Jopal78

More importantly, what do they do on "Turn Back the Clock" night, break out Chief Wahoo again?

The logo is almost as bad as the Brewers logo 2000-2019 and right on par with their logo 94-96. When there are a million amateur graphic designers they could have had something inspired instead of yet another focus grouped corporate board room inspired logo.

[sarcasm]The Brewers cut their 2019 opening day starter later in the same season. Clearly got a poor return for their #1.[/sarcasm] Seriously though, the Pirates paid the cost to acquire a #1 who actually pitched like a #3 (And actually, like a #5 in the season they traded for him). That's textbook mismanagement, IMO. The Rays sold high on an asset that seemed to show signs of declining, and the Pirates bought high on same asset. Basically indicative of how well/poorly both of those orgs have been run respectively over the past several seasons. Top of the rotation starter, frontline starter, #1 starter, whatever term you want to use, Archer averaged nearly 10 strikeouts per 9 with the Rays, 3:1 walk to strike out ratio, averaged 6 innings a start, had a FIP of 3.50, WHIP of 1.23 across 1000 innings (in fact Archer's numbers with the Rays are nearly identical to those of Ben Sheets with the Brewers), and never went on the DL. That is significantly better than a #3 starter any way you want to cut it. Plus, Archer was under contract for 3 additional seasons at a total cost of 27 million--there's no way a team could get the same or similar production at that cost hiring free agents. They traded for a long-term piece at the most important position, that the young talent they traded blossomed after the fact doesn't make it mis-managed or bungled in anyway. Acquiring veteran talent is costly, and any young player could later develop into a star player. Hypothetically speaking if Drew Rasmussen developed into a Cy Young award winning pitcher for Tampa Bay, would you then say the Brewers mis-managed or bungled the Adames trade? Of course not, nobody would. If teams didn't trade young talent because of the risk they may develop into tomorrow's stars, you would never see any trade of a veteran for younger player.

Scherzer has 10/5 rights and his agent said he’s not willing to go anywhere without a contract extension happening concurrently. That means he won’t be in Milwaukee and likely won’t go anywhere no matter how the Nationals play down the stretch

The Cubs have a bunch of players to trade who are about to reach six years service time and free agency. We’re not talking Lou Brock to the Cardinals. Second, the Brewers have traded with the Cardinals, Pirates, Reds and Cubs at the deadline: David Weathers, Jim Edmonds, Aramis Ramirez, Jonathan Broxton et al. If anything their lack of activity is a by-product of the teams all being competitive at the same time, or not matching up (For example, when the Brewers traded off Lucroy the Cardinals had Molina and the Cubs had Contreras. When the Brewers traded Gomez the Cardinals had Matt Holliday, Grichuk, Piscotty and Heyward. The Cubs had Dexter Fowler in CF)

Who is going to cancel their season tickets or not go to a game because Rizzo was traded to the Brewers two months before he elects free agency and signs elsewhere.... nobody. Cubs-Homer/Chicago Tribune writer Paul Sullivan has already advocated trading Kris Bryant to the White Sox, thus I doubt there is any backlash from the local media regarding where they ship their rental players. Hypothetically would anyone have really cared in 2012 if the Brewers traded Zack Greinke to the Reds instead of the Angels? They were already dead and buried at 15 games back. Sure it would have sucked having Greinke stick it in their ear the two or three times they'd have to compete against him, but everyone knew he was going to elect free agency and go elsewhere to begin with. Thus, its a preposterous notion, the Cubs would not trade players (who are going to elect free agency in November) to a particular team out of spite or a sense of rivalry, if in fact that team had made the clear cut best offer for said player. I do agree that the Cubs will likely receive multiple attractive offers for Baez, Bryant and Rizzo and most likely any offer by the Brewers will not be the most attractive.

Apples and oranges. The Packers traded Favre before the season started and did not want to have to compete against him in a sport were excellent play from a quarterback is frequently outcome determinative. With Rizzo, the Cubs are already realistically done competing for the playoffs. Moreover Rizzo or any other impending free agent it’s only going to be with a team for 60 games before declaring free agency and most likely going elsewhere. Finally one player isn’t as outcome determinative in baseball as it is in football, in fact there’s a handful of players traded at the deadline very summer who completely flop with their new team

If the Cubs cannot reach a contract extension agreement with Rizzo, what do they care where they trade him? They take the best offer be it Milwaukee or anywhere else and move on. The alternative is they watch him play out the string on a second rate team then leave as a free agent or trade him a somewhere for less desirable talent.

Why on Earth would they want Cron? His OPS at Coors Field is .955. His OPS at all the other stadiums is .682. The Brewers would be better if mixing and matching Tellez, Peterson, Hiura and Vogelbach than acquiring CJ Cron to play first base. Cron's OPS by season prior to Colorado: .739, .739, .792, .741, .816, .780, .894 His HR totals: 11, 16, 16, 16, 30, 25, 4. Playing half your games in Coors messes you up when you go on the road. Cron has a career .829 OPS vs. LHP. The vast majority of that was not playing in Coors. The .894 in 2020 was in 13 games. Besides that he’s been above .800 once in his career. We’re all starved for offense around here but Cron is a league average bat at his best; which is why he is a journeyman player. He might provide an incremental improvement, but then again he will cost talent to acquire. Colorado just isn’t going to release him.

Why on Earth would they want Cron? His OPS at Coors Field is .955. His OPS at all the other stadiums is .682. The Brewers would be better if mixing and matching Tellez, Peterson, Hiura and Vogelbach than acquiring CJ Cron to play first base.

That doesn't make any sense, a team would literally have to ask a player to waive their trade clause to a half dozen teams. Think back to when Lucroy was traded, news broke he was being sent to the Indians with Francisco Mejia and others coming back to Milwaukee. It was only after that news broke that it was announced Lucroy blocked the deal.

Archer was the Opening Day/1 starter on the Rays a team whose pitching was in the front half of the league. You may not like the not like his stats sheet but he was without a doubt Tampa’s #1 starter. Trading for a #1 starter is costly, it’s fair to say in retrospect they shouldn’t have done it given what happened but to say it was Mia-managed or bungled at the time isn’t wholly accurate.

What a garbage game, trying to coax Strickland through two innings, can’t get after Mike Minor and his nearly 6 era, now losing to a last place team

I think your numbers are off a bit. He has 31 ABs in July alone and is .194/.306/.290. His slugging has been okay since he was recalled because there are 4 doubles and 3 homers in there, but he's also struck out 16 times in 31 at bats in July (and 14 times in 33 at bats in June). Sadly it is an improvement over where he was in April and May.

Why is Hiura on the roster and more importantly why does he still get regular at bats?

Of course, any trade that doesn't work out in hindsight looks like a boneheaded move by the front office. Fact is, Archer was a #1 starter when the Pirates acquired him in 2018 with a team friendly contract running through 2021. 3.46 FIP, 1.214 WHIP, 9.7 K/9, and 3.3 SO/W . I don't know if there were questions about Archer's ability or health when he was traded. Yeah, they gave up a lot to get Archer but #1 starters in their 20s with long-term team friendly contracts don't become available very often, and I think the Pirates "window" had already closed when they made this deal, they were coming off consecutive 85+ Loss seasons and had dealt McCutcheon and Cole. It was more of a deal to add a long term piece then a rental for the stretch run, but then Archer suffered a major arm injury a year after being sent to Pittsburgh and he has yet to make it all the way back. Cole was a good pitcher and Pittsburgh wasn't going to give him 300 million dollars, so they traded him (The Brewers will most likely do the same thing in a few years with Woodruff and Burnes). They got two player who plugged right into their major league team. Maybe if they hung onto Cole longer they could have gotten a better prospect who wasn't MLB ready, or a package of highly touted low level minor leaguers, but that's all speculation.

I wouldn't call it mismanagement, they definitely had some poor luck. During their competitive window between 2013-2015 they won 280 games yet never finished better than 2nd place. With McCutcheon they were able to move almost all of his salary (12.25 of 14.75), and got an All Star player in return with Bryan Reynolds, and they timed it out fantastically as McCutcheon put up an .849 OPS in his last season with the Pirates and hasn't matched that number since. Jung Ho Kang was a fantastic player for the Pirates until his legal/visa troubles in Korea resulted in him missing nearly two who seasons of his prime. Same deal with Felipe Vazquez an All Star talent whose criminal proceedings ended his career overnight. They may have traded Cole too early but not a total bust of a trade. With Archer he was the best player in that deal at the time. You can't really fault them for a trade where they got the best player who suffered significant injuries after the trade. If not for the Vazquez stuff, and the fist fights amongst the team Huntington would probably still be there; he did a fantastic job for a team whose payroll never topped 95 million.

Javier Baez and Trevor Story got approximately 25+~30 million in their three years of arbitration. Lindor got even more. Depends where you see Adames; a lesser player than Baez or Story? If so maybe he gets less than 30 mil in arbitration, on their level or better he’ll get even more

Sure, you don't want to pay market rates for a player years away from free agency, but by the same token when Adames is 6 months away from arbitration where his pay will grow exponentially he has no real reason to sign an extension with the Brewers. He, his agent and the Brewers F.O. know if he plays well he'll likely make 25-30 million dollars over the next three years. What are the Brewers going to do; offer him 3yrs/45 and ask for a club option for a 4th year? That type of deal doesn't make any sense for Milwaukee, and offering anything less doesn't really make any sense for Adames (unless he doesn't believe he can continue to perform at this level, or is afraid of a catastrophic injury ruining his career).

I understand the reticence in extending another player long-term given the Yelich situation right now. But I would look at Adames a little bit different than Yelich and way different than Hiura. None of us know if the Adames performance of two months in 2021 for Milwaukee is the real deal. But I can look at his career numbers [bA/OBP/SLG/OPS] from only Tampa Bay over 332 games and 1254 PA: .254/.320/.420/.740 (That's including playing in a stadium that Adames has noted as not conducive to his hitting. It's also 474 more PA than Hiura has in his major league career.) There's a shortstop in the Brewers' past with comparable numbers [bA/OBP/SLG/OPS] over 571 games and 2298 PA: .262/.323/.428/.751. That's JJ Hardy's record during his time in Milwaukee. The team has been bouncing through shortstops since Hardy left after 2009: Escobar, Betancourt, Segura, Villar, Arcia. Just from his time with Tampa Bay, Adames looks on track to be a Hardy-type producer at shortstop. From what he's done in his MLB career so far, I'd consider that to be basically Adames' floor. That would be a great addition to lock in for longer than the team currently controls. Buying out some arbitration years while extending for a few more seasons shouldn't have to be a bank-breaking deal if done relatively soon [the "Peralta-type extension"]. If that is done and Adames' current performance as a Brewer proves to be the reality, then the team can think about a second extension later [the "Yelich-type contract"]. Adames is less than six months away from getting real paid in arbitration anyways. Most likely it is already too late for a modest upfront guarantee in exchange for selling off some high earning years to have much appeal to him. I'm sure he and his agent are well aware they will do better financially going year to year at this point.

If they could get Yan Gomes from the Nationals, that's a big enough talent to make it worth changing back up catchers. He is a good defensive catcher, hits well enough to be a viable pinch hitting option, plays a little bit of first base, etc. Otherwise, they may as well roll with Pina, and maybe he hits better down the stretch, because there isn't significant separation between him and other back up catchers around the league.

At this point in his career, Lester is just a name of somebody who used to be a star. He’s was not good last year, and has been below replacement level this year. Duffy, believe it or not, has 10/5 rights. Not a road block to a trade but a complicating factor. Anderson would be a nice pick up, though his spin rates are way down since the ban on substances

He averages 60 games a year; if the injuries are indeed fluky, the frequency of them is very odd. Moreover part of what makes Buxton good is the way he plays the game, a lot of his sprain and strain injuries likely are proximately caused by that style of play. If he played slower he may not get injured as much but wouldn’t be the same guy either. More importantly though, I don’t think the Twins have the leverage you believe they do in Buxton. Not only is he constantly down with injuries, he’s out until at least August this year if not later. This it’s no sure thing he will even be ready to help a contender down the stretch. Moreover he’s a free agent after 2022. The Twins reportedly are only going to trade him if he won’t sign an extension. Thus any potentially interested team would already know he’s likely going to elect free agency in 2022 and therefore the potential return coming back to Minnesota in a trade will be impacted.

Limiting his innings; they’ll do the same for Burnes later

Based on who pitched tonight, it would be Eric Yardley. Scoreless in his last six appearances in AAA, so worth a rotation I suppose. No. Milner and Lobstein. With all the call ups since Yardley went down, he’s probably finished in Milwaukee