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Who would the Brewers cut to take on Meadows? They already have 5 OFs. Cain is likely to play only 100 or so games so Taylor is the only other CF they have. They just signed McCutchon to an $8.5M contract. Stearns said they are probably looking at Yelich as a part-time DH with Cutch playing LF and reversed on other days.

Just say no to Hosmer. He's owed $60M. That alone is enough to forget about Hosmer. Plus he doesn't offer anything more than what the Brewers already have.

I think he'll play LF when Yelich DHs

By the looks of some of the trades I think it's already started.

To get Conforto it's going to cost at least double your maybe price. His agent is borass and he turned down an $18.5M qualifying offer already. Conforto will be out of Stearns' price range by quite a bit. I don't know if the Brewers would be interested in a DH only guy like Cruz. I think they may want Yelich to be a part-time DH to help with his back issues and hope that may help to get him back somewhat to where he was a couple of years ago.

For the limited throws to 1B you could give a pitcher 5 throw overs per PA and if they want to throw over again it removes a strike from the batter and if the count is already 0 strikes then the count adds a ball. This would bring in some more strategic situations where the pitcher has to determine if they want to try the pickoff or go after the batter. Would make for some interesting situations. Rules for 2023 I like a larger 1B for sure. Infielders have to have both feet on dirt I would also strongly support Pitch clock is a must as long as a batter in the box rule is tied to it. I would want to see the penalties though before passing final judgement. I would never be a fan of limited pickoff moves. There are already a lot of bad things that happen during a pickoff so I think that's penalty enough. Too many nightmarish situations come with limiting pickoffs.

If they can get him cheap, Rosario. He can play LF when Yelich DHs and he's a lefty hitter.

MLB radio just reported the players completly rejected the international draft and draft compensation.

A very simple rule could be made regarding the shift. Defense must have at least 2 infieldes left of 2B and at least 2 infielders right of 2B until the pitch is delievered. All players must have both feet on the dirt portion of the infield until the pitch is made. Teams could still use a "shift" by moving an outfielder into the rover position or into the infield.

The owners could probably get the players to agree not to strike and re-negotiate next offseason if they agreed to make real concessions next offseason. The problem is that MLB ownership is wildly fragmented right now and after soundly beating the players two CBAs in a row, they now expect the players to lay down and accept whatever they offer. MLB ownership is in a bad place. They're incredibly insular and try their best to keep the Steve Cohens and Mark Cubans out of the sport because they don't like *legitimate competition* that spends money. They also have little interest in fixing the economic inequities in the sport that perpetuate their internal fragmentation. Hell, they barely made any concessions with their final offer before the deadline and four owners still voted against that meager offer. All it takes is seven owners to torpedo any offer or change to baseball. They were over halfway to that breaking point with an offer that wasn't even trying. The owners are a huge problem right now and I have absolutely no idea how baseball is going to fix it. It's not like they're going to fire themselves and Manfred sure isn't capable of leading them anywhere. How do you think the owners could get the players to agree not to strike? The owners aren't stupid enough to believe that if they started the season w/o an agreement, the players wouldn't disrupt the season somewhere down the road. The players went into these negotiations knowing their demands were going to cause the owners to institute a lock-out so the players couldn't re-enact 1994. Why kick the can down the road until next year when the exact same thing happens. Neither side has made any meaningful concessions to date. The players union has no interest in fixing the economic inequities in baseball. Almost the exact opposite. The only "legitiment competition" they want is for owners competing to spend more money on them. Everything they have proposed will make it even harder for the small market teams to compete. Remember the union refused a federal mediator who could offer a different perspective to the negotiations. Both sides are losers the way things stand today.

Why would a small market owner want to pay more just to reduce their chances of winning? Raising the minimum salary almost 50% and the huge raise in the cba just further widens the monstrous gap between the big markets and the small markets ability to aquire talent. Making the playoffs almost becomes meaningless because now the super spenders have an even bigger advantage.

In those 3 years for the avg. career, the player makes a minimum of $1.71 million dollars. When this is finally settled, it will be over $2 million dollars for those 3 years. It takes an average worker in the US about half their working lifetime to make that much. Nobody is forced into a career in baseball. Ask an intern in the medical field what they make. They work ungodly long hours and the pay is crap compared to the work. Yet they keep going for the reward when they complete the internship. Many don't make it, and move on to a different field. The exact same thing is true in baseball. They work for peanuts for the reward of getting to the big leagues. I guess a good way of saying it is: the wealthy fighting the very, very wealthy. In the mean time, the people that suffer the most are you and I, the FANS.

I agree that no one goes worst to first in baseball. But what NFL team has gone worst to first? There have been NFL teams that went from worst in their division to first, but I don't think any team has ever gone worst to winning the S.B.

The reason baseball needs monetary parity is that the sport depends on competition to survive. I am a firm believer in a hard cap (probably won't happen in my lifetime) and a minimum floor. To make the game as fair as possible for each team, revenue has to be balanced, whereby each team is financially capable of reaching the cap and each team must reach the minimum floor. No two teams will ever be equal because of coaching, player development, front office, playing conditions, etc... In baseball, unlike basketball and football, draft picks don't come in and make an immediate impact. It takes years to develop talent. Small market teams see a never ending turnstile with players because as their talent gets better, they get more pricey. They can't afford to keep the bulk their better, more expensive players. Remove that obstacle and the game gets better, more interesting, and small market teams will see the playoffs far more frequently which brings more fans to the game.

Maybe they would have, maybe they wouldn't have. The difference would be that while the two sides were negotiating there still would have been baseball happening. I'm not saying the players are "good guys" & owners are "villains", just that when you compare both sides actions & proposals against one another the owners are far more villainous. Right now the players are essentially Gard & the owners are more or less Juwan Howard. I couldn't disagree more. To say the owners are far more villainous is just completely incorrect. When you compare the proposals it becomes extremely apparent that the players are just as much at fault as the owners. The players knew going in that their demands were so contentious they would force the owners to lock them out. If the owners let the season open, it would give the players exactly what they wanted from the start. The leverage to re-enact 1994 when they had the max leverage where it would hurt the game and the owners the most. The owners after witnessing the last strike, aren't going to let that happen. The owners are in a divided camp where negotiations are difficult. In the current scenario, both sides are Juwan Howard, slapping himself.

I would be all for it IF there was a cap like the NFL or even a loose cap like the NBA. Otherwise all it does is hurt the small market teams even more than now.

Exactly the Yankees, Dodgers, Red Sox and other teams could have spent whatever they wanted this off season if the lockout wouldn't have happened. The gap between the small market teams payroll and the large market teams would have grown. The large market teams basically would have also received a free reset on the tax for this season and if the large market teams wouldn't have spent the union would have been calling it collusion. The only proposal that I have liked from the owners was the $100m salary floor. But the owners never released or mentioned what would happen if a team goes below that floor so that was an auto reject from the players. If the two sides could come together and combine a tax around $220m and a floor around $100m I think that would be a perfect solution it basically creates a salary cap but allows teams to go over it. If a team is below the $100m salary floor they lose their 1st round pick and it is included in the lottery. If a team is a large market team and they are below the $100m salary floor by the end of the season they forfeit their 1st round pick and pay a tax of 40% which will escalate to 120% of the minimum salary which is then split 50-50 between the small market teams and a pool for the players who are pre-arbitration eligible. This solves the pre-arbitration issue and pays those players more potentially and also solves the tanking issue. Small market teams forfeit their 2nd round pick for the first and second year they are under the salary floor and after the second year they forfeit their 1st round pick and competitive balance picks. This will push teams to actually compete and not just give up half way through the season. This would obviously mean that the playoffs would have to expand and I think a total of 14 teams would be fine maybe reduce down to 12 but I think 14 would be ok. Why would any small market owner agree to such a horrendous penalty w/o the same thing happening to the big spenders who go over the tax? MLB is ready to remove any penalty for the mega spenders signing FAs and your penalty hurts the small market teams even more. If there is a floor w/penalty, then there should be a lower ceiling tax and an equal penalty for teams that exceed the ceiling. IMO the 162 game season loses most of it's meaning if 14 teams make the playoffs. Teams could actually under spend just to make the playoffs and go from there. They'd be playing the W.S. on November.

Other than pitching, I don't see any "buy low" free agents worth adding. I think Soler is the best of the bunch and as many have pointed out on this forum, there are serious doubts about him. Pham is going to be 34, is a poor fielder, and never played anything but OF/DH. Last year he made almost $9M and hit .229/.340 -- 15 HRs/49 RBIs. The Crew has internal options that can put up numbers equal or better than that. Very slim pickings this year.

I think the Bryant contract is close to what he will get. I think the Schwarber contract is a year or two to long. I think he gets a 4-year deal max. Something like 4/70. I don't think Stearns would spend $17.5M or more on Schwarber. That would put Schwarber/Yelich at about 1/3 of the estimated total payroll.

A good start, but there are a few problems with the trades. I think every Brewer fan would love to have Olson, but the A's will get a lot more than Duran-Mitchell-Small for him. Quite a bit more. Groome and Duran isn't nearly enough for Hader. For the Brewers pen; I don't believe either lefty are high upside guys. Groome has been in the minors for 5 years and still in AA. He isn't that good. Puk is awful. This trade would decimate the Brewers bullpen. They'd go from pretty decent to one of the worst in baseball. The Stearns would want a much better return for Houser too. Woods-Richardson (5.91 ERA-1.54 WHIP-almost a hit per inning-5.7 BBs/9) looked bad at AA and his star is fading. Rortvedt projects to be a backup catcher at best. The Brewers are loaded with his type already. Gant (4.78 FIP-1.51 WHIP-5.8 BBs/9) is an AAAA guy or a far back end of the pen guy. A very weak return for a decent SP.

Unless something changed, I don't think the rules allow a player to be listed at two positions to start the game. Since DH is a position, Ohtani would have to be either the pitcher or the DH, not both. If he goes out as the pitcher the new pitcher would have to be substituted for the DH, thus losing the DH for that game if they wanted Ohtani to continue to bat.

What if a team screws up the lineup again or moves their DH to a position (i.e. if backup catcher was DH that day and starter goes down in first inning)? Pretty reasonable chance one of those two things happens within the next ten years. I believe the rule is; if the DH moves to a defensive position, the pitcher is inserted into the lineup in the spot of the injured player and then the pitcher has to hit (since the DH can only be used for the pitcher). There is no more DH for that team for the game.

I think a better way of saying it is: "adding the universal DH creates more demand for players (usually older guys) who can hit but are terrible with the glove, to be paid bigger salaries". It hurts the utility type guys making league minimum, but helps aging veterans who aren't good anymore (or never were good) with the glove. For the union it's all about money, not more opportunity.

I would really be on board with getting Bell. He's is a switch hitter that doesn't strikeout much and only making about $8M. He is a FA after this year so that alone should keep his price down. Bell could be the big bat the Brewers desperately need if they can aquire him at the right price. However there probably are quite a few teams besides the Brewers looking at him.

I agree with you about Miranda. He has hit everywhere and looks to be a future star. He's been so good though, he might be untouchable to the Twins. Sabato on the other hand, I would say no thanks until he learns to make contact. He's an all or nothing swinger with power. However he hit a paltry .202 and whiffed an incredible 150 times in A ball.