monty57

It'll take some good prospects to get Castro, who I believe is only 22 years old and could be locked up to a "Braun-type deal" and be a core piece for a long time. I don't think we have the prospects to bring him back, as "two impact prospects" probably means two Top 50 prospects or even a Top 10 and Top 50 prospect. LaHair is available because of the presence of Rizzo. The Cubs probably want to trade him now in case his hot start is a fluke (although he did hit 38 HR in AAA last year). While he's old for a rookie, I think he's got five years of service time left, so I would like to have him, but since we've got Gamel for the foreseeable future, I don't know that I'd give up what they'd want for him. The Cubs will get some good young talent back from this sale (especially doing it this early so contenders will get the player for most of this season), but I don't see the Cubs & Brewers trading. That's partially because they're in the same division, but more because they're asking for good prospects and we need to hold onto the few good prospects we've got.

The first thing I thought about when I read the initial thread was "butterfly effect." If Braun wasn't in the lineup, maybe Roenicke would've put Weeks in the #3 hole and he'd be hitting for a .900 OPS right now. No one knows what could have happened had something been altered. Bottom line is that I'm glad Braun wasn't suspended, because all things being equal (no butterfly effect) we'd be in much worse shape without Braun. I look at the absence of Prince Fielder from our lineup and feel strongly that my previous thoughts of Gamel + Aramis > Prince + McGehee was foolhardy, With Gamel injured, we won't know how this season's production from 1B/3B would've turned out, but Ramirez has raised his OPS by .100 points or so in the recent past. Unfortunately, his "warming up" is now offset with losing Lucroy.

No, KRod was not the single biggest reason for the great second half. It was their starting pitching. Their ERA was 3.08 in the second half last year. KRod threw a measly 29 of the 625 innings the team threw. With Aoki playing as well as he is, I see no reason not to go with Hart at 1B full time. K-Rod certainly solidified things, but I think the biggest problem pre-Rodriguez was that Roenicke was hell-bent on keeping Loe as the "8th inning guy," even though he's proven again and again that he shouldn't be used against LH hitters. Getting K-Rod forced Roenicke to take Loe out of the "8th inning guy" role and use him in situations where he had a chance to succeed. If you insist on having a designated "8th inning guy," then LOOGY's and ROOGY's shouldn't be considered and you almost need two "closers" on the roster. However, if you have a couple of your better relievers designated "setup guys," you can play the best reliever for the situation and that can work out just fine.

To me, trading for Youklis would have to be part of a bigger plan with a lot of moving pieces. He has an option for $13MM for next year, so I would think: 1) You trade for Youklis to man 1B for 2012 & 2013, hopefully garnering draft picks after he leaves for free agency after 2013. 2) You trade Morgan and move Aoki to CF w/ Gomez (moving Morgan essentially offsets the monetary difference between K-Rod & Youklis for 2012 and brings back a prospect) 3) Hart plays RF this year and is traded in the offseason, bringing back young talent and freeing up salary for Youklis in 2013. 4) Gamel plays RF next year and is moved back to 1B in 2014 when Youklis is gone. While this is plausible, plans with a lot of moving pieces often don't pan out. Another option would be to trade for him, exercise his 2013 option this offseason and then trade him to a team looking for a 1B/3B and bring back some prospects. This would allow us to help this year's team and get something in return after the season, as we're getting nothing back from K-Rod, but it could backfire if no team wants to trade for him @ $13MM next year.

Ok, it looks like the last poster is right. I will have to explain myself again. Because not one person can name me a shortstop who projects to be a GG caliber defender who can hit for power, who projects to carry a .high .300's OBP(.380/.390) while hitting .300 as well as stealing bases. I asked several times when was the last time a SS like that came up an I got Castro who does NOT draw walks and who is most certainly NOT a GG caliber defender at SS and has major questions about him being able to stay at SS. And you're asking ME about why I think he is a once in a generation type player. Don't then attribute other players labels as once in a generation type player label to ME? I never said those guys were "once in a generation." I never said either way, though Harper is. But does it make you feel better to know that he's now the #2 prospect in all the minors behind ONLY Dylan Bundy? And I'm sick of rattling off how impressive a debut he has to push Profar to #2, so if you don't know, look him up. Still though, I've had several people call me out on that comment and yet have been unable to find one single player to compare him to in the last decade or so. Easy killer. You are calling everyone out for not reading your posts, but if you'd read mine you'd know that I like Profar and have been touting him and Machado as the "dream scenarios" for trading Greinke. I've just heard a lot of players being called "once in a generation" lately, and it just seemed that there should only be one "once in a generation" every generation. Nothing more. As I said, it was just a matter of semantics. No need to get upset, and comments like "so if you don't know, look him up" are the reason so many of your back-and-forths with other posters seem to get pretty vitriolic. It implies the poster to whom you disagree is stupid, uninformed or both, and that's not often the case on this board.

Way to go Fiers!! It's only one game, but this team needs a bright spot. If he can continue to pitch well, Estrada can return to the bullpen when he's healthy making the whole pitching situation a little better. Plus, we will have helped answer part of the 2013 rotation conundrum.

I guess what I've been championing is selling for a good return as opposed to holding pat and losing all the free-agents-to-be or buying in a futile attempt to fool the fans into thinking we're "in it to win it." Profar has kind of become the symbol of the case for selling, and it would be great if we could get him, but my arguement has never been "we need to get Profar," but rather "if we sell, we need to get a good return of talented young players who can help future Brewer teams." You are probably right, however that the Oswalt move probably ends the Greinke-to-Texas discussion. If the GM needed owners' approval for the $5MM to sign Oswalt, it may not be likely that they would approve paying 1/2 of Greinke's salary and parting with prospects... unless someone gets hurt.

I know Profar is a top rated prospect and I would like to trade for him, but he does have a chance of failure. I randomly went back five years (2007 Baseball America top prospect list) and the top of that list is Matsuzaka (like Darvish, not really a "prospect"), Alex Gordan, Delmon Young, Philip Hughes, Homer Bailey, Cameron Maybin... these are the top of the top. Now, further on down the list we find Evan Longoria, Justin Upton, Tim Lincecum, Chris Young, Andrew McCutchen, Jay Bruce, Troy Tulowitzki, Yo Gallardo, Carlos Gonzalez, Mike Pelfrey, Matt Garza, Clayton Kershaw (#24), Billy Butler, Ryan Braun (#26), Jose Tabata, Colby Rasmus, Jacoby Ellsbury, Nick Adenhart, Saltalamacchia, Hunter Pence, Joey Votto (#43) and many, many more, including Elvis Andrus at #65 First off wow, what a lot of talent in the minors at that time. But most of the top prospects have been worse than ones later down the list, including a Cy Young winner and two MVPs. I agree that Profar would be wonderful return for Greinke and there's a good chance that Texas wouldn't be willing to move him for fear of losing a future stud player. However, it's possible that Bubba Starling, Jarrod Parker and Mike Olt (this year's #24, 26 and 43) end up being the future Cy Young/MVP players and Profar becomes Cameron Maybin. Also, maybe this is just a matter of symantics, but how can Profar be a "once in a generation" talent when he is #7 on the list and Harper, Moore and Strasberg are all labeled "once in a generation" talents? Shouldn't he just be classified a really talented young player who has a good chance of producing at a high level in the MLB? If the situation was different and the Brewers had Profar, I would not want them to trade him. However, when you've got a good shot at the World Series, sometimes perspectives change. That's why we did trade Profar... I mean Lawrie... when we we "going for it." Top prospects get traded, and it's usually a team "going for it" that trades them to a team who is selling. From that 2007 list, Delmon Young way a Ray, Maybin was a Tiger, Andrew Miller was a Tiger, Carlos Gonzalez was a Diamondback, Andy LaRoche was a Dodger, Matt Garza was a Twin, Jose Tabata was a Yankee, Adam Jones was a Mariner, Colby Rasmus was a Cardinal, Saltalamacchia was a Brave, Pence was an Astro, Volstad was a Marlin, Josh Fields was a White Sox, Ian Stewart was a Rockie, Elvis Andrus was a Brave, and many more... and that was a top prospect list from only five years ago! Situations are different for each player, but it's not uncommon for top prospects to end up playing for a team other than the one who drafted them.

Once Kottaras is healed, what should we expect? Will Kottaras will play 4/5 of the time, will we have a "normal" platoon, will one get 3 pitchers and the other 2? It'll be interesting to see how Roenicke plays this. While I'm happy for the Maldonado household, I really hope Lucroy is a quick healer.

How does Profar make this team better in '13 or '14? Without Greinke, the pitching will likely be substandard, so we will be right back to 2010 with a bad pitching staff and a hotshot SS prospect that will have growing pains, best case, flameout worst case. I think attendance is going to be down next season because of how bad the team's playing this year, so I think that "selling" done correctly could help attendance more than letting all of our free-agents-to-be play out a losing season and leave for free agency. I think the latter would really, really hurt attendance in 2013. To the quote above, I've asked this before: How much difference over a season is Yo & Greinke (no Marcum) vs Yo & Marcum (no Greinke)? I'd say that if everything else is the same and both players play to their "norms", you might get an extra win or two with Yo & Greinke (no Marcum) than you would with Yo & Marcum (no Greinke). Greinke is a very good pitcher, but I think he's over-glamorized on this site in believing that he alone is a key to winning and all is lost without him. His Royals teams lost, and the 2012 Brewers are losing even with him pitching very well. We're not taking that big a step back by holding onto Marcum instead of Greinke. So, if everything being the same Greinke brings an extra win or two over Marcum, then what happens when everything isn't the same? I would trade Greinke for a top prospect or two (whether that's Profar or someone else). Then if Marcum is still interested in remaining a Brewer, I'd extend him for 2-3 years with option(s). I'd also look at trading K-Rod, Veras and Loe who will all be gone at the end of the season. They probably won't bring much, but we'll get nothing by holding onto them. Finally, I'd shop Hart (who should bring back a lot in trade) while he's hitting like an All-Star and has 1.5 years of service time left, and Morgan who may not bring back a lot in trade, but who is redundant with Aoki on the roster and Schafer at AAA. These trades would bring us back young talent and save us a lot of money. We would then go into next year with a core group of players intact, some of our young stud pitchers now MLB ready and a few good new prospects from this year's trades on the MLB roster. We'd have some money to fill in the needed gaps (RH corner OF, bullpen) and could "spin" things to keep fans interested in Brewer baseball, which is what is really necessary to try to keep fans coming to games. Far, far better than losing everyone to free agency and trying to build the 2013 roster from our farm and the "class B" free agent market.

They probably will have roster room, but since there are valid reasons for calling up any of the three guys, it makes sense to call one who's already on the 40-man. As to the list, while I'm sure they won't bring all those players back, I believe only Greinke, Marcum, Veras, K-Rod, Loe and Izturis are not under team control next year, and Gamel and Narveson would have to be added back to the 40-man. We have some breathing room, but why add someone when you don't have to? There is a growing chance we'll start trading players, and since we'd trade MLB players for prospects, we'll probably bring back more players than we'll trade. I'd hate for Melvin to have to bring back a player he didn't want because the guy he really wanted would have to be on the 40-man and we don't have room. Maybe that's not a concern as we should be able to find someone to dump, but flexibility is usually a good thing.

I agree with TheCrew07 that "splitting hairs" on how good Profar is is kind of counter-productive. I've never seen him play, but I'll trust to the scouts/stats and assume he's really good. If we were to do the trade, which side would have to throw in a low-ceiling prospect is probably inconsequential. If the Brewers decide that they are sellers, the minimum they need to get in return for Greinke is the projected value of the comp picks they would receive plus the value of Greinke starting 15 or so more games for the Brewers minus the cost of signing the comp picks and the cost of paying Greinke for the remainder of the season. That's the minimum they would need in return for trading Greinke. Texas and Baltimore are both in 1st place and both have All Star MLB SS's locked up and top SS prospects in the minors, so I'd start with the "dream scenarios" of landing a Profar or Machado and make some calls to Texas and Baltimore. We can make all the assumptions we want, but no one knows what either Texas or Baltimore would do until they were called. Maybe Texas is sick of losing in the World Series, or maybe Baltimore thinks this is their one big chance to stick it to New York and Boston while they're down. Who knows? If they make the trade, great, we've got a really good solution at SS for at least the next six seasons. If they aren't willing to make a trade, I work down from there trying to get the best deal possible. If I can't find anything better than the value described above, I keep Greinke and take the comp picks. Personally, I think that if the Brewers decide to sell, Greinke will be the first piece "sold." At the very least, I'd expect a Top 50 prospect back in return. I think we're all on the same page on this, but I'd like add that I think it's very important that Melvin look for either minor leaguers of guys still in pre-arby. I don't want him to trade Greinke for two decent MLB players with two years left on their contracts. I could see him trying to "keep the window open" by trading for guys already in the majors, and I really hope he doesn't do that.

I think Melvin is under a tremendous amount of pressure right now, though. He's got some potentially franchise-altering and fanbase-altering decisions to make, and I'm sure him and Ash and Mark A. are going to be involved in some pretty intensive talks over the next 2 months regarding this. If spun correctly, the injuries can actually help Melvin make the moves which need to be made. It can be played up as "we had a playoff team, but with the injuries we decided we needed to go another direction." Then they can trade some players we'd otherwise lose to restock for next year. We can give playing time to some of our young players so they're "less green" next season, and we can try to make some lemonade from this lemon of a season. It will be interesting to see how Roenicke shifts from playing for the playoffs to playing with younger players. One of my main gripes has been that he doesn't seem to trust young players, but maybe that's because he's been shooting for the World Series. If he really doesn't trust young players, then he's probably not going to be a good manager during any type of a "rebuild."

And the Brewers’ 40-man roster is “more than full,” Ash said. It’s at capacity, and the Brewers also have three players on the 60-day DL. While it would be easy for the Brewers to do something like DFA McClendon, I think they're looking at roster flexibility in the future. If they add Thornburg to the 40-man now, that's another spot they have taken up at the end of the year that can't be used elsewhere. As to Peralta, when he was briefly up this season, Brain and Bill made some comments as to the Brewers not wanting to hurt his confidence, sounding as if he might be one they need to tread carefully with. If he is not pitching well in AAA, they may not want to bring him up because his getting shelled at the major league level may hurt him. They're probably trying to let him figure things out in Nashville before bringing him up. I am glad to see that one of our prospects who may have a future on the Brewers' squad will "get his feet wet." Fiers may not be at the top of the prospect list, but we are going to need SP in the future, and if Fiers can prove to be an adequate #4/5 starter, it will really help future Brewers' teams. It would be great if he performs really well and makes the Brewers' decision tough when Estrada comes back.

Yeah, this is why you take players out of the game to have things checked out. After the injury, he went back out and played, just like Gamel. When are teams going to realize that the end of the current game isn't as important as potentially destroying a player's career, and there are a lot of things a trainer can't figure out during an on-the-field exam? Big difference between "shaken up" and having your knee twist in a weird direction. The teams put huge investments into the players, so I think it is absolutely the trainers' job to pull players if there's a chance of significant injury. The risk scenario is pulling a non-injured player and losing one game vs not pulling an injured player and (as in Ellis' case) having the player lose his leg. Not much of a decision in my mind. So what do you do, take out every single player who gets shaken up on the field? Players need to be responsible for their own well being in large part as well. If a player twists a knee, the trainer comes back out and the player says it's fine, I think you're putting too much on the trainer to force him out of the game.

"Random" seems about right. As in "the random guy we'll have playing SS until Melvin stops patching the hole and finally gets a long-term fix. As to Hall, no thanks... I'll stick with "Random."

They have 3B Matt Dominguez in AAA who could be available since he's now blocked by Hanley Ramirez. The problem with that is we also have a Ramirez at 3B, so trading for a MLB-ready 3B may not be wise. Their top prospect is Christian Yelich (Baseball America #41), who is far too much to hope for for one of our CFs, but maybe a deal for Hart if they thought Coughlin or Stanton could hold CF for a while. I don't think that's probably an option as he's a year or two away, and I don't see us trading 1.5 years of Hart for someone who won't be on the Brewers for a couple of years. Not that it would be a bad deal for us, just that I don't see Melvin doing it. They have a couple of good SP in A ball, but so do we, so that's probably not our first item on the "needs list." However, if Morgan could bring back 2011 first rounder Jose Fernandez, then go for it. Maybe a realistic option for Morgan would be someone like Marcell Ozuna in high-A. Here's MLB.com's report: "When Ozuna is healthy and locked in, he has all the tools to be a prototypical right fielder. He has a ton of raw power to tap into, and adjustments he made at the plate should allow him to do that more consistently. He has a plus arm from the outfield and his above-average speed gives him good range defensively as well as the ability to steal bases. He shook off a terrible first half of 2011 with a terrific second half, one that the Marlins hope carries over in 2012." He's 22 and MLB.com projects him to be MLB ready in 2014.

This was brought up in a thread on the major league side, but trading Greinke doesn't exclude us from making a run for him in free agency. I don't think we'll be able to match other teams' offers, but if we can, it would be nice to trade him for a top prospect(s) and then re-sign him this offseason. If one of his big concerns is whether we'd be competitive in the future... well, we'd be more competitive if we had Profar or Machado at SS for Greinke's entire "second tour" with the Brewers. Extra bonus: With the new CBA, we wouldn't lose any draft picks when we re-signed him!!

Sorry for the 2nd post in a row, but I'd also like to mention that it would be phenomenal if the Brewers were to be able to trade Greinke for someone like Profar and then turn around and re-sign him without losing draft picks.

I think the original reason for granting draft picks for losing free agents was that small market teams who were in a playoff run felt they were in a "Catch 22," in that they could either trade their talent away and miss the playoffs, or play to the end of the season and lose all their talent for nothing in free agency. Since big market teams signed all the top free agents, the draft picks were supposed to even things up by allowing the small market teams to make a run at the playoffs and then get the big market teams' draft picks when they lost players to free agency. What actually happened was that the big market teams made a strategy of trading for Type A/B players to win their division and then ended up with additional draft picks when they "lost" the players to free agency. The small market teams were hurt as the team with the #1 pick should have received the 31st pick as well (first pick in the 2nd round), but now big market teams got multiple picks before the second round ever began and could quickly replenish their farm system. As with many rules & regulations, The Law of Unintended Consequences took hold and created a scenario where the opposite of the intended outcome actually occurred. By only allowing teams who hold onto the player the whole year to receive draft picks, they are hoping that this means that small market teams "going for it" and holding onto their players will still get picks, but big market teams who trade for the "hired gun" will not gain picks. The 1st pick of the 2nd round will be closer to the 31st pick, and teams who choose to trade prospects for a chance at the playoffs will have a harder time replenishing their farm. Teams traded for mid-season upgrades long before draft picks were awarded, so while there may be a short-term drop in mid-season trades while teams lament not getting picks, in the long-run I don't see this having a big effect on trade deadline deals... at least for the "big named players." Teams who want to make the playoffs will want players who can make them better, and teams with those players who are not going to make the playoffs will want to get something rather than lose the player to free agency. It actually seems like a decent answer, since the trade value of the player will have to be greater than the value of the picks the trading team would receive, so the "price" stays high for top talent (in other words, teams like this year's Brewers won't get shafted if they try to trade Greinke as they can fall back on receiving the picks). Note: MLB would probably say they're helping the "bad teams" get good and making it more difficult for the "good teams" to stay good instead of using the big market/small market references.

Both are better traded next off-season I believe. Aram-If we trade him, we're going to eat 10 million dollars I believe. If he has the season he SHOULD have, .280/.350/.500-ish, then a team you would think would be willing to pay him 2 years and 20 million. I BELIEVE we'll owe him 2 years and 15 million(someone correct me on that if I'm wrong, I didn't look, I just thought he was only getting 6 million this year). While I agree that Ramirez and Weeks would both be better to shop this offseason, I think Melvin signed Ramirez to a virtually untradeable contract. In an effort to fit him onto this year's team which went way over budget when K-Rod accepted arby, they signed a back-end-loaded deal which only pays him $6MM this year, but escalates to $10MM next year and $16MM in two years when he will be (I believe) 35 years old. Then there's a $4MM buyout in 2015, so he'll be owed 2 years / $30MM after this year, and even if he puts up great numbers the rest of the season I doubt anyone touches that without us pitching in a lot of money. I do agree on the Profar comments. To me he and Machado are kind of the "ultimate targets" who we may realisticly be able to trade for this offseason. I don't know if either one could be had in trade, but if they can it would make the future much brighter. Ill take Andrelton Simmons, but that would never happen I would think that the Braves would be willing to trade Simmons, but I don't know that they'd be looking for pitching (although Greinke is an upgrade for any team in baseball). I would think Hart would be a good guy to shop to Atlanta; possibly for Simmons or Pastronicky, but more likely for one of their young pitchers. They don't have spots for all of their MLB-ready pitchers, and next year we are going to have a lot of SP spots open.

Well, San Francisco is whine country... sorry, couldn't resist.

longball, what metrics would you use to "value your stock" if you couldn't use any historical data? The illustrative "market forecast" would have to be based on something, right? Are they just using "It dropped so sell?" If so, use a different broker. Personally, I wouldn't buy unless it was a good, solid company, so unless something materially changed, then I would hold on or maybe buy more. However, if there were a material change then it may be reasonable to sell. Has there been a material change in Weeks? Is he injured or is there something else which would lead to his "forgetting how to hit?" If not, then history would show that good companies/players will rebound and selling low is a losing strategy.

I'm not opposed to bringing in Bush on principle, but the Estrada injury just seems to be the perfect window to get Fiers or Peralta's feet wet in the majors. They come up with little pressure to get a few starts. If they do well, great. Maybe they bump Estrada back to the 'pen. If they falter, then they go back to AAA with some major league experience and knowledge of what they need to work on so that they're more ready when needed for the rotation next year. If Melvin/Roenicke is so opposed to bringing up a minor leaguer to "hurt this year's playoff chances" then I would rather see Dave Bush start than Manny Parra.

A) I agree on Ryan. I don't understand why he'd dislike a Cy Young winner who throws mid-to-upper 90's heat and seems to have a good work ethic. He's quirky, but certainly effective. B) Having Hamels on the market could increase the feeding frenzy. What would you do as a GM if your biggest competitor just traded his top prospect(s) for Hamels and Greinke was still on the market? How secure would you feel your job would be if you passed on Greinke to hold onto "some prospects" and you lost the division and missed the playoffs? How would the "casual fan" view your performance?