Fear The Chorizo

I'm with you on the comp pick possibility being an afterthought with Adames - if he stays a Brewer in 2024 I'm pulling for him to have a career season that resembles what he did for most of 2021, so he would consider not signing a QO from the Brewers....but not expecting it. The Giants make quite a bit of sense as a trade partner and I think any whiff of desperation on their end needing a SS may prompt them to offer up more than they should for Adames via trade.

When Melvin decided to hold onto Fielder, he traded the farm for Marcum and Grienke (both with two years of team control) Losing Cain stung, although that loss was pretty easily offset by the addition of Gomez in a future trade, but besides Cain the only other thing they lost was a knucklehead known more for his 40-hands photo than anything he did at the MLB level on the field and a slick fielding SS who never hit enough to miss him. Odorizzi also made a nice career for himself as a mid to bottom of the rotation starter, but the upside that Greinke brought to a Brewers team desperate for a TOR starter but good enough to win it all offensively was well worth sending over a handful of prospects. I don't think there's an obvious "only way" to approach Burnes this year for the overall longterm helath of the franchise - it's not a cut and dry "trade him no matter what" or "roll with him 1 more season before he leaves". The Brewers have the budget flexibility to play "wait and see", afford whatever arbitration salary Burnes will earn if they retain him through arbitration, and see how things shake out with any trade offers between now and the deadline. Given the current state of the NL Central, I think the Brewers would have to get a massive trade offer to move Burnes now - if it seems just like a fair deal, why not hold onto him into the season and then see how the Brewers start? If they're scuffling, they could get a "fair deal" a month or two into the season as well, particularly if a team obviously geared up to try and win it all has some significant pitching injuries in their rotation. The Dodgers and Rangers are already in that spot with arms that either won't be ready to start the season (DeGrom/Scherzer) or starters with extensive injury histories that could easily struggle early (Buehler, Glasnow, Kershaw, ...basically the entire Dodger rotation at this point).

Burnes has chosen to gamble on himself staying healthy in order to reach that huge free agent payday next offseason - at this point anything related to injury risk and his state of mind goes almost exclusively on his shoulders....not sure the Brewers should be too worried about a guy's desire to pitch like an ace during his free agent year. I've long looked at pitchers from the lens of how a small market team needs to prioritize getting value out of them through their mid-late twenties pitching for you, then determine the best way to find an off-ramp to avoid being saddled with a cumbersome, overpriced contract for an arm too far on the wrong side of 30 - even if it means sacrificing a few late 20's prime years by either letting him walk in free agency and getting a comp pick or trading him at the deadline. After the next few key agent starters sign elsewhere, there will be a couple teams interested in trading for Burnes before the season starts, and the question becomes if the trade packages offered are worth the Brewers trading him away, or if one more season with him anchoring a still solid pitching staff is more valuable to a roster that at present is still the best team in the division with Burnes on it. Trading Burnes in the offseason does get more return for him, but it also essentially punts on trying to be a true contender this year - which might not be the right plan for the rest of the roster. I'm a proponent of rolling with Burnes as the Brewers' 2024 Opening Day starter unless they get an incredibly valuable trade return, then if the Brewers are in playoff position come the trade deadline they add more via trade, otherwise if things don't get off to a great start the Brewers can get aggressive and get Burnes on the trade market well before July to still get a quality return. Reality is, at this point there are zero problems with keeping Burnes on the Brewers' roster to start 2024. If the Brewers turn around and resign Santana to play 1st and splurge on Soler to be their DH via free agency, suddenly their lineup looks alot more balanced. It really will be interesting to see what direction the Brewers will take things with a roster that already will have a bunch of young and exciting talent on it.

I'd add that I thought MLF did a pretty good job of hiring his initial offensive staff - however after several key coordinators/coaches left for head coaching/promotional coordinating gigs, I think much of the promotion from within hasn't been as solid...but it's tough to tell. MLF hiring Barry after canning Pettine has been a failure with how many draft picks and free agent signings have been made for the defense every single offseason. I can see the pros-cons of waiting until the offseason to fire Barry, but then again the same thing could've been said after last season ended and nothing happened. The defense should have been the strength of this year's team given the roster and just how young the offense was after moving on from #12....instead, it's just more of the same, where if the defense had performed up to expectations this team may have given the Lions a run for the division despite a rocky start to the year.

Heading into this season, it was pretty apparent on paper that safety was the Packers' biggest roster weakness on the defensive side of the ball. Add in key cornerbacks missing most of the season due to injury (Jaire) or not being on the roster due to midseason trade (Douglas), and the regular slot corner position has largely been given to their kick returner for some insane reason. It's been well-demonstrated over the last few seasons that tight ends, RB's and receivers running routes into the middle of the field, and Barry has not done a single significant them schematically to take away what are the easier passes to complete in the NFL when compared to perimeter passes. So not only are the Packers' defensive secondary personnel in the middle of the field lacking in terms of coverage talent, the scheme seems to want to drive opposing offenses to work the middle of the field, which is insanely stupid. It's maddening and mindboggling that literally everyone sees it as a problem and flaw, yet they keep repeating the same thing over and over and over and over again. I'm still holding out hope that the Packers find a way to back into the postseason and play a game, if only to give Love and the offense the experience of a road playoff game against a superior opponent. I think that's more valuable than clawing a couple more spots in the teens up the draft board. Either outcome of the regular season shouldn't determine whether Barry keeps his job - if MLF opts to stick with him and they once again get off to a bad start defensively next season the whole coaching staff should be dismissed, MLF included. Continuity isn't valuable when the status quo sucks.

The Royals could pick names out of a phone book and it would look like they are trying to improve their team...in fact that is basically what they've done. These FA signings are like all done with the thought of flipping them at the trade deadline, not for the Royals to seriously consider winning anything this season. It's still three weeks until new years and the Brewers have already been plenty active adding pieces via trade and free agency, and via a unprecedented contract extension to a prospect that hasn't yet played a mlb game.

The Royals won 56 games last season in what was by far the worst division in baseball. Are we really going to slam the Brewers for not signing marginal veteran free agents to make their roster less talented from a team that won 92?

In that dumpster fire of a division, they may wind up being the favorite come Opening Day depending what Cleveland wants to do with Bieber

Now expecting a Yamamoto deal with LAD for about $400m over 8 years, but $392m deferred and he gets a spare key to Ohtani's place so Ohtani can claim him as a dependent for tax purposes.

He should have been available for hiring years ago when the chargers should have first fired him. What an overrated organization.

And I would relish them being the 2024 version of the 2023 Mets...but I can't have nice things so they'll probably win 125 games and then lose to Reds in the division series, lol.

Good lord....$135m for a starting pitcher who will be lucky to give them 135 innings in one of those 5 seasons

Not sure we are on the same page - that scouting report on Hader was from a game when he was in AA as a 20 yr old, not when he was drafted out of hs at 18. My larger point was Hader wasn't considered a prospect worth anything longterm until multiple years as a minor leaguer, while Jacob M. pitched in the futures game at a similar age and earlier development timeline than Hader. In the end its splitting hairs because they are vastly different pitchers.

Lol at the Dodgers adding more injury prone pitchers to pay while on the IL. I don't get this move for them at all. Fully expect them to now give Buehler a 10 year extension as he rehabs his 2nd TJ, too. The Rays are absolutely now an extension farm system for Dodger prospects who are blocked on their own 40 man.

how much does Ohtani value the contract at? The "present dollars" argument is for luxury tax accounting purposes only by the current MLB rules...it's not real $ - real money is Ohtani is getting paid $2M a year in actual "present dollars" during the playing terms of the contract, not the $46M a year which is based on accounting calculations. I could care less what the MLB luxury tax/competitive balance assessment of the contract is - and that shouldn't be how WAR/dollar is calculated because if it truly was a $460M contract, more than the Dodgers would've been offering that and then some. It's only the Dodgers who can afford paying out almost $70M in real money for 10 straight years to a guy who most likely will be retired even before the 10 year playing term expires in ~2034. The Giants apparently said they had a similar deal on the table, but they've reportedly been throwing huge sums of $$ towards FAs in recent years only to never land them.

It's a $700M deal - if it was actually a $460M deal, it would be reported as a $460M deal. Deferrals and other accounting gimmicks to skirt the luxury tax or not, dude is set to be paid $700M dollars after signing on the dotted line...I guess unless the owner or Friedman leave, or some other random occurrence that leads to an opt-out option squirreled deep into the contract legalese.

Guess that means Adames is going nowhere, nobody else in the system to play SS next season in Milwaukee;)

I think that's the biggest difference, as a 19th rounder, Hader wasn't a bonus baby ($40K signee) and he was dumped into the middle of a generally weakly regarded Oriole farm system at the time. Hader may have been logging more innings early, but honestly he had to hit the ground running if he wanted to have any sort of chance at a MLB career based on his draft position. Misiorowski already has a MLB-ready pitch mix, and I think his timeline based on the first few AA starts from last year evaporates if he continues improving his command. He will still just be 22 at the start of next season. This is a scouting report about Hader from a scout in 2014, into his THIRD minor league season - this report indicated Hader's peak FB velo was 93, sitting at 90, and the pitch grades for FB/Curve/Change were 60/55/55....other scouting reports indicated that Hader frequently tired and got inconsistent later in his appearances as a starter, which never really improved over time and prompted his move into the bullpen. Hader is an interesting prospect in the sense that some his strengths may also be his weaknesses. He does not possess an overpowering pitch, but there is plenty of deception in his delivery, allowing each of his offerings to play up. Hitters are simply never comfortable from the moment they step in the box. In fact, I saw one hitter swing and miss at a pitch that hit him square on for strike three. However, all the moving parts within his mechanics make it hard for him to repeat his arm slot for five innings. Finding a consistency and being able to repeat in the long-term will be the key. I believe there is enough going on here to warrant a No. 4 starter ceiling for the recently turned 20-year-old. Hader is undoubtedly a long-term project, as noted by the 2017 ETA, but the wait could be worth it once he is a complete product. In the meantime, I would like to see him work on adding a slider to his repertoire as a fourth pitch. Perhaps more importantly, he will need to continue to build arm strength while improving his strength and conditioning.

He's got to improve at throwing the deep ball - and I also hope some of the questionable red zone decision making on where to throw the ball/when to get out of the pocket when the defense can condense will improve with more experience. He takes some bad sacks trying to extend plays from the pocket when they're in solid FG range, and he also isn't as quick to churn through progressions or anticipate what routes will be freed up given what the defense is doing. That great throw and catch to Heath that temporarily gave them the go ahead TD against the Giants is a prime example of that - predetermined where he was going with the ball based on the blitz look and it was a really good play, but had he recognized presnap what the Giants were doing on the other side of the formation he could've just flipped to an uncovered Reed on a shallow post for a gimme score. Love has all the physical tools needed to be a really damn good NFL quarterback - whether or not the decision making improves in some of those key spots on the field determines whether he (and most any other young quarterback) realizes that potential or not. I do think he's grown during the season in this regard, so hopefully that progression continues and he takes a huge step forward in year 2 as the starter throwing to all these young receivers/tight ends.

I can see Love and this group of receivers taking a really big jump next season after getting this 1st year of playing time together under their belts - if Watson could only stay on the field, I'd be even more excited about seeing what they can do. Shoring up the Oline and hopefully moving past having to dedicate a huge chunk of the team payroll for a left tackle who can't play football anymore due to injury will be huge for the offense. They do need to sort out their RB situation longterm this offseason - pretty apparent that Jones has aged beyond the point where you can expect him to stay healthy as the primary back, and Dillon is at the point where he'd likely be pretty expensive to keep around and get marginally decent production. Expecting a draft pick and a few other acquisitions - although I do like the addition of Drake to see if he could take Jones' role moving forward. Defensively, they have to bring in a new D coordinator and also figure out their secondary - it seemed like a roster strength, but Jaire has had a lost season due to injury (bad omen for an undersized and expensive corner, although he's great when healthy), Stokes is now a nonfactor the last two seasons due to injury, and Nixon may have worn out his welcome as a kick returner who shouldn't be playing as much slot corner as he is on this roster. I think they do wind up at 10-7, and even 9-8 likely squeaks them into the playoffs if they win the right games left on their schedule - all in all that's a positive for the organization in a season that has seemed endlessly riddled with negatives.

It's pitch count moreso than innings pitched for guys that are mainly focused on developing more consistency with their delivery - that's Misiorowski's biggest area needing refinement. Command improves with consistency and learning how to harness your stuff - I'm looking forward to what he looks like after working through some AA struggles and having another offseason to further develop physically and working on that delivery. Through most of his minor league appearances last season, including AA, Jacob M would rack up big pitch innings primarily because hitters couldn't put the ball in play and were battling to either walk or strike out. I also recall frequent commentary on umpires flat out missing strike calls with his stuff that led to walks/extra batters faced and pitches thrown. This was also Misiorowski's 1st minor league season of development after 1 year at a Juco program after high school, so the first time in his life he had a regular season that spanned 5+ months of games and not 2-3...if he wasn't as raw as he is, he would've been a 1st round draft pick out of high school - but the stuff is absolutely there. That being said, making a 20 yr old with developing mechanics jump into pitching 100+ innings his first minor league season just because he's 20 is a good way to injure a 100mph arm. No problem whatsoever with him pitching ~71 minor league innings across 3 levels, plus spring training/futures game for his 1st full professional season.

Probably just Mark A being cheap and not wanting his family to pay full price for bratwurst

It's late 2007/early 2008 all over again. Signals by the Fed for rate cuts are good temporarily for the stock market and for investment firms to pad their year end bonuses - but wall street and main street are living in completely different universes at the moment, which is actually a really bad thing and the main reason the Fed is going to start going back down the ladder with rates. The market has been counting on the Fed easing rates for quite awhile. Making $ in the market can happen at any time if people are buying/selling the right things at the right time - the fact the DOW is pushing over all-time highs right now doesn't feel like it's going to indefinitely keep climbing.

Hader was the throw in piece of the Gomez trade with the Astros that wasn't going to be mlb ready by the time he'd reach rule 5 eligibility, and the Astros didn't have room on their 40 man roster to hold onto him. That was also the second time he was traded. If he had a lofty prospect status at that time, no way he would have been jumping organizations every couple years. He didn't blow up in terms of being a potential stud mlb until AZ fall league in 2016, a full season after being traded to the Brewers- the format for that league is pitchers getting an inning or two per appearance, which was a natural way for him to showcase how dominant he could be as a reliever with a limited arsenal of pitches. Jacob M. is an altogether different animal in terms of what his mlb ceiling is - Hader is one of the greatest LH relievers of his generation, but he'd wish he had the arm and raw stuff Misiorowski does. To me, it's all about continued focus on refining command, repeating delivery, and hoping for good health. He will likely start back in AA, and at some point move up to Nashville with a starter's workload - whether he winds up seeing time in Milwaukee as a starter or reliever late summer depends on his health and where the Brewers are in the standings. Pitchers that are ready for mlb don't get stashed in the brewer minor leagues, they get called up to use their bullets in mlb before injuries cost them time and team control. Jacob M. scuffled a bit in AA last season, but seemed to settle in late - if he picks up where he left off at the end of last year he wont be long for Milwaukee, and we can continue wishing the system could have more pitching prospect depth while looking the other way whenever Gasser and Mis are on the hill at AmFam instead of Nashville or Biloxi.

I really don't get the Dodgers wanting anything to do with Glasnow - as you mentioned, they already have an All star roster of arms recovering from injury or dealing with legal issues (Urias). Perhaps they really do view the Rays as an extended farm team for their mid-level prospects who are hopelessly blocked, and can let them get their feet wet in MLB for a few seasons before they cost the Rays money in arbitration and can then go back and reacquire them via trade if any take a meaningful jump in ability.