brewerfan82

Good read! This does definitely seem a bit more reasonable and lines up closer with the past couple acquisitions.

The Brewers do not need anyone who is a modest offensive producer who'll top 150Ks with regular playing time. According to MrAllen, Villar is worth $36 million a year. Touché!

Three Year Stats: So if you value 1 WAR at $9M, basically you're getting a 2 WAR guy and a 1 WAR guy at half price. They should have a pretty decent chance at outproducing their cost.

Yeah, I'm leaning towards Hader doesn't get traded at this point. Only teams expecting to compete are going to be interested in acquiring him and they're not going to want to take away from the major league team to get him. Additionally his value is so hard to determine. On the one hand he's arguably the best, most dominant reliever in the game, and an incredible asset to any team that has him. But on the other hand, he's a reliever who's going to max out at 70 IP per year, has been overworked the past two years, is about to get pretty expensive (or at least not cheap) via arbitration, and could fall off a cliff just due to the volatile nature of relievers (the Mets in particular know this first hand after getting Diaz last year). It's going to be very difficult to get another team to value him as much as we think he should be valued, it's a real gamble. For reference, check out how close Hader's first three years have been compared to Diaz' first three seasons leading into the Met's acquisition of him: I think the Mets are still a good matchup on a Lowrie/Smith for a bag of balls (maybe Arcia?) type swap at this point. Move Lowrie into the starting 3B spot, Smith into the LH half of the 1B spot, and bump Sogard/Healy into the utility/lottery ticket/emergency depth roles they should be in.

Yeah, he's basically getting paid the $7.5M this year a lot of people were surprised we didn't keep Thames for. This is solid role player money, not expected All-Star, team leader money.

Both would be major upgrades to the roster, but I think I'd give the edge to Ryu as he'd be the clear ace to the staff and we're more likely to find another 3B via FA/trade near-ish Donaldson's production than we we are a SP near-ish Ryu's. I doubt McNeil's actually available in a trade, but if you could swing a smaller deal for Lowrie/Smith you'd be looking pretty good heading into the season: Rotation: Ryu/Woodruff/Anderson/Lauer/Lindblom Starting Lineup: Cain/Yelich/Hiura/Braun-Smith/Garcia-Braun/Lowrie/Narvaez-Pina/Urias-Arcia I'd feel really good with the starters and what that lineup lacks in star power and intimidation, would likely be made up for by depth and actual production. 2018-19 Stats:

I'm curious what your house, car, and bank account look like.

But then doesn't that say that maybe they were wrong on how they projected them?? That's what I mean, they have almost no margin for error if/when they are wrong on someone. He just said they missed on at least five guys last year and STILL made the playoffs. Not sure how that's proving they have "no margin for error if/when they are wrong on someone". The whole point of filling a roster with value signings is so that you have the depth to withstand missing on players and not being locked into crippling contracts for years.

It would be interesting to see if you narrowed the pool to just playoff teams how things look.

You assume he’ll still warrant a “haul” in two years. I’d guess he’ll still be good then, but maybe not. And he certainly will have less value given less years of control. But we’ve seen repeatedly the Brewers failing to sell high on their assets over the years - Aramis Ramirez, Casey McGehee, even Lucroy and Gomez as mentioned were traded after their value peaked. Not to mention if Hader continues pitching like this, he may be making close to $30M over his final two years of arbitration. His trade value could drop very quickly. Now that said, I could see the argument for holding onto him until the trade deadline at least. If he's pitching lights out the first half of the season again, that's when it seems like playoff contenders really go nutty for relievers and you might get something bonkers in return. Of course, if the Brewers are playing well, it would be tough to let him go at that point for the non-MLB ready players you're likely to get at that point as well.

Most of us aren't looking at these moves as "the big move" or "final move" of the offseason. A team is more than the staff ace, or the starting five, or the 26-man roster, or even the 40-man roster. Signing a TOR arm would be great, but it does no good if the rest of the roster is awful and if you fill the rest of the roster with expensive, "proven", veterans you likely won't have the financial flexibility to sign a big name player and/or the talent depth to trade for one. These moves are important in order for them to have the ability to make the move you're waiting for IF the right opportunity arises. That opportunity could come today, it could come in a month, it could come at the trade deadline. I'm sorry that Stearns hasn't pushed all his chips in on the first day of the offseason for you, but he's shown to be very successful in navigating the offseason by being patient. Yelich, Cain, Grandal, Moustakas were all acquired mid-January or later the past two years. To expect DS to jump the gun and overpay for players earlier at this point seems unrealistic. If he follows suit and finds similar deals next month, this roster is going to look really nice *because* of all the acquisitions he's made so far. Don't forget Chacin! All those guys flopped and they still made the playoffs because of the depth of the organization heading into the season and Stearns' ability to add to that depth as the season went on (Gio, Lyles). Not to mention because they took a chance on 3 young arms they found a potential #1 in Woodruff. And that was with extremely limited remaining budget heading into the season. *IF* they don't add an expensive pitcher before the season starts, he'll have that much more flexibility to pick up players in-season as needed or to make a strong playoff push in the second half. It's a long baseball season and there is time to absorb some bumps along the way.

#2? We must really be in rebuild mode if he is the second best pitcher we got. Lol Well he would have been last year, so doesn't seem like a huge stretch... at least according to fWAR. And btw, Lauer would have came in 2nd with a 2.3 WAR as well. I guess this also shows how little we've actually lost in terms of starters so far this offseason / how bad the rotation was last year yet still got them to the Wild Card game. So in comparison to last year, this rotation is shaping up to be "good enough" already. Obviously I wouldn't mind a Keuchel/Ryu to solidify things a bit and 1B/3B still need to be shored up, but there's a lot of time and money still available to get things done. I think we're in a very good, David Stearns-y spot to be in right now.

Another great low cost acquisition by Stearns. So far he's added SP Anderson, SP Lauer, SP Lindblom, C Narvaez, SS Urias, re-signed RP Claudio, while picking up some insurance/wildcard/depth pieces in IF Rodriguez, OF Broxton, RP Grimm, RP Yardley. These aren't the sexiest moves, but he's filling holes with capable players and has built up a ton of financial flexibility with a ton of offseason remaining. I'm excited to see if he has a couple of his annual post-Winter Meeting surprises still to come in the next month!

Completely agree. He's a great asset, but out of the ~12,500 PAs a team has each year (offensively plus defensively) he only impacts ~300 PAs per year. That's compared to ~750-850 PAs for starting pitchers and ~600-700 PAs for position players. Heck Ben Gamel got 356 PAs last year off the bench. Obviously the amount of playing time isn't the sole factor in determining a players' value, but it certainly does limit it and the requirements of a TOR arm, or an organizations' best prospect, etc., are very lofty for a guy that is going to get as much playing time as a 4th outfielder. It's like having the best kicker in the NFL and demanding a star RB for him, lol, and I'm not even sure I'm exaggerating with that comparison. Now with that said, with four years of control, you have every right to ask for the moon and just hold onto him longer when you don't get it. But if he continues to pitch like the best reliever in baseball, he's about to get expensive very fast through the arbitration process and with each year that his contract goes up and his years of control go down, his value is going to go down as well. Additionally, if he doesn't continue pitching like the best reliever in baseball or he gets hurt, his value is going to plummet. So I would be very careful of passing up fair offers for him that will help make this team significantly better overall just because you want to really pull one over on a team. Again, he's a great player and he should demand a very good return, but I feel like some of the demands being thrown around would seem pretty silly if you heard a fan from another team saying the same thing about one of their players.

I like Hader, he's a nice luxury, but if teams get into a bidding war and someone offers the moon, you take it. Fans and radio personalities really seem to think the market is higher than it likely should be for a relief pitcher. No matter how good he is, he's just not going to impact nearly as many atbats in a season as a starting pitcher or a position player will. So if you're talking about getting a TOR arm along with a couple bats in the lineup, I don't see how you don't take that. Then again, it sounds like the actual GMs may be valuing him more reasonably, so it remains to be seen if anyone actually offers to overpay for him.

I like it. It gives the Brewers options at 1B (Smith L/Braun R), 2B (Hiura R/Urias R/Lowrie S), SS (Urias R/Arcia R), and 3B (Lowrie S/Urias R) and it only adds ~$7.5M to the payroll so they still have a bunch of flexibility to add pitching and another nice bat pretty much anywhere on the field if the right opportunity comes up.

What did Greinke cost? Lorenzo Cain, Alcides Escobar, Jeremy Jeffress, and Jake Odorizzi. Odorizzi was flipped for Wade Davis, a member of their bullpen for the 2015 World Series. Cain and Escobar started for the Royals. Not even two years later, the Brewers dealt Greinke for Hellweg, Pena, and Segura. Segura was okay, and helped the Crew land Chase Anderson and Isan Diaz. The former did okay with the Crew. The latter helped bring Yelich. Then there's what CC Sabathia cost for three months. Trading for the TOR starter is arguably more expensive than signing one in free agency. It's a different form of paying out, but it also matters. What kind of teams TYPICALLY go deep in the playoffs and win the World series?? Teams with the best pitching staffs, right?? No one is arguing with you that it wouldn't be great to have a TOR starter. But your constant empty complaining about it isn't very productive. If you have some sort of realistic plan for them to obtain this player I'm sure everyone would be quite interested to hear it.

[sarcasm]Come on DS! Are you even trying?![/sarcasm]

Or they want to keep Taylor at AAA so he can play everyday and be ready in case of injury.

Yeah, it's not like we've missed out on any "deals" at this point. Hopefully Stearns will be rewarded for his patience again with some reasonably priced post-holiday deals.

One of the best relief pitchers in baseball is still a relief pitcher. Hader had half the WAR of McNeil last year and McNeil has an extra year of control. He's probably more valuable than Hader in his own right. Not to actual MLB GM’s... If they were both free agents, Hader would get a much bigger contract Seems like a market inefficiency to me and one that could possibly be exploited.

It's certainly possible the Brewers think Hader is going to regress significantly in short order. That's how it tends to go with relief pitchers. If Hader doesn't adjust his arsenal and add more offspeed, that is very very likely to happen. Too many guys have seen his fastball at this point, and are far more prepared to handle it than when he first came into the league. I'd also argue that trading Hader may be the best way *to* add pitching. If we have to spend $15-30M in free agency to shore up our corner infielders, that's money that can't be spent on the pitching front. However, if we can lock up 1B/3B with a Hader trade, that frees up money to go after a couple high-end, non-Cole/Strasburg-type starters along with some relief help to offset the Hader loss. I think Hader's a luxury a team that is already built to compete for a World Series can overpay for, but we have far too many holes to fill before we should worry about having a lockdown pitcher that's going to max out at 70 IP in a 1400+ inning season.

I'm in on a deal that brings back a talented, young, low cost, controllable 1B/3B combo. As we've seen so far, free agency isn't going to come cheap and no matter how much you like an "available" player, there's no guarantee he's going to sign with you over one of the other 29 teams that may be suiting him. We know DS likes his post New Years deals, so the more gaps in the roster he can fill on the cheap beforehand, the more flexibility (both in payroll and player position) he'll have in grabbing the best available deals later on. I'm also just generally on board with selling high on relievers for a couple reasons: 1.) You're paying a premium for how many plate appearances they affect throughout the year. Hader, with a huge workload, only affected about 300 PAs each of the past two seasons. Whereas any starting position player you get is going to affect about 600 PAs each year. 2.) Relief pitchers are notoriously volatile. Now Hader isn't a normal relief pitcher, but he's been pushed hard the past two years and I'm afraid of him falling off a cliff or getting injured. All that said, obviously you're not going to just give him away, but DS is in a unique situation where he has a player that virtually any contending team would love to have. If he does pull the trigger on a deal, I trust in his ability to take full advantage of that and maximize the value coming back.

[sarcasm]The Red Sox officially win the Shaw deal.[/sarcasm]