monty57

I guess I don't consider the best period of baseball in franchise history to be a waste. I too would like to get a World Series victory, but the last handful of seasons of Brewers' baseball has definitely not been a "waste."

I don't think smaller revenue teams should ever trade a guy who is on a trajectory to become a superstar for a short-term MLB upgrade. The Brewers are going to find themselves on the other side of that transaction over the next few years, as they will have to trade away guys like Burnes, Woodruff and Adames, and we have to hope we can pick up some young stars in return. So to answer the question, as a Brewer GM, I would never trade a guy like Chourio for a guy like Burnes (speaking in levels of talent and team control), and I would trade a guy like Burnes for a guy like Chourio every time their team control was coming to an end and/or finances mandated it.

I know you know that there is a big variance among prospects. While the slap-hitter in Rookie ball and Julio Rodriguez were both prospects coming into this season, no one would confuse the two. As you have correctly stated, Burnes is in rare air talent-wise. Therefore, he would bring back someone closer to Julio Rodriguez than the aforementioned "slap-hitter in Rookie ball." People bemoan starting prospects as if they are all the same. The guys we're looking at starting next year (potentially Mitchell, Frelick, and Turang) are our first round draft picks in 2018, 2020, and 2021 who have played well during their time in the minors. There's risk to starting anyone, but these are talented guys who we're hoping will be the core of the team for the next half-decade, not some random journeymen. If we do trade Burnes, this group will get a really, really talented prospect as a teammate, and there would be a couple more talented guys added to the Nashville and Biloxi rosters to help out in a couple years. Adding that to a team that already has a lot of talent (even without Burnes) should allow for the Brewers to push for the NL Central title again in 2023. I'd love for the Brewers to have the money to extend all of their current core, while adding a top prospect like Mitchell, Frelick, and Turang to the roster every year rather than all at once. That's how the Dodgers can operate. Unfortunately, the Brewers can't, so we are going to be more dependent on developing and/or trading for good prospects than bigger market teams. We will also have to become accustomed to trading away our favorite players while they are still good if we want to continue to have good young players as our core. That's just the reality of baseball for as long as MLB accepts that some teams should have a decided monetary advantage over others.

I know you know that there is a big variance among prospects. While the slap-hitter in Rookie ball and Julio Rodriguez were both prospects coming into this season, no one would confuse the two. As you have correctly stated, Burnes is in rare air talent-wise. Therefore, he would bring back someone closer to Julio Rodriguez than the aforementioned "slap-hitter in Rookie ball." People bemoan starting prospects as if they are all the same. The guys we're looking at starting next year (potentially Mitchell, Frelick, and Turang) are our first round draft picks in 2018, 2020, and 2021 who have played well during their time in the minors. There's risk to starting anyone, but these are talented guys who we're hoping will be the core of the team for the next half-decade, not some random journeymen. If we do trade Burnes, this group will get a really, really talented prospect as a teammate, and there would be a couple more talented guys added to the Nashville and Biloxi rosters to help out in a couple years. Adding that to a team that already has a lot of talent (even without Burnes) should allow for the Brewers to push for the NL Central title again in 2023. I'd love for the Brewers to have the money to extend all of their current core, while adding a top prospect like Mitchell, Frelick, and Turang to the roster every year rather than all at once. That's how the Dodgers can operate. Unfortunately, the Brewers can't, so we are going to be more dependent on developing and/or trading for good prospects than bigger market teams. We will also have to become accustomed to trading away our favorite players while they are still good if we want to continue to have good young players as our core. That's just the reality of baseball for as long as MLB accepts that some teams should have a decided monetary advantage over others.

I would love to see them get a couple more years out of Woodruff, and I have been trying to convince myself recently that it is a possibility, as they should have a period with a lot of pre-arby guys coming up where we could afford another big salary. Good call Sveumrules that if we did the extension this year we could get another year of the three-headed monster at the top of our rotation before trading away Burnes after next year. My concern with extending Woodruff is his age, as he will be 31 in his last arby year. He knows that he will likely only have one shot at "real money," and he'll probably demand a longer-term extension that would take him well into his mid-30's. Those type of deals can feel good when they're signed, but feel bad when you're overpaying a guy for mediocrity in the final years of the deal. Ideally, we could get an extra two years. Realistically, he'd probably be asking for four or five. I've always had a hard time with the "he's valuable enough in the first couple years to make up for overpaying in the final years" line of logic, as his salary could be a real hurdle if he hits a cliff during the extension. We're always happy when we get something like the Cain deal off the books, so we have to be careful not to jump right into another one.

I would love to see them get a couple more years out of Woodruff, and I have been trying to convince myself recently that it is a possibility, as they should have a period with a lot of pre-arby guys coming up where we could afford another big salary. Good call Sveumrules that if we did the extension this year we could get another year of the three-headed monster at the top of our rotation before trading away Burnes after next year. My concern with extending Woodruff is his age, as he will be 31 in his last arby year. He knows that he will likely only have one shot at "real money," and he'll probably demand a longer-term extension that would take him well into his mid-30's. Those type of deals can feel good when they're signed, but feel bad when you're overpaying a guy for mediocrity in the final years of the deal. Ideally, we could get an extra two years. Realistically, he'd probably be asking for four or five. I've always had a hard time with the "he's valuable enough in the first couple years to make up for overpaying in the final years" line of logic, as his salary could be a real hurdle if he hits a cliff during the extension. We're always happy when we get something like the Cain deal off the books, so we have to be careful not to jump right into another one.

We've had a lot of conversations on this site over the years about "playing for a window," which essentially means lining everything up and using all of your assets to "win now" in a limited period of time. This creates a cycle of (1) begin the rebuild period (2) start adding assets as the prospects hit the majors (3) go over budget and trade anyone you can for pieces that will help you win in the proposed window (4) blow things up and start the cycle over again. Stearns has repeatedly stated (and has been echoed by Attanasio) that they are trying to be "continually competitive." This means that they are not looking at winning in a "competitive window," but will do what they think it takes to stay competitive year-in-and-year-out. To me, this means that they will not let Woodruff, Burnes, Adames, and anyone else they think is valuable to walk in free agency. They also aren't going to do anything that will be detrimental to the future in order to "win now" (i.e. going way over budget or trading away prospects they think will play a significant role in the coming years). They are going to have a hard time remaining "continually competitive" with so many arby guys who will be free agents in the next few years. That will be made harder the longer they hold onto everyone, which is why I think they'll need to trade some of their big names this off-season rather than waiting until next year and having a "fire sale." I think they'll trade Burnes and bring back a lot of talent that will fit in with the prospects we have coming up, that will help us maintain success for the foreseeable future. Meanwhile, we'll still have a solid team in 2023 before we'll have to trade away Woodruff, Lauer, and Adames unless one of them will sign for a few years' extension. By that time, hopefully our prospects will have taken steps forward to become the new "core," while we will have another infusion of young talent from the aforementioned trades. It will be a tough path, and there's a chance it will bomb, but I think that's the road they'll take in order to attempt to maintain their "continual competitiveness." Holding onto everyone for one more year would seem to necessitate at least a short "uncompetitive" rebuild period. Notably, it should be easier to trade two aces over a two-year period than it would be to trade them both in the same year. Both Burnes and Woodruff will be highly sought after, but trading them in two seasons would allow them to take the best offer each year, rather than taking the best and second-best offers in one off-season.

I think they'll offer arby to Houser. They had six starting pitchers to start this season, and injuries to their pitching staff still derailed the '22 season, so they'll want to keep the depth. A lot will happen this off-season, but for now Houser should pencil in as a back-of-the-rotation start who can also pitch out of the bullpen. He showed in '21 that he can play up to a solid middle-of-the-rotation guy. The '21 version of Houser is a great deal at $3.6M, and even if he's relegated to bullpen duty, having him on a one-year/$3.6M deal is worth it. It would be nice if the downswing this year is "fixable." If he proves to be a solid rotation piece, he gives the team a lot of options. They can pitch him in the rotation or bullpen. They could trade him if the prospects pass him up, or he would probably not be overly expensive to extend for a couple of years as they transition away from Woodruff/Burnes. But, that's all dependent on him getting back to his '21 self.

No one outside of the Brewers' F.O. knows for sure what the numbers are. I believe that Mark A. signed off on the $8.5M contract for McCutchen which put us over budget going into 2022. Then, ticket sales across the league plummeted, and the Brewers failed to make the playoffs, costing the ownership group millions of dollars. I'll be pleasantly surprised if they run a $130M opening day payroll out again for 2023, as that would make it a lot easier for Stearns to fit all the pieces into the puzzle. In order to not be disappointed, I'll expect that they're going to drop payroll for the above-mentioned reasons.

"Excited" may be too strong a term, but I'm kind of excited about how we could look with a Burnes trade. We would get a top-tier, MLB-ready prospect, someone like Baty from the Mets or Rodriguez from the Orioles, who would be playing for league-minimum and be under control for the next six years, as well as some other talented prospects who wouldn't be MLB-ready yet. That would fill one spot on the roster with a talented young player, and allow for around $11M to upgrade elsewhere. It would hurt to lose Burnes, but we'd still have a strong rotation and with the addition of what we get in trade and what we could add with the $11M, we should still be contending for the NL Central title in 2023 while making our future look a lot better.

It's kind of crazy that 18 of our projected 26-man roster are in arby. Totaling the numbers from the opening post, those 18 players would add up to $79.90M. Our committed money is Yelich ($26M w/ $4M deferred), Ashby ($1.2M), and Perlata ($3.735), with a $2M buyout on Wong and what I think is a likely exercised $3M option on Boxberger ($750,000 buyout). Tally that up, and we'd have a $111.84 payroll on 22 players. Frelick, Mitchell and Turang could be three of the remaining four players, totaling another $2.1M, so add a placeholder $2M for the final player, and we're looking at around $115M if we do nothing and go into battle with roughly the same team we had this year. There has been debate on next year's payroll, but I think we'll cut back and won't have much more than this $115-$120M to work with. If that's correct, then any addition we want will have to be a cut from someone else. This is where the idea of moving on from Renfroe comes from, and it's partially the reason I think that we could trade one of Burnes / Woodruff this offseason. Otherwise, most moves aren't going to free up much cash. Oh, it's also why Wong's option probably won't be exercised, which would save the team $8M.

This is a very important point. People generally tend to watch their team daily, but don't get to watch the rest of the league on a regular basis. Therefore, they see their guys flailing around and don't realize that the rest of the league looks even worse. That's why I really like the "+" stats that put everything relative to the league. That said, the "3TO" / "swing hard in case you hit it" state that baseball is currently in sure is hard to watch. I'm looking forward to watching guys like Frelick, Mitchell, and Turang. I dislike the banning of the shift, as I think teams would move away from "3TO" baseball as the shift hurt those players.

Urias had a 112 wRC+ and 2.1 Fangraphs WAR in 570 PA in 2021. He had a 110 wRC+ and 2.3 Fangraphs WAR in 472 PA in 2022. He had some defensive issues early in the year, got a bad rap and was basically set aside for Peterson (96 wRC+ and 2.2 Fangraphs WAR in 328 PA in 2021) at the end of the season. Urias is probably best used at second base, as his arm isn't suited for the left side of the infield, but offensively he's remained an above average bat even though I think he swings for the fences too much. As to the rest of what I quoted, I agree that Mitchell and Frelick should both be on the opening day roster, and I believe that a mix of Yelich, Renfroe, Mitchell, Frelick, Taylor will outproduce the 2022 mix of OF/DH. Pitching-wise, I think health is key. We had a lot of injuries to the staff in 2022, so hopefully better health and what should be better defense (Frelick over Yelich, Turang over Wong) should lead to better "run prevention."

You have Turang getting $10M. Do you mean Wong? Otherwise, Wong will get a $2M buyout and Turang would be league minimum. Plus, you have 20 guys and need 26. At league minimum, that's another $4.2M, but I doubt you'll fill all those spots for league minimum, so you'd probably need to figure $10M or so to fill out your bench, bullpen, and 5th starter if you're just putting "generic guy" there. This kind of shows that if we bring everyone back except Wong, and let our free agents walk to free agency, we're going to be around $120M if we do nothing else. Where the ownership group sets the budget after a down season in ticket sales will determine what Stearns can do from here. Note: This is a big reason why the team had to trade Hader, and why I think there is a good chance that one of Burnes/Woodruff gets traded this offseason.

The team will not get a better player on a one-year / $11M contract than Renfroe, so they wouldn't let him go (or trade him) and then try to find a replacement on the FA market. They could use the money elsewhere, but they wouldn't find a one-year replacement for Renfroe. If they let him go, they would replace him in-house. The two most likely replacements would either be Wiemer in RF, or Hiura at DH. Weimer will be 24 next year, and his minor league career numbers are .274 / .367 / .506 / .873. After moving to AAA, he hit .287 / .368 / .520 / .888. He will probably take over for Renfroe, it is just a question of whether it is to start 2023, to start 2024, or somewhere in between. If they trust Hiura to be the everyday DH, then they could start Yelich, Mitchell, and Frelick in the OF. So, the Brewers will let Renfroe go if and only if they either (A) trust three rookies to start in the OF, or (B) show a lot more faith in Keston Hiura than they showed this year. I personally don't think (B) is an option. They wouldn't start Hiura over McCutchen, who they paid $8.5M for a year, so I think they'd pay Renfroe $10-11M rather than start Hiura. There is some precedence for option (A). When Burnes, Woodruff, and Peralta were rookies, they started all three. Woodruff looked good that year, but the others did not. Burnes was so bad that people thought he should be out of baseball. All three eventually worked out very well, but they took their lumps as rookie starters. I think that it's worth the $11M to keep Renfroe another year, but his replacement is already in house. It's just a matter of whether the Brewers want to take the risk of starting that many rookies. Remember, there's also the Wong/Turang debate. If they aren't willing to pay Renfroe, they probably wouldn't be willing to play Wong, in which case we could be starting Frelick, Mitchell, Wiemer, and Turang. I like prospects, but I don't see them doing that.

Taylor has shown to be a very valuable 4th OF. He can play all three positions and fills in nicely when needed. Plus, he's right-handed when Yelich, Mitchell and Frelick all hit left-handed. As a starter, I'm glad that we have better options. It may not turn out like this, but it looks to me like we'll have Yelich, Renfroe, Mitchell, Frelick, and Taylor on the opening day roster next year. Three will be in the OF every day, and one will be the DH. Ruiz is still relatively new to the OF after he failed as a second baseman, so he can use more reps in AAA, and Wiemer will join him there. Both will be ready to be called up if needed, but both could be passed up quickly as Chourio is getting closer to MLB-ready, so I could see one of them being used as part of a trade this offseason. As to the topic of the thread, the only sunk cost in that bunch is Yelich, as Renfroe could be let go rather than offering him arby. If Yelich is eventually moved to full-time DH, our OF will be very cheap for quite a while. Of course, the recent trend is to offer good prospects an extension early on, so some of these guys will get locked up, thereby becoming "sunk costs."

Wiemer hit some hurdles this year, and I think he could probably use some more "seasoning" in AAA. Plus, Renfroe was our best overall hitter last year. I see Wiemer as the heir-apparent in RF, at least until Chourio is ready, but I think he'll start the year in AAA. It is possible they trade Renfroe to save the $10M or so he'll get in his final arby year, but $10M spent on Renfroe is much better than $8.5M on McCutchen, so I think they'll bite the bullet and pay to keep Renfroe around. As to Yelich vs LH, he had a 99 wRC+ vs LHP, and a 119 wRC+ vs RHP. He doesn't need a platoon partner, but his off days should definitely be against LHP. With all the lefties on our roster, it does make sense to look for another RH bench player who hits LHP well. Brosseau does this, but he's only one guy. At the very least, I think we'll look for a RH catcher who fits this bill.

wRC+ is a nice little "all inclusive offense" stat. Here is how the everyday players for the 2022 Brewers fared in wRC+: Renfroe 124 Wong 116 Yelich 111 Urias 110 Tellez 110 Adames 109 McCutchen 98 Renfroe, Yelich and Adames are the three that were really everyday players and weren't protected by some sort of platoon, so they were really our three best offensive players in 2022. We should not be actively trying to find ways to sit them on the bench when we have more important holes to fill. I agree that Mitchell will be the starting CF, and in limited time, he posted a wRC+ of 136, so I'm excited to see how he does in a full season. I think that Frelick will be an everyday player as well, and since he and Mitchell are plus defenders, Yelich and Renfroe should get most of the PAs at DH. If Stearns wants to sign a big bat for 1B and trade Tellez, that could make sense. Yelich will not be sitting on the bench all year, so signing a big DH bat would simply mean that Frelick would be in AAA to start the season while Yelich and his weak arm would remain in LF. I do think that if we were to sign Abreau or Martinez, we would see a similar thread to this in a year or two wondering why we're spending so much money on a guy who can't play defense and has declining offensive skills. However, I believe that the team will not have enough money to sign any of the players you referenced, so I don't think we'll have to worry about this happening. I think our biggest offensive upgrade next year will be that the combo of Mitchell and Frelick will outperform McCutchen and what we got from CF prior to Mitchell's call-up. That should keep us in the top third of MLB offenses like we were this year, and a healthy pitching staff paired up with a much-improved defense should help us keep the other team from scoring runs, which is really where the Brewers dropped the ball this year.

I think that Yelich and Renfroe are both sub-standard defensive players, but in a different way. Yelich's problem is that he has a wet noodle for an arm. Renfroe's problem is that he takes bad routes to balls and sometimes loses them and gets turned around. If I had to rate them, Renfroe is probably a better defensive OF, but neither is good. I think there will be some kind of split with Yelich and Renfroe both getting reps at DH and corner OF, with Frelick and Mitchell playing nearly everyday in the field. If everything goes right, with no injuries and everyone playing well, it could be possible that they'd trade Renfroe mid-season. Realistically, there should be plenty of PAs to go around with the guys shuffling between the three OF spots and DH. No one would argue that Yelich is worth what he's being paid. He does, however, provide value by getting on base at the top of the lineup while being a good base-runner. I hope that all of our prospects pan out, and if they do then there could come a time where we have too many guys for the available spots, and Yelich could be the guy least deserving of a starting role. We're not there yet.

Other than catcher, I don't think they'll have the money to sign a free agent position player that is a substantial upgrade over what we already have, so I think they'll spend the free agent money on a starting catcher and relief pitching. There is a list of solid-but-not-spectacular veteran catchers to choose from this offseason and one of them will probably be a Brewer next year. As to relievers, I wish we had the resources to sign a closer so we could move Williams back to setup, but I don't think that's going to happen. Rather, I think we'll sign a guy to put in a late-inning role and hope that Williams can cut it as a closer. It's looking like he might not have the mental make-up for that role, but I think that role will be his to lose to start next year. Any other roster upgrades will probably come through trades and minor league call-ups.

Yep. Next year should once again be a race between the Cardinals and the Brewers. The Cards will always put a quality team on the field, so the Brewers have to use the offseason to build a winner. They can't expect the Cardinals to roll over for them. With the contracts of Cain, McCutchen, Wong (probably), Hader, and Narvaez off the books, and maybe others traded, we should have some money to shore up some positions. This is especially true if we are going to start the season with Mitchell, Frelick, and Turang on the roster and fill the DH with in-house options like Yelich, Renfroe, and Tellez. I'm always excited to see what the Brewers do in the offseason, and this year is no different. Now we just need to get the playoffs out of the way so the real action can begin ?

I agree. I'll add that while this year's team was filled with high SLG/low OBP guys, where Renfroe's skillset was a bit of a redundancy, if we add Frelick and Turang along with Yelich and Mitchell, then all of a sudden at least 4/9 of our lineup profile as higher OBP guys, where Renfroe's bat is a bit more of a diversification. Barring further additions, the current lineup could look something like: Frelick (L) .331 / .406 / .477 / .883 - minor league career numbers Yelich (L) .253 / .356 / .385 / .741 - 2022 numbers Adames (R) .236 / .297 / .458 / 755 - 2022 numbers Tellez (L) .219 / .306 / .457 / .763 - 2022 numbers Renfroe (R) .255 / .315 / .492 / .807 - 2022 numbers Mitchell (L) .273 / .382 / .419 / .801 - minor league career, .310 / .365 / .466 / .831 in 64 PA with Milwaukee Urias (R) .241 / .338 / .408 / .746 - 2022 numbers Caratini (S) .197 / .298 / .338 / .636 - 2022 numbers (we need to find a starting catcher) Turang (L) .269 / .362 / .371 / .733 - minor league career numbers Looking at that, Renfroe also is a much needed RH bat, and it is another reason to hold onto Taylor, who has proven to be a solid 4th OF who also happens to hit right-handed. Brosseau is also a nice bench bat for this squad.

This is where I fall back to the "continually competitive" mantra the Brewers have touted since Stearns was hired. From watching Stearns, it's my belief that if we're attempting to be "continually competitive"... ...we won't let uber-talented guys like Burnes, Woodruff, and Adames walk as free agents, so they will likely be traded before they become free agents. ...we won't trade off all of our pending free agents in one year, as that would at the very least lead to a 1-2 year "retooling." ...we will have to build from within, meaning that we will rely on having a strong farm system that can continually feed talent to the MLB team. ...although limited by payroll, we will use free agency to fill holes in the roster. This has been done longer-term with Cain, but as the farm gels, it will probably be used on shorter-term deals like Wong and McCutchen in the future. ...most trades will bring back players with a lot of team control. The only shorter-term trades are ones involving lesser prospects or bad contracts like the JBJ deal. ...most decent prospects will be offered an extension early in their pre-arby years. If they don't sign that deal, they're probably going to be here 4-5 years and then get traded away.

The way Hiura was used this year by the Brewers, I can't imagine that he is part of their future. I expect they trade him this offseason, but I don't think they'll get more than "a bag of balls" for him. I'll go with that expectation, and be pleasantly surprised if they are able to get something of value for him.

The decision on Renfroe will be interesting. I think they'll find that they'll get more value by having him on the roster next year than they'd get from trading him, plus they'll already have a lot of rookies and will want some "veteran presence," so I think he'll be a Brewer next year. The young guys profile as "bat to ball" / OBP guys, so his bat should fit in nicely as a 4 or 5 hole hitter with some guys on base in front of him.