Shohei Ohtani

[monty57]

On 7/30/2022 at 6:43 AM, Jopal78 said:

But they actually did empty the farm. Don’t you remember the massive sell off in 2015: Gomez, Fiers, Aramis Ramirez, Gerardo Parra and Jonathan Broxton. Followed by tanking in 2016 and another sell off in July of that year: Aaron Hill, Jeremy Jeffress, Lucroy and Will Smith? 
 

The reality is the Brewers really haven’t been a draft and develop team in the last 15 years. Besides Tyrone Taylor, every other regular, and most the bench players were acquired in trades or signed as free agents.
 

Yes, Burnes, Woodruff, Suter, Williams and Ashby were drafted by the Brewers but Lauer, Houser, Hader and Peralta came over in trades. Boxberger, Gustave, Milner, Gott we’re all free agent signings. 

And the team has been pretty good using the trade and free agency method of building a roster.

The Angels aren’t going to trade Ohtani this year, and certainly not to the Brewers because their minor league talent isn’t that well regarded. 

Yes, I mentioned elsewhere that my son showed me a site which showed that most of Melvin's trades sent a lot more WAR away than they brought back, while most of Stearns' trades brought more WAR in then they sent away.

Melvin helped get us out of the gutter, but his trades nearly sent us back. Things looked pretty bleak with a bunch of old, expensive guys who weren't winning baseball games. We got very fortunate that Gomez and Lucroy put up seasons that got them MVP votes just before we traded them and then they both hit cliffs right after they were traded. Those two trades rebuilt the team a lot quicker than it otherwise could have been.

Attanasio seemed to have an on-air epiphany watching him through the 2014 collapse and into the bad start to 2015 leading to his hiring of Stearns. You could hear in Melvin's interviews that agents had started going over his head and Attanasio was making a lot of the moves, and you could here from Attanasio's frustration that he was starting to understand that he had been doing things wrong and needed to go a different direction. Then he hired Counell and Stearns, we started hearing "continually competitive" and after a short "retooling" have been in the playoffs every single year, with almost all of our trades bringing back a lot of "team control" and getting more WAR than we've given away. Every move adds more value to the team than it gives up.

That's why I've said that if we trade for Soto, it would be for 1.5 seasons, and Ohtani would be just for the end of this year. There is no doubt that we would give up more future WAR from the prospects we'd trade than we'd get for 1.5 years of Soto or 1/2 a year of Ohtani, so if we did it, it'd be as a short-term rental before turning around and trading them away to "re-stock the farm." 

I don't think it will happen for a number of reasons. It would go against what the "continually competitive" methodology the team has been doing since Stearns came on board, and the only reason it's even worth considering is because Ohtani and Soto are so good. They're the type of player that might get Attanasio salivating enough that the "fan" in him once again overtakes the "businessman" and he green-lights losing money for a couple of years because he thinks he has a World Series winner.

[UpandIn]

On 7/29/2022 at 7:52 AM, Ulice Payne said:

If I recall correctly, Angels selected Trout right before the Brewers draft pick.

I used to be disappointed about that, but the Brewers may have dodged a bullet there.  If the Angels can't afford to put a playoff team around Trout, how would the Brewers have done it?  I can't see the Milwaukee payroll navigating how to deal with Trout any better that the Angels.  Better for them to spread the talent across the roster instead of focused on one very talented & expensive guy. 

I'm sensing a bit of sarcasm here. We're...just obviously better off having Mike Trout vs not having Trout. I'd gladly give up ~11M a year in additional salary and swap out Trout for Yelich.

Or we could have gotten a Soto-esque haul for Trout, but very likely an even more impressive return. 

 

Anyway, my answer is Soto in this hypothetical. We'll never see someone do what Ohtani is doing most likely, but I feel like he's got a short shelf life. Soto on the other hand, he's up there with Trout and Bonds in terms of best hitters I've seen(throw in Manny as well I suppose). Plus the extra year. 

[MrTPlush]

I'd unload the farm to watch Ohtani in a Brewers uniform for 1.5 years. Assuming he stayed healthy and performed, of course. He would easily be the greatest player to ever wear a Brewers uni...sorry Yount/Aaron.

I mean 99% of the time watching the Brewers isn't going to be watching them hoist a World Series trophy...I would roll the dice on getting to watch Ohtani and who knows...it does make us better.

[sveumrules]

I’d imagine there is somewhere between none and a zero percent chance Shohei is dealt after agreeing to $30M for his last Arby’s year, but mostly wanted to bump this thread just to do a five year check in on Ohtani and try to find some statistical comps for him now that his sample size is getting up there.

Career Hit
2272 PAs | 137 wRC+ | 13.3 WAR
Career Pit
349 IP | 70 ERA- | 71 FIP- | 11.0 rWAR

Over the same 2018-22 time frame Ketel Marte and Framber Valdez matched his respective Hit/Pit WAR totals exactly.

The hitters to match or exceed Ohtani’s combined five year WAR are Freeman (24.3), Arenado (24.8), Trea (24.9), Bregman (25.0), Lindor (26.6), JRam (27.5), Judge (27.8), Trout (28.6) and Mookie (30.0).

Only two pitchers, Scherzer (27.0) and deGrom (26.2) topped Shohei’s combined WAR with Cole (23.9) and Verlander (23.4) coming up just short.

Getting a little more granular on the rate stats here were some guys with similar K/BB/HR rates on the mound…

Shohei: 138 K+ | 100 BB+ | 76 HR+
Burnes: 140 K+ | 78 BB+ | 77 HR+
Gerrit: 155 K+ | 77 BB+ | 99 HR+
Woody: 129 K+ | 74 BB+ | 79 HR+
Rodon: 128 K+ | 100 BB+ | 70 HR+
Glasnow: 147 K+ | 105 BB+ | 90 HR+

Pretty much looks like Rodon with more Ks or Burnes with more BBs are the closest profiles.

On the offensive side it looks like the closest overall profile is Ronald Acuna,..

SO: 267/354/532 | 11.4 BB% | 26.9 K%
RA: 277/370/517 | 11.4 BB% | 25.3 K%

All that is pretty nuts and all, but even crazier is it took Shohei a little time to get warmed up. He’s racked up 19.0 of that 24.3 career WAR in just the last two years.

From 2021-22 his hitter WAR of 8.9 is tied with Bryce Harper and Bryan Reynolds for 24th while his 10.1 rWAR pitching is tied with Robbie Ray for 9th.

Neither the best hitter (Judge 16.9 WAR) nor pitcher (Alcantara 12.4 WAR) are particularly close to Ohtani’s 19.0 combined WAR over the last two years.

One last thing for Ohtani to do (besides play in the postseason) is sync up his hitting/pitching for a monster 11-12 WAR season before hitting free agency.

2021: 5.0 hitWAR | 3.9 pitWAR
2022: 3.8 hitWAR | 6.2 pitWAR