Heading into the off-season, the Brewers have a number of quality players and like any smaller market team, their dwindling years of control make them speculative trade candidates. Star pitchers Corbin Burnes and Brandon Woodruff are both entering their final two seasons of control, but according to Jeff Passan of ESPN, the Brewers are more likely to add to their roster around those two than look to deal them.
Burnes followed up last year’s NL Cy Young winning campaign with another brilliant season, throwing 202 innings of 2.94 ERA ball. He struck out 243 batters (1st in NL) and while he’s not a finalist for the Cy Young award in 2022, he’ll certainly receive some down-ballot votes. Woodruff finished fifth in Cy Young voting last year, and pitched to a 3.05 ERA across 153 1/3 innings in 2022. Woodruff is due $11MM in arbitration, while Burns slightly tops that with $11.4MM, per MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz’ projections. A trade of either could give the Brewers farm system – which ranked 13th on Baseball America’s mid-season rankings – a massive boost.
After missing the playoffs for the first time since 2017 and finishing seven games back of the Cardinals, it might’ve been an opportune time to retool a little and replenish their farm system, but instead it appears they’ll look to bounce back by adding to their current core in 2023. According to RosterResource, the Brewers payroll currently projects at around $130MM, $7MM shy of their final mark in 2022. While it’s unclear if the Brewers plan to increase payroll, as things stand that doesn’t leave a ton of wiggle room to improve and try and catch the Cardinals, though they could opt to non-tender some of their arbitration-eligible players to free up some payroll space.
Here’s some more from around the National League Central:
- The Cardinals have a clear need at catcher following the retirement of Yadier Molina, and it seems they could fill that hole with the top free agent catcher Willson Contreras. According to Chelsea Janes of the Washington Post, the Cards are one team (alongside the Tigers and Astros) to have expressed interest in Contreras. The slugging catcher hit 22 home runs and slashed .243/.349/.466 in 113 games this year with the Cubs. They did issue him with a qualifying offer, so the Cardinals would have to forfeit a draft pick in the event they did sign him. Currently Andrew Knizner is the top catcher on the Cardinals depth chart, but he profiles as more of a backup so it’s not surprising to see the team linked with free agent catchers.
- Pirates outfielder Bryan Reynolds’ elite production and years of control – along with Pittsburgh’s ongoing rebuild – have made him one of the most coveted trade pieces in recent years, but according to Jon Morosi of MLB Network, the Bucs are unlikely to trade him this off-season. Reynolds can be a free agent after the 2025 season, and despite their second-straight 100-loss year, Morosi says the Pirates believe they can be competitive within that window. Reynolds hit .262/.345/.461 with 27 home runs in 2022, a solid year but down on his lofty standards. A year ago, Reynolds slashed .302/.390/.522 and finished eleventh in NL MVP voting. On the whole, Reynolds is a quality hitter that almost any major league team would find room for. Defensively, Reynolds has split time between left and center fields, but grades out better in left with seven Defensive Runs Saved there in his career, against -16 in center. He’s put up 13.6 bWAR across four seasons (including the pandemic-shortened 2020 year) and has given Pittsburgh a star to cheer for through some lean years. Ultimately, there’s reasonable cases to be made for and against trading Reynolds, and while Morosi’s tweet doesn’t rule out a trade by any stretch, given Pittsburgh’s turned down trade interest in recent years there’s a good chance they keep him and look to build around him again in 2023.
Please don’t sign Contreras! That would end horribly.
Cubs played the hand well, and will now get a decent prospect out of Contreras’ exit, which I’m fine with. Aging part time and only so-so receiver with pedestrian offensive numbers if he’s not behind the dish that day.
Like Rizzo, Bryant, and Baez before, Cubs brass correctly not getting into their feelings in putting together a roster which is how you should approach it.
But generally feel Cubs missed a grenade. He appears to he catching less and less too.
They absolute did not play their hand well, they had the chance to trade him for a lot more of a sure thing than a lottery ticket draft pick lol. Not trading him at the deadline was bizarre and was a huge missed opportunity for them.
The owner of the Astors stopped the trade for Wilson, so blame him and not the Cubs front office.
Teams were not willing to give up a sure thing for Wilson seeing his game calling is weak and if you move him from catcher his hitting isn’t that great.
So yes the draft pick might have been the best route.
Stan… Since you have no idea what they were offered at the deadline (outside of the nixed trade with the Astros), there is no possible way you can say the did not play their hand well.
The Cubs should’ve traded Contreras during LAST YEAR’S offseason, instead of holding him. Teams are more likely to give more in a deal when they have the player for a full season instead of just a few months.
Brewers need to bump the payroll to 140-160MM to seriously compete.
That’s the easier way. Or they could get better at finding production from cheaper players.
The Brewers actually generally find good production out of their cheaper finds. Or at least as much as you can expect out of those. What they lack is a top tier offensive hitter to plug into the lineup to hold it together. Prior to injuries, that was Yelich. But now they’ve got a bunch of mid production level players mixed with defensive heavy players, with nobody to spark the offense. So they’re not wrong, nor are you, but the east way of increasing payroll is what they need to do. Because they need to add a solid productive bat. Meaning non tender renfroe and use that money to go towards a better bat. They’re not going to add anyone at Judges level obviously, but they made a run at justin Turner last time he was a free agent. He may not be the complete impact bat they need, but maybe a run at adding him and Wilson Contreras could help spark their offense a bit, as they can use an upgrade at catcher and third base.
Not saying they aren’t good because they are. Just they could do better which is easier said than done. They probably don’t want to go higher with payroll so that’s the only option. That’s why you don’t see many small payroll teams winning world series.
Last season their payroll was a record high at $130 M. I seriously doubt they go much higher, if at all. I’m shocked they exercised Kolten Wong’s $10 M option over the $2 M with Brice Turang ready for an opportunity. It will be a very interesting offseason for the Brew Crew.
Picking up Wong’s option leads me to think they will trade Adames.
Why would the Brewers choose 1 year of Wong for 10 million over 2 years of Adames for 12 million?
Considering Adames is estimated to get $9-$10 M in arbitration this season, I don’t really know where you are getting the “2 years at $12 M’.
10 this year and then 14 next in final year of arb
So that would be 2 years of Adames at 24 million, not 12 million, then.
@pdxbrewcrew, gahying13 was probably looking at the average and meant $12 million/year for two years.
But he didn’t say that, nor did he offer a correction or clarification.
The simple answer to his question is the team has three players for two positions. One making $10 M, one making “$12 M” and one making the minimum. And the one making “$12 M” will bring back more in a trade than the one making $10 M for a team that needs to trim some payroll for use elsewhere.
Cards aren’t signing Contreras. The Washington Post broke this “story”? They were probably the ones claiming the Cards were in on Soto. No way.
The quicker you accept it, the easier it will be for you.
Contreras makes some sense for the Cardinals as they have a good young catching prospect and a hole at DH contreras can slide into. The money aspect however will be a hang up.
The loss of draft pick is the hang up. History says they won’t go there.
There is no “history” as for this is the first season the new cba has been in place with different penalties for signing a player who refuses a QO.
Penalties, different penalties the Cardinals will likely not sacrifice a pick, when they can deal from known commodities.
Cardinals already have a good offense, especially if O’Neill returns healthy.
They’d better off spending their cheese on more SP and a bullpen arm or two. As for catcher, all they need is a good defensive catcher who isn’t a total wet noodle with the bat. I like Tucker Barnhart. Great glove and game calling skills. Couple those with a .250ish BA, 8-12 HR, and that works for me.
They have Yepez and Gorman both projected for an equal or better wRC+ than Contreras. They don’t have a hole at DH he can slide into at this point. They already have younger, better hitters to fill that role.
Historically the Cardinals do not like to pay the draft pick to sign free agents. The times they have gone against that policy in the last 10 years, to sign Fowler and Holland, did not go well at all. They make their free agent runs by trading for a soon to be free agent and then re-signing them after they have had a chance to experience the atmosphere in St Louis. Happened with McGwire, Chris Carpenter,Holliday, Goldsmidt, and now Arenado has twice declined to become a free agent. Contreres does not fit the defensive build they promote, and they have Yepez and a host of other youngsters (such as Nootbaar, Donovan, Gorman, or O’Neil when he is ailing, which seems to be always now) who can rotate through the DH cheaply and give the stars occasional days off. I think this is an agent making some money by speculating on interest that isn’t there unless his asking price drops to the point that they could get past the poor D. As others have stated, look for the Cardinals to sign someone like Christian Vasquez as a stopgap until Harerra is ready. Then make statements like Vasquez is working with a hitting coach to get his offence back to what it was that outlier year that he hit home runs frequently.
Again, there is no “history/historically” anything. This is the first season the new cba has been in place ergo all previous “history” is moot.
Dude stfu, you obviously do not understand the points they are trying to make and want to concentrate on some point that doesn’t matter.
The penalties are DIFFERENT now so bringing up the Cardinals past history of not wanting to sign a who turned a qualifying offer is MOOT.
Not wanting to sacrifice a first round pick is one thing, a third and fifth round pick is a whole different animal.
You are the one who obviously doesn’t understand because the same point I brought up twice absolutely matters, it’s past history that does not.
Behavior is always impacted by history, if you do not understand that you are going to have a hard time in life. Will the new cba factor in their decision making? Probably. But to think the Cardinals history won’t effect their decision is pretty naive. You are concentrating and attacking a poster’s simple comment when in reality you have no idea what the Cardinals will do. For someone to believe the Cardinals will not sacrifice a pick because of historical evidence isn’t “moot”, it’s valid and it’s the posters opinion.
This whole conversation is pointless…
3.1>1
1> 3,5
Drasco – Doubling down on a bad argument. Are you a politician or just a guy who would rather argue even when you are wrong?
The Pirates are the armpit of MLB. Their team should be dissolved. Like how in all of this time have they not hired people to find a way to put together even remote success? They had a tiny little window like 7-8 years ago where they showed a little life, but then they refused to add when they were close.
Ownership thought they could contend in 2018 (winning record) and 2019. That failed so they hired someone who could. Been 2 years and a 2 month season. At least give them another year if not 2.
They have 4 winning seasons since 1992!
They have 4 winning seasons since 2013!
Except for the fact that the Bucs have been in perpetual rebuilding since 2019 and there’s no signs that won’t continue if they don’t contend in 2023.
If they’re below..500 by the end of July, Reynolds will be traded
You lost me after the armpit comment. Maybe you haven’t been following along where the owner is concerned. You have to *want* to compete, to hire the good people you write of, to build your farm system and develop talent. This owner is laser focused on one thing only: profits. And he’s reaping tons
No, the team shouldn’t be dissolved, the city is no armpit and the fan base deserves better. The ballpark, built with taxpayer money, is the jewel of MLB. Blabbing blanket stereotypes are of no help, because only MLB structure a financial set up that encourages on field success
And as long suffering fans, we know nothing is going to change
Fans have to also buy tickets for the owner to “want” to compete. The last time the Pirates were making the playoffs, they were still finishing in the bottom half of the league in attendance. Why should ownership spend any money on the team when the fans still won’t come out?
How were fans not coming out? Their attendance was up nearly 30% in the 3 consecutive years they had a decent team. They have made really dumb trades – and that has nothing to do with $. They traded Glasnow to another small market team that has brains, and they fixed his control issues, they gave up on Austin Meadows, and he turned out to be a valuable player. They traded for Musgrove, and then traded him away. For whatever reason, they thought Chris Archer was good and went heavy on him.
They have simply made very, very dumb moves. This isn’t a new thing either. When they were decent, they refused to add players, and then the Cubs beat them in a 1 game Wild Card game. Remember when the Pirates traded Aramis Ramirez and Kenny Lofton for Aramis Ramirez and Jose Hernandez? Like their lack of intelligence isn’t a new thing.
2013 – 94 wins, Wild Card appearance, 19th in attendance
2014 – 88 wins, Wild Card appearance, 15th in attendance
2015 – 98 wins, Wild Card appearance, 15th in attendance
98 wins, coming off two playoff appearance, on their way to a third and still only 15th in the league?
Again, why should ownership spend any money on the team when fans don’t buy tickets when the team is good.
You’re wrong about this
Attendance has very little to do with profit margins thanks to MLB’s system. We’ve discussed it here repeatedly. It something the Nutting group knows and still insults knowledgeable fans by saying, “If fans come out, we’ll spend”
It doesn’t work that way anywhere, and it’s only picked up on by those who are unaware of how owners make money
Mark Cuban has said as much when he noted that as is, Nutting would be crazy to sell as he is making fabulous profits
Do some research before you parrot ownership’s lie. All that Nutting is willing to provide this fan base are fireworks nights and pierogi races to go with bad baseball.
Pittsburgh: Ranked 22nd/30 in market size for MLB. They have a population of 300,000 people. Even if they are the best team in the league year after year, cracking the Top 10 would be a huge milestone.
Show me a small market team that has consistently been in the Top 10 in attendance. I’ll give you one: St. Louis. They are good pretty much every year, and Midwest fans are extremely loyal.
Next would be.. Denver? And they have 2x the population that Pittsburgh does, and the next closest MLB team they have to compete with is where? Kansas City? Arizona?
@pdxbrewcrew So apparently you like sitting on another mans lap for 4 hours 81 times a year in hot steaming temperatures. Interesting. With pnc park capacity it’s not possible to be anywhere close to the top attendance with everyone enjoying their personal seat. One of the smallest parks.
St Louis is a small market city wise. Baseball wise it is a better market than typical small market teams. Fanbase that stretches far out from the city itself. No nfl nba.
If that’s all the park Pittsburgh is able to have (and still not have fans buy enough tickets), then that team needs to go to a city that will support them.
And to Ryan, in 2015, the Brewers lost 94 games and still outdrew the Pirates. And they are 29th or 30th in market size. Kansas City is a smaller market than Pittsburgh, yet outdrew the Pirates with a winning team..
The first season of winning, it’s understandable. By the THIRD straight year of having a competitive team and fans still don’t come? There’s NO excuse. Beyond a team being in a city that doesn’t deserve them.
Actually the last time they were competitive they set record attendance for PNC Park 3 years in a row
Thank you for more proof that Pittsburgh doesn’t deserve an MLB team.
Ryan is just another pirate bashing troll. And Reynolds is not getting traded
TV revenue supports teams. Do the math on what a million extra fans gets you. It’s something but nothing compared to tv. Pittsburgh is a historic franchise and a key tv market. Pittsburgh people will not root for Philly or Cleveland. Mlb doesn’t want to lose half of PA and all of WV. If someone felt there was a better market mlb would have put a team there. If if there was fans would read about Nutting and wouldn’t support it. Nobody wants to watch Nutting owned 100 loss teams. Factor in Pittsburgh weather and no dome you really need to love baseball to go to April and even May games.
During the 2015 season, the Pittsburgh Pirates welcomed a record number of fans through the gates at PNC Park as the Club’s fans set the franchise’s single-season attendance mark for the second consecutive year with 2,498,596 fans. An average of 30,847 fans filled PNC Park over 81 regular season home games as the Pirates also registered a record number of games with crowds of more than 30,000 with 51, a total that tops the previous mark of 47 set during PNC Park’s inaugural 2001 season.
And if a record number of fans is only good enough for 15th in MLB, that city doesn’t have enough fans to support a team.
All you are doing is providing more support for what I am saying.
There are lots of cities that used to have MLB teams but no longer do. It’s time for Pittsburgh to join that list.
I haven’t provided any support. You just aren’t smart enough to understand simple things like population, seating capacity, weather, and mismanagement of a business.
That’s a whole lot of excuses for a crappy fan base.
If population isn’t enough to support a team, if the population isn’t enough to have a large enough ballpark, if the weather is so crappy, it’s time for that team to move to another city.
Time for Pittsburgh residents to admit they are living in a minor league town.
@pdxbrewcrew Those aren’t excuses. Pittsburgh population, weather, and park capacity are all easily verifiable facts via quick research. MLB won’t let a team move that is capable of 15th best attendance with no alternative market for their fans to support. They will force new ownership or force current ownership to put out better teams more often. Something they should have addressed already.
Again, if an MLB team is in a city without the population to support the team, has weather bad enough that it significantly affects attendance and doesn’t have the population to have a park where it can draw fans, that city needs to give up their team.
Charlotte. There, we’ve solved all the problem with Pittsburgh. Larger market, so a bigger stadium can be built and better weather.
Again, why should ownership bother to spend money on a team that doesn’t draw fans.
Ownership makes the same amount of money with 1.5 million fans spending 50 million as they do with spending 100 million to win and get 2.5 million fans. Not replying again. If you can’t comprehend this I give up.
PNC Park seats 35k. The team could sell out every game and not have total attendece to rate among the teams with larger parks.
Reynolds will be the Mariner’s 2023 starting left fielder.
They traded away many of the prospects Pittsburgh would want.
Prospects? I want Morisi to take all of our AAAA players like Toro, Torrens, Trammel, and White. Lewis may be able to pass a physical, but if you want prospects not sure Jerry has many of those he wants to trade…Kelenic cost them a lot and they. are not willing to give up on him easily…or so they say…fans want to say bye-bye to Kelenic and Winker…take our trash and give us your gem, 0k?
So in other words, you believe the Pirates should just give away Reynolds for a couple of guys who will be no help here. Yeah. Ok
You sure you’re not a Yankees fan? This is a common *idea* that comes from them
The Mariner fans learned this when Jackie Z was our GM, be the first to low ball
It seems he is a Pittsburgh Pirate radio person on AM?
The Mariners had Ron ‘Red’ Fairly announcing and he was like listening to a slow drip that never stopped…The internet had parodies of the guy…
I can image Jackie Z is an overload.
Yeah, but there’s still some talent to be had. That’s if BOTH Seattle & Pittsburgh are willing to go through with it.
Would the Mariners want Tyler O’Neill back?
It’s expensive to trade for 3 years of cheap control let alone 4. I would guess they would love to trade him for the right package and they should. I don’t have high odds of them contending this year. 2024 is ideal time to trade him. Bad time pr wise to trade him. Hard extension situation. So if they don’t trade him this year it’s trade him when ready to or while contending or let him walk for nothing.
I’d like to see the Brewers sign Burnes to an extension. I feel like he’s proven himself in multiple ways beyond the Cy Young season.
I guess the Brewers are holding on to him for his platform year to flip him at his most valuable for all the prospects to a play off contender looking to shore up their rotation?
He’ll be 30 his first year in a free agent contract. I imagine at the rate he’s going, 4 years/$100M would be considered a disappointing outcome in free agency where he’d dropped off horribly and was just his past and his potential going forward. I think he’ll wind up with somewhere in the neighborhood of 6 years/$240M at that point and possibly 8 years/$300M
So for the next two years it’ll be, what, $11.75M and then $17.25M or something? So 2 years/$29M?
3 years/$35.5M for his arbitration years would’ve been a very good price even without the Cy Young.
I feel like he could wind up being one of the all time underpaid players.
He is likely most valuable right now. 2 full seasons is better than 1 full season and a playoff run or just 1 season. Probably want to take another run unless they get blown away with a offer.
The Brewers will try and compete this year, but if they fall out of it before the deadline I imagine they’d trade one or both starters and rebuild.
The rate burnes is going, I’d say when he reaches free agency if he continues at his current pace, he’s going to likely easily be looking at 30 aav, likely more. Gerrit Cole was about the same age when he hit free agency. That’s likely going to be the kind of comp his agents look at. So like a 35 aav contract, likely for at least 7 years. I’d love to see the brewers extend him, but it’d be a brand new territory if they handed out the contract it’d take to keep him
The Brewers aren’t signing Burnes to an extension, the time to have done that passed after the ‘20 season. Attanasio & the FO have been clear in what they want to do — contend every year for a playoff spot.
With that said, they have to trade Burnes this offseason, he’s far too valuable as a trade chip to accumulate the young, controllable talent needed to extend their contention timeline.
BA ranked their farm system 13th at mid-season, but that was before Mitchell, Frelick, Turang, Wiemer, Quero, Gasser all exploded the second-half of the minors season. Look for their system to get safely inside the top 10 when the new rankings come-out this offseason.
The weakness of their system is in big-armed starting pitching prospects in the upper-minors. A trade of Burnes this offseason likely adds a couple of near big-league ready starting pitching prospects that should rotation by ‘25 when they won’t have Woodruff and Lauer.
Without Burnes for next season, they still have Woodruff-Peralta-Lauer-Ashby-Houser-Gasser, and they could sign a FA depth starter, or even a Quintana for a couple of years. That’s still a good enough rotation to be in the mix for a playoff spot.
Holding Burnes this offseason cuts his return when traded next offseason by at least half and pushes the timeline on the readiness of the return to the ‘26 season, which hurts the every year contention strategy.
The prospects received in a Burnes trade this offseason should be enough and at the right time, to possibly allow for the team to hold Woodruff, if he’s not extended, through the ‘24 season for the draft-pick as well.
backup catcher phrase should be banned
I resent that (Tsk, tsk!)
I’m still pissed the Giants traded away Bryan Reynolds… and for only 1/2 a season of Andrew McCutcheon. 🙁 The Giants hadn’t developed an All-Star OF since Chili Davis, finally had one, and let him go for a bunch pig nothin’.
They could have had him for the entire season!
… bunch of nothin’.
They had Longoria for 5 seasons!
True… Thanks, I guess… But what does that have to do with the Andrew McCutcheon / Bryan Reynolds trade??
bunch of nothin’.
If you think that’s bad. The Brewers traded Carlos Lee and Nelson Cruz to the Rangers for Francisco Cordero, Laynce Nix, Kevin Mench, and a player I even can’t remember the name of. And yet somehow I even remembered Kevin Mench and Laynce Nix. So we gave up a hot trade deadline target PLUS a prospect named Nelson Cruz, for an *at that time* struggling reliever, 2 “who?” Players, and a guy that at least his mom is proud of him, because the rest of us never even remembered who he was.
Pirates traded Aramis Ramírez and Kenny Lofton for absolutely nothing just so they wouldn’t have to pay their salary. That’s rock bottom there.
That was under different leadership and ownership though that management team was equally as cheap as the current ownership
For some reason i see Christian Vazquez signing with the Cardinals
I could definitely see that, but I’m hoping they make a trade for one of the Toronto catchers instead. The Cardinals need to shuffle an outfielder or two out of town, and I’d prefer a better bat behind the plate.
They did already trade Bader and the blue Jays need LH bats so that would mean Carlson or Nootbar. While Carlson might be able to get Jansen straight up Nootbar would have to be paired with another player
Noot or Burleson and a starting pitcher should work.
I can’t imagine the Cardinals giving up Carlson.
Thinking what the Brewers could bring in by moving those two right now. Cheap contracts, two years left before FA…they can rake it in. I’d even do it before the Marlins decide to bail on theirs and water it down a little.
Christian Vasquez fits the Cardinals far more than Contreras. Defense is the Cardinals philosophy.
Cards need to trade for Murphy of the A’s.
He’s younger, Less money on salary. Plus he will fit in with the young guns
I’m a Murphy fan myself, however, Murphy should get a decent raise through arbitration and the A’s are going to ask for a substantial return on him.
Vasquez is projected to have a reasonable salary between 7 to 9 million and he cost nothing as far as giving up prospects. Besides, the Cardinals are still hedging their investment on Ivan Herrera as well. Vasquez would give a window for a couple years to let him develop.
Fake news. Contreras does not at all fit the profile of what the Cardinals value in a catcher. This is the time of year journalists, so called, invent things to try and stay relevant.
If Boras is asking $20-$25 mil a year for multiple years for Nimmo, the Mets should let him go and trade for Bryan Reynolds ( Mauricio, Dom Smith, K. Lee and a minor league pitcher)
Dom Smith is the new Miguel Andujar.
The test here is a smaller market than Pittsburgh being Top 10 in attendance?
Milwaukee 2019 #9
Milwaukee 2018 #10
Milwaukee 2017 #10
espn.com/mlb/attendance/_/year/2019
Pittsburgh fans just don’t want to admit that they don’t support the team when it wins, so there’s no reason for ownership to waste money.