brewerfan82

This seems to be the first thing causing the argument. "talent" does not equal "performance" in most books. Performance and wins are the result of talent plus a million other unpredictable factors that affect the outcome of games and individual performances. Edit: I think I misread/interpreted this point of yours. Still seems like you're arguing how to evaluate past performance while the other side of the argument is trying to determine a teams' current talent level, which are very different things. If you agree wins don't have "anything to do with how good the talent will be in the future", then why would you base what you have going forward on wins? I highly doubt most GM's base what they have solely on the previous year's record. I think you have to look at what you believe your team's talent level is and analyze why your record didn't reflect that. I'm sure in many cases you may decide you had players' whose talent level had taken unexpected drops due to age, etc., and you need to re-assess your team as a whole at that point. But if you can identify several factors that contributed to a poor season that are unlikely to repeat themselves, like abnormally high injury rates, several players who had uncharacteristically bad years, an unusually bad record in close games, etc., it would be foolish not to consider those factors in determining what your team's true talent level is going into the next season, or you risk making moves just to make moves and potentially worsening/and/or financially hamstringing your team in the process. Just as a team that has an unusually healthy team, wins all their 1-run games, and has career years from all their players probably should still identify potential holes in their team and not just rely on getting "lucky" again. The bottom line is, talent level is neither representative of past performance nor predictive of future performance (hence the 10 game swing that people are giving projections), but it does try to strip out all the luck/unpredictable/unrepeatable elements that occurred in the previous year that affect how many wins a team happened to have, which seems like a much better starting point for a team going forward rather than assuming every good or bad thing that happened the previous year is likely to repeat itself.

I'll take the under. I put the over/under for this pair at 420 combined strikeouts and I'll take the over. Only way they don't get there is if Counsell loses patience and sits Santana from time to time. Over/under on games where Carter and Santana combine for 6 or more strikeouts is 15. If Broxton wins the everyday CF job, we could see 3 guys combine for 600. I'll take the under based on at bats as well. That said, if they do combine for 420 Ks... there have been 4 hitters (technically 3 hitters, thanks to Reynolds doubling up on this list) in the history of baseball to strikeout 210 times in a season resulting in homerun totals of 44, 32, 41, and 29 and OPS+ of 127, 97, 114, and 112. I can live with a couple of those in the lineup.

If the best one says something the others don't why would we go with the lesser ones? For example when a batting average says the hitter is good but more accurate stats say he isn't you don't give batting average the same weight as the other ones. Same here. Even that is besides the point. The problem with just using record is that talent is only one of many factors that plays into determining a record. Health, strength of schedule, timing of playing other teams (as health, starting pitcher, team rosters, change throughout the year), weather, variance in players playing to their talent from year-to-year, the luck involved in situational matchups and moments that determine the outcomes of close games throughout the year, umpires' calls, differences in travel schedules, and a million other tiny factors that can change how players may perform on any given day. What stats and projections try to do is evaluate what the talent portion of a team *should* perform to under normal circumstances. The record is the result of not only talent, but all the other factors that are even less predictable when the season begins. So if you're purely trying to determine a team's talent level, a record may make you look a little deeper into why things didn't result as expected, but stats and projections are in many ways far superior tools for evaluating how *good* a team actually is and potentially a better base indicator for what you have going into the next season.

Deal! I haven't read anyone that thinks the team is improved. I've only read people defending that losing as many games as possible isn't the main goal and that, while possible, it's not guaranteed they will actually lose 100 games (just like I wouldn't guarantee a team that looks good on paper will win the division or go to the World Series, there's just too much variance from talent to results to make a claim like that).

That is semantics. Fangraphs has the current MLB roster at 24 WAR, third worst in the game. Only the Braves at 21 and the Phillies at 20 are worse. Luc is at 2.6 so his trade will get is very close to the worst roster in baseball. Smith is 1.6 as is Wily, two trade candidates. If all three go, you get the picture. When you trade productive major leagers with no FA issues for guys in A ball you are planning on losing games and a lot of them. To think that Stearns hasn't considered draft position when he unloads most of our productive players and replaces them with other teams cast offs seems a bit naive. Let me point out I'm very happy the Brewers are doing this. With 2-3 top drafts, they will have a super power by 2019. I get the Brewer marketing department can't say this and I even get fans can't swallow this but it's happening. I think that was his point. You don't seem to care that your definition of "tanking" differs from many others here. Unless, of course, you truly think the the main strategy for turning around this team is to lose as many games as possible by trading away several established players in order to get a couple high draft picks in the system the next couple years and don't think the actual bigger advantage is that those trades are restocking the farm system with several more players that will be making it to the big leagues the next realistic time we could be contending and that in the meantime the best use of our major league roster is to fill it with players who are still young, talented, and have the potential to break out given an opportunity. Do you think Stearns is really going to be upset if this team exceeds expectations because it ruins his lose 100 games plan? Many of us don't like the term "tanking" not because it implies losing, but because it's an awful strategy.

Some players who had more strikeouts than hits last year (at least a 1.16 K per hit): [pre]PLAYER TEAM AB R H HR RBI BB SO OPS WAR Kris Bryant CHC 559 87 154 26 99 77 199 .858 6.0 Chris Davis BAL 573 100 150 47 117 84 208 .923 5.2 Justin Upton SD 542 85 136 26 81 68 159 .790 4.4 Addison Russell CHC 475 60 115 13 54 42 149 .696 3.4 Lucas Duda NYM 471 67 115 27 73 66 138 .838 3.0 Colby Rasmus HOU 432 67 103 25 61 47 154 .789 2.6 Joc Pederson LAD 480 67 101 26 54 92 170 .763 2.3 Ian Desmond WSH 583 69 136 19 62 45 187 .674 2.0[/pre]

I think the divide between the "tank"/"not-a-tank" crowds comes down to this: - The "tankers" believe if there's a way to make the major league team better (even marginally) and all available resources aren't used, then you can assume they're trying to lose and are tanking. - However, as a "non-tanker", I don't think the main objective of the major league team's construction has been to lose as many games as possible, but rather to maximize each position's potential to provide value to the next contending team in Milwaukee. Whether that's by filling them with players that could have a big half and get flipped for more assets (Carter, Hill) or to give opportunities to young cheap players with many years of team control left (Santana, Villar, Cecchini, Flores, Liriano, Arcia soon, Phillips soon). The "tankers" may just see these guys as rejects with no potential value, but I see them as lottery tickets that we are in a position to take a chance on. You may want to fill center with an Austin Jackson to get another win this year, but I think there's more potential value in giving the guys on our roster a shot to show they can be effective in the majors. Even if guys like Flores, Liriano and Cecchini can prove to be effective utility players, they provide a lot of value in the next 5-6 years as low-cost options to fill out the roster that cost less than someone like Parra did, but can actually contribute more than someone like Schafer did. We all know this team isn't contending. Some of us care if they try to eek out a few extra wins in the process, some of us don't. Some of us think they should "tank" to try to get that number one pick/draft money, some of us don't think that should be the main objective, but still see the benefits if it happens as a side effect of trading today's assets for tomorrow. The thing I don't understand is the aggressive nature of some to insist they "know" the main objective is to lose as many games as possible, that getting the top pick is a crucial part of the rebuild's plan, and that this team is guaranteed to be one of the two worst teams in Brewer history (which if you weren't around for the 90's/2000's, would be quite a monumental task). It just seems very extreme/conspiracy-theory-ish to me, as I think there is plenty of evidence to at least "possibly" think that's not the case and for people to be so extremely absolute makes their credibility and intentions in pushing it constantly very suspect to me.

Perhaps my wording didn't come across as intended, but I didn't mean to say the hitting hasn't taken a hit, but rather it didn't take as much of a hit as some may be assuming. I'm just throwing out some actual research/stats/projections that may help inform anyone that may be basing their opinions on uneducated assumptions/wild guesses. While I personally don't care much what the team's record is next year, it seems premature to guarantee they'll be 100-loss bad. To add to my point on the offense, here's some comparisons of last year's players who are now gone and the one's replacing them: [pre]2015 ('15 OPS+/'16 proj.) 2016 ('16 proj.) C Lucroy (95/106) Maldonado/Pinto (71/101) 1B Lind (122/110) Carter (126) 3B Ramirez (95/na) Hill/Villar/Middlebrooks/Cecchini (95/85/84/84) SS Segura (68/na) Villar/Arcia (85/86) LF Davis (122/117) Santana (118) CF Gomez (104/106) Flores/Phillips/Nieuwenhuis/Liriano/Broxton (103/94/94/85/79) IF Herrera (85/na) Hill/Villar/Middlebrooks/Cecchini (95/85/84/84) OF Parra (139/95) Flores/Phillips/Nieuwenhuis/Liriano/Broxton (103/94/94/85/79) OF Schafer (68/67) Flores/Phillips/Nieuwenhuis/Liriano/Broxton (103/94/94/85/79)[/pre] Catcher will surely be worse without Lucroy, and center/backup OF is a crapshoot with all the new guys but likely won't be as productive as Gomez/Parra. However, shortstop should be improved and everyone else is fairly equivalent. I know you can go through each player and find warts, but you pretty much have to assume worst case scenario at every position to predict a 100-loss year, especially when you take pitching into consideration.

Don't forget the biggest reason last year was worse than expected: Kyle Lohse - 5.85 ERA (152.1 IP) Matt Garza - 5.63 ERA (148.2 IP) That's over 300 innings of awful pitching from our two highest paid pitchers. If those guys had just bad years instead of awful years, we would have won 5 more games. If they would have had normal-to-good years, we probably would have been around .500. One of them is gone and the other is bound to bounce back somewhat to his career norms or take a reduced role on the team this year. The hitting hasn't taken nearly the "hit" (sorry) that you would assume with all the trades and the pitching is likely to be better. If you're really interested in seeing how it breaks down, there was a nice read on FanGraphs a few weeks ago breaking down the team: http://www.fangraphs.com/community/being-sunny-about-the-brewers/

And if Stearns' goal is to go from 68 wins to 100 losses, as you suggest, he's also not doing a very good job. He's got a ways to go for that to go from a 'possibility' to a 'probability'. He picked up Carter, who's projected to have the highest OPS+ on the team (126 vs. Lind's projected 110 btw). He made room for Santana in place of Davis (a marginal 118 to 117 OPS+ improvement). He traded for Villar (85 OPS+) and Cacchini (84 OPS+) instead of just giving a SS/3B spot to Rivera (60 OPS+). There's been given no indication that Jeffress, Knebel, or Blazek are on the market (3.13, 3.34 and 3.57 FIPs). Or Jungmann, Nelson or Davies (3.90, 3.93 and 3.94 FIPs). All moves/non-moves that improve the team this year. Again. Not a "good" team and the focus is more on talent rather than winning this year. But this looks far from a "tank" job.

Yes, and there were some pretty good players on that team. Lucroy will be a huge factor in if they lose 100, pretty much every position is average or below average offensively and defensively. I have watched a lot of Brewers baseball and looking at this team it is right up there with the worst Brewers teams no doubt. The future is much brighter but it doesn't change the current major league team and how horrible they will be. Here's a VERY simplified comparison using ZiPS projections for this year (and already without Lucroy and Smith): [pre]2002 2016 C Bako (66 OPS+) Maldonado (71 OPS+) 1B Sexson (128 OPS+) Carter (126 OPS+) 2B Young (88 OPS+) Gennett/Hill (95/95 OPS+) SS Hernandez (120 OPS+) Villar/Arcia (85/86 OPS+) 3B Houston (112 OPS+) Cecchini/Middlebrooks (84/84 OPS+) LF Jenkins (101 OPS+) Braun (124 OPS+) CF Sanchez (87 OPS+) Broxton/Liriano/Nieuwenhuis/Phillips (79/85/94/94 OPS+) RF Hammonds (93 OPS+) Santana (118 OPS+) ~99.375 OPS+ ~98.625 OPS+ SP Sheets (3.76 FIP) Nelson (3.93 FIP) SP Rusch (4.64 FIP) Anderson (4.14 FIP) SP Quevedo (5.80 FIP) Peralta (4.46 FIP) SP Wright (5.40 FIP) Garza (4.22 FIP) SP Neugebauer (6.00 FIP) Davies (3.94 FIP) ~5.12 FIP ~4.14 FIP CL DeJean (4.08 FIP) Jeffress (3.13 FIP) RP Cabrera (5.98 FIP) Blazek (3.63 FIP) RP Vizcaino (3.20 FIP) Knebel (3.29 FIP) RP King (3.67 FIP) Thornburg (4.04 FIP) RP De Los Santos (4.00 FIP) Goforth (4.28 FIP) ~4.19 FIP ~3.67 FIP[/pre] So as mentioned before, the hitting is very similar, however the pitching was horrendous in 2002. The 2016 starters are projected be a full run better and the relievers are about half a run better. If you weight that out to 2/3 IP for the starters and 1/3 for the relievers, you end up with a 0.83 run improvement per game over 162 games. Which comes to 135 fewer runs in the season and if you use the 10 runs per win rule of thumb, you get a 13.5 win improvement from the pitching staff alone. Which puts the 2016 Brewers right around 69/70 wins (and 92/93 losses). Not a season to be proud of, but still, 100 losses is REALLY BAD. It *could* happen, but it's not likely and for people to keep maintaining it's a forgone conclusion is borderline silly/trolling.

Haha, that would be awesome. In all seriousness, are there any studies that show there are compounding effects of having "too many" strikeout guys? I'm not trying to be facetious, I would love to hear some research on the matter, as I do find it interesting. On an individual basis, I really don't care if a guy strikes out a lot, it never irritated me the way it does others. As long as they are productive and over the long run create runs at a higher than average rate, I'm fine with it. Give me the guy that creates the most runs on the season. I understand that comes with inconsistency and with all else equal it would be nicer to score 5 runs every game rather than 1 today, 9 tomorrow, but in a year that winning's not a huge concern anyways, I'll take the guys with the most upside and potential value. I'll worry more about the balance of the team when we're contending again. Again, I'm not predicting Gallo will be the best possible player we could get, as many have pointed out there is a big bust potential, but I think his boom potential is also greater than any other player discussed and I would gladly take him. Additionally, if we can add Smith to a package and get 2-3 additional good-to-great prospects it lowers the risk factor a bit. But maybe that's part of the divide in this discussion, I don't think Stearns would trade for just one guy with Lucroy (which is partly why I'm pessimistic we could even land Gallo if we wanted to), while others may be assuming if Gallo comes over, he's all we're getting. But if Stearns really wants Gallo as part of the package, I think he'll expand our end to include a Smith/Peralta type to get more than just Gallo.

I understand that Gallo has his warts, strikes out at a rate that many presume means he won't be productive at the major league level, and there are other players in the Rangers' system you'd prefer. But being disappointed in him being part of a return or having "no" interest in him at all is still very baffling to me. I guess there must be other assumptions going on, rather that's that he'd be the only player we'd get, while other players would net us additional players as well, or people are just being over dramatic with their wording? No matter what your personal opinion is, the national opinion is the guy would instantly be one of our top 3 prospects and at a position that we don't have much/any depth (even if he ends up at 1st). I'm okay with adding a guy like that to the system. Even if his downside is a Mark Reynolds type, do you remember what Mark Reynolds was like when he came to the big leagues?? His first 4 full seasons brought homerun totals of 28, 44, 32, and 37, while always OBP'ing at least .320. Not saying I wouldn't hope for something a little more than that, but that's a pretty nifty floor. All that said, maybe I'm keeping myself pessimistic so I'm not disappointed, but I don't expect the Rangers to give up Gallo in a package anyways, and I'd be ecstatic if the other players mentioned in this thread actually do come back in a trade. I just don't get the extreme disinterest in Gallo from some posters.

You say that, but Stearns has also acquired Villar, Carter, Anderson, Hill, Walsh, Jones, Flores, Liriano, Broxton, Nieuwenhuis, Cecchini, Middlebrooks... I understand your agenda to prove this is a "tank" season, but why is he taking guys that have potential for the big league club then as well. I agree the focus is not on winning this year and having a good pick/draft money isn't a frowned upon side effect of that, but I really don't think there's been a concerted effort to make the team lose either. We'll likely have most of Braun, Santana, Davies, Peralta, Nelson, Jeffress, etc, all year and Phillips/Arcia knocking on the door. There are several legit players still on this team and the gaps are being filled with players still young enough to show their potential. They're young and may not be world beaters, but I think you're going to be disappointed when they don't get that #1 pick. This is miles ahead of the Brewers of the late 90's/early 2000's still.

I agree! And once the season starts, in addition to watching all the new prospects develop through the ranks, there's a lot of interesting young talent and new faces on the big league club I'm excited to watch as well. Davies, Santana, Villar, Cecchini, Flores and Liriano are all 23/24 and Broxton is 25. Do any of them break out and show their potential? Carter, Anderson, Middlebrooks, and Nieuwenhuis are in their prime 27-29 years. Do any of them have a career year? Do they get flipped for more prospects at the break? Can Pinto or Pina show enough in Spring Training to effectively share half the catching duties once Lucroy's gone? Do the Rule 5 guys stick and does Walsh end up being a steal who's able to hold down 2nd for a couple seasons? When do Arcia and Phillips make the jump to the bigs and really start the train of prospects rolling in from the farm? For me, this has been one the funnest offseasons in a while and I'm really excited to watch the entire organization this year.

I just took a stab at it! I started at last year's trade deadline though and included ages and MLB Pipeline prospect rankings for MLB, position, and with the Brewers. http://i.imgur.com/vVuBFWB.gif

And that is why I said in that trade the Rangers would want the Brewers to take on Hamilton.. I *think* he was referring to the following part of your post: It was just kind of odd to make it sound like we could get either someone who's perceived as having a lot of value OR someone who may very well have negative value. You went on to explain that the Rangers would probably want it to be Hamilton, but throwing Profar as the alternate in there was just a little odd. Anyways, that said, I like the idea and I'm not against taking on another "Hill" contract in a trade to up the value of the returning package. Not sure if the particulars of your trade has the right amount of value coming back for both giving up so much and taking on a bad contract, but I like the idea!

It's not too much of a gamble if the Brewers don't like the return they are being offered for Lucroy. The goal isn't to trade Lucroy, the goal is to get impact talent for him. True, but I don't think anyone advocating that his trade value is higher now than it may be at the deadline is advocating trading at all costs. None of us know what the offers are out there, we're just saying there's a good chance that the highest offer that Stearns is getting now is quite possibly higher than what his highest offer may be later (when there are fewer suitors, there's a hesitation to breakup a pitching rotation's vibe with their catcher, and Luc's had more time to completely kill of his value), so don't shoot yourself in the foot by reaching for the moon. But yes, if there aren't any offers for any impact players, you might as well hold onto him for now.

They've also acquired a few catchers this offseason that could compete for a spot: Josmil Pinto, Manny Pina and Rene Garcia.

Interesting and fun topic/exercise! Love the list it churned out. I wouldn't be surprised if Lucroy, Davis, Smith and Peralta are all gone by the trade deadline (or even opening day). Possibly in two big deals Lucroy/Peralta in one and Davis/Smith in another. Those are two really nice packages that could really boost another team and convince them to give up some significant talent. That said, there's been a lot of discussion on this board about a lot of the tradeable assets and which ones could raise their stock by keeping them to the deadline, rather than trading them by opening day. It'd be interesting to see a ranking of 1.) whose stock could rise the most by holding onto them til the deadline, and 2.) whose stock could decline the most by waiting til the deadline. Here's my take on the guys I think are most likely to get traded: Players whose stocks could raise the most holding onto them until the deadline: 1.) Peralta - He always just seems like he's on the edge of busting out. If he has a strong first half, his value to another team in need of a starter could sky rocket. 2.) Lucroy - The first half could give him a chance to reassure other teams that he's healthy and productive. 3.) Smith - While I'd like to think it doesn't matter, his stock could change drastically depending on his role. If he gets the bulk of the closer opportunities and is lights out, he might actually be the highest riser in the group. That said, I have a feeling Jeffress is more likely to get a crack at that role if it's not a closer-by-committee situation. 4.) Davis - He could continue his homerun rampage and solidify his power threat status, but I'm in the crowd that believes he's kind of proven what he is already and a barrage of homeruns in the first half likely won't affect his trade value much. Players whose stock could decline the most holding onto them until the deadline: 1.) Lucroy - If he's not productive or has another concussion or can't catch for some reason, he could lose almost all his remaining value. Plus like others have pointed out, it's not ideal for teams to pickup a new catcher in the middle of the season. I think the risk, far outweighs the reward in Lucroy's case and he really needs to be traded sooner than later. 2-4.) Tie between Peralta, Smith and Davis - I think the rest of the guys have a similar risk factor, it's all about staying healthy and being productive. If they're not, we probably won't have many suitors for any of them at the deadline, but I also don't think their overall value drops as significantly as Lucroy's could. In short, I think it's too much of a gamble to hold onto Lucroy, however, with lingering concerns from other teams, I think we'll have to tack on one of the pitchers in a deal in order to get the return we'd want for him. The remainder of the players I think we might as well trade sooner than later to make room on the roster for players we want to evaluate for the future, but it wouldn't be the end of the world if we held onto them into the season.

From Twitter: Seems about right I guess

I don't think it matters from our payroll's perspective, but it does matter in evaluating the trade. For instance, if the Dbacks paid his whole salary, this looks like a steal (and makes flipping Hill that much easier if he has a good first half). If the Brewers end up paying most of Hill's salary, I probably would have expected another prospect thrown in there to clearly make it worth clearing that space for the Dbacks.

Has anyone read the actual amount of money coming the Brewers' way? The closest I can find is this from the JS article: Some have mentioned the Diamondbacks are paying most/all of Hill's salary, I could see that being interpreted as paying all of his salary, but I don't think it's clear.

Zero reason to trade him right now if it's just to dump his salary. We have no need to shed it. Let's find some nice returns for Lucroy and Davis (with Smith/Peralta thrown in if needed) and see what all these young guys can do!

I for one would be just fine receiving a 22 year old, left-handed, third baseman who has averaged 100 runs, 26 doubles, 4 triples, 45 homeruns, 110 rbis, 11 stolen bases, 86 walks and a slash line of .364/.589/.953 per 600 plate appearances throughout has professional career. The guy was young for his level at every stage of the minors and is currently ranked the #1 third base prospect in all of baseball. I guess people are afraid of strikeouts and like to play scout, but I really find it hard to be "disappointed" if he ends up being part of a trade package and have a feeling people will be wishing he actually was available compared to whoever we do end up with.