Brewers: 5 David Stearns Trades That Completely Fleeced The Other Team

David Stearns Trade Fleece #4: Somehow getting a three player package for Keon Broxton

Brodie Van Wagenen.

Fleecing him was like taking candy from a baby.

All the GMs across the league tried to get their own trades with BVW and most that did came out on top. The biggest fleece of him belongs to Jerry Dipoto in Seattle with the Robinson Cano/Jarred Kelenic trade, but David Stearns got himself involved and took some candy for himself.

Stearns was able to convince the player agent-turned-GM that he should take Keon Broxton to roam centerfield in New York in exchange for three players: Bobby Wahl, Adam Hill, and Felix Valerio.

The keys to this trade are Hill and Valerio. Wahl was slated to be a bullpen option for Milwaukee, but could never stay healthy.

Adam Hill was an intriguing pitching prospect, that the Brewers traded the next offseason in a deal for Omar Narvaez. That’s right, the Brewers All-Star catcher. Valerio is now one of the Brewers better prospects after a strong season in A-ball. The teenage lottery ticket throw-in looks like he could have some winning numbers.

The struggles that everyone in Milwaukee knew Broxton had with a lack of consistent contact and striking out a ton only got worse in New York. He went from striking out at a 31.5% clip in 2018 to striking out an astonishing 45.6% rate in 2019. He didn’t last long in New York and bounced around with three other teams that season.

Why Van Wagenen gave up so much for Broxton we’ll never know, but it looked like a fleece from the beginning, and that has only gotten stronger as time has gone on.

With Valerio having legitimate MLB prospect status now and Hill being sent as the lone player (also a draft pick) in the deal for Narvaez, Stearns turned a strikeout machine of a 4th outfielder into an All Star catcher and a solid middle infield prospect. That’s a big fleece.

But it’s not quite his biggest. There’s still a few more to go.

David Stearns Trade Fleece #3: An Ace for Adam Lind

At first glance of this trade, it didn’t look much like a fleece. As time has gone on, however, it has definitely moved into ‘fleece’ category.

Honestly, the Brewers coming out so far on top in this trade is partially due to extremely good luck, but also partially due to the Brewers front office’s skills in spotting talent and developing it.

Late in 2014, the Brewers acquired first baseman Adam Lind from the Blue Jays for homer-prone starter Marco Estrada. Lind spent the entire 2015 season as the Brewers first baseman and did pretty well, hitting .277 with 20 homers, but the Brewers immediately went into rebuild mode and the veteran slugger was a movable asset.

The new GM, David Stearns, saw this and traded Lind to Seattle in exchange for three teenage pitchers; Daniel Missaki, Carlos Herrera, and Freddy Peralta. All were lottery tickets, most teenage pitchers are.

It didn’t take long after joining the Brewers organization for Freddy Peralta to establish himself as the best of that trio of prospects. He posted a 2.85 ERA in Low-A Wisconsin after coming over and continued to climb up the organizational ladder. After a rough initial stint in then-High A affiliate Brevard County, Peralta never posted an ERA above 3.10 with any Brewers minor league team outside of rehab stints.

Peralta made his major league debut on Mother’s Day in 2018, striking out 13 Rockies and he’s been a staple on this big league pitching staff ever since. He’s continued to get better each year and permanently entrenched himself in the starting rotation in 2021 and established himself as one of the co-aces of this group.

The other two young pitchers in the trade flamed out, either due to injury or ineffectiveness. Missaki never threw a pitch for the Brewers organization, and didn’t throw one professionally for six years. His last affiliated game was in 2015 before the trade, and just this past season appeared in three games for the Yomiuri Giants in Japan. Good to see him finally healthy.

Lind spent one season in Seattle and his batting average dropped 38 points from his season with the Brewers, his OPS dropped 103 points, and his number of doubles were cut nearly in half. The rewards for Seattle in this deal were minimal.

Meanwhile the Brewers have been reaping the rewards and get to reap the rewards of this trade for years to come. The Mariners gave Milwaukee three lottery tickets. One of them just so happened to have the lucky numbers for the jackpot.

Because of the major luck aspect to developing a teenage pitcher into an ace, this trade only comes in at No. 3. It’s hard to fault the Mariners for giving up Peralta since he was so far from a sure thing, and perhaps their pitching development program would’ve never gotten Peralta to point he’s at now.

David Stearns Trade Fleece #2: The Travis Shaw/Tyler Thornburg Trade

For years the Brewers had been lacking a power hitting, left handed bat in the lineup, especially at the corner infield spots. Third base had been a long-term problem for Milwaukee, and GM David Stearns, one year into his tenure at the time, made a trade with the Boston Red Sox at the 2016 Winter Meetings.

Just a few months earlier, Stearns dismantled his dynamic bullpen duo of Will Smith and Jeremy Jeffress in trades at the July Deadline as the Brewers rebuild continued. That left then-7th inning man Tyler Thornburg to handle closing duties. He handled them extremely well and his trade value was incredibly high.

So Stearns traded one single reliever in Thornburg, who had been a closer for just two months, in exchange for a starting third baseman in Travis Shaw, plus three prospects in IF Mauricio Dubon, RHP Josh Pennington, and IF Yeison Coca. Dubon was the best prospect of the group and was a top 5 Brewers prospect for a while.

In parts of five seasons with the Brewers, Thornburg had a 2.87 ERA while occasionally dealing with injuries. Then, before the 2017 season could even get started, Thornburg suffered an injury that cost him the whole season. He returned in 2018 and 2019, but in those two seasons with Boston, he posted a 6.54 ERA and was never the same.

Meanwhile, Travis Shaw immediately became a fan favorite in Milwaukee and played well in his first two seasons. He hit .273 with 31 homers and a 121 OPS+ in 2017, coming up with some clutch hits down the stretch. In 2018, on the NL Central winning club, Shaw hit .241 with 32 homers and a 119 OPS+.

Although Shaw slumped hard in 2019 and hasn’t been able to find that 2017-18 form again, this trade was a massive fleece for Stearns and the Brewers with what Shaw gave the franchise in those two years. Plus, Mauricio Dubon was a strong prospect and was traded for Drew Pomeranz at the 2019 trade deadline, who was a major boost for this club down that stretch.

As for the rest of the package, Josh Pennington retired in 2018 after suffering a string of injuries. Yeison Coca was the player to be named later and is still in the Brewers organization. The 22 year old hit .216/.283/.291 across High-A, Double-A, and Triple-A in 2021.

As great as this trade was, there’s one more that takes the cake.

David Stearns Trade Fleece #1: The Christian Yelich Heist

In one of David Stearns’ most remarkable feats, he acquired Christian Yelich from the Miami Marlins fire-sale and the results could not have gone better for the Brewers.

The full trade was a four-for-one, with the Brewers getting Yelich in exchange for top prospect Lewis Brinson, along with Isan Diaz, Monte Harrison, and Jordan Yamamoto.

Let’s start with Yelich and what he did. Right away in 2018, Yelich became a key piece of the Crew’s lineup, hitting in the 2-hole most of the year behind fellow January 25th, 2018 acquisition Lorenzo Cain. Yelich really took off starting at the All Star Break and slugged his way to the 2018 NL MVP award, showing more power than he ever had before.

2019 was more of the same, with Yelich continuing to slug and slug and win a second straight batting title. His season ended early due to a foul ball off his kneecap, which ruined his chances for a second straight MVP as well, but proved even more so that 2018 was not a fluke and he established himself as a superstar in this league.

Now let’s look at the Marlins return. Lewis Brinson was thought to be big league ready right away and the crown jewel of this trade package, but he has struggled to hit at the MLB level. His first two seasons he hit under .200, and in 2020 and 2021, he hit just .226. He hasn’t shown that power-speed combination he was projected to have and has just not panned out. The Marlins released him this offseason.

Isan Diaz has had opportunities to earn the starting second base job in the big leagues, but he’s lost those battles each time, also hitting under .200 in every season he’s played in. Monte Harrison was also strikeout prone and he’s hit just .175 in limited appearances at the big league level for Miami.

The best player in this return for the Marlins was Jordan Yamamoto, who had a 4.46 ERA in 15 starts for Miami in 2019. Although he struggled the next season and Miami then traded him to the Mets before the 2021 season.

So, really, the Marlins got nothing positive out of this trade. Each of the hitters can’t hit above .200, two of the four are no longer in their organization, the other two aren’t good enough to crack the big league roster, and the player they gave up for them has won two batting titles, an MVP, and has been to the playoffs every season with his new team.

This is why we call this deal the Christian Yelich Heist. This was a steal of major proportions. Stearns fleeced the Marlins, hands down. It was somewhat apparent at the time, considering the Brewers didn’t have to give up any of their big time pitching prospects, but has only grown bigger as time has gone on.

This was seen as a fairly even trade when it happened, but the scales have tipped so much in the Brewers direction as each day has passed since then. Not a single prospect panned out for the Marlins, while Yelich has panned out even better than expected for the Brewers.

This is the kind of trade that makes a legendary career for a baseball executive. It’s one that vaulted Stearns even further into superstardom among his peers. Stearns will likely never have a fleece as big as this one in any trade he makes for the rest of his career.

There are numerous other trades that worked out in the Brewers favor that Stearns made. But these five deals qualify as the biggest fleeces of them all.