Jopal78

The team is best known for ineptitude and therefore “competence” often gets mistook for “mastery”. Stearns, like Melvin before him, is a competent GM. Certainly not in the same class as Cashman, Friedman, Epstein, Beane etc. He had some moves that worked out and allowed him to field a winner Right away without taking the rebuild down to the studs. But now the organization is feeling the pain of not having enough talent to get it done on the field and not having any difference makers in the minor league pipeline. You can fault Stearns for picking the wrong guys like Sogard, Lindblom, etc. However, he took some chances to build an unconventional team in 2020 and it didn’t work out. From that perspective, what else is a GM going to do when he’s never going to be handing out 100 million dollar contracts to elite free agents like the big boys.

Will Smith trade pretty much a total bust. A catcher who’s long gone and a soft tossing relief pitcher with command issues

Doesn’t matter, at this pace Hiura will strike out 213 times over his first 162 games. Thats Chris Carter, Mark Reynolds territory. For a guy who doesn’t play defense, if he continues to strike out that much he’ll be gone when he becomes arbitration eligible. If they’re going to play a guy who strikes out in half his at bats and is a liability defensively, there is nothing to lose by playing Ray over replacement level players like Jace Peterson

How bad can Corey Ray be? They play Hiura every night and at his pace he’ll give Mark Reynolds and Adam Dunn a run for their money. Ray must have not only horrible swing and miss tendencies but other holes in his game too

Lindblom is just bad. Sure he has 20 different pitches but he can’t get any of them over for strikes consistently, then more often than not he has to bring a mediocre swifty right down the middle which gets hit.

Yep. Exactly how I feel. Phelps HAS BEEN slightly better the the guys we've got to replace him, but he certainly isn't anything special. Get younger and get whatever you can for him at his peak value right now and sign another guy like him in the offseason then trade that guy high to get younger....etc etc. etc. Of course signing veterans and dealing them for “low level minor leaguers” at the deadline doesn’t sound like the team will be winning much under your scenario. Ultimately, I don’t really care about Phelps either way, I’m more disappointed the Brewers didn’t add and are content to “see what happens”/ punt on this year. Wasting a prime season from Yelich, and having the other young players march a year closer to free agency while likely playing out the string.

Publicly available sources have the Brewers at about a 50/50 chance at making they playoffs & I'd imagine the Brewers internal calculations peg them in the same range. Trading Phelps is not going to drastically change things one way or another, so I'd imagine before the trade Stearns probably thought we had around a 50% chance of making the playoffs & now that we have traded Phelps he probably still thinks we have around a 50% chance of making the playoffs, but now with three more prospects in the fold. Well, the back of their bullpen with Williams, Phelps and Hader was pretty strong. A nice club option on Phelps for 2021 meant they could’ve kept that group together for next year. To me it’s indicative of some of Stearns other deals moving some players for different players who may or may not be better than the player being traded away. Take a look at some of those old Power 50s on this site before getting excited about “low level minor leaguers”.

Hader AND Hiura? What am I missing here? Hiura has struck out 46 times in 124 at bats this year, and 153 times in 486 at bats for his career. If the Brewers plan on a soft rebuild by trading Hader while his value is highest, they may as well trade Hiura while his value is highest before his poor defense and swing and miss tendencies crater his value. Am I being facetious? Yes. Every player is "available" in a trade for "the right price". The odds that someone meets "the right price" in 2020 on Josh Hader, who despite a rough game on Saturday, remains arguably the most dominant relief pitcher in the major leagues is next to nil.

I'd just shoot the moon and send Hader, Phelps and Hiura to the Yankees for Clint Frazier, Jasson Dominguez, Clarke Schmidt and Deivi Garcia. Next year, killer outfield of Yelich, Cain, Dominguez, Fraizer. Avi moves to DH Can move on from Braun, plug Gyorko in at 2B and the starting pitching is stacked in waves with Woodruff, Burnes, Peralta, Houser, with Schmidt and Garcia coming. Devin Williams in at closer.

I mean, between tonight, and keeping Maeda from throwing a no-no a couple weeks ago, Sogard has had about as much of an impact I gut with a sub-.500 OPS could possibly have. He hit a game winner in extras in Pittsburgh too. I'm no Sogard apologist, but he's a fine bench player. I thought Brock Holt had the better pedigree/history, but obviously the organization sees otherwise (unless Holt wanted to go home...) I’d agree with you if he was a bench player. Sogard, however, has the 5th most plate appearances on the team.

Sub .500 OPS this year and a nifty .638 OPS as a Brewer ‘17-‘20. His career OPS is .650 meaning including his hot streak in 2017 he has under performed his career numbers as a Brewer.

Well, Feyereisen, Yardley and Grimm likely to see some significant innings today

The Brewers aren’t the only team to come out of Summer Camp flat, but man they’ve just played some terribly boring baseball to watch, and that’s even with being entertainment starved due to the pandemic.

He’s got three consecutive winning seasons and back to back playoff appearances. That tops what Doug Melvin, Dean Taylor and Sal Bando were ever capable of doing so I think the job he’s doing is fine. Given close to 40 out of the Brewers’ 50 overall seasons could best be described as examples of ineptitude, I do not think anyone can seriously be disappointed in the job Stearns has done.

One would have to assume the 2020 Sogard Experience is nearing the end of the line. They should be playing Urias in front of Sogard as a left handed infielder. They also like Mathias and while he’s been used exclusively in the outfield, he’s also a lefty and had played over 100 games at 3B in the minors. You can argue that when they want to stack their lineup with lefties Mathias should play in front of Sogard if for no other reason to see if there’s any upside there. All of this basically leaves a left handed pinch hitter/defensive replacement, and here they have the equally inept Jace Peterson. They dropped Sogard the last time after 110 at bats or so in a playoff hunt, with 2 extra base hits all year, and with 4 walks, 14 strike outs and only ten hits this month, perhaps the end is finally coming

I’m not a believer in Urias (like Grisham, if there were not questions over his ability to hit, he wouldn’t have been available in a trade). With Davies and Grisham playing very well for the Friars, and Urias scuffling and Lauer not on the mlb team, sure it doesn’t look good now. If Lauer can get it together and Urias becomes a passable SS this deal will be fine. Grisham wasn’t really needed with Braun, Cain, Yelich and Garcia. Given Braun’s relationship with the owners family, if he intends to play in 2021 I assume it will be for the Brewers. Cain will be 35 but having nearly and entire year off he will be coming in fresh and most likely will pick up where he left off this year. Grisham stings right now, but with just a little production from the guys Milwaukee got it will be a zero sum situation for the Brewers as they didn’t need either two players they traded.

I kind of figured Grisham was a flash in the pan in 2019, one step from being a minor league FA he gets hot and carries it all the way to Milwaukee.. I recall in the wild card game Jeff Francouer commented that he was surprised Grisham could generate any power with the golf grip on the bat, and I figured it would only be a matter of time before pitchers figured out where he couldn't hit it well using that grip. Time will ultimately make or break this trade for the Brewers, in the short-run its a bust reminiscent of another move (Khris Davis for Nottingham and Bubba Derby) trading young players with team control for different not necessarily better young players. Fortunately, with Anderson pitching well, and further development of Peralta, Burnes, and Houser they haven't really missed Zach Davies yet.

I believe you’ve mentioned this multiple times now. Is this based on actual data, or your personal assumptions? How can this not be the case. The Brewers play in the smallest market have a terrible local tv contract yet draw very well. I can't imagine another team being more hurt by not having fans in the stands. The ownership lowered the payroll last offseason when they still expected big crowds. Without that revenue its hard to imagine that they will increase payroll. Certainly many teams are hurt without this revenue but what other team has the combination of the Brewers lack of local tv money but draws fans like this team has. This really doesn't have much to do with anything. First of all, every player with less than 6 years of experience costs more money in payroll each successive season. A team like the Brewers, where only 7 players are on a multi-year deals, have a large number of players getting more expensive every year, this in addition to a couple of their players on multi-year deals who are due for significant raises. The salary increases in 2021 owed to Cain, Yelich, Garcia, Lindbloom, Suter and Peralta will nearly eat up the money saved by Ryan Braun's salary coming off the books, which doesn't even toe the line from a aggregate talent perspective because Braun is coming out of contract. I would assume most MLB teams already have an idea which impending 2020 free agents they can afford to pursue. Moreover outside of the Angels and the Phillies there are not many teams that throw big money at players without making the team better. Payroll very well could go down in 2012 due to the fact there are no players the Brewers could afford that would improve the team to a degree to justify their contract. As for the motley crew of veterans on the 2020 Brewers, every team has them to some extent so its hard to say his plan to platoon a bunch of veterans on short term deals was poorly thought out. You may be able to say he hired the wrong players when you have Jason Kipnis tearing it up for the Cubs on a minor league deal, and Wilmer Flores for the Giants on a one year deal with club option, but then again its 25 games in and it might look different in another 35 .

Maybe they’ll just release him given his comments about the uncertainty of playing with a baby due. But with a $950,000 prorated salary plus $750,000 buy out on his option. If they outright him to the alternate training site, he’ll report. With the uncertainty surrounding the offseason I don’t think many players would turn down about any four weeks working out in Appleton to collect nearly a million dollars.

I agree the minor leagues are more important to small market franchises than they are to larger markets, and I share the concern mentioned in this thread about the current state of the farm. One difference I see with Stearns and Melvin is that while both have traded pieces from the farm for major league help, Stearns seems much more concerned about finding controllable assets in trade, while Melvin looked for shorter-term fixes. They may not look as sexy as picking up a Grienke or Sabathia, but getting a MLB player for 4-6 years is meaningful. A lot can happen to a farm in 4-6 years, so by the time someone like Urias starts getting expensive, we will have a significantly different system than we have today. As our current MLB roster is built, we have quite a few positions (including most of our pitching) that could be around for a long time. That eases my concern over the strength of our upper-level farm teams. Right, but they also traded five years of control of Trent Grisham to get Urias. As well as giving up the better pitcher in Zach Davies to get Eric Lauer and his 5 years of control

The team as a whole is hitting .221/.298/.368. If all of their hitters have struggled so far, obviously whomever has hit in the DH spot has also struggled. From here on out, playing time is likely going to go to the hot hands, so The Brock Star and to a lesser extent Sogard aren't going to see as much time as before. 2. Pina/Narvaez 3. Smoak/Gyorko 4. Urias 5. Gyorko/Urias 6. Arcia 7. Yelich 8. Garcia 9. Braun DH. Hiura Frankly, I'd be on the lookout for an Outfielder available in a trade (Shin-Soo Choo, Kevin Pillar, maybe Jay Bruce). Keep Braun fresh that way with some DH at bats, give Hiura more time at 2b, shifting Urias to 3b. Designating Holt or optioning Gamel to the alternative training site.

I would tend to agree and say the GM isn't a problem. What other GMs have traded for a player who developed into an MVP? (Anthopoulos in Toronto). He thinks outside the box: signing Thames out of Korea, signing Grandal and Moustakas to large single year deals when their anticipated market didn't develop. As I've previously mentioned, I thought it was an interesting idea to infuse talent into the roster not by signing one big marquee free agent, but to bring on a collection of established veteran players and eliminate the large number of at bats given to players with fringe major league talent (It hasn't worked out, but even in a 60 game season its still early). If a fan is upset the Brewers didn't go commit 64 million dollars to Castellanos, or 54 million dollars to Grandal, I would say they do not know their Milwaukee Brewers history. All time, the organization has signed exactly one free agent to a multi-year contract in excess of 50 million dollars. Moreover, the franchise has a terrible track record with the free agents they have signed to multi-year contracts: Matt Garza (26-39, 4.65 era, 1.41 whip), Suppan (29-36, 5.08 era, 1.59 whip), Randy Wolf (29-32, 4.37 era, 1.41 whip), Jeffrey Hammonds (.248/.321/.398). The two best multi-year free agent signings the team has had this decade were players who were pretty much average to slightly above average with Milwaukee: Kyle Lohse (29-32, 4.11 era, 1.24 whip) and Aramis Ramirez (.284/.342/.473). For a team that is never going to have a huge payroll with this experience with free agents, the GM has been smart in mostly avoiding paying gobs of money for anticipated performance from aging players based on prior performance. If a fan is upset that according to the pundits the Brewers farm system ranks at the bottom of the pile, it is a rather myopic view. For about the last 15 years the major league team has mostly been good to average without any real long-term futility. As a result they've picked in the top 10 in the draft just twice in the last 15 years. By comparison, the Padres have had 8 top ten picks in the last 15 years. Closer to home, the Cubs have had 6 top ten draft picks in the last 15 years, the Reds have 6 top ten picks and the Pirates have 9 top ten picks in the last 15 years. Statistically speaking, it is easier to find blue chippers picking in the first ten picks of the draft than it is in the teens and even twenties. Further, there are plenty of former Brewer farmhands scattered around MLB right now who were pedaled to acquire the players who have delivered three consecutive winning seasons and back to back playoff appearances. If all of these players were still in the organization, undoubtedly the systems prestige amongst the pundits who rate these things would be improved: Yamamoto, Isan Diaz, Monte Harrison, Brinson, Phillips, Jorge Lopez, Dubon et al. In summation, for being on the job five years I think the GM has done a tremendous job considering he inherited a system devoid of blue chip prospects, and short on long term building blocks at the major league level. It took Epstein four years to get to the playoffs with his Cubs and 200 million dollars in cash. Stearns did it in three with half the resources.

Through 16 games it hasn't really worked out the way I'm sure they had it planned, but take a look back at last year's roster: Cain 562 at bats .325/.372 OPS of .697 Arcia 494 at bats .283/.350 OPS of .633 Gamel 311 at bats .337/.373 OPS of .710 H.P. 232 at bats .262/.379 OPS of .642 Shaw 230 at bats .281/.270 OPS of .551 Spangenberg and Saladino combined for 160 at bats with an OPS of .635 Look at the career OPS of the players who were brought in for 2020: Smoak .230/.323/.419 OPS of .742 across 1200 games. Gyorko .245/.309/.422 OPS of .732 across 800 games Garcia .272/.323/.427 OPS of .750 across 777 games Sogard .248/.319/.341 OPS of .660 across 709 games Holt .270/.339/.370 OPS of .710 across 650 games Narvaez .273/.360/.405 OPS of .765 across 366 games I'll concede, I don't understand the Sogard-love this organization has (But for a short stretch in 2018 he hasn't hit a lick for the Brewers). However, the plan I think was to even out the peaks and valleys from last year's roster, where a handful of players had great offensive numbers, and the rest were a black hole with the bat. They brought in a handful of players who all have shown some ability with the bat over a significant number of games. Moreover, Smoak is a switch hitter and Gyorko, Sogard and Holt can play all over the infield, and Garcia can play all three spots in the OF. Adding to the versatility Counsel and Stearns like. It seems like a logical plan to me: the offense improves by eliminating the 1300 or so at bats they gave away to players who struggled to put up a .650 OPS. Then count on the anticipated production from a full season of Hiura, a full season of Narvaez and a healthy season from Lorenzo Cain to mostly offset the loss of production from Moustakas and Grandal. So far, it has blown up in their face, but with much better pitching than anyone anticipated they may be able to hang around .500 and sneak into the expanded playoffs, which I would take any day.

My original statement was somewhat hyperbole, but they have legitimately been a team considered 'on the verge of breaking out' for the past few offseasons. There were a lot of people that had them projected as a possible dark-horse playoff team for the 2019 season. Since Dick Williams took over the Reds in 2016 they had three straight finishes with 90+ losses, and reached a high water mark of 75 wins last year. The moves he has made seem largely like those made by a GM trying to keep his job, than an executive who sees an opportunity to compete and adds the last few missing pieces. Giving credit where it is due for acquiring Sonny Gray and Luis Castillo without giving up important pieces, the misses far outweigh the hits. They acquired Tanner Roark (21 starts in a Reds uni) in exchanve for Tanner Rainey who is now a key setup man for the Nationals. They traded off two top prospects: Jeter Downs and Josiah Gray for a collection of Matt Kemp, Alex Wood, Yasiel Puig and Kyle Farmer. Alex Wood pitched in 7 games for the Reds and left as a free agent. Kemp was released after 60 at bats. Puig put up a .777 OPS across 100 games for the Reds, they then packaged him with a top 100 prospect Taylor Trammell, and another minor league starting pitcher for Trevor Bauer. They got 10 starts out of Bauer last year and might get another 10 to 12 starts this year before Bauer departs as a free agent. They held on to Scooter Gennett at the deadline in 2018 despite huge numbers and diminishing team control, only to have him suffer an injury and get nothing in return a year later. The inability to develop homegrown players to match with good starting pitching resulted in their signings of Moustakas, Castellanos, and Akiyama. Bottom line it seems to me their GM is trying to put a winner on the field her and now to save a job, rather than a team that is built to compete with the big boys year in and year out.

Historically Arcia doesn’t hit, and the scouting report on Urias is he doesn’t hit in the majors either. A team starved for offense is going to go with the other middling bats who at least have a track record of doing something