monty57

The main thing I'm concerned about is that he'll get extra chances because he's making real money. To me, that's throwing good resources after bad. If the team can pretend he's making three million and just make a baseball judgment, then I'll be satisfied. That's a valid concern, but for now I'm optimistic and believe/hope that the Brewers recognize what they have in Garza and won't hesitate to cut him if he starts the season out poorly. I don't know why I feel this way, but I think Attanasio had an epiphany over this past season, and has come to the realization that he needs to get good baseball people in place, take a step back, and let the baseball people do their jobs.

This is a sensible response, but I think there's a very simple reality here: Having lots of money is way, way better than not having lots of money. Of course you can screw up wealth, but you can screw up poverty too, and poverty gives you a hell of a lot lower margin for error. To put the point another way, wealthy teams can play the build from within game as well as poor teams can -- and then the wealthy teams can separate themselves by spending money the poor teams don't have. Agree, and this is my concern about the Cubs. If they "stay smart," they could become a dynasty. I hope they get greedy and make some stupid moves like signing a pitcher into his late 30's to $31MM per year, but we will have to wait and see. In the real world, the rich and powerful beat the poor and powerless. I don't agree here. I started relatively poor and am doing everything I can to become "rich" and I think everyone has that opportunity. You're only beaten if you believe it, but I won't go any further here for fear of going too far off topic.

Yes, what you all said :-) There are good points on both sides of the Braun/Tulo comparison. With Braun's issues, and his extension not even yet underway, I was skeptical about the Brewers' ability to ever deal him, even for someone just to pick up his contract, giving little in return. Then Braun put together a pretty good season, and Tulo got traded for a pretty good haul. Looking at their careers, they have been remarkably similar (baseballprospectus has Tulo at 37.4 career WARP, and Braun at 39.3; baseballreference 40.5 WAR to 40.0) and both are signed to big money for years. Both also have injury concerns. I don't know what type of return Braun will bring back, but assuming his back surgery is behind him (sorry, bad pun), the Brewers should be able to get a decent return for him. Since he's past 30, he will regress, so I would guess that his return will diminish as time goes on, and in a couple of years the Brewers would probably not be able to trade him, so I hope they get something while they can.

If he comes back and has a sub 4 ERA at the deadline he is an easy trade away. Made easier by the Brewers' decision to sit him down at the end of the year so that his option won't automatically vest. Garza shouldn't have vented publicly, but he knew getting benched probably cost him a guaranteed season and a lot of money, so I can understand his frustration even though I don't condone his actions. as some have stated his team friendly deal when looking at some of these contracts The Brewers may be able to trade Garza if he pitches well to start the season, but I wouldn't go so far as to say his contract is "team friendly." It was a contract that never should have been signed, and there is a good chance that the Brewers will cut him and pay millions of dollars for him not to pitch for a team at the bottom of the standings. Awful deal and hopefully we can salvage something from it, even if that is just someone picking up some of his salary. I think Garza should start the year in the rotation in hopes the Brewers can get something for him at trade deadline, but there is a good chance he will just be dumped after a few months. While the Brewers have some promising young arms, starting Garza in the MLB rotation is not going to hurt the guys who will start out at AAA and AA. It may even turn out to be a blessing if we have a couple of injuries, and don't have to rush someone who is not ready just to fill out the rotation.

Who won't be traded? I'd say the guys who pitched in the rotation this season except Garza and Peralta are safe. Garza will probably get a half season to try to build up value and will then be either traded or dumped. Peralta could be traded this offseason if Stearns can get a good deal. Santana is safe in the OF. Either Braun or Davis could be traded for the right deal. The Tulo deal tells me that Braun would have more value than most give him credit for, as long as his back is healthy (as it seems to be). Davis should have decent value, especially to AL teams as a DH/OF. In the IF, Gennett will probably be around, as he doesn't have much trade value, and is a good, cheap LH option to pair with one of our RH utility guys. The bench IF (Rogers, Villar) will not be traded, as they wouldn't bring anything back, and could provide stopgap help until better options arise. Lind should be traded this offseason, and Segura would be traded if any deal is there. Now that K-Rod is gone, most of the bullpen should be safe. Any decent minor leaguers we have should be safe, unless they are included in a deal to bring back a big package of prospects (i.e. part of a Lucroy deal for a Gomez/Fiers type of return)

I'd rather pay David Price $30mil...or whatever Greinke gets paid. Money being no object I'd agree, but the Brewers shouldn't be paying 30% of their payroll for any player. It isn't realistic that they could keep enough pre-arby talent on their team through the length of that contract to have the contract not blow up on them. Now we can stop that ridiculous talk about him taking a "hometown discount" to play for the Brewers. Agree. That's the best part about this deal. Other than that, it's another big money team keeping the price tag on top free agents out of the realm of possibility for teams like the Brewers, who instead have to rely on a strategy of making few mistakes during a long process of growing your future team on the farm, taking advantage of the rules allowing teams to seriously underpay for a few years before good players' price tags skyrocket.

You sound like you didn't want to see Sardinas sliding over to first a la Alex Gonzalez. Well, you know what they say... anyone can play first base :-)

I don't know if the lack of versatility in the recent past has been because Attanasio insisted on using all the available money to pick up a "name player" (Garza, Lohse, etc) or if Melvin really didn't mind playing guys at defensive positions they couldn't play. Whatever the reason, I am glad to see that we will have some versatile guys on the team. If we make some bigger trades, these guys will allow us to fill every position with someone who at least deserves to be on an MLB roster. Otherwise, they at least provide some good bench options, which hasn't seemed to be a high priority lately. My guess is that we will make bigger trades this offseason, and we will be glad to have the guys we just received once everything shakes out. In the early stage of a rebuild, it will be nice to have young, team controlled guys all over the field who actually have some talent. I'd rather see that than a bunch of journeyman veterans and AAAA guys, which is common for teams at this stage.

Well said Thurston. The tactic of selling what's overvalued and buying what's undervalued would mean that with teams presumably trying to emulate Kansas City, the Brewers (in rebuild) should sell any of these players they have. Unfortunately, Melvin never seemed to like athletic players who played good defense, so we're thin here. It probably helped raise the value of Gomez and Parra. The good thing, if last year is any indicator, is that teams seem to have shifted from their stance of overvaluing prospects. Lots of top prospects were traded last season, and that would appear to be a good thing for a team in the early stages of a rebuild. Good pre-arby players will always be a value.

Quite different from around say 10-15 years ago when a number of teams built offenses with a core ingredient of trying to wear down good starters so as to hopefully get into the bullpen by the 6th or 7th inning. Now a good number of teams have multiple 93 to 98 mph power arms in the pen with stats better than most of the starters in their rotation. Trends are always changing, and the emergence of the "lights out bullpen" is probably a direct result of teams stacking up their roster with guys who take a lot of pitches. That has led to higher pitch counts from starters and early exits from games, but it has also led to starting pitchers being more willing to throw "fat" pitches early, knowing they will be taken for strikes, and developing a "put away" pitch they use when they get the hitter to two strikes. I read an article recently where this is how the Royals are winning. They swing at the "fat" pitches and don't let the pitcher get to his "put away" pitch. It goes against the popular trend, which is exactly what GMs looking for value have to do. It's why GMs should never only use statistical analysis, but rather should use it as a tool to help determine value. What is undevalued always changes, and good teams will be the ones to see it before everyone jumps on it and it becomes overvalued. If bullpen arms are overvalued at this point because of Kansas City's success, then the Brewers are in luck, because they have a couple of tradeable bullpen arms, and a lot of young, inexpensive guys they can throw out there over the next couple of years, hopefully building up their value. The thing that will always be undervalued (or, at least until the current pre-arby/arby system is changed) are good young players in their "cheap" years. Selling overvalued pieces now for multiple prospects is a no-brainer at this stage, and to topic I hope the Kimbrel deal just elevated K-Rod's price tag. If you stick Will Smith in there it only takes one year for his salary to shoot through the roof. Why even make a move like that? Because his trade value will shoot through the roof when he becomes a "proven closer." I've long thought that the easiest way a losing team can add value to a player is to make a reliever a closer. Justifiable or not, his trade value goes up as soon as he starts accumulating saves. I'd probably put Jeffress at closer instead of Smith, because Smith will have a lot of value simply being a good LH reliever, but either one will increase in trade value if they can pitch well as a closer.

At this point, I think you're best letting Segura and Scooter play everyday in 2016 since right now their trade value is pretty limited. However, if both can do better, they could fetch something much better mid-season or next off season. I'd start the season with Segura and Gennett, but SS is going to be Arcia's position soon, and that could easily be mid-season 2016. Therefore, Segura is playing for his future. If he plays well, we could trade him when Arcia is ready. If he does not play well, he'll probably be relegated to utility IF and likely DFA'd next offseason as his price tag will be too high to pay for a utility IF. As to the initial post, I would rather keep Gennett over Segura. As a platoon player (which he always should have been), Gennett can put up decent numbers. Segura has proven that outside of a few months at the start of his career with the Brewers, he is a very replaceable player who is probably best suited as a backup. Unfortunately for the Brewers, the arbitration panel will see that he has been a starter his whole career and will pay him as such.

He's really the type of guy that you let the people who watch him everyday make the decision on. If the Brewers think he could develop into an everyday player, then he's probably best served spending some more time in the minors to develop, and to save some service time, so we still have him when he's a serviceable MLB player. If the Brewers think that his ceiling is that of a "good glove/no bat" utility player, then saving his service time is less of an issue. In the not-too-distant future, Arcia should be our SS, and Segura will either be traded, or become our utility middle IF, so the likely future for Rivera is that he can make Segura even more expendable if he can man the same positions for less money. But who knows? With our current black hole at 3B, he could find a home there for a couple of years.

Good point. I'm all for the rebuild, but that doesn't mean putting young guys on the MLB roster if they aren't ready. If they don't have a good option for 3B next year, and can't find a long-term option in trade, I have no problem with them picking up some journeyman on a 1-year deal to cover the position until a better option arises. We are not going to have high-upside young players at every position... especially early in the rebuild. Rivera has some promise, but if he isn't ready for the big leagues, it isn't going to help his progression to throw him to the wolves. Let him develop a little longer in the minors until he is ready.

I have no argument with anything you said Plush. There may be a GM/owner with morals who won't trade for him or other people with questionable character, but for the most part in professional sports not much matters except whether the person can play... until someone shines a light on it, and then it's a big deal for a short period before it stops mattering again. The only thing that would stop this practice would be for people to stop buying tickets, and that's not very likely. Moral character aside, I hope the Brewers are able to trade K-Rod for something this offseason because they don't need a "proven closer" in a rebuild year. They're better off trading him for a promising prospect while allowing Jeffress to get some saves and attain the title "proven closer" to up his future value.

Agreed, this issue is extremely overblown. I never hear about this, but you know what I do hear about? How his stuff isn't amazing(no love from scouts) and his contract is not that good. Who is interested in a closer getting paid market value, is old, and doesn't have good stuff? Yup...crickets. Seriously I can't imagine anyone cares about the domestic violence stuff. It was barely reported when it happened and no one cared then. I doubt the world is going to explode the second he gets traded elsewhere. And the most major piece of evidence that literally no one cares is the fact we have ALREADY TRADED him with this domestic violence issue over him. Has everyone forgotten we traded him back in 2013 after the incident in the 2012 off season? But now three years later we are going to lose our minds over it? It wasn't even mentioned then! I only saw it as an informational tidbit on how the Brewers let him go, but changed their minds to give him the minor league deal. Why this is even still debatable I will never know. It may or may not be a reason someone would not trade for him, but the reason it may be an issue now when it wasn't a big deal in 2013 is that the Ray Rice "incident" was in 2014, and caused domestic violence to become a hot button issue in professional sports. I guess we'll see what type of backlash comes from Jose Reyes' domestic violence arrest. If it is nearly as big as Ray Rice, then K-Rod's value will probably decline. http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/baseball/mets/jose-reyes-arrested-domestic-abuse-allegation-report-article-1.2428810

Another issue is that according to the report, the Department of Defense is having trouble accounting for exactly what contracts exist and exactly what amount of money is being spent. Well, that proves it's being run by the government :-)

Since this effectively makes him a free agent, if someone signs him will they still get the pre-arby/arby years?

How does trading Lucroy make the team younger I would assume that by "team" he means "franchise" or "system."

If I recall, other than one season in Cleveland as a DH, he was pretty much washed up by about 30 - had that body type that didn't age well. Especially back in the day when MLB players' workouts consisted of beer and cigars :-)

having say a 20% chance of getting nothing at all if he were to be injured This is a key point. In my opinion, the Brewers can't risk getting nothing in return for Lind. There is really no potential upside (reward) for holding on to Lind for the 2016 season as they are not going to compete and he's probably not raising his trade value, but there is a lot of risk in holding onto him as he could get injured and net them zero return. Risk vs. reward heavily slanted in favor of trading him this offseason.

This showcases the importance of a GM. Friedman was the reason Tampa was able to compete in the East for so long without the payroll of the other teams in the division. I'd have to believe that he would be on the other end of a deal like this, which sends two so-so "MLB ready" guys and a "name veteran" for some good prospects. My guess is that Tampa will not be nearly as good going forward as they were under Friedman. i just hope he doesn't go all preller on the roster trying to put together a competitive roster right away instead of letting the process play out. Maybe I'm just overly optimistic about the changes, but I think that there is no chance of that happening. Maybe in a few years, but not now.

Good discussion, guys. I can see validity in starting him, but it would create even more of a logjam than we already have. If the Brewers think he could cut it as a starter, one option would be to start with Nelson, Peralta, Smith, Garza, Jungmann with the intent of divesting themselves of Garza after a couple of months. Either he pitches well enough to get someone to trade for him, or else he just gets cut. Davies would be the odd man out, but he would be the first call up in case of either injury, or when Garza is gone. The easier (and probably more likely) scenario is for the team to trade K-Rod and make either Jeffress or Smith the closer, with the other setting him up. Like it or not, being a proven closer will increase trade value. He wouldn't be as valuable as he would if he could prove himself to be a competent starter, but he would still have value. At around $1.2M, he isn't too expensive, but the Brewers should do what they can to build up his value, so they don't end up with an overly expensive middle reliever. Bottom line, I think next year will be a proving ground for a lot of players, and the best ones should get put in the position that will make them the most valuable. We are going to see a lot more moves before this rebuild is over, including players like Peralta at some point, so having another capable MLB starter is not a bad thing. If the Brewers think he could be a middle-of-the-rotation starter, they should put him there. If not, he would be a great trade chip if he has racked up some saves by the 2016 or 2017 trade deadline.

Can someone explain why the slotted draft makes it any different? I understand the pool and the slots but that really makes no difference to the player because the player can still demand what they want and the team has to sign them or lose draft money. Take Carlos Correa as an example. He was drafted first overall despite not being a consensus #1 pick. Houston took him #1 so they could spend more money later in the draft. Why was it just assumed that Correa would take so much less? From his perspective, who really cares where he was ranked before the draft, he was the #1 overall pick of the draft and should be paid accordingly. He should have said, "This is how much my slot is allotted. That's how much I want and won't sign for less (or much less)." Now the Astros have to sign him or lose all that money and have their strategy go bust. Any why is it assumed that there will be good players available later in the draft that you can overpay to sign? To me, having "suggested" values for picks is stupid because the players can still demand whatever they want and the drafting team takes the hit if the player doesn't want to sign. I'll use the example of the Brewers with Medeiros. He was expected to be picked in the late first round, which would have paid him a certain amount of money. The Brewers drafted him earlier than he should have went, and told him "you will get less than the amount slotted for where we're picking you, but you will still get more then you would if we don't draft you and you go late in the first round." Mederios was happy to get more than expected (even though it was under slot value), and they used the extra draft pool money to help them sign Gatewood and Harrison who were "signability concerns." They could potentially have had a better player by picking "best player available" and signing him to slot value, but they would not have been able to draft and sign Gatewood and Harrison.

I don't want to extend Lucroy into his 30's at the price he'll likely demand, so he should be traded at some point. Theoretically, he should be more valuable now than next offseason, as he has more team control, so they should at least see what other teams would offer them for his services. Braun should still have some good years in him, but those will likely be while the Brewers are rebuilding, and by the time they're on the upward swing, Braun will probably be declining, and taking up payroll that could be better used elsewhere. At that point, he will probably be untradable, so they are probably better off trading him while he's still good. Neither of these guys have to be traded now, but there is reason to believe that now could be the best time to trade them. As to the return, of course there is no guarantee any of the prospects will turn out, or that the Brewers will "win" the trade. On the other hand, there's no guarantee that Lucroy won't continue hitting like he did this year, or that he won't get another concussion that knocks him out of baseball. If the Brewers go for prospects over "major league ready," they will get multiple prospects for either of Braun or Lucroy. That gives the Brewers a better chance that one or more of the players from the deal outplays expectations and helps the Brewers when they are in the upswing stage of the rebuild.

I feel like the job of a big league pitching coach is more about developing a game plan for each opponent than developing and Talented coaches don't stay coaching in the minors their whole career. ...are both true, but seem to be almost contradictory. As valuable as young pitching is, it seems to me that the most important pitching coaches are the ones in the lower minors. Since businesses pay their more important employees more money, it would seem logical to pay the guys developing the young guys into major leaguers more than you pay the guy who's biggest task is occasionally walking slowly to the mound to give the reliever more time to warm up. I would think that developing a game plan is mostly done by the advance scouts, so the major league pitching coach just doesn't seem all that important unless he has the bigger task of managing the minor league coaches and telling them how he wants the youngsters coached.