Stearns just loudly answered that question this trade deadline.

What is fascinating about each of these trades is that they are fantastic in the sense of bolstering an MLB roster, in order to ensure that this stretch run features as few weaknesses as possible, while also potentially being over-pays in each case. Yet it should be stressed that these overpays are palatable for several reasons: the Brewers maintain a largely controllable roster that is also relatively inexpensive; the Brewers have a relatively large set of players that have been minor leaguers long enough to need potential 40-man roster protection entering 2019; and, perhaps most importantly, there is an incredible amount of role risk involved with each player. These trades should provide grounds for further analysis into when and how potential overpays are helpful to a team, and they should certainly provide further evidence that WARP/$ is not the sole determination of a trade’s potential value or impact.

Grading the System: 2016 || 2017

• Make no mistake about it, in terms of developing multiple quality pitches, command, and velocity, Luis Ortiz could potentially have the best pitching role for the Brewers system; there was a time, two years ago even, where it would not have been absurd for Ortiz to fight for a top tier pitching role in the prospect ranking cycle (and, really, it was not absurd). But Ortiz has been around forever in the advanced minors, it seems, without working full seasons. For example, the injury-fighting righty has 225 innings at Double-A without working 100 innings in a season, and with 68 innings at the 2018 deadline he could potentially miss 100 innings once again. If Ortiz can take his next step forward in the Orioles’ system, he is absolutely a more valuable asset, in terms of roster surplus, than Jonathan Schoop (and it is not close!!!), but that strong 60 Overall Future Potential (OFP) / 50 likely grade entering 2017 looks much more improbable. Ortiz is eligible for the Rule 5 draft for the 2019 season and almost certainly must be protected by the Orioles.

• Jean Carmona just made the jump stateside for the Brewers in 2018, and thus remains a full four levels away from the MLB. Additionally, Carmona might even be another year away from a clearly defined MLB potential role. In this regard, I do not envy the job of MLB scouts and analytics personnel, as it’s not entirely clear for me how I would price Carmona’s potential future value in terms of long-term systemic development.

• At BP Milwaukee, Kyle Lesniewski describe the roles and risks associated with both Kodi Medeiros and Wilber Perez. Medeiros could become an impact reliever at the MLB level, and it’s not unlikely that some observers still believe that he could start in some capacity, as there will always be hold outs for that sort of role. Given Medeiros’s delivery and command profile, however, as well as his fastball, Lesniewski outlines the difficulties that Medeiros may have for reaching even an impact reliever profile. Medeiros is eligible for the Rule 5 draft entering the 2019 season, and almost certainly must be protected by the White Sox, while Perez had yet to play stateside in the Brewers system.

• Finally, I already detailed the roles and surplus value for Brett Phillips and Jorge Lopez, so I will not go into too much detail here. However, I will add that of each of the prospects included in this midseason deals, Phillips is arguably the most likely to have MLB floor and ceiling roles that both surpass the value of the trade return (which is not a knock against Mike Moustakas, he simply might only be in Milwaukee for a couple of months). With a prospect such as Corey Ray coming on strong in Double-A Biloxi, not to mention the considerable development of Troy Stokes Jr. at the advanced level as well, Milwaukee cannot necessarily lose sleep over trading away a depth outfielder from their stacked group when they are fighting a close divisional deficit and leading the National League Wild Card race.

So, readers will witness a couple of recurring facts in these trades: the Brewers largely traded away players that must be protected for 2019 to avoid their loss via the Rule 5 draft, or players with little-to-no stateside development experience (and thus years to reach MLB), and/or players with roles that may be replicated within a year. One need not believe that a player like Stokes will surpass Phillips, in terms of overall ceiling, to see the value of the young prospect’s potential to fill an MLB depth position in 2019. Phillips himself may not have had an opportunity in 2019 to take such a role. The same logic might apply to Quintin Torres-Costa and Bubba Derby. This should not be construed to mean that these current system prospects are categorically better than Phillips / Medeiros / Lopez; in fact, I would have ranked each of that trio ahead of their potential 2019 depth replacements. But once again, since systemic development, contending windows, and player development cycles are now orbiting a club that is contending for consecutive seasons (and the foreseeable future, hopefully), if it costs system depth roles to improve MLB weaknesses, the Brewers have to eat the risk of losing those ceilings.

I like when MLB trades can simply be called good baseball moves. For all the rebuilding narratives in Baltimore, Kansas City, and Chicago, the White Sox, Royals, and Orioles front offices arguably made sensible trades with quality returns that both have long and short time horizons and development cycles. Milwaukee is working as a true contender without trading from their most elite potential prospect stash. This is good all around.

Stearns priced out these converging development cycles and adroitly moved the future role risk to address an offense that absolutely needed help for a serious contending run. Just the other day I wrote, “At worst, Travis Shaw has simply begun a potential shift over to the right side of the infield, where he might serve as a viable first base option for 2019 should the Brewers and Moustakas exercise his mutual option for 2019,” without thinking that a realistic move to first base for Shaw could occur as early as this week. Now, with Jonathan Schoop in the mix for second base and Jesus Aguilar slumping, Shaw becomes a strong side platoon option at 1B to form a serious infield unit:

This infield could open 2019 should Stearns consider keeping both Moustakas and Schoop, and now the talk can turn to development cycles once more. While the Brewers continue to season second baseman Keston Hiura at the most advanced levels of the minor leagues, Schoop basically serves as an upgrade over the Jonathan Villar gamble (gambling that he’ll return to his 2016 form), thus giving the Brewers a quality starting option while Hiura completes his minor league development. While Hiura’s bat is arguably ready for the MLB, and has been mentioned as a potential MLB option by Baseball Prospectus in their latest Top 50 list, the infielder may need more work in the field after missing significant fielding development time due to an extended elbow injury. Once Hiura is ready in 2019, a Schoop / Hiura mix simply extends the #TeamDepth mantra, and the same can arguably said for the remainder of the infield.

Entering 2018, the Brewers system took a step back in terms of organizational rankings, due to a series of developmental setbacks for key prospects, MLB graduations, and trades. I began to highlight this during last year’s “Grading the System” feature, but as one can never predict baseball, the development cycles and potential OFP assessments calibrated for Corey Ray, Keston Hiura answered a crucial risk question (can he play 2B?), and a veritable gang of pop-up pitchers continued to march upward in the system, potentially boosting and extending the no-name, depth-oriented pitching staff into 2019. Make no mistake about it, the system might continue to rank in the middle of the league in terms of overall quality, and the set of clear potential impact roles (true 60 OFP+ roles) may end with Keston Hiura and Corey Ray should Corbin Burnes exhaust his rookie standing through the end of 2018.

Yet, given the instant development of 2018 First Round draft pick Brice Turang, the Brewers could demonstrate that they indeed nabbed an Elite Prep prospect that fell due to prospect fatigue. Turang could quickly help to boost the top of the system as an MLB potential role falls into place. Moreover, given the Brewers’ expanded efforts in International signings, as well as the quality use of signing bonus allocations in each of the last two MLB drafts, the lower minors could continue to host a variety of players that suddenly surge onto the prospect scene. While this does not make the Brewers system different than many other MLB systems, it provides a road map to how the club can continue to develop talent while contending. One could argue that it’s absurd to suggest that the Brewers “rely” on someone like Turang falling in the MLB draft, but this is exactly the type of prospect perception and role foresight that the Brewers must have if they are going to succeed while drafting in the bottom half of each round.

Of course, the notable graduations from the system should not be undersold as well. Now there are so many starters, depth roles, and trades from the Brewers prospect stock that I added a new category this year:

Now, with these graduates in mind, what does a somewhat thinner, but still rather interesting Brewers system look like?

Prospect Key
Top 10 Consideration
Top 30 Consideration
[Just Interesting]

Of course, it is also worth emphasizing how the system has been….decimated in key areas. Given the quick development by advanced prospects acquired from the major 2015-2016 trades, as well as the huge trades entering 2018 and during the recent deadlines, the pool of potential impact prospects acquiring via trade has waned:

This is an important category to consider simply because Milwaukee demonstrated how adroit trades could quickly rebuild a system and reform an MLB roster. It will be worth watching to see if the Stearns continues to attempt to find Jonathan Villar and Keon Broxton types via trade now that the club is solidly contending. Of course, one could argue that Stearns is always trying to find this player (be it Oliver Drake, or Jesus Aguilar, or even Alec Asher), but that it simply the fact that these players will not always come via trade.

Thanks to the mechanical corrections, good health, and overall development of Corey Ray, as well as the surging role of Troy Stokes Jr., the development of draft prospects arguably has a better outlook entering 2019 than it did prior to 2018. Given the advancement of Corbin Burnes into a relief role, Brandon Woodruff and Taylor Williams into respective swingman and depth relief roles, and Brett Phillips into a fourth outfielder, it is clear that the Brewers front office is considering all possible role developments with each player (rather than following a cookie cutter model, or a model in which each prospect must immediately receive playing time in their clearest future role). It is arguable that this type of development strategy could maximize roles ranging from Stokes to Zack Brown, Jake Gatewood, and maybe even Lucas Erceg.

Meanwhile, Milwaukee signed a couple of additional potential impact International Amateur free agents this July, continuing an attempt to build up the low minors. Carlos Rodriguez and Larry Ernesto are already making some noise in the Dominican Summer League, while prospects like Jose Sibrian and Jesus Lujano have made the leap stateside.

Frankly, this Brewers system will not look as strong, in terms of potentially elite impacts roles, as the one that received ranking for 2018 at Baseball Prospectus. Yet, as new cycles of player development depth emerge in the low minors, and the Brewers continue their unique form of MLB roster construction (clearly using all 40 roster spots for MLB-adjacent roles and frequently shuffling those roles), Milwaukee could be an organizational well-suited to do more with less. For if 2017 fired the opening shot that the Brewers can contend simply based on giving high floor players a chance to work in the MLB, 2018 is advancing that ideal and carrying it to deeper logical, promotional, and transactional extensions.

Photo Credit: Gary A. Vasquez, USA Today Sports Images

In May, his batting average stayed basically the same (.275), but he added the power that had been missing from his game.  In Villar’s fantastic 2016 season, the middle infielder slugged .457, which was far above his career levels.  Last year, that number dropped all the way to .372, so the fact that his May slugging percentage (SLG) was .449 was encouraging.  That jump in power resulted in a .787 OPS in May.

June’s numbers look poor on the surface.  Villar is hitting just .230 this month, and his SLG is .410; while it is certainly an improvement from his bad season last year, it is not quite at the levels at which he is most successful.  His OPS this month is .675, which feels about right: Villar has not been as bad as he was in April, but he’s been worse than he was in May.

However, there are signs that the second baseman has in fact turned his season around.  Villar’s June batting average on balls in play (BABIP) is .289, which is far below his career .345 mark.  BABIP fluctuates within a season, but a player’s career number generally represents what one can expect their true BABIP talent to be. So even though .345 would normally be considered abnormally high, Villar may actual be able to produce that number consistently.  In fact, his overall season BABIP this year is .360.  Thus, the fact that his batting average dropped in June can be attributed at least in part to his lower BABIP.

Villar’s swing-and-miss numbers also haven’t changed, which indicates that he is making about the same amount of contact but the ball just isn’t falling.  This suggests that the lower BABIP is in fact the cause of his worse June performance.

Further proof that Villar is in fact hitting better is that his isolated slugging percentage (ISO) in June is higher than it was in May.  SLG is partially dependent on batting average, but ISO removes batting average, and all of its associated BABIP vagaries, and just demonstrates how many of Villar’s hits have been for extra bases.  In April, when his batting average was astoundingly empty, Villar’s ISO was .047; in May and June, it has been .174 and .180.  He is in fact driving the ball better, and that is making him a productive hitter.

Villar’s value on the field is tied to his power at this point in his career.  Fielding Runs Above Average (FRAA) has never considered him a great defender, even at his mark of 4.6 FRAA in 87 games in 2014. Thus Villar’s value has been driven by his bat.  And he walks some, with a career 8.8 percent walk rate that is above the major league average of 8 percent, but his career .256 batting average isn’t particularly great either.  For him to be a valuable offensive player, he has to hit for power.

This season, Villar’s.126 ISO is still below MLB’s league average for second basemen of .141.  His batting average (.260) and OBP (.307), however, are right around the league marks (.248 and .309, respectively).  And yet, Villar has been a below-average hitter, as he has thus far posted a .255 True Average (TAv), and his negative defensive value has made him a replacement-level player in 2018.  Shockingly, this is in fact worse than he was last year when he posted 0.8 WARP (although his negative value this year is due to defense, and partial-season defensive metrics are more unreliable than their offensive counterparts).
What this has generally demonstrated, however, is that Villar needs to hit for power to be valuable.  He has begun to do that, though.  His April was quite bad in this respect, so his season-long numbers are still unimpressive.  But in the last seven weeks or so, he is now hitting for power.  If that continues, he may be serviceable at second base so that the club can survive with him in the lineup if a replacement does not arrive via trade.

Photo Credit: Benny Sieu, USA Today Sports Images

Baseball Prospectus: Milwaukee Brewers Team Audit

Make no mistake about it, Brewers fans and analysts, this is a trap. It’s so easy to polish off phenomenal expectations at a time like this, and rejoice that the Brewers get to play an apparently easier stretch of schedule entering the break. But the team is experiencing some injuries of attrition in the field, just as the offense has finally produced a stretch of 30 games averaging better than 2018 NL / Miller Park runs scored (more on that later). The rotation has done a fantastic job, as has the elite bullpen, which are only getting attention due to a couple of recent blow-ups and blown leads….mostly occurring in games where the batters still cannot get it together.

So in honor of this schedule, which is certainly a trap, let’s have some fun with 21 statistics that are neither here, there, nor anywhere for what will certainly Attrition Central for #TeamDepth. If the Brewers can escape this stretch of play with a 9-12 record, that’s probably correction enough for the run differentials and a sign that the war of attrition did not go terribly wrong.

Ten
Ryan Braun is having a somewhat tough year balancing some new fielding assignments, relatively part time play, nagging injuries once again, and hard-hit batted balls with relatively bad luck. But it’s not all bad for the face of the franchise: in 9.7 percent of his plate appearances, Braun has hit for extra bases (12 doubles, one triple, and eight home runs). By comparison, the average National League bat hits for extra bases in approximately 7.6 percent of plate appearances.

Twelve
For the season, much has been made of the Brewers batters’ ten shutouts. In fact, this is quite an important number for Milwaukee batters, as the total Runs Scored “zero” has appeared more frequently than all but one run total: two runs.

For the 2018 campaign, the Brewers have scored two runs more frequently than any other outcome by the offense. What’s worse is that this number is not really accompanied by very good run totals, either; five runs is very nice, and it’s good to see that number tied with “0” for second place, but after that both of “3” and “1” are below average run totals.

Sixteen
For all the criticisms that Brewers baserunners have faced for their aggressive style over the years, it seems that the exceptional baserunning performance of Milwaukee has mostly escaped fan consciousness. Undoubtedly this is due in part to the fact that the Brewers are not scoring runs at an average clip. But, according to Baseball Prospectus Baserunning Runs, the Brewers are the third best team in the MLB in terms of baserunning production. Translating this to stolen bases, Lorenzo Cain leads the team with 16 steals in 19 attempts, ahead of Jonathan Villar (10 / 12), Christian Yelich (9 / 10) and Ryan Braun (7 / 9). In fact, Milwaukee is the second best team in the National League in terms of stolen bases (58 of 71 attempts). Run, run, run!

Twenty
Only the New York Mets have attempted fewer sacrifice bunt attempts than the Brewers in 2018. Milwaukee has attempted 20 bunts thus far, with successful sacrifices 14 times; this is good for a success rate that is higher than the league average. Ironically, for the lack of runs scored, Milwaukee is not only a great base running team, but they are also posting average or better situational hitting statistics according to Baseball Reference. This occurs across categories: sacrifice bunts, productive outs, baserunners scored, and advancing baserunners (with less than two outs at third base and zero outs at second base). The problem for the Brewers is simply that they do not get enough batters on base frequently enough…

Thirteen
….and when the Brewers do get baserunners on, their tendency to hit ground balls results in the highest percentage of ground ball double plays in the National League (13 percent of GIDP opportunities). This is notably worse than the NL average of double plays produced in ten percent of opportunities. So much for strike outs being a bad thing!

Four
One wonders if the defensive flexibility of the ballclub might actually explain some of the troubles the club has in terms of scoring runs…the Brewers only have four players with more than 50 starts at one position (Lorenzo Cain and Travis Shaw lead as the most regular regulars with 70 starts, followed by Villar (55) and Arcia (53) in the middle infield). Jesus Aguilar does not even have 50 starts at first base this year; Christian Yelich’s most regular position is left field…for 32 games, and catcher and right field have also been impacted in the games started department (probably due to the respective performances of Manny Pina and Domingo Santana more than strategy).

I was certainly in the camp that expected defensive flexibility to be a strength for these Brewers, and I certainly do not think it is a downright liability given the performance of the fielders. But given the performance of the offense, I think it is worth questioning whether flexible defensive roles have an impact on batting performance for these players.

Nine
Why are the Brewers pitchers so good? Their groundball percentage is fading to the middle of the pack, minimizing their ability to produce double plays as well. However, Milwaukee arms excel at limiting fly balls, and their 9.46 percent pop-up rate is the best in the MLB according to Baseball Prospectus.

Five
For all the rumblings about the Brewers relief pitching hitting their regression to the mean, it’s worth noting that the pitchers are not terribly far above average in some stats to begin with. For instance, the Brewers rank fifth in the National League with 32 percent of their Inherited Runners Scored, despite inheriting fewer runners than the league average (100 versus 106 for the typical NL team). This is an indication of how the club is quite good with inherited runners scored, but not necessarily perched atop the league.

4.3 at 23
It’s too bad that the Brewers pitchers are not yielding more ground balls, because Orlando Arcia remains one of the best shortstops in baseball despite his lack of playing time. Arcia has the fewest games played of any SS in the Top 10 for Fielding Runs Above Average. Yet, the 23-year old glove-first fielder ranks sixth in FRAA with his 4.3 mark. Another statistic worth remembering: at 23, Arcia is tied for Carlos Correa as the youngest elite defensive shortstop, and among shortstops with at least 60 games only Ahmed Rosario of the Mets is younger (but he’s nowhere near as good defensively). If you like more straightforward statistics, according to Baseball Reference Arcia remains one of the very best MLB shortstops with 10 Defensive Runs Saved; only Freddy Galvis and Addison Russell are better in the NL.

Second Best at .336
Jesus Aguilar is having a fantastic season, boasting a .336 True Average (TAv) and 1.4 FRAA. That offensive performance is second only to Freddie Freeman among first basemen with 60 or more games played.

One
For their fantastic pitching staff, the Brewers only have one player in the top ten percent of all MLB, in terms of Wins Above Replacement Player (WARP). That player is lefty high leverage reliever Josh Hader, ranked as 40th (!) with 1.54 WARP. No full-time reliever ranks higher, and only one pitcher better than Hader is younger (Jack Flaherty).

Ten
Many Brewers fans are suggesting that the club needs an ace in their pitching rotation. When I host chats on BPMilwaukee Twitter (@BPMilwaukee), the most common questions since the off season typically concern the quality of the MLB rotation. Throwing out the extremely advanced stats, let’s look at games started and ERA+ (a contextual assessment of Earned Runs Average). Here we are, half way through the season, and only ten clubs have at least three starters with 10 GS and an ERA at or above league average: the Red Sox, Cubs, Cleveland, Tigers, Astros, Angels, Mets, Cardinals, Nationals, and Brewers.

Seventeen / 40 Percent
If you’re interested in an ace, though, using the colloquial definition of someone who can lead a rotation in terms of performance and starts, who would be better than Jhoulys Chacin? Sorting all MLB starting pitchers by games started and ERA+, Chacin meets the strongest definition of good performance in a heavy workload.

Of course, including advanced contextual statistics, it is worth questioning whether the club will see some course correction from the starting pitchers. Here, Junior Guerra’s 4.69 DRA is the best among Brewers starters with at least 60 innings pitched. That’s good for 71st in the MLB. Yet, once Guerra is working between the lines, his splitter remains one of the best in the game at inducing swings-and-misses; thus far Guerra is yielding nearly 40 percent whiffs-per-swing on the split (only slightly lagging his 2016 performance that put that pitch on the map).

Thirteen / Forty-Three
Overall, the Brewers pitching rotation forms quite a strong unit: the club’s starting pitchers have 13 Runs Prevented as a group. This performance helps the team maximize a phenomenal bullpen, as the Brewers can frequently keep the game close. With a bullpen that has prevented 43 runs, the starting pitchers are often handing close games to relief pitchers that are ready to help convert those games into wins.

Six
When is a better than average offense not really that good? Over the last 30 games for the Brewers, it turns out! Those big ticket runs totals against Philadelphia have gone a long way toward improving Milwaukee’s season long offensive figures….

….but for all that, over the last 30 games the most frequently Runs Scored total for the Brewers has declined from the season leading 2 RS. Twenty percent of the Brewers’ games since they returned from Minnesota have ended with 1 RS for Milwaukee. If you missed seeing 2 RS, do not worry, for that remained the second most frequent run total over that time.

Seventeenth in Right
Domingo Santana is a tough player to figure out right now. If someone had told Brewers fans that the right fielder would have -2.6 FRAA roughly halfway through the season, most would have expected that he would be in the running for one of the most valuable right fielders in the MLB. Alas, in True Average (TAv), Santana’s mark of .259 (i.e., roughly league average) ranks 17th of 24 MLB RF with 60 or more games played.

Fourteen
Perhaps Lorenzo Cain is able to produce so many stolen bases in part because he’s on first base so frequently: the Brewers Center Fielder is drawing walks in 13.8 percent of his plate appearances!

Nineteen (Two)
Without park adjustment, across the 2018 MLB the Brewers’ offense currently ranks 19th in terms of Runs Scored. Their pitching staff currently ranks 2nd in terms of Runs Allowed.

Photo Credit: Jeff Hanisch, USA Today Sports Images

Yet, there are many shortcomings with the 2018 Brewers, for all their strengths. The difficulty with quantifying the shortcomings for this team, however, is that they are not strategic shortcomings. In 2018, the shortcomings of the roster are shortcomings borne of development cycles and the long paths necessary to build extended MLB success from young players, or players seeking to establish their respective careers. The former category suits both Domingo Santana and Orlando Arcia, and to a lesser extent Jorge Lopez, Brandon Woodruff, and Zach Davies; the latter category suits players like Manny Pina, and to a lesser extent Brent Suter. These players challenge the long-term development goals of the Brewer given the extremely successful start to the 2018 season, but it is not an overstatement to write that each of these reserve-controlled contracts are significant assets to the Brewers organization and crucial for future success to the degree that they can build consistent MLB roles. This difficult development scenario is compounded when one realizes that pitching prospects Freddy Peralta and Corbin Burnes could also factor into second half plans for the Brewers, as well as depth position players like Jacob Nottingham and Brett Phillips.

Looking back on 2017, it’s easy to see that the Brewers could have solved their midseason shortcomings in a transactional manner. The club did not even need to make an impact starting pitching move, but could have used waiver claims or depth trades to bolster a rotation that was hit with midseason injuries and wearing thin (much more thin than the 2018 rotation, by the way). With the success of youngsters in 2017, their roster concerns were not development-oriented. Looking forward to the finish line in 2018, it is much more difficult to simply fix a transactional ideology to the Milwaukee roster issues. Simply stated, the Brewers need to prove their ability to help young players through adjustments at the MLB level, which is applicable to both Santana and Arcia. Both Arcia and Santana are crucial members of our beloved Milwaukee Nine despite their diverse scouting roles and tools. But this development decree also extends to the refinement of roles for Lopez and Woodruff in the pitching staff, as well as questions about clearing space for Peralta and Nottingham, let alone Burnes and Phillips. The Brewers can bolster their midseason 2018 club by doubling down on their player development approach at the MLB level, and giving players the space to make adjustments at the MLB level.

Related to this question about the Brewers’ ability to develop young players at the MLB level, it is worth asking whether a “rebuilding effort” was necessary to create this Brewers team. Or rather, are the Brewers succeeding “but for” their rebuilding efforts by previous President Doug Melvin and GM Stearns? Here’s a look at top Milwaukee players by WARP and acquisition:

What is fascinating about the 2018 Brewers is that despite the “branding” of the so-called rebuilding effort, a “rebuild” is hardly stamped on this team. 5.6 WARP of the team leaders could have been acquired by nearly any MLB team, through a purchase (i.e., a trade for cash) or MLB free agency. 0.7 WARP belongs to the MLB amateur draft, meaning that there is no high draft pick from a rebuilding season boosting this club (a la the “classic” scorched earth Cubs and Astros efforts); it’s even debatable whether one could call Corey Ray (picked Fifth overall) and Keston Hiura (picked Ninth overall) true “rebuilding” draft picks (in other words, a team does not “tank” to draft fifth overall). At best, one might argue that the Brewers’ 2016 record helped them gain favorable position to land Jesus Aguilar, allowing Milwaukee’s front office to build their #TeamDepth strengths.

The trades on this list are most interesting, though; the trades by both Melvin and Stearns form a spectrum ranging from “rebuilding” to “organizational depth” to “extended win-now,” and everything in-between.

• The move to acquire Josh Hader was most certainly a “rebuilding” move, by which I mean that Melvin traded away MLB contracts for minor league prospects.

• The move to acquire Christian Yelich was most certainly the opposite of a rebuilding move, as Stearns traded away four minor league prospects for an MLB contract, but it’s not quite a “win now” move as Yelich’s age and contract keep that window open for years. Yet in another sense this trade could certainly not have happened without rebuilding efforts, as acquisitions involving Lewis Brinson and Isan Diaz were necessary to eventually land Yelich.

• Meanwhile, the Tyler Thornburg – Travis Shaw transaction is arguably a textbook “counterbuilding” move in which Milwaukee and Boston swapped positions of MLB surplus (or, lack of need); it was not a classic rebuilding move, as Shaw was acquired to become the starting MLB 3B. That Boston somehow also included prospects in the deal is icing on the cake.

• Finally, the latest Jeremy Jeffress acquisition was a classic organizational depth trade.

Were these 10 players the ones you expected to lead the Brewers to contend for the 2018 NL Central crown? (I gather it’s an interesting mix of “Yes” and “No,” but I personally find this list endlessly fascinating. #YouCantPredictBaseball).

But are these WARP leaders truly the fruits of a rebuilding effort? One could argue that rebuilding should not have a transactional form, as I’m using the term, but instead should denote a phase in a club’s development cycle (a “spatial” form). In this regard, acquisitions like Eric Thames or Travis Shaw may not have technically been rebuilding moves, but they would have been less likely to occur by a true win-now club on a contending cycle since they required a certain “space to play” and “room to fail,” or room to find an MLB role. (This is the spatial role of rebuilding that many have argued is a valuable aspect of the MLB development cycle.) The same could be said about the MLB development of Jacob Barnes, or even, inexplicably, the development of Jesus Aguilar. Yet, in this regard, these spaces of rebuilding were rather shallow, as key development players like Pina, Santana, and even Chase Anderson and Jonathan Villar have struggled since their major breakthroughs. This is not a criticism of the players, for development cycles are long and each of these players could find success in their next turn. For example, Villar is already coming around for the 2018 Brewers, for instance, completely silencing the need for a 2B trade, while Chase Anderson is ironing out mechanical issues and potentially rebounding.

Following the spatial definition of rebuilding, then, one can completely reverse course and argue that the Brewers have mess less incentive to make large trades in 2018 than they did in 2017.

• The 2017 club ironically may have featured players have simultaneous peak years, or at least peak role surges: Jimmy Nelson (now injured), Chase Anderson (now mechanically repaired?), Orlando Arcia (needs to adjust), and Domingo Santana (needs to adjust) were worth 15.1 WARP in 2017, a production level that will almost certainly not return in 2018 (they are currently valued at -0.7 WARP [!!!]). The Brewers are never guaranteed to have that combination of elite defense, strong offensive production, and top rotation pitching again from this quartet, not in the same year. Even if each of these players settles into regular MLB roles, they may have reached peak production last year.

• (A counterargument could be made that given the Brewers’ production of Lorenzo Cain, Christian Yelich, Travis Shaw, Josh Hader, and Jeremy Jeffress, the 2018 window features at least five performances that may not occur again. I believe these roles are different than those of Nelson and Anderson, or even Arcia and Santana. Yelich, Cain, and even Jeffress have more established MLB success, and their time horizons with the club arguable improve the chances that this type of success could occur again. In fact, someone like Yelich could even improve. One could also argue that the Brewers should not waste this opportunity to win with an elite bullpen; I am much more sympathetic to that position.)

• So, it’s worth questioning whether more urgency for a roster-improving transaction was necessary in 2017 than 2018, when the club is already succeeding and can take a chance at continuing the development cycle with each of these players, or other organizational depth roles.

• Following the spatial definition of rebuilding, in which a rebuilding club is one that allows players the room to develop at the MLB level regardless of consequence, 2018 could serve as a strange competitive window season in which the club is justified in turning their gaze to the long-term: how important is it for the 2019, 2020, 2021 Brewers, etc., for Arcia and Santana to get right at the MLB level? Can they both be “rehabbed” at Triple-A Colorado Springs? Is it worth Milwaukee disrupting potential MLB rotational introductions to their trio of Woodruff, Peralta, and Burnes? If those pitchers have true MLB rotation roles, they are going to have to be introduced to the staff at some point during this current five-year contending window.

What is exciting about these Brewers, more than the winning, is that they remain an unexpected work in progress where suddenly every strength gained from 2015-2017, every lesson learned from 2015-2017, can be repurposed for the future. Contending teams need not stick to rigid transactional regimes; they can make trades to gamble on Travis Shaw, or free agency signings to gamble on Eric Thames, and still compete for the playoffs. Rebuilding teams need not bottom out, for there can be as much value in simply using roster space to gamble on Jonathan Villar, Junior Guerra, or Manny Pina, even compared to a top draft pick (for it is questionable whether an MLB team can truly forge useful developmental spaces while attempting to field a roster worthy of the first two or three draft picks).

Boiling this lesson down, it may seem like a radical departure from my previous criticisms, but the logic of the 2018 roster remains the same: open those developmental spaces for the organizational players struggling to correct their careers and build roles for 2019 and onward while this well-designed #TeamDepth contends onward. If they execute it correctly, these Brewers have an opportunity to exist entirely outside of win-now and rebuilding cycles.

Photo Credit: Bill Streicher, USA Today Sports Images

Unfortunately, the bullpen did contribute to both losses last week, with Boone Logan giving up the winning runs in both games. When things are going right, Logan is your prototypical LOOGY; he’s a sidearm lefthander who stymies left handed hitters.

When facing left handed hitters, Logan has a clear attack plan:

Logan is looking low and away, and has no problem throwing balls, because lefties will chase those pitches and they miss them frequently. While there’s been some variation in his career, when facing left handed batters, Logan is only throwing his fourseam fastball and slider. Last year, he threw one of those two pitches to a lefthanded batter 90 percent of the time, which approached his career high, and this season his usage of each pitch has inched upwards. With a left handed batter at the plate, Logan will consistently throw his slider to start the at bat and when he’s ahead in the count, but will go to his four seamer if he’s missing his spot with the slider or the batter isn’t swinging.

On Sunday, the Twins put forth a lineup that looked like it could be exploited by Logan. After Trevor Williams walked Brian Dozier to start the 8^th inning, three of the next four Twins batters were left handed. Unfortunately, Logan couldn’t execute when facing Max Kepler, his first batter of the game, and it cost him. Kepler worked a five pitch walk, where three of the balls weren’t particularly close to the plate, including one wild pitch. After inducing a ground out, manager Craig Counsell was faced with a choice: let Logan face a righthanded hitter, which is not advisable, or intentionally walk the bases loaded and hope Logan could get out of the inning against a lefthanded batter. While our expected runs chart would have indicated to let Logan pitch (or bring in another pitcher), Logan’s career splits indicated otherwise. Logan Morrison swung through the first pitch, then launched a two-run single to deep right field which scored the winning runs. Logan missed horribly, and threw the pitch in a spot where lefties tattoo him.

If there’s one problem with the at-bat, it’s that Morrison beat him on his sinker, as opposed to one of his primary pitches. You can live with Daniel Descalso getting the game winning hit on Tuesday, because it came off a first pitch slider. That’s what Logan wanted to throw and based on the scouting report, Descalso likely knew it was coming. Shelving your best pitch during a bases loaded situation in a tie game situation feels like whomever called the pitch got too cute. Make the batter hit your best pitches, and don’t throw sinkers to batters can handle them much better than sliders.

Before going hitless on Sunday, Jonathan had a nice week, going 9-19 with three extra base hits and a walk. The walk was Villar’s third in the month of May. At this point, it’s fair to say that Villar’s plate discipline in 2016 was a one-year blip which may not be coming back. Nearly half of his career walks came during that season, and he’s currently posting a career worst walk rate. The current book is to pitch Villar low in the zone, because there’s a lot of swing and miss in that area, and when he does make contact, it’s not the good kind.

This week, pitchers stuck with the scouting plan, and while Villar swung freely, he at least limited his whiffs and took care of the pitches he’s supposed to hit. Most encouraging, his home run last week came off a changeup. During his career year, that was a pitch he could reliably drive, but since then, he’s hitting fewer home runs and line drives off the pitch, while swinging and whiffing more. One week in a long season is a speck in the ocean, but if Villar can at least tap into his power on a more regular basis, he deepens the lineup and makes the team much more dangerous.

After ten days on the road, the Brewers return home for a ten game homestand. The Diamondbacks arrive first for a three game series which will conclude the season series against Milwaukee. Chase Anderson will make his return from the DL for today’s game. After losing two of three games last week to the Brewers, Arizona traveled to New York and were swept by the Mets. Coincidentally, the Mets arrive after the Diamondbacks for a four game series in Milwaukee. After that weekend series, the Brewers will face the Cardinals in their first division games since the opening week of May.

Photo Credit: Jordan Johnson, USA Today Sports Images

It’s easy to jump on that train of thought. Villar struggled last year, Sogard faded badly down the stretch, and Walker departed in pursuit of greener pastures. On the other hand, Walker is 32 years old and the resources required to sign him could probably be better allocated towards bolstering the starting quintet. Sogard is a fine, if expendable, bench type, and a healthy Villar has the potential to be a difference-maker on both sides of the ball.

“Healthy” here being the operative word.

What you have to remember about Villar’s 2017 is this: On June 9, he dove hard for a ball in the hole, bounced off the grass, and was subsequently carted off the field with a back strain. His absence opened the door for Sogard, and, well, you know the rest of the story.

To be fair, Villar had scarcely been setting the league aflame before the injury, hitting just .213/.283/.342 with a sky-high strikeout rate of 30.6 percent. But news emerged last week that even this performance was marred by ill health. Following the World Baseball Classic, Villar battled a tight right shoulder through the early stretches of 2017. That could help explain, for example, why one of the fastest players in baseball was only able to muster a .294 BABIP before he hit the DL. Even so, he ran a healthy 8.9 percent walk rate and a 72.3 percent contact rate, not hugely far from the 11.6 and 75.2 rates he posted in his breakout 2016.

After Villar returned to Milwaukee on June 27, his batting average and BABIP the rest of the way ticked back up to where you’d expect them to be. The second baseman hit .275 and .373, respectively, compared to .285 and .373 in 2016. But he lost control of the strike zone, perhaps due to the sporadic playing time he received upon his return. His walk rate plummeted to an uncharacteristic 4.3 percent post-injury, as Villar swung and missed more often and his contact rate plunged to 69.4 percent. He’s always been an aggressive player with more than his share of strikeouts, but his career 9.1 walk rate indicates that something was wrong post-injury, be it lingering effects of his injury or an inability to settle in as a part-time player.

This winter, Villar set about righting that wrong, taking video cues from plate-discipline-demigod Joey Votto with him to winter ball in the Dominican Republic. Expect to see Villar altering his two-strike approach this season, perhaps choking up on the bat to shorten his stroke. It worked for him in the Dominican Winter League, where he hit over .300 (albeit with limited power) and posted identical strikeout and walk rates of 11.8 percent over 76 plate appearances. It’s a tiny sample, to be sure, but it represents some progress for a player whose return to form could elevate the Milwaukee lineup to world-class. The booming ground-rule double with which he welcomed Shohei Ohtani to the major leagues is a little something more to dream on.

As Opening Day draws nearer, remember this: Even if he doesn’t repeat his monster 2016, Villar offers the Brewers a killer combination of youth and upside. This is a player who mashed 19 home runs and stole 62 bases as recently as 2016. I’ve already made the case that Villar could one day hit for even more power. 2018 will be his age-27 campaign, so there’s every reason to believe that he has plenty left in his legs. Give the man health and regular playing time, and Brewers fans may yet wish he’d signed that $20 million extension before last year.

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Earlier this offseason, second base was a primary concern for Brewers fans. Most assumed that GM David Stearns would bring back midseason acquisition Neil Walker. That hasn’t happened yet, and although Walker is still a free agent, it seems the team is content rolling with the pieces they’ve got at the position: Jonathan Villar, Eric Sogard, and Hernan Perez.

This Spring will determine who will be the Brewers starting second baseman on March 29th.

If a decision were to be made based on the 2017 season alone, the thirty-one-year-old Sogard would be the obvious choice. Sogard enjoyed a .393 on-base percentage (OBP) over 299 plate appearances in 2017, thanks in large part to his walk rate of 15.1 percent. He was one of just three batters with over 190 plate appearances with a walk-to-strikeout ratio above 1, joining Joey Votto and Justin Turner.

However, Sogard hasn’t always been an on-base machine. In 1,327 plate appearances over six partial seasons prior to 2017, he had an OBP of .296 and a walk rate of 6.9 percent.

Sogard’s increase in walk rate can be attributed to a simple decrease in swings. He swing rate dipped just below 35 percent in 2017, after hovering around 40 percent prior to last season. He began swinging less frequently at pitches not only outside of the zone, but inside of the zone as well.

Sogard has always been regarded as a terrific infielder. If the veteran can somehow manage to maintain his elite walk rate, he will be the an above average starting second baseman and possibly hit towards to the top of the Brewers lineup.

But history shows Sogard has been a well-below average hitter throughout his career. If pitchers adjust and begin throwing him more strikes, he will be forced to put the ball in play and rely on his weak power profile. 299 plate appearances are not enough to conclude that Sogard is a completely different hitter, which is why the next couple guys are going to get their licks.

Jonathan Villar is the primary competition for Sogard. Villar himself is a testament as to why one season can’t be the end all be all when it comes future performance. Similar to Sogard, if a decision were to be made based on the 2016 season alone, Villar would be the obvious choice.

Villar dominated in 2016, stealing 62 bases and hitting 19 home runs, producing a .826 on-base plus slugging percentage (OPS). He was the obvious fit to start at second base prior to last season.

And then he struggled. Villar made 436 plate appearances and stole 23 bases while sporting an .665 OPS in 2017. His poor offensive output forced the Brewers to search for a replacement.

Villar comes into camp this year fighting for his job back. Even if he finds himself somewhere in between his 2016 and 2017 self, it’s easy to see him being a solid starting second baseman. He is still just twenty-six-years-old, which means there’s a possibility his best days are ahead of him.

The Brewers have stacked the rest of their lineup, particularly in the outfield, which means they can afford to run with Sogard or Villar at second base and running the risk that neither of them will be a true starting caliber player. The question then is, which one is going to garner the bulk of the playing time?

If the team was forced to choose, Villar, who has a much higher ceiling than the older, less athletic Sogard, should receive the bulk of the playing time.

Villar has the ability to push the Brewers’ offense to another level. Sogard, at his best, will just move the lineup along. It’s hard to see Sogard ever reaching double digit home run numbers in the major leagues. Villar has 20+ home run power on top of being one of best base stealers in the league when he’s healthy.

In reality, both players are going to receive their fair-share of playing time unless one sticks out. If one or the other can regain their career-year form, the Brewers won’t have a single hole in their lineup.

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These projections will not be perfectly accurate come season’s end, but they provide a good starting point for analyzing the Brewers’ upcoming season.  The Brewers will have a decent shot at making the playoffs, but whether that actually happens will (obviously) be determined by which players over- or under-perform their projections and by how much.  And as some players are more risky than others, who gets significant playing time can play a big role in whether a team significantly overshoots their projection.

PECOTA tells an interesting story for the Brewers, as the six-win gap to the Cubs seems as if it should be significant.  Because of the stratification of talent across the big leagues, however, that gap is by far the smallest between the top two teams in any division (the nine-win gap between the Yankees and Red Sox is next).  The Brewers and Cardinals are the teams most likely to “steal” a division title and earn their playoff spot without having to go through the wild card round, so they should see greater incentive than other potential wild card teams to close the gap between themselves and the Cubs.

Just because a division title is plausible does not mean the Brewers should mortgage the future to reach for that goal, though.  They are still early in their competitive cycle, so trading young talent for short-term upgrades does not make sense.  What could make sense, though, is spending money on shorter-term free agent deals that will improve the team now but come off the books before any long-term extensions are required.

But another way to impact playoff odds is through deciding what types of players to give playing time to.  The goal is always to put the best players on the field, but players have different risk profiles.  There is not a ton of difference between the projections for Jonathan Villar (.244 TAv) and Eric Sogard (.238 TAv), for example, but Villar is more likely to give you a three-win season than is Sogard.  Sogard, however, is probably less likely to be a negative.

Because Villar is a higher-variance option, he gives the Brewers a better chance at exceeding their projections than would someone like Sogard or Hernan Perez.  Whether the Brewers want this, however, is an open question.  They are closer to first place than any other second-place team, so one possible path is to play for as low-variance a season as possible and hope the Cubs disappoint again.  Another option would be to take advantage of how close they are and be more aggressive.

This impacts Villar because it dictates how long his leash should be.  If he starts the season as the everyday second baseman but struggles out of the gates, the Brewers could be tempted to replace him.  If they are willing to take on higher risk, though, they should continue to give him playing time because his upside is such (at least as compared to Sogard or Hernan Perez) that he could help them close the gap on the Cubs.

If the Brewers do choose this path, and Villar does not turn it around but is instead a replacement-level player and they miss the playoffs by a game, that does not necessarily mean that the team made a mistake.  Even with perfect information, which even major league baseball teams do not have, it is impossible to predict how any individual player will fare in a particular season.  When teams are deciding how to allocate playing time, risk profile should be one of the factors taken into consideration.

Because big-league teams have better information than we do as fans, a reasonable temptation is to ask them to be perfect and accurately predict what will happen with each player in the upcoming season.  They cannot do that, though.  Their models are probably more accurate than are the public ones, at least in part because they have access to more information and so their inputs are better.  But they still cannot perfectly predict player performance, as the continuing existence of free agent bargains indicates, so instead they are playing probabilities.

Villar is a good illustration of this type of player.  The Brewers cannot know exactly what they will get from him, but his 2016 performance shows that he can be a good player.  Whether that player will show up in 2018 is an open question, but the Brewers would be justified in letting him play to see whether he can be productive and push the team towards a potential division title.  Because the Cubs are a more talented team, the Brewers have to take some risks if they want to try and catch them.  Giving Villar an extended run at second base would qualify.

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In 2017, Jonathan Villar performed so badly that the club had to bring in Neil Walker to play second base while they pushed for the playoffs.  Although they fell short and missed the wild card game, Walker performed admirably.  In 38 games with Milwaukee, Walker posted a .305 True Average (TAv) and was worth 0.9 Wins Above Replacement Player (WARP).  One win from Walker in a quarter of the season is a good output, as it represented an upgrade over Villar’s season-long .242 TAv and 0.8 WARP.

As we are all aware, though, the Brewers have not yet re-signed Walker.  The only infield transactions they’ve made have been re-signing Eric Sogard and adding Mauricio Dubon to the 40-man roster.  Both Sogard and Dubon profile as more utility types than everyday second basemen, though, so their presence should not preclude an actual upgrade.  Both are capable of playing the position, but neither is good enough that the Brewers—a team with playoff aspirations—should be satisfied.

Walker is the most obvious solution.  He is not a superstar, but he is a solid player, and he may be available on a shorter, one- or two-year deal because the free agent market has collapsed.  From 2013 through 2016, Walker had been worth between 2.9 and 3.5 WARP.  That is a valuable player, and that level of consistency would be useful for a team that will be relying on some high-variability players (Lewis Brinson, Orlando Arcia) for their playoff push in 2018.  Even during last season, which was a down year by Walker’s standards, was not actually that bad, as his cumulative 1.7 WARP still made him worthy of a roster spot.

But as I mentioned above, the offseason is coming to a close, and the Brewers are running out of time.  This doesn’t matter so much if Walker is the solution, because the free agent market as a whole is moving slowly.  But if Walker signs elsewhere, the late date in the calendar makes working on a contingency plan more difficult.  Free agents are likely to sign quickly once the dominoes start falling simply because of the lack of time left in the winter, and the second base free agent market is not that deep.  There just aren’t that many exciting options; Danny Espinosa is the only one who appears slightly intriguing.

This late stature in the offseason also matters because it decreases the amount of time for a potential trade.  I don’t know what the Brewers front office is working on, and I imagine they are working on upgrades at basically every position.  But they cannot be pursuing every angle at once, so if Walker is the first choice, then pivoting to finding trade partners will still take some time.

Spring training is quite long, so one could argue that there is no need to make a move in the next month anyway.  A spring training trade, or even an April trade, would bring in a player early enough that the Brewers’ overall season would not be impacted.  The front office does not stop working once spring training starts or Opening Day arrives, so whether reinforcements arrive on January 30 or March 30 may not matter all that much.  The timing of these moves do matter, though, because the Brewers are at a bit of a crossroads in terms of how willing they are to push for the playoffs this year.  If they are waiting until March or April to address this kind of need, then they are unlikely to also be investing resources in a starting pitcher.  Thus, while the timing of when exactly a new second baseman arrives is mostly irrelevant, it would be indicative of the club’s broader strategy.

This article works on the assumption that an upgrade is needed, and I think the club believes that as well.  David Stearns has proven himself too smart to think that Eric Sogard is a long-term option; despite his 1.257 OPS in May, he finished the year with an OPS of just .770.  Even this was over one hundred points higher than his career mark of .638.  Mauricio Dubon is unproven, and questions remain about his bat.  The Brewers seem to love Hernan Perez, but he has a career .244 TAv, and he backslid from his seeming improvement in 2016.  That leaves Villar, who had a disappointing year and appears to have lost the club’s trust.  Even though he ended the season well (.888 OPS following the Walker trade), he could not regain his playing time, as he got only 63 plate appearances in the last 42 games of the season.  Villar was given a long rope, as no move was made to replace him until mid-August, but the rope did look as if it ran out.

Craig Counsell’s use of Villar in August and September suggests to me that the club does not view him as a solution at second base.  If that is the case, then an external option must be in the cards.  Because of the glacial pace of the free agent market, though, if Neil Walker is not that player, the Brewers are running out of time to find a backup.

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Those narratives will undoubtedly carry into 2018 guided by the very same contradictions: Milwaukee will indeed be developing many young players at the MLB level (including Lewis Brinson, Josh Hader, Brett Phillips, and Brandon Woodruff), while the team also has several opportunities to improve with established players (either through trades involving their prospects, through free agency signings, or both).

To put it another way: GM David Stearns can take the roster in several directions, and certainly has the resources available to contend while continuing to develop some players.

One way to assess player value, and therefore roster needs, is to estimate the surplus value that each player (and their contractual situation) provides the team. Value is assumed to be production and scarcity, recognizing that a player is not simply valuable to a club based on production, but also based on cost and the general availability of that skill set within the MLB. Surplus is the difference provided between a player’s production and their contract, recognizing that these aspects can be double-counted (a team simultaneously receives a player’s production on the field and their production gauged against their contract). Based on these assumptions, I tracked the surplus value of the Brewers 40-man roster (as of October 20, 2017) by using harsh depreciation to reduce each player’s maximum value (recognizing that a player’s performance typically declines over time save for rare cases).

The following chart tracks changes in surplus entering 2017 to entering 2018, while also assigning an Overall Future Potential (OFP) role for each Brewers roster member:

What these surplus numbers can suggest, in the abstract, is the difference between “the number of the wins above replacement” a player will produce during their contract and the OFP a team might receive if they traded the player at this point in time (alternately, they might suggest a contract range; for example, if the Brewers offered Neil Walker a $30 million contract, they would likely retain some surplus value during that contract).

Using the extremely interesting and difficult case of Jonathan Villar to interpret this table, his 2016 campaign and contract control years still loom large enough to suggest that the Brewers should not move the infielder for cheap; but the shortstop-turned-bench/utility option does mean that Villar’s ultimate role is trending downward, meaning that if Milwaukee believes that role decline is real and will continue to materialize, moving Villar for less than his top value could offset the issues of rostering a declining role. This should outline the difficulty of making roster decisions: in the case of Villar, there is not necessarily a right answer.

I should add that surplus value is abstract in the sense that there is a point at which additional surplus does not provide a team transaction value. Scooter Gennett and Chris Carter should be the most specific examples of this phenomenon in recent Brewers memory, as both players retained solidly positive surplus value entering 2017, but were essentially unwanted on the trade market and therefore expendable for nothing. Following this example, a rule of thumb might be to expect any type of roster move once a player’s surplus value dips below $20 million (or, less than three wins above replacement). Looking at the table of the Brewers roster above, this fact should seem intuitive with many of the names on the list (for example, it is highly unlikely that the Brewers would be able to move a player like Andrew Susac or even Eric Thames for their maximal surplus value).

By averaging each player’s 2017, 2018, and OFP surplus value, and comparing that to their change in value over time, a rather intuitive 2018 roster emerges. In this case, I excluded each player with a Negative-50 percent change in value (ex., a 50 percent decline), which produced need at Catcher, Second Base, and Right-Handed Pitcher, with additional question marks about the Utility roles. This is a rather succinct picture of the actual needs for the 2018 Brewers, and it also shows that if a few key free agents are retained, or similar free agents from outside the organizational signed, the Brewers can assemble quite a good roster:

These tables need not force an analyst to rely on numbers alone in order to validate roster decisions. Compare the following descriptions of potential role upgrades for the 2018 Brewers with those players’ statistical trends, and find nearly 20 roster spots (on the 40-Man) that can be upgraded for 2018:

The benefit of this exercise is that additional roster functions can be analyzed, either through descriptive or analytical means. For example, one could compare some of the best Rule 5 Draft Roster Protection candidates with the players above in order to find the most salient moves for the future value of the organization. Via Brewerfan.net:

Once again, this should exhibit a rather intuitive process of evaluation. If the future value of a catcher such as Jacob Nottingham is better than either Stephen Vogt, Andrew Susac, or Jett Bandy (or all three players), it should not hurt to lose one of those players in order to roster Nottingham. Each of these catchers are good candidates for contractual non-tenders for this reason (and, indeed, catcher is a position that the Brewers can upgrade in terms of depth behind/alongside Manny Pina). Similarly, allowing Matt Garza to walk via free agency and rostering Marcos Diplan, Freddy Peralta, or Devin Williams in that place should improve the pitching surplus of the roster. Where it gets more interesting is considering a player like Mauricio Dubon, and whether he simply takes the spot of free agent Eric Sogard, or overtakes Villar or Hernan Perez.

Using these analytical approaches should validate the fact that the Brewers are in a unique position entering 2018. They are a good team, indeed, that also features many up-and-coming players to develop at the MLB level and many declining roles that can be replaced. Where surplus value becomes useful is targeting particular trades, or simply determining when a player should be released or non-tendered.

A player like Keon Broxton, Perez, Susac, or Vogt should demonstrate this difficult decision-making process, and perhaps cause fans to realign their expectations that these types of players can receive impactful trade returns to Milwaukee. Given the packed outfield for 2018, the Brewers could conceivably release a player like Broxton should trade partners refuse to bite with a 45-to-50 OFP / quality depth trade (matching Broxton’s $11.5M-to-$19.8M surplus), for the trouble is that Broxton’s expected role is indeed declining (and any particular trade partner will also know that). This should not simply be viewed as picking on Broxton, as the point exists for Vogt and several other players on the roster.

“Slingin’ Stearns” earned his nickname for wheeling-and-dealing on the trade market during his first offseason in Milwaukee, but that reputation has calmed over time (not surprisingly, as the club completed their rebuilding process). Stearns did not show any hesitation in aggressively using waiver claims and releases to define his 2016-2017 offseason, and now the GM’s reputation may be defined by how effectively he clears roster space for what’s next: refined future development and improved MLB roles to contend in 2018.

The 2017 season proved that these goals can align and coexist within the same roster, so there are no excuses for failing to improve this strategy by learning from the 2017 progression.

Photo Credit: Jim Young, USAToday Sports Images.