Jopal78

This part I completely agree on. It's a very good problem to have and the Rays have been masterful at navigating their roster surplus to either fill current areas of need or cycling them for other assets. As far as the other stuff, I guess I'm just not understanding what exactly you are referring to as nonsense. It seems simple enough that if a deal can be found that makes sense for both sides it should be pursued. If it can't, then the Brewers should roll with some combination of Shaw/Urias/Arcia/Robertson at 3B and see how it turns out. One other thing about the Rays current situation is that Wander Franco currently isn't on their 40-man (which is currently full). Have to imagine he'll be on the major league roster at some point this year. Simply because Tampa Bay has more infielders on their 40 man roster than playing time, doesn't necessarily mean they and Milwaukee match up as trade partners. As an initial matter, what do you perceive the demand being for cost-controlled major league ready players with ceilings as potential every day players? In my opinion, with all the teams having lost significant revenue, the demand for those type of players has never been higher. Thus, the Rays aren't simply going to move players for the sake of doing it because their 40 man roster is full. Rather, it is a seller's market, and any trade they would make would be to bolster their team now, or acquire premium minor league players they believe will help them in the near future. Conversely, the Brewers don't have any major league pieces that are expendable. People can disagree, but the consensus seems to be that the Brewers minor league system is light on premium talent overall, and light on players close to being major league ready.

An agent with no clients and a ball player who can’t stay out of trouble. But for the addiction issues and violence, it’s the perfect set up for a sitcom.

Unless I missed it, I don’t think anyone was suggesting that the Rays were going to give anyone away? So if you had that notion I think you misinterpreted what was being stated. Obviously the Rays are going to require good value in return for any trade, but I don’t think it’s fair to characterize them as an organization that won’t entertain trading mid-20s talent. Under Erik Neander they’ve made an above average number of trades overall, and they’ve come in all forms (veterans for prospects, prospects for veterans, prospects for prospects, and veterans for veterans). Here are some examples from the past few years under Erik Neander where they’ve moved talent in their early-to-mid-20s... Casey Gillespie, 1B, age-24 at the time of the trade was ranked in the Baseball America top 100 prospects heading into 2017 and was traded during 2017 season for Dan Jennings. Luis Rengifo, IF, age-20 at the time was traded for C.J. Cron. Jake Bauers, 1B/OF traded following his debut season at age-22 in the trade that netted them Yandy Diaz. Nick Solak, IF, age-24 at the time of the trade for Peter Fairbanks. Jake Cronenworth, IF, age-26 at the time of the trade that was headlined by the swap of Tommy Pham and Hunter Renfroe. They also got back SS prospect Xavier Edwards in the deal. Nate Lowe, 1B, age-25 was involved in a trade that brought back 3 prospects. The last two are examples of players that were moved from their 40-man roster and back filled with prospects that didn’t require 40-man placement. The Rays currently have 10 infielders on their 40-man roster (if you count Tsutsugo as an IF). I certainly think there are scenarios where they would entertain moving an infielder if the Brewers could offer reciprocal value in return. Whether or not that means a Turang or Ashby type player would be completely subject to the specific player being sought. If they were willing to entertain offers for Brosseau I don’t think it would take a return near that caliber as a centerpiece. But this is the whole point. How many top 100 prospects do the Brewers have? I read they have 2 and both are around 95/100 and haven’t played above AA. Any trade involving prospects from the Brewers would necessarily be a quantity for quality type deal. Then there’s the notion if it’s even wise to trade away tomorrow’s potential players for a player who may or may not help right now. Third, having a roster crunch of young cost controlled players is a good problem to have. Unless the Brewers would make an offer they couldn’t refuse, why wouldn’t Tampa fix their infielder problem by trading several away to get immediate help elsewhere. It doesn’t make sense for any team to take on non-blue chip prospects from Milwaukee who are in the low levels of the minors. It’s nonsense

It isn’t that the Rays are stupid, it’s that they have such an unbelievable quantity of talent and they frequently face roster crunches that can influence their willingness to trade good players. In the past 20 months they’ve traded away young infielders Jake Cronenworth, Nick Solak, and Nate Lowe. Those are all good players, but the Rays have a ton of infield redundancy and roster spaces are at a premium for them. In addition to those mentioned by wntrtxn21, the Rays also have Kevin Padlo who is MLB ready and could be a decent corner infielder. There in lies the rub, the Rays never just give young players away because of a roster crunch. In fact. they’re more likely to trade away a veteran contract to make room for a young cost controlled player coming up from their system. That being said, I’m sure all these players mentioned are available but the notion that they’ll somehow be easy to acquire is nonsense. When the real cost is likely a Turang and Ashby, that’s why you see the team bringing in Shaw et al as a stop gaps.

I think it's faaaaaar more likely that it's just an antiquated policy that has held over for years that most baseball teams haven't tried to change while all other sports made the changes years ago. But that doesn't really make sense because it assumes the folks who are in charge of concessions/game day revenue for most of the teams are terrible at their jobs because they would have missed an obvious way to increase revenue before 2021, or were ignorant of what other teams in other leagues and cities have been doing.

According to Spotrac at least, Vogelbach's 1.4 million dollar contract is guaranteed. Accordingly the back up first base job is likely his to lose.

Yep. I've long been perplexed that they allow this, honestly. I think the Badgers even did away with carry-in sealed water a few years back. There'll be a minor outcry initially, then it will completely be forgotten. Much like the 'clear bag/no carry-in' policy for the Packers/Badgers as well. Pre pandemic, Wrigley Field allowed food to be carried in. There is probably market research somewhere that shows a team will sell more beer and drinks when food is allowed to be carried in, and there's a 200% or more mark up on beer and drinks which likely far exceeds the mark up on food anyways.

Hernan Perez was almost exactly what every manager wants for a bench player: had baseball smarts, extremely versatile defensively, good baserunner. He is still only 29 by the way. But, he isn’t with the Brewers now because outside of his 2016 season he couldn’t get it going with the bat. He had a sub .400 slugging percentage, was a low average hitter and hardly ever drew a walk. If he had a league average OBP or regularly hit .270 he’d play in the major leagues for a decade or more.

Boxberger will be on the team. The Brewers seemingly begin every season with a journeyman veteran arm in the bullpen: Albers, JJ Hoover, Alex Wilson, Justin Grimm. Hopefully Boxberger has more left in the tank than those guys

But they signed Vogelbach before the date to tender him a contract. Not sure if that makes a difference, but they didn’t even start the arbitration process. It could be since they avoided arbitration his 1.4 million is fully guaranteed

Who have guaranteed major league deals? Robertson, Vogelbach for sure; anyone else? Those guys probably have an initial leg up over other bench players because the sunk cost

If he’s not healthy (which it doesn’t sound like he is 100% yet), it makes the decision easy to DL Nottingham

Also totally unrelated. Jimmy Nelson has actually pitched for the Dodgers this spring

There's an aggregate level of talent on each baseball team. Historically, the teams with the most aggregate talent are those who make the playoffs and advance in the playoffs. If there was a player who would without a doubt increase the aggregate talent level of the Brewers, who was not only willing to sign with Milwaukee in July, but on a short term contract, why wouldn't they take him? He pinch hits every night, starts against tough left handers, and in those day games following night games were the manager seemingly likes to rest his regulars. It's not as though there some extraordinary unlocked potential in the players likely competing for that 26th roster spot: Derek Fisher, Billy McKinney, Tyrone Taylor, Mark Mathias, etc.

First of all, as someone said it's professional baseball. IF Braun signed with the Brewers in July, the other players on the team are not going to care an iota that he wasn't playing 6 inning exhibition games with them in March. Ryan Braun's slash line since 2015 (coincidentally Counsell's first full year): .279/.341/.501. You could argue nobody in baseball besides Counsell knows how to get the most out of Braun and his iffy health. Who knows what will really happen, but if Braun truly intends to play this July, the Brewers would be crazy not to bring him back to help them down the stretch.

Our top 2 are better than the red birds top two. After that.... the SP's are pretty much equal imo. I believe our BP though is what makes us leaps and bounds better than the redbirds. I get the Cardinal love. It’s based on experience. Their pitching has been 2nd in the league in runs allowed the last two years and their starters are more experienced Jack Flaherty and than the Brewers starters. Arenado and Goldschmidt have longer track records as elite offensive than anyone the Brewers have besides Yelich. The Brewers match up on paper pound for pound with St. Louis, but the Cardinals are the smart pick for the division based on experience. That won’t change until Milwaukee goes out and consistently plays to their potential.

If Braun wants to come back in July for the stretch run, I’m sure he’ll be back. When he’s healthy, which he should be in July, he’s still better than the 26th man on anyone’s roster.

In 2019, Gamel had 350 at bats, Grisham had 150+ at bats, Thames, Hernan Perez and Spangenberg combined for 15 starts in the outfield. I’m sure their squad of OFers in 2021 will all have regular playing time regardless which 3 start NL opponent or home games.

Unfortunately, your 'off the top of your head' numbers are incorrect. Per Fangraphs: 2020 Final Payroll: $102 million 2021 Payroll: $105 Million https://www.fangraphs.com/roster-resource/payroll/brewers Says you, I suppose. Obviously, the article meant 'of significance' or 'for significant dollars'. We can go line by line through the article, if you'd like to actually analyze Tom's intent. Point is, Tom put out an article that was almost immediately disproved. Trying to spin it as otherwise at this point is just a puzzling attempt to explain away bad journalism. I don't have the time to look all this up, so let's just go to the article in question and the source of your ire ("With economic 'realities' limiting moves, the Brewers look internally for improvement in 2021"). I am wrong that payroll, is down. But you're leveling a criticism at him based on your misinterpretation of what he wrote. As evidence by the quote above Haudricourt never actually said it was going to be down in 2021, only where it was at as of the date the article was published. Then as for "not signing anyone", again this is another criticism of "his bad journalism" based on your misinterpretation of what he wrote. The relevant portion is In fact Haudricourt even included a direct quote from the General Manager of the Brewers in his article: It's okay to criticize the Brewers beat writer if you want. I think we all are ignorant of what his editors expect in terms of scope and depth of his reporting. However, there's nothing inaccurate in this piece, only a misinterpretation of his writing perhaps from a quick skim of the article initially which is what the USA Today stands for.

People have attacked that guy left and right on this board for 15+ years. Add up the guaranteed salaries of the players who were here in 2020 and subtract it by the guaranteed salaries of those who just arrived for 2021, and I bet it will come out with a positive number. Nobody hangs around the major league clubhouses for 30 years and doesn’t know as much or more than the fans on a message board. But he writes for the main Wisconsin arm of the USA Today (Gannett) a name synonymous with generalities and painting in broad strokes.

They signed two players for what Braun made last year, and a handful of other free agents with multi-million dollar deals walked. Haudricourt still isn’t wrong. Of course he is. The article was that the Brewers needed to cut payroll and weren't going to sign anyone. They haven't really cut payroll and signed two name free agents, along with bringing in/back guys like Shaw and Anderson. His article was blatantly incorrect. Says you, I suppose. Off the top of my head they’re down 40+ million from last year with Braun, Sogard, Smoak, Gyorko, Knebel gone, all of whom not named Braun all had contracts in excess of 4 million dollars. On top of that, Arcia, Narvaez and Brett Anderson all took pay cuts. In terms of major league guaranteed contracts they signed Wong for 9 and Bradley for 12. Haudricourt still has the math right, even if you don’t like him. Obviously the reader isn’t supposed to take him literally when he says they aren’t “going to sign anyone”. I doubt a team has ever fielded a 40 man roster where all 40 players were in their organization the year before

I recall Braun said late last year, he did not like doing the season with the Covid protocols. My guess is he is waiting to see what happens with the virus situation. If it greatly improves between now and summer, I bet we see him back or maybe even next year with a rejuvenating year of rest.

If the team is to succeed they need to follow the models proven successful by teams like Oakland and Tampa Bay. Neither of those two teams sign free agents to big multi year contracts. Rather they constantly churn the roster and add free agents on shorter deals, or where they assess there to be unexpected value. Hoping the Brewers act like the huge media market teams on the coast or in Chicago isn’t realistic.

Though I like this signing, for me anyway, this doesn't tell me or show me the Brewers won't spend money. It's a two year deal with an opt out after 1 at 12 million/yr. VERY team friendly. To show me they are willing/can spend money I would need to see some long term deals..3 years minimum(preferably 4-5) for Free agents before I'm inclined to think they will spend $$. No, re signing Yelich doesn't count(in my book). Now get 2 or more other guys locked up like that, THEN I will be convinced they spend money. It's actually not very team-friendly. It's a player option, which immediately takes away "team-friendly". I like the signing, but I certainly wouldn't call it team-friendly. Right, but if Bradley has a huge year he will have delivered great value for the 12 million dollar salary (which by today’s standards isn’t much), and Bradley will decline his option and enter free agency. Even if he puts up his career numbers and exercises his option for 2022. 12 million places him right in line with what other non-marquee corner outfielders for like Joc Pederson, Kyle Schwarber etc

They signed two players for what Braun made last year, and a handful of other free agents with multi-million dollar deals walked. Haudricourt still isn’t wrong.