One way to test Brewers roster potential is to jump some years out and observe their reserved talent, set contracts or arbitration rights, top prospects, and other interesting advanced prospects. For this purpose, I arbitrarily picked 2018, since it removes the club from the “will they / won’t they” debate about retaining Jonathan Lucroy’s services (which Jack Moore puts into strong perspective). It also removes the club from the “will they / won’t they” questions about starting some of the top prospects by the middle of 2016. Better yet, it sinks the question marks about the club’s future into a zone where $20 million in guaranteed money is on the books, aside from a gang of potential arbitration players (who may or may not remain with the club). The 2018 Brewers will have so much room to add payroll that failing to compete will be criminal, in terms of allocating MLB revenue.

The basic point of this exercise is not to suggest that it is inevitable that the Brewers can quickly contend, or that the Brewers will quickly contend because everything will go right. Instead, this analysis will give visual aid to Thee Brewers Depth, which is so readily dismissed by many fans as, “well the Brewers have depth, but…” The scouting profile of the Brewers’ depth, the question marks about several key players (including 2016 roster members like Jonathan Villar), the strength of their very best prospects, and their sheer payroll freedom makes it imperative that the Milwaukee front office consider their most immediate contending outlooks. The question is, what would that look that?

The Big Contracts

In one sense, this list of players clearly reflects the Brewers’ rebuilding efforts, as there are not as many true impact players under contract control as one might like to see. Nevertheless, there’s a lot to think about on this list, too; my favorite highlights:

• Ryan Braun can withstand another change in his ever-morphing career, this time as battle-tested veteran on an upstart club. The left fielder’s TAv climbed from .278 in 2014 to .298 in 2015, and his current .330 mark gives Braun a chance at his best season in five years.
• Jimmy Nelson is working with his updated arsenal in 2016, trading hiccups for signs of brilliance as he pitches every fifth day. Nelson is by far the best starting pitcher among the controlled group. I’d rank Chase Anderson second on this list, as the righty’s stuff and approach beats other rotation depth options. Scoff at Garza all you like, but he could cost as little as $1 million to $5 million in 2018, which makes him a viable depth option (Even if his option vests at its full cost, it’s not terrible; filling 162 games is hard, anyway).
• The bullpen has really, really good potential. Jeffress is pitching through his peripherals to prevent runs at a strong rate, and is showing a knack for working in late, close ballgames. Will Smith will have a chance to step in as Jeffress’s counterpart in 2016, which means the club can essentially design a one-two punch and hone it for 2017-2018. Tyler Thornburg and Michael Blazek are the wild cards here, as both of these right-handers have the stuff that allows one to dream on a potentially deep back-end pen. If the Brewers can go four-deep in high leverage situations, and deliver, they have a chance at consistently winning beyond their expectations.
• There are some positional question marks here, but Jonathan Villar spices up that potential with his flexibility and sparkplug play. The current shortstop is seizing his second chance, and he can readily move to two other infield positions to lead the Brewers batting order. I can’t be the only one looking forward to an Arcia / Villar 1-2 table setting.

If you’re skeptical, you’re probably noting that this is really seven potentially impactful players, and four of them are relievers (albeit impact ones). Yet, that list of 17 players still has other useful depth options (such as Hernan Perez and Chris Carter). Most importantly, these 17 big contract and arbitration guys only comprise one third of the players worth considering for 2018: the options don’t end here, so onward.

The Reserved Players

Now this is an interesting list, and probably a good source of judging whether one is optimistic about the near-future Brewers. At-a-glance, Milwaukee potentially has at least one more starting player (Domingo Santana), a couple more second-chance prospects worth a glance, at least two more starting pitchers, and still more bullpen depth. This list could also become a source of small-scale, roster depth trades as players run out of options.

When considering arguments about the Brewers competing, this is the type of list that emphasizes why one need not take an “everything goes right” vantage point. One might not see star players on this list, or even (in most cases) much more than depth players, but this group should not be dismissed: at the edges of the roster, the right moves will help to make a competitive club. Questions about Jacob Barnes, Yhonathan Barrios, or Corey Knebel might not necessarily deliver answers about elite relievers, for example, but if Milwaukee develops and employs these types of arms toward their strengths, they can be very useful members of an MLB pitching staff. Value for a competitor runs deeper than star players. Remember that pre-breakout Carlos Gomez and Nyjer Morgan orchestrated the NLDS winning run for the exceptional 2011 Brewers, which is to say that there will be some marginal players that help Milwaukee contend.

The Prospects

Of course, one of the reasons that Milwaukee fans and analysts can coast past some of the reserved MLB talent is the list of the system’s best and most advanced prospects. Just a step or so away from the big leagues, Milwaukee can claim at least one more starting pitcher, a couple more positional starters, and some rather intriguing ceilings should certain tools pan out. There are other prospects still, which makes for even more interesting trade debates for Milwaukee.

Yet, assuming things don’t go perfectly, Arcia remains an excellent defensive shortstop, which alone should provide MLB value even if some questions about his bat are never answered. Jonathan Villar, for all his strengths, is a -1.1 FRAA fielder thus far in 2016; Arcia’s glove improves the club in legitimate and quantifiable ways that can translate into more wins (16.0 FRAA in 2015 AA Biloxi, 3.6 FRAA thus far in AAA Colorado Springs). Throw away the bat and Arcia still wins the Brewers as many as two games a year with his glove. The same goes for Brett Phillips, who should stick as an athletic centerfielder with a strong bat even if the power does not fully develop. Jorge Lopez can develop into a #2-type starter if everything falls according to plan, but if that doesn’t work, he has ample stuff to work as a mid rotation starter. If you don’t believe that’s valuable, look at the below average rotations of the 2011 Cardinals, 2012 Giants, 2014 Giants, and 2015 Royals, to name only four very recent champions: rotational depth alone can go a long way when other aspects of the team go right.

More interesting and pressing questions exist with Josh Hader and Adrian Houser (starter vs. reliever), and Michael Reed or Jacob Nottingham (CF & C? 4th OF & 1B? Somewhere in-between?). But, even if these players work out as ever-more depth options, they expand the roster into an almost absurd territory of depth such that one might wonder whether Thee Brewers Depth becomes the calling card of the next contending Milwaukee Nine. If the Kansas City Royals can beat PECOTA on a regular basis with their extreme roster construction, I’m going to bet that a group of analysts at Miller Park can employ strong depth in strategically effective ways. There are enough tools here for the Brewers to excel throughout the game, if those skills are strategically employed.

If you needed yet another reminder, the system does not end with Milwaukee’s top prospects, or their advanced ones either. Cody Ponce is a total wild card, in terms of what his Advanced A assignment suggests for further aggressive assignments (I was going to place him on this list, but his injury-delayed 2016 dampens that straight-to-MLB spirit). Victor Roache and Damien Magnifico have taken systematic steps forward, and add more useful traits to the club (a big fastball and big power, for example). Someone other than myself has called Brandon Woodruff an interesting prospect. I included Omar Garcia and Tristan Archer as more interesting guys who have some things going right in their advanced minors peripheral profiles thus far.

Timing will be everything for the competitive-and-then-contending Brewers. One way to dull the slicing jabs of timing is to accumulate a multi-layered roster full of strong, serviceable, and even interesting traits and talents. It won’t all go right, and the Brewers will miss on some of these guys; some will be traded away too soon, others will be kept too long. Others still will leap out of nowhere and succeed. Hopefully, though, this exercise has given you 51 reasons to squint and see why the Brewers can be better before you know it. Once one considers trades and free agency, it is clear that Milwaukee has an ample base to design their next contending club.

The Brewers are inarguably going through some sort of rebuild themselves. They’ve traded a number of their assets and acquired a number of young players. And this season, a number of their players have been swirling in trade rumors.

Some have henceforth started making comparisons between the Brewers and the Cubs. Stating that essentially the Brewers rebuild will take a long time because well, the Cubs rebuild took around 5 years.

well. yeah. it took the cubs five years to get to where they are and literally everything broke right. https://t.co/LslIOzISBB

— regular travis (@travis_mke) May 28, 2016

The problem with making this sort of comparison is manifold. Mainly, it assumes that the Cubs and Brewers were in the same place at the same time when they decided to undergo a rebuild. The problem with this assumption is you need to pinpoint when the Cubs started rebuilding in the first place. It’s easy to assume that the Cubs have been rebuilding for five years because the Cubs have been bad for five years. But there’s a difference between being unsuccessful in an attempt to compete, and being unsuccessful as a rebuilding team. That’s not to suggest that the Brewers are losing intentionally. It’s rather to suggest that they’re putting more emphasis on the future than they are to the present. The counterexample of this is the Diamondbacks, a team that is putting more emphasis on the present than they are on the future, even though they and the Brewers could finish with the same record.

In order to pinpoint when the Cubs rebuild started, I talked on the phone with Rian Watt, Editor in Chief of BP Wrigleyville. Watt told me that the Cubs rebuild had three stages. The first stage was in 2009 when Tom Ricketts bought the team. Then, in July of 2011, Jim Hendry was fired as general manager of the Cubs, opening the door for Theo Epstein to be hired in October of 2011. When I asked Watt if he thought the Cubs were rebuilding from 2010-2011, he said it was a “half-measured” rebuild. I don’t think anybody would then question that the Cubs underwent a full rebuild the following three years.

Watt is describing an evolutionary process. We often think of rebuilds as having a fixed start and end point, just like the beginning and end of a month. But rebuilds are rarely this simple, and the decision to undergo them doesn’t happen overnight. It’s also very difficult to pinpoint the exact moment the team in question started rebuilding.

The Brewers rebuild also didn’t happen overnight. After the 2013 season, when the Brewers had a disastrous 74 win season, many were clamoring for them to rebuild. However, the team still wanted to compete and signed Matt Garza to a 4 year $50-million-dollar deal, with an option for 2018. The hot start of 2014 also prevented the Brewers from rebuilding. In a natural course of things, maybe it would have been smarter for the Brewers to sell off some pieces, because even though the Brewers had a good first half, their team was still very flawed. That said, they didn’t; Milwaukee stayed the course and winded up missing the playoffs. The team finished with 82 wins, and you would have a hard time arguing that they weren’t trying to compete that year.

During the 2014-2015 offseason, the Brewers made some half-measured moves to rebuilding such as trading Yovani Gallardo to the Texas Rangers. This signaled that the Brewers were considering rebuilding but at the same time, were not ready to dive head first. The Brewers dove head first in the middle of 2015 when it was clear that the team wasn’t going to be competitive.

But in any case, both situations were different from the Cubs. In 2010-2011, the Cubs were a bad team, an old team, and they had one of the biggest payrolls in all of baseball. This hampered them from trading a number of their assets for any valuable return. In 2010 the Cubs had eight players making more than 10 million dollars. Thankfully for them, Derek Lee and Ted Lilly were coming off the books in 2011, but they still had to deal with the contracts of Carlos Zambrano, Aramis Ramirez, Kosuke Fukudome (remember that guy?), Alfonso Soriano — who was making 19 million per year until 2014, Carlos Silva, and Ryan Dempster. Their farm system was actually ranked highly in 2010, but a number of their prospects didn’t pan out. Baseball Prospectus had their farm system ranked 23 when Theo took over in 2011.

The Brewers obviously are in a much different situation. First, when they decided to fully rebuild last year, they only had two contracts that could hinder them. Garza’s contract is definitely one that the Brewers would like to get off the books and will expire in 2017. The other contract is that of Ryan Braun, and from Braun’s play this season, it sounds as though the Brewers would be able to move it if they so chose to.

Milwaukee’s opening day salaries actually went down from 104,237,000 in 2015 to 63,908,300 in 2016. This will allow the team to have a lot of flexibility spending wise when they deem it time to compete. This doesn’t even get into the fact that the Brewers also have a good farm system and a number of prospects in the high minors, which wasn’t the case with the Cubs. Between the time Doug Melvin stepped away and David Stearns stepped in, BaseballProspectus moved the Brewers farm system from 26 to a Top Ten ranking.

This isn’t to suggest that the Brewers rebuild will be more successful than the Cubs. A number of things went right for the Cubs, such as discovering Jake Arrieta, and drafting so immaculately.

There’s likely going to be a number of different problems and different obstacles that will behold the Brewers, compared to the Cubs situation, but that’s the point. The Brewers’ and the Cubs’ processes to rebuilding came about differently, and when they decided to rebuild, they were in two very different situations. They also have different front office members and different types of talent in the minor leagues. Assuming the Brewers rebuild will take a certain amount of years because the Cubs rebuild took a certain amount of years is foolish, and isn’t taking into account all of the context that is surrounding the decision-making process.

Super Two is a status given to the top 22 percent of players with between two and three years of service time at the end of the season, and this allows them to become arbitration-eligible a year early. Starting a player like Arcia at the beginning of the season would likely qualify him for Super Two status. However, keeping Arcia at AAA is not solely a cost-cutting measure—unlike the Cubs holding down Kris Bryant for two weeks to begin 2015. It is a necessary evil for a small-market club like the Brewers to control arbitration costs. The Super Two date usually comes in the first couple weeks of June, so Arcia will not make his debut before then.

Jonathan Villar’s performance is also a bit of a complicating factor. As has been discussed in this space several times, the Brewers aren’t trying to contend, but they also don’t appear willing to totally humiliate themselves the way the Astros did. Thus, if Villar had been truly awful and there were no other internal shortstop options, the Brewers might be more tempted to bring up Arcia sooner. Villar, though, has been surprisingly good. He has already accumulated 1.2 WARP, and his .300 TAv ranks fifth among all shortstops with at least 100 plate appearances. He has undoubtedly played well enough to keep his position, and he will likely even stay in the everyday lineup (at either second or third) once Arcia makes his inevitable debut.

Even with all of the above, though, it is virtually guaranteed that Arcia will make his debut sometime in the middle of 2016. He has posted a .261 TAv in AAA despite being just 21 years old, some six years younger than his competition (per Baseball-Reference’s weighted age differential). And his bat isn’t even his carrying tool; BP’s own preseason scouting report gave him a 60 glove and called him “one of the best defensive shortstop prospects in baseball.” All of this is to simply say that he is an excellent prospect who is proving his worth in AAA.

But he won’t be of much value to the Brewers in AAA for much longer. Recent rookie performances like those of Kris Bryant and Bryce Harper have spoiled us, because players do tend to need some development time in the big leagues as they get used to the grind, better pitching, and lifestyle. Maybe Arcia will be one of those prodigies who doesn’t need any seasoning in the big leagues, and that would be great—however, the Brewers won’t know that until he gets there, and he might very well take a few months or a year to truly get accustomed to facing big league pitching every night.

The reason his development matters so much is that the Brewers are unlikely to be truly competitive until and unless he becomes an above-average major leaguer. He doesn’t have to be a perennial All-Star—and it is foolish and naïve to put that kind of expectation on any one player anyway—but he very likely does have to come close to his ceiling. Good shortstops are hard to find, and even with Villar’s excellent start, he’s still likely more of a 1-2 WARP player going forward than anything special. Arcia can be more than that, though.

Despite the fact that the Brewers are in an excellent position in their rebuild, they aren’t exactly set up to be a dynasty. They aren’t going to be the Cubs, who were loaded with so many elite hitters that someone could fizzle and the team wouldn’t miss a beat. Instead, they are going to need most—if not all—of their top prospects to hit, and Arcia is at the top of that list. Good front offices will be able to put the correct pieces in place around a solid core, but that core has to exist in the first place. And without Arcia in the middle of the diamond everyday, the Brewers will have a hard time finding a winning core in the next several years.

All of this is to say that Arcia’s development is incredibly important to the Brewers’ future—perhaps more important than any single other individual (at least until a potential ace comes around). Most of the next year or two needs to be devoted to making sure he is put in a position to succeed. Right now, AAA is the correct place for him, and keeping him down for a while makes sense from the organization’s perspective as well. After all, they do want to have him around for as long as possible. However, once he reaches the point where there is nothing more for him to learn at AAA—and we have seen top prospects reach this point—he needs to be given the chance to prove himself at the big league level.

Jonathan Villar’s excellent 2016 season has taken some of the pressure off both Arcia and David Stearns, as the club isn’t being forced into a premature decision. If Arcia isn’t deemed ready until next season, Villar has given the Brewers a safety net. But if he is knocking on the door come the end of the summer, he needs to be given the chance to succeed.

Simple fact: #Brewers are not bad enough to warrant multi-year rebuild. Figure out roster depth, advance prospects in '16; compete in '17.

— BP Milwaukee (@BPMilwaukee) May 22, 2016

We often think of rebuilds in simplistic terms. A team gets rid of its notable assets. Loses many games, gets quality draft picks, rebuilds farm system and then once prospects come up, the team in question competes once again. Rebuilds obviously are more complicated than this.

The Brewers themselves are undergoing a rebuild and are in a tricky situation. Mainly, they’re soon going to have to make a number of hard decisions as to when they should look to be competitive.

Some, however, don’t buy that this is a real possibility. In their eyes, there’s no way the Brewers could be competitive anytime soon. On the outskirts, this might seem true. The Brewers are currently one of the worst teams in the league. They literally have the worst pitching staff, their playoff odds are at 1.2 percent, and they’ve been trying to trade their remaining productive assets.

So why are some people suggesting that the Brewers could be competitive? Why do some believe the Brewers should retain players such as Chris Carter, Jonathan Lucroy, Ryan Braun and so on?

The reason for this logic is the Brewers have a number of highly profiled prospects in the high minors who should be making their debut sometime this year or next. Orlando Arcia, Brett Phillips, Jorge Lopez, Devin Williams, Tyrone Taylor, Jacob Nottingham are all players who have ETA’s for 2017, or earlier. Michael Reed is another prospect a number of scouts are high on who is in Triple-A, and Josh Hader has been killing it in Double-A.

Basically, there’s a lot of prospects coming to the majors and coming quickly (I haven’t even mentioned the young players who are already in the majors such as Jimmy Nelson and Domingo Santana). The next frame of logic is that since some of these prospects will be up in the coming years the Brewers should now aim to be competitive sooner rather than later. If they do not plan on being competitive then they should trade…

@RDTopp If you're going to trade Luc, Carter, & Jeffress, might as well trade Santana, Arcia, Lopez, etc.

— BP Milwaukee (@BPMilwaukee) May 22, 2016

…moving the timetable back for when Trent Clark, Gilbert Lara and so on will hit the big leagues. But, this doesn’t have to be this way. The Brewers can still make a few trades and aim to be competitive next year, and for the years to come.

Simply put, trading Carter, Lucroy, and Braun makes a lot of sense, but as always is dependent on the market. If there truly is no market for those players then, of course, you can always hold onto them. The idea that these players must be traded at this trade deadline is a fallacy. That said, the Brewers should do everything they can to trade these players, because as J.P. Breen mentioned on Twitter, you don’t rebuild around a thirty-year-old first basemen and catcher (I added the catcher part).

The timetable as to when the Brewers should strike, or go for it, isn’t clearly next season. The Brewers will have a lot of first-year and second-year players. The pitching staff will probably still be a big question mark and prospects take some time to develop. If you keep Lucroy and Carter then you’re risking a good opportunity to add further talent to your system, one that will help you when it’s time to truly compete. Most importantly, though, if the Brewers are to compete next season, it should be on the backs of their young studs, not on the backs of two aging veterans.

The notion of competing though can be complex. We often associate competing with making the playoffs or having a chance to win the world series. If you don’t have any of those chances, then most people don’t consider you competitive.

Most individuals in their right mind wouldn’t associate a 75-80 win team as competitive. But, maybe that’s because most people’s minds aren’t right. If the Brewers win 75-80 games this year and then do the same thing next year with players such as Arcia and Phillips, then that’s a different kind of competitiveness. An old team who wins 80 games is a bad team in a bad place. A team that wins 75-80 games with a young roster is a team on the rise. It’s a young team that was working through its flaws but has the potential to make great improvements in the years to come. Then, in 2018, the Brewers could find themselves in an interesting spot on the win curve. For example, they might project themselves to win around 80-85 games, in which case they could go for it. Now, I know I’m making a number of assumptions here; namely, that Arcia and Phillips and other prospects are going to come up and follow a linear path to reaching their peaks. Of course prospects and players are a lot more complicated than that and don’t always follow a traditional path.

That said, we always seem to think of prospects as hitting their potential and not hitting their potential.

this sort of thinking assumes a near 100% success rate on prospects. that's not a thing. it's going to take a while. https://t.co/fNJNRVGddI

— penguins fan travis (@travis_mke) May 22, 2016

the word prospect means 'chance'. there are no harpers, trouts or strasburgs in the system. none of these guys are can't-miss.

— penguins fan travis (@travis_mke) May 22, 2016

Prospects are more like probabilities: the probability that a player will succeed. The better the prospect, the more probable that prospect will become a big leaguer. Sure, a prospect can be described as a “chance,” but there are different levels of “chance”. Orlando Arcia is a top ranked prospect in Triple-A and succeeding. The higher you are in the minors, and the better you are as a prospect, the more probable you are to becoming a successful big leaguer. Of course, a pitcher such as Josh Hader has a lot of variability in his future potential, but I don’t think the Brewers are banking on him being a true major league ace. That would be foolish.

Essentially, this is saying that Arcia has a high floor. Even if he doesn’t become a superstar, there’s a good chance that he’ll become a quality big leaguer, which has a lot of value. And, not all prospects have to hit their “full potential” for the Brewers to be successful. As I’ve mentioned before, the Brewers have a lot of depth in the minors. The reason you acquire a lot of depth is to do your best to account for the unpredictability of prospects. If Domingo Santana doesn’t work out, well then, the Brewers have a number of outfield prospects they can trot out.

The true problem for this team is the pitching staff. That’s why the Brewers should do their best to acquire a top end pitching prospect this trade deadline, and that’s why it’s important to trade players such as Carter, Lucroy, Jeffress, or Braun. It doesn’t mean you trade all them. Not trading Jeffress or Braun might be a smart move. Braun is hitting the ball very well, and due to his contract and injury history, teams might be reluctant to give the Brewers anything in return.

The true testament as to when the Brewers will be ready to compete will depend on how the prospects develop. Some could come up and crush the league, such as Kris Bryant, and Carlos Correa, but it’s actually more likely that the Brewers prospects take a couple of years to fully develop. If that’s the case, then the Brewers will be looking at a 2018-2019 timeline. But, if Arica, Phillips, and Lopez come out as gangbusters next year, then we could be looking at an accelerated timeline. The point is to keep an open mind.