If the Brewers miss the playoffs....

[istanbultaye]

So I guess another way of looking at this is, what did we do wrong in our last window? Or rather, did we not do anything wrong but simply didn't get lucky enough to take it all the way?

 

To be honest, although I think people have a tendency to blame the manager way more than they should, if we consider the window that Doug Melvin got us to be bookended by the playoff years of 2008 and 2011, the years in between were headed by Ken Macha. Clearly, there were the typical issues with pitching in that time frame as well, but I think there is a reason that Ken Macha only lasted 2 years, even though the Brewers(Melvin/Stearns/Attanasio) have given managers some leash (way more than the fans do).

[MrTPlush]

What exactly did we lose “selling” the farm?

 

Michael Brantley? Honestly is pretty overrated in my mind. He had one stellar season and now a bunch of nice, but not great seasons.

 

Lorenzo Cain? Okay, but that is one guy and we haven’t been lacking OFers. If we still had Cain we likely never discover Gomez who was just as good and obviously the guys we got trading him.

 

We didn’t lose hardly anything “selling the farm”. Most flamed out. People complain we never have pitching...well selling the farm surely wasn’t the problem there. The problem was never replenishing the farm via the draft and most notably the 1st round. We never really replenished the farm until we rebuilt which meant trading MLB players. We haven’t had a drafted player from that round make a big impact since Ryan Braun! Seriously!?

 

If you are going to draft like crud you will never be a consistent winner. One huge run and another small one is pretty good then.

[tmwiese55]

Plush nailed it, I made a similar post yesterday. And remember the only Ps they traded away were Jeffress and Odorazi. Jeffress flopped and Odorazi has just been an ok/adequate starter. Sure I'd have taken him, but he wouldn't have made any significant difference when the team collapsed. It all came down to horrible draft/development, especially regarding pitchers. Offensive weapons here haven't been a problem, guys all over the league doing well that came from MKE.

[clancyphile]

My thoughts on the 2019 Brewers:

 

CF: Cain

LF: Yelich

1B: Aguilar

2B: Shaw/Schoop

RF: Braun/Thames

3B: Moustaklis

C: Pina/Nottingham

SS: Schoop/Arcia

 

Bench: Nottingham/Pina, Braun/Thames, Arcia/Schoop/Shaw, Perez, Broxton

Rotation: Anderson, Chacin, Peralta, Burnes, Guerra

Bullpen: Knebel, Soria, Hader, T. Williams, Jennings, Woodruff, Wilkerson

 

Wild Cards: Nelson, Davies

 

This assumes that Miley, Santana, and Kratz are gone. Hopefully, the Crew can retain Miley and that Santana heats up enough someone will take a chance on him, as opposed to the Brewers cutting him loose.

[bill hAll Star]

What exactly did we lose “selling” the farm?

 

Michael Brantley? Honestly is pretty overrated in my mind. He had one stellar season and now a bunch of nice, but not great seasons.

 

Lorenzo Cain? Okay, but that is one guy and we haven’t been lacking OFers. If we still had Cain we likely never discover Gomez who was just as good and obviously the guys we got trading him.

 

We didn’t lose hardly anything “selling the farm”. Most flamed out. People complain we never have pitching...well selling the farm surely wasn’t the problem there. The problem was never replenishing the farm via the draft and most notably the 1st round. We never really replenished the farm until we rebuilt which meant trading MLB players. We haven’t had a drafted player from that round make a big impact since Ryan Braun! Seriously!?

 

If you are going to draft like crud you will never be a consistent winner. One huge run and another small one is pretty good then.

 

You're correct that drafting ultimately did them in.

 

Look at 2014 where Overbay/Reynolds manned 1B and Segura had a terrible year at SS. We won 82 games after an absolute collapse in the last 40 games or so.

 

Yes, who knows if we'd have traded for Gomez among other things if we had a different organizational depth chart, but check out these 2014 WARs:

Brantley 6.5

Odorizzi 2.0

Lawrie 1.6 (half a season)

Cain 4.4

Escobar 3.5

 

Maybe we'd have been able to spend money on a better 1B and an extra rotation or bullpen upgrade along with Garza/Lohse who performed well that year. Maybe we could've traded Cain or Alcides for a helpful piece that had control from 2012-2017. We might've had more minors depth as well.

 

Those guys flamed out for various reasons but we'd have had more value in our system.

 

We also traded away Mitch Haniger in 2014 to supplement OF depth and get Gerardo Parra. We ended up getting Davies back down the road, but I'd probably rather have Haniger.

 

These things all have a ripple effect. Maybe that group of 5 guys wouldn't have come together for much else and our best results may have been just doing the CC and Greinke trades, but you can see where they could've had a good set of players in the 2012-2015 range or later.

[tmwiese55]

Brantley and Cain would have been luxuries here with our OF depth and they were covered by getting Gomez anyway. Sure, you'd have been better off with all those guys than not. But you do have to give something up. Both big go for it moves did work. 08 if Sheets doesn't' get hurt who knows. In 2011 they made themselves the 2nd best team after Philly (who likely had a 200mil payroll) and you ended up homefield in the NLCS with a 1-0 lead. At that point they were likely the Las Vegas favorite to win the WS. It didn't work out because baseball, but they built a team that was 7 wins from a WS title and the favorite.

 

Think of it this way, if they didn't make those go for it moves there is, in my opinion, a better than likely chance we still would not have even made the playoffs since 1982.

[Jopal78]

What exactly did we lose “selling” the farm?

 

Michael Brantley? Honestly is pretty overrated in my mind. He had one stellar season and now a bunch of nice, but not great seasons.

 

Lorenzo Cain? Okay, but that is one guy and we haven’t been lacking OFers. If we still had Cain we likely never discover Gomez who was just as good and obviously the guys we got trading him.

 

We didn’t lose hardly anything “selling the farm”. Most flamed out. People complain we never have pitching...well selling the farm surely wasn’t the problem there. The problem was never replenishing the farm via the draft and most notably the 1st round. We never really replenished the farm until we rebuilt which meant trading MLB players. We haven’t had a drafted player from that round make a big impact since Ryan Braun! Seriously!?

 

If you are going to draft like crud you will never be a consistent winner. One huge run and another small one is pretty good then.

 

There’s two points here; a winning team usually doesn’t draft in the top 15. After that the elite talents in the draft are long gone and it’s more a less a crap shoot. So Melvin pretty much stopped drafting well after about 2007 which coincided with him not having top 10 picks. So replenishing the farm” is a lot easier said then done.

 

Secondly as for all the players Melvin traded away: Brantley, Lawrie, Joe Thatcher, Odorizzi, Cain, Jeffress, Haniger, Nelson Cruz (although in a different kind of deal) etc. did have an impact on the team. It resulted in Yuni B soaking up at bats, Braden Looper pitching in the rotation, countless bums in the bullpen, Logan Schafer, Ishikawa, Felipe Lopez. None of those players where any good and more likely than not cost the team games, but they played because there was no better option because everyone else capable had been traded.

 

And third, that Brantley has made it ten years in the major leagues is in and off itself evidence that he’s a fantastic player. Super star, of course not. But a solid starter for a decade, there isn’t much more you could ask of a player

[tmwiese55]

So would your stance be to literally never trade? You have to give something up, the other teams aren't completely inept and it's not a video game. They traded from a spot of depth, a 101 move, and Gomez came in and was ballpark just as good anyway. Having these guys wouldn't have changed their fortunes from 2013-16ish. You'd have not made the playoffs in 11 and then been trading these guys off because the team isn't any good.

 

Heck, Brantly might have never gotten a chance here so you would've ended up trading him later or just letting him go rather than getting CC for him

[PeaveyFury]

Secondly as for all the players Melvin traded away: Brantley, Lawrie, Joe Thatcher, Odorizzi, Cain, Jeffress, Haniger, Nelson Cruz (although in a different kind of deal) etc. did have an impact on the team. It resulted in Yuni B soaking up at bats, Braden Looper pitching in the rotation, countless bums in the bullpen, Logan Schafer, Ishikawa, Felipe Lopez. None of those players where any good and more likely than not cost the team games, but they played because there was no better option because everyone else capable had been traded.

 

Joe Thatcher? For the second time in as many days, come on man. Thatcher had a CAREER WAR of 2.6 over NINE SEASONS. He was the definition of an uber-replacable LHR. Calling him any kind of a loss is a major stretch.

 

And you're always going to have Ishikawa-type bats on the team, regardless of whether Mitch Haniger is in the system or not. The back end of a bench is often filled with MLB veterans rather than prospects for any number of reasons And, for the record, Ishikawa was actually ABOVE replacement level in his Milwaukee season. Also worth noting that Jeffress hasn't had a single 1+ WAR season in any city other than Milwaukee.

 

Of the players listed above, I'll buy Brantey, Lawrie, Cain and Odorizzi. But all of those players were used to acquire players who were actually successful in getting the Brewers to the playoffs, so I think many would agree that the mission was acomplished in those three trades.

[PeaveyFury]

Yelich is an outlier who was only available because of the ridiculous Marlins cost cutting "ownership". Pretty much every move Stearns has made in 2018 has been for today with zero plan for the future. Most accounts suggest he have a farm system that is ranked in the 20's after 3 years of his leadership. That suggests that he is willing to acquire assets but then flip them as trade capital rather than grow through the farm. I can't say that is necessarily the worst idea in the world IF our moves were designed to build a young MLB roster but that isn't the case.

 

Cain and been a fantastic player but he is 32. Chacin and his 4 plus FIP is 30 and has one year of control left. Anderson and Junior aren't young. The three guys we just picked up have a total of one year of control We aren't building a long term team. We are building a team of players who are for the most part all in their prime 27-32 years. If that isn't a tean trying to win now then I'm not sure what is.

 

But just to play along if we don't make the playoffs what is the plan to get better next year? What could it possibly be with this roster and the farm system in it's current state? Hope Hiura makes the leap? Hope Peralta finds command? Pray for Davies and Nelson to return to health and 2017 levels? Trade Thames and Broxton for what exactly?

 

Probably easiest to just say that I disagree with most of this. The points you make about team control and their offseason last year pretty much show why they're not acting like the Bucks. Yeah, they were probably comparable in '13-14 into '15, but that was under a different GM/scouting group. The fact that they didn't go out and give huge contracts to mediocre players like Alex Cobb like some advocated for is further proof. That was the Kohl (and recent) Bucks to a 'T'.... sign mediocrity to a stupid contract. That was the Brewers under Selig (see Hammonds, Grissom) and Melvin to a degree (Suppan, and the last year of most of the other pitchers), but that hasn't been an issue under this leadership team thus far, and I have no reason to buy into anyone's belief to the contrary.

[clancyphile]

Secondly as for all the players Melvin traded away: Brantley, Lawrie, Joe Thatcher, Odorizzi, Cain, Jeffress, Haniger, Nelson Cruz (although in a different kind of deal) etc. did have an impact on the team. It resulted in Yuni B soaking up at bats, Braden Looper pitching in the rotation, countless bums in the bullpen, Logan Schafer, Ishikawa, Felipe Lopez. None of those players where any good and more likely than not cost the team games, but they played because there was no better option because everyone else capable had been traded.

 

Joe Thatcher? For the second time in as many days, come on man. You're adding questionable supporting documentation to support a point yet again. Thatcher had a CAREER WAR of 2.6 over NINE SEASONS. He was the definition of an uber-replacable LHR. Calling him any kind of a loss is a major stretch.

 

And you're always going to have Ishikawa-type bats on the team, regardless of whether Mitch Haniger is in the system or not. The back end of a bench is often filled with MLB veterans rather than prospects for any number of reasons And, for the record, Ishikawa was actually ABOVE replacement level in his Milwaukee season. Also worth noting that Jeffress hasn't had a single 1+ WAR season in any city other than Milwaukee.

 

This all just seems like putting names into a post without looking at the actual data to see whether the point is even accurate. Of the players listed above, I'll buy Brantey, Lawrie, Cain and Odorizzi. But all of those players were used to acquire players who were actually successful in getting the Brewers to the playoffs, so I think many would agree that the mission was acomplished in those three trades.

 

Jeffress twice helped the Crew get good returns. Grienke once, and then with Lucroy to Texas in that trade that brought Ortiz, Brinson, and Cordell.

 

Since then, he's also been a valuable bullpen asset. Granted, some may have hoped for more from a 1st-round pick, but I think he's been a success.

[Boomer5]

Yelich is an outlier who was only available because of the ridiculous Marlins cost cutting "ownership". Pretty much every move Stearns has made in 2018 has been for today with zero plan for the future. Most accounts suggest he have a farm system that is ranked in the 20's after 3 years of his leadership. That suggests that he is willing to acquire assets but then flip them as trade capital rather than grow through the farm. I can't say that is necessarily the worst idea in the world IF our moves were designed to build a young MLB roster but that isn't the case.

 

Cain and been a fantastic player but he is 32. Chacin and his 4 plus FIP is 30 and has one year of control left. Anderson and Junior aren't young. The three guys we just picked up have a total of one year of control We aren't building a long term team. We are building a team of players who are for the most part all in their prime 27-32 years. If that isn't a tean trying to win now then I'm not sure what is.

 

But just to play along if we don't make the playoffs what is the plan to get better next year? What could it possibly be with this roster and the farm system in it's current state? Hope Hiura makes the leap? Hope Peralta finds command? Pray for Davies and Nelson to return to health and 2017 levels? Trade Thames and Broxton for what exactly?

 

Probably easiest to just say that I disagree with most of this. The points you make about team control and their offseason last year pretty much show why they're not acting like the Bucks. Yeah, they were probably comparable in '13-14 into '15, but that was under a different GM/scouting group. The fact that they didn't go out and give huge contracts to mediocre players like Alex Cobb like some advocated for is further proof. That was the Kohl (and recent) Bucks to a 'T'.... sign mediocrity to a stupid contract. That was the Brewers under Selig (see Hammonds, Grissom) and Melvin to a degree (Suppan, and the last year of most of the other pitchers), but that hasn't been an issue under this leadership team thus far, and I have no reason to buy into anyone's belief to the contrary.

 

Lol. Big shock that you disagree.

 

Yeah. Stearns has produced a farm system that is ranked in the 20’s and most of our guys are 30 or so and we are prettt much a 500 team since May.

 

But of course you will tell us we are on upward trajectory.

[PeaveyFury]

But of course you will tell us we are on upward trajectory.

 

No, the team’s record the past 4 years shows that clearly enough.

 

The good news is that one of us will just as clearly be proven wrong over the next couple of years. It’ll certainly be interesting to see who.

[MrTPlush]

It’s too early to say what David Stearns is going to do long term. I don’t mean to rain on the parade, but I don’t think this will be much different than most teams. A short stint of competing and then slowly taper off into some kind of rebuild. We are a small market...sorry. It would take incredible perfectionism to be good consistently without rebuilds in between.

 

Everyone points to the Cardinals and says that is how we need to be. They are closer to our market size and don’t depend on massive FA deals. THEIR PAYROLL IS $150MIL!! We aren’t going to be them either people.

 

Consistently winning is the biggest pipe dream there is in my opinion. I’m not saying we need to push all the chips into the middle for the next few years, but man you need to put effort into good teams when you have them. If you focus too much on consistently winning you may end up consistently average. Then when it starts to taper you either tear it down accepting defeat or pull a 2012-2014 where you pour into it just to keep it treading water.

[superfly]

So glad the Brewers made it a 3-2 game and had the momentum, only for Counsell to send the dumpster dive blue light special Jordan Lyles back out there for a 2nd inning....promptly to blow it. I don't care what kind of leash CC has because he's one of us but there's no excuse for this. Hader hasnt pitched in a week, Jeffress 1IP in the past 8 days. Hello CC ?

[Brewever]

So glad the Brewers made it a 3-2 game and had the momentum, only for Counsell to send the dumpster dive blue light special Jordan Lyles back out there for a 2nd inning....promptly to blow it. I don't care what kind of leash CC has because he's one of us but there's no excuse for this. Hader hasnt pitched in a week, Jeffress 1IP in the past 8 days. Hello CC ?

 

 

COUNSEL IS either a complete moron, he was drunk, or he had money on Cards - 1.5

[buckybrewer232]

It’s too early to say what David Stearns is going to do long term. I don’t mean to rain on the parade, but I don’t think this will be much different than most teams. A short stint of competing and then slowly taper off into some kind of rebuild. We are a small market...sorry. It would take incredible perfectionism to be good consistently without rebuilds in between.

 

Everyone points to the Cardinals and says that is how we need to be. They are closer to our market size and don’t depend on massive FA deals. THEIR PAYROLL IS $150MIL!! We aren’t going to be them either people.

 

Consistently winning is the biggest pipe dream there is in my opinion. I’m not saying we need to push all the chips into the middle for the next few years, but man you need to put effort into good teams when you have them. If you focus too much on consistently winning you may end up consistently average. Then when it starts to taper you either tear it down accepting defeat or pull a 2012-2014 where you pour into it just to keep it treading water.

 

This is a good post.

[Jopal78]

sign mediocrity to a stupid contract. That was the Brewers under Selig (see Hammonds, Grissom) and Melvin to a degree (Suppan, and the last year of most of the other pitchers), but that hasn't been an issue under this leadership team thus far, and I have no reason to buy into anyone's belief to the contrary.

 

To be fair, Hammonds was signed after a monster season in Colorado to create buzz for the team as Miller Park opened. Marquis Grissom was acquired in a salary dump/change of scenery trade.

 

The only reason Melvin gave Suppan, Randy Wolf and Matt Garza extra years is because they weren’t coming to Milwaukee otherwise. Just like Lorenzo Cain getting a five year deal. If four years was the best he could do he would be playing for somebody else in 2018.

 

In nearly all instances players go where the money is. The Brewers sign middle for free agents because they are never going to shell out 20+ million a year to sign a free agent. It’s not a Melvin or a Stearns thing. Thei Breweees market pushed to the limit will support right around a 100 million dollar payroll which any frontline starter would command I Excess of twenty million per annum.

[PeaveyFury]

sign mediocrity to a stupid contract. That was the Brewers under Selig (see Hammonds, Grissom) and Melvin to a degree (Suppan, and the last year of most of the other pitchers), but that hasn't been an issue under this leadership team thus far, and I have no reason to buy into anyone's belief to the contrary.

 

To be fair, Hammonds was signed after a monster season in Colorado to create buzz for the team as Miller Park opened. Marquis Grissom was acquired in a salary dump/change of scenery trade.

 

The only reason Melvin gave Suppan, Randy Wolf and Matt Garza extra years is because they weren’t coming to Milwaukee otherwise. Just like Lorenzo Cain getting a five year deal. If four years was the best he could do he would be playing for somebody else in 2018.

 

In nearly all instances players go where the money is. The Brewers sign middle for free agents because they are never going to shell out 20+ million a year to sign a free agent. It’s not a Melvin or a Stearns thing. Thei Breweees market pushed to the limit will support right around a 100 million dollar payroll which any frontline starter would command I Excess of twenty million per annum.

 

Though correct, was any of that wise? Obviously, being crippled by Grissom's contract for years was far more devastating under the low-payroll Selig Prieb-led than Suppan or Wolf's contracts, but the theme is the same- signing mediocrity to too large of contracts for too long.

 

The point is, there has been no sign of taking that approach under the new regime, and it doesn't strike me as fair to lump them in together at this point. If they had signed a Cobb-type to a 4 year 60 million dollar deal it might be a fair point, but they didn't.

[lcbj68c]

If? Haven't we seen this film before?

[JohnBriggs12]

If? Haven't we seen this film before?

 

It's why most of us are thankful there's Badgers and Packers to look forward to this time of year. Want to know when all this started? Go back to the days when Del Crandall managed the Brewers (73-75) and check the game logs on B-R. After the fourth of July, it always fell apart.

[brewers888]

Stearns deserves real criticism for how he handled this trade deadline. Not only did he not improve the team there is an argument to be made that he made us worse. We went from being one of the best team defenses in baseball to below average. Shaw is not a second baseman and Thames is not an outfielder. Defensively we have looked terrible the last few weeks.

 

Just play Arcia every day at this point. With Schoop pretty much hitting like Arcia we can't afford the hit defensively. I know we paid a lot to get this guy but I want no part of paying Schoop 10 million next season to hit like Hernan Perez.

[brewers888]

I also think that Stearns has made some big mistakes with this pitching staff. Burnes should be in this rotation for sure and Woodruff should have been given a real chance to stick as well. I still like Stearns and think overall he has done a great job but he had an awful deadline.

[MrTPlush]

I also think that Stearns has made some big mistakes with this pitching staff. Burnes should be in this rotation for sure and Woodruff should have been given a real chance to stick as well. I still like Stearns and think overall he has done a great job but he had an awful deadline.

 

Yah this deadline was really questionable all around. Still time for it to play out, but what an epic disaster so far. Everyone assumed we were going to get a starter...like it wasn’t even a question. Understandable because it made so much sense. Instead he didn’t and now our pitching is a complete dumpster fire and sorely could have used an upgrade somewhere.

 

It just felt like a half-butt job. Why go spend decent prospects to get a bunch of rentals, but ignore the glaring rotation? It was just...meh.

 

I get not wanting to overpay...but at some point we will have to if we actually want to improve our team. It won’t all come from the minors unfortunately.

[Pugger]

Stearns deserves real criticism for how he handled this trade deadline. Not only did he not improve the team there is an argument to be made that he made us worse. We went from being one of the best team defenses in baseball to below average. Shaw is not a second baseman and Thames is not an outfielder. Defensively we have looked terrible the last few weeks.

 

Just play Arcia every day at this point. With Schoop pretty much hitting like Arcia we can't afford the hit defensively. I know we paid a lot to get this guy but I want no part of paying Schoop 10 million next season to hit like Hernan Perez.

 

Yes, defensively we were fine. Starting pitching is our issue. Getting Moose was fine but we really didn't need Schoop. Freddy might be a good one someday but he needs more seasoning in the minors. Anderson has regressed. Lord knows if Nelson will ever be the same. Davies shoulder is still bothering him. Chacin has been our only consistent starter this season. This just isn't going to cut it if you are trying to make it to the post season.