JosephC

Will point out that if his ERA increases at the average of "BABIP performers" during the last three years, the ERA will go from 1.62 to 3.30. 3.30 ERA is not too shabby!

1- Greinke 2 - Darvish 3 - Arrieta Durability is number one when making large commitments and Arrieta's inning totals have dropped by over 30 each of the last two seasons which made him an easy pick as the #3 choice. I did not like the way Darvish finished last year and don't necessarily buy the tipping pitches angle (his control sucked and he didn't look like he had any clue as to where the ball was going). Greinke has an advantage in that he has avoided the big arm injury but Darvish has an advantage in that he's three years younger. In the end I went with Greinke simply because he was a better pitcher than Darvish in 2017. Darvish wasn't particularly bad or anything like that, but he was a 3.86 ERA, 1.16 WHIP and 3.83 FIP pitcher in his first full season after the arm injury (but had thrown 100 innings in 2016, so he should have been in top form or very near top form in 2017). Compare it to Greinke who had a 3.20 ERA, 1.07 WHIP and 3.31 FIP. So I went with Greinke. I may have opted to Darvish if the committment was 5 years instead of 4.

The BABIP number is downright frightening. .203? For pitchers with 60+ innings pitched, that was the second best number in the majors last year behind Carl Edwards Jr. (.192). The top two BABIP leaders with at least 60 innings pitched in 2016 were Ryan Dull and Travis Wood. Dull's ERA went from 2.42 in 2016 to 5.14 in 2017. Travis Wood's ERA when fron 2.95 in 2016 to 6.80 in 2017. However, the BABIP leaders in 2014 and 2015 did much better in the following seasons than Dull and Wood. I'm not going to type it all out, but the last 6 pitchers in this category had an average 2.28 ERA in their low BABIP season and an average 3.96 ERA in the following season. Obviously there will be some regression with Albers and it will be interesting to see how much. Would have rather Stearns only made a one year committment to Albers.

Greinke's average WAR values between Fangraphs and Baseball Reference: 3 year average (2015-2017) = 5.12 2 year average (2016-2017) = 3.90 2017 = 5.55 Greinke had a relatively poor 2016 (average WAR = 2.25) but was excellent in 2015 and still pitched a top level in 2017. 2018 projections have him as just north of a 4 WAR pitcher. If his projections are as follows, and these are complete guesses off the top of my head, Greinke really only has slightly negative surplus value even at the huge salaries. 2018 = 4.0 WAR * 9.16 = 36.64 2019 = 3.5 WAR * 9.8 = 34.30 2020 = 3.0 WAR * 10.49 = 31.47 2021 = 2.0 WAR * 11.22 = 22.44 Total value = 124.85 million 2020 and 2021 are obviously huge question marks but Greinke has a pretty deep repertoire. In 2017, he had a fairly significant drop in fastball velocity (91.0) and he was still a really effective pitcher (5.55 WAR). According to the Pitch Value table at Fangraphs, Greinke's fastball performance was terrible in 2016 and he still performed at a 2.25 WAR level. Let's just say I think Greinke will age better than many other top-of-the-rotation pitchers. If Greinke has to pitch with an 89 MPH fastball I seriously doubt if we'd be looking at a Jeff Suppan clone on the mound. I'd feel pretty decent that even with a falloff that he'd still be a pretty decent middle-of-the-rotation pitcher in 2021.

I believe that you are correct about the deferred portions of an annual salary. It's not a situation where a club can just say that they will defer 10 million dollars of a player's annual salary and not have to worry about it until whenever the payment is due. That club is required to fund that 10 million dollars up-front where it is reviewed by MLB and then when it comes time for the payment the player gets 10 million and the club can take the earnings that 10 million dollars made between the time it was invested and the time the payment was made (I also believe there is a limit that the club can earn, the player gets 10 million dollars and if the earnings happened to be crazy during that timeframe then the club gets a percentage of the earnings and the player's union gets a percentage of the earnings). As such I'm fairly certain the Diamondbacks are on the hook for any deferred payments relating to Greinke's 2016 and 2017 salaries. My big question is if the annual payments on the signing bonus are considered deferred payments or not? If so, the Diamondbacks may be responsible for all of the signing bonus or only 33% of the signing bonus, which in this case would be 12 million dollars.

Given our current lower payroll, i wish those salaries were revered, starting at 17 million this year and ending at 13 million in 2022. It doesn't make any sense in the real world unless there is some barrier the team would be trying to stay under (salary cap) in 2021 or 2022. And even if the Brewers were the like the Dodgers it wouldn't matter because the luxury tax calculations don't use the numbers for individual seasons, but rather takes the average annual value and assigns that number for each season. If the Brewers pay Cain 17 million now instead of 13 million, they would lose all the investment income they could gain by having that extra four million dollars in pocket now. Take four million and if it returns an average of 8% each of the next four seasons it's 5.44 million dollars. Under those circumstances Attanasio would be throwing away 1.44 million dollars by paying Cain 17 million dollars in 2018 and 13 million dollars in 2022. This strategy does work great in Out of the Park Baseball where I use it frequently with positive results!

It certainly is possible that I've misread Cleveland's corner outfield situation and they are perfectly content where they stand. But if not, the Santana/Salazar swap just makes too much sense. I still think something like this: Cleveland gets: OF-Domingo Santana one of the two: RHP-Phil Bickford OR LHP-Kodi Medeiros Milwaukee gets: RHP-Danny Salazar SS-Yu-Cheng Chang RHP-Aaron Civale Also a side note. Even though he had a bad year last year, I still really like Cleveland minor leaguer LHP-Juan Hillman and think he could be a major sleeper. Wouldn't mind one bit to see him get worked into a swap with the Indians.

I wouldn't like to see Yelich move to first but that's what he was before the Marlins got him. Baseball Reference Prospect Handbook's indicate Yelich was a first baseman as a amateur and the Marlins converted him to the outfield. Again, I wouldn't want to see Yelich at first base but his background indicates he makes more sense there than Braun does.

Just some past commentary from Baseball America's Prospect Handbooks on Yelich's arm-strength. 2011 - The Marlins will try him in center field in 2011, though he'll likely settle on a corner. His arm was a question going into the draft, but Florida tweaked his mechanics and believes his throwing can become at least close to average. 2012 - His raw arm strength is average, though his throwing is hindered by poor mechanics and a long arm stroke, which Miami believes can be ironed out. (Arm = 45). 2013 - A long arm stroke has hampered his throwing since high school, but extra repetitions and improved footwork means his arm plays as average. Biggest commentary on his arm would have to be that he played 5560 innings in the Marlin's outfield and did not have 1 inning as a right fielder. Obviously Stanton was there, but at the same time, Stanton was hurt a lot and it's pretty surprising that Yelich never played a single inning there. Will be interesting to see if the Brewers try Yelich as a right fielder, or if they put him in center and put Cain in right which wouldn't make much sense since Cain is probably the better centerfielder. I suppose I could hope beyond hope that the Brewers actually found a taker for Braun and Braun would approve the trade.

Scary signing IMO. Cain is entering his age 32 season so the back end of this deal are for age 36 and 37 seasons. Defensive decline appears to have already started. DRS has dropped from +18 to +8 (only 614 innings) to +5 and the UZR/150 has gone from +14.5 to +13.6 to +2.4 over the last three years. Played in 155 games last year but over the previous four seasons had only averaged 122 games and only got to 140 games played one time. Can't say I'm too fond of this move.

I dislike the move but would classify it as a small bargain for the Brewers. If Yelich is projected as a 4 WAR player over each of the next five years his surplus value is a bit over 150 million. Obviously he wasn't going to get that type of return. I figured the Marlins would ask the opposing team to take on Martin Prado's contract and if that wouldn't happen then the team getting Yelich would be looking at giving up somewhere from 120-130 million in surplus value for Yelich. I'd estimate the Brewers gave up 110 million here so it definitely in the ballpark but a bit under my projection. If the Brewers had added in one more player like Freddy Peralta it would have pretty much been as expected. I just don't understand why, with investing so much in bats when it comes to the draft and international signings, that the Brewers used what was by far their biggest trade chip for a bat. No way I would have moved Brinson unless I was getting some top end pitching back. I like Yelich but don't like this move by the Brewers.

If one projects Arcia as a 2.5 WAR player moving forward, then a Yelich for Arcia + Harrison OR Phillips + Woodruff is pretty close to a fair deal. But from the Brewer's end, does it make sense to move a 2.5 WAR shortstop who will probably cost something like 20 million dollars over the next five years plus two other top 100 prospects to gain a 4 WAR outfielder who will make 50+ million over the next five years? I don't think I'd open up the shortstop hole and pay the extra money when the team is already so deep in outfielder prospects.

This is the only offer for Yelich so far in this thread that's close. Eat Martin Prado's contract and that might be enough to get it done. If representing the Marlins I'd push hard that the last piece be Luis Ortiz or Freddy Peralta but would probably settle for Cody Ponce, who might be higher than #20 in updated rankings but likely won't be top 15.

Nope, taking Prado is an essential part of this trade. Removing him would require the Brewers to throw another organizational top 10 prospect in the mix. Probably Erceg as the trade would likely include two other outfielders (so not Ray or Grisham). Would throw in Castro for a minor prospect...someone like Carlos Herrera, Zack Brown or Demi Orimoloye. Is this pure speculation, or do you know something? Because this is written like an absolute, and Prado's name hasn't been bandied about anywhere. He wouldn't be a bad guy to have, but with Perez already on the team, he would be somewhat redundant. Pure speculation. Just saw references that folks on the board would be willing to trade Brinson for Yelich (which I would do as well in a straight up situation), and just wanted to point out that it would take way more than Brinson. Start with Brinson and another top 100 prospect (if I were the Marlins the next guy I would want would be Woodruff as he's an immediate plug-in that the fans can see right away), and then add Prado as the Marlin's last big salary-dump player...and that is a solid foundation for a trade. Then add some various pieces in after that, but the Brewers would probably still be looking at throwing in about another 30 million in surplus value (for me that was Ortiz, Diaz and Broxton). Yelich's surplus value is well in excess of 150 million by my calculations. Not unreasonable to put him at a 4 WAR player over the next five years since that has been his average over the last three years. Doing so puts his annual values at 36.64, 39.20, 41.96, 44.88, 48.04 million for a total of 210.72 million. He will make 58.25 million over that span so the surplus value comes out to +152.47 million which is a pretty ridiculous figure, and frankly a figure so high the Marlins probably couldn't expect to get that sort of return in a trade. So Prado, who has negative value but still is probably a 1 WAR player per season, would probably be considered by the Marlins to be a zero value player so just dump his remaining salary in there as a completely negative number (he has 28.5 million in salary over the next two seasons). So subtract the 28.5 million from the +152.47 and we are looking at about 124 million dollars in prospect surplus value heading back to the Marlins. That still may be too high for them to achieve but it's a good place to start. Brinson = 70.98. Woodruff = 18.9. Diaz = 11.45. Ortiz = 11.45. Those four are top 10 organizational prospects and the total for those players is 113 milion, still about 10 million dollars short in surplus value but definitely close enough to be in the ballpark. Just illustrates for how high the price on Yelich would be. I'll stick with the guess that whoever trades for him has to take Prado's deal and are likely giving up one top 25 overall prospect and another top 100 prospect overall at a minimum...and depending on the players involved it could still represent a sell-low by Miami. I do hope he gets traded because analyzing the return would be pretty interesting.

Woah, does this mean Darvish and the other front-line starters will not be signing bargain deals? Can't be so as the media has been saying if players don't sign until after January 1st, then they will only be getting about half of what they are truly worth!!!!

Nope, taking Prado is an essential part of this trade. Removing him would require the Brewers to throw another organizational top 10 prospect in the mix. Probably Erceg as the trade would likely include two other outfielders (so not Ray or Grisham). Would throw in Castro for a minor prospect...someone like Carlos Herrera, Zack Brown or Demi Orimoloye.

I'd go Brinson, Burns, I. Diaz, Peralta, and Pennington and not feel like the farm was emptied. You eat Prado's contract along with that package and you are there. As the substitute Marlins representative I'd do that deal....Christian Yelich/Martin Prado for Lewis Brinson/Corbin Burnes/Isan Diaz/Freddy Peralta/Josh Pennington.

If Yelich is valued at a 4 WAR player over the next five years, which is a reasonable estimate as that is pretty much the average over the last three years, then his price will be way more than most people anticipate. Brinson is a mere start. If I'm the Marlins GM, this is the first package I ask for: Milwaukee gets: OF-Christian Yelich 3B-Martin Prado Miami gets: OF-Keon Broxton OF-Lewis Brinson RHP-Brandon Woodruff RHP-Luis Ortiz 2B-Isan Diaz

Salazar has 3 years of team control remaining. 3.162 service time and 2018 is his second arbitration year (was a super-two so has four arbitration years).

But if the Indians trade Kipnis and Ramirez plays second base, then they are forced to give Erik Gonzalez or Yandy Diaz the third base job and either of them would be a significant downgrade. Just not a realistic move for a team that is completely in win-now mode. Clearly they are not deep enough at infield to treat Kipnis as a "no value" player and dump his salary on another team, especially since he does have positive surplus value. Now with Salazar on the other hand....Kluber, Carrasco, Bauer, Tomlin, Clevenger plus Ryan Merritt and Cody Anderson (should be back from Tommy John)...they have a solid starting five and two pretty decent insurance options. And there are the reports that the Indians are looking to deal Salazar because of the depth they have on the mound. So Salazar talk makes sense. Of all the trade stuff that has been discussed, Salazar probably makes more sense than anybody. But these expanded scenarios with Mejia and Kipnis aren't really worth discussing. To think that the Indians would trade Mejia in a deal where the big piece they are obtaining is Domingo Santana is not even close to being plausible, and Kipnis certainly is not going to be a "throw-in" as part of a larger trade.

Can't see the Indians trading Kipnis and Kipnis is not a zero value player. Jose Ramirez will be playing third base. If the Indians trade Kipnis is leaves only Erik Gonzalez to play second base and he's more of a utility type infielder with a lifetime .262/.282/.405/.687 slash line in limited MLB opportunities. Kipnis battled shoulder and hamstring injuries last year, was limited to 90 games and had a poor season overall. But over the previous 4 years Kipnis slashed .276/.349/.429/.778. Up and down defensively, he was poor in 2014 and 2017 but was on the plus side in 2015 and 2016. All told his average WAR between Fangraphs and Baseball Reference over the last five years are 5.1, 0.65, 4.75, 4.4, 0.55. He may have had a bad year last year, but over the previous 4 years had been a 3.7 WAR player on average and since he is entering his age 31 season there is no reason to expect the 2017 drop-off was a permanent thing, more likely due to injury. Depth Charts and Steamer have projected him on average to be a 1.75 WAR player in 2018 but I think that's low just like their projection for Domingo Santana (1.7). I think Kipnis is a real good bet to be well above the 2 WAR mark barring injury. Definitely don't see him as a zero surplus value player when he was a 4+ WAR player in both 2015 and 2016 and is only entering his age 31 season.

I don't see it. WAR-wise, Ellsbury was slightly better than Braun in 2017. However, Braun has been the better WAR player when looking at the 2-year and 3-year splits, and Depth Charts and Steamer (on average) have Braun being a much better player than Ellsbury in 2018 (1.5 WAR to a pitiful 0.35 WAR for Ellsbury). If the Brewers weren't able to find a taker for Braun then good luck finding a taker for Ellsbury. Braun was still a 3 WAR player but everyone was anticipating a big decline. The decline has already happened for Ellsbury. And Ellsbury has an even bigger contract than Braun. Not crazy to think that the majority opinion on Ellsbury would see him as a 1.0 WAR player in 2018, a 0.5 WAR player in 2019 and nothing above replacement after that. If so he only has about 14 million dollars of value. He still is due 68+ million dollars, so he'd roughly have a -54 million surplus value. Even if the Yankees eat 30 million, Ellsbury would have -24 million in surplus value. Good luck moving that contract. Only contract I can think of off-hand that I would currently rate worse than the Ellsbury contact would be the Albert Pujols deal.

No way Ellsbury would be coming to Milwaukee without Braun going back to the Yankees. With all of the young outfielders and outfield prospects in this organization, it makes absolutely no sense that Stearns would tie up two outfield spots with old, overpaid, declining outfielders in Braun and Ellsbury. And even if the Yankees kick in 30 million dollars, the Brewers would still be paying Braun and Ellsbury on average nearly 29 million per season for the next three seasons (26% of a 110 million dollar payroll) and would be on the hook for 9 million dollars of buyout money in 2021. And it also would make no sense for the Brewers to make a deal for Ellsbury and then just release him. In Greenleaf1's example above the Yankees pick up 30 million but that still leaves a 38+ million dollar obligation for Milwaukee. Albert Abreu is #77 on Baseball America's top 100, so he's a back end, top 100 pitching prospect. I have guys in that category being worth 17.86 million dollars in surplus value. No way is a guy like that even remotely close to being worth a 38 million dollar commitment to a team in the smallest MLB market.

Brewers trade Santana, Pennington, Bickford away and get Mejia, Salazar and Kipnis in return? Yep, this one makes no sense.

I don't give these rumors any validity, because as has already been stated, Ellsbury has a full no-trade clause and it's hard to see him waiving that to come to Milwaukee. If it does happen, the only way it makes any sense for the Brewer's payroll and outfield situation is not having the Yankees pick up payroll, but rather sending Braun to New York in the trade. Also is the perfect time for the Yankees to part ways with Dellin Betances since their bullpen would still be pretty deep and there seems to be some bad blood between Betances and New York.