Fear The Chorizo

Perhaps the novelty of watching a game played in conditions that are inhospitable to penguins tonight will get Peacock over the hump....

There is some stuff out there on Williams' game tape that should be concerning to NFL teams at the next level - his primary flaw is being a bit out of sync and not pulling the trigger on short to intermediate routes within the design of a play, even when it's his primary read and he's looking right at a gimme completion. His natural talent and ability to make plays all over the field with his arm talent is legit - but if there's issues with making reads within the framework of the offensive scheme in college that's a red flag to me that could limit his ceiling at the pro level.

yes

Is it just me, or does it seem like arby year 2 is the most common year when prominent players and teams can't reach terms and head to arbitration?

The contract amounts for different calibers of player playing different positions at different stages in arbitration have a very accurate scale on value - when you look at the players around the league who still haven't come to terms and may still go to arbitration, even the highest potential CVs are within 1-2 million dollars for players like Vlad Jr., and oftentimes the gap is far less than that. It's why the speculated arby amounts posted every offseason around october are frequently within 10% of what the player winds up receiving. For better or worse, Woodruff's unfortunate injury and subsequent release by the Brewers instead of offering him salary arbitration freed up around $13M of their 2024 payroll budget (even if it was hypothetical assuming they wouldn't trade anyone of significance) - using some of that savings to lock in their more expensive arbitration candidates a bit over what their arby projections were isn't exactly a horrible way to manage this part of the offseason. Could any of Adames/Williams/Burnes still be dealt before Opening Day and before the Brewers have to start cutting them paychecks based on the arby numbers they agreed to? Sure. That is far from a guarantee that they Brewers have to trade them, though.

Looks like he's feeling just fine

That's great AAV for a guy the Reds can easily slide into the rotation this season 🙃 Looking forward to watching him give up a few taters to Chourio and Contreras this season!

well, if his ankle isn't borderline 100% he becomes an undersized corner with average quickness....so he'd probably be better served not suiting up. Hoping he's able to play and be a positive factor for the defense, though.

Jones in the game plan is critical, but so is Love taking most snaps under center and really working the play action game off Jones as a running threat in the passing game. Love has been dynamic off play action, particularly under center, and that action opens up more intermediate gaps in coverage if it starts from the quarterback taking the snap from under center and selling that run fake to suck the LB's in longer than what a shotgun snap/mesh point fake does. Gotta get that Dallas D line playing run gaps instead of pinning their ears back at the snap, or I think Love will be running for his life most of the game. I think the only way GB wins is if the defense finds a way to generate a couple turnovers and the offense continues to play balanced football that winds up controlling time of possession and doesn't look like 3 yards and a cloud of dust every down.

Hoping it's precautionary and he can suit up but that doesn't sound good....was hoping he could solidify the pass coverage against a Dallas team that has plenty of weapons in the passing game to at least give the defense a shot at slowing down the Cowboys at home.

Yes, cost certainty for a guy like that is a good thing for any interested teams to be willing to offer a valuable-enough prospect package for the Brewers to deal him.

If there's one person who has the clout to get everyone on the same page and establish some regulations I get what you're saying, but the counterpoint to that would be he's also probably the 1 coach who benefitted the most over his career at Bama by having a stranglehold on financial resources/facilities/recruiting draw to bring in limitless 5 star recruits and then jettison scholarships from players if better talent shows up the following season, and also have their pick of top level assistants before the NIL/transfer portal started scrambling that up, it's him. I can definitely see him just wanting to ride into the sunset at 72 and not have to deal with what coaches need to do in today's college football landscape to stay at the top. And he's not a dummy, I'm thinking he also realizes that UGA has passed up Alabama in terms of being "that" program in the SEC and shows no signs of giving it up. As the weird SEC divisional schedule now shifts to UGA and Bama playing each other in the regular season and more frequently moving forward than just in the SEC title game, plus adding UT and Oklahoma to that conference, sledding is getting alot tougher for even the best programs to sleepwalk themselves to undefeated or 1-loss regular seasons. Or, he just wants no part of Bucky the next couple years!

Playing a game defensively at a corner OF position requires far less stress on a player's back compared to 1B when you think of how an infielder gets into position at every pitch, stretches/plays at 1B trying to dig balls out of the dirt, hold runners on, etc. I don't care if Yelich wanted to play 1B, I wouldn't put him there. He's going to remain the team's LF and eventually transition to a DH who can play OF in a pinch.

I'd add to this that I think there's still time between today and an eventual arbitration hearing for team/player settlements on an arbitration salary if the two sides continue negotiating....that hasn't been something the Brewers have done as an organization (they've largely followed along the "if have to file, then trial" sort of approach), but with slightly moving up the deadline maybe some agreements resulting from good faith negotiations leak a few days past today's filing deadline.

Technically, teams can still negotiatate arby contracts after submitting figures by the deadline today and avoid going to a hearing. IIRC in the past if the team and player couldn't settle by this deadline it was rare for an agreement to be made before the hearing, but maybe that's a little different with the slightly accelerated deadline. I do expect most of the arby eligible Brewers to reach an agreement today, but probably not Burnes - Adames and Williams would probably be coinflips to reach a settlement today but still have a good shot at reaching an agreement before a hearing. I fully expect Burnes and Boras to have an outrageously high figure for a guy who's pitched like a number 2 starter the past 2 seasons, if only to lay the groundwork for what he's going to be looking for in free agency next offseason.

My initial thought is that there's going to be some sort of NCAA investigation into Bama and Saban is just either getting out of it or him "retiring" is a way for the $EC to justify keeping any violations under wraps and playing the "nothing to see here card".

The White Sox lost 101 games last season in an awful division, and they are into a rebuild stage for their organization. Cease still has 2 seasons left before free agency, and despite a pretty meh 2023 season that amount of team control and his raw stuff make him an attractive trade target, and one of the few players on the current White Sox roster that would net a good package of prospects in a trade. The Brewers won their division last season and are still the likely favorite to win the division again should they opt to not trade Burnes, who also has just 1 season left of team control before he and agent Scott Boras go hunting for the largest contract offer next winter. I think the closer comparison to Burnes' trade rumors would be Shane Bieber since they're at the same stage in salary arbitration with just 1 year left and similar team postseason aspirations for 2024 - Cease will get traded because the team he's on is rebuilding and the risk of him having another down season or getting injured is too great for the White Sox to not get a quality return back when their MLB club won't be in contention for that season with our without Cease on their roster.

From where they were mid-season, when often 2-3 receivers wound up within a few yards of each other because they wound up running the same routes and the offense looked completely confused, the receiving corps really has taken a quantum leap forward....great to see!

Read some quotes this afternoon from Rodgers about what the Jets need to do in order to establish a winning culture....if someone could get him a mirror I think he'd realize he's just asked to be traded.

Not sure he'd be open to taking a coordinator position after multiple head coaching gigs and documented health issues (he may be more than content to just enjoy the rest of his life off the sidelines, and deservedly so).....but recently fired Ron Rivera is a guy that I'd be excited to see get an interview this offseason in GB to run the defense. He's pretty much a 4-3 guy so that'd be different....but honestly both Gary and Van Ness have the size to be DEs - and the thought of Quay Walker as a Will flying around the field has me thinking that type of front 7 transition wouldn't be impossible in 1 offseason with their current core personnel.

The Vikings didn't have an NFL-caliber quarterback or bellcow running back plus their star TE just went down with an ACL the week before the GB game, and the Bears' offensive line is persistently among the league's worst....3 weeks ago the Panthers hung 30 on this defense in a must-win road game for the Packers and then proceeded to be shut out their final 2 games. I don't know if Barry needs to be "fired" since his contract his up - but he shouldn't be retained as defensive coordinator because I think there are numerous better options than sticking with what hasn't worked for multiple seasons. There are some things schematically with his defense that seem to be way too predictable at times, and good teams are able to pick on a weakness at will with what appears to be next to zero in-game adjustments from Barry's defense to try and negate what the opponent is doing....particularly in the run game against really questionable personnel groupings in the front 7 with certain formations and in the passing game in the middle of the field. Injuries have definitely thinned the defensive personnel for the Packers - but injuries happen to everyone in the NFL - the amount of draft capital invested on that side of the ball should mean there's plenty of talent and depth to field a solid defense if development and coaching are up to snuff, even when factoring in the expected busts here and there.

I guess my question in response would be if there was a baseball-related reason why the schedule couldn't be compressed that would actually benefit both organizations and players - at least for the free agency signing period. The NFL has from the Super Bowl (early February) until mid march before free agency starts, and prior to that they spend most of their time getting their roster sorted out for salary cap management purposes. MLB players who are free agents starting the day after the World Series ends could have started signing contracts 5 days later on 11/6. Player awards for the previous season aren't even handed out until a few weeks later into November. Just seems like an awful lot of roster decisions need to be made in next to no time after the season actually ends. The deadline on whether to offer arbitration to players was 11/17, so why does the free agent signing period need to start 1.5 weeks earlier than that when there are potentially more free agents hitting the market afterwards? I wouldn't be opposed to keeping things as they are, but then moving this January's arbitration agreement deadline a month earlier, too. Then have a late winter period where no trades/signings can happen in the 2-3 weeks leading up to Spring Training to force action between both teams and players/agents.

The MLB offseason schedule and hot stove expectations is still set up like back in the day when all the front offices would send a handful of people to the GM/winter meetings via train, and then news of free agent signings and trades that took place over those meetings would be distributed by local newspapers when those groups got back home just before Christmas. Every team, both large and small market, makes ancillary moves at the margins with minor league invites and reclamation projects at the bottom of their 40 man rosters throughout the offseason - marquee player free agency has been steadily pushed further and further into the offseason and even into Spring Training, and the arbitration figure deadline in mid-January likely also pushes potential trades of players well into the arbitration process back, too for teams who need cost certainty when trying to determine appropriate trade value. I'd like to see MLB actually push the start of free agency/arby decisions/league year/etc to the middle of December instead of starting it in early/mid November. There's no reason there needs to be what amounts to 4 full months of this where teams have the option to make moves before Spring Training really ramps up, and most teams and agents wind up using that vast amount of time as an excuse to just continue yapping at each other instead of getting some things done. Condense the front office/player acquisition offseason to promote action. They're already playing world series games into November routinely now, MLB can use the rest of that month to just announce awards and leave all the initial QO/Aribtration/Free agency decisions to happen in early December instead of early/mid November.

Thrilled there's a playoff line with Green Bay in it for next weekend, no matter what the spread! I don't think the Cowboys have lost all season at home (although the Lions probably had them without that penalty call) - so this is going to be tough sledding. If the defense can find a way to get off the field a couple times a half without giving up scores and create a turnover I think the Packers have a shot. You know McCarthy's going to be jazzed up for this one, and hopefully he gets too cute with his game plan - if the Cowboys' offense just lines up with power running and play action to the middle of the field it could be a loooong day.

I agree with pretty much all of this - but I guess it doesn't matter at all if Burnes isn't dealt. The way this offseason has progressed so far I'd actually be surprised if Burnes is traded before Opening Day. They're the clear favorite in this division with him in the rotation as it stands now. With the current Brewers' payroll, I'd expect them to add in free agency at corner IF or DH (or even both) even if they keep Burnes and whatever his salary will be - I just doubt that all happens and Hoskins is their target due to what I think he'll wind up getting from some large market team. I've long thought that any Brewers trade of Burnes would heat up after the Jan 12th arbitration figure deadline to see if 1) Burnes and the Brewers actually agree to a 2024 salary without having to go to a hearing and there's cost certainty for the season, or more likely 2) Teams see what Burnes' camp is asking in arbitration compared to the Brewers. One question I had with that, say that Burnes and the Brewers don't come to terms before the deadline - if he is traded after the deadline but before his hearing, does the team who traded for him have to make the Brewers' case for their # at the hearing? There's no way Burnes would sign an extension before the season with Boras as a client. Sorry for sidetracking a thread about the Brewers' offense with this!