Matt Breen

Regarding Lucroy and the Red Sox. It looks like the Red Sox are unlikely to deal Moncada (too high of an upside), Benintendi (close to the majors - may help the big league club this year) or Espinoza (great upside in an area of great need). That leaves Rafael Devers as the most likely of Boston's top 4 prospects to be dealt at this year's deadline (he came in at #41 on BA's midseason prospect list, and #19 on Baseball Prospectus' midseason list). The Sox love his bat, but he did start pretty 'meh' this year (but pick up lately), and there seem to be some questions as to if he'll be able to stay at 3B longterm (the worry is that Devers, who is only 19, will get bigger and need to move to 1B if he loses some range/quickness). Finally, Moncada is the crown jewel of the Sox system, but the his future is likely at 3B due to Pedroia locked in at 2B through 2021. Thus, if the Sox really want Luc, the guy that Boston will want to headline a trade is probably Devers. Maybe adding someone like Kopech - as Eye Black noted below - would be enough to get a deal done (I'm sure the team would try and squeeze out another nugget or two in any deal). Kopech's character issues have to obviously be considered. He recently came in at #94 of BA's midseason Top 100. Seems like a high risk, high reward kind of guy. We still have a few weeks left before the deadline, but I'm not sure how many teams really would want to trade for Lucroy (considering how much it will cost). LA would love to have Luc, but the guy they have (Grandal) is actually okay (not great, but not bad). Washington - another team we have talked about as a trade partner - as Ramos, who is playing great. A bunch of teams probably don't have the young talent we'd want (Detroit, Seattle, Mets, White Sox). That leaves Texas, Houston, Cleveland and Boston. Perhaps LA as well. Texas probably wants to get pitching, so Luc might be a luxury at this point. It's not in Cleveland's nature to deal high level prospects, so that may be a dead end. I think that makes Houston and Boston as the most likely landing spots at this time. Obviously, things can happen in the next few weeks, but Luc would be perfect in either Boston or Houston (or any team for that matter). The thing is Dombrowski is not the kind of guy brought in to sit on his hands. He'll make moves. We've got open lines of communication with Boston going, so I'm thinking the likely landing spot in Bean Town. That's assuming we like a return centered around Devers, or we can get the Sox to give up a higher ranked guy. I think it's going to be a fascinating couple of weeks.

Honestly, I'd rather Braun just sit home and relax and rest all his various ailments for the week. It would probably do him good not to play. The only real benefit would be to showcase him to teams, but I don't know if that really matters.

Arizona is this year's San Diego. Trade good prospects, overpay for veteran pitching (at least with Greinke they overpaid for really good pitching), don't have adequate depth. I don't think Arizona sold the farm quite like SD did last year, but their 'all in' move has lost them one of baseball's top prospects, several other highly regarded prospects, and their top pick in this year's draft. This team wasn't just two starting pitchers away from being really good. They are lucky that Lamb has emerged as an all-star.

Boston just lost Craig Kimbrel for 3-6 weeks with knee surgery. A lot of contenders are looking for bullpen help. Guys like Will Smith, Thornburg and Jeffress might end up be worth a lot in the next few weeks. Even Boyer or Torres may fetch a solid nugget. I wouldn't trade guys just to trade them, but the Crew should be listening.

With a HR/FB of 26% One out of every 4 fly balls is a homer. That is insane! The scarier thing is KC keeps sending him out to the mound. Usually a guy doing that poorly over such a long span gets sent to the pen or released or they find something wrong with him so he can go on the DL.

I'm still amazed Burnes fell to us in the 4th round.

Chris Young has given up 26 HRs in 60 IP. Ouch.

For whatever reason, Anderson seems to pitch better at Miller Park than on the road (4.54 ERA at home vs 6.29 ERA on the road). Anderson's gopher ball tendencies have haunted him this year - let's hope he can keep the ball down.

Boston has acquired reliever Brad Ziegler from Arizona for prospects Jose Almonte and Luis Alejandro Basabe. Basabe was ranked 8th on MLB Pipeline's Top 30 of Red Sox prospects, while Almonte was not ranked. Ziegler has been an outstanding reliever for years, and 2016 is no different, so Boston gets a quality arm for the bullpen. He is 36 years old, and will be a free agent after the season. http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2016/07/red-sox-acquire-brad-ziegler.html The move isn't anything big, but it does signal that the Dbacks are admitting they won't contend in 2016, thus guys like Ziegler (a free agent to be), are expendable. It also starts what will likely be the dealing of a lot of relief pitchers around the league, as the playoff contenders fortify their bullpens for the second half. The deal puts a price on a quality arm like Ziegler (albeit an arm that is not controllable beyond 2016).

I love beating the Cardinals like that. Awesome.

From the prospect chat today: Hank (St. Paul): Odds of Marcos Diplan on the preseason top-100? Vincent Lara-Cinisomo: I’d say very strong. I was fortunate enough to cover some MWL games and though I did not see Diplan I got to talk to folks about him in my travels. He has advanced pitchability and savvy and can touch 98 despite a slight frame. Couple of Diaz questions, including this one: Roy (EuClaire): Isan Diaz--future Brewer starting SS? Goodness knows we need someone to fill that void! Vincent Lara-Cinisomo: Not sure he stays at short, but man you’ve got to love the bat. I took video of BP at the Midwest League all-star game and one of the consistently loudest cracks came off the bat of Diaz. He’s not a big guy but he’s sturdy and whips the bat through the zone. Another on Lopez: Bill (Milwaukee): What do you think has happened to Jorge Lopez? Is it the PCL and Colorado Springs getting to him, or is it serious regression? John Manuel: Sounds like it’s been a bit of both. He’s always had that good curveball, and he seems to have lost that at altitude. That would be the kind of thing that would crush one’s confidence. I think he’ll be fine long-term but it does prompt us to lower our sights for him a bit. http://www.baseballamerica.com/minors/midseason-top-100hot-sheet-chat/

The main reason to keep Garza is to hope that he gets better and someone, at some point, wants to trade for him and thus give us some measure of return (some salary relief, a prospect, whatever). Of course, doing this blocks other players, so there's a trade off going on. And there's no guarantee that Garza will do better. I think it all comes down to the organization's opinion of Garza. If they think he can rebound, they can keep him and hope he nets a return. If they think he's never going to get better, he's sunk cost. They should just cut him now and be done with it. What's the point of paying him to block other guys if you think he's never going to get better. They've played the waiting game on Hill, Lucroy and others -- I imagine it will continue with Garza as well.

I'm actually a fan of Cechinni and I don't think he really deserves a call up. He's doing okay, but nothing special. I think he just needs more time to try and get his approach down. Hopefully it can happen. On the positive side, Garin has really cut down on the strikeouts and gotten back to more of his style of hitting. It's resulted in okay production, but not what you want from a corner guy. If you look deeper into his numbers, you'll find he's pretty bad against lefties (he's left handed). Example, this year he is hitting .277 vs righties, but .219 against lefties. It's kind of like that for the last few years for him. He does play 3B and 1B (plus he's played some OF), so the versatility is nice. I could see him in a role where he might get 20-30 starts at both positions as a lefty bat if you have more fringy players like Perez and Middlebrooks as your starters. But I think he still has to step up a bit more before you consider any such thing.

The Mets Matt Harvey will undergo surgery to alleviate thoracic outlet syndrome in his right shoulder. He will miss the rest of the season. This affects the Brewers in a roundabout way in that the Mets have been discussed as a landing spot for Lucroy, with a Mets starting pitcher a possible return candidate. This probably dims such ideas, as the Mets will need all their arms, including Wheeler, who's supposed to be back in the 2nd half of the year, and a guy often mentioned as a trade candidate. A Mets deal would likely have to involve a third team if the Brewers wanted controllable young pitching.

Too bad the Giants system stinks. He would fit there pretty well, plus they have money coming off the books after this season (roughly $50M), so paying him going forward wouldn't be that difficult in their salary structure.

I remember when this happened. People were dumbfounded that Reed turned down the $7.8M, 3-year deal - which was pretty huge at the time (1994). The crazy part is that he did it again the following year. If I recall correctly, Milwaukee offered him $1M to resign, which Reed turned down. He ended up not signing until late with SD, and got $450,000 (and that was after bonuses). He eventually got a $1M in 1996, making his three year salary total $2.2M - so he essentially missed out on $5.6M - again, quite a large amount at the time. Reed still made over $8M in his career, so no one shed a tear for him. But it was a classic case of a player and his reps totally misreading the market. The crazy part is pretty much everyone saw it as a bad decision (to reject the offer). Even I saw it. But I digress....

I don't see anything about Boros representing Reed in the article, but maybe I'm missing something.

Special shoutout to SRB and Manty Brewer Fan (in his first post ever) who both put Franly on our first Community Top 20 back in the summer of 2014. They were the only ones to vote for him that time around. viewtopic.php?f=64&t=31306

I know why people wouldn't want Walker Buehler - coming off TJ and so forth - but in some ways, that's exactly why you get him now. Yes, it's a risk, but Bueller was a top pick 5 five pick coming into the season before the injury. That's the kind of talent we haven't been able to draft for a decade (at least until this year). As I said, yes it's a risk, but I'm okay rolling the dice for a potential front end of the rotation guy. Obviously, you'd have to feel like he's coming along okay from the surgery. The other thing about a guy having TJ surgery is that players mostly come back from it (I stress mostly, because some never recover - the actual success rate is around 90%). And once you've had TJ, guys usually don't have the same issue for some time (I'm going by memory, but I think guys who have had 2 TJs usually last between 6-9 years between the two. If anyone knows the exact info, feel free to provide.). Just knowing it won't (usually) crop up again soon is nice to know. Buehler is a college guy, so he could potentially be in the majors in a reasonable amount of time. It would mostly be about getting him back on schedule, building arm strength, etc. As I said, he's a risk, but I'd love the team to take a risk for a guy like him.

McClanahan went Yard on his first AB. Nice.

Actually, Wilkerson is ready now. He's at AAA and doing well. And a team like Milwaukee is perfect for him. The Red Sox considered bringing Wilkerson up recently for a spot start (they chose Sean O'Sullivan instead). If you look at the Boston area writers, they basically expected Wilkerson to be in the big leagues some time later this year. But Boston is in a playoff race and isn't going to risk throwing a fringy rookie into the fray. Here's a quote from Dombrowski: “Even though we like some of his abilities, I don’t think we can count on him to step forward, being in a situation to have never pitched in the big leagues, and be a real strong consideration for us to be a key factor in the pennant race.” Wilkerson isn't anything great - most scouts qualify him as a back-of-the-rotation starter at best. But that's what was said about Davies a year ago. And there's nothing wrong with that. A guy who comes in and pitches 180 innings with a 4.00 ERA is a really valuable asset. You need a bucket of guys like this for depth. So many flame out, get hurt, etc. So stocking up on interesting arms - even an older guy like Wilkerson - isn't a bad thing.

I think it's also important to note that Sterns and Dombrowski are speed dial now. Perhaps there is more to come...

I have to be honest, I'd be kind of ticked off if I was Davies. I know it's business. We all get it. But it just kind of stinks for him. He's done nothing to deserve what happened - and as noted - it costs him 24K. Seriously, was having Andy Wilkens on the bench that critical for the next week or so? Perhaps Davies is 'whatever' about the whole situation. But then again, maybe he'll never forget. In the end, it just doesn't seem worth it to me.

First, that we got anything for Hill is nice. At the beginning of the season, just unloading him and some of his salary would have been great. We've done that (Boston is picking up the remaining $2.75M of his salary), and got two guys out of Hill. Wilkerson is definitely old for a prospect at 27, but he's a late starter after TJ surgery in his final year of college. He's pitching well since coming to affiliated ball - good K rates, solid walk rates, good ERA - so there's something interesting there. If he ends up anything great, if not, life goes on. Same goes for Rijo. You just never know how a guy like him turns out. There's nothing great here, but it's something. Now we can put some other guys on the field that might be part of our future (or not - we'll find out). Hill did a nice job in Milwaukee - he's perfect for Boston - veteran guy, versatile, performing well. I wish him well.

He's 20 years old. That's such an asinine statement. I'm just going to ask that we maintain some civility here. This is not necessary. Thank you.