Fear The Chorizo

I think there is, yes - still roughly 2.5 weeks before most MLB Opening Day games are scheduled. One option may be to simply push the first week of regular season games into early October to get as close to 1 month out from when many of these crowd gathering restrictions are being implemented. That would mean opening days are still happening in MLB parks, just that it's in early-mid April. I think they would actually prefer that to playing the first few weeks of meaningful baseball games in Spring Training locations. There will be a tipping point where the "abundance of caution" mindset driving many of these restrictions/limitations on public gatherings gets overtaken by data and statistical evidence that people are more than ok to exit their bubbles. There will likely be some sort of phasing back to normalcy - perhaps restrictions on older people or those with medical conditions from attending public events/gatherings. I'm guessing that will probably take place around the time everyone runs out of toilet paper, the supply chain has had a chance to restock Costco, and Americans as a whole can no longer stand spending any more quality time with family stuck in their own homes. Right now it's apparent that restricting/cancelling/postponing public events scheduled for the rest of this month is a good idea given the lack of information - two weeks from now that might not be the case for things scheduled in mid April moving forward.

From the US's perspective, the main thing that would have helped prolong when the virus reached US soil in earnest in people that were contagius would have been restricting travel from Europe soon after it was restricted from China, not this coming Friday. Many of the current US hot spots have been tied to people traveling back from Europe who were unknowingly exposed to the virus there. Since the original travel restriction from China was widely panned as being too harsh, I doubt expanding the travel ban to a wider net of the globe was on the table realistically at that time. The next few weeks are going to be tumultuous for sure, but I think the end result of this is people are going to look back a year from now and realize the measures taken really helped slow the diseases' spread (which I believe is inevitable no matter what takes place) to allow for the US medical system to effectively manage the outbreak and not be overwhelmed - that's about the best realistic outcome to expect with this virus. Until the US gets better data on what the denominator of this disease is, which I think is much higher than we realize because Covid-19 has likely been circulating untested through most of the world's population for much longer than the last month or two after testing outside of China began in earnest, the uncertainty will be the biggest driver in a tanking market and general public health concerns.

News just broke the tourneys will be played without fans. Also just in, if you're older than 65 you can't watch the games on television either.

Get used to it...just foreshadowing the western conference playoffs and finals to complete mission Ode to Kobe this season and establish the Giannis needs to leave milwaukee narrative.

I expect the farm system to take a significant jump in rankings this season, simply by the combination of some of their high school draftees having another year of development further up the chain (Turang, Lutz, etc) and having some recent collegiate draftees get enough minor league exposure for people to take notice (Small, Rasmussen, Ashby, etc). When prospects figure it out, even if they've had mixed results in early stages of their minor league careers, the Brewers seem to have no issues pushing them through the system and up to Milwaukee under Stearns' tenure - see Arcia, Burnes, Woodruff, Peralta, Hader, Grisham, Hiura, Suter, and I'm sure I'm missing a few. I still go back to when the Brewers were last ranked towards the top of the minor league system rankings in 2015/2016....with the exception of Hader, virtually none of those prospects that put their system towards the top of the heap in 2016 have amounted to anything at the MLB level that would be cause for regret trading them (Brinson, Diaz, Harrison, Ortiz, Phillips, Lara, Medeiros, etc). Some may go on to have decent or even good MLB careers, but I'd argue they were likely traded at close to their peak values for MLB talent that significantly improved the Brewers the past few years. Managing a farm system isn't always about stockpiling an endless supply of talent and hoarding it for the ever-rosy future window of contention. To me it's about developing players that can help your MLB team win, whether that's by them playing everyday in Milwaukee once they're ready or being used as trade chips to strengthen the Brewers at the major league level. Specific to this thread - there isn't a Hader/Yelich "Day of Reckoning". Heck, there shouldn't be a need to even have a Hader "Day of Reckoning". You've got a unicorn left handed late inning reliever - enjoy the ride and the remaining years of team control with him, even with an increasing cost, and move on once he reaches free agency or during that last year of control if your team stinks and you can get prospects for him at the deadline.

Next two years stay in place salary wise. The 7-year, $190 million extension kicks in for 2022. It only bought out the option year. Very interesting. We must enjoy paying left fielders. It's alot easier to pay left fielders when they're already in your organization and they have several years of existing contract left before they can test the open market. If Yelich got a contract in similar spots to the 3B you mentioned (either UFA, or with very little team control remaining in Arenado's case), we'd be talking $30M+ per season easily...so a price that would be highly unlikely for Milwaukee to afford without significantly harming payroll budgets for the rest of their team longterm.

The Brewers are paying $21M this season to an aging corner OF who they are platooning between 1st and corner OF positions, hoping to keep him healthy by limiting his ABs...that financial hardship occurs at the start of the same season where they just threw a huge extension to their current best player. This Yelich contract is by no means a financial backbreaker - in fact it's par for the course and a very similar situation to the Braun extension almost 10 seasons ago. Good for them to make it happen for a player who truly is a fan favorite!

Dang it, marlins won the trade for sure now. Mark A just threw a bunch of sand for posters complaining the brewers were crying poor to pound. This is exactly what I thought the brewers could be trying to do with their payroll difference from last season. Pumped Yelich will likely retire as a brewer, and as soon as he cant play OF I'm guessing he will do just fine at 1st base!

The fact he's a lefty bat with some pop and some positional flexibility leads me to believe he's going to make the opening day roster if he continues to hit this spring training. That's assuming he doesn't get traded before opening day should other teams want him and have a prospect the Brewers could stash in the minors who wouldn't need to be on their 40 man roster.

Well we shouldn't waive Anderson, but a 1/5 deal should not lock a guy into a rotation spot if he's not one of the best 5. If the competition between Anderson and say Lauer is close...even if Lauer is slightly better I would go with Anderson to maintain the flexibility. If Lauer is lightyears ahead of Anderson, well Mr. Anderson can pitch out of the bullpen as 6th starter/swingman. Not the best use of 5 million, but to give a guy a rotation spot when he's not the best option to avoid "wasting" 5 million is bad management. That 5 million is a sunk cost at this point and shouldn't factor into decision making. I also don't know that basing rotation spots on Spring Training performance is the best decision making either. We are shown every season how unreliable Spring Training results are in showcasing what will happen during the season. yep - I seem to remember both Peralta and Burnes looking great last spring, too. Then April happened.

I don't like the way we are going about this. The best 5 out of spring should be the guys we go with. I'm of the opinion with the ability of the team to now always have 13 pitchers on the staff and also carry 13 position players, why do we need to have a rigid 5 man rotation? Why not 6, or have a couple rotation spots dedicated as "bullpen days" that begin using two of these pitchers who can start for the first 5-7 innings? Woodruff is really your one bellcow starter that you may want to make sure gets the ball every 5th day, after that I think they could do alot of interesting things. Depending on how the schedule plays out and who's pitching well.

Those numbers tell me Cephus is probably carrying a bit too much weight for his frame - even if it is muscle. Good vertical and broad jump #'s indicate he's got some good leg strength for his size, decent 20 yard shuttle indicates he's pretty quick getting in and out of breaks. Great bench indicates he's put together up top. However, the poor 40 says his top end speed is limited and poor 3 cone indicates he doesn't have as much jitterbug in him due to the weight up top he has to move. I'm not saying at all that he's out of shape - in fact his frame probably lets his speed/route running play better in pads than guys who look more like track sprinters. Guessing he'll put up a better pro day time because he'll probably cut some weight and won't have to redo the bench due to a great combine showing.

Brown's pro day 40 was 4.5...that's a huge gap in terms of the distance to 4.7 plus. Boldin was slow, but he probably was more highly regarded as a player going into the draft and rightfully so. I agree that the 40 time isnt everything, but it's a huge factor for mid round guys to solidify their draft grade in the wr room. Cephus' tape will look better than his combine numbers, so hopefully him being slow for a wideout doesnt prevent him from being drafted. Otherwise he made a bad decision entering this draft, which is full of wr quality.

That's the case for WR's running 4.5s and approaching 4.6s. 4.7 is average for tight end and middle linebacker times in the 40. Blake Martinez ran a 4.71. A 4.7-4.8 just isn't cutting it for a WR in today's game - I think Cephus probably still gets drafted, but there's a decent chance he winds up going undrafted in what appears to be a deep WR draft class.

That freak injury could have legitimately cost him generations-changing money

Agreed, but my point about how badly the NBA wants the Lakers to win to put a bow on the Kobe narrative also includes Western Conference postseason scale-tipping if/when the Lakers play the Clips, Nuggets, etc.

That was a big boy win last night by a team the rest of the league knows is the best in the NBA...doing that on the back end of a back to back road trip swing against a team that has been playing great is more than impressive - it's deflating to their playoff competition. barring significant injuries, there isn't anyone keeping the Bucks out of the NBA finals - then it'll come down to how bad the NBA powers that be want the Lakers to win the title after Kobe's passing...

I bet if stearns included Lutz as a sweetener with Gamel we could get a low A prospect or two, right Clancy?

Yup. A dominant freak of a relief pitcher that has off days just like every other player in the game. If we had a manager who saw he was off and went to Lyles he might have had a hold. Biggest coaching pet peeve... putting people in position to fail or leaving them in position to fail. Hader hit a batter that probably should have been a foul ball off the knob of his bat on a check swing, gave up a shattered bat hit that barely made the outfield, and walked Rendon on a 3-2 pitch. He then gave up a single to Soto and watched Grisham kick the ball away and guarantee 3 runs scoring on a routine single. Hader didnt strike out the side on 9 pitches like he has done on occasion, but he also wasn't getting shelled either. He didnt have good command but in all honesty he's the guy who got the brewers to that spot in the playoffs and the brewers should and did ride with him in that spot.

At the end of this, I really hope every single one of the Astros opponents this year had some sort of "bang a garbage can lid" promo when the Astros come to town. I'm guessing the well-deserved grief and trolling the Astros are going to be subject two over 81 road games is going to be pretty epic.

If Cain can revert to his 2018 form assuming the hand issues he dealt with last season are behind him, I think the ideal lineup would have Cain leading off with Hiura batting 2nd and Yelich 3rd - then frankly the rest of their lineup is going to move around alot because of how much the Brewers will likely be platooning guys. If Cain isn't the answer at the leadoff spot, then I think I'd take a long look at batting Yelich leadoff and moving the pitcher's spot to 8th in the lineup. The question of where to bat your best hitter actually depends entirely on what the strengths of your best hitter are. For a guy like Yelich, the fact he's an OBP machine, still hits a ton of line drives, and can steal you a bunch of bases means I want to see him hitting 2nd or possibly even leadoff assuming the rest of the roster fills out the lineup well around him. I think getting more ABs is more valuable to a hitter like Yelich compared to having him up where you'd traditionally expect more RBI opportunities, because Yelich can impact the game on the basepaths.

The Brewers' average payroll will continue to gradually increase pretty much in line with inflation and increasing revenue streams league-wide. The problem too many Brewer fans have is that they don't realize the payroll of large market teams can increase at a faster rate simply because their revenue generating levers are much bigger than what the Brewers have with the current MLB financial structure. That just means that as soon as the Brewers think they can act like a mid market team, more than half the league can easily outbid them. For the Brewers to consistently be contenders, they need to play on the margins of free agency more often than not and be really good at identifying value in the mid-tier pool of veteran free agency or short term deals when the time is right. Stearns has demonstrated a very good ability to do just that thus far, and I trust they will continue to do so - big time acquisitions can be made via trade or at the trade deadline under the right circumstances...but blowing your payroll budget up in December/January basically kills your opportunity to add impact players in July. I'm glad they appear to have some wiggle room to add in areas of their team that the offseason moves may not have been enough once the season rolls into June. The Brewers will never, ever, ever be able to be the organization who can offer a marquee free agent the biggest and longest contract in terms of dollars/years - nor should they be. Just remember that once the Brewers could offer a player like Rendon a $250M dollar contract without turning the rest of their roster into garbage to keep payroll in check and stay consistently competitive, an LA, Chicago, or NY team could probably offer Rendon $350M or more in that financial environment. It's obvious some people don't want to accept this as reality...oh well.

the 192 IP + postseason innings were a red flag to me on Chacin for 2019....looking back through his career, any year he got got close to 175IP+ was followed by a season where he was injured/ineffective. The exception was his 2017 with the Padres at 180IP followed by his really good 2018 with the Brewers. He was due for a clunker season and we sure saw that in 2019 when it was obvious his slider wasn't nearly as sharp as it needed to be following a heavy workload in 2018. I also think this year's rotation and overall pitching staff is much more likely to have a few rotation spots manned by interchangeable pitchers...there seems to be alot of guys competing for starting roles that could also fit into multi-inning relief roles - wouldn't surprise me to see a good number of games managed like bullpen games, with two of these guys combining for innings 1-6 or 1-7 before turning things over to the late inning relievers. It wouldn't be strict piggybacking, but I can see CC having a quicker than usual hook for a good number of starters knowing he's got 5-6 options in the pen who can go multiple innings. I think at this point Woodruff is the one starter CC would consistently want in the game through innings 6-7, while the other arms would probably be capped at 5IP until they prove able to get through lineups 3 times. It might take a little while to come together since Knebel is unlikely to be on the Opening Day roster, but with 13 pitchers the Brewers staff will likely be full of guys they'd be comfortable giving 3-4 inning stints to. Late inning pen options: Hader Knebel Suter Black Claudio Phelps Devin Williams Wahl Starters / long inning options Woodruff Anderson Burnes Lindblom Houser Peralta Lauer Stash one each of the late inning and starter/multi-inning options above in AAA and you have 13 pitchers on a MLB staff that gives you a ton of options on how to get 27 outs.

the 192 IP + postseason innings were a red flag to me on Chacin for 2019....looking back through his career, any year he got got close to 175IP+ was followed by a season where he was injured/ineffective. The exception was his 2017 with the Padres at 180IP followed by his really good 2018 with the Brewers. He was due for a clunker season and we sure saw that in 2019 when it was obvious his slider wasn't nearly as sharp as it needed to be following a heavy workload in 2018. I also think this year's rotation and overall pitching staff is much more likely to have a few rotation spots manned by interchangeable pitchers...there seems to be alot of guys competing for starting roles that could also fit into multi-inning relief roles - wouldn't surprise me to see a good number of games managed like bullpen games, with two of these guys combining for innings 1-6 or 1-7 before turning things over to the late inning relievers. It wouldn't be strict piggybacking, but I can see CC having a quicker than usual hook for a good number of starters knowing he's got 5-6 options in the pen who can go multiple innings. I think at this point Woodruff is the one starter CC would consistently want in the game through innings 6-7, while the other arms would probably be capped at 5IP until they prove able to get through lineups 3 times. It might take a little while to come together since Knebel is unlikely to be on the Opening Day roster, but with 13 pitchers the Brewers staff will likely be full of guys they'd be comfortable giving 3-4 inning stints to. Late inning pen options: Hader Knebel Suter Black Claudio Phelps Devin Williams Wahl Starters / long inning options Woodruff Anderson Burnes Lindblom Houser Peralta Lauer Stash one each of the late inning and starter/multi-inning options above in AAA and you have 13 pitchers on a MLB staff that gives you a ton of options on how to get 27 outs.

Maybe I'm wrong in general about this, but I feel like last year around this time the general sentiment was that the rotation was good enough with a mix of guys like Chacin, Anderson, Davies plus adding two of Peralta/Burnes/Woodruff, plus hopefully getting Nelson back before the trade deadline. Then Spring Training happened and many were geeked at the fact all three of the young pitchers won opening day rotation spots. Then April happened and we all wondered where it all went so horribly wrong. Then September happened and the Brewers wound up winning 89 games and a wild card berth to make the postseason a 2nd straight year despite having hardly any quality contributions from guys who were the perceived best starting pitchers in Spring Training 2019 down the stretch either due to injury (Woodruff) or poor performance (Chacin, Burnes, Peralta), or both (Nelson). This offseason it seem like the Brewers have actually amassed a deeper group of starting pitching options, now have alot more confidence in Woodruff being a quality starter, and aren't requiring immediate rotation contributions from the likes of Peralta or Burnes if they don't show they're ready for that workload during Spring Training. I actually like their rotation outlook much more than where they were at last year at this time.