brewerfan82

Yah, I think that is how it works...what exactly are you trying to say? Haha, pretty sure he said that all in jest and is agreeing with you. It made me chuckle at least

Definitely. We've got time to develop more outfielders now and if they don't pan out, we do have free agency and trades as options to fill holes as well.

No they didn't. Are you insinuating that the Marlins just took the Brewers' offer without checking in on what the rest of the league might offer first?

The problem with the leverage argument is that it goes completely out the window once there's competition between two or more teams. If two teams feel his true value is X, but team A pays less knowing we have to move him, it's not like team B is going to say, "well if they didn't *have* to trade him we'd pay closer to X for him, but since they have no leverage we're going to let him go for less to another team."

Would love to, but they happen to be one of like 5 teams that ZiPS hasn't been released for yet.

We have depth in the rotation, but we definitely need better arms at the top of the rotation. I posted this in another thread, but here's what the ZiPS projections look like for our pitchers vs. the ones we're talking about: [pre]Player ERA FIP K/9 BB/9 ERA+ Nelson 3.74 3.79 9.1 3.1 115 Davies 4.05 4.06 6.8 2.6 108 Woodruff 4.17 4.17 8.2 3.2 103 Anderson 4.32 4.48 7.9 2.9 100 Suter 4.41 4.41 7.2 2.6 98 Chacin 4.77 4.68 7.5 3.8 90 Player ERA FIP K/9 BB/9 ERA+ Archer 3.27 3.10 10.6 2.7 125 Stroman 3.54 3.47 7.8 2.5 121 Salazar 3.60 3.48 11.2 3.5 117 Duffy 3.78 3.86 8.2 2.5 112 Player ERA FIP K/9 BB/9 ERA+ Darvish 3.24 3.22 11.0 2.7 127 Arrieta 3.53 4.16 8.7 2.9 123 ('17 numbers, '18 ZiPS not available yet) Cobb 3.77 4.00 6.7 2.3 108 Lynn 3.82 4.25 7.7 3.7 106[/pre] If we can grab two of those arms to put at the top of the rotation it'd be a huge upgrade, especially for a potential postseason run. That may be getting ahead of ourselves a bit, but that's the point of all this right? If the prospects are pushing their way onto the roster, that's great and we have a depth of quality arms to deal to replenish the farm or other areas (just as we've created with the outfield). But right now we don't have a 1-2-3 punch that I would feel good going into the playoffs with. I would be surprised if we actually landed two more pitchers, but I can definitely see where some see the need is coming from.

For reference here are the ZiPS projects for our current starters, some of the trade targets that have been mentioned, and the big four FAs being talked about: [pre]Player ERA FIP K/9 BB/9 ERA+ Nelson 3.74 3.79 9.1 3.1 115 Davies 4.05 4.06 6.8 2.6 108 Woodruff 4.17 4.17 8.2 3.2 103 Anderson 4.32 4.48 7.9 2.9 100 Suter 4.41 4.41 7.2 2.6 98 Chacin 4.77 4.68 7.5 3.8 90 Player ERA FIP K/9 BB/9 ERA+ Archer 3.27 3.10 10.6 2.7 125 Stroman 3.54 3.47 7.8 2.5 121 Salazar 3.60 3.48 11.2 3.5 117 Duffy 3.78 3.86 8.2 2.5 112 Player ERA FIP K/9 BB/9 ERA+ Darvish 3.24 3.22 11.0 2.7 127 Arrieta 3.53 4.16 8.7 2.9 123 ('17 numbers, '18 ZiPS not available yet) Cobb 3.77 4.00 6.7 2.3 108 Lynn 3.82 4.25 7.7 3.7 106[/pre] Pretty much any of those guys would bolster the top half of the rotation, but getting at least one of Darvish, Arrieta, Archer, or Stroman would be huge. Adding a 2nd guy from the rest of the group would be icing. Also, cross your fingers that Anderson's season last year was a turning point and not a fluke.

Part of me wonders if Stearns actually views the *larger* advantage in continuously obtaining young, controllable talent is *to* trade them for established pieces rather than to see who actually pans out hoping one becomes a superstar. Maybe in his calculations it takes 4 big time prospects to have 1 actually be the superstar you need, and while the others could be serviceable pieces, those positions can be filled in FA easily. Not to mention, you're using up major league roster spots in the meantime to allow players to develop and figure out who can make an impact at this level. So if you can trade 3 big prospects for a known star, you use up 1 fewer prospect finding a player and you remove some of the risk involved in both possibly not find that player at all and in wasting multiple roster spots on developing players who may ultimately bust. I don't know if any of that is true or not, but it'd be really interesting to hear DS's theories in this regard.

Losing Harrison is rough, but it's pretty amazing to still have Woodruff/Burnes/Ortiz all escape the trade.

I just don't think that is a World Series type of rotation, or possibly not even a "make it to the wildcard type of rotation." Without a true TOR type guy, our chances are slim with that exact rotation in place. But now insert Yelich in to the Brewers lineup. I mean, the post-season results from Kershaw and in this year's WS by Darvish show the Aces can be beaten with offenses. Something there is a lot of promise on this Milw team. You're keeping Hader in the bullpen with Kneble. You can't expect much better a duo looking forward or around on Playoff expected teams. Give me that lockdown for 5 more years vs. Trading away top 10 prospects to acquire 1 at the deadline. That rotation is a lot better than what we have rolled with in the Division winning season and the Wild Card season to start the season. It's always possible a big pitcher becomes available via trade mid-season too to round out the rotation if it's looking like we're that one piece away.

We don't know he didn't. Could be a couple things holding it up. Perhaps the other team had a few pieces to pick from in addition to Santana and they had to wait to see who was left after the Yelich trade. Maybe he simply has been busy finalizing these deals and hasn't had time to make the next move. It's only been like 2 hours since this went down, lol. Will be interesting to see how the rest of the night and the next couple days play out.

Back to Cain... Here's a look at what MLBTR had predicted for him going into the offseason in their top 50 MLB FA predictions: https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2017/11/2017-18-top-50-mlb-free-agents-with-predictions.html Not far off, basically added a 5th year at $10M and very close to the Dexter Fowler deal.

A couple nice ZiPS tidbits from Dan Szymborski on Cain: Showing a projected worth of $98M over the 5 years of Cain's contract: And also had this to say:

Come on Darvish, look at all the fun we're having! Surprise everyone and sign that offer! Then let's go round it out with a Santana for Salazar/Kipnis deal!

Castro's owed just under $23M over the next two years. For a 1-2 WAR, maybe even 3, 28 year old that's almost chump change in todays' game. And it's only for 2 years. Look at it as Yelich and Arcia cancelling each other out. Would you give up Harrison, Phillips, Woodruff and Pina for Realmuto and Castro? Pina isn't just a throw-in in this deal, as he's a solid catcher. So we are talking two Top 100 outfielders and a young rotation piece for a decent catcher upgrade and a solid SS. Boy, that still seems rich. I think you're overvaluing Arcia (or undervaluing Yelich) to say him for Yelich is cancelling each other out, which makes the second half of that scenario moot. I think anyone outside of Milwaukee would take Yelich and his contract 10 out of 10 times over Arcia. I also think you may be undervaluing Realmuto and his 3 years of control. If anything, I think it might be closer to Realmuto/Castro and Arcia/Pina cancelling eachother out, leaving the rest to be Yelich for Harrison, Phillips, and Woodruff, which seems pretty fair and would mean getting Yelich without giving up Brinson/Burnes/Huira/Diaz.

Yes I'd take it. Especially if we can grab one of the FA starters still too. That would be a huge boost to the active roster (and for several years) and the minors/prospects are still well stocked at all those positions (Phillips/Harrison/Lutz/Ray in OF, Hiura/Dubon at MI, Woodruff/Peralta/Diplan/Ponce/Pennington/Medeiros/Bickford at SP)

If "and Friends" includes Realmuto, it will take a pretty massive haul for me to be overly disappointed with it. Barraclough would be a nice inclusion too, but wouldn't make me feel as good about giving up a ton as JT would. Taking Castro off their hands would be okay if we're not able to re-sign Walker, but I wouldn't give up any extra pieces for him. No one else on the roster really entices me much.

AHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!! Scared and excited

I was not aware of that. Sporttrac dod not mention that. Thanks for clearing that up. It's there, you just have to make sure you're in the Contracts tab and not the Cash Earnings tab (which googling sometimes brings up instead and trips me up at times too): http://www.spotrac.com/mlb/cleveland-indians/danny-salazar-11615/ That said, just want to jump on the bandwagon and again thank you for all the insider information you've provided. It's appreciated and been a fun couple days because of it!!

I just want to second this! No matter what comes or doesn't come from this week, love the info! Thanks HH19!

I was imagining all of the tangled web being more along the lines of Stearns saying, "If I can shore up the rotation, then I'll go all in and trade one or more of Santana/Shaw/Brinson/Top 10 prospects. If not, we're going to be more conservative with in-house development for this offseason." Which makes sense in a more methodical sense. What doesn't make sense is lining up trades since November to that end. That suggests a much more deliberate approach. I think you're still just viewing this too linearly. Definitely agree with JCREW that if move A happens, move B may be more aggressive, but we've also heard so many scenarios this offseason in which DS is going after a FA (like Cain) in order to free up an extra outfielder for a trade where it doesn't make sense to do one without the other. He's spent the last few months talking with teams and seeing what deals work on a talent level for each club and depending on how things turn out, he may revisit some of those trades. If HH's source is correct, this seems like a pre-cursor deal that makes some of his previously discussed deals make sense to pursue if it comes to fruition. I don't know how "locked in" the other teams are in making those deals for sure when DS is ready to make them, but I assume he's been in contact with the other GMs enough to feel strongly that he can complete those deals still if he can get this first one out of the way first. Regardless, not sure why you're getting caught up on it. Maybe it's a protection against being let down? This is what's fun about the baseball offseason, it's exciting to hear rumors and predict and over analyze how your team can change and improve (hopefully) before Opening Day!

Source? The only thing I've seen is a report out of Japan that was repeated by others. Which probably means it was put out by team Darvish to drive up his price and not by the Brewers. One can claim that Hardricout is doubling down on an old quote from Stearns but that old quote is more solid than anything I have seen on Darvish getting an offer from the Brewers. Rosenthal's about as pro as you get and I don't believe he'd say confirmed if he wasn't sure that his source was correct before tweeting this.

Doesn't mean they only setup potential trades with teams specific to this rumor though. I'm sure there could have been many unrelated "If this happens first, we'll be interested in making this happen. We'll see you again if it happens!" type deals negotiated.

What doesn't make sense? The possibility of a Darvish signing and the trade scenarios are completely different transactions and seem to not hinge on each other. HighHeat19 has been pretty clear on that. He has also broken some "news" on the Darvish situation as well. From the sounds of it, he's just reporting from his source(s) that he has and let us know what he can for the time being. I'd really hate if we push that type of reporting away from our forum because we don't take it for what it is. So you're buying that back in November that Stearns would weave this web of trades knowing that it all would hinge on "trade a" in late January? You're buying that back in November Stearns wove this web of trades because he knew that in late January there would still be an unlikely number of high end free agents still available and that he would need to leverage this web of trades? You're buying that Stearns has all these trades lined up and all these GM's are just standing pat waiting for the Brewers to decide what the market is going to do? It's not personal and I would never discourage anyone from posting insider info. I have absolutely nothing against HH19 and, as I said, I'll eat crow if I'm wrong. I'm perfectly willing to admit that I'm thick in the head and am just missing something here but, in my opinion, it just doesn't add up. I would hope that cordial disagreement would not discourage HH19 but if universal acceptance of his word is what is required then I'm not on board. I think you're looking at this possible sequence of events too much like "the" plan all along (which would admittedly be pretty prophetic on DS's part), when it's much more likely the consequence of Stearns just being patient, checking in on all possibilities, and reading the market as the offseason went along. If "part A" doesn't work out this week, he likely has "plan B", "plan C", and "plan D" all waiting their turns. He just seems to be good at covering all his bases while sticking to his guns until prices drop to where he's comfortable.

As of five minutes ago his Crasnicks twitter seems to be throwing cold water over the whole idea. My interpretation of the Crasnick tweet ( ) gives no indication that things aren't getting close on several fronts, just apologizing if he misled people that something was imminent (as in going down in 15 minutes rather than in the next few days). As for the MLBMayhem tweet, no idea where that's coming from considering Crasnick's account makes no such mention and I don't see anything else about that anywhere.