TJseven7

Torn both ways. I don't have much faith in the garbage men who look to claim the final pen spots, but also realize its about attrition and options. Catching lightning in a bottle is the goal. Every added chance ups our odds. Maybe hoover has a great year and Jeffress falls off a cliff. If you start off with Williams Barnes up... you cut hoover when you should have held off until it was clear you should cut Jeffress. I do think we are a bit spoiled by Hader, but we don't need another Hader, we need guys who are going to best Drake Feliz Torres Scahill Marinez. Knebel Hader Albers do their job and the rest would have to be very bad to not have enough.

I'll start off with: 1) Hiura: Please do enough with your glove to stay at 2b. If he can he's not just our 1 but will assend to the top 30 in baseball. 2) Burnes: Seems the most sound of all of our starters in the minors. 3) Lutz: Fantastic start, writers saying he'd be top 10 in a redraft has me hooked. 4) Ortiz: Expecting him to take the next step. Issues seem easier to fix. Best Upside. 5) Woodruff: Fangraphs piece on horizontal accuracy has me a touch spooked. 6) Ponce: Workhorse, seems to be coming together. Hit the ground running in AA last year and I expect him to be called up when rosters expand. Big year on tap. 7) Peralta: ETA June. I'd have him higher if I didn't expect him to get quick switched into a Hader promotion BP role. Out pitches and deception. 8) Phillips: Elite defense carries his value. I see him batting down the order though and doubt 2017 was what we can expect but power should hold up. 9) Dubon: Capable hitting, although low slg, middle infielder. Defense plays, bat is enough. A real luxuary behind Arcia Hiura. I think he'll prove he'd start elsewhere. 10) Carmona: Tools and Youth. Comments about him being a 1st round pick if draft eligable drive the rank. Long way away but potential to be #1 in the coming years. 11) Erceg: Carolina surpresses but he wasn't young and I wanted to see more. Average and power needs to play up to become the 3b I want. 12) T Williams: RP but has the stuff. Want him in mke this year. 13) Houser: RP but has the stuff. Want him in mke this year. 14) Zach Brown: Cheeseheadinqc... you got me by a by a bit. No one in the lower system closed the year like Brown. 10 starts 60.1 ip, whip a shade over 1, k/ip, sub 2bb/9. Total package results wise. There are a lot of interesting names in wisconsin and carolina. He's my guy. I think he could end the year looking ready for AAA. 15) Stokes: Short sure. He's strong with a compact swing (cuz he's short). We love Grishams OBP, Stokes wasn't far off. If Harrison wasn't blowing up Stokes would have had more attention. He was the premium power bat in Carolina. Probably LF only but he can play. Another step forward with the bat and he could be something. 16) Kodi: Huge improvement last year and still a long way to go. Aggressive placement upcoming. Control, control, control... if he can continue to harness it he has the stuff to be a MLB starter. 17) Grisham: Great OBP but Ks too much. Contact not showing results, defense sliding down the spectrum. I'll hope the bat shows improved avg and power because while he's still young, I'm concerned he's a LF who can't hit like one. 18) Pennington: I see him as a RP due to his size but a great secondary offering makes him a leverage arm. 19) Feliciano: Here comes another aggressive placement for him. He held his own in the first one. Impressive athlete at catcher. 20) Gatewood: Time to add weight. 1b confirmed, you can fill out that frame now. Big improvement last year. 21) Ray: Prove it wrong please. You are a very depressing pick. 22) Jankins: Great finish, solid innings, fantastic GO/AO numbers. He's interesting. 23) Herrera: Too many walks in Wisco but a strong showing for the 20 year old. 24) Webb: Slow start but closed strong. Excited to see him this year. 25) Nottingham: It's getting better HM:(not in order, too unknown or just good players and deserve props) Kirby, Lemons, Murphy, KJ, Garcia, Wilkerson, Perrin, Lopez, Derby, Ramirez, Ernesto, Rodriguez For mod use 1 Hiura 2 Burnes 3 Lutz 4 Ortiz 5 Woodruff 6 Ponce 7 Peralta 8 Phillips 9 Dubon 10 Carmona 11 Erceg 12 T Williams 13 Houser 14 Z Brown 15 Stokes 16 Kodi 17 Grisham 18 Pennington 19 Feliciano 20 Gatewood 21 Ray 22 Jankins 23 Herrera 24 Webb 25 Nottingham

Carmona in AA was a shock to see. You have to assume that won't stick but interesting to see none the less.

Admittedly I'm a touch obsessed with the +1.1 run diff (supposed) tipping point and the most cost effective way to achieve it. The aim of 5 runs was attempted to be discussed in the 1b/of logjam as a strategy thread. That leaves 2 more pieces... 4.0 staff era. 3.65 pen era. Combining 5 runs with a team era of 3.9. There's been some trepidation over stearns pen building. I believe last year was a whiff (Feliz) coupled with an assumption that the team wasn't ready to contend yet. This year should have caused a push to improve the pen, many wanted an investment made there, that didn't come. The reliever market might be at an all time high value point but what does a pen require to be successful? In the 5.0 runs 3.9 era run diff goal... 90 wins baseline... which appears cost effective and small market possible the pen must contribute a 3.65 era. First, leverage is important. No one can discount that the ability to close the door matters to a teams win total. Merely having 7-8 guys around 3.65 will not accomplish the task. So we look at mke... and their analytical brain twin Houston. The anchor in the storm: (2) Knebel Hader Giles Devenski (was supposed to be gregerson) Two high leverage guys who can hold down a 2.5 era. Critical, highly valuable. Houston made a dramatic push to get Giles. We stole or fell into Knebel. Devenski was a ptbnl in the Myers trade surprise... Hader was the 3rd or 4th value piece in the feirs gomez trade. Yet, critcal arms. Cheap Stability: (2) Albers Jeffress Will Harris (was supposed to be sipp as well) Houston signed Will Harris to a 2 year 5 mil total deal. 2.99 career era, regular success. We signed albers and jeffress to like minded deals. Low value, yet low 3 era, fairly consistent arms. Overlooked FAs who simply add stability. Hughes is also this type. Houston got splashy on Sipp. After that... pen? Screw the pen. Once you look beyond the top 3 of Giles Devenski Harris the astros pen was a garbage pit. Now, its fair to say they were worse than the team expected as I doubt they saw 4+ from the 13 mil they put into gregerson (who flamed out in his last year of a 6 aav 3 year deal) and sipp (paid 6aav/3 after his 2015 1.99 year, flamed out year 2) They attempted to be 4 deep...as Devenski was a surprise. They assumed to have Giles Gregerson Sipp Harris. We are assuming to go Knebel Hader Albers Jeffress. A more cap friendly approach with 2 controlled young guns (blessing) and 2 value stability adds. (2 Harris' not 1) Knebel last year 1.8, Hader last year 2.1... 1.1 era wiggle room (knebel career 3.0) Albers last 6 years 2.8, Jeffress career 3.4... .4 era ahead (jeffress mke career 2.6) Two anchors at 2.5 era. 2 stability arms at 3.0 and 3.6 era leaves 4 spots to combine for 4.4 era while hitting the 3.65 mark. 4.4 weak rubbish era. We HATE Drake 4.44 era. Scahill LOL 4.43 era. Torres was a loathed dumpster fire 4.21 era. Barnes was bad 4.0 era. You avoid the complete and utter garbage and 4.4 is pretty easy to do. Drake Scahill Torres Barnes beat 4.4... I know! So that leaves... The volitile: (4) So who is on that list this year? Barnes, Logan, Hoover, Yo, Suter, Williams, Houser, Lopez, Liz, Ramirez, Peralta. Arms who come in with a requirement of low expectations. Arms you are looking to develop to graduate to the achor/stabilty roles in the future. Arms who simply have to avoid burning down the house. Catch a Devenski along with the top 4 meeting expectations and the pen bests need. This model looks like the proper approach. 2 anchors, 2 stability, 4 volitile. It can be done cheaply if the achors are controlled. It leaves 3-4 slots to develop the next wave. If a peralta houser williams can graduate to stable or anchor then you can go cheaper, or even trade away an anchor (god forbid) if the offer is worth it. Giles Thorny type packages, which are obviously unlikely. Proposing: While other teams are paying rp... its unnecessary to be a 90 win team. I will not discount that the extra power arms are helpful for the playoffs but arms like Albers Jeffress Hughes Logan who can be had for 3mil aav or less do the trick in the 3-4 spots. 5-8 merely have to avoid being flaming bags of poo. Last year peralta feliz milone Espino and Marinez didnt do their part. Stunningly, Torres Scahill Drake Barnes would have handled 5-8 adequately. Our depth options now have upper level pen potential. Far more and better depth. The pen is cheap and stealth good. No spending required all due to Knebel Hader.

If his glove can hold up, his bat looks team altering good! Hiura Yelich Braun/Thames Shaw Cain C phillips arcia is filthy and blows the defensive capabilities through the roof.

Hank!

That has been my point all along. He is essentially being moved to a utility role although a limited one. He's phasing into the next part of his career by adapting in order keep going. That doesn't mean he sucks or that he isn't going to play but Yelich, Cain and Santana are gonna play more. I don't think the traditional terms do it justice though. Going back to my premise, could this an evolution? Sogard and Perez are utility guys. They can cover everywhere. But they aren't seen as guys who should provide replacement level defense. Its a replacement level bat they offer. Brauns the reverse. The goal is a hoped minimal minus at LF, RF and 1b. Defensive replacement level. With a big bat plus. One question, have we seen that? Aguilar had 55 starts. Perez had 60 starts in OF/1b. Backup 1b, utility player. That alone is close to starters work though. Thanes could stand to play a touch less as well. Cross sports: Look to the houston rockets. Paul is a starter and star. Same with Harden. Is Gordon a backup role player? Or has Houston placed a superior value on 1-2 and a lower value at 3-4. Stack 1-2... function at an elite level there for a full 48 and use that to anchor your offensive success. Allows you to play role players on offense at 3-5. In the same light, mke has an overloaded 5 starters at OF 1b... to anchor offensive production for a full (close) 162 while putting lower offensive priority on 2b SS C 3b.... needing merely 1 of 4 to contribute at a high level. Same goes for STARTER as used by the NFL. Your starting 11 doesn't preclude your non-starting slot wr from getting 80% of snaps or your nickel corner from 75% of snaps despite not playing in your base set. Starter on paper, doesn't mean anything in those circumstances. You've even seen programming start to list off OL qb and offensive weapons... calling ingram and kamara both starters... sometimes listing more than 11 players as starters. Respecting usage over depth chart. So doomed for blunder and extinction, soon to be fad, or new normal... is this use of Braun an accidental (possibly but unlikely planned) evolution? Braun is less of a bench player than Thames. He's not a true utility player as they tend to be defensive minded. He can play starter level starts, while not being deemed a starter at any spot. So he's Eric Gordon. What is that? A 9th man? Have we seen this before? Starting Braun in right allows cain to start every game in CF. Limits yelich moving to CF. As pointed out Braun might be a better defender in RF than Santana. All 4 keeps junk out of the OF. Gives thames ample rest or even shuffles him to a lhb platoon guy. When all is said and done... all 4 OF might be our starters by workload qualifications. It's not a slight to Braun. Calling him a utility player is though. It's more challenging and if he pulls it off with a minimal defensive negative showing he becomes much more valuable. What term fits that? As for yelich cain santana playing more. Yelich 152. Hes young elite and he averages 10 rest days. He's supposed to play a lot. 10 LF games for Braun ideally. Cain started 151 games in CF last year. That was his career peak. He has injury issues at times so it's optimistic to assume 145 starts in CF. Still leaves 17 starts where yelich moves to CF and Braun in LF ideally. Up to 27. Santana had his first mostly healthy year. Injury concerns are there. He had 144 appearances in RF. Braun takes the rest. Up to 45. So is Braun playing more than them... no. But hes the oldest most injury prone of the bunch. Now 1b you'd expect roughly 95 starts vs rhp...67 vs lhp. Braun takes the 67 now up to 112 starts. DH games also add starts. Injuries to the big 5 (not braun) add starts. 120 starts for Braun isn't short changing him 1 bit. Its managing him. He's more of a starter than Thames though. If the goal is a metrics based need for 5 runs per game and we've concluded we do not have the ability to produce the numbers needed to achieve that goal from 2b SS C 3b this year... it would make sense to spike 4th OF to compensate for that difficency. That could change with a return of good villar, a coming of age for arcia or the hiura era allowing the team to shift RF from Santana to Phillips... but until we can pull in a middle who can jump the offenses production, here we are.

I guess I just disagree with the notion that Braun is going to play "a lot" of first. If that thing was going well they wouldn't need to suddenly try and get him AB's in RF. I don't think the RF versatility has anything to do with 1b. We've talked about the defensive plus lf cf with yelich cain and the RF dreg of Santana. 1 alter is braun in LF sliding the other 1 or 2 over when santanas resting. Braun RF could just as easily be yelich in RF doesnt look as clean as hoped. It could be a choice to say, hey we are hiding bad defense at 1b and RF... that's that. The rest will stay elite to cover the weaknesses there. I've been frustrated about having braun on this roster since the LAD non-trade. His bat is the best we have, if not one of them, but his aging glove does us no favors. I've run the roster hundreds of times since then going... "man if we only didn't have Braun." This offseason, he's on the cusp of pulling a 180 in my eyes. Its clay matthews to buck LB all over again. Declining dude, can't do the job required of him where he currently is, so he is moved to a place he'll succeed. I don't like that he's talked of challenges because it seems whiney. I wish he talked of those challenges then taglined it... "but things change, the team needs me to change and I will." He hasn't been that emphatic about it. The moment he drops in an emphatic, "I'm a leader, leaders sacrifice themselves for the good of the whole" then this aging overpaid dude becomes a favorite of mine. Clay was too stupid to do it. He should have been cut the moment he whined his way out of what was right for the team. I hope Braun embraces it, and I also hope there is a silent ultimatum facing him... he makes 1b and RF work, or his times being cut dramatically. Yelich as a whole is our best LF. No questions asked. Braun needs to do whats best for the team. He's said he will, (weakly) but it's time to own it. There are enough concerns floating around about Thames. Durability, old man legs, mental demand of regular playing time, wear and tear, all are real concerns. Brauns best fit is taking starts from thames, covering RF rest, LF rest... CF rest with yelich moving over for those games out of necessity. It doesn't look like a STARTING role, but in truth it is a starting role. One Braun has to embrace. We look at perez as a very valuable player despite a mediocre bat. If Braun can play 3 spots admirably, he's the most valuable player on the roster.

Could be our weakest spot going into the season. Hopefully Pina does not get hurt and produces. I'm at least encouraged by having Bathencourt, and a Nottingham that appears to be getting closer. It's all on Pina but it could be worse... depths at least interesting.

Anderson Chacin Miley Davies Knebel hader albers logan jeffress hoover yo suter Pina bandy Thames braun aguilar Villar Arcia Shaw Sogard perez Yelich Cain Santana To open. Guerra Barnes Broxton all stashed. Woodruff Nelson Burnes Williams Peralta Phillips looking towards June. 5th starter #1) Guerra. Aguilar cut or traded. Let's just say I'm excited for 2019 when stashing woodruff williams barnes won't be a thing and Nelson will be healthy. Stashing Burnes Peralta Houser Dubon next year will be frustrating enough. We could be very very deep from the jump.

I dont see why anyone asks about Braun at 1st at this point. If everyone's healthy he's getting 60 games there at a minimum. He's been penciled in there enough this spring (and hasn't been abysmal) that its very clear this is happening this year.

Well he had over 50 last year. Thats real bad. If there is an injury to an OF you figure phillips or broxton come up and thames expands his role so you shouldn't see many there. If thames goes down you see choi or aguilar if they are still in the system so he shouldn't have many there. Truly it shouldn't happen (or at least less than 5) baring multiple injuries. Sogard perez villar will see 2 in the lineup on arcia shaw rest/injury days. 3 shouldn't happen baring multiple injuries. And none should bat higher than 5. That's the positive of this.

I for one am certainly not OK with having 5 relievers with 4+ ERAs if we happen to have 3 top guys who can cancel some of those numbers out. Depth is important too, a top heavy pen will have some issues when top guys are injured or on rest which will especially be a problem down the stretch. I'm not saying we should necessarily expect that from our bottom 5, but if we go in anticipating a 4.25 ERA from Yo and we decide we're just OK with that since the pen overall is still good; while Williams could have done better, that approach makes no sense to me. You shouldn't see 5 guys of 4+ era. Logan jeffress barnes are all candidates to be sub 4. That's all you need if your 1-3 in the pen are inplace. 1-3 in the pen we have... 1-3 in the rotation we don't.

To me its about comfortably projecting to be .2 runs lower in era from the starting staff vs last years 4.1. Cobb makes that a reality. Positives after that become a bonus. Now, we need positives to get down to a staff era of 3.9. Love the depth... asking a lot from it without cobb stunts chances to improve.

"I'm pretty happy with Knebel, Hader, and Albers. Beyond that, I have concerns." If you think those 3 can go 2.5 2.5 3 era... and they went 1.79 2.08 1.62 then your concerns are overblown. The other 5 guys have to average 4.0 era to keep the pen era near 3.5. It was 3.85 last year. Within this year it's likely that 5 is a mix of barnes jeffress logan peralta williams houser lopez diplan suter. That should do the trick. Add in the ability to split a season 60/40 between a guy like jeffress with a guy like swarzak for relatively no prospect asset loss. Pen doesn't worry me. The lack of talent at the top of the rotation coupled with the 4 pack at 4-5 of Woodruff (who you'd assume we stash) Guerra Miley Suter is far more concerning to me. Very little can go wrong at 1-3 and 4-5 need to beat 4.7 era.

You are using his statistics as a starter. There’s a decent chance he’s a serviceable reliever that can give you a couple innings at a time. He may not make it on our team but that’s what the Brewers are looking at him for. Regardless of starters stats if he's not 4.0 or lower in the pen he's a negative. The floor has to hold at 4.0.

Suter Miley not bringing the warm fuzzies in the last 2 days

Maybe people aren't jumping at the chance to applaud your premise because it has some flaws? Just throwing that out there as a possibility. And to be perfectly honest, I hesitate to pat you on the back for stating something that was already kind of obvious. Every team values all around players, especially those who can handle the bat and the glove at the top of the defensive spectrum. And not so shockingly, that means there's value to be found in the many, many all hit - no glove guys who help cheaply fill out a roster. Your flaw, (in my opinion) is thinking Stearns wants to have a lot of these guys on his roster. I think he's trying to find guys to demonstrate trade-able value or get the team through a season with quality at bats at a low price. And sometimes both. But make no mistake, I think the end goal is to litter this club with as many all-around players as possible. I think a small market club always has a need to fill out the roster with cheap bats. But I highly doubt Stearns enjoys having as many of these all-hit, no glove guys as we have right now. It just takes time to acquire guys who can do both. In the meantime they're cheap alternatives, not guys you're wanting to build an offense around. No applause needed, (more of that beloved bf snark we love here) scheme discussion would be nice. Premise is about carrying your offense through your OF because its cheaper to do. It's not about all bat no glove... its about devaluing 1b, and treating a 4th OF/1b as a starter. Building an offense around 4 OF who can play all 3 OF slots every day and 1b a good chunk of the time allowing 1b to be a cheap platoon mate, and to take pressure off 2b SS 3b C only requiring 1 upper level bat betweem the 4 spots because those spots are more expensive. Traditionally you have a 4th OF who isnt very good. Traditionally you dumpster dive twice at 1b. You try to get quality at C 2b SS CF. Those 4 up the middle don't come cheap... or at the very least cost more than even multi positional OF. If you want to improve your offense and dont have the funds to buy high level middle IF guys you could overload OF. All rest in the OF going to a decent bat, and 2 platoons splitting 1b requires 1 extra roster spot and plays 3 guys who aren't very good often. If you quad the OF and 1 can play 1b... you play 1 platoon mate at 1b who isn't very good. Thats the premise. Defense 1st C 2b SS up the middle. Use 4 OF to carry 3.5 spots in the lineup very frequently. Leaving the other .5 for a cheap platoon 1b. Attempt to exploit cheaper OF market and freebie 1b platoon market. Lets say we had yelich cain santana. Could trade thames. Would it be best to go with a lind aguilar broxton for 1b ab and OF rest... or add a good 1b/OF combo player and aguilar or lind to platoon. 1 less roster spot... more expensive but could that expense be used in a way to impact the team in a greater way? It would be cheaper than an impact bat at 2b ss or catcher. It would be cheaper than an impact pitcher. It doesnt make sense to me that we care about limiting pitcher abs because of offensive impact but we dont care about the impact we spit up playing a lot of slop over the course of the season.

We value LHBs who abuse RHP. Thames can handle 500 ab at 1b and DH just fine and as a strict platoon mate to Braun he'd wildly out produce Aguilar and Choi.

Zero argument on the starters. I've run the numbers on that in the cobb thread and starters stats thread. I understand what's needed, where we are and where we can't afford to step back. It's asking a lot as is. I'm a cobb advocate due to that. We have 5 guys for 4 slots at OF and 1b. Phillips is stashed, riding the pine isn't worth a call up. Broxton Aguilar should not be on your list. They are depth and our offense can't hit the runs count we need wasting power position ABs on depth. We need impact from all 3 OF and 1b every game to protect arcia villar pina. Wren is 4A as is Choi. They should not be on your list. They are emergency depth. No combination of Santana Broxton Aguilar in trade will solidify the rotation. If we could get a good arm for them I'm fairly certain it would have happened. The roster that you call a mess is actually incredibly stacked for offensive success. Concerns over 4-5 or the amount of pressure this staff puts on Anderson Davies Chacin, I can't help you with that. We need to hit 5 runs a game to rattle wash chi lad az. That we can do with this group. The problem is that we are hopes and prayers or 1 impact arm (3.6 era) from tilting the staff to where it needs to be. As is, yeah we are playing with fire, or at the very least making it gard on ourselves. A 3.6 inning carrying arm added into this mess and it falls into place. But you aren't getting that for a ww 1b, 4th OF and a defense poor slugger. I dream, like you do, on yelich cain phillips OF post santana (braun 1b some OF)... but to hold our offensive level we need Hiura producing at 2b. Otherwise its too big of risk to the offense. Phillips villar limp, pina arcia stagnate and the O falters. Hiura is that bat plus 2b who opens that defensive plus OF.

I think in a perfect world, they'd like to trade Braun. But because that isn't going to happen, they are stuck square-pegging him into right field or 1B. I kind of think they'd love an outfield of Yelich/Cain/Phillips, but unless they find a way to wholesale offload guys, that isn't going to happen anytime soon. It wouldn't surprise me if they were trying to flip Santana, Broxton and Aguilar. They could trade all of them, and still have plenty of depth. Flipping Santana, Broxton, and Aguilar would solve many of the ills. Sadly, Phillips has looked completely lost this spring, so I imagine that might give Stearns some pause. That said, I'm surprised an AL team hasnt made a decent offer for Aguilar. Ills? Having stacked OF depth in AAA is an ill? Having 5 offense lifting bats who can take up 4 of the top 5 spots in the order nearly every day, removing much of the need for villar pina arcia to contribute, is an ill? Aguilar is getting this team a ticket or nothing. Broxton is a traditional 4th OF emergency starter... not valuable. Santana isn't fetching a big asset after what the TB firesale on OF showed us. What ill does it solve... being uncomfortable that we have talent in this team? Look above. See the PA break down? What Ill do they cause? 2 guys who are not worth a damn thing and a 4th stud OF bat playing instead of all that crap isn't a negative.

Soo close to hitting submit on a flame response to these responses but I'll try something softer. YW mods. You know WHY I looked up all these numbers, and why I wrote this all out? I'm a Front Office dork. I am facinated by the strategy behind roster composition, cap schemes, value measurements, value skews etc etc etc. My sport is football, I like baseball but more than both I like constructing/deconstrction schools of thought to see why they work or why they don't. How they can be improved. What is next or at least could be. I don't do it to get a dozen broken record spiels, or suggestions that we should take a path no small market team can afford, or nit picked on sky is falling possibilities that can upend any possible configuaration. I don't do this to hear, it wont work, when I've run down all the numbers that shows how it can fit. I do this to evoke thought, discussion, an exchange of ideas, suggestions on how to exploit the valuations of the place is the cycle that we are currently in. You know, deep nerd fanatic scheme warping fun stuff. If no one here cares for that stuff, I'll stop wasting my time. If you don't care to contribute something of worth to the subject at hand, throw your tweet responses in another thread.

Would love that after the flack I caught.

Sounds like he should be expecting a gold glove trophy. Does throwing factor in? He still can't throw.

Maybe some of us looked through a boatload of numbers before any of them signed and decide this was his pony. Just saying.