Fear The Chorizo

As LouisEly mentioned just above - that's a 3-day attendance total. 2022's EAA in Oshkosh as about 650K people over like 6 days....so basically attendance at EAA per day is the same as draft attendance per day. And we're also not talking about all these people going to exactly the same spot at exactly the same time...attendance figures for these type of events use all sorts of data to justify adding random purchases or just about anything tied to the event to the overall attendance total. that way it makes them look massively attended. It wouldn't surprise me to see a Packer game day attendance figure that would include the titletown district using similar data to push 150K people despite the stadium capacity during the actual game being roughly half that total.

haha, I must go to the wrong Twins games, because my exit is 394 westbound also, and it's been a nightmare for me 75% of the time. Maybe I'm picking the wrong garage over and over again that doesn't have a freeway exit - because that would definitely be my style.

Yeah, location is actually ideal for Miller Park - trying to pigeonhole a ballpark into a saturated downtown area makes no sense when many of the fans coming to the game are traveling from all over the state. That's why tailgaiting is such a scene more than anything in Milwaukee, IMO - people going to the games want that parking lot space to stretch out and have a few beers with brats on the grill after driving several hours to get to the ballpark - and they're willing to pay parking fees to do so rather than spend 45 minutes driving up and down city streets looking for a parking spot 2 miles from the stadium. Could they add some other fan-friendly/fan experience sections or a limited entertainment district with readily accessible hotel/commercial amenities to the area? Sure - but the Brewers' situation not owning the land/stadium is a big-time limiting factor when having to partner with local/state government on that type of an investment.

That's my opinion of the Twins' stadium, at least from getting in/out with a vehicle. The parking garages in close proximity are nice, but unless you want to leave halfway through a game you might as well plan on spending a solid hour in your car waiting to get onto a highway out of there - weekday day games seemingly being the worst when they end close to rush hour. That sort of a setting also offers zero options for tailgaiting, too.

How many of those 312K fans were Chiefs fans who came from their homes? KC metro area only has 36,000 hotel rooms. I'd imagine there will be a ton of Packer fans attending the event who don't need hotel rooms. Hell - Packer game days have fans staying in hotels out towards Wausau and other areas more than an hour from the stadium. If I lived anywhere near Green Bay, I'd be setting my house up on VRBO and also planning for a sweet Spring Break vacation if I didn't have plans to attend the draft. I think Lambeau area/Titletown district will be a great venue for the draft

Just put a fresh coat of paint on it and tell MLB to fly a kite elsewhere - what are they going to do, threaten to move the team to Oakland?

From a position player prospect standpoint, I'd argue Stearns actually started off terribly but him and successors have gotten dramatically better over the past 3-4 seasons in drafting/int'l signings in that department. IMO you're consistently pessimistic to the point of neglecting to acknowledge the bright spots across the organization and the varied ways talent has been acquired that contributes at the MLB level.

When Stearns and company took over, this organization couldn't develop any pitching and was set up to routinely find scrap heap veterans and #5 starters to overpay to fill out the bullpen and rotation, then trade prospects with value in effort to bring in impact starters (Sabathia, Greinke, Marcum) to try and put them over the hump. They did this because they had alot of success turning high draft picks into impact hitters, along with developing good hitting prospects throughout the organization in the early 2000s. The organizational philosophy and approach changed dramatically since then and they've being able to develop and mine young pitching talent through the draft and trades. Stearns and successors have tended to make impact prospect trades to bring in position players (Yelich, Adames, Urias, Tellez, Contreras) or sign veteran free agents (Cain). It's still far too early to write off youngsters like Turang, Wiemer, Mitchell - and I'd argue Hiura still has time and room to contribute longterm to the Brewers as a good hitter. Brewers patiently developed a guy like Grisham and right now they currently have the top overall prospect in baseball playing center field in AA and likely a top 50 prospect in Quero. There are others (Black, Frelick, Brown JR, among them) who will be major league starters when it's their turn, too. They've definitely missed on hitters drafted with several high picks (Ray stands out as the 5th overall pick who never truly put it together), but they've continued to go to the well in the draft and international signings with position players to fill a system that really was hollowed out after Melvin and company were consistently striking out in those departments since Braun was drafted back in 2005 - the list of 1st rounders (and sandwich picks) from 2006 through 2014 is abysmal, to put it mildly. Jeffress (2006) eventually went on to have a good career as a reliever, but ewww to the run from him through 2014.

Burnes has been impacted by the pitch clock, no doubt.

Great HOF-caliber hitters aren't "developed"....they're drafted and everyone knows immediately they're going to hit well. If your standard is "why can't the Brewers draft a HOF hitter every other year", then most teams' front offices are going to be sorely lacking because there aren't multiple HOF-caliber players in every amateur draft. And to say the Brewers haven't hit on starting pitchers after rattling off 3/5 of their current rotation when healthy and failing to mention other young arms who are either currently injured (Ashby), or recently acquired/drafted with some promis (Gasser, Rodruiguez, Small, Misiorowski, etc) is just being too pessimistic, IMO. But yes, the solution should be to hire a 70-something guy who had to resign following the Braves' shady dealings in international player signings or a guy who now wants to tinker in managing soccer teams instead of gutting an organization at the MLB level for 5+seasons in effort to "rebuild" by amassing 1st overall draft picks for the better part of a decade.

I think his injured thumb and father time really limiting his mobility in and outside the pocket for the first time in his career actually did lead to Rodgers no longer being the field-tilting win with whatever's around him quarterback talent we had all grown to expect for ~15 seasons. That doesn't mean I think Love starting in 2022 would've meant the Packers were a better team, but it does mean that I think the dropoff in quarterback play isn't as steep as it would've been from what Rodgers did in 2020-2021 seasons when he was the league MVP. The Packers weren't a 2-win roster that the best quarterback in the league managed to get to 8 wins last season - I think they were a playoff caliber roster that was too inconsistent/injured to evolve into a contending team, quarterback included. Factor in the schedule for this season, and I don't think it's a huge stretch for this Packer team to finish above 0.500, even with all the youth/warts.

There's no way this team is "falling out of contention" any time soon - not with their division competition and not with the talent on this roster despite all the injuries early this season. Would it be better if the Brewers win 8 out of every 10 series they play all year long? Sure - but that isn't realistic. I think it's definitely in their best interest to start scouring the rosters of the current MLB dregs (Royals, As, Rockies, Nationals) and the very disappointing teams to open this season (White Sox, Mariners, Giants) and see what significant upgrades could be found to bolster the Brewers roster and improve a team that going into the season was pegged as the 2nd best in its division that as a whole was viewed as one of MLB's weakest. I think at this point with the injuries and offensive inconsistency that the Brewers could really use a good veteran starter, a lefty reliever, and if they can find an impact 3B I think it's worth pulling the trigger. Urias will be back at some point before the AS break to add IF depth, and getting Woody back in the rotation will be huge.

In two months' time my money is that one or both of these guys will be bad/injured...pretty much why the Brewers chose to move on from both. Just like it was a travesty to move on from Bickford even though he is now exactly what he was with the Brewers - an inconsistent back of the bullpen arm.

That just sucks

They get the Bears twice, the NFC South (which at this point all 4 look bad, but I guess someone will have to win that division), and neither the Lions or Vikings strike me as teams set to take a stranglehold on the division next year. Defensively I think they'll be good enough to have shots at winning low scoring games early on against teams that aren't going to set the world on fire offensively themselves. The way their schedule is structured I can see them stacking a bunch of wins early before they get smacked around a bit in November, then looking like a playoff threat as the season winds down in December/January. Green Bay still has alot of talent on their roster, and if Love is decent I think this team is going to surprise alot of national pundits who assumed it's been all Rodgers for the past few seasons. To me, assuming reasonable health it'd be a disappointment for them not to win 10 games with their schedule. Definitely will see some growing pains as there's a huge influx of young players cycling into the depth chart - but they remind me alot of the team after Rodgers' 1st full season as the Packers' starter that was a solid wild card squad but had a few key holes on the roster that got exploited by playoff-caliber teams.

It's not just about developing - it's also drafting college arms that are overlooked a bit for whatever reason and then tweaking them enough to instantly create a valuable MLB pitcher. Burnes, Woodruff, and Rasmussen were all mid round draft picks who flew through the minors and quickly contributed at the major league level after a season or two of growing pains - heck , the pick of Rasmussen in 2018 netted the Brewers their current shortstop via trade in 2021 who some people want to hand a monster contract extension. Misiorowski wasn't part of this organization at this time last year and now he's their cornerstone pitching prospect. Baseball does move quickly, but if you hit on adding just 2 arms with quality MLB potential into the organization each year via all the bites of the apple that the amateur draft, international signing period, and trade avenues offers, teams can quickly replenish pitching prospect depth. Reality is that organizations have to do that in order to keep up with arm injuries, development stalling, etc.

Don't sleep on Small, Gasser, Rodriuguez and other younger arms with mlb-caliber talent either. It wasn't too long ago when Burnes by the numbers was the worst starter in baseball. Arms develop at different times. Pitching will be fine because this organization has figured out how to find pitching talent from everywhere but chasing it in free agency. That's a far cry from several decades when the Brewers couldn't develop any quality pitching from within and relied on homegrown hitters who couldn't play defense to outscore teams while their slew of veteran free agent #5 starters got consistently rocked

It's tough to nitpick Hiura's current AAA statline considering his BA is 0.325, but I'd like to see more doubles out of him even if it sacrifices some of his HR power. The fact he's got more than twice as many homers as doubles early this year tells me Hiura still may have too much of an all or nothing approach at the plate with a swing launch angle that could be exploited once again by MLB pitching with high velo up in the zone. Whether the swing adjustments Hiura has made have enabled a great slider speed bat to turn into a swing that isn't overmatched by heat upstairs is the question that won't get answered until we see MLB at bats from Keston again.

Schedule plays out like the Packers could really get off to a good start if Love is ready to start - toughest stretch really is mid-November through Mid-December.

Agree to disagree - when it comes to MLB teams taking fliers on players to try and catch lightning in a bottle, veteran scrap heap pitchers are a different animal than pre-free agent hitters, particularly ones who aren't good anywhere defensively. Those 3 years were the shortened COVID season many hitters struggled through (no spring training, no video room, reduced time for pregame/between game work in the cage, etc), 2021 - when Hiura's mother was going through significant health issues, and 2022 when Hiura made the Opening Day roster but was pigeon-holed into a parttime role that wasn't reverse-split friendly. This whole topic would be an afterthought if not for a series of injuries and poor performance by Brewers' DHs to date this season that have once again left a gaping hole in the lineup - I really don't care what the track record from prior years says, at this point Hiura should be the next option tried at DH in Milwaukee if Winker and/or Voit continue to post a sub-0.700 OPS collectively from what should be an offensive-focused place in the batting order.

Those 700+ PAs were scattered over broken up portions of 3 MLB seasons - not consistent enough for that to be a sample size worth making a definitive determination on what he can produce if given a full-time DH spot in the lineup. Hiura did himself no favors earning more at bats with his exploding K rate during that timeframe - but even with that production Hiura still OPS'd in the mid to high 0.700s last season. What he's doing now in AAA warrants serious consideration of giving him an extended shot in the MLB lineup once the Brewers acknowledge some of the veteran pickups made this offseason aren't contributing. More often than not teams aren't going to take flyers on players from other organizations at the end of spring training - they've all got their own guys who they're trying to eek through waivers (similar to NFL teams trying to slip "their guys" onto their practice squads). Poorly performing teams that have room on their 40 man roster for a guy like Hiura would be interested in the midst of the season after they've officially waived the white flag on the season I've consistently thought the biggest flaw in the Brewers' roster construction the past few seasons has been using the DH as a platoon-heavy role and seemingly using multiple roster spots on guys who are marginal corner IF/OF starters - I think they would be much better off giving the DH role to 1 player and then adding more players with positional versatility that play solid defense and try exploiting platoon advantages that way. Hiura would've been an ideal fit to be the fulltime DH last season to see what he could produce - instead the Brewers threw ~$15M at an aging McCutcheon and then didn't let Hiura hit against RHP much at all before shuttling him down to AAA early last season.

I think they should trade Houser for Suter and then extend Suter.

Mexico City has been somewhat spared from the drug cartel violence in many other parts of Mexico, primarily because most of the wealth in that country chooses to live in affluent parts of Mexico city. Cartel kingpins play relatively nice in a metropolis that size when they all have kin living there. Its not part of turf wars for smuggling routes to the states, either. Its a huge city that has the same problems as most other major metropolitan centers in the world, but it's not crime that will prevent a mlb team from calling Mexico city home.

Joey Wiemer belongs...guy looks like a 10 year corner OF starter and can also go get it in center. He's never going to win batting titles, but he'll have a few seasons hitting 30-40 bombs with plus defense and baserunning.

I think far too many people (Burnes included) assume that the ~1.75 season stretch from 2020 through early 2022 are how we can expect Burnes to consistently perform for the next 5+ seasons. That level of performance is basically one of the top 2 or 3 starters in the game. It's much more likely that Burnes is of the type of pitcher we've seen since mid-2022 moving forward - particularly with the pitch clock change...that profiles him to be a solid starter, but not one destined for the HOF. I think the NL Central is bad enough where the Brewers should be happy rolling with Burnes the next 1.75 seasons they still control him for, and then wish him well in free agency. He won't be setting any free agent contract precedents for a starting pitcher, but he'll still be too pricey for the Brewers to retain. Be happy with getting his best years of production and move on.