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About this blog

Ramblings, often with stats, often about the minor leagues

Entries in this blog

Major Leagues

How the Recent Past Can Be Instructive of the Brewers' Future

It was, by most measures, an amazingly successful season. The best record in their league. A team record for wins. Significant contributions from rookies both at the plate and on the mound. That they were unceremoniously knocked out of the playoffs by a team with a much higher payroll was the only blemish on an amazing team effort. And it was a true team effort. They had no position players in the top 10 in their league in fWAR. The same held true to their pitching staff. Yet
Minor leagues

Do The Brewers Actually Have the Best Teenage Prospect Group in Baseball? Part 1

A while back, one of the posters made a simple statement in the forums: The Brewers must have the top group of teenage prospects in baseball. I thought, well, that sounds likely given the number and quality of teen prospects the Brewers have. It’s tough to know for sure, though, if you don’t look at all the other systems. So that is how I started this monstrosity. I’m breaking it up into three parts. The first, this one, will focus on the American League. The second will focus on the N
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Minor leagues

A Dose of Perspective Ahead of International Signing Day

Almost four years ago, Major League Baseball teams embarked on the opening of the annual international signing period. Thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic, it had been more than 18 months since the opening of the previous signing period, but finally the top Latin American prospects could sign on the dotted line. Since that day in 2021, the Brewers have witnessed the rise of a potentially franchise-altering star. The results for the other 29 players who made MLB Pipeline’s top 30 international p
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Minor leagues

What Statistics Perhaps CAN Tell Us About DSL Pitchers

It is almost impossible to tell how good of a prospect a Dominican Summer League pitcher is by stats alone. Stuff is king, and great DSL ERAs don’t always equal great stuff. So why am I, who focuses almost entirely on statistics, writing about DSL pitchers? Because while statistics can’t tell you a DSL pitcher’s ultimate upside, two stats in particular can tell us something else interesting – which pitchers are most likely to be brought stateside, survive the pitching nightmare that is
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CheeseheadInQC in Minor leagues

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Minor leagues

Which DSL Hitters Will Be Coming Stateside? Potentially a Lot

The headline for any story about the Brewers 2024 Dominican Summer League season has to include Jesus Made and Luis Pena. Their seasons were that absurd and they are consistently regarded among the top prospects coming out of the DSL this year. Dig a little deeper, though, and there is another story, one that will create some tough decisions for Milwaukee heading into the 2025 minor league season. Simply put, the Brewers’ Dominican Summer League squads had offensive depth that, in its produ
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MLB Draft

My Long and Rambling Draft Preview Blog

A caveat: I am not a scout nor a coach nor anyone with any original insights to offer on any of the prospects who will be selected. I do, however, enjoy looking at history, at trends, and trying to see how it could project some of what the Brewers are going to do with their picks. So with that out of the way, here we go. This is, as the title suggested, a long, rambling blog covering everything from Brewers' draft tendencies to positions of organizational need to potential selections f
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Minor leagues

Mission Accomplished... So Far

Several years ago, the Brewers made a change in organizational philosophy to place greater emphasis on a prospect's hit tool when it came to scouting for the draft or international signing class. Statistically at least, the results have paid off. Led by the now-injured Juan Baez, the Carolina Mudcats have struck out the fewest times in all of low-A. Not just the Carolina League, but all of low-A. That is impressive, but nothing compared to what the Wisconsin Timber Rattlers have d
Major Leagues

Where Have All the Good Outfielders Gone? Hint: Not the National League

With all of the hype that the current young crop of Brewers outfielders got as they moved through the Milwaukee system, it is easy to look at the production that the Brewers have gotten from their outfielders this season and be, well, a bit underwhelmed. Joey Wiemer hasn't hit. Garrett Mitchell has been hurt. Sal Frelick is struggling to get his OPS above .700. And as for Jackson Chourio, well, I guess at least he's been better than fellow hyped rookies Jackson Holliday and Colt Keith.
Minor leagues

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
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Minor leagues

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
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Minor leagues

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.
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Rule 5 Draft

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
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CheeseheadInQC in Rule 5 Draft

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Minor leagues

2023 Retrospective - Stats to Watch and Sleepers

I thought I'd use a couple of items I wrote before the season to look at some of the things that did (or did not) go right in 2023. Statistics to Watch Ground Ball Rate - Jadher Areinamo When we left Jadher Areinamo at the end of the 2022 season, he was coming off a breakout campaign, finishing his age-18 season at low-A. It came with a caveat: once he got promoted to full season ball, his ground ball rate spiked and the doubles power that he had shown in Arizona abandoned him.
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Minor leagues

More Stats I Find Bizarrely Interesting

It's been a while. I had two longer blogs lost halfway through to computer crashes. One was moot by the time I had time to sit down and write long-form again. I still plan to write the other at some point in the offseason, but that 1,000+ word meandering treatise on how the 2022 DSL starters fared in 2023 will wait for another day. I decided to churn out one I could get done in one sitting now, though, to avoid computer issues. So here are two more stats that I (and perhaps only I) find int
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Minor leagues

Minor League stats to watch

With pitchers and catchers reporting, I thought I would celebrate by delving into one of my favorite topics, a random assemblage of minor league statistics. There were a lot to choose from, ranging from Darrien Miller's caught stealing percentage to a bunch of guys' strikeout rates, but here are three others to keep your eye on. 1. Ground ball rate, Jadher Areinamo If you were to construct batted ball stats for a hitter without a ton of power, there is a decent chance that they would l
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Minor leagues

This is not normal ... but is it the new normal?

Author's note: Because of ease of sorting for the various categories, I used Baseball Reference for team ages and Fangraphs for age season the individual players were in. Also, 2006 is used as a cutoff date for some of the items because that is how far back Fangraphs’ database goes. It is no secret that this year’s Carolina Mudcats squad has been young, filled with teens who came through the DSL pipeline — the kind of roster where, especially on offense, guys who can legally drink are the e
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CheeseheadInQC in Minor leagues

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Minor leagues

When statistics become flat out interesting

Because of my job (despite working in sports) and where I live (the epicenter of MLB blackout bizarreness), I get to actually watch very little baseball. It is one of the reasons I post mainly in the minor league forum, because a far smaller number get to see those with regularity. Following the sport I grew up obsessed with simply from box scores and statistics has given me an eye for oddities. The Brewers' best ACL hitter? When you look at the Brewers' ACL squads, among players with
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MLB Draft

Digging into draft tendencies

With the MLB draft about a month away, I thought I would take a bit of time and examine some of the Brewers tendencies to predict what we can expect when the draft kicks off July 17. Catch a falling star          The Brewers have no problem stopping the fall of players many didn’t expect to be there. Garrett Mitchell, of course, was the classic example of this, but Sal Frelick was routinely being mocked above the Brewers’ pick as well. They also have had no problem grabbing
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CheeseheadInQC in MLB Draft

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Minor leagues

The Carolina number that matters most

There is one number that stands out above all others for this year’s Carolina Mudcats. It isn’t their 6-4 record or their 5.21 ERA. It isn’t Eduardo Garcia’s OPS checking in at .969 thus far or Hedbert Perez’ being at .510. It isn’t Jeferson Quero’s .344 batting average or Hendry Mendez’s 25% walk rate. It isn’t Israel Puello’s 6:1 strikeout to walk rate or the fact that 11 members of the roster are still to young to legally drink. No. the most important number regarding the Mudcats is
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CheeseheadInQC in Minor leagues

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Minor leagues

In search of pitching breakouts

From the time that this site got me mildly obsessed with following the Brewers’ farm system, I have been fascinated with trying to predict breakout seasons. Specifically, pitching breakouts. Sometimes, like Max Lazar, Zack Brown, Evan Reifert and to some extent Bowden Francis, the breakouts happen. Other times … well … I thought Conor Harber and Karsen Lindell were intriguing breakout candidates right up to the point where I saw the notices that they’d been released. I also think
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CheeseheadInQC in Minor leagues

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