David Stearns Free Pass??

[TooLiveBrew]

You gotta give Stearns credit. He acquired three NL All-Stars this past offseason. (Cain, Yelich and Jeffress)

 

However the Stearns GM can-do-no-wrong hero worship is getting a little out of control, IMO.

 

I really didn't like how he waited until after the Non-Waiver Trade deadline last year to make moves, for example adding a non-difference maker like Neil Walker.

 

I think Brewer fans should at least wait until after the July 31st Non Waiver deadline THIS year before passing more judgement about his aggressiveness, or lack thereof.

 

For what it’s worth I think Walker performed admirably last year during his brief stint with the Brewers. Wish we had him back actually.

 

Me too. He'd be better than what we have presently.

It's hard to believe, but Walker has a .570 OPS with NYY

[Jopal78]

I like David Stearns as a GM; he's obviously learned from the failure of Doug Melvin (a team in a market like Milwaukee needs to develop its own starting pitching to have any chance at success). Therefore, I'm okay, with his reluctance to trade Burnes, Woodruff, Peralta, etc. they are the biggest influencing factors on the future of the organization.

 

That being said, it is so difficult to win consistently in baseball, that I believe if the team is in it at the end of July you have to take on talent to make your best run. Last year, I feel Stearns was surprised that his team was in the hunt and made a couple of moves to bolster his roster that didn't really cost him anything. Its gut check time, he either makes moves to take a run at it this year, or he will make some smaller moves and take solace in the fact that they competed from start to finish. If he chooses the latter I think his passive-ness could be criticized.

[FVBrewerFan]

I like David Stearns as a GM; he's obviously learned from the failure of Doug Melvin (a team in a market like Milwaukee needs to develop its own starting pitching to have any chance at success). Therefore, I'm okay, with his reluctance to trade Burnes, Woodruff, Peralta, etc. they are the biggest influencing factors on the future of the organization.

 

That being said, it is so difficult to win consistently in baseball, that I believe if the team is in it at the end of July you have to take on talent to make your best run. Last year, I feel Stearns was surprised that his team was in the hunt and made a couple of moves to bolster his roster that didn't really cost him anything. Its gut check time, he either makes moves to take a run at it this year, or he will make some smaller moves and take solace in the fact that they competed from start to finish. If he chooses the latter I think his passive-ness could be criticized.

 

I don't care if he is criticized, and I'm sure he doesn't care either. It goes with the territory as GM everything you do will be second-guessed. It's so bad even when he makes moves that work he's criticized. (Playing a video game or something?)

 

As long as he keeps doing what he's doing I'm happy. Try to make the team as competitive as possible each season without giving away too much of the future. Simple as that. At some point soon they will be ready to make a TRUE run, and hopefully for multiple years. But I can hear it now, when they win the WS the anti-Stearns folks will be saying "It took too long!!" That's not in blue, I guarantee that will happen.

[Lathund]

It's been 3 years since the sell-off started. 1½ years (or a little more) since the last of those trades (Thornburg). It's remarkable that we are where we are right now, and that'a a testiment to David Stearns and his team. Look at where the Cubs and Astros were 3 years after they started their selloff. DS has gotten us this far with his approach, so let him keep doing more of the same. I really like the value-based approach he's using, where need alone never dictates a signing. I know how upset some people were that we didn't go after Quintana or Gray last year, but I'm sure glad we didn't give up our version of Eloy Jimenez for what they're putting up now. If the price exceeds the value, and the value there is doesn't get you past a threshold (i.e Aroldis Chapman to the Cubs), you don't make the deal. Regardless of need. There might come a point when negative-value deals need to start getting made, but we really are not there yet. There are also more ways than one to build a roster, and so far I'm glad to see we've avoided traps like Cobb and Gray and the likes.

 

Be patient, the future is bright.

[danzig6767]

Let’s also not forget his inability to trade Santana. Santana’s value has tanked and next year we’ll have the problem we had last year. Yelich. Cain. Braun. Santana. Phillips. Broxton. Now add Thames because Aguilar has to be an every day player at first base.

Had Samtana hit anywhere near what he did last season, keeping him would have been a great thing for the team given the massive trouble the lineup has had scoring runs.

 

The lineup has been so lacking run producing bats the last few weeks, Tyler friggin Saladino has often been hitting 5th in the order. If instead we had Santana of last year or something close to that, he'd be ideal batting 5th after Aguilar or Shaw.

 

There is no way though that Stearns could have predicted Santana would go from a 30 HR/.875 OPS guy to someone with a slap hitting .354 SLG percentage.

 

Sports are volatile. For every good surprise like Aguilar in a season, there are bound to also have a Santana who inexplicably loses all of his power.

[lowblow]

With all due respect a glance at Santana's page in baseball reference will demonstrate that at least thus far in his career, last year was the outlier not this year. So while it might have been hard to anticipate that Santana might dramatically drop off this year it is hardly "inexplicable" and it wouldn't be inexplicable for Javier Baez to drop off dramatically after this year either. If Yelich were having a terrible year, that would be inexplicable.

[JohnBriggs12]

With all due respect a glance at Santana's page in baseball reference will demonstrate that at least thus far in his career, last year was the outlier not this year. So while it might have been hard to anticipate that Santana might dramatically drop off this year it is hardly "inexplicable" and it wouldn't be inexplicable for Javier Baez to drop off dramatically after this year either. If Yelich were having a terrible year, that would be inexplicable.

 

You can't really compare Baez, who was one of the top prospects in the game from day one to Santana, who was traded away by two organizations.

[xisxisxis]

Stearns deserves a pat on the back because he got 3 AS players in the offseason? One fell into our lap (Jeffress), he paid to get one (Cain), and sold a huge chunk of farm to get another (Yelich). That deserves almost no credit. I can make those kind of moves on a video game. Sorry those aren’t impressive moves.

 

Sold a huge chunk of the farm for a controllable all-star.I didn't see any other teams making that kind of deal.

Maybe the other GMs don't have the same video game as MrTPlush...

 

 

I would tend to agree. This is not a talented MLB roster. But they are in the chase so why not build off that and add the talent now?

 

I do think the 2015 Royals are a viable model. Why not try? It’s not like we are in the playoffs so often that can afford to retool.

Stearns should always be looking to add talent if the deal is right. I just want the deal to be so good we can mortgage part of the future (I would trade bats way before trading pitching). I think Peralta and Burnes should be off the table unless we are talking a Yelich type deal, but for a SP who is cheap and controllable for 4-5 years then I would part with one of them. I would be willing to part with Hiura if we can get at least 3 years of a controllable player (we can't keep trading cheap controllable players for 3 months to 1.5 years of an expensive vet that gets us nowhere - i.e. losing in the first round of the playoffs). We need upgrades at SS, C and 2B or 2 (2B/C) of the 3 to be competitive. I don't see a C or 2B that we could control for several years available right now (there should be several of both this year in Free Agency, which only costs $).

 

Right now we are on projection for 89 wins and a wild card at best (I don't see us dethroning the cubs at that pace). That's 6 worse than the Royals finished in 2014 when they won the AL Central. Could the current team plus a 2B or C or RP make us so much better that we have the talent to pull of winning 3 rounds of playoffs? Sure, it's possible, but I don't want to trade any part of the future for a 1 and done playoff experience and I don't see this team as capable of getting to the NLCS unless you throw away 2019-2022 and there's no guarantee that selling Burnes/Peralta/Hiura gets you the players to make it to the WS in 2018. That would be giving up a lot of the future for a slim chance... I didn't expect Yelich or Cain this offseason so maybe Stearns can come up with some deadline magic too, but I am OK if he doesn't.

[Lathund]

I never expected Santana to repeat his 2017, and I don't think Stearns or any other exec around the league did either. Hence the attempt to trade him, and the lack of interest. So seemingly the alternative to keeping him and hoping he could repeat 2017, or something close to it, would've been to let him go for almost nothing, or at least a lot less than Stearns valued him at. Which in hindsight probably would've been the right move, but it's certainly understandable to not want to do that. I'd have taken whatever there was though; but I'm also someone who wanted to trade him at last years trade deadline. A move that would've been stupid to do at the time (And thus correctly wasn't made) but end up being correct in the end (or as of now anyway). A bit like going all-in and winning with 2-7 offsuit.

[TooLiveBrew]

With all due respect a glance at Santana's page in baseball reference will demonstrate that at least thus far in his career, last year was the outlier not this year. So while it might have been hard to anticipate that Santana might dramatically drop off this year it is hardly "inexplicable" and it wouldn't be inexplicable for Javier Baez to drop off dramatically after this year either. If Yelich were having a terrible year, that would be inexplicable.

If you keep in mind that Santana's great 2017 was his age-24 season, and then compare to how he produced through the minors, it doesn't really look like an outlier. It looked like a young talented bat hitting his stride at the big league level. He carried a good AVG, OBP, & SLG (& lots of Ks) through his minor league development, & that's exactly the type of line he posted in 2017.

 

Yes his partial MLB seasons at ages 21-23 didn't show big power numbers, but that's pretty normal for a young player just cutting his teeth at the top level. Hope Domingo can rediscover his mojo... we need him.

 

Btw, genuinely welcome to the board -- love to see fans from other clubs that want to jump in & have good baseball discussions!

[JohnBriggs12]

It's been 3 years since the sell-off started. 1½ years (or a little more) since the last of those trades (Thornburg). It's remarkable that we are where we are right now, and that'a a testiment to David Stearns and his team. Look at where the Cubs and Astros were 3 years after they started their selloff. DS has gotten us this far with his approach, so let him keep doing more of the same. I really like the value-based approach he's using, where need alone never dictates a signing. I know how upset some people were that we didn't go after Quintana or Gray last year, but I'm sure glad we didn't give up our version of Eloy Jimenez for what they're putting up now. If the price exceeds the value, and the value there is doesn't get you past a threshold (i.e Aroldis Chapman to the Cubs), you don't make the deal. Regardless of need. There might come a point when negative-value deals need to start getting made, but we really are not there yet. There are also more ways than one to build a roster, and so far I'm glad to see we've avoided traps like Cobb and Gray and the likes.

 

Be patient, the future is bright.

 

We've been told "the future is bright" for decades. What's different now?

[Cool Hand Lucroy]

Don't really get being down on the Yelich trade. Yelich is going to be an elite OBP guy at least, probably all the way through 2022. To get him DS traded 2 OFs with question marks (even if Brinson explodes, I can hear the complaints about his K rate now), a pitcher a tier or 2 below our 4 best guys now, and a MI who is a year or two away.

 

I do that deal every single time. Yelich is consistent, contolled, and valuable, and OF is the deepest part of the system.

 

Regression from Shaw, Arcia, and Pina (not to mention Santana) is really what's making this team look bad. Maybe that was predictable, but Stearns should get credit for Aguilar, and Dubon got hurt. Otherwise, he might be another success. The Crew is still ahead of schedule.

[Boomer5]

Let’s also not forget his inability to trade Santana. Santana’s value has tanked and next year we’ll have the problem we had last year. Yelich. Cain. Braun. Santana. Phillips. Broxton. Now add Thames because Aguilar has to be an every day player at first base.

Had Samtana hit anywhere near what he did last season, keeping him would have been a great thing for the team given the massive trouble the lineup has had scoring runs.

 

The lineup has been so lacking run producing bats the last few weeks, Tyler friggin Saladino has often been hitting 5th in the order. If instead we had Santana of last year or something close to that, he'd be ideal batting 5th after Aguilar or Shaw.

 

There is no way though that Stearns could have predicted Santana would go from a 30 HR/.875 OPS guy to someone with a slap hitting .354 SLG percentage.

 

Sports are volatile. For every good surprise like Aguilar in a season, there are bound to also have a Santana who inexplicably loses all of his power.

 

Here’s is part of my issue with the Stearns love and this is no reflection of this poster, just this seemed like a good time to respond.

 

With Stearns, the excuse is he couldn’t be expected to predict Scooter and Segura would become All Stars and he couldn’t predict Santana would fall apart yet he is given all the credit for predicting Aguilar and Shaw would become mashers.

 

I find that selective.

 

I see Stearns as an excellent spreadsheet guy. Able to balance value with control and payroll. I do not see him as a “baseball man” who truly understands what makes a team able to make it to the next level and the skill set and composition of a team.

 

So far he has picked up a number of 2 WAR types on the cheap and 4 WAR types at full retail. The team is a mix of 30 something’s playing key roles who won’t be here in a year or two and young guys who are struggling to build off their past success. How that mix is viewed as a 4-5 year window is something I don’t visualize.

 

I’m definitely not saying he is a bad GM at all. Just that the praise on him and him alone seems unusual. Melvin did just fine building this team once Mark A gave him the go ahead to tear it down instead of following the Kohl model.

 

Ultimately Stearns is very fortunate to have CC and DJ.

[danzig6767]

With all due respect a glance at Santana's page in baseball reference will demonstrate that at least thus far in his career, last year was the outlier not this year. So while it might have been hard to anticipate that Santana might dramatically drop off this year it is hardly "inexplicable"

Santana was progressing as many young players do. He didn't go from a guy who showed very little power in the minors or majors and out of nowhere hit 30 homers/59 extra base hits last year and an .875 OPS.

 

In 2016 with his first chance to get a decent number of at bats, Domingo posted an .792 OPS at age 23. Then he followed that up with an .875 OPS at age 24.

 

So yea, i do think it is inexplicable that out of nowhere this season, he lost all of his power. That's more surprising to me than jumping from a .792 OPS in 2016 to a .875 OPS the following season.

 

Going into this year, i could have pictured Santana staying around what he did last year, getting even a little better, or regressing some, but not turning into largely a singles only hitter, with a few doubles sprinkled in.

 

Plus, Santana wasn't some swing at anything hacker like Arcia which makes hitters more prone to big slumps. He was second on the team last year in walks with 73 and even this year he had 18 in 189 at bats.

[Boomer5]

Don't really get being down on the Yelich trade. Yelich is going to be an elite OBP guy at least, probably all the way through 2022. To get him DS traded 2 OFs with question marks (even if Brinson explodes, I can hear the complaints about his K rate now), a pitcher a tier or 2 below our 4 best guys now, and a MI who is a year or two away.

 

I do that deal every single time. Yelich is consistent, contolled, and valuable, and OF is the deepest part of the system.

 

Regression from Shaw, Arcia, and Pina (not to mention Santana) is really what's making this team look bad. Maybe that was predictable, but Stearns should get credit for Aguilar, and Dubon got hurt. Otherwise, he might be another success. The Crew is still ahead of schedule.

 

Who is complaining about the Yelich trade?

[Lathund]

It's been 3 years since the sell-off started. 1½ years (or a little more) since the last of those trades (Thornburg). It's remarkable that we are where we are right now, and that'a a testiment to David Stearns and his team. Look at where the Cubs and Astros were 3 years after they started their selloff. DS has gotten us this far with his approach, so let him keep doing more of the same. I really like the value-based approach he's using, where need alone never dictates a signing. I know how upset some people were that we didn't go after Quintana or Gray last year, but I'm sure glad we didn't give up our version of Eloy Jimenez for what they're putting up now. If the price exceeds the value, and the value there is doesn't get you past a threshold (i.e Aroldis Chapman to the Cubs), you don't make the deal. Regardless of need. There might come a point when negative-value deals need to start getting made, but we really are not there yet. There are also more ways than one to build a roster, and so far I'm glad to see we've avoided traps like Cobb and Gray and the likes.

 

Be patient, the future is bright.

 

We've been told "the future is bright" for decades. What's different now?

 

It's not about what someone tells us. I look at this already good team where everyone is controllable still, I look at the players coming through, I look at an owner who is committed to making this club good long-term (Buying the Mudcats, renovating Maryvale etc), I look at a GM with a plan, and from that I make up my own mind.

 

I haven't been a Brewers fan for decades, so I don't know what they told us or who told it. And I don't care.

[owbc]

We've been told "the future is bright" for decades. What's different now?

 

It was, then management sold the future to go "all-in". Several times. They could do the same this year, and then we can look forward to more losing teams in the early 2020s. I'm sick of that.

 

I also strongly disagree with the idea that we can somehow become a WS contender this year with a couple of trades. For every Kansas City there are a half dozen other instances of teams that fall short in the boom/bust cycle--stuck with long rebuilding cycles after one or two quick playoff exits. It's not the way to do things.

[danzig6767]

 

Here’s is part of my issue with the Stearns love and this is no reflection of this poster, just this seemed like a good time to respond.

 

With Stearns, the excuse is he couldn’t be expected to predict Scooter and Segura would become All Stars and he couldn’t predict Santana would fall apart yet he is given all the credit for predicting Aguilar and Shaw would become mashers.

 

I find that selective.

What i think this shows is that there is also luck which factors in for every GM.

 

Sure Stearns and his staff had to like Aguilar enough to grab him off waivers, but even Stearns would admit that he couldn't have predicted getting a .987 OPS season, anymore than the Reds could have envisioned Scooter Gennett turning into Robinson Cano after claiming him off waivers.

 

With Segura at least, there is a concrete explanation. A coach in winter ball the year after we traded him got Segura to significantly alter his batting stance and he hasn't stopped hitting since. Granted, blame could be placed on our coaching staff for not making a similar suggestion to Segura, but Stearns isn't a hitting coach.

 

Sports are both a mix of being predictable and unpredictable. Odd stuff happens though to players around the league. Hell, Beane waives Muncy and suddenly with the Dodgers he's a hitting beast. On the flip side Bryce Harper has a .218 batting average. There are tons more examples.

 

Any GM will do well so long as he makes more good moves than bad overall, but mixed in will inevitably be some players that far exceed what he could have envisioned and others who do much worse than he could have envisioned because it's a volatile sport.

[MrTPlush]

Stearns deserves a pat on the back because he got 3 AS players in the offseason? One fell into our lap (Jeffress), he paid to get one (Cain), and sold a huge chunk of farm to get another (Yelich). That deserves almost no credit. I can make those kind of moves on a video game. Sorry those aren’t impressive moves.

 

So no free agent acquisition is impressive? If you get one cheap he fell into your lap? If you pay for one that doesnt count either? The fact of the matter is Stearns went out an got 3 guys who are easily outperforming their contracts in Cain, Jeffress and Chacin. Add on top of that getting Yelich without selling a huge chunk of the farm. He didnt without giving up any of our top pitching and without giving up Huira. That is impressive. And he got one of the top NL Ofers who is controlled for a while. I am not sure what a GM can get credit for in your mind

 

This.

 

Stearns isn't perfect by any means but criticizing him for those offseason moves seems to me to be complaining just to complain because the team is scuffling right now.

 

I complained? No I didn’t. I just said paying sticker price for something isn’t impressive. None of these guys were particularly garage sale finds. Jeremy Jeffress was a great get, but he wanted to be here and it was basically a no brainer. Lorenzo Cain will be a great get if he produces his entire contract...no one was worried about his production in year one.

 

I actually complimented Stearns and you will find I have not complained during this entire nightmare of a skid. So not sure that makes sense.

 

I’m not saying they were bad moves...just not something hang a feather on your cap for.

[RockCoCougars]

Free pass? Stearns has done great so far. I'm not going to blame him for Segura and especially Gennett. Both were basically run out of town.

[jjfanec]

If free pass means people are saying he has been perfect then sure that is wrong. But I haven't seen that at all. Mostly it is people who think he is doing a great job by taking a team that had a bad mlb team and poor farm system and built a playoff contender and a top tier farm system. He has made mistakes. He has made a lot more really good moves

[NievesNoNO]

I think it depends what you qualify as a major move. I think they will make some moves in the next week. If they miss the playoffs after those moves, yes I still give the guy time. I have no problem not getting Machado for the cost. I DO think this is a playoff team when fully healthy, so yes I still do have high expectations this year going forward. He did get value back for Segura. Gennett didn't fit the direction; so I'm not giving him a pass but he's made up for the loss with guys like Aguilar.

 

If there's one non-move I was shocked at, it was the inability to move Braun before the 10-5 thing kicked it. To me that was a mistake.

 

Honestly, other than that I think Stearns has done a great job to this point. He's not beyond criticism but when I look around the league I feel like the Brewers are in a way better situation than most organizations. He's flipped the script very quickly; the route isn't the same as the say the Astros or Cubs as they bottomed out to get better. So he's going to have to go about things differently than what we're used to seeing lately.

[coolhandluke121]

Ted Williams' career OBP = .482. Is he getting a free pass despite making an out over 50% of the time he came to the plate?

[paul253]

Santana was progressing as many young players do. He didn't go from a guy who showed very little power in the minors or majors and out of nowhere hit 30 homers/59 extra base hits last year and an .875 OPS.

 

If the rumors of Stearns shopping Santana were true then you can only assume Stearns overvalued him. He was asking for too much in return, didn’t get it and hung onto Santana. We can never know for sure what if anything was offered for Santana so we can’t for sure he messed up by not trading him. But we do know for sure that Stearns held onto him and his value has since ranked. So IF there was a decent offer for Santana and Stearns said no, then it was a mistake.

 

But it was one move. He has made several other very good moves for sure.

[owbc]

I complained? No I didn’t. I just said paying sticker price for something isn’t impressive. None of these guys were particularly garage sale finds. Jeremy Jeffress was a great get, but he wanted to be here and it was basically a no brainer. Lorenzo Cain will be a great get if he produces his entire contract...no one was worried about his production in year one.

 

I actually complimented Stearns and you will find I have not complained during this entire nightmare of a skid. So not sure that makes sense.

 

I’m not saying they were bad moves...just not something hang a feather on your cap for.

 

These moves go in a different category than "garage sale finds", you have to compare them against other FA signings, not other garage sale finds. These are big FA signings shopping from the list of the 30-40 top free agents. There are a lot of FAs to choose from. There were other comparable options and we did better for the price than anyone else. We could have paid for a relief pitcher. Or we could have done nothing (especially in outfield).