Fear The Chorizo

I can see the Rays churning alot of their bullpen arms this offseason in hopes to pick up a bunch of lottery ticket guys to stash and develop in their low minors who are years away from 40 man roster consideration. I doubt they get too crazy with just jettisoning quality MLB position players. The Rays would actually be in a pinch if issues with the new CBA negotiations lead to roster management uncertainty late into the offseason, and they get forced into making a bunch of moves up against a tight schedule - frankly if other organizations stopped being so willing to send their green prospects that don't instantly need to be 40-man roster protected in trades with the Rays, Tampa would wind up losing a bunch of MLB-caliber talent for nothing in return because their system is to the point of being too deep - almost like their payroll frugalness works against them at this point because they don't have the financial means to take on big salary via trade for premier veteran talent.

meh - A.J. Green will probably take too many touches away from Hopkins for that record to be in jeopardy;)

The Cards are a missed chip shot FG by the Vikings from not being unbeaten - and the Packers could pretty easily be a 3-3 team at this point dealing with a ton of injuries. And JJ Watt can care about both money and winning - The Cardinals were a likely playoff team prior to him signing there, but if Green Bay could've offered him the same amount of money as the Cardinals did we all know he'd be a Packer. The Cardinals have the luxury of those type of significant veteran free agent splurges to fill roster gaps while their signal caller is still on his rookie deal (even if it's still for a decent amount of coin with Murray being the #1 overall pick a few years ago, a ~$9.5million cap hit for your starting QB is quite a bit different than the ~$28M one Rodgers has for this year - and that's after that restructure done right before training camp started.) I recall one of the first thursday night football games was between the Packers and Cowboys in November - and I believe both of them had just one loss so it had huge playoff seeding implications. I think Favre had a terrible start to the game and got knocked out of it - and then Rodgers came in during what seemed to everyone like garbage time and almost won them that game. There have probably been a bunch of other hyped up TNF games - but when the teams are still licking their wounds from playing 4 days earlier more often than not the quality of play on Thursday nights sucks.

I'm trying to figure out what the hell Roberts is doing with the Dodger pitching staff....Scherzer almost hast to be starting tonight, right? Buehler giving them a stinker of a start in Game 3 really has their pen on fumes. Muncy being out really has hurt them...and now Justin Turner's done - if it weren't for Bellinger catching lightning in a bottle this postseason they probably don't even get out of the NLDS round and certainly wound up getting swept by the Braves. Braves have that feel of the so-so regular season team that underperformed for 162 due to some key injuries (Acuna, hello!) and inconsistent pitching that figured it out at the right time and are riding their supporting cast bats who got hot in October (Pearls, Rosario, etc). Speaks to the randomness of baseball playoffs more than anything. It's not that the Braves are the best team this year, but they're going to make the world series because they're playing the best overall as a team right now.

Wiemer is the type of prospect that if he improves his hit/contact tool, he's an all star. Other side of that coin is if he doesn't keep improving that tool he could flame out as quickly as a prospect because he'll strike out constantly against developed pitching. But his other tools are going to give him plenty of chances to succeed at the big league level - He just looks like a MLB corner OF right now and it's just a matter of him being able to make contact consistently. I think there was some early season helium on his draft stock back in 2020 before COVID shut down the college season, and the Brewers benefitted from him not gaining more attention to pick him where they did. hopefully he keeps improving/developing and excited to see where he starts the 2022 season!

Seems quite a bit of people consider the entire infield a lock, which includes Tellez. I have definitely seen more than one person call him the 1B going into next year. I think that's the dilemma with a 95 win team that will be on a budget - their largest contracts all seem to reside in the OF, and unfortunately that's the position group that probably needs to be improved the most. That really hamstrings them unless the Brewers want to move pieces of a decent looking infield to help acquire OF upgrades. To me that might be reshuffling deck chairs that won't wind up moving the needle much. The Brewers have to hope Yelich improves offensively next season - they are stuck with him for better or worse, so we have to hope it's for better at this point. If they get better production from him alot of the offensive concerns for this club don't look as dire. He doesn't have to be one of the top 2-3 offensive players in the league, but he needs to be all-star caliber to really make things go. I think Avi is gone and then the Brewers try to bring in another OF via trade or FA this winter that can play all 3 positions. I think Tellez penciled in at 1B is just fine....and if Hiura isn't traded in the offseason he probably goes into next year as a potential platoon mate/DH option (if the new CBA leads to a DH in the NL). That wouldn't just be handed to Hiura, he'd need to earn it - but that would be the best way the current roster could shake out IMO.

I know someone that had an agreement to house a Wisconsin Rapids Rafter baseball player many summers. I don't see any reason why the lower minors aren't the same and have people ready to house players if need be. Something tells me this isn't being done for the Sal Frelicks of the world....maybe he could use some of his $4M signing bonus to help cover some lease bills? Also, I do think alot of minor league clubs have agreements in place with local apartment/condo/rental outfits to help house players during the season because of how fluid rosters can be. Whether or not rent for those places should be paid by players on peanut contracts or folded into a housing benefit provided by the minor league team/MLB organization responsible for them on that team is a different discussion. You don't really hear too many stories of guys getting called up to the next level and having a tremendous amount of difficulty finding a place to sleep.

This is all well and good...but MLB organizations for the most part actually don't own minor league teams. Sure, their drafted players are under various contracts, but those contracts aren't really tied at all to various travel/per diem expenses during a minor league season. For the vast majority of instances, major league organizations are responsible for salaries of uniformed personnel, but not for travel/operational expenses. In my opinion a larger part of the costs for of player housing and per diem should rest on the shoulders of the minor league club ownership and not the MLB organization they are affiliated with. Do MLB teams receive a percentage of the minor league ticket revenue in return? That's an honest question, because if they don't, what exactly are the minor league clubs spending that income on? More than half of the minor league roster spots are taken up by guys who never signed a contract with a big signing bonus - but this problem isn't just a MLB issue...to me more scrutiny of the minor league teams these guys are playing for and not just the MLB club they might wind up playing for someday if they advance through 2,3,4, heck 6 more minor league levels.

Yeah, pretty sure he's not going to be on the block anytime soon.

Thank goodness for sideline mics - that is classic

Lol Rodgers

Bears have 90 yds total offense since their opening drive....against a severely depleted gb secondary. If the Packers don't turn it over this game is over

Gotta also remember Fields has a reputation for not having great situational awareness and either not getting down fast enough or not having good pocket awareness, and its led to him getting lit up at both the collegiate and pro level. Not saying it shouldn't have been a penalty, but if he gives himself up a half second sooner for 1 less yard gained that play doesn't happen.

I think the Seahawks ran that 1st and goal run with Lynch just assuming the Patriots would call timeout if they didn't let Lynch score (they had 2 TOs left themselves) to try and preserve the clock for a last ditch effort by Brady to drive down for what would be a game-tying FG opportunity. By the Patriots not calling timeout the Seahawks didn't have a play/plan immediately in mind and wound up trying to get cute by calling a pass on 2nd down to preserve their own timeout to give them an option to either run or pass on 3rd down, if necessary. The forced themselves into a somewhat predictable playcall that the Patriots took a gamble on and jumped the route - at least enough of that defense did for Butler to make that play. The Seahawks spent most of the break that I think was a replay review of that Kearse catch celebrating the play and not figuring out a game plan for the goal to go situation - they would've been much better off just going with the idea of two called runs on 1st and 2nd down without taking a timeout. Those plays could've both been run by the time the running clock reached 25 seconds, and had the Pats stuffed Lynch the Seahawks call timeout and then have a 3rd down pass and 4th down run/pass option to still try to punch it in. Credit Butler for making a great sell out play to make that pick on 2nd and goal - but the Seahawks really bungled that situation letting 30 seconds of clock run off for nothing and then still not running the ball on 2nd down. When a team needs a touchdown to tie or take the lead at the end of a game, I think that team should never get cute with clock management and let time just burn off assuming that score is inevitable - or to be worried about what the opposing team could do with less than a minute remaining on offense if a FG at the end of regulation can't beat you. A false start or injury happening would force either a ten second runoff or a team to burn a timeout.

Not that I was expecting Flores to get a hit off Mad Max - but bad check swing call is a pretty awful way to end a great series. There's going to be some sort of rule put in to go to a quick replay and have the homeplate ump make the call on that instead of appealing to a guy 120 feet down the line in those spots. The human element of that call should be that unless it's obvious in that spot, it's not a swing.

Pujols, maybe? Chris Carpenter, probably... Alex Jones, definitely

Okay lets pump the brakes a bit... IF....IFFFF....Yelich is this bad forever and never really becomes a mid .800 OPS player again I don't think this is that insane of a take. I could see 9 years of depressing agony having to watch Yelich outweighing two good years. I certainly wouldn't look back and think "I am so glad we made that trade still." I'm always going to look at the decisions to trade for Yelich at the time and to give him an extension in early 2020 separately. The trade will go down as one of the biggest pieces of highway robbery ever, because it included 5 seasons of team control of Yelich at friendly costs based on his performance as a Marlin. Then he goes video game mode and is MVP-caliber in 2018-2019 - the Brewers aren't a playoff team without him those two seasons. The decision to lock him into a huge contract extension despite still having 3 years left on his last deal (2022 team option included) before he proved that he was all the way back as a player following that knee injury could now wind up being one of the all-time albatross moves - looked great at the time of the signing because all indications were that he was fully healed and raring to go, plus based on his 2 MVP-caliber seasons he left alot of money on the table. Since then, it's been a disaster and we are only now reaching the spot where the annual payroll commitment to him is going to lead to hard decisions made on other young players working through arbitration/free agency. To think that if they just waited a bit to get serious about an extension, there's a good chance we'd be talking about whether or not the Brewers should exercise Yelich's 2022 option from his last deal for around $15M or just buy him out for a couple million and let him walk.

The data from that article just screams to me that he's lost the leverage in his swing that his frame naturally generates - not getting enough torque to generate bat speed so what he thinks is an on time swing winds up dragging just enough to produce weak or no contact. Some of that is not having a solid foundation (legs), and if you have back issues swing speed is going to also suffer. Speculating, but the large dip in Yelich's 2020 swing rate could be attributed to prolonged recovery to that knee injury - although part of that could simply be teams were pitching around him knowing there wasn't anyone else on that offensive roster worth worrying about. For 2021, the swing rate picked back up - but the contact got weaker - as the season wore on pitchers started attacking him and Yelich wasn't making them pay. I actually hope there was something related to a nagging injury/ailment with his knee or back that can at least try to be addressed in the offseason - otherwise if he actually felt really healthy and just didn't have good results at the plate, Yelich is a diminished player and he needs to completely rethink his approach at the plate to be anything more than replacement level during the huge money years of the extension he inked between his MVP-caliber years and the last two disappointing years. I've said it in other threads detailing the end of this Brewer season - if they had the 2019 version of Yelich in the middle of this year's batting order the Brewers go much farther than losing in the NLDS.

Not lost on me is how much that seems to correlate to happen right after these qb's sign mega deals that take up huge portions of cap room. With the exception of Brady (who frankly has done alot to avoid his contract being an anchor that limits the roster around him), the formula has been to build a dynamic team and hope you pick the right qb in the draft to win a super bowl on his rookie deal, before you can't afford anyone else but that franchise quarterback.

Again, nobody is saying pitching is most to blame for losing the series....but the lack of depth in the pen was exposed across just 4 playoff games because it got leaned on too heavily, and that was a factor in two of the Brewers' 3 losses. Of course the offense is the primary issue, but the thinned pen without Williams and some of the in-game decisions by CC to put the game on the bullpen earlier than he needed to also have to be looked at. The Braves did most of their offensive damage that led to runs being scored against the Brewers' bullpen and not their starting pitchers. The Brewers did nothing against the Braves' pen with the exception of Tellez's 2-run shot yesterday against Ynoa - a guy who was a starter in the regular season. The Braves' team OPS was 0.697 for the series - the Brewers was 0.527 - main difference between the two teams was what the Braves got from their offensive bench in key spots (Pearls, Rosario yesterday) compared to the Brewers getting absolutely nothing despite tons of pinch hit opportunities. The damage done by those Brave bench at bats was against the Brewers' bullpen. With the exception of Pearls hitting 2 bombs off the bench, the Braves regular lineup didn't fare much better than the Brewers - particularly against the Brewers' starters - in the series.

I understand the thought process here, but if the Brewers are in a playoff chase at the trade deadline and they trade Hader, out stud closer, that will be a shocking development. no way a contending team trades away the best closer in baseball at the deadline if they are still competing for a playoff spot. My thought process is that if the Brewers are in that playoff chase, of course Hader isn't traded. They then wind up having him for his entire pre-free agency career and get the benefit of watching him pitch high leverage innings for 7 full seasons - mostly for a much lower than market rate for a stud reliever. Then you take the comp pick if he leaves via free agency in the offseason - which I would definitely advocate for because the Brewers can't be throwing $20M per season at a closer headed into his 30's. Only way he's traded is if they are out of contention at the deadline during the 2023 season, or enough disaster hits the team in early 2022 that the Brewers opt to burn it all down next season at the deadline like the Cubs did this year (talking starting pitcher arm injuries, Stearns leaving, or just a horrible start) - and every playoff contender would want him in their bullpen. With the pitching staff/roster the Brewers currently have and the division they are in, there's no way either the next two offseasons are viewed as 'rebuild' years - so there's zero chance he's dealt in an offseason trade.

I mean, he has done things before and pitched Hader out of the 9th inning. Twice in the 2018 NLCS he pitched three innings. The first of which didn't include either the 8th or 9th. Postseason baseball is different. Counsell couldn't stop toying with making sure he used all three catchers. Not sure he does stuff like that in the regular season. Does Peralta get pulled dominating through 4 innings in the regular season? Does Woodruff pitch on two days rest in the middle of a game? None of that happened all season till then In 2018 Hader was routinely used as a multi inning reliever before the 8th inning - regular and postseason - most of Hader's appearances that year were multi-inning, several covering 3 innings. That hasn't been the case since then, particularly this season. That year also had a bullpen with prime Knebel as its closer, two other quality veteran relievers with closer experience (Soria & Jeffress), and the current Brewers' #1-3 starters in it come postseason (Peralta, Woodruff, Burnes). This year's team leaned heavy on starting pitching quality and depth (6 starters most of the year to try and get deeper into games), and then finishing the last 2-3 innings off with a combination of the rest of the pen getting to the 8th + Williams/Hader for the last 6 outs. The 2018 squad was designed to get games to the bullpen by inning 4-5 in the postseason because they had crazy depth of arms that could cover multiple innings and no fear of running out of arms if things reached extras. Yes postseason baseball is different and at times unorthodox - but IMO the decisions to pull Peralta after 4 shutout innings in a scoreless game 3 and bring Hader into the 8th with likely no option of him pitching the 9th in game 4 were impacted by not having Williams to lean on for key outs late in a tight game. Not saying Williams is the difference between winning and losing those games, but it definitely contributed to the bullpen being much more of a firedrill trying to cover a full 9 inning game than it would've been otherwise. I question both moves to pull starters out early in Games 3 and 4 by CC - I'd have much rather Lauer faced Arcia in the 4th inning in that spot instead of bringing in Strickland to face a lefty. CC had to know that Rosario was going to be hitting once Strickland was brought in. To me, that's pushing the game too soon into the bullpen for a pitching staff whose strength is its starting pitching. Ride or die with what brought you here, and that certainly didn't happen.

Yes, Williams is good so he isn't a slouch against either. However Hader had a .376 OPS against LHH with zero homers given up. Williams had a .692 OPS against LHH with 4 homers given up. That, to me, is a massive gap. Hader's splits on the other had were not far apart this year against either. He pretty much dominated anything. Agreed, but you also would need to put the context in the game into that decision - 8th inning tie game on the road with both Williams and Hader available and the pitcher's spot due up to bat 1st in the 9th, that's Williams' inning every damn time no matter who's coming up for the Braves.

I can't think of one off hand. But there were plenty of instances where they brought in Hader in a tied home game in the top of the 9th, which would be a similar non-save situation. The difference yesterday, of course, was that Hader would have likely come back out for the bottom of the 9th had the Brewers put a run or two across in the top of the 9th. There wasn't a double switch when Hader entered in the 8th and his spot was due up 1st in the 9th inning - unless you expected Hader to lead off a 9th inning rally at the plate he wasn't coming back to pitch the 9th.

Hader's not getting traded this offseason or next offseason - if Hader gets dealt, it'd be at the trade deadline during his last year of team control, and it would still be for a considerable haul. If Williams didn't currently have steel plates/screws in his surgically repaired pitching hand, maybe it makes sense to deal the best closer in the game knowing you've got a capable replacement to fill that role in-house. If the Brewers are content paying the amount of $ they will likely be doing for their 2022 outfield, it makes zero sense to view Hader as someone they need to trade for offensive upgrades because his pricetag is going to start escalating up to the actual on-field value he provides. Until the Brewers sort out their outfield mess, I'd say they have limited spots in the infield where a substantial upgrade is even warranted - Adames at SS, Tellez + RH platoon mate at 1B, Wong is at 2B, and Urias/platoon mate at 3B is pretty solid and at a reasonable cost.