Shop Lorenzo Cain?

[bill hAll Star]

If I’m David Stearns, I don’t take the chance of another horrible offensive season from Cain. He’s past prime, defensively he will get worse, Tyrone Taylor can probably provide close to the same offense if healthy, with pretty good defense. 17 million can be spent in a better area of need. And if we re-tool > saved and used at a more opportune time.

 

Come on. Tyrone Taylor?

 

 

I mean Lorenzo Cain is notably below a .700 OPS...speaking just offensively that is pretty easy to outdo. So if you were really confident Cain is over the hill not coming back replacing him offensively would be a job a blind squirrel could accomplish.

 

I think the thing you are doing is assigning a near-certainty to Cain being washed up.

 

The one thing that is a near certainty is that someone like Tyrone Taylor would struggle to put up a .650, maybe .700 OPS.

 

I really don't have a strong opinion on the matter, you may be right about Cain. The issue that for every time that you're right about a Cain being washed up, you're also wrong about Braun's bat (the threads early the last few years) or any other guy like Carlos Santana that has had a renaissance.

 

There is a nonzero chance that Cain is a superstar next year. There is a zero chance that Tyrone Taylor is a superstar. This is why Cain is being paid the money he is even if the odds of something like that happen become lower and lower every year.

[Brew crew 92]

If I’m David Stearns, I don’t take the chance of another horrible offensive season from Cain. He’s past prime, defensively he will get worse, Tyrone Taylor can probably provide close to the same offense if healthy, with pretty good defense. 17 million can be spent in a better area of need. And if we re-tool > saved and used at a more opportune time.

 

This is the hottest of your "what have you done for me lately" hot takes. IMO the Brewers are not in the situation of having to cut costs.

 

If going for it in 2020, if Cain rebounds closer to 2018, then of course he’s worth keeping, but what if, like I believe, he’ll never be anything close to 2018 Cain, what if he’s 2019 Cain? Then What?

[MrTPlush]

I think the thing you are doing is assigning a near-certainty to Cain being washed up.

 

I am assigning nothing to Cain personally. I am saying though is if one personally thinks Cain is washed up at this point replacing him is effortless offensively. It is almost impossible to do worse. I am just saying for Mr '92's sake he isn't that crazy if he 100% is in belief Cain is a goner offensively because a .675 OPS is pretty horrendous for an OFer.

 

And I am definitely NOT advocating Tyrone Taylor in any form.

[bill hAll Star]

I think the thing you are doing is assigning a near-certainty to Cain being washed up.

 

I am assigning nothing to Cain personally. I am saying though is if one personally thinks Cain is washed up at this point replacing him is effortless offensively. It is almost impossible to do worse. I am just saying for Mr '92's sake he isn't that crazy if he 100% is in belief Cain is a goner offensively because a .675 OPS is pretty horrendous for an OFer.

 

And I am definitely NOT advocating Tyrone Taylor in any form.

 

That's fine, but even if one scout or fan believes that Cain is washed up, the reason he was paid $75 million dollars is to provide more than $15 million/year of value (2018) and to have a chance to do that again.

 

A, "I judge things only by how much a player is paid" group can all celebrate when the Brewers bring in Juan Lagares for $3 million next year. It's a damn certainty that he will probably cap out at 1 WAR. *BUT* he will only be paid $3 million.

 

If we could just cut Cain's salary this offseason at no cost, I'd think about it...there could be uses on 3 players that may fill CF, SS, and C admirably if we're really on a budget but I'm not sure we need to if Attanasio wants to spend on some of those positions even with Cain.

 

But we probably can't do that so the option is to trade him for an equal risk or pay down some of the salary in prospects or cash.

[tmwiese55]

If someone would straight take the contract off your hands, sure you probably do it.

 

But that won't be the case, you're either eating some money or taking on a bad contract yourself. Plus, you're essentially selling very low. It's very rare to fall off this drastically in one season, remember a mere 11ish months ago he was MVP discussion worthy. Combine that with that we know of a litany of injuries he's been dealing with, including the same thumb we saw mess up Braun and I'd strongly gamble that he rebounds next year. As long as he doesn't get hurt again which of course is an issue to factor in though at his age. So combine the odds of some kind of improvement, even if not to 2018 level with the fact that you're still going to be paying some of that money (eating or in taking on bad contract) well you might as well just cross your fingers on the rebound.

 

Note if relevant, I was one at the time of signing kind of gritting my teeth at giving this to a player at his age and injury history, so I'm by no means a 'cain homer' so to speak. Especially when we had a 550K outfielder on roster who just put up 30 HR on a 370ish obp or whatever it was and was controlled for years (I know the D stuff). Darn our cheap owner though.

 

Also, anyone notice the dichotomy of one thread demanding to spend money for the sake of spending money and how in just a year after spending on the largest FA contract in team history that we need to rid ourselves of said money.

[Lathund]

The $/WAR figure is simply the average of the current free agent contracts out there and the production of those players, and thus changes year to year. And you don't compare that to Hernan Perez (or Keston Hiura or Walker Buehler or Cody Bellinger) because they're not available to be signed only for money, you can't spend your money on them. The free agent pool will always for the most part consist of aging player who you will be overpaying for. You can't fill up your entire payroll with pre-arb and arbitration players, they just don't make enough money. So if a team wants to spend the remaining money, it obviously has to be spent on the players actually available to be signed (Or salary dump trades, I guess). So when considering whether to make free agent signing, or evaluating how good a signing has been, it makes the most sense to compare it to what else you could have spent that money on. Value isn't linear, and things like roster spots and positional distribution and other things also play into it. So sometimes paying $15m/WAR can make sense, and sometimes paying $4m/WAR might not make sense. But even so, when taken together, if a team is paying less than the league average for the production they're getting, that's a sign they've spent their money relatively well.

[JosephC]

It would be very interesting to see how a handful of teams currently value Cain.

 

Pro-rating out 2019 to a full-season, Cain's recent WAR values:

bWAR = 2017=5.4, 2018=6.9, 2019=2.3

fWAR = 2017=4.3, 2018=5.7, 2019=1.2

 

Average of all 6 numbers is 4.3. Then knock off 0.5 WAR per season, and if doing so Cain would be good for 9.9 WAR total from 2020-2022.

 

But if just using the average of 2019, and then knocking off 0.5 WAR per season, then Cain would only project to 2.4 WAR from 2020-2022.

 

Cain will make 51 million from 2020-2022.

 

9.9 WAR * 9 million = 89.1 million - 51 million = +38.1 million in surplus value

OR

2.4 WAR * 9 million = 21.6 million - 51 million = -29.4 million in surplus value

 

Obvious conclusion is that both the big positive number and the big negative number are unrealistic. Just add the two together and it comes out as +8.7 million. Just throwing out all the math, I would guess that Cain still has a slightly positive surplus value despite the subpar season. A +8.7 million in surplus value does not seem like that bad a number. That would basically be getting one role player prospect plus one fringe prospect in return (that's something like a #15 prospect plus a #26 or later prospect off a team's top prospect list).

[superfly]

I don’t think there’s really a market for Cain that would bring “good” value as we see it. This is quickly becoming an absolutely horrendous signing by David Stearns. The neglect of the pitching staff offseason after offseason and trade deadline after trade deadline makes me ask *** did we even sign Lo for if we weren’t serious about competing?

 

It reeks of a large scale “bring home the hometown guy that everybody wishes we kept” to placate the fans while business as usual continues. I am a big fan of Cain, but quickly getting frustrated watching joker after joker “patch” an inning together as the offense does its job.

 

Can’t wait for Brent Suter and his 62mph fastball to save our season baby. Sell that hope brewers media.

[tmwiese55]

Cain looked great and like his old self last night. Sign him to an extension now!!

[adambr2]

Tyrone Taylor is essentially a non-prospect at this point and could be a 40 man casualty anytime we need the space. I hardly even know what to think of any analysis that he could just come right up and replace Cain's production.

[ThisIsMyCrew]

I like Cain being on this team for the next few years. This year is just a bump in the road.

[Brew crew 92]

Tyrone Taylor is essentially a non-prospect at this point and could be a 40 man casualty anytime we need the space. I hardly even know what to think of any analysis that he could just come right up and replace Cain's production.

 

I don’t believe he’s a non- prospect, the guy has been injured virtually all year, mulligan time, imo. He came into this year back on the radar after his best year in 18, sure looked good in ST, then got injured.

[OnTheBlack]

Tyrone Taylor is essentially a non-prospect at this point and could be a 40 man casualty anytime we need the space. I hardly even know what to think of any analysis that he could just come right up and replace Cain's production.

 

I don’t believe he’s a non- prospect, the guy has been injured virtually all year, mulligan time, imo. He came into this year back on the radar after his best year in 18, sure looked good in ST, then got injured.

 

 

How is that different than Corey Ray? Other than Ray was more highly regarded, drafted higher and had a better year last year?

[Boomer5]

No one is giving us anything for Cain. It’s better to hold on to him and hope he bounces back next year.

[Brew crew 92]

Tyrone Taylor is essentially a non-prospect at this point and could be a 40 man casualty anytime we need the space. I hardly even know what to think of any analysis that he could just come right up and replace Cain's production.

 

I don’t believe he’s a non- prospect, the guy has been injured virtually all year, mulligan time, imo. He came into this year back on the radar after his best year in 18, sure looked good in ST, then got injured.

 

 

How is that different than Corey Ray? Other than Ray was more highly regarded, drafted higher and had a better year last year?

 

Because of a potentially historic K rate > Ray ^ 40+%. Personally don’t want another Lewis Brinson lite type player that at best takes 5 years in the big leagues to learn how to hit well enough to offset a ridiculous K rate.

[OnTheBlack]

Because of a potentially historic K rate > Ray ^ 40+%. Personally don’t want another Lewis Brinson lite type player that at best takes 5 years in the big leagues to learn how to hit well enough to offset a ridiculous K rate.

 

 

Yeah, prospect status isn't about what you want as evidenced by MLB pipeline's Brewers ranking. Ray-4th, Taylor-27th.

 

Everything you said;

 

I don’t believe he’s a non- prospect, the guy has been injured virtually all year, mulligan time, imo. He came into this year back on the radar after his best year in 18, sure looked good in ST, then got injured.

 

Is applicable to Ray.

[OnTheBlack]

No one is giving us anything for Cain. It’s better to hold on to him and hope he bounces back next year.

 

 

I don't think the idea was to actually get value for Cain, more dump his salary, of which we'd pay some of it-in order to clear salary cap room, open up playing time for Grisham and potentially better use that money elsewhere.

 

I'm sure we could move him, pay...I don't, 10 of the 50 remaining and get back a lottery ticket, but I think Cain's likely to bounce back and I don't think his contract will look nearly as bad when his luck averages out.

[JosephC]

Even with Cain's offensive struggles, he sure has passed the eye-test as a real defensive asset in centerfield. Metrics back that up. +17 DRS, +10.1 UZR/150. That's a big impact considering Braun has been just awful in LF and Yelich has had his share of miscues in right field. This pitching staff has enough trouble because it isn't very good, and it would probably look even worse if Cain's superior defense was taken out of the mix.

[Jopal78]

The Brewers don't typically include cash in their trades, and aren't likely to pay cash for Cain to play against them, and no team is going to take the 54 million left on his contract. He will be a Brewer for the next two years and likely all three that are left on his deal.

[bill hAll Star]

I also think the Brewers don't include cash on trades because they have not signed too many terrible contracts and are selective when they do it.

 

They usually kick off their assumed competitive window with these contracts. Lohse, Garza, Suppan all were 3-4 year deals with "OK, we've got our core and here is our extra contract to try to bolster the rotation."

 

By the time the wheels completely fall off on the contention window and the signing they made, the guy has something like 1-2 years, $25 million left and the Brewers are looking at a 1-2 year rebuild. So there's no point of throwing money in to get rid of Garza. Instead, just let them rot and pray for value to trade away later.

[Brew crew 92]

Even with Cain's offensive struggles, he sure has passed the eye-test as a real defensive asset in centerfield. Metrics back that up. +17 DRS, +10.1 UZR/150. That's a big impact considering Braun has been just awful in LF and Yelich has had his share of miscues in right field. This pitching staff has enough trouble because it isn't very good, and it would probably look even worse if Cain's superior defense was taken out of the mix.

 

As helpful as Cain is to the pitching staff because of his defense, his offense has become so abysmal(.252 .331 .679 > 76 ops+)it’s killing this offense. Especially when his poor RISP is factored in. Then consider Counsell bats him directly in front of Yelich most games and it’s no wonder this offense can’t get going.

 

It’s too late to do anything about it this year. But, to me at least, this is a major issue this offseason for Stearns, and I’ll be fascinated to see what he does about it. The easy decision would be to think he’ll just rebound next season and stand pat. The harder decision is to trade. The smart decision imo, is to trade. If he has another year like 2019, this team is done, so why take the chance?

[pacopete4]

Cain is killing the offense because CC refuses to permanently remove him from the lead off position.

[Ron Robinsons Beard]

The easy decision would be to think he’ll just rebound next season and stand pat. The harder decision is to trade. The smart decision imo, is to trade. If he has another year like 2019, this team is done, so why take the chance?

 

Trading him would end up being extremely tough, because the Brewers would need to either eat a large portion of his remaining contract, include a upper-end prospect(s) in a deal to get a team to take on Cain's contract, or take on a similar horrible contract for an underperforming past-his-prime veteran (good luck finding one of those). You make it sound like if they don't want him they can just trade him off easy peasy, and it just doesn't work like that.

[Fear The Chorizo]

Cain's thumb injury has definitely affected his offensive performance this year - easy to forget he had the 2nd highest WAR value in 2018 among position players behind Yelich in the NL.

 

It would be silly to try trading him this offseason unless there's concern his thumb issue is a permanent problem. To me it's worth the "risk" to hope an offseason of rest or rehab away from the daily grind of 162 games can get Cain's thumb right and expect him to perform closer to career norms at the plate in 2020.

[tmwiese55]

JMB nails it on the trade scenario. Which several of us have said many times but of course it continues to be ignored for hot takes.

 

FYI: Cain has a .375 OBP in August. Site I'm on goes monthly but doesn't go date by date, my quick math on the last 10 days of July puts him at .357 for that stretch. So he's actually been fairly good for a little over a month now, while of course still playing gold glove D. What an idiot our manager is for batting him in front Yeli!!!