When I profiled free agents to begin the season, Lorenzo Cain graded as the best available position player free agent with a $71.5M three-year depreciated surplus. Given that the Brewers landed Cain for $80 million over five years, the Cain deal grades as close to an absolute steal. Cain’s surplus grades out to approximately $120.0M over five years, which means that at a $16.0M/year rate the Brewers basically received two free years on Cain’s deal. Basically, Cain should be able to deliver value on this contract in nearly every scenario short of catastrophic injury.

Contrary to the common line that the Brewers basically acquired Cain for market value, it is arguable that the club attained the center fielder’s services for quite a valuable deal.

What is thrilling about the Yelich deal is that it is not a steal. It is not a value move. The Brewers exhausted the full value of Yelich by trading three of their top six prospects. However, this is not problematic because Yelich’s surplus value is almost comical; he’s a young, budding superstar who has already proven a floor somewhere between 2.5 WARP and 5.0 WARP as he enters his prime age seasons. Tracking surplus value is important here because one can use the idea of organizational surplus value to assess when and how a team is extracting wins from their players.

Surplus Value Pricing
Refining WARP & OFP Pricing
Translating OFP
OFP and Minor League Pay
Revisiting the CC Sabathia Trade
Cashing Out OFP 2
Organizational Logic and Playoff Trades
Historical WARP and OFP

Had the Brewers kept Brinson, Monte Harrison, Isan Diaz, and Jordan Yamamoto, they would have indeed retained those prospects’ surplus value (defined here by their potential MLB ceilings, or Overall Future Potential (OFP), and their risk floor) while also carrying all of the risk of developing them year-to-year. This development risk was especially present with Harrison, Diaz, and Yamamoto, who are a couple of professional levels away from the MLB, but it was also somewhat present in Brinson’s profile should the center fielder never adjust his hit tool to MLB pitching. An elite fielding, speedy center fielder with some power but contact issues at the plate is not a bad MLB profile, but it’s not a superstar profile.

I began tracking Brewers surplus value during the club’s rebuild as a way to understand the success of a rebuild. What I found problematic about analyzing a rebuilding club was determining when and how a rebuilding team would achieve success. Since a rebuilding team is by definition “cashing out” its potential to win ballgames far down the road, there must be interim metrics used to judge a front office’s success. I use surplus value to assess MLB players by judging “production” (how well a player plays) and “scarcity” (how the player’s contract is structured) to express Wins Above Replacement Player (WARP) in monetary terms. Since risk can be priced, prospect OFP can be assessed in monetary terms as well, either by assessing the scarcity of certain grades and profiles or by historically analyzing production by prospect classes. By using these methods, MLB players and prospects can be evaluated on the same terms, which is a necessary task since MLB players are often traded for prospects; this method can also help one assess the success of a rebuild.

While there will be issues with designing any surplus value system for assessing MLB players and prospects, I maintain that working toward such a pricing system is necessary because MLB teams trade prospects for MLB players all the time.

The trouble with a player like Christian Yelich is that because he is cost-controlled by a $50 million contract (plus an option), his top surplus grade is extremely high. Over the course of the remaining five-years, extrapolating Yelich’s best WARP (5.3) yields potential production value worth $185.5M; even harshly depreciating Yelich’s 2015-2017 production yields potential value worth $93.1M. The reason Yelich’s surplus value runs so high, however, is that Yelich can also be graded by the cost of his contract against his production value; with $58.3M remaining over five years (if the Brewers exercise Yelich’s option), Yelich’s contractual surplus is at least $34.8M, and could be as high as $127.2M should his superstar potential continue to materialize.

Simply stated, Yelich is an absurdly valuable MLB player; he’s about as valuable as it gets. What is fascinating about Yelich’s value is that one would expect that he is nearly untradeable because of his value. Basically, there is no single prospect who will ever be worth Yelich, and this is why the Marlins’ reported demand of Braves prospect Ronald Acuna (arguably the very top prospect in the game) was not ridiculous or even audacious. Thus, it should make sense that the Brewers traded three high-ceiling prospects and one intriguing pitching flyer for Yelich: where one prospect cannot exhaust the value of an MLB player, many prospects must be used to form a transaction worth completing.

Using historical OFP pricing, one can see that a prospect package of Brinson, Harrison, Diaz, and Yamamoto very nearly exhausts Yelich’s highest surplus pricing. This is not necessarily a problem, given that Yelich is such a valuable player one should not have (reasonably) expected anything lower. For example, once the Miami Marlins reached their threshold to fund their 2018 payroll, they could demand pure talent in return for Yelich, rather than talent and payroll relief. The “lowest” possible deal for Yelich, which would have priced the left fielder at his depreciated value over four years, would have roughly required Brinson and Diaz in return; but once the Marlins were able to demand talent alone, that type of price would not have been attainable by Milwaukee. Given that the Brewers had a deep farm system, especially at center field, the Brewers front office correctly ascertained that the Marlins would be pricing out Yelich at his highest possible value. With both Yelich and Lorenzo Cain sliding into outfield slots for five years, many have noted that the actual prospect hit is lessened for Milwaukee.

Of course, it must be stated that a player’s MLB potential ceiling is a dynamic phenomenon, and OFP only measures a player at one static point in time. Take Isan Diaz, for example; the second base prospect attained a higher OFP ranking entering the 2017 season, and a rough injury-riddled year dented that a bit. Jordan Yamamoto is almost impossible to price, as scouts that like the righty have recognized potential areas for the youngster to succeed as a rotation arm, but his development profile still carries a high amount of risk to reach that level. It is plausible that the Marlins priced out Diaz at a range potentially higher than the OFP published above, simply because his full prospect profile suggests that Diaz can once again reach that higher ceiling should he mend a few weaknesses as he reaches the advanced minors.

From the Brewers’ perspective, the front office surrendered much potential starpower, but they transferred all of the development risk to the Marlins. It should not be assumed that any of these prospects will be the same player in both locations: perhaps Lewis Brinson receives advice on a mechanical adjustment in Miami that the Brewers Player Development would have overlooked; perhaps each of these prospects receives enough time to adjust at the MLB level in the pressure-free environment of Miami, whereas a contending Milwaukee club may have had less patience for shortcomings at the MLB level.

Additionally, trading Brinson and Diaz essentially “completes” the Jean Segura deal, and realigns the Jonathan Lucroy deal. When I last checked in, the Segura trade remained Stearns’s worst deal (in terms of assessing day-of and post hoc surplus value), while the Lucroy deal remained his best.

Now these deals look like this:

It is nearly impossible to effectively apportion surplus from a four-player trade package across two previous trades, but the basic story is that Stearns has improved his trading record. By extending Chase Anderson and trading away Isan Diaz and Aaron Hill, Stearns has basically completed the Segura deal. In terms of the original Lucroy deal, the remaining player development task is Luis Ortiz, although the young righty is also prime trade potential due to his current innings pitched ceiling and flyball profile (36 percent groundball rate in 2017).

Photo Credit: Jeff Curry, USAToday Sports Images

Thanks to the stellar play of Jonathan Villar, however, most Milwaukeeans seem to be at peace with Segura’s success in the desert. Perhaps even more exciting than Villar’s unexpected breakout are the early returns of the prospect received as the centerpiece in the trade with Arizona – Class A Wisconsin infielder Isan Diaz.

Diaz was a second round pick in 2014 by current Brewers’ amateur scouting director Ray Montgomery during his final season in the same role with Arizona. After hitting .360/.436/.640 with 13 home runs and 12 steals en route to the Pioneer League MVP award in 2015, Diaz has kept up his hitting ways since joining the Brewers and making the jump to full season ball with Appleton.

The 20 year old infielder endured a slow start to the season, which isn’t uncommon during the colder conditions during the first months of Midwest League play, and shouldn’t have necessarily been unexpected for a player more than a year and a half younger than league average. But as the weather got warmer, so did the T-Rats left-handed hitting shortstop, who earned himself a spot in the Midwest League All-Star game.

With an 1.130 OPS during July, Diaz is now hitting a cool .268/.350/.477 through 99 games in 2016. He leads the Midwest League with 15 home runs, is tied for fourth with 26 doubles, and his .827 OPS ranks 13th-best in the league. Diaz isn’t a burner but is a smart baserunner who has added 10 steals to his ledger to boot, making him one of only three players in the league with 10+ home runs and steals this season.

Thanks to his outstanding production this season, Diaz is a prospect on the rise within the Brewers’ system and around baseball. BP recently included him in the list of next year’s candidates to be on the Top 101 prospect ranking, with Chris Crawford praising his “outstanding approach” at the dish. In that regard it is worth noting that Diaz is sporting a nifty 10.7 percent walk rate this season and his 46 free passes rank him tied for fourth in his league. Crawford goes on to note Diaz’s above-average power and that he has the potential for an above-average or better hit tool if he can cut down on his strikeout rate (currently 24.7 percent). Crawford does add that his strikeouts are more a function of his advanced approach than they are swing-and-miss tendencies.

Diaz has played mostly shortstop during his time in Wisconsin but most seem to feel that he’ll eventually have to move over to the other side of the infield, where his arm strength and range will play better at second base. He does have the potential to be an average to above-average defender at the keystone, but his bat should play no matter what position he settles in at. Diaz has all the tools to be an everyday-caliber player at the MLB level.

MLB Pipeline’s re-ranking of the Brewers top 30 prospects now has Diaz slotted in at number seven, a jump of four spots over where he began the season. Milwaukee currently has a total of five top-100 prospects according to their rankings, but Isan Diaz isn’t too far from joining that list.

I thought this also represented selling high; Segura’s offensive regression was worrisome (.265 TAv in 2013, .233 TAv in 2014, and .217 TAv in 2015) and driven by a dropping OBP. His stellar 2013 was even seen as partially a fluke as it was powered by a hot first half propping up an abysmal second half (.583 OPS post-All Star Break). Thus, in two years, Segura had gone from being a sure-fire All Star to a league-average shortstop who looked to be a well-below-average hitter.

But a funny thing happened this year: Segura has started hitting again. Through 79 games with Arizona, he has a .279 TAv, and it is being driven by a change in his approach.

The most obvious spike in his numbers is his BABIP. He has a .346 BABIP, which would be the highest of his career. It is possible for players to run BABIPs that high, but we generally see it from players who are very fast and hit a lot of ground balls. Segura runs well but is not among the league’s fastest players, and his ground ball rate this year is the lowest of his career. Therefore, it’s likely that at least some portion of that BABIP jump is luck.

However, it would be foolish to dismiss all of his improvement this year as luck, especially in light of the aforementioned change in his approach. The other, obvious way to see a BABIP increase is to simply hit the ball really hard so that it’s harder to catch, and a way to hit the ball harder is to just swing at better pitches. Segura is generally doing that.

The first step of that equation is his plate discipline, and Segura has gotten more patient this year. He is swinging at just 45.2 percent of pitches he sees, which is the lowest of his career and significantly lower than his 53 percent swing rate last year. Interestingly, he is swinging less frequently at pitches both in and out of the zone. The lower chase rate is clearly a positive, and his decision to swing at fewer pitches in the zone has worked well for him (although if one is letting hittable pitches pass, it can be a negative). Generally, this has worked because he is still swinging at pitches in the middle of the zone, as the charts below demonstrate (note how concentrated the middle of the strike zone is for 2016).

Once we establish that he has been more selective this year, we will want to check his exit velocity to see if he is in fact hitting the ball harder—and the Statcast graphs below demonstrate that he is, at least for pitches in the middle of the zone, which is what he is still swinging at.

This all reflects on the Brewers’ inability to get through to Segura. He had a below-average walk rate each year he was with Milwaukee, and the Brewers’ efforts to get him to improve his selectivity just didn’t work. At his best in 2013, he had approximately the same swing rate, but that did not last. In fact, as his selectivity worsened, so did his production.

If Segura turns out to be a legitimate All Star with the Diamondbacks in the same way that he looked to be one for his first few months as a Brewer, it would be a disappointment but not a disaster. First, it’s worth pointing out that Segura was excellent for his first few months in Milwaukee and then tailed off tremendously. It’s still possible that he does that in Arizona.

Second, some players need changes of scenery. From a developmental standpoint, it’s not great that the coaching staff appears to have lost the ear of one of their young players. One would prefer to see them really be able to connect with each key part of their young core. However, each player is different, Segura did look to be declining, and the return in the trade was reasonable.

Ultimately, if Segura has turned a corner, the Brewers development staff will not be thrilled with itself. The fact that someone else got through to him when they couldn’t does not portend well, although this could just be a blip on the radar.

Baseball Prospectus || Transaction Analysis: Segura-phobia (Feb. 1, 2016)

The Baseball Prospectus staff, led by Rian Watt (@rianwatt) and BP Milwaukee’s own Ryan Romano (@triple_r_) broke down last weekend’s trade between Milwaukee and Arizona, which sent shortstop Jean Segura and right-hander Tyler Wagner to Arizona for infielder Aaron Hill, righty Chase Anderson and infield prospect Isan Diaz. The BP mothership has some of the best analysis of major trades available on the web and it’s FREE, so make sure you check it out if you haven’t already. Watt, also found at BP Wrigleyville, provides the bulk of the analysis from the Arizona side, while Romano talks about the impact the two major leagues the Brewers got in the trade could have this season. Bret Sayre (@fantasyguru) also analyzes the trade from a fantasy perspective for both sides.

FanGraphs || The Brewers’ Quiet Upside Play (Feb. 1, 2016)

Heard enough about the Brewers’ trade this weekend? No? Of course not. Jeff Sullivan (@based_ball) offers his take on the deal, in which he praises Milwaukee for acquiring perhaps the least-talked-about player in the deal, Anderson. While many have discussed the potential of Diaz to offer long-term value to Milwaukee in this trade, Sullivan discusses the underrated potential of Anderson, who lacks the upside of a front-line starter but could absolutely provide value to the Brewers as a mid-to-back of the rotation starter for the next several years and might very well be a part of the next competitive Brewers team.

SB Nation || The teams built to win now, and the teams built to win later around baseball (Feb. 2, 2016) 

Grant Brisbee (@mccoveychron), noted creator of good #content and devotee of extra-long headlines, throws every team on his X-Y graph of “nope-should contend” and “window shutting-window opening.” Milwaukee is all the way over the the left on the X-axis, perhaps underestimating their chances this year a tiny bit — while they’re certainly not in a position to compete for a playoff spot in 2016, they should be better than last year and I don’t expect them to be a bottom-five team again. Brisbee also places the Brewers just to wrong side of the window closing/opening Y-axis, which I quibble with, now that Milwaukee’s farm system ranks among the league’s best. Brisbee places a stronger emphasis on major-league ready talent, however, which isn’t necessarily an incorrect take, since none of Milwaukee’s top prospects are slated for starting jobs on Opening Day.

Brew Crew Ball || Matt Garza and the $13 million shutdown (Feb. 4, 2016) 

Pinch hitting over at Brew Crew Ball, Kyle Lobner (@BrewFrostyMug) talks about one of the wrinkles in Matt Garza’s complicated deal that might have been the cause of the divide that widened between the 32-year-old hurler and the franchise. Click on over to Lobner’s article for the full rundown, but the tl;dr is that Garza has some serious ground to make up over the next two years to see the full value of his potentially $13 million option in 2018. When the issue of finances comes up the blame from the fans almost always falls squarely on the player for being selfish, but baseball is a business just like any other, and the owners are certainly not struggling to put food on their tables. While Garza’s performance certainly merited a demotion to the bullpen last year, if he believed that his contract situation played into the decision to pull him from the rotation, it’s not hard to understand why he was so upset — the five starts he missed down the stretch in 2015 could be monumental in determining the value of his option.

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

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

RHP CHASE ANDERSON

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

SS/2B ISAN DIAZ

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

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

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

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

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

2B AARON HILL

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

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

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

This process is especially applicable to the Brewers because the new front office won’t have any special connection with most of the team’s current players. Often, this phenomenon is described as teams being irrationally high on their own players, but it is actually much subtler than that. The reality is that the team that ends up with a player necessarily thinks more of him than other teams do in the first place. Thus, it is not simply that teams are loathe to trade players they have; instead, it is the fact that they thought highly enough of these players to acquire them in the first place that makes finding trade partners unlikely.

But with David Stearns now in place of Doug Melvin, the Brewers front office isn’t likely to fall victim to that. Where Melvin may have thought more highly of players such as Matt Garza and Francisco Rodriguez than did the rest of the industry, Stearns has no such compunction. He may be irrationally high on other players — as evidenced by the acquisition of his former player, Jonathan Villar — but those people are unlikely to have been with the Brewers before Stearns’ hiring.

The end result of this is that most of the veterans on this team are fair game to be traded, and some will almost certainly be dealt before spring training. Adam Lind, for example, is under contract for only this upcoming season and is therefore a virtual certainty to be traded soon. Ideally, the Brewers would probably prefer to trade him before Opening Day, as at that point he will still be eligible for the qualifying offer with his new team and thus (hopefully) have more trade value.

Milwaukee has three obvious veterans other than Lind, and each is in a different position. Matt Garza is a candidate to be traded at the deadline to a playoff team looking for starting pitching depth, but such a trade is heavily contingent on Garza pitching well enough in the first half of 2015 to have any value at all. After being a competent big leaguer in 2013 and 2014 (1.7 and 2.0 WARP, respectively), his disastrous 2015 that was highlighted by a 5.36 DRA destroyed any possibility of a preseason trade. The Brewers simply would not get enough back for him to make a deal worth their while.

Jonathan Lucroy, though, does have significant trade value. By any WAR metric, he has been one of the best catchers in baseball over the past few years, and he is on an extremely affordable contract: $4 million in 2016 and a $5.25 million team option in 2017. Those numbers would be a bargain for an average starting catcher, but Lucroy is significantly better than that. The problem with trading him, though, is that the Brewers will likely hope to begin competing again in 2017 — and such a hope is not ridiculous given the age of many of their top prospects — and Lucroy can still be on that future team. Additionally, his defensive skills are well-documented, and the Brewers may want him to help develop their young pitching. When that fact is combined with his contract, the team should hold onto him unless they are absolutely blown away by a trade offer.

Ryan Braun is the final veteran to be discussed here, and he is probably the most irrelevant as he is probably mostly untradeable. The 2011 Vernon Wells trade proves that no contract is unmoveable, but it is difficult to imagine finding a team that will want to pay a fading outfielder with no defensive value nearly $100 million for the next five years.

Of the team’s younger players, Jean Segura is undoubtedly the most interesting. Players such as Khris Davis or Scooter Gennett are mostly spare parts and could very well be moved but are unlikely to bring back huge returns (although it should be noted that Davis is more valuable than Gennett). Segura, though, is an average Major League shortstop who is not a free agent until 2019, which makes him valuable. Cost-controlled shortstops are attractive to most teams, not just contending ones, but the presence of Orlando Arcia and Jonathan Villar makes Segura expendable. If the Brewers can get the big offer for him that they undoubtedly expect, a trade makes perfect sense.

The final piece of the Brewers’ offseason trade plan is actually several different players: the bullpen. They do actually have a few good relief pitchers, and those are exactly the players they should look to trade. Relievers are volatile, and it is difficult to predict which will be good more than one year out. Therefore, given the fact that they do not expect to compete this year, they should listen to calls on everyone. Michael Blazek had a promising 2015, and Jeremy Jeffress may very well close in 2016. Will Smith, though, is the key piece. The lefty hasn’t posted a cFIP above 80 (where 100 is league average and lower is better) since 2012, and his 69 cFIP in 2015 was good enough for 17th in all of baseball among pitchers with at least 50 innings. The Brewers may be able to get a truly valuable prospect for such a talented pitcher, although they may have to wait until July.

Overall, this article is attempting to suggest that the Brewers should not be tied to many of the players on their current 25-man roster, and they are in fact unlikely to be very connected. The cornerstones of the next good Brewers team probably spent 2015 in Double-A, so unless the members of the current roster can be of value to those young players (like Lucroy), the Brewers should attempt to move them.

Sneed, a 23-year-old starting pitcher, is not a very exciting prospect. He has posted decent strikeout and walk numbers in the low minors, but he was drafted out of college and isn’t particularly young for his level. BP’s own Mauricio Rubio described him as a “backend profile for sure” in a chat earlier this year, which is valuable, but not franchise-defining in any way. Also, of course, young pitchers carry their own additional risk even beyond the uncertainties all prospects carry; an ill-timed injury or stagnated development is a far bigger problem for a pitcher than it would be for a position player.

Villar, on the other hand, is already a proven big leaguer. He’s not a star by any means: In roughly a season’s worth of plate appearances over the last three years (658), he has been worth a total of 2.0 WARP, which makes him roughly an average player. Also, he is just 24 years old, meaning that he is — at least in theory — on the upswing of his career. Admittedly, he isn’t likely to get substantially better, as scouting reports from as far back as 2011 question his ability to hit. Not to mention the fact that his minor-league numbers from each stop along the way support that idea (career .723 minor league OPS).

If one is looking to be optimistic, though, signs abound. His .270 TAv in (just) 128 plate appearances in 2015 was by far the highest of his career, and this number was supported (and likely buoyed) by a career-high contact percentage. For someone with his speed, simply putting the ball in play has some value. He has also proven to be roughly an average defensive shortstop, which is obviously not spectacular but is perfectly serviceable. His career FRAA of 1.0 does not make him a defensive standout but indicates that he is perfectly capable of remaining at the position.

This trade, though, is not so much about Villar the player as it is Villar the asset. He has proven that he can be a big-league shortstop, which is not really the case for anyone else on the Brewers’ roster other than Jean Segura. Elian Herrera may be counted on to start at third base or in left field and only has 91 innings at shortstop in the majors anyway, and Luis Sardinas has a career .688 OPS in the minors and .543 OPS in the majors. Thus, Segura was the only viable shortstop the Brewers really had prior to this point.

But acquiring Villar gives the Brewers a lot more flexibility. Orlando Arcia is on the verge of the Major Leagues, and the Brewers will want to give him the opportunity to earn playing time in 2015. They will not, however, want to force it upon him, and trading Segura this offseason without acquiring a backup may have done that. But not trading Segura would have made getting Arcia regular playing time far more difficult. After all, Segura is at this point a slight disappointment after the smashing start his career got off to, but he is still a young, league-average shortstop under team control through 2018, and the Brewers won’t want to squander some of his trade value by moving him to second base too early.

Villar, then, gives the Brewers some much-needed flexibility. They can keep Segura if no other team offers the right package, but they are not under any obligation to do so in order to protect Arcia. If the Brewers do unload Segura, Villar is a quality shortstop who can absolutely start for a couple months (or longer) without embarrassing himself until Arcia is ready. If the Brewers decide to hold onto Segura, Villar can be a backup or play second base.

Thus, perhaps an additional benefit to the trade is that it further marginalizes Scooter Gennett. A couple months ago, I wrote about how the young second baseman was simply not good enough to be a necessary part of the Brewers’ future, and this trade goes a long way to upgrading his roster spot. Villar is probably not the hitter Gennett is — although Gennett’s .233 2015 TAv may prove that statement false in the long run — but he provides much more defensive value simply by being able to play a competent shortstop. So even if Segura remains on the team and/or Arcia arrives in the big leagues to play shortstop every day, Villar can still be in the lineup or be a valuable bench player, which is not something that cannot be said for Gennett.

Overall, this trade is a bigger win for the Brewers than it initially seems on the surface, as Villar is not a hugely impactful player on the field. However, he is a good acquisition for a team that needs middle infield depth and flexibility. He will stabilize their big-league roster for the next couple years by providing a consistent up-the-middle bench option, and he also allows the new front office to be creative in terms of handling their more valuable shortstops in Segura and Arcia.

It has been noted that pitchers adjusted to him as early as the second half of 2013; however, there has been little discussion about the success and failure of his own adjustments. Now that he has logged three full seasons at the plate, this article will take a deeper look at Segura’s adjustments at the plate in relation to the approach pitchers have taken against him.

The 2013 season was Segura’s best offensive season. In 588 at-bats, Segura triple slashed .294/.329/.423 and posted the highest TAv of his career, .265. During that season, pitchers were pitching in the lower half of the strike zone, significantly pounding the zone low and away.

In fact, according to Baseball Savant, pitchers threw in the lower-left quadrant (catcher’s POV) 27.317 percent of the time. For right-handed batters, that tends to be where they are most vulnerable, which is why some manager’s are eager to play the righty-versus-lefty matchups. However, overall in 2013, this was not the case for Segura.

With pitches that landed in the lower-left quadrant, Segura took almost 50 percent for a ball. Cumulatively, 33.5 percent were a strike of some sort.

Not surprisingly, in 2014, pitchers continued to throw low-and-away to Segura; though, he would post the worst batting average of his career. Segura triple-slashed .246/.289/.326 and saw his TAv drop to .235 — a full thirty points below from the previous season. Looking at his batted-ball profile, it’s clear that there was a massive decrease in power. In fact, his ISO went from .129 in 2013 to .080 in 2014, affirmed by the increase in softly hit balls (16.7 percent in 2013 to 25.6 percent in 2014) and the simultaneous decrease in hard hit balls (28.9 percent in 2013 to 21.1 percent in 2014). However, simply looking at the numbers does not really explain why there was a decrease in power.

I took a cursory glance at Segura’s batting stance between the two seasons and noticed a significant difference. To limit the variables, I only looked at pitches that were only in the lower-left quadrant of the strikezone, roughly the same velocity and pitch, and resulted in a groundout.

Here is his stance and swing in 2013:

And here is his stance and swing in 2014:

There is a clear difference between the two at-bats. In 2013, Segura is in a semi-squat with his weight resting on the balls of his feet. Whereas in 2014, Segura is standing almost upright and it seems that his weight is resting on his back leg. Looking closer, there is also a difference in how he holds the bat. In the first still, Segura has the bat at an angle, almost resting on his shoulder. In the second frame, he is holding the bat vertically. Due to his compact stance in 2013, Segura was able to square up pitches that broke low and away with greater ease. Contrasted against his stance in 2014, we can see that he was forced to meet the ball lower in the strikezone towards the end of his swing. What were the results of the two at-bats? The result of the first frame was a sharply hit groundball to the opposing shortstop. The result of the at-bat in the second frame was a weakly hit chopper back to the mound.

Segura did make adjustments to his swing late in the season, and it paid off in the final month of the 2014 campaign.

While this may indicate that this examination of 2014 is not conclusive, it does shed some light as to why most of 2014 was disastrous for Segura.

Finally, we turn to this past season. In 2015, Segura posted numbers that were almost identical to 2014. He ended the season with a triple-slash line of .257/.281/.336 and an even lower TAv of .218. It appears that pitchers adjusted to Segura’s swinging tendencies as they had pitched to him in the strikezone’s lower-left quadrant 31.113 percent of the time. That is a huge increase from both 2013 (~27%) and 2014 (~25%). Unfortunately, there was an increase in swing rate and a simultaneous decrease in contact rate for pitches outside of the zone.

Further compounding this issue was the fact that of the pitches in the lower-left quadrant that resulted in a ball in play, only 21.2 percent were a hit while the remaining 78.8 percent resulted in an out. Interestingly, in 2015, the National League average for pitches thrown outside the strikezone was 55.2 percent. Meanwhile, Segura received 51.15 percent of pitches in the zone.  Pitchers were four percent more likely than average to throw to Segura in the zone. There was a noticeable drop in his walk rate this season that resulted from poor plate discipline; however, that does not account for the entirety of his lukewarm 2015 season. I’m curious to see what further research may discover.

If Jean Segura is around by the time the 2016 season starts, there are a few changes I hope he makes. The first change that will benefit him is a more consistent swing. Pitchers, when facing Segura, will continue to pound the zone low and away because it is effective. If he is able to find a stance and swing that will allow him to square up against pitches on the outside corner, he may be able to add a little more zip to the ball off the bat. It may force pitchers to change their attack. Second, regardless of what pitchers decide to do against him, Segura must improve his plate discipline. That is especially true if pitchers are offering less outside of the zone to Segura than they are to the rest of the league. His walk rate has never been something to admire, especially when compared to the league average. However, his shocking 2.2 percent walk rate in 2015 is downright unacceptable considering the league-average walk rate this year was almost four times as high.

If any changes are made to his mechanics and his approach at the plate, it is unlikely we will see the Jean Segura from the first half of 2013 if there is an improvement. However, any improvement from the last two years — even if it does not measure up to his first full season — would be a step in the right direction.

Since then, he has not lived up to the lofty expectations he established for himself in 2013. He has relied on his defense for his value, and he has been a well-below-average hitter each of the last two seasons. His .235 TAv in 2014 and .218 in TAv in 2015 are far below the league average mark of .260.

Even with that low offensive output, though, he has been a valuable player. He averaged about 3 WARP per season over the last two, which combines with his contract status to make him a shortstop that any team would like to have.

There are two problems for his future with Milwaukee, though. The first is that he is trending the wrong direction. His OBP has dropped all the way to .281, and his slugging percentage has stabilized at a very low .336. Additionally, his glove—which had provided so much of his value for the first couple years of his career—was a big disappointment in 2015.

Defensive metrics are admittedly volatile. His true talent is almost certainly somewhere between the 23 FRAA he put up in 2013 and 2014 and the 10 he posted in 2015, but defense does peak early. And considering that Segura was never known for his defense as a prospect, his 2013 and 2014 seasons could very feasibly be the outliers.

Orlando Arcia is the second problem. Segura gets his value from his defense and his positional adjustment. Neither would be as significant if he has to shift to second base to accommodate Arcia, which does seem like a plausible scenario. After all, Scooter Gennett got most of the playing time at second this year, and he was mostly just valuable as a high-contact platoon option.

Arcia, though, is coming off a strong minor league campaign in which he shot to the top of Brewers’ prospect rankings. While he could be held down until the Super 2 deadline next year, he seems likely to get the majority of the big league at bats at shortstop in 2016 after spending all of 2015 at Double-A and establishing that he has nothing left to prove.

The 21-year-old Arcia also has the higher upside. While Segura has already established himself as a solid major league shortstop, the unknown quantity is always more exciting—so the team will be hoping that Arcia develops into the true star that Segura simply isn’t. And, to further that end, they will not want Segura to stand in his way.

Thus, Segura’s future in Milwaukee is hazy. If he is forced to move to second, his value—both real and in the trade market—will drop. The new front office could foresee this problem and look to deal him this winter before the positional jam becomes an on-field issue, but a 68-win team trading one of its young, quality players seems unlikely. Therefore, perhaps the most likely outcome is Arcia being forced to actively take the job at spring training and then failing to do so through no fault of his own. He will then spend a portion of 2016 in the minors while the organization tries to figure out its issue.

On the surface, it seems like this bad a team having too many good, young shortstops is not actually a problem at all. The complicating factor, though, is that one of those players is good only because he plays shortstop.

At the end of the day, people typically want to see what they want to see out of the projections. This doesn’t only apply to the PECOTA projections but to most projections in sports. It’s typically an exercise in confirmation bias. If PECOTA says your team is going to do well, then you agree with it. If PECOTA says your team is going to be bad then you’re probably going to feel like PECOTA is wrong or flawed and will simply dismiss the results you see. This is generally speaking, of course.

PECOTA, though, is a fun tool. It usually comes out right before the season starts. It often times signals that after a long winter baseball is coming, and it’s a way to get the conversation started — the conversation of how your team is going to fair and how your favorite player is going to do. It’s a way to get baseball fans thinking and pumped up for the upcoming season.

But, the season now has come and gone. The temperature is dropping, the leaves are changing, and you can already feel the cold winds of winter coming.

The Brewers have had an unsuccessful season. If you’re reading this you probably already know this. You probably know this better than me; hell you probably know this so well your sick of knowing it. So, let’s look at how PECOTA did when projecting the Brewers this past year.

Before we dive into the players, let’s acknowledge that PECOTA thought the Brewers were going to be an average team. They had them projected for an 81-81, season, which would have had them finish third in their division and miss the playoffs.

The Brewers instead finished with a 68-94 record and, needless to say, missed the playoffs. Mainly, PECOTA thought the Brewers were going to be a decent offensive team with decent fielding. In both cases, PECOTA was wrong, especially in the hitting department, as the Brewers finished with the third worst True Average (TAv) in all of baseball.

A few notes before beginning. The player’s stats for those who played for multiple teams this season only includes what they performed while they were with the Brewers. Also, I only looked at players who PECOTA had projected to be with the Brewers this year. Meaning that a player had to start the season with the Brewers.

Let’s now look at how PECOTA did with the position players.

PECOTA was especially wrong with Jean Segura. It thought Segura would produce plus defense, which according to FRAA he did, with an average bat. Segura did not have an average bat this year, unfortunately for the Brewers. His .218 was the worst of his career and ranked 41st out of 55 shortstops.

PECOTA, though, didn’t just have optimistic projections for Segura, but for most of the Brewers core players. It was actually too high on Braun, Gomez, Gennett, and Davis. For most of the group, PECOTA overestimated how well they would hit. For Gomez, however, the projection system overestimated his base running and defensive performance. It thought Gomez would finish with a BRR of 1.8; instead he finished with a BRR of zero. Gomez, though, as was the case for most of the Brewers core, dealt with many injuries throughout the year, which is probably a major factor in them underperforming their projections.

Adam Lind, on the other hand, considerably outperformed his projections. It has been well noted on this site and on others how Lind has had a quality season. He’s been able to stay relatively healthy all year and has provided good production on defense. A task that few knew he could accomplish. But, what has made Lind so successful this year is his continued excellence against right-handed pitching, which has allowed him to well over perform his PECOTA projections and make himself a desirable trade chip this winter.

Let’s now look at the pitching side.

The big two that PECOTA really overestimated was, to no one’s surprise, Kyle Lohse and Matt Garza. Both pitchers posted some of the worst numbers of their career’s including ERA’s well over five. And considering the current pitching environment, the Brewers simply can’t have that type of production from one, let alone two of their main starters. Lohse, near the end of the season, actually found himself in the bullpen. Garza, on the other hand, was allowed to finish the season away from the team — although the Brewers might look to move him and his contract next year.

The other starter that really hurt the Brewers was Willy Peralta. PECOTA wasn’t exactly high on Peralta to begin, but it didn’t envision him posting a negative WARP. His season was mostly hampered due to a strained left oblique, which caused him to miss almost nine weeks of the season. But Peralta’s biggest and continued problem has been his inability to strikeout hitters, this year averaging 4.97 SO/9. Usually, while pitchers who throw with higher velocities tend to strikeout more hitters, this isn’t the case for Peralta and needs to become the case if he wants to have continued success in the big leagues.

The Brewers’ pitching staff was truly awful at the beginning of the year, but key young pitchers started making considerable strides as the season progressed. Mainly, Jimmy Nelson and Taylor Jungmann who both outperformed their PECOTA projections.

Nelson was called up last year, and in his 69.3 innings pitched, he struggled to find his footing as a big league starter. This year, he’s made significant improvements, adding a curveball, but more importantly increasing the movement on his slider. These types of adjustments have allowed Nelson to significantly outperform his PECOTA projections, more than any other pitcher on the Brewers.

As for Taylor Jungmann, the main problem with his projections was that he didn’t pitch in the big leagues in 2014. This allowed him to sneak under PECOTA’s, and most Brewers fans, radar. It also allowed him to become one of the best stories in 2015. A top draft pick that was often seen as an afterthought in the Brewers farm system rose up and had one of the best pitching rookie seasons in 2015.

As for the bullpen, the one that clearly stands out is Michael Blazek. The Brewers, in years past, have had bad bullpens. It was often seen as a wrench in the team’s success. This year, however, it became the Brewers’ biggest asset and Blazek’s emergence was one of the main reasons why.

In reality, the problem for the Brewers wasn’t simply that three of their main starters underperformed their projections, although it certainly didn’t help. The core of their offense underperforming their projections was actually the biggest culprit in the Brewers poor season. Most of those players got injured or got off to bad starts and then were never able to recover in time for the Brewers to turn thing’s around.

That being said, this might all be for the best. Another mediocre season could have prompted the Brewers to stand pat and do nothing. Now, the Brewers appear to have a clear and coherent plan to rebuild, and the organization can finally move forward with a new chapter.