nate82

Are stolen bases the new OBP? Looking at the league as a whole the art of stealing a base is just non existent and I am not even talking about someone like Rickey Henderson but more along the lines of the Kenny Lofton and Marquis Grissom types. Baseball is kind of missing these type of players and also when was the last time you saw a team doing a hit and run? Even that strategy has gone away a bit. I think if teams did more hit and runs you wouldn't see these exaggerated shifts as much. Baseball changes very slowly and the pitchers have finally caught up with the softball swings by pitching up in the zone. From Bellinger to Hiura all of the hitters that have an uppercut swing have a huge hole at the top of the zone. It is why most pitchers when they have success minus this year against Yelich is when they are pitching lower in the zone. Yelich can still hit the lower zone pitches but where his power comes from is up in the zone. There are still players in MLB with a level swing and they have been doing rather well as the pitchers have come up in the zone to combat the uppercut swings. It is why you see less sinker ball pitchers now as the uppercut swings allow them to get under the ball and put them in the air.

Links? Don't know where the CDC one is coming from but the WHO one is widely known. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/health/2020/10/11/covid-hospitalizations-up-11-state-records-who-questions-lockdowns/5960078002/

Because Profar is a good target for the Brewers and he fits the Stearns mold of players he goes after.

I think a 60+% rate is actually extremely good considering in the US it is nearly impossible to get 50% agreement on almost anything unless you are polling the approval ratings for congress as a whole that one has been sitting around 80+% disapproval going on about 20 years now.

I wouldn't mind Urias at 2B with Kim at SS but that still leaves a hole at 3B. I would assume Kim would eat up all of what you get in savings for trading away Arcia or even just dropping Arcia. Assuming Arcia gets traded or released that is about $4m in savings for the Brewers. I am going to assume Kim will get more than $4m and put his figure at a maximum of $15m a season and the minimum at $9m a season. So he should get something like 5-years $60-75m. I don't believe he will get more than that less is possible but definitely not more. I think Kim might be the whole off season budget assuming the Brewers keep Hader and reduce payroll. If the Brewers trade Hader there is probably enough room in the free agency budget to get Kim and Profar maybe even LaStella depending on the market for LaStella. I believe LaStella gets a nice contract this offseason around $10-15m a year.

I think we see a flurry of 1-year deals with player options for a 2nd year. You might see a few players getting longer term deals but that will be from large market teams and it will be mostly them resigning players. I think LeMahieu will resign with the Yankees at 4-years $60m and that might be it for the major multi year signings. I don't think Bauer will get a mega contract and he will go with a 1-year deal at $35m with the Angels. Then you have a bunch of average players who will be looking at the 1-year deals with a player option for a 2nd year. The amount of fans that will be allowed in attendance will drive what the free agents will be able to get. If the teams are looking at only 10-20% capacity expect a lot of 1-year deals with a player option for a 2nd. This makes sense for both the teams and the players. The following years free agency maybe the year that teams really open their pocket books if we are looking at capacity restrictions being removed. I don't believe the Cubs will non tender Schwarber but Bryant could totally be non tendered by the Cubs. Bryant was injured and played horribly in the shortened season and this was probably the worst scenario for the Cubs. The Cubs do have a cheaper option to play 3B in Bote though he is not as good offensively as Bryant is but he is a much better defender at 3B than Bryant is. I don't think the Cubs would get much of anything in value for Bryant on the trade market and they would be selling extremely low on him. If the Cubs do non tender someone it will be Bryant and not Schwarber. Schwarber still holds some value maybe not the peak value he once had but he definitely has some value on the trade market unlike Bryant who doesn't have much at all. For the Brewers it makes a lot of sense to gamble on someone like Bryant and Sanchez and see if they can be the hitters they once were. I don't see the Brewers going into free agency and getting anything better than those two. I think LaStella is out of the price range for the Brewers if they are cutting payroll though Bryant would definitely be out of the Brewers price range also unless he signs a small prove it deal. I wouldn't be surprised if Bryant is released that he signs with another NL Central team to stick it to the Cubs.

If it is all about the money then Sanchez makes more sense than LaStella does. LaStella is probably in for a nice raise this off season probably at least $10m and maybe more. So you might be looking at something like a 3-years $45m for LaStella at a maximum which would be all of the Brewers off season budget if they are going to be cutting payroll. I think Sanchez could be someone the Brewers put at 1B or DH and try to save money there and then pick up someone like Profar to play 2B/SS/3B/OF. The Brewers won't have to give up all that much to get Sanchez either someone like Supak or even Pina could get that deal done.

Early indications are showing that schools are not super spreaders. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/10/schools-arent-superspreaders/616669/ The fear mongering behind the schools are not safe and will increase the spread need to stop.

I wasn't downplaying McNeil he just doesn't fit the profile of the player I would want in a return for someone like Hader.

I would rather see Sanchez and Narvaez on the team there is an option to have both on the team. There is nothing out there saying you can't have both. If you take Sanchez's 2019 season and have him at 1B he would rank tied for 12th in MLB at 1B offensively by wRC+. If you can get a player like Sanchez on the cheap I don't see why you wouldn't do it with or without Narvaez on the team. Preferably I would rather take my chances on Sanchez improving in 2021 than going in with Vogelbach and Gyorko at the 1B/DH spot. If you could get Sanchez for someone like Supak that would be a really good deal for the Brewers and I think someone like Supak would be of great interest to the Yankees. I wouldn't be surprised if a Pina for Sanchez trade would be something that would interest the Yankees. If the Yankees could possibly save money on trading Sanchez it would be something they would look at doing.

I wouldn't be against picking him up but he is Estrada slow on the bases. Actually I think Johnny Estrada would win in a foot race.

I would like to see the Brewers sign him but I don't think they will.

I am not a fan of Jeff McNeil and I believe his 2019 season was just a career year and he will look more like his 2018 rookie season than he will his 2019 season. With him being 28 I wouldn't want him being one of the major pieces to a Hader trade. I would have to pass on McNeil he is just not someone I would look to be trading for in a Hader deal. I think the Padres, Braves, and the Angels are the teams that will show the most interest in Hader this off season. I think the White Sox, Dodgers and the Yankees are all wild cards also. I wouldn't be surprised if the Red Sox were involved at some point. The Padres have the best players that could be available followed by the Braves. Depending on how free agency goes Hader maybe cheaper than the free agent options or the value of trading for Hader maybe higher than what the free agents cost. This upcoming free agency could be the year of 1-year contracts due to the uncertainty of how many fans will be allowed into the ballparks if any. It is really hard to gauge what the market will be with all of these variables and unknowns.

To me Hauser is a better #5 starter than Peralta is. Peralta is just way to inconsistent in the strike zone and lacks a reliable 2nd or 3rd pitch to be anything more than a 2-3 inning pitcher. I would rather have Hauser as the #5 starter and Peralta in the bullpen. If Peralta could come up with a 2nd and 3rd pitch like a cutter and a change up he would be a far better pitcher. I just don't believe Peralta will be able to develop those pitches to be a better pitcher and to be a starter.

That would only be true in hindsight knowing that it was less deadly than something else. The current administration basically did the same thing as what happened in 2009. They took the same actions that were taken then but went a little bit beyond with the travel bans. I don't believe any of the departments or groups that were formed would have stopped or slowed anything down. The only thing they would have stalled would have been the reaction to the pandemic as we have seen countless times with bureaucrats and that is basically what was removed. They may have been scientists or doctors at one point in time but once they hit that government agency they become bureaucrats and nothing more. The only way that any administrations would have been able to be more successful in fighting this would have been to do a total lockdown of the country that means nothing comes in and nothing comes out. That is basically an impossible goal as the country would have starved and broken down and made the pandemic even worse. The biggest issue was the low stockpile of medical supplies. This can be blamed on both the current and past administration as neither did anything to replenish it. This is where the lessons learned from the last one should have been applied. The preparedness of the supplies to get things done is what was needed and not what to do when the pandemic hits as you already know it will hit and it is not a matter of if but a matter of when. By the time the pandemic was known about even if everything started in November of last year we still would have been hit as hard. The country just wasn't prepared to fight this. This goes with the mask wearing going from it won't help to it is needed. The supplies were low and the fear of a supply run leaving those who actually need them without them and those who don't need them with an overabundance of them. Go back to February, March and April of this year and look at what happened to toilet paper, hand sanitizer and soap. There was a mass panic on buying these items for a time there were very limited to no supply of toilet paper in stores. Now imagine that happening to the masks in the early part of the year. The medical professionals who needed the masks wouldn't have been able to get what they needed there was actually still a shortage at that time. The medical supplies were the only thing I can think of that was reasonable for this administration and the last administration where something should have been done differently. If this were more like the H1N1 virus I don't believe we would be having the conversations we are having now. It would probably be more like the COVID-19 what? You mean the bat flu?

If the Swine Flu had been more deadly as this COVID is it would have resulted in as many or more deaths. The H1N1 was basically just a bad flu but if it would have morphed into something like COVID-19 it would have been bad. The mismanagement of the H1N1 virus was as bad as the current mismanagement of COVID-19 we just lucked out that it wasn't as deadly as COVID-19. The current infections for COVID-19 is about 7.5 million and the total for H1N1 from April 2009 to April 2010 was estimated at 60.8 million by the CDC. We were very very very lucky that the H1N1 Swine Flu pandemic wasn't as deadly as COVID-19 is. If the H1N1 Swine Flu was as deadly as COVID-19 you are looking at 300-400k dead. We hit the luck lottery on the H1N1 Swine Flu for it not being as deadly. We should have learned our lesson from H1N1 but there was very little done to prepare for the next virus.

Was that the uncapped year?

NFL season could be paused, whatever that means if more positive tests start coming back. https://www.cbssports.com/nfl/news/nfl-chief-medical-officer-doesnt-rule-out-league-pausing-2020-season-amid-rising-number-of-covid-19-cases/

Yes I do as their viewership is far more wider than that of Fox Sports. Fox Sports is a regional thing and you can only have subscribers that live in that region while the other services are global and can be seen by more audiences and thus the team(s) can ask for more and get more than what they could get from Fox Sports. I don't see the Brewers getting a huge raise if they go with Fox Sports at best you are looking at a $10m increase. I just don't see Fox Sports giving the Brewers much more than that as the viewership in the region the Brewers are in is very limited. You are basically limited to the state of Wisconsin and that is it. The advertising dollars coming in is just not enough for Fox Sports to give the Brewers a huge bump in a deal.

Aaaaaaannnd nevermind. The Braves have a really nice offense and statistically speaking the only other team in the playoffs better than them are the Dodgers and just barely.

Sometimes the greatest players make the absolute worst coaches. Take Ted Williams for example one of the best hitters ever and by all accounts one of the worst hitting coaches ever. It is far easier to teach what not to do than it is to teach what to do correctly.

If the Brewers wanted to bring in a different hitting coach it should be Dale Sveum.

Brewers have the 2nd lowest TV revenue in the league at $28m for 2020 and only the Marlins have a smaller TV revenue at $20m. Both the Marlins and the Brewers TV deals have completed after this season. I am not sure the Brewers will get much more than what they are already receiving. At best I think the Brewers could get what the Indians received and could get a boost of $12m more a season but I don't think that is going to happen. I think the Brewers may only get $7m more a season if I were Mark A. I would completely drop Fox Sports and see if I can get a deal with either Youtube, Amazon, Hulu or Apple. Completely drop cable and go with a streaming service this may alienate some now but I think future wise this will pay off more for the Brewers.

I don't see Peralta as a starting pitcher. He can go maybe 3 innings max and then he is done. He has to work on his control and a 3rd pitch. Until this happens he is just a bullpen arm and nothing more. Hauser and Small are both ahead of him and by a far margin as #5 starters.

Bad year for running backs so far. First Barkley goes down then McCaffrey and now Chubb ouch.....