This week's mailbag attempts to find a blueprint for the Royals, considers the Cubs' needs, ponders a Jordan Walker extension, examines Braves trade targets, explains how minor league options work, and much more!
D.T. asks:
Another season lost for the Royals. Other than BWJ and possibly Caglianone, their draft picks, which have all been very high, have traditionally been complete busts. What will it take to turn this organization around?
To answer this question, I'll start by taking roughly an eight-hour drive from Kansas City to Milwaukee. The Brewers seem to be the model for small market contention. How are they pulling it off?
Let's look at 2023 to present for the Brewers. Their position players have totaled 83.7 WAR since 2023, excluding those who were negative in that metric. Almost three-quarters of that WAR is concentrated in seven players. Here's how they were acquired:
William Contreras: 19.6% of total WAR. The Brewers picked up outfielder Esteury Ruiz as part of the Josh Hader trade at the 2022 deadline. Ruiz was a 45-grade prospect lacking in power who didn't profile as a likely regular. The Brewers then inserted themselves into the Braves-A's Sean Murphy trade a few months later, prying a controllable Contreras loose from Atlanta after a breakout 2022 season. But the Brewers had Ruiz because they first had Hader, an All-Star dominant reliever with a year and a couple months of control left. They had Hader because former GM Doug Melvin snagged him in a deal that sent Carlos Gomez and Mike Fiers to the Astros in 2015.
Putting aside the significant work the David Stearns regime did to develop Hader into a star, Stearns was also willing to trade Hader while the Brewers sat in first place with a 90% chance at the playoffs. Aside from the need for bold trades and strong player development, the Brewers willingly put their 2022 playoff chances at risk (and they did miss the playoffs that year) to set in motion of sequence of trades that netted them Contreras, who became crucial in their 2023-26 run.
The Royals had zero playoff shot at the time, but J.J. Picollo did pull off his own masterstroke trade by shipping Aroldis Chapman to Texas for Cole Ragans in 2023 before the calendar turned to July. But assuming Ragans bounces back health and production-wise, he's the type of player the Brewers would be looking at trading this winter or at next year's trade deadline. So my point is that selling high on Ragans, if possible, could help set the Royals up for more sustained success.
Christian Yelich: 11.5% of WAR. Stearns made a "go for it" trade to acquire Yelich in January 2018 with five years left on his contract, extending him a couple years later. To do so they gave up a 60-grade medium risk prospect in Lewis Brinson, a 50-grade high risk in Isan Diaz, and a 60 grade high risk in Monte Harrison. So the Brewers gave up their first, fifth, and ninth-ranked prospects, presumably well-regarded around the game, yet none of them panned out. Would the Royals put Blake Mitchell, Kendry Chourio, and another good prospect in a deal for a controllable 4-5 WAR Major Leaguer? They probably haven't drafted well enough to feel they could sacrifice those players.
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I truly wish Scott Harris would study and comprehend the methodology of the Brewers management. Scott and Al Avila have both been too afraid or lacked the ability to trade “prospects/guys after breakthrough years.”
Matt Boyd, Michael Fulmer and now Tarik Skubal are prime examples of keeping guys around on the incompetent pretext that the Tigers are contenders. Though the Tigers overachieved the last 2 years, their organization is nowhere near WS Contender status. Should have traded Skubal after his first CY. This franchise operates like a small market team, but in reality is a larger mid market city-very loyal fans.
The Tigers would be a fun team to be the GM of rn. I don’t think they’re too far from contention. It made sense to hold Skubal til now and he should still garner a strong package at the deadline. Extend some of the young stars and build around it. This team has showed willingness to spend a little bit, at least much more than the Brewers. If only Baez was a hit and Torkelson wasn’t a bust
Until they lose Next year. Granted I don’t know who any of their pitchers coming up in their system but he’ll be missed by them when he goes to the LA Ring Chasers
Tork is not a total bust- but he feels like an mlb guy and not a star that the draft thought it would be.
Harris’s first main mistake was giving Torres the qualifying offer. The Tiger’s have the 9th highest payroll this yr($210) they should be good but injuries and underperforming has tanked there season. Trade Skube, Ver, and Mize for the best offer and give some young guys a chance.
When would they have traded Fulmer? He was only at peak value thru his second season and typcially teams don’t trade their young stars that soon
Brassroo—
I wish the Giants would do the same.
Why should they have traded Skubal when they were 5 wins away from the World Series last year?
Brassroo
Scott and Al Avila have both been too afraid or lacked the ability to trade “prospects/guys after breakthrough years.”
Matt Boyd, Michael Fulmer and now Tarik Skubal are prime examples of keeping guys around on the incompetent pretext that the Tigers are contenders.
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Worst post of the day.
1-Fulmer, as someone else mentioned, was ROY, CY-10 and an AS, with 4 years of control left. One would have to be an idiot to trade him at that point.
2-Boyd had a career 4.92 ERA with the Tigers, so I don’t see him as a lost trade opportunity.
3-The Tigers won 87 and 86 games in the past two season, and were the favorite to finish 1st this year. And they were still in 1st place even after Skubal went down. The idea that the Tigers were not a contender is absurd at best.
Watching the Cubs each game, I am depressed by how often they get the first two guys on base, then don’t score. It seems almost un-statistical for a team to fail so consistently in scoring situations.
What I want to see is Bregman come up to bat with a runner on second or third, and hit a clean single to the outfield to drive that runner home. That should not be as hard as Bregman is making it.
Maybe tonight!
Now you know how the Brewers improved after Counsell left. Counsell is a proponent of hard contact and three-run homers. Pat Murphy emphasizes getting on base any way possible to create traffic to unnerve the pitcher and fielders. The Brewers lead MLB in on-base percentage with runners in scoring position. The Cubs rank 27th. You are stuck with Counsell and Bregman, and Brewer fans couldn’t be happier.
No we’re stuck with Hoyer. He’s the architect of this failure. Mister NMC himself.
@Jim: It’s not the manager, it’s the players. The Cubs hitters either can’t or won’t shorten their swing with two strikes, hit to the opposite field, or in any way practice good bat-to-ball skills. The fault is Hoyer’s for building such a team, not Counsell’s. Counsell actually HAS been trying to play small ball, but his players can’t do it, or won’t try.
For two years now, the Brewers have been almost historically able to string together hits and create multi-run rallies. And if Miz stays healthy, I think they can beat the Dodgers or Braves in the NLCS this year, because they’ll have the best pitcher too.
Your gloating, however, is unseemly. I don’t think YOU did anything to bring this about.
I always felt that same way about the Brew Crew… Especially in the playoffs
Alan53 –
I think they caught that bug from the Giants.
Should be wishing dansby “doing nothing with a bat” Swanson gets his act together! Risp avg is .178 Bergman has .364 avg this year with runners in scoring position. Swanson has 1 more at bat. And has drawn 9 walks with RISP to Bregmans 2.
A correction: Langeliers was part of the Matt Olson trade with the A’s. They got Kyle Muller and a bunch of other Braves prospects who sucked for Murphy along with Ruiz from the Brewers when they could have gotten Contreras. As a Braves fan I look back on that as one of AA’s only bad trades.
Thank you
I thought it was bad the moment it happened. Contreras brought so much energy to the Braves. Murphy is solid, but not the same personality. The knock on Contreras was his fielding, which obviously wasn’t a problem in Milwaukee.
The Braves pitchers didn’t want to throw to Contreras. His defense with the Braves was terrible, Brewers fixed him which is one of their specialties, though he is back to a little below average after a good first year defensively. Had he remained a Brave he would have been a LF or DH, and that would have cost us Ozuna.
I’m was not opposed to the Braves trading him, but they definitely could have gotten a better return than what the Brewers gave up.
There are 30 teams in MLB, the Royals won the World Series just 11 years ago. There are at least 19 years to go before fans of that team really have complaint or need for a turnaround. Seriously, if you get a title in the past 30 years, you are doing okay.
That’s a bit generous
that is math. You are not a suffering fan base until you hit year 10 of no playoffs and year 30 of no championships. Maybe 20 plus years for a WS appearance.
Small markets (like the royals) normally do a 5ish year cycle. Build assets that are ready around the same time, then sell before they leave via FA (so a 2-3 year window), and then build to do it again in another 2-3 years. So 2-3 years of contending, followed by 2-3 years of rebuild. Trying to capture a longer runway is what makes those rebuilds worse.
And what people seem to forget is how the Royals played BEFORE their championship runs. From 1994-2012, almost 20 years, the Royals didn’t win more than 75 games in a season except for a lone 83 win year. Same as the Pirates after they lost Barry Bonds to free agency. The Royals were over .500 last year and were in the playoffs in 2024. I can understand some fans being upset (Angels at the top of the list) but definitely not the Royals. And even the Angels have a World Series title within the past 30 years.
I am a Rockies fan and I am not upset. I still remember the near division title in 2018 as being “not that long ago” even though this has been the roughest stretch in team history. If you are going to be a baseball fan, you better get used to losing unless you want to root for one of the biggest spenders. And even they like to cry when they “only” win 90 games and lose in the LCS.
I would hardly call that a fair assessment of a team doing “okay”.
The royals have constantly made horrible decisions. Their team is poorly assembled. Their drafting and player development are some of the worst in baseball. They constantly make horrible trades and signings. I wouldn’t call that doing “okay”. It’s been quite the opposite, actually.
I didn’t say doing GREAT, I said okay. Okay to me means not great, but there are people doing worse. It’s like working at a factory. It’s not a great job, but it sure is better than those guys working at McDonald’s.
Aha! another realist. Good on ya Mate.
Were the Nats doing OK from 2020-25 after winning the 2019 World Series in 2019? As a Nats fan, I hardly think so. Maybe they are this season, though, with the advent of their new regime.
Winning a World Series over a 30 year time period is not enough of a qualification for “doing OK” IMHO.
No, but they were doing OK from 2012-2025 though. You cannot just cherry pick bad years and say they are not doing a good job. You have to look at the whole picture. Yes, they have missed the playoffs for six years in a row, but before that they made the playoffs for 5 out of 8 years including winning a title. In the years before 2012, you could easily say they were not okay, but since 2012, they have been at least mid-pack as a franchise. That is the very definition of okay.
If Royals ever decide that they just aren’t capable of winning with what they have, they should get some good offers for most of their young position players and veteran starting pitchers this summer. They shouldn’t wait until 2027, if they can get a good haul for Witt or anybody that other teams will ask for this summer.
Witt will stay put.
He’s a Geotge Brett caliber, career franchise icon in the making.
They should trade Geotge Brett while they still can, he hasn’t really contributed since the 70s
Witt isn’t going anywhere. If they can’t trade salvy, they can’t trade him.
Trading players for some “good offers” seems to work in theory, but leave it to the royals to mess it up. Two likely scenarios: 1. They’re the worst team in baseball come the trade deadline and think they have a legitimate shot at making the playoffs, so they buy. 2. They trade some of their veterans and other players for a High-A middle reliever with an ERA of 8.50 that they think they can “fix”.
Cards should sell Walker, if they begin to fade, they likely won’t get much for him in the future because this could be his only good season.
“Payroll restraints might save small-market GMs from themselves to a degree.”
Truer words have rarely been spoken.
The mailbag is here! The mailbag is here!
First thing I thought of from this was from always sunny with Charlie and Mac working in a office building in the mail room.
the Brewers willingly put their 2022 playoff chances at risk
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It should be noted that Hader was pitching terribly at the time, and that Devin Williams’ ERA in his previous 30 games was 0.00. I assume that Mil had already decided to demote Hader at the time. Certainly a fine trade, but it wasn’t exactly putting their season at risk.
A better example of putting a playoff slot at risk would be when CL traded Clevinger to the Padres in the Naylor/Cantillo heist at the 8/31 trade deadline.
It would help small market teams like the Brewers if poor owners such as Mark Attanasio were forced to sell the team.
@accidental: The Brewers owner presides over a very successful club and results-driven business model. Draft/develop and trade for cheap guys other clubs are clueless how to (esp’ly pitching)
Get the best years out of said players and let the suckers pay big guaranteed $ for their post-prime & IL part of career……often trading guys to restock on the fly.
Only ones who wouldn’t like this approach are those with a vested interest in wanting everyone to be saddled with steep dead money on washed up players instead of playing the age curve of reloading with youth.
“Draft/develop and trade for cheap guys other clubs are clueless how to (esp’ly pitching)
Get the best years out of said players and let the suckers pay big guaranteed $ for their post-prime & IL part of career……often trading guys to restock on the fly.”
This is why you shouldn’t exclusively make it only look like a ‘small market’ issue.
Watching the Cubs games, it’s like the message Marquee is giving is, the team is terrible, but we certainly have empathy for sick people. The endless references to ALS charities, cancer charities, and how poor Liam, after all his surgeries, got to have “one of my best days so far”–enough already with the sob-sister stuff. I know y’all are going to intentionally misunderstand me and take this wrong, but that’s a compliment to me.
Sciambi is the worst Cubs broadcaster since Brickhouse, and that is saying something. How I wish Harry were here, to talk sense and not insult the intelligence of his audience.