Greenleaf1

As much as I'd love for the Brewers to go out and get a controllable starter, I think that balance between present and future is best served by holding onto all of our upper levels pitching prospects at this point, or at least the top 4 (Hader/Woodruff/Ortiz/Burnes). I'm not smart enough to pick out which ones, but I'd be very surprised if we didn't get at least 2 very quality Major League pitchers out of those 4 guys, which should be enough to fill up our rotation as early as next year, assuming Nelson/Anderson can continue the success they've had this year, and leaving the #5 spot for Garza/Davies. I imagine our roster of position players combined with a rotation that looks something like Nelson/Anderson/Davies/Woodruff/Hader to start next year with Ortiz/Burnes waiting in the wings at AAA, and I'd hate for us to get a little bit too overzealous about this season without at least looking forward to next season and seeing the potential to be a real contender instead of the fringe contender we are now. I know a lot of things have gone WAY right for us this year to be in the spot we're in now. The emergence of two potential aces, incredible performances from Shaw/Santana/Pina/Arcia, solid production from Thames/Aguilar, and not necessarily all of these great developments will continue into next year, but as Stearns has said, he's looking to balance the present with the future, and I think the best way to do that is to let this corps of young pitching come into its own, and then revisit where we're at at the deadline next year when there are less holes to fill. I'd feel a lot better about going out and getting a 2.5 year controllable starter next year (if that's what we'll need) over this year. At least by then we should have a better idea of what our pitching situation will be like over the next 5 years or so. If we could go out this year and get someone like Verlander for a lower acquisition cost than Gray by taking on money, I'd be much more on board for that, but if we can't get Gray for some package like Ray/Phillips and lower level prospects, I think I'd pass. But as always, I trust David Stearns to make a better call than I would.

Gatewood's performance (and relative consistency) this year certainly looks even more impressive when you look at all the bigger name prospects around him seriously underperforming, meanwhile Gatewood is continuing his strong performance in a pitcher-friendly park. Right now he seems like probably the only sure promotion to AA for 2018 among that position player group they have there. I'm a little surprised Bubba Derby didn't find his way back onto this list, but it seems like once you're off this list it's hard to get back on, and if his move back to the rotation is just temporary and he's still viewed as a reliever, then he's not likely to ever end up on any top prospect lists ever again. Still, looking at this list again today, this is a very strong top 30 with a ton of depth at all levels of our system. I could easily come up with another 10 names that are all deserving of that #30 spot too. Now that one promotion has happened from the Top 100, we now have 6 in the Top 100 with Diaz at #100. It was said on Twitter than Burnes was directly behind Diaz at #102 when they made the list, so one more promotion and the Brewers will tie the White Sox for most on the list with 7. Lots to be excited about. Tons of prospects fade and never become anything, but we have a lot of solid success stories in this system this year, particularly with AA/AAA pitching, so I see no reason not to be really excited about this system as a whole.

Garza's $5M option next year is the textbook definition of no-brainer. If Woodruff/Hader finish the year strong and are looking like they could start the year in the rotation, then Garza could become a very interesting trade chip this winter. We could be looking at a rotation to start next year of Nelson/Anderson/Davies/Woodruff/Hader, with Burnes/Ortiz at AAA (EDIT: Not to mention Freddy Peralta). And that's assuming we don't keep Garza or Guerra. That's one exciting looking rotation, and bodes well for our playoff chances moving forward. Imagine what this 2017 team could do with that rotation for a full year.

So let's assume we know for sure (which it seems we do, or about as close as we can be without confirmation from the team) that Brinson is getting recalled, the options seem to be: - Phillips traded: Possible - Trading Brinson for Phillips to face lefties: Not likely, Brinson would've not played at all - Braun injury: Seems unlikely unless Braun felt something late after the game was over Seems like most likely option is that things were heating up with Detroit and Phillips is part of those talks, so better to have Brinson ready to come up than not. If trade talks are ongoing, they might not want to start Phillips and risk injury so better to send him down and let Brinson get some playing time against the lefties. Phillips can take a few days to report to the Sky Sox and maybe get traded before that has to happen. It doesn't hurt that Brinson has been destroying PCL pitching since being sent down. Good to see him get right back on the horse after a disappointing cup of coffee in June. What would be everyone's opinion on Villar/Phillips for Wilson/Kinsler? Kinda seems like Villar/Phillips should be enough to get Wilson on his own, and if we're taking on Kinsler's money it seems like we should get a prospect discount of some kind. Maybe Villar/Phillips could be the starting point for a trade that also includes Verlander???

If we don't make the playoffs it'll be a bummer to lose Cordell for essentially nothing, but I think Cordell probably benefitted from having such close proximity to bigger names for his entire Brewers tenure, starting from being traded alongside Brinson/Ortiz to sharing the outfield with Brinson/Phillips. He was true minor league depth and the odds of him making a big league impact with the Brewers were very slim with Braun/Santana/Brinson/Phillips all ahead of him at least (not to mention Broxton). My only concern is not at least getting a guy with another year of control for him, but realistically he's a lower teens prospect at an area of depth for us, this is probably the least we were going to have to deal with losing in order to get some solid bullpen help this year. I don't like this deal at all though unless we can go out and make another meaningful trade. If we can now go get Wilson/Kinsler, I like this trade a lot more.

Was hoping Cordell could bring back a little more than a rental, or at least a better rental with more of a track record, but having a more reliable setup guy could really help our bullpen and Cordell was unlikely to ever put on a brewers uniform. Not my favorite trade but we needed the bullpen help. Now go get Kinsler and Wilson and let's go for it.

This list is just full of surprises: Corey Ray still at #2 Hiura ahead of Diaz and in the Top 100 Lutz at #8 KJ ahead of Gatewood/Nottingham Lemons almost in top 20 Bickford dropped all the way to 25 (this seems way unfair to me) 27-30 are all surprises and seem like they could've easily been other names, but I don't have any problems with those guys and would take the experts' word for it. Hiura's going to be a fun story I think. Hopefully a fast riser like Burnes, but with a better prospect pedigree. If he keeps hitting and a few promotions happen, it probably won't be long before he tops this list.

The key for me with Hader is that it kinda seemed like leaving him at Colorado Springs was potentially going to demoralize him and at the same time they must've believed that more time there wasn't getting him the coaching help he needed or to make the necessary adjustments that he would need to be successful there (and, in turn, in the Majors). By bringing him up and putting him in the bullpen, you're giving him a chance to be back in an environment where he's more comfortable with his pitches out of the thin air, he's getting Major League coaching, and he's being broken in slowly to the Major League environment. All the while, making sure to show continued confidence in him as a starter going forward past this year. This approach cuts into his service time, but we also needed bullpen help which he's providing so I think it's a fair trade off. He's also used to starting and just straight converting to relief without much time to adjust is probably difficult and he needs more off days than other relievers. We're not really trying to get him all that used to the bullpen this year either so there's probably not much incentive to getting him to a position where he can pitch on back to back days, plus then he's a great option to provide multiple innings of relief in high leverage situations (like an Andrew Miller-lite). If this is babying Hader, then fine, but it's a valid strategy and it seems to be working for Hader so far as his results in the Brewers' bullpen are much better than his results in AAA.

I'm totally on board with getting Kinsler in a package from Detroit. If we could work out a big deal for Verlander/Wilson/Kinsler, I'd be ecstatic. How much would Detroit want for Kinsler/Wilson if we were sending Villar back to Detroit?

And yes, I'm aware that i just told you that it'd take more than Nottingham and then didn't include anyone more than Nottingham. Hoping for a fleecing I guess.

Bickford was the Giants' number one prospect at the time, my guess is it'll be a bit more than Nottingham as the headliner. I'm just hoping it won't be like Brett Phillips + a throw in, unless we're getting Verlander too (which would then obviously cost even more than that but I'd be fine including Phillips then). Hoping for something like Trey Supak/Troy Stokes Jr.

Reports I've read say fastball/slider/changeup. Not saying he won't end up a reliever, but I doubt he's just throwing fastball/changeup to righties.

Time to resurrect this thread: https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2017/07/justin-verlander-trade-rumors-brewers-tigers.html Looks like Astros and Brewers are interested in a Verlander/Justin Wilson package, which would be very interesting in my opinion. Adding Wilson might justify the Brewers including some real prospects in the deal, and the Brewers could fill 2 areas of need in one trade. Especially interesting package now that this article says the Tigers may be willing to include some money along with Verlander. After that JD Martinez trade, if I were Stearns I'd be calling up Detroit immediately because that return looked pretty light and it may be an indicator that the Tigers might be prime for the fleecing.

I'd be very happy with this return if I was a Marlins fan. Seems like a Stearns-esque return with quantity over quality, but the top 2 prospects are definitely guys you can dream on at least a little bit.

I know this isn't what you meant, but I decided to look up Peralta's lefty/righty splits this year just out of curiosity after you mentioned Hader. Surprisingly, Peralta is killing lefites this year. His changeup must've improved a lot from the 50 grade it got from MLB.com preseason. vs RHB .246/.350/.411 vs LHB .109/.237/.176 He's definitely benefiting from a really low BAbip against lefties, but wow a .414 OPS against. Also, Peralta's BB/9 is 3.3 at AA, just below his career mark of 3.4, so not sure why he was walking more in Carolina (5.0) but he seems to have settled down from that. He had a 4.9 BB/9 at A+ last year and a 3.6 at A, so that A+ level just seems like it was hard on him. He's also increased his already high K rate this year from his career level, so he seems like he has made some significant improvements to his game this year. Wouldn't surprise me if he could crack the top 10 by the end of the year if he keeps it up at AA.

I'll add Woodruff has far surpassed Scarpetta's already as well. I still feel Corbin Burns likely comp will be Chase Anderson. They pitch a lot alike with similar velocity, bulldog approach, craft. Chase & Corbin are no Aces & will have some bad runs when command drops but usually fairly consistent & can carve teams up when they have everything working. Only thing Arcia has in common with Escobar is they came up Brewers, don't walk much & play stellar defense. Comps end there. Arcia is far more advanced with the bat with more power. Also Arcia is extremely confident fiery competitor. You can see it when he plays & you hear it from everyone who has coached him. Escobar never seem to have that edge and swag about him. I think Arcia really believes he will win many gold gloves, play in ton of All-Star games, and will be Hall of Famer. Not in an arrogent way but he just has that confidence about him. It's same attitude & swag that Braun & Fielder have. He will be a leader on this team for years to come. I don't think Anderson is a bad comp for Burnes based on what I've heard, but whereas Anderson seems to have made the adjustments to up his velocity on all his pitches this year, Burnes seems to be doing that already. Will be interesting to see what Burnes can do when he gets called up next year.

The value of Martinez in a playoff year amplifies whatever objective WAR total he puts up for the rest of the year. You can't just reduce a trade to expected value and determine whether or not that makes it a fair trade. We blatantly lost the Sabathia trade by that thinking and I don't regret that trade at all.

Looking at the lineup today, let me just say how grateful I am for the Brewers bench. We have Braun/Thames/Broxton out today, and instead of feeling like we might as well not even play the game, we can put Perez/Aguilar/Phillips in there and still have a pretty great lineup. This is the #1 reason we've had such a solid year in my opinion (#2 being Nelson/Anderson). Hoping Nelson can be the stopper today. I have faith.

Villar back at #1 today with Santana at #2, Braun/Thames have the day off. Wonder what the lineup will look like when everyone's back in there.

agreed, seeing as he's the only non-catcher position player that can be optioned, but only if the brewers see a need to continue with a 13-man pitching staff. i'm hard pressed to recall the last time a brewers team relied so heavily on 13 pitchers. as mentioned in another thread, since cutting kirk nieuwenhuis, the brewers have pretty much gone without a true backup center fielder. i should not have stated that there's only one non-catcher position player that can be optioned. there are many other position players that can be optioned (orlando arcia, keon broxton, domingo santana and travis shaw) . . . but none save for broxton would be considered for a demotion. broxton has one minor league option remaining, but if he spends less than 20 days optioned in 2017, he wouldn't burn that option. perhaps when sogard is activated, it'll be broxton optioned to give him time to regain his form with colorado springs. I hadn't really considered Broxton, but it sure would be interesting to see if they'd consider optioning both Broxton and Phillips and giving Brinson an extended shot. He has been killing it in AAA ever since he was sent down. I know this would be selling low at this point, but trading Broxton seems to me like the best course of action right now. I'd rather let Brinson/Phillips platoon a bit and fight it out for CF than let Broxton stay out there every day. At least send him down and let him work some stuff out at the plate like they did with Bandy.

I think after the last couple days, Santana sticks in the leadoff spot for now. Counsell was hoping to put him there at the beginning of last year, but he struggled at the start of the season and Villar emerged as a perfect leadoff hitter with his high OBP. Seems like the tables have turned this year. The question then would be who bats 5th? If Perez is in the game he makes sense, but Villar doesn't make sense there. Pina maybe?

http://www.baseballamerica.com/minors/2017-milwaukee-brewers-midseason-top-10-prospects/#AdXotB7kbPvDRGKz.97 1. Lewis Brinson, OF 2. Brandon Woodruff, RHP 3. Josh Hader, LHP 4. Luis Ortiz, RHP 5. Corbin Burnes, RHP 6. Isan Diaz, 2B 7. Keston Hiura, 2B 8. Corey Ray, OF 9. Mauricio Dubon, SS 10. Lucas Erceg, 3B Looks about right to me.

Presumably Phillips is headed back for CS when Sogard comes back.

Would've expected a top 100-ish prospect in there, but none of those guys were particularly high rated going into the season and none of them are having particularly amazing seasons either. Tigers got so busy holding the door shut on Fulmer that Martinez crept out through the window.

So I hadn't realized until recently that our pitching coach was Gray's coach in college. I believe I read an article where Gray described DJ as being "like a father to him", which was quite serious because his father passed away when Gray was in high school. Given that deep connection, I can totally see why the Brewers are going after Gray now, but it also makes me wonder if they think they have a good shot of extending Gray to a team friendly contract if they can trade for him? If that's the case, I could see them being ok with giving up a big package of prospects for him.