adambr2

I'd be on board. He's the exact kind of guy we should be taking a chance on at this point.

Also, MLB Network apparently thinks Luis Ortiz is on the Blue Jays. Thanks much, guys.

Yeah, pretty underwhelming but Baseball America will probably have a different opinion. Either way, it's a good indication that you have to take top 100 lists with a grain of salt. You can have less top 100s and still have a much deeper farm. I think you could argue reasonably for 6 of our guys in the 101-150 range (Woodruff, Erceg, Clark, Phillips, Bickford, Dubon)

Diaz 65 and Ortiz 62 on MLB Pipeline rankings. They aren't into the top 50 yet but would safely assume at this point that there will be no Phillips, no Clark, no Woodruff, no Erceg, no Bickford.

This might be a bit of a touchy one, but I would pass on Taylor Jungmann and draft Jose Fernandez. I'm obviously assuming that if we had, that the circumstances from last year would not have occurred. Fernandez was emerging as one of the top aces in baseball, something which would be a huge asset right now.

I'm an accountant by trade, but I do not understand what you are saying. Probably that you pay less in taxes the more salary you take in. If you use a 40% rate and say he gets paid 8 million then taxes are reduced by 3.2 million. However, it is still 4.8 miilion more than they were spending before and no matter how low the payroll you still want return on investment and IMHO Susac will provide as much value as Wieters for much less. I won't be upset if they make the deal but would rather they not. But that would apply equally to any acquisition. It's no reason to go after one specific guy. I agree that Susac is being underrated. I wonder how many are aware that as a prospect he was more highly rated than Lucroy ever was. He needs a shot.

I'm an accountant by trade, but I do not understand what you are saying.

Move would make a lot of sense if it were 2019 and we were looking at contending. I don't know how much sense it makes right now. Susac needs a full season behind the plate so we can determine if he is a viable option for us going forward or not.

That first accepted trade (Zack Wheeler and Wilmer Flores for Gomez) looks like a disaster too compared to what we ended up with. Glad the Mets turned it down.

Hey not bad, that's 4/5ths of the rotation I have! Only difference is I have a FA in and Hader ending up in the pen. Everything else looks pretty close to me too, though I can't see Cordell sticking at 1st. I had Nottingham and Clark not making it, which probably isn't fair, but have to assume some won't.

Heck, I think it's entirely possible given the connections to Miami that he was using all the way back in '07 when he signed his 45M dollar deal and wanted to ensure he secured a big payday rather than go year to year in case he was discovered. But none of us will ever know. It's all a matter of opinion.

Pretty sure those were not counted as errors, but they did arguably cost us 2 games.

If his previous extension went through his age 31 season, wouldn't that have meant he would have been a free agent after 2015? Meaning he would have had to have been traded by the 2015 season/trading deadline when he was coming off the 2013 PED suspension/lying debacle and a declining, post-PED .777 OPS 2014 season? I'm not sure he was very tradeable at that point. On the flipside, the extension occurred pre-PED scandal when he was on pace to be a HOF player, which if you take out all the mess that occurred after the extension, it seems pretty reasonable. I don't really fault the Brewers management for Braun's 2nd extension. It seemed surprising that BRAUN and his agent would be interested in one at the time. There is no doubt that Braun's camp thought that the PED "issue" could arise at some point and effect his value. Ryan Braun basically CON-ed the organization into locking him up before he was exposed, IMO. A model "franchise" player, he is. Each time he breaks one of Robin Younts team records, it makes me a little sick, to be honest. This is probably not going to be a popular opinion, but I agree entirely. Ryan Braun signed a 9 figure contract at a time prior to any of his PED use being discovered, knowing that if he was discovered prior to the expiration of his first contract, it could cost him dearly. It was completely calculated. Very rarely do you see a star player sign away his entire career years at a below market value for him at the time. Not a coincidence.

If his previous extension went through his age 31 season, wouldn't that have meant he would have been a free agent after 2015? Meaning he would have had to have been traded by the 2015 season/trading deadline when he was coming off the 2013 PED suspension/lying debacle and a declining, post-PED .777 OPS 2014 season? I'm not sure he was very tradeable at that point. So far, he doesn't seem very tradeable at this point either. He had a very solid All-Star first half 2015 and would have been highly tradeable at that point as a rental to a contender. The 'control' is what is making it so hard to trade him.

$$$$$$$$$ . Money money money. Always money. His opt out is actually after 2018. I'm not saying he for sure will or won't opt out, because we have to see what happens the next 2 years first, but if he has 2 more Cy Young caliber seasons, and his market after 2018 is another 7 years for say $35-$40M per season, with yet another opt out possibly, he'd be crazy to settle for the 2 years/$65M left on his deal instead. He'd be risking millions, maybe hundreds of millions if he were to suddenly decline or get hurt in 2019 or 2020.

Again, who says they're not? They just traded arguably their best prospect to fill their hole at 2nd and add a RH bat. They spent a good deal of money this offseason. I'd say any team that trades their top rated prospect in an offseason, a pitching prospect at that, seems to be going for it. Maybe they just don't value Braun as much as we do. Or maybe something still gets done this offseason, I really don't know. But even if they want him and want to win this year, doesn't mean they should just toss the risk management of committing 4 years for him out the window.

This is spot on. We simply have no leverage with Braun. He has a limited market, and the 1 or 2 teams that make sense see him as an expensive luxury, not a necessity. It's possible that changes in the next year but right now, that's where we're at. If I were the Dodgers GM I'd be approaching it exactly how they are. The ball is in their court and they know it. They still have Puig in their back pocket and seem perfectly content to let it ride with him. If he rebounds to 2013/2014 form, they've already solved their problem internally. We may be up against the clock a bit on the 10/5 for Braun but the Dodgers don't see that as their problem nor should they.

And the Cubs will never win the World Series because they're cursed, and a small market team like the Royals will never win the World Series... any others? I don't think I've ever said either of those two statements above. Anyone can win a World Series. Any franchise. It's been proven too many times for it not to happen. Eventually the Brewers will luck into one as well. I just don't think the Dodgers realize their window with a pitcher like Kershaw. They have a few more years of the dominance if he stays healthy. If they don't make the corresponding moves to go in for a World Series, they will regret it greatly. But you literally said that the Dodgers won't win a World Series. Don't you think that the Dodgers made a move like this with winning now with Kershaw in mind? There are good reasons they prioritized a move like this over forking over anything for Braun.

There is some disagreement about when we will be ready to contend, but I think there's a pretty good consensus that by 2020, the foundation we're building now should be ready to put a winner on the field. Just for fun I'd like to try to put together what that might look like, since presumably any home grown players who will be on this team have probably already been drafted by now. It's still an impossible task with not knowing who will be traded, acquired, etc, but here goes: OF: LF Ray, CF Broxton, RF Brinson + OF Phillips, OF Cordell This is indicative of how much I like Broxton, not only does he stick on the roster, he sticks in CF despite the many challengers headed his way. He's the 'veteran' of the group at this point, but Ray and Brinson have plenty good enough bats for the corners. Phillips and Cordell round out a strong, very good defensive OF. I would consider it highly surprising if Braun is our starting LFer on opening day 2020. I had a hard time leaving Harrison off this list, who I really like, I simply ran out of roster room. So I'll pass it off by saying perhaps he gets included as part of a bigger trade somewhere else. IF: 1B Thames, 2B I Diaz, SS Arcia, 3B Erceg, C Susac + C Bandy, IF Dubon, IF Perez A couple surprises! Thames still hanging in there as the veteran at 1st after performing so well as to make his 4th year option a no brainer. Diaz is firmly entrenched at 2nd, Arcia well established at SS, and Erceg in his 2nd season at 3rd. It was difficult to let go of Villar who I really like, but who eventually became a victim of the numbers game. Same goes with Shaw, and I expect we'd be well compensated for Villar in particular. I'm not in love with either of Susac or Bandy, but I like both well enough to believe that we will be comfortable enough with one as our every day C in 2020. I have Perez still around for his versatility. Perez and Dubon would give us some great swiss army knife type bench guys who could also give us extra OF options. It would not bother or surprise me to see Shaw still around to give us versatility at the corner IF spots as well. SP: Woodruff, Ortiz, FA, Davies, Diplan Projection is getting tougher. I have Davies continuing to stick at the back of the rotation, with Guerra shipped out at some point. Notably absent is Hader who I have sticking as a shutdown closer instead. I wavered between Ponce and Diplan for the last spot before sticking with Diplan. Obviously, there are a lot of candidates, some which we may not even be aware of yet, and I'll be lucky if I get 3 out of 5 in the end. I really do think sometime between now and then we'll take a big swing in free agency similar to the Cubs' move with Lester, but no idea who that would be at this point. RP: Hader, Bickford, Barnes, T. Williams, Ponce, Knebel, Medeiros There's so many names that could be included here, but no matter what, I think we have the arms to make for a really electric bullpen by 2020. Hader and Bickford could really be shutdown 8th/9th inning arms. I took a big leap of faith with Medeiros. I think there is quite fairly a lot of doubt that he'll ever make it at this point, but if he does, his stuff is too electric not to include here. Given a few more good drafts with early picks until we're ready to contend again and some high sells on guys like Santana, Guerra and Villar, I also see no reason that Stearns won't be able to allow the farm to keep up with the MLB club and continue to stock some quality prospects down in the minors. I'll be lucky if I hit on half of these, just too many variables, but regardless, it's nice to get an idea or where we could be headed. The future is bright!

Anything with the words 'straight up' is not happening anyway, as any potential trade partner is going to be looking for salary relief to commit 4 years to Braun, either in the form of cash or a salary dump player like McCarthy coming back to us.

Anyone find it strange that most lists are still very high on Trent Clark after a down year, but much lower on Brett Phillips after a similarly down year?

Good article, I especially like the last line "I’ll pick the Brewers, and live with it." I dunno, call me crazy but I think the Crew will be pretty good this year, i.e. better than expected, possibly all the way to 80 wins. I guess it depends on the pitching, of course, but MLB is trending towards younger, athletic, versatile players and the Brewers have that in bunches of talent. Would it shock me if Arcia, Villar, Broxton, Santana, Shaw & Perez are all better than they were last year and better than projected? Not at all. And if "old man" Braun can hit like he did last year, this team could surprise some people. At any rate I think they'll be an entertaining team to watch & cheer for. Here's hoping Hader becomes an ace I've been on record as saying I think the Brewers will be worse than the 73 wins they posted last year. With that said, if I look at the ceilings on this team, I can see what gives people hope. IF Braun doesn't fall off. IF Villar and 2nd half Broxton are the real deal If Nelson and Peralta can put it together, if Guerra and Davies are legit, if Hader, Woodruff, and Brinson can come up and help immediately. If Thames can do half of what he did in Korea and Arcia breaks out. There are so many question marks, but there are some great ceilings on some of these guys. If you figure from the easier posts that about 4% of teams with 70ish win projections will blow that away and make the playoffs -- hey its not much of a chance, but it's a chance. And I can see why people think this team has the mold to be a team like that.

Scooter is the equivalent of the basket near the end of the driveway at the end of the garage sale marked 'Free.' You're not going to get anything for him and someone may or may not take him at cost.

The catch 22 is that if Braun keeps it up for another 2 years, he'll be much more tradeable but by then he'll have full 10/5 rights and have total control. Still hoping they get something done with the Dodgers, with obviously a significant contract coming back to offset some of the 76.

And let's be honest, if he turns out to be another Andrew Miller, that would be fantastic. You never hope for a projected starter to wind up in the pen but hard to come up with much of a better scenario than that besides ace.