SoCalBrewfan

Has a player ever been traded in the first year of a big money, multi-year contract? I personally can't think of a time it has ever happened. The CBA used to allow a player traded while in a long-term FA contract to demand a trade from the new team; if the new team did not trade them, the player could be granted free agency. I believe that ended a few years back, but with some grandfathering...it's technically possible now though for obvious reasons is not very common. I would imagine that doing so would significantly reduce that team's desirability as a free-agent destination... http://legacy.baseballprospectus.com/compensation/cots/league-info/cba-history/

There should be a third-party rating system so that readers can know whether an article is coming from a journalist with sources, a analyst with data, a reasonably well-informed fan with an opinion, or a blowhard. That article is clearly category three. I wouldn't even consider it a prediction. JMO.

Historically it has been the arbitration rules rather than free agency that kept top prospects in the minors until June; super two players go through the arbitration process one extra time which can be very costly. Burnes only has sixteen starts above A ball so far and isn't on the 40 man roster yet, so I think even without the service time implications, there is not much chance that he'd open in MLB. I would imagine that there are a half dozen guys who would be given chances to fail first. Burnes might well make the rotation in Milwaukee before the end of the season, but if he does I think that means something else has not gone according to plan. (Admittedly, that's often the case with pitching...) Cobb, though...who knows what to think any more. Behind Darvish and Chatwood he's the pitcher I would have hoped for this offseason, but he must have a very different idea of his value than the teams do.

They were above $100M for a stretch, so you'd think there's plenty of money to play with. I'd also expect an effort to get some guys signed to longer-term deals for cost certainty, as they attempted with Villar. Knebel, Nelson and Anderson seem the more urgent of those, but Arcia, Davies, Santana, Hader, Shaw are also candidates if they want to be aggressive. They don't really need to save money, but Torres, Villar, and Vogt seem like they could be on the salary chopping block nevertheless. http://www.baseballprospectus.com/compensation/cots/national-league-central/milwaukee-brewers/

To back up and amplify what Briggs says, my memories of 1981 are tainted by what seemed to me to be a screw job in the playoff arrangements. The Brewers had the best overall record in the AL East, but the powers that be invented a 'division playoff' wherein the first half best record (Yankees) played the second half best record (Brewers). Young me was convinced that this was concocted to ensure that the Yankees were in the playoffs in order to bring back fan interest after the strike. Even worse, the Reds had the best overall record in the then NL West, but the Dodgers and Astros played in the division series. In the end, the Dodgers Yankees world series felt to young me like a scam to reward big markets over better teams in search of ratings after an ugly strike. I was young, so maybe that's unfair, but that is the way I saw it. Still 81-82 was something special. I was probably too young to appreciate fully the emergence years of 78-79, but they were fun. Similarly the 07-08 re-emergence, with the first playoff berth in a long time and long-awaited success of young hitters, and 11-12 run with big moves and a near miss. It's possible that 17-18 could join the pantheon, but last year wasn't that awesome and so 16-17 would be behind all of those for me.

Though I've always rooted for him, Scooter has limitations defensively and also still cannot hit lefties (537 ops this year). His overall numbers look better because the Reds have largely protected him from LHP (only 65 of his 302 PA have come vs LHP). He's not an everyday 2b...he needs a platoon partner and that creates roster challenges. Garza, much as I don't like the guy, has been really solid and his option is a no-brainer.

Is it me or does it seem like prospect packages are light this trading season? I guess it depends a bit on what you think of Blake Rutherford.

But if you look at the high end pitchers around baseball, a high majority were first round picks, mostly in the top half. They might not all be what you might think of as 'high end pitchers,' but of the top 20 starters in bb-ref WAR, only four were drafted within the top 10 picks. Two more were in the 11-15 range, three others later in the first round or in the comp picks after 1. And even if most top-end pitchers were high draft picks, it's certainly not true that most high draft picks become top-end pitchers. Two of those guys came out of the 2006 first round: Scherzer and Kershaw. Several other guys from that draft have had good careers, too, including Lincecum, Miller, and Ian Kennedy. (Also Jeremy Jeffress!). But there were 18 first round pitchers in '06, and most of them were nothing much. That was a really good year for pitching in the draft, by the way. In 2007 there were 17 pitchers chosen in the first round. Price at 1-1 and Bumgarner at 1-10 have been amazing, but after that it's Porcello, Jarrod Parker, and then not much else. By drafting a bat, Matt LaPorta, the Brewers were able to trade for a pitcher that mattered. Most of the teams that drafted a first round pitcher came away with very little to show for the pick. Position players bust, too, of course, but insisting on taking pitchers in the first round carries a lot of risk. As for trading, it's hard to pry away high end pitching prospects in trades. Only 7 of the 20 in the list above are with the team that first signed them into pro ball. (One is Yu Darvish, so maybe it's really 6?) Some of the acquisitions in question were expensive, to be sure, but smart teams can acquire long term pitching fixes in trades...guys like Kluber, Carrasco, Robbie Ray, or Fullmer are proof of that. (Did I just call the D-Backs smart? Maybe lucky?) That's not to say that drafting pitching is never a good idea. It just comes with lots of risk, as well as an opportunity cost. Tunnel vision about talent acquisition is not healthy. Pitchers come from a lot of places, including trades, free agency, international signings, mid to late round nuggets, and the scrap heap. DeGrom was a 9th rounder! (So did Chase Anderson, for that matter, though I'm less ready to anoint him.)

I don't think the "young talent acquisition phase" is ever on hold. I think if there's ever a chance to add young, quality, controllable players, Stearns is the type of GM who's going to do it. You might even argue that putting that on hold is the undoing of many rebuilding teams...they get an incorrect read on their talent level and start overpaying for veteran relievers. At any rate, Vogt had himself a game...

Oh, yeah...have already forgotten that Franklin ever existed. Never mind... Yeah, that makes one of those moves seem very likely.

I could be wrong but I don't get the sense that the Brewers feel the same sense of urgency as some posters do. I would predict that they don't go outside the org...if they do it will be a scrap heap guy or another team's salary dump. This current stretch against non-contenders, with Braun and Villar back, could well be viewed as a litmus test for whether it's worthwhile to invest some future resources in the current season. If so, the early results haven't impressed. By the same token, the response to the Anderson injury might tell us how the front office is thinking. Stearns clearly loves tinkering with his roster, and he's done IMO a great job selling assets for present and future value, but we haven't seen how he responds as a buyer rather than a seller. They're also running out of obvious 40-man roster moves. I assume they won't put Houser on the 60-day DL as it will impact his service time and salary. Michael Reed seems like the most likely to be an odd man out at this point, followed by Yadiel Rivera. Everyone else on the 40 seems like they're either playing a role in the majors or viewed as a future asset, but Reed and Rivera both seem to have slipped down (or off?) the prospect depth chart...I can't see either one on the 40 next spring. Moving Rivera makes them somewhat brittle as they would then have zero non-40 infielders in reserve, but with strong major league depth plus DeJesus and Dubon in AAA, that might not matter much. All that to say, my guess is that they play for the short term and look to Woodruff as the eventual replacement, as Greenleaf said. For the short term Espino starts and Jungmann or Cravy is called up to fill that bullpen role. Less likely but also possible: Reed DFA and Blazek or Wilkerson called up to start. Not likely: trade prospects for a name starter. If Guerra continues to stink, though, things will get really interesting.

Nottingham and Bubba Derby are both in the news for good reasons tonight...I think some were ready to proclaim that a really terrible trade but it seems as though those two guys would like to let us know that that was a premature conclusion.

It's true that Vogt is a two-time All-Star, but those were pretty bad A's teams and, as Brewers fans know all too well, someone needs to go. (The second time around he was the sole rep for a 69 win team, and was decent but not exactly MVP caliber.) That's not to say that he doesn't have some value and won't be a useful bench piece...just that one shouldn't get carried away with his credentials.

How many dominent closers have the brewers had in the last 20 years that completely fell off the radar the next season (Axford, Kolb, Turnbow, Hoffmann, Doug Jones, Doug Henry, (I could go on). Also Knebels season came from nowhere - he showed nothing last season to make Stearns think he could close or they wouldn't have given Feliz 5.3MM to close. Unlike many of those previous guys, who were waiver claims or other scrap heap acquisitions, Knebel has a pedigree...he was a first round draft choice after being a prominent closer and All-American at the University of Texas. He was a rated prospect with Detroit and then with Texas when we traded for him. It took him a while to adapt to the big leagues, yeah, but I think the Brewers were expecting him to play a significant role this year. In other words, I don't think it's accurate to say he came out of nowhere...certainly not in the same way that, say, Axford came from an independent minor league to the Yankees farm system to out of baseball entirely to Brewers minor leagues to leading the NL in saves. Relievers can be inconsistent, but there's a pretty decent chance that Knebel is much more than a flash in the pan.

The Brewers are listed among five teams having a good day two, by Jim Callis at mlb.com: http://m.mlb.com/news/article/236343488/mlb-draft-5-teams-who-did-well-on-day-2/ Twins seem like they are having a great draft this year.

If and when they decide to cut bait on Feliz there are a few options in the minors; Wang seems like a good choice but again he's not currently on the 40-man roster whereas Suter and Cravy are. I can only imagine that the brain trust is comparing the merits of various scenarios with the 'pen daily, and they're looking carefully at guys to figure out a plan for the rest of the season....I can't honestly tell who they presently think are the third and fourth best relievers behind Knebel and Barnes, and suspect they're trying themselves to get a read on this. We all want moves but there's a danger of overreacting; relievers are volatile and it's hard to judge based on even a month of results. So do they wait on Torres and Hughes to achieve some consistency? Do they dump Feliz? Are they happy with Scahill and Drake?

There are two weak spots in the Brewers' lineup: Arcia: .246/.289/.361/.650 Villar: .207/.281/.315/.595 Those are the two offensive weak spots. Defense is another story...Arcia's D is good enough that he's a net positive even with that offense. Perez according to FanGraphs is our third most valuable defender, with plus defense at a few positions. (Small sample caveats apply.) Our outfield defense has been pretty terrible across the board, though; even Broxton has been worse than I would have expected. I think there's a place for Phillips now as a lefty bat, semi platoon partner for Broxton, and plus defender across the outfield. I think Franklin is released soon. EDIT: Scooped by 3and2 !

Seems like Espino didn't make his scheduled start in AAA...

This Sun article of today's game reports that the Brewers lead mlb in losses by the bullpen. 16! I knew it was bad but to read it like that really sucks. The flip side of that is that only the Astros have fewer losses by starting pitchers (Nats are tied with Brewers). Brewers starters are 21-11. Of course, pitcher W-L are not the most important stats in the world, but still...who would have predicted that? The good news, I think, is that the suckiness in the bullpen is pretty localized, and there are options in AAA. If Tyler Cravy is checking box scores, he must be be wondering what they're waiting for.

Woodruff is not currently on the 40-man roster, so I'd be a bit surprised if they added him right now (and made a corresponding move to take someone off) for a single start. To be sure, I wouldn't really shed a tear if they DFAd Feliz or Hughes...but that would also require adding a reliever as well and I just don't know whether they're ready to do that yet. Of the 40-man pitchers, Espino and Lopez might be the only ones currently starting (though Jungmann has had some longish relief outings in AAA), and Lopez is scuffling right now.

NL bullpen ERA is 3.99. However the OPS against is well above the NL average of .713. For whatever it's worth, Fangraphs has the Brewers' bullpen at 1.6 WAR, 11th in the majors. We have had some real duds in the pen this year, but most teams do. It is also interesting to see that we're 4th in most bullpen innings. Most of the teams at the top of that list have positive WAR, but the Marlins are right with the Brewers but with negative WAR...lots of bad bullpen innings in Miami. In contrast, Cleveland has the 2nd fewest bullpen innings but 3.4 WAR, second highest.

Not to sidetrack the conversation, but have you ever lived anywhere in which the manager WASN'T the main problem when things were going bad for a team? That's funny...yeah, it's usually a combination of the bullpen, the manager, and 'clutch hitting.' No fans ever seem fully satisfied. The one exception might have been that Mariners fans gave Lou Piniella a lot of rope in the 90s...though maybe GM Woody Woodward was the guy that really let them down.

Wegman was better than he's given credit for. His career ERA of 4.16 doesn't look like much, but it reflects to an extent the era in which he played. In 1987, he was 12-11, 4.24 ERA, which doesn't seem special...but the American League ERA that year was 4.46 and rumors of a lively ball were rampant. That was a 4.7 WAR season! Wegman lost two years out of his prime but still had three 4-win years and is listed as 4th on bb-ref pitching WAR for the Brewers, ahead of even Mike Caldwell and Yovanni Gallardo. (Caldwell was a fave of mine, too, and 1978 was an amazing year, to be sure. But, say, Caldwell's 13-11, 4.03 in 1979 was actually a worse year than Wegman's 1987, because runs were harder to come by, and the league ERA was also 4.03.) Bosio suffers from some similar issues but was very consistently valuable and should be even higher on the list IMO. I'd probably include some subjectivity and rank the top 6 as Higuera, Sheets, Caldwell, Bosio, Gallardo, Wegman, but I think you could make a case for Bosio and Wegman as 3 and 4.

As noted above, the current team is just barely below league average, so the ranking is highly misleading. If they had performed at league average, which is 50%, they would have scored 59.5 runs instead of 57 in those situations. Are those 2 or 3 runs changing the team outlook so dramatically? One advantage of living a bunch of places is that you get outside perspectives on baseball teams. Every place I've lived, there have been complaints that the home team (Twin, Astros / Braves, Mariners, Dodgers / Angels) fails too often with runners in scoring position. As the numbers above suggest, even scoring a run with <2 outs and a runner on third is a coin flip. Fans' expectations are out of whack. What's cool about the table though is that the Brewers have had 119 situations with <2 outs, runner on third, and the MLB average is 103. (Brewers are tied for fifth in MLB in this category.) Baltimore has only 76 such, so the fact that they've scored 54% of the time doesn't really compensate for the far fewer opportunities. The Padres have scored 62% of runners in these situations, but have only 78 such opportunities. I'd much rather have the Brewers' numbers than the Padres'

Yeah they have guys versatile enough to stink at several positions. Precisely!