Lathund

The only reason I see to be negative about this trade is if the money saved won't get spent elsewhere. I'm about as certain as I can possibly be that the payroll come April will be $11m or more higher than it is now, but obviously I can still be wrong about it. But let's look at the trade itself. I think there are a lot of overreactions here; Renfroe is a good hitter for sure, especially against LHP. But the whole package of his being a corner OF with average-ish defense (Stupidly good throwing arm, but iffy range and some bad decision making) and poor baserunning makes him a 2-2.5 WAR type player. Or in other words, an average starter. That's not bad at all, but one year of that for $11m when you have a bunch of top prospects at the same position who are ready means he's a good trade candidate. It's early in the offseason and more moves will be made. But as it stands right now, Renfroe's PAs will be going to some combination of Taylor/Mitchell/Frelick/Ruiz/Wiemer. All of them are better defenders and baserunners, and that combined with some platooning to play matchups makes me think there's a good chance they can produce something fairly similar. And I'm almost certain that if they spend the $11m on an area (or areas) of need, that combined they'll outproduce Renfroe. As for the trade return itself; No, it's not particularly exciting. Presumably the Brewers see something in them and thinks there more to come, and while they've generally been right about that with pitchers it's by no means a guarantee. But it's not like they need to do a whole lot to be worth it overall. A couple of seasons of a #5 starter is on it's own worth it, and the chances for that are good. So OF prospects + trade return + $11m spent even semi-intelligently > a year of Renfroe. Now if the money doesn't get spent, then we can talk. But if it does then I really don't see the downside. Catcher, 1B/DH, 3B, SP depth, setup reliever. All areas where $11m improves us more than it does in RF.

I don't see much point in starting Chourio in A+. He's already shown he can handle that level, and the minors are about development anyway. If you expect him to spend most of the year in AA, just start him there straight away. Just one hitting coach (or coach team) to work with, one city to settle into, one set of (albeir changing) team mates etc. Put him where he'll be challenged. AA at bats will prepare him better than A+ ones will IMO.

Makes perfect sense as a baseball move, Suter was getting too expensive for his production. I'm still really sad to see the Raptor go though, seriously one of my all-time favorite players. 31st round pick who throws an 86 mph 4-seamer 70% of the time. And it works. Somehow. And is a really funny guy who seems like a genuinely good person and teammate on top of it. Gonna miss him.

I'm not particularly worried about losing Cam Devanney in the rule 5 draft tbh. In recent years, there's usually like 3-4 position players taken in each draft. Maybe there'll be a few more after the unique nature of 2020, no rule 5 draft in 2021, and the 26 man rosters, but it's still primarily limited by the roster spots. In a vacuum I could see how it could make sense to take a chance on him. But there are also 29 other teams, so not only does another team need to think it's a good idea, they also need to be able to even carry a rule 5 position player in the first place; which usually means non-contending teams. And then that spot needs to be a SS/3B. And perhaps most crucially, there needs to be no better rule 5 candidates available. With no draft last year and obviously no added 40-man spots, there are also more unprotected players than usual. Devanney might be a decent candidate, but I'd wager there's enough better ones out there to keep him safe. Bit surprised to see Singleton protected. I suppose they have to have a decent inkling that someone might select him. I also think that having seen him close up for a full season, they have a pretty good grasp on him, and if there's anything chance of further development. The batting average is ugly, but there's a .375 OBP and 24 HRs to go along with it this past year. And as a slow, pull-heavy LHH there's probably a few hits to be gained by the loss of the shift. So keep him around as Rowdy insurance for now. Not really a whole lot to lose, not like it's a big financial commitment or anything.

I'm not particularly worried about losing Cam Devanney in the rule 5 draft tbh. In recent years, there's usually like 3-4 position players taken in each draft. Maybe there'll be a few more after the unique nature of 2020, no rule 5 draft in 2021, and the 26 man rosters, but it's still primarily limited by the roster spots. In a vacuum I could see how it could make sense to take a chance on him. But there are also 29 other teams, so not only does another team need to think it's a good idea, they also need to be able to even carry a rule 5 position player in the first place; which usually means non-contending teams. And then that spot needs to be a SS/3B. And perhaps most crucially, there needs to be no better rule 5 candidates available. With no draft last year and obviously no added 40-man spots, there are also more unprotected players than usual. Devanney might be a decent candidate, but I'd wager there's enough better ones out there to keep him safe. Bit surprised to see Singleton protected. I suppose they have to have a decent inkling that someone might select him. I also think that having seen him close up for a full season, they have a pretty good grasp on him, and if there's anything chance of further development. The batting average is ugly, but there's a .375 OBP and 24 HRs to go along with it this past year. And as a slow, pull-heavy LHH there's probably a few hits to be gained by the loss of the shift. So keep him around as Rowdy insurance for now. Not really a whole lot to lose, not like it's a big financial commitment or anything.

I think a big mark against Wong is the fact that he's a 2B only, and one who really struggles against lefties. Meaning he's not a true full-time player, and that he's a player you have to adept the roster to, instead of being one that opens up your roster. And this is not a particularly pretty Statcast page. Strong plate discipline, but with coming off a down year defensively, and his offensive surge relying on increased power, you'd be wary of someone outperforming their underlying data. That being said, he's still a good player. And in a vacuum a 1 year $8m decision to retain him seems clear.. But we're not in a vacuum, and with spending room limited (Unless the budget goes up, which seems unlikely) it's a chance to save $7m+ to use elsewhere, while having a replacement who on paper looks like he can provide similar value (And who can cover SS and CF and probably 3B) it's IMO a pretty easy decision to decline the option and use that money to try to shore up a bigger weakness. I just hope it's not a case of declining it to be able to spend $7m less overall...

To answer the point about for who I'd trade someone like Chourio, I'd say that the important part is the team control and contract. I would never do it for 2 years of a player, so I wouldn't do it for Burnes. Or I would under specific cirumstances, like if the team was already a legit WS favorite with a 2 year window or something, but not in general and not where the Brewers are now. The Yelich trade serves as the type of trade I'd be willing to give up a true top prospect for. A proven 3-4 WAR type of player with upside for more, under 5 years of cheap team control. But those types of players so very rarely get traded. Other than that I don't really see what would do it.

It's so hard to judge from the outside how someone will be in a role like this. But I think the assessment that it'll be a smooth transition is a safe one: After all, it's not the top executive (GM/POBO) who does everything, decides on every single international signing or draft pick etc. A huge part of the job is building up the organization, hiring people and setting up the way the various departments operate etc. So when you have one person who has worked in that same system, and helped build it, for the last 7 years taking over, you wouldn't expect a lot to change when everything else remains unchanged. It's also hard to know what kind of input Matt Arnold had under Stearns. We don't know if the Brewers we've seen over the last 7 years was already to a significant degree a work of Matt Arnold, or if he was just one of several voices advising Stearns. Nor do we know to what degree his and David Stearns views aligned, even if he was influential. Like did they agree on most things, or is the moves we've seen the result of their compromises or a combination of "Arnold moves" and "Stearns moves"? Or, again, was it nearly all Stearns? I suppose my point is that I have no idea what kind of an executive he'll be, or if he's any good. What I would say though, is that he came from the same Rays front office that had Friedman (Dodgers), Click (Astros), Bloom (Red Sox), of course Neander (Rays) and a bunch more #2's and assistant GMs and such. Doesn't mean every single person who worked there is a genius, but they do a lot of things right and it's probably a great environment to learn the job in. He then also worked 7 years with David Stearns, who came from another of the most advanced and progressive front offices with the Astros. A fusion of the Rays, Astros and Brewers seems like a very good foundation. He was also highly enough thought of that the Mets wanted him after they couldn't have Stearns. And he signed an extension after they were rebuffed (I remember reading reports that it was really Arnold who turned them down, but the Brewers took the hit. The extension would at the very least suggest he wasn't particularly unhappy about it), signalling a desire to be here. So while I, again, don't know anything, he certainly has an exccellent CV as far as first-time top decision makers go.

Probably getting tendered. But I think the decision will depend on what the Brewers make of his sinker. Last year it was one of the most valuable pitches in all of baseball, and this year it was almost exactly neutral. So with a team that's so big on pitch design, I think their decision comes down to if they think they can get his sinker back working or not. If they know what went wrong and think they know how to fix it, then it's a very easy tender.

I think the 2023 Brewers can go in two different directions (I'm not including "total teardown" as an option, as they've been very clear they're not going to do that. Nor am I seriously considering a true all in that'd necessitate a more complete sell-off after 2023), which is largely based on the fact that Woodruff/Burnes/Adames (And Houser/Lauer) are FAs after 2024. Meaning that you can run most of the team back in 2023 and with some additions have an excellent chance of winning the division, see who you can extend and then deal with the trades after 2023. Or you could start the "retool" now, trade a couple of players for near-MLB ready talent (Like the Chris Archer trade), and still have a chance at the playoffs but one that needs a bit of help with injuries/randomness. In all this, I will also assume the payroll will be similar to 2021 and 2022. If ownership is willing to let it go up $10-$20m that opens more options. But I don't think that's likely. Firstly about extentions; I don't know why people buy the narrative that Brewers haven't been looking into extending Burnes/Woodruff. They extended Peralta/Ashby, they'll for sure have run similar deals by the others earlier on, and in some other fashion later on as well most likely. And I don't think Burnes saying there hasn't been contract negotiations even contradicts that. They'll always be talking to players' agents, getting a rough idea of what kind of deal Burnes would be looking at. If that's too far off what's realistic for the Brewers, then they might be better off not making an "insulting" offer to begin with. He might not even be all that interested to begin with, we don't know. Or might be interested only at full market value. I bring the contracts up because extending one of them would obviously impact the plans. In general though, the division is very winnable. Cardinals will be in the running, they always are, but they're really not as good as they seemed this year. Arenado prior to this year: 118 wRC+. Arenado in 2023: 153 wRC+. Goldschmidt career pre-2023; 141 wRC+. 2023, aged 34, 177 wRC+. Albert Pujols last 10 years 105 wRC+, last 5 84 wRC+. But in 2023, 150 wRC+. Offensive overperformance, one of the least injured teams in the league etc. I think the Brewers and Cardinals were pretty similar on paper, Brewers being a bit better. To take it in "Projection speak", Brewers will win most of the time if you run the 2022 season 10,000 times. But the actual season ended with the Cardinals with like a 70th-80th percentile outcome, while Brewers were more like 40th. This is a long-winded way to say that selling too much would be ill-advised, yet that the division can be won even in a year that combines being a "seller" and a "buyer". If the team and Burnes are far apart on a new contract, I'd listen to offers. I'd be very selective and only act if blown away, but a team in win-now mode could pay a *lot* for two years of Burnes. So I would at the very least listen to what could be one of the biggest SP trades in a long time. Naturally, if a Burnes trade happens I'd lean much more towards the earlier retool. If not, slightly more "going for it" makes sense. So down to business. A "retool/step back" approach in 2023 would be something like this to me; If he can't be extended, trade Burnes for the right offer, including major-league ready talent ideally including a starter. Trade one of Houser/Lauer. Sound out the market for exercising Wong's option and trading him, if there isn't one then decline it. Keep Renfroe; this team got absolutely killed by lefties and he's one of the few who hit them well. Give plenty of time to the OF prospects as well as Turang and Feliciano. Spend every penny saved on Hader/Burnes/Wong/Cutch/Cain/Narvaez/Houser on the best 1-year FAs you can, mainly at C/corner RHH bat/setup man/starter. Perhaps trade some lesser prospects for fringe/blocked MLBers with some upside. Try to focus on starter depth. So in other words, you plan to get more from the DH/CF/LF/C spots via the rookies and 1-2 short-term signings like 2019 Moose or 2022 Drury outperforming Cain/Cutch/Narvaez/Davis. Count on staying even or even improving a little (As I think progression is more likely than regression for that group overall) at 1B/2B/3B/SS/RF with staying pat other than Turang instead of Wong and perhaps a RHH corner bat added. A starting rotation without Burnes will naturally be weaker no matter how you slice it. Getting more out of the 4th-7th spots via focusing on depth can make up for some of it. Better defense and better luck with injuries can have a big impact too, but injuries could always end up even worse instead so not something to count on. For the bullpen, we have one of the best relievers in the game in Williams still. Bush had an excellent season before coming here, so I think he'll recover. Cousins/Topa/Milner/Strzelecki are all solid and mostly optionable middle relievers. I normally don't think spending on relievers is a smart move, but spending a few million on a couple of 1-year deals for good veteran relievers is a solid way to improve in a "down" year. So try to find 2-3 Boxbergers, basically. One might even be Brad Boxberger himself. And continue the usual indy league/minor league trawling. There probably is at least one useful reliever among Harris/Erceg/Robinson or the converted starters in AAA. So that was an approach that focuses more on trying to handle the 2024 roster transition with more of a long-term focus. Now how might it look if the Brewers tried to build on the current roster and improve on it, yet still not massively hurt the future? Firstly; Don't trade any major contributors. Tender a contract to Renfroe. Wong too possibly, but that leaves very little payroll room so would necessitate improvements coming via trades mostly. I think the team is better with spending $8m on positions other than 2B, but it's absolutely not clear cut, and relies on the right player being out there. Trade for C Sean Murphy from the A's, probably requires one of the OF prospects to build the trade around. Strong defender and one of the better-hitting catchers around. 3 years of team control remaining. Find another RHH bat in FA or trade. Doesn't have to be an amazing player, but someone who can hit lefties and play as many positions as possible of 1B/3B/DH/LF/RF, roughly in that order of priority. Can't think of who this would be atm. Sign or trade for a SP. Not the top of the market, but someone who could improve the #4 spot, pushing one starter to the 'pen. Could trade a Lauer/Houser to make room, but again, depth matters so I'd rather try to make it work with them on the roster. Like with the other approach, spend a few million on a couple of Boxbergers, and trade aggressively for relievers as the deadline as needed. Doing more than this would require either money that's not in the budget, or giving up some more prospects we don't want to lose. Basically, by delaying the trades of future FAs, the return for them overall will be less. So any kind of win-now approach relies even more on the farm to avoid a future downturn. But to win now without "spending" prospects is hard. Ideally the way is to spend money, not prospects, in 2023. But that requires the money to be there...

Indeed, he doesn't seem injured. He had a 6-pitch walk last night where his slowest pitch was 97.8 mph. But if there was some kind of injury, it'd be rather ironic that AJ Preller was on the other side of it.

You (and I for that matter) would think there are teams that would, but they almost never do. Very few position players get picked in the rule 5 draft; 3 in 2020 and 2019, 4 in 2018, 3½ (1 2-way player) in 2017. It's a big deal for teams, even rebuilding ones, to roster a player without the, uh, option to option them, that they absolutely do not want playing. I know on here every year we tend to overestimate how many players will be protected, and yet none of the ones left unprotected in recent years have been taken. He might very well be the highest rated prospect left unprotected in a while (If he does go unprotected), I just happen to think he's really not the type of prospect who gets picked in the Rule 5 draft. He's not a pitcher, he's not an elite defender, his bat right now isn't good enough to play. You could perhaps live with that if the player had a high enough upside, but Valerio doesn't have the power or the defense/position to be a star, even if he could very well be a good player. It's not completely out of the realm of possibility that someone picks him, but not a high enough risk to be worth spending 1-2 years on the 40-man without contributing IMO.

The new CBA have draft pick rewards for rookie-eligible players who are on the opening day roster and reach certain milestones (ROTY/MVP/CY voting I believe), I saw somewhere that I think it was August 28th that would guarantee a call-up kept their rookie eligibility. Could be related to that. Or waiting for the extra roster spot on September 1st. At least I hope it's one of those, since it would mean that they do plan to bring him up eventually. Because I think he's got an excellent chance of being an improvement on both Taylor and Davis straight away. Taylor has a career 99 wRC+, but an 88 wRC+ this year. Which isn't terrible for a solid defensive CF, but when batting 9th most of the time I'd prefer if that number came more from OBP than HRs as is the case for Taylor. A .276 OBP is really, really bad. Brewers hit plenty of HRs, would happily trade a few of them for guys getting on base. Basically, I think that as long as Sal Frelick can put up like an 80 wRC+ or better, based on a good OBP, he makes the team better. And I don't think you need to have Brewers-tinted glasses to expect that. Even a projection system like Steamer projects a 108 wRC+ for Frelick this year based on the minor league numbers. He's a high-contact and low-strikeout guy who takes his walks too, that should translate fairly well. He has a .404 OBP in the minors this year, he could drop almost 100 points and still be valuable. And he won't drop that much.

Rule 5 decisions aren't really about talent and potential only. Despite his struggles this year, there is still a lot of promise for Valerio, but is he someone you'd want to keep on your active roster for a whole season at this point? 76 wRC+ in AA, and while he has played multiple positions I get the impression that it's not because he's a great defender, but about finding him at bats. So he's not your defensive swiss army knife like Hernán Perez either. If it was a waivers situation where a team could pick him up and option him, I'm sure someone would. But for the active roster? I seriously doubt he's getting picked if unprotected. If a team really was willing to carry a position player who they expected to contribute very little in 2023, I imagine there would be players out there with higher upside to go for.

Rule 5 decisions aren't really about talent and potential only. Despite his struggles this year, there is still a lot of promise for Valerio, but is he someone you'd want to keep on your active roster for a whole season at this point? 76 wRC+ in AA, and while he has played multiple positions I get the impression that it's not because he's a great defender, but about finding him at bats. So he's not your defensive swiss army knife like Hernán Perez either. If it was a waivers situation where a team could pick him up and option him, I'm sure someone would. But for the active roster? I seriously doubt he's getting picked if unprotected. If a team really was willing to carry a position player who they expected to contribute very little in 2023, I imagine there would be players out there with higher upside to go for.

I imagine his point was that when he first made the Brewers roster, Manny Piña was the very definition of a AAAA journeyman. With the Brewers being his 5th organization, and him having reached AAA for the first time 6+ years earlier. He turned out to be more than that in the end, but that's what he was at the time.

Keep Yelich where he is. Hard to know if it's actually hitting leadoff that's making him perform better or if that's a coincidence, but I don't want to risk finding out. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. He gets on base, he runs the bases well, keep him where he is. As for the rest, you could make a solid case for Cutch at 2, or some other adjustments. But the truth is that it really has minimal impact. The difference between even a semi-reasonable lineup and the optimal lineup is miniscule. And I think that's even more true for a team like the 2022 Brewers, i.e a team full of 100-115 wRC+ type hitters. No black holes or even weak spots, but also no superstar type hitters. The more homogenized a lineup is, the less the batting order matters.

An unusual trades in some ways. I wouldn't really look at Bush's age the same way I normally would. He didn't convert to pitching until 21, and with all the off the field issues is actually at below 300 career innings pitched. His arm is way younger than a normal 36 year old pitchers. Anything can happen, but it's a better chance that he'll be productive for all 3 years than it would seem on the surface. And he is pitching really well. As for said off the field issues: He is an alcoholic and every incident with him seems to have been related to that. I don't know anything about what kind of person he really is, but the Rangers fans seem to all say he's staying out of trouble and has changed. It really is an ugly history he has, and has hurt or otherwise impacted a lot of people. But he has also served 4 years in prison, and has seemingly adressed the root cause of his issues, namely that he is now completely sober. I'm willing to at least give people who have paid for their actions and have made efforts to change, a chance. I also have alcoholics in my family, and I encounter it a lot in my field of work (Psychiatry), I know what effects it (And other addictions) have on people. Anyway, back to the trade itself. Bush has been pretty great this year, Throws 3 pitches, doesn't have much in the way of platoon splits, statcast page looks great. 2½ years of that is going to cost something. I actually quite like Mathias, and I wouldn't have minded him in the utility role (Or the 1st man up) next year, he has raked in AAA and I think some of it could translate to MLB if given time. But he's also 28, and wouldn't really get that time here, and with Brice Turang knocking on the door too, it makes sense to include him in the trade. Rangers have Semien & Seager in the middle infield but not much behind them, so hopefully he can find himself a bigger role there. Wish him all the best. Kelly is one I'm going back and forth about. On the one hand, he has some electric stuff giving him some serious upside. On the other hand though, he's sufficiently wild that it just screams bullpen to me. Then there's the TOS surgery; he is back and his velo is back, so looks like he avoided the worst of it, but it does worry me still. And on top of that there's his rule 5 status. He's good enough to warrant adding to the roster, but he is also quite a way away from the majors. Is it worth using a roster spot on him for likely no return in 2023 and 2024 if you think he's ultimately a reliever? So I'm a little on the fence still, but I think ultimately I'm OK with it even if the price is in the upper bounds of what I'd be comfortable with.

Not sure if this has been posted, but this was an interview with Gasser on Fangraphs a couple of weeks ago. He certainly sounds like someone who would buy into the kind of pitching development the Brewers do. Seems to know a lot about pitch design etc, and understands his game well. https://blogs.fangraphs.com/padres-pitching-prospect-robert-gasser-doesnt-believe-in-being-bland/

Rogers in 2022: 4.35 ERA / 2.35 FIP. Career: 3.29 ERA / 2.93 FIP. Hader in 2022: 4.24 ERA / 3.47 FIP. Career: 2.48 ERA / 2.70 FIP. I would expect Hader to be better rest of the season, but honestly not by a ton. They will at most pitch another ~30 innings or so each, and even a 0.70 ERA difference over that many innings is 2-2,5 runs. Which is a simplified way of looking at it of course, but useful as a rough measurement of the size of the downgrade.

I wrote a bit about my take on the return in an earlier post, so won't repeat myself and instead adress some more general points. The first one is what kind of value do people think relievers have? I know I and many others have said it before, that teams don't value relievers the same way they did when Miller/Chapman got traded, or Wade Davis got paid etc. Hader would be making something like $15m next year; when you consider that, as far as I know, no reliever has ever topped $20m AAV and very few even $15m, there isn't a great deal of surplus value there. Which doesn't mean he doesn't have value, since the kind of reliever who is worth that kind of money doesn't exactly grow on trees. But it was always going to have an impact. Fans also tend to overstate the importance of relievers, since if you blow a late lead to lose by 1 it's so very clear how that's linked to the reliever who blew it (Most of the time). It's less obvious how a botched double play or a walk and an infield single earlier in the game can have the same impact. A run is a run, and while their impact shifts some based on early vs late it's not a huge difference. The best reliever in the game has far, far less value than the best position player or starter. Secondly; I don't think his recent struggles had much, if anything, to do with either the decision to trade him, or the return. Fans and media are short-sighted, while General Managers aren't. Hader has been the best reliever in the game for almost 6 years, he has never been on the IL except for Covid (i.e no arm/shoulder issues), he recently broke a streak of, what was it 40 consecutive scoreless regular season appearances. The fact that he had a couple of rough appearances doesn't meaningfully change either how teams value him, or whether he was available for trade or not. He was always going to be traded before his contract was up, as an extension was never ever going to happen. I also think that while the more typical closer usage got more flak than it deserved (As long as you use your closer in tied games too, it's actually not at all a bad way to use your best reliever), the Brewers will like getting to be more flexible in the late innings.

Even adjusted for the league, that's a 145 wRC+ in AAA, 177 wRC+ in AA. There is also the immensely improves strikeout and walk rates, that aren't ballpark dependent. Was 7% BB in the last couple seasons, now doubled to 14%. Strikeout rate cut from the mid 20s to 17%. And 60 stolen bases in less than 80 games on top of that. Looking at where prospects rankings have him it's largely influenced by previous years, he will have seen his stock rise a lot this year. I'm actually quite excited by this. Gasser looks like a very Brewers-y pitching prospect. Low arm slot, short arm path, slider/changeup, good K/BB ratio. Would immediately be one of the better pitching prospects in the system. Rogers has struggled this year, but still has a 2.35 FIP and a solid track record. I trust they can get him to be a useful player, lessening the impact of losing Hader. Lamet is the part I'm unsure about. Super talented and someone they can work with, but is he ever going to be healthy enough to actually get on the mound regularly? I think it was when we played them in SD last year that he left injured (again) and it sounded 100% like he needed TJS at that time. I suspect it's mostly a way to save SD some money, and Brewers figure that doing it in this way there is at least some potential upside to it, however unlikely.

Gallo has struggled in New York, but his overall line last year was still a strong 123 wRC+, and a 144 wRC+ in his last full season before that. Now I don't know why he has struggled in New York. Maybe he's cooked, and then yeah it'd be a pointless deal. But if they don't think there's anything truly wrong with him, he's certainly an option. There aren't a ton of potential CFs out there, and in terms of acquisition cost he would be cheap. And out of everyone (that we know of) available, his offensive ceiling is the highest. Again though, I haven't seen him enough to know why he has struggled or if there's reason to think he can find his old form or not. Perhaps his power was all in his beard? Brewers are 10th in K%. Also this is 2022, not 2012. There is a very good reason why Cutch hasn't played CF regularly in the last 5 years. He's not even a decent corner OF at this point. Using him as the everyday CF would be a disaster.

CF is the odd situation where I actually would prefer a (cheap) rental this deadline over a more expensive long-term acquisition, seeing as we have a trio of top prospects in AA who certainly look like the part now (Wiemer will likely end up in a corner, but he can play CF for now at least), as well as Chourio a bit further away. But admittedly there isn't a whole lot out there, so if Laureano is cheaper than I expect.. sure. As always though, I expect Brewers have checked in on every even remotely available player, just in case someone is available for a price they find attractive. Benintendi, Michael A Taylor, Laureano, and whoever else might be available in CF. Doesn't have to mean talks got anywhere.

CF is the odd situation where I actually would prefer a (cheap) rental this deadline over a more expensive long-term acquisition, seeing as we have a trio of top prospects in AA who certainly look like the part now (Wiemer will likely end up in a corner, but he can play CF for now at least), as well as Chourio a bit further away. But admittedly there isn't a whole lot out there, so if Laureano is cheaper than I expect.. sure. As always though, I expect Brewers have checked in on every even remotely available player, just in case someone is available for a price they find attractive. Benintendi, Michael A Taylor, Laureano, and whoever else might be available in CF. Doesn't have to mean talks got anywhere.