Lathund

I think the price, even for the rental that it is, for Darvish is going to be too high for us to even really consider it. But I sure would love to see him throw those breaking pitches of his in a Brewers uniform.

I don't think they're doing either tbh. There's room for more than one lefty in the bullpen, I'd imagine he simply takes Scahill's spot.

Uhm no, not really. Jimenez and Cease were their #1 and #2 prospects, who just so happens to be in A/A+ ball. Jimenez is #5 on the BA midseason list, one of the most highly regarded prospects in the game. A deal for us would have included Brinson and one of our top pitching prospects. Whether that's Ortiz, Hader, Woodruff or Burnes.

I'm not disappointed we didn't go for it, just would have prefered him to end up in another division. I think that for the rest of the season he'll play more like 2014-2016 Quintana than first-half 2017. The Cubs rotation has been terrible, and some of them will be FAs after this year and/or are getting old. It's a move that makes sense for them, even if it guts their farm system. It makes less sense for us. I honestly don't think we were ever truly in the race, I would imagine that the quoted price put us off rather sharply. But yeah, will be interesting to see if we'll be in the running for a Gray or whoever else will be available. I would imagine not though.

Generally I don't want to give up too much in the way of pitching prospects to aquire a pitcher, as that to me is just treading water. Trade the high-minors pitching prospects away and when the next rotation need opens up we don't have them there to try out, but have to trade again. Other than that there aren't too many hard "no"'s. If the deal is right, then pretty much everyone is expendable. But that's where the problem is: These midseason pitching trades just forces us to give up too much. wrt the outfielder situation: Yes, we obviously can't keep them all. But there's no real rush here either. Most of them aren't on the 40-man, and won't be for a while. Those who are still have option years remaining. And not all highly rated prospects reach the majors, let alone become productive players at that level. So I'd like to wait and see a bit. If it looks like we have 6 future productive big-league OFs in the minors, by all means work out a trade or two. But if some fall along the wayside, and likely some will, in their climb up the levels, then having kept more of them increases the chances of getting production out of it. Now for an unpopular opinion. He's not a prospect anymore, but Domingo Santana. I like him, and I think he's going to be a very productive major leaguer. But there's a potential mismatch in valuation here to exploit. Namely that while he's a valuable player to us, he's a poor defender at a NL club that has a great deal of outfield talent waiting in the wings. Compare that to an AL team (i.e DH) that also lacks outfield prospects, and he'd be even more valuable to them. Probably more of an offseason trade, but worth at least exploring. Hard to make a definitive list, but there are a couple of groups of players I'd be reluctant to trade: - ML-ready or almost ML-ready pitching: Hader, Woodruff, Burnes, Ortiz etc. Finding a solid starter among them lessens the risk of having to trade the farm for a pitcher next time the need arises. - High-ceiling up the middle talent: Brinson, Ray, Dubon, Diaz, Phillips, Hiura, Feliciano, Clark, maybe others. Some of these guys have both a high ceiling and a low floor. Which means that all the way until they look to have "made it", their trade value won't be high. And these are the kinds of players who if they make it, are extremely valuable at premium positions. There's always a risk that they don't make it, and we'd sit there wishing we'd made the trade. But I'd much rather do that than watch them have success rising through another system. So I'd give all of them more time. So that leaves who I'm not as picky about giving up. - Corner infielders/outfielders. Especially the bat-first or "bat-only" varieties. - Pitching prospects more likely to become relievers than starters.

A strawman, intended to resemble posters who don't want to spend big on pitching at the deadline. Or the ones who overestimate the return we can get for certain prospects. Or both.

Not necessarily suggesting a move, but I just noticed that Andrew Susac has a .800 OPS over the last month. So, Colorado Springs and all that, but good to see that he's not struggling as much anymore. Was a top 100 prospect only a couple of years ago, certainly still has potential to be a good ML player. I guess we won't see him until September, unless there's an injury or major dropoff from Pina/Vogt, but good to keep him in mind. On that note, anyone know how he's been doing defensively in CS this season?

Anderson is currently on the DL. Is expected back early in August but who knows if he'll really be back then? And if he is back, how effective will he be? The #1 insurance option, Brandon Woodruff, is currently on the DL and hasn't pitched in a game in over a month. Junior Guerra is on the DL but is not expected to be on there for long. But he was coming off three bad starts in a row and had an ERA over 6 in June/July. Matt Garza is up and down. Suspect that will continue through the rest of his career. That's just where he is at. However, in the three years prior to this one he averaged 23.6 starts per season so while he's not a major injury risk, he's not known for his durability either. The sample size on Suter isn't large enough to draw any conclusion. Davies could be the second most reliable starter the Brewers have right now, and he is in the midst of a 4.90 ERA, 1.46 WHIP season. I'd prioritize starting pitching and there is no way I wouldn't add one prior to July 31. Just too many possible depth issues for me to ignore. Personally, I'd troll the bottom of the market for someone like Estrada or Liriano to serve mostly as insurance the rest of this year. The cost for a pitcher like this would be pretty minimal. If he turned out to be the hot hand it could be a steal situation. If he struggles...well the cost was minimal and hopefully the rest of the starters could pick up the slack. I know Stearns has said the opposite, but I'm perfectly fine with grabbing a 2.5 month rental. That way the Brewers wouldn't have to worry about fitting him in with Anderson/Nelson/Davies/Garza/Woodruff/Guerra (and possibly Hader and Ortiz depending on how the Brewers choose to use) in 2018, and obviously the price-tag would be a lot less. Starter for depth/insurance is priority #1 and adding a reliever would be priority #2. I would probably spend more for a reliever and get the best one I could get as long as it doesn't enter into Will Smith price-tag type insanity. I'd hope to fill these two roster spots with some combination of the following prospects : Marcos Diplan, Cody Ponce, Ryan Cordell and if the reliever was good enough might consider Trent Clark. Considering I would be trolling the bottom of the starting pitching market I think that would be achievable. But starter has to be first because I think the Brewers really need to add one. If the relievers command real high prices I could live without adding another. Hughes and Drake have both been really good in June/July. This logic I can get on board with. I probably should have asked why do people believe we need a "high level pitcher" in the mold of Quintana, Gray, Stroman. Especially if they do require (Gray shouldn't though) parting with Brinson + Hader/Woodruff + Phillips (or Burnes potentially). I'd much rather see a Braun, Brinson, Santana, Phillips OF with Hader, Woodruff, Ortiz, Burnes, Davies rotation in 2018/2019 then use the next wave of top prospects to fetch this high level rotation arm (Bickford, Hiura, Diaz, Erceg, Ray, Clark, Peralta, Nottingham - these are just the one's currently in the system as we'll have more coming via the next 2 drafts and will eventually trade several rotation arms, Broxton, Villar, Perez and potentially Thames, etc). As opposed to seeing Braun, Phillips, Santana, Broxton OF with (high level pitcher), Woodruff, Ortiz, Davies, Nelson/Chase OR seeing Braun, Broxton, Santana, Cordell OF with (high level pitcher), Woodruff, Ortiz, Burnes, Davies then trading the same players as above. Option 1 keeps everyone (strong starting and depth) then adds the high level arm. Option 2 costs us Brinson (+ maybe Phillips) + 1-2 of the top 4 arms (6yrs control) and gives us 3yrs of a #2. I fail to see how Option 2 is better. This is why I also think adding a decent insurance arm/rental is the best option assuming both Chase/Woodruff aren't back by the end of July. I'd add 1 solid pen arm for sure. In Sept we can bring up whoever we need to the pen as well, including starters. I'll climb on board as well. Consider what a #2 type of pitcher would give us for the rest of the season compared to a #3-#4 type who would otherwise take those starts. 1 WAR? Which correlates reasonably well with actual extra wins. Compare that to what production we'd get from even the floor of Hader/Brinson/Phillips going forward. It's a sellers market, and the White Sox and A's know it. If the asking price doesn't make sense, if the price is greater than the value, we move on. I'd rather see a smaller improvement but at a good price.

I feel like this is an entirely hypothetical discussion. I think they keep him even if they choose to rebuild/retool, and look to try to extend him. He'll only be 30 when his current contract expires after all, plenty of time to be part of their next contending team. Now, the only way I see them trading him is if he has made it clear he's not going to resign with them under any circumstances. But yeah, in the unlikely event that they're open to trading him I think we should be all over it. I am skeptical about giving up the farm for Quintana/Gray, but for Bumgarner I would be more inclined to do it. Excellent stats, remarkably consistent and (Dirtbikes aside...) very durable. Also, I like pitcher who can hit. I would imagine that the Chris Sale deal is a decent comparison for what it would take in the unlikely event Bum comes on the market; He was traded with 3 years and 36 million (With team options for the last two years) remaining, and is 1 year younger than Bumgarner. Their ERA, FIP, WHIP are very similar, with a slight edge for Sale. Boston gave up their #2 (Moncada), #4 (Kopech) and #8 (Basabe) picks, plus a top 30 lower minors arm. On BA's midseason list Moncada is #1 in all of baseball, and Kopech is #20; Brinson for comparison is #16. So I'd say any deal would have to start with Brinson, Hader/Ortiz and then yet another of our top 6-7 prospects.

Yeah whenever people say that Clark's stats this year show he's a bust I get very confused. I look at the stats and see that .390 OBP, and great basestealing ability. And if that's "cherry picking stats to fit my narrative" then there's the 124 wRC+. I.e regardless of any batting average this guy who's still young for his level is producing 24% more runs than the league average (It's exactly the same as Ryan Braun, and just below Domingo Santana (127)). And that doesn't factor in any extra runs that might have scored thanks to stolen bases. This also doesn't even take into account the fact that pure stat line scouting for players at that age and at that level is pretty much meaningless. But at least it tells you that he's not overmatched at this level. Batting over .300 in the last month as well, so even using the BA to knock him could be a thing of the past. Some of the biggest criticism of him has also come from posters who were very critical of even drafting him in the first place, which probably is no coincidence.

I would want to have a look first at any players who we need to make a decision on whether to keep on or not. Thus players running out of minor league options, players reaching minor league free agency this offseason and other scenarios where we can't wait until next year. Not sure exactly how many players like this we have (Jungmann? Or does he have one more option year left?), but that's where I'd go first. I'm really excited about Burnes, but at this point I would rather have him focus on development over results; so work on that changeup as a starter in AA to hopefully develop a third strong pitch and make a decision in spring training about where he goes in 2018. The one I'm most interested in seeing being given a chance though is Woodruff, and I expect he will be once he's back from injury.

That was... tense. Especially with yesterday in mind. I was really nervous before this series, but after actually seeing the Yankees play I would've been very disappointed to not win the series. Pitching overall was good this series, blown save aside. Some good offensive performances; good to see Villar get going with the bat. Waaaaay too sloppy on defense though. A ton of errors, and even beyond that some poor plays that gave up a lot of hits/steals that we shouldn't have.

3 straight strikeouts looking.

Is this set in stone? A lot of teams adjust their rotations coming out of the break. It's from an official Brewers tweet. Sure things can happen during the break, but I would think they're pretty set on it.

I have no idea why the Brewers are doing it, but as far as overhead clapping "the Volcano" from Iceland's unlikely run in the Euros last year is pretty good. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-sU_l7mvfOk

What makes Guerra's starts even worse is that he works so painfully slow. So the torture gets extended. He certainly is not getting any help whatsoever from Santana and Villar today though, that should've been a solo HR.

So frustrating to watch Santana play defense. With Guerra on the mound we need all the help we can get defensively.

There are so many teams interested in the TOR-type starters available at the deadline that the price will be very high. Too high to represent value for what we're giving up.

This one is on me...

Zach Davies seems to be fine overall when he gets through the first few innings unscathed. He has a 9 ERA in the first, a 6.35 ERA in the second. 2.97 ERA in innings 4-6. I know it's a small sample size and all, but he has yet to give up a run in the 4th inning.

I saw/heard the interview, and you may be reading too much into it. Sounded like typical GM speak to me, very vague. "We're always looking to get better." That sort of thing. Yeah he was essentially not ruling out anything. The one thing I think we can take away from that interview is him saying we're gonna stick to the plan; he was part of that Astros organization, and this year we can see the results of that. Stearns will want to see the same here. I also think he's going to be looking to strengthen, but not in big trades for TOR arms. Regardless of what he actually intends to do, he's not going to say that we're not looking to get better. Heck, even the threat of the Brewers going for it is good to have around. If it means the Cubs and Cardinals keep depleting their farm, that's good for us in the long run. Sure, it'll make those teams better for 1-2 years, but it'll also make them weaker beyond that which suits us just fine.

I hope he does exactly that.

Reports suggest that Detroit are looking for a big return in addition to the other team taking on salary. They might of course soften closer to the deadline, but they don't seem to want to do it cheaply. But yeah, if we could do it without giving up much in the way of prospects, I'd be fine with that. Like you, I'd prefer it over Quintana. I just don't think these massive trades for one player are very rarely worth it. I'd do it if we were clear contenders for the WS and had basically every other piece of the puzzle. But now? No, the value isn't there. A lot of teams want Quintana, and that'll drive prices up. I'd be happy to let the Cubs overpay for starters this window, shortening the time until their next rebuild.

Looking at wRC+, which adjusts for park effects and scales to the league run creating environment, has Cooper at 158 wRC+. In other words, he creates 58% more runs than the league average player. To put that into an MLB context, that'd tie Paul Goldschmidt for 4th among qualifiers, behind only Judge, Harper and Votto. I'm also unsure at exactly how good Cooper is, and how it'll translate to the majors, but he's not just a product of the elevation in Colorado Springs.

Jimmy is through 4 with barely 40 pitches thrown and is looking really, really good.