Lathund

That's a deal I could live with. I'd still prefer to go after more controllable players instead, or somewhat cheaper rentals, but it's the kind of deal that doesn't really hurt us in the short term. I like both Ragsdale and Fischer, but Brewers have other power-hitting corner IF (Made if he stays at 3B, Adams and Burke, and others further way), and both no immediate OF need (Lara and Chourio for the long term, Mitchell for the next few years) and other good OF prospects (Adamczewski, Payne, Frias etc).

People bring up that it's against the Brewers' historical MO to pay actual money to relievers, but I don't think his 2027 salary really is that big of an issue. For a few reasons, one is that it's just one year, and even if it's not what the Brewers do, 1 year $11m for Weaver is better value than most "big" reliever contracts that are signed every offseason. Another is that, barring serious injury, they could trade him again if need be. Third is that with Woodruff coming off the books (Plus I believe his buyout, and that of Hoskins and Quintana, counted towards this year) they do have room for it. And this is a fairly complete team without any major holes; their only FAs are Bauers (Vaughn + Adams/Burke/Fischer can replace), Woodruff and Sanchez (Quero/Wood or a cheap FA backup). So they don't need to spend much elsewhere either. Which means that they could do it. I know the reporting is that the Mets won't pay down salary, but I don't think that's true. At least not for 1 year like this. So a slightly better return could see any remaining salary issue go away. Weaver + Morejon would be a fantastic deadline. Henderson only going 4-5 innings really wouldn't be an issue if you can turn it over to Weaver, Uribe, Megill and Morejon every time in the postseason.

They are a smart and well run organization, who normally don't trade top prospects for rentals. But I think the circumstances are right for them to be willing to go bigger than usual. For one thing they have like 6 top 100 outfield prospects. They could keep the three they like the most, and still put together a trade package that not many teams could beat. They're also getting old. Freeman, Betts, Muncy, Teoscar, as well as some bench guys like Kiké and Rojas, will all be in their age 34 or older seasons next year. Some of the pitchers (Snell, Glasnow) are also getting on, and already injury prone. With how well run they are, and how much revenue the team brings in, they'll always be able to be competitive, but they probably have a better chance this year than next. And that's even if the CBA is agreed to on time, and doesn't particularly change the system against the Dodgers. So while I don't think they'll bid for the sake of driving up the price, I think they're willing to go higher than they have in the past.

What exactly is the point of that versatility though? We have an infield backup who can play 2B, 3B and SS, we have 4 outfielders who can play all three OF positions. You want a super versatile player on the bench for when you have lots of specialists, as that's the only way to make that plausible. But the Brewers don't. Martinez has played several different positions, but he doesn't play any of them well, and he's a worse hitter than anyone he'd be replacing. He would be behind Hamilton/Ortiz as the backup infielder, and he's much worse than Mitchell... so then just keep Mitchell? For a versatile player to add value they have to actually be good defenders or good hitters. Martinez and Castro are both poor defenders. Martinez has a career 79 wRC+ and an even worse .271 xwOBA. Castro is slightly better with a 95 wRC+ and an xwOBA to match, but he's also a far worse defender and baserunner. Depth and versatility are big parts of what Brewers do well, and what helps them win. But this is not the way to go about it. The team is just straight up worse with Castro instead of Ortiz and Martinez instead of Mitchell. And if the point is to get something else along with them.. well Brewers have dozens of fairly minor prospects who can get an arm in return. Doing things like this, or extending Hernan Perez for 6 years and $36m (or w/e it was) aren't what will improve the Brewers. Zigging when others zag, or thinking outside the box, are good things. But this is running in circles or forgetting what a box even is for. As for Rodden... sure. Infield depth in the minors, why not. But it's more a case of a throw-in on a trade you were doing anyway, and not someone to target. Lots of players like him out there.

Yeah, I always dread the Logan Webb starts, tends to be a miserable experience. At some point we will have some success against him, I just really hope it'll be today...

I think the Brewers will be more aggressive than usual, but I don't see it being Skubal or Miller. Neither move really fits with what their MO has always been. And I think they'll be aggressive but within their framework. If they're trading for a SD reliever, Morejon is probably a lot more likely. If they go for an actual quality starter, i.e someone who they count on as their #3 for the postseason and not just a arm-sparing regular season innings-eater, I think it'll be someone who is not a rental. Really though, what will decide what they do is where they get the best value. So it wouldn't surprise me if they instead go heavy on rental relievers, as you'll always pay a premium for starters.

Vaughn missed a decent chunk of the season due to injury, where Bauers played every day in his absence. There are also far more RHP than LHP, meaning that in any kind of hard or soft platoon, the LHH tends to get more playing time. Vaughn is also limited to 1B only (And a couple of innings at 3B after late pinch hits), whereas Bauers can play OF (even if he's not great there), giving Bauers more opportunities. The publicly available metrics suggest Bauers underlying numbers are a bit better, and I would assume (based on usage) that the Brewers' own metrics say the same. So combine these and I don't think it's very surprising.

There is a very real chance he is traded in the off season, but I don't see the point of making a trade now. Would just weaken the team, and it's not as if he's so valuable as to get something game-changing in return. On a more general note, I don't believe GMs think anywhere near as much in terms of "sell high" as fans seem to do. A good or bad month isn't going to radically change their opinion of a player, unless there is something underlying causing the good/bad spell. But really it just comes down to the fact that if one team can see that it's an unsustainable hot streak and try to "sell high", so can the other team and they won't pay that premium.

The various multi-inning pitchers on the 40-man (Stallings, Rodriguez, Crow, Gordon) will probably all rotate through the 26-man roster through the rest of the season, with spot starts or a few long relief appearances before next man comes up to do the same. All to keep the starter innings down, and to keep the prospective playoff bullpen fresh.

FG will have a complete Brewers update + article (Similar to the one they have up for the Braves already) this upcoming week. Don't know if the FV updates they did fully reflects that yet or not. Either way, should be interesting.

You can never have too much controllable starting pitching. Not overly keen on trading that away for a rental, just leaves another hole to be filled next year. Henderson in particular is someone whose loss will hurt us this year already. Sproat is a project, but I share the teams apparent belief that the potential merits patience, and ideally you'd not give up on the upside yet. So I'd rather hang on to him. Gasser or Crow I'd be more OK with, even if I like them too. If teams view Chad Patrick as a starter, I'd be OK with that too. Ideally though I'd prefer to trade using prospects further away from contributing. Makes sense to try to avoid trading away players who will contribute this year; obviously the net gain to our chances this year will be bigger if we manage to avoid that. But we're also looking to win next year, and the year after, so trading players right on the brink of the majors will also hurt us in the near future. I'm a prospect hugger, but if we have to give up legit prospects I'd rather it be someone with much more uncertainty. Even if they also have a lot of upside. So for rentals I'd try to make deals using some of the toolsy rookie and A-ball guys. Even if they turn out great, it won't affect the team for several more years. Naturally, would be hard to get a deal done without giving up MLB-ready talent to a team looking to contend in the near future, like the Tigers.

Probably some selective memory at work here, but whenever I see Hector Gomez with any transaction rumor, it ends up not happening. The reply to that is then usually that he's got good connections and sources as far as dominican players go, but hasn't been true in my experience. Brewers being interested in Peralta makes sense. They'd be buying fairly low, and they know what they're getting. But it's just not going to happen. The optics would just be so bad for the Mets to trade him back for less than what they gave up. He's getting traded, just won't be to the Brewers.

A different take on this are the various projection system top 100s. Here is the OOPSY one. 6 Brewers in the top 28 (Made, Lara, Pratt, Adams, Peña, Fischer). Williams and Payne make it 8 in the top 40. Juan Martinez at 47 might be the biggest surprise, followed by Brady Ebel at 53. So 10 in the top 53! Tyson Hardin makes a total of 11. Also out is the Baseball Prospectus midseason top 50, featuring Made and Peña, but also Andew Fischer.

Balk Rules 1) You can't just be up there and just doin' a balk like that. 1a. A balk is when you 1b. Okay well listen. A balk is when you balk the 1c. Let me start over 1c-a. The pitcher is not allowed to do a motion to the, uh, batter, that prohibits the batter from doing, you know, just trying to hit the ball. You can't do that. 1c-b. Once the pitcher is in the stretch, he can't be over here and say to the runner, like, "I'm gonna get ya! I'm gonna tag you out! You better watch your butt!" and then just be like he didn't even do that. 1c-b(1). Like, if you're about to pitch and then don't pitch, you have to still pitch. You cannot not pitch. Does that make any sense? 1c-b(2). You gotta be, throwing motion of the ball, and then, until you just throw it. 1c-b(2)-a. Okay, well, you can have the ball up here, like this, but then there's the balk you gotta think about. 1c-b(2)-b. Fairuza Balk hasn't been in any movies in forever. I hope she wasn't typecast as that racist lady in American History X. 1c-b(2)-b(i). Oh wait, she was in The Waterboy too! That would be even worse. 1c-b(2)-b(ii). "get in mah bellah" -- Adam Water, "The Waterboy." Haha, classic... 1c-b(3). Okay seriously though. A balk is when the pitcher makes a movement that, as determined by, when you do a move involving the baseball and field of 2) Do not do a balk please. Should clear things up.

It's the right move. Stearns has made a lot of changes to many aspects of the organization, including player development in the minors, scouting, analytics (And more than that, building up and integrating that capacity) ,the coaching staff etc. Things that take time to evaluate. Completely changing course yet again would just delay everything further. All the while they'd still be paying Stearns. You also have to factor in what in the Mets struggles this year are about bad decisions Stearns made (And there are certainly those), but also about how even decisions that made sense at the time have turned out far worse than expected. Like was Bichette at 3B, a square peg in a round hole, the best way to spend that money? Probably not. But was there any reason to think that the 28 year old with a career 122 wRC+ prior to this year would be as bad as he has been? No. They signed some players with injury histories which is a risk, but have the position player injuries (Including to Soto and Lindor, their two big stars who don't have that kind of injury history) also been more than expected? Yes. Can go over all kinds of moves made or not made, but either way I think it's fair to say that while they aren't good, they are also not worst-team-in-baseball levels of bad. At the very least, put out this kind of message now, and give it at the very least to the offseason before even thinking about a change. If things countinue in the wrong direction, it might be that firing Stearns is the right move, it's just that it's premature to do it now.

I don't think this is a very good way of doing business. What if he suffers a serious injury, or there are obvious signs of decline, before the Brewers can trade him and they're stuck with that $100m? If you're not able or willing to live with the contract you're acquiring, don't acquire it. I don't think the Brewers operate like this, just like I don't believe the seemingly common narrative that they offered the QO to Woody believing/hoping he'd decline it. They wouldn't have offered it if accepting it would've impacted their plans. If you want a 3B just for this season, ideally get a rental. Or a versatile, cheaper, player if it's for multiple years. Now I presume that part of the reason you even thought of Chapman is that the rental 3B market isn't very attractive. But the way I see it, the move then isn't to try to fit a square peg into a round hole, even if the square peg is very productive any nice. It's to not play at all, or play a different game (i.e improve elsewhere).

My main issue with Paredes is one that was brought up earlier, which is about where he hits his HRs. The raw HR numbers do look appealing. Then look at his splits. Career .764 OPS. In Houston it's .822, in Tampa it's .864, and those account for about 36% of his PAs. And that's not a coincidence. As a HR hitter he is about as extreme as you can possibly get. There are pull hitters, then there are extreme pull hitters, and then there is Paredes. He has 102 career homers. ALL of them are to left, or left-center. He doesn't have much power at all, he can only hit one out when he pulls it. Houston, with the Crawford boxes, has one of the shortest LF in baseball. Tropicana Field also had a short porch. Which is why it was such a head scratcher when the Cubs acquired him. There might not be any other hitter in baseball whose value depends so much on a certain aspect of field dimensions as Paredes. So with that in mind, when looking to trade for him, it makes no sense to pay as if he was a .764 OPS type hitter. Only makes sense if it's at a discount. And why would the Astros do that? To them it's the opposite, he's worth more to them than to just about any other team, and should drive a hard bargain. It's just a very difficult deal to find common ground on.

I was a big believer in Tyler Black for years, and while I haven't given up completely it doesn't look good. Now that he's also not hitting in AAA, it's not even really a case of not getting the opportunity to prove himself. There just isn't reason enough to try him, absent injuries. I think if he had managed to stick at one of the more premium positions he tried (2B/3B/CF), or even if he excelled at the lesser ones (LF/1B) he'd have gotten more playing time. But it's hard to roster and find playing time for a 1B/LF/DH with subpar defense and whose game isn't based on power. I think as per the last poster, he could end up a fringe MLB player who will stick around in some fashion. Like, speaking of the Marlins, a Garrett Cooper perhaps; although he had a surprisingly decent 107 wRC+.

Of course that wasn't the entirety of the thread, but that did happen. I went back and read through it just to make sure, so it's not me making things up as you suggest. And FWIW, it wasn't your posts I was referring to.

Also speaking of the rule 5 draft, reminded me of the constant harping on about Shane Smith last year. First it was the same few posters bumping the thread over and over after each good start. Talking about what a terrible mistake it was by the front office, and ridiculing anyone who didn't agree. Then he started struggling in the second half, and then it was different posters bumping it after every bad start instead. It really got quite ridiculous, not protecting him was an "unforgivable mistake" and something Matt Arnold should get fired over. People who didn't agree that it was a terrible mistake were ridiculed, as if they couldn't see the objective truth, or that they were arguing in bad faith. Really brought out some of the worst posting (and posters) on here.

Probably is. But it's not as much of a certain thing as it might appear, depends on what they expect from him vs RHP. His success this year is almost entirely against LHP, and if they don't think he can get it done against righties, they might not want to pay $10-12m for a short-side platoon 1B only. But more than that I think it comes down to what else they have at 1B. If they feel like they have a better full-time option, Vaughn would be a good trade candidate, could get something pretty good for him. If they don't re-sign Bauers and they don't feel good about Black/Adams/Burke stepping in, then Vaughn on a one year deal even with mediocre results against RHP makes sense. Anyway back to the topic: Adams, Williams, and maybe a reliever or two, if they have some standout stuff/pitches. The likely lockout (I don't think it'll affect the season much, or at all, but definitely the offseason) with perhaps no rule 5 draft, probably means they'll lean towards not protecting many of the fringe guys.

Frias 6-6 with 2 doubles and a SB. 6 RBI but no run scored. I don't know if they do MiLB scorigamis, but that might be one.

Uniform numbers in Baseball, or most sports really, never really held much interest to me, but they absolutely do in football (soccer) for some reason. It's kinda funny how when playing OOTP or FHM (Hockey sim) I just randomize the numbers, not caring one iota. But a player having the "wrong" number in Football Manager (Where you set the numbers at the start of the season and can't change them) can ruin the whole season. Kind of. Got a whole system for the entire squad, and I even avoid certain formations because they'll have starters with the wrong number for their position. I guess there it has to do with numbers still being strongly associated with positions there, whereas they aren't at all to the same degree in other sports. I'm sure Asamoah Gyan is a lovely person, but I still have an irrational hatred for him, many years later, for wearing #3 as a striker. It's just wrong.

I really hope they don't send him down when Rengifo is back off the IL. It's very unlikely Pratt will hit worse than Rengifo did, given the high floor offered by the plate discipline and contact ability, but with the massive difference in defensive and baserunning value, he'll be an upgrade even if he's a decent bit worse at the plate. There are no service time considerations to take into account, so just let him play, and let him learn. Ortiz and Hamilton can platoon at 3B, and Ortiz can give Pratt/Turang some days off when needed. Hamilton/Ortiz consistently at 3B, and Hamilton NOT at SS are big defensive upgrades.

We can't know if surgery is the best option. The thing with nerve injuries (he has the version of TOS where a nerve is compressed, not the vascular kind) is that they take time to heal. So even if he didn't have any pressure remaining on that nerve, it still might not be functioning fully due to not having had enough time to heal. In which case surgery would do more harm than good. Fans are always quick to always go for the surgery in every case, but there is usually a reason for not taking that route, How good that reason is can vary, but it's safe to say the doctors involved know a lot more about the injury and treatment than random fans online. Maybe he'll end up needing the surgery, maybe not. Either way, which option is better is not something any one of us can know.