{"id":925773,"date":"2026-10-12T19:46:19","date_gmt":"2026-10-12T19:46:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/925773\/"},"modified":"2026-10-12T19:46:19","modified_gmt":"2026-10-12T19:46:19","slug":"evaluating-four-years-of-brewers-transactions-to-compare-to-the-royals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/925773\/","title":{"rendered":"Evaluating four years of Brewers transactions to compare to the Royals"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Royals have made the playoffs once in the last decade, and their disappointing seasons in 2025 and 2026 have raised questions about whether the front office can build a contender. One way to get a better sense of how the Royals are doing is to compare their decisions with those of another franchise. In my recent evaluation <\/a>of Royals president of baseball operations J.J. Picollo, I tried to assess how well he had done at acquiring talent. This piece takes the same approach with Milwaukee Brewers president of baseball operations Matt Arnold, giving us a point of comparison with a franchise that has been more successful over the past four seasons.<\/p>\n

The goal of my exercise was to attempt to determine which of resources or talent evaluation were the primary culprit behind the Royals\u2019 back-to-back disappointing seasons after the surprise playoff run in 2024. I cannot realistically evaluate how big the hits or misses are without knowing what the alternatives might have been. I can\u2019t know what the alternatives were without knowing intimate details about the Royals\u2019 free-agent and trade negotiations to which I am not privy. It\u2019s obvious on its face that Picollo has not done a good enough job at building a contending roster, so I am merely attempting to determine the primary limiting factor as best I can with publicly available knowledge. To that end, wins represent appropriate or surplus value for the acquisition cost, not necessarily a good add to the roster.<\/p>\n

When we compare Picollo and Arnold, I think we need to acknowledge the reality that the Brewers have been more successful over the past four seasons than the Royals. So the expectation should likely be that Arnold is going to have a higher \u201cwin percentage\u201d than Picollo. If that\u2019s the case, it doesn\u2019t mean Picollo should automatically be fired. We want to see the degree to which Picollo is being beaten to get an idea of whether this is something he is at least close on. Arnold has won Executive of the Year two years in a row<\/a>, so he is considered one of the best in baseball. If Picollo is even close to the best, he\u2019s worth keeping around for a bit. If he\u2019s wildly worse, then I might be forced to run this exercise again with a different franchise to see how he compares to someone who is not the best because we\u2019d have to allow for the possibility that Matt Arnold leads the best front office in baseball and it isn\u2019t close.*<\/p>\n

Anyway, with that all out of the way, let\u2019s get into the scoring. In an attempt to preserve my sanity and time, I\u2019m going to try to do less writing about individual transactions since most of you probably don\u2019t care about these players anyway. In fact, feel free to skip to the end to read my conclusions; I won\u2019t be offended. The only reason I\u2019m even writing them down is as a sort of bibliography for that conclusion.<\/p>\n

They paid him the minimum to be a replacement-level player.<\/p>\n

$4.5 million for 1.0 fWAR.<\/p>\n

$3.5 million for 0.4 fWAR.<\/p>\n

Never pitched for the Brewers.<\/p>\n

$1.5 million for 0.3 fWAR.<\/p>\n

They paid him the minimum to be a replacement-level player.<\/p>\n

Traded Reminton Batista for Payton Henry<\/p>\n

Neither has appeared in the big leagues again.<\/p>\n

Traded Hunter Renfroe for Elvis Peguero, Janson Junk, and Adam Seminaris<\/p>\n

Renfroe was still useful in 2023, but Peguero was a useful piece, too.<\/p>\n

Traded Kolten Wong for Abraham Toro and Jesse Winker<\/p>\n

Wong and Winker were both awful.<\/p>\n

Traded Esteury Ruiz for William Contreras, Joel Payamps, and Justin Yeager (three-team trade)<\/p>\n

William Contreras is a perennial All-Star; Payamps was good for a bit.<\/p>\n

Traded Justin Topa for Joseph Hernandez<\/p>\n

Topa was good; Hernandez never made it.<\/p>\n

Traded Taylor Floyd and cash for Trevor Megill<\/p>\n

Megill has been a terrific closer for a couple of years, though he wasn\u2019t this good straight out of the gate.<\/p>\n

Traded Jhonny Severino for Carlos Santana<\/p>\n

Traded Justin Jarvis for Mark Canha and cash<\/p>\n

Canha was great; Jarvis never made it.<\/p>\n

Traded Luis Urias for Bradley Blalock<\/p>\n

Traded Alex Jackson for Evan McKendry<\/p>\n

Traded Peter Strzelecki for Andrew Chafin<\/p>\n

$1.75 million for 0.9 fWAR.<\/p>\n

Turns out J.J. isn\u2019t the only one who hangs on to guys too long, sometimes. Only threw seven innings this year.<\/p>\n

$34 million for two years totaling 1.1 fWAR.<\/p>\n

$7 million for replacement-level play.<\/p>\n

$17.5 million for 1.7 fWAR.<\/p>\n

Signed Elieser Hern\u00e1ndez<\/p>\n

League minimum for replacement level.<\/p>\n

Already paying dividends.<\/p>\n

Traded Mark Canha for Blake Holub<\/p>\n

Canha wasn\u2019t bad in 2024. Holub has yet to make his big-league debut. He showed off some nice strikeout numbers in AAA, but he\u2019s 27. So we\u2019ll call it a draw for now.<\/p>\n

Traded Hendry Mendez and Robert Moore for Oliver Dunn<\/p>\n

Both the prospects traded look like they could be something, Mendez in particular looks like a potential stud (now with the Twins). Dunn was basically replacement level.<\/p>\n

Traded Abraham Toro for Chad Patrick<\/p>\n

Traded Brian Sanchez and Jace Avina for Jake Bauers<\/p>\n

Jake Bauers has become a mainstay in the Brewers lineup<\/p>\n

Traded Cam Devanney and Ryan Brady for Taylor Clarke<\/p>\n

We covered this one on the Royals\u2019 side.<\/p>\n

Traded Tyrone Taylor and Adrian Houser for Coleman Crow<\/p>\n

Crow has been disappointing while Taylor and Houser have each had their moments.<\/p>\n

Traded Justin Chambers for Bryan Hudson<\/p>\n

Traded Corbin Burnes for DL Hall and Joey Ortiz<\/p>\n

Joey saves this one for the Brewers because Hall has not been helpful.<\/p>\n

Traded Clayton Andrews for Joshua Quezada<\/p>\n

Quezada is speedrunning the Brewers\u2019 system; he pitched at every level of full-season minor leagues this year at 22. I\u2019m not sure I see it, but they sure do. Still, to stick with the conservative approach of Picollo\u2019s review, it\u2019s a draw.<\/p>\n

Traded Thyago Vieira and Aneuris Rodriguez for Garret Stallings<\/p>\n

Stalling debuted this year and looked pretty good.<\/p>\n

Traded Gregory Barrios for Aaron Civale<\/p>\n

Civale was good, not great; Barrios is well-regarded as a prospect but isn\u2019t putting up numbers. No winners here.<\/p>\n

Traded TJ Shook for Tyler Jay<\/p>\n

Traded Yujanyer Herrera and Bradley Blalock for Nick Mears<\/p>\n

Traded Jakob Junis and Joey Wiemer for Frankie Montas<\/p>\n

Wiemer has been mostly worthless as an MLB player, but Junis was fire for the Reds after the trade, and Montas wasn\u2019t great. Without knowing more about the Brewers, it\u2019s hard to call this a loss – maybe the mediocre starter\u2019s innings were more valuable to them than the relief innings they gave up. So I\u2019ll call it nothing.<\/p>\n

Never pitched in the big leagues for the Brewers.<\/p>\n

$1 million for 0.4 fWAR but DFA\u2019d in early June because he had a 6.19 ERA.<\/p>\n

$4 million for 0.8 fWAR in 24 starts.<\/p>\n

Traded Devin Williams for Nestor Cortes and Caleb Durbin<\/p>\n

Caleb Durbin saves this trade.<\/p>\n

Traded Mason Molina for Grant Anderson<\/p>\n

I want to call this a loss because Molina looks far more interesting as a prospect than Anderson has been as a reliever, but Molina hasn\u2019t been quite good enough for me to pull the trigger.<\/p>\n

Traded Mark Canha for Cesar Espinal<\/p>\n

Canha was bad; Espinal is not good.<\/p>\n

Traded Grant Wolfram for Daz Cameron and cash<\/p>\n

Traded Yophery Rodr\u00edguez, Competitive Balance pick A, and John Holobetz for Quinn Priester<\/p>\n

Priester was good, but not great, and underwent thoracic outlet surgery this year. Holobetz and the CB-A Pick (Marcus Phillips) look pretty good in the minors.<\/p>\n

Traded Aaron Civale for Andrew Vaughn<\/p>\n

This was when I was convinced that the White Sox were actively making everyone on their team worse and wanted the Royals to go after Luis Robert Jr.<\/p>\n

Traded Jorge Quintana and Nestor Cortes for Brandon Lockridge<\/p>\n

Traded PTBNL for Jordan Montgomery and Shelby Miller<\/p>\n

Nothing for nothing, but an interesting example of the Brewers being willing to take on money to pay less in prospect capital. They actually wanted Miller, but took Montgomery\u2019s salary so they didn\u2019t have to give up much. It\u2019s hard to tell if they ever did this again in the four-year stretch we\u2019re evaluating, but even doing it once is more than the Royals have been willing to try.<\/p>\n

Three-year total: 19-12-23<\/p>\n

$22.5 million for 1.2 fWAR, a second whiff on the same player.<\/p>\n

Never even appeared for the big league team.<\/p>\n

$1.75 million for 0.9 fWAR; Gary is another win.<\/p>\n

Fantastic in limited playing time so far.<\/p>\n

Lara has not been good yet, but the extension can\u2019t be a loss this early.<\/p>\n

Traded Isaac Collins and Nick Mears for Angel Zerpa<\/p>\n

We covered this from the Royals\u2019 side.<\/p>\n

Traded Freddy Peralta and Tobias Myers for Brandon Sproat and Jett Williams<\/p>\n

You\u2019d rather have Peralta than Sproat, and while Myers wasn\u2019t much, Williams has regressed a bit in AAA this season.<\/p>\n

Traded Caleb Durbin, Competitive Balance Pick B, Andruw Monasterio, and Anthony Siegler for Kyle Harrison and David Hamilton<\/p>\n

This looked like a hilarious win to start the season, but Durbin actually had a really good year by the end and Harrison fell off. Owen Hull, the CB-B pick, tore up High-A, too. I think we have to consider this a loss.<\/p>\n

Traded K.C. Hunt for Jake Woodford<\/p>\n

Traded Jadyn Fielder for Lance McCullers Jr., Colton Gordon, and cash<\/p>\n

Fielder\u2019s got a little juice, but still very low. This is a tie leaning toward a loss. This would probably be at least a second example of taking on money to give up less; they cut McCullers less than two weeks after they acquired him. We don\u2019t know how much cash they got in the deal to offset his salary, though.<\/p>\n

Traded Craig Yoho and Blake Perkins for Codi Heuer and Bo Naylor<\/p>\n

Traded Josiah Ragsdale and Alexander Frias for JoJo Romero and Dustin May<\/p>\n

Frias is a 50 FV, and Ragsdale is tearing up the minors. Romero is a competent lefty reliever, and May has been a disappointment.<\/p>\n

Traded Juan Martinez and Mark Manfredi for Antonio Senzatela<\/p>\n

Manfredi has looked good in relief; Senzatela has not. Martinez showed a little juice in the minors, not enough to sway this, but it was already a loss.<\/p>\n

Four-year total: 22-18-29<\/p>\n

The most obvious thing is that the Brewers make more transactions than the Royals. And that\u2019s before I realized, as I was going through this, that I had disregarded cash trades, viewing them the same as minor league free agent signings. Let\u2019s at least summarize the cash trades here.<\/p>\n

The Royals made 12 trades that included only cash from one side or another in the past four years. The Royals had two trades of that nature that worked out well (Yuli Gurriel and Randy Dobnak) and one that went poorly (Ryan O\u2019Hearn, though the rumor is that there were extenuating circumstances to that one).<\/p>\n

The Brewers made 19. They had a pair of small hits (Owen Miller, Bryse Wilson) and traded away no one they\u2019ve ended up missing. You could argue the Royals could make more of these kinds of trades, but they\u2019ve also got as many hits as the Brewers in fewer attempts, so maybe they\u2019re just not wasting as much time on them.<\/p>\n

The next most obvious conclusion is that, while the Brewers made significantly more transactions, they\u2019ve \u201cwon\u201d on the exact same number as the Royals, lost a handful more, and mostly ended up with extra nothing for nothings.<\/p>\n

I went into this assuming that Arnold was going to have significantly more wins on his record over the past four years than Picollo. That fear escalated as I saw them acquire players like Durbin, Contreras, Megill, and Bauers in trades. That said, Picollo had the higher success rate. I suppose it\u2019s possible that Arnold\u2019s team is hitting home runs while the Royals are settling for singles from the front office, but again, some of that goes back to the resources available to them. The Brewers may not have had more money, but they had a lot more talent in their organization after the 2022 season than the Royals. That\u2019s something that could start changing as early as this offseason, as guys like Blake Mitchell fall down the org prospect rankings despite not performing poorly.<\/p>\n

And it\u2019s not like the Royals don\u2019t have big wins in the trade department, either. Aroldis Chapman for Cole Ragans was massive, even more so if Ragans can have additional healthy seasons. Freddy Fermin for Ryan Bergert and Stephen Kolek was even better. If Steven Cruz can take one more step forward, his trade will look as good as the Megill deal – it even took Megill time to reach this level of success. The Seth Lugo and Michael Wacha signings are better than any free agent deal the Brewers have done.<\/p>\n

I also found it interesting that while Picollo often held on to guys too long, Arnold often brings guys back to see them underperform in a second tour. Woodruff stands out as a guy who was bad the first time and came back to be worse for more money the second time. Wade Miley was bad in his second tour. Sometimes it\u2019s worked out for them, as with Bryse Wilson and Gary S\u00e1nchez. Still, the Royals and Brewers don\u2019t appear to be as different in this regard as you might have imagined. I\u2019m inferring from anecdotes and small samples here, but it seems like all front offices have guys they like and will keep or bring back even if their play hasn\u2019t necessarily justified it. Austin Hedges in Cleveland stands out in this regard, as well.<\/p>\n

The Royals\u2019 assertion that they want major-league-ready guys in trades actually fits in with the Brewers\u2019 behavior. Of the four stars the Brewers acquired via trade, three of them had already played in the big leagues before the Brewers got them; Durbin was the lone exception, and he came with Nestor Cortes Jr., who was supposed to improve the Brewers\u2019 rotation. In fact, Durbin and Jett Williams are the only prospects acquired by the Brewers in large-ish trades, and both came with established starting pitchers even if those pitchers didn\u2019t work out. Prospects will break your heart, but they\u2019re worth grabbing if they can give you a second shot on a risky starting pitcher trade, I guess.<\/p>\n

That said, one big change the Royals should consider adapting from the Brewers is a willingness to sign the young prospects who look like stars early on. Chourio and Pratt look to be huge wins for the Brewers. Even if Lara ends up being a miss, the value gained from Chourio and Pratt will outweigh what is lost with him. The Royals should absolutely be locking Carter Jensen and Jac Caglianone in ASAP if they want to keep their payroll down and keep options open for filling holes later.<\/p>\n

*I wrote that entire paragraph before beginning the evaluation. I was convinced that Arnold and the Brewers were going to do better than the Royals; I just wanted to see how much better. Imagine my shock and delight when I had finished and reached the conclusions above.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Royals have made the playoffs once in the last decade, and their disappointing seasons in 2025 and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":925774,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[558],"tags":[64,63,253962,591,135818,253963,85],"class_list":["post-925773","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-kansas-city-royals-analysis","tag-mlb","tag-mlb-news","tag-royals-editorials-reactions","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/925773","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=925773"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/925773\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/925774"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=925773"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=925773"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=925773"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}