Eye Black

The Reds moment of the year in 2016 was reliever Michael Lorenzen's home run following his father's passing. It isn't exactly a candidate for the newest market inefficiency, but the Reds now have a chance to add another pitcher who could be a dual threat with the bat... or else a player they could develop as their future 1B to man the opposite IF corner spot of last year's #2 selection, Nick Senzel. The Reds also reportedly had 7 scouts present at the ACC tournament last week which seems like a lot even if it was nearby. 1.2 Cincinnati Reds: Brendan McKay, LHP/1B, Univ. of Louisville

Which college bat do you think has the best chance to develop into an elite hitter as a professional? Based solely on offensive profile it seems like Keston Hiura should be a top ten draft pick. I know he has injury and positional concerns, but Hiura looks like a future doubles machine. Taking him without having a true defensive position would seem somewhat out of the Cubs playbook of drafting bat-first college hitters like Kyle Schwarber and Ian Happ. As far as Hiura's elbow issues, if the Brewers were convinced he could fix his elbow through TJ surgery (or other means) this summer, would he be worth taking a chance on at #9? Seems like the kind of hitter that we may be asking in a few years how he lasted as long as he did.

A quick note on Super Two status. This upcoming Thursday (June 1) should mark 122 service days left in the Brewers season. Since 2009 that number marks the lowest cutoff for number of service days a player has accumulated (beyond two full years of service years) and still received Super Two status following their third season. 2016: 2.131 2015: 2.140 2014: 2.133 2013: 2.122 2012: 2.140 2011: 2.146 2010: 2.122 2009: 2.139 The concern over protecting against Brinson achieving Super Two status following the 2019 season should be over within the next week or so.

The Quinnipiac folks are keeping tabs on the progress of Timber Rattlers pitcher Thomas Jankins. Thomas Jankins is latest in line of Quinnipiac sports success stories By David Borges, New Haven Register

From the today's Carolina Mudcats Game Notes... Corey Ray has hit safely in eight of his last nine games and is batting .429/.462/.686 with a 1.147 OPS since 5/16 (15 H, 7 R, 1 2B, 1 3B, 2 HR, 9 RBI, 3 BB, 8 SO, 20.5 K%). It's nice to see a hot streak for Ray as well as that K rate trending down slightly even if it's a small sample size. Still a 28.0 K% on the season.

Curious to see if Hans Crouse falls at all due to the alleged social media incident before last week's playoff game versus JSerra HS. Came across of the game that alluded to something involving Crouse leading up to the game, and then saw this article from the L.A. Times (JSerra tops Dana Hills, 3-0) that explained using a little more detail of Crouse's actions. Excerpt from the linked article... But there was plenty of drama before the game, because Crouse sent a message via a social media video directing profanities at JSerra Coach Brett Kay that the Dolphins were coming for him and the Lions. Dana Hills Coach Tom Faris said he was aware of the video and would take disciplinary action. But Crouse was allowed to pitch. "I don't think he's happy with me and I'm not happy with him," Kay said of Faris. "If [Crouse is] over at our school, he's expelled. The kid is absolutely good enough for who he is as a baseball player. He shouldn't have to do those things."

Last year was a good example of just how fluid the last couple of weeks leading up to the MLB draft can prove to be. Last year none of our first 3 picks were selected in the top 5, and 4 of the top 8 picks in our mock fell out of the top 10: Kyle Lewis (#11), Jason Groome (#12), Blake Rutherford (#18), and Delvin Perez (#23). We did correctly nail one selection, Zack Collins going #10 to the White Sox. So as much as things seem to be firming up, it still remains a bit of a crap-shoot at this point. Now on to the Twins. The Twins took one of my favorite players selected in last year's first round, Alex Kirilloff. Last year they took 4 players in the first two rounds, all high schoolers. Over the past four drafts they have seemingly had more success among their early round selections with high school players (Nick Gordon, Byron Buxton, Jose Berrios) than college players (Tyler Jay, Nick Burdi, Ryan Eades, Luke Bard). This of course isn't a perfect narrative since Kohl Stewart has struggled after being the #4 pick in the 2013 draft out of high school. Of course past performance probably doesn't mean all that much in terms of future decision making in the draft. Still, whatever the Twins' draft philosophy of the past has been, it shouldn't change too significantly this year. The Twins did appoint a new scouting director this past off season, but he has been with the organization since 2002 and the previous scouting director is still within the organization as well. With two weeks to go until this years draft so much can change from this point forward. The Twins have had some success developing teenagers. While I personally may encourage the Twins to take a college pitcher such as Wright or McKay, I sense a high school player coming with the selection. Hunter Greene appears a likely selection for a team choosing the best high school talent, but I think there might be more than just smoke to the rumors that Greene is angling to make a deal with the Padres. That leaves a talented high school player who has been occasionally rumored as a dark horse for the #1 overall pick for a couple of months now... 1.1 Minnesota Twins - Royce Lewis (CF/IF)

They need a catchier name than Cooperativa Milwaukee-Cleveland. Any ideas? Brew-Land? Great Lakes Amigos? One other random question, I've heard the Indians are one of the teams that implement organization wide weighted ball programs for their pitchers. I wonder if that extends to their DSL prospects? Managing a coop team seems like it presents unique challenges in terms of developing players under potentially different sets of objectives. Maybe it isn't that big of a deal. I am glad to see they are expanding their DSL presence.

The draft is still a few weeks away, but it's never too early to start up our now annual thread dedicated to players rumored or mentioned to have a connection with the Brewers leading up to the draft. A combination of social media and player articles often tip us off to news exposing a connection between the Brewers and an amateur draft prospect. This can come in the form of private workouts, scouts in attendance at games, players mentioning the team has contacted them, or just simply rumors of a team's interest in a given draft prospect. It is important to note that many of these rumors or connections do not come to fruition on draft day. Nevertheless it is fun to explore them as we try to piece together what might happen during the draft. Most of the players mentioned in last year's thread were not drafted by the Brewers, but we did have one glorious success story as Payton Henry's relationship with the team was profiled in-depth prior to his eventual selection in the 6th round. For those that would like to revisit past "names mentioned" threads you can find those here (2015 Thread and 2016 Thread). While we like to use this thread to track Brewers related MLB draft rumors, please note that discussion and debate surrounding the Brewers potential draft picks is underway in the other draft thread, The 2017 Draft Thread. Please continue to utilize that thread for in-depth conversation and opinions about potential Brewers draft selections. Rumors will not heat up until we get closer to draft day, so we will start with a small primer. Our first Blog Post Link is in regards to Minnesota high school prep pitcher Sam Carlson. In addition to listing a few teams (Mariners, Giants, and Blue Jays) that reportedly have Carlson very high on their boards, the author notes, "teams that pick in the top ten that have interest are the Braves and Brewers."

Drivel. I don't even know what scrappiness means, but I'm pretty sure hitting the snot out of the ball is the reason they're in 1st place. Last year they had a losing record, guessing it's not because they didn't work hard and this year they are. But the sports media in Wisconsin, in general, knows very little about baseball so it's easy to just throw out "my oh my what a scrappy group." OPTIMISM THREAD! THEY ARE THE SCRAPPIEST BUNCH OF SCRAPPERS THAT EVER SCRAPPED. This reminds me of a debate among friends from years ago, a more suitable Phil Garner nickname... "Scrap-Iron" or Iron Scrap?

John Sickels released his first Mock Draft at Minor League Ball. Alex Faedo and Pavin Smith are still on the board when the Brewers pick in this mock which is nice to see, but I agree with those that have mentioned the tier drop off we are often seeing after the first 8 picks in these mocks. If it plays out like some of these mocks are suggesting I've come around to the idea of selecting LHP David Peterson and hopefully saving a few dollars to allocate towards other selections.

Kyle at BrewCrewBall followed up nicely on this by reaching out to Nunn and getting much of his backstory. Read it all here, love it when the Brewer webisphere goes the extra effort. : LHP Chris Nunn pitching in complex ball provided by Fangraphs Eric Longenhagen who also vowed to discuss Nunn in his upcoming daily notes piece.

The season is at the quarter pole (41 games in) and the Brewers are leading the NL Central while the AAA team has some quality talent waiting in the wings and a 23-12 record of their own. I have been cautiously optimistic at best to this point, but it is difficult not to let excitement creep in for the remainder of this season as well as the years to come.

As always, I have really enjoyed following this thread. Thanks to everyone who contributes and a special thanks to colbyjack for entertaining our questions and providing some really great insight into this year's draft prospects. For those who follow the mock drafts, Taylor Blake Ward of Scout released his MLB Mock Draft 2.0. One note in that mock draft (under the D'backs section) made me realize that Ray Montgomery drafted J.B. Bukauskas back in 2014. I don't think he is likely to fall to #9, but if the opportunity presented itself he would be tough to pass on.

Saw the news that Jed Bradley retired from professional baseball today (LINK) as yet another reminder of the misses in those drafts.

Found it interesting that Isan Diaz has elected to not have walk-up music played at home games recently. I don't remember a past instance of a player requesting this before. It may be an attempt at maintaining concentration while coming to bat, but the stadium staff still played sound effects in between pitches at one point when Isan was batting with the bases loaded.

There are good pitchers toiling in the minors simultaneously with Tommy Milone being a major league pitcher. This is a difficult thing to come to terms with.

Now just 52 HRs shy of breaking the all-time single season non-PED aided HR record.

Taylor Williams was removed for Biloxi in the 2nd inning after retiring two of the first three batters in the inning. He had thrown 45 pitches at that point. Does anyone know if the removal was simply due to a pitch limit or if it was something more? I think his previous high this year was 46 pitches, so hoping it was just pitch limit related.

I realize this ship has sailed (and it is obviously a small sample size), but early results like this make it hard to not at least think of the Cubs previous pitching prospect reclamation project, Jake Arrieta... From Fangraphs Sunday Notes:

What does this even mean? Adam Eaton is 28 and the White Sox got MLB.com's #1 and #9 overall prospect in MLB for him. If Thames is hitting .280 with 25 HR at the deadline, I wouldn't expect anything less of a package as he would certainly be more valuable than Adam Eaton. Statements like that without explanation come across as snarky. Adam Eaton has been one a good player for three straight years on a cheap contract. Thames will have one half season in July. He is just riskier than Eaton and won't bring the same talent back, even ignoring that Eaton is in his prime and Thames is nearing the end of his. After teh end of this season you may get something closer to what Eaton brought back. Just a slight correction, the Eaton trade didn't include Moncada. It still seemed like a high return at the time, but was with the Nationals for a return of Giolito, Reynaldo Lopez, and Dane Dunning.

I didn't see it mentioned here yet, but Ken Rosenthal reported in his article today (LINK) that Braun's 10 and 5 status goes into effect May 14, not May 24 as previously reported.

You and me both! I'm incredibly high on Yadier, but just don't see it as realistic. Things change though... desperate times calls for desperate measures especially in what looks to be a competitive N.L. West. I'd also like a look at Lux as a possible lottery ticket if the high end talent isn't available.I would be ecstatic to see Gavin Lux included in a Braun deal, but I wouldn't classify his current trade value as a "lottery ticket" type piece. Lux was the 20th overall pick in last year's draft, signed for over $2.3 million, had a very good professional debut, and appears to have tremendous bat speed. While still very young, he would come with high expectations. I typically think of a lottery ticket as either a generally unknown/unheralded younger player (i.e. Freddy Peralta) or a player with one or more impact tools that has toiled through an organization for various reasons such as injury, control issues, contact issues, etc. (i.e. Josh Pennington).

If I have read this all correctly, the 2017-18 and 2018-19 International signing periods should be the last time we see penalties restricting teams to $300,000 max signings (as the remaining penalty to teams that went over their bonus pools in 2015-16 or 2016-17). With the new CBA the International bonus pools will now have a hard cap, so teams won't be able to exceed the value of their allotted pool beginning in 2017-18. I found the information at this LINK helpful, at least the notes that outlined the changes for 2017-18.

During Jake Gatewood's first at bat tonight the Carolina broadcaster discussed that in the off season Gatewood had a meeting with what I believe he said was his agent and a group of advisors (I wasn't listening all that close at this point) about things he could improve on. It was apparently recommended to Gatewood to get his vision checked which led to the discovery that while his vision was fine, it wasn't perfect and qualified him for corrective lenses. He elected to get contact lenses and said he now has more confidence at the plate due to the improved vision. I may have misheard the part about who encouraged Gatewood to get his vision checked, but I reported above what I believe was said. I know this topic has come up before, but I would think major league teams would perform annual vision checks on all players within the organization? Seems like hitting professional pitching with anything less than perfect vision would leave a hitter at a significant disadvantage.