JosephC

Maybe a reasonable strategy for a team that finishes 67-95. I don't think it's such a good idea for a team that could easily project to 90+ wins. They will have a hard enough time trying to figure out how to keep Adrian Houser (out of options) in the organization, and I'm guessing Houser will be just as attractive as any pitcher that is available in the Rule 5 draft. But time will tell on that, should be interesting to see the available names when that has been determined.

Have to agree. The Red Sox were the best team in baseball this year. The Brewers would have had a huge uphill climb to knock off those guys. 108 regular season wins and then pretty easily handled a 103 win team in the playoffs. My hats off to them. Just no dispute that they were MLB's best team in 2018.

I could be in the biggest market in the world and I wouldn't touch Kershaw with a 10 foot pole. He's lost over 2.5 MPH off his fastball over the last two seasons. He's only averaged 162 innings over the last three seasons. When looking at his individual pitches, only his slider plays up at this time and that's bad news for a pitcher entering his 30s. And when he's hit the DL over the last few years, it hasn't been due to hamstring problems. Back and biceps issues. The ERA, FIP, WHIP are all still eye-popping and look great, but there are red flags all over this guy when one takes a look past the stats on paper. No question he will opt out, if nothing else to get a longer commitment from the Dodgers. As of now the Dodgers would have him under contract for 2 more years at about 70 million. Certainly he should think he'll get way more than 70 million even if it's spread over a longer term. I'm thinking he can probably turn this into a 4 year, 136 million dollar extension from somebody, most likely the Dodgers.

I very much doubt Stearns will get caught up in what Schoop didn't do in 2 months of work. More likely he will look at the last three years as a whole when making the decision. 2016-2018: .267/.304/.461/.765 104 OPS+ Average 26 HR/83 RBI Average 3 bWAR Average 2.2 fWAR will be 27 years old at the beginning of next season

For all the bashing on Machado's antics, I don't believe anyone has posted his slash line from the World Series yet. .182/.208/.182/.390 Ouch!

I agree it's a sad story and Montgomery has had some tough breaks. But this is a performance business and he's a third string running back with no little chance of going back to receiver and he's a free agent next off-season. Thompson's country club approach of "if I use an early pick on a player, that player is here for four years regardless of how bad he is" really ended up ruining the bottom of the roster once his drafts started going downhill. Time for the new GM to send a message to the players. Time for Montgomery to go.

I see no reason why Ty Montgomery should be on the team tomorrow. Time to send a message.

Stearns has to be really bummed out that Schoop flopped so bad. Villar had been nothing but a big question mark. The OBP component of Schoop figured to be subpar but the power aspect of his bat seemed to be a fairly sure thing. Now Schoop is no less of a question mark as Villar and the Brewers gave up two other pretty decent prospects to land him. Stearns has done a plus-plus-plus job for this organization but he has to be a bit disappointed with the way this turned out. If he had kept Villar the arbitration gamble for 2019 would be sitting at approximately 4.4 million dollars, with Schoop the gamble is approximately 10.1 million dollars. https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2018/10/mlb-arbitration-salaries-2019.html

That BYU game was not a fluke. People shouldn't be so surprised that this is probably an 8-4, maybe 7-5 type team. Everyone talks about how the DB injuries have hurt them, but the losses on the DL have been much more significant. Going to be tough without Loudermilk, Rand and only having Sagapolu playing a limited amount of snaps.

The greatest aspects of beating the Cubs was obviously all Baseball related, but the huge icing on the cake is we don't get another Wild Card banner! I love almost everything about Miller Park, but that Wild Card banner is flat out embarrassing!!!! Oh come on! What about the comic value? Can't be anything in sports more ridiculous than the phrase "Wild Card Champion."

I hadn't checked Merrifield's number in a while, but wow, what a year he had. .367 OPB, .807 OPS, 45 steals, +18 DRS and Fangraphs baserunning component has him at a +7.4 Put up an .800+ OPS while only hitting 12 home runs. He was helped out by a MAYBE lucky .352 BABIP number (speed should always help this number), but on the flip side of the lucky coin, he only had a 6.5% HR/FB ratio (which will probably always tend on the low side for him). Always have to have some doubts about late-bloomers but 2017 doesn't look like it was a fluke for Merrifield.

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It's just part of the evolution of baseball. I wouldn't be all that surprised if all the dramatic shifting significantly drops a few years down the road. Runs per game decreased from 4.65 in 2017 to 4.45 in 2018. If that trend continues, teams will place less emphasis on pull power and more "line drive to all fields" hitters will get playing time. I don't think it's just a coincidence that the Brewers have picked Hiura and Turang with the last two first rounders. Stearns could very well be well ahead of the curve here.

Swindle? I didn't know that was a term used in the legal world. Always figured they would just use the words embezzlement or extortion, depending on the situation. Learn something new everyday.

History is littered with power pitchers like Tom Seaver and Nolan Ryan that often pitched on 3 days rest and threw 260+ innings per season. Now we question whether a pitcher can throw on two days rest when being limited to 60 pitches per outing and throw 162 innings in a season? The 3-3-3 should be renamed the 60-60-60 because that's what the "experts" figure is the pitch limit when throwing on two days rest. I haven't seen the numbers for 2018, but for 2017 the average half inning was 18 pitches. So, on average, the 60 pitches translates to 3 innings of work.

I think both Thames and Anderson would be really, really tough sells this off-season. OPS, FIP....those are one thing. But when healthy players are left entirely off post-season rosters, I would think that would speaks volumes to the rest of the league regarding a player's value. And no, I don't think it is a "well the Brewers just had that much depth" situation. Good major league players should be on playoff rosters, that fact that these guys were left off the playoff roster (a decision that pretty much everyone on this board, myself included, probably agrees with) has to be a major red flag if you are trading for a player. Anderson is more realistic. His salary isn't ridiculous for a big market team that is looking for a 5th starter, so there could be some interest from a large market team that is pretty solid in the front of the rotation and is looking for a marginal veteran with experience to fill out the back end. And even so, the Brewers probably only net a couple of low level lottery tickets in return. Thames is a much tougher sell IMO. I only see him getting moved for another high-priced veteran that another team wants to move. Maybe someone like Addison Reed? Now before everyone thinks that would be crazy and lop-sided for Milwaukee, consider that Reed (A) has lost 2 MPH off his fastball from 2016 to 2018 (B) had a FIP > 5 last year which is terrible © is scheduled to make 8.5 million next year which is 1.5 million more than Thames 2019 salary plus his 2020 buyout. Twins need a 1B if Mauer doesn't return and might be pretty happy to get Reed's money off the books considering how bad he was last year. I can't see Thames as really commanding more than that in a trade.

I would rather our best hitter getting more at bats rather than caring about being a prototypical #3 hitter. I would rather he come up to the plate with more runners on base. This would have been the ideal year for the Brewers to bat the pitcher 8th. In hindsight, I'm actually really surprised Counsell didn't do this. But in fairness, Arcia would have been the guy hitting 9th and he didn't hit any better than a pitcher for about 2/3rds of the season.

I like Hernan Perez a lot as the 25th man/top utility player on the roster. But I think Stearns has to move him to another team so Counsell can't do things like bat him 5th in game five of a tight playoff series. That's #1 on my "must do" list.

I still don't know what to think about Escobar. 2018 = .272/.334/.489/.824 (631 plate appearances) 2015 - 2017 = .251/.301/.415/.716 (1322 plate appearances) His defense isn't good enough to justify a 20 million dollar commitment IF he reverts back to a .301 OBP. I do think this deal has more than just a little risk for the Diamondbacks. He is in the right home park though.

Cot's Baseball Contracts has Thames' 2020 season as a club option. If that is correct, he is owed 6 million dollars for 2019 and a 1 million dollar buyout for 2020 (7.5 million dollar salary if that season is picked up).

Braun finished the year with a .313 OBP and having a guy making that many outs from the third spot in the lineup really can hinder an offense. Moving Braun back to 3rd in the order was a mistake by Counsell. The Brewer schedule was murderous to start the second half but it was easy after they got past August 20. Braun's slash line on August 19 was .250/.301/.457/.758 and then he finished .254/.313/.469/.782. His slash line in September was .266/.382/.609/.991 when beating up on bad teams. Get to the playoffs and Braun slides back down to .286/.318/.333/.652 and against LA's quality staff he could only muster .241/.290/.310/.601. Counsell needs to have Braun hitting in about the 6th spot to start next year, and if Braun starts off the year well then he earns the chance to move back up in the lineup. I'm not a big believer in slash lines out of particular spots in the order, but Braun slashed .217/.269/.386/.655 when hitting third this year in the regular season.

Aguilar was a 3+ WAR player this season, but he's a one-year wonder who slashed .245/.324/.436/.760 after the All-Star break in that one year, and that is rather average for a first baseman. If teams didn't put "apparent" value on a player like Domingo Santana last year, I find it hard to believe they would give the Brewers a 3+ WAR price for a 28 year old first baseman who had 1/2 of a great season. I'm not saying Aguilar has no value, but I can't believe he would be the headliner in a trade for a player like Realmuto. At least now we are at the point where Realmuto is only controlled for 2 more seasons, so while the price tag will be high it shouldn't be astronomical. If I'm the Marlins I'd start even higher than this but in the end would be happy to get a package like Keston Hiura, Adrian Houser, Zack Brown and Trey Supak.

Brewers should go to a 60-60-60 (formerly called 3-3-3), where 60 refers to the approximate pitch limit per outing. Only real reason not to that I see is doubleheaders. But half of the Brewer games are not subject to rainouts because of Miller Park's retractable roof, and now teams can add that 26th man on doubleheader days (a real "starter" from the minors). The sabermetric folks have been talking about this for 10+ years now and after watching the Brewers these last six weeks it almost seems crazy not to at least try it when beginning next season. Day One: -Chacin -Free agent lefty - (*) -Jeffress Day Two: -Davies -Hader -Woodruff Day Three: -Anderson -Jennings -Burnes Bullpen: -free agent lefty -Peralta -Williams Closer: -Knebel (*) - could be Wade Miley When someone gets hurt in spring training, Guerra can step in and fill either a "9-man" or bullpen role. At best, Nelson probably starts the year in a minor league rehab assignment but obviously he still fits in this mix. They could just cut Albers loose and I wouldn't lose any sleep over that. But if Counsell sticks with a traditional five man rotation, then Hader should be going into the rotation. Now it almost appears like the Brewers and taking the next Randy Johnson and limiting him to 100 innings per year.