JosephC

If the Nationals were to offer Victor Robles, then the Brewers are likely outbid regardless of any minor league package they come up with. Milwaukee would then be forced to add Yelich or Hader into the deal to remain competitive IMO, so Robles effectively takes them out of the Realmuto bidding. If it's just Kieboom plus prospects, then Hiura plus prospects would enter into play and the Marlins would have to figure out which package they like more.

I think Gausman is plan A but the price on him will probably be too high (which is justified considering he should be valued as a durable, near 3 WAR player). Then they look to Wheeler as plan B but the price on him will be too high (unjustified due to his injury history). I'd guess the rest of the targets don't represent a big enough upgrade to motivate Stearns to make a move. I think wants to do something but will end up sitting it out.

Knowing the Mets, that likely means the asking price for Wheeler is something like: 1B-Jesus Aguilar 2B-Keston Hiura RHP-Corbin Burnes RHP-Freddy Peralta OF-Corey Ray And they will include Wilmer Flores along with Wheeler to make the Brewers feel like they got a real bargain.

I have to admit, I'm one of those who only thinks K rate matters if a player makes too many outs. If a player maintains a good enough OBP, I really don't care how he makes the outs. If Ray can maintain a .340+ OBP, I really could care less about the K rate.

This same regime thought Brad Miller could still play shortstop and the -255.4 UZR/150 clearly demonstrates that he cannot.

There is nothing more irrelevant than the Moustakas/Boras end of the mutual option. The Brewers will not be picking up that option. Moustakas is a rental.

I thought Ray had a pretty good chance to be a Starling Marte type player when he was drafted, but now it looks like his hit tool will be a bit less but the power will be a bit more. Is it unreasonable to think his upside might now be comparable to Curtis Granderson? That's kind of what he looks like to me.

I hate this trade because I'm not much of a fan of Moustakas. No question the guy can hit the long ball and can win a team a couple games because of it. But he's also a low OBP guy who doesn't contribute much offensively when he's not hitting home runs. Fly ball guys may be the current rage, but those guys, Moustakas among them, makes a lot of easy outs. This year his infield fly ball percentage is 19.0%. That's 8th highest for batters with 300+ plate appearances. He was also in the top 20 last year. I don't like compromising the middle infield defense to put another low OBP bat in the lineup. I also hate the idea of giving up Phillips in a deal like this. A young athlete with all sorts of upside who I thought did pretty well during his short stay in Milwaukee, if I'm a KC fan I'd be absolutely thrilled to have him. A third baseman and reliever with the significant problems the Brewers have had at middle infielder and catcher? I just can't believe it. I will point out that Moustakas did play some shortstop in the minors. So I guess if Arcia has a bad couple days at the plate, the Brewers could move Moustakas to shortstop, Aguilar to third base and trade for a first baseman, preferably one who struggles to OBP .310.

I remember making the suggestion that the Brewers should throw him a 4 million dollar offer just a couple days before he signed with St. Louis. Boy, I missed badly on that one as it would have been 4 million down the ole' toilet. Doesn't break my heart that the Cardinals botched this up three+ times worse than I would have.

I'm disappointed by this because Cabrera would have been my personal favorite pickup out of all the "possible" acquisitions. Don't like his defense but like his OBP ability considerably more than players like Dozier or Schoop (nothing against Dozier or Schoop as both of those guys are good players too). I got some mild heat for suggesting a Cabrera for Houser/Supak/Dylan Moore package in the Transactions forum. Granted, Moore was nothing more than a throw-in that would get a late season audition with the Mets. So it would come down to if the Mets wanted 1 guy with big upside who has been a bit of a dropper or two decent (at least) pitching candidates (one MLB bullpen ready with possible starter potential). Obviously we'll never know if that would have been a package the Mets would have considered, but I think it would have been a legitimate offer.

I don't think it would be both Schoop and Gausman because those two are deep in arbitration and combined would cost somewhere around 18 million next year. That likely pushes the Brewer's payroll to 108 million and doesn't leave them much room for doing anything else this upcoming off-season. But if it would happen, I think the combo would be pretty expensive. It's 1+ year of Schoop and 2+ years of Gausman. It's wouldn't put Hiura in play but Burnes could very well be part of the mix. If Hiura/Burnes/Peralta are all excluded, probably two top 10 prospects, two more in the 11-20 region and one of the Brewers better fringe prospects (someone like Demi Orimoloye)...and that would probably be the minimum. Then maybe throw Villar in if the O's had any interest. Wouldn't completely rule out Domingo Santana.

A Gausman/Schoop combo is going to be pretty expensive because neither are strict rentals. Shoop would be controlled for 1+ season and Gausman for 2+. I kind of question whether it would be both just based on the economics. Their combined salary for next year would likely run around 18 million, which probably would put the Brewers at about 108 million without making any other moves.

I think they are much better equipped to handle rotation injuries this season (or bouncing a guy out of the rotation for poor performance). They can talk about Burnes being used strictly as a reliever, but that can easily be abandoned if the need was there. With Jeffresss, Hader, Knebel, Soria, Williams, Albers, etc...Burnes is really just a luxury for the pen and not an absolute necessity. If Woodruff could start key games down the stretch in 2017, I don't see any reason why he couldn't do it this year. A Harvey acquisition just seems like a waste of resources IMO.

NL Ranks: Bullpen's ERA = 3rd Starter's ERA = 5th Offense - runs per game = 11th More bats please.

What the hell are the Blue Jays thinking on this one? Did they not look at the splits and figure out that Drury just cannot hit away from Arizona? Of that he's been a major league player for right about 3 years and is a total (not seasonal) 0.8 WAR player by Fangraphs and a 0.9 WAR player by Baseball Reference? Villar is not a good comparable to Drury...Villar is a better player than Drury. Why do teams keep doing stupid things and help the Yankees out?

Impossible! The Cubs had no assets left to trade!

I'll reserve judgement on this one until the rest of the moves (and hopefully there will be a couple more) are made. I really like Soria as a player, and think he's a great pickup if the Brewers have doubts about Knebel for the rest of this year. That is not meant to be any sort of commentary on Knebel in 2019 and beyond. I also don't mind them trading Medeiros away. He's been good for a 6-8 weeks recently, but hadn't really been much of a performer before that. Absolutely a chance that he has turned the corner and will be a solid MLB player. But I'd tend to fall back on the larger sample size, and when doing that Medeiros is a 4.69 ERA, 1.46 WHIP as a professional. And even with his recent success, there are some numbers in his 2018 stat line which are a real cause for concern. 45 walks and 12 hit batsmen in 103 1/3 innings pitched. Those are terrible numbers. I don't think it's unreasonable to add hit batsmen into WHIP because that's a baserunner just like a walk is. Add those 12 hit batsmen in and the season WHIP goes up to 1.42. Maybe Stearns just sold Medeiros at exactly the right time? All that said, I will hate this move if Stearns ends up not being able to get any more deals done. There is always room for another good reliever, but the bullpen hasn't been near the biggest problem for this team. If the Brewers miss the playoffs, it will be because of the problems at the bottom of the lineup. Hopefully Cabrera or Dozier will follow shortly. Otherwise it will just seem like the Brewers threw more resources into an area which isn't a major problem and are just willing to ride with guys like Hernan Perez and Erik Kratz getting regular at-bats which clearly is a problem. I also don't think Soria's option year will get picked up by the Brewers. Just taking a quick glance and guesses at arbitration raises, I would estimate they will be sitting at about 90 million pre-Soria. So he would put them at 100 million and history shows that Attanasio isn't likely to go that much higher than that. The fact that the White Sox included cash in the deal that is basically the same amount of the buyout is a pretty good indicator the Brewer's aren't planning on picking up their part of the option.

I don't see Happ being all that cheap. There seems to be a lot of teams out there that have real interest in his services. He was an All-Star this year and finished 6th in Cy Young voting in 2016. The prior trades he was involved in mean very little now. He currently has a 3.7 K/BB ratio and the K/9 is over 10. Have to believe he'd cost the Brewers at least 1 of their top 10 prospects and very likely a second in the top 20.

I wouldn't trust Ramos to get through waivers without another team blocking the move. Ideal situation would be for teams to agree to a trade now, with the main piece being a PTBNL that would be largely based on some sort of "days on the 25 man roster" incentive.

They are saying it less than a week from the trade deadline which probably means any offers they've received have been underwhelming. Duffy still has 50+ million left on his contract, and so far this year he has a 4.40 ERA, 1.44 WHIP and his K/BB ratio is <2. I thought he had pretty decent trade value this last off-season when the WHIP 1.26 and his K/BB ratio was >3. His 2017 FIP was 3.46 and has ballooned to 4.90 this year, that's a real good way to drive your price down to nothing.

I think there is a really good chance that Yuni Betancourt popped out 127 times in 1 month.

I wouldn't do any of them, but if I were to pick one I'd take the Gausman/Shoop package. I don't like Duffy's contract which IMO doesn't work with the Cain and Braun contracts added in. Wheeler has made strides but the injury factor is too large to ignore. I really like Cabrera but he would just be a rental, not willing to give up top 10 organizational prospect for him. Gausman may not be a real eye-catcher but is a solid starter. Don't care much for Shoop's career OBP but there is pop in that bat and he still would be better offensively than what the Brewers have at second base. Only 1+ year of control so he wouldn't present any type of major roadblock for Hiura.

I don't like this trade for the Yankees. Looking at Britton's past performance, there was one year where his Baseball Reference WAR was 4+. Normally his best seasonal WAR sits in the mid-2's. If he's credited as a 2.8 WAR over a full season, which is generous IMO, that means he'd be good for 1.1 WAR the remainder of this season. That puts his value at 10.076 million. He is scheduled to make approximately 4.67 million over the rest of this season, which makes his surplus value about 5.41 million. I have the package going to Baltimore worth 19.46 million. Tate as a top 10 organizational prospect, Carroll as a role-player prospect and Rogers as a fringe prospect. Some things that can be taken into consideration when talking specifically about this trade. Does the 4.67 million that Britton is going to make over this season really matter to a big-money team like New York? Also, as has been mentioned, Dillon Tate has always been a controversial guy because scouts have always been split on if he's a starter or reliever. He has also had some of the minor injury problems and lack of innings that Luis Ortiz has had. I'm a bit surprised that New York threw resources into the bullpen instead of addressing the starting rotation first. Their bullpen ERA is 2.75 which is #1 in MLB. They did have a need for another bullpen lefty though, as their lefty reliever (in addition to Chapman) is Chasen Shreve and he's posted a pretty mediocre 4.25 ERA/1.44 WHIP this year. But currently their rotation is: Severino = 2.63 ERA/1.05 WHIP (stud, no problem here) Tanaka = 4.09 ERA/1.06 WHIP (no problem when healthy, but recently came off the DL [hamstrings], and possible elbow problems) Cessa = 3.00 ERA/1.27 WHIP (only 16 MLB starts so far spread over 3 different seasons) Gray = 5.34 ERA/1.49 WHIP (has been bad this year) Sabathia = 3.51 ERA/1.27 WHIP (has a 5.94 ERA in 3 July starts and is 38 years old) The group is alright as is, but it doesn't look very good if something happens to Tanaka or Sabathia. They do have Loaisiga in the minors so there is a bit of insurance there.

Standing pat would have been my preferred strategy this last off-season. Go into the regular season with Brinson and Phillips as the backup outfielders and rotate them in (Broxton would have been the centerfielder) and see what happens. Woodruff starts the year in the rotation and Burnes and Peralta start in AAA and each of those guys have a chance to pitch their way to the majors. Hader is on the staff and has a chance to earn a starting spot in spring training. I wasn't opposed to adding veterans but would have stuck with guys that only had one year commitments with the exception of a reliever. Over the first 2.5 months it sure looked like Stearns was right to pull the trigger this off-season but we'll see where the team is at by season's end. But this isn't the off-season anymore. I would like to see them add some pieces. I'm on record as wanting Cabrera and Ellis, hopefully Stearns can add a couple players like this at the right price. Really would be a shame with the pitching doing so well, and guys like Cain/Aguilar/Yelich contributing so much...only to be done in because the bottom of the lineup just can't get it done. Making the lineup stronger from #5 - #8 shouldn't cost this team and arm and a leg, so why not go out and make some moves?

Sorry, double post.