On a Scale of 1 to 10...

[monty57]

I agree that we will most likely see Hart & Ramirez on the 2013 Opening Day roster. I just think it's the wrong move and have tried to illustrate why.

 

Do you think it's the correct move to retain both of them, or do you just think that's what's going to happen? If you believe it's the correct move, then what will your 2014 roster look like? Or should we not think as far out as 2014, because of the all-too-familiar "that's a long way off and things will work themselves out?" If his season/offseason is not the correct time to trade someone like Hart and/or Ramirez, what would constitute a good time to trade someone?

 

I think the best move is the keep Ramirez and Hart. Who plays 3B if Ramirez is moved? Cody Ransom? No thank you. Quality thirdbasemen are not easy to find and we happen to have one on the roster. RF/1B is much easier to fill but I don't think the trade return on Hart would exceed his value to the Brewers over the next two years.

 

I think the Brewers will be competitive in 2013 (perhaps I'm delusional). An important part of the 2013 puzzle is keeping Ramirez and Hart here. Neither contract is prohibitive.

 

As far as 2014, I don't see having Hart and Ramirez on the roster for 2012 makes 2014 a problem. It's not like they have albatross contracts like Jayson Werth or Carl Crawford.

 

Thank you for the response. I agree that we should be better in 2013 with Hart and Ramirez on the roster. However, I don't think that we will be a playoff team with a rotation of Gallardo, Fiers, Estrada, Peralta, Thornburg and a completely rebuilt bullpen. There is a lot of work to do to have any chance of making 2013 a playoff team, and even then it would be pretty long odds. Meanwhile, we lose Hart to free agency after the season. Since the odds of a playoff are long and we're losing Hart to free agency, it seems to make sense to trade him this season/offseason to maximize his value to the team.

 

As to Ramirez, the hope at the time was to get a minor league 3B in the Greinke, Hart or Ramirez trades. Green could have taken over until he was ready. Without those steps in place, we would need to decide which is better... Ramirez for 2 years / $30MM or Green for $450k plus the player(s) we got in return for Ramirez. From a production standpoint, Ramirez would be harder to replace with what we have in-house than Hart. The only reason most wanted to see Ramirez traded was the amount of money he's owed over the next two years when he is in his mid-30's and will probably put up lesser and lesser numbers. If we could've received the rumored SP back, I would've easily accepted Green at 3B. Trading him "for nothing" would be harder to stomach. It just depends on the other moving pieces in the trades.

 

For 2014 and beyond, here's my logic for why the team will be worse. I assume we could receive good prospects for Hart and Ramirez in trade. Those players would be coming into their own in 2014 and beyond, at which point we would no longer have Hart (contract up after 2013) or Ramirez (no longer a Brewer after 2014, although we'll still pay him). Therefore, good, young players playing for league minimum vs vets who are no longer on the team with no prospects in return.

 

If it weren't for getting something valueable in return in trade, then of course I wouldn't trade them.

[TooLiveBrew]

To those who wanted Ramirez traded, who is playing 3B for the Brewers in 2013 and 2014? Or do you not care because you'd prefer to punt the season away?

Taylor Green is an in-house option. Or maybe someone you get in trade for Ramirez or Hart would be an option.

[TheCrew07]

I've been thinking about risk quite a bit lately and the whole notion that prospects are more risky than veterans, which is a pretty common theme around baseball.

 

The way I see it, that's only true if we are talking about production on the field. As it's nearly impossible to project a young player's career path, see Harper, Trout, and Braun, I do understand the apprehension to rely on young players as very few will come up and dominate like Braun from the get go. However I'll take Trout's career path every time... he struggles for a 100ish ABs and then becomes a monster as he figures out the game. It should be a reasonable expectation for a young player to struggle and have some growing pains, that's why Macha had to go, he wasn't willing to let young players fail and keep trotting them out there. Obviously managers are under extreme pressure to win now, so a team like Milwaukee really has to find the right type of guy for that role.

 

Production doesn't equal value nor does it negate risk, and I think that's where many muddle and confuse concepts. Players with a high level of production who come with a high yearly price tag also carry significant risk, especially pitchers. The older and more expensive players get, the greater the risk they carry because older players tend to get injured more. 1 injury and the guy may never be the same, a typical injury to the elbow or shoulder costs the team 1 full season of that player's production, that's just a sunk cost. Every different kind of player will have varying kinds of risk associated with him, there is no "riskless" player in professional sports. Unfortunately it appears that either risk or production are sometimes synonymous with value, when they are actually components of value.

 

When we start talking budget and get into the realm of "value" we actually take all of those concepts: risk, production, contract, etc and rolling it into a single concept. More statistical orientated posters are going to take WAR, or WPA, or some other advanced value metric and divide that level production by the players' contract to give an "average cost per win" and then compare it to the league average. Problem of course is that the league average skewed by the teams who can spend the most, the Brewers are much closer in terms of payroll to the bottom team than they are the top team. I don't think that kind of analysis accurate portrays a player's given value to his franchise.

 

I'll use Hart as an example. He'll be solid a 1B next season, but with or without him the season, like most, will come down to pitching. Will our young pitchers hit the ground running like Fiers, or will they experience some significant growing pains like Matt Moore in TB? If our pitching won't be good enough to compete then what does it matter if we have Ramirez or Hart on the roster? In the end every poor season since 2007 has been about the pitching, not the hitting, so if you aren't going to compete with Hart on the roster, what's his ultimate value? If he can be replaced by a younger and cheaper player who also needs to build into his role while the pitching situation stabilizes then Hart's greatest value to the organization would be what he could back in a trade, much like Greinke.

 

I understand that Gamel, Morris, Halton, and Davis haven't proven anything from a production standpoint, but the very fact that we have 4 of those prospects who could potentially play 1B significantly mitigates the risk in that scenario. It's not like we have just 1 prospect and we need that 1 guy to make it or we're screwed, we have options. This is precisely why I've argued for organization building all these years instead of team building, the more options we have the less long-term risk the organization carries. I do understand that the only team that matters is the MLB team, but again I'm not trying to beat league in a particular year, I'm raging against the system. Perhaps you can take the money saved from moving a veteran player and roll it into different FA to plug a hole at 3B or some other spot in 2014 or 2015, position players are much better value than pitchers when it comes to FA. Just because a team is under budget doesn't mean they have to spend it on the MLB roster, there are many other ways to add value to the organization with that money beyond player salaries. Maybe instead of spending it on a FA they go over slot in the draft and spend more in Latin America, neither pays an instant dividend but it's difficult to argue against adding as much talent as possible. Maybe they purchase some MiLB affiliates and upgrade their facilities adding modern weight room and rehab facilities... there's any number of ways to ultimately effect the MLB team without spending money upfront on contracts.

 

The idea should be to have a good mix of veterans and youth, not just one or other. A player's value isn't as easy as equating cost to production, it goes much deeper than that, and I think that some aren't fully grasping what Monty, TLB, I, and others are talking about when we're posting from a value perspective. I also don't feel that everyone fully appreciates the significant risk that players in their mid 30s carry because of injury and cost with sliding production. Many times the team ends up paying for what a player has done, not what they are going to do.

[Dollarbill13]

After this season, we will owe Ramirez $30MM for two more years of service. After next year, we will owe him $20MM for one year of service. What we paid him in 2012 will no longer matter. It's history. I understand what you're saying, but as a business owner, I'd rather pay him now and claim a loss for the year (tax break) instead of looking at an estimated time value of money while having to claim a gain and pay taxes.

 

As to trade value, anyone we look as a trading partner will only care about what they'd owe going forward. From a spreadsheet, it may seem reasonable to say "we profited, so let's eat half his remaining contract," but when you're dishing out the money to get out of a contract, it still sucks. For the "casual fan," who seem to be of utmost importance in our team-building strategy, how does it look to trade away Ramirez and pick up half his salary? Would they say "we actually profited because he got us some extra wins in our pathetic 2012 season?"

 

In that light, looking at it from the spreadsheet view, do all wins weigh equally? I'd say that the "4-5 wins" he got us this year really didn't matter much at all, as we're going to end up well under .500. Therefore, since those "wins" are worth less, they should cost less. Meanwhile, paying him for a few seasons after he's gone could hamper us from adding a player who would put us over the edge and into the playoffs. Who knows, when you're talking "wins" you're talking theoretical. I'd say Braun brings more wins than Ramirez for less cost, and on a dollar-for-dollar basis, no one brings more wins than a good pre-arby guy like the ones I'd like to trade Hart and Ramirez for.

 

 

I'll try to be brief:

1) I don't think the "Pay now & take a tax break" holds much weight since any gains/losses would offset in the two scenarios by 2014. Why wouldn't you rather have an extra $10M now (even if it declines to $7M after taxes) than having $0 now and gaining $10M in two years (which would still decline to $7M after taxes)?

 

2) I don't think the casual fan's perspective should matter except to the extent that their anger about a trade might hurt revenue. We're assigning value to an intangible asset so explaining a "profit" really just comes down to the production you expected when you made the purchase vs. the production that was received.

 

3) You are pretty much right that an extra 5 wins this year is pretty meaningless (at least in terms of playoffs, we have no idea what it means for revenue) but there's no way to know that going into a season. Also, if we are able to get some good pre-arby player(s) for Ramirez, then I'm all for it. I question the suggestion that we should essentially give him up for nothing.

[Dollarbill13]

TC07, I completely understand where you are coming from with the value discussion and how it won't matter if we have Hart or Ramirez if we can't pitch. However, using the theory that they won't matter would say that we should trade them for whatever we can get. There are two reasons that I think that is the wrong decision. First is that we have to at least respect the business aspect of things. We've seen what can happen to attendance if we suck and whether we like it or not, Mark is the owner of a business and ultimately he needs to make sure the business stays viable in the long run. Second, and probably most important from a fan perspective, is that I don't think we are as far away from competing as many people think we are. With as bad as our season has gone, we are currently sitting on a .500 Pythagorean W/L%. We have something like $20M to spend this offseason so if our young pitching performs, we can be right in the thick of things next season. That's why I maintain that I'm open to trading Ramirez and Hart, but we would need to get something good for them.

 

Also, with regards to risk, you are absolutely right that veterans do carry more risk in that with a major injury, we could essentially lose a $10M or $20M player. Baseball Prospectus puts this into their "Attrition" and "Collapse" rates for each player. For example, Ramirez had a 4% collapse rate and 8% attrition rate entering 2012. That's not insignificant for the amount of money we are paying him. A bunch of prospects could flame out and it wouldn't cost us nearly as much money as it would cost by losing Ramirez. That will be a risk with acquiring any player and the risk increases as players age. I think we probably all agree that the Brewers can play in free agency from time to time but need to be smart about it. We can't build an entire team of age 30+ players and we probably won't be able to put together a World Series team full of 24 year olds.

 

Unfortunately, given the new draft and international rules, we'll be very limited with the amount that we can exceed slot or spend on the international market. Is there any limit to the number of minor league affiliates a team can have? Could we have three AAA teams? That might be a way to rage against the system...

[SRB]

I admit I was on board the trade-Ramirez bandwagon before, but I've done a complete 180. Dude is on pace for 5.0+ fWAR and fills a big need for this team. I know a lot of people act like Schafer and Green can be everyday starters, but I'm really looking forward to a year (hopefully assuming the Gamel experiment is over) where we don't have to deal with not-that-good fringe prospects filling starting spots.

 

Next year you keep Hart and sign a good 1B/RF, like Lance Berkman, and for the first time in quite a while you have a starting lineup without a black hole. Segura/backup veteran at SS and Gomez/Aoki in CF probably won't be amazing next year, but they aren't horrible either. Everywhere else you are above-average. When was the last time the Brewers didn't have a huge weak spot in their starting lineup? The 1980s???

[TooLiveBrew]

Is there any limit to the number of minor league affiliates a team can have? Could we have three AAA teams?

 

That's a good question, honestly. If clubs were allowed to have multiple teams at different stateside levels, however, I feel like it would already be getting put to use.

 

I do know for certain that many organizations have multiple teams in the DSL, including the Pirates & Cubs, & the Reds have one standalone team along with another they split with the D-Backs. There's also a VSL in which there are currently only four teams. I can't remember where I read this, but iirc around the time Alcides Escobar (a Venezuelan) was nearing the bigs, I saw an article that praised the Brewers for having had success scouting in Venezuela. Maybe you set up an organizational outpost there.

[MNBrew]

From MLBtraderumors.com:

This is why I have a hard time giving a high rating to Melvin & the Brewers. They got a good return on the moves they were forced to make, but they seem to refuse to make moves until it is the only valid option. Instead, Melvin says "I need to be bowled over" and then stares at his phone and wonders why it won't ring.

 

 

I don't think Melvin wondered why his phone didn't ring. He knows why it didn't ring--the Brewers don't have any more decent pieces to trade for this year. Do you think another manager wants KRod, Wolf, Izturis, Ransom, or anyone else who doesn't have a future with the team? Marcum, due to his injury, could not be traded. Once Melvin traded Greinke and Kottaras and didn't have anything left other teams wanted.

 

I give Melvin's trades a 7.5 out of 10

Total ditto. When all we were hoping to move was roster dung, and everyone knows how bad or injured all those types are, how is that possibly Melvin's fault? They're not trading Braun, Weeks, Axford, Gallardo, Lucroy, Fiers, or anything else we truly want to keep. All K-Rod had to do was get more outs than baserunners or at least runs to be tradeable, but he couldn't even do that!

 

It's become pretty obvious Melvin doesn't say "I need to be bowled over" on the Loes, K-Rods, Wolfs, etc. He says it on the Greinkes, Fielders, and those types -- the franchise player types.

[logan82]

Hart and Ramirez are valuable pieces they could have traded. They may net more in the offseason though. Ramirez may or may not be around when we are good again and I doubt Hart will be. We need to be building for 2014 and beyond not next year.

[Fear The Chorizo]

To those who wanted Ramirez traded, who is playing 3B for the Brewers in 2013 and 2014? Or do you not care because you'd prefer to punt the season away?

Taylor Green is an in-house option. Or maybe someone you get in trade for Ramirez or Hart would be an option.

 

Taylor Green is an in-house option if the Brewers are fine with punting for 2013. He could perform just fine in an everyday role, but he hasn't had enough of a big league opportunity to determine whether he's an everyday regular, especially at a corner IF position. I don't think he's a longterm solution there (his best role would be a super-utility IF, not an everyday regular). I'm fine with giving him an everyday shot at 3rd if a trade of Ramirez or Hart nets a high ceiling 3B that could be ready to step in starting 2014.

[TooLiveBrew]

Yep, if we trade Ramirez & Hart imo the return would be enough to justify not worrying about 2013. The Brewers can keep worrying about 'this season' every season like they have since 2008, or they can change the approach & build an organization, like the Packers have done under Thompson.

 

And fwiw I agree with you on Green, I think he can have a really nice career as a LH swinging 2B/3B/PH(/1B?) utility player with some pop & there's no shame in that. He's not a guy who's a longterm answer at third imo, but he wouldn't be bad & save the Brewers a lot of money over a FA candidate.

[igor67]

Monty I'm pretty sure you are incorrectly including deferred payments/options in that future cost of Ramirez. A chunk of that deferred money we are already on the hook for as result of this year.

[mothershipconnection]

I'm late to the party, but I rate the trade(s) an 8.5/solid B. We got a very good package for Greinke, but not a fleecing. We also got a guy with some value for Kottaras, which is better than I'd anticipated.

We can't really rate the non-trades since we have no idea what was offered.

[monty57]

Monty I'm pretty sure you are incorrectly including deferred payments/options in that future cost of Ramirez. A chunk of that deferred money we are already on the hook for as result of this year.

 

You're probably right. I have no idea how of the language in that contract is written, other than it is heavily back-end-loaded with some of the money deferred to years in which Ramirez will no longer be a Brewer. I do think it was a desparation-type contract, where Roenicke & Melvin convinced the owners that Ramirez was the last piece we needed for the playoffs this season, so a non-standard contract was written up so that the Brewers could afford him this year even though they were already over-budget.

 

By signing the contract they did, it will make it more difficult to compete in the future, as a large portion of the payroll will be tied up in a few players. This is why I think getting a couple more prospects who project to be good MLB players would really help future Brewer teams. I highly doubt Ramirez will be traded, so after the Greinke trade, the only logical piece we could move which would land another Segura-level prospect would be Corey Hart.

 

We have a lot of prospects who project to be decent/average MLB players. We just need a couple who project to be good MLB players. We got one in Segura. If we could get one for Hart, I'd be happy, and that certainly isn't "blowing up the offense," as Gamel and Aoki should be fine at 1B/RF. We'd then have multiple decent-to-good players playing for league minimum, which should allow us to field a competitive team while still paying a lot of money to Braun, Gallardo, Ramirez and Weeks.

[logan82]

According to Cot's

 

3 years/$36M (2012-14), plus 2015 mutual option

 

signed by Milwaukee as a free agent 12/13/11

12:$6M, 13:$10M, 14:$16M, 15: mutual option ($4M buyout)

$6M in salary deferred in 2014

[Funketown]

Does anybody know the value of Ramirez' mutual option in 2015? If it's under $12-14MM, and Ramirez continues to play well over the next couple of seasons, there's a decent chance the Brewers can avoid that $4MM buyout.

[pacopete4]

There's not many teams in the league who have the production from 3B that we have. If it continues, and I see no reason it shouldn't, for 2 more years at the rate he's hitting, Melvin will have done a great job filling a position we had no one at. Can't fill every position cheap. It's a nice concept but our offense has been very productive this year.