Where do we go from here?

[tmwiese55]

Fire Stearns and hire Chaim Bloom, senior vice President of the Tampa Bay rays.

 

Fresh perspective from another brainiac. Already proved he could win 90 games with a 70 million payroll, I want to see what he can do with 140 million.

 

Again, you were praising Stearns as a genius back in February, and when I brought this up yesterday, you said you didn't want Stearns fired.

 

After thinking about it, I want the most forward thinking, innovative, non- risk averse leader > this guy is it. The Rays, imo, are incredible in what they do, to annually compete on a 70-80 million payroll is really astounding, but’s it’s the way they do business, re-tool in half year cycles, selling high on players no matter the circumstances, the constant adding of young talent to the farm. Astute free agent signings(Charlie Morton).

 

I know nobody’s perfect, but imo, Stearns has made fundamental mistakes that to me, has led me to want this change.

 

We can’t change ownership, so we need a leader that can win it all with a payroll max at ~ 150 million at some point in the near future, and because he’s already proven to be one of if not the most forward thinking leader in baseball, he’s the man I want for this job.

 

First, he only recently became GM and the old GM is now VP. The one before that now runs the Dodgers. So, just saying it's a team effort. The current GM has been part of the whole run though. Generally speaking I love what TB and agree with that being a great org to poach from, I mentioned it for pitching coaches too.

 

That said, let's not forget this:

2014: 77 wins

15: 80 wins

16: 68 wins

17: 80 wins

 

Once again it seems you're massively overreacting to recency bias.

 

What your'e saying about TB is exactly what other teams/fans would be saying about Stearns. Competing yearly on a small budget, what a good job he's doing, imagine what he could do with a big payroll. Essentially exactly what the Mets tried with for him.

 

So what if TB had fired their whole management staff after 2016? how would they be doing right now?

[Brew crew 92]

I'm sure Stearns would be viewed strongly throughout the league and would have a GM/VP job this offseason if he wanted it.

 

Rewind 10ish months ago when the Mets were after him and I'm he, like everyone, had the opinion that we have to keep this guy, pay him the money and toss him whatever title he needs. Some things go badly and you change courses and fire the next season, yea that's a great way to manage a team. Keep in mind even in this 'disaster' of a season they're still several games above .500, remember just 13ish years ago we were having statewide celebrations for winning the last game of the year just to make .500.

 

Ya but you know what, 50 years is the 2%. It’s time to get ruthless, it’s time to get angry. The fans of MKE have done their job, packing stadiums for decades, over performing their market size to the highest extent, for DECADES. I’ve heard on this site no one DESERVES anything > we the fans of this team deserve EVERYTHING being done to win a World Series and that’s just the facts of the matter.

[tmwiese55]

Perhaps everything that can be done is trusting the GM that put them the closest they've been to winning the WS in almost 40 years. Nah, that's crazy though. One year contracts for all, if you don't win we're firing everyone and starting over every year!!!

[Ron Robinsons Beard]

This team is not great this year, but they are close to being a team that is a contender.

 

Rotation-wise, you are looking at Woodruff as your undisputed #1 going into next year, with several solid mid-rotation types like Davies, Houser and Anderson following. Houser has shown that he has the stuff to perhaps ascend to the next level. That said, it wouldn't surprise me to see the Brewers jump in the fray for a potential TOR starter this offseason. I think they also sign a couple lower-end guys like Lyles or a mid-tier guy like Gio. They won't make the same mistake they made this year depending on the young guys. The wild cards starting pitching-wise are obviously Peralta, Burnes and Jimmy Nelson.

 

I'd like to see the team offensively get away from being so LHH dominant. That likely comes from letting Moose walk and replacing him with a RHH third baseman. Would the Brewers be a darkhorse for Anthony Rendon? Man would that bat be perfect in this lineup! I think they let Grandal walk, and make the catcher position a battle between Pina, Freitas and Nottingham, with perhaps another low-cost veteran thrown in. In Grisham and Hiura you have two young, cost-controlled bats to add to Yelich at the top of the lineup. You hope Cain rebounds to become a solid defense-providing league average bat and team leader. There is plenty to be excited about going into next season.

[Brew crew 92]

Perhaps everything that can be done is trusting the GM that put them the closest they've been to winning the WS in almost 40 years. Nah, that's crazy though. One year contracts for all, if you don't win we're firing everyone and starting over every year!!!

 

Time to get ruthless time to get Steinbrennerish!

 

TPlush did better than I could explaining the ridiculous amount of mistakes that Stearns made this year.

 

Close doesn’t get the cigar.

[brewmann04]

This all started with the Loss of Knebel and the Then the Issues with JJ and no one was able to step into those roles. The Young arms for the rotation didn't pan out as expected. Chacin took a big step back from last season after he had a career year. The hitting that was supposed to carry this team failed especially with RISP and guys like Cain has taken a step back. DS will have to make some changes and with most of the relievers failing this season he have room on the 40 man especially when it comes to the pitching spots.

[adambr2]

Perhaps everything that can be done is trusting the GM that put them the closest they've been to winning the WS in almost 40 years. Nah, that's crazy though. One year contracts for all, if you don't win we're firing everyone and starting over every year!!!

 

Time to get ruthless time to get Steinbrennerish!

 

TPlush did better than I could explaining the ridiculous amount of mistakes that Stearns made this year.

 

Close doesn’t get the cigar.

 

Stearns did not have a great season. I don't think even his strongest supporters will deny that.

 

However, looking at the larger track record, he took over a franchise in the middle of a rebuild with no a weak farm, made some great deals to turn it around in 2 years, and has had them in contention every year since including a division title and one win from the Series. Perhaps he has earned the benefit the doubt after one down season, a down season still being one where we are within reasonable contention in late August.

 

Stability is important too. You don't just clean house every single time things don't go perfectly to plan.

[pacopete4]

Destined to be a massive failure? Oh, the dramatics. Yeah the staff crashed and burned and we can all have 20/20 now and try to nail Stearns for it. Or realize that sometimes baseball is an odd game and things happen. Unfortunately this season too many of them regressed or flat out lost their way. It was risky going in with three young pitchers but it’s a risk I hope he continues to take. It will be the only way we find young controllable pitchers for our rotation and when we do that, we will find that sustained success everyone is looking for.

[Fear The Chorizo]

The Rays are great and all - but their only WS appearance came after compiling nearly a decade's worth of extremely high draft picks because they were awful forever and they still didn't win it all. It was basically the model the Royals used to win a title a few years ago. Since then it's been largely a steady decline with a few bright spot seasons where they almost were good enough for a playoff run, but that doesn't really amount to anything in the AL East. What I do like about the Rays as an organization is how they appear to develop pitching talent - by both drafting and acquiring from other organizations via trade. It's tough to poach from other organizations for lateral moves, but I'd love to see the Brewers bring in someone for their organization to run their pitching development systemwide.

 

The Brewers have a really great one in DS to run their organization, make no question about it. Some years things just don't come together no matter how well planned. I'll continue to believe that losing Knebel in late Spring Training was a crippling blow to the pitching staff as a whole - combine that with Jeffress not recovering over the offseason following a 2018 that saw him burn out and Wahl's injury, and 3 of their top 4 late inning relief options vanished right before the season started. That forces Hader into the closer role, which flat out diminishes his value as a multi inning relief option for innings 7-8 and eliminates quality depth. Before the season even started, their pitching staff plan was shattered and they just didn't have the starters capable of giving them 6-7 innings consistently once it was apparent both Burnes and Peralta weren't ready as MLB starters.

 

Where do the Brewers go from here? Barring an unexpected turnaround, they're not making the playoffs. Regardless, I think it's high time to view 2020 as a season that should give new blood opportunities at the MLB level. I don't want to see Perez back. Depending on what Moose does with the mutual option, I only want to see 1 of Shaw or Moose in the organization come opening day 2020. I want Thames back, and I want him to platoon with Braun at 1B so Grisham has an opportunity to be an everyday player (Braun could still see time in LF against lefty starters). While I haven't given up completely on Arcia, I'd be open to making a change at SS if there's a reasonably significant upgrade available, and then in turn utilize Arcia as a utility IF/late inning defensive replacement. Assuming Grandal moves on, C is a big question mark that I'd be fine with the Brewers sticking with Pina and other internal options for 2020 (Nottingham, Freitas, etc).

 

On the pitching side of things, hopefully Knebel and Wahl are back healthy next year. Then Hader needs to get back to his best role as a high leverage situation reliever, not the "closer". I feel like Woodruff is a rotation lock, and Houser has earned a shot at the opening day rotation. If Suter is healthy I think he's in the mix next spring as a starter, too. Then you have the veteran guys like Anderson, Davies - I'd keep one as a rotation option and do whatever I could to deal the other for something of value....even if it's for a prospect years away. Then you have competition in spring training for Burnes, Peralta, and other youngsters/spring training vet invites for that last rotation spot and middle relief roles. I doubt they make a big FA splash this offseason, because as others have noted the offseason between 2020-2021 sets up nicely for them to have payroll flexibility to do so and I doubt DS will hamper it by spending more on a roster that will have a ton of question marks this winter.

 

As for the minors - it's poorly regarded due to recent graduations and apparent lack of impact prospects, but somehow it continues to graduate players to the MLB level. Assuming there are no offseason trades that see prospect depth further thinned, it wouldn't surprise me to see the system ranked back towards the middle of the MLB pack around this time next season after some of the really young guys and recent draftees progress.

[tmwiese55]

Perhaps everything that can be done is trusting the GM that put them the closest they've been to winning the WS in almost 40 years. Nah, that's crazy though. One year contracts for all, if you don't win we're firing everyone and starting over every year!!!

 

Time to get ruthless time to get Steinbrennerish!

 

TPlush did better than I could explaining the ridiculous amount of mistakes that Stearns made this year.

 

Close doesn’t get the cigar.

 

Stearns did not have a great season. I don't think even his strongest supporters will deny that.

 

However, looking at the larger track record, he took over a franchise in the middle of a rebuild with no a weak farm, made some great deals to turn it around in 2 years, and has had them in contention every year since including a division title and one win from the Series. Perhaps he has earned the benefit the doubt after one down season, a down season still being one where we are within reasonable contention in late August.

 

Stability is important too. You don't just clean house every single time things don't go perfectly to plan.

 

Adam nails it, it's really that simple.

 

FYI: Yankees have had the same GM since 1998 and have had some poor years by Yanks standards in that time and didn't fire him.

[Ron Robinsons Beard]

Destined to be a massive failure? Oh, the dramatics. Yeah the staff crashed and burned and we can all have 20/20 now and try to nail Stearns for it. Or realize that sometimes baseball is an odd game and things happen. Unfortunately this season too many of them regressed or flat out lost their way. It was risky going in with three young pitchers but it’s a risk I hope he continues to take. It will be the only way we find young controllable pitchers for our rotation and when we do that, we will find that sustained success everyone is looking for.

 

This is 100% true. And sometimes even good things can come out of failure. At the beginning of the year, Adrian Houser was no higher than perhaps 8th or 9th on the rotation depth chart. It took a bunch of injuries and underperformance to even give him a chance, and then even more of those to give him another shot. Now, with the way he's pitching, it appears that he stands a decent shot of being a future rotation cornerstone.

 

Also, Peralta and Burnes crashed and burned this year, but it's obvious that the talent is still there. In fact, I'd go so far to predict that one of those guys ends up surprising in a big, positive way next year. There's just too much talent in those two arms for them to both turn out to be flashes in the pan.

[MrTPlush]

Destined to be a massive failure? Oh, the dramatics. Yeah the staff crashed and burned and we can all have 20/20 now and try to nail Stearns for it. Or realize that sometimes baseball is an odd game and things happen. Unfortunately this season too many of them regressed or flat out lost their way. It was risky going in with three young pitchers but it’s a risk I hope he continues to take. It will be the only way we find young controllable pitchers for our rotation and when we do that, we will find that sustained success everyone is looking for.

 

20/20? Nah, not really. You act like no one was calling for the bullpen to suck or be simply average. It was pretty predictable. You also act like the rotation failing was shocking. Not really, when you make your entire rotation that are high risk and not consistent performers majority failure is almost expected. What is the success rate of prospects? How about in the rotation? 33%, that makes it easy. So right off the bat we have 2/5 of our rotation failing. How about middle of the road pitchers like Davies/Chacin? You are probably good for one of those types to disappoint. Suddenly the majority of the rotation is likely to bomb...which it did.

 

It was predictable and it happened. Obviously we could have hoped Chacin had another strong year, Davies got healthy, our three prospects do amazing...but is that realistic? Not even remotely close. There was too much risk in that rotation and little ceiling to be a likely successful unit. And the bullpen...it simply lost so much talent/results that it had last year with no reinforcements to help out. Worst of all there wasn't the depth for when that predictable rotation failure/injury happened.

 

You also seem to infer the only way for those three guys to get their chance at the rotation was to start there, completely false. As someone mentioned Houser was way down that depth chart and has an extended look to prove himself. Starting them all in the rotation was recklessly risky...and it crashed.

 

And like I said maybe Stearns knew that and wanted to roll the dice and aim higher by taking a step back this year for the long run. Not saying Burnes/Peralta can't contribute in the future. That being said these results aren't even remotely shocking and almost expected.

[tmwiese55]

I was certainly on the gritting my teeth about the bullpen from beginning. What made it great was 3 lights out at the end of games. 2/3 were gone to start the year. Plus Burnes going to the rotation. I certainly expected massive regression there. But I expected better from SP vs last year, don't forget out starters last year also didn't cover a lot of inning, had a lot of injuries, etc to the point they were down to basically just Chacin/Miley by the end. So with fresh young arms injected along with Jimmy, Davies, Anderson contributions I expected better from the rotation than in 19. I never thought Burnes would collapse, that was a killer. 150 sub 4 ERA innings from him would have made a drastic difference.

 

And I expected an improvement on O with adding in a good hitting C and 2B compared to the black holes at those spots last year. But that was countered by 1B, Shaw, Cain collapsing.

[DuWayne Steurer]

There was no way Stearns could have predicted or even hinted at SHaw falling off a cliff the way he did.

 

COuld have expected some regression from Aguilar, but not to hit to a .620 OPS so far into the season.

 

We can argue that it was folly to go into the season with 3 young starters, but absolutly nobody could have or should have predicted Burnes to be literally the worst pitcher in baseball, and give up a homer every 3 innings.

 

The bullpen..... we came into ST with Hader, Knebel, and Jeffress. It's arguable that Jeffress was already burnt in the NLCS, and Stearns should have seen the falloff coming. Knebel was unexpected. The rest of the bullpen being a hot mess.... what can you say? The bullpen compared to the league is about average. Every bullpen in the NL (and MLB) is pretty much gross because of the juiced ball.

 

Chacin is terrible, and every other starter has missed chunks of the season except Davies.

 

How could Stearns have POSSIBLY prepared for everything to go wrong, and nothing to go "right" in the opposite direction? The only really "good" regression is Woodruff, and yet here we are in mid August 4 games back. That's not great but somehow, it's still a fighting chance.

 

Fire Stearns? That's just asinine. Dude put together a fantastic team last year. Give him a chance to correct this mess. You don't make reactionary moves like this over one lost season because a ton of guys underperformed or got hurt. That's not even being an apologist. This season sucked. It sucks. Watching a 16-8 game where every reliever comes in and gets shelled SUCKS. But this is baseball. You pick up the chips you have left and move on and figure out what you have to do to fix it.

 

It's gotta be hard to watch for the fans that think they know more than the GM and analytics guys and stuff. Baseball reference and fangraphs are awesome sites, but they have given rise to fans that think a few in depth stats are all they need to know more than the guys at the top of the game who are doing this all day every day.

[MrTPlush]

But I expected better from SP vs last year, don't forget out starters last year also didn't cover a lot of inning, had a lot of injuries, etc to the point they were down to basically just Chacin/Miley by the end.

 

I am not sure where they ranked overall last year statistically as starters, but while the players sucked at face value some had really low ERAs to help us way more than you would have expected.

 

Miley was a 2.67 ERA on the year

Gonzalez gave us 2.13 ERA in a short period

Chacin a 3.50 ERA on the year

Even the guys people hated (Guerra/Anderson) floated around 4.00 ERAs

 

I know I expected some more stability and more than one guy throwing throwing 175+ innings, but not sure I was expecting better results overall because last year they really weren't that bad if I recall.

 

EDIT: Found the stats. We were 11th in baseball by starter ERA and had the 4th most quality starts. That isn't the easiest to improve on.

[Bulldogboy]

I say this team cannot be taken seriously until they spend the money for a number one. Until then everything else is just rearranging the deck chairs. Last year was the worst thing that could happen to us because now they think see we can mix and match with little to no starting pitching. You cannot win that way consistently. They need two starters for sure and at minimum 3 bullpen pieces. Shaw has to go back to being Shaw. You need another outfielder. Braun plays first base with Thames. Fire all staff members besides Subero. Put Hader on the block to try and get back the best catcher shortstop or starting pitching you can. Let moose and Grandal walk and try to get an extension done with Yelich. I think we are 4th in the division depending on what they can pull off. It could be a downturn for a few if the pitching remains bargain basement.

[tmwiese55]

But I expected better from SP vs last year, don't forget out starters last year also didn't cover a lot of inning, had a lot of injuries, etc to the point they were down to basically just Chacin/Miley by the end.

 

I am not sure where they ranked overall last year statistically as starters, but while the players sucked at face value some had really low ERAs to help us way more than you would have expected.

 

Miley was a 2.67 ERA on the year

Gonzalez gave us 2.13 ERA in a short period

Chacin a 3.50 ERA on the year

Even the guys people hated (Guerra/Anderson) floated around 4.00 ERAs

 

I know I expected some more stability and more than one guy throwing throwing 175+ innings, but not sure I was expecting better results overall because last year they really weren't that bad if I recall.

 

Yup, generally accurate. But it was patchwork the whole time. You had Davies, Anderson do badly last year. Nelson never came back. Guerra flopped as a starter. Then they had to wing it with guys like Suter. Miley finished year strong after all that bad stuff but still only did like 15 games. Gio pitched in 5 starts ok. It was nice to have Chacin as a stable force all year though. But for the most part it was a mess all year as well that they pieced together fairly well as you point out. But by no means was it just smooth sailing and having such a deep pen allowed for these guys to pitch very few innings and the team to still win. Again, by september you were essentially down to two starters, and then trying to get 4ish innings from Gio. That Pen went away this year and it was logical to think you'd getter/more production from starters.

 

Looking at it, they only had 3 guys pitch more than 101 innings. and two were Anderson and Guerra and those were blah results. It was the bullpen that made the magic and Chacin did great.

[DuWayne Steurer]

"Yup, generally accurate. But it was patchwork the whole time. You had Davies, Anderson do badly last year."

 

 

Anderson had a 3.93 ERA and a 105 ERA + last year.

 

He gave up a lot of homers, but generally didn't give up a lot of runs. He was pretty much average.

[Surhoff5]

But I expected better from SP vs last year, don't forget out starters last year also didn't cover a lot of inning, had a lot of injuries, etc to the point they were down to basically just Chacin/Miley by the end.

 

I am not sure where they ranked overall last year statistically as starters, but while the players sucked at face value some had really low ERAs to help us way more than you would have expected.

 

Miley was a 2.67 ERA on the year

Gonzalez gave us 2.13 ERA in a short period

Chacin a 3.50 ERA on the year

Even the guys people hated (Guerra/Anderson) floated around 4.00 ERAs

 

I know I expected some more stability and more than one guy throwing throwing 175+ innings, but not sure I was expecting better results overall because last year they really weren't that bad if I recall.

 

EDIT: Found the stats. We were 11th in baseball by starter ERA and had the 4th most quality starts. That isn't the easiest to improve on.

 

So you keep saying this year was predictable, but was last year predictable then too? I mean they had arguably a much worse staff going into last year than they did this year. Nobody saw Wade Miley's improvement coming or that Chacin would be one of the best pitchers in the NL after April. They had Suter in the rotation to start and outside of Clancy, nobody wanted that. Basically baseball is completely unpredictable, and while this year has sucked, it is what makes baseball great.

[sveumrules]

C: Pina, Nottingham, Fritos

IF: Thames, Keston, Shaw, Arcia, Hernan

OF: Braun, Cain, Yelich, Grisham, Gamel

P: Woody, Chase, Davies, Houser, Hader, Knebel, Claudio, Suter, Freddy, Corbin, Devin, Black, Jimmy

 

I've got those 26 guys coming around 100 million, which would leave us about 30 million to spend on some combination of pitchers & maybe an upgrade at C, SS &/or 3B.

 

I don't think Stearns will trade any of the top couple two tree prospects given the overall state of the system, so probably no big ticket trades, but there is still plenty of ammo to probably get a solid reliever or utility guy or maybe an expensive vet SP a rebuilder is looking to offload to clear salary.

[FVBrewerFan]

I say this team cannot be taken seriously until they spend the money for a number one. Until then everything else is just rearranging the deck chairs. Last year was the worst thing that could happen to us because now they think see we can mix and match with little to no starting pitching. You cannot win that way consistently. They need two starters for sure and at minimum 3 bullpen pieces. Shaw has to go back to being Shaw. You need another outfielder. Braun plays first base with Thames. Fire all staff members besides Subero. Put Hader on the block to try and get back the best catcher shortstop or starting pitching you can. Let moose and Grandal walk and try to get an extension done with Yelich. I think we are 4th in the division depending on what they can pull off. It could be a downturn for a few if the pitching remains bargain basement.

 

So you want two TOR starters, an OF, 3 bullpen arms, and extend Yelich. I think we all want that, but they're not going to roll with a $200MM+ payroll next year.

 

Just accept the fact the Brewers will always be a team that needs a bit of luck each season, they can't go out and buy a player to fill every hole they have. This year, Grandal and Moose were there to be had, and they have produced what was expected. But that meant things needed to go right with 2/3 of Woodruff/Burnes/Peralta. Also meant Chacin staying at least close to what he did in 2018. Well, none of that worked. So the bullpen took the brunt of that. Sprinkle in Cain's disapointing season and here we are.

 

I just don't accept the premise that Stearns made big mistakes. He created potent line-up that should be scoring more runs, but aren't due to horrific RISP hitting. With an empty wallet, time to see of the young guns could get it done. Obviously that didn't work. Then again, many of the starting pitchers he could have gone after would not have worked out either.

 

If anything, Stearns needs to be held accountable if they can't start producing pitchers from his own system. To soon to hang him for that yet, but this has been the Brewers biggest problem since, well, forever.

[Bulldogboy]

I say this team cannot be taken seriously until they spend the money for a number one. Until then everything else is just rearranging the deck chairs. Last year was the worst thing that could happen to us because now they think see we can mix and match with little to no starting pitching. You cannot win that way consistently. They need two starters for sure and at minimum 3 bullpen pieces. Shaw has to go back to being Shaw. You need another outfielder. Braun plays first base with Thames. Fire all staff members besides Subero. Put Hader on the block to try and get back the best catcher shortstop or starting pitching you can. Let moose and Grandal walk and try to get an extension done with Yelich. I think we are 4th in the division depending on what they can pull off. It could be a downturn for a few if the pitching remains bargain basement.

 

So you want two TOR starters, an OF, 3 bullpen arms, and extend Yelich. I think we all want that, but they're not going to roll with a $200MM+ payroll next year.

 

Just accept the fact the Brewers will always be a team that needs a bit of luck each season, they can't go out and buy a player to fill every hole they have. This year, Grandal and Moose were there to be had, and they have produced what was expected. But that meant things needed to go right with 2/3 of Woodruff/Burnes/Peralta. Also meant Chacin staying at least close to what he did in 2018. Well, none of that worked. So the bullpen took the brunt of that. Sprinkle in Cain's disapointing season and here we are.

 

I just don't accept the premise that Stearns made big mistakes. He created potent line-up that should be scoring more runs, but aren't due to horrific RISP hitting. With an empty wallet, time to see of the young guns could get it done. Obviously that didn't work. Then again, many of the starting pitchers he could have gone after would not have worked out either.

 

If anything, Stearns needs to be held accountable if they can't start producing pitchers from his own system. To soon to hang him for that yet, but this has been the Brewers biggest problem since, well, forever.

I agree with most of this. I was listing what they need but realistically not expecting they can do it all. Hence the 4th place prediction. Spending for a number one is my priority but I don't get the sense that Stearns values top end pitching the way some GM's do. Bottom line is the lack of development with the young starters set this program back several years. If they can't find pitching on the farm they are going to continue to be blips on the radar instead of becoming a Dodgers Astros Braves type winner.

[Bulldogboy]

C: Pina, Nottingham, Fritos

IF: Thames, Keston, Shaw, Arcia, Hernan

OF: Braun, Cain, Yelich, Grisham, Gamel

P: Woody, Chase, Davies, Houser, Hader, Knebel, Claudio, Suter, Freddy, Corbin, Devin, Black, Jimmy

 

I've got those 26 guys coming around 100 million, which would leave us about 30 million to spend on some combination of pitchers & maybe an upgrade at C, SS &/or 3B.

 

I don't think Stearns will trade any of the top couple two tree prospects given the overall state of the system, so probably no big ticket trades, but there is still plenty of ammo to probably get a solid reliever or utility guy or maybe an expensive vet SP a rebuilder is looking to offload to clear salary.

You are probably pretty close. That said looking at what they have on paper who are they better than in the division? Pittsburgh? Maybe? Based on what we know and that Braun Cain are in the sunset phase and Shaw is in the Bermuda triangle they are in big trouble.

[Ron Robinsons Beard]

C: Pina, Nottingham, Fritos

IF: Thames, Keston, Shaw, Arcia, Hernan

OF: Braun, Cain, Yelich, Grisham, Gamel

P: Woody, Chase, Davies, Houser, Hader, Knebel, Claudio, Suter, Freddy, Corbin, Devin, Black, Jimmy

 

I've got those 26 guys coming around 100 million, which would leave us about 30 million to spend on some combination of pitchers & maybe an upgrade at C, SS &/or 3B.

 

I don't think Stearns will trade any of the top couple two tree prospects given the overall state of the system, so probably no big ticket trades, but there is still plenty of ammo to probably get a solid reliever or utility guy or maybe an expensive vet SP a rebuilder is looking to offload to clear salary.

You are probably pretty close. That said looking at what they have on paper who are they better than in the division? Pittsburgh? Maybe? Based on what we know and that Braun Cain are in the sunset phase and Shaw is in the Bermuda triangle they are in big trouble.

 

A lot depends on if you can expect positive progression from Hiura and Grisham.

[OldSchoolSnapper]

Game 7 of the NLCS is "worst thing that can happen to us." That says it all right there.