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

Surplus Grade
At Baseball Prospectus Milwaukee, I have worked on a transactional Benefit-Cost Analysis system for assessing prospect-and-MLB trades. I use the term “Surplus” to denote the value of a player through trade, which includes the player’s on-field production plus their “scarcity” (which, in terms of MLB labor, translates into their contractual dollars plus control time). In the following table, I demonstrate one way of assessing surplus for these trades, which includes both options for Soria and Moustakas picked up for the 2019 season.

Recommended Background: Refining Surplus Pricing || Organizational Logic and Playoff Trades

It should be stressed that this is not viewed as a complete analysis of a transaction, but rather an analysis that paces current MLB player production and prospect roles against the history of MLB in order to assess their value; the hypothesis is that since MLB teams can (and do) trade prospects for MLB roles, a value metric can be found that places prospects and MLB players on the same scale.

Here’s how the trades look without options:

Any way one slices it, David Stearns is “going for it,” in terms of delivering trades that provide clear cut short-term MLB roster gains while surrendering long-term roster assets. On the face of it, Stearns has paid more than he is receiving; at worst, he paid a dollar to return one quarter. In the case of the Soria trade, the time horizons are acceptable, as it is unclear how quickly lefty Kodi Medeiros will reach the MLB (even from Double-A in 2018), let alone a relief role that sees the young southpaw form his tools into high leverage function (which would arguably be his highest realistic role); the same can be said for Perez, who has never played stateside ball and thus has a truly indeterminate role horizon.

In the case of the Moustakas trade, it’s tougher to make a case about role horizons, for both Phillips and Lopez have useful (if not flashy) roles for a 2018 contending ballclub and potentially better roles for the future. Phillips could morph into a multi-tool center fielder if his bat develops at the MLB level, but his defense, speed, and power remain strong enough that Phillips could also serve as a rare “impact Fourth Outfielder;” it’s impossible not to dream on Lopez’s fastball and curveball combo playing up as a reliever, and the MLB dream for the righty would be that if the command comes along he can scale relief roles from low- to high-leverage.

Related: What does the future hold for Jorge Lopez? || Medeiros & Perez 

It must be added that if it appears perplexing that the potential transactional surplus prices involved in the Moustakas do not equal one another, they need not. One can argue that from an organizational standpoint, reaching the playoffs is a push for additional revenue, as well as an operation that concerns on-field baseball production. At some point, Wins, Runs Scored, Runs Allowed, Overall Future Potential, etc., are turned into cash for an organization. In the case of the 2018 Brewers, these recent deals, especially the Moustakas trade, bolster the club’s Wild Card lead (currently up 2.5 games) and (dare I say it) give the club a better chance at competing with the division leading Lakeview Nine (the Cubs currently lead Milwaukee by 1.5 games for the National League Central crown). Once these playoff odds are bolstered, the organization can also price out their odds of playing deeper into the playoffs, and frankly, if the Brewers believe these types of deals can help their club reach the League Championship Series, it does not necessarily matter that their deadline deals were “too expensive.”

MLB Roster Profile
Thus far, it is clear that the Moustakas move accomplishes two key objectives for the MLB roster:

• First, the move improves an offense in need of consistent production by making it deeper through the addition of a solid prime-age veteran bat.

• Second, the move will test an efficient defense and organizational shifting philosophy by moving incumbent third baseman Travis Shaw to second base.

Moving Toward Contact
To the first point, Mike Moustakas developed into a solid, consistently better than average batter after his 2015 breakout. The left-handed bat is also a clear addition to the discipline-contact department for the Brewers offense, as Moustakas consistently strikes out at a better than average clip. Ostensibly, Moustakas adds power and contact to the batting order, and as many have noted, will test these traits in a ballpark that is much friendlier to left-handed batters than Kansas City’s park.

The following table includes Moustakas’s home run, walk, and strike out percentages, as well as his True Average (TAv) and Fielding Runs Above Average (FRAA), which are advanced metrics that assess underlying offensive and defensive elements to express production (.260 is average for TAv, and 0 is average for FRAA).

While Fielding Runs Above Average (FRAA) demonstrate some fluctuations in recent seasons for Moustakas, the third baseman performs at a consistently better than average rate with the glove as well as the bat, which should reduce some of the potential impact of the Brewers’ infield shuffle. Additionally, since Orlando Arcia is working to the left of Moustakas, theoretically some of the defensive pressure should be taken off of the third baseman.

Misusing Phillips?
One of the remaining questions for the MLB roster is whether Brett Phillips actually had a solid role for the club moving forward. Perhaps because of the left-handed batting bent of much of the Brewers positional group (Eric Thames, Christian Yelich, Shaw, and more recently Brad Miller, too), Phillips has remained out of favor for the club’s official “fourth outfield” spot, a spot that has recently belonged to the hot-and-cold Keon Broxton. Despite a .180 batting average, Broxton has walked and hit for power frequently enough to keep his glove on the roster, which is playing at around 2.4 FRAA (after a -8.2 FRAA campaign in 2017). From the right side of the plate, Broxton ostensibly offers more flexibility when manager Craig Counsell needs to spell Yelich or Thames in the outfield.

Related: Understanding Phillips

The trouble with the Broxton-Phillips wager is that Phillips arguably already surpasses this level of production even with his MLB floor, which he demonstrated in spectacular fashion toward the end of the 2017 season. In that brief performance, Phillips flashed his elite defensive tools (4.3 FRAA), while also presenting a strong batting average (.276), walk rate (nearly 10 percent), and power (seven extra base hits in 98 appearances). This type of production is what makes pricing out an MLB role for Phillips so difficult, because the left-handed batting defensive asset has enough questions about his offensive game to raise the possibility that pitchers will expose his shortcomings with more exposure. But the glove and arm are so good as to keep Phillips in a serious regular rotation if he falls out of a starting spot, and he could easily serve as an MLB outfielder with 300-to-400 valuable plate appearances, the type of ephemeral roster asset that most playoff teams dream of. The trouble with the Brewers trading Phillips is that his floor is arguably already reaching this role, which raises questions about why the club did not employ Phillips for more than 15 games in 2018.

Along with keeping right handed pitcher Brandon Woodruff in the shuttle crew between Milwaukee and Triple-A Colorado Springs, and shifting Corbin Burnes to relief for his MLB debut (when his top role, floor, and the club’s admitted 2019 plans have him slated as a starting pitcher), the club’s usage of Phillips should serve as a serious area for strategic questioning and analysis. Did the Brewers use Phillips to the best of his current ability, even given that they’re working with his MLB floor? The flip side of this argument would hold that since the Brewers do not have outfield space to test Phillips’s top role as a starting center fielder, trading him simply means that a “blocked” prospect will get his chance elsewhere; similarly, if you believe that Phillips will settle into the impact back-up role as well, that’s not a role that you mourn trading away to bolster an MLB roster weakness elsewhere.

Does Fielding Matter?
As for moving Shaw to second base, this is the type of value-seeking move that one would love to see from a loudly-announced, so-called “analytic” front office. The Brewers have one of the most efficient defensive units in the National League, even with the recent demotion of star defensive short stop Orlando Arcia and a display of less-than-stellar middle infield play of late; the club’s bread-and-butter has been stopping hits from falling in the outfield, either on flyballs or line drives, and coupled with the somewhat bizarre distribution of batted balls between pitching units (i.e., the key relievers are typically more groundball oriented, on the whole, than the starting pitchers), the Brewers defensive unit can withstand unexpected arrangements so long as the personnel shift for key game moments.

Additionally, moving Shaw to second base answers an interesting question about the extent to which fielding matters for an MLB club. This question was prominently raised when Arcia was demoted, as even a top tier glove in all of baseball could not hold that batting performance, and now the inverse equation can be applied to Shaw. By True Average, Shaw is one of the very best bats on the Brewers, and the club essentially has a .298 TAv second baseman at the deadline (that’s good enough for sixth best in the MLB among 2B with 100 PA); neither Brian Dozier nor Jonathan Schoop, the remaining rumored second base targets for the Brewers, can be counted on to match Shaw’s impact batting production. Furthermore, keeping Shaw at second base arguably gives the club the chance to continue their long play gamble on Jonathan Villar, who can slide into a meaningful depth role once he returns from the disabled list. The equation here is quite clever, as if the Brewers are going to gamble on Dozier or Schoop putting it together, they can also gamble on Villar, who has shown flashes of brilliance in 2018 and was batting .261 / .346 / .348 over the 20 games preceding his disabled list stint.

If Counsell can start a fielding unit that includes Moustakas and Shaw, and then use a fielding substitution when a key groundball reliever enters a close game (looking at Jeremy Jeffress here), ostensibly the manager has more options to get the offense going without sacrificing key late game defense. One can dream that if the Brewers succeed in the playoffs, this unorthodox defensive gamble lead the way. 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.

This is #TeamDepth exhibiting team flexibility across the offense, fielding, and contractual horizons, and even if the acquisition cost seems steep, the playoffs payoff is clear and (hopefully) immediate.

Photo Credit: Benny Sieu, USA Today Sports Images

This post was updated at 10:30 AM to include additional BPMilwaukee and Baseball Prospectus links and add Corey Ray as a top prospect.

Perez is the very definition of a “flyer.” He will turn 21 later this year and has spent the last two years pitching in the Dominican Summer League, the lowest rung of the minor league baseball ladder and a circuit typically populated by teenagers. He’s got some nice surface stats this year (2.01 Earned Run Average (ERA) and 10.5 strike outs per nine innings in 40.3 IP) but doesn’t possess impressive raw stuff. The fastball from Perez sits only in the 88-91 MPH range and he’ll mix in a cutter, curve, and changeup. For Chicago, the true prize in the deal is Medeiros, Milwaukee’s first-round pick at #12 overall in 2014.

Medeiros was a divisive prospect going back to the day he was drafted, with many scouts sticking the “future reliever” label on him right away. But getting pegged as a bullpen arm isn’t the denigration that it used to be given the way that baseball has changed and emphasized the importance of a good relief corps. It’s been an up-and-down developmental road for the southpaw, with the lowest point coming in 2016 when he walked nearly as many batters (63) as he struck out (64) in 23 appearances for Class-A Advanced Brevard County. He’s bounced back well statistically since then, however, and this season he produced a 3.14 ERA with 107 punchouts against 45 walks in 103.3 innings for Double-A Biloxi before being dealt.

The Brewers stayed steadfast in developing Medeiros as a starter despite the obvious issues with his profile. These are commonly noted: the funky arm slot and high-effort delivery, the below-average command, the platoon issues, and the lack of a third pitch to play off his fastball/slider combination. The White Sox are expected to keep him in a similar capacity for the time being, but the scouting consensus continues to form around a relief role. Following the trade announcement, Eric Longenhagen of Fangraphs tweeted out that Medeiros “should be premium lefty bullpen weapon at maturity.”

For a reliever of Soria’s ilk (2.56 ERA, 45 DRA-(!), 49:10 strike outs to walks in 38.7 IP) under control for potentially 1.5 seasons, the trade price of Medeiros seems fair. Sure, the lefty’s skill-set is quite intriguing, and if you squint just right, you can see a Hader-esque upside in a fireman role. But Medeiros isn’t the flamethrower that he once was; his stuff has backed up a bit since high school and he’s now closer to the 88-93 MPH range with his heater than the mid-90’s fire he once possessed. He didn’t even garner a mention in Baseball Prospectus’ top Brewers prospect list at the beginning of the year, nor did his improved performance push him into the midseason update of Baseball America’s top prospect list for Milwaukee. MLB Pipeline had him at #13 in Milwaukee’s system before the trade with an Overall Future Potential (OFP) of 45, and he now slots in at #19 overall among Chicago’s farmhands. The Brewers would have faced a difficult decision about whether or not to protect Medeiros from the Rule 5 Draft (among a host of other notable prospects) this winter, and now that will be the White Sox problem.

The only real complaint I saw regarding this deal was a fan lamenting that “another first-rounder didn’t pan out.” In this case, though, that’s the wrong way to think about it. Yes, the Brewers have had some notable whiffs at the top of the draft, such as Eric Arnett, Jed Bradley, Victor Roache, and so on. But Medeiros was drafted at 12th overall, signed and then developed to the point where he became a desirable commodity for other franchises. His future potential was leveraged into present production in the form of Joakim Soria to better fit with Milwaukee’s current competitive window. There is more to valuing a prospect than the Wins Above Replacement that he produces on the field for the franchise that drafts/signs him, and I would argue that using Medeiros as a chip to bring in a reliever performing at an elite level for the rest of this year and possibly next season is plenty valuable. Now the risk of completing his development and extracting big league worth falls upon the White Sox staff.

It’s not difficult to envision a future in the big leagues for Medeiros, but an average left-handed reliever seems like the most plausible outcome at present. Given where the team is at in the standings and the upcoming 40 man roster crunch, that’s something that Milwaukee could afford to part with.