Series: Brewers @ Reds

[Iheartfootball]

I guess I look at it like this. I could be mired in not giving a **** about this team - like I did the first go round with Melvin.

This time it looks like they are doing things different. And this year they caught lightening in a bottle. They waited until around the deadline and said we are still in this, even though we know this team cannot win it all or even make the the playoffs unless we extend this luck. So low leverage they trade a few high floor, low ceiling prospects for a veteran guy that can play 3-4 positions and hit well and JJ. Vogt was free.

If doing that and winning a few more games which decreases your draft slot (love that word) $ and position by 4? 5? Then I'll take the fun now.

It's cheap to me. I also don't think this changes ANYTHING about playoff chances next year or any after. Stearns is smart. I'm going to let this play out.

Plus, the Bucks are back to square one, and the Packers a one step closer to the grave. I have to have some optimism for one of my guys.


Sent from my iPhone using RealGM Forums

[Iheartfootball]

[quote="wichmae"]I somewhat side with twirly on this stance but in now way shape or form does STL or PIT have a better system. Only argument that can be made is Cincy and thats basically because of this past draft. I also contest that even though we dont have the multiple blue chippers our top 35 or so is basically 3.5-4 star guys. We undoubtedly have the deepest system in baseball and it isnt close.[/. quote]

I, for the most part, disagree with you and twirly on this one but I like this post.

I will say the improvement this year was great. I think with more improvement (Lutz is a blue chipper, no?) they will be near tops again next year. Keston might be one of the best players to come out of the draft? The scouting and slot guys are better than we have had in the past. They know how to manage talent and pool money.

K. I'm rambling.

[SpiderMKE]

Fact: Most of the value this year has come from guys in or past their primes who have never done anything close to this and likely never will come close to this production again. Knowing this, what are the chances that we sell high on these players? I'd say less than 10%.

Who are you talking about here? Other than Neil Walker and Braun, everyone is still in their 20s. Broxton will be sold off for sure depending on the situation. Thames is older but he's only a supplemental piece at this point.

I get the idea of the fear of a bunch of guys like Anderson, Nelson, etc. only having about 3 years left of control, but while I do think we may lack some elite prospects, we should have a solid pipeline to work with.

I would have fully gotten on board if we went with a 100% tank for 3-4 years, but knowing that that didn't happen, I'm not sure what you were expecting. We'd have had to have paid off players to purposely suck to draft much better than top 10 with this squad.

You do realize a player's peak is around 27 or 28, right? Shaw is in his prime. Anderson and Nelson are in their primes and have accounted for half of our pitching WAR this year. Braun and Thames are past their primes. We have two hitters who are 25 and under with a WAR of at least 1, Santana (2.3) and Arcia (1.0).

We have gotten 14 WAR from position players who have at least 100 plate appearances this year. Over two-thirds of that has come from players who are at least 27. 40% of that has come from players who are 30 or older.

We've gotten 7.2 WAR from 28 and 29 year old pitchers who came into the season with a combined 854.2 innings in the majors and produced 6.7 WAR. Our top pitching prospect looks like a really poor man's Andrew Miller. Our second best pitcher is a reliever who is having a career year (you can say he's young and whatever but he's not improving on a 1.25 ERA, 15 K/9 and a 2.8 WAR.)

And again, we don't even have the consensus best farm in the division and some have us ranked 3rd. So we're going to go in to next season probably adding some better relievers, hoping some players in our farm system who sucked this year bounce back and hoping that the guys in their primes or past them provide significant value for the second time in their careers when there was nothing suggesting they could do anything close to what they did. Oh joy, how exciting.

If you're spending this much time looking up stats why don't you start working for the Brewers and start getting paid for it.

[Tfence92]

Prime for baseball is not 28/29, sorry.
Players don't even come up til like 24/25.

[Outlander]

Since 3rd in prospect rankings has been talked about so much, Bernie Pleskoff has the Brewers at 3rd only a few days ago. Behind the Phillies and White Sox, so first in the division.

http://clubhousecorner.com/2017/09/03/farm-futures/

[trwi7]

If you're spending this much time looking up stats why don't you start working for the Brewers and start getting paid for it.

I barely spent any time looking up stats and I'm sure the Brewers realize it. They just seem hell bent on competing while rebuilding for whatever reason.

Hence why you see trading for guys like Chase Anderson and Travis Shaw and why we sign guys like Thames, Carter, Felix etc.

Prime for baseball is not 28/29, sorry.
Players don't even come up til like 24/25.

Oh, well since you said it, that must be the case.

I used an 86 years of baseball performance data from 1921 through 2006 to produce a large sample for generating estimates. The historical sample also allowed me to compare how player aging may have changed over the several decades.

I used the data to look at several different aspects of player performance from the general to the specific. Overall, I found that both hitters and pitchers peaked around age 29. However, some skills peaked earlier and others peaked later.

Hitters Pitchers
Metric Peak Age Metric Peak Age
Linear Weights 29.4 ERA 29.2
OBP 30.0 Strikeout Rate 23.6
SLG 28.6 Walk Rate 32.5
AVG 28.4 Home Run Rate 27.4
Walk Rate 32.3
2B+3B Rate 28.3
Home Run Rate 29.9

http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=9933

[El Duderino]

So exciting picking 18th and being mediocre again.

Baseball is entertainment and i've, along with many other Brewers fans have enjoyed this season. You couldn't enjoy it because all you were caring about is losing and a high draft slot.

If Melvin was still the GM, Stearns was signing guys similar to Suppan/Lohse/Ramirez, and we had a below average to crappy farm system, then i'd be fretting over the season.

Instead the Brewers have a smart GM, a good farm system, the payroll structure is in great shape, guys like Nelson/Knebal have emerged, Anderson might be quite a bit better than the guy traded for, Woodruff looks legit, Hader has shown he can get big league hitters out, and as these guys in the farm system start coming up, it will open options up for Stearns.

The future is bright for this team, so stop whining just because they won't be picking in the top 10. This isn't the Bucks. Stearns will make some mistakes as all GM's do, but he's smart and will have the Brewers a consistent winner soon enough.

[trwi7]

so stop whining

How about you stop whining about me whining? If you don't like it, that's your problem and you can put me on ignore.

[Kerb Hohl]

If Melvin was still the GM, Stearns was signing guys similar to Suppan/Lohse/Ramirez

Get ready to be pissed off about (short) contracts like this the next 2-3 offseasons.

[coolhandluke121]

Twirly's not really wrong. This is kind of like the FTD season in that so many guys in their prime are outplaying their career norms by a wide margin. The Bucks doubled down on that group and got what they deserved for deluding themselves. Will the Brewers do the same? I doubt it, and that's why I'm not worried. Just don't trade prospects for veterans and you're fine. If they still win, so be it.

It's also a different sport and you don't need to pick at the top of the draft to get the superstars you need to compete. Depth is more important and Stearns is proving he can find talent in many different ways. Once they do get a more consistent, reliable nucleus of talent, we won't have to worry about filling out the roster with a bunch of Yuni's and Overbay's. There's too many under-the-radar pick-ups over-achieving to chalk it up to luck. They've clearly got a good eye for talent.

It's often best to sell on a mediocre performer after a career year, even if they're young and under team control. And we saw that the Brewers are willing to do it when a good offer is there. Will they continue to capitalize on those offers, or will this year's success cause them to deviate? They should stay the course and plan on it to be a rebuilding year, but you can't complain about them doing well this year because just a couple good trades can completely make up for the draft position you lost, and that's before you even factor in the intangible value of the fun ride they gave us this year, which is the point of being a fan.

You can't blame them for taking the best guys they could in trades and on the waiver wire or via modest free agent deals, like Shaw and Davies and Aguilar and Thames and Sogard. You can't blame them for playing those guys this year, and you can't blame those guys for doing well. That's just dumb. It's silly to be mad when so many people involved have been so good at their jobs. What's there to be mad at? They should sell if they get good offers, but they might not get any. Are you going to be mad if Pina and Chase and Nelson and Shaw and Davies are just as good next year and they win more games than you want? Would you rather the Brewers cut them? There's no point to trading them for pennies on the dollar. I would've traded Guerra, Villar, and Braun for just about anything because I didn't think they had much chance of coming close to last year's success ever again, but that doesn't apply to most of our other guys right now.

[El Duderino]

You can't blame them for taking the best guys they could in trades and on the waiver wire or via modest free agent deals, like Shaw and Davies and Aguilar and Thames and Sogard. You can't blame them for playing those guys this year, and you can't blame those guys for doing well. That's just dumb. It's silly to be mad when so many people involved have been so good at their jobs. What's there to be mad at? They should sell if they get good offers, but they might not get any. Are you going to be mad if Pina and Chase and Nelson and Shaw and Davies are just as good next year and they win more games than you want? Would you rather the Brewers cut them?

This is where a deep farm system can merge with finding underrated talent for the big league roster.

If say Shaw remains a quality big league player and Erceg blossoms in the minors, it would allow Stearns to trade Shaw for a different need if a trade can be found.

If both Brinson and Phillips play well next year, Santana could be shopped and his horrible defense removed.

Guys like Nelson and Anderson emerging if not a fluke that can continue, both would increase their value either with the team if the Brewers win sooner than later or as trade pieces if Stearns in a year or two feels their price tag would be to high financially. Besides that, our minor league system finally has multiple legit starting pitching prospects.

I don't think Stearns will get some haul for Broxton in the offseason, but he should get at least a decent piece for him.

It's always a good thing to add talent to an organization on the cheap, be it the big league roster or the minors, especially for a small market team.

Part of it also comes from a gut feeling about any new front office. Do you trust Stearns to be both a short term and long term thinker, or will he fall to far into a trap of mainly just wanting to win in the present? I believe him when he says his goal is to win over an extended stretch by always keeping a pipeline of young cost efficient talent through both the big league and minor league system. So i see him going forward to not being afraid to make the kind of moves Melvin wouldn't.