Fear The Chorizo

It's at least some smoke....although the "per sources" stuff is just sloppy and speculative - could just as easily be Hackett calling Rodgers after his darkness retreat asking him how it went, but I kind of hope there's more to it than that. I think it's time both Rodgers and the Packers moved on separately, because it's best for both of them.

That's not how arbitration works...like at all. And that's also not how the process of the Brewers trying to negotiate a 2023 contract amount with Burns played out either, like at all. The Brewers offered Burnes a 2 year deal that would have avoided both this year's arbitration and next year's arbitration process, and buy out zero years of free agency. By the way, the Brewers did that with Prince Fielder when they knew he was destined for free agency also, and Fielder/Boras signed that contract. Burnes' camp stated that 2 yr offer from the Brewers was "pretty poor" - not exactly surprised by that from a guy willing to go to the mat in arby year 2 over about $700K in salary difference on a $10M+ contract and one that has probably been told by everyone in the players association that he should be the pitcher to reset the free agent market in a couple offseasons. Woodruff is also a homegrown star, and they avoided arbitration this season. Peralta was essentially a homegrown star and signed a longterm contract extension with the Brewers years ago. Adames and Woodruff agreed with the Brewers on contract amounts and avoided arbitration - those settled amounts were between what the Brewers and respective players initially proposed in arbitration. Once the deadline for negotiated arby settlements expired, Burnes 2023 contract was either going to be the amount his camp posted or what the Brewers posted initially, not any amount that was in between while they were negotiating. Once it goes to arbitration, your side either wins or loses, there's no "let's meet in the middle" anymore. Given the fact that I think Burnes was the only player of like 12 possible arbitration cases that actually didn't settle with the Brewers somewhere between the initial proposed amounts, I'd be inclined to think whatever amount the Brewers moved the needle between theirs and Burnes' initial arbitration posting amounts was a reasonable compromise - but that would presume that Burnes and his agent had any intent of moving down from their proposed contract value. The only speculating going on is people turning quotes that were generalizing the process from a frustrated Burnes 2 days after losing his hearing into what was actually stated by the Brewers' representatives during the hearing.

Obviously not comprehensive, but look at his setups in those two graphics posted in the article...2019 his stance started open and stayed open, with a small leg kick that seemed to get alot more drive from his lower half once he dropped that front foot and fired through with his hips. The 2022 swing shows Yelich's stance as neutral and perhaps even a bit closed, and instead of a leg kick he uses a toe tap that doesn't yield as much drive from his lower half through the swing - not saying it's lingering issues with the front knee injury, but I think it has more to do with ongoing back issues that limit how much torque he can put into a swing from the ground up. That is also evident in the comparison of those 2019 and 2022 stances - Yelich has more knee bend in his stance and throughout his swing in 2019, and remains much more upright in that 2022 swing.

Article needs a quick revision in paragraph 1, as I think Turang is ranked #4, correct? People are quick to forget that Turang was the top positional prospect in his age group for multiple years prior to his senior year in high school and considered a potential top overall selection in the 2018 draft prior to summer of 2017. He slipped a bit due mainly to concerns about his slight frame/build leading up to the 2018 draft, which IMO was a gift to the Brewers being able to pick him at #21 overall that draft. He's going to have a long MLB career, and I'm looking forward to him getting to Milwaukee soon!

I'm really looking forward to seeing how Misiorowski has developed over the offseason - could be a meteoric rise through the system if the command improves with a more consistent delivery.

Yes, plus Contreras. If it wasn't he wouldn't have gone from nowhere to a consensus top 10 prospect in all of baseball after last season. He is 4 years younger than Frelick and 6 years younger than both Mitchell and Wiemer, and he reached double-fricking A as a child last season. That just doesn't happen unless you've got enough talent to essentially be untouchable as a prospect as soon as you start playing in the minor leagues.

If you were comparing Ruiz, Mitchell, Frelick, and Wiemer - sure. Trading Chourio right now would probably land Contreras plus at least two of the prospects listed above, and I'd still be upset they traded Chourio. When a young prospect flashes the type of ceiling Chourio has, he quickly becomes untradeable at the age he is.

He won't be cementing his prospect rating the next couple years, he'll be in the major leagues by then, barring injury. And I'd make the argument that there aren't more than a couple other prospects/rookies across all of MLB right now that would carry more trade value than Chourio - Garret Mitchell is a quality prospect, but he's nowhere close to as valuable as Chourio is, who happens to be 5+ years younger than Mitchell.

If Chourio is the player most scouts and we all hope think he can be, he's not spending two more full seasons in the minor leagues no matter how much OF depth is in front of him in Milwaukee and higher levels of the minor leagues - Chourio is the type of prospect you make room for by willingly trading away major league players with multiple years of team control remaining that might be blocking him. If he has a really good 2023 season, he'll be in Milwaukee in 2024, if not sooner.

I think the glut of options for this OF indicates a couple of the high minors prospect options (Frelick, Wiemer) are likely to start the year in AAA - and I also think it's likely we'll see a trade or two that includes either some of the veteran OFs like Taylor or seasoned but not as highly regarded prospects (Lutz, Gray JR, Perez, etc) to both thin the herd and add bullpen pieces if the team is in buy mode at the deadline. I think with Chourio coming behind Mitchell, Wiemer, and Frelick, it also wouldn't surprise me if one of those three is traded for a roster upgrade elsewhere over the next calendar year - Chourio is the type of prospect you absolutely make room for as soon as he proves to be ready for the show. As an aside, I wondered how long I'd have to read before seeing Suter's name mentioned in an article that's supposed to be entirely about this year's Brewer outfield options...10 sentences in was actually a pretty good job by clancy holding off! However, I'm a bit disappointed there was no mention of Cooper Hummel.

lol - ok. in 2000 they were about $0.91/dozen, too. My point wasn't specific to egg costs, anyways, so feel free to insert the exploding cost of just about anything.

When sandwich artists and big box department store greeters are earning more than $15/hr with benefits, and with one of the end results of that policy push being $5/dozen eggs (not free range/conflict free/virtue signal-positive eggs, but the cheap ones most of us savages get), "good talent" should absolutely earn six figures in this economy.

The track of record of both McGinn and Florio related to Rodgers is one that they both despise him, and this article kind of feels like wishful thinking on their part. The Packers may very well move on from Rodgers, but it's not because they're disgusted with him.

If you didn't already realize as much after he won the Cy Young award in 2021 and entered into arbitration and there wasn't a contract extension announced that offseason, I'm not sure what else you were expecting.

There's also a fine line between using a comprehensive season-long set of data to come to a conclusion that a player like Urias isn't attacking early in the count enough, while neglecting to put it into proper anecdotal context - a different poster pointed out Urias' overall swing rate dipped during a chunk of the season when he was going through thumb injury issues, kind of an expected thing. How many of the called strikes Urias let go early in counts last year were middle-middle fastballs? I don't see anywhere in the article pointing to specific data that Urias was letting too many middle-middle fastballs or even any waist-high strikes sail by early in counts without swinging, just that he's letting called strikes go by. All that's included is a chart showing average fastball height based on # of strikes in a count across the entire league, which differs in total by about 3.5 inches. There's a big difference between swinging at a meatball and a pitcher's strike early in a count. Am I missing something with the graphic stating he does most of his damage on middle middle fastballs, but there isn't a distribution of pitches called strikes that Urias didn't swing at that would indicate there's a ton of hittable pitches Urias is letting go by compared to peers? And the article mentions Urias may be trading too many singles in effort to gain more walks...isn't the end result of a walk or a single in most at bats the same for a hitter - meaning they end up on 1st? I get that a bloop single is often better than a walk with runners on base in terms of scoring runs, but once again specific scenarios and breakdowns of what Urias' approach was in those spots need to be looked at before simply stating in the article that if he swings the bat more he's going to be a better hitter this year.

With his current approach, Urias draws one walk for every two Ks, and maintains an OBP roughly 100 points higher than his batting average while slugging at a pretty good clip for a utility infielder. There's a time and a place to try and ambush a get me over strike, and anecdotally Urias has been known to do just that - I don't see the point in trying to force all these Brewer hitters to become uber aggressive in effort to try and hit every strike deemed a meatball, particularly ones on the roster who actually don't have a K rate problem and who draw a good amount of walks as part of their offensive value.

The article fails to mention the possibility that Tellez's approach with taking seemingly hittable pitches could have alot to do with scouting reports and him keying in on a certain pitch/location early in counts - if he's sitting on offspeed trying to jump on a get me over strike and the pitcher instead throws a mid 90's cutter, he's not going to do anything with that pitch. It's easy to say, "Get more aggressive at pitches that wind up being in the heart of the zone" - but the approach Tellez has used to become a 30+ HR slugger at the highest level of the game appears to be one where he works counts as much as possible and likely is sitting on certain pitches in spots. We've got to remember that he's never been considered an all-world hitting talent that can adjust to any pitch at any time - his swing path is actually quite long, which to me indicates he prefers to try and get into predictable hitter's counts to key in on a fastball headed for the strike zone to do damage...and until he gets to those counts he's probably got a specific pitch and location he's keyed in on to actually swing. Nothing wrong with that approach. For a guy like Tellez, limited shifting should lead to higher BABIP just by default with the exact same approach he has, so I wouldn't change a thing and hope for better luck to generate better offensive production overall while maintaining quality slugging output.

Try 6.4 Layoffs appear to be happening in tech and on the coasts. Here in flyover country there are still huge amounts of open positions. Job openings are great, but a good number of them are likely due either to a lack of workers in that area qualified/experienced for those positions or the compensation being offered in those roles by employers isn't enticing enough to get people to work for them. ''We're Hiring" signs and job postings can quickly be taken out of windows and off recruiting websites, too - oftentimes replaced by "Going out of Business" signs. In my field, one thing I'm noticing with my company is a ton of upper management folks retiring across offices all over the country - it's mainly a product of my industry being around roughly 40 yrs and the baby boomer generation that really made their first lifelong careers in it are ready to move on. So the job openings we have as a company are more in the backfilling of roles as people are leaving the workforce, basically treading water as a company and not growing in terms of # of employees. Just the sheer volume of Americans hitting that retirement age is likely driving increased hiring beyond what a struggling economy normally sees, because in the end companies need bodies to fill roles.

Some of the tea leaves I've been reading indicate the consumer spending portion of economic output has been propped up by people dipping into their savings and racking up credit card debt at an unsustainable pace to maintain their day to day quality of life in the face of inflationary pressures - there is some growing concern that these things are going to come to a head later this year and there's going to be a sharper than expected dip in economic output. In short, the start of 2023 is kind of a dead cat bounce on the consumer side of things economically, and inflationary pressure isn't going to ease fast enough to avoid a rough end to this year.

Peralta has a history of minor shoulder issues that cost him portions of the regular season, so it's not surprising to try and manage his workload - however, the Brewers' organizational philosophy of having a roster with a 6 man rotation and some long guys in the pen should be about all the extra management needed for any starter, Peralta included. Giving stretched out pitchers more than the rest a 6 man rotation offers could be just as problematic to a pitching arm as what a 5 man rotation rest cycle would be. So, if Peralta is healthy and it's his turn to pitch within a 6 man rotation, give him the ball. I just think we have to cross our fingers that 2023 winds up being a largely healthy and effective season for Freddy, which would give the Brewers a great top 3 rotation arms to churn through the regular season.

So is this still because it got really cold over a month ago during the typical refinery holiday shutdown period, or is it more due to the fact they've stopped drawing from the SPR for a few weeks and wasted the previous year not getting domestic production capacity (both extraction and more importantly refining) to a place where it could keep up with demand? And this is before any actual small volume purchases to start refilling the SPR directly reduce available crude for fuel refining. If we thought gas prices were bad last spring/early summer, I think this year's saying "hold my beer", even with economic output sputtering.

I think that contract extension for Peralta keeps Freddy propped way up the organization value pecking order for sure....but his onfield performance and frankly limited availability due to injury issues has diminished his value well outside the top 5 assets to the organization, IMO. Fact is Peralta has pitched over 100 innings at the MLB level just once (2021). Freddy has electric stuff when he's healthy, but he's got a history of minor shoulder issues and has such an athletic delivery for a small framed guy you've got to wonder if minor injuries are something we've got to live with him every season....or if one significant injury is going to really diminish him. Availability as a pitcher carries tremendous value, and even if people believe pitching injuries are a random occurrence some pitchers are snakebit more than others in that department.

I think if Chourio has a good 2022 season, he's going to be in Milwaukee sooner than a couple seasons from now.

Valuation means nothing in terms of actual dollars to spend unless you sell the team, or unless you borrow against that valuation. This article talks about how the Cards and Cubs have been big spenders in the NL Central relative to the rest of the division this offseason - to that I say "of course"....look at what the television/broadcast contracts for the NL Central teams are along with market size and you know why the Cubs and Cards can spend more than the Brewers. Their average ticket prices are also significantly higher than the Brewers...perhaps this article should include a push to dramatically increase the average ticket price for Brewer games in order to bolster actual revenue and afford longterm contract extensions, so they can at least be competitive with the rest of their division financially.

I actually like the idea of a RB early - if it's the right guy, and Robinson would fit the bill as the right guy. In this year's draft, it wouldn't surprise me if he goes much higher than his current projection, though. Dillon is a bellcow-type back, but I don't like the idea of paying him a ton of $ to play 3-4 more seasons in Green Bay and live through the inevitable injuries/wear and tear of a power running back. So, provided Jones is a cap casualty the RB room is pretty thin, especially 2-3 seasons out. As a roster, this team needs new safeties, TE, RB, and OLB. Interior DL would be nice but assuming Clark is still here next season you have to roll with Wyatt next to him based on what he did down the stretch and the fact he's a 1st round talent and fill in behind it with veteran depth.