Brewers + Matt Garza; 4 yrs, $50MM + incentives, 5th year option

[Baldkin]

http://www.baseballthinkfactory.org/newsstand/discussion/matt_garza_goes_on_twitter_tirade_against_eric_and_kaycee_sogard

 

He sounds like a lovely individual.

 

I guess this is alright. I'd rather they signed a first baseman.

[reillymcshane]

Interesting note about Garza:

 

Since becoming a full time big league starter in 2008, here's his WHIP and ERA:

 

2008: 1.24 WHIP / 3.70 ERA

2009: 1.26 / 3.70

2010: 1.25 / 3.95

2011: 1.26 / 3.32

2012: 1.18 / 3.91

2013: 1.24 / 3.82

 

Remarkably consistent. Gotta like that. Gotta like that he's not that old, having just turned 30 two months ago.

 

The bad:

 

He missed 1/3 of his starts over the past two years - making only 42 starts from 2012-13. That just has to worry you. Hopefully it's not a sign of things to come.

[vegasbrewcrew1993]

Hell yeah! Great signing by the Brewers! A+

The rotation looks good now. Without Garza I would have given it a B-. Now I put it at B+. Hopefully the bullpen will be solid this year.. This team should contend for a wild card spot. The offense will be good again.

 

1. Garza

2. Lohse

3. Gallardo

4. Estrada

5. Peralta

6. Thornburg or Narveson

[adambr2]

My only issue with this is that the Aoki trade now makes no sense at all. Improved the rotation while putting a hole in the lineup.

 

Although I'm sure they are banking on Davis being or no downgrade.

[The Boss]

I really like this deal. I think if Matt can make 70% of his projected starts over the course of his contract then this is a win. I could see Garza outperforming Tanaka over the 4 years of this contract for a fraction of the price.

 

Top end starters are just so expensive that filling out a rotation of 2's and 3's might just work out for the Brewers. If the Brewers get a bounce back year from Yo and Peralta takes a step forward, they could end up with a top half pitching staff at a reasonable price. Pair that with one of the better offenses in the NL and I am starting to get some hope we might contend. Injuries are my biggest concern.

[FVBrewerFan]

As others have said, I'm not worried about the young arms not getting enough starts. We have a long way to go befor April, much less September. So we can all pencil in the rotation, but it doesn't mean anything today. Injuries will happen, just a matter of when, how many, and for how long. By the end of the year Thornburg and Nelson will have their opportunities.

 

Hoping Morris has a good spring and starts at 1B on opening day, and that will abut complete what I wanted to see in the off-season.

[torts]

Hell yeah! Great signing by the Brewers! A+

The rotation looks good now. Without Garza I would have given it a B-. Now I put it at B+. Hopefully the bullpen will be solid this year.. This team should contend for a wild card spot. The offense will be good again.

 

1. Garza

2. Lohse

3. Gallardo

4. Estrada

5. Peralta

6. Thornburg or Narveson

 

is Narveson commuting from Japan?

[SoupTown]

Igor: Given history I like the idea of signing starting pitchers to below market deals and spending higher draft picks on hitters as a strategy more than hoping we'll figure out how to magically draft and develop them reliably somehow

 

Well said. Lord knows it is so disappointing that we, re pitchers, draft dumb (Rogers over Bailey, a Maine we will fix your delivery project over a Texan solid) and/or develop dumb. I would hope we can start drafting all high school pitchers and then hope and pray. Or better yet, let us start trading for other systems guys in A or A+. Then we can hope and pray more - because we did not draft them, nor develop them for the first couple years.

 

Garza. Amazing sign. Question: how / why in the world would he come here? Is this step ONE of Ryan Braun's redemption?

 

I believe the World Baseball Cup messed up Gallardo. It will be so interesting to see his velocity the first half of this year.

 

Doug gets a free bullpen pitcher thrown in with the deal - likely Thornburg. Or he gets a free Ike. You gotta admit. With Garza in the rotation, if somehow we ended up with Ike/Reynolds at first, and traded JuanFran for ANY, even A- level, prospect to an American League team... well, that gives me (any fan) that one word we need at the start of each season.... HOPE!

[MNBrew]

I believe the World Baseball Cup messed up Gallardo. It will be so interesting to see his velocity the first half of this year.

 

Doug gets a free bullpen pitcher thrown in with the deal - likely Thornburg. Or he gets a free Ike. You gotta admit. With Garza in the rotation, if somehow we ended up with Ike/Reynolds at first, and traded JuanFran for ANY, even A- level, prospect to an American League team... well, that gives me (any fan) that one word we need at the start of each season.... HOPE!

I think the WBC messed up Estrada just as much.

 

I'm still not keen on making a move for Ike Davis, but as FV said, there's a lot of time before April, let alone September, so I'd be surprised if the picture's not a good deal clearer by Opening Day. But I'm not keen on making a lateral move just to do something and I'd rather hold steady w/ our current collection of options 'til ST is in progress . . . UNLESS there's a deal out there to be had that markedly improves 1B AND helps shed Weeks' contract.

[craigharmann]

http://espn.go.com/blog/sweetspot/post/_/id/43762/brewers-take-huge-gamble-on-matt-garza

 

Sort of positive from ESPN. Sort of.

[Invader3K]

I like the deal. If the Brewers are completely terrible, it should be a very tradeable contract, assuming Garza stays healthy and performs similar to how he has the past 3-4 seasons.

 

I was definitely surprised. I figured the only free agent signings the Brewers would make this off-season would be of the one year veteran filler variety.

[PrinceFielderx1]

Yeah, I knew the Brewers would make a big splash with a SP this off-season. I called that all the way. They actually had to to keep fans interested and focused on the team and a large part of it has to do with ticket sales and making this team a contender. I love this move and the Brewers in my view will be contenders once DM gets those RP's that he will get.

 

As Brewers fans we should be thrilled with the possibility of contending as soon as next year. I know I am.

[adambr2]

I have no idea what the hype is for Ike Davis. I'm not sure he is even an upgrade from Reynolds. If we traded Thornburg for him, I'd be furious.

[thumperden]

Does this drastically diminish the chances of obtaining Francisco Rodriguez?

[trwi7]

I like the deal. If the Brewers are completely terrible, it should be a very tradeable contract, assuming Garza stays healthy and performs similar to how he has the past 3-4 seasons.

 

I was definitely surprised. I figured the only free agent signings the Brewers would make this off-season would be of the one year veteran filler variety.

 

A very tradeable contract that they probably won't trade, which is my fear. If this works and the Brewers are contenders, great but if it doesn't and the Brewers are once again 15 games out and under .500, I hope they realize that it isn't going to work and decide to rebuild.

[brewcrewdue80]

Hadn't posted in on this yet. I compare this deal to Anibal Sanchez's I was figuring Garza got Sanchez money just not as long a deal. We are paying roughly 3-4mil less per year than what Sanchez is making. That's great!

How bad are the injury concerns? Because 3-4mil under expected value for 4years equates to pretty much 1 year of Sanchez pay? There must be a MLB-League-wide concern Garza will miss a year due to injury within 4-seasons. How healthy is Garza today? Will he be good to go come Spring Training?

 

How do I see Garza performance-wise? We have a proven #3 pitcher. Not a Prospect with #3 ceiling we hope gets there, but a true #3 SP in our rotation. You put the rotation as Lohse, Gallardo, Garza, Peralta, Estrada and you look at the matchups now #3s-#5s during the regular season and feel good about it. You also feel good that with this rotation, you're not "Giving" a game to a team almost no matter any pitching matchup. You figure 2-3ERs a ton of Quality Starts by this staff and the offense being on the hook now give your pitchers the run support to make that enough. It should be.

The other side to this signing is it's like signing 2BP guys. Thornburg and Smith you now figure are immediately planned in to Bullpen roles. Who goes to 8th inning? Do they swap between Righty/Lefty matchup in that role? I can think it's a good thing to figure out during ST what inning to pitch these 2. Along with Nelson or Hellweg. Burgos, Blazek I think the Bullpen will surprise and be strong this year. Really strong if these guys take to their roles and are found the right role to be pitched in of use.

You wonder with that WAR figure by adding Garza do we gain 2WAR in SP and at the same time gain 1WAR in BP?

 

I really like the signing and what it means for the Bullpen. The concerns if Thornburg or Smith would cut at as #5s are removed to just be successful out of the Pen. Nelson out of BP? There's a lot of talent there in those 3.

 

We don't lose a draft pick! Here's the 13mil...out of the what? 20mil we're supposed to gain TV deal-wise? so no more of that, why are other teams opening up and we aren't crap. We just did.

 

Can we go find a 1b now? Not Ike but someone of talent? It's going to be interesting how that unfolds. You know 1 of Thornburg,Nelson, and even Jungmann would seem expendable...what about 2 of the three used in a deal? I hope when it happens it's for someone better than Ike and someone that fans could get goosebumps seeing in the lineup.

[BradWI]

Brewers just tweeted:

 

Despite media reports, negotiations between the #Brewers and Matt Garza are ongoing, but there is no deal yet.

 

Odd. Would be a shame if the deal falls through.

 

 

[Lee16]

Yeah, this is taking a turn for the "possibly not so good". Maybe they saw something in the physical that is making the Brewers rethink this deal. Or Garza has decided he can get more someplace else. I hope this deal works out though. *crosses fingers*

[HiAndTight]

I am so glad I was so off in my early season prediction of 5 years $75 million for Garza. That additional year and $23 million would have been a significantly worse deal for the Brewers.

 

As I posted in the Transaction Forum, I think this will free up some young pitching to make a trade for Ike or another 1B now.

 

 

I would guess without looking it up that most people probably had Garza getting a 5 year deal in the 75-90 million dollar range. Say what you will about the Lohse deal last year, and I wasn't a fan because of the draft pick, but the Brewers are adding some pretty legit #2 type pitchers on some very below market deals.

 

And I don't want to be a pessimist, but they're also the types of deals that if the Brewers are bad or have a really poor start can be traded pretty easily to contenders...though they don't seem to like to do this. I'm pretty surprised that a guy like Garza who didn't have a 1st attached to him didn't end up back in Texas, or on another contender like the Yankees(since they've decided the whole luxury tax bill wasn't a big deal).

[TooLiveBrew]

Latest from Adam McCalvy (via Twitter):

 

Now I'm hearing the holdup on Garza is not related to medical concerns. It's just taking time to wrap up the deal. Stay tuned.

[vegasbrewcrew1993]

get it done melvin. this would be an epic fail if the negotiations fall apart.

[hawing]

I guess I hope the deal doesn't fall through. Four years seems like a longish commitment for a budget challenged team, but I didn't realize Garza is 'just' 30.

 

Assuming it holds, it's nicely timed to boost the On Deck event this weekend.

[RockCoCougars]

Well, this is an interesting turn of events. It wouldn't be a surprise to me if an agent or someone else close to the player leaked the deal in a last ditch attempt to get a better offer. If they are playing dirty pool here, I hope the Brewers just walk away.

[torts]

since terms have yet to be revealed its probably related to no movement clauses and monies paid out per year and other contract terms like that (maybe even performance bonuses/option years/etc)

[TURBO]

Is it against some rule if another team sees what he agreed to with the Brewers, and before the deal is final, that team makes him a better offer?