When first being asked to captain this ship, I harbored grand ideas. I wanted BP Milwaukee to be the home of high-end baseball writing and analysis on the Milwaukee Brewers, something I felt the Brewers’ blogosphere desperately needed. We took massive steps in that direction. Jack Moore and Ryan Romano have become true anchors for this site. Their styles and interests are quite divergent, but that has only benefited BPM. Julien Assouline and Seth Victor, the other two regular staff writers, have improved leaps and bounds (from an already high level) in just eight months. If their trajectories continue in this direction over the next couple years, they’ll have something truly special to offer readers. The BPM team has so many talented writers, though, as Travis Sarandos, Colin Anderle, Andrew Salzman, Michael Schwarz, and Xavier Alatorre all make this site what it is.

Exciting changes are on the horizon, both for Baseball Prospectus and BP Milwaukee. I eagerly anticipate seeing the places BPM can go in the coming 12 months because the site has a tremendous opportunity standing in front of it. I just don’t have the drive to steer the ship any longer.

In some ways, it’s an inopportune time to step away. The Milwaukee Brewers have one of the most exciting farm systems in Major League Baseball. The big-league squad is packed with post-hype sleepers who could breakout and become key cogs in the machine over the next half decade. Guys like Chris Carter, Domingo Santana, and maybe even Keon Broxton will hit monster home runs at Miller Park, putting Bernie’s Chalet in danger on a regular basis, while frustrating the average fan with too many strikeouts.

And, in many ways, that last part has been the most enjoyable part about writing on the Milwaukee Brewers. I’ve strived to bring a high level of intelligent analysis to the organization and the game, while fully understanding that I have more to learn than I’ll ever be able to in my lifetime. My philosophies about the game continuously shift. I try out ideas, watch them fail, and re-evaluate to hopefully be better the next time. I’ve tried to educate die-hard fans, to push against simplistic analysis, and to learn along with my readers.

That’s ultimately what BP Milwaukee needs to be. It must be a proverbial sandbox, a place for smart baseball writers to test out new ideas and to teach others. It’s also the responsibility of readers, though, to make it that way; it can’t be a passive role. I hope that I’ve made some positive contributions in that direction. If so, great. If not, Nicholas has a wonderful opportunity to do so as the next Editor-in-Chief at BP Milwaukee.

A deep thank you to everyone who has taken the time to read my work on the Brewers over the past half-dozen years or so, and especially over the last eight months. I hope we’ll see each other around the bend.

All the best,
JPB

As always, I’ve included the opening excerpt to read, but please follow the link at the bottom for the article in its entirety.)

*****

To think Billy Beane entered the 2012 season in an unenviable position. His Athletics had won 70-something games for the third time in four years, spurring the ever-active general manager to retool his roster for the umpteenth time. Beane removed the veterans; he traded Gio Gonzalez, Trevor Cahill, and Andrew Bailey for prospects, and wished David DeJesus and Josh Willingham all the best as they departed through free agency. Beane would later balance the subtractions by adding Coco Crisp and Bartolo Colon—moves that (seemingly) doubled as peace offerings to the union—but the net result was a payroll trimmed of about $15 million.

All the departures caused the A’s to abandon their short-term aspirations in pursuit of the future. Beane, who has worked with a bottom-six payroll since 2011, was left to improve his roster using one of the game’s best farm systems. Built mostly through trades—the A’s have picked in the top-10 just once since selecting Barry Zito in 1999—Oakland’s farm system entered that pivotal 2012 season ranked fourth in the league; however harmful those aforementioned trades were to fan morale, the returns had nourished a once-weak prospect stable. It’s been said that in baseball you’re either selling hope or selling wins.

In the past half-decade, money-strapped teams like the Rays and Pirates have validated the tried-and-true methods for building good teams with young talent. The process goes something like this: collect prospects by the wagon-full, develop them, keep them as long as the cost is low, and trade the aging and expensive to fill the holes in the system. This practice can be slow and painful, but it has become known as the “Right Way” to rebuild.

Given the A’s aforementioned collection of prospects and their recent success—no team has won more games since the start of 2012—you would think they had authored the all-American rebuild story. But they didn’t; the A’s actually built a winner by ignoring that construct.

Beane has disassembled his farm over the past two years at nearly the same pace he had used to build it. Seven of the 11 top prospects ranked by Kevin Goldstein in January 2012 have been traded, including three of the top five. In fact, Goldstein’s current employer, the Astros, employ as many of those 11 players on their active roster (two) as the A’s do—though Jarrod Parker would give the A’s the lead if he weren’t disabled. Beane’s aggressive prospect trading extends beyond those 11: he moved two players from the bottom nine, pushing the total to nine of the 20 players listed. The A’s didn’t just trade the spare parts. They traded half their farm.

Please read the remainder of the article at baseballprospectus.com for FREE by clicking HERE.

Baseball Prospectus published its trademark Transaction Analysis on the main site, featuring our own Ryan Romano and others. Be sure to read the entire TA to get analysis from multiple angles. In my opinion, those types of articles are worth the monthly subscription price on their own, so it’s quality stuff.

I have my own thoughts on the trade, though, and I want to utilize this space to pull apart multiple aspects of this trade from the Milwaukee Brewers’ perspective. This isn’t a simplistic trade. It’s quite clear that general manager David Stearns and his staff agreed to this move for a few reasons: (1) they believe Chase Anderson has some sneaky value over the next few years; (2) they adored 19-year-old Isan Diaz and were willing to pay $5.5 million of Aaron Hill’s salary to acquire the young middle infielder; and (3) hope.

RHP CHASE ANDERSON

Anderson posted a pedestrian 4.30 ERA for the Arizona Diamondbacks last year with a 4.16 FIP and was a 1.4-win player. That’s a decent back-end starter, all things considered, but it’s unclear that the Brewers should really be trading someone like Segura for a 28-year-old fifth starter. Even though the club has to like that Anderson has five years of team control remaining, two of which are at the league minimum, the move has to be something more than that. The Brewers must believe the right-hander brings something legitimate to the table — either so they can profit via the trade market or so Anderson can provide value in the win-loss column going forward.

The former Oklahoma Sooner enjoyed a solid first half in 2015. He compiled a 3.91 ERA before the All-Star Break, but that’s only part of the story. Anderson landed on the DL with triceps inflammation and missed the better part of a month. In the five starts prior to his stint on the disabled list, he gave up a total of 27 runs in 25.2 innings (9.12 ERA). It’s dangerous to dismiss a handful of starts as non-representative, I know, but it is notable that Anderson’s 2015 ERA was 3.26 without the five starts running up to his time on the DL.

It should also be noted that Chase Anderson saw his velocity jump after he returned from his arm injury. And not by a small amount, either. The right-hander started to throw harder than he has in the past two years:

It’s no surprise that Anderson saw his strikeout rate jump from 15.4 percent during his pre-DL starts to 21.1 percent afterward. Of course, he did also struggle in September, posting a 4.91 ERA in four starts; however, that was mostly soured by a single bad outing on September 8. His final two starts saw him surrender only two earned runs in 10.1 innings while striking out 14.

All of this isn’t to suggest that Chase Anderson is about to breakout with the Brewers. Changeup specialists with mediocre fastballs aren’t world-beaters. We know this too well in Milwaukee. What all of this does suggest, though, is that Anderson is interesting and there are reasons to believe his 4.30 ERA from 2015 isn’t completely representative of his talent. If he can carry over his velocity gains to 2016, perhaps we’re looking at a different pitcher. If much of his season was masked by triceps inflammation that torpedoed the middle part of his campaign, we should see better overall results in the future.

And those question marks are what Milwaukee is searching for during their rebuild. The club is desperately searching for cheap/inexpensive options who have opportunities for improvement. Anderson will make the league minimum for the next two years and will not be eligible for free agency until the 2022 season. If he cobbles together a useful — it doesn’t have to be great — 2016 season, one can easily imagine him fetching an interesting prospect or two on the trade market. Or maybe he’s a competent back-end starter for the Brewers as they start to creep toward contention in 2018, as he’ll only be 30 years old.

We’re asking questions and we’re seeing signs hinting that Anderson could be something more than his overall stat line suggests. And, yes, we’re being optimists and ignoring the potential downside. During a rebuild, though, I’m not convinced that downside represents any risk whatsoever, so I’m not sure that matters too much.

SS/2B ISAN DIAZ

Most baseball fans hadn’t heard of 19-year-old Isan Diaz before the Brewers traded for him on Saturday. The Diamondbacks drafted him in the second round of the 2014 draft — and many scouts raved about his upside — but he only hit .187/.289/.330 in his professional debut. People quickly forget about guys who can’t eclipse the Mendoza Line in the AZL.

All of that changed in 2015. The 5-foot-10 infielder demolished the Pioneer League, posting a herculean .360/.436/.640 slash line with 13 homers and 12 stolen bases in just 312 plate appearances. He won the Pioneer League MVP, and many scouts returned to their pre-draft notes and started salivating over what he could become in the future. In fact, FOX Sports’ Ken Rosenthal reported this week that the Atlanta Braves also coveted Diaz and were actively working on a deal to acquire the youngster. Fortunately for the Brewers, though, the Diamondbacks needed help at shortstop and valued Jean Segura over anything the Braves could offer (likely Erick Aybar).

I reached out to a few non-Brewers industry contacts, and the response was almost universally positive. One person opined that we’ll look back at this deal in a few years and think that Milwaukee “fleeced” Arizona. The same individual said that his organization loves Diaz and that he personally believes the young man to have “elite ceiling,” even if he makes the assumed defensive move to second base. Another scout dropped the seemingly omnipresent comp to a young Robinson Cano and raved about Diaz’s “fantastic bat speed.” A third person in the industry suggested that Diaz is one of the unheralded gems in the game and praised Stearns and his staff for acquiring him.

Of course, it wasn’t all positive. Another individual said that he likes the bat speed, but wants to see it at the full-season level before he forgets about the struggles he witnessed in the Arizona League. That same person says his lack of foot speed will make him a liability defensively and that his bat will have to carry a lot of the value. At 19 years old, the ceiling is tantalizing, but it’s disingenuous to ignore the holes in his long-term profile just because he lit up a offensive-friendly league, like the Pioneer League.

It’s clear the Milwaukee Brewers fall on the optimistic side of the spectrum, though, and built this entire deal around acquiring him.

2B AARON HILL

This is the “hope” I mentioned above. The Milwaukee Brewers took on $5.5 million of Hill’s contract in order to get Isan Diaz in this trade, as the Diamondbacks are still desperate to clear payroll space for some unknown reason. But it’s not difficult to understand why the D-Backs don’t have room for Hill on the roster. He’s about to turn 34 years old and hasn’t been productive for over two years. In fact, he hasn’t even been worth +1.0 WARP in the past two seasons combined.

And there’s not much to statistically suggest that Hill will turn it around, either. His power numbers have fallen. His BABIP has plummeted as his batted-ball velocity has gotten weaker. Hell, even Madison Bumgarner hit the baseball as hard, on average, than Hill in 2015 (88.86 mph). He’s responded by trying to become more selective at the plate, but that success has been uneven.

The Brewers acquired Hill so they could get Diaz. They also are hoping that he can dip his bat into the fountain of youth, so they can recoup some value on him in the summer. But that’s all it is. Hope. There isn’t much to indicate that Hill is a useful major-league player at this point in his career. But the Milwaukee Brewers are in a perfect situation to play him without too many repercussions. If he can turn back the clock, the move seems utterly brilliant. If not, the Brewers have other options at third base and second base, and the trade wasn’t even about him in the first place.

With Yoenis Cespedes re-signing in New York and Justin Upton inking a long-term deal with Detroit, the stagnating outfield market seems to finally have jumped to life. Dexter Fowler and Austin Jackson still have to find homes. As the latter two are primarily center fielders, though, it’s fair to suggest that the free-agent market is meaningfully over at the corner positions. That could mean the trade market heats up over the next couple weeks.

Khris Davis compiled a .247/.323/.505 slash line with 27 homers in just 440 plate appearances in 2015. Some signs still indicate that he’s best utilized as a platoon outfielder, but in an power-depressed league, Davis’s bat carries enough value to garner 500+ PA in the right situation. Now that teams can’t acquire impact outfield bats in free agency, Brewers’ GM David Stearns should finally get nibbles on the line for the 28-year-old slugger.

The fact that Davis has four control years remaining on his contract makes him stand out from guys like Jay Bruce, who will almost certainly be shopped prior to opening day. Working against him, though, is the fact that he can only handle left field.

The Chicago White Sox are desperately looking for a reason to not start Avisail Garcia in right field (and could move Melky Cabrera to right). The Los Angeles Angels could use someone to platoon with Daniel Nava in left. A team like the Oakland Athletics may see someone like Davis as a low-cost option beyond 2016, and they’ve been haphazardly active this winter. Other teams could show interest, too, but those are a few that make sense.

JIMMY NELSON, THE KNUCKLE-CURVE, AND PLATOON SPLITS

Jimmy Nelson drew rave reviews for his early-season performance in 2015. He posted a 3.58 FIP in April and unleashed his new knuckle-curve, which buckled the knees of many spring opponents. It was a pitch designed to replace his changeup and improve his effectiveness against lefties.

In 2015, the right-hander allowed opposite-handed batters to hit .298/.381/.495 with a walk rate of 4.13 BB/9 and a 1.68 WHIP. It represented a stark difference to his performance against righties, who he dominated throughout the entire year. The existence of a cavernous platoon split suggests that his knuckle-curve wasn’t really all that it was cracked up to be.

Of course, this skirts the fact that baseball is played over six months. Consistency is perhaps more important than raw stuff. To that point, Nelson gradually lost what made his knuckle-curve so promising: the vertical tilt.

As one can see, his knuckle-curve became more horizontal and less vertical as the season progressed. And the pitch isn’t much different from his slider — aside from a bit of velocity — if it’s not breaking downward to a significant degree. It’s also less effective against lefties when it’s not dropping off the table.

Nelson allowed left-handed hitters to post a .379 and .317 batting average in June and August, respectively. Lefties also hit over .300 in September, but he only threw 19 innings due to being struck in the head by a line drive. All of the damage may not have come against the knuckle-curve; however, the decreased vertical movement allowed opposing lefties to sit on his fastball and not offer as often against the offspeed pitch.

For Jimmy Nelson to take a step forward and become a mid-rotation starter for the Brewers, either his knuckle-curve or his changeup (in which I still believe) has to become a consistent third offering. Otherwise, he’s simply going to struggle against lefties once more in 2016 and the story won’t be meaningfully different.

WHAT MAKES LUCROY’S COMMENTS DIFFERENT?

Craig Counsell (September 23, 2015): “I don’t have any grandiose speeches yet, because I do think that where we’re at it the process of building, there’s going to be painful moments still. And that’s OK. That’s what happens when you try to build something great. There’s some pain in there. It almost has to happen, that pain. And there’s still more pain coming. That’s not to scare people. But if you want something great, you’ve got to be willing to undergo some pain. It’s a big job getting to where we want to get to. It’s a big job.”

Mark Attanasio (December 17, 2015): “By doing better, I mean fielding a playoff-competitive team and one day bringing a world championship to Milwaukee. To move toward accomplishing this lofty goal, I believe we need to take a step back and build more intensively from within.”

Jonathan Lucroy’s recent comments, suggesting that he would welcome a trade, have made many Brewers fans uncomfortable. One of the common criticisms has been that Lucroy’s “expectations of losing” could negatively impact the development of the Brewers’ young pitchers, as they may resent Lucroy and not accept his mentorship. Furthermore, maybe the comments are supposedly going to foment some kind of clubhouse disfunction.

All of that smacks of fans searching for reasons why comments they don’t want to hear are somehow worthy of anger. This isn’t the case for several reasons:

1. If “negative” comments from ownership and the club’s manager — meaning, comments that seemingly convey an expectation to lose in 2016 — aren’t problematic, why are Lucroy’s? That somehow a fellow player’s unbelief will rub off and stunt development? That somehow a pitcher is going to understand his manager’s rebuilding comments, but not the ones from his catcher? I really struggle to see a qualitative difference between the comments from Counsell/Attanasio and Lucroy, other than the latter saying that he wants to leave. And, of course, only one of those individuals has limitations on his patience due to the fleeting nature of player peaks. If anyone deserves benefit of the doubt in this situation, it seems to be the player who understands that he may not have many seasons left.
2. Why can outsiders understand the motivations behind Lucroy’s comments, but not his fellow teammates, many of whom are likely his friends and people with whom he’s in communication this winter? Seems to me that we’re treating the young Brewers players as if they’re unintelligent or unable to empathize with their teammate.
3. Lucroy is smart enough to know that his trade value is tied up in the performance of the Brewers’ young pitching staff. He’s not going to dog it, nor is he going to ignore the development of guys like Nelson, Peralta, Davies, and Jungmann. With all the articles being written about his framing decline and his decreased ability to handle pitching staffs, there’s no way that Lucroy neglects that piece of his responsibilities.
4. If we’re treating Lucroy’s comments as truthful, meaning he only cares about winning and not loyalty to the Brewers, it seems to me that his only desire in 2016 will be winning baseball games — whether that’s in Milwaukee or elsewhere. I don’t think we’ve ever seen any evidence to suggest the contrary. Part of that desire to win will be maximizing the performance and development of the young pitching staff. Assuming otherwise is blatantly ignoring Lucroy’s motivations for making the original comments.

So, no, I still don’t believe Lucroy’s comments are a big deal, and I particularly despise that I’m only feeding into the narrative by devoting 1,000+ words on the topic on this site. I hope this is the end of it.

Then, on Tuesday, Jonathan Lucroy mentioned that he’d welcome a trade to a winning ballclub because he doesn’t foresee Milwaukee competing for playoff spots over the next couple years. And as one would expect, such comments have gone over swimmingly among the Brewers’ fan base. (Hint: That’s sarcastic. It’s been a bit of a dumpster fire.)

As baseball fans, we often project our fandom and our loyalties onto professional ballplayers and assume their relationship with a team is somehow equivalent to our own. Undeniably chosen, yet unshakable. We idolize players that fit into that mold. Many of us, though, have a difficult time coping with players who remind us that a player-team relationship is also a business relationship, perhaps even one that happened by nothing but chance due to the MLB Draft or a trade. The idea that a player could discard one set of laundry and care just as much about another is foreign to the fan experience. It’s uncomfortable and infuriating for many people.

On the other hand, players are constantly told by fans that they must prioritize winning over money. Lucroy explicitly says that he agrees with this: “I can’t put numbers on how much longer I’m going to play, but as players we want to win. I don’t care about the money; I just want to win. That’s the bottom line.”

But what fans really mean is that players have to prioritize winning for their team, rather than winning in general. And they certainly don’t want a player to pursue winning elsewhere, due to the implied criticism.

Brewers fans face a fallow period that’s likely to last a couple years, if not more. Brewers fans have no choice but to grit their teeth and wait for the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel. I suspect they dislike the feeling that Jonathan Lucroy is asking to opt out of that rebuilding period, to simply move shop to another city and enjoy a postseason chase. That’s a choice that no Brewers fan has this winter. They’re being asked to buy into a retooling stretch, and it feels unfair that they’re being asked to do so while one of the team’s premier players wants to take the “easy” route and leave.

Lucroy isn’t really demanding a trade, though, and it’s important to note that. He says multiple times that he’ll give everything to the Brewers in 2016. It seems disingenuous to pick and choose which parts of his statement one wants to believe, too, so I don’t think we have an ability to doubt his commitment to the club.

After all, Lucroy is motivated by nothing but winning. Whether that’s winning in Milwaukee or performing well enough to be shipped elsewhere, it doesn’t matter. He’ll be chomping at the bit in April. And that’s all that really matters. Anything else is just projected anger (or jealousy, I suppose) over a player opting out of a painful rebuilding process that none of us want to endure. Because we’re not in it together, and that’s tough to cope with sometimes.

Taking into consideration the arbitration cases and the league-minimum salaries, we can comfortably say that Milwaukee is slated to have a payroll that is at least $40 million under last year’s budget. What a difference a year makes.

Two important points: (1) I am fully aware that the organization must make a profit and should expect revenue to decrease, due to the club being non-competitive; and (2) I am not criticizing the front office for skimping on the free-agent market or avoiding new contract extensions for players under team control. This is a rebuilding club with many young players who are fighting for playing time at the league minimum. That’s fine. The team should absolutely avoid handcuffing itself financially through long-term contracts and/or extensions.

But it’s imperative to note that a low Major League payroll is not the only place to spend money. It also must be stressed that the Milwaukee Brewers will still benefit from revenue sharing, their own television contract, and all the normal revenue streams that have allowed them to spend $98-plus million in three of the past four years. Thus, if the club (understandably) fields a low-cost Major League roster and the differential is not spend elsewhere within the organization, ownership will simply pocket the extra excess money. And, it seems to me, there’s no reason why a non-competitive stretch should be frustrating for fans and line the ownership’s pockets a bit more than normal.

Fortunately, there are plenty of places for a Major League organization to spend money, namely on the farm system. And given the fact that Milwaukee is focusing on the future, that seems to be the perfect place to allocate more funds than normal. If the goal is really to shorten the rebuild and to construct a perennial contender, the club should welcome investing more in their minor-league system.

The Brewers can throw gobs of cash in both the international market and the 2016 MLB Draft. Granted, Major League Baseball has worked diligently to limit the amount of money given to amateur players by instituting a complicated set of “bonus pool” allotments that have strict penalties for exceeding them. But as we’ve seen teams like the Yankees, Dodgers, and Rays do on the international market, there’s nothing stopping organizations from spending more money — as long as they’re willing to pay the penalties.

Back in 2014, Craig Goldstein outlined the penalty structures for exceeding the signing-bonus pool limits. In short, overages are taxed at 100 percent — so a team effectively has to pay double when they’re spending over their limit — and teams are ineligible to sign players for more than $500K or $300K for a year or two, depending on how much a club blows past their limit. For example, from July 2, 2014, to July 1, 2015, the New York Yankees exceeded their limit by at least 610 percent! They signed 10 of the top-30 international players on the market and had to pay an estimated $13.4 million in overage taxes, but the club is hoping that the investment pays off handsomely in the coming decade.

Baseball America’s Ben Badler opines that 2016 is a perfect year to ignore the bonus-pool limits. With the Collective Bargaining Agreement ending soon and the specter of an international draft making some of the overage penalties questionably effective, the 2016 season represents a perfect storm, of sorts. Not to mention a wealth of young Cuban talent is poised to become available, too, and only teams willing to outspend their bonus pools will likely have an opportunity to sign those players.

The international market is one place where teams have already flirted with overspending and paying the overage penalties. No one has really done it in the MLB Draft. Teams once again are assigned bonus pools, depending on specific draft position and the number of draft selections, and have an aggressive penalty structure for exceeding those bonus pools. The strictest penalty is a 100 percent tax on the overages and the loss of first-round picks in the next two years’ drafts, and that’s for spending 15-plus percent over one’s bonus-pool allotment. That’s steep.

The 2016 draft class is not particularly strong at the top, but ESPN’s Keith Law and Eric Longenhagen suggest that it projects to be “teeming with prospects worthy of late-first or sandwich-round grades.” In other words, it has plenty of depth. And for a club looking to acquire extra amateur talent through the draft and is looking for high-priced youngsters to fall through the cracks due to bonus demands, depth is key. Depth is probably preferable to a draft that is top-heavy.

Since Ray Montgomery has become the Brewers’ amateur scouting director, the organization has been stellar at acquiring amateur talent. Their 2015 draft class was one of the best in all of baseball. Allowing Montgomery and his staff to be unburdened by money in the 2016 Draft, to simply identify and draft the best-available talent no matter the cost, seems to be a winning scenario for the Milwaukee Brewers. The only thing that is needed is extra money and a willingness to lose a first-round draft pick or two in the coming seasons.

Granted, it should be noted that the Brewers don’t project to be a quality Major League club for another couple seasons, which means any first-round pick they surrender would be a really good first-round pick. To make up for that, though, the club could focus on acquiring competitive balance picks via trade in 2016, as well as understanding that their second-round pick should be very high, too.

It’s a gamble for the Brewers to sacrifice future first-round picks. That’s undeniable. But, it’s also obvious that the Milwaukee Brewers have the means and the reason to ignore any monetary limitations on the amateur market and to spend big. Spend really big. Allocate that $40 million differential mentioned above on improving the future of the club, instead of simply becoming profit for ownership and the club. In my mind, if the real goal is to become competitive as quickly as possible and to sustain that competitiveness for as long as possible, the Milwaukee Brewers should put their money where their mouth is and blow the amateur market out of the water.

The 29-year-old slugger hit .199/.307/.427 with 24 homers for the Houston Astros in 2015. He’ll add significant power to the middle of the Brewers’ batting order, but obviously not without his warts. Carter struck out in 32.8 percent of his plate appearances a year ago and failed to eclipse the Mendoza Line. Although his power production and walk rate kept him from dipping below the replacement-level mark, he was still, broadly speaking, a replacement-level-type player at a premium offensive position. Of course, it’s not that his extreme offensive profile can’t provide value. He’s only a year removed from hitting 37 homers and posting a +2.6 WARP, so we can assert that Carter comes with some pedigree.

The Stearns-Astros connection should be acknowledged, too, which is why Carter may have chosen the Milwaukee Brewers over another big-league club and why Stearns felt more comfortable with Carter than other free-agent first basemen.

The former 15th-round draft pick of the White Sox offers two other benefits over someone like Pedro Alvarez. First of all, Carter has two arbitration years remaining, which means the Brewers own his rights for the next three seasons, despite ostensibly signing him to a one-year deal. This means that Carter could serve as a low-cost, multi-year solution for Milwaukee; however, it also means any potential summer trade partner won’t necessarily be shopping for a rental, which should hypothetically increase his trade value. The multiple control years — assuming he plays well enough to warrant exercising them — are a significant benefit compared to many of the available first-base options on the market.

Secondly, Carter should cost significantly less than Alvarez, freeing up funds to allocate elsewhere. Although it appears that the Brewers are effectively done shopping in free agency, the organization can (and should) spend extra money on their farm system. That could mean overspending in the international market, using the banked money to buy high-end talent and pay overage penalties. That could mean overspending in the 2016 MLB Draft, being one of the first franchises to blow their bonus budget out of the water in this format and pay a similar overage penalty. That could even mean hiring more minor-league coaches or siphoning more resources of any kind to the farm system. No matter what, saving money at the Major League level can benefit the rebuilding process, as long as that money is actively spent elsewhere and not just pocketed. Signing Chris Carter and not Pedro Alvarez affords the Brewers an opportunity to do this.

Overall, though, Chris Carter continues a marked shift in strategy for the Milwaukee Brewers under David Stearns. Aside from positional versatility, which he has in a limited way, Carter shares one trait with almost all of the players the club has acquired this offseason: a massive walk rate. Carter’s 12.4 percent walk rate in 2015 was almost double the Brewers’ team walk rate (6.8 percent). In fact, of every player acquired this winter, only Will Middlebrooks had a walk rate below the Brewers’ team walk rate from 2015.

The above numbers were taken from the level at which these players spent the majority of their time in 2015, but the overall trend is crystal clear. The Milwaukee Brewers are loading up on players who walk at an above-average clip. This can only mean Stearns and his staff desperately want to see the Brewers increase their overall on-base percentage next year. It was one of the club’s biggest weaknesses in 2015 — a weakness that former GM Doug Melvin readily acknowledged before the year even began — and it should improve with the players being added this offseason.

In terms of on-the-field production, that’s what Chris Carter represents to the Milwaukee Brewers: more walks and more power. But we can’t be naive and pretend that Stearns signed Carter with an eye toward the 2016 season. He acquired Carter because, with a hot three months, the first baseman could fetch a solid return on the trade market. And that’s how the organization should be utilizing free agency, as a place to buy potential trade chips on team-friendly deals. That has the added benefit of improving the on-field product in the process, though, so it can be perceived as a positive scenario for the fans.

Don’t construe any of this to be suggesting that Carter is a slam-dunk signing or a no-risk signing. He’s severely limited in his offensive abilities, due to massive holes in his swing that have regularly been exploited at the Major League level. Instead, I’m stressing the positive strategy behind the Carter deal, the strategy that potentially addresses key needs for the club. And why not focus on the pay-off, regardless of the likelihood of it? The downside is a couple more losses during a rebuilding year and $2.5 million of ownership’s money down the drain. That’s nothing to worry about.

*****

Most hitting changes are subtle and small. Even to the trained eye it can take time to notice a change a hitter may have made months ago. The emergence of Carlos Gomez, All-Star, goes hand-in-hand with a swing change he made at some point between July 6 and 23, 2012.

Before looking at those dates, let’s get familiar with Gomez as a player. He came into the league in 2007 with the Mets before being traded to the Twins in the Johan Santana deal. As a prospect, Gomez was a fascinating case study. I found reports going back to 2006 praising his raw natural power, but it simply never showed up in games. (E.g. “Power is not there now, but potential is there once he adds bulk to his long, lanky frame.”—Kevin Goldstein.) Where his power would take time his speed was immediate and his ticket into a big-league lineup. He never broke double digits in home runs in the minors but he stole over 100 bases combined his first two years on the farm. This was a guy seemingly built to lead off.

Except he wasn’t. Gomez has some superficial qualities of a leadoff hitter. His bat is quick and his speed should never slump. While the bat speed and the foot speed speak to hitting first in the lineup, his actual swing says otherwise.

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Our own Ryan Romano broke down Lucroy’s performance several times throughout 2015. He pointed out two important factors in Lucroy’s decline.

First, Romano focused on the power outage for the Brewers’ All-Star catcher. Lucroy’s ISO dropped to .127 and his seven homers marked his lowest output since the 2010 season. Smartly, though, Romano stresses that Lucroy’s power has actually been trending downward for the past several seasons. The numbers may have hidden the decline in some ways, but his fly-ball percentage has regressed in each of the past three seasons, as has his average fly-ball distance. All of this seems to weave a narrative that’s deeper than just “injury problems” or bad luck. Even when Lucroy performed at a superstar level in 2014, his power numbers were already on the decline and few people noticed because of his other strengths.

“This arguably disturbing trend dates back to Lucroy’s breakout 2012. The aforementioned doubles helped mask it last year, but with their absence, the lower home-run totals have really harmed Lucroy.

The hamstring issue has, in all likelihood, played a role in Lucroy’s newfound power outage. Even since coming back, though, he has hit just one home run in 116 plate appearances. Obviously, he’ll end the season with more dingers than Ben Revere, but a rebound to 2012 levels won’t happen.”

[Read: “Jonathan Lucroy & Losing Power,” by Ryan Romano]

Secondly, on a more positive note, Romano argued in October that Jonathan Lucroy also suffered from a healthy dose of bad luck that affected his overall numbers. The litany of injuries — from hamstrings to concussions — undoubtedly played a role, but the underlying numbers indicate that the 29-year-old catcher should’ve had more BABIP luck, given his hard-hit balls throughout the year. If you’re not afraid of some mathematical analysis, this is a great article to peruse. If math ain’t your thing, the overall narrative is more than worth your time.

“One other thing mostly sets Lucroy apart: He theoretically deserved a great output — not just a good one. While the other players listed above (with the exception of Kemp) have expected wOBAcs around average, Lucroy’s ranked 28th in the aforementioned sample. There’s a big difference between a mediocre player who hit poorly and a phenomenal player who hit poorly; if this model accurately appraises true talent, Lucroy falls into the latter group.”

[Read: “How Unlucky Was Jonathan Lucroy in 2015,” by Ryan Romano]

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The Jonathan Lucroy saga in 2015 was disheartening in many ways. Many Brewers fans hoped that he would cement his status as one of the premier catchers in Major League Baseball, but numerous injury issues prevented that from happening. And even when he was on the field, the performance was relatively uninspiring. Moreover, it’s always worrisome when catchers develop concussion issues, as it can quickly become career-threatening — either having to find another position or having to quit playing professional baseball. The latter part is not nearly discussed enough and perhaps an underlying reason why Lucroy hasn’t been traded this winter.

I wanted to touch on three things that weren’t addressed in Romano’s articles above: (1) his heightened strikeout rate; (2) his framing decline; and (3) trading him or not trading him this winter.

In 2015, Lucroy saw his strikeout percentage jump to 15.4 percent, which is his highest since 2011. Luck aside, it was one of the driving forces behind his .265 batting average — also his worst since 2011, no coincidence. One could easily imagine Lucroy swinging at poor pitches, trying to jump start his season, or changing his mechanics to deal with his various injuries. I’m not sure that’s the case, though. His 5.9 percent swinging-strike rate is not significantly higher than his previous numbers (and well below his 2011 mark) and it’s not paired with an uptick in O-Swing% (28.0 percent). Thus, he’s not really swinging through more pitches or swinging at worse pitches — and his contact numbers within the strike zone didn’t vary at all — so what’s up?

One would naturally assume that Lucroy swung less often and took more strikeouts looking. But the numbers indicate that that’s not the case whatsoever. His swing percentage actually rose from the 2014 season, while the percentage of strikeouts looking dropped to a career-low mark of 15.6 percent. All of this leads me to believe that Lucroy didn’t change his approach too much at the plate last season. The significant jump in his strikeout rate — relatively speaking, of course — appears to be nothing more than noise that is likely to correct itself in 2016. That’s positive news for Brewers fans who are hoping for Lucroy to bounce back in a big way.

Secondly, there’s been a lot of talk surrounding Jonathan Lucroy and his decline in pitch-framing prowess. He had consistently ranked atop Baseball Prospectus’ proprietary pitch-framing metrics and had become a posterboy for the new way to value catching defense. Thus, when his offensive decline was paired with a precipitous drop in his framing numbers, many became doubly concerned about Lucroy and his future value.

One of the key contributors to the development of the pitch-framing metrics, Harry Pavlidis, mentioned offhandedly on Twitter that Lucroy’s framing decline probably had more to do with his injuries than anything else, such as working with a young pitching staff. In fact, Pavlidis indicates that research has shown that injuries routinely affect pitch-framing numbers. He also mentions, of course, that Lucroy’s decline has been an ongoing phenomenon — so one wonders if there’s an age curve, of sorts, for framing that impacts Major League catchers over time.

With all of that in mind, more optimistic fans can point to the injuries sustained in 2015 as the major reason why his pitch-framing numbers tumbled from the top of the league. If those can rebound in the upcoming season, it will do a lot for his overall value to whichever club employs him.

This leads to the third and final point: Should the Milwaukee Brewers trade Jonathan Lucroy prior to the 2016 season? It’s a complicated question that has no easy answer from the outside, as we have little idea what trade interest Lucroy garners. The question always boils down to two opposing sides, the “trade him for the best package offered this winter” argument and the “only trade him if the return is good enough” argument. And both sides have significant problems. The former is predicated on the false premise that Lucroy offers no value at all to a non-competitive team, which is steaming pile of manure for multiple reasons, while the latter has zero notion of what good enough means and is relying on a potential bounce-back season that is not guaranteed to come if the “right” offer doesn’t come this winter.

This conundrum leaves David Stearns and the Milwaukee Brewers in a difficult situation, as the magical “right” deal doesn’t appear to be in the cards at this point. The front office could gamble that Lucroy won’t bounce-back in a meaningful way and trade him for a package of players that could very well seem laughably light if the true Lucroy returns in 2016. On the other hand, they could gamble on significant improvement from Lucroy in 2016 and hold him, passing up hypothetical deals that could prove more lucrative than anything they could receive at the trade deadline or next winter.

Both arguments are legitimate in many ways, and one’s preferred side likely correlates with one’s risk tolerance. Trade Lucroy now and deal with the fact that you could’ve sold far too low later, or hold onto him for at least half of 2016 and suffer the potential consequences if his trade value only declines from its current state. This decision is arguably the first major decision David Stearns and his staff will have to make as members of the Milwaukee Brewers. Considering the health of the minor-league system, I believe the Brewers can afford to gamble on a bounce-back season from Lucroy and not suffer too badly if injuries or ineffectiveness drive down his trade value even further. But it is absolutely a gamble, and I’m intrigued to suss out Stearns’ risk tolerance during this extensive rebuilding process.

He was always walking a tightrope with the Brewers. When he avoided unnecessary baserunners via the walk, the right-hander could withstand the one-to-two homers per game without too much damage. In 2014, though, his command wavered during prolonged stretches — with a walk rate above the league’s average in three of the six months — which made his expected home-run binge even more harmful. That’s a rather simplistic analysis of what occurred during the year that saw him compile a 4.36 ERA and lose his spot in the starting rotation, but for our purposes, it suffices to say that Estrada couldn’t be off his game much and remain effective.

A year later, Estrada anchored the Toronto Blue Jays’ rotation with a 3.13 ERA and was a key cog in their postseason berth. Many Brewers fans cringed, lamenting their poor luck and wondering why he wasn’t able to do the same for a Milwaukee club that collapsed over the last two months of the 2014 season. I wrote about the 32-year-old’s success with Toronto. Too many people pointed to his .216 BABIP and ignored how he was able to accomplish this. Namely, he made opposing hitters miss within the zone and make poor contact on pitches outside the strike zone. It’s a recipe for poor contact, low batting averages, and a low BABIP. Perhaps not that low, but that’s not exactly the point. With reasonable regression his 2015 numbers, Estrada is still a quality Major League starter with an ERA in the mid- to high-threes — exactly what he did with Milwaukee in 2012 and 2013.

But, again, it’s important to acknowledge that pitchers like Marco Estrada, guys with underwhelming fastballs and an inability to get away with mistakes, have immense downsides. When their command disappears, they’ll get hammered and they become unworkable at the big-league level. Mike Fiers is much the same kind of pitcher, as we saw in 2013.

The Brewers now have another six-foot pitcher with a fastball that struggles to break 90 mph and intriguing peripheral numbers: Zach Davies.

The analytics department reportedly had a strong role in picking up Davies in the Gerardo Parra deal last summer. They liked his strikeout-to-walk ratios over the past couple of years with the Baltimore Orioles. In 2014 he struck out 23.4 percent of the batters he faced in Double-A, while only walking 6.9 percent and posting a 3.35 ERA. The following season, prior to the trade, the right-hander had a 19.3 percent strikeout rate in Triple-A and only walked 7.9 percent, helping him earn an impressive 2.84 ERA and 3.08 FIP.

Detractors point to his fastball that only averaged 89.33 mph with the Brewers, as well as his slight frame. Neither of those are desirable for a starting pitcher. It means he walks a fine line. His command has to be above-average early in the count; otherwise, Davies cannot get to his trademark changeup that caused opposing hitters to swing-and-miss 28 percent of the time in 2015. It’s a profile that lulls people into complacency when it’s working, but it’s important to recognize that he’s always a step or two away from being blasted — which is something that happened in Triple-A Colorado Springs (even if the harsh environment alleviates some of the concern).

A lot of that sounds like Marco Estrada. Davies is someone who relies on a plus changeup to retire Major League hitters, and when he can do so, he’s able to compile respectable-enough numbers to be a back-end starter. For example, the 22-year-old had a 3.71 ERA and 3.81 FIP in his big-league cameo last year. The Brewers would pay good money on the free-agent market to acquire a pitcher like that, especially if it comes with 175-plus innings. That’s a bona fide number-four starter on a competitive club.

Zach Davies is much like Estrada in another important way, though. His most-important skill may be his ability to miss bats within the strike zone. It’s something that Estrada did in 2015, as shown by his 82.8 percent contact rate on pitches in the strike zone, which ranked seventh-best in Major League Baseball among qualified starters. It was better than Matt Harvey, Chris Archer, and Jake deGrom. In fact, as mentioned above, I argued in October that it was an integral reason for his success.

Through his six Major League starts, Davies posted an 82.4 percent contact rate on pitches in the strike zone. It’s a small-sample size, to be sure, but plate discipline rates are numbers that stabilize much more quickly than others. At the very least, it isolates one of the reasons why he was able to generate swings-and-misses 10 percent of the time despite a mere 26.9 percent whiff rate at pitches outside the strike zone. Missing bats within the strike zone is how Davies can work to avoid walks, while not nibbling at the zone. And all of this is a result of his excellent changeup.

I’m interested in how sustainable this type of approach can be for the former 26th-round draft pick. It may turn out that Major League hitters will figure him out during his second or third time through the league, proving that he’s walking too close to the proverbial volcano. He doesn’t have the raw stuff to consistently retire big leaguers without guile and keeping hitters off-balance. It’s all about pitch sequencing and command for Davies. If either of those falter in 2016, he’ll likely get demolished and return to Triple-A Colorado Springs for “further seasoning.”

What gives me pause is Davies’ 57.6 percent ground-ball rate in 2015. That’s obviously great, but it doesn’t really fit a fastball-changeup combination too well. For example, Marco Estrada has a career 34.9 percent ground-ball rate. The two pitchers with the highest changeup rates in the league last season, Jake Odorizzi and John Danks, have ground-ball rates of 33.4 percent and 41.8 percent, respectively. Because of this, they struggle with home runs. If Davies can somehow avoid this pitfall and keep the baseball on the dirt more often than not, it will dramatically improve his chances of sticking in a Major League rotation and being successful for the Milwaukee Brewers in 2016.

Zach Davies currently has his foot in the door for a back-end rotation spot next year. He profiles much in the same way Marco Estrada did for the Brew Crew a couple years ago. The latter proved that it can be a really tricky profile to make work in a consistent basis. But it clearly can work over 100-plus innings. That will be the goal for Davies in 2016 — to prove that he has the command and smarts necessary to get by without premium stuff. The underlying numbers illustrate that he uses his repertoire much like Estrada, aside from the extreme ground-ball rate that he displayed in a brief 34 innings.

At the league minimum, it’s a worthwhile gamble for the Brewers, though, as shown by Estrada’s five-year Major League career, some of those years being quite valuable. It’s a volatile pitching profile, one that will likely draw the ire of many fans if he suffers through a significant rough patch where the home runs flow freely. That’s an image that fans do not easily forget. Davies’ predecessor in Milwaukee is clear evidence of that fact.