monty57

How many years left on his contract? He has one more year of arbitration and then free agent in 2020. Makes $8.5M this year.

My guess is that we get Gausman and Schoop for a package centering around Shaw.

The Brewers could have their entire team back, along with the required arby increases, so they will likely be in a bit of a salary crunch. I'd guess they'll have the room to hold onto Soria, and expect they probably will exercise the option. If they don't, I'd hope it is because they have the opportunity to acquire a significant upgrade at SP, C or 2B. As hard as it is to see a guy you've followed traded away, a team with a deep farm will have to make some of these trades. Instead of losing "fringe 40-man" guys for nothing, they are exactly the guys we should use in trades when we're buyers at the deadline. I'd expect some more of these type guys to be the "bait" we use when/if we upgrade the middle infield or rotation. It's a good thing that we have promising players like Kodi sitting so far down our organizational depth chart. I think Stearns is trying to build the team like the Astros, with talent up and down the system. If we get there, we will always have good players who we either trade away, lose to Rule 5, or simply rot in the minors because we have better players ahead of them on the depth chart.

There are very few players in Verlander's league, and I don't think any of them are available this year. The most expensive likely scenario this year would probably be Realmuto, and with his control he may be worth trading away a top prospect. Other than that, the Brewers should make a trade for Dozier or Schoop, and neither of them should be overly expensive. As to "serious about winning," does anyone really believe that if a team doesn't throw away their future they aren't "serious about winning?" I think that term is thrown around way too often by people who are simply frustrated that their team is not making as many moves as they would like. Of course the Brewers are "serious about winning." They made a lot of moves and spent a lot of money prior to this season because they felt they could contend, and as of this typing they have the third best record in the National League. "Serious about winning" is a term that should be retired.

Money is an asset

WPA seems specifically designed to make sure relievers who are used in close games get big paychecks. With the exact same result, pitching late in the game will give you more WPA than pitching early in the game, and pitching six innings of shutout baseball isn't as "important" if your team scores you four runs in the first as it is if the team scores the exact same number of runs later in the game. It's kind of fun, but I wouldn't use it to showcase which guys are most important to the team. It is very dependent on what the rest of the team is doing / has done, so it's probably there with wins and RBIs as a determinant stat.

I agree. If you are only going to pitch a reliever once every 4 days, they might as well be starting. 101 games in (62% of the season), Hader has 32 appearances and 50 innings. As a starter, he'd probably be at 20-21 appearances with 100-120 innings. If he could maintain anywhere near the dominance he has as a starter, I think he'd be far more valuable starting. Occasionally, you need a guy to pitch multiple innings in relief, but I think I'd rather use a reliever like they've used Jeffress so he can pitch more often, than only having Hader available every few days because he's used for multiple innings. There are a lot of "high leverage" innings where Hader isn't available because he was used a day or two ago. I agree with the those that have said if you're always going to use him for 2-3 innings, why not just have him start and go 5+?

Agreed. We have been to the playoffs 4 times. We are deep in the hunt now so why not try to win? I guess it depends on the definition of "try to win." Prior to last season, you were certain the Brewers were making moves in order to "tank for good draft picks." Since then, they've probably won 30-40 more games than you expected. Therefore, one could argue that they are "trying to win." If they were simply "trying to win" this year, I'm sure they could easily put some packages together to bring in some rentals. Of course that would mean shipping out guys who are going to help us "try to win" for the next decade or so. Rather, I think Stearns is trying to build the franchise (not just the MLB team) to resemble to Astros. He wants an organization that is teeming with talent at all levels, so they can win at the MLB level and still have loads of talent in the minors. If he can get there, then he'll have a lot of options, but for now, I'd just as soon not trade away the guys who we are projecting to be at the top of our rotation as we "try to win" in the future. I expect that Dozier is going to be our "Neil Walker move" of 2018. He should be an upgrade over what we've been throwing out there at 2B, and won't cost us anyone that will hurt. Those are the type of moves I'm happy seeing him make at this stage of the "rebuild." If we're going to give up more, then we need to have someone who will help us out in the long term, like they did in the Yelich deal.

This sounds strikingly similar to Hader: "We're still looking at him as a starter, we just need the help this year in the bullpen to get us to the playoffs." Then the offseason hits and we hear that he's far too valuable in the bullpen to mess with success, and he might not be a good starter anyhow. I still believe that starters are more valuable than relievers, so I still want our talented pitching prospects to get an opportunity to be MLB starters. If they can't cut it, then move them to the pen, but give them the chance to start first. I also think that Suter's best role is as a long man/spot starter. He seems like he'll suffer as players get more opportunity to see him pitch, so put him in for 2-3 innings mid-game when players haven't prepared for him.

I only mentioned Perez because he's the guy who would likely get the PT that Broxton is now likely to get during the short time he will be up. I think Broxton is a much better option.

Broxton is only up because of an injury. His career MLB line (in 625 ABs or roughly one full season) is .226 avg / .317 OBP / .421 SLG / .738 OPS with 29 HR, 45 SB and decent defense. That's a very solid option for a "AAA depth / injury insurance" guy. Yes, he strikes out and is "boom or bust," but I don't get the hate. I'd love for him to fix the holes in his swing and strike out less, because if he did he could be a star. Even if he doesn't, he's a far better option than most teams have to pull out of AAA for a week or so at a time. Edit: for point of reference, Perez has over twice the ABs (1,330) with a career line of .256/.282/.386/.668. Yes, a career .282 OBP and he's somehow still on a MLB roster getting semi-regular play while people complain about guys like Broxton coming up for a week.

Going to be hard to score any runs without Cain and (likely) Shaw. Let's hope Braun starts hitting.

I think it makes a lot of sense to bring up either Broxton or Phillips just so we have a competent defensive replacement when Thames starts in the OF. Santana couldn't fill that role since he's not good defensively, so he was wasted sitting on the bench. Broxton/Phillips could help the team, which is all you ask for from a bench player.

That was pretty much the argument all offseason. We came into the year with the same three guys who played so bad last year that they needed to be replaced while we spent our capital on adding to the outfield, which looked to be a position of depth. These moves, which seemed odd, have helped us to a first place position as we near the half-way point. I understand that the middle infielders stink, but I still think that Santana needed to go to AAA. Neither Sogard nor Santana were helping the MLB club much, but unlike Sogard, Santana has talent and can hopefully fix things in AAA so that he can have a bright MLB future. I don't care if Sogard rots on the bench, but I don't want to waste a potentially good young player in that role if there is a belief that the potentially good player can benefit from full-time duty at AAA. This same argument could be made for sending Arcia back to AAA while playing a guy with less potential like Saladino. Santana has a .667 OPS for the year, and only had 24 ABs in June, so while people feel that he potentially could have been a good bat off the bench, in reality he hasn't been a good bat this year, and we still have whichever of Braun, Thames, Aguilar, Cain, or Yelich is sitting on any given day to act as the primary bat off the bench. Santana's playing time wasn't going to increase, and with that limited play he was being wasted. Sending him down was a good move regardless of how bad our middle infielders are. I hope that in the near future we will dump one of the middle IF and bring up Phillips or Broxton who could serve a useful role as a defensive replacement for Thames when he starts in the OF. Then maybe at the trade deadline we will find another guy like Walker who can fill one of the middle IF holes. Until then, we shuffle the deck chairs to try to find the "hot hand" at SS and 2B.

We've debated which of our crappy middle infielders is the worst many times, but Santana deserved to be sent down because he isn't providing anything at this point. He's not hitting and he's a poor defender. I expect Phillips or Broxton will be up at some point, as they can at least work as defensive replacements for Thames or Braun. Santana obviously has talent, but he needs to get ABs. AAA is the best place for that.

From Fangraphs data, two things I see are that he's swinging at a few more balls out of the zone (O-swing% 29.2% vs career of 26.7% and 27.2% in 2017) and maybe more importantly pitchers are throwing more sinkers (24.4% vs 20.5% for career and 17.4% in 2017) so he's hitting more grounders (50.8% vs 46.6% in career and 44.9% in 2017). He has also stopped going to the opposite field (20.8% vs 27.7% career, 28% in 2017). This might help add up to the initial question, which is summed up in one stat: 9.7% HR/FB vs 26.3% career and 30.9% career. Pitchers are pitching him down, and he's having a hard time adjusting.

Would that be before or after you thank him for trading Gomez/Fiers for Hader/Santana/Phillips/Houser? I think that trade showed that Melvin was perfectly capable of making intelligent rebuilding moves. I've been as critical of Melvin as anyone, but in retrospect I think he was mostly acting on Mark A's "win with a limited budget" directives. "Reading between the lines" of Melvin's interviews over his final years as GM, I don't think that he and Attanasio were on the same page, with Melvin feeling that we shouldn't continue to mortgage the future for a slight chance at winning in the present, and Attanasio overriding him all the way to the point of directly speaking with agents and making deals himself when Melvin didn't think they were a good idea. I think Attanasio needed to get that feeling of despair he felt right before he finally decided to rebuild. That's what made him realize that he was making some mistakes, so long term I think the frustration I (and many others) felt was probably worth it if it was what it took for Attanasio to realize that he needed to hire a smart GM with a long-term strategy and let that person handle the make-up of the rosters from rookie ball all the way to the majors. Stearns seems to have done a good job so far, and I'm enjoying seeing how this is all playing out.

I always thought that after the initial wave of prospects (Fielder, Weeks, Hardy, etc.), the Brewers looked at prospects more as trade chips than as future contributors to the Brewers. I think/hope that has changed since Attanasio's epiphany and the hiring of Stearns. What's done is done, but going forward I'd prefer that we do not trade away good prospects for marginal short-term improvements to the MLB roster. We were able to pick up Neil Walker for basically nothing last year and he was probably a bigger marginal improvement to the team than Parra was when he was picked up. If we keep some payroll flexibility, we should almost always be able to find "salary dump" deals like that. If we're going to give up quality prospects, I think it should be for good, long-term fixes like Quintana would have been last year, or Yelich was this off-season.

Right now, it makes sense for Saladino to play every day at SS. Arcia has too much potential to burn up his service time sitting on the bench while Saladino starts, so sending him to the minors where he can start everyday is probably the smart move. Sogard should be a rarely-used but versatile "25th man," behind Saladino, Villar, and Perez on the depth chart. If that's the case, and he only gets an occasional start at SS, then the difference between him and the random guy we could pick up would be negligible. Since we're on the hook to pay Sogard anyhow, then I have no problem just rolling with him. Either way, I hope this is the kick in the butt Arcia needs to get him back on track. The names I listed above are all roster-filler. Arcia has a shot at being good.

If the Brewers were to DFA Braun right now, he would be playing for another team very quickly and the Brewers would still have to pay the full amount of his contract. Brewer fans may be down on him right now, but there is no way that every MLB GM would pass on picking him up on a low-money deal. He seems to be pretty intelligent financially, so I doubt he'd accept less money in a "retirement buyout." This offseason, the Brewers tried hard to trade Santana. It was only because the OF market dried up and Stearns couldn't get the offer he wanted for Santana that we ended up with the logjam. Then, they put Braun in the #3 hole, which doesn't point to them thinking he's washed up. In aggregate, teams this offseason were less willing to sign older players to longer-term deals, which makes a heck of a lot of sense to me. Braun obviously is overpaid now and will be more overpaid as he continues to age, but it would take more than a slow start to the season to consider him completely washed up. For better or worse, Braun will likely continue to start about two out of every three games when healthy mixed between LF and 1B. If healthy enough to get sufficient PAs, I'd still guess that Braun will end the season with a mid-.700s OPS. It is likely with Braun, as I would expect it would be with most 34-36 year olds on big deals, that he will eventually be a reserve player who will crawl, not run, into retirement in a few years. For now, I'd like to see him heal up, and would like to see them move him down in the lineup. Something like Cain, Yelich, Aguilar, Shaw, Santana/Braun would give our current best bats more of a chance to score some runs.

I put this out one week ago. Today: Santana, 132 AB, .674 OPS Villar, 118 AB, .690 OPS Perez, 84 AB, .672 OPS Bandy, 58 AB, .509 OPS Pina, 91 AB, .665 OPS Arcia, 123 AB, .547 OPS Over the last week, Villar has raised his OPS by .049, Perez by .073, and Pina by .119. Throw in Saladino posting a 1.417 OPS and you have two winning series against two playoff-caliber teams. Cain, Yelich, Shaw, and Aguilar are having pretty good years. So was Thames before he got hurt. We just need a little life out of the rest of the guys and we've got a good team.

Braun turned 34 in November. I'm not sure when the "steroid era" ended, but ESPN's sort engine goes back to 2000. from 2000-2010, there were 40-some players a year that were 34 or older, getting 300+ PA/year. Since 2011, there are 20-some guys per year who are 34 or older getting 300+ PA/year, and only around 10 of them post a WAR of 2 or greater. Whenever a team signs a player to a contract into their mid-30's, they are betting against the odds. It's not a matter of if, but when the player will hit the wall. Braun has been pretty much untradeable for a while now, so all we can do is hope that he can stay reasonably productive for as long as possible. Oh, and we can stop signing players to big contracts that take them into their mid-30's.

The Brewers will always need to rely on young, pre-arby guys contributing to the MLB team, but sometimes prospects aren't fully ready when they are first called up. Arcia is a very talented young player, but the Brewers brought him up before his bat was anywhere near MLB ready. If the Brewers had any decent options right now, I would have no problem with them sending him down to work on things. Not because he "sucks and is worthless and never will be good," but because he is struggling and could probably use some time in the minors to work things out. Then, when he does come back to the MLB team, he'd be better. Unfortunately, we have no valid options to replace him, so he will continue to have to try to figure things out in the majors. This kind of hits us with a double-whammy. He's burning his clock when he's not ready and not adding much "above replacement" value to the MLB team, and when he's finally ready to be the star he can be, he will be into his arby years and then on to free agency.

The time for a meaningful change would have been this offseason. My guess is that they wanted to see if Villar could regain his 2016 form, and if not then Sogard was the "safe" bet as a guy who wouldn't be great but would at least put up respectable numbers. If those guys both failed, then Perez could be moved from utility to full-time 2B. Unfortunately, they were relying on guys who aren't that good, and to this point they have all flopped. It's too early to look for a meaningful trade, so for now we're stuck with what we have in the system or what we can find on the waiver wire. I just hope that someone "catches fire" enough that they can breathe some life into the bottom of the order.

Cain and Yelich weren't brought in to be "big bats," they were brought in to be all around players who could get on base at the top of the order. Cain is .037 OBP points above his career avg and .013 SLG points above his career avg. Yelich is .002 OBP points below his career avg and .021 SLG points above his career average. Other than Yelich getting hurt for a bit, they are doing as well as anyone should have expected of them. Shaw isn't hitting as well as he did last year, but is still hitting at an acceptable level. Thames and Aguilar have hit very well. Santana has had a rough start and while Braun's .733 OPS isn't terrible, we have grown to expect more than that for him. The problem is that the bottom of the order is in the .500's or low .600's for OPS. There is no way that someone with an OPS in the .500's should spend much time on a MLB roster unless they are a pitcher. Perez, Bandy, Pina and Arcia are all there, and have combined for 307 PAs. Sogard has 67 PAs with a .344 OPS. That's OPS, not OBP! Throw in the pitchers and guys like Nottingham and Phillips who don't have many PAs, and we're getting nearly half of the team's 2018 PAs from guys with an OPS under .600. That's a major problem. For point of reference, only two players last year got 300 PAs (none got 350 PAs) with an OPS under .600. They were Trevor Plouffe (.590) and Adam Engel (.517). Only 44 players got 300+ PAs with an OPS under .700. Only 26 got 400+ PAs. That means most MLB teams have around one regular with an OPS under .700 but almost no one allows guys with an OPS under .600 to stick around. The 2018 Brewers: Santana, 112 AB, .665 OPS Villar, 100 AB, .641 OPS Perez, 66 AB, .599 OPS Bandy, 51 AB, .562 OPS Pina, 72 AB, .546 OPS Arcia, 104 AB, .546 OPS Sogard, 60 AB, .344 OPS Phillips, 13 AB, .308 OPS Nottingham, 5 AB, .286 OPS Franklin, 2 AB, .000 OPS Give Phillips, Nottingham and Franklin a break for the limited shot they've got. For the rest, we're almost 1/4 of the way into the season, so while it's still early, it's not that early. A random sampling of guys on the waiver wire should produce better than we've got from these guys. Santana's track record shows that he's better than this, and he seems to be heating up a bit. Arcia should get sent to the minors to get straightened out, but unfortunately we don't have anyone who could replace him. That we don't have better options than Villar, Perez, Bandy, Pina, Franklin and Sogard is the reason I question our team's chances this year. We can't compete with the better teams in the league when nearly half our offense shouldn't be playing in the majors.