DuWayne Steurer

The Brewers conclude a three city road-trip with a three game set in Miami against the Marlins. After dropping two of three in both Atlanta and Cincinnati, the Crew look to rebound here and head home on a positive note. The Brewers kick off the series still holding a 3.5 game lead on the division rival Cardinals. Game 1 -- Brewers 2, Marlins 1 https://www.espn.com/mlb/boxscore/_/gameId/401354727 Corbin Burnes continued his streak of dominant starts for the Brewers in the early going of the 2022 campaign tonight against the Marlins. Seven innings, seven punch-outs, no walks, and again only one run allowed on a solo home run in the third inning. Burnes getting through seven complete today is a nice pick up for a bullpen that's been working extra innings over the last week-plus with some short starts. The Brewers jumped on the board in the first inning on a Kolten Wong lead-off home run. After a rocky start to the season at the plate, Wong has righted the ship, and has quietly put up some solid numbers recently, including a .942 OPS over the last fourteen days. Wong's defense remains a question mark. A -0.3 Bref dWAR at this point in the season is certainly uncharacteristic, and certainly when the Brewers signed Wong, a big part of the value in his signing was the defense. We'll see if he can tame that glove and get the defense turned around along with the bat. With former Brewer Jesus Aguilar tying the game with a solo home run in the third inning, the score stayed 1-1 until the ninth inning. Burnes gave way to lightning rod reliever Devin Williams, who worked a clean eighth inning, striking out two. The Brewers put one on the board in the ninth with a bases loaded walk by Jace Peterson to retake the lead. It looked like a further opportunity squandered as they scored just once after having the sacks loaded with nobody out. It was all academic however, as closer Josh Hader came in and finished the game on seven pitches and the Brewers took game one. Burnes didn't get the win, leaving his record on the season just 1-2, but more importantly, the Brewers did get the win in a game he started. Hader recorded his thirteenth save in as many tries. Game 2 -- Marlins 9, Brewers 3 https://www.espn.com/mlb/boxscore/_/gameId/401354742 Eric Lauer took the bump for the Brewers tonight and suffered the rare rough start as the Marlins touched him up for three home runs in the fourth inning. The Brewers once again jumped on the board first with a solo home run by Willy Adames in the first inning, but that would be all the offense they'd muster until the game was out of reach. Lauer worked scoreless through the first three innings, allowing just one base runner on a single. Holding a 1-0 lead in the fourth inning, he surrendered home runs to Jesus Aguilar, Jorge Soler, and Brian Anderson, and left the inning down 4-1. It's now the second game in a row former Brewers all-star Aguilar has taken one out of the park against his former team. Trevor Gott came on in the sixth and failed to record an out as the Marlins tacked on another four-spot off of both Gott and Jandel Gustave. The Brewers got two back in the eighth inning on Hunter Renfroe's ninth home run of the year, a 428 foot shot to left. That was the end of the scoring for the Brewers Renfroe now has nine home runs and fifteen RBI on the season. https://www.espn.com/mlb/boxscore/_/gameId/401354757 Game 3 -- Brandon Woodruff gets the start in the series finale and the Brewers look to get back to Milwaukee with a semi-respectable 4-5 road trip. The Brewers scored in the first again, just like each of the first two games of the series, this time on a Luis Urias sacrifice fly. The Marlins got two unearned runs off of Woodruff in the second inning, and struck again with a Jorge Soler solo home run in the third. Down 3-1, the Brewers looked to be headed towards a third straight series defeat. Then in the top of the fifth the bats came alive. Jace Peterson and Kolten Wong hit back-to-back solo home runs. Four batters later, a two-run, two out single by Rowdy Tellez put the Brewers up 5-3. Woodruff pitched through five innings and handed the ball over to Aaron Ashby who pitched brilliant in relief. Ashby went four innings, striking out eight, and not allowing a hit or a walk, picking up the save. Tellez picked up his eighth home run of the season in the seventh inning, and Luis Urias closed the scoring with an RBI single in the eighth. Willy Adames left the game in the second inning after tweaking an ankle. It was mentioned on the radio broadcast that he would be listed as day-to-day. It seems reasonable that the Brewers will give a more comprehensive status update on Adames on Monday, and hopefully any news that comes out about his injury won't include any kind of lengthy IL stay. Despite the rocky and inconsistent play, the Brewers head home with a 4-5 record on the road trip, and as of this writing, still holding a three game advantage over second-place St. Louis, who plays later tonight at San Francisco. View full article

called it. rowdy is player of the week.

called it. rowdy is player of the week.

Friday I watched - The Gentlemen. I feel as though we've come to expect a certain *type* of film from Guy Ritchie. There's certain beats. There's a rhythm, and tenor to his films. There's familiar plot twists (or so you think) and even though it's familiar, it still feels well done. The dialogue is always so extremely well done that I never feel like I'm waiting for the next scene to get here. I never feel like I'm in a Tarantino movie, impatient for the exposition to end so I can actually feel the story start to move forward. Matt McConaghey was superb in this one. The twist was reasonably predictable, as Guy Ritchie twists are wont to be, but that doesn't make the movie any less good for that. Went to see Dr Strange and the Multiverse of Madness friday night. Gotta watch how I review this, as I want to keep it spoiler free. First off, it was good. It wasn't great, but it was good. There's a lot of reviewers calling this a "horror" film, and I'm going to say this. I don't know what kind of horror films these people are watching, but this isn't a horror movie. There's a few jump scares, and a few things that I'd call *creepy*, but I never got the feeling that this was anything even close to resembling a horror film. There's some psychological drama, but again, not horror. There's a few cool easter eggs splashed throughout, and the action sequences are (it almost goes without saying for a Marvel film) over the top fantastic. I have one gripe, and I'll be as careful as I can without throwing spoilers in here. I feel as though every single show and movie since Endgame has directly or indirectly been about dealing with the fallout of "The Snap". At *some point* the MCU has to move on from that event (I know it was huge! Half the universe was wiped out!), and start writing stories that aren't dealing with the consequences of that event. I think it's great that the shared universe of all these stories have very real effects on each other and that the writers haven't created planet-sized plot holes in each others' stories, but at some point, I think the "Because Thanos" storyline has to be left in the dust. (In my opinion, of course) That gripe aside, it was entertaining as heck, and it's an absolute "go see in a theater" movie.

The Brewers head to Atlanta to rematch the Braves, who knocked them out in the NLDS last season. At 18-8, the red hot Crew hold first place in the NL Central while the Braves at 12 - 15 are hanging out in fourth place in the NL East. Getting third baseman and super utility man Luis Urias back was a boost for the Brewers bats, and they’ll look to continue the hot hitting in Atlanta. Game 1 – Brewers 6, Braves 3 https://www.espn.com/mlb/boxscore/_/gameId/401354633 The Brewers sent freshly minted ace Eric Lauer to the mound to square off against Jesse Chavez and the Braves. Continuing recent trends, the Crew struck early, scoring two on a double by white-hot Rowdy Tellez in the first inning. Over the last seven days, Tellez has carried a sizzling 1.562 OPS with four homeruns and 15 RBI. Player of the week incoming in 3, 2, 1… Lauer continued his recent streak of stellar pitching, holding the Braves down for 6 ⅓ innings, allowing just two runs on two hits. Lauer didn’t reach the ten strikeout plateau for a third straight start, but he did strike out eight, walking three. On the negative side for the lefty hurler, he did give up an mammoth solo homerun measured at 450 feet to Ronald Acuna Junior in the fourth inning, but limited the damage beyond that to an RBI sacrifice fly. With the score knotted at two, the Brewers struck for four runs in the sixth the unconventional way (for them) with no homeruns. An RBI groundout by Lorenzo Cain, a bases loaded walk by Willy Adames, and a two run single from Christian Yelich gave the Brewers a four run lead heading into the late innings. Jandel Gustave surrendered a solo home run to Dansby Swanson in the eighth, but Josh Hader came on in the ninth inning to nail down the save and remains a perfect eleven for eleven in save opportunities. Hader retired the side in order to preserve Lauer's win, moving him to 3-0 on the season. Game 2 – Braves 3, Brewers 2 https://www.espn.com/mlb/boxscore/_/gameId/401354648 In game two, the Brewers put Corbin Burnes on the mound against Max Fried. Fried has been tough on the Brewers in three career starts. In 14 career innings against the Crew, Fried has a 2.57 ERA, allowing just 9 hits and no home runs. Both aces worked through the first four innings relatively quickly. In the fifth inning the Braves broke through on Burnes first, with Ronald Acuna Jr. smashing his second home run in two days, putting the Braves on top 1 - 0. The Braves tallied again in the bottom of the sixth on an Ozzie Albies single pushing the lead to two. Overall, Burnes pitched well again, going six, striking out seven, scattering six hits and a walk. The Brewers put one back on the board with a home run by Hunter Renfroe, number six on the season, in the seventh inning. With the Brewers within a run, skipper Craig Counsell turned to freshly called up bullpen arm Luis Perdomo to work the next two innings. Perdomo gave up a run in the bottom of the eighth on a Travis d’Arnaud single, giving the Braves a 3-1 advantage moving into the ninth inning. Counsell will surely be questioned for his use of Perdomo for two innings in a one run game. It’s a fair question to ask. The answer or answers certainly won’t be black and white. Josh Hader, Devin Williams, Trevor Gott, Brad Boxberger, and Hoby Milner all have ten or more appearances early in the season and the team is less than thirty games in. It’s also important to remember they’re working with a short spring training schedule and there’s fewer days off worked into the schedule, and that’s going to have an impact on how managers use their bullpens throughout the season. It's going to be interesting to see how these dynamics play out over the course of the full season, and how managers and general managers handle both their bullpen usage and roster management throughout the full course of 162 games. In the ninth, Christian Yelich doubled and scored on a Tyrone Taylor single, pulling the Crew within a run. The rally was snuffed out on a strike out-throw out double play when Rowdy Tellez struck out and Taylor was caught stealing to end the game. Burnes' ERA stands at a stellar 1.86 ERA after six starts, but he's standing on a 1-2 record right now. Through those six starts the Brewers offense is averaging 2.89 runs per game. Of course run support is random, and not a skill or anything a pitcher can influence, but with Burnes continuing to pitch so effectively, and averaging over six innings per start, the team and Counsell have to find ways to put themselves into position to win those close contests more consistently. The win-loss record of the pitcher doesn't matter nearly as much as the team getting the W, and the Brewers are 2-4 in Burnes' starts. https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/split.fcgi?id=burneco01&year=2022&t=p#all_rs Game 3 – Braves 9, Brewers 2 https://www.espn.com/mlb/boxscore/_/gameId/401354663 Aaron Ashby took the mound for the Brewers in the rubber match against the venerable Charlie Morton. Problems with control plagued Ashby in his start today, to go along with several softly hit balls falling in or finding holes in the second inning that produced a four run rally for the Braves that put the Brewers behind a big number early. The Brewers threatened a big inning in the top of the second, with two walks sandwiched around a Tyrone Taylor single, but a Lorenzo Cain strikeout, followed by a Jace Peterson fly out to center snuffed out the early rally. The Braves loaded the bases in the bottom of the second with one out, but didn't fail to capitalize like the Brewers did. A bases loaded walk, followed by an RBI ground out brought two runs in. Matt Olson blooped a shallow fly to left that managed to find a hole for a double and bring two more runs in. Nothing in the inning was hard hit, but Ashby struggled to find the plate, walking two, and free runners on base when the bloops and bleeders found those holes put the Crew in a 4-0 hole. The Brewers put two more runners on base with one out in the third, and again failed to move runners around to score. Solo tallies in the third and fourth would finish Ashby's day. The Braves tacked on a three run home run by William Contreras off of Jandel Gustave in the fifth inning, putting the Brewers in a massive 9-0 hole. There was to be no Mother's Day magic this day however. The Crew scored twice in the eighth inning, with Mike Brosseau knocking in a run with an RBI single and a run scoring when Christian Yelich grounded into a double play. Unfortunately, that was all the scoring the Brewers would muster today as they dropped the series to the Braves and drop to 19-10 on the season. The Brewers move on to Cincinnati in the middle stop of a three city trip starting Monday night with Brandon Woodruff on the mound. The Reds are hanging out at the very bottom of the standings at 4-23, so hopefully a trip to Cincinnati can reignite the bats and end the short two game skid. View full article

Bauer also harrassed a college age girl on Twitter for 72 hours because she said he was her "least favorite athlete" to the point she was getting death threats from his followers. like adambr said, there's almost certainly past behavior at play when MLB made their decision.

There are pictures of the women he beat into unconsciousness easy enough to find on the web, and he freely admits doing it, and the face of the one woman clearly exhibits quite a bit of physical damage. I won't re-post those pictures on this site.

Brewers break out the sticks in weekend tilt vs. Cubbies. Yelich and Renfroe lead the charge to nine home runs. Game 1 -- Brewers 11, Cubs 1 https://www.espn.com/mlb/boxscore/_/gameId/401354539 Do you want home runs? We have your home runs. Six, to be exact. The Brewers launched six big flys against the Cubs in the series opener, including two by Hunter Renfroe. The Crew had a comfortable 4-0 lead with Adrian Houser cruising again and Jace Peterson and Andrew McCutchen both hitting home runs in the early going when Christian Yelich came to the plate in the fifth inning. 447 feet. That's a bomb. The Brewers continued to pour it on, with the two aforementioned home runs by Renfroe and a blast by Willy Adames in the eighth to close out the scoring for the Brewers. With Houser pitching six scoreless, it was all over but for the bullpen to manage three innings and for the Wrigleyville faithful to run that L up the pole on the North Side. https://twitter.com/Brewers/status/1520244138297688065?s=20&t=S3QRh8-ldXbNHJtQr-ny9w Game 2 -- Brewers 9, Cubs 1 https://www.espn.com/mlb/boxscore/_/gameId/401354554 Eric Lauer continues to make his case that he's another in the pack of aces in the Brewers rotation. Lauer struck out eleven in seven innings, giving up one run on a solo home run and lowering his season ERA to just 1.93. On the other side of the coin, the Brewers' offense continued the run-scoring onslaught from the day before, scoring three runs in the first and pounding three more home runs, bringing their two-day total to nine. Home runs from Rowdy Tellez, Hunter Renfroe, and Christian Yelich powered the Crew. Yelich and Renfroe went back to back in the eighth, Yelich knocking one just over the wall in dead center field. Yelich had many of these teaser moments last season, where many fans and pundits alike thought, "ok, maybe this is it! Maybe he's back! Maybe he's heating up!" It feels like he's hitting the ball with authority, lifting it, and the deeper numbers suggest this is the case. His launch angle, barrels, and hard-hit percentage suggest that he's hitting more authoritatively recently, and if this is a trend and not just a short tease, Brewer fans would certainly breathe a massive sigh of relief. Getting a productive bat back into the middle of the order would be a huge boost for what has been a run-starved lineup for large parts of the season. https://www.fangraphs.com/players/christian-yelich/11477/stats?position=OF#statcast After an eleven-run and nine-run outburst, the Brewers hang just above the league average of 4.15 runs per game, at 4.27. It's still early, and even a few big games can swing the average a lot, Game 3 -- Cubs 2, Brewers 0 https://www.espn.com/mlb/boxscore/_/gameId/401354569 The Brewers and Corbin Burnes went up against Marcus Stroman, and while asking the offense to be average, ten runs per game for a three-game stretch might be asking a lot; getting Corbin Burnes some run support shouldn't be. Burnes was brilliant (again), but he needed to be perfect today. Going seven innings and striking out ten for his third start in a row, Burnes gave up single tallies in the fifth and sixth innings; that would be all the Cubs needed. As good as Burnes was, his counterpart Marcus Stroman was just as brilliant today, holding the Brewers scoreless on two hits through seven innings. The Brewers couldn't break through against the Cubs' bullpen and fell to the Cubs in the series finale. Josh Hader had been used a lot (ten appearances) through the first nineteen games, so a three-game stretch where he's not used at all is a nice rest for his arm and will save some of those innings for later in the season and hopefully, the playoffs. Winning any series from a division rival is a big get, and blowing out the Cubs twice in a row in Miller Park......er, American Family Field, feels doubly nice. Losing the finale with a whimper and wasting an excellent start by Corbin Burnes leaves that feeling of wanting more. Next up, the Brewers get a day off on Monday, followed by a three-game set against the Reds at Miller Park......er, American Family Field. View full article

We already got one character guy in this draft. I think there's actually a team rule about taking two guys with character concerns.

I'm not big on the value-return on the trade, but after the run on WR's yesterday, I'm sure they didn't want to take the chance that the guy or guys they wanted today would still be hanging around at 53.

I think he knows he kinda does, but he's just playing with people's hearts (as you said) Randall Cobb is like 53 years old in WR years. Allan Lazard runs like a 7.4 40 (but he sure can block!) Sammy Watkins will probably be healthy for like 6.7 games this year and A. Rodgers is not ready to be a WR2.

I'm not stylish (or young) enough for such brazen fashion.

haha, sometimes sarcasm/jokes are hard to pick up without the subtle inflections of body language and facial expressions.

Johnson's character concerns aside, a guy's jacket being cause for concern is an unfair characterization. There have been a lot of guys that have worn some pretty outlandish things to the draft. It's a loud, brash event, and it's a glitzy, outlandish event at that.

So what you're saying is, 80+% of the guys picked so far are 22 or younger, meaning there's not actually really any data to be gleaned from the data, and it's pretty much just random? huh....

This was always the danger when the only pre-draft addressing of the WR room was adding Watkins. I'm sure there's a plan B, but I'm also sure plan A was probably taking one of the premium WR's in the first round.

Lions knew what they wanted.

I'd like to think that most sports fans have players who make it into the inner circle of "favorites" who are obscure to some degree, odd, or just regular, average guys who might be bench warmers, or even guys who never made an impact of any great degree on the game they play. As Brewer fans, I feel like we've probably had more than our fair share of guys that we've had weird attachments to, fan-crushes, and quirky dudes like Tim Dillards, Keith Ginters, and so on. Guys that maybe aren't making commercials and millions of dollars and getting all star and MVP votes, but endear themselves to the fans or one of us individually none the less. I know my FAVORITE player when I was a young kid was Gorman Thomas. Now *there* was a star. The guy socked homer after homer. He played center field. He had an awesome mustache, and he smoked in the outfield! He even had a great name and a cool as heck nickname. I remember in early 1983 when the Brewers traded him for Rick Manning. I can't even begin to imagine what baseball executive would trade a bonafide superstar like Gorman Thomas for Rick. Manning. I think I must have just rode my red, black and white BMX bike around in a haze for a few days just trying to comprehend the stupidity of such a move. I'm still not over it. I look back at Gorman Thomas' 1983 stat line though, and older me understands the data driven side of why the Brewers did what they did. I still will never forget, even if I am able to forgive. But let's fast forward to 1986. The Brewers had struggled through a brutal 1985. Not a lot went right. 1986 was going better! The Brewers had a new slugger, with a decent mustache (Rob Deer). I don't know if he ever smoked while patrolling the outfield, but he was pretty cool. They were hovering around .500 in June. Things were looking a little better. So it was that my younger brother and myself came to be going to the Janesville Mall for the "Grand Re-opening" to see one Ernest Riles, shortstop for the Milwaukee Brewers. Now, the Janesville Mall is a little mall, in a medium sized town, and Ernie Riles is not exactly a star draw, so there weren't a ton of kids there. My brother and I both had Topps Sticker albums (remember those? Those things were GREAT!) and Ernie signed them for us. My dad let Ernie know we'd be coming to Detroit to see the Brewers play the Tigers near the end of June, and I think he didn't believe my dad, as he laughed and said "see ya there!" Fast forward to June 27th, 1986. Our family of four gets walk-ups to the vast, gray, cavernous Tiger Stadium, underneath the right field overhang. Tiger Stadium was so different than County Stadium to a young kid like myself. Just a huge diamond shape, and it had a much more enclosed feel, not quite claustrophobic, but very dark (to me) and I remember it feeling "old". Even as a precocious 11 year old, I remember having a strongly defined understanding of the history and age and just the weight that this park held. We ambled over into the right field corner where none other than Teddy Higuera was signing autographs. What a great start to the day for us this could be, if we could get Teddy Higuera! My brother leans out, trying in vain to get Teddy's attention, and finally Teddy takes...... my brother's pen, to sign someone else's program! My mom, never a shy one, scolds Higuera and says "If you're going to use his pen, the least you can do is sign an autograph for him!", and my brother got Teddy Higuera's autograph on a square of plain folded brown cardboard. We wandered over to the Brewers dugout, where several Brewers were milling about, and a few more guys were playing long toss. Ernie Riles is throwing, sees us, and yells "Hey! It's the Janesville kids!", and stops throwing and comes jogging over. It's hard to describe that feeling of being a young kid, and being recognized by a major league baseball player, who stops what he's doing to come say hi to some kids he saw in a mall from two or three weeks ago at a signing event. That's like a top two or three moment in a little kid's life at that point. We had bought Brewers mini-bats, and he signed those, and something else, and talked ball with us and our dad for a few minutes (it feels longer in my memory, but it was probably in reality 30 seconds), and exclaimed that he couldn't believe we came all the way from Janesville to watch a ballgame. We didn't tell him that this was just one stop on our family vacation to Niagara Falls, and other points. It was a planned stop, but we didn't drive JUST to Detroit to see the Brewers. But Ernie didn't need to know that. If he wanted to believe we drove 10 hours to watch him play shortstop in Detroit, that's great. I remember the Brewers losing to the Tigers on a Kirk Gibson walk off bomb, 4 - 2. I looked it up, and Baseball-Reference confirms that my memory serves me well. Kirk Gibson hit a one out homer in the bottom of the 11th off of Dan Plesac, for a 4-2 Tigers win on June 27th 1986. I was always a huge Ernie Riles fan after this. I played the crap out of Strat-o-Matic baseball (and a bunch of you guys did too, even if you won't admit it) when I was a kid, and I put a full HOMERUN on 3-8 on Ernie's card. It made him more of a power hitter than he was supposed to be, but I didn't care. Ernie was my guy. He was never more than an average at best shortstop/utility guy, but I didn't care. He was a *good* guy, and genuinely nice and good guys are hard to come by. https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/r/rileser01.shtml https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/DET/DET198606270.shtml

I'd like to add a few things. I'm just a mod, not an admin, so I feel like my 2 cents are (fairly) impartial. 1) I appreciate Brock taking the time to give us this information in a transparent way where it's easy to digest for everyone. 2) As a mod, I appreciate folks keeping their "I hate ads" comments and suggestions in this post and the suggestions/issues forum, rather than the game threads, thanks! I was a member and admin of a super excellent sports-fan site for years (sports-boards.net) and like Brock said, we had a super cool, excellent thriving community, that was probably a few 3000 - 5000 strong at its peak. We had fan boards for almost every major sports team in North America, and a dedicated college sports forum, and probably had 3000 to 5000 posts per day. Some days was well over 10K posts Like Brock said, a few people left, a few more people left, and then one week we literally had less than 100 posts per day, and I was looking at the list of unique visitors and it was 8 - 12 registered users, and handfuls of bots and guests. Forums without additional content can die, just like that. Brewerfan is lucky in that we serve a super-dedicated, tight-nit and niche group, but if ya'll haven't noticed a lot (a lot!) of long time posters are leaving, and not a lot of people have been replacing them. I stayed at Brewerfan for 20 years because of the unique, Brewers baseball community we had, and still have. This new ownership gives us an opportunity to grow and have something more than just a forum with a 2008 interface. I don't know about any of ya'll, but I didn't go to Brewerfan for the interface, I posted daily for the people I got to talk baseball with. I said all this back at the "old" brewerfan, but I'll say it again, even if it sounds bit cheesy. This is going to have growing pains, change sucks but it can be fun and exciting and frustrating and any other expletive you might throw at it. Ads suck, nobody is gonna tell you different. Like I told the guys in the moderator chat, I HAVE to use my phone at work because I'm not allowed to use my computer for personal browsing. This site is pretty rough on mobile, as any of you who have tried it knows. But when I have down time, I check in and see who either liked a comment or told me I'm wrong about something, because it breaks up my day. Alright, jumping off my soapbox. ✌️

When I was a kid, I had a fairly strong belief that "prospects" like Billy Jo had statistics in AA and AAA that would translate rather simply to major league success. That being said, I had no idea that "park factor" was a thing, and that certain leagues in the minors were more hitter friendly or anything like that. I saw Billy Jo's stats for El Paso, and was CONVINCED he was going to be the next Don Mattingly, at the *very least*. Needless to say, I, like all Brewers fans, ended up with nothing but disappointment, but that never stopped me from using Billy Jo's mug for my avatar at the old site for like 5-6 years.

When I was a kid, I had a fairly strong belief that "prospects" like Billy Jo had statistics in AA and AAA that would translate rather simply to major league success. That being said, I had no idea that "park factor" was a thing, and that certain leagues in the minors were more hitter friendly or anything like that. I saw Billy Jo's stats for El Paso, and was CONVINCED he was going to be the next Don Mattingly, at the *very least*. Needless to say, I, like all Brewers fans, ended up with nothing but disappointment, but that never stopped me from using Billy Jo's mug for my avatar at the old site for like 5-6 years.

When I was a kid, I had a fairly strong belief that "prospects" like Billy Jo had statistics in AA and AAA that would translate rather simply to major league success. That being said, I had no idea that "park factor" was a thing, and that certain leagues in the minors were more hitter friendly or anything like that. I saw Billy Jo's stats for El Paso, and was CONVINCED he was going to be the next Don Mattingly, at the *very least*. Needless to say, I, like all Brewers fans, ended up with nothing but disappointment, but that never stopped me from using Billy Jo's mug for my avatar at the old site for like 5-6 years.