellinger at 1B and Braun in LF? Gonzalez is having a down year (OPS 0.635) after already regressing last year some (OPS 0.784, down from 0.830/0.817/0.803 the previous three years) and has 42Million of salary combined for 2017/2018. This would free more money from the Dodgers than any other proposal offered while getting them Braun's bat and keeping a spot for Bellinger. I have no idea if Gonzalez has trade protection, but what about something like: Brewers get: -Alverez, Calhoun and a 2-3 lottery prospects Dodgers get: -Braun at only $34M for 4 years (when you take in the salary offset from Gonzalez) Third team get: -Gonzalez at $17M for 2 years (Brewers pick up $25M) My thinking goes: -Braun to Dodgers for Alvarez and a lottery prospect -Gonzalez to Brewers along with Calhoun and lottery prospect (to offset $42M salary) -Gonzalez then to a 3rd team with ~$25M from the Brewers for a lottery prospect or two Sound do-able, completely impossible or just way to complicated to seem reasonable?

I would say because the Front Office is looking to compete for playoff spots in 2018. With Shaw, we now have identified average to above average starters for all 8 position players for 2018 (Pina or Bandy, Thames, Villar, Arcia, Shaw, Braun and two of Santana, Broxton, Brinson, Phillips, Cordell). We have a large slew of potentially starting pitchers to sort out for 2018 (Guerra, Davies, Anderson, Hader, Lopez, Woodruff, Ortiz, Wilkerson, Burgos and maybe even Perlta or Nelson turn it around). Use the scraps to make a bullpen (or buy one) and use Perez, one of Pina/Bandy, and the two outfielders who aren't starting to make a bench. That is the making of a team competing for a playoff spot in 2018 with Shaw a strong part of it. In my opinion, that's why we traded for Shaw (along with two very good prospects).

That one's easy: Oluwademilade Oluwadamilola Orimoloye It's a nice, easy 4 letter name. Demi Yup, only 4 letters in that name.

If things go well this year, I could see this as a definite yes, even if we trade more of our veterans. If I look at things optimistically (maybe too optimistically), it's possible Nelson, Peralta, and Anderson have turned the corner and finish this year like they have started, Davies rebounds to put up a good year like last year, and Guerra come back to pitch similar to what he did last year. That's maybe one #2, three #3 and a #4 starter. Trade one away at the deadline or off season and let Hader take the 5th spot. If all perform well, that's a solid (not great) rotation with Woodruff, Ortiz, Lopez ready to fill in for injuries in 2018. As for the starters without trades, we have Braun, Broxton, Santana, Shaw, Villar, Arcia, Thames and Pina. Trade Braun, move Thames to LF and let Aguilar start at 1B (and probably get one more starting pitcher into the mix above). If one of Aguilar/Santana/Broxton falter, bring up Brinson and move them around accordingly. If most everyone performs either the way they did last year (Villar, Broxton, Braun), the way they are doing this year (Thames, Santana, Pina) or step-up/progress (Shaw, Arcia), that is a good (if not potentially great) set of starters. Not too mention they will have ready replacements in Dubon, Phillips, Cordell for 2018. Put together a good bullpen and you have a team competing for the Wild Card, that is built for the long haul and has a wave of replacements likely in AA (Ray, Clark, Ecreg, Diaz, Gatewood, Diplan, Peralta, Ponce, and more). At that point you are able to handle trading away an established starter from almost any position for a monster package (i.e. Thames, Guerra, Broxton, Villar, whoever). But again, this is an optimistic (but not unreasonable) look at the future.

But, would you have traded McCutchen 5 years ago to get the next Garret Cole because you have the next Mike Cameron waiting in AAA? If that's the trade being offered, I would happily move Broxton.