monty57

Hart+Greinke for Profar Y'know, I was just thinking that Hart would be a good guy to add into a Texas deal in an effort to up the return. They're pretty stacked across the board, and don't need another bat, but I'd have to think they'd listen if Hart's name were thrown out there. Then they'd get the rent-an-ace pitcher they're looking for and get a non-rental All Star. Their's no way any GM would trade Greinke and Hart for "only one prospect," because if that prospect doesn't turn out to be a perennial All-Star he'll be crucified by the fans and the media, but I could see a trade headlined by Profar with some lesser prospects thrown in. Texas gets a really, really good chance of winning the World Series this year, and get a bat to help out next year when they could lose Hamilton, and they get a draft pick when he leaves after next year. We get a stud SS for the long-term and even with a $80-90M payroll we'd have plenty of money if we don't re-sign Greinke, don't owe $10.333MM to Hart and add a good pre-arby guy. Rangers said Profar off the market. What I heard was "we're not trading him for a rental." It's not likely, but it may be worth a shot. If we're really looking for a long-term answer at SS, he is the best option out there. If he turns out to be the next Troy Tulowitzki, Melvin looks like a genius. If he turns out to be a bust or even an average-ish player, Melvin will get second-guessed forever. But I guess that's the risk with any big trade.

I don't see how another team can look at KRod and see him as being an asset to their bullpen, seriously. Never underestimate how much credence some people give to "proven closer." I don't like seeing Axford struggle, but this recent string of events has allowed K-Rod to "prove" he can still close, and that's a good thing for his trade value. Assuming, of course, that's he converts his saves.

...and Perez. However, GM's say things all the time. Maybe they won't be traded, but a phone call from Melvin saying "I want Olt, and if I don't get him Greinke will be in an Angels uniform tomorrow" may may the Rangers rethink their stance. Every GM wants to pay as little as possible for "rentals," and everyone with "rentals" wants to get as much as they can. This could be a negotiating technique by Texas: They probably aren't trading Profar, but maybe their max offer for Greinke/Hamels would be Olt + a lesser prospect. By saying they won't trade Profar, Olt or Perez, they can start out with a lower offer, and then "give ground" by saying "okay, you can get Olt, but that's it," and the opposing GM will feel they've pressed it as far as possible. Or, maybe they really aren't willing to trade Olt. No GM will ever know unless they ask.

There was a quote on MLBTraderumors.com yesterday where the Dodgers were saying they were willing to add salary because they'd rather spend too much and have a good team than not spend enough. It really sounds to me like the new owners want to prove to the world that they're a "player." I don't know how much validity there was to the Ramirez rumors, but I would bet that the Dodgers wouldn't blink at adding his contract to their payroll. I still think they'd offer the "Jed Lowrie package" for Ramirez. That was Z. Lee and Gould. The Brewers really need to decide quickly what they're going to do. If they're going to "sell," they need to decide who their core is going forward. Ramirez and Hart are both good players who could help the Brewers by playing for the Brewers next year or by being traded for younger, cheaper talent. I just hope Melvin has formulated a plan as to what the Brewers will look like going forward, and isn't just going to "wing it" by listening to offers, making a couple of trades and then patching things together in free agency this offseason.

According to MLBtraderumors, Angele are willing to trade Bourjos for a reliever (? K-Rod), are willing to part with Kendrys Morales and would trade Garrett Richards for Greinke or Hamels.

Even a small thing like that could be used by a trade suitor to ding his value. It is possible that there is already a trade in the mix and the receiving team has asked for him to sit. Other than that possibility, regardless of the reason he's sitting, the fact that Greinke is missing a start during the most important stretch of the Brewers' season is going to be used by any trade suitor to lowball Melvin. The fact that Greinke's social anxiety issues are widely known certainly doesn't help when trying to sell another team that "he just needed to recharge his batteries."

I wonder if scratching Greinke's start was a group decision or if it was just something Roenicke did on his own, thinking it was "best for the long term." If Roenicke did it on his own, I'd have to imagine that Melvin is about ready to punch him.

So the players on the team can understand how many on this site feel about Roenicke's moves.

I've added this up a couple of times, but don't have time to add it up now, so I may be a little off on the numbers. Basically, if we sign Greinke for $20MM/year, don't trade any of our high-priced guys, and resign most of our arby guys, we will have around $89MM going to 15 players. If we use three pre-arby guys in the rotation, that's about $91MM for 18 players. We'd need a pre-arby SS and bench, so welcome back Bianchi and Ransom. $92MM for 21 players. The rest of the bench and bullpen will also need to be really cheap, probably relegating Green and Gamel to bench roles along with Maldonado. Our budget this year prior to K-Rod accepting arby was supposed to be in the high $80MM's, and we are almost certainly going to see attendance drop next season. We do have additional revenues, but I would be surprised if we're much over $90MM. Therefore, even with guys like Ransom/Bianchi starting, we won't have any money to upgrade anywhere. We will be relying on three untested pitchers who have never been heralded by any scouts as being top prospects. I highly doubt that Greinke, Gallardo, Fiers, Estrada, Thornburg is a playoff rotation. We will have most of the same crap bullpen as this year without K-Rod. We still would have no depth at almost any position, and everyone will be a year older (and that's not a good thing for those over 30). We won't have any money for "fixes" as the season goes on. It's possible, if everything goes right, that we could compete next year, but it's probably more likely that we don't, and then we go into 2014 without Hart and in our last year with Ramirez, Weeks and Gallardo a still-weak farm system, and a bunch of people screaming that we can't trade any of them because then we won't have a chance at the playoffs. Personally, I'm willing to go young in 2013 for more upside into the future. At the very least, we have to trade some guys like Kottaras, Morgan, Gomez and K-Rod to try to get some bullpen arms or bench bats who can contribute for league minimum next year. It's not much, but I'm hoping for something that can help. With Marcum basically off the trade market, if we don't trade any of Greinke, Hart or Ramirez, we won't have any other way of getting younger or cheaper.

Why cry? Unless I misudnerstood, Morosi indicated Greinke might re-sign. Couple that with a Ramirez trade to the Dodgers for Zach Lee or Eovaldi and I think that we would have the makings of an excellent rotation moving forward. I just don't see them signing Greinke and then trading away "the cleanup hitter." If they sign Greinke, they're going to continue along in "go for it" mode, and they wouldn't trust Green at 3B in that scenario. My concern about this is that I fear it will lead to an eventual fire sale where we shed talented players purely for salary relief without getting any talent in return, or we end up looking like the Cubs of a couple years ago with a few aging, high-priced players eating up our entire payroll and no cheap talent to fill in around them. I could get behind signing Greinke if we were to trade Ramirez for two of Zach Lee/Eovaldi/Gould and trading Hart for a package headlined by Olt. Maybe we could even flip K-Rod to a contending team in need of a setup man/closer and get a young talented bullpen arm in return. We'd probably be down for a year, but by 2014 we should be on the upswing. I just don't see us doing that. I think we're either "going for it" or not, and signing Greinke means we're "going for it."

To add onto my last post, the rule as Hardricourt explains it will make it more difficult for Melvin to sign a FA starting pitcher to shore up the staff next year. There should be no way we'd be willing to give up our first rounder for a so-so starter to round out a non-playoff rotation. If we don't re-sign Greinke / Marcum or trade for some starting pitching, there's a good chance we'll have a rotation of Gallardo, Fiers, Estrada, Thornburg, Peralta. The only FA we'd sign would be someone that another team isn't willing to risk signing to a one-year/$12MM contract. Since I don't think we'll be able to re-sign Greinke and there may be too much risk in signing Marcum, we need to trade for starting pitching.

For those who don't want to scroll through a Q&A, here's what Hardricourt said: "Under the new CBA, former teams DO NOT get the first-round pick of the signing team. If you make a qualifying offer equal to the top 125 paid players (about $12 M this year), you get a supplemental pick after the first round. That's all. One pick instead of two as in the past. The signing team forfeits its first round pick but it doesn't go to another club. You merely lose it. Plus, if you trade for an upcoming free agent in the middle of the season, you get no draft-pick compensation if he signs elsewhere over the winter. Thus, many folks think teams will be hesitant to offer top prospects in trades for upcoming free agents. It will be interesting to see how that develops." I did not know this, and if true it really reinforces my belief that Greinke needs to be traded. It also means that there is a good chance we won't get anything in return for Marcum. Losing Greinke for a supplemental pick and losing Marcum for nothing would be brutal.

Thank you, Cot's needs to be updated :-) Also, Jones is probably a better player as he's more consistant and plays better defense. I just threw a name out there that had some similarities to show that Weeks is a pretty valuable player who is having a down year. Right now, his value is probably lower than normal, so it's probably not a good time to trade him. I believe that he will turn things around. If he does so in the second half of this season, we could probably get decent value for him in the offseason. If he doesn't turn things around, I'd hold onto him for next year. At normal or peak value, three guaranteed years of Weeks should be worth more than six guaranteed years of almost any individual prospect. At today's probable perceived value, we may not even get a top prospect for Weeks. If Weeks had a .829 OPS right now (which is his 3-year average) instead of his current .660 OPS, would people happily trade him for Castellanos straight up, when Cstellanos is still a couple of years out and knowing that anything can happen in those couple of years? Or, would we demand more for an .829 OPSing second baseman with three-and-a-half years left of team control?

I'd give K-Rod a shot now to see how he does. If Ax has truly hit the wall, we'll need a closer next year. K-Rod is a good option if he can get it done. Gotta find out before we consider trading him. I think putting K-Rod at closer now could improve his trade value by July 31 as teams see that he can still hold down the closer role (I know some here will cringe at that statement, but it matters to a lot of GMs). We can let Axford "clear his head" in middle relief/setup for a couple weeks and reinstate him as closer when K-Rod is traded. Axford is one of the "sure bets" for next year's bullpen, so I'd rather he figure things out this season. The bullpen is this team's Achilles heel & it must be addressed for this team to have a fighting chance. There's still plenty of time in this race, and Melvin needs to be making a hard charge for Grant Balfour and/or other GOOD relievers here over the next 2 weeks. The team's "fighting chance" days are about over, so I wouldn't look to trade for a bullpen arm. However, the bullpen will look a lot different next season as K-Rod will be gone, Loe, Veras and Parra will all be in their final arby year and would cost around $3MM each, so there's a good chance some/all of them will be gone. The problem is that without solutions in the minors, Melvin will have to fill out the bullpen through free agency, where decent (non-closer) arms can cost $4-5MM each, and we don't have that much to spend to completely reload the 'pen... especially if we extend Greinke. I wouldn't mind using Estrada in the pen late in games. He's very versatile. Although, there's also something to be said for keeping him as a starter to see what we have for the rotation next year. Estrada did great in his role in the pen, but he's also done pretty well as a starter, which is much more valueable. At this point, I hope Estrada and Fiers both stay in the rotation, as they will be needed there next season. Trade Greinke for a load of young talent and let the young/pre-arby guys "get their feet wet" this season so they're better prepared for a full season in the rotation next year. I doubt Marcum is tradeable now unless he clears revocable waivers (which probably isn't likely), so if anything, I'd move Wolf to the bullpen when Marcum's healthy as he likely doesn't have a future with the Brewers while Fiers, Thornburg and Estrada do.

Prior to this season, I thought we should start shopping Weeks next offseason, and I got crucified for mentioning it because Weeks is "too important to the team." If the right offer came around, I'd trade him this season, but I think we'll be better off waiting until he "gets it together." I have little doubt that he will turn things around, and maybe he's already started the upward climb. The problem is that if he ends this season on a tear, we won't trade him because he's "too important to the team in 2013." The only way we'll trade him is if he continues to stink up the joint and we'd get little back for him. If my cynicism doesn't hold true, and we trade Weeks this offseason after a hot second half to the season, I think we could get a big return for him. The receiving team would receive 2-3 years of an All-Star caliber 2B and they would get comp picks when he leaves. In that case, we may be aiming low asking for one guy with six years of control and a lot of potential for one guy with three years of control (including his option) who is one of the best players at his position in the game. Think about it... what would someone give up to get Adam Jones, who has similar career numbers to Weeks (Jones has 6 years, 2500 AB to Weeks' 8 years 3200 AB, and Weeks' OPS is .006 points higher)? Maybe not a perfect example because Jones is going into year 3 arby next year, while Weeks is locked up for a few seasons, but something to think about.

I still can't understand how someone supposedly worth $20-25MM/year who is not injured can sit on the bench for ten days while the team is making its last ditch effort for the playoffs. Assuming 30 starts, Greinke makes $450,000 / start (and would make $666,666/start at $20MM/year). I guess someone who will make around $450k for the entire next season will have to pick up the slack while "Mr Franchise," the guy without whom we supposedly will collapse as a franchise, watches from the bench.

Just saw this. My attitude toward breaking up a team that went to the NLCS less than a year ago solely to stockpile 'Top 100' prospects certainly has been dismissive. I believe that a bird in the hand is greater than two in the bush. I've been following the Brewers for a long time, and if I know one thing it's that prospects are far from a guarantee. I put very little stock in Baseball America, it'd be easy for anybody with a set of minor league statistics and a list of draft status to put a list together. Honestly, I think that they know little more than a lot of fans, and I think that they put these lists together solely based on minor league stats and/or draft position. I'd be willing to bet that the bust rate of their Top 100 lists 10 and more years out is quite high. BTW, Antoine Williamson and countless other Brewer busts over the years have been 'Top 75'. Saying that being 'Top 75' is not much more of an honor than saying that so and so was a 'former first round pick'. Frankly, the attitude of some fans here who I see as treating the team like a video game has been a bit off-putting to me. I've asked several times here, 'if you trade Hart and/or Ramirez, Weeks, Gallardo, etc., where will you spend the money". I haven't gotten one good answer yet. It seems that these folks want to relive the '92-02 era where you trade any talent that 'gets expensive' for the best offer of minor leaguers/MLB players not good enough to play a role on a contending team, then sign overpaid mediocrity on the free agent market to fill holes. I hear about the Tampa model, but they have been a team that has drafted (admittedly pretty well as of late) high for several years, and they are under significant cost constraints due to ownership and the fact that they have to play in a dump. There are also a lot of Beane disciples here as well. Bottom line, I honestly think that a lot of people have been spoiled by the high success rate that the Brewers have had on prospects over the past decade... Fielder, Braun, Gallardo, Hart, Weeks, Hardy, etc. with very few busts/injury derailments mixed in. I'd argue that this is the exception and not the rule, and I think that causes people here to overvalue prospects in general. I get that it's fun to talk about trade rumors and such is the nature of the web. That said, I've been through enough rebuilding projects as a fan of this team to start another one so soon. I've laid out my budgetary concerns mulitple times and no one has given me an answer. We were budgeted for an upper-80's payroll this year and ended up around $100MM. There's a good chance the Brewers lose money this year. We will probably see a significant decrease in attendance next season, so I could see us budgeting for a $80MM or so payroll for 2013. With our current obligations, we need salary relief to field a MLB-caliber team and stay within budget. I've asked multiple times for someone to lay out a realistic plan to field a good team next year while staying in budget, and I haven't gotten a good answer. The "sign Greinke at any cost" crowd doesn't seem to care too much about budgetary concerns. To topic, if we trade Hart prior to next year, the receiving team will be able to get compensatory draft picks for him, so they will be willing to offer a lot more in trade. Why do you worry about where we're going to spend the money saved? I would be happy that we could turn a year of Hart (when we're probably not going to compete for the playoffs) into multiple pre-arby players to fill several holes. As an added benefit, we could have some financial flexibility in case we needed it - just because we have money in a budget doesn't mean we need to spend it, but if we need a mid-season upgrade, or if a team in financial distress is willing to give us a good player for salary relief, then we will be able to take advantage of the situation.

I don't think past under-performance predicts future results. Just because the Brewers haven't developed any of their own pitching doesn't mean that our current minor leaguers will fail. Nor does our past success in developing position players mean that we will continue that success. We don't have a Ryan Braun/Prince Fielder in the minors right now. Our best position player is a 2B who may or may not make it at the MLB level. "The Brewer way," as you called it, has only been "the Brewer way" for a few seasons, and those seasons have depleted our farm system and left us in an unenviable position going forward. Melvin should get away from that "Brewer way" and go back to stocking the farm and bringing up good, young talent who will play for league minimum and have six years of control.

Those 2 draft picks will be nice. I think everyone is way overreacting here. Until there is actual news about him being hurt this is almost a complete non-story. As SRB said, the Brewers have built up the Pitt, StL, Cincy stretch as the "make or break" point of the season. There is something wrong with him, or he should start in the most important games of the year. Hopefully this "something wrong" is small and Greinke will start in a week or so. Worst case is that it's something major, and we aren't even going to get comp picks for him. Even if he only misses a couple of starts, this certainly would cast a lot of doubt in opposing GM's minds, and the return in trade will go down dramatically.

I'd love to have Shields, but we recently traded away the farm for two years of two pitchers. That's the reason we don't have much pre-arby talent that's MLB ready, and why we're running into a wall financially. Most of the talent in our farm system is AA or below, and I don't want to trade that away for two years of another pitcher. I don't believe that the Brewers can sustain success being run like a big-market team. We need pre-arby guys on the roster in order to be able to afford some higher-priced players, and trading all of our good young talent for high-priced guys means we don't have any good pre-arby guys on the roster.

Enough with the 3 games in a row schtick. He pitched 4 stinkin pitches in Game #1, didn't even pitch 5 innings in Game #2 and had his normal days off between Games #2 and #3. Unless, of course the MLB pitchers go through pre-game rituals, have to warm up, things like that. If there were no problems going back-to-back days, then why don't more pitchers do it when they have a "blow-up" game? Why don't they go on two-days rest if they only pitch two or three innings? It may or may not have had anything to do with this "battery recharge" thing, but the timing sure is suspect. He is probably just reaching that point in the pitchers life cycle where he is due to hurt something. More ammunition in the belt of those feeling that offering him a "blank check" extension is a bad idea. Crippling. Franchise killer if they can't get anything for him. ...or Marcum. That's a potential "farm rebuild" crumbling into nothing. Not good any way I can see it. No, it's not. The only "silver lining" I see is that if it is indeed an injury I'm glad it happened before he accepted a mammoth contract extension rather than after he signed one.

I don't have a limit. This organization has shown zero ability to develop pitching outside of Gallardo. The success of this franchise since Mark and Doug have taken over, last year aside, has been in spite of quality pitching. Signing Greinke gives you one of the best #1 and #2 starters in the league. It lessens your reliance on hoping Thornburg, Peralta, Fiers, etc. actually turn out and hopefully the payroll inflexibility keeps Doug from signing another Suppan, Wolf, or Gagne. That line of thinking by much of our society has led to a record number of home foreclosures and bankruptcies in recent years. You can't run a business (and the Brewers are a business) this way. As a fan it's easy to say "any cost," but there always has to be a limit. Baseball teams have gone into bankruptcy in the past and baseball teams will go into bankruptcy in the future. I don't want the Brewers on that list. Everything has a price and a value. If someone is willing to pay far over value for something, you're best off letting them have it. If a team is willing to offer a better-than-expected contract to Greinke this offseason, it would stand to reason that someone would offer a better-than-expected trade package for him this season. That is, unless we've waited too long to trade him as he may now be hurt. But that leads us to the other side of the coin. What happens if we "back up the truck" and pay him $30MM a year just because we "have to have him" and then he has a Ben Sheets/Teddy Higuera streak which leaves him making 10-15 starts a season. Even if in some "fuzzy math world" we were able to afford a "blank check" contract for a superstar player, we certainly couldn't afford that contract for a non-performing player and still have any hope of succeeding. Now, it could be possible to sign him if we were to trade players like Ramirez and Hart and bring in some good, pre-arby talent who could fill big roles on the MLB team for league minimum. Even then, we'd need a limit on what we could pay Grienke, but it may be possible to pay Braun, Gallardo, Weeks and Greinke if we have good players making league minimum, and we implement a strategy of trading "non-core" players when they get expensive and replacing them with guys from the minor leagues. In my humble opinion, it is not possible to pay Braun, Gallardo, Weeks, Hart, Ramirez and Greinke with little good pre-arby talent on the roster. To me, the irony is that most posters who are calling for us to offer a "blank check" contract to Greinke are also vehemently opposed to the thought of trading away anyone else who is making a lot of money. This isn't a video game, it's real life with real money. If someone can post a realistic plan as to how we could reasonably expect to pay everyone, then I'd love to see it. To me, it looks like even without Greinke we're going to be paying a small number of player a large percentage of our budget, with little cheap talent to fill in the gaps. If we can keep everyone, sign Greinke, find a SS, fill out the rotation and the bullpen with good MLB players and still remain within a reasonable budget, than I would be ecstatic.

Yay. Sure glad we waited for this nine-game stretch before deciding to sell. I believe the arguement was "what could possibly be wrong with waiting another couple of weeks before giving up on the season?" Just let Roenicke start our biggest trade chip three games in a row and see if he can blow his arm out... all in the wild dream that this isn't a lost season.

Supposedly other teams are worrying about his performance which may make them disinclined to trade for him. Could be, but skipping a home game against the Cards which is during the day (shadows giving the pitchers a big advantage), so he can pitch a road game in the bandbox in Cincinnati against a better offense doesn't seem like a good plan. This also adds to my skepticism to the idea of "offering a blank check" and "backing up the Brinks truck" to get Greinke signed. He's good, but not good enough to risk the financial future of the franchise. I just hope this isn't an injury... it'd really stink if both Greinke and Marcum are untradeable due to injuries.

I'd be more interested in selling if I thought we could get players who were as good in return. Greinke, Ramirez, Marcum most of these guys have been well above average not just this year but for awhile. Greinke and Marcum will be gone after this season. Unfortunately, Marcum probably won't be able to be traded due to injury, and that may cause us to not even offer the one-year deal to get draft picks, so he'll end up leaving for nothing - a career of Lawrie for 1.5 seasons of Marcum. As to Greinke, we don't need to get someone as good as Greinke in trade, we just need to get someone who is better than the compensatory draft picks we'd recieve when Greinke leaves as free agency. Plus, we'd save around $7MM in Greinke's contract and save around $4MM in signing bonuses to the draft picks. Ramirez is in another category, as we "control" him for a few more years. We really need to determine if (A) he will regress due to age (B) if he will live up to the two-years/$30MM he's owed © what we could get in return in trade (D) if the money saved could be effectively used elsewhere. The scenario I'd like to see happen would be for us to trade Ramirez for the package the Dodgers were going to trade for Jed Lowrie, which is Zach Lee and Gould, and then trade Greinke to Texas in a package built around Olt. Green would get an opportunity to sink-of-swim at 3B for the rest of this season and maybe the start of next. Olt will take over 3B next year and we'd add a couple more good young arms to hopefully give us a very good rotation in the coming years. If Green succeeds in his time as a starter, either he could be traded or he could move to 2B, making Weeks tradeable. I wouldn't give Ramirez away for "salary relief" unless I was absolutely certain that the money saved was going to be used in a better manner.