monty57

You guys have convinced me that at this point it makes sense to start Hill at 3B in Milwaukee, with Cecchini at 3B in AAA. I will definitely pay attention to the AAA box scores, as with Arcia, Phillips, etc, a lot of the future could be sitting on that roster. Cecchini is just my "fan favorite" pick-up this offseason, as I see him as someone who could really help this team in the coming years. Here's hoping he figures things out. So, Carter, Gennett, Villar, Hill vs RHP and Carter, Perez/Walsh/Rivera, Villar, Hill vs LHP. Since Rivera could probably benefit from more time in AAA, he can head there, upping the chance that the Brewers can hold on to Walsh. Might as well take advantage of the down season to hold onto a Rule 5 guy. It might even be a useful roster spot if he can hit LHP. Has an MLB franchise ever had a better IF at AAA then at the MLB level, because it's possible that could happen for the Brewers this year. Arcia is certainly better than Villar, Cecchini could be better than Hill. Gennett's better than Rivera offensively, but has to be platooned. Rivera's got him defensively, and should be better than Walsh/Perez in the 25% of the games they play. I don't even know who the 1B will be, so have to give Carter the nod there. If we trade Lucroy and get back a stud AAA bat, I'd say the AAA offense could give the MLB offense a good run. The good thing is that means the MLB roster should start getting help sooner rather than later.

I think the Brewers knew there was better talent available at the slot, but Medeiros was picked early so they could pay him under slot and save money to overpay on picks later in the draft, which ended up being Gatewood and Harrison. They went upside depth over "best player available."

And Cecchini is coming off a disastrous AAA season and likely trying to rediscover his previous batting style. That seems like something best done in the minor leagues. I'm crossing my fingers that Cecchini figures things out and can become the Brewers' 3B for the next 5-6 years. You make a good point that if he needs to correct his swing, it may be best done at AAA, but I hope he eventually hits Milwaukee. One of the things that for me will make this down year more tolerable at the MLB level will be watching young guys who might be a part of the future. Hill will not be a part of the future, so I really have no interest in watching him play.

Well said Ennder, and I like how you said the 2016 Brewers would "probably" beat a high school team 162 times :-)

The next point mentioned by another poster suggested the Brewer are farther along than Houston or Chicago at the time of the, ahem "rebuild" as I have made a deal not to use that other word. That is false. While the Brewers farm system is more advanced at this stage than either of those two teams, the Brewers are starting with a massive disadvantage to those two teams, especially Chicago, which is not coincidentally the team the Brewers will be competing against assuming the rebuild [wink] works. That is payroll to both add the finishing touches in a JHey, Lester, Zobrist, or retain the stars they selected during the rebuild [wink] process. The Brewers wont be adding the version of Lester of 2018 because by then whoever he is will cost $250M or so. Instead the Brewers will have to develop him, which mean they need more quality picks via the underslot selection then using the pool money to go deeper in the draft. In declaring my premise (that the Brewers are farther ahead at this point than the Cubs or Astros were when they started their rebuild) false, your first sentence acknowledges that what I said was true... "the Brewers system is more advanced at this stage than either of those two teams." The rest of your statement then disproves your earlier statement that the Brewers should follow the Astros / Cubs models because they proved it works. As you stated, the Brewers cannot follow the "Cubs model" because they don't have the financial resources. I would add that the Brewers are not weighted down with long-term, bloated contracts to aging players. The Cubs had to wait until players like Zombrano, Ramirez, and especially Soriano were off the books, so they had to start the first couple of years of their rebuild by stocking the system through the draft. The Brewers are starting their rebuild by trading away valuable veteran trade chips for good prospects throughout the system. And, yes, they will get some good draft picks as well. Therefore, the Brewers have not followed the "Cubs model," and don't need a three year tank job to stock the system. Add in that Melvin seems to have sneakily started a mini-rebuild a couple of years ago by changing draft strategy, trading Gallardo, etc, which, though hampered by Attanasio's insistence on signing old, expensive FAs, still netted us a better-than-expected farm system. Now, with some prospects already at the MLB level (Santana, Jungmann, Davies, Smith, Jeffress, etc), and numerous guys in the upper minors who should help to varying degrees over the next few years, Stearns is able to make some trades (i.e. Lind) for multiple guys in the lower minors rather than adding another "low ceiling" guy in the upper minors. That, not the need for a three-year tank job, is the reason why Stearns is targeting some players in the low minors in trades, and some players in the upper minors in other trades. Either way, they seem to be doing what they need to do to turn this thing around. I do agree that having the first pick is obviously better than having the fifth (or whatever), but I think having someone like Nelson turn into a true ace, or Cecchini turning into an average/above-average 3B would help the team more than the difference between the 1st and 5th pick. At least those things would help the team going forward, unlike the late season surges we had in 2012 and 2013 that did nothing for the future, but still cost us draft position, and worse made people think we were one FA signing away from the playoffs. We have a plan, and I'm rooting for anything (draft picks, prospects advancing, scrap heap guys panning out) that helps the team going forward. Time will tell how long the plan takes, but this to me is a fun stage because we can see the plan unfold. The mid 90's - early 2000's were not fun because we sucked and had no hope that we would get better. I will enjoy this season in the same way I enjoyed the time when Weeks, Fielder, etc were young. Hopefully, Lucroy nets us one more guy to pair with Arcia and Phillips. Three top guys coming in around the same time to add to the young guys on the roster, with more coming through the system should add some wins before too long. As Axl Rose said, all we need is just a little patience.

I read an interesting article about the Royals, and I think "zigged when everyone else was still zagging" sums it up. They saw that everyone was going for hitters that worked the count. This led to pitchers throwing strikes early, knowing the hitters would take them to run up pitch counts, and would throw their "put away pitches" late. The Royals decided that instead of waiting to try to hit the "put away pitch," they would simply attack the early strikes. They say they want the opposing pitcher to have a low pitch count, because by attacking early they throw the pitchers off their game, and with good base-running (not throwing away runs) and defense (not giving away runs) they can dink-and-dunk their way to victories. They brought in good contact hitters to implement this strategy. The "Moneyball" methodology isn't about using SABR and getting guys with high OBP. It's about analyzing everything and looking for inefficiencies. No one wanted contact hitters with high batting average, but low relative OBP, so these guys were cheap. So was defense and guys with good base-running skills. So were relief pitchers. People who strictly follow "advanced analytics" ridiculed the Royals for the moves they were making, and I'd guess that since the "predictive models" use these analytics, they will always underestimate any team that goes against the grain. People who use "today's methods" to analyze the Royals can't figure out how they win, and that's probably why they win. Now people are trying to copy them, which will bring up the price tag on what they bought cheaply (the former inefficiencies), which will naturally make something else relatively cheap (the next inefficiency). They developed a plan, and found players to fit that plan. I think that's what Stearns is doing in Milwaukee. He's not a lapdog saying "this is what the Astros/Cubs did, so that's what I'm going to imitate." He has an idea of the team he wants on the field in a few years, and he's building that future roster, hopefully finding the aforementioned "next inefficiency." He obviously likes young pitchers who throw strikes and don't walk hitters. He seems to like defensive versatility, but that may just be trying to fit together an MLB roster for 2016. Looking at last year's trades, it appears prospects are losing their luster around the league, bringing their price tag down right when that's exactly what the Brewers need, so hopefully that helps. Digging deeper, guys in the low minors (before they prove themselves enough to hit the "top prospects" lists) are very cheap, so he's loading up on them. Whatever the ultimate plan, I am happy to see that the Brewers are finally looking beyond "this year" into "future years," and I hope that when everything plays out other teams are analyzing the "Brewer model" to try to imitate Stearns.

The Brewers are tanking because: 1.) The strategy has worked perfectly for Chicago and Houston, not just in 2015 but for years to come In my opinion, these are not apples-to-apples, because the Brewers are in far better position right now than those teams were when they started their rebuild. The Brewers' willingness to trade away players, especially Gomez and (presumably) Lucroy should put them years ahead of these two teams. Had the Brewers refused to trade Gallardo, Gomez, and Lind, and instead signed Lucroy to a 10 year $200,000,000 contract extension while trading away Arcia for a one-year guy to help the 2016 team win, then after this season they would be around where the Cubs were to start their rebuild. There should be no need for a "three year tank job" to net us three straight top five picks. Our young talent has already started hitting the MLB roster, and will have a huge talent influx when Arcia and Phillips hit the majors potentially as soon as this season, but more likely next year. You are somewhat hung up on the trades for A-ball guys, but I think that those trades were made because we already have a lot of talent in the high minors, so it made a lot of sense to stock up the low minors with "upside" guys in hopes that some of them make it. Guys like Lind were not good enough to bring back someone in the high minors who is better than our current crop, so why not bring back three "lottery tickets?" Now, if he trades Lucroy for a bunch of 18-year-olds, then I may change my stance, but it's very likely he will get another top guy that will hit the majors around the same time as Arcia and Phillips, and we will have a solid core group of young players in the not-too-distant future. To topic, this group includes Nottingham, whether that is as a catcher or first baseman, so trading Davis cleared up a logjam at corner OF, allowing Santana to play in what is assumed to be a down 2016 giving him a little experience as the big wave of young talent hits the majors in 2017. Now, if any of the "scrap heap guys" (Cecchini, Liriano, Carter, etc) puts things together, then we will have filled in yet another hole, making it a little more likely that we could be on a big upswing as soon as 2017-2018.

re: Bubba Derby Any guy at that level is a long shot to make the majors, but I love that we are amassing boatloads of guys like him, greatly increasing the chance that some of them will make the majors down the road. When some of them start hitting the majors, people will scratch their heads and wonder how they were the "throw-in" in a trade. re: "Tanking" I think this topic is getting over-played, as it really seems to be coming down to posters' perception of the word. It's obvious we are not trying to maximize wins in 2016, but I don't think we are trying to maximize losses. Rather, we are using a season that is "lost" to give some young, talented guys a shot to see if they will be part of the future. I hope we find a "gem" or two who can help the team for the next five or six years as the prospects start populating the MLB roster. As to "tanking" for the next three years, the "Astros/Cubs model," that would seem to be a bad idea. Their prizes in the minors, Arcia and Phillips, will be up in 2017. If we were to shoot for 100 losses to get better draft position for the next three years, we would be throwing away the years we have Arcia and Phillips. By the time we started to climb from that 100 loss floor Arcia and Phillips would already by in their arby years, and the draft picks we received wouldn't make the roster until Arcia and Phillips were on their way out. Saying there is no time frame is a good marketing plan, as putting a number of years on the rebuild would almost assuredly come back to bite Stearns. That said, I believe that Arcia/Phillips will be up in 2017, putting us right around where we were when Weeks/Fielder made their MLB debuts, with talent coming up and a lot of payroll flexibility to add pieces as needed... far ahead of where the Astros and Cubs were when they started their overhaul. Let's just enjoy 2016 for what it is, a showcase year for some young talent, and a year in which we will very likely make more "veteran-for-prospect" trades at the deadline. We will see some of our prospects this year, and a lot more in 2017. Re: Davis vs. Santana Who cares if Davis or Santana hit more HR in 2016? That's meaningless. The fact is that we have Braun, and with his back surgery he's not getting traded, leaving one corner OF spot open with two talented players to fill it. We were in a position where trading the veteran made a ton of sense, and I hope that thought process continues even when we are out of the rebuild. If you have two MLB-caliber guys with a similar talent level, trade the older guy who has less control. Get young talent in return and let the younger guy play. Davis is talented... that's why we were able to trade him. He has a lot of power, which is what people love about him, but he also has "warts," which is why no one was talking about getting a "Gomez-type" return. That's what we hope for in a Lucroy trade, not a Davis trade. Instead, we got a guy who's big question mark among scouts doesn't seem to be whether he'll make the majors, but whether he'll make the majors as a catcher or a first baseman. Catcher would obviously be preferable, but I'd take a good hitting first baseman from the deal if that's the downside. He will probably start in AA, meaning he could be in the majors in 2017-2018, helping out that "first wave" group I mentioned earlier. The added bonus is that we have something to hope for at catcher when Lucroy gets traded, increasing the hope that we won't have years of ineptitude at catcher.

Or how about the team lost 94 games...but that wasn't an indication of the talent? How so? As they say, show the work. I think that means that if you ran a Monte Carlo on it, the roster as it was constructed at the start of last season would only have had as bad a record as it did around 1% of the time. Everything had to go wrong for that team to lose that many games, and it did. Teams with decent talent sometimes have horrible seasons and that happened to last year's Brewers. To bring that to predicting this season, you shouldn't say something like "we lost Gomez, so that's X wins right there," because in that comparison, you need to use what Gomez did for us last year, when he had a down year and was then traded. We had a lot of down years last year, so a simple reversion to the mean from some guys like Garza and Peralta can add a little to this year's team. I don't think we will be good, and it is possible that we will lose 100 if everything once again goes wrong (i.e. None of the pitchers improve and all of the guys we picked up stink), but it's also possible we end up near .500 if the pitchers put it together and some of the guys we picked up have decent seasons. I know that many here hope the latter doesn't occur, as that would mean we lose draft position and pool money, but it also means that some of our young "scrap heap" pickups have greatly increased their value, either as a long-term answer for Milwaukee (Cecchini, Carter) or as a trade chip (Garza, Hill). I am going into the season with the understanding that we will likely lose a lot more than we will win, but will greatly enjoy watching guys (both at the MLB and MiLB levels) to see how they will fit into the future of the Brewers. Cecchini and Carter are two guys I'm really pulling for, because if either of them prove themselves to be MLB regulars, we will have plugged a big hole going forward.

For fairness, I'd note that the Cardinals didn't have to gut their team to have a strong farm system. That's likely because they never gutted their farm system to have a strong MLB team. Years of neglecting the farm (trading from the farm, but never trading to add to the farm, focus drafts on getting high floor/low ceiling guys who could get to the majors, etc) will naturally lead a team to a position where they will need to rebuild. The Cardinals seem to focus on both putting a good major league team out there, and keeping a strong farm. Hopefully, that is the long term plan for the Brewers under Stearns.

Unless they're trading him to another rebuilding team, wouldn't it make more sense in that scenario to trade Davis, who should bring back a pretty good haul of prospects? I don't see why the Brewers would trade away a guy with Liriano's upside and years of control, unless they could get a similar talent back at a position of need.

If he were paid league minimum, what would his trade value be? That is essentially the case if the Brewers trade him right now, while agreeing to pick up the $6M or so the Diamondbacks aren't paying.

Hill was going to get paid his salary this year whether he got 650 plate appearances, got 50 plate appearances, or whether he gets cut, and doesn't play at all. The line "you never know what's going to happen" is correct. He acknowledges that the Brewers are rebuilding, and less likely to compete. He acknowledges that he wants to win. He states that competing is not 100% out of the question. A correct, diplomatic answer to the question that was asked. Very true. Note to Lucroy, you don't have to be a bonehead to be honest.

I wouldn't mind if the Brewers ate the rest of Hill's salary in order to flip him for a prospect. That said, when I hear the comparison to Counsell's clubhouse presence, I remember when Fielder was leaving, and Corey Hart said that the real loss to the team would be Counsell because of his clubhouse presence. That may or may not mean much, but I think this team has seemed pretty undisciplined the past few seasons (swing out of your shoes no matter the situation, make horrible base-running mistakes, etc), so maybe a veteran leader might not be the worst thing in the world to teach the young guys "the right way to play," which to me means not making stupid mistakes. In that regard, we need more Carlos Lee and less Carlos Gomez.

Barring something bad happening, Phillips is the future CF for Milwaukee. All of the other guys are fighting to get their shot to showcase themselves in a down year for the Brewers. In my opinion, one of Broxton / Nieuwenhuis will eventually end up being a backup OF who can play all OF positions, while Santana and Liriano are fighting to show that they are good enough to take over a corner OF starting job when/if Davis and Braun are eventually traded. This doesn't even include the other talented OFs we have in the system. At best, we will stockpile enough talent that we can field a good OF, with plenty of chips to trade in the future. At worst, we have two good corner OF locked up for the next 4-5 years, so we just need to find a guy who doesn't trip over himself in CF until Phillips arrives. Picking up talented guys like Liriano for nothing is a great move, and right now for 2016 we have a lot of options. If Davis gets traded, Santana/Liriano take over a corner, with some combo of Broxton / Nieuwenhuis / Liriano playing CF. If Davis is not traded, I would send Santana back to AAA, allowing Liriano to be the primary backup at the corners with the same three guys holding down CF.

he fact that some seem to favor the same model that has kept the Brewers and teams like the Rockies, DBacks, Mariners, Indians, and Reds in a constant state of mediocrity for a decade boggles my mind. I think people remember how bad the franchise was before the recent decade or so, and there is fear that as we lose the known and venture into the unknown we could once again have to suffer like we did in the late 90's and early 2000's. We've been a bad franchise. We have zero World Series rings and few playoff appearances in over forty years of existence, so any degree of success makes some want to hang onto what feels good. Professional sports is a young person's arena, and as romanticized as baseball may be, GMs can't get attached to players on an emotional level. This may be good for fans, who may buy tickets to see the names they know, but a GM who does this will get left behind. I would far rather have good players in their 20's, letting the big money guys fight over who can give the biggest 9-figure deal to have the player through his 30's. I have no problem trading away good players when they have a year or two left to stockpile more young talent, letting the receiving team worry about losing the player to free agency. But I don't get emotional about the players. I believe that as long as we keep a strong farm, the good player we trade away will be replaced by other good players from the farm who we will "control" for six years at a low price. We can't compete long-term by signing big contracts, so we have to keep a stream of good pre-arby and arby players on the MLB roster if we want to have any chance of long-term success. There will always be down years, but if you keep a strong farm and have the willingness to trade MLB "chips" in the down years, you shouldn't have to suffer through extended down periods.

Good to see Texas and Washington being thrown around as the top suitors. Both have guys they don't want to give up, but both realize that the first team to add one of those guys ends up with Lucroy.

Instead of getting a half dozen arms and middle infielders in a series of trades, you combine the resources you traded away and target a AA third basemen with a reasonable floor. I agree with most of what you're saying, but aren't Cecchini and Middlebrooks "third basemen with reasonable floors?" They're not AA, but they're controllable for a lot of years. but let's not present a false dichotomy that Stearns' way is the only true way of rebuilding and every other way wasn't rebuilding at all. It's certainly not the only way, but it's the way I've been hoping the Brewers would adopt, so I'm happy with what he's doing. A lot of the guys he's bringing in could bomb. Heck, everyone he's bringing in could feasibly bomb, but if we have enough talent in the minors, the law of averages should push a number of those guys into the majors, and a few could even be stars. I think the Brewers need to take advantage of the system that allows teams to seriously underpay players for their first six years in the majors, and the only way to do that is to continuously pump talent into the farm.

The upside no longer exists. If that's true, it's only because he reached his potential at an early age, and is playing up to his potential when he has not yet reached his prime. Like many players, he just needs to be used correctly, which means he needs a platoon partner. We've picked up plenty of guys who could fill that role, and I hope these guys do well, but I don't see anyone we've picked up that should start at 2B over Gennett vs RHP. As long as he's on the team, that spot should be his.

Every baseball season has value, or should have value I think the value to take out of this season will be to get a better picture as to what we have for the future. -We have youth in the rotation, and 2016 can give us a chance to see what we have in guys like Davies and Jungmann. -We picked up some former top prospects from the "scrap heap," and giving them everyday playing time can potentially get us 5-6 years of a good player for nothing. This is why I don't want to see Hill playing 3B when he has no future with the Brewers while someone like Cecchini may. Ditto CF, where I would rather see what we have in a player like Broxton rather than picking up a "proven" journeyman. -Our minor leagues should be fun to follow. We have more talent there than we've had in a long time, and I enjoy seeing how the kids progress. Overall, I don't think the value of the 2016 team will be in maximizing wins (I also don't think we should purposefully maximize losses for draft position). Rather, it's a year to "throw some stuff at the wall" while letting the young guys mature. It's the early stages of what will hopefully be a successful rebuild. It takes patience, but the important thing is that if you are going to do it, that you do what you think will be in the best interest of the future of the franchise, and not what you think will appease the fans and the media short-term.

Love picking up another high upside youngster, and Segura was getting expensive for his production. It's also nice to add a controllable MLB pitcher, but I hope they eat more of Hill's salary and flip him for anything as he really doesn't do anything for the team. I'm pretty excited about all the young talent the Brewers have amassed, and am looking forward to seeing the kids progress.

Throw in a that he's trying to accumulate young talent for future Brewer teams, and the scales start to tip more in favor of keeping the talented but unproven guys in their lower 20s while trading the proven older guys with less team control at a higher dollar value. The guys Stearns is picking up are talented but "fallen" former top prospects. Sure you can just throw that away in order to hold onto Braun and Davis, but in the first year of a rebuild it could be smart to see if they can regain their luster, while getting a lot more talent in the system by trading one of Davis/Braun.

Agree. There is no need for the Brewers to trade anyone unless they get value in return, and saving money is not the value they need at this point. Braun is still a good player, but I can understand other teams' trepidation. Let him continue to play, hopefully helping the young guys along and giving fans a name they know on the roster, all the while re-building other teams' faith that his thumb and back aren't as big a concern as they may seem. That said, there is a glut of OF, and if someone isn't traded we will probably need to cut some of the recent pickups. That wouldn't be the end of the world, but it seems that with all of the OF we're accumulating, Stearns must be leaning towards trading someone, and the most likely someone is Davis.

Get Gallo and Tate, put the better defender of Gallo/Cecchini at 3B and the other at 1B, and along with Arcia, most of the infield is set for the better part of the next decade. It's that easy :-)

The problem with adding Garza is that all it would do is limit/negate any return we'd get. The only reason for even addressing doing this trade is that we would be eating a lot of money in taking on Hill, so we would get a prospect in return for taking on that salary. If Garza is added, then you are just doing a "bad contract for bad contract" deal, in which case we would probably have to send a prospect to Arizona, as Garza is two years of bad contract.