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

[adambr2]

 

I think the point is if we are working towards always being a contender we should never knowingly overpay someone for the year they are playing. Braun's contract already hurt us. Imagine if the money spent on him the past four years were spent on players worth that much money. To me the contract's total amount is only half the issue. How it's structured is the other half. Knowingly overpaying someone at the end of the contract for gains at the beginning of the contract creates a cycle of a couple years of good teams followed by a couple years of terrible teams. The goal is to be St Louis not Pittsburgh.

 

It’s been overstated so many times that Braun’s contract hurts us. Well it didn’t stop us from adding over $20M to our outfield for years to come a few days ago. Not only that but if 1WAR = $8M, I think Braun will probably do alright in getting the value out of that contract. Also you may want to check out who the Cardinals are paying money to over there in St. Louis. Lol

 

Sure it does. Are you saying if we had the chance to be free and clear of Braun's contract in exchange for not having him anymore, you wouldn't take it? There would be no reason to trade Santana, you would still be loaded in the OF, and you'd have more than enough money to go after Darvish or Arrieta and still have a ton of flexibility to make other moves. Right now, they could probably still make such a move but would be approaching the limit of what they'll probably be willing to spend. Any way you slice it, $20M spent is $20M less in spending power that you have.

 

I am not saying Braun's contract is a disaster, although I disagree that we're going to get the value out of his remaining 3 years and $61M. He's projected for 1.5 WAR in 2018 and that number is certainly trending downward.

[pacopete4]

 

I think the point is if we are working towards always being a contender we should never knowingly overpay someone for the year they are playing. Braun's contract already hurt us. Imagine if the money spent on him the past four years were spent on players worth that much money. To me the contract's total amount is only half the issue. How it's structured is the other half. Knowingly overpaying someone at the end of the contract for gains at the beginning of the contract creates a cycle of a couple years of good teams followed by a couple years of terrible teams. The goal is to be St Louis not Pittsburgh.

 

It’s been overstated so many times that Braun’s contract hurts us. Well it didn’t stop us from adding over $20M to our outfield for years to come a few days ago. Not only that but if 1WAR = $8M, I think Braun will probably do alright in getting the value out of that contract. Also you may want to check out who the Cardinals are paying money to over there in St. Louis. Lol

 

Sure it does. Are you saying if we had the chance to be free and clear of Braun's contract in exchange for not having him anymore, you wouldn't take it? There would be no reason to trade Santana, you would still be loaded in the OF, and you'd have more than enough money to go after Darvish or Arrieta and still have a ton of flexibility to make other moves. Right now, they could probably still make such a move but would be approaching the limit of what they'll probably be willing to spend. Any way you slice it, $20M spent is $20M less in spending power that you have.

 

I am not saying Braun's contract is a disaster, although I disagree that we're going to get the value out of his remaining 3 years and $61M. He's projected for 1.5 WAR in 2018 and that number is certainly trending downward.

 

If they wanted to go get a pitcher, they could go get one. Braun isn’t stopping that just like he didn’t stop the latest two acquisitions. The Brewers knew their financial “spending power” and have a way better idea of what that is than any poster we have. No real debating it anymore. The same people who bag on Braun and his contract have been saying the same things on repeat and yet, here we are, spending. We worry more about pennies around here. It’s cute, but it’s old and tiresome.

[LouisEly]

One thing not mentioned much in this thread is that I think there's a strong possibility Stearns and the front office are internally down on Brinson relative to his external market value as a top-20 prospect. You can't really keep him in AAA any longer, and what if he tanks again over a longer sample size in the majors in 2018? They could strongly believe that they sold Brinson at his peak value.

I also think that this and other moves signal that Stearns and his analytics team think that OF defense/range is undervalued in the market. Replacing Santana with Yelich, signing Cain, drafting athletic OFs in the 1st round three years in a row (Grisham, Ray, Lutz - who played CF this past year). Yeah, they gave up an athletic OF in Brinson but replaced him with two.

[adambr2]

If they wanted to go get a pitcher, they could go get one. Braun isn’t stopping that just like he didn’t stop the latest two acquisitions. The Brewers knew their financial “spending power” and have a way better idea of what that is than any poster we have. No real debating it anymore. The same people who bag on Braun and his contract have been saying the same things on repeat and yet, here we are, spending. We worry more about pennies around here. It’s cute, but it’s old and tiresome.

 

The reason it hasn't stopped acquisitions is that they've been carrying a very low payroll because of the rebuild. If they made some moves and stretched out their payroll like they had it 5 years ago, then of course it costs them that much more in buying power. Their payroll limit is whatever it is, Braun's $20M obviously contributes to that and if they approach that limit as they have in the past than that flexibility is gone.

 

Seems like a pretty fundamental concept, but no one is forcing you to agree. But the fact that you don't doesn't make it cute, nor old, nor tiresome, nor wrong.

[MrTPlush]

People bag on Braun's contract because it is a waste of payroll space. He is pretty replacable at this point. Brett Phillips could match Braun's production(due to defense) I would bet. If the Brewers could trade Braun's contract Yu Darvish would probably be a Brewer quickly after. Then we could keep Santana for one heck of an offense or trade him for a different need.

 

Sucks, but that is the reality.

[adambr2]

People bag on Braun's contract because it is a waste of payroll space. He is pretty replacable at this point. Brett Phillips could match Braun's production(due to defense) I would bet. If the Brewers could trade Braun's contract Yu Darvish would probably be a Brewer quickly after. Then we could keep Santana for one heck of an offense or trade him for a different need.

 

Sucks, but that is the reality.

 

Yes, exactly. I can't understand why it's ok that Braun is overpaid, because we can still do things. Ok, great, we can still sign Darvish if we want. Maybe if we didn't have Braun, we could sign both Darvish and Arrieta. I'm not saying we would, or should, but maybe we make some other moves instead. My point is there is always a limit on how much we can do, and every penny we spend counts toward that limit.

 

Why people must try to rationalize that Braun's contract is not bad because we can still spend, I don't get. Come on, Braun would not touch 3/60 in this market and we all know it. We took a chance on his later years and lost. It's not a bad thing to admit it.

[pacopete4]

Then both of you should be up in arms about the Cain signing. He won’t be worth by year 4-5 either. Brewers bought out highly productive years to basically pay for them now. That’s the MLB. Oh well. It’s a chance they took. We will find out if he can at least be a 2WAR player to make his contact okay the last couple years.

[TURBO]

"there is always a limit on how much we can do, and every penny we spend counts toward that limit."

 

EXACTLY!

 

Take Braun's 20 million off this years payroll, and we sign Darvish or Arrieta without hesitation. Braun's contract is always looming, and no matter how anyone rationalizes it, it will/is preventing us from signing a TOR type guy, or two...

[pacopete4]

"there is always a limit on how much we can do, and every penny we spend counts toward that limit."

 

EXACTLY!

 

Take Braun's 20 million off this years payroll, and we sign Darvish or Arrieta without hesitation. Braun's contract is always looming, and no matter how anyone rationalizes it, it will/is preventing us from signing a TOR type guy, or two...

 

Lol, sure. Must be why they are looking at all those “TOR” guys presently. Dang you Ryan Braun! Darvish isn’t a Brewer because well, we are the Brewers and he doesn’t want to be there. It’s okay. We will survive.

[JohnBriggs12]

Hey if Ryan Zimmerman can go from a .642 OPS to a .930 at similar age then it's not too much of a stretch for Braun to rebound to something around .875. He is only a season removed from a .903 OPS.

[adambr2]

Then both of you should be up in arms about the Cain signing. He won’t be worth by year 4-5 either. Brewers bought out highly productive years to basically pay for them now. That’s the MLB. Oh well. It’s a chance they took. We will find out if he can at least be a 2WAR player to make his contact okay the last couple years.

 

I summed up my feelings on the difference earlier. Cain is a FA signing, either you pay or don't get involved. Braun we paid at a time when we still controlled him for 4 years. I wouldn't like us signing Yelich to an extension right now either.

 

As far as WAR goes, I'm pretty confident Cain will be worth his deal. I'm far less confident on Braun's extension, although there's still a chance (4.8 WAR in 2 seasons).

[danzig6767]

One thing not mentioned much in this thread is that I think there's a strong possibility Stearns and the front office are internally down on Brinson relative to his external market value as a top-20 prospect. You can't really keep him in AAA any longer, and what if he tanks again over a longer sample size in the majors in 2018? They could strongly believe that they sold Brinson at his peak value.

I also think that this and other moves signal that Stearns and his analytics team think that OF defense/range is undervalued in the market. Replacing Santana with Yelich, signing Cain, drafting athletic OFs in the 1st round three years in a row (Grisham, Ray, Lutz - who played CF this past year). Yeah, they gave up an athletic OF in Brinson but replaced him with two.

Yea, Stearns clearly targeted two guys that not only will change our lineup, both are also plus defenders and good baserunners.

 

When they drafted Ray, i think the team scouts hoped that he would turn into a Yelich type of player. Maybe not great at any one aspect of the game, but good to solid at everything. Unfortunately though, so far at least, Ray looks like a bust.

[Thurston Fluff]

 

I think the point is if we are working towards always being a contender we should never knowingly overpay someone for the year they are playing. Braun's contract already hurt us. Imagine if the money spent on him the past four years were spent on players worth that much money. To me the contract's total amount is only half the issue. How it's structured is the other half. Knowingly overpaying someone at the end of the contract for gains at the beginning of the contract creates a cycle of a couple years of good teams followed by a couple years of terrible teams. The goal is to be St Louis not Pittsburgh.

 

It’s been overstated so many times that Braun’s contract hurts us. Well it didn’t stop us from adding over $20M to our outfield for years to come a few days ago. Not only that but if 1WAR = $8M, I think Braun will probably do alright in getting the value out of that contract. Also you may want to check out who the Cardinals are paying money to over there in St. Louis. Lol

 

The reason we can pay that now isn't because we just got done selling off every expensive piece we could. The reason we did is because every other veteran player we had was valuable enough compared to their contract to get good value in return. Now we are good enough to win which made these moves possible. Braun couldn't get us anything of because of his contract. So now we sit here with a guy who can only play 120 games a year, making more than the rest of the outfield combined and we now have to figure out what to do with Santana. Who BTW may very well be better than Braun at this stage. But that isn't hurting anything.

My point about the Cardinals isn't that they never waste any money. It's just we want to have that string of success. In my mind the best way to do that is not to pay players more than they are worth in any given year. When it comes to judging the value of a contract looking at WAR over the life of the contract is next to useless. It doesn't take consistency into account at all. A player can be great one year, suck the next and it's the same as if he consistently produced year in and year out. When building a team for the long haul every GM in the world would take player B over player A.

[MrTPlush]

"there is always a limit on how much we can do, and every penny we spend counts toward that limit."

 

EXACTLY!

 

Take Braun's 20 million off this years payroll, and we sign Darvish or Arrieta without hesitation. Braun's contract is always looming, and no matter how anyone rationalizes it, it will/is preventing us from signing a TOR type guy, or two...

 

Lol, sure. Must be why they are looking at all those “TOR” guys presently. Dang you Ryan Braun! Darvish isn’t a Brewer because well, we are the Brewers and he doesn’t want to be there. It’s okay. We will survive.

 

We don't know if that holds true anymore. Lorenzo Cain could have been our one and only FA splash.

[pacopete4]

"there is always a limit on how much we can do, and every penny we spend counts toward that limit."

 

EXACTLY!

 

Take Braun's 20 million off this years payroll, and we sign Darvish or Arrieta without hesitation. Braun's contract is always looming, and no matter how anyone rationalizes it, it will/is preventing us from signing a TOR type guy, or two...

 

Lol, sure. Must be why they are looking at all those “TOR” guys presently. Dang you Ryan Braun! Darvish isn’t a Brewer because well, we are the Brewers and he doesn’t want to be there. It’s okay. We will survive.

 

We don't know if that holds true anymore. Lorenzo Cain could have been our one and only FA splash.

 

Most likely true but that’s not because of a lack of money.

[Cool Hand Lucroy]

Hey if Ryan Zimmerman can go from a .642 OPS to a .930 at similar age then it's not too much of a stretch for Braun to rebound to something around .875. He is only a season removed from a .903 OPS.

 

This.

 

Braun signed his 5/105 deal prior to 2016, right? He needs to be worth what? 13 wins over those 5 years to have it be an even deal? He's at 4.8 fWAR and 4.7 bWAR with three years to go. I don't think it's crazy that he ends up around 10 WAR total over the life of the contract.

 

That makes it an unwise deal in the end, but not so unwise as to be horrible. And there's probably something to be gained from having Braun around for some people. I wouldn't count myself as one of them, and I do think the deal is subpar. But it's not so bad as to be completely underwater at this point, and not so bad as to be a franchise-killing albatross. I don't think last year is the real Braun, nor do I think 2016 is legitimate to expect, but if he's a 2-win player for the next three years (and he is still a guy who can hit, I think), I think it's probably a C-level deal for the Brewers. Maybe the franchise can't afford C-level deals, but the reality is you're going to have them.

[Bench Coach 5]

"there is always a limit on how much we can do, and every penny we spend counts toward that limit."

 

EXACTLY!

 

Take Braun's 20 million off this years payroll, and we sign Darvish or Arrieta without hesitation. Braun's contract is always looming, and no matter how anyone rationalizes it, it will/is preventing us from signing a TOR type guy, or two...

 

Lol, sure. Must be why they are looking at all those “TOR” guys presently. Dang you Ryan Braun! Darvish isn’t a Brewer because well, we are the Brewers and he doesn’t want to be there. It’s okay. We will survive.

 

We don't know if that holds true anymore. Lorenzo Cain could have been our one and only FA splash.

 

 

Define a splash. I still think we could add a FA piece or two. I wouldn't be surprised if we revisit Walker, maybe something else. In terms of big money, yes Cain may be it.

[coolhandluke121]

Just to be clear, are some of you suggesting that the Brewers actually have to pay Braun, and that the $20m they're paying him is $20m less they can spend on other ways to improve the team? If so, I'd like you to cite your sources, because it sure sounds like one of those convoluted financial scams that anyone can make up because it's so complicated that people won't even bother to double-check.

[MrTPlush]

Define a splash.

 

As in throwing $15mil a year at someone for 4+ years...something along those lines.

[MrTPlush]

Just to be clear, are some of you suggesting that the Brewers actually have to pay Braun, and that the $20m they're paying him is $20m less they can spend on other ways to improve the team? If so, I'd like you to cite your sources, because it sure sounds like one of those convoluted financial scams that anyone can make up because it's so complicated that people won't even bother to double-check.

 

Yah, I think that is how it works...what exactly are you trying to say?

[brewerfan82]

Just to be clear, are some of you suggesting that the Brewers actually have to pay Braun, and that the $20m they're paying him is $20m less they can spend on other ways to improve the team? If so, I'd like you to cite your sources, because it sure sounds like one of those convoluted financial scams that anyone can make up because it's so complicated that people won't even bother to double-check.

 

Yah, I think that is how it works...what exactly are you trying to say?

Haha, pretty sure he said that all in jest and is agreeing with you. It made me chuckle at least

[And That]

Braun isn’t being paid $20 million this year. It’s $15 million. Salary is $19 million but $4 million of that is deferred.

[bork]

Braun isn’t being paid $20 million this year. It’s $15 million. Salary is $19 million but $4 million of that is deferred.

 

Yeah, we're paying Braun for the next 14 years.

 

And Garza is still owed $8 million over the next 4 years.

[And That]

Hey, but Lohse is no longer on the books.

[Humans Need Water]

I firmly believe BF WAR is much more realistic than Fangraphs. That said, Braun has posted a 3.8+ bWAR annually his entire career except 2yrs (I'm not counting his ROY season nor his suspension season given he posted 2.1 in only 61 games).

 

2014 posted 1 WAR playing with nerve damage in thumb all season (cryotherapy after season)

2017 posted 1.2 WAR in an injury plagued season that aren't permanent concerns moving forward

 

2015 posted 3.8 and 2016 posted 4.4 - this past season he also had a BABIP 30-34pts lower than his previous 2yrs combined with having the highest hard contact rate of career. Both showing he was unlucky to a certain extent. The past 3yrs he's posted 75M worth of value and was paid 53M. On his current contract, the past 2yrs he's posted 45M of value and was paid 40M. Doesn't seem overpaid. And since nobody knows the exact production he'll post the next 3yrs I have no idea how anyone can say he's already overpaid moving forward. He only needs to post 6.9 WAR the next 3yrs to equal his contract value - that's 2.3 annually. His history shows that if he's anywhere in the vicinity of 550 PA he'll do that with absolute ease. Speaking of PAs - Cain is 2.5yrs younger than Braun and only has 48 more PAs over the past 4yrs. Wonder if people have concerns about him being injured over the next 5yrs like they do with Braun...

 

Attanasio is wealthy. The franchise is valued at almost 4x what he paid for it. He's gone to a 110M payroll previously and can easily go to 120-130M for several years if Stearns can land the "final pieces to the puzzle" type player(s) moving forward. He's not saying no to an additional 10-20M annually for a small window if it potentially puts a ring on his finger.

 

Regarding the trade, everyone knows Yelich is a quality player. He needs to be in LF to maximize his skill set and value with Cain in CF and that appears to be the case. We gave up a lot of talent but we're getting a proven MLB player for 5yrs for essentially Brinson and Diaz + 2 other guys I don't see being quality starters. I say that because I firmly believe Harrison is highly overrated and it was great to sell high on him. Yamamoto is what he is - he's put together a solid track record and has flown under the radar but you can live with parting with him. You know what you're getting with Yelich for 5yrs whereas it might take a bit for Brinson to reach his full potential, which I think can be better than Yelich overall as he can be a plus defender in CF with a plus arm whereas Yelich was average there. And given Adam Eaton is a good comp for Yelich we gave up what we should have expected to give up while being fortunate to still have our top 3 prospect arms.