Boomer5

Unfortunately, this IS the reality for teams like the Brewers or the Rays. However, the Rays had a stretch of five 90 win seasons in six years. They have more good young talent coming up. You have to be good, or even excellent at drafting. You have to be completely unflinchingly unafraid to trade away talent when it's at the end of it's 6 year team-controlled cycle, and get good young talent back in return. Talent in/talent out. The Rays had Matt Garza at his peak. Instead of re-signing him to a big deal, they traded him to the Cubs for Chris Archer. When Chris Archer is close to big bucks, they'll probably flip him for young talent as well. To operate that way, you absolutely HAVE to be good at identifying that kind of talent, and not having the sentimental attachment to the players on your roster. Is Stearns that kind of guy? We don't know yet. He appears to have NO trouble getting rid of guys, but then he has no attachment to any of the guys currently on the roster. Can he identify talent? We will find out. His eye for talent wont be known for awhile, for good or bad. Right now, we dont know. The MLB talent he picked up are guys the casual fans know due to former prospect status, but they have flamed out pretty hard. The minor league talent that matters in his trades are so young that its impossible to know what we have. Guys like Hill are worthless, but he was supposed to be to facilitate picking up Diaz who does have value. I am far more interested in how our farm system progresses. We do have 5 top 100's that werent acquired by Stearns. I expect an Astros and Cubs like influx the next 3 years. That should be very exciting.

Well in fairness to the Brewers, they didnt really begin the rebuild process until July 2015. They are showing no signs of picking up anyone on the major league level that will be elite and no one above High A that projects to be elite since Stearns took over. A lot will depend on the Davis and Luc trades followed by the Braun and Wily trades. if we continue to pick up 18 and 19 year olds, you can't expect the Brewers to be playoff bound for 3-4 years minimum. I am happy with that because that means they will be picking very high and by 2019 we will have a farm system that is the envy of the league.

Thats an interesting way to look at it. I still feel this is Segura and Wagner for Anderson and $6.5M for Diaz with Hill being worthless like Arroyo and the Braves.

Agreed. I can see him traded pretty soon, though I haven't explored the potential market for him, if any. The amount of middle infielders we have acquired, and Im not counting Hill, spells the end for Scooter.

That's easy for Braun to say. He has $95 million reasons to chill about the next 3 years of losing. Luc doesn't have that luxury, which is just the reality of him signing what turned out to be a bad contract. Yes we all know he needs to not complain about money on a contract he signed but the reality of the situation is, as they say, what it is.

Diaz is the kind of guy we should be trading for. This looks like a much better return than the Lind trade. If you break it down, it looks like Segura and Wagner for Anderson. I don't love that trade as Anderson is the definition of mediocre but he could be flipped as I'm not sure what the Brewers need in him unless Wily is about to be dealt. Segura is a legit starting SS though hardly the top of the order doubles and SB machine we thought we had. Then it's $5.5 million for Diaz. With the Brewers cheap roster, picking up a bad contract in exchange for a prospect is smart business. I don't think Hill matters to anyone and it wouldn't be a shock if he was DFA'd. The MLB roster didn't get any better of course as they didn't give up much, but the Brewers added a really nice asset in a 19 year old SS who is a potentially high end bat at a key position.

This is really good pick up, which in part means we don't have to worry about picking up an outfielder in the Davis trade.

Better question: Has it made the organization better? At this point right now? Id doubt one could make an argument the overall skill set is better. You'd have to be really optimistic to see value in the cast offs and very low arms we picked up to see value above a Lind and a KRod. While I 100% agree they had no place on the 2016 Brewers, they ARE legitimate major league key contributors and borderline All Stars, and no one we acquired fits that description. The MLB roster is certainly by anyones evaluation worse, so that will help the 2017+ amateur infusion. So in that sense, yes the future is much brighter. As for tanking, of course they are tanking. I do not see how this is even in debate. [sarcasm]How big a fanbase of Flores, Broxton, and Cecchini could there possibly be on this board?[/sarcasm] What possible reason would they have to even look at trading Davis and Luc, two young cheap performers? Those are guys teams like Milwaukee, assuming they want to win, would consider to be gold. Luc is a very rate commodity and Davis just hit 20 HR's in Aug and September. Why would you trade them (presumably for prospects) if the goal was to win games at the major league level in 2016?

The Brewers did not bring in a guy from the Astros so he could take the team from 94 loses to 90 loses, like your upside projections suggest. Doug just made probably the best trade of his career and the Brewers went to a new guy who's only resume is the Astros model. I am not a Doug fan and I am not defending him, I am only pointing out that Doug is perfectly capable of making deals for prospects if instructed to do so. Lets get this on the table, hiring Stearns is revolution, not evolution. Im all for it. I want the Brewers to develop a monster farm system that is best in the game. The only way that will happen is for first picks in the draft, and more importantly the associated pool money. 72-90 is Herb Kohl stuff. Is it that tough to connect the dots from his last team's blue print to this offseason's trading away of our closer and middle of the order 1B for nothing of meaningful value for the next 4 years if that? This is currently a bad team and by opening day will be worse, by design. The Brewers arent done dealing as Luc will be gone soon, and we are hearing rumors about Davis and Braun (Orioles) being connected to moves. I do like our young starters, but without an offense, there is only so much you can expect from them. The Bullpen is a serious question mark though it does have some talent, and I think folks are grossly undervaluing a legitimate closer, assuming that teams wants to win. We have some power arms, but the Brewers arent going to put them in the full time closers role because that will just make them more expensive at arby time. Back on topic, Cappy is a fan favorite and rightly so. If you are going to be bad, you should at least do with guys fans like. I think that is the sum total of this signing.

No one likes an internet negative nancy like I fear I am becoming on this board, but I feel I need to state the obvious; What front office is releasing a 24 year old Jeff Cirillo?

Cecchini and Middlebrooks were failures at their past teams and most guys with upside don't get released at positions of a general lack of talent at the MLB level. At best, they are low risk, low ceiling change of scenery types that could possibly become replacement level starters in MIL. If I were the Brewers FO, I wouldn't make any trades with Lucroy with those two in mind, since they arent guys who will block anyone with real talent.

He is a fan favorite spare arm, not a whole lot more. Nothing to get upset about of course, but the upside is pretty much a prayer at best.

lol is really all I can say..... I just love how people can overreact to minor league deals. Chances are he doesn't make the team, if he does, maybe he can be a LOOGY. We lose absolutely nothing taking a flyer on someone like Cappy. Really with a lineup of: 1B Carter 2B Gennett SS Segura 3B Cecchini or Westbrook C Lucroy LF Davis CF Broxton/ Nieuwenhuis/ Santana/ maybe Austin Jackson RF Braun With rotation of Nelson Peralta Garza Jungmann Davies/ Lopez/ Hader Smith/ Jeffress/ Knuebel in the backend of the pen What are people crying so much about? That isn't a 100 lose team. We haven't traded anyone else and there is no certainty we will. We have 3 teams in the division who may win 100 games this season. At least 97 or 98 wins. What you want this team to do? We haven't even started to tank yet. KRod, Sardinas, and Lind who was only retained to trade does not make us tank. All this tanking non sense is so blown out of proportion. Complain when we actually trade of pieces that matter such as Lucroy, Davis, Peralta, Sergura, Gennett, Braun, Nelson, Smith, Jeffress. This was a 94 loss team last year and we gained no one of value. The pitching has some potential for sure. The lineup is a dumpster fire and that is before the likely trades of Luc an Davis this year, and Braun next year. Luc says this team wont win, and he is correct.

I cant speak for everyone, but Im certainly not upset. Not at all. Im just calling it for what it is; another piece to get us to the number one pick as painlessly as possible. We have had a truly brutal offseason as far as MLB talent acquisition goes, and many on here try and spin it as a high on base guy who can play different positions, nice clubhouse guy, crafty lefty, etc, etc, etc instead of what this really is: Houston 2.0.

The tanking continues. If you are planning on losing 100++ at least give the fans a good guy to cheer for. We all love this guy but nothing says rebuilding like signing a 37 year old coming off an 8 era season. With the first pick in the 2017 draft, the Brewers select....

Yeah, Stearns really got taken in the Lind trade. Hopefully he learned and wont make the same mistakes in the Luc/Braun/Davis trades. The age and player profiles don't fit a team that has any interest in winning for 5 years. That was not the case in the Astros trade, which might have been Melvin's best. I do think the tanking strategy is a good one though. Milwaukee wont ever be truly elite without a top farm system. Not a good farm system, but rather a top 1 to 3 farm system. Its not a coincidence Stearns was hired from Houston and not say a top talent guy from StL or the Cubs.

Im not a fan of him the man, but I have come around to his contract not being as devastating as it once seemed compared to the market. Braun is definitely tradeable. Id like to see Stearns pull off a trade like Melvin did with Houston in July before I get too excited with projecting the return. So far, he looks like a GM that can cut salary with the best of them, but his returns have been really bad so far.

You can't possibly believe the Brewer's offseason has made the MLB roster better?

While I prefer comments like Lucs stay in house, it wont have any effect on his trade value. All teams have seen the Brewers offseason. They know where Stearns came from. It's no mystery they are tanking, so Luc was just stating the very very obvious. He wants to win and doesnt want to play on a 57 win team. The subtext of course is "with my current contract". The Brewers havent lost any leverage as any GM who can fog a mirror knows what Luc is saying. The Brewers don't have to trade him and his contract is so low, keeping him on the roster wont hurt them one way or the other.

Yes it does and makes him all the more tradable.

Fair enough My point wasnt to get into a detailed discussion on protection but rather a this team is going to stink comment.

Not sure how Carter is such a worse option than Ramirez was the past two years: [pre]Yr Player ABs HR BB RBI OBP/SLG/OPS -------------------------------------------- 14-16 Carter 468 30 61 78 312/459/771 2015 Ramirez 279 11 16 42 295/430/725 2014 Ramirez 494 15 21 66 330/427/757[/pre] We are talking about this guy, right? http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/c/cartech02.shtml I can promise you there is not a pitcher in the league that would rather face Braun than Carter.

Id expect Davis to be traded once the glut on FA OFers gets more settled, and it seems pretty close. Braun could be traded as well though his contract is less likely to be interesting though its getting closer to market value. I like Santana but he needs ABs in Milwaukee to figure out what we have in him. CS is useless to evaluate powerhitters and putting him on the bench isnt going to get him the reps he needs. Not putting him in CF because he "isn't a CF" only matters if this is a team that is going to compete for something. The other guys are sub expansion team talent and are all 5th OFers that will make us all long for the glory days of Thad Bosely. Once Davis and Luc are traded, buckle up, its going to be a long season in Milwaukee. I am no fan of Braun after the "issues" but I pity the poor guy in that lineup. He may get 200 walks next year. Who would hit clean up behind him? Carter? One of the Boston rejects? I will have to figure out how to get MilB TV because that is where the action will be in 2016++++

Have you seen Carters stats? Does it really matter whether he hits L or R? I think the only thing that mattered in the Brewer FO with his signing is he plays 1B and was willing to sign for $2.5M.

They could've very easily walked off set so there is a chance. If I'm Gilligan, I'm not walking away from Ginger and MaryAnne.