coolhandluke121

Cedeno has been statistically better and more reliably healthy than Hader this year?

113 OPS+, compared to 106 for Thames. Comparable advantage of facing RHP's only. Thames spends a lot more time in hitter-friendly parks - especially since they try to use him in the OF only in small parks. Yeah, this is good. Pretty weird to see reactionary posts about how bad Granderson is. This is the second year in a row that Thames has been one of their worst hitters for LONG stretch of games, and they need some consistency. Granderson has been better than Braun as well and has the advantage of being an LHB.

Cool. They need serviceable depth. Just because he's not a good pitcher anymore doesn't mean this will be a bad trade. He's probably better than some of the alternatives. If he can just have 2 fewer implosions than the guy(s) he's replacing, that could make all the difference. ETA: fully acknowledging that he might have just as many implosions as Guerra/Peralta lately.

Really good year. Let's face it - last year's roster was not very talented. Therefore you have to consider winning 85+ again despite all the inevitable regression to be a successful season. They made the organization stronger overall and will probably improve their record without giving up any payroll flexibility or prospects that they couldn't afford to lose. With Suter, Nelson, and Davies hardly contributing most of the year, you basically lost 3 of your only 4 respectable starters from last season and still improved. Patching together a serviceable rotation without making any short-sighted moves was really impressive. Last year, they got pretty lucky and won 86. This year, they got pretty unlucky and will probably win a few more than that. Counsell continues to show signs of being a good manager. There are some legitimate complaints, but a lot of the second-guessing really just goes to show how much guesswork is involved. Things didn't go their way with the pen after the ASB but the same strategies looked brilliant in the first half and it carried them to the best record in the NL for much of the year. Pitchers didn't execute, they played way too many consecutive games before and after the ASB, their starters can't go 6+, and they guessed wrong a lot in terms of when to use relievers and when to save them. Seriously, I agree that they should have used Hader in Jeffress deficits a little more often, but there's nothing they could do about having big deficits several games in a row and having no reason to use them. Then they'd need their best relievers several days in a row. Luck was a factor. In a way, just like last season, milking so many extra wins out of a flawed roster compromised some fans' ability to maintain reasonable expectations. Some fans seem to expect that #1 seed, which was never going to happen. Come on. This has the backbone of a good team for a long time because they have talent and good management. They're still on the way up and they just need more time to patch all the holes. That's what this year was about - continuing to show promise while being resourceful and innovative and disciplined, which is what a small market team needs to do. The disappointment ultimately stems from the fact that they still had to play some major liabilities, but you have to expect a few bad players on a small market team that was tanking as recently as 2 years ago. They have proven more than capable of plugging those holes with the limited resources they have, including building from within (a lot of their best talent is still too young to consistently contribute positively), and I'm confident they will continue to make incremental improvements in the back of the bullpen and at the bottom of the order. I expect 90+ wins with a much better run differential next season. I expect Arcia, Barnes, Williams, and Peralta to be a little more consistent. I expect Nelson to fall short of his 2017 standards, but still be an upgrade in the rotation. Schoop is slump-prone, but ultimately he's better than Villar/Sogard in the long run. I think they'll have Soria all year. I'm really excited for the next 3 years.

It's not a debate about whether they're a potentially great team this year though. It's about the fact that they could have built a dynasty and instead made a bunch of impulsive moves for a very marginal uptick in their chances of winning a title now. On paper, that's arguably one of the most talented teams this century. Raise your hand if you predicted Darvish, Quintana, Rizzo, and Bryant to combine for less than 5 WAR this year. They should have over 15. And yet they still have the best record in the NL. Nobody is (or should be) saying that they don't have a really talented roster right now. But that's just the thing - why pay so much salary and/or prospects for some of the guys they've gotten when you would have probably won the Central without them? It's mind-numbingly stupid.

Good post. I still say their extra money means nothing if they continue to misuse it though. The difference is $8m in dead weight Suppan vs. $20m in dead weight Darvish. And like I said, they've already spent quite a bit of their extra payroll potential with Rizzo and Bryant not even out of arbitration yet. The only way I see Chicago being in a better situation than the Brewers moving forward is if they suddenly stop making such short-sighted moves while the Brewers stop being so shrewd. Put it this way - if I had to take over a team right now, I'd rather take over the Cubs. So I agree that they're in a better position in that sense. But I won't be taking over either team - it's Theo for the Cubs and Stearns for the Brewers, so there's ample reason to believe the Brewers will continue to get much better value on their transactions, and they're already pretty close in 5-year outlook anyway despite the lack of Bryant/Rizzo level superstars. Depth and balance is more important than superstars in baseball, except for ace starters which neither team has anyway.

Just imagine how good this team would be if nearly every guy who had a career year in 2017 didn't regress terribly? Shaw is about the only one, and even he was cold for long stretches this year. Davies and Anderson in the rotation, not to mention Nelson missing all year. Knebel went from All Star to punching bag. Arcia ... Santana. At least Pina is starting to hit, but he was bad for much of the season. This team would be on pace for 100 wins had these guys played up to the level they did last year, and combined with the new guys who are playing well. That's why they made the upgrades they did. I think some regression was inevitable. Their best baseball is still ahead of them. They got pretty lucky last year and won 86. This year they've been pretty darn unlucky and will probably win more than that. I'm very happy with their progress.

I think they are great at giving guys the right amount of leash. Fans tend to be way too impatient and you can't manage a team that way. Anybody who's struggling could turn it around at any time. You'd lose the respect of the players if you benched guys every time they went through a rough patch. Some regimes stick with a liability guy nearly all season, but the Brewers don't do that. Even Sogard and Drake got the right amount of leash given their previous season's work and the fact that there really wasn't a good alternative at the time.

Hey Corey, Derrick Turnbow called. He wants his 2006 back.

Is that much better than Braun, Fielder, Weeks, Hart, Hardy, and Gallardo? I personally don't think so. Sure, the Cubs can spend much more money than those Brewers teams... but they've already spent a lot of it, and look what they have to show for it. I obviously don't have a crystal ball, but I'd be pretty disappointed in their decisions if I was a fan. I felt very much cheated out of a very promising future as a Brewer fan when they made similar moves around the Braun/Fielder core, and I think the Cubs are doing a lot of the same stupid stuff, only with more money to light on fire. Again, I overreacted to this trade before I knew the prospect cost, so maybe it was a weird time to bring it up... but I stand my assertion that the Cubs are likely squandering a chance at a long run of contention for an only slightly better chance at a title this year and next.

Other than the Angels, the other 3 teams have all made a World Series appearance recently, the Rangers and Tigers having a pretty extended window. Throw the Giants in there who have overspent a bit as well and have gotten some really good results with maybe overextending it after a while. Sure, but I wasn't saying that they're not generally going to make the playoffs more often and go further, on average, than small market teams. I was saying that the downswings often last much longer than just a year or two. That probably doesn't start for the Cubs for a few years, but I still believe the Brewers are setting themselves up to be the better team in the long run. I think Cubs have made some godawful decisions in recent years.

I agree with most of what you said, but the highlighted part is the key. The Brewers can compete if they are smart. Unfortunately, where big markets have an advantage is in that they can afford mistakes, while the Brewers have little margin to make mistakes. True but that can work to your advantage some times. You have a built-in excuse for not signing guys like Darvish or trading for Sonny Gray, whereas big markets are tempted to. Sometimes lack of access is the best thing to keep you off a drug.

I think you're kinda convincing yourself that those teams always did the "every single expensive player" route as much as they did back in the day and that it's a terrible thing to have a 1-2 year down window. Yes, there will be less 7 year/$230 million deals these days but these teams can still bully their way with shorter-term purchases. Teams like the Cubs, Red Sox, Dodgers, and Yankees that have built an army of young stud players from 1-2 years of trading away their last dynasty and a short tank can still just hammer the free agent market to fill any and all gaps in their roster. They can compete for a 5-10 year window, take 2 years off if they finally end up holding the bag on some older players, and start it all over again. We obviously differ on where the line is. I think it's usually gonna be more than just a couple down years when you screw up. There's also no guarantee whatsoever that you'll be able to replenish your farm before during those down years. The Yankees, Cubs, and Dodgers all drafted well, but they can't necessarily expect to repeat that success. We know that comes and goes, and they won't have great draft picks or pool money. I just think the whole "big markets get to do whatever they want" attitude is completely overblown. Every time I've argued this, I've acknowledged that the big markets will generally have longer good cycles and shorter down cycles, but there's absolutely nothing stopping a team like the Brewers from being the better team for several years at a time or more if they're making smarter moves. The Angels, Rangers, Tigers, and Mets have spent a ton of money and neglected to add much talent from their own system over the last decade too, and there's nothing stopping the Cubs or Yankees from ending up like them if they're not careful.

Seems like something somebody says when they get dumped while dating, to make themselves feel better. Chicago North has enough money to do whatever they want, so if their A and AA teams suck, it doesn't mean the Brewers will be winning anything at the MLB level. Even the Yankees and Dodgers know they have to avoid severe luxury tax penalties to field a sustainably good team. Look how the Dodgers had to get Tampa Bay's GM to clean up the mess they made when Magic first bought a share of the team. At least the Dodgers stopped themselves before they traded guys like Seager and Bellinger though. Unfortunately for their fans, the Cubs did not. Again, you don't just acquire every expensive veteran in sight and expect to have a good team anymore. Big markets still have a significant advantage, but not nearly as much as they did a decade ago. Without PED's, those rentals and free agents aren't good values anymore. Sometimes they're even worse than scrap heap guys (see Chatwood and Darvish vs. Guerra and Miley).

Yep, trading away this bum was the straw that broke the Cubs back. Without Kris Bryant they are having a better year than the Brewers. He gonna miss the next 7 as well? I did say that I was surprised at the low prospect price and acknowledged that it was a weird time to criticize all their short-sighted moves, since this probably isn't one of them. However, if you don't think the Cubs are compromising their future with some of the trades they've made and contracts they've signed over the last few years, I have to wonder what you've been paying attention to for the last decade or so. It doesn't work that way anymore. You can't just buy titles with free agents and rentals and without keeping a pipeline with your fair share of young talent. That strategy requires older players who are generally bad/terrible values now that they can't use PED's indiscriminately anymore. They will still have some good players and be a solid team for a long time, but the Brewers had a similar nucleus in Braun, Fielder, Hart, Weeks, Hardy, Gallardo, et al and that core was basically .500 together because the Brewers did the same stupid stuff the Cubs are doing now. The extra money the Cubs have is just gonna make for a more impressive bonfire if they keep this up.

I don't think anyone believes they're actually helping the Brewers by watching scores. We are spectators. It is okay.

Oh yeah, that 1 year the Yankees missed the playoffs really taught them. EDIT: I guess they missed the playoffs in '14/'15 as well, but they're back. Well, that's a pretty important "EDIT". They played exactly 1 playoff game in 4 seasons as a direct result of trying to but a title every year, and they have even more resources than the Cubs. Nobody's suggesting big markets don't have a huge advantage, but I'm very confident the Cubs are going to regret a lot of their recent moves soon. The Murphy deal isn't as bad as I expected (I'm surprised nobody else claimed him, assuming they knew the Nats were asking so little) so maybe it was a weird time to say so, but I firmly believe it. If I liked gambling, I'd bet pretty good money on the Brewers having a better record than the Cubs over the next 7 years or so.

Probably because everyone knows the Nats are going to ask for more than most teams would be willing to pay. Not really the case regarding cost. I obviously don't know the prospect but yeah, I'm kind of surprised.

Even the Yankees learned over the last decade that you can't just give away the farm and throw money at everyone and expect to be anything more than mediocre eventually. And how did their unlimited resources work for them 10 years ago? Remember Soriano and all those other terrible contracts?

Nailed it.

Probably because everyone knows the Nats are going to ask for more than most teams would be willing to pay. It's a weird situation because they didn't decide to sell until after the non-waiver deadline, but now that they've decide to be sellers, they're still in a position to ask a lot. Kind of a perfect storm for blockbuster waiver deals. I love that the Cubs continue to be ridiculously all-in in a season in which they probably had an 80% chance of winning the division anyway. They're really slamming face-first into a wall of diminishing returns on their win-now moves.

wut ETA: Keep mortgaging that future though. Central will the Crew's for 5 years or more soon.

I think it's unfair to say people who hated the trade are over-reacting to a slump. It's more than just a slump; it's the fact that he's a terrible OBP player, as many people said all along. Players like that are going to have major slumps because OBP is what stabilizes your offensive contributions even when the hits aren't falling. Bottom line, there was a very real chance that Schoop would have this type of slump. That means you gave up something of value in hopes of a 2 month upgrade, but you actually gave away prospects for an excessively high risk of a significant downgrade. I don't understand how a team that was so prudent and frugal in realizing they could patch together a rotation that would be just as good, if not better, than many flawed, risky "big name" options out there, could be the same team that would fail realize that they could do the same thing with Villar, Perez, and maybe Saladino at 2B. Just use them judiciously and there's a great chance they're just as good as Schoop. Not to mention Shaw at 2B to make room for Moustakas, who makes more sense against most starting pitchers anyway and who has a much better overall track record than Schoop despite being almost as averse to taking a walk. And they idea that they needed another good RHB was misguided because they have several who are due for some positive regression, and because Villar and Perez are fine against LHP's.

If they can't maintain the second-best record in the NL for a full season, at what point is it time to start thinking about relocating to a different city blue font?

He got a fluky 140 innings and then a #5 starter and he guaranteed the #5 starter's contract for no reason. *ducks* It's true. Chase was ridiculously lucky with his FB/HR rate last year. I think that contract probably helped his trade value slightly, but it's debatable.