2017 Trade Rumors Thread

[humanrefutation]

Braun is getting his 10/5 rights on Sunday, which include a full no-trade clause. Braun and Stearns are both saying it isn't relevant, but I wonder if the Crew will try to move him beforehand.

[ColeWorld23]

I can't believe it's been 10 years already. In May 2007 we had a lot to forward to, I remember it like yesterday.

[Iheartfootball]

I think it's gonna be different this time around. Attanasio learned a lesson about continued success.

Better talent evaluation and coaching.

It's exciting.


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[trwi7]

It's going to be tough to trade Braun when he's never on the field. So pissed that he wasn't traded this winter.

[Kerb Hohl]

It's going to be tough to trade Braun when he's never on the field. So pissed that he wasn't traded this winter.

We'd really be enjoying following the rise of the 26-year-old AA projected #5 starter we got in return for him right now.

[trwi7]

It's going to be tough to trade Braun when he's never on the field. So pissed that he wasn't traded this winter.

We'd really be enjoying following the rise of the 26-year-old AA projected #5 starter we got in return for him right now.

Might also be enjoying the freed up money that could go into scouting, player development or a willingness to go over our bonus pools in the draft and international markets.

[WeekapaugGroove]

It's going to be tough to trade Braun when he's never on the field. So pissed that he wasn't traded this winter.

We'd really be enjoying following the rise of the 26-year-old AA projected #5 starter we got in return for him right now.

Might also be enjoying the freed up money that could go into scouting, player development or a willingness to go over our bonus pools in the draft and international markets.

I get what youre saying and i was and still am all for trading braun. But with the current state of the brewers payroll i think they should be doing all the things listed regardless of what they do with braun.

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[coolhandluke121]

I can't believe it's been 10 years already. In May 2007 we had a lot to forward to, I remember it like yesterday.

I haven't harped on this for a while so I'll take the bait. This team suffered through one of the longest, leanest stretches of any franchise in my lifetime in order to stockpile one of the most talented farm systems I can ever remember, and they squandered it to the tune of roughly a .500 record and 6 total playoff wins over the next decade. Imagine if the Cubs went .500 over the next ten years, and you'd get an idea of how badly they botched it. And yet Mark A gets credit for turning the franchise around. It sucks. Yeah, he spent money... but he got it from the city and the fans anyway, and they'd often literally have been much better off if he had not spent so much.

[Kerb Hohl]

I can't believe it's been 10 years already. In May 2007 we had a lot to forward to, I remember it like yesterday.

I haven't harped on this for a while so I'll take the bait. This team suffered through one of the longest, leanest stretches of any franchise in my lifetime in order to stockpile one of the most talented farm systems I can ever remember, and they squandered it to the tune of roughly a .500 record and 6 total playoff wins over the next decade. Imagine if the Cubs went .500 over the next ten years, and you'd get an idea of how badly they botched it. And yet Mark A gets credit for turning the franchise around. It sucks. Yeah, he spent money... but he got it from the city and the fans anyway, and they'd often literally have been much better off if he had not spent so much.

I think it's fairly clear that I've always been in the camp of Mark A being a solid owner but not a deep pockets, patient, cutting-edge owner...

1. That stockpiled talent you speak of netted 0.5 good pitchers. Yovani Gallardo was pretty good but unfortunately didn't factor in an incredible amount to 2008 (yeah, they should have pitched him instead of Soup in game 4). Marco Estrada near the tail end will actually go down in history as a good pitcher but he apparently wasn't throwing the right pitches with the Brewers and his main tenure didn't overlap with the years that matter mostly.

2. In comparison to the Cubs, I know a the Suppan (OK I hated that because of how overrated he was), Wolf, Lohse, and Garza signings plus the Marcum trade were seen as awful, but the Cubs were able to just stroll in and sign Jon Lester and not bat an eye. They were able to get Lackey to tack on as their goddamn #4 or #5 starter. They were able to sign Heyward who seems like a bust and not let it affect their ability to spend. If the Brewers dumped $125 million into someone that busted - they'd be boned. Of course, the Arrieta trade which was a shrewd move but even Epstein admits they didn't expect this coupled with the Hendricks trade were the difference-makers. Given that Mark had no pitching to start with, he at least grabbed some 1-2 WAR guys for overpriced fees.

3. Staying on the pitching topic...what is Mark A supposed to do given he isn't the GM? I know the general hindsight call is, "well trade a young hitting prospect for a pitching prospect" and in the end he's responsible for getting the GM to do this. We may have gotten a smaller set of seasons out of what we traded for, but we did trade for Greinke, CC, and I guess Marcum with prospects. So, yeah, the only better way of doing things may have been to trade Corey Hart for example for a good pitcher. It probably would have taken Fielder for a young ace AND you have to hope that that ace would have panned out.

4. For all of the studs we had, none of their primes/good years lined up. Braun was the one constant except for 2013/2014 when we may have been able to squeeze out one more competitive season. Fielder also was but only up until 2011, of course. He also had a down year in 2008, one of the playoff years.
Weeks: Was pretty good from 2008-2011, but his dominant year was 2010 when we missed the playoffs. Injured 2009.
Hardy: 2007 good, 2008 great, 2009 terrible and traded
Hart: Decent in 2008, good in 2010/2011/2012 and fell off a career cliff.
Lucroy: Didn't make a real impact until 2012
Gomez: Mentioning just due to Hardy trade: Didn't really get going until 2012/2013.
Gamel/Lawrie/LaPorta: Oops.
Brantley/Odorizzi/Cain/Escobar: More on them next.

Basically, we had Braun through the entire "run," Fielder replaced by Lucroy for the whole run, and then 1-2 other players that had good years in each particular year. We never had all of them play well at once.

5. The final point is the trades. Now that we're on the back end of all of this, in hindsight, how good is a team of Cain/Brantley/Escobar/Lucroy/Lawrie/Odorizzi? I'd include Braun but he was suspended/injured for most of 2014/2015 when that core could have done anything at all. One could argue that we could have dealt Fielder for a package of more prospects but you then open pandora's box because we got Segura, then Diaz, etc. for Greinke. We were aggressive in 2008 and 2011 and nearly won it all 2011. Had we just stood pat and kept building up the farm for eternity, I would argue that we still probably would have only made the playoffs about 2 times.

tl;dr: How are you blaming Attanasio? The fault was that we had no pitching in this super group of talent and in hindsight I don't think any of the trades crippled any future chances. The only way we'd have been more consistent would have been if Mark A signed a mega contract pitcher, we struck gold with an unexpected pitching prospect, or lucked out in a hitting prospect for pitcher trade. He spent about as much as we could expect for a Milwaukee owner.

[coolhandluke121]

You left out the picks they gave up to sign guys. More importantly, you left out all the opportunities they had to trade guys instead of paying them $10m+ and often watching their careers go down the sh*tter at the same time. Mark A was too competitive for his own good and wouldn't take a step backwards to keep the talent pipeline healthy. Take the end of 2012, for example. They traded Greinke but kept everyone else when they really had no business doing so. Weeks, Hart, Yovani, and Ramirez all were showing signs of decline but could have all fetched a lot in a trade, and the Brewers had too many holes to hope for a quick turnaround anyway.

They tried to go for it nearly every single year and it was unsustainable. They gave up a lot of wins by trading for Greinke and CC when they could have just continued to let the talent they had accumulated work itself out and provide a sustainable run of 85-95 wins per season for 10 years. They tried to go for it pretty much as soon as Mark A bought the team instead of just riding the wave of young talent they had accumulated and keeping the farm stocked by trading borderline all-star guys when their salary was going up at the same time their production was clearly due to fall off a cliff.

Lastly, they were often imbalanced with righties and a lack of platoon players, and they didn't seem to give a damn about defense. Those are areas where you can find a lot of bargains and get good production for your money so you don't have to play terrible players at multiple positions.

TL;DR: imagine the year-by-year correlation between each player's salary and his production and which direction it goes over the course of the Mark A era. That's all you need to know about why I think he has squandered a potentially great thing. They have often been no worse in the last few years when they're rebuilding than they were when they were trying to make the playoffs every year. That's bad.

[sdn40]

I think Mark A. decided a while ago to keep Braun - the face of the franchise - around for a little while longer. Mark also has to think about putting fans in the stands and stripping the team down to nothing would have done the same to attendance. Fans aren't stupid and the sparkle has worn off the new ball park. He has to be a business man too, we don't.

[Kerb Hohl]

You left out the picks they gave up to sign guys. More importantly, you left out all the opportunities they had to trade guys instead of paying them $10m+ and often watching their careers go down the sh*tter at the same time. Mark A was too competitive for his own good and wouldn't take a step backwards to keep the talent pipeline healthy. Take the end of 2012, for example. They traded Greinke but kept everyone else when they really had no business doing so. Weeks, Hart, Yovani, and Ramirez all were showing signs of decline but could have all fetched a lot in a trade, and the Brewers had too many holes to hope for a quick turnaround anyway.

They tried to go for it nearly every single year and it was unsustainable. They gave up a lot of wins by trading for Greinke and CC when they could have just continued to let the talent they had accumulated work itself out and provide a sustainable run of 85-95 wins per season for 10 years. They tried to go for it pretty much as soon as Mark A bought the team instead of just riding the wave of young talent they had accumulated and keeping the farm stocked by trading borderline all-star guys when their salary was going up at the same time their production was clearly due to fall off a cliff.

Lastly, they were often imbalanced with righties and a lack of platoon players, and they didn't seem to give a damn about defense. Those are areas where you can find a lot of bargains and get good production for your money so you don't have to play terrible players at multiple positions.

TL;DR: imagine the year-by-year correlation between each player's salary and his production and which direction it goes over the course of the Mark A era. That's all you need to know about why I think he has squandered a potentially great thing. They have often been no worse in the last few years when they're rebuilding than they were when they were trying to make the playoffs every year. That's bad.

Who did they keep too long...Fielder? I don't think Hart and Weeks being dealt would have opened up a new dynasty. Braun wasn't worth trading during the steroid period. I also think that the only pick they gave up to sign somebody was Lohse.

None of these above things would have moved the needle for anywhere near a title and they barely matter 4-5 years later. Maybe we'd be a year ahead in our rebuild.

Finally, to your point about salary/age correlation: welcome to Major League Baseball free agency.

[El Duderino]

It's going to be tough to trade Braun when he's never on the field. So pissed that he wasn't traded this winter.

We'd really be enjoying following the rise of the 26-year-old AA projected #5 starter we got in return for him right now.

Might also be enjoying the freed up money that could go into scouting, player development or a willingness to go over our bonus pools in the draft and international markets.

Even with Braun, the Brewers currently have the lowest payroll in baseball. After this season they will shed 17 million between Garza and Feliz.

Attanasio is going to be pocketing a ton of cash this year and plenty more going forward given how many of the players are pre-arb and players who will be coming up from the minors will make pocket change.

Regardless if Braun were to be traded or stays on the team, there is absolutely nothing which will prevent the Brewers from investing strongly in scouting, player development or a willingness to go over our bonus pools in the draft and international markets except Attanasio going into hyper greed mode to further enrich himself.

Given how Attanasio has behaved since buying the team, i don't see him just wanting to take all of the money he'll be making to solely stuff his pockets with all of the profits. And how Stearns has gone about building the roster and farm system, he's not to go out in free agency and go crazy pissing away those profits via huge contracts

So how exactly is Braun's contract preventing the team from spending on what you say? The Brewers were making money with a 100 million dollar payroll, this year it's 60 million and very well could be less next year.

[El Duderino]

You left out the picks they gave up to sign guys. More importantly, you left out all the opportunities they had to trade guys instead of paying them $10m+ and often watching their careers go down the sh*tter at the same time. Mark A was too competitive for his own good and wouldn't take a step backwards to keep the talent pipeline healthy. Take the end of 2012, for example. They traded Greinke but kept everyone else when they really had no business doing so. Weeks, Hart, Yovani, and Ramirez all were showing signs of decline but could have all fetched a lot in a trade, and the Brewers had too many holes to hope for a quick turnaround anyway.

They tried to go for it nearly every single year and it was unsustainable. They gave up a lot of wins by trading for Greinke and CC when they could have just continued to let the talent they had accumulated work itself out and provide a sustainable run of 85-95 wins per season for 10 years.

I disagreed with some of the ways things were done under Melvin/Attanasio, but come on in thinking the team could have won 85-95 games for 10 straight years. Few teams in baseball do that, including teams with far greater financial resources. It's especially difficult for small market teams because prospects are volatile often don't pan out as hoped for, pitchers in particular.

Small market teams also have to draft well for sustained success and there simply were to many failed drafts and more so when Seid was running those drafts. Even with as well as Zduriencik drafted position players, he couldn't draft/develop pitchers and neither could Seid. Had they been able to draft/develop pitchers, the team wouldn't have had to always acquire it elsewhere.

Stearns is smarter than Melvin overall, but for as well as he's stole guys like Villar, Broxton, Thames, etc and how good the farm system is, so much will depend on how the pitchers in the minors pan out as big league pitchers, along with if he can find under-valued arms because the organization seems stocked on position players, but obviously gotta have much better pitching going forward to become what Stearns hopes for. I trust he will.

[Kerb Hohl]

The best examples there are of small markets winning 85-95 recently are the Rays and the A's. And, uhhhhh, pitching might be a factor.

'07-'14 the Brewers averaged 83 wins
'08-'15 the Rays averaged 88.4
'99-'06 the A's averaged almost 94 wins.

The difference is pitching and probably some defense.

Just for an example, the 2010 Brewers had decent Braun/Fielder years, Weeks/Hart had the best years of their career (really good - .850 OPS years), Pigehee was solid, and they let the guys from their system fill the lineup out (Luc, Escobar, Gomez).

That team won 77 games.

Contrast that with the 2010 Rays that won 96 games. Crawford and Longoria basically equaled Braun/Fielder in offensive production. After that was basically garbage. Willy Aybar was their primary DH to the tune of a.654 OPS.

The Rays were smart to get Garza and Kazmir for a short time, but I'm not going to blame Mark for not inheriting Shields, Price, Davis, Archer, Hellickson, and even guys like Neimann were solid.

The Rays and A's were also probably teams known to keep trading away to push the run out longer as most would agree. All 3 teams' runs lasted 8 years and I think the Brewers are ahead of the Rays in their rebuild while the Rays are toiling in a half rebuild. Friedman being lost obviously is a factor.

[WeekapaugGroove]

The biggest problem the 2000s brewers had was they just didn't have any of the lotto ticket pitchers actually pan out. They needed someone like manny para to exceed expectations. Because they weren't getting good home grown pitching it made them spend on 30+ year old starters instead of using that money to shore up other weaknesses. After Prince left First Base was a problem. Man could they have used someone like Thames or even Agular those years. Starting Yuni B at 1B was one of the most embarrassing things of that run.

This go around they seem to have better pitching depth in the minors so hopefully we see a different result. A lot of the success of this rebuild will be determined by how some of the young arms develop.

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[coolhandluke121]

Mark A inherited an incredible windfall of minor league talent, and they're probably under .500 in his tenure at this point. That's terrible. They traded for Carlos Lee (a fat slugger and terrible defender who came to epitomize the type of player they loved) when Mark A bought the team instead of letting the minor league talent run the course. Yes, they should have traded Prince. They also should have traded guys like Ramirez, Hart, Weeks, and Yovani when they started showing signs of decline. That's what small market teams have to do. If they hadn't traded for guys like Greinke and CC, guys like Cain, Escobar, and Brantley would have stepped in.

Some of their minor league prospects would have panned out and some wouldn't, but they would have been better off just putting the gm on auto-pilot and telling him to just draft the best they can and trade veterans for more prospects when they turn 28 or 29. They should have been able to sleep-walk to a better 10-year record.

I definitely stand by everything I said. They had terrible defenders and under-utilized the platoon strategy and had guys out of position, and they kept nearly every single player too long because they refused to take a step backwards. Look at what happened to the trade value of Marcum, Wolf, Ramirez, Weeks, Hart, Braun, Yovani, Lohse, and Garza. Look what they gave up for Greinke and CC. They failed to capitalize on Prince as an asset.

We suffered through almost 10 years of misery building the perfect engine for a small-market team, and they came in and started sh*tting on the correct small market strategy from day 1.

[Kerb Hohl]

Mark A inherited an incredible windfall of minor league talent, and they're probably under .500 in his tenure at this point. That's terrible. They traded for Carlos Lee (a fat slugger and terrible defender who came to epitomize the type of player they loved) when Mark A bought the team instead of letting the minor league talent run the course. Yes, they should have traded Prince. They also should have traded guys like Ramirez, Hart, Weeks, and Yovani when they started showing signs of decline. That's what small market teams have to do. If they hadn't traded for guys like Greinke and CC, guys like Cain, Escobar, and Brantley would have stepped in.

Some of their minor league prospects would have panned out and some wouldn't, but they would have been better off just putting the gm on auto-pilot and telling him to just draft the best they can and trade veterans for more prospects when they turn 28 or 29. They should have been able to sleep-walk to a better 10-year record.

I definitely stand by everything I said. They had terrible defenders and under-utilized the platoon strategy and had guys out of position, and they kept nearly every single player too long because they refused to take a step backwards. Look at what happened to the trade value of Marcum, Wolf, Ramirez, Weeks, Hart, Braun, Yovani, Lohse, and Garza. Look what they gave up for Greinke and CC. They failed to capitalize on Prince as an asset.

We suffered through almost 10 years of misery building the perfect engine for a small-market team, and they came in and started sh*tting on the correct small market strategy from day 1.

I just explained to you why they underwhelmed (pitching, and lack thereof for the Brewers). Most of what you're describing below is what the GM's job is. Should he have hired a cutting-edge GM that would have traded away Prince Fielder for pitching prospects and gone more defense-friendly? Maybe. You also have to remember that Brewer fans were being sold that Fielder, Weeks, Hardy, etc. were the saviors of the franchise. What if they traded those guys away for Tommy Hanson, Chris Volstad, and Mike Minor in a set of trades while those guys were coming up and/or at the back end of their Brewer tenure? Think from an ownership standpoint...there is a way that it could go very south.

-Aramis was always hurt and wouldn't have fetched more than he ended up fetching in the end.
-Hart and Weeks mostly performed during the Brewers' competitive window. When that window was closing, Hart and Weeks were oft-injured players that were looking like they were on the downside of their careers already.
-Yovani, sure, could have been dealt. But he was the only stable form of pitching.

The funny thing is that you've complained about them not trading a bunch of their players at the right time in previous years...and then they waited and got a **** haul for some of those guys (Gomez, Lucroy, Greinke/Segura, etc.) and the other ones were guys that wouldn't have moved the needle in trades.

What you are suggesting is that the Brewers should have taken their team, coming out of the doldrums of 10+ years of horrible baseball, and right when it tasted success, trade away Prince Fielder for more prospects. Wipe away the maybe the 2008 run because you can't trade away Matt LaPorta and the 2011 run because Fielder is gone.

Cain, Escobar, Brantley are all good 2-way players (well, Escobar can't hit) but I contend that if the Brewers had dealt Fielder, Weeks, etc. that we'd have probably a **** run of teams while guys like LaPorta and Lawrie flamed out and maybe we'd have replicated a year or two (like 2008 and 2011) in 2013 or 2014...maybe.

[coolhandluke121]

Whatever, I disagree completely. They should have been much better by focusing on prospects and keeping the talent pipeline healthy instead of trading for guys like Lee, CC, Marcum, and Greinke and signing guys like Suppan, Lohse, Cameron, and Wolf. They could have easily traded Prince and started Hart at 1b. Screw him if he doesn't like it; it's not his decision. You can't just say they would have wiped away their success if they had traded those guys because you don't know what they would have gotten for them.

Also, comparing it to Lucroy, Gomez, Greinke, Gallardo, and Segura is silly because, while I still would have preferred they trade them sooner, they at least understood that they needed to change their philosophy and traded them before it was too late. And you're wrong that Hart, Weeks, and Ramirez didn't have any trade value. They had plenty at the end of 2012, after the Brewers went on a little run after trading Greinke. Unfortunately, that little run alone was enough for them to delude themselves into thinking they could compete again so they kept all those guys even though there was every reason to believe each of them would be on a severe decline soon. Hell, they shouldn't have even kept Braun at the end of 2012 for that matter. Having all those guys play to their potential one last time was a gift horse if there ever was one, but the Brewers looked it right in the mouth and said No thanks, we'll stay the course. That offseason has come to epitomize the team's philosophy that they were one Lohse or Marcum or Suppan away from contention every damn year, and in the end their eagerness to compete made them worse than they would have been if they had been more patient. It's a lot like the Bucks, where impatience to win just sabotaged their ability to do so and you almost can win more if on the surface it appears (to the casual fan) that you're not really trying to - like the way the A's used to constantly rebuild on the fly and were better off for it, for example.

We have 10 years of evidence of the effect of their organizational philosophy, and in light of the talent they had in the minors when Mark A bought the team, their record is terrible. They should have done better than 6 playoff wins total and an overall record around .500 is pretty bad for what they started with.

[Kerb Hohl]

Whatever, I disagree completely. They should have been much better by focusing on prospects and keeping the talent pipeline healthy instead of trading for guys like Lee, CC, Marcum, and Greinke and signing guys like Suppan, Lohse, Cameron, and Wolf. They could have easily traded Prince and started Hart at 1b. Screw him if he doesn't like it; it's not his decision. You can't just say they would have wiped away their success if they had traded those guys because you don't know what they would have gotten for them.

I can pretty much guarantee that trading away Prince would have wiped away the 2011 season's success and 2011's success also involves trading for Zack Greinke. The years leading up to that, had they dealt Prince, they'd have put another few years' wait for their success.

Also, comparing it to Lucroy, Gomez, Greinke, Gallardo, and Segura is silly because, while I still would have preferred they trade them sooner, they at least understood that they needed to change their philosophy and traded them before it was too late. And you're wrong that Hart, Weeks, and Ramirez didn't have any trade value. They had plenty at the end of 2012, after the Brewers went on a little run after trading Greinke. Unfortunately, that little run alone was enough for them to delude themselves into thinking they could compete again so they kept all those guys even though there was every reason to believe each of them would be on a severe decline soon. Hell, they shouldn't have even kept Braun at the end of 2012 for that matter. Having all those guys play to their potential one last time was a gift horse if there ever was one, but the Brewers looked it right in the mouth and said No thanks, we'll stay the course. That offseason has come to epitomize the team's philosophy that they were one Lohse or Marcum or Suppan away from contention every damn year, and in the end their eagerness to compete made them worse than they would have been if they had been more patient. It's a lot like the Bucks, where impatience to win just sabotaged their ability to do so and you almost can win more if on the surface it appears (to the casual fan) that you're not really trying to - like the way the A's used to constantly rebuild on the fly and were better off for it, for example.

Your scenario of trading all of those guys probably ends their "run" in 2010 or 2011 and then starts it back up in 2014 or 2015...right in time to fight with the Cubs, Pirates, and Cards juggernauts. We're always going to have to deal with 1-2 other good teams in the division but we're almost back to being competitive after those years you lament where we tried to stretch it out.

You also mention trading Ryan Braun like it's not a big deal. "Yeah, just deal the MVP (with no steroid concerns) in his mid/late 20s. Not a big deal. Maybe we could get a haul like Cameron Maybin and Jacob Turner.

This was discussed in an Around the League thread before the season regarding Mike Trout: The team that trades away the generational talent generally gets bent over and boned, hard.

I love trying to stock up on big name prospects, but you usually end up getting a solid player and a few minor leaguers for your perennial All-Star. Moncada may end up figuring out how to strike out less, but look at the value that Chris Sale has already provided Boston and Moncada may strike out 200 times when he comes up. How about Smyly and Franklin for David Price? Willy Adames can maybe make amends for that deal but he's OPSing .650 in the minors right now (he still could be very good as he's a top 10 prospect and only 21). Gomez panned out like 5 years too late but he was the main piece for Yohan Santana.

We have 10 years of evidence of the effect of their organizational philosophy, and in light of the talent they had in the minors when Mark A bought the team, their record is terrible. They should have done better than 6 playoff wins total and an overall record around .500 is pretty bad for what they started with.

To illustrate this point, you lament Mark allowing Doug to go out and make our key signings guys like Soup, Wolf, Lohse, etc.

I think we can agree that most times, this is what the Brewers can afford in free agency for starting pitching. It may be sad, but these were some of their best pitchers over the past decade so I don't understand why you're bitching about Mark not doing anything with the incredible prospects he inherited. His options were to trade half of these guys away for young pitching at a time when fan support was extremely low or to try to make the best of what they had. I think you downplay how easy it would be to just trade away Braun, Fielder, etc. and magically get the right pitching. Could it have happened? Yeah. It also could have been an unmitigated disaster.