CheezWizHed

This is a good point. Nixon's overall coverage numbers weren't great, but he did have individual games where he looked very good...and others where he stunk. A better DC (with better plans and communication) might improve the back-end there.

Jones was signed one day (or less?) after he was released. Do you think the Vikings really waited until after Jones was released to make the deal? Or was some illegal tampering happening where Rosenhaus had an inkling of what Jones could get? I'd bet on the latter.

Nixon's signing (and amounts) surprises me like most (all?) here. Perhaps it is structured in a way that it is far less guaranteed so it will amount to a 1 or 2 year deal... But regardless he is on the team, so I'm wondering... do you think Nixon might play more of a safety role instead of nickel DB? Sounds like there is some overlap in those roles for Hafley's defense. Nixon did seem to be much better when playing zone and moving forward towards the LOS than he did in 1on1 situations and chasing WRs. He is 5'10" and 200 lbs, so maybe a touch short but not bad otherwise. If he does play more safety - or even start at safety... that might make more sense of the $$ investment here. Though some of the changes to the KO rules might also make him more impactful as a KR too.

I'm not convinced he will stay this year... There are already rumors vis-a-vie Rodgers/Adams. Think JJ wants to have Darnold throwing him the pigskin?

Of course, they don't have anyone to throw it to them nor does that person have the time to throw it more than short routes. 😅

Woof... that was a train wreck. Bennett didn't last the season with the Pack and only played a couple games with the Pats and that was his last season. Cook played 5 years post-Packers. Two of them where he made the Pro Bowl.

Yes, losing Adames in the clubhouse is going to be a big loss. He is simply a great guy that keeps the team positive. But he is going to leave next year at least. So we need to stop using the Hader tradeline snaffu as a reason not to trade people. It is baseball and trades are inevitable. Using Hader's trade as a reason for the second half downfall is pretty weak, IMO. The only constant is change. Better to drive the change than react to it.

Yeah, I was kind of hoping that might happen... the market isn't as lucrative as Jones hopes and he comes back. For the draft, I still think we see a Jones/Williams-like draft; two mid-round RBs picked up. Jacobs, Wilson, 2 draft picks, Taylor (still a solid ST/backup/floor player) and UDFAs... Not a terrible plan.

I was really hoping they would extend Jones - reduce this year and add another year... And now there is Viking rumors circulating. That would hurt.

Crud. You are correct. I calculated both the numbers between 1 std dev (3.34-5.35) and between 3.85-4.85. One Std Dev was 70%, 3.85-4.85 was 40%. Mathed correctly... interpreted wrongly. 😖 I didn't find an easy way to separate SP numbers from RP numbers... hence the first criteria to try to separate and get mostly SPs...

Out of curiosity, I ran my own numbers on this. First problem I found was how to pick your starting pitchers... There are hosts of pitchers used for a start or two. So I selected this criteria: Only pitchers with > 80 IP Avoiding people that started once or twice. Needed a decent sample size. Only pitchers with >5 starts There are some pitchers here that are still have more games as RP than SP, but I picked this to at least give a decent sample of starts in their numbers. NOTE: this was my own criteria. I did not look at Fangraphs (or even your post) while doing it. I just grabbed the raw 2023 data and filtered to try to get a decent sample without the noise of random starters. ( i.e. small samples suck). Of that sample size: Average ERA: 4.35 Standard deviation: 1.01 Ave ERA +/- one standard dev gives you 70% of the starting pitchers between 3.34 and 5.35 ERA. Before anyone complains about my 70% number not being 68% for a normalized distribution... this was the calculated number as the distribution is not a normal gaussian distribution. Close, but not quite. ERA between 3.85 and 4.85 was 40% of the pitchers In graph form it looks like this: NOTE: The bar above "2.5" is the number of pitchers that had an ERA between 2.0 and 2.5. 3.0 is between 2.5 and 3.0, etc... NOTE2: Total population of pitchers ended up being 159 which is 5.3 SPs per team.. EDITED - I used the wrong range for the percentage of players between 3.85 and 4.85 when looking at my spreadsheet. Had two numbers and transposed them. Post is corrected now.

Considering Woody missed most of last year and we had to deal with a lot of instability at the tail end of the rotation, adding one of these guys would pretty much put our rotation back on par with last year. And our offense should be much improved from last year... that would make it interesting. No clear better team in the central this year.

Isn't so much about risk adverse. More about opportunity cost. We know the Brewers aren't going to be handing out these contracts to 25% of their rookies... probably not 10% of them. Knowing you are going to be limited to only the top options... where do you focus the attention? I just see Uribe lower on the priority list being a reliever. I would've said the same thing about Burnes/Woody over Hader/Williams, too.

To me the difference is the upside; an ACE starter >> a top closer. And the availability of similar level BP arms compared to the availability of similar level starters. Having said that... the bottom line is about the amount of $$. If you were going to extend Uribe, it would be for less than Mis would get at comparable points in their career - (e.g. I wouldn't extend Mis this year, but wait until he succeeds at AAA and perhaps a few starts at the MLB level. That is comparable to where Uribe would be this year). If cash flow isn't a concern, you extend everyone that will accept a decent contract. But since cash flow is a concern, you have to prioritize. Thus, I'd prioritize Mis over Uribe.

I think highly unproven might be better, IMO. And highly unproven might turn in awful results... or they might be averagish. I guess, I look at 2024 similar to the 2023 Packer season. It is a rebuild and growth year for their SP and offense. If 2024 goes well, the 2025 starting rotation could potentially look like Peralta, Woodruff, Ashby, Hall, Les Mis, and Gasser. That is a pretty exciting SP rotation and depth. Add in a year of development of our young hitters and next year is shaping up nicely. Not that I'm ready to punt on 2024... but a downturn was somewhat in the cards this year with Woo's injury and probable Burnes trade. So I'm happy to watch the youngsters develop this year with low(er) expectations. And if Hall can develop as an SP the same way Love did at QB... well that would be just the cherry on top. 😀

It may seem odd to say, but the extension (or not) of Quero should have nothing to do with Contreras. If the Brewers and Quero find a good price point (again...all about the amount of $$), they should do an extension. I'm not talking about Chourio money. So it doesn't force your hand to play Quero and get rid of Contreras. It doesn't even prevent you from extending Contreras if the $$ is right. If both Quero and Contreras are awesome and they are on team friendly contracts... it is even awesomer! The Brewers are going to have to figure out who to keep and who stays. But the contract adds value at that point to perspective trade partners. If one of them fails and you extended them... well hopefully you did it at a price point you can eat. But we still have one that plays well. Getting good players at the right $$ amounts is always what the Brewers need to focus on.

Sweet! We can finally find out who the fastest refs are!

Upside yes. But upside as a reliever. It just limits the value upside. And we have several pitchers that could be that next BP ace. Perhaps the extension could be next year or just low enough the first year to allow him to stay at AAA. Having Quero and Conteras both isn't all that hard since catchers don't play every day anyway. And you have the DH avilable. But if Quero has an 8 year contract, you could do that a couple years and trade Contreras off. And hey (referring to another comment), Manny Pina is a pretty good floor for Quero. 😀 There is no such thing as being stupid to sign an 8-year deal. He has great upside, but it isn't like he is a lock to be a TOR pitcher. He might have personal reasons to lock it in and not worry about injury or control issues. Every investment like this is a risk v reward analysis for both sides. It isn't stupid if both sides find a point where they both agree the RvR works for both sides.

Like anything and everything... the big variable is $$. Quero's defense makes him a high floor/high ceiling prospect to minimize the risk. Obviously if you do it now, you assume a bit more of a discount. I almost put him in the "next year" so he has a chance (presumably) to make his debut sometime this year and we get a feeling if he is overmatched. But his D is good enough that you could consider it now...but at more of a discount. The longer you wait, the more you know and the less risk, but also the price can go up too. I'm sure signing Contreras to a deal like this would've been cheaper 4 years ago, but now he is pretty well a known commodity and will expect a higher salary.

Is the DT "run stuffer" really useful in a modern 4-3? I'm assuming we switch from 2 gap to 1 gap... that typically requires "smaller" (i.e. 300lb range), faster DTs than the big space eater types (320+lb range). Clark is fine in that mold. I think this fits Wyatt as a run-stopper better than our previous D. Brooks also seems better suited size wise to handle the run in this D. And still have Slaton. If you draft another DT, it almost has to be a high pick that is going to be a pass rush demon. Then assume a trade later from depth because we can't keep 6 players at DT. 5 might be too many. I do see some chatter about Walker moving to WLB which is interesting. McDuffie might be too light for the MLB position though he does take on blocks better than Walker. Might we draft an MLB and have Walker/McD at the OLB positions? Yeah, I never saw BA as a great RB fit in the NFL. He is a beast to take down when moving, but he doesn't seem to make any lateral cuts to a hole. If the hole forms in the general direction he is running, he can bust it for big yards. But if no hole, he rarely creates much. That with being injury prone doesn't bode well for him, IMO. Down around the 4th-5th rounds, sure. I wouldn't take him in the top 100. Repeating the Jones-Williams draft (4th and 5th round RBs) would be fine with me. Draft and develop

I think generally, we want to focus on the high upside for these type of contracts. It is generally a wager on someone reaching their potential. Contreras is pretty much at his peak (maybe small improvements, but not suddenly become a 900 OPS hitter). Wiemer certainly has the high upside as was mentioned. But I think you turn to Misiorowski, Quero, and Hall as the next candidates. Hall and Quero could be considered this year. Misiorowski next year (another year to show the improvements he has made can remain).

That can go for swearing and the like when they are inserted to get a specific rating. As a father that vets movies for his kids, it annoys me to see stuff inserted to be PG13 or R when it was completely unnecessary.

Ouch... I must've blocked that out of my memory as part of Sal's legacy.

Clearly, Sal is going to go on to have a strong career at 3B for the Brewers. Then in his 30s, will finish his career with some so-so seasons with Oakland. Later, he will go on to become Oakland's GM and have some mediocre seasons dealing with a tight budget and making poor 1st round draft picks.

I've been sitting on this thought for a while because it sounds like sour grapes after trading Burnes...but I think he is going to fall short of being a TOR pitcher for the birds. Even for us, I never saw him quite as an "Ace". He had one outstanding, dominant year. But the ones since have been mixed. He will have dominate stretches in a game where he looks like that '21 version of himself. But then it seems like the third time through the order, he becomes very ordinary and hittable. Rarely ever having a "disasterous" outing, but often teetering on the brink. Like someone flipped a switch on him and he looks like a very different pitcher. The last couple years, his ERA has continued to climb while his K rate has fallen. Each year, looking less and less like that '21 version of Burnes. Take away the Brewer's defense behind him, add in the NY East offenses, and I wouldn't be shocked to see him have a 3.5-3.8 ERA by the end of the year. I was a huge early bandwagon guy with Burnes in the minors and stuck with him through his terrible debuts... but I don't see him sustaining his success late in his career either.