liveforoctober

The pending lockout changes prospect timelines for teams like Milwaukee. Any player on the 40 man roster is included in the work stoppage and can't play if the season gets put on hold. Any player not on the 40 man will still play a full minor league season. Lara is certainly in the group of guys who the Brewers will do everything they can to keep him in AAA unless (1) they have no other choice (2) he has proven he has permanently outgrown AAA. Putting him on the 40 man and calling him up for a 15 game spell in June where he gets 20 at bats just to send him back down and then lose an entire season of development next year doesn't make much sense for a team that values development and control. I have every expectation we will see Akil Baddoo in Milwaukee before Lara.

I don't anticipate Patrick staying in the pen as I think that was just a scheduling opportunity to get him some innings there. However, if Henderson does replace him in the rotation and Patrick moves back into that high leverage multi-inning role that he has had success in.. with Shane seemingly taking to his role... The bullpen may have just shored itself up and we are a bat away from being pretty formidable.

So you didn't watch Miz in favor of the TWolves two nights ago and you turned the game off in the 8th last night. I'm sorry for saying it but I think you know what you need to do re: today's game Brock!

It is interesting to go back and read the knee jerk reactions from folks when trades like this happen. The usual glass half full vs glass half empty bickering going on.

That is a beautiful bullpen chart. Murphy can throw darts at it.

A team could pair up Miz and Miller and cover the cost of their salaries with merch sales alone. 40 different avenues to advertise that pairing...

I'm expecting the easy route and for Perkins to be back. I want it to be Leonard. He has earned the chance and the "call up a right handed infielder" gig is going to go to Jett and then Pratt soon enough. It feels like now is the only time Leonard will be able to help the big league club this year. If he comes up and performs, it forces a good choice. Ortiz has options. If we send Leonard back down, he has created trade value for himself this year and maybe we can get a lottery ticket back for him or a decent chunk of change. Both Made and O'Rae are shoving up as well... losing the depth with Leonard isn't something to do willingly but if it happens and we can get something for him our system is full of infielders earning/needing promotions.

With a pending lockout next year I really hope Made doesn't get called up. If we lose a year of development next year for both he and Pratt because they get locked out that will stunt us.

If anything, the contract gives the Brewers more time to let him season in AAA. We are paying him regardless, let's make sure we bring him up correctly. If they think he is ready to learn against MLB pitching, then he comes up. If they think he needs to get a few hundred more at bats in AAA ... then he stays down. Panicking because an 8 year deal might become a 6 year deal and rushing him up when he isn't ready is not the right answer IMO.

I do agree it is an unfortunate side effect of how we have to approach roster construction. Sell high, buy low. Develop, develop, develop. It only works if your front office hits more than it misses in the exchanges ... but there will be misses. Nature of it. Thankfully we are hitting more than we are missing.

We are about a week away from being 1/4 done with the season. That would normally be a much better time for this thread but it's an off day and getting both Chourio and Vaughn back together feels like a pretty substantial before/after moment for the team. I was eyeing up the roster and getting a gut reaction on whether or not guys have been better or worse than we expected and, given the temperature of the team, I was actually surprised how many guys I have pegged as "as good or better" more than what I was expecting. I think the heaviness of the left side of our infield + Sal and our 4th outfielder disaster + 2 bullpen arms have created a cloud for me that doesn't seem to be accurate? I'd be interested to see how you all place these names. Performing at or above expectations Harrison, Miz, Patrick, Woodruff*, Ashby, Hall, Uribe, Woodford, Anderson, Turang, Contreras, Lockridge, Bauers, Sanchez, Yelich* Underperforming expectations Sproat, Drohan?, Megill, Rengifo, Ortiz, Hamilton?, Frelick, OF bench depth (Matos/Perkins/Jones), Zerpa Not enough time to put in any category but good depth pieces thus far Henderson, Black, Fitzpatrick+ I don't know Mitchell I like you and the team likes you so you are in no trouble but stop doing weird things during games Murphy The reason for optimism is I don't think we have too many guys at all who are wildly outperforming expectations. Probably Harrison. Maybe Anderson and Hall? Perhaps Lockridge? But the others very much have a "that seems about right" sense to them. Meanwhile, getting Chourio and Vaughn back - coupled with any return to normalcy for Frelick and Rengifo + whoever hits 9th should make our offense so much more consistent. Knock of wood the injury bug goes somewhere else for awhile ... but we look to have weathered the storm for the moment and are in a good position to win a few months of baseball. Would be interested to see how you all lay out the roster thus far.

I agree some form of human judgement should be allowed. If we are allowing official scorers to judge an error vs hit based on how hard a ground ball is hit in their opinion, etc ... how are we not allowing someone to objectively look at yesterday's game and make the determination that Sproat was the most important pitcher when we had the lead from start to finish..

Just a quick check in on the 3 bigger trades we made this off season: Out (BRef numbers): Collins (.2 WAR) Mears (.4 WAR) Durbin (.5 WAR) Mona/Seigler (0 WAR combined) Peralta (.6 WAR) Total: 1.7 WAR outbound In Zerpa (-.7 WAR) Harrison (1.1 WAR) Hamilton (.5 WAR) Drohan (-.1 WAR) Sproat (-.3 WAR) Jett (XX) Total: .5 WAR inbound A lot more goes into it than just pure person to person comparisons but initial reaction is the Brewers absolutely stole one from Boston, short term lost the NY trade (expected), and unfortunately took it on the chin with KC. Long term love what Drohan and Sproat are showing glimpses of and Harrison is a prize so those two trades will (should) pay dividends. Let's not talk about the KC deal for a while. Both Durbin and Collins seem to be rebounding after slow starts... will be interesting to see where these numbers end up around the all star break and after. Drohan seems to have found a spot in the pen and Sproat has looked better and maybe we get a Jett appearance at some point?

Just a couple of notes from tonight thus far.. - DeBerry... tough start to the year. Any chance he is working through injury of some kind? - I had this feeling with Burke last year and I feel it with Fischer this year. Couple of high level college bats ... they feel like gamers to me and possibly bored once they have 'defeated' a level of competition? Burke had a good run with the Rattlers last year then settled but I just had a sense he was 'over it' if that makes sense. He gets called up to AA and hits so well to end the year. Now he starts the year off on fire in AA and is settling again. Fischer feels the same to me. I will be watching when both get moved up respectively to how they respond... - I actually don't know which of the Rattlers 3 OF's should be moved up first. The answer might be all 3. Most will argue for one of Josh or Braylon and I wouldn't argue with it. But Ragsdale has quietly come along and has now relatively matched their production. College aged - has definitely played the most out of the 3 of them in his life... would not be surprised if an 'early' call up was needed if he was the choice.

Jett Williams 2-4 today ... avg up to .244 with a .351 OBP. OPS climbs above .700 finally. A couple good weeks is all he needs.. we have a few 40man roster spots open now too.

Holy smokes a Jason Alexander sighting in Houston...

Let's see if the vulture did enough to grab the win here.

Discussion question - if you were told your starter went 4 innings, didn't allow a run, struck out 5 ... and allowed 4 baserunners... Assuming all of the hits are singles ... would you prefer your pitcher is walking those guys or giving up hits? One seems to suggest he was effectively wild, the other suggests the other team had a light beat on him and he got through it.

Maybe also a communication thing with teammates? Maybe they are trying to eliminate middle infielders signaling to the catcher or something to challenge or a shout from the bench or something. I'm just guessing...

I was a day late on the prediction, but I accept Mr. Vaughn.

From a human standpoint I hope we let Pena rest and get tested as much as he and his family needs to be comfortable with playing baseball again. From a selfish/team investment standpoint the Brewers likely have a 2028 earmark on Pena helping the big league club team at the earliest? MAYBE late 2027 if things go incredibly well? So that is somewhere between 16-24 months away from a multi multi million dollar player arriving... it would be malpractice to worry about the next few weeks unnecessarily to get him back on the field in the grander timeline of his baseball journey. Hope he clears everything and we see him soon. Would not be surprised though if they give him all spring and we don't see him again until June/July.

I'm on left hand watch for Sal ... that was not great impact on the bag.

I know he is a catcher so he will challenge more but the staggering distance between Sanchez and Frelick for # of challenges is "awesome".

Heck yeah Chourio. More XBH than Perkins and Jones combined after 1 AB (can't confirm, just guessing).

Much like Vaughn's very first at bat as a Brewers player last year ... his 1st at bat home run tonight is going to hit like crack.