Some rumblings from around baseball as we get ready for the World Series to begin on Tuesday…
- The Dodgers’ club option on Dave Roberts for 2019 is worth $1.1MM, according to USA Today’s Bob Nightengale (Twitter link). The full financial terms of Roberts’ three-year contract aren’t known, though the manager is set to earn a nice payday should the club exercise its option as expected. It is somewhat unusual that the Dodgers haven’t already locked Roberts up on a longer-term deal, though one would think that an extension is even more of an obvious bit of offseason business now that Roberts had led the team to its second consecutive World Series appearance.
- The emergence of Brandon Woodruff and Corbin Burnes in the postseason gives the Brewers two more potential options in what could be a very interesting pitching rotation next season, JR Radcliffe of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel writes. Woodruff and Burnes were multi-inning relief weapons out of Milwaukee’s pen, with Woodruff starting a bullpen game in Game One of the NLDS and the unofficial starter for Game Five of the NLCS (when Wade Miley’s “start” lasted just one batter in a bit of trickery on the Brewers’ part). With Woodruff and Burnes likely to be stretched out in Spring Training, they could add depth to a Milwaukee staff that has Jhoulys Chacin as the only sure thing, with Zach Davies, Freddy Peralta, Chase Anderson, Junior Guerra, and potentially a healthy Jimmy Nelson also in the mix.
- Orioles pitching prospect Hunter Harvey will begin another throwing program in December, MASNsports.com’s Roch Kubatko writes. Chosen 22nd overall by the O’s in the 2013 draft, Harvey has tossed only 176 2/3 innings over his five pro seasons due to a number of arm problems, including Tommy John surgery in 2016. This past season saw Harvey sidelined with shoulder, forearm, and elbow issues that limited him to 32 1/3 frames for Double-A Bowie. The right-hander doesn’t turn 24 until December, and the Orioles are still hopeful that Harvey can develop into a solid Major League pitcher if he can shake the injury bug.
Roberts is a great manager and the players seem to really respond well to him. I think he sometimes makes some bone head decisions, sometimes he leaves guys in to long thinking they deserve it and sometimes pulls guys out to early which are two reasons I think we didn’t win that World Series last year but over all he’s a great manager and deserves an extension and nice pay raise. I can’t help but wonder why he hasn’t gotten it yet. I wouldn’t like to be sitting there like a lame duck when I’ve taken the team to playoffs and won the division every year that I managed them but maybe they’ve had some sort of handshake deal behind closed doors that we don’t know about.
Why is he a great manager? That team is built to win but they won’t. You can put anyone in there and have the same outcome.
Wait making the world series in back to back years is not successful? Assuming they will lose is nice but until it happens that has no value. At this point its 90 percent on the players. Dave did his job and thats to manage the ego’s and communicate what the front office wants. His bullpen moves are strange at times, but you hear that about every manager out there. Dave is perfect for the Dodgers and i know that may be hard for you to come to terms with since the Padres foolishly passed on making him their skipper.
They won’t win but any Competent manager can lead that team to the series. It’s built to be there.
It’s built to be there? The Dodgers are built off of prospects, released players, random trades where the throw in’s become the best part, and players that they didn’t want (Kemp). Name 1 top tier FA signing that this FO has made.
Hmmm…the Nationals come to mind as the team “built” to get there. And they have a revolving door on the bench. Haters gonna hate, but getting to the series once, let alone back to back, is no small feat. Roberts deserves some credit
Payroll is highest in game so the argument they haven’t signed a top tier FA rings hollow. They have kept many off FA market by extending w huge contracts.
Puig- ryu- maeta- turner-hill were bought. Highly sought after too. That’s 4 FA bought as maeda ryu puig werent cheap international signings and turner reupped on a long term contract.
Grandal- machado- madson- wood- Kemp werent nobodies when traded for. The only knock on Kemp was defense. He still had a rh platoon bat.
LOL highest payroll. That belongs to the Red Sox actually. Oh, and the Giants also had a higher payroll this year than the Dodgers. Try again.
Mommas wrong again!
C’mon man… The Dodgers might not have it this year because they spent something like $$250-$300 million/year for four years prior. If anything I commend them for somehow planning ahead to get under the tax this year so they can splurge again next year.
The most expensive guy in there is Turner for 64 million who is a steal at that price. Sorry the Dodgers make good trades and signings?
Those payrolls were mostly due to Colletti. Do you think they hired top exec from Tampa and Oakland to continuously run $250M payrolls?
I’m so tired of LA haters saying things like this, because it’s wrong.
Of the alleged ‘bought’ players, I’m not sure what you’re using as a metric for ‘not cheap’, but these all seem like pretty reasonable, fair contracts.
Puig- $42 million over 7 years
Ryu- $36 million over 6 years
Maeda- $25 million over 8 years
Hill was acquired through a trade, then resigned, and not for an insane display of wealth.
Hill- $48 million over 3 years
Turner was nontendered by the Mets, was signed to a minor league contract, and proved himself, and the caliber of player he is, this type of contract is clearly not excessive.
Turner- $64 million over 4 years
As for the trades, don’t act like those players were just given to us. The trades were fair and agreed upon, and the Dodgers gave up quite a bit to get them. No one expected Kemp, Wood, or Madson to perform as they have.
The Dodgers payroll ballooned when the new FO took over, and the reason for that was to become competitive while the farm was rebuilt. This is how a team should be built, and to say that just because the payroll is high, so that somehow discounts what this team as done is stupid. I appreciate the fact that the ownership was willing to spend in order to get the team competitive. If anything, all of the MLB teams should be having payrolls that approach or exceed the luxury tax, or are we really going to pretend like these owners aren’t all billionaires that can’t afford to keep their players?
The Dodgers ownership group is clearly committed to winning, market size has nothing to do with it. Yes, there is a TV deal, yes, there is a lot of money to be made in LA, so there is a good ROI, but that hardly means that other cities are not incredibly profitable too. The ownership of teams with smaller markets can still easily afford to make signings and invest in their team, they just choose not to because they’re more interested in making money with minimal investment. So instead of whining about how much the Dodgers spend, or how they make trades, maybe you should whine about how your billionaire ownership group refuses to.
To say that the Dodgers were built to make it to the WS is correct, because that is the whole point.
Yup. But of course if a team with a high payroll wins, then someone will say they bought the title. If they lose, you’ll hear how it only goes to show that you can’t buy a title. So this year I suppose no matter who wins, both cases will be proven to be correct!
@FamousMrKing………BRAVO!!
Lowtalker..I’m sorry but you’re out if your mind if you think any manager could come in here and take this team to the World Series. Don’t believe? Ask Joe Torre and Don Mattingly how well they did. And if not wrong I believe some of the Dodgers payroll these last few years has still been going to places who aren’t even on the team anymore.
As for some of the guys in this team..Turner was a guy the Mets nor any other team wanted, we brought him in as back up infielder and he just happened to be a hell of a player. Kemp, we traded for to shed salary and planned on trading him but nobody wanted him so they hung on to him and he ended up paying off for us. Muncy, again another failure with another team that nobody wanted, we took a chance on and he just happened to have a great season. Taylor, same story. Puig, is actually under paid because he was an international signing but had he just came in as a free agent I’d be willing to put money on it that he got more from either the Dodgers or another team. The Dodgers babe pieced together a team of guys that nobody else wanted but they turned out to work for the Dodgers along with some home grown players who earned pay raises like Kershaw and Jansen. We also have some young guys like Joc, Buehler, Bellinger and Saeger who came up through the farm system and will one day cash in as well. We haven’t just gone out and paid for a bunch of star player to build a contender, the front office has been really smart taking care of their guys and keeping young talent from from the minors instead of trading and taking the win no approach so they are not only in good position to win now they are for the future as well. I do think this front office will spend this offseason though with guys like Harper our there, or at least they will try to. But I’d be willing to put money on the fact that not just any manager could take this team to the World Series. I mean the Nats had a good team and couldn’t do squat with it, the Rockies, the Diamondbacks and other Dodgers managers all come to mind to prove that point.
Pretty much agree. I’m not a total fan of this FO and everything they’ve done or not done, but I do think they’ve succeeded in protecting the best of the prospects and finding those diamonds in the rough. What I do expect though is that they use the financial muscle they gained by getting under the luxury tax cap to participate fully in the free agent market this offseason. That means locking Kershaw down and finding a couple of quality bullpen arms.
As for managing, that’s an iceberg — 90% of what a manager does is below the waterline. Just because we can’t see it doesn’t mean it isn’t there.
Players who this FO might have extended but haven’t: Kershaw, Jansen, Hill, Turner.
Players who this FO have extended: none.
At some point this FO’s philosophy on extensions should cease to be a mystery.
They have said they want to respect the free agency process and let the guys feel whats out there. So basically they have a strong feeling about only doing business in the off season
Extensions are usually done in the offseason since few players want to talk contracts during the season. So the big difference it seems to me is this FO doesn’t like to talk extensions at all, ever. They were able to bring back Hill, Turner and Jansen after allowing them to go to free agency, but if Kershaw opts out they will be trying to land a much bigger fish with that strategy.
Kershaw? Extended him 7 yrs 215 million in 2014.
Justin Turner 4 years 64 Million in 2017.
Rich Hill 3 +16 per year. Jansen 5+16 per. Kemp 20 per. Could keep going.
Nope, nope, and… nope. Kershaw was extended by the previous FO, not this one. Of the others, none were extended. All of them reached free agency and were re-signed. Obviously this FO does not believe in extensions. That is my point.
But if we’re talking about keeping going, we could list the other Dodgers currently in their arbitration years or on the cusp of free agency who might easily be extension candidates, but very likely won’t be extended by this FO: Taylor, Pederson, Hernandez, Seagar, Puig, Grandal. Now there’s a list that could go on and on.
So no surprise that Roberts is on that list too. That’s just how Friedman and Co. rolls.
In a perfect world I think the starting rotation is Nelson, Chacin, Peralta, Burnes, and Woodruff. Then you have Derby ,Houser, Brown and hopefully also resign Miley. I wouldn’t mind bringing in maybe Evoldi or maybe a trade for Sonny Gray. I don’t think Milwaukee needs to go after an expensive starter like Corbin keep the money and get ready to locking up on some of the young pitchers.They also need to decide what to do with Anderson, Guerra ( possibly long man out of pen) and Wilkerson. Could use them for room on 40 man roster along with maybe picking up younger players.
having Patrick Corbin at the front of that rotation is super sexy though. It might just be a fondness I have for him as I watch the dbacks quite a bit.
I agree I would love to have him but it sounds like New York will go all out for him and I’m just trying to stay reasonable
To me looking at that rotation, that’s a lot of good #2 and #3 starters, but no #1s. Maybe one of that group develops into a stud, but if they aren’t sure of that happening I don’t think it’s a bad idea to try and land a top free agent or explore the trade market. Still, it’s a good problem to have, and trying to find a top starter isn’t always a good idea (see also, Chris Archer).
I think Burnes or Peralta could possibly turn into a number one, both needing another pitch if Im correct. Peralta needs to cut down the walks too.
Burnes already has 4 pitches. He didn’t use all of them in his temporary relief role this year.
This article made me laugh. It made it sound like Burnes and Woodruff came out of nowhere and should now be considered as possible starters. It has been the Brewers plan all along to try them as starters next year.
The way Craig Counsell mis managed the Brewers in the playoffs should have the Brewers looking for a new manager
Counsell is exactly what front offices want. I would want him managing my team so bad. He’s great
I wouldn’t call him great. But he’s not bad
Yea, I thought he did pretty good with what he had. Not his fault the bats were asleep half of the nlcs.
I like him, but I can’t get behind bringing Hader in to start the 3rd. I can see the argument bringing him in that early in a tough spot, say runners on 2nd and 3rd one out. But to start the inning? Save him for a tough spot. I’ve always thought your best reliever should get the toughest outs. The saves stat can be pretty over glorified if it’s a 3 run lead vs an easy part of the order, and another reliever came in with RISP and heart of order up an inning or two earlier. That’s the guy that got the tough outs. So I applaud the manager that puts his best guy in those spots and breaking 9th inning mold. But 3rd inning nobody on?! Could have really used Hader in the 6th…
Or he could have just left him in until he showed signs of being tired. They were already losing anyway. Get a couple guys on and take him out.
Not to mention using schoop to pinch hit for chacin with two guys on and two outs. I think Craig pooped his pants
If the Brewers had a starting rotation we wouldn’t be having this conversation.
They had a starting rotation but he was too damn afraid to use them. Chacin, Gonzalez and Miley. Add one more maybe Woodruff if he’s gonna trust him to come in like that for game one and five.
Brewers fans do realize they’re not going to be able to play regular season baseball like they played September 40-man bullpen shuffle, right? And all those failed SPs that became short-burst, max-out guys would have to pitch at velocity much lower than we just saw them? Add in the fact that health will be an issue in a year after the NLCS….reality about to set in in Milwaukee and they’re going to kick themselves for not winning in their best chance for the next 30 years.
As is, the Brewers had several good opportunities to tie the game prior to Puig’s HR. So whatever Counsell was doing almost worked.
Failed SPs?? Your lack of knowledge of the Brewers system is showing. The players with whom you are referring to are young SPs who didn’t have a spot in the rotation yet, so they converted them to the bullpen for the year. Once players convert to bullpen type usage, it takes a while for their arms to be “stretched” out again for SP usage. Burnes, Woodruff and Peralta are not “failed SP’s”
@pd14athletics
I agree 100%
Problem with that is if he saves Hader for the 6th inning and uses someone not as good that blows the game, he just lost the game with his best pitcher in the bullpen. I liked the early call, just thought he should’ve stretched Hader out a little bit more.
They are all failed starters….your rose colored glasses are on. They are short-burst, max-out guys, nothing more. You will find that out soon enough.
Burnes, Peralta and Woodruff were top 100 prospects before they lost eligibility, and none of them have over a 1/2 year of service time. How can you possibly call them failed starters??
That’s the chance you take, it’s a team game it’s not the Milwaukee Haders. I thought he should have gone a few more innings. Jeffress struggles the whole series.
He’s a hometown favorite that brought the Brewers to the closest they have been to a WS in 36 years. Many people/sites predicted the brewers ~85 wins or less and they won 96, and the NL Central. Yeah… they should fire him for trying to manage a team with a limited starting rotation. Any manager can look good with a starting rotation like LAD, just getting to a Game 7 of the NLCS is an accomplishment with that staff.
He got to the NLCS with chacin Miley and a random assortment of starters. Hopefully the brewers add some decent arms this off season.
As outsider looking in; My scapegoat Manager of the Year: Dave Roberts.
Back-to-back World series appearances is impressive, yet seems like Roberts is a dead man walking, barring a slaying of the 2018 Red Sox behemoths. That hardly seems fair.
Win or lose, this dude gets my respect.
He’s got great communication skills. If you’re talking solely based off of connecting with the players and creating a good environment, he’s as good as they get. But with that being said, his overall managing skills in my opinion aren’t great. He doesn’t manage his pitchers well, and his lineups focus too much on splits. For example, taking Max Muncy out of the lineup because of an average left handed pitcher starting the game for the opposing team just doesn’t make sense. If you have a hot hitter hitting well, you don’t just take him out of a lineup because of a lefty lefty matchup. I really think the brewers took advantage of Roberts mismanaging and were able to win a game or two more than they should have won. That being said, I still find Roberts an above average manager.
Look at David Freese’s numbers vs LHP vs Muncys. Theres your awnser on why that happens. The Dodgers consistency have the best pitching numbers in baseball so he clearly knows what he is doing.
Maybe look at them yourself, Muncy hit .255 with 8 bombs vs lefties. In my opinion, whoever in the FO wanted him to sit vs an average lefty like Gio should rethink their philosophies.
Freese is a better option. Its not that hard
All the things you say Roberts isn’t good at doing are based on the analytics supplied to him by the FO. All the pitching matchup, all the platooning, the lineups, everything. Do you seriously believe he’s making any of that up off the cuff? In terms of on-field management, he’s an implementer. That’s why they hired him, and why he keeps his job.
The Brewers are a very good team. Where I wonder about their ceiling for next year is how will the young kids handle an extended work load. Same in a sense with Nelson working back from injury, and it was one you cross you fingers for his return to normal. That usually takes longer than most envision. Guys tend to feel like themselves close to the 18-24 month range if they ever get it back. Their pen was pretty filthy clearly, but also will be top heavy if they extend guys and you always worry about a guy like JJ being extended with an extreme workload. You figure Knebel will be fine and can pick up the workload should JJ falter. They definitely have the pieces to remain relevant for a while, but you also question the workload/tole of pitching that deep and what it will look like as they get stretched out beyond the norm late into next season. Then again they can sit pat to keep this set of arms intact to artificially depress the workload. It’ll definitely be interesting to see what they do this offseason and how they handle their staff. Next year could be a step back year, if they experience an injury here and there and/or the workloads catch up to them. Then again you can say that about any young staff. I’m curious to see what they do this winter. Miley and Chacin make sense as short contract pacts to see if they can repeat and eat innings. What you can see is they definitely have something brewing there.
Chacin is already locked in for 19 I knew that. Miley on a short pact duhh.
Good points, they definitely got a lot of experience to group of young guys. I really enjoyed listening to Smoltz feeling about the future of this rotation and bullpen. Gotta admit he knows what he is talking about. They aren’t going to sneak up on anyone anymore. They did an awesome job in taking a rebuild and just making it a retool. Thank gosh we didnt have a rebuild like some other teams where there was a couple 100 lost season.
Smoltz of anyone should know the difference between starting and max-out relieving. His comments were ridiculous and borderline reckless. Don’t buy it. That rotation is going to be a question mark.
HOF’er Smoltz is one of the most knowledgeable MLB analysts; pretty certain he knows what he is talking about. Calling his comments “ridiculous and borderline reckless” is nothing but hogwash.
Smoltz isnt someone who just throws things out there when he says stuff without knowing what he is talking cmon now. Yes they aren’t going to throw all out like they did but bottom line it’s a good team with good pitching. Playoffs are different that is the way it is. We may be the next coming of Washington Nationals for the next four years but then again we may make the next World Series too. Either way I’m a Brewer fan and I will always follow them proudly
True, but…the Milwaukee Brewers are everything that is good about baseball–smaller market team, making shrewd off season and in season moves to become competitive and win the most games in the league. On the other hand, the Milwaukee Brewers embody everything this is absolutely wrong with the baseball playoff system. (and I by no means am limiting this to the Brewers).
Miley didn’t pitch to one batter because it was some revelation of baseball strategy. He pitched to one batter because the current (and permanent) baseball playoff structure allows it.
Hader doesn’t pitch three innings because he had to—it did because he could. Morrow doesn’t pitch in all seven games of the World Series last here because he had to–he did because he could. Same for Knebel’s usage; Chapman and Miller. Same for Lester, Porcello, Sale, Kershaw. All examples of why baseball playoffs end up being much more a crapshoot than the other sports.
Although it will never change due to network money—the baseball playoffs will always lend itself to a completely differently played game than the regular simple due to the high number of off days that are embedded in the schedule.
It’s easy to pitch a closer for 5-6-7 outs when you have an off day coming up. Then another, then another.
A best of five series should be played in five days—travel and play—just like the regular season. You have to have four-five starters to survive. You have to manage your bullpen like you do during the regular season. I will bend a little and give a day off before game six of a best of seven, but the entire dynamic of how the game is played.
Yes, this is a stretch but the Cubs finished the season, including game 163 and wild card having scheduled games 41 out of 42 games.
Between the end of the season and the start of the World Series–the Red Sox have 13 off days.
Smoltz talks as though he’s trying to be in someone else’s shoes. That’s where he runs into trouble. He was bulldog pitcher with some guts in his day. He’s trying to explain things done by pitchers who aren’t what he was.
It’s like the Dos Equis once having an awkward moment just to see how it feels. That’s Smoltz when analyzing other current pitchers. Hershiser was the same way.
Think what you want. Analysts make stupid comments routinely. Go ahead and buy this Brewers team if you want,…and recognize the incredible fortune and all of the planets aligning in the final six weeks. They are in for a major regression to the mean next year.
Cubs suck get over it
pulling Miley after pne hitter was BUSH LEAGUE
Solid analysis, I mostly agree with you. As a Pirate fan I see them being in a really similar spot to circa 2013-2014 Pirates: we know they’re good, but will the league adjust to them and will they make the right moves to counter or improve? The Brewers definitely have a better front office with bigger purse strings than those Pirates did, and maybe better overall talent too.
Looks to me like they got 7-8 scalable starters that will find themselves on the Major League roster. This means they can have multi innings guys out of the pen like Corbin Burnes was this year. I think they will be fine.
It was a tale of two managers in the NLCS.
One manager overplaying his hand with an inferior pitching staff. Counsell would make a move immediately when sensing trouble with the starter. But did the same rules apply with the bullpen? Sometimes. Cute little display in Game 5 also.
Then you’d have the other manager, with a knee-jerk reaction to moves made by the other manager. Yeah let’s empty the bench beginning in the 3rd inning and bring all the lefties in. Nevermind that Hader is waiting to destroy them. Nevermind that David Freese and others were swinging the bat. Nevermind holding the bullets until it’s time to use them. I get it; make Cousell use Hader early rather than late. I also get that LA played 7 games against a team they should have wiped out by Game 5.
Game 2 should have opened eyes on Roberts; a manager has no player to come up and hit in the 9th for the pitcher. Justin Turner saved Roberts’ job and the series with that homerun. Imagine the backlash if LA was down 1 run in the 9th inning with 2 outs and with runners on base you have a pitcher hitting. It would have been a disaster.
It seems to me that popular opinion is that every year, 29 managers are utter failures and 1 manager lucks out and the players win him a World Series.
THIS ^^^^
Perhaps Roberts is the one holding up an extension? A winning percentage of .589 in regular season makes an extension a slam-dunk, but getting back to the WS has further increased his value. Roberts may even want to play out the option and become a free agent after 2019. Who knows, Roberts may not like managing with a FO that is so hands-on with on-field decisions.
Imagine how much better the Brewers would be if Hader was in the starting rotation. I understand his value out if the pen, but a stud #1 and they’d be a tough out in a playoff series. If he could have pitched more than 3 innings in game 7 Milwaukee is playing tomorrow and not LA. Milwaukee should stretch him out this spring and put him in rotation.
Needs the 3rd pinch (offspeed) to be an effective starter. If he can do it effectively he’ll be as good of a starter as he is a reliever. Go Brewers!
yeah, it’s not that simple. there’s no guarantee he would pitch as well after a season long workload. just look at how Sale struggles with injury and velocity in September/October.
I do think Corbin and Woodruff should be starters though
Last years doyuers would have beaten this years bosox
I think maybe some credit should go to Geren for this. Roberts has made his poor choices like leaving pitchers in too long or taken out too early. Taking fielders out (i.e. Freese has both RBI’s in game 6 and gets benched.). I remember Bellinger not hustling and getting benched yet Machado has free room to do whatever he wants to do. Roberts is afraid of certain players. Why I don’t know. Point is players got Dave to WS not the other way around.