Time to extend Yelich?

[mtrebs]

With the 2019 season not looking very promising at this point, we’ll be 2/5 through Yelich’s contract at the end of this season. He is the type of guy that only comes around once every decade (or more) and that you can build a franchise around. When is it time to attempt to extend Yelich? If we wait until free agency after 2022, he’s likely gone, so our best bet is likely to buy out some of his existing contract and give us a few extra years.

 

There isn’t much of a proven core to the MLB club beyond this year, so unless Stearns makes some deals or we get improvements from within the organization, who knows if 2020 will be a rebuilding year of sorts. If that’s the case, then we’ll be 3/5 of the way through Yelich’s contract. It’d be a major shame if we aren’t able to take advantage of having one of the best players in MLB, and one of the best players in franchise history, by making another deep postseason run. I feel that as of now our window of opportunity is closing drastically. I’m sure I’m overreacting to an extent, but extending Yelich would extend the window greatly.

[trwi7]

He has no reason to accept anything less than 10/250 which would probably start in 2022 which would take him to almost 40 years old and a giant no thanks from me on that mess.

[pacopete4]

One offensive player does nothing for a window. Pitching wins. Gotta find it and figure out how to have it in a cost controlled way.

[mtrebs]

He has no reason to accept anything less than 10/250 which would probably start in 2022 which would take him to almost 40 years old and a giant no thanks from me on that mess.

 

It’d be interesting if the Brewers were to offer that effective next year. Would give Yelich big guaranteed money sooner, and the Brewers would be paying it earlier in his career when he’s most productive.

[trwi7]

He has no reason to accept anything less than 10/250 which would probably start in 2022 which would take him to almost 40 years old and a giant no thanks from me on that mess.

 

It’d be interesting if the Brewers were to offer that effective next year. Would give Yelich big guaranteed money sooner, and the Brewers would be paying it earlier in his career when he’s most productive.

 

That would still take him to 38 years old and again, no thanks on that mess.

[homer]

Yeah, love the guy. No hurry to extend him.

[mtrebs]

Contracts will keep increasing too, so the 10 year/$300 million contracts will be $400 million before you know it. Now I know a lot can happen in three years so there are risks there, but if the Brewers were ever going to do one of these monster contracts, you’d have to think that Yelich is the best candidate for it.

[pacopete4]

I love Braun as much as anyone but I wonder why the Brewers would ever lock a guy up into his mid 30’s ever again? You can find offensive production pretty easily in the OF.

[OnTheBlack]

Contracts will keep increasing too, so the 10 year/$300 million contracts will be $400 million before you know it. Now I know a lot can happen in three years so there are risks there, but if the Brewers were ever going to do one of these monster contracts, you’d have to think that Yelich is the best candidate for it.

 

Do they though? Doesn't really seem like it. In fact, they seem to be decreasing for FA's who are in their 30's(which is where Yelich would be).

 

So I don't see him getting 300 or 400 million as a FA in another 3+ years.

[FVBrewerFan]

Extend him? Why not trade him? Get a couple top shelf pitchers that are MLB ready or very close to it. Real contenders need big time starting pitchers. I wanted to believe otherwise, that the formula almost worked last year so stick to it. Truth is, we're stuck in the 1950s I guess, because it takes an incredible amount of luck to win it all without a couple great starting pitchers.

 

Look at this roster, and look at the system. There is nobody on the horizon. So next year you maybe lose Grandal and Moose, Braun and Cain are a year older, and stuck with a fairly high team salary.

 

Enough. Pull the trigger and sell Yelich now, talk about sell high! Hader too. Focus on building a great pitching staff and fill in position players with Dubon, Grisham, Shaw, etc. You guys will hate that, fans in general will hate it, but it's the right thing to do.

[mtrebs]

Contracts will keep increasing too, so the 10 year/$300 million contracts will be $400 million before you know it. Now I know a lot can happen in three years so there are risks there, but if the Brewers were ever going to do one of these monster contracts, you’d have to think that Yelich is the best candidate for it.

 

Do they though? Doesn't really seem like it. In fact, they seem to be decreasing for FA's who are in their 30's(which is where Yelich would be).

 

So I don't see him getting 300 or 400 million as a FA in another 3+ years.

 

For mid-tier or even upper-middle tier players I’d agree that the contracts haven’t grown compared to the superstar contracts. It wouldn’t be out of the realm of possibility for Yelich to get an Arenado or Machado equivalent contract.

[mtrebs]

Extend him? Why not trade him? Get a couple top shelf pitchers that are MLB ready or very close to it. Real contenders need big time starting pitchers. I wanted to believe otherwise, that the formula almost worked last year so stick to it. Truth is, we're stuck in the 1950s I guess, because it takes an incredible amount of luck to win it all without a couple great starting pitchers.

 

Look at this roster, and look at the system. There is nobody on the horizon. So next year you maybe lose Grandal and Moose, Braun and Cain are a year older, and stuck with a fairly high team salary.

 

Enough. Pull the trigger and sell Yelich now, talk about sell high! Hader too. Focus on building a great pitching staff and fill in position players with Dubon, Grisham, Shaw, etc. You guys will hate that, fans in general will hate it, but it's the right thing to do.

 

I’m actually not opposed to this either since I don’t think we will take advantage of our time with Yelich. I don’t see it happening though.

[wildcat2237]

Extend him? Why not trade him? Get a couple top shelf pitchers that are MLB ready or very close to it. Real contenders need big time starting pitchers. I wanted to believe otherwise, that the formula almost worked last year so stick to it. Truth is, we're stuck in the 1950s I guess, because it takes an incredible amount of luck to win it all without a couple great starting pitchers.

 

Look at this roster, and look at the system. There is nobody on the horizon. So next year you maybe lose Grandal and Moose, Braun and Cain are a year older, and stuck with a fairly high team salary.

 

Enough. Pull the trigger and sell Yelich now, talk about sell high! Hader too. Focus on building a great pitching staff and fill in position players with Dubon, Grisham, Shaw, etc. You guys will hate that, fans in general will hate it, but it's the right thing to do.

 

I’m actually not opposed to this either since I don’t think we will take advantage of our time with Yelich. I don’t see it happening though.

 

I am 100% on board with this. I'm ready to blow it up.

 

I cant stand to watch the Brewers mess up like they did in 2011. If they had traded Bruan and Fielder, then 2013-2016 would have been thrival years. Instead they failed to sell high and we suffered through years of mediocrity.

 

Sell Yelich, Hader, Grandal, and Moose and I can almost guarantee we have a top 3 system. Almost no question the team is ready to compete in 2021.

[BigDaddy1974]

Extend him? Why not trade him? Get a couple top shelf pitchers that are MLB ready or very close to it. Real contenders need big time starting pitchers. I wanted to believe otherwise, that the formula almost worked last year so stick to it. Truth is, we're stuck in the 1950s I guess, because it takes an incredible amount of luck to win it all without a couple great starting pitchers.

 

Look at this roster, and look at the system. There is nobody on the horizon. So next year you maybe lose Grandal and Moose, Braun and Cain are a year older, and stuck with a fairly high team salary.

 

Enough. Pull the trigger and sell Yelich now, talk about sell high! Hader too. Focus on building a great pitching staff and fill in position players with Dubon, Grisham, Shaw, etc. You guys will hate that, fans in general will hate it, but it's the right thing to do.

 

I’m actually not opposed to this either since I don’t think we will take advantage of our time

with Yelich. I don’t see it happening though.

 

I am 100% on board with this. I'm ready to blow it up.

 

I cant stand to watch the Brewers mess up like they did in 2011. If they had traded Bruan and Fielder, then 2013-2016 would have been thrival years. Instead they failed to sell high and we suffered through years of mediocrity.

 

Sell Yelich, Hader, Grandal, and Moose and I can almost guarantee we have a top 3 system. Almost no question the team is ready to compete in 2021.

 

Seriously?

[adambr2]

Unfortunately I just don't think a Yelich extension makes sense for either side. You'd have to get him to accept something like 3 year/$75M to be logical which he is just not going to do. It's going to end up being a bad deal.

 

Right now, 2020 is your window. I think we look to reload for next year. We should have Knebel coming back at some point in 2020 and hopefully we can add a few useful pieces and figure out what has gone wrong this season.

 

If we don't look like contenders in 2020 and we're not prepared to go on a big name FA spending spree, you have to consider trading Yelich at that time. With 2 years left of control you can single handedly turn our farm system from a bad one to a top 5-7 system overnight, and at that point you're rebuilding anyway. You cannot just do nothing and let Yelich walk for a comp pick. You're either all in on '21 and '22 or you're rebuilding.

[The stache]

Blow it all up? Rebuild the system? Seriously? A year ago, we were a game from the World Series. This year has been a massive disappointment, somewhat due to injury, somewhat due to regression, but you guys are willing to toss in the towel, admit defeat, and start over? What's more likely? This team, which is virtually the same as last year's team, massively over-performed last year, or they have massively under-performed this year? I choose to accept the second option. Catcher has been massively upgraded in the offseason. You don't get many catchers that will hit 30 bombs.

 

So we get rid of Yelich. Get "big time starting pitcher prospects in return." The Brewers have had "big time starting pitching prospects" before. Have they shown the ability to develop top tier pitching? Wily Peralta was a big time prospect. Where's he now? Ok, so we got snake bit with Nelson's shoulder injury. But either we play to win with some pretty good pieces, make some smart decisions in the offseason to enhance them, and keep trying to get to the Series with our window open, or we're just small timers constantly rebuilding every few years.

 

We had one of the top farm systems in baseball, got Braun, Fielder, Weeks, Hart, Hardy and Gallardo to the Majors. We made noise in the playoffs exactly one time with all that talent. Won one division title. Now, we've added Yelich, Cain, Moustakas and Grandal. Cain has been down this year, injury/regression. Yelich, Moose and Grandal were all All Stars. Yelich won the MVP last year, and is one of three guys with a legit chance to win it this year. Are we sure we want to dump them all again, and start over?

 

If the Brewers are just going to be glorified rebuilders the rest of my life, I'll go find another team to cheer for. I've seen this same BS for 40 years. It's possible to win it all without a massive payroll. Look at Minnesota this year. They are not only crushing the ball, they've got some very good pitching. Jake Odorizzi was an All Star this year. Remember him? Jose Berrios and Odorizzi were both All Stars. Both have 145+ ERA+.

 

The problem is that Milwaukee has completely dropped the ball with some very questionable decisions. I don't know how the front office can make such great moves like the ones I just described, and then let Wade Miley go. He cost $4.5 million this season, a real bargain. And he's got a 2.4 WAR with the Astros this season. He's 7-4 with a 3.32 ERA. He was great in Milwaukee last year. Why do you let cheap, effective veteran pitchers go? Gio Gonzalez was great with us last year, too. Brewers granted him free agency. Fortunately, he was available when the Yankees dropped him. We got him back, and we're paying him $2 million. He'll be back in a week or two, and having him in the rotation should be a big boost.

 

The Brewers put too much faith in Jimmy Nelson's recovery, and now it's biting them in the rear. They had no real contingency plan in place. And some of the team's roster management this year has been questionable, to say the least. How does Tyler Saladino continue to get playing time?

 

Nobody is running away with this division. As poorly as we've played, we still have a shot at it. Guys like Aguilar and Thames have been hitting much better after dismal starts. Hiura is a huge boost to the offense.

 

I'm not throwing in the towel. No way.

[adambr2]

Blow it all up? Rebuild the system? Seriously? A year ago, we were a game from the World Series. This year has been a massive disappointment, somewhat due to injury, somewhat due to regression, but you guys are willing to toss in the towel, admit defeat, and start over? What's more likely? This team, which is virtually the same as last year's team, massively over-performed last year, or they have massively under-performed this year? I choose to accept the second option. Catcher has been massively upgraded in the offseason. You don't get many catchers that will hit 30 bombs.

 

So we get rid of Yelich. Get "big time starting pitcher prospects in return." The Brewers have had "big time starting pitching prospects" before. Have they shown the ability to develop top tier pitching? Wily Peralta was a big time prospect. Where's he now? Ok, so we got snake bit with Nelson's shoulder injury. But either we play to win with some pretty good pieces, make some smart decisions in the offseason to enhance them, and keep trying to get to the Series with our window open, or we're just small timers constantly rebuilding every few years.

 

We had one of the top farm systems in baseball, got Braun, Fielder, Weeks, Hart, Hardy and Gallardo to the Majors. We made noise in the playoffs exactly one time with all that talent. Won one division title. Now, we've added Yelich, Cain, Moustakas and Grandal. Cain has been down this year, injury/regression. Yelich, Moose and Grandal were all All Stars. Yelich won the MVP last year, and is one of three guys with a legit chance to win it this year. Are we sure we want to dump them all again, and start over?

 

If the Brewers are just going to be glorified rebuilders the rest of my life, I'll go find another team to cheer for. I've seen this same BS for 40 years. It's possible to win it all without a massive payroll. Look at Minnesota this year. They are not only crushing the ball, they've got some very good pitching. Jake Odorizzi was an All Star this year. Remember him? Jose Berrios and Odorizzi were both All Stars. Both have 145+ ERA+.

 

The problem is that Milwaukee has completely dropped the ball with some very questionable decisions. I don't know how the front office can make such great moves like the ones I just described, and then let Wade Miley go. He cost $4.5 million this season, a real bargain. And he's got a 2.4 WAR with the Astros this season. He's 7-4 with a 3.32 ERA. He was great in Milwaukee last year. Why do you let cheap, effective veteran pitchers go? Gio Gonzalez was great with us last year, too. Brewers granted him free agency. Fortunately, he was available when the Yankees dropped him. We got him back, and we're paying him $2 million. He'll be back in a week or two, and having him in the rotation should be a big boost.

 

The Brewers put too much faith in Jimmy Nelson's recovery, and now it's biting them in the rear. They had no real contingency plan in place. And some of the team's roster management this year has been questionable, to say the least. How does Tyler Saladino continue to get playing time?

 

Nobody is running away with this division. As poorly as we've played, we still have a shot at it. Guys like Aguilar and Thames have been hitting much better after dismal starts. Hiura is a huge boost to the offense.

 

I'm not throwing in the towel. No way.

 

Whether or not you choose to accept that the team overperformed last year or is underperforming this year has no bearing on what is actually the case. The reality is almost certainly that both are true. Yes, the team is underperforming, but do you really think the exact same team from 2018 wins 96 games again if they had to start again from Day 1? Most likely, there was some luck there, too.

 

Also, objecting to acquiring big time starting pitching prospects on the basis of the organization's past failures to develop starters, isn't fair. You can't let that cloud your judgment, we still have to try to develop starting pitching. Woodruff is coming along nicely.

 

As far as your 3rd paragraph, I really don't know. All I know is that with all the big names you listed on this team, we are nonetheless a .500, very average ballclub with little realistic aspirations of playing deep into October. I'm not suggesting a full blowup at this point. But if you can't compete this year, you have to look at the future, particularly with your rentals. And if you're not competing after 2020, your Yelich window is small. You can't lose him for nothing with nothing to show for it.

 

I do completely agree it's been a sub par last 8 months for the front office. Don't get me wrong, I still think we have a very good GM, but I think a lot of us, myself included, have put David Stearns on a little bit of a pedestal and labeled him as a young genius. I think this season has been a little bit a wakeup call for us on that and we see he's a smart guy who makes mistakes just like everyone else. I agree they put too much faith in Nelson.

 

With that said, the big name acquisitions this offseason, Moustakas, Grandal, have been successful acquisitions. Hiura has been everything we hoped. So it's a little frustrating to see us being where we are in spite of all that. But Gio Gonzalez coming back doesn't really move the needle right now. Starting pitching, for the most part, has been fine lately. We get our 5 innings out of them with a chance to win the game. We're not losing these games because of starting pitching, we're losing these games because our bullpen has one reliable arm, and we don't get timely hitting. Gio Gonzalez does not come in and change any of those things. He's just another guy who will come in and give you 5 innings and 2 runs, and that's fine. But it doesn't really fix anything on this team. If we had another Brandon Woodruff type arm who could go 7-8 innings and shorten a game, that moves the needle. But Gio doesn't change much.

[The stache]

We're seeing eye to eye, Adam. I think that you're just doing a better job of managing your frustration than I am.

 

I do think Gio's return helps. Is he the difference between our team being a few games above .500, and winning 90-95 games? Clearly not. But, you do everything you can, within reason (reason being dictated by your franchise's financial resources, and young talent, which are, essentially, commodities) to improve the 25 guys one your active roster. Sometimes improvements come incrementally. Gio's return is a positive step forward. How long he can go, how often he can start-that remains to be seen. "Dead arm" concerns me, but he's had a history of reliability, at least from an innings pitched perspective. He's thrown at least 175 innings in 8 of the last 9 seasons, so I expect that he'll be a workhorse. He should be rested, his arm fresh, and hopefully, he's able to at least partially replicate what he did for us last year. His addition to the starting rotation means somebody moves to the pen, and a guy on the back end of the pen, one that doesn't really deserve to be here, gets sent down. In my mind, that's not one positives, it's two. It's a middle-of-the-rotation, crafty veteran replacing a young guy that has been inconsistent, and, it also makes the bullpen pool Craig Counsell gets to choose from on a nightly basis that much stronger.

 

Secondly, a guy like Tyler Saladino has absolutely no place on our 25 man roster. He's a wasted spot. He offers virtually nothing offensively. He has no power. Doesn't get on base, and even worse, he has a ridiculously high strike out rate. He doesn't put the ball in play; never advances runners. That's at least fungible with guys that hit the ball out of the park. Take someone like Joey Gallo. Before this year, all he did was hit home runs and strike out. In two plus seasons, he'd hit 88 home runs in 1,082 at bats. That's a bomb once every 12.30 ABs. He'd also struck out a whopping 479 times, a K rate of 44.3%. As ridiculous as that is, he was young, and with that power, if he could increase his walk rate (13.4% in 1,262 PAs) and his batting average slightly, it was worth being patient. What happened? Gallo took a gigantic step forward this season. He's still striking out 46% of the time, but his AVG is up to .266 (he was a career .203 hitter coming into the season), and his walk rate has jumped substantially (51 walks in 277 PAs, an increase of 5% to 18.4%). He's due for some regression, but if he maintains even half of those gains, with his power and above average defense, he's a perennial All Star. He's at a 1.098 OPS, a 160 OPS+ in the AL. Though he will have cold streaks, his ceiling is high. A guy with a 46% K rate, but a .406 OBP and .600 + OPS will start for most any team in the Bigs.

 

Saladino? He's fallen off a cliff. His K rate, which was 23% before coming to Milwaukee, has tanked. He's whiffing at nearly a 35% rate as a Brewer, including 44% this year. He's a decent defender, but he never walks, and he doesn't really make hard contact. With him in the lineup, the bottom third of our lineup is virtually worthless. Why Counsell doesn't see that perplexes me daily. Ok, so Arcia needs to get his head together. He needs to grow up, and show more discipline at the plate. But you don't make Arcia any better by benching him in favor of a complete scrub. Arcia has sent 12 balls into the seats. His OBP is terrible, but he has some power. It's his inconsistency and lack of maturity that makes Counsell nuts. I get that. But the entire team suffers with Saladino in the lineup. There is no justification for his being in a Milwaukee uniform None. Move him off the 25, and bring up any one of a number of better options. That's a small improvement for the team by improving bench strength. Get in Arcia's head, and send the right message.

[adambr2]

No argument from me on Saladino, Stache. He's absolutely useless. If they aren't willing to send him down when he sucks, there was no point in dumping Perez in the first place because Saladino is a far less useful version of Perez.

 

The whole benefit to rostering Saladino over Perez is that if he sucked, you could option him. Guess what, Mr. Stearns, Saladino sucks.

 

But they are bound and determined to roster him because they want a utility man that can play the OF.

 

So you've got basically one decent bench guy in Gamel. When Aguilar plays, your righty bench options are Saladino and Pina, so you may as well not have anyone. You've got 2 spots dedicated to first base for 2 guys who can't play anywhere else, at least not effectively.

 

The whole roster construction of this team is just a mess. They overloaded on lefties and frequently end up in late inning situations against a LOOGY when they have to choose between a big platoon disadvantage or a terrible righty bat.

[Fear The Chorizo]

The whole roster construction of this team is just a mess. They overloaded on lefties and frequently end up in late inning situations against a LOOGY when they have to choose between a big platoon disadvantage or a terrible righty bat.

 

In reality it has been for quite some time - they just got "lucky" last year when Thames got injured and Jesus caught fire for ~3 months playing 1B every day. The roster as constructed makes little/no sense for an NL ballclub, and it shows up routinely in late game situations.

 

I'm almost relieved more than excited that Hiura appears to be up for good to play 2B regularly, because it gives the Brewers one less middle infield position to screw up with bad roster decisions and scrub players. At this point they've just got to give Arcia regular starts at short - and if Dubon doesn't replace Saladino on the roster, then Perez or Shaw should be up. I understood the move to bring Saladino up at first simply because I figured it was a short term move to buy them a few weeks around the AS break to get guys like Shaw right in AAA, plus Tyler was putting up solid offensive #s in San Antonio. But it was obvious about 3-4 games in that it wasn't going to translate at the MLB level this time and instead of catching lightning in a bottle they caught a righthanded hitting version of 2018 Sogard.

 

Back to potentially extending Yelich - I just don't see a fit unless Yelich is willing to take a high AAV contract extension for a lower # of years than he'd get after reaching free agency. I doubt he'd be open to that even if he loves Milwaukee, and the Brewers would be foolish as an organization to offer him that longterm extension into his late 30's. I think the Brewers can ride with him through 2020 and he'd still retain a ton of trade value next offseason, even into trade deadline 2021. If the team isn't a legit contender heading into the 2021 season, they could get a haul next offseason or even trade deadline 2021.

[MrTPlush]

I love Braun as much as anyone but I wonder why the Brewers would ever lock a guy up into his mid 30’s ever again? You can find offensive production pretty easily in the OF.

 

Yah, the absolute worst part of that deal wasn't the fact it was done...but the fact they did it stupidly early just to lock in essentially what one would know to be decline years. Maybe they thought he would age well, but seemed it was mostly done to have a face of the franchise and have a more modern lifer instead of the aging Yount. Pretty much everything that could go wrong doing such a deal happened; suspension, ruined image, chronic injuries, missed time, production decline.

 

The only reason to extend Yelich is if you wanted to make him a Brewer for the rest of his career. However, doesn't really seem worth it when he didn't even start his career here and he may or may not be a HOF talent. Seems like a good way to set us up to have a bad contract/money pit.

 

You would think having a current "bad contract" on the team and an early extension like Braun's that turned sour before the first day it went into effect would shy people away from this kind of thing. I think it is too late to even get a reasonable extension similar to Braun's where it isn't breaking our small market back. Brewers simply can't afford to throw around upwards of $250mil to a guy into his later 30s.

[JimH5]

3 more years of cost-controlled Yelich is more valuable as a trading chip than 7 years with a high salary at the end.

 

His contract/performance is among the most valuable in baseball.

 

The Brewers have Ryan Braun right in front of them to use an example of what a long term extension can look like.

 

Unless Yelich or his agent start making noise about dissatisfaction, I would hold back on extending him. So much can happen between now and the end of his deal.

[Pugger]

Blow it all up? Rebuild the system? Seriously? A year ago, we were a game from the World Series. This year has been a massive disappointment, somewhat due to injury, somewhat due to regression, but you guys are willing to toss in the towel, admit defeat, and start over? What's more likely? This team, which is virtually the same as last year's team, massively over-performed last year, or they have massively under-performed this year? I choose to accept the second option. Catcher has been massively upgraded in the offseason. You don't get many catchers that will hit 30 bombs.

 

So we get rid of Yelich. Get "big time starting pitcher prospects in return." The Brewers have had "big time starting pitching prospects" before. Have they shown the ability to develop top tier pitching? Wily Peralta was a big time prospect. Where's he now? Ok, so we got snake bit with Nelson's shoulder injury. But either we play to win with some pretty good pieces, make some smart decisions in the offseason to enhance them, and keep trying to get to the Series with our window open, or we're just small timers constantly rebuilding every few years.

 

We had one of the top farm systems in baseball, got Braun, Fielder, Weeks, Hart, Hardy and Gallardo to the Majors. We made noise in the playoffs exactly one time with all that talent. Won one division title. Now, we've added Yelich, Cain, Moustakas and Grandal. Cain has been down this year, injury/regression. Yelich, Moose and Grandal were all All Stars. Yelich won the MVP last year, and is one of three guys with a legit chance to win it this year. Are we sure we want to dump them all again, and start over?

 

If the Brewers are just going to be glorified rebuilders the rest of my life, I'll go find another team to cheer for. I've seen this same BS for 40 years. It's possible to win it all without a massive payroll. Look at Minnesota this year. They are not only crushing the ball, they've got some very good pitching. Jake Odorizzi was an All Star this year. Remember him? Jose Berrios and Odorizzi were both All Stars. Both have 145+ ERA+.

 

The problem is that Milwaukee has completely dropped the ball with some very questionable decisions. I don't know how the front office can make such great moves like the ones I just described, and then let Wade Miley go. He cost $4.5 million this season, a real bargain. And he's got a 2.4 WAR with the Astros this season. He's 7-4 with a 3.32 ERA. He was great in Milwaukee last year. Why do you let cheap, effective veteran pitchers go? Gio Gonzalez was great with us last year, too. Brewers granted him free agency. Fortunately, he was available when the Yankees dropped him. We got him back, and we're paying him $2 million. He'll be back in a week or two, and having him in the rotation should be a big boost.

 

The Brewers put too much faith in Jimmy Nelson's recovery, and now it's biting them in the rear. They had no real contingency plan in place. And some of the team's roster management this year has been questionable, to say the least. How does Tyler Saladino continue to get playing time?

 

Nobody is running away with this division. As poorly as we've played, we still have a shot at it. Guys like Aguilar and Thames have been hitting much better after dismal starts. Hiura is a huge boost to the offense.

 

I'm not throwing in the towel. No way.

 

This is one hell of a post.

[Pugger]

We're seeing eye to eye, Adam. I think that you're just doing a better job of managing your frustration than I am.

 

I do think Gio's return helps. Is he the difference between our team being a few games above .500, and winning 90-95 games? Clearly not. But, you do everything you can, within reason (reason being dictated by your franchise's financial resources, and young talent, which are, essentially, commodities) to improve the 25 guys one your active roster. Sometimes improvements come incrementally. Gio's return is a positive step forward. How long he can go, how often he can start-that remains to be seen. "Dead arm" concerns me, but he's had a history of reliability, at least from an innings pitched perspective. He's thrown at least 175 innings in 8 of the last 9 seasons, so I expect that he'll be a workhorse. He should be rested, his arm fresh, and hopefully, he's able to at least partially replicate what he did for us last year. His addition to the starting rotation means somebody moves to the pen, and a guy on the back end of the pen, one that doesn't really deserve to be here, gets sent down. In my mind, that's not one positives, it's two. It's a middle-of-the-rotation, crafty veteran replacing a young guy that has been inconsistent, and, it also makes the bullpen pool Craig Counsell gets to choose from on a nightly basis that much stronger.

 

Secondly, a guy like Tyler Saladino has absolutely no place on our 25 man roster. He's a wasted spot. He offers virtually nothing offensively. He has no power. Doesn't get on base, and even worse, he has a ridiculously high strike out rate. He doesn't put the ball in play; never advances runners. That's at least fungible with guys that hit the ball out of the park. Take someone like Joey Gallo. Before this year, all he did was hit home runs and strike out. In two plus seasons, he'd hit 88 home runs in 1,082 at bats. That's a bomb once every 12.30 ABs. He'd also struck out a whopping 479 times, a K rate of 44.3%. As ridiculous as that is, he was young, and with that power, if he could increase his walk rate (13.4% in 1,262 PAs) and his batting average slightly, it was worth being patient. What happened? Gallo took a gigantic step forward this season. He's still striking out 46% of the time, but his AVG is up to .266 (he was a career .203 hitter coming into the season), and his walk rate has jumped substantially (51 walks in 277 PAs, an increase of 5% to 18.4%). He's due for some regression, but if he maintains even half of those gains, with his power and above average defense, he's a perennial All Star. He's at a 1.098 OPS, a 160 OPS+ in the AL. Though he will have cold streaks, his ceiling is high. A guy with a 46% K rate, but a .406 OBP and .600 + OPS will start for most any team in the Bigs.

 

Saladino? He's fallen off a cliff. His K rate, which was 23% before coming to Milwaukee, has tanked. He's whiffing at nearly a 35% rate as a Brewer, including 44% this year. He's a decent defender, but he never walks, and he doesn't really make hard contact. With him in the lineup, the bottom third of our lineup is virtually worthless. Why Counsell doesn't see that perplexes me daily. Ok, so Arcia needs to get his head together. He needs to grow up, and show more discipline at the plate. But you don't make Arcia any better by benching him in favor of a complete scrub. Arcia has sent 12 balls into the seats. His OBP is terrible, but he has some power. It's his inconsistency and lack of maturity that makes Counsell nuts. I get that. But the entire team suffers with Saladino in the lineup. There is no justification for his being in a Milwaukee uniform None. Move him off the 25, and bring up any one of a number of better options. That's a small improvement for the team by improving bench strength. Get in Arcia's head, and send the right message.

 

Yes, what in the hell is Saladino doing getting all this playing time?? I'd rather they send him to San Antonio and bring back Perez for crying out loud.

[homer]

I don't know why people keep talking about the Brewers historic inability to develop pitching. What do Stearns and Co have to do with Sal Bando or Doug Melvin?