Hope for the future?

[adambr2]

At this time last year, it was hard. But I still felt -- ok, we're not there, but we're a year or two away.

 

Now, I'm honestly not sure. I'm not sure we're a year or two away. I'm not honestly sure we're going to be further ahead in 2019 or 2020 than we are now. The truth of the matter is, our farm is not where it was a year ago, and it would be fair to call it one of the weaker systems.

 

The Yelich trade absolutely was still a good one, but the much-needed depth has taken a beating from rentals and short-term bandaid that so far appear to be yielding little for results. Hiura is by far the best prospect in our system, but surer prospects than him have disappointed at this level. At best, it would be unfair to expect him to come in and immediately impact this team and franchise in the way that our most optimistic hope that he will.

 

I'm not sure our system pitching is what I thought we had. Medeiros and Ortiz are gone in mentioned short-term deals. We don't appear to believe in Woodruff. Brown and Supak give some hope, but there's not an ace walking through that door. I don't know what Peralta is, I hope he can figure it out but I'd be lying if I said I really believe that a low 90s two pitch starter is going to be impactful at this level. Burnes is the best we've got, and yet he isn't someone we even clearly believe can come in and be better than what we have right now. Hader's career trajectory looks like a complete mystery.

 

Two out of our 3 best players are a 32 year old who could start to fade at any time, and a previously unknown first baseman having a shockingly good year. That absolutely concerns me.

 

Jimmy should be back, and that's good news. But the truth is, we don't know yet what his future will be. We don't know if he'll be the same ace we had.

 

I want to believe that the light there at the end of the tunnel is real, that we still are on the upward trajectory and that what we have built isn't just a recipe for the same 80-85 win purgatory as we had in the Melvin era, that right now we are just a victim of too much unactipated success too early which brought about unrealistic expectations. But right now I have more questions than answers.

[ClosetBrewerFan]

I'm beginning to think you have some doubts about the brewers

[3and2Fastball]

Brice Turang looks like the real deal. He should be ready by the 2021 or 2022 season or so...

 

The Brewers need to hit on several drafts in a row. Corey Ray seems to have turned the corner. Hiura looks good. Yelich is bordering on superstar status. Cain is fantastic.

 

The Brewers need Burnes & Peralta to take the next steps towards being reliable solid starters in 2019. Chacin & Miley are pretty good 4th starters. If Anderson, Davies, or Nelson can pitch well in 2019, we might have something. It is hard to say though, for sure isn't it? Lots of "ifs".

 

Stearns has some tough decisions to make. We need to cut some dead weight.

[trwi7]

Almost every regression candidate that I listed last year has regressed. Would have been nice to at least sell high on one or two of them.

[Duckpondbrew]

Honestly, I would say I am less worried. Yes, the farm is not what it once was. I won't lie, I hold a gross amount of jealousy towards the braves, but at the same time, top prospects are not the only thing that may help lead a winning team, though they do make it significantly easier to trade for said pieces.

 

Stearns' modus oporandi of talent acquisition has been unconventional. One could propose baseball has moved to a youth movement of sorts, but Stearns has seemed to zag away from that. Instead of targeting top prospects in trades, he has focused on lesser knowns (see Peralta deal) and players already with major experience (Thornburg- Shaw trade). These trades do not notably yield top prospects but have been shown to find value by picking either lottery tickets, or players who may be on the way out such as Shaw.

 

The Brewers during his tenure have also added numerous former top prospects (Aguilar, Richie Shaffer, and Jake Thompson). While these deals may not yield anything, it is possible one or more of these former prospects to prove themselves. I do not know if other teams have done this as well. It is fair to say, but in my, briefer than most, period of obsessively following this team, I have never seen such moves commonly used. If we keep doing it, I would be willing to bet a few of those less than stellar prospects of other systems might also fall into our lap with some succeeding.

 

The recent drafting has been average at worst I would say, especially based on positions. Which is a major improvement from the earlier years of the decade, Unfortunately, there has been no real homerun prospect. Hiurra might be that, but it is hard to say. Even this year, the teams methods have been unconventional. I recall upwards to 7, I believe 8-12 picks being community college players. Once again the FO seems to be focusing on unconventional talent acquisition.

 

The players have not only been conventional but tend to shift away from the power at all cost players of past regimes. Up the middle talent and pitch ability have been stressed, along with athleticism. this could also be a blip, but we have yet to see many of the stearns' picks show up in the majors. So we may not even have a clue what a true youth movement may be under Stearns (which I find rather sad, because as much as I like and respect outside the box thinking, I love watching youth movements).

 

They have also been snake bitten extremely badly this year with injuries. (Nelson, Davies, Dubon, Thames, Yelich, Cain, Albers, Suter, Soria, Knebel, Miley, Pina all missing parts of the season in crucial moments). In short, I do not recall a year where I was laughing at each injury as if saying, "Sure! Why not!" Maybe a look into training regiments is needed. Maybe it was really bad luck.In all likelihood it is probably a bit of both.

 

That said, Stearns has remained unconventional in his methods, but such methods make it difficult to measure success in the future. Improvements to certain areas can be made, such as catcher, rather quickly. Other areas such as the rotation should hopefully be more stable. The bullpen has some pieces that should get auditions (torres-costa, nick ramirez). Infield should see improvements incrementally. Outfield just needs the sorting hat from harry potter maybe? In conclusion, baseball is weird and I love it.

[82brewcrew82]

They need to upgrade catcher but assuming Moose is gone and Schoop isn't, the infield is pretty set with Shaw, Arcia, Schoop and Aguilar. Yelich and Cain are set in the OF. Maybe a LH bat to play right. Perez, Pina, Braun on the bench. The bullpen has some good pieces that they can add on to so not worried there. They have got to find starting pitching. I know we have a bunch of mid to back of the rotation arms but everyone of them is just as likely to have a bad game as a good game on any given day. They need a stopper, someone they can rely on to give them a good start 90% of the time. I could live with acquisition, acquisition, burns chacin, anderson going into next year with Peralta and Woodruff as the the next two up. I don't think they are that far away.

[adambr2]

They need to upgrade catcher but assuming Moose is gone and Schoop isn't, the infield is pretty set with Shaw, Arcia, Schoop and Aguilar. Yelich and Cain are set in the OF. Maybe a LH bat to play right. Perez, Pina, Braun on the bench. The bullpen has some good pieces that they can add on to so not worried there. They have got to find starting pitching. I know we have a bunch of mid to back of the rotation arms but everyone of them is just as likely to have a bad game as a good game on any given day. They need a stopper, someone they can rely on to give them a good start 90% of the time. I could live with acquisition, acquisition, burns chacin, anderson going into next year with Peralta and Woodruff as the the next two up. I don't think they are that far away.

 

That infield might be set but that's a pretty ugly middle infield if Arcia's OPS is in the .500 range again and Schoop doesn't start resembling his 2017 form.

[brewmann04]

Brewers need quality starters not a bunch of 4-5 type players

[Boomer5]

Glausman was such an obvious trade trarget and he went pretty cheap, basically picking up ODays contract plus some meh prospects which is pretty much our entire farm. I’d like to know why Stearns didn’t get that deal done.

[JosephC]

Glausman was such an obvious trade trarget and he went pretty cheap, basically picking up ODays contract plus some meh prospects which is pretty much our entire farm. I’d like to know why Stearns didn’t get that deal done.

 

Probably because:

 

1. Considering he definitely won't pitch again this year, and it's questionable how well he'll pitch next year considering his age, it would be pretty reasonable to think the Orioles viewed O'Day as a zero value player moving forward and made dumping his contract a priority. I have the Brewer's at 90 million dollars in payroll next year and that's if they do not tender Schoop, if they tender Schoop they are likely slightly over 100 million before doing anything else. Do the Brewers have enough payroll to add another 9 million in 2019 on an old relief pitcher that missed the last two+ months of 2018? I don't think they do.

 

2. Do the Brewers have 2.5 million dollars in international bonus space left? The 2.5 million that the Orioles picked up in this deal seemingly moved them ahead of the Marlins as the favorite to sign Victor Victor Mesa. From what I've read, Mesa is probably a safe projection to rank as a top 75 player on the top 100 lists and possibly a top 50 player once he signs. Someone who follows the international market will have to let me know how much space the Brewers have left as that's not something I follow. But if the Brewers couldn't match this dollar amount...it's something that likely gave the Braves a great advantage when putting together a deal for Gausman.

[Boomer5]

VVM is everyone’s target so I get that but it would think we could have worked some comps. Let’s face it after seeing Burnes and Peralta are we still classifying them as truly untouchable? Young with potential yes. But untouchable?

 

I am not seeing us picking up Schoop unless they think Hiura hitting 277 down in AA means he isn’t the can’t miss prospect we all hope he is. He simply isn’t worth $10M when you have a $110M payroll and Braun.

[liveforoctober]

If Jimmy Nelson didn't get hurt this conversation would not be happening and we would be gearing up for a long past season run. Yes, our future is fine.

[82brewcrew82]

If Jimmy Nelson didn't get hurt this conversation would not be happening and we would be gearing up for a long past season run. Yes, our future is fine.

But he did and the depth has been exposed. The future isn't "just fine" if standing pat and hoping Nelson comes back in full is what everything is leaning on.

[Boomer5]

I’d sure hope the future isn’t based on Nelson coming back to 2017 form after his major shoulder injury.

[MrTPlush]

Our future is fine. Even with a garbage rotation we are still going to compete for the postseason. We aren’t a super team in the making...does that really shock you though? Small market don’t make super teams. We can’t have a bunch of super stars come up from the minors and spend half a billion dollars in FA at the same time.

 

This team should improve greatly next year. The rotation should be greatly improved with Nelson returning (in any form) and some type of big acquisition.

[sveumrules]

The present & the entirety of the past are composed of moments which in the past were considered to be the eventual future. Yet here we are, still stuck in the right now.

 

From that understanding (& just looking out the window), I have very little hope for the future.

[wildcat83]

If Jimmy Nelson didn't get hurt this conversation would not be happening and we would be gearing up for a long past season run. Yes, our future is fine.

 

By not pitching this year Nelson is limited next year. He can’t go from 0 to 200 innings.

[Thurston Fluff]

If Jimmy Nelson didn't get hurt this conversation would not be happening and we would be gearing up for a long past season run. Yes, our future is fine.

But he did and the depth has been exposed. The future isn't "just fine" if standing pat and hoping Nelson comes back in full is what everything is leaning on.

 

I think our depth is the only thing keeping us in postseason contention. How many other teams can go without two of their top three starters for essentially the entire year and still be competitive?

[Boomer5]

We should have followed the Astros model and tanked for a few years. 85 win purgatory isn’t fun.

[MrTPlush]

We should have followed the Astros model and tanked for a few years. 85 win purgatory isn’t fun.

 

Yeah, okay. Losing more means the team sucks more...and it would take way more than just not having Cain/Yelich to get to the draft pick you want.

 

Not sure that is worth a higher draft pick that we will likely fail utilizing. You are talking maybe Ray and two other high draft picks. Is that really worth it? Pretty sure having Travis Shaw > Top 10 pick. You know?

[xisxisxis]

I always think there's hope for the future. I just don't have any confidence in the future.

 

Right now this organization doesn't have the talent necessary to be a contender. Sure, we might get into the playoffs with this talent, but it isn't likely. Most projection systems had us a near 0.500 team for 2018 and guess what we've been since the end of May. To make the playoffs with this talent, we would need a little bit of luck and to make a dent in the playoffs we would need a LOT of luck. You know the kind of luck we've had since... never... And what if the luck we were going to have this year was our performance in April/May... As fans we tend to overinvest in the positives and to ignore the negatives. Based on projections and performance this team is a 0.500 talent. So how do we get better?

 

Dumpster diving - sure there is always value in picking up players who didn't have success in their organization and need either more time to develop or a change of scenery. But lets not fool ourselves that this is the next big untapped talent pool. All teams do it, some teams have more success, but it isn't a difference maker.

 

Draft/Develop - we are still not a top organization and, this is really the crux of the problem for the future. As the smallest market in baseball we have to have a successful farm system to ever have any chance at being a contender - we can't outspend anyone, we have to outsmart them. The Brewers have been so bad for so long that Stearns should have cleaned house completely on the draft/development side (fire everyone). I don't think he has so we are stuck with some of the same poor performing parts of this area. Sure, Stearns drafts seem to be better and some indications are positive, but being better than horrendous just makes you not horrendous. We are stuck in development hell, we won't have top ten picks because we are so mediocre we aren't bad enough to get into the elite part of the draft and we aren't good enough to actually get to the playoffs. Where we need to be smart is identifying talent that will become elite. When have the Brewer ever done that? Braun, Fielder & Weeks were top 10 talent. Hart was the closest to being a "later" pick that ended up having a decent career. Hardy was a 2nd round, so not really an unexpected result. Until we start developing some diamonds in the rough we are toast as an organization.

 

Free agency - we only have the ability to compete on fringe talent. And that's the most likely best bang for the buck as elite talent is an overpay at this point. We need pre-FA/Arby players in their prime and relatively valuable (lower contract to production). So not a lot of hope here for the long term. The only way we add talent this route is if the owners reduce their vast profit.

 

Really the future is completely in the control of the owners. If they insist on continuing to take huge profits while the team has a below average farm system, below average international presence and average major league talent then their isn't much hope. The fact that the major league talent is average is either an accident at this point, or planned to make it look like the team is better off than it really is.

 

I really think Attanasio needs to commit to making the team at least average across the board before he milks huge returns out of his investment. But that's my opinion and it ain't likely he agrees (remember he doesn't own the whole team, he is the majority owner and he brought along a lot of the Selig partners - who I imagine are loving the returns after so many years of pumping money into the Brewers). They need to invest to make the Brewers at least somewhat competitive across the board, but I don't see that investment. Sure there's a bit of money here and there, but there still isn't enough progress to ease up. Was the Maryvale investment necessity or a grand plan to increase our farm system/development pipeline? Have they hired the right people and gotten rid of the crap from before. I am not a slash and burn believer in leadership transitions (I've been burnt enough myself), but the development and farm system was so bad for so long that it needed a housecleaning.

 

We need to stop being mediocre, in both directions. If we really don't have the talent to be a contender for the playoffs then don't waste money to be 0.500, sell off the talent that have value and won't be there when the next talent pool, that can contend, comes around and go for better draft position. There's nothing worse than a mediocre team that isn't young, which is what we have right now.

[Boomer5]

We should have followed the Astros model and tanked for a few years. 85 win purgatory isn’t fun.

 

Yeah, okay. Losing more means the team sucks more...and it would take way more than just not having Cain/Yelich to get to the draft pick you want.

 

Not sure that is worth a higher draft pick that we will likely fail utilizing. You are talking maybe Ray and two other high draft picks. Is that really worth it? Pretty sure having Travis Shaw > Top 10 pick. You know?

 

You don’t win big by collecting 2 WAR types. We need superstars like Braun and Fielder. It’s really tough to get them picking in the high teens and low 20’s.

[LouisEly]

The Brewers may not have that true #1/"ace", but they have a lot of good starting pitching with multiple years of control left. Anderson has three years of control left, Nelson has 2 years of control left, Davies has 3 years of control left, Guerra has 3 years of control left, then you have Burnes, Woodruff, Peralta, Houser, Brown, Suter. None of them will fetch a king's ransom, but they could fetch a few good prospects because of years of control left and reasonable salaries. Free agent starting pitching is very expensive.

 

Yes, Anderson isn't pitching as well as he did last year, but he's #38 in the NL in ERA among those with at least 80 IP this year - that's a #3, and that has value. Same with Guerra (#32) and Chacin (#29). They could part with two of Anderson/Chacin/Guerra and get four good (not top 50 or maybe even 100, but 75-250) prospects to add to the system and still not have a dropoff in the rotation (assuming Nelson and Davies come back healthy, which may or may not happen).

 

Burnes and Woodruff, like many rookies, are struggling with their first go-around - few rookie pitchers come up and light the majors on fire. Look how long it took Foltynewicz to develop. They're still good prospects despite what the first 25-50 innings look like. Peralta needs more work, but can dominate on any given night. Houser is wearing down after his first full season since 2015, but this year was about building arm strength back. Brown has looked very good in AA. Very few teams have that quantity of major-league ready young starting pitching.

 

I think the future is brighter than most.

[MrTPlush]

We should have followed the Astros model and tanked for a few years. 85 win purgatory isn’t fun.

 

Yeah, okay. Losing more means the team sucks more...and it would take way more than just not having Cain/Yelich to get to the draft pick you want.

 

Not sure that is worth a higher draft pick that we will likely fail utilizing. You are talking maybe Ray and two other high draft picks. Is that really worth it? Pretty sure having Travis Shaw > Top 10 pick. You know?

 

You don’t win big by collecting 2 WAR types. We need superstars like Braun and Fielder. It’s really tough to get them picking in the high teens and low 20’s.

 

Travis Shaw was worth 4 last year and is already over 3 this year. Cain is at about 5.5 and Yelich is going to end up over 4.

 

Our problem isn’t a lack of elite bats...it’s 4/9 of our line-up being a mega black hole daily. We actually need more 2-3 WAR players offensively. Then of course we need better pitching...but the Astros didn’t get good pitchers at the top of the draft so obviously you aren’t referring to that. Success at the tippy top of the draft is getting a bunch of hitters (higher success rate). 3-4 years of terrible teams and drafting pitchers would end up a disaster.

[RollieTime]

There is a ton of hope for the future. The rotation next year is not going to be anything like what it is now. The rotation next year will have Nelson and Davies back in addition to Anderson and Chacín. Burnes and Peralta can both be in the rotation as well. Hader is also an option to be in the rotation next year. You have Davies for 3 years still, Burnes and Peralta for 6 years, and Hader for 5. The starting rotation will be a strength next season. Davies is 25, yes only 25, Hader 24, Burnes 23, Peralta 22.

 

The bullpen next season will have at least 1, if not more of these guys in the bullpen. Hader May remain out there as a nasty weapon. Then you can look at having Jeffress, Soria, Knebel, Jennings, and hopefully a healthy Albers back out in the pen. The bullpen will be good again next season.

 

Looking at the offense, Yelich, Cain, and Aguilar are all here for 4 more years. Two guys that can hit .300 for you and the third is a borderline MVP candidate. Shaw is here for 3 more years and can hit .250 with 30 home runs for you any given year. The core pieces are already here. Shaw, Aguilar, and Yelich are all 28 or younger and still have their prime years coming up. Schoop is only 26 as well and will be a big boost once he break out. Braun will be back next season and will continue to produce like he always has.

 

Saying that we are not a young team is so far off. Every core piece to our success this season is either just entering their prime or WELL before they reach their prime years.

 

The main difference between us and other contenders is that we STILL are not getting production out of the 5-9 or 6-9 spots in the order. Other teams have players in those spots in the order that might only hit .220, but will hit 15 homeruns. Or a guy that will hit .270 with little power. We have guys that hit .210 AND have no power. That is not a good combination.

 

This team is VERY young and will continue to take steps forward. The injuries this year is what hurt us the most. I am disappointed in how they have been playing recently as well, but better days are coming. This season and for many years to come.