Yelich to the Brewers in exchange for Brinson, Isan Diaz, M. Harrison and Yamamoto

[SRB]

He definitely over paid. Look at the proposals made by this board just a day before the actual trade. No one had anything like that deal. There were even some who stomped their feet at mere thought that the great Diaz would be an add on piece.

 

Yeah well no offense to BF but a lot of the proposals on here tend to not be very realistic.

 

As I said elsewhere in this thread, getting 5 years of Yelich for just two Baseball America Top 100 prospects, only one of which is a Top 50 prospect, is incredible. It's certainly not an overpay. BA rankings are a good way of stepping back to get objective value on players who we as Brewers fans are overfamiliar with and thus overvalue.

 

I wish them all the best, but none of the four are exactly slam-dunk prospects.

 

Brinson looked awful in the majors last year, and it's not like he's a 19-year-old, he's only 2 years younger than Yelich.

 

Diaz was mediocre last year (.710 OPS with 121 K in just 455 PA) despite being old for his level prospect-wise (21 in A+)

 

Harrison and Yamamoto were both fairly mediocre prior to last year, and although Harrison had a great year he was also comparatively old for A/A+

 

Yelich was already an above-average player in the major leagues by the time he was 21, and we have him for five years in his prime.

[jjfanec]

He definitely over paid. Look at the proposals made by this board just a day before the actual trade. No one had anything like that deal. There were even some who stomped their feet at mere thought that the great Diaz would be an add on piece.

 

Yeah well no offense to BF but a lot of the proposals on here tend to not be very realistic.

 

As I said elsewhere in this thread, getting 5 years of Yelich for just two Baseball America Top 100 prospects, only one of which is a Top 50 prospect, is incredible. It's certainly not an overpay. BA rankings are a good way of stepping back to get objective value on players who we as Brewers fans are overfamiliar with and thus overvalue.

 

Agreed. When brewerfan poster proposal are your barometer you will always think we lost a trade. Every fan base overvalues their own prospects/players and undervalues other teams'

[brewcrewdue80]

Taking the overlay posted on Yelich's Spray chart on Fly Balls- In Miami his Home numbers were:

.265/.352/.391/.743 7HRs

 

I believe 8 of those fly balls would result in HRs in MP with 2 that were outs in Miami. Changing the home overlay stats to:

..272/.358/.459/ .817 15HRs

 

His Road stats:

.299/.385/.484/ .869 11HRs

 

Season total becomes: .286/372/.472/ .844 26HRs about 108runs with 90RBI

 

At Wrigley: .344/.388/.590/.978 career

Busch: . .295/.347/.477/ .824

Great American: .180/.236/.280/ .516

PNC: .348/.394 /.621/ 1.016

 

FWIW.

[TURBO]

I think it is obvious we overpaid in both transactions, however, that is the market, and DS thought he had to do what he did. You have to pay to play.

 

Are we currently better for the 2018 season, yes.

 

Will this trade make us better in 2020, we shall see.

[StearnsFTW]

I think it is obvious we overpaid in both transactions, however, that is the market, and DS thought he had to do what he did. You have to pay to play.

 

Are we currently better for the 2018 season, yes.

 

Will this trade make us better in 2020, we shall see.

 

Ok. I don't think it's remotely obvious. I think they underpaid for Yelich and possibly by a lot.

 

Cain I think was market value for 3 or 4 years, but I think the 5th year hurts.

 

 

What I know for sure is that no one knows and no one will know for at least 3 years.

[SRB]

however, that is the market

 

Doesn't that mean.. it's not an overpay?

[pacopete4]

however, that is the market

 

Doesn't that mean.. it's not an overpay?

 

As I’m reading people talk about over pay as if this is 2002, the guys on MLB network are slobbering over the Cain acquisition. Speaking about how he only has to be a 2-win player per year for the contract to be worth it. Hell he could have that in two seasons.

[TURBO]

however, that is the market

 

Doesn't that mean.. it's not an overpay?

 

As I’m reading people talk about over pay as if this is 2002, the guys on MLB network are slobbering over the Cain acquisition. Speaking about how he only has to be a 2-win player per year for the contract to be worth it. Hell he could have that in two seasons.

 

We'll see how that plays out in years 4 and 5 of Cains contract. There is a pretty good chance we have that bloated contract on the books when we need to have the money for another player at that time, but will be strapped. I might be wrong, but so could everyone else.

[pacopete4]

 

As I’m reading people talk about over pay as if this is 2002, the guys on MLB network are slobbering over the Cain acquisition. Speaking about how he only has to be a 2-win player per year for the contract to be worth it. Hell he could have that in two seasons.

 

We'll see how that plays out in years 4 and 5 of Cains contract. There is a pretty good chance we have that bloated contract on the books when we need to have the money for another player at that time, but will be strapped. I might be wrong, but so could everyone else.

 

But you’re more missing he point. He will be nothing but a bonus in terms of the value of the contact by then. In year three he will, most likely, have made the contract worth it. And $18M in 2021 isn’t going to be holding the crew back if in contention just like Braun isn’t present day. You’re just looking for reasons to hate this because your beloved prospects are gone.

[82brewcrew82]

He definitely over paid. Look at the proposals made by this board just a day before the actual trade.

LOL!

[82brewcrew82]

I think it is obvious we overpaid in both transactions, however, that is the market

Ummmmmmmm?

[pacopete4]

He definitely over paid. Look at the proposals made by this board just a day before the actual trade.

LOL!

I’m actually feeling great about the fact that he thinks so highly of us.

[madbad2000]

We'll see how that plays out in years 4 and 5 of Cains contract. There is a pretty good chance we have that bloated contract on the books when we need to have the money for another player at that time, but will be strapped. I might be wrong, but so could everyone else.

 

I think the Brewers will be perfectly fine in years 4 and 5. I anticipate significant cash flow after three straight World Series titles.

[82brewcrew82]

We'll see how that plays out in years 4 and 5 of Cains contract. There is a pretty good chance we have that bloated contract on the books when we need to have the money for another player at that time, but will be strapped. I might be wrong, but so could everyone else.

Yeah but everyone else isn't on here beating a dead horse every chance they get. We get it, you don't like what they did. Tough, they did it.

[82brewcrew82]

He definitely over paid. Look at the proposals made by this board just a day before the actual trade.

LOL!

I’m actually feeling great about the fact that he thinks so highly of us.

Eh, he spent all season telling everyone he could how bad our minor league players were and now thinks this is an overpay. I'm pretty sure he just enjoys riling people up.

[EdgarDiazRocks]

I've generally been kind of "meh"

 

Hipster.

Resident.

 

[82brewcrew82]

Right now Yelich is a top 30 offensive player with potential upside. I think people are really underrating him.

 

For me it's not underrating him as much as wondering if the difference between him and what we already had was worth trading 4 prospects for. I would have prefered not to have done this deal but not overly fussed about it either. One thing I do like about this is he is the type of hitter that we don't have a lot of. I'm a fan of having different types of hitters in the lineup and we were missing his type of hit tools.

 

Completely 100% agree with you on this. Take away the aspects of the trade and I'm extremely happy that Yelich is a Brewer, he's the type of hitter I wish we had more of in the lineup. Trading 4 prospects for him is what I'm not extremely happy about.

But the assumption there is that any one of those prospects is going to amount to anything. All of the players traded had some serious question marks. It was reported that Tampa turned down Brinson as a center piece because they were scared of his hit tool. Harrison has the same issue. Who knows what Diaz really is. Point is, Miami has just about all the risk here and maybe they "win" this trade but the odds are against it.

[TJseven7]

The only guy I really worry about is Diaz. I doubt brinson can match yelich within his control. Harrison, well I dont value corner of as much as I should. Yes athletic enough for cf but I don't see that being his path. Yamamoto is interesting but a good lottery ticket.

 

Then comes diaz. I hate giving up diaz. If he pan out at 2b he could be an absolute monster. Like team altering monster. 2b with his potential are not common so that part freaks me out. I have to assume stearns feels huira would have arrived at about the same time and both are 2b only mlb players. Otherwise you treat Diaz like an elite arm and you just dont trade him. Really hope he nailed the Huira Lutz picks. They'd erase what we lost here if they pan out at a high level.

[danzig6767]

 

We'll see how that plays out in years 4 and 5 of Cains contract. There is a pretty good chance we have that bloated contract on the books when we need to have the money for another player at that time, but will be strapped. I might be wrong, but so could everyone else.

It was reported in multiple places that Cain had four year offers from three or four teams, and that sounds likely. The Brewers very well were one of those teams and when they finally offered a 5th year, a deal was done.

 

Clearly, Stearns and everyone here would have preferred it was only a four year deal or the 5th year a team option, but he wanted the deal to get done, so he offered five years.

 

Most here realize that the odds are higher that by the 5th year, Cain won't be productive in line with his salary. I'll be happy with three good years, a solid 4th year, and a 5th year where Cain is a fringe starter/platoon guy.

 

Most free agents are 30 or older and part of the deal when signing them to multi-year contracts is often the last year or two has those players in decline to deep decline.

[82brewcrew82]

The only guy I really worry about is Diaz. I doubt brinson can match yelich within his control. Harrison, well I dont value corner of as much as I should. Yes athletic enough for cf but I don't see that being his path. Yamamoto is interesting but a good lottery ticket.

 

Then comes diaz. I hate giving up diaz. If he pan out at 2b he could be an absolute monster. Like team altering monster. 2b with his potential are not common so that part freaks me out. I have to assume stearns feels huira would have arrived at about the same time and both are 2b only mlb players. Otherwise you treat Diaz like an elite arm and you just dont trade him. Really hope he nailed the Huira Lutz picks. They'd erase what we lost here if they pan out at a high level.

But at the end of the day that is still just an opinion right. The facts are that Diaz hasn't played above a-ball and he was OK in doing that. Some on here hate this trade because of Harrison, some hate it because of Yamamoto, some hate it because of Brinson. That alone shows how much risk the Marlins took on here.

[Lathund]

I haven't posted anything on the trade yet, because I'm still unsure exactly what to think. Not that I'm indifferent to it, just that I see both some real positives and real negatives, and I'm not quite sure how I value them and what the end result is. So I'll just use this post to sum up some of the points and see where I land afterwards. Beware of some rambling.

 

To start with, I should say that I don't think this was the year to make the big moves, I would have preferred to use 2018 to see if 2017 was real, to allow some top prospects to graduate and get ML playing time. But, I'll try to not let that get in the way of the analysis, as I can also see that the depressed FA market (Cain would've been long gone at a higher AAV in most previous years), the Marlins fire sale and the huge 2019 FA class and the incoming 40-man crunch making some arguments for why making these moves now makes sense.

 

We should first take a moment to appreaciate how rare the Yelich trade is. It's a 4-WAR (Average over his first 4½ seasons) All-star outfielder, under contract for 5 years (Or 4 years + team option, which is even better), through his age 26-30 seasons for an extremely team-friendly amount. The 5 years in particular, for such an established player, are very very rare. Even rarer that they get traded. The years of team control in particular will reflect the cost; when we compare this trade to other trades, nearly all of the comparisons are for fewer years, or higher salaries. And yet it gets judged by the same standard as those by many. Trades are always hard to judge as one can't predict the future. But there are projections and predictions (And Yelich is young, consistent and seemingly durable (155 and 156 games in 2016 and 2017) so should be comparatively easy to project), and there are very few players expected to be more valuable at the time of a trade than Yelich; at least I struggle to come up with any examples. (In a vacuum that is; Chapman was infinitely valuable in that he may have been the difference between WS and no WS, but not in raw numbers).

 

There simply aren't many opportunities to acquire players like this. There aren't many 26 year old FAs either; Bryce Harper will be one, and is clearly a better player. But that's also going to be the biggest contract ever, likely $400m+. Stanton had averaged less than 0.5 WAR more than Yelich (And was a year younger tbf) when signing his for $325m. What would Yelich get? I don't know, I'm not a great judge of the FA market, but it would be the kind of deal a club with a budget like the Brewers would never, ever make. So what I'm trying to say is that this is the only way to get a player like this. Brinson could become one, but probably not straight away. Meaning there'd need to be an early extension to make full use of it. And with more risk.

 

And risk brings us to the next point. Even a fair veteran for prospects trade is lopsided. The immediate (and 1-2 year) return is in favour of the club trading the veteran, and the overall value over the years of control is in favour of the other club. That's just the nature of it. You pay a premium for certainty. I would think it's not unreasonable to expect that Yelich will produce 15-25 WAR over the 5 years of control. The projections for Diaz, Harrison, Brinson and Yamamoto are much, much wider. With high-risk and high-ceiling prospects like Brinson, Harrison and Diaz it's even tougher than usual. The best case scenarios for Harrison and Brinson (i.e their hit tools becoming even above average) are superstars, 5+ WAR players, so 30 WAR each over their years of team control. Or they could never establish themselves in the majors. Or be 4th/5th OF types. Or simply average starters. Even when discounting the most unlikely outliers (i.e none of them making the majors, or all of them becoming superstars) you still have a very wide range. But even then, when weighing the various projections and scenarios together by their likelyhood you still end up at an expected value higher than the average for Yelich.

 

So, in that sense it's an 'overpay'. Every veteran for prospects trade is, by design. For one team a narrow and fairly certain range of outcomes is more valuable, at this time, than a more uncertain outcome but with a higher average outcome. So you're paying for certainty and decreased variance. You're also paying for knowing when you're getting that production, from which playing position, and in what manner. The Yelich trade is a great example of this IMO, where the prospects are very high risk and high variance and the veteran is very consistent and low risk.

 

There's also the fact that the three highest rated pieces in the deal were all position players, and the pitcher included wasn't one near the majors. Pitching prospects are much more volatile, much harder to predict. So if sustained success for the next 4-6 years or so is what you want, keeping hold of your AA and AAA (and ML) pitching prospects makes a whole lot of sense. Maybe the cost of the deal could have been lower had some top pitching prospect been included, but as much as much as I believe in Harrison and Brinson I value developing internal pitching options more. There's higher development risk in pitchers (TINSTAAPP and all that), but that's the kind of risk a small market team can bear, hence focus development on pitching. They also have a higher economic risk when making signings, but that's one risk a small market team can't bear, so I'd focus on position players there. So yeah, while I think the overall package could have been less had a Woodruff or Burnes or Ortiz been included, I'm still happy with this.

 

While this seems to signal a change in approach, I still don't believe it as an "all in" move. It's a move (Or moves, if we factor in Cain and the likely Santana trade) to signal the start of a competitive window (Which might be the kind of window that is intended to stay open for a loong time, or a "soft" window, or "Cardinals-style" type of approach, or whatever you want to call it), it's a move to shift from high-risk to low risk. By which I mean that a focus on retaining and developing all top, high-celing prospects, like Harrison, Brinson and Diaz, is perhaps the best way to build a true WS-favourite, a kind of one in a generation team. But it's also an approach that gives a pretty good chance of hardly ever going to the playoffs if things go wrong. Somehow I was a lot more against this type of move before it happened; looking at a prospect list and imaging those three names gone felt a lot worse than looking at the same lists now without these guys. It's still a strong system. The fact that they were traded for five full years of a young player helps; it's not a short-term move. The OF is set for several years now, but that just gives time for Grisham, Ray, Stokes, Lutz and the rest to develop quietly. That's the beauty of a deep system.

 

There's also the matter of what we do with Santana and in the FA market. It's still possible that the strengthening of the current rotation comes from free agency, say Alex Cobb. And that Santana is used to replenish the system. Won't bring a Harrison/Brinson/Diaz package of course, but perhaps prospects in a position of weakness. Looking at it like that, the balance off this offseason isn't either rebuilding or "going for it" in the traditional sense. It's a shift towards winning now, or winning soon(er), but more like reshaping than anything else. I don't think we'll see a massive buying spree, I still think that the team will rely a lot on the prospects (mainly pitching) to fill major roles in the team over the next few years and not just be used as trade chips.

 

A big question to ask though is how far these moves take us? Is it enough to be truly competitive? Was it too soon? Will we be caught somewhere inbetween, with neither the future value or present value we'd like? I guess that this already very long rant hasn't really brought any answers, so I'll stop for now (40-man issues being one thing I never even got to!). But the overarching feeling I get, surprisingly considering my views before the trade (and the Cain signing) is a fairly positive one. And that's despite believing that Brinson will be a huge success (And possibly he would not have been that here, not being given the development time needed during a competitive push), that Harrison is very high risk but worth it due to the sky-high potential, and that Diaz will be a productive MLB starter. But it depends also on what the next step is. I want these moves, and possible future ones, to supplement a focus on developing our own talent. Not as the starting signal for a series of short-term moves.

[Noche]

I haven't posted anything on the trade yet, because I'm still unsure exactly what to think. Not that I'm indifferent to it, just that I see both some real positives and real negatives, and I'm not quite sure how I value them and what the end result is. So I'll just use this post to sum up some of the points and see where I land afterwards. Beware of some rambling.

 

To start with, I should say that I don't think this was the year to make the big moves, I would have preferred to use 2018 to see if 2017 was real, to allow some top prospects to graduate and get ML playing time. But, I'll try to not let that get in the way of the analysis, as I can also see that the depressed FA market (Cain would've been long gone at a higher AAV in most previous years), the Marlins fire sale and the huge 2019 FA class and the incoming 40-man crunch making some arguments for why making these moves now makes sense.

 

We should first take a moment to appreaciate how rare the Yelich trade is. It's a 4-WAR (Average over his first 4½ seasons) All-star outfielder, under contract for 5 years (Or 4 years + team option, which is even better), through his age 26-30 seasons for an extremely team-friendly amount. The 5 years in particular, for such an established player, are very very rare. Even rarer that they get traded. The years of team control in particular will reflect the cost; when we compare this trade to other trades, nearly all of the comparisons are for fewer years, or higher salaries. And yet it gets judged by the same standard as those by many. Trades are always hard to judge as one can't predict the future. But there are projections and predictions (And Yelich is young, consistent and seemingly durable (155 and 156 games in 2016 and 2017) so should be comparatively easy to project), and there are very few players expected to be more valuable at the time of a trade than Yelich; at least I struggle to come up with any examples. (In a vacuum that is; Chapman was infinitely valuable in that he may have been the difference between WS and no WS, but not in raw numbers).

 

There simply aren't many opportunities to acquire players like this. There aren't many 26 year old FAs either; Bryce Harper will be one, and is clearly a better player. But that's also going to be the biggest contract ever, likely $400m+. Stanton had averaged less than 0.5 WAR more than Yelich (And was a year younger tbf) when signing his for $325m. What would Yelich get? I don't know, I'm not a great judge of the FA market, but it would be the kind of deal a club with a budget like the Brewers would never, ever make. So what I'm trying to say is that this is the only way to get a player like this. Brinson could become one, but probably not straight away. Meaning there'd need to be an early extension to make full use of it. And with more risk.

 

And risk brings us to the next point. Even a fair veteran for prospects trade is lopsided. The immediate (and 1-2 year) return is in favour of the club trading the veteran, and the overall value over the years of control is in favour of the other club. That's just the nature of it. You pay a premium for certainty. I would think it's not unreasonable to expect that Yelich will produce 15-25 WAR over the 5 years of control. The projections for Diaz, Harrison, Brinson and Yamamoto are much, much wider. With high-risk and high-ceiling prospects like Brinson, Harrison and Diaz it's even tougher than usual. The best case scenarios for Harrison and Brinson (i.e their hit tools becoming even above average) are superstars, 5+ WAR players, so 30 WAR each over their years of team control. Or they could never establish themselves in the majors. Or be 4th/5th OF types. Or simply average starters. Even when discounting the most unlikely outliers (i.e none of them making the majors, or all of them becoming superstars) you still have a very wide range. But even then, when weighing the various projections and scenarios together by their likelyhood you still end up at an expected value higher than the average for Yelich.

 

So, in that sense it's an 'overpay'. Every veteran for prospects trade is, by design. For one team a narrow and fairly certain range of outcomes is more valuable, at this time, than a more uncertain outcome but with a higher average outcome. So you're paying for certainty and decreased variance. You're also paying for knowing when you're getting that production, from which playing position, and in what manner. The Yelich trade is a great example of this IMO, where the prospects are very high risk and high variance and the veteran is very consistent and low risk.

 

There's also the fact that the three highest rated pieces in the deal were all position players, and the pitcher included wasn't one near the majors. Pitching prospects are much more volatile, much harder to predict. So if sustained success for the next 4-6 years or so is what you want, keeping hold of your AA and AAA (and ML) pitching prospects makes a whole lot of sense. Maybe the cost of the deal could have been lower had some top pitching prospect been included, but as much as much as I believe in Harrison and Brinson I value developing internal pitching options more. There's higher development risk in pitchers (TINSTAAPP and all that), but that's the kind of risk a small market team can bear, hence focus development on pitching. They also have a higher economic risk when making signings, but that's one risk a small market team can't bear, so I'd focus on position players there. So yeah, while I think the overall package could have been less had a Woodruff or Burnes or Ortiz been included, I'm still happy with this.

 

While this seems to signal a change in approach, I still don't believe it as an "all in" move. It's a move (Or moves, if we factor in Cain and the likely Santana trade) to signal the start of a competitive window (Which might be the kind of window that is intended to stay open for a loong time, or a "soft" window, or "Cardinals-style" type of approach, or whatever you want to call it), it's a move to shift from high-risk to low risk. By which I mean that a focus on retaining and developing all top, high-celing prospects, like Harrison, Brinson and Diaz, is perhaps the best way to build a true WS-favourite, a kind of one in a generation team. But it's also an approach that gives a pretty good chance of hardly ever going to the playoffs if things go wrong. Somehow I was a lot more against this type of move before it happened; looking at a prospect list and imaging those three names gone felt a lot worse than looking at the same lists now without these guys. It's still a strong system. The fact that they were traded for five full years of a young player helps; it's not a short-term move. The OF is set for several years now, but that just gives time for Grisham, Ray, Stokes, Lutz and the rest to develop quietly. That's the beauty of a deep system.

 

There's also the matter of what we do with Santana and in the FA market. It's still possible that the strengthening of the current rotation comes from free agency, say Alex Cobb. And that Santana is used to replenish the system. Won't bring a Harrison/Brinson/Diaz package of course, but perhaps prospects in a position of weakness. Looking at it like that, the balance off this offseason isn't either rebuilding or "going for it" in the traditional sense. It's a shift towards winning now, or winning soon(er), but more like reshaping than anything else. I don't think we'll see a massive buying spree, I still think that the team will rely a lot on the prospects (mainly pitching) to fill major roles in the team over the next few years and not just be used as trade chips.

 

A big question to ask though is how far these moves take us? Is it enough to be truly competitive? Was it too soon? Will we be caught somewhere inbetween, with neither the future value or present value we'd like? I guess that this already very long rant hasn't really brought any answers, so I'll stop for now (40-man issues being one thing I never even got to!). But the overarching feeling I get, surprisingly considering my views before the trade (and the Cain signing) is a fairly positive one. And that's despite believing that Brinson will be a huge success (And possibly he would not have been that here, not being given the development time needed during a competitive push), that Harrison is very high risk but worth it due to the sky-high potential, and that Diaz will be a productive MLB starter. But it depends also on what the next step is. I want these moves, and possible future ones, to supplement a focus on developing our own talent. Not as the starting signal for a series of short-term moves.

 

I have not commented on this move yet either but I will just say this post is the most coherent and elegant train of thought presented thus far. Well said. +1

[igor67]

I've come around to actually liking both, though I do think we really to add a big addition to the rotation to maximize the value of the moves. Yelich is basically everything we hope Brinson might become and there were already cautionary signs that he might fall well short of that. My only negativity was really emotional attachment. Harrison was the big tool guy we drafted to get impact players and it looked like that was starting to pay-off. But Yelich is like the best of getting a free agent and the best of having a great prospect. Now it is certainly fair to think that we can't do too many more deals like that or the team will have a very short shelf life as it ages quickly without enough young talent to cycle in.

 

Things potentially look even better anticipating some kind of return for someone out of the Aguilar/Thames/Santana group.

 

Cain put me down in the camp that 5 years is not too long as long as your expectation is not that he'll give more value then he is being paid every year. With his profile it is easy to imagine him being a solid or better 4th outfielder in that 5th year. If you've gotten good value the other years that is not a disastrous hit by any means.

[PeaveyFury]

We should first take a moment to appreaciate how rare the Yelich trade is. It's a 4-WAR (Average over his first 4½ seasons) All-star outfielder, under contract for 5 years (Or 4 years + team option, which is even better), through his age 26-30 seasons for an extremely team-friendly amount. The 5 years in particular, for such an established player, are very very rare. Even rarer that they get traded.

There simply aren't many opportunities to acquire players like this.

 

I love this point, and wanted to highlight it one more time for emphasis. This deal is atypical for a number of reasons: it's not an 'acquire a pricey, older veteran for prospects to contend' or 'dump a veteran-soon-to-be-FA for prospects' deal that make up 95% of MLB trades. It was a 'trade a young all-star with a long-term, team-friendly contract for prospects' deal that makes sense based on what both teams are trying to do.

 

If another opportunity to make a similar trade happens next year, I'd be all over that too.

[Eye Black]

Taking the overlay posted on Yelich's Spray chart on Fly Balls- In Miami his Home numbers were:

.265/.352/.391/.743 7HRs

 

I believe 8 of those fly balls would result in HRs in MP with 2 that were outs in Miami. Changing the home overlay stats to:

..272/.358/.459/ .817 15HRs

 

His Road stats:

.299/.385/.484/ .869 11HRs

 

Season total becomes: .286/372/.472/ .844 26HRs about 108runs with 90RBI

 

At Wrigley: .344/.388/.590/.978 career

Busch: . .295/.347/.477/ .824

Great American: .180/.236/.280/ .516

PNC: .348/.394 /.621/ 1.016

 

FWIW.

To bad Gerrit Cole is no longer in the division, Yelich’s career line versus Cole: 9 hits in 17 ABs, 2 doubles, 3 HRs, 3 BB, 1.776 OPS. He has also excelled against some other notable pitchers including Max Scherzer (7–for-17, 2B, 3B, 2 HRs, 2 BB, 1.415 OPS), Jacob deGrom (14-for-32, 2 2Bs, 2 BB, .971 OPS), and Aaron Nola (6-for-16, 2B, 3B, BB, 1.125 OPS). He’s also 5-for-11 against Kershaw (all singles). All are extremely small sample sizes obviously.