Jon Heyman says Lohse, Garza could be in play soon...

[reillymcshane]

Lohse and Garza aren't going to bring back anything valuable, even before they started sucking. They are no longer impact players, and they aren't cheap.

 

The real value will come from trading Lucroy, Gomez and Segura. If the Brewers are serious about wanting to improve their future prospects, they will all be dealt. Something tells me they aren't, though.

The only other player you could add is Peralta. At this rate, he probably isn't going to be part of the next winning team (or won't be for long). I'd consider and extension, getting a year or two of his free agent years. If you can do that, we could count on him for another five or six years (and thus he would be part of our next winning club).

[davego]

Is there logic to tagging Gomez with Garza, for example? If you want Carlos, then Matt has to tag-along? Or, would that depress the return too much?

 

just my thought, but I hope we see a version of "crazy Doug" and everything must go...and the discounts are low, low low!!!

[jerichoholicninja]

Just call AJ Preller. He hasn't made a trade in months. He's probably having jitters and night sweats.

[brewcrewdue80]

 

A Gomez trade should include an elite pitching prospect to immediately put in the Rotation, think Shelby Miller for 1 year of Jason Heyward.

 

 

I disagree. This is the kind of thinking that Melvin/Attanasio have used to get us where we are. A Gomez trade should include an elite pitching prospect, no matter what level he's at. In fact, I would almost prefer someone in AA/AAA. We are going nowhere the next two years, no reason to waste a year or two of control.

 

If we get offered a stud pitching prospect who happens to be MLB ready, that's one thing. But we shouldn't limit ourselves to only seeking out that type of player.

 

Well, you're mostly in luck as many of the elite pitching is under your A-AA preference. I say elite to put in the rotation, meaning he's polished to be at that level. Sure we could take on a A/AA pitching talent a couple years away, who likely has a wart or two though. Most of these top notch pitching prospects have BB issues. Which is just odd since most of the hitting these days seems to be impatient batters who swing at the 1st pitch. LOL. But so many of these top pitcher prospects are in the 4.5-5BB/9. Even if they would get to a 9k/9 they'd barely be at 2k/BB ratio. Just going through MLB's top 100 it doesn't look like there's even 4 SPs available to maybe have in trade that would qualify as not being a 4+BB/9 and having a 8.5k+/9. And then you look at the teams and only the Mets Syndergaard or Matz would a deal maybe happen. Minnesota and the Yankees I don't see dealing this season.

 

Gomez will have to 100% be on the Brewers for the season and only a trade in the offseason seems possible at the moment.

[JohnBriggs12]

Lohse and Garza aren't going to bring back anything valuable, even before they started sucking. They are no longer impact players, and they aren't cheap.

 

The real value will come from trading Lucroy, Gomez and Segura. If the Brewers are serious about wanting to improve their future prospects, they will all be dealt. Something tells me they aren't, though.

 

Trading all 3 of those guys during the season for prospects will mean 100 losses for the next 3-4 seasons. You can get away with that with huge local media revenue like they have in Chicago and Houston, but it's not feasible in a market like Milwaukee that relies so much on gate receipts. This is after all a business and the business model for the Brewers differs from that of the Astros.

 

It wouldn't shock me if either Gomez or Segura is traded, but Lucroy is going nowhere. There's nothing and I mean nothing behind him here. Further I think if they do plan to deal Gomez or Segura, it will be after the season because they will want something of value that helps them on the field now and that's much more likely to be the case in a December deal than it is in July.

 

The chances of trading Garza are practically nil right now. But his career has been one of continual peaks and valleys and he may actually have value a year from now with less total on his deal assuming he's in better form. It's probably in the Brewer's interest to hang on to him and try to sell high when he gets on a roll. With Lohse, it's Randy Wolf all over again. They could hope somebody might claim him on waivers or takes his contract in a deal for nothing in return, but more likely is he'll end up just being released in August just like Wolf was 3 years ago. Ramirez is another guy with no value. Brewers can hope he gets hot so that some team would claim him off waivers and they can save a few bucks. But a player in return? No.

 

K-Rod is the guy that might bring something of value if you deal him this season. His form is excellent and there are teams out there that could use him. Lind is a possibility as there are teams out there that could use him, but they shouldn't give him away without a significant return. Teams thinking the Brewers will deal him for a C level prospect need to think again. They don't have to deal him. His option for next year is reasonable and really he's the best option they have to play 1B in 2016 by far.

[Boomer5]

I had hoped Braun would have been a hot trade target for a team like Boston or NYM, but that window closed and he is back to sucking again.

 

The trade market is not looking good for us, we really don't have anyone that would be a sell high guy. Maybe KRod, but who would he really bring back? Segura is playing decent and being a SS is key, but again we arent talking about a top 10 prospect asset coming back of course.

 

Gomez will bring a bunch back but he isn't playing at a level that is high enough to max out to be traded as the asset we hope for.

 

I have a very bad feeling we are going into 2016 with a very similar looking team.

[Mudville9]

I think at this point DM is looking to deal everyone but Lucroy for the reasons mentioned before. He's cost controlled, we have not depth behind the plate, and he will help the young pitchers that will be coming up in the next couple years. Another person we should keep is probably Garza. He may help us get the #1 pick next draft and hopefully have a bounce back year next year and we can trade him for another piece.

 

Lohse and Ramirez should be pawned off for whatever we can get. K-Rod should be pretty easy to trade away given how well he is going. Gomez, Braun, Segura, Lind will all depend on what people are offering n return. They could all technically be traded in the off-season, but I would personally like the retooling to begin as soon as possible.

[reillymcshane]

Lohse and Garza aren't going to bring back anything valuable, even before they started sucking. They are no longer impact players, and they aren't cheap.

 

The real value will come from trading Lucroy, Gomez and Segura. If the Brewers are serious about wanting to improve their future prospects, they will all be dealt. Something tells me they aren't, though.

 

Trading all 3 of those guys during the season for prospects will mean 100 losses for the next 3-4 seasons. You can get away with that with huge local media revenue like they have in Chicago and Houston, but it's not feasible in a market like Milwaukee that relies so much on gate receipts. This is after all a business and the business model for the Brewers differs from that of the Astros.

 

I disagree that a team like Milwaukee can't survive 3-4 bad seasons. You cut payroll to cushion the financial blow - it's not like we have to put out a $100 million team every year. By next season, we could trade or let go of Lucroy, Garza, Lind, Gomez, K-Rod, Segura, Parra, Lohse, Cotts, Broxton - it clears the books with the exception of Braun (who could potentially be dealt if someone wanted him). I think Peralta would be the only arby eligible player. It makes for a young and very cheap team (we could probably cut payroll below $50 million). Segura, Lucroy and Gomez bring back a significant number of young prospects, which speeds up the rebuild process. I think we could avoid as drastic a rebuild like Houston because of that fact.

 

I'm tired of rebuilding in a half-assed fashion. We're on track to lose 100 games with Gomez, Lucroy and Segura. Fans want a winner - or at least a hope of a winner. Why hang on to one or two of our 'good' players during a time when we probably still lose 85-100 games? Fans aren't going to come to the park for a 72 win team much more than they will for a 62 win team. At least if you blow up things and go for the full rebuild you can preach to the fans that better days are ahead. The club did it back in the early 2000s when they built up excitement around Prince, Hardy, Weeks, Hart and Braunie.

 

Rebuilding will hurt attendance, but we'd survive. Oakland and Tampa have done so with much smaller fan bases (and smaller payrolls). Milwaukee is a great baseball town. I just hope management can give it the team it deserves.

[Boomer5]

The Astros and Cubs success has made a 3-4 down time a lot more understandable.

 

Losing big with a roster of name/expensive players is the worst case scenarios. Time to back up the truck but our players arent cooperating.

 

I just saw that Braun and Lind lead us in WAR...with 1.0. Cravey is in our top 10 with 0.3. That says it all.

[brewcrewdue80]

Repeating what Reilly says. A rebuild or retool chopping off much of the payroll shouldn't result in the team losing money due to less gate receipts. It'd be what? Braun and Pre-Arb to Arb players? Overall, the payroll likely isnt 60million. Corner OF, 1b, 2b, SS, CF, 2 legit SPs, Closer, setup, long man would be covered. 10/25. Thornburg would be 11 where ever he goes. You promote the likes of Jungmann, Pena, Rivera, Goforth, 1 at least of the recent Tyler's. That's 16. All before what the team gets in return for selling the lot. Maldonado would be 17 at Catcher. Staring at a little over 40million in payroll commitments. Arcia would be a gate welcomer getting to bat leadoff and ahead of Braun. Reed at CF and Rivera maybe at 3b? Underdog players where one likely surprises with the other being overmatched.

I just still believe the town is great for baseball they'll turn out enough regardless. And there's gotta be excitement to follow with whomever is acquired combined for Gomez, Lucroy, Segura, Davis in my opinion, Lind and KRod. They'll be some ML addition to the team out of those players, they can't all be AA and lower.

[monty57]

Just going through MLB's top 100 it doesn't look like there's even 4 SPs available to maybe have in trade that would qualify as not being a 4+BB/9 and having a 8.5k+/9.

 

I think the theory in going to the low minors is to find guys who are likely to be studs, but who aren't "proven" enough to make the Top 100 lists. You need to trust your scouts in this and your risk is higher, but theoretically you should be able to get much more potential return in getting a number of 18-year-olds who you think will become "the next Syndergaard" than you will by actually trading for Syndergaard.

 

Trading all 3 of those guys during the season for prospects will mean 100 losses for the next 3-4 seasons.

 

I personally don't think we'd take much of a step back (if any) by trading Segura. He's a sub-.700 OPS guy with decent defense, who we would replace with Sardinas, a sub-.700 OPS guy with good defense, later to be replaced by our top prospect.

 

Regarding Gomez and Lucroy, we are going to lose them soon anyway, so the "trade off" is whether we win a few extra games the next year (Gomez) or two (Lucroy) with these guys before losing them for nothing to free agency, or whether we sacrifice those few games over the next year or two in order to improve our sub-standard farm system so that we increase our odds of winning in future years.

 

The chances of trading Garza are practically nil right now.

 

From the get-go, Garza was a salary dump, and we may not even get that right now. The team was maxed on payroll, and probably would have needed the playoffs in order to make money this year. After the play in the first couple of weeks, Schleisinger (? sp) had to be bouncing off the walls worried about how much they would lose, so the Garza rumors started to fly, signifying not only that they were willing to cut bait on this season, but on next season as well.

 

K-Rod is the guy that might bring something of value if you deal him this season.

 

I hope so, but he never seems to draw the interest his numbers would suggest. Maybe other teams have concerns over having a wife-beating scumbag on their team.

 

The Astros and Cubs success has made a 3-4 down time a lot more understandable.

 

Agree. The marketing team needs to back off from the "buy tickets because we signed a name player" campaign, and start some "look at this great talent we have on the farm" and "look how well this worked for the Cubs" campaigns. Might not be as easy a sell, but without the bloated contracts to overage vets, we'll sport a smaller payroll, necessitating less tickets sold, so really they're keeping the interest up enough that they don't permanently lose fans.

[MrTPlush]

"Trust our scouts"

 

Had me laughing pretty good. All the more reason to go after the more proven minor leaguers.

[monty57]

"Trust our scouts"

 

Had me laughing pretty good. All the more reason to go after the more proven minor leaguers.

 

I get it, and I throw as many barbs as anyone, but from Melvin's standpoint, these are his guys. He either hired them or hired the guys who hired them. He either has to trust them, or he has to fire them.

 

Every day, they are out there watching these kids, and I would assume they have their "nerds" analyzing them as well. They aren't looking to sell content like the guys who make the "Top 100" lists, so they do not need to add some arbitrary criteria as to who makes the list. They just need to find good ballplayers who look like they have a shot at growing into major leaguers. Not an easy task, but if you can get three guys as opposed to one "blue chip" guy. It'd be nice to think they could hit on one out of three.

 

Of course I'd love Syndergaard... everyone would. But, that's the reason why no one can have him, or if he were made available, it would be for a king's ransom. What could be available more cheaply is "the next Syndergaard." You just need to find him, and I'm sure they have some idea where to look.

[brewcrewdue80]

Wow, so ventured to Fangraphs to see if there were some sign of velocity loss going on with Lohse. His numbers are pretty even with where they've been the last 2+seasons. Then, not only that, but his out of zone/in the zone % are actually slightly better than the last 2 years. Yet we stare at a pitcher that appears washed up.

 

According to them, his Sinker pitch rates over -7runs on the season. FB which has always been a negative, up there too. So go figure it out why he's far worse than he's been? HRs I guess is the biggest reason. It's just sad both he and Garza are performing terrible in times that the team should be looking to trade them. It's like I wondered, is this almost happening on purpose? 5IP no runs today. 5ER including 3run HR as I read it on an 0-2 count..what just groove a FB high in the middle for Mauer? Cant put together a 6-7IP 0-1ER start, no way, not until after the deadline watch. Then Lohse/Garza will magically be +2 wins each from that point on, taking Milw from a certain top 3 draft pick to likely 11th again because of ties.

[JohnBriggs12]

brewcrewdue80, the AB to Maurer, he painted the corner at the knees the first two pitches to get ahead 0-2, then inexplicably tried to come inside probably to back Mauer off the plate some and missed right over the heart of the plate. Boom!

 

He hasn't lost command completely, but he has lost command from time to time of the inside corner and that's where mistakes end up in the seats. Age a factor? Could be. Velocity is easy to measure, but sometimes the body just doesn't do what the mind thinks it can when you get older and your body doesn't recover like it used to. He had the outside corner locked in but body couldn't adjust and deliver off the inside corner when the mind wanted it to.

[monty57]

Age a factor? Could be. Velocity is easy to measure, but sometimes the body just doesn't do what the mind thinks it can when you get older and your body doesn't recover like it used to. He had the outside corner locked in but body couldn't adjust and deliver off the inside corner when the mind wanted it to.

 

Well put. Age does a lot of things, like limiting flexibility and causing some aches where there didn't use to be aches. Lohse has defied age the past few years in large part because the Cardinals taught him how to pitch without relying on velocity. That doesn't allow him to pitch forever, and in a world where 1/4 inch can be the difference between a pop up and a home run, even a slight age-related slow-down can mean the end.

[bill hAll Star]

FWIW - Lohse's xFIP is basically in line with where it was in previous seasons at about 4.05. Seems that the ball has just flown out a bit more than it should on him with a 17% HR/FB rate instead of his standard career rate which is a notch below 10%. His GB% has slowly gone down over the past few years and it continues to gradually drop this year.

 

Is that the slight age loss allowing that or is it just a bit of bad luck? He's fared better in Citi Field and got throttled in Cincy which is what might seem to support that xFIP and HR/FB blip.

 

Again, I don't know. Could be that he's just lost a touch or that 4 or 5 50/50 HRs have gone out due to where the games are being played.

 

As it stands, Lohse and Garza are slotted to pitch at Coors field next week. I'd find a way to reshuffle the rotation so that the Coors rotation is Nelson, Cravy, Jungmann (or whoever the other 3 in the rotation are). Who cares if those guys get lit up there? I'd rather not see Garza/Lohse's #s balloon. Maybe other GMs can see through that but much harder to market it.