amt2138

I like the Tigers as trade partners and am very interested in Matt Boyd as a starter and Shane Greene as a relief arm. Not extremely sexy names by any means but I like the idea of the Brewers getting guys before the breakout as opposed to paying for them right after the career year. Boyd definitely found some good things last year, his new improved slider that he spent last winter designing on advice from James Paxton and data at Driveline. Some other data that interested me with Boyd "Fourseam Fastball WHIFF rate percentiles (200+ pitches) (Long list of pitchers with good fastballs) 56.8% Wei-Yin Chen -> 56.2% Luis Castillo 55.6% Matt Boyd" source "Opponents hitting just .174 against it with a 33 percent whiff rate" source "The most-ditched secondary pitch so far this year among starters is Matt Boyd’s changeup (down 12%). It’s a decent straight change but the slider has kept the same good whiff rate with ramped up usage.. I think it speaks well to him having another wrinkle in future." source Boyd was destroyed by the home run last year and his home/road splits are incredibly ugly, but he looks to have a pretty strong repertoire of pitches and I think would be exactly the type of arm the Brewers could bring in and provide some data to and see a dramatic take off.

It is an interesting thought but with a lot of the Cleveland stars getting to arbitration and big figures coming they need these young minimum pitchers and would rather use their older, expensive pitchers to replenish the talent.

Robbie Ray is a big target for me. Jake Lamb and Zack Godley would be nice additions as well. 2018 wasnt exactly kind to Ray with injuries and rough outings but from late July on he regained some of his dominant 2017 form. His fastball ticked back up to where it had been in 2017. If he stays healthy for a full season we might be looking at the lefty ace our staff has needed. Lamb might be a little risky with injuries and also a lot of overlap between him and Shaw at 3B, but if you get Shaw innings at 1B and 2B I think there are plenty of innings to go around for this crew. I think any team contending team would love to have a Godley and use him similar to how the Astros have used Brad Peacock as RP/SP hybrid depending on the team need. Not really sure what you give up for a guy like him in a trade, might be cheaper to go out and sign Nate Karns.

Where do you guys rank Woodruff, Peralta, Burnes in comparison to Luke Weaver?

I don't know. They are cheap I guess. Otherwise I don't see how they are so valuable. Nimmo is a ok defense high strikeout bat, while Conforto had a poor year. They are young, but I don't see how either would be off the table for a guy who is arguably the best catcher in the game. Both seem pretty average to me. On a minimum contract, Nimmo giving you 4.5 WAR with an OBP over .400 and 50+ extra base hits is the part you are missing when describing his offense. OK defense is dead on though

Conforto and Nimmo are highly valuable pieces. I understand both why the Marlins covet them and why the Mets would say no

I think the fact the Brewers put Woodruff in a spot to have playoff heroics should tell you all you need to know about how the Brewers view Woodruff. Starting and relieving in huge spots throughout the biggest games of the season tells you they like this guy and they value him very highly. Like has been said here before, if you can get a player like Bumgarner at a fair price for a veteran that has declined the past few seasons instead of at the price of a top of the rotation starter you try to do it. If not you turn the page

What do the Mariners have to do to even make the Brewers while to add Seager. He's a great defensive third baseman, bat has been trending downward for a little bit now after a monster 2016 with 2018 being a nightmare offensively no matter how you look at it. 1. They have to throw in money 2. They have to eat some of our money (Thames, Anderson, Albers) Don't think now is the time to get rid of Braun but I've been wrong and surprised before. 3. Mariners have to throw in an asset or two. Pazos was a good suggestion, Brewers were linked to Braden Bishop pre-draft, Still overall not sure this does enough for the Brewers to make the move

Keeping a close eye on the Danny Salazar situation today. Has been a little talk of them non-tendering him but I would guess some team is willing to risk $5 million to see if he can stay healthy. I'd love for the Brewers to take that risk

I think generally these lists are taken a bit too much as gospel and not looked at for what they are. I mean two guys trying to rank the farm systems of every single team is baseball is pretty ridiculous, but for what it is I believe these two are right at the top of the list. For me personally these things are really good at getting little tidbits here and there on specific players. Hiura is really good, great to hear! The beginning of Eduardo Garcia, Payton Henry putting in the work on defense and his body, I am a huge Webb guy think he might be the next pitcher of the year in the organization or take a huge jump and pitch out of the big league bullpen by the end of next year so reading anything about him is great, the JUCO guys showing out a little bit... I'm a huge proponent of JUCO for baseball players and think at the top level the development programs are better than Division I and a lot of big league teams. Two things that interest me Lucas Erceg/Clayton Andrews as bullpen arms that can hit for himself a time or two could make for interesting roster management and take the bullpenning thing to another level. (This is very unlikely to happen but could be something). Second thing also with Andrews and all short pitchers in general. I've been able to see some data and talk with the guys that understand it better and they are seeing the opportunity for a pitcher like Andrews to come in throwing from his 5'6 frame and create tunnels that are in direct opposition to the way hitters are swinging. This is also a reason why I want the Brewers to trade for Stroman and get him into their system of pitch selection.

Bauer and Morton make a ton of sense to me. Both guys that have put in the work and using all the data available to them in order to maximize their talents as pitchers. Believe that would be a great mesh with our organizational philosophy. Wonder what kind of deal it would take with the Indians? If you take on Kipnis' last year does that take away from the cost of players/prospects. Then you have Kipnis/Perez platoon until Hiura is ready, both of those guys can go play some outfield if necessary as well if you lose some of Santana, Broxton, Ray in the deal. Not sure how well that works for the Brewers taking on salary and losing financial flexibility. Subsequent moves would have to be made with Thames/Anderson/other mid tier guys.

I don’t know this to be a certain fact, but I believe the Indians were one of the first teams to incorporate weighted ball throwing programs as part of their organizational pitcher development practices. I believe that (the weighted balls & associated drills with them) was something pushed for by Trevor Bauer after he arrived in Cleveland and started talking about the things he had learned/ help to develop with other 3rd party camps/ groups..... Yeah Bauer showed up with results and the team took notice and did their background work on his process and decided it was the direction they felt was right for their player development.

I am very much not on board with this. The theory here is that if a pitcher is wild and not throwing strikes that when he does throw strikes he is going to be "wild in the zone." Major league hitters need to be trusted in this scenario to hunt their pitch. I 100% agree with you that if the pitcher goes from 4+ balls in a row to a nasty pitch on the black, you don't need to be swinging on that. But if hitters are going up their hunting a certain pitch and they get it, I absolutely want them to swinging at it. Taking pitches in your nitro zone just because the previous pitches have been wild is a good way to give the pitcher the advantage back that you have just gained.

I think somebody like Ruben Niebla the pitching coordinator for the Cleveland Indians makes a lot of sense. The Indians are very data driven and progressive when it comes to their pitching philosophies. These philosophies are very close to what DJ is preaching. Experience running the minor league portion of pitcher development would allow him to implement his programs throughout the system. Teams have been raiding colleges for coaches the last few off-seasons for minor league coaching staffs. Might be too big of a jump for somebody to go from a college directly to major leagues but if you are looking for some outside the box candidates Scott Brown from Vandy, Drew Thomas from Coastal Carolina and Matt Hobbs from Wake Forest are three of the most respected in the game.

Pretty sure Johnson and his family (2 children) have a home in Nashville. Sure that factored in a little bit as well

Yeah the bluemound area bars all have shuttles. Kelly's, SOBs, Dugout 54, Brewski's and more that I'm missing. Most of them you can go in and buy a drink and get a pass to use the shuttle. Last week the lines were outrageous, over an hour long at some points and with traffic the bar shuttles were much slower than usual getting back and forth. So planning accordingly will be necessary if you want to see first pitch.

Late in the first might be the spot to take a top pitcher that goes down to Tommy John and dropped because of it. Obviously not cheering for it to happen but knowing the nature of the game and how amateur coaches take care of their pitchers it might be something to look for. Feels like their has been some success going this route lately with Buehler, Giolito, Fedde popping to my mind right away. Obviously the successful ones stick out a lot more than the unsuccessful ones which I'm sure there are many.

Where did you see/hear this? Was it on the broadcast?

I like Carlos Rodon talk but it seems like the White Sox might be served best to wait until the off-season on him. I'll go with Matt Boyd

The lack of respect that the rest of the league has for Orioles pitching development, progression and maintenance comes in to play here. I think that would be something that is very hard to quantify but very real.

Is there anything besides the amount of game difference that you think adds to the workload on his arm? I kind of feel like they would be able to monitor and keep track of his arm best at the major league level. More built in off days with Villar and Hernan to keep him going further into the season. Having access to the big league staff on a daily basis would only help in his arm rehab/strengthening program too. There are a lot of factors that play into all this but I'm of the opinion we are going to be seeing Hiura starting at 2B very soon.

I meant data driven in their approach to pitch calling only. I know only the Brewers, Astros and Rays to be teams that have taken Effective Velocity ideals that were created by Perry Husband and fully implement them into their approach with pitchers/catchers at all levels. The Pirates I know to be a "feel" organization to pitch calling. Establishing the fastball inside and working off that (very simplified explanation.) The Blue Jays I don't actually know but with Rusell Martin and some of the criticism I have seen of them, I feel very confident in saying they are also a feel organization.

Count me in as a Stroman guy. He has had some really good runs of being a dominant pitcher but also has been the guy where his stuff is too good to be allowing so many base runners. I think similar to Gerritt Cole by sending Stroman to a team like the Brewers or Astros, that are more data driven in their approach to pitch calling, and understand the expected velocity and EV tunnels and how they relate from pitch to pitch you could see a job from solid starter to top of the rotation candidate. What it would cost to get him will be very interesting. Two full years after this season still left, always injury concerns about a pitcher his size, bad blood with the Jays this past offseason after the arbitration process. He is a known workout warrior every offseason and a student of the game in the Trevor Bauer mold using every resource to make himself a more complete pitcher. Hiura is off limits in most deals for me and Stroman would be no exception, but I'd be willing to listen on Burnes, Domingo, Phillips, Ray, Woodruff, Erceg, Stokes and the trade chips in that range.

Few notes, the well respected pitching coach and I believe recruiting coordinator at Augustana where Peyton Zabel was going to go just took a head coaching job at a different school. Could definitely play a factor in Zabel's decision. Davis Daniel had a dominant 4 inning start in his first appearance in the Cape Cod League. His stock is trending way up. He really could cap off this draft class nicely for the Brewers if they were able to strike a deal.

He uses a lot of the timing variations ala Stroman but also has a lean towards third base that brings him up over the top more than most pitchers. Probably a good explanation for his 12-6 curve.