Fear The Chorizo

Burnes said he felt like he was put in the forefront for them missing the playoffs - he didn't say "The Brewers said in the hearing I was the reason they missed the playoffs last year". That's a big difference, and I think you're likely running with how Burnes feels after losing the arbitration hearing beyond what the Brewers actually said. Burnes can infer he was put at the forefront of why they didn't make the playoffs if the Brewers simply laid out his 2nd half stats for 2022 (which is a large part of what arbitration hearings are about from the team's side of things) - but that doesn't mean the Brewers stated that directly during the hearing. Frankly, I doubt they did.

$10.56 isn't halfway between the two sides' positions - when it gets to decision making time at the arbitration deadline, the player and his reps have to weigh whether the current offer on the table by the team (likely closer to halfway between, probably $10.4M for the sake of argument) is acceptable, or they want to take the risk of making $350K more vs losing $350K if they lose in arbitration while trying to establish a new precedent for future arbitration hearings. There's tremendous pressure on star players to go to arbitration by the players union, but oftentimes they view the risk as being worth it knowing those starts will get more than enough money once they reach free agency. I don't blame Burnes for trying to get his initial position in arbitration, understanding he probably had the players union in his ear convincing him it's in the best interest for him in the long run no matter what the decision was. It's poor form on his part to handle the L in this way.

I'll reserve naming any prospects, no matter how fantastic they appear to be, stars until they prove it at the MLB level. And no way do I want the Brewers paying market value to extend Adames or Woodruff and likely prevent any sort of career-long extension for the likes of Chourio if he does prove to be the 2nd coming.

Bieber pitched less than 100 innings in 2021 and had shoulder issues, which was why his Arby 1 salary wasn't as high as Burnes. Look at it from the lense of Bieber not getting his full value in Arby 1 due to injury/performance in 2021 and then getting his full value in Arby 2. Meanwhile, Burnes got his full value in both Arby 1 and Arby 2, but he asked for more than what the system would give him in Arby 2 and is upset he and the players union didn't get the result they wanted.

If they're honest with themselves I don't see why not. Curious if there's ever been a team who lost an arbitration hearing air their grievances to the media and bash the player publicly.

Why does that amount have to be the exact same increase when Bieber's Arby 1 amount came on the heels of a limited innings 2021 season due to injury, and Burnes' Arby 1 amount came on the heels of winning the Cy Young award? Of course Bieber's Arby 1 salary would be lower than Burnes', and Burnes rightfully got a higher amount. If Bieber were healthy throughout 2021 and had a typical 2021 season to his standards, he would have gotten what Burnes earned in 2022 as well. And he still would have gotten the $10.01 M he signed for in Arby 2 this offseason. The Arby 2 amounts are largely based on how the pitcher performs the season prior along with service time considerations, and the amounts factor in similar pitcher salary histories. Like it or not, that's how the process works.

I'll gladly ignore comments made from a player who was willingly kept long enough for 10 years of service time by the organization he's bashing when he was hitting like a pitcher for more than a season, and a reliever who probably knew he wasn't going to sign a longterm deal with the Brewers well before he started the arbitration process, also.

Bieber got $10.01M before going to a hearing - Burnes received $10.01 after losing his hearing. He did get the Bieber sum.

Or it could be construed as the team doesn't see the point of airing dirty laundry in public, or getting into a he said/I said sort of dispute with their best pitcher headed into Spring Training, and instead opt to chalk Burnes' comments up to being frustrated with the process and stick with their comments made yesterday after results of the hearing decision were made public, which were all very positive towards Burnes.

If I'm not mistaken, the arbitration hearing only can use the figures both sides initially filed, not any of the negotiated sums they may have been close with prior to the deadline in between. That's often why most of these wind up meeting somewhere in the middle, which is apparently where both sides were up to the last minute and not able to reach a deal.

So exactly what did the team representatives say in the hearing? Word for word, not just a glossed over summary from the mouth of the pitcher who didn't get his way in the arbitration hearing. You're drawing way too precise a conclusion as to exactly how the arbitration hearing unfolded based on Burnes' comments today, and nothing specific from the Brewers.

I'm already sick of the posts that will surely be written right after Burnes is traded or signs a free agent deal elsewhere stating that "if the Brewers only weren't so cheap and had paid Burnes $740K more and avoided that arbitration hearing and upsetting Corbin's feelings, maybe he'd still be a Brewer" And mods, can this thread please be merged with the "article" thread that was just written about this exact same topic? Multiple threads about the same topic just make this board harder to navigate than it already is, and the article itself is nothing more than a detailed opinion post that includes a fancy word in it, anyways.

Burnes' Brewers career thus far: 2018 - late season callup and dominated as a multi-inning reliever 2019 - arguably the worst starting pitcher in baseball until he went back to the minors and then came back in the relief role again 2020 - dominant as a starter during the short COVID year after adding the cutter. 2021 - won the NL Cy Young despite pitching only 167 innings as a starter due to the 6 man rotation 2022 - really good year as a starter, but scuffled a bit down the stretch when the Brewers leaned on him every 5th day instead of every 6th. He's only averaged 103 MLB innings pitched per season over 5 years, so it's not like his 2nd year into arbitration has 5 solid years of stats commonly seen with an ace. Bieber is a very accurate comp to Burnes in that they're both in their 2nd arbitration year - however Bieber has 703 IP to Burnes' 515 at the MLB level, which is basically an entire season of innings for Burnes' expected workload. Bieber signed for $10.01M with the Guardians and avoided arbitration by the way - I think that's exactly what Burnes just got via arbitration...it's not like these numbers aren't based on tons of historical comps and previous salaries. And I really have a hard time believing the Brewers actually stated in the hearing something along the lines of "Burnes really cost us a shot at making the playoffs last season"....it's more likely they made the case that once his workload was increased to the level most ace-caliber starting pitchers carried (i.e., pitching every 5th game and being expected to get into the 7th/8th innings), Burnes' production faltered. If people don't think teams looking to sign Burnes in free agency won't look at those same things when deciding whether to offer him $35M a season or $40 on a longterm deal, they're fooling themselves. Burnes and his agent know that, too, and are likely very sensitive about it.

No he couldn't, because he's not a free agent - the system is structured in a way that underpays most guys in their prime production years as they work through salary arbitration, then it often pays them guaranteed money far beyond what they're worth on the field later in their career. Without a different system, there's no point to grouse about playing by the rules within it.

This is all so dumb - and it makes Burnes and his representation look bad for running to a microphone to parrot this crap. The only reason this went to arbitration at all was the fact both sides know there's no way a longterm extension in Milwaukee is happening, and they've know that for multiple seasons. Once that fact is out in the open between the two parties, what's the point of the Brewers to fork over more than what the arbitration process determines, and for that matter what's the point of Burnes accepting less than what he wants before the hearing happens? Corbin needs to put on some big boy pants and realize this is all part of the business side of a process that will ultimately make him generationally wealthy in a couple offseasons, and frankly already has even though he hasn't yet reached free agency.

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.

The internet (women and Rihanna fangirls) were calling it historical. Like...it was something to put in a history book. One person exclaimed, "I can't believe I just watched actual history in real life." That was all predetermined by those groups of people before she even sang/lip synched a note Sunday and the world's supply of white puffy vests was exhausted - on the other hand, my wife was really looking forward to it, but then cringed through the whole performance and thought it wasn't entertaining at all. She loved last year's and the JLo/Shakira halftime show, but is brutally honest when something isn't good. Rihanna's halftime show was a dud, and the only reasons to argue otherwise have nothing to do with the actual performance.

Yeah, but then why dust off Rihanna or for that matter 40- and 50-something rappers? Madonna? I'm sure there's no way it would ever happen, but I'd prefer a revamped halftime show that tries to incorporate acts from multiple genres - not meshing weird collaborations together on stage like when MTV was heavily involved, but having stars present and past from rock, pop, hip hop/R&B, country, etc all perform their stuff individually....and keep the identities of the groups performing a secret. If they want to generate fan interest from across the musical/cultural spectrum, that would be pretty cool. Another option could be the halftime show honoring a legendary group or artist, and then have stars of today perform some of their hits - maybe finishing with that group/artist playing a song, similar to music hall of fame inductions or Kennedy Center Honors events.

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.

I think a group like Tool, Incubus, or Smashing Pumpkins could put on a really good halftime show. Prince's was an all timer, and part of why it was so awesome was he had no qualms playing a couple covers along with some of his hits. Finding a rock group or artist that could go a similar route would be pretty sweet. We'll probably get Tswift of Edie Sheeran instead for next year, but oh well. Heck, Queen with Adam Lambert wouldn't be a bad option....something where there's actual instruments played to make the songs as part of the performance rather than filling up a football field with dancers would be good if only for the sake of mixing it up a bit.

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.

All in all, a really entertaining game that ended sort of meh due to the gimme field goal - but the Philly defense has only themselves to blame not being able to stop KC at all in the 2nd half. The game had the look of a blowout in the other direction even with Hurts handing the Chiefs a touchdown with that 1st half fumble. KC adjusted and their oline played fantastic in the 2nd half, but Philly's D didn't have an answer for the adjustments the Chiefs made with route concepts on the fake crossing/motion action that left guys running wide open in the red zone for easy scores.

Would there be an option to have 'Articles' or 'Forum Member Articles' as its own Forum group instead of grouping them all into the 'Brewers Talk' Forum? They appear to have the most posting activity on the forum board because there seems to be 2-3 new articles per day slapped on the Brewers Talk forum and there are no new topics this time of year