KeithStone53151

This seems like the same type of thing as Arrieta's deal. Arrieta has a player opt out after 2019, but the Phillies can void the player option by exercising his 2021 and 2022 options. It could be a 2/55 deal if Arrieta opts out, a 3/75 deal if Philly declines the options AND Arrieta opts to stay, or 5/115 if Philly exercises the last 2 option years. I think this is a well structured contract for both sides. If he pitches very well the 1st 2 years, he could get $60 million over his age 34-36 seasons. If he pitches like crap, Philly has some level of protection.

They must have been busy watching the Brewers when they got eliminated. Hahahaha, supplement our strategy with Judge and a $200 million dollar payroll...your odds of success increase dramatically.

Wow, yeah I'll say. Crazy good bullpen. Chapman, Betances, Green, Britton, and now Ottavino in the back end of their bullpen. Starters pretty much need to go 5-6 innings, and those 5 can nail down 3-4 innings just about every day.

I think Jimmy did some pitching in fall instructs. If so, that's still a far cry from throwing 100 pitches every 5 days. I'm super curious how they'll handle him. Would they put him on the DL going through extended ST? It would be tough to argue he's still hurt. Does he have an option we could use to have him open in AAA where his workload can be monitored more closely? Or does he show up well enough that they simply go for it and have him pitching every 5th day? A lot of options.

I highly doubt both would be added. If one gets added, I think Spangenberg opens in AAA. You'd have Perez, Pina, Gamel, Thames as your reserve options at the moment. Yelich, Cain, Braun, Aguilar, Shaw, Arcia, Walker, Grandal all starting most days. You could also do Spangenberg over Gamel as both have an option. Also many are anticipating Thames being traded for a more multi-position player.

Spending small dollars on a 2b that could bounce back and have a super strong season would make a ton of sense, regardless of who it is. Walker specifically had an awful year, prior to 2018 he was an upper 700s to low 800s OPS guys consistently across his career. He could potentially be much better than Spangenberg/Perez, and at some point the cost becomes low enough to be worth taking a chance. If I'm Stearns, I'd try to bring in a 2b with minimal guarantees and significant incentives. Maybe $1.5M guarantee with up to $4M additional in incentives. A majority could be PA/games played with maybe a $300k incentive for all-star and other award incentives. The question on him, Harrison, etc is...do these guys have 1 more good year left in them.

$3.75 million base salary with $500k buyout on a $6 million club option for 2020. That's a pretty good deal for the diamondbacks. I imagine a number of other 2b options we've discussed will end up signing similar team friendly deals.

1 year deal with club option.

Flores moving towards a deal. Report says likely an NL West team, which would obviously mean not us.

And that's if a team even let's you up to the majors in your very early 20s. Often teams hold players in the minors longer than they should. Look at Vlad and Jimenez in the minors currently. Those guys are going to destroy MLB pitching from day 1 in the majors, they are being held back because of "defense"...yeah ok buddy. I agree that the correct answer is to get players more money earlier in their careers. That of course, would cause competitive balance issues and negatively impact small market teams. I think a system mirroring the NFL is best. Salary caps and floors, but in this system...find a way to get money into younger players hands sooner.

To round this out, the Brewers website shows Jake Hager, Tuffy Gosewisch, Angel Perdomo, and Deolis Guerra as non roster invites to spring. Those 4 plus the 9 farmhands above accounts for 13 of the 14. So I guess I can't fully round this out, still a non-roster invite missing.

I vaguely remember the comments about Burnes. CC and Stearns said that Burnes is still viewed as a starting pitcher. That doesn't necessarily guarantee him a rotation spot though. I imagine there will be some level of competition for the last spot or two between quite a few guys. Burnes could be moved to the bullpen if Woodruff/Peralta outpitch him in spring...and I suppose there's an outside chance he gets sent to AAA to stay stretched out for the inevitable injury.

Big guys tend to age poorly, and he had a pretty mediocre 2nd half of 760 OPS. I think he might have worn down a bit, but Aguilar is still one of the guys I think is most likely to regress this year.

Agreed. I would have liked Granderson had we not brought in Gamel. He could have filled that 4th OF/LH bench bat role.

What a few of you are describing is basically a 3 team deal, which isn't overly unusual and would make sense to me. When i hear them talking about flipping, i don't see it as simply a 3 team deal but the Padres making a series of trades solely to add value, like flipping a house. Lets say kluber is worth 10, i get the impression the Padres want to try to pay a value of 9 ffor kluber and then trade him for a value of 11. As if the Padres are going to add value to their organization by playing middleman in a trade.

I completely blanked on Webb. He made a handful of starts at AA before their playoffs. Smart money is on AA for him, but I think he's going to be the Brewers best minor league pitcher next year, and reach the majors.

Chase makes a lot of sense for the Giants or other teams with pitcher friendly parks. He's also good enough to pitch in the 3 or 4 spot on a contending team, so we could get some value there. Thames makes sense for a non-contender with an opening at 1b/DH that could potentially give him atbats and try to flip him at the deadline. Also I think he could make sense for the Yankees coming off the bench, considering how RH heavy their lineup is.

Thinking the agent would have preferred the 4 year deal. I tend to agree regarding the agent's preference. This 1 year agreement is probably either because the 4 year deal fell off the table...or Grandal was betting on himself to have a big year and re-enter FA without the QO. There's definitely a ton of risk. But if Grandal hits 35 bombs and over 900 OPS while being solid or better defensively and remains healthy...i have to think 4/60 will be there again next offseason, possibly more...and he will have increased his overall earnings significantly. I know that's a lot of if's but none of those are overall unlikely. In this park, he basically just needs to repeat what he did last year and not have a major injury...and I would argue 2018 was a bit of an unlucky year for him considering his batted ball profile. I'll add that Grandal has already made almost 40 million including his most recent signing with us. Having banked what he has, much easier to bet big on yourself as he has...

And Braun is a 3rd baseman...right? My point is Dietrich is not a 2b and shouldn't be considered one. He's an awful defender really everywhere, but especially 2b. He also hasn't seen significant action at 2b in a couple years. He has had appearances at 2nd base every year he has been in the majors (starting in 2013) including a high of 75 all the way back in 2016. He mainly played third base in 2017 which is still infield at least. Ironically, according to baseball reference, he graded out much worse as an outfielder than he did as an infielder. In fact, in 2016, he was 0.1, which he played the most 2nd base. He would definitely be a bat first player for the Brewers. Check out his away splits and you can see why people are interested in him. Ryan Braun last played 3rd base in 2007 so a pretty poor example there but good job being condescending. I feel like every time I see this guy play, he makes an error on a play that's just slightly more difficult than routine. He comes off to me as very error prone. I know this sentence relates to OF which we wouldn't be looking at, but I've twice seen him let balls get past him in the outfield that should not have gotten past him. It felt like I was watching Kyle Schwarber out there. Cabrera has range issues, but is much more sure-handed and makes plays on balls he can get to. Looking at their error stat, Dietrich would have 3 times the errors as Cabrera if they had played the same number of innings at 2b. He's also generally a better hitter than Dietrich in my opinion. Also I personally prefer a RH hitter at the 2b position. We seem to have more guys that hit RHP better than LHP. That's actually why I'm so interested in Flores. He's actually been a pretty solid defender at 2b, and while struggling against LHP in 2018...he mashed against them in 17 and 16. While being bad there, both Cabrera and Flores could be a 3rd string SS...while with Dietrich that simply isn't an option.

AMEN A majority of us understand there are limitations to how much the Brewers can and will spend, and in this thread we are making our best guesses as to how much higher they'll go with payroll this year and discussing further. Your comment is incredibly off base and doesn't at all relate to the discussion.

That looks about right to me. Might see one of them bumped to AA for Freddy Peralta if we sign somebody. Also an outside chance we bring in a veteran on a minor league deal that would be willing to accept an assignment to AAA.

Why do GM's think they'd be able to trade for a stud like Kluber and then turn around and flip him right away? Wouldn't a team that wanted Kluber simply trade for him directly, rather than let the Padres get him and pay the Padres more so they can "profit". Or work out a 3 team deal? There is some serious arrogance involved in any GM that thinks they are THAT much better at making deals than the rest of the league.

The initial numbers Rollie used were from Forbes estimates. They estimated the Brewers operating income at $67 million, and that number includes player salaries, coach salaries, hotels, doctors, trainers etc...pretty much everything aside from depreciation, taxes, other below the line costs. Beyond that, he's making quite a few assumptions...but he seems to be trying to take into account other costs than salaries. I'll add that $150 million is probably the number that makes sense to me as well as roughly a break-even point...assuming the team makes the playoffs.

Right, according to multiple sources that have been posted in the thread...that tv deal expires after this year. I would expect it to be highly likely the Brewers make a much better TV deal this time around.

Even with the mutual option, it's still generally beneficial that the buyout is a 2020 item and not 2019. That $2 million could still not us a decent bounceback candidate or low end 2b option pending the market.