KeithStone53151

You make a good point on that injury. Significant time off like that can impact every aspect of his pitching, including mechanics, command, and conditioning.

I honestly think the discussion is a waste of time as I don't see him approving a trade. The Dodgers don't have a need and there the lists ends, plus they'll probably be signing Harper next offseason to further diminish the need. And I don't see Braun being benched while healthy a significant amount. It will be occasional rest days. I don't see a situation where he's healthy and sitting the bench and getting fed up with Counsel.

https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2018/02/jake-arrieta-turned-down-six-year-offer-from-cubs.html My oh my, I think Arrieta is going to remain unsigned into May or June...stay away Mr. Stearns, stay away.

I noticed the horizontal accuracy this article speaks of. There were times where I remember going, yeah that missed inside corner pitch on the outer 1/3rd. Thing is, I also remembering the pitch being good enough that it often still worked. While accuracy is very important, he has enough quality in his pitches to get away with it a fair amount of the time. It's not a positive but I dont feel it's as damaging as it could be. The nelson we saw last year didn't exist before last year. Hopefully woodruff can polish up the alterations he needs quicker than Jimmy. Much of what the author lists as cons seems correctable with coaching. He'll definitely make mistakes with pitches that will get hit hard. He's capable of making quality pitches though and escaping jams, especially with the high GB rate. I think the author doesn't give his changeup quite as much credit as it deserves. Maybe that game agianst Miami was a bad showing, it's a decent pitch though. Much better than what Jimmy was working with when he broke in.

This. Growing pains at the mlb level have to happen for some prospects, you don't go from AAA to finished product posting mid 3s era. As long as Woodruff is eating innings and posting results at roughly the line oreilly noted or better...it's a big positive for the club moving forward and should keep us competitive in games this year. Imagine if we had a Woodruff that had pitched in the majors for 2 years and was set to post a mid 3s era this season instead of having to gamble on 30 year old Cobb/Lynn for 60 million and hope they don't fall apart... I don't think anybody is anticipating Woodruff rounding into form during the season and posting quality starts consistently with a mid 3s ERA or better...maybe some are but the majority I don't think are.

He absolutely would take some lumps, that should be obvious. You have to give some of your prospects a chance though, using the 5th spot on someone like woodruff helps to hopefully develop our young version of Cobb/Lynn that we can rely on for the next 4-5 years beyond this year. If he stumbles, we have Nelson and Burnes coming as reinforcements plus the deadline. I personally want to make 1 addition to the rotation...not 2...and give Woodruff a chance in one slot

Agreed. He's the second addition to solidify the staff, but you'd want more to make a legit run. Something like Anderson/Archer/Davies/Corbin/Chacin or Arietta/Anderson/Davies/Corbin/Chacin to start the year seems like a rotation that could contend with this offense. You generally don't seem to have much confidence in Woodruff. I'd prefer Woodruff to Corbin, at least with Woodruff you have some upside. Plus even though we are trying to contend, we have to try and establish our prospects in the majors. I'd only target Corbin if we strike out everywhere else or if Woodruff is being included in a package for someone else. Corbin is a better option than Suter/Guerra/the other AAAA caliber pitchers we have...he's not a better option than Woodruff in my opinion.

First off, I think Harper would have reached minor league free agency before age 26 had they not called him up. Secondly, the union would have thrown a well deserved fit if Harper spent 7 more years in the minors than he did. I agree with your general premise about trying to keep guys for their prime years rather then having them hit free agency during their prime years but that's just not going to happen. And other than Arcia, I don't really feel the Brewers are aggressive at all with promotions. Guys are generally better off getting tested in the minor leagues than destroying guys leagues below them. Would Tristan Lutz gain any value spending more time in rookie league and wrecking 20 year old pitchers? He's not going to face and learn to adapt to better competition that way. Generally the younger you can face/handle the better competition, the better. That said, I definitely think the Nationals/Orioles should have delayed guys like Harper/Machado by a year or two. The earliest those guys should have hit the majors is 20/21.

He won’t get 8-10 years, makes zero sense for him. He will either get a 5 year deal allowing him to hit FA at a decent age again or he is about to get a 15 year contract or whatever. He would take a long contract as long as he can(probably 38-40). In reality he will get the mega contract for 12+ years with an opt out to make it 4 or 5 years if he wants. This is about right. My guess is 11 or 12 years at about 35-40 million/year with multiple opt outs. I agree the Cubs probably can add payroll, I just don't think they have a real chance to beat out the Giants/Red Sox/Dodgers. It's going to be amazing how rich Harper will be by the end of his playing career. He could make close to 3 quarters of a billion if he's able to opt out at points and expand on his record breaking deals.

I agree Woodruff is being undervalued a bit. He pitched reasonably well last season in his first taste, and hopefully will improve going forward. I don't like the comps to Nelson all that much. Woodruff's changeup is a solid pitch while Nelsons was barely usable when he first came up. Woodruff's slider isn't as hard as Nelson's, a bit more room between the 2 pitches. Woodruff also has better command than Nelson did when he first hit the bigs. I think Woodruff is a much better pitcher than Nelson was in his first taste of the bigs. That said, Nelson drastically improved his command while adding a curveball and cut fastball at the mlb level...add the mlb experience and Nelson(pre-injury) is much better than Woodruff currently. I feel like this season Woodruff's most likely outcome is a low 4s ERA while averaging just under 6 innings per start as long as he can keep the ball in the park reasonably well

If your owner is willing to pay it, given you expect your window to only be 3-5 more years, you absolutely could. You think the Giants/Red Sox/Dodgers/other team are gonna sit back and let the Cubs win the bidding? They will all be very involved and all have equal if not more resources than the Cubs. The cubs already project to be 10-15 million over the luxury tax line WITHOUT Harper. Good for their owner if he's willing to go nuts and try to get involved...but they still have less resources to work with than the 3 teams I mentioned. And they can't really attach a prospect to try and trade a contract because...well...all their prospects are pure trash.

The Royals really didn't have that dominant of a bullpen in '15. Yes I know people like to repeat this as fact but the Royals bullpen in '15 was 15th overall in xFIP while the Brewers had the best bullpen in '15. Brewers bullpen in '15 had an xFIP of 3.45 while the Royals had an xFIP of 3.85 the starters weren't much better for the Royals either with an xFIP of 4.48 and the Brewers had an xFIP of 4.32 the best starters xFIP in 2015 were the Cubs at 3.24. The Royals offense wasn't all that great either but they did have a wRC+ of 99 that year which I believe puts them at the 2nd lowest wRC+ to win a World Series the Cardinals have the lowest at wRC+ of 98 most World Series teams have a wRC+ of 100 or more. The Astro's last year had a wRC+ of 121 and the Dodgers had a wRC+ of 104. First off, you can't look at one stat to define anything on it's own. Second, the bullpen stats as a whole are largely irrelevant when determining how dominant a bullpen is in postseason play. Ideally, only 3-5 arms at most pitch out of the bullpen. In 2015, Holland got injured but they had Herrera, Davis, and Hochevar combine for 1 run allowed in the entire postseason. They had a handful of guys with sub 3 era's in the regular season. It surely wasn't as good as the 2014 pen, but still fairly dominant.

We did have an issue at the end of last year with starting pitching. Less of quality, more due to injury we have guys running on fumes. This year will be very different with Chacin signed and Burnes/Nelson able to make contributions later in the season. Adding another quality starter will be that much added depth.

Brewers aren't going anywhere with a rotation full of 3's and 4's. Anderson has been good but it took him a while to get there. Davies can be inconsistent. If you want to compete you need proven starters. IF they can get to the playoffs, they will get shellacked. I think we'll have opportunities at high end arms at the deadline. Also hopefully Burnes/Nelson will be options for a late season push. Also, we have the makings of a very strong bullpen...we could do fine in the playoffs with solid SP and a shutdown bullpen(see KC Royals). We do need to add one arm though. It's obviously less than ideal having a Guerra/Gallardo/Suter in the 5th spot of the rotation, but it further taxes our early season depth. I think Cobb or Salazar will be the answer for the Brewers, probably Salazar.

I don't think Cotton makes sense for the Brewers, I also don't think Santana makes sense for the A's. That said, Santana has worlds more value than Cotton...I have to think Cotton as a target would involve mid-level minor leaguers.

What is this based on? Yeah he has a season under his belt (which was not great), but he's basically an MLB-ready prospect. All depends on the front office's evaluation of him. A season which was dreadful, not simply "not great". His stuff isn't all that great either, he has a plus changeup with average everything else...only last year every single one of his pitches graded negatively on fangraphs. He's 26, so he definitely can improve...but we aren't a team that should take on a pitcher that will likely experience significant growing pains. Having Hader start would make more sense than bringing in Cotton.

I don't see a team in our situation targeting a guy like Cotton. He might be the type you target if on a downswing and rebuilding, in hopes that he refinds it and you can flip. The odds of him turning a corner and becoming a quality mlb pitcher are slim.

Suggesting that the reason Braun misses so many games in not injury-related is semantics at best. He is fragile. Braun has played 135, 140, and 135 in 3 of the last 4 years. Playing 1b makes him a bit less susceptible to injury, more likely to stay healthy. Expecting 130-140 is more than reasonable. Implying it will be closer to 100 as many have is just nonsense.

In other words, there will be a platoon situation with him, and they might even have to waste a roster spot on a third 1b as well. Eye roll...the braun missing 2 months every year with injury argument has been thoroughly destroyed multiple times this offseason. No sense in rehashing that argument...

Well you have a 35 and 36 year old pitcher getting starts in the back end of the deal for 21 million per year, that matters.

Don't forget, it's every players dream to take a huge discount in pay to play for the beloved Cubbies...according to the delusions of Cubs fans. Back to reality, their chances of signing Harper are virtually zero. Much more likely that Boston, LA, or SF gets him. NY has their corners well covered, will be more apt to target machado/donaldson/kershaw.

I agree with most of this. I would sign one of Cobb or Lynn for three years. The look at mid-season to trade Santana for a rent-a pitcher or maybe Archer. With Nelson coming back and a potential big arm added, we could be really strong for the second half without having to overspend. I am going to tell you right now the odds of that happening are <1%. In the offseason MLB players for MLB players are possible, but in season it is almost impossible to rationalize. You would be making a move that would hurt your roster while trying to help it in a postseason push. In the offseason there is time to find a free agent to replace the player you got rid of or find a trade. Good luck trading MLB assets for MLB assets in July as we already are having difficulty doing so. That's a fair point, very rarely do you see contenders swapping mlb players mid season. Usually it's underperformers dumping good players with little team control for value. Also if Braun is healthy, he's playing almost every day. There will be no platoon situation with him.

If we want to participate in free agency, we can't target the star type players that are perfect on paper. That's Bryce Harper, Machado, Donaldson, Blackmon, etc. We can't afford that. We have to hope to find value in guys with some warts. That or we can not participate at all and live with whatever we can develop ourselves.

If he's a clear upgrade with little injury history to speak of, a consistent record of production (I believe a lot of guys have a few good Villar-type years by accident and aren't really much better than 100's of other similar guys in recent memory), no signs of decline, and a reasonable expectation of remaining productive for most of the contract, then I'm fine with signing a guy as long as he's a decent value (and not "decent" relative to the old, inflated standards, but relative to this bear market). Otherwise I'm just giving our guys a chance. I'm pretty bullish on guys like Villar, Sogard, Woodruff, Suter, Barnes, Chacin, Houser, Williams, and Drake combining for a good deal more WAR than most people are probably expecting, even if I can't say which ones of them will be good and which ones won't. The guy you described doesn't exactly grow on trees, and if we do find him...he's gonna be extremely expensive. Some of the guys in next years class fit that category, wait and see the contracts they get. The Brewers have to take some chances and hope to get lucky. Welcome to the unfair game that is major league baseball.

Aren't you fun. The part about giving opportunities to guys within the organization (and reclamation projects) is key. That's how they got here in the first place. It would be incredibly foolish to sign a bad-value contract just because you think you "need" that guy, and you may still have the same need shortly after you sign him anyway. In fact, there's usually a pretty good chance of that with free agency. That's the type of mess they just got themselves out of, and there's no reason to abandon the principles that got you out of the mess so surprisingly fast in the first place. It's amazing to me that anyone would turn impatient right away. It's like having a bad hangover and vomiting all the time and drinking to the point where it's downright dangerous to your health, swearing it off - and then getting drunk again as soon as you feel a little better. Stick with what got you here. Stearns is a an astute dude and I'm sure they will do just that unless a really good opportunity presents itself. Suter, Woodruff, Barnes, Houser, Guerra, Villar, Sogard, Broxton (1 option left) and even Drake all have shown enough glimpses to earn that opportunity. Aguilar has too, but unfortunately he doesn't have options and there's no room for him on the roster even if they trade Santana. If Lucroy is a bargain, he might be the one name who flies under the radar and is worth it, but I admit I'm being a little sentimental (and not exactly bullish on Pina/Vogt). I'm a big fan of developing from within, but look no further than the packers to see you have to add talent to your roster from more avenues than simply developing your own players. We shouldn't sign a guy for sake of signing a guy, but I think we can find a reasonable value that significantly improves the roster.