gregmag

That T-Rats nightcap was thrilling. Great comeback to tie it, then they basically deserved to lose (Alastre boehead K, two utterly stupid throwing errors), then they redeemed themselves. I did not have high hopes for Figueroa in that spot, but his pitching (as distinct from throwing to bases) was outstanding.

If one takes bWAR seriously, Turang this year is close to even with Marte (2.9 to 3.1) and superior to Donovan (2.4). To think Turang isn’t clearly deserving of an all-star spot, you pretty much have to buy fWAR’s defensive metrics and reject bWAR’s.

This is what I was assuming. I don’t remember hearing a word about any injury or why he was out. I agree he has looked markedly better since coming back.

They aren’t trading Freddy. They’ve traded one star during a pennant race with more than a year of team control. I liked that deal, but a top sp having a good year would be a much bigger loss than a top closer having a bad year was — and a lot of people hated that deal.

I just noticed something quirky, mildly interesting. The Brewers and Cardinals are four and 5 1/2 games out of the division lead. In all of MLB, no other team is between 1 1/2 and 6 1/2 games out.

I like this. It’s insane, but good insane. Your big insight, I think, is that half-measures are stupid. Low-level tinkering? Sure, why not. The Brewers are great at those moves. Insane, high-level gambles? Those can actually move the needle. Surplus for surplus? That’s sensible. But serious prospect capital for a marginal upgrade? You *probably* won’t end up regretting the guys you lose, but how likely is the 3.5-win guy you get to put you over the top?

I was just gonna ask about him after seeing him in the lineup today and looking him up. If nothing else, it’s intriguing that he is converting from shortstop to catcher and that he has doubled his extra base hits from last season in fewer than half the plate appearances. also, Joseph, I have to ask – what is primitive skills camp? It sounds awesome!

You make a pretty good case, but I have two issues. First, your portrayal of the present bullpen’s quality is very misleading. You cite the 4.04 bullpen ERA since May 1. But only one reliever who actually plays for the Brewers now has an ERA above that supposed benchmark: Koenig at 4.19. Everyone else (if you don’t count Bauers’ 3.60) has an ERA at least a run below it; Anderson at 3.05 is the worst after Koenig. The overall bullpen ERA is inflated by guys the team has demoted or cut loose. If you’re giving a true account of the bullpen’s quality, you have to account for addition by subtraction. Second, you don’t even consider internal improvements. If I’m thinking about trading Wichrowski, say, for bullpen help, I want to know what premium in production I’m getting beyond what I can get for free. If I’m counting right, eight healthy pitchers at Nashville have pitched for the Brewers this year. Now, most of those guys are among the aforementioned demoted group. But have any of them gotten themselves together? Craig Yoho has a 1.01 ERA at Nashville. Is he ready to contribute in Milwaukee? What you could reasonably expect to get from the best bet at Nashville, whether that’s Yoho or someone else, should be the floor against which you measure what you could reasonably expect to get from Dominguez or any other trade target, in assessing whether the trade price is worth paying.

Whatever we all think, does anyone have any sense of what the team thinks at this point about treating Turang as the backup / emergency ss? That clearly seems to be the sticking point to an otherwise obvious move. The only other possibility I can think of would be to give Siegler Bauers’ spot, but then you lose power and outfield depth (except do you, really, much?). You also lose your backup 1b, but *somebody* else on the roster must be able to play over there, right? If the Brewers are considering that course of action, could it actually make some sense to then replace Mona with Zamora? I fully cosign others’ accounts of Zamora’s limitations. However, if (a) the team were hell-bent on not using Turang at shortstop and (b) they were willing to swap out Bauers for Siegler, then wouldn’t Zamora maybe be a better use of Mona’s roster spot?

How many Poles does it take to fill a starting rotation?

Does it make sense to be somewhat optimistic because he has shown that he knows how to do both things — draw walks and do damage? Or is reconciling those two approaches too tough to expect he can figure it out?

Wilken and Rodriguez are hurt, so complete non-starters. The idea that Boeve is a better 3b prospect than Wilken is eccentric at best, given that (a) Boeve has not shown nearly as much as Wilken has offensively and (b) the Brewers don't seem to think Boeve is a 3b at all. The idea that Adams justifies trading Wilken would at least be arguable if either or both were healthy, but the Brewers clearly seem to think Wilken can handle 3b better. Black's value has completely tanked. If anyone offers anything decent for him, then yes, take it, but I don't think Black realistically fits the "which prospects can we dangle to get something good" theme. Trading Quintana now is a shaky idea if you think his offense will pick up, which I do. I agree that he's no kind of rarity in the system, but there's never anything wrong with having a bunch of great up-the-middle prospects at the low levels. Crow looks like an appreciably better prospect than all four of the other Biloxi pitchers you mentioned. The fact that he had Tommy John isn't a red flag, more like a checked box. After Henderson and Myers (and Gasser, if he counts), Crow looks like the minor-league sp most likely to help the Brewers as soon as next season. I would not be eager to trade him. Burke might make sense to trade, but I disagree with most of your take on him. It's WAY too early to write off his power. Like, we aren't even at the starting line for that conversation. I can see the argument that Adams might make Burke expendable, but Burke is on a different timeline from Martinez, and Vaughn probably isn't on any timeline at all. Boeve's prospect status, for me, is running on fumes. He has "next Tyler Black, but slow" written all over him. Fielder is 20 in the complex league. He's done everything he can, but he'll have to do it at higher levels before we should even talk about him as a prospect. (He's also not limited to 1b.) Clarke is 25 and no longer a prospect, largely because his K rate has eaten him up as he's climbed the ladder. Burke may end up in the same place, but right now he has a chance to be a lot better and thus has a ton more value than Clarke.

I don't know what's been up with Ortiz, but it has seemed during the past couple of weeks like he has been deliberately trying to not do too much, just get the bat on the ball and hit singles. That relatively low OPS compared to BA bears that out. I'm hoping last night's power surge is the fruit of a deliberate plan to build him back up to hitting the ball with authority, rather than just a lucky (double) strike, but who knows.

Wow, FOUR laugh emojis. Now I’m convinced.

They’ve gotten great value from his extension. They almost certainly would not get great value out of another extension. They have a bunch of promising young starters. Pick up the option and trade him in the offseason.

I understand it’s a very small sample for DSL pitcher Lukas Gonzalez. However, given his performance so far and the fact that he’s listed at 6‘0“, 140 pounds, I think it may not be too soon to tie him down. Literally. Like, to a bag of rocks or something.

I’m not sure why, in all the circumstances, this trade request would strongly affect what the Brewers get back. They don’t have to trade him, and by the same token, if they stuck him in the bullpen and he hadn’t requested a trade, teams would likely assume he was interested in a different opportunity anyway. If more than one team thinks they can use him, then more than one team will be motivated to offer fair value. I haven’t found myself lamenting the absence of Gregory Barrios. If we can ship Civale off for at least salary relief and a young, raw prospect, given how he helped stabilize the rotation last season, I’ll be fine with the whole sequence of events. If the return is any better than that, it will be gravy. Frankly I’m just kind of excited for some trade action. This has been a pretty dull season.

The Chattanooga TV announcer sounds like he gave up years ago on finding any joy or beauty in the world and now he really wants everyone listening to him to give up too.

I’m picking up a lot of things slowly from our minor league savants, and I am beginning to understand the urgency of keeping Eduardo Garcia in the org. He can play anywhere in the infield or outfield. He has power and speed and gets on base. The only problem is his 27 percent K rate, which is bad but not catastrophic. He’s average age for his level at 22 in high-A. I would think, if he keeps producing, that a promotion sometime this season would help the Brewers’ pitch come minor league FA season.

I don't know where to put this, so I'm putting it here. Maybe everyone already knows all this, but . . . The Brewers have the youngest hitters in the complex league, A (Carolina), and AA (Southern), all at least a full year younger than league average. In each of those leagues, the Brewers' offensive production comfortably leads the league. I did a quick rundown using OPS and runs per game, because those numbers were easily available on BR. Numbers are Brewers / (league average) Complex Brewers - OPS: .864 (.746); R/g: 7.48 (5.52) A (Mudcats) - OPS: .767 (.672); R/g: 6.14 (4.75) AA (Shuckers) - OPS: .713 / (.651); R/g: 4.76 (3.81) A few more tidbits . . . the Brewers have the second-youngest hitters at A+; their production is near the bottom of the league. On the pitching side, the Brewers have the youngest pitchers in the complex league and A. Using ERA and WHIP (again, easily available), the complex kids are near the top of the 15-team league (4th in ERA, 1st in WHIP), while the A pitchers are a mixed bag -- second of 12 teams in ERA but sixth in WHIP. Wisconsin pitchers are middling by age and production. Biloxi pitchers are on the older end and doing not great.

I don't know whether Just Baseball counts as a "major publication," but I've gotten kind of addicted to their analysis, and they love them some Brewers. Their latest update: 7. Made 12. Pena 20. Mis 32. Quero 52. Pratt 94. Bitonti https://www.justbaseball.com/prospects/top-100-mlb-prospects/ Bitonti has slid from their preseason list, and Quero hasn't moved much. All the others are big risers (they're less high than everyone else on Pratt).

I don't know whether this kind of story already exists somewhere, but I would love to know more about the lives and routines of players in the complex league. Do teams all have their own dedicated playing fields, or do they share a set of fields? Do any fans watch these games? Do all the different teams' players live in housing at or near the team's facilities? Do the players spend more time in team-organized practice sessions than players at higher levels? How do the big complements of U.S.-born English-first players and mainly D.R.-born Spanish-first players interact and get to know one another? I feel like the whole scene would make for a great documentary film or series.

The latest BA podcast has a great discussion of Pena, framed by a predictable but interesting comparison to Made.

Even as the Brewers are heating up, I’m hooked on the minor league broadcasts. Last night we got our Internet service back after a two-week outage post-tornado. Even as my hometown heroes were soundly handling the Phillies, I celebrated being able to watch baseball on a device larger than my phone by bouncing between A-ball games. When one of your biggest day-to-day entertainment world complaints is lamenting that the complex league doesn’t have TV, you know you’re a junkie.Who do they think they are, the Supreme Court?

Tonight’s reminder that pitching wins are a stupid stat is brought to you by the Mudcats box score.