Trading for Parra to improve last year juxtaposed to trading away Gomez for prospects this year

[Boomer5]

The plan now is to acquire as many under 22 year old major league projectable prospects. I dont remember the Brewers ever focusing this hard on building a powerful and deep minor league system before. Maybe the mid 80's?

 

I dont see a major league roster coming from this right now that makes a ton of sense, which is fine, because when you have a strong minor league system, you can always go out and get the positions you need from your depth.

 

Throw in a top 5 draft pick this year and next, and you will go from a bottom system to a top tier system, with Lucroy and Lind moves to come.

[dlk9s]

Not sure if serious or what is going on. This thread confuses me...

It's a Thundercat thread. Just enjoy.

[Thundercat32]

Not sure if serious or what is going on. This thread confuses me...

 

What's confusing about this thread?

 

All I'm doing is asking "Are we contenders or are we in rebuild mode?"

 

Followed by, "If we are in rebuild mode, then why aren't we dealing Lucroy and Braun? Why is Gomez the only big piece to go?"

 

Because Braun's contract is an albatross and Lucroy can be moved for prospects at a later date? Also, no one really knows if Doug has tried to trade both of them already. So it's moot to discuss. We have no idea what the market is for those two. Doug seems to be good at getting value in trades and holding firm. Like TT and Hammond are good at drafting.

 

We are in rebuild mode.

 

You wonder about the Parra trade and it being an accident on this return. They were in first place contending for the division when they made that trade. Front office thought it was building for a playoff run. But things didn't pan out end of last year and this year has been a dumpster fire. They realized the window is closed and are rebuilding.

 

My question is, how is that not obvious? There's no conspiracy theory going on here. They made a run last year, didn't work out. Window is now closed. Sell, sell, sell.

 

 

I'm suppose to offer Melvin a free pass because he could be talking to teams about Lucroy & Braun? I mean, it's a fair point; that said, there's no brownie points in baseball for trying--there's only points for results. When does Lucroy have more value; at this year's trade deadline or in the off-season or at next year's trade deadline?

 

You're telling me that the Cardinals wouldn't of offered something for Braun? I don't buy that. For Christ's sake they seriously overpaid for Brandon Moss. I think they would of loved to have Braun, regardless of his contract. And they're not opposed to taking on cheaters. They're the ones who invented hacking into another organization's network and stealing all of its scouting information.

 

Yes, they were in first place last year, and yes it made sense to add a left-handed bat to their lineup. No, as a matter of fact, Hell No! the answer was not Gerardo Parra. To put it bluntly he sucks. You don't trade a top 5 organizational prospect for Parra. You don't trade a top 25 organizational prospect for Gerardo Parra. You offer the Diamondbacks a bag of baseballs, $200k, and the lowest level developmental lottery ticket prospect that you have--like the Brewers just took on from the Cardinals in Malik Collymore. That's why the Cardinals are good, and the Brewers are not. Evaluating talent and not getting desperate.

[Thundercat32]

Not sure if serious or what is going on. This thread confuses me...

It's a Thundercat thread. Just enjoy.

 

Hey dlk9s, take that act back to twoplustwo, alright?

[3and2Fastball]

In keeping with the context of the thread I will add this:

 

The Brewers are trading for all these Outfielders because their analytics team has cracked the Baseball strategy code of the future: using 4 Outfielders on defense in radical shifts. Triangle and 1..... 4 across..... and the what will be popular Warning Track plus Rover "Hybrid".

[Thundercat32]

All I'll say for now is Gerardo Parra is being wayyyyyyyyyyy overvalued in this thread, and Mitchell Haniger is being severely undervalued, as well.

[Brewer Fever]

No

[BrewCrew8682]

2 questions:

 

1. Why the love for Mitch Haniger, since you want use to describe why we liked a guy that hit very well for us for a year and played solid defense and netted us a nice return?

 

2. Why the hate for Gerardo Parra? You say he sucks, but I'd say there is a good to amazing chance his career has already exceeded the best case scenario for Haniger. I feel you're whole argument is based on your love of Haniger and the hatred for Parra is that you blame him for losing him.

 

Jesus, Melvin takes enough flak on this board (a lot of it justified) but can we at least not trash him when something he does goes well? Or are all the things that work out clearly luck and all the bad things clearly a reflection of the FO's incompetence?

 

Also, with regards to Parra putting us over the top, since when did being the best team have huge correlation to the being WS winner? If he helped us get to the dance, anything could have happened.

[dlk9s]

According to Baseball Reference, Parra's best player comp is some guy named Beals Becker who played from 1908 through 1915. This is not notable at all, but I was curious and looked at Becker's profile. My favorite stat of his was that he led struck out more than anybody in the NL in 1909.

 

In 645 PA, he whiffed 87 times.

[gregmag]

Haniger is now 24. His OPS has decreased significantly at every level of the minors. In 475 career PA at AA over two seasons he has a .741 OPS. My sense is that he can stick in CF, but he's not a big defensive asset there. He has a chance to be a major league player, but his profile at this moment looks like a fourth OF.

 

Whether or not that assessment is right, the fact that he was a first rounder is completely irrelevant to his trade value, and it was irrelevant last year. You get picked where you get picked, and then you play games. Haniger, now and a year ago, has to be judged on his record.

 

As for Parra, we start with his gold glove defense and ability to play all three OF positions. Offensively he put up an excellent season at 24, then two about league average seasons at 25 and 26. A league-average hitter with his defensive profile is a legit starter in this league. Then he stunk, for the first and only time in his MLB career, for the first two-thirds of his age 27 season. He came over to Milwaukee and reverted to what he had been the prior two years, a league average hitter. This year, of course, he has played at an all-star level.

 

Those are facts and conservative assessments based on facts. They strongly suggest that you're dramatically overrating Haniger and dramatically underrating Parra.

[xisxisxis]

It's been pretty clear for a long time that this team doesn't have a long-term plan. Heck I don't think they have a short-term plan. While I am glad to see them attempting to add talent to the organization by getting higher upside prospects that are young for their league age, they still have to be slotted into the Brewers player development pipeline that has some serious issues. The Brewers still have quite a bit of time to mess up these prospects to the point they aren't functional.

 

I was shocked when they gave Parra a $6M contract to begin the year as he isn't that much above replacement level to justify that salary. Parra is what he is, a 4th outfielder whose defense exceeds his offense. He's had a career year offensively this year and the next buyer is going to get some nasty numbers as he regresses to the mean....

 

But this wouldn't be a Brewer fan board if a significant number of posters didn't overvalue the Brewers talent, you don't have a crappy organization like the brewers without selecting for a certain fan phenotype....

[StearnsFTW]

Yeah, Haniger isn't and never was anything special. 4th OF? Maybe.

 

I think it's pretty obvious we're in rebuild mode. We weren't a year ago. We are now. I don't get why that's difficult to understand.

 

As zman said, Lucroy and Braun may be on the table as well, we have no idea. I'm assuming Braun is a sunk cost, but who knows?

[And That]

I was shocked when they gave Parra a $6M contract to begin the year as he isn't that much above replacement level to justify that salary.

Parra's career Fangraphs WAR per 162 games is about 2.0. He's definitely been above replacement level.

[And That]

Mitchell Haniger is being severely undervalued, as well.

Mitchell Evan Haniger to you.

[tmwiese55]

Is this guy Haniger's dad or something?

 

Braun has 100mil left on his contract and the PED thing hanging over him, the lingering thumb problem, is now getting old, very complicated to trade.

 

The Pence trade is acceptable because A) Pence is an all-star level player and Parra is major league defender and a well below league average hitter, B) the Giants were in a better position to compete in the 2012 post-season than the Brewers were to compete in the 2014 post-season, and C) what the Giants gave up to acquire Pence was a better price than what the Brewers paid for Parra.

 

--so you say you're against trading away people at the deadline for the future but then say it's ok when you think it makes sense and you win the trade. Also, SF just traded for Mike Leake. SF gave up 3 guys for Pence compared to one minor league fodder guy that we gave up for Parra. Parra was essentially a salary dump to us. Essentially we traded Haniger for a starting pitcher next season, great trade imo. Who knows if the guy will be good or not but he'll be in the bigs next year starting for us. Also, when getting Parra he provided insurance for injury down the stretch last year, we didn't have to cash it in but if but he could have been key if we did. Brewers are so dumb, yet another team just gave us more for him for only 2 months whereas we had him for that plus a year.

 

Heck, maybe they should have put Braun on the DL for a bit last year with how bad he was hitting and let Parra play more. IMO, the Parra trades are a huge win for MKE.

[torts]

It's been pretty clear for a long time that this team doesn't have a long-term plan. Heck I don't think they have a short-term plan. While I am glad to see them attempting to add talent to the organization by getting higher upside prospects that are young for their league age, they still have to be slotted into the Brewers player development pipeline that has some serious issues. The Brewers still have quite a bit of time to mess up these prospects to the point they aren't functional.

 

I was shocked when they gave Parra a $6M contract to begin the year as he isn't that much above replacement level to justify that salary. Parra is what he is, a 4th outfielder whose defense exceeds his offense. He's had a career year offensively this year and the next buyer is going to get some nasty numbers as he regresses to the mean....

 

But this wouldn't be a Brewer fan board if a significant number of posters didn't overvalue the Brewers talent, you don't have a crappy organization like the brewers without selecting for a certain fan phenotype....

 

why do you come here?

[Thundercat32]

Mitchell Haniger: I like him most of all because he's patient & has plate discipline. I watched all of his at bats during 2014 Spring Training (he hit .500 with a 938 SLG, granted same sample only 19 PAs), and I liked what I saw. The Brewers organization, itself, was raving about his 2013 Arizona Fall League were he posted a .354 OBP & a 834 OPS over 113 PAs. People are down on him because he struggled at AA in '14. The Dbacks even started him off at high A ball this year, which he crushed to the tune of a 1048 OPS. He's a guy who just needs more PAs. Over 174 at AA so far this year he has a 351 OBP, the SLG isn't there at 379, but he's lowered his K rate & increased his walk rate. It's really early to sour on a guy who's shown promise vs big league pitching in spring training & top prospects at the AFL. Also, his speed, defense, and arm play at the big league level right now. A Nick Markakis projection for Haniger is super fair.

 

Gerardo Parra: He was an afterthought international signing at 17 back in 2004. It took him 5 years to make the majors, which is great at 22, but he's no Miguel Sano, for example. He's a guy who without his defense would post negative WAR #s. When the Brewers acquired him he had a career 90 wRC+. League average is 100, but league average for outfielders and 1b is 110-115. 90 is a weak-hitting back up infielder type like Johnny Giavotella (who has a 93 wRC+ so far in '15). That's the "big" bat the Brewers traded for last year. Yes, Parra is having a great year this year. Thank God, or the Brewers would of been stuck holding his "hot potato". Parra's benefitting from a .372 babip this year, the highest recorded babip in history was .363, so we know .372 is unsustainable and an example of running extremely well this deep into a season, especially. League average babip this year is .298 for example. Also, Parra's home run to fly ball rate is over 50% higher than his career average. It may help him reach his second double digit home run total of his career. Oh boy. Yes, he's a Gold Glove defender, but the Brewers had Gomez in Centerfield, Segura at SS, and Lucroy behind the plate, I really don't think they needed to deplete the farm system to add defense last year. What they needed was a bat, and what they added was Johnny Giavotella.

[Thundercat32]

So is Nick Markakis a 4th OF'er?

[Invader3K]

But this wouldn't be a Brewer fan board if a significant number of posters didn't overvalue the Brewers talent, you don't have a crappy organization like the brewers without selecting for a certain fan phenotype....

 

Knock this off now or get banned. This kind of over the top condescension isn't tolerated here and you know it.

[Thundercat32]

I didn't compare Parra to being as good as them. Just that it's common and those guys were on recent winners.

 

It's common for NFL teams to draft QBs early in the NFL draft. When a team drafts a terrible QB early, they're not excused from making a poor decision because the practice of drafting QBs early in the draft is common. I don't understand your logic here.

[Thundercat32]

Honestly, looking at Haniger a bit closer, I do think that I have had him a bit overrated. I think that's for two reasons. I hated the Parra trade the moment I heard of it. I despised it. The guy's first name should be Sub, so he'd show up for what he is on the lineup card, Sub Parra.

 

Also, the Brewers' farm system was pretty thin last year at the trade deadline. Haniger was a top 15 organizational prospect. I think I have him overrated a bit because after last year's fantastic draft, I wanted to hold onto our top prospects and watch the farm system grow & mature. Certainly, if you're going to break that up, you do it for someone better than Parra.

 

So maybe I have overrated Haniger. That said, I still am optimistic about his future. I think he could easily become a Nick Markakis type, which is not bad at all.

[3and2Fastball]

Haniger is 24 years old and is in AA Ball with a .730 OPS this year

[3and2Fastball]

So maybe I have overrated Haniger. That said, I still am optimistic about his future. I think he could easily become a Nick Markakis type, which is not bad at all.

 

It is certainly possible. Maybe Haniger is a late developer. At 24 years old Markakis had a .897 OPS & 20 HR's in MLB. Markakis played AA ball at the age of 21 and put up stats that year of a .339 BA, .420 OBP, .992 OPS

[yfinn6]

But this wouldn't be a Brewer fan board if a significant number of posters didn't overvalue the Brewers talent, you don't have a crappy organization like the brewers without selecting for a certain fan phenotype....

 

http://junkee.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/scoff.gif

[nate82]

So is Nick Markakis a 4th OF'er?

 

No and Haniger is no where near the talent of Markakis.

 

Markakis was in the majors by his age 22 season while Haniger has been stuck in AA for the past 2-years. Haniger is also 24 years old. A better comp to Haniger is Chris Coghlan.

 

Now is Coghlan a 4th OF'er?