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Jesus MadeLuis PenaLuis LaraLogan HendersonCooper PrattJett WilliamsJeferson QueroAndrew FischerBraylon PayneBishop LetsonJosh AdamczewskiMarco DingesRobert GasserShane DrohanLuke AdamsColeman CrowBrady EbelBlake BurkeTyson HardinJD Thompson The comment fields for individual players don’t seem to work on my phone, so I’ll say my piece here. I may be overreacting to Lara’s great start, but it looks too broad not to be a breakout. What he’s doing at 21 in AAA is exceptional. Speaking of age for level, I’ve been higher than most people on Payne for a long time. He’s 19 and flashing incredible tools in high A. Adamczewski and Dinges are better players right now, but not by much, and Payne has a longer runway. I’m having a hard time believing in any of our lower-level pitchers right now. At the other extreme, I’m putting a lot of stock in pitchers who are still prospect eligible and have already showed they can get major league hitters out.

I’m perplexed by your underlying assumption that everything Boston thought about Harrison before they traded him must obviously have been right. That’s been the core of everything you’ve said here, and it doesn’t make much sense. For someone who incessantly rips people for opining that the Brewers know what they’re doing, you take a very different attitude when the question is whether the Brewers’ trading partner knew what they were doing. Yeah, if I want to win the division in 2026, I’m picking the guy whose career is in front of him rather than the guy whose career is behind him. Is that the safe-looking move to casual fans? Probably not. But I don’t think GMs win by trying to placate casual fans. I think GMs win by taking smart risks that casual fans a year later claim that of course they supported at the time (see, e.g., Priester, Quinn). You can cherry-pick the few stats that make Gray look good, but if you actually consider his value — you know, how much he contributed to winning baseball games, which I thought was what we were talking about — there’s no reason to think he’ll ever help a team accomplish anything substantial again.

You keep repeating that line about binaries, but I don’t read people as making an argument that Boston was stupid because the Brewers were smart. My argument, anyway, is that Boston’s paying for Sonny Gray last offseason when they already had Kyle Harrison in hand was short-sighted based on available information at the time. The Brewers don’t have some magical pitching crystal ball. The Red Sox should have had at least some sense of Harrison’s talent. Gray is 36, coming off seasons of 1.6 and 1.4 fWAR at 34 and 35. Why would anyone pay a premium for that rather than rolling with the healthy, prospect-pedigreed 24 year-old? Your answer seems to be “that’s what big market teams do.” I agree with your premise, but I’d call that kind of big market behavior a pathology rather than a capacity. Spending trade capital and/or real money for talented players in decline is objectively less smart than spending much less money for talented players in ascent whose contracts you already own. If you can’t do at least a pretty good job of identifying and acquiring players in ascent who will likely outplay obviously declining vets, then you shouldn’t be running a MLB franchise. On a completely different note: Durbin has been one of the worst hitters in baseball, but he’s on pace for 2+ wins because of his excellent fielding at 3b, just more than a year after learning the position. You’ve gotta give him credit, as I’m sure the ever-patient Red Sox fan base will.

He has worked on improving throughout his pro career. Even during his rookie struggles, I had no doubt he would end up as a productive major league hitter. But I never imagined his ceiling was this high.

But the only opportunity here is to be an extra outfielder until Yelich gets back, which should be soon. Actually I guess they’ll probably send Black down when Yelich comes back – but Perkins will still have a reduced role. I’m a big Perkins fan, and I think his numbers this season obviously understate his ability, but I agree with the consensus that other outfielders have passed him on the depth chart. The problem with bringing up Lara now is that he, like Perkins, wouldn’t have much playing time, so why bring him up to sit on the bench? If Mitchell gets hurt, which does occasionally happen, I think Lara will be the move unless he’s really taken a downturn.

I have to say that I did not expect him to develop this quickly. His last stretch at AAA was certainly encouraging, but he still had a lot to work through. I love how Murph in this article focuses on Miz’s mindset – that seems to be the element that we couldn’t know about for sure until he got up here.

This is what I want from the A-Crew on an otherwise barren Monday night. But what the hell is Halterman’s problem, not drawing a single walk? Also, they scored in a Fibonacci sequence (0 1 1 2 3 5). That’s pretty mathematically sophisticated for the complex league.

Nobody’s telling you he’s Tony Gwynn or Aaron Judge. Please stop. I’m sure you’re a smart person. If you can’t handle intelligent, nuanced analysis, maybe do some reading and get up to speed.

I’m feeling weirdly good about the Brewers’ chances in the division. The Reds and Cardinals have negative run differentials. I’m not sure how the Cubs and Pirates get better than they have played so far. Meanwhile, the Brewers have underperformed their run differential while missing key guys. Not a single offensive player has done anything unsustainable. They seem to be playing the rotation shuffle as effectively as we could have possibly hoped. The bullpen has been surprisingly shaky, but they have candidates in the minors, and the rotation shuffle gives them a lot of options for longer stints. It’s just very easy to see how they could get better.

Agreed, but the question is whether he’s stretched out enough or healthy enough or whatever the Brewers have been working on. He went 5 innings in his last start, but that was his first time going more than 3.1. The competition is stiff. The team wouldn’t be crazy to go with Drohan or Crow or Gasser. All these guys look like viable candidates to start games.

Here’s my favorite crazy Made thing right now: his season rate stats at this moment in AA are almost exactly his DSL numbers from two years ago.

Payne has been showing this talent from the beginning. He’s just had growing pains, interspersed with injuries last year. I’ve had him as a top five or six prospect in the system all along. I don’t normally boast about these things, mainly because I’m rarely right about them, but he has a package of skills at a very young age that could really take him to the heights.

The Pirates, who are presently in last place in the NL Central, would be in first place in the AL Central and AL West, second in the AL East and NL East, and tied for third in the NL West. To put the point in a different, more fun way, only one AL team, the Yankees, presently has a better record than the worst team in the NL Central. What many people don't seem to appreciate is that the NL Central was the second-strongest division in MLB last year. The AL East in 2025 was 48 games over .500. The NL Central was +32. The AL West was +2, NL East -10, NL West -26, AL Central -36. If you think it's unfair to judge a division by its worst team, we can ignore the last-place team in each division. That leaves AL East +60, NL Central +52, NL West +40, NL East +20, AL West +20, AL Central +6. The NL Central was strong at the top (#1 and #6 records in MLB) and well balanced.

What Patrick is doing now won’t keep working. Nine strikeouts and seven walks in 19 innings. BABIP of .241. Fly ball percentage up and HR percentage cut in half from last year. Maybe he’s a starter, but nothing he has done this season makes that more likely. I don’t know if this is the moment to move him to the pen, but if this is really who he is, then that’s where he should end up. His stuff played up in shorter outings during the postseason. We’ve seen him do that job well. Both Henderson and Gasser have shown flashes of dominance as starters. Drohan and Crow are promising wild cards. I have a hard time believing that Patrick is the best starting pitcher of those five.

Hmmm. Lesser Contreras threatens violence he’s already committed if the Brewers try to get him out (what a competitor!). Wild Mis up tomorrow. Should be fun. Lesser Contreras has had an interesting career. He came up for half a season while the veteran Cubs won their title. As soon as he established himself, they declined. He joined the Cardinals after a playoff season; they immediately declined. He joins the Red Sox; they’re 2-8. No wonder he makes so much noise — it’s all he’s good for.