Brewers owner Mark Attanasio says that his club is “not actively shopping” either Jonathan Lucroy or Ryan Braun, as Tom Haudricourt of the Milwakee Journal-Sentinel reports. Both have drawn their share of trade speculation; indeed, the pair landed atop my recent list of 15 top trade candidates. (To be clear, that ranking is a subjective analysis based upon MLBTR’s assessment of both value and potential availability.) When asked about the volume of chatter thus far, Attanasio said there has been “very little, actually, for whatever reason.”
Here’s more from the National League:
- Speaking of Braun, the Giants reportedly have at least had some contact with the Brewers about the slugger. Henry Schulman of the San Francisco Chronicle took a look at that concept, reporting that talks were “cursory” and citing a team source as saying: “It’s far-fetched to go from a conversation to a trade.” As Schulman goes on to explain, there are a whole host of reasons that a match likely won’t come to fruition.
- The Reds announced that young lefty Cody Reed will be promoted to make his MLB debut on Saturday. The 23-year-old was one of three southpaws who came over in last summer’s Johnny Cueto deal. He has impressed in his first run at the Triple-A level, working to a 3.20 ERA in 64 2/3 innings with 8.8 K/9 against 2.4 BB/9. At this stage of the year, future Super Two qualification is not a major concern. For more on Reed, check out this scouting report from Baseball America’s J.J. Cooper.
- Mets outfielder Juan Lagares is headed to the 15-day with a sprained left thumb, the club announced. He’ll be replaced on the active roster by Ty Kelly. New York suffered another scare tonight when infielder Wilmer Flores was hit on the hand by a pitch, but it appears that he escaped any significant damage.
- Dodgers phenom Julio Urias has followed two iffy starts with two good ones, but his time in the majors doesn’t seem long — for 2016, at least. As Bill Shaikin of the Los Angeles Times reports on Twitter, manager Dave Roberts said today that Urias will get two more starts before the team assesses his status, with the focus on watching his innings tally. The 19-year-old is up to 58 frames on the year between Triple-A and the bigs, and has not yet topped 87 2/3 total innings in a single season as a pro.
Its just a front== they can’t go around saying that they are actively shopping their top trade chips== it lowers their value. If they are saying that they would rather hold onto Lucroy and Braun, then it makes them seem harder to acquire. Now, while teams can certainly see through that front, the Brewers still 2017 for Lucroy and many years for Braun, so technically, while it wouldn’t be wise, they could call another teams bluff and wait until the offseason to do anything.
Jonathan Lucroy figures to have considerably less value should the Brewers wait until the off-season to deal him. He will be a one-year rental by that point in time, barring an extension. Otherwise you are correct. There is little doubt that the Brewers GM is posturing, as one might expect from a non-contending team with valuable trade chips as the summer deadline approaches.
A one-year rental can still relieve a qualifying offer, so it doesn’t diminish his value much. What would diminish his value if they wait is if he cools down in the second half.
That’s if the QO system is in place next offseason
This is not the GM posturing, this is the owner telling the truth. Fact is, it was the owner a month into the 2015 season who looked at the team and decided they needed to rework the roster.
Since then, they’ve reworked their roster and taken a mediocre farm system and made it into what some have rated as a top ten one.
Now while they were open to trading Lucroy and Braun before the season, some things have changed. One is the team is better than most thought thanks in large part to 2 players added during the offseason, Jonathon Villar and Chris Carter. Both Villar and Carter are controllable for several seasons.. Villar is arguably worthy of an All Star selection hitting around .300 and leading the NL in stolen bases.. But those two aren’t the only positives. Zach Davies has been splendid in the rotation. Hernan Perez has shown both versatility and ability. Other young players are starting to show promise too. They have a number of very good arms in the pen. Of the key contributors this year, only Aaron Hill is eligible for FA, and if the Brewers want him back, he might be agreeable as he seems to like it in Milwaukee.
Now where would that leave the “rebuild”? Doesn’t this team need help everywhere? No, it doesn’t. As it is now, with Braun, Lucroy and Villar, they have 3 All Star quality every day players, two of whom are controllable beyond 2017. The bullpen has been quite strong. They have one of top prospects in baseball in SS Orlando Arcia knocking on the door and a lefty pitcher in Josh Hader who’s turned into one the the top lefty starting prospects in all of baseball and he’s very close to ready too.
Furthermore, there is plenty of room in the budget either to extend current players and add pieces. This is a team with a payroll under $70 million and that includes Braun.
No, you don’t take a team that’s playing hard, has some youth and is well managed and gut the lineup by trading the 3 and 4 hitters (both likely All Stars).
If the owner wants to compete now while building for the future and wants the fans to get behind the 2016 Brewers, why wouldn’t he come out and say they aren’t actively shopping their two best players. It’s his prerogative.
I like what they’re doing, but I think they should trade lucroy. If they get 3-4 mlb ready players for him, they’ll be in an even better position in two years since he’ll likely leave in free agency
I am still confused as to why teams are more concerned with how many innings a pitcher throws from one season to the versus the amount of pitches. It would seem to be a better way of tracking workload than innings.
I like the way you think. If you think for yourself, and know the Reds system, I could use a Reds guy.
Really good point
It’s harder to outwardly put a number on pitches. A pitch count is also arbitrary. There’s a lot a variance between easy innings and stressful inning where a pitcher is laboring to make pitches. Both aspects are taken into account during innings. There’s usually a set number of pitches in an inning that orgs are comfortable with 12=breezing, 15=middle area, anything above 15=struggling. Just like innings it’s not so much how many but how stressful.
Crew can easily hold onto Lucroy and unload him over the winter. Often bigger trades are easier to consummate in the off-season.
While this is indeed true, you have to figure teams will not want to offer as much for Lucroy as they might during this year’s trade deadline.
The reason I say that, is simply just for the fact that teams will only have him for possibly one season, compared to having him for a little under a season and a half.
Although, even with that being said, those teams interested in trading for Lucroy, very well could possibly work out a contract extension before any trade is finalized. If an extension can get agreed upon, before making the trade official, then I’m positive interested teams would then be willing to offer much more.
This is where you very well may be correct, because a pre-trade extension would most likely be easier to work out during the off-season. This is the case especially compared to smack in the middle of a season at the deadline, when a teams’ GM is consistently fielding calls left and right discussing only God knows how many other players and trade proposals…lol
Either way the Brewers definitely have options, and it will be interesting to see what trades they are able to pull off. Although, it is just about guaranteed that they will ultimately trade Lucroy…It is more or less just going to be a matter of whether he signs a pre-trade extension, which team he gets traded to, and what the Brewers ultimately get in return for Lucroy.
It can also be quite the opposite. Braun and Lucroy’s value may diminish with less team control, but the price will likely be higher mid-season due to competition in the market. A simple example is the report that Philly was interested in Braun since they were hot for a while. There are simply more teams seeming to contend which creates more urgency to acquire a player.
Another problem is the longer the season goes the less likely a competitive team will want to bring him in as a full time catcher, even if they intend to use him as a full time catcher the following season, if they have to split time at 1B and C his value will be diminished learning a new pitching staff during a playoff push isn’t a great idea but Lucroy might be good enough to warrant it.
On the other side a full year of health for both could enhance value. If the Brewers don’t get exactly what they want or pretty close then they have the luxury to wait. It’s not like there are very many cheaper upgrades on the market this offseason
Why would the Brewers not shop Braun and Lucroy. They are rebuilding. If they can manage to get a good return for Lucroy or possibly rid themselves of Brauns huge contract then why not look at that
They’re probably “shopping” pretty much everyone on their Major League roster, as long as someone calls them expressing interest in whatever player.