adambr2

We have. Ortiz and Bickford. And Hader.

Thanks for the update. Still 8 on the top 100 even after graduating Arcia. Some of these guys on the top 100 I think are real close to graduating off like Gallo which should knock our guys up a few pegs.

According to what was posted earlier in this thread by someone else, Colorado Springs dumped the Rockies. Probably because they were fielding crappy teams. This article indicates otherwise. Seems to answer my original question too. http://www.hardballtimes.com/the-breakup/

This is why there's really no point in us continually saying 'If Garza can just string together a few good starts.....' He's not going to. He's going to give us one or two in a row once in awhile, then go back to stinking up the joint like he has the last 2 years.

Well, he named Encarnacion, Bautista, and Trumbo as potential targets. Bautista doesn't make any sense to me, He plays the outfield where we already have a ton of young guys he'd be blocking, he's about to turn 36, and he already declined significantly this year. Trumbo is also an outfielder, and would basically be an older, more expensive Khris Davis. He'd cost a draft pick and a ton of money to basically be a carbon copy of a guy we just traded to free up our younger guys to play. Encarnacion will be 34, is as much of a DH as he is a first baseman, and will probably be really expensive. I'd rather just keep a younger, cheaper Carter. If we are looking close to contention in a couple years, I have no problem with us looking to fill a hole with free agency. But there's no need to sign one now just because we have money to burn and a good enough farm to afford losing a high draft pick.

Well deserved on both.

Why did the Rockies dump Colorado Springs in the first place? They're literally the only organization that would possibly benefit from that. It's close, convenient, and prepares them perfectly for Denver. Plus their locals obviously have more of a vested interest in the team, like us and the T-Rats. What did they possibly gain moving to Fresno that outweighs all that?

Jake Elmore has a .381 OBP and a -.3 WAR. That seems impossible.

That is one hideous looking outfield. It would figure that on the same day Nieuwenhuis goes down with an injury, Broxton is lost for the season with a broken wrist.

I focus on it because I thought at the time (and posted it here) that it was not the ideal time to trade Davis as to me he was clearly on the verge of becoming a premier power bat in all of baseball and they weren't going to get value back that reflected that. Indications are they didn't. It wasn't so much that his absence cost the Brewers anything in the standings this year (though having him and Carter in the same lineup would have been fun and it wasn't much fun watching the likes of Flores for much of the year) For goodness sake, Davis still has a shot at being the top HR hitter in all of baseball this year. Your OBP is irrelevant when you are hitting in a run production spot in the order. He's not a table setter. Davis has produced runs, a lot of them. By the way, Brinson does not walk much either but does that really bother anyone? Khris Davis had 1 HR every 14.5 ABs last year, he has one every 13.1 this year. He hit .247 last year and .252 last year, slugged. 505 last year and .529 this year. He had a .323 OBP last year and a .307 OBP this year, a .828 OPS last year compared to a .836 OPS last year, and a 126 OPS + this year after a 123+ OPS last year. Khris Davis is a good player. He was also a good player last year. He is having a very similar year to last, he's just not sharing time with Gerardo Parra anymore. We also got what most people felt was a pretty good trade for him at the time. We'll hopefully see what Nottingham gives us with another full year at catcher and see where we're at. But Davis is not some star player with Lucroy value that we let slip through our fingers for nothing.

Maybe he can move the A ball team next year to Death Valley, California and get the AA team out of Biloxi and into Barrow, Alaska.

What is Gord Ash's net worth? He can go ahead and use it to buy us that High A team in Carolina.

You're right, it is a ridiculous comparison because Braun is a much better athlete and is in much better shape than Ortiz (Braun has almost as many SBs this year as Ortiz has in his entire career). Braun will age better than Ortiz, allowing him to be a position player much longer. Braun's top comparisons through age 31 are Larry Walker and Lance Berkman, both of whom played almost exclusively in the NL and were productive into their mid-late 30's. Injuries caught up to Walker at age 37, but he still posted a 154(!) OPS+ at age 37 and a 130 OPS+ at age 38. (Yes, he played in Denver, but he had a road OPS+ of 109 at age 36 and his age 38 season was in STL). Injuries caught up to Berkman at age 36, but still posted a 164 OPS+ at age 35 for STL, a fairly pitcher-friendly park. So how about we use Walker and Berkman as examples of why he may not regress? How about not because it is ridiculous to draw conclusions like this. Braun will age well because (insert name of player) aged well. That makes as much sense as 'Braun will age poorly because (insert player's name) aged poorly.' I agree completely. There are plenty of comparable on both sides as far as good hitters like Braun, some of which have played well into their late 30s, some of which have fallen off in their early or mid 30s. Like all of us, I have no crystal ball. I think it's possible that his body breaks down in the next few years, he once again becomes injured frequently, he turns into a .750 OPS hitter, and becomes an albatross in the field. I think it's also possible he continues to mash for 4 more years, stays healthy, and propels a team to the World Series. I really don't know. Most likely, somewhere in the middle. What I do know is that none of us knows for certain what kind of baseball player Ryan Braun will be in 4 years. I'd trade him. To me, the team situation is right (rebuilding, good OF prospects in the system), and the player situation is right (selling high, has not yet acquired 10/5 rights). The time makes sense. I acknowledge that there is a risk in doing so, just as there is a different risk in unloading him now. To me, it comes down to this. If you put Braun's trade value post suspension on a number line from 1-10, I'd say he's at about 8.5-9 after this season. He could get a little bit higher, the longer he keeps it up. But he could get a lot, lot lower.

It's funny how things work out. Back up just a few months, and CF looked like an organizational black hole. Broxton looked like a DFA candidate, Liriano never made it to the regular season, and Flores had no business in the lineup at all. Now fast forward a few months, Broxton has broken out in a big way, we drafted Ray, traded for Brinson, and now all of the sudden not only is CF a potential major strength, it looks really deep, too. And this is without even mentioning Phillips to this point, and adding that I think we mostly all agree Santana doesn't belong in CF. Another thing I think we can mostly all agree on is that Keon Broxton should be our opening day and everyday centefielder in 2017. If he is even close to the guy he was in the 2nd half this year and has indeed emerged as a 20 HR 50 SB .800 OPS guy, he is a tremendously valuable centerfielder, especially with his defense, which by all accounts has earned very positive reviews. With that said, Brinson is looking like a mid 2017 arrival, and part of his floor is because of his great defense. It's a good 'problem' to have, but assuming we get enough offensively from both to build around both of them, who gets center and who ends up in a corner spot?

Maybe this a dumb question, but are lower level minor league guys in the AFL typically at a competitive disadvantage, since you've mixing in mostly with AA and AAA players? Like, would it be pretty much expected to see Phillips and Nottingham put up better offensive numbers than Diaz in the AFL?

Why the concern with the QO signing There is no reason we should be signing anyone major in free agency. At least we aren't the Phillies who despite having the worst run differential are sitting at #9. Simple. We have the salary space to fit in a QO type of player. We've been claimed to have the #1 Prospect system. While not perfect, having added Susac. There's reason enough to see offense being above avg. Depending on the return on Braun. A SP addition of Urias or DeLeon to mix with Nelson, Davies, Guerra + a 5th SP (the QO or Garza/Peralta/Hader) You have the makings of believing you can win 81+games. At least the makings to believe you won't pick top 10 next season so getting a QO player at a 2nd round cost now makes more sense than doing so the next offseason when it costs your 1st rd choice. So yes I have concern. 3 power bats I could envision worry on is Edwin Encarnacion, Jose Bautista, or Mark Trumbo. Don't really see a SP to be concerned about. But, trade Braun, replace with Puig/Trumbo or Bautista. Move Carter this offseason and you have space for Trumbo or Encarnacion. Why do we have the need to sign a QO just because it fits into our budget? That to me is what got us in this mess in the first place. Handing out a big contract in the middle of a rebuild on the goal of winning 81 games doesn't seem like a great approach to me, no matter what pick it costs you. If we continue to improve in 2017, and by 2018 or 2019 we think, 'Ok, i we're still growing, but I think we really have a chance now, and I think Player X fills a big need and would be a really good fit, ' then by all means go for it. But we shouldn't be proactively looking to spend money just because we can.

There are plenty of the best hitters who have continued to hit at an elite level well into their 30s. There's also many that didn't, and nothing can be guaranteed by the end of Braun's contract. I agree I don't think he'll fall off a cliff, though some degree of decline is likely, but it's not impossible.

This information is a bit dated, but seems to answer the question : http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2009/06/service-time.html Seems silly that a player continues to accrue service time while suspended, but there you go. That's the power of the MLBPA. Makes it all the more important that if we're going to trade him, do it this offseason.

Uh...other than professional scouts, are there many fans of the minor league system that aren't primarily scouting box scores to keep up to date on the minor league system? I consider myself a pretty big follower of the Brewers system compared to the average Brewer fan, but I also have a job and family and I don't have nearly enough time to watch games at every level of the Brewers minor league system and dedicate my entire life to baseball. I'm not making fun of people that do; if you can fit it into your life, more power to you, but are there actually such fans? I check box scores, sometimes I follow the First Pitch app, I read the scouting reports, and I go to a couple T-Rats games every year. If I lived in the Appleton area, I'm sure I'd go to more. That's about it. I suppose I could spare a few hours a week to catch one game on the Milb TV app, but I don't know how much a guy would even get out of just that, with there being 5 primary levels in the minors plus fall/winter ball. Couch potato fans have various levels of access to first hand scouting reports through many different websites and publications. Advanced prospects like Phillips often get written up. Many of those writeups get linked here. Besides that, there are plenty of folks (BP Milwaukee comes to mind) who try to put the box score stats into the correct context. By just about any advanced measure, Phillips actually had a very solid offensive season in respect to his age and competition level. People should be excited or at worst in wait-and-see mode. Phillips is not losing stock in my opinion. I read those as well. I read brewcrewball.com and the various articles, good and bad. I'm not even saying anything bad necessarily about Phillips here. Just wondering how many fans actually see firsthand more than a tiny handful of ABs from prospects every year.

Uh...other than professional scouts, are there many fans of the minor league system that aren't primarily scouting box scores to keep up to date on the minor league system? I consider myself a pretty big follower of the Brewers system compared to the average Brewer fan, but I also have a job and family and I don't have nearly enough time to watch games at every level of the Brewers minor league system and dedicate my entire life to baseball. I'm not making fun of people that do; if you can fit it into your life, more power to you, but are there actually such fans? I check box scores, sometimes I follow the First Pitch app, I read the scouting reports, and I go to a couple T-Rats games every year. If I lived in the Appleton area, I'm sure I'd go to more. That's about it. I suppose I could spare a few hours a week to catch one game on the Milb TV app, but I don't know how much a guy would even get out of just that, with there being 5 primary levels in the minors plus fall/winter ball.

Depends a lot on the quality of stadium, but you'd expect to pay $10mil-$20mil for an A+ team. Some can go for single digits. If you want a AAA team they run $20mil-$30mil. Well sheesh, we saved $40M this year just on shed payroll. I vaguely recall Mark A. vowing that any money saved in payroll would be reinvested in the team. I hope this is along the lines of what he meant. I mean, it's not even a sunk cost. Presumably he'd see a return on his investment through sales, especially with so many young exciting players in the pipeline. There must be some negative reasons on the other side of the argument of why owners with deep pockets don't do this more. It seems like such a no-brainer to do it. Just too much work and distraction to oversee a minor league team when you already have an MLB team to worry about?

How much would it cost to buy out the Carolina High A franchise, ballpark figure?

I love the upside on Barrios as well, but I'm less optimistic about his future. Rotator cuff surgery is tougher to recover from than Tommy John. If he ever makes it back, there's a good chance he'll never be the same as he was.

A 7-5 finish would give them 75 wins for the year. I'd have to go back and look at the prediction thread but I think that would surpass most predictions .

You're essentially looking for the same approach as the last 5 years, just with different players. The problem is its never as simple as 'If we still had player X, we'd have X more wins.' I'd challenge that concept by pointing out that we had Braun, Lucroy, Smith and Jeffress all last season, and still didn't win 70 games, so I don't know how you think the same old approach with an 85 win ceiling is the best way. The fact that we are winning more games than last year in spite of the rebuild is a good thing, not a bad thing. It reinforces the rebuild, it doesn't detract from it. More wins than 2015, only now we have added Villar, Broxton, and Guerra at the MLB level, and added Brinson, Ray, Ortiz, Bickford, Hader, and Phillips to our farm because of our decision to rebuild? Look at our top prospects. Had we decided to stay the course on trying to compete every year and traded for no prospects, our top prospects right now would be Trent Clark and Gilbert Lara (assuming our 2015 record was better as a result and thus Ray did not fall to us.) That's a pretty bare system with little hope for the future if we don't win now. And let's be honest, we could add Lucroy and Davis back to this lineup, and add Mike Trout for good measure, and we still aren't catching the Cubs. So your plan is contingent on the pitching staff doing enough to get 85 wins, contingent on that being enough to sneak in, and then contingent on winning a 1 game playoff just to reach the NLDS? No thanks, I'll stick with Stearns' plan. I'd even argue that this is actually a good time for the Brewers to be rebuilding in this division. The Cubs are so dominant right now that there's probably no realistic chance of catching them for a few years. Now once their team starts to age a bit, we might start to see a few cracks in the armor by 2018 or 2019 if some of their pitching prospects in the low minors don't start to break out by then. They have a dominant, but very old rotation, and particularly if they lose Arrieta after 2017, there's going to have to be some retooling in that rotation soon.