adambr2

If it's any consolation, good there's a chance he won't be a Brewer by then. So you think there's a chance but not a good chance? I'd bet at least 50 50, but more of a 60 or 70 percent chance Braun isn't a Brewer next year.

If it's any consolation, good chance he won't be a Brewer by then.

I know this was just done for fun and I'm not ripping on the OP for making hypotheticals, but I think it's worth repeating in this thread that going for it in 2017 would be a huge mistake. Even if all these moves could be made, while it certainly would improve our 2017, it wouldn't put us within sniffing distance of the Cubs. So our best case scenario would be a 1 game playoff to even get to the final 4 in the NL. And that would still require a heck of a lot to go right. Meanwhile, we'd lose 17 cost controlled years of Santana, Bickford, and Hader and whatever they end up becoming. It's actually a really good time to be rebuilding and stockpiling the farm in the NL Central. The Cubs have a couple more years at the top and there's no one in the division that can do anything in the short-term about it. In a few years when they start seeing the rising costs of their young players and their aging rotation needs a makeover, we may start seeing some cracks in the armor and that will be a good time potentially for us to make a move, which should also be the same time our young players start coming into their own.

If we actually had a decent chance to compete next year and even better chances in the years following I would sacrifice our second pick in a heartbeat to fill a black hole at 3B. However such scenario isn't really present. Yeah I'm all about building through the draft, but given that our 1st round pick is protected, if there were a hypothetical scenario in which we had an opportunity to make a big push and sign someone the quality of Turner (there isn't this year) I certainly wouldn't let a 2nd round pick who will likely never even see the majors be the deciding factor in letting the deal fall apart.

Similar to what Turbo said, he needs to at least get a chance in the rotation given his finish this year. If he tanks, it's worth trying him in the pen to see if he can salvage his career there. If we're not going to give him a shot to start in 2017, may as well non-tender him, he's very unlikely to be worth 4M+ as a reliever.

Scooter is pretty mediocre at both hitting and fielding. Not sure I would describe either his bat or glove as being better than the other.

I really don't think they will. I mean they have Broxton if he continues to look as great as he did late last year, Brinson, Ray, Cordell, Phillips, and Clark all in the pipeline. And Santana still has a shot to improve. Unless most of these guys massively flame out, they should be pretty well set with what they have in the system to field a full outfield and then some. That's not to say they won't have to go out and sign some veterans at various points in the rebuild, I'm sure they will, but I don't think any will be a direct result of a Braun trade.

Agreed with the sentiment that it doesn't really make sense to wait on Braun right now. If you graded his trade value right now in relation to where it could realistically go from 1 to 10, he's probably at about a 9 right now. It could maybe go a little higher if he duplicates his season again next year, but it could get a lot lower if he doesn't or struggles with injuries. I agree that you don't want to take a bad deal just to trade him, but given the perceived value of the near deal that almost went down in August (Puig, McCarthy, and 2 'legitimate' prospects), I don't expect that to happen. You also don't want to overplay your hand if the quality of the 2 prospects is slightly less than your liking and end up losing your chance to sell high on him.

We made a similar assumption with Lucroy. My guess is it he feels a trade to LA is imminent if he doesn't go elsewhere, he'll turn down every team in his NTC.

All of the 3 position players have done some things we can be happy with. Though Diaz hasn't lit up the box scores, I think the main thing we wanted to see from him in the AFL, much like Ray in Brevard this year, was to play competitively at that level and not be overwhelmed by the level of competition. I think Diaz has done exactly that, and even though the AFL is too small of a sample size to draw much from anyway, I think it bodes well for his advancement.

http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2016/11/2016-17-top-50-mlb-free-agents-predictions.html?fv-home=true&post-id=75368 MLBtraderumors.com suggests Luis Valbuena as a possible match for the Brewers and projects a 2 year/14M dollar deal. Valbuena is not a terrible option as a short term stopgap. He has the versatility to play elsewhere in a pinch, and offers pretty much league average D at 3rd. A Valbuena/Perez platoon would probably be good for about 20-25 HR and around a .800 OPS.

Sure they can be replacable....but by Morton? Nah, thanks for the offer. I still don't get what Charlie Morton is even providing us. There is little if any upside in him. Mind you when I say upside I am referring to his fature value, most notably trade value since thats all he would have a chance to provide us. So when I say upside I am not referring to just a stat line, but also age and price of contract. Davies- more upside/better currently Guerra- more upside/better currently Nelson- more upside/comparable Anderson- same upside/comparable Peralta- more upside/comparable Garza- same upside/comparable So who gets the boot for Morton? I agree. I really don't get it. Yes, not every player acquired is going to be for the future, but there's very little point to adding an old low upside player with a free agent price tag to the rotation at this point in the rebuild, especially one that is pretty indistinguishable from the ones we already have. Are we just arguing over price point? I'll take Morton on a 2M a year deal as a bullpen groundball specialist piece for a couple years if that's all we're haggling over, but that will never happen. For 7-8M a year? No way, makes no sense to me. No matter what you think of Anderson, Peralta, and Nelson, they all have performed well enough and have enough upside to at least be competing for a rotation spot next year. Maybe Jungmann gets another shot. Maybe they protect Wang from the Rule 5 and want to give him a shot. Maybe Hader is up by July, maybe even Woodruff. There are too many possibilities and candidates for starting pitchers who might be a part of our future to be burning 20% of our rotation on a guy that we'll feel obligated to keep in there if we give him 7-8M a year. Audition the young guys and see what sticks.

Maybe, but it seems that the Dodgers prefer Kendrick as a supersub type player at this point. Given that Scooter is more of a platoon player anyway at this point I don't think Kendrick's presence would prevent the Dodgers from being a match for Scooter. Plus Kendrick will be 34 and entering the last year of his contract.

As an aside, I just looked up Doug Jones' stats and saw his first appearances in the bigs was on the Brewers WS team in '82. Crazy, I had no idea he was around that early.

Braun to LA looks like about as good of a match to me as we're going to get. Most importantly, it's somewhere he'd want to go and can't block a trade. There's no point in even discussing somewhere he would block going, no matter how good the match looks. So that leaves LA and very few other teams. Calhoun is still a year or two away, which is why Scooter matches up for them as a stopgap. No one is interested in Scooter as their 2B of the future. LA has some intriguing pitching prospects. Puig may not be 'It' on his own, but he is very possibly part of a potential package and certainly the type of buy low with youth upside that Stearns would be interested in, no matter how much some here might not like it. We are (Brewers) interested in Puig. People can think whatever they want about his character, but the waiver claim and near trade for our longtime franchise player is about as obvious of an indication as you'll get that our interred in Puig is genuine. Nothing has happened since the end of August that would diminish our interest, so if it happens, we all may as well get on board.

That sort of thing could be good, especially if he could be flipped for a lottery ticket prospect or two at the end of July. I think a lot depends, though, on the market for Scooter Gennett. If Gennett can be dealt for a good return, debating the options at third base (Hernan Perez, Braun, Ryan Cordell, low-cost FA, prospect acquired) can happen. If Gennett can't be dealt, then I'm content to stand pat with Villar at the hot corner - and see if he can get to the 20-60 mark this year. It sounds like they are pretty set on Villar being at 2nd. If he's at all in the plans at 3rd in 2017, I'd be surprised. Given that Scooter is a fairly low cost, controllable option at 2nd, I'm sure he's tradeable. His standalone value though, I would guess, is very minimal. At worst, I'd guess he'd return something around the Aaron Hill return, at best, probably a prospect in the 150-200 range. But Stearns has surprised me before. I can very well see Scooter being included in a trade to the Dodgers if Braun is sent to LA, given that they could use a 2nd baseman anyway.

The only free agent 3rd baseman that I see out there of significance this offseason is Justin Turner. Obviously, he would really solidify 3rd. However he is in line for a significant payday, probably in the neighborhood of 15-20M a year over 4 or 5 years. I would not commit that kind of a deal to a free agent this early when we still don't really know yet where we are and how close we are to contention. It's possible they will give Perez a shot as the everyday guy, but I think they prefer him as a super sub. If we don't end up acquiring a 3rd base prospect who can slide right in or a young flier like Villar, I would guess a low cost veteran stopgap like Aaron Hill is a strong possibility.

I disagree that we know what Peralta, Nelson, and even Anderson are. All 3 I think have the potential to be better than what they were in 2015, especially Peralta and Nelson. Both Peralta and Anderson showed pretty big second half momentum to me. Morton having a slightly better ERA or FIP since 2011 isn't a very big selling point to me. At 33 I don't see Morton likely being a part of the next contending Brewers. All of Peralta, Anderson, and Nelson have chances to be, which to me gives a lot more reason to continue to give them chances rather than spending valuable money in free agency on a guy who will more or less just be another guy among that group.

What would it take to pry 3B prospect Jeimer Candelario away from the Cubs? Considering their infield, he's pretty blocked and probably expendable. He's only 22, raked in AAA this year, has improved his D enough to stick at 3rd, and he's a switch hitter. He would definitely answer the OP question if they could put together the right deal to acquire him.

I can't see Marinez not being back. He's a low cost bullpen arm with upside if he can ever improve his walk rate. If they trade him, it won't be for nothing.

There is still plenty of room on this roster for a guy like Broxton in the starting OF if he can prove that the 2nd half of 2016 wasn't an aberration. Especially if Braun is traded. A 2018 outfield of Brinson/Phillips/Broxton would be a pretty outstanding defensive outfield.

Which Anderson are you referring to? Because Chase Anderson put up a 3.02 ERA and 2.65 K/BB in the 2nd half of last season. That's a bit better than "mediocre". Only real knock on Anderson is that he's not much of an innings eater. If he can go deeper into games and give us 170 innings a year instead of 150, he's actually a heck of a good #5 starter. Certainly no reason to move on from him especially as he'll be much cheaper than a similar free agent pitcher would be. IMO guys like Anderson are the reason we don't need to sign guys like Morton.

I don't really get what more the guy can do. Yes, it was a standard apology. How can one make their apology more sincere? He took ownership of what he did, promised to make better decisions, and even apologized to the law enforcement officials, which is a touchy subject for some these days. He did a stupid thing, which many 20 somethings do. He will probably pay a simple fine and in the eyes of the law that will satisfy the situation. As long as this is the end of it and similar alcohol related incidents don't occur in the future, there's no reason to be concerned with Keon. There's nothing in his past to indicate that this will become a continuing problem, so I will certainly give him the benefit of the doubt until he gives reason not to do so.

Broxton's statement per JSOnline: “I sincerely apologize to my family, the Brewers organization, Milwaukee Brewers fans, and also to law enforcement officials for my lack of proper judgment last night. I will learn from this incident and I will certainly make better decisions moving forward. I owe that to myself and all who have put their trust and faith in me as a person. Thank you for your support and understanding.”

Just a dumb mistake that he will hopefully learn from and take as a positive that he has the opportunity to before something more serious occurs. I can't see him facing any league or team discipline for this.