Fear The Chorizo

Welp...I guess that's one way to get Hiura back up if Moose misses time - probably the worst possible way though

"At least we scored"

If Yelich, Moose, and Grandal perform to career norms against LHP this year, the Brewers drop towards the bottom of the NL statistically against LHP. 6th in the NL actually really is disappointing when your best producers are either lefthanded bats and a switch hitting catcher whose weak side is hitting righthanded.

I could care less about stats against LHP since June 3rd - TBH their june schedule is cake and the lefty pitching they've faced over the past few weeks isn't full of Cy Young contenders. I'd rather look at season to date stats and even go back to including 2018 numbers for these guys, since Hiura was really only up a couple weeks. The season to date stats and even 2018 stats point to this team having a weakness against lefty pitching. From purely a roster management perspective they are lefty-heavy - teams like the Cubs and Dodgers have taken advantage of that at times. That's the primary reason DS felt the need to try and trade for Schoop last deadline and likely factored in signing Grandal and calling up Hiura sooner than even his biggest fans had anticipated. I'm not saying without Hiura's righthanded bat the Brewers are terrible against lefties - my point is with it they are better, and likely also better against righties unless Shaw goes on a tear.

The stats show that because Yelich and Moose have been fantastic at hitting LHP and have covered for the inconsistent at best production from the rightanded hitters on the team. Against RHP: 2019 Brewers LH bats against - 0.900 OPS roughly 1050 plate appearances 2019 Brewer RH bats against - 0.657 OPS roughly 1000 plate appearances basically a huge platoon advantage against RHP, however the Brewers still field a good # of righthanded batters who sport a collective poor OPS. Admittedly, some of that is skewed with brewers' pitcher ABs. Against LHP: 2019 Brewers LH bats against - 0.841 OPS roughly 300 plate appearances 2019 Brewers RH bats against 0.762 OPS roughly 500 plate appearances basically a huge platoon disadvantage against LHP - Brewers have actively tried stacking their lineups against lefty pitching with righthanded bats, and they haven't gotten the job done. That RH bat 0.762 OPS is helped a ton by Grandal's 1.007 OPS over almost 90 of the 500 plate appearances, so the rest of the Brewer righthanded bats really haven't done much damage against lefties.

It's the pitching and also poor lineup balance from the righthanded batters box - not sure why wanting the best RH bat in the system back on the MLB roster to help improve that roster weakness has to keep being looped in with the obvious pitching problems the Brewers also have, which undoubtedly need to also be addressed if they hope to seriously contend down the stretch. Getting Hiura back up is an internal move that can easily be made - acquiring pitching to improve MLB results from the mound will be a more difficult task.

Doesn't help that a good number of the righthanded bats currently on the roster either aren't any good or are prone to prolonged slumps, too.

Food for thought: He has only 3 Ks in his last 24 PAs. Which is notably better than his 23.5% clip on the year. It is actually kind of shocking he improved both his K-Rate and BB-Rate compared to last year, but has been absolutely terrible despite that. Not sure he is heating up, but he has done better recently. The HR might buy him some more playing time to get one last chance. I would guess he is doomed if he can't show more promise in the next few weeks. They really haven't shown much confidence in him for over a month. I noticed that too. Aguilar is having by far his most successful month so far this season. But again, it's only good for a what, .724 OPS? Something around that and still only a ~.300 OBP. He's only getting part time ABs as a RH hitter, 10 to 12 ABs a week. A couple starts against lefties (less if they're going to play Grandal at 1B more often) and a handful of pinch hitting appearances a week, to me, doesn't feel like enough playing time to really make a dent in who he's been this season. Maybe I'm wrong but the roster crunch is real and I feel like his name is at the bottom. He might have until the all star break to make an impression. I wanted to be able to make an argument for him to keep his spot on the team but it's really difficult to see that happening unless he starts mashing in nearly every AB he gets this next week or so. On top of that, they only have 3 more games at the end of July/1st of August where they can employ a DH (at Athletics). With Thames going pretty well of late and Grandal as a potential 1b option against a lefty starter assuming either Pina or Nottingham is behind the plate, a 0.724 OPS simply isn't good enough for Aguilar in a platoon advantage role as a PH/1B against lefties. IMO there aren't enough ABs available that Jesus should be taking to justify keeping him around assuming Shaw, Thames, Grandal, and Moose are all healthy and performing to anywhere close to career norms. Once Hiura is safely past the Super 2 cutoff, he's got to be recalled with Aguilar being the odd man out. Even if that means Jesus is no longer a Brewer, they'll still have a good amount of depth at the position options he can play. Jesus was fantastic for about 3 months of 2018, and was in the NL MVP conversation through the AS Break...but I think we all knew that wasn't going to be sustainable. I'm sure he can still get on hot streaks where he'd carry a team for a week or two, but he's proven to be more of the player he was with the Indians that led to his release than anything close to a consistent All Star caliber performer.

If everyone remains healthy, maybe it isn’t a perfect fit. That being said, he is one of the few true top half of the order type hitters that are likely to be available this deadline. If they consider him a 2B only, then no it doesn’t make sense. If they believe in his ability to also be mixed into the outfield corners and 3B then I think he helps make their roster more flexible and adds what would likely be one of their top five hitters. Since the primary reason Gennett was released with nothing coming back in return a few spring trainings ago was due to his perceived lack of positional flexibility - i.e., a 2B only - I doubt Stearns' perception of him has changed as being a LF/RF/3B option...besides, we currently have two LH hitting 3B and two LH hitting corner OFs already on the MLB roster. Wouldn't surprise me to see Gennett moved if he can show he's healthy, but I'd be stunned if the Brewers were even part of the rumor mill on him. Teams like San Diego and Boston make a bit more sense as a destination for Scooter.

Hiura needs to be up after the AS break. Getting him up helps clear the logjam at 1b simply by forcing the brewers to jettison someone And I think they should go outside the box a bit by trying to get Aguilar through waivers by dfa-ing him, keep both shaw and Thames, and shift braun over to 1st when facing a lefty starter. Are there any corner OF options via trade this year that could be good gets?

When the other 3 prospects have a total of 1 start in MLB between them, there's just no way of knowing that. Brinson looks to be the only bust because thus far he's been the only one to have a sustained MLB opportunity - and he fell on his face to start his MLB career. There just as much chance of Brinson having the best career of the three and Diaz, Harrison, Yamamoto all amount to nothing more than a footnote on Christian Yelich's Wikipedia page referencing how in the world the Brewers acquired him.

Yelich is a cheapish best player in the game controlled though his prime - The fact he doesn't command 1/3rd of the Brewers' entire team payroll makes him astronomically more valuable than 4 young MLB everyday players. It's not even close.

It's frustrating, but an undervalued quality of starting pitching is durability - particularly with how today's game is shifting more heavily to bullpen usage. The Cubs have a thin but talented roster of veteran starters who have track records of being workhorses. Lester, Quintana, Hendricks, and Hamels have all demonstrated they can take the ball every 5th day consistently and pitch deep into games. Darvish is a wild card, but when he's healthy he's been a workhorse as well. That being said, the Cubs sure had to pony up financially and with prospect capital to build that rotation - they've also had to spend heavily on those fronts for relievers. However, that's what big market teams get to do, and I'm sure they're totally fine with that considering it's propping up what is a trash heap of pitching talent across the rest of their organization. At some point all of these arms will fall off a cliff or a couple injuries are going to force them to scramble, but the Cubs will always be somewhat positioned to throw more $ at the problem to try and replace good production from the mound.

Unless one of the four prospects becomes an annual MVP or Cy Young contender, the Brewers stole Yelich from the Marlins - there really isn't any other way to evaluate the trade at this point. Even if all four wind up having decent MLB careers, the Brewers win the deal in a landslide by getting Yelich's prime years under an extremely team-friendly contract. Great to see Yamamoto have a good first start, particularly in beating the Cards!

Oh yeah, well the brewers are rolling with a lineup with pitchers hitting in their 7 and 8 spots despite having the DH available!

When good Freddy only happens against the Marlins at home with Miller park day game shadows and bad Freddy is pretty much every other start, it's time to option him to the minors as soon as Chacin is available to come off the IL

It's also pretty nice to get what is arguably the league's most talented organization top to bottom out of the brewers' division.. sure, we missed out on beating up on the Astros during that string of 100 loss seasons right after they switched leagues, but back then we had the awful Cubs to pummel, too.

Meh, give it two weeks until his next injury that has him out the rest of the season...happy he's made a nice career for himself after being the only prospect who did anything of value at the mlb level in the Sabathia trade

Blows past Ray and Lutz to easily be our #1 outfield prospect. Hoping he’s promoted soon to AAA, to see if he can maintain his dominance up a level. Yup. It still blows my mind that people thought Ray was a good prospect. Lutz is still a great prospect though, he's just too young yet, just like Grisham was. Ray, on the other hand, will be 25 in a few months. When will Grisham go to AAA? After the break? Huh? I didn't know it was a race...and Ray is still a good prospect. I could honestly care less about age considering when Ray and Grisham were drafted -grisham has actually been with the brewers longer. Thrilled Trent is on a roll and appears to be deserving the accolades...he is having a similar stretch in AA to what Ray was up to at this time of year in 2018. Let's hope grisham keeps it up and ray gets healthy to salvage his second half of the AAA season.

Cubs have a fun road trip to watch this week against some good competition (@ Rockies, @ LAD) - by the end of it it'll be 17 straight days with games for them. I'd imagine Kimbrel may join them towards the end of it, too. During the same stretch the Brewers have a pair against the 'Stros followed by Giants, and two off days starting tonight. Seems like a good time to try and get a little bump in the standings if they play well.

Keston with another HR last night in AAA, but 3 more Ks...I'm actually hoping he gets a little further away from the 3TO results he's displayed over large portions of this season, even if it means sacrificing a bit of the power #'s - actually 2TO since his walk rate is abysmal in 2019. It's tough to be upset about a guy's AAA #'s when his OPS is solidly over 1.100, however.

So apparently that 'standing for principle' claim was just posturing - 1 yr $13M is what I'm seeing for his signing. If I'm Keuchel I'm firing Boras before the ink dried on that contract paper. Although, I believe he switched agents after he turned down that $90M extension offer from the Astros back in 2015 and moved to Boras once everyone saw he was going to go the arbitration/no extension route and try to cash in via UFA as soon as he could have. Given his age when Keuchel broke out and length of team control the Astros had on him largely through his prime, I think he got poor advice on not being willing to explore contract extensions. Taking the arbitration route paid Keuchel roughly $30M so far, and now ~$13M more guaranteed leaves him over $40M shy of what he would have earned with that extension, which only would have extended him through 2020, I believe. Add Keuchel to the growing list of players that lost out on alot of career earning by taking this approach.

At this point what does that even mean? Haven't these guys had a few days now where draft pick compensation is no longer a hindrance for teams to make contract offers? yet they're still unsigned. If losing the draft pick truly was the main reason these FA arms weren't signed (IMO it isn't), then it would seem to make sense that these guys would've been signed by now this week. On the other hand, if their contract demands remain unrealistic relative to what the market is willing to offer, then they're going to continue sitting on their couches awhile longer until either they or some team blink and dramatically change their asking price/contract offer. I still think the Twins are going to get one of these two guys.

This game is appointment TV for me tonight - hoping for a solid return for Big Sweat and a Brewers' W to put last night's drubbing in the rearview mirror! Kudos to Nelson for all the hard work rehabbing and keeping a positive outlook despite the long road back!! It would be so awesome for this team if he's able to lock down a rotation spot at anywhere close to the level of production he had most of 2017 before his injury.

Love seeing Grisham bust out a bit - hopefully his newfound increase in slugging can be carried forward consistently, because all his other peripheals make him an everyday MLB outfielder. He's always had great plate discipline, at times it appeared to be a fault by letting hittable pitches go too frequently. But his K:BB ratio is solid, and the increase in slugging appears to have helped increase his BA to a level that turns him from a ~0.700 OPS offensive player to a 0.800-0.900 OPS player at a level he's still a fraction young for in AA. I think I'd like to keep him in AA the full season, much like they did with Ray last year. Ray got off to a terrible AAA start this year and has been battling injuries ever since - I still think they've got something in Ray, but it may take until 2020-2021 before he's able to contribute in Milwaukee. If Grisham has a great 2019 in AA and presumably gets off to a fast start in AAA next season, he could pass Ray up on the pecking order. On the other hand, if Brewers' brass doesn't have the confidence Grisham's newfound pop is sustainable as he climbs the ladder, now would be a great time to try and maximize his value as a trade chip...