JosephC

Chryst confirmed today that Mellusi is out for the rest of the year. I feel bad for Mellusi, but excited to see Davis and Acker get more snaps.

Because of how the MLB arbitration system works and because of how many of our top players are going through that process over the next few seasons. Of course, it might get worse with the new CBA, but we'll wait to see how that eventually plays out. It's not crazy to think that the combined raises to Burnes, Woodruff, Adames and Hader after the 2022 season could top Cain's 17 million.

Folks need to take a step back and take a longer look at how team would value Tellez. Tellez now has 3 years + 4 days of MLB service time. However, it's actually lower when calculating the numbers because the 2020 season was only 37% of a full season. So for the math involved, Tellez has 2.37 years as a major leaguer. During that time, he has 934 plate appearances, so he's gotten ample opportunity and hasn't been a primary bench-warmer. Baseball Reference has him with a career 0.7 WAR and Fangraphs has him with a career 0.7 WAR. So he has been worth 0.3 WAR per season. He is barely above replacement level and really has no surplus value. In all honesty, in part of a projected trade with the A's, if the last piece offered them was Tellez or Carlos Rodriguez, I don't think it's a slam dunk that they take Tellez.

Can't say that I'm sad having given up on the NFL years ago. And this is supposed to be one of the league's top officials? The guy should be fired today. There isn't a single Bears fan that should watch 1 more minute of NFL football this year.

Cain at 5/80. Garza at 4/50. ARam at 3/36. Lohse at 3/33. Wolf at 3/30. LOL, Cain....I can't figure out how I could miss that one since he's been my favorite Brewer the last few years. What the hell? Put me down for BrewerFan dumbest post of the year for 2021.

Does anyone know what the biggest contract the Brewers have ever given a free agent from outside the organization? I'm not talking about a yearly average, I'm talking about the total amount of dollars over the length of the deal. I must be missing a player or two, but I cannot think of a deal that would be bigger than the 42 million that went to Jeff Suppan. Who am I missing?

Agreed that it's against Rutgers so it's hard to get a gauge on anyone, but I thought Julius Davis looked good enough where I really have to wonder why Schipper has been getting snaps in earlier games.

I'd recommend using Cot's Baseball Contracts. Just note that if you pull up an Excel spreadsheet from Cots, the numbers in those spreadsheets will be "averaged over the life of the contact" salaries because those speadsheets are set up to do luxury tax calculations. If you want to know how much a particular player is getting paid for a certain season, you have to click on the team logo and read through the text. https://legacy.baseballprospectus.com/compensation/cots/

Seems like the Mariners would be the obvious fit. They've freed up all sort of money and now don't have the Asian headliner now that Kikuchi declined the option.

If the A's want Tellez back, better yet as far as I'm concerned. He goes into the deal and the Brewers keep Carlos Rodiguez. Not at all convinced by Tellez. After coming to the Brewers in 2021, Tellez slashed .272/.333/.481/.814. After Vogelbach came to the Brewers in 2020, he slashed .328/.418/.569/.987. Career MLB slash line of Tellez is now .247/.307/.462/.770. Vogelbach's career MLB slash line at the end of 2020 was .206/.332/.409/.741. The Blue Jays were willing to give up Tellez for very little for good reason. Credit to Stearns for rolling the dice and coming up with a nice short-term fix for 1B. But like Vogelbach, there is enough history there where I wouldn't count on him being a long-term solution. Tellez is a power bat with a career .307 OBP, from .329 (2018) to .293 (2019) to .346 (2020) and was down at .272 in 150+ plate appearances when the Blue Jays traded him. He sure looks like a guy that will run hot-and-cold, and while I'd take a .307 OBP/.770 OPS guy that can play a plus centerfield or shortstop every day, a .307 OBP out of 1B is not something I'm looking for unless the guy has legitimate 40 home run power and Tellez hasn't shown that so far. He's a career 0.7 bWAR/0.8 fWAR player. If the A's want him instead of Rodriguez, I'm totally OK with that.

After doing a more in-depth look at Matt Olson's stats, I would definitely be in favor of moving Hader in an Olson deal, swapping out some of the other parts as long as the value remained equal. With the year Hader just had, I don't think finding a third participant in this trade would be all that difficult. Thing that really convinced me is that, according to Fangraphs 2021 numbers, Olson was the 10th best qualifying hitter against sliders and 40th best against curveballs (out of 132 qualifying hitters). For those that don't know, Brewer hitters were dead last against sliders and 23rd against curveballs. Olson really seems like a perfect fit for this lineup. If the A's are interested in dealing him, I hope the Brewers take a long look at him.

There is one early projection on Fangraphs for Hiura in 2021 and it has him as a 0.1 WAR player. Best guess on him is that his surplus value is probably somewhere between 5 million and 0 million. Interestingly, BaseballTradeValues has him as being a 0 value but puts his availability at High? If he has no value, why would the Brewers be looking to trade him?

I don't think there is. The Vikings drafted 15 players in the 2020 draft.

Average bWAR/fWAR on Olson over the last three seasons is 4.1. He's only 27 so there is no reason to depreciate his value over the next two years. So I'd put him at 8.2 WAR * 9 WAR = 73.8 - estimated 28 million in salary = 45.8 million. Fair deal would be something like Sal Frelick, Brice Turang and one of Freddy Zamora/Zavier Warren/Korry Howell. My long-term pitching plan would have the Brewers dealing Hader this off-season, one of Woodruff/Burnes next off-season and then the other the off-season after that. This is probably where I would deal Hader. That might be a necessity as the Brewers may need to clear payroll space to fit Olson's 12 million in. A third team would have to be involved but I don't think it would be all that hard to find a third party. With the way the Dodgers love to hoard starting pitching, let's blow this up into a mega-deal Brewers get- 1B - Matt Olson (from A's) Dodgers get- LHP - Josh Hader (from Brewers) LHP - Sean Manaea (from A's) A's get- OF - Andy Pages (from Dodgers) SS/2B - Brice Turang (from Brewers) RHP - Landon Knack (from Dodgers) RHP - Clayton Beeter (from Dodgers) OF - Carlos Rodriguez (from Brewers) RHP - Kendall Williams (from Dodgers) If the inclusion of Manaea is just too over-the-top, a Brewers get Olson, Dodgers get Hader, A's get Pages, Turang, Rodriguez, Williams would look like a pretty fair deal.

I'm surprised Smith made it as far as he did with the nerve damaged he suffered as a part of the knee injury he had in college.

I cannot believe how much better the offensive line is looking. Beach's foot injury must have had some real lingering effects that slowed him down through September, because he is looking like a totally different player now. The offense still has some notable issues, primarily having no quarterback and only one good running back, but at least the offensive line appears to have solidified. Really great game for Wisconsin outside of Mertz going down the tubes after a decent start and Mellusi reverting back to looking like he's somewhere between a 2nd and 3rd stringer. I don't think a defense can play any better. Also a tough injury for Cundiff, hopefully he'll make a full recovery.

Even with missing a big chunk of last year, the 3 year average bWAR/fWAR for Marte is 4.0 (2020 gets multiplied by 2.7 to take the shortened 60 game season to a full 162 game season). BaseballTradeValue's number seems really low to me. They have him at 37.3, then add the salaries for the next three years (30 million) = 67.3 / 9(*)(1 WAR) = 7.5 / 3 seasons = they value him at 2.5 WAR per season over the next three years. So their projection is 1.5 WAR per season under what his has done over the last three years. If you use 4 WAR per season....12 times 9(*) = 108 - 30 million in salary = 78 million. I have him as more than twice the value as BTV. I strongly suspect that in a competitive market, and at 30 million over 3 years, that my number would be much closer than the BTV number. If I'm in the chair of the Diamondbacks GM, I'd counter-offer- OF - Garrett Mitchell LHP - Aaron Ashby LHP - Ethan Small 2B - Tyler Black OF - Luis Medina I'd guess Mitchell plus one of Ashby/Small are the basic requirements, can't see a deal getting done without those two pieces involved. (*) = BaseballTradeValues must be using WAR = ~9 million in their model, otherwise how do you come up with Corbin Burnes number of +190.2 million? Let's say Burnes continues to pitch well and earn 24 million over the next three years, probably a fair number. So that brings the number to 214 million. 214 / 9 = 23.78 WAR / 3 seasons = 7.92 annual WAR. If you use 1 WAR = 5 million, then 214 / 5 = 42.8 WAR / 3 seasons = 14.26 annual WAR. Burnes was a 6.55 bWAR/fWAR player in 2021. No way anyone could project him to be a 14 WAR per season player. The last time a pitcher hit 14 bWAR was Walter Johnson back in 1913. So I guess I will qualify my statement. If Burnes pitches an average of 350 innings per season over the next three years, there is an outside chance that he could be a 14 WAR per season player.

Really just another highly regarded 4-star prospect that wasn't a starting quality Big 10 player. Coaching staff tried to give him the job a couple of times and rotated him in when he wasn't the starter to see if they would see some improvement out of him, but I always thought he was a weakness whenever he was on the field. I wish him well though, I never heard any real negative off-the-field comments about him. Even though they had moved him to be the blocking tight end, I wonder if Cormac Sampson is now the #2 center? Chances are pretty good he'd do just as well, if not better, than Lyles would do. Gives the Badgers another scholarship to play with, and gives one more of depth offensive linemen a chance to work into a #2 spot on the depth chart.

It's been a few years since the Chapman and Miller trades happen. We haven't seen one even close to those since. I'd be willing to bet that the analytics has gotten to the point where 30 out of 30 MLB front offices have an analytics package that says even the top relievers are worth no more than 2.5 WAR per season. My gut feeling is that if we do see a Chapman or Miller type return package for a reliever in the next few years, it will happen near the trade deadline where a GM has a meddling owner breathing down his neck, instructing him to do whatever it takes. I don't see one of those massive returns for a reliever happening during the off-season. Hader's surplus value should be in the high 20's (million). That's a fair price for him. If a team would come along offering a deal worth about 40 million in surplus value, I would make the deal.

There is a non-insider sitting in my chair thinking it's pretty unlikely this happens. The metrics had Cain being a plus-plus centerfielder and Yelich a plus-plus left fielder when Stearns acquired them. Bradley also had very good defensive metrics. Garcia not so great, but above average in both DRS rPM and rARM over the previous four seasons...and I strongly suspect that the Brewers front office numbers saw him as being better defensively than DRS and UZR/150 (again, just a guess on my part). Now if Castellanos is willing to go to first base, then I might think differently. But I thought Castellanos was on record saying he was against moving back to the infield. I also don't see Stearns being interesting in paying a DH top dollar. But I could be dead wrong on that since there is no history with Stearns and DH's. But I've been hoping the last few years that Stearns would use a first round pick to get a mashing type guy that would project as a first baseman and live with the bad defense, and for the most part Stearns has been picking players that appear to be solid players both offensively and defensively. Hiura would be the big exception but there is always a chance that the Brewers did think he'd become at least an average second baseman defensively. Even if the money was there, Castellanos just doesn't seem like a good fit based on what Stearns has done in the past. Who know though, the way last season ended he just might be that desperate to get a bat that he breaks tendency.

In 7 of those OTs the maximum amount of yards that could be gained was 3 yards per OT. The one play shootout overtime rule is really dumb. I get what they were thinking in theory but watching that play out was painful. Football would not be a very good sport if it was always minutes between plays. You need game flow. I had no idea they changed the OT rule until yesterday. I'm very surprised the media has been very critical of this because generally those boneheads are on board for every dumb decision that any sport's league makes. Maybe they are all just mad because Pedophile State lost the game. Have to go back now and think about the Penn State game, and how the Badgers would probably have one more win had Mertz not completely bungled that game away.

I really thought this was a pretty good performance overall. By far the best work by the offensive line all year. Purdue's defense sure looked defeated and pretty much gave up in the fourth quarter. If not for Mertz missing the blitzing corner and Allen's set of butter-fingers, it was a really good performance by the offense. The defense finally got the turnovers that had been missing and looked like the group's only sore spot. I don't think a defense can play much better than what Wisconsin did yesterday.

I can't figure out MLBTradeValue's number on Austin Meadows. Over the last 3 years he's averaged 2.1 bWAR/fWAR per season. MLB Trade Rumors has him with a 4.3 arbitration estimate for next year. MLBTradeValue has him as having a surplus value of +6.5 million. So let's say he earns 4.3 + 6.0 + 7.25 in his three years of arbitration (obviously won't be tearing it up and earning much higher salaries with such a low surplus value). So that's 4.3 + 6.0 + 7.25 in money then plus another +6.5 in surplus value = 24.05 million / 9 million per win = 2.7 wins total over 3 seasons. So they are valuing him as an annual 0.9 WAR player as a 26 year old who, so far, has been more than twice as good as that. I think their number on him is way low. I'd put his surplus value number in the high 20's. I do think the one very legitimate argument that pushes his value down is that he has proven to be a terrible right fielder and is probably limited to left field from this point forward. He's a bad fit for Milwaukee as he probably is a left fielder exclusively and the Brewers have one of those locked in for the next 7 years. Doesn't help that Stearns seems to place value on outfield defense. But Meadows has been a .256/.334/.493/.828 hitter since the start of 2019. Hard for me to see him playing down to the level of a sub 1 WAR player over the next 3 seasons. Maybe they are expecting an Andrew Benintendi type falloff in terms of value, but Benintendi just had a solid season for the Royals (2.4 bWAR, 2.1 fWAR).

Three year splits make Adrian Houser a 1.1 bWAR/fWAR player. Jo Adell may be a disappointment so far, but not so much that the Angels are going to trade him for an annual 1.1 WAR pitcher.

I think this is going to be a classic letdown game for Purdue and Wisconsin pulls this one out. Wisconsin is currently a 3 point favorite. Don't be fooled by one result against Iowa. Purdue lost to Minnesota at home and only beat Illinois by 4 points at home, which is as ugly a win as possible. The only thing the Purdue/Iowa game proved was that the Big 10 West is terrible and pretty much completely up for grabs (unless you are Illinois...they suck).