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.