UpandIn

Ok, well, we limited him to that and that was likely because we had Wong. That would seem like it may have been our mistake. Vs lefties, he should be out there at 1B(where he's a good defender and certainly has the frame) or 2B...where he's actually logged the most innings in Tampa. And you're right, that doesn't say a whole lot being the 2nd best...but it does say he's still the 2nd best unless the Brewers continue to add RHed hitters who can hit lefties. I mean, if they push Brosseau out, that's great. I just don't see Miller or any of the moves we've made doing that. I actually hope he gets more starts this year at 1B also. If Turang can hit lefties or stay in there vs them, that'd be our best IF defense vs LHPing without sacrificing much any offense. But they did just play him at 3B last year and I'm not entirely sure why that is(3 games at 1B, but I don't recall the circumstances surrounding those). So they probably need to make better use of him.

Yeah...that's how I remember it. Protection against Cain. He also didn't cost 12M in yr 1. He made 3.5M dollars that season. So he absolutely did NOT stop us from signing anyone. Also, what is this thread about? We traded nothing for an extra minor league player who may or may not play on the Brewers this year...a DAY after trading Ruiz(part of the Hader trade that was brought up) for a 24 year old AS catcher. I'm kinda amazing what people complain about. This reminds me of the Blake Perkins thread. Y'all know just because we trade for a player...as long as we're NOT trading "non-elite" type prospects like Sal Frelick, Brice Turang, or Garrett Mitchell, it's basically just taking a flier on a guy. I don't see why these types of depth moves are met with such vitriol? So the Brewers haven't spent. I don't count the off-season as a success or a failure based on total dollars spent. We've added Winker and Contreras. Winker was the 3rd best hitter vs RHPing in all of baseball two years ago. Contreras was one of the best offensive catchers in the game last year. Still don't like the Renfroe trade...but it's also December 14th. Why are we so mad again? I need to be reminded.

So you would have been happy trading a top 50(the elite variety) prospect who hit .365/.435/.508 for a guy with a 78 OPS+...after the fact, but anyone could have seen JBJ regression...despite being one of the most consistent players in baseball the previous 6 years? Man...imagine how well we could draft by picking out the players we should have acquired or not acquired a year or two later? Also...did you just compare CC Sabathia to...the likes of Jorge Soler?

JBJ had been worth ~18 WAR in the previous 6 seasons. Not one season below 2.0. 2.0 WAR in 2020 in 55 games. Yeah, a lot of people were happy about that and Red Sox fans were not among them.

He's played quite a bit of 2nd and has been +1 OAA or 0 for his career. He can also play 1st which could the whole IF defense. Also, while that wasn't a great OPS vs LPH that was our 2nd highest OPS vs lefties...IIRC. Renfroe being our highest. And his career line is ~.830, so seems like a safe bet he'll be at worst that next year. For a guy who can play an at least passable 1B/2B/3B...and even fill in at SS if needed...AND he's cheap? Seems like with our current roster, he should be a no-brainer. Hiura, I'd love to see him back, but it's gotten hard to justify. I think he's included as a throw in, or he gets camp to see if he can earn a spot(though at this point, he's guaranteed 2M, so I don't know what they'll do with him). Anyway, now we've got Contreras who hit over 1.000 vs lefties, but I wouldn't expect him to hit quite THAT well. It's still a pretty big weakness. That and the backend of our pen...which we seem to be kinda collecting power arms and hoping someone jumps out(not an unreasonable approach IMO).

I really hope not. I don't see a good reason to get rid of Brooseau. His ability to hit lefties is huge.

Range Factor while in the minors? That's what we're using to determine who's a CFer and who's not? So if Frelick payed behind pitchers who racked up more strikeouts...he's not as good in the field? Frelick was a DPOY in the ACC in CF. He's been a CFer coming up. Ruiz was a 2B. The only real reason so far to believe Ruiz can be a plus CFer is...he's really fast. 80 speed vs 70 speed. One has to develop as a CFer and the other doesn't...according to the scouts. I've never seen Ruiz play CF, so I don't know how good he is. I do know how many times he caught a ball in a small sample size in the minors and how many times he threw people out? That's not gonna tell ya much.

Yeah...but it really does. A player switching teams in and of itself doesn't mean anything other than...they've switched teams. Max Scherzer has been on 3 teams in his last 3 years. Is there literally ANY meaning in that? It's just a bad and kinda lazy argument. It's the same one he used with Renfroe. He just changes the number of teams and or years and that's his entire argument. Or how about Riuz? He's now on his 3rd organization in just a few months. Obviously if he was any good...he wouldn't be traded Lots of players change teams for a lot of reasons. Team control, number of options. Small market teams sign players hoping they'll have a good season so they can flip them. If that's the extent of your argument as to why a player isn't good...it's not a good argument.

And...again, that he's just here to annoy people. LOL...I mean, c'mon. We got a trade that's not only gotten universal praise by people who know Baseball and...pretty much everyone on this forum except for...ONE person. And again, this, "well he's been on X number of teams in X years," is...the dumbest logic. Who cares? Look at how a guy produces. If 5 teams acquired him, 5 teams wanted him. It's like taking a date to a 5 star restaurant, going to see a great show on show/movie/play, whatever...and then you ask for their opinion and they complain that the Uber took the long way home. THAT'S their takeaway. Some people just focus on the negatives...

Better than average? He's pretty much the definition of average. 102 WRC+ last year, 104 OPS+. Projected to be at 98 WRC+ and he's solid defensively, but he's not a great defender. He was out there because we just didn't have options last year. He's just a guy. I didn't say he had value, I said he was a 4th or 5th OFer. He's got some value or I wouldn't have said he's a 4th or 5th OFer, but a guy with a OBP in the .280s who's not an elite defender, hit lefties alright, doesn't have great speed... I just said he was a 4th or 5th OFer and not much more. Am I wrong?

I don't think you're missing anything, it's just a little out of context. Clancy suggested the Brewers "flip" Winker at the deadline as Wiemer and Taylor could likely match his production. That doesn't make sense to me and I was agreeing with @jakedood who questioned that logic. You trade Winker if he's having a year like he did in 2021 and the Brewers are just bad and everything goes wrong I guess. Beyond that, if he's having a good year, then you want him. Presumably we're competitive. If he's having a repeat of last year, nobody would want him, so what's the point? As for Wiemer, I think it's possible he could force his way onto this roster. I think he's got a Jay Buhner with better speed type upside. I wouldn't count on that next year, but...it's certainly plausible. And if he does, they can make room for him in the OF. Presumably in RF with Frelick in CF and Mitchell...who I'm not completely sold on. I don't think it's a stretch that Wiemer ends up being better than Mitchell and he's a very different type of hitter than Frelick. One that we could really use. But he's such a wild-card, I wouldn't be really factoring him into the plans. A great start to the year and you can re-evaluate, and it'd be great given we've still got pretty serious issues vs lefties, but the point was...there's no need to worry about flipping Winker and there's no reason to swap out his possible production for Wiemer and Taylor's as it doesn't match.

Agreed. I don't care if in 10 years we look back and Arnold has a big negative WAR from this trade. If you use the benefit of hindsight, this game would be easy. At this time, right now, this trade made so much sense, it seems too good to be true. Maybe NOW we can stop hearing about this Hader trade?

I'm with you...with the sole exception of the Mitchell LA thing. He's got a level swing. I personally don't think adding the loft to it makes much sense at this point as I think THAT seldom works out. If a guy hits for average, gets on base, can steal bases, screw the launch angle. This is what the Brewers are going for after all, right? Lefties who can hit for average and get on base? He's gotta cut his K rate way down, but I'm not real worried about that just yet. Anyway, if Winker comes back next year...just to his career averages, there's absolutely no reason to move him. If he doesn't, well...then there's still none because who'd want him? If Wiemer and Taylor can produce next year...AWESOME. They can play RF and give us the RHed bats we need. That'd ideally be in addition to, not in subtraction of Winker. They're very different. Winker is a DH only. Yelich getting more out in front? Yelich just needs to get the ball in the air more and...well, it's been 3 years and I don't see it changing. I think his BA goes up a bit next year just like a lot of players. 50 year low in BA in MLB forced these changes. It'll help us, but it'll help a lot of players. Taylor is a 4th or 5th OFer who is not a very good hitter and he's not a great defender. In a perfect world, Wiemer takes the RF position and has a huge rookie season, but his swing, the holes in it. He may struggle to adjust to MLB pitching.

Well...another RHed bat. Doesn't have to be Haniger, but someone who can hit LHPing. We're still missing that from our lineup(though not nearly as much as we were to start the day!

And Arnold talked about the money saved and retaining some flexibility. I like that we've added a lot of pitchers with big fastballs who COULD maybe develop into high leverage relievers, we added a Catcher who hits LHPing about as well as anyone. We've got lefties with speed who get on base in Frelick(yes, I'm counting him), Yelich, Mitchell...maybe...if he can cut the Ks way down. Adames has historically walked at a higher rate. Lefties will benefit more from the shift rules. Tellez is a guy who specifically should(as well as Yelich). I don't want to keep kicking this dead horse, so I'll just say a Renfroe LIKE bat and a little good luck and this lineup could look exceptional. And all it could take next year is Wiemer having one of those giant rookie years similar to Hiura or maybe a Haniger signs to play RF if times goes on and he's still affordable. LPH CF-Frelick C-Contreras LF-Yelich RF-Haniger DH-Winker SS-Adames 1B-Tellez 3B-Brosseau 2B-Urias RHP- CF-Frelick SS-Adames LF-Yelich DH-Winker 1B-Tellez RF-Mitchell C-Narvaez 2B-Turang 3B-Urias It's a stretch, but MAYBE teams are skeptical of Haniger's health and he wants to try and rebuild his value for a year. I think it's possible he could spend a year trying to rebuild his value. And it's unlikely Narvaez comes back, but for a couple million, I'd roll the dice on Omar and if Haniger is on the market long enough to supress his value. Otherwise...I'd just try and find a stopgap RHed OFer. They're generally not that hard to come by. If Winker can get back to his pre '22 form, Adames to his '21 production, the shift helps LHed hitters, particularly those with speed...this could be a very good offense. Still a little work to do, but that Contreras trade sure as hell changes the outlook. A big time bat vs lefties and for cheap...it likely puts other things on the table that otherwise weren't. Especially since we didn't have to go and spend for a guy like Vazquez.

??? "There's not a team out there that wouldn't have the other Contreras brother's production." LOL...what does Wilson Contreras even have to do with this? It's like getting excited the Brewers got a young, 24 year old AS catcher and saying, "yeah, but that's not a team that wouldn't rather have Adley Rutschman." So what? Also, the "other Contreras" went for 5 years 87M and is 30 years old. The one we got...as part of the lesser of the two prospects in the Hader trade, he was...what's the word...uh...BETTER last year offensively. https://stathead.com/baseball/player-comparison.cgi?player_id2=contrwi02&p1yrfrom=2022&type=b&player_id1=contrwi01&p2yrfrom=2022&sum=0&request=1 Oh, and he's also one of the top hitters vs LHPers in Baseball last year on a 100 Win team. So yeah, I think there are teams in baseball would rather have William Contreras production. I think every single one of them would rather have it than spending ~90M on a C who's 6 years older. I'm also curious how you know it's not a franchise altering move? Don't we generally know AFTER the fact? 11 pages. Universal agreement...almost. But you kinda let the cat outta the bag a few weeks back when you basically said you're just a contrarian because it's entertaining.

That seems about right. Maybe a bit short, but close to what seems reasonable. I wonder if the Brewers approach has been to encourage their hitters to swing more freely. Adames has had a pretty good walk rate that was outstanding last year when he spent part of the year with the Rays and then dropped this year. Wong talked about it, about liking the freedom the Brewers gave him to not shorten up on 2 strike pitches. Their prospects seem like they're going to emphasize OBP...that needs to translate though.

I fully understand why people want to sign him. I don't understand why people think things have changed so much because a couple players got massive long term deals. Neither set any type of precedent. Nor do I understand why we'd possibly pay him the same AAV as Trea Turner with 2 years to go before FA. If he wants a 6/110, fine. 27 a year puts him in the 7/190 range and that makes...absolutely no sense in my opinion. You'd be projecting Adames as the 2021 version with the BB rate approaching 12%(in Milwaukee) with the 2022 HRs numbers and the fielding. I could easily see it happening. That he puts it all together. There's no reason to pay for THAT production that you'd be hoping for right now. You pay him based on what he's done and the 2 years left of team control or you let it play out and then deal him in '24. That's how I see it...and I get why people want to sign him. We're better when we have people like Adames in the dugout. Players that keep the team loose, who can hit and field, who seemingly love the game like...Lindor(who still held out for 345M) but you don't pay them top of the market FA money until they've shown they're better than those players or...they're FAs and then you let someone else do it.

What the hell? They turned Ruiz into Contreras and two pitchers, one with a 100 MPH fastball and the other...well, screw it, who cares about the other. How did they get the Braves to not only trade Contreras, but trade him for THAT package? This feels like a trade in which something isn't being reported. Like a PTBNL or the 33rd pick in the draft.... How did the Brewers insert themselves into this trade and walk away with a 24 year old AS catcher who...by the way, had a 1.000 OPS vs lefties last year?

Seems like the biggest difference was he had better luck last year.

I don't really understand what revenue sharing teams means at this point. You read part of the 2018 CBA and it was all the teams that didn't go over the tax. It also says the Athletics were being phased out of the teams in the revenue sharing recipients and now they're back in that group. It seems like it has to mean different standards with regard to which teams are part of the 48% of revenue that gets divided up vs which teams get the competitive balance picks, but the MLB CBA is not all that clear to me. The NFL and NBAs is a lot more straight forward. The rules with the local TV deals and how much each team has to pay from their own deals and how it's impacted by the "risk" they take...it's a lot to sift through.

Yeah...that really is and it kinda went off the rails for me. I do think we probably get into the playoffs with Hader and that using WAR for a reliever over less than 2 months is not really reflective of their actual value. Hader bounced back, he was dominant for them down the stretch, you could pencil him into the 9th and he'd shut down the other team. You're basically looking at a couple blowups(Which we had as well). If you put Hader back into the pen with Williams in the 8th and Box/Cousins and whoever in the 7th, I think we do win more than 87 games. I also don't really care at this point and I think there's a lot of effort to minimize Gasser and Ruiz. Gasser had a stretch where he struggled with control in AAA? Yeah...most pitching prospects do. I don't think the Padres can say they "fixed" Hader. You take a guy who had a Burnes like 2020 and turn him around and you "fixed" him. Someone who had a couple of blowup's for the Brewers had just that...a couple of blowups.

Yeah, I got that, I just didn't understand why you worded it like that. "Just gotta finish top 2," sounds like it's more about draft pick compensation to me, but...ok. Cleveland should be getting one for Kwan, an top prospect who probably makes top 100 lists if he's drafted higher as he produced all the way through the minors.

There's a few points on here I don't get. "Just gotta finish top 2?" I think it's top 3 for an eligible player. And I don't think Frelick playing over 100 games means he started the season on the active roster. Just as likely means he...became the starter and then the everyday player once they gained an extra year. You're really limiting the ROY list by only counting the guys finished 2nd. I mean...there's a wide range of games he could play without being on the OD roster. Could play 113 as Braun did after being a Super 2, could play 134 after gaining the extra year like Bryan Reynolds did...

Sure...that's another good point. That's why I just don't see the it's either opening day or the trade deadline for Frelick. I don't think we can afford to really play around. We're putting so many chips in the Burnes/Woodruff/Adames basket, you can't go most of the season without what very well could be our best hitter in terms of BA and OBP(*COULD be).