Fear The Chorizo

14 runs the night before...4 runs tonight and should have had bunches more if situational hitting was better in a couple key spots. Frustrating loss, for sure - but the starter getting shelled early is the main reason the Brewers didnt win. Adames' season long struggle in the heart of the order is the biggest remaining problem with the lineup, and I don't see that changing anytime soon unless he hits himself out of it, unfortunately.

Turang's 0.350 OBP since the AS Break should help that cause

Kind of derailing this thread, but then again it was off the tracks to begin with... I don't know why bunting isn't taught at lower/youth levels anymore, as I feel that it's an essential skill to put bat on the ball and to learn the difference between a ball and a strike and probably most importantly how to get comfortable in the batters box - even if you don't do it in game situations. We worked hard on it during a coach pitch league even if the kids weren't going to bunt during the game, and despite some parents grousing about it the kids all got much better at hitting the baseball consistently. Nowadays with coach pitch and pitching machine leagues the kids are all on auto swing no matter where the pitch is headed, and it takes them longer to learn the strike zone when facing live pitching. Professionally, if a player with speed struggles with getting himself on base and doesn't try to bunt for a base hit at least once per game (doesn't have to be an entire at bat, just picking 1 pitch where the game situation dictates it being a good opportunity), he's hurting himself offensively. It does need to be practiced in order for it to be a useful skill - but if practiced it's still easier to execute than hitting a home run no matter how fantastic a player's swing is. I'm not calling for a sac bunt every time the leadoff man gets on - but there are alot of game situations where bunting is still a very good play to win a baseball game. Very few pitchers field their position well anymore, particularly relievers. Drag or push bunt attempts down the foul lines that force the defense to charge in and make a tough throw are going to be successful more often than not if the bunt winds up fair - and if you bunt it foul or wind up taking a called ball you just dig back into the box and carry on the rest of your AB.

4-D chess...letting the Cubs land Candelario helped them keep the Reds at bay while the Brewers scuffled through the end of this bad road trip in Washington.

Turang since the AS Break is carrying about a 0.650 OPS, roughly 70 points higher than his brutal 1st half based mostly on a much better walk rate and a slight uptick in batting average. That production alone makes him a valuable everyday player after including his defense and baserunning. Turang over the last two weeks is sporting a mid 700s OPS, with both batting average and slugging increases being influenced by closer to a league average BABIP - that type of offense from him makes him a 3-4 WAR player at shortstop or 2B. Looking back at Turang's progression through the minor leagues, this is a pattern for him at each level. He's figuring it out...

Look around the rest league - this year's trade deadline was a dud unless they wanted to be in the market for 40-something starting pitchers with enormous contracts. The Brewers did just fine over the deadline by making noteable roster upgrades at positions of need without giving up anyone to be concerned about losing in the long run. Just having competent options to play 1B and serve as the DH the rest of this season improves the depth across the lineup every night. I'd call their deadline a solid B, but that's not the best news for the organization from yesterday. Both Woodruff and Lauer were on the hill in minor league stadiums last night on rehab stints, setting up the possibility of the Brewers being able to have their opening day rotation pitching for them in the stretch run.

I for one hope the clubhouse isn't too downtrodden by the Brewers opting to trade Strzelecki at this year's deadline, causing them to spiral and miss the playoffs yet again with all that bullpen meddling. Sure looks like it could be history repeating itself

giving up 5 years of team control for Strzalphabet to fill a need for a lefty reliever in this year's bullpen is much different than giving up 6 years of control for Uribe - who basically took that spot in the MLB bullpen and probably won't be giving it up anytime soon... I'd expect some of these reactions if Abner was headed to the Dbacks, not a 28 yr old rookie reliever who was signed as an undrafted FA and spent 5 years in the minors before getting his shot to serve as bullpen depth.

Now that we traded him away, of course we do Seems like a deal where both teams want a bit of a bullpen option reshuffle. DBacks have been wilting since the AS break so it's kind of like a soft sell from their perspective in hopes Strzelecki can develop into something better than what he's shown as a high velo/inconsistent MLB reliever.

Why would anyone want to poach people from the Brewers' front office? Most everything I'm seeing here on this board indicates they suck at their jobs...

This isn't just a 2 month + postseason rental either - he's under contracto for 2024, too...and Verlander at 40 is still a guy any team would give the ball to for a playoff start.

Gilbert is also almost 23 and currently OPS-ing about 160 points less than Quero in AA, who won't turn 21 until after the season ends. Once those top 100 rankings get over prospect # 50, there's a tendency to try and squeeze at least one prospect from every MLB organization into the list to generate clicks...I'm not saying Gilbert is a pumpkin, but 30 out of 30 MLB GM's would take Quero over Gilbert if given the opportunity right now. If the Orioles had any interest in trading for Verlander and he was open to waiving his NTC to go there, the Stros had to dig as deep as they possibly could to land him.

For perspective, I believe Houston's system is generally regarded as burning pile of trash (Gilbert is rated roughly #75 in the MLB top 100 list, their only top 100 prospect) - they probably had to dig deep to best offers from other teams Verlander may have also been ok with waiving his NTC to be traded to.

i think you're referring to your post embedded within this thread (although it's oftentimes difficult to tell)...it states something along the lines of if after sending Hader away via trade last deadline the Brewers' remade bullpen blows some save opportunities and they miss the playoffs, they'll be chumps. well, the Brewers did blow some save opportunities during the months of August and September without Hader. The Padres also blew quite a few save opportunities during August and September with Hader and actually spent a good chunk of that stretch run with Hader out of their closer role because of it. In addition, the Brewers blew multiple save opportunities in June/July 2022 with Hader, oftentimes BECAUSE of Hader. The Padres didn't make the playoffs last season because of Hader, either. You can go on believing the Brewers missed the playoffs last season because they traded Hader, I don't care - I'm even sure that makes you feel "100% right"....but that doesn't mean everyone else that disagrees with how you're trying to frame arguments while neglecting to include/acknowledge all kinds of contradictory context (in this instance, starting pitching injuries decimating the 2022 Brewer rotation, Burnes pitching like a mid-rotation starter with the increased workload, and a not-good-enough offense had much more to do with the team playing 0.500 baseball most of the season) is wrong.

Trading away your closer that is getting pricey and in return obtaining a different MLB rental who can close plus prospects who will either contribute to the Brewers in the future or become trade chips to obtain other MLB help is the definition of retooling. And the "more than a few" people who attribute last year's "collapse" (which actually started months earlier in the season before Hader was dealt) include you and a few other posters who like being contradictory around self-created strawmen points of view.

Well in May the Brewers were looking up at Santana and the Pirates in the standings, so that trade wasn't happening...and the Mets weren't far enough into the season to realize spending a gazillion dollars over the offseason isn't enough to be a playoff contender this year. This is the Brewers' MO - try to set up their decent roster headed into the season with enough cheap veteran players that still have some roster flexibility to try and plug holes when anticipated regulars get hurt (Mitchell, Urias, Tellez, Anderson), see where they are in the standings when the calendar gets to July and then try to improve roster weaknesses at the trade deadline without mortgaging their ability to repeat the process next offseason. There are parts to that approach I don't like, but I also appreciate the Brewers being consistently in the mix for a playoff spot - given the financial disparity MLB operates with, this is what they have to do.

Looking at the rest of the division, the Cards are in sell mode, the Pirates are sort of selling but definitely not contending, the Reds have up to this point stood pat hoping they're good enough to muddle into a division title, and the Cubs appear to be soft buyers. The Brewers have added a couple bats to plug glaring holes in their lineup and I expect them to make a couple other moves before the deadline, so they're also in a soft/tepid buy mode. I just don't see their primary competition for the division making any crazy moves at the deadline, and the help the Brewers may be getting soon adding Woodruff to the rotation is a bigger add than what any other "blockbuster" trade by the Reds or Cubs will do. All in all, it seems like too many posters have spent too much time in the sun around here lately with some of their trade deadline takes and unrealistic "SELL EVERYONE NOW", "BUY EVERYONE NOW" posts.

Oh I know...which is why I included the list of great veteran players who signed contract extensions with teams that traded for them at the deadline instead of becoming a free agent after the season to show how realistic that possibility is.

Technically, "home" for Hader in terms of the organizations would be the Orioles since they drafted and signed him. They or the Astros make alot more sense as trade partners than the Brewers do at the moment. Or, the Braves.

Extensions for who? Peguero or Small? Send me the list of premium veteran players traded at the deadline the season prior to reaching free agency who then signed a contract extension instead of becoming a free agent in the offseason. Nevermind, I actually have that list presented below:

The Braves do seem to have a pretty solid pipeline of finding high school talent based in their backyard - particularly Georgia and MS. Credit them for having a great handle of local scouting identifying talent in what is a very deep pool regionally. The Brewers, based on geography, don't exactly have an endless pool of baseball talent to mine every time the draft rolls around. Acuna and Albies came from a large crop of international signings, which the Braves have always been big players in and have an extensive scouting network as well...frankly that's an area where they went beyond bending the rules in terms of signing bonuses around the same time those great players were brought into the fold. As is the case with international signings, they've had more than their share of big misses, too. A majority of the rest of their current roster that is scoring a ton of runs was acquired via trade or free agency and did not come up through their system. Aside from Corbin Carroll, a 1st round draft pick who really didn't need any extensive minor league seasoning and tracked through the minors similarly to Trout once he began his professional career, who else have the Dbacks developed of note offensively in recent years? I mean, they drafted Dansby Swanson 1st overall like 8-9 drafts ago - but does it really count being awful enough at the MLB level to be able to pick at the top of the draft - particularly when they traded him to the Braves for Shelby Miller? It wouldn't surprise me to see the Brewers identified among the top 10 organizations in terms of farm systems over the winter, with the strength of it coming from what are perceived as recent international signing home runs knocking on the MLB door at very young ages (Chourio, Quero) and some recent draftees who absolutely are raking in higher minor league levels (Black). That comes as their 2021 1st rounder is now in the majors, their 2020 1st rounder is a major league regular if he could avoid injury and his ABs have largely been replaced by their 2020 4th rounder, and their 2018 1st rounder is this team's starting 2B. And the Brewers haven't picked in the top half of the 1st round since 2017. Am I saying Frelick/Wiemer/Mitchell/Turang are going to be perennial all stars? Nope - but it's also way too soon to exclude them from being decent to good MLB hitters. This sort of stuff winds up being far more cyclical than fans, and frankly baseball front offices because the randomness of it all takes away from the perception of how smart they are, care to admit. To have a period where your organization churns out a bunch of solid young players (hitters or pitchers), you either have to have endless financial/scouting resources (Dodgers/Yankees), suck at the MLB level for a looong time and get pick of the litter draft choices every year (Orioles/Reds now, Padres a few years ago and Astros/Cubs/Royals before that), or hit the occasional home run in the draft along with making a few shrewd trades that bring in young talent (Braves, Cardinals most of the time).

I would argue most organizations suck at developing quality major league hitters if they don't do a good job of bringing in talent via drafting, international signings, or trading for/signing expensive established mlb veteran bats in free agency. It's not like other teams are running Tom Emanski hitting drills and the Brewers just roll out the bats and say "good luck". Out of curiosity, which organizations set the standard for developing a conveyor belt of quality MLB hitters, in your opinion?

Melvin couldn't draft and develop pitching...now stearns/Arnold couldn't draft and develop hitting.... Pay no attention to what's currently behind the curtain down in AA, btw...NOTHING TO SEE THERE!!!

Or Hader

That would've been two calendar years ago, so a bit late to the party at this point. If he is traded before he becomes a FA, they'd get more return for trading him this offseason than at this year's deadline with so few teams in total go for it mode, anyway.