Series Thread: Crew @ Reds. Braun, Villar back!

[wichmae]

Not surprised.

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[GB_Packers]

Perpetual scrub Billy Hamilton. This guy is goddamn annoying.

[blazza18]

Guerra has been not good this year.

[trwi7]

Guerra has been not good this year.

He's legitimately pitched like one of the five worst starters in the league if you take away the Reds and Jered Weaver.

The fact that his ERA is under 4 is one of the biggest surprises of the season.

[wichmae]

Broken record. Cash in your flash in the pan when you can. Otherwise you get stuck with this years Villar and Guerra.

[Prickle]

There wasn't going to be much of a return on a Guerra "cash in." I'm guessing that everyone was skeptical, and wanted to see how the 32 year-old would follow up a fairly successful 2016. The same could be said for Davies, who probably drew more interest, but still needed more of a résumé before the return would've been worth letting him go. Given his age, Davies likely has a much longer leash than Guerra, so I think he will still be a starter next year, regardless of what happens the rest of this year. But if Guerra doesn't improve, I can't see the team giving him a spot next year, unless he overwhelmingly earns it. So with all that said, I think it was in the Brewers best interest to ride both these guys in 2017 - whether or not they amount to nothing more than "flash in the pan" status is yet to be seen, though so far not so good.

Now, I don't know what the interest level was regarding Villar this offseason, but it would've been reasonable to assume that his stock would never be higher than it was after last year. I think even the biggest Brewers fans (and biggest Villar fans) kinda knew that he had just put up his "career year", and it most likely would never be duplicated. So (honest question), should the Brewers have cashed in on him? His 2016 season reeked of "flash in the pan", but it also seemed somewhat safe to assume that even once he inevitably regressed, he'd still be an above-average player, at the very least. Obviously, he regressed far more than anyone could've imagined so far this season, but that doesn't necessarily mean he won't ever get back to being an "all-star" caliber player again. Who knows? When Segura was here, it seemed quite possible that he might never amount to anything more than a flash in the pan, but he's proven otherwise.

The moral of the story is that these are never easy decisions for teams to make. It's far from an exact science. When do you sell high on a player? At what point do you completely buy-in to a player? What fate awaits players like Thames, Shaw, and Knebel? I can only imagine that being a rebuilding team that also happens to be prematurely contending, makes personnel decisions that much more difficult for a GM.

[Kerb Hohl]

Broken record. Cash in your flash in the pan when you can. Otherwise you get stuck with this years Villar and Guerra.

Theoretically (OK, realstically, since MLB GMs are pretty smart these days) if a guy with a ceiling of Zach Davies that is sitting in AA was the best offer for Guerra this offseason...would you have taken that offer?

We keep bringing this point up and you and twirly kinda fail to acknowledge it. I think everyone on this board understands that Guerra was very likely a flash in the pan. You're not outsmarting anyone by saying we should have sold high. If a good offer was there, Stearns probably would have taken it.

[coolhandluke121]

I'm so sick of everyone talking past each other on the merits of trading Braun, Villar, and/or Guerra. The fact that they probably didn't have a "good" offer doesn't justify keeping them. Surely they had much better offers than what each player is worth now given their rocky starts to the year.

We know nobody would likely give you what a player would normally be worth coming off the seasons they each had. That's not the issue though. The risk/reward ratio of each player's future was the same for the Brewers as it was for other teams. The important thing is that said risk/reward ratio was not right for the Brewers in their current situation. Surely they could have gotten a few Knebel/Fresh Prince level prospects for those guys, and they would have been much better off regardless of what casual fans say about it.

[Kerb Hohl]

I'm so sick of everyone talking past each other on the merits of trading Braun, Villar, and/or Guerra. The fact that they probably didn't have a "good" offer doesn't justify keeping them. Surely they had much better offers than what each player is worth now given their rocky starts to the year.

We know nobody would likely give you what a player would normally be worth coming off the seasons they each had. That's not the issue though. The risk/reward ratio of each player's future was the same for the Brewers as it was for other teams. The important thing is that said risk/reward ratio was not right for the Brewers in their current situation. Surely they could have gotten a few Knebel/Fresh Prince level prospects for those guys, and they would have been much better off regardless of what casual fans say about it.

The Dodgers' offer for Braun was OK and not great (looks better now that McCarthy is pitching well) and the Dodgers pulled back.

What are you talking about the risk/reward wasn't right for the Brewers? The risk is that you give up Villar for Luis Sardinas or some lower ceiling single-A player to "get something" and Villar puts up another .800+ OPS, 60 steal season and is still under team control for 4 more years and therefore can officially be dealt for more or is a future piece.

Of course, I was expecting some regression and would have taken a decent package, but there is risk and I'm guessing that the GM that looks as though he knows what he's doing also assessed that risk against the likely **** packages they were offered. Just because the Brewers aren't in a competitive window for the most part does not mean that you should just sell everything for pennies on the dollar, which I'm going to still speculate that most of the offers for Villar/Guerra were pennies.

[El Duderino]

I'm so sick of everyone talking past each other on the merits of trading Braun, Villar, and/or Guerra. The fact that they probably didn't have a "good" offer doesn't justify keeping them. Surely they had much better offers than what each player is worth now given their rocky starts to the year.

Sure it does, at least when it comes to Villar and Guerra. Both had many years of dirt cheap team control. It would have made no sense to give either away for a crap offer. Braun is a completely different story given his contract owing him 80 million.

If you actually have some specifics on what Stearns was offered for either of Villar/Guerra this offseason that was turned down, then i'll gladly debate with you on whether it was smart to say no.

If not, you are just talking out of your assss and i'll trust Stearns judgement instead, the GM who got both players for pretty much nothing, along with other very savvy acquisitions. I have full confidence in him that he'll always keep an eye on the long term, not just the present.

[coolhandluke121]

How do you know Stearns didn't have some reasonable deals lined up but Mark A said no because those were his 3 most valuable players last year and they are all under team control for several years? It seems unlikely that there were no decent offers.

It also comes down to different opinions on players. I hate Villar's stupidity with a passion, and said so many times throughout the year. He's the Antoine Walker of baseball. It's hard for me to imagine players that dense ever having sustained success in any strategic team sport. But history proves that a lot of teams value talent like that anyway, so it's reasonable to think there were a few gm's out there who valued Villar more than I did - even if they didn't think he would ever duplicate last year's success. It's also very possible that the Brewers were among those teams that thought more highly of him than I do. I don't think that's talking out of my ass at all. It reminds me of people who kept saying the Bucks would never get a fair offer for Jabari so they shouldn't trade him - both come down to a total difference of opinion on what's a fair offer for a player whom fans rate so differently.

And who was it that said Guerra wouldn't be able to sustain his success because he was taxing his arm too much? Was that RS? It seems prophetic. So there you have more pointed, specific, accurate skepticism (as opposed to just a generic "sell high" tagline that undersells the argument we had) about a player who wasn't going to sustain his success and therefore is only going to see his trade value go down.

I'm sure there were a few teams who thought they would both be much better than this, even if they wouldn't duplicate last year's success.

[coolhandluke121]

All that said, if the best offer was a Sardinas, fine. Then keep them. I just kind of doubt that.

[Kerb Hohl]

All that said, if the best offer was a Sardinas, fine. Then keep them. I just kind of doubt that.

Even if the offer was a Zach Davies-type you have to think twice. I'd have put a lot of money on Guerra regressing and a modest amount on Villar regressing a bit (not as much as he has this year) but these guys have shown they can do it in the majors even if it was luck. There is still a distinct possibility that either of the two can at least recover some of the trade value.

[El Duderino]

How do you know Stearns didn't have some reasonable deals lined up but Mark A said no because those were his 3 most valuable players last year and they are all under team control for several years?

I don't and neither do you, that's the point. You also have no idea whether Attanasio is allowing Stearns to do mostly as he pleases outside of things involving sizable contracts.

I could see him wanting input with a trade involving Braun given odds are the Brewers would have to eat some of that contract. Villar and Guerra though, i really doubt that Attanasio is telling Stearns whether to keep or trade them. The Brewers were 15th in attendance last year even though the team sucked and with the payroll going into this year being lowest in the league, Attanasio was going to make a ton of money regardless if the team was bad again and attendance dipped a little.

For me, i simply have a high degree of faith in Stearns judgement. That doesn't mean he'll be immune to making mistakes because all GM's do. Overall though, i'm confident that he'll not only build a team which gets into the playoffs, he'll also be smart in keeping a regular flow of talented and cheap players onto the big league roster so he doesn't have to sell out the farm to compete.

[Kerb Hohl]

For me, i simply have a high degree of faith in Stearns judgement. That doesn't mean he'll be immune to making mistakes because all GM's do. Overall though, i'm confident that he'll not only build a team which gets into the playoffs, he'll also be smart in keeping a regular flow of talented and cheap players onto the big league roster so he doesn't have to sell out the farm to compete.

Yeah, that's where I am. I'm not saying blindly accept every move he makes, but I also don't think there should be much skepticism in how he values players. I really doubt somebody came with a good prospect to him and he said, "nah, I'm thinking Guerra is our guy for the next 5+ years. No thanks."

Everyone that watches the Brewers and is a fan of the stats knows that Guerra and Villar were huge regression candidates. So did 29 other GMs. It's possible that Stearns gambled for a slightly better offer and lost, but he's going to make the right move on this stuff more often than not.

To be fair, they came to Villar with an extension offer but it probably was not all that lucrative and he clearly belongs in the MLB for the next 4 years.

[El Duderino]

All that said, if the best offer was a Sardinas, fine. Then keep them. I just kind of doubt that.

Even if the offer was a Zach Davies-type you have to think twice. I'd have put a lot of money on Guerra regressing and a modest amount on Villar regressing a bit (not as much as he has this year) but these guys have shown they can do it in the majors even if it was luck. There is still a distinct possibility that either of the two can at least recover some of the trade value.

Guerra i think was a much tougher evaluation than Villar for not just Stearns, but any team in baseball that studied him.

Here you had a guy who was 31 years old before getting his first chance in the majors. He only threw 121 innings and had to go on the DL for elbow soreness. If i was another team, i'd have been pretty leery given the really small sample size. Leery not just whether Guerra could continue to pitch well going forward, but also question whether he could hold up injury wise, especially for pitcher who relies on a splitter.

Villar at least played out a whole season and had also been scouted with Houston and in the minors. Guerra pretty much came out of nowhere at age 31 and threw just 120 innings.

[El Duderino]

For me, i simply have a high degree of faith in Stearns judgement. That doesn't mean he'll be immune to making mistakes because all GM's do. Overall though, i'm confident that he'll not only build a team which gets into the playoffs, he'll also be smart in keeping a regular flow of talented and cheap players onto the big league roster so he doesn't have to sell out the farm to compete.

Everyone that watches the Brewers and is a fan of the stats knows that Guerra and Villar were huge regression candidates. So did 29 other GMs. It's possible that Stearns gambled for a slightly better offer and lost, but he's going to make the right move on this stuff more often than not.

To be fair, they came to Villar with an extension offer but it probably was not all that lucrative and he clearly belongs in the MLB for the next 4 years.

I don't think Stearns was shopping Villar given he was offered an extension. Sure some regression could have been expected there, but not falling off the cliff at the plate.

With Guerra though, my guess is Stearns was much more open to a trade, but the rest of the league was leery with good reason because of the small sample size, his age, and concerns whether he could hold up physically.

[GB_Packers]

Anderson leaves the game with what looks like it could be an oblique injury. Great.

[tski1972]

I think this is where the bottom falls out.

[BUCKnation]

Pretty inexcusable top half right there