Eye Black

Well it’s Take II on the scheduled Woodruff versus Steele matchup. Brandon Woodruff has started more games at Wrigley than any other visiting ballpark, and to say he’s been dominant in those starts would be a massive understatement. Woodruff’s career splits at Wrigley Field: Split G PA AB R H 2B 3B HR BB SO BA OBP SLG OPS CHC-Wrigley Fld 10 164 149 8 20 2 0 1 14 51 .134 .213 .168 .381 The book on Justin Steele during his brief career has been he's very tough on left-handed hitters, but much less so against righty hitters. Justin Steele career RHB/LHB splits: Split PA AB H 2B HR BB SO BA OBP SLG OPS vs RHB 394 348 92 14 22 34 82 .264 .347 .494 .841 vs LHB 102 82 8 2 2 20 36 .098 .275 .195 .470

Since we had team lineups released before the postponement can someone simulate this one on OOTP or MLB The Show [or something else], and let us all know how it would've turned out this afternoon?

FanGraphs Eric Longenhagen assesses the trades: ARTICLE LINK

We’ll add lineups to the initial post when they’re available. The Brewers seemed to put emphasis this offseason on improving their lineup versus left-handed pitching. They’ll get their first test of the season facing a southpaw starter today.

Here’s my first stab at this, I may tweak it slightly before the March 31st deadline. My hot take/prediction is that by the mid-season poll Felix Valerio will be universally regarded as a top ten player in the system. Aaron Ashby, LHP Joey Wiemer, OF Garrett Mitchell, OF Sal Frelick, OF Brice Turang, SS Felix Valerio, 2B Jeferson Quero, C Tyler Black, 2B Hedbert Perez, OF Jackson Chourio, SS Ethan Small, LHP Freddy Zamora, SS Antonio Kelly, LHP Russell Smith, LHP Joe Gray Jr., OF Hendry Mendez, OF Abner Uribe, RHP Mario Feliciano, C Zavier Warren, C/3B/1B Eduardo Garcia, SS Dylan File, RHP Jheremy Vargas, SS Taylor Floyd, RHRP Korry Howell, OF Victor Castaneda, RHP Max Lazar, RHP Carlos Rodriguez, OF Logan Henderson, RHP Gregory Barrios, SS Brett Sullivan, C

I sort of wonder if Bryant had another offer within $50 million of this one? With the injuries over the past couple of years he’s seen his power tail-off a bit. I wouldn’t be surprised if other teams models project him to age poorly. I saw Dan Szymborski mention that ZiPS pegs him for significant regression, and actually was higher on Eric Hosmer at the time of his FA signing than it is on Bryant now. Still, that gamble might make sense for a team with money to spend that’s nearing or within a competitive window. In the Rockies case even if Bryant has a few more good years in him, it’s unlikely to come during a period in which they are truly relevant.

I agree with you, I think it was probably too light. MadThinker88 also brought up a good point in that you’d have to clearly beat any other team’s offer since all things being equal the Pirates would likely prefer to deal him out of the division.

The Pirates have a deep farm system, if I were them I would want a package for Reynolds that was focused on top-end caliber talent in an attempt to hit on a future star. I just don't think a likely backend of the rotation arm would cut it. If I were to pick the players in the Brewers system currently with the highest upside potential it would be Aaron Ashby, Joey Wiemer, and Garrett Mitchell. Then I would look at the group of younger players and find the player I thought had the best chance to see their profile skyrocket in the coming years. In my opinion that's Jeferson Quero, but you could also argue Hedbert Perez or Jackson Chourio best fit that designation. So if I am the Pirates I would probably ask for Aaron Ashby, Joey Wiemer and Jeferson Quero in addition to Tyrone Taylor. That's a high price to pay from the Brewers point-of-view, but also might not be enough when you consider another team might be willing to part with a top-20 prospect in baseball as part of their package.

My guess is the Braves are fairly confident they can sign Olson, an Atlanta area native, to a long term deal. Sort of similar to the Cardinals M.O. in the past.

BTW, enjoying the new forum interface, but a little disappointed I can’t like my own comments.

If baseball is supposed to be fun then I’m for this signing. For whatever it’s worth, ZiPS and especially THE BAT X still believe in McCutchen’s bat. Season Team Level Age G PA HR R RBI SB BB% K% ISO BABIP AVG OBP SLG wOBA xwOBA wRC+ BsR Off Def WAR 2022 ZiPS DC PROJ 35 131 567 23 75 76 7 13.0% 23.0% .195 .266 .232 .336 .426 .331 108 -0.1 5.6 -12.2 1.2 2022 THE BAT X PROJ 35 111 484 20 67 61 4 12.8% 21.5% .207 .297 .258 .359 .464 .355 124 -0.1 14.3 -9.5 2.1

I wouldn’t mind the Brewers trading from the lower end of their starting depth (Houser, Lauer) for a chance at hitting on some younger talent that should debut in the majors in the next year or two. One team desperate for starting pitching appears to be the Twins. Players I would target in return from the Twins include 3B/2B prospect Jose Miranda as well as 1B prospect Aaron Sabato. Miranda should debut in MLB at some point in 2022, and could be a longer term solution to future years when Wong’s contract expires (i.e. move Urias to 2B and Miranda to 3B). Sabato has struggled a bit to this point in his short career, but he’s a former 1st round draft pick that still has the potential to develop into a solid power bat and he gets on base at an impressive clip.

Brad Miller could provide an interesting buy low LHH utility bat. Despite his struggles during his first go around in Milwaukee, he’s been very good every else in recent years when facing RHPs. He shouldn’t cost much and would provide a serviceable backup around the infield, the corner outfield, and a DH option against RHP.

According to a report out Japan (link in Japanese) the Red Sox are the leading candidate to sign Seiya Suzuki when the lockout comes to an end.

From the Brewers standpoint I would do that trade. Here’s one I’ve been wondering about, what if the Brewers could acquire Matt Olson in a three team trade by giving up Josh Hader and a good prospect (lets say Sal Frelick). Would that be enticing to Brewers fans, or does the loss of Hader too significantly diminish the added value of Olson? Looking at middle of the order bats around baseball right now it seems like the likely available options are very limited. If the DH is indeed instituted the Brewers lack of lineup thump is going to hurt even more. I hope the Brewers find a way to take a big swing in either free agency or the post lockout trade market.

Here’s the ZiPS article on FanGraphs… 2022 ZiPS Projections: Milwaukee Brewers

Here’s the graphic, the Brewers full ZiPS article is due out tomorrow.

Mark me down for #3. I think they’ll come to an agreement at some point in March leading to an abbreviated spring training. I still think they will ultimately get 162 games regular season games in even if the scheduled season start gets pushed back slightly.

The Brewers are now the only remaining NL Central team yet to have their team ZiPS projections released…

I agree, he’s the preeminent source covering prospects signing out of Latin America.

The Reds ZiPS article is available today…

The creator of the ATC projection system, Ariel Cohen, has published yearly performance comparisons among many of the major projection systems by using game theory (Link). I usually put more stock in hitting projections than pitching projections. I’ve mentioned this in the past, but I am a big believer in Derek Carty’s The Bat X projections for hitters. The Bat X is the only projection system that currently uses Statcast batted ball data, and I trust that Carty has figured out at least a portion of the secret sauce necessary for accurate projections. I do have an admittedly very much anecdotal experience from this past season. I played fantasy baseball for the first time in 15+ years by joining an NFBC Cutline league with 1,000 total participants (drafts occur among groups of 10 teams each) where you just draft a team preseason and leave it alone from there to accrue points throughout the season. I created an Excel spreadsheet for all hitters using The Bat X projections (converting each player’s projection into an expected cumulative season score using the Cutline scoring system) and one for all pitchers using ATC projections. I stuck pretty strictly to the projections for choosing players, especially hitters. I ended up finishing around #60 in the overall standings (out of 1,000), but my offensive scores were among the top 10 overall (my pitching suffered too many injuries/inconsistency and pulled my overall points total down). Maybe it was just a fluke, but after going through that process it seemed like trusting the projection system to make selections paid off. Obviously there is a massive difference between drafting using a projection system for fantasy baseball purposes, and finding real-life valuable baseball talent.

Cubs projections are up in ZiPS today. Below are the snapshots of the two NL Central teams that have been released so far…