Brewcrew82

Gotta feel like an OF for a pitcher trade is coming. No way they're going to stash multiple of those guys in AAA. Mitchell for Cabrera, maybe?

More gaslighting. And as I've said, I criticized the Hader trade when it was made just off the top of my head.

It's the usual suspects. Or should I say suspect. Just waiting on Jeffrey Leonhard now...

Lol. You know that's not true. I criticized the Hader trade when it was made, for example. And he put up a 2.4 bWAR last year. That's worth more than $7 million. lol

Of course you would criticize this signing. Sanchez had a 111 wRC+ last year and .342 xwOBA.

What does JD Martinez do for our pitching staff? We absolutely needed another arm after the Burnes trade. Martinez last year: 1.9 bWAR. Sanchez and Junis last year: 3.2 bWAR.

Love it. Arnold and co. can keep zigging and zagging away for all I'm concerned. These moves cost zero in terms of prospects and long-term financial flexibility.

I don't see it happening, especially with Sanchez on a one year deal. You would be relying on a rookie catcher just as the Brewers' new competitive window really starts to open up. I think they'll trade Contreras eventually, but not this year or even next year. This move is about filling the DH position and adding power to the lineup after last year's mostly punchless lineup.

You know what "World Series teams" need even more than the Coby Mayo's of the world? 1) High level SS play....We have Adames now, yes, but we won't after the season.... 2) Elite "stuff" arms. Yeah, we gave one up in Burnes, but we just gained 6 years of control with another one in Hall. You demand and hold out for Mayo in this trade (who has an appreciably higher surplus value btw), and you get neither of these things and are most likely having to add in additional pieces like Gasser, etc. We got both of them in one trade. And already have a guy who's one year, maybe less, from being a Coby Mayo in Wilken. I respectfully disagree with the premise of this article.

Fangraphs sees a dog fight for the division, with the Cardinals, Cubs, and Brewers having greater than 15% odds and the Reds not too far behind. https://www.fangraphs.com/standings/playoff-odds

Their direction was pretty clearly broadcast with the Burnes trade, and the signing of Chourio to a 10 year extension. They want to be competitive now, which is why they signed Hoskins, but they're most focused on opening up a World Series window with Chourio and co.

Nice. Finished 17th in Stuff+ last season. Though, a large part of that was due to the slider. Regardless, not bad depth to have.

After doing some further reflection on the trade, I think this guy might be a pretty apt comparison for Ortiz. https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/p/penaje02.shtml Both glove first college prospects who were late bloomers with the bat and who were able to make top 100 lists by the end of their minor league careers. Neither has elite pop, but they’re both above average for the position. OPS’s and wRC+ hovering around the league average mark, with the gloves making them around 3/4 WAR players. Definitely an outcome I’d be happy with.

If we hold onto Adames, I think Ortiz’s value to this year’s team is being a much safer (and quite frankly, better) bat than Turang at 2B while providing the same elite defense. As for 3B, they absolutely need to give Black the opportunity there, with Ortiz and Wilken being the fallback options. No way is Adames moving to 3B in the absence of a contract extension.

I really don’t think it’s going to happen but I’d ultimately be fine with it if that’s the direction they decided to go in. I wouldn’t stop watching the Brewers or anything like that. At the same time, he’s also brought a lot of his issues upon himself, and I’m not going to pretend he’s this upstanding citizen or something. I’d cheer for him to help my favorite team win ballgames, but that’s about it.

I severely doubt Bauer's getting signed by anyone at this point.

I would not like Frasso as he just had surgery.

Don't even need to trade Adames for Cabrera. I'd give up Mitchell for him. Cabrera would be my target, though, on that Marlins staff because obviously we're not getting Eury or Garrett.

His stats? He's averaged a 107 wRC+ and has put up 11.3 fWAR the last three seasons. ZIPS projects him for a 112 wRC+ and a 4.1 fWAR this year. Compare that to what's on the market currently for SS's, he'd fetch a pretty penny, even with one year of control left. You're talking about a top 10 SS in the game.

There's very few starters in baseball who actually go 6 innings on a regular basis anymore. Burnes was one of them, sure, but you can make up the difference with having more guys start. Why guys like Hall, Ashby, etc. being able to provide length out of the pen is important, like Hader was able to do from 2017-2019. We had pretty much this exact same situation then. FWIW, Freddy went at least 6 innings in 15 of his 30 starts last season. That's a solid rate nowadays.

I think you're going to see a lot of shorter starts with this group and relying on the bullpen. So, basically a 2017-2019 redux. Freddy will hopefully be good for 30 starts and 160-175 innings. He's your horse and you gotta cross your fingers that his new S&C program has resolved his shoulder issues. Miley you have to assume will end up on the IL at some point(s). If you can get north of 100 innings from him, you should be content. Rea pitched 125 innings last year, so should be able to increase to 140-150. However, he went longer than 6 just once.... Ross has pitched 17 combined innings the last two years. While I think we're going to get decent rate stats from him, I doubt he'll be able to go more than 70-80 innings at most. Gasser has gone 135 innings the last two seasons. If he holds up well in the transition to the majors, you should be able to get him up to around 150 innings. He ran up some high pitch counts earlier in the season, but went 6 innings in 5 of his last 7 starts. Would be awesome if he's able to keep that up. DL Hall and Aaron Ashby are the two wild cards. Provided Ashby is healthy and his stuff his back, would be ideal to have them both start the season out of the bullpen providing multiple innings after Miley, Rea, and Ross. Goal would then to be to gradually increase their workload to where they're able to go 4/5 innings and transition to starting if necessary. Rays have utilized this strategy well, particularly with Rasmussen. In the minors you have McKendry and CRod. Presumably McKendry would be first up, with CRod maybe becoming an option starting in May/June. Both have been stretched out for 120 plus innings. Overall, I think we should be in decent shape even without an external addition, but it's going to have to be in a far more creative fashion than we've become accustomed to the past couple years and in line with what we saw from 2017-2019. Going to have to ride the bullpen quite a bit. Thankfully, we're returning everyone from what was the best bullpen in baseball last year.

Joey Ortiz isn't going anywhere in the absence of an Adames extension.

Urias has put up a 7.2 WAR the last three seasons....Not comparable to Hernan Perez whatsoever lol I'm not changing your argument or moving the goalposts. You have literally said that Ortiz is a bust who can't hit MLB pitching because he's 25 and the Orioles didn't put him in their infield.

We’re unequivocally declaring the original Hader deal to be a bust when Robert Gasser, who we have 6+ years of control of and who is one of the top LHP prospects in baseball, hasn’t even made his MLB debut? Yeesh…..