Brewers Whiff at Deadline Without Adding a Hitter

1 hour ago, sveumrules said:

"Compounding the issue, Wong was replaced by Pedro Severino, the third catcher on the club. If you're going to pinch-hit in the five-hole in a high leverage situation, your backup to your backup catcher shouldn't be part of the plan. If that is how they "drew it up," then the Brewers will need a lot of help from luck and randomness to make a postseason run."

Wong has a 365 OPS vs LHP this year, and a devilish 666 OPS vs LHP over the last three seasons.

Severino has a 639 OPS vs LHP this year (only 17 PAs) and a 769 OPS vs LHP over the last three seasons.

Third catcher or not, Severino has a better track record vs LHP than Wong.

The only two "needle mover" bats on the market got dealt to the Padres in the same trade. Mancini isn't a clear upgrade over Tellez/McCutchen, Benintendi isn't a CF. Drury would have been fine depth, but Brosseau has a 134 OPS+ in that role already, kind of hard to improve on that from your backup IF.

Would I have preferred for Stearns & company to upgrade the offense? Of course. But I also understand that based on how the market shook out there was limited opportunity to do so & the best they realistically could have done was an Escobar type move that increases the depth, but doesn't really impact the top end at all.

Even the Padres, who acquired the two best hitters on the market in Soto & Bell, will be "needing a lot of luck to score enough runs against the best teams in the league." Their most bullish post-deadline World Series odds of 9.6% at FanGraphs (only 2% on 538 and 5.1% on PECOTA) are still solidly behind the Dodgers (15.8%), Mets (14.0%), Braves (12.0%) in the NL and the Astros (15.1%) and Yankees (11.0%) in the AL.

Like Brock said, it isn't about the pure numbers. You know who would have great to use as a pinch-hitter for Wong if that is the right play...Brandon Drury!

Here's the thing:  The Brewers built their offense around platoons/matchups/utility. So if you are going to do that, then you can NEVER have enough guys that give you advantages on the margins. For example, they continue to stink against LHP in general. McCutchen hasn't done the job against lefties...nor Tellez...nor Adames...which means you have room to add at LEAST one bat.

Brosseau is that perfect example...and you need to have as many options like that as possible, If you are going to be the team to pinch-hit for your THREE and FIVE hitters, your second option has to be better than Pedro Severino, a third catcher on a FOUR-MAN BENCH! I obviously hope it all works out and the offense is more consistently good than bad, but I just don't understand how they didn't grab even one bat.

I'd have been fine with Whit Merrifield even - .266 BABIP this year is weighing him down. Versatile player who could start at second base against lefties and then move around or pinch hit when facing righties.

Getting four bullpen arms (Rogers, Bush, Rosenthal, Lamet) to replace one (Hader) felt like overkill (or an attempt to prove to the fans or the manager that the loss of Hader shouldn't be used as an excuse), as I actually like the rest of our bullpen guys.

Well, we the fans felt the team needed a right-handed hitter (first baseman, second baseman or third baseman) or a switch-hitter (centerfielder or infielder). If the offense falters in the same predictable way that it did in 2014, we will grumble about it until the franchise wins a World Series.

After DFA-ing Severino and Lamet, I can't help but question what the heck is going on.

15 hours ago, BruisedCrew said:

I agree wholeheartedly with 2 main points:

1. The Brewers offense is less potent or reliable than indicated by the raw runs per game number. I have raised this more than once on the ongoing thread about the offense. The Brewers run production has been propped up by runs scored against the weakest teams in the league, including some games with extremely high run totals in single games against the Reds and Pirates. I understand that it should be expected that teams will score more against better teams and better pitchers. But, I have presented evidence that the gap between the Brewers R/G against weak teams as compared to R/G against better teams is much greater than the gap for other playoff contenders. IMHO this leads to a legitimate concern that the offense will really have trouble scoring against the best pitchers on the teams they would be facing in the playoffs.

2. I recognize that it was going to be difficult for the Brewers to obtain a real impact bat that would significantly improve the offense. part of the problem is the price to acquire and pay the very top talents (like Soto) and the fact that the Brewers are loaded with average hitters, so the upgrade in obtaining a slightly above average hitter might not be that great. In that case, it still would have made sense to acquire a right handed hitter who would offer a better option than Severino or Davis if they wanted to pinch it for Wong or Tellez. That could have been done without coming close to "mortgaging the team's future". I've seen enough cases of players like Randy Ready, Matt LaPorta, Louis Brinson, et al who produced wails of despair when traded but never became impact major leaguers.

I fully expected a deal like the Bush deal to prop up the setup portion of the bullpen. The Brewers do that every year and this team needed it. But, I look at exchanging Hader for Rogers to be a more significant downgrade than others seem to unless we assumed that Hader's recent troubles are a sign from a permanent fall from his position as the recognized best closer in MLB. And I don't see the erratic Lamet or the injured Rosenthal offering anything that will help this year's team.

Maybe the prospects obtained in the Hader trade will make this a great trade when looked at a few years from now. But for this season I see the Brewers moves as signaling that they recognize that winning the weak Central Division is probably the team's ceiling for this year. Even that may be tougher than it looked as the deadline approached.

ETA: I did not realize when I posted this that Lamet had already been DFA. So, as it affects the team this year, the Brewers traded Hader for Rogers. 

I would highly expect Ruiz to be up shortly. 

32 minutes ago, BruisedCrew said:

I don’t follow the minor leaguers. Is there anything in his background that suggests that he would be likely to provide immediate value to a major league team other than as a bench player? With very little MLB experience would he be an upgrade over Davis?

The Davis/Taylor CF we currently have certainly isn't setting the world on fire. And considering Ruiz has put up an OPS of 1.033 to go along with 13 HRs and 60 (!!!) SBs in 380 plate appearances in AA and AAA this season, I think it would be a safe assumption that he would be an improvement in CF for the Brewers. He has had 27 MLB ABs this season, and hasn't shown much at the MLB level yet. But he has been by all accounts one of the minor leagues' biggest breakout stars this season.