gregmag

I'm not sold that the positive difference between Arraez as a 2b-1b and Black as a (3b?-)2b-1b will be worth the cost. Black appears to have more power and more speed. He's substantially younger and healthier. He's substantially cheaper, if you believe opportunity costs are relevant for this front office (and whether or not you believe it, I'm pretty sure the front office does). We're just about to see the baseline, the starting point, for what Black can do in MLB. That seems like a terrible time to trade a guy who can potentially do things we need. The presence of Wilken shouldn't cause us to devalue Black, any more than the presence of Quero should cause us to devalue Contreras. Let's learn whether, hopefully how, Black can make us better.

I have a recollection that Jenkins really helped his stock in the AFL after not looking great at AAA. Relatedly, I thought it was awful and classless when Bulls fans booed Jerry Krause the other night with his widow present — and I would absolutely do the same thing to Sal Bando every day of the week and twice on Sunday. Being terrible at your job is one thing. Being terrible while acting arrogant and entitled is a whole other thing.

It seems like people’s argument *for* him is that he can almost hit .290. No one is arguing that he does anything else well. If his average tapers off at this point on the aging curve, as it does for most hitters, you could very easily (not worst case) be looking at a .275 hitter who can’t field, hit for power, walk, or run, soaking up PAs at DH and 1b. How exactly is that better than Owen Miller?

Excellent article. I think this piece perfectly sets out the logic for trading Houser, and it also tells you why the Brewers couldn’t get more for him. I actually think a very similar analysis applies to Taylor, although I agree he has a wider range of possible outcomes.

Please tell me if I’m misunderstanding, but you seem to be saying that (a) if we don’t sign a player, and he then plays badly for the team that does sign him, that information has no value for assessing how he would have played for us, and (b) it’s reasonable to treat any possible signing of any big name / big money player as if that signing will win us a World Series. Neither of those points sounds to me like a reliable way of thinking about opportunities.

I have to stick up for Weeks on the position switch thing, as I did at the time. Asking a guy to switch from infield to outfield in the middle of the season, when he has never played outfield, is just bad management. How many times have teams tried such a move, let alone with any success? IMHO Weeks did the best thing for the team, as well as for himself, by pushing back against a very unwise idea. I'm happy about Murphy. Maybe he was Counsell's secret sauce all along. At a minimum, Counsell will have to look across the field at his friend and mentor, which is the best counter-trolling card the Brewers had to play. I hope Murphy wipes the floor with him.

Jackson ChourioTyler Black I love Quero, but I'm taking Black over him because Black at this moment is the closest thing to a sure-bet, multi-threat offensive prospect as you ever see. Jeferson Quero I feel bad ranking him this low.Robert Gasser If Gasser makes it as a mid-rotation starter, which looks reasonably likely, then the Hader trade will go from a win to highway robbery.Brock Wilken He has been better than advertised, not that the advertisements were bad. If he can keep this up, he could be our number two prospect by June.Carlos F Rodriguez A pitcher who dominated AA at 21 is our number six prospect. Sure he needs to cut the walks a little, but damn.Jacob Misiorowski For me there's an appreciable dropoff after six. Misiorowski has maybe my least favorite kind of prospect profile: a high school pitcher with control issues who's having some (hopefully minor) arm problems. His talent is undeniable, and he could be great, but he's the riskiest high-level prospect in the system.Luis Lara I had Lara after Pratt and Brown, and then I remembered he's 18, I'm still not sure he has the pop to make it, but he does basically everything else well, and he handled high-A decently at 18.Cooper Pratt One to dream on.Eric Brown Jr Brown has the same question marks as Lara, and he's 4-5 years older, but he's also apparently a plus defensive ss. Next year seems especially big for him.Eric Bitonti Another one to dream on, and he's more than a year younger than Pratt. His .180 small sample BA looks ugly, but he slugged and walked. If he can cut down the Ks, he could rocket up the charts.Logan Henderson I don't know how to sort out these next four guys -- apples and oranges -- so I'm giving the pitcher with the breakout season the edge because we'll need him. Not much so far about Henderson that isn't to love.Luke Adams Somewhat similar offensive performance to Yophery but further along, similar age for level. Biggest issue of course is his K rate.Mike Boeve Boeve didn't exactly kill it at Wisconsin. Odd stat: he had as many RBI there as hits (18). If this were like 1985, we'd love him for that.Yophery Rodriguez Secondary average: .455. K rate: 18 percent. Can he do that stateside? If so, he's another potential rocket.Dylan O'Rae Another big dropoff for me starts here. Everyone from this point on has serious issues. I'm irrationally high on O'Rae, given his utter lack of power -- but if Lara does everything else well, O'Rae does everything else exceptionally. Okay, other than play ss. But his BB/K and SB/CS stats are absurd, and he made the transition to low A without really skipping a beat.Josh Knoth Knoth could be great, but I can't take an untested high school pitcher, no matter how promising, over the high-ceiling guys above him who have shown something.Juan Baez I'm going to be contrary here and take Baez over Guilarte. Baez is nearly two years younger, and I think he's more likely to improve his plate discipline than Guilarte is to develop power.Daniel Guilarte Defensive profile is intriguing, but makes Luis Lara look like a power hitter.Patricio Aquino I needed someone to knock Blalock off my list, and Aquino is the guy. Handling low A at 20 as well as he did is no small thing. This was fun. Thanks Brock and everyone else who helped with this. I seriously can't remember being this excited about our farm system in a very long time. The star power is considerable; the depth, as far as I can recall, is unprecedented. Everyone in the top 20 has a realistic chance, by the standards of his age and performance to date, to be an impact major league player. I probably leaned too hard on performance, leaving out some high-potential guys who haven't put it together. I figured the default list reflected scouting to some extent, so I basically tweaked that list based on outcomes. I'm also very big on age for level.

All I know is that if Quero and Churio debut in the same game, then we’ll all be Democrats . . . . . . because it will be Jefferson-Jackson Day.

Thank you Joseph! I've loved Jim's writing for years, and it's fun to have another distinctive, knowledgeable voice on the minor league beat. Your enthusiasm for the players is infectious, and I learn a ton from your reports.

Needles and lipstick are a bad combination. Ask the New York Dolls. IMHO being underwhelmed by the Canha trade was a perfectly reasonable take. He’s playing over his head right now. It was a solid bet that is working out spectacularly. What wasn’t reasonable was denying that it might at least be a solid bet, or fervently insisting after Candelario played way over *his* head for two games that the Brewers had clearly lost the deadline, or — especially — berating other posters’ intelligence and motives.

The problem IMHO is that you don’t consider negatives and positives with the same care. Injury risk alone makes a strong upper minors pitching prospect solidly more valuable than the greatest phenom the DSL has ever seen. Physical projectabilty is a two-way street. Yeah, we’re waiting for Mis to develop consistent command; but the reason we’re waiting attentively is that he’s working to command elite stuff. The teeth of MLB routinely spit out pieces of pitchers who commanded the hell out of crap stuff. I agree with you that these two guys have interesting and strong foundations at 17. It’s a cool find and take, and if you framed it that way, it would have been a fine article. But, with all respect, comparing a couple of decent 17 year-olds in the DSL to our top pitching prospects justly shreds your credibility.

People will mock Harold for this, and I think he’s oversimplifying this prospect analysis like he’s done for years — these two children IMHO have established zero basis for a serious argument that they’re more promising than Gasser or Rodriguez. Context matters a whole lot for projection. That said, Harold circa 2015 was the sole carbon-based life form who thought Brent Suter was on the same planet as, let alone a better prospect than, Orlando Arcia. Today the bWAR tally stands at Suter 6.7, Arcia 5.1. Just sayin’.

Interesting article — thank you. My question about your framing is whether stats like xBA that we use to measure bad luck outcomes already “bake in” the fielder positioning factors you’re talking about. If so, then it would appear that your points shouldn’t change the conclusions we draw from those stats.

This is a perfect “heads I win, tails you lose” argument. Tails you lose: When a team trades a superstar reliever, “the expectation is to get good players in return.” Therefore, it is literally impossible for any return from such a trade to be worthy of praise, in the sense of exceeding (my definition of) “the expectation.” Heads I win: Although I have failed to persuade anyone in this discussion that trading Hader was a proximate cause of missing the postseason (and several people have offered evidence for the opposite view), I cling to my opinion that it was; accordingly, the possibility that it was not must be ignored.

The relocation threat is beyond the pale. Whatever the sober realities of keeping the ballpark in good repair, the threat fully disqualifies Manfred and MLB as any kind of good faith partners. I fully agree with Matthew. This is a shakedown. Manfred is using the Oakland fiasco to extort money from governments. Call his bluff, and live with the outcome. I would much rather see the Brewers move to Charlotte or Sydney or wherever than negotiate with hostage-takers.