Humans Need Water

Have you bothered to look at Susac's history or did you just lock in on his 2017 injury riddled season? 1 catcher (Susac or Bandy most likely) will be traded since they're not carrying 5 heading into the season but thinking Bandy is comfortably sitting on the 40 while Susac is the biggest pile of deuce you've ever seen is absurd. How do we allow this guy to keep talking down to people like this... not to mention he isnt even correct. Just mouthy arrogant condescending and rude... post after post. Maybe take a step back and re-read what you said in general as well as about Susac - all while providing *zero* reasoning, evidence or context. And "post after post" would literally mean every single post. So that's a lie. Additionally, the etiquette rules here are hypocritical. Why allow any poster to criticize, in whatever fashion they deem necessary, a player/coach/etc but not allow it toward other posters in response to said criticism? This is a perfect example. You have no issues speaking extremely harshly and rude about a player (Susac), while also citing zero evidence, but when someone calls you out for it then you cry foul citing that tone to be unacceptable for this board. I don't subscribe to that line of thought so if I'm removed from this site as a result then so be it. Which is the only reason Homer said anything - because of your complaint. If what I said was mouthy, arrogant, condescending and rude then Homer would be copy/pasting his response all day every day on this site because I've called other comments absurd before and so have other people and nobody was ever warned for being condescending. On to your last post in response to KeithStone. The following are the reasons you deem Susac to be the biggest *** on the 40 man and worth the value of a pizza and some beer (your words, not mine): 1 - other people on the in-game threads wanted him pulled every game he played (12 AB - 1 start this year. Stearns also knows significantly more than any poster on this site and has access to plenty of resources to help him make the best decisions possible) 2 - awful defensively, batting, framing (no evidence cited nor context provided even though Susac has career MLB 91 OPS+ vs Bandy 78 and wRC+ speaks to their minor league careers, which Susac is better overall outside of 2017 - KeithStone already discussed the defense aspect but Bandy threw out 17% of runners for Brewers with 5 PB and 16 WP in 44 starts/50 games while Susac with 6 PB, 21 WP throwing out 35% of runners in AAA in 150 more innings caught. Bandy is 29% CS MLB career and Susac 25%. if Susac is *awful* then what is Bandy?) 3 - has been passed over every chance (HOF Posey in front of him until 2017 then injured in ST this year in first legitimate opportunity then Vogt acquired coming off back to back AS appearances, also a lefty and veteran clubhouse leader, which all played a role in his acquisition) 4 - will be 28 next year combined with all the above (he's literally 4 days older than Bandy) Susac also has 1 option left whereas Bandy has 0. At this point, Pina/Vogt are the MLB catchers, everyone can agree on this. So please cite (interviews, official Brewers statements, etc) where Bandy is said to be, in concrete, currently the #3 catcher in the org and locked for the 40 man while Susac is not. The Brewers own website says otherwise actually... http://milwaukee.brewers.mlb.com/team/depth_chart/?c_id=mil

Have you bothered to look at Susac's history or did you just lock in on his 2017 injury riddled season? 1 catcher (Susac or Bandy most likely) will be traded since they're not carrying 5 heading into the season but thinking Bandy is comfortably sitting on the 40 while Susac is the biggest pile of deuce you've ever seen is absurd.

It's starting to come together, Pepper. Starting to come together...

Last season the Brewers got starts from: Matt Garza, Junior Guerra, Paolo Espino, Tommy Milone, Brandon Woodruff, Wily Peralta. These are guys I would consider our "5th" starter a season ago when you leave Nelson, Anderson, Davies and Suter in the top four spots. The combined stats of these guys is the following: Starts: 57 (over a third of the games, these turds were taking the ball for us. Gross) Record: 15-20 ERA: 5.64 Now... Do we not think a guy like Chacin could move the needle and have gotten us another win last season that we needed to make the post season? The more guys we sign like Chacin, possibly Gallardo, and whoever else comes next means we hopefully won't have starts like guys I listed above. And yes, I realize I included Woodruff in there but he just wasn't that good last season. Hit the wall most would say. Agree with everything above except your final point on Woodruff. Prior to his final start where he was donkey slapped he was posting a 1.23 whip, 2.9 BB9, 8.2 H9, 7.1 K9, 3.76 ERA through first 7 starts

Don't fret. Suter still is a near lock to make the team as a long reliever and has an excellent shot to take the 5th starter spot if Hader stays in the pen. The Crew spending $16 million over two years to get numbers that could have come from one of Suter, Jungmann, Hader, Ventura, Burnes, Ortiz, or Derby for a grand total of about $1.5 million. This guy pitched half his games in one of the most pitcher-friendly parks in the majors. Lucroy or Neil Walker would have been a far better use of the money. This is insanity on so many levels. Thinking Jungmann + 4 prospects that aren't even MLB ready (2 of them never seeing AAA yet) can produce at the level Chacin has is crazy talk. Chacin also pitched half his career games in Coors - *the* most hitter friendly park. Even with Chacin we still need 1 more starter - enter Hader, Suter, Guerra as your main internal options + Nelson is coming back at some point. None of this prevents the signing of Lucroy (won't happen) or Walker (could happen).

Ortiz has 157 innings logged at AA already and will most likely start in AAA. Peralta threw 64 innings in AA this year and will see AAA by mid-season. They can both see MLB in 2019 at some point. I agree with you that we should trade from our lower depth that hasn't seen AA yet - Ray, Harrison, Clark in OF and Bickford, Kodi, Diplan, Ponce, Supak, Pennington, Herrera, Kirby for pitchers plus there's a bunch of other solid prospects mixed in as well that can be additional pieces to trades (Stokes, Yamamoto, etc). Plus there's a bunch of these guys that need to be Rule 5 protected next year so Stearns will be wheeling and dealing within the next 12 months

There's zero logical reasoning for trading 6yrs of Woodruff for 2yrs of Odorizzi. I'm still not on board with trading any of our 3 pitching prospects (Woodruff, Burnes, Ortiz) for Archer as they can all post 1.250 whip, 3 BB9, 8.4 H9, 4.04 ERA, 101 ERA+ themselves with 6yrs control at a much cheaper price tag. Not to mention Woodruff already has 8 starts so he's ready, Burnes will be ready by the second half and Ortiz potentially by 2019. They're all right in front of our faces. I'm not against trading for Archer, I'm against trading certain prospects for Archer - prospects based on ability and where they're at in our org (ie strong ability and MLB ready or on the cusp of being ready - Brinson/Phillips included). I also don't think Gallardo was signed to shore up the back of the rotation. He was signed as a multi-inning pen arm and rotational depth vs taking a rotation spot. All this said, Stearns can trade any player in this org top-down if he deems the value coming back to be worth what he's giving up.

The difference being Braun is *much* more productive than Longoria, who's a middle of the pack starting 3b at this point making 17.2M annually over the next 5yrs whereas Braun is making 18.6M over the next 3 posting 111, 135, 131 OPS+ the past 3yrs (111 season battling injuries - compare that to everyone's boy Yelich at 115 this year while healthy). Braun's contract isn't preventing the Brewers from doing squat - if they want someone they can go get them - and do so quite easily

Never. What this team accomplishes or doesn't accomplish doesn't affect my life in any way, shape or form. And this is coming from someone who interned there and had season tix for like 7yrs (I'll be signing back up in 2019 as well).

Since Peralta's debut. Innings: 704.2 Peralta - 649 Chacin K%: 16.7 Peralta - 16.8 Chacin BB%: 8.4 Peralta - 8.9 Chacin HR/9: 1.09 Peralta - .89 Chacin LOB%: 71.0 Peralta - 72.5 Chacin GB%: 51.2 Peralta - 46.6 Chacin ERA: 4.48 Peralta - 4.15 Chacin FIP: 4.42 Peralta - 4.21 Chacin Soft Contact%: 18.1 Peralta - 17.4 Chacin Medium Contact%: 51.7 Peralta - 50.6 Chacin Hard Contact%: 30.5 Peralta - 32.0 Chacin Line Drive%: 20.7 Peralta - 22.0 Chacin And yes I'm fully aware that Peralta has been trending down and was beyond terrible last year. There is no need to point that out to me. My thing is we shouldn't be giving multi-year, 8 figure contracts to pitchers that are basically Peralta in his career here. If you want innings, just sign guys like Gallardo or Milone last year for next to nothing on one year commitments. Except he's not Peralta. He's been far superior to Peralta. Wily had a good 2014 and he's been below average every year before and after. Production matters. Final results matter. And Chacin has been above average while Wily has been below average. That's an indisputable fact.

I'm guessing he'll get a 2yr deal making the rotation Chase, Davies, Chacin, Woodruff + 1 (I still think they want Hader in the pen full time at this point using him 2-3 games per week in multi-inning role but he could be that 5th starter until Nelson is back). But I wouldn't be shocked if they did keep Hader in the pen and had Suter or Guerra battling for that 5 spot with Nelson taking over once back. Burnes is up in 2nd half at some point if there's poor performance or injury. Gallardo sits in pen in multi-inning role and gives depth in case of injuries in rotation. 2019 would show Nelson (2), Chase (3), Davies (3), Woodruff (5), Chacin (1), Burnes (6) + we'll see how Ortiz/Peralta progress as well. There will be future trades. If Stearns does indeed acquire a controllable impact arm then another rotation arm will be traded as a result. He's plugging holes until the prospects are ready but doing so with vets on 1-2yr deals who have had some success so we can still compete for the playoffs. Chacin's ERA+ has been above average almost every year of his career. 1-2 of Nelson, Chase, Davies will be traded at some point after this season. It's all unfolding how I expected, and said, it would.

Ortiz in his A and A+ years he was 3yrs young for level and had K9 of 8.3 then 9.1. It dropped down to AA in 2016 to 7 but he was approaching 4.5yrs young for level. Last year in AA he was just over 3yrs young for level and still posted a 7.5 rate while working on stuff, as noted above, which is also why his BB9 most likely rose as well. Kid is talented

He's a big strong downward plane Zach Davies results (not style) starter. Better stuff, still doesn't wow but control durability play at the mlb level. 200 ip sub 4 era. Feel like he's going to sharpen one of his 3 offspeed offerings and further learn how to use them. Not calling him an ace to TOR but he's 23 in AA and I expect him to jump from teen-early 20s prospect to clear member of the rotation. That's breakout. Davies results....huh? Ponce was at age level in A+ this past year with a 1.292 whip, 9.8 H9, 7.1 K9....at that same age Davies was starting in MLB posting 1.249 whip, 9.1 H9, 7.4 K9. Davies minor league numbers smash Ponce and did all being plenty young for level.

Credible people confirmed that the Brewers weren't just taking calls on him, but were actively trying to trade him. It stands to reason that they didn't get the offers that the Santana fanboys here take for granted they should get for him. As for Santana being a good young player under team control and Stearns being loathe to trade players like that, I'd wager that Stearns doesn't actually think Santana is really that good. He seems to be the anti-Melvin in terms of valuing defense, which is a good thing, and there's a pretty decent chance Santana ends up being a fairly inconsistent and frustrating player who never lives up to the promise, a la Corey Hart. AGAIN, please enlighten everyone on what *exactly* Stearns was *offered* for Santana. Additionally, please enlighten everyone on what *exactly* Stearns was *offering* on our end as well as *exactly* what he was seeking in return for said *offers*. Thanks. Finally, it's hilarious how you throw out ridiculous responses like the one you just gave to my initial question (while not answering it of course - because you can't) then have the balls to say that Stearns doesn't think Santana is really that good (again - *prove it*). Hart had a 6yr stretch where his OPS+ was 127, 98 (AS), 100, 130 (AS), 133, 120. Yelich has posted above 118 once thus far. Yelich just put up a 117 in his age 25 season while Hart started his 6yr run with a 127 at that age. What is everyone here missing? Was he supposed to be a perennial MVP?

And apparently Guerra is one of the top 3 guys worth noting when it comes to our rotation? Does this guy even know how to spell Brewers? And Suter threw more innings than Guerra with same number of starts

Hilarious how that Gallardo article in the link completely negates a Top 100 pitcher in Woodruff who made 8 starts at the end of last year.

Gallardo in pen last year threw 16ip, 9h, 3er, 7bb, 10k, 1.69 ERA and batters slashed 164/258/513(ops). He very well could be a multi-inning pen arm that's going to be much cheaper than a FA arm. Plus he has starter experience so if needed here or there could step into that role.

I still haven't lost my patience

I'll take 3/$20 over 2/$10 if I've got a good player. Give me that extra year at a fair price. And each year is an option year if it goes really, really south. The way it works out for Realmuto is basically what Lucroy had left on his deal $2/10 with a 1-year $10 million option. That option is very likely to be exercised and the team is happy about it. If Realmuto suffers a career ending injury opening day of 2018, he can be non-tendered at no cost and basically be a 1 year/$4.2 million hit for 2018. Lucroy was a 1.5 year deal for the Rangers, essentially. Luc had one insanely good season (age 28) and was off to a pretty good start in his age 30 season. Realmuto is putting up consistently good seasons and will only be 27 next year. His numbers would take a bit of an uptick if he played in solely hitter's parks as Luc has for his career. Lucroy had OPS+ of 90 (first full season at 25), 132, 116, 131, 96, 123 (120 with Brewers prior to trade), garbage in TX then 115 with Rockies. JT has posted 92 (first full season at 24), 111, 109. His numbers on the surface would uptick, like Shaw leaving Fenway, but OPS+ adjusts for park factors. Lucroy was consistently good and made 2 AS games. I'm not saying I'm against targeting JT I'm saying he's not better than Lucroy (or what Lucroy was at that age I should say) nor should he command a similar return.

I'm with you here. If the Brewers got Brinson for Lucroy there is no reason the Marlins can't do the same here, nobody in this Brewers system would be off limits. I also think the Brewers value Pina but don't know what his value is in trade. Except Lucroy had a 4yr stretch where 3 of those years were better than anything this dude's put up and he was a 2x AS. Also, this guy didn't request a trade. He simply stated he wouldn't mind if he was traded given what's transpired the past couple weeks.

The second half of the season very well could be Nelson, Chase, Davies, Woodruff, Burnes. We still have Suter, Guerra, Gallardo, Wilkerson, Jungmann who can eat up first half innings to get to this point. That said, I wouldn't be shocked if the Brewers signed Gallardo as a much cheaper multi-inning pen arm than what the FA market is paying.

Then why did Nelson and Chase just significantly drop their HR9 while pitching in one of the worst pitchers parks? cherry picking more than I did - Nelson significantly lowered his HR rate from 2016-2017. He had a bad year in 2016 (so much so that he was an afterthought for the 2017 rotation, many here wanted him moved to the pen or traded), so lowering that rate back to his career average isn't surprising given he was a different pitcher in 2017. Anderson definitely made a huge jump in production during 2017, but he also doesn't have near the body of work Archer has - Anderson hasn't pitched over 153 innings in a season yet. I don't cherry pick. You said it was a league wide shift. Anderson and Nelson disagreed - again - while pitching in one of the worst pitchers parks. So why didn't this league wide shift affect them rather Archer instead? And 2yrs straight as well. Your response to that was Anderson doesn't have the body of work Archer does nor has he pitched 153 innings - both which have absolutely nothing to do with HR9. They made adjustments and improved - Archer did not - 2yrs straight. Cherry picking is what you (self-admitted) and everyone else does that will sell their mother for Archer. xFIP, K9, BB9, WAR is what you all point to while negating H9, whip, HR9, contact rates, GB/LD/FB rates, decrease in usage of fastball (best pitch), ERA (while having a much better defense than the Brewers and pitching in a much better park for pitchers than Miller Park), ERA+ puts him an average MLB pitcher 2yrs running (which includes factors like park/opponent), this happening at ages 27 and 28, etc. There is no outlier when it's 2yrs straight of all this. Maybe try looking at the entire picture instead of a few metrics. Yeah, it's great he throws a lot of innings but that's merely a bonus. If we targeted a guy with much worse metrics and a 5 ERA but he threw 200 innings annually what would your response be to someone defending that pitcher using that as a selling point? Yeah, the same applies here. https://www.baseball-reference.com/play-index/neutralized-stats.cgi?request=1&id=archech01&sum=0&t=p&offset=0&to_yr=2017&to_lg=NL&to_tm=MIL&orderby=year_ID&number_matched=1&order_by_asc=1 FmrBeerMan informed me that Baseball Reference allows you to neutralize pitching stats based on certain parks and years. The link above is for 2017 - it adjusts to pitching all games in the 2017 scoring environments at Miller Park using his peripherals every year. Keep ignoring him shifting to Miller Park as if that won't affect anything or offset coming to the NL and out of the AL East. Again, nobody is saying they hate Archer and we shouldn't target him. Our rotation is improved with him - but it's also improved with a lot of others as options as well. We're saying there are red flags the past 2yrs that shouldn't be ignored and it's not worth Brinson + Ortiz/Burnes + another Top 10 + potentially a low level (Eric L dude from Fangraphs said a fair trade was Santana, Burnes, Erceg - that's absurd when factoring in everything).

OF growing out the ears? Braun, Brinson, Santana, Phillips, Broxton = 5. Every team has 4. There are no other OF who are MLB ready nor are they even at the AA level yet nor would they headline an Archer package.

Then why did Nelson and Chase just significantly drop their HR9 while pitching in one of the worst pitchers parks?

I asked because I get that his (x)FIP are better than his ERA, his K9 is still great and his BB9 fluctuates but is still good. However, his H9 rose from 7.4 to 8.2 now 8.6. His whip stayed around 1250, which is an increase from previous years. His HR9 jumped from .8 to 1.3 and 1.2. The past 2yrs he's thrown his fastball 5-6% less and his slider and changeup more. His GB rate in 2016 was similar to previous years but this year it dropped 5%. His LD rate was 2-4% better in 2016 over previous years then spiked 4% this year over last. His FB rate has increased year over year the past 4yrs. This year compared to his previous 3yrs his hard contact rate increased by 7% (that's sizable) while his soft contact dropped almost 5%. His infield hit % has been the same the past 2yrs - down 3.5-4.5% from previous years so his defense is making more plays on balls staying in the IF. His ERA+ puts him at a league average pitcher the past 2yrs. The Rays have a better defense than the Brewers and Miller Park is a much better hitters park. He's talented. But we're not talking about a 1 fluke year where plenty of numbers are down. This is 2yrs straight at ages 27 and 28 (4 and 5 in his career) where he's trending in the wrong direction. Fangraphs had Archer at a 3.2 and 4.6 WAR the past 2yrs and projects him at a 4.3 in 2018 Baseball Reference had Archer at a 1.8 and 1.2 WAR the past 2yrs. They don't project WAR but his overall line projection is right in line with his previous 2yrs