Fear The Chorizo

1st pitch to Ozuna this AB is exactly why he's struggling - Grandal sets up off the plate outside for a slider, Burnes proceeds to groove it middle middle and gets lucky Ozuna is salivating too much and pulls it into the stands. it's not the catcher tipping locations, Burnes is missing too much and missing into either places in the zone hitters can do damage or so far out of the zone he doesn't draw swings and misses. Plus, most everything is hard and within 7mph of his best fastball - so hitters aren't really ever caught off balance against him. It's rare that when guys make contact that it's weak.

I know it was Osuna who hit the HR, but lefties are going to continue feasting on Burnes until he develops a better offspeed pitch. Changeup or a hook that's low 80's would do him a world of good - he's also wild in the zone in really bad situations.

Braun has 12 RBI is 15 games. Stat line isn’t pretty yet but productive when opportunities are there. When the two guys typically hitting in front of him are virtually guaranteed to give him at least 1 runner on base, less than 1 RBI per game is actually a pretty poor total. He's got a -0.5 WAR in 61 plate appearances - that's awful for a #3 hitter. By comparison, Chris Davis is at -0.6 despite just 4 hits in 45 ABs. Braun has made some loud outs, no question, but he's also had a good number of throw away ABs to offset the couple 3 run HR's he's hit. 9 of his 12 RBIs are from his 3 HRs, and he's only scored 3 more runs himself.

With that arm and as others have mentioned his age, I think they continue to aggressively push him through minor league levels until he reaches a point where he struggles - mainly to see if he can adjust to those struggles. If he doesn't struggle, well then you minimize bullets wasted in his arm before he reaches Milwaukee. The number of guys on the planet who can approach triple digits with their #1 and their slider hovers around 90mph with that kind of tilt can probably still be counted using 1 person's fingers and toes - the downside is that's likely the reason why he's had two TJ surgeries already.

Huge fingers-crossed on the health side of things for Rasmussen, but if he stays healthy getting him in the 6th round is going to go down as highway robbery. At minimum he's got a ceiling as a stud MLB reliever. What's the over/under for when he makes his first appearance in AA Biloxi? Monday?

Arcia as a bad hitter is still valuable to this roster at his current pricetag - I'm hopeful his offense develops a bit more to the point of him being a reliable 0.725 OPS hitter, IMO that would justify keeping him around the next three years as his salary escalates through arbitration, perhaps even warranting a modest extension that sets him up for life and buys out a couple FA years. However, if Arcia's offense stagnates or even regresses to the point where his 2017 production is not longer likely from him, it wouldn't surprise me to see DS include him in a trade to fill another area of need 1-2 offseasons from now - particularly if there are other SS options internally that are ready to play everyday in Milwaukee. I'm interested in seeing what Dubon can do with an extended run at SS in AAA. What really makes Arcia's glove valuable to the Brewers is how he's deployed as the primary infield defender in almost all shifting alignments. The combo of his glove and the Brewers' shifting philosophy helps to mask what would be obvious range/position issues with having two 3rd basemen and a lumbering 1B rounding out the rest of the infield virtually everyday. His glove actually helps improve the Brewers' offense at other positions because of that (in theory, if Shaw and Aguilar ever decide to start hitting).

When you have as inconsistent a rotation and seemingly thin bullpen in terms of quality late inning arms as the Brewers currently do, run differential early is pretty meaningless - if a guy has a blow up start CC can pretty much give the bottom of his bullpen most of the innings, and unless the offense goes bonkers it'll be a big loss. It wouldn't surprise me in the least if the Brewers remain among the outliers in RD vs actual W/L record for a good portion of the year. However, if they can stabilize the rotation to get at least more consistency (hopefully Nelson can help, and at least 2 of the young starters better establish themselves), the Brewers have plenty of offense to rocket that differential far into positive territory. The Dodgers run differential at this point is almost completely tied to a couple blowout wins against the Dbacks to start the year, aside from that their differential is basically 0.

Despite the crazy high K% over his first 50 AAA at bats, Hiura is still OPS-ing 0.974 with close to a 0.300 BA despite only drawing 1 measly walk. Based on the K #'s I'm guessing he's just chasing too much outside the zone. Corey Ray on the other hand.....dude needs a mulligan on the first two weeks of season down there! And yes, Erceg is having a fantastic start to the season at the plate - I think I remember several articles/scouting services wondering out loud over the winter whether he should scrap 3B and try pitching...perhaps that was a bit premature.

I know it's fools gold to expect an entire lineup to get hot for very long, but man if they stay healthy the brewers are going to have some stretches that are flat out terrifying to opposing pitching staffs.

They are 4th in all of MLB in Win Probability Added, so yes. Look around the rest if the league....there are bullpen dumpster fires everywhere early. And the pen hasn't been the problem blowing leads late - it's the starters getting shelled too often early in games. Bullpen depth is a concern until proven otherwise, but to date the pen hasn't killed them.

Freddy was doing a fine job of limiting his innings on his own...problem is he was throwing 25-30 pitches per inning and killing the bullpen. Hope his injury isn't too serious and he can get back on the bump soon

I agree that Nelson's hopeful return before Memorial Day will prompt the first move in the rotation - and frankly I'd expect it to be sending Peralta down to AAA to continue starting and work on refining his secondary pitches to where he's comfortable using them more often early in counts. To preserve the bullpen longterm, he's got to at least consistently get past the 5th in his starts. When Peralta is on he can dominate a lineup, but when he's not at his best he really handcuffs the longterm stability of the bullpen. I can see Anderson replacing Burnes in the rotation and swapping their roles for a while, too - partly to manage Burnes' innings, but it also may be necessary if he keeps giving up 3 gopher balls a game. Tough to remember that Burnes stopped starting games in late May last season as he transitioned to more of a bullpen role - it's obvious his 3rd and 4th pitches need a lot of work and need to be used more, particularly against lefties. Everything he throws right now is hard with no offspeed, that has to change in a starting role. I also think Houser will play a role in the 2019 rotation or pen, and while I like Brown I think he should stay in AAA this year - as they may have a difficult time shifting guys around on this year's 40 man to make room for him. As for Woodruff, I think unless he gets injured the Brewers should roll with him all year in the rotation. To me he's the most polished of the three and deserves to be left alone to develop as a MLB starter based on how much he's been yanked around the last two years between AAA, the rotation, and the bullpen.

After his last outing against LA where it was obvious he had bad command due to an extended gap between outings, giving him an inning here to get back on track makes alot of sense. He gave up the HR to Ozuna, but he pitched much better.

LOL

wow was that a crazy good play...he got him too

I saw him helping Nuns cross the road right before game time. He will rebuild Notre Dame on his next off day

I can't think of one. Rocco Baldelli is the closest example I can think of when it comes to a "can't miss" type of elite talent that didn't really pan out. Still, he had two very good years at 21 and 22, got hurt and missed his age 23 season blowing out his knee, but came back to put up another 3.0 WAR season, but then developed a rare disease that ruined his career and he still fought his way back to come up with a couple of huge hits in the ALDS vs the Red Sox, including the game winning hit. Grady Sizemore comes to mind as well - particularly since he burst onto the scene, was expected to be one of the best at his position for a decade, signed an extension that was widely panned as being too team friendly after ~1 MLB season, then suffered a myriad of injuries during what would have been his arbitration years that led to him being a shell of what he was projected to become. I'd argue Orlando Arcia is actually another fair comparison. Always viewed as a plus defender at a premium position, Arcia's 2017 offensive statline during his 1st full big league stint was pretty impressive and quite comparable to Albies' 2018 line minus the power numbers. Arcia put up a 2.5 WAR season as a 22 yr old, and was once considered one of the top 15 prospects in all of baseball, too. Fast forward to present - while still a great defender, I think even the most optimistic of us don't see Orlando becoming a perennial all star anymore. The list of "can't-misses" that never truly realized their potential is really long, for many reasons. It's difficult to come up with, because at one point or another, just about every top 50 MLB prospect that makes it to the majors flashes their talent for long enough a period for people to notice and start projecting just how good they might be if everything goes right. Then baseball inevitably finds a way to to turn 95% of those silver slugger/Cy Young/HOF-potential careers into a mix of good-not-great, meh, and disappointing careers. Albies appears to have all the talent to realize his potential of being one of the best 2B in the game, but let's see how he develops over the next 5 seasons to know whether this contract is the joke for him that it appears to be right now - alot can happen to make the deal overall look well served for both player/team or even make it look player friendly.

CC has a big decision to make for the 9th...at least Bellinger leads off, so if he brings Wilson in it'll still be a 1 run game after he hits his 9th dong. 30+ pitches for Hader that inning, I don't know if April 12/13th is the time to overextend your unicorn.

Hader clearly doesn't have it tonight. If he can escape the 8th, the 9th will be fun

need a slider here on the outer half...or that

Hader middle/middle on a ton of pitches...still 95 with life, but not nearly the amount of swing and miss.

That's what I was thinking, too...unfortunately there's no reason for CC to have faith in anyone else for a cleanish 8th inning. Now Hader will have to work without a net for 6 outs and his 2nd inning will come against the top of their order. Lots of lefties to face though...

Would be awesome to not lean on Hader for 6 outs and lose him for the rest of the weekend...but who else makes sense for the 8th? Barnes maybe?? Anderson? (ducks for cover...) edit: guess it'll be Hader for another extended outing...sure would be nice to add a healthy and effective Jeffress to the mix out there soon.

Happy for the extra run, but I feel like they missed a shot at opening a can these last two innings....lots of ropes right at people and Jesus can't run well enough to score on that Grandal single

Besides that Perez strikeout, Kelly gave up nothing but frozen ropes...