KeithStone53151

I think that's a HUGE overvalue for McKenzie. He's a good prospect to be sure, but value-wise, he isn't far off of what Woodruff is. I get the feeling reading this thread that we are substantially undervaluing our own guys, while overvaluing Cleveland's. Santana straight up for McKenzie would be a steal for Cleveland. I don't agree. McKenzie's ceiling is TOR, Woodruff's is not. Like it or not Santana's value is not what we think it should be. Brewers likely don't have their own TOR guy in the system, so you have to either take some chances like this or pay massive amounts of money or prospects to get a proven one. I don't know that we can get McKenzie for anything reasonable. The more likely trade is Santana for Salazar with small pieces thrown in on Cleveland's end. Santana has more value to Cleveland than Salazar to us, considering other market options. Many other teams would like Santana, we have a few other options to land a SP along with FA. I don't know Cleveland's system that well, but using the Brewers farm as a value comp...maybe Salazar plus a Diplan/Medeiros/Dubon/Gatewood caliber prospect. If we target Salazar + Mejia, get ready to unload at minimum one of Burnes/Woodruff/Ortiz/Peralta. If it's one of the latter 2, expect at least one other solid prospect to go back. What about Santana + Aguilar + Ortiz + Nottingham + Bickford for Salazar + Mejia? I think that's reasonable from a value standpoint, I'm not sure of their 25 man situation if Aguilar makes sense for them.

I could see Santana going and Thames/Phillips basically splitting most atbats. You have 3 OF spots and 1b, 4 total spots with 5 guys to cover(yelich/Cain/Braun/Phillips/Thames). The first 3 are playing most days(first 2 virtually everyday), when Thames plays you put Braun in the outfield...when phillips plays you put him at 1b. Broxton plays against lefties only. It would be a good way to help Phillips break into the bigs, you can consider moving Thames at the deadline or just keep him for depth. That way you don't have a significant dropoff when someone has a minor strain and needs to sit a couple days, that type of thing is inevitable with probably every one of our outfielders.

I agree with this as far as Phillips goes. I think Yelich was a little bit of a special circumstance -- a guy who is basically a prime Ryan Braun lite -- less power, better D, became available in his prime, and I get how that was just too good to pass up. No one they gave up in the deal was close to MLB ready besides Brinson, and they may have felt that the injury concerns with Brinson were just too much to not sell high on him while they still had a chance to do so. But I'm disappointed that Phillips seems now destined for a limited role or AAA. I'm sure you can find plenty of time for him if Santana gets traded, but if not, then what? I think Phillips is being a little undervalued and may have the upside of a lefty Santana only with elite D insread of defensive warts. But we'll never find out if we don't give him a shot. I know this is off topic, but I think it's more likely that Santana is traded and Broxton/Phillips work as primary RF. Either player in RF gives us probably the best defensive outfield in baseball. Slot Phillips in the 6-8 spots and you'll probably get reasonable production for that spot in the lineup(maybe 750-800 OPS). Trade Santana, add Walker, Cain/Yelich/Braun/Shaw/Walker/Pina/Phillips/Arcia...the 7 and 8 spots have probably 700 OPS floor but big upside.

I've pretty much made peace with the fact that we're subscribing to the window theory. It's going to be a pretty big window with 4-5 years of control over most of our best players, but it's still going to be a window and then we'll have to rebuild again. Utilizing young players and cycling them out as they near free agency is what a small market needs to do to consistently compete. Trading off big chunks of your farm and letting talent toil in the minors for "proven" players is how windows get created and lengthy rebuilds need to happen. I'll embrace the window as it will be fun to see good baseball and compete, but Stearns is clearly not making an effort to be consistently competitve as he's been claiming for years...

Of course he'll be valuable. Based on them competing I understand why they made the decision, and it's a logical decision...I still don't agree with it. It would be like buying bitcoin at $500 and selling at $5000, sure you hit a home run...who wouldn't be happy to guarantee that kind of return? But it highpointed around $19k and it currently is selling for around $11k. Not a perfect analogy, but that's kinda how I see Hader in the pen. I get he'll be used in high leverage innings, there will probably be games where a starter goes 6 innings and Hader pitches the last 3 innings of a 2 or 3 run game and straight finishes it...saving the rest of the pen. The value of shutdown relievers like that is huge, but the ace potential is worth the risk. Given the state of the team, it doesn't make sense to open with Hader and Woodruff in the rotation. You only want 1 question mark at most in the rotation to open the season on a competitive team. I would put Hader in the rotation and have Woodruff open in AAA(I'm assuming we get a rotation arm). Woodruff is a solid floor pitcher, but his upside is limited probably to Lance Lynn(I forget who came up with that, but I like the comp a lot). Hader's upside is true ace.

I would guess Johnson is going to be on the very conservative side of any perspective return. I completely agree on this as well, I think there's a real chance he's back sooner. Especially with his work ethic...

You might want to change that from "plays one inning" to "starts one game". Remember, Carlos Gomez played an inning of shortstop once before. Weird things can happen in long extra inning games, or with late game injury replacements. Braun would probably be first up for middle infield if Villar, Sogard, Perez, arcia were all unavailable for some reason.

1b is the easiest position on the field to learn and learn quickly. It doesn't mean he's going to be an average mlb defender right away, it also doesn't mean he's going to take to the position. I suspect Braun has been working out at 1b all offseason, as both him and Stearns have said they might make the move this year either part or full time. Hopefully he's taking to it and handles the position well enough to play, not everybody does. I think it's a bit silly that some people are completely dismissing the possibility of Braun playing some 1b.

So what you're basically saying is, he's like the hitting version of losing the big fastball but improving your off speed stuff to remain an effective pitcher for longer? Maybe his speed/defense/steals regress a bit, but obp and power improve and he remains productive all 5 years...here's hoping.

It's just too much money, a contract we can't afford. I don't know that I'd want to make the deal if he was 29, much less 34. But for arguments sake I'll put together my thought on a package. Arizona isn't going to just give him away to get the contract off the books. For me to consider it on the Brewers side, maybe they eat all money that doesn't involve us paying $20-25 million/year for the next 4 years with no responsibility for deferrals. We give up Peralta, ponce/bickford, 2 lower level flier types. That still seems like an overpay for us, and I'm not sure either team takes that. I highly doubt we would be on Greinke's no trade list. Especially with the team we are putting together.

Transitioning to a starter later doesn't make sense to me. To go from a couple seasons pitching maybe 80-100 innings to all of a sudden being expected to go 200. Leaving that open is an effort to appease the people that think moving him to the pen is stupid, which includes me. As soon as we made the Yelich/Cain moves, it was pretty clear Hader was going to the bullpen. Doesn't make it any less of a waste...an underutilization of an arm caliber we won't see in the system for another 10 years.

Lance Lynn is a good upside comp for Woodruff, here's hoping we get that. I'm not so sure including woodruff in a trade for a starting pitcher makes sense. It improves that one slot, but we still have a 5th slot to fill. There are at least a couple moves that need to happen yet at the MLB level, adding a pitcher will definitely be at least one of them.

I fully believe the brewers intend to add a starting pitcher. Braun at 1b, the free agent market, both things can be used to avoid a team getting leverage on us. With hader announced as heading to the bullpen, we clearly have a hole to fill...I mean unless they plan to start Suter/Burnes/Wilkerson out the gate. Making the moves we made, it doesn't make sense to see what we have in Suter/Wilkerson and I think Burnes has a bit more to prove in the minors yet before he should be counted on as part of a contending rotation. Let Woodruff be our minor league guy with upside to open the season...you don't want 2 of those on a team aiming to contend.

I said realistic, not that it will happen or not that he could definitely adapt to the position. How many good corner outfielders move to 1b late in their career? Plenty...I'd go as far as to say it's common. How many move to 2b? Goose egg.

1b is a bit more realistic than 2b. 2b may have been more realistic as an option after he failed at 3b, but at this point in his career it just isn't realistic. 1b is much less involved and easier to learn if it's something he takes well to.

Defense isn't a linear thing. We've seen that just because guys are good at ss doesn't mean they can handle the easiest position of 1b. Certain players are better suited for certain positions. I haven't seen any myself, but people have reported that Houston tried Santana at 1b and he was bad there. If he was terrible there, they wouldn't put him there in a professional game. Same reason Khris Davis never saw any time in an MLB game at 1b.

Agree 100%. Back when we still had Brinson I dreamed of the day we would have a fast athletic OF across the board. This would leave Aguilar as the odd man out, but someone has to go. If Phillips hits enough, he would backup CF and OF as well. Ideally Phillips would just rise up and take RF, and Braun gets his ABs planning at 1B and backing up the corner OF. Aguilar is very suited for his role as a platoon only 1B. He did a good job of it and OPSed near. 900 against lefties. Unless you think Aguilar just played well over his head, we gain nothing with a Thames/Braun platoon over a Thames/Aguilar. So Braun will get 50 or so starts at 1st, then what else? It's not like you'll ever use him as a late defensive sub. It's not like he's going to start against RHP very often in the corner for Phillips, or ever for Yelich. I guess you could occasionally put him in LF, Yelich in CF and Phillips in RF when Cain needs a day off, but for the most part Cain is an everyday player. If Ryan Braun is on this team, which he's going to be, he needs to have an every day role. You're not going to waste his bat in a hard platoon with an occasional corner OF start. Maybe if he was a left handed bat you could get away with that, but not as a righty. So I'm good with Braun at 1st, just not in a platoon role. If they want to keep Santana or even roll with Phillips full time, that's fine by me. But you need to be shopping Thames and Aguilar if you're going to do that. I have really no clue what you could get, but the 1B free agent market has been pretty slow, and both Thames and Aguilar are cheap and controllable, so maybe you could peddle them together as an alternative to a 1B needy team who doesn't want to pony up for a guy like Hosmer. I don't think you're going to get big value from either 1b, but if Braun is playing a lot of 1st then one of them shoudl go. I don't hate keeping Thames as depth and to get a chunk of starts at 1b. Braun will still likely play some outfield. The cubs have guys like Happ/Schwarber/Almora/zobrist on their bench not getting full playing time. Some very talented guys as depth on the 25, it doesn't hurt to have a guy like Thames to be that kind of depth for us.

The Braun to 1b thing could be 100% misdirection by Stearns, a leverage comment. OR, Braun could have spent all offseason working out at 1b and learning the position. They all claim this isn't somehting that just popped up. He's had months to prep to learn 1b. I don't think they are planning on Braun playing 1b without having some idea whether he can handle it. He's had months to work at it...

I would honestly not even consider the possibility of trading Braun at this point. He has full no trade and will only go to one team that absolutely doesn't need him, maybe even want him. We would have no leverage, also at this point with us making a move toward contending...he might even be less apt to waive his clause. Braun is a good player and will help the team this year. Anticipate 130-140 games of 900ish OPS from him, just like he's done that last handful of years. He's still probably a couple years from a significant production dropoff.

I love the idea of targeting Stroman, but a team trying to win likely won't want to trade a pitcher like Stroman. It's a slightly different situation than tampa due to tampas payroll restraints and the pitching in their minor league system. Blue jays don't have much while tampa is strong at starter and has honeywell about to make a hader-like impact as a starting pitcher this year. I could see a trade for Santana for prospects to the blue jays, or maybe they take a chance on Broxton for a lesser return. TOR also was involved on Cain as well I believe, the clearly are trying to improve their OF.

I'm going to agree with the other posters and say that Arrieta is no longer a possibility. I'm not saying impossible, but unlikely. Even if you can get him for $20M/year, that's taking our payroll pretty high. And we have to aware that next off season we are going to be hit with quite a few salary increases. Villar, Shaw, Santana, Broxton, Davies, Nelson, Knebel, Perez - all of these guys are either arby eligible for the first or second time. And then there are raises for Yelich, Anderson, Thames, Cain and Jeffress. And there will be no big salaries coming off the books (only guys I currently see are Vogt, Sogard, Logan, Gallardo). Thus, I don't see the team pushing their salary ceiling this year - knowing full well we are going to have salaries go up around $25M next off season. That's just a guess. I have no proof or anything -- just looking at the financial commitments for 2019 is going to make us be wary of any more big time signings. If Santana is traded, and we cut loose Aguilar/Perez after this season(or before)...that saves us a good chunk of salary. We will definitely have significant increases in 2019, but we have options to mitigate good chunks of it. That said, I'll agree we probably don't target a high end starter via free agency. We could, but it simply isn't logical. Makes worlds more sense to use outfield assets to address starting pitching if we opt to go that route. And depending which specific starter we target, we may have some payroll space to add a quality 2b.

Maybe, but there are a handful of LH power hitting 1b available in FA that could form a strict platoon if that's what you're looking for and cost just money...possibly around what Thames is owed. Adam Lind's option of $5 million was declined by the nationals coming off a pretty strong season. I'd take him over Thames ignoring money completely. If Lind had a ton of surplus value, the nationals could have picked up the option and traded him.

Red Sox just resigned Moreland, Thames doesn't make sense as a landing spot. I could see trading Thames as it sheds some salary, or keeping him as depth. As a team clearing trying to win now, having a guy like Thames to fill in for injury and work in for maybe 80ish starts will be great value to the team. If we add a starter, I think it's likely we roll with 12 in the pen for the most part. 13 position players including Pina, Vogt, Braun, Villar, Sogard, Arcia, Shaw, Thames, Perez, Yelich, Cain, 2 of Broxton/Santana/Phillips offers a ton of quality depth, flexbility, and matchup options. Also I believe Broxton and Phillips have options left so they can be sent to AAA short term for an 8th reliever if we ever need an extra arm. Stearns doesn't have nearly as much payroll flexibility, but he still has a ton of assets to work with to improve the team. Here's hoping he can consolidate some outfielders for a quality arm.

Depending on what pitcher we get, we probably project to be significantly worse than the Cubs. I tend to somewhat agree...on paper we are slightly worse, but projection systems(and WAR) are complete garbage on their own and should be mostly ignored. We are definitely within range of overtaking the Cubs this year with the right pitcher. Not the favorites no matter what pitcher we get, but it's not a pipe dream like last season was...somewhere in the middle. Projection systems are pretty good. They're probably wrong about the Brewers. Doesn't mean you have to throw the baby out with the bathwater. I like the systems and then can use my own opinion to maybe find a few places where the computer projections are wrong about a team or player. I'd rather have them than not have them. If it means some person really is locked in on the idea that the Brewers are still a 77 win team, so be it. They tend to be ok for established, consistent players...but how many guys are like that. They also are terrible at projecting young players improving, old players regressing, and guys hitting peak years. I mean it's something I guess, but unless guys are established and relatively consistent...the numbers aren't worth much. And as far as WAR, everyone knows defense is wildly overvalued. Look no further than when Carlos Gomez was posting crazy WAR numbers in 2013 and 2014. Was he really one of the most valuable players in the league? Reality says he was very above average but by no means a superstar that WAR claimed he was.

Depending on what pitcher we get, we probably project to be significantly worse than the Cubs. I tend to somewhat agree...on paper we are slightly worse, but projection systems(and WAR) are complete garbage on their own and should be mostly ignored. We are definitely within range of overtaking the Cubs this year with the right pitcher. Not the favorites no matter what pitcher we get, but it's not a pipe dream like last season was...somewhere in the middle.