JosephC

I'd let Braun go and for me it would be an easy decision- OBP- 2016 = .365 2017 = .336 2018 = .313 2019 = .343 2020 = .281 OPS- 2016 = .903 2017 = .823 2018 = .782 2019 = .849 2020 = .769 2019 looks like a real outlier, otherwise a pretty convincing downward trend. Will be 37 years old. Bad defensively. I should wait to see what some of the models project, but it looks like the Brewers would be signing a DH (if there is a NL DH in 2021) that I'm guessing would project to be about a .750 OPS hitter. For me that's an easy pass. Maybe I'll change my mind when/if the projection services release their numbers and if they are better than I am anticipating.

I'm a big fan of contact tracing and frankly felt the government fell flat early on. Especially in the Milwaukee area where the JS reported that people who tested positive were not getting any follow up calls to find out where they had been so they could get word to people/places that may be affected. IMO, this still seems like the best and most effective way to handle the spread of the disease. But the longer we go into this, the more obvious it becomes that HIPAA laws makes this just about impossible. I work for a large corporation. If someone gets sick at work (a building with about 100 people), no one knows about it unless the sick person contacts someone else at work to spread the news. So we had someone who went out last Thursday, not because she was sick but someone else in her family is COVID-19 positive, and not a word was said to any of the other people in the office by the employer because of privacy concerns. She mailed friends about it on Friday and told those people to spread the word but I only heard about this yesterday. If I would have been informed immediately I could have skipped my Friday trip to the grocery store, avoided using the elevator in my apartment building (no air circulation in there!) and altered my movements as to not put anyone else at risk. But due to privacy concerns, I had no idea until 5 days later. I am all for privacy laws. But in this case, should COVID-19 be exempted from HIPAA for obvious reasons? I think it's a discussion worth having.

Semi-annual 50% off flash sale at criterion.com happening now. 15+ hours left as I type this. Only applies to in-stock titles. No out of stock or pre-orders included. Buy $50+ and get free shipping. I am a bit bummed, my local Barnes and Noble started with the spiderweb security tags which damages box set packaging so I am now looking to get all Criterion box sets through these twice-a-year flash sales. I wanted to get The Apu Trilogy during this sale, but it is sold out. The backup option was the 3-film Rossellini collection featuring Ingrid Bergman, but that one was sold out too.

Swap of negative value contracts. Brewers get: SS - Scott Kingery OF - Adam Haseley Phillies get: OF - Lorenzo Cain OF - Tristen Lutz

How about trading for someone you already traded away? Brewers get: 3B - Brian Anderson (possible RF in 2022) 1B - Garrett Cooper SS - Jon Berti (super utility) Marlins get: RHP - Freddy Peralta SS - Brice Turang OF - Carlos Rodriguez

Hader ($32 Million) and Arcia ($6 million) to the Phillies for Alec Bohm ($38 million). Done. The Phillies certainly have a need for a elite reliver and are in "win now" mode. However, depsite what some website says, Orlando Arcia has negative trade value. First, there is a significant chance the Brewers simply non-tender him. Second more probably true than not, many players with similar skill sets will also be non-tendered which makes Arcia worthless to acquire in a trade. No kidding. If someone offered me 6 million in surplus value in any shape or form, I'd be trading Arcia in a millisecond. It is worth noting that Fangraphs had him at a 1.9 WAR player for 2020 if extrapolated over a full season. Sell high, sell high, sell high, sell high and hope Urias figures out how to hit right-handed major league pitching.

Updated with MLB Trade Rumors full-season arbitration estimates- Guarantees: Cain = 16 million (17 million but 1 million deferred) Yelich = 14 million Garcia = 10.5 million Lindblom = 2.75 million Suter = 1.5 million Peralta = 1 million Total = 45.75 million Arbitration (from MLB Trade Rumors): Note - Omitting Healy and Peterson is not a mistake, maybe they will be back, maybe not Hader = 6.8 million estimate Woodruff = 4.5 million estimate Arcia = 3.8 million estimate Narvaez = 3.1 million estimate Pina = 2.3 million Claudio = 2.3 million guess (Brewers decline and bring him back at lower price, just like last year) Gamel = 2.1 million Vogelbach = 1.9 million Knebel = no offer Total = 26.8 million Buyouts Braun = 4 million Gyorko = 1 million (could easily look to bring him back at lower price) Sogard = 0.5 million Total = 5.5 million So Cain, Yelich, Garcia, Lindblom, Suter, Peralta, Hader, Woodruff, Arcia, Narvaez, Pina, Claudio, Gamel and Vogelbach equal 14. So that's 12 more minimum salary guys to fill out a 26 man roster. 563k is minimum but some 1 and 2 year guys will get paid a bit more. Let's just assume 600k each to fill out the roster, that would be- Total = 7.2 million Grand total without Braun = 85.25 million Looks like about 14-15 million to spend if the payroll is 100 million. Fair estimate? This could be a crazy year, league-wide, for teams not offering arbitration to eligible players. Of the Brewer's 11 eligible players, I wouldn't be a bit surprised to see over half of them not be offered arbitration.

Challenge time for the board. Hader has a surplus value of +22.3 million on baseballtradevalues.com I think that's low, let's pretend that 30 out of 30 MLB teams has Hader as the equivalent of +32 million on their boards. Then let's pretend that baseballtradevalues.com has the correct number on all the rest of the players in the league. Propose Hader trades that you would favor. You have 32 million to work with. One more rule, no "the Brewers throw in 5 million in cash to even up the deal" because Attanasio is not going to pay to move Hader off the team. That just isn't going to happen (especially after the COVID-19 crisis has thrown all the MLB owners into complete poverty). Personally, I'd be 100% hold on Hader right now.

I don't think 3 million for Braun is an unreasonable number. In 2018/2019 he was a 1.4 bWAR/fWAR player. Pro-rate 2020 to a full season and Braun was actually slightly on the negative side. Three year average is only 0.9 bWAR/fWAR. Doing the rule of thumb and subtracting 0.5 due to age, it would project Braun as a 0.4 WAR player for 2021. It will be his age 37 season. He has a history of nagging injuries. It's a safe bet that 30 out of 30 MLB teams will view him as a negative defensive contributor. With the exception of 2019, Braun's OPS and OBP has steadily dropped from 2016 on. Just eyeballing the numbers, it does give the impression that 2019 could have been Braun's last hurrah. Looking at the whole picture, there are a whole lot of reasons to be bearish on Braun moving forward. Agreed that it only takes one dumb team to overpay for a player, but in what I expect will be a market where owners will use every excuse not to spend money, I really don't see Braun getting much of a payday.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no! Last I heard, some municipalities around Wisconsin have allowed an interest free, 6 month delay in paying property taxes but I still haven't heard of any homeowners getting significant breaks on their property taxes this year. If the average Joe taxpayer is expected to pay his property taxes in full (even the ones that lost their jobs!), then Attanasio can pay his rent in full!

I consider that one a joke (Brewers get screwed)...but I wouldn't argue at all that Jeff McNeil's value is now greater than Hader's value. There probably is little question that the Yankee offers after the 2019 season were terrible "spare-parts" offers and probably not worth listening to. But I would love to know what the Dodgers and the Mets were offering.

History doesn't really give any concrete information regarding how successful a Korean-born player will perform in MLB after going through the posting system. It just hasn't happened very often. Hyun-jin Ryu has been a hit when on the mound, but he's also been hurt a lot. Jung-ho Kang was also pretty good before getting his leg smashed. On the other hand, Byung-ho Park was a massive flop for the Twins. The thing I wonder about Ha-Seong Kim is if the defensive aspect is real. He's won multiple gold gloves, but is that like in America where gold glove awards tend to be based more on reputation (and sometimes flat out ignorance) than actual performance? If he really can field, a team still can get some value out of him if he plays at a plus-plus level at the shortstop position even if he under-performs with the bat. Even in a market where I think owners will sit on money and use COVID-19 as the excuse, I would still think earning the right to bid on Kim would run a minimum of 15 million dollars. The last guy through the Korean posting system, Byung-ho Park, cost the Twins 12.85 million for the right to negotiate (to the Korean team) and then Park got a 4 year, 12 million dollar deal on top of that. So that was a 24.85 million dollar investment for the Twins. When Ryu was posted, the Dodgers paid 25.7 million to negotiate and then another 6 years, 36 million to Ryu. No idea what it will eventually cost to get Kim in the upcoming market, but I'm guessing that when you add the fee that goes to the Korean team, that it will be too rich for the Brewers to be involved.

Evers = 25% capacity City of Milwaukee = Ummm, no. 100% capacity with Milwaukee's magic checklist in place. Apparently magic checklist says sticking 4 times as many people in confined space is OK. So much for the social distancing concept. We need your tax dollars, just put on that facemask and everything will be OK. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/local/milwaukee/2020/10/07/milwaukee-enforce-existing-covid-19-order-not-new-evers-limits/5918062002/ Once the plan is approved, the bar or restaurant will be expected to abide by restrictions in its approved plan, not the sections of the city's order relating to those establishments. Those with plans in place can operate without the current 50% capacity limit. As of Friday, the department had received 850 plans and approved 318. "After review of both orders, the City of Milwaukee Health Department has determined that the Moving Milwaukee Forward Safely Order is more restrictive than Governor Evers’ Emergency Order #3, and that all businesses and individuals within the City of Milwaukee should continue to adhere to the Moving Milwaukee Forward Safely Order," the Health Department said in the statement.

Nope, gotta do it for the whole state. Because there may be a bunch of drunk college kids three counties away that will invade Milwaukee and end up killing everyone's Grandma because they will infect someone in a room at 50% capacity, whereas they cannot infect someone in a room at 25% capacity. But in all serious, gone are the days when government is expected to maintain law and order and provide a few basic services like cleaning the streets and picking up the garbage. Now Evers is expected to be the Grand Patriarch of all mere mortals in the state of Wisconsin. So everything is applied equally, because the perception that the government is protecting everyone must be maintained. Hopefully I'll have time to read the new order when I get home from work tonight.

I can only assume that you are looking at the CB Tax numbers which is the wrong way to do it because that doesn't use the actual yearly salaries. For big contracts, the CB Tax averages out all years of the contract, so the Yankees could pay Garrett Cole 69 million dollars this year and then just 1 million next year to get under the "cap" and reset their tax...except the tax calculation does not allow that (in this example, the tax number on Cole would be 35 million for both seasons). Putting it in Brewer terms, Yelich made 12.5 million dollars this year but the CB tax is at 23.888 million, so there is an 11+ million dollar difference right there. If you look at the actual opening day payroll, the Brewer's started 2019 with a 122.5 million dollar payroll and this year it would have been 102.5 million (actually would have been a couple million less because you could subtract 4 players and about 2 million if they had been playing with a 26 man roster instead of a 30 man roster). That said, Cots shows the Brewers as running higher opening day payrolls in 2014 and 2015, but even so...I believe Stearns might be correct when he says this would have been the team's 2nd highest opening day payroll. The 102.5 million number is only about 1.7 million than the previous 2nd highest payroll which was back in 2015. However, benefit increases that occured from 2015 to 2020 could very easily have exceeded the approximate 1.7 million dollar difference which would indeed have made this the Brewers 2nd highest opening day payroll had there been normal circumstances. But the opening day payroll was cut approximately 20 million from 2019 to 2020. In fairness, Attanasio has been pretty good about adding payroll during the season through trades. We'll never know how much he would have added if it would have been a normal season. Certainly not 20 million dollars worth, but certainly maybe enough to silence some of the critics regarding the opening day payroll cut (of which I was one).

I don't think that would nearly be enough for Baltimore to move Means. Granted, Means was terrible this year, but is a lefty who had a really solid 2019 season and is under control for four more seasons with no Super Two possibility. Not to mention Iglesias isn't anything near a second, throw-in type piece. Not spectacular, but a really solid player who brings some real value to the table. I do agree that it's hard to put a value on the comp balance picks. I'd still tend to think the Brewers paid way to high when trading the comp A pick for Claudio and didn't pay nearly enough when trading the comp B pick for Narvaez (although year one results for Narvaez in Milwaukee makes that one look like a HUGE overpay as Seattle seemed to know something that Stearns did not). Ultimately, I'd put about a 10 million dollar surplus value on a comp A pick. To put an estimate for the Baseball Trade Values website, seemed the most reasonable thing to do to come up with a value was to just take the average of all of last year's sandwich picks. When doing so, picks 30-37 of the 2020 draft has an average value of 5.7 million on the Trade Values website. I will note there was one low number compared to the rest (Padres = Lang = 1.7 million), so let's throw out that number. That would put the Trade Values value on a sandwich pick in the 2020 draft at 6.3 million. Generally I like bWAR better for pitchers, but pro-rating 2020 to a full season puts Means at a 3.6 WAR pitcher on average over the last two seasons. No way I project that going forward. fWAR would have him at 1.9 WAR per season over the last two years. Even factoring in regression, it would be hard to see anyone valuing him at less than 4.6 WAR total over the next four years (less than 1.2 WAR per season). Even at that low number, I'd still probably say he has about 25 million in surplus value. Iglesias has been a 2.25 bWAR/fWAR player per season over the last four years. Considering this partial season was probably his finest performance (performing at a legitimate 3.75 WAR level), I think a 2.25 WAR estimate for 2021 is completely reasonable. That would put the calculated surplus value at 16.75 million....but obviously no team is going to give up a top 100 prospect for 1 year of Iglesias. But maybe a guy around #200, on my scale that would put his surplus value at about 11.9 million. So I would have- Orioles = Means at 25 million plus Iglesias at 11.9 million equals 36.9 million Brewers = Comp pick at 10 million plus Garcia at 5.5 million (back end of top 300 player) plus Henry at 3.85 million (between role player and fringe player) plus 0 for Arcia equals 19.35 million Orioles at a -17.55 difference Trade value site- Orioles = Means at 18.4 million plus Iglesias at 6.2 million equals 24.6 million Brewers = Comp A pick at 6.3 million plus Garcia at 6 million plus Henry at 1.7 million plus Arcia at 0 equals 14 million Orioles at a -10.6 difference Either calculation is way short from the Orioles end. Baseball Trade Values site has Ethan Small as a 6 million dollar value and I have him as at about 9.3 million...that would put the Orioles at -8.25 million on my estimate and -4.6 million on the Baseball Trade Values site estimate. Adding someone like Carlos Rodriguez would come pretty close to being even on both my estimate and the Baseball Trade Value site estimate. So if I'm the Orioles I would counter with a John Means/Jose Iglesias for Ethan Small/Comp A pick/Eduardo Garcia/Carlos Rodriguez/Payton Henry/Orlando Arcia swap and probably wouldn't move off that ask unless you wanted to swap out Carlos Rodriguez for Corey Ray or something else along those lines. If you wanted to drop Iglesias to lower the payout, I'd still demand Small be included in any trade that includes Means.

I generally like to keep up on roster rules but have pretty much ignored baseball for the last few months. If anyone has the answers to these question, I would be very thankful. Not advocating a trade of Josh Hader for Alec Bohm, although I wouldn't necessarily be opposed to it. I'm just using Bohm as an example, as it could apply to any player who made his MLB debut this season. Bohm was at the Phillies alternate training site as the beginning of the season, and then had his contract bought by the Phillies on August 13. Normally a season is 172 days (I think). This season started on July 23 and ended on September 27, which made it a 67 day season. Since Bohm was called up on August 13, he was on the major league roster for 46 days. So does Bohm get credited with a full season since he was at the alternate training site, or does he just get a partial season worth of service time which is then adjusted to "represent" a 172 game schedule? Sure looks like he would only get a partial season since 46/67 = 68.66% of a season times 172 for a normal length season = 118 days of service time. 118 looks like a pretty reasonable number to shoot for clubs if they are trying to avoid putting a player in Super Two land. Since Bohm hasn't been around that long (drafted in 2018), I am assuming that he was not on the Phillies 40-man roster before all the COVID-19 related roster modifications. So under normal circumstances, a Bohm August 13 call up would not burn one of his options since it would have been the first time he appeared on the 40-man roster and he wasn't sent down sometime after the promotion. But in this case, did they make the 60-man roster the same as the 40-man roster? Because if they did, then I would assume one option would have been used in July when he was sent to the alternate training site. I would be very appreciative if someone who knows could take the time and explain the service time and option rules for this modified season. Thank you.

The baseballtradevalue site has Hader's median number at 38.5 million, and that's a pretty reasonable number if you project him as a 2.2-2.4 WAR player per season over the next three years.

Attanasio cutting the opening day payroll by 20 million dollars didn't help matters.

Science would tell you a piece of cloth will not stop of 20 Angstrom sized virus when the equivalent of a vacuum cleaner is installed behind that piece of cloth. Nice that the state's biggest newspaper has finally figured out that this is not strictly a college town problem. Why has the Wisconsin Department of Health completely removed the following statement from their website? However, face coverings may increase risk if users reduce their use of strong defenses, such as physical distancing and frequent hand washing, when using cloth face coverings. It's so very interesting that Evers delayed the facemask order, saying that he didn't think he could legally do it. So he sat around until July 26 and then implemented it on July 30. https://evers.wi.gov/Documents/COVID19/EmO01-FaceCoverings.pdf Let's look at the COVID-19 graph and see exactly where the state was in late July. https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/usa/wisconsin/ Did Evers intentionally wait until an anticipated peak number of cases was reached, anticipating that a decrease would follow and then they could crow about the facemask mandate being a huge success? Looked like the plan many have working for about a month. Now it looks like the order is a complete bust. People not wearing masks at all? Or people making stupid decisions because they have the false sense of security from a mask? We don't know for certain. It's very hard to rationalize #4 on page 3 of the facemask order. If leaders truly believed that facemasks were beneficial, why would that exception be included? Do the people who write the laws believe the masks are beneficial at all? Or do the people who write the laws just believe that they are above it all? Anybody check out Iowa's graphs recently, the closest state that has been "very lazy" with stay-at-home initiatives and mask mandates. https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/usa/iowa/ Flattening the curve? The virus will do what the virus wants to do. Really want my opinion after all the questions from above? If you are interested in protecting yourself, stay at home.

That is an excellent point that I hadn't thought about. Makes me think it's pretty likely there is another Brewer payroll reduction in 2021.

Guarantees: Cain = 16 million (17 million but 1 million deferred) Yelich = 14 million Garcia = 10.5 million Lindblom = 2.75 million Suter = 1.5 million Peralta = 1 million Total = 45.75 million Arbitration (I don't claim to be an expert on arbitration estimates): Hader = 5.9 million estimate Woodruff = 4 million estimate (looks like he's Super Two, could use an expert to help me with this estimate) Narvaez = 3.27 million estimate Arcia = 2.95 million estimate Claudio = 2 million guess (Brewers decline and bring him back at lower price, just like last year) Knebel = no offer Total = 18.12 million Buyouts Braun = 4 million Gyorko = 1 million (could easily look to bring him back at lower price) Sogard = 0.5 million Guessing Gamel is also out (no buyout), but another that might be brought back at a lower price? Total = 5.5 million So Cain, Yelich, Garcia, Lindblom, Suter, Peralta, Hader, Woodruff, Narvaez, Arcia, Claudio equal 11. So that's 15 more minimum salary guys to fill out a 26 man roster. 563k is minimum but some 1 and 2 year guys will get paid a bit more. Let's just assume 600k each to fill out the roster, that would be- Total = 9 million Grand total without Braun = 78.37 million Looks like about 21-22 million to spend if the payroll is 100 million. Fair estimate?

I remember all those off-season plans last year that pushed the payroll to 140 million and Attanasio did the complete 180 and cut the opening day payroll by 20 million. Owners will collectively cry about all the money they lost in 2020 due to COVID-19 (which is a joke, if they were losing money they would have never played the season). Also, free agency is a November/December/January exercise and they will likely have the perfect uncertainty excuse as to not sign players to fair-market type deals. If I'm doing a Brewers plan for 2021, no way would I project an opening day payroll of over 100 million. Sure, I could easily be wrong and Attanasio might be one of the exceptions of what I think will be a significant league-wide move to slash payrolls. But the most "reasonable" way to approach a true off-season plan for 2021 is to set that team cap at 100 million and work within those parameters.

While this could very well be corporate policy, to be fair it could also just be the local store manager or some supervisor who told the employee what the policy is. Hard to notice at the Kwik Trips here in western Waukesha county, since I'm usually the only one wearing a mask at most places not just Kwik Trip. Look out man, you are going to ruin the narrative. Waukesha County currently has 236 cases per 100,000 over the last 14 days which ranks 47th out of Wisconsin's 72 counties.

Pearson has an undisclosed "medical condition" and he won't be cleared to play this season. He is still enrolled and Chryst has been quoted as saying that he still wants Pearson around the program. I can't figure out why they would remove him from the roster if this was the case, but this is what is being reported.