monty57

I'd guess that Aguilar will be shopped to see what value he has. He's just entering his prime (27 years old), is cheap with a lot of team control, and can hit. He could be a good fit for a team in need of a first baseman, and a really good fit for an AL team looking for a 1B/DH. A team like the Red Sox who could use some pre-arby guys to get under the luxury tax would be a great fit, but I don't know if there's a trade to be had there. I'm fine with him remaining on the 2018 roster, as he did well in his role with the 2017 Brewers and showed that he can still hit when getting sporadic playing time. However, if a team sees him as a full-time player and will give up commensurate value, then we should probably make the deal.

Darvish and Arrieta are good, but they aren't good enough (or young enough) for the Brewers to commit the money/years it would take to get them. It's unfair, but the Brewers can't sign a deal of that magnitude where you expect to get 1-2 good years and then overpay for mediocrity for the final years of the deal. Bigger market teams can do that, the Brewers can't. Signing one of these deals will hurt the Brewers' ability to make other moves in the future. I may do that for the right player, but I don't think Darvish or Arrieta (as good as they are) are the right player. If MLBtraderumors is close on their contract estimates, the best way for the Brewers to improve from last year is by adding a couple of good FA setup guys. A couple of 2-year deals at $6-7M/year will be easy for the Brewers to handle, will fall off the books when other guys start getting expensive, will shore up an area that really hurt us during the first half of 2016, and will allow Hader to move to the rotation. Moving Hader to the rotation is important because it will allow for us to see if he can maximize his value to the team for a price that will be much less than acquiring a starter in FA or trade. If the price is right, I would like to add another starter, but I would not gut the farm to try "going for it" now. We're ahead of schedule, and have a shot at the playoffs in 2018, but our strong farm is the reason that we should be in the playoff hunt for a long time. Trading too much of that now would hurt us long-term and our chances this year aren't good enough that I'd be willing to take that hit. If we can't get a good young starter in FA or trade for a decent price, then I'm fine if we just sign a one-year deal to a vet to eat some innings. With all the youth we have in the rotation (and Nelson's injury), we have need to get some quality innings from someone. It may not be sexy, but I'd rather see a 4.00 ERA veteran innings eater on a one-year deal than see us spend $25M a year on Arrieta/Darvish or overpay in prospects for a SP. I would love to get a high-OBP leadoff hitter at 2B. If that guy is out there and can be had for a decent price, then that would be a great addition. But again, I'd rather not "give up the farm" for a 2018 upgrade. If teams would require too much in terms of prospects, or if FAs are too pricey, then we can go with a combination of Sogard/Perez/Villar for the season. Bottom line: try to improve the 2018 team without giving up young pieces that are likely to help us in the future. With a few moves, we could be a playoff team in 2018, but we should be better in 2019, 2020, 2021, etc if we don't sell the future today.

I'm with Adambr2 on this one. Lucroy will probably be worth $10-15M to someone, but I don't think it's a good use of our resources. We have some money to spend, but that goes away quickly when you start signing eight-figure deals. I would rather use our free cash to shore up the bullpen, the starting rotation, and second base.

I think we're going to move Hader to the rotation and sign two setup guys. I would be surprised if that doesn't happen. We will probably add another starter. I keep bringing up Chatwood because we'd sign him through his prime. I'd stay away from signing a FA starter who is already on the other side of 30, and that's pretty much everyone not named Chatwood. I would probably sign Walker to a two year deal, but not a three year deal.

Darvish is better than Arrieta, but neither of them scream "this is the guy I want to give 1/4 of my payroll to for four or five seasons." I would rather spend less for a younger innings-eating #3 guy and use the extra money to bring in a couple of solid setup guys for the 'pen. I'm not fooling myself into thinking we're the proverbial "one piece away from a World Series," but adding the above-mentioned pieces should make us a better team "on paper" than we were this year, so I think the Brewers have a decent shot at the playoffs. The chance is at least good enough that we should fill the obvious holes in the roster. If we end up with excess arms, that will be a good problem that will be easy to fix. We have Nelson and Anderson for three more years, and Davies for four. If enough prospects prove themselves worthy of a rotation spot, it should be easy to trade Anderson, Nelson (if healthy) or Davies in a year or two for a good haul in talent. After a lifetime of watching the junk the Brewers have had in their rotation, I would be ecstatic to see us in a position that we had too many good pitchers so we were trading some vets away to make room for the youngsters.

I just think that it shouldn't be all or nothing. We should always be "rebuilding" if by "rebuilding" we mean adding young talent to the system. At the same time, we should always be trying to compete at the MLB level. If you never go "all in" one way or the other, you can chase both of these goals at the same time. Emulate the Cardinals, who are always competitive on the MLB field and always have good prospects on the farm. Right now, we have some so-so prospects who could fill the MLB rotation, but the upside is minimal while the downside is that we would basically be giving up on 2018 before it starts. I would rather use those players as insurance at AAA (Wilkerson) or as swing-men in the bullpen (Suter). Suter would be very valuable in that role, and Wilkerson will pitch at the MLB level in 2018 if he deserves it, as no team goes through a season with only five starters. Meanwhile we have a great prospect in Brinson (and probably in Phillips as well) who we need to let play. The upside there far outweighs the downside. When a prospect has forced his way onto the roster, you make room for him. I hope in the future this means we will trade away "proven" talent with limited control to open a spot for the prospect, but that's not the case right now unless you consider Broxton "proven." We can sign some free agent deals to fill some holes without impeding the future. Good prospects will still make it to the MLB field, while lesser prospects will be pushed aside. Thankfully we're getting to a situation where we don't have to put all of our hopes on a mediocre prospect somehow becoming a star. If we continue to look for ways to add talent to the franchise at all levels (even when we're good at the MLB level), we should be able to stay in this enviable position.

I'm all for giving youth a chance, but I think having Hader and Woodruff in the rotation is plenty of guys "getting their feet wet" to start the season. I'd like to get someone else with some experience, and then bring our other prospects along as they force their way onto the roster. That way, we'll have a strong AAA staff, and the guys who deserve it will find their way onto the MLB roster. Having extra starters capable of playing at the MLB level is a good thing.

I'd like them to add another starter, but not one of the 31 year olds who will demand a long-term, high dollar deal (Arrieta, Darvish). Ideally, we'll find a younger starter in FA (Chatwood) or trade (??) who you can have for 3-4 "prime" years. If not, then we should bring in a veteran on a 1-year deal who may be replaced by Nelson or one of our prospects mid-season. I like going into the year with Anderson, Davies, {Chatwood or guy we trade for}, Woodruff, Hader. Wilkerson is a good option in AAA who is ready to call up anytime someone goes down. Suter is a good guy to have as "long man/spot starter." Burnes should come up when the team thinks he is ready for a permanent call-up, which will probably be mid-season. If Jungmann or Guerra make the team, it will likely be in the 'pen, with a potential to spot start if needed. We are getting to a point where more talented guys are pushing out the lesser talented guys, and that's a good thing. Edit: I'll add that I think we're going to be significant players in the bullpen market this offseason. If we are can't find a good option to add a starting pitcher, we could put a lot of talent into the back of the bullpen and run with some guys like Suter, Guerra, or Jungmann who can go multiple innings from the bullpen. When a SP does well, we lock them down with our good relievers. When a starter doesn't do well, we have multiple guys who can finish the game without taxing the better relievers. If we end up relying on some younger guys, having a several multiple inning guys could help.

Here's a story from Fangraphs from last trade deadline comparing Hand (and his trade value) to Andrew Miller in 2016. https://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/the-padres-have-this-deadlines-potential-andrew-miller/ Miller was traded for Clint Frazier ("Top 30" prospect), Justus Sheffield ("Top 100" prospect), and two upper minors pitcers (Ben Heller and J.P. Feryerson) who were having success and according to MLBtraderumors "could help the Yankees bullpen in the near future." The article did note that relievers are more valuable at the deadline, and that Hand is not Andrew Miller, although they're comparable. Hand was not traded because San Diego did not think the offers they were receiving were high enough, so they have a high price tag for Hand. If we were to match the haul the Yankees received for Miller, we'd probably be looking at Brinson as the headliner along with one of Huira, Ray, Ortiz or Woodruff, plus one or two lesser prospects. As good as Hand is, that too steep a price for the Brewers to pay at this time in my opinion.

Brison, Phillips and Santana are all talented, young OF with team control. Because Braun is here, we have the opportunity to trade one of them, but not for another OF who might be better than the guy we're trading for him, but has a lot less team control. The marginal improvement of Ozuna in CF over Brinson/Phillips is not enough to sacrifice the extra four years of service time. I like Ozuna, but he may not outperform Brinson/Phillips over the next two seasons, and two years of Ozuna is almost certainly going to provide less value than six years of Brinson. I was fine with trading Brinson for four years of Quintana midway through last season. It would be a bad idea to trade him for two years of an OF this offseason.

1. What is the one thing you want to see the Brewers do in the 2018 season? Make the playoffs. They almost made it this year, and with a few moves they should be more talented "on paper" going into the season. Stay on plan (continually adding young talent throughout the system), but the playoffs should be the goal going into 2018. 2. What do you want the Brewers to do during the 2018 season with an eye towards the future (2019-2025)? Move Hader to the rotation. He was great in the pen, but he would be a lot more valuable if he can be great in the rotation. Find another young-ish starter for the rotation. This could be signing someone like Chatwood (28) as a free agent, or trading for a younger starter. This will help us for several seasons and will also give Nelson time to heal and our minor leaguers time to develop. Find a way to get Phillips, Brinson and Santana a lot of PAs. All three of these guys are very talented and need to get everyday at-bats, but Braun is going to be playing LF. There should be plenty of ABs to go around, so I'm not too worried, but I don't want to see one of the young guys sitting on the bench if they get off to a slow start. Let Woodruff start the season in the rotation. He showed enough to earn this spot. Try to extend Davies, Arcia and maybe Knebel. They're all young enough that an extension would give us some additional team control while they're still in their prime.

We have a lot of OF talent. No need to give up many years of cheap team control for (maybe) a slightly higher marginal upgrade.

Putting him in the rotation in September would have hurt the 'pen. In the offseason you can add him to the rotation and sign a couple of good relievers to set up for Knebel, so the pen should be fine. We have money and there are a number of decent setup guys we should be able to get on two-year deals without breaking the bank. Hader should be our #5 so he can be skipped every now and then to keep his innings down, but now is probably the best time to see what he has as a starter. If he fails as a starter we know we can put him back in the pen, but if he succeeds the sky's the limit.

Agree. If we are interested in trading Knebel, his value will probably be highest after Davis signs. After him, there's a drop-off in available FA closers, so whoever misses out on signing him may be willing to pay up in trade to get Knebel. As long as Davis is out there, it would make more sense to sign him than to trade away tons of prospects for Knebel. That said, I don't think we'll be looking at trading Knebel unless someone calls with an offer that blows Stearns away.

Arcia was also very young in AAA and I think he was brought up a season too soon. As bcd80 said, he's worth an extension on defense alone, but I wouldn't count out his bat. He has plenty of time for that to continue to improve.

I agree with those saying they'd take Chatwood at around 3/$20M over Arrieta at 4/$100M. I'd be hesitant to sign Walker to a three-year deal, but I would love to have him back at the proposed 2/$20M. We could do those two deals and still have enough to sign two quality relievers. Swarzak (2/$14M) seems likely to be one and if they can find another in the same price range, that would put them in the low-$90M range for payroll. That would allow room for arby raises in 2019 and then Walker, Swarzak and the other reliever would fall off the books in 2020 as more guys start getting expensive.

We had to watch Garza, Lahse and Suppan pitch Edit: That was kind of a joke. Seriously, for several years we were right up against max payroll, and always having so-so pitchers making eight figure salaries probably kept us from upgrading elsewhere. Players like Yuni B. and the second coming of Overbay should not get significant time on a team that was supposed to be competitive, but it was all we could afford.

I just propose that it doesn't have to be either/or. We can and should focus on adding talent to both the MLB team and the farm. The promotion of a prospect will weaken the farm (because he's no longer there), but it also allows us to trade the player he's replacing, which could add talent back to the farm. We cannot sustain MLB success without having quite a few pre-arby guys on the roster at all times to offset the higher salaried players. The only way to continue to have quite a few pre-arby guys on the roster is to continually promote guys from the farm. The goal of the farm is to promote players who can help the MLB team, but you will not be able to continue to promote players to help the MLB team if you do not continually add talent to the farm. This can be done multiple ways (draft, international signings, trade) and we need to continue to look at every way to add talent even after we are out of the "rebuild" phase. At least for myself, if I mention trading one of our current best players, I am looking at the future. i.e. Shaw should be traded if Erceg or someone else is ready to replace him in a couple of years. I can't think of many circumstances that would make me think Shaw should be traded now. Stearns will always have to look at things on an individual basis. Maybe in one case it makes sense to trade the vet, while in another case it makes sense to hold him to free agency. I just think that in general we should try to stay on a tack where more often than not we will be able to trade vets when they have 1-2 years of "team control" remaining. The only way to do that while maintaining success at the MLB level is to continue to focus on adding talent to all levels of the franchise.

Yeah, there's risk involved. That's why a lot of the deals don't happen, and when one is signed everyone says "I can't believe he signed that cheap of a deal. That's a steal for the team." People tend to look at the deals free agents are signing, give that value to our pre-arby/arby guys, and underestimate the risk the team is taking on by signing a long-term, guaranteed deal. When one works out (like Lucroy), people laugh at the player for signing the deal, seemingly forgetting about the times a player is extended and it doesn't pan out for the team. When I promote signing an extension, I am looking at deals that give a significant discount to the team. I'm sure that's what was offered to Villar, and that's why he didn't sign. He thought he was worth more then the team was willing to guarantee. That looks like it worked out for the team, but even if he had signed (and doesn't return to 2016 form), we would have had an overpaid utility IF for a few more years, it wouldn't have hurt the team too badly. He's young, so he still has room to regain his form unlike signing a guy into his 30's who is eventually going to decline. If Knebel would take a "Lucroy deal," then I'd sign. If he demands the extension pay him anywhere near what he would make by going year-to-year, then we just go year-to-year. An extension may go bad for the Brewers, but I think Knebel's floor is a MLB middle reliever, so if we get him at a discount he might be a slightly overpaid middle reliever, but it shouldn't be a complete bust. There's risk, but if we want to win we need a strong "back of the bullpen," and I think the risk of an extension is less than what we would incur by trying to fill the back of the bullpen through free agency. I won't be heartbroken whichever way Stearns decides to go, but I think he'll try to get him on a "team-friendly" deal.

Perez has been a nice player for the Brewers during his tenure, but I think we'll have enough coming up from the farm over the next few years that our bench should be able to be filled up with talented pre-arby guys, leaving salary room to extend full-time players and sign free agents. It will be interesting to see what Stearns decides to do with second base. If he brings someone else in, we aren't going to keep Perez, Villar and Sogard. They just signed Sogard, so he's going to make the opening day roster, so one of Villar and Perez will probably not be around next year. Perez is the safer bet, but would also have value in trade. Villar is the higher upside, but could crash and burn. At this point, we probably wouldn't get much in trade for him. If Stearns fills 2B from outside the organization, I'd probably see if I could flip Perez for pitching help and go into the season with Sogard and Villar as the utility guys off the bench.

That's easy. Stop following Tanyon Sturtz and his buddies on Twitter if "cranky old guy" banter upsets you.

Having a crap farm system is going to win you a lot less. As a smaller revenue team, the Brewers have to maintain a decent farm in order to continually have pre-arby guys on the roster. Without pre-arby guys on the roster, payroll adds up quickly and we get stuck with holes in the roster that can't be filled. Of course everyone won't become a 23-year-old superstar. Not everyone needs to be. It's great when we get superstars from the farm, but having average MLB players and role players making league minimum is very valuable. That doesn't mean we shouldn't extend our 23-year-old superstars if they are amenable. Age is very important. If we have a guy who has a role on the team and will be a free agent while he is still in his prime, we should look into the possibility of extending him. If he doesn't appear to be in the long-term plans, or if he will be at the end of his prime when team control is up, then we probably shouldn't extend him. I also agree that we shouldn't try to "sell high." This implies that you don't really have a plan, you're just trying to trade someone when you think you can get a good return. That's a horrible strategy. Whatever you're trying to accomplish, you need to have a plan. If you maintain a strong farm, the hope is that you will have replacements available for the guys currently on the MLB roster, allowing you to trade them when their "team control" gets short. This isn't perfect, so there will be times when you hold a tradeable player to free agency, but that should be the exception, not the norm. We should generally be trying to add talent to the franchise, not let top talent walk away for nothing.

Injury and under-performance risk are the reason teams get a significant discount to market value when signing a young player to an extension. There is no way the Brewers should sign him to a full market value deal, but if they get him at a significant discount he would be more valuable in trade, not less. If any player wants to maximize their dollars earned they will not sign an extension, and the team should view them as a short-term player. Players who are willing to give up potential dollars earned in return for the security of a guaranteed contract are the ones who can be signed to a "team-friendly" contract.

I'm with you on Shaw due to age. I understand what you're saying about Knebel, and relievers in general, but the four years of control takes him to age 29 which is right in the middle of his prime. As is the case with any extension, it would need to be a good deal. If it is, then I'd be okay with extending him. Reliever numbers are volatile because of the small number of innings they pitch each season. One or two bad outings can seriously inflate numbers. Also, many relievers just aren't that good and that's why they ended up in the 'pen instead of the rotation. Knebel has great stuff, and he has a history of being able to control it, as is evidenced by his career MiLB WHIP of 0.93. He may not always be as dominant as he was this year, but he is unlikely to "go Turnbow" on us. Part of the "draft and develop" strategy should be extending good young players. That allows you to "control" players for 7-8 years instead of six, which is very valuable. But you still need to keep developing. Let's say we extend Arcia this offseason, and in a few years we have another good SS who is MLB ready. We then have the option of trading away Arcia, who by that time will be an MLB veteran who is just entering his prime and still has multiple years left of a team-friendly contract. From that trade, we would be able to stock our farm with multiple high-level prospects. All development can't come solely from the draft.

Suter is nice to have in a similar fashion to why Perez is nice to have, and that's versatility. Suter can be used as long man in the pen, he can be a "normal" middle reliever pitching vs righties or lefties for an inning, he can be brought in to face a lefty, or he can fill in for a starter when one goes down. He could get a spot in the rotation, but I think he's much better used as a swing guy. Jungmann on the other hand has to prove that he belongs in the majors before he's given anything. I'd guess Hader will be a starter and we'll find a starter through trade or free agency. But this thread is about Perez, so I'll stop there.