sveumrules

Maybe if all you do is watch the standings. It certainly didn’t feel like I was watching a first place club while they were going 25-27 during the two months prior to the deadline. It felt kind of the same as watching them go 29-31 after the deadline.

Thought they'd sign Xander for sure since he is the worst fielder of the bunch,

I’d take Verlander at 2/86 over deGrom at 5/185 or whatever Rodon ends up getting.

If we’re going big on a trade think I’d prefer Murphy because catcher is more of a need and Reynolds doesn’t really profile as plus defensively in CF or RF. Career numbers are… Murphy (1,260 PAs) 116 wRC+ | +40 DEF | 10.6 WAR Reynolds (2,014 PAs) 126 wRC+ | -10 DEF | 12.5 WAR Steamers for 2023… Murphy: 118 wRC+ | 4.3 WAR Rynlds: 125 wRC+ | 4.0 WAR Both are 28 with three years before FA. Reynolds is locked in at $6.75M for this year while Murphy is projected at $3.5M in Arby’s.

Everything is meaningless without context. Jimmy G’s two best years as a starter were 2019 (102 Rate) and this year (103 Rate entering the game). Compared to league average those seasons come in at 113 and 118 Rate+. Montana had primary starter seasonal Rate+ marks of 149, 136, 134, 124 and 122 (twice). His “down” years as a primary starter came in at 118, 117, 114, and then a 107 Rate+ in his final season.

Yeah, I like addressing the offense via FA since it only takes money and a couple lower cost moves could compliment the existing guys nicely. I’d also prefer not to trade any of the on the cusp prospects but also realize there are only three OF spots so somebody has to go eventually, especially with Chourio on the way. Ruiz/Black would be the guys in the Top Ten that I’d be dangling for relief help, maybe Tyrone if a team was looking for someone with an MLB track record.. Extending Adames could make Turang expendable, but I’m also intrigued how his glove might play at 2B with the new shift restrictions so I’m hoping he at least gets the Jace role for 2023. I’d put Small in the same category as Hiura, someone to include as a change of scenery type to round out a deal.

Myers is a FA. Mitchell or Turang probably make sense as a Jansen headliner. Rays are always facing a 40 man crunch so they might be interested in guys that are a little farther away.

July 31? You didn’t think the team was blah when they were going 25-27 for the two months leading into the deadline after the franchise best 32-18 start? Hader lost 4 games with an 8.31 ERA over 19 appearances during that stretch. I’d say that is notably worse than blah.

Looking at some projections for deGrom, Steamer has him at 29 GS | 172 IP | 2.64 ERA | 2.34 FIP | 5.1 rWAR | 5.5 fWAR. The GS | IP seem optimistic to me coming off the last three seasons, but have to think the Rangers would be happy with this as long as the three missed GS weren’t the last ones of the season. ZiPS has him at 19 GS | 112 IP | 2.40 ERA | 3.2 WAR next year which feels like a more reasonable hedge to me. For the five year projection it had 95 GS | 568 IP | 14.1 WAR. Throw one or two mostly healthy CY caliber seasons in there and you’re up over 20 WAR, throw a year plus missed to injury in and now you’re down closer to 10 WAR. One of each & you’re back where you started. Jacob was actually mostly healthy to start his career, from 2014-19 his 1,101 IP were the 12th most. His 68 ERA- | 69 FIP- were bettered by only Kershaw (58 | 64) and equaled by only Scherzer (68 | 69), Kluber (69 | 69) and Sale (66 | 71) among SP. His 32.8 rWAR ranked 4th & his 31.5 rWAR ranked 3rd. A lil over five WAR a year, pretty much right in line with the Steamer projection. Obviously the pandemic shortened 2020 was a mitigating factor for everybody, but from 2020-22 deGrom’s 224 IP ranked 120th. With a completely absurd 52 ERA- | 44 FIP- (Burnes was 63 | 58 over the same stretch) Jacob managed to rank 23rd in rWAR (9.0) and 14th in fWAR (9.7) despite the paucity of IP. Closer to three WAR per season, more in line with the ZiPS projection. My guess would be a couple healthy-ish CY caliber seasons, a couple partial seasons and at least one season that will end up close to zero due to injury. I’ll say 18.7 WAR for Jacob Texas Ranger.

Congrats to Crime Dog on his election. Heyman reporting he got 16 of 16 committee votes.

Agreed, but they kinda have no other choice. Their farm has been climbing in the rankings, but hasn’t really turned out anyone yet. New stadium to fill. Last made the playoffs in 2016, since then they’ve won 373 games, 6th fewest in MLB. Only PIT (368), MIA (364), KCR (362), DET (341) and BAL (336) have been worse. At least the Orioles look like they’re starting to come out of it through development, but those other teams along with CIN (386 wins since 2017), OAK (ownership tearing it down) and WAS (2nd fewest wins in MLB since winning the WS) are the dregs for sure. I’d include COL too since they seem to operate on an island, but their fans keep showing up so no big whoop I guess. Then again, nothing might be more depressing than LAA wasting a decade of Trout and about to leave the whole Ohtani experience with nothing either barring the miraculous.

Yelich in LF, Winker DH. Jesse is -39 DRS | -22.7 UZR | -31 OAA for his career. Christian is at -10 DRS | +5.5 UZR | -6 OAA since joining the Brewers.

Turang could end up the odd man out of the IF mix (or traded for an upgrade elsewhere if Adames is extended) for sure. Despite his lack of MLB success to this point, Toro is projected for a 103 wRC+ by Steamer (vs a 95 for Turang) & I’d guess the Brewers internal projections have something similar. Potential lineup before any moves with Steamer projected wRC+ Yelich (119) Frelick (111) Adames (111) Winker (122) Rowdy (123) Urias (111) Toro (103) Caratini (95) Mitchell (99) Other Steamers of note include Taylor (99), Ruiz (104), Hiura (99) and Wiemer (102).

Would hope Ruiz is the one dealt out of the OF prospects, kind of feel like Perkins getting an MLB deal was a hedge for that scenario. Think Wiemer is the next safest by virtue of being the only one with legit power. Steamer likes Frelick (111 wRC+) more than Mitchell (99 wRC+) for next year which makes me think Garrett could be more likely of the two to be dealt despite making MLB sooner and putting up nice surface level stats (136 wRC+) but with some troubling indicators (41.2 K% | .548 BABIP) under the hood.

Vasquez would be my first choice for catcher. Kind of boring, but only costs money and is an excellent defender with World Series pedigree. I’d be cool with rolling the dice on Jansen’s upside, but would have to give up at least one legit prospect & there is some uncertainty with how he might hold up exposed to a larger workload. That 120 wRC+ projected by Steamer would look a lot nicer in the lineup though. Murphy or Contreras would be the big moves but think they end up too rich for MKE in prospect outlay and cash required, respectively. At 3B my gut is saying Longoria on a one year deal depending on the medicals. Would also be happy with any of Turner, Drury, Anderson or Yandy.

Think the contract I’m most curious to see the final numbers on is Carlos Rodon. Obviously he had a pretty extensive injury history prior to 2021, but he has been one of the best starters in MLB over the last two years. Here are his 2021-22 numbers vs Burnes/Woody for comparison… Burnes 369 IP | 66 ERA- | 60 FIP- | 143 K+ | 69 BB+ | 65 HR+ | 11.6 rWAR | 12.0 fWAR Rodon 310 IP | 65 ERA- | 60 FIP- | 149 K+ | 84 BB+ | 61 HR+ | 10.6 rWAR | 11.0 fWAR Woody 332 IP | 68 ERA- | 73 FIP- | 131 K+ | 75 BB+ | 84 HR+ | 10.2 rWAR | 8.3 fWAR Run prevention pretty close across the board, but Woody lags behind on FIP because he struck out fewer batters and is a lil more homer prone. If the Rangers double dip on Rodon/deGrom like they did Seager/Semien last year they will definitely have my attention.

Winter Meetings kick off today, so the stove should be heating up over the next few days & hey who knows, maybe the Brewers will even make a couple two tree transactions? Next obvious move would seem to be Hiura traded for whatever intriguing arm they can get?

Jansen was a 16th round pick who received a 100K to sign and has made less than five million in his MLB career so far. Seems like the kind of player who might be interested in extending before FA, which more than 1% of players do.

Since 2020 there are 131 relievers with at least 100 IP. Devin has posted a 45 ERA- (2nd), a 51 FIP- (3rd), 5.2 rWAR (3rd), 5.0 fWAR (3rd) and +8.23 WPA (2nd). The only relievers that are really comparable statistically are Edwin Diaz, Emmanuel Clase and Liam Hendriks, none of whom I would imagine are available. Free Agent relievers (with 2020-22 stats and MLBTR contract predictions) include… Taylor Rogers (3/30): 103 ERA- | 70 FIP- | -0.6 rWAR | 3.1 fWAR | -1.97 WPA Kenley Jansen (2/26): 69 ERA- | 75 FIP- | 3.8 rWAR | 3.5 fWAR | +4.25 WPA Carlos Estevez (3/21): 94 ERA- | 98 FIP- | 1.0 rWAR | 0.8 fWAR | -0.06 WPA Andrew Chafin (2/18): 64 ERA- | 77 FIP- | 3.0 rWAR | 2.3 fWAR | +2.66 WPA David Robertson (2/16): 68 ERA- | 90 FIP- | 2.2 rWAR | 0.8 fWAR | +2.59 WPA Adam Ottavino (2/14): 80 ERA- | 82 FIP- | 2.6 rWAR | 1.9 fWAR | +1.75 WPA The only real “proven closer” appears to be Kenley Jansen. Boxberger was coming off 76 ERA- | 87 FIP- | 2.4 rWAR | 1.5 fWAR | +2.53 WPA over the last two years with the Brewers & they didn’t want to pay him $3M. Would guess they won’t want to pay over $20M more for Jansen or over $10M more for any of the other FA RP.

Looking at three year splits only 200 players have even 250 PAs vs LHP. The most most PAs anyone has gotten against LHP the last three seasons combined is 530. Due to physiology, we’re necessarily talking about small samples, spread over multiple seasons, so there’s a lot of noise present. That said, there are five players on the roster currently that have been above average vs LHP from 2020-22… Brosseau (261 PA | 128 wRC+), Urias (307 PA | 111 wRC+), Adames (389 PA | 110 wRC+), Tyrone (239 PA | 109 wRC+) and Yelich (401 PA | 104 wRC+). Catcher and someone that could maybe move between 1B/3B/DH seem like the easiest spots to fit a lefty masher in. Figure out a way to get a couple of Drury (215 PA | 143 wRC+), Longoria (267 PA | 143 wRC+), Haniger (300 PA | 142 wRC+), Yandy (408 PA | 139 wRC+), Wil Myers (310 PA | 139 wRC+), Grossman (379 PA | 139 wRC+), Haase (251 PA | 132 wRC+), Contreras (304 PA | 122 wRC+), Murphy (342 PA | 115 wRC+) or d’Arnaud (181 PA | 128 wRC+) and the lineup vs LHP should be pretty well positioned to improve on their southpaw WOAHs the last couple years. Possible backstop additions Vasquez (329 PA | 84 wRC+) and Jansen (183 PA | 75 wRC+) haven’t fared as well vs LHP the last three seasons.

The last six years (.552 W%) have been the best run of Brewers baseball since the Molitor Yount Glory Years of 1978-83 (.564 W%). The organization is better positioned to win the WS now than any time in the last forty years. If you could keep the faith from 1993-2006 when the Brewers posted 14 straight losing seasons, keeping the faith now should be a breeze. You might not believe in the Brewers, but I believe in you BlightyBrew!!

Entering his age 35 season deGrom has 209 GS and 1,326 IP over nine seasons. He has 30 GS in a season four times. Entering his age 35 season Verlander had 385 GS and 2,545 IP making fewer than 30 starts in only one of his 11 seasons to that point. From ages 35-39 Verlander went for 97 GS and 618 IP of 182 ERA+ good for 19.8 WAR on BRef’s calculator. Given deGrom’s recent issues staying healthy those GS and IP totals seem optimistic. The Rangers have now sxpent almost tree quarters of a billion dollars on Seager, Semien, Gray and deGrom the last two off seasons. Maybe they’ll get lucky and finish 3rd in their division this year.

More like the LOLMets or Angels given their resources and market size. With admittedly little knowledge of FIFA, I’d say Croatia most resembles the Brewers. Small country who is competitive with the big boys but slim chance to win it all.

I googled “MLB neck fusion” and the top results were… David Wright (ended career though I believe he had a litany of other issues) Prince Fielder (hit for a 126 OPS+ following season) Nick Markakis (109 OPS+ following season)

Haha, Curse of the Nightengale.