monty57

I like the Cardinals comp, as that is the model I think the Brewers should try to emulate. Unlike the Rays/A’s, they’ve shown the ability to have some higher-priced players on the team, and success builds a strong fan-base that eventually leads to higher payrolls. I think the only path to “complete rebuild” would be to hold onto all of Burnes, Woodruff, Houser, Lauer, and Adames until free agency. There is no way we could bounce back from losing all of them “for nothing” in one offseason. Therefore, I think they’ll trade some pitching this off-season, because pitching is where their depth is. They could trade Houser or Lauer and replace him with Ashby without a big setback. If they decide to make a bigger move, and trade Woodruff, there would be a step back in the rotation, but you’d have to assume the return would bring back some significant upgrades elsewhere. I also agree that Wong is likely gone, saving $8M. I like the way he plays, but he’s not irreplaceable. Brosseau and Urias are current MLB options, and Turang is a good option to get his shot next year. I think they have to exercise Boxburger’s option, since it would be hard to find another setup guy for $3M. They can maintain success while trading some proven MLB players. They can’t maintain success if they ride all of the current guys to free agency. They need to get some return (young talent with a lot of years of service) back, and those trades will probably need to start happening this coming offseason.

Yeah, I'd have to think that's going to happen. We also have most of our current rotation in Burnes, Woodruff, Houser and Lauer all due to become free agents at the same time (after the 2024 season), so I could see a trade happening there as well. If we don't do something to break that up and start getting some more young talent, we're in for a massive rebuild in the next couple of years.

Feel free to move this to a new thread if you'd like, as it really takes things off topic in this thread: The 2022 Brewers' opening (28 man) payroll was $131,930,160, which was $9.4M over it's previous opening day high set in 2019. I'd assume that they don't have a lot of extra payroll room above and beyond $132M for next year. At this point, only Yelich ($26M) and Peralta ($3.735M) are under contract for 2023. Wong ($10M with a $2M buyout) and Boxberger ($3M with a $750,000 buyout) have club options for 2023. McCutchen, Narvaez, Peterson and Perdomo are free agents, along with Cain's contract being off the books. There are 20 arbitration eligible players. I put in some guesses at arby raises, and I'd guess that if they keep everyone they have, and just add some league minimum guys to fill in the gaps, they'll be right around the $131M level. If they do not exercise Wong and Boxberger's options, they could save $10.1M, but then they'll need to replace Wong (maybe with Brosseau?) and Boxberger. There's a lot of guesswork going on, but I think they could probably keep the pitching staff together for one more year (Hader's last year as a Brewer), but we'd be losing Narvaez, Peterson, and McCutchen. We'd be relying on Taylor in CF with someone like Davis or one of our other prospects as the 4th OF, and we'd have little depth anywhere. In my opinion, we'd be going into the year worse than we came into this year for around the same price tag. Personally, I think this coming offseason is where we'll see some pitching traded for young offensive help and "salary relief" to be able to something on the FA market to fill gaps/add some depth. If the Brewers do decide to keep the team together for one more year (no big moves this offseason), they'll lose Hader and Renfroe to FA and I don't think there's any way they'll be able to afford all of the arby raises going into 2024, so we'd probably see a pretty big selloff at that point.

Simply because the other option (McCutchen) is worse. I think we're on the same side here, in that we would both like a better option. I'd just give Hiura a chance vs RHP while they're looking for the replacement. His sample size this year vs RHP is very small, but that's because Counsell only starts him vs lefties where he's been beyond terrible (last night's performance dropped him from a 3 wRC+ to a -4 vs LHP). If he doesn't pan out as the "vs RHP" side of a DH platoon, then I'd move on to someone like Brosseau, or simply use the DH to give guys a day off. A month or so from now, I hope we're penciling someone like Mancini, Benintendi, or Bell into that spot. We just need to put someone there until the cavalry arrives, and I'd prefer that someone to not be McCutchen. At this point, having McCutchen as the everyday DH and starting Hiura vs LHP at any position is borderline insane. Just replacing those two slots with "league average" production would vastly improve the offense. To topic, we're not the 2014 team. We're younger and more talented. If we had the money to keep this team together for the next few seasons, we'd have a good shot at seeing a World Series during that time. The team has been in a slump for a couple of weeks that they will break out of, but they still need to give themselves the best chance to succeed. My recent "rant" of the past few posts has focused on what is what I believe to be the "weak link" in an otherwise strong "chain." They'll be fine, but I think they'd be "finer" if they'd make the aforementioned changes sooner rather than later.

K rate is based on plate appearances, not at-bats. I didn't reference anything regarding Hiura in 2019, 2020, or 2021. I agree that he needs to sink or swim based on where he's at now, not where he was three years ago. I did reference that McCutchen hasn't hit RHP well since 2019, as that is an important piece of information. Splits are very important, so I don't know why you wouldn't care about them. Counsell is misusing Hiura. He has been utterly horrible against lefties this year, but he has been good against righties, and Counsell only starts him vs LHP. He finally got a start last night (against a lefty) after sitting for a week-and-a-half, and understandably looked bad. If they are only going to use him against left-handed starters, they might as well send him packing because just about anyone in the system would be a better option in that role than Hiura. I don't know how he'd end up, but with the current roster, he should be getting starts at DH against RHP. He's better than McCutchen in that role. He shouldn't get a long leash, but he's looked good enough against RHP to deserve that shot. If he doesn't do well, then put Brosseau, or just about anyone else on the roster at DH vs RHP, because everyone on the team other than Cain would be a better option than McCutchen as a DH vs RHP.

I get it, Hiura has flaws, which is why I said that we should be looking for a "rental" DH. However, against RHP Hiura has a line of .308/.438/.718/1.155 for a wRC+ of 214!! He is not sustainably 2x as good as an average MLB hitter, but he should absolutely be starting against RHP to see if there is anything there of if he's just been "lucky" so far this year. We don't know, because Counsell has only allowed him 48 PA vs RHP, while the guy who's posting a .241/.300/.307/.607 line (73 wRC+) vs RHP has gotten 150 PA. If the thought is that he's just slumping, McCutchen had a 76 wRC+ vs RHP in 2021, and an 81 wRC+ vs RHP in 2020. I hate strikeouts as much as anyone. Hiura is at 46.3% K rate, not 55%. It's still bad, but that is partly because he has been misused, mainly starting against LHP, where he's struck out 53.2% of the time and is posting a 3 wRC+. Against RHP, he's "only" struck out 39.6% of the time (still way too much), but has hit the ball really, really well when he's made contact (again, reference that 214 wRC+). Meanwhile, Brosseau is hitting both lefties and righties pretty well. If Hiura does fall back to earth vs righties, then let Brosseau get more PAs. Just sit McCutchen down, he's hurting the team. Obviously, the whole team has been slumping. The losing streak isn't on one guy, but the easiest way to get incrementally better is by replacing the weakest links. Cain was horrendous, and has been sent to the bench. It's time to give McCutchen more bench time, especially against RHP. Pitching-wise, we really just need to get healthy. We have a really good pitching staff, and it's hard to get too down on them because the guys who were supposed to be sitting in AAA are getting a lot of MLB innings.

Per Fangraphs by wRC+: Brosseau (128) Narvaez (122) Caratini (120) Tellez (111) Hiura (109) Adames (104) Peterson (100) Renfroe (100) Wong (100) Yelich (99) Urias (93) Taylor(87) Reyes (79) McCutchen (71) Mathias (70) Jackson (38) Cain (27) You're correct that McCutchen hasn't been nearly as bad as Cain, but he's been significantly worse than most of the rest of the Brewers' other options. That has been exacerbated by the fact that not only is he playing everyday, he's been at the top of the lineup. As I mentioned earlier, I get why they signed him, and I think it was a decent gamble, but it hasn't paid off. He's been given enough rope to hang himself, and now he should lose playing time. Hiura is significantly better vs RHP, and it looks like Brosseau is the better option vs LHP. If he were still young, then I'd be more apt to think that he could "regress to the mean" and start mashing. Unfortunately, he's not young so I think our best option is to move on and start giving the playing time to the younger guys who are producing. Sorry for turning this into a "McCutchen thread," but the rest of our offense is doing okay on the season. He and the CF combo are the obvious places to try to improve.

The Brewers are around "league average" or above at most offensive positions. Urias has been below average at 93 wRC+, but he's been battling several injuries. He has a ton of talent and posted a 111 wRC+ last year, so he should get a lot of "leash." The "black holes" have been CF, with Taylor at 87 wRC+ and Cain at 27 (not a typo), and the fact that they refuse to sit McCutchen even though he deserves to sit. He has a 71 wRC+, -0.7 bWAR, an overall line of .230/.282/.327/.609 and has sucked vs LHP (.611 OPS) as much as he has vs RHP (.607 OPS). For now, Taylor should continue to start at CF and Hiura should be our regular DH vs RHP with Brosseau (when he's back from the IL) at DH vs LHP. Stearns should look for "rentals" at CF and DH and should cut Cain and McCutchen (in that order) as soon as those replacements are found. I think Cain cashed out in 2020 and has been "playing for a paycheck" since then, and while I thought McCutchen was a decent gamble this offseason, he seems to have hit the proverbial cliff. Hiura strikes out too much, but at least he's relatively young and has shown some signs of life this season, while Brosseau has been a pleasant surprise and should be rewarded for that. It's a long season, and downswings happen, but it looks like it's time to improve the obvious holes in the lineup to help get the team back on the winning track. I'm sure the team knows this, and Stearns is probably working the phones, but it's still only June, so we may need to go with what we've got for the next month or so. They've made the call to sit Cain, so now they need to get McCutchen out of the everyday role.

There was no DH in the National League that year. This year's team is more talented across the board than the 2014 team. That team seemed like a fluke from the get-go, playing well above their true talent level for about a month when they were actually on a downward trajectory from the "all in" moves made in prior seasons. After a hot start, reality hit and they were bad for the next season-and-a-half until Attanasio finally realized it was time for wholesale changes. Meanwhile, this year's team is one of the more talented teams in Brewers' history. It's easy to get discouraged in a losing streak, and anything can happen, but I still expect the 2022 Brewers to win their division.

Not a shock. It's nice to have a guy like Reyes in AAA. He can play anywhere and isn't an embarrassment at the plate at the MLB level. I'm sure we'll see him again at some point this season.

Attanasio and Stearns have a pretty long track record, and I think it shows that they will not stand pat. They may not have the ability to add a lot of money to payroll, but I will be surprised if they don't make a move or two. MLB.com did an article on each team's top trade chip (https://www.mlb.com/brewers/news/mlb-trade-candidates-for-each-team-in-2022). Trey Mancini ($7.5M), Benintendi ($8.5M), Josh Bell ($10M), David Peralta ($8M), or even former Brewers Garrett Cooper ($2.5M with another arby year) and Jesus Aguilar ($7.3M) are all options that wouldn't break the bank. I listed the full-season salary, so the Brewers would only be adding around half of that, along with whatever prospect(s) they'd need to send to make the deal happen.

BaseballTradeValues.com has Mancini's value at 2.3. That seems low to me, but would mean that we could get him for a prospect like Gray, Lara or Mendez. We have a lot of OF depths in the minors, so if we can get Mancini for one of our "second tier" minor league OFs, I'd pull the trigger on that trade in a heartbeat.

BaseballTradeValues.com has Mancini's value at 2.3. That seems low to me, but would mean that we could get him for a prospect like Gray, Lara or Mendez. We have a lot of OF depths in the minors, so if we can get Mancini for one of our "second tier" minor league OFs, I'd pull the trigger on that trade in a heartbeat.

Reading that, it'd make me think it's time to give up on the season. Seriously, everyone knew this team was built on pitching. We could have improved the offense immensely by trading Burnes or Woodruff this past offseason, but I don't think too many people wanted that. We had very limited payroll room to add talent, and we really only had some payroll room because Stearns was somehow able to con the Red Sox into giving us Renfroe for JBJ. McCutchen hasn't been good, but what really could Stearns have obtained in free agency with under $10M in payroll space this year, and no space next year? It's always better to use relative stats to see how our guys compare to their peers, so here is the wRC+ for our primary guys: C) Narvaez (119), Caratini (104) 1B) Tellez (118) 2B) Wong (100) SS) Adames (113) 3B) Urias (103) LF) Yelich (93) CF) Taylor (91), Cain (29) RF) Renfroe (114) DH) Hiura (111), McCutchen (66) Utility: Peterson (109), Brosseau (119), I don't see a "flawed roster" filled with underperforming players. For the most part, our team has been league average or better. As I mentioned previously, Cain has been told he's going to sit, and hopefully Hiura will mainly hit vs RHP and McCutchen will mainly hit vs LHP. We're stuck with Yelich, so all we can really do is hope he "finds it." I do agree that he should be moved out of the #3 spot, probably to leadoff where his OBP skills and good baserunning can benefit the team. I think we will roll with Taylor to the deadline to see if we need an upgrade there. If he can remain around league average, we'll probably stick with him and hope that one of our prospects is ready to take over next year. If Hiura continues to hit well vs RHP and McCutchen remembers that he's supposed to be good vs LHP, then we could be above league average at DH, but those are big "ifs." I think Stearns will probably find a way to bring in someone to help out. The most logical places are CF and/or DH. With our lack of resources, I just expect someone more along the lines of Josh Bell and not JD Martinez.

I don't know about your other signs, but getting Adames and Renfroe back should go a long way towards making this a good day for the Brewers.

If you go by FIP or WAR, then only the Yankees have better pitching than the Brewers. The Brewers are built on pitching, and that is how they will live or die. Their offense is middle-of-the-pack. Give Stearns another $100M/year in payroll, and we could have it both ways, but under the Brewers' payroll constraints, we aren't going to be able to add a 'big name" to fill every hole in the roster. I would love to add a big bat to this team, but I understand that probably isn't going to happen. I am very happy that we're watching one of the best teams in Brewers' history, so I'm not going to complain too much. Brewer management knows the team better than I do, and it appears they already told Cain that his playing time was going to be limited... then injuries happened. If we limit Cain's PA's and limit McCutchen to starts vs LHP, we've eliminated most of the "black holes" in the lineup. We may not have a 1.000 OPS guy, but with our pitching, an offense with a bunch of decent hitters and no "black holes" could get us near 100 wins and possibly a first round bye.

The Brewers went into this season about $10M above their previous all-time high opening day payroll. With the limited budget they had, they looked to address their problems vs LHP by adding McCutchen and Brousseau. So far, McCutchen has been a miss, but Brousseau has done okay. Payroll is pretty much maxed out, so anyone expecting them to "go out and get a big bat" is probably going to be disappointed. We're getting Adames, Renfroe, and Urias back which should help out a lot. Hopefully Taylor will get the majority of starts at CF, limiting the offensive black hole that is Cain, and hopefully they will give Hiura more DH starts vs RHP, limiting McCutchen's appearances against RHP. Other than that, our best hope is that Stearns will pull off some more moves like he did last year in acquiring young guys like Adames and Tellez from teams trying to get rid of them. The thought that we can pick up the salary on a big name "rental" player just doesn't seem realistic. Stearns will do something, I just think some people will be disappointed by the return.

Well, he definitely deserves another start. Hopefully that will get us through the Woodruff injury and they can see where to use him after that.

I hope they have. It could be due to injuries, but Counsell's not a dummy. He has to see that Hiura should be starting against righties. We'll see (hopefully soon) when Renfroe and Adames are back.

I get why the Brewers signed McCutchen this offseason. They freed up a little bit of money by trading JBJ, but they're going to be way over budget next season with the arby raises, so the number of available bats who would sign for one year / $8.5M was probably limited and McCutchen was a decent gamble. To this point, the gamble has not paid off. He's not hitting against anyone (67 wRC+ vs LHP, 60 vs RHP), but he does have a good history vs LHP in recent years so there is reason to believe that he should start hitting against lefties. Jopal has a point about the injuries, but as the team gets healthy, Hiura and McCutchen should be a strict platoon at DH. This is going to severely limit McCutchen's playing time, as Taylor has played well enough to win the CF spot and Cain will probably get any OF starts when guys need days off. He may not be what we hoped for when he signed this offseason, but he can help win games for the Brewers as a platoon DH and pinch hitter. We're playing for a pennant, so we need to do what's best for the team right now. McCutchen starting every day is not the best thing for this team right now.

A couple weeks ago in a different Hiura thread, I posted this: "... This season, Hiura's starts have generally come against LHP. His PAs vs RHP have come when a RH reliever comes in later in the game, like yesterday when he hit a monster shot to win the game that he was only in because lefty Fried started. Around 3/4 of the pitchers in baseball are RH, and YTD Hiura has 21 PA vs LHP (with a 0 wRC+) and 26 PA vs RHP (with a 194 wRC+). Of course there would be reversion to the mean as the PAs pile up. He's not completely worthless vs LHP as his 0 wRC+ would denote, and he's not 94% above average vs righties, but at this point he is crushing righties, while McCutchen is not, so give Hiura the DH starts vs RHP, while letting McCutchen continue to crush lefties which at this point in his career is his specialty." Two weeks later, Hiura continues to be used mainly against lefties, and while he has improved his 0 wRC+ to a whopping 18, he has gotten even better against righties, improving to a 244 wRC+!!! How on earth is a guy who has a 244 wRC+ vs RHP not starting against righties? He is undoubtedly going to cool off somewhat from that, but there is no justification to sit him vs RHP at this point, especially when the main alternative (McCutchen) has had trouble hitting RHP for the past three years, and is sitting on a 60 wRC+ in 118 PAs. The question shouldn't be whether or not Hiura should worry about being sent down when Renfroe and Adames are healthy, we should be asking how we can make sure Hiura starts every game vs RHP. Even if he's just the "hot hand," you have to start him vs RHP at least until he cools off.

For clarification, Milwaukee traded for Renfroe this past offseason. He still has one more year of arbitration remaining. We gave up a couple of prospects, but as of right now, it look like a steal to get rid of Bradley and his contract while getting two years of Renfroe in return. Losing Renfroe will hurt, but hopefully it's nothing serious. Sounds like they're expecting around two weeks.

For clarification, Milwaukee traded for Renfroe this past offseason. He still has one more year of arbitration remaining. We gave up a couple of prospects, but as of right now, it look like a steal to get rid of Bradley and his contract while getting two years of Renfroe in return. Losing Renfroe will hurt, but hopefully it's nothing serious. Sounds like they're expecting around two weeks.

There are people here who are a lot more knowledgeable about this stuff than I am. I believe that if they tried to send him down and he refused the assignment, he would have to go through a waiver period. If anyone claimed him, they would be on the hook for his whole salary. If no one claimed him, he would become a free agent, where the Brewers would still have to pay his salary but any other team could sign him to a deal.

Although the Brewers would have liked someone else to take on his contract before this season began, he's still in the organization and is pitching well: 8 Games, 7 Starts, 41.1 IP, 2.40 ERA, 0.94 WHIP, .193 BAA, 10BB/36K, 7.84 K/9, 2.18 BB/9 He is certainly an option if the Brewers need to bring someone up for a spot start or as a multiple-innings reliever. He'd need to be added to the 40 man, which as has been noted is not a problem. If he pitches well, that's great, and if he doesn't pitch well, there would be no problem removing him from the 40 man at that point. He's getting paid the same regardless of where he plays, and no one cares about his service time, so from that perspective he may be a better option than "starting the clock" or "burning service time" on a younger player who actually has a future.