monty57

Looks like a nice guy to add on a minor league deal, and he fits Stearns' mold of liking guys with flexibility. Most of his history is in the minors, but he looks like he knows what he's doing at the plate, so it's possible he could be more than just a "defensive replacement" guy. He seems to have a decent eye at the plate and gets on base, but doesn't have a lot of power. Looks like he has some speed, with two minor league seasons with over 20 stolen bases. He has a shot to make the MLB roster as a utility guy, or he could be good minor league depth to cover multiple positions. I wonder if he hasn't played much shortstop because the Pirates had other options, or because he's not a good defender there. It would obviously be a big plus if he can cover SS as well as 2B/3B/OF.

Ahhh, the "unwritten rules" of baseball. One player violates the rules and gets banned, another player violates the rules and since it's "viewed as common practice and accepted throughout the league," nothing happens.

I like Gimenez, and while he's not as good as Lindor, they'll get more WAR from five years of Gimenez than they gave up in one year of Lindor. Rosario was a good late addition to the trade. He hasn't lived up to his prospect potential, but he's a MLB player who can help the team during their rebuild. The prospects are talented but young. Sounds like Wolf's draft status moved up when he hit 97 on the radar gun, but really needs to develop his secondary pitches, while Green is an athletic speedster who's "baseball skills" need a lot of polish. Unfortunately, like most young players they lost a year of development due to the Covid lockdown. Both have a lot of potential, and we'll see where they go from here. I don't think they'd be in the top three of Brewers' prospects, but they'd be good prospects to have. Getting two MLB players back probably reduced the "prospect haul," but Gimenez was #7 in the Rookie of the Year voting last year, so he's not a bad guy to have on the roster.

There's also the upcoming CBA. Depending on how that plays out, players may expect to get even more money. Imagine if the luxury tax threshold was abolished, or at least raised significantly. Then big market teams would have a boatload of extra money to spend. As a pending free agent that is already making $22,000,000 this season, I might hold out for free agency rather than signing an extension.

This reminds me of when Packers season is over, two days later all practice squad players are signed to futures contracts (a completely procedural move), yet the packers will officially announce it on facebook, twitter, etc. It just leads to fifty comments saying "Hur dur, why don't we sign real free agents?" or "Who is that guy?" or "Why don't we fire (head coach, GM, defensive coordinator, etc) instead?" We'll see how spending big works out for the Mets, but the last time I remember someone buying a team and immediately spending big was when the "Magic Johnson group" bought the Dodgers. They took on a bunch of big-named guys with big contracts, and that didn't work for them. They became a dominant franchise when they hired a GM who understood that maintaining a strong farm and building from within was important for everyone... even teams with deep pockets. The Mets want to prove they can spend with the big boys. They just got a great shortstop for one year. He, Conforto, Familia, Syndergaard, and Matz will be free agents after the season. They will probably try extend Lindor and sign Springer to a monster contract, and they already signed McCann. It would be fun as a Mets fan to see the team "trying to win," but do they have enough young talent to complement these big contracts? I could see them getting very "top heavy" and having to fill out the roster with sub-par players since they don't have much of a farm. They're coming off a low (for a big market) payroll, so they have a lot of money to spend to get them up to the luxury tax threshold, but once there they won't be able to spend like this in future years. Teams that are winning consistently in today's world are ones that have a lot of young, pre-arby talent, not ones who try to buy a championship through free agency and "blockbuster trades" for one-year players. Cohen wants to impress his friends and show the world he's a "player." I may be wrong, but I'd guess that a few years from now he'll realize that the current Dodgers model is the better way to go.

I think this is a great time to be a Brewerfan. For a franchise that has long struggled to produce any pitching of note, we look to have two legit top of the rotation caliber pitchers in Woodruff & Burnes, plus probably the best two headed shutdown relief tandem in all of MLB with Williams & Hader. I agree, their stuff is pretty sickening. Filth the likes of which we've rarely ever seen. Look around the rest of the NL Central: the Pirates are probably the worst team in baseball, the Cubs were suppossed to have a Dynasty in the making that we for all intense porpoises put to an end in Game 163 of 2018, the Reds are already down one Cy Young winner plus their closer from last year. The Cardinals are still the Cardinals but even they could look a lil different with no Molina/Wainwright for the first time in forever. The Brewers, conversley, have lost no one of real consequence from 2020 & have pretty much an entire lineup due for significant positive regression in 2021 with probably enough change in the couch cushions to still make a couple two tree additions yet before the season starts. I agree with Sveumrules. I think people are way too down based on last season's offensive numbers. If Yelich has turned into a bad hitter, then we're in trouble, but I'm still going to believe that he and a lot of the other players on the team are better than they showed in 2020. I hope we find at least one decent corner infielder before the offseason is over, but our biggest offensive boost has to come from last year's underperformers getting back to where they should be.

And their top two highest paid players (Ramirez & Perez) could be gone next year. They're only committed to $2,000,000 in salary in 2022, and that's Ramirez's buyout.

I'm sure teams and players are talking, but the offers are just below what the players hope to get. Eventually, someone is going to have to crack as teams need players and players need teams, but most of the deals will probably be for one year, as the teams are worried about whether there will be any fans in the stands, and players will just want to get to the new CBA. If this is the case, I hope Attanasio okay's a "Grandal/Moose" type of signing where the team goes a bit over budget because a player they didn't expect to be able to afford falls into their price range.

That's certainly one way to go, and I wouldn't be upset at all if we continue down that route. But, there are lots of other options, like signing La Stella to play 3B and trading Hiura for a young first baseman who can hit. In that scenario, we maximize Urias by moving him to his natural position, and we greatly upgrade our infield defense, while upgrading our offense at the corners to offset the likely offensive downgrade at 2B. I like Hiura, but he has to hit to his potential to offset his horrendous defense. A right-side-of-the-infield made up of Hiura and Vogelbach may be decent offensively, but defensively it sends shivers down my spine. But as I mentioned in my previous post, my primary focus would be to find a third baseman. What we'd then do with the logjam of Urias, Arcia, and Hiura in the middle infield would be the secondary concern. Hiura simply would bring the most back, and while I was completely opposed to the thought of trading him, I'm warming to that idea if it brings back a huge return and if we address the corner IF positions. I'm not sold on it, and it would have to make both short-term and long-term sense for the team.

I don't really want to see Urias as our everyday third baseman, so I hope they make a move to find a solid third baseman. That would allow for Stearns to trade one of Arcia, Hiura or Urias. Arcia is the "easy" option of the three, but he'd also have the least return. I'm warming to the idea of trading Hiura for a "monster" return and going with the solid defense of Arcia at SS and Urias at 2B (his natural position). I think Vogelbach's bat should be average or above for a MLB 1b, and his bad defense at 1B would be a little less troublesome if we had good defenders at the other three infield positions, or possibly a good first baseman could be part of the return for Hiura. Like you mentioned, our biggest offensive "upgrade" is going to have to be simple... the good hitters on the team have to hit. If Yelich, Garcia, Narvaez, etc hit like they did in 2020, our offense will not be good regardless of other moves we make.

I look at it more as an unexpected raise in the payroll for 2019, when Moose and Grandal fell into their laps on one-year deals, and then a return to a payroll that is more in-line with Milwaukee's revenue stream for the 2020 season. Attanasio has often been ready to go over budget for a "name" player when the opportunity arises and he thinks the move can put them over the top. I think that he's probably chomping at the bit to jump into the FA market this season with a bunch of unsigned guys sitting out there and most of the Central seeming to give up before the season begins. Which will win, his emotional/baseball fan side, or the "numbers guy" side?

With the way the Central looks, and the number of unsigned free agents sitting out there, I wonder how tempted Attanasio is to make some moves like they did with Moose and Grandal. I'd guess a lot of players will be willing to sign one-year deals to get them through this offseason and onto next year with a new CBA and (hopefully) no Covid concerns.

Yeah, it'll be interesting to see what they do. Cots has their estimated payroll for 2021 at $127,802,500, and Bryant (proj $19M), Baez (proj $11.25M), Rizzo ($16.5M), and Davies (proj $9M) will all be free agents after this season. The Darvish trade certainly looks like a rebuilding move, and all I can say is that if they go into a rebuild, it's going to be a big one.

With the addition of Snell, Cots has them at a projected $139,840,000 payroll. They'll have nine players who could hit arby in 2022, when Davies & Pham ($17M combined) become free agents, and another seven who could hit arby in 2023 when Clevinger ($8M) is a FA and they hold an option on Myers, who makes $22,500,000 in 2021, so they could see $29.5M fall off the books. Snell ($16.6M) and Pomeranz ($10M) are FAs after 2022. Hosmer drops from $21M to $13M after 2022, and Machado drops from $34M to $30M after 2023, so they aren't strapped with long-term deals, and should have some money to offer Tatis an extension, as he would be a FA after 2024. Having a lot of pre-arby guys makes up for having some big contracts on the roster. With their system, they should still have a lot of good prospects coming up to keep a steady stream of quality pre-arby talent on the roster for years. Plus, they could always trade away some of their surplus MLB talent for more young talent should they see the need. They seem to be in a pretty good position to be good for quite a while.

San Diego's population is 1,447,100 million (Metro area 3,379,160), and the average household income in San Diego is $103,655 with a poverty rate of 13.80%. Milwaukee's population is 588,265 (Metro area 1.57 million) with an average household income of $55,556 and a poverty rate of 26.65% Source: World Population Review, 2020 stats.

Agree. Woodruff is worth the money, but the Brewers' total team payroll won't increase (at least not significantly), so paying Woodruff more just means that they won't have extra money to pay someone else.

Versatile guys like this are nice to have on the roster to be able to back up multiple positions. You just hope that they end up with around 200 PAs, and aren't the guy you have to rely on if a long-term injury occurs. Ideally, they're what allows you to keep your better prospects in AAA until they're ready to start instead of sitting in a backup role on the MLB bench. Unfortunately, our position player depth is pretty thin in the upper minors, so an injury would force us to use guys like Lopes/Peterson/Mathias full-time until the regular is healthy.

Cron career vs lefties: .273 avg / .324 OBP / .494 SLG / .818 OPS / 119 wRC+ / .344 wOBA That could be a good platoon option with Vogelbach, but having two guys who can only play first base would limit our flexibility. I had thought that Santana could be a good option if the price was right, but I don't know how much money the Brewers have, and I still think third base is our biggest area of need.

Everyone has a different take on Covid. Any team that wants to take the risk that there will be a full season next year with fans in the stands will be able to find some good deals this offseason. However, if they're wrong the owner will have to be willing to eat tens of millions of dollars. One thing that might go into consideration is that if baseball OK's fans in the stands, some of the states may put their own restrictions on attendance. I'd guess that Missouri will be far more open to having fans in the stands than somewhere like New York, Illinois, or California. Wisconsin would probably be another one that could add some restrictions.

The DH allows older, more expensive players to extend their careers. The union gets a percentage, so they'd rather see a 41-year old Albert Pujols taking up a roster spot at $30,000,000 than a young up-and-comer taking up that spot for league minimum. I think NL teams have "lost out" on a lot of big name free agents over the years because they haven't been willing to add the extra years to the end of the contract. It seems that teams have been smarter about this over the past few seasons (which had the union screaming "collusion"), so it may not have as big an effect going forward, but the union absolutely wants the DH to be instilled in the NL. I think that's been an argument used against collective bargaining since collective bargaining began.

Is that the case? I thought it was arbitration settlements that weren't guaranteed. This isn't an arbitration settlement, they came to terms on a contract prior to going to arbitration which would seem to be guaranteed. Too many rules :-)

Unless something changes, he's our starting 1B. Our most pressing need is still 3B, so I'd guess Stearns will try to fill that hole first, and if he still has resources left over and no bigger holes to fill, he'll look for a better option at 1B. I think it's more likely he finds a cheap RH bat who can platoon with Vogelbach, and maybe come in as a defensive replacement when we're ahead. Highly doubt that, his D is terrible... We'll find a 1B. I don't like the thought of Vogelbach and Hiura in the same infield either, and I hope Stearns tries to find upgrades to both corner IF spots, but until something happens he's our starting 1B. Stearns likes flexibility, so picking up a starting first baseman that pushes Vogelbach (a 1B-only guy) to the bench doesn't seem like a Stearns move. Doing something like signing someone who plays multiple positions to take on the RH side of the platoon/defensive replacement at 1B and backing up other positions seems more Stearns-like. There's a lot of offseason to go, and Stearns likes making moves that no one sees coming. I'm interested to see what he does.

Unless something changes, he's our starting 1B. Our most pressing need is still 3B, so I'd guess Stearns will try to fill that hole first, and if he still has resources left over and no bigger holes to fill, he'll look for a better option at 1B. I think it's more likely he finds a cheap RH bat who can platoon with Vogelbach, and maybe come in as a defensive replacement when we're ahead.

If I had to guess, I'd say that Knebel will pitch well this year, but I don't have to bet $5,000,000 on it after losing a bunch of money last year and not knowing whether the politicians are going to let fans back in the stands next season. Any other year, I'd say that the Brewers would have tendered him a contract. They just can't afford to take that risk this year.

Agree. Even in a normal year, Cain would probably have negative value with his contract, but this year is even worse. Let's hope a well-rested Cain can post a .400 OBP while playing Gold Glove defense.