Jopal78

Nothing. Just instead of going to arby 3 times, he goes 4. I mean, nothing other than the significant financial ramifications both now and over the four arbitration years.... Talent costs money, and with the way service time is manipulated by major league clubs it’s a certainty the Brewers knew this was likely going to be the case. I mean, it is no big deal he goes through arbitration 4 times not 3.

I don't know if Semien would be a good add or not, seems more like a one year wonder kind of player. What I do know is, if the Brewers don't have $10+ million per year to sink into a free agent player they are bound to have a bunch of one-year band-aids again in 2021. James McCann just got $40 million across 4 years. Let that sink in for a moment, from ages 24 through 28 he put up a .653 OPS. Any team could get a catcher with a career .653 OPS on a minor league deal with an invite to camp. Its the .808 OPS in 149 games (across two seasons) with the Sox that he's now got a multi-year deal averaging $10 million a season. If $10 million dollars is the going rate for free agents who will be starters but not cornerstone players, we might end up seeing Sogard Part III in 2021

I don't recall what it cost for 2020, signed up before the season. Daughter received a nice pair of over the ear headphones, a nice quality t-shirt and a draw string bag. Didn't get to use the ticket vouchers obviously, but the headphones, t-shirt and bag probably came out pretty close to the $40 or whatever it costs if you were buying those items retail. IF you're going to go to the games and use the vouchers in 2021 you can't go wrong.

Comparing that to the seven 2019 A+ Brewers pitchers with at least 5 starts, that would have made him 1st in ERA, 1st in K9, 2nd in BB9 (behind File w/ 0.9 BB9), and essentially tied with two players for the youngest (21yo Ashby w/ a 3.46 ERA and 22yo Hernandez w/ a 4.64 ERA). Comparing that to the nine 2019 AA-level Brewers pitchers with at least 5 starts, that would have made him 2nd in ERA (behind Supak w/ 2.20 ERA), 6th in K9, 3rd in BB9, and tied with Diplan for the youngest player. Maybe he was filler in the Dodgers' system, but he obviously is an upgrade to some of the stuff we've been throwing around down there. I've clogged this thread enough as is, but this makes my point. Supak and Diplan were both released.

The only point is this, people keep posting that Crawford is "interesting" "Knows how to pitch" "pleasant surprise" "Nice pick up" etc. etc. The reality is this guy is Malik Cllymore or Yhonathan Barrios, they chose a warm body from Los Angeles instead of cash. Big deal.

Here's a direct quote: Not sure how there can be continued confusion. He spent the last 1/3 of the season at AA, and certainly would have done the same in 2020 with possible advancement to AAA. When the 2021 minor league season starts, he'll start at AA or AAA. Not a low minor league guy. Understood. In your purview 30 innings above A ball makes someone "a bit more than a lottery-ticket low minor league guy". Those are some big logical assumptions that in a system loaded with talent he would have made those jumps. In the more barren Brewers system they probably will start him at AA, maybe even AAA depending on who comes into the organization and leaves between now and when that is decided. The facts remain: The Dodgers are the best NL team at talent evaluation. It is unusual for the Dodgers to trade away useful prospect capital in a minor trade. The Dodgers traded Crawford to the Brewers.

Because I didn't say that? I said a lottery ticket from the low minor leagues. As he's been in AA/AAA, the actual return is indeed a bit better than a lottery ticket from the low-level minors. Seriously, look up the stats and read your posts. I'm not going to cut and paste here. Plus that AAA experience you speak of consists of 1/3 of an inning where he walked three batters and gave up a (walk off) grand slam.

Because they literally means next to nothing. He's got 30 innings above A ball and I've read several posts stating, "very nice pick up" "did we just get a rotation piece" "a bit more than a lottery ticket" if these aren't just pie in the sky platitudes I don't know what is.

I really don't get the frustration here, or why the reason for that tone. The Brewers got something for a guy they were reportedly 10 minutes away from non-tendering and getting nothing. Yep, he's likely to amount to little, like most minor leaguers. Still, I think the assumption was a lottery ticket-type low minor league guy, and this does appear to be a bit more then that. I guess that's where we disagree, what suggests that he's "a bit more than a lottery ticket"? I guess I'm trying to wrap my mind around that opinion statement. What's the basis for that opinion? A-ball numbers? If we're having an intelligent discussion how is someone going to say "we got a bit more than a lottery ticket" based on A-ball numbers? Wayne Franklin was awesome in A, AA too and we know how that turned out. Like I said earlier its all fine and dandy, at least there is Brewers news, but lets call it like it is instead of running the guy through the magic Brewer fan filter where he's suddenly a key prospect in the organization.

Stop the Presses!! By your example above, the Brewers just picked up the next CC Sabathia! Look at CC's minors numbers: 54/ IP-257 / WHIP 1.286 / H9 7.3 / BB9 4.3 / K9 10.3 Somebody pencil Crawford in for opening day... give me a break. It's fine and dandy that the Dodgers gave a player in return to get Knebel, and I get that we're all a little Brewers news starved. But the best front office in the game was willing to move on from this guy because he has fringe major league velocity and a small frame that won't allow him to add more velocity. Again fine and great, as the news is welcome but lets be realistic here.

I'm thinking this is more about the expectations people had (i.e. very low) on the type of player coming back and are happier than expected. Not that everyone thought we had a future All-Star pitcher robbed from LAD. I think comparisons to Mike Fiers, Zac Davies, or even Suter are somewhat apt - non-heralded players that seem to get results. Its better than just non-tendering Knebel. Yeah, a baseball player is better than getting nothing in return. However, let's be honest, this is the definition of "just a guy".

I guess that goes to show you the depth of the Dodger system. Here's a pitcher who was an organizational filler in the Dodger system, and comes over to the Brewers and fans describe him as "promising" "a very nice pickup" and "a rotation piece". Come on, the best organization in the league at talent evaluation just sent him over to the Brewers in a minor trade for them. If he ultimately makes the major leagues at all for Milwaukee, we should be happy.

If Santana gets an AAV of 8.5 million dollars, the Brewers probably aren't going to get a free agent first basemen for less than 5(Cron would be taking a cut from 6 million down to 5). Which of course, also then makes the decision to decline the team option on Gyorko foolish in hindsight. Moreover, given Gyorko was their best hitter statistically in 2020, I'm not so sure he would have any interest in coming back to the Brewers with a paycut, unless he has no other guaranteed offers.

There isn't an owner in the league who's pouring buckets of their own cash into a team to be used as player costs. You don't know that. Every team has closed books. And there are reports that Steve Cohen intends to do exactly that with the Mets. I'm truly astonished that this fan message board sounds more like a group of accountants who assiduously defend Mark A's money. You’re right, I don’t know that. However, I do know the Brewers are owned by a venture capitalist. I do know that MLB teams now sell for close to 1 Billion dollars give or take. I also know that no team has been sold for less than it was bought for. Finally, I know the Brewers were purchased for $220 million. Ask yourself is a venture capitalist going to potentially impair the excellent return on the initial investment by dumping a large pile of personal cash into the Milwaukee Brewers? Will pumping his own fortune into the team make it more valuable? No. Would it permanently improve their revenue streams? No. Would it improve their media market? No.

There isn't an owner in the league who's pouring buckets of their own cash into a team to be used as player costs. Think about it, on the surface it doesn't seem like a big deal for some billionaire to pump 25 million dollars of their own cash into a team to be used on player contract costs beyond what a team's revenue sources will support. However, those contracts are rarely one year deals. Meaning, it's really a commitment to pump in in 50 million or 75 million or 100 million dollars depending on the circumstances. As we all know, baseball contracts are guaranteed, so an owner can't simply can't decide to cut all those costs and release all those players to avoid paying them. Now imagine an owner annually infusing their own money into a team for future payroll costs beyond what the team revenue would support. In a few years time they could be personally committed for hundreds of millions of dollars in future payroll obligations. In today's baseball a significant portion of owners are Wall Street Hedge Fund investors. They buy these teams for the equity when they ultimately sell them. They're not going to wreck their (and their investors) equity by committing a pile of their own money to player contracts.

Given the Brewers system is terrible, when someone mentions a mid-level prospect it actually means someone who would be near the top of the Brewers system . It doesn’t make a lot of sense for the Brewers to deal from both their major league roster AND their minor league club to marginally improve in the short run. JD Davis is a nice player but if you can’t get him straight up for Hader, that speaks volumes as to what Hader is truly worth to other teams and at that rate the Brewers should just keep him.

Defensively Garcia is better than Yelich so if anyone should be moving to 1B it is Yelich. What's the difference between Vogelbach and Pederson? Neither hits left handed pitching at all. Their average and on-base percentage against right handed pitching are almost indentical (.225/.350 for Vogelbach, .238/.349 for Pederson) Vogelbach's OPS+ against right handed pitching is actually better than Pederson's (116 to 110). Thus it makes no sense to sign Pederson as First Baseman against right handed pitching. As a corner OFer, I suppose I could see it as Pederson has played all three outfield spots in the major leagues, and CF and LF extensively. They could rotate him through so they all get regular at bats and stay rested, but unless their interest is tied to the fact that there isn't a market for Pederson and he may come as a bargain; it doesn't really address any of the holes on their team, and thus doesn't seem all that logical either.

As a comparison to Hader, the big difference is Lance Lynn is outpitching his contract. He's been a combined 10 WAR pitcher the last two years and has been paid only 20 million dollars over that same period of time. By comparison, Kershaw has been a 4.8 WAR pitcher the last two years and was paid 60+ million dollars. Greinke has been a 6.5 WAR and has been paid 70 million. Verlander was a 14 WAR pitcher in '18 and '19 and was paid 56 million dollars. In other words, for a team to go out and hire a pitcher to produce what Lynn has done the last two years would costs them 25 to 30 million dollars per year. In those terms they upgraded their rotation significantly without breaking the piggybank or having to give up one of their key players. The Rangers have to be thrilled to get a pitcher who was a first round pick, has already had success at the big leagues, made a start in the post season and is pre-arbitration eligible. Hader, on the other hand, is an elite reliever but with an anticipated salary approaching 7 million dollars, is also no longer cheap for his position. The question facing other teams will be is it worth the capital to acquire Hader or are they better served to acquire Brad Hand, Archie Bradley etc. who are obviously lesser pitchers but also won't cost the minor league capital or money that Hader will command over the next several seasons. I'm sure the Brewers could trade him if they wanted, but I doubt there will be the feeding frenzy, and they'd be best served to hang on to him until the next trade deadline at least.

How does this trade make the Brewers better in the short run or long run? If they’re going to trade Hader, I’d hope it would be for as close to a “sure thing” as possible. Dominic Smith isn’t a sure thing. He’s got a little more than a full seasons worth of at bats. Half of them great, half of them terrible. Further, Milwaukee is trying to win now. If the Brewers are going to trade from their major league roster for players who are multiple years away from the big leagues they may as well hit the reset button and clean house.

Owners want expanded playoffs. The players don’t get paid for playoffs. This the owners offered universal DH to get the players on board with the expanded post season in 2022 he Union rejected it. They’re such dysfunctional groups, they’ll kill off their sport before long

I don't necessarily disagree that the NL Central will likely be a four team race again in 2021, but what talent are the Brewers hemorrhaging? As I'm sure everyone knows, since the end of the season the Brewers have relinquished control over: Ryan Braun, Corey Knebel, Jedd Gyroko, Ben Gamel, Alex Claudio. Additionally, Brett Anderson declared free agency. Perhaps none a crucial component of the team, but all are legitimate major leaguers.

This really isn't at all accurate. In that deal the Dodgers took all of Bailey's contract, the Reds took Matt Kemp's contract with the Dodgers kicking in a significant percentage to move him. The other aspect of the trade was Alex Wood, Kyle Farmer and Yasiel Puig with Jeter Downs and Josiah Gray going to Los Angeles. Neither Downs or Gray played above Rookie Ball at the time of the trade. In no way shape or form were they considered by anyone to be "the future". Puig was subsequently flipped for Trevor Bauer, who won the Cy Young award and was a reason the Reds made the playoffs. I imagine if the Brewers traded two players in Rookie Ball in a series of moves to land a pitcher who would win the Cy Young award and help push the team into the post season folks would almost universally be good with it. The Reds still have Tyler Stephenson (#11 overall in 2015), Nick Senzel (#2 overall in 2016), Hunter Greene (#2 overall in 2017) Jonathan India (#5 overall in 2018) and Nick Lodolo (#7 overall in 2019). That's their "future" and nothing has been mortgaged. Again, most fans here would be amped to have that type of potential talent in the minor league system regardless of what's on the major league team. The "bad veteran" salaries are easily explained. The NL Central doesn't have a dominant club. With Gray, Bauer, Castillo, Iglesias, Winker, Votto and Saurez, they decided to step up in the division and added Moustakas and Castellanos. The strategy sort of worked, they posted their first winning record in 7 years, finished 3 games back and made the 2020 playoffs. Besides its way too early to say that Moustakas and Castellanos are bad contracts for the Reds. They weren't great in 2020 but they certainly weren't alone, there were tons of great players who never got it going in 2020: Yelich, Rizzo, Javy Baez, Bryant, etc. In fact, unless one assumes they have no 'window' without Bauer, they should be well positioned to compete in the Central as the other teams so far are hemorrhaging talent as well. As for Iglesias, we've already seen the bottom fall out of relief pitching contracts so this move actually makes a lot of sense, to get another young player for the system, and jettison a player who is earning more than other similarly situated available pitchers.

Nobody is giving the Brewers anything of value for Garcia or Cain. Just last week, there were comparable players who were non-tendered over less than those two are scheduled to make in 2021. Not to mention, the Brewers have no history of including cash in trades, and in a year where they took a huge revenue hit, they're just not going to do it.

There's a some of legacy twisting going on with Knebel: 2015: Above Average Reliever 2016: Below Average Reliever 2017: Elite Reliever 2018: Above Average Reliever 2020: Poor Reliever The Dodgers have the luxury of trying to see if Knebel can come back from an injury and be elite again as he was three seasons ago. But, if he's just 'above average' as he was for most of his career before the injury, that's easy for the Brewers to replace and paying Knebel $5 million to do it would be a poor use of their financial resources. If there's any legacy twisting, it's the subjective arbitrary conclusions of "above average" "below average" etc. Lets actually look at the numbers: 2015: 50 innings pitched, 1.21 WHIP, 10.4 K per 9, SO/W 3.41. By comparison, Trevor Rosenthal was selected to the All-Star game that year and his stat line included 1.267 WHIP, 10.9 K per 9, SO/W 3.32. The only difference between this All-Star and Knebel is Rosenthal was a closer with 48 saves, and Knebel was 4th in the pecking order behind K. Rod, Will Smith and Jeffress. 2018: 55 innings pitched, 1.08 WHIP, 14.3K per 9, SO/W 4.00. By comparison, Jeremy Jeffress was selected to the All-Star game that year. His stat line included a 0.99 WHIP, 10.4K per 9, SO/W 3.30. In 2020, when he hadn't pitched in over a year due to TJ surgery, and rehabbed without the benefit of either spring training games or the minor leagues. There's either a double standard being used or I assume the same criticism of being a "poor player" would also apply to Yelich, Hiura, Braun, Urias, Narvaez and would make them dicey bets going forward. Moreover, the "risk" the Dodgers are taking here is overblown. This isn't Jimmy Nelson where he was trying to make a comeback from multiple areas of structural damage in his shoulder. Knebel had Tommy John surgery, a very common procedure with modern major league pitchers and one that typically has closer to a 2 year window before being back to pre-injury effectiveness. Its been beaten to death, we can agree to disagree and time will tell.

I guess people want to dog the guy because he tore an elbow ligament, which i guess is fine. But come on, Knebel had 20 rough innings in July and August of 18. Other than that he was a killer on the mound. Even with his rough patch nobody can legitimately criticize his stats with the Brewers . If he never makes it back from his TJ surgery, they’ll look like geniuses. Otherwise they traded a great late inning arm to the team who eliminated them from the playoffs in two of the last three years.