badger3034

I absolutely think the Red Sox have some interest in him, especially considering the outlandish contract demands of JD Martinez(who they are publicly targeting). I'd be open to dealing for prospects now, signing a FA, and dealing for another pitcher at the deadline depending on our situation. I would not be at all surprised if JD Martinez is holding up a trade of Santana. Was going to post this last night, but the Red Sox have supposedly expressed interest in Santana and they need a DH. If Hanley Ramirez accumulates 497 PAs this year the Red Sox are on the hook for his $22M option for 2019, and I'm sure they don't want that. It is possible that the Red Sox have made the best offer for Santana, but it is contingent on Martinez going elsewhere. With owing Ramirez $22M this year the Red Sox offer to Martinez might be low in 2018 with a big increase in 2019 when Ramirez is off the books. Martinez might not be real big on that. The Red Sox don't have many top 100 prospects, but almost all of their top prospects (B/B- grade) are pitchers with several being LH. Pitching prospects are expensive; the Brewers won't get as much value compared to trading for position players. The Brewers could keep the pitching prospects, or flip them for an upgrade at SP. The Indians might have an offer out to Martinez as well. Encarnacion moves to 1B, with Brantley/Frazier/Chisenhall manning the OF spots. Martinez is expensive, but they don't have to give up pitching or other prospects. It's salary/performance risk versus prospect risk. I guess it could be entirely possible that another team is holding up a Santana trade, but in my opinion, I don't think anything not involving starting pitching would be an ending spot for Santana. The Sox farm system shouldn't be good enough to spark a trade prospect wise for Santana. If Cleveland is waiting on J.D., then I guess that could be a possibility for the DH spot. If there was a 3 team trade with the Sox/Cleveland/Milwaukee, then I guess maybeeee, but I don't think either of those teams want to miss out on J.D. if they have the opportunity. Doesn't seem to make much sense basically surrendering that much offense to another contender.

Well that's my general stance as well. We don't HAVE to move Santana, only do so if you can get reasonable value in return. I suspect we can probably get some pretty good prospect packages for him, though we likely can't get any elite prospects like Mejia or McKenzie for Santana alone. As for SP, we likely can't get a TOR starter but we can probably get a solid #2/3 type. Most people tend to agree that Santana has relatively similar value to Salazar. Some people think slightly more value, some slightly less...but it's not all that far off in most bf.net people's eyes. I'm curious how this plays out, I'm sure one way or another the Brewers will add one more SP before opening day. If it's via trade, Santana will likely be involved. If it's via FA, maybe we keep him until the deadline. If we were able to get Salazar for Santana straight up, I think this trade would have been done already. This would completely clear your logjam in the outfield, and open up more playing time for Phillips as a guaranteed 4th outfielder. Either Stearns has injury concerns about Salazar, or the Indians don't believe Santana is worth as much as him. In my eyes, that's the only two things preventing this deal from being done. There is also an outside possibility that they're just working out a few kinks to get Kipnis involved (which I would love by the way), but I don't think it would take weeks and weeks to figure out a way to get an aging 2B with a large contract into a deal. The Brewers obviously shouldn't have to add much to get him if Santana has a larger value than Salazar. I don't think the amount of money that they're taking on is much of an issue in the Brewers minds, because they're really still not close to their threshold of being unable to sign one of the top 4 pitchers, unless that guys name begins with a Y. As far as I understand, correct me if I'm wrong, the Indians haven't been attached in rumblings to one of the top 4 guys in free agency, so I don't think they would have a problem taking a good portion of Kipnis' money from the Brewers, if they valued Santana that highly. I honestly don't believe most teams value Santana as highly as I would, he's a great bat, bad defensively, but I don't think that's as big of an issue because of how well he would do with the bats in front of him with this offense. I think it's better to keep him at this point.

Welcome badger - There are a number of good reasons to trade Santana for something other than SP now. I like the idea of trading Santana as it allows more playing time for phillips/thames. You can rotate those guys in for significant atbats with Braun/Cain/Yelich playing almost everyday(braun will get more rest than the other 2 guys). Ideally, Braun and Perez would play against lefties(Perez in RF) and Braun would split time against righties at 1b and RF...with Phillips/Thames playing when Braun rests. With Santana, Phillips probably has to open in AAA or be glued to the bench...and it would also be tough to get atbats for Thames. Also, provides more balance with potentially 4-5 lefties in the lineup against RH pitchers. Ideally, we get a starting pitcher for Santana. If there isn't a good match for starting pitcher now, we can trade for a prospect package that can be used at the deadline to acquire SP if needed. Even though we are in win-now mode, prospects are still valuable as currency in trades...and for all we know the prospects we'd get don't end up being traded and turn into quality major leaguers. I guess I (and pretty much everyone else I think) don't understand the value that Domingo has on a trade market. If he can't fetch a decent starting pitcher, whose to say that he'd be able to get anything worth much value in prospects? If I were to guess, unless you're trading for someone like Kershaw or whatever (just an example), I would be under the assumption that a prospect has a higher value than an above average starting pitcher. We obviously aren't able to trade for a TOR pitcher straight up for Domingo without giving prospects back also. He probably has less value than maybe two prospects, one top 75, and one outside of the top 100. Just my thoughts on that. Obviously if Braun is able to play at 1B daily, you're going to have to get rid of Aguilar or Thames. At this point, you might as well let Aguilar just go (unless he has options which I'm not sure of), and have a platoon of Braun and Thames, that way Braun stays rested. Only issue is that Thames needs a lot of playing time to get into a groove. Phillips should be your Hernan Perez of the outfield this year, and can get slotted in at any outfield spot without feeling like you're losing anything defensively any given day. I'd rather just roll with keeping Santana if you can't get an above average starting pitcher without giving up players like Burnes to achieve that.

First post here. I don't understand why people are wanting to trade Domingo for prospects right now. In my opinion, if you're not getting starting pitching back for the guy, there is no use trading him. This is obviously dependent on the fact that Braun can play 1B, which would be amazing if possible. I'm not sure how many outfielders in history have made the transition from the OF to 1B, but I'd imagine that from a professionals standpoint, it would probably be the easiest transition. Right now, with a fully healthy lineup, and Braunny staying healthy (playing 1B), Santana is probably the 4th or 5th best bat in their lineup. That's pretty incredible, I'm sure a lot of teams in baseball would look at him as their 2nd or 3rd best option (maybe 1st in some cases? idk). If we can't get any pitching for the guy, stick with what you've got at this point, and hope for the best with signing some sort of pitching. If you can sign one of the top 4 pitchers with a 3 year deal, 3rd being a team option of some sort, and guaranteed money in the first two, I don't think that the price tag is that big of an issue. You're not mortgaging your future payroll on a 3 year deal ever, and we are basically opening our window over the next 5 years (I think its closer to 3 really). Our time is short, we need to make an attempt at making it to a world series and ending the 36 year drought of getting there. People shouldn't be scared of paying up for winning. Sure, it's definitely possible you don't make it, but if you don't make the attempt, you'll never find out. Any of the top 4 pitchers are above our 4/5 pitchers right now. Also, sorry if I veered my comment in the wrong direction of this thread