Haudricourt: Brewers GM David Stearns stuck to team's trading strategy and avoided impulse buys

Impulse purchases can provide immediate gratification but sometimes lead to buyer’s remorse down the road.

The same applies to the major-league trading season, particularly with clubs in the midst of large-scale building plans such as the Brewers. With the 2017 team unexpectedly in a playoff race ahead of schedule, it would have been easy for general manager David Stearns to send a package of top prospects to Oakland for pitcher Sonny Gray before the July 31 deadline.

Instead, Stearns said no when the Athletics asked for No. 1 prospect Lewis Brinson, and Gray instead went to the New York Yankees for a package of prospects.

“Sometimes, being disciplined isn’t fun,” Stearns admitted. “But it’s my job, primarily, to make sure we make decisions that are in the best interests of this organization as a whole, and that’s what we’re trying to do.

“We went into the trading season fairly open-minded. I think, barring players being available who we did not anticipate being available, there was a group in our organization we were not willing to discuss. That included both major- and minor-league players.”

So, with no CC Sabathias or Zack Greinkes on the market this time around, the Brewers kept their top prospects in the fold. Stearns settled for smaller deals for relievers Tyler Webb, Anthony Swarzak and Jeremy Jeffress to provide more depth for a well-used bullpen.

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If that disappointed Brewers fans who watched the Cubs make big moves for left-hander Jose Quintana, reliever Justin Wilson and catcher Alex Avila, so be it. Chicago remains in win-now mode after finally tasting a World Series championship last fall and is willing to trade prospects while fielding a still-young club at the big-league level.

Because the Cubs finally started winning in a big way after acquiring Quintana, there was the perception that management awakened the club with a big move. Stearns, who also was in on Quintana but considered the price too steep, isn’t so sure.

“It’s tough to determine exactly what moves do for a team,” he said. “My general sense of the Cubs is they have a very talented roster, and they started playing better over the past couple of weeks.

“Even good teams go through ups and downs, as we’ve seen with our team. I think the Cubs’ recent run has more to do with the overall quality of their roster than one individual player.”

As tempting as it might have been to make a bold strike to energize a team that hit the all-star break 5½ games ahead of the pack, Stearns and his staff made the decision to stick to their trading strategy. Principal owner Mark Attanasio, who loves to win, supported his decision makers and even complimented Stearns for staying disciplined while the team was struggling.

The Brewers quickly gave back all of their cushion in the NL Central and watched the Cubs pass them but Stearns and Co. did not make an impulse buy.

“We’re always going to have to balance near term with long term,” Stearns said. “That’s true now, it’s going to be true next year and it’s going to be true the year after that. Our goal here is to have a team that is in position for us to add at the deadline year after year after year.

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“In order to do that, we’re going to need a consistent stable of young talent populating our major-league team. We’ve seen this year how important depth is at the major-league level. That’s one of the reasons we are where we are. And we’re going to need our young players to provide that depth, going forward.

“It’s pretty apparent, looking at organizations like ours (in market size) that have had sustained success, year after year, that are competing for division championships and World Series, they are teams that have been disciplined at this time of year. There’s a reason those are the teams that seem to compete year after year, regardless of market size, regardless of payroll and various constraints.

“We had a strategy coming into the trading season that we formulated in early July. We tried to stick to that strategy. We understand that teams go through hot stretches and cold stretches. Especially when you lead up to the trade deadline, everything seems to be magnified. We try not to let the emotion of a week’s stretch influence our decision making. So, I think our strategy that we set was pretty constant.

“For every discussion we were in, big or small, we had an understanding as to what that acquisition would have cost from a talent perspective, and we were able to make a decision as to whether we thought it was worthwhile for us. In the case of Anthony Swarzak, Tyler Webb and Jeremy Jeffress, we thought the acquisition cost was something we could stomach. In the other discussions we had, we determined the acquisition costs were too high.”

Though the Brewers mostly were tied to pitching in rumors leading up to the deadline, the offense was the biggest culprit in surrendering first place. Entering Saturday, the Brewers had scored three or fewer runs in 15 of 20 games, a big reason for their 8-12 record over that stretch.

Stearns did look at some bats before the deadline but believes his homer-reliant offense will break out of its three-week skid.

“We believe in our offense; we believe in our position player grouping,” he said. “It’s a group that has scored a lot of runs over the course of the season.

“We’ve hit a little bit of a dry spell, but every team goes through that at some point of the year. Ours just happened to be at this point. But I’m confident this group is going to score runs going forward.”

Trades can still be made in August with players who clear waivers, and Stearns believes some significant deals will be made. If something strikes his fancy and the cost is appropriate, he is willing to pull the trigger to boost his club.

But, for the most part, this team is on its own. Stearns doesn’t believe he is forsaking the overachieving ’17 group to keep the organization’s future intact. Or, if he does, he certainly can’t say so.

“I think we’ve got a strong team,” he said. “We’ve proven that over two-thirds of the major-league season. I expect us to stay in this over the course of the remainder of the season. I think we can do that with the group of players we have now.”

That might not happen but at least Stearns will not have buyer’s remorse.