adambr2

False...for now. Yeah Gray is pitching.

Davies can head to AAA when Anderson and Woodruff are up.

Here's a question on Gray. Gotta figure he's going to go for a bit less than Quintana now that the market for him has been set. What if Beane came to us ane said he's willing to work out a deal with us without any of our headline prospects (Brinson, Hader, Woodruff), but said Corbin Burnes was a non negotiable part of any deal with us for Gray. Would you be excited about that, or hesitant?

Rizzo is under control for reasonably cheap through 2021, so there's no immediate concern there. Bryant has 4 years of arbitration remaining after this year. He won't be cheap in arbitration -- he'll probably average $15-$20M a year in it by the time the process is complete, but that's a far cry from the $30-$35M a year he could probably get as a FA. Don't know what Bryant and Rizzo will be looking like after 2021, but they're pretty well set to spend what they want through the 2021 season. As far as their pitching prospects, I wouldn't say they have none. Their top 10 prospects is mostly starting pitching -- albeit in the lower levels, and not guys on the Top 100 radar yet, but they've got some promise. Some will obviously flame out but it would be surprising not to see 1 or 2 break in by the early 2020's.

With Guerra lining up at the 5th starter the Brewers had the flexibility to make a move for an extra guy and Phillips is it. I could see Phillips getting 1-2 starts for Broxton over the next few days but I would read nothing into it beyond that. When Guerra comes up, Phillips most likely goes back down. Webb is likely here to stay. I agree that there's no imminent signs that Hader is on the move, but I also don't think it makes sense that his 3.1 outing is leading into him being the #5 starter. If we keep him -- he's done well in the pen, Suter has done well in the rotation, Woodruff and Anderson aren't far behind. It doesn't make much sense to switch his roles extremely temporarily when what we're doing is working fine. Even if they have any notions of trading Hader before the deadline, moving him to the rotation doesn't make much sense. He's not stretched out, and probably won't be able to go more than 5 innings. It's not like a couple 5 inning outings before the deadline is going to influence his trade value one way or another.

The Cubs have a massive amount of money coming off the books after 2017 -- their payroll commitments go from $170M to $94M. They can probably afford to add $100M of payroll starting next season. They can, and I'm sure will spend money. I'm guessing they will push for and land one of the top FA SP's in the next few years to pair with Quintana at the top. Hendricks probably won't ever be as good as his 2016 season, but I doubt they are too worried about him. For sure they are going to have less of a margin for error the next few years without any solid reinforcements coming through the system, but I doubt they are going to have to worry about a gut and rebuild anytime soon.

I'm pretty confident that if we absolutely blew them away and offered, for example, Arcia, Brinson, Santana, Hader, and Diaz, they'd bite. That's 3 high prospects plus 2 very good young controlled MLB regulars. But there's no way of knowing, nor would I want us to offer that. I agree that Brinson+Woodruff +Ortiz+Dubon+PTBNL isn't going to get it done.

Webb's splits vs. LHP the last 3 years are promising in the minors, the highest OPS against him by lefties waa .559. He should and probably will be used as a LOOGY.

Adam McCalvy said in a tweet the equivalent would likely be Brinson, Ortiz, and two of Coulter/Taylor/Neuhaus. Yes Jimenez is highly rated, but you have to discount the fact that he is in A-ball. Brinson is doing it at AAA. Delmon Young was top-3 prospect four years in a row... and has a career 2.5 bWAR. A lot can happen between A-ball and the majors. Cease pre-2017 barely made top-100 lists; career BB rate of 5.0, this year 4.5. Here's two players in high-A who are 20 year old outfielders (26 days apart in age), both with about 200 career minor league games played: Player A: .351 OBP, .490 SLG, .841 OPS, 10.3% BB rate, 20% K rate, 75% of time in LF, 25% in RF, 0% in CF, 5 career OF assists, 6 career errors Player B: .386 OBP, .400 SLG, .786 OPS, 19.2% BB rate, 26% K rate, 11% of time in LF, 23% in RF, 66% in CF, 17 career assists, 6 career errors One of these is Eloy Jimenez, the other is Trent Clark. I'm supposed to believe that Eloy Jimenez is a top-5 overall prospect and Trent Clark is just barely off the top 100 prospect list? Ok... I'd be kind of disappointed if we didn't do that deal if we could have. I love Brinson but at his position with our OF depth he's quite expendable. Ortiz is nice but he's probably the 4th best pitching prospect on the team now, at best. Coulter, Taylor, and Neuhaus are throw -ins.

Please no to Cueto. He's got a 4.73 FIP and leverage on his contract. Either he opts out and we pay for a rental or he doesn't and we're on the hook for a 31 year old at 21M per year through 2021. Neither is a good outcome.

Tough to find anything to attack when you're the Clayton Kershaw of message board posters. Seriously though, I'm a bit irrationally worried that Cooper is going to come to MLB and just rake, but I get the deal. Webb has the chance to at least wind up as a solid LOOGY now and going forward, which would be a nice asset to have down the stretch. With Cooper behind Thames and Aguilar, a decision was going to have to be made about him before the year ends one way or another. Apparently, this was his value.

I doubt it. Its not like they were using Hader as a LOOGY, which will probably be Webb's role.

I'm actually even more okay with standing pat now. If the right deal is there for Gray or someone like that, go for it, but don't fall into the panic move trap.

It was also their top 2 prospects. So another way of looking at it is Brinson + Hader + others would be the equivalent… which I wouldn’t have touched. With Happ and Almora already up in the bigs the Cubs farm system right now is bare of anything substantial. Their farm sucks now to be sure, but they've still got a pretty young roster and now years of control over Quintana. They are pretty set for a few years and while they won't have farm reinforcements on the way to a large degree they have plenty of capital to spend to fill in the gaps. Can't believe the Sox couldn't get more than this closer to the deadline from a team with a better farm from the bidding war that would have ensued with all the interested teams. They must have just felt it too risky to wait.

Agreed. I can't spin this into a positive for us. If he were a rental, sure, but Quintana is a great move for the near future for them as well. Its exactly what their rotation needs. Jimenez and Cease are big losses for sure but for what they're getting, not a huge price to pay. Not sure why people are acting like they just got destroyed.

I'm actually a little disappointed they didn't give up more. Rose and Flete are just organizational filler. It's basically for Jimenez and Cease. Basically the equivalent of Brinson+Ortiz+ 2 filler guys from us. I would have probably done that.

I like Cooper a lot, and i think its possible he could mirror Aguilar's production given a chance. That said I don't think he has much trade value, nor do I think Aguilar is going to be much of a trade commodity based on half a season of production.

You could have done that already simply by clicking 'Back' or 'Fan Forum' rather than 'Reply.'

If HFA was still at stake, I'd probably be a little annoyed. But yeah now I couldn't care less about which league wins.

I got about 2 lines into it and didn't even bother with the rest.

So you're basically just saying you're right about this and to trust you because you're a smarter baseball person than the rest of us. I think you'll find that most posters here quite frankly, with no disrespect intended to the 'average person', are quite a bit more knowledgeable than the conventional casual fan the you'll find at the ballpark or posting on Facebook. To think you're simply on a different level than all of us is incredibly arrogant and narcissistic. David Stearns and Craig Counsell themselves don't know if Brinson will come in and immediately outproduce Broxton.

I am now! Bud Selig have a Twitter account I would have to monitor? ..... Haha, priceless. I think it would be hilarious if everyone ran out of pitchers and they had to call it a tie again. First game after the "Now it counts" era and we're right back to the tie that started it in the first place.

I don't know if he could quickly outproduce Broxton or not. That's why I literally said, "I don't know." Consistency isn't as big of a deal as some make it out to be. If Player A and Player B are statistically identical at the end of the year, only Player A got there consistently, while Player B had various hot and cold stretches, both have still produced the same value. Before you said Broxton isn't exactly setting a high bar here, now you say Broxton's not exactly a bum. So what is it, should he be replaced or not? Tell these reasons to Jett Bandy. Not buying it. They've made plenty of personnel moves and tinkered with the roster since they've been in 1st. Keon Broxton is still the starting CF'er for the Brewers because at this point and time the organization still feels that he gives them a better shot at winning games than Brinson or Phillips as the everyday guy. I think you're putting way, way too much stock in an immediate impact from Brinson based on his minor league numbers and prospect status. We've been spoiled this year by Aaron Judge and Cody Bellinger, but not every high ranked rookie prospect makes that immediate of an impact that quickly. Arcia made very little positive impact the last half of 2016. Rickie Weeks was as can't miss of a prospect as we've had this century, and he produced negative WAR his first full season, and less than 1 his second. Brad Nelson was a top 25 prospect. If you want to put Brinson's first season WAR prediction over the 2.8 that Ender pointed out that Broxton has had, go ahead, but it's far less of a slam dunk than you seem to indicate. Small sample, but I also didn't get the sense that Brinson's defense is MLB-ready, certainly not to the extent that Arcia's was when we promoted him.

Lol, small sample alert. I have very little doubt that if Brinson was brought up for good and given an everyday spot, he'd very quickly outproduce Broxton. The conclusions drawn on so little never cease to amaze me. You say that the conclusions draw on so little never cease to amaze you while literally concluding that Brinson would outproduce Broxton quickly. Maybe he would, I really don't know. But if the Brewer organization was as certain as you, he'd be our starting CFer now. There would be no reason not to especially in contention.

I would never say any player is 100% not available, but i think you'd have to start the bidding at Brinson, Woodruff, Hader, and a young MLB talent like Santana just to get them negotiating with you, and probably add more from there.