Brewers: 3 Players Most Likely To Be Traded This Offseason

3. SS Orlando Arcia

This one is admittedly tough to see happening at the moment, but if the Milwaukee Brewers internally decide they’re fed up with Arcia’s lack of production at the plate and struggles defensively, they could trade him and move on to someone else at shortstop.

While Arcia’s value isn’t exactly at an all-time high, a defensively gifted shortstop still is pretty valuable and teams would pay to get one. His offensive talent is in there somewhere, but he could need a change of scenery to get the most out of it. Arcia’s been feeling the pressure of being such a hyped prospect and not living up to expectations. The mental struggles have been evident.

Perhaps going to a new team where expectations aren’t so high and he can have a fresh start wouldn’t be the worst thing for him.

However, trading Arcia leaves the question of what the Brewers will do at shortstop with him gone. For as bad as Arcia has been at the plate, there really isn’t much for better options internally. Tyler Saladino was a bust and a non-tender candidate. Cory Spangenberg had a good month of September but no one should be ready to trust him to be the everyday shortstop over a whole season. Hernan Perez has been released and top prospect Brice Turang is a few years away.

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The Brewers would need to either acquire a big league ready shortstop in return for Arcia, acquire one in a different trade, or sign a free agent. The top free agent shortstop this year will be Didi Gregorius, but there’s a strong chance he’s going to get more money than the Brewers can offer. Other options like Jose Iglesias or Freddy Galvis could be cheaper options that will still provide solid production.

But the Brewers would need to have already signed one of those guys and have that spot guaranteed to be covered before they would move Arcia. They can’t risk trading Arcia and not getting one of their targets in free agency and not have the position covered heading into 2020.

This is all based on the possibility that the Brewers would give up on their homegrown shortstop after three full seasons. It’s not particularly likely, but it’s a possibility given how he’s played and what the team needs out of him.

Final Thoughts

There really isn’t that much for obvious trade candidates on this Milwaukee Brewers roster. The farm system is thin on prospects that are completely blocked or are good enough to bring back a great player.

Most of the roster is locked in to either sizable contracts, are too important to move, or coming off bad seasons and it would make no sense to trade them. For example, Travis Shaw doesn’t make sense as a trade candidate because his value is at an all-time low and Mike Moustakas is a free agent that might not return.

Gamel makes the most sense as a trade candidate given the depth at his position and his second half struggles, but it’s still not anything close to a given. Turang makes sense if and only if they decide to trade for a starting pitching upgrade. Arcia makes sense only if they can find a better option somewhere, something they currently don’t possess.

The trade front might not be very active for the Brewers this winter, at least in terms of the core of the roster. They might look to trade for another bullpen piece from somewhere or add around the fringes of the roster, but most of the core and the starting group is already in place. This isn’t a bad thing, but the lack of impact prospects also does hinder their ability to make an impact trade to improve the roster.

Given the struggles of the roster in 2019, some changes are going to need to be in store for 2020.