Mike Fiers
Fiers was non-tendered because Oakland is not paying a mid-rotation starter, at best, a $10 million salary. According to Cot’s Contracts, the last Oakland starting pitcher earning that much money was Scott Kazmir in 2015.

The Brewers immediately come to mind as a home for Fiers because he’s a former Brewer that has survived in MLB despite having below average fastball velocity. His fourseam fastball sits around 90 MPH, which Milwaukee has some experience with. There is ample cause for concern with Fiers though. Last season his swing and miss rate dropped for the fourth straight season, and dipped below 20 percent for the first time in his career. As his whiff percentage has dropped, Fiers has allowed more home runs (ranging from 1.2 to 1.9 per 9 innings) and struck out fewer batters (losing almost two strikeouts per nine innings as there are more strikeouts now than any time in the history of MLB).

However, there may be an area ripe for exploitation which could bring renewed success for Fiers: his curveball. He threw the curve for around 16 percent of his pitches in 2018, which is around his career average. Based on results though, Fiers should be throwing it more. Batters have hit .196 and have slugged .307 against the pitch, both of which are his best numbers. In 2018, those numbers improved to .145 and .181, once again performing as his best pitch results wise.  The pitch also generates his most ground balls: over 60 percent of curveballs put in play over his career have been ground balls. His 2018 ground ball rate on curveballs in play was almost exactly his career average.

Fiers consistently buries the ball below the zone and generates a large amount of whiffs on pitches that would be balls. In 2018, almost all of the damage against the pitch was on pitches out of the strike zone, which a player can live with.

For a pitch that he’ll throw equally to lefties and righties, it’s a little baffling that Fiers hasn’t decided to ride the curveball hard as his overall results have gotten worse. His curveball usage was actually down almost 20 percent last season when compared with 2017. Even after the trade to Oakland, while he threw the pitch more, there’s opportunity to make it the focal point of his attack and Milwaukee has some experience in signing free agent pitchers and having them focus on throwing more breaking balls.

Fiers may not be worth $10M, but I think he would be an interesting signing for a team that has helped pitchers maximize their stuff to more fully reach their potential.

Blake Parker
After a season that saw regression across the board, the Angels non-tendered Blake Parker rather than pay his projected $3.1 salary. Superficially, his 3.26 ERA and career high 14 saves indicate a decent reliever. Digging a little deeper reveals some problems, though:

Most of Parker’s regression is found in performance against his fastball. In 2017, batters hit .179 and slugged .313 against his fastball, with a .204 BABIP, but those numbers rose to .315, .562 and .328 in 2018. Batters hit more home runs against his fastball in 2018 (10) than he allowed in total in 2017 (7).

After spiking in 2017, Parker’s fastball velocity fell from 94 to 92.8 last season. The pitch started the season slower and the velocity continued trending down. He also had a location issue. Parker had previously located the pitch away from both righties and lefties, generally avoiding the middle of the plate and looking to jam hitters as much as possible. That plan failed against both sides as Parker literally had a Rudolph nose in his fastball strike zone plot. While the velocity may not come back, better location can cure a lot of Parker’s ills as batters did the most damage against his poorly located pitches.

Parker also has potential with his other two pitches: the curveball and splitter. The curveball used to be his secondary pitch, but he shelved in it favor of his splitter in 2017. Parker brought the pitch back towards the end of the season. His whiffs on both pitches were down in 2018 and location may have played a role here as well. In his most effective season, Parker threw almost 62 percent of his curves and splitters below the zone, which dropped to 56 percent in 2018. In particular, he consistently missed that spot against left handed hitters. His whiff numbers on those pitches compare favorably in 2017 and 2018, but because he was missing his spot more, batters made more contact.

Aside from the velocity drop, Parker also just didn’t execute his pitches in 2018. If the Brewers think there’s an easy mechanical fix, then Parker is a potential cheap addition to Milwaukee’s monster bullpen.

Note: Projected arbitration salaries are from MLB Trade Rumors.

Yet, if anything the 2017-2018 Brewers have also proven that developmental time is not linear at the MLB level, and furthermore, GM David Stearns has not been afraid to deal from stockpiles of future high floor roles to improve the club. Most prominently, Stearns traded center field prospect Lewis Brinson, many fans’ and analysts’ projected 2018 MLB starter, as a part of the package to acquire Christian Yelich, despite center field being a position of need. Now the Brewers have a need to improve second base, and another clear-cut top prospect at the position (Keston Hiura, and Mauricio Dubon behind him); simply judging Stearns’s past, one should not rule out a trade involving Hiura should the price be right and the return bolster a position of strength.

On the opposite spectrum for the Brewers is left-handed starting pitching, which is arguably the sole position on the roster decimated by both injury (Brent Suter) and free agency (Gio Gonzalez, Wade Miley). Worse yet, unlike a position such as second base (which is a clear position of need), left handed starting pitching was a relative strength for the Brewers in 2018. Unlike second base, there’s no notable southpaw prospect ready for the rotation.

• Suter scouts as a prototypical depth player, but his full-time fastball approach, wicked tempo, and strange angles arguably helps his stuff “play up” at the big league level; by no means was Suter great, but he certainly did not sink the club, and was one of the reasons that the “replacement by design” rotational shuffle of interchangeable pitchers could work.

• On the other hand, Gonzalez served as a crucial replacement for the Brewers, indeed producing exceptional value on any rotational assessment despite having only been acquired after August 31.

• Similarly, Wade Miley could arguably be listed as the “Ace” of the club, and certainly stands as one of the team’s developmental successes. Even if Miley had discovered his cutter by the middle of 2017 with Baltimore, the Brewers recognized his pitch development and helped the southpaw double down on his approach and command the strike zone.

Milwaukee boasts significant pitching depth entering the 2019 season, arguably forming the strength of the organization through their run prevention system. Yet left-handed starting pitching is a weakness even given the context of this particular organization. There are no notable left-handed starting pitching prospects that are near reaching an MLB-ready floor for 2019, and there is little in the way of organizational depth behind Brent Suter (who, given the nature of Tommy John surgery, may not be ready to pitch until very late in 2019). Thus Brewers fans looking for the club to make a splash in free agency could reasonably look at southpaw starters.

There are arguably three particular classes of pitchers among the “true” left-handed starting pitching free agents in 2019. (Here I’ve excluded elite arms like Clayton Kershaw and David Price, who could choose to opt out of contracts, but only would do so on the sense that they could best $35 million Average Annual Value (AAV), which would be the required level to beat their current deals). Cot’s Contracts and Sportrac Data were used to construct a free agency list.

• Elite 2018 or Notably Better than Average Pitchers (by WARP and Runs Prevented): Patrick Corbin, Dallas Keuchel, J.A. Happ, and Hyun-jin Ryu

• Very Good Pitchers (by either WARP or Runs Prevented): Gio Gonzalez, CC Sabathia, Brett Anderson, and Wade Miley

• Depth Pitchers: Drew Pomeranz, Francisco Liriano, Jo-Jo Reyes, and Ross Detwiler.

The following table is one method of conveying player value for this lefty free agency class into monetary terms. I’ve used a three-year depreciation model, reflecting the fact that over time players typically lose value from their current performances (this is also a means of presenting relatively conservative contract projections). I’ve updated previous surplus assessments by presenting a rolling assessment of three-year models (2014-2016, 2015-2017, and 2016-2018), plus a “maximum” projection based on full 2018 performance. This number can be compared against the general “Three Year Trend” to determine whether a pitcher is on an upward or downward trajectory (equally tough cases here are Keuchel and Corbin, for completely different directions of performance).

• Depreciated1, Depreciated2, Depreciated3: three-year surplus value salary estimates, based on WARP from 2014-2016, 2015-2017, and 2016-2018 (in order).
• ThreeYear: this demonstrates the relative change in contractual value from 2016-2018 to 2014-2016. This is a rough estimate of a pitcher’s contractual “trend.”
• Immediate: this is a three-year surplus value salary estimate based solely on 2018 performance without any depreciation. It should be read as some type of ultimate “short term bias” value (i.e., the most biased observer from 2018 would offer Patrick Corbin a 3-year contract worth more than $120 million).

It is tempting, giving the success of pitching coach Derek Johnson in Milwaukee, as well as the success of the fielding efficiency, front office analysis, and general pitching player development, to assess the offseason free agents by looking for “The Next Wade Miley.” But this is suspicious thinking for at least two key reasons: first, many players in the MLB change their pitching approaches and development without the success of Miley; second, the Brewers simply have the opportunity to re-sign Miley from the free agency pool if the club believes that his development pattern is sustainable and he can continue to provide rotational depth. There is nothing wrong with doubling down on a successful system when the same reasoning and critical measures are used to assess that system the second time around.

To demonstrate the extreme nature of what Miley accomplished in Milwaukee, witness his progression from bread-and-butter southpaw in 2016 to his current format of pitching:

According to Brooks Baseball, Miley was already morphing his pitching approach in 2017, and that does not simply involve his insistence on incorporating the cutter after July 2017. Miley switched from his “primary” rising fastball to his “secondary” running-and-sinking variation, which took selections away from his change, slider, and curve in 2017. The veteran lefty was basically becoming an all-forms fastballer, blending three fastballs at the expense of off-speed and breaking offerings. 2018 reversed that to a stunning extent, as Miley reduced the total percentage of primary, secondary, and cut fastballs he threw, and completely reorganized his secondary stuff around the cutter. What is interesting about Miley is that he traded groundballs for whiffs with the cutter, while whiffs “played up” with other pitches once he focused on the cutter. This is the fantastic accomplishment of Miley’s 2018: not simply the development of a new prominent pitch, but the systemic development of that pitch in a manner that improved his other offerings. It would be foolish to suggest that most pitchers could be expected to thrive with such a reinvention.

Among these pitchers, there is no “next Miley,” unless you want to lean heavily into suggesting the Brewers acquire Jo-Jo Reyes and Ross Detwiler as potential depth contracts (Detwiler has the “Brewers pitches” necessary to pique interest here). But that does not mean that the Brewers should not seek any of these southpaw free agents:

• Patrick Corbin is on the frontier of baseball as a slider-first pitcher, which is crucial in a game where the slider determines leverage in many cases (including diminishing a key divisional rival for the Brewers). Signing Corbin could be a huge deal for the Brewers, both for keeping the lefty away from divisional rivals looking to improve pitching (the Reds could certainly gamble here, given their excellent batting group and lack of arms, as well as the contending Cubs). If there’s anywhere that Corbin’s margins-of-the-strike-zone approach could succeed, it’s Milwaukee, although that doesn’t necessarily mean his profile is less risky overall. The Brewers could take the next step of working with Corbin to balance his new curveball with his slider. Ideal Contract: 3-years, $100 million. Maximum deal: 4-years, $150 million. (If the rumored contract ranges around 4-years and $120 million are true, I would call Corbin a potential bargin, even).

• Dallas Keuchel is an interesting pitcher insofar as he remains relatively consistent as he ages, even though his surplus grade demonstrates a harsh decline due to falling off from previously elite seasons. Even without being an elite pitcher, Keuchel remains quite good, and he’s tinkering with his approach to move away from his “true” sinking fastball and toward a cutter-offspeed approach. Keuchel’s potential knock working in Milwaukee would be using a relatively extreme groundball approach in front of an aggressively unorthodox defense, which would mean the Brewers would need to truly sell the veteran on their fielding approach. A Keuchel deal could be the most likely to end up “sideways” due to this profile.  Ideal Contract: 3-years, $75 million. Maximum deal: 4-years, $100 million.

• Wade Miley is entering his age-32 season having completely revitalized his pitching approach; by all appearances seems to be a likable and supportive teammate in Milwaukee; and against the Dodgers even flashed a hard fastball that demonstrates that his approach could continue to morph in 2019. It would not surprise me if the Brewers have an arsenal plan with Miley to take additional steps beyond the cutter, and I’d sign Miley before any of these guys due to that likely fact. Additionally, as the Brewers mature into perennial contenders (hopefully), they would do well to prove to players that they will turn some rehabilitation projects / value-depth plays into hard cash deals. There will be a time when value signings refuse to come to Milwaukee if their value produced never materializes into bigger cash. Start here. Ideal Contract: 2-years, $20 million, with a third-year option. Maximum: 3-years, $36 million.

• Gio Gonzalez is slowly morphing into a potential change-up first pitcher, making him a true veteran “junkball” option. Ideal Contract: 3-years, $36 million. Maximum deal: 3-year, $45 million.

• Given J.A. Happ’s age, the southpaw could potentially be a short-term deal with beneficial playoff experience and a fastball-first approach that could fit some aspects of Brewers pitching strategy (notable fastballers Freddy Peralta and Suter come to mind, for example). One-year contract between $12 million and $17 million.

• If you’re obsessed with the idea of making “the next Wade Miley” work in Milwaukee, Drew Pomeranz could be the biggest name among southpaws to make that work. Pomeranz struggled through 2018 as a bigtime fastball-curveball approach. In fact, the cutter even featured more prominently during Pomeranz’s successfuly 2016 season. Unfortunately, the groundballs and whiffs simultaneously dissipated, leaving this lefty a potentially expensive gamble with an arsenal, approach, and batted ball in flux. Pomeranz is a potential project. One-year, $10 million.

• It is not clear that Hyun-jin Ryu or CC Sabathia would be likely to come to Milwaukee given their recent roles in big markets (for quite some time) and playoff team roles. Francisco Liriano had a tough year in Detroit, and I unfortunately think there are better contracts offered to the other pitchers on this list.

• No lie, I’d hand out a minor league deal to Ross Detwiler, too, if he would be willing to work within the Brewers pitching development system. This southpaw is another potential “true junkball” lefty, but along with heavy change up usage Detwiler has also added a cutter, and could move away from his sinking fastball to his rising-riding primary variation.

Although collusion would obviously have a significant impact, there are also rational reasons for the veteran free agent market to deteriorate.  Teams have realized that players signed into their mid- to late-30s are bad investments, so they are relying more on younger players to fill roster spots.  Additionally, since the average age of rookies now is 24.6 and thus players don’t hit free agency until they are through their peak years, teams can keep control of these players through their most productive years.  Then, when players become free agents, the next batch of rookies takes those spots.

This is a problem for the players, though, because free agency has always provided the promise of a payday.  Players earn the league minimum salary for their first three years regardless of production, and then they enter arbitration. In arbitration they get more money, but not their market rate.  For example, Kris Bryant has just become arbitration-eligible, and he will be making the most money ever for a first-year arbitration-eligible player: $10.85 million.  By contrast, the Blue Jays signed veteran Jaime Garcia, he of the career 95 cFIP, for $10 million.  One of the ten best position players in baseball will earn roughly the same as a league-average starting pitcher.

Baseball’s system has generally worked because players like Bryant knew they would receive a massive free agent contract after they exhausted their six years of team control.  But if teams stop rewarding players for past performance, then the best players in baseball will never get paid what they deserve.  This is a threat to the balance between players and ownership, and this article will present a possible alternative method.

Any analysis like this requires a certain set of assumptions.  I am assuming here that the MLBPA is interested in maximizing the money their members make (which may not be entirely fair, given the way veterans control union power).  I am also assuming that owners would be willing to pay market value for players who are more likely to perform over the life of the contract (which may not be fair if what we are witnessing is collusion).

With that being said, a system like the NBA’s restricted free agency seems to make sense for baseball as well.  After an NBA player’s fourth season, he becomes a restricted free agent.  Other teams can sign that player to an offer sheet, but the player’s current team has the right to match that contract.  The advantages of such a system are that teams still retain control over their young players, but players are eligible for a large payday much sooner in their careers.  Kris Bryant, for example, could be a restricted free agent at 27 instead of an unrestricted free agent at 30, and so a longer-term contract would make sense because some of his prime years are still in front of him.

This system would not be perfect.  Players still have to be under team control for long enough that a team feels comfortable investing in player development.  Free agency after one year, for example, would likely harm player development because teams would not be guaranteed any reward.  Additionally, this system would still be subject to the type of age manipulation that we currently see.  Teams can hold players down to get more of their prime years in the current system, and the same would be true for any new system as well.  MLB’s minor league system complicates matters, as MLB teams have direct control over when the service time clock begins.

It also would not translate directly from how the NBA does it.  The NBA’s maximum salary is not mirrored in baseball, as teams have cost certainty for their young players even once they have hit free agency.  This does not exist in baseball; Bryce Harper could sign for $30 million per year next offseason if he wants a ten-year contract, or he could sign for $40 million per year if he takes a shorter deal.  The Washington Wizards, on the other hand, knew that they would be paying Otto Porter about $25 million this season because that was the most he could be offered.

Another problem with the NBA’s restricted free agency is that it allows teams to keep players for nine years before they hit free agency.  NBA players generally make their debut at 19 or 20, so they still have productive years ahead of them when they finally hit the open market.  But because baseball players debut so much older, this system would not allow players to switch teams in their primes.  Tweaks would have to be made.

One of the most important tweaks would have to be to the timing of restricted free agency offers.  In the NBA, teams make offers to players, and then the player’s original team has three days to decide whether or not to match.  In that time, the offering team’s money and roster spot are tied up.  This creates logistical problems, where teams know that any offer to a star player will be matched, so they don’t bother making it and instead maintain flexibility.

I have a couple ideas about how MLB could fix this.  First, the MLB could provide a buffer for teams who sign restricted free agents to sort out their 40-man roster situation, so teams wouldn’t have to be stuck in a holding pattern for three days.  They could sign a restricted free agent to an offer sheet and then have a week before they need to officially add him to their 40-man roster.  Second, they could shorten the matching time to just one day to provide less uncertainty for teams.

Third, and most radically, they could have a special restricted free agency window before unrestricted free agency.  During this time, offers would be made, but no other transactions would occur, so teams would not risk losing out on other opportunities while they wait for everyone to decide whether or not to match.  This would create some roster-building issues, as teams would be operating with imperfect information during this first window.  The NFL does this with its draft, however: football teams draft for need at times, but the draft occurs before free agency has opened.  The NFL does not appear to have suffered for this, so it seems as if it would be workable in MLB as well.

The types of contract being offered would be the most interesting aspect, and it is the test for whether such a system would actually solve the problem that we appear to be facing.  My proposal is that after three years in the majors, players would hit restricted free agency.  At that time, all teams would be free to offer those players whatever contract they want.  I think the lack of a maximum salary would remove the “automatic match” problem from all but the absolute top players.

Let’s use Kris Bryant as an example again.  After next season, anyone could offer him a new contract.  Teams may offer him a long-term deal, or they could try and entice him with a high-AAV short-term contract.  The Cubs would have the absolute right to match any offer that is made, though.  The main difference between the current system and my proposal is the player’s age: Bryant would be a free agent at 27 instead of 30, so he will be a more attractive option for many teams.  But because the Cubs still have the chance to match any contract, or offer him a long-term extension before he even hits free agency, they do not lose their access to their young talent.  They just have to pay him more.

This would bring a new level of intrigue to free agency.  Without a maximum salary, the Cubs would not have cost certainty.  Any team could try and find the price point at which the Cubs wouldn’t match; could it be $50 million per season?  Rivals like the Brewers could also force the Cubs’ hand by offering Bryant an over-market deal that is still reasonable enough that the Cubs would feel compelled to match (perhaps at $40 million per season?).  Where NBA restricted free agency can be rote because of max contracts, MLB restricted free agency likely would not be.

Another possibility would be that restricted free agency offers could only be for a maximum of four years.  This would still allow a team to try and offer a ridiculous one-year contract for someone like Bryant or Mike Trout, but it would provide some more certainty for both the team and the player.  Players would know that they will hit unrestricted free agency at no more than seven years after their debut, but they would have an opportunity to make more money before then.

I recognize that a possible problem with this is that it might allow big-market teams to exert their financial influence.  With more desirable free agents, the Cubs, Dodgers, Yankees, and Red Sox might be more involved and more able to spend their way to a title.  Small-market teams would have less of an ability to develop their own cores because they would only be guaranteed three years of big league service time instead of six.  Big-market teams would be able to absorb contracts that small-market teams just couldn’t.  For example, the Yankees could offer Orlando Arcia a contract that the Brewers couldn’t afford to match, simply because the Yankees can afford to absorb more money if the contract turns out to be a mistake.

With that being said, financial constraints are always a question.  Big-market teams have resource advantages over small-market teams, but that hasn’t prevented St. Louis or Cleveland from being competitive.  I suppose it’s possible that this is the change that destroys baseball’s relative parity, but I am skeptical that it would do so given that such hand-wringing never seems to pan out.  The lack of a salary cap did not result in the Yankees buying every World Series; they won their four in five years on the strength of a home-grown core.  Teams are smart, and I expect that small-market teams will be able to adapt to this change just as they have adapted to other ones.

This would be a radical alteration to baseball’s free agency structure, but if teams refuse to sign free agents who are over 30 to market-value deals, then something will need to change.  The players are what drive the product, and they are entitled to their share of the profits.  If they are not going to be rewarded in free agency under the current system, then a new system will have to be devised.

The tough aspect of relying on Lewis Brinson, Brett Phillips, and Keon Broxton to make center field work in 2018 is that the position was a weakness in 2017. Although many Brewers fans and analysts typically write off the offense and fielders as solid enough, the Brewers were indeed below average in terms of park-adjusted runs scored in 2017, and center field was one of the reasons for their inability to produce on offense. In fact, according to Baseball Reference the Brewers employed their center fielders for the fewest number of plate appearances among any position (636 PA), and the team’s .229 / .304 / .405 batting average / on-base percentage / slugging percentage performance was tied for the worst position on the team. Against league center fielders, the Brewers registered an 85 Split OPS+, meaning that the club’s center field position was approximately 15 percent below average compared to National League center field.

While it is easy for fans to dream on the eventual superstardom of Brinson or the high-floor depth offered by Phillips, it is difficult to write this duo in for a guaranteed, let alone probable, improvement if they are handed the reins for 162 center field games in 2018. On the latest Milwaukee’s Tailgate podcast, Ryan Topp made a similar argument, emphasizing that if Brewers fans are ready to run with Brinson and other young players, fans have to be ready for growing pains at the MLB level.

In short, center field is one of the clearest weaknesses remaining from the 2017 club. Lorenzo Cain immediately changes the outlook of the position, however, as the veteran offers elite fielding and average-or-better hitting for an impact package in the center of the grass. In fact, Cain is arguably the best overall free agent in the current class, and almost certainly the best position player free agent when assessing free agents by their three-year depreciated surplus value (which monetizes Wins Above Replacement Player (WARP) while depreciating three-year performance by 10 percent per year in order to replicate an aging curve and nonlinear player development). I provided surplus tables in my introduction to the offseason, but it bears highlighting Cain’s strength.

First, assessed by his 2015-2017 performance, Cain is the best free agent in the 2018 field. But, even if one is concerned that Cain’s 2015 and 2017 seasons weigh too heavily in this equation, it is worth mentioning that Cain is the second best free agent in this field (second only to Jonathan Lucroy) based on his 2014-2016 performance as well.

Beyond basic rank, it is worth emphasizing that Cain also possesses another strength within this free agency class: the veteran center fielder boasts one of the biggest improvements between 2017 and 2018 surplus value within this field. The idea behind “Role Depreciation” is to not only track a player’s actual performance, or depreciated performance, over a certain period of time, but also to track the changes within those performances in order to gauge upward or downward trends. A concrete example of this concept might be found in a comparison between Orlando Arcia and Jonathan Villar; Villar posted a phenomenal 2016 WARP at shortstop, but may have been more reasonably expected to emerge as an average role player, which materialized in 2017, while Arcia’s expected first division shortstop role may lead one to reasonably expect improvement (or steady performance) following his 2017 campaign. Anyway, Cain is among the few free agents in this field to offer tangible improvement in his 2018 outlook:

One can anticipate that the major complaints about Lorenzo Cain will concern his age. Cain played his age-31 season in 2017, meaning that even a three-year free agency deal will need to cover his age-32 through age-34 seasons. Given that fans and analysts have an aversion to an aging curve that requires paying premium dollar to players on the wrong side of 30, Cain seems like an obvious pass by a small market club such as Milwaukee. However, I believe that this type of aging curve thinking is a bit too orthodox, and does not highlight the fact that certain players have different aging patterns that can be discerned from their performances. For instance, at age-31, Cain’s .280 True Average (TAv) and 19.5 Fielding Runs Above Average (FRAA) drove a 5.6 WARP performance, which is the only 5+ WARP season by a center fielder in their 30s during the new Wild Card era (2012-2017). I have used this assumption to design detailed assessment of Ryan Braun’s aging patterns, and I hypothesize that the same approach could be used for Cain: once a player demonstrates elite production after age-30, they are on a different aging pattern than the one commonly suggested for all players.

Since center field is such a loaded position in the current MLB landscape, fans and analysts may not think of Cain as an elite center fielder, but the age-31 performance in 2017 was the best since Carlos Beltran’s 2008 and Johnny Damon’s 2005 (Baseball Prospectus CSV, retrieved January 5, 2018). A detailed search of center fielders in their 30s since the turn of the century demonstrates that this position is indeed one at which players can age and perform well; this is obviously a blanket statement that may not precisely track Cain deep into his 30s, but rather a call to understand that there may not be a typical aging curve among athletic center fielders.

Finally, Cain’s batting profile also presents a unique opportunity for the Brewers. Milwaukee’s offense is well-known as a three true outcomes (strike out, walk, home run) machine, especially heavy at the strike outs. Center field was easily the club’s worst plate discipline position, focusing on strike outs and walks:

Yet, this profile need not predetermine the club’s outlook for 2018. As Noah Nofz outlined at BPMilwaukee, the Houston Astros’ current roster incarnation began as a high-strikeout affair, before the club used internal adjustments and signings to bolster the club’s contact abilities. Should the Brewers seek this type of improvement, it is unlikely that the young Brinson and Phillips will offer this type of contact profile early in their respective careers; with adjustments over several years, both players may eventually be expected to improve in terms of discipline and contact profiles (which would also arguably track with their MLB success and accomplishing something akin to their best possible roles). Cain’s batting profile is already at that point of strong contact-discipline, which arguably adds to a case for his ability to withstand aging in center field:

All of this may seem futile as the Brewers’ rumored interest in Cain is nothing more than that, but the rumor itself provides an interesting opportunity to consider the composition of the club. With $50 million in additional MLB Advanced Media revenue due to the Brewers in spring 2018, and a slow free agency market leaving many impact players on the market, Milwaukee has a fantastic opportunity to immediately shape the best possible roster using their revenue, impact prospects, and system depth. Should this cyclone of free agency signings, development at the MLB level, and trades involve Lorenzo Cain in some way, shape, or form, the veteran outfielder’s return to Milwaukee would mean that the team has nabbed an elite free agent and immediately improved their center field outlook for fielding, production, and batting order discipline and contact.

Photo Credit: Dan Hamilton, USAToday Sports Images