TODAY: Discussions are “pretty serious,” per Jon Heyman of MLB Network (via Twitter).
YESTERDAY, 11:26pm: While the two sides have indeed spoken, there’s no agreement close at the time being, per Tom Haudricourt of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel. Haudricourt adds that the team’s payroll is already “stretched” after signing Grandal and Moustakas.
8:43pm: The Brewers are in discussions with free-agent reliever Craig Kimbrel, Ken Rosenthal and Robert Murray of The Athletic report (via Twitter).
Should a deal come to fruition, the signing would seem similar to the team’s previous agreements with Yasmani Grandal and Mike Moustakas in that both landed in Milwaukee on shorter-term deals than anticipated. A match between Kimbrel and the Brewers, at least on paper, has looked plausible the longer his market seemed to stagnate. While the bullpen isn’t necessarily a need for a team that already has Josh Hader, Corey Knebel and Jeremy Jeffress, the latter of that trio is currently battling shoulder weakness, and Kimbrel would obviously deepen any team’s ’pen by pushing out its seventh- or eighth-best relief arm.
Kimbrel, 30, reportedly entered the offseason in search of a record contract that’d promise him six years and a total dollar value in excess of $100MM. Those terms, if indeed accurate, likely scared off a number of suitors early in free agency and led to Kimbrel’s stay on the open market lasting far longer than most would’ve anticipated. Certainly, that type of contract is unattainable for him now, though it’s still possible that Kimbrel could establish some type of record payday for a reliever. Currently, Wade Davis’ $17.33MM annual rate is the highest ever for a bullpen arm, and Kimbrel could still conceivably topple that mark.
That’d be serious money for a typically low-spending Brewers club that is already projected to open the season with a franchise-record $127.5MM payroll. Owner Mark Attanasio, however, has already given president of baseball operations David Stearns the green light to guarantee Grandal an $18.25MM salary on a one-year deal with a mutual option. And, the Brewers have every incentive to increase their spending given their recent NLCS run that provided increased revenue while simultaneously raising expectations surrounding the team.
Milwaukee has already surrendered its third-highest selection in the 2019 draft for signing Grandal, who rejected the Dodgers’ $17.9MM qualifying offer after the season. The Brewers would surrender their next-highest pick in order to sign Kimbrel, who also rejected a qualifying offer. The Brewers, though, are very much in a win-now mode, and their status as a non-luxury-tax-paying recipient of revenue sharing means they face a lower penalty for signing qualified free agents than CBT payors and teams that do not benefit from revenue sharing.
Kimbrel and Hader. Oof
And Jeffress and Knebel
And overuse injuries oh my…
Deal still isn’t done. No need to be a salty Cubs fan just yet twentyforty
Adding a pitcher … wouldn’t that actually reduce the chances of overuse. Oh my.
It’s not like they have infinite roster space. They’d have to take another player off the active roster (most likely another RP). Oh my.
And what is your point? That pitcher would be a bad middle reliever. Having 4 elite relievers is a good way to not have any overworked relievers. The idea of saying MIL would have an overworked bullpen would be saying they’d ride their big 3 again. Adding Kimbrel would make it a big 4 and naturally decrease that workload for everyone.
Um, they have this thing called options where they can send a guy down and then bring him back up when necessary.. You can look it up.
There isn’t even a deal at this point. *cough cough*
Thanks for posting Einstein.
Perfection is hard which is why 0-50 is such an impressive stat in Milwaukee.
That would be a pretty fantastic bullpen. They might have to pitch 4-5 innings a game with the question marks in the rotation, but a great bullpen none the less.
Kimbrel in playoffs… Oof. 2018 playoffs made me cringe
Nobody could use a fresh start, more than Craig Kimbrel
You are a Brewers hater lol. I’m not saying a deal gets done at all but to say a 7-8-9 inning of Knebel-Hader-Kimbrel isn’t the best in baseball you’re just bias
No I’m not. I’m a Red Sox hater.
His regular season was respectable, but not what we’re accustomed to seeing from him. Watched him in playoffs… There is a reason Chris Sale was closing games, in the playoffs.
He didn’t say that. He said that Kimbrel needs a fresh start after the 2018 playoffs (unless I missed something).
I do however agree with your post. Those 3 at the end of a game would be unreal.
I’m just saying to form an opinion on any pitcher over 10 innings is a little bit unfair. That’s one bad outing and your numbers look terrible. A “down” year for Kimbrel is 2.7 ERA with a 2+ WAR and 80-100 K’s. If that’s the worst you get sign me up
Red Sox won World Series 4 times since 2004. Spankees won 1 time in that period. 🙂
Brewcrew08, I agree with you, but, respectfully, is that viewpoint consistent with respect to Yu Darvish?
One game?
There’s no debate that kimbrel makes any team better… but damn… adding him to the brewers bullpen would be scary… and that’s coming from a cards fan. The NL central was already going to be a bloodbath without him closing games for one of those teams.
Glad they aren’t in the AL West if he lands there! Oh, and we want Hader back. Y’all can have Gomez back and we will all hug it out and exchange pleasantries.
X Sale closed the finally mainly so he could contribute.
X, it’s hard not to hate the team that’s been beating you up in the schoolyard and taking your lunchmoney…
Yankees had to feel great they were going to have a 100-win season… till they looked up and saw a 108-win Red Sox juggernaut relegating them to a sudden death WC game.
3 straight division titles, 4 WS in 14 years… people love to hate a winner.
I still remember the yankees homers running around saying “killer b’s” this and that and just wait till they’re up. Well, those homers were ALMOST right, except they’re really named Benintendi, Bradley, and Betts – the best outfield in MLB.
😉
You’re a moron X
That’s funny Kimbrel got a World Series ring last year. The last time the Spankees got one was almost 10 years ago.
Still better than some other high profile MLB teams, including who just lost to your club last year and this same team that I am referring to just needs to lose the world series this year and next year to become the Buffalo Bills of baseball.
Who won the playoffs n WS?
So what! just get to the Playoffs with Kimbrel,then if he sucks,they have plenty of other Arms,if it’s a short term deal,great move!
Sign him to a 1 year pillow contract.
For Kimbrel he gets to shed the QO, play for a contender, AND rebuild the value called into question by a piss poor end of the regular season and the playoff showing.
The brew crew gets the upside of kimbrel in the pen, can work him the hardest specifically to keep the other guys fresh for the second half, then flip kimbrel at the deadline for a better pkg of prospects than they otherwise take with a single 4th round pick.
Win/Win.
Now that Grandal has shown a National audience what a lousy catcher he is.
Fact – Red Sox and brewers have the lowest draft penalty for signing him (4th round pick). And yes, the Red Sox sacrifice a 4th round pick by signing him because they don’t gain it from somebody else (unless they’re convinced he’s going to wait until after the draft to sign).
If the redsox sign him, would they sacrifice the pick to?
The Red Sox wouldn’t have to sacrifice any picks
Fact!
Yes but they’d stand to lose the pick they would recieve when another team signs kimbrel.
Good point. In essence, signing him would almost be like they traded a pick for Kimbrel.
But they wouldn’t gain a pick either so it is sort of like a sacrifice.
Kimbrel is in decline
And still better than almost every other pitcher in the world.
Baby can I give you a snack I know you like snacks a lot
what lol? wtf?!
Your chick sounds fat.
LOL!
YESSSSSSSSSS!
Can’t imagine the Brewers willing to go more than 2 or 3 yrs at the very most. And I put the odds much higher of it being a 2 yr deal IF it happens at all.
Luckily all of that is just from your imagination, because I can see the Brewers giving him 5/90
no chance of a 5 Year deal. Milwaukee window to win it all is two years tops
Lol….apparently you haven’t seen our farm
‘our’
?
They’re calling you out because they don’t like people referring to their favorite team as “we” or “our”. Which, I don’t thinks a big deal, but oh well.
I’d love to come visit your farm. Do you have lots of chickens?
Not sure why that gets people’s panties in a wad.
It’s a silly pet peeve. I go as far as not liking people putting their own last names on jerseys, but that’s about it.
Have you seen the farm? They’re ranked in the bottom third in almost every ranking.and after Hiura there is not really much to write home about unless Ray can continue to cut down his swing and miss.
Thanks for the laugh, I needed that.
They have about 5 years before yelich become a free agent and Cain’s contract is up. Most other players have lots of team control.
If they exercise Yelich’s option he’s under control for 4 years then. Cain is also under control for 4 yrs.
Wow that is a seriously inaccurate guess.
Lol. Dude wont get 2 third of that
Dew it!
– The Senate
They’re going to the World Series for sure. Every NL East contender is stupid as hell for not getting him.
Espically the Braves. No reason not to give him a deal
Braves are in epic fail mode. Part of me thinks it will serve them right if they struggle hard to win games this year in the revamped NL East. But as a fan you don’t exactly want to root for that either, even if you think they deserve it
Yes, going to the WS because S4 says so!
It would certainly improve their chances, but here is the problem, the games are not played on paper.
Who needs a starter who can pitch to a 5.00 ERA when all they have to do is throw 4 innings and they can hand it off to the bullpen every day?
ding ding ding. offensive monster with a 4 inning bullpen? No need for starters
Doesn’t work that way to win a World Series – yankee fan speaking here…
The royals won the world series this way…
Royals relied on speed and defense more than anything else that year I’d say.
They actually used a pretty dominant bullpen more than you remember then. The Royals best starter in 2015 was probably Edinson Volquez, but that bullpen – Davis, Holland, Herrera, Madson and Morales – was lights out.
jeez, they’d only need their starters to go 3 or 4 innings
The Brewers should start using Hader as an opener or a piggyback starter if they sign Kimbrel. Their rotation is probably the weakest in the NLC, so it might not be a bad idea.
Watch this just be a desperation attempt, by Kimbrel’s agent, to scare the Cubs, Cards, and maybe even Reds into giving him a big money, multi year deal.
jefferes was awful in the 2018 post season. Having kimbrell will certainly help the brew crew. They might not have as much luck as 2018 but knowing they can make the post season will surely help.
Well hate to crack the utopia bubble
Relief pitchers get days off, Jeffers is the first of what I’m calling many issues with the bullpens health. You should look at prior usage of other relievers like the Brewers have and see what happens when you get ridden a whole season. As a cardinals fan I’m looking forward to the brewers now being the team that doesn’t know how to manage a bullpen responsibly, I saw it with Matheny and Counsell is the same type of old school type player. Go ahead make Kimbrel like we did with Holland would love to have a few blown saves by the brewers in the opening series. Keep on writing off the cardinals reality is about to hit a lot of people in the face real soon.
Did you just try to compare Holland in STL to Kimbrel? Oh boy
Which is a terrible comparison because Kimbrel not at 100% is still better than Holland.
Kimbrel at 10% is better than Holland was last year
Craig Counsell is arguably the most progressive and modern coach in Mlb. He uses the data given to him by the front office to shift aggressively, change pitchers to get matchups, and take as much emotion out of decision making as possible. Anything can happen in baseball, and MKE could have bullpen issues just like any team, but to compare Counsell to Matheny seems way off base to me.
You sure are a modern progressive.
Football and basketball have Coaches that run the teams. Baseball has Managers.
Let Bryce Harper know that when you see him. He’s confused as well. He too does not understand the game. He thinks it’s a home run, strikeout, or walk; and you only have to catch the balls hit right to you on defense..
Phillies fans everywhere disagree. Harper is the magical magnet who will draw every eventual hall of famer eventually to Philadelphia. Phils will become the Yankees/Red Sox of the NL. Philadelphia baseball will reach levels of greatness not seen since Connie Mack and Shibe Park.
The price of cheesesteaks will be cut in half because so much revenue will come in as the team chases the 116 win mark, year after year.
How was that? I’m working on a short story called “When Phillies Fans Dream.” Suggestions welcome.
I’m not sure how Bryce Harper and the Phillies worked their way into this discussion but obviously they’re a good team. Bryce Harper is a very good player; he had a bad defensive year in 2018 but he’s been an above average defender in his career. He was second in the NL in times on base last year, and, if some old-school numbers interest you, he was one of only 6 players last season who both drove in and scored over at least 100 runs.
This is pretty elementary, but runs win baseball games. Getting on base wins baseball games.
Counsell is a very good manager, and this is of course the way baseball teams are moving, especially the ones that have smaller budgets/payrolls for whatever reason. Using a smart front office and using the manager to actually manage using the data given to them. And having a good manager who can get the players to buy into new ways of thinking about the game.
Starting pitchers are inherently a risky investment. There are very few Max Scerzers or Justin Verlanders. Starters cost more than relievers, of course – even middling starters get paid more than outstanding relief pitchers. And it’s much easier to produce an outstanding reliever than even a #3 starter – look at Brad Hand, for example. He was a terrible starting pitcher, because he only has two reliable pitches. The Marlins kept trying him out and he would get shelled the second time through the order. The Padres got him for basically nothing, realized he had two pitches that were elite, told him to ignore the rest, and he became one of the better relievers in baseball. Hell, the whole Padres bullpen is basically guys like that. Brewers too.
And this will sound crass, but when a starter gets hurt, or misses a season, it’s hard to make up those 180 innings. If a reliever gets hurt it’s a lot easier to just make another one, if you have the right people in charge – managers and the front office and coaching staff. The Rays did well with this dtrategy last season, the Royals did it in 2015, the A’s and Brewers were successful doing this in 2018 – look at the A’s record in one-run games sometime. This is the way the game is heading I think, because it works and it’s cost-effective.
I have to disagree on the mechanism here. The reason it is easier to produce a reliever than a starter is that a reliever is just a failed starter. A good starter needs a few things to be successful: Repertoire, Durability, Command, and Stuff. The more of these a pitcher has and the better they are dictates how good a starter he will be. Max Scherzer has tremendous Stuff, can Command it, pitches 200 innings per year with that stuff, and has 5 pitches he can throw. Different bullpen pitchers have differing things missing but they all have them. Papelbon lacked durability, Joe Jimenez lacks command, Seth Maness lacks stuff, and Craig Kimbrel lacks repertoire.
Those things all work together to prolong a pitchers effectiveness by limiting his exposure. Exposure is something that will eventually get to all pitchers if they keep pitching indefinitely, i.e., the batters will eventually figure you out. The reason Max Scherzer is good is because he delays exposure until late in the ball game.
The reason a SP is a MUCH less risky investment than a reliever is because of this notion of exposure. A SP keys on all 4 things to make him successful. If one becomes OK, the SP will still likely be at least somewhat effective. But say Kimbrel lost the effectiveness of his fastball. What would happen? He would be done. This is the reason bullpen guys are much less consistent and much more volatile than SP. In almost all cases you cannot count on past performance to predict future success.
The reason that Kimbrel is being hounded on for last postseason is because he illustrated my point so well. When a team sees you for days in a row, you lose effectiveness because you are way more susceptible to exposure than a good SP. So yeah, maybe Kimbrel makes me better in the regular season and is a good addition for some postseason games, but why would I pay millions for a failed starter I could probably find in my own farm system?
Also, saying that SP’s are more risky is just plain wrong. I would be willing to bet I could name more catastrophic RP deals in recent years than SP. The teams are starting to use RP more, but are also waking up to the fact that signing them for a substantial amount of money besides to cover a weakness (the Cardinals with Miller since they didn’t really have much from the left side, etc.) is a bad idea. Especially someone like Kimbrel and his 5.41 postseason ERA in 2018.
Yes; starting pitchers are way riskier investments. It’s not just money; it’s the fact that they aren’t easily replaceable. Relievers are fungible, even the good ones. Pretty much all relievers are failed starters because of the reasons you mentioned. But if a reliever gets hurt or is ineffective, it’s a lot easier to find another failed starter with a great slider to fill in 60 innings than it is to find a guy who can throw 180 innings even reasonably well. The Angels last year are a good example of what happens when you can’t replace starting pitchers easily. Just off the top of my head, I can think of a bunch of terrible starting pitcher contracts – Jordan Zimmermann, King Felix, Neagle, Dice-K, AJ Burnett, Chan Ho Park, Mike Hampton, Pavano, Brown….the only relief contract I can think of comparably is Papelbon’s, honestly. Maybe Greg Holland? Relievers are a much more efficient market in terms of dollars to value, in my opinion.
The Padres manufactured a terrific bullpen last year out of a bunch of other teams’ castoffs. And they did it cheap. At the same time, they paid much more for lousy starters like Clayton Richard and Tyson Ross, who were totally ineffective, for the most part.
As far as bad long-term reliever contracts, it’s hard to think of very many.
DC id have to argue you on the reliever contracts. Not hard at to find some awful ones there. Meal com, basically everyone Colorado signed last year. Swarzak, Reed. A large number of relievers are extremely volatile. Giving a large number of them millions of dollars isn’t really any safer. I do agree that they are much easier to replace but I’d argue like the SP market those middle of the market relievers are a crapshoot.
Yeah, I’m sure there are more bad ones than I’m thinking of, but even the really worst ones – like Papelbon and Melancon, are dwarfed by the Park and Hampton contracts, and both those teams – the Phillies and Giants, manufactured better closers pretty easily. I think in that season Papelbon flamed out the Nats won the East with, ironically, a very cheap Melancon as their closer.
I guess I would argue that pitchers are pretty risky investments all-around, but starters more so because tying up tens of millions of dollars and getting zero production when you were expecting 180-200 good innings is more crippling than having a reliever flame out. 60 good innings are easier to find than 200.
Starters are also riskier investments simply because of how much more they make. 17 starting pitchers will make more than the highest paid reliever. The 5th highest paid reliever gets less than the 30th highest paid starter. 56 starters make more than the 20th reliever.
As bad as the Melancon and Davis deals were, they each still make less than Felix Hernandez, Jon Lester, Jordan Zimmermann, Johnny Cueto, Wei-Yin Chen, Yu Darvish, or Jeff Samardzija.
Counsell not only aggressively uses the shift, but also utilizes the opener, plays matchups and even sent out a pitcher as a decoy starter. Not exactly all that old school.
brew crew are instant NLC favs with Kimbrel, i bet the Dodgers are praying it dont happen.
Dodgers won a series with Hader pitching at an unhittable level. Brewers are great but relying heavy on the pen is very risky long term
Grandal to the brewers is a boon, replacing him with Martin is laughable for a team that traditionally spends like they do…signing Kimbrel extenuates those events in the Brewers favour.
Grandal was already playing for the Brewers in the NLCS
LOL
according to vegas, (at this second at least) they are the 3rd favorite in their own division and 7th in the NL. Even if they get Kimbrel i’m not sure how you leapfrog 6 other teams…
vegas was built on suckers like you thinking their team is better than they actually are. their rotation is horrible.
Well that’s it. No reason to even play the season then. Just give the rings to the teams that Vegas says. Almost as accurate as Fangraphs predicting the Brewers to finish about 500 last year.
1 year 21mil… that’s my guess. now everyone tell me how wrong I am.
wrong!
lol
very
That beard belongs in the home of Harley Davidson
Yes, on paper that back end sounds really nasty, but if you’re only getting 4-5 innings from the starters, you can’t use the same three relievers every game,, their arms will fall off. One or two of those guys has the day off and it’s a major gamble. It will work for playoffs but not for a 162 game season.
Worked last year from what I saw?
NO…………. RED SOX NOT BREWERS W.S. CHAMPS
Ok, but to be fair, the Brewers have NEVER won a WS. In fact, they’ve only made the post season 4 times in the history of their irrelevant franchise. So, you can’t blame brewcrew08 for being overly excited about last year.
It worked last year because of a career year from Jeffress. He won’t have that again, and you better believe they are scouting Hader as well. You can’t use past bullpen success to predict future. It just doesn’t work.
I mean, you’re right, but the Brewers have other high-level arms as well. I expect Taylor Williams and Adrian Houser in particular to garner some notice this year as well.
Everyone pitches their starters 4-5 innings nowadays unless they have a genuine ace. We did the 5 innings per game thing last year and we won 90+ games in one of the toughest divisions in baseball. Also Chacin finished in the top 10 for IP in the NL last season, so it’s not like we don’t have guys who can eat up innings if necessary.
If Kimbrel signs, wow. Milwaukee’s front office has been shrewdly opportunistic this off-season and with him, they would have arguably the deepest roster in the majors.
Yes please. Best bullpen in I don’t know how long.
Now this pisses me off as a Brave fan if he signs with the Brewers on a short term deal and Atlanta didn’t even make an attempt to get him on a short term would be stupid on AA’s part.
Just like for what Arizona got Adam Jones for Adam Duvall shoulda been sent packing. Jones woulda been a perfect 4th OF for that price & he woulda signed being he is from the Atlanta area.
I have defended AA but if Kimbrel signs for 2 yrs or less it would be unacceptable in my eyes that the Braves don’t get him.
You can blame AA all you want but you’d be pointing it in the wrong direction. Those available funds went towards liberty media’s debt, not the team. AA played the cards he’s been dealt.
The Braves will not pay to make the playoffs and as a fan since 1958 I doubt they do. Duvall has shown sadly that he won’t rebound in Atlanta, Sanchez was low balled and left, Suzuki was better than Flowers but would cost more so he was allowed to go. Five years and the bullpen is still pathetic.
Might as well play all the kids that pitch, the staff is mediocre on paper. If Wright and Fried or Tuki stick …maybe some hope.
Donaldson was not truly needed, not for 23 million and 1 year. If he has a big season Braves won’t pay him in 2020.
If Acuna becomes a super star he will be gone in 5 more years, Braves won’t pay him.
My dream is Liberty sells the club, however the fans will pack the place, get BS’d about money to spend in 2020 etc. The fans will get played by non baseball people.
Sanchez wanted multiyear & with the young arms coming up I didn’t blame them for letting him walk after aquiring Guasman.
Suzuki is horrible defensively where Flowers is one of the best pitch framers in the game. That is more important to the young guys on the staff than anything else.
Donaldson was a great signing for 1 year, if he doesn’t bounce back it was for 1 year and if he does and the Braves are out of it they can deal him at the deadline. If they are not out of it they can ride him out and offer him a QO he either takes it for a year or they get a draft pick. Either way Riley should be ready to step in.
Please for all the Donaldson signing haters out there please tell me a better stop gap option that didn’t cost a minor league asset to acquire who has the bounce back potential equal to Donaldson ????
And for everybody clamoring for Camargo wait until Dansby is struggling or hurt or Albies is struggling or hurt. When he needs to slide over to their spots and the gaping hole at 3rd that gets left open.
Also don’t be suprised if Donaldson has a good year he resigns he is from Brave country and with the NL getting the DH soon it becomes an option as he gets older.
Dear MLB Trade Rumors editors: Since when is “that’d,” as in “contract that’d promise him six years” a word? I had no idea that we were now using a contraction for “that would.”
Guess I’m on the wrong site. I was looking for MLBtraderumors. Guess I found MLBgrammarrumors. Oh well.
As annoying as these people are – the grammar police – I think it’s best to just ignore them. Something about not feeding the trolls (I know by resplying here I’m part of the problem). But this is, essentially a blog. People use common vernacular all the time in blogs or in other non-formal writing. These aren’t college essays; they’re bite-size pieces of information that are updated dozens of times a day. There are much better ways a person’s grammar editing skills can be used, even online. In fact, some people get paid to do that sort of thing.
Joe Gannon……………. Cambridge disagrees
dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/tha…
That’d isn’t a word? What are you talking about?
It should be a no brainer to add a Kimbrel to the Washington Nationals bullpen in order to secure the World Series.
Can’t believe that Mr. Lerner wont take this chance to finally see a WS win.
Doesn’t make sense that they won’t give up picks and pay roughly the same out that they did in 17/18.
Looks like the Brewers are serious contenders this year. I’d be interested in revisiting this post after this year.
Go Nationals!
One year for less than the QO.
Really rooting for the Crew.
Didn’t tank. Used all avenues of player acquisition and development inteligently.
Cubs better hope for wild card now.
Awesome
Meanwhile in Wrigleyville….
(Crickets)
You could’ve gone with (cRicketts) there. Whiff.
Another missed opportunity—such is the life of a Sox fan.
ST, the Human Rain Delay – I was there in ’98 when you gave up McGwire’s shortest home run of the year. And thanks for the playoff win.
Bargain bin time. What a comedown for Kimbrel…..
Man…that bullpen would be nasty…
I keep saying that Minnesota should jump on Kimbrell and Kuechel…sign both and you they become a true threat to Cleveland
Agree, Cleveland ripe for picking……
No they don’t.
Sure Kimbrel had a hicup here and there but how everyone thinks he’s not as good as Chapman and Jansen please see 2016 and 2018 world series Stop IT!!!!
Chapman getting out of the 9th in game 7 is the most overlooked world series moment in recent memory. Kimbrel is not better than either of those 2
WHO GAVE UP THREE RUN BOMB IN 8TH? AND JANSEN MEET JBJ AND MR PEARCE……… STOP IT………….
Who cares anyway these are miniscule sample sizes lol. No one makes definitive statements based on a few games. Guess what if Chapman gives up 1 run in the 9th the Cubs dont win a title. Jansen was pitching with a heart that needed surgery. He had guts just to be out there
Knebel, Kimbrel (the K boys), Jeffress, Hader, Claudio, etc. And with the offense we have, if you dont have 10-0 lead against the crew by the 4th or 5th inning, forget i.
Easy tiger. That’s not remotely true about the offense and they haven’t signed him yet.
I’m talking to my ex wife, also doesn’t mean anything
they are pretty much the better team in that division without kimbrel allthough it is close. if they got kimbrel teams would have to score a lot of runs in 4 innings because after that it is lights out.
If their starters are averaging 4IP a game they won’t make the playoffs. They only have 3 great bullpen guys and they won’t be pitching every day.
bosox won the ws despite Kimbrel
Thanks a lot to their starting pitching, timely hitting and defense for the most part.
Price check on aisle 46!
Have to love what the brewers are doing. Glad to see ownership willing to put money into their contender instead of teams like Cleveland doing whatever they can to cut money out. Signing Kimbrel would give them the most lethal pen in baseball IMO. Kimbrel, Hader, Jeffries and Knebel would be an absolute insane back end.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but does Kimbrel’s draft pick compensation disappear once the season starts?
If so, i could see him holding out until the summer. Latch on with a contender and then re enter the market again next year
It’s gone after the draft.
It’s gone June 4th but if you sign Kimbrel then you’re realistically not going to see him until the close to the end of June. I don’t know how you’d justify paying that high of an AAV for a guy who would’ve essentially missed 3 months this year.
Why would you not see him until the end of June? It doesn’t take three months to get game-ready if you sign late.
I believe he meant a post June 4th draft deadline signing
Dear braves, don’t let this one slip
get it done! #ThisIsMyCrew
Kimbrel’s season is dangling like his goofy right arm does. lol
LETS GO BRAVES! STOP SITTING ON YOUR BUTTS!
4 year/$68 million with 2 team option years that could bring the total value to $100 million and a $4 million buyout of options is my guess.
I’m guessing it’ll be a shorter deal, like 1-2 years, with maybe an option or 2. Just with a high yearly salary.
I really hope this happens. This would have to be the top bullpen in baseball if it does. Add to that this Brewers lineup, man, this Brewers team will be good. Hoping this starting rotation can hold the fort down though, if only they suddenly added Dallas Keuchel, my dream team would be complete.
Second best, Yankees got the best
Jeffress, Hader, Knebel and Kimbrel with Burnes in the “Long Relief” role would definitely be the best bullpen (on paper) in the ML. Thats 4 players who have been all-stars in the last 2 years
This would make the Brewers pen lethal. You could already argue it was, but this would just be another Elite pitcher at the back end. The only question mark for the Brewers pen was how they would hold up after all those innings they threw last season and adding another guy to shoulder the load (even if he threw a ton also) means less innings on someone else arm.
Someone just sign him already, no matter who.
TROUT 430 mill…..oh my
If the Brewers end up with Kimbrel, it likely swings the Brewers to favorites. I do not understand how the Cards can think they have enough pitching. I get it that you want to save some $$$ for Goldy and maybe Ozuna but if this is the year to win they should be all in on an elite closer. As a Cards fan, it’s frustrating.
No chance they become the favorites. They are predicted to finish 3rd at best. Cubs and cards are the favorites.
The6 should not extend marcell ozuna he’s on steroids
Craig Kimbrel will end up in a surprise team like CLE or STL by EO weekend
Is he that desperate for a job? I wouldn’t want 400 million to play for Milwaukee.