brewerfan82

Awesome stuff, thanks for sharing!

Yes, individuals age differently. However, the point isn't that some players are productive and some aren't in their mid-30's, it's that all players do reach an age at some point in their careers that they decline and collectively over the history of baseball the trend is for that to become more and more likely as they reach their 30's. It's possible Braun will be just as productive in 4 years as a 36 year old as he is now, but he is definitely 4 years closer to whenever his dropoff does occur and no GM in the league is going to assume a 36 year old is going to be as productive as he was as a 32 year old. No matter how many examples you find, a player becomes more and more risky as they age and all GM's recognize that and that definitely affects a player's value.

I take that back... make that the worst team in MLB since May 28th. Wow.

In addition to being the worst team in the league since August 1st and playing some tough teams to finish out the year, the Brewers also have more road games than anyone else they're "competing" with for a higher pick: - Brewers (20 road games remaining) - Twins (14) - Braves (13) - Padres (14) - Athletics (15) - Reds (15) - Angels (13) - Diamondbacks (17)

I know it's not likely, but do you have an actual reason for "knowing" this? At the time of the trade he wasn't their number 2 prospect. I don't recall exactly where he was, but he wasn't even in the top 100 at the time and he was #10 in their organization coming into the season. Generally in the media, Brinson, Ortiz and a PTBNL was looked as an underwhelming return for Lucroy and a good swap for Texas, let alone throwing in Jeffress in a market that showed a lot of teams overpaying for relievers (case in point Smith bringing back a similarly ranked pitcher in Bickford PLUS a young, recently highly ranked catcher all on his own). I also don't understand the "if it was Mendez, he'd be a Brewer already" argument. It's been mentioned many places that the PTBNL may have been due to a time constraint, possibly preventing physicals from being performed in time. If Stearns then had the option to wait til the end of the season to choose a player, how awful would it have been for him to take Mendez right away and then he ends up hurt from a pre-existing condition that may not have shown up in an examination? I just don't see how some people are so sure without having any inside information. The best I can guess is it's to prevent themselves from being disappointed if/when it's not him. Again, I don't expect it to be him, I'd be thrilled if it was, but I'm also not going to be disappointed just because I'm allowing myself to acknowledge the possibility it could be him. It's just a little irritating that people with no inside information have taken such concrete and, frankly kind of condescending, stances on it.

Agree completely with your first paragraph, but not with your conclusion here. Yes, I don't think they will get the value they "should" in a trade. But I would rather have DeLeon in return straight-up, than the pleasure of watching Braun on a losing team the next couple years. Braun provides perhaps the last chance for a while to bring back a top quality SP. Agree completely with this. Braun is potentially the biggest, single, baseball upgrade available to teams between now and the start of next year, so he definitely is valuable enough to other teams to warrant a top prospect. However, on the flip side, his value to a team that won't be competitive for the next couple seasons, like the Brewers, is much lower. Really if he's not going to be a part of, or won't be productive once we are competitive, we should take what we can for him while he still does have value. Unfortunately that means we don't have much leverage outside of teams competing for his services, and his contract is just large enough and he's just old enough where he doesn't fit into many teams budgets and needs. We wouldn't trade away a Hader at this point for a Nelson Cruz to win a couple more games, so we shouldn't hold onto a Braun if we can add another top arm.

I think Mendez is unlikely, but if you consider the trade Brinson and Ortiz for Lucroy and PTBNL for Jeffress, we did get Bickford+ for Smith and Mendez is rated similarly to him (#59 and #61 respectively on MLB Pipeline), so maybe it's not out of the realm of possibility. If we somehow grabbed him as the PTBNL and then managed to get De Leon in a Braun package... what an overhaul of the system's top pitching prospects in a year and a half: RHP De Leon (#37), LHP Hader (#38), RHP Ortiz (#57), RHP Bickford (#59), LHP Mendez (#61). Ok, dream over, back to work.

Puig has been placed on revocable waivers: http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2016/08/dodgers-place-yasiel-puig-on-revocable-waivers.html I know many aren't advocates of getting Puig in a Braun trade, but theoretically with Braun already cleared, the waivers would only have to reach the Brewers in order for a potential trade centered around Braun for Puig to be possible. I'm assuming the Brewers would still need to kick in some money, maybe just for this year though with Puig included, but who else would you want in a trade to make it worth it for you? Would getting DeLeon plus a couple lower minor prospects do it? You could hope for a strong (well behaved) finish to the year from Puig and see what the trade market is for him in the offseason as well.

Just to add some research to this, I looked up the top 10 picks for a 10 year stretch from 1995-2004 and came up with some interesting numbers: - 17 college hitters were taken in the first 10 rounds between 1995 and 2004 (along with 27 prep hitters, 22 prep pitchers, and 32 college pitchers - a Cuban pitcher and a JD Drew situation round out the 100 picks) - 16 of 17 college hitters made the majors (the only one not to was the Brewers' Chad Green...) - 12 of 17 college hitters accumulated at least 10 WAR in their career - All 12 college hitters who produced at least 10 WAR (and 15 of 17 overall) made their debut within 3 years of being drafted - The 5 college hitters that produced at least 30 WAR in their career all made their debut within 2 years of being drafted If you switch to prep hitters you get: - 22 of 27 prep hitters made the majors - 10 of 27 prep hitters accumulated at least 10 WAR in their career - 6 of 10 prep hitters who produced at least 10 WAR (and 10 of 27 overall) made their debut within 3 years of being drafted - 9 of 10 prep hitters who produced at least 10 WAR (and 17 of 27 overall) made their debut within 4 years of being drafted - Only 3 of 27 prep hitters produced more than 30 WAR, compared to 5 of 17 college hitters. That seems interesting as prep hitters are usually viewed as worth the extra risk because they having higher ceilings. Just thought that was interesting and backs up the idea that we should be hoping Ray moves through the system quickly.

Back to the original topic, I think you stay open to all possibilities during the rebuild. However, I think we have plenty of average-to-good prospects, especially on the pitching front, in the system already and trading prospects for other decent, but not great, prospects is probably just spinning wheels. I think we'd need a top 50 type prospect to trade in order to get one back that would actually represent an upgrade in what we have already in the minors and that won't really make sense until we have multiple of those at the same position to trade from. So part of the problem from a trade standpoint (and actually a good thing from a development standpoint) with having a glut of outfielder/middle infield prospects, is that we have more potential spots to put them when they reach the majors. So even if we had three top 50 outfielders or three top 50 middle infielders to trade from, we're probably still better off just holding onto them and using them on our roster. If we had two top 50 first basemen, then we'd have a guy we could throw to another team for an arm, but that's not how we're constructed at this point. Even at that point, I don't think we're going to be able to grab a true ace type from someone's system.

I'm not sure I understand what you're suggesting... Are you saying you should force him through the system quickly no matter how he does at each level because that is his only chance to be a star player? I don't think anyone's saying he should move through the system slowly if he shows he can hit at each level, but you seem to be suggesting that even the act of thinking about being cautious in the case that he struggles at a level is somehow going to prevent him from developing into his potential. Are you afraid he's going to read this forum and that's going to cause him to develop more slowly? I just find the stance very strange and stubborn. I want him to be the best player he can be no matter how long it takes or what that ceiling is. The best way to do that is to look at him as an individual player, assess what's best for his development and react accordingly. If he would be a star player forcing him through the system quicker than his performance dictates, then I'm sure he'll still be a star player if we allow him to advance through the system as he performs well at each level as well (and he'll have a better chance of succeeding, and he won't start his clock as soon, and we'll get him for more of his prime years).

I don't recall having any problem with the timing in their callups. Is your issue that they weren't at their peak performance yet and therefore we maybe lost out on an extra year of more productive service at the MLB level? Just curious. I know we're not expected to compete next year, but just from a development standpoint, I personally like that he's getting an extended look in the bigs this year before next season. I think most players have an adjustment period when they hit the majors and even with some struggles it can help a player's confidence and comfort level going into a fresh season knowing they've been there before. I also don't think we need to hold off on bringing guys up just because we're not going to be competitive yet. We need some guys to prove themselves and become leaders before we take that turn. The younger guys today like Villar, Arcia, Nelson, and Davies, even potential role players in Broxton and Perez, need to be through any growing pains and show they can be established, steady pieces and veteran presences when we do become competitive again to compliment the even younger talent still to come and they can't do that being stashed in the minors. Management's gotta trust they understand each individual player and I think they see Arcia as confident enough in himself that they can throw him into the fire a bit this year without hurting his development.

That's really unfortunate, he's one of my favorite players and hope he doesn't continue having season-ending injuries. On the other hand... I wonder if they would now be interested in picking up an MVP-caliber, corner outfielder that doesn't have no-trade protection to their team...

Here's the actual tweet: It was in response to a question. Prob doesn't warrant any criticism, just stating his impression based on what he's heard.

Saw this from Adam McCalvy last night:

That's correct, however, I think the possible connection is that it would make sense that if Stearns had a group of players he was interested in and/or was scouting heavily because they were already in discussion with TEX for a quantity trade and those were the four that he valued most, that he would also push/be interested in those players for the PTBNL list as well. It's purely conjecture, and it's quite possible that he wasn't able to get the more valuable players onto the list, but I suspect at least some of the players he was scouting would likely be also on the PTBNL list. Here's his original list: It wouldn't be too illogical if a list like this was used to form a "you can have 4 guys from this list or 1 from this list plus Brinson" type of deal. I'm hoping at least, as there are some nice guys to choose from here.

From a baseball standpoint, there is zero reason to move Braun in a salary dump move. His contract has zero effect on constructing the team for the foreseeable future, so there is no baseball reason to make that move unless it brings back legitimate talent. From an owner standpoint, maybe, but I think even then there is probably some financial reasons to keep your best player and face of your franchise. It's not worth moving him just to get rid of the contract.

I look at it as a top 100 SP for Jeffress and a top 25 player + for Lucroy. If that plus ends up being an organizational top 10/fringe top 100 player, I'm pretty happy with the deal. The Cleveland deal would have had a few fringe top 100 players that may have moved into the top 100 soon, but I'm really happy grabbing an elite talent in this deal. Just hoping the PTBNL turns out to be significant to seal the deal. It would have been nice to have another nugget or two thrown into this deal, but we got the top talent that's even more important. The Hills and Seguras of the world aren't going to land us a top 25 player. Our trades of role player types in other deals are filling in those nugget players throughout the minors nicely already. It was nice grabbing the talented bat and upper echelon arms today.

Guess you weren't here for the 90's If there was anything to complain about the rebuild so far it was that we lacked high end talent, adding 3 top 100 prospects, including two starting pitchers, today was great. The fact that we still have some really nice players on the big league club is amazing (Carter, Gennett, Villar, Braun, Santana, Nelson, Davies, Guerra, Thornburg are all nice pieces to build on or trade at some point). I'm really excited about where we are, the depth in the farm that Stearns has created and now some additional nice top end pieces to go along with everything. It's going to be a fun few years watching players come up through this system and into the big league club!

Is there any reason it could already be a determined player, as proudsoftballdad suggested? Would an injury dictate naming them a PTBNL for some reason? Or do you think that was an erroneous report?

If the player is already agreed to then why would he not be named now? That makes no sense. Also, why would we have to wait until the MiLB season is over? Does that combined with this information give anyone any hints as to what could be going on and perhaps narrow who/what kind of player may still be coming our way?

I have a feeling there may be a couple reliever deals as soon as Lucroy is dealt. They may be holding onto them as options to add to that deal in the meantime.

If we can get him on the cheap, I have no problem picking up Norris. It seems like there's always trade talk/interest around him, so if he can have a nice year and a half in Miller Park, he might be a nice chip to flip for more in a year/year and a half. As an added bonus, if we can grab him before a Lucroy deal goes down, that would limit Texas' options today and may help force their hand.

People have been using some weird statistical comparisons in this thread. First, all of the AAA stats completely neglected total PA to provide any type of context. Then above why compare 3B which aren't indicative of anything, especially when Gallo doesn't run well and most 3B are the result of defensive positioning or misplays? If you want to compare XBHs why not use 2B and HRs like everyone who talks about prospects does? I suspect it's because Brinson actually has more and it didn't suit the narrative being pushed. Even so the base comparison is invalid because Gallo is a corner infielder and Brinson is a CF so any comparisons should be made to other players along those positioning lines. Unless the expectation is that all CFs will hit like Mike Trout? Brinson has also been dealing with a shoulder issue which is somewhat scary as they are career enders for baseball players which has limited his effectiveness. If the expectation is that every stud prospect will never have a down year it's unrealistic, only the absolute best super prospects perform at that level and even they will bomb out on occasion. There's just been very little context provided beyond the Gallo to Branyan comparison which I feel is probably the most valid possible, and I was never a Branyan supporter or lover of 3TO. I was amused by the support for him on this site, but never shared in it, nor the 3TO fascination. It doesn't matter how much power you have if you aren't able to consistently put the bat on the ball, power doesn't translate without contact. For Gallo to hit enough HRs to be valuable he has to be able to put in the ball play enough to hit for a reasonable MLB average, unless we're going to project him to have the best HR rate of all time? It's nearly impossible to hit 40 HRs hitting less than .220. Well I provided ABs for his AAA stats... if you prefer PAs you could probably get a good idea by adding the BBs to that. I didn't really leave out 2Bs maliciously (Brinson has 15 compared to Gallos 9, in 70 fewer at-bats if you care), I wasn't even going to include 3Bs, I just found it interesting that Gallo had as many as 5 considering as you mentioned he's not thought as a speed guy. Otherwise, I pretty much provided each players' entire stat line listed on MLB Pipeline, so I think that was fairly fair. I don't agree with your assessment that just because he has a low batting average that it would require him to have the best HR rate of all time to hit 40 homers. Just 4 years ago Dunn hit 41 with a .204 average. The same year Granderson hit 43 with a .232 average. Pujols hit 40 with a .244 average last year. Two years ago Carter hit 37 batting .227. It's not out of the realms of possibilities. Your point on defensive positions is valid, however, if we're looking to add an impact bat to the lineup I'd gamble on Gallo's bat being the highest upside we might have a chance at and it's at a position we don't have many options for in our system. Your point on Brinson's injury is also valid, although, it'd be nice to see him produce at a higher rate afterwards before making him the centerpiece of a deal. Again, I'm not really against Brinson, I just don't see how some would be so much more disappointed in having Gallo instead of him. And like others have mentioned, it may be a moot point anyways if Stearns would rather have multiple lower level prospects than grabbing one of their top 2 guys, but if we're getting one or the other I don't think Gallo is the disaster some make him out to be.

I would be more than happy with either Gallo or Brinson headlining a package. I'm still leaning a little bit more towards Gallo. He's a popular target for people to "dislike" and project as a bust, but even his floor would make him instantly the most dynamic hitter in our minors and at a position (regardless of which corner infield spot he ends up at) that we're lacking in. Again, I'd love either guy, but for those who are opposed to Gallo and want Brinson instead, take a look at what each has done this year in the minors and realize that Gallo's only 6 months older than Brinson and doing it a level higher than Brinson: Gallo (as a 22 yo in AAA): .246/.381/.557/.939 with 19 HRs, 5 3B, 53 BBs, 91 Ks, 1 SB in 244 ABs Brinson (as a 22 yo in AA): .233/.280/.425/.705 with 11 HRs, 6 3B, 19 BBs, 66 Ks, 12 SBs in 313 ABs In a one-for-one deal, I can understand not wanting to take the risk of Gallo busting, but in a package with 3+ other players, I would glad to have his upside included.