monty57

At least to some extent, I defended Hiura last year, but it seemed pretty obvious that they weren't high on him, so I was pretty surprised that they offered him arbitration. They need a utility guy or two on the roster. I don't see a need for Hiura, especially since we got Winker for DH. I'd think that Hiura will be traded away pretty soon, setting up a Spring Training battle between Miller and Toro for the final spot on the bench. I initially thought that this acquisition could be the end of the speculation of whether we'd go after a third baseman, but I think it could have more effect on Turang. If we acquire a 3B, Urias would probably move to 2B, and Miller / Toro would be the utility guy, allowing for Turang to start the season in AAA. I'd be fine with that. I'd rather see someone like Miller getting sporadic playing time on the bench instead of Turang or Urias.

A) Why do people who are fans of a small-market team continually complain about the team's lack of spending? B) Why is spending more money so important? If the team can improve while spending less money, that's a really good thing, and that seems to be what has happened so far this year. C) Why is this another "we need to spend money" / "who can we target in free agency" thread, instead of a discussion of the thread's topic, which is obtaining a potential utility guy in Miller, and the DFAing of a site-favorite prospect in Feliciano? There is a whole section on the site dedicated to trade rumors and free agent speculation.

Makes sense with Mitchell/Frelick. Regarding Taylor: When Chourio is brought up, he will be playing every day. If Mitchell, Frelick and Wiemer have all proven to be MLB players by that time, they will split time at the other positions. That is when I think Taylor should be traded away. He is valuable to the Brewers in his current role, so there is no reason to trade him until we have better options. Right now, I'd rather have Taylor in the mix, even if it's as "4th outfielder," as we know he can play that role well. Leave Wiemer in AAA where he can play every day, and bring him up when someone gets hurt. He will get his shot. So, Taylor's tenure with the Brewers is somewhat contingent on how the other guys perform. If all of them do well, he'll probably be gone sometime in '24. If one of them doesn't pan out, he'll probably be here until he hits free agency, or until one of our younger, lesser-discussed OF prospects takes his spot and fills the role for league minimum when Taylor is making a couple million in arby. He's one of those "valuable when he's cheap" players that the Brewers need to rely on in order to stay competitive on a limited payroll. Jace Peterson was another example of this, and hopefully the Brewers can keep churning these guys out of their farm. They're obviously not as valuable as the "potential Rookie of the Year" guys, but they're necessary for the Brewers continued success.

Taylor is a nice fit on this team. He's proven to be a quality 4th outfielder, and being right-handed is a plus when Yelich, Frelick, Mitchell, and Winker are all lefties. Whoever gets dubbed "the starter" isn't quite as meaningful on a Counsell-run team. He has shown through the years that he makes sure everyone gets plenty of playing time. At one point I was ready to see what Taylor could do as a starter, but now that we have so much young OF talent ready to step in, he'll likely settle in as a 4th OF. He'll get a few starts a week, starting every game against LHP, and giving the other guys days off. A lot can happen, so I'm glad he's still on the roster and don't see him getting traded at least until the youngsters have a season or two under their belts. 2023: Yelich (LF), Frelick (CF), Mitchell (RF), Taylor (4th), Winker (DH) 2024: Yelich (DH) Mitchell (LF), Frelick (CF), Wiemer (RF), Taylor (4th) Chourio up whenever he's ready to alter the aforementioned plans. When he's up and playing, assuming the other guys have all panned out, then I think Taylor will be traded. Also, I don't know which of Mitchell/Frelick will be CF and which will be RF. I think they're kind of interchangeable that way, which is a good problem.

Ruiz should definitely have range, but he's still raw in the OF, as he came up as a infielder. He'll probably take some bad routes to balls until he gets more experience. The scouting reports I read when we traded for him suggested that the scouts thought he could stick at CF, but he needs more reps. It sounds like the A's are planning on giving him those reps in the MLB outfield, so I'd expect some highlight-reel plays where he can get to balls other players couldn't, and he's going to have some plays where he looks foolish, simply because he hasn't been in the OF for long. Most players have seen thousands of fly balls by the time they hit the MLB OF. Ruiz will be more like hundreds. Some of those fly balls will be coming at him at speeds over 100 MPH.

Here's how I see it: Lets say the Brewers can afford a $120,000,000 payroll. There are 26 players, so that's $4,615,385 on average per player. League minimum salary is $700,000, so for every league minimum guy on the roster, you can have an $8.5M guy and stay within budget. If we want a $26M guy on the roster, that's about 6x our "average player," so you basically need 6 pre-arby guys on the roster for every $26M player on the roster. This isn't exact, we could have a whole lot of crappy $2-4M veteran journeymen, but you get the picture. Bottom line is that we can't afford many big money players, and if we want them, we need to have a bunch of pre-arby guys on the roster. Some of these guys will be "top prospects" who have been recently called up, but a lot of them have to be guys like Payamps who can get them a little bit of value for around league minimum. So, for those hoping we sign free agents so we don't have to rely on the rookies, you can't really have it both ways. Having the rookies allows us to have some higher-priced guys. You aren't going to win with a team full of $4.6M veterans... you probably wouldn't win 70 games. Therefore, we need to rely heavily on our farm, and getting a guy like Payamps thrown into a trade is much more beneficial to the Brewers than it is to a bigger revenue team.

That right there shows how far we've come. I'm amazed at how well Stearns & Co. rebuilt the farm while playing playoff-caliber baseball at the MLB level.

Regarding the relievers, who were essentially throw-ins because the trade looks like a landslide victory even without them: Payamps is probably going to be on the MLB roster as a middle reliever, as he's out of options. He's in his final pre-arby year, so he'll be playing for around league minimum, and if he can keep his ERA in the 3's like he has in 2019, 2020 and 2021, he should be useful. Steamer projects him for a 4.11 ERA, 7.72 K/9, 3.03 BB/9 with a 43.4% Ground ball rate. He's not someone you build a team around, but a league minimum guy who can eat up some middle-relief innings for you is necessary for every team in baseball. Like anyone, he might blow up, but he does have some track record to show that he'll help the Brewers this year. All-in-all, adding him to the deal probably saves us a couple million we would've had to spend on a veteran reliever. Yeager is going straight to the minors and may never leave. If he gets his command issues fixed, he could be a good reliever. That could be said about a lot of guys, and the odds are probably against that happening. These guys probably aren't worth getting too excited about, but I'm sure Payamps will play with our emotions through the season... hopefully more in a positive sense than a negative one. Relievers will do that to you.

I think Mitchell and Frelick will both be up. One in CF and one in RF. Taylor should be the backup at all three OF positions. I’d prefer to have a better defender at 3B, it’ll just depend on what’s available. It doesn’t look like there’s a lot. Urias put up a wRC+ of 110, so he’s fine offensively. He’s just a better defender at 2B. Toro is another option. He was a highly-regarded prospect, but it hasn’t yet translated to the majors.

After yesterday's trade, the team is looking a lot closer to the finish line. I have called for a "real" 3B for a while. Urias' wRC+ was 110 last year, so it isn't easy to find an offensive upgrade there, but he's not good defensively on the left side of the infield. If we got a real third baseman, Urias would slide to his natural position of 2B, keeping Turang in AAA to start the season. @jay87shot brought up a really good point on Turner, who is one of, if not the only guy who would improve the position offensively over Urias. He only played 66 games in the field last year. He did play 143 in 2021, so maybe he could still man the position on a daily basis, but if not, we wouldn't have a role for him since we have Winker as our everyday DH. I'm leaning towards believing that we're close to done with position player moves, and I like our lineup with Contreras, Tellez, Turang, Adames, Urias, Yelich, Mitchell, Frelick in the field and Winker at DH. I think the team has done a lot to alleviate worries about the "position player group." I do think we'll see more moves in the bullpen. I think they've done an adequate job of bringing in new arms for the bullpen, but I expect that they'll focus any remaining money they have to sign a decent "proven" bullpen arm as a setup man. I thought going into the offseason that they may trade one of "the big three," but they have added talent around them to put together what looks to be a pretty good team. There will be a lot of big trades next off season, but this year looks to be a lot of fun to watch.

That's true. Just because I want all of the prospects to succeed doesn't mean they will. Plus, there will be injuries so it's nice to have some talent tucked away in AAA for when that happens. On that note, it is nice that the prospects in question have shown success at AAA, and we're not just hoping on guys who have a good year in A-ball. The chances of success for a guy who has already worked his way through the minors with some success are higher than a "high upside" guy who still has to make the jump to AA/AAA.

Not really, for extended periods of the season last year, Counsell seemed to forget he was on the roster.

I'm missing something here. I agree with you on Winker. I think he played injured last year, as the previous two years he was one of the best hitters in baseball. If he's healthy, I hope for closer to the 140-ish wRC+ guy he was prior to last year. If that happens, he will be the DH nearly every day. That means Yelich will be our everyday LF. Unless things go really wrong this year, and Winker is traded at the deadline, Yelich's transition to DH will be in 2024, not 2023. That leaves CF and RF. I think that will be Mitchell and Frelick, with Taylor as the backup. I guess it's possible they call up Wiemer and leave Frelick in AAA, but one of Mitchell, Frelick or Wiemer will very likely start the year in AAA, and I'd guess that will be Wiemer. Wiemer will get his debut when someone gets hurt, but I think his shot at a starting role will be 2024, when Yelich likely moves to DH. His opportunity may be limited, as Chourio will likely be in the majors at some point in 2024, and at the rate he's going, none of Frelick, Mitchell or Wiemer will block him. My guess at that time will be that Chourio will play nearly everyday, and Frelick, Mitchell and Wiemer will split time at the other two spots, but a lot can happen between now and then. To topic, we will still have our catcher position locked down, because we just filled that for the next five years! That we cleared up the aforementioned logjam to some degree in order to fill that catching spot made a lot of sense. We should now have our entire OF, Catcher, and shortstop all filled for the next six years with talented young players. We still have a lot of people set to leave after '24, but we're starting to see the guys who will be the "new core" going forward. I like it when a team operates with a long-term outlook.

There is no reason for Hiura to be on the roster. I was surprised they offered him arbitration, as I saw no role for him after last season, and there is really no spot for him with the additions they've made so far this off-season. C - Contreras 1B - Tellez 2B - Turang SS - Adames 3B - Urias LF - Yelich CF - Mitchell/Frelick RF - Mitchell/Frelick DH - Winker Bench Caratini (backup catcher) Brosseau (1B/2B/3B who hits LHP well) Taylor (RH bat who plays all three OF positions) Toro or Hiura A bad defender who should only be used to pinch hit vs RHP doesn't seem too valuable, especially when 6 of the 9 regular starters are left-handed hitters. Hopefully, they'll find someone who will take him in trade, even if we get little in return, just to clear the $2M or so we'd otherwise have to pay him. I would much prefer Brosseau and Toro on the bench over Hiura.

I thought maybe it was just rose-colored glasses, but I liked Ruiz since we acquired him. He's fast, and apparently re-worked his swing which led to vastly improved offensive numbers. He was moved off of second base because of "heavy hands," so he's still raw in the OF, but scouts seem to think he should be able to stick at CF once he gets more experience there. That said, I still had him as our fourth best OF of the AAA bunch. Frelick and Mitchell are also high OBP guys with speed, and they have a longer track record of good offensive numbers, while there's a chance that Ruiz just had one fluky good season. Wiemer is more of a power guy, but he was also probably ahead of Ruiz on the depth chart. Meanwhile, our "potential Juan Soto-talent" is sitting in AA and it looks like he'll be in Milwaukee fairly soon. Oh, and we have a high-priced LF in Milwaukee who isn't going anywhere. So, Ruiz is a talented prospect I like, but he didn't have a clear shot to the majors in Milwaukee. It made sense to trade him. That Arnold was able to get a 24-year-old who plays the position of Milwaukee's greatest need, and was an All Star in his rookie season is amazing. We needed a catcher... check. We needed a power RH bat... check. We needed someone who could hit LHP... check. We need pre-arby guys with team control... check. Oh, we also need bullpen help, so Arnold had them throw in a couple relievers. I hope Ruiz has a nice career, but even if he does, this was a trade Arnold had to take advantage of. The Brewers are a much better team now and for the next few years. Well done.

I think the question is whether Frelick, Turang, and Winker can put up similar WAR to Renfroe, Wong, and McCutchen.

Here's an article about the Reds being loaded with young infield prospect talent, and looking to trade for young OF prospect talent. I know that teams oftentimes don't want to do inter-division trades, especially prospect-for-prospect as that could end up looking bad for a long time. Other than that, this seems like a perfect scenario. Chourio and De La Cruz would be staying where they are, but this could be a swap of ready-to-contribute "Top 100" guys like a Mitchell-for-Marte type deal, a blocked MLB-ready prospect deal using Wiemer or Ruiz, or a lower minors deal like Lara-for-Acosta. Both teams would be dealing from an area of depth for to an area of need. What are everyone's thoughts? View full rumor

There are 30 teams in MLB, so if everything was 100% equal, every team should win once every 30 years. Since MLB accepts that some teams get a decided advantage over others, it's a minor miracle that any small revenue teams have won since the dawn of free agency. I would love to win a World Series, but with the system set the way it is, I'm happy we've been playing winning baseball and getting some "fake playoff spots" recently.

I'll have to disagree. If Stearns had "made a serious run in 22-23," that would have meant selling long-term assets for short-term assets, and maybe signing a deal or two that would be good for a couple years (when Stearns was here), and then bad for a couple years (after Stearns left). That would have "screwed over" the Brewers and Matt Arnold. He'd be taking on an aging team with no farm and some bloated contracts, leaving him with little to work with. Instead, Stearns rebuilt the farm while they were winning at the MLB level. Arnold is left with a much-improved farm system with talent at all levels, multiple star players at the MLB level who can either be extended or are phenomenal trade chips to add more young talent to the roster, and only has one big contract on the books, offering him financial flexibility going forward. There seems to be a lot of short-sightedness on this site lately. Setting someone up for one decent year and then a massive rebuild is what many exiting GMs do, and they get out the door before the collapse. That is screwing over a franchise. I think Stearns set Arnold and the Brewers up very nicely, and look forward to winning baseball in Milwaukee for years to come.

@Redd Vencher hit most of the points I had when I read the article. I think the base premise is off, in that I don't think the goals listed were necessarily the goals of the front office going into this offseason. 1) They aren't clearing money to extend guys. They're clearing money because they were over budget last year and were hit with a significant reduction in ticket sales. They probably going to have a lower budget this year until they see that ticket sales come back. The two moves have combined to clear around $10M from the '23 budget. 2) I guess this depends on the definition of "firepower." As has been noted often, the offense in '22 was in the top third of MLB (near the bottom of the top third, but still above average). The problem as I see it was that they had too much "all or nothing" which made them streaky. I think they're trying to get more consistent, which could be done by getting guys who strike out less and get on base more. 3) I'll add one. I think they want to get their rookies on the field. First, they're talented and deserve to be there. Second, they're pre-arby, so they'll play for league minimum. Third, they're facing a big turnover in the roster soon as all of their arby guys are traded or become free agents, so they need their young guys to get some experience before this exodus. Finally, and probably most importantly, the rookies in question are all lower K/higher OBP guys. Brandon Nimmo just got a monster deal after stars who are much bigger than him signed even bigger deals. We have a group of guys who are above-average MLB players offensively (based on things like wRC+), so we won't be able to bring in upgrades to our position players by outbidding other teams on the open market. Thankfully, we have a group of MLB-ready guys who are ready to step in to complement our pitching. If we had to pay open market prices for Frelick and Mitchell, we already wouldn't be able to afford them this offseason. The pitching, which is supposed to be where we dominate, is the reason we just missed the playoffs last year. If they're healthy and play to their ability, we're going to be a playoff team in '23 as long as our position players continue to be around average, and they're a little better than that. So, the front office has trimmed around $10M from payroll, while holding onto their pitching, maintaining a roughly equal offense "on paper," upgrading the defense, and opening room for the rookies. All this while other teams are signing players for $20-$40M/year to try to get better.

That's always a possibility, but it's also a possibility that one or both of the prospects turn into starting MLB players and provide a lot of value to the Brewers. That is why while it's fun to discuss, we shouldn't get too emotional about a trade at the time it happens. The net outcome of the trade won't be known for years.

Yes he is. That is why I'm fine with Turang in AAA to start the season. Even if we go with our current roster and don't make any additional moves, we could go with Tellez at 1B, Urias at 2B, Adames at SS, and Toro/Brosseau at 3B to start the season. We'd probably need to pick up an inexpensive vet who could backup shortstop. Turang would be called up if Adames missed an extended period. I wouldn't get upset if Turang is starting at 2B or 3B, but I also wouldn't be upset if they go with the above scenario, or pick up another 3B, leaving Turang at AAA. He'll get his shot, and I wouldn't mind saving an extra year of service time.

For me, it isn't so much the power, it's that he's supposed to be a plus defender at SS. You're willing to give up some offense to have a great defensive SS. Not so much at 3B. As I mentioned previously, if we have another option, I'd be fine with keeping Turang in AAA until a spot opens up at SS. Adames is probably only here for the '23 season. If Adames gets extended, then you find a spot for Turang. Otherwise, there's no reason to force the square peg into the round hole.

When I first saw who was in this trade, I immediately thought that Toro was the new 3B with Urias moving to 2B. I don't follow the AL too closely, and just remember Toro as a top prospect. Then I read some posts and looked at Toro's early MLB numbers (913 PA, .206/.276/.345/.621, 75 wRC+) and thought maybe that wouldn't be the case. Steamer projects him for a .241/.313/.409/.722 103 wRC+ line. If he could do that and play decent 3B defense, then he could be our starter. He hasn't hit very well so far in his career, but has hit righties better than lefties, so he could pair well with Brosseau. It will be interesting to see which way the Brewers go. I wouldn't be averse to keeping Turang down in AAA. Save a year's service time, as he will very likely be the starting SS when Adames is traded away, which seems likely prior to the '24 season. Toro seems to be the throw-in to this trade, but if he can live up to the potential he had a couple seasons ago, this trade would be a home run win for the Brewers, and he could be our starting 3B for the next handful of seasons.