Lathund

I could see the Giants potentially being interested in all the Brewers OFs. But Braun is unlikely due to the 10/5 status. Anyway, it all comes down to what they're offering. Santana is really good (I don't think we'll see him have a much better season than the one he already did, but even an above-average regular is very good and valuable to have) but I think that we have enough outfield potential 5-tool prospects (Nothing is guaranteed with any of them obv, but there's a bunch of them and the ceiling is high) that he's nowhere near untouchable. Roster crunch means that some OFs needs to be moved in the near(ish) future, and to me it makes sense to move the one who will have the biggest return. To get a significant return for any one of Brinson, Harrison or the likes it's only as part of a larger package, whereas Santana alone can return a lot more.

I don't mind Thames at 2 and Santana at 5, I just overall prefer to have Santana earlier as he's one of our best hitters. The value of alternating L-R-L is one that varies a lot depending on who you play, what kind of bullpen they have, how willing they are to play matchups, what kind of splits the lineup has etc. Sometimes you should absolutely do it, sometimes not. The fact that Counsell usually did have Thames at #2 and Santana at #5 (When Braun/Shaw were available) would suggest he agrees with you. I just favour the more "macro" approach of giving your best hitters as many plate appearances as possible, and playing matchups only when it makes the biggest difference.

1. High OBP. Ideally one of your three best hitters. 2. Best or second best overall hitter 3. Best hitter remaining after filling #2, #4 and #1 4. Best or second best overall hitter, bigger emphasis on XBH than #2 5. Power hitter 6-9 The rest in decending order of production. Maybe have the pitcher bat 8th; the better your #1 hitter is the more sense it makes. That's basically what The Book says, and their methodology is sound enough that I'll go with it. Generally though my main takeaway from that is that the batting order doesn't make that big of a difference as long as you use even some common sense. So applying that to the Brewers, the problem is the leadoff spot. The guys who get on base a lot are either not great overall hitters (Sogard) or are power hitters who you'd like a bit further down the lineup (Santana, Thames). But with that in mind: 1. Sogard (Villar if we get the 2016 version) 2. Santana 3. Braun 4. Shaw 5. Thames 6. Phillips/Brinson 7. Piña 8. Arcia 9. Pitcher 6-9 are fluid for me, whoever performs best moves up. If someone turns out to get on base a ton, try them in the leadoff spot. I wouldn't mind batting the pitcher 8th, but it's something like 1-2 runs gained over a whole season so I'm not bothered either way.

I use FIP/xFIP a lot, and they are very good predictive stats. But the one thing FIP doesn't say anything about is quality of contact and groundball rate. Hughes has, in (parts of) 7 seasons and almost 400 innings consistently outperformed his FIP (As in comparing ERA and FIP) by >1. At some point you just have to accept that the way he pitches, with a ton of groundballs, will see a lower ERA than FIP and that it isn't luck or a sign that he's due regression. Like him or not, prefer him over Jeffres/Williams/whoever or not, but I don't think using FIP against him is really fair.

A bit surprised to see Hughes non-tendered; not so surprised to see Jeffress retained. The Jeffress move has a lot of potential upside if he rediscovers his old form, with very little downside if he doesn't, so I'm fine with that. Would have thought that Drake would be the one non-tendered ahead of Hughes; but at the same time I'm not someone who hates the Drake. Drake was fine against lefties, so if that's mainly how he's employed then he can be a useful player. Retaining him could signal that Hader and/or Suter are expected to mainly feature in the rotation too. Or it could be another reason entirely of course.

This guy seems to think otherwise

I could see why the injuries could make someone wary about Brinson (I'm not overly worried though), but I don't understand the concerns about strikeouts in the minors. His K% has gone down pretty much every year as he's moved up the levels, and was at 18% in 2017. Which suggests that he can adapt. In relative terms, only the Astros averaged below 18% among all MLB teams in 2017. Domingo Santana's best season was ~25% K rate, Brett Phillips has been at 30% in his Brewers minor league career. Comparisons between Yelich and Brinson don't make much sense, since it wouldn't just be Brinson we'd be giving up but likely 1-2 other good prospects as well. I don't want to trade Brinson, but if we do it should be for a position of bigger need than another OF. I'm a believer in Brinson, he has the power (Though more of the gap power kind than pure HR power. So far) the glove, the arm and the speed. Whether he becomes AAAA player or an all-star or something inbetween depends on how well his hit tool develops. I think that with his upside, and proximity to the majors, it'd be a mistake to trade him unless the return was exceptional. Even then, I'd rather see who else we could shop. Many people were low on Phillips after his first stint(s) in 2017, and then after his strong finish it seemed like a lot of people had him pegged as the CF of the future. I think Brinson will change minds in a similar way. I wasn't even concerned about his stats in 2017. It was 55 sporadic at bats over 21 games. Had an abysmal .107 BABIP, which for someone who hits the ball hard (according to Statcast) and runs well is never going to last; in the minors his BABIP is closer to 350 than 300. Also shows good patience. As for the "sell high due to injury concerns" type of thought; If we can look at his record and worry about time missed due to injuries, so can the 29 other GMs. That will be factored into the return we can get; I'd rather see what he can do for us. Bet on the potential upside rather than try to minimize/avoid the downside.

Don't know anything about the guy; his major league stat line from 2017 doesn't look impressive. But the 6+ K/BB ratio in the minors is intriguing; 9 K/9 and 1.5 BB/9. Either way, not much of a downside to inviting and evaluating NRIs.

I think it's a bit of wishful thinking to suggest that Yelich can be had on a bargain, or even relatively cheaply. Marlins do want to shed payroll, but Yelich is low on the list of contracts they want to get rid of. He's 25, with 5 years of team control remaining in his prime years at a very reasonable cost. I think he's someone they're fine with keeping if they don't get the kind of offer they're looking for. He costs $7m in 2018 and will still have a ton of trade value next offseason; not to mention that depending on what kind of rebuild/retool they go into, he could still be part of that next team depending on how long it takes. I think Gordon, Stanton etc can be had relatively cheaply in return for taking the contract, but I think they'll play hardball and be patient with Yelich. I think it'll take more than the package you're suggesting; and while he'd absolutely be a great addition I wonder if that same package for pitching wouldn't be more worthwhile. I'm quite happy to see what Brinson and Phillips can do here, and if not them then Harrison/Grisham/Ray/Lutz et al a few years down the line. Now, if they can't move these other big contracts for enough salary relief, the situation could very well be different and they could get more desperate. I just don't see it happening. And even if it does, I'd imagine the fact that there'll be a bidding war for Yelich will still mean a relatively good return for them. People can argue about the potential, and likelyhood of realising it, for Phillips, Brinson, Harrison and Ray, but even the pessimists among us would have to agree that the CF prospect situation for the Brewers is looking far better than for many other teams. There will be those desperate to sign someone like Yelich, and willing to give up a ton.

This is not necessarily true. It's not necessarily true of every single plate appearance for every single player (Pitchers bunting, or runners at 3rd with less than two outs etc) but overall I would say it is. The vast majority of at bats don't come in those situations, and excepting those situations where you can trade a guaranteed run for an out (And not even all of those situations) or where the chances of getting on base are really low (pitchers), the goal is always to not make an out. For a big power hitter, you can accept a tradeoff between a lower OBP and more total bases, but even that's both situational and not linear; as in on average (Based on all base/out states and their weights) two walks are more valuable than a double and an out even if it results in the same amount of bases. That the latter event gives you more OPS than the former is rather misleading.

Except 3 teams did it last year. Was the situation similar: keeping a catcher who hit .209 in AA and plays poor defense on the 25-man for the entire year? In the case of the Padres it was .250 (.687 OPS, basically same as Nottingham) in A and A-. Don't know about the defense. But yeah, similar enough. Don't know about the other cases. Will someone take him? No idea. I don't know enough about how to evaluate catcher defense, or project offensive skills, to say. But at the same time, what does a rebuilding team like the White Sox have to lose?

Well not really actually. Davies could easily be included in a trade for Archer. I don't think we would do that, but it isn't impossible. We'd be giving up a 110 ERA+ pitcher with 4 years of team control as well as some other assets, for a 108 ERA+ pitcher with 4 years of team control but who is 5 years older and is more expensive. And we'd still have a hole in the rotation. ERA doesn't tell the whole story of course, in a 1-for-1 trade I'd still take Archer, but any trade like this would require far more in terms of prospects than the difference between them warrants. But again, the main thing is that we'd have the same # of proven Major League starters on the roster after the trade as we did before. So another one needs to be found. If we're trading for a major league starter, it should be for prospects or major league position players. You're technically correct (The best kind of correct) of course; it's not actually impossible. But it's never, ever happening.

We've seen that Hader can transition into an impact bullpen role mid-season already. There's no reason not to see what he can do as a starter; the fireman role is an excellent backup plan if things don't quite work out. Maybe he can be as dominant as a starter, maybe he can't. But if there's a chance you could get 180 innings rather than 90 of that kind of dominance, you try for that. Were the Brewers to reach the playoffs however, I'd look at having him in the fireman role there (Somehwat depending on what the rest of the rotation and bullpen look like at that point).

Another comparison is out, Baseball Prospectus Brewers top 10: 1) Brinson 2) Hiura 3) Harrison 4) Burnes 5) Phillips 6) Diaz 7) Woodruff 8) Ortiz 9) Clark 10) Ray "our" list and BA/BP seem to differ mainly in that we rate Peralta a lot higher here, and that they rate Harrison very highly. I'd imagine Fangraphs will be similar, their main prospect guy absolutely loves Harrison. Has said things in his chats like how if a prospect was created from scratch solely to appeal to him, that'd be Harrison. Anyway, I'd think that most of the differences between a fan-made list and these others lists is that the former will weigh production more heavily. EDIT: Looked up the quote on Harrison: "Eric A Longenhagen: I’ve been really high, like early-80s NBA high, on Harrison since high school. I cannot provide rational thoughts on him. It’s as if he were engineered in a lab to appeal specifically to me."

The 2018 free agent market isn't great at the top end, while at the same time several teams will be competing for those top names. I suspect that they'll all sign for longer/bigger contracts than you'd normally see in free agency for players of that caliber. I'd stay far away from Darvish, Arrieta, Lynn etc. Not because they wouldn't improve us, but because while there is a time to eat a bad contract due to the benefit you'd see in the first couple of years, now is not it. And it'd be a worse contract than usual. I agree we'd like to go into spring training with a couple of experienced rotation arms, but I'd look a few tiers below the top. Look at the Tyler Chatwoods (Look at the numbers away from Coors rather than the overall) and Jhoulys Chacins of this free agent class. Now my point isn't specifically about those two; I don't know enough about them or what they'd demand, it's more the general level. In adition to that, with a rotation that'll feature (Either to start with, or later on due to injury and such) several players whose ability to eat innings is unknown or questionable (Suter, Guerra, Hader, Wilkerson, even Woodruff) I wouldn't mind also seeing an effort to focus on guys who have that ability, even at the cost of a few extra points of ERA. Exactly how big that trade off can be and still be worthwhile is up to smarter people than me to judge, but I like the concept of it. Now if some of the better starters can be had for fewer years than expected, then by all means go for it. For me the key to spending big money this offseason should be that it should either be short-mid term (1-3 year deals) or if longer it should be the type of deals where you're not knowingly paying for the first 3-4 years only but spread over 6-8. There's (possibly) a time for that, but it's not now. So basically look at #4 types with potential upside, hope for another Chase Anderson. Spend the rest of the money on top relievers on short deals. I don't mind overpaying if the deals are short.

I feel good about Diaz. Even during a down year his at a glance poor numbers are still good for 104 wrc+ (as numbers in the Carolina league are low overall) as a middle infielder who's still young for the level. I'd like to see an upward trend in 2018, but I'm not worried. Prospect development usually isn't linear. Be patient and let him develop, has a ton of potential and we have no need to hurry him.

I don't see Drake staying on the 40-man roster. I think the club will try, and likely fail, to bring him back on a minor league deal as insurance. I would imagine a rebuilding club will take a chance on him similar to what the Brewers did this year, and he'll pitch in the majors for at least part of 2018. I'm in the minority that don't hate the drake. His ERA looks bad, but is also largely a product of a few ugly outings, with a lot of scoreless appearances inbetween. Relievers and sample size and all that. The strikeout numbers and the lefty splits are both part of why I think he'll have appeal to some organisation. Not having options remaining (I don't think he does anyway) hurts him in that regard; with an option for 2018 he'd have been a decent option as a 25th man. Somewhere else; the Brewers should look to do better, and use the salary space we have on the bullpen, where you can get a lot of value from short-term deals with little risk.

Dubon will definitely be taken if left unprotected. Which he won't be.

Taken from another forum, originally from CBS I think. Thursday, 9 am ET (1 pm GMT): All eligible players become free agents Saturday Most contract options due. Includes opt-out decisions for Masahiro Tanaka and Justin Upton Monday: Deadline to extend qualifying offers to eligible free agents. QO is set at $17.4MM Reminder: Only players who were with a single team the entire 2017 season are eligible for qualifying offers, so the likes of Jay Bruce, Yu Darvish, JD Martinez (and Upton if he opts out) cannot be given a QO. Monday: Finalists named for Rookie of the Year, Manager of the Year, Cy Young and MVP Tuesday: Free agency begins as 5-day exclusive negotiating period ends. Free agents now can talk to any team. Tuesday: Gold Glove winners announced Wednesday: Silver Slugger winners announced 13 November: Qualifying offer decisions due from players. There are changes to compensation rules under the new CBA: Signing a QO'd free agent Team received revenue sharing in 2017: Forfeits their 3rd highest 2018 draft pick (not necessarily their 3rd round pick) Team paid luxury tax in 2017: Forfeits their 2nd and 5th highest 2018 draft picks, plus $1MM in international bonus pool money for the 2018-19 signing period All other teams: Forfeit 2nd highest 2018 draft pick, plus $500K in international bonus pool money for 2018-19 signing period/ Losing a QO'd free agent Player signs a deal worth $50MM or more: Former team receives a 2018 draft pick after the 1st round Player signs a deal worth less than $50MM: Former team receives a 2018 draft pick after Competitive Balance Round B, which is before the 3rd round Former team paid luxury tax in 2017: Former team receives a compensation pick after the 4th round, regardless of contract size. 13-16 November: Major award winners announced. Rookies of the Year on the Monday, Managers of the Year on the Tuesday, Cy Youngs on the Wednesday, and MVPs on the Thursday 13-16 November: GM meetings in Orlando 20 November: Deadline for teams to add Rule 5 Draft eligible prospects to 40-man roster. Generally speaking, prospects drafted out of college in 2014, or high school in 2013, or signed as an international free agent in 2013 become eligible this offsesason. 1 December: Non-tender deadline 10-14 December: Winter Meetings in Orlando 14 December: Rule 5 Draft 13 January: Deadline for teams and arbitration-eligible players to submit salary figures. Teams and players can still negotiate a contract of any size after this date, which is more of an administrative deadline than a "you must get a deal done by this date" deadline. mid-January: 2018 Hall of Fame class announced early to mid-February: Arbitration hearings Mid-February: Spring training begins. 29 March: Opening Day. All 30 teams will open on the same day. It's been moved up a bit to accommodate extra off days during the season that the players union wanted in the new CBA.

It's a common misconception that the heavy analytical people think there are no situational factors affecting these situations (Not necessarily saying that's what you're saying, but it's a common criticism). Which is clearly not true; of course these factors exist, it's just that they can't be quantified and analyzed statistically, so the focus lies on the things that can. And indeed it thus results in generalizations, or statistical truths. Which is where the similarity to Blackjack or Poker comes in. If calling a bet in a situation where you have a 10% chance of winning the hand, but you'll win 20x the size of the bet if you do, then that's the right move to make (Presuming you'll keep playing to see this situation regularly. And that you won't run out of money before that...). You'll look silly 9/10 times, but in the long run you win. But yes, in that sense it applies more to a full 162 game season rather than individual games. Anyway to get back to the bunting (Or more precisely sacrifice bunts, not bunting in general): You're right that Sabermetrics says "You shouldn't sacrifice bunt, except for the few cases where you should". But that's still valuable in and of itself, as the prevailing truth before that was the opposite, that you should sacrifice bunts in these situtations, and only avoid doing so when there were compelling reasons not to. The Book: Playing the Percentages in Baseball goes into great length about the subject if you're interested. A few things I remember from that chapter with regards to bunting: - A sacrifice bunt is, other than in very, very specific situations, nearly always bad. Whereas attempting a sacrifice bunt is a net positive more often due to the other potential outcomes that can happen, like bunt hits, throwing errors, even the occasional run scoring from first. Part of this also comes from the limits of the data available; their data set includes at bats with sacrifice bunt attempts, but that also includes cases where the batter swings on 2 strikes, or attempts butcher boy plays and such. - The batters skill at bunting, in relation to his skill as a hitter, is, rather obviously, the main factor in play. A pitcher should nearly always attempt a sac bunt, a position player should hardly ever do so. A position player who's a good bunter and not a big home run threat can be a different story, but even then it's because there's a decent chance he gets a hit from the bunt. - Defensive alignment plays a huge role. If they expect a bunt, it's usually a bad idea. But the chances of getting a cheap hit are greater for someone who swings. If they play back, bunting becomes more attractive. So basically you should, occasionally, do the "wrong" thing; have a pitcher hit when he should bunt, or have a power hitter bunt when he should hit. Simply to keep the threat of it real, preventing the defense from selling out completely. Anyway, read the book if you haven't already if the subject interests you. It does a really good job of combining the hard data with nuance, and tries to adress many of the situational factors. The book also deals with the predictive value of hot/cold streaks, platoon advantage, batting order and such.

1) Lewis Brinson 2) Keston Hiura 3) Corbin Burnes 4) Monte Harrison 5) Luis Ortiz 6) Tristen Lutz 7) Brandon Woodruff 8) Brett Phillips 9) Isan Diaz 10) Trent Clark 11) Lucas Erceg 12) Corey Ray 13) Mauricio Dubon 14) Freddy Peralta 15) Phil Bickford 16) Adrian Houser 17) KJ Harrison 18) Jordan Yamamoto 19) Jake Gatewood 20) Cody Ponce 21) Cooper Hummel 22) Mario Feliciano 23) Troy Stokes 24) Nathan Kirby 25) Marcos Diplan 26) Gabriel Garcia 27) Payton Henry 28) Bubba Derby 29) Carlos Herrera 30) Jacob Nottingham This is one deep system. Some guys I have just outside this list wouldn't look out of place in the top 20, many of them are in the same tier pretty much. While I'm pretty set with the top 4 or so, the next 10 or so are very difficult to order as well. Luckily this is a combined effort, which compensates for that difficulty of individual ordering somewhat!

It's hard to really evaluate this move before we know what the rest of the infield and 25-man roster will look like, but for now I'm fine with it. He's the only LHB among the utility man candidates already at the club which gives him an edge. Plays 2B well, is OK at SS, and can at least not embarrass himself at 3B. As for offense, he produced a 108 wRC+ for the season. Or to put it in other words: A cheap, versatile backup playing premium defensive positions, producing 8% more offense than the league average. And it's not all about that ridiculous month of May, after all that's just ~1/6 of his total PAs. It's true that it's pretty much all about the walks, but you know what, I don't really care. He'll mostly be hitting leadoff I would think, and to me by far the most important skill there is getting on base. Power, BA, steals etc are quite some way behind. And he does get on base. Among players with 250+ PA his .393 OBP ranks 15th. Ahead of him? Votto, Trout, Judge, Turner, Harper, Pham, Altuve, Bryant, Barnes, Goldschmidt, Rendon, Posey, Freeman, Blackmon. While he's clearly not a match for any of those guys, that's quite good company, and says something about how rare that on base ability is. And on base skills, unlike power, was something that was consistently there. The 29 PAs in an injury-hit July aside, the worst month OBP-wise was .364. Now the elephant in the room after all that is of course that in all offensive categories, this is by far his best season, so how real is it? I expect regression, no doubt about it. But at the same time, something clearly has changed for him, so I don't think you should expect his Oakland numbers either. Will be interesting to see where he lands. What I like, especially in a cheap, versatile and seemingly good teammate, is that he offers a different skillset to most of our guys; Elite plate discipline. Most of the time I imagine Sogard will be hitting in front of some combination of Santana, Braun, Shaw and Thames, all he needs to do is to get on base. So again, remains to be seen what happens with the other moves, only then will we really know. But it's a 1-year deal for $2.4m in a year where there's a ton of salary room. If it doesn't work, the downside is small.

I basically came in here to make the points monty did, but he did so in a much more coherent manner. Basically, the Cubs are in very good shape with their position player group, with most of the core players under team control for the next several years. They also have Hendricks and Quintana under control for that same amount of time. That's a good start. The issue will indeed be that they have a lot of pitchers that need replacing this year, and not much in the way of internal options. As the arbitration costs rise, finding enough pitching will be increasingly more dificult, and with very little margin of error. But I think that anyone hoping for the Cubs to not be competing for the division title for the next 3 years is going to be disappointed. They have room to take on quite a bit more of salary. Farm system may be bare, but there will still be some players coming through, or to trade for pitching (even if it might not be enough for a Nola or Archer or the likes). And they have the position player core already almost fully in place, so can focus entirely on pitching. The likely strength of the Cubs is also a reason why any moves to strengthen the Brewers in 2018 should also be evaluated with 2020/2021 in mind. I'm also not even sure I'd categorize it as a mistake. I mean I'd do things differently if I was with the Brewers, but not necessarily if I was Theo Epstein. The clear emphasis on drafting hitters early, and focus on developing hitters while acquiring pitching has done what it's supposed to do. There's less risk in drafting and developing position players, so they chose to take the increased certainty of their rebuild on that side to be successful, while taking the calculated gamble that they could find pitching through FA and trades with their big budget. They seem to be happy to essentially go for a 4-6 year window and deal with tomorrow tomorrow. And it got them the first WS in a century, and a NLCS the next year to follow it up (A lot further than most WS winners make it the next year) so in many ways it's been a success, regardless of what happens next. The one thing I don't want the Brewers to do is limit ourselves to such a short window, because the smaller the budget the harder it is to "guarantee" success in that short time span. Which means that the balance between keeping and developing prospects and trading prospects needs to be tilted towards the former. It also means continually restocking the system, trading established players if we can't afford to keep them in FA or if other teams overpay, even if we're competitive. We also don't have the money for FA pitching the Cubs do, so while I don't think their position player focus was a mistake, it would be a mistake for us. Or, to hopefully sum up this rambling: The more money you can spend on each win, the more you can allow yourself pay the premium for the "sure thing", the premium for lower variance and lower risk. Drafting hitters, signing FAs and big trades are part of that. With less money, you have to take more risks to get that same production. Even more so if you want more than a 2-3 year window. That means trying to find starters from within, with the risk and high failure rates that comes with it. That means being on the value/potential/risk side of any transaction. It means to take advantage of others risk aversion. Basically avoiding short-termism in all forms, and accepting the short-term setbacks that come with a long-term focus.

Having such good plate discipline so early is quite encouraging to me. Having an ability to get on base and then advance once there helps create a relatively high floor to build from, and makes him a useful player even when working to develop the hit tool. As earlier posters alluded to I think a lot of his future relies on position and defense. I think he'll develop his offense to be more than good enough for CF, but having some doubts about how it might play in the corners. He's in A+ in his age-20 season (2.6 years below the league avg), and holding his own there offensively (107 wRC+), so there's plenty of time to work on any flaws in his game. I'd say I'm fairly neutral on him as well. He has an intriguing skillset, it's just a matter of how much his hit and power tools develop, and he's young enough for there to be a very wide range of possibilities whether on one, both or neither develops. Definitely someone we should be patient with IMO.

Reading the chat with Fangraphs' prospect guy Eric Longenhagen, and someone asked a question about Corey Ray's struggles; "I'm still not sure. He's very stationary at the plate, no stride. I'd like to see him more active in the box. This is an explosive guy, why not let him be explosive? He's been fine in CF here in my looks but reports from the season were mixed. His ball/strike recognition is good, the bat speed is fine, he's running fine. I still think he's going to be good. He is visibly frustrated, though"