Brewers Minor League Link Report (4/6): Four Games, Three Wins, Myers Fans Ten in Lone Loss

[Jim Goulart]

Do wins and losses really matter on a day-to-day basis down on the Brewers farm? Darn right they do, just ask every single person associated with the organization. That sentiment extends to Brewer Fanatic Link Reporters as well. We'll take a .750 daily winning percentage all season long. The Timber Rattlers cracked the win column for their first victory in their Game Two, and both the Shuckers and Mudcats are now 2-0, as Biloxi found a productive way to maximize the minimum (you'll see). We'll kick off, as is our norm, our top-to-bottom-level review with a transaction roundup, then it's off to Nashville.

Image courtesy of BrewerFanatic

Transactions:

• LHP Aaron Ashby recalled to MLB Brewers from AAA Nashville (replacing injured RHP Jakob Junis)
• INF Felix Valerio placed on AA Biloxi 7-day injured list
• RHP Logan Henderson promoted to High-A Wisconsin from Low-A Carolina and placed on 7-day injured list
• RHP Rafael Garcia placed on Low-A Carolina 7-day injured list (Garcia last pitched on July 30, 2022, throwing only 1.1 innings that season; he’ll turn 23 later this month)
• Signed RHP Samuel Valerio and assigned to ACL Brewers (the 22-year-old fireballer with control issues was released by the Royals two weeks ago)
• RHP Kevin Briceno released by ACL Brewers
• 1B/OF Yeison Perez released by ACL Brewers
• RHP Darling Solano released by ACL Brewers
• RHP Henrison Mota released by ACL Brewers
• RHP Anthony Perez released by ACL Brewers

When you combine Friday's list of moves with those above, that's nine players dismissed. We'll have a summary post on our Minor League Forum detailing the work of those nine and wishing them well within a day or two. One of the DSL players was actually the return in a 2021 trade when the Brewers sent out one of their DFA'd big-leaguers. That's a bit of unanswered trivia for you until we make the post.

 

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Nashville Pre-Game Media Notes
Final: St. Paul (Twins) 3, Nashville 0
Box Score and Game Log

Via the Sounds’ website, game details, and we encourage readers to review affiliate write-ups as part of their Link Report routine:

Sounds Shut Out By Saints - Myers strikes out 10 but offense sputters in 3-0 loss

LF Brewer Hicklen already has six extra-base hits in 35 plate appearances, on his way to a 1.064 OPS in the early going. His double in this one was the Sounds' lone XBH among their four knocks.

Only Owen Miller, playing first base here, avoided the painful walk to the dugout after a strikeout (11 in all). Eric Haase, as the DH, drew two of the club's five free passes.

Scoring as many runs as the starting lineup, Tyler Black, Patrick Dorrian, Chavez Young and Nick Kahle made up the Nashville bench with days off. 

RHP Tobias Myers posted a shiny 10-to-1 K-to-BB ratio in 5.2 IP. His line was salvaged somewhat, as RH reliever Blake Holub stranded two runners for Myers to end the 6th. Myers, still just 25 years old, has had an interesting career path, involved in two significant trades that then spawned a DFA journey to two additional organizations. Thus, the Brewers are Myers' 6th club (you can see his transaction history at the bottom of this link), and the Crew signed him after a bizarre 2022 campaign when he was 1-15 with a 7.82 ERA. Milwaukee must have figured they needed two seasons to try and resuscitate Myers' career, as he signed a rare two-year minor league deal as a healthy player. We'll see where 2024 takes him.

Bizarrely, there still isn't audio being generated out of the Sounds' highlights within "X". Well, the highlights were minimal here, so we'll spare you the silence.

 

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Biloxi Pre-Game Media Notes
Final: Biloxi 1, Montgomery (Rays) 0
Box Score and Game Log

Five Shutout Innings from Blalock Lifts Shuckers to Shutout Win - Biloxi tallies lone run on Freddy Zamora homer, clinch opening series against Montgomery

This is RHP Bradley Blalock's age 23 season, yet he's already on the Brewers' 40-man roster. In fact, he's the lone Shuckers player who's earned that designation thus far. Blalock was drafted by the Red Sox in the 32nd round out of a Georgia high school in 2019. In March of 2022 he underwent Tommy John surgery but had shown enough prior to have Milwaukee identify him as the return for thorn-in-the-side-this-weekend Luis Urias. Fantastic AA debut for Blalock here, as the box score and game report indicate.

Local TV media loves covering their Shuckers, so we get nice reports like these pretty regularly for home games:

In addition, the Shuckers are especially active in posting their own highlights (Biloxi is not alone in the lack of a CF camera, alas). Now, we can count the ways Twitter ("X") has added to our baseball enjoyment over the years, but their offseason change in the way they list posts under the "media" banner, well, frankly, stinks. So, on nights when an affiliate posts numerous video highlights (often too many to list individually here), we'll instead simply link to the team's full X feed, whether video media or not.

EDIT, BREAKING NEWS: We're told the center field camera will be back for the next Shuckers' home series, yay!

This is quite something:

Oh yeah, we had to look up that August 18, 2022 Timber Rattlers game. Do you think Wisconsin was on the short end of the stick, or the victor? Find out here.

Sweet four innings of Biloxi bullpen work Saturday night. By the way, a reminder RHP Justin Yeager was yet another piece of the William Contreras + Joel Payamps bonanza via Esteury Ruiz. 

 

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Wisconsin Pre-Game Media Notes (download link)
Final: Wisconsin 6, Peoria (Cardinals) 3
Box Score and Game Log

Four-Run Fifth Inning Pushes Wisconsin Past Peoria - Barrios and Areinamo break tie with back-to-back two-RBI hits

 

Fun fact - nearly 1 in 20 players in the Brewers minors this year have the last name Rodriguez, 4.7%. That would be 12 out of 256 prospects reaching from AAA down to the DSL.

Wisconsin has three of the 12, including catchers Ramon and Alejandro (although the latter is on the fabled "Development List"), often referred to as the "we need a bullpen catcher" list. That's not being fair to Alejandro, a non-drafted free agent signing out of Florida Gulf Coast last summer. I apologize for the lapse in decorum.

Closer Yerlin Rodriguez (recently turned 22) needs to bring down his 2023 Carolina WHIP of 1.47, but he got the job done here, walking one, but retiring three batters, two via strikeout.

Three of Wisconsin's 11 hits were doubles, which is fine, but at first review, this roster is lacking in thump. We'll see how often we get to hear Chris Mehring's home run calls, especially in the cold-weather initial weeks.

 

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Final: Carolina 6, Salem (Red Sox) 2
Box Score and Game Log

Birchard, Hall Impress as Mudcats Move to 2-0 - Carolina wins the first two games of the season for the third time in four years

No media notes on the Carolina front quite yet, but that will likely rectify itself soon. Just in time for Tuesday's home opener, we have a new Voice of the Mudcats. Scroll at that post to see the subsequent link in which we learn more about Colin Casey. Colin's already tweeting about Mudcats road games, which sadly is the norm for most Carolina League teams, meaning he won't be covering directly. Give him a follow.

That being said, Carolina's staff continues to do a fine job culling video highlights from the opponent's broadcast, as they've done in prior years. I count five of them from Saturdays' feed including this:

Since he was held back after being drafted in the 5th round out of Niagara Community College last summer, we all have been clamoring for some Ryan Birchard action. Thanks to my indomitable fellow Link Reporter Joseph, we have a thorough breakdown of Birchard's debut.

My goodness, let's look at this sentence in 4-5 years, but the Crew's '23 draft class could wind up being epic. Heck, 20th round pick Justin Chambers already netted seeming stud big-league LH reliever Bryan Hudson from the Dodgers. That's immediate value!

 

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It's all mid-afternoon action on Sunday, a very traditional schedule as all four series wrap up down prior to Monday's off day. I enjoyed my return visit to weekend morning full-package reporting, thanks for coming along for the ride!

Organizational Scoreboard including starting pitcher info, game times, MiLB TV links, and box scores
Current Milwaukee Brewers Organization Batting Stats and Depth
Current Milwaukee Brewers Organization Pitching Stats and Depth

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[Jim Goulart]

 

[Joseph Zarr]

The Yeison Perez (as a Brewer) era has ended. I pour one out digitally to commemorate the great joy he gave us all during the 2022 DSL season. It was near daily doses of wow he gave us with those XBH's and OPS points. Baseball can certainly be a cruel game. These new roster reductions are going to take some serious tolls on some seriously talented young mens' baseball journeys. Sigh.

[Joseph Zarr]

Quote

Bizarrely, there still isn't audio being generated out of the Sounds' highlights within "X". Well, the highlights were minimal here, so we'll spare you the silence

It has been this way the entire Saints series so far. Poor video and audio game 1. Bad audio throughout the rest. The highlight clips are a reflection of this (IF you crank those clips up full blast you can barely hear the call).In-game we've had to crank it up full blast to barely hear Jeff Hem's call. Sometimes it is completely staticky. And, the radio call is two pitches ahead😅. Not good for an opening home series!

[Austin Tatious]

Great to have the minors reports back!

I follow Brewers coverage year round, but I had to do a double take when I saw F. Mejia in the Nashville box score.  The rare detail that slipped by me.  

What a big time prospect he was supposed to be at one time.