Second base is “a position we’re going to have to take a long look at,” Brewers GM David Stearns said during the team’s end-of-season meeting with reporters (including Todd Rosiak of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel). Jonathan Villar’s struggles required the Brew Crew to trade for Neil Walker in August, and now with Walker headed for free agency and Eric Sogard (another free agent) perhaps best suited for utility duty, a decision will need to be made about giving Villar another chance or perhaps looking for another addition. Starting pitching is another need given the uncertainty surrounding Jimmy Nelson’s return from a labrum procedure, though manager Craig Counsell said it was too early to consider whether Josh Hader could be moved into a rotation role.
Here’s more from both the NL and AL Central…
- The Tigers will interview Marlins third base coach Fredi Gonzalez and White Sox bench coach Joe McEwing this week about the managerial vacancy, MLB.com’s Jason Beck reports. Angels bench coach Dino Ebel is also on Detroit’s list of candidates, MLB Network’s Jon Morosi tweets. Several other internal (coaches Lloyd McClendon, Omar Vizquel, Dave Clark) and external (Phil Nevin and Charlie Montoyo) have already been linked to the Tigers’ search, which reportedly began with around 50 names in consideration.
- Andrew McCutchen is the key figure of this Pirates offseason, Bill Brink of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette writes, as the team faces a big decision about trading the long-time star outfielder. Dealing McCutchen would essentially mark the end of an era for the franchise, though it would free up $14.5MM in payroll for 2018 (Brink rightly figures McCutchen’s club option is sure to be exercised by the Pirates) that could then be used to fill other roster holes. McCutchen turns 31 next week and is coming off a solid 2017 season that revived his value following a very disappointing 2016 campaign.
- Corey Kluber was a promising but unheralded young arm in the Padres farm system when he was acquired by the Indians in July 2010, as Cleveland.com’s Bud Shaw revisits the trade that gave the Tribe its ace. Kluber was acquired as part of a three-team deal that saw the Cardinals send Ryan Ludwick to the Padres, while St. Louis picked up Jake Westbrook from Cleveland and Nick Greenwood from San Diego. Indians president of baseball operations Chris Antonetti, then the team’s GM, said they received good scouting reports and “great analytical information” on Kluber that caught their interest, but “at the same time, no one sat there and said we were trading for a future Cy Young winner. We had no idea.”
Come on Tigers pick a good one
Take John Farrell off our hands please!
No matter who they get, that aren’t going to win any time soon.
The Twins just proved any team can make the playoffs. The Tigers have a high upside young rotation already and some old guys who might have big bounce back years. There’s no reason they can’t copy the Twins blueprint and win while rebuilding.
Finally a reasoned viewpoint. Sports in general is full of BS talking points and meaningless phrases that tmalinformed fans and lazy sports “journalists” accept as reality.. The Tigers teams of the early 90’s were a definite rebuilding, as they had literally nothing in the way of talent, but this team has plenty of it, both young and veteran, as well as a starting staff that should perform very well. All a team has to do is win 85 games to have a shot at the WC, and who knows what could happen after that. Just look at the ’96 Cards.
Really? I didn’t know that they traded their entire infield, along with Castellanos, Mahtook, Fulmer and Boyd. Unless that happens, it’s not even close to being a “rebuild”., and only one “if” will make them competitive:: Jordan Zimmerman.
Trading Cutch would be a bigger roster hole than anything the $14.5MM could obtain. Instead, maybe take all the money saved from Kang and Marte and Hughes this year and maybe a little more and go spend $14.5MM more to improve the roster.
They’ve spent that money that was saved from Kang by getting Sean Rod
or pocket the money and trade crutch like the owners want to
They should trade him. He’s declining but did bounce back some. But not to his old form.
Know what the Pirates really should have done? Trade him 3 or 4 years ago for a ton of prospects. That could have put them over the top being a small market.
3-4 years ago, they were a contender. It wouldn’t have made any sense to trade him for a prospect haul when you’re in the middle of a division race, and wild card race.
The Bucs will not trade McCutchen until the trade deadline next year either unless some team offers the moon and the starts for him during the off season if they trade him at all. They will keep him until they fall out of contention next season. They will keep him through the season if they are in the race for the playoffs.
Playoff contender and championship contender are two different things. The Pirates haven’t been a championship contender since the early 90’s.
Whether play-off, or championship contender, trading your star away while trying going deep in the postseason makes no sense.
Villar turned down a guaranteed contract last offseason and bet on himself. He bet incorrectly.
That’s funny. You could ave said the same thing about Segura when he was a Brewer. Players have been known to rebuild their value. Things with Segura turned out pretty well for him.
Pretty safe to say villar missed the boat on a contract. That’s a career year no matter how you slice it.
He has strikeout problems. His babip this year was still a way above MLB average at 343. Combo that w a 30% K rate and that’s bad news. The more troubling this is that the 30%K rate isn’t that far above his career average. Doesn’t play particularly great defense either. I’d bet on villar wishing he had taken the offer when it’s all and said and done.
Rather have walker and sogard than Villar.
Of course you would Walker is better than villar alone. It’ll only cost about double. But I don’t see villar ever returning to last seasons form. Brewers really need to retain Walker and swarzak.
Swarzak has already said he wants to come back, so assuming the contract he is looking for isn’t insane, he should be back. Walker said he was looking at free agency, but Milwaukee was the type of team he wanted to be a part of. I’m not sure what the market for 2nd basement is this year, so that will basically determine whether hes back or not. His previous salary was overpaying for sure, so I would see a pay cut in his future no matter where he goes, but how much is to be determined. Unless they pull some other crazy move out of left field, I’d love to have walker back on a 1-2 year deal. Isan Diaz is down in the minors, so assuming he continues to progress, I think hes (hopefully) the long term plan.
I think the long term plan is Keston Hiura. The lineup needs more pure hitters rather than power bats. His bat grades as high as 70 and he would slot in awfully nice in the two hole or even lead off. Obviously the big question is his arm.
You very well could be right, and he’s been impressive so far, but I’m just not sure how far away he is from making it onto the major league club. They are 5 and 6 in the pipeline, one (or both) of them is definitely the long term plan. Diaz didn’t have the greatest season in 2017, so we’ll see if he can turn it around. If Hiura keeps that high batting average anywhere close to where it was in 2017 once he moves to the higher levels, he’ll be the guy for sure.
Hiura’s defense is what would scare me. When the Diaz trade happened I thought right away that our future middle IF was set with Diaz and Arcia. For some reason I’m not sold on Diaz, he’ll have to have a bounce back next season. I agree about Walker. Sign him to 2-3 year deal to keep the position warm for Hiura or Diaz. Always need some veteran leadership in the clubhouse too.
Gee, a players says he wants to go back to the org he is currently with, what a shocker. Players always say that to keep their options open, and more potential money on the table, during their next contract negotiation.
if it saves money, nutting will do it.
I definitely thought this meant something different at first
It won’t happen, but I would love to see Dave Clark get a shot to manage the Tigers. He’s put a a lot of time as a major league coach with various teams, and there may be no more passionate personality in a locker room than Dave.
Dave Clark has earned his chance. I loved his appearances on Shindig and American Bandstand with the DC Five. If he becomes a manager, I’d be Glad All Over.
Nice. I knew who Dave Clark was but didn’t have near your knowledge of the man
Trading cutch would open up a huge hole given that Polanco couldn’t stay healthy and their top prospect has been dealing with injury and his progress was slowed. Sure he may not have performed like an MVP player but he is here already and his defense was improved in ’17 over ’16 and his bat was generally better even when slumping.
The team has money saved in other areas they can also spend, Freese is making 2M less, Jaso is gone, Kang probably won’t be here Bastardo’s money off the books and the team also has a handful.. really two handful of young players making less than 600k that are good enough to fill holes from everyday players. They don’t need to trade Cutch to get money to acquire another player… okay well maybe if that Player is Stanton, Trout, etc…
Listen on Cutch if someone calls and are offering a few top 100s (not happening) or a top flight pitcher with control (again not happening) then strongly consider it. but instead of actively shopping him they should be actively looking to extend him to a very team friendly deal loaded with incentives and options to give Cutch and the Team a path to allow him to retire as a Pirate should he choose too. The Neal Walker trade Killed PR and when Jon completely fell apart any faith people had in the front office went with him. Thankfully bastardo (who is attached to that deal by being traded for jon later) is now gone and that whole thing is behind us.
If they are going to Shop a player then Polanco and Cervelli are better choices to shop but both have their value down due to injury, but would probably give just as big of return if not bigger, semi-easily replaceable.and save around $56M through the length of their contracts (Gregory through 2021 and francisco through 2019)
I like your first statement:
“Trading cutch would open up a huge hole given that Polanco couldn’t stay healthy and their top prospect has been dealing with injury and his progress was slowed”. Plus, Marte was out for 50% of the year. It’d be dumb to trade McCutchen. Polanco’s injury proneness, and the lack of development of prospects would leave a gap in the outfield.
50+ managerial candidates. I assume that means that the Tigers didn’t make a decision on Brad Ausmus until recently. With that many candidates, I also assume that they are seriously searching for a manager. I suspected that the former regime made the decision first then held pseudo interviews for show.
I think the Brewers are going to regress to what people thought they’d be this year instead of being better next year.
Regress to 60 wins? 70 wins? You must be smoking something. I’m not putting a regression out of question, but they will be at least a .500 team again. I think the biggest question mark is how they fill Jimmy Nelson’s spot. If they go out and get someone at least close to his level, and then he comes back at some point during the season, they will likely improve. If they don’t fill the hole Nelson is leaving, then probably a slight regression.
This is a year for The Brewers to build on. Go out and get at least 1 quality arm to fill that gap for Nelson.
And just think, if the Brewers had a legit closer at the beginning of the year, they would’ve had 90 wins and would be preparing to play the Nats this week. You must be high.
Cesar Hernandez is a perfect fit for Milwaukee. The Phillies can also include a bullpen asset from their MLB roster to sweeten the value of the prospect(s) coming back.
Keston Hiura would be highly desirable, I wanted the Phillies to draft him.
I could get behind that, depending on the asking price. Hes a solid young player just entering arbitration, not sure what sort of prospect haul it would take tho.
Brady Singer. Oh wait, you mean a manager?
The Tigers have a dubious starting rotation, if you put a first time manager in place, expect a lot of losing, at least for the first season.