Austin Tatious

That’s the guy I thought of too. Will set the table but he also can set the tone with his competitive style a la Dykstra.

Man I hope Wong isn’t back. Seems like such an easy decision. Get rid of him. Play Turang at second. I have always maintained he’s far better than the average fan in here thinks. Fans are prisoners to his stats. He’s always had more upside than his stats have suggested. It’s a tough transition and there will be growing pains so keep Urias and another infielder who can help cover second. Now Stearns has never given two craps about corner infield but it would be nice to get somebody to cover third. Maybe it’s going to require a major trade but something has to be done. Tellez is a mediocrity at first but at least he’s a body there. Third is a wasteland and Stearns has never had the slightest bit of inclination to solve it once and for all for the long haul. If we do make a big trade, and I think we will, please, no more outfielders. Get corner infield, especially at third, and young pitching with upside. Knock it off with the 634th outfielder. The FO looks like they are foaming at the mouth in that regard. Maybe Yelich at 6’3 is your 1B of the future due to his contract and the space we need for Frelick, Chourio, and Wiemer. At some point it’s not an academic exercise; you’re trying to field a team that’s well rounded and can stay together and win. Having a mismatched group of “assets” is an idea, but you have to transform that group into a balanced roster at some point and not just horde minor league outfielders while your corner infield is a desert wasteland. And please no more past-their-prime name players with a low 700’s ops who are progress stoppers and absorb bloated contracts. I like that the FO thinks outside the box but it has spectacularly backfired in the last year or two. They’ve taken a team with potentially high end pitching that could have been legitimately contending and accessorized it nonsensically. Hence, you have a dysfunctional roster that squandered a potentially great opportunity. This year was never an “oh well, let’s get ‘em next year” proposition. It’s setting up to be a big failure based on what could have been.

If you want a guy who throws it over the plate without much movement at a comfortable velocity, Rogers is the guy for you. The Brewers wanted someone who can help in the pen now and got snookered. They took on Lamet’s salary and then goofed up the roster manipulation. Not to mention trading for damaged goods in Rosenthal. I like Stearns, I always have. But this was a train wreck.

Gruesome loss. As bad as it gets. Woody 7 innings, 2 hits…

If you wrote in Tellez as your number six hitter with good hitters around him, we’d be fine. The problem is when he’s batting 3rd. He’s not that type of hitter.

I respect professors and respect math professors even more. I majored in science and took a lot of math as well. I frankly don’t have time to pore over baseball stats as much as I’d like, but I certainly understand it. Box scores and stats were one of my early draws to the game.

I’m not backpedaling. If you laughably are distinguishing .255 from ..250 you understand math less than I thought. I always knew he was at .255. I said .250 as a rounded value to make a larger point. You do you, though. Keep sticking with our offense is fine because our averages are good in your eyes. That’s about as comical of a thread that’s been in here in years.

His career average is .255.

I expect our minor league call ups to require mlb development time, just like our pitchers like Burnes, Woody. Peralta and Lauer. But in time, I expect guys like Turang and some of our OF prospects to give us an infusion of quality regulars. They might take their lumps for awhile though. That’s standard.

I honestly don’t think he’s a good enough player to price himself out of Milwaukee. I think he will get a sizable deal but something we can swing. At some point Mark A will have to spend money (wisely) and I think he will on the right targets. I feel like Adames fits the bill.

No. His career average is .255 in a sizable sample size. My point is that is a lot better than he’s hitting this year and we can expect him to getting back to .250. He is not the problem here but he also has to come down in the lineup.

Tellez is probably a stopgap just like every 1B we have had since Princie.

You can’t win with this dysfunctional offensive lineup.

Our lineup is basically 6-9 hitters. If you squint hard maybe you can accept Yelich leading off and Renfroe hitting fifth. But there are no 2, 3, and 4 hitters on the team. It’s a dysfunctional lineup.

Travers pitched when I was a kid. He was definitely a guy I would always hope on but injuries derailed him. I didn’t give up on him for years. Must have been 79 or 80, I remember him getting on a role and winning at a good clip. He was still young and I thought there was a lot more potential. If turned out that those years constituted his last hurrah. He might have had a different career today, the way pitching is handled more delicately.

Travers pitched when I was a kid. He was definitely a guy I would always hope on but injuries derailed him. I didn’t give up on him for years. Must have been 79 or 80, I remember him getting on a role and winning at a good clip. He was still young and I thought there was a lot more potential. If turned out that those years constituted his last hurrah. He might have had a different career today, the way pitching is handled more delicately.

Hey look, we scored seven runs against cubs relievers with ERA’s over 4 after going scoreless against their starter. I guess that makes our offense average!

I expect us to replace four guys in our lineup next year. 3B, CF, 2B and C. Hiura can take over DH. That’s quite simply not the sign of a good offense. I like Stearns as much as anybody but one thing he does not get is 3B is every bit the unicorn as an up the middle talent. You need somebody with good size, athleticism and an extra base hit profile. It’s as hard as anything to find and we’ve put zero priority on it. And if you want to draft an up the middle guy and then move him to 3B that’s normal but you have to draft a guy that profiles that way. Regarding CC, you don’t like to bunt. Fine. But there are times that it can win you a game. Think: situational baseball. Last night, watching Caratini try to bunt in a clutch situation was repulsive. He had no idea how to do it. A high schooler could be brought in to show him. Fine, as a manager, you don’t like to bunt but it’s still part of the game and there are situations where every hitter needs to have the fundamentals to execute basic ball plays. That’s how lose a game you shouldn’t.

No. This is where fans don’t get it. We are evaluating the team as a whole. Being an average offense as a whole is very superficial to the point of useless. The parts of the offense don’t fit together. That’s why they struggle offensively. Anyone could chart through the games and see how they struggle to put together runs. That’s the important analysis. Not average runs. Hiding behind “this is how the game is played” is not helpful because fans are only given a very superficial view. The Brewers’ know their offense isn’t good enough, because it isn’t. Even if fans will yell that our offense is fine.

Don't slavishly be held hostage to stats. The offense is full of average to mediocre players. It's a dysfunctional lineup in the sense that there is almost no synergy and the sum doesn't work from their individual parts. Stats are nice as confirmatory or a single data point. But this isn't a video game. Watch the games. It's a dysfunctional lineup. I think our system is alot of better than the national guys think. We have some prospects who I think will be very solid starting players. Of course, you have to see their initial struggles and adjustment period through. The two issues is whether Mark A will spend fairly. He bought the team for $200M. The value is 5X. The team sells tickets and charges exorbitant prices at the park for parking, concessions and merchandise. The local TV contract s better and they have a piece of the national pie. The answer has never been wasting money on Brandon Looper, Jeff Suppan and Andy McCutcheon. "Hey look, I spent money." The Brewers have to figure out how to deal with the timing of precocious young talent that will need time while having elite front line starting pitchers before they presumably leave. The nice thing is they didn't panic and deal some of the young talent away. The other thing is pretending that 3B and 1B don't exist when it comes to player acquisition and development is a failure. They will keep right on doing it, chug chug chug. You have some nice outfielders coming up. Turang can be a very good player. But 1B and 3B, not on their radar.

If you look at Adames’ career, he profiles as a .250 hitter. This year he’s been hitting more like a power hitting 3B who can happen to field SS. I don’t know if he is sacrificing average for power, but he’s got an odd stat line for hitting second in the order. Having said all that, he seems like a guy we can extend.

It's notable that Ashby has following the same pattern that Woodruff, Peralta, Burnsie, and Lauer have had in terms of developing as a starting pitcher. There is a lot to like with him. Worst case, I think he can be a weapon out of the pen.

Garrett Mitchell and Brice Turang are also doing really well. If it weren’t for Frelick we’d be clamoring for Mitch in center. I saw in the box score that they had Brice at 3B. He doesn’t really fit that profile but it’s a major weakness so I get why they are sensitizing him to the position. I wonder if they’re calculating service time ramifications. I don’t know what makes sense in that regard but we may get an influx of these guys. The rosters go to 28 soon. Mejia seems to be doing well in the pen as he’s apparently sporting a 0.66 ERA.

Today, sure, the offense wasn't the issue. But the bigger point is you pick up some runs against crap pitching to beef up your offensive stats and then have the analytics guys tell you that the offense is fine, or average at worst. There are a couple of black holes in the lineup, a couple of mediocre spots, some average spots and maybe one or two guys that are doing fine. Collectively, it is a broken and dysfunctional lineup that needs correction in the offseason.

That DFA right now sure is playing out to be quite a doozy.