KeithStone53151

Cardinals are a front runner for Machado, I don't think the White Sox interest is truly serious as without an extension this is a silly move for them. Man this has the looks of Melvin-esque all-in, in this case selling the farm for a couple bats with limited team control instead of pitchers.

Yah trading guys probably not in our Top 30 prospects would have been deadly... There's also the contract $ involved. I know we have spending power, but $11 million this year limits that quickly. The prospects I'll agree were highly likely to be inconsequential. Also I generally think this will be a buyers market at 2b this year. Many quality options and not much demand. At this position, I think it makes total sense to wait out the market. Could get Walker back on a 1 year deal to re-establish value in February if nobody goes 3-4 years.

That's a bit over the top. Speaking for myself, I said that I think the non-signing of Swarzak is "troubling" and that I think Stearns has misjudged the reliever market. Let's not make it more than it is. Why is it 'troubling? Stearns set his number of what he thought Swarzek is worth based on the info he has and he stuck to it. Maybe we prefer other relievers. Maybe our scouts don't think Swarzek is likely to replicate his 2017. Maybe Swarzek was intrigued by New York and wasn't going to pick us over them for similar money. I really don't know. But I would be much more troubled if Stearns trumped a top offer for a reliever solely on the basis of he was good for us last year and liked it here. The concern is that high-end relievers are dropping like flies. And most of us don't want to be standing here with a bunch of money to potentially spend and the supply gone. Even now, demand > supply of these relievers. Many teams still want to sign the remaining quality arms, and there are fewer and fewer available. I don't want to take risks on guys like Torres, Feliz, Drake, Swarzak....sure Swarzak worked out for Minnesota but none of the other three worked out long term for us. I don't mind not signing Swarzak, if you were to isolate that move. What I mind is not signing any of the 15-20 relievers that have signed already and fit the bill of what I was hoping Stearns would target. Stearns has a very solid track record of making quality moves that are good for the Brewers. I would have liked to see him more decisive with the free agent relievers, but maybe it's all part of his master plan and he has other moves in the works to fill out the bullpen. It's also possible that we've reached agreement with someone pending physical.

Swarzak was found in the bargain bin to begin with. I just don't see much evidence that going after higher valued relievers produces better results than scrap heap guys and minor leaguers. For every surprise like Swarzak, there are 3 feliz's. In a year that we should be hoping to perform better, we shouldn't be searching the bargain bin for guys to fill key roles. We can try doing that for a spot, or more likely is use minor leaguers for 1 or 2 spots. But we can't have a bullpen of Knebel, middle relievers, and minor league pitchers. We need some level of stability in the back end of the bullpen. Even one higher priced guy would improve us from that standpoint.

I have no issues trading Harrison in the right deal. I'd rather trade him than Phillips or Brinson. I think Brinson's price tag should be high to the point that he's basically off limits in trade discussions. I also don't really want to trade Erceg, though he's definitely available in the right deal. I think I'd trade to avoid trading him here if I could.

The triple-A phase. The Angels minor league system might be bad, but this one is on whomever compiled that list. It feels like to me they had absolutely no idea who to put in that 30th spot in such a lousy system, and either picked from a hat or picked the coolest name.

This. Signing a Cishek, Reed, Swarzak, etc... would be sexy and fun for Brewer fans but I am willing to go into the season with Knebel, Jeffress, Barnes, Taylor Williams and Adrian Houser in the bullpen (with the addition of a LHP somewhere). I am willing to take the chance the difference in performance between those guys and Williams and Houser is not worth $9 million. So you are willing to go into the season with exactly (1) proven arm at this juncture. Jeffress could be ok, could not be. Barnes drove us up the wall for a portion of last year, another that could be ok, could not be. The other two have no experience. Sounds like a possible disaster. We lost the division last year because our pen was SO bad for half the year. I feel like i'm living deja vu year round now instead of only with Ted Thompson. Nobody is asking for a spending bonanza, most are asking for "A" proven arm to supplement the pen. "A" as in one. It's not asking for the bank to be broken, hell it is barely digging under the couch cushions. I don't know about anyone else but i'd rather not blow 20 games again early in the year. I want multiple arms, but I'd feel better and be a bit more comfortable once we sign one guy. Add a bit of experience to the bullpen. Otherwise we are rolling out 2-3 minor leaguers and Suter, with Jeffress/Barnes in setup roles. Houser and Williams absolutely could be good, and I'm hoping they are. But this is not that much different from having a rotation of Woodruff/Hader/Wilkerson filling the back 3 spots. You want some more dependable guys filling innings and taking pressure off the younger players. Let Williams/Houser/Wang/Derby grow into roles starting with low leverage innings and work their way up. That isn't realistic with the pen as it stands now.

#1 ranked farm system, and a team that wins 57 games. Sign me up! I don't understand some of these goofballs and wanting to trade away every player once he gets good. There are value moves to be made, but this suggestion is basically a tear down/rebuild despite having a good young core. These moves will likely be made one at a time when we have someone waiting in the wings to fill the role. Hence why Santana/Broxton makes sense, but the other moves really don't.

Stearns is quoted as saying he's not going to pay the going rate for quality relievers: "Stearns confirmed he made a two year offer to Swarzak but didn't want to guarantee that much money" Swarzak's deal was reasonable compared to the others of quality out there. Brewers refusal to pay going rate for players when they have one of the lowest payrolls in baseball is an ominous sign. What does he think some prime reliever is going to get overlooked and fall into their laps? That's how you end up with Neftali Feliz. Sure there's plenty of names still out there. Guys like Craig Stammen, Matt Belisle, Tyler Clippard, Drew Storen, Romo etc. But most of those guy are past their primes. Somebody even mentioned Zach Duke. Really? Why not bring back Feliz too. That was me on Zach Duke. I'm not saying to bring him in as a setup guy, I still want one of the higher end relievers below the Davis/Holland tier. But he'd be a reasonable lefty to bring in to help fill middle innings or face Votto/Rizzo late in the game. He's been pretty good the last few years, had some arm issues last year but he's still been pretty effective. I would like to think we can get him on a one year deal.

Wrong. Feliz flaming out paved the way for Knebel being the closer most of the year. If they had signed one of the other late inning guys available that likely wouldn't have happened. I doubt that Knebel would have been any less effective last year than he was if we had Holland. It would have simply been in a different role. I'm all for trying to find value on the relief market, but I think we need at least one reliable reliever for a setup role.

In that list, it has to be Tony Watson as a perfect set up man for Kneble. He's been doing that most of his career and now has some saves behind him in the worse case scenario that Kneble were injured to boot. 70 IP durability for a backend career seems great to add. Watson is part of that group, though that group shrunk to 13 overnight. Demand > supply on relievers...

Think in terms of relative value. Inflation will bring everyone's price up, so it's best to see what players cost relative to other players. Relievers have always been significantly under-priced relative to starters. The Royals' success made everyone else realize that relievers are more important than they were being paid, so the price shot up quickly. With decent relievers now getting $7-10M/year, we're pushing closer to equal value for a reliever vs a starter, and I don't believe a decent reliever is worth nearly as much as a decent starter. You need a bullpen, but an 8-man bullpen at an average of $8M per is $64M, which the Brewers cannot afford to pay for a bullpen. Going into the offseason, I wanted Stearns to use some of the free cash to bolster the pen, but as others have said you have to have discipline when prices start getting too high. At some point, an "unproven" league-minimum guy like Williams becomes a better option than a high-priced veteran. The bright side to all of this is that all teams have budgets, so there will be undervalued players/positions. Maybe we'll get lucky this year and with everyone in love with average-ish relievers the price tag for second basemen will fall and we'll be able to use our money there. I can understand that to some degree, but as of now we'll be rolling out a really awful bullpen. We have at least 3 spots to fill, and we shouldn't be counting on 3 guys from the minor leagues to open the season. I'm also concerned it may push us towards putting Hader in the pen. I'll feel better about the off season when we get at least 1 solid guy for the bullpen.

This is my biggest fear, part of the reason I want as much activity as I do is Hader needs to be in the rotation to start 2018. And we need good pen arms to replace him and Swarzak. The supply is getting thin, and a lot of teams still need relievers. I feel like we aren't going to get any of the high end relievers, and that's annoying.

With this trade, Damien magnifico entered the angels top 30! How bad is that farm?

I would be all in on a 1/4 type deal for duke. He's the lefty I'm hoping we get, with his delivery he's very tough on lefties. We SHOULD have a good enough bullpen as to not need to count on him to face a ton of rh hitters like his last tour with us.

I went through the list of available RP FA, there are 16 guys left that I would like to see the Brewers sign. 9 guys were signed that could have been potential options. Pitchers like Duensing, Watson, Cishek, Reed, Rondon, Benoit, Kintzler, Storen...all still available. There are others that I didn't list, but I really hope we get 1 arm from that group or a similar caliber arm via trade.

I'm generally frustrated by the slow pace of this off season, notably free agency. I feel like by this point, generally many of the marquee free agents will have signed and there will have been more trade activity. There have been some trades, but only a few signings to this point...and none of the heavy hitters(Arrieta/Darvish/Hosmer/Martinez/etc). I'm sure it's all GM speak, posturing, other nonsense and it's all very frustrating. I definitely get it, GM's are trying not to blink first...and going big in free agency is the best way to set yourself up to get fired as a GM...the fan part of me wants some stuff to happen is all.

Remember that pitching is king, and the hardest thing to come by in this game is young-impact pitching. Alcantara has frontline starter upside, don't undervalue that.

Alcantara is going, happy to see him leave the division.

I don't fully buy it either to be honest. Also their bullpen is an absolute dumpster fire at the moment. They lost Rosenthal, Oh, and Nicasio to FA...and even with those guys their bullpen was terrible. We shouldn't worry about the Cardinals at all unless they address the bullpen in a big way.

It takes one more option off the board for the Giants/Red Sox/Diamondbacks/other teams interested in corner outfield help.

I don't buy the reactionary stuff 1 bit. Reactionary guys overpay. We brought in thames vogt walker jeffress swarzak for next to nothing. He's a scrooge. He kicks all tires, lots of rumors swirl but he's setting his price and waits for a yes. Since he's a scrooge most offers get topped so he waits some more. I don't mind this but its not entertaining. Shaw zero interest. Swarzak at 14/2 I'd be content and mildly nervous. McGee burns. That's all well and good until we don't properly stock the bullpen. We should be targeting at least one higher end reliever. Beyond that, if Stearns wants to wait and see how the market plays out, that might make sense. I feel like he's playing a bit of a dangerous game right now, and might not end up getting any of the high end relievers we need.

Looks like they might get Holland too. Rockies doing the type of work I hoped Stearns would do on his bullpen...

I agree, but I'd call it one "high caliber" guy and not use the word "proven". I wanted someone with some closing experience in case Knebel isn't as sharp to start the year. That's why I'm hoping for Addison Reed. Hopefully Stearns can make a deal or two.