Brewers Have Considered Trading Hart

[narwhalattack]

You don't have to trade for only prospects. The o's have some major league young pitching. Tillman would be great in a package for hart.

 

 

Maybe. It's concerning that he's put up pedestrian numbers during his time in the majors and that he hasn't pitched a full season in the majors yet. However, his stuff is pretty good and he has shown success in the minors.

 

If the Brewers do decide to trade Hart to the Rangers, perhaps they'll be able to get Martin Perez, and perhaps along with Nomar Mazara and/or Wilmer Font?

[brewcrewdue80]

I kind of looked over there ML team and Tillman did stand out. But, it wouldn't make sense to deal one of your Pitching Staff who was key to your playoff run to add a 1year player. I would think Baltimore has Tillman in mind as one of their key players building around. Hart doesn't strike me as a player you build around approaching his declining years.

Other pitchers Baltimore has: Hunter,Hammel,Arrieta,Johnson,Gonzalez,Chen,Britton, and Matusz

Johnson and Gonzalez don't have much experience like who is on Brewers now.

Chen after last season would be nice to have but is he a player who'd be on trading block?

Leaves all of Hunter,Arrieta,Britton,Matusz all of whom have experience pitching 5+eras and players I wouldn't want to acquire long term

Then there's Hammel and after the season he pitched for Baltimore like Chen and Tillman just don't see him on the trading block. Though he has 2years left before FA and 1yr of Hart for 2yrs of Hammel may be the kind of deal that makes sense for both teams. Bal can throw in another of their 3-10 prospects above.

[Kelbysdaddy]

I thought about hunter as well. I'm just a fan of Tillman.

.

[Mr Southpaw]

Won't we get an extra pick for Hart after next year?

[logan82]

Only if we make a qualifying offer. It was $13m this year and not likely to go down next year. The new draft pick compensation setup is really crap.

[Mr Southpaw]

$13 mill for any player?

[monty57]

$13 mill for any player?

 

Yes. It's the average of the highest paid players, so as salaries escalate, the qualifying offer will escalate. There is little chance that teams will offer the QO to any but the top players, whereas in the past teams were willing to offer arby to about anyone. This was a win for the players' union. There will be a lot more free agents, as there were a lot of mid-tier players in the past who couldn't get good offers in free agency because teams weren't willing to give up draft picks for them. Now teams have to consider whether or not to make the QO to All-Star caliber players.

 

It certainly changes the strategy for teams who used to sign free agents or trade for players with the expectation that they could re-stock their farm system when the free agent left (a strategy Melvin admittedly used numerous times).

[brewcrewdue80]

http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/index.php/the-qualifying-offer-and-you/

 

Quick link to the QO. It is based on the avg for top 125players. I said it's crap and shouldn't include the top 20 paid in the equation rather numbers 126-145.

With last year's salaries an offer would make that player at the 49th highest paid player. So figure on if you are extending an QO that player should be around top 75players in all of baseball.

My suggested way the QO would have decreased to 10.988mil on the offer. Still a high price but one I think deserving of a team to extend to a player they'd like to keep. Obviously in some ways there's players out there who are headed for a top 30payday and that offer seems quite low but I am looking at keeping players at a market expense. 10.988mil would rank 74th in pay last season. So, 11mil. The point is that if QO is 13.3mil it is setting the market for what a FA should be signing for thus all these 13mil+ 3year signings.

Like I said for small market teams and this is only going to rise, extending an offer of 14mil to receive a pick is dicey as the player just may take it to play another year with you, Then next season your offer will be even higher! I think its to blame why players like Shoo,Shields,Hanrahan and such are being traded. Teams like Clev,TB,Pit cant afford to plan ahead on their payroll with the possibility of a 1year contract at 13+mil potentially being added to their books.

It's partly why I wonder on trading away Hart and Gomez, eventually Ramirez and Weeks. It's not the 1st year of extending the QO that may hurt the team it's the second year upon that player's acceptance for guys like Hart and Ramirez who are at decline years and that offer is continually increasing. Currently the offer stands at 11.56mil from my calculations but 125 is Gallardo's 7.75mil and this is before this site added the FA signing of Hamilton/Grienke and all the top tier FA. 49th as it stands on this site is 14mil and you can figure it will fall around where 40 is which is 15mil. Taking from what last year's QO falling on 49th highest paid you are looking around

 

15mil for 2013/2014 QO FA. Do you want the Brewers to offer 15mil to Hart and or Gomez to end the next season? Think about how that affects 2014 payroll should Brewers do extend QO and both accept.

 

My point in this is this. Teams that can afford 150+mil payrolls will never have a problem extending QOs and getting draft picks. Yes they're likely to sign FA QO players and lose their top pick but lets face it, if a team has 150+mil payroll they are likely drafting near bottom of 1st rd. They lose a 22-30pick and gain a 36-50 pick/picks for those that leave. In that regards I feel in the next ten years you will see big market teams not only have elite players signed but also have a solid farm system. while small market teams are constantly playing the "window of opportunity" game where they have prospects that produce for them from drafting well. You figure it's a 5-6year span of good drafting that nets a 2year window before the 1st wave of those good draft picks leave. Milwaukee it was Prince, now it will be Hart then Weeks. Along the way they lost Odorizzi,Lawrie,Cain,Escobar,Brantley to acquire the experienced necessary pieces to make that window work for them. Should the Brewers Farm system of arms fail you are looking at a troubling next 4years unless of course the team finds trade suitors of the players soon to hit FA with enough talent to keep the team afloat.

[JohnBriggs12]

I wouldn't mind trading Hart, but not as a salary dump. The lineup, as powerful as it is could use a little balance. I don't think I'd trust Gamel at the point but Adam LaRoche would look very nice in that lineup and he's still out there.

[Roderick]

$13 mill for any player?

 

Yes. It's the average of the highest paid players, so as salaries escalate, the qualifying offer will escalate. There is little chance that teams will offer the QO to any but the top players, whereas in the past teams were willing to offer arby to about anyone. This was a win for the players' union. There will be a lot more free agents, as there were a lot of mid-tier players in the past who couldn't get good offers in free agency because teams weren't willing to give up draft picks for them. Now teams have to consider whether or not to make the QO to All-Star caliber players.

 

It certainly changes the strategy for teams who used to sign free agents or trade for players with the expectation that they could re-stock their farm system when the free agent left (a strategy Melvin admittedly used numerous times).

If Hart has a similar season in 2013 as 2012, the Brewers would put the QO on Hart. You get a draft pick or his services for 2014 and not the downside of a long term contract. Even if Morriss has a great year in AAA, he could wait one more if need be.

[monty57]

$13 mill for any player?

 

Yes. It's the average of the highest paid players, so as salaries escalate, the qualifying offer will escalate. There is little chance that teams will offer the QO to any but the top players, whereas in the past teams were willing to offer arby to about anyone. This was a win for the players' union. There will be a lot more free agents, as there were a lot of mid-tier players in the past who couldn't get good offers in free agency because teams weren't willing to give up draft picks for them. Now teams have to consider whether or not to make the QO to All-Star caliber players.

 

It certainly changes the strategy for teams who used to sign free agents or trade for players with the expectation that they could re-stock their farm system when the free agent left (a strategy Melvin admittedly used numerous times).

If Hart has a similar season in 2013 as 2012, the Brewers would put the QO on Hart. You get a draft pick or his services for 2014 and not the downside of a long term contract. Even if Morriss has a great year in AAA, he could wait one more if need be.

 

I would imagine that they would, although it would probably present a 40% increase in pay for Hart, which would have to be allowed for in the budget. With the current obligations, that would make things pretty tight. It also means that whoever we would trade Hart to would likely recieve a comp pick, so they would "pay" more for Hart in trade. Note that this goes away as soon as the season starts, so we'd probably get more now than we would mid-season.

 

I do not think we'll make a qualifying offer to Gomez, so if we don't trade him, we get one more season from him and then he walks and we get nothing in return.

[nate82]

 

 

 

I do not think we'll make a qualifying offer to Gomez, so if we don't trade him, we get one more season from him and then he walks and we get nothing in return.

 

I believe the Brewers will and Gomez will decline it as he will get as much or more and will get that at a 5 or 6 year contract. Gomez should get what Upton got this year and maybe a little bit more.

[sheetskout]

 

 

 

I do not think we'll make a qualifying offer to Gomez, so if we don't trade him, we get one more season from him and then he walks and we get nothing in return.

 

I believe the Brewers will and Gomez will decline it as he will get as much or more and will get that at a 5 or 6 year contract. Gomez should get what Upton got this year and maybe a little bit more.

 

What? Gomez would have to have a HUGE year to get a 13.5 million qualifying offer. I just don't see it.

[RockCoCougars]

Gomez is a tough case for me. I'd like to keep him around, but he way I see it, either he keeps the momentum going and prices himself out of Milwaukee or he plays poorly and plays his way out of town. With Boras as his agent, I just don't see a future for him with the Brewers- so even though I'd generally be opposed to breaking up this lineup, Gomez would be the one guy that I'd listen on. The problem is that you'd almost have to trade him for pitching, and it's hard to imagine someone adding a player like Gomez while parting with anything meaningful and/or close in that department. Too bad the White Sox didn't need a CF.

[igor67]

If the defense is still there and Gomez has a year similar to last to prove he really has truly developed he would certainly look pretty close to a qualifying offer type player.

[monty57]

Per Brewerfan.net's salary page, here are the Brewers' 2014 obligations over $1MM, not including guys in arby (Axford, Badenhop, Rogers, Estrada, Narveson). In other words, these are guaranteed obligations:

 

Braun $10MM

Weeks $11MM

Ramirez $16MM

Gallardo $11.25MM

Lucroy $2MM

Gorzelanny $2.8MM

 

That's $53.8MM for six guys. We may take the risk and "find money" for Hart, but I doubt Melvin/Attanasio will risk the chance that Gomez would accept a qualifying offer. The QO will likely be higher next year. Paying Gomez $14-15MM for a season when we're already on the hook for the guys above might force a "salary dump," as we may have to look to give away Ramirez or Weeks to cover Gomez's salary.

 

2014's obligations are why I think trading Hart now for a package of prospect(s) who will be ready around 2014 makes some sense. Assuming Melvin doesn't add another big contract, after 2014 salaries get a little better. Having a couple more good pre-arby players on the roster in 2014 will allow us to avoid salary dumps in 2014. Beyond that, we should have the money to extend some of our pre-arby guys to Lucroy-type deals well into the future, and we'd have some good, young, talented players we'd want to extend to these type of deals.

[brewcrewdue80]

 

 

 

I do not think we'll make a qualifying offer to Gomez, so if we don't trade him, we get one more season from him and then he walks and we get nothing in return.

 

I believe the Brewers will and Gomez will decline it as he will get as much or more and will get that at a 5 or 6 year contract. Gomez should get what Upton got this year and maybe a little bit more.

 

 

 

I do not think we'll make a qualifying offer to Gomez, so if we don't trade him, we get one more season from him and then he walks and we get nothing in return.

 

I believe the Brewers will and Gomez will decline it as he will get as much or more and will get that at a 5 or 6 year contract. Gomez should get what Upton got this year and maybe a little bit more.

 

What? Gomez would have to have a HUGE year to get a 13.5 million qualifying offer. I just don't see it.

Per Brewerfan.net's salary page, here are the Brewers' 2014 obligations over $1MM, not including guys in arby (Axford, Badenhop, Rogers, Estrada, Narveson). In other words, these are guaranteed obligations:

 

Braun $10MM

Weeks $11MM

Ramirez $16MM

Gallardo $11.25MM

Lucroy $2MM

Gorzelanny $2.8MM

 

That's $53.8MM for six guys. We may take the risk and "find money" for Hart, but I doubt Melvin/Attanasio will risk the chance that Gomez would accept a qualifying offer. The QO will likely be higher next year. Paying Gomez $14-15MM for a season when we're already on the hook for the guys above might force a "salary dump," as we may have to look to give away Ramirez or Weeks to cover Gomez's salary.

 

2014's obligations are why I think trading Hart now for a package of prospect(s) who will be ready around 2014 makes some sense. Assuming Melvin doesn't add another big contract, after 2014 salaries get a little better. Having a couple more good pre-arby players on the roster in 2014 will allow us to avoid salary dumps in 2014. Beyond that, we should have the money to extend some of our pre-arby guys to Lucroy-type deals well into the future, and we'd have some good, young, talented players we'd want to extend to these type of deals.

 

I think all this answers why the Brewers haven't put any real money out there for a FA.

 

Hart will get his offer. We'll put it at 14mil. Now its 67.8mil for 7 guys

Gomez then gets his offer another 14mil. Now you're at 81.8mil for 8guys. If they both accept. The way to look at is Hart is comparable to Swisher 14mil/yr player. He will beat the offer if he goes on the market.

Gomez, if he was a FA this season he'd have every right to ask near Upton's pay as their numbers resemble one another. Albeit, Upton could break out at a much higher production than Gomez can(thinking near top of his breakout last year) Gomez is better Defensively has that 15HR pop and likely 30SBs if given the green light. He can sure frustrate the heck out of you with his approach at the plate through stretches but, he has just enough production across the board for a team to give him 14mil a year. We all know how poor he can be via 2011. But Gomez falls in that class of players who've been rated higher in ability than he's produced. The "Talent/Tools" are there for him to be a constant 20/30 CF with good Defense. You don't get many of that. If he ever increased at a better BA maybe he touches 25/40 continually. The fact Gomez shows flashes of that keeps him at a higher value than what he's going to actually produce from what we've experienced.

The point is Melvin is kinda handcuffed in that the team has an offensive ability HRs/SBs to compete in every game. And there's good likelihood the two players Hart,Gomez who will be on the QO status come end of season are a big part of the offense, thinking ahead you have to believe those two take the offers. If the team moves forward like they wont then when they do it only guarantees a season in the red which they just had. And I posted before if they accept for 2014 what stops them from accepting in 2015? Keep in mind the salary for the above 6 would be even higher.

 

I wonder if there's a rule if(or maybe there should be) if a team puts a QO on a player and they accept the following year they don't have to put a QO on player to recieve compensation. Hart/Ramirez/Weeks are all players I fear when the age factor hits on their ability they will drop in production at the plate dramatically. We may have witnessed a small preview in Weeks with his first half of 2012.

[MNBrew]

Not that Weeks was stellar in the 2nd half of 2012, but by all accounts, his lousy 1st half of 2012 was very evidently due to his ongoing recovery from his late-2011 ankle injury. To posit that his 1st half of 2012 suggests a precursor to age-based regression seems to be quite a reach and a rather complete disregarding of his 2nd half performance once he was closer to fully healthy again.

[Roderick]

 

 

 

I do not think we'll make a qualifying offer to Gomez, so if we don't trade him, we get one more season from him and then he walks and we get nothing in return.

 

I believe the Brewers will and Gomez will decline it as he will get as much or more and will get that at a 5 or 6 year contract. Gomez should get what Upton got this year and maybe a little bit more.

 

What? Gomez would have to have a HUGE year to get a 13.5 million qualifying offer. I just don't see it.

 

That is the future of baseball salaries. See M. Bourn, he turned down his QO, to look for more - and I assume he will get it. But it would be funny if he waited too long and got less than what everyone was assuming he was going to get because he has Bores for an agent.

[Roderick]

Per Brewerfan.net's salary page, here are the Brewers' 2014 obligations over $1MM, not including guys in arby (Axford, Badenhop, Rogers, Estrada, Narveson). In other words, these are guaranteed obligations: ....

 

I'm pretty sure that Rogers is still pre-arby even though the bfan net page has arby. I wouldn't ignore the guys like Axford, Estrada, Narveson that are in arby, as they will be making quite a bit of change by 2014.

[monty57]

Hart will get his offer. We'll put it at 14mil. Now its 67.8mil for 7 guys

Gomez then gets his offer another 14mil. Now you're at 81.8mil for 8guys.

 

And you have Axford in year 2 arby, Rogers in Year 1 arby, Estrada in Year 2 arby, Badenhop in Year 3 arby and Narveson in Year 2 arby. Add those up, and you're well over $90MM for 13 guys, so we'd still need to find 12 more players. We've been hesitant to field 3 or 4 pre-arby guys in the recent past, but even if we found 12 pre-arby guys, we'd likely still be over $100MM payroll, which I highly doubt Attanasio will okay unless he's pretty certain he has a "special" team. If we had to find FA's to fill any holes, we'd probably see a $110MM+ payroll, which I really doubt we'll see in 2014.

 

I doubt both Hart and Gomez would accept the QO, but it's a risk the team really can't take. If they both accepted, someone (probably Ramirez or Weeks) would essentially have to be given away just to dump some salary. I'd far rather just trade Gomez now to a team who believes as some on this site do that Gomez is equivalent in value to Upton. We could get a decent prospect in return, and let Schafer man CF. If Gomez really is worthy of a QO, then his trade value right now is even higher, as the receiving team in the trade would get a comp pick for him.

 

This ultimately is the reason the Brewers need to occasionally either let people walk or trade them away. With say a $90MM payroll, the average salary of the 25 players is $3.6MM. For every $14MM player on the roster, you essentially need around four pre-arby (league minimum) guys on the roster just to meet your average. If we want to continually extend guys because we like them and the team supposedly can't live without them, then we will find ourselves in the position illustrated above, where a few guys eat up all of our payroll, and we don't have enuogh good, inexpensive guys to fill out the roster, so we find Melvin sifting through the scrap heap just to fill out the roster... this is kind of the position we're in right now, but it could get worse.

 

Since the answer is to occasionally let people walk or trade them away, and I generally would rather recieve something instead of nothing when a player leaves, I think that when there are serious questions as to the playoff chances for the team (as there are going into 2013), we seriously need to consider trading expensive guys entering into their final year of team control.

[monty57]

Per Brewerfan.net's salary page, here are the Brewers' 2014 obligations over $1MM, not including guys in arby (Axford, Badenhop, Rogers, Estrada, Narveson). In other words, these are guaranteed obligations: ....

 

I'm pretty sure that Rogers is still pre-arby even though the bfan net page has arby. I wouldn't ignore the guys like Axford, Estrada, Narveson that are in arby, as they will be making quite a bit of change by 2014.

 

Thanks for the Rogers info. I agree the others can't be ignored, but for the illustration, I was simply looking at the known and guaranteed deals. If things hit the fan, we technically could just not offer arby to someone and get out of paying them. We can't do that with a guaranteed deal. But, you're right, if all things remain the same, the arby guys will certainly eat up a lot of the "spare" payroll we'd have left over after the guaranteed contracts.

[brewcrewdue80]

As above shows, financially the Brewers need to trade Hart. He has the best value coming back in trade. Gomez could regress next season and make it an obvious case not to QO him. If I can think that so can other GMs in putting together a trade since Gomez doesn't guarantee that QO compensation. Again, where I look at it is Olt with Texas if you can wiggle him for Hart. That or Perez but Olt being as we don't have a 3b prospect anywhere ready coming through minors. Olt then in turn gives team ability to trade away Ramirez and those two moves alone free up quite a bit of money.

 

I will say taking from MLBTR: The Rangers were never in on Adam LaRoche or Nick Swisher this winter as they didn't want to dole out long-term deals or sacrifice a draft pick for either player and:

The Rangers are looking more to trades than free agency to improve their team at this point, Levine told Bowden

 

They wanted J.Upton but now Kubel is on the trade block. You gotta think Hart fits in to their plans with the above statements. Hart having the 1b experience has to give him a rather big edge over Kubel as their 1b situation sit mostly as Mooreland then Olt? Since losing Napoli and Young. Theres still the idea of Kinsler being their 1b, Profar 2b,Andrus SS so the 1b problem as seen now may not be any kind of problem. But then again, the problem is Texas needs to remove Andrus to solve their SS/2b trio down to 2 while acquiring that 1b. And the Brewers now have Segura. You could do all sorts of things though taking on Andrus, sending Segura to AAA while taking on offers for Andrus the 2yrs you have him. I'd imagine that Olt,Andrus for Gomez,Hart could be a deal? Hart for DH/1b/OF and Gomez the CF over Gentry. Who else do Brewers get in that deal?

[PrinceFielderx1]

Are people forgetting that the Brewers are getting more revenue from their new TV contract in a year or two (can't remember which year it increases or triples)? Last season (on their current TV deal) they were able to push the payroll to 98-100 million. Yes they lost money, but we have an owner that is willing to keep pushing payroll if he thinks it's worth the risk, so assuming the Brewers do we'll in 2013 and contend, I think it's right to expect that again. I'm expecting a 90 million base payroll capability to 110 million max, but will likely lose some money should they stretch it to the max, but it will be manageable should they draw 3.2 million plus fans again.

 

This also doesn't include the new 12.4 Billion TV deal that MLB signed, which is a 100% increase over the second one. The revenue sharing pot should also increase because of the Dodgers new huge TV deal and their current payroll status.

 

The Brewers seem to be holding back with their payroll, because they are able to and still field a competitive team, which is smart, and it gives them the flexibility to spend that money should an opportunity present itself, likely at mid-season or to extend Hart, or both.

[MNBrew]

Are people forgetting that the Brewers are getting more revenue from their new TV contract in a year or two (can't remember which year it increases or triples)? . . .

The Brewers seem to be holding back with their payroll, because they are able to and still field a competitive team, which is smart, and it gives them the flexibility to spend that money should an opportunity present itself, likely at mid-season or to extend Hart, or both.

 

I don't think folks are forgetting at all. Melvin & Mark A. have said multiple times that the Brewers lost money last year (not that it's all K-Rod's fault, but his accepting arby as a FA and his resulting $8M salary was a killer) and that, in essence, the payroll this year would be more "back in line" with where it needed to be. By starting there, rather than by being stretched to the max, they've got a cushion to add comfortably during the season as opportunity (viable trade targets) & circumstances (success in the standings) justify.

 

Unless Weeks or Ramirez is traded, I don't see the Brewers being in a good position to extend Hart AND still be able to add pieces that fill holes next off-season or beyond.