Brewers Have Considered Trading Hart

[Ennder]

Well Upton is a guy a team makes room for, Hart really isn't.

 

I just think that the Brewers are blowing a golden opportunity with Corey Hart. Right now there are so many if's heading into 2013 that I think you need almost everything to go right for them to be a playoff contender. The rotation. The bullpen. Shortstop. Health

 

You either try to win or you don't, sitting in between is how you kill your franchise. So I don't think trading Hart for prospects makes any sense at all unless you trade other players as well or the prospects are major league ready (which I don't anyone gives that for Hart). I also disagree with your initial statement. The range of outcomes for a team any given year is just huge. If I say the Brewers are an 80 win team I'd expect them to win between 70 and 90 games and wouldn't be surprised by any outcome in that range. If you get your roster to where you honestly feel it is a .500 team you are a playoff contender and I feel that the Brewers are right there. It is a young rotation and it is going to be very hard to project how good it is going to be.

 

Personally I set my sites on 83 wins again. Last years team didn't seem to have freakish good luck or anything. The combination of bullpen guys and Wolf that we released offset what we lost with half a year of Greinke and it is about the same offense.

[brewcrewdue80]

I throw Hart in to Sea's needs in that the team is looking for a middle of the lineup bat as well as top of the order. And their OF/1b situation while filled with many options none of them are better than Hart. Seattle also has the big gapping hole in payroll obligations beyond this season that gives them a realistic shot to consider signing Hart to an extension for 3more years.

 

Seattle really has nothing but Question marks in their lineup. It's why I see a fit Home for Hart solving something Seattle is lacking. And Sea having a bunch of 1b/OF options allows you to keep Hart in the Lineup as DH on those times where he's not 100% To me Hart is approaching the #6 in lineup years while for Seattle he'd be their surefire #5. And Hart has the history batting at #5. Everyone is right in Franklin/Paxton being a bit much to offer for Hart for 1year. Though Hart is sure to get that QO which would be around a 40draft selection. My idea on Hart to Sea really has him being extended in mind thus the ability to offer a Paxton or Franklin and also why Milw could ask for one of them or both but with another player going to Sea. a Gennet/Davis combo or one or the other in mind. I get Gennet isn't likely to make a fulltime 2b but if he's a cheap serviceable utility IF for a team that has to have value. He's climbed the minors ladder and can be inserted on a ML team at this point. Anyway, was just my idea, I ask for a team's 4th/5th prospect and get turned down. Meanwhile, part of this thread's discussion heated up when Bauer a top 4-5prospect overall is among a trade for 1year of Choo. Myers for Shields trade. So I don't think it's out of the realm to seek a top40 overall prospect for Hart.

[brewcrewdue80]

seattle has been floated out there but shot down because they seem to have enough OF/1B already but apparently they are going after upton hard and are "desperate" for an impact bat. seattle is on uptons no trade list and i highly doubt he'll approve them to be taken off so arizona can get a better return. once texas finally lands upton i bet there will be 3 or 4 teams blowing up dougs phone for hart.

 

Yes, Agreed^^ I think what's going to hold back anything with Hart is the end of either Upton/Kubel being traded away and then the LaRoche/Morse situation in Washington. But, that's 2more potential suitors off the market for Hart at that point. Hopefully, a team just gets inpatient with what's going on with Wash/Arz. and sets their sights on Hart.

[brewcrewdue80]

 

You either try to win or you don't, sitting in between is how you kill your franchise. So I don't think trading Hart for prospects makes any sense at all unless you trade other players as well or the prospects are major league ready (which I don't anyone gives that for Hart). I also disagree with your initial statement. The range of outcomes for a team any given year is just huge. If I say the Brewers are an 80 win team I'd expect them to win between 70 and 90 games and wouldn't be surprised by any outcome in that range. If you get your roster to where you honestly feel it is a .500 team you are a playoff contender and I feel that the Brewers are right there. It is a young rotation and it is going to be very hard to project how good it is going to be. quote]

 

 

That first line sitting in between is how you kill your franchise. Saying we're an 80 win team and shooting for 83 would accomplish just that being in between this year, after being in between last year. The Rotation being a question mark leaves the impression there's not a likely chance of winning 85+games this year which leaves us out of the playoffs. and in the middle. Brewers have 1year left of Hart and Gomez. Not knowing how the Pitching will turn out, it's most likely a middle finish and nothing in return for those two players. Maybe compensation via QOs.

It's a Damned if you do/don't situation. Succeed in being a winning team above .500 but don't succeed to reach playoffs. Team sits in the 16-20 slot for drafts and doesn't get to pick one of those surefire prospects. Leaving the team at mediocre for awhile. I think, with or without Hart's bat the team still remains a 80win potential. Everything hinges on the rotation. If they are a 5era type we are lucky to win 70games. If they hover around 4era 80wins seems certain. If they are better than 4era the team with luck(1r game outcomes) can reach 90wins.

I want to see Hart traded because you're gaining a prospect who's performed as a professional and you have a history to project what ML player he can become. In a QO draft compensation around 40 on the amateur draft, you're throwing darts and hoping.

[Ennder]

Saying we're an 80 win team and shooting for 83 would accomplish just that being in between this year, after being in between last year

 

No as I showed before, that is right in the playoff picture. If you told me I could have 83 win talent every single season I would take it in an instant for this team and I'd expect to make the playoffs on a pretty regular basis. The in between is if you fall down in the 75-79ish range. The range where even if things go right you still might not make the playoffs. The Brewers should either be pushing for a win or two more or go ahead and shed a good 7 or 8 wins. Shedding 2 or 3 wins is where the disaster is.

 

Here is an example...

 

http://www.rlyw.net/index.php/RLYW/comments/cairo_2013_v0.2s_extremely_early_and_completely_useless_2013_projected_mlb_

 

You'll notice teams that get up around 83 wins have about a 1 in 3 chance to make the post season. Ideally you would want to be in that 85/86 win range to get up to a 40-45% chance. You can live with anything in the 80+ range since those generally give you a 30%. Once you start dipping down under 80 wins it tends to get ugly pretty quickly. Keeping in mind a good start usually means adding a win or two somewhere from a trade or pickup and a bad start usually means you can sell and get prospects.

[paul253]

You either try to win or you don't, sitting in between is how you kill your franchise.

 

Yes but you also have to be realistic about it. Of course you try to win every year but a team like the Brewers has to go about it much differently than a team like the Yankees or the Angels. This wouldn't even be a discussion if the Brewers had the same resources as the Yankees or Angels but since they don't we have to talk about what to do with Hart.

 

If we always try to win right now we don't trade Greinke last season. Would we be better off had we not traded Greinke? Very, very doubtful considering the Brewers went on an extreme hot streak after the trade and still missed the playoffs. So not only would we still have missed the playoffs last season but we'd also be without both Greinke and Segura/Pena/Hellweg right now with nothing but a mid 30's draft pick to show for it. By being realistic about your situation and trading Greinke we lowered our chances of winning for that season but improved them greatly for 2013 and beyond.

 

That's what we need to with Hart. We need to be realistic about our situation. I've already shown how much more important pitching has been to the Brewer's success recently than offense has. So regardless of whether or not we have Hart or Gamel playing first base, the fact is success in 2013 is going to rely much more on the rotation and the bullpen than on the offense. If you trade Hart now, maybe you slightly lower your chances in 2013 but just like the Greinke trade you significantly improve them for 2014 and beyond. If you don't get a fair deal for him then don't trade him. Nobody has ever suggested you trade him just for the sake of trading him. But he has value and teams want him. We'd get something good in return and even if it's someone who won't be ready until 2014 I'd be ok with that because I think 2014 is really going to be the year when this franchise is built for sustained success.

[Mass Haas]

Nationals Discussing Morse With Several Teams

 

Do we agree this will tell us a lot about Hart's value? Pretty good comparison.

[Ennder]

I think when they signed LaRoche because nobody was willing to give up a comp pick it showed a lot about Hart's value. Mostly that his value is pretty darn low.

[markedman5]

They traded Greinke when they knew they couldn't win. If they are in the same situation this year they will do the same with Hart.

 

I'd much rather keep Hart and see how we are doing heading into the deadline then trade him now when the return isn't likely to be much different.

[TooLiveBrew]

They traded Greinke when they knew they couldn't win. If they are in the same situation this year they will do the same with Hart.

 

I'd much rather keep Hart and see how we are doing heading into the deadline then trade him now when the return isn't likely to be much different.

Trading Hart pre-season will mean he provides a comp pick for his new team. At the deadline, he wouldn't. I think that's probably a fairly significant difference in value, not to mention a whole season v. half a season.

[Warning Track Power]

I think one of the things we may be overlooking when it comes to Hart is his relationship with Ryan Braun. I've read multiple articles stating Braun considers Hart his best friend on the team and it's possible, while maybe not probable, that Hart's continued existence on the Brewers roster past 2013 may have something to do with his relationship with Braun.

 

Just a thought on a slow sports day...

[jerichoholicninja]

I think one of the things we may be overlooking when it comes to Hart is his relationship with Ryan Braun. I've read multiple articles stating Braun considers Hart his best friend on the team and it's possible, while maybe not probable, that Hart's continued existence on the Brewers roster past 2013 may have something to do with his relationship with Braun.

 

Just a thought on a slow sports day...

 

Totally irrelevant. Prince and Rickie grew up together and are great friends.

[PrinceFielderx1]

PFx1, unless you've got a view of the Brewers' books, I don't see how you can assert that your take on things is airtight.

 

If your point is that the additional national TV revenue basically covers the cost of Hart, in essence you've still got piles of young guys coming up through the ranks -- beyond the gradually escalating salaries of Braun, Yo, etc. -- who, if they perform well, will start earning nice increases, too, with all those other guys around.

 

So perhaps your point is that the Brewers could comfortably max out payroll on Opening Day, but that's what they did last year (boo! hiss! on K-Rod!) and they had a lot of inflexibility most of the year. On the basis that your take is fully correct, perhaps, then, one of the truly key questions is whether or not the Brewers are best served to operate with no cushion for additional moves. . . . Sure, as noted regularly, Mark A will absorb a loss for truly special players. But as others have said, Hart's certainly fine in many respects but not "special" in that rare, exceptional way. So I doubt that giving Hart an extension that pushes them to the edge of Mark A.'s payroll comfort zone is a likely occurrence.

 

Forgive me, mnbrew, if I don't buy the I haven't seen the books, so I don't know what I'm talking about excuse. Trust me that excuse is going to be tossed out real soon once the news papers and beat writers get their hands on how much the additional revenue amounts too and they start asking upper Brewers management about what their increase in revenue means for the Brewers payroll. That hasn't happened yet, but it will. The Brewers have really kept it under wraps, but wont be able to anymore.

 

It's pretty obvious that starting in 2014 the Brewers are going to have a good solid increase in revenue coming in from a couple different places (New TV contract & MLB's new 12.4 billion deal) 13 million of that they I believe they will see as soon as this year, or whenever it takes effect. We are talking about minimum of 20+ million of additional revenue, so the Brewers in 2014 can clearly push the payroll beyond 100 million, likely to somewhere around $110-115 million and be fine. That's a reasonable assumption at this time.

 

Right now the Brewers payroll is at 80 million and they have a very competitive team w/ a mix of prospects that aren't in arbitration yet, but that will likely play major roles on the roster w/ some veteran expensive talent.. That is exactly what a small market team is supposed to do.

 

btw.. I never said anything about maxing out payroll by opening day, and the reason for it is because the Brewers "usually" like to keep payroll flexibility in case they need to make a move come mid-season. The only exception was last season, and trust me the Brewers management in their own words knew they made a mistake and based on their own words likely wont make that mistake again or at least for quite a wile. Just look at how far they lowered payroll this season heading into opening day as proof.

[monty57]

It's pretty obvious that starting in 2014 the Brewers are going to have a good solid increase in revenue coming in from a couple different places (New TV contract & MLB's new 12.4 billion deal) 13 million of that they I believe they will see as soon as this year, or whenever it takes effect. We are talking about minimum of 20+ million of additional revenue, so the Brewers in 2014 can clearly push the payroll beyond 100 million, likely to somewhere around $110-115 million and be fine. That's a reasonable assumption at this time.

 

You are correct that there will be additional revenues. It's assumed to be around $9MM for their new TV deal plus their share of the national revenue. However, I don't know that "$100-115 million and be fine" is necessarily a reasonable assumption (and it's a pretty broad range). They pushed the payroll to around $100MM last year, and were around $10MM over budget in an "all-in" year, so their baseline "all-in" budget (pre-new TV deals) is around $90MM, with around $80MM as the "non-all-in" payroll budget.

 

Now let's assume they get $20MM in new revenue from the TV deals. Not all of that can or will go to the payroll budget. What if the vendors demand a pay raise, or some other variable cost goes up? What if the owners deciede they want to keep 5-10% of the additional revenue for themselves? It is reasonable to believe that there is the possibility and even probability of an increased payroll going forward, but I think your projections may be a bit high. I'd think a baseline of $90-95MM is probably a reasonable amount, with the "all in" budget around $100-105. That doesn't mean that they couldn't do what they did last year and go well over budget, but the owners might be a bit gunshy after what happened last year.

 

But then we should look at another angle. Just because the revenue is there, do we have to spend it all every year? As Americans, we seem to have been groomed to expect that if there is money (or even if there isn't) we need to spend it. Personally, I'd rather spend $500k on a guy with "x" talent level then spend $10MM on a guy with the same talent level, even if I have the $10MM to spend. Of course the Brewers will need to spend eight figures on some players, but I prefer a strategy that looks to add as many good, young, inexpensive (and non-guaranteed) players as possible, so the number of guys we need to guarantee tens of millions to is limited to the elite talent.

 

This may mean that in some years our payroll is well below what it could be. I'm happy with that as long as we have a talented team with a lot of good pre-arby guys. That allows a lot of flexibility to do all kinds of things you can't do when you're contractually obligated to huge payments over multiple years which eat up most of your budget.

[Warning Track Power]

I think one of the things we may be overlooking when it comes to Hart is his relationship with Ryan Braun. I've read multiple articles stating Braun considers Hart his best friend on the team and it's possible, while maybe not probable, that Hart's continued existence on the Brewers roster past 2013 may have something to do with his relationship with Braun.

 

Just a thought on a slow sports day...

 

Totally irrelevant. Prince and Rickie grew up together and are great friends.

 

Maybe...but Prince didn't take a below market contract to stay in Milwaukee like Braun did. I agree that it is exceptionally unlikely that Melvin would think this way but it could play a factor in keeping Braun happy.

 

Like I said, it was just a thought.

[monty57]

I think one of the things we may be overlooking when it comes to Hart is his relationship with Ryan Braun. I've read multiple articles stating Braun considers Hart his best friend on the team and it's possible, while maybe not probable, that Hart's continued existence on the Brewers roster past 2013 may have something to do with his relationship with Braun.

 

Just a thought on a slow sports day...

 

Totally irrelevant. Prince and Rickie grew up together and are great friends.

 

Maybe...but Prince didn't take a below market contract to stay in Milwaukee like Braun did. I agree that it is exceptionally unlikely that Melvin would think this way but it could play a factor in keeping Braun happy.

 

Like I said, it was just a thought.

 

Any friendships Hart has may be a reason he would accept a below-market deal to stay with the Brewers.

 

Any friendships Braun has should not be a reason Melvin signs, trades for, extends or drafts anyone.

[Roderick]

They traded Greinke when they knew they couldn't win. If they are in the same situation this year they will do the same with Hart.

 

What if Morris isn't doing well in AAA and Gamel/Green haven't shown anything?

 

Assuming he is playing well enough that someone would trade for him and he is worth the QO.

 

Maybe they don't trade him and put the QO tag on him with the hope that they keep him for 2014. The downside would be that he declines the QO and they only get a draft pick (which may be only a little less than they get in a midseason trade anyways), had to pay him for half a season, and have to find an answer in FA after he declines.

 

How much is Hart's $5M for the second half of season of 2013 worth to the Brewers? Does it mean they trade him even if the offers are basically equivalent to a late first / high second round draft pick?

[brewcrewdue80]

So, JUpton invoked his no-trade to Seattle. Supposedly, Franklin,Pryor,Charlie Furbush, and One of the Big 3 Arms in Walker,Hultzen, or Paxton.

In the whole a team makes room for Upton not a Hart. Now you see what kind of Room would be made for an Upton.

 

To add to this, Red Sox looking in to 1bmen and talked with Seattle on Justin Smoak. On the homefront a Smoak deal to Bos leaves a better reasoning for Seattle to seek an OF/1b like Hart. And of course this is all again on the assumption of not just 1year of him but to extend him. I would be left to think only one of either Franklin or Pryor for Hart could be had after the trade offer for Upton. And I'd be thrilled to land Franklin for SS move Segura to 2nd in the future.

[ewitkows]

If I'm Doug I insist on one of the big 3 arms and something else for Hart. We need top end pitching and we sure aren't going to pay for it

[Invader3K]

At this point I really don't think Melvin is motivated to deal Hart. We're going to go into the season with him and hope to be competitive. He could get traded at the deadline if the team is in the tank, but I don't expect to see him traded before then.

[reillymcshane]

At this point I really don't think Melvin is motivated to deal Hart. We're going to go into the season with him and hope to be competitive. He could get traded at the deadline if the team is in the tank, but I don't expect to see him traded before then.

I think Invader has nailed this. Unless someone comes to us with a knockout offer, they are going to keep Hart. Melvin hopes to contend, but the pitching staff is a huge question mark. I think he'll wait and see how the team looks in the first 1/2 before dealing Hart.

 

Also, this allows you to see Morris at AAA, and get a better feel how well he could replace Hart. Same with Gamel. If he can make the team as a backup 3B/1B/DH/PH he can get some at bats. Let's see how he responds. If Gamel and Morris don't look like the answer for 2014, then perhaps you try and extend Hart at that point (assuming he keeps playing at a high level).

 

I'd also add that we could keep an eye on Khris Davis in 2013. He could potentially replace Hart in 2014. His production was pretty special last year, but it will be interesting to see how he progresses. Some people have suggested moving Davis to 1B if Hart is dealt or leaves. Perhaps that would work. But another option would be to move Braun to 1B and put Davis in LF. I would think Braun would be a great 1B. Of course, maybe Davis is better suited to 1B than LF. Just bringing up options.

[monty57]

I doubt Hart is traded, as holding onto him is the safest move. I just personally think it makes a lot of sense to trade him now, assuming you could get something good for a year of Hart plus the ability to make a QO. I don't think we'll get much for 1/2 a year of Hart without the ability to make a QO, so if we go into the season with him, I'd probably prefer we hold him all season and make the QO at the end of the year (assuming we could afford him if he accepts). Of course we'd test the market on him mid-season if we're out of it, I just don't think we'll get much... the ability to make a QO is looking pretty valueable. It's what's keeping Lohse, Bourn and Soriano unsigned, and what caused LaRoche to sign a team-friendly deal (less than the QO would've paid him) with the Nats.

[TooLiveBrew]

At this point I really don't think Melvin is motivated to deal Hart. We're going to go into the season with him and hope to be competitive. He could get traded at the deadline if the team is in the tank, but I don't expect to see him traded before then.

My sources now tell me that Doug Melvin is shopping first baseman Corey Hart, and a deal is expected to be reached by the end of the month.

[Mass Haas]

My sources now tell me that Doug Melvin is shopping first baseman Corey Hart, and a deal is expected to be reached by the end of the month.

 

Holy drop a bomb on a Friday afternoon, TLB! Keep us posted (or you know how to reach me privately ).

 

Let's see, Seattle has spring training in AZ...

[TooLiveBrew]

Guess I should've used blue font there. Figured the language "[not] motivated to deal Hart" was enough of a giveaway.

 

My "sources" here were meant to be simply Invader