Austin Tatious

1. Garrett Mitchell - premium prospect 2. Hedbert Perez - Brewers are very high on him. Talented. 3. Brice Turang - good hit tool and producing as a young player at every level he has played; could easily just be coming out of the draft now 4. Aaron Ashby - wipeout slider; profiles well as a starter 5. Ethan Small - not as electric as Ashby but he delivers as a starter 6. Jeferson Quero - obviously very young, but is highly regarded 7. Sal Frelick - sparkplug and aggressive mentality; lack of pop limits his ranking 8. Antoine Kelly - injury creates question marks but he has electric talent if he recovers fully 9. Joe Gray - has erupted this year, showing why the Brewers drafted him early; prodigious pop in that bat 10. Zavier Warren - talented hitter; will be interesting if he stays behind the plate, could envision him at 3b, 2b or OF 11. Korry Howell - very good athlete who has really been performing; versatility is interesting 12. David Hamilton - fast, productive guy. Brewers got a steal in the draft out of Texas due to injury 13. Mario Feliciano - injuries this year may result in a lost season. Can hit and is a good athlete 14. Tyler Black - reputation as a good hitter; interested to see how he develops; would love to see him be a good 3b prospect with a strong hit tool 15. Jackson Churio - highly rated recent signing from Venezuela 16. Freddy Zamora - talented SS prospect; coming back from big knee injury 17. Abner Uribe - fireballer could have back of the pen upside 18. Luis Medina - bonus baby is well put together 19. Russell Smith - interesting prospect, command is compelling 20. Payton Henry - ranking may ultimately be too low; legit catcher 21. Jesus Parra - seems raw but reportedly has talent and potential 22. Eduardo Garcia - good prospect but his legitimate upside is a mystery 23. Ernesto Martinez - slugging first baseman with some early production; long way to go 24. Alex Binelas - home state talent was talked about for the first round, and then after some warts were perceived, there was an over-correction in his draft status. Brewers got him in a good spot. Good slugger, might be headed for first base or DH 25. Tristen Lutz - development stalling a bit, ranking plunging; can still get back on track, big strong kid. 26. Felix Valerio - batting average gets him noticed 27. Eduarqui Fernandez - intriguing potential 28. Je’Von Ward - has talent and may be putting it together 29. Carlos Rodriguez, OF, good hit tool, not a very big guy and upside is a question mark 30 Justin Bullock, has performed well this year, worth watching 31. Reese Olson - stats aren't there but Fangraphs likes him 32. Max Lazar - does not wow you but his career stats are noteworthy 33. Thomas Dillard - good hitter but true upside is a question mark 34. Dylan File - recent injury is a setback but he had been improving his velocity significantly before the injury (hopefully there is no connection)

.266/.340/.480 over 197 plate appearances. 9 doubles and 9 homers over that period. Thanks. Pretty solid. Is there a website that lets you plug in dates and run that data?

/quote] Urias is on pace for roughly 2.5-3 war. He’s proving to be a quality player for this team. Shaw has -0.7 war this year. I would hope any additions at the deadline would improve on this. Voggy has -0.1 war…so not great either. I would be interested in seeing Urias' stats since Adames arrived and he was taken off short. He's been very solid with the bat after a rough start.

I don't think Nate is saying that Durant has had a better career than LeBron. But at this moment in time, Durant is the best player, which is true. That can vary next year, but right now, the best player is Kevin Durant.

Thanks for sharing, Jopal. I think lukewarm is very fair. As much as I liked some of our recent drafts (after detesting them for about a decade), this draft was not awe-inspiring. Hopefully it will surprise to the upside. I would say overall I am disappointed but maybe a few guys succeed.

Bingo. The only thing is they have rights to certain games I want to watch. Otherwise I wouldn’t go there. Their “talk” programming is worse than garbage.

Interesting that we now have two prospects named Carlos Rodriguez. The outfielder has shown a good hit tool after being an international signing and now we drafted a pitcher with the same name.

I have to admit I may have undervalued Smith. What I’m reading about him sounds interesting. Binelas seems like a risk reward guy. For where we got him, I think we are all very excited. If you look at our pre-draft thread, early on we were wondering if he’d get to 15. I get there are issues that arose but his steep fall feels like an over-correction.

It’s going to be really interesting to see how man high school guys they get to sign. Riggio, in particular, I suspect they chatted about what it would take. The Riggio story is eerily similar to Scooter Gennett’s situation. Similar profile. Potential second baseman. In Scooter’s case there was talk he was going to Florida State as I recall so we got him like in the 16th.

As a D3 pitching coach with a 6’9 lefty in the bullpen, I can confirm that it’s very hard for them to repeat their mechanics. However, considering Smith’s strike throwing prowess, I’d say he likely is doing a really good job of it. At first look, he doesn’t appear to stride that far out (not surprising at his size), so I’d imagine his extension isn’t anything too crazy. Even with his height. But a good changeup from that type of arm angle is really tough on hitters. If he can fine tune a breaking ball, and maintain the command into pro ball, there could be a really interesting starting pitcher in there. Great post. Appreciate the insight. I would love to see this guy stay as a starter. If worst case he is a reliever, that is fine. They have value.

Yep- as weird as it sounds, with the lab stuff now, velocity IS teachable. It's the exact opposite of 10 years ago, when you drafted hard throwers and prayed that you could teach them control. In this case, I assume his control rating was highly desired by the team and there's an assumption that they may be able to add a few MPH, which seems a reasonable developmental plan. Plus, at 6'9" he probably has long arms and may have a release point closer to the plate than most pitchers (like Peralta) making his pitches seem 2-3mph faster than they clock. One of the exGM’s on the MLB network mentioned the other day that his front office had studied really tall pitchers and their study showed that really tall pitchers have greater difficulty repeating their delivery. Doesn’t mean it’s always true but an interesting data point.

This draft seems like a mixed bag. Frelick seems like a good value pick. We will see on Black. After that, maybe we get a bullpen arm? No one really jumps out in terms of upside. I am sure if you look at the draft where we took Burnes, there were alot of posters touting that pick in the aftermath of that draft. At least we stopped wasting time on the Caden Lemons, Nash Walters profile type guys.

You couldn't have just said, "I disagree and think Mitchell's stock is much higher than it was in preseason, and is worth more now than any rental the Cubs could provide?" Ironic, how you handled it then, isn't it? You could have just said you don't think Mitchell has the value that I think he has.

I like Frelick’s hit tool for sure, but my favorite aspect of his game is just the sheer intensity he plays with. He can be a real spark plug and get the energy going. There’s a true value in that. I had the thought that there was a good chance we’d snag somebody who slid a bit. When House slid a bit, that would have been the dream. But, regardless, Frelick was good value. Stearns and his team love taking advantage of market inefficiencies. Remember, the front office is willing to take advantage of that, regardless of whether it’s a high school guy or college. The trend is zig while others zag and get value. That’s the overarching approach with this front office.

Cowser seems to have very similar body frame, measurables and offensive profile to Garrett Mitchell, albeit with more power. Appears that Mitchell is more of a natural centerfielder, though, while Cowser is decent enough out there, but may not stick long-term. Cowser also apparently has the ability to play 3B, which is interesting. He really does seem like the type of player the Brewers would draft if given the opportunity. Very athletic dude with an elite bat. I hadn't heard that about Cowser (potential at 3b). But I like him. Very good hit tool, and a eft handed bat. With Mitchell, Perez, and Gray, would give us some top flight outfielder prospects. Somebody could potentially move to 1b if it helps.

I agree on Ford, Hoglund, and Bednar. Any of those three, and I’d be happy. Montgomery is an interesting athlete but I can’t handle low hit tools this high in the draft. This kind of profile tends to underachieve based on our drafting history. I made my opinion on Wicks clear, but if we do happen to take him, I will hope for the Cole Hamels outcome as someone mentioned. I really don’t think we are going to take him, though. Maybe a top tier guy drops to us, though, as Mitchell and Turang did. If we are on the lookout for that type of profile, it might be somebody toolsy who aren’t anticipating as much. If we are quietly eyeing Colson Montgomery, a left handed hitting 3b prospect, that would be exciting. I initially was thinking 33 with him, but he’s been steadily rising and both Chicago teams seem to be eyeing him. PS I like the Xavier Warren at 3b idea.

Garrett Mitchell is off the table. You guys should know that. If you’re clinging to the notion that he’s the 49th best prospect in baseball, that’s laughably low and outdated. The Cubs wouldn’t even seriously utter his name in a deal for a rental. I get a kick out of the guys who think when we trade a premium talent, you could never get a top prospect back, but when we are buying talent, we need to give away impact talent. Have enough self-awareness to be consistent both ways.

If they had more electric stuff back when they were in college, how come they lasted until the 4th round? The answer is that they didn't have more electric stuff - some good pro pitching coaches made some adjustments with them that made their stuff more electric. My post was in response to a comment that Wicks didn't have upside; my analogy was that Burnes and Bieber weren't thought to have much upside coming out of college, and that some adjustments and development brought out that upside. If Wicks didn't have some upside, he'd be talked about as a 4th round pick. Burnes did have good stuff based on all the reports put out about him and there was talk that the Brewers got a steal. Wicks’ profile wouldn’t be so bad if he were taken later. Not at 15. Bieber I didn’t read up on when he was drafted so I don’t know. But he wasn’t a first round pick. People argued with me like crazy on Corey Ray. We can agree to disagree on Wicks. You have to match skill set with the spot a guy is drafted. Wicks at 15 would not be an inspiring pick. Doesn’t mean he won’t be good, but his numbers and arm don’t suggest that. I actually think we are too smart to take him so hopefully this is moot.

Regarding Medieros, there was a lot of smoke on him for sure before the draft. They worked him out (I think at Miller Park) and he was connected to the Brewers by the media. I don’t have a link but I recall it well. If you want to find it, you could try to read the JSOnline in the days leading up to the draft. I’m pretty sure Haudricourt was one of my sources on this. Regarding Corey Ray, I was especially upset because we took him fifth overall. In other words we had a terrible year the prior year, and many of us on this board were anticipating the high pick for months and months. To draft Ray so high was an extreme disappointment. Good athlete who was always limited. I don’t think any of his detractors thought he’d ever be this bad, though. I hope the Brewers learned their lesson even if that was pre-Stearns. You can learn more from mistakes than good choices in many ways. I had hope for Ray even this spring. But it seems increasingly pointless with him.

Glad to see Burnes is ok. He tweaked something at the end of his last start.

Agree. The momentum down the stretch suggests they have “felt them out” and figured out how to play them.

Corbin Burnes, Shane Bieber, and many other college pitchers who had mediocre college numbers turned into great pitchers once they got a better pitching coach in pro ball who made a couple of adjustments. Sometimes college coaches go for immediate returns instead of long-term development. You answered your own question. Your examples were fourth round picks, not the 15th overall pick. Besides, they have more electric stuff than Wicks has.

Yeah, I remembered mentioning Tellez at one point so I went and looked it up but then realized it was as part of the discussion about possible Hader trade returns… so I probably won’t be bumping that one. While the similarities aren't totally symmetrical, there are quite a few between Adames and Tellez. Both are former heralded prospects that have graduated to MLB, and have had some success at the MLB level, only to be overshadowed by uber-prospects in Wander Franco and Vlad Jr. Tellez was once considered the Jays' 1B of the future, back when Vlad Jr. was considered to be a 3B. He was never as high up on the Jays' prospect lists as Vlad, Bo Bichette or Biggio, but he was always a Top 10 guy, and a Top 5 guy once those other guys hit the majors. Perhaps not the same prospect pedigree as Hiura, but not as far off as one would think. Well said, both of you. I feel like we kicked around some Bluejay names like Groshans, Tellez, and a pitcher or two (names escape me right now). I think a big righthander.

I hope we are solidly in the mix for Harry Ford, or somebody we don't expect falls out of the sky like Mitchell did last year. Turang was a value pick who also slid. I am not an expert in scouting pitchers but we can all look at their numbers and velocity. Wicks just doesn't sell me. I'd be fine with Hoglund if medically they like him. I have always liked Colson Montgomery's profile and he keeps pushing up the board. The swing seems a bit long but I have been comparing him with Corey Seager for months. I have noticed that the draft media guys are doing that too now. I hope we go for upside along the lines of Ford, Hoglund, Montgomery...not Wicks or another low upside pitcher. The two picks we made that I absolutely hated in real time were Corey Ray and Kodi Medeiros. And I was proven to be right on both fronts.

I have always felt that Rosenthal talks to Stearns himself. He has broken info before, and I think he has a direct line. When he says anything about possibilities, I bet he is getting it straight from the horse's mouth. I mean it doesn't take a genius to know they will be looking for bullpen help at the deadline. They would have done that whether the bullpen looked great or not. Its always a hole on the roster. Ken Rosenthal has as many connections in baseball as anyone. David Stearns is most certainly not talking to him though...I think Stearns has better things to do than worry about helping a reporter break stories. Please. There are 24 hours in a day. People can multi-task. He is not in surgery all day. Also, you overlook the fact that Stearns can communicate anonymously and get info that he wants out in a managed way. He would be an idiot to not use national guys (which he is not). Rosenthal is one of his favorites in this regard. No, this is something I have picked up over the years. This isn't a one time thing. I would say 99% they talk. The only reason I cannot say 100% is because I am not actually on the line. You are free to think whatever you like, though. But I invite you to watch what Rosenthal says and then see it materialize. There are plenty of clues if you pay attention.