JosephC

Come on. If HighHeat19 is brought up, then the discussion must include Alex Cobb. Brewers currently talking to the Orioles, Alex Cobb to Milwaukee and Lucas Erceg and Adrian Houser going to the Orioles. Brewers pick up all of Cobb's salary. Stearns sees it as an excellent buy-low opportunity, too good to pass up!

Ignoring the Haudricourt article for now. Just have to wonder how much Kimbrel is costing himself each day if he sits out? If I was Attanasio and had the 1 year, 18 million offer on the table with three weeks left in spring training, I certainly wouldn't be willing to give that to him now. If it take him 3 weeks to get himself in shape and on an MLB mound, that would mean he misses the first 23 games of the MLB season. That's 14.2% of the season so the 18 million drops to 15.444 million. Already 2.5+ million left out there. Some desperate MLB owner might still pay him for a full season, but I sure as heck wouldn't. Absolutely crazy to think how much Kimbrel/Keuchel/Meter/Boras have potentially left on the table.

Watson's 2020 season is a player option. If you trade for him, you get him for the rest of 2019 because it's a virtual lock that he opts out of 2020 unless he is injured. Watson does appear to be an ideal trade target for the Brewers.

I think the point is that having one more starter gives flexibility to either use one of the starters as a way to bolster the bullpen, or insurance against ineffectiveness should one of them prove unready. That's the reason I'd support signing him. Moving Burnes or Woodruff to the pen this year does nothing to impact their future outlook. Cardinals were never hesitant to put guys like Wainwright in the pen to start off and it had zero negative impact on him. Despite Woodruff picking up considerable service time in 2017 and 2018, he still entered this season with less than 1 year of MLB service time and Burnes is not close to that number. I'd have no major issue with adding Keuchel and kicking either Woodruff or Burnes to the bullpen to provide a potentially plus-plus multi-inning reliever to the mix (especially as I see those guys providing more value than a traditional closer). I don't even buy, not for one second, the argument that if Woodruff/Burnes pitches in the bullpen this year then they must have an artificial inning limit the following year. Wainwright threw 75 innings as a reliever in 2006, and then threw 202 innings in 2007 and from 2007 forward was a 146-84, 3.31 ERA, 3.29 FIP pitcher. That being said, I'd pass on both Keuchel and Kimbrel at this point and wait and see what the roster looks like at the deadline. What if Braun and Cain are both hurt? The Brewer's aren't exactly great in terms of outfield depth. What if Arcia hits nothing and Dubon turns out to not be a MLB player? Brewers really want Moustakas starting everyday at shortstop? What happens if Grandal takes a fastball off the wrist and is out for 12 weeks and Pena is hitting nothing? Outside of a lack of lefty pitching, I kind of like the way the 40-man roster shapes up. Let's see what it looks like about a week into July. Would rather save the remaining funds until then.

Even though Boras' foolishness has probably cost Keuchel a boatload of money, it's very hard for me to see Keuchel signing a 10 million dollar contract with all the nonsense that Boras has likely put in his head. I'd guess Boras is still looking for a deal north of what Cobb got last year.

Pretty disappointed that the Brewers seem to have so much interest in Kimbrel. The last thing I'd want them to do it tie up all the rest of their money in what would likely be a totally inflexible, one-inning reliever. Apparently we learned nothing about bullpen usage from last year's successful season? Would rather save that money, see what injuries occur, and have the ability to make one or two key moves at the deadline.

There was a comment from Boras within the last few days that he was in negotiations with several teams. I didn't see a follow up from any other writers about which teams could be involved or how much money Keuchel/Boras is currently seeking.

I thought the Mets made it known from the moment the trade was made that they saw Broxton as a fourth outfielder. Lagares is a plus-plus-plus defensive centerfielder. I think the Mets are happy just playing him for defense with that pitching staff and after adding Cano and Ramos to the offense.

The good news is that Manfred is out to fix this. I see of the 15 pitchers used, there was a total of 1 that did not face the three batter minimum. So if Manfred would have enacted those rules one year earlier, all those fans would have only had to watch a 6 hour, 2 minute ballgame instead of a 6 hour, 5 minute ballgame.

No offense taken at all - like I said friend of a friend, so I’m not sure if I believe it either. Figured it interesting enough to throw out there either way. But the *supposed* source is someone that would absolutely know what was offered. I find it hard to believe too. The Brewers wouldn't have even been sure at the time if Knebel was going to be out for two years or just two months. Why would they have jumped in with any multi-year offer that late in the off-season when there still was complete uncertainty with Knebel? I don't doubt the Brewers make an official offer but a two year offer just seems odd considering the timing. Now that Knebel is definitely out for this year and perhaps a big chunk of next year, now it would make sense if the Brewers threw a two-year offer out there. For equal money, I'd still rather have Keuchel and then kick Woodruff or Burnes to the bullpen. But Boras is probably in 5 year, 125 million dollar dreamland with Keuchel.

If I was Kimbrel (goes for Keuchel too), I'd be telling my agent that I'd have a major league contract by next Friday, and if that doesn't happen, then I'd be looking for different representation.

1. Keston Hiura 2. Corey Ray 3. Brice Turang 4. Tristen Lutz 5. Zack Brown 6. Mauricio Dubon 7. Lucas Erceg 8. Joe Gray 9. Adrian Houser 10. Payton Henry 11. Trey Supak 12. Aaron Ashby 13. Troy Stokes 14. Jacob Nottingham 15. Braden Webb 16. Carlos Rodriguez 17. Mario Feliciano 18. Marcos Diplan 19. Eduardo Garcia 20. Micah Bello 21. Eduarqui Fernandez 22. Caden Lemons 23. Cody Ponce 24. Larry Ernesto 25. Trent Grisham 26. Chad McClanahan 27. Jake Gatewood 28. Je'Von Ward 29. Adam Hill 30. Tyrone Taylor

So what is the bullpen projected to be on opening day? Matt Albers Chase Anderson Jacob Barnes Alex Claudio (L) Junior Guerra Josh Hader (L) Taylor Williams Alex Wilson If Petricka hadn't walked so many batters in the spring, would almost have to wonder if he would be a better bullpen fit than Anderson? Anderson does have 1 option remaining and <5 years of MLB service time so it's possible the Brewers could send him down. I wouldn't. It will be interesting to see if Anderson dials up the velocity a bit since he will be in ballgames for shorter amounts of time...maybe revert back to his 2017 form. But his propensity to give up the home run ball is a real concern.

Best guess would be that Scott Boras is still insisting on something like a 4 year, 90 million dollar contract. I've said in the Kimbrel thread and I'll say it in this one too. If there comes a point where both Keuchel and Kimbrel have to settle for 1 year, 18 million type deals, I'd much rather see the Brewers go with Keuchel. Barring injury, Keuchel would give the Brewers 100+ more innings and add a lefty to the rotation. Would give the Brewers the flexibility to bump either Woodruff or Burnes out of the rotation to give the team another plus-plus bullpen arm. And Burnes/Woodruff could be multi-inning relievers that could be used to cover 6th/7th or 7th/8th....or I'd have confidence in them to be a closer if necessary. Would give Counsell much more flexibility than getting a closer who would likely end up being locked in to 9th inning performances.

Peralta has been death on the right handers, but will have to perform much better against lefties if he is every going to be considered a solid #1/#2. Lefties slashed .252/.376/.489/.864 off of him, and I suspect the league will start stacking lineups with lefties right out of the gate this year. His secondary pitches will have to show solid improvement for him to be more effective against lefties. Woodruff as a MLB starter = 5.22 ERA, 1.38 WHIP. Woodruff as a MLB reliever = 2.02 ERA, 0.97 WHIP. I like the fact the Brewers have put him in the rotation, but I still am wondering if he might be a better fit for them as a reliever in 2019. And while we are all high on Burnes, the projections have placed him anywhere from a 3.92 to a 4.48 ERA in 2019. Hardly top of the rotation stuff. Chacin coming off a great year, but the numbers are plain as day. 2018 ERA = 3.50, FIP = 4.03, xFIP = 4.47. Don't have to go any further than that in order to strongly suspect the ERA will bump up in 2019. Davies was middle-of-the-rotation quality before 2018. Now he is middle-of-the-rotation quality that's coming off a bad year. With all the fretting over Knebel's injury, starting pitching is just as big of a question for Milwaukee as a bullpen with one or two holes.

How about Counsell manages a full 9 innings? Rather see him play matchups for a complete game rather than assign a rigid role for one player late in 25-30% of the games.

That's how I see it. Will be interesting to see if a different reliever sneaks into that list of 8.

Where was Knebel in April last year? Oh yeah, limping off the mound after one appearance with what looked like a major hamstring injury. Missed a month and the Brewers finish with the best record in the NL. Yelich blowing out an ACL should send Brewer fans into panic mode...not this bullpen stuff.

JosephC, I respect and appreciate the analysis that you give this board sir, but respectfully disagree with your take here. We are currently NOT a small market team anymore. Revenue wise we are closer to the middle of the pack then the end. Midmarket and isn’t that exciting. I would argue Kimbrels elite high leverage possible best relief pitcher of all time talent to help our bullpen which in my opinion needs an off a lot of help right now, especially for a team that uses their pen the way the Brewers do to be more important than an above average starting pitcher even if he is left-handed. If given the choice for the same amount of money and years I’ll take Kimbrel. Media market is smallest in MLB and Forbes estimated the Brewers revenue as ranking 24th in MLB and that's after a very successful season coming off of another successful season. For decades the closer was the most over-valued commodity in baseball. Here is a rigid role, a guy that only pitches 1 inning 90+% of the time, and takes away all matchup benefits a manager can use because "well he's the closer so he has to pitch the 9th inning." Statistical models have constantly demonstrated that lack of worth of closers for years. The top closers generally convert about 90% of their save opportunities, and the worst generally convert about 80% of their save opportunities. Kimbrel sits at 90.7% for his career, a top number. Generally the average conversion rates for guys who are in the closer role is around 85%. If using 2018 numbers, there were 33 players that had 14 saves or more. I wanted to just take the top 30, but players 30, 31, 32, 33 all had 14 saves so all were included. Top 33 in saves last year combined for 836 saves and 134 blown saves, an 86.2 conversion rate. Kimbrel has averaged 45.75 opportunities over his full 8 MLB seasons, and that's a reasonable number to use for the amount of save opportunities a closer sees over the course of an average season. Edwin Diaz had 61 opportunities last year, but the second highest was Wade Davis and he was at 49. 10 players had 32+ saves last year, average number of opportunities for those 10 players was 43.5. So lets just use some numbers from above. Good closer = 90% conversion rate. Average closer = 85% conversion rate. Bad closer = 80% conversion rate. Expect 45 save opportunities per season. So the great closer is good for 40.5 saves. Worst closers are good for 36 saves. A full 4.5 game difference. But taking an elite closer like Kimbrel, and comparing him to the league average closer, the difference is only 2.25 saves. And here is the big thing that can't be overlooked, every time a closer blows a save, it does not mean a loss for the team. Plenty of times the closer allows for a game to be tied, and his team still goes on to win later in the game. I've seen stats that indicate around 35% of the time a team blows a ninth inning save, that the team who lost the lead still does go on to win the game later. When making that adjustment, the difference in the best closer in the game versus a bottom-of-the-barrel closer would be 3 wins...and the difference between a top closer and an average closer would only be about 1.5 wins. Kimbrel has been a dominating closer, but there is a reason his average bWAR/fWAR over the last 3 years is only 2.1. Closers are an over-rated commodity and have been for decades now. Just think, Knebel was the Brewers closer last year and flat out stunk it up for nearly four months. 5.08 ERA on August 21 and was so bad that he got a ticket to AAA. And despite all that, even though the Brewers had a player stinking it up in such a critical role, they still went on to finish with the best record in the National League. I'd go as far to say that a 76 million dollars in Kimbrel would be a pretty ridiculous investment for any team in baseball, especially the Brewers. I wouldn't really have been opposed to something like 1 year, 15 million, but would even start questioning that after having typed this post.

Giving 4 years, 76 million dollars to a guy that would likely max out at 240 innings over 4 years would be one of the worst knee-jerk reactions ever pulled off by a small-market team. If the Brewers are going to give that type of money to a player, then why not Keuchel? He could give the Brewers three times as many innings. Adds a left-handed pitcher to the rotation. Seems like a natural fit for Miller Park. 76 million what would likely be an inflexible, one-inning reliever...seems like a really poor investment to me.

The ironic thing is that Jimenez has pretty much stunk it up in spring training this year, .154/.154/.346/.500, and probably would be better off to get a solid 6-8 weeks in AAA to start off the year before being called up. It's risky for the White Sox, but this guy does have "pure MLB masher" written all over him. I have the feeling the Cubs will really regret trading this guy away. Time will tell.

Stearns: Is your client interested in a one year deal? Meter: Look at the numbers, my client has been better than Chapman. Starting number for us is 100 million and we are really shooting for 85+ million. Stearns: Call me back if you are interested in a one year deal in the 15 million dollar range.

I like Fields but he is an extreme fly ball pitcher and chances of him repeating the 7.1% HR/FB ratio from 2018 are slim to none. He is not an ideal candidate to pitch in Miller Park.

I think this is a great deal for Gonzalez and a pretty nice score for Boras. I'm assuming that Gonzalez will not start the season with the Yankees, although it's possible if he's done the "full spring training" routine at the Boras "complex" in California. But even if it takes him a month from now to get ready, between Severino's shoulder, Sabbathia and Tanaka's health issues...I'd bet that Gonzalez is nearly a lock to get 25+ starts unless he gets injured. Gray was not good last year and he still got 23 starts for the Yankees. The Yankees have been talking about Loaisiga, German and Cessa, but all those guys had MLB ERAs over 5 last year (Loaisiga only threw 24 2/3 innings, so a smaller sample size for him). Gonzalez gets 25 starts and that's 10.5 million for the year, and I like his chances to get that number of starts. I was kind of disappointed that the Brewers didn't try to land Gonzalez, give him a major league deal and some decent money (4 million guaranteed) and try to convince him to move to a swing-man role. But if I'm Gonzalez and Boras, I'd take this Yankee deal all day over a 4 million guaranteed deal. There is the potential to make way more with the Yankees. Always a chance he gets hurt, but if he's healthy now then the Yankee deal is a hard one to refuse.

Angels brought in Billy Eppler three or four years ago and I think he's done a pretty good job so far. He inherited a bottom-of-the-barrel farm system and is now pushing the top 10, and that was done without any major trading from the MLB roster or a stretch of really bad MLB teams. Did have one top 10 pick with Jo Adell (who was the 10th pick), but outside of that he hasn't really had big resources to restock that farm system and yet has done a really good job in doing so. I thought the Cozart signing was stupid since defense is his strength and the Angels made that move knowing they'd move him off shortstop. But I didn't think the Upton move was unreasonable, he got hurt his first year there but last year posted a solid 3.45 bWAR/fWAR and that's not bad for a deal that averages 21.2 million per season in the LA market. Unless I'm forgetting some other moves, those have been the only significant free agent moves that Eppler's made which is probably the right strategy considering how much dead money Pujols represents, and this off-season they didn't appear to have any shot at making a realistic run at Houston so they just went cheaper and plugged some starting pitching holes which seems like the right strategy to me. Granted, there were some years that the Angels really appeared totally clueless, but Eppler hasn't done a bad job considering what he inherited. I wouldn't go as far to say that I would be super-encouraged if I was an Angels fan, but I wouldn't be a bit discouraged with what Eppler's done.