This isn’t a new phenomenon. In the offseason a couple of trades involving relief pitchers had the internet shaking their heads. Those were the Craig Kimbrel and Ken Giles trades. (Kimbrel was sent from the Red Sox to the Padres for Manuel Margot, Javier Guerra, Logan Allen, and Carlos Asuaje. Giles and Jonathan Arauz were sent from the Phillies to the Astros for Vincent Valasquez, Brett Oberholtzer, Thomas Eshelman, Mark Appel, and Harold Arauz.)

Not only were these trades weird, for some they were unfathomable, especially by the Astros. The Red Sox had just hired Dave Dombrowski, who’s garnered quite the reputation for trading his prospects. Luhnow is the antithesis of that narrative. He’s the young and progressive GM: the one with the huge database, the one who knows that relievers aren’t that valuable. Yet, Luhnow paid a hefty price for Giles.

Some, therefore, started suggesting that there was a divide between the way front office members and we the public value relievers, also noting that WAR may not be the best measurement of the trade. Russell Carleton wrote about this in an article entitled, “The Kimbrel Gambit”. Carleton stated that WPA was a better way to evaluate relief pitchers.

Then the 2016 trade deadline arrived and, as a number of people noted, the reliever market was nearly unbelievable. Deals for Aroldis Chapman, Will Smith, and Andrew Miller were all seen as overpays. I mean, Miller was traded for Clint Frazier, Justus Sheffield, Ben Heller, and J.P. Feyereisen. A huge haul, but perhaps most surprising is that the Indians gave up a bigger hall to get Miller than the one for Lucroy.

Sure is something when teams have to pay more for elite relievers than elite catchers.

— J.P. Breen (@JP_Breen) July 31, 2016

Now, Lucroy ended up vetoing the deal, but it was still surprising and befuddling to see this.

All of this culminated into the idea that there is a disconnect between the way the public and the front office values relief pitchers.

I'm not even really disagreeing that the price for relievers seems really high. I'm just saying it's pretty clear there's a disconnect here.

— Sahadev Sharma (@sahadevsharma) July 29, 2016

But does this make sense? More precisely, does it make sense that we are basically re-thinking the way we evaluate relief pitchers based on trades?

The answer to this is not entirely. Yes, if teams didn’t think relievers had some value, then they probably wouldn’t trade valuable assets for them. WAR, as Carleton demonstrated, is also probably not the best way to evaluate relief pitchers. Each team also has their own analytics department, and it’s very possible that they have different and better metrics to value relievers.

But, the biggest problem is that we are only looking at one element in these trades, and that is the value of the relief pitcher.

The reason, a number of people get befuddled by these trades is because of the return. But, maybe we need to reevaluate the value of the return. In all of these takes and analysis, no one has stopped to ponder on the value of prospects. Maybe it’s not that relievers are netting necessarily a higher return, but that prospects in general aren’t being valued as highly. More precisely, over the past year, teams seem to have been more willing to part with their prospects. It’s possible that teams, in general, are realizing that holding onto prospects is a risky proposition. This can work out very favorably, but can also bite you in the butt especially if the prospects don’t work out.

Let’s use the Red Sox as an example. When Ben Cherington was in charge, the media went after him hard for his unwillingness to part with his prospects. And, in some cases, Cherington was right: just look at Jackie Bradley Jr., Xander Bogaerts, and Mookie Betts. These three prospects swarmed the baseball sphere in trade rumors, but they became very valuable pieces to this year’s team.

Then, however, there’s the other side. The Red Sox held onto prospects such as Deven Marrero, Henry Owens, Brandon Workman, Allen Webster, Garin Cecchini, and more. None of these players worked out, at least not as they’d hoped, and basically went from highly touted prospects to busts who don’t have a lot of value. This is basically the risk.

It highlights that for teams who are looking to acquire big league talent, it’s not necessarily about keeping or trading prospects, but knowing which prospects to trade. Knowing that you should hold onto Betts, Bogaerts, and Bradley, but at the same time, know to trading Webster, Cecchini, Owens etc. Maybe teams are starting to figure that out, which is why we are seeing more prospects being traded.

Changing the way we value relief pitchers based on trades also ignores the market. If we simply assume that since relievers are garnering a greater return than before, then relief pitchers are more valuable than before, then we must assume that Andrew Miller is, in fact, more valuable than Jonathan Lucroy. The Indians traded for both players, and in many scout’s eyes, the return for Miller was better than the one for Lucroy.

But, this ignores the external factors of these deals. The market for relief pitchers seemed absurd because many teams needed pitching. In fact, every contending team needed pitching. That’s the thing about trading pitchers. It’s that no matter the market, teams can always use more pitching because there are twelve pitchers on a team compared to only two catchers. Lucroy might not have provided a big upgrade for some contending teams, but Andrew Miller would have provided a big upgrade for every team. Because at the end of the day, Miller is much better than the twelfth best pitcher on your team. While Lucroy isn’t necessarily that much better than the best catcher on your team.

The Brewers also seemed to have more urgency than the Yankees. Even after the deal fell through Rosenthal wrote, “Oh, he will be traded, most likely to the Rangers, a team that can acquire him without his permission.” The Brewers could have kept Lucroy until the offseason, but that would have hampered his value. The Yankees on the other hand were in no rush to trade Miller. Meaning that they could sit back and wait until a team met their price. The Yankees could be irrational with their demands, while the Brewers had to be more reasonable.

Finally, we assume that the people making these deals are acting like rational beings when in reality emotion and competitiveness play a factor. The deal for Chapman was probably an overpay. But, the Cubs haven’t won the World Series in more than 100 years. No living member of the organization has seen a Cubs World Series and this might be their best chance. The Cubs decided to give up some of the future, future that is unknown, to improve the one spot that needed to be improved, the closer role. Some of the Cubs front office members won’t be there when Torres reaches the majors. Some of them won’t be there next year. The Cubs move, while being an overpay, was done to win now because the Cubs are in a great position to win now, a position that isn’t necessarily going to re-occur.

The same thing can be said for other clubs. These were trades being made by humans, and even though humans are very smart, they are also often driven by emotions.The idea isn’t that we are underselling or overselling relievers. The idea is that coming to that conclusion based on trades is problematic and ignores other factors that could be influencing a team’s decision in making a trade.

R.J. Anderson actually called the team, last week, the most interesting team in baseball, for the way they could impact the deadline. That’s because the Brewers could go in a number of different and fascinating directions.

Mainly, the Brewers hold a number of interesting assets, beyond the obvious ones, and could take advantage of the market in a couple of ways.

Trading the Pitchers:
Dave Cameron on FanGraphs predicted that Jonathan Lucroy, Jeremy Jeffress, and Will Smith will be traded this deadline. These are reasonable possibilities, but the Brewers could take it a step further. We all know that the market for starting pitchers is slim. More so than most deadlines, and as usual, a number of teams could benefit from a quality starting pitcher or two. I outlined this in my last piece at BP Milwaukee.

While there haven’t been many rumors surrounding Junior Guerra, Jimmy Nelson, and Zach Davies, the Brewers could attempt to take advantage of the market and trade all of these pitchers. Nelson probably wouldn’t get a huge return, but he could be a secondary piece in a larger deal such as Mike Fiers. Guerra and Davies, on the other hand, could be the centerpiece of any trade.

Guerra has had a phenomenal season thus far, and while he’s a risky pitcher to gamble on, so are Rich Hill, Andrew Cashner and Drew Pomeranz (who netted a quality return). Guerra hasn’t pitched to the level of Pomeranz and Hill this season, but he has been a top 30 pitcher. This is better than most pitchers currently on the market. He’s also under team control until 2022, unlike Hill who would only be a rental. Therefore, if teams think his performance is “real”, they could count on him pitching well for the next couple of years. If he falls apart after this season — a definite possibility — then Guerra is cheap enough that his contract won’t be an albatross, and teams could simply send him to the minors.

The White Sox are asking for a king’s ransom for Chris Sale, which is reasonable because he’s a top five pitcher in baseball and his contract is a bargain. Chris Archer, Sonny Gray, and Matt Moore have all been good pitchers in the past, definitely better than Guerra, but this year Guerra has been the better pitcher. It’s also unclear whether the Rays and the A’s would be willing to deal these pitchers considering they would be selling them at their lowest value. The Brewers could, therefore, take advantage of this by trying to trade Guerra. If a team is high enough on him, he just might be able to net a quality prospect or two in return.

Davies is probably the least likely to be traded, but if Stearns is feeling wild, he could try and get more prospects in return for the young right-hander. Davies would be one of the younger pitchers on the market, and would have a number of years of control. As mentioned before, the market for starting pitching is thin, and many of the pitchers available are also rentals. If a team wants a pitcher with control and is turned off by Guerra’s age, they could turn to Davies as he’s shown an ability to pitch quality innings at the big league level.

To be clear, I don’t think this will happen, but I don’t think the Brewers should be closed minded when it comes to Davies.

Jeffress and Smith, on the other hand, have been the product of many trade rumors, but these pitchers aren’t even the best relievers on the Brewers. That status goes to Tyler Thornburg. Thornburg actually has a better DRA than Aroldis Chapman, Craig Kimbrel, and Wade Davis. The Cubs paid a hefty price for Chapman, and it has been reported that it would take a larger return to net Davis.

If teams feel that the prices on Davis and Andrew Miller is too expensive, Thornburg could present a cheaper option. For the Brewers, this could be a chance to get a quality prospect in return. Obviously, the Brewers will want good value in return, as Thornburg has been excellent but they don’t need to get the Chapman package for the trade to be worthwhile, they only need to get something similar.

Trading Prospects:
When terms such as tanking or rebuilding get used, people usually associate it with trading major league ready talent. One of the reasons I think the Brewers are so interesting is that they could trade some of their prospects this deadline.

I don’t mean that this team will suddenly be a buyer, I don’t even mean that this team will trade prospects for major league ready talent, although they certainly could. What I mean is that the Brewers could use the depth in their farm system to net more talented prospects. When thinking about trades involving prospects, we usually associate it with a one-way street. Selling team trades big league asset, buying team trades prospects. This is generally the trend, but every now and then a team will include a prospect with the major league talent to net a better prospect return. For example, the Brewers could include prospects when trading Lucroy or another major league player in order to get better and more advanced prospects in return.

The reason the Brewers are such an interesting team is because they have the depth in their farm system to make these type of moves. As a number of people have noted, the Brewers farm system is much improved and has a lot of depth. A number of Brewers prospects are also far away from the majors. The Brewers could, therefore, use those resources in order to trade for a better prospect who’s perhaps closer to the majors. The Brewers could part with a prospect such as Demi Orimoloye, who’s been highly touted but at the same time is years away from the big leagues and has a lot of risk.

This could be a way for the Brewers to speed up their rebuild.

This wouldn’t simply benefit the Brewers. When teams trade for major league talent, they will sometimes sacrifice a lot of their depth in the minors. This could be a way for a team to acquire a major league asset, while at the same time gaining riskier assets in the minors. This would obviously mean that that team, would have to give up a better prospect, but if a team is high enough on a player such as Orimoloye, including him in the deal may make the trade work.

If anything, Stearns has shown a savvy ability to acquiring talent. I don’t anticipate that savviness to suddenly go away this deadline. We could, therefore, see Stearns make a number of shrewd moves in the next couple of days as the market seems to be ripe for the taking.