adambr2

Haudricourt is correct. Competitive balance picks are protected.

Part of me kind of hopes to see him used as a trade piece to a team that wants to start him. I don't want the Brewers to lose him but I also want to see this electric arm flourish. Just not sure that will be in a Brewers uniform. It really is a shame. Andrew Miller has an electric arm. To a lesser extent, so does Zach Britton. Both of these guys were failed starters. Not every electric lefty arm is destined to start. Sometimes the secondary stuff just isn't enough, especially when you have to dial down your fastball a few ticks to be able to sustain 6-7 innings instead of throwing gas for 1-2. I'm not saying Hader can't make it as a starter, but it's entirely possible that the Brewers are leaning toward the scouts who believe he's destined for the pen.

Come on folks. Santana is on the trade block. Rival GM's are not going to tell Rosenthal, "Santana is a stud who hit 30 bombs last year. He can play OF and would make an excellent DH. We plan to pay through the nose for him." Of course they are going to tell Rosenthal he is a bum. The Brewers need to unload an outfielder and rival GM's know it. They are going to play their hand close. There is a difference between posturing and being an unprofessional dink. If he had said, "we have concerns about his K rate" or even "he's a lousy defender in right", I wouldn't have an issue. "He's not a winning player" is personal and just making stuff up.

Yep, I love the mixing and matching we're going to be able to do in the pen this year. It's clear we are looking to use a situational bullpen in 2018 and have numerous guys to cover those situations. I don't understand how anyone could not love this. How often do you get the best reliever out of someone's pen and a guy coming off a 1.62 ERA season for 2.5M bucks? Swarzek had a pretty poor track record before last season and everyone points to the changes he made being responsible. Well, Albers clearly made changes after 2011 too, and 2016 has been his only outlier. If you wanted Swarzek at 2/14 you should be thrilled with Albers at 2/5.

Didn't we get Broxton for Rogers? Just sayin' Would you prefer nothing of note? Yeah, I would. Personally I'd rather make under the radar moves like trading Rogers for Broxton and a starting pitcher (Trey Supak) who is currently our 14th best prospect, rather than just dumping guys for nothing just because we don't want to be bothered with unknown flyers and lottery tickets.

This is a really good signing. He was awesome situationallly in Washington and will likely be used in similar fashion here. It will be nice to be able to pick and choose options like him and Hader late based on matchup. Very under the radar move and no one will expect him to have a 1.62 ERA next year, but this is low risk with potentially great reward.

No way Cleveland accepts that trade, it's not even close. Neither Nottingham not Villar add much value to a trade. I'm not saying either is worthless, but Nottingham is basically a 20ish organizational prospect and Villar is a buy low candidate for a rebuilding team. Neither moves the needle much. Phillips might.

Agreed with the last two. I think if you're going to make the last two moves for the OF defense, you might as well take it all the way. A Phillips/Broxton platoon in RF will be fantastic defensively and probably good for 40-45 HR too. Yeah, you're still going to have a lot of K's but those will be reduced with the platoon role and you've already taken significant steps to reduce them teamwise with Yelich and Cain. I know everyone bags on Broxton and a lot of it is justified, but if you stick to playing him only against lefties, he'll be fine. They wanted him to be the everyday CF last year and it didn't work out. He's a platoon bat, but he'll be a good one and with Brinson gone that opens the door for him to stick around, and Perez is an easy choice as the 5th OFer for the rare times you need one. You have that outfield, trade for Harrison, if Braun is athletic enough to handle 1st, you just may have the best defense in baseball. Unfortunately, that leaves Thames, Aguilar, and Santana out, but all are plenty tradeable. I don't think we can worry too much about Santana not being traded yet -- I know the Yelich and Cain moves happened so fast that it was natural to wonder what Santana is still doing here, but there's plenty of time left. Odds are still he goes, I think. I wish Thames still fit into this somehow, he seems like a nice guy to want to keep around, but he just doesn't fit. You don't want him as a backup OF/1B.

I agree with this as far as Phillips goes. I think Yelich was a little bit of a special circumstance -- a guy who is basically a prime Ryan Braun lite -- less power, better D, became available in his prime, and I get how that was just too good to pass up. No one they gave up in the deal was close to MLB ready besides Brinson, and they may have felt that the injury concerns with Brinson were just too much to not sell high on him while they still had a chance to do so. But I'm disappointed that Phillips seems now destined for a limited role or AAA. I'm sure you can find plenty of time for him if Santana gets traded, but if not, then what? I think Phillips is being a little undervalued and may have the upside of a lefty Santana only with elite D insread of defensive warts. But we'll never find out if we don't give him a shot.

We are one of the more analytical teams? I guess we've come a long ways since signing Jeff Suppan because he was an NLCS gamer!

I understand the frustrations to a point. However, I think it would be pretty unanimous that Josh Hader makes the Brewers much better in the pen this year than he does in the rotation. Josh Hader alone is probably the difference between this pen being potentially pretty good, and being a potential disaster. He takes all the high leverage innings and reduces everyone else's role. He's the guy who is going to come in a close bases loaded game with Bryce Harper coming up in the 7th, or come up in the 8th in a 1 run game to face the heart of a tough order. I think people get too hung up on the "200 innings is more than 80 innings so 200 innings must be 120 innings more valuable." I think that's an oversimplication -- I don't pretend to know how to exactly quantify it but Hader takes on many more high leverage innings in his role which may make the difference in numerous close games. Pens are much more specialized than they were in the past. Without him, you've got Knebel for the 9th and a whole lot of question marks before him. With the Brewers recent moves they've obviously put a premium on trying to win this year and Hader in the pen is definitely safer in that regard. Now you could argue that they could have signed some veteran high end pen arms to replace Hader's role in the pen to open things up for his move, but that's not the route they went in the pen. So I'm pretty confident that having gone this way they'll still have another move to make yet for the rotation. If the Brewers feel Hader is a future starter, he'll get his shot. It probably would have been this year if we had won 70 games last year. But make no mistake he can still be very valuable in the role he's going to be in.

https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2018/01/rosenthals-latest-mets-domingo-nationals-kipnis.html Rosenthal quotes rival executives saying that Santana is “a bad defender” and “not a winning player.” Not a winning player? What a completely douchey thing to say behind the wall of anonymity. Seemed like he was a pretty big part of us winning 86 games last year. Seemed like a pretty winning player when he broke a scoreless tie in a pitcher's duel by homering off Clayton Kershaw. I understand it's all posturing, but knowing something like that will be public, seems like a cowardly thing to say knowing you'll never have to answer for it and it's a completely impossible to define thing that you could literally say about anyone in an effort to downplay their value. Bad defender? Sure, that's true. "Not a winning player?" Give me a break.

Sedar should just be grateful to still have a team-provided jersey.

Stearns confirmed today that although he does not rule out Hader transitioning to a starting role sometime in the future, he will be pitching out of the bullpen in 2018.

"Hey Ryan, don't tell Domingo, but he's going to be traded for sure. Can we leak some crap about how you're willing to play at 2nd so that it doesn't seem to trade partners like we NEED to trade him? Don't worry, you'll never play an inning there." "Sure David, no problem."

Schwarber got almost 500 ABs last year even after being demoted for part of the year, so he was basically a full time guy. Thames won't get anywhere near that as a backup to Braun. The other guys you listed are highly versatile. Happ and Zobrist can play almost anywhere on the diamond. Almora can play anywhere in the OF and plays high end defense in CF. Thames is basically a 1B only and an emergency left fielder. Very different.

Agree 100%. Back when we still had Brinson I dreamed of the day we would have a fast athletic OF across the board. This would leave Aguilar as the odd man out, but someone has to go. If Phillips hits enough, he would backup CF and OF as well. Ideally Phillips would just rise up and take RF, and Braun gets his ABs planning at 1B and backing up the corner OF. Aguilar is very suited for his role as a platoon only 1B. He did a good job of it and OPSed near. 900 against lefties. Unless you think Aguilar just played well over his head, we gain nothing with a Thames/Braun platoon over a Thames/Aguilar. So Braun will get 50 or so starts at 1st, then what else? It's not like you'll ever use him as a late defensive sub. It's not like he's going to start against RHP very often in the corner for Phillips, or ever for Yelich. I guess you could occasionally put him in LF, Yelich in CF and Phillips in RF when Cain needs a day off, but for the most part Cain is an everyday player. If Ryan Braun is on this team, which he's going to be, he needs to have an every day role. You're not going to waste his bat in a hard platoon with an occasional corner OF start. Maybe if he was a left handed bat you could get away with that, but not as a righty. So I'm good with Braun at 1st, just not in a platoon role. If they want to keep Santana or even roll with Phillips full time, that's fine by me. But you need to be shopping Thames and Aguilar if you're going to do that. I have really no clue what you could get, but the 1B free agent market has been pretty slow, and both Thames and Aguilar are cheap and controllable, so maybe you could peddle them together as an alternative to a 1B needy team who doesn't want to pony up for a guy like Hosmer.

I really do want to be wrong on Braun. I want the Brewers to win way more than I want to be right. It does not matter what I think of him personally, if he can contribute 25 HR or so and around an .850 OPS with 500ish ABs for even 2 of the next 3 seasons with at least passable defense, I'll gladly say that I was wrong and that he was still worth having around.

If Santana gets traded which he should be Braun is starting in the OF somewhere. Phillips if still here will get plenty of PT as the 4th OFer especially being able to play anywhere. I know they are talking about Braun at 1st but it seems like a waste to me when it leaves Aguilar completely out in the cold and I don't see Braun at 1st being any upgrade from a Thames/Aguilar platoon. My preference would be to trade Domingo, Yelich in left, Cain in center, Braun in right. It seems like a waste of Yelich's defensive strengths to me to have him in right. Was Braun really that bad of a defensive RFer? I honestly don't remember.

Honestly, this system is still a lot better than it's going to get credit for. It's going to be underrated because it lacks a big impact name; Hiura is the closest but with him not being a '5 tool' type (or East coast), he could probably have a monster year and still not crack the top 10, although probably top 20. That said, the system is loaded with guys who could be really fast risers and not only crack this list but be high on this list with a big year. Ray, Erceg, Lutz, Gatewood, Medeiros, Grisham, Ponce, Bickford, Feliciano...none of these guys would surprise me to be talking about at this time next year. There's probably 1 or 2 who in that list who will, so it'll be a really fun Milb season.

Just guessing, but I would imagine that Phillips and Diaz were the two just outside.

Fulmer is 24 years old, has ace stuff, comes with 5 years control, hits 99 on his fastball with a wipeout slider. Your 'proven top of rotation pitcher' isn't available via trade or free agency for that matter.

So basically Cleveland is offering McKenzie and Meijia for Domingo and a throw in, why don’t we just do that, I would and not include Detroit. Anyone know if Fulmer is completely healthy from his injury at the end of last year? Deal says McKenzie or Mejia, not both, very big difference. And says Cleveland would want something else from Detroit. Also mentions another throw in on our part but at that point, not a deal breaker.

To get us back on track here. This is from the Tigers version of Brewcrewball. [attachment=0]Screenshot_20180127-115726.png[/attachment] I would absolutely do this in a heartbeat. 5 years control of Fulmer, give up Santana, Grisham, Dubon and Woodruff? Plus you'd actually save money in the deal and have still plenty of money to spend on whatever else you wanted, every pitching prospect besides Woodruff still here, still got Hiura, still got Ray and Lutz, and Hader can be your pen ace.

How do you know they are having trouble? Mostly, operating under the assumption that if they had a deal that they liked on the table, they would have accepted it. They would certainly have no reason not to now. But it was reported during the Winter Meetings that a lot of AL scouts had some strong reservations about Santana.