brewerfan82

I'd put the "we ain't gonna be able to pay for that guy" threshold closer to the top 5-10 free agents, depending on the year. - Two years ago Wong was the 13th highest paid player by total contract and 22nd by AAV - The same year, JBJ was 15th in total contract and 13th by AAV - In 2019/20, Avasail Garcia was 18th in total contract and 20th in AAV - In 2018/19, Grandal was 5th by AAV - In 2017/18, Cain was 5th in total contract and 8th in AAV. I agree that the top guys are out of reach for the Brewers, but the prices do drop pretty quickly into the realm of possibility after the first few guys each year.

Just a slight side tangent... I feel like a lot of people are misinterpreting the team's direction (or "lack of direction") based on their moves starting with the Hader trade. I don't think they're in sell mode or sending "mixed" messages. Practically every move can be explained by the need to "more efficiently reallocate payroll while still remaining competitive": Hader's estimated to make $12M+ this year and we had Williams ready to slide into his closer spot Renfroe's $11M was replaceable with Mitchell/Frelick/Wiemer at or on the cusp of reaching the big leagues Wong's $10M was better allocated in a big DH bat in Winker as we have Urias/Turang/etc. able to step in at 2B for less and I don't think they'd find a bat in FA with Winker's potential at his cost Holding onto Burnes and Woodruff are necessary to maintain arguably the league's best starting rotation as we wouldn't be able to replace their production if they were traded now (and there's no way we'd be able to replace their talent on the free agent market) Not making Adames available in a trade is a little more suspect, as you could move Turang into SS, but I think they may feel that's spreading the middle infield a little too thin at this point to do. It'll be interesting to see how the rest of the offseason goes, but I don't think they've really done anything to indicate they're drastically cutting payroll, they're just being more efficient with the resources they have available to them. It'd be nice to be able to hold onto "established/projectable" players, but replacing them with younger/more affordable talent when they can and reallocating those funds to other team needs is probably their best chance at sustained, long term success.

Well, cross off the Mancini part as that's basically covered by the Winker acquisition. Turner at 3rd is dreaming a little and I think there's a better possibility of trading for a catcher than signing one, but I think we still see some players added. This team is still in a very good position to be very competitive next season, so I think we'll see at least a couple new significant faces added to the team before the end of the offseason still. Looking forward to seeing what else the Crew pulls off this offseason!

We fleeced them! We got 18 times Wong's value in return!

I'm no good at coming up with free agent dollars or trade scenarios, so I just went on a spending spree to fill in some holes on offense using numbers from FanGraph's free agent tracker (https://www.fangraphs.com/roster-resource/free-agent-tracker): Sign Justin Turner 1yr/$12M Sign Trey Mancini 2yrs/$16M Sign Christian Vazquez for 2yrs/$16M Trade Wong for prospects Trade Hiura for prospects I've given Arnold a few million dollars in wiggle room to figure out a way to solidify the bullpen from here ;) Otherwise, I like the mix of veterans and young guys on the team and the flexibility in lineups and matchups it provides. I think it gives them one more chance to win with this pitching staff before they have to start blowing things up. C: Christian Vazquez ($8.00M) 1B: Rowdy Tellez ($5.30M) 2B: Luis Urias ($4.30M) 3B: Justin Turner ($12.00M) SS: Willy Adames ($9.20M) LF: Christian Yelich ($22.00M) CF: Sal Frelick ($0.70M) DH: Trey Mancini ($8.00M) Bench OF: Tyrone Taylor ($0.70M) Utility: Brice Turang ($0.70M) Utility: Mike Brosseau ($1.40M) Backup C: Victor Caratini ($2.80M) RF: Garrett Mitchell ($0.70M) SP1: Corbin Burnes ($11.40M) SP2: Brandon Woodruff ($11.00M) SP3: Freddy Peralta ($3.73M) SP4: Eric Lauer ($5.20M) SP5: Aaron Ashby ($1.20M) CL: Devin Williams ($3.20M) RP: Matt Bush ($1.85M) RP: Jake Cousins ($0.70M) RP: Ethan Small ($0.70M) RP: Hoby Milner ($1.10M) RP: Adrian Houser ($3.60M) RP: Peter Strzelecki ($0.70M) RP: Javier Guerra ($0.70M) Payroll is 7.02% under budget

My custom feed and the search page (https://brewerfanatic.com/search/) have both been showing the following the past few days for me: Anyone else having this issue?

If he was still on the Angels I'd definitely be rooting for him to get to 700. It's just cool seeing history and I've never had a huge issue with the guy. Being on the Cardinals while we're trying to chase them down makes it a little more difficult, but I'd still like to see him at least pass A-Rod on the list.

Great to see all these logical reasons to remain optimistic, however, I need only one reason for optimism...

Great to see all these logical reasons to remain optimistic, however, I need only one reason for optimism...

1. Fairly closely. I follow box scores, throw on televised games and follow team transactions and rumors (especially since the Brewers have made a bit of a pattern out of snagging some decent pieces late in the offseason recently) 2. Mainly this site, mlb.com, mlbtraderumors.com 3. I think there's enough info to fill my giddiness for the return of baseball, but I'd always welcome new and fun ways to track the team!

He also has one of the highest batting averages on the team if your preference is to ignore walks and quality of hits.

??? https://www.espn.com/mlb/recap?gameId=401355992

All of that happened with Hader

I'm visiting a friend in St. Louis this weekend, I wasn't going to make her go to all three games but I'll be there on Sunday as we go two and half games over the Cards!!

That's a valid point, you'd probably need to stick Renfroe or a catcher at first to pull it off with the current roster. But I would probably just pick different days to give them days off. That said, giving him occasional starts against lefties is fine, it's just that it seems like he's put in there every time there's a lefty on the mound that's mind boggling. He's had 67 PAs against lefties and 84 against righties this year and that's not the optimal ratio you'd like him seeing.

It really is perplexing. It has to be 100% motivated by wanting to give Tellez days off against lefties and not a need to get Hiura in against lefties, but it really makes no sense... It'd be better to let Wong stay in at 2B and Urias at 3B, and put Brosseau at 1st if you really want to give Tellez a day off. 2020-22 vs LHP:

I like Keston and am hopeful for him still, but the career stats vs. lefties ain't pretty ? His 2020 wRC+ of 80 against lefties is his best season mark.

This is a flawed statement. That's only true if strikeouts only replace other outs. You could argue there is still a correlation between higher BABIP and higher K% if both are being caused by factors like the batter swinging harder and/or being more selective on pitches, but it wouldn't be because you're solely decreasing the denominator in the BABIP calculation.

I believe it was a double steal, so it would have gotten two guys into scoring position instead of one. Still questionable to do it, but there was an advantage to be gained.

Does it not matter that his initial leg lost contact with the base due to the fielder sliding into him and pushing it off the bag?

I disagree.

Can we add an enjoy/not enjoy filter so people can choose the experience they'd like to share with others during this stretch of multi-year Brewer playoff appearances?

I think they took the responsible route. The roster is full of guys hovering around or above 100 wRC+. Only Davis (88), Taylor (92), Severino (92), and Narvaez (94) are below 100. That doesn't leave any glaring holes to improve on cheaply. The payroll is likely on the verge of being maxed out and management probably didn't want to mortgage the future for an "upgrade" anywhere that any of our current guys could outproduce over a short period of time in the playoffs anyways. We've been hovering around the 5% mark for WS Victory odds, 5th highest in the NL, and are close to a shoe-in for the playoffs. Let's say they went all in at the trade deadline and traded for Soto, Reynolds and Bell, What would that increase their WS Victory odds to? 10%? The Dodgers have the highest odds at 15.7%. So even if you trade away the farm, you probably will still not win the WS somewhere between 5 out of 6 to 9 out of 10 times. The biggest factor in winning the World Series is getting into the playoffs, not necessarily being the best team, and having affordable, controllable talent come through the minors is the only way we can sustain this run of playoff appearances we've been on. We may not be the best team in contention and we may go into the playoffs as an underdog, but we are a good team and we're in a solid position to make the playoffs for the 5th year in a row. So let's ride this roster as far as it can go and see where it takes us! ?