Goodbye and Good Luck to you, Jean Segura

It all started innocently enough. 

As a kid, it was easy enough to say -- at least in theory -- that I wanted to collect everything. Sure, being a kid, I really didn't realize what that meant, but I legitimately thought I could try over the course of my life to collect it all.

When I got back into collecting about two years ago, I tried to approach collecting in the same way. Soon after that, I realized how impossible trying to do that would be -- what with trying to make up for 25 years of not collecting, all the 1/1 cards issued, all the player collectors out there who would fight me tooth and nail for their guys' cards, and, well, the fact that I did not win the PowerBall three or four times before getting back into collecting.

Shortly after that, I decided that I'd try to collect only Brewers. And why not? After all, that's my team and it's been my team since 1978 -- the first year I truly remember paying attention to baseball as a six-year-old little boy.

I'm an ambitious sort, so I like to set goals -- both short term and long term. I view collecting as many Brewers cards as I can part of an ambitious long-term collecting goal. I know I'll never "complete" the team sets -- once again, I'm not the only Brewers collector out there, I'm not the only one trying to get the printing plates and superfractors and all that, and I still haven't won the PowerBall even one time.

Pretty much as soon as I decided to write a blog, then, I started thinking about player collections. Being an obsessive, I wanted a decent number of PCs over the entirety of Brewers history so long as I had a good basis for including a player as a PC. I look at statistics, I thought about my favorite players when I was a kid, and I thought about my interactions with many of the players when I was a tween/teen chasing autographs before and after Brewers games.

Then, I looked at the 2014 team. I choose a few guys who had been with the team for a decent amount of time -- Yovani Gallardo, Rickie Weeks, and Ryan Braun. I chose a couple of guys that had arrived more recently but still had a pretty decent amount of service time: Carlos Gomez and Jonathan Lucroy.

And, I wanted a younger player -- one I could start on now and watch develop and accumulate a collection over his career.  For that spot, I chose Jean Segura.

Strangely, for me, I chose Segura without looking at his underlying statistics. I say that is strange because I've been a big fan of the statistical, sabermetric approach to baseball since finding Bill James's Baseball Abstracts in my local library when I was about 14. I learned more math from Bill James than I did from my algebra class, I'm pretty sure.

Yet, with Segura, I ignored the warning signs. He started out like a house of fire in 2013 -- almost entirely based around a very lucky BABIP in the first two months of the season. In the first half of 2013, he slashed at .325/.363/.487 -- with a batting average on balls in play at an unsustainable level of .349. He didn't walk enough: only 25 walks in 620 plate appearances. But, he was young, right? He could improve, right?

Sure, he could improve. But he didn't. He suffered through a nightmare season in 2014, slashing at .246/.289/.324 -- but needing a .319/.364/.389 September to bring his yearly totals up to only mildly horrible. Even worse, his 9-month-old son Janniel died suddenly from an illness in July. He was welcomed back to the team a week later by Brewers and Nationals fans giving him a standing ovation and Stephen Strasburg giving him a bit of time to compose himself and appreciate the support, but there was no way to know how much that loss hurt him and took his attention away from baseball -- as it had to have done.

2015 became an extremely important season for Segura. He needed to show that he was closer to the player of 2013 over 2014. He really did not do that, hitting .257/.281/.336 and walking just 13 times in 584 plate appearances. 

In other words, we're talking about a guy who might be regressing rather than developing. We're talking about a player who was not getting better and, in fact, he was getting worse. His WAR scores from Baseball Reference from 2013 to 2015: 4.0, 0.6, -0.0.  That's not a guy who is helping your team.

 

This is especially true when you have the number 6 prospect in all of baseball -- Orlando Arcia -- playing your same position and rising to Triple-A after putting up a .307/.347/.453 slash line at the age of twenty in Double-A.

So, when news of Jean Segura's trade came across the wires yesterday, it was not a surprise. In fact, perhaps the biggest surprise is that it took this long to find a suitable trade partner.

For my part, I've decided that I'm not going to keep Segura as a player collection. This has been coming for a while. I'd pretty much decided that as soon as Segura was gone from Milwaukee that he would be gone from being a player collection.

So, all these cards are great and all, but from now on, he's just another Brewer.

What did the Brewers get for Segura? A mid-rotation starting pitcher in Chase Anderson, a clearly-in-decline Aaron Hill (who is in the last year of his contract) to pair with Scooter Gennett, and Isan Diaz, a super young shortstop/second baseman who was the D-Backs second round pick in 2014. Diaz is a long ways away, but he showed good pop, decent speed, and a good bat in the Pioneer League last year (312 plate appearances, 13 HR, 12 SB/7 CS, .360/.436/.640) at the age of 19. Oh, and $5.5 million to cover Hill's salary.

All in all, this is probably a good move for both teams. The Brewers get rid of Segura to help clear the way for Orlando Arcia, they get one year of a second base platoon before finding something better or hoping for something to emerge, and they get a starter to help bear the load in the rotation while waiting for Josh Hader and others to emerge from the minor leagues -- not to mention the high-end potential that Diaz has.

The Diamondbacks get Tyler Wagner along with Segura. Wagner started for Milwaukee three times last year and got lit up, but he won the Double-A Southern League ERA title last year. Fangraphs said last year that Wagner is likely a "5th starter . . . as it's starting to look like Wagner is the sneaky guy that holds down a rotation spot for five years before anyone notices."

I really do hope that both Wagner and Segura have great success for the Diamondbacks all year except against Milwaukee. But, that hope for success for them doesn't mean that Segura has to remain a player collection for me.

So goodbye, Jean.  Thanks for the reminder to trust performance gaps that I can see with my own eyes before anointing someone else as a PC.

Blowing it Up

With the Brewers being godawful terrible right from the get-go this year, it was only a matter of time before the team made some trades. I've talked about it here before -- this iteration of the Milwaukee Brewers had to be blown up.

It started last week with the return of Aramis Ramirez to the Pirates for what qualifies as a lottery ticket.

#Pirates, #Brewers have now announced trade sending Aramis Ramirez to Pittsburgh. Read more: http://t.co/52bBMot4y2 pic.twitter.com/eiKJlQc1Zf

— MLB Trade Rumors (@mlbtraderumors) July 23, 2015

In that trade, the Brewers received Yhonathan Barrios, a 23-year-old Columbian who started his baseball life as an infielder. He's in Triple-A, has a live arm, but has the typical problem that position players who transition to pitching have -- his fastball is straight and hitters don't really miss it all that much (K/9 in high-A in 2014 was 5.4, Double-A in 2014 and 2015 was 4.2, and Triple-A in 2015 was 5.2).  

The Brewers assigned him to Double-A Biloxi.  Barrios probably is not a prospect -- I mean, how many minor league closers really are prospects?  But, the Brewers probably need to find out quickly what he can do since he will be subject to the Rule 5 Draft if the Brewers don't put him on their 40-man roster.

Then, yesterday, there was this drama:

ICYMI: Carlos Gomez said goodbye, Wilmer Flores wept, but there was no #Brewers-Mets trade http://t.co/etOdGFmGKV pic.twitter.com/ZrsUk3hhcl

— Adam McCalvy (@AdamMcCalvy) July 30, 2015

We learned a couple of things yesterday. First, we learned that Terry Collins didn't mind completely embarrassing one of his players during a very emotional time. I don't care if the trade never was consummated. The fact that Flores was that emotional and the fact that Collins did absolutely nothing to help the guy out before pinch hitting for him in the ninth inning shows me that Collins doesn't care about his players.

We also learned that the Mets were willing to lie to every news outlet in America when they said that they nixed the trade because of Gomez's adductor and hip muscles. Hell, their reasons kept changing, but the story that seems to have emerged -- and was more plausible than a health issue -- was that the Mets asked the Brewers to pick up part of Gomez's 2016 salary and the Brewers refused. Considering that Gomez is on a team-friendly deal for next year, I can't blame the Brewers for refusing.  

Then, tonight, as I sat down to write this post, this happened:

OF Carlos Gomez, RHP Mike Fiers, International Slot 76 to Hou for OF Brett Phillips, OF Domingo Santana, LHP Josh Hader & RHP Adrian Houser.

— Milwaukee Brewers (@Brewers) July 30, 2015

At first, I didn't know what to think, mainly due to my lack of knowledge about the Astros system.  Who are these guys?

Adrian Houser was the Astros second round pick in 2011 out of high school in Oklahoma. He's a 22-year-old who has not shown much at Double-A this year in the Texas League. He's the one guy who isn't universally on prospect lists, but MLB.com listed him as #21 in the Astros organization as of mid-season.

Josh Hader is now in his third organization in three years. He was drafted by the Orioles in 2011, and the Astros picked him up as part of trading Bud Norris to the O's in 2013. Hader was the Astros Minor League pitcher of the year in 2014 after an excellent year in the California League (and a taste of Double-A) at the age of 20.  He's been very good in Double-A in the Texas League this year, and he'll join the rest of the Brewers top prospects in Biloxi (as will Houser and Phillips).  MLB.com put him as the 14th best Astros prospect as of mid-season.

Domingo Santana is the most advanced of the four prospects in that he is at Triple-A and will be assigned by Milwaukee to Colorado Springs. In Fresno, he was hitting .320/.426/.582 with 16 HRs, 48 BBs, 91 Ks in 326 plate appearances.  It's his second season at Triple-A. He looked terribly overmatched last year when the Astros brought him up for a cup of coffee in September -- as in, 0-for-17 with 14 strikeouts overmatched.  This year, in 14 games, he hit .256/.310/.462 in 42 plate appearances (but, again, a lot of Ks and not many BBs -- 2 BB, 17 Ks).  Coming in to the season, he was rated as the #71 Prospect in baseball by MLB.com (he dropped to #87 at mid-season), and as of mid-season he was the #7 prospect in Houston's system.

Finally, there is Brett Maverick Phillips.  No kidding. That's his name. It should surprise no one to hear that Brett Maverick was born and raised in Seminole, Florida. He was drafted out of high school in the sixth round in 2012 by the Astros, and he was considered untouchable until the Brewers were willing to put Mike Fiers into the deal.  He's an outfielder who has been raking at the plate over the past two years -- .310/.375/.529 last year in the Midwest League and California League and .320/.377/.548 in the California League and the Double-A Texas League this year. He was rated as the Astros 2nd best prospect at mid-season behind Alex Bregman and ahead of Mark Appel and as the 39th best prospect overall.

For me, there's a little bit of sadness, of course, in having one of the guys I really tried to collect in Carlos Gomez getting traded. At this point, though, I'm okay with it. I mean, he does have Scott Boras as his agent. So, that means that he would have never re-signed with Milwaukee after his contract expired at the end of next season. He'll be 31 when he starts the season in 2017, so you have to think he'll be looking for a very rich 5- to 7-year deal -- probably with the Yankees or Cardinals just to piss me off.

So, thanks, Carlos, it's been great collecting your cards.

Maybe I should start a Maverick collection.