Brewers sign Chris Carter to a 1-year, $2.5 mil deal

[pacopete4]

Fail to see the upside here. Even if he does hit 40 bombs, he doesn't get on base and plays awful defense. Is there really teams out there looking to trade good prospects for a .310 OBP, 30% strikeout DH at the deadline?

 

One of the valuable things a rebuilding team has is they can give playing time to unproven players who contending teams don't want to take a chance on. This move seems like a slightly below average fill-in who will now be eating 600 PA at a position that should be the easiest to fill.

 

 

Guys that hit 30-40 home runs don't grow on trees anymore. There is value here if he does what he does. A guy that OPS's .750-.775 or maybe even higher is a good thing to add to this team.

[RobertR]

Personal preference, but I'd rather the Brewers were picking up good defense, marginal offense players than the reverse. Purely for aesthetics purposes and because I think that's likelier to help the young pitchers long term by shortening their workload if nothing else.

 

That said, considering what the Brewers are trying to do this season, there's at least the upside that Carter will hit well enough in Miller Park so that the offense isn't brutal and he can be flipped at the deadline. Considering the Brewers are required to field a team, it's a decent short term signing.

[Polish Falcons]

My problem is that it's just a one-year deal. At least get an option year in the mix.

 

Seeing as he only has 3.159 years of service time, can't the Brewers control him for 3 years under arbitration? He can be a brewer through 2018? I am not sure how this works but hope someone here does.

[Eye Black]

Fail to see the upside here. Even if he does hit 40 bombs, he doesn't get on base and plays awful defense. Is there really teams out there looking to trade good prospects for a .310 OBP, 30% strikeout DH at the deadline?

Well maybe not often, but at last year's deadline the Cardinals gave up a legitimate prospect to trade for a 31-year old playing RF/1B/DH who had hit 15 homeruns and was batting .217 with a .288 OBP, .695 OPS, and striking out in just over 28% of his plate appearances.

[NYChez]

The downside of Carter hitting .180 is offset by the fact the Brewers would lose extra games and with another top 5 draft pick would get a first baseman to replace him. I think this is what Stearns meant when he said Carter had been part of a rebuilding process before.

[NievesNoNO]

Fail to see the upside here. Even if he does hit 40 bombs, he doesn't get on base and plays awful defense. Is there really teams out there looking to trade good prospects for a .310 OBP, 30% strikeout DH at the deadline?

 

One of the valuable things a rebuilding team has is they can give playing time to unproven players who contending teams don't want to take a chance on. This move seems like a slightly below average fill-in who will now be eating 600 PA at a position that should be the easiest to fill.

 

I agree. I don't like the move but the price was right I guess. I think people are being optemistic thinking he can return anything of value. He's the kind of guy you kind of need to roll out there everyday and suffer through the crap to make sure you don't miss the few hot streaks. The best you can hope for is him hitting all his home runs against the Cardinals.

[wichmae]

I think people are missing the Brandon Moss point made above. I'm all for flipping a piece like him for another lotto ticket in six months. This is exactly the type of player we need to have on our mlb roster.

[brewtank34]

Who are out Left handed position players going to be? To my recollection, we have: a platoon candidate in Scooter along with our 3b platoon candidate in Cechhini. Am I missing something here or wasn't one of the goals of this offseason was to get more left handed offense?

[markedman5]

https://twitter.com/chriscotillo/status/684921366898970624

[reillymcshane]

My problem is that it's just a one-year deal. At least get an option year in the mix.

 

Seeing as he only has 3.159 years of service time, can't the Brewers control him for 3 years under arbitration? He can be a brewer through 2018? I am not sure how this works but hope someone here does.

You are exactly correct. He is under control for three years - if we want him that long. Makes him more valuable as a trade asset if does well.

[RockCoCougars]

I'm down with this, especially since it likely means no Pedro Alvarez.

[danzig6767]

Who are out Left handed position players going to be? To my recollection, we have: a platoon candidate in Scooter along with our 3b platoon candidate in Cechhini. Am I missing something here or wasn't one of the goals of this offseason was to get more left handed offense?

At this point, i think the goal is just to try and find semi-competent bodies to fill holes where a promising young player isn't yet available, first base being one of those spots.

 

Stearns fully understands that the team will be bad next season, just to what degree of bad will mainly be determined by how well or poorly many of the younger players end up producing. That and if guys like Lucroy and/or Davis are traded before the season starts.

[pacopete4]

Who are out Left handed position players going to be? To my recollection, we have: a platoon candidate in Scooter along with our 3b platoon candidate in Cechhini. Am I missing something here or wasn't one of the goals of this offseason was to get more left handed offense?

 

Kirk Nieuwenhuis is a lefty.

Jonathan Villar and Collin Walsh are switch hitters as well.

[brewcrewdue80]

My problem is that it's just a one-year deal. At least get an option year in the mix.

 

Seeing as he only has 3.159 years of service time, can't the Brewers control him for 3 years under arbitration? He can be a brewer through 2018? I am not sure how this works but hope someone here does.

You are exactly correct. He is under control for three years - if we want him that long. Makes him more valuable as a trade asset if does well.

 

So essentially he's on his Arb years. He'll be asking for more next season with his case and is club moves on having not traded him just non-tender him. Or agree to another year. It's a really great move. Performs big trade value. Performs bad as history shows, take him another year at cheap price, try again. He's really bad, you just non-tender him next season. Solid guess would be Braun 25-30HRs, Carter 30-36HRs, and Davis 25-32HRs. I'll take seeing a HR from one of these 3 every other game.

[BrewersAA]

I love this signing, I was hoping for Pedro, but he couldn't have been had for 2.5 mil, which is pennies for the amount of dingers this guy can hit.

 

Now we all just need to pray for him to be at .250 with 20 dingers by the deadline and this deal might get even better!

[DuWayne Steurer]

Who are out Left handed position players going to be? To my recollection, we have: a platoon candidate in Scooter along with our 3b platoon candidate in Cechhini. Am I missing something here or wasn't one of the goals of this offseason was to get more left handed offense?

 

 

Going into a season when you are going to most likely win somewhere between 65 and 75 games, worrying about the handedness of your lineup should be of very little concern. As someone else said, finding semi-competent bodies to fill in until your prospects arrive is the goal. Carter is cheap, under team control for three years, and if he produces at 2014 levels, can most likely be flipped for a nice prospect or two. Those are the things that matter far more than what side of the plate he hits from right now.

[brewtank34]

Sounds good.

[MKE81]

There's no downside to this signing. Good move. Stearns is a beast.

[clancyphile]

My problem is that it's just a one-year deal. At least get an option year in the mix.

 

Seeing as he only has 3.159 years of service time, can't the Brewers control him for 3 years under arbitration? He can be a brewer through 2018? I am not sure how this works but hope someone here does.

 

Baseball Reference says he was granted free agency.

[trwi7]

We just signed Mark Reynolds. Would've preferred to just roll with Pinto.

[gregmag]

Hate this. He hasn't done squat since The X-Files.

[And That]

Baseball Reference says he was granted free agency.

He was non-tendered. He's still arbitration eligible and the Brewers hold his rights through 2018, if they so desire.

[3and2Fastball]

Chris Carter has averaged 30 HR's a season (35 HR's per 162 games) over the last 3 seasons

 

Stearns saw a lot of him in Houston. He obviously thinks Carter has some potential. Good solid signing. It's not like I was expecting more at 1B in 2016. Carter is worth rolling the dice on

[endaround]

We just signed Mark Reynolds. Would've preferred to just roll with Pinto.

That is incorrect. We just signed a poor fielding version of Mark Reynolds. Steamer actually has them with basically the same projected offense for 2016 (wRC+106 for Carter vs 101 for Reynolds).

 

A big ehhh... yeah he's 29 some he might have a better year left in him but since he was always "old player skills" he might be heading down quickly. $2.5 million would buy the type we return we got for Lind (which is why the return for Lind was bad but that is another topic).

[craigharmann]

Watched him first hand over the past two years. Guy has power, no doubt. In '14 he went on a HR tear in August/September that was huge. Crushing balls. But, last year, he played himself out of a job. Sat most of July and August. Ended up with a couple of key AB/homers that helped push the Astros into the playoffs. Defensively, he's alright. The Brewers could have done far worse in bringing someone else in, that's for sure.