KeithStone53151

I believe I was one that suggested those 2 guys as well, more specifically Davies. Those that dismissed us generally don't seem to understand team building. You don't simply send away any player with trade value that you can until you have 17 prospects all hitting the majors at once. It doesn't work that way. You have to incrementally build up. The Brewers traded for Shaw and signed Thames at the lowest point of our rebuild. According to those that dismissed us, it would have been stupid for us to trade for Shaw and instead should have targeted more prospects. A solid #4 starter that plays up to a #3 quite often with 3+ years of team control has quite a bit of value even to a team like Miami.

His bat makes him an elite catching prospect. But his lack of power very much diminishes his value as a 3B or corner OF. I always thought that, judging by scouting reports, he was solid at catcher defensively. It appears that the Indians sold him at the right time. It does I agree. There's still value at 3b if he can hit for a very high average...but yes I tend to agree it's a bit surprising that the Padres are looking at a catcher. They could also be packaging Mejia for a trade for Thor. Hard to know how many pieces are moving behind the scenes.

It's possible they could be considering moving Mejia off catcher. He was always a bat first guy, maybe his defense simply isn't good enough in their eyes. Might be looking at 3b or corner OF if that's the case...probably 3b.

That first challenge is the worst call I've seen since the fail mary. How can you review that and call it a catch? Do these refs even know the rules?

I'll argue forever that burnes is more valuable than hiura at this point. I don't think either should be included in trade. I wonder if santana plus ray or brown plus some lesser pieces would be enough.

I'll just add for a team trying to cut payroll, davies could make a lot of sense for the Indians.

I agree with most that the mlb.com offer is pure insanity. Woodruff or peralta a the centerpiece is as high as I'd go. Fwiw, the guy that broke the moustakas trade first has said talks for bauer to brewers are intensifying. Also said that we asked about kluber and they insisted on hiura. Take that with a grain I'd salt, though i find this guy slightly more credible than hh19

Fans understand teams are only going to spend a finite amount of money. In our case, we all have our opinions on how Stearns should allocate those funds. If Stearns does something stupid like sign Bryce Harper, it would cripple our ability to spend and likely result in a long period of losing. If Mark A decided he was going to boost payroll to $175 million consistently and lose money, heck I'd be thrilled and then think about our operations differently. Until that day, talking about signing players because "who cares if Mark A loses money" is just talking foolish and is not to be taken seriously.

In fairness, the Brewers probably do need to get significantly better as everyone around us is improving(well except the cubs). That said, much of our improvement will probably come from within. Burnes/Woodruff/Peralta moving into greater roles and improving along with Hiura at 2b and Arcia likely being better at hitting than 2018 version. All that might not be enough to offset some likely regression. Yelich, Aguilar, Chacin, Cain, Jeffress are some likely regression guys. Yelich only because...there's only one place to go from MVP. The others are a bit more obvious. There aren't a ton of obvious areas to add in my opinion. We have such a logjam of SP to clear, it's hard to justify adding one that isn't a true impact arm as doing so likely takes a job away from one of the 3 young SP. No sense in adding another Anderson/Chacin/Davies back end type and taking a job away from a potential young impact arm. Catcher is an obvious one, I do think we'll add someone to timeshare with Pina. I don't expect Kratz to make the opening day roster. We can always use a relief arm, but we have a bit of a logjam there too. Overall, I don't see us making a ton of moves this year. If anything, it will be trying to find takers for Santana/Thames/Anderson/Davies/Guerra and either backfill those spots...or fill them with impact players.

Good for Schoop and the Twins. That certainly did not take long.

Brantley might make sense at the right price. You'd want to trade Thames/Santana and roll with Yelich/Cain/Braun/Brantley/Aguilar in 4 spots. It's a nice fit, I just think Brantley gets too big a contract to make this realistic for us.

For those being relatively impatient, sounds like quite a few people are expecting a ton of movement in the coming days on the SP market.

Patrick Corbin did in 1 year what Carrasco has done in the AL for 4 straight years. The only major difference is age. I guess I can understand Carrasco taking the guarantee at this point considering those 2 extra plus vesting option years will be 34-36. Still a generally good deal for the Indians if production holds up.

I agree it probably isn't Carrasco with that extension. Probably Bauer or Kluber if it happens.

These can't be the numbers can they? That's a seriously wild hometown discount...wow!

I have less than 0 interest in Gio coming back. He looked finished to me. I also don't really like Miley returning. I personally am turned off by his preseason comments. Something to the effect of, he realized his MLB career was coming to an end so he finally worked hard over the offseason to try and re-establish himself and it showed. Many players coast when given a multi-year deal, the risk of Miley coasting is so much higher given his comments. I probably have less interest in lazy players than most. If it was a 1-2 year deal for low dollars I'd consider it, but I feel like Miley is going to get 2-3 years north of $10 million per.

Calling Kelly a borderline top 50 prospect is generally fact. Baseball America pre-2018: #56 MLB pre-2018: #46 Baseball Prospectus pre-2018: #44 He was top 50...insinuating that alone makes him good value...is lazy. I'd argue it's lazier than "well fangraphs projects him for X WAR"...which is basically 90% of cubs message boards. At least the post above makes a bit more of an argument for him. Those were all pre-2018 rankings, and he had a very mediocre year at the plate in a very hitter friendly AAA...and was again bad at hitting at the MLB level for the 3rd year in a row. He's had chance after chance to establish himself at the MLB level as the backup catcher and hasn't been able to do it, and St Louis is clearly trading him for a reason over the other catcher in AAA. I can see why a team would like him, but he's not being valued by Arizona as a prospect around the top 50 of any current rankings would be valued.

Woodruff was insanely good the last 2 months of the season, while Weaver had a poor 2018 season in a pitcher friendly park. If Woodruff is anything like he was in Sept/Oct for the 2019 season...it isn't even close, he's way better than Weaver.

I would argue that Burnes has the highest floor and the highest ceiling, but I'm higher on him than most. I'd probably go Burnes, Woodruff, Weaver, Peralta...with Peralta having a higher ceiling than the other 2. Peralta is a bit polarizing as a prospect though, what makes him good is so unusual.

While technically true that he would add to the number of starting pitchers, you're basically saying we need to move some guys like Davies and Guerra or else a TOR type arm is just blocking young, and up to this point unproven starting pitchers. Woodruff, Burnes and Peralta are all really impressive young arms who looked really good in relief roles last year, but I'm not looking at Robbie Ray as a guy who's blocking anyone. And I think we're making huge assumptions that they're even gonna trot Guerra back out as a starter. A Starter who strikes out 12 per 9 to team with Nelson atop the rotation would be about the best case scenario for the Brewers this off-season. Then they can massage Burnes innings, skipping him a few times to keep his innings down and the same if need be with either Peralta or Woodruff. Yeah looking again, I generally disagree with my wording there. Ray would basically be one more arm, making it harder to find rotation spots for the 3 young guys. Ray would immediately become our best SP if acquired, not counting the 3 young guys as it's hard to know just how good they will be. I'm confident in saying he'd be better than Anderson/Chacin/Davies/Guerra/etc. Saying Ray would be part of a backlog is not correct, but I think you generally see my point. I really hope Stearns finds a way to clear some of these arms. I specifically would like to see Davies traded for value. I tend to agree there's a good chance Stearns/CC realize that Guerra is simply not one of the best 5 and they trade him or stick him in long relief. I'd like to choose from Chacin/Nelson/Anderson/Woodruff/Peralta/Burnes/FA as our 5 starters to open the season.

Every writer claiming Nimmo is a viable centerpiece for Realmuto begs to differ... This is more of a shot at the writers thinking Nimmo is a viable centerpiece for Realmuto, I generally agree with you on that point.

Except that Weaver isn't a soft-tosser. His fastball averaged 94.3 mph last year. Davies averaged 90.3. Weaver did have a sophomore slump, but in 2017 he averaged 10.7 K/9. Kelly was a borderline top-50 prospect and is only 23. Then there's the comp pick. I'm higher on Weaver than most. Even if they resign Goldschmidt, what's it going to cost them - at least 5/$125M? And they'll have him for his declining seasons as he turns 33 next season. Arizona is selling at his peak. The sky is not falling. Seems you are right on his velocity. I don't recall him throwing that hard. I thought he was more 91-92 with the occasional higher. I also wouldn't say they sold at his peak, he definitely had more value last year, and even more the year before. It certainly was better to trade him now than the deadline though, but that's going to be true of the vast majority of players. Calling Kelly a borderline top 50 is generally lazy. He was highly rated a year or two ago, but he's a defense first guy and has been a mediocre hitter in AAA and absolutely terrible at the MLB level. And he's actually 24, will turn 25 in July. Really he's not THAT young anymore. His upside comes with a team believing they can either fix him as a hitter, or that simply more AB at the MLB level will bring enough improvement to be a viable mlb catcher. I don't care how good your defense is, 400 OPS won't get you on the field...just ask Arcia.

4/67.5 is the official number. Good for Eovaldi, I feel like this one is going to hurt the Red Sox in a year or two.

I like both targets to be honest. Both Robbie Ray and David Peralta. I think we definitely need to find a trade partner for Santana and Thames to take back Peralta. And we probably need to find trade partners for some of our back end starters with no options to take on Ray. I don't really want Woodruff/F Peralta/Burnes being odd men out of the rotation because of guys like Davies and Guerra. Ray adds more to the backlog unless we can find takers for those backend guys.

Luke makes a good point. If you look really hard, there's a lot to like and a lot of upside in the return for Goldschmidt...especially Carson Kelly is he can ever figure out how to hit. 700 OPS from him would make him an above average overall catcher with how good his defense is and will be.