Manny Machado (Part 1)

[Brewcrewin07]

Buster Olney

‏Verified account @Buster_ESPN

13m13 minutes ago

 

Source indicated last Sunday his sense was that the Orioles were at the 35-yard-line and driving in the Machado trade conversations. Same source this Sunday: "10-yard-line." PHI, Brewers, Dodgers waiting for the goal line call. As mentioned yesterday, Orioles have narrowed focus.

[MrTPlush]

In football terms I’d guess it is 4th and 10 and you are attempting your play for a touchdown. Likely just deciding what offer they like best.

 

If Aaron Rodgers is your GM you might be able to fail to get the touchdown on this attempt and you get a free play to try and win one last time.

[Paul77]

Would a Machado signing impact ticket sales like CC did?

The Brewers sold out like 20 some straight games from late July to early Sept. in 2008.

 

Probably a different situation, but I’m sure it would increase ticket sales quite a bit. Maybe not to that kind of crazy excitement and certainly doesn’t help we took the week off before the break.

 

It would be interesting, but I agree. I don't see it having the same impact on attendance, though that is based on nothing more than a gut feeling. At the time, Milwaukee was bursting to break a 26-year postseason drought. That might have been the all-time peak of Brewer-fever.

 

The '08 Brewers were averaging 35.3K+/game prior to the trade for CC. They Averaged 40K after the trade (with 22 consecutive sellouts)

 

The '18 Brewers are right there again; averaging 34.6K/game. Interesting comp.

[benji]

Machado pulled from his game.

 

 

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[adambr2]

It could just be that they think something is probably imminent before the end of the AS break and want to play things conservatively.

[Brewcrewin07]

Machado pulled from his game.

 

 

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Ken Rosenthal

‏Verified account @Ken_Rosenthal

 

Source: Machado has NOT been traded. Infield sloppy after rain delay; that’s why he was pulled. #Orioles exercising abundance of caution.

[MrTPlush]

Field conditions aren’t great after rain delay, stop hugwatch.

[Boomer5]

Looks like it's definitely going down.

[KeithStone53151]

The rumored list of Phillies prospects they were looking at was a bunch of guys not having great seasons from what I saw. You can only put so much stock in guys having good years and ones having bad years.

 

Right, if one of our top 5 propsects was having a killer season...we wouldn't want to trade him. See Peralta. The stats aren't always the whole story. Looking at Medeiros, he's always been extremely young for his league and his stuff is much better than results. I think he's wildly underrated by most, I think he's a better prospect than Brown, definitely in the Brewers top 10 possibly around 6 or 7.

 

I will agree the Phillies are probably better positioned to land him based on prospects, but we probably have better mlb ready prospects/talent if that's what the O's want.

[Jopal78]

I'd pack it in on Machado at this point; brutal stretch to end the first half, hard schedule to open the second half. Cubs keep plugging away. They should make a couple smaller moves like last year and try to hang on to the wild card. With injuries, poor roster management, questionable in-game decisions, the worst thing to do would be trade key pieces of tomorrow's team for Machado then miss the playoffs or be the road team in the WC game.

[Jkromb]

Don’t bother trading for him.. I’d actually trade away Aguilar, Braun (if LA wants him, let’s just get a bag of balls), Kratz and Knebel need to get cut, Salad sucks, Shaw can’t hit, this team sucks.. just had one good month..

[Jopal78]

They had more than one good month. 38-29 since April. Dodgers (for example) 40-27 since April. However, the Brewers got by with stellar performances by their bullpen arms and starters and what we're seeing now is likely some regression to the mean for Jeffress and Hader. The injuries are catching up with the team forcing them to use guys like Miley, Jorge Lopez Wilkerson, Zagurski.

 

The front office misjudging their organizational depth at catcher and middle infield has lead to Kratz, Bandy, Sogard, Brad Miller, and Nate Orf getting more playing time than their talent level warrants on a contending club.

 

To bring this back to Machado. The team has played better than expected but with 8 players on the DL and the 25 man roster running on fumes; its probably best to hang on to the future and fight for the wild card because the team's talent level evidently can't hang with the other big dogs in the NL over 162 games.

[TURBO]

Don’t bother trading for him.. I’d actually trade away Aguilar, Braun (if LA wants him, let’s just get a bag of balls), Kratz and Knebel need to get cut, Salad sucks, Shaw can’t hit, this team sucks.. just had one good month..

 

Are you even a Brewers fan?

 

Geez

[paul253]

If they trade for Machado they also need to add a reliever. They are relying too heavily on Jeffress Hader and Knebel. Maybe give Burnes an expanded role. Or give Ramirez a chance finally.

[adambr2]

If they trade for Machado they also need to add a reliever. They are relying too heavily on Jeffress Hader and Knebel. Maybe give Burnes an expanded role. Or give Ramirez a chance finally.

 

It's not that they rely on them too much, this was Hader's 3rd appearance in July.

 

It's just that Knebel isn't very reliable anymore and they still try to pound that square peg in that round hole and make him their conventional closer.

 

Knebel has days when he is dominant when the hook is landing and other days when he's lacking control it's ugly to watch and he's prone to blowup innings with that. It doesn't help that any fast runner who reaches is immediately in scoring position because he lacks any ability at all to hold runners on.

 

In many ways he reminds me of a mid 2000s Derrick Turnbow. Some days you get dominance, other days it's scary to watch, and it becomes pretty obvious early in which one you get on a particular day.

[Jenkins5]

Don’t bother trading for him.. I’d actually trade away Aguilar, Braun (if LA wants him, let’s just get a bag of balls), Kratz and Knebel need to get cut, Salad sucks, Shaw can’t hit, this team sucks.. just had one good month..

 

And the nomination for top over reaction goes to.....

 

All teams hit rough patch, key is snapping out of them. Break coming at perfect time. Rest up & & get back to work.

[MrTPlush]

It’s not like this losing streak has been a straight disaster. The starters have done well, bullpen hasn’t really been bad at all, and today we got screwed by the umpires in the rain just as much as Counsell.

 

Most of the problem was the offense which Machado would greatly help and there would be additional moves. We also have a ton of offensive guys on the DL making our line-up horrendous lately. I think it would be a mistake to give up on this squad.

 

I think we can still win the division, I’m not panicking. I don’t see any problem going after Machado or anyone else. Selling is just hysterical...sorry, but that is just ridiculous to propose. It’s just not happening no matter how much you believe in it.

 

Of course all the reactionary negative thinkers will push not to do anything or sell. It’s a clever stance to take. Either you are right and bang your drum...or you are wrong (we make the postseason/win the division) and no one cares who is wrong. Win-win

 

End of the day I don’t think this last week tells the long term outlook at all. No one week should make you decide things.

[Eye Black]

I am still slightly in favor of making an aggressive push for Machado, but that desire is diminishing by the day for me. A week ago I would have been okay with giving up either Burnes or Woodruff as part of a package for Machado, and I am now much less interested in losing either of those players for a max of 64 regular season games of Manny Machado. If the Orioles hold on to him until the deadline the Brewers will only have 52 games left in the season and at that point I don’t think I could reconcile the idea of losing a future starting rotation arm for an improved chance to chase a Wild Card game appearance.

[adambr2]

It’s not like this losing streak has been a straight disaster. The starters have done well, bullpen hasn’t really been bad at all, and today we got screwed by the umpires in the rain just as much as Counsell.

 

Most of the problem was the offense which Machado would greatly help and there would be additional moves. We also have a ton of offensive guys on the DL making our line-up horrendous lately. I think it would be a mistake to give up on this squad.

 

I think we can still win the division, I’m not panicking. I don’t see any problem going after Machado or anyone else. Selling is just hysterical...sorry, but that is just ridiculous to propose. It’s just not happening no matter how much you believe in it.

 

Of course all the reactionary negative thinkers will push not to do anything or sell. It’s a clever stance to take. Either you are right and bang your drum...or you are wrong (we make the postseason/win the division) and no one cares who is wrong. Win-win

 

End of the day I don’t think this last week tells the long term outlook at all. No one week should make you decide things.

 

We're pretty clearly not as good as the Cubs, who are about to pull 2.5 in front despite basically no Darvish and some really underperforming guys like Rizzo. I think any shot of beating them for the division is wishful thinking at best. Their lineup is where we want ours to be, they are at least on par with us bullpen wise, and their rotation, while underperforming, is better than ours.

 

Sure, anything can happen and all that, but if I'm placing a bet with a gun to my head it's the Cubs and probably fairly easily. You can take any combination of moves we can realistically make, Machado and all that, and it likely isn't swinging the balance.

 

Wild Card is probably realistic, I think the Dodgers and DBacks will both make it so it would come down to us versus likely the Phillies, so yeah, very likely Machado swings the balance for the other WC. I guess it comes down to how important it really is to us to go for that knowing that if we lose the Wild Card game it really was for nothing anyway. Not crazy about our odds in any 1 game playoff knowing we have no ace to line up for it.

[PinaMadness]

2.5 games in back of the Cubs and five back in the loss column. No way we win the division.

[Jenkins5]

2.5 games in back of the Cubs and five back in the loss column. No way we win the division.

 

Digging optimism with 64 games left.... Cubs have plenty of issues & streak prone as well. Lot can happen in 2 1/2 months.

[MrTPlush]

Then we need to add and make sure we win the wild card. Not only that, but have the best team possible. Cause if we are just going to tread water until the Cubs aren’t good anymore likely case we aren’t anymore either.

 

I don’t get this logic where if we can’t win the division we just pack our bags up or add just enough to maybe get a wild card. Then have a not great team that likely flops in the wild card game or the divisional series.

 

Good luck waiting for the division to open up. Sounds like a solid plan to be a middling team for years. I don’t really want to try and make a World Series run from the wild card play in, but gotta do it however you can. And that isn’t to say sell the farm, but I don’t see why we can’t make good trades to improve. Machado isn’t anywhere near selling the farm.

 

I guess I also don’t understand why the Cubs having disappointing players means they are likely to rebound and get better, but our struggling players are just going to continue to be dissapointing. Classic pessimism looking at your own team, but see optimism in the outside.

[brewmann04]

Again i could not care what the cubs do or don't do at this point it what the brewers need to do to right the ship is the brewers just had a bad streak or did they play way over their heads. DS needs to make a move for sure but we need to see guys stepping up including Braun . Also CC needs to adjust of certain things he failed to do in the first half. I still need to believe Coles needs to be let go

[JohnBriggs12]

We need to see guys on the field. These days guys don't want to play at anything less than 100%. It's kind of sad really.

[adambr2]

Then we need to add and make sure we win the wild card. Not only that, but have the best team possible. Cause if we are just going to tread water until the Cubs aren’t good anymore likely case we aren’t anymore either.

 

I don’t get this logic where if we can’t win the division we just pack our bags up or add just enough to maybe get a wild card. Then have a not great team that likely flops in the wild card game or the divisional series.

 

Good luck waiting for the division to open up. Sounds like a solid plan to be a middling team for years. I don’t really want to try and make a World Series run from the wild card play in, but gotta do it however you can. And that isn’t to say sell the farm, but I don’t see why we can’t make good trades to improve. Machado isn’t anywhere near selling the farm.

 

I guess I also don’t understand why the Cubs having disappointing players means they are likely to rebound and get better, but our struggling players are just going to continue to be dissapointing. Classic pessimism looking at your own team, but see optimism in the outside.

 

Not really, just an objective evaluation of talent. I think most outside evaluators would probably agree on the Cubs having a pretty decided talent edge both in the lineup and rotation at least.

 

Sure, we have some improvement candidates and I certainly never said all our struggling players are going to continue to be disappointing. But objectively I would say Aguilar is probably as big of a regression candidate as they come, and pitching wise DJ has most of these guys outperforming expectations. Jeffress isn't going to carry a 1 ERA in the 2nd half and even our latest pen struggles are probably more just of a regression to the mean from what they did in April and May.

 

I'm okay with putting a big emphasis on winning the Wild Card in our moves but I can understand why some would not. I also would point out that there's nothing we can do to "make sure" we win the Wild Card although I think Machado increases our odds significantly.