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Milwaukee Brewers Top Offseason Priorities

Updated Mar. 5, 2020 12:47 a.m. ET

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Jeff Hanisch-USA TODAY Sports

The Milwaukee Brewers finished the 2016 season with a record of 73-89, taking their first steps in their rebuild. What do they need to do next?

Roster/Financial Decisions

The Brewers have a number of important parts of their 2016 team that are eligible for arbitration. The team has eight players eligible for salary arbitration: Chase Anderson, Chris Carter, Scooter Gennett, Martin Maldonado, Kirk Nieuwenhuis, Wily Peralta, Tyler Thornburg, Carlos Torres.

That is a list that includes two members of the Opening Day starting rotation, the eventual closer, the starting first baseman, the starting second baseman, the catcher who was starting to finish the season, the center fielder who played the most innings at the position on the season, and the guy who threw the most relief innings on the Brewers roster. All important pieces.

Then you look at the free agent list and see two fairly important Brewers from the 2016 team, relievers Chris Capuano and Blaine Boyer. Capuano had an elbow injury and likely won’t be back, but Boyer did make 61 appearances in the Milwaukee bullpen.

As the 2017 team comes to fruition, the Brewers have a very loaded farm system that has arms knocking on the door of the major leagues. That could impact their decisions on guys like Peralta and Anderson. It could also impact decisions on bullpen arms if they plan on moving any of the arms to the bullpen for impact reasons.

It seems to make sense to sign Anderson, Carter, Gennett, Maldonado, and Thornburg. Nieuwenhuis and Peralta could end up being non-tendered due to poor performance, and Torres could end up costing more than what the Brewers are willing to pay. Once those decisions are made, the Brewers can attack their offsesaon, but that’s the first thing that needs to be determined.

Kenny Karst-USA TODAY Sports

Catcher

The Brewers held one of the premier trade chips at the trade deadline, and they did a tremendous job of leveraging it, trading Jonathan Lucroy (and Jeremy Jeffress) for a tremendous return in prospects that could be impacting the big league roster soon. That left the catching position open, however).

Martin Maldonado has been in the system for some time and is very solid behind the plate. He’s really a perfect backup profile with an okay bat and a very good glove skill set. He’s a career .217/.299/.342 hitter in over 1000 plate appearances.

The Brewers were able to trade Will Smith for what I believe was an incredible package from the San Francisco Giants over the trade deadline, acquiring impressive pitching prospect Phil Bickford and catcher Andrew Susac, who was blocked in San Francisco by some Buster Posey guy. Due to being blocked, Susac hasn’t really played a lot in the majors thus far, hitting .219/.309/.412.

However, Susac in the minors has been a better hitter, putting up a .256/.354/.424 with a solid 12.2% walk rate and 22.1 percent strikeout rate. Susac is not a guy with an arm that will blow people away behind the plate, but he is tremendous in his lateral movement and blocking skills. He gets good marks for his work with pitchers as well. He could be the guy that they entrust with the starting job.

In the system, they have Josmil Pinto, who is a bat first catcher with a big arm behind the plate but not great movement. The next “big” prospect is Josh Nottingham, who they acquired last offseason, who may end up being too big to be a catcher long-term, but he has solid skills behind the plate and a very impressive set of tools at the plate.

The catching crop in free agency is fairly weak, but the Brewers certainly have the prospect depth to grab a guy at catcher if they don’t believe Susac is the guy. I do believe they’ll give him every opportunity, but it’d be wise to poke around to see what they can have for some depth as a “just in case” situation beyond just Maldonado.

Gary A. Vasquez-USA TODAY Sports

Make Room for Prospects

The Brewers have done an absolutely impressive job in their rebuild. They took chances on guys that other teams were willing to toss aside. Last offseason, those guys were Jonathan Villar, Rymer Liriano, and Garin Cecchini, former top prospects that were being let go by their teams. Villar blew up into a star performer, Cecchini stalled in AAA, and Liriano had a freak injury at the end of spring training that prevented him from claiming a major league outfield job that he was in heavy competition for at the end of Spring Training.

That’s one step that a rebuilding club absolutely needs to do as they often will find gems in those guys with high pedigree but just didn’t work out with their previous club. The Brewers did that well. They also maximized value of guys on their roster. They held on to Lucroy in the offseason when they could have traded him for a lesser return, but they did move Khris Davis, one of the best power hitters on their team, for top catching prospect Jacob Nottingham and a low-level pitching prospect.

The other big move was trading Jean Segura and Tyler Wagner to the Arizona Diamondbacks for Chase Anderson, Aaron Hill, and infield prospect Isan Diaz. They were able to move Hill for more prospects in July.

Now the Brewers sit with excellent arms from trades and drafting that are knocking on the door. Guys like lefty Josh Hader, righty Luis Ortiz, righty Jorge Lopez, and righty Brandon Woodruff have all pitched for significant time at at least the AA level. All could make an impact on the pitching staff quickly into 2017 if not on opening day.

Then you have guys like outfielder Lewis Brinson, outfielder Brett Phillips, and catcher Jacob Nottingham that are highly regarded that have all spent some big time at AA or higher already. Outfielder Corey Ray, the top 2016 draft pick was an advanced college hitter and did play already at high-A, so he could move quickly as well.

How do you find a spot for all these players? Well, the Brewers did well with the move to ease Orlando Arcia to shortstop in 2016 when they moved Villar to third base once Arcia forced the issue that he was ready. With the pitchers, spring training may very well be that time.

Last offseason, the Davis deal was really predicated on the presence of Domingo Santana in the outfield and essentially the same skill set. That is a mind set that could be used this offseason as well. Could Villar be traded for something needed by the team and Hernan Perez moved to his natural third base position? Could Matt Garza be moved for space in the rotation for a guy like Hader or Ortiz? Could Ryan Braun be moved?

Well, on that last question, we’ll move on to our next point…

Charles LeClaire-USA TODAY Sports

Figure Out Ryan Braun’s Future

The 2016 was the first season of Ryan Braun’s contract extension. While at the time that the deal was made, the Brewers were competitive and Braun was a legit MVP candidate, the team is in a very different spot now.

Braun now has four guaranteed seasons and $80M left on his contract from 2017-2020. That will take him through his age 36 season, which will be his 14th in the major leagues. The “Hebrew Hammer” had his best season since his runner-up MVP season of 2012. He hit .305/.365/.538 with 30 home runs and 16 stolen bases. Braun graded out as one of the better defenders in Milwaukee in 2016 as well as he moved back to left field for the first time full time since 2013.

Braun is certainly still offensively productive at 32 years old. You can say what you want about whether he was/is using PEDs based on the issues after his 2011 season and the botched positive test that was mishandled and thrown out in the end. You can even get into his 2013 suspension for his involvement with Biogenesis that cost him 65 games in suspension. However, you cannot deny that he’s still producing offensively.

There were rumors that the Brewers attempted to move Braun in a deal for the Dodgers’ Yasiel Puig, so the Brewers have looked to find a way to get that money off of the books. While Braun is the star in Milwaukee now, the Brewers want to build their team around their young guys that are coming soon in their system and be able to possible play in the 2018 free agent market to bring in a “face of the franchise” to pair with their current roster for long-term success.

I would wager those talks are not done, and it has been discussed that the Brewers and Dodgers could explore that deal again in the offseason. Braun would seem to be an ideal offensive candidate for other clubs with the ability to take on his money. Perhaps a team like Texas, Toronto (if they let Jose Bautista and/or Edwin Encarnacion walk in free agency, Mets, Phillies, or another club that finds a power right-handed bat something they lack in their lineup. All the better if the Brewers can get that trade done without eating any money so they have all their money available to use on other deals!

Charles LeClaire-USA TODAY Sports

Find Some Left-Handed Hitting

The Brewers had a productive offense in 2016. Nine hitters hit double-digit home runs for the team with two clearing 30 home runs. Two had 30 doubles. Three had 20 or more steals, including the league leader, as the Brewers led the league in steals by over 40 to the next closest competitor.

However, the Brewers overall finished in the middle of the league in nearly all offensive stats – run scored, home runs, batting average, slugging percentage, etc. Why was this?

The real reason was that the Brewers were easily beaten by good right-handed pitching due to the extreme right-handed nature of their lineup. In the Brewers starting lineup at the end of the year, Scooter Gennett was left-handed and Jonathan Villar is a switch-hitter, but other than those two, every other player swings from the right side. This presented an issue as over the course of a season, roughly 75 percent of the pitchers that a team faces will be right-handed, so good right-handed pitcher really shut down the Brewers, especially late in games.

More from Call to the Pen

While there were only two options in the starting lineup, the options off the bench from the left side weren’t exactly enticing either. Kirk Nieuwenhuis was primarily a bench outfielder in the second half of the season, and he sported a .209 batting average. Outfielder Ramon Flores had a .555 OPS off the bench. Outfielder Alex Presley hit .198.

In the pipeline, there are some hitters from the left side that are considered among the top prospects in the system – Corey Ray, Trent Clark, Brett Phillips, Isan Diaz, Lucas Erceg, and Chad McClanahan – but only Phillips has played even at AA, let alone above that level, so there’s really not a lot of immediate help in the system from the left side.

One of the thoughts is to make left-handed hitting a target when looking to move guys like Garza, Braun, Peralta, and others in the system. Those guys likely won’t haul in a middle-of-the-order type from the left side, but you could find a guy or two that at least would make solid bench pieces or platoon options in those trades.

The last option would be the free agent market, but this offseason would not be the best spot for that. Guys like Mitch Moreland, Adam Lind, and Brandon Moss play first base where the Brewers already have Chris Carter, and it’s highly doubtful they’d want to take 40 home runs out of the lineup by platooning Carter. Lefty hitters in the outfield are mostly speed guys like Angel Pagan or Rajai Davis. The big guy to pursue is switch-hitter Dexter Fowler, though it’s hard to imagine the Cubs not picking up his $9M option.

It will be very interesting to see how they get some lefty power to plant balls into the right field seats in Miller Park!

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