gregmag

Dude looked good tonight on both sides of the ball. Former first-round pick, 28, versatile, poor but not dreadful hitter in the minors, minimal MLB opportunities . . . this looks like a useful player, especially for a team whose fans recently have had semi-serious discussions about playing Andrew Vaughn or Sal Frelick at third base.

*Any* more? What if it’s, just to pull a random possibility out of thin air, 75.8%?

I suspect Hader’s perspective changed when he went (very successfully) through free agency. The arb hearing, the trade — those things were just business, the team taking care of its interests. But he hadn’t been through that stuff before (minor league trade sure, but not being traded as a big league star), and those were things I’m sure he experienced as being done to him. When he got to sign his big contract, he did business to protect his interests – he got to call the shots. I imagine that experience would cast a different light on the prior events.

I’m just reading this whole thread now, and I love how kumbayah it got once they announced Fielder and $2m as the return. Like, the one thing we prospect huggers and the tradez! crowd can agree on is that there’s no harm in dumping Jadyn Fielder and a smallish pile of Mark’s money.

Not that you’ll care, but this is where I went from “this is a serious person whom I disagree with but who’s making reasonable points that deserve serious attention” to “no he absolutely isn’t.” Too bad, because that just leaves me stuck on my original disagreement — which is basically that people who pound the table for deadline moves relentlessly overestimate how much in-season additions help in the postseason, underestimate the value of prospects, and want to pay a premium for what guys did in the past, three mistakes whose avoidance has gotten the Brewers where they are.

Minnesota is the new Indiana (said no observer of American politics ever)!

You made a strong assertion with no support or explanation for anyone who might not already agree with you. Essentially, you acted like you think *you’re* infallible — like you’re above the need for persuasion that norms of intelligent conversation place on us mere mortals. BrewerFan came back with a thorough, substantive, fleshed-out reply. The best you could do in response was bluster and name-calling. As for me, I loved the Payne pick at the time, so I’d have a hard time buying that this Ebel pick is as clearly bad as you suppose if it comes in at slot (though of course I’ll be happier if it comes in lower). The Brewers aren’t infallible; they whiffed on Brown and Wilken. But they’ve earned the benefit of more than tossed-off hot takes and juvenile cheap shots.

This is a very interesting point given the number of guys we’ve recently moved up from A+ to AAA (Adamczewski, Fischer, Ragsdale) and also from the complex to A (Frias, Martinez). Obviously those guys all deserved the promotions, but the timing also makes them all more credible trade candidates if they perform decently — which the AA guys certainly are doing. This is always a tough exercise because selling low is a bad idea (Jett), but you want to keep your guys who look good now. So you’re looking to consider trading guys (a) who are putting up numbers, (b) at positions / player types of depth, (c) whom you like less than your other prospects of that type. I would add (d) players who are (relative to your other prospects) older for their levels. Based on those criteria, I’d be most comfortable parting with Dinges, Burke, and Ragsdale (though losing Josiah would hurt my prospect-hugging heart). (Edit: O’Rae too — some team is going to love his profile.) I’d part with Fischer for an overpay. I’m having a very tough time assessing the pitchers, but I assume some other team(s) will value some of our guys at the margin more than we do.

My understanding from people who know about such things is that a broken hamate bone can sap power for a while. It therefore seems short-sighted to assume that 2026 Vaughn — a high-average, low-power lefty killer — provides a good sense of what 2027 Vaughn will look like. “Last year is last year. Who cares?,” aside from its obnoxious, smug arrogance, may be exactly wrong on the substance. If the injury matters as much as I’m thinking it might, then 2025 Vaughn may be a lot more relevant than 2026 Vaughn for projecting 2027 Vaughn.

We had some epic debates around here back in the day, when Brantley started out as an on-base / speed guy, about whether he would ever hit with enough power to have a major league career.

I’ve never gotten this logic — I’m not singling you out; most people seem to have this view. Why is hitting a home run against a great pitcher so much likelier to happen than, say, getting two guys on and mixing in a stolen base, or hitting a double and a single? Great pitchers vary in their strengths, but generally they’re good at both limiting baserunners and suppressing power. Hitting a home run is harder than hitting a couple of singles. I would think the same thing would be true against great pitchers. I always hear stats about how postseason series winners usually outslug losers, but I would be surprised if the same thing wasn’t true for OBP. The slugging comparison in a vacuum answers nothing. Winning teams generally do things that win games better than losing teams do. This is an empirical question, really a cluster of related empirical questions, to which someone who knows how to crunch the numbers should be able to provide an informed answer. I’m not that guy, but I know enough to be fairly sure I haven’t seen an informed answer yet.

Me: I really need to watch the game tonight. Brandon Sproat is pitching. Spouse: Oh, is he their best pitcher? Me: No, no. He’s like their fifth-best pitcher. Spouse: Then why are you so eager to watch him? Me: There’s a real chance that he’s turning a corner to possibly becoming their fourth-best pitcher. Spouse: Get help.

This is fantastic information. Thank you. As everyone pretty much knows by now, but your post nicely documents, the depth of our system is ridiculous. I’ve been paying enough attention that most of these stats don’t surprise me, but there’s one big exception. Given Matt Wood’s low batting average, I just assumed he was running a high strikeout rate. The fact that it’s actually 11% is bonkers. He’s laboring under a .200 BABIP. One of the classic truisms of prospect watching is don’t worry about logjams; they work themselves out. I think the Brewers are pushing that envelope at catcher (and arguably some other positions). Wood and Miller are 25. They should really be in Nashville auditioning for backup catcher duties next year; but they can’t move up because Quero is there. He has performed more than well enough to be apprenticing in Milwaukee right now; but he can’t move up because Sanchez has filled his role well and Contreras wants to catch as much as possible. It’s a great problem to have, but it is a problem, in the sense of a puzzle that needs solving.

We’re losing all these close games, and maybe we’ll lose this one, but Miz-Harrison-Woody-Drohan-Gasser with Henderson in the wings looks pretty great.

Fair. But I wouldn’t trade Payne for anyone after the top two.

As of right now, the only NL team to have won or lost more than six of its last 10 games is Miami at 7-3. Just an odd little thing I noticed; no idea how common it is for nobody to be especially hot or cold.

Somebody needs to remind the Columbus pitchers how a shutdown inning after your team scores is supposed to work.

I can’t remember any other time when I could look at an ACL line score, see that the Brewers had scored anything at all, just confidently assume that one particular guy was in the middle of it, and always be right. Yes, he has a .517 BABIP and hits too many grounders. Yes, he has struck out a few more times than he’s walked, which for a Brewers prospect these days is actually notable. Yes, he has been a poor percentage base stealer. I have no idea how his defense is. But I would think he could work on those things perfectly well in a league where he can’t just carry all the opposing pitchers around in his gym bag and trade them for snacks.

Twelve runs on four hits beats eleven runs on eight hits. Never change, DSL!

Does anyone else think pitcher wins have become a terminally stupid stat? In the era when starters were supposed to go 7-9 innings and bullpens were afterthoughts, wins had the big problem of depending on run support. But for most pitchers, run support came out in the wash, so you could be pretty sure a 20-game winner was a very good to great pitcher. Bad things like Bob Welch's 1990 Cy Young happened, but the problem was limited. (As Bill James pointed out, wins as a *career* stat in that era actually had great value. If you wanted to rank the greatest pitchers of the 20th century, you could do a lot worse than taking all the 150-game winners and ranking them by wins per season and/or W/L percentage, adjusting for longevity if that's your jam.) The wins stat still has the run support problem, but in our era of heavy bullpen usage, much bigger problems have come up. The vulture scenario that happened with Ashby last night was one obvious example -- totally absurd. But what about the starter who pitches 4 2/3 shutout innings while his team stakes him to a 6-0 lead, then watches a reliever come in for four innings, give up four runs, and get the win? What are we even doing at that point? I see three possible fixes: (1) get rid of wins and losses as stats entirely; (2) change the rules for what constitutes a win or loss to account for present norms; (3) expand official scorer discretion to award wins and losses and relax the norms that guide scorers' judgment in those situations (including the five-inning starter requirement). Of course, none of this will happen. Still, what do you think?

Rengifo was rocking a .534 OPS. Jett's at .693 in Nashville. He hasn't been anywhere near great, and he isn't ready, but if you had to call him up tomorrow, he very likely would outhit and outfield (on the infield) Rengifo. Maybe the team wouldn't like having its hand forced to call Jett up before the optimal moment, but he'd get decent playing time replacing Hamilton or Ortiz, and he seems like a guy who could take initial struggles in stride. In the end, then, I don't think DFAing Rengifo rather than stashing him makes any difference.

I was in high school in 1982. I moved to St. Louis in 2008. I was here in 2011 when the wildcard and a bad umpiring call against Atlanta helped the Cardinals climb over us to steal a World Series. They only won in 82 because fingers was hurt. I care less about 2006, but they had absolutely no business winning that year. So they got all puffed up about being three-time undeserving recent champs, their fans got predictably arrogant about it, and they had a bunch of loathsome people on their “great” teams in those early years I was here: LaRussa, Molina, Chris Carpenter, Berkman, Pujols. Oh, and did you notice how they went a good decade there somehow managing to roster virtually no Black American players? Yeah, LaRussa was awesome. But a lot of my good friends are Cardinals fans, it really is a great ballpark and a good fan base in person, they’ve very helpfully sucked for a few years — and now they’re building the kind of team I actually enjoy watching, with no apparent raging jerks as far as I can tell. They’re basically trying to be the Brewers south, and why wouldn’t they? Meanwhile, the Cubs are kind of a bargain basement Phillies – aging, entitled, boring. Their only significant young position players are a couple of cultists and a self-absorbed misogynist. Their fans, both in person and online, are miserable. Dodgers fans think they’re entitled to win because their team has money, but at least they’re actually winning. Cubs fans get mad at their team for not winning and whine that they’re entitled to win because of their money. Worst of both worlds. So for me, now, it’s the Cubs, and it’s not close.

I think this was the best day of the season so far: We won a series against a playoff contender in dominant fashion. We beat arguably the best pitcher in baseball who doesn’t pitch for us. Our very important second-best pitcher got his mojo back after a stupid setback. Evidence that our young phenom hitter is making The Leap continues to grow. Every other team in the division lost, getting our lead back to a very agreeable five games. Blake Perkins got a hero moment. Cooper Pratt is coming up. That is a hell of a lot to be happy about.

I think the answer must be that they want to put a top prospect in a position to succeed when they bring him up. I’m sure the assessment varies from player to player. In 2016, Orlando Arcia was a top 10 MLB prospect. At age 21, he played 2/3 of the season at AAA. He was good not great, putting up a 723 OPS with a bad BB/K ratio. The Brewers called him up for the final third of the season. He never developed into anything more than a second-division starter, putting up a couple of 2-WAR seasons that account for most of his career value, with nearly all that value coming on defense. Maybe that’s all he was ever going to be, but the Brewers got criticism at the time for bringing him up before he was ready.

Re: Rengifo and Perkins, I think people sometimes forget this isn’t a fantasy league. Inconvenient timing is real. Take Rengifo (please). He was supposed to be an adequate placeholder until one of our 15 3b/ss prospects was ready to go. That’s why we didn’t try to go out and sign Alex Bregman instead. (Well, that, and money, and the fact that we understand aging curves.) Alas, he’s been an awful stopgap, and none of them is ready to go. It would be great to go find some 90 OPS+ guy who plays adequate defense and whom we could cut loose in two or three or four months when Pratt or Williams figures it out. But you see the problem, right? If that guy exists, he’s on a real contract. So your options are: Expend real trade and payroll resources for a decent upgrade who then blocks your prospects in the medium term; Scoop up someone off the scrap heap and hope against hope that he works out better than Rengifo (whom, in this scenario, you’re still paying); Rush a prospect up and risk messing up a long-term asset; or Suck it up for a while. So no, in the abstract, Rengifo shouldn’t be on a MLB roster. But in our actual circumstances, he’s the least bad choice, at the moment, for this particular roster.