The Thames/Aguilar platoon has a relatively good chance of outperforming Braun just playing 1B himself. Also, Santana has to have better trade value than Thames/Aguilar and we need to keep adding. I think Stearns will make the trade with Santana and sign at least one more free agent. I am stealing this from another board, "the Brewers had a $114 million payroll in 2012 (the year I think was the highest), which ranked 12th in the league. The league’s average payroll was $107 million that year. In 2017, a $112 million payroll would have ranked 25th in the league. The average payroll was $152 million, up $45 million in 5 years. " It is quite possible that there is more room to add payroll than most of us expect.