JosephC

Chris Davis to the 60 day DL with a lower back strain. Orioles fans celebrate.

Antoine Kelly still has youth on his side but thoracic outlet syndrome surgery is generally bad news. Downgrade him due to injury and the Brewer's minor league system looks just awful in terms of pitching. Small, Ashby and............

Trade Yelich while you still can!

About time MLB does something about this. Long overdue. For the record, I have no problem against MLB pitchers using "grip substances" if everyone involved agrees that it's fine to do so. But then change the rule and make it legal, don't leave a rule on the book that everyone just ignores and then look the other way.

I was glad to read that as well. I'm excited to see what a fully healthy Urias can do. It sounds to me like SS may turn out to be sort of a "hot hand" situation this year, at least early on. Hopefully Urias seizes control right away and doesn't give it up. That would mean he's productive. We've seen some flashes of what he could be ... time to find the consistency. I'm still high on Urias but really think he might be best off in the minors. One thing I think just about everyone would agree on is that he really should be an everyday starting player, and if that isn't happening in the majors then it should be happening in AAA. Young players need plate appearances. Would hate to see Urias on the major league team if he's only getting 12 plate appearances per week. All that said, if I'm playing GM I likely would have Urias on the 26-man roster and would be playing him everyday at 3B while getting some looks at SS as well...just not sold on Travis Shaw having a big rebound.

Average for CB at the 2020 combine was 7.01 seconds. At the 2019 combine it was 6.93 seconds. I'd say Wildgoose's number was pretty much average for the position. Got a link? NFL Savant has the average 3-code drill for CBs at 6.88s. 7.01 is right around average for a safety. A 7-second cone drill isn't great for a CB or WR, whose game is predicated on cutting on moving. I think Kahlil Mack had a 7-second cone drill. https://steelersdepot.com/2019-nfl-scouting-combine-results-tracker/ Click DB in menu above table https://steelersdepot.com/2020-nfl-scouting-combine-results-tracker/ Click CB in menu above table And then do what I did, open Excel, quick type in the numbers and see what the average is.

That isn't good. A quick google search starts with a study that says things like velocity and strike percentage is the same after the surgery as before, but I can't remember very many triumphant returns. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33472488/ https://www.beyondtheboxscore.com/2015/7/1/8859137/thoracic-outlet-syndrome-pitcher-effectiveness Add in guys like Matt Harvey and Tyler Thornburg. https://blogs.fangraphs.com/phil-hughes-and-the-sobering-history-of-thoracic-outlet-injuries/ Seems like youth is the one real positive in Kelly's case. But clearly worrisome if a guy this young is already having significant shoulder issues, combine that with many pitchers that have this surgery also end up having labrum surgery.

Average for CB at the 2020 combine was 7.01 seconds. At the 2019 combine it was 6.93 seconds. I'd say Wildgoose's number was pretty much average for the position.

i was really interested in Godley a few years back as a potential cheap but solid #4 type pitcher down the road, but things really went south for him. He went on the DL in September with a elbow injury, and I have to wonder if the Red Sox really just put him out of his misery because he was really getting beat down. He gave up 21 earned runs in his last 17 1/3 innings and hitters OPS'ed 1.198. The Red Sox had him ditch the sinker last year and one has to wonder if the Brewers will want him to bring that back. According to the Pitch Info numbers, he's been something like 35% curveball, 30% cutter, 30% sinker, 5% change-up when pitching at his best. The curveball has really been his only effective pitch.

Rachad Wildgoose pro-day numbers- 40-yard dash = 4.41 10-yard split = 1.49 Vertical = 36.0 reps at 225 = 11 3-cone drill = 7.00 40-yard dash is a plus number and the 10-yard split is a plus-plus number. Rest is pretty much average. Cannot find an exact height measurement, still listed at 5"11" everywhere I look. Have to think he's probably a third or fourth rounder when looking at the on-field resume and workout numbers.

Why doesn't MLB enforce the rules they have now instead of making up some dumb new ones? Really sick of constantly seeing video of pitchers using foreign substances on the mound. Even more sick of seeing that Angel's employee getting fired while the guys who are cheating just continue to do so without any consequences. The time has come MLB, either have umpires crack down on this OR change the rules to allow pitchers to use pine tar and other blends of grip-enhancers. They likely have a very large percentage of pitchers cheating and all they care about is if some infielder is standing 100 feet away from the plate or 130 feet away from the plate when a pitch is made. Dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb. If I was in MLB's front office, I'd be completely embarrassed by this video-

I would make the definitive statement that there should be things other than surplus value calculations that play into trade. However, I would also make the argument that even the smartest of MLB GMs would be completely foolish to ignore the surplus value numbers. If I were San Diego's GM, I would not give the slightest consideration in trading Abrams for Hader straight-up because the numbers say it makes absolutely no sense to do so. Abrams average ranking on the Baseball America/Keith Law/MLB Pipeline top 100 lists is #13. On my board that would put his prospect surplus value at 80.9 million. I have Hader in the range of 30-35 million. Now if I were San Diego's GM and knew something about Abrams and thought that his real value should put him at about #60 on the top 100 list, then the trade would make sense numbers-wise. On the flip-side, Morejon plus a couple solid role-player prospects and a lottery ticket as player #4 would probably be a pretty fair deal. Morejon's stock has fallen, but outside of what sure looks like a really fluke-ish 38.9% HR/FB, the stat sheet from 2020 looks pretty solid. Not crazy to think that five years of him alone could be as valuable as 3 years of Hader, and Morejon threw four different pitches at least 11.8% of the time which tells me that starting rotation still figures into his future.

I wouldn't say 0%, but would agree that it's pretty likely that he opts out after the 2021 season. He gets a 6.5 million buyout if he walks away. If he stay for 2022, he collects 9.5 million salary for that season plus the 8 million buyout for the 2023 season...so 17.5 million. So basically he will have the choice to play 2022 for an extra 11 million or he can pick free agency and try again for another multi-year deal. Isn't Scott Boras his agent? Really hard for me to believe that Boras would be content with what essentially becomes a 1 year, 11 million dollar deal for 2022. Seems like chances would be well north of 50% that Bradley takes the 6.5 million buyout and then looks for another multi-year deal next off-season.

Cespedes is a guy that is fun to watch, especially his arm which is fantastic. I'd like to see the Brewers sign him for that reason alone. But there are arguments to be made about if he is a reasonable fit for the roster. The Brewers stuck Braun in right field last year, not Yelich, which is extremely strong evidence that the Brewers do not want Yelich back in right field anytime soon. And at this point in his career, Cespedes is slower than most catchers and is probably limited to playing left field (also worth noting that Cepedes has never played right field, which is pretty amazing considering the cannon arm). So from that perspective, Cespedes doesn't really make that much sense. On the other hand, I look at the Brewers outfield depth past the three starters, and frankly it looks like just about any warm body could present a potential upgrade.

Cespedes is a guy that is fun to watch, especially his arm which is fantastic. I'd like to see the Brewers sign him for that reason alone. But there are arguments to be made about if he is a reasonable fit for the roster. The Brewers stuck Braun in right field last year, not Yelich, which is extremely strong evidence that the Brewers do not want Yelich back in right field anytime soon. And at this point in his career, Cespedes is slower than most catchers and is probably limited to playing left field (also worth noting that Cepedes has never played right field, which is pretty amazing considering the cannon arm). So from that perspective, Cespedes doesn't really make that much sense. On the other hand, I look at the Brewers outfield depth past the three starters, and frankly it looks like just about any warm body could present a potential upgrade.

Gore is #3 on the MLB Pipeline, #2 on Keith Law's list, and #10 on Baseball America's list. Using the Point of Pittsburgh surplus values, which historically has been pretty accurate when looking at trades that are made, I would estimate Gore's prospect surplus value to be 85.4 million. I would put Hader in the low 30 millions. A fair trade involving Hader and Gore would probably look something like- Brewers get- LHP - MacKenzie Gore Padres get- LHP - Josh Hader SS - Brice Turang OF - Garrett Mitchell C - Mario Feliciano

Gore is #3 on the MLB Pipeline, #2 on Keith Law's list, and #10 on Baseball America's list. Using the Point of Pittsburgh surplus values, which historically has been pretty accurate when looking at trades that are made, I would estimate Gore's prospect surplus value to be 85.4 million. I would put Hader in the low 30 millions. A fair trade involving Hader and Gore would probably look something like- Brewers get- LHP - MacKenzie Gore Padres get- LHP - Josh Hader SS - Brice Turang OF - Garrett Mitchell C - Mario Feliciano

The assumption of guilt and his expulsion with such flimsy evidence is a real black eye for the university. But oh well, a person's rights don't mean anything if there is a possibility of a corporation's or big government organization's reputation being just a bit tarnished.

Looks like that extra velocity was a big help.

I really do feel for you guys that collect these. I'm overjoyed that Baseball America is putting out a Prospect Handbook for 2021, as I didn't think they would. For years I collected various NFL Draft guides before all of those fell by the wayside (Ourlads is about the only one left), and they served as a great reference that I could refer back to years later. People just say to go and look at the internet, but as time goes by more and more old information tends to disappear from the web.

Even though it was a shortened, very abnormal type of season, there is still plenty of data that probably alarms teams when moving forward with Hader. I complained throughout 2019 that Hader was not using his slider enough, was turning into a one-trick pony and it left him just about zero margin for error. If he misses his spot, his fastball is very hittable when it gets low in the zone. One also wonders how much of a velocity dip he can suffer and still remain effective. In 2018 and 2019, Hader threw his fastball about 82% of the time and his slider about 18% of the time. He was roughly a 2.50 ERA/2.65 FIP/2.20 xFIP pitcher over those two seasons. Hader was not as good in 2019 as he was in 2018. The ERA/FIP/xFIP were all higher in 2019. ERA and xFIP was fairly close, but the increase in home runs allowed caused the FIP to jump significantly, from 2.23 to 3.10. The home run factor played significantly into his fastball effectiveness, as his fastball pitch value went from an incredible 19.1 in 2018 to a still excellent 13.6 in 2019. But things changed in 2020. Probably seeing the drop in fastball effectiveness, Hader threw the slider significantly more. Instead of being 80+% with the fastball, the mix changed to 68% fastball/32% slider. The fastball effectiveness also took a major drop, all the way from 13.6 in 2019 down to a very average 0.2 in 2020. And while Hader was still a quality pitcher in 2020, he was nowhere near as good as he was the previous two seasons. 3.79 ERA/4.03 FIP/4.01 xFIP. I'm guessing teams probably look at FIP and xFIP more than anything then projecting a pitchers future performance. Hader's FIP has gone from 2.23 to 3.10 to 4.03 over the last three seasons. The xFIP has gone from 2.05 to 2.36 to 4.01. The FIP is very concerning because it's been nearly a full run increase per season. It might be a pretty huge stretch to think that the majority of MLB teams see Hader as a super-elite type of reliever at this point. Just looking at Chapman, he's only had a seasonal FIP over 3 one time in his MLB career (3.29 back in 2011). At his prime he had a five year run with FIP's under 2 in 4 of the 5 seasons (it was 2.47 in the one season he missed). The first time Jansen had a FIP over 4 was in his age 30 season. Prior to that he had 7.5 MLB seasons and his worst FIP prior to his age 30 season was 2.40. Kimbrel has a run where he was just at a completely different level. Just looking at this era's top relief pitchers and FIP through their age 26 season- Kimbrel = 1.52 Chapman = 1.97 Jansen = 2.00 Hader = 2.84 So Hader is a step behind and from 2018 to 2019 to 2020 he is clearly trending in the wrong direction.

Maybe he has gotten several offers to his liking, but is waiting to see if he can top the David Price contract.

1. SS - Brice Turang 2. OF - Garrett Mitchell 3. LHP - Ethan Small 4. LHP - Aaron Ashby 5. C - Mario Feliciano 6. RF - Tristen Lutz 7. CF - Corey Ray 8. RHP - Zack Brown 9. LHP - Antoine Kelly 10. SS - Eduardo Garcia 11. OF - Hedbert Perez 12. LHP - Leo Crawford 13. CF - Carlos Rodriguez 14. C - Zavier Warren 15. SS - Freddy Zamora 16. C - Payton Henry 17. OF - Luis Medina 18. CF - Joe Gray 19. C - Nick Kahle 20. RF - Micah Bello 21. RHP - Alec Bettinger 22. 1B - Thomas Dillard 23. RF - Joey Wiemer 24. SS - Hayden Cantrelle 25. C - Jeferson Quero 26. 3B - Jesus Parra 27. RHP - Bobby Wahl 28. RHP - Max Lazar 29. OF - Tyrone Taylor 30. RHP - Dylan File

Back in the late 70's Rocky's was a true deep dish pizza but certainly the definition of deep dish has changed and I don't really even consider Rocky's to be a deep dish pizza at all anymore. I would never try to compare it to a Chicago style deep dish because that is an entirely different animal. I really like the Chicago-style deep dish pizza after I get about half the sauce scrapped off. But I have never found a decent Chicago-style deep dish pizza in the western half of Dane County. Recommendations are welcome. I'm to the point where I have started looking at youtube videos for recipes because I am pretty near trying to make my own from scratch!

A couple years from now Attanasio will figure out that he can save 50k by not doing a digital media guide either and just tell people to go to Baseball Reference instead. The team will need that extra $50,000 to stay competitive.