Lathund

Lamb has been terrible the last two years. It's one year control for each of Ray and Lamb for $15m (based on the MLBTR arbitration estimates) total, vs 5 years of Houser who's making $600k in 2020. Robbie Ray might not even be any better than Houser in 2020. And that's not taking into account the remaining four years. On top of that we'd be selling low on a prospect. This would be a truly awful and short-sighted trade for the Brewer, they are thes ones who would turn this down, not the Dbacks. You then go on to say it's not even feasible that Houser could be better than Ray. Houser has a 3.60 ERA / 3.90 FIP for his career. Ray is at 4.11 / 3.97. And that's with an almost 3 mph drop in FB velocity for Ray since 2016. They're even trending in different directions.

I like what the team is doing. It was a tough situation this offseason. Grandal and Moose only signed because their market was slow, and Pomeranz and Lyles could be acquired because they were rentals who had struggled (And were also very cheap). Those four then play so well that they combine for $50m AAV. Replacing that was always going to be tough. And even if they had gotten them all back, there would still be spots that needed filling, and they'd have absolutely no money to do it with. So shedding contracts made sense; opting against taking the chances for a bounceback year for the injured Nelson and slumping Shaw (I believe they both will be a lot better in 2020. But perhaps not sure enough to pay $5m each). Opting to try and get Andersons production for less than $8.5m and Thames for 7.5m. Opting to not pay bench players with poor bats (Spangenberg, Perez), and not paying for middle relief (Claudio, Guerra). So they then take the approach that the movie version of Moneyball has a scene about; They can't replace Giambi and Damon, so they recreate them in the aggregate. And it's kind of what the Brewers are doing. Consider that Moose and Grandal aren't the only position players gone; they're the ones we'll miss the most (performance wise), but we'll also not see Aguilar, Shaw, Perez, Spangenberg, and less (I presume) of Gamel and Arcia. So to improve on that, they'd need to add players who can improve over the combined stats of those 6 (or 8). And I'd argue that they have already done so, even if Sogard/Healy would be the 3B players as it stands (And I don't think it will). In a free agent market that's more robust than it has in the past, and with some uncertainty in how good the team will be (Will Cain bounce back? How good is Urias? Does Lindblom's changes translate from KBO to MLB? Corbin Burnes?), signing solid if unspectacular veterans to short-term deals makes a lot of sense as opposed to participating in bidding wars. Makes the team better, won't limit them in 2021, and they have team options on several of them if things turn out well. There was also the moves for Narvaez and Lauer/Urias; Narvaez where the offense of Grandal was replaced for a fraction of the cost (Though they'll have to handle the defensive drop off) and for more years of control. And Luer/Urias where young talent was traded from a position of surplus (And a stronger open market) in exchange for young talent at a position of need. And swapping two similar(ish) pitchers, while gaining more team control and at a lower salary. So they've even added "young controllable talent". And the idea of signing these short-term free agent deals with veterans actually helps that. You add wins to the roster without giving up prospects or comp picks. You don't have highly paid veterans for years blocking talented prospects. It allows prospects to develop and come up to the majors when ready. There are still moves that will happen, I'm sure, but I'd say that this offseason further solidifies the idea of Stearns as being 100% about the value, and (Like I talked about in the "recreating in the aggregate" bit) not thinking about the roster in terms of specific positions, or starters and bench players. Not focusing on replacing an allstar 3B/C combo, but on replacing the runs and wins they contributed. So the team will enter 2021 with very little guaranteed money on the books, and another year of prospect development. Allowing for either a soft reset or a spending push, depending on how their signings and their prospects play out. I like that the offense will be seemingly less strikeout-prone and less HR-reliant. If the balls stay juiced that might not be a positive move overall, but I think it'll be more enjoyable and less frustrating to watch.

I'll say that the one positive with resigning former players is that the team know what they're getting, what the player is like on the field, in practice and as a person. You'd think they'd have a good idea of the struggles in 2018, and what has changes since. So I trust that they have some idea of what they're doing. But I also had a look at his statcast profile, and ooof... Exit velocity in the 5th percentile, Hard hit % in the 3rd percentile. Not too suprising I suppose, but I had thought looking at his batting stats that (despite the juiced ball) his good 2019 numbers were fueled by some sort of change in his batted profile. But other than a higher launch angle (Which with a low exit velocity you'd think it not very useful) there isn't one. But a look through some of his stats reminded me of the one truly elite skill he does have: contact. Looking at the last 5 years (min. 1000 PA), his Z-contact % (How often he makes contact when swinging on pitches in the zone) and contact % ranks 4th out of 334 players. Could certainly help with the "Runner on third less than two outs" issues. EDIT: Though this article addresses some of the batted ball points I made, when broken down into more detail: https://blogs.fangraphs.com/the-brewers-reunite-with-eric-sogard/

Not too dissimilar from Eric Thames, with the difference that Smoak doesn't need to be platooned. Numbers were down a bit last year, but that seems entirely BABIP driven. His walks were up, strikeouts down, average exit velocity up. To me it feels like a pretty safe bet that he'll have an above-average season at the plate in 2020 at least. I wouldn't say I'm either overly excited, or underwhelmed by this. I'd say I am appropriately whelmed. At first glance this, like the Sogard deal, feel like they could've been done for less. But these are one year commitments, with a team option in case in turns out well, the downside is very limited. A flurry of moves in the last week or so. Would be interesting to know if there was a specific reason for that or it just happened that way.

Depth move to backup both corners. His statcast numbers are pretty decent too, even in an injury-plagued 2019. So perhaps they see some upside there too. And no, this is not the final piece of the 1B/3B puzzle. At least one more player will be acquired for the major league roster; if it's just one it'll be a LHH 1B (And maybe 3B), but it could be more than one.

I assume that the Garcia signing means that Braun will see time at 1B. Exactly how the playing time gets divided between Braun/Garcia/Yelich/Cain/other 1B remains to be seen, as well as how Gamel/Taylor play into it, but I'm not overly bothered. Plenty of at bats to go around. So based on that assumption, a LHH 1B and a 3B would seem to be the remaining positional needs. Perhaps the most likely way this gets filled, this being the David Stearns-led Brewers and all, is a fairly minor trade that none of us expected. But that's a bit of a cop-out to predict. So I'll throw out a FA name for 3B: Todd Frazier. Fangraphs crowdsource and Kiley's prediction there are both 1/$7m. He has been an average or better defender, and a slightly above average bat there in recent years. In other words, just a slightly worse Mike Moustakas. The market so far would suggest that 1/$7m is a bit light, but if it's anywhere around there I like it. Combine that with a LHH 1B whether that be a Thames, Moreland, Smoak or someone else, and there's still plenty of room left for pitching signings. So what do we have then? The direct replacements for Grandal and Moustakas will be an offensive downgrade, though not much of one; Narvaez had a similar wRC+ to Grandal last year, but of course Piña will see more time than he did last year so for the position offense will be down. But the benefit of it is that there will be far fewer PAs given to "black holes" in the lineup. Consider the 2500-3000 PAs (Rough maths) given to hitter below 100 wRC+ last year (At least 1000 to hitters below 65 wRC+); there will be far less of that. It's not very exciting, but even those simple, boring, moves will likely see a better offense than last year. There should be room to aim higher than that though, since the offense wasn't great in 2019. Which brings us to the trades. More specifically Hader trades. Mets, Dodgers, Yankees have been the teams mentioned. The Mets trade talks have been done to death in the Hader thread, with the debate raging on the value of relievers. I'm in the camp that would take controllable position players all day. McNeil, Davis and Smith are all position players who fill the positional needs, and all have 5 years of team control remaining. Some sort of deal certainly seems workable. Even someone like Jed Lowrie might be interesting; he'd probably primarily be a salary relief inclusion, but that could lead to a better return. And I wouldn't write him off completely. Yankees have Andujar and Urshela, I don't know their intentions but there's a chance they move one of them. I'm a bit skeptic about trading with the Yankees though, I've got a feeling that we'll struggle to get good value out of it, and Andujar certainly has question marks, both in terms of his Jimmy Nelson-esque injury and Ryan Braun-esque defense even though he does look like a very good hitter. For the Dodgers it wouldn't be the straight 3B trade, but if they're willing to actually trade young talent (Which they haven't in the past), there's certainly no shortage of intriguing players. I think that ultimately Hader doesn't get traded. His contract and his team control essentially creates a situation where his value is higher than the produciton the buying team would get from him. In my head it's clear what I'm trying to say, but I can't articulate it well. It's not just about the Brewers setting the bar high and needing to be blown away by an offer, or different valuations between seller and buyer. But more that you could accurately value what Hader would be worth, and that it would be more than any team would pay for a reliever. I think there's a much higher chance Hader gets traded with 2-3 years remaining. That 4th year adds to the value and the asking price, but the further forward you project/predict, the more uncertain it is. And relievers are volatile to begin with. So I think he remains a Brewer. But I would be working a deal hard if I was Stearns, trying to leverage Hader for MLB talent. To replace Hader I'd perhaps look more at the trade market; find the good relievers on tanking teams with team control shorter than the expected arrival of their competitive window and see if some of them value some Brewers prospects higher than we do internally. Find our version of Will Smith for Susac/Bickford. Again though, I don't think he gets traded.

I haven't seen much of Garcia with my own eyes, but almost everything I've read about him looks good. Rays fans appear sad that they didn't resign him, which is a good sign too. At least average in every statcast category tracked. His first few seasons he graded out poorly on defense, but has graded out as average to above average in the last four years by all four major metrics (UZR, DRS, FRAA, OAA). So a Yelich-Cain-Garcia outfield, which I imagine to be the most common constellation we see, is also a defense upgrade. I'm not worried about the fit. Even under most best-case scenarios, Cain and Braun aren't playing 162 games. Yelich with the back issues isn't either. And regular rest is probably a good thing for everyone. So with some 1B time for Braun, the usual minor injuries who always happen to most players, regular rest days, double switches, defensive subs, DH games etc etc, there will be plenty of at bats for all of Cain, Yelich, Braun, Garcia. Gamel (Or Taylor, or whoever ends up next in line) will probably get 300+ PAs too, if not more. I would have liked to see money spent at 3B and a pitcher (Though I doubt we'll ever see big money spent on a pitcher with this front office), but I can see the thinking behind this. And perhaps there wasn't a big money signing that made sense at 3B. I really like Donaldson, but the 4-year deal, likely at close to $25m AAV, to a guy his age scares me. I expect one trade and one lesser FA signing to fill the 3B/1B gaps now.

Don't know much about the guy other than information like what's been posted in here, and the surface level stats. But on that basis, I like it. $3m AAV is easily worth a bit of a gamble that his stats can translate well to MLB.

Not sure I'd have liked a multi-year deal at $14m AAV considering the injury comeback and 2019 performance, but for one year I'd be aboard. Although it would also depend on other moves; I'd prefer getting an actual 3B instead of having (likely) Urias there.

Spot 26 is almost certainly a pitcher for every team in baseball. It's a pitcher for the teams who ran with 12-man pitching staffs in the past. It's a position player for everyone else, including the Brewers, who usually had 13 pitchers.

I hadn't realised he had done so well, so yeah it is a bit surprising to see that option declined. Trying to make sense of it though, one could argue that while UZR is mostly neutral on him, DRS and FRAA are a lot more negative. So the Dbacks might not have valued his defense. On the offensive side, the improvement in offensive output comes with a career-high BABIP. I think he should still be viewed more as the league-average bat his 101 wRC+ suggests he is. With the ability to play slightly below average defense at multiple positions, that makes him a good bench option, or one of those "Ben Zobrist/Marwin Gonzalez" type roles as a regular but without a set position. But I think there's a reason he's not treated as a starter. There are a few needs; 3B, 1B and pitching (Mainly starting). If the remaining money and surplus prospects are spent mostly on the other needs, I think Flores would work well to complement that as the 3B and general infield strengthening signing. But I'd want the other bat(s) brought in to be better than that.

I've been unsure of Lyles both this year and last. Unsure because even if he did outperform his peripherals by more than can be expected, it still felt and looked good. And CC seemed to trust him a bit more than most other starters, letting him go further in games (Which is still a somewhat quick hook by most other teams standards, but still). But then you get to the issue of short term-ism and sample sizes and all that. Pitchers do turn it around. Randy johnson didn't become Randy Johnson until his 30s, Rich Hill was a failed starter turned about to be failed reliever until 35. And so forth. Maybe the Brewers did utilize him differently, got him to do some things differently (Like more high fastballs or whatever it might be), maybe it is for real. But this was Jordan Lyles 9th MLB season. 2019 was the first season where he had an ERA- below 100 (96); or in other words his first above-average season. Career ERA- of 122 (5.11 ERA) and FIP- of 109 (4.52). His two stints with the Brewers are the only two partial seasons where he has been above average. We're dealing with 75 innings out of 909 total. Did he do something drastically different? Not really.. the strikeout rate was his highest, but his walk rates were some of the highest too. The major difference between his time with the Brewers compared to Pirates was a .225 vs .326 BABIP (.307 for his career). Statcast doesn't separate data between team stints, but his one above-average season by ERA saw him record his highest average EV in the statcast era, the highest barrel %, highest hard hit % and second highest walk rate. He also had his highest average launch angle against, which also means he should have a lower BABIP than usual, but not by this much. So he puts up his best ERA numbers when he's getting hit harder than ever before and yet has a career-low BABIP. And a FIP two whole runs above ERA. I still liked what I saw of Lyles as a Brewer despite all that and I think he'll have a pretty good 2020, and I would think the front office sees something in him too having acquired him twice. But it's very easy to see why you'd pass on paying a guy like Lyles $8m per year. I should also add that whether sustainable or not, lucky or not, Jordan Lyles had a huge impact on getting that WC spot. I'll always be grateful for that and wish him all the best.

It appears that the Brewers may be thinking that way. Which is interesting because when Stearns came he made some moves and everyone assumed he valued good defense and versatility...now it seem like the opposite. I am sure he values versatility (who doesn't), but I think he really just wants the players that will add the most value regardless. A good small market GM probably doesn't fall in love with any specific attribute and instead will make a team however he seems fit in any given year. I've had the same realisation recently. Most front offices focus on value, but I think Stearns and his team are stricter with it than most, and willing to go where it takes them without deviating even when it's uncomfortable and unpopular. Adding the most value where it can be added, even if the positional fit isn't ideal. A willingness to not make the big and "obvious" move if it doesn't match their valuations. A willingness to shift to wherever the "moneyball" philsophy takes them. If good defense is undervalued one year they'll sign good defenders, if bad defense is too heavily discounted they'll sign butchers. The strict value focus (And the resulting unwillingness to spend on pitching thus far), the focus on depth over stars, the trust in underlying metrics over surface ones and other things are going to be things that I believe will annoy many of the more "traditional" fans throughout his tenure. But personally I'm delighted the team has bought in fully, and seen him given seemingly free reign. I also think the organizational aspects in terms of drafting, development etc. still haven't been seen, that it has taken time to fully implement.

Defensive metrics for catchers are pretty weird. Grandal is negative on Baseball Reference, then awesome with Fangraphs. I'm not sure what they are using to create their numbers that is so different at times. DRS (used by BBref) does not include framing, while UZR (Fangraphs) and FRAA (Baseball Prospectus) do. There are differences in how blocking and throwing are calculated too (Grandal would be an above average defender by FRAA even without framing in 2019), but framing is the main difference.

With this move, I'd ideally like to see the 26th roster spot occupied by a catcher who can also play another position (Ideally other than 1B), allowing the Brewers to use Narvaez aggressively as a pinch hitter, and to use Piña aggressively as a defensive sub when needed. Don't think there are many of those around though, but if at all possible it would make for a good complement to the LHH bat-first/RHH glove-first combination behind the plate. As for the return I like it. A-ball pitcher and 71st pick. Neither of which you'd expect to have much of an impact during the remainder of Yelichs contract. Which may not be a hard window, but still should be a time where we're trying hard to win. Narvaez was still a ~2 WAR (by any of the three measures) player in 482 PAs last year despite his defense. Be creative about pinch hitting usage, maybe get him some time at 1st if he can handle it, get Piña more time behind the plate, and I like the combo. It's not Grandal, but then again only White Sox, Phillies and whoever finds the 2020 version of Mitch Garver will have a Grandal-esque player.

Umpires rotate, no individual umpire has a real impact on one catcher. Catchers as a group have their pitches called by the same umpire. Even if they did, there are ways to adjust for that. Which is why the metrics adjust for the tendencies of pitchers. CSAA is calculated for pitchers as well, where for instance Zach Davies is consistently one of the best. If you have pitchers who are good at stealing strikes, the catcher gets less credit. The whole point is that it doesn't make a "did he steal a strike" evaluation. It makes no judgement whether a pitch is even really a strike or a ball. Or why the umpire called what he did. It takes the pitchers tendencies into account and does separate pitcher and catcher impact. If a catcher somehow ended up with an entire pitching staff that threw curveballs with such break that were significantly harder to frame than other curveballs, that would reflect in the pitchers "ability" to get fewer strikes called. And thus not be blamed on the catcher. Does it, though? Luck as defined as something like randomness, or chance, or an outcome being decided by something outside the influence of any of the involved parties, does exist. A gust of wind, an insect in the eye distracting the umpire as a pitch is thrown, or whatever. Yeah that happens. But if these things are completely random, then they affect everyone to the same degree. 6000-8000 data points in a season makes their impact miniscule. And if "luck" affects someone significantly more than others over a long period of time, then is it really "luck" or something else? If a catcher gets more strikes called because of some bias, or his reputation, or something else not related to his actual catching and presenting of pitches, then it doesn't entire measure his "skill" at it. But if Wayne Gretzky racked up points to the degree he did in part because once he was established as "The Great One" opposing players didn't tackle him as hard becuase of who he was, then not all of his points were due to his own skill or ability. But they were still due to him being on the ice, and those points still counted. Same goes with framing; if you're getting more strikes over a statistically significant sample, when adjusting for other factors, then those extra strikes factor into how many runs you give up when the catcher is playing, and thus how valuable he is. So can luck be completely eliminated? No. But the large sample sizes do minimize the effect. Same as they do in any kind of statistical analysis, in any field. There are ways to handle that, and minimize the effect it has. And whatever effect there still is, it doesn't invalidate or completely change the data. It just adds some uncertainty, a wider range of outcomes. At BPro for example they even include that standard deviation prominently among their numbers. Luck isn't why Yasmani Grandal rated as one of the best pitch framers, and Narvaez as one of the very worst. For every year they have both been in the league. With both of them switching teams, and thus catching completely different sets of pitchers, in that timeframe. It's not "luck" that Grandal gets more strikes called. Luck might mean that the differential isn't exactly 27 runs worth of extra strikes as it was this year, but it doesn't change the fact that he got significantly more strikes called. So again the metrics don't make a judgement on whether an umpire was fooled or not. They're essentially saying that if two catchers were catching the same pitchers throwing the same pitches, with the same batters and the same umpire over a large enough sample size, a catcher getting more strikes called is a better (or more valuable) pitch framer. Regardless of how or why he achieves that. Which I don't think is controversial. The problem, of course, is that this scenario doesn't happen. You can get close with catchers on the same team where there's no "personal catchers", but that's not perfect either. But there is the combination of the size and rotation of the umpire pool and batter pool, the many different pitches caught, pitchers and catchers changing teams, and the sheer enormity of the sample size, that you do get usable data from it, albeit with error bars to them. Statistical methodlogy can further cut down on the error bars (The articles linked do a much better job of explaining how and why; I'm not a statistician). Basically what I'm getting at is this: To say that we can't exactly quantify the impact of framing is a valid criticism, because we can't. The metrics, and those behind them, don't even make that claim themselves. But that's not the same thing as saying we can't quantify it at all, or that we can't compare catchers defensive value. We simply have some uncertainty to it. Which is the same as any statistics you see anywhere. So treat it as you would the statistics in a scientific article; "There is a 95% probability that the value added above average by framing for catcher A is between 4.9 and 9.3 runs per season, and a 95% probability that the same number for Catcher B is between 1.2 and 5.7 runs". The takeaway from that could be that we can't say anything conclusively about who the better framer is, since the two ranges overlap. And you could treat the p<0.05 as saying that it could be all wrong. And that would be technically correct. But acting accordingly, and treating them as equally good framers, probably isn't the smart choice by a front office. Add another season to that data, double the sample size and change the pool of pitchers they catch, and you get a smaller range, perhaps even with a lower p value, and you'd in most cases see a clearer difference. Use it correctly and it's valuable.

I've never seen anyone making that claim back that up with anything. I'm hoping you'll be the first. Back up that it has an impact. I've watched umps blow calls that were framed perfectly. I've watched them make calls properly when the pitcher was 3/4s of a plate off his spot and the catcher swiped at it. I do not buy that these umps are that easily swayed, or at the very least swayed to a point that has a statistical impact. It's not about individual calls being blown or not blown. As you say, that will happen. There will be pitches down the middle of the plate called balls, there will be head-high pitches called strikes at times. Regardless of what the catcher does. The whole reason it has an impact is that there are so many pitches called each season for each catcher, several thousands of them. Even very small edges end up mattering a lot. Catching metrics don't concern themselves with individual pitches, and does not make a judgement on whether the umpire was "swayed" or not. Anyway, there are two components to framing. One is if changing a strike to a ball (or vice versa), regardless of how or why that happens or who's to be blamed or credited for it, has an impact on the game. Which I think is undeniable. It's very obvious in the case of a 3-2 pitch (For instance 1 on nobody out, vs nobody on one out), but also easy to see how a 1-1 pitch changes an at bat depending on whether it becomes 1-2 or 2-1. Can look at something basic like AVG/OBP/SLG after different counts, or more advanced methods. Either way, I don't think there is much disagreement, whether one is sabermetrically inclined or "old school", that different counts affect at bats. Putting a run value on the average value of a the difference between a called strike and called ball (again, still without assigning blame or credit to anyone) is fairly basic at this point as well. For a 3-2 pitch it's the difference in run expectancy between a walk and a strikeout (Or in other words, huge), for a 0-0 pitch it's a lot smaller. The second part of it is how do we determine a catchers impact on it? Before statcast/pitchFX, it was a very inexact science. It'd be some combination of catchers who got more calls than others, trying to use the eye test or some WOWY model to see how much of that was due to the different pitchers they caught, and judging the catching mechanics with the eye test. Which could probably separate really good from really bad framers, but not really say how big the effect was. But with pitch-tracking data, we can do more. I'll mostly talk about how Baseball Prospectus does it, since that's the one I've read up on in the past. The short and basic version of how it works is that you divide the strike zone and the surrounding area into many different and much smaller zones. You break down the overall PitchFX data and separate the different pitch types, and look at how often a specific pitch type is called a strike or a ball in a specific zone. Then to evaluate a catcher, the metrics compare the rate of how often they get strikes and balles called in the various zones to the average of all the hundreds of thousands (Or millions) of pitches tracked before them, again comparing curveballs to curveballs and fastballs to fastballs. Then you have the run values from before of changing balls into strikes and vice versa; either the average of all counts, or using the different value for each count; BPro uses the latter I believe. If a pitch is called a strike 100% of the time (Or more like 99.9%) in a part of the zone, and the result of an individual pitch in that zone is a called strike, the catcher gets no credit or blame. If it's called a strike 80% of the time and it's called a strike now, the catcher gets 20% of the run value for that count credited to him. If it had been called a ball, he's get deducted 80% of it. And so on, for thousands of pitches throughout a season. It's not making a jdugement on whether an umpire was tricked, or even on whether an individual pitch was a strike or a ball. There are methods for adjusting for the impact of different umpires, pitchers and batters on this too, but even without doing it they for the most part don't sway things that much (Pitchers affect it the most of the three); likely because the each account for such a small part of a catchers workload. A simple way to look at it is this: If you adjust for the batter, umpire and pitcher, and compare fastballs to fastballs and curveballs to curveballs, and a catcher is still getting more called strikes than his peers, and that it's measurable and consistent from year to year, then you're clearly measuring *something*. And what is that then, if not framing? Or "presenting", or "recieving skills" or whatever name you put on it? The main argument I see against it is that the size of the effect is "too big", that it feels unintuitive. And yeah, it does. But think about the scale of it. Grandal had 8000 framing chances last year. BPro's called strikes above average (CSAA) metric has him at 1.6% above average. It doesn't sound like much, but 1.6% more strikes is 128 extra strikes over a season. If the average run value of an extra strike is 0.13 runs (As I believe the number was), that's 17 runs above average for a year. The actual number is different because they take the run values for the individual counts and not the overall. Anyway, that was just me summarizing things a bit. I'll post some articles below on various attempts at quantifying framing, that mostly cover what I've mentioned above. As an aside, the author of the first piece is now Director of Baseball Research and Development for the Brewers. https://www.beyondtheboxscore.com/2008/4/5/389840/framing-the-debate https://www.beyondtheboxscore.com/2010/3/26/1360581/a-first-pass-at-a-catcher-framing https://tht.fangraphs.com/evaluating-catchers-quantifying-the-framing-pitches-skill/ https://www.baseballprospectus.com/news/article/15093/spinning-yarn-removing-the-mask-encore-presentation/ https://www.baseballprospectus.com/news/article/22934/framing-and-blocking-pitches-a-regressed-probabilistic-model-a-new-method-for-measuring-catcher-defense/ https://tht.fangraphs.com/dynamic-run-value-of-throwing-a-strike-instead-of-a-ball/ https://www.baseballprospectus.com/news/article/25514/moving-beyond-wowy-a-mixed-approach-to-measuring-catcher-framing/ https://blogs.fangraphs.com/fangraphs-pitch-framing/ https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/catcher_framing

I've never seen anyone making that claim back that up with anything. I'm hoping you'll be the first.

Rated worst starting catcher defensively. Welp. Ref has him at oWar 7.4 and dWar -.1 over his first 4 years. 2019 being the only negative in the bunch. It might be an adventure but it doesn't seem like it's enough to make him a negative. Offensively that platoon is very solid in the 7 spot. When evaluating catchers, Baseball Reference uses the most basic metrics of the three WAR providers, not including framing at all. Fangraphs or Baseball Prospectus is a much better way to go. They both still have him down as an above-average catcher overall on a rate basis due to his offense, but defensively he really is that bad.

It's kind of surprising to me. I had very much gotten the impression that the Brewers FO valued defense very highly for catchers based on their previous moves. And that they would bring in a defensive specialist to pair with Manny. In the Baseball Prospectus catching metrics, Narvaez has ranked at or near the very bottom for the last three years. Imagine Willson Contreras level framing, except unlike Contreras he's also a poor blocker. And thrower. Now that's not really an overall indictment of his skill level; over the last couple of years the bat has been has been Grandalesque (119 and 122 wRC+ for Narvaez vs 121 and 125), so even with poor defense he's still a good player. So depending on what we give up, it can still be a good move. Just surprising to me.

There was one example less than 24h ago: I mean it's not super common, but I remember seeing it in past offseasons too.

Yeah I hope they can work something out. Jimmy looked good at times, especially with the breaking stuff, but then at other times just couldn't find the strike zone. Inconsistent command is something that can potentially be fixed, so if the Brewers think they can then go for it.

You know why, really. But I'll spell it out anyway: None of us really care about Mark Attanasios' or any MLB owners' money. But these owners will have a limit on how much a team can spend (That limit could probably be higher for almost every team without making a loss, but that's another debate), and if you spend $20m on a player worth $15m, that's $5m you can't use to make the team better. Similarly, if the team signs a $10m AAV free agent who absolutely bombs and contributes absoutely nothing, then that doesn't mean that Mark A will increase the budget by $10m/year to make up for it. No, the budget that DS has to field a team with will in that case likely go down by $10m. So fans care about spending because we want to see the team win, and getting as many good players as possible for the limited money available means more wins for the team. So yes, value matters.

LOl what else do you expect him to say?? he's not going to come out and fully admit they are cutting payroll...they can just not sign FA's and give the standard "we tried"(like they did with Grandal line) and some of you incredibly guillable, DS slobbering fans would believe it. I don't get it. Were you all Ted Thompson fans too?? Where did his being frugal leave the franchise?? Besides what does DS define as being "competitive"?? Competing for a playoff berth, world series, just not being terrible?? Now you’re just trolling. You get it straight from the man himself to not panic and yet, here you are using Bob N. to try to make a case for Stearns not doing his job. Time to put your big boy pants on and relax a bit and let the off season play out. It's the exact same thing as the last offseason. And the last trade deadline. And the ones before that. Right down to the Ted Thompson comparison. Soon we'll have the reminiscing about Doug Melvin, the "scared money don't make money", and multiple posts about how every prospect should be traded because he's too ambitious to sit on his hands like Stearns, no prospect is guaranteed, and how the competitive window is over because we didn't sign X player.

Then I'm apparently the only one who understands the reverberations if they tender these guys today. I doubt I'm the only one who gets this though. Chance to get out of the deal for a fraction or not, it's $5 million each subtracted from the budget for any of those 3 if they're tendered. That's up to $15 million that won't be spent to improve the roster in other ways. You simply don't tender players with their failing in mind. If they play well in ST, you're spending that $15 million. But noone has talked about tendering $5m to three different players except you. And I don't know how many times I have to say it; You would not be tendering them with them failing in mind. If you expected them to fail, or thought that more likely than succeeding, you wouldn't tender them. Which the Brewers did. If you thought there was a good chance they'd be worth the projected salary, you offer arbitration, expecting to spend that money. Similar to how you'd approach any 1-year deal. With the difference that you can mitigate the downside risk through the early release. You'd use it for when you want more time to asses, such as injury rehab where you can expect to know by spring training (Or sooner) if they've recovered fully or not. It's not something you'd spend a significant chunk of your budget on, and something you'd use only under certain circumstances.