brewerfan82

I'm not optimistic that Hoskins will happen (just too many teams are interested, which makes the odds low), but I think it's the splashiest move that is reasonably capable of happening still too (outside of some sort of trade acquisition). $16M isn't unheard of with this team and ownership: Yelich extension averages close to $24M/yr over 9 years Braun extension averaged $21M/yr over 5 years Cain contract was signed for an average of $16M/yr over 5 years Grandal was 1 yr at $18.25M

I think all those assumptions are correct. I would also add that Cease is one year younger, is estimated to cost $6M less this year, has an additional year of control, and probably most importantly is on a team coming off a 101 loss season and isn't expected to compete this year vs. Burnes is on a team coming off a division title and while they might be retooling a bit, they definitely have more motivation to keep him than the Sox do Cease at this point. Not saying the Brewers should or shouldn't keep Burnes, there's just more of an argument to be made that they might actually want to keep him this year and see what happens. The White Sox have already traded away players and are coming off a horrible season, so they're a better bet to be willing to continue flipping their current talent for a better shot a few years down the road. All that said, expect a Burnes trade this afternoon.

I haven't followed his whole thing very closely, but if the courts, MLB, and the Brewers FO all feel he's cleared, I'd be interested in taking a chance on him and trust the Brewers have done their due diligence if they do decide to go that route (that might mean reaching out to current players to see how they'd feel, etc.). It's going to be a PR debacle regardless, but maybe it'll be less of an issue in Milwaukee than it would be elsewhere. All that said, totally understand anyone that wants to just steer clear of the guy regardless.

What exactly are you trying to accomplish with this post?

If the complaint is about Winker getting added to the playoff roster rather than Chourio, we're talking about 2 plate appearances... probably isn't a decision that needs to be over analyzed.

Interesting topic! Looking at Cot's we're currently projected for about a $105M payroll (https://legacy.baseballprospectus.com/compensation/cots/). That includes estimates of $16M for Burnes and $13M for Adames. The last 4 full season opening day payrolls were $119M, $132M, $99M, and $123M. So we theoretically could have about $40-50M in payroll space to take on if they do indeed trade Burnes and Adames. Looking at the possible acquisitions you listed, here are their projected '24 fWARs and estimated contracts from FG (https://www.fangraphs.com/roster-resource/free-agent-tracker) and MLBTR (https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2023/11/2023-24-top-50-free-agents-with-predictions.html): DH Martinez - 0.5 fWAR proj / 1 yr, $12M on FG / 2 yrs, $40M on MLBTR Turner - 0.7 fWAR / 1 yr, $12M / 1 yr, $16M Soler - 1.9 fWAR / 3 yrs, $48M / 3 yrs, $45M Brantley - 1.3 fWAR / 1 yr, $9M / -- Jimenez - 2.2 fWAR / $13M in '24, $16.5M club option in '25 and $18.5M club option in '26 1B Hoskins - 2.0 fWAR / 1 yr, $14M / 2 yrs, $36M Belt - 0.5 fWAR / 1 yr, $9.5M / 1 yr, $15M Santana - 0.8 fWAR / 1 yr, $7M / -- Cron - 0.3 fWAR / 1 yr, $5M / -- Cooper - 0.3 fWAR / -- / -- IF (Note: Adames is projected for 3.1 fWAR) Chapman - 2.6 fWAR / 4 yrs, $80M / 6 yrs, $150M Merrifield - 0.7 fWAR / 2 yrs, $16M / 2 yrs, $18M Tim Anderson - 1.6 fWAR / 1 yr, $8M / 1 yr, $12M Urshela - 1.1 fWAR / -- / 2 yrs, $20M Rosario - 2.3 fWAR / 2 yrs, $18M / 2 yrs, $18M SP (Note: Burnes is projected for 3.8 fWAR) Clevinger - 1.4 fWAR / 2 yrs, $24M / 2 yrs, $26M Paxton - 2.3 fWAR / 1 yr, $8M / -- Ryu - 1.8 fWAR / 1 yr, $10M / -- Stroman - 2.6 fWAR / 3 yrs, $66M / 2 yrs, $44M Velasquez - 0.2 fWAR / -- / -- Manaea - 2.0 fWAR / 2 yrs, $24M / 2 yrs, $22M Lorenzen - 1.2 fWAR / 2 yrs, $20M / 2 yrs, $22M So theoretically.... they could pick up something like Jimenez ($13M), Hoskins (~$16M), Rosario (~$9M), and take a chance on someone like Paxton or Ryu (~$9M) and fit in that range, plus whatever they get for Burnes and Adames. Probably more impact players to be found in the trade market and I'm not too thrilled about any of the pitching options in FA, but fun to think about anyways!

Meh, I think it's fun! Since we can't hand out these kinds of contracts, let one team take all the stars. There's still an 80% chance they don't win it all. Take care of business at home and don't worry about whichever team "wins" the offseason each year. It'll be interesting to see how this plays out.

On the surface I don't like losing the depth on the team and the return feels light for a couple useful players. That said, I don't think either player had a ton of value, their production is replaceable with players in the organization already (and there's a decent possibility acquisitions are still to come that will outproduce each player), the organization knows more about Crow than I do and may value him more than a lottery ticket, and I don't know what discussions are going on that may have required them to free up some money and 40-man roster spots sooner than later. I'm more concerned about losing the pitching depth with Houser than losing TT with all the young outfielders we have, but we'll see how the rest of the offseason goes. Plenty of time to recoup that depth. In the end, this feels like at worst a "meh" move that frees up some cash and a couple 40-man roster spots and likely doesn't end up significantly altering this season in any meaningful way.

I don't know, seems kind of wimpy to give that to someone so young. A real man would tack on another $70M and give a contract like that to someone on the wrong side of 30.

If you sort this offseason's FA's by projected WAR (https://www.fangraphs.com/roster-resource/free-agent-tracker), 16 of the top 50 FA's have signed. One team has signed three of those players (STL), three teams have signed two of them (MIL, DET, KC), seven teams have signed one of them (LAD, PHI, SFG, ARI, NYM, HOU, CIN), and 19 teams haven't signed any of the top 50 FA's. The Brewers have spent up to $28M on two top 50 FA's, plus another $1.75M on Ross, and gave one of the top prospects in baseball an $82M contract extension. Relatively speaking the Brewers have been more active than the vast majority of the league while also having a better team to start the offseason than the majority of the league as well. The only teams that have signed as many or more top 50 FA's at this point (STL, KC, and DET) have significantly worse holes in their rosters than the Brewers. All that said, it is way too early in the offseason to start critiquing how any team has done yet. 34 of the top 50 FA's haven't even signed and the trade market has just barely gotten underway.

Let me start off by saying, I am by no means a financial, business, or math wizard, lol, so I'm sure I've over simplified this and/or gotten stuff wrong here and am not using proper terms, etc... And note, I pulled a 4.37% interest rate to make this work. I don't know if that's a realistic rate to expect, but I've seen others use 5% or 6%, so I would think it's on the safe side. But I wanted to see if I could work through this $460M over 10 yrs vs. $700M w/ deferrals business to verify/better understand how those two figures could be equal. Here's how I see it... Let's say the Dodgers were willing to go $460M for 10 years, no deferrals. That means they were able/willing to budget paying him $46M each year for 10 years. In this hypothetical situation, that means they spend all of the money budgeted on him each year, leaving no extra money to invest towards the future: Now instead of paying him $46M each year for the first 10 years, they pay him $2M instead and invest the remaining budgeted $44M each year: And this doesn't even take into the whole inflation aspect of paying $68M in 11-20 years being less valuable than paying that much today. Anywho... anyone smarter than me... am I kind of sort of understanding this correctly? 😀

I guess you're set on not believing that this is really a $460M deal that's only $700M on paper because of the deferrals? Otherwise your calculations would have come to almost exactly $9M/WAR for his contract.

Boom, send'em over!

If you put any credence into the BTV site, they're not very close in value: A lot of that is due to Glasnow getting $25M this year compared to Burnes getting ~$15M and Adames being worth about $15M more than Margot as a player.

Doesn't it make sense to calculate the competitive balance tax based on present day value though? If they started negotiations with a 10 yr, $460M offer and it only went up to $700M in order to spread the payment out later, while keeping the same overall value, it makes sense that it should still only be a $46M/yr hit to them.

I'll take the opposite view on this one, I love Ohtani. It's awesome to see him get this deal and it's felt like the Dodgers were destined to be his home for a few years now. And I am happy he'll be in a market and on a team that will showcase him for the entire sport. We never had a chance with him, so I'm happy to let the Dodgers throw unprecedented amounts of cash at him in order to get him. It's been shown time and time again that the teams with the highest payrolls and the teams that win the offseason don't automatically win the World Series. The Dodgers have one championship in the last 36 years and it was in a pandemic shortened season. The Yankees have one championship in the last 24 years. The Padres, Mets, and Phillies have spent "stupid money" acquiring players and have 1 combined championship in the past 37 years. Heck Ohtani was already paired with "the other" best player in MLB for 6 years and they had no playoff appearances to show for it. I'm not opposed to a more level playing field, but the payroll discrepancy in baseball is also one of its "charms" and part of the reason its been so enjoyable watching the Brewers become a consistent playoff team despite that disadvantage. There are ways to build a successful team that doesn't include signing the most expensive free agent each year. Now let's watch Chourio put up bigger numbers for a fraction of the cost the next 10 years and enjoy laughing every minute of it! 🥳🤞

this is the worst thread ever

Not sure that's true though... Luis Robert's deal (https://www.spotrac.com/mlb/chicago-white-sox/luis-robert-22648/) ends with two club options of only $20M each, but those are his first two FA years (which Brewers are getting for $16M and $17M in the Chourio deal, and then the Brewers have the option of extending that to what would have been his 3rd and 4th FA years at $25M each) Corbin Carroll's deal (https://www.spotrac.com/mlb/arizona-diamondbacks/corbin-carroll-30414/) is $28M for each of what would be his first two FA year with an option for another $28M in what would be his 3rd FA year. Wander Franco's deal (https://www.spotrac.com/mlb/tampa-bay-rays/wander-franco-23844/) is $25M per year starting at what would have been his 1st FA year Ronal Acuna's deal (https://www.spotrac.com/mlb/atlanta-braves/ronald-acuna-jr-25027/) is the closest to what Chourio's getting with $17M in each of what would be his first two FA years. This is the only case of these four where the club options are a bit nicer at $17M per year. Another way to visualize this: 1st FA Year: Chourio ($16M), Robert ($20M Club Option), Carroll ($28M), Franco ($25M), Acuna ($17M) 2nd FA Year: Chourio ($17M), Robert ($20M Club Option), Carroll ($28M), Franco ($25M), Acuna ($17M) 3rd FA Year: Chourio ($25M Club Option), Robert (FA), Carroll ($28M Club Option), Franco ($25M), Acuna ($17M Club Option) 4rd FA Year: Chourio ($25M Club Option), Robert (FA), Carroll (FA), Franco ($25M), Acuna ($17M Club Option) So for the most part, the Chourio deal is a bit friendlier than those other deals, and possibly quite a bit friendlier depending on what a $25M contract looks like in 8 years.

I definitely prefer Hoskins (proj. 116 wRC+ vs. proj. 103 wRC+), but he's going to be more expensive (~$14-18M per vs. ~$7M per for Santana looking at FanGraphs and MLBTR predictions) and have more teams going after him and we don't know if we'd be a preferred destination for him. That said, I'd be very happy with a Santana return as plan B. While adding a more dynamic bat would be great, I'm also a fan of limiting holes in the lineup with above average bats whenever you can as well. Last season we only had five players (one of which was Santana) with at least 50 PAs that ended the year with a wRC+ over 100: I think this team is probably going to lean on the young'uns developing into the more dynamic bats we need to add (and hopefully an Adames bounce back if he's still here), but re-adding a solid, veteran, switch hitting bat in Santana as well to round out the roster wouldn't be the worst thing in the world. All that said, would love to be surprised and get Hoskins or another big bat in a trade!

Taken from https://apnews.com/article/chourio-brewers-contract-dc78fbd32462a4ae7256454988ee7f5c:

I agree that they shouldn't rush him if he's clearly not ready. That said, the contract certainly removes service time manipulation as a reason to keep him down, while at the same time increasing the temptation to start him immediately to try to earn the rookie of the year related compensation since he's almost certainly coming up at some point this year now anyways and bringing him up later doesn't add any extra control at this point. How much incentive that is/should be for starting him right away is debatable, but the contract certainly adds reason to move him onto the major league roster sooner than if the contract wasn't given to him.

Could also be working something out with escalators. Something starting around $8M but could go up to $12-14M based on games started or innings pitched might be beneficial to both parties. Miley potentially gets more than the $10M he turned down, while the Brewers get a little insurance on an aging pitcher who has had years of only 16, 4, and 8 starts in the past 6 seasons.

I'd be very happy to have him back, but I'd be very hesitant to go North of $10M on him. FanGraph's Crowd Sourcing has him getting 1 yr / $8M (https://www.fangraphs.com/roster-resource/free-agent-tracker?&pos=sp), which I would hope would be much closer to what we offer him.

If you'd like a better idea of how this contract probably actually looks, take a look at Luis Robert's contract: https://www.spotrac.com/mlb/chicago-white-sox/luis-robert-22648/ This contract is not going to prohibit them from making any 2 or 3 year deals they could have made otherwise.

Ahhh... that would make a lot more sense on that front. But yeah, the Chourio contract still likely doesn't really affect the payroll or any other potential signings this season.