KeithStone53151

John Axford posted a much worse season than Knebel heading into his first year of arbitration and got 5 million. I figure Knebel is looking at more like 6 or 7 based on that alone, possibly more. I also think Nelson, Shaw, and Santana will end up being low in 2019...especially if they keep producing like they did this year. It's hard for me to look too much further ahead from a salary standpoint than 2019 given we have such few guarantees. And completely unrelated, how is signing Lynn/Cobb to a 3-4 year deal any different than when we signed Garza to his 4 year deal? Or Suppan to his? Do you people want to keep making the same silly mistake over and over? Signing mid-rotation starters to a 4 year deal means you get maybe 1-2 years of a mid-rotation starter and 2-3 years of a #5 starter or worse.

I'm not sure if the Rangers are thinking re-tool, but if they wanted to re-tool...is Hamels someone that would interest people? He's owed 22.5 million in 2018 and has a 2019 vesting option that will probably not vest. I would think we could get him for minimal prospects if we paid most or all of the salary. Even a salary dump would allow the Rangers more flexibility to address other needs. He turns 34, so who knows if he'll be incredibly effective next year. What are your thoughts on Hamels?

You all should keep in mind with any spending we do this free agency, our current core of players will start getting increasingly expensive as they hit arbitration. Sure we have a ton of room to spend this offseason, but that doesn't necessarily guarantee an upgrade and could hamstring us in future years. In 2019, Shaw/Santana/Davies will all hit arbitration for the first time and go from costing a combined 1.6 million to maybe 15 million. Guys like Knebel, Nelson, Anderson, etc will hopefully have successful years and be even more expensive as they move further into arbitration. Adding a 25 million salary per year for 6 years would put us in a bind for 2019 and an even worse bind for 2020.

Hosmer is a premium talent. He has power/contact ability that few possess in today's game. Think Anthony Rizzo, who I contend is the most valuable Cub. Machado is likely to command $250 million over 7-8 years. Hosmer won't be cheap, but $150 million over 6 years is a lot more doable than $250 million. If you want to move Shaw to 1B, then Moustakas makes a ton of sense too. He doesn't walk all that much but doesn't strikeout a lot either. Hosmer has maxed at 25 hr for a season while playing almost every day, and has never broken 500 slugging even with usually having a very high average. He is not a power guy, he's probably a 55 grade power and 60-65 grade contact guy. And Moustakas is the very definition of a career year on his contract year guy. No way does he come close to his 2017 totals. Someone else will pay way more than we are willing to for him. The Brewers focus should be primarily pitching. I honestly think we are more likely to land a starter via trade than via free agency. I do expect us to be active with relievers in free agency though.

Do you guys have any idea how much money Hosmer is going to make this off season? Of course we'd love to have him for a 5/80 deal. But that isn't even remotely realistic. The closest FA comps I could find are from 2015, Upton(28)/Davis(29)/Heyward(26). Those guys got 6/132, 7/161, and 8/184 respectively. You want to pay in that neighborhood for a modest upgrade at the 1b position? Of those 3 deals, only the Upton deal is working out at this point. And even then, the Tigers are in hardcore rebuild mode. I guarantee the Cubs and Orioles both have buyers remorse over their 2 deals...yet are stuck with a nasty contract for 5+ years. Hard pass on Hosmer.

Matt Moore struggled too much with the Giants for me to think he'd succeed in a hitter friendly environment. There's also a very real chance that the Giants cut him loose this offseason. Hard pass. The Giants are probably the only realistic trade destination for him if a trade happened in the off season, I just can't imagine what they'd be willing to give up. Especially considering a down year and the FA options are fairly decent. I fully expect the Giants to be in the market for a LF, I just don't think they target Braun.

I don't think that's enough for the Marlins to pull the trigger, also the risk that Stanton would exercise his opt out is too great. I don't think a trade like this makes sense for us, as fun as it sounds. It's also very likely a big market team would outbid that offer as the payroll portion isn't quite so detrimental to a big market.

You donn't have to have a designated 4th OF. No, you don't. However when all those guys are healthy someone is going to get the short end of the stick. Making Brinson/Phillips ride the bench for lengthy times or just not getting consistent playing time is questionable at best. Unless you instill a rotation between them where they all play consistently I wouldn't really want an inexperienced guy at #4. It's generally more common for the 4th outfielder to be filled by someone with significant mlb experience. That said, I think with our outfield it would be fairly easy to find atbats for guys as needed if we rolled with Braun/Santana/Brinson/Phillips. Braun will inevitably miss time, PH appearances, you can easily shave a start or two a week from Santana/Braun and not miss much(and probably keep him more fresh). That said, I could also see them starting with Brinson in AAA to get him regular atbats and bring him up after a month or so. The problem would be the same, but at least he'd have a base of consistent atbats to go from before moving into a 3-4 start per week situation. All this is of course assuming Broxton won't be around, which is absolutely not a fair assumption. It's amazing how many different directions Stearns can go with just our outfield decisions this offseason.

I like this idea in theory, and I do thing we splurge on relievers, but other teams won't let us take the top 3 relievers. Other teams have more money than us, it won't happen. We should be aggressive on high end relievers in FA. Wade Davis is probably the only guy I don't think we should look at, though he's likely to get $12-15 million per on 3-4 years and we have a closer.

MATT GARZA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And almost certainly Peralta, Drake and Torres. There are no other locks quite like those guys. Even if Walker doesn't sign with the Crew, he could be back via trade at some point.

No way are both Wilkerson and Burnes on the 25 man, it could be one or the other but no both. We already have 2 young starters in Woodruff and probably Hader in the rotation to start 2018. He could go with 3 young guys, but I think it will be 2 and a free agent to go with Anderson/Davies. Though again I wouldn't be shocked if they went straight to Burnes. Burnes is a college pitcher and has plenty of innings on his arm, if he proves capable in spring he could easily win a spot right away.

I think this conversation is almost 100% relief pitching. We'll head into the off season with Knebel and Barnes as the only 2 locked into spots. Jeffress is highly likely to be retained. Suter likely makes the roster, most likely as a long reliever. I have to believe Torres and Drake are gone. Hughes could be retained, but that might depend on $. I'd be open to finding better options. One spot will go to someone with options. Williams/Wang/Webb/Lopez/Derby/Ventura/etc. The whole shuttle service concept. We will likely need to fill 2-3 spots with free agents, and ideally both guys would be late inning options ahead of both Barnes and Jeffress. This would become 1-2 spots if Hader stays in the pen, I think my stance on that is pretty clear at this point. I think we for sure will need a lefty(assuming Hader moves to rotation) in addition to Suter. I like the idea of bringing back Duke. Watson would be a decent fallback, but I think Duke is the better option. I think there's a decent chance we can get him on a 1 year deal, or 2/10 at the most. It looks like NOMAAM pegged a number of the best options. I like the idea of signing Swarzak, Nicasio, Shaw, Neshak, Reed, and/or possibly Joe Smith. I'd also be open to bringing in someone like Tyson Ross on a minor league deal and letting him try to win a job in the bullpen. Not sure he'd go for that, but worth exploring. Ideally, grab Duke and 2 of the RH options above and let Hughes go. We'd still have some flexibility, and possibly some closer experience in case Knebel regresses.

That's the biggest thing I hope the brewers take from this is the experience of being in a chase. I hope they look back at games we gave away and learn how to prevent that, counsel included. I'm sure counsel knows he wasn't perfect and I hope he learns from it.

Cobb is a nice pitcher but since missing a full season his strikeouts dropped from in the 8's per 9 to in the 6's per 9. We would be signing him at age 30 (he's never hit 200 innings in his career) and moving forward. That'd not terribly old but it is heading to the wrong end of it. I just would hate for us to go out at sign some 30+-year-old guy and we trek down the same path we have been on when trying to fill out our rotations. It really handcuffs a lot of the moves you can make. Not completely dismissing Cobb but just something to think about when we bring up guys like him. Cobb is a 30-year-old Matt Garza. Numbers are eerily similar. Cobb's 2017 FIP vs. Garza's career FIP are almost exactly the same, both have the same career K/9, Cobb's 2017 HR/9 is slightly higher than Garza's career HR/9, and Cobb missed almost two years with injury. His ERA is pretty, but the peripherals say he isn't as good as his ERA, and definitely has injury risk. It's actually worse than that if his k rate is similar to Matt Garza, who was in his prime 5+ years ago and k rates are spiking since then.

Thames is out of his prime. This is what he is. He's not getting better. I don't have much confidence in Arcia improving offensively with his approach at the plate. How is Knebel going to get any better? This is probably the best season he's ever going to have. Until Phillips cuts down his strikeout rate, he's going to need some insane luck to post decent offensive numbers. Hader is already good in the bullpen, take him out with his control and make him a starter and he's probably going to regress and give us some 7 inning, 0 run, 13 strikeout type starts but also plenty of 3 inning, 6 run, 5 walk starts. I know a lot of people don't want to believe it but this isn't a young team with upward mobility. There are a lot of older guys on this team and the younger guys have some pretty serious flaws in their games. If knebel can get more consistent with his control, he could be a truly elite closer. Arcia can get more consistent defensively and has the bat speed to be more of a weapon at the plate versus a number 8 hitter. Keep in mind hes only 23. Phillips looked very good at the plate based on the eye test, and if he doesn't return to that form brinson is right on his heels. And hader's control has improved considerably since his callup. Watch the guy pitch, watch him hit his spots, his control issues seem incredibly overblown. Thames I think made significant approach improvements after struggling to readjust to mlb pitching for a large chunk of the year. I think he'll be more or less the same guy but much more consistent. I think we'll see the September Thames much more so than the guy we saw at any other point, and September Thames is a stud. One other guy hit the nail on the head, you seem incredibly pessimistic and negative about the team and the young talent we have. Fortunately you are vastly in the minority with your opinion.

To go with the regression candidates are improvement candidates in Thames, arcia, VILLAR, barnes, knebel, woodruff, brinson, phillips, hader. You listed many very young talented guys as regression candidates when it's far more likely that they get better. Even Santana is very young yet. Whether we compete next year or step back depends largely on whether we splurge for a good bullpen piece or 2 to throw in the back end of the bullpen with knebel. It could be swarzak, but there are other legit options available. With where this team is at in the rebuild, we have no place on our roster for his like torres, drake, Garza, etc. Even suter/hughes should be the 6th and 7th guys in our bullpen if they are retained. Knebel, 2 FA, jefress, hughes, barnes, suter, and an internal guy with options that can be shuttled up and down. Williams, derby, ventura, whoever.

I did. Our opening day ace coming back to save the day. Giddy up! I love your optimism, but in any other thread that should probably be blue

There is something to that. I love our where our farm is sitting, and I have high hopes for the guys you mentioned (among many others). That said, we all know that most prospects don't live up to their potential, so Stearns can't make moves today in hopes that his low-level prospects are going to be stars at the MLB level on a set timetable. This is all theoretical, but if Stearns can find and acquire the "Shaw of second base," what's the downside if Huira and/or Diaz are ready in a couple of years? We'd either have a tremendous trade chip, or we'd have excellent depth when one of our infielders gets injured. Or both, we have tremendous depth in 2019 or 2020 and then trade off the "Shaw of second base" for a king's ransom right when he's hitting arby and getting expensive, allowing Huira/Diaz take over at second base. Of course, the "Shaw of second base" may not be there, in which case the best option may be between Villar or an older free agent. Stearns just seems like a guy who doesn't do the expected, but rather finds a guy no one else was thinking about. Re-signing Walker is an easy option. It's what Melvin would surely have done, and it's not a terrible idea. It's just not the way Stearns seems to operate. This exactly. Imagine if Shaw had the season he did and Erceg absolutely wrecked high A and AA before being brought up to AAA for their playoffs? Imagine the offers we'd get for Shaw if Stearns deemed that Erceg was forcing his way onto the roster for 2018. Certainly better than Shaw plus prospects for Thornburg. We could probably get better than the lucroy package for Shaw.

Would you say a worn out Swarzak is more effective than a fresh Jeffress or Hughes? Honest question. Being able to tough it out and push yourself on a stretch run is one thing, but you need to be effective or you are better off letting the next guy pitch. And there's always a risk of pushing too far and blowing out a guys elbow, how much would it suck if that happened to knebel and he missed all of next season?

I also would say if we use all 3 of those guys, we are going to have a tough time getting through 9 innings on Saturday without using Garza/Guerra/Wilkerson to some degree. We'd also likely see some Drake/Torres. A victory with a significant margin today would be enormous towards helping us win tomorrow.

I think Jeffress will fill the Swarzak role tonight, and Hughes will likely be first middle reliever brought in. I know Hughes pitched yesterday but he didn't throw much. There's a chance Hader is used to "start" tomorrow since it will be a bullpen day and would therefore be held out today. When I say start, I'm expecting 45-60 pitches or 4 innings max, whichever comes first. If worst case scenario we have to use Jeffress, Hughes, and Knebel for a win today...I would expect Knebel is off limits tomorrow and Swarzak would act as closer. It's too difficult to look any further into the crystal ball than 2 days in advance. For all we know either Anderson could toss a gem and/or the offense could explode and Garza pitches 3 innings of a 12-0 game and finds a way to only allow 6 runs in his 3 innings of work...in which case we'd obviously have a full allotment of back end guys for Saturday.

With Keston Hiura and Isan Diaz getting closer to the MLB, I don't think Stearns will need to look for a Shaw-type trade. 2B can be more of a stop-gap situation like sticking with Villar, Sogard, Walker or getting a veteran like Howie Kendrick or Kinsler. The Shaw trade was the home run of all home runs as far as trades go. It might be a better deal than the Gomez/Fiers trade. If another opportunity like that is located and presents itself, we would be absolutely silly not to entertain it. Any time Dombrowski calls you with an idea for a trade, literally everything else stops and you listen. Dombrowski hasn't spotted the sucker at the table in 20 years, yet he somehow gets to keep making bad baseball decisions for someone...

Would be much nicer if we won games by 5-6 runs and didn't need any clutch hits.

Really just need anybody in the middle of the order to step up. I'll be happy every atbat that braun doesn't either strike out or GIDP. I try not to be pessimistic, but it seems like that's over half his atbats lately.

I just received my Postseason ticket pack in the mail a day or two ago. I really hope I have the opportunity to use them.