monty57

Not whatsoever especially considering the #2 seed draw is probably the best draw in the NL. Agreed, I am rooting for the Giants to remain right where they are at the head of the pack. The ultimate threading of the needle for the Brewers would be finishing with the second best record in baseball behind only the Giants. That would give them the #2 spot in the NL which appears to be the most desirable playoff position, and home field in any possible playoff matchups (including the World Series) except for a potential NLCS matchup with the Giants. Yes, and since we're looking for ideals, I hope the Reds or Padres beat the Dodgers in the one-game Wild Card "series" to get them out of the picture.

You can't just magically raise the payroll. Attanasio has done a lot to get the payroll to higher levels than it has ever been, but there are limits and the Brewers are likely to blow past those limits if our guys continue to play well and get the arby increases that go along with good play. There is a reason the Rays don't just push their payroll up to "put the nail in the coffin" of the Yankees and Red Sox. Small market teams just can't do that. As much as it stinks to think that we'll have to trade away some good players because we can't afford them, the Brewers will need to "act like the Rays" or they'll get swallowed up. The good thing is that the Rays have shown that trading away good players doesn't mean that the team will be bad. The return you get from those trades allows the team to remain continually competitive, which is the stated goal of Stearns and Attansio.

It really depends on how the money shakes out. We'll have Yelich on the books throughout the timeframe of "The Big Three" pitchers, making $26M/year. Peralta will be making $2.48M, $3.7M, and $5.7M so he's helping the payroll picture. Among others, Adames and Burnes will enter year 1 arby next year, and Woodruff will be entering his 2nd (of 4) arby year. If they continue their MVP/Cy Young performances, they could be making a lot of money by 2023 to go along with Yelich's $26M plus the arby raises of the rest of the team. So, money is a big factor as to why they may trade star players while they are still in their arby years. The other reason is that after 2024 we would lose Peralta, Adames, Burnes and Woodruff for nothing more than a comp pick (assuming the new CBA still allows for the comp pick). Holding all of them to free agency would be the ultimate of "window" strategies, and we would be a basement dweller for years if we went that route. I would be surprised if any of our pitchers are dealt this offseason. We'll lose Anderson to free agency, and go into 2022 with a very strong rotation and Asby and Small waiting in the wings as insurance. After next year, I'm sure there will be some desire to make a trade, especially if everyone is still pitching well and Ashby and Small are ready. By 2023, I think at least one of Burnes / Woodruff will be traded for a big return, and the other will probably be traded prior to their final arby year, as I don't see either of them signing an extension. If they keep pitching well, both of them will bring back a load of young talent that will keep the Brewers in contention for a long time. As to trading Lauer or Houser this offseason, you need to have a lot of depth to make it through an MLB season, and the 2022 Brewers should have it. After losing Anderson to FA, trading either of Houser or Lauer would be risky, as it would take away that depth. It would take a huge return for it to make sense, so I think both of them will remain on the team, and Ashby and Small will start next year in AAA. There will be injuries, and Ashby will get a lot of MLB starts even if we retain all of our starting pitchers.

In his short 76 game career, he has a 23.8% K%, 6.6% BB%, 87 ERA- and 89 FIP- I'd guess that Stearns got him to be an important long-term piece for the bullpen. The TJ surgery delays that, but I think he'll get a long look when he's back healthy.

It's nice that we'll only lose Anderson after this year, and have everyone else under team control for several years. Going into next year, we'll have five "proven" guys who could immediately start in any MLB rotation, Ashby "got his feet wet" and looked pretty good, and Small is sitting in the wings as one of our top prospects. Whether Lauer and Houser continue pitching like "top end starters" or they end up being "middle-of-the rotation" guys, we're looking pretty good going forward.

Yeah, I was excited about this trade because he looked to be a good pitcher, and he would be a part of the bullpen for a long time. It's unfortunate for him and the team that this happened. On the bright side, he's only going to be in his first year of arby in 2023, which will probably be his first full year back. He shouldn't be too expensive heading into arby, and hopefully he can come back strong and be a big contributor to our playoff runs in '23, '24, and '25. Best of luck to him as he heals up and heads into his rehab program.

Right, but in a couple years we could have like $70-80M going to Yelich, Burnes, Adames, Hader and Woodruff with most of the rest of the roster in their arby years. That's after Cain and Bradley are gone, and we'll still be in a major payroll crunch. Sorry if this is derailing the thread, but to topic Urias' job may be to replace Adames when he gets too expensive and gets traded and/or Lauer's job may be to do the same in the rotation. It's just the reality of being a small market team. I'd love to keep this team together for the long haul, but we can't, so it's good that we have talent spread around the 26-man roster and aren't reliant on one or two guys. Thankfully, as this trade shows, even Stearns' "losses" in trades haven't turned out too bad, so when the day comes that he has to shed a big contract or two, I trust him to make those trades and keep the team competitive far more than I've trusted any other Brewer GM in the past (I know he's technically not the GM anymore, but he'll be the one making the trades). Edit: As the Cubs showed this year, having a handful of stars surrounded by garbage doesn't get you very far. If we insist on holding onto our stars, we will have to get rid of the supporting cast as they hit arby, and we don't have a good enough farm to replace them. We will look like this year's Cubs, and then we will blow everything up and go through some 100-loss seasons. That doesn't seem like Stearns' M.O.

Right, but they still have to be able to afford them which they probably won't be able to do. I've seen future payroll estimates in the $190M+ range as our current guys move through arby. Having some quality guys like Urias and Lauer who shouldn't be overly expensive will help. Or, if nothing else, they (Urias and Lauer) could be some of the guys who get traded for some pre-arby guys to bring the payroll down. But taking the emotion out, the practical side of me realizes that it will have to be guys like Woodruff, Burnes and Adames who will be traded, so having players like Lauer and Urias around will be pretty important. As time goes on, the trade this thread is based on allows us to have two holes filled with quality players who are playing for less than market value (pre-arby/arby) vs having one quality player playing for less than market value.

And he will become even more valuable as Burnes and Woodruff become more expensive. I have a hard time believing that the Brewers can afford to keep the "Big three" together all the way through arbitration. If Lauer proves to be a solid middle-of-the-rotation starter, we can remain competitive even if we are forced to trade away Woodruff and/or Burnes during their arby years.

Since the trade, Grisham has provided 4.8 fWAR, Davies 1.7, Lauer 0.7 and Urias 1.6. The Padres have four more years of Grisham, and the Brewers have four years of Urias and three years of Lauer. So far, the Padres have gotten the better end of the deal, but the Brewers have more "control" left for their players to potentially close the gap. It wasn't Stearns' best trade, but it wasn't the complete disaster people were making it out to be after 2020.

For the record, I wasn't literal. I for one hope we blow past 97 and get to 100. This reminded me of the "Seven Minute Abs" scene from the movie There's Something About Mary. What if someone just came out with "Six Minute Abs?"

If they kept him off and he got mad about it, they could just buy him one of those old Joe Madden "Just don't suck" T-shirts.

What, like signing a 3rd basemen to play RF? That would be a Stearns move. I don't think they can fit Bryant into the payroll, but I like that idea :-)

Yeah, especially if it's a strict platoon with Bradley getting about 3/4 of the starts. I'm sure Stearns will do something completely unexpected, but with what we can see about next year's lineup right now, I'd put Yelich in LF, Cain in CF, Taylor in RF, with Bradley as the 4th OF, giving Cain and Taylor some regular days off and potentially coming in late in games for Yelich sometimes to give us a really good defensive OF.

In the first sentence, you say "1 game or even just a few innings," while in the last sentence you say "1 or 2 days a week." I agree that sometimes you need an "emergency" player to come in. Then you just hope that he doesn't get many balls hit his way, and you rectify the situation with some roster moves after the game. That's much different than playing a defensive butcher once or twice a week, which could do harm to your team. The defense subtracts from your offense, so even if you are a good offensive player, the team will eventually look to replace you if your defense is bad enough.

Earlier in the season, I was trying to think of ways the Brewers could convince him to not exercise the option, but then I just resigned myself to the fact that he and Cain will both be Brewers next year, Garcia will not, and our outfield will make (I believe) $55M, making it difficult for the Brewers to sign any free agents this offseason.

This whole conversation is a good reminder as to why the Brewers need to maintain a strong farm. Good players get expensive, and we will never have enough money to hold onto everyone. We need to be able to continually add guys who will play for league minimum. This will help us replace some guys, and the low price tag will allow us to spend money to retain others. Of course Stearns will make some moves, but I don't expect any big-money additions. If we don't trust our offense and we don't have any offensive prospects ready to help out, then we would probably have to deal from our pitching depth to improve our position players. But Stearns is always full of surprises, so I shouldn't even try to predict what he'll do.

Wong is the type of guy where you don't really recognize how much he does for the team unless you watch him play regularly. Great defense, smart base-running, quality ABs. He's just fun to watch.

It’s kind of funny, the Cardinals have been such a good franchise over the years that even in a season where they probably will win 85 games it will be considered a down year. That’s next level expectations for you. I've always thought that the Cardinals should be the team we model ourselves after. Similar market size Midwestern team that has a rabid fan base largely because of their winning tradition. They never go "all in," and they never "tank for a draft pick," they have a mid-tier market and payroll, yet they are always contending and have won more World Series than anyone outside of the Yankees. I think Stearns is going for this type of model, which as a long-suffering Brewers fan makes me very happy.

7+ inning games: -Woodruff has 8, but only one since June. -Peralta has 4, but none since June. -Burnes has 5, most of them in the July/August. Out of 68 combined games, they have went 7+ in about 25% of them. If one of the "Big 3" is pitching well, keep him in there, but we can certainly win with them only going 5-6 innings. We've done it all year, and not that there's a correlation, but the team's winning percentage went up while Woodruff and Peralta went less deep into games. But to your point, Counsell is not going to pull them "just so he can pitch everyone possible." With at least two of Houser, Lauer, and Anderson going to the pen for the playoffs, he will have a strong bullpen, and I trust him to use it wisely. It would be great if they can get a day's rest because the starter goes deep into the game, but that's not really the Brewers main focus under Stearns/Counsell. They seem to prefer to pitch starters while they're strong, but give them a pretty quick hook after they've been through the lineup a couple times and show that they are starting to tire, relying on a strong bullpen to finish things out. I also wouldn't consider it a "bullpen game" if they decide to start Houser, Anderson, or Lauer in game four. Each of them have been above average starting pitchers this season. We're a bit spoiled by how good our top three have been, but there is a good argument to be made that any of the "bottom three" pitching on full rest would be a better option than one of the "Big 3" pitching on short rest after a season in which they have become accustomed to extended rest between starts.

NLDS Game 4 may depend on whether they're up 2-1 or down 2-1. If they're up 2-1 I'd guess that they'd start one of Lauer/Anderson/Houser to keep the "Big 3" on regular rest. If they're down 2-1 and facing elimination, they may feel compelled to start the game 1 starter. They have six solid starters, and Ashby could be a good 7th. That makes for a lot of good multi-inning guys for the playoffs. With a solid back of the bullpen, I like how the Brewers are built for the playoffs.

Why would the Brewers offer him another contract at all? A small market team which aims to compete in their division year in and year out, necessarily means there will be a large amount of annual roster shuffling around a small core of players. A team can't emulate the Athletics and Rays then be reluctant to say good bye to good complementary players. Are you calling the guy who leads the Brewers in hits, homers, and rbis a complementary player? He's getting $10M and will probably post a little over 3 fWAR for the season. Not bad, but not someone who is irreplaceable. At the start of the season, many fans hated the signing and wanted him gone. Meanwhile, we're moving into a period where the team will be in a financial crunch with all of the arby increases. If Stearns could jettison Cain & JBJ's contracts and have Avi for another season at $10M, I'm sure he'd gladly do it. Since he can't, and we're likely stuck paying Cain, Yelich and JBJ $55M next year, with Burnes, Adames, Houser, Urias, and Tellez all entering arbitration, Woodruff hitting year 2, and Hader, Narvaez and Suter hitting year 3, I don't see the money to spend on good-but-not-great players like Garcia. It's been fun cheering him on for the year, but the sides signed the deal they did for a reason. He is very likely going to be paid a $2M buyout and hit the free agent market, and I doubt we'll put much (if any) effort into pursuing him any further. This is where it stinks to be a small market. We can't get too attached to players, and while it's disappointing to lose a guy like Garcia, if we allow ourselves to get too attached to "the names on the back of the jersey," it'll really hurt (emotionally) in the likely scenario that we trade away Hader this offseason, and Woodruff/Burnes after next year just because we know we can't afford them. We're looking at $71M guaranteed next year in five players (Yelich, Cain, JBJ, Wong and Peralta), and we have all the aforementioned arby guys. Some players we all like are going to have to go, so Stearns is going to have to act like the Rays and trade away good players in their arby years if he wants to remain "continually competitive," and if he wants to keep the Brewers out of bankruptcy. The seasons some of our guys are having are fantastic to watch, but they're going to make the guys a lot of money in arby.

Agree. There are always going to be mistakes, but Stearns has made far more good moves than bad ones, which is why we the Brewers are something like 97% favorites to win their division on their way to their fourth straight playoff appearance. As to Bickford, I've always cheered for him, mostly because he was the "prize" we got in exchange for Will Smith. I'm glad he's found success, and wish that success could be for the Brewers. But as long as Stearns continues to field playoff-caliber teams year-in and year-out, I won't be too concerned that he lets some guys get away.

The Reds are 65-56, so if they lose today, they will be 65-57. 90 wins means 72 losses, so they would need to go 25-15 to end up with 90 wins. That would mean winning 63% of their remaining games, which would be playing slightly worse than San Fran has played this year. Meanwhile, the Brewers would need to go 17-25 to end up at 90-72. That would mean playing slightly better than Pittsburgh has played this year. It is very likely that the Brewers win their division, but I'm in that group that won't celebrate until the magic number is zero.

Regarding the bolded part: In last night's game, they said that Lester had been named the starter for Thursday.