CheezWizHed

I can see them trading off Wicks, but they won't get much more than a 7th for him. No one is giving us a 2nd and 4th for Reed and Wicks (both the original draft round) when they have 1 year left. Personally, I hope they sign Reed and Watson to second contracts. I think Reed is a bit underrated as a WR. Watson, Reed, and Golden would be a great trio. Even having Wicks for 1 year as the 4th would make a great WR room (assuming everyone can stay healthy...which is a big assumption).

Yes, but now how will Frank Drebin delay the game so he can find the assassin and save the Queen?

And here we are...loaded with lefties in the BP. 😏

I read that this morning and thought "wow" that is a Packer draft pick. We have a type; young (21), tall and athletic.

Predicting the season with a brand-new pair of blue-and-gold colored glasses! DH: Yelich is now over a year removed from surgery puts up a nice 140 OPS+ and 4 WAR season C: Contereras bounces back from finger injury and makes top 5 MVP. Sanchez rarely sees the field because of William, so no big deal either way. Quero comes up in Sept. 1B: No, really... the improvements are legit. Bauers and Vaughn pair up to provide 5 WAR combined (with some overlap with Bauers getting a dozen games in LF). 2B: Turang gets back to GG territory, All-Star game and 850 OPS with 25 HR. SS: Ortiz bounces back to a solid 720 OPS and solid D. Alternative outcome: Pratt is promoted mid-season and never lets go - becomes the SS we hoped Ortiz could be. 3B: The 2024 version of Renigfo shows up. Solid 115 OPS+. Alternative outcome: See Pratt again. LF: Chourio makes the All-Star game with his first 30/30 season. CF: Mitchell stays healthy to play in 100 games. Lockridge looks like more than just a defensive player. The platoon manages 700 OPS with solid D. Chourio plays CF for a dozen games or so. Alternative: Jett takes over at the All-Star break and approaches 800 OPS with solid D. RF: Solid Frelick returns with a 300 BA with 15 HR and 30 doubles. Finals for the GG again. SP: Misiorowski makes the All-Star game again - earns it this time. Woody returns to health and pitches like mid-season 2025. Not his top, but plenty good. Sproat and Harrison establish themselves as starters and continue to elevate as the season progresses (one outperforms Peralta). Priester comes back like nothing happens. Top 10 rotation in MLB. RP: Patrick gets bumped but becomes very valuable out of the pen. Uribe and Megill are dynamic out of the pen. Add in Zerpa and Keonig and it becomes really hard for anyone to overcome a Brewer lead. Ashby, Hall, and Anderson keep us in games. #1 BP in the league. Murphy is manager of the year again because we win the WS!

I'm in on 90 wins and our firs WS victory. Team starts slow and comes on strong at the end. Contreras bounces back after his finger heals with a top5 MVP vote. Chourio makes the first of many all-star appearances and Turang gets back in the GG game.

If you trade away young talent, you are going give away good players. But in the history of our trades, we have sent away very little valuable MLB talent for the number of trades total. The Yelich trade ended up being grand larceny. The ones that I can think of that were more than 1-2 WAR level players would be LoCain (Grienke) and Michael Brantley (Sabathia). And both of those trades worked out pretty well for the Brewers too. Odorizzi went in the Grienke trade and had a few 3WAR years, but was more often sub-1.0 (11 years, 13.6 WAR). Personally, I'm not worried about Hunt.

Never forget. 😞

Giving up Hunt isn't a big deal since that long relief role that Woodford or McGee will hold down is probably Hunt's destination too. But I don't see the gain of getting Woodford over McGee. They seem like the same player, IMO. As well as a dozen other AAAA guys that will be soon available. Kind of seems like we threw TB a bone for some of our past trades with them. Keep the trade fires warm so to speak.

I live in MN, so the only games I don't see are Twins games. If you are WI, I think you can see the away games. Certainly not an option for everyone, but some people benefit from it. And since it is free...

Just think what he could do if he would "hit" on his 1st round picks... Well, I guess we don't have to worry about that for a couple of years.

One small note: Perkins is a switch hitter.

I'm higher in the need for a C, but I'd guess they will get one of the "College Ts that should be a C/G at the NFL". I think the tell on Monk is that they signed Lecitus Smith off the street and got more snaps than Monk. I'm interested to see what we get in Williams. Since he was injured at the time of the draft, he is probably better than the traditional 7th rounder... potentially a 4th/5th rounder, which is a great spot to find development guards. I'm lower on the TE side... I think they'll draft one, but not high unless someone falls in our laps. DT/CB are my top two priorities and C comes second.

Fixed it for you. And that applies to the moment he retired as a player. His sole quality as an announcer is to be a loudmouth that says dumb things to spark communication. I suppose for that reason, he could work for ESPN. I personally have hated every time I've had to listen to him.

yes, along with what @Fear The Chorizo said, none of those guys were actually top MLB level prospects. The Top 100 didn't exist back then, but I found a few top 50 lists that included zero of these players. So their performance at AA really doesn't track with "MLB prospect status". Gamel flaming out was a huge surprise to most people. Salome' had some cult following, but was a boom/bust prospect if people are honest. Still, that team had Jeffress(8.8 bWAR), Cain (38.2), Escobar (10.2), Brantley (34.1), and Maldonado (6.2) who all were good or very good MLB players. And that came from a group of players not highly thought of as MLB prospects.

We all know that the Brewers are not going to spend money like LAD, NYY, or even the sCrubs. With a limited budget, they need to be judicious about who they extend, for how much, and for how long so they can remain competitive for the long term. But that doesn't mean we can't do the right extensions... and often it has worked out very well for the Brewers. Looking at historic extensions since 2009 (Note that I'm including extensions only and not FA contracts): Ryan Braun 2009 - Buyout of Arbitration and a few years of FA. 7 years, $55.5M 2016 - Second Extension: 5 years, $89.3M Corey Hart 2010: Final year of arbitration plus 2 years of FA: 3 years, $26.5M Yovani Gallardo 2010 – Arbitration plus 1 (or two) years of FA: 5 years, $30.1M with 1 club option ($42.5M total) Rickie Weeks 2011: Final year of arbitration plus 4 years of FA: 5 years, $50M Jonathan Lucroy 2012: Arbitration plus a club option for 1 year FA: 5 years, $11M with 1 club option ($16.25M total) Carlos Gomez 2013 – All arbitration years: 4 years, $28.3M Christian Yelich 2015: All arbitration and 3 years of FA: 7 years $49.6M (with the Marlins) 2020: Second Extension – 9 years $215M Freddie Peralta 2020: All arbitration (plus club option for 2 years of FA) - 5 years, $15.5M plus 2 club option years ($30M total) Aaron Ashby 2022: All arbitration (plus club option for 2 years FA) - 5 years, 20.5M with 2 club option years ($42.5M total) Jackson Chourio 2024: All arbitration plus 2 (or 4) years of FA – 8 years $82M with 2 club option years ($142.5M total) *Note: Contract details come from internet searches and might not be perfect on exact dollar amounts given conflicting articles. But the timing and number of arbitration and free agent years covered (which is the point I'm making) is accurate. So the question comes to… who is next? It would seem that our best extensions were ones that bought out arbitration and a year or two of FA. The only two players we extended past that were Braun and Yelich. In both cases, we knew it would be fine initially and a bit painful at the end of the contract. Outside of steroid-gate (and the subsequent suspension), Braun earned his money up to the thumb injury. Yelich unfortunately hurt his back immediately after signing the extension and went from a 7+bWAR player to the current 2-3 bWAR player he is today. At 33 years old with 3 years more on the contract, he probably won’t be any more than a 3 bWAR player. Ashby’s extension might be the only first contract that didn’t work out great for the Brewers – though I’d be hard pressed to call it a “bust” either. On the other sides, the initial Braun and Yelich extensions along with Freddy’s extension were rousing wins for the Brewers. Chourio’s extension is also well on its way to joining them, but too early to know for sure right now. My favorite targets for extension (in age order): William Contreras – This one might be a bit too late as we just finalized his last year of arbitration. With a 4.9 bWAR season in 2024 (and gathered MVP votes), he managed 3.9 bWAR last year with a broken finger. Now 28 years old and healthy, I think he is going to have a great season. I wouldn’t pay him like an MVP, but he is clearly a top 3-4 catcher in the majors. A 4-year extension would be a great way to pair Contreras with the coming wave of talent without putting an anchor around the Brewer’s payroll with a player long past his prime. He also has an intangible leadership quality that was emphasized even more after losing Adames. Brice Turang – Brice’s ascension the last couple of years has been fun to watch. Hard to believe that a couple of years ago, there were questions on whether he was a MLB caliber player. His OPS+ (61, 85, 121) and bWAR (1.5, 4.7, 5.6) growth shows his growing value to the team; not only defensively but offensively as well. Plus, he just showcased that to the world with a strong WBC performance. Brice is pre-arbitration right now, so he fits right into the Brewer’s MO for an extension. Jacob Misiorowski – Despite Jacob’s All-Star Appearance and good playoff performance, his rookie season was only average on the whole. But his ceiling is undeniable and the Brewers don’t have another pitcher with top of the rotation potential like him. But as with all pitchers, there is the risk of injury sapping his ceiling and this is an area that seems to bite the Brewers more often than not. Jesus Made – Three years ago, suggesting this type of extension would’ve been widely ridiculed… but along came Jackson Chourio and his 8 (or 10) year extension before he was even on the 40-man roster. But did we just get a once-in-a-generation type player twice in 2 years? Jackson played most of the year at AA and just touched AAA before signing his contract that precipitated his 20 year-old rookie season. Now the highly touted Made is set to play at AA this year with AAA easily in his reach, will the Brewers take the same approach and sign him to a long term deal that will pair our future to these two young and exciting players? Who is your choice?

The Marlins also did an extension for Yelich that bought out Arby and a few years of FA. Yelich's $22M wouldn't be so bad if he hadn't gotten hurt. I suppose you could say the same about Braun. And we all know we won't be buying out every single player past arbitration, but certain ones are worth the risk.

Do you think it is a "lock" because of the cost or the way they handled him in arbitration? I just have a feeling he is going to break out big time this year with a healed hand. Would be nice to extend him out a few years.

Contreras. He is the main one up for an extension prior to Yelich's contract being up.

fixed. The first extension for both was wonderful. Second, not so much.

I was thinking about this before Matt did his piece, so it seems like more than just I were thinking about it. ST numbers are funny money, so the fact that he is outhitting Perkins now doesn't mean much. But I was being more pragmatic.... Both players are 29 yo. Both play strong defense with limited offense (maybe the edge to Perk on D and Lock on O). But Perkins will be arbitration eligible next year and Lockridge won't for a couple of years. So it if it comes down to a bit of a roster crunch, it wouldn't surprise me... I hadn't thought about sending Perkins to AAA, so maybe that is an option too. Keep the depth. Lara would be available for depth, but not much else down there.

I have begun to wonder what we would need to include to trade Yelich away... 😞At some point we need to be able to extend some of the younger players.

I was debating if Lockridge might overtake Perkins if they can find someone interested in a trade. Perk is Arb eligible next year. Otherwise, the two are pretty close to twins.