Milwaukee Brewers: 3 Trades That Could Happen At The Winter Meetings

The Winter Meetings start in Las Vegas on Sunday night on December 9th and will continue through Thursday December 13th. In that time, a lot of trades and free agent signings can happen. What can we expect from the Milwaukee Brewers?

Milwaukee Brewers GM David Stearns has quite the history at the Winter Meetings. In 2015, his first year as GM, Stearns dealt Adam Lind to the Mariners for a package including Freddy Peralta. In 2016, Stearns turned two fantastic months from Tyler Thornburg into Travis Shaw and Mauricio Dubon. It’s safe to say those deals have worked out pretty well.

In the 2017 Winter Meetings, Stearns didn’t close any deals, but he did lay most of the groundwork for his acquisition of Christian Yelich the next month. But last offseason was an anomaly in general. All of baseball suffered from a slow offseason last year.

But this year is obviously different. With the Mariners sell off, the NL East arms race, and the NL Central race getting tighter, there’s been a lot of movement and rumors so far this offseason.

So what can we expect the Brewers to achieve at the Winter Meetings this year? Apparently, don’t expect the Crew to land a second baseman in free agency during this time.

Currently nothing is imminent on the trade front, but that can change quickly. However, their feelings that they can be patient in the second base search would lead you to believe they are going to see who the market leaves out and won’t sign one in Las Vegas at the meetings.

But there are other trades that could happen during these meetings as Stearns looks to fortify his roster for next season.

Here are three trade ideas that could potentially come to fruition during the Winter Meetings.

Brewers Acquire Robbie Ray From Arizona

The Arizona Diamondbacks effectively told all of baseball that anyone is up for trade discussions and can be had as the team takes a step back from contention after they sent franchise face Paul Goldschmidt to the St. Louis Cardinals.

With that, the Milwaukee Brewers should absolutely be calling Arizona about trying to acquire left hander Robbie Ray.

In 2017, Ray broke out and pitched to a 2.89 ERA in 28 starts with 12.1 strikeouts per nine innings en route to a seventh place finish in the Cy Young voting. In 2018, Ray took a step back, finishing with a 3.93 ERA in 24 starts. Ray dealt with an injury, which likely played a role in his regression this year.

But there’s still reasons to be optimistic about Ray. He’s just 27 years old and is under team control for two more seasons. He’s projected to be due just slightly above $6 million in 2019.

Ray also keeps the ball on the ground, with a 42% ground ball rate over his career. He’s also a big strikeout pitcher, averaging over 11 strikeouts per nine innings over the past three years.

As for what he could cost, Ray won’t be cheap to acquire, but he won’t cost ace-level talent either. Keston Hiura and Corbin Burnes will be safe in these negotiations.

The Brewers could put together a package around Corey Ray and Marcos Diplan. The Diamondbacks are losing centerfielder AJ Pollock in free agency this winter and don’t have an obvious immediate replacement. Corey Ray could be the center fielder of the future for Arizona. But he likely won’t be for Milwaukee. A Ray-for-Ray swap could be beneficial for both sides.

Milwaukee would need to throw in Marcos Diplan as well. Diplan has good stuff and projects to be in a big league rotation, but he likely won’t crack the Brewers rotation anytime soon. The Diamondbacks would like a good starting pitching prospect in return for trading their starting pitcher. Diplan won’t be big league ready to start 2019, but he should be there in 2020.

There may need to be another piece or two added in besides Ray and Diplan, but that shouldn’t be a major prospect. Perhaps a throw-in like Keon Broxton could be included.

Brewers Acquire Sonny Gray

The Sonny Gray market is expected to move fairly soon. There are a number of teams interested and the Yankees are ready to move on from Gray. He’s been a failed acquisition for New York, and it appears it’s just the atmosphere there that has caused his struggles.

Gray had a 6.98 ERA in Yankee Stadium in 2018, but had a 3.17 ERA everywhere else. He didn’t struggle with the short porch in right, allowing only 11 home runs in New York and only 14 total on the season.

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Gray had the appearance of being an ace from 2014-15 with Oakland, but struggled in 2016 and was having a strong bounceback season in 2017 before being sent to the Yankees.

Given his recent poor performance, Gray is a buy-low target if there ever was one. He’s projected to earn only $9+ million in his final year of arbitration, but he has ace-level stuff.

The Milwaukee Brewers have also reportedly been in talks with the Yankees about Gray, making a trade to the Cream City all the more likely during the Winter Meetings.

A trade return of someone like Trent Grisham or Carlos Herrera could be enough to entice the Yankees into sending Gray to the Brewers.

With all the noise on Gray recently, he’s probably the most likely to get traded during the Winter Meetings of the three names listed. While other trades could materialize, there should be a lot of activity during these meetings, and these are just three possible deals the Milwaukee Brewers could make next week.

The Winter Meetings are a fun time for baseball fans, as all of the speculation and rumors come out of one central location. Many trades and free agent signings are consummated at these meetings. The flurry of activity will be exciting to watch.