Fear The Chorizo

I like Jimenez, used to love him but injuries derailed the start of his career and his inability to stay healthy remains his biggest concern....because of that I'd rather first try to sign Soler to a free agent deal to be the team's DH so prospects can stay with the Brewers. That being said, if the White Sox are willing to bite on the upside of Wiemer + a lotto ticket prospect or two I'd be ok trading for Jimenez, but I'd imagine the asking price is higher than that. With regards to Black and his eventual defensive position, I think the Brewers should let that play out on its own and start with him sticking at 3rd until he proves any defensive shortcomings at that position outweigh his bat. If his offensive game plays at the MLB level, DH is always an option for him longterm, too. Even with the glut of OFs currently on the 40 man roster and the assumption that Yelich and Contreras could once again take roughly 1/3 of the DH at bats for the team in 2024 if the Brewers are ok with them playing almost everyday (and are ok with one or both of those guys wearing down as the season winds down once again), I think targeting the DH position specifically via free agency or trade to bring in a good RH bat to anchor the lineup should be a priority.

Honestly to the Padres, the most important thing is they won't have to fill out a bunch more IOUs for having to pay whatever Soto's 2024 salary will come to in arbitration had they not traded him.

I saw some quotes from Boras indicating he's trying to get the Phillies to consider a contract extension for Bryce Harper...something along the lines related to the fact that his original THIRTEEN year deal included no opt-outs as a "good will" gesture by Harper to show his desire to be a career-long Phillie and also show to other marquee free agents that he's there for the long haul. That since he's been so instrumental in getting free agents to come to Philadelphia, he now wants an extension (likely at closer to current market rate AAV I'm sure) that will have him playing into his 40's. I would love for the Phillies' front office to call him back saying "That's great to hear Scott - looking forward to Bryce playing out his current contract that still has EIGHT years and a bit over $200 Million dollars left on it knowing he's a Phillie through and thorough, and come the 2031 season when Harper is a season away from free agency once again and pushing 39-40 yrs old, we'll be sure to see if he's still actually playing and then offer him a new deal at what his 2030-2031 production warrants. Hopefully by then, Scott, you'd be retired or possibly deceased and we won't have to deal with your nonsense anymore. Go find another one of your clients to rob a different organization with so you land one more golden parachute of a commission to buy another island." I'm pretty sure that if you were to list the worst current free agent contracts across MLB right now for organizations, the percentage of agent representation tied to the Boras Corp would be over 70%.

If the Hader trade wasn't made when it happened, this organization would have a lot more holes at the MLB level that need filling. It's been hashed over multiple ways, but Hader was one of the main reasons that 2022 team was nosediving after a solid start to the year. The theoretical trades that never happen always look like they would've yielded more return value than the trades are made, too. I doubt Arnold cares at all about what fans think about player moves and when they happen - if he thinks it's the right time to pull the trigger on something or stand pat, he's going to do it.

If Adames is traded, maybe Gavin Lux is the team's backup SS. I don't want to prioritize signing a guy like IKF at this point in the offseason before other more important dominoes with the roster fall into place than bringing in the backup to the prearvitration SS heir apparent if the current starting SS gets traded.

Sure - but how has that worked out for their offensive production in the postseason the past 5 years? At some point you need to balance the roster out and remove the top priority of a player having a bunch of different gloves in his duffel bag so you can have better hitters across your lineup at the start of a season. The Brewers currently have about 15 OFs on their roster, Monasterio can play 2B/SS/3B, Owen Miller can play everywhere, Vinny Capra can play 3B/2B/SS, and you've also got Oliver Dunn, Turang, and Adames as middle IF options. What's the point?

Good God, no...no thank you. Anytime I read "defensive versatility" as the primary value for a veteran position player, I want the Brewers to run as far away from that player as possible until their current 40 man roster actually lacks those qualities instead of having an overabundance of them at the expense of better hitters. Monasterio is still in the organization, right? Seems like Kiner-Falefa is an older, more expensive, and worse version of Monasterio, so I hope this is just Rosenthal looking to throw a few sentences together for each team during a Winter Meetings period that hasn't really seen the huge FA or trades happen that everyone is waiting on.

If Santana still has some tread on the tires, I think he'd be a fantastic fit next season - he seemed to really gel with the clubhouse once arriving in Milwaukee. Switch hitting veteran power bat that will give you a mid-upper 700s OPS and play a good defensive first base isnt the worst player in the world for this young team.

Specific to both Burnes and Williams, the calculus the Brewers have to weigh is what sort of dip in return value would there be if they simply go into 2024 with both and then decide to trade either at this year's deadline if they aren't in playoff contention come mid-June? And, if that dip in value is worth starting one more season with Burnes leading their rotation and Williams anchoring their bullpen with a shot at making a playoff run. I think that carries alot of value in a division that is still very much the Brewers to win again based on who the NL Central teams currently have on their rosters - because of that I think they can kind of sit on the sidelines in a holding pattern until a few key free agency and other trades happen, then make a more informed decision on how to proceed with Burnes/Williams. With Burnes, I think you'd see a significant drop in terms of trade value waiting until July instead of dealing him now after the Ohtani and Yamamoto sweepstakes are resolved. With Williams, I can actually see his value increasing at the deadline. Baltimore does seem like an ideal trade partner who definitely has the prospects that could pry either or both of these proven MLB talents away from the Brewers - I think any offer from them needs to knock the Brewers' socks off for either of them to be dealt before Opening Day.

What a dud this year's MLB offseason has been so far outside of Milwaukee. Is everyone going to sit on their hands at the Winter Meetings until they get to the airport tomorrow night/thursday morning before anything significant happens? Big ol' yawner at this point

This would actually be a pretty cool way to get interest ramping up for the regular season....if they can structure it in a way that doesn't impede the actual point of Spring Training and the incentive for teams is enough to warrant them actually caring about how they perform, but not something carrying such a high incentive as to strain the normal ramp up pitchers have to get ready for the regular season grind. Maybe halfway into Spring Training, identify one of each team's clubs (most spring training has games for multiple rosters to get onfield time for everyone) as the contestant, and then track their standings into the last week or so of Spring Training. Then take the top two clubs in the Cactus and Grapefruit league standings to play in a 4 team, single elimination tournament - the four clubs get a mix of player shares (similar to WS payments), competitive balance tax/payroll incentives (either a deduction teams could use towards getting below the luxury tax threshold, or a credit teams could use to put towards their following season's payroll), and maybe a sandwich pick or two - with the winning club getting a bit more than than the others.

I think Chourio is on the OD roster unless he gets injured in Spring Training, or has a terrible spring. And yeah, he's far from the 2nd highest paid player for 2024 - the significant chunk of the ~$80M guaranteed in the contract he just signed will get paid out in years 5-8 of that deal, until then he's likely making little more than he would otherwise have in pre- and early arbitration years on an annual basis. Specific annual cost details haven't really been released yet where sites like Spottrac can even lay out the exact dollar amounts Chourio will make each season.

The in-season tournament is perfect for the NBA this time of year, because their regular season means absolutely nothing and we're in the stretch run for the NFL regular season/college football rivalry/championship weekends, plus NHL seasons are rolling...in other words, absolutely nobody cares about NBA regular season games in November/early December, so anything they can do to draw some sort of general fan interest and get their teams to actually play with sustained effort this time of year is a good thing. I don't see how a similar format would would work at the MLB level, because teams just aren't going to alter pitching matchups that dramatically, and the frequency of games during the MLB regular season has to be almost daily, so a travel schedule for any sort of MLB tournament doesn't really work. For the NBA, if teams care about the in season tourney they just play their stars more frequently instead of giving them rest games off this time of year.

Rich Eisen went on and on about how much Love reminds him of Rodgers, the sidearm and backfoot throws and the zip and accuracy on the intermediate stuff. I feel like they all tried doing the same stuff with Rodgers when he first broke in - showing the off platform throws and jump throws and all that stuff....to be honest most NFL quarterbacks do that in today's game. Two great quarterbacks who wound up being totally different in how they played the game. Hopefully Love leans on his own unique qualities and develops into an elite qb, too! What has me most excited about Love is it seems like he's found a rhythm and the on-time throws he's making where he's driving the ball 15-20 yards downfield effortlessly - and the line of scrimmage checks seem to be getting communicated across the personnel to the point where we aren't seeing multiple receivers running the same routes and winding up on top of each other, too. Much easier for talented pass catchers to get open if they're spread across the whole field, and accuracy naturally improves when you're throwing on-time. What separates Rodgers from just about any other quarterback besides Mahomes is how accurate he is with the football on throws from outside the pocket or when the play breaks down. Love is definitely not close to Rodgers in that regard, and that's ok if he understands that and instead uses checkdowns and his own legs to try moving the chains.

Was checking NSBB for a similar article discussing PCA's MLB ceiling as a late-inning defensive replacement/pinch runner since his bat resembles several soggy rolls of tp strung onto a wet noodle, but strangely enough there wasn't one.

Odds of Ross performing better than Lance Lynn are really good at about 1/10th the price for 2024. Interesting signing if he stays healthy, and if not it's just a flyer that isnt wlexpensive enough to worry about.

You guys can keep thinking I'm secretly here just to talk down all things Brewers, but we're at almost a year together and I would think you'd have seen enough to start letting that paranoia go. Honestly, I think time and the growing amount of content being churned out is having the exact opposite effect on many regulars to this message board. There is nothing about Black's 2023 minor league season offensively that should be cause for a potential Brewers' problem moving forward.

What is Arnold cooking? We currently have a pretty set 13 pitchers if Ross's deal is an MLB deal. Looks to me like a pretty solid pitching staff....and "pretty set" 13 arms in early December is a good spot to be in right now...by Spring Training at least two of them are going to have some sort of injury issues to deal with - that's just what happens with pitchers. No reason to make any grand tea leaves predictions for a Burnes or Williams trade based on adding a veteran lefty who's familiar with the club and a potential back of the rotation starter returning from injury. those are the type of moves the Brewers make every offseason to solidify depth with their staff.

If they really wanted to shed payroll, the Twins should've not given Correa a full NTC to go along with the $30+M annual salary they're giving him the next handful of seasons to miss at least a month of each year and gradually decline offensively with the contract they just signed him to last offseason.

He must have shrunk 4 inches since he was drafted - he was listed at 6'2" then...truth is probably somewhere in between, which is just fine for a doubles machine that can fly no matter what position he plays. Really hoping Black is in the Brewers' plans at 3B for 2024 - maybe not opening day, but not long after that if he's hitting in Nashville. Guys with that kind of speed shouldn't be striving for hitting the ball in the air constantly - aim for line drives over flyballs, make solid contact, and get on base. That .428 OBP clip in in ~40 AAA games or the 0.417 overall OBP between AA and AAA for Black last season looks pretty darn good - and over both Frelick's and Turang's 2022 minor league production.

If Kelenic wasn't a WI product, we'd all pretty much presume his ceiling was that of an average MLB corner OF, and the most likely career arc for him would be more along the lines of something less than that who never came close to the prospect hype he generated. Then again, the Braves seem to be pretty adept at getting as much offensive production out of guys as they're capable of providing and Kelenic is still just 24...if there's one place he could find a way to reach that potential, it'd be ATL.

I tend to agree - but I think it makes the most sense to do an extension like that sometime in the next league year for salary cap relief purposes (i.e., be able to put as much of the cap hit onto year 1 after Rodgers' dead $$ falls off). Plus, they'd get the rest of this season to continue evaluating his performance. I don't know if Love is suddenly deserving of a new lifetime contract sort of extension, but something in the 4-6 year range at market rate is starting to be warranted.

Ticked that MLB won't implement some sort of waiver rule changes to prevent what the Angels did last August to skirt themselves back under the luxury tax threshold and avoid significant financial penalties that are, in part, shared across lower-revenue ballclubs from happening again. Could be as simple as locking in an organization's payroll figure that determines the following year's luxury tax accounting right after the 8/1 trade deadline.

That was FSU's 3rd string qb last weekend...their primary backup to Travis, the guy who won in the Swamp, will be their starter in the bowl game. As far as other teams making the playoff with backup quarterbacks, OSU, Bama, and Clemson all were selected as CFP participants with backup quarterbacks and some of those teams werent even undefeated, so that argument has no merit IMO. Back in the BCS era, we were subjected to an all-SEC title game with Bama facing LSU for a second time in a game where neither program had an offense worth a darn, but they talked about those great SEC defenses being the reason they both deserved a spot. FSU's defense is legit and has proven as much even more so after Travis got injured. Look at it this way - had Alabama lost to Auburn a couple weeks ago and likely taken themselves out of the CFP conversation regardless of the SEC championship game outcome, and then UGA scratched out a win against them despite losing Bowers and their starting quarterback to injuries that would keep them out of the CFP rounds, would UGA have still gotten one of the four spots or would they have been leapfrogged by multiple teams and left out of the mix despite an undefeated record? The ACC went 6-4 against the SEC this season, btw.

I don't think you can set any expectations with a roster so young that's still learning how to do what they're supposed to do individually on the field, let alone learn how to play together, plus dealing with a bunch of key players out with injury - but it's exciting to see things start to come together. Particularly on offense, you can see more variety/imagination with playcalling as players seem to actually be running the correct routes or keeping their blocking assignments. It's just exciting having this team in early December having a playoff spot firmly in their hands if things go well, and giving this roster the chance to experience that sort of pressure as part of the learning process against what looks like a favorable schedule. The play I was most impressed with was actually one that resulted in an incomplete pass late in the game - that misdirection screen pass where all the other receivers flooded the right side of the field at the snap and it left Kraft + 1 blocker on the left side of the field - if the timing was just a bit better and the KC defender wasn't instantly glued to Kraft to give Walker a chance to at least get in front of him, that would've been a a walk-in TD from 15 yards out.