monty57

Personally I think it will be hard for Stearns to ever find a #1 starter or so to his liking price wise. He seems to be following the recent trend to spend big, whether that be draft/FA/trade, on positional players that are less risky investments and get pitching by more creative means. It is much easier to take a Chacin/Miley and tweak them to have success you would not expect. Hitters are more face value. What you see is what you get. Our pitching staff should include quite a few guys who either came up through the Brewer farm or were picked up while they were still in the minors. I think Stearns wants do everything he can to load up every position at every level of the farm and see what shakes out. Let the guys play things out, and when what he sees as a tremendous value emerges, he jumps (Yelich, Cain, Grandal). The time he veered from this was Schoop, where he kind of made a move to make a move, and he's admitted that was a mistake. If this holds true, he will only get a "#1/TOR" pitcher when the price looks like a good deal for the Brewers. It's good that he's in on every guy who would be a significant upgrade to our current rotation. There's no harm in testing the waters, and he seems to be sticking to his guns and not overpaying. I'd love to see Kluber as a Brewer, but only if it's in a deal that makes sense for the Brewers and doesn't kill them long-term.

MLBTradeRumors mentioned that he may have been promised a rotation spot. A guaranteed rotation spot in a pitcher-friendly park is not something we could have offered.

Great news. I was worried that Stearns would move on to a bigger market before long.

In practice I think it's just a way to defer a little guaranteed salary into the next season, as someone mentioned earlier. It's a very thin margin where it's in both the player's and the team's best interest to pick up the option. Either the player performed and would get a raise in free agency, or did not perform and is therefore not asked back. Rarely does it hit the narrow interval where both parties pick up the option. It makes total sense for Grandal. Put up big numbers in Miller Park and get back on the market as soon as possible, without a qualifying offer hanging over his head. When does that money get paid out? Is it as soon as the option is declined? So they are just deferring that money like 7 1/2 months or so? I understand time value of money and all but that seems like an incredibly short period of time to deferred the money. It's not like the brewers need to be worried about the luxury tax either. It's deferred one season and several hundred million dollars of additional revenue into the future. For the team's purposes, it would count against what they can spend next year instead of what they can spend this year, thereby allowing them a little more wiggle room this year and a little less next year.

Total revenue is all the money that is brought in, so it has to pay all the bills, not just player salaries. Bringing in $255M in revenue does not mean there is $255M available for players, and anything not spent is profit. There are a lot of bills they're paying outside of player salaries. During the two "rebuild/retool" years where player payroll was down, they used excess revenues to purchase a AA team, rebuild their Arizona complex, and upgrade their concourses/concession areas at Miller Park. They didn't pocket the money, they invested it back into the franchise in a way that should help them in the future. That seems smart, as we will hopefully benefit from these investments for decades. Payroll was only down because it didn't make sense to spend more... the money was better spent buying a AA team then paying more for MLB vets who wouldn't have won anything. As soon as the team looked to be close to ready, they surprised the pundits and spent a lot of money to acquire players that took them to the NLCS. Now, they have increased payroll again. As they are reportedly still looking for upgrades, they still have some room to add if the right deal comes up. Businesses have to operate below expected revenues, because something may happen where you don't get all the revenue you expected. Attanasio seems to believe that adding "special" players will help them meet or exceed expected revenues, so he's willing to take the risk and spend when those deals arise. I think he'd find money if, for example, Bumgarner could be brought in, but if the special player isn't available, we go with the cheaper option (i.e. Spangenberg, Petricka) rather than spend on someone who may not significantly move the needle. Attansio is a smart guy. He got into a bit of a mess in the past by adding aging vets when they weren't going to win. I think he learned a lot and it seems they're being pretty smart about things. We should be getting more money, great. That doesn't mean we should immediately spend it to sign guys who aren't a big upgrade over what we currently have. We had two MLB catchers. The only reason to add would be if we could get someone like Grandal or Realmuto, which we did. We have a bunch of MLB starting pitchers. The only reason to add will be if we can get a guy at the top of the rotation. Same with second base. So, to the question of the thread, I think we could have money to pay for Bumgarner, but not for a #3-5 starter. We have money if it is for a player that is a significant marginal improvement over our current guys, but not if it is just to throw a name on the field.

MLBTraderumors snippet on Knebel: Corey Knebel and the Brewers settled on a one-year, $5.125MM salary for the upcoming season, tweets Murray. The right-hander is in his second trip through arbitration as a Super Two player and had been projected at $4.9MM. He’s controlled through the 2021 season.

Cots has the Brewers at $115,087,500 after the deal, which includes their estimates for arby eligible, and also has Braun at $19M when some (I believe $4M) will be deferred. Not re-upping Schoop saved a lot of money that was showing "on the books" going into the offseason. Attanasio has always said he's willing to spend extra money if it means adding a special player that can help them get over the top, and Grandal qualifies. He is a significant upgrade for the Brewers at Catcher and should be fun to watch this season. I don't think a payroll of around $111,000,000 should be out of line with what the Brewers can handle, but I would guess that a move adding someone like Bumgarner would probably require something like a trade of Thames or Anderson for prospects and salary relief. Even then, it may be stretching our "small market" budget. However, I think if the right deal was on the table, Attanasio would be tempted to make the move, especially since Grandal and Bumgarner would both be one-year financial obligations.

You don't have to be a top 100 prospect to have success one trip through a batting order. If anything, greater use of 3 inning stints increases the number of pitchers a team can develop effectively because they don't need a 3rd pitch to be useful. It's not coincidence that Brewers social media is sticking with the term "initial out getter". What worked last year, worked for a reason that wasn't a fluke. And it's here to stay. I think the reason the Brewers would like another starter is because the transition away from specialists and 1-inning guys can't happen overnight. Another Chacin-like starter added to the group would be useful in covering innings not yet ready to be covered by everyone pitching 3-4 innings at a time. But that doesn't mean they're desperate or have to overpay to get one. Building depth and shuttling fresh arms back and forth is a permanent and very effective thing for a small market. And the pitching numbers that strategy generates will eventually provoke even large market teams to follow suit. What was "a fluke" for lack of a better term, was the Brewers having guys with the talent of Hader, Burnes, Peralta, and Woodruff that they used as multi-inning middle relievers. This is probably the best group of young pitchers the Brewers have ever produced at one time. Generally, the guys we (or anyone else) will put in this role will not be nearly as good as the guys we used in that role last year.

The Brewers have been mentioned in "Ace trade" talks too much for it to be coincidence. Attanasio has always said that he's willing to expand payroll for a truly special player, and I think the team is really trying to make a big trade for a top-line starter before the offseason is through. I'm fine with going into the season with our current 2B and catcher positions if it means that we're adding someone like Kluber, Syndergaard, or Bumgarner to the top of our rotation. I haven't been as attentive this offseason as I have in the past, but it seems to me that this is what the Brewers are trying to do. What the Brewers did last year worked in large part because they brought up multiple "Top 100" SP prospects and put them in the pen, shuffling them back and forth to the minors as needed. Since having multiple MLB ready Top 100 SP prospects to put in the pen isn't always an option, adding someone who can go deep into the game on a regular basis can keep the bullpen better rested, so Hader and the gang can be used on the nights they get shorter starts from the rest of the staff.

I like it. Sometimes you have to trade prospects to upgrade your MLB roster, and sometimes you have to trade guys from the MLB roster to bolster the farm. Broxton seems to be a really good, likable guy, and he has the tools to be a very good MLB player. That said, he's very hot & cold with a big hole in his swing, and that isn't something a playoff/World Series team should count on when they have other options. Gamel is more of a "Stearns guy," with better bat-to-ball skills. I think he'll be a fine 4th OF, and I would guess that Ray will be up if an injury occurs after the first few months of the season. Build surpluses and trade away the guys that make the most sense to trade. Wahl should help out this year as a guy they can shuffle back-and-forth as needed between AAA and the majors, allowing them to continue to run their bullpen the way they like. The other two guys are young with promise, and we need to keep finding ways to get guys like that in the system. Since most guys in the low minors don't make it, you need to have a lot of guys with talent at that level to assure that some of them will help the MLB team someday.

Counsell has no problem pulling players for match-ups, so Spangenberg could be a good fit for the Brewers. He should not ever hit against lefties, but has a career .271/.331/.423/.754 line against righties. With the ability to play all over the field, he makes tons of sense for the Counsell-led Crew.

I agree that the team could probably handle the $110M payroll. I just think that would be about it, so if they hang on to Schoop they won't have much money to spend elsewhere unless they can shed some other salaries (Thames, Anderson?). Someone earlier mentioned "opportunity cost," and that's exactly what Stearns is contemplating. Are we better with the team we currently have (including Schoop) at $110M, or are we better dumping Schoop and spending the money on other opportunities? I don't doubt that when they made the trade they expected him to be their full-time 2B in 2019. I think that at this point they are probably leaning towards non-tendering or trading him to save the money to spend somewhere else.

How can paying someone $10M not effect other payroll decisions? Cots projects the Brewers' current roster would cost $110,250,000. The Brewers have only had an opening day payroll over $100M twice in their history (2014 & 2015), with their highest opening day payroll being $104,237,000. It seems to me that if Schoop is retained at around $10M, we would probably not be able to add anyone unless we were able to trim payroll elsewhere. MLBtraderumors had the Brewers as a possible destination for Syndergaard. If they are indeed looking into players who would cost some money, I don't think there's much chance that they are going to keep Schoop unless they can come to a deal with him today for considerably less than he is expected to get in arby.

He doesn't need to start the season at second base. If they think he's ready, they'd keep him in the minors a couple of months and then bring him up. If that's the plan, then we'd probably just need to patch together second base with the guys we have until Huira is called up.

I think you're correct. The Brewers are an LLC, so any profits would carry forward to the owners. Therefore, it makes sense for them to find a way to invest any excess revenues back into the team so they are always operating around break-even. Buying a minor league franchise, rebuilding Maryvale, and renovating the concession area are all ways for the owners to build equity while not paying a lot of taxes. I would not expect a higher payroll until the team expects a sustainable increase in annual revenues. I wouldn't expect a jump in payroll beyond around $100-110m until the new TV deal kicks in. I believe that's after next season, so I would expect this to be a relatively quiet offseason.

I agree, and since those deals are rarely available, I think that Burnes, Peralta, and Woodruff will remain Brewers. I know that fans like seeing their team make a "big splash," and everyone wants a stud, top-of-the-rotation starter, but I don't know how likely it is that we find one. We don't have much money to spend (at least not enough to cover the cost of a top free agent starter), and I doubt we give up a load of prospects for a guy with only 1-2 years left. I think this will be a relatively quiet offseason. We need to make a decision on Schoop, which will determine if we have money to spend elsewhere. If we let him walk, and maybe trade away someone like Thames, we probably could do another Chacin-type signing, but I highly doubt we're adding anyone high-priced. We have a good team. Let's fill in any holes wisely, without sacrificing the future, and see where we are next July.

Cringe. Why would the 22 year old with the best numbers be #3 of the trio and the most expendable? By "as expendable as a talented, young starting pitcher could be," I mean that talented, young starting pitchers are not expendable. It should take a huge return for the Brewers to ever think of trading away a talented, young starting pitcher. Right now, for maybe the first time in team history, the Brewers have multiple talented, young starting pitchers who have shown some degree of success at the MLB level, so while I don't want to trade any of them, Peralta is probably "as expendable as a talented young starting pitcher could be." As I mentioned in the post, I don't like trading prospects for short-term players. We'd have Paxton for two-years, while giving up 12 years of Peralta and Ray, plus whatever Thames has left. That could help put us over the top for the short-term, while potentially seriously hurting us in the long term if Ray and Peralta pan out. I think the Brewers should hold on to their good prospects, and would be happier with a quiet offseason than one in which we trade away a lot of future talent for a better chance to win in 2019. I just saw the article and posted it for discussion. We traded away young talent this year to try to improve mid-season, and the decision is there as to whether we should trade more of our future to help out in 2019. I'm not a fan of that, but right now Peralta is less likely than Burnes and probably Woodruff to be in the starting rotation on opening day 2019. I'd personally start him in AAA as one of the first call-ups when a starter is needed, but I have a bad feeling that the Brewers will feel the need to keep him in the bullpen in a "right handed Hader" role, burning his service time to help win in 2019. If he spends a year or two in the pen, thereby having 1-2 less years of service time, he will have less value two years from now then he does now, so if that is the plan, I would entertain the option of trading him. Conversely, if they think he will become a solid starting pitcher that will have a spot in the Brewer rotation for the next half-decade, they should not consider trading him for a short-term upgrade.

From MLBtraderumors discussion of potential landing spots for Paxton: Milwaukee Brewers Like the A’s, the Brewers went a long way last season with a rotation that didn’t look great on paper. Journeyman Wade Miley was one of the unit’s key contributors, but he’s now a free agent. Holdovers Jhoulys Chacin and Chase Anderson were the Brewers’ only other regular starters who managed sub-4.00 ERAs, though their peripherals weren’t as encouraging. And Brent Suter, who threw the fourth-most innings among the team’s starters in 2018, will sit out most or all of next season after undergoing TJ surgery in the summer. Along with Chacin and Anderson, the Brewers have a cavalcade of other options for their 2019 rotation (Jimmy Nelson, Freddy Peralta, Junior Guerra, Zach Davies, Brandon Woodruff and Corbin Burnes), but it would be quite optimistic to expect Paxton-type production out of any of them. Perhaps the Brewers will be in on Paxton, then, but adding him may cost them some of their pitching depth. Any of Peralta, Woodruff or Burnes could draw Seattle’s interest. Per BA, Burnes (No. 56) is one of the Brewers’ two top-100 prospects, along with second baseman Keston Hiura (No. 33). I'm not a big fan of trading away talented prospects, but it's interesting to think about. Peralta seems to be #3 of the Burnes, Woodruff, Peralta trio, so he's about as expendable as a talented, young starting pitcher could be. Ray is a very solid prospect, but we have out outfield shored up for years. Thames wouldn't be a target for Seattle, but we don't have a lot of extra salary room, so his $6M would help offset the $9M we'd be picking up. So, would a deal of Peralta, Thames, Ray for Paxton make sense? The Rays would get an MLB-Ready starting pitching prospect, a LH power bat to fill in for the loss of Cruz at DH, and an exciting "five tool" OF prospect in the upper minors. Plus, they'd shave several million dollars from payroll. The Brewers would get two years of a top-of-the-rotation starter. I hate trading away good prospects, as the Brewers will need a lot of pre-arby guys if they want to be good for more than a short "window," but Peralta may be relegated to bullpen duty if he is truly behind Burnes and Woodruff, which would diminish his value. Thames is expendable with the emergence of Aguilar. The one I think could hurt the worst would be Ray, who could be a very good MLB player.

Gennett was basically because we decided to rush Arcia to the majors when Villar was having a career year. Villar proved to be horrible at 3B, so after his hot season he was given the starting 2B spot, leaving no room for Gennett. This obviously turned out to be a mistake, but it's not akin to the current situation. If Huira was a year further in development, this would be a similar situation, but as it stands, we need a second baseman to start this season, as Huira will start the year at AAA. We either pay Schoop more than we probably want to in order to fill that position, or we cut him and hope we can find someone who will sign a one-year deal for a reasonable price who can hopefully be "good enough" until Huira is ready. We're not getting a highly-sought-after guy to sign a one-year deal, so really the trade off is whether it's worth $10M to see if Schoop can be a good player, or whether we should save some money by rolling with a "stopgap" guy to bridge the gap to Huira. Secondarily, the question is whether we could find a better use for that money (is there a clear upgrade elsewhere that we could sign only if we save money by cutting Schoop). It's definitely not a cut and dried decision, and I wouldn't be surprised if the decision is sitting on Schlesinger's desk before it gets to Stearns as it's really a payroll issue.

The Brewers need to keep good pre-arby guys on the roster at all times if they want to have some higher-priced guys. Since our current pre-arby guys will be in arby within the next three years, that means that they need to promote a couple guys every year from the farm to the MLB team in order to always have pre-arby guys on the roster. To do this, they need prospects worthy of promotion. They are a small market, and signing expensive players so that you can trade your prospects for another expensive player will quickly lead you to a rebuild.

And that's a sound theory...that Yelich did feast off of. You have to be selective and look for your pitch though, especially if a pitcher is struggling with command. You shouldn't be swinging at a breaking pitch in the dirt of a letter high fastball if the guy in front of you walked on 4 or 5 pitches. Hitting coach is kinda whatever. I would think the Cubs players get the most blame for lack of results, followed by the hitting coach, with the assistant hitting coach getting little to no blame. If CC likes his philosophy and approach, fine sign him. It's probably good for hitters to get a fresh perspective every so often rather than stick with the same guy year after year. I remember listening to a Ned Yost interview after the Royals won the World Series, and that was exactly what he preached. He said that in today's game, hitters are told to work the count. Pitchers know this, so they know they can throw strikes early with their secondary stuff to get ahead in the count, saving their best pitch for the strikeout when the hitter needs to protect. He felt that by being aggressive early, his hitters could swing at pitches that were easier to hit.

Yes, if you look at Cots, they break out the actual payroll owed by the team to the players, and the adjusted amount computed for luxury tax purposes. I don't know the math behind figuring this out, but sometimes the numbers are the same, and sometimes they're different. One thing about being a fan of the small market Brewers is that we will never have to worry about this affecting our team.

If the Brewers are able to lock Stearns up long-term, I would imagine that over time our franchise would be filled with more "all around" players who make contact, get on base, and play good defense. Melvin liked guys with one "tool" that really stood out, and that's doesn't seem to be what Stearns likes. It will take a while to re-stock a system, but we're making our way through the process, trading away guys who don't fit and acquiring guys who do. I agree that Stearns will look to add more of these guys to the MLB roster this off-season, but who we acquire (draft, trade, etc) on the farm is important as well. To the topic of the thread, I wonder how much influence the MLB hitting/pitching coaches have on how players are coached in the minors. I can't imagine that every minor league coach gets complete discretion to do whatever he wants with his players, especially the top prospects. It's important to get guys at the top who are aligned with the long-term strategy of the owner/GM so that the guys coming up from the farm will be the ones they want filling out the roster. If Haines is an "analytics guy," it could mean good things for the future if he can coach his coaches in what the Brewers are looking for to get guys to advance through the system.

Key levels: -The 2019 luxury tax begins at $206M at 20% for first year "offenders," 30% for someone who is over two years in a row, and 50% for teams over for three+ years in a row. -There is a 12% surtax for teams $20-$40M over the threshold, 42.4-45% surtax for teams $40M+ over the threshold. I am not clear as to whether this is calculated as 20% on $206M-$226M, 32% on $226M-$246M, and 62.5% on amounts over $246M, or if it is 62.5% on all dollars over $206M if you go over the $246 limit. -Teams $40M+ over the threshold get their top draft pick moved back 10 spots unless they fall in the top 6, in which case their second highest pick will get moved back 10 spots. Things can change, but right now Cots has them $16,407,143 over the threshold, so signing one of Harper or Machado would likely put them over the $40M limit, causing them to pay 20% plus the 42.5% surtax, in addition to having their top draft spot drop ten spots. After 2019, Hamels ($20M), Zobrist ($14M), Cishek ($6.5M), and Duensing ($3.5M) are free agents. Quintana ($10.5M), and Morrow ($9M) have options with buyouts. This will shed a lot of salary, but will also leave them with some holes in the roster, and they don't have a strong farm, so they'll probably need to spend to fill these holes. It's possible, if they don't mind getting completely slammed in 2019 in taxes and losing draft spots, that they'll go after one of Harper or Machado, biting the bullet for a year in hopes of clearing salary in the coming years, but this move makes it look less likely. Without this, they could have stayed under the "$40M over" threshold, but that's not likely now unless they can find a team to take someone like Zobrist off their hands. My hope is that Theo will do anything to get a 2nd ring in Chicago before moving on to another big market in rebuild, leaving the next GM with something of a mess. Signing Machado or Harper to a mega-deal could make things messy for years to come.

Cots has the Brewers around $111m if they retain all of their arby guys, so I don't think they'll have much money to play with this offseason. Thames will probably be traded, freeing up $6m, but that might just get them to where they're comfortable for an opening day payroll. It's possible that Schoop is not retained, freeing up $11m (Cots estimate), which would probably be done if they think that $11m can be better spent elsewhere. All in all, it could be a pretty quiet offseason for the Brewers unless they find a way to shed some payroll.