monty57

I think at this point, unless Villar shows noticeable improvement by the end of the year, he's kinda played his way back into placeholder status, much like he was at the beginning of last year before Arcia came up. I'm sure Stearns didn't think he would be a total bust, but I don't think he was realistically expecting Villar to be a starting infielder with the Brewers for the next 5 years when he traded for him. Once the midseason prospect rankings come out, we're going to have three 2B in our top 15 prospects (Hiura, Diaz, and Dubon), and we're pretty set on the left side of our infield for years to come one would hope. I'm guessing Villar fights it out with Dubon next spring for time at 2nd, or who knows maybe we can resign Sogard for a reasonable price, but I think Villar's days as a regular starter are unlikely to return at this point unless he suddenly snaps out of his year long funk. That's why I put the disclaimer at the end regarding whether it will be with the Brewers or someone else. If he remains a Brewer for the remainder of his team control, a good portion of that time could be on the bench. I really hope he can step it up in the second half. In the short run, that would obviously help our playoff hopes. In the longer run, it will make him a nice trade chip as the prospects you mentioned become MLB ready.

It's hard to use his MiLB stats to project what he'll become, because Arcia has always been young for his level. He has held his own, scouts have loved him, and the Brewers continued to rush him through the minors and he adjusted. I like that they did this, and hope they continue to push prospects who are playing well. My only complaint is that I wish they would have waited until he was crushing AAA pitching before bringing him up, as we could've saved a year when he is in his prime instead of spending that year of service time watching him flounder as he wasn't quite MLB ready when they brought him up. That's in the past now, and since he's had that year of experience and has caught up to MLB pitching I expect him to be a very good player. I would have very little concern with signing him to a long-term deal, as long as it gives us the significant discount I discussed in my earlier post. If he signs now, we're likely to get him for well under his market value for a long time. In the event he crashes and burns, the contract shouldn't be large enough to seriously hurt the franchise. Making this a normal part of your business process should allow the odds to work in your favor so the good extensions far outweigh the bad ones. Again, think of the insurance industry who price things according to the risk involved. To make it work effectively, you just need to have enough talent in the system to have players who are worth extending, and Melvin and Stearns have done a good job of stocking us up over the recent past. Plus, if you have guys who are signed under value and are nearing the end of their control, they're easy to trade for a lot of young talent, as we saw in the Gomez and Lucroy trades.

You said the same about Segura too I bet right? At any given time, there are around 360-390 position players in the majors. In any given year, around 40-70 of them will have an .800 OPS season. There are very few who can routinely post .800+ OPS year after year. Villar isn't in the "year-after-year" group, but he's shown the ability to be a special player. Heck, he was a hair short of becoming only the third person in the history of the game to hit 20 HR with 60 SB in a season. Regardless of what you think of "old school stats," that's some rare company. That is why someone with the talents of Villar will get multiple chances, even if he has down years. He has shown the ability to do things that few people can do, and there is reason to believe that he will do it again. Someone will give him another chance in the hope that he will turn into a star. We'll see if that "someone" is the Brewers or someone else.

Yes, we should look to extend Arcia now. He currently has relatively high personal financial risk, so we should be able to get a substantial discount to what he could receive by going year-to-year. Teams should treat extensions like insurance. They are transferring the risk from the player to the team, so when the risk being transferred is highest, the team will get the best discount. Essentially, the player is paying for the insurance/risk transfer by accepting a discount to what he could get if he went year-to-year. Waiting a few years in order to see how the player does means that the team will pay a lot more for any free agent years bought out. If you wait too long, you're basically paying market (free agent) value, and the Brewers should generally stay away from that. Assuming the GM knows what he's doing, and offers a fair deal based on the amount of risk transferred, I'm generally for extending most young, talented players as it's a great way of garnering value without undue risk.

I agree that they are screwing with him unnecessarily. Forget the bullpen and just let him start, as that is where we hope his future lies. The "yo-yo" action has limited his innings enough that he could finish out the season in the rotation and his innings would be right about where they should be so he can start next year in the MLB rotation.

Having some trouble in your first 8.1 innings in the majors isn't unique. Even with those walks he still has a 0.96 WHIP, as MLB hitters are having a hard time getting a hit off of him. Plus, the alternative is Espino. There are a number of posters here who think Hader is destined for the bullpen. Maybe that will be the case, but he is rated one of the top prospects in baseball for a reason. Everything he has done in his career has people believing that he is special, so let's let him get a couple of starts to see what he can do. If he truly cannot throw strikes, then he should be sent back down to the minors to work things out, as walking batters is just as bad for late-inning relievers as it is for starters.

Espino and Hader both went multiple innings last night with Anderson's early departure. I'd guess that one of them will take Anderson's spot in the rotation and therefore will not be available out of the 'pen. Bringing Lopez up just means they will have another fresh arm (and one who could go multiple innings) after the 'pen had to log a lot of innings yesterday.

I'm one of those fans who will clamor for Hader. He needs innings and is a much bigger part of our future than Espino, so let's see what he can do as a starter. Also, I'm excited to see how Lopez does. He has a lot of talent, so hopefully his fall off last year was simply a product of Colorado Springs and he can prove to be a solid MLB pitcher.

I doubt we'll trade Aguilar, but if we feel the need to add pitching, he and Villar could be guys who are available to trade. They're more likely to be available than any of our top prospects.

With Hader going multiple innings in relief last night, he probably won't be used for several days anyhow, so might as well just let him get the start and bring up someone who can help in the bullpen right away.

And the chances the same thing happens to Torres and Drake are equal or better than the chances the likes of Wang, Cravy, and Blazek being any better. There's quality proven bullpen arms available on the trade market. Feliz proved to be a bust, but that doesn't mean they should shy away from adding a quality late inning guy even if requires spending more money than they budgeted for last winter. That budget was based on the assumption that the Cubs were a lock. The problem is that quality arms on the trade market will cost more than money. Last year, we got San Francisco's top pitching prospect for Will Smith. This offseason, we got Travis Shaw and some good-looking prospects for Thornburg. The Yankees revamped their farm with two trades last year. Relievers are at an all-time high cost in trade. Selling a few of them is a big part of the reason the franchise is in as good of shape as it is right now. If we could get someone as a salary dump, that'd be great, but I don't think the market will allow for that at this time. To get a quality bullpen arm, we would need to give up some very talented prospects and I doubt Stearns is going to do that at this point. I guess a Villar trade isn't out of the question.

If someone blows us away with an offer, then sure, trade him. I don't think that's going to happen, so I'm fine with holding onto Villar as another utility guy to go along with Perez. That gives us a pretty strong bench and injury protection all over the field. As to his upcoming arby raise, being a part-time player will keep that raise modest. I think arby values starting players (even if they're not that good) over part-time players (even if they're not that bad).

Hughes wasn't really pitching bad, they just changed the rules on him. For all of his life, he lived in the bottom of the zone. This year, he was doing exactly what always worked for him, but the pitches were being called balls. He then altered his approach, and it has been working for him. Hopefully he can be a positive for the bullpen going forward.

That's the thing though, that's not really true anymore. An average reliever is putting up the numbers of a top of the rotation starter. Just scouring the pitching leaderboards here is where the first starting pitcher falls in these categories. ERA+: Kuechel 28th FIP: Sale 31st K/9: Salazar 28th Those 3 were the easiest to sort through getting rid of guys who've only thrown a couple innings but every rate pitching stat leaderboard I looked at is dominated by relievers. And I understand it's because they only pitch an inning at a time but that doesn't really matter. All that matters is the results and the results show that the way they are used, relievers are better at getting outs than starters are. So unless you're Scherzer or Kershaw, you should be pitching less innings at a time to be more effective. Those innings still have to be pitched, so if you take them away from your starters, then you are adding them to someone else. You are wrong in stating "...that really doesn't matter. All that matters is results..." because if you add those innings to your top relievers, their results will probably get worse. If you add them to your lesser relievers then they will blow more games as we've seen with the Brewers this year. If you do as the initial poster stated and give them to your AAA starters, then you have to have 8-10 legitimate MLB caliber starting pitchers. In the Brewers' history, they've rarely been able to find three legitimate MLB caliber starting pitchers in any given season. As long as they play 162 nine-inning games, and rosters are 25 men, we will have to deal with a limited number of pitchers throwing all those innings. Most relievers are failed starters, so I'll stand by my belief that your starting pitchers are usually your best pitchers. Those failed starters made it to the MLB because they can do well when only pitching one inning at a time. Make them do more than that, and you are just taking innings from your successful starters and giving them to the guys who proved at an early age that they can't handle them.

This whole thread seems to be trying to find an "outside the box" solution to a problem that doesn't exist. Most MLB starting pitchers should be able to get through 5-6 innings on a semi-regular basis. If you have a pitcher who cannot do this, you either replace him, or find a creative way to work with that one spot, not the entire rotation. Limiting the innings of your best pitchers and giving them to lesser pitchers would probably have a negative effect on their aggregate numbers. Your starters are generally your best pitchers, so let them pitch as much as they are able. Your best relievers should be used at the most important time of the game. It could be argued that this is the late innings, or it could be argued that this is anytime when the game is on the line. I doubt you could argue that it is the first inning of a game, or that it is a scheduled appearance on a set day regardless of the situation. Your worst pitchers should be the least used, getting mainly "garbage" innings. They should not be scheduled to get as many innings as your top starters, sometimes replacing them early when the starter is pitching well.

You may have a higher regard for bullpen arms then I have. To me, sticking Hader in the 'pen for 2-4 years is akin to bringing up Brinson to be a bench bat for 2-4 years. The Brewers get minimal value from him, then get a short period to showcase him as a starter before he's on someone else's roster. If he is being thrown into the pen because the Brewers don't think his command is good enough for him to be a starting pitcher, then our farm is not nearly as strong as we're being told. I don't think that's the case. I think he's up as a bullpen arm because the Brewers are in first place and they are having bullpen problems. I can understand that, but if it means that the best starting pitching prospect we've had since Ben Sheets ends up spending most of his Brewer career in the bullpen, then it's not worth it. Again, I don't think that will be the case, so I am very curious as to how they are going to get him the innings he needs. For that, he has to end up in a rotation sometime this year, even if that means playing in a fall or winter league somewhere. I do have some concern that the Brewers are bringing up some of their top prospects before they are ready, and that will cost them a ton of value down the road as these guys play for the Brewers when they're not yet MLB ready and then play their best years in a different uniform. This is lessened by the fact that we have a lot of talent on the farm, but it is still a concern.

I can't see them working side sessions/simulated games with him when he may be needed to pitch multiple days in a row, or for multiple innings in a game. You can do side sessions as a starter when you are on a strict routine, but it would be difficult for a reliever because you don't know when you'll need him. As to the Sale example, he hit the 146 IP in a season before being moved to the bullpen. Once you hit a limit, I think you're okay. Hader has never done that. They're probably planning on converting him back to a starter before the end of the season to add some innings, but if they stay in first place and the starters are doing okay, that could be difficult. I want to win, but it would stink if our attempt to win this year means that we lose a lot of starts from Hader over the next two years in order to keep his innings down. He's now been up since June 9 and he has 6.1 IP, putting him at 58.1 IP for the season.

I agree that some more non-option guys could go, making room for more guys with options, and therefore a more flexible roster. I like that idea, but I think part of the reason changes in the 'pen have been slower than some would like is that our pen was filled with guys who were out of options and Stearns wanted to give them a shot at redemption before cutting ties. Now we're at the point where cutting some ties makes sense.

They need to have guys with options in the 'pen in order to shuffle them back and forth to the minors. The guys we have with options are the guys we don't want to send to the minors.

I would take extra innings from our starters this year. I don't know why anyone would suggest that we give additional innings to our bullpen. Our starters have actually been pretty good, while our bullpen is the reason we aren't double-digit games up on the Cubs.

If the Brewers had tried this going into the season, it would have been abandoned 2+ innings into the season when Guerra went down with an injury. With the proposed four-man bullpen, whoever "SP8" is would have been forced to pitch 7 innings, no matter how he was pitching. Of course he wouldn't be able to do this, so they would have had to use "SP7" and "SP6" to finish the game, and after the game they would have to option five guys from their bench to bring up relievers and scrap the whole idea. Sometimes pitchers need to be pulled early, and sometimes they should be kept in for the whole game. This strategy doesn't allow for that. If the game were played by robots who do exactly what is expected of them every time out, it may have some credence. Since it is not, this strategy could not work. What happens when Nelson is throwing a shut-out and is pulled because it's Suter's turn to throw, and he gives up five runs before recording an out? You don't have another reliever to replace him, so does he just keep pitching?

I don't know if it's just the small sample size nature of the position or what, but it seems like 90% of them can be picked off the scrap heap and are incredibly volatile from year to year, and any one of them is capable of being a top pitcher for one season while becoming garbage the next, and vice-versa. We're 60-some games into the season, and Chase Anderson has as many IP as most relievers will get in an entire season. Most people won't believe after a little over 1/3 of a season that Chase Anderson has proven himself to be a great starter, but many will believe after one 70-something IP season that a reliever has proven himself to be either good or bad. In reality, for a player that's good enough to be on a MLB roster, that's just far too few innings to make a solid judgement about a player either way. Even the "bad" players in the majors are extremely good, and are capable of putting together strings of great baseball. Most relievers are in the 'pen because they couldn't cut it as starters, so they have some flaws. So, like a lot of #4/5 starters, they'll have times where they look good and times that they don't. It's not that it doesn't matter who you put there, but we could dump one of our guys and they could be lights out for the rest of the season for someone else, and we could grab someone who has been lights out for another team only to have them look like garbage for us. There's not really an easy solution, as I still think SP are far more valuable than RP, so the best pitchers usually won't be headed to the bullpen. With limited supply of top pitchers in the 'pen, the price for them will be high, so the best way to get a good bullpen is to grow one on the farm. That's why long term for the Brewers I'm not too worried, as we have more pitching talent in the minors than ever before. Only a few of these guys will become MLB starters, so a lot of them will be competing for spots in future Brewer bullpens. Short-term? Well, anything can happen short-term, like the rebuilding Brewers who aren't supposed to win more than 70 games ending up in first place.

We're about a week in, and he has 1.1 IP. At 1.1 IP/week, he'd hit his 150 innings sometime in 2019 if he played baseball year-round.

Glad to see they're willing to eat the money and get rid of Feliz. As to Suter, I believe he was the 26th man, which was allowed because the team played a double header. Once the double header was over, they needed to get back to 25 men on the active roster, so no corresponding move was necessary.

We have a strong farm, so I like that we're getting some high-upside high schoolers. No need to sacrifice upside for guys who will "shoot to the majors quickly"