sveumrules

Aaron Judge (April 26, 1992) is older than both Machado (July 6, 1992) & Harper (October 16, 1992). Judge will be a free agent after the 2022 season.

The reason teams include opt outs is it because it gives them the opportunity to reap the rewards of the front end of the contract while potentially missing out on the risk at the back end. A player is only going to opt out if they think they can get more money by doing so, which means they've performed well to that point. If they opt out the original team can let another team pay for the player's older/riskier years & reinvest that saved money elsewhere. I don't see the advantage for the team in giving the player the option. If he is worth more he opts out and gets paid more. If he isn't worth more he doesn't opt out and the team is stuck overpaying him. There may be some players who overestimate their value but banking in it is a pretty huge risk. The most recent example I can think of where the opt out benefitted both the team & the player was with the Dodgers & Greinke. He got 6/147 from LA with an opt out half way through. After three seasons he had put up 17.7 WAR for 76 million dollars, 4.3 million dollars per WAR, good deal. He opted out of the remaining 3/71 to sign for 6/206. So far he has posted 12.6 WAR for 102 million over the first three seasons, 8.1 million per WAR, not as good of a deal, especially with another 3/104 left on the deal & Greinke getting older with diminishing velocity. By giving Greinke an opt out & letting another team over pay him for his decline the Doodgers got those 17.7 WAR for a reasonable cost plus freed up the 71 million Greinke walked away from to reinvest in their team.

The reason teams include opt outs is it because it gives them the opportunity to reap the rewards of the front end of the contract while potentially missing out on the risk at the back end. A player is only going to opt out if they think they can get more money by doing so, which means they've performed well to that point. If they opt out the original team can let another team pay for the player's older/riskier years & reinvest that saved money elsewhere.

According to StatCast Mikolas has an expected wOBA allowed of .282 versus an actual wOBA allowed of .271, so by that measurement he was a little lucky. At the same time his xwOBA of .282 ranked 22nd out of 121 pitchers with at least 500 batters faced, so still inside the top 20% of starters.

Interesting, didn't realize Mikolas was teammates with Mike Fiers & JD Martinez at Nova Southeastern. Pretty stacked (& now RICH) for a DII school. Mikolas IP by year... 2009 (age 20) 136 (A-/College) 2010 (age 21) 81 (A) 2011 (age 22) 83 (A+/AA/AFL) 2012 (age 23) 64 (AA/AAA/MLB) 2013 (age 24) 62 (AAA/MLB) 2014 (age 25) 112 (AAA/MLB) 2015 (age 26) 145 (Japan) 2016 (age 27) 91 (Japan) 2017 (age 28) 188 (Japan) 2018 (age 29) 200 (STL) Will be interesting to see how his arm holds up over the course of the deal. He pitched exclusively as a reliever from 2010-2013 before transitioning to the rotation in 2014. Wonder if the lack of IP during those formative years will bode well for his future health or possibly make him more prone to issues down the line since he didn't really start to build up his IPs until later on.

Last four years... Machado: 128 wRC+ | 21.7 WAR Arenado: 127 wRC+ | 20.9 WAR Harper: 149 wRC+ | 20.6 WAR These guys are about as close as it can get realistically. The advantage that Machado & Harper have over Arenado is they are two years younger & neither has played their whole career in Coors, though Manny actually has a larger home/road split than Arenado oddly enough. Harper is clearly the best hitter of the bunch, but has the biggest questions about health, defense & consistency.

Interesting you mention Michael Reed as he absolutely destroyed the minors last season... AA: 314/446/493 (170 wRC+) AAA: 363/459/539 (185 wRC+) Obviously BABIPs of .426 (AA) & .479 (AAA) are unsustainable but looks like he might be on the Mitch Haniger path.

I disagree. Players are 100% replaceable, but how many people can afford to own a team? If a player opts to not play baseball because their salaries are not what they think they are worth, there will be 1000 guys willing to play for that embarrassing salary. If you replaced the current players, the quality of the product would fall off exponentially. A drastically worsened product would draw significantly less interest & generate far less revenue. Team values would plummet accordingly.

Between our starting pitching depth & the overwhelming likelihood something like this would happen at some point, I'm not really concerned.

Perdomo looks interesting. Kinda old for someone who'll be getting his first taste of AA, but sometimes it takes big guys longer to figure it out.

Aaron Hicks has signed a 7 year, 70 million dollar deal with the Yankees. He was already under contract for 6 million this season, his final year of arbys, so it is essentially a 6/64 extension. After a pretty mediocre start to his career (1289 PA, 77 OPS+, 2.0 WAR) from 2013-16, he has really put it together over the last two seasons (942 PA, 123 OPS+, 8.6 WAR). I think something in the neighborhood of Cain's 5/80 deal would have been his ceiling with another strong year, so he probably left a little money on the table in exchange for getting paid now & not having to worry about a potential injury tanking his FA stock.

MLBTR has a "who will win the NL Central?" poll up & over 5,000 votes in it is at 31% Brewers, 29% Cardinals, 26% Cubs.

Anderson has pretty severe splits with runners on versus bases empty... Last three seasons with Milwaukee... BE: 239/310/455, 4.8 IP/HR RO: 230/303/384, 10.6 IP/HR I wonder if they've tried to talk him into maybe ditching the windup & going out of the stretch full time since he gives up so many more HR with the bases empty.

The players have already agreed to a salary cap, it's just called the Luxury Tax... https://www.cbssports.com/mlb/news/only-red-sox-nationals-owe-luxury-tax-in-2018-as-mlb-teams-combine-for-smallest-bill-in-15-years/

Miguel Cabrera and Manny Machado are not even in the same universe offensively. Machado's value derives primarily from his defense. A better comparator would be Jason Heyward. I think the point is that Cabrera was supposedly a doofus and he performed just fine his whole career even after signing a big deal. You're both right. The comparison was bad to begin with because Cabrera has always been elite bat/poor defense while Machado has been good bat/elite defense. Two completely different profiles. The comparison is doubly flawed because Cabrera was a top 5 player in MLB from age 26-35, an outcome San Diego would love on their investment. The Heyward comparison is much better & FG had an interesting article building off just that comparison... https://blogs.fangraphs.com/the-specter-of-jason-heywards-contract-looms-over-manny-machado/ TL, DR version is that comparable players to Machado averaged between 26 & 36 WAR from ages 26-35 depending on which parameters were used to determine the pool of comparable players.

All Time Brewers 40 Man Roster C (3): Lucroy, Nilsson (Surhoff) Surhoff probably makes more sense as the backup C since he caught way more than Nilsson, but I'll take Dave to bash RHP 40 games a year. IF (10): Cooper, Fielder, Molitor, Yount, Cirillo, Money (Sexson, Scott, Hardy, Counsell) No true backup SS on the 25 man but Molly (53) & Money (31) both played a handful of games at SS with the crew so they could cover in a pinch with JJ stashed should a long term need arise. CC makes it for his ability to cover any of 2B/SS/3B with plus defense, though he might have to resist the urge to play himself too much if he landed on the active roster. OF (7): Braun, Gomez, Jenkins, Yelich (Oglivie, Thomas, Sixto) Thomas probably deserves the nod over Gomez since he was here longer & was a better hitter, but I just can't live with that glove in CF everyday. SP (8): Higuera, Sheets, Bosio, Gallardo, Sabathia (Caldwell, Haas, Colborn) Definitely the weak link. Colborn gets the final depth spot on the strength of the 314 (!) innings he pitched in 1973. RP (11): Fingers, Plesac, Hader, JJ, Knebel, Fetters, Wickman, King (Crim, Thornburg, Smith) This could actually be a sneaky good pen. Gave the loogy spot to Ray King with apologies to Graeme Lloyd & Brian Shouse. 40th man (1): (Kieschnick) Duh. GM/Manager: Stearns/Counsell Apologies to Dalton/Kuenn but given the weak rotation this team is gonna need a more modern approach to pitcher usage. Owner: Attanasio All respect to Bud for MKE even having a team to begin with, but MA has owned him when it comes to owning an MLB team. Stadium: AmFam Field Brewers never won a World Series at County Stadium or Miller Park.

From ages 26-35 (the ages Machado will be for this contract) fat, lazy Miguel Cabrera produced 48.5 WAR.

My personal favourite baseball writer of all time Jeff Sullivan leaving FG for the Rays. Follows Cistulli to the Jays, Cameron to the Padres, Fagerstrom to the Brewers & other FG contributors to score MLB front office gigs.

Doesn't address your inquiries specifically, TBBC, but this recent FG article about Junior College scouting has a number of interesting tidbits about how data collection is getting more intensive even at the lower levels of the amateur side. Kind of makes you wonder how much stuff like this maybe played into drafting guys like Ashby, Howell, Francis & others from the JC ranks over the last couple two tree drafts... https://blogs.fangraphs.com/junior-colleges-have-become-scoutings-most-active-battleground/

Every team in MLB uses some sort of internal projection system to guide their decision making process. The reason people like to discuss the publicly available systems is because they act as the closest approximation thereof. Given the massive proliferation of data in the game, one of the few remaining avenues a small market team like Milwaukee has to gain a competitive advantage is to be able to better parse that mountain of data to produce more accurate projections & more effective game day strategies. Which new stats are you referring to? Which old stats do you believe actually do mean jack squat?

All Time Milwaukee Team 2B Molitor SS Yount CF Yelich RF Aaron 3B Mathews LF Braun DH Fielder 1B Cooper C Torre Bench: Crandall, Gomez, Money Rotation: Spahn, Burdette, Higuera, Sheets, Sabathia Bullpen: Fingers, Plesac, Hader, Jeffress, Knebel, Fetters, Wickman 25th Man: Kieschnick

VGJ is more highly regarded now than either Acuna or Soto were at this time last year & they are at #32 & #37 on the SI list. Given his likely impact this year 100 could end up being too low. Steamer (which is notoriously conservative on players with no MLB track record) projects VGJ for the 13th highest wRC+ (138) in MLB for 2019 ahead of guys like Goldschmidt, Votto, Freeman, Judge, Turner, Altuve, etc. Sure, plenty of highly regarded prospects haven't panned out, but how many of them hit .400 in AA with a 10% K rate at age 19?

I don't see why not. The list is predictive & there is a very good chance that VGJ is a top 100 player in baseball this year. I remember FanGraphs did a Franchise Player draft back in 2011 & Carson Cistulli got absolutely roasted for picking Mike Trout at #3 when he had yet to play a game above AA. Turns out he should have gone #1,

How about when Cain got hurt running the bases? Or Aguilar, or Braun, or Thames etc... Should there be automatic PRs for every hitter so nobody gets hurt running the bases? Maybe full platoon type baseball where there is offense and defensive players plus automatic pinch runners. If Yelich had missed the season because of a base running injury, the Brewers don't see the playoffs. Position players run the bases hundreds of times per season, it is part of the job. For pitchers it is only a small handful of times, a much more ancillary (some would even say unnecessary since over half the pitchers in baseball never have to worry about it) aspect of their job.

Alcides got 2,097 career PAs battng 1/2 & 3,478 PAs batting 7/8/9. He really only hit leadoff regularly in 2015 (131 games) & 2016 (82 games). I guess you could argue he should have gotten zero PAs batting 1/2, but at the end of the day Yost put him at the bottom of the order where he belonged more often than he put him at the top.