biedergb

For a guy who was a good hitter, and likely to stick at SS, but it was also debated during the pre-draft reports I read (a lot of Gunnar Henderson comps, but also a lot of hedging that if he gets bigger he can't handle SS), this is a nice sign. He may still have to move off the 6 position, but at this time point he looks firmly entrenched as a future SS to go along with Turang, Ortiz, and a guy like EBJ as a future bench defense/pinch running like of UT.

Agree that selling most of this cohort will be selling low. Outside of Quintana, who like any DSL player would be labelled as a "lottery ticket" in a trade. Wilken - last year looked like a pillar of the infield for a decade, now he had a season that will make him look like EBJ bust territory. The truth is somewhere in-between for him, and unless it is part of a big trade where he needs to be included, I'm not sure how a trade value would fit, as he would likely be valued less than the former 1st rounder by most execs I would think. DiTurri will not move any needle, but is a great player to develop. He has some hitting skills, plays good defense, and is still so young. ORae - hard to peg, because he is so so young (20) and was at AA in the worst hitting environment (Southern League). Impressive to move up so quickly at that age, but also without a true defensive position. Most likley to move- Black, or even Lara who is so young and is holding his own, but may not have a future with on OF of Chourio, Frelick, Mitchell and having to compete with Payne and Yophery.

I mean yes, but if you look at the hitters, 6 of their 10 most common hitters (by AB) are teenagers, compared to Surprise and Glendale leaders where there is only one teenage (Z. Hope). So there is some excuse there. Now as far as pitching - all around pitching ERA for the league is 6.12, and giving up 6.5 runs per game, and Peoria is sitting all alone with an ERA of 8.75 wow! No excuses there. Very few quality performances here. Heck our RHP R. Birchard is the youngest pitcher (20 yo) on the team and is 5th in ERA and 8th in WHIP with some awful stats.

I trust you @Joseph Zarr I think you saw more of the Mudcats. The games I watched his footwork, throws and mental side were less than ideal, but watching a lot of Shuckers and T-Rats I did have a high bar with Areinamo, EBJ and even Pratt. Adams and Wilken have some defensive prowess in them for big guys. probably selection/recall bias as I remember Baez’s blunders the games I watched where he played.

Ok. Fair enough. I guess when he swings his contact makes him look better. When Yophery guesses he can look bad. But he did improve immensely. But as a hitter Baez has looked good, and is still incredibly young. His running and defense have a lot of improvement to go - a lot. But if he can maintain his contact ability and learn as he goes up the chain he can be a valuable hitter.

The thing I keep going back to is that Baez is only 6 months older than Yophery. Yophery has such an exciting tool set including defense, and played one less year of affiliated ball in the minors (2023 signing vs Baez as a 2022 signing), but really very close in age, and Baez at the plate appears way more comfortable and mature with swing decisions. The fact that he even has a nice sample size and is participating in the AFL at that age is certainly not common I would imagine. ‘His defense and his base running …. Yeah let’s skip over that

Encouraging to see that Coleman Crow is pitching in competitive ball, and hopes that he can become in the mix for upper level pitching prospects next season now that he seems fully healthy.

HM shout out for Russell Smith and former UDFA Nick Merkel who were so key to keeping Biloxi going most of the year. The pitching was all they had (save a few weeks where the offense really lit things up). While they may not have had the most eye popping numbers, those two were keys from getting from the SP to Yoho/Yeager closers.

Do we have good spot to get the arsenal on our pitchers. I know the top 20-30 prospect list will usually have these things, and I watched a lot of games, but guys like Shane Smith, Tate Kuener for example, I don't recall their arsenal, or the max FB velocity. I can go through the minor league reports, but wanted to see if that was something we can create as a pinned link in the forums, or a resource on the website. Or a link to a site that has data for these players - particularly AA or below. Statcast has the AAA data I believe.

Incredible season. The Brewers completely outpaced any projections, and exceeded even my own expectations by a lot (85 wins to 93 wins and another title). We saw Chourio step up, Contreras establish himself, and in a smallish sample size see Mitchell and Frelick make impacts. Ortiz and Turang look great on the D and have upside on the O. Bullpen still a solid part of the team, but probably overused. The playoffs... man the playoffs... We are talking about playoffs?? This team has lacked something for a while now. That 2018 team was magical. Braun, Moose and the bullpen that just was truly lights out. The last 3 nights were a gut punch, an amazing high, and a gut punch that will takes months to recover from. This is what the team has been looking for - winning games in October. The defense let them down Tuesday night. And the ace of the bullpen let them down last night. But for a team that was expected to maybe be .500 and maybe finish in the top 3 of the division, I'll take the positives. Let's go Brewers. Looking forward to an amazing 2025!!!

Four, or possibly all 5 of those pitchers should be in AAA together next year. That is a great result from a solid developmental process.

It will be pretty cool to see the pitching at the higher levels. AAA may boast Gasser (once healthy and if not on the brewers), Rodriguez (2021 draft), Henderson (2021 draft), S. Smith (2021 UDFA), Misiorowski (2022 draft), Yoho (2023 draft), Hunt (2023 UDFA), and Wichrowski (2023 draft). And also likely R. Smith (2021 draft) and Markel (2022 UDFA). Also the AA position players next year will include at one point - Burke, Areinamo, Pratt, Adams, Lara. While A ball will feature top prospects Payne, Bitonti, Made, Yophery, Baez, Peña,

Did we know about his injury - was it oblique or muscle strain? I couldn't easily find it, but I thought it was something like that. I imagine that will mess up delivery, consistency etc. Going into the season he had a tiny bit of helium - his mound presence and his raw stuff were enticing from reports, and then his season just never got started, He had one 4 inning start and then on the IL with a rehab stint and multiple short appearances. So he could use the innings this fall to see if the hype was real.

There are a few things about the IFA rankings and signings that I think based upon some info I have come across: One is there are so many good players who are 14-16 by the time they associate with a trainer/agent/team, and the evaluation process is not perfect given the age and the competition (I am no expert at all but from hearing/reading about it some) it sounds like certain clubs/trainers play against each other so there can be some variation in how they compare. So top 10 prospect is not necessarily that much better than the 25-40 prospect, unlike the MLB draft where there is some differential in outcomes/success due to age and track history. The other is that the evaluations are on speed, power etc, and not always about the make up which agents/scouts know. Plus the big factor is the projection of 14-15 year old years to a 17-20 year old. That is very different from team to team (projection and mental make up). Finally - pitchers are so raw and under-developed that they don't sign much. In fact (from the A. Cornielle interview) it sounds like players only want to be viewed as position players since that is where the money goes. After that if you are not signed, then focus on pitching and those who have some raw stuff will get signed that year or even a year or two later. So the big names rarely are pitchers because a) players only want to viewed as position players apparently and b) teams don't want to commit to pitchers at that young age. I will say those are my thoughts from cobbling together some info from podcasts (BA and just baseball/Aram), interview (here on this website with A. Cornielle published earlier this year) and some random articles (again BA, and prospect sites). So take this with a grain of salt.

Thanks for your insight and field's eye view of the game @MudcatsfaninBrunsCO Always helps to have locals at the games who gain some input on what we can't always get from watching the games, or from the commentary during the game. (Or also what Gameday doesn't provide 😂)

Fellow minor league fanatics, it was another great year in the Link Report. Thank you to @Ro Mueller @Jim Goulart @Joseph Zarr (did I miss anyone ??) for the incredible job of getting these posts our daily, these are truly treasures. And not to mention the daily game threads, where many frequent posters are able to keep us all up to date. I mean just reading the posts I feel I was able to "watch" every game this year. What a group, and I will miss the games/posts/reports and look forward to next season already. We are living through an incredible renaissance of Brewer baseball - with a pro team that is actually winning divisions, and the minor league is full of wining clubs and a nice mix of higher end prospects as well as great depth prospects. THANK YOU ALL!

Agree. I guess I should have contrasted that approach- long term success vs the all-in approach. As a long lived Brewer fan, I’m much happier now compared to what I watched prior (1986ish on) when a good year was a winning record. Now winning division is the new standard. Hopefully we get rewarded with a WS appearance one of these years.

Right. But the Brewers haven’t been averse to aggressive promotions. i think he either starts at high A and if he holds his own after a month goes up, or maybe they see something during off season and pre-season to send him up there for the start of the year. I agree the former is more likely, but he still pushes EBJ to AAA to see if he can turn into a defensive stalwart who can be a pinch running, cover any spot in the IF type of utility-layer. these are among the fascinating things to watch out for next year.

EBJ will likely move to AAA - he MLB caliber defensively. And I believe the Brewers will not block Pratt who looks like a sure fire top-3 prospect for the team. Whether he starts at high A next year to get more ABs, or is placed in AA with Areinamo, Adams, Lara among others as that core of the ‘23 Mudcats continue to climb the ladder together.

And that has even evolved. Look back at the earlier days of this run. 2018-2019, where the team was more offensively gifted, and reliant on a deep bullpen. We signed Cain and Grandal, and traded for Yelich and Moose during that time frame. Then as other teams came back to signing FAs again (after the 2016-2018 non-collusion FA downturn), the brewers pivoted to defensive players like Wong, Adames, Bradley, Petersen, and focusing on pitching development. Now it is trying to balance both via draft, trades, and player development. Currently the team is run-prevention, great bullpen and better than average hitting. And will maybe pivot again in the next few years to leverage what their internal strengths are, and maybe zig when the league zags. The big question is as fans do we wish to have this TB Rays like continuing success for nearly a decade, or a 2-3 year run with WS runs (like KC)? (And yes I realize that this analogy falls apart since TB did make a WS appearance)

And looks like Yeager getting hit. And a 2run HR by Isaac makes it a 6 run deficit again But wow Pratt first AA HR as a 2 run blast in bottom of 8 in a playoff do-or-die game 3. Kids got it.

Yikes. I'll check in later, but a 5-0 deficit seems like a mountain to climb.... unless. Unless EMJ and Wilken go off tonight. Right? Please

Need sarcasm font for me next time ;) I am a little slow

*Technically it is Joe Starkey. (https://www.post-gazette.com/sports/joe-starkey/2024/09/19/pirates-brewers-national-league-central-ben-cherington-derek-shelton/stories/202409170093) Well if it is true or not, the author of the article made that reference multiple times in the article, so that's why I included it twice n my post. ( I guess I was trying to be funny - I will learn to stick with my day job 😔 )

Please yes.