CheezWizHed

This aligns well with my expectations for the year also: 1) I think it is clear that Love is an NFL caliber QB. He needs work on reading blitzes and perhaps understanding the condition's (i.e. bad weather) effect on his throws. But he has outplayed many respectable QBs this year. 2) Boy, I don't know what happened to Yosh Nijman. Perhaps he is just rusty from minimal playing time, but he does not look good when he is in the game. Walker has been respectable out there at LT though. Not great, but not horrible. Still need someone better, IMO, but that hasn't been our weakspot. 2) DC: I think this will be LaFleur's defining decision as a HC. He gave Barry 3 years and it essentially has been the same results. At best... they have been OK. At worst, unprepared, overmatched, and confused. Holding on to Barry just will hasten MLF's exit as a HC. 4) Actually, I think MLF is a good play caller. He has been pretty creative at times and tailored to his personnel. I think he needs to do better about in-game adjustments (e.g. stop calling Reed's end around when their Defense has adjusted to it), but I wonder how much Rodger's effect impacted MLF's play calling over the last couple years. I hope he can show the courage to can Barry and move another direction.

Maybe the multi-millionaires have a back door. Us poor schlubs have to pay it in the state where it is earned (unless the states have reciprocity, but I doubt that with CA). More likely, it is media click-bait.

I don't know if it does hit the luxury tax payroll. I would hope so. If not, then that should be fixed. But realize LAD's budget is what it is. They are spending future money. No one is going to give him $70M/year. They effectively gave him something like $46M/year (present value vs. future value for those economic majors in the room). Perhaps the MLB could do that... but as long as the $$ LAD spends is on their luxury tax threshold the year they spend it, I'm ok with it. If I get a zero interest loan, I'm ok with buying a $40k car and pay it off the next 20 years (well, maybe not that long, but you get my drift).

Baseball Reference WAR ratings; Brewer years only. Fielder: 7 seasons, oWAR = 24.6 or ~3.5 per year Braun: 14 seasons, oWAR = 50.2 or ~3.6 per year Molitor: 15 seasons, oWAR = 59.3 or ~4.0 per year Yount: 20 Seasons, oWAR = 83.1 or ~4.2 per year Then consider that Fielder's time only includes his prime years (up to 27), Molitor up to 35 years old, Braun up to 36, and Yount up to 37 years old... it really broadens that gap.

While I'm no tax expert, I'm pretty certain the deferred money is still considered to be "earned" in California when they pay it (unless maybe the Dodgers move...). When i worked in MN and lived in WI, I paid MN taxes. I doubt the money being defered will matter... it is still earned in CA. And as long as the revenue hits LAD's luxury tax threshold in the future, I have no issues with deferred cash. It impacts them at they time they pay it. Obviously, Ohtani has good representation that knows how much this is worth in present day dollars and that no one was going pay him $70M/year from day one. It is just us fans that struggle to understand the cash flow situation. Much like Chourio's deal didn't mean he was paid $80M this offseason.

I'm pretty sure BF has had a thread like this every offseason back to when Paul Molitor left for Toronto. Rich owners spending money on rich players that will make more in a season than I do in my life. I'm kind of over it. We are a small market team. For the most part over the last 10-15 years, we've got to watch winning baseball. I'm curious what pleasure people get about pointing this out year after year?

Yes, this. After a couple failed Reed sweeps, I was shocked we didn't clue in on the 2pt conversion... And I couldn't believe we didn't just spy the QB after a while. We did make one defensive adjustment... we stopped rushing the passer and were content to just keep him in the pocket. But wow did we not adjust well. Our OLBs gave up the edge constantly on runs - crashing in on the run fake. On pass rush, everyone just bolted upfield. We obviously thought we were coming in to get 10 sacks tonight... lost all discipline on D.

Oof... Seems like the entire team forgot how to play football... Ball security is bad, blockers can't block, kickers couldn't kick, tacklers couldn't tackle. Wasn't just one individual, everyone had a hand in that loss. Doubs has double-caught several balls this year. A few of them have resulted in an incomplete pass. He had two of them last night - only one was incomplete. Seems like an odd "hiccup" he needs to fix. Love made several bad decisions. He wasn't sharp on his passing. One his fumble, he simply needed to stay to the outside to get the 1st down and instead stopped his progress - then got in trouble. OLBs - wow did we continue to give up the edge. Clearly we needed to stop Barkley. Clearly we forgot about everyone else including the QB. Overall, probably a good learning experience for the team. They've played well for the last 5-6 games and coming off a high of beating KC. You have to have your A game every week. Any given Sunday...

Except that would mean the Brewers put him on the 40-man a year earlier for a season we are out of the playoff race. Doubtful. I can only see one scenario... we are in the playoffs and we have a few IF-ers get hurt and we've run out of options.

Who said it was a zero percent chance? I gave a pretty long list of rookies being treated almost identically to show what is likely Wilkin's development path. The OP was about him being blocked. And given history that "problem" most likely won't be an issue for another year at least. Of course, maybe they will switch him to be a starting pitcher and replace Burnes as our TOR. It is impossible to say for certain...

The signing deadline for draft picks was in July or August. So they lost all rights to him now.

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? 😀