Offensive Woes

[coolhandluke121]

 

Braun is the cause for most of this, it's like having a roster of 24 1/2. Get used to it, because this is what we'll have for the next 3 years.

 

Not if they DFA him.

 

Sorry not sorry.

[Ron Robinsons Beard]

 

Braun is the cause for most of this, it's like having a roster of 24 1/2. Get used to it, because this is what we'll have for the next 3 years.

 

Not if they DFA him.

 

Sorry not sorry.

 

Can the chances of something happening actually be a negative percentage?

 

I kid, but in reality, I can't foresee that happening.

[adambr2]

 

Braun is the cause for most of this, it's like having a roster of 24 1/2. Get used to it, because this is what we'll have for the next 3 years.

 

Not if they DFA him.

 

Sorry not sorry.

 

You don't have to apologize for that thought to him, he was the one who originally asked the question of how long you let an unproductive Braun remain on the roster and he was mocked mercilessly like it was the most ridiculous question ever proposed.

[FVBrewerFan]

 

Braun is the cause for most of this, it's like having a roster of 24 1/2. Get used to it, because this is what we'll have for the next 3 years.

 

Not if they DFA him.

 

Sorry not sorry.

 

Yup. We can laugh about it all we want. But if this continues all season, I can absolutely see some serious discussions going on about parting ways. Are they really going to reserve a roster spot for two more years for a part time player? Especially if that player is mediocre? Can't say they'll actually do anything, but I guarantee it will be seriously discussed. A trade where they eat most of the salary, negotiated retirement, etc. I don't see them flat-out DFA-ing him.

[coolhandluke121]

 

Braun is the cause for most of this, it's like having a roster of 24 1/2. Get used to it, because this is what we'll have for the next 3 years.

 

Not if they DFA him.

 

Sorry not sorry.

 

You don't have to apologize for that thought to him, he was the one who originally asked the question of how long you let an unproductive Braun remain on the roster and he was mocked mercilessly like it was the most ridiculous question ever proposed.

 

The non-apology was meant for the board at large. I was on his side of that argument. Hard to believe they had a chance to get something of value for him just a few short years ago and blew it. Just take Puig and McCarthy and run before they change their mind. Can't see how anyone really hoped this would turn out well given his age and injury history.

[SomewhereInTime]

Maybe we just need to adjust our new Brewer reality; we are a light hitting, good pitching team.

 

It's less fun at times than past years, but with solid pitching and defense they may actually win.

[tmwiese55]

Right, the games are in a way slower, less exciting, more boring etc than in year's past. This comes into play for me with friends who are more casual fans not being nearly as excited to go to games now because they're typically low scoring. As said, it might be more conducive to winning.

 

For Braun, yes to make his pay and the time on DL worth it he has to produce at a solid .800 ops type clip, or at least above .750 to keep respectability and to contribute to winning. 40 games isn't enough to write him off or anything considering just in 2016 he hit over 300 with 30 homers. But, it's certainly not a good sign. I've been boned by this in fantasy the last few years with guys like Batista, Matt Carpenter this year, Ian Desmond, Carlos Gonzales. It could happen.

[istanbultaye]

The non-apology was meant for the board at large. I was on his side of that argument. Hard to believe they had a chance to get something of value for him just a few short years ago and blew it. Just take Puig and McCarthy and run before they change their mind. Can't see how anyone really hoped this would turn out well given his age and injury history.

 

I still don't think I'd make that trade today. Salary and performance wise, McCarthy and Puig have not done better than Braun over that time period, and arguably have been worse. The only potential silver lining that could have come out of the trade would be to turn around and try to trade off Puig for some minor league help.

[FVBrewerFan]

 

Braun is the cause for most of this, it's like having a roster of 24 1/2. Get used to it, because this is what we'll have for the next 3 years.

 

Not if they DFA him.

 

Sorry not sorry.

 

You don't have to apologize for that thought to him, he was the one who originally asked the question of how long you let an unproductive Braun remain on the roster and he was mocked mercilessly like it was the most ridiculous question ever proposed.

 

Well, I had it coming due the name of the thread I used. If I did it over again, I would have used a more "tame" thread title.

 

But we are seeing what I was talking about it. If he was an .850ish hitter constantly dinged up, that could work. If he could play almost every day at even .775 or so, that would work. But you just can't have a part time player on the 25 for three years who isn't even all that productive when he can play.

 

That said, sort of sounds like I'm hoping this happens. I am not. Man, I wish he would stay healthy and rake because that could actually put them over the top as a real contender. And it is still May, so who know we may still see that yet.

[adambr2]

Can't see how anyone really hoped this would turn out well given his age and injury history.

 

I'll take a crack at it with my theories:

 

1) One portion of Brewer fans were nostalgic about Braun in the same way some Packer fans were nostalgic about Favre and didn't want to see him go no matter what the return was.

 

2) Another portion of Brewer fans really don't want to trade a player anytime he's playing well, which is kind of silly to me because this is when they're at peak value. We were rebuilding so it still made a ton of sense. It's not like we were a contender in 2016 and needed Braun for September. Braun's stock was sky high and has since bottomed out.

 

3) A third group didn't like what we were getting and/or didn't think it was enough, because of a highly unrealistic surplus value that they put on Braun. Proposals often included outlandish demands like Bellinger, DeLeon, or Verdugo, or some combination of them! Puig/McCarthy + 2 prospects was already insanely in our favor regardless of the quality of the prospects and unfortunately Stearns didn't take advantage of the moment to get it done at the deadline when moves are often made out of desperation or immediate need rather than logic. Unfortunately by the offseason it was already too late and the Dodgers had a much more realistic valuation of Braun. Trading Braun was only 30% about what we were getting back and 70% about clearing payroll and moving toward the future rather than clinging to the past.

 

I can't stress this enough -- not dealing Braun in 2016 was a catastrophic mistake by a GM that I otherwise admire greatly. Its possible there was influence from above him. Don't get me wrong -- this mistake can be overcome. But it puts us in a far worse position this year and through 2020 than we otherwise would have been.

 

These things would have been accomplished with a Braun trade:

 

- Acquired more useful, lower cost pieces (BMac is garbage, but at least off the books after this season, and Puig was a 4 WAR player last year who would have been either useful for the team or a useful trade piece)

 

- Strengthened the farm with 2 additional prospects

 

- Cleared a huge amount of salary to use to help this team assemble that final piece here toward building a championship team. People were often fond of saying when the payroll was $60M, "The money we are paying Braun isn't preventing us from doing anything else we want." That quite obviously is no longer the case.

 

- Prevented us from the obligation of carrying a roster spot for a broken down Braun the next few years because of all the money we're paying him.

 

- Cleared any perceived roster 'logjam' this season

 

- Distanced us from a player who frankly reflects negatively on our franchise to the rest of baseball and allowed us to focus our PR efforts on building around a new franchise face (Hader? Yelich?)

 

What's done is done. We can't change it now. We just have have to make the best of it. But hopefully the FO learns from history.

[pacopete4]

I am amazed at how much this is even discussed.

[bill hAll Star]

The non-apology was meant for the board at large. I was on his side of that argument. Hard to believe they had a chance to get something of value for him just a few short years ago and blew it. Just take Puig and McCarthy and run before they change their mind. Can't see how anyone really hoped this would turn out well given his age and injury history.

 

I still don't think I'd make that trade today. Salary and performance wise, McCarthy and Puig have not done better than Braun over that time period, and arguably have been worse. The only potential silver lining that could have come out of the trade would be to turn around and try to trade off Puig for some minor league help.

 

I'm against CHL's opinion for other reasons, because he makes some very strong assumptions as to how easy the trade was to make, but we'd be out of McCarthy and Puig's contracts this year pretty much. And McCarthy pitched fairly well last year.

[trwi7]

The non-apology was meant for the board at large. I was on his side of that argument. Hard to believe they had a chance to get something of value for him just a few short years ago and blew it. Just take Puig and McCarthy and run before they change their mind. Can't see how anyone really hoped this would turn out well given his age and injury history.

 

I still don't think I'd make that trade today. Salary and performance wise, McCarthy and Puig have not done better than Braun over that time period, and arguably have been worse. The only potential silver lining that could have come out of the trade would be to turn around and try to trade off Puig for some minor league help.

 

It was never about performance. It was about trading Braun before he fell off a cliff and before his 10/5 rights kicked in. If we had made that trade our books would be completely clear of Braun's contract after this season plus whatever value we would've gotten out of Puig and McCarthy.

[adambr2]

I am amazed at how much this is even discussed.

 

I am amazed that you are amazed. Braun is a not very good player making a lot of money. Trading him would have been an excellent thing for the franchise.

[istanbultaye]

Maybe there were some prospects that would have been included too, I guess I don't remember the details, but if it was just straight up Braun for those 2, it would've been pretty dumb to do it. I certainly thought he'd be better than he has been so far this year even with anticipating some decline, but the extended stretch so far this year has me starting to swing around closer and closer to the camp that Braun could be a bigger roster challenge than just limiting some payroll flexibility going forward.

[adambr2]

The non-apology was meant for the board at large. I was on his side of that argument. Hard to believe they had a chance to get something of value for him just a few short years ago and blew it. Just take Puig and McCarthy and run before they change their mind. Can't see how anyone really hoped this would turn out well given his age and injury history.

 

I still don't think I'd make that trade today. Salary and performance wise, McCarthy and Puig have not done better than Braun over that time period, and arguably have been worse. The only potential silver lining that could have come out of the trade would be to turn around and try to trade off Puig for some minor league help.

 

I'm against CHL's opinion for other reasons, because he makes some very strong assumptions as to how easy the trade was to make, but we'd be out of McCarthy and Puig's contracts this year pretty much. And McCarthy pitched fairly well last year.

 

Not sure what you mean. It WAS that easy. We had Puig, we had BMac, and we had a prospect. Most importantly, we had Braun off the books. We had it done and haggled over the 2nd prospect and let it all far apart in the 11th hour.

[adambr2]

Maybe there were some prospects that would have been included too, I guess I don't remember the details, but if it was just straight up Braun for those 2, it would've been pretty dumb to do it. I certainly thought he'd be better than he has been so far this year even with anticipating some decline, but the extended stretch so far this year has me starting to swing around closer and closer to the camp that Braun could be a bigger roster challenge than just limiting some payroll flexibility going forward.

 

It would have been very smart to do for the reasons Trwi said. It was never about the prospects or return. It was about getting rid of Braun. And Puig was nearly a 4 WAR player last season. They've clearly been better than Braun and most importantly don't cost anything after 2018.

[pacopete4]

I am amazed at how much this is even discussed.

 

I am amazed that you are amazed. Braun is a not very good player making a lot of money. Trading him would have been an excellent thing for the franchise.

 

Time to move on. It's been beaten to death already.

[bill hAll Star]

The non-apology was meant for the board at large. I was on his side of that argument. Hard to believe they had a chance to get something of value for him just a few short years ago and blew it. Just take Puig and McCarthy and run before they change their mind. Can't see how anyone really hoped this would turn out well given his age and injury history.

 

I still don't think I'd make that trade today. Salary and performance wise, McCarthy and Puig have not done better than Braun over that time period, and arguably have been worse. The only potential silver lining that could have come out of the trade would be to turn around and try to trade off Puig for some minor league help.

 

It was never about performance. It was about trading Braun before he fell off a cliff and before his 10/5 rights kicked in. If we had made that trade our books would be completely clear of Braun's contract after this season plus whatever value we would've gotten out of Puig and McCarthy.

 

Shouldn't this be one of the first moves that you've applauded Stearns for because it likely improves the Brewers' draft pick last year, this year, and potentially the next two having Braun and his salary stuck here? Tanking!

[tmwiese55]

One thing I don't think I've seen. I'd guess a hesitation was Puig. Have to remember at the time he was a bad attitude malcontent who was playing terrible and was sent to AAA. Not saying they still shouldn't have done the deal, just adding information but I'd guess that was a factor. Good chance he'd refuse to play here and you'd just have to cut him or give him away thus no ability to recoup any value in him.

[adambr2]

One thing I don't think I've seen. I'd guess a hesitation was Puig. Have to remember at the time he was a bad attitude malcontent who was playing terrible and was sent to AAA. Not saying they still shouldn't have done the deal, just adding information but I'd guess that was a factor. Good chance he'd refuse to play here and you'd just have to cut him or give him away thus no ability to recoup any value in him.

 

I've never heard of any insinuation that Puig would have refused to play here and I'm sure the Brewers didn't have any such indication from Puig or his agent with how close they were to trading for him.

 

An MLB player cannot just refuse to play for a team they are traded to, not if they want to continue to collect their contract salary anyway which I presume he would have preferred to.

[tmwiese55]

I never heard of it either and didn't say I did. But think of his reputation at that time. I'm sure it crossed their mind that he'd be a real problem to deal with in some way or another combined with that at the time he had been playing terribly for 1.5-2 years.

[Brewer Fever]

Too many unknowns about what happened when 2016 trade talks hit an impasse to have strong feelings either way. When I consider Braun these days, I merely hold out hope that he'll come through with a game winning hit in a key playoff game. There's too much pure hitting ability there not to think he'll go on some future tears. Hopefully he'll come through in some big moments.

[adambr2]

Too many unknowns about what happened when 2016 trade talks hit an impasse to have strong feelings either way. When I consider Braun these days, I merely hold out hope that he'll come through with a game winning hit in a key playoff game. There's too much pure hitting ability there not to think he'll go on some future tears. Hopefully he'll come through in some big moments.

 

To me we know enough. We know that the Dodgers were taking all Braun's salary and that was enough for me. Puig+BMac was a good enough return and the prospects were gravy no matter what value they held.

 

But I do agree with the second part. If he hits .400 in the playoffs and carries us to a World Series I'll gladly admit it was all worth it. I just flat out don't think he's good enough anymore.

[xisxisxis]

I would have just loved to see the hypocrisy in LA when all the Dodger fans who incessantly boo Braun to start cheering him once he was a Dodger...