Matt Breen

I don't think the team has gone into a true rebuild mode. They specifically said they wanted guys who were close to contributing (such as Davies). I think the team will bring out a lineup similar to what I posted above, and hope things go well (although I'm not sure if they would really give Santana the CF job). If the club falters, they'll perhaps look to deal Luc and Lind - maybe Segura - before the deadline. Braun might be tradeable as well. Depending on how the club does next year, they can start making moves (such as bringing up Arcia). I can hear the pitch: "Look, Mark, we have a decent offense if we stay healthy and if a few guys rebound. We'll rely on our young staff to mature and improve, hope Garza returns to form, and put together a nice bullpen. If things tank, we can look to deal next summer, just like we dealt Parra and Gomez. So why bail on 2016 now when we can just wait for half a season and see how we are doing? With some luck, we'll be in the wildcard race." The big downfall to waiting on the veterans such as Braun, Luc and Lind is that injuries or poor performance can ruin their value - and you blow the chance to get some quality young guys in the process. I just think it's pretty optimistic to think any incarnation of a 2016 Brewers team is going to be playoff caliber - or even competitive.

I think one reason the club let go of Fiers is how they are crafting the pitching staff. They are looking for groundball type guys, while Fiers is a pretty flyball pitcher. Peralta, Jungman and Nelson are all prototypes of who the team is looking fall - each throws low, induces lots of groundballs (all around 50%) and limit HRs. If you look at the guys we got back for Fiers, Gomez and Parra, i believe all of them fit the same mold (not positive on this, but that's what I believe I read). I don't think the club is simply going to get rid of flyball pitchers - a good pitcher is a good pitcher - but when it came to part with a guy, he's the one that went. I'm wondering if the team is looking at the success Pittsburgh has had - lots of defensive shifts, lots of ground balls - and see a model that might work at Miller Park. That means, of course, we need to be better defensively - something that could happen in the next couple of years as guys like Phillips, Taylor, Arcia and Reed get a crack at the majors. Sardinas and Rivera might get into the picture as well. All those guys should be good defensive players, and each will probably get a shot in the next 1-2 years. Couple this with the fact that Fiers is in his prime right now - he'll never be better and never worth more - it made sense to deal him over the other guys we had. He certainly has done great the last year - no denying that - but longterm he probably wasn't a key player for Milwaukee.

Respectfully, I think trading away a 22 year old player who nearly wins the Triple Crown the very next season trumps a no hitter as being the most "Brewers thing ever." LOL, but we got Mieske!!! We got Boned in that trade. I mean Bones.

Because having Braun and Luc could help us win 75 games next year instead of 70. Okay, joke, but there's some people in the org who probably think we can be competitive (what does that mean is a good guess, but I'll say .500ish). You can argue that the team could look something like this: Lucroy: 15 HR, .290 BA Lind: 25 HR, .285 BA Scooter: 10 HR, .285 BA Segura: 10 HR, .275 BA 3B - ??? Davis: 25 HR, .260 BA Santana: 25 HR, .240 BA Braun: 30 HR, .290 Jungman, Nelson, Peralta put up 3.50ish ERAs Garza has a 3.80ish ERA Davies produces a 4.00ish ERA Bullpen pitches well Obviously, you need a 3B, but is the rest of the production that outrageous to imagine? You produce an averagish rotation, a good bullpen, and little better than average offense - that's a .500ish team - maybe better. And the above players probably make no more than $65-70M. You could find a passable 3B, add some depth - is it that bad? I don't advocate putting the above team into the field. I just don't believe all the good things you need to happen can happen. And defense would be pretty bad. But I can see ownership or whomever rolling the dice. I'd rather play for 2018 and be much better at that time than be averagish (at best) next year.

There was a thread on Suter a month or so back. viewtopic.php?f=64&t=33058 Big difference between Fiers and Suter is the former's ability to strikeout batters. Fier's always excelled at striking out batters in the minors and majors - even with his limited stuff. Still, you can't ignore Suter's success.

And virtually no one says we should trade every single player once they start approaching free agency. And virtually no one is saying you should never sign a free agent. Building from within delivers flexibility. It helps a team avoid overpaying for average talent (Looper, Suppan, Wolf, Lohse, Garza). And it helps a team avoid being caught with expensive players in the long term contracts who's production is declining. Pittsburgh has signed players like Martin, Burnett and Liriano. They've given extensions to Marte, McCutchen and others. No, they probably won't be signing a $30M a year free agent, but they've build a sustainable model. They have a lot of young talent in the minors that will eventually replace guys as they get too expensive or their production declines. There does come a time where trading most of your veterans is a viable strategy. Quality players on a poor team is a luxury - especially when there's little chance that player will be part of the next winning club. If a team estimates that it will take 4 years build a winner, they are foolish to hang on to a 30 year old guy with two years left on his contract, especially if dealing him can bring potential talent with more control. in the end, the team still needs to produce quality players. All the rebuilding can go down in flames if you draft badly and make poor trades.

Braun moving to 1B is something no one really knows how it will work out until you try. Is his poor play at 3B relevant to the discussion? Yes, of course it is, but it's not the be-all-end-all deciding factor. Braun's an athletic guy, and he's managed two position moves in the OF pretty well. 1B is considered the 'easiest' position to the play, and Ryan may be mentally ready for the challenge compared to 2008. Ultimately, you never know until you try. Maybe he'll just click at the position. Personally, I think the club is foolish not to try it if and when they have an opening there. However, it may be a no go from the start. Maybe Braun wants nothing to do with 1B. Or maybe he and the team is convinced he'll be a butcher extraordinaire. He's got to be ready and willing to do the move. I'd also like to point out that if we want to move Braun to 1B, the sooner the better. We aren't going win next year. If the team deals Lind this offseason, it's the perfect time to move Ryan (or anyone else) to the spot. You can afford to experiment. If things don't work out, no harm other than we win 67 games instead of 68 or 69.

Phillip Humber threw a perfect game, if I recall correctly. Edwin Jackson had a no no. Then then there's Juan Nieves...

PS - Here's how you could trade Braun: Braun has already been paid a $10 million signing bonus, so that's off the books. New contract goes from 2016-2020 at $19 million in years 2016-18, $18M in 2019, and $16M in 2020. There's a $15M option for 2021 with a $4M buyout. However, he actually only gets about $15M a year (or less in 2020) in the next five years due to deferring $18M of his pay. The deferred $18M is paid out equally over 10 years, beginning in 2022. There is no interest. This makes his salaries over the next few years pretty reasonable: 2016: $15M 2017: $15M 2018: $15M 2019: $15M 2020: $13M 2021: $15M (or a $4M buyout) To facilitate the trade and get back better prospects the Brewers could kick in some money - say $3-5M a year for instance. That would make Braun cost only $10-12M annually - something many teams would be interested in doing. Even teams with limited payroll might be interested. Again, someone has to want Braun. His injuries, PED stuff, contract and age might preclude teams from being serious about wanting him. But a power hitting corner OF would no doubt interest some clubs.

Dealing Braun is certainly an option, but for a long time I've questioned the viability due to the big contract, his hand issue, the PEDs stuff, etc.. But with his performance this year, he's more and more likely to have suitors should we put him out there. A corner OF who will hit you 25-30 HR and put up an .850 OPS is pretty nice - even if he is expensive. I guess it all comes down to what someone offers for Braunie.

I've said this before, but this is why you need lots of prospects. For every one that develops that third pitch you have a handful who don't. It's not always apparent which prospect is going to take the next step. It's trial and error, patience, etc. Guys like Keuchel and Kluber were never top 100 guys, but have figured out that next step. Each could have been given up on (Kluber was in the minors at age 27). I'm not saying Nelson will be Kluber or Keuchel, just that the more solid prospects we can develop, the chance is there for them to emerge as a better player than anticipated. A #5 starter who blossoms into a #3 guy is huge (just as a #3 who becomes a #2 or #1).

No word on who has claimed him. Milwaukee has two days to make a trade, let him go, or pull him back. http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2015/08/neal-cotts-claimed-waivers-brewers.html I still think it was weird no one wanted this guy at the trade deadline last month. Now we have one team to strike a deal with instead of the rest of the league. Just giving him up would save the team roughly $750,000.

A team has claimed Cotts of revocable waivers. No word on who. http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2015/08/neal-cotts-claimed-waivers-brewers.html

I think this is what's going to happen. This offseason the team can talk trade for Lind with all the clubs as they re-tool and figure out their needs. Hopefully, that means more suitors, meaning someone willing to give up something of value. I think the best thing is to then put Santana in RF (he has the arm for it), leave Davis in LF, and figure out CF (Peterson? maybe add someone for cheap wanting a fresh chance like Drew Stubbs - no matter, they are placeholders until Taylor or Phillips arrives in the next year or so). Braunie goes to 1B - start him there in camp and by the beginning of the year, you're set at the position.

Santana is nice looking and I want the guy to play, but I don't want Davis sitting. He needs to produce, and being on the bench won't do that. September is a good month to get some cheap stats as a lot of minor leaguers get called up. The goal should be to have Davis improve his numbers to make him more attractive down the road as trade bait. If not this off season, sometime in the next year. By 2017, you have Reed, Phillips, Taylor and Santana all in the mix, and the better Davis looks, the more he can fetch in a trade. I will also add that there's a chance Davis improves and goes from a .240 hitter with 20 HR in a year to a .270 hitter with 30 HR. I'm not counting on it, but there's the chance. The club can then either keep him or trade him, depending on how other guys progress. But sitting on the bench stalls Davis. He needs to get better. I don't think he's really valuable now, but if he can get up to .250 or better by season's end, he's more intriguing to other teams.

I ran into the following issues with #3 and #4 (which was how we did things in 2014). First, if wait until after the trade deadline your pushing toward the end of the regular season (assuming you give everyone a couple of weeks to vote, take a few days to tabulate things, etc.). So let's say you get a prospect list up in the third week of August. At this point, the minor league season is close to being done. We've got six weeks of regular season, but for the most part the minor league numbers are pretty well set by mid-August. 2-3 more weeks isn't likely to change things that much. It makes doing an end-of-season poll somewhat redundant since there's not that much that has changed since the mid/late August poll. Second, with regards to waiting until after the trade deadline - it usually doesn't matter that much. This year, however, was the exception. In 2014, we waited until after the deadline and the only change was Mitch Haniger wasn't eligible anymore. Third, if you do a pre-draft vote then some people will say we should wait until after the draft so you can include those picks (sort of a damned if you do, damned if you don't scenario). Fourth, having a poll in late March, then late May, then mid-August, then early October gives you four polls in the year - as opposed to three. Just more work, and the closer you make the polls, the less things change (as noted in point #1). How would I do things going forward? 1. Do a post season poll in October or November. 2. Do a pre-season poll in March. 3. Plan on doing a mid-season poll like this year, wrapping up after the July 15 deadline. 4. However, with the mid-season poll, I think we could consider reserving the right to extend it to the trade deadline if the team appears to be in a major selling mode (like this year). It's not a perfect way to do this since you would need to have people come back and update their selections. Again, we'd have to see how the team is doing and what the buzz is around the league. In the past, Milwaukee hasn't done many deals at the deadline - usually dealing guys if anything (albeit, mediocre players since we don't make a lot of big deals.) The other option would be to do a supplemental poll after the deadline, asking people to rank any new comers. But we can sort of feel that out, see what is in the cards next summer. One thing I want to start doing is bumping people off the list as they become ineligible (either because they are traded, cut or get too much service time). Thus everyone can slot in any eligible player when they vote and know that the guy will go away if he gets too much service time. This way no one is setting up their own eligibility standards. It's sort of what MLB Pipeline does. They bump people off, add new guys, etc., as they go. Thus when Jungmann became ineligible, he'd just be go off the list, everyone below him gets bumped up, and player 26 joins the Top 25. This is something we could do right now if people wanted. It makes the list less stagnant. Also, if we did do a poll after the draft, but before the signing deadline (like this year), I'd ask people to include an extra player for any unsigned draftees they want to include in their list. We did this when the possibility of Kirby not signing was brought up - people just started adding an extra guy to their list. I think that worked out fine. There are certainly some advantages to doing four polls in the year. The more you do them, the more the list is fresh. A mid-August poll gives people more feel for the draft picks and rookie ball players. But again, you do that in August, then the October poll is sort of redundant. I'm totally open to suggestions - and if someone has the burning desire to run one of these, they are certainly welcome. I'll do whatever works best for the community.

Thought this was a really good Q&A with Jimmy Nelson over at Fangraphs: http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/qa-jimmy-nelson-milwaukee-brewers-pitcher/ He's goes into depth about the adjustments he's made this year, the pitches he throws, etc. Some nice detail. Obviously, Jimmy's progress is one of the season's bright spots. Let's hope he keeps it up.

Davies and Reed won't get called up because they are not on the 40-man roster (unless, of course, someone is let go and they want to add one of them). Here's our current minor leaguers who are on the 40 man roster: Juan Centeno Matt Clark Matt Dominguez Preston Guilmet Johnny Hellweg Jim Henderson Brandon Kintzler Yadiel Rivera Domingo Santana Luis Sardinas Mike Strong Tyler Wagner Rob Wooten Edit: I counted only 37 guys on the 40-man roster, so several players could get added if the team so desired.

He's played 11 games in the minors in CF and 3 innings there for Houston. Now Minute Maid park has a huge center field and you need speed in CF but not so much at Miller Park with decent speed at the corners with Braun and Davis. Would he be that much worse an option for the Brewers than Shane Peterson in CF? He's listed at 6'5" 225. That isn't bulky by today's standards. Heck Gomez is listed at 6'3" 220. He doesn't look bulky in the upper body from his highlights so 225 looks pretty close. Santana looks like football player to me. He has the look of a guy who's going to fill out over the next few years. Gomez was sort of freaky in that he never looked that big.

Wily's fastball velocity is down a bit over 1 mph, while his slider is down almost 3 mph. His change up velocity is down 1 mph as well. Obviously, the Ks are really down for Wily - from 7 per game to just over 5. I'm not sure if the velocity drop is behind this. His walk and HR rates aren't too different than last year. I'm sure someone can read into the numbers better than myself, but it would be interesting to see where he's pitching, how many balls/strikes he's throwing - and if there's anything to glean from that info. Ultimately, he just hasn't looked sharp this year - even before the injury. I'd love to hear what others have to say.

So much is going to rely on good health. One pulled muscle or whatever and he has a season with 10 HR. Averaging 28 is pretty tough for a guy (especially for a guy in his 30s). It would be sweet for him to get 400, but I'm skeptical just knowing that guys often breakdown as they age. A monster or two season - say 35 HR - would really help.

I'm not super familiar with Santana's OF defense, but it seems like scouts consider his arm possibly his best single tool (I think MLB Pipeline had him with a 70 throwing arm?). Doesn't mean I think he's a Gold Glover, but it seems a shame to move him to 1B. Just to clarify, Santana is listed as having a 60 arm and 50 field. A person I trust who has seen him says he's average at best. Really nice arm, but stiff and not particularly instinctive. That's just one person's opinion.

I figured the blue font wasn't necessary

I agree that it's going to be Davies. The Brewers supposedly really liked him (I think I read that the analytics guys saw something in him). He's a groundball pitcher - fitting in with org philosophy (I don't think it's a coincidence that Fiers was traded in that he's a fly ball guy).

You know, this club has so many mental things that don't qualify as 'errors'. How many extra outs are we going to give away? I know every team has this kind of stuff, but it seems to be rampant. Is it bad baseball IQ? I mean it's not like they haven't been told to do things the right way.