Riverbrian

I can only assume that Contreras had some defensive concerns because the Braves wouldn't have needed the upgrade otherwise. Contreras is younger, has more years of control, costs less and his one season at the plate suggests that he COULD be a better hitter than Murphy so you can only call it an upgrade if Contreras has some defensive issues. Atlanta could have spent those trade assets to upgrade LF. They didn't. BTV is going to have to catch up fast. The Ruiz value is clearly much higher just based on the two trades he has been involved in.

Kudo's to Brad Arnold. Seeing two teams at an impasse and getting them together like that. The world could use more Brad Arnolds. ?

No doubt each team has their own evaluations. It would have to be impossible for a website to harness all of it. I do admit I've been impressed how often the website is in the ball park when you review completed trades which I do all the time now because I'm 57 and don't have much else to do with my life I guess. ? I agree it would be misguided to call BTV gospel. I also don't spend a lot of time worried about weather a prospect is ranked 5th or 6th or 12th or who put together the rankings that say the prospect is 5th, 6th or 12th. I understand that Keith Law is pretty plugged in but he has to plug into someone that is more plugged in because he can't personally assess the thousands of people who need to be assessed so I'll take my Keith Law with a grain of salt as well and I'll take those people in the front offices with some salt because they are wrong often. I don't blame them for being wrong because the margins are thin between that 5th ranked guy and the 12th ranked guy who were ranked by some guy who asked them. I always assume that the trades are equal when made.... At least in the eye of the beholders. Winners and losers are determined later by how the acquiring club develops the acquired player. If you want to win trades... make the players you acquire better. It's real simple. Let's see what the future has to say. With all of that said. William Contreras with his 1.106 years of service, .860 OPS at age 24 is a fantastic get for a Brewers team looking to add offense. It took Contreras plus two sweeteners for Milwaukee to part with this Esteury Ruiz and the A's said... Yep that's fair. Now I'm still trying to grasp it. Anyway... Great post... You are Solid.

Plus the other two guys that had to be thrown in as sweetener. ?

I don't know if I agree with myself. ? Just trying to figure out where all that Esteury value came from. It's got me in a lot of different places that I'm trying to sort out in my head. Speed might be making a comeback. Perhaps... the shift made the obvious solution to hit the ball over everybody. Looking back at the Hader trade... Esteury probably had a lot of value attached to him in that deal. Rogers was a rental, Dinilson was released immediately after. That makes it Hader for Gasser and Eseurty Ruiz basically. Was that enough?

Infield should be where it opens up the most but all 4 infielders must have feet in the dirt with the new rules so... that guy hanging out in short right is gone which will open up RF quite a bit. And if infield is indeed where the change is most felt. Could the Twins be looking at quick re-tool at those 4 positions.

Every once in awhile something shocking will happen in baseball with no obvious explanation. Sometimes it can change my thinking. Estuery Ruiz was all the Brewers gave up to the A's to receive William Contreras from the Braves in the Sean Murphy deal. Baseball Trade Values isn't going to explain this trade. Ruiz was 5 Value and Contreras was 37 so the trade doesn't make sense in a straight up deal. But, that isn't the really odd part. The really odd part was that Contreras by himself wasn't enough to acquire Ruiz. The Brewers had to get two more players thrown in to apparently reluctantly part with Ruiz, a player who they acquired in the Josh Hader deal from the Padres just a short time ago. The only conclusion that I could come up with was this: The A's really wanted Ruiz and the Brewers really didn't want to give him up. The 5 value on BTV doesn't apply for some reason. So... I'm thinking about it and wondering why. Here is the only thing that I could come up with. The Shift rule change. Ruiz is a speed guy. Is it possible that speed and range is new currency because more ground will have to be covered. It's the only thing that makes Ruiz THIS valuable in my mind. This got me thinking about Kepler. I have been very hard on him and I don't want to be. I have openly questioned WAR in regards to Kepler, because I felt that the only way that Kepler gets a decent WAR is with inflated defensive stats during heavy shifting making zone rating stats more questionable and they were already questionable in my mind, especially when you toss in the consideration of overwhelming routine defensive plays. Lots of people believe... Including me (Kinda)... that Max is going to benefit offensively from the shift ban and I understand this. However, the other side was possibly lost on me. With the shift ban... more range is going to be necessary than it was before. So while I have been dismissing defensive metrics during the time of the shift... perhaps it's time to recognize it's value on the defensive side of the ball with shifting out the window. The Brewers and A's had extremely high value attached to this Ruiz kid. Do other teams feel the same? Is it shift related? Does this mean anything to the value of Kepler in 2023 compared to his value in 2022? Have I been wrong about Kepler? Do I owe him an apology?

Me Neither. It was clear they were not looking for a catcher in return so a third team was needed. After that... It's odd.

Well if Arraez for Lopez ends up being the case... I have five thoughts. 1. I'll wait to make judgement when the off-season is over. 2. I thought we needed two big upgrades on offense with Arraez still on the roster. I think we will need 3 if Arraez is traded. 3. Once Arraez is gone. Christian Vazquez becomes the 2nd highest BA on the team. 4. Luis is fun to watch at the plate. Perhaps the hitter I looked the most forward to. 5. If we acquire Pablo Lopez and we already have Jorge Lopez... We might as well go get Reynaldo from the White Sox and corner the market.

There was a lot of talk from the experts on MLB Network radio saying that the Murphy trade was taking so long because the asking price was too high. Looking at what the A's got back... I'm not so sure I understand what the experts were talking about.

Social media moves fast. It's 2022... No time to wait for details. It's social media... details ain't important anyway. ?

Box Checked Let's see how the rest of this off-season goes. Bring us more please.

Agreed It is hard to justify paying even more money to a free agent who doesn't out perform the 600K talent readily available. The only justification is depth. You pay the free agent so you can keep the 600K talent in reserve. That is clearly a big thing broken and lying on the floor.

Marketing works. ?

We are that dumb. ? I saw through the players immediately. Never bought what they were selling us. They want the biggest piece of the pie as do the owners and that is what we were held hostage over. Businesses in any industry must work under the conditions that exist. The conditions that exist were negotiated between the owners and the players. Now that the rules have been established... teams must operate under those agreed upon conditions. Once again... the conditions state that the larger markets will have a substantial advantage. No change to those unfortunate conditions, when change was needed. I agree with you on what you are saying. I have no love to give to the players union. I hold them responsible. Our slight disagreement is going to be over the owners role. I have no love to give to them either. I also hold them responsible.

There is indeed a lot more money in NY than Idaho. There is a lot more money in the rest of the country than there is NY. If NY and LA are being over fed... are you going to get anything more out of NY and LA when it's stuffed to the gills? Where is your growth opportunity? The answer is everywhere that is not NY and LA. Baseball needs hope in Pittsburgh, in Kansas City, In Milwaukee, In Cleveland, In Minnesota. Supply side economics... feed the big boys and let little bits of money trickle down to the little boys. Feed the horses and the flies will eat to... is another way to put it.

If Kepler is two wins above replacement for the Mariners, wouldn't he be two wins above replacement for us. If Kelenic and Trammell have struggled to turn a corner. Couldn't the same be said about Larnach and Kirilloff. Is it possible we are trying to get rid of Kepler because the two wins above replacement isn't keeping us warm at night.

In my opinion, there are no heroes in this. The owners are doing alright. There would be no shortage of potential buyers if one of the woe-is-me franchises went up for sale. This is two big boys fighting over the division of our money. As fans, we have all the control because we provide what they are fighting over. Yet with all that control, we are powerless because we are kept splintered as we are influenced. We blame the owners, We blame the players. We never look in the mirror. We are to blame. We allow this. The fighting would stop quick if we'd stop quick.

I think national programming would prefer to just keep their broadcast equipment in New York and Los Angeles because there are more viewers in those markets and the game is regional. With 162 games on the schedule. The game is always competing against itself. Oregon isn't going to watch the Yankees and Red Sox on Fox when the Mariners game is on. It's a regional game so I wouldn't confuse what Fox and ESPN need in order to charge a little more for advertising and think that the Owners want those pennies in the dollar world they are playing in. There are more people in the United States than there are in New York City. National interest improves if Idaho and Mississippi give a ****. If the Owners want the wealth concentrated in NY and LA while neglecting the rest of the country... that would make them idiots, they are not idiots. Besides why would the Pirates, Royals, Twins slit their own throat and vote to give everything to NY and LA.

There was the one month in 2014 when they had some hope.

A disparity is a disparity.

They can sign them. They just can't afford to be wrong when they do. Baseball won't be fully healthy until there is hope in Pittsburgh.

Ralph: That's the trouble with you, Alice. You don't know the latest developments! Alice: I don't know the latest developments??! Who is it that lets your pants out every other day??