Blogs from our Community

Minor League Sleepers: Who is Poised for a Breakout?

With Spring Training opening, I thought it was a good chance to take a look at some sleeper prospects who could rise up the prospect ranks this season. I decided to pick four position players and four pitchers and, as with last year, I am dividing this into three tiers. The first tier are your regular sleepers, the guys who aren't gracing many top 20 or 30 lists, but have already established themselves as at least names to watch. The second tier are typically less established but have somet

CheeseheadInQC in Minor leagues

February 18, 2024

The Incredible Shrinking Tyler Black

In 2021 the Brewers drafted Tyler Black. An infielder from Toronto Canada who had just completed his Junior season at Wright State University. To be very specific the Brewers drafted Tyler Black: the 6.2” infielder from Wright State university. Also reporting that Tyler Black was 6’2” was the Toronto Star and many many scouting report websites. Today, Tyler Black is listed as a 5’10” tall third baseman by the Brewers, MLB and other player statistics sites. Perhaps th

January 12, 2024

Bullpen Decisions

The Brewers were very adept at developing a productive bullpen again in 2023. How do they do this? Perhaps the most important element to a Brewers bullpen is a recognition that only a few players will be good bullpen pitchers for more than a couple years in a row. The Brewers plan accordingly: 1. They purge and restock the bullpen annually with pretty good success rate in recognizing who won’t be able to repeat their previous success. In 2022 they let Brad Boxberger go through free

January 9, 2024

The Value of Adrian Houser

There are reasons Adrian Houser has been a fan favorite. Anyone that can puke on the back of the mound and then turn around and continue pitching has to be appreciated. This is the definition of a gamer. Houser is also the last remaining Brewer from the 2015 fleecing of the Houston Astros in the trade of Carlos Gomez and Mike Fiers. That trade tree may continue to bear fruit if Coleman Crow, whom the Brewers got back for Houser and Tyrone Taylor, makes it to The Show. Many may be upset

January 2, 2024

Your Tokyo Dodgers Ladies and Gentlemen

While the Yankees and Braves may argue over who is “America’s team,” and the Brewers and Cubs may argue about who is Kenosha’s team, the Dodgers are doing baseball at a totally different level. With the signing of Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Shohei Ohtani the Dodgers have set themselves up as Japan’s team. While much of the rest of the baseball world deals with reduction in revenue from existing cable TV contracts and fans that haven’t quite come back from pre-covid attendance levels, the

Bashopolis in Japan

December 22, 2023

The Intriguing Brewers Minor League Logjam No One is Talking About

When you hear the word logjam in regards to the Milwaukee Brewers these days you typically think of one thing: the outfield in the majors and at triple-A. And for good reason. You've got a punch of recently graduated top prospects, a former MVP, a couple of useful reserves, and, oh yah, one of the top prospects in baseball. The logjam I'm going to talk about, though, isn't at the big league level or even close to it. And it (likely) doesn't involve any of the system's "name" prospects. How

CheeseheadInQC in Minor leagues

December 21, 2023

David Go's Blog

Vinny Rottino on playing in his home state, Asia, WBC, and broadcasting

Click to listen here (Spotify link here) as Vinny Rottino joined me on The Barrel Banter podcast to discuss his career - his time at UW-La Crosse, playing for his hometown team, representing Team Italy in the WBC, the trek to Asia to play in Japan and Korea, the transition into scouting and later broadcasting. We also spend time talking about the impact a manager can have given the Brewers' recent high-profile managerial change.

David Go in Barrel Banter

December 13, 2023

The Qualifying Offer System and a Willy Adames Trade

Any decision on whether to trade Willie Adames will be influenced by how the Brewers feel about extending a qualifying offer (QO) to him after the 2024 season. Players with six years of service time may opt to enter free agency. The team can attempt to retain the player for one year by extending a qualifying offer for a one year contract. This year the qualifying offer is $20.350M up from $19.625M last year. Next year it can be anticipated that this amount will go up to at least $21M.

December 13, 2023

Injuries, Inconsistency and Asterisks: The Road from the DSL for Brewers Pitching Prospects

There are plenty of stories from the Brewers' 2023 minor league season of players stepping up and loudly announcing themselves as prospects to watch. This is not one of those stories. This is a story of entire seasons lost to injury, of struggles at a new level. It is a story where even most of the successes come with an asterisk. It is also one, though, that comes with a reminder that just because results might not be particularly hopeful doesn't necessarily mean they are hopeless.

CheeseheadInQC in Minor leagues

December 7, 2023

Setting Some Expectations Around The Chourio Contract

The Brewers and Jackson Chourio have agreed to an eight-year contract extension with a reported value of $82 million. It also includes a team option of extending the contract for $25M a year for two more years. There are $10M of incentives available to Chourio. Is this a good deal for the Brewers? Is it a good deal for Chourio? A look at recent history could provide some answers. If we look at the recent salary history of a few other center fielders, we may get an idea of the range of

December 4, 2023

Bally Bankruptcy Short and Long Term Impact

Bally Sports is going through bankruptcy. This is causing consternation among many major league teams including the Brewers. There are fourteen teams that generate revenue by selling telecasting rights to the local Bally affiliate. In a number of markets Bally has already delayed or flat out refused to pay teams. This hasn’t happened, or at least we aren’t aware of this happening yet, in Milwaukee. But it could. Short Term Impact: Throughout Baseball, local media contracts comprise 2

November 29, 2023

When Do The Brewers Trade a Catcher?

Any discussion of the Brewers trading a catcher begins with looking at the progress made by William Contreras. During the off season prior to the 2023 season, the Brewers were part of the three-team trade that brought Contreras to the Brewers from the Atlanta Braves. At the time Contreras was seen as a young player with great offensive upside but also as a defensive liability. The offensive profile didn’t change during Contreras’ first season with the Brewers. (.289 average, .367 OBP, .

The Cream City Club Podcast

November 27, 2023

Episodes 2-5 of the Cream City Club Podcast

Hey everyone, I will try to do a better job of keeping up with this here, but we have released 4 more episodes of the podcast now. I have links and a brief description of all of them below, we'd love if you would check it out! Again, we are very open to feedback as well! For Brewers fans specifically, Episode 3 and 5 are likely the ones you will be most interested in 🙂 Links to the Podcast: Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-cream-city-club-podcast/id171559

Spencer Michaelis in Podcast Episodes

November 21, 2023

Rule 5 Draft Plea

What if I were to tell you that the single most dominant pitcher in the 2022 Arizona Fall League was left exposed in this year's Rule 5 draft? The guy who blazed through AFL hitters to the tune of 25 strikeouts to one hit allowed (No, that's not a typo. Yes, that is ridiculous). The guy who followed it up by making a serious run at making one of the best teams in baseball out of spring training, striking out 11 in 4 1/3 scoreless spring innings before getting injured. That would s

CheeseheadInQC in Rule 5 Draft

November 17, 2023

brewers Freshmen -- The Sequel

The Brewers spent a lot of time and energy promoting “The Freshmen” during the 2023 season. They invited fans into a reality show about the future of the team. Unfortunately, the reality was that this group of players weren’t as good as many fans hoped once they got to The Show. Mitchell has shown promise, but he has some peripheral stats that could be red flags and he may be injury prone. Turang has found a way to strike out much more at the MLB level. Weimer isn't Hunter Pence and perha

November 17, 2023

Overcrowding in the Outfield?

As we look towards 2024, one position of strength on the Brewers seems to be outfield. The Brewers have five outfielders coming back that played in at least fifty games during 2023: Joey Wiemer (132 games), Christian Yelich (122) Tyrone Taylor (75) Blake Perkins (61) and Sal Frelick (55). If you add Garrett Mitchell, who prior to injury was penciled in as the starting center fielder in 2023, there are six outfielders. And there is a hope that top prospect Jackson Chourio will perform well an

November 13, 2023