Brewcrew82

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…..

FWIW, Ortiz and Hall's Steamer projections are really nice.... Ortiz (Steamer600): .266/.318/.403, 100 wRC+, 2.4 fWAR (tied with Yelich for 3rd highest on the team) Hall: 3.59 ERA/3.84 FIP in 123 innings, 2.3 fWAR (2nd highest on the team after Freddy)

Graduation everywhere except for BA, where he is currently ranked 93.

Yeah, because playoff teams haven't chosen to go with veterans over prospects before in a playoff chase.... Their preferred infield (and the one they featured in the postseason) was Urias at 3B, Henderson at SS, and Westburg at 2B. Mateo off the bench. That's the definition of being blocked my man. What a bizarre narrative you're trying to spin that because Ortiz wasn't immediately installed as a starter in their infield the Orioles viewed him as a bust.

@Brock Beauchamp Add: Jorge Quintana

Uhhh, it’s pretty much been universally recognized within the prospect industry that COVID delayed and fudged up development timelines considering there wasn’t even a minor league season….

Lol. It’s the same logic you’re applying. That because someone couldn’t supplant a guy with a .607 OPS it automatically means they’re a bust. That’s the only reason it seems crazy. I don’t know where you’re getting your facts from, but Ortiz most definitely did not spend all of 2022 and 2023 in MLB…. Also, you do realize that the Orioles had Gunnar Henderson playing SS ahead of Ortiz, too? And Jordan Westburg in the infield, too. He was quite simply blocked by Orioles stacked infield talent.

You keep saying, "Ortiz is 25", which completely ignores that he was a college pick and two years of his development were torpedoed by COVID and injury. And by that same token of logic you must really be down on Jackson Holliday considering he also couldn't push Mateo and his .607 OPS off the SS position. Never mind the fact that they had Gunnar Henderson to play SS already on the big league club.

That's interesting because holding Burnes and losing him for nothing is more likely to lead to mediocrity or worse long term imo. We got two top 100 prospects and a first round pick. That's fair value for 1 year of a top 10 MLB starter.

Also, we just added the Comp A pick we would have gotten had we held onto Burnes. Just a year early....

Adames' contract is expiring after this season....BT unlikely hit enough for SS. We have no one other than EBJ in the upper minors. I actually like Ortiz. With Hall, we very well could have just added the next Hader...

BTV has it as a very slight overpay by the O's. But basically even value.

Brewers have to view Hall as a starter if this is the deal.