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adambr2

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Everything posted by adambr2

  1. adambr2
    I summed up my feelings on the difference earlier. Cain is a FA signing, either you pay or don't get involved. Braun we paid at a time when we still controlled him for 4 years. I wouldn't like us signing Yelich to an extension right now either. As far as WAR goes, I'm pretty confident Cain will be worth his deal. I'm far less confident on Braun's extension, although there's still a chance (4.8 WAR in 2 seasons).
  2. adambr2
    I just can't believe we seem to be having so much trouble finding a taker for a 25 year old with a .371 OBP and an OPS near .900 who makes half a million bucks. I know he's not a treat to watch in the field but goodness, they have the DH over there.
  3. adambr2
    Yes, exactly. I can't understand why it's ok that Braun is overpaid, because we can still do things. Ok, great, we can still sign Darvish if we want. Maybe if we didn't have Braun, we could sign both Darvish and Arrieta. I'm not saying we would, or should, but maybe we make some other moves instead. My point is there is always a limit on how much we can do, and every penny we spend counts toward that limit. Why people must try to rationalize that Braun's contract is not bad because we can still spend, I don't get. Come on, Braun would not touch 3/60 in this market and we all know it. We took a chance on his later years and lost. It's not a bad thing to admit it.
  4. adambr2
    What years did they carry a 100 million payroll that would be 120 million in today's dollars? http://www.stevetheump.com/Payrolls.htm#2008payroll I don't see it. 80M in 2008 would be 93M today. 97 M in 2012 would be 106M today. 103M in 2014 would be just under 109 today. 105M in 2015 would be 109M today Seems like 110 has been the max and we have never done it for 5 straight years. Good point, I was going off someone else's numbers but based on what you quote it does seem like they top out at 110 or so. Of course that still discludes whatever they decide to do with that extra $50M.
  5. adambr2
    The reason it hasn't stopped acquisitions is that they've been carrying a very low payroll because of the rebuild. If they made some moves and stretched out their payroll like they had it 5 years ago, then of course it costs them that much more in buying power. Their payroll limit is whatever it is, Braun's $20M obviously contributes to that and if they approach that limit as they have in the past than that flexibility is gone. Seems like a pretty fundamental concept, but no one is forcing you to agree. But the fact that you don't doesn't make it cute, nor old, nor tiresome, nor wrong.
  6. adambr2
    Just discussion and I think it's fair, don't think anyone is calling him out, like you said everyone will decide individually. Just refreshed my browser on MLBtraderumors and a new one popped up from 1 minute ago that started with 'Brewers' and I got excited. Then the rest of it loaded and I saw it was a Wei Chung Wang update. Blah...
  7. adambr2
    It’s been overstated so many times that Braun’s contract hurts us. Well it didn’t stop us from adding over $20M to our outfield for years to come a few days ago. Not only that but if 1WAR = $8M, I think Braun will probably do alright in getting the value out of that contract. Also you may want to check out who the Cardinals are paying money to over there in St. Louis. Lol Sure it does. Are you saying if we had the chance to be free and clear of Braun's contract in exchange for not having him anymore, you wouldn't take it? There would be no reason to trade Santana, you would still be loaded in the OF, and you'd have more than enough money to go after Darvish or Arrieta and still have a ton of flexibility to make other moves. Right now, they could probably still make such a move but would be approaching the limit of what they'll probably be willing to spend. Any way you slice it, $20M spent is $20M less in spending power that you have. I am not saying Braun's contract is a disaster, although I disagree that we're going to get the value out of his remaining 3 years and $61M. He's projected for 1.5 WAR in 2018 and that number is certainly trending downward.
  8. adambr2
    It was reported elsewhere that the Brewers had made an offer for Yelich, and then that the deal was finalized, before HH said anything about it on here. Suggesting that Darvish was signing with the Cubs seems like another wrong statement, since as far as we know that has not in fact happened yet (how would anyone in the Brewers front office know that anyways?). Correct. Literally the first thing HH said after the Yelich rumors first came out was that that was news to him. This is a couple times now that we have re-written history to fit our (hopeful?) narrative that he has inside information. I am not saying that he doesn't and I fully understand plans and deals in MLB are fluid. I just would like to see and analyze all available information rather than simply take one person's word as gospel.
  9. adambr2
    You don't think the Cardinals have given out FA contracts knowing full well that it's going to be a bad deal on the back end? That's fine if that's your philosophy, I can certainly understand it, I'm just saying, you can go ahead and take Cain, take Darvish, take Arrieta, take all these guys off the table, they are not available to us if you're not willing to overpay on the back end. How a contract is structured, at least as far as how the money is spread out, means nothing to me. $80M guaranteed is $80M guaranteed. Their accounting department understand their budgeting process, the time value of money and all of that a lot more than most of us do, so as far as that goes that's between Mark A. and his accountants as far as I'm concerned. I do agree about the Braun contract. They still had control for 4 years, not sure what the hurry was to lock up his 30s years, and it's certainly a deal we'd rather be without now. It would be like us extending Yelich for 2023-2026 right now. Still, they had a chance to get out of it as recently as 18 months ago, and they'll likely have a chance to get out of at least some of Cain's on the back end if they choose.
  10. adambr2
    But again, we don't know how much those 4 year offers were for. Could have been 4/70 and maybe he just preferred the 5th year for $10M more. Also, if you're going to use that as your definition for 'above market' than literally pretty much every FA signing ever is above market.
  11. adambr2
    Unlikely but I could see it at least being remotely possible, if they really like Bandy or Susac as the backup and if Vogt pooches it in camp, they could get off the hook on most of his $3M+ or all if he was waived and claimed. They really don't need 5 catchers on the 40 which is where they're currently at. But I would think most likely they just move on from Susac.
  12. adambr2
    Exactly. The Brewers have no choice but to accept the realities of what a player like Cain costs on the FA market, or avoid that kind of market all together and stick with contracts like Chacin. Just the way it is, hope to recoup your value in the first few years and then hope it isn't a disaster by year 5. No one expects that Cain is going to be a 4-5 WAR player at age 36. I understand the desire for a safer 3 year deal for a player his age, but even if they could have pulled it off it would have definitely been more expensive on a per year basis, something like 3/60. 3/48 would have never happened.
  13. adambr2
    I think some are missing the point when it comes to the Cain deal. No one is expecting him to produce 5 years at his current level. Nor is that the Brewers expectation. Stearns and Mark A. are well aware that 5 year contracts to players in their 30s rarely work out that way. They're hoping for 2 years or so of a 4 WAR player, 2 years or so of a 2-3 WAR player, and hopefully at least a serviceable bench option by year 5. That's very realistic and $80M is well worth that if it pans out that way. The contract is also structured in a way (diminishing no trade clause list) in a way that as he ages, they will have the ability to trade him to more teams). With rising costs in MLB, if they wanted to move on after year 3 or 4, as long as Cain isn't a total distaster at that time, they can likely find a taker in at least a partial or near full salary dump, especially with the short 1-2 year commitment at that time It's actually quite smart as far as FA contracts go. Cain was a market inefficiency and Stearns took advantage. Cain is 21st in position player WAR since 2015, even with lost injury time. JD Martinez, who is going to get the much larger contract, is 42nd.
  14. adambr2
    To clarify, all he said 2 days ago was that Domingo was going to be traded to an AL team, possibly as soon as tomorrow (yesterday). He never specified that it was definitely going to happen today if not by yesterday.
  15. adambr2
    The Yelich trade tree: Lewis Brinson (through Jonathan Lucroy, drafted by Brewers 3rd round 2007) Monte Harrison ( drafted by Brewers 2nd round 2014) Isan Diaz (through Jean Segura, through Zack Greinke, through Lorenzo Cain, Jeremy Jeffress, Jake Odorizzi, and Alcides Escobar) Jordon Yamamoto (drafted by Brewers 12th round 2014) The bottom of the JJ Hardy trade tree (for Carlos Gomez, (with Mike Fiers), for Brett Phillips, Domingo Santana, Josh Hader and Adrian Houser)
  16. adambr2
    Here's the catch-22 on that. Phillips is the perfect 4th OFer, but he's also a really good sweetener to an OF needy team. We can afford to part with both and ride it out with Broxton and Perez as our 4th and 5th OFer. It's not ideal, obviously you'd rather keep Phillips but neither of the other two move the needle much in a trade. If you need to include Phillips with Santana to get someone like Archer, you do it. The Indians owe Michael Brantley $12M this year before he becomes a FA. There's not much surplus value there on Brantley, so if you took him and his contract and gave the Indians Santana and Phillips, what could you expect back?
  17. adambr2
    Here's how I see things going forward: 1 - Braun should be the #1 choice to trade, but the only real option would be the Dodgers, who don't want to exceed the luxury tax. Even if you could pull it off, he has negative value, so you'd have to eat salary and get nothing. At this point, bite the bullet and find room for him in the OF, and hope he stays reasonably healthy and at least swings a decent bat for 2-3 years. 2 - Braun to 1st as his regular position, which isn't a thing I'm crazy about, mainly because he's unlikely to exceed the output from a Thames/Aguilar 1B platoon. So it only really makes sense if you can get a decent return from a Thames/Aguilar package, which I doubt. So it doesn't seem very efficient. 3 - The only other thing you can do is turn Braun into a 100 game per year sub and PH, having him fill in at 1B when Thames needs a day off, DH against AL, and shuffle the outfield to put Braun in LF whenever Yelich, Cain, or Santana need a day off. No, he should never, ever play at 3rd. The problem with this is everyone else it affects. Thames as a platoon lefty is probably fine, but Aguilar is suddenly completely useless and gone. Phillips either goes to AAA or takes on a very light role -- neither makes sense. 4 - So everything kind of circles back to Santana getting traded. Unless Stearns has some really strong Intel that the DH is coming in 2019 and figures he can ride this out for a year, I don't see how Santana doesn't get traded.
  18. adambr2
    Total theory on my part but I would guess the Brewers could sustain a $140M payroll for the duration of the Yelich/Cain years if they really wanted to. Based on the fact that they carried around $100M in payroll in years that would now be around $120M in today's dollars, I would set $120M as the normal absolute maximum that we could operate at with regularity where we could remain profitable as long as we remained competitive. So you would need to come up with $100M in additional income to cover the difference over 5 years. There's $50M coming to each team from the Bamtech sale (making it kind of shocking that this off-season has been so slow). Operating income was around $60M in 2016 and I would guess even more in 2017 based on the low payroll. So there's definitely money saved over the last couple seasons. Just my crude estimates -- Really comes down to how much Mark A. is willing to invest back and how much he wants to profit himself. I don't expect him to operate at a loss, certainly. That said -- he bought this franchise for $223M in 2005, it's now worth about $1 billion. So he's certainly doing quite well off this investment.
  19. adambr2
    I hope you're not speaking for everyone Boomer. I said before the deal that I would do Brinson + Ortiz + Diaz which is very similar to the actual deal.
  20. adambr2
    Nor is $16M a year an overpay for Cain's production. Why do you keep saying that? It's not 2003 anymore. MLBTR pegged him for $17.5M per season.
  21. adambr2
    Back when the Mets nicked our Gomez trade we had like 24 hours to dump Gomez when the entire world knew we wanted to trade him and we ended up with Santana, Phillips, Hader and Houser. Right now they've got 2 months. As Brew said the market will determine his value if they don't already have something lined up. He's not going to get a king's ransom and never was, but they should get something pretty good. Will they get fair value for him, yes. There are plenty of teams who could use a 25 year old slugging corner outfielder with 4 years control. If they don't get fair value Stearns will hold him and make other arrangements.
  22. adambr2
    I'm really not nuts about keeping all of Braun, Santana and Thames but I guess you could pull it off. Thames starts 122 games at 1B, Braun 40 (platoon). Braun starts 12 games in place of Yelich who starts 150, 22 for Cain, 22 for Santana, and 10 at DH. That would be 106 starts for Braun and he'd obviously pinch hit on a regular basis late. It's kind of feasible but doesn't really leave room for a 5th OFer at all and it would probably just be better to trade Santana now. Aguilar and Phillips would have absolutely no role and would need to be traded.
  23. adambr2
    Way too far out to assume anything. I mean yeah you'd think so but Gomez looked like a budding star at 26 too. That's post-2022 and Yelich will be 31. Won't even fall under the current CBA so impossible to even say that the current QO system will even be a thing.
  24. adambr2
    Braun continues to have nagging injuries and not being able to use HGH hurts his recovery time. I think we will start to see a decline in both playing time and offensive numbers. Will start to? We've already started to. I won't open up the can of worms that is the discussion about why/how long Braun was using, but I couldn't care less if he personally gets a ring further than the extent of if he's here, I hope he is productive and helping the team win one.
  25. adambr2
    I still just don't understand the theory that Stearns is going to be hamstrung now because GMs know he wants to trade Domingo. They've known that since the Winter Meetings. Everyone knew the Marlins wanted to trade Yelich, but I'd say they still did quite well for him. Or if you want a better example, back in 2015 the Mets nixed the trade we had with them for Gomez. We had about 24 hours to dump Gomez on someone when the entire world knew that we wanted to and we ended up with Santana, Hader, Phillips and Houser. Teams will pay for something they want and need especially when someone else wants it too. If they don't, stand your ground and wait it out. They have 2 months to figure this out, if Santana is still on the roster at the end of the week or even the month it's not a big deal.
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