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

[BigDee]

Thames is in a funk.


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[BigDee]

Shaw!


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[BigDee]

Slip sliding away.


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[blazza18]

Of course that's how it ends.

[BUCKnation]

Really s*** the bed in this one

[BigDee]

That was a pathetic ending.


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[El Duderino]

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

I used to be against putting the DH in the National League, but more and more i'm changing my mind on that.

Pitchers stand at the plate completely over matched. Running the bases or swinging the bat can lead to injuries simply because their bodies aren't conditioned for doing those things.

Given how valuable starting pitchers are to teams, i no longer think it's worth risking their health to have them doing things which they aren't consistently trained to do.

[Prickle]

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 fact that they probably didn't have a "good" offer doesn't justify keeping them."

Huh? Surely, you can't be serious.

Anyways.....Braun did not have a "rocky start" to the year. He was doing what he always does: play All-Star level baseball. Of course, that was until he got hurt, which I'll admit, has been an issue recently. But when healthy, he still is one of the best players in the game, and there's no reason to think he can't continue to be for the next 3-4 years. So if the Brewers are expected to compete in 2-3 years (or even sooner if the rebuild is actually ahead of schedule), Braun could still be a huge part of the team's future success.

Why not have a little faith in Stearns? Yes, everyone knows he's accepting offers for Braun, but that doesn't mean he should take any lowball offer he receives just to rid himself of Braun. You're acting like removing Braun from the team is simple "addition by subtraction." Why? These types of players do not come around often, especially here in Milwaukee. Why are some people so eager to jettison him, even if the return is nothing more than peanuts? I don't get it.

I especially hate it when fans bring up his salary, as if they're the ones who are paying it. The Brewers have the lowest payroll in the entire league. Trust me, Braun's salary isn't hurting the team in the slightest, nor hindering the team's flexibility regarding future acquisitions or extensions.

Say what you want about the whole PED scandal, but Braun has been a great Brewer for many years, on and off the field. And he's a superstar who actually WANTS TO BE HERE, which is somewhat unprecedented. It's all about weighing the value he brings to the team vs. the value he'd net in a trade. Stearns gets paid to make those decisions; you and I do not. So I think I'll put more stock into his opinions than that of any fans. If he deals Braun, I'll trust that it was the right decision for the team. If he doesn't? Likewise...

[Prickle]

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

I used to be against putting the DH in the National League, but more and more i'm changing my mind on that.

Pitchers stand at the plate completely over matched. Running the bases or swinging the bat can lead to injuries simply because their bodies aren't conditioned for doing those things.

Given how valuable starting pitchers are to teams, i no longer think it's worth risking their health to have them doing things which they aren't consistently trained to do.

I agree. For a long time, I was in the same boat. I thought, if anything, the AL should be the one that changed, and get rid of the DH completely. I admired the strategy involved in managing a NL game, with pinch hitters and what not. Now? I think I'm over it. Despite what purists say, the game is much worse with pitchers hitting. Today's game is different than it used to be. And we've gotten to the point where it's a friggin miracle when a pitcher is even able to lay down a sac bunt. Change is long overdue. It's like the NFL making QBs punt and kick FGs in NFC games, and allowing actual kickers and punters in the AFC. Or in the NBA, the West has a 3-point line, but the East doesn't. Sounds stupid, right? Well, there ya go...

[coolhandluke121]

I'd rather have a Knebel-level prospect than Braun. He's liable to be a total waste of a roster spot in a few years, and they'd be better off playing some younger guys who might be in their prime when the Brewers are good again. Braun is on the Weeks/Hart career path right now. You'd have to be blind not to see it.

In basketball, you're often better off trading vets even if you can't get "fair" value ("fair" is in sarcastic quotation marks, like "good" was in my previous post, because fans overrate their own players so much and don't understand fair value) because you have to consider the benefits of losing more and getting higher draft picks as part of the return. When it's time to move on, it almost always proves foolish to stall. Baseball is a little different, but it's still better to lose more when you clearly have no chance of contending. It's also more important to consider roster spots and playing time for younger players.

And it's not at all rare for a superstar to want to be in Milwaukee, as long as they pay market value and have a chance to be competitive. You're thinking of the Bucks. Baseball players love Milwaukee in the summer.

The injuries and salary and defensive issues and rebuilding situation are plenty of reason to want to trade Braun. Arguing that Brewer fans should want to keep him is ridiculous for other reasons too. We're supposed to look up to him and be grateful that a washed-up superstar wants to stay in Milwaukee? Eff that. It doesn't inspire me at all when he does well and I find it hard to root for him unless I'm just hoping he improves his trade value. Don't tell me I have to like that pos.

[Kerb Hohl]

Again, though...if you want to pat yourself on the back that you wanted to trade Braun a year or two ago when his value was a bit higher which I'm not even sure of given the $ remaining on the deal (pretty obvious that the offers weren't flowing in), you have to remember that if you were the GM, you'd probably have dealt Jonathan Lucroy for way less while he was still hurt or during his down 2015 season. You're going to deny that, but you and many others yell TRADE TRADE TRADE on every single vet every day they're on the roster and do so in hindsight.

I don't think it's an unpopular take to say that you'd trade almost all vets on this rebuilding team or that you wanted to in 2012. I do think it's kinda crazy to say that and then know that even if only 1 of the 12 guys you said that you knew should have been traded isn't that you were right. Almost nobody disagrees that many of these guys should be traded. There's much more nuance to it. There seems to be zero acknowledgment of the fact that there may have been no offers for said player or that they waited on player A and lost but they waited on player B and won in the trade stock game.

[GB_Packers]

"Don't tell me I have to like that pos"

Ah, so the real reason why you want him gone just for the sake of being gone is finally revealed. Took you long enough.

And trading guys just for the sake of saying "hey they traded somebody!" is a brain dead train of thought. Keep it to yourself or start a blog that no one will read.

[BigDee]

No lead is big enough.


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[BigDee]

Villar heating up.


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[BigDee]

Aguilar boom!


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[blazza18]

Aguilar should play ahead of Thames every day until Thames finds some form again.

[Prickle]

I'd rather have a Knebel-level prospect than Braun. He's liable to be a total waste of a roster spot in a few years, and they'd be better off playing some younger guys who might be in their prime when the Brewers are good again. Braun is on the Weeks/Hart career path right now. You'd have to be blind not to see it.

In basketball, you're often better off trading vets even if you can't get "fair" value ("fair" is in sarcastic quotation marks, like "good" was in my previous post, because fans overrate their own players so much and don't understand fair value) because you have to consider the benefits of losing more and getting higher draft picks as part of the return. When it's time to move on, it almost always proves foolish to stall. Baseball is a little different, but it's still better to lose more when you clearly have no chance of contending. It's also more important to consider roster spots and playing time for younger players.

And it's not at all rare for a superstar to want to be in Milwaukee, as long as they pay market value and have a chance to be competitive. You're thinking of the Bucks. Baseball players love Milwaukee in the summer.

The injuries and salary and defensive issues and rebuilding situation are plenty of reason to want to trade Braun. Arguing that Brewer fans should want to keep him is ridiculous for other reasons too. We're supposed to look up to him and be grateful that a washed-up superstar wants to stay in Milwaukee? Eff that. It doesn't inspire me at all when he does well and I find it hard to root for him unless I'm just hoping he improves his trade value. Don't tell me I have to like that pos.

You obviously have a personal dislike for Braun, and this disdain has not only clouded your judgment on the matter, but rendered your opinion completely meaningless. Making good business decisions requires one to remove emotion from the equation. You are unable to do that, apparently. It's ok, you're a fan, it happens. Stearns IS able to do that, however, which is why he is the GM of a MLB team. So again, I'll put my trust in him to make the best decision regarding Braun's future with the team.

"Braun is on the Weeks/Hart career path right now."
"washed-up superstar"

Are you seriously comparing Braun to Weeks and Hart? It's borderline ridiculous how much you undervalue Braun. The numbers he put up in 2016 would've pretty much been career years for both of those guys. Braun did this just last year, at age 32. But you say he's "washed up"? The difference between great players and average players is this: Great players can be "past their prime", and still produce .290, 30HR, 100RBI seasons. Average players cannot. For his entire 10-year career, Braun has never really had a significant slump, when healthy. He's consistently been one of the best players in the game, when healthy. The ONLY thing that has been able to slow him down is injuries. The thumb injury robbed him of essentially 2 prime years of production, unfortunately. But even while playing through that, he still managed to put up decent numbers, by any other player's standards.

He was off to a great start this season, before the injuries, and has seemed to pick up right where he left off since coming back from the DL. Why? Because that's what he does, and always has done - he rakes. Again, I'll admit that his recent injury history has been frustrating. But the dude has a lot of production left in the tank. Now, whether that production happens here or elsewhere is up to management, but it's not something you just give away. The return must justify the loss.