Brewers Acquire Angels C Jett Bandy for Maldonado and Drew Gagnon

[FVBrewerFan]

I'd like to point out that statements about Nottingham like "we placed him aggressively" are a nice way of saying they aren't giving up on him, but left unsaid is they had hoped he'd done better and that they want to see improvement this year.

 

No doubt. No different than a lot of guys in our Top 25. I mean looking at the list, you could say that about literally half the guys on that list.

[Mudville9]

 

Well it's obvious, they got him because he looks like Lucroy, and therefore will be a stud.

 

Seriously though, I think this makes complete sense. No reason to keep Maldonado around if you can get someone younger that lines up with their hopeful timeline for being competitive.

 

Now they can have a Jett Bandy bobblehead doll and use all the old ones that are sitting around Miller Park!

[brewerfan82]

"The philosophy of building a sustainable playoff team is not a secret. You need to acquire, develop and keep controllable, young talent." - David Stearns

 

Bandy's entering his age 27 year and is controllable through 2021. Maldy's entering his age 30/31 year and is controllable through 2018. Bandy's MLB offense isn't anything to wow you so far (.237/.283/.408/.690, 89 OPS+), but it's only been a small sample of 233 ABs, so there's room to grow. We pretty much know what Maldy is in his 1094 career ABs, and it's similar, if not a bit worse, to what Bandy's shown so far (.217/.299/.342/.640, 73 OPS+). Plus it looks like Bandy could be a nice threat to pop a homer here and there in the lineup.

 

This probably isn't a star in the making, but we got 4 years younger, got a little upside, and gained three extra years of control at catcher. At worst, if he can continue to show he's serviceable, it's a really nice move by Stearns to help make sure in a few years we're not overspending on a veteran, backup catcher. At best (although I don't think he'll have the playing time to do so), he drops a 30 homerun/40% caught stealing season in there somewhere and we've got a nice commodity on our hands. Seems lofty, but he's already got 15-20 HR power and seems like the Brewers think he can add to that.

[ebmackenzie]

Read in another link as well that Jett is supposedly the loose clubhouse guy that others gravitate towards. Good! this 65 win club will need one of those. He also said that he hates striking out...a great thing to hear out of such a big guy. I like the youth, extra control, lower salary, and 40% CS rate.

 

Deal.

[pacopete4]

Read in another link as well that Jett is supposedly the loose clubhouse guy that others gravitate towards. Good! this 65 win club will need one of those. He also said that he hates striking out...a great thing to hear out of such a big guy. I like the youth, extra control, lower salary, and 40% CS rate.

 

Deal.

 

 

Bump it 10 games and I agree with all you said.

[monty57]

I like the move because it allows them to keep Susac/Bandy and Pina in the organization rather easily. Before the only way to keep all three was to have Maldonado/Pina in the bigs and Susac still in the minors. Now they can go with Susac/Pina and use the last option year on Bandy this year. If Pina proves to be a decent backup maybe they can get something for him in a trade and have Susac/Bandy in 2018 and lets see where Nottingham is at in 2019.

 

I think this is important. Barring injury, we're likely to start the season with Susac as our starter, with Pina as the backup and Bandy in AAA. If everything goes perfectly and no one gets hurt, then we will have gained one more year of Bandy, and we'll have a decision to make next offseason with three MLB catchers with no options. Or, in the likely scenario that we need Bandy up at the MLB level at some point in the season, it will be nice to know that he actually deserves to be there and isn't just AAA fodder.

[StearnsFTW]

I think this moves lets us trade Nottingham for a bad defensive left fielder who has no offensive skill except power.

 

[Mass Haas]

Via Halo's Heaven:

 

Jett Bandy and Martin Maldonado: a lesson in asset allocation

Cool your Jetts, everyone. Let’s take a second look

[CheezWizHed]

I think this moves lets us trade Nottingham for a bad defensive left fielder who has no offensive skill except power.

 

 

Please... you need at to throw in a lottery ticket A-ball pitcher to pull that one off.

[StearnsFTW]

I think this moves lets us trade Nottingham for a bad defensive left fielder who has no offensive skill except power.

 

 

Please... you need at to throw in a lottery ticket A-ball pitcher to pull that one off.

 

Preferably named after a hat.

[ebmackenzie]

Brew4U...we can debate this point on another page but...

 

This is not a good team with Braun and I think that starters and Braun are gone soon...and I am ok with that..but we are not a 75 win team now and really won't be then. The homer skew on these sites is very real and I am actually pulling for a top 3 draft pick if we are not going to be in the wild card conversation.

[pacopete4]

I don't think saying this team can win 75 games is being a homer. But carry on with pulling for loses. Should be a fun summer.

[ebmackenzie]

Kind of my point with Jett's spirit...thanks.

[Jenkins5]

I remember all last season when the only thing we heard about was how we would loss 100..... CC will not tank & will get more out of this team than expected. Only thing that helps get to your goal is Cards loading back up, Cubs loaded, and if Pirates stay strong.

[adambr2]

My best guess is we'll win close to 70-75 if we keep Braun, closer to 65-70 if we trade him.

 

There is no way Counsell is going to tank a team and I agree that would be a bad option. Depending on how obvious it was it would be more damaging in backlash from the fan base and bad PR than it would be worth those extra 5-10 draft spots anyway. Typically in an MLB draft there isn't even enough difference between 5 spots or so to even make tanking a worthwhile strategy.

 

Rebuilding does not equal tanking. Counsell should and will take whatever 25 players he is given every day and try to win as many games as possible with them. That's his job, and that should be our mentality.

[brewcrewdue80]

Well, finally solved the Maldonado trade potential. Depth at Catcher is always good.

 

To the Win potential? Really 65 games? I got 5grand that wont happen. Unless the season was reduced to 140games I wasnt aware of? Theres too much offensive potential and bad pitching from Nelson, Peralta, Garza to be reversed to suggest this again after last season. You now know of Villar, Broxton/Santana had great 2nd halfs, Arcia will be more experienced. Thames/Shaw/catcher unknowns but upside in all 3. The only way this team doesnt reach 70+wins again are injuries and a pitching staff that is 5ERA all around. And yet, injury concern is lessoned by the depth all over! Name a position that doesnt have 3players in depth. Ok, 1b has 2 certains. 3rd I wouldnt know, but how often do 1b get hurt?

[Lee16]

I just hope someone at Miller Park leads the crowd in a riff off the football cheer...

 

J!

E!

T!

T!

Jett! Jett! Jett!

[Jenkins5]

I just hope someone at Miller Park leads the crowd in a riff off the football cheer...

 

J!

E!

T!

T!

Jett! Jett! Jett!

 

Love where your head is at! In late inning big at bats, the jumbotron should get this going!Get the whole crowd chanting!

[CheezWizHed]

The homer skew on these sites is very real and I am actually pulling for a top 3 draft pick if we are not going to be in the wild card conversation.

 

Certainly most of us are homers. Some are even grand slams.

 

But most are pretty realistic about the team's talent level. If I remember last year's thread on W/L predictions, the team over-performed most people's prediction.

[JohnBriggs12]

There's enough unknowns on this team to make for a fairly wide range of possible outcomes as far as W/L record. Braun is one of the few knowns and he's worth about 5 games unless they get back an equal amount in a deal for him. If 75 wins is the mid-point, then 65 wins is in play and so is 85. There's years where 85 wins contends and at the very least would make for a fun season. What I'd just like to see is they give this group a fair shot to surprise and not deal potentially their best starter in Guerra and their best hitter in Braun who are both controllable. If they are way out of it in July, fine, shop whomever for the best deal. But there's no pressing need to know in my opinion.

[monty57]

There's enough unknowns on this team to make for a fairly wide range of possible outcomes as far as W/L record. Braun is one of the few knowns and he's worth about 5 games unless they get back an equal amount in a deal for him. If 75 wins is the mid-point, then 65 wins is in play and so is 85. There's years where 85 wins contends and at the very least would make for a fun season. What I'd just like to see is they give this group a fair shot to surprise and not deal potentially their best starter in Guerra and their best hitter in Braun who are both controllable. If they are way out of it in July, fine, shop whomever for the best deal. But there's no pressing need to know in my opinion.

 

Does Braun's 10/5 no trade situation start at opening day, or at the end of the season?

[MadScientist]

The homer skew on these sites is very real and I am actually pulling for a top 3 draft pick if we are not going to be in the wild card conversation.

 

Certainly most of us are homers. Some are even grand slams.

 

But most are pretty realistic about the team's talent level. If I remember last year's thread on W/L predictions, the team over-performed most people's prediction.

 

Here's the thread.

http://forum.brewerfan.net/viewtopic.php?f=63&t=33847&p=976995&hilit=predictions#p976995

 

The win-loss predictions are a reasonable distribution around an average number of wins in the low 70's. This team is staring to bring up talent, and even without Braun 75 wins isn't pie-in-the-sky dreaming. Trading a starting pitcher or two might well push the expected wins into the 60's.

 

Our predictions involving individual players was a little less correlated with reality.

[Oldcity]

 

Does Braun's 10/5 no trade situation start at opening day, or at the end of the season?

 

It's ten years of MLB service time. He was called up some time in May, so it would kick in then.

[MKE81]

Well, finally solved the Maldonado trade potential. Depth at Catcher is always good.

 

To the Win potential? Really 65 games? I got 5grand that wont happen. Unless the season was reduced to 140games I wasnt aware of? Theres too much offensive potential and bad pitching from Nelson, Peralta, Garza to be reversed to suggest this again after last season. You now know of Villar, Broxton/Santana had great 2nd halfs, Arcia will be more experienced. Thames/Shaw/catcher unknowns but upside in all 3. The only way this team doesnt reach 70+wins again are injuries and a pitching staff that is 5ERA all around. And yet, injury concern is lessoned by the depth all over! Name a position that doesnt have 3players in depth. Ok, 1b has 2 certains. 3rd I wouldnt know, but how often do 1b get hurt?

Couldn't agree more. Brewers had 73 wins last year. The OF was a nightmare. Braun, Broxton, Santana, Kirk, Flores, Perez combined for 1,698 AB. Braun had 30% of those. 23% comes from Santana who had his highs and lows but overall he was solid and the white hot portion of Broxton. The remaining 47% comes from Kirk, Flores, Perez (vast majority of ABs in RF where he wasn't good offensively those nights) and the first 3.75 months of a bad Broxton (795 AB). HALF of our total OF ABs accounted for hot garbage basically. A healthy Braun, Broxton, Santana (based on the finishing couple months of those 2) should be a sizeable upgrade from last year. Catcher is a downgrade from Lucroy, however Susac and company should be great upgrades from Maldonado the final 2 months. Thames won't hit 40HR but he should be a better defensive player and a more well-rounded hitter than Carter. Villar is a huge upgrade at 2b over Scooter. Arcia's defense alone is very valuable and he'll progress offensively with time. Hill put up very good numbers at 3b and so did Perez. Given Shaw's defense is definitely better than both of those guys and he'll hit for more power than them both I think it's either a wash or upgrade. Splitting some time with Perez can be beneficial for both as well. I would bank on Peralta, Garza, Nelson pitching better than their overall numbers last year. Even if Guerra regresses and Davies remains similar that rotation is definitely more productive than last year, which automatically makes this team more competitive. The pen obviously takes hits with Smith/Jeffress/Thornburg gone. Smith's numbers in the first half are replaceable. Hopefully some guys step up this year and are solid. The bench should be better too. Hader is waiting in the wings to upgrade a rotation spot. Brinson is waiting in AAA. This team should have mid-70s as a realistic number with nobody being shocked if we hit upper 70s.

[MKE81]

Regarding the topic at hand, great move for same reasons that have been stated. But Susac should absolutely be the starting catcher and given the best chance to hold that spot. He has the highest ceiling of them all as well as more MLB experience.

 

Briggs, you can cherry pick Susac's 777 OPS vs Bandy's 790 at the AAA level saying they're similar hitters but the reality is they're not. Susac has put up a strong OBP/OPS at every level while Bandy had an outlier year in 2015 in AAA, which accounts for like 70% of his AAA numbers. Bandy did have a solid AA as well. But Susac has hit year in and year out. He's good, not great. Whereas Bandy has flashed but hasn't been consistent.

 

Susac was playing injured (I think wrist?) in the 11 games at AAA with us before being shelved for a couple weeks. Subtract those awful numbers over those 11 games due to injury and his career AAA looks like 273/360/818 in 129 games.

 

Susac/Bandy combo would be pretty solid especially when factoring in Bandy's defense. I think if Susac's defense can hang in there he'll be the starter as he has a better hit tool.