Matt Breen

We should consider players at any level. I don't think it really matters what level they are at. As you note, Milwaukee always tends to look at 'major league ready' players. But that is because often times we were looking to quickly fill holes at the major league level. To me, it's about getting the best player possible. The lower the level a guy is at, the more risk - and reward - he brings. Identifying these players are tough, however. Using Milwaukee as an example - Arcia and Taylor are just now reaching 'Top 100' prospect status as they reach AA. Milwaukee should be looking to acquire players like that. No one would trade Arcia for Kyle Lohse right now, but Kyle Lohse may fetch a 19 year old Arcia-like player in rookie ball or A ball. Again, there's more risk - but more reward. I don't think the club needs to worry about bringing everyone up at once. In some respects, staggering the players introduction into the big league roster is advantageous - you don't have too many rookies come up at once, you ultimately don't have too many players hitting free agency at the same time - that sort of thing. If you get a player who moves into the rotation in 2016, he could be a highly valuable veteran in 2019 to anchor the staff around. I think the key is really just having a steady stream of players, year after year.

With Segura, I just don't see anything special. His great 1/2 season to start 2013 is offset by very mediocre to bad play through last season. Sure he looks better this year, but that's hard after last season. And it's not like he's tearing things up. He's got a .303 OBP right now, including only 2 walks all season. He's solid defensively, but no whiz. He's shown almost no growth as a player since he came up. On the flip side, he can really be an exciting player. And he's only 25, so there's time to improve. Perhaps he's enough for Matz, but I doubt it. I like Matz's upside a lot. He's at AAA this year, so he could easily be ready in the next year or two, even with some adjustment time. He's also been successful at every level of baseball (he has a lifetime 2.30 ERA in the minors, striking out more than a batter per inning, keeps his walks down - 3.1 per 9 IP - and limits HRs - only 8 in 300 IP). The one thing to always remember is that it can't hurt to ask for a guy like Matz. Maybe the Mets value Segura more than I do. With Jean, we can also wait him out a bit. If he catches fire and is sitting with a .300 BA come June, then people will no doubt see him in a lot better light.

Matz is a top 50 rated prospect, and has started off well at AAA. Segura doesn't get him - much less adding in Nimmo or Conforto - both of who generally rank in the 60-90ish range on the prospect lists. Matz would be great, but it'll need more than Segura. So Matz around 50 can't be had for Segura, but Segura would be good enough to get around a #50 Renfroe or around 50 Hedges? I don't think many people think that we could get Hedges or Renfroe for Segura. Although Hedges really brings out strong opinions, so if the Pads really don't like him, perhaps that's possible.

All those guys kind of suck now. Maybe Pujols can rebound, but I'm not expecting much from Williams unless they re-attach his head to a robotic body.

Ryan had a .863 OPS in the first half of last year. It wasn't 2011-era Braun performance, but I believe it's reasonable to think he can perform like that this year.

Jimenez looks pretty bad. Long swing, mediocre bat speed. Not to mention he hardly has ever walked in his career. I haven't seen him much, so maybe I just caught a few bad ABs.

Matz is a top 50 rated prospect, and has started off well at AAA. Segura doesn't get him - much less adding in Nimmo or Conforto - both of who generally rank in the 60-90ish range on the prospect lists. Matz would be great, but it'll need more than Segura.

Urias is arguably the best pitching prospect in baseball. The guys is just looking scary amazing. I doubt the Dodgers even think about dealing him. But I guess it doesn't hurt to try.

Segura to the Mets could start with right handed pitcher Marcos Molina. 1.78 ERA at low A ball last year - awesome walk and K rates (18BB, 91K in 76 IP). He's 6"3', kind of skinny, but should grow into his frame more. He just turned 20 last month. He reportedly reaches the mid-90s on his pitches.

Brennan did hit 16 HR last year in Appleton and 12 in 198 AB's in Helena the year before. It's fair to say he's shown power potential. He also has a good eye at the plate with 87 walks last year. Demuth, while a good hitter, hasn't shown much HR power or even doubles type power. Brennan has shown a nice walk rate - roughly around 16% in his career. However, he strikes out way too much. 32.9%, 24.8%, 27.7% and 36.2%. That needs to improve. He has some power and walk ability, but probably not enough to offset the huge strike out rates.

Again, it's was not a a specific trade suggestion. Meyer, at #29, represented the kind of value the club could get for Peralta. It could have been the #28 ranked player or the #30 ranked player or the #39 ranked player. The idea was just to pick a player so that I could insert them in a purely speculative 2017 lineup.

All speculation and caveats aside, something like this would be a pretty fun looking line up for 2017.

I wasn't trying to suggest specific trades or trade targets -- more just trying to put value on what a player like Gomez was worth - and then showing how making the trades could manifest themselves in a line up a few years from now. Essentially I was acting as if the prospects were all one big pot, and who owned them didn't matter. And the same went for who we traded our guys to - it didn't matter. It's not realistic, but to try and craft specific trades is pretty big project. I think those are great conversations, but you'd really need to find the right fit. (I think some of those conversations are going on in the transactions forum. Maybe just start some new ones - one for each player.)

That's probably fair value, maybe a bit high for Peralta, probably a bit low for Lucroy. However, and this is a big however, you obviously would never get that combination of people in real life. Looking at value is fine, but in reality, you not only have to find a team that has a need for a Lucroy, or a Gomez, or a Peralta, or a Lind, etc., but they have to have and be willing to give up commensurate value. So which team would trade for Lucroy and have and be prepared to part with two top 50 prospects? Same question for Gomez and Peralta and Lind and whomever (adjusting for return value, of course). That narrows the field of potential trade matches by quite a bit. So while Lucroy may be worth Swihart and Nola and then some, Boston doesn't have Nola, and their other top 100 prospects are Yoan Moncada (9), Henry Owens (20), and Eduardo Rodriguez (87). Does Boston value Lucroy enough over Ryan Hanigan to include Moncada and Swihart, or Owens and Swihart? Is Swihart and Rodriguez plus some lower level guys enough? Would they even part with Swihart or Moncada in the first place (I've read no)? The difficulty in getting the right kind of value back is one reason I am almost positive that Attanasio is not going to go through with a total rebuild, even if that's not a great reason. Yeah, it takes two to tango on trades. So much has to match up. The team has to want and need our specific player. They have to have the assets we value. Very hard.

Well, aside from the valuable lesson of handing out large contracts to 30+ aged pitchers with a spotty health history, there have been numerous starting pitchers go down (Wainright for example), which might make dealing some of our veterans an easier task - should we elect to do a rebuild. Both Garza and Lohse, if they start pitching better, might fit into someone's plans. Again, each player will need to show a little sustained success before anyone is going to want them. But the better they do, and the more desperate teams get for arms, the more we can extract in regards to salary relief and prospects. http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2015/04/brandon-mccarthy-has-torn-ucl.html

For sake of argument, let's say the club dealt Peralta, Luc and Gomez. Let's say that Gomez and Luc can, each, fetch you a prospect in the 10-20 range and another in the 20-50 range. Let's say Peralta can get you a guy in the 20-50 range (perhaps I'm wrong about those trade estimates, but it's just a guess). Let's pick out some current prospects and add them to our future lineup. I'm not saying we can - or should - trade for these players - I'm just using them as examples of the type of prospect we could potentially land. I'm sure there are teams just like us who won't trade their prospects for established vets simply because they don't need them. I've avoided taking top 10 players, since those guys really are going to cost a bunch and it's not that realistic a club would deal them. I'm using MLB.com's prospect rankings for no other reason than it's easy and they have nice summaries of the players - http://m.mlb.com/prospects/2015 For Lucroy: Black Swihart © - ranked #19 for Boston; Aaron Nola (SP) #37 for Philly For Gomez: Daniel Norris (P) - ranked #18 for Toronto; D.J. Peterson (1B) #49 for Seattle For Peralta: Alex Meyer (SP) ranked #29 for Minnesota 2017 Line-up C - Swihart 1B - Braun (I don't know if this would work, but I've put him there to get Coulter in the line up) 2B - Segura or Scooter or Sardinas SS - Arcia 3B - D.J. Peterson (he could be at 1B as well) LF - Davis CF - Taylor RF - Coulter SP - Nelson, Norris, Nola, Meyer, Thornburg, Jungmann, Wagner, Cravy RP - Knebel, Jeffress, Smith This is a starting point in 2017. You have other trade assets at this time: Parra, Garza, Lohse. While they probably won't net a top 100 guy, they might add some depth or lower level guys that are a bit further away. And the Brewers have some interesting players at the AA/AAA levels. Brooks Hall, Michael Reed, Yadiel Rivera, David Goforth to name a few. And stripped of salaries, the club would have the flexibility to add salary if needed via a trade or free agent signing. After all, some of the shiny prospects will fail. We'll no doubt need lesser prospects to step up, or need to find solutions in other ways. I'd much rather add a Jordan Zimmerman type player in 2017-18 with this line up than next year with an aging, and not very deep, roster. No matter, I'd be more excited about the above line up than if we kept together what we had and muddled forward. I know it's all a risk, but to me, it's worth it. Again, the players listed are just abstracts - they are the type of players we could be adding (not necessarily the specific players). I like the idea of putting the names in there as opposed to just "Prospect Pitcher acquired in Lucroy deal". Also, maybe I'm off regarding the value of the three players we are dealing. Perhaps we can get more - or less - for them. No matter, this puts more of a face on what a club could look like in 2017.

Hamilton is giving up some salary because he'll get it back through because Texas doesn't have any income taxes. So it becomes a wash for him, even if the contract is valued a bit less.

This lineup would be a lot like the line ups of the past 3-4 - mediocre. If all things worked out really well, they might even have a playoff chance. It could also fail miserably, just like this year. Then 2016 rolls around and you lose your all-star CF and your starting 1B. And age won't do any favors for Braun, Luc or Garza. It is a recipe for mediocrity. The club knows it well. As you noted, based on our past history, we'll likely see this more than we would a total rebuild.

I think there's two very distinct discussions that are going on - one is the value of Wily Peralta. To that, I don't think anyone thinks he sucks. Far from it. Most people probably see him as a very good player. And no one would be thinking of dealing him if it was 2007. But the other question is the discussion of what comprises the next 'core' of players - guys who are going to take us to the next level - like what Fielder, Braun, Weeks, Hart and Hardy did 8-10 years ago. The simple fact is that Wily is currently on track to be a FA after 2018, and therefore, unlikely to be part of the next winning team we can produce. Therefore, people are talking about trading him to acquire assets that will be around in 2019 and beyond - and be part of the next core. The thing that's really hanging over this organization is that it's brutally thin in talent. This is not 2006. We don't have Fielder, Braun, Hart, Hardy and Weeks emerging from the minors. We have NO core of players to build around at this time. Our (potential) core of new players is at A and AA. That's 2-3 years away from the big leagues. Again, that begs the question - why hang on to Wily when the team is destined to be bad during the rest of his time in Milwaukee (at this point, I'm defining his term in Milwaukee as through the 2018 season)? The issue with Wily is not that he sucks - but that he doesn't suck (I don't think anyone wants to trade him because he's had three bad starts). Wily, Luc and Gomez are in the same boat - they are very good players who are going to be stuck on a bad teams in the near future. So why not take those assets that you have that you control in the short term (Gomez through 2016, Luc through 2017, and Peralta through 2018) and acquire assets that you control for 6+ years? Assets that can come to fruition in a year or two from now - along with other potential core assets. It's nothing against those guys, but it's all about the fact that this team will be bad for a few years, so why not plan for the time when we will (hopefully) be good again. You can debate the merits of Peralta's upside. And the club could look to extend Wily beyond his current time of control, buying out a year or two of free agency. I think there are merits to both arguments. Of course, Wily has to be amendable to such a deal. Dealing Wily (or anyone) offers risks. You're right, we always over value prospects. Everyone does (I also think we over value certain major players as well). It's why volume is so important. Prospects fail all the time. Others take time to develop. However, selling off key major league assets is no guarantee of success. I just want this team to actually put into a plan that can lead to success. I'm sick of year after year of band-aids. It begets mediocrity. And for all the talk about selling for the future, this club has done precious little of that over the past 10 years. We don't trade players - even if people have suggested it. Milwaukee has been a terribly reactionary club. We see needs, fill needs. Sometimes that is what is needed. But too much of it leads us to where we are today - rudderless, light on impact talent in the pipeline. As I said, the only players on the roster worth quality prospects are Wily, Luc and Gomez. That's why they are such a hot point of discussion.

Plan for the future? Try and create an environment that builds consistent and long term success? Preposterous! All we need is a some bird feces and spit instead.

Does Votto look like he's lost some weight?

Logan Schafer putting on a clinic in CF. Too bad Segura just drops the throw to 2B.

Logan Schafer was a good minor league hitter (.812 OPS at AAA). He's considered an excellent defensive CF. Speed guys like Schafer often develop later than other prospects. He's 28 and has a year of before he becomes arby eligible. I don't think it's crazy to give him another season to see if he can translate his minor league success to the majors. He's cheap, and quite frankly, the club isn't going anywhere. I'd much rather give him a chance than an aging vet who's twice the price and not in our long term future. Schafer's defense brings immediate value. It's time for him to show he can hit better than .200. But even if he can get up to .250-260, he's has value as a back up (or a minor trade chip).

Lohse may be a good fit for St. Louis, but he still needs to put up a month of solid starts before anyone will trust that he's back on track. In the end, I don't know if we get much for him other than some salary relief.

A friend of mine who's a Cardinal fan said a lot of the decision was about public relations. The club liked both Matheny and Oquendo, but when it came down to handing over the reins of the team, they went with the fresh-faced Christian Midwestern boy instead of the grizzled guy from Puerto Rico who didn't speak English that well. It was also seen as a bit of a way to break from the LaRussa regime. I really don't know that much about Oquendo, but as it's been pointed out, a lot of people thought he'd take over for LaRussa when he left.