Stearns’ Offensive Talent Evaluation

[RollieTime]

I think it might be time to look at Stearns and his ability to identify offensive talent both in free agency and in the draft. Stearns has been here for 5 full years where we should be seeing his true level of talent evaluation at the big league level since he has been here for a decent amount of years at this point. He has been here since prior to the 2016 draft, when Corey Ray was drafted in the first round. At this point, I think it is fair to say that Ray is a bust. Hiura was drafted in 2017, but it is now to the point where his ability to make contact is very concerning and something to keep an eye on. He looks lost at the plate at this point.

 

It is too early at this point to know how other first round picks Lutz and Turang will fair. But we have also received no contributions from hitters in any other rounds in the Stearns era.

 

Now to the big league roster. Khris Davis was traded, who would go on to hit over 130 homeruns the next 3 seasons with an OPS+ of around 130. Jonathan Villar was in the doghouse and part of a trade for Jonathan Schoop (yikes...).

 

Now for my least favorite trade he has done since being here. Garrett Cooper was essentially given away for a guy named Tyler Webb who made a grand total of 2 appearances for the Brewers. Cooper hit every stop of the way through the minors. The year he was traded, he had 46 extra base hits through half a season and was hitting .366 in AAA. He also struck out under 20% of the time. This is a guy we would have for 6 years cheaply. Then Aguilar was given up on after two very good seasons and then a slight down season. His results that season would arguably be a top 3 hitter on our team currently constructed.

 

Dubon also seems to be a quality bat that was traded away while on the cusp of the big league roster. Again, why are we trading successful minor league talent on the cusp of the MLB roster that we would control for 6+ seasons?

 

Grisham is to be determined still, but he seems to be a great young player. Urias was a good get though, so we will see how this trade plays out.

 

The Yelich trade was an A+ obviously and there’s not a bad word you can say about that trade.

 

It’s odd that the few guys we get to the upper minors that are successful, we trade away. For being a small market team, producing minor league talent that you get for the minimum should be a philosophy instilled in management as an essential aspect to fielding a competitive team with young cheap talent as well as quality veterans brought in through free agency. For some reason, this doesn’t seem to be the case.

 

For free agent signings, obviously Moose and Grandal panned out well. Cain played fantastic his first season, decent his second season, and didn’t play in his third season. They were established players with long track records of being offensive contributors. But take a look at the other moves he has done.

 

I was on record of wanting to retain Choi, but we let him go. We went to the Sogard Well (twice unfortunately). Avisail Garcia was an overpay at the time and looks even worse now. Shaw hasn’t had it for a while and was brought back in. Jackie Bradley Jr. has always been a below average hitter his entire career. Other smaller signings like Brad Miller, Brock Holt (few at bats), and Justin Smoak produced little to nothing.

 

Essentially, Sogard, Smoak, and Garcia were brought in for 2020 and it was a total flop. Garcia’s contract pays him $12.5 million for this year including his buyout for the 2022 season, which really put restraints on what we could do this past offseason. JBJ is a below average bat. Shaw is a below average bat. Hiura was struggling and a total wild card. Vogelbach was brought back in and is a career .205 hitter. This offense needed both Yelich and Hiura to produce to stay afloat. With neither being able to contribute, this offense is in serious trouble.

 

Being able to play great defense and pitch well is 2/3rds of the game. But you need to be able to score some runs consistently.

 

I am sure I am forgetting some moves and am just trying to paint a picture of some of the transactions we have seen recently. The Garcia, Sogard, Smoak, and trade of Grisham offseason was bad and I wasn’t surprised when it turned out the way it did. The 2020 offseason of JBJ, Shaw, Vogelbach, and Wong has one bright spot in Wong. I didn’t like Vogelbach or Shaw coming in and neither has done enough to this point to say they were good signings in any way.

 

With Yelich being out, we knew it would be tough to score runs. With Hiura not producing, the offense is in serious trouble to consistently score runs.

 

I understood the offseason plan of focusing on defense and pitching, but the lack of bats is a huge concern. That concern and lack of talent is a mix of Stearns trading away the little minor league talent we’ve gotten to the upper minors, poor free agent signings, as well as not drafting hitters well.

 

I have a serious question and one we all need to sit and actually think about. How many hitters on this roster are from Stearns’ drafts the last 5 years? I’m not 100% positive, but I believe it’s 0. That is unacceptable and a huge reason as to why we’ve been paying below average hitters millions of (wasted) dollars to try to do something offensively. It is a pretty massive failure to not be able to churn out well below average .220/.300/.700 hitters for the minimum where we can spend money on better free agent hitters instead of $5+ million for guys that can’t even do that.

 

The value of having someone like Cooper at first base long term has a huge trickle down effect. Him being at first would have allowed us to not need Vogelbach. In turn, Arcia would have been able to be let go and the money for those two combined, plus Shaw’s money would have been pooled together to sign a quality third baseman. That’s just one example, but receiving minor league contributors is a huge deal for a club like Milwaukee.

 

This is a mix of a rant post and serious concern, but this organization needs an influx of hitters doing literally anything at the big league level. The minor league needs to churn out literally anything for batters and hasn’t for years. We should be able to contribute some type of average to slightly below average hitter once every two years. That’s an extremely low bar to set, but even that would help significantly in allocating resources towards better free agents. We are a mix of mostly below average veterans and AAAA players that aren’t even players from our own system.

 

Stearns certainly knows how to identify pitching talent and has gotten the most out of them every year both through the draft and free agency. But man oh man do we need to stop striking out on free agent signings and in the draft.

 

I am sure I am forgetting some transactions. Feel free to add some of the other moves I am forgetting. I know some will look at this as a thread created during a losing streak or something of the like, but it runs deeper than that. We have had many discussions regarding the offense in other threads, but this might be a good central place to discuss how we feel about the offense over the last few seasons and an evaluation of Stearns’ talent evaluation of hitters both in free agency and the draft.

 

What do you all think?

[pitchleague]

I like the rant. It’s well-written and well-thought out. While I don’t agree with the Brewer’s ability to acquire a quality third baseman this off-season (was there one, besides Turner??) I do feel the same about the dealing of hitting talent from the minor leagues. But, at those times, we dealt what we could to acquire players at trade deadline for playoff runs. If we hadn’t dealt Dubon, for instance, would we have made the playoffs without Pomeranz? I don’t really know the answer to that question.

 

I still remember the days when we had tons of hitters in the system and no pitching prospects. We all complained about it, hoping we could develop some true major league pitchers. Now, here we are, a decade later, and the opposite has happened.

 

I’m just glad we have a baseball. I’m glad that we have a team. It’s someone I can watch on a daily basis and be all, “Yay Brewers!!” when they win and, “Darn Brewers!” with disdain, when they lose.

 

But I’m with you. And I feel the frustration.

[brewers888]

Glad someone besides me started this thread and it’s exactly what I’ve been saying for a few seasons now. Stearns has done a great job building the pitching staff and has been awful putting together a lineup. We have 50 million or so tied up into four outfielders and only Yelich is an above average hitter amongst the group.

 

The lineup was atrocious last year so what did Stearns do to improve it. He added a great defensive second baseman with a mediocre at best bat and a defensive center fielder who can’t hit. He also doubled down and kept Haines who is the worst hitting coach in the sport.

 

This team pretty much strikeouts 10 times or more per night without any of the power that you would normally get to make up for the swings and misses. The pitching and defense can only take you so far when you flat out struggle to hit almost every night.

[DHonks]

I don’t get the frustration about trading away cheap, controllable high minor league players. Is our goal to have talented minor leaguers in AAA or a quality big league club? Where are we supposed to stash all these players on our 40-man roster?

I like our minor league pitching depth. I’m also tired of us prioritizing pitching in seemingly EVERY draft, and would like to get some legit OF and corner IF prospects. We don’t draft 3b and 1b, but middle infielders and hope that they hit enough for when they have to move off SS. Then again, Grant Richardson, Tony Festa, Perry, Nelson, and countless other 1b/3b haven’t panned out as well.

On the whole I’m happy with Stearns. He’s technically not the GM anymore, so why not write complaining about Arnold? Or do we assume that Stearns is still in charge?

[trwi7]

I don’t get the frustration about trading away cheap, controllable high minor league players.

 

Really?

[adambr2]

I don’t get the frustration about trading away cheap, controllable high minor league players. Is our goal to have talented minor leaguers in AAA or a quality big league club? Where are we supposed to stash all these players on our 40-man roster?

 

I can think of a couple guys we could jettison off our 40 man roster if we absolutely needed to make room for cheap, talented minor leaguers.

[trwi7]

I don’t get the frustration about trading away cheap, controllable high minor league players. Is our goal to have talented minor leaguers in AAA or a quality big league club? Where are we supposed to stash all these players on our 40-man roster?

 

I can think of a couple guys we could jettison off our 40 man roster if we absolutely needed to make room for cheap, talented minor leaguers.

 

Only a couple?

 

[MrTPlush]

His ability to create an offense is certainly getting pretty questionable these days and it certainly hasn’t been pretty the last few years. In Stearns defense (a tad) offense really isn’t the focus of this team. They want to build pitching and defense as priorities. That is fine, but he has indeed traded away a number of hitters that ended up being good. While Grisham brought back Urias, it felt like they wanted to find a way to trade Grisham and Urias is what they found. Could they have gone and got Urias without trading Grisham? Maybe. Of course Stearns has also dabbled into FA and the signings of Garcia/Bradley Jr. are just comical disasters. Maybe one of those guys (or both) gives us a good year so they are total train wreck signings, but both have been horrendous so far. If you are going to invest nearly $25mil a year into two FA OFers get some offense man. At least Kolton Wong is working out so far.

 

Im not ready to really evaluate Stearns in general or his ability to build an offense...it still feels too early to make that opinion/call. It’s like judging a minor leaguer and calling him a bust after 3-4 years in the minors. That being said...he is not trending the correct way.

[JohnBriggs12]

Matt Duffy was everyday 3rd baseman on a 90 win Rays team as recently as 2018. He's been a key cog in the Cub's recent surge. Sure he's not a HR hitter but he has a quality approach at the plate. Brewers apparently had no interest.

[ThisIsMyCrew]

He added Cain 6.9 and 2.6 war in 18-19. Yelich 7.3 and 7 war 18-19. Aguilar 3.4 war in 18. Shaw 3.5 and 4.5 war in 18-19. Eric Thames 1, 0.4 and 1.4 war 17-19. Moose 2.6 war in 19. Pina 2.6, 1.1 and 0.8 war 17-18. Grandal 2.4 war in 2019. Drafted Hiura who had a 1.9 war in 84 games in 19. Omar narvaez who is off to 1.2 war already in 21. Wong who has 0.7 war in 22 games already.

 

This idea that Stearns can’t acquire bats is greatly exaggerated. Sure, he has missed on some low cost veterans that haven’t worked out. But to say he hasn’t acquired offense is a bit mis guided.

 

And I agree our offense has struggled some. But it’s not like the injuries our Stearns fault. That Wong goes down and Robertson and Peterson get at bats. Or the man in Hiura who always could hit no longer seems to be able to. Or Yelich/Cain go down and then McKinney has to play a full time role....or worse Peterson in outfield.

 

Lastly, offense is down accross baseball. Pitching has become so good that it’s making offense look even worse. Especially when we have 50% backups in. Or 3rd/4th string catchers. Patience is key. Stearns has been Just fine.

[MrTPlush]

That list kind of shows the problem people have though. It’s all essentially pre-2020, so little the last two years. One of the success stories from this year (Wong) isn’t really known for offense. Maybe he gives a mid to high .700 OPS...but most of his career that hasn’t happened over a full season. We will see how much he actually hits. It’s really hard to call Jesus Aguilar a success when he dumped him after one good season and it turned out to be a real terrible move. Also hard to call Keston Hiura much of an offensive accomplishment after how horrid he has been the last two years. Not only is he in AAA with massive issues he also got moved to 1B and still has awful defense. Now Hiura needs a .800+ OPS to even be a solid starter.

 

You win some, you lose some. This will be an interesting thing to look back on in 2-3 years. I’m just glad he didn’t find trading one of our top pitchers as a good idea.

[brewers888]

The farm system has just not produced any impact position players and that is a problem that has been going on for years. Hiura was the only opening day starter unless you count Cain who was originally drafted by the Brewers but signed as a free agent. Small market teams need to produce home grown talent and we have just done a very poor job of drafting and developing everyday players that play big roles with the team.

 

When you can't develop young players who produce on cheap contracts guys like Garcia and Bradley are signed for well more than they are worth. The team didn't hit at all last season and Stearns did nothing to address these issues. It was fair to expect Yelich to produce but besides him we have no big time bats.

[Ron Robinsons Beard]

The farm system has just not produced any impact position players and that is a problem that has been going on for years. Hiura was the only opening day starter unless you count Cain who was originally drafted by the Brewers but signed as a free agent. Small market teams need to produce home grown talent and we have just done a very poor job of drafting and developing everyday players that play big roles with the team.

 

When you can't develop young players who produce on cheap contracts guys like Garcia and Bradley are signed for well more than they are worth. The team didn't hit at all last season and Stearns did nothing to address these issues. It was fair to expect Yelich to produce but besides him we have no big time bats.

 

The team is just starting to turn it around in the farm system after those terrible Ray Montgomery years. Slow build, but hopefully steady improvement.

[JohnBriggs12]

He added Cain 6.9 and 2.6 war in 18-19. Yelich 7.3 and 7 war 18-19. Aguilar 3.4 war in 18. Shaw 3.5 and 4.5 war in 18-19. Eric Thames 1, 0.4 and 1.4 war 17-19. Moose 2.6 war in 19. Pina 2.6, 1.1 and 0.8 war 17-18. Grandal 2.4 war in 2019. Drafted Hiura who had a 1.9 war in 84 games in 19. Omar narvaez who is off to 1.2 war already in 21. Wong who has 0.7 war in 22 games already.

 

This idea that Stearns can’t acquire bats is greatly exaggerated. Sure, he has missed on some low cost veterans that haven’t worked out. But to say he hasn’t acquired offense is a bit mis guided.

 

And I agree our offense has struggled some. But it’s not like the injuries our Stearns fault. That Wong goes down and Robertson and Peterson get at bats. Or the man in Hiura who always could hit no longer seems to be able to. Or Yelich/Cain go down and then McKinney has to play a full time role....or worse Peterson in outfield.

 

Lastly, offense is down accross baseball. Pitching has become so good that it’s making offense look even worse. Especially when we have 50% backups in. Or 3rd/4th string catchers. Patience is key. Stearns has been Just fine.

 

It is Stearns' fault that Aguilar and Cooper are gone. Combined they are making less than Garcia is this year. He's also to blame for signing Robertson instead of the more established Duffy to compete for the 3B job.

 

Catcher seems the one position where there's offensive talent. Maybe they should experiment by moving Feliciano or Henry to another position?

[brewers888]

The farm system has just not produced any impact position players and that is a problem that has been going on for years. Hiura was the only opening day starter unless you count Cain who was originally drafted by the Brewers but signed as a free agent. Small market teams need to produce home grown talent and we have just done a very poor job of drafting and developing everyday players that play big roles with the team.

 

When you can't develop young players who produce on cheap contracts guys like Garcia and Bradley are signed for well more than they are worth. The team didn't hit at all last season and Stearns did nothing to address these issues. It was fair to expect Yelich to produce but besides him we have no big time bats.

 

The team is just starting to turn it around in the farm system after those terrible Ray Montgomery years. Slow build, but hopefully steady improvement.

 

Who besides hopefully Mitchell looks like a potential plus bat.

[SeaBass]

I'm not trying to excuse Stearns by any means but it does feel like the league has evolved just in the last 5 or 6 seasons. From early on when Stearns was having success adding undervalued pieces to the roster to where now free agency has slowed to an almost unbelievable crawl where teams are waiting out free agents and each other to reap the most value possible. The Brewers were once one of the few teams doing that now it's the norm for every team. So once again payroll and spending power shifts the advantage that much more to big markets.

 

That doesn't excuse draft or overall strategic success or failure. For the most part Stearns' successes have been boosted greatly when they've been able to trade for and re-sign Mike Moustakas and sign Yasmani Grandal to one year deals, unfortunately that doesn't seem to be as repeatable a strategy as once hoped.

[Boomer5]

He made great trades for Yelich, Shaw, and Freddy off the top of my head. The rest were meh to negative. His FA signings were just ok but that’s what everyone does in FA as it’s usually scrap heap guys and fools gold.

 

The issue with him is he hasn’t drafted well which has caused the farm to really suffer under his watch. For a team with a limited payroll that is really tough to sustain a quality team.

[sveumrules]

Brewers non-pitchers have a dead nuts even 100 wRC+ since Stearns & company took over, so I'd say they've been about average.

 

When you consider we likely have spent considerably less than the 15th most on position players & we also have the 7th most defensive runs saved over that time frame, an argument could be made they have performed above average overall.

 

No position players from the 2020 or 2019 drafts we could have drafted has made MLB yet. The only 1st rounder we could have picked in 2018 that has made MLB so far is Hoerner. The two 1st rounders from 2017 picked after Hiura that have made made MLB are Adell & Evan White, who have both been worse than Hiura.

 

The only draft that can really be faulted for not producing MLB hitters at this still very early juncture is 2016 with Ray & Erceg, but we still got Burnes & Feliciano so its looking like a solid draft even with the two big early whiffs.

 

Garrett Cooper has a 103 OPS+ for his career & a 52 OPS+ so far this year.

[DuWayne Steurer]

I think it's fair to point out that JBJ is coming off a 2020 in which he hit .283 and had an ops over .800. He's never been a big offensive performer. He's a defense first guy who hits with a (little bit) of pop, and puts up a .720 - .725 OPS. I'm pretty sure nobody saw him regressing this badly. He'll bounce back and hopefully end up around a .700 OPS.

 

It's also fair to point out that Billy McKinney wouldn't be playing every day and putting up his mid - 600's OPS if Yelich and Cain weren't on the injured list at the same time.

 

Wong was injured, which forced other bench guys into the lineup. Narvaez and Pina are injured, which forced Maile into the lineup.

 

The offense has been pretty brutal. Hiura has been brutal. I think the team, the staff needs to take a comprehensive look at what's going on with him.

Shaw isn't hitting great. He's getting RBI's because guys have been on base and he's been opportunistic

 

Garcia is doing about what we should expect from him, to be honest. About a .750 - 775 OPS. I can live with that if everyone else is hitting.

 

When guys are healthy, if they find a 1B (hopefully), they can probably be good enough with this pitching staff to win the games they need to win.

[BillMilton]

The team was supposed to have been built around Erceg Gatewood Ray Susac Lara at this point.

[JimH5]

Not mentioned in your post is the minor league development and coaching staff and major league coaching staff. The buck stops with Stearns, but it's possible that the draft picks were fine at the time, but were derailed in a substandard development system.

 

I don't know this to be true, but it's often neglected when discussing front office performance.

[AJOHNSON104]

Could he have done better on some of his moves for offensive players? Yes, but I don't think it has been that bad.

1. Everyone always focuses on the deals that don't work out - you need to look at the good ones too.

2. Some of the players people want back are just average or at best slightly above average. (Aguilar, Cooper, Villar, etc.)

3. Grisham looks like he might have gotten away, but apparently the Brewers thought Ray/Taylor, etc. could match / exceed him and I like the offensive potential of Urias over Arcia. It is easier to find a competent OF bat than a plus SS bat.

4. 2020 throws a lot of recent analysis off and 2021 has been a small sample.

5. Offense around the league is at historic lows - we aren't alone in this problem.

[Jopal78]

Garrett Cooper the one that got away? 30 years old and batting .187/.260/.286. He's just a guy. Like a lot of these moves you have to view them in context as well. Cooper was a 2nd tier minor league player and older. When he was traded the Brewers already had Thames signed to a multi-year deal, and Aguilar had emerged as an option at 1B. Additionally, he was dropped by the Yankees after 13 games.

 

As for Jesus, sometimes teams make a move that doesn't look good in hindsight. They got 8.2 innings out of Jake Faria before releasing him. Then again the Rays (arguably the best team an talent evaluation) non-tendered Aguilar after 37 games so there were at least two teams that thought he was a flash in the pan.

 

The Grisham trade hasn't worked out for the Brewers, but obviously they thought the combination of 6 yrs of Lauer and Urias would be of greater value than 6 years of Grisham and 2 years of Davies. Now that Lauer is pitching effectively and Davies has already been jettisoned to the Cubs with an ERA over 6, I wouldn't write off this trade just yet.

 

Most of the other trades the GM has made have been to add pieces down the stretch. To be critical of those deals means you'd rather have them miss the post-season to have a brighter future. A valid point of view for sure, but not grounds to criticize those particular deals after the fact.

 

As for the free agents, the last two off seasons the price of free agents has sky-rocketed where good but not great free agents are now pulling down 14-18 million dollars a year. The Brewers are just not going to be players in that market very often.

 

To wit, both Avi Garcia and Bradley Jr. are on bargain rate contracts. They haven't played up to their career norms, but then again neither are not tied long term to the Brewers. Just look at the deals that players like Marcell Ozuna received this last off season. A player who is marginally better than Garcia and Bradley but is under contract for 16 million per year across 4 years. Unless someone would prefer Eddie Rosario .234/.284/.378 to Bradley Jr. or other bargain bins like Joc Pederson or Kyle Schwarber there isn't much to complain about.

 

Same deal with Moustakas and Grandal. Is anyone really busted up that they didn't fork over 4 years/52 million for Moustakas (.225/.321/.450 with the Reds), or 3 yrs/54 million for Grandal (.201/.362/.379)?

 

Sure, there is an inordinate amount of love by the GM for the former first round picks who can't hit a lick but can play all over the diamond: Brad Miller, Nick Franklin, Corey Spangenberg, Jace Peterson, and Daniel Robertson. But even there, it's not a terrible idea to see if a former high draft pick can put it all together as a bench player. In fact, with Brad Miller it looks like the front office merely gave up too soon (.252/.343/.501 in 400 at bats since being released by the Brewers).

[DoubleSwitch]

Most hilarious part about this thread is repeatedly complaining about not signing Matt Duffy instead of Shaw or Robertson as if they weren't all scrap heap guys.

 

We have a consistently good team even if it isn't perfect, just enjoy it.

[SandyTolan]

I don't agree that the García signing was a disaster. First of all it's fair to throw out the 2020 stats - too many good players played poorly, be it because of pandemic anxiety, no fans, no video in the dugout, (plus for the Brewers, a leader like Cain opting out), whatever. So García played poorly last year, but do did Yelich, Narvaez and many others. Avi hit .500 on the road trip (10 for 20) and is now OPSing .756, owing according to him to changing his stance. Narvaez version 2021 is exceeding anyone's highest offensive expecations. Shaw is struggling to OPS .700 and seems to be fading but has been at the center of several huge wins. And some of the others mentioned aren't exactly burning it up this year - Cooper, as Jopal pointed out; also Dubon whose OBP is .243 this year and is OPSing .502 - his career ops is below .700, so, not much different from Arcia.

 

I also think the Padres trade is too early to evaluate. Urias seems to be a much better hitter than Arcia though Lando has 5 homers in 27 ABs in AAA Gwinett right now (sss OPS of 1.370), so maybe they fixed something.

 

Where I agree with RollieTime is with the Brewers giving up too soon on guys. Khris Davis and Aguilar especially, with no productive return, but even guys like Brad Miller were jettisoned quickly - we could use his bat about now. (OK, no big deal about Brad Miller.) Cooper I'm not so worried about. I also agree on whiffing with the draft. Other than Mitchell, I don't see much down there, though it's too early to say on the last couple of drafts. Though I still have hope on a couple of the scrap heap pickups, including Derek Fisher and Zach Green. McKinney seems to have run his course.