JosephC

I don't know how the Brewers can leave Corbin Burnes on the 25-man roster. Time to ship him to AAA. I think it's time to give Taylor Williams another chance. If they are going to keep Williams on the 40-man roster, now seems like a pretty good time to use him.

Hard to believe that Orioles would have made this move so far ahead of the deadline. I'm not much of a Cashner fan, but that seems like a pretty weak return for a guy that has turned in a pretty decent season so far.

Hate to think that a small sample size like 7-10 days can really swing big decisions that could really affect the future of the franchise. But I think that's where the Brewers are at. I would have been a pretty aggressive buyer just a week ago, Hiura off-the-board but everyone else available in the right deal. After last night's game, I'd shift to being a very conservative buyer. At this point I'd be completely removing Hiura, Turang, Ray, Lutz, Brown, Dubon, Ashby, Feliciano, Grisham and Supak which would limit my buying to non-elite relievers. I just would have a hard time making significant investments in this club with the way they've played lately. 8-16 in the last 24 games with 100% of those games coming against teams with losing records. Brewers have 7-10 games to get their stuff in order. They have games against the Braves and Diamondbacks coming up, if they look bad in those series it would be pretty easy to flip the switch and be a seller.

Grandal is on pace to be a 5.6 fWAR and 3.5 bWAR player this year. Average is 4.55. Average season bWAR/fWAR in 2017 and 2018 was 3.7. 2017-2019 (pro-rating 2019 to a full 162 game season) and the average season bWAR/fWAR is 4. IMO, to view him as somewhere between a 4 and 4.5 WAR player seems like a fair number. If he is considered a 4.2 WAR player, that's good enough for 1.8 WAR over the rest of the season. That makes his value 16.2 million. He's still due 9.15 million (6.9 in salary and 2.25 in mutual option), which would make his surplus value +7.05 million. I'm just going to make the assumption that the trading team would insist the Brewers play the mutual option, which I'm assuming the Brewers would be happy to do since it would improve the return package. So I'd put Grandal's surplus value at +9.3 million. I think trwi7 is right on the money when looking at the Rangers as a target. I've caught bits and pieces of quite a few of their games and Jeff Mathis is not a good catcher. Rangers minor league system isn't very good though, I saw some real positive critiques of their farm system last off-season and I didn't really see it then and I don't see it now. Might be tough to find a match from that perspective.

I very much doubt that gets it done. A likely reliever, a guy with a starter's arsenal that bombed so bad that he had to move back to the bullpen and then back and forth between the bullpen and the minors and then a SS that's going to be entering arbitration that's maybe like a 2 WAR guy. Adding another smaller piece on to that doesn't do much. Agreed, impossible to believe the Mets wouldn't get more attractive offers than that. Folks saying Corbin Burnes still has great upside so his 5.53 ERA, 1.42 WHIP 4.95 FIP MLB numbers shouldn't matter...that's just like a Marlins fan trying to sell us Lewis Brinson for a high value player and arguing that he still should hold all of his prospect value and his .190/.240/.321/.561 MLB slash line shouldn't matter because he still has real high upside.

Would the Mets love to have Hiura's bat? Sure, any one of 30 MLB teams would. But the problem with Hiura to the Mets is what do they do with Robinson Cano? If the Mets believe JD Davis is the real deal, then where does Hiura fit in with Davis, Cano, Alonso...and many people already believe Rosario should be moved off SS. Hiura's the only chance I see of these two teams lining up on a Syndergaard trade, but the more one looks at it, the more it just doesn't seem to match up.

Hitters are aging quicker? Wouldn't be a problem if they all got on the Barry Bonds workout plan that so many MLB players were on 10+ years ago. As much as the assumption is that you don't pay older pitchers big money, this year the exact opposite is true: fWAR top 25 batters and their age: Mike Trout = 27 Cody Bellinger = 23 Christian Yelich = 27 Alex Bregman = 25 Ketel Marte = 25 Xander Bogaerts = 26 Matt Chapman = 26 Peter Alonso = 24 Kris Bryant = 27 Yoan Moncada = 24 Rafael Devers = 22 Javier Baez = 26 Nolan Arenado = 28 DJ LeMahieu = 30 Marcus Semien = 28 Yasmani Grandal = 30 Ronald Acuna = 21 Anthony Rendon = 29 Trevor Story = 26 Carlos Santana = 33 Mookie Betts = 26 Jorge Polanco = 26 Max Muncy = 28 Max Kepler = 26 Eduardo Escobar = 30 Average age = 26.52 That's pretty incredible. Only 1 player above the age of 30. And 3 more at 30. 80+% of the list are still in their 20's. I'm not going to list all the pitchers, but there are way more 30+ year olds on the fWAR list of pitchers: 1. Max Scherzer = 34 2. Lance Lynn = 32 3. Charlie Morton = 35 4. Jacob deGrom = 31 5. Stephen Strasburg = 30 8. Zack Greinke = 35 9. Hyun-Jin Ryu = 32 11. Brandon Woodruff = 26 (doesn't fit the 30+ club but I'll list him anyway) 14. Mike Minor = 31 18. Chris Sale = 30 22. Cole Hamels = 35 24. Justin Verlander = 36 25. Masahiro Tanaka = 30 Average age of top 25 = 29.52 Top of the list dominated by 30+ year old's, and 30+ year old's make up just slightly less than 50% of the list.

I wouldn't because (A) Hiura has significantly higher surplus value by my calculations and (B) I'd be torn about paying market value for Syndergaard because he's a real hard-thrower that only started 7 games in 2017 and 25 games in 2018. I know there are a lot of people out there that are just willing to accept injuries as part of the package for high-upside players, but I'm not one. Even the best guys don't add a darn thing if they are on the bench with an injury. But after having given it some thought, even though I wouldn't be a fan of the move, if Stearns did something like: Brewers get: RHP-Noah Syndergaard RHP-Seth Lugo 3B-Todd Frazier Mets get: 2B-Keston Hiura RHP-Trey Supak C-Jacob Nottingham I really couldn't argue about that too much. I haven't cranked through the math but I'd guess that would be pretty fair, numbers-wise. Brewers lose 6+ years of Hiura but would be trading for 2+ years of Syndergaard and 3+ years of Lugo. Syndergaard would represent a huge upgrade for the rotation and Lugo would be considered the 2nd best reliever on the team. Frazier plays third, Moustakas to second, and while Frazier's bat would be a pitiful long-term comparison to Hiura...currently this season Frazier is slashing .256/.340/.443/.783 against Hiura's .257/.318/.475/.793...so Frazier's bat might not even be that big of a downgrade when limiting the outlook to 2019.

I hope you are wrong about that because, IMO, the ability to play shortstop is a big part of his future outlook/value.

I'll say in, Division Champs in what turns out to be a really weak division. Only thing that derails them is if Yelich has an injury that puts him on the shelf for 1+ month. Cubs will hit but their pitching fades down the stretch. Hard to put my finger on what's wrong with the Cardinals...when watching them last year they just seemed to be missing something, and this year it appears the same which is surprising because I figured Goldschmidt would have fixed that. I don't believe in Pittsburgh or Cincinnati at all, if one of those teams wins the division then it needs to be defined as something worse than a weak division. I'm not necessarily sold on Milwaukee, but I am not sold on anybody else either. Cardinals are probably the biggest threat if they can get Goldschmidt going. For some reason I think the Cubs fortune hinges on Darvish and I'm not sure if that's good or bad for Chicago. I've still seen him flash some electric stuff, but his fastball location just sucks and, in my limited viewing, seems to really have messed up his pitch sequencing/selection.

I think the fair asking price on Syndergaard probably should have dropped significantly over the last few months. His best year occurred in 2016...generally I take the three year splits...and we are far enough into this season where I'd use a pro-rated 2019 WAR value and throw out 2016. Production in 2017 was minimal (injury) and he's been very good in terms of peripherals in 2019 but not very good in terms of run prevention. Yearly bWAR/fWAR average: 2016 = 5.45 2017 = 0.95 (only 7 starts) 2018 = 4.10 2019 (pro-rated to full season) = 2.35 Four year average = 3.2 Three year average = 2.5 Mets would likely argue that the 2017 number is artificially low due to injury and the multi-year average numbers should be adjusted up...I'd guess they would still look for 4+ WAR per season compensation, although I think it's pretty unlikely they would get that, even for a hard-throwing type like Syndergaard. If they do, it would put his surplus value at around 66 million which would be extremely difficult for the Brewers to achieve. They would need to include so many minor leaguers not named Hiura that it's almost impossible that a deal could be reached. At this point, if Stearns really, really, really wanted Syndergaard, then it would really make more sense to just offer Hiura and then get the Mets to add in a reliever to make it a fair deal. If one believes Syndergaard is at least a 4 WAR player moving forward, then a Hiura for Syndergaard + Seth Lugo deal would be a fair deal IMO. I personally just think putting a 4 WAR value on Syndergaard is a bit too optimistic at this point. Fair value really should be somewhere between the 3.2 WAR per season and the 2.5 WAR per season numbers I've outlined above. I'd estimate he'll make 21.75 million through 2021...if using the high WAR number that would put his surplus value at approximately 48.45 million and the when using the low WAR number the surplus value would only be approximately 33.15 million. Impossible for me to believe that the Mets would deal him for that lower number, but if they would, a package like Turang + Brown + Feliciano would be enough. The higher number would require a package like Turang + Lutz + Brown + Feliciano + Supak. For another perspective, the Trade Value website puts Syndergaard's value at 88.1 million, which was probably a fair enough value 12 months ago but seems ridiculously high now. 88.1 million surplus value + and estimated 21.75 million in salary puts his value over the next 2+ years at 109.85 million. 109.85 million / 9 million (assuming 1 WAR = 9 million) = 12.2 WAR. With 2.44 years of team control remaining, 12.2/2.44 = (strangely enough) exactly 5 WAR per season. Syndergaard was all that 5 WAR and more in 2016, but hasn't been back there in the last three years. Removing Hiura, I have the total prospect surplus value of all the remaining non-fringe Brewer prospects at only about 117 million. So if this is the price the Mets need for Syndergaard, then the Brewers are probably out right from the get-go. Would need to include a name like Yelich, Hader or Hiura just to get the ball rolling. After looking through all the data, I'd say odds are overwhelming that Stearns asks, the Mets say that either Hader or Hiura would be an absolute requirement to getting a deal done, and that's the end of it.

Hard for them to overpay as neither organization has much minor league talent to begin with. Yankees...maybe a bit better than Milwaukee but certainly not significant. The Red Sox probably have the worst minor league system in baseball right now. The five names I had heard as being most interested in Wheeler are the Red Sox, Yankees, Braves, Brewers and Cubs. The Braves are really the only team out of the bunch that has a significantly better minor league system than Milwaukee. If the Braves only have lukewarm interest, the Brewers easily have the prospects to compete with the Red Sox, Yankees and Cubs.

It will be interesting to see if any team gives him a 25-man roster spot. Considering he's had a 6.54 ERA, 1.62 WHIP and 5.76 FIP since coming back from the injury, my guess would be no.

I will say that Bumgarner had the look of really starting to heat up prior to taking one off the elbow. He had a 4.28 ERA and an 8.7 K/9 after a June 20 game, but in three starts after that had posted a 2.40 ERA and a 13.2 K/9. And most of those innings were against the Rockies and Diamondbacks. Both in San Francisco so he had the home park working for him, but neither of those teams have slouch offenses. I'd been the guy saying all along that it's unlikely that teams will step up and meet the Giants demands, which I think will be pretty big (Giants will need at least 2x a reasonable surplus value calculation?...all speculation on my part). But strikeout pitchers are hot...and a guy who goes on a late June/July run and is able to post a 13.2 K/9, even over a relatively modest amount of innings...demand for a guy like that could dramatically shoot up in baseball's current environment.

I haven't been much of a Cashner fan over the years, but to dismiss him would be a mistake IMO. He's totally redone his repertoire this season. In 2017 and 2018 his pitch breakdown was approximately 35% sinker, 25% fastball, 15% change-up, 10% cutter, 10% curveball and 5% slider. So far this year it's been 45% fastball, 25% change-up, 15% curveball, 10% slider and 5% sinker. So he's basically shelved the sinker and cutter, and is just going more 4-seam fastball and primarily using 3 off-speed pitchers. The fastball has been a slight negative pitch but the change-up has been very effective pitch. It appears he has gotten a bit lucky with a .256 BABIP. His ground ball % of 49.2 is 16th best out of 78 qualifying pitchers. I'm not a big fan of Cashner, but he could be one of the more attractive candidates when factoring in the price-tag.

For a pitching prospect to carry 26 million dollars in surplus value, he'd have to rate at around #60 on the top 100 prospects list on my board, and I haven't seen Ashby anywhere in that neighborhood on any list. We'll see what the mid-season updates look like about a month from now. I'll stick with my guess of Ashby being worth about 5.5 million dollars in prospect surplus value to an average MLB team....and if I have under-estimated that value, I'd still guess that his prospect surplus value would top out at about 10.6 million at this time.

Taking the numbers from 2017, 2018 and pro-rating 2019 to a full season, and Edwin Diaz only comes out as a 1.4 bWAR/fWAR player. That number is probably artificially pushed down by the pitiful -0.4 bWAR he's been credited with so far this year. With 3.5 years on control left, I'd put his surplus value at about 28 million assuming he's a 1.4 WAR per season player over the remainder of those years of team control. I just checked the baseballtradevalue site, and they still have him at 55.5 million in surplus value, which probably was a pretty reasonable number at the beginning of the season. Based on that, I'd think the lowest the Mets would go would probably be in the 30 million range, which when looking at the Brewer's system would equal something like Turang + Ashby + Nottingham. Way too rich for me.

Mets gave up a considerable amount in the Diaz trade. I would guess the asking price on him would be extremely high. The ERA and hard hit rates are ugly, but his K/BB ratio is still really good and he currently owns a 2.87 xFIP. There has been no significant loss in fastball velocity. I think there would be a ton of interest in him if he hit the market.

I think Wheeler is the starter I'd go after. I do worry a bit about the price. I'd currently value him at 12.6 million in surplus value (projecting him as being good for 1.7 WAR over the remainder of the season). I'd be willing to do something like: Wheeler for Tristen Lutz and Clayton Andrews Wheeler for Aaron Ashby, Payton Henry and Je'Von Ward I could see bidding easily go above those levels. I would not be willing to deal Turang in a Wheeler deal, unless I was also getting a real quality reliever from the Mets. I think the price on Edwin Diaz would be sky-high just based on what the Mets paid to get him, so I would have to assume he is out. Zack Wheeler and Seth Lugo would be great, but the price including Lugo would be huge because he has 3.5 years of team control left...so this is probably not realistic. The Mets do have Justin Wilson in the pen, he's been hurt most of this year but was a hot name a couple years ago. He has also had some ugly peripherals recently with walks, but could prove to be a hot-hand down the stretch. He's under contract for 5 million next year, so if the Mets want to dump him, maybe the Brewers take Wilson and leverage that to keep Wheeler's price at "one less fringe prospect." But clearly at this point, Wilson does not fall in the "we'll include Turang but to do that will also need Justin Wilson in the deal" category (at least I wouldn't anticipate that).

NL runs per game = 8th NL starter's ERA = 12th NL reliever's ERA = 6th The rotation still looks like the biggest question mark. Total unknown as to how Houser will do moving forward. It looks like any rebound by Chacin could be offset by a decline by Davies. Anderson = 5.40 ERA in his last 6 starts and he wasn't exactly facing juggernaut offenses during that stretch. Even the staff "ace," Woodruff, is coming of a month of June where his ERA was 4.78. While it's nice to be encouraged by some of the pitching lately, we have to recognize that the Brewers have been facing a bunch of bad offenses. Reds = 13th in NL in runs scored. Pirates = 10th in the NL in runs scored. Seattle = 5th in AL in runs scored. San Diego = 11th in NL in runs scored. San Francisco = 14th in NFL in runs scored. Astros = 8th in AL in runs scored. Marlins = 15th in NL in runs scored. 27 of last 32 games have been against below average to flat out bad offensive teams. I'd still be a heavy, heavy, heavy lean to go out and get pitching, pitching and more pitching. Especially when considering the type of offensive upgrades the Brewers might be looking for. Shortstops and/or a rental centerfielder that can actually hit. 1B/LF/3B that can hit...those things generally aren't that hard to find. But good hitting shortstops and centerfielders, those guys can be pretty expensive.

Cam Bedrosian is an interesting guy if the Angels would be open to trading him. Since the beginning of 2016: 190 IP, 3.08 ERA, 3.35 FIP, 1.23 WHIP, 0.8 HR/9, 3.5 BB/9, 9.8 K/9 He's been really helped by a ridiculously low .225 BABIP number this season, but even after making the adjustment he is still been a 3.31 FIP, 3.93 xFIP pitcher so far this season. GB% of 53.3% ranks 41st out of 402 pitchers who has thrown 20+ innings this season, so he might be a decent fit for Miller Park. Looks like he was mostly a 6th/7th inning guy but this year has 34 seventh inning outs and 39 eighth inning outs. He's having a career year WAR-wise. Average bWAR/fWAR since 2016: 2016 = 1.15 2017 = 0.15 2018 = 0.30 2019 = 0.75 (pro-rates to 1.5 over a full season) So take the full year number and the average season bWAR/fWAR over the last four years would only be 0.78 WAR per season. Under team control for 2.5 years. Was a Super Two so he's already in year #2 of arbitration, but only makes 1.75 million this season. Probably would be considered good for about 2.2 wins over the next 2.5 seasons. 2.2 * 9 = 19.8 million minus 7.5 million in earnings results in a surplus value of 12.3 million but there is no way the Angels would get that or likely even ask for that as he's a decent, but not special middle reliever. The BaseballTradeValue site only has him as being worth 0.1, which seems to be a ridiculously low number to me. 5-6 million dollars in surplus value seems like a reasonable number for someone like Bedrosian, and I'd be interested in him at that price.

Boyd isn't bringing back a Tucker or Hiura, but his price will be way higher than having Peralta as a key piece. Currently sits at a 3.58 FIP and 1.09 WHIP and a very impressive 6.45 K/BB ratio. And he'll be a hot name because strikeouts are king in the current environment and his 11.42 K/9 is 6th best among qualifying pitchers. Only other qualifying pitcher in the top 10 in K/9 that has a chance to be moved is Robbie Ray. Prospects sitting around #30 on the top 100 lists are definitely not out of the question here. Brewers would likely have to start with Turang and put in three more real quality pieces to be competitive. Most likely something like Turang AND Burnes/Peralta (Tiger's choice) AND Lutz AND Ashby/Feliciano. If the Tigers are more interested in a quantity over quality deal, then this type of offer may be competitive. If the Tigers want to go with one big prospect piece and a couple of other minor pieces, then the Brewers are probably already out because Hiura ranks too highly and Turang doesn't rank highly enough.

Will be interesting to see what he can do. 9.4 K/9, 2.6 BB/9, 1.14 WHIP in over 300 AAA innings, but a 4.41 FIP in 95 MLB innings. If he sticks, he sticks. If not, I think this is the last MiLB reliever the Brewers should cycle through....if Guerra fails it's time to go out and make a trade.

Saladino hit .324/.359/.622/.981 in 37 MLB at-bats in May of last year. Then Saladino got a whole bunch of playing time in July after Arcia got sent down, and could only muster a pitiful .224/.303/.284/.587 over that stretch. Maybe he'll prove to be a late bloomer, but I tend to think the guy is a glove first guy that just can't hit. Just like Perez. A glove first guy that can't hit. If I were to have any preference of one over the other, I probably would lean Perez only because he is adequate when facing LHP (career .735 OPS). I will also make the big assumption that Perez is probably a better outfielder, and that gives him an advantage when a 13-pitcher team elects to only carry four "true" outfielders. But of course that will not be a factor next year when the rosters go to 26, as almost every team will probably just go with a 13 pitcher, 2 catcher, 6 infielder, 5 outfielder configuration. But I'm not going to believe Saladino will prove to be a better offensive player because I don't think there is sufficient evidence that the guy can hit MLB pitching over the long haul. And I'm also not going to get wound up about the Brewers choosing Saladino over Perez, because in the end I think both of them are glove first guys that can't hit.

brewerfan surplus value estimates: Drew Rasmussen on April 11, 2019 = 3 million Drew Rasmussen on May 4, 2019 = 100 million Drew Rasmussen on July 3, 2109 = 3 million Can't deny that constant updates would be much more accurate!