Brewers (Misiorowski) vs Marlins (Pérez): 4/19/26, 12:40pm

[wiguy94]

14 minutes ago, Bulldogboy said:

Got him up to 225. Yea.

Bulldog I’m sorry but it’s 2026, using batting average to determine if a hitter is good or not is remotely accurate to describe hitter quality.

[Jim French Stepstool]

1 minute ago, adambr2 said:

Blake Perkins turning into a pumpkin hurt us more than people realize. We used to at least have a pretty reliable 4th OFer when we took injuries to the outfield. Without good Perk, we’ve been having to dig to the deep, deep options and it’s not pretty.

Jett has been hitting better lately in Nashville and it’s possible he gets a call sooner rather than later.

Aside from that, it’s going to be a lot of hoping that the status quo can hang in there until late May and at least have us within striking distance of 1st at that time.

Which is why the run prevention---people forget about that, even though it's been a cornerstone here for a long, long time---is so important, especially now when you're down so many people. Last Sunday & Tuesday, thirteen combined Brewer runs, and they lost both. Today, a leadoff walk to a .160 hitter followed by an error costs you three. The leadoff walk issued by Hall in a L vs L quite possibly cost you another. That aspect of the team isn't always going to be perfect, but when it isn't it's going to cost them given the current makeup. And it's a strength that needs to be leaned on right now, much more so than expecting an offense that's missing key parts to overcome shortcomings elsewhere. It can happen, but it usually won't.

[Jopal78]

1 hour ago, CheezWizHed said:

Blake Burke. 

For the trade, We only lost one year of Burnes (3.9 WAR), so last year and this year doesn't matter. 

Of course, we could've probably kept Burnes, let him go in FA and still got Burke for the comp pick. 

Orioles additionally got a comp pick for Burnes rejecting QO. Currently their #4 prospect for what that’s worth. 

[adambr2]

The Burnes trade really just has to be viewed as Burnes for Ortiz+Hall. The comp pick would have been obtained by letting Burnes play out the last year and offering QO, which we obviously would have. That part is a wash.

[Jopal78]

1 hour ago, Jim French Stepstool said:

It IS a pecking order, and as I said Perkins is ahead of both save for Matos doing enough in the coming games to give them hope for him being a RH bench/DH bat. So far he hasn't. But yeah, that doesn't mean Perkins will be on the team assuming they reach full strength.

My point is they could DFA all 3 of them tomorrow and it’s solid odds none of them get claimed, so what’s the point of a pecking order?

[Jopal78]

17 minutes ago, adambr2 said:

The Burnes trade really just has to be viewed as Burnes for Ortiz+Hall. The comp pick would have been obtained by letting Burnes play out the last year and offering QO, which we obviously would have. That part is a wash.

No. Burnes and comp pick for Hall, Ortiz and competitive balance pick (which historically have low rates of producing quality major leaguers)

[liveforoctober]

24 minutes ago, Bulldogboy said:

I get it but man it just seems like we should have a few AAA type guys you can plug in who can hit 200. I just think it's a hole they have to plug in the organization. You can't have an all star or prospect organization. You gotta have a few Tyrone Taylor types who can help you for a few weeks.

Hamilton is a career .219 hitter. Perkins is a career .228 hitter. Matos is a career .230 hitter. Baddoo would be up here right now if he wasn't hurt. Black would have gotten the Jones call if wasn't hurt.

These are exactly the guys you are asking for. It really sucks they all have to play AND are all scuffling at the same time because we are so hurt. Perkins, in theory, was the perfect vet to stash in AAA to start the year because he is that player - a guy who can switch hit, play good defense and hit above the Uecker line. 

Matos was acquired on the cheap to be that guy as well. "How can Arnold look in the mirror?" - he tried! He had the vet stashed in AAA (he had 3 of them!), he went out and got a guy in season who SHOULD be a bandaid. If Sal wasn't scuffling too we would have one less guy to worry about but as it is all of these guys have to play. It isn't great.

We traded away Collins in part because we had way too much MLB depth in the outfield. Chourio, Frelick, Mitchell, Yelich, Bauers, Lockridge, Perkins, Baddoo, Berroa, Black*.

Are we really this mad at Arnold for not planning for the April 19th game when Greg Jones and Luis Matos would both start for us in the outfield because we have already lost 5* OF options to injury before the season was 15% finished?

Not everything needs to be someone's fault. 

[CheezWizHed]

21 minutes ago, Jopal78 said:

No. Burnes and comp pick for Hall, Ortiz and competitive balance pick (which historically have low rates of producing quality major leaguers)

I'm assuming he is saying the comp picks are pretty much a wash, so it is one year of Burnes (3.9 WAR) for multiple years of Ortiz (3.3 WAR in 2+ years) and Hall (0.8 WAR in 2+ years). 

Noting that I'd prefer to have a player with over 3 WAR than multiple players earning a low WAR rate/year. The second is easier to find. 

[adambr2]

23 minutes ago, Jopal78 said:

No. Burnes and comp pick for Hall, Ortiz and competitive balance pick (which historically have low rates of producing quality major leaguers)

It was the 30th overall selection in 2025 versus the 34th overall selection in 2024. It would be hard to be more of a wash than that.

Additionally the prospect that the Orioles got with the Burnes QO was actually Caden Bodine who has subsequently been traded to the Rays and is their #12 prospect.

[Jim French Stepstool]

47 minutes ago, Jopal78 said:

My point is they could DFA all 3 of them tomorrow and it’s solid odds none of them get claimed, so what’s the point of a pecking order?

Injuries. 

Down the line, you might need one of them. Or two. But not all three. Hence the pecking order.

As an aside, if DFA'd I wouldn't be shocked if Perkins wound up getting claimed. Not an absolute either way though.

[Jopal78]

1 hour ago, Jim French Stepstool said:

Injuries. 

Down the line, you might need one of them. Or two. But not all three. Hence the pecking order.

As an aside, if DFA'd I wouldn't be shocked if Perkins wound up getting claimed. Not an absolute either way though.

Maybe, Perkins was a gold glove finalist two years ago. That’s his claim to fame, he’s fungible goods other than that footnote IMO.

[Cool Hand Lucroy]

3 hours ago, liveforoctober said:

Hamilton is a career .219 hitter. Perkins is a career .228 hitter. Matos is a career .230 hitter. Baddoo would be up here right now if he wasn't hurt. Black would have gotten the Jones call if wasn't hurt.

These are exactly the guys you are asking for. It really sucks they all have to play AND are all scuffling at the same time because we are so hurt. Perkins, in theory, was the perfect vet to stash in AAA to start the year because he is that player - a guy who can switch hit, play good defense and hit above the Uecker line. 

Matos was acquired on the cheap to be that guy as well. "How can Arnold look in the mirror?" - he tried! He had the vet stashed in AAA (he had 3 of them!), he went out and got a guy in season who SHOULD be a bandaid. If Sal wasn't scuffling too we would have one less guy to worry about but as it is all of these guys have to play. It isn't great.

We traded away Collins in part because we had way too much MLB depth in the outfield. Chourio, Frelick, Mitchell, Yelich, Bauers, Lockridge, Perkins, Baddoo, Berroa, Black*.

Are we really this mad at Arnold for not planning for the April 19th game when Greg Jones and Luis Matos would both start for us in the outfield because we have already lost 5* OF options to injury before the season was 15% finished?

Not everything needs to be someone's fault. 

I think this is right on.

And one of the things about being a Brewer fan over the last ten years is that the whole organization is built to win on depth, basically. Sometimes it's bullpen depth. Sometimes it's having a bunch of "out-getters" who can all throw 3-4 innings. Sometimes it's having 9 guys who grind out ABs and all wear down the opposing starter. Sometimes it's taking every advantage of the Nashville shuttle (the Brewers would so love to be the Twins and have a AAA affiliate the next town over--you just know these nerds in the FO would salivate over shuttling guys while saving travel costs, both financial and physical, and I love them for it). The good thing about that approach is that it works. The bad part is that it works in ways that are really, really difficult to see. Perkins looks bad. Matos looks bad. Who is Greg Jones? I think my answer is: he's probably better than the guy in that spot on just about every other roster in baseball.

The Brewers care about the difference between a guy OPSing .625 and one OPSing .640. For most teams, both those guys are worthless. But, for this team, the thinking is like "I'm going to have a below average player taking a lot of ABs this year; I might as well make them a little closer to average."

We find out who most teams are in July and August. That goes double for the Brewers because that's when spreading out ABs and innings starts to add up on the margins. It's not great to watch sometimes, but it gets the job done.

[Jim French Stepstool]

15 minutes ago, Cool Hand Lucroy said:

 

 (the Brewers would so love to be the Twins and have a AAA affiliate the next town over--you just know these nerds in the FO would salivate over shuttling guys while saving travel costs, both financial and physical, and I love them for it)

If Nashville ever gets an MLB team, I would so much love to see Madison be ultra-aggressive in trying to lure the Brewers into putting a AAA team there. No sufficient place to play at the moment (and I have a hard time envisioning the civic leaders there embracing it) but I'd bet the fan base would be large enough.

#2 would be the western Waukesha-Oconomowoc corridor. Expand the ballpark on I-94 & HWY 67.

Both of these areas are seeing a lot of construction & growth. A couple of nice, out-of-the-box ideas.

[yourout]

5 hours ago, Jim French Stepstool said:

Which is why the run prevention---people forget about that, even though it's been a cornerstone here for a long, long time---is so important, especially now when you're down so many people. Last Sunday & Tuesday, thirteen combined Brewer runs, and they lost both. Today, a leadoff walk to a .160 hitter followed by an error costs you three. The leadoff walk issued by Hall in a L vs L quite possibly cost you another. That aspect of the team isn't always going to be perfect, but when it isn't it's going to cost them given the current makeup. And it's a strength that needs to be leaned on right now, much more so than expecting an offense that's missing key parts to overcome shortcomings elsewhere. It can happen, but it usually won't.

Wonder what the defensive runs saved is at this time this year vs last year.

[Brian]

15 hours ago, wiguy94 said:

Bulldog I’m sorry but it’s 2026, using batting average to determine if a hitter is good or not is remotely accurate to describe hitter quality.

It's a decent indicator of a player's ability, what would you say is best?  wRC+ 

[sveumrules]

21 minutes ago, Brian said:

It is a decent indicator of a player's ability, what would you say is best?  wRC+ 

If we're talking a single number, yes, wRC+ is best as it assigns weighted run values to each individual outcome based on that season's offensive environment while also attempting to account for the difference between home stadiums.

OPS or OPS+ get you pretty dang close and are perfectly cromulent measures but they overvalue SLG relative to OBP. See a player like PCA with his 238/284/427 line shaking out to a 102 OPS+ but only a 95 wRC+.

For me personally, I like seeing the triple slash best because it gives one a better idea of how the production is arrived at. Since 2021 both Yandy Diaz and Kyle Schwarber have matching 136 wRC+ marks but did it in way different styles with Yandy at 295/376/449 compared to 231/354/515 for Schwarber. 

Like most things the truth about batting average probably lies somewhere in the middle. It's nowhere near as important as it was considered to be in the pre-Moneyball days, but at the same time it shouldn't be ignored or written off as completely meaningless because it only tells us part of the story either. A player's hit tool is still a pretty foundational aspect of their profile after all.

[Cool Hand Lucroy]

13 hours ago, Jim French Stepstool said:

If Nashville ever gets an MLB team, I would so much love to see Madison be ultra-aggressive in trying to lure the Brewers into putting a AAA team there. No sufficient place to play at the moment (and I have a hard time envisioning the civic leaders there embracing it) but I'd bet the fan base would be large enough.

#2 would be the western Waukesha-Oconomowoc corridor. Expand the ballpark on I-94 & HWY 67.

Both of these areas are seeing a lot of construction & growth. A couple of nice, out-of-the-box ideas.

Always surprised Madison doesn't have a stronger history with minor league baseball, especially when you see places like Peoria, Cedar Rapids, and the QC doing a strong job keeping up teams and traditions. 

If the Fox Cities were a little more compact, that Green Bay to Oshkosh/Fondy stretch is a nice population center. T-Rats seem to do pretty well at High-A (I'm a Midwest League fan, I guess), but that's a big jump to AAA.

Honestly? I almost wonder if somewhere in the western Chicago suburbs would be a good fit. Kane County used to play High-A. Lots of population growth out that way. Heart of Cubs country, obviously, so that'd be weird, but...maybe the Cubs move there eventually, and Des Moines is open. Typing that out it sounds crazy. Gary, IN had a robust triple A situation for a while. Just throwing out off day ideas at this point.

Hard when so much of the population growth is in the Sun Belt. 

I think you're right. Madison is the obvious choice and by a long, long way. Hope it happens eventually. I do think it would be the kind of competitive advantage the Brewers are built to capitalize on..

[Underachiever]

The UW would hate having a team in Madison. There's only so many entertainment dollars out there. Mallards get good support, but it's a cheap/free ticket. You mentioned Peoria, Cedar Rapids and the QC. None of them have a flagship state university there. 

I feel like I love baseball way more than the average guy. I'm a 15-minute drive from Warner Park, where the Mallards play. I haven't considered going to a game there in years. I'll save my money and drive the 90 miles to AmFam field. I'd rather watch a Brewer game on tv than go to a Mallards game in person. If I lived 15 minutes from AmFam, I would go to so many games.

And yes, I'm aware that AAA baseball is different from the Northwoods Independent league. 

[Jim French Stepstool]

15 minutes ago, Underachiever said:

The UW would hate having a team in Madison. There's only so many entertainment dollars out there. Mallards get good support, but it's a cheap/free ticket. You mentioned Peoria, Cedar Rapids and the QC. None of them have a flagship state university there. 

I feel like I love baseball way more than the average guy. I'm a 15-minute drive from Warner Park, where the Mallards play. I haven't considered going to a game there in years. I'll save my money and drive the 90 miles to AmFam field. I'd rather watch a Brewer game on tv than go to a Mallards game in person. If I lived 15 minutes from AmFam, I would go to so many games.

And yes, I'm aware that AAA baseball is different from the Northwoods Independent league. 

I think you raise a solid point re UW. Places like ChampBana, Lincoln NE & Iowa City certainly have the population to support minor league baseball at some level but have never been a hotbed. The flip side is baseball would barely bump into UW's primary spectator sports seasons. Some of the ancillary stuff like softball, yeah. But we've spent time in Madison during BB season & the growth there just seems off the chain. Throw in places like Sunny P & Waunakee and I dunno, I feel it has potential. Columbus has existed for a long time as a AAA city with OSU there; of course that's a very large city.

Not familiar with the footprint at Warner. Is it expandable?

[Jim French Stepstool]

3 hours ago, Cool Hand Lucroy said:

 

If the Fox Cities were a little more compact, that Green Bay to Oshkosh/Fondy stretch is a nice population center. T-Rats seem to do pretty well at High-A (I'm a Midwest League fan, I guess), but that's a big jump to AAA.

 

Yeah, I've thought of that & they'd make my list as well. I guess I'd consider it more of a GB-App-Neenah-Menasha corridor though; including Fondy & Oshkosh spreads things out quite a bit. Appleton has a long history; used to be a White Sox affiliate. Green Bay was an affiliate city once upon a time too---Dodgers, I think?

[Jopal78]

18 hours ago, adambr2 said:

It was the 30th overall selection in 2025 versus the 34th overall selection in 2024. It would be hard to be more of a wash than that.

Additionally the prospect that the Orioles got with the Burnes QO was actually Caden Bodine who has subsequently been traded to the Rays and is their #12 prospect.

Maybe you’re right (though Bodine was flipped to get Shane Baz).

As someone else mentioned, if the best they could get for the final year of team control of a Cy Young winner is DL Hall and Joey Ortiz, then they probably should have kept Burnes and taken the comp pick when he rejected a QO after 2024. 

Because at this rate, Hall who is arbitration eligible, could be non-tendered after the season, and Ortiz is already a just a place holder for more highly touted talent. 

[liveforoctober]

Do we think having both an Appleton affiliate and a Madison affiliate would vulture each other in terms of support ('I'm assuming we are talking about having both an A+ in Appleton and then an AAA in Madison in this scenario)? I live in Appleton now and go to double digit TRats games a year... off the top of my head if Madison became an AAA affiliate of the Brewers I would probably go once or twice a year? Between the TRats, the Madison Beer Barrels, and the Brewers that is a LOT of consumption for even big Brewers fans.

One other nugget: Having half of your pro affiliates in a cold weather spot makes for a tough spring every year. The TRats are 3 weeks in and have either been rained out or have been wearing 3 layers for every game so far. 

 

[sveumrules]

8 minutes ago, Jopal78 said:

As someone else mentioned, if the best they could get for the final year of team control of a Cy Young winner is DL Hall and Joey Ortiz, then they probably should have kept Burnes and taken the comp pick when he rejected a QO after 2024. 

Ortiz (4.5 WAR) and Hall (0.8 rWAR) have already outproduced what Burnes did (4.5 rWAR) in his lone Baltimore season. The Brewers also presumably put some of that cost savings on Burnes towards signing Hoskins (1.1 WAR in his two Milwaukee seasons).

Maybe they'd be better off had they kept Burnes and took the QO and found replacements for Ortiz/Hall/Rhys production from the last two plus years elsewhere, but they've already won the 2nd most games in MLB since 2024 so there is a lot more room for downward mobility there than upward in any hypothetical.

[Jim French Stepstool]

1 hour ago, liveforoctober said:

Do we think having both an Appleton affiliate and a Madison affiliate would vulture each other in terms of support ('I'm assuming we are talking about having both an A+ in Appleton and then an AAA in Madison in this scenario)? I live in Appleton now and go to double digit TRats games a year... off the top of my head if Madison became an AAA affiliate of the Brewers I would probably go once or twice a year? Between the TRats, the Madison Beer Barrels, and the Brewers that is a LOT of consumption for even big Brewers fans.

One other nugget: Having half of your pro affiliates in a cold weather spot makes for a tough spring every year. The TRats are 3 weeks in and have either been rained out or have been wearing 3 layers for every game so far. 

 

They'd have to both be self-sustaining; I'm sure there wouldn't be a regular caravan of fans heading up & down hwy 151. The organization would certainly conduct whatever studies are necessary as to the feasability. Having both A & AAA in a more challenging spring climate certainly could be a concern.

Not to diminish the support the T-Rats have received because it's been terrific but personally, if you only had one affiliate in the state I'd much rather have the AAA team closer, whether it be Madison, the Lake Country or the Fox Valley.

[Cool Hand Lucroy]

2 hours ago, Underachiever said:

The UW would hate having a team in Madison. There's only so many entertainment dollars out there. Mallards get good support, but it's a cheap/free ticket. You mentioned Peoria, Cedar Rapids and the QC. None of them have a flagship state university there. 

I feel like I love baseball way more than the average guy. I'm a 15-minute drive from Warner Park, where the Mallards play. I haven't considered going to a game there in years. I'll save my money and drive the 90 miles to AmFam field. I'd rather watch a Brewer game on tv than go to a Mallards game in person. If I lived 15 minutes from AmFam, I would go to so many games.

And yes, I'm aware that AAA baseball is different from the Northwoods Independent league. 

True, and the weather in central Illinois, eastern Iowa is importantly better than Wisconsin in April, though quite a bit more uncomfortable in the summer months, especially later on.

I think the QC could probably support Double-A if not for the geography. Just not enough viable markets nearby. That might be a problem for Madison as well, though a Triple-A budget would help some and Madison is a decent enough fit in the International League West. Farthest road trip would be Gwinnett.