Resigning Grandal & Moose

[MrTPlush]

Yah, sorry, but no team signs players with no intention to keep them the entire contract and plan to dump them halfway through. Simply does not happen when contracts are fully guaranteed and players are 30+. Now they may sign them fully knowing some back end years will be a total albatross, but they surely aren’t planning that they can get out of some year/loads of money halfway through.

 

Teams pretty much have to write that player into the payroll for whatever the contract says. They aren’t going to assume/predict they can be dumped to some other team in 2 years. Simply too many factors that make that such an unlikely scenario.

 

Simply put they have to extend an offer fully assuming he will be here for the entire length.

[JohnBriggs12]

Grandal has a good enough bat that he could be transitioned to primarily a 1B in the 3rd and 4th year of a deal. Most experts seem to see him getting 4 years at $65 million. I think he's worth that for the Brewers considering what they paid for Cain at a similar age. Grandal's been pretty durable. If they don't bring back Moose, they should have enough to bring in two corner IF at lesser amounts and years. These days finding guys capable of 25-30 HR at those spots isn't that difficult. I think they could get Healy and Thames for about $8-10 million combined and those two are capable of 50 HR between them.

 

If they miss out on Grandal, I'd go hard after Didi Gregorious for an offensive upgrade at SS and hope to find a productive catcher from the rest of the FA group to platoon with Pina. Two teams supposed to be hard after Grandal are the Reds and White Sox. If he signs with the Reds, I'd make a play to deal for Tucker Barnhart. I don't see Reds keeping Barnhart who'll make about $4 million next year.

[TURBO]

You can't sign a player to a high dollar and long contract with the hopes of trading him when he is no longer valuable. Doesn't happen, won't happen. See Ryan Braun for example. My guess is that he has been shopped with no takers the past couple of years.

 

Healy, Healy, Healy... No way do I want this guy anywhere near our roster. He just isn't good. In fact, he is bad at baseball.

[Ron Robinsons Beard]

You can't sign a player to a high dollar and long contract with the hopes of trading him when he is no longer valuable. Doesn't happen, won't happen. See Ryan Braun for example. My guess is that he has been shopped with no takers the past couple of years.

 

Healy, Healy, Healy... No way do I want this guy anywhere near our roster. He just isn't good. In fact, he is bad at baseball.

 

Agreed, on all accounts. The only way to rid yourself of an albatross-type longterm deal is to either offload it with a package of prospects for basically nothing in return, or send a dumptruck of money to the acquiring team.

 

On Healy, I believe the Brewers can, and will, do much, much better. He's a "signs a minor league deal in February" type.

[adambr2]

Agreed with everyone on this page. If you could sign a guy to a 4 year/65 year deal with the intention of making it 2/30 and then getting a nice trade return, everyone would do it. It just almost always doesn't work that way. If you pay Grandal 4/65 you better plan on having him for 4/65. Once in awhile circumstances will fall into place where you might end up dealing the player first but you certainly don't plan on it.

[wntrtxn21]

Grandal has a good enough bat that he could be transitioned to primarily a 1B in the 3rd and 4th year of a deal. Most experts seem to see him getting 4 years at $65 million. I think he's worth that for the Brewers considering what they paid for Cain at a similar age. Grandal's been pretty durable. If they don't bring back Moose, they should have enough to bring in two corner IF at lesser amounts and years. These days finding guys capable of 25-30 HR at those spots isn't that difficult. I think they could get Healy and Thames for about $8-10 million combined and those two are capable of 50 HR between them.

 

If they miss out on Grandal, I'd go hard after Didi Gregorious for an offensive upgrade at SS and hope to find a productive catcher from the rest of the FA group to platoon with Pina. Two teams supposed to be hard after Grandal are the Reds and White Sox. If he signs with the Reds, I'd make a play to deal for Tucker Barnhart. I don't see Reds keeping Barnhart who'll make about $4 million next year.

 

I don't believe Stearns has Healy anywhere on his radar. Healy is a .289 OBP guy who is a butcher at 3B (-33 & -22). He hits some HRs, but not much else. They cut Thames and he is a much, much better hitter than Healy. IMO Gregorius is going to command too much money for his production. I think they could get Iglesias for much less. I don't know if Cincy will deal Barnhart to a division rival. If they deal him there will be a lot of interest. He would fit nicely though.

[bill hAll Star]

I also think that there is a finite shelf-life of a window for a small market team that is not as cutthroat as Cleveland (trading away good players for the future when you are contending).

 

So while I wouldn't always advocate this, say we sign Grandal to a 4 year deal and Moose to 3.

 

Say the next 2 years we're a playoff team and Cain, Grandal, Moose to some extent are all productive players.

 

In 2022, the bottom falls out and all 3 guys begin to fall apart. We trade Yelich and Hader both for a good set of prospects.

 

So in 2023, we're looking at a rebuilding year and our books have...Yasmani Grandal for 1 more season at $15 million.

 

Obviously there is risk in the short-term if all of these guys fall off sooner-than-later, but if we've got the money I'd rather go for it while we have Christian Yelich than say, "yeah, let's just do Tucker Barnhart at $5 million/year for 2 years because I'm worried about these contracts in 3 years." I think we may have 2-3 years left in this window, take your shot. We're at a point where if things go south with veterans, we'd be rebuilding anyways and it will just be Mark paying these guys money on rebuilding teams with an outside shot of trading them away for some value. What do I care?

[Jopal78]

While I hope the Brewers will resign both Moustakas and Grandal, logically I don't think they'll sign either. Last year, they waited out Moustakas last and got him at their price. I don't think they're going to pay market price for him this winter on a multi-year deal. Similarly, they signed Grandal in a unique situation where they didn't tie up long term money. After all, at an AAV for 18 million dollars they could have had Grandal for as many years as they wanted last off season.

 

Since they traded Anderson, and Gonzalez and Lyles are free agents I wouldn't be surprised if the Brewers go for pitching and defense with their free agents signings . I'm sure they can get one of the Hamels, Ryu, Keuchel for the AAV they'd have to pump into a multi-year deal for Grandal. Likewise, they could get one from the group of: Pineda, Roark, Kyle Gibson for the money they'd otherwise commit to Moustakas. Under this scenario they could put forth a rotation of, for example: Woodruff, Ryu, Davies, Pineda and Houser with Burnes and Peralta as depth pieces. They could still resign Pomeranz to give them three killers out of the pen with Pomeranz, Hader and Knebel. Then fill in the gaps with some of the bargain free agents like Todd Frazier, Asdrubal Cabrera, etc.

 

The increase in the quality of the starting pitching likely takes them further than the status quo of their offense from last year.

[KeithStone53151]

I personally am not going to be overly concerned with acting quickly. The last two offseasons have been unbearably slow. I don't see any reason for them to all of a sudden move more quickly. Prior to those 2 offseasons, the teams that did best in the offseason were generally the teams that waited for other teams to blow all their payroll and made value signings in January/February.

[brewers888]

I totally get the why people focus on our pitching but the fact is our offense wasn't all that good with Grandal and Moustakas in the lineup. Take the two of them out along with Thames and we become a terrible offense if they aren't adequately replaced and I don't consider Shaw an adequate replacement for Moustakas and their is virtually no way to replace Grandals offense at catcher.

 

I don't want to commit too many years to either of them but the alternative of losing both of them is not a good scenario at all.

[RollieTime]

While I hope the Brewers will resign both Moustakas and Grandal, logically I don't think they'll sign either. Last year, they waited out Moustakas last and got him at their price. I don't think they're going to pay market price for him this winter on a multi-year deal. Similarly, they signed Grandal in a unique situation where they didn't tie up long term money. After all, at an AAV for 18 million dollars they could have had Grandal for as many years as they wanted last off season.

 

Since they traded Anderson, and Gonzalez and Lyles are free agents I wouldn't be surprised if the Brewers go for pitching and defense with their free agents signings . I'm sure they can get one of the Hamels, Ryu, Keuchel for the AAV they'd have to pump into a multi-year deal for Grandal. Likewise, they could get one from the group of: Pineda, Roark, Kyle Gibson for the money they'd otherwise commit to Moustakas. Under this scenario they could put forth a rotation of, for example: Woodruff, Ryu, Davies, Pineda and Houser with Burnes and Peralta as depth pieces. They could still resign Pomeranz to give them three killers out of the pen with Pomeranz, Hader and Knebel. Then fill in the gaps with some of the bargain free agents like Todd Frazier, Asdrubal Cabrera, etc.

 

The increase in the quality of the starting pitching likely takes them further than the status quo of their offense from last year.

 

I hope they bring back Moose and should give him a 3 year deal to get it done. Put the money from Grandal into pitching for someone like Wheeler. People can talk about large deals all they want, but I don’t see a guy like him getting $100 million. What about a 4/$70 million? Pair him with Woodruff and bring back someone like Lyles on a one year deal. Woodruff, Wheeler, Davies, Lyles, and Houser could be a good rotation.

 

If Grandal walks though, they need to address SS. Going from Grandal to Pina means you need to do something at short. Can’t have a bottom of the order of Pina, Arcia from the last two years, and P. We will continue to have an inconsistent offense with a bottom of the order like that. Especially if Shaw is given an opportunity to come back and might see time at first and could find himself in the 6 hole in this lineup. That could be a really gross bottom half of the lineup.

[wntrtxn21]

While I hope the Brewers will resign both Moustakas and Grandal, logically I don't think they'll sign either. Last year, they waited out Moustakas last and got him at their price. I don't think they're going to pay market price for him this winter on a multi-year deal. Similarly, they signed Grandal in a unique situation where they didn't tie up long term money. After all, at an AAV for 18 million dollars they could have had Grandal for as many years as they wanted last off season.

 

Since they traded Anderson, and Gonzalez and Lyles are free agents I wouldn't be surprised if the Brewers go for pitching and defense with their free agents signings . I'm sure they can get one of the Hamels, Ryu, Keuchel for the AAV they'd have to pump into a multi-year deal for Grandal. Likewise, they could get one from the group of: Pineda, Roark, Kyle Gibson for the money they'd otherwise commit to Moustakas. Under this scenario they could put forth a rotation of, for example: Woodruff, Ryu, Davies, Pineda and Houser with Burnes and Peralta as depth pieces. They could still resign Pomeranz to give them three killers out of the pen with Pomeranz, Hader and Knebel. Then fill in the gaps with some of the bargain free agents like Todd Frazier, Asdrubal Cabrera, etc.

 

The increase in the quality of the starting pitching likely takes them further than the status quo of their offense from last year.

 

I think Ryu is going to look for $20M+ per year. He signed QO last year so he'll look for more in 2020. Keuchel will also be looking for bigger money than he's worth. A 4.72 FIP in Atlanta will be worse in Milwaukee. Hamels is the questionable one. He had a good year, but he'll be 36 next year and made over $20M for a while. He'd have to take a big cut for Stearns to be interested. I think the Brewers have in-house, cheaper options at least as good as Roark (4.68 FIP) and Gibson. Pineda would help if they could get him for the right price. I just don't see Stearns signing $20M+ pitchers. W/o Moose and Grandal I don't think any of the lower end starters and low priced fill-ins can come close to offset the loss of offense.

[KeithStone53151]

Last year was feast or famine on the FA market. Harper/MM got $30+ per, Corbin got $22 I think, a few guys got in the $14-17 range and everyone else was $12 or less. I think we see quite a few more guys fall into the 20s this year(as many as 10 could get there) with only Cole going over 30. I know there's big talk about Rendon, but I simply don't believe he's in the 30+ tier.

[DHonks]

Agreed with everyone on this page. If you could sign a guy to a 4 year/65 year deal with the intention of making it 2/30 and then getting a nice trade return, everyone would do it. It just almost always doesn't work that way. If you pay Grandal 4/65 you better plan on having him for 4/65. Once in awhile circumstances will fall into place where you might end up dealing the player first but you certainly don't plan on it.

 

by no means was I ever advocating signing someone solely to later trade them. Or as MrTPlush said, to "dump" them. But if we don't compete on value, we will not sign guys. Teams don't sign people to trade them, but did anyone think the DBacks would keep Greinke the entire deal? Teams often are willing to go an extra year, fully knowing that the player may not be with them at the end. Would going to 4 years on Grandal or Moose be catastrophic for the Brewers? Probably not. If everyone else offers 3, I'd be willing to go 4, depending on total contract.

[JosephC]

I'm sure they can get one of the Hamels, Ryu, Keuchel for the AAV they'd have to pump into a multi-year deal for Grandal. Likewise, they could get one from the group of: Pineda, Roark, Kyle Gibson for the money they'd otherwise commit to Moustakas. Under this scenario they could put forth a rotation of, for example: Woodruff, Ryu, Davies, Pineda and Houser with Burnes and Peralta as depth pieces. They could still resign Pomeranz to give them three killers out of the pen with Pomeranz, Hader and Knebel. Then fill in the gaps with some of the bargain free agents like Todd Frazier, Asdrubal Cabrera, etc.

 

The increase in the quality of the starting pitching likely takes them further than the status quo of their offense from last year.

 

I completely disagree with this when looking at the players involved.

 

3-year averages for each player-

 

Grandal = 31 years old = 544 plate appearances, .244/.349/.464/.813, 25 HR/68 RBI, considered to be a good+ defensive catcher, 3.7 bWAR/fWAR

Hamels = 35 years old = 160 inning pitched, 3.92 ERA, 4.41 FIP, 1.28 WHIP, 2.2 bWAR/fWAR

Ryu = 32 years old = 131 innings pitched, 2.71 ERA, 3.61 FIP, 1.12 WHIP, 2.6 bWAR/fWAR

Keuchel = 31 years old = 154 innings pitched, 3.48 ERA, 3.97 FIP, 1.27 WHIP, 2.6 bWAR/fWAR

 

Moustakas = 31 years old = 606 plate appearances, .259/.319/.498/.817, 34 HR/89 RBI, average defensively, 2.2 bWAR/fWAR

Pineda = 30 years old = (using 2016-2019 since he missed all of 2018) 139 innings pitched, 4.44 ERA, 4.07 FIP, 1.27 WHIP, 1.9 bWAR/fWAR

Roark = 33 years old = 176 innings pitched, 4.46 ERA, 4.35 FIP, 1.34 WHIP, 2.0 bWAR/fWAR

Gibson = 32 years old = 172 innings pitched, 4.44 ERA, 4.39 FIP, 1.42 WHIP, 1.8 bWAR/fWAR

 

Frazier = 33 years old = 516 plate appearances, .226/.326/.421/.748, 22 HR/67 RBI, average defensively, 2.1 bWAR/fWAR

Cabrera = 34 years old = 549 plate appearances, .267/.336/.445/.781, 18 HR/75 RBI, defensive metrics all over the board - say average defense, 1.2 bWAR/fWAR

 

Ryu could easily prove to be a bigger contributor than Grandal if he would stay healthy. But in the 7 years since coming to MLB, he's averaged 18 starts and 105 2/3 innings per season (note that in his first season he pitched 30 starts and 192 innings). There is just too much of an injury risk when talking about a big contract.

 

I really wanted to move away from Moustakas and invest that money in pitching. But when looking at the numbers, I couldn't get away from the thought that Moustakas is the way to go. We can look at comparable WAR figures, but when it's "old-schooled" we are picking between a 34 HR/89 RBI guy or a pitcher that is probably going to post an ERA right around 4.50 with a WHIP of 1.30 plus. I'll gladly give Moustakas the money and instead troll the bottom of the pitching market to try and find a 4.50 ERA by that route.

 

For some reason I was really hot on the idea of getting Gibson, and I've seen a couple of projections that put him at right around a 3 WAR player for next year, but when looking through all the numbers I just can't figure out what makes him so attractive. The one thing that does stick out is that maybe he's had some bad luck with home runs, but that wouldn't appear to make him a good fit for Miller Park. I'd just stick with Moustakas.

[MrTPlush]

They will sign one of them. They aren’t going to cut $30mil in payroll between these two, dump Anderson, and dump Thames to sign neither of these guys. Unless you think they will spend big on a pitcher (I doubt this) they will spend some cash on one of them.

 

Signing neither would simply equate to way too much of a drop in payroll when they are heavily competing. That just is not something Attanasio would allow.

[TURBO]

They will sign one of them. They aren’t going to cut $30mil in payroll between these two, dump Anderson, and dump Thames to sign neither of these guys. Unless you think they will spend big on a pitcher (I doubt this) they will spend some cash on one of them.

 

Signing neither would simply equate to way too much of a drop in payroll when they are heavily competing. That just is not something Attanasio would allow.

 

If they fool around and wait too long though, they may lose their chance at signing one/both.

 

I have no doubt that we are in constant contact with both Moose and Grandal, but at some point, one/both are going to get an offer from another team...

 

I have to think that both players really like it in Milwaukee, or at least, like the organization and teamates, however, in today's big money world, I doubt that holds much water when making final decisions.

[pacopete4]

It won't happen but I hope that both players get their new deals to other teams quickly so Stearns can focus on other players for next season.

[Eye Black]

Took a closer look at some of the publications that attempt to predict MLB free agent contracts. Below are their various predictions for Grandal and Moustakas.

 

Yasmani Grandal Free Agent Contract Predictions

 

MLB Trade Rumors: 4 years, $68 million ($17 million AAV)

 

The Athletic (Jim Bowden): 3 years, $57 million ($19 million AAV)

 

Fangraphs (Kiley McDaniel): 4 years, $70 million ($17.5 million AAV)

 

Fangraphs (Crowdsource): 3 years, $48 million ($16 million AAV)

 

New York Post: 4 years, $65 million ($16.25 million AAV)

 

SB Nation: 3 years, $50 million ($16.66 million AAV)

 

Bleacher Report: 4 years, $90 million ($22.5 million AAV)

 

 

Mike Moustakas Free Agent Contract Predictions

 

MLB Trade Rumors: 2 years, $20 million ($10 million AAV)

 

The Athletic (Jim Bowden): 2 years, $24 million ($12 million AAV)

 

Fangraphs (Kiley McDaniel): 2 years, $32 million ($16 million AAV)

 

Fangraphs (Crowdsource): 3 years, $36 million ($12 million AAV)

 

New York Post: 2 years, $25 million ($12.5 million AAV)

 

SB Nation: 3 years, $38 million ($12.66 million AAV)

 

Bleacher Report: N/A

[DHonks]

I like the idea of re-signing Moose, keeping Shaw for 1b/3b, and finding a complement for Pina. I think Manny is a solid catcher, and his defense will be an upgrade. His offense is probably somewhere between 2017 and 2018. Perhaps Nottingham is a decent backup, but we've also been good at finding journeymen that can help a bit.

[JohnBriggs12]

I like the idea of re-signing Moose, keeping Shaw for 1b/3b, and finding a complement for Pina. I think Manny is a solid catcher, and his defense will be an upgrade. His offense is probably somewhere between 2017 and 2018. Perhaps Nottingham is a decent backup, but we've also been good at finding journeymen that can help a bit.

 

Unless he agrees to a minor league deal after being non-tendered, I just don't see how a contender can put any reliance on a guy who hit .157 and slugged .270 in 270 PA. He's Chris Davis part 2. They'd need a serious upgrade at SS, and a solid backup plan at 1B to even consider Shaw as more than an afterthought.

[PeaveyFury]

I like the idea of re-signing Moose, keeping Shaw for 1b/3b, and finding a complement for Pina. I think Manny is a solid catcher, and his defense will be an upgrade. His offense is probably somewhere between 2017 and 2018. Perhaps Nottingham is a decent backup, but we've also been good at finding journeymen that can help a bit.

 

He's Chris Davis part 2.

 

Other than, you know, the 23 million/year salary and 4 years in age difference. Also, Davis' numbers were declining, even before he fell off the cliff. It's much more plausible for the organization to believe that Shaw's 2019 was an anomaly rather than a permanent cliffing.

[Ron Robinsons Beard]

I like the idea of re-signing Moose, keeping Shaw for 1b/3b, and finding a complement for Pina. I think Manny is a solid catcher, and his defense will be an upgrade. His offense is probably somewhere between 2017 and 2018. Perhaps Nottingham is a decent backup, but we've also been good at finding journeymen that can help a bit.

 

He's Chris Davis part 2.

 

Other than, you know, the 23 million/year salary and 4 years in age difference. Also, Davis' numbers were declining, even before he fell off the cliff. It's much more plausible for the organization to believe that Shaw's 2019 was an anomaly rather than a permanent cliffing.

 

The sheer amount of fans that are 100% willing to write off a potential rebound from Shaw after a poor season is simply astonishing to me. The guy was a legit middle-of-the-order bat in a good offense for two full seasons previously, and isn't at the age where drastic regression should be expected. But yeah, this is what he is. Terrible. Not the 30+ HR solid batting average corner infield bat he proved to be two years in a row. Sheesh.

[MrTPlush]

And they are probably the same fans still banking on Arcia suddenly becoming a .750+ OPS bat All Star.

[PeaveyFury]

I think it's perfectly fair to have concerns about what happened this year, but if the Brewers bet on him to fill one of the two corner IF spots because they have reason to believe he'll rebound, I think that's a fair bet for the team to make. They have a lot of holes to fill and only so many resources with which to use, so it seems likely that Shaw and/or Arcia may be relied on as a result.