MrTPlush

1. I never said I support a total tear down. 2. I never said we have to trade him THIS winter. 3. The other players were brought up because apparently Lucroy is the only veteran on this team. They were used to show we have a lot more. 4. All you stated about his defense could easily be found else where. My problem is not that I think we should trade every valuable piece. It is the fact we should trade players(most notably old) that simply won't be on the next winning team. An expensive Lucroy will not be valuable come 2018 and beyond...sorry that is just looking at it realistically. If he was 27 this would be a lot different. Maybe then it would make sense to keep him around. You don't see me preaching to trade a Nelson/Peralta/Davis because those players could possibly be on the next competing team or their value could increase in the future. When you look at Lucroy odds are his value only goes down at this point. Maybe it goes up a bit with a good first half, but outside of that his value will be on the decline. On the topic of defense a lot of those things don't help a pitcher in the grand scheme of things. When I think of helping a young pitcher it is working with him and calling the right pitches etc. Blocking a pitch or framing a pitch looks good for a stat line, but it won't really help a pitcher get better. Now I have no idea how good Lucroy is with pitchers and none of us really do. A lot of that stuff is behind the scenes.

Will Smith was pretty bad as a starter. I don't think finding a change-up is his golden ticket. I think his value to the Brewers is being traded at some point. He should have a lot of value as a reliever and the Brewers should bank on that. We have a ton of back of the rotation type players...why try to make another.

Come 365 days from now I think: Who will be the biggest climber? I like Trent Clark as the biggest climber(valuing a 4 to 1 jump as huge). I think he will put up big numbers, Arcia will graduate, and Phillips/Lopez both regress opening the way for Clark to nab the #1 spot. Who will have the biggest drop? Tyrone Taylor. This system is going to be way too good for an average talent like him to be even in the Top 15. Most likely to make a comeback? Victor Roache anyone? About to play in some hitter friendly parks and starting to get lots of experience. I could see him putting up a nice stat line(HRs) to get people a little excited again. Also wouldn't be surprised to see Devin Williams make a big jump. Everyone here seems to get super excited about pitcher stat lines so he could excel with improvement and pitching in the FSL.

Sometimes a player just isn't starter material and moves to the bullpen to flourish. That however does not make trying them out as a starter again a good idea.

And Braun's zero projected innings at 3B. Nevermind the fact that Braun said he would play anywhere *except* third base. So your saying SS is still a possibility? Can't maximize his value any more than that!

Clancy is going to be very sad when he sees Brent Suter's huge ERA and BB% spikes.

Yup, that is exactly right. Jonathan Lucroy's value is largely part to his offense and that has zero value to this team the next two years and after that his offense won't even be that good. I would much prefer to take on a catcher who can work with the pitching staff and provide no offense for $3mil. We can figure out a real catcher down the road later if we want to spend big money. There is NOT only one way to do this rebuilding thing, but I can count about [sarcasm]500[/sarcasm] that include trading Lucroy. Do you think Lucroy is the only veteran? Braun, Davis, Peralta, Nelson, K-Rod, Smith? Not to mention we will have a bunch of guys making debuts in the next year or two that will be considered veterans by the time we get competitive again.

How is the Houston/Chicago model any different than how Milwaukee built it's last contending team? Or any different than Pittsburgh attempted about five times before they finally got it right. Don't get me wrong I think we have to rebuild to an extent. I just don't know if it makes any more sense to trade everyone and anyone than it does to try to retain some of them and build a competitive team in less than the five year plus total rebuild mode. Both Chicago and Houston have their holes as well. Thus the need to sign Lester or trade for Gomez. I also wonder if the future is any brighter for those two franchises than it was for Milwaukee in 2008 if they can't buy what they failed to draft and develop. An injury or two to the wrong players would set back a five year rebuild back as far as a two or three year one would. Well as already stated all of those teams(Houston, Cubs, and Pirates) have refused to throw away a large portion of the future for MLB pieces. Something the Brewers opted not to do back in 2011 era. One of the other things the Cubs were popular for was picking up something not so flashy and try to flip that into something. Now whether the Brewers try to do that and gamble money is probably pretty doubtful, but you never know. Sometimes it takes longer(Pirates) because of failing on top picks. The Pirates did horrible when they first started drafting high and really only have Gerrit Cole to show for it so far.

I'm not sure I remember people questioning the original Lucroy deal. As for the new deal, Lucroy is almost certainly looking for close to market value, no reason he shouldn't. By not signing him to an extension, the Brewers are maximizing the return potential. A lot of people just thought it was an unneeded extension. Figuring Lucroy was just a placeholder kind of guy, but saw it as the Brewers trying to lock down a competent catcher for as long as possible since they had such issues at the position prior. More of a deal with some risk and little potential to pay off for the Brewers. Little did they know apparently Lucroy had quite the potential.

Lucroy didn't get ripped off...Lucroy took the deal. On top of that a lot of people were questioning why the Brwers even made that deal to begin with. The Brewers refused to even talk with Lucroy before. Either he wanted market value, something crazy like 5+ years, or the Brewers aren't all that motivated to keep him around. If he wanted only $10mil or so I feel they would have made it happen. To me it would have to be team friendly and have to make sense where I am not too mad about losing out on a serious prospect package. 3/$30mil is probably my top dollar and even then I would question why I am not just trading him for prospects.

Only one way to do this? Sorry, but lots of teams have done this before and continued to fail. Heck, even star child Billy Beane traded half the players in MLB last winter in what was not intended as a tear-down and Oakland went from a playoff team to the toilet. You cannot guarantee that any specific prospect you're counting on or how many of your top prospects will pan out. Local example: In the late '80s & early '90s, we heard tons about the prospect train that included Eldred, Wegman, Bosio, Jaha, Braggs, Vaughn, and so on. That Brewers team had one good push ('92) and still didn't make the playoffs (granted, smaller playoff field, but still). Never said there was one way, but in the Brewers situation and how they are as a franchise that should be the model they attempt to replicate. Sure we never know how prospects will end up, but I really don't know if Lucroy is even worth $16mil+ or if he will even be a catcher next time we are competing. It isn't like if we keep Lucroy we know what we have because we don't. I would rather take the risk on the prospects than pay big money for what will be an average at best injury prone catcher/1st baseman next time we are competing. I am not say we will make it to the promised land if we trade Lucroy. Because it is very possible we never do just like if we keep Lucroy. The reason we had such horrible catchers before is because we didn't have any in the minors AND we didn't want to pay for one. If you are going to overpay for Lucroy to be around now why not just wait and overspend on a catcher in 3-4 years from now while taking elite prospects today? I really do not think in 4 years it will be that hard to find someone just as good or close to a 33-34 year old Lucroy. Lucroy's offense will decline notably by then and I'd personally be thrilled if he was still at catcher full time. For the $16mil we would have to pay Lucroy you really don't think we could find someone similar?

Honestly what is Lucroy? Realistically a 3 WAR catcher? If we replace him with a 1.5 WAR catcher are we really losing that much? Considering the fact we could save ourselves maybe $10mil doing so...maybe more? Is Lucroy really that great of a catcher outside of his offense? I would be much more concerned over how he holds runners on base and how he handles a pitching staff. That could be a little questionable considering some of the pitchers he has worked with that have excelled after leaving. Is he part of the problem? What if it takes us 5 years to start competing? We then have wasted a good 3 years of this extension for nothing. Then we have a 35 year old Lucroy when it really matters. Wouldn't the logical thing to do be just signing a catcher when our time to compete comes? Why not do what the Cubs did and go get your Catcher when you need it? Sure the next great catcher for the Brewers may be nowhere in sight. I also don't see our next great ace, heck even our next #2 starter, next 1st baseman, next 2B, etc. This is a garbage major league team obviously a lot of positions look dismal. I can assure you one of the positions we think we have nothing at has a above average player quietly hitting/pitching in the minors. It happens all the time. I bet no one thought Khris Davis was a legit starter 5 years ago. The next two years we are going to be picking Top 5. The Brewers could fix their catcher problem real quick. To not trade Lucroy because we don't have an obvious replacement or don't want to risk flopping on prospects is the perfect way to never compete. I could easily fix the infield depth with the trades of Lucroy+ and then draft a pitcher/catcher combo with my next two first round picks. Sure it might all flop, but if it does then our management probably sucks and it probably doesn't matter what the heck we do. Any bright person on this earth is going to do exactly what the Cubs/Astros did(mostly Cubs). They created a perfect model on how to effectively rebuild a franchise in today's game. Holding onto Lucroy is not apart of that model.

What are people so adamant to not trade Lucroy? Unless we opt to extend an out of prime good but not great catcher he will not be on the next competitive Brewers team. We could replace an older Lucroy without too much trouble. There is no elite player on this team. No once in a generation kind of talent(like Braun was) that we would want to not trade. Everyone on this team could easily be replaced before we start competing again. Personally a minor move I would like to see is trading Segura. He is absolutely horrible here and paying him $3mil seems like a waste of money. Let someone else have a shot.

When I think of Sedar I feel there is too much stuff like the below play. He sends runners when you should NEVER send someone if there is any chance he could be out. This was all Sedar too as Gomez was slowing down. Our fastest runner gets to third with no outs and we nearly get him out at home...no excuse for that kind of thing. http://m.mlb.com/video/topic/63817564/v111115483/the-white-sox-challenge-a-safe-call-at-home-plate-after-carlos-gomez-triples-and-scores-on-an-error-in-the-bottom-of-the-5th/?game_pk=414126

that home run rate drop has to be because of park dimensions... which after going to fangraphs you can see the comparison from 2014 hits that were homers to 2015 hits that were outs instead of homers the year before. http://www.fangraphs.com/spraycharts.aspx?playerid=1118&position=P&type=battedball&pid2=1118&ss1=2014&se1=2014&ss2=2015&se2=2015&cht1=hittype&cht2=hittype&vs1=ALL&vs2=ALL What I find most interesting from those charts in the number of infield outs in 2015 vs 2014. Maybe it was better defense in 2015 maybe it's just random variance but it looks like a lot more infield outs in 2015. Brewers have horrible infield range...just awful. So I would expect such an increase of infield outs for Marco.

Puig>Braun Urias>Lucroy Also Andre Ethier was really good last year. I don't know if he really constitutes a salary dump. In all honesty his value is probably pretty darn close to Braun's. Braun might be more valuable, but I don't think it is a massive difference. Ethier might be ok with a trade...doesn't he hate being in LA because that outfield is so stuffed? We could just flip him to a contender as a part of a three team deal. I don't think the Dodgers would want a damaged goods OFer in Braun though. They have quite a few of those right now.

Not to make it more off topic but the Cubs have no need to extend Arrieta right now. They would be stupid to do it after the year he just had. They control him another three years. Not like they will get some back saving team friendly deal now.

Every report I saw said the Brewers were only being used and Abreu wasn't ever going to come here. All we were doing was bidding up the White Sox. Maybe that would have changed if we were offering miles above the White Sox, but who would have honestly thought that was a good idea back then? No one.

Problem is Garza has the bad press. After his reaction to being taken out of the starting rotation I can't see any team ready to jump on him. He is a bad contract swap candidate, but LaRoche has $12mil less on his contract. I think the White Sox would prefer that though Garza is a better bounce back candidate.

I feel offense has been a general trend recently.

In 2013 only 1.5 games out of the AL Wild Card the Indians had a record low 9,000 fans show up to a game. If that doesn't show that fans don't care I don't know what does. A 90+ win team in the thick of things only getting 9,000 people to come...wow. Cleveland might be the team most deserving of a move. I think their attendance way back when was fueled by a new stadium, a historical run of success, and the lack of a football team. Now the Browns have returned, they are back down to earth, and the stadium has aged. Now sits a team that can't get more than 2.2mil fans when they win 90+ games. In their last run at 90+ wins they couldn't even get 1.6mil to come out.

They are all failing baseball cities for one reason or another. Bad teams? Maybe, but many have teams that aren't building new stadiums or just not great cities in general. Miami has a world of problems, Tampa Bay has a horrible stadium and I just don't think there is solid support anyway, and a place like Cleveland is questionable itself. You need more than support in September and in the postseason if you get there. A team like the Rays can't have 1.2 attendance when they aren't competing...that is miserable.

I don't really like the idea of expansion because we already have some garbage cities that can't draw fans. I would rather move the Marlins, Rays, Cleveland, Oakland etc. if they wanted to give a new city a baseball team. Why expand when we can't support the teams we have now?

There is precedent, and it actually involved the Brewers, albeit nearly 20 years ago. http://www.nytimes.com/1996/06/04/sports/baseball-american-league-suspends-belle-for-five-games.html Do you honestly think that? He did a typical spin and plant to prepare for a throw to first...very obvious. If he was trying to avoid contact why would he stop? And no he shouldn't just stand there instead. He should have done what any other player does in that exact situation. Jump and let your feet get hit so you just glacefully fall to the ground. He was facing away from 1st base, you need to pivot and torque your body before you can jump. It was definitely an awkward feed, as it came from the 3B side of 2B. He started to pivot, and stepped towards CF (so he wouldn't be in the baseline, as any SS is taught) and before he could jump he was taken out by an airborne baserunner. He made no real move to avoid Utley is the problem.Why he even wanted to throw to first I will never know. He must have thought Utley wasn't going to attempt to run into him...maybe he thought Utley knew he didn't touch second and wasn't going to attempt to truck him over at that point. It just doesn't make sense to do what Tejada did. He saw Utley right there and should have bailed out. I don't think a throw would have even been close at 1st. I am not trying to blame the "victim" here as Utley's slide was not acceptable(not dirty though), but Tejeda was playing some bad baseball on that play. As a middle infielder you have to be smart and protect yourself. Letting a runner take a free shot on you when you have no chance to make a play is just bad baseball. As mentioned many times this is not even close to the first time a player has slid like this. Why have we never heard of it before? Because most middle infielders use their brain and get the heck out of the way.

Only time I see it called is when a runner is way out of the baseline and nowhere near touching 2nd base. Even then it is pretty rare. I always thought take out slides were legal as long as you were close to the base.