adambr2

Nobody questions the tools and talent for Brinson. But tools and talent don't always equal production (see Jason Heyward). He seemed overmatched in his first taste against major league pitching and this is a guy who fanned 191 times in low A ball. Since 2015, he's spent most of his time in very hitter friendly environments. To his credit, he's produced like he should there and the strikeout rate has come down considerably but there has to be some concerns. 55 plate appearances. He had a BABIP of .107. This for a guy who had the 17th highest average exit velocity in MLB and who is a very good runner. Or in other words, it's likely a matter of a small sample size and bad luck. There are adjustments to make, something his strikeout rate in the minors has shown that he can, but even if he does exactly the same thing he has done in his 55 PAs so far over his next 600, the results will be significantly better. Injuries are the only concern for me, but nowhere near enough to make me want to trade him. It's a player with a very high upside, this close to the majors who will be under team control for the years we expect to be competitive. You roll with that and give him every chance to make it in Milwaukee. He's one of the last outfielders in the entire system we should be looking to trade at this point IMO. I agree with many of your points about Brinson, but I don't understand the mentality of not wanting to trade a guy because of how valuable he is. Brinson being valuable to us is exactly why he's valuable to everyone else. Valuable players bring back valuable players. IMO we should never limit who we're willing to trade. It's not about looking to trade him, it's about what would be required to get the kinds of players we are looking for.

Spot on post totally agree You can't just take guys off the table from the get-go and expect to get these players. You say Harrison is off the table but yet you want to trade OFers. Why wouldn't Harrison fall into that category? His value is at a high point and he's years away from contributing at the MLB level. I would guess that if we used him to acquire a player like Yelich that we would also be years away from OF being a need. Secondly if you don't consider Yelich to be a wow player, who falls into that category? Mike Trout? Clayton Kershaw? These guys generally don't ever become available, and if they do they cost an entire farm system. Yelich is at the upper echelon of players that you could reasonably expect to be able to even acquire via trade. Finally, I understand your hesitancy to trade starting pitching prospects, but I think it also depends on the upside of the pitcher you're dealing with. Do you really see Corbin Burnes as a frontline starter? Most scouts see him as more of a middle of the rotation starter, and we have those guys -- Anderson, Davies, Chacin, etc. It sounds like Josh Hader isn't being made available, and aside from that I don't know that we currently have a TOR in our system.

Not necessarily. The company is basically just playing a numbers game once the threshold of X amount of people leave then they will push the employees to keep people at all cost. It is a numbers game really I have had the cable and satellite companies reducing my bill a few times other times I will have to leave and then I will get mailers and email's from them about coming back with a lot of free stuff attached to it. While it would be cost effective to keep the customer the cable and satellite companies really don't care. This is going to get a little sensitive here but I am going to try and not cross the line into politics here. What is happening is there is very little to no competition in this industry. You basically have 2-3 options and sometimes only 1 option to choose for TV services. Since these are monopolies and most of them are state approved monopolies they are not going to compete to keep customers unless they have to. Basically these companies are only going to compete with each other when they absolutely have to. Which means when their subscribers drop below a certain threshold. Once that threshold is hit they will then start competing for the consumers dollars but not until then. Under a more free market that is more competitive where you have 5-10 different choices the threshold for losing a customer now becomes a lot lower than the monopolies. So to wrap everything up they don't care if you leave really they don't and losing you means absolutely nothing to them unless they are below their subscriber threshold. More competition is the answer but I don't see that happening any time soon. So if they really don't care if I leave and losing me means nothing to them, why do they always end up offering me even more to come back than what I was asking for in the first place to stay?

I agree. How quickly people forget. Diaz was the team's 2016 Minor League Player of the Year, and is still extremely young. He is a Blue Chip prospect! He's arguably more athletic than Hiura, and has a better power profile. Plus, we have no idea if Hiura can stick at 2B, and he has injury concerns. He is by no means a "can't miss" prospect. Having two high-end 2B prospects is a great position to be in. Actually, its three if you throw in Dubon. I explained this on a previous page but for me it has nothing to do with not liking Isan. It has to do with the kind of prospects it's going to require to get Diaz. Deal from a position of strength. I'd be open to moving Hiura instead, but he would need to be very highly valued in the deal.

I doubt I would do that. Machado would definitely not do that.

Well, he's not entirely wrong. The argument is really about whether the team is ready to start using assets to acquire more proven assets. I highly doubt twi7 would have any problem with this if he were more confident in the rest of the existing roster. Not trying to speak for twi7, just an assumption I had made. Trading for proven guys that are under contract for 4-5 years is not stopping the rebuilding. I fully against signing the likes of Cain and trading assets for 1 year rentals, but if we can get a proven, youngish guy right now that under control. Whats to say if we aren't as good as we thought, we cant trade say Archer away for prospects. That's something that gets overlooked. Trading big prospects for Yelich is, in all likelihood, a reversible move. If two years down the road things aren't working out the way you hoped, pretty easy to put Yelich back on the block and probably recoup all the value you gave up. Yeah he won't have as much control at that time but if he continues his career trajectory and puts up a couple 5 WAR seasons, he'd only be 28 and even more proven and his contract would look even lighter than it does now. He'd be worth a haul like he is now.

I would guess they plan on keeping Hader in the pen, and between Taylor Williams, Houser, Peralta, and Lopez, maybe they really like their internal candidates.

Good question. He's a 26 year old elite OFer with 5 years of control left. In no way is a Yelich acquisition abandoning the rebuild.

Granted the list hasn't been updated but our top 20 prospects from MLB Pipeline Brinson - Stearns Ray - Stearns Ortiz - Stearns Woodruff - Melvin Hiura - Stearns Diaz - Stearns Burnes - Stearns (hey, that rhymes) Lutz - Stearns Dubon - Stearns Erceg - Stearns Peralta - Stearns Phillips - Melvin Grisham - Melvin Harrison (Monte) - Melvin Diplon - Melvin Supak - Stearns Harrison (K.J) - Stearns Gatewood - Melvin Nottingham - Stearns Lemons - Stearns That's 14 of the top 20 either traded for by Stearns or drafted under Stearns including 9 of the top 10. And that Cleveland deal sucked after Mejia and we're damn lucky Lucroy nixed the trade to them. Give me Brinson and Ortiz over Mejia and crap anyday. Should be noted that the trade with Texas included Jeffress who had peak value at the time. Chang is a top 5 prospect in the Indians system so certainly better than crap. The Indians trade waa for Lucroy alone and not Jeffress.

This has happened to me at least 3 times in my life. I'll call my cable/satellite service because my promo period is up and my bill is too high. I'll tell them, give me my discounts back, or I'm out. This used to work quite a bit, but the last couple years they seem to dig in their heels more. I tell them ok, go ahead and cancel then. Almost inevitably, within a month or two they stuff my mailbox with 'please come back' letters with big promo offers and $200 gift card bonuses to boot. Why didn't you just give me what I asked? Wouldn't that have been way cheaper than what you're offering?

I find it kind of funny that we're worried about things being too rushed when all off-season we've complained about how slowly things have gone. And by the way, that's not a dig on you, just an observation on how quickly perspective can change. Anyway, if there's anything I'm not really worried about regarding Stearns, it's that he's rushing things. It would have been so easy last summer, especially as a new GM having a loaded system, to make a move in response to Quintana and bite the bullet, give in to the A's and give them Brinson to get Gray here. But he didn't. I have quite a bit of confidence that all the potential moves have been very methodically calculated and analyzed. I don't think he's looking to do something to do something, if that's the implication here. You have to look at more than just our win expectation for 2018. Christian Yelich is a 5 year investment. Does he make us better than the Cubs, Dodgers, and Nationals? No, he doesn't. But he's a long-term investment that completely locks down one of our OF spots at a very high level through 2022, at a cost that affords us the opportunity to spend the rest of our payroll flexibility elsewhere. And on that note, I think we, myself included, worry a little bit too much about what the Cubs, Dodgers, and Nationals are doing. Of course you want to pay attention to your competition, but let's remember, we don't need to be better than any of them for 162 games -- we just need to be at least the 5th best team in the NL. So let's get to that point first, build ourselves into that top 5 NL team and then figure out what we need to do to get better from there. This isn't like moves from 5-10 years ago of just looking to fix a short-term problem. Yelich is a young, high level player who would be a core player on this team for at least the next 5 years and possibly a 5 WAR player in this lineup and park. Look, we all like Santana, and I get what you're saying, that he's already here and producing, but they've been shopping him since the winter meetings. It's possible that the FO's strategy going forward includes an emphasis on OF defense and that Santana doesn't fit into that long-term plan. Yelich also offers a little bit different dimension to our lineup that we don't have near the top. I like Santana. But Yelich is just better. And rest assured if that is our plan, we aren't giving Santana away. So the possibility of adding both Yelich and a high end starter to the rotation still exists, and if we go into next season with that, especially if Nelson is at full strength, that's definitely going to get people excited.

Funny that Corey Ray's name seldom ever even comes up in these discussions anymore. Although, I can understand why. His value has taken a substantial hit to the point where you're probably better off holding and hoping for a rebound year.

Because our first round pick is better and Diaz just hit 710 ops in A ball and isn't much of a defender. Admittedly it's a sell low on the guy but he has to start hitting before he can be taken very seriously. That was the first time he hasn't hit and you are overstating the severity of his offensive season. That would also be the first time I'd heard him described as not much of a defender. Hiura makes giving him up easier but he is a quality prospect. I agree with everything you said besides the defense. Isan is definitely a bat first prospect. Pretty limited range and weak arm which will likely keep him limited to 2B. Not that he will be a disaster, he could play passable 2B potentially but his upside is his potential to be a slugging middle infielder.

You missed the best response, "if you make that offer, you'll hear an instant click on the other end." Apparently GM's hang up on each other constantly... Ah let's be honest, they're all texting each other these days.

I can't speak for everyone here but for me that's not it at all. I love Isan Diaz. I think he's a heck of a prospect. If the Marlins are going to value him the same as Dubon, I'll trade Dubon. But since they're not, I'd rather keep Hiura. Diaz is not being suggested in trades as a 'throw-in', he's being suggested for the opposite reason, he has substantial value, and it's going to take a substantial value offer to land Christian Yelich or other top trade target. So it makes total sense to deal from a position where you already have a higher rated prospect of similar age at the same position. We won 86 games last year and we have a heck of a 40 man roster crunch coming up after 2018. So naturally there is some discussion about using prospects to upgrade the MLB roster now. Guys like Brinson, Ortiz, Diaz, Harrison, etc, are involved in the discussion because these are the types of prospects you're going to have to give up to land guys like Yelich and Archer. If that's too high of a price for some people to pay, sure, I get it, but other people have good reasons for wanting to go the other way with it that are by no means crazy. If all you're willing to offer up is the next tier guys like Dubon, Cody Ponce and Trey Supak, you're not going to land the kind of fish we're talking about.

I have some bad news for you... Now we know why David is so good at his job!

Because he's a valuable trade chip and I'm sure if we're going to hold onto one of our two big 2B prospects we'd prefer to keep Keston Hiura.

Sadly, this is probably accurate. It was fun while it seemed there may be a chance, even a small chance, that we could land him, but I think we were used as a pawn until he got the big offer he wanted. I agree 100%. There is a reason the report about the Brewers making an offer came out of Japan. It came from Darvish's people trying to drive up the price. The Brewers never were going to win a bidding war. Or the Brewers made the offer knowing Darvish didn't want to come here in the hopes of forcing the Cubs into an overpay, much like they did with Quintana.

On the chance that we trade Brinson for pitching or other non-CF asset, Broxton is a guy we probably want to keep around. Although I was disappointed with his 2017 he could still be useful to us in a platoon role with Phillips. Against lefties last year he OPSed .772 last year even in a stinker of a year. The year before, .916. Start him against every lefty and Phillips against every righty.

No way, not a chance, if that happens, I quit. I'd probably want Barraclough back as well for that package, but I'd do it. Getting Barraclough back would be awesome. I think you're underrating Yelich, Turbo. And the value his contract adds.

Brinson has yet to prove lately that he can even stay healthy for a full season, much less be a 30/30 player at the MLB level. Yes, his upside is high. He wouldn't be considered as a centerpiece for Yelich if he wasn't. You have to give up something to get something. But he also has a fairly high bust risk, whereas Yelich is already established as a very high level MLB player, and is controlled for a similar amount of time as Brinson is.

He's been a 4.5 WAR player 3 of the last 4 years and is cheap and controlled. He probably becomes our best position player the moment the trade goes through.

I would go as high as Brinson+Ortiz+Diaz. I think that would be my best offer.

McCalvy quoted it in a tweet of his own, for me that provides significantly more credibility. A trade for Yelich is one of my least desired off-season moves of the possiblities floated to this point. I respectfully disagree. Yelich is young, really good, cheap, and controlled through 2022. Obviously final judgments should be reserved until the cost is revealed, but I think he would be a fantastic addition. You also have to wonder how much his bat improves moving to MP.

Putting speculative pieces together, that would fit the narrative of a trade of Ellsbury coming here, with Albert Abreu coming here in the deal, and the Yankees asking us to take on nearly all his contract, us saying we need a better prospect than Abreu to do that. Just one theory.