Josh Lindblom signs with Brewers - 3 years / $9.125 mil [Latest: Lindblom DFAd]

[TJseven7]

100% agreed TJseven7. And the reaction from the fan base is even weirder because Stearns has struck gold on like ten similar signings. He legitimately must have the best track record in all of MLB at spotting undervalued pitching.

 

I guess what irritates me the most is that DS has done everything properly since he walked in the door. That isn't perfect, that's proper.

 

I'm a dork who studies front offices in the NFL. You can see patterns and see who is on the cutting edge with their management strategies. You can see the FOs stacking proper steps as often as possible and every single time they arrive at their destination faster than you'd expect.

 

It's exactly what you see with DS in MKE. Right price, options, turning over every stone, value value value value. The structure of deals. This team shot out of a cannon when he took over and it was due to scrubs. Aguilar, Villar, Guerra, a guy from Korea, Broxton. Doing what he does prevented the team from ever bottoming out because he stacks proper steps and turns over every rock.

 

You see the telling signs of an elite GM (staff) at work. Apparently, plenty of people can't see it.

 

Even last year, he "false" bought at the deadline. The team was on its last breath. He bought to add stability (in theory) and sifted through leftovers and low cost options to do it. He added 2 guys who liked going forward in the process. It gave the impression he bought, and he really didn't. Look what happened next.

 

The guy (and his group) are operating at an elite level. People need to acknowledge that and when they see we signed some 3mil starting pitcher out of Korea their response should be... "Ooo interesting, I can't wait to see how this plays out." Almost everything else has panned out beautifully. Why doubt this?

[A Swing and A Drive]

I think as Brewer fans we all try to sell ourselves on a player once he is acquired.

 

I feel like this is where I’m at with Lindblom.

 

I’ll try to erase the crappy MLB reliever version of Lindblom out of my memory.

 

I’ll replace it with a super hero (monster?) version of Lindblom that went to Asia and defeated Godzilla and is now returning to the States as a Brewer to conquer King Kong!

[TJseven7]

I think as Brewer fans we all try to sell ourselves on a player once he is acquired.

 

I feel like this is where I’m at with Lindblom.

 

I’ll try to erase the crappy MLB reliever version of Lindblom out of my memory.

 

I’ll replace it with a super hero (monster?) version of Lindblom that went to Asia and defeated Godzilla and is now returning to the States as a Brewer to conquer King Kong!

 

Give us a guy who goes 32 starts, logs 192 innings, holds an ERA of 4, and we can all complain about how he sucks like Davies while he stabilizes the rotation at a bargain basement price.

 

He don't need to defeat Godzilla and King Kong. Well, eventually we'll need him to hold off their buddies for 4 innings.

[clancyphile]

Some people will complain about any signing unless it is Cole or Strasburg. This dude won the KBO Cy Young the last two seasons and the KBO MVP last season, let's get excited!

 

And it's signings like this that make me embarrassed for factions of our fan base.

 

LOOK AROUND!

Roark got 12 mil AAV.

Lyles got 8 mil AAV.

Gausman got 9-10.

Treinen got 10 coming off an awful year.

 

Would any of those guys make you feel warm and fuzzy? Are any of those sure things?

 

It's like a huge number of people have never had to be strategic about anything in their lives. MKE can't afford to be strong everywhere and pitching is often highly inflated in cost. MKE can not afford top end ace pitchers. Can not. I've pointed to the .9 to 1.1 run diff for well over a year now and that there is an easy way to achieve it if you can simply find 1 starting pitcher solidly sub 4 (3.5 range) and then keep the rest under 4.2. Nothing world beating. If your 5 starters can sit at a 4 ERA the pen can drop you dramatically under 4. That's a great staff. There are 30 teams in this league. 6... SIX... were sub 4 era.

 

What's the cheapest way to do that? Guys like this! Guys like Miley, Gio, Chacin, Anderson, Davies and trading next to nothing for a nobody like Lyles. How many times have they pulled serviceable out of thin air.

 

This team was 1 game from the WS one season ago. ONE. In the last 2 years they were in the playoffs twice and NLCS 1 time. I mean I'd understand if you never saw it work but you just watched it work to the tune of 1 game from the WS. I somehow remember they were leading the team that won the WS this year. Leading in an elimination game, without Yelich. Who was on MKE's staff? Strasburg Cole Verlander Kershaw and Darvish right? RIGHT?

 

3 mil a year. 6 mil if he pitches as a starter. Cheaper than all the other nobodies we've seen sign deals. Low risk, upside, and a guy who can be a 3mil pen piece if it doesn't pan out. Will Roark give back half his money if he flops?

 

Guy started 30 games last year and was at 6.5 IP per start.

 

This is a brilliant signing. It might not work out, but the idea is brilliant. Yet, factions of this fan base complain. There is nothing to complain about with this signing. Welcome the KBO Cy Young to the roster and hope DS did it again.

 

This.

 

Worst case, the Crew has a decent bullpen option for three years at a cheap price.

 

Best case, the Brewers have a near-TOR pitcher for a good price - and who could be flipped in the last year of the deal for a very nice haul - even as a one-year rental.

[BrewBalls]

Some people will complain about any signing unless it is Cole or Strasburg. This dude won the KBO Cy Young the last two seasons and the KBO MVP last season, let's get excited!

 

And it's signings like this that make me embarrassed for factions of our fan base.

 

LOOK AROUND!

Roark got 12 mil AAV.

Lyles got 8 mil AAV.

Gausman got 9-10.

Treinen got 10 coming off an awful year.

 

Would any of those guys make you feel warm and fuzzy? Are any of those sure things?

 

It's like a huge number of people have never had to be strategic about anything in their lives. MKE can't afford to be strong everywhere and pitching is often highly inflated in cost. MKE can not afford top end ace pitchers. Can not. I've pointed to the .9 to 1.1 run diff for well over a year now and that there is an easy way to achieve it if you can simply find 1 starting pitcher solidly sub 4 (3.5 range) and then keep the rest under 4.2. Nothing world beating. If your 5 starters can sit at a 4 ERA the pen can drop you dramatically under 4. That's a great staff. There are 30 teams in this league. 6... SIX... were sub 4 era.

 

What's the cheapest way to do that? Guys like this! Guys like Miley, Gio, Chacin, Anderson, Davies and trading next to nothing for a nobody like Lyles. How many times have they pulled serviceable out of thin air.

 

This team was 1 game from the WS one season ago. ONE. In the last 2 years they were in the playoffs twice and NLCS 1 time. I mean I'd understand if you never saw it work but you just watched it work to the tune of 1 game from the WS. I somehow remember they were leading the team that won the WS this year. Leading in an elimination game, without Yelich. Who was on MKE's staff? Strasburg Cole Verlander Kershaw and Darvish right? RIGHT?

 

3 mil a year. 6 mil if he pitches as a starter. Cheaper than all the other nobodies we've seen sign deals. Low risk, upside, and a guy who can be a 3mil pen piece if it doesn't pan out. Will Roark give back half his money if he flops?

 

Guy started 30 games last year and was at 6.5 IP per start.

 

This is a brilliant signing. It might not work out, but the idea is brilliant. Yet, factions of this fan base complain. There is nothing to complain about with this signing. Welcome the KBO Cy Young to the roster and hope DS did it again.

 

Great post!!!! This basically says it all. So many fans have no clue what it takes to manage a professional sports team and are always looking for the big name splash signings in free agency which isn’t the norm for a small market team like the Brewers.

[Jenkins5]

Stearns goal has been consistent since he took over. Make a small market team competitive every year in a sustainable way. They’d turn over every stone & find value. Just look at how he has completely revamped our international department. We sign ton of Latin players & very well could fill two DSL teams soon. Not to mention they mostly capitalize in areas that are not as highly scouted. Venezuela is huge for use while many teams don’t spend much time due to their issues. Panama, Mexico.... In Asia & Australia they invest resources. Hasn’t panned out yet but fruits are hopefully coming.

 

Value waivers & cheaper rebound value guys he had been able to get production from. Even better flip them later on.

 

He has been willing to make big trades & signing when value is right. He targets control and will sign position players. He has done so while not taking in long & hurtful contracts. Cain is only one that seems like it could end up poorly if his offense doesn’t recover but his defense is still elite & helps this team win with runs saved.

 

Fact is, signing pitchers in this market is dangerous. The value often doesn’t match results. I feel we are far more likely to trade for a controllable TOR pitcher than ever signing one.

 

Fans may hate it but he is running this team great & getting results. Until we bomb during a season, tough to complain. We were one game away from World Series two seasons ago. Lost to the Champs this year who just rolled at right time. That late run we had was without top player in baseball. If Stearns believes in Lindblom, I’ll give him benefit of doubt. At price, looks like smart move.

 

What they really need is for these homegrown arms to produce at high level. Woodruff Burnes Peralta Hauser...... Williams Supek Ashby etc. The value of Burnes producing is far higher than paying 15+ million for similar results. They have struggled to sign international impact pitchers. That is only thing that annoys me. Very few bonus pitchers.

 

Lindblom, Welcome! Let’s see that splitter eat up hitters all season!

[Oxy]

Exactly what needs to be done... multiple times in order to catch one that becomes "lightning in a bottle" in addition to the Moose/Grandal type signings from last year and excellent scouting/trading for amateur/young players. Sprinkle in a Cain type signing every few years and eventually a title will come.

[MrTPlush]

If I was making bold predictions I’d say Lindblom will be the second best starter we had going into the season with when we look back at the end of the year. Why? Lots of off-speed offerings that includes a splitter. Batters will be very unfamiliar with him and I think he has a chance to have an incredible year before he comes back down to earth a bit. Much like Guerra did and many other pitchers experience.

[TJseven7]

If I was making bold predictions I’d say Lindblom will be the second best starter we had going into the season with when we look back at the end of the year. Why? Lots of off-speed offerings that includes a splitter. Batters will be very unfamiliar with him and I think he has a chance to have an incredible year before he comes back down to earth a bit. Much like Guerra did and many other pitchers experience.

 

Had me at splitter too. Did anyone else notice that he stalls his leg kick on a few of the highlight pitches. I believe I saw 3 out of the full wind up. If he alters his tempo to home on top of being able to locate a splitter and spike a splitter, he's going to be fun. That's enough to be a 3 mil pen guy by itself.

[stoutdude04]

Honestly, you are probably the one that is small minded.

 

Name-calling isn't what we do here. Discuss. Disagree. Block if you must.

 

Small minded wasnt the right phrase from me. Thinking that way is short sighted is what I should have said.

[RollieTime]

Some people will complain about any signing unless it is Cole or Strasburg. This dude won the KBO Cy Young the last two seasons and the KBO MVP last season, let's get excited!

 

And it's signings like this that make me embarrassed for factions of our fan base.

 

LOOK AROUND!

Roark got 12 mil AAV.

Lyles got 8 mil AAV.

Gausman got 9-10.

Treinen got 10 coming off an awful year.

 

Would any of those guys make you feel warm and fuzzy? Are any of those sure things?

 

It's like a huge number of people have never had to be strategic about anything in their lives. MKE can't afford to be strong everywhere and pitching is often highly inflated in cost. MKE can not afford top end ace pitchers. Can not. I've pointed to the .9 to 1.1 run diff for well over a year now and that there is an easy way to achieve it if you can simply find 1 starting pitcher solidly sub 4 (3.5 range) and then keep the rest under 4.2. Nothing world beating. If your 5 starters can sit at a 4 ERA the pen can drop you dramatically under 4. That's a great staff. There are 30 teams in this league. 6... SIX... were sub 4 era.

 

What's the cheapest way to do that? Guys like this! Guys like Miley, Gio, Chacin, Anderson, Davies and trading next to nothing for a nobody like Lyles. How many times have they pulled serviceable out of thin air.

 

This team was 1 game from the WS one season ago. ONE. In the last 2 years they were in the playoffs twice and NLCS 1 time. I mean I'd understand if you never saw it work but you just watched it work to the tune of 1 game from the WS. I somehow remember they were leading the team that won the WS this year. Leading in an elimination game, without Yelich. Who was on MKE's staff? Strasburg Cole Verlander Kershaw and Darvish right? RIGHT?

 

3 mil a year. 6 mil if he pitches as a starter. Cheaper than all the other nobodies we've seen sign deals. Low risk, upside, and a guy who can be a 3mil pen piece if it doesn't pan out. Will Roark give back half his money if he flops?

 

Guy started 30 games last year and was at 6.5 IP per start.

 

This is a brilliant signing. It might not work out, but the idea is brilliant. Yet, factions of this fan base complain. There is nothing to complain about with this signing. Welcome the KBO Cy Young to the roster and hope DS did it again.

 

This is the perfect post. This is why I have been an advocate of Anderson and Davies the last couple years because they are those solid mid rotation arms that keep you in games and don’t break the bank. If you had a staff of 5 Davies, you would be in the postseason every single year.

 

Davies isn’t a world beater, but he keeps you in the game more times than not and has an ERA under 4. There are so many worse options out there that staffs are trotting out there and the numbers show that. I will always find a 4 ERA guy valuable as long as he’s not breaking the bank.

 

I still would love to add a second arm at the top of the rotation with Woodruff to really give us a strong rotation though. Fill in the rest with those middle of the road guys and we will be just fine.

 

I really like this signing and think that Lindblom will be a solid rotation piece similar to Davies, but with a higher ceiling. With the prices of these below average starting pitchers getting $10+ million per year right now, we got an absolute steal. Looking forward to seeing what he can do in the rotation.

[patrickgpe]

I really like this signing and think that Lindblom will be a solid rotation piece similar to Davies, but with a higher ceiling. With the prices of these below average starting pitchers getting $10+ million per year right now, we got an absolute steal. Looking forward to seeing what he can do in the rotation.

 

we just don't know. He has faced lesser competition in Korea, so its hard to compare. He wasn't very good in MLB, went to Korea and became their MVP. I think its worth the risk, but we don't know if he will succeed here or not.

[adambr2]

As others have said, TJseven knocked it out of the park with his post. Perfectly explained why this is the absolute ideal move for this team and brilliant strategy.

 

The upside is tremendous, and I think it's huge that it it pans out the way we hope, it's for 3 years, not 1. The ceiling here is to get Hyun-Jin Ryu type results. I don't expect that, but that's the ceiling.

 

The downside is we're out a very tiny amount of money if it doesn't pan out and he can still probably be used in the pen. So in other words, there's almost no downside.

 

There's obviously no guarantees, but this move is textbook David Stearns brilliance getting this much possible upside for this little while all the other bounceback guys are signing for 8-10M a year.

 

I hope those blasting the move on Twitter just because they've never heard of the guy are big enough to eat their words if it pans out as hoped.

[TURBO]

Lots of people ate their words when Miley and Lyles worked out. I don't think we have many here who don't admit when they are wrong.

[pacopete4]

I really like this signing. I have no way of knowing if this will work or not but I love being creative. If this guy ends up being good, he's locked in for 3 seasons. Hopefully, Stearns hunch pays off and we get a valuable piece to our pitching staff.

[homer]

Let's not confuse "Brewer Twitter" with the bulk of posters on here.

[adambr2]

Lots of people ate their words when Miley and Lyles worked out. I don't think we have many here who don't admit when they are wrong.

 

I agree. Wasn't referring to anyone here, just the Twitter masses.

[3and2Fastball]

Stearns is working with 2 hands tied behind his back. In my opinion, he’s doing an incredible job. It would be awesome to see what he could do with a $170 million payroll during the “Yelich window”. We will likely never know

 

Random factoid: on this date, 8 years ago, the Brewers signed Aramis Ramirez.

[82brewcrew82]

Lots of people ate their words when Miley and Lyles worked out. I don't think we have many here who don't admit when they are wrong.

I'll admit it. For two years running I railed against the lack of perceived quality in the rotation. At some point you just have to sit back and realize DS knows what he is doing far more than a bunch of yokels on a message board. The people that don't like it might as well be standing on the corner screaming that the sky is orange because they don't like the color blue.

[3and2Fastball]

The lack of quality in the rotation is an extremely valid point. The objective is to win the

World Series. For 2 straight years the Brewers could have benefited greatly from having 2 more great, truly great pitchers in the postseason.

 

It has debated here frequently as to why the Brewers don’t have 2 more great pitchers. Can’t afford it. Spent the money on position players. Don’t do a good enough job developing pitchers. Etc... so I won’t go back into all of that...

 

To suggest that the rotation is “good enough” because we made the postseason 2 years in a row is extremely perplexing to me.

[bigredrobbo]

It's like a 12 Step program. Step 1 is realizing we are NEVER in the running for $300m contracts. After that, you understand the economic jiggery pokery required to make the Crew competitive, which, as the last few years under Stearns has shown, we can be. Throwing stupid money, to appease the fanbase, at 'meh' players (ahoy, Mr Suppan), is not DS' M.O. which can only be a good thing.

[SRB]

I really like this signing and think that Lindblom will be a solid rotation piece similar to Davies, but with a higher ceiling. With the prices of these below average starting pitchers getting $10+ million per year right now, we got an absolute steal. Looking forward to seeing what he can do in the rotation.

 

we just don't know. He has faced lesser competition in Korea, so its hard to compare. He wasn't very good in MLB, went to Korea and became their MVP. I think its worth the risk, but we don't know if he will succeed here or not.

 

He wasn't even actually that bad in the majors, to be fair. Huge caveat that he was mostly working in relief, but in 147.0 IP he has a 4.10 ERA, 4.27 FIP, 4.48 xFIP, 8.7 K/9, 3.7 BB/9.

 

Even factoring in the transition to starting, that's the profile of a pitcher who is a few changes away (primarily cutting down on walks) from being a #2/3 starter, and at least in the KBO he fixed the walk problem (1.3 BB/9 last season).

[sveumrules]

To suggest that the rotation is “good enough” because we made the postseason 2 years in a row is extremely perplexing to me.

 

Over the last three years our starting pitchers have posted a 94 ERA-, 10th best in baseball.

 

Combined with our bullpen, offense & defense that has been good enough for the team to win 271 games, 8th most in MLB. Same as the Cubs, more than the A's or Rays or Cardinals.

 

Our rotation has been good enough for us to miss the postseason in 2017 by 1 game when no one dreamed we would be that competitive, get us to Game 7 of the NLCS in 2018 & get us to the Wild Card game with a lead over the eventual WS Champs before our bullpen & defense lost the game in 2019.

 

Is that "good enough"? Clearly, individual mileage will vary, but for me personally I think it has been very entertaining to observe over the last few years.

[BrewBalls]

I really like this signing and think that Lindblom will be a solid rotation piece similar to Davies, but with a higher ceiling. With the prices of these below average starting pitchers getting $10+ million per year right now, we got an absolute steal. Looking forward to seeing what he can do in the rotation.

 

we just don't know. He has faced lesser competition in Korea, so its hard to compare. He wasn't very good in MLB, went to Korea and became their MVP. I think its worth the risk, but we don't know if he will succeed here or not.

 

He wasn't even actually that bad in the majors, to be fair. Huge caveat that he was mostly working in relief, but in 147.0 IP he has a 4.10 ERA, 4.27 FIP, 4.48 xFIP, 8.7 K/9, 3.7 BB/9.

 

Even factoring in the transition to starting, that's the profile of a pitcher who is a few changes away (primarily cutting down on walks) from being a #2/3 starter, and at least in the KBO he fixed the walk problem (1.3 BB/9 last season).

Looking at his MLB stats he actually performed better than I got the impression he did. My guess is he was able to refine his pitches and improve his control which are the differences between a reliever and middle rotation starter. He very well could become a solid 2-3 option for the next 3 years. I’m intrigued to see him pitch in 2020. This could be the biggest steal of the offseason.

[MrTPlush]

Take his past stats and chuck them in the nearest dumpster. He isn't even the same guy anymore.