Eye Black

Thank you for the honesty.

From former Astros front office member Kevin Goldstein (via Twitter)… Jon Singleton is now 30 and hit 321/503/693 over 46 games in Mexico with a 27% walk rate and 15 HR in 137 ABs. He also played his home games in Mexico City, where my 10-pound dog could probably slug .400. Altitude is 50% higher than Denver. Also, re: Jon Singleton. Remember the barrel-chested beefy guy he was the last time you saw him play? He's absolutely ripped now. It would be totally fun if he ended up being good again. Below is the evidence that Jon Singleton does indeed appear to have been working out since we last saw him…

Rowdy Tellez and Tyler White combined to play 128 games for the Buffalo Bison last season, including 97 total as the team’s first basemen. There’s at least a remote chance those Bison fans got a sneak preview of the 2022 Milwaukee Brewers first base platoon.

I remember hoping Whitley might fall to the Brewers in the 2015 MLB Draft and being disappointed when he was taken a couple of picks earlier. There was intrigue surrounding him because he was a high school hitter from the Northeast (New York). Well I guess I was wrong then, but maybe he can unlock some of his potential with his new organization.

David Dahl’s MLB career line against RHP… [pre]Split PA AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI SB BB SO BA OBP SLG OPS vs RHP 649 595 93 168 33 7 25 92 10 43 159 .283 .332 .494 .826[/pre] Not bad for the former All-Star right fielder who is still just 27-years old.

My, oh my. Gorgeous. Probably most impressive of all is the fact he’s hit 5 home runs in just 33 at bats (37 plate appearances) there.

Baseball America had a good article featuring some hitting prospects… 10 MLB Hitting Prospects With Intriguing Analytical Characteristics Alex Binelas was one of the 10 hitters featured, which included this passage… Binelas’ power is impressive, with a max exit velocity in the 111 mph range and a 90th percentile exit velocity above 107 mph (per sources), no surprise to anyone that’s seen him at his best as an amateur.

Kim is currently a free agent. Right now the only projected opposing NL Central starting LHPs are Miley (Cubs), Matz (Cardinals), Quintana (Pirates) and maybe Dillon Peters (Pirates).

The FanGraphs analysis of the trade was written by Eric Longenhagen… Link: Brewers Fill Specific Need with Hunter Renfroe Trade From the article, here is Eric’s take on David Hamilton and Alex Binelas: Boston was also able to add two prospects in this trade in the speedy Hamilton and powerful Binelas. Hamilton, 24, only started seeing regular pro at-bats in 2021; he tore his Achilles during his draft year (2019) at Texas and missed his junior spring and what would have been his first pro summer, then was limited to spring training and instructional league in ’20 due to the cancellation of the minor league season. In his first affiliated at-bats last season, he hit .258/.341/.419 across High- and Double-A with 52 steals in 61 attempts, wrapping up his season with a few weeks of Arizona Fall League reps. Hamilton’s ball/strike recognition, speed, and defensive acumen make him a high-probability role-playing infielder, and his feel to hit arguably makes him a more stable (but lower-ceiling) prospect than Downs, who will either hit enough to be an everyday second baseman or not. Look for Hamilton to be added to Boston’s 40-man roster next offseason. (This trade also creates a sort of reunion between him and Hudson Potts, who shared the left side of Texas’ Area Code infield way back in 2015.) Hamilton entered 2021 as a 40+ FV prospect — a likely 40 (light-hitting utility infielder) with some tip-of-the-iceberg upside created by all his time off. After a full season and lots of in-person looks, he’s likely to be a low-variance 40 FV on the offseason Red Sox prospect list. Binelas’ triple slash line as a freshman at Louisville (.291/.383/.612) put him in this draft class’ first-round mix, even though he doesn’t have premium physical tools. His peripherals (a 20% strikeout rate, twice his walk rate) were not as dominant, and scouts were eager to see if he could repeat or improve upon his 2019, but a wrist injury and COVID-19 limited him to just two games in 2020. Then he struggled early in ’21 before getting hot for about a month in the middle of the college season and again during conference tournament play. Binelas is short to the ball and has big, majestic power, but his swing is fairly grooved. He struggles to contact fastballs up and away from him and has a scary strikeout-to-walk ratio for a corner infielder. He looks like a corner platoon bat who could move quickly. Boston’s recent draft/trade trends lean toward players like him, who perform on paper but fit toward the bottom of the defensive spectrum.

Not that one, the other one. https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/s/seageky01.shtml. They’re the first set of brothers in MLB history to have each signed >$100-million contracts at some point in their careers.

According to Baseball America the major league portion of the Rule 5 Draft will not take place this year while the Triple-A portion of the Rule 5 draft will still take place as scheduled. Congrats to the Brewers, I guess, for not wasting any 40-man roster spots on players that ultimately would’ve been protected for no reason.

The Brewers owed JBJ $9.5 million for this season plus and a $8 million buyout for the 2023 season. I’m not totally familiar with the deferrals in his contract, but I think the large majority of that $17.5 million was scheduled to be paid well after JBJ was gone (including in 2024 & 2025). So for this coming year it might not save much (if anything when you factor in Renfroe’s like arbitration salary), but it definitely gets future dead money off the books.

One fun storyline, Hunter Renfroe and Brandon Woodruff were teammates for two years at Mississippi State (they were one year apart in school).

For those scoring at home, the Brewers have now added three of the Rays hitters from their 2020 World Series squad, as well as their hitting coach.

What else is he going to say? "We just acquired a player that had a historically bad season at the plate and we expect him to continue to produce at that level or possibly be even a little worse if that is possible." JBJ does have value with his elite defense but that isn't going to sell to the press in Boston. I guess I thought the insinuation that the Brewers changed something with JBJ (that presumably broke him) was at least mildly interesting. Seems like a step beyond the typical GM-speak.

Just noticed this quote from Red Sox GM Chaim Bloom: Bloom says Sox are 'optimistic' that Bradley can bounce back from 2021 struggles in Milwaukee. 'Coming back here, we can get him back to a lot of what he used to do.'

Some familiar faces among Hunter Renfroe’s top ten Baseball Reference similarity scores through age-29: Khris Davis (937.1) Jeromy Burnitz (930.1) Gorman Thomas (928.9) Travis Shaw (927.0)

Stearns: "There are some funds now that are freed up. (Owner) Mark (Attanasio) and the rest of our ownership group have been consistent and supportive if there's an opportunity that makes sense, we're free to discuss them and pursue them."

It will be fun to have some hope for an outfield assist on balls hit to RF with runners in scoring position. That’s one thing that’s tough to watch with Yelich, he has almost no chance to make a strong throw against advancing runners.

His line against RHP last season was better than Yelich's overall line and similar to Tyrone Taylor's overall line. I imagine he will be getting the bulk of the OF starts with Yelich and Cain. Wong Adames Yelich Renfroe Tellez Urias Narvaez Cain I dont hate that lineup. Yeah, adding Renfroe to the middle of the lineup certainly makes it look much better.

The arrow was pointing up for both Binelas and Hamilton. Both have a chance to become solid major leaguers. The Brewers used good prospects to buy their way out of a bad deal. Both positives and negatives can be gleaned from the situation.

An underrated part of this trade is that if we squint we’ll be able to envision what Mike Trout would’ve looked like in a Brewers uniform had the Crew got their man in the 2009 MLB Draft.

It’s a good trade given the circumstances they were facing, but I think it’s okay to have some conflicted feelings about it. It’s an upgrade for the current MLB team, so I’m certainly happy about that part.

Hunter Renfroe projections… Steamer: .244 BA / .309 OBP / .490 SLG / 31 HR (.799 OPS) Davenport: .258 BA / .326 OBP / .511 SLG / 34 HR (.837 OPS)

Bummed to see the prospects go in this one. Alex Binelas and David Hamilton were both players I had high hopes for. Both had a tantalizing tool, in Binelas’s case power and in Hamilton’s case speed. That being said, I certainly understand why they made this trade.