Lathund

SS is the biggest opportunity to improve on the position player side, and to do so without having to DFA a player you'd ideally like to keep since Arcia (and Saladino for that matter) has options. Arcia, Saladino and Perez have combined for -0.8 fWAR (And yeah, that includes time at other positions as well for Perez/Saladino). Even a slightly below-average SS could improve on that by at least a win. Looking at players with 1000+ PAs since Arcia entered the league in 2016 (He has 1502 PAs), his 71 wRC+ is the 6th worst behind Hamilton, Escobar, Echevarria, Owings, Hedges. His 0.3 fWAR is 9th worst. It's also not a case of an early struggle bringing his later numbers down, he has a 68 wRC+ this year. Over the last two months it's at 40, so not a positive in-season trend either. He is doing some things differently this year though, swinging less often at pitches, especially outside the zone, but it isn't paying off yet. His BABIP is down which could explain it, but at the same time Statcast doesn't think he's being unlucky, giving him only a .216 xBA, close to last years .214 or his career .229. And the eye test isn't pretty, he flails at the plate still, not a balanced fundamentally sound swing there. I wouldn't put much weight on the upcoming point, since I've heard it said he is a hard worker and great clubhouse presence etc., but the frequent slamming of bats and helmets after making outs isn't what I'd think makes for the best way towards a consistent approach. As far as defense goes, defensive metrics don't like him. And at this sample size, defensive metrics do matter. The issue with them isn't that they're not accurately measuring defense, they operate by assigning credit for plays made and penalties for plays not made, which is basically what defense is. The issue is instead that even over relatively long periods of time, the amount of balls hit towards a player that he can make a play on, and the quality of the hits and speed of runner, defensive alignment and base-out states etc. can vary quite a lot. But Arcia is at around 2.5 full seasons worth of data over 4 different seasons, which is comparable in accuracy to roughly a full seasons worth of a stat like OPS+/wRC+, so it does tell us a fair bit. The defensive metrics handles things like shifts (Or rather batted balls where several different positions make plays) differently, yet he's not elite or even good by any of them. Baserunning isn't an asset either, he's not very fast and not a very good baserunner, just about average overall by the baserunning metrics at FG, B-ref and Bpro. The three main WAR frameworks (fWAR, rWAR/bWAR, WARP) do disagree slightly about Arcia; but their overall assesment (Treating his 1500 PAs as the equivalent of just over two full season) ranges between replacement level (0.3 fWAR), bench player (2.3 rWAR) and an average starter (4.3 WARP). So it depends a bit on what metric you trust most, but looking at them overall it's not a very rosy picture. And nearly all the value comes from 2017 in all three cases. If it was a matter of having to give up on Arcia (i.e no options and no roster space), I would understand the reluctance to make a move at the deadline, as he is still young and will have 3 years of team control remaining after this year, but that's not an issue here since he does have options. But, the real problem here is the SS market. Most options I can think of have been mentioned. There are guys like Santana who is having a career year and will be expensive due to several years of control. There's someone like Galvis who is an upgrade, but not a major one at all. A guy like Forsythe who is more of a utility man with limited SS experience and who has cooled off the since suggestions was made. The top 10 teams by fWAR from SS this year are 9 playoff contenders and the Padres who obviously aren't selling there. Several selling teams have guys at SS they probably want for when they're in contention (Mondesi, Tim Anderson, maybe Goodrum?). Others have guys that wouldn't be any real upgrade. Someone like Elvis Andrus is on a big contract and mainly a defense first option. Maybe J.P Crawford, but he's probably not moving. TL;DR SS is definitely in need of an upgrade and should be a priority. Problem is there's not a lot out there...

In a vacuum, Dodgers would make the most sense for Grandal, but if they really liked him he'd still be a Dodger. Astros would be the most likely destination for me. Good enough team to warrant buying, would be a fairly big improvement and one that actually impacts their WS chances, and they have the kind of farm system that could ensure a package that's attractive to the Brewers without really impacting the Astros future. Nationals is a possibility too, not gotten much from their catching due. But they're both well-paid veterans with no options remaining, so that indirectly adds several million to the cost of acquiring Grandal. Rays is a possibility, but d'Arnaud was recently acquired and has done well and Zunino is a good defender, I think they have bigger needs. Certainly have the prospects to make it happen.

I took "major league talent that can help them win now" to mean players that can help in 2020 and maybe 2021 too, as opposed to 2019 rentals (Or prospects with a later ETA) because that wouldn't make much sense. But it's the Mets we're talking about here so what's sensible perhaps isn't a very good guide to what they'll do. And they were very much in on Grandal. Perhaps acquiring him now, hoping for a 2019 miracle, and having the ability to exclusively negotiate an extension with him is something they'd be interested in? Not something I consider at all likely, but just evaluating all possibilites.

I still think they're only trading Syndergaard for a big haul, or not at all. Based on the trades so far, it doesn't seem to be that kind of market though. They're really not in a position where they *have* to trade him, and it should really be a case of where they'd be content to hold on to him if that kind of deal isn't available to be made.

I looked at some of our struggling players, and since I couldn't find a recent topic about LoCain I'll post it here, since it does qualify as optimism: Cain has struggled at the plate, but looking at the surface numbers there are only really two things majorly different: BB% and BABIP. BB% is down from last year, but right in line with his career numbers. BABIP is down but his exit velocity is right in line with career numbers. His barrel % and hard hit % are even up from last year, and from his career numbers overall. xwOBA is .330 (Was .342 last year) compared to his actual .292. For reference, Braun has a .334 wOBA currently. In terms of plate discipline he's swinging slightly more, and missing slightly more, at pitches outside the zone compared to last year, but not really different from his career numbers. So in other words; Cain's underlying numbers are as good as ever, despite his injury. Cain will have a strong final two months of the season at the plate to go with his GG defense and 80-grade smile.

Uhm. Doesn't make a lot of sense on the surface. But trying to see their thinking behind it, there was the rumour that they're both looking to compete in 2020 and trade Syndergaard. So acquire Stroman for prospects whose ETA is beyond that, use Syndergaard to get players who can be contributors in 2020. So you lose a year of control on your starter by going from Thor to Stroman, but get stronger for 2020. Perhaps they are really high on Stroman. Or perhaps they're just really high. It is the Mets, after all.

Meh. Offense had a bad day overall, yet somehow managed 4 runs. Not a good day from the pitching/defense, but I will say that they were very unlucky to give up 11 runs to 12 baserunners (7 hits, 4 walks, 1 HBP). Requires exactly the right (or wrong...) sequencing to turn out that way. More "normal" luck would still see the Brewers lose most of the time in a game like this, but I wouldn't really put much weight onto the 11 runs. 2 out of 3 against the Cubs is very good. The emotional side of me still feels that todays game, despite the above, killed the mood.

From what I recall reading, 400 IP is right around where ERA starts being more predictive of future performance than FIP, so he probably is one of those guys.

I don't like the idea of paying pretty much any reliever the kind of $16-18m AAV that the top closers have signed in recent years (Kimbrel, Davis, Jansen, Chapman etc), other than under certain circumstances like if I had the Yankees budget, or if it was the last piece to an already WS-calibre team. It makes even less sense when, as in the post above, that reliever can only perform with a 1-3 run lead in the 9th inning. The whole cult surrounding closers, and why they're paid so much, is that they can supposedly perform under pressure. But when said closer has his best stuff when it's, say, the top of the 9th with a 3-run lead against the 6-7-8 hitters, but melts down in a situation like 8th inning in a 1-run game with the 2-3-4 hitters up, that whole argument goes away. Whether it's that the player can't perform there, or doesn't want to, or if it's the manager who doesn't want to use him that way, the end result is the same. Someone like Hader, who can pitch any time, in any situation, and for 6-9 outs if needs be, is someone you could pay that kind of money. But other than that I'd take two $8m type relievers, or 3 $5.3m ones or some other combination any day of the week over an elite closer.

Interesting. If he finishes strong his arby number might be above his option number anyway so they'd execute the option. If he flounders in the last couple of months I don't think it'll be picked up (depending on the buyout. Cots is down right now). Spotrac says $500k buyout.

There was some talk about Chase Anderson's team option(s) in the GDT which prompted a question of mine, moving it here: Chase will be just short of 6 years of service time at the end of the season, and so would still be arbitration eligible if the team option wasn't picked up, wouldn't he? Unless there was a provision in there (like Eric Thames has) that he couldn't be tendered a contract, so does anyone know if there is? Mind you this is just out of curiousity, I don't think there'd be much of a saving to do that, nor would it be particularly wise in regards to negotiating similar extensions in the future.

Tanner Roark also means we can use this meme:

Their subreddit (https://www.reddit.com/r/CHICubs) is the only one I visit. They're even more reactionary than our GDTs, always a fun visit after they lose.

MLB Pipeline is generally the prospect site I pay the least attention to, because as you say it feels rather lacklustre. Draft picks (In the top 100 and the individual top 30s) get added almost exactly in the order drafted, and it takes a long time for that to change. And that might be a conscious choice, that they focus more than other publications on reflecting some kind of consensus among the teams and less on their own evaluation, and that they have a bit more inertia in there to not overreact to hot/cold streaks or injuries and such. And there's value to that approach, but I think they take it a bit too far. What I do like is that they write a fair bit about each prospect, so you at least get a sense of what type of player they are. That being said, I honestly don't have a problem with Grisham still being relatively low rated. I've always been one of his supporters (He was my breakout pick for 2019, and I think for 2018 as well), and he's always done fairly well considering age, level and position etc. But the fact remains that he's only played like a high end prospect for a few months. And even beyond that, prospect evaluation isn't just about stats, or present performance, but about how well someone will do in the majors. While Grisham has always had a great eye at the plate, both hitting for average and power are fairly recent additions to his game. Now I think it's real, but it makes sense to be skeptical and only gradually upgrade him as a prospect. Then there's also the rest of his game. Most scouts and prospect evaluators seems to think that Grisham isn't going to stick in CF, and his arm limits him to LF. If that wasn't the case, him being an average CF with that bat would see him soar. As a LF, his bat will need to be a lot closer to the more optimistic projections/scenarios than to the median. I also don't really know how Pipeline uses their scouting grades. Their overall ratings are higher than a site like Fangraphs. There, it's very transparent what that FV means. A 50 FV there would mean that the median/most likely outcome is that the player will be a league-average starter over his 6+ years of team control, or roughly a ~2 WAR/season guy. (That could be a result of a very low floor and extremely high ceiling, or it could be a guy with a fairly narrow range of outcomes etc). If that's what the 50 they put on Grisham means, then they're not really low on him. But I doubt it, as there are just so many more 50s on Pipeline than elsewhere. Likewise they're not really down on Supak; "That said, Supak has all the ingredients to be a successful big league starter, with size, stuff and feel for pitching that point to him becoming a durable, back-of-the-rotation asset for the Brewers." Which is what a 45 FV represents at FG. Supak is someone who gets that grade as a low-risk/high floor/low ceiling type of guy. What counts against him is that an already low K% at AA is likely going to be even lower in the majors, and struggling to put away hitters can get ugly. You can be a solid starter with a high K% but little else, or as a low K% but great control and good overall game (defense, holding runners, poise, groundballs etc etc), but to be anything more than a #3-4 you need both. Which is not to say that'll never happen with Supak, a guy like Scherzer took until his 5th season to become the strikeout god he is today, but Supak isn't that guy now.

Yeah, there just isn't any way to exclude control from trade value, apart from in the strictly hypothetical situation you mention. Then it simply becomes a matter of "Which players are better than Hiura right now?" with a dash of taking the immediate positional needs into account. Which is a very different type of question to a trade value question.

No. While we don't know exactly how good of a hitter Hiura will be in the majors, I think he'll be around or over Olson's 128 wRC+. And because he plays 2B he doesn't even need to eclipse it to be more valuable. Olson is a very good defensive 1B, but I don't put much weight onto that. And in addition to all that, Hiura is a 22 year old with 6 full years of team control after this season, Olson is 25 with 4 years of team control. Which is not to dunk on Olson, he's a player I would love to see on the Brewers. But not straight up for Hiura.

This smells like not needing a 5th starter for a while and instead calling up an extra bat during that time. And if it's a move, it's not going to be Hiura. Oh and as for the SP tier list; both Jordan Lyles and Alex Wood are free agents after this season.

That's a hard no from me. Jeffress (DUI) and Braun (Cheating, and how he handled it) could be said to have "some personal baggage", but Russell is on a whole different level to that. I absolutely do not want him on the Brewers. He's a better player than Arcia, but I'd never want to replace Arcia with Russell.

Team option not player option Three different sites list Thames' 2020 contract as a Player Option, not a team option. And many sites lists it as a team option, including ones that specialize on contracts/payrolls like Spotrac and Cot's contracts. Looking at the contract, and how the 2020 option is a salary increase and also lists a buyout, would make a team option seem a lot more likely.

So I think Stearns absolutely could "get the job done" if he wanted to but chooses not to as per above. There are posters on here who say that he doesn't have the courage or will or decisiveness or other related words to make big moves, that he's too passive etc. Which is obviously wrong to anyone who actually looks at what he's done. Trading for Yelich, signing Cain, non-tendering the NL HR champion etc. Which means that he either does not see the value in the big pitching acqusitions, or he does but the right one hasn't appeared yet at a price that makes sense. I'm in the former camp, I don't believe that those acquisitions really make sense unless (1) it's the last piece of an already WS-calibre team and/or (2) you can afford to fail. It just seems to me that the contracts/trades for top starters are priced in a manner that underestimates the risks of pitching; of injuries, of decline etc. By that I mean that in a trade the team(s) involved makes some kind of projection of performance, taking into account risk of injuries, age-related declines etc to form a range of likely outcomes, and based on some median or percentile or most likely outcome therein set the price point of what they demand or are willing to pay. And that price point, in my view, is pushed too far towards the best case scenarios to really make sense. Especially when it comes to the top-end deals. Sometimes it works out spectacularly well, like signing Max Scherzer or trading for Chris Sale. Sometimes it's a bit 'meh' like the Jose Quintana trade. And sometimes you get James Shields, Jordan Zimmerman, Shelby Miller. So taking chances on young homegrown pitching, taking chances on rebound players and so forth is necessary to have a chance at winning for a smaller team. There's no way to fill the roster with acquired star players through free agency or trades, there's just not the resources for that. And even if you could acquire those stars, you still need to fill out the rest of the roster; having Mike Trout means nothing if the supporting cast sucks, and when you have traded away every good prospect and filled out the payroll with star player salaries you have noone to fill those spots. So you need to build (most of) the team through the farm and through the "scrapheap". Because if you can't develop that homegrown pitching (Players in general really, but pitchers in particular) it doesn't matter what else you do, you're not gonna win anything. Going out there and making those big moves puts a clock on you. Every move made to strengthen now is one that weakens you overall (Even in perfectly fair and balanced trades and contracts), often significantly so when it comes to the moves that "move the needle". So you make those moves when the other pieces are in place, or about to be in place. When you know, or feel fairly certain about, which of your homegrown players are going to contribute or not. The prospects you "sell high" on are also the ones most likely to help you in the future. When you make the big moves and empty the farm or reach close to the max payroll you better know that you have the other pieces ready. If not, you're just shooting yourself in the foot by only very marginally improving your chances of winning now or in the extreme near future, at the cost of significantly hurting you for a long time going forward. That part is even more true of the expensive rentals. They give you just one very brief chance, and due to the nature of such trades at a terrible cost for a long time. Basically, there is a lot more risk when it comes to acquiring pitching. That goes for both the big time trades as well as when it comes to drafting, international signings, or acquiring prospects. Compare the signing bonuses and the rankings for international prospects (Usually 16-17 when they sign) between hitters and pitchers. Look at the draft. You can see the same thing to a lesser extent for catchers. Hitters are generally "safer", at all levels. But you still have to get pitching somehow. You can take the development route which will have many failures, but cheap ones, or you could go for the finished products which carries less risk but at astronomical costs and significant consequences when it fails. The Cubs went with the approach of drafting hitters high in the draft, hoping to get lucky with pitchers further down but relying on FA/trades to supply most of their major league pitching. But I believe teams like the Brewers, with a lot less room to fail, have to do it differently. As I alluded to above, developing pitching internally is a prerequisite for success, no matter what other moves are made. It might be augmented by a big money pitching signing, but that can never be the foundation. I believe, and I suspect that Stearns does too to an extent, that you invest the big resources in the more certain thing (To the extent anything is ever "certain"...), where there is the least variability but perhaps less upside. That is to say position players (See Yelich, Cain, Grandal, Moose even Thames to an extent). Anyway, this got too long-winded and rambling. Point being basically that I don't think DS sees value in most big-time pitching acquisitions, and would rather put resources towards position players where it's a safer "investment". Which requires pitching to come from within and from the scrapheap. And which I think is a wise move, because even with big-time pitching acquisitions you *still* need to find most of your pitching from those sources, and if you don't you can't win anything anyway. That being said, I don't think the new breed of GMs that DS represents are categorical about this. They *will* make big moves for pitching when it makes sense. It just hasn't yet. I would expect to see more moves like Chacin, or like the Charlie Morton contract etc for pitching. And I wouldn't rule out bigger moves either. I think Gerrit Cole is far more likely to end up a Brewer than Darvish, Corbin, Keuchel or Quintana ever were, despite being signficiantly more expensive than any of them. He's still extremely unlikely to be a Brewer, but real quality in a young(ish) player for multiple years is what I think Stearns would be willing to pay for.

An attempt by FiveThirtyEight at quantifying the benefits of being buyers/sellers based on playoff odds. https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-teams-that-should-be-buying-and-selling-at-this-years-baseball-trade-deadline/

I don't know the Rays well enough to know who they have, nor what level of player(s) we could expect in return, but I'd be very much open to a deal. Jesus has been much better lately; hell even as far back as May 1st he's .271/.375/.436. So it's not really based on his overall numbers this year. I think his overall 117 OPS+ with the Brewers is relatively close to who he is. But he's a 1B only (Where he's about average defensively) RHH who is one of the slowest players in the game. So all he offers is the bat, and does so as an awkward roster fit. So the bat needs to be really, really good to be worth it. The downside of course is that his value is at a low point. Rays seem to be looking for a platoon complement for Lowe/Choi/Meadows at 1B and/or DH. Not going to pay a fortune for that really. Then there's also the fact that when the Rays wants one of your players you should probably be wary. Anyway, if Aguilar leaves then I'd play Grandal at 1st against LHP, and bring up Shaw or Nottingham/Freitas to take the roster spot.

And the thing about Gray is he is top 10 in WAR this season Yeah, I saw that he has a 3+ WAR so far this year, which seems crazy to me. Can someone that knows more about how WAR is computed explain that? His numbers don't appear to be out of this world, but yet he's Top 10 in WAR? Don't get it. The indepth answer: https://www.baseball-reference.com/about/war_explained.shtml Short version is that the way Baseball Reference calculates their version of pitcher WAR is by starting with the pitchers runs allowed per 9 innings (RA/9). Then compare it to how many runs the opponents the pitcher has faced score on average, and then factoring in the defense of the pitcher's team (There's more that goes into it, but those are the main ones I believe). In this case, the Rockies defense hasn't been good, and the teams that Gray has faced are teams that generally score a lot of runs. So the raw numbers don't look great, but that with a neutral run-scoring environment and an average defense he'd be ~.6 runs better. Or from another perspective that if the leagues pitchers as a whole pitched in the environment Gray pitched in, the league average would be ~.6 runs worse. Combine that with having pitched a lot of innings (WAR is a cumulative stat after all) and he's up there. It being based on RA/9 also means that pitchers with few unearned runs (2) like Gray but an otherwise poor defense behind him would have a higher WAR than you'd expect from his ERA, and vice versa.

I have no idea whether it'll translate to MLB, but with Freitas it's worth noting that he did the same thing (better, in league-adjusted numbers, in fact) in 2018 without the juiced balls. And that his offensive numbers aren't a result of a HR surge fueled by the juiced baseballs. Breakout hitters who are mostly the same except with better HR numbers are the ones I'd be really wary of. Improvements that see things like BB/K numbers improve I would put a bit more stock in. That being said, it would still take injuries (To Grandal or Piña, or to two of Thames/Aguilar/Shaw/Moustakas) for him to be up here, as releasing Piña at this point would be a dumb move. That Seattle were willing to let him to despite his 2018 numbers is something to consider though. I just don't like the type of reasoning (Not specifically related to the quoted post, but something that comes up a lot) that "He's a career minor leaguer, therefore will never amount to anything". Everyone is a career minor leaguer until he makes it in the majors or retires. After a certain age a breakthrough is less likely; a genuine improvement in skills starts to get offset by aging, but they do happen. Perhaps more so among catchers, who have so many things to focus on, and who get fewer plate appearances too. Our own Manuel Pineapple isn't a too dissimilar; he had close to 3100 minor league PAs when he got his chance with the Brewers, Freitas is at 3114. Development isn't linear, players don't all age the same way either. Chronological age is just a proxy for biological age that is helpful on a population level but not really individually. Maybe Freitas won't ever amount to anything in the majors, but make that evaluation based on him and his play, and not just on age and 123 MLB PAs. Even in the more optimistic scenarios though, he's not going to be the magic bullet that "fixes" this season. He gets a chance to audition in September and/or if injuries hit (Or if the team trades the impending FAs), and he'll be among the options for the catcher spots on the 2020 roster. With a healthy Grandal on the roster, no other catcher will really get to make a significant impact.

B-R has him with a 1.1 WAR. B-R has Guerra at 0.2 and Albers at 0.1. He's definitely an upgrade over Albers. If you get him as the 2nd acquisition along with Smith, that's the kind of depth they need. rWAR is based entirely on RA/9, the whole reason for using FIP is that over the small sample sizes that 60% of a relievers season is, is that FIP is much, much better at assessing what they will do going forward. Hudson has the same FIP as he did for the last two years, when he posted 4.4 and 4.1 ERAs. So he's basically the same player as he was then, but getting better results. It could be real, but it's not very likely. When a change in ERA is not accompanied by any change in K, BB, HR, WHIP or anything else besides ERA you should be skeptical until it has held for basically hundreds of innings.