DHonks

This post seems to assume a lot. You’re assuming the Brewers would start Shaw. He’s a great depth piece at 1b, 3b, DH, and even 2b. Even though he wasn’t producing great, he still had a knack for knocking in runs at key times. They way I view Shaw returning is that he’d be another option at 1b (since Tellez has been awful in limited time, Hiura has been awful, and only Vogelbach has shown signs of life) and he’d be depth at 3b. Urias can’t and won’t play every day

Wow, Floyd with a candidate for best pitching line of the year!

As we previously noted, his 1st half this year wasn’t all that different from his first half in 2018. His avg and power are down but bop higher

Thought I asked this the other day but I can’t find it. Any word on why Cain hasn’t played in almost a week?

I made a big point of this the other day in the game thread and I don’t understand why that was not considered blocking the plate. My understanding is that it’s illegal to camp out in the base path of the runner until you have the ball. It’s meant to promote swipe tags and this positioning here obviously does not. We had another example of this a day or two later in which our runner was clearly out but had no way of getting to the plate as the catcher didn’t have the ball and was completely blocking it..

Has Cain returned with the team? Haven’t seen him in a box score in about 5 days

NBA games aren't even close to MLB games in gametime length. I haven’t watched much NBA in about 15 years, but I thought they often pushed 2.5+ hours back when the Brewers were among the fastest teams in the league at around 2:45.

It’s also been mentioned by the Brewers before, but sometimes these kids really don’t want to go to college. When push comes to shove, they are more motivated to sign during the summer than they anticipated before the draft due to the pressure of not getting re-drafted until age 21.

He’s clearly in tremendous shape this year. One can only assume that he has learned some lessons and keep this going forward

MLB games are shorter than NFL and NBA games, AP I don’t buy that they are too long. I don’t mind the rubbers on 2nd rule, but I wish it started in the 12th inning.

This makes sense, and fits with previous comments from the organization. About 4-6 weeks ago there was an article on the Indians' success developing pitchers, but struggles with hitters. Basically, they feel they can target certain pitchers and make him better with their pitching lab and analytics, but they have no clue how to guarantee success with developing a hitter. One key is that if they can always develop pitching and trade the surplus for hitters.

I know I had at least one parent at most of my sports as a kid, but I also had soccer games, golf events, basketball games, etc where they couldn't make it. To be honest, that was part of growing up in the 80s and 90s was that parents were there, but not helicoptering, hovering, snowplowing, or whatever the latest terms are. Sometimes parents are thrown off that my only formal communication with them in high school sports is an email every 2-3 weeks, and 99% of my communication is directly with their child. I primarily coach golf. I like it when I receive emails from potential golfers rather than their parents. I'm sorry, your kid is in or entering high school.

When I started this post, I was assuming Woodruff on Saturday was a lock for the 5-days rest. I’m guessing Peralta and Burnes go Sunday and Tuesday, unless someone doesn’t throw in the AS game

Frederickson was 8 years before Stearns and pitching labs and the like. This new regime deserves the benefit of the doubt with waivers, drafting, developing, and tall lefties. Yes very true…but just saying our history wi5 tall picks has me a little anxious. The last successful tall pitcher was probably D’Amico, but that’s also because we haven’t drafted all that many

One thing to keep in mind with these JuCo picks is how messed up the last year has been for athletes. Most high school and college athletes missed the 2020 season. Many HS players lost their college spots due to returning players. So there should be quite a bit of talent at JuCo, especially the ones that didn't want to be at the end of the bench at a 4-year school.

like that we're taking primarily left-handed hitters. Most pitchers are righty and we have a short RF with the party section.

Shorter pitcher with a mid-90s fastball and ++ change. Seems destined for a pen role. Sort of reminds me of Tyler Thornburg. or Roy Oswolt?

They definitely said some things that check Brewers boxes. Spin rate, changeup, strikeouts, analytics

Clancy, we're both in agreement about the launch angle/Trackman decline. That goes into #1 as well. With pitchers changing their games to utilize the top half of the zone so well, hitters will have to adjust their swing-paths . So #1 is about the less lively ball, but 1a is about the change in hitting and pitching philosophies. As we've both been saying for months, the next move by MLB teams will be utilizing players with good contact skills, good OBP skills, and "easy" power. While today's pitchers are using all pitches to the top of the zones, these are pitches that used to be considered "hangers." Why has Peterson had some success? He probably has the smallest uppercut on the team. Shaw, Hiura, JBJ and others have huge uppercuts.

Here is a lot more from Perfect Game on Smith from a scouting report on him after they got an in-person look: Lanky lefthander Russell Smith got the start for the Horned Frogs in the first game of the second day of the event and was superb during his time on the bump. The southpaw went a little over five innings with six strikeouts and only allowed one run, a home run in his final inning of work. He finished with just the one run allowed and a ton of weak contact as he filled the zone up and was in command from the first pitch of the game. Smith is a massive lefthander, listed at 6-foot-9 and 235-pounds, and he has excellent physicality and repeats his mechanics very well for someone his size. There is some funk and deception to the delivery with exaggerated side steps, rhythm, and dipping of shoulders but it's all synced up remarkably well. He strides well with his lower half and the arm stroke comes through relatively compact and from a three-quarters slot. The lefthander filled it up from the first pitch of the game as the first inning was a nice microcosm of what was to come. He threw about ten pitches and got two weak ground ball outs on changeup followed by a three-pitch strikeout to end the frame. The fastball sat 90-93 mph and he held his velocity well throughout. There's plus angle on the fastball given the extreme crossfire lower half landing that Smith employs and it allowed for some poor swings by lefthanded hitters. Both the changeup and the slider were solid pitches for Smith who went to the slider often. The changeup shows good sinking life and arm side fade, though he did have the tendency to drop slot at times on the pitch, and was a neutralizing agent against righthanded hitters. The slider played to hitters of either handedness and got a good amount of chases running away from lefties. There's a strong arsenal as well as a track record of success and the strikes to give him a good shot at starting at the next level. There are a lot of options for the Horned Frogs on an experienced pitching staff and Smith turned in an excellent performance. He should undoubtedly be a key cog in the rotation for the foreseeable future and gives the Horned Frogs another talented veteran to rely upon as the season gets underway. This writeup as well as the frelick write up have me thinking the philosophy of the organization is going to be to get ahead of the electronic zone. Guys at the plate who can take a walk and impact the ball in the zone. Pitchers who throw a ton of strikes and don't have to rely on iffy calls on the border by umps. I think this is key. I feel like contact, plate discipline, speed, and defense are characteristics that can't really be taught at this age. They either have a good foundation to improve on, or they don't (so they get refined, but not taught). Power is different. There's raw power, and there's refined power (someone who makes good contact but learns to barrel the ball more). To use a golf comparison, Dechambeau used analytics and training to improve his power, but he was already a great ball-striker.

Remember when Matt Miller was looking like the better pick between him and Nelson? I think there are a lot of things that we can't quantify. Jimmy Nelson and Brandon Woodruff are notoriously hard workers. I get the feeling their workouts are pretty intense like the old Rocket workouts. I think one benefit to many college kids is a better perspective and maturity. There aren't a lot of kids that can handle instant wealth at any age, but especially high school. Colleges these days are pretty much 24/7 doing workouts, so I'd imagine many of the college kids are farther along the path of learning what it might mean to be a pro. I love HS kids, but so far I'm happy with this draft.

Throwing 93 mph isn’t all that slow for a lefty. Plus maybe they hope they’re in the pitching lab they can on earth more velocity and tighten up that slider. Then again we haven’t had success with tall high picks like Thomas and Fredrickson.

I like the idea of finding good contact players with some power and hoping the power develops much better than people that are high power guys with low contact hoping contact develops

I’d like a 3b, 1b, corner OF, and some more arms. But we had 5 pitching heavy drafts before 2020, so we have a ton of pitchers and almost no hitters

If you can play SS, you can most likely play 3rd (or OF). And if you can play CF, you can play LF or RF Sadly Weeks was a 2b/CF that couldn’t play any position well, except DH. But besides him, this philosophy holds