UpandIn

Yelich first 4 1/2 seasons(21-25) he put up 17.5 B'Ref War and 17.6 FWar. to go with a .290/.369/.432 line and an OPS of .800 with an OPS+ of 121 If you get THAT offensive production and better defense or good CF defense? That'd be huge. That'd be an All-Star caliber player. Even if you knock off 10 points from his BA to account for the lower BA across the league(Which I actually don't think will impact him as much if his bat control is as good as advertised). If the Brewers get rookie level Yelich production from Frelick next year, he and the man himself, Yelich, should be a nice combo at the top of the order. Yelich-DH Adames-SS Frelick-CF Renfroe-LF Rowdy-1B Wiemer-RF Turang-2B Urias/Bosseau/Jace-3B Severino/Cartanini-C Mitchell, Ruiz, Tyler Black...couple other guys who could force their way in by seasons end. But first, we've got a WS to win this year under the "This Brewers team traded away it's start closer and Craig Counsell united them under their dominant Bullpen led by Devin Williams, Trevor Rosenthal who has come back from a multi year absence and gone right back to throwing 99 MPH and dominating closers, along with Matt Bush and Mark Rogers who took a few outings to settled in, but we a part of the best team in baseball from August 10th on." And this is definitely how this season will play out...because the team you expect to win the WS is almost NEVER the team that wins the WS...

That'd seem likely if Yelich didn't have a history of those same types of back issues dating back to his earlier years with the Marlins. I guess...he found his power after the initial back injury, no reason he can't get it back? Or some measure of it... https://www.sun-sentinel.com/sports/miami-marlins/fl-miami-marlins-news-0423-20150422-story.html

Yeah...but it really hasn't been all that consistent. "A while ago," or when they needed room due to the trade deadline. That's a pretty big distinction. You also made the claim that this was done specifically to him, not because of his limited baseball ability but because of him protesting minor league salaries. I need more than basically 'just trust me,' to...in fact trust your word. It was Luke Barker's tweet that said he was DFA'ed from the 40 man on the day he had surgery. The transactions I can find say it was this Tuesday...so I'm gonna have to go with this Tuesday.

.327/.415/.631 with a 1.046 OPS in '18-'19 OPS+ 171 .244/.361/.392 with an OPS+ of 107 since the ending of 2019 I don't actually believe it was the knee that zapped the power. He came back in 2020 and he still hit the ball hard and in the air. I think it was last year and the back where the change became more clear and the distinction showed up more in how/where he hit the ball. FAR more on the ground and not the same exit velocity. But...that's kinda moot at this point. The knee injury IS when he stopped producing at a truly elite level.

They didn't both happen the same day? You're inferring they took him off the 40 man a while back and then just cut him from AAA. I don't believe that's what happened.

Looks like a David Ortiz from the right side...through age 26(actually...a little better). Poor Keston. 2R HR tonight, he'll have a couple big games, they'll claim Reyes and then...of course it'd be Hiura's spot he'd take, right? But really, he does look like a guy you'd take a flier on.

He didn't come close in voting, but that '04 season was...pretty incredible and I think in 2022 he'd have finished 2nd or 3rd. But...of course it appears as though Burnes will pass him up. Woodruff very well may as well without the benefit of the additional couple years. The criticism Sheets got at the time was that he didn't put the work in that a guy like Jimmy Nelson or Burnes or Woody did. That he just got by on pure talent more than grinding and attention to detail. Helluva pitcher though.

Well...Arenado only has about 4/144 left on his deal, but he could always opt out. So...5 years 200M? Probably not. Longoria, Turner have team options. Jace Peterson is probably the best 3B FA in our price range...sadly. I don't see much happening in free agency. Not even because we can't spend money. With the bump in TV money, I'm sure we could push the payroll to 140-150. I just don't know where would spend it that'd be realistic with the bumps in Arby already factored in. So I'm good with Urias/Borsseau/Jace. Maybe Hiura can start to hit lefties and a couple prospects can have an impact. One of these years it'll all click. I believe that.

Yeah, I'm trying to figure this out myself. From what I can find, it's he's injured while on the 40 man, he's guaranteed a salary for the rest of the year. That'd be through this month and it'd be the salary for minor leaguers on the 40 but not part of the 26 man. He does get health insurance for life based on the one day in the big leagues...so that's something.

I'm TRYING to go off what Barker said here. He said he was DFA'ed from the 40 man when he underwent Surgery. I thought this happened Tuesday. When did it happen? What is "a while ago?" I thought the corresponding move was to add Rosenthal to the 40 man. You're saying that's not the case?

Absolutely and again, Stearns has earned the benefit of the doubt. We should move on just as the Brewers need to...but the part that's annoying is the 'they really weren't that good anyway,' sentiment behind these trades. Kelly wasn't that good, walked a lot of people. Had a .179 BAA and nearly 12K per 9 in his first full year, but...eh, not that great! Hader, he was having a bad year, not the same pitcher anymore...and really, Rogers isn't that much different! I think we all know that's just not true. Now...I'm gonna go watch another tall, lanky power lefty who struggled with walks and who everyone STILL loves in Ashby! Hopefully this topic dies and Ashby and the Brewers pitchers can change the topic.

Same level, not a higher level and despite Gasser's BB/9, he's still got a lower Whip and Kelly is younger. So maybe not close to TOR right now...but certainly a TOR type arm who was having an outstanding year... https://blogs.fangraphs.com/ranking-the-prospects-traded-during-the-2022-deadline/

I seem to remember the 2018 Brewers...roughly around this time of year losing something like 9 of 10 and getting swept by the Pirates over a 5 games series. The '19 Brewers were just a couple games over .500 heading into Sept...without Yelich when he was having the best offensive season in Brewers history and they finished I think 89 and 73.

I'm paying attention and I would absolutely NOT accept that it's "likely" Milwaukee will implode down the stretch. In fact, I'd argue it's more likely they take off in September and, per usual, that's their strongest month as has been pretty common in Counsell's tenure. Our #4 starter just went out and threw 7IP and gave up 1ER. I don't believe a team with Woodruff, Burnes, Peralta, Lauer, Ashby, hopefully a healthy Houser and then 6-7 at LEAST above average Bull Pen arms will "implode." In fact, I might say that Brewers fans are a BIT fatalistic right now and ignoring the fact that the Brewers are 3rd in the NL in OPS, 4th on OBP, 4th in runs scored... So that offense with the pitching staff...nah, I'm not coming up with the implosion. I'm curious why you are? Because we went from Hader to Rogers, Bush and then hopefully Rosenthal and possibly some type of reinforcements in the way of Turang or Ruiz in CF. That suggests implosion to you?

"REGARDLESS of what Bush does he likely gets non-tendered?" It'll be shocking if they non-tender him...even if he struggles a bit. He's not gonna get 11M in arbitration, it'll be maybe 3M. They didn't give up Kelly to get him back and non-tender him unless something else happens or he's just absolutely terrible.

Ok...but in another thread I argued the same, I pointed out that was also true with...most of the Brewers elite arms(and really, just young power arms in general). Woodruff in College struggled with this, Burnes early on, Ashby, Hader, Lauer, Peralta... He's got to get his walks down...but if you can get a lot of strikeouts, and if you can keep the opponents BA down, you can get by without...Maddux like command(I understand that's hyperbolic). It's done now, but...I'm not changing my stance on Kelly. He's an elite arm. Future TOR IMO or backend of the BP.

Not...QUITE like Small. Kelly has huge upside. He's been in the system for 4 years and 2 of them were wasted with Covid and then the TOS. But he throws in the upper 90s, great athlete, a plus slider and developing a change. His pure stuff is as good as anyone in this system(though maybe our recent Juco signee passed him up ever so slightly in that regard). But he's not like Small. Small can't dominate hitters. He has to stay in front and keep them guessing. Kelly can throw it by you and just overpower pitchers. And he still had more in his frame. This was his first year pitching and he threw 90+ innings and gave up a .179 BAA, 3.81 ERA and had 119Ks while getting more GBs than FOs. And that ERA was inflated by the worst start of the year being his last(6ER in 2IP and a couple of HRs). Kelly was very similar to Ashby...IMO and not far away. Was scheduled to get bumped to AA. This was and remains the trade I liked the least. But I think Bush will settle in. I'd imagine he's having a difficult time emotionally right now. I hope the Brewers are providing the support he needs with the move and all.

Ok, but if the issue is that he doesn't have any income...you're passing up on two years of upper middle class earnings(not millions, but a few hundred K). And are teams gonna rush out to sign a 30 year old just undergoing TJ who...doesn't have great stuff and probably won't be able to make a contribution in '23?

It's weird. Gutey has no concerns he'll come back and play at an AP level again. His knee feels as good as it has since the injury. I've had 3 ACLs, I've had complications. I was just a College Wrestler, so it's so much different(the planting is harder, you have the world's best athletes coming at you there's no way to protect it). But I don't get what could still be the issue if it's structurally sound and it feels good. Just perhaps strength? I will say, when he had this done and it was reported he just had his own ACL fixed rather than the Achillies graft...which has a higher success rate and allows you to come back and start the weight training and running quicker(though cutting and the type of lateral rehab needs to go a little slower as you need to allow for the graft to take). But this is one where it just feels like they could tell us. "David needed a second surgery to go in and clean up some cartilage and smooth down a couple spots," which is my guess as a layman, but the lack of any information is what I find troubling. The fact that he came back last year vs Detroit and played at a VERY high level(much-much better than Nijman despite missing the whole year and on a bad wheel)...I feel pretty good if he's back, he'll be most of the way back. But that "if" looms large.

Well I guess I don't understand why he'd give pass up the AAA contract then. And I still think the "Brewers got their revenge," is silly. I think you're VASTLY overstating how much they...cared. MLB had to pay 195M. The Brewers didn't. You're making this out to be a Barker vs Brewers thing rather than a Barker vs the system thing. I'd agree, I just don't think he was a part of their future and they needed roster spots and he wasn't going to be around after this year. So they DFA. I'm still a bit skeptical that an injured player can be waived from the 40 without any compensation, but if that's the case...I fully understand why his issue is with the Union and again, I understand that much less, Why turn down the prorated portion of the ~100K salary and the AAA spot.

I don't wanna get too deep into this, but the laws around Sports are...weird. Income from owning a team=tax free. Players make too much for unemployment. Hmmkay. That said, the Brewers did offer him a spot on the AAA roster, so I don't get why he turned that down.

I haven't seen the prospects referred to as worthless, but yeah, that's well over the top. I try to look at these trades as I would the draft(as it pertains to prospects). I have a preference, but ultimately I appreciate my own ignorance. My opinions are derived mostly from scouting reports put together that get to be a bit standard across baseball. So I appreciate that take. With regard to the payroll, I don't think they moved Hader because of any directive from Attanasio. Frankly, he seemed...a bit annoyed(maybe disappointed would be a better way to put it) but HE has put his trust in Stearns. He's earned that. So I see all that. Not sure I'm with you on the Lind trade comp. There just really isn't one in Brewers history for this trade. Trading away the best in baseball at a position, even if it's the least valuable position, it's a difficult juxtaposition to really square up. You got worse in that trade so you could get better in the future. You trade away the most dominant reliever...maybe ever through the first 4 years of his career. And then I found some of the arguments maybe a bit disingenuous. The argument that Rogers really isn't much different than Hader. I think that leaves out a lot of nuance. Having Hader AND Williams made the backend of this pen feared. And then the flip side to the prospects we've gotten(again, calling them worthless is silly)...it feels like the advocates of the trades diminished the guys we sent out. We still have 2 aces. We still have a 3rd pitcher like Peralta who can be a #2, Lauer and Ashby can be REALLY elite. And Baseball is a wild sport. Get in, you got a chance and there are dozens of examples...not the least of which are the Braves from last year. So, to my mind, time to wish Hader, Kelly, Peters good luck, move past it and hope we can get some good luck, hope that maybe Ruiz can come up and provide a lift in CF(or Frelick). And if nothing else, if Ruiz doesn't help the team this year, he's a young guy on the cusp of the bigs who's gonna have value in the off-season. He'll be WORTH quite a bit. And I know this is getting TLTR, but Attanasio did infer that DS had a "series" of trades he'd hoped to complete. Maybe Ruiz was a big part of that and he's used in the off-season to supplement next years team if he's right and those did fall through. Basically, lets get over it now. If it's not something you liked, I'm with you, but I'm moving on.

That's my recollection of the trade.

Oh c'mon...the lists are "arbitrary" now? You think they're just throwing names into a hat and then pulling them out? And I do not recall the same sentiments about the Grisham/Davies for Urias/Lauer swap. I remember after Grisham's 1st year in SD, that's when people started to say the Padres won(so in other words, after we saw how those guys played out for a bit). And then the people who still liked that trade often cited the aforementioned "arbitrary" MLB Pipeline rankings in which Urias was ranked 23rd in baseball. What seems more arbitrary is when we lean on those rankings vs when we ignore them. Now that trade seems like it worked out very well for both sides. Padres thus far have gotten more WAR for that trade, no? Looks better for the Brewers moving forward, but...worked out well for SD as well. So not sure that's the dominant Win. SD has gotten more total WAR back thus far, no? Really just seems inconsistent when people are talking about the prospect rankings.

Yeah, I don't like the "just lock the thread," line of thought because it's negative, but...this seems like really misplaced anger. You really think this was some personal decision to just be vindictive vs Barker? But THEN a day later they...bought a tweet? I don't really see the difference here. Barker will get paid a 40 man wage for the duration of his injury or until he's a FA(end of this year), right? So what exactly is there to "buy," and what do you think it would cost them? This seems wild and like you're conflating your anger with the trades they made at the deadline with a procedural move for a guy who...just wasn't part of the Brewers future.