KeithStone53151

I'm a huge fan of DeGrom and think it's worth exploring for sure. That said, I'm not so sure they are interested in selling with Syndergaard coming back next year. We also have had bad experiences trading with the Mets.

I don't think it's likely that any of Suter, Houser, Perrin, or Wilkerson make it as better than a very back end of the rotation arm. If we are approaching the point of competing, we should be aiming higher than back end guys. Those guys are fine for the 8th or 9th starter on teh depth chart and as bullpen options. Burnes, Ortiz, Peralta are the 3 guys we should seriously have our eye on for rotation spots in the next year or two. Anybody else has to show a lot more to even be in the plans for a rotation spot in the future.

Brinson plus Ortiz would be a starting point. He probably has similar value to Quintana.

Hard to not be open to this after our success with Thames. That said, it's all about what kind of deal we can get.

I don't think he's going to strand 92% of the runners that reach base against him like he did this year. The only two that were higher than that this year were Kimbrel and Matt Albers (could've given me a million guesses and I wouldn't have guessed him). Last year only Andrew Miller and Alex Colome were better. 2015 only Wade Davis and Josh Collmenter were better. 2014 only Huston Street and K-Rod were better. If you go over a 5 year stretch, nobody is higher than 87.4% (Wade Davis) and guys like Kimbrel, Britton, Miller and Jansen are between 83.3 and 84.6% so I think it's completely unrealistic to expect any reliever to consistently post strand rates above 90%. You're discounting that he could improve his WHIP and BB rate and have less runners available to strand. Also guys with high k rates tend to have a high strand rate, and his k rate was nothing short of elite in 2017.

When you say "one of those free agents", I assume you mean Sogard? That would be a clever way of handling the roster space.

Everybody has a price, but I wouldn't be looking to trade Knebel right now. Listen on everything, especially if Dombrowski is calling, but highly unlikely we get enough to consider trading him. I think Knebel can still get better. His ERA this year was lucky, but I think he improves his command a bit for this coming year and is able to lower the BB rate and WHIP accordingly.

I kinda tend to agree that it isn't overly likely that Texas would punt. If they try to contend, he could very well be a trade chip at the deadline if they fail. I would even consider giving up some prospect value to try and land him while eating most of the contract. And I'd be open to turning the option into a player option if that's what it took. I'd much rather go this route than go through the same song and dance of signing a mid-rotation guy for market value

The only one of those guys that I may want to see back is Blazek. Sure he was horrible in his one spot start for the big club, but he looked good in he few relief outings for the Brewers, and had a fine year for Colorado Springs. Best of luck to Goforth, Wily and Captain Kirk. I thought Goforth had a shot to be better than he was, I still think he does. I'd like to see him back, though I suspect he'll take his chances in another organization along with the rest of that group.

Condescending remarks don't help your stance. All MLB teams have money. And pretty much all of them have more than Milwaukee to burn if they want to buy in on a guy that had a career year at age 32. And when he comes in and puts up a line close to what Perez gives us, how great is that going to be for Milwaukee? He has a career .254 BA/.305 OBP/.716 OPS line. Last year he had a monster season posting a .930 OPS but the previous two seasons his OPS was .769 and .732. Hard pass. Especially for the money. Hard, hard pass. One of the moderators in a different thread said it is better to ignore clown comments like his. It's fairly par for the course to get condescending remarks out of this guy. I'd tend to agree with you, while Cozart likely could learn and play a good 2b...he's far more valuable and the bat plays far better at SS. He's a high enough caliber player that he should find a starting SS gig somewhere.

That's kinda what I'm looking at as well. I honestly thought there was a mandate that your stadium has to hold x fans or yoi can't be an aaa affiliate. I would be on board with a run at new Orleans. I made a trip down to Biloxi in April and drove to new Orleans from there. I remember it being 1.5 hours or so by car, much better than flying out to Colorado or Fresno. Fresno would be something of a nightmare for big league callups from a logistics standpoint.

Have they revealed anything specific? It could just be general soreness that didn't get better because he didn't give it rest...

If you had actually gone back and gone back and read the posts from the last few days you would have seen me already explain why I compared Braun to the best (to show he is no longer among the best), and in the same post you would have seen me mention comparably aged, far more productive players like Votto and Turner. But by all means, keep beating that dead horse. Then you spent the rest of your post with horribly reasoned arguments that we've all seen many times before. I can't stomach another "just take out his worst few weeks!" or "think what he would have done if he wasn't hurt!" A Braun playing through injuries is what we're getting the rest of his career. Get used to it. You actually are taking out a stretch in which Braun didn't hit a HR to condense your data so his 17 HR looks more impressive, even though he was still playing and therefore hurting the team with his play. I mean, are you kidding me? The lengths people will go to, to defend a player who has averaged 2 WAR for 5 seasons in a row now. You know who predicted this kind of season from Braun? Fangraphs. Actually, they overshot, they had him at 1.9 fWAR compared to his actual 1.5 this year. A flipping computer understood based on all available data that Braun is an average at best player now. Yeah, I'll say it again. He's overrated. Let's bookmark this and revisit it in a year. I'm looking forward to it. Because fangraphs and WAR are the final verdict on whether a player is good or not... It's not unreasonable to dismiss the last month of the season for the most part as he was significantly hampered with injury...and I would hope he learns from this and with our better options available doesn't play when he isn't 100%. Look a little further at Braun's metrics on fangraphs. His BABIP was the lowest of his career while his contact rates and line drive rates were right in line with career norms. His k rate is lower than career average and his bb rate is higher than his career average. Not playing injured that last month and average luck probably would have given Braun an 850 ops on the season MINIMUM. Probably would be closer to 900. Braun is obviously not still in the Trout/Harper class of player, but he's definitely the best player on this team and a well above average player.

I'm not entirely sure Biloxi has the capacity to be a AAA club. Maybe someone with more knowledge can correct me on that if I'm wrong. Tip of the cap to Mark A for making this happen. We seem very settled at most of our minor league affiliate locations at this point, especially considering we should have high level talent coming through the system pretty consistently...so these affiliates can look forward to watching good players. I don't think it's nearly as important to avoid CS as a rookie league team as it is to avoid having that as our AAA location. It's easier to send a guy to Arizona or Wisconsin if needed at such a low level if you want to avoid throwing a specific pitcher in CS.

And the three seasons before that he played 135, 140, and 135 games. I think KeithStone's more on track than your rhetoric. Heck, even the fact that you won't give him his 104 games that he started because for some reason you won't count the DH makes me giggle. Because those games don't count... Braun's injuries this year won't carry over. They'll be resolved come spring. The suspension year doesn't count so outside of this year he's never had fewer than 564 PAs and he's always dealt with nagging injuries here and there. Plush, every single year you talk about how Braun misses way too much time yet there's no evidence of that outside of 2017. Based on his PAs the past 3yrs that means he would have played what amounts to 1.5 fewer games per month than Santana and Shaw this year. He'll be back to his usual PAs because that's what history and evidence shows. Even if you target Braun at 500 healthy PAs the next 3yrs he'll kill it because that's what he does when he's healthy. And his 17-19M annual contract will still be plenty fine. History/evidence also prove that to be true. 500 healthy PA would probably be around 120-130 games. Just saying. Even if you are cynical and say "well early in his career he was getting help from gummies"...the 3 years prior to this he's been under the stricter testing and has 135, 140, and 135 games played with upper 500s PA. It's more reasonable to expect something similar to that or slightly fewer games than that than to say he'll play 90 or even 60 games.

A frontline starter is one thing, Gray is another. If a true impact starter becomes available, I'm sure Brinson won't be considered off-limits.

I'd love to see Brinson be a superstar. It is hard for me to envision that. His ceiling looks more like a Lorenzo Cain/Mike Cameron type player, which obviously has value but isn't a guy you see in the All-Star game 7-10 years in a row. Honestly it astounds me when I read people saying there isn't really anywhere besides 2B that they see a need for an upgrade on the Brewers. Say what? You wouldn't rather have Correa instead of Arcia? Sanchez instead of Pina? Arenado instead of Shaw? Say what?! Come on man, seriously? These superstar players don't grow on trees. Rizzo isn't the best 1b in the league, but you don't see the cubs trying to upgrade at the position because "well goldschmidt and votto are better". It's far more reasonable and more valuable to try and improve at your weakest spots and get better that way.

Ryan Braun had 99 starts last season and he played a huge chunk of that injured. Your plan would have had him at like 60 games started. I disagree, he missed a large chunk of time recovering from a significant injury. If it's just minor stuff(one or two 10 day stints and maintenance days), 120-130 makes sense. That completely changes if he needs to miss most of 2 months like this year, I'll hope that doesn't happen but we'll be better prepared this season if it does.

It's a bit weird that you don't include Brinson. While Brinson isn't a surefire bet to hit 300, he can be productive with the bat while providing excellent defense. Hiura might end up at 1b or LF where the bat won't play. I know I hear all the time how his bat will play anywhere, but unless you are hitting 30+ bombs...your bat doesn't belong in LF or 1b. Hiura doesn't profile to do that.

I think if the Phillies wanted to sell off those pieces, they could get better value selling them individually than what they get from this package. I've also heard they are gearing up to spend like crazy and try and complement the pieces they have to field a competitive team. They have good pieces, add in a high end starter, a high end bat and a bullpen piece...they might grow into a solid team quickly. I could see Martinez and Arrieta both landing in philly.

I'd be on board with Swarzak, though we probably should target a lefty and consider aiming even higher for someone like Reed. Reed, Swarzak, and Duke...bring in all three and roll with young starters.

Every player has a price. Literally every single one. If the Angels call and are looking to discretely take bids on Trout, are we gonna say "oh but Hader and Brinson are untouchable". WRONG! Obviously this is an extreme example, my point is any player can be traded at any time for the right price.

I'd agree with the idea of keeping Braun at 120-130 starts per season and make sure he's fresh and not playing hurt. If he's dealing with a nagging issue, the 10 day DL should be used early and often on him even to get over little things. Perez/Sogard can act as 4th outfielder when Braun needs a short DL stint to make sure he stays fresh and healthy. All that should allow plenty of atbats for Phillips/Brinson if both open on the MLB roster. It would be nice if Braun could learn 1b and keep from having to run all over the place and make diving catches(all that helps keep him fresh). That way he'd also be a bit more versatile and could make Aguilar expendable(while allowing even more PT for Phillips/Brinson). There are a lot of options, and healthy Braun is the best hitter on the team. The dream will be to find a way to keep him that way all season.

I just noted above that Garza's contract had zero harm long-term on the franchise and it's only really arguable that in his final year, maybe Guerra or Wilkerson might have been better than him down the stretch and they held on too long because he was making more $, but that's debatable. By the time Garza got into the "bad" years, the team was rebuilding anyways or did not need the extra $ (this year). The Brewers are in a very unique situation. They have minimal current elite players, a base of "good" players that make up ~$50 million of base money for 10-15 guys the next 4 years...but I can't think of a single player on our team that will be a free agent now until 2022 that I am interested in signing long-term after that. Maybe Santana but that's it. If Alex Cobb is a #3 starter for 2-3 years and #5 for 1-2 years we will lose probably zero home-grown free agents that we care about overpaying him in his final 2 years. The only consideration is maybe having less to throw around at free agents in 2020 or 2021 if they make some splashes this offseason or next...but I think Mark might open up the pocket book for the extra player or two if they are truly close to a World Series. Garza caused a ton of harm to this team...this season. He put up terrible results and had to get pulled from the rotation at a very inopportune time due to ineffectiveness. Imagine if that happens when the rest of our roster is rounded out and ready to compete for a serious playoff run...

It's less about Mark A making money and more about opportunity cost for those dollars and rotation spots. I don't want Matt Garza pitching again to a 5+ ERA in 2020 and 2021. We can't(or won't) simply cut a guy loose like him with 2 years left on his contract. We didn't do it with Garza, Suppan, Wolf, etc. Hader and Woodruff have a very real chance to be better than either Lynn or Cobb in 2018. Burnes/Ortiz/Peralta are on the way. There are other prospects at the lower levels that will hopefully develop and give us options. If I'm spending money on a free agent or making a trade, I would either want someone truly impactful or utilize internal options considering the options we have. Our bullpen options aren't as good, and FA signings there are much more short term, so it makes more sense to look to FA for bullpen help.