Matt Breen

The Yankees defeating the Indians makes me realize how much I dislike them.

My understanding of the discussion is that the guidelines say Hader is out, Woodruff is in. That would be my vote. Yes, that is how I'm going to do things. We know which guys are eligible and which are not. I think we will just stick with that. It might be something that we'd change in our pre-season poll next - which is usually right at the beginning of the year. If Woodruff is in the rotation, we might know he's going to be off the list in 10 days, so we could just make the decision to graduate him a week or so early. But we'll see.

It is really, really early to call Ray a bust. I'm not defending his production. I'm not even advocating he be on Top 100 lists or whatever (I've given reasons for why someone would include him on those lists). His performance has raised some red flags. However, as I said before, despite the fact that Ray was a college player and a high pick, teams knew he had work to achieve those lofty expectations. The torn meniscus likely didn't help things. I think another year will go a long way to showing off what kind of player Ray will be.

I was just curious what people thought. My feeling is you go with the division title. As noted by others, it probably means you're a better club than a wildcard winner. Coupled with the whole 'one game and out' scenario, I'd go bank on the team over a one five game series rather the one and out.

DeGrom would be awesome to have, but I just don't see the Mets going into a rebuild. They had so many injuries last year (pitchers and hitters) and they've cleared a ton of salary away - Bruce, Granderson, Walker, Reyes, Duda, Addison Reed -- that's a ton of cash. Right now, they only have $58M committed to next year - although they probably have $30-35M of arbitration awards coming. Matz, Harvey, DeGrom, Syndergaard - that's a pretty good starting point on a rotation. I'm guessing the Mets see how things go instead of throwing in the towel and rebuilding. If things are a disaster come July, then they might look to sell, but at this point, I doubt they do it.\ Of course, you can never count on the Mets ownership - they have been frugal in the past - so you never know.

He's not a free agent. He will be one after next year.

Question: what do people think would be better for the Brewers - to get into the playoffs via the Wild Card for two years in a row - or to miss the playoffs one of those years, but win the division title the next? Just curious what people think.

A few things to remember about arbitration: 1. It's a numbers game. They love HRs and SBs and RBIs - stuff like that. Villar's team is going to toss out 60 steals - and that will work well. For right or wrong, that's how the system works. 2. It's cumulative. The judgement is not just based on the previous season. It's guy's entire career. So Villar's crappy 2017 is mitigated by his very good 2016. 3. Comparisons are the order of the day. A player with similar years and production and position is going to likely draw a similar salary to a player who came before him. The MLB Trade Rumors numbers are by no means perfect. But they are a good starting point. You can probably slide things either way 10-15% and you'll have a correct number.

MLB Trade Rumors has released their arbitration predictions. So I put together Milwaukee's roster of what we have thus far: [pre]C Manny Pina 0.55 C Stephen Vogt 3.065 1B Jesus Aguilar 0.55 1B Eric Thames 5.0 2B Jonathan Villa 2.55 SS Orlando Arcia 0.55 3B Travis Shaw 0.55 LF Ryan Braun 20.0 ($4M deferred) RF Domingo Santa 0.55 CF Keon Broxton 0.55 OF Lewis Brinson 0.55 OF Brett Phillips 0.55 INF Hernan Perez* 2.2 SP Chase Anderson 4.75 SP Jimmy Nelson 3.7 SP Zach Davies 0.55 SP Brandon Woodr 0.55 S/R Brent Suter 0.55 S/R Josh Hader 0.55 RP Jeremy Jeffress 1.70 RP Corey Knebel 3.65 RP Jacob Barnes 0.55 RP Oliver Drake 0.55 RP Eric Sogard 2.4 RP Boone Logan 1.875 P Yovanni Gallard 2.0 SP Jhoulys Chacin 8.75[/pre] TOTAL: $69.34M The asterisk (*) indicates the player is arbitration eligible. The number is an estimate from MLB Trade Rumors. MLB Trade Rumors Projected Arby Numbers: https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2017/10/projected-arbitration-salaries-for-2018.html Cot's Salaries:

I think every scout and baseball talent evaluator would disagree with you. Your ability as an athlete contributes to how good (or bad) you are at accomplishing some task or feat or skill - whatever you want to call it. It's certainly not the only thing, but it's a huge deal. And in professional baseball, athleticism is what teams will bank on when looking at a player's upside - particularly position players. It's why you can take dozens of 15 year old kids who have been playing a particular sport (baseball, basketball, whatever) for 10 years, and have one kid who has never played the sport walk in and be better than all of them in short order. I saw a quote from one scout who said something to the effect of he would almost always bet on the athletic kid with great raw skills over the polished kid with low athleticism (he was talking about minor league prospects). Why? The good athlete is the one who will be able to keep up to the 100 mph fastball or adjust to the improving change ups and curves or whatever other pitches that a player faces as they head up the minor league ladder. Athleticism allows a player to hit the ball harder, run faster, react quicker. It's why when we hear descriptions of exceptional players you sometimes have terms like 'quick twitch' or 'twitchy' used to describe them. Again, athleticism is not the only thing. Being a baseball player is so much more - practice, intelligence, etc. But athleticism is often what helps a player rise above other guys. Scouts love athletic guys because they are the ones that often have the best chance to be difference makers in the big leagues.

One of the biggest challenges Ray had coming out of college was that he hadn't produced elite numbers. They were good - but not great. Every team knew that Ray was going to have to make adjustments as a pro. They knew there would be some growing pains. Scouts and talent evaluators, however, also recognized Ray’s quick bat, his elite athleticism and his excellent makeup. Scouts, baseball analysts, front office people - they all saw the upside that Ray possessed - even if he hadn't channeled that athleticism and tools into better raw numbers. One and a half years of mediocre play doesn't completely erase all of that upside. Of course, on the flip side, it doesn't mean we should ignore Corey's lack of production to date. I believe it's foolish to ignore either of those things. I know that the Brewers loved Ray when they drafted him. They saw him as a guy who could develop into a 15-20 HR guy, steal 30 bases, hit .280, and play good defense. It's not just tools - it's athleticism. It's something a lot of people don't have. And baseball people described Ray as having elite athleticism. Baseball people love elite athleticism. It's what produces upside. It's what allows a player to overcome challenges as they rise up the minor league ladder. We should also note that Ray played 2017 coming of a torn meniscus. I don't know how much it affected him this year - maybe not at all - maybe a lot. It will be interesting to see him play a season fully healthy. I guess a lot of Ray's ranking comes down to baseball evaluators seeing and understanding the young man's upside. And they are laying money that he translates his tools and athleticism into something exceptional down the line. If they no longer see that athleticism, then they should be downgrading Ray (or any player). I'm not arguing that Ray should be a Top 50 or Top 100 guy. I'm just putting out there that the guy has a lot going for him. People didn't rank him high in the draft just for the heck of it. There were reasons for that. It also doesn't mean he is going to be a good baseball player - just that the building blocks are there. He's still got to put it all together. I am curious to see the reports on Ray at the Arizona Fall League. It is where a lot of baseball people really can see how a player has changed since the previous year. It will be fun to see what folks have to say.

Do the majority of MLB teams value players based on surplus value? Do any MLB teams value players based on surplus value? I'd bet that the majority of MLB teams in the top half of payroll pretty much just care about runs scored and runs given up and not so much how much they have to pay for it. I'd say every team takes a serious look at how much their production cost. They'd be fools not to because no one has an unlimited payroll.

Archer's HR tendencies would probably be amplified a bit in Miller Park, but on the whole, he's a heck of a player. He's 29, and signed for four more years (2 years guaranteed and 2 option years) for $34M. Cheap and good and filling a position of need. Therefore, his value is really, really high. The thing about Archer is that doesn't seem to have made that next step. He's no longer a 25 year old with a ton of promise. He's got a track record. How good is he really? And will he ever take that next step? I honestly don't know - I've rarely ever seen him pitch. I will say that Santana's value has got to be pretty high right now as well. Four years of control left. If he continues to play like he did in 2017, he's going to make less than Archer during the next four years. They'd be getting his prime years. The reason I don't see this happening, however, is Tampa DOES need Archer. They are losing Cobb. With out Cobb and Archer, their rotation is Snell, Odorizzi, Faria - maybe Honeywell - but then who? Matt Andriese and Austin Pruitt are pretty much back of the rotation type guys at best. I just don't see them giving up Archer if they want to try and compete next year. Archer is still really cheap next year. I just don't see Tampa putting a big hole in their rotation. But hey, it can't hurt to find out.

PS - I appreciate people sharing their opinions. It does help.

Hader has graduated simply based on service time. You need 45 days (outside of DL time or expanded rosters). Relievers are generally the main issue - it takes them a while to reach 50 IP - but they get the 45 days pretty quickly. However, a lot of relievers aren't usually top 25 type guys, so it's not really been much of an issue for us.

I'm going to get together things in the next week or two to begin our 2017 post-season prospect poll. This one does not usually have a ton of participation, and there often isn't a lot of movement from our August poll, but that's okay. It's still fun. I know Josh Hader isn't at 50 IP yet, but I am going to graduate him from our list. He's been in the majors for more than 1/2 a year, and is at 47.2 IP - it's pretty clear he's no longer a rookie. What do people think about Brandon Woodruff? He's at 43 IP. I don't think he's guaranteed a spot on the club next spring, so don't really think I want to 'graduate' him from our rookie list just yet. I'm leaning toward keeping him as a prospect for our purposes - but please make your argument if you think he should not be. Otherwise, no one else has graduated from our Top 25, so there won't be a huge difference than the August poll.

So did Nieuwenhuis, Blazek and Goforth. None of those guys was on the major league roster, so that they left is not a shock. Rivera is another guy I expect to go. All those guys will likely hope for a better opportunity in another org.

Cozart has a career .254 BA, a .305 OBP and a .716 OPS. He's benefited from being in one of the most hitter friendly parks in the league. He had an outstanding 2017, no question, but he’s a guy who never hit higher than .258 in his life prior to this year. I would be incredibly wary of a guy who averaged about 2.0 WAR per year for five years, who suddenly puts up a 5.0 WAR season. Personally, other than when Milwaukee plays Cincy, I haven't seen Cozart enough to understand why he had such a good 2017. Maybe he changed his approach or changed his mechanics or whatever. He also might be one of those guys who has benefited from the different baseball. The guys who have benefited mostly from the more tightly wound ball are more tweener guys - 15 HR players who become 25 HR guys. He sort of fits that bill. Cozart is very good defender at SS, so there's no guarantee that he'll be willing to move off the position at this point of his career. He's never played anything other than SS in his entire MLB career. He may simply not want to move. His history of injuries is also troubling. And at age 32, it's not likely to get better. As we've seen with Braun, a lot of small injuries can take a toll on a player. It never hurts to investigate a player's interest, but I wouldn't give the guy a big deal. His track record is nothing special, and - unless the club feels the uptick in performances is permanent - overpaying based on one good year is always a big risk. Also, if the Reds give Cozart a qualifying offer, he will have draft pick compensation attached to him. Not as big of a deal as it used to be - but still a factor. Perhaps all of the above factors will limit the price and years of Cozart's next contract. As I said, it doesn't hurt to keep tabs on the guy. But in the end, I wouldn't pay big dollars for the guy.

I'm asking people to cool it. I have deleted several posts in this thread due to violations of the board etiquette standards. There's no reason for name calling or swearing (or allusions to swearing). This is the crap that gets a topic derailed. Someone is being unreasonable - ignore it. Someone is being a jerk - ignore it. Someone always a jerk? Put them on you block list. You won't see their posts. Be respectable. If someone doesn't like you opinions or conclusions and they are being unreasonable about the conversation - walk away. It's not worth 10 pages of people doing tit-for-tat posts. This is a message board, not a room for people to ruin a conversation for the rest of us. In the end, report offenders. We do not want to ban anyone, but believe me - it happens more than people realize. Thank you.

I say you only play him when he's healthy. We've got Santana, Brinson, Phillips and Broxton. Those guys can cover the OF if Braun isn't healthy. I would rather have Braun hitting a .875 OPS in 90-100 games than a .785 OPS in 120-130 games. Plus, I want him healthy at playoff time. I think we have the personnel to not have to push Braun - and as I said, I'd rather have his bat hitting big come playoff time than struggling due to a bunch of nicks and dings. Santana: 140 starts Brinson: 125 Phillips: 125 Braun: 96 starts Plus there's DH opportunities, pinch hit opportunities, etc. And the starts are just a demonstration of how things could work. Depending on how guys actually play, plus injuries, it would fluctuate. Plus there are other guys we haven't even mentioned - Broxton and Perez. I think we'd be covered fine if Braun wasn't playing everyday.

Totally agree. He's not that great of a hitter, and he's an overrated defender.

Agreed looks stupid ignore Just curious, but why would trading Melancon be a 'no way'?

Problem is that he doesn't really have value. He's owed the following: 2018:$19M ($4M deferred) 2019:$18M ($3M deferred) 2020:$16M ($3M deferred) 2021:$15M mutual option ($4M buyout) That's $57M - minimum, with $10M deferred. Fangraphs and Baseball Reference had him valued at 1.5WAR and 1.2WAR in 2017, respectively. His production is down, he's injury prone, he's aging (34 next month) and he's a liability in the field. No one wants to pay $57M in the hope he can rebound. At this point, we would be lucky to trade him for next to nothing.

I don't know anyone who believes that.

My starting point is relief pitching: Swarzek: 3 years/$15-18M - Not really sure about this. It's a lot for a guy without sustained success. But was one of the best relievers in baseball this past year - so someone will pay him. Pat Neshek - 2 years/$14M - He made $6.5M last year - so someone will probably give him at least that due to his track record of success. At 37, he's a risk, but he probably won't require more than two years due to his age. Just guesses. I don't know who the relief market will shake out. Sometimes, these guys get crazy money. This allows us to move Hader to the rotation.