Greenleaf1

Update: Trent Grisham's contract has been selected from AAA. He starts his Major League career with 3 shiny new option years.

That looks like a pretty good lineup to me. I expect that if Grisham does decently well he could be seeing a lot of starts in the 9-hole with the pitcher batting 8th. Unless he's super hot and takes over the leadoff spot, it'd make sense to put Cain between him and Yelich to space out the lefties.

Just curious what you don't like about Houser? He seems like a guy with a plus-fastball and a decent curveball, which at the very least should put him in consideration for an important bullpen role for the next several years for the league minimum salary. He also, like Woodruff, gets a lot of groundballs and even though it seems like he's been around forever, he's still only 26. At this point, he seems like his floor is solid middle reliever, but his ceiling could be great setup man or solid mid-rotation starter. What's not to like?

Thoughts about this trade: 1. Even when Stearns is shipping out a top prospect, he's still bringing in more players than he's shipping out. This was something he discussed a lot during the rebuilding cycle, but it's hard to do when buying vs. selling. If Pomeranz helps stabilize the bullpen and get us to the playoffs, it's probably a fair deal. If Black can turn into a late inning reliever for a few years, it's probably a fair deal. Stearns would rather have multiple avenues to get value out of this trade. 2. At the same time, Black is a weird trade target. He just turned 29, he has no options remaining next year, which means he probably better figure something out in the next couple months, otherwise he may not even make the team next year (same reasoning applies to Faria, except he's a few years younger). I think you have to look at this deadline's moves all at once rather than individually, especially the Aguilar/Dubon trades. Stearns is essentially trying to buy upside for as low a cost as possible, and if he buys enough upside, maybe one of these guys will turn out and be worth all the trades. Even if Lyles can keep us in games for the next month or two, that will go a long way to justifying all of these trades. For this year and the future, I'd kinda rather take my chances that Grisham is an impact bat than make a deal depleting what's left of the farm to get a "TOR" guy with huge question marks, which is pretty much all that was available at the deadline. I think the Stroman deal just got everyone's hopes up that all these guys might be available for a price we'd be willing to pay, but that just wasn't the case. I think these moves aren't the best to help us win this year, but they're the best when taken as a whole (also combined with the moves Stearns didn't make) to help us win for the next 2-3 years.

Obviously a couple really rotten starts in the future could change this, but there's probably an argument to be made that we've already gotten more out of Lyles than we ever would've out of Ponce. And in a pennant race too.

That is quite the fun fact. I'm starting to really appreciate Anderson in a way I didn't in previous years (even his best year). He's more or less been that back of rotation starter that we were expecting when we got him from the DBacks, but because he had that one career year, people expected so much more and have been disappointed. I was a little confused last year when Houser wasn't brought up, but I'm glad they finally gave him his chance this year and he's really done the most he can with it. At this point, he seems like a lock for the roster next year, whether in the rotation or in the bullpen. I don't think most people here (or the Brewers org) undervalued Lyles. If Lyles had an option, I think they would've 100% kept him this year, but it made sense to go with the young guys (and honestly, despite Burnes flaming out which I don't think anyone could've predicted to this extent, the experience that Woodruff/Peralta have gained this year have made them much better pitchers in the long run than shuttling them back and forth would've). Davies probably won't ever be as good as peak Kyle Hendricks, but at times he's been a real savior for this rotation. Injuries are really the only thing that held him back last year.

I could see Jacob Barnes possibly DFA'd as well, especially with the influx of pitching from yesterday's deals. Taylor has been hitting better lately and finally starting to put his injuries this year behind him. I guess my thought was that they'd want as many of these bullpen arms up in September as possible, including Williams/Barnes, but with the addition of Grisham (plus Stokes is on the 40-man as well), they're pretty covered in the backup CF position, at least for this season. I guess I'd expect a DFA of Burch Smith before Barnes too, but you're right, with the added bullpen arms, they could probably stand to lose one of the fringe guys from the 40-man. I would guess that whoever we DFA won't stay in the org.

Guessing the moves today will be: Pomeranz added to active roster. Taylor Williams optioned to AAA. Trent Grisham contract selected. Travis Shaw optioned to AAA. Tyrone Taylor designated for assignment. Shaw can come back up in September, but he's 0-7 since being recalled and he's not likely to get many starts anywhere anyways. Taylor basically lost the year due to injury, hoping we can hang onto him and maybe he can be an emergency option in case of injury next year too.

This was a tough list to make. Pretty weak system, so I basically just decided to get really excited for players who have overperformed this year. I'm a statline watcher and not much else, so my list doesn't mean much but here it is anyway. 1. BRICE TURANG 2. TRENT GRISHAM 3. TREY SUPAK 4. ETHAN SMALL 5. DREW RASMUSSEN 6. AARON ASHBY 7. LUCAS ERCEG 8. TRISTEN LUTZ 9. MARIO FELICIANO 10. ANTOINE KELLY 11. ZACK BROWN 12. COREY RAY 13. DEVIN WILLIAMS 14. JACOB NOTTINGHAM 15. PAYTON HENRY 16. NOAH ZAVOLAS 17. CARLOS RODRIGUEZ 18. MICAH BELLO 19. JOE GRAY 20. EDUARDO GARCIA 21. THOMAS DILLARD 22. TROY STOKES JR 23. DAVID FRY 24. BOBBY WAHL 25. CADEN LEMONS

I don't think the lack of waiver trades is the only thing that led to this kinda boring deadline. It's more a problem that so many teams are still close to the Wild Card, combined with who those teams are. The Giants and Mets both seem kinda stupidly run, only willing to buy and never willing to really truly sell. Hell, even the Reds made a big trade for an SP. Maybe a later trade deadline would help, but teams aren't going to pay much for a 6 week rental unless it's a superstar player. The waiver trade deadline, if anything, helps keep teams focused on the bigger additions on July 31st. They can then use August to make the smaller tweaks needed for a playoff run. Today feels like we mostly just got a lot of August-type trades because they can't make them until August. I do wonder if having the August 31st deadline still intact would've led to GMs having more focus on big trades today.

What's crazy is that if Greinke got traded commanding that much, just think of how much the Mets/Giants/Rangers must've been asking for. Obviously Greinke has more years of control, but not exactly at market rate. The trade market for rentals seems to have gone from "so low why would you bother trading them at all" to "try to ask for more and then end up not trading them at all." Honestly though, trading top prospects for rentals is like sacrifice bunting. You give up more than you get, baseball is finally figuring that out, and no longer doing it.

This made me laugh. Good one.

What a ride it has been for Scooter's trade value. Brewers fans giving Stearns no end of guff about letting him go. Then last year his name shows up everywhere in the midst of a breakout season, but Reds hold onto him. Now with injuries and poor performance on coming back, he's dealt for cash. Meanwhile, Brewers have one of the hottest hitters in baseball at 2B.

A Grisham call up would be pretty awesome. Probably just a day off amidst trade discussions. Let's hope it's not an injury.

Obviously I read that wrong, and Houston is paying closer to $25M/year. Man, that's a lot to give up for one aging pitcher, even one as good as Greinke.

MLB.com’s Steve Gilbert tweets that Houston is paying about two-thirds of the roughly $75MM remaining on Greinke’s deal. Certainly makes sense why the prospect return was so high. So Astros get Greinke for roughly $12M/year for two more years after this year. I'm sure Brewers could afford that, but similar return is Turang/Grisham plus a couple better pitchers than the Brewers even have in the system right now (maybe Small and Kelly if they were trade-eligible).

Side note, how the hell did the Astros get a guy like Rojas in the 26th round, and given his stats and quick rise through the system, how is he not ranked higher than 22nd on MLB.com?

After looking at the absolute haul the Astros gave up to get Greinke, there's no way the Brewers could've even come close. Guessing the DBacks are eating a healthy amount of that contract, but even so, not sure the Brewers would want to take on 20-25M a year plus basically completely deplete their farm system for a mid-30s pitcher. Still like the move for the Astros, but wasn't a good fit for the Brewers.

They weren't.

I wish the Astros hadn't pulled that Osuna stuff, I really want to be able to unabashedly root for them (in the AL only obviously). Verlander/Cole/Greinke is such a fun 1-2-3 (not to mention Miley). Too bad we'll never know what it's like in Milwaukee to be a team that can actually spend some REAL money. Kudos to Attanasio for loosening the pursestrings on Grandal/Moose, but I really wanted the Brewers to go for Verlander a few years ago and Greinke this year. Astros are pretty much my WS pick every year lately, but certainly have locked that in today.

Not sure I much understand this one. I know a lot of their options aren't awesome, but aren't they kinda set for average-to-slightly-above-average outfielders?

Obviously his numbers are going to be lower in the Majors, but I believe someone said recently (maybe on Twitter or maybe here) that he's 3rd in the PCL in DRC+ and that was before the cycle. There's still something to outperforming everyone else in the league, even if it's a hitter friendly league, and word was he was still crushing the ball at AA as well in a more pitcher friendly environment. He hasn't sold out for power either. It's really really hard to poke holes in his season. It really looks legit. I wasn't arguing athat he wasn't for real, or not performing well. Just replying to the point brought up regarding his BABIP between AA and AAA. He has been about the same in relation to AAA as Trout has been to MLB, which even if that isn't his true talent level you still need to be a good player to do for even a couple of months. Sorry, guess I misunderstood. Probably about another 20 minutes before we're in the clear but no news on any last minute trades yet for the Brewers. I'm usually for trading any prospect in the right situation, but I'll be very glad to hold onto Grisham if for no other reason than it's been insanely fun to follow his statlines for the past few months.

Obviously his numbers are going to be lower in the Majors, but I believe someone said recently (maybe on Twitter or maybe here) that he's 3rd in the PCL in DRC+ and that was before the cycle. There's still something to outperforming everyone else in the league, even if it's a hitter friendly league, and word was he was still crushing the ball at AA as well in a more pitcher friendly environment. He hasn't sold out for power either. It's really really hard to poke holes in his season. It really looks legit. Make that #1, and not just in the PCL. All of AAA:

I remember when Peralta and Diplan were both getting promoted through the system at the same pace (both had really torn through the Midwest League), thinking both could be special prospects coming up together. Never really happened for Diplan with the Brewers. He just can't throw enough strikes, going to be hard for him to stick even in the bullpen unless he can cut down his 4.9 career BB/9 (5.8 this year).

Obviously his numbers are going to be lower in the Majors, but I believe someone said recently (maybe on Twitter or maybe here) that he's 3rd in the PCL in DRC+ and that was before the cycle. There's still something to outperforming everyone else in the league, even if it's a hitter friendly league, and word was he was still crushing the ball at AA as well in a more pitcher friendly environment. He hasn't sold out for power either. It's really really hard to poke holes in his season. It really looks legit.