General Post-Draft Discussion - 2025 edition

[wallus]

With the recent influx of signings and the money left, I will be disappointed if we don't sign most of these tough to sign guys

[snoogans8056]

42 minutes ago, wallus said:

With the recent influx of signings and the money left, I will be disappointed if we don't sign most of these tough to sign guys

Yeah I thought Cadiz was long gone, but this has me believing.

[wiguy94]

2 minutes ago, snoogans8056 said:

Yeah I thought Cadiz was long gone, but this has me believing.

Man I really hope. Seeing how he absolutely tore up the wood bat WCL makes him the guy I want most in Rounds 11-20. Seems like he has legit pop in his bat.

[MattK]

So with the 2MM+ remaining, can they sign Hughes, Underwood, Lauridsen, Cadiz, and Roupe?  Guessing Bentley & Holden are out of range unless one of those 5 hs sign for $300K or less (probably would only be Roupe).  And guessing Coil signs without going overslot.

Thoughts?

Without any knowledge, it seems Hughes & Roupe may be the cheapest; Hughes due to small school and Roupe having already committed to sign.
If Underwood, Lauridsen, and Cadiz all signed for ~$650K ....?

[balsamlaker]

I would agree that Bentley and Holden are likely backup plans, but sometimes backup plans happen.  There were probably a number of players in recent memory that may have been the same - Dubanewicz and Renz last year probably got Levonas' overslot amount and a combination of Vire, Low, and Avina probably got Riggio's overslot in 2021.  The impressive thing is they are carrying a larger number ($) to the second half of the draft this year after signing the entire first half (don't have the Levonas' overslot coming down).

[biedergb]

1 hour ago, balsamlaker said:

but sometimes backup plans happen.  There were probably a number of players in recent memory that may have been the same - Dubanewicz and Renz last year probably got Levonas' overslot amount

Or they got the dollars that Nunnallee or Wech or Brummel turned down. I remember that Dubanewicz was on UF campus reportedly, and there was some speculation that Nunnalee could sign, but we got the opposite. I won't pretend to predict, but I am hopeful Coil and then 3-4 of the remaining HS players sign. Some could request 3rd round money (like Renz I think got last year) so we will see. Still a lot of bonus pool money to work with. Excited to see who joins.

[biedergb]

It will be interesting to see - with Underwood not signing, I’m hopeful that the Brewers can sign some “day 3” picks (meaning 11-20 rounders which was previously day 3).

They hit well with this approach the past 2 years - wonder if this season doesn’t do they keep that trend or go differently next year?

[narwhalattack]

Shame that we didn’t end up signing Underwood, but more often than not we don’t end up missing the guys we don’t sign. I think the only one I can think of in recent memory is Carlos Rodon. 

[Jake McKibbin]

I wonder if there's an outside chance the Brewers go really hard at Bentley or Holden now. We've all been writing them off as tough signs, but there's a war chest there for the Brewers to use that just may get it done for one of them?

[Jake McKibbin]

25 minutes ago, Jake McKibbin said:

I wonder if there's an outside chance the Brewers go really hard at Bentley or Holden now. We've all been writing them off as tough signs, but there's a war chest there for the Brewers to use that just may get it done for one of them?

I do think this is highly unlikely, the Brewers have shown a preference for multiple talented players over one pricier, if higher upside, talented player

Still, its maybe on the table

[snoogans8056]

32 minutes ago, Jake McKibbin said:

I do think this is highly unlikely, the Brewers have shown a preference for multiple talented players over one pricier, if higher upside, talented player

Still, its maybe on the table

Well we can theoretically give two guys $1mil+ and still have $500k for another.

[B.F.-rakes]

1 hour ago, Jake McKibbin said:

I wonder if there's an outside chance the Brewers go really hard at Bentley or Holden now. We've all been writing them off as tough signs, but there's a war chest there for the Brewers to use that just may get it done for one of them?

Has a player ever committed to a school like Underwood the day b4 the mlb signing deadline and rescinded the offer and signed with a major league club?

[snoogans8056]

1 minute ago, B.F.-rakes said:

Has a player ever committed to a school like Underwood the day b4 the mlb signing deadline and rescinded the offer and signed with a major league club?

I believe Dubanewicz last year was on campus at Florida and still signed with us.

[B.F.-rakes]

15 minutes ago, snoogans8056 said:

I believe Dubanewicz last year was on campus at Florida and still signed with us.

Dubanewicz just got done winning his 4th straight Florida state championship in 2024.His high school teammate went in 5th rd to Rangers (Devin fitz-gerald).I'm not saying your wrong, as he could have been working out on UF campus

[biedergb]

2 minutes ago, B.F.-rakes said:

Dubanewicz just got done winning his 4th straight Florida state championship in 2024.His high school teammate went in 5th rd to Rangers (Devin fitz-gerald).I'm not saying your wrong, as he could have been working out on UF campus

Interesting. I remember he was known to be on their campus - and there was some thought was he would attend, but didn't realize that he was on site for that championship.

[B.F.-rakes]

23 minutes ago, biedergb said:

Interesting. I remember he was known to be on their campus - and there was some thought was he would attend, but didn't realize that he was on site for that championship.

State championship was in middle to late may in 2024,early june graduation, so being in Gainesville in July is very possible 

[snoogans8056]

Free BA Article

Neat little article showing just how much of an outlier the Brewers are.

I honestly love the MLB draft. I don’t think I would enjoy it nearly as much if my team didn’t seem to be taking advantage of every single weird thing in a system riddled with weird things.

I’m not even rooting for this to work out spectacularly as a Brewer fan anymore. I want it to succeed as a fan of teams doing cool stuff. It feels Moneyball adjacent.

[Jake McKibbin]

Some video on the two Brewers later round signings:

Chase Bentley
First off, 2300 RPM's on the changeup for Chase Bentley means its less of a typical changeup and more in the Yoho/Williams screwball mold

I also really like the late movement on his slider in his first pitch in the video below, it shows flashes if he can command it

Definitely some velocity gains needed, but the action looks incredibly smooth and you can see why his 62K:5BB happened. He looks in complete command. If that velocity does take upwards as he matures, this is one heck of a template for the Brewers development system,

 

 

Bentley is 6'3, 215lbs so there's not a ton of natural growth on his frame to come and that may bring some concern as to the improvement in fastball velocity to come. It's such a smooth, low effort delivery but you need more than 89-91 mph to be successful in the Majors these days as a general rule of thumb

Ma'Kale Holden
The fastball appears to get some nice late ride on it as well as some cut perhaps (there's not a lot of horizontal break in the pitch map below), I've found a game from a complete game of his where he seems to have four quite distinct shapes in his fastball, slider, curveball and changeup.

 

He's been up to 97mph and has even seen himself get hype to be interviewed in places like Foul territory and Bleacher Report. Foul territory provided a little pitch plot of his arsenal:

Like Bentley, he's been receiving some attention for  ahigh spin changeup (seemingly different to the one captured above) that can reach around 2100 RPM's based on his trackman data. There's some solid feel for spin here, and a slider that gets negative IVB and almost 10" of sweep is an impressive offering to boot.

Baseball America also commented that his curveball and slider can get to 2800-2900 RPM ranges consistently enough.

There have been some control problems at times, but another really really exciting ball of clay to shape

[balsamlaker]

With the Brewers current strategy, there are always going to be some players that sign for big money in following years, but for every Cijntje, Hajjar, or Workman there seems to be 5-10 drafted players by the team that don't get redrafted.  Regarding Coil, he probably wasn't getting more than 150K this year and maybe still gets it next year like Parker did this year after passing on the Brewers last year.

[snoogans8056]

Went through BA’s Top 500 for the 2022 draft.

Of the top 15 college pitchers taken in 2025, only 6 were ranked in the top 500 as high schoolers. Bremner (123), Witherspoon (418), Forbes (278), Root (394), Shores (90) and Dzierwa (485). All the rest were unranked.

That is our angle. Finding the guys that would normally go undrafted and turn into day one-ers.

EDIT - Our high school arms this year came in at 96 (Cairone), 163 (Holden), 392 (Flores), 445 (Roupe), and two unranked in Vucinovich and Bentley.

[snoogans8056]

Looking ahead to next year’s (seemingly loaded) draft…

Let’s say Woodruff opts out of his contract, and we then give him a qualifying offer and he signs elsewhere. We get a pick, right?

[wiguy94]

3 minutes ago, snoogans8056 said:

Looking ahead to next year’s (seemingly loaded) draft…

Let’s say Woodruff opts out of his contract, and we then give him a qualifying offer and he signs elsewhere. We get a pick, right?

Yes though the pick number would obviously depend on what he signs for. Over $50M would be between round 1 and the Comp A round. Under $50M would be after the Comp B round

[biedergb]

25 minutes ago, wiguy94 said:

Yes though the pick number would obviously depend on what he signs for. Over $50M would be between round 1 and the Comp A round. Under $50M would be after the Comp B round

Can we offer him a QO?

There is a mutual option for 2026 - I thought those were exempt from QO - and thus a draft pick?

Or maybe I am completely wrong.  

[wiguy94]

7 minutes ago, biedergb said:

Can we offer him a QO?

There is a mutual option for 2026 - I thought those were exempt from QO - and thus a draft pick?

Or maybe I am completely wrong.  

If the mutual option is declined they can offer him a qualifying offer. There are only 2 stipulations for potential FA to not be eligible for a qualifying offer. One is if they have already received a qualifying offer in the past and two is they weren't on their current team at the start of the season. Woodruff has never received a qualifying offer and was on the Brewers to start the season. He's eligible for the QO.

[nate82]

The Brewers may have an agreement with Woodruff that they won’t offer him a QO.  It may have been part of why he chose the Brewers over the Red Sox and other teams that offered him a contract.