Braun trade ideas to Giants

[nate82]

Braun has value as a DH and part-time LF in the American League, in particular the AL East. That is where I would look to move him.

 

Both the Yankees and the Red Sox are trying to get under the penalty for being over the salary cap so they are able to sign one of Harper, Machado, or Donaldson. The options for Braun right now is basically the Brewers. Last off season was the last chance the Brewers had in trading Braun and when the Dodgers backed out and decided to go with Puig instead of Braun that ended the Brewers chances of trading Braun.

 

Nearly all of the big market teams are trying to get under the cap penalty to be able to sign either Harper, Machado, or Donaldson. You can cross off the Dodgers, Giants, Angels, Red Sox, and the Yankees off a possible landing spot for Braun unless the Brewers are willing to take on about 75% of Braun's salary and that just doesn't make much sense to do because you are not going to be getting much in return.

 

The best bet for the Brewers is to actually hope that MLB implements the DH in both leagues as this would help the Brewers out tremendously with the Braun situation. The Brewers still won't be able to trade Braun but at least they will be able to get him out of the OF and improve the defense there even if it is a very small one with moving Santana to LF.

[markedman5]

Just listened to an interview on WTMJ with Braun.

 

He said the only team he "might" approve a trade to was the Dodgers. Sounds like as long as the Brewers are winning he might not even do that.

 

Said he would switch positions if asked.....but not 3rd base.

 

Not sure how much longer he will play.....depends on his health and his family.

[TURBO]

I hate to say it, but if he were to retire after the 2018 season, it would be the best thing for the Brewers.

 

I have been a Braun fan since he came up, stuck by him through all the PED crap, but if he is only going to be a shell of his former self, it would benefit us if he were to retire before his contract runs out since I doubt anyone will give up anything of value in a trade.

 

I'm all for giving him another year to see what happens, but my leash will be short...

 

If he were to retire tomorrow, I think I'd be ok with that.

[pacopete4]

I don’t blame him for not wanting to leave. Team is just starting to rise again and he is treated well in Milwaukee. Like others have stated, I can’t see him giving up $20M per year and retiring. I like to hear that he’s open to switching to 1B (at least that’s what I’m assuming the position change was about). Could save on his body a bit. Move Aguilar and have Braun as your starter there vs. LHP.

[Roderick]

I don’t blame him for not wanting to leave. Team is just starting to rise again and he is treated well in Milwaukee. Like others have stated, I can’t see him giving up $20M per year and retiring. I like to hear that he’s open to switching to 1B (at least that’s what I’m assuming the position change was about). Could save on his body a bit. Move Aguilar and have Braun as your starter there vs. LHP.

 

If Braun gets the lefty starts at 1B, that would eliminate a "push" to trade an OF, you would only be trading if you are getting a decent deal back. We would have enough playing time to spread around and keep everyone fresh, but not rusty. Aguilar is cheap, so can stick on roster for pinch hitting. Perez isn't cheap anymore, but not too expensive to keep as super utility (but less OF) player.

 

Braun 45 starts at 1B

Thames 115 starts at 1B

 

Braun 65 starts in LF

Santana 150 starts in RF

Phillips/Brinson/Broxton 270 starts in OF spread around until two have earned an everyday role. Whoever is sitting is available as pinch hitters and late inning defensive replacements for Braun and Santana.

Perez only gets injury starts or if 2/3 of P/B/B don't do anything with the bat.

[Underachiever]

I spent a lot of time in the Bay Area this year for work. No one thinks the Giants are going to rebuild, because they don't believe that they can sell a rebuild to that fan base, given recent success and the exorbitant prices they charge. The media expect them to be heavy players in free agency.

 

My thought is that people have a lot of money out there, and everything is so ridiculously expensive, that people will still come out. They certainly aren't going to become A's fans.

[bill hAll Star]

I spent a lot of time in the Bay Area this year for work. No one thinks the Giants are going to rebuild, because they don't believe that they can sell a rebuild to that fan base, given recent success and the exorbitant prices they charge. The media expect them to be heavy players in free agency.

 

My thought is that people have a lot of money out there, and everything is so ridiculously expensive, that people will still come out. They certainly aren't going to become A's fans.

 

Also throw in the fact that they're tied to this overpaid team. I do think that teams would probably take on Cueto/Shark if they wanted to trade some of them, but they have Posey and Bumgarner at the back end of their primes - might as well try to see if you can cobble it together for 2 more years and then probably blow it all up. The problem for them is that their division is absolutely loaded.

[jerichoholicninja]

The Giants are interesting because they've done pretty much everything you can do to prevent yourself from having a consistently competitive team over a long period (trade prospects, sign/resign aging players) and yet over the last 10 years they've won less than 84 games only 3 times (and never twice within a 5 year span), been to the playoffs 4 times, and won 3 world series. There's only a couple franchises that have had similar or better success over that same time.

[bill hAll Star]

The Giants are interesting because they've done pretty much everything you can do to prevent yourself from having a consistently competitive team over a long period (trade prospects, sign/resign aging players) and yet over the last 10 years they've won less than 84 games only 3 times (and never twice within a 5 year span), been to the playoffs 4 times, and won 3 world series. There's only a couple franchises that have had similar or better success over that same time.

 

I'm not sure this is a bad strategy for big markets. Most of these teams still let the cream of the crop rise to get to their team (we have to go way back for Posey/MadBum and Belt/Crawford/Panik/etc. while not great were allowed to come up).

 

The Red Sox are still good even though they've mostly done this. The Yankees went bizarro for a bit, trading for prospects, but generally sign big $ guys and trade prospects. The Nats went out and spent big $ on Scherzer, Werth, traded prospects at certain times (Giolito recently). Detroit did this for almost a decade and it's finally crumbling. The Dodgers have gotten smarter lately but they had/have a lot of aging players. Friedman probably extended their window by another 5 years. The Cubs are beginning to do this. The Rangers had a nice window doing this.

 

Long story short, it's a good idea for big market teams. Sure, when it crashes, it crashes HARD...but when a big market team has several superstars, it makes sense to plug deficient spots on your roster with overpaid, $10-20 million players instead of hoping your farm system depth does the trick.

 

Bonus points for the Giants: Most of their $ on older players has gone to aging pitchers. Zito and backside-of-career Cain/Lincecum resulted in a ton of dead $ but they also had the best pitching staff in baseball for a good part of that decade.

 

All of these teams (see: Rangers, Tigers, Giants, all coming down from being the best teams in the league ~2010-2015) do have to sit on a garbage heap of contracts for 3 years while they rebuild, but in general, it pays off. Of course the Tigers and Rangers fell short several times but I'd say they had pretty good runs.

 

One could argue it was a bad idea for the Giants to try to open the window up once more with Samardzjia, Cueto, etc. but "it's not my money" and it's not the worst idea in the world to see if you can win it once more with Posey and Bumgarner around the age of 30, give or take a few years. In hindsight, they were probably better off trading Bumgarner and Posey for a haul and seeing if they'd be ready to compete for titles again in 2020, but they'll just start that process 2 years later now. Heck, they're still getting a great draft pick this year to kick start the rebuild if they fail again in 2018 and/or 2019.

[reillymcshane]

I don't think SF will rebuild this off season. They had a lot of injuries and underperforming players last season - they'll bank on some guys rebounding.

 

No doubt they have a lot of older players. But they are losing some of those types (Matt Cain this year, Span and Pence are done after 2018). And a rotation starting with Cueto, Bumgarner, Samardzija and Moore is pretty interesting (could be very good, could be bad).

 

I just don't see those guys getting traded as SF has such little depth in the rotation. Tyler Beede is their best prospect - by far - and he's not very good looking at this time.

 

They could really use a CF - moving Span to LF. Broxton might be a decent fit for them if we elect to put him on the market. He's cheap and would fit well in SF's park.

 

SF is pretty close to the luxury tax, so they don't have a ton of money to spend this year. Moustakas might be fit for them if they don't believe in Christian Arroyo. Or if they use Panik as a trade chip and move Arroyo to 2B.

 

If the Giants tank again next year, a mini-rebuild might happen - but probably not until the trade deadline when the team is clearly not going to win.

[Warning Track Power]

http://www.wtmj.com/shows/sports-central/everyone-realizedwe-should-stay-in-it-says-ryan-braun-on-the-17-brewers

Given this interview, I think we can put to bed any notion of Braun going anywhere but the Dodgers.

[monty57]

I figured that last offseason was our last chance to trade Braun. There didn't seem to be much interest then, so I've just accepted that he will be a Brewer for the rest of his contract. He's still a capable hitter, but he'll miss time with various injuries. That makes it good that we have some outfield depth.

 

That said, I could still see the Brewers trading Broxton this offseason, as Phillips and Brinson are both ready (or very close).

[FVBrewerFan]

I hate to say it, but if he were to retire after the 2018 season, it would be the best thing for the Brewers.

 

I have been a Braun fan since he came up, stuck by him through all the PED crap, but if he is only going to be a shell of his former self, it would benefit us if he were to retire before his contract runs out since I doubt anyone will give up anything of value in a trade.

 

I'm all for giving him another year to see what happens, but my leash will be short...

 

If he were to retire tomorrow, I think I'd be ok with that.

 

Exactly how I feel. I don't wish I'll will on him, and yea there's a chance he could have a big year in 2018 or even 2020. But if he retired today it wouldn't be a bummer for me.

[monty57]

I wouldn't get my hopes too high that Braun will retire. Not only would be be throwing away a lot of money, but there is no way he feels that he's "a shell of his former self."

 

Teams get stuck with contracts all the time. I have been torn over whether I wanted him to be traded over the past couple of seasons, but if you're going to get stuck with a contract at least Braun is still somewhat productive and can go down as one of the only good players to be a Brewer for life. He'll end up with most Brewer offensive records, and we'll finally have another player who deserves to have his number retired. We only have four of those in the history of the franchise, and two or those (Aaron and Fingers) only spent a small part of their career as a Brewer.

[FVBrewerFan]

I wouldn't get my hopes too high that Braun will retire. Not only would be be throwing away a lot of money, but there is no way he feels that he's "a shell of his former self."

 

Teams get stuck with contracts all the time. I have been torn over whether I wanted him to be traded over the past couple of seasons, but if you're going to get stuck with a contract at least Braun is still somewhat productive and can go down as one of the only good players to be a Brewer for life. He'll end up with most Brewer offensive records, and we'll finally have another player who deserves to have his number retired. We only have four of those in the history of the franchise, and two or those (Aaron and Fingers) only spent a small part of their career as a Brewer.

 

Agree with all of that. And to be clear, in no way do I expect Braun to retire. More of a "what if" comment by me above.

[TURBO]

I wouldn't get my hopes too high that Braun will retire. Not only would be be throwing away a lot of money, but there is no way he feels that he's "a shell of his former self."

 

Teams get stuck with contracts all the time. I have been torn over whether I wanted him to be traded over the past couple of seasons, but if you're going to get stuck with a contract at least Braun is still somewhat productive and can go down as one of the only good players to be a Brewer for life. He'll end up with most Brewer offensive records, and we'll finally have another player who deserves to have his number retired. We only have four of those in the history of the franchise, and two or those (Aaron and Fingers) only spent a small part of their career as a Brewer.

 

Agree with all of that. And to be clear, in no way do I expect Braun to retire. More of a "what if" comment by me above.

 

Same, I have no delusions that he will retire and leave all that money on the table...