JosephC

Very likely tied to the minor league level. Probably a pretty good bet that AAA in larger markets make a nice profit every year, but the further one moves down the ladder into smaller markets, the less money there is to be made.

Everyone is swimming in cash except for that poor 29 year old in A ball who is still convinced he will be an MLB star as soon as the right breaks come his way.

I don't think it's any secret....I think there were a couple Madison sport writers that mentioned it...but Chandler was probably the most disappointing player in the fall practices. The coaching staff were feeling good about him and Dike being quality starting WRs of the future at the end of last season, and Chandler ended up way down the depth chart by the end of fall practices. Very disappointing. And I am definitely not a Jack Dunn fan, but at this point I think they should probably stick him back at punt returner. Am I the only one that thinks that Engram has been pretty terrible at that job?

For as business smart as MLB owners must truly be, it surprises me how unsavvy they are on this issue. As people who remember the names Mike Williams and Maurice Clarett know, the courts have held up the NFL's clear age discrimination practices regarding not being eligible until 3 years past high school. I can't understand why MLB owners wouldn't just pivot to this money-making/PR strategy and just pawn off player development on someone else. Save all sorts of money by not having to fund all those minor league organizations. If any mistreatment of non-major league players happen, then the media can just go after the NCAA/independent leagues because MLB has nothing to do with that anymore. Make those guys the bad guys. Win/win for MLB.

So they should start a guy who has four INTs and three sacks in 20 career pass attempts? No, he really shouldn't be starting, but he will continue to start and it's the right decision to continue to start him only because Chryst and the rest of the staff completely bungled the recruiting and handling of the QB position over the last 4-5 years. Mertz is bad, but it's very very very likely he is the best option they have right now.

It's pretty bad when the backup quarterback on a triple option team looks to be a better thrower than the top 50 golden boy recruit. Mellusi back to pretty much getting stopped whenever a defender lays a hand on him. I thought the game was really entertaining when Army's offense was on the field and Wisconsin's defense was on the field. Any entertainment value quickly screeches to a complete halt when Wisconsin's pitiful offense takes the field. That unit is downright terrible. I might have to take the time and go back and look at old rosters, but it's very possible this is the worst collection of talent on offense that the Badgers have had in the last 25 years.

Considering he's down to just 2 years left, I think Garrett Mitchell + Brice Turang + Ethan Small + another Top 30 guys a ways down the list (Carlo Rodriguez) would make a pretty reasonable deal. Don't think any deal that strictly involves minor leaguers happens if Mitchell isn't involved.

I'd say chances are better than 50/50 that Reynolds fetches more than 100 million in prospect surplus value if he is traded. I'd put the combined prospect surplus value of Mitchell, Frelick, Turang, Ashby and Small at about 105 million.

The Brewers highest opening day payroll was 122 million in 2019. Last year it was just under 100 million. They drew 1.8 million in 2021, down from numbers that generally run in the 2.7-2.9 million range. It's a complete uncertainty if attendance will be any better in 2022. I'd be very surprised if the Brewer's opening day payroll in 2022 would be above 120 million. Right now I'd project the 2022 roster to have an opening day payroll of 105.5 million, and that is if Garcia's option has converted to a mutual option and he opts out. If Garcia is on the roster, it would put the payroll at an estimated 116 million. I'd say the most likely outlook is that the Brewers have a top limit of 15 million to spend this off-season. But it's might be just at likely that they only have a few million to play with and, if Garcia is back, they may already be at the limit. Best guess at payroll is here, post #14- viewtopic.php?f=63&t=41150

I'd be looking to trade Hader now. After 2022 I'd be looking to trade one of Burnes or Woodruff, whoever brought back the better return. And then after 2023, I'd trade the other one. I'd pretty much have to be blown away to trade either Burnes or Woodruff at this time. I'm willing to roll the dice with a Hader-less bullpen, taking the ~10 million dollars saved from dealing him and then adding some more dollars in...try to get a couple good bats to help the offense and then try to win it with Burnes/Woodruff/Peralta plus an offense that wouldn't necessarily be great but would hopefully be a little more consistent.

The deferred money thing is always a question to me because I don't know the rules on when that money is "funded." I can tell you this, if Ryan Braun is due a 1.8 million dollar paycheck on May 1, 2022, it's not like Attanasio just writes a 1.8 million dollar check on that day. That money is put into a fund a set amount of time before the payment is to be made, and then (in this case) Braun would get the 1.8 million on May 1 and Attanasio collects whatever earnings were made on that 1.8 million investment. There is a defined limit to how much the team can make however, if the market goes absolutely nuts then the owner gets chunk of the earnings and the player gets a chunk as well. I just could never figure out all the rules involved. However, if we play the "Yelich has 4 million in 2022 deferred, so we are not going to count that" game, then the payroll situation ROUGHLY shapes up as follows when using the MLBTradeRumor's arbitration estimates. Most of the rest of the info comes from Cot's Baseball Contracts. Yelich = 22 (4 million of 26 is deferred) Cain = 17 (1 million of 18 is deferred) Hader = 10 Wong = 8 Woodruff = 7.1 Narvaez = 4.1 Adames = 4 Burnes = 4 Bradley = 3.666666 (you'll have to look at Cots for the explanation of this one) Lindblom = 2.75 Lauer = 2.7 Urias = 2.4 Suter = 2.3 Houser = 2.3 Peralta = 2.25 Tellez = 1.9 Peterson = 1.3 Williams = 0.75 Taylor = 0.65 Ashby = 0.65 6 more guys at 0.60 minimum salary for 2022 = 2.4 Garcia = 1.5 (with pro-rated plate appearances in 2020, I believe this has turned into a mutual option, and would guess Garcia opts out) Braun = 1.8 (I thought these payments actually started later, but one source on the internet says they start in 2022) Total above is 105.52 million.

Might as well add in "didn't show up to play" along with the "bad" factor. Why bother even showing up if you are going to play like that? I think Mellusi did show better balance and power in this game than he had previously. Seems like the Badgers really want Allen to be that guy which might have lit a fire under Mellusi. Would love to think the OLine is starting to come together, but Illinois defensive front just looked awful. The one weak spot with the defense is becoming a glaring lack of ability to create the turnover. Really should have had about 4 interceptions in this game.

Can't wait to hear all the media crying about how almost all college sports went away after footballer's got paid. Does Title IX allow football players to get paid 50k per year and women's tennis players to get paid 2k per year? If you want equality then it looks like all those women on the rowing team will have to get paid as much as footballers. Sound like we are headed towards men's football, men's basketball, women's basketball and a few more women's sports that exist only to equal the number of football scholarships. Would like to think that something like men's hockey could still exist at UW, or wrestling at Iowa, but will enough schools participate in these programs to even make it worth it? Then when big universities get rid of, in UW's case it would literally probably be around 13-15 other programs, look at all the people who work in coaching/support jobs in those programs that are suddenly out of a job. Media and government get all involved and, as ALWAYS, they will make a questionable situation into a downright bad situation. It's what they do. But at least the media can move to their newly created catastrophe of "the death of college athletics" and have something to write about for the next ten years.

Offensive failures have nothing to do with offensive philosophy but a complete failure in recruiting IMO. QB and the "we only sign one player at the position per class" is a prime example. 2017 = Jack Coan, Danny Vanden Boom 2018 = Chase Wolf 2019 = Graham Mertz 2020 = None 2021 = Deacon Hill For those that remember, Vanden Boom was a last second offer as other prospects went elsewhere which left one scholarship out there. Vanden Boom was an Athlete prospect and it seems most thought his best chance was at safety. I never heard anything out of practice reports that would have slightly indicated that Vanden Boom could even be a decent #2. The early practice reports on Chase Wolf was that he had plus-plus mobility (which Badger fans have yet to see on the field) but as a thrower he was very marginal and was more of a mop-up #2 type rather than a guy you could trust to start two or three games if needed. It's hard for me to believe the coaches ever envisioned Wolf as a player who could play meaningful minutes and be effective after he got on campus and had a few practices. So we jump to 2020 and the Rivals database have Wisconsin as only offering 4 quarterbacks in that class. One was a really highly regarded guy out of Georgia who was never going to come to Wisconsin. Of the other three, only one had an official visit (Parker McQuarrie, who went to UCLA). I just don't understand the lack of recruiting at that spot when you have 4 guys in the QB room, one is about to graduate (or in this case, transfer out a year earlier) and 2 are guys who you know can't play. Even dumber yet is that Coan probably would have stuck around had the coaching staff had given him a legitimate, fair chance to compete, but instead of looking at the depth chart...they evidently decided that it was all Mertz because with Coan gone it looks like the only other possibility is Hill and I don't see him getting on the field at all this year. So not only should they have been recruiting QB hard in 2020, they should have been committed to bring in 2 QBs in 2021. Leaving themselves this short at QB is a total recruiting failure. And this post isn't all to dump on Mertz....I'll say it again...from top to bottom this offense is the "least football talented" offense I've seen at Wisconsin in at least two decades. Lots and lots of recruiting deficiencies on that side of the ball.

In fairness to Mertz, while not ignoring the fact that the guy is a MAC level player, from top to bottom this is the "least football talented" group of offensive players I've seen at Wisconsin in a long, long time. Mertz sucks. I wish the broadcasters would quit talking up Mellusi, he is very, very ordinary and a sub-par when talking about Big 10 starting running backs. Needless to say, there is not one receiver that is even close to a Cephus (and Cephus was very good, but not really great). The offensive line looks heavy-footed and very unathletic. OK, Jake Ferguson is a plus pass-catching tight end. They have that. Only hope is that the defense can create enough turnovers to keep all the games close (although Mertz will likely screw them all up in the end)...or the Big 10 turns out to be a bad conference this year.

If he goes in the transfer portal he will probably find success somewhere else and be that elite QB. There is some obvious coaching issues going on here as someone as talented as Mertz shouldn't be playing this bad. I wouldn't be surprised at all if he transfers after this season and he goes to a school like Oklahoma or Auburn and becomes a 1st round draft pick. Oh yeah, if I was Oklahoma I would be drooling when seeing Mertz in the transfer portal.

Considering how ESPN leaves out a key part of the story, I would have to guess that Braun might already have a job lined up there. https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/32208038/milwaukee-brewers-slugger-ryan-braun-announces-retirement Braun was one of baseball's best hitters from 2007 to '12, but was never the same after he was suspended midway through the 2013 season for using performance-enhancing drugs. He acknowledged that he took banned substances while rehabilitating an injury and apologized.

Dumbest aspect of this is that the other team gets a win. If something like the following happens, I will never watch Big 10 football again....Wisconsin finishes second in the division after playing all their games, Iowa finishes first in the division, one game ahead of Wisconsin, and Iowa got 3 free wins because they happened to match up against 3 teams that were unable to play due to COVID. But as you say Peavey, if Ohio State has the same thing happen and they finish one game behind Indiana, then the rules will immediately change.

Bellinger's K rate has gone way up. Sitting at 25.9% for the season which is definitely sub-par (median number among qualifiers is 21.3%), but it's not a disaster. Bellinger's hard hit ball % has gone way down, but his weakly hit ball % hasn't risen dramatically, so most of the hard hit balls have now fallen into the medium category. Bellinger's biggest problem is that he currently sits with a ridiculously low .203 BABIP. So when looking at some of the peripherals, I think Bellinger's chances of bouncing back is far better than Hiura. Bellinger is also a +34 DRS and +6.8 UZR/150 as a major league outfielder, most of those innings in centerfield, which gives him a big advantage over Hiura because Bellinger can field and field well whereas Hiura always figures to be awful when it comes to defense. I have Mitchell by far and away the best Brewer prospect, and I don't think a Bellinger for Hiura + Mitchell is anywhere near a fair trade. Don't even need to bring Lux into the equation. Hiura only has value once he hits major league pitching again.

Yeah, I agree with what you are saying 100%. There are certainly some exceptions for guys just drafted and young international guys, but prospect valuations are largely made of what has happened this year and the previous year. Last year is largely based on reports from what a guy did in the developmental camps, which may have validity or could just as easily be a complete fabrication. I cranked the numbers just because I was interested and then posted them because I thought others might be interested in seeing them. But are this year's trade-value-guesses more shaky than usual, I would definitely say so.

Value-wise, this looks like a horrible deal for Texas, especially since it now sounds like they are picking up nearly all of Gallo's contract (which is odd since he is in arbitration, so we don't know what his 2022 salary will be). Pro-rating 2020 and 2021 out to full seasons, Gallo's been a 3.7 fWAR player/4.5 bWAR player, so call him a 4.1 WAR player, so that projects him as being good for 5.5 WAR over the next 1 1/3 season. 5.5 million * 9 = 49.5 million total value and if the Rangers do pay most of his salary (let's say 80%), that means the Yankees probably only pay him about 2.5 million which makes Gallo's surplus value about 47 million. Joely Rodriguez is a +fWAR and -bWAR player, pretty much a complete neutral acquisition with no real surplus value. He doesn't figure into the equation at all. Based on Baseball America, Fangraphs, Keith Law and MLB.com, I'd put the prospects going to Texas in the following groups- Ezequiel Duran = Bottom 1/3 top 300 prospect, right around #250. That puts his prospect surplus value at 9.5 million. Josh Smith has a plus hit tool but seems to be average in about everything else. I'd guess in most systems, he's probably a #12-#15. Role-player prospect = 5.5 million. Glenn Otto and Trevor Hauver were fringe prospect quality heading into the season, but have done well enough where both probably fit best in the grey area between role-player and fringe = 3.85 million for each. So I'd put the combined prospect surplus value of the 4 prospects at 22.7 million, which is less than half of Gallo's surplus value (depending on how much salary the Ranger's pick up). One of the most lop-sided trades I've seen since I've been doing these calculations.

Wonder if a team is going to take the risk on Hiura or if he's soon to be headed to Nashville for the rest of the year. Nashville. It would be a crazy sell low on Hiura is Stearns were to deal him now.

Price seems about right. Escobar has been a 2 WAR player through 2/3rds of the season, so he projects to 1 WAR for the remainder of the year. Makes 7.5 million this season, so roughly 2.5 million the rest of the way. 1 WAR * 9 million per WAR = 9 million in value - 2.5 million = 6.5 million in surplus value. I have role-player prospects (generally speaking, players that fall in the #11-#25 range on a team's top prospect list, depending on how strong the organization is) worth 5.5 million and fringe prospects worth 2.2 million. So I have 4.4 million going back as I have the two prospects as both fringe guys. However, it's not crazy to think the Diamondbacks may have elevated Hummel a bit higher on their board. Seems like a pretty solid deal for both sides.

Let me just say that I'm a big fan of Clancy's ratings and hopefully he will keep them coming. When he was all hot over Brent Suter....I just wonder how many Brewer prospects the experts had rated higher at the time and what percentage of those guys are already out of professional baseball. You never know, which is why it is so refreshing to see some people thinking out of the box.

Wilson has lost 1.5 MPH off his fastball this year and has been awful. His addition to the Reds could very well turn out to be a subtraction for the ballclub. Cessa's stat sheet makes him look like a run-of-the-mill reliever. If the Yankees have a couple young relievers they want to give a chance, then they can cycle through them and hope one of them can deliver the 2.82 ERA/3.54 FIP/4.22 xFIP they were getting from Cessa. Wilson was well below replacement level this year using bWAR or fWAR, so even AAA organizational filler could likely give the Yankees an equivalent or better performance.