Brian Anderson to Brewers!!!! Yes!!!

[wiguy94]

22 minutes ago, sveumrules said:

Hiura has never hit LHP well in MLB. His seasonal wRC+ vs LHP from 2019-22 were 74, 81, 13 and 75 for a career 65 wRC+ vs LHP.

Anderson hit LHP to the tune of a 107 wRC+ from 2018-20 before injuries marred his 2021/22 seasons knocking his career mark vs LHP down to a 93 wRC+.

Anderson has been almost 30% better than Hiura vs LHP over the course of their careers and at his peak was over 40% better.

There are 169 RHB with at least 300 PAs vs LHP since 2019. Keston’s 65 wRC+ ranks 168th with only defensive minded catcher Max Stassi lower.

There pretty much is never a Keston Hiura all over again, dude is one of a kind in multiple ways.

My concern with Anderson against LHP is the K-rate has seriously spiked the last two seasons at 39% over 141 PA compared to 22% over 358 PA from 2018-2020. 

[Outlander]

They still have Brosseau against lefties if they don't want to play Anderson against lefties all of the time. More concerned if his overall numbers bounce back to career norms. However, like others have indicated, his salary does not preclude the Brewers from moving on and going a different direction.

[Brock Beauchamp]

2 hours ago, Ron Robinsons Beard said:

The guy in the video on the home page here speculated it would be Singleton. Personally, if I were Tyson Miller, I'd feel nervous. With Anderson's ability to play OF, Blake Perkins's days on the 40-man could potentially be numbered as well. Alexander is also a solid choice, although his ability to swing between starting and relieving might mak then see him as a solid depth candidate.

Yeah, I think it won't be Alexander simply for that reason. Teams are generally loathe to drop rotation depth of any kind heading into Spring Training, even if it's pretty bad rotation depth.

But with the acquisition of Miley... *shrugs*

It's certainly possible.

[MVP2110]

I guess I just don't understand guaranteeing a job to someone whose OPS+ the last two seasons has been under 100. If we assume the Brewers want to keep Turang down for service time reasons I'd still rather roll with an open competition for that 4th IF spot over just giving it to Anderson 

[endaround]

Hey the Brewers signed a guy who projects to be about league average with the bat! What a surprise!

As for splits, I guarantee the Brewers do not believe in reverse splits hence how Hiura was used. I expect Anderson to basically be the full time 3B.

[sveumrules]

23 minutes ago, MVP2110 said:

I guess I just don't understand guaranteeing a job to someone whose OPS+ the last two seasons has been under 100. If we assume the Brewers want to keep Turang down for service time reasons I'd still rather roll with an open competition for that 4th IF spot over just giving it to Anderson 

Barring injury he'll be on the OD roster, but I don't think he's guaranteed a starting spot just yet. 

Brewers FO are big fans of depth/competition so I think BA and Turang will both make the OD roster and neither will be a "starter" in the traditional sense.

Maybe something like...

1B: Rowdy (122) Bross (40)
2B: Brice (112) Urias (50)
SS: Adames (150) Brice (12)
3B: Urias (80) Anderson (72)

Can give Anderson additional games in RF, or slide games back and forth between him and Brice based on match up, performance, injury, etc and still have plenty of PAs for everybody.

 

[clancyphile]

I'd probably DFA Singleton at this point. Anderson/Hiura/Winker/Yelich could be backup options at 1B behind Tellez.

[CheezWizHed]

5 hours ago, monty57 said:

I would refer you to Exhibit A: Carlos Correa.

He will have a physical, but on a one-year / $3.5M (plus incentives) deal, it won't be looked at quite as closely as Correa's.

Wasn't Correa Exhibit A, B, and C? 😅

[umphrey]

I can’t really have an opinion about this one without figuring out who gets DFAd/traded/optioned. I want to keep Brosseau, I want to keep or trade Hiura, I want to keep the door open for Turang and I don’t want BA to be an every day starter in the OF for the season unless some unexpected things happen. Also what about Toro? Can we even keep him?

[clancyphile]

2 minutes ago, sveumrules said:

Barring injury he'll be on the OD roster, but I don't think he's guaranteed a starting spot just yet. 

Brewers FO are big fans of depth/competition so I think BA and Turang will both make the OD roster and neither will be a "starter" in the traditional sense.

Maybe something like...

1B: Rowdy (122) Bross (40)
2B: Brice (112) Urias (50)
SS: Adames (150) Brice (12)
3B: Urias (80) Anderson (72)

Can give Anderson additional games in RF, or slide games back and forth between him and Brice based on match up, performance, injury, etc and still have plenty of PAs for everybody.

 

I could see things looking like this:

C: Contreras (100), Caratini (62)

1B: Tellez (132), Hiura (20)

2B: Turang (100), Urias (32), Hiura (30)

SS: Adames (132), Urias (15), Turang (15)

3B: Urias (100), Anderson (62)

LF: Yelich (90), Frelick (60), Anderson (12)

CF: Mitchell (100), Taylor (62)

RF: Taylor (70), Anderson (50), Frelick (42)

DH: Winker (80), Yelich (50), Hiura (20), Contreras (12)

[wiguy94]

9 minutes ago, sveumrules said:

Barring injury he'll be on the OD roster, but I don't think he's guaranteed a starting spot just yet. 

Brewers FO are big fans of depth/competition so I think BA and Turang will both make the OD roster and neither will be a "starter" in the traditional sense.

Maybe something like...

1B: Rowdy (122) Bross (40)
2B: Brice (112) Urias (50)
SS: Adames (150) Brice (12)
3B: Urias (80) Anderson (72)

Can give Anderson additional games in RF, or slide games back and forth between him and Brice based on match up, performance, injury, etc and still have plenty of PAs for everybody.

 

I feel like barring a super good spring training that Turang will be in the minors until the super 2 deadline. 

[tmwiese55]

Considering it was made clear early on the spending/market the brewers were going to be operating in you kinda just have to accept this one.  He was one that made sense from the beginning and ticks a lot of the boxes.  Hope he bounces back and does well.   And when pouring over his numbers don't forget the stadium he's been playing in

If I had to guess I'd think this leads to Huira being traded.  Considering they knew or were planning on signing a BA or similar person it's kinda surprising they even signed Huira unless they were confident there is a trade market for him to at least grab a reliever or something. 

[CheezWizHed]

Digging into his past a bit for a few nuggets:

• His career minor league numbers are 261/339/416/755.  Making it seem that his 800+ OPS years (at age 26 and 27) were his upper end. His career MLB numbers are just about the same: 256/341/410/750.  
• Despite the decline in his bat, his bWAR was still positive the last 5 years (3.0, 3.3, 1.8, 1.3, 0.3).  His defensive bWAR is normally slightly above average (0.4-0.8) until last year when it was minimally below (-0.4)
• 2021 - Left Shoulder subluxation- went on IR twice for this, including the 60 day to end the season. 
• 2022 - Hit IR 3 times, including a left Shoulder strain. 

So if healthy, I'd guess he'd give us a 750 OPS with decent defense and 1.5-2.0 WAR.  That would be a slight offensive improvement on Urias with about the same D. 

[Jopal78]

22 minutes ago, tmwiese55 said:

Considering it was made clear early on the spending/market the brewers were going to be operating in you kinda just have to accept this one.  He was one that made sense from the beginning and ticks a lot of the boxes.  Hope he bounces back and does well.   And when pouring over his numbers don't forget the stadium he's been playing in

If I had to guess I'd think this leads to Huira being traded.  Considering they knew or were planning on signing a BA or similar person it's kinda surprising they even signed Huira unless they were confident there is a trade market for him to at least grab a reliever or something. 

Just like with Miley, I’m sure the Brewers have lots of offers on players in the bargain bin, and at this point those players are probably choosing which deal to take based on best guaranteed cash, best playing time, etc. 

[owbc]

IF/OF utility guys come in handy. It was either this or give Jace Peterson 2 years/10 mil which wasn't going to happen. 

Somewhere in this signing is an acknowledgement that at some point in the season they may need to get Jesse Winker's bat in the lineup by starting him in the outfield. So they may need to move Anderson from the IF to the OF within a game or use him as a defensive sub for Winker. 

Keston was rendered mostly obsolete by Winker in my view since one has to imagine that an ideal scenario is that Winker is the full-time DH, but injuries or other flexibility needs may force Winker into the field at times. 

Edit: I forgot about Winker's atrocious splits vs. LHP but I think the point stands that Anderson will need to sub in for Winker. 

 

[Thurston Fluff]

Before this signing we were going to have to rely on four rookies covering three positions. Now we only need to rely on them to cover two. The added flexibility of Anderson to cover either third or right means one of those rookies doesn't NEED to be Turang. While I didn't have a problem with going with the rookies, not needing to rely on 3/4 of them to produce right away is nice.

[jerichoholicninja]

Meh, whatever, but way too much excitement here over a guy who's been a not good hitter the last two years. I know he's had some injuries so I looked up last year's splits to see if maybe he showed some life toward the end of last season as he healed and nope. His OPS progressively got worse as the season went on and was sub-.600 the last month of the season. Sure, at that price I'll take a gamble he gets back to pre-2021 numbers but more likely he's DFA material by the all star break.

[clancyphile]

4 hours ago, Brock Beauchamp said:

Yeah, I think it won't be Alexander simply for that reason. Teams are generally loathe to drop rotation depth of any kind heading into Spring Training, even if it's pretty bad rotation depth.

But with the acquisition of Miley... *shrugs*

It's certainly possible.

Burnes, Woodruff, Peralta, Lauer, Ashby, Houser, Miley, Junk, Small, T. Miller as the top 10 SPs.

Alexander might be almost expendable.

[torts]

18 hours ago, Devinep said:

I’d imagine you didn’t see anyone say “sign anyone regardless of their quality as a player”

Youd imagine wrong

[Devinep]

22 minutes ago, torts said:

Youd imagine wrong

Sad. I’d hope anyone wanting more signings would also care about the quality of signing (which is all I’ve seen) 

[ClosetBrewerFan]

Anderson is the guy I was hoping they would sign.  A team option would have been nice but I'm very happy with this low risk signing.  I think he likely starts at 3b, but I doubt he is guaranteed a job.  I would expect his OPS to be closer to 750 rather than the what he did in the last two injury riddled years, assuming he stays healthy.  If not, this is a low risk sign and we have additional depth (Turang).  We had very little depth and were planning to rely on a lot of rookies.  Anderson gives us some coverage at 3b and RF in case things dont go well as we hope.

[brewmann04]

I sure tube adding a reliever next 

[Brock Beauchamp]

1 hour ago, clancyphile said:

Burnes, Woodruff, Peralta, Lauer, Ashby, Houser, Miley, Junk, Small, T. Miller as the top 10 SPs.

Alexander might be almost expendable.

Which is why I shrugged. It's certainly possible. The Brewers have really nice rotation depth but teams are just so uneasy letting go of even bad starters that I think they'll hold on to him for awhile.

The thing about pitchers is that once you get to the end of February, one or two of them tends to "come up" with issues.

[Oxy]

Meh. Not exactly Babe Ruth.

[SRB]

Anderson has great upside and a high floor at two positions of relative need (3B/RF), which is why he was one of my dream targets this off-season. Great signing by the Brewers at just $3.5 million guaranteed!

I never understand people who are disappointed by any signing that is not a guaranteed All Star. Between 2018-2020, Anderson was a 3-3.5 fWAR player per 162 games played. If he had not struggled with injuries the last couple years and was otherwise a free agent at 29 years old, he easily would have been looking at a $70+ million contract this season. A team like the Brewers has to bank on upside picks. Also weird to criticize this move on the assumption that this bumps Urias to 2B and Turang to a utility role to start. Yeah, Anderson is a question mark, but you have to be extremely optimistic to pencil in Turang for better offensive production straight out of the gate as a rookie than Anderson put up even during his down years.

I don't see how the Brewers are not a significantly better team now.