Playing Catch

It has been impressive that the Badgers have seemed to manage all of winning and losing games with late comebacks, winning and losing tough grinders, winning and losing blowouts, and all of them due to offensive and defensive intensity, or lack thereof. This is the weirdest Badger team I can think of.

I think that would be prudent. But screw it. Let one of the kids play.

I think, that there's this belief that the Brewers don't want more power. And that's just silly. Everyone wants more power. I know I do. It's just that, as Sveum mentioned above, 3rd base is bereft of much talent there, and a lot of the power sources require a great sacrifice, be it $100M, trading Jesus Made, OR losing a lot of the value the power provides, with a sacrifice on all of the other skills. I guess it's fine if people simply are bored with that approach, because dingers are awesome. But I just don't think, based on the Brewers success in recent seasons, that power is any longer a requirement to have a potent offense. Perhaps it was lightning in a bottle last year, but the strategy worked.

I found some of Arnold's comments intriguing, Intriguing - Jett (and Frelick?!) may be 3rd base options in the Spring. - Love for Hamilton, Harrison, and Drohan, of course. - A stated belief in their prospects, in particular, it seems like they really like Jett. - "Always looking to improve". "We traded Willy Adames in May". If he's being genuine, it makes me excited that they may be expecting to promote a guy, rather than simply hoping a guy earns a spot. OR it may be there's a trade in the works, and it's all a smokescreen for the other team. https://www.jsonline.com/story/sports/mlb/brewers/2026/02/09/what-matt-arnold-said-about-brewers-trade-of-caleb-durbin-to-red-sox/88589223007/

Not sure if we would be better served with a more generic, "potential 3B/IF options" thread... I was looking for some other ideas at 3rd from the upper-levels of other orgs that could be options in a trade. Some of them would represent a "big" trade, others would probably just be adding to the existing mix of options. Astros - Paredes, Cam Smith, Brice Matthews D-Backs - Lawler, Tommy Troy, LuJames Groover Dodgers - Alex Freeland, Noah Miller Phillies - Alec Bohm, Aidan Miller Tigers - Colt Keith, Gleyber Torres, Javy Baez, Matt Vierling, Trey Sweeney, Max Anderson, Trei Cruz, Hao-Yu Lee, Jace Jung, McGonigle. I was going to list more teams, but this was already too many names. I've bolded a couple of guys I like, and that Tigers team definitely has a surplus of guys that are MLB/AAA guys. I thought Trei Cruz and Max Anderson were two names that I was really intrigued by.

I'm with the consensus here. Shock, followed by a mixture of bemusement and disappointment, followed by anticipation. It seems to me with his moderate pull-side power profile, Durbin will do well playing pepper with the Green Monster. Frelick to 3rd? Nah, probably just I Don't Know.

It's hard to imagine trading all those guys and NOT getting a regular out of it, too. IF Contreras remains healthy, productive, and the team decides to trade him, he'd probably be worth more than Lucroy. With that said, I think the days of getting monster hauls for a rental are near over. Also, they're going to need to pay some significant coin for some of those Arby-guys, particularly Turang, Priester, and Uribe. It would be awesome if they earned big paydays.

I think that the Brewers' 1st base platoon is less likely to turn into a pumpkin than Suarez, unless he plays a lot of cromulent 1st base, then it's probably closer to even odds.

Forgive me if this has been discussed elsewhere, (and perhaps we just merge some of the WBC-related threads?) but do we have a consensus opinion on the WBC being an injury-risk? I totally understand the concerns for pitchers, but for me, practicing/playing baseball seems to be a pretty normal way to prepare your body for a long season, if done with consideration. Unrelated to injury, where are we at with enjoying the WBC? I think it has grown enough to be a worthy competition even though I think its schedule should probably be altered whenever MLB does all of its expansion-related logistical changes. I think the Winter leagues and Asian leagues would need to be part of that conversation as well.

I think that's an interesting thought. I think we'd probably need to wait a few years to see a trend. I would also guess that most scouting services have the same, or similar access to tech, which is probably impacting how they determine prospect values. edit to add: I too, would like to see a Clancy Top 20.

My theory-du-jour is that the things that are really challenging to project, are things with situational data points and measures. I would guess that it's really hard to measure the collective stress and pressure the Brewers lineup can put on a pitcher, and his defense. I think often times, this is chalked up as "luck," when instead, it's just a thing that's really hard to measure. As a pitcher, you really have to be a defender, in mindset, rather than the attacker. You have to deal with deep counts, dinkers, doinkers. righties, lefties... It's hard to get these guys out. They make your team earn it with every pitch. As a defender, it's no different. The catcher has to be ON-POINT. He will need to call and frame against disciplined hitters. He'll need to be ready for foul tips and bunts. He'll need to defend the running game with his arm and awareness. The infielders and outfielders need to know their plays and scouting. One could go on. As a collective, the Brewers are just a super-charged competitive team with every pitch. Gosh, do I love it.

Good, fun topic. But it may be too convenient to compare the two as 3rd basemen. Durbin was acquired, and is rostered, to serve in a multi-dimensional role that could turn into a starter's role through performance. He was acquired to provide redundancy with those skills the Brewers have targeted in their position-player group (e.g. defense, baserunning, contact, grit, etc.) The Reds traded for Ke'Bryan Hayes to play 3rd, moving stud prospect Noelvi Marte to RF, and may put prospect, Sal Stewart at 1B. They are paying Suarez to DH.

I think this is a perfectly reasonable opinion. However, the Brewers have undeniably become the "IT" team in all of baseball. I think that says an awful lot about how they are running things. So, it's just hard to get too upset about anything they are doing, even if I would do something differently. I think when the organization decided to become the scouting and development standard for the league, (which was a long time ago now), the plan was always to start from the ground up, and build up the floor of talent at every level, every season, finally seeing it pay off with a team record win total last season. But with that, I think they've done an incredible job of building up a culture of winning. I think they plan to have the best team in October, not the best team on February 1st. If they hold onto their prospects now, they'll have so much more scouting on their guys come the trade deadline. Keep them all now. Trade at the deadline if necessary.

I like Montgomery.

It just looks to me like the Mets were willing to do a trade w/o a guarantee of an extension, and the Braves weren't.

Sorry if this isn't the best place to put this, @Brock Beauchamp, but I've been seeing a lot ads on my computer's browser (Edge), despite my annual caretaker subscription.

That's quite a comment. When will Arnold receive some criticism?

I've been on the Boyd-Blackwell-Janicki-Carrington-Winter lineup for a few weeks now, and we saw Gard using it during crunch time last night. Granted, Bieliauskas' ankle may have influenced that, but really, it's because Janicki is more dependable than Rohde, and Carrington is playing so well. Their two-way physical abilities make them so versatile. They can do every single basketball skill reasonably well, and with the quickness that comes with basketball instinct. It's not just that they seem to be more successful with that group. THAT group is really, really fun to watch. THAT, is Bo Ryan's starting 5. With that said, I would imagine due to the lineup's lack of size at the 4, they may leave shooters more space due to needing to be sure of rebounding positions after a shot. (This is only my impressions, by the way, I could be way off about all of this. I'm not breaking down film or anything). I would prefer that Carrington and Garlock get most of Rapp's minutes at this point. BUT! I liked that cut later in the game, where he scored in the post. If he was more reliable with his cutting/receiving, he could provide them with an offensive wrinkle to the offense in that regard. But right now, he's simply getting outplayed at both ends by his opposite. I suspect his injury and his slow shooting start have sapped him of his verve, and who knows, maybe he's just had a hard time adjusting to everything and needs more time.

You've all seen Turang and Ortiz play defense. They are elite. Thats a tough bar for Pratt to meet, while still being a really good defender.

Also definitely serves as a top-notch scout against the Cubs.

Kiley McDaniel's writeups in his pieces this week were fantastic, and I think any casual fans that were considering following prospects more closely would learn a lot about what goes through a scout's head, when trying to project big-league outcomes for prospects. I loved this one, from Pratt's blurb, after describing him as "a relatively unexciting shortstop prospect"... "Just like 180 innings of a 4.20 ERA is worth over $10 million per year, the same goes for strong every-day players at premium positions; the Brewers are unusually good at scouting, developing and collecting these sorts of players."

I think that it just takes a long time for the stench of Cardinal to go away.

I know you are dubious (rightfully) about prospects panning out, but I really believe that baseball's scouting and development are light-years ahead of where they were 5-10 years ago, so that the likelihood of players reaching their respective floors/ceilings is higher. Point being, unless all of the recent success on that front is merely the Brewers being lucky, one can reasonably expect that many of the current crop of guys on the farm will come to harvest and be productive big leaguers. But that doesn't change the fact that there's a huge gap for what a "productive" big leaguer means, when comparing two guys like say, Turang and Ortiz (both defense-first, borderline Top-100 prospects), the difference is stark, but minimal, in terms of how slight adjustments can make a huge difference. Heck, it just wouldn't be that weird if Ortiz and Turang had really similar batting lines this season (if one improves and the other regresses). Just for fun, here's a side-by-side of the two systems according to MLB Pipeline... 2025 2020 Jesus Made Brice Turang Luis Pena Ethan Small Jett Williams Mario Feliciano Cooper Pratt Tristan Lutz Jeferson Quero Aaron Ashby Brandon Sproat Antoine Kelly Logan Henderson Eduardo Garcia Andrew Fischer Hedbert Perez Bishop Letson Drew Rasmussen Luke Adams Corey Ray Braylon Payne Luis Medina Marco Dinges Carlos Rodriguez Brady Ebel Devin Williams Luis Lara Zach Brown Josh Adamczewski Trey Supak #29 Josh Knoth Micah Bello #30 Blake Burke Eduarqui Fernandez I don't think I'm being hyperbolic here. For those of us that really enjoy following the farm, there is NO COMPARISON. You can call in hind-sight if you like, but I remember how I felt about these guys at the time. And aside from 2020 Ashby, and maybe Rasmussen, I didn't have confidence that any of those guys could muster more than a bench role. I HOPED they would be good, of course, and considered the pathway to that end, but my confidence that Josh Adamczewski will someday be a regular big-league player is VERY high compared to any feelings I ever had about Mario Feliciano or Hedbert Perez reaching that pinnacle.

I just saw that Rosiak report this morning, and I agree with others that it probably means little. Williams is still young and developing, and the Brewers see enough there as an infielder to keep giving him reps there. As much as Ortiz is "on notice," so is Monasterio. I think we should realize by now that the Brewers have really embraced the "team" concept, and that aside from maybe 3 or 4 players, guys will take turns on the bench, particularly in the early part of the season where they can get some of the inexperienced guys some real big-league time so that they can evaluate what they need before mid-Summer. They basically did this with Durbin and Chad Patrick last season (although injuries obviously played a role). You've got to know what the kids can do, if you think you may need to rely on them later in the season. I maintain that the best-case scenario for Williams is that he makes the opening day roster in Monasterio's spot, and that he starts 3 or 4 days a week at all of his three positions, and then is used in a bench role (pinch hit, pinch-run, "defensive" replacement), on the days that he doesn't start. I know some posters really hate platoons because they have the old football adage in their heads that, "if you have 2 quarterbacks, you really have zero (starting quarterbacks)". But like in football, (Montana/Young, Favre/Rodgers, Bledsoe/Brady, Rodgers/Love, etc.), that's merely a convenient phrase. Obviously, Ortiz isn't Joe Montana, but you get my point. Competition for playing time is a good thing. If you can put your rookie into some favorable at-bats and situations to let him ease into his big-league career, and let him adjust as a spectator from time-to-time, and at the same time let your dudes like Yelich, Frelick, and Turang also ease into the season, it's not a bad thing, IMO.

He had 4" on Williams, but at the plate he reminds me of Craig Biggio.