MNBrew

"Assuming the budget is $90M...." But you can't assume that you're right because you don't know. For the right player, they may do it. And I've heard some talk in the past that some teams count the next year's buyout money on the current year's salary (e.g., Braun/Gyorko/etc. 2021 buyout amounts counted internally as an extension of 2020 payroll). We can speculate -- optimistically, pessimistically, or fatalistically -- all we want, but short of insider info, the fact is that we as fans just don't know. Who knows what it would take to land Arenado (and of course that could be an instant deal breaker), but he & Yelich are both elite players in their prime, and for however unrealistic it may seem, it's still a cool idea to think about. Tying it into this thread, maybe it means Hader, at least a competitive balance pick, a top prospect, plus some other stuff of value (in other words, not roster crud) one way or the other to make it work (assuming the previously suggested Colorado $49M throw-in).

Or perhaps Arcia is worthy trade bait? He's no All-Star, but he's still got more going for him that what at least some other teams have at SS. I'm not suggesting he'd bring any great return on his own, but he's not chopped liver and we don't have a lot of realistically tradable assets who wouldn't simply open a different hole in the roster by their departure.

I think we've known they're trying. We just haven't had any sense of what they were trying. And I think that's what's had many folks so frustrated. Brewers scoops have hardly leaked this year, whereas in the past there have been more "the Brewers are checking in on ____ ...." morsels floating out there for us to chew on. Of course nothing's guaranteed to come of this, but overall I find this & the Semien scoop quite encouraging. I'm not sure who the ideal options would be, but we could do a whole lot worse than Justin Turner and at least for the pessimists out there it's now "known" that Stearns isn't presently in the mode of dredging for leftovers at the bottom of the dumpster.

Semien is a guy worth forking out good dough for. Then sign a Gyorko to pair up w/ Vogelbach at 1B & play everywhere else on the IF and it might work out ok.

Fixed. Nothing definitive has been reported. It's all conjecture & speculation. I agree that $6M isn't going to land a headline-worthy addition, and that would mean some signings like last year that might be fine, might be lousy, and might be nothing. However, the right couple FAs might be worth spending a bit on, and even a halfway decent team might have a pretty good chance of grabbing the top spot in the division. At least we're not subtracting. As we know well by now, the offseason is glitzy fun but winning from April-October is more important than winning the headlines from November-February.

We all waited for something meaningful to happen last offseason and it just never did. It was on this day 3 years ago that we traded for Yelich & signed Cain. Up 'til then, that offseason was a dud. Then the prognosis changed considerably. I'm frustrated at the lack of meaningful activity -- I don't consider the parade of roster-fringe utility infielders as satisfying the criteria for meaningful -- but I'm not going to declare final judgement on this offseason yet for the reasons stated above. If it gets to the point where we end up only signing table scraps and that's the best we could do for the obvious holes on the Opening Day lineup card, I'll readily agree that this offseason was indeed as poor as it's been painful up to now.

While I'm as anxious as everyone else to see the Brewers make moves -- and hitting "refresh" over and over on several sites every day -- I firmly believe it's way too soon to call this offseason a dud. The market is slow and there are still more Top 100 free agents available than there are signed. If we've learned nothing the past few years, it's that Stearns is constantly active and aims high..... AND that we likely won't hear about much of what he's up to. Boring? Yes, especially when we're eager to have 1B & 3B filled by something better than guys who are retreads with good reason. But it doesn't mean nothing's happening.

My opinion: Pure.Gar.bage. . . . Heavy fan dreaming, and why not? The White Sox are in "go for it" mode based on their offseason moves thus far. But "enthusiasm for a Burnes trade by Sox fans" & "likelihood of a Burnes trade to the South Side" would seem to be vastly different things. I still wonder about the accuracy of the initial wording. Kinda reeks like the "Stearns is shopping Hader" stuff of last winter which all rooted in Ken Rosenthal reporting that the Brewers were "willing to listen" on Hader, which is how Stearns handles everyone every winter -- and doesn't mean at all that they're shopping him. Plus, the OP said "The Sox and brewers have made plenty of trades together recently," which to me sounds more grand than the reality -- Swarzak in '17, Soria & Xavier Cedeno in '18 -- which sounds like more like "convenient source of available decent relievers from a non-stellar team" than a major-trade trend . . . not to mention that this is not that same sort of circumstance at all from Milwaukee's point of view. Maybe I'm nitpicking, but still... If Stearns were ever seriously considering this, you'd have to figure the return would have to grossly outweigh what Burnes means to the Brewers. He & Woodruff are co-aces with plenty of team control left. However, Stearns' main mantra is "controllable young talent," thus Burnes is the exact type of guy they're looking to build around, not trade away.

Fixed.

As long as this isn't his main shopping, only depth work, I'm not too concerned. Right now it seems Stearns is focusing on the "Utility/Fringe Middle Infielder of the Day" plan, a strange if not somewhat necessary phase, though not typically so condensed a process for most GMs.

Obviously a decent and potentially value-laden profile for a cheaper price.

3+ career WAR isn't bad for a part-time player over 4-ish MLB seasons. Obviously he's competition Mathias, Lopes, & possibly Urias. One thing's for sure: they can't all stick. Like Lopes, not an exciting move but maybe will provide some value. Waiting for something more significant.....

Minor league NRI deal. No one's expecting an All-Star. Might work out well. Might not. If all goes well with the major league roster, Reyes shouldn't see much MIL time unless he's totally raking in AAA. If he comes up, hope it goes well. Guys like this are signed every year. Unfortunately it's really about all we have to talk about so far (and Zach Green & Dylan Cozens & Hoby Milner) -- all necessary signings but rather boring compared to what we'd like to be talking about (that is, appealing players signed to good major-league deals).

- I like the money management side of what you put together, and I'd gladly go for all those signings. - Hader AND Houser for Smith & Baty feels like an overpay... or at least a big gamble moving 2 proven MLB arms, one being 2x Reliever of the Year and still one of baseball's best. Hader is by far the Brewers' best tradable asset. - If the Brewers trade Hader, I hope Stearns is going after David Phelps again in his next breath. The back end of the BP needs a little more proven/veteran presence than Suter & Peralta, who are hardly BP ace types (based on their performance to date). They can both be dynamite but can also be at least a bit inconsistent. - I agree with moving Nottingham, but I want to see if the Vogelbach of MIL 2020 is the guy we still have, and it's not worth a part-time starting middle IF if Vogelbach is still something close to that guy (or better). - Who is T. Flores? Did you mean Tim Lopes?

That's a much more direct way of making the point. Thanks. I agree and still took a tangent.

This could describe the evolution of media coverage in general, not just sports. Things were different when there wasn't such incessant 24-hour news & sports coverage. Another major sea change came about when ESPN (or was it the NBA?) decided to market the individual players instead of the teams -- sad timing with the shift across the '90s into that much more of a "me first" society, which got into way too many players' heads in many sports that they were more important than their team (one could argue that it started a decade earlier when record labels went after lead singers of successful bands to break away into solo careers). .... Not to sound like a total curmudgeon here, but I'm at least old enough to notice the interconnectedness of these shifts. Some of the shifts have borne very positive & fan-friendly results (availability of news, scoops, & forums where folks like us can dive headlong into our favorite team). But there are down sides within it all, too. And... to loop it back to the topic at hand, I'm so glad we're getting into the heart of January because there are tons of unsigned FAs & the Brewers have some distinct needs, so I'm very eagerly anticipating some Brewers good news in the coming weeks. The lack of it up to now is akin to fasting while trying to peer through the grocery store windows.

I'd guess Attanasio is still willing to go all-in for the right guy at the right time. But even if that guy is sitting on the Brewers' doorstep, it doesn't change the fact that the majority of the time the Brewers still have to rely on the draft/development model (which clearly needs to be more successful) and make shrewd/good-value trades & FA signings. The recent offseasons' signings of Cain, Moustakas, & Grandal weren't the types of moves we used to see here hardly ever from the mid-'90s through 2007 (until we finally broke the 26-year postseason drought). They weren't all the #1 most-glitzy signings of those offseasons, but they were still a good combination of right player/right timing. When C.C. Sabathia, Zack Greinke, & Prince Fielder all left, the Brewers (in very non-Brewers like fashion) were offering huge money to those guys -- unfortunately just not enough money/term to finish higher than #2 for those guys' services. Those efforts showed the Brewers weren't above "going all-in" on the right guy at the right time. Parenthetically, Sabathia & Greinke, it turns out, would've amounted to good signings, with performances overall quite in line with their contracts. And no one could've foreseen Fielder's injuries that ended his career prematurely, but at least it's not the Brewers that are on the hook for paying him all the way to that contract's distant end!

No matter what else happens, these depth signings need to happen and I'd be more concerned if the Brewers weren't doing any of those kind of moves, either. If Pablo Reyes pans out -- and I hope he does -- then great. If he's pretty blah, oh well, and we just hope that occurs at AAA rather than in MIL -- and if it happened in MIL, it'd mean a multi-layered injury situation that's getting close to rivaling the Vikings' 2020 cornerback situation. The Mets pulling off a major trade the same day the Brewers sign an AAA/depth guy is mere coincidence and doesn't prove anything. If we pull off a significant move (though I have a hard time imagining right now who/how that might be) and the Mets don't make any moves with a day or so either direction of it, would that prove the same concept in reverse -- or are we as Brewers fans just conditioned to ignore those moments? If the Mets didn't make a move in the same 24-hour period we traded for Yelich & signed Cain, should they have been labeled failures? I don't care much for slow offseasons or winters when so much of the player movement seems extremely delayed. It's disappointing when it's another day & we don't see a major or seemingly meaningful move made. But I'm far more concerned about a winning, playoff-bound season than "winning" the offseason, and I'll take a good move or a non-move over a bad move anyday..... Take Cincinnati last year. Moustakas, Gray, Castellanos, Miley, etc. They sure spent tons more money than we did. Yet with most every Brewers batter grossly underperforming their career norms (to put it lightly), they won all of 2 more games than we did -- and now they've already started dismantling last year's team.

That is why I said Haudricourt isn't a good source for rumors or speculations he won't be breaking things like that. He is basically a press release guy for the Brewers. Haudricourt gets ripped thoughtlessly because he is kind of a donkey at times when he interacts with fans even ones that ask legit questions to him. Personality is a different issue than the limitations facing many beat writers & I'm not defending his personality. But he reports what he can. My point was that too many people rip how he does his job because they're jaded by his personality issues/clashes and they blur the two things that are separate.

Doesn't really say anything though Haudricourt isn't really the best source for Brewers rumors or speculations. He hardly ever breaks anything concerning the Brewers actually I can't remember when Tom was the first to report anything on the Brewers that wasn't just a press release for the Brewers. The Brewers have actually become even more tight lipped in terms of information on who they are going after.... So many people love to rip thoughtlessly on Haudricourt. It's tired at minimum, cheap at best. I doubt if any of us were in TH's shoes, we'd be privy to any more info we could report that he doesn't. Beat writers also get some off-the-record info but they'd be foolish to put it out there -- yeah, they'd get props at first for leaking it, but they'd screw themselves out of future scoops (and really the chances to do their job in the way they'd most want to) because they broke their sources' trust. It's a balancing act that requires intelligence and respect. It's pretty obvious the national writers that break stuff have sources that are more often connected to agents and other angles that many local beat writers don't. The WI sports writers still end up breaking fewer big Packers scoops than Mortensen, Schefter, and other national guys. Why are Packers beat writers above criticism? Stearns' comments today seem pretty encouraging. He's usually pretty honest in his overall characterizations of off-season activity. And he's equally adept at not compromising his bargaining leverage or breaking tampering rules.

I really liked Garrett Anderson back at the time. I hope they don't sign him now.

I don't love Cron but I'm slowly warming to the idea. I like Gyorko a whole lot better than Lamb. Some power is good, but I'm interested in drastically lowering our K rate, which is why La Stella is high on my list. More quality hitting overall -- more consistently productive at-bats & putting balls in play with hits (perish the thought!) -- serves this team better than occasional clusters of HRs and major droughts where a single & a walk often constitutes our best rally.

I thought Abrams hit a home run in Ep. 7 and again in Ep. 9. His movies took me back to being ages 8, 11, & 14. Had he directed all three, I think the story of Ep. 8 itself and Ep. 7-9 overall could've ended up a whole lot better told & delivered. I think Ep. 8 has some good moments and is a decent movie, but it just didn't feel quite right, sort of disrupting the 3-movie arc, and this, to me, is the difference: - JJ told the story in both 7 & 9 the way the story needed to be told. - Rian told the story in 8 more the way he wanted to tell it, not as much in the way it needed to be told. Too many holes, too many ways the characters behaved that weren't fully in keeping with how they did in 7 & 9, ways in which plot points unfolded that not only weren't consistent with 7 & 9 but also weren't consistent with 1-6. There's a guy on YouTube called Mike Zeroh and he seems to post stuff constantly with some degree of insider knowledge (at least to a point). I have no idea this guy's credibility factor, and his bias is quite clear (he seems insanely anti-Kathleen Kennedy). A few of his recent posts talked about ways Favreau & Filoni will end up closing loopholes to refine recent movie storylines to be consistent with and fit into the canon. I like at least the last idea, because it doesn't create further divide by essentially invalidating all that happened in the last 3 movies (a recent rampant internet rumor was that Disney would do that), instead just deftly weaving all the existing parts together both credibly & cohesively. On a different note, especially as I hear more folks speak positively of Solo in hindsight, I really wish they'd go back to Ron Howard and do more movies in that series like they originally planned. The end result of his effort was fantastic, and the big "bust" it was financially (even though it still finished over $75M worldwide in the black) would've been lessened considerably if not for the "wrong" director decision in the first place that required re-shooting (successfully, IMO) somewhere around half the movie -- an unfortunate initial director choice/decision they made that clearly wouldn't be repeated since they ended up with the right guy.

https://www.mlb.com/brewers/roster/40-man Since the Brewers claimed Tim Lopes off waivers, there are 37 guys on the 40-man roster. - I think Tommy LaStella would be a more ideal fit than Marwin Gonzalez. - It would hardly be a "sexy" move, but I like a Gyorko reunion. - If he's interested in continuing to play, I'd be quite interest in a Ryan Braun return. - I'm also up for a Brett Anderson reunion if he's healthy -- or someone comparable if he's not interested. (Not that returning guys are glorious or the best option every time, but part of finding a match is also finding guys who are willing to play in MIL.) - I kind of think at least one experienced BP arm is coming in, if not two, and I'd take David Phelps again in a heartbeat. Of course that's up to 6 players incoming & we have 3 40-man openings. It wouldn't surprise me if Bobby Wahl, Ray Black, and David Freitas' spots on the roster aren't etched in stone. Billy McKinney, possibly the same. If any of the positions these types of players would fill are acquired via trade, it's hard to know who any trade targets may be and what the return might be. Depth in the realm of competent, proven, productive (read: non-K-heavy) bats seems rather thin, and we're not exactly bursting at the seams with spare high-quality pitching talent, either.

Normally I'd tend to agree with that line of thinking. However, Small was a 2019 draft pick who's only been able to pitch 1/2 of 1 season in professional competition. Like the vast majority of minor leaguers, he couldn't play MiLB in 2020. I'd say that hardly puts him in the "lottery ticket" category, which leads me to think of him as very much still a prospect. And I want nothing to do right now with throwing one of our better SP prospects away in a trade. One related question: While on one hand we (fans) often tend to overvalue our own (favorite team's) prospects, doesn't it seem those who view our cupboard as bare probably do the same in reverse for other team's prospects? Seriously, by this logic, is every 2019 1st round pick drafted out of college now more of a lottery ticket? Another thing worth remembering: After "going all in" in 2011, when our cupboard was supposedly bare and our system was viewed as being quite poor, we still had some very nice players come up through the system and make decent contributions in MIL (Jimmy Nelson is one, off the top of my head). We had no big-time or *blue chip* prospects, but we had several capable future major leaguers. Point: Even though the Brewers' system isn't viewed very highly doesn't mean it's devoid of future solid MLB players.