Props here to Stearns for keeping the club relevant while rearming for the future.

Nice trade for brew crew. Still a deep bullpen and more depth for the future. Very Rays-like trade. Says they think they will cruise to division title.

Ruiz looks interesting. Before this season he was just a speedy guy with a lot of swing and miss. This year he’s played 77 games between AA/AAA. Batting .333 with 52 walks and 23 HBP. That’s a .467 OBP. You can’t just lay it in there as he’s got 13 homers. But once on he turns walks into triples. 60 steals, only 9 CS - in half a season. Scoring more than one run per game.

I don’t know what he’ll do when given more time in the big leagues but at the upper levels of the minors he’s playing like 1985 Rickey! Henderson.

2--Nice reverse jinx effort by the Cardinals fan

3--I like that he's NOT like the other Brewer outfielders in batting approach.

I like how the #s1 and 2 in the NL in saves have ERA+ of 97 and 87. A combined -0.3 WAR.

Strange deal for the Padres. Is Hader that much better than Rogers?

7--Rogers is older (31 vs 28) and a FA after this season. Hader is a FA after next season. Apparently it was understood that the Brewers would not be resigning Hader.

Williams has been amazing since May and is not a FA until 2026. Figure the team has him pegged to take Hader's job.

RE: Hader vs Rogers. By career Hader has been better. Right now? Hader trending in a bad direction. Rogers at least has a FIP that suggests he could rebound. But who knows.

Weird trade. Not sure why SD would give up a bunch of extra stuff for the swap. Rogers' stats look like he's been unlucky, Hader's look like he's just been bad. You can't have a closer giving up 2 HR/9.

Right now? Hader trending in a bad direction.

Yes, but trends of RP are obviously fickle. Just 2 months ago, Hader was finishing up around 75 innings at 1.00 ERA going back to the beginning of 2021. He was trending in a great direction, but hasn't been great since then obviously.

10--FWIW I am told a Hader trade still happens even if he had not slumped. The team has full faith in the Williams' Airbender (nickname for Williams' changeup)

Hader and his wife had a new baby before the break and while there was no detail sharing there was general belief that it was a birth with complications as Josh has taken a lot of time away from the team and the photos on Instagram showed a really small baby. So any pitching issues may well be due to concerns with his family and totally understandable.

Hader's ERA was still 0.00 on Jun 5. He had two disastrous outings on Jul 13 and 15 -- giving up a staggering 9 runs while getting 1 out, including 4 of his 7 HRs. Since then 4 IP, 3 H, 1 BB, 7 Ks, 1 R. He's 29 for 31 in save situations this season.

I don't imagine I've ever seen a closer give up 9 runs while getting 1 out before but it's one of the reasons why closers are hard to evaluate by traditional stats. If you only throw 55 innings a year, 1-2 bad outings mess everything up. Outside of those two disastrous outings, he's given up 7 R in 33.2 innings, an ERA under 2. On the other hand, he's give up a run (or more) in 6 of his last 10 outings which is far from dominant closer performance.

FWIW, in 2019 Hader gave up 15 HR (1.8/9) ... with 37 saves and a 170 ERA+, 144 FIP+. You can get away with a lot of HR when you strike out nearly 2 guys an inning and have a WHIP under 0.9. His "problem" this year is that his H/9 has "ballooned" to 6.9 ... career a staggering 4.6 which is just one every other inning. EV, hard-hit%, K rate, BB rate ... all are in line with career numbers, but the BABIP is at 306 anyway.

13--See post 12 for what may be the core issue. He's distracted at work. And rightfully so

closers are hard to evaluate by traditional stats. If you only throw 55 innings a year, 1-2 bad outings mess everything up.

That would seem pretty easy to back-test, right? Just look at the historical record to see which is a better predictor for a closer (or any reliever) - overall performance including the disaster outings, or performance excluding a couple disasters per year.

(I guess this is what you mean with "by traditional stats" - if there is a difference in predictive value based on the shape of the performance, you are indeed looking for something more context-sensitive than ERA or WHIP or any other rate stats.)

#14 ... reasons not to trade him.

#15 ... probably. I'm not suggesting a "better" way to evaluate closers, I'm just saying that 2 crappy outings a year can skew things (esp mid-seson). It can be true for starters too but of course it doesn't take them long (in calendar time) to pile up the innings to counter-act it (or not). I've long been of the opinion that projecting relievers is essentially useless. The sample size is never big enough to say anything with any definitiveness. Taylor Rogers is about to become an FA and he doesn't even have 400 career innings. Your standard projection systems want at least 3 full seasons, say 500-600 recent innings, for a projection. And even if you could project them well, they're still only gonna throw 55-60 innings for you next year and small sample variation will affect the performance. I wouldn't be surprised if you do better with statcast type measures.

My point is more that if SD had made this trade on June 1 we'd have said they might have just acquired the best closer since at least Mo. Now folks are suggesting he's toast. Unless he's hurt, you don't go from stud to done in 2 months.

As to Rogers ... not sure why folks think he's due for a bounce back. He's got just a 105 ERA+ over the last 3 "seasons"; toss in his excellent 2019 only brings it up to 127 which is 7th-inning guy performance. Over 2018-20, his ERA is 1.6 runs higher than his FIP so it's not clear his FIP is a great tool for projecting his performance. He has pretty clearly had some bad luck in giving up hits in clusters but cutting his HR/9 rate by 75% is also probably a fluke. But his other statcast-y stuff looks in line with his career.

16--see post 11. I was told that Hader was gone this trade deadline whatever the circumstances. And who is suggesting Hader is toast? That seems like trolling which I didn't think as your thing which is restating everything from Baseball Reference

And also as I mention above Rogers isn't the focus of the trade for the Brewers. They took him because they value pitching depth but he's not resigning with Crew unless it's cheap.

If Hader's personal situation settles totally likely he's lock down quality remainder of year and likely tenure with Pads.

Per Stearns Zoom call:

--"thrilled at diversity of talent and amount of talent. Brought in two high-ceiling prospects" (Note he focused on prospects and not Rogers or Dinelson)
--Brewers think Gasser one of the better pitching prospects in baseball right now
--Losing Hader was difficult news for many in clubhouse but Stearns said "I think the players understand what we're doing and why we're doing it"

"His "problem" this year is that his H/9 has "ballooned" to 6.9 ... career a staggering 4.6 "

lowest career H/9 is Nolan Ryan, 6.6
lowest single season H/9 is 1972 Nolan Ryan, 5.3 (excluding the 2020 COVID season)
career to date for Josh Hader - 4.6
(other key relievers; Mo Rivera and Hoffman 7.0, B Wagner 6.0, Craig Kimbrel 5.2)

This trade seems completely bizarre to me. MIL is 3 games up on the division and would be a close call to get WC if they don't. Hader has been dependable and mostly excellent recently. This could easily backfire and if I was a fan I'd be pissed. Its like they're in rebuilding mode even though they might get to the playoffs.

21: FWIW among a subset of Brewer fans trading Hader was expected. Club is not going to resign him. They think Williams is equivalent. They have options for 6-8 innings. Brewers lineup tilts too far toward power and slow so the outfield prospect maybe provides a bit of balance at some point. And Stearns big on pitching depth. And it’s just hearsay from a punk on Internet but I was told right after trade Hader was gone this deadline if right deal was offered. No matter the circumstances

And I am and remainn big fan of Hader. That he struck out 50 percent by at bats the Reds, Cards and Pirate hitters was by itself great theatre.

Wish him the best as a pro and in his personal life.

FWIW among a subset of Brewer fans trading Hader was expected. Club is not going to resign him. They think Williams is equivalent. They have options for 6-8 innings. Brewers lineup tilts too far toward power and slow so the outfield prospect maybe provides a bit of balance at some point

1. Yes I realize they wanted to get what they could, but the timing is open to second guessing. Its a risk for sure.

2. Thanks for giving more insight into this. Nice reading.

Speaking of races for the division/wc. The AL seems to have at least a couple good races for the last WC and the central. But the NL may not have anything worth watching by second week of Sep.

24: no problem.

#17 ... This apparently will come as a shock to you but anonymous person claiming to have been told something by some other anonymous person isn't exactly persuasive. Moreover, what does Williams have to do with it? Of course they're thrilled with Williams' performance. That might even lead a team to move Williams to closer and demote Hader to set-up. Having Williams around makes it easier to trade Hader, doesn't make it a good idea, doesn't mean they got good return. (doesn't mean they didn't.) But every team would rather have two dominant relievers than one. The deal suggests the Brewers no longer think Hader is a dominant reliever.

Fine "toast" is an overstatement. We had "is Hader much better than Rogers?" (the answer was clearly yes until maybe 3 weeks ago), "trending in a bad direction" (a "trend" of two games really) and "bad."

So the Brewers think the step down from Hader to Rogers is worth the extra players they got -- certainly a reasonable position.

Not trying to persuade on anything. Just sharing all available intel on Crew

Relievers being so volatile Williams could lose the strike zone, Box crashes big time and suddenly its Raptor time late which is super scary

But it’s fun to watch!

Last Stearns quote from Zoom:

“This ownership group is not interested in a rebuild. The fans are not interested in a rebuild. In order to avoid those prolonged down cycles we believe occasionally making a very difficult decision like this is needed and that’s why we made the move today.”

Per Nightengale on Twitter

If the #SFGiants surrender and trade away Carlos Rodon and Joc Pederson, there will be only seven teams left vying for the six National League postseason spots. More than half of the league will be out of legitimate contention with still two months left to play.

As a fan, this deal makes a ton of sense to me on paper. Hope it doesn't turn into a clubhouse drag.

Regarding reliever volatility, even the Yankees had WIWWMW.

This trade seems completely bizarre to me. MIL is 3 games up on the division and would be a close call to get WC if they don't. Hader has been dependable and mostly excellent recently. This could easily backfire and if I was a fan I'd be pissed. Its like they're in rebuilding mode even though they might get to the playoffs.

How much does a downgrade from Hader to Rogers hurt this year? From here to the end of the season they are both probably going to throw 20-25 innings. How big can the expected run difference be?

ZIPS rest of season says 22 innings, 7 runs for Josh. Rogers’ zips projection is actually better than that. There are 4 projection systems on Fangraphs, taking the worst for Rogers is 23 innings, 9 runs. Maybe the 2 run difference comes in a crucial game causing the Brewers to miss the playoffs by one game. But there’s also a chance that one or more of the other guys they got in the deal will do something to help them make the playoffs.

Stearns has been very effective and I can't really question the move. Trading a closer right before he gets expensive.

How much does a downgrade from Hader to Rogers hurt this year? From here to the end of the season they are both probably going to throw 20-25 innings. How big can the expected run difference be?

Ok, but which of those guys is more likely to be lights out and carry you to world series? dont you want to have guys like that around if you're likely to make the playoffs ?