Boomer5

With the current roster, Santana should be the CF and thats that. Yes he is not a true CF. Yes at times he make us wish Kotsay was out there. But the team is going to lose 100 games. Santana is likely to be a key player going forward. You could make a good argument he projects to being one of our top 5-10 players on the roster. Why not get him the ABs he needs to develop? He isn't a bench player and what does a year at CS do for any slugger?

If you are evaluating signings like this for their 2016 performance, that will be an exercise in futility. This is going to be a very bad MLB roster. This is a roster designed to be inexpensive and drafting 1-3 the next few years.

Change of scenery candidate. Doesn't cost us an asset to see if he can develop some plate discipline. He isn't blocking anyone so no harm bringing him in.

Im hardly a Braun fan these days but in fairness to him, he moved to RF to take one for the team. He turned himself into a pretty decent LF which is where anyone who traded for him would play him I would think. After seeing the Heyward contract, which makes Brauns more viable, and the caliber of the Brewer MLB roster the next 2 years, I see no reason why he shouldnt be traded sooner rather than later.

The Cubs went from a model franchise to stupid in the span of a few weeks. Im not sure I get their moves outside of maybe Zobrist and thats only because I trust Maddon. The other moves were downright silly. Lackey seems like a product of the St Louis pitching factory and $184 for JHey makes little sense, though I heard that contract is structured pretty well, such as it is. They are really banking on Arrietta not falling back to earth it seems, or JHey singlehandedly turning average pitchers into good ones?? As a side note, I noticed the Royals payroll is $115M now. That is hardly bargain basement like I assumed. "Despite last season’s World Series Championship, the Royals are expected to operate with a payroll that is similar to 2015’s mark of $115MM, writes the Kansas City Star’s Sam Mellinger. As such, it’s unlikely that the club is able to retain Alex Gordon, barring unforeseen circumstances. " http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2015/12/todd-frazier-angels-dodgers-rangers-nationals-trade.html Question: You have a team that has about 7-8 All Stars on it. You are in a market where they've told you that you can support a $200 million dollar payroll or something around there. You're currently around $110 million because you have so many young, pre-arby players. How do you fill out your roster? Do you buy low on Jonathan Villar because it is "smart" or do you just say, "the heck with it" and sign Zobrist? Nobody is going to care that he's overpaid. Same with Lackey. I don't really think any of their signings are worth the money, but they're at an incredible competitive advantage already given that they have so many dominant players making $500K or $3 million/year. Most of these guys will be gone when and if they need to sign Bryant to a mega-deal. They probably still have the cash to just sign him to a pre-arby contract right now. You could argue that they should have gone with Greinke or Price if you didn't believe in their entire pitching rotation. However, those guys are likely going to be terrible contracts in 2-3 years when inevitable arm issues arise. Your point is valid on Zobrist because he is a Maddon guy and you are paying for his clubhouse and versatility and you can afford him. The other two signings scream teen age girl who was just dropped off at the mall with her dads credit card and no instructions. Its what destroyed the Theo era with the Red Sox. The deals were structured pretty well in the case of Lackey at 2 years, thought I cant make the argument the Cubs were a John Lackey away from the WS. I dont get how JHey is an elite baseball player, WAR or no WAR. Elite defensive RF'ers (I know he will be in CF) who dont hit a whole lot are not franchise guys. I do see there is an opt out in 4 years, but I think that is a player option?

Explain how the trades for Villar, Flores, Cecchini, and Pina are playing for 2020. Come on. Those are just cheap guys to fill stop gap roles. Maybe I will buy Villar has some upside, but he is very much in the flyer category. Flores and Pina are role players at best. Cecchini was a cash deal, so you know what Boston thought of him. These are cheaper versions of Kotsay types with the hopes that we find a change of scenery success story. These are guys you'd see on an expansion team, so Im surprised anyone would classify them as legitimate assets. No way any move Stearns has made this offseason so far making the MLB roster better. Im not saying that is a bad thing because the rebuild was necessary. Im just saying our 2017 dreams - even if they were unrealistic - have pretty much died this offseason. I will be very interested to see what he brings back with Lucroy. So far he looks like a very young, inexperienced GM. Lucroy is a very valuable asset so the "Lind is worthless" mentality wont be valid in that trade. Its not unreasonable to think we could have netted a Brandon Moss or Parra type return in a Lind trade.

The Cubs went from a model franchise to stupid in the span of a few weeks. Im not sure I get their moves outside of maybe Zobrist and thats only because I trust Maddon. The other moves were downright silly. Lackey seems like a product of the St Louis pitching factory and $184 for JHey makes little sense, though I heard that contract is structured pretty well, such as it is. They are really banking on Arrietta not falling back to earth it seems, or JHey singlehandedly turning average pitchers into good ones?? As a side note, I noticed the Royals payroll is $115M now. That is hardly bargain basement like I assumed. "Despite last season’s World Series Championship, the Royals are expected to operate with a payroll that is similar to 2015’s mark of $115MM, writes the Kansas City Star’s Sam Mellinger. As such, it’s unlikely that the club is able to retain Alex Gordon, barring unforeseen circumstances. " http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2015/12/todd-frazier-angels-dodgers-rangers-nationals-trade.html

Lind and KRod were not going to part of the teams next good team. We agree there. These trades weren't about putting together a competitive roster by 2017 though, they were pure salary dumps with the hopes that by 2019 or so we'd see something. The Astros trade was about 2017, which is why were all excited about the future. It wasn't a month ago we were talking about a 3B candidate and a 1B and C to replace Lind and Luc in the trades. Now we are scouring the depths of google to find profiles on guys we just a legitimate asset for. Stearns still has that new car smell so many are willing to give him a pass, but to me it looks like he is a rookie GM that has a 5 year plan.

So far, Stearns looks like a very young GM who is learning on the job. This team looked close to being a decent team by 2017, but that is clearly going to be pushed back towards 2020 or so based on the caliber and age of prospects we are accepting in trades. This trade, along with KRod was a salary dump. Thats fine I suppose but lets not accept these kind of moves for Luc and Braun, who now is suddenly a very good trade chip with the JHey contract.

Lucs value isn't going to change between now and July 31 baring an injury. This is our last big tradeable asset. Let's not mess this up. I want a Shelby Miller haul or we can play Luc at 1B if we have to.

Like, ever? Pretty difficult to run a team that way. As for the Cubs, Vogelbach is a DH so no thank you, but I would start by asking for 4 of their top 10 prospects (however Milwaukee values them) for sure. Not only would I start by asking for 4 of the top 10, id end with it too. Unless this is a game changing trade that is at a minimum the caliber of the Astros deal, there is NO reason to trade Luc now.

None of these prospects are good enough to headline a deal for Lucroy, IMO. I agree. I want a Shelby Miller type of return for Lucroy especially if he is going to the Cubs. They just spent just south of $300 million on 3 good but not great players, they need Lucroys contract badly.

Im not sure I want Stearns to make anymore trades based on the returns so far. Im HALF kidding. If we are trading Lucroy, it better be for real super premium prospects (plural), not some fringe arms.

Sure, that is what happens with inflation in most cases. On top of that, Braun signed a "bargain" deal for financial security before he could hit the market. Heyward is 26 and according to Fangraphs was the #11 best position player in all of baseball last year because of his elite defense and solid offense. We'll see if that holds true. Braun is a below average defender, but not terrible. "Pretty good" bat, but he is probably only going to decline from here. Of course, for the next 2-3 years, it doesn't even matter what Braun makes to me. The Brewers' payroll is somewhat irrelevant at this point. I'd like to have an extra $20 million to take risks on vets or sprinkle over the organization, but the only point it will matter is probably the 2019/2020 part of things. Who knows if he's here at that point. I think defensive metrics for non critical defensive positions tend to get over rated. No one will convince me Braun is less valuable than Brett Gardner. Yet in WAR they are quite comparable depending on what site you view. As to the Brewers payroll, it hardly matters the next 2 + years. This is clearly going to be a very very bad MLB team that will be picking top 1-5 consistently. I brought up Brauns contract as partly a Mea Culpa on his contract and partly that he is now a very trade able asset and none of us could say that 6 months ago.

Im no Braun fan anymore but if he keeps up his 2015 level of production for 4 more years he will be a relative baseball bargain under his extension.

Can we talk about defense? I know that everyone is getting inflated contracts as compared to even 5 years ago now, but Heyward plays some really good defense. If you believe in Fangraphs' WAR, he's about the same player Braun is in terms of value given their ages. Of course, contracts are quite inflated now. He is a very good defensive player no doubt about it. But $200M good? If this is the direction of contracts in baseball (and it is), I feel quite dubious about the Brewers plans on keeping anyone after 6 years.

I take back everything I have said about Brauns contract. I know we arent allowed to talk about HR's and RBI's in this era of baseball, but my goodness what an unproductive player to have what is assumed to be a just under $200M contract.

When the trade was made, Barrios was in AA/AAA at age 23, with a 1.35 WHIP and 5.5 K/9 that season out of the bullpen. Yeah, flamethrower, supposedly...but I don't know if the return was deemed all that great in the scheme of the Pirates system, was he? People had lower expectations of the return so they trumpeted an unheralded flamethrower. People had high expectations for Lind, so they don't like the box of unknowns as much. Do you really think none of these 18 year olds will be in AA/AAA at age 23, surpassing a 5.5 K/9 (and yes, I know that Barrios' potential is much better than this)? Barrios was a better arm than his stats indicated, in part because of the position change. As of now, we received more MLB projectable value in each trade for two months of ARam and Parra than we did for a full year of Lind. Thats the issue with myself and others. I have no idea what these three kids will do. No one does. They are just write ups at this point and very unheralded. When you trade away a reasonable asset and you go for a very low level set of players they need to be firmly in the prospect category and not in the organizational depth category. Time will tell....

So this roster is planning on having two rule 5 guys on it?

Prime example among many others that quite often top 100 prospects don't pan out as hoped for. Had say the Red Sox traded him in a deal for a veteran two years ago which many of their fans thought was wasn't fair value, they'd have been upset. Now he was traded for cash. For the Brewers in their current situation though, it makes perfect sense. Try and pick up as many as possible these type of once well thought of players who struggled in the higher levels of the minors or in the major, and then hope the strike silver or gold. The Brewers are likely going to be bad to really bad next season, but it will be fun to see if any of these small deal players develop better than what they were picked up for. I agree. This is the kind of move the Brewers should be making. I mentioned the top 100 simply because he does have a skill set that at one time was pretty special. Either you have talent or you dont, and this kid does. Now its up to the Brewer coaches to figure out what went wrong and fix it. DM was excellent at these kind of moves, and its what a team like Milwaukee needs to do.

I have nothing against these kids because I know nothing about them other than their write ups. Everything we are seeing about the 3 kids is that they are on the cusp of maybe being prospects but more likely organizational arms. One year of Lind is worth more than the return in this specific trade. He just is. Taking nothing away from these kids but their chances of ever seeing the majors are incredibly low. We traded away a good asset and didnt move the needle on our farm system at all. Thats bad business. The football draft analogy some gave feels about right. 7th round picks do pan out, but this feels like trading away a 3rd round pick for 3 7th round picks.

While I am certainly in the DS is really underwhelming so far camp, lets be fair on a signing like this. 2016 is NOT about the major league roster. At all. If anything, it appears that DS is aggressively trying very hard for the first pick in the 2017 draft to pair with the 2016 draft class. This signing is just to fill an empty slot at 3B cheaply and nothing more. Unlike the "trade" he made yesterday, this didnt cost us any assets and we know Cecchini will play at the major league level, though likely not all that well. If the change of scenery results in him being the OB machine he was in the minors great. If not who cares? For most of us hard core Brewers Fans, we will be all about the minor league forum because the major league one will be very depressing.

He is a perfect example of what we DON'T know in a prospect. We can measure most every possible ability on the field but we dont receive a lot of reports on the man himself and his character. When we see a transaction we tend to focus on those because we simply dont know enough. In the case of Lawrie, the guy was a train wreck once we learned the truth about him. A big part of his fairly high WAR apparently came from a weird anomaly in zone rating when he plays 3rd, and when adjusted, he is what he thought he was, to paraphrase Denny Green.

Nice flyer on a guy that was a top 100 guy two years ago I believe.

There is no reason to think they are unlikely to amount to anything. All three project as plausible major league arms even if they end up being bullpen guys. Lind was pretty much worthless to this team and if he was just released would probably get a one year deal worth about what he is getting payed now. The only argument I can see against this deal is that the team needs a 3B more than pitching but they can find a 3B with other assets. Im sure someone smarter than I would have this answer, but it is a very low percentage of any rookie ball/short season players ever reaching the majors and none of these guys are classified as elite. On a percentage basis, there is every reason to think that none of these guys will ever amount to anything. Its highly likely that Zach Davies has already pitched more major league innings than all three of these guys will ever pitch. I have no problem trading away Lind of course. It was a good thing to do for the future, but these guys are really low level assets.