The Combined 'We're Trading Greinke' Thread (part 1)

[endaround]

"Melvin hasn't proven he's willing or able to trade for impact cost controlled pitching"

 

As long as you don't count Capuano, Bush, Davis, Marcum, and Greinke that is totally true.

[paul253]

As long as you don't count Capuano, Bush, Davis, Marcum, and Greinke that is totally true.

 

I don't think he traded for Davis, did he? I thought he signed him as a free agent, both times. Marcum and Greinke were not "cost controlled". And Capuano and Bush only had like one or two impact seasons between the two of them.

 

I think the best examples of Melvin trading for impact, cost controlled pitching would be Jose Cappellan and Zach Jackson. Unfortunately neither really worked out. I mentioned elsewhere that Melvin just doesn't seem interested in making a trade unless it helps now. Sexson, Lee, Overbay, Podesednik, Hardy....all of them had a decent amount of trade value but brought back mainly major league players.

 

Other than maybe the Dan Kolb-Jose Capellan trade he has really yet to trade an established major league player for a high ceiling prospect. This is why I am very concerned that if he does decide to trade Greinke and/or Marcum he will insist on established major league players in return. When you do that you tend to settle for lower ceiling players.

 

Milwaukee needs young, cost controlled impact players and Greinke is the perfect person to get one or two of them. Whether or not that happens remains to be seen.

[JohnBriggs12]

Rick Aguilera did that with the Twins years ago. Went to the Red Sox then resigned after the season. I can't recall who the Twins got for him but as I recall it was a robbery. The Twins and Aguilera were very open about the plan and the Sox still ponied up. Maybe we could talk Greinke into that.

 

 

Closer to home the Brewers traded Jim Slaton who was entering the last year of his contract in 1978 for Ben Oglivie who up to that point was a Brewer killer. Then when Slaton filed for free agency after one year with the Tigers, the Brewers signed him and both players went on to be key members of the 82 AL champs.

[trwi7]

At some point, we are going to have to pony up to keep our studs. Sabathia and Prince left, and odds are pretty high, Greinke is going to do the same if we don't get him inked before the trade deadline.

 

Pay the man!

 

At some point we're going to have to be patient with our prospects and allow them to produce for cheap on our team instead of some other team.

[paul253]

At some point we're going to have to be patient with our prospects and allow them to produce for cheap on our team instead of some other team.

I think we should do both. Sign Greinke, let Wolf and Marcum go, and replace them with Thornburg and Fiers. Buy some time for guys like Jungmann, Bradley, Peralta and others to develop and go from there.

 

Greinke more so than Sabathia and Fielder is a necessary sign in my opinion. Even with Fielder it was clear that the Brewers were going nowhere without pitching. So re-sign Greinke, even if it costs $20 million a year for 6 years and you'll have an amazing 1-2 combo. Then, with a strengthened 3-5 of pitchers like Peralta, Thornburg, Narveson, and/or Fiers, and eventually Jungmann and Bradley, we could really have something. Could you imagine in 3 years a rotation of Greinke, Gallardo, Thornburg, Peralta, and Bradley/Jungmann? Hopefully the hitters continue to progress and the drafts continue to be strong.

 

If ever the Brewers were going to take a chance on an expensive, long term sign, I think Greinke should be the guy.

[BrewCrew8682]

TC07, you clearly question whether or not the somewhat shortsighted moves Melvin has made were in the best long-term interests of the team, as do I, but I think that when measuring the product on the field today we have to consider what ramifications those trades had on our present payroll. Not only being able to extend certain players that we may not have been able to (at this time lets use Hart instead of Weeks), but also on the potential a payroll our size has versus one that may not have has the boost from attendance that we've had. I realize that there is no easy way to determine the fan reaction had we not made the playoffs in '08, or had we not have at least gone "all-in" but I think that Attanasio understands that a consistent winner may be as important to the long-term interests of this team as much as recycling talent over the years like you suggest. I have no doubts that he is very much involved in decisions around the deadline, especially those that send a clear message to the fans about the team's commitment, and while I don't think his baseball knowledge is where you'd want it to be for those types of decisions he's done very little in his time here or beforehand to make me question his business acumen.

[JohnBriggs12]

"If the Brewers were going to take a chance on an expensive, long term sign, I think Greinke should be the guy"

 

I couldn't disagree more. Number one, Greinke is a pitcher. Pitchers break down. How much return have the Mets gotten from Santana for $137 million? He's been good when he's been healthy but he missed all of 2011 and parts of other seasons as well. Secondly, Greinke has one Cy Young year and hasn't been close any other year. He may get chosen for an second All Star game this year but as good as he's been, he's still allowing a hit an inning. That doesn't say "Cy Young #2" to me.

 

Yes the Brewers need a top of the line pitcher, but you can let your team needs cause you to make foolish decisions that could hamstring a franchise for half a decade. The Brewers placed a value on Greinke and I'm sure that it is quite generous, but they are shying away from Matt Cain type money and well they should. They got Greinke in the first place by having the pieces to deal for him. That's what they should focus on instead of pretending to be a big market team.

[monty57]

At some point we're going to have to be patient with our prospects and allow them to produce for cheap on our team instead of some other team.

I think we should do both. Sign Greinke, let Wolf and Marcum go, and replace them with Thornburg and Fiers. Buy some time for guys like Jungmann, Bradley, Peralta and others to develop and go from there.

 

Greinke more so than Sabathia and Fielder is a necessary sign in my opinion. Even with Fielder it was clear that the Brewers were going nowhere without pitching. So re-sign Greinke, even if it costs $20 million a year for 6 years and you'll have an amazing 1-2 combo. Then, with a strengthened 3-5 of pitchers like Peralta, Thornburg, Narveson, and/or Fiers, and eventually Jungmann and Bradley, we could really have something. Could you imagine in 3 years a rotation of Greinke, Gallardo, Thornburg, Peralta, and Bradley/Jungmann? Hopefully the hitters continue to progress and the drafts continue to be strong.

 

If ever the Brewers were going to take a chance on an expensive, long term sign, I think Greinke should be the guy.

 

The team this year is not great. If we do not "sell," and we extend Greinke, then we will essentially have this year's team minus Marcum, Wolf, Loe, Veras, K-Rod and maybe Morgan & Gomez. All those positions would have to be filled from within the organization in order to pay Greinke, and we don't have much pre-arby talent to fill these roles. In other words, we would probably be pretty bad.

 

If we "sell" and bring back some MLB-ready guys who could step in and play for league minimum, then I think we'd probably be able to have the financial flexibility to at least make a good effort at signing Greinke while still putting some talent on the field around him.

[mothershipconnection]

I'm not sure why we need to hold out for "can't miss prospects". If you're sure you can't extend him, getting the equivalent of Coulter and Haniger would be a great trade. You'd basically get the same talent you could draft, but save $2.85MM in signing bonuses.

 

If they're actually attempting to extend him and think he'll sign for friendly terms, sure, hold out for a big-time return. Otherwise, you shouldn't consider anything beyond the benefits of comp picks vs the offered trade return.

[TheCrew07]

I guess I can see where some would think I'm ignoring the boost in interest/attendance to the team which led greater revenues, but I wasn't, I've tackled that before, but quickly what exactly has our increased payroll exactly bought us? Sure we can point to 2011 after the Greinke and Marcum trades, but what about 2009 and 2010? What about 2012? Just spending isn't the answer here, and wasn't the idea that I was working on.

 

I'm sure people are tired of me talking about the Rays but here it is one more time. It took us 3 different trades to net us 4.5 (after injuries) years of the quality pitching that this team has been sorely lacking forever. However all 3 trades were temporary in nature and didn't really help bridge the gap to our own pitching problems or plug rotation holes, the only way that would happen is if any of those 3 pitchers would have been/will be extended. As that seems unlikely today the rotation will be left in exactly the same state as it was when we acquired said players.

 

Contrast that to what other teams such as the Rays did to build their rotation, they traded for a young Kazmir in 2004 who anchored their rotation gave them 5+ years and then spun him off. They traded a closer for Edwin Jackson in 2006 who was a top prospect in all of baseball who pitched for the Rays for 3 seasons but never threw enough strikes so they flipped him. Finally they traded for Matt Garza in 2007 and he pitched 3 strong seasons before they flipped him. Those 3 trades moved the Rays forward as organization as along the way they developed Shields as a very solid #2/#3 and developed Sonnanstine as a #4/#5 (our version of Fiers), to create a solid 5 man rotation and bridge the gap until their prospects were ready.

 

Jeff Niemann and David Price joined the rotation in 2009 after Kazmir and Jackson were flipped for prospects at different points. Wade Davis replaced Sonnanstine in 2010 who moved to the pen, Hellickson pitched out of the pen late in 2010 but replaced Garza in the rotation in 2011, and Moore pushed Davis to the pen this year. That's moving your organization forward as they effectively bridged the gap to their prospects getting 10+ years out of those trades and the Rays' trades were much more economical than our 3 big pitching trades.

 

I've long talked about how I view value in baseball: starting pitchers>position players>relievers. The Rays traded up in value each time, even the Zambrano->Kazmir deal they moved 8 years younger and got a pitcher with much better stuff.

 

So from that perspective I don't see how the trades had any tangible long-term benefit for the organization. We're spending more money for a similar result and we still have major pitching issues on the horizon, that's not moving the organization forward. The MLB team has certainly enjoyed a couple of blips of success, but I don't think the organization is in a better place in terms of talent. The organization is certainly worth more on paper and the fanbase responded wonderfully, but again I'm not working on that angle. I'm coming from a place that would love to see the Brewers have MLB success and a strong enough farm to be able to sustain injuries and success over a long period of time. 2 blips on the radar screen isn't sustaining success from my point of view, nor do I feel particularly excited about the teams' prospects in 2013 and 2014 right now as Peralta has flat out stunk all year and Thornburg needs to work on his control quite a bit. Narveson, Fiers, and Estrada are nice back of the rotation starters but we won't have any aspirations of a deep playoff run throwing Yo and 4 guys.

[Dollarbill13]

Did you ever spend like 20 minutes typing a message and then click the wrong button and lose the whole message? I just did that in response to TheCrew07. Ultimately, my point was that the Rays have made some very shrewd moves but the larger factor in their recent run of success was their farm system which was heavily due to them having a top 10 pick every year for a decade.

[paul253]

How much return have the Mets gotten from Santana for $137 million?

 

How much return have the Yankees gotten from Sabathia? Or the Tiger with Verlander? Or the Phillies with Halladay? Or the Mariners with Feliz Hernandez? You can't look at past contracts to different players to determine whether or not you offer a long term deal to someone. You look at the player, his talent level, his injury history, and so on and you make an educated guess as to whether or not you think he'll be worth it. Some teams have gotten burned, others haven't. The one thing we do know though, is that even with one of the best offenses in the league, the Brewers were basically a .500 team without decent pitching. So unless you are willing to wait until Thornburg, Peralta, Jungmann, Bradley, etc establish themselves as everyday starters, which may or may not ever happen, you are going to need to take a risk on a pitcher. They seem willing to throw $10 million at average pitchers like Suppan and Wolf. Why not throw $20 million at good to great pitchers like Greinke? He may give up a hit an inning but he doesn't walk a lot of guys so his WHIP is still relatively low.

 

If we do not "sell," and we extend Greinke, then we will essentially have this year's team minus Marcum, Wolf, Loe, Veras, K-Rod and maybe Morgan & Gomez. All those positions would have to be filled from within the organization in order to pay Greinke, and we don't have much pre-arby talent to fill these roles. In other words, we would probably be pretty bad.

 

I think you are exaggerating. First off, I'd be willing to guess Gomez will be back. And Schafer can easily replace Morgan. Wolf and Marcum can probably be replaced by Fiers and Thornburg. Peralta is another option if he can get his act together. Plus we'll still have Estrada and Narveson will be back at some point. That's 5 options for 3 spots.

 

Second, even with a new Greinke contract, look at it this way. He's already making $13.5 million this season. So even if you pay him $23 million a year that's only an addition of $10 million to the payroll. Marcum, Wolf, and Greinke are making $30.7 million combined this season. A new contract to Greinke plus Thornburg/Peralta/Fiers would be less next season than Greinke, Wolf, and Marcum make this season.

 

As far as the bullpen goes, you can always trade some guys. Kottaras would be a good option with both Lucroy and Maldonado in the fold. And you can probably get a decent bullpen arm for a few million bucks. But by replacing Marcum, Wolf, KRod, and Morgan with Thornburg, Fiers, Schafer and FA/Trade you'd be saving a ton of money.

 

Whether or not the team is any better would depend a lot on how Thornburg/Fiers/Peralta/Estrada/Narveson do. The bullpen obviously has to do better. And hopefully the injury situation is better. But the future would certainly look brighter in my opinion because you have a solid 1-2 with several mid to high ceiling prospects coming up.

If you're sure you can't extend him, getting the equivalent of Coulter and Haniger would be a great trade. You'd basically get the same talent you could draft, but save $2.85MM in signing bonuses.

 

If you can get that it'd be ok but I'd rather shoot for a Jacob Turner/Mike Olt/Nick Castellanos type prospects then take my chances with two draft picks. Letting Greinke walk for draft picks ranks much lower to me than extending or trading him.

[dlk9s]

From the Boston Globe:

 

7. Zack Greinke, RHP, Brewers - When teams ask about his availability, they are getting “not yet’’ from Milwaukee, but the fact is, he will be available as soon as they hear the right offer. Greinke is due to be a free agent, and there doesn’t seem to be any chance of the Brewers signing him long-term. As one NL general manager said, “If you take him on, you have to know what he is. He’s not an ace, but a middle-of-the-rotation guy who can pitch quality innings and games for you. That’s why it’s tough to give up a lot for him.’’

 

http://i.imgur.com/BG2b4.gif

[paul253]

Anyone who considers Greinke a "middle of the rotation" starter is saying so either for leverage or because they don't know anything about baseball. At worst he's a #2.

[jerichoholicninja]

I'm sure people are tired of me talking about the Rays but here it is one more time...

 

I totally agree with you about the Rays, however they really lucked out on those trades. The Mets GM (Steve Phillips I think it was) blew the Kazmir trade, possibly one of the worst ever. Yes, Edwin Jackson is a decent starting pitcher now, but he wasn't while he was in Tampa so I'm not sure how that trade helped them. Finally when they traded away Garza they got some nice players in return however to get him they gave up one of, if not the, top prospect in the game who has happened to fall miserably short of his projections.

 

The Rays are a great organization but they've had a lot of luck in the moves they've made. Like someone else said in another thread, they've become the Cardinals of the AL with their ability to turn other team's crap into gold.

[Invader3K]

You can totally tell the gamesmanship is already starting on the Greinke trade front. "He's not available," versus "He's not really an ace", etc. Really sounds reminiscent of the Roy Halladay situation from a couple years ago.

[RockCoCougars]

7. Zack Greinke, RHP, Brewers - When teams ask about his availability, they are getting “not yet’’ from Milwaukee, but the fact is, he will be available as soon as they hear the right offer. Greinke is due to be a free agent, and there doesn’t seem to be any chance of the Brewers signing him long-term. As one NL general manager said, “If you take him on, you have to know what he is. He’s not an ace, but a middle-of-the-rotation guy who can pitch quality innings and games for you. That’s why it’s tough to give up a lot for him.’’

 

I guess that Greinke is an 'innings eater' then....

 

To me, this sounds more like something that a Boston writer (who considers Milwaukee flyover country) pulled out of his rear than something that an employed GM would say.... either that or they confused Greinke with Randy Wolf.

[monty57]

To kind of go along with TheCrew07's post, I think some things the Brewers are missing are:

 

1) The willingness to trade for young guys with a lot of service time remaining. Melvin seems to prefer trading for "proven" guys.

 

2) The willingness to trade away guys when they are nearing free agency to bring in talent and allow the young players to play. Melvin has either held guys to free agency or extended them, even when they are so close to free agency that they're basically signing a market deal.

 

3) The willingness to put their faith in rookies, even in an "all in" year.

 

Instead, the Brewers have traded away young talent for guys who are nearing free agency, and have blocked prospects who are seemingly ready to contribute.

 

Melvin built this team with the farm system, and has since been in an "all in" mentality, with a reluctance to trust in "non-proven" players. He's used prospects as trade chips, which has left us with a lot of our payroll tied up in a few players, a weak farm system, and very little pre-arby talent. With a limited budget, if we are going to have a lot of our money tied up in a few players, we need to have a continuous stream of pre-arby talent coming off the farm and playing a key role for the MLB team. We don't have this, as we have traded it away and have not traded "non-core" players to re-stock the system.

 

It would be pretty easy to re-stock the farm system quickly if we decide to trade Greinke, Marcum and Hart for good young players with a lot of service time remaining. We will be bad for the foreseeable future if we decide to let them all walk in free agency. We will continue to be "so-so" if we decide to trade them for guys with 2-3 years of service time remaining. I'd like us to choose option #1, but I wouldn't be surprised to see Melvin choose one of the other options.

[FullMetalCardigan]

(Posted this in the general Brewer forum but this is probably the better thread for it)

 

Only a rumor, but Bill Michaels is claiming the Brewers have a $125M offer on the table for Greinke:

 

http://www.billmichaelssports.com/brewers-lebron-sandusky/

[TooLiveBrew]

If* that's true, then ladies & gentlemen the baseline for Greinke bidding this coming offseason has just been set. If this is true, I hope I'm wrong & he signs, but I think just about any team with moderate financial flexibility & a need for SP will be willing to pay him that.

 

 

* I'll freely admit I have no idea who Bill Michaels is, but I haven't seen a much less-reliable looking rumor in a while. His blog post is about 'Where has T-Plush gone?!' ... and the THROW-IN is ... 'Oh yeah, by the way, some Greinke guy? I dunno -- I guess he got offered a contract or something'

[crossface21]

If* that's true, then ladies & gentlemen the baseline for Greinke bidding this coming offseason has just been set. If this is true, I hope I'm wrong & he signs, but I think just about any team with moderate financial flexibility & a need for SP will be willing to pay him that.

 

 

* I'll freely admit I have no idea who Bill Michaels is, but I haven't seen a much less-reliable looking rumor in a while. His blog post is about 'Where has T-Plush gone?!' ... and the THROW-IN is ... 'Oh yeah, by the way, some Greinke guy? I dunno -- I guess he got offered a contract or something'

 

 

Bill Michaels used to be the sports guy for WTMJ, he got let go and now has a show on 1250 WSSP.

[torts]

6 years, $125 mil... roughly 21 million a year. i'd do it. take wolf's buyout to make it work. keep a 1/2 of Greinke/Gallardo

[Raw Biz]

If* that's true, then ladies & gentlemen the baseline for Greinke bidding this coming offseason has just been set. If this is true, I hope I'm wrong & he signs, but I think just about any team with moderate financial flexibility & a need for SP will be willing to pay him that.

 

 

* I'll freely admit I have no idea who Bill Michaels is, but I haven't seen a much less-reliable looking rumor in a while. His blog post is about 'Where has T-Plush gone?!' ... and the THROW-IN is ... 'Oh yeah, by the way, some Greinke guy? I dunno -- I guess he got offered a contract or something'

 

I (and many others) think Michaels is an idiot and I'm not really sure how or why he was given a show by WSSP. And he spelled Morgan's name "Nyger." I know the guy isn't paid to strictly follow the Brewers but I hate it when supposed "sports professionals" (journalists, reporters, hosts, etc.) don't even know how to spell someone's name correctly, especially when they should be well-versed on that player's team.

[RockCoCougars]

I hope that's true. I tend to think of Michaels as a clown, but I'd have to think that he has some connections within the organization. The Brewers need to get Greinke to the table now. If he doesn't accept that or something close to it, then you think about trading him if they look to be out of contention in a month or so (I'd say that 5 games back at that point would be the cutoff).

[monty57]

NOTE: I hear that the Brewers will or have offered Zack Geinke a 6 year / $125 million contrat.

 

that from the referenced Bill Michaels blog.

 

So, if it's true, and if Greinke accepts, what do we do from there? Next year's committed contracts (from Cot's): Weeks $11M, Hart $10.333M, Braun $9.5M, Ramirez $10M, Gallardo $8M, Aoki $1.25M, Lucroy $850k, Wolf $1.5M buyout. That's $52.4M committed to seven players, and Greineke's $20.8 would push us to $73.2M for eight players.

 

We have Axford, Narveson, Ishikawa and Estrada going into year 1 arby, Morgan ($2.35 M this year) and Kottaras ($700k) into year 2, Loe ($2.175M), Veras ($2M) and Parra ($1.2M) going into year 3 arby and Gomez ($1.9625M) going into Year 4 arby. Dillard, Gamel, Green, Fiers, Maldonado, Ransom will still be pre-arby, as will guys in the minors who may come up.

 

(Note that Cot's and Brewerfan's salary page differ on some players, such as Estrada, Loe & Veras' arby status)

 

Melvin / Attanasio know what the Brewers have to spend, but I don't know how we're going to field a competitive team with $73MM going to eight players and very little cheap talent. If Cot's is right, we'll have around $10MM going to Loe, Veras, Parra and Axford and another $5MM or so going to Morgan / Gomez. We're pushing $90MM for 14 players! That's with only two SP spot filled (Gallardo/Greinke). Can we compete with Estrada and two rookies in the rotation when we're a below .500 team with Marcum and Wolf in the rotation?

 

The only way I can see this working would be for us to immediately trade Marcum and Hart for some good, MLB-ready prospects who could step right in and contribute for league minimum. Otherwise, we're going to have the same team that's playing right now without Marcum, Wolf and Gonzalez and with very little money to spend for upgrades.

 

I should be excited about the possibility that Greinke could be extended, but it opens up a lot of questions. I don't want to see us become the teams of the 90's and early 2000's where we have a couple of guys to get excited about surrounded by a bunch of guys who shouldn't be on a major league roster. After all, the combined records of the teams Greinke has been on is 581-787... he certainly can't win it alone.