Eye Black

All good points here, Stearns indicating Gasser was someone they had targeted in last year’s draft seems pretty telling that they were much higher on him than you’ll see reflected in the industry’s prospect rankings. I hope they’re right, because if they can turn Gasser into a mid-rotation starter the trade will look much better a few years down the road. Ruiz seems like a wild card with still having a fairly wide range of possible outcomes for someone that’s 23 years old. There are aspects of his game to love (speed, recent OBP and contact improvements) and red flags (previous contact issues, reported trouble with velocity, low exit velos, defensive issues at 2B). I am very curious to see how he performs going forward, it could literally either of these cases: 1) the Brewers acquired him at the start of a massive developmental breakout, or 2) the Brewers acquired him at his peak value as he experienced a brief pop-up performance.

I think he’ll be very good, Ashby’s peripherals with the exception of the walks are very strong. Also, he’s currently still just a bit younger than the age range where some of the Brewers most recent starting pitcher success stories (i.e. Jimmy Nelson, Brandon Woodruff, Corbin Burnes) all saw significant improvements in their results.

Yeah, I was specifically referring to lightning striking for the Braves last year, not trying to make some point about the Brewers.

That’s sort of a fitting description for what the Ronald Acuna-less World Champion Atlanta Braves did last season. None of Soler, Rosario, Duvall, or Pederson cost very much to acquire or were considered “winning the trade deadline.” At the time the Braves looked like a long shot, and then they rode the wave when those guys played over their heads for stretches.

I also put Misiorowski one spot ahead of Brown, but one thing to keep in mind about the bonus is that Misiorowski had a bit more leverage in negotiating a bonus than Brown. By ensuring him such a large bonus the Brewers likely did what they had to do from a financial bonus perspective to make sure another team drafting ahead of them didn’t take Misiorowski.

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Thanks for bringing this up, I agree that the light contact at the major league level is one of the things that gave me a bit of pause before ultimately placing him at #5 on my Brewers prospects list. Both Eno Sarris and Mike Petriello recently made comments about how weak his contact was at the MLB level this year. Eno mentioned Ruiz reminded him of Raimel Tapia, and Petriello said he has “80 speed with just 10 power on a scouting scale that only goes down to 20.” From what I could tell they both were basing their comments strictly off of his Statcast data from the brief MLB stint this year. It doesn’t exactly square with both his statistical production or his scouting reports from the minors where average power has been mentioned as one of his positive traits. The FanGraphs write up even included a comparison to Alfonso Soriano who had more than 400 career MLB home runs (Note: I certainly don’t expect that sort of power from Ruiz). I have also heard speculation that he struggles with high velocity up in the zone and does a lot of damage punishing mistake breaking pitches. I have no idea how well founded those comments are, but I guess something to watch for going forward. My biggest concern with Ruiz is that I think his profile is a lot more valuable in center field than an outfield corner. It sounds like learning to play centerfield has been a bit of a bumpy ride for him (reportedly got some poor jumps and inefficient routes), but that’s also somewhat to be expected while learning to play a new position. I think it was a good sign that they had him playing in CF for the Sounds last night, but it also seems like Nashville will be a log jam to get innings in CF due to Sal Frelick also deserving reps there. One thing I am convinced of with the Brewers is they target minor league guys that do well in their internal statistical model. While it’s no longer publicly available because he works for the Twins, Chris Mitchell’s KATOH seemingly closely aligned with the Brewers own model. Over the Stearns tenure they’ve acquired several players that were much higher in that KATOH model than the general consensus (even more recently Urias and Adames were inside the top 20 prospects in the KATOH model before it went dark in 2018). I have a feeling Ruiz was another player that likely stood out in the Brewers internal statistical model.

Jackson Chourio Sal Frelick Joey Wiemer Garrett Mitchell Jeferson Quero Esteury Ruiz Brice Turang Tyler Black Robert Gasser Jacob Misiorowski Eric Brown Jr. Ethan Small Hendry Mendez Felix Valerio Justin Jarvis Hedbert Perez Eduardo Garcia Jadher Areinamo Jace Avina Luis Castillo

If you’re looking to start a meaningfully engaging discussion here this wasn’t the best start, IMO. If you don’t think Ruiz is as good as others you could’ve simply posted, “I was surprised to see how high some people have Ruiz, this is why I would have him lower…” Let’s be honest here, none of us is the authority on precisely being able to rank these players in a way that won’t eventually look a little silly with the benefit of hindsight. It’s an exercise to have fun with, and discussion sharing our individual thought processes is certainly welcome. If you want to engage good discussion by all means please do so, but maybe cut out the part where you tell others to “do your homework.”

First, let's knock off the negative commentary on other people's rankings in this thread. It's unnecessary, people are allowed to determine for themselves how they choose to rank players. The period where he really struggled was 3+ years ago. Also, some of his improvement stems from things not impacted by park factors. He obviously didn't play in 2020 due to the pandemic, but since then he's cut his strike out rate and swinging strike rate significantly, as well as improved his walk rate, over the past two years. If Esteury Ruiz is simply a product of his home stadium environment over the past two years then it's a little curious that he's actually been better on the road over that time. 2021 Splits Split G PA AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI SB CS BB SO BA OBP SLG OPS TB GDP HBP Home 37 146 128 13 28 2 1 2 17 13 2 11 24 .219 .308 .297 .605 38 0 6 Away 47 207 181 39 49 14 1 8 25 23 4 17 49 .271 .342 .492 .833 89 3 3 2022 Splits Split G PA AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI SB CS BB SO BA OBP SLG OPS TB GDP HBP Home 47 205 164 40 55 12 1 3 21 43 5 27 27 .335 .458 .476 .934 78 1 11 Away 45 201 157 45 50 12 2 10 27 18 8 27 43 .319 .452 .612 1.063 96 1 12 Again, it seems like a strange conclusion that El Paso and San Antonio are responsible for inflating his stats. He was basically a league average hitter in 2021 and so far in 2022 has been well above league average (177 wRC+ in Double-A and 146 wRC+ in Triple-A).

The Lamet thing is annoying, and makes the front office appear a little foolish. I get that it was a bit of a salary dump from the Padres end, but at least have a plan for incorporating a player that Counsell literally said this about yesterday: "I think you ask any hitter and anybody that's been on the sidelines watching him pitch when he's been good and it’s the best slider in baseball,"

I wonder if they were waiting to see how trade talks yesterday were going to shake out. Either way I am assuming he’ll be on the major league roster very soon. Otherwise keeping him in Nashville where they also now have Frelick, Mitchell, and Wiemer in the outfield makes little sense.

I knew the Padres hadn’t been very good under the hyperaggressive AJ Preller, but I don’t think I realized just how terrible they’ve been since he took over near the end of the 2014 season. From 2015 through 2021 they had just one winning season (the shortened COVID year) and overall went 465-567 (.450 winning percentage). The most games they’ve won in a single season during the Preller tenure is 79, and they have one playoff appearance (again, the COVID year). By comparison the Brewers under Stearns from 2016 through 2021 went 468-403 (.537 winning percentage). They’ve had winning seasons in 4 of those 6 years, won more than 90 games twice, and made the playoffs 4 times. The Padres will likely be a good team for the next couple of years, but they also just significantly increased their likelihood that another rebuild is on the horizon by the later half of this decade. I do think what they’ve done is exciting from an entertainment standpoint, but we’ve also seen Preller get praised for previous trade flurries without it translating to the sort of on-field success you’d expect. The Brewers process under Stearns is certainly at the opposite end of the spectrum with a much more methodical and calculated approach, but to this point it’s produced a decent amount of winning baseball.

Last year when they traded Reese Olson for Daniel Norris I didn’t love it, but I could squint and make some sense of it. This one is probably the most confounding deadline deal I can remember of the Stearns era, but I’m curious to find out what they’re thinking here.

I think they probably made “smart” moves when it comes the best interest of extending their competitive window, but it sure seems like a boring approach as well. I have to admit there’s something to be said for swinging for the fences (i.e. Padres) even if it’s statistically the wrong approach if you truly want the most “bites at the apple” possible. This is probably unfounded, but watching how sad/confused Devin Williams appeared to be about the Hader trade gave me deadline flashbacks to how devastated Jonathan Schoop appeared when he found out he got traded to the Brewers right as the deadline passed.

From a national perspective the Brewers will fall in those “top 5 bullpens in MLB” type lists because they were almost entirely based on a teams top 2-3 relievers. But the reality is having Williams, Rogers, Bush, Lamet, Boxberger, Cousins, Suter is a much stronger overall bullpen then what the Brewers have been rolling with to this point.

The reason I can’t bring myself to write off Antoine Kelly’s future outlook is he was still less than two years removed from surgery for Thoracic Outlet Syndrome which is notoriously difficult to come back from. I do think he has the tools to be a good high leverage reliever down the road.

Then trade for Joey Wendle? Woah Solvvd?!