Austin Tatious

With today’s moves with Rasmussen and Perdomo, I hope the next reliever we get is Phil Bickford. He has a chance for a great resurrection story after many thought his career was a dead carcass by the side of the road. Rasmussen and Bickford, two former first round picks, bringing it out of the pen! I would like to see us build on our core nucleus. Play the young guys. And stop dragging in the likes of Chris Carter and Justin Smoak. We need to resolve this BS once and for all at first, and also at third.

I am not happy with our future at either first or third. A solution looks difficult. I think using Hader to solve 1st and/or 3rd is screaming out as the solution. I like Hader but more in his weapon role not as a closer. We have several good emerging options for the pen. No, none will be Hader but we can still have a good pen. Devin Williams, Drew Rasmussen, Angel Perdomo. I think Phil Bickford can be a big factor too if we stick with him. I’d like to see Peralta and Burnes in the rotation in due time. Your Pirates move is interesting. Hayes is highly regarded. I was hoping we would draft him and I believe he was attached to us in some pre-draft activity at the time. If we think we could sign Bell for a reasonable deal (maybe Cain money), I’d be intrigued there. Then you have got first and third done once and for all. But, to be honest, I’m intrigued by the Twins prospects too and am more on that track. I liked Duran as Blue Devil suggested above but Enlow is a solid prospect too. Love Kiriloff’s hit tool. If he meets expectations, it would tremendously help this lineup and I love the youth. I really hope we are on the right track with the thesis here. I like Hader but management has totally lost track of 1st and 3rd. We should not give him away, which we won’t. We will need a haul. Add Kiriloff and Garrett Mitchell to Yelich, Hiura, and hopefully an emerging Urias, and we could get a nice core going. I like our pitching potential already.

That makes sense. As for Lauer, it had to be done.

Thanks for putting these together. I like your proposals with the Twins, A’s, and White Sox the most. I’d try to get more than that from the Dodgers. Would totally pass on the Yankees.

Does anyone know when and how the international signing period is working? We didn’t sign Jackson Chourio and company yet did we?

I’m on the opposite side of the argument. I liked the draft this year. Garrett Mitchell may be in center before we know it. From last year, Small and Antoine Kelly are solid prospects. For all we know, Small is the next Dallas Kuechel. Lutz still is showing upside. Rasmussen has excellent upside. Ashby is a good pitcher. Hiura is a savant with the bat. Montgomery drafted Corey Ray at 5 overall despite obviously not having a great hit tool. He can still hopefully put it together, but fifth overall was ill-advised. Tod Johnson has not had a poor thought process like that. He’s much more analytical. Montgomery might have a scouting eye but then you take over his reports and hand them over to the analytical guy who can make the big picture decision. As for the ranking of the farm system, the rankings are always skewed to name recognition closer to the majors. A number of those guys end up AAAA guys yet they bring rankings up because of name value. There are always those limited upside guys who get a decent ranking like a lifetime achievement award. The high upside young guys like, say, Antoine Kelly, Eduardo Garcia or Herbert Perez are dismissed and ranked too low because things can go wrong when you’re that far away. You could look at somebody like Ryan Cordell from a few years ago with a decent ranking and I’d take Perez over him. More unknown but far more more upside. Overall, if you look at the Brewer system from this year ten years from now, people might be surprised at how many strong players come out of it. Obviously, beyond that, we’ve had a number of good players graduate and/or get traded to bring in high level talent. Recent graduates include Woodruff, Hiura, Peralta, Suter, Burnes, Arcia, Hader, Houser, et al. and a bunch of others have been traded like Yamamoto, Brinson, Grisham, Diaz, and on and on. That’s a lot of names. Of course you will need to reload.

I like Sogard as a stopgap at third but he is not a long term guy. Less enthused about Smoak who is like a lesser Chris Carter. He might be in Japan next year. Slump or not he lacks an advanced hit tool. Not much in the minors for either spot. Getting legit talent at both spots is a significant hurdle for this franchise right now. They like drafting US kids and signing international kids up the middle but 3rd is also a very unique position. You want an athlete there but also with middle of the order pop. They don’t grow on trees and we don’t pursue the skill set in our prospect acquisition. We’d be well advised to get some high potential prospects in there but it still doesn’t resolve the need in the next few years.

I’d probably have Urías over Healy. I’m not sure Faria is still around.

Rasmussen is a good choice. Corey Ray would seem like a no brainer. Clayton Andrews is interesting. Do we know what the extra 30-34 players will be doing if not on the MLB roster?

Dylan File has increased his velocity from 89-91 to 92-95 according to an article on Brewers.com. That’s highly impressive for one off season. If that’s a legit uptick when games start, it could be a game changer for him if he can maintain it while also keeping his stellar command. He’d be in consideration to move into the top ten organization prospects. That also speaks very well for the Brewers lab which is apparently where he built up the increase in velo. If this is a legit uptick that he can maintain, it could be huge across the board.

Infielder/catcher, I had to think of Craig Biggio right away lol. I’m not comparing the young man to a hall of famer, but you don’t see catchers who can play middle infield every day. I like the draft so far. Athletes with the first three picks. All have a chance to get into our system’s top 25 quickly. We are stock piling up the middle athleticism. Stearns has always been very open about doing that. Surplus can be traded or converted to a corner position where appropriate. Up the middle physical skills tend to draw a premium in terms of trade value. So, I see what they are doing. Our drafts of recent vintage have been so much better thought out than they were from like 2006-2015 or so that it’s not even funny.

I’m interested in Soderstrom but it looks like a lot of teams between 10-20 like him. So that’s probably a pipe dream. I don’t know if any of the high end high school athletes get to us when you look at guys like Hassel or Hendrick. Maybe Crow-Armstrong, although I wonder about the bat. But how these guys come off the board is anyone’s guess. Another guy who intrigues me is JT Ginn. He’s talented but hurt. He could be a top ten level talent. The Dodgers went that route with Buehler and it worked out. The UNC first baseman, Sabato, is really interesting. I know we love up the middle athletes but we only have stopgaps at corner infield. You hope he’s not just another AJ Reed because the profile isn’t that far off. Stearns would probably say he’s going after up the middle talent and as those guys bulk up, some can move to corner infield and corner outfield from center for the OF types. A dream scenario for me is if somebody like Soderstrom slides to us at 20 and then Sabato is sitting there in the second round. Gage Workman from ASU might also be interesting in the second. I wonder about his hit tool though. But he’s a tremendous athlete who might develop. He’s got plus defender potential. Overall, I personally don’t think our system will prove to be at the bottom. But we don’t have ranked players so we get dinged. However we have up to 10 guys who might have a chance to be ranked in the top 150 depending on development. That’s where we are lacking, players with visibility. That highlights the point that we lack upside talent in the upper reaches of the system. If you wanted to address that, you’d get more and more collegiate talent. But in the baseball draft it’s dangerous to pre-determine a particular category.

Do you mean the second half of round one or second half of the whole draft, like starting late round 2 thru round 5?

Some good calls on Nick Bennett. Here’s a good article on him. https://www.brewcrewball.com/2019/6/6/18654827/meet-nick-bennett-university-louisville-6th-round-draft-pick-of-the-milwaukee-brewers I wish I put him on my top 25 list. I’d probably put him around 15. Excellent draft pick for where we got him.

Great news. I’m not remotely surprised, though. I have thought all along that this was part of the plan. How close to nailing this was I in the “trade Yelich” thread?

FYI, I believe Black should have graduated, he is no longer rookie eligible. Thank you. I fixed it.

1. Ethan Small 2. Brice Turang 3. Antoine Kelly 4. Drew Rasmussen 5. Tristen Lutz 6. Mario Feliciano 7. Aaron Ashby 8. Corey Ray 9. Hedbert Perez 10. Eduardo Garcia 11. Max Lazar 12. Carlos Rodriguez 13. Payton Henry 14. Luis Medina 15. Phil Bickford 16. Justin Jarvis 17. Devin Williams 18. Trey Supak 19. Zack Brown 20. Clayton Andrews 21. Dylan File 22. Thomas Dillard 23. Zhao 24. Joe Gray 25. Caden Lemons

I’ve seen some positive references to Jesus Parra, the 3b, 2b. He’s not a guy I’ve focused on. Does anybody have a scouting report or rundown on him?

I agree with all the excitement on Herbert Perez. It’s not just the power, it’s that he’s got a nice hit tool and stroke with the power. It’s good that they project him for center but with his arm I could see him in right. Eduardo Garcia is chronologically ahead but he’s the other international guy who I’m highest on. There are some others including the young center fielder, Carlos Rodriguez and Luis Medina who is highly touted. Who knows, in a year or two we might have 4 of our top ten prospects being international guys. When all is said and done, I am cautiously optimistic that if you take a snapshot of our current prospect list, it will prove to be a good crop and not the bottom where they are ranked. You take the four international guys I mentioned, add in Antoine Kelly and Drew Rasmussen as high upside pitchers, plus Small and Ashby as solid starting prospects, Turang and Lutz with their youth and upside, Feliciano and Henry at catcher, and you’ve got the makings of a very strong list. A guy like Bickford could really re-emerge as well.

I was going to post something similar. I think I saw a post from MaasHass (Jim) and may have heard him on Pauley’s podcast on Peralta as well. Freddy is still young, has arm talent, is competitive and wants to be good. I’m not going to be surprised if he takes a big step forward this year and ends up the number 2 or 3 starter. He could follow Woodruff’s path forward. There’s a lot of upside here and I’m glad Stearns and company have held on to him. He may end up being the type of pitcher we could never get if we didn’t develop him ourselves.

“My trainer back at home said I look as good as I have in three or four years,” Gyorko said. "Everything is healthy, and hopefully that translates to me playing better baseball.” https://www.mlb.com/brewers/news/jedd-gyorko-looks-to-rebound-from-injuries

This time next year, you tear up the last two years and offer him 7 for $210. He's a great fit here and both sides love the relationship. Braun is coming off the books and a top 3 position player in the game is a different beast than a one year catcher. He's a face of the franchise. You realize the importance of that type of guy to your fan base. All the black hat thinkers out there can mock me all they want, but that is my take on what we are planning.

Between Stearns, Matt Arnold and Craig, that’s three no-brainers. Let’s keep the band together. I wish Johnson were still here and that one stings. But, there’s a well thought long term strategy here and that makes me happy. I don’t know how we will fare this year, but we have a strategy designed to leave us a ton of flexibility to be consistently competitive year in, year out. There could always be a year where everything goes wrong, but we can get back on course quickly with our brain trust. As for our strategy this year, I don’t think it was a per se decision that we have to slash payroll. It was a move to avoid being saddled with tens of millions of obligations for aging players for four years, leaving us no margin for error or the ability to move on to younger talent while being weighed down by expensive contracts.

Nobody can trust Phil Bickford for a variety of reasons, but he’s quietly putting it back together. I’m glad we kept him. I think he could take a couple of leaps this year.

Very good points. Don't be shocked in the end that our top ten now--which isn't highly regarded--blows away the top ten that you listed. We have several pitchers who show legitimate promise right now, and I bet some of the pan out very nicely.