Boomer5

There's always a chance of course but this MLB roster is being built like an expansion team. 28 to 31 year old former prospects that have been released by their previous teams signed on the cheap. There are still some good players but the likelihood is some will be traded before July 31 and so far this offseason, our guys have been traded for no one meaningful. This team is all about the next 3-4 drafts.

We traded Lind and Rogers for 4 low minor leaguers, Braxton, Carter and the difference between Lind's salary and $2.5M. It is what it is, I guess. Overall, it still feels like a salary dump and continuation of the tanking strategy. I cant fault the signing because we needed someone to play 1B and I guess you never know, but he is certainly not part of the future.

Sorry if I misunderstood you. When the Lind trade happened, you said something along the line of "I thought we were building for 2017, but now it doesn't look like we're doing that," and consequently have hammered the line that we're purposely "tanking" this season, so I thought you were upset about what's going on. As to the "tanking," I don't think our opinions are all that different. I just look at tanking as purposefully throwing meatballs down the middle of the plate, or throwing the ball away on defense to allow runners to score. We are still going to try to win games, we just aren't going to be that good, so we won't win a whole lot. As to the 94 loss season, I think Logan has a valid point. We greatly overachieved to start 2014 and ended up about where we expected at the end of the year. In 2015, we greatly underachieved to start the season, and all year I hoped we would sell off some good pieces before the players started playing to their ability and ended up around .500. I don't think it's a valid argument to say "we were a 94-loss team" and use that as the starting point for how many "wins we're losing" by not having certain players. From a true talent perspective, we were around a .500 team last year, and we have lost talent from that point. I want to see what Broxton can do, but he will not match Gomez, so that's a loss. I think Cecchini could replace what we lost in Ramirez. Parra was playing corner OF, taking starts from Davis, so I don't think he's that hard to replace if we keep Davis and Braun. K-Rod was a closer on a losing team, so I don't think replacing him with one of our talented set-up men will cost us too many games. Our pitching should be better with the loss of Lohse, and Peralta, Garza and Nelson pitching better than they did last year. Therefore, if no more trades are made, I would argue that we would have a better record than we had last year. Now, I think we will still trade Lucroy and one of Davis/Braun. That will of course hurt the 2016 roster, so I think we will be a sub-.500 team... we may even be a 100-loss team at that point, but I think our pitching will be good enough to keep us from that level. I don't see this as purposeful tanking to get the #1 pick, but rather trading guys who will not be part or our next good team for guys who could be core players for that next good team, while not wasting money and adding risk by obligating the team to a long-term, big money deal this offseason when it doesn't make sense. I think picking up someone like Cecchini is "hunting for a gem" that could pay off if he regains his form. Signing someone like Young is simply looking for a versatile bench bat who has a good shot of ending up in AAA. Stearns needs to add value to the franchise any way he can, and one of those ways is picking up some scrap heap players to see who will fill out the roster in what looks to be a down year. Hopefully some of them pay off. I personally would rather see Cecchini end up being a good 3B for us for the next half decade, and Peralta/Nelson/other young pitchers all pitch well, netting us the #3/4/5 pick than see them all crash and burn, bringing us the #1/2 pick. Oh I was defiantly not a fan of the Lind trade. I saw our mid season deals as tooling up for 2017 but the Lind trade was a clear sign that wasn't the case. Even if you like those 3 teens, and there is no way we could evaluate them at all, none are useful for 4+ years. Then the wave of terrible players came one after the other and it became clear. Stearns is going for the Houston model. In football or basketball, those teams have hard caps. We don't. The ONLY way we can compete with the elites is build a top 1-3 farm system. And the ONLY way to do that is have a pile of bonus pool money to do that. Tanking worked in Houston, it worked in Chicago, and it worked in Milwaukee with the Dean Taylor rosters. It going to work again here.

That is difficult but not impossible. We were only in position to draft those two guys because we were horrible and had high draft picks for several years. Two were home runs, pun intended and two weren't but you need several years of great drafts to get the wave of plus plus guys to Milwaukee.

If Arcia and Maverick are two core players how is that different than having Fielder and Braun as the only two core players? When we had those two and surrounded them with complimentary players we won. It isn't like those teams had all above average players beyond those two either. When you can put Yuni at short and the bad version of Casey Megehee at third and still win 96 games it's pretty obvious you can win with only a couple super stars surrounded by a few above average players. What are you gonna get better than those two? You can just as easily get Rickie Weeks as you can Kris Bryant. There is far more risk in teh draft than there is projecting Arcia and Maverick. Is tanking and sucking for 3/4's of their time time in Milwaukee really a better plan than just building around them? To give up on the potential of being a contender when those guys get here in the hope to get even better players further down the road seems like a fools errand to me. There just aren't that many superior propects than they are. At some point you end up chasing unicorns and never actually get around to winning. Nothing the team has done this offseason has a thing to do with winning in 2016 and 2017. You haven't wrapped your arms around the beauty of tanking which is the only scenario one would acquire the 28+ years olds we have in the quantity we have. These aren't Yuni and Casey around Braun and a Fielder, this is Bako and Houtson around Jeffrey Hammonds and Jose Hernandez. We aren't building around Maverick and Arcia, putting aside they aren't Braun and Fielder. We are adding sub journeyman to fill a roster so an actual game can be played. We have only 3 guys who are above average hitters in Braun, Davis, and Lucroy. The rest range from meh in scooter to downright horrible in everyone else. One injury to Braun (likely) and or a trade of Davis/Luc (also likely) and this is the worst offense in baseball. We are way closer to building the 2002 Brewers than the 2008 Brewers.

C: Lucroy 1B: Cecchini/Middlebrooks 2B: Scooter SS: Segura 3B: Middlebrooks/Cecchini LF: Davis CF: Broxton RF: Braun SP1: Peralta SP2: Nelson SP3: Jungmann SP4: Garza SP5: Davies Closer: Jeffries 8th: Smith 7th: Blazek RP: Knebel RP: Thornburg RP: Pena/Wagner/Cravy This is a soft roster of course as I have left off some bench and some likely trades, and its only Dec 31, but show me 75-80 wins here.

I didn't say it was. I was simply pointing out I didn't think you were correct is saying Stearns goal was to tank so we got a better draft pick. There is a difference between purposely tanking and the major league roster not being the main concern for next season. If you purposely tank you are not worrying about the next five or so years. I do not believe that is the way Stearns in thinking for the reasons I outlined. Our farm system is already one of the better ones in baseball. We need to find enough decent role players to supplement the next wave of core players. That wave is a year or two away not five of six. This is not the Cubs or Astos of 2010. We are well ahead of where they were. Thus we should not copy the 2010 Cubs or Astros approach. In bold is the problem. Core players. Core players are Braun and Prince. Bryant, Solars, and Schwarber, etc. Correra etc. Arcia and Maverick look like core players I believe. While the farm system is MUCH improved, it contains nice players not Core Players beyond those two. That is the issue here and why we need to land the plus plus guys not nice players to have. Yes we are way ahead of the Cubs and Astros in 2010 at the Minor league level, but we wont be where those two teams were in 2015 until the next wave is a wave of greatness not a wave of good.

I am in no way suggesting the players added make us better let alone by 9 wins. I fully expect the Brewers to be a losing team. The problem is that there is a wide gulf between losing 94 games and being a 94 loss team. We were not a 94 loss talent team so 94 losses is not the right starting point. We were more like a 82ish loss team at the start of last year. 82 loss team means this a 500 team +/-. Yeah, I dont see how the math works there on the current roster let alone one without Luc and possibly Braun and or Davis? They were a 94 loss team for a reason. Im not sure how 2015 can be looked at and justified as a flukey bad season especially since we correctly traded away a lot of talent and basically just churned Logan Schafer and Gomez, Sardinas, etc into guys who are the same just with different names, who are slightly older, but will be playing bigger roles in 2016? Sure closers are replaceable but by who? Smith and Jeffries? Even IF that works out, then who replaces them? This is a pretty untested at best and messy at worst bullpen and while we all like the starting rotation, no one will confuse them for the 90's Braves. The offense looks significantly worse than last year. I have not seen any plans to promote our two big gun prospects to the MLB roster who might be difference makers. We don't have a legitimate 1B or 3B and our primary CF had 7 ABs last year and is considered a fringe prospect. Our one potentially big young bat on the MLB roster currently doesn't even have a place on the field as he is blocked by Davis and Braun. Obviously the big league roster is a work in progress but the assumption is the gaps will be filled by more AAAA types as the likely trades will be, I assume, for MiLB prospects. What am i missing from the 2015 94 loss team that will get them to 500 or so in 2016? And more to the point, why on earth would anyone want a team to go 500? 400 is great, 600 is great. 500 is Doug Melvin land and we know how that turns out.

Hopefully our soon to be forgotten AAA home.

I have kind of derailed the pick up of Young to the overall model of the team tanking thing but your are right. In the case of Young specifically, he is a cheap and somewhat useful addition in that he has a tool that cant ever be taught, speed. Its either to help field a team at CS or a precursor to a Scooter/Segura trade. Either way, if Young is the answer, Id hate to think what the question would be, but he certainly doesnt hurt adding him to the organization.

Gomez, Lind and Rogers had about 6 fWAR between them. That's not nothing. If you assume they will be replaced by replacement level players in 2016, that's a pretty big step back on a team that doesn't have a ton of room to step back. I do agree though that I'd take the under on 100 losses, and maybe 95 as well. Unless they have major injury problems, this is not a truly wretched team. If Garza bounces back, they have a chance to have an above average pitching staff. The offense might well be awful, but with a few breakout years you never know. Plus the Brewers never really seem to get where they need to go, whether it's the World Series or the #1 draft pick. Additionally, Parra was a 1.2 WAR on fangraphs. KRod was a 1.0

Well since Parra, our best regular player when he was starting last year, is a RF though played CF, I called him RF for lazy typing purposes. I think you knew what I meant though. I dont share your optimism but I suppose you never know. I look at the 94 loss team and I see a bunch of 28-31 year old guys added in the offseason that are simply not very good players. You say ARam, Parra, KRod, Gomez and Lind arent good players or average but you do see a 9 game improvement in subtracting them and adding Young Jr, Middlebrooks, Cecchini, Niewenhaus, et al? Come on now. IF Stearns added these guys to go from a 94 loss team to a 85 loss team as you suggest, he is truly an idiot and I dont take that term lightly. We are looking up at 3 teams that have 100 win potential, and Stearns is signing guys to get us to 480 to 500 that have no long term future in Milwaukee? No way in the world he is that silly. The Brewers will never get to elite being a 500 ish team. Honestly it would take a hard salary cap for that to happen and we know that isnt on the agenda. Look at the big picture, think outside the box, or whatever cliche you choose. Stearns is correctly tanking the MLB roster to build up the future of the Milwaukee Brewers.

I don't think that is the goal at all. Granted the primary goal isn't the major league roster next season but i seriously doubt the goal is to be the worst team in the league just to get the top pick. I think what many people here are missing is this isn't the Atros or Cubs of five or six years ago. We are way ahead of those teams. They had horrible farm systems and nobody of value at the major league level. Our farm system is far form one of the worst. In fact there are some people who are starting to look at them as one of the top farms in baseball. Jim Callis tweeted he thinks it might be top five this year. Christopher Crawford tweeted the Brewers might be his favorite system right now. Here is Jonathan Mayo's take on it. http://m.mlb.com/news/article/160576804/atlanta-braves-top-most-improved-farm-systems?topicid=151437456 I just don't see a team like that tanking just for the top draft pick. With guys like Arcia, Santana, Philips an Lopez coming along it seems wrong to tank just for a draft pick that wouldn't be ready until those guys are about to hit free agency. Seems more prudent to me to find players to compliment the next wave of stars already in the system. Basically I just don't believe the parallels to the Astros and Cubs are strong enough to be the model for how we should go about it. Just because Stearns came from the Astros doesn't mean he's going to copy what the Astros did Verbatim. My guess is the Astros wouldn't have done what they did if they inherited what Stearns has here. The two teams aren't in nearly the same situation when the respective GM's took over. That doesn't even touch the fact that what worked in the past does not mean it will work as well in the future. In a copy cat league everyone wants to copy the flavor of the week. That in turn increases the odds each team that does the same thing will be less effective. Is it really wise, for instance, to race the Philly's, Braves and Reds to the bottom? After all three of the four teams are not going to succeed in being the worst. Notice four teams could copy the Astros and Cubs now instead of just those two doing it. That means instead of competing with one other team for the coveted first draft pick four are. Perhaps by next season six will be. After all conventional thinking says if it worked for the Cubs and Astos it should work for every team. At some point half the teams will be competing for the bottom. How's that gonna work out for most of them? Why not carve out our own way and be ahead of the curve for once? Personally I think Stearns knows he is not in the same situation as the Cubs or Astors and is working accordingly. Why take five of six years when two or three will do? We aren't going to be good next year but we are not as far away as the Cubs or Astros were. So why follow their path of pain and torture for half a decade when we don't have to? You can't possibly think that this offseason has been about improving the roster? The team lost 94 games and it wasn't a fluke as the only major injury was Luc. Since July they lost their 3B, 1B, CF, RF, and Closer plus some spare parts in Rogers, Broxton, Cotts. I'd strongly suggest that none of them has truly been replaced this offseason So from that 94 loss team we have added a bunch of guys who aren't terribly young and were really 40 man roster casualties by other teams. I fail to see how the MLB roster has been tooled to get to even 75 wins, let alone avoid the 6 more losses to get them to 100. I agree and I'm on board with Stearns tanking the team. It worked with Houston, it worked with Chicago, and it worked when Dean Taylor did it here, though I'm not 100% sure he knew he was tanking. As for the minor league system, yes it's much better no doubt. Adding the Astros players, Davies, and the recent drafts has been a huge shot in the arm. I am going to assuming the Luc trade will be a massive upgrade to the farm system. As for the tanking strategy, it is a good one for Milwaukee. I just saw Scott Kazmir signed for 3/$48. The Brewers can't compete with that. The only way for them to get to elite status isn't with good drafts and international signings, it's with league best drafts and international signings. The best way to get those is going to be with the help of guys like Middlebrooks, Young, Niewnehaus , etc who are terrible players and will lose a bunch of games.

I still see no urgency to trade him but maybe I'm not understanding the definition of urgent. If there is a Dave Stewart on the phone then yes it's urgent we trade him now. If it's a Lind type of return on the table then no urgency whatsoever. He is cheap and if he is hitting 850 on July 31 I promise you teams will be lined up for him regardless of pitching staff adjustments.

Back in the day that was the case. Guys like Herb Washington and Miguel Dilone come to mind. But that's when there were 10 man pitching staffs so the bench could afford a no hit base stealer. This signing is just a guy. Maybe he will be a back up if Scooter and Segura are traded?

Whoa. No anger here. Not one bit. I'm not being sarcastic when I say that Sterns is turning the MLB roster into the 2011-2013 Astros. The goal most certainly is to make the MLB roster the worst in baseball and that is a good thing in the long run. The model is quite apparent in the Cubs and Astros. Just because I'm pointing out that these signings are bad baseball players does not mean I'm against the end game. Quite the opposite. I'm happy we aren't adding big contracts in a Herb Kohl type move to get to 500. We are adding horrible players who are cheap, not part of our future, and will lose a bunch of games. I want the Brewers to have the first pick in the draft the next 2-3 years and this offseason is an excellent step in that direction.

Thats the key to these signings; the strength of the 2017 draft? The obvious tanking by Stearns is all well and good if the prize is a Harper, not so much if its a Weeks/Young. I actually expect him to follow the Houston model completely. Take a guy at 1 that is slotted below that and use the pool money to sign the unsignable later in the draft.

We really are putting together the 2002 Milwaukee Brewer MLB roster. [sarcasm]Do Jeffrey Hammonds and Raul Casonova have sons we can pick up?[/sarcasm] On a completed related note to this thread, any idea who the first pick in the 2017 draft is supposed to be?

I'm still not sure why you think they are actively chasing losses rather than simply trying to maximize assets based off the fast that a playoff run with this team is highly unlikely. The three trades thus far with guys who were controlled past next season all brought back players likely to be on the big league roster. Is it just the fact that the Lind trade featured no one likely to be above Wisconsin? Because who knows the other offers, and the Mariners' system is not exactly brimming with close-to-the-big-leagues talent. As for Nieuwenhuis, he's likely a slightly above replacement level insurance policy in case Broxton falls on his face. They seem to actually want a center fielder to be the everyday center fielder. As for the topic, I have a feeling they stand pat, namely because few trades happen that early. If Garza is pitching well and a contender has someone go down, sure. Otherwise, I think they wait for the regression to happen and then sell some time between the All-Star break and the deadline. IF this offseason is Stearns idea of going for an improved MLB roster, I would be very concerned about him. These are players the 2002 Brewer teams would laugh at. As it is, I think by anyones definition, he is bringing in expansion level players knowing they will be bad and they will be cheap. If that isnt going for the first pick in the draft I dont know what is. Baseball has changed. The ways of building a team have gone from big FA signings to gathering as much high draft picks and associated bonus pool money as possible. That is what built the Cubs and Astros, which is NOT coincidently Stearns' former employer. He is very clearly following the Astros model. Why would he be hired in the first place if not to follow that template? He is a young guy with zero track record except for how to build a team with very high draft picks. This team will not be playing 600 baseball through May, as this was a 94 loss team for a reason. But if that happens, Stearns will stay the course because an 80-85 win 2016 team wont go the playoffs and does nothing to help the 2019++ Brewers.

^ This pretty much nails it. It's a long term strategy and mentality that creates many chances to win over a long period of time. It's a hard philosophy to stick to, but it's our best chance to win a World Series. Definitely. This is the new era of baseball and the power of the draft/International pool money.

I dont see any reasonable way the Brewers playing 600 ball over two months with this roster. But, if they did, it hardly matters. Stearns is an analytics guy so regression to the norm will be the words in the Brewer FO. This was a 94 loss team before trading off our closer and our 1B, and no one we acquired in those trades matters. My concern is Phil, Atl, and possibly Cinn and some other dark horse team. Those teams are tanking just like we are, so its going to be a race to the bottom with them. We cant be picking 6-12 every year and expect to build the kind of farm system that will propel us to where we want to go in the next 3-10 years. On a side note to the tanking thing; I had remembered Nieuwenhuis as being a brutally bad hitter. But when I looked at his stats, while bad, they werent nearly as bad as I had thought. Then I looked further and realized that of his 4 hrs that boosted his OPS to 645 last year, 3 of those were hit in ONE game. This is a really bad player and if he is to get any kind of ABs, this is all the proof you need this is a tank season.

Arroyo can pay 1b? Probably as well or better than Alvarez.

The team is tanking based on the offseason pick ups - unlike the in season trades which were more polished prospects - and even a decent start won't change that, unless: 1. They haven't already traded their good trade chips in Luc and Braun 2. The start is based on Nelson, Peralta, and Jungmann making the leap to all star level 3. Arcia and Phillips are key contributors.

Id look for an Arroyo trade where we take on a contract in exchange for a legitimate prospect.

I havent seen him play, but how bad is this guys D? He was at one time considered an elite hitter but I noticed a negative dWAR? If he is at least serviceable, a Maldanado/Pinto combination isn't all that bad assuming Luc is traded soon.