Over the past year, the Milwaukee Brewers’ front office has been plenty good–but they’ve gotten awfully lucky, too.

The quickest way to jump-start a rebuilding process is finding value in players cast off by other teams. In taking something you got, essentially, for free and turning it into something useful. Over the past year, the Brewers have tried to do this repeatedly. Not all of their efforts have worked out–Ramon Flores, Keon Broxton, and Alex Presley have combined for negative one WARP, Will Middlebrooks is whiffing at a 40 percent clip since finally making the big club, and Garin Cecchini hasn’t even looked good by AAA ballplayer standards, and with the artificial stat inflation for hitters inherent in Colorado Springs. But for each of these failures, which cost nothing, the front office has made a number of great calls.

Honorable Mention: Sean Nolin, RP and Rymer Liriano, OF

Once one of Toronto’s top prospects, Nolin is probably best-known as one of the pieces who was sent to Oakland in the ill-fated Josh Donaldson trade. When the A’s traded for Khris Davis this winter, they waived Nolin from their 40-man roster to make room for him–and the Brewers pounced, effectively adding him to the return package.

In Spring Training, Nolin suffered a partially torn UCL, and seemed doomed to Tommy John surgery. But with a partial tear, sometimes the ligament can heal naturally. The Brewers had him reevaluated in May, and decided that things were progressing enough to where surgery wasn’t necessary. If things continue progressing, he could see a couple of September innings. But Nolin’s medical past is far from spotless–a groin injury in 2014 ended his season and caused him to miss part of 2015 as well–and the franchise doesn’t need his immediate contributions, so the prudent course of action might just be to wait for 2017.

Rymer Liriano was struck in the face with a pitch in Spring Training, fracturing several bones, and is expected to miss the entire season. If that hadn’t happened, there’s an outside shot that he’s close to the top of this list thanks to the opportunity created by Domingo Santana’s injury-riddled first half. But on the bright side, he’s working his way back from the traumatic injury.

Update on #Brewers OF Rymer Liriano, hit in face by pitch in spring training: Still working toward getting back on field for baseball work.

— Tom (@Haudricourt) June 25, 2016

For both Nolin and Liriano, the best way to describe this season is “to be continued.” They’ve both got the talent to contribute to the big-league club, and could do so as soon as 2017.

T-5. Jhan Marinez (.4 WARP)

“Jhan Marinez struggled through another Triple-A season plagued by injury, ineffectiveness, gopher balls and the same lack of command that keeps him from leveraging his upper-90s heat and wipeout slider into a major-league bullpen gig; if he ever learns how to pitch, look out.”

That’s the BP Annual, on Marinez, back in 2014. Since then, he has gone unmentioned twice. But a funny thing happened in those two years–Marinez learned how to pitch. During his prospect days, Marinez was known just as much for his live arm–his heat touches 98 on the radar gun–as his complete inability to control it. He regularly posted walk rates north of 6.0, culminating in a 10.3 walks per nine nightmare at AAA Toledo in 2014 that won him a demotion to AA. There, he cut his walks to 4.5 per nine, and that ratio has continued trickling downward ever since.

Still, the Tampa Bay Rays designated the out-of-options Marinez for assignment in May, and the Brewers acquired him for nothing more than cash as a result. And since then, Marinez has been an undeniably effective part of the bullpen. He’s walking just 3.9 batters per inning, striking out 10.08, and posting a 2.60 ERA. All in all, Marinez has been worth four-tenths of a win–and that’s despite the fact that opponents are hitting .380 off of him on balls in play.

As a prospect, Marinez featured two pitches–a high-octane fastball and an inconsistent slider. Today, both of those pitches are complementary to his sinker, which he throws over half the time:

Clearly, Jhan Marinez learned how to pitch–and the Brewers are the beneficiaries. Marinez also qualifies as a sneaky name to watch for fantasy baseball purposes, too–if Milwaukee goes sell-happy and unloads both Jeremy Jeffress and Will Smith in the next few days, Marinez has classic closer stuff.

T-5. Carlos Torres (.4 WARP)

The Mets signed Torres to a minor-league contract in 2013, and turned the cutter into his primary pitch. That year, he was worth 1.2 wins. In 2014, that number fell to .5. Last year, he was .2 wins worse than replacement level, as his strikeout and hit rates each hit a career high. The Brewers gambled that last year was a fluke, and that he could be a cheap way to make the bullpen a touch better. They’ve been rewarded with .4 wins, Torres’s highest K-rate in the Majors, and a 2.90 ERA. Jeremy Jeffress and Will Smith get all the press, and Jhan Marinez has the electric stuff, but Torres has evolved into the steady, reliable piece who ensures that the former two can be traded and the bullpen will still be pretty good.

This year, Torres has taken his “cutter as the primary pitch” approach to a whole other level. It’s actually interesting to watch the evolution–as time progresses, Torres goes from throwing the cutter as a second pitch, to a first offering with a plurality in the high-40 percent range, to a first offering used just north of 50 percent of the time. This year, Torres’ arsenal has evolved even further, and he’s thrown the cutter over 75 percent of the time since May:

T-5. Chris Carter (.4 WARP)

On August 7, 2012, I made a simple transaction in one of my dynasty leagues. I don’t even remember who I dropped, to tell you the truth–but I called up Chris Carter from my protected minor leaguers. I tell you this because that was four years ago, and Carter is still on that team’s roster–which is quite remarkable in a high-activity 14-team league. Chris Carter threads the needle of a very specific kind of ballplayer: he’s valuable enough to employ, but not valuable enough to sell.

I can’t pretend that I don’t get it. At times, Carter can be a very, very frustrating player to root for. I’d say the most accurate way to summarize his game would be “extreme risk and reward.” When Carter is locked in, he can carry your team–this April, he put up an OPS of .922 to nicely acclimate himself to his new hometown fans. But when he can’t find his stroke, he turns into a black hole in the middle of your lineup–like this July, when he’s struck out 39 percent of the time and his OPS has cratered to .688. He’s a part-time superstar, but he’s not the type who has outrageous platoon splits so you can’t really tell which Carter is coming to the ballpark on any given night.

At ten million a year, or more, Carter would be a disappointment. But the Brewers are paying him between $2.5 and $3 million this year, depending on performance-based incentives. The value of one Win Above Replacement varies somewhere between $5 million and $8 million, depending on who you ask, and Carter put up .4 WARP in his worst season as a full-time regular, 2015. It was a no-lose proposition, especially since the team had jettisoned both ends of their first-base platoon in the prior month.

Having put up .4 WARP to this point in 2016, Carter has already provided value commensurate with his contract. But it’s worth noting that a year ago, Carter swooned hard in July with a slash line of .109/.176/.304–then neutralized that with a .333/.400/.822 September. More than any player on this list, Carter’s position is far from locked in.

Three years ago, John Sickels of MinorLeagueBall made an absurd prediction that Carter would make an All-Star Team and be an MVP candidate. In fairness, he admitted in the title of the piece that it was an absurd prediction and, like most insane predictions, it didn’t come true. But it speaks to the level of raw talent that Carter has, even if he’s incapable of harnessing it for more than a month or two at a time. In his mid-20s, it was easy to see him putting it all together for a whole year–now, I’d say that’s wishful thinking. But for the cost of less than half a win, he’s been a good value at first base for a team in transition. And if you’re going to take a long-shot gamble on someone, you always want to bet on someone with at least one elite skill.

4. Kirk Nieuwenhuis (.7 WARP)

The Brewers have gotten exactly what they expected from Nieuwenhuis: a smattering of home runs and steals, good plate patience, acceptable defense, and an average that flirts with the Mendoza line. Last year, Nieuwenhuis accumulated .6 wins in 117 plate appearances. This year, he’s been worth .7 in 266. He’s not a black hole, but he’s not all that helpful, either. On the bright side: it’s not like Keon Broxton, Ramon Flores, or Shane Peterson would have done anything more useful. By the time the Brewers are a contender, Brett Phillips will be roaming center field, and Nieuwenhuis will be pinch-hitting and making the occasional spot start, which seems like a good eventual role for him.

For the low-low cost of a waiver claim, the Brewers acquired a player who brings some things to the table, and whose biggest weaknesses can be mitigated in an eventual part-time role. He combines power and speed, and he’s posted better FRAA marks while playing the corner positions than in center–even though he’s capable of playing all three positions. And his struggles to make contact have a pretty easy explanation, too:

The 2015 BP Annual noted that “Nieuwenhuis’ approach is basically to attack any fastball in the zone, take all breaking pitches, and occasionally look stupid on changeups he thought were fastballs.” The pitch-type breakdown of his career supports this. Against overmatched rookies still refining their secondary and tertiary offerings, he can rake–and these are the players he should get his at-bats against in the long run. But pitchers who are pitchers, rather than just throwers, effortlessly turn Nieuwenhuis to pudding.

Still, it remains to be said that a player who can put fastballs over the fence, steal bases, and play three outfield positions is a valuable commodity in the big leagues. Nieuwenhuis might not be too impressive as an everyday centerfielder, but he’s still a worthwhile piece that cost nothing to acquire.

3. Aaron Hill

Aaron Wilkerson and Wendell Rijo are hardly a king’s ransom in prospects, but they’re both intriguing young players–and all the Brewers had to do was take on some salary for about three months to make it happen.

For what it matters, before the Red Sox traded for him, Hill was worth 1.8 wins to the 2016 Brewers. The Brewers’ $6.5 million of his salary is roughly what a single win would be worth in free agency. So for those keeping score at home, the deal was a win on four different fronts–Hill provided value beyond what the team paid him, the team got a better minor-league asset by taking on Hill, he provided value to the rebuilding effort beyond even what the WAR column can quantify, and then Hill was successfully flipped for something that will have value beyond this off-season. Making scrappy moves like that is how you turn a bottom-feeder into a dynasty.

2. Junior Guerra

Look, if you were skeptical of Guerra at first, I don’t blame you. But we’re fifteen games in, and Guerra has been worth 2.1 PWARP thus far. That’s half a season’s worth of starts–if you stretch it out to a full 30, the 4.2 PWARP would have been the 19th-best mark in all of baseball last season. Brewers fans calling him an “ace” might not be all that far off–the 19th-best pitcher in baseball would qualify as a “fringe ace,” the type of guy who could be the #1 on a middle-of-the-pack team, or the #2 on a championship contender, or the #3 on the best pitching staff in the league.

I wrote earlier this season about why pitchF/X data shows that Guerra is not a flash in the pan. But since then, two further developments have solidified my belief that Guerra will have a successful career in his thirties.

The first development happened in late June. Guerra took the mound against the Los Angeles Dodgers on the 16th and turned in his worst start of 2016: the Dodgers chased him in the sixth inning with five runs to his name and just four strikeouts under his belt. Since Scott Kazmir was similarly off point, the Brewers won an 8-6 slugfest, but that was owed more to the offensive fireworks of Chris Carter and Jonathan Villar than Guerra’s work. Less than two weeks later, Guerra drew the Dodgers as his assignment once again–and he altered his game plan in the gutsiest way imaginable. He all but cut his best pitch out of rotation. Guerra threw 109 pitches in shutting out the Dodgers over eight masterful innings, and only two of those pitches were splitters. It was a true pitching gem–Guerra’s 18-pitch first inning was the most laborious frame he suffered through, and he carved apart the Dodgers like a hot knife through butter. I have no idea what Guerra saw in the Dodgers during that first game, but I’m beyond impressed with the adjustment he made. Eliminating your “out” pitch against a team that just hit you hard is the kind of crazy tactic that you only use when you’re dead sure you spotted a weakness. That Guerra is capable of this kind of gamesmanship is encouraging, to say the least.

Guerra’s second adjustment came at the All-Star Break. In the first half, he threw a four-seam fastball and slider in addition to his signature splitter. But in the nine days between his last first-half start against St. Louis, and his first second-half start in Pittsburgh, Guerra had the time to add a secret weapon to his arsenal:

Ironically, it was adding a sinker to the mix that inevitably doomed the career of Wily Peralta, but we have to remember here–every ballplayer is different. And thus far, the sinker experiment has worked. Guerra fanned six in six innings against the Pirates in his first start of the half, then outdueled the far-more-expensive Jon Lester in his second try before the bullpen blew the game.

The sinker is an ideal pitch for Guerra to add to his arsenal, as it serves as a perfect blend of his best two incumbent options–the fastball and the splitter. Guerra’s sinker is indistinguishable from his fastball until it drops:

Guerra has a new weapon in his arsenal, but more importantly, he’s shown that he can adapt on the fly at the big-league level. That’s very big, and it’s very good if you’re a Brewers fan.

1. Jonathan Villar

Okay, maybe we’re cheating here by some people’s definitions. Villar wasn’t technically “free”–to pry him from the Astros cost Milwaukee a minor-league pitcher named Cy Sneed. But I would counter that Sneed was not, nor did he ever show any indication that he would turn into, an “asset.” He might not have been “nothing,” but he also held no tangible value.

The 25-year-old Villar hadn’t put up great numbers in three partial seasons with Houston, but his power/speed combination at a position of scarcity made him a valuable asset. Still, with names like Jose Altuve and Carlos Correa entrenched into the lineup, and even Luis Valbuena and Marwin Gonzalez winning favor over Villar, there was no real place for him in Houston. Last year, at this point in time, Villar was playing minor-league ball.

Two pieces of information from before the Villar trade are worth noting. First, he got back to the big leagues when rosters expanded in September and went 8-for-25 with three steals in limited action, while striking out just twice. Second, Brewers’ GM David Stearns was working in Houston’s front office while Villar was playing for Houston’s farm system last year. Publicly-available advanced analytics for minor-league players are still pretty spotty, but there’s no doubt that Houston’s modern-thinking front office is tracking everything on every player in that system. Stearns was one of the few people in baseball with the ability to accurately tell if Villar had made the kinds of structural changes that could turn him into an offensive weapon.

Villar wasted no time making his presence felt in Milwaukee. Though the Brewers pitched Wily Peralta on opening day, and therefore got beaten into a pulp, he took Madison Bumgarner deep in his second at-bat:

And since then, he hasn’t slowed down. Villar’s .297/.379/.437 slash line, paired with a league-leading 36 stolen bases, makes him the prototypical leadoff hitter, and the peripherals back it up, too. Villar’s 2015 and 2016 contact rates are significantly higher than the two years prior. The implication we can take from this is that, sometime during his minor-league exodus, he made some type of mechanical tweak that resulted in not just more contact:

but better quality contact, too:

Detractors will point to Villar’s .400 BABIP as an unsustainable mark. But just how unsustainable is it? Villar’s 57 percent groundball rate should, in theory, be killing his BABIP–only he’s also put up a silly 11.3 percent infield hit rate. Coming up through the minors, Billy Hamilton’s track-star speed was supposed to revolutionize the leadoff position–today, as it turns out, Villar is doing it instead. The Brewers gambled that, at just 25 years old, the rough edges of his game could be refined down, and it’s a gamble that has paid off with a genuine star–Villar’s 3.0 WARP places him snugly between Jonathan Lucroy (3.1) and Ryan Braun (2.9). It goes to show you that, even in the age of advanced analytics, one team’s trash can be another team’s cornerstone.

Teams are already beating a path to One Brewers’ Way, as Rosenthal reported earlier this month, and the list of players who could possibly find their way out of Milwaukee is long and varied: there’s the usual suspects, Jonathan Lucroy and Ryan Braun, but rival executives have also inquired about relievers Jeremy Jeffress and Will Smith, as well as several of the team’s young starters.

Smith and Jeffress are not exactly names you expect to come up in trade talks. Both are young, come with plenty of team control, and it’s hard to say that they’ve got any sort of problems the rest of the league is unaware of. During a normal trade season, they’d never be mentioned. But this is not a normal trade season. Over a dozen different teams could be saddling up to the counter, looking to solidify a playoff or championship push. Desperate times call for desperate measures, and no executive who values his job wants to be seen doing nothing as his team falls inches short of the postseason. Times could get desperate enough for the shopping contenders in the coming weeks that everybody short of Bernie Brewer is in play.

So, by virtue of their position as sellers in the ultimate sellers’ market, the Milwaukee Brewers have a major advantage this summer. Then, you factor in the team’s payroll situation, and the picture gets even rosier. Milwaukee had exactly three players due to hit free agency this coming offseason: Aaron Hill, Chris Capuano, and Blaine Boyer. Capuano and Boyer are not pitching well enough to warrant consideration as trade bait. The other thirty-seven players on the roster are locked up through 2017, at least:

Sure, it might have been a week into the calendar, but July officially landed last Thursday. It was then that the Milwaukee Brewers made their first move of trade deadline season, flipping offseason acquisition Aaron Hill to Boston in exchange for A-ball second baseman Wendell Rijo and AAA starter Aaron Wilkerson.

Admittedly, the trade is not one to inspire large-scale celebrations in Wisconsin. Scouting reports on Rijo are heavy on the words “average” and “polished,” a combination of traits that usually lend themselves to utility infielderdom. Wilkerson is a 27-year-old who only made it to the AAA level just this season, labors to scrape 90 on the radar gun, and gets by on pitchability and guile. He’s an intriguing fringe prospect, and he just might be the next Mike Fiers or Junior Guerra–or, he might be a pitcher whose stuff isn’t good enough to get big-league hitters out consistently. He’s posted phenomenal walk and strikeout rates across two levels in 2016, and he’s done it with stuff that doesn’t look nearly as good as it plays on the stat sheet:

Neither acquisition is likely to set the Major Leagues on fire, but that’s not the point. Just seven months ago, the Brewers acquired Hill as a means to get a better prospect out of Arizona, in Isan Diaz–that is, he literally had negative trade value. Now, he’s worth two interesting–if not particularly shiny–prospects. On the whole, it was a coup. Hill was never going to fetch a top prospect, but the front office got something of value for him, and the Jean Segura trade somehow looks even better now.

If you're into trade-trees….#Brewers functionally moved Jean Segura for Chase Anderson, Isan Diaz, Aaron Wilkerson, and Wendell Rijo.

— J.P. Breen (@JP_Breen) July 7, 2016

And it could be that this is just the beginning.

But Ryan Braun and Jonathan Lucroy rank as two of the biggest trade chips on the market right now. That the Brewers have been actively shopping both players since December is no secret–but back then, nobody was interested in meeting the team’s asking price. Various rival executives commented anonymously to the media on how the Brewers wanted an “unreasonable return” for them. The front office maintained that they knew what their players were worth. Since then, both players have put together first halves that support the Brewers’ analysis of the situation amidst swirling trade rumors. Though the rumors have died down around both players in recent weeks, their production and pedigree mean the Brewers can demand a king’s ransom for them each.

Braun is hitting north of .320, and leading the team with his .315 TAv. Furthermore, the advanced metrics suggest that he’s starting to learn his way around left field. He’s still below average, but he’s much, much, closer to average than he was last year. Braun’s value is at its highest since he was suspended, and once Jay Bruce is off the market there isn’t really anyone comparable available to trade mid-season. Braun is 32 years old, making a case for a Silver Slugger award, and under contract through 2021. Trading him makes sense, since it’s hard to see his value doing anything but remaining steady or going down. But trading him for less than he’s worth makes no sense, ever–which is why he’s still a Brewer, even though the team is unmistakably rebuilding. If the trading deadline turns into a feeding frenzy, the team might get what they want for Braun. Otherwise, he’ll just keep on hitting.

Lucroy might be the most interesting man on the roster right now. He’s actually in a very similar position to Carlos Gomez last season at this point, a year and change away from free agency freedom while performing at a high level. If the Brewers deal Lucroy in the next few weeks, well, it’s clear they’ve got a strategy with this sort of thing. But Gomez’s track record of success a year ago was more solid than Lucroy, whose fluky-bad 2015 is still fresh in memory. The more distance he puts between himself and that level of performance, the more he’s worth to potential buyers. Lucroy could be far more valuable this off-season than he is in-season.

Then again, the Texas Rangers have gotten approximately .3 WARP from their catching troupe of Bryan Holaday, Brett Nicholas, and Bobby Wilson. Robinson Chirinos, the pre-season starter on the depth chart, made his return this past week–but he’s historically fragile, and he’s nowhere near Lucroy’s league offensively or defensively even when healthy. Almost six months ago I handicapped the respective Lucroy suitors, and the Rangers appeared to be in pole position. Today, that still looks to be the case. Back then, Texas was hesitant to part with any of their premium prospects–outfielders Joey Gallo, Nomar Mazara, and Lewis Brinson, or infielder Jurickson Profar.

The Rangers already have Shin-Soo Choo locked up long-term in one starting outfield role, and they’ve made overtures to extend leftfielder Ian Desmond’s contract in the past few days, so logic would follow that one of the outfielders is expendable. And now that they’re in the thick of a pennant race, they’ve gotten over their shyness–the most recent reports are that the Rangers are “plotting to acquire Lucroy.” The Brewers’ main priority is acquiring young pitchers but Gallo, Mazara, and Brinson are all potential superstars of the future, and it would be madness to pass up an offer with any one of them if the Rangers capitulated and included one as the headliner of a Lucroy package.

There’s no saying that a three-way trade couldn’t be worked out, either. Stearns hinted this past weekend that he would be open to adding starting pitching at the deadline–a curious position for a team ten games behind .500 and clearly building for the future. But when you look at the names floating around the market for starting pitching, it makes more sense. Atlanta’s Julio Teheran, Tampa Bay’s Jake Odorizzi, and Oakland’s Sonny Gray are both young and cost-controlled, and both have the potential to be true front-of-the-rotation starters–but because of the overflooded trade market, and their respective teams’ struggles, both have been hot commodities. In Junior Guerra, Zach Davies, and Chase Anderson, the Brewers have discovered a stable bunch of mid-to-back rotation starters, but the team lacks a true ace at this point. Any of those three names would fit the team’s M.O. perfectly with their age and contract, and the chance to bring one in could make the team competitive sooner than planned.

Of course, keep in mind: the extreme buyer’s market that helps the Brewers when trying to sell hurts them if they decide to pursue a big-league starter. The price tags on Teheran, Odorizzi, and Gray will be very high. Texas would have to give up a lot of minor-league talent, and probably some to Milwaukee in this hypothetical three-way deal too, in order to make it fly.

Still, stranger things have happened–and this trade deadline, which ends a full day later than normal since July 31 falls on a Sunday this year–is shaping out to be quite the strange one indeed.

INF Aaron Hill and cash have been traded to Boston in exchange for RHP Aaron Wilkerson and 2B Wendell Rijo.

— #VoteBraun (@Brewers) July 7, 2016

Aaron Hill wasn’t technically a sign-and-flip player, but he essentially served that function for Slingin’ David Stearns and the Brewers after being brought in as a part of the Jean Segura/Tyler Wagner deal with Arizona. Coming off of sub par campaigns of .234 TAv and .241 TAv in 2014-15, the Diamondbacks were looking to shed as much of the $12 million final season of Hill’s contract as they could. Once Isan Diaz and Chase Anderson were added in to sweeten the pot, the Brewers agreed to take on Hill and pay $5.5 million of the money owed to him. He was installed as their regular third baseman to start the season, and the hope was that he’d play well enough to be able to flipped at the deadline.

Aaron didn’t disappoint. After a brutal first month that caused me to incorrectly call for his benching, Hill’s bat caught fire. Since May 1, Hill logged a torrid .323/.408/.481 slash line to bring his season total up to .283/.359/.421 along with eight home runs and four stolen bases. His .286 TAv is the highest he’s managed since 2013 and he’s been worth nearly two WARP already this year after combining for less than one WARP during the previous two seasons. Hill spent most of his time with the Brewers at the hot corner along with a fair amount of time at second base, which has been his primary position throughout his career. He’s received solid defense marks at both spots and will provide the Red Sox with some bench depth and versatility for a potential playoff run at a rather minuscule cost, depending on how much cash Milwaukee sends their way.

In exchange for Hill, the Brewers received a couple of interesting prospects. Aaron Wilkerson is the kind of story that you root for: the 27 year old right hander went undrafted out of NAIA Cumberland University after undergoing Tommy John following his senior season. He pitched for three different indy league teams during 2013-14 before hooking on with the Red Sox as a 25 year old and has done nothing but dominate his minor league competition since then. In 54 MiLB appearances covering 279.0 innings, Wilkerson has worked to a 2.52 ERA along with a 293:75 K/BB ratio. That includes a 2.44 ERA and 3.16 FIP in 48.0 innings in AAA this season, where he has struck out 54 batters against 11 walks.

The tools aren’t quite as dominant as the statistical profile suggests, however. According to Sox Prospects, the 6’3″ and 205 lb righty throws about a 50 grade fastball in the 88-92 MPH range, a 50 grade curve with 12-6 movement that sits 73-75 MPH, a 45ish changeup with good arm speed that sits 83-85, and an 82-84 MPH slider that is inconsistent and well behind his other pitches in terms of effectiveness. He doesn’t walk many guys and has excellent pitchability. An easy comparison would be to former Brewer Mike Fiers: another low velocity, high strikeout pitcher that’s on the older side. Wilkerson is most likely a back-end of the rotation type hurler at best, but given the fact that he was rumored to be on his way to Boston in the weeks before the trade came down, we can almost assuredly expect to see him pitching big league innings for the Brewers this season.

Wendell Rijo, the other piece of the deal, is the Brewers’ upside play here. A native of the Dominican Republic, Rijo signed with Boston as an international free agent back in 2012 and received a rather sizable $575,000 bonus. The 20 year old has displayed a good eye at the plate in the minor leagues, having walked in roughly 10 percent of his plate appearances while working to an overall .250/.329/.373 slash with 16 home runs and 50 steals across 333 contests. Once a plus runner, a torn ACL cost Rijo some of his speed and it’s closer to average now, though he’s still shown the ability to use his good instincts to swipe a bag. Rijo should develop an average hit tool with quick bat speed according to MLB Pipeline, though his limited arm strength pigeonholes him to second base defensively and he projects to have below average power.

The 20 year old right-handed hitter began the year in high-A but was quickly promoted to the AA Portland Sea Dogs, where he has looked over matched as one of the youngest players in the Eastern League. Rijo has struggled to a meager .186/.245/.266 slash (.195 TAv) through 51 games at the level. There’s certainly no rush with Wendell for the Brewers, so they’ll give him plenty of time and opportunity to allow him to hopefully develop into the “offensive-minded regular” that Pipeline suggests Rijo could become at the keystone, though a utility/fringe starter type of player is probably the more likely outcome here.

All in all, it’s tough not to like this trade for the Brewers. Aaron Hill looked like a corpse for two years in Arizona before his surprising age-34 renaissance with Milwaukee, so we really should be happy that the club was able to extract any sort of value from him. At the end of the day, receiving an MLB-ready back end starter and a possible fringe-regular middle infielder in exchange for an expiring contract is excellent work by Slingin’ Stearns, who has certainly wasted no time in putting his stamp on the franchise.

Turns out having one of the best all-around front offices in baseball is pretty fun.

— J.P. Breen (@JP_Breen) July 7, 2016

Very few people if any saw this coming. Before this season, very few people had ever heard of Guerra. That’s because from 2008-2014 Guerra was out of affiliated baseball. Usually, if this happens the player is never heard from again. But, in 2014 the White Sox signed Guerra to a minor league contract and Guerra got a cup of coffee in 2015. The Brewers then claimed the 31-year-old right-hander off waivers. It was David Stearns’s first move as a general manager.

It’ll henceforth become easy to credit Stearns and the Brewers for this pickup. Especially if this performance continues. But, do the Brewers deserve credit for Guerra?

On a simple level, yes the Brewers do deserve credit, but they don’t deserve credit for Guerra. The Brewers deserve credit for their process and Guerra is merely a by-product of that process.

Rebuilding can be a complicated process. A number of people associate rebuilding with the draft or the demise of the current roster.  We so often think of rebuilding as the process of trading the remaining valuable pieces of a bad and flawed team in order to acquire younger talent. The plan is to form the new core of the team through these moves.

But rebuilding can have many layers especially if it’s done properly. One of the advantages of rebuilding is that it affords the team the opportunity to give players a chance. If Guerra was on a winning team, with heavy expectations, he may have never gotten his chance. Fortunately for Guerra, the Brewers had little plan of being competitive this season. This allowed Stearns to make a number of low risk and potentially high rewarding acquisitions. These acquisitions include players such as Ramon Flores, Rymer Liriano, Will Middlebrooks, Jonathan Villar, Chris Carter, and more. (The full list of Brewers acquisitions can be found here).

These are all flawed players. If they weren’t then the Brewers wouldn’t have been able to simply snag them for almost no cost. But, they were flawed players with some potential, which is why the Brewers decided to snag them in the first place.

The Brewers were going to have a lot of open spots in spring training, and throughout the season which allowed them to give these players a longer look. This gave them time to develop and see if they actually have any worthwhile talent. The Brewers, for example aren’t like the current Red Sox, who need players to perform if they want to make the playoffs. The Brewers had the ability to let players struggle and fail at the major league level. That’s a “luxury” contending teams don’t have.

Many of these moves obviously didn’t pan out, but some are already starting to show fruition. Basically, if you throw enough dirt at the wall, some of it is bound to stick.

That’s what the Brewers did. They threw, and threw, and kept throwing dirt, and some of it is sticking. Some of it is sticking better than any of us could have ever imagined.

If the Brewers, for example, didn’t think it would be worthwhile to invest in players such as Jonathan Villar, Chris Carter, Aaron Hill, and Junior Guerra, then those players would have never been found. These players are now all producing good value at the major league level, and if nothing else, they can become good trade pieces for this coming trade deadline, or if the Brewers are high enough on them, they could become part of the rebuilding core. These are the type of moves that speed up the rebuild.

The only person who truly deserves credit for Junior Guerra is Junior Guerra. You don’t go from washed up, out of the league nobody to a dominant major league pitcher by being dogmatic. Guerra had to work hard to get where he is today. Sure, there might have been a scout that was high on him, but to think that he would become one of the more productive pitchers in baseball, for any stretch, would have been a stretch.

At the end of the day, Guerra deserves all the credit in the world for his performance. The Brewers deserve credit for having the mindset that would allow Guerra to have an opportunity.

From that perspective, even, trading for Hill made sense. The Brewers opened this season with a payroll of about $65 million, and they are currently carrying the league’s smallest payroll. So taking on some additional veteran salary (about $6 million, as Arizona is paying part of Hill’s salary) to get a slightly better return makes a good deal of sense.

As mentioned above, Diaz and Anderson alone was a pretty good return for a league-average shortstop who had seemingly plateaued and was about to hit arbitration. Diaz was a low-minors shortstop who Chris Crawford praised in the Transaction Analysis about the deal, and Anderson was a solid option for the back of a big-league rotation. Hill seemed like an afterthought. The best case scenario was that he hit decently for a couple months and upped his trade value.

But Hill has actually been even better than that this year. He’s put up a .283 TAv (better than the league average at third base) while playing nearly every day, which would make him a solid contributor even on a playoff team. The Brewers are not that team, but they are certainly in a position to deal him to a contender and command a hefty return.

The trade deadline is usually a chance for rebuilding teams to trade their surprisingly good relievers to playoff teams looking to augment their bullpen; actual starting-caliber position players don’t come up every year, and they fetch a good return. The Brewers were able to turn a good half-season from Gerardo Parra into Zach Davies, a cost-controlled young starter. Hill has a longer track record of success than Parra did, so the Brewers can at least be optimistic about what they will get back.

Predicting the trade market is a relatively foolish exercise. Without being in the room or on phone calls, outsiders like me have no way of knowing what specific players are on the table or being discussed. However, we can—and probably should—have some idea of where players might be traded and what the general range of returns is.

Hill himself is a valuable commodity, as he can play (mostly competently) both second and third base, which makes him interesting for contending teams that need any sort of infield help. He is also a free agent after this season, which means that he is necessarily a short-term option so any team acquiring him doesn’t have to worry about how he fits into their long-term plans.

There are a few obvious potential landing spots right off the bat: Boston, Kansas City, and the Mets. Boston is currently giving Travis Shaw the lion’s share of playing time at third base, and he has been good this year but came out of relative obscurity and is unproven. Kansas City lost Mike Moustakas for the year to a torn ACL, and the Mets have probably lost David Wright for the season as well. Each of those three teams would make sense as options for Hill, as they would be simply filling a spot for two months of a season.

The Royals wouldn’t have to worry about potential overlap with Moustakas because they can decide not to re-sign him, and the Mets would be in the same situation. The Red Sox may decide they want some veteran insurance behind Shaw.

In any scenario, Hill’s market is relatively set. Parra last year is likely a decent comparison; the Brewers got a low-ceiling, high-floor prospect who was close to the big leagues. That is a common profile, and I expect the Brewers will be shooting for it again. As they attempt to rebuild their organizational depth, acquiring high-probability players instead of high-ceiling, low-floor types will help them flesh out each level of the system. It is this approach that has fueled their rebuild, and I expect that David Stearns will follow the same strategy here.

Hill was a low-risk acquisition; he was partially a salary dump, and so while the club was clearly hoping to be able to flip him, they were playing with house money in a certain sense. The fact that he has played so well and they will likely get a prospect of value in return just makes the Segura trade that much sweeter, and this will also continue the trend of the Brewers making low-risk moves that have rich rewards.

Hill’s two-bagger (+.132) gave the Brewers a win probability of 49.4 percent, up from 36.1 percent when he stepped to the plate. Ultimately, this wouldn’t amount to anything; Alex Presley followed up a sacrifice from Ramon Flores with a full-count strikeout, leaving Hill on third base. When the inning concluded with a Jonathan Villar groundout, the Brewers stood just a 25.3 percent chance of winning.

Hill and Presley have some similarities. Neither of them is young — Hill checks in at 34, and Presley will turn 31 next month. Milwaukee brought each one in hoping they’d become veteran mentors and/or trade chips. Thus far, only Hill has accomplished that, starting 63 of the squad’s 75 games and posting a .283 TAv in those contests. Meanwhile, Presley and his .219 TAv probably won’t remain at the major-league level for much longer. In large part due to a talent disparity, Hill has made the most of his opportunities, while Presley has come up short; each of them may leave the team soon, just in different manners.

Worst Play: The game went from close to out of reach shortly after Hill’s efforts. Michael Blazek came on to pitch the eighth inning; he retired the first two batters he faced — thanks in part to Kirk Nieuwenhuis — but he couldn’t put together a shutdown inning. Anthony Rendon worked a free pass, and Clint Robinson swatted an 0-1 fastball into the bullpen in right field.

Robinson’s homer (-.199), for all intents and purposes, killed the Brewers. Turning a reasonable 1-0 deficit into a 3-0 suffocation, it brought their win expectancy down from 28.0 to 8.1 percent. The Brew Crew would reach double digits after scoring once in the bottom of the frame and once in the ninth. In the end, they couldn’t turn it around and would settle for a closer, 3-2 defeat.

Last season, Blazek looked to have broken out, with a 2.43 ERA and 3.69 DRA over 55.2 innings of relief. The PTBNL from the John Axford trade has fallen off in 2016 — his strikeouts are down, his walks are up, and he’s already allowed as many home runs as he did all of last year. Whatever has ailed him, he needs to fix it quick, or he’ll lose his job to someone else.

Trend to Watch: On that note… With Blazek’s meltdown (and Will Smith’s post-DL hiccups), the Brewers have yearned for another bullpen arm to emerge from nowhere. Although it’s still pretty early, Jacob Barnes may have done just that. Despite allowing the go-ahead home run on Sunday, Barnes has fared well as a 26-year-old rookie: He’s twirled 10.1 innings of 2.79-ERA, 3.58-DRA ball. Sustaining that would make him another trustworthy late-inning reliever.

Barnes has essentially no pedigree. At this time last year, he was a mediocre starter-turned-mediocre reliever who had never appeared on a top prospect list. Then he lit up the Arizona Fall League, pitching 11.2 shutout innings with 17 strikeouts to go with only three walks. He maintained that momentum into the 2016 campaign, as he notched a 1.21 ERA over 22.1 innings of relief for Colorado Springs. Since receiving the callup earlier this month, he hasn’t missed a beat.

Two pitches make up Barnes’s repertoire: a four-seam fastball and a slider. The former has fared well enough, riding its mid- to upper-90s velocity to a 66.2 percent strike rate and 6.3 percent swinging-strike rate. But it can’t compare to the latter, which has been nothing short of great — it’s gone for a strike 71.0 percent of the time and a whiff 34.8 percent of the time. No footage of the pitch from Sunday’s game exists online, so we’ll have to settle from this clip of Barnes in his major-league debut:

No, the velocity reading isn’t a typo. According to Brooks Baseball, Barnes struck out Tommy Joseph on a 92.1-mph slider. This season, Zach Davies’s four-seam fastball has topped out at 92.2 mph. If he can continue to harness it, Barnes’s deadly heat will warm up the seats of Blazek and Smith.

Up Next: The Brewers managed to take two of three against the Nationals, and they’ll attempt to keep that up against another scuffling contender. After a day off today, the Brewers complete their homestand with a three-game set against the Dodgers. Chase Anderson and Julio Urias will face off on Tuesday at 7:10 CST; Junior Guerra will take the hill against a for-now undetermined L.A. starter on Wednesday; and Zach Davies will duel Kenta Maeda in the matinee finale on Thursday.

Unfortunately for Garin, the win-now Red Sox elected to spend big money to bring Pablo Sandoval in off of the free agent market prior to the 2015 season, relegating Cecchini back to AAA. With third base blocked at the big league level, Cecchini began moving around the diamond, appearing at first base and left field as well as the hot corner. In addition to learning a couple new positions defensively, Garin began tinkering with his swing. He’s never been much of a power threat, but he made some changes in an effort to begin driving the ball with more authority.

The results were disastrous. He was never comfortable at the plate and in 117 games with Pawtucket in 2015, Cecchini posted a meager .213/.286/.296 batting line (.216 tAV). Not only did he not accomplish the goal of hitting for more power with only seven home runs, but he struck out at a rate in upwards of 21 percent, well above his career average. The Red Sox designated Cecchini for assignment in December of 2015 and the Brewers acquired him for cash considerations on the final day of the Winter Meetings.

Cecchini began this season with AAA Colorado Springs hoping to rediscover the form that once made him a highly-touted prospect. In order to do that, however, he needed to once again find the swing that helped him consistently post .290+ batting averages in the lower minors.

The above video are some highlights of Cecchini from his nightmarish 2015 season. He stands in a rather upright position with his knees slightly flexed, hands held high around his ear level and with a bit of an uppercut in his swing while searching for more power.

Garin Cecchini double #SkySox https://t.co/xXkdWSVH3N

— Brewers Prospects (@BrewerProspect) June 19, 2016

Now, here’s a highlight of Cecchini from the 2016 season, and it’s not difficult to see the differences. Garin is in more of a crouched position with greater flex in his knees this year, holding the bat a little bit higher than he was last season and producing a more level swing-plane.

Thanks in part to the adjustments that he’s made this year, Garin is enjoying a nice rebound campaign in the hitter-friendly confines of Colorado Springs. Through 66 games he’s hitting a solid, if unspectacular .281/.338/.386 with 14 extra base hits and six steals, good enough for a .273 tAV that comes in a little better than league average and is a significant improvement over his work from last year. He’s cut his strikeout rate nearly in half down to roughly 11 percent and is still taking walks at around a nine percent clip, as well.

Aaron Hill and Chris Carter are currently handling the corner infield positions up in Milwaukee, but it’s likely that both will be trade candidates in the run up to this year’s deadline and could find themselves donning new uniforms by August 1st. If one or both of those two players are moved, that could open up a real opportunity for Cecchini to get some extended playing time at the big league level. That’d be especially true if the club elects to keep Orlando Arcia in AAA longer in light of Jonathan Villar’s (himself a buy-low, post hype prospect) unexpected success at shortstop this season.

Now that the 25 year old Cecchini is back to his patient and contact-oriented ways, he could be back on the path to becoming the player described in the 2015 Annual as “someone who can challenge for a .290 average with a strong walk rate and enough pop to keep pitchers honest. What they all agree on: He’s got plus-plus makeup and seems likely to get the most out of his natural abilities.”

TOP PLAY (WPA)
After Aaron Hill’s clutch two-out double rescued the Brewers from another bad send by windmill third base coach Ed Sedar and gave Milwaukee a 1-0 lead in the second, Phillies starter Jerad Eickhoff seemed to settle in a groove. He retired four of the next five batters and the only man to reach was Jonathan Villar, who was erased on a stolen base attempt. Chris Carter ended that and snapped a personal 2-for-24 cold streak with a long home run to left that doubled the Brewers lead (+.119 WPA). Carter’s 14th clout of the season came as part of a signature three true outcomes night for Carter: in four plate appearances, he homered, walked and struck out twice.

BOTTOM PLAY (WPA)
The Brewers have had a difficult time scoring baserunners all year, a fact I examined a week ago. The two-out hit in the second from Hill was a refreshing change of pace, but things returned to the status quo in the sixth. Clinging to a 2-1 lead, Jonathan Lucroy laced a two-out single up the middle to move Scooter Gennett to second. Loathe to be victimized again, the Phillies put Carter on to load the bases, giving Kirk Nieuwenhuis a chance to break the game open with the bases juiced. Instead, he skied a popup to left to leave the bases loaded for the Brewers once again (-.075).

KEY MOMENT
In the bottom of that same inning, the runners left on base very nearly cost the Brewers their lead. Anderson did his job, but an error by Villar allowed Odubel Herrera to reach to leave off the inning, and a passed ball by Lucroy allowed him to reach third with one out two batters later. Needing a strikeout to keep the Brewers in front, Anderson reached back and got it, getting Jimmy Paredes swinging for the second out. Craig Counsell went to Will Smith to get the final out, and the Fresh Prince kicked off his 2016 campaign by retiring Maikel Franco to preserve the Brewers lead. Smith remained in the game to complete the seventh, allowing a hit and striking out one for a successful debut.

TREND TO WATCH
Villar continues to make his presence felt, as his name seems to float up at key moments – mostly for good, but sometimes not – night in and night out for Milwaukee. He had another roller coaster night on Thursday: he was caught stealing in the third and his error allowed the Phillies to threaten in the sixth, but his two-run homer in the top of the ninth gave Jeremy Jeffress some breathing room that was certainly appreciated when Paredes led off the ninth with a double. Villar entered the game ranked fifth among shortstops with a .299 TAv, a number that most certainly has risen after his 2-for-5 game Thursday. He’s certainly making a case for the All-Star roster, if that’s the sort of thing you care about, though with the Cubs and Cardinals with young stars at the same position, there’s no chance he’ll earn a starting nod. So far, he seems to be well worth the mild price the Brewers paid to acquire him this winter.

COMING UP NEXT
The Brewers will look to extend the Phillies losing streak to eight, nine and ten games this weekend as they send Junior Guerra, Jimmy Nelson and Wily Peralta to the mound to finish out this four game set. The toughest pitching matchup for Milwaukee will be on Sunday, when they send Peralta, who ranks dead last among qualifiers in DRA (7.79) against 23-year-old Aaron Nola, who ranks ninth with a 2.88 DRA.

Hill’s contract was collateral damage. It’s not uncommon for teams, such as the Brewers, to make these type of deals. Acquiring bad contracts isn’t the worse thing in the world, especially if it yields a good prospect.

With that said, remember when I wrote the article about finding joy in the smaller things? Well Saturday, May 7^th, 2016 was one hell of a night in Major League baseball. First, and most importantly, of course, Bartolo Colon did the unthinkable. He hit a home run. And this wasn’t just any home run, but a no-doubter at PetCo Park, flushing this writer’s hopes of understanding baseball down the drain.

That same night, Aaron Hill did something amazing as well. He hit three home runs in one game for the first time in his career, including a grand slam. Hitting three home runs in one game is exceptional, but what made this game even more marvelous for Hill was when he hit those homer runs.

His first bomb came in the 6^th inning. Jimmy Nelson was pitching for the Brewers and it was not going well for him, as he gave up six runs in only five innings of work. The Brewers were, therefore, down 6-2 going into the sixth inning. Jonathan Lucroy started off the inning, with a solo home run of his own. After Chris Carter then reached on an error, Hill came up to the plate and with the 10th pitch of the at-bat, he hit his first home run of the game.

That home run alone cut the deficit to 6-5 and had a WPA of .163. For a normal game, that would be the high point, clutch wise for any player, and that’s ok. A .163 WPA play is very clutch. But, for Hill, that was just the beginning.

That chased Brandon Finnegan from the game. Both teams decided to go with their bullpens after the fifth inning, which was probably a good idea considering 11 runs were scored in just 5 innings of play. Both pens were able to quiet the offenses for a couple of innings. That is, until Aaron Hill came to the plate again.

It’s the eighth innings this time, and the Brewers were still down 6-5. J.C Ramirez was now the pitcher for the Reds. When Hill came to the plate, this time, he wasn’t messing around. On the second pitch of the at-bat, he hit a deep fly ball to center field for his second home run of the game. That tied the game at 6-6 and had a WPA of .258. Even more, “clutch” than the first home run he hit.

A couple of innings pass again, and nothing changes. Well, now we’re in extra innings, free baseball as they say. The Brewers were the away team, so therefore they got the first chance to hit in OT. Ryan Braun was the leadoff hitter and he singled on a groundball to the shortstop. Then, Lucroy singled on a groundball, and so did Chris Carter (Thank you BABIP!). This brought up our aforementioned protagonist, Aaron Hill. He at this point had homered in two consecutive at bats. This time, the pitcher, Caleb Cothman fell behind 2-0. He then threw Hill a 92 mph fastball inside, which Hill hit for a grand slam.

Not only did Hill hit three home runs in one game, but he did it on three consecutive at-bats, and he drove in seven consecutive runs for the Brew Crew. The final home run had a WPA of .147. The reason this home run was less “clutch” than the others was that there was nobody out and the bases were loaded. The Brewers, therefore, had a very good chance of scoring a run in the 10^th inning and coming out of there with a win. When the Brewers were down 6-5 in the 8th and Hill hit his second home run, the Red’s had a win expectancy of 80 percent. When the bases were loaded with nobody out in the tenth inning, the Reds win expectancy was only at 16.1 percent. That’s why Hill’s second home run was more timely.

Hill’s game was spectacular in terms of production, but also in terms of how it helped his team win the game. I, therefore, wondered if Hill ever had a more impactful game measured by WPA.

In short, no, but his cumulative .530 WPA that game was pretty close to his best game. In fact, it ranks as his 6th best game by WPA.

His best game, however, occurred on September 9^th, 2006, when Hill was still playing for the Blue Jays. In that game, Hill went 4-4 with a hit by pitch, two singles, a double, and a home run. The reason this was Hill’s best game by WPA measures was due to his final at bat.

That game went into extras tied at 3-3, but the Jays fell behind 4-3 after B. J. Ryan gave up a run in the 10^th. This put the Jays win expectancy at 22.1%. In the top of the tenth, Gregg Zaun singled, bringing up Hill, who on the second pitch of the at-bat hit a two-run walk-off home run to win the game. (.644 WPA).

That, however, wasn’t even the best play of his career. Hill’s best or most valuable play to his team came on October 2^nd, 2012, when he was with the Diamondbacks. In that game, the D’backs were facing the Rockies and were down 3-2 in the ninth inning. When Hill came to hit in the ninth, there were two men on with two outs, and the Diamondbacks win expectancy was at 20.4 percent.

In this at-bat, Hill only needed one pitch to put the ball in the stands for a walk-off win. At .796 WPA, that was Hill’s best play, with context, of his career.

Top Play (WPA):
Chase Anderson has had a rough year so far; his 6.39 FIP is really bad, and it ranks ninth-worst among all pitchers with at least fifteen innings. But he had a pretty good start on Wednesday, and he had thrown four clean innings as the game headed scoreless into the fifth inning.

Anderson’s luck would fade in the fifth, though. A leadoff walk to Giancarlo Stanton set the table for Justin Bour’s tiebreaking home run (+.211). The next man up, Marcell Ozuna, hit a ground rule double, moved to third on a wild pitch, and scored on a sacrifice fly as the third—and ultimately game-deciding—run.

Bottom Play (WPA):
The Brewers managed to claw within a run after a two-run seventh inning, and Jonathan Lucroy’s leadoff single in the eighth put them in a good position to tie the game. Chris Carter then struck out, bringing Aaron Hill—one of the team’s hottest hitters over the past week—to the plate against David Phelps.

Hill put an excellent swing on a Phelps cutter, but he hit it straight at first baseman Miguel Rojas, who stepped on first for an inning-ending double play that killed a rally (-.124).

Key Moment:
Marlins’ closer AJ Ramos has had an excellent season, but he doesn’t have a long enough track record to be considered one of the game’s elite. Trying to mount a comeback against a pitcher like Ramos is difficult but not impossible. A key first step is getting the leadoff man on base. Pinch hitter Kirk Nieuwenhuis gave it a shot but took a called third strike on a pitch that was off the plate.

Bad strike calls happen frequently, and this was not hugely egregious in any special way. However, bad calls in this type of situation hurt, especially for a young club trying to rally. Good pitching performances have been few and far between for the Brewers, so it stings to waste Anderson’s solid outing.

Call hurts #Brewers
Strike 3 should be ball 2
Top 9 Ramos vs Nieuwenhuis
20% call same
1.9in from edge pic.twitter.com/xwQfOoVrno

— Brewers Strike Zone (@BrewersUmp) May 12, 2016

Trend to Watch:
Ryan Braun had three hits again on Wednesday, and he has continued his absolutely torrid pace. He has a .400/.455/.667 line over his last seven games and a .407/.462/.627 line over his last fifteen. It has been an incredible display of hitting, and his .353 TAv is in the top fifteen of all hitters with at least 100 plate appearances.

If he continues to hit like this, Braun may actually boost his value enough to make himself attractive in the trade market should the Brewers wish to move him. His contract may be too large to make him truly marketable, but he is at least demonstrating that he has enough in the tank to remain a productive a big league player.