JosephC

Nah, I'd rather he sink or swim in AAA first. It isn't going to help him to get 5th OF sporadic at bats. Plus I'm thinking it would be a sinking.... My guess is that it would be a sink too. But I also can get behind the idea of him being a bench player for the Brewers next year. As far as sink or swim in AAA, he did slash .274/.325/.500/.825 in AAA last year. Next year will be his age 27 season, and he's not even considered a top 30 prospect anymore so it's not like you'd be stealing at-bats from a developmental up and comer by putting him on the MLB bench. He's on the 40-man roster, if the Brewers don't think he can be a fill-in, moderately effective 100+ plate appearance MLB player in 2022, then one would have to question if the only reason he is on the 40-man is so Stearns can save face on what looks to be a wasted top 5 pick. IMO, you have to count on him as being somewhat of an MLB contributor in 2022 or else get him off the 40-man roster and put someone else on it that you have more faith in.

Really amazing that a player can post 101 RBIs with a .212/.285/.438/.723 slash line. 35 HRs is a big part of that, but what really amazing is a line of .308/.372/.643/1.015 with runners in scoring position versus a .157/.227/.366/.593 with the bases empty. He also only hit .159/.245/.329/.573 in home games. Crazy statistical season.

Looking at the combination of Baseball America, Baseball Prospectus and Fangraphs....if one could go to the front offices of all 30 MLB clubs and get a cumulative top 300 ranking, I would guess the Brewer prospects would slot in the following areas- Ashby = Probably somewhere around #80 Frelick = Back end Top 100....probably somewhere between #90-#110 Mitchell = Same as Frelick...#90-#110 Turang = Somewhere in the #150-#175 region Weimer = Somewhere in the #175-#200 region Small = Somewhere around #250 Black = Somewhere around #275 Perez = Back end of top 300....#280-#300 region That said, I'd put the following prospect surplus values on these guys, derived from Point of Pittsburgh's numbers from a few years back- Ashby = 19.4 million Frelick = 20.9 million Mitchell = 20.9 million Turang = 16.0 million Wiemer = 14.1 million Small = 8.0 million (the one definite HOLD for me, most under-valued player on the board) Black = 7.4 million Perez = 5.9 million The role-player prospects = 5.5 million. That would likely extend to the next 11-15 players on the list. Then fringe prospects after that = 2.2 million. No great trade chips, but 5 pretty decent ones that I wouldn't hesitate to deal in an effort to win this season.

I'd be very interested. A lifetime .299/.364/.459/.824 hitter who has posted a positive DRS at 2B, 3B, LF and RF.

I'd go #3, happens about a week into the regular season, early enough where they can just reschedule and still get 162 games in. Both sides are so greedy that they really won't be motivated enough to get a deal done until the reality sinks in that owners will lose revenue and players will miss checks.

I do think Yelich will likely bounce back to 2017 levels next season. My big concern is if he'll ever be a 155 game per season player again, or now that he has the big contract he will turn into a "minor strain always means at least two weeks off" player. But his level of play in 2021, that's what I see in 2025 and every year after. If the Brewers have any chance to dump this contract, it should be an absolute no-brainer deciscion.

I'd make that trade in about one nanosecond. For those of you who couldn't stand having German on the roster, he doesn't have a guaranteed contract so he could be dumped in the spring. Even if one guarantees the 2021 salaries for the two Yankees in arbitration and Hader for 2022, using the MLBTradeRumors arbitration estimates, the amount of money involved is Chapman = 16 million for one season, Hicks = 41 million for four seasons, Voit = 5.4 million, German = 2.1 million, Yelich = 188.5 million, Hader = 10 million. So that would be 198.5 million heading to the Yankees, 64.2 million heading to Milwaukee. As far as just 2022 salaries, Chapman + Hicks + Voit + German = 34 million and Yelich + Hader = 36 million so it actually clears 2 million in payroll for this coming season. So after this move, I would immediately pivot and offer German, Voit or Tellez (A's pick), Brice Turang and Sal Frelick and see if that would be enough to land Matt Olson and Lou Trivino. I'm assuming the A's take Tellez primarily because he is the cheaper option. I'm not going to sit down and do all the math, but I think these moves would push the Brewer's payroll to about 117 million this season, so Attanasio would have to sign off on that, which I hope he would do since I would be approaching this season as a true go-for-it type year. If payroll needs to be cut, then I'd likely be looking to trade Voit for a lottery-ticket type prospect. That would put it back down to around 112 million, which seems like a reasonable level for the payroll to me. Woodruff Burnes Peralta Houser Lauer Chapman Williams Trivino Ashby Suter Cousins +2 Wong Urias Adames Olson Renfroe Taylor Narvaez Cain Severino Voit (DH) Hicks some combo of Brosseau/Peterson/Ray Only thing I really don't like is Renfroe at #5, would rather see a better OBP guy to bump him to #6. Maybe Taylor could turn out to be that guy. With a DH then Voit goes in at #5, Renfroe at #6 and Taylor at #7 and that actually looks pretty decent if Voit could actually stay healthy (and the A's don't take him).

Wow, Mitchell at #4, talk about a big dropper. Apparently there was something in that AA performance beyond the basic hitting statistics that scouts did not like at all. Due to his lack of pop in the bat, I don't see Turang as being a top 100 player anymore, likely falling just outside that ranking (probably in the 125-150 area). I'm very surprised Frelick is not ranked ahead of him. If there ever was a "go for it" year, this year is that year. It's a shame that the Brewers do not have more prospect surplus value that they can use to deal. Questionable if they even have one top 100 prospect value in the system with Turang at #2 on the list and, from what I gather, scouts seem to be divided on whether Ashby is a starter or a multi-inning reliever. PS, Small should be way higher on this list. If the league really values him at #9 on team's prospect list, then he's the definite "HOLD" of the bunch because he is way under-valued.

Yes, that was a cheap shot on my part. I agree that Mertz did improve over the course of the season. However, QB'ing in the Big 10 would have to reach historic lows for Mertz to grade as the best of the bunch.

ESPN today = This guy hires racists, takes advantage of young women and abuses other people. ESPN 6 months from now = This guy looks good and would boost our ratings, let's hire him!

Lions fans would like to have a word with you. Jacksonville was one game away from the super bowl only 4 years ago. I checked before posting and over the last 10 years (actually 9+ as I included this season in the 10)- Jacksonville = 41 wins, 1 playoff appearance Browns = 51 wins, 1 playoff appearance Jets = 55 wins, 0 playoff appearances Lions = 62 wins, 2 playoff appearances Not sure if there are any other teams that would sit in this group, but I don't think I missed any team that would challenge Jacksonville in terms of awfulness over the last 10 years. If you take out the one fluke season where Jacksonville won 10 games, the record falls to 31-110 starting with the 2012 season. They are truly the laughing stock of the NFL.

Too bad Nike didn't get involved earlier and told Mertz that they would give him a 10-million dollar endorsement to go play for Alabama instead of Wisconsin. The Badgers could have wound up with a decent quarterback this year.

Meyer has always been a known womanizer and really abrasive person. There is no way that Jacksonville's owner was unaware of this when he hired Meyer. But Meyer has always won a bunch of game in the past, so everyone just looked the other way. If the Jaguars were 9-4, everyone knows he'd still be coaching that team. Not to defend Meyer, because I really dislike him. But Jacksonville's problems go much deeper than Meyer. They are the laughing stock of the NFL. They have won a total of 41 games over the last 10 years. Jacksonville fans, what few that are left, are likely hoping the owner can find a way to fire himself.

Despite the NY writers thoughts, I very much doubt the Yankees would be at all interested in Cain as it sounds like they will be avoiding injury risks since that was such a problem for them last year (and seemingly the big motivation for why they would part with Voit). Voit has totaled 3.3 bWAR and 3.9 fWAR over the last three years. Since 2020 was only 37% of a full season, we'll take those WAR numbers and divide them by 2.37 instead of the usual 3. So Voit has been good for 1.4 bWAR and 1.7 fWAR per season over the last three years. 1.55 WAR average. Next year is his age 31 season, so the rule of thumb is a 0.5 WAR deduction per season. But instead of dinging him right away, let's say 1.55 WAR in 2022, 1.05 WAR in 2023 and 0.55 WAR in 2024, so lets say 3.15 WAR total from 2022-2024. Voit has a projected arbitration salary of 5.4 million for 2022. Obviously if he's performing at a 1 WAR level, there won't be any huge bumps for him in the arbitration process. So let's say 5.4 million, 6.5 million and 7.8 million, although he would be a lock to be non-tendered if performing at a 1.05 WAR level after 2023. But for the sake of putting a number on him... 3.15 WAR * 9 million per WAR = 28.35 million in total value. 19.7 million in projected earnings results in +8.65 million in surplus value. That, IMO, is the top number the Yankees could hope for and that's what they should be shooting for when starting negotiations. If that's the number you use, something like Zavier Warren and Micah Bello would be a fair return. But if applying the 0.5 WAR deduction per season, then Voit really doesn't have much of any surplus value at all. I don't think the TradeValue's number of 3.1 is out of line at all. Add in that it was widely speculated that the Yankees could non-tender him. They probably want to stick with Stanton as the DH, so if they sign a different first baseman then every team that has interest in Voit will naturally low-ball the Yankees because it will be obvious at that point that he's just a spare part they probably don't want anymore. So, in the end, I'd guess his "true" surplus value is somewhere between the +8.65 I came up with and the +3.1 the TradeValue's site has. That equates to one solid role-player type prospect. That is probably something like Voit for Korry Howell, or the Yankees could opt to pass on the Korry Howell type prospect and take a couple of 18/19 year old lottery ticket types instead. For the record, I'm not completely against trading for Voit, there are just several options I look at first. He'd be a Plan C type for me.

That's because he is hurt all the time. Over the last five years he's only played in 370 out of a possible 708 games, that's only 52%. If one just takes the last three years, it's 145 out of a possible 384 games, just 38%. Over the last three years he's slashed .223/.338/.410/.747...but last year he was at a miserable .194/.294/.333/.627 (only 126 plate appearances). He has four consecutive years of posting a negative DRS. Baseball Savant has his sprint speed dropping from 28.5 to 28.2 to 27.6 to 27.5 to 26.9 over the last five seasons. He now rates as a below average running for all positions, which I guess would make him one of the slower centerfielders in the league. Not to mention everything I read on him made it sound like he had the look of a rapidly declining player last season. I think the Brewers would probably be a lot better just paying Cain the 18 million next year and be done with it, rather than sink 41 million in future funds to Hicks.

I had been thinking about Voit as a possibility, but the more I looked, the less I liked him. Don't have any issue with his bat, but the guy is injured just way too much. It's so significant that there was a considerable amount of speculation that he could be non-tendered by the Yankees.

Gotta go full pie and order the whole wheat crust.

It does bother me that the metrics have Renfroe as looking like a fairly valuable player, meanwhile the Rays couldn't swing any deal for him after the 2020 season and had to DFA him, and the Red Sox dealt him in a deal where it looks like the other side's biggest motivation was to unload a bad contract. If MLB GMs see him as a "real" 2-2.5 WAR player, one would think he would bring a much better return if put on the trade block.

I've been surfing the Red Sox message boards and their eye test on Renfroe's defense tends to lean negative. He makes some incredible throws but, in total, his arm doesn't end up being a real positive because there are bad throws mixed in there and most of the time it seems like he refuses to throw it to the cutoff man. Didn't see any comments if his arm discourages runners from going from 1st to 3rd on singles, which to me is a real key factor on the defensive effectiveness of right fielders. So we'll see. They are going nuts over Binelas exit velocity numbers and think they may have gotten a real steal there. I've learned my lesson from Lutz that exit velocity doesn't mean squat if the player has poor bat control, and there are enough questions over Binelas' hit tool that I find him a reasonable inclusion in this deal.

It would be nice if bowl game committees actually looked at the standings when picking teams. Maybe they would have noticed that Penn State finished 4-5.

There is just as good of a chance that the Badgers fire Leonhard instead.

The point is that Bradley doesn't have to be more than an average hitter to be a valuable player as measured by WAR. He can hit a pretty unremarkable .234/.318/.409/.727, nothing remarkable by MLB standards, and still be a 2.4 WAR player because of his plus-plus defense. His own numbers from 2017-2019 demonstrate that. There are some peripherals that suggest Bradley had incredibly bad luck in 2021. His soft%/medium%/hard% was 18.8/54.2/27.1 during his big year in 2020. Last year the numbers were 15.1/50.8/34.1, so his percentage of soft hit balls went down and hard hit balls went up. Despite that, he had a BABIP of .226, which is almost an unheard of number (generally Bradley's BABIP sits in the .290-.300 range). His home run/fly ball ratio was 7.6%, historically he's been about 15.0% which is right around the league average. The alarming numbers were that his walk rate went down and his strikeout rate went up. Normally his BB/K sits at about 0.35 and last year dropped to 0.21. Maybe that is a decline in ability, but it also could be due to the Brewers having him take different approaches with his hitting. Time will tell, but with a BABIP of .226 and a HR/FB of 7.6%, I chances are very good that in 2022 he'll be much, much closer to the .234/.318/.409/.727 he posted from 2017-2019 instead of the .163/.236/.261/.497 he posted in 2020.

I was thinking Utah had only lost 2 games and had to go look up how they got to 3 losses. Wow, they lost games this year to both BYU and San Diego State and then go on to win the last 6 Pac 12 games and put an absolute whipping on Oregon 2 times. My my, what has happened to the once proud (then) Pac 10? And looking back, how in the world did Ohio State lose that game to Oregon? If they would have won that game, they would have been in somewhat similar situation to Georgia. Georgia goes undefeated, loses in the championship game to Alabama and finishes with 1 loss and is in the playoffs. Would have happened 1 week earlier with Ohio State....goes undefeated, probably would have been ranked #2 going into the Michigan game...loses to Michigan. Would a 1 loss Ohio State team have been in the playoffs ahead of Cincinnati? Very likely so. Kind of why I like limited playoff formats. All games matter.

I'm not an SEC fan at all. I also hate Michigan. I'm not naive enough to think Cincinnati has a chance. So I'm hoping the final game will be Alabama and Georgia and Alabama will win by 17 points so everyone can say, "Didn't we just watch this same game a few weeks ago?" Not a fan of having second-place teams included in a format that only has 4 teams.

About the only hope I see of him getting traded this off-season is if Stearns can find an owner that is so desperate to trade somebody simply because he is so sick of watching that player play on a bad contract. Eric Hosmer could be a pretty good example. Yelich still has 188.5 million in guaranteed money left, Hosmer is down to 59 million which gives the Brewers motivation to make a deal right there. So the Brewers would have to include about 50 million in prospect surplus value to even it up. It could see something like Hosmer for Yelich, Ashby, Frelick and Gray making sense value-wise, but I still could never see the Padres being willing to take on the additional 129.5 million difference between the two contracts. The Brewers are just stuck hoping that Yelich bounces back to a 3.5 WAR player in 2022 and then has a "normal" decline due to age. It would still be a bad contract but it still wouldn't be that bad to live with for the first 4 years and certainly keeps the deal out of Pujols complete disaster territory.