DoubleSwitch

Looking back at old drafts I don't think it's really clear that Zduriencik favored more high ceiling guys. Of course what immediately jumps out at you is that he had a lot of high picks. Rickie Weeks and Ryan Braun were both very safe picks, who ended up being good picks. It's hard not to look at the '11 draft and not be upset especially considering the pitcher who got picked between them. I will point out though that probably Seid's two best picks were Thornburg and Nelson, a pair of college arms taken the year before who advanced through the system quickly.

There is *some* point to keeping both Scooter and Weeks. Scooter does need a platoon partner. That could be Herrera or Bianchi, but still. A bench with Fat Jaun/Reynolds, Scooter/Rickie and then Herrera, Maldo and Schafer would cover all your bases. I'm a guy who just can't give up on Rickie, but I would argue that he's got the most upside out of that group, and I don't see the point of dumping him for nothing if you're not forced to. If he shows a little life all of a sudden you've got yourself a decent trade chip this summer. If you he does nothing then you can cut your losses and get the same return you could get now: nothing.

Keep in mind that Mark A. very much wants to be seen as a guy who cares about the ball club he puts on the field, and is willing to spend what it takes to win. After decades of ownership that was neither of those things this makes good business sense, but also he also strikes me as someone who personally wants to be a well liked member of the community. How Mark tells the story to reporters, and the manner in which things actually went down aren't necessarily one and the same. Someone who is more tuned into to the management side of the game might read this and see someone a little out of his depth making a brash decision, however I bet your casual fan finds this type of thing endearing.

I don't see how Morris is being snubbed because he hasn't been given a job he doesn't deserve. The door is wide open for him. If he mashes the ball for a couple months he'll be starting in Milwaukee in no time. Just looking at Hunters numbers last year don't do justice to how poor they really were, because the PCL is such a hitter friendly environment. http://www.fangraphs.com/minorleaders.aspx?pos=1b&stats=bat&lg=4&qual=y&type=1&season=2013&team=0&players=0&sort=18,d By wOBA and wRC+ he was the second worst qualified first baseman in the entire league. Say what you will about Juan Francisco and Mark Reynolds, but they put up 96 wRC+ in the majors last year compared to Morris' 97 in AAA. He had no business competing for the first base job this spring. If the Brewers thought he was done in the organization they would have acquired a long term option like LoMo or Davis, instead Morris is being given encouraging words publicly and every chance to redeem himself with no one blocking his path who isn't expendable.

I honestly think that the value of a mid to late first round pick is being overstated by many, and some of these comp free agents are real bargains. I think Stephen Drew will be lucky to get 3/30, compared to 4/53 for Jhonny Peralta. Without even going into PED stuff, Drew is a year younger, and an equal if not better player. Is the 27th pick worth that disparity? The Brewers gave up a pick that's historically worth about 4-5 WAR for an entire career for a guy who gave you half that in one season. I don't know how exactly one would go about applying the time value of money to WAR, but certainly a win now is worth more than a win 5 years from now. Not to say they should make a habit of throwing them away, but losing a mid to late first round pick is not the end of the world. They certainly haven't been putting them to good use for some time now anyway. They've got 3 of the first 51 picks this year so fingers crossed.

A lot of people here are taking a couple comments and reading into them whatever they want to believe about how the Brewers are run. I don't see how the Garza deal harms the future of the club significantly. There's a dominant school of thought among analytic types that you should strive to to win either 60 games or 90+ and there is no use in being anywhere in between. I think this is misguided for couple of reasons. First there is value in attracting and maintaining a fanbase. There's money from folks coming through the turnstiles, and a decade+ of strong ratings could mean a significant chunk of change when it comes time to renegotiate the TV deal 5 years from now. Money is important to building a winning team. Of course we can't see the books, so it's hard to say exactly what's the difference between 3 or 4 years of 35,000/game attendance vs. 25,000/game attendance. However, I think it's safe to say that Mark's made enough money to know what he's doing, and also that he isn't rich enough to hemorrhage cash recklessly. Next season, assuming no Weeks, a buyout on ARAM and exercising the option on Gallardo They have 65 million in guaranteed contracts with Marco Estrada the only player who will make significant money in arbitration. The payroll flexibility is there and there's really no bad money on the books, so I think its extreme to say the team has thrown away money recklessly. Second, we have to talk about what it means to rebuild. The traditional rebuild that some folks have been calling for at least 2 years here would have involved dealing this offseason at least Weeks, ARam, Gallardo, Lohse, and maybe a reliever or two. Of course it's simple to say trade them and get back some young studs when you have no idea what anyone would offer. Lets take a look at vets for prospects trades this off-season. >Dexter Fowler for Jordan Lyles and Brandon Barnes. Say what you will about his home-road splits, but Fowler offers above average offense and base-running at a premium position, and he goes for a bust prospect looking for a fresh start and an outfielder his same age with no major league production or prospect pedigree. >The Diamondbacks give up Skaggs, and Eaton for Trumbo. Ok that was a total steal, but nobody is as dumb as Kevin Towers. >Doug Fister goes for Ian Knol, Steve Lombardozzi, and Robbie Ray. I think we can all agree that two years of Fister is worth more than two years of Gallardo or two years of Lohse by a significant margin, and he goes for a B-/C+ SP prospect, a backup infielder and a relief pitcher. >Athletics give up Seth Smith for Luke Gregerson and Jemille Weeks for Jim Johnson. Both more valuable than any of our relievers. One goes for a .750 OPS guy who plays bad corner outfield defense, the other for a .750 OPS guy who plays bad defense...in AAA >Brewers send Aoki to KC for Will Smith. Hey, I actually like this one. I think it's clear that teams are not giving up their impact prospects like they used to. I think you'd be lucky to get a top 100 prospect back for any one of those guys. Plus Weeks and ARam are sell low guys without much value at all besides salary relief that we don't need. This team is not a bottom feeder, and trading away enough vets to make us a bottom feeder isn't worth it. Here's an interesting look at value in the draft: http://baseballanalysts.com/archives/2009/06/draft_picks_and.php Picking in the first couple spots is worth quite a bit, but the difference between picking 8th or 28th is only a couple WAR over the lifetime of a player. Clearly the Brewers have not developed a big time prospect for some time. Is this bad scouting? bad coaching? or just bad luck? I don't think we have enough information here to say for sure. People blame Melvin for blowing the farm on trades, but Escobar, Lawrie, Brantley, and Odarizzi? All nice players, but I can't say DM has made a real bone-headed trade for quite some time, and the Greinke and Aoki sales were solid. Lawrie/Marcum is the worst, but Lawrie's 2011 in the minors and majors is looking more like an anomaly making him 'solid regular' instead of 'future star' like we all feared for a bit. You've gotta give some credit for some unsung guys. Lucroy has developed into an impact player, and depending on how much stock you put into pitch receiving he could be one of the best catchers in baseball. I think Wily has the ability to be an impact player too. Outside of that they've developed Kh. Davis, Gennett, Nelson, Thornburg, Schafer, Gindl, and Fiers. None of those guys are stars, and there is no big time pedigree there, but all are contributors. If you told the average bfan poster two years ago that this team would spend the next two years continuing to 'go for it' for the most part they would probably envision a team in a lot worse shape than the one that that sits before us. I used a bunch of words there to say, basically, maybe Mark and Doug are only kinda dumb, and not complete and utter idiots like many here believe.

I'm worried about Kottaras playing for the Cubs this year. He's much too beautiful to root against.

That was my assumption as well. Perez played with Braun in college, and was in the category of needing someone to give him an opportunity to bounce back from some performance decline and off the field problems. I actually mentioned him as a possibility back in the 2014 FA Arms thread (#27) due to the fact he was represented by Baleo. Interesting that it may not actually have been that far off as a possibility. Well at least we can be glad Balelo decided to sell us on Garza instead of settling for Vargas.

Really interesting interview. The reliever they were talking about being too expensive is most likely Chris Perez, that's the only Nez Balelo represented reliever on the market this year from what I could find. He ended up getting less money than K-Rod. Personally I'd rather have K-Rod, but I'm sure there are some here who will disagree.

Drafting for immediate need is what got us 'safe' guys Bradley and Jungman.

I just never heard this (34%?). I just tried searching, but couldn't find anything that talked about how much teams share from their TV contracts. So, I'm not sure where you are getting this from. I found this article from 2012 that states: "The money from each team’s local TV deal is mostly kept by the team. " http://mlb.mlb.com/pa/pdf/cba_english.pdf on the top of page 121 34 percent of every teams local revenue is put in a pot and evenly distributed among every team also the top 15 markets forfeit and increasing chunk of their revenue sharing money as the years go on. It was 25% last year, 50% this year, 75% next year and all of it in 2016, so the Brewers are getting an increasingly large chunk of that money as time goes on.

Reynolds may not be a star, but he's serviceable at least. I don't see how Davis, Moreland or Smoak are a big enough upgrades to give up Nelson or Thornburg which is what it would probably take to land them. They're all pretty mediocre themselves.

As long as were talking about repeat Brewers with domestic violence charges, I'm going to throw out Russell Branyan as the solution to all our first base woes.

6'3" 185 Looks like a pretty long swing, but definitely some power potential. I don't really know enough about Dominican prospects or what to look for in guys this young to have much of an opinion.

I'm not even a huge fan of Thornburg, but we better not be trading one of our good young pitchers. Especially not for someone like Ike Davis who isn't even much of an upgrade over what we already have. If this team is going to be any good going forward we need at least one of Thornburg and Nelson to be an average ML starter. I'm higher on Nelson than Thorny, but I definitely wouldn't give up on either of them. This team has been garbage at growing SP forever and now we've finally got a trio of guys with some promise if you add in Peralta. It's not time to start getting rid of them.

I'm surprised PECOTA is that bullish on Segura. Also you gotta figure Gomez will put up nearly 2.1 WAR before he ever picks up a bat.

The one thing that really confused me about Keith Law's ranking was high up he had Delmonico. Everything I've read about him so far has been subpar hit tool, won't be able to stick at third defensivly, and not enough power to play first in the majors. A better prospect than Jimmy Nelson? really?

I think he has some potential, but I really doubt the Mariners are going to give him away. He's fairly cheap and versatile enough to get some ABs and either build up some value or stick somewhere else on the diamond. If the Mariners are making a trade it's for a bat ready to step into the lineup this year. The only guys on our team they'd even want are Gomez and Lucroy and no way they're getting moved.

2006 offseason was also the year of Soriano and Carlos Lee's contracts and 50 million dollars for Gary Matthews Jr. Not a terribly good year to dip your toe in the water I guess.

That wasn't my point. Of course they can still sign big league free agents. It just doesn't get to the root of the problem. If I lose my job and can't pay my bills I can file for bankruptcy, but that won't solve the real problem which is my lack of income. We've invested almost $40M in our rotation this year. The Nationals by comparison, who arguably have the best rotation in baseball, have invested about $30M, despite having just one pre-arbitration starter (same as us). My point is that all the free agent signings in the world aren't going to do anything about Seid & Co. continuing to crank out bad draft picks year after year. And as long as that is going on, we'll have to go other routes to try to stay viable. But we're not the Yankees, and we can't afford to spend money every time we fail to develop our own. We NEED contributions from our pre-arby players. In our rotation, we only have one, and we still don't really know what we have out of him yet. Nobody here will disagree that our drafting and development have been poor over the past 5 or so years and no one will disagree that it's vital for a small market team to do those things well to be consistently competitive. None of that is an argument against going out an improving the team at a fair price. Just because it doesn't solve our biggest problem doesn't mean it isn't a good move.

Ok the way you worded it there makes it sound like the buyout on the fifth year option is 5 or 1 million depending on injury history if the option doesn't automatically vest. The way it's worded in Shermans tweet and MLBTR to me sounds like the entire 2018 salary is either a 1 million dollar team option, a 5 million dollar team option or 13 million dollar vesting option depending on innings pitched, starts and injury history over the life of the contract. Somewhat like John Lackeys 500K 2015 option but even more complicated.

There's no such thing as too much starting pitching depth in my opinion. Nelson and Thornburg will both get innings and if they're good enough to force their way into the rotation than that's a good problem to have. To project that the mediocre collection of "Jungmann (24), Hellweg (25), Blazek (almost 25), Pena (24), Gagnon (23) and Bradley (23)" will be "knocking on the door" in two or three years is beyond foolish. If a single person in that list turned out to be an average major leaguer I'd be more than thrilled. This move makes the team better at a fair price and it doesn't cost a pick or harm future development in any way. I don't see what's not to like.

Yeah this move says one thing for sure. "We believe in Rickie Weeks." I've stuck by Rickie for two straight seasons now and and I'm starting to feel vindicated again. If he pulls out of this again like last year I propose of a new rule that Weeks is allowed to have at least one month and a half of completely atrocious offense in any season from this one forward without having everyone come for his head. When he's good he's so good. You just know the moment the Brewers dump him he's going to tear it up with whoever gets him and we'll regret it for years. I know he plays bad defense, I know he strikes out a lot, but when he's on he's the type of middle of the order bat that can carry an offense. Lets see what Halton and Hellweg can do and see if this team can find a spark.

I'll wait to see the money before I judge, but I will say I had a sinking feeling in my stomach when I saw the news

This is just absurd. He's almost 24 years old and he's spent over a season at AAA.