CheezWizHed

This would be very atypical Brewers development path. Tyler Black started at AA and did just about everything right (including hitting AAA well) and didn't make the MLB. Chourio played most the season at AA and a cup of coffee at AAA. Frelick spent most of a season between AA and AAA, then another 40 games this year in AAA before coming up. Wiemer spent a full season between AA and AAA. Mitchell played a full year between AA and AAA (shortened by injuries). More likely, Wilken plays out this year at AA (75%) and AAA (25%), then starts 2025 at AAA for a while before coming up.

They had him DH for a long time last year when his back was flaring up. Fatigue is one thing. Making quick twitch moves is another. Do people really see him bringing positive dWAR at a position he hasn't played in the MLB? Why risk it? Just let him DH and play LF occasionally. His value is his bat.

I guess I don't see much difference between how they've been developed. All three were almost exclusively starting pitchers until Woody and Burnes were called up. There was a lot of consternation about them being moved to the pen, but that helped them get acclimated to MLB pitchers before stepping into a starting spot. Not sure if the same will be necessary with Gasser next year as our expectations might be lower... but still a good way to get a player's feet wet at the MLB level. Here are the Woody, Burnes, and Gasser MiLB innings ( or MiLB/MLB when they had split years). The highligted year is their draft year. Gasser is pretty much on schedule (while being drafted a year older) to do the same path:

To maximize Wiemer, he needs to work on his swing. That is best done at AAA. It would be surprising if Mitchell is at AAA and really there is no reason for him to be. We are setup well to have an OF with Frelick-Mitchell-Chourio with TT as the 4th and Yelich as the DH/5th OF. In the 1980s, it was common to have one starter at one position for 130+ games/season. The Brewers haven't done that in a long time. People move around, get days off, and tend to be much fresher in Sept/Oct as a result. But I will also say that it wouldn't surprise me to see one or two OFer go in trades to shore up our SP rotation. Which was the point of my tale. 😉

I don't understand the fear of "blocking" prospects. What is the worst thing that happens? We have too many good players? If we have a chance to get a good 1B/3B take it! A game of pretend: Arnold makes shrewd moves this winter and steals Bobby BigStick in a trade. The switching hitting, gold-glove-on-both-hands 1B crushes the ball sits happily in the middle of Milwaukee's lineup. In an unheralded move, Arnold snags FA Freddy FarHitter to play 3B. "There we go dumpster diving again!" the fans complain. But happily, Freddy, who is inspired by the nightly view of racing sausages, finally breaks out the loads of potential and represents the Brewers at the All-Star Game. Amazingly, Black makes OD roster for the Brewers after an amazing spring training outing. Black ends up taking a platoon position with BB and FF to start the season. Black also shows his prowess and pushes Chourio for rookie of the year candidate. Head Coach Murphy, who is slightly embarrassed at this sudden wealth of riches at the corner INF positions, is challenged to find enough ABs to satisfy them all. Alas, no one has really shown up at 2B offensively, so we see Black showing up there more and more. Thankfully the Brewers invest in positional versitility! Craig Counsel becomes insanely jealous at the sudden riches of offense Murphy enjoys. He cries every day as he comes to work at Wrigley. Meanwhile Wilken continues to crush it at AAA pushing for the inevitable "blockage" at the MLB level. Fast-forward to 2024 Matt Arnold suddenly realizes why Tampa Bay is able to trade away MLB talent... because they continue to have young talent grow and develop. He decides he is able to trade away one of BB, FF, TB, or BW to shore up pitching. Moral of the story: You can never have enough talent.

I grew up in Northern WI. Yes, north of WI Dells, North of Tomah, North of Eau Claire...oops you hit Lake Superior, back up a little bit. Yeah, right there in the middle of nothing. That area (and probably many others) had a lot of "homers" - Packers, Brewers, Bucks, Badgers. Loyalty to the state. Cheeseheads (except a few of those weird Viking fans because we were so close to MN). But to travel to a Buck's game was almost unheard of. After going to MSOE and being 1 mile from the Bradley Center, I think a big part of it was that huge dark arena wasn't very inviting. Nor was the area around the center (we didn't linger, but hoofed it in and out of the Bradley center when going there). I'm guessing a lot of "country folk" weren't too crazy about the downtown area either. Fizer Forum and the build up of the area around there feels VERY different now. The lighting and night life give it a very different feel. Cleaner, safer, and more fun. I imagine that has changed a bit of the support outside of Milwaukee. But hey, a championship doesn't hurt either.

I remember the old Doug Melvin days... if he said "X isn't going to happen" it was only a matter of when.

Statistically, I would say that we won't grab anyone this year simply because we normally don't. Being at the back end doesn't help matters either. Really too bad Varland was hit last year. He was doing quite well (yes some troubling metric numbers) at the time. The easiest grab (as others have said) is for BP. But we seem to have a rash of BP arms unless future trades lighted that up. OF is another area where we really have the depth and no place to stash someone. 1B, 3B, and Catcher are the biggest needs. Perhaps SS/2B a sneaky need if Adames is moved. Perhaps Pablo Aliendo would be an interesting grab as our backup catcher? If he doesn't work out, you can move up Quero and send him back. Bonus is that he is from Venezuela. Double bonus would be stealing him from the Cubs.

WHAAA??? You mean GM's don't just tell everyone their plans?? 😅

I'know... but it was pretty obvious that Burnes and Woody were there to get their intro the MLB that way. They were used differently than other BP arms. It would have to be an intentional thing by management. If he suddenly is being used like Hoby Milner, I'd be concerned.

Well, there is that whole "soccer thing" in just about every other country. 😅 But Basketball is certainly gaining in popularity globally. I remember playing in Germany in the 90s (just pickup, nothing professional). I looked like Michael Jordan out there. It just wasn't a game people played. Now many of the best players in the NBA are from other countries.

And the Patriots?

Welcome to BF Masha! I think CC's contract shows that there is more to manager compensation than WS wins... The manager's main role is more on the psychological role in the clubhouse; Team unity, being prepared to play, ensuring the players are getting the right coaching or focus for the games... The in-game management role is important, but frankly it has decreased from what it was 10 years ago. There are enough metrics to help frame decisions (i.e. don't have Adrian Houser go through a line-up 3x or don't have Rowdy Tellez hit lefties) that the in-game decisions tend to be setup much easier. I'm sure the manager has plenty of value to the team, but not much more than an individual player. Would be interesting to see a WAR metric for managers.

I didn't watch WI vs MI ST, but that looks like another convincing win. Very even stats; the game looks to be won on 3ptrs and free throws. Now to take down AZ, right? 😀

Following the Burnes/Woodruff path would make sense. Start him in the BP, let him succeed and then work him into the starting lineup. But let him fail at the starting role before saying he is BP only.

Good thing there are 3 OF positions. Sal has two other spots to play. And he is an ideal lead off player.

Honestly, the D looked better today. Not Top 5, but they will never be "that" team. But not that many open shots/drives as previous games I've seen. Good hands, forcing turnovers. Not great on the defensive boards tonight though. The Knicks were hot and hitting everything... to some degree the best D won't stop that. Not in modern NBA ball anyway. With their offense, they just need to avoid the wide open buckets or layups; make teams fight and earn the score. Their offense is going to wear people out eventually.

It kind of has to be to fill a stadium of 80k people in a town of 100k. 😉

After signing Chourio, I'm guessing Matt Arnold had a nice steak dinner. 😅

Yes the conspiracy thing is a joke. Star players are going to get some preferential treatment, but it happens in the NFL far less than the NBA. But this is one game where it just seemed like a host of errors, especially at the end so it gets highlighted. Especially on a prime-time game.

Not sure why Dike regressed this year, but it was clear he did. I'd take him transferring an indication that he thinks it is the coaching/system and not "him". So he is probably trying to get to the most advantageous situation for him in his last year to try to get an NFL sniff.

Yes, CC was very anti-Rodgers at first... then became very Pro-Rodgers (even that made me a little sick). I think he has really improved over time. Aikman would go into detail about him and his former teammates... especially if one of them was still out there playing. He'd go into detail about minutia of how Emmitt, or Irvine, or a guard would play the game, watch film, eat breakfast, whatever... It was torture if Aikman was calling a Jason Witten game. It felt like he was confused between calling the game in front of him and the memories running in his head. He finally seemed to break that habit... probably because all his former players are done now. Greg Olsen struggled with that the first year. He has improved greatly also. I don't recall Romo being so bad at it. I mean, I get it... You play so long it is your main experience. But no one else really cares about the Cowboys winning days of the 90s when you are watching Packers vs. NO in the 2010s... I think the announcers did well last night, though I would call the Hail Mary "egregious". Kelce was clearly off balance, but it didn't look like much contact caused that to happen. Owens had his hands out, but didn't extend them in a shove.

I think Chourio selecting #11 has 0% to due with Rowdy's future in Milwaukee. Chourio probably had his pick of anything but a handful of numbers (Contreras, Yelich, Burnes, Williams, and the retired numbers). I doubt Rowdy comes back, but I doubt anyone is saying, "well we just gave Rowdy's number to Chourio, so we can't bring him back now." I just hope he doesn't go all "Gary Sheffield" on us...

I'm not sure what MI State looks like this year, but they've lost to 3 ranked teams and beat 4 unranked teams. We've beat two ranked teams. Should be a good game, but not a gimmee that we lose. Losing to AZ (ranked #2) shouldn't be a knock against a team unless you are ranked #1...

I think that is pretty typical for most places that have all three leagues. NFL > MLB > NBA. The Bucks have a good following once GA became a superstar. Winning a championship sure helped too. But my impression is that they don't get a ton of people outside of Milwaukee coming to see games before that.