D+ from me.
The Hader deal bothers me. The return is lower than I would have expected. It is more the timing of the deal. How do you deal the best RP in baseball when you are in first place.? Rogers and Lamet just don’t give me the same confidence as having Hader to slam the door, even considering his recent struggles. What kind of message are you sending to the rest of the team? This has vibes of Seattle sending Graveman packing last year when they were in contention, that team never recovered. I see the return as simply ok and the timing to just plain bad. The future flexibility it gives us probably could have been had with an off season deal. Gasser and Ruiz are intriguing prospects and that is the other positive I see. Could we have made a similar deal in December? I think so.
The Bush deal is ok. I like the fact he is controllable. I’m not concerned about the off the field issues. It’s been years since his issues. Kelley was a good prospect but I can stomach the deal. Mathias was a good soldier and I hope he gets a shot in Texas.
The Rosenthal deal is mind boggling. Taking on 4.5 million and sending a decent prospect in Peters just makes no sense. Rosenthal is made of glass. 4.5million and a prospect for a guy who might pitch 10 innings and who’s always hurt? No way man! Just not smart.
The big issue for me was the lack of a bat or two. Also, I’m really sick of people saying the offense is pretty good because of their average runs per game. It is misleading. We aren’t playing the Cubs, Reds and Pirates come playoff time. We have to score against top level pitching, not AAAA pitchers. Do we honestly think the offense as currently constructed will be able score against the top end rotations of LAD, Atlanta, Philly, NYM, or SD. The only rotation I feel this team might be able to hit is the Cards and who knows with the lefties they brought in. Last years offense and this years offense are the worst that come to memory for a contending Brewers team. In many playoff years they were carried by their offense. Not so anymore. The Brewers offense proved to be inadequate last year in the playoffs and what have they done to improve it. Renfroe, Cutch, and Brosseau have replaced Garcia, Vogelbach, jbj, Cain, and Escobar. Knowing we struggle hitting lefties they sat and didn’t do anything. Heck, Darrin Ruf would have been a nice get for the crew, same with Drury.
In the end, this deadline showed a general lack of urgency. When is the last time Stearns and company swung big? The Yelich trade and the Cain signing, heck even bringing in Grandal showed some urgency. This team has a once in a generation pitching staff. Easily the best since the early 80’s(sorry early 90’s you were good but not as good) and we are watching it being wasted because we’d rather be pretty good for five years instead of trying to win it all the next three years.