MrTPlush

Braves: “Sounds good Oakland, but we don’t need Contreras now and have to get rid of him.” Oakland: “Oh well…just ship him to Milwaukee or something.” Braves: “Good idea! Then we can ship a few more players so he isn’t lonely on the plane ride!” Oakland: “WOAH SOLVDD”

Ha, after that 50+ yard catch I thought of this, went and checked how DJ Moore did, and I was like welp…I hope he started Williams because DJ Moore was completely non existent.

I didn’t even know he ever threw a rehab pitch. I’d say it isn’t totally unrelated. When you don’t pitch for basically two years an injury during rehab to knock you out a month is a fair possibility. Winker has played recently, but just had knee and neck surgery…and struggled last year before multiple surgeries. I’d say the chances of him being crippled and/or a poor performer next year are on the radar of concerns. If you acquire an injured player, there is a certain risk you run. Though to be fair, I was more joking than serious with the Rosenthal reference.

You are strongly assuming the option was this trade or paying Wong $2mil. I’m guessing they could have found a team willing to trade for Wong and take his entire salary. It wasn’t a lot of money for a one year commitment to a guy playing a more premium position. I doubt the Brewers would pick up the option to scramble to trade him for a similar salary. The trade kind of looks like a mutual salary dump, but I think it is more coincidental due to it being two competitive teams that are payroll stingy. Hopefully their evaluation of his health goes a little better than Trevor Rosenthal last year though…

Because both teams likely shopped both players across MLB. At the end of the day Winker was worth a player that most would agree is pretty much worth his contract, Wong didn’t really have much in the form of surplus value. If people actually thought Winker could go put up a .880 OPS he had way more value than being a salary swap…actually worse than a salary swap because they had to ship a player with him. The Brewers were their preferred match, because they made a deal. Could they have really wanted Wong? Sure, but he is what he is. It’s really grasping for something throwing out hypotheticals that the Brewers acquired Winker before any other GM got out of their chair or that there could have been way better offers on paper, but they just wanted Wong specifically that bad. I mean, sure, my assumptions are debatable. They are assumptions after all and none of us are in the Brewers front office yet. My assumptions are what one would typically assume in this situation though.

If I am making debatable assumptions, you are grasping at straws with your hypotheticals.

I love Winker’s career line and all…but if teams actually thought he could get remotely close to that, we wouldn’t have been swapping Wong for Winker…plus they had to add another player to even get it done. Maybe he can surprise everyone around the league…but clearly there isn’t any confidence in that actually happening.

He gets incredibly annoying and really repetitive…but it’s kinda funny in its own way. His loyalty and love for the Brewers is also a great touch. I will give him credit, despite being pretty old school, he understands the games changes and can still be a good announcer. A lot of announcers have gotten very whiny watching today’s game. That being said, I wouldn’t mind him retiring and having a fresh face soon.

Just because the farm system was weak, doesn’t mean we couldn’t make trades. You aren’t trading for Juan Soto, but plenty of solid contributors can be had for 50 grade prospects etc. If they want to build their next core through the farm system, that is fine. At that point though, extend Woodruff if you can, trade Burnes, and trade Adames. Get those prospects into our system or on our team, get this thing steamrolling by 2024-2025. Then we can happily commit to Turang/Mitchell/etc. in 2023. A rotation of Woodruff/Peralta/Ashby is a pretty good start before considering any type of acquisition from Burnes/Adames. On the other hand, if they lose both of Burnes/Woodruff, I think people will wish we tried a bit harder while they were around. Because it’s going to be one big prayer to get the necessary pitching to be a strong competitive team with the way our farm and current team are (minus them of course).

Probably a combination of budget constraints and just having some common sense. At least with obvious resign targets like Grandal/Moose. Stearns has some slick trades and short terms acquisitions early on offensively…but it sure did deteriorate quickly as the years went on. Adames was a great get, but that’s really the only solid guy by either trade or FA the last few years. It is kind of interesting Stearns made that big trade for Yelich early on and then proceeded to never make another notable trade (using good prospects again). Makes you wonder if Stearns had an unreasonable love/attachment for prospects his FO drafted/acquired.

And a solid 5 years younger.

It isn’t only players that get traded though. There probably were guys that didn’t end up traded that could have been had the right deal come along. Which is why I don’t tend to chase the ‘what-if’ game because we don’t know who they maybe could have had and what the cost would have been. Would we be favorites for anything? Well no, but neither were the Phillies going into the postseason. Do we still come up short? Likely so, but surely better odds than watching from the couch. Would have ‘overpaid’ to acquire someone? Possibly, but we have done that in the past and has led to the best seasons in Brewers history. 2008 headlined by Sabathia trade, 2011 headlined by the Greinke trade, and 2018 due to Christian Yelich. For all the moaning about losing such great players…we ended up giving up a grand total of two OFers. Both of which were only good when we were rebuilding and wouldn’t have been that useful to us anyway. I am not really clamoring for anything at this point. I think they dug themselves into a hole. Partially bad luck, partially their own doing. Feels like their options are dig the hole deeper or build a 15 foot ladder to try and get out of a 20 foot hole. Might as well build for the future with the prospects we insisted on hoarding and hopefully have Burnes/Adames/Woodruff fill in most of the holes. You then aren’t adding another long term contract to make the payroll a crippling mess even for the next stint of competing. Though I’m not against extending Woodruff because they could have enough pieces to maybe do a quick turnaround in a few years. If it ends up not being quick I suppose the contract isn’t that big of a deal and you just lose out on the prospects you could have had.

I’d take my chances with Williams. Not like Moore is any less of a boom/bust.

I think the lack of using prospect capital is a little less relevant to baseball economics and budget. Depending on the player and where they are in arbitration it may add some payroll…but usually easy to fit in a budget. Especially for an impact player. You might not be signing the Andrew McCutchen’s of the world or paying $10mil for Jesse Winker Maybe they hit a home run on Winker this year…but would be nice if we could add someone we could expect to be an impact bat. Not praying Winker bounces back or rookies can be impact bats. That isn’t to say I don’t like the Winker trade (I think he can fit in nicely hitting at Miller Park) or dislike letting rookies have a chance. But if that ends up your entire concept of building around the core we have and that is what you depend on giving us a solid offense…well, that just seems to be really wishful thinking. Personally, if that is the game plan, I’d rather them try to cash in big on one of our huge trade chips.

They also are getting record revenue sharing and got a newly minted TV deal in recent years. I’m not going to sit here and claim they are just stashing money, but they are hardly raising payroll. We were doing $100mil payrolls a decade ago. $137mil in 2022 is hardly impressive, baseball inflation since then has been bonkers. FA and adding a bunch of payroll isn’t the only answer anyway. They could have traded for someone. Don’t ask me who because I don’t own a crystal ball or take part in trade talks in the Brewers front office. The point is they didn’t build around those players. A bunch of guys regressing off of ridiculous career years wasn’t shocking, that should have been expected. They don’t seem to want to invest payroll (whether by choice or can’t afford to) and protect their prospects like they are all holy grails. That leaves us with a fringe playoff team that missed the playoffs in 2022, hoping to get better by rearranging deck chairs. If that is their plan just trade the guys now if a great offer comes by. Maybe that changes before march, but that is how they have acted the last year+.

David Stearns really screwed over the Brewers and Matt Arnold, in my opinion. The time to build around the 'big 3' was last off season. We should have been making a serious run in 22-23...multiple years. Stearns left Arnold with a crappy situation with the MLB roster. Should we really be making notable FA signings and make notable trades when all of those guys should either be extended (unlikely) or traded next offseason? Probably not, not for just a year. Would have made waaaay more sense to do it last year and get multiple good cracks at it before a mini tear down. Matt Arnold wants to build around them, but it is a little too late for that. Why build around guys that you would trade next offseason? It doesn't make any sense to hold anyone to the '24 deadline. What are you going to do if you are competing? Ride them to FA? Yikes. It should be interesting to see if they can extend Woodruff or Burnes...but that seems unlikely. If not, they are as directionless as their moves make it seem. It is too dumb to invest in a roster that only lasts a year and too dumb to waste all the talent on the team. Honestly, Arnold is in a tough situation without a good answer on what to do.

Swanson is going to get paid because of what he did the last three years. Not the crappy hitter he was at the start of his career. The same goes for Trea Turner, who's wRC+ the last three years is 139. Trea Turner is the third best positional player in all of baseball since 2020 according to Fangraphs (Bogarts #12 / Swanson #13 / Correa #15). Wily Adames slots in all the way back at #35. Offense pays though. Turner has given 91.0 value in that timeframe, Bogarts 62.5, Swanson 27.3, and Adames at 31.7. Swanson/Adames are half of Bogarts and a measly third of the production Turner provides. Adames and his 27% K rate and low OBP aren't exciting. Not to mention Adames has never put up anything close to the MVP level seasons Bogarts/Correa/Turner have put up multiple times. The ceiling for those players compared to Adames is astronomically different at this point. All of those guy feature Top 5 MVP finishes, Adames got zero votes last year and was just #17 in 2021. It is also possible people put way too much stock in Adame's defense. The stats didn't even like his defense prior to 2022. Can he continue being a great defender?

Wily Adames isn't anywhere near the same class as those players. Elite offense at SS gets paid huge bucks and long contracts. Adames is nowhere near elite offensively. He is pretty comparable to Dansby Swanson at this point. He might be able to raise the bar a little bit with a few seasons like 2021...which is pretty close to what Swanson just did in his contract year. Obviously, we have yet to see what Swanson gets on the FA market. He was projected about 6/$150mil at the top end according to experts. Unless Swanson gets some shocking deal those contract figures for Adames are way too much. Swanson is the real bar to compare to. Turner/Bogarts/Correa...yah, that isn't Adames market at all.

Inaccurate, this infers they are still playing baseball. They will be on a beach in Malibu sipping margs by then.

Adames better start hitting the ball a bit better if he wants a 10 year contract averaging $25mil+. Bogarts/Correa/Turners of the world have put up years of OPS's north of .800...some over .900. Adames would have to go absolutely nuts the next two years to even have a shot at being offered a 10 year contract. He has two full years and they were .818 and .756. Neither of those figures are getting him some monster decade deal. His defense may be good, but that isn't what teams go crazy for. They want the offense. If Adames is licking his chops at these deals he is delusional and should go to the batting cages to practice. Dansby Swanson will be a good comp of what he could maybe get if he puts another two good years. Swanson also lacks a lengthy track record, a lot of value credited to his defense, the same mid to upper .700 OPS type offensive profile, K machine, garbage OBP, and will hit FA at the same age. They are just about clones. For reference, many think he will get 6 years at about $115-$150mil. Redd's 8/$132mil is probably not that far off what would be a realistic mutual deal if Swanson ends up getting that $150mil figure over 6 years. That is about $105mil for the 6 FA years for Adames (if you just chalk up the next two as what he would get anyway through arby). It isn't a huge discount, but there also isn't a huge amount of risk for Adames. Though his track record is almost nothing...so a poorly timed down year would be a total disaster. I want nothing to do with extending him...but I do think Redd's guesstimate is fairly realistic.

Brewers trying to shake up the roster for 2023, this should do it:

I th I think you are overthinking the matchup thing a bit. Cooks hasn’t had double digit points in like 10 games. And even then…he has done it twice all season. White has done it three games in a row (yes two matchup were good) Both options are absolutely god awful though. Hopefully one of the injured guys plays.

I really don’t think this deal is that bad. $17.5mil a year for around a .800 OPS…behind the dish? If he can hit another three years that’s a good deal. The risk is the fact all his value comes from his offense. If his offensive disappears he is worth $0. It isn’t like with Yadi where if his offense takes a dip he still brings a ton of value catching and leading the pitching staff. I wouldn’t call it a bad contract at face value. This could end up a nice deal much like Cain did for us. Just needs to hit the next 3 years…then it won’t matter what he does the last two in all honesty.

Yah, transferring still isn't a crisp process. I don't think I knew anyone who transferred and had all their classes transfer. I can imagine in these large programs that run 'generous' classes targeted towards athletes, those probably don't transfer to other schools very well. There is still so much variance in what classes colleges require as Gen Eds and/or for majors.

Sorry, you were defending the OP like your life depended on it so bad I mistook you for the OP since the OP never responded to anyone and you were the only one vouching for the debate at hand. my bad.