Boomer5

Kintzler resigned with the Nationals

I'm as critical as anyone on Stearns but this is December 13th and Swarzak was a NRI just 10 months ago. No need to worry over him going somewhere else as he was acquired as a rental. Stearns needs to find his own quality NRI's for 2018. Oh and for the love of God keep Hader in the pen.

I disagree. The team does not have the starting pitching depth to justify keeping what is probably their most talented arm in the pen. Having Hader in the pen isn't going to matter if you don't have the starters to get to him. If they acquire a couple good starters, then you can make the argument that Hader should stay in the pen. Just because the team does not have starting pitching does not mean Hader is a starter anymore than Andrew Miller should start in Cleveland if they lose Kluber. Hader does not have the secondary stuff nor the efficiency to be a MLB starter. He is already on the verge of being one of the best relievers in the game. This is 2018 where relievers that can go 2 innings 60 games a year are the most valuable. Making him a starter is such old school thinking.

Interesting sell high talent but it would take a massive return to even consider it. This team had almost no offense at all down the stretch besides him. We have a lot of outfielders but not any that are very good at this point in their careers (yet in the case of Brinson, Phillips, and to a degree Broxton, downside in the case of Braun) at the MLB level besides Santana

He is the opposite of Stearns "young controllable talent " strategy. Which, FYI, is everyone's strategy in the history of pro sports.

Hader absolutely should not be in the rotation. He doesn't have the repertoire to be a starter and his pitch count would mean he would be highly inefficient in that role. He is on the verge of being a super elite reliever and in 2018 that means far more impact than a 5 inning starter over the course of 162 games.

Not an exact science, but one approach you can use to determine a player's Surplus Value is using the Google Doc spreadsheet found at this link: Evaluating Trade Rumors: MLB surplus value calculator for 2018. I added Thames salary over each of the next three years (including the team option year) and projected his next three seasons at 2.0 WAR, 1.5 WAR, and 1.0 WAR. That led to a total Discounted Surplus Value of $31 million remaining with his current contract. Assuming he performs closer to his current projections for 2018 and loses half a win each year (1.5 WAR, 1.0 WAR, 0.5 WAR) the Discounted Surplus Value drops in half to about $15 million. Obviously that is some rough math, but the contract helps maintain good value even at modest future projections. If he can be a 2 WAR player going forward, he is worth more to us than to most anyone else. I think most teams will look at his WAR and subtract his April to normalize his value. I love the surplus calculations but the question is which Thames does the market see in 2018?

What value does Thames have?

I'd rather trade them Broxton. There isn't a good fit for Santana.

Twins traded international slot money for prospects to the Angels and Mariners once they were out of the running. Wish DS would have thought of that.

He is the exact guy we should be targeting. A lower end, lower cost innings eater. Once he is non tendered we should be all over him.

Arrieta is the opposite of young controllable talent. He is clearly on the downside of his run from two years ago. I have a feeling the Brewers are only in the conversation to pump up his price.

I agree with everything here but to that end Hader must stay as a reliever. He is a potential super star in the Andrew Miller mold. To put him in the rotation both takes away our 2nd best reliever and introduces a 4-5 inning starter.

Everyone wants to be known as an analytics guy until the the numbers don't agree with their Rose colored glasses of the team. The team was forecast as a bottom tier team all year long according to Fangraphs and even Stearns agreed since he really didn't do much to help the team down the stretch other than some older non controllable players to fill some gaps. We will know what Stearns thinks of the team by what he does with the starting rotation. If he spends it means he loves this team. If he doesn't it means he is expecting regression and there is no point in bringing in difference makers.

Good. Lets capitalize and sign Maitan

At best? Nottingham is 22. He's 22 and improved last season at AA. Catching is a very difficult position and he's already making huge strides defensively. Not only that but his offensive numbers did improve. Only by the most technical of technicalities is the statement that he improved on offense a correct statement. By any measure he is a terrible hitter.

Nice article, I didn't realize he graded out so favorably framing pitches. Very interesting bit. I've been to the Shuckers stadium, the field is mostly facing the ocean. The game I went to, many guys hit the ball hard but there were few hits in the game. Seemed like everything in the air hung up forever for the outfielders to catch. At home he had a 758 OPS and on the road he had a 638 OPS. He did great against young pitchers with a 955 ops but when he faced more seasoned pitchers he was 659. His LR splits are very dramatic. Vs R 581 VS L 947 At best he might be a platoon guy vs Leftys at this point if he were to ever make it to the majors. https://www.baseball-reference.com/register/player.fcgi?id=nottin000jac&type=bgl&year=2017

Nottingham has improved significantly since last season. Keep in mind he was a 21 year old catcher in AA last year, obviously still young for the league at 22 this year. His slash line improved from 234/295/347 to 209/326/369. Avg went down slightly, but the other number improved. His BB rate increased from 6.4% to 9.6% and his k rate decreased from 30.3% to 22.6%. His BABIP also went from .320 down to .255 last year, suggesting he was very unlucky on balls in play last year. And that doesn't mention his fielding, which improved significantly from last season. He dropped from 21 PB to 9 and improved from 29% CS rate to 40%. I wouldn't be surprised to see him bumped to AAA to start next season and potentially enjoy a breakout year. A sub 700 in AA means he is not 40 man worthy. If it wasn't for what we traded to get him he wouldn't ever be in this conversation.

You didn't explain it, you just tried to convince me. Those are two completely different things. Nearly every guy on the team far exceeded any projections you might have had based on their previous work. That's why the Brewers won about 15 more games than expected, which is a huge swing. We're talking a lot of career years, and not just barely there career years, but by a wide margin career years. You might be right about Santana, but nearly everyone else on that list is a clear regression candidate. There's a reason they were all cast-offs. They could continue to excel, but it would be unexpected. I'm not sure you even know what regression means. It doesn't mean they can't/won't improve or they're bad players. It does mean what they did last year was above and beyond what their careers suggest they will do next year. And signing some great relievers and a starter doesn't change the fact that much of the current roster is likely to regress. It could counterbalance it and I support trying to compete next year, but I'm not betting on guys duplicating their success. Literally almost 75% of the roster had career years. That's a lot. This reminds me of the Fear-The-Deer Bucks. It was a good year, but it wasn't built around great young prospects and it's not really a sign of many good years to come. They'll need to get lucky again to duplicate this. It reminds me of arguing why I thought Braun, Villar, and Guerra were major regression candidates last year. A lot of people didn't want to hear it, but that doesn't make it untrue. Fear the Deer year is a great comparison. Fangraphs had us ranked all year as having a bottom 3-4 roster. To take that to 86 wins is phenomenal and unlikely to repeat itself which is one of many reasons why you don't sign an Arrieta or a Lynn. I'd rather build around the young guys or sign some super cheap stop gaps if the Brewers don't want to start service time.

Who are all these regression candidates? Pina, Chase, maybe knebel, who else? You generally don't expect young guys to regress unless they have crazy good years. Meanwhile, we have villar, santana, arcia, shaw, brinson, phillips, hader, woodruff all as guys with somewhere between a realistic and likely chance of improving in 2018. We don't have a team full of 30+ guys that we are hoping don't fall off a cliff. Regression Candidates: Santana: He is a guy I like a a lot but when a player does something he has never done before you have to call him a regression candidate. Shaw: virtual lock to regress though still certainly a good player. Pina: obvious regression candidate Phillips: his peripherals suggest he won't make enough contact. Yet. I do like him long term though. Knebel: only because he was so great last year to the point of record setting Nelson: obviously Anderson: he is guy who has done it for a year and a half so that's plus, but he never profiled a a legit 1/2 before so that is something to worry about. Hader: only if he is starter. Suter: way below average stuff typically doesn't translate long term. Thames: already did after April. Swarzak if they resign him as his only good year was 17 and he was a NRI type a year ago Braun: could go both ways I suppose but I think we have seen the last of 130 game 4 plus WAR Braun Walker: back issues Sogard: already regressed which why Walker needed to be traded for in the first place. Break out/Rebound candidates: Brinson Woodruff Broxton though I don't think he will be on our roster by opening day. Villar if he gets it, but I think we saw the best we will ever see in 16

Nottingham has given the club no reason to waste a valuable 40 man slot.

This is a team with far more regression candidates than you'd like if the goal is spend money on a fairly weak FA crop. The best bet is to sign some bullpen FA arms to do our usual panning for gold there. Bring back JJ and Swarzak if they are cheap. I'd sign Lucroy as a cheap bounce back guy and offer some RH 1B platoon with Thames. Trade Broxton if there is a solid market and roll with a Braun, Brinson, Santana OF with Phillips to spell the inevitable and multiple Braun DL stints. The rotation will have to sink or swim on their own because there isn't much out that won't be grossly overpaid.

I agree. They to look at 2018 too depending on how long Nelson is out. Sliding injury. For goodness sake.

Pick up in September? Who? Any pitching help will be internal I would think. Pretty much has to be. I haven't checked but I'm sure there was a big contract or two that passed thru waivers. It's possible Nelson might miss some of 2018 so might be a cheap way to pick up a guy to carry us in September and use next year too?

So they will be 3 out. Pick up a starter to carry them to October? Then what?