Austin Tatious

No, because he’s not committing himself to improving in the offseason and has bouts of focus problems. He’s also got essentially the same body he had three years ago. This is the time where he should be physically maturing. When Robin Yount came up, he was predictably scrawny. He’d come back after every offseason more and more ripped and improved his approach. Arcia is not making progress and if anything has bouts of regression. If he spends his offseason working on his craft more, focusing on his approach etc, he has the ability to meet the lofty expectations put on him. This is an athletic, agile guy with good movement skills for a shortstop, a cannon for an arm, and very good quickness in his bat. The results are not commensurate with his tools.

For me it's not any individual......it's the collective. And the fact we are giving up 5 runs a game means he needs to go. The pitcher's era is higher with Gandal than Pena too. The defense is noticeably worse than last season as well. I'm not necessarily trying to defend Hook but I think we have to acknowledge the pitching coach isn't the only thing different from last season. One of my buddies who studies such things points out that Grandal does not call a good game. There may be some truth to that. But I think Hook is the biggest culprit.

Arcia is a talented kid but he needs to grow up. If he has a focused and productive offseason, he can come back and be productive. He’s got all the tools you need.

It’s hard to defend Hook. It’s a results oriented game. If he were a defendant, he’d need to plead no contest or guilty to a lesser charge. I hope they didn’t burn bridges with DJ. Throw a pile of cash at him and get on your knees to get him back. If that was a money issue, they didn’t have a backup plan worth a darn. I like David Stearns a lot, but he has had a rough year. I hope he learns from it and isn’t stubborn about it.

1. Trent Grisham - amazing development this year. Impact outfield prospect. 2. Brice Turang - he can be a leadoff hitter in the majors down the line. 3. Antoine Kelly - I couldn’t have been happier with this draft pick. Profiles much like Triston McKenzie when he was drafted. He should go immediately to our no trade list. Guys like him don’t grow on trees. 4. Mario Feliciano - all indications are he’s developing nicely as a catcher. Very good athlete which bodes well for his receiving skills. Hitting at a high level and at a young age (meaning relative to his level). 5. Ethan Small - knows how to pitch, and has good experience. Hopefully he rises quickly. 6. Aaron Ashby - he’s a good pitcher who may be in the starting rotation in the majors someday. 7. Drew Rasmussen - high hopes for this young man. He’s roared through three levels this year. He may be a year away, perhaps for bullpen duty. 8. Corey Ray - does not play well through injuries. This has dogged him his entire career and it’s particularly troubling since he’s seemingly nicked all the time. Never had the hit tool to be taken fifth overall but hopefully will rebound and get back to being an extra base machine. 9. Tristen Lutz - the organization has always challenged him. He’s got great physical makeup. His trend tends to be that he needs time to adjust to a challenging level but then he develops and improves. He shows very good signs. Could be a big league regular. 10 Max Lazar - young pitcher has been outstanding. Deserving of top ten recognition. 11. Eduardo Garcia - this is a guy with potential impact talent. He could be a big leaguer by the time he’s 20 or 21. 12. Zach Brown - his command seems to have fallen off a cliff. Drops quite a bit but body of work buoys him. But, if his nosedive continues next year, he might fall off the list. Let’s hope he can put it together. 13. Trey Supak - you can’t argue with the numbers. 14. Payton Henry - rugged, tough young man. It’s obvious the organization loves him. 15 Devin Williams - stunning resurgence now out of the pen. He might be a factor in leverage relief situations for the big club as soon as 2020. 16. Carlos Rodriguez - kid just hits all the time. Smallish but might be a good centerfielder. 17. Luis Medina - high hopes for very well pedigreed new signee. 18. Eduarqui Fernandez - difficult to project these really young guys but he seems to be one of our better young foreign acquisitions of recent vintage. 19. Justin Jarvis - very young pitcher is performing very well for his age. He could soar in the rankings if we see this again next year. 20. Micah Bello - very young player is talented and acquitting himself nicely even as he gains experience. 21. Jolon "Lun" Zhao - Listed because of his upside potential 22. David Fry - taking advantage of younger competition. 23. Noah Zavolas - older pitcher but solid production for the Harvard product. 24. Joe Gray - listed only based on athletic profile. Second year in and it hasn’t translated yet. 25. Thomas Dillard - former catcher may be useful in right field. Since catchers tend to have solid arms, and he’s switching positions, that arm might be useful in right, as long as he’s agile enough out there and not a Schwarber plodder type. 26. Dylan File - good numbers —not that they tell a complete story by any stretch of the imagination— but deserves recognition

Honest question. No harm intended. How old are you? I’m just curious.

Supak is going to get screwed in this deal because he's always profiled as a #5 or maybe #4 starter based on his stuff. Scouts/evaluators will be stuck in that scouting report as long as Supak's K/9 rate remains rather ordinary. It's just the environment we are in. I'm coming around to the idea that he's vastly under-rated and under-valued and he's clearly moved into the "hold" category. As ordinary as the K/9 rate is, his K/BB ratio is just a shade under 4 and that's way more than good enough for me to be pretty excited about him. There’s parallels in that regard to Brent Suter. For all the Manny Parras of the world who rolled through with hype, a guy like Suter got almost no credit. Say what you want, but he’s a major league pitcher and maybe starter. He knows how to pitch. I’m not going to make a judgement on Supak because I haven’t studied him beyond his numbers. His lack of a power repertoire may be his undoing as he gets older but we will have to see. I heard an interview with Tommy John the other day. He’s an old man now and maybe a little angry but one of his themes was in the pre-radar gun era, if you knew how to pitch, you’d do well. He won 288 games.

I actually agree with you. Good point. He’s going to have ups and downs. In baseball —like in life— nothing is more certain.

Grisham is underrated by the media ranking services. Trammell was just traded by the Reds as the supposed 30th ranked prospect. Even if that’s unrealistic, Grisham has a considerably better hit tool and there’s only one year age gap. Trammell may have more raw athleticism, but there’s not a skill set that’s more overrated in baseball than raw athleticism. Grisham was drafted fifteenth overall out of high school and the draft pedigree is a good indicator. In any sport, if you look at a five star recruit out of high school, he bears watching. Grisham is probably a top 30 prospect in some scouts’ eyes, regardless of what the media thinks. We had fans who wanted to trade Hiura for middling major leaguers, and I tried to warn them we are looking at a kid who could get 3000 hits some day. How stupid would you feel if Hiura got 3000 hits and we traded him for two years of JT Realmuto? Really? People are probably seeing the light on that now. Grisham is probably not at the Hiura level, but he’s a top prospect, and you don’t hand those guys off without a big payoff. There’s a parallel to the proposed deals last year involving Hiura. Grisham lf (lefty) Hiura 2b (righty) Yelich rf (lefty) Grandal C (switch) Moose 3b (lefty) Braun 1b (righty) Cain (right) Pitcher Arcia ss (right)

As a comp, Nash Walters is showing promise this year after a very long period of ramping up. The problem is there is a clock running on the 40 man roster. If you spend a couple of years in witness protection and then two years in very low levels, it’s hard to tell much by the time they graduate to Rule 5 issues.

Why so combative? We are all Brewer fans here.

I think Ponce can be a middle reliever in the bigs. They needed Lyles because they are desperate for an arm who can eat up chunks of innings. He’s got a live arm but his command is up and down. I get the move. I’m not optimistic as to where this season is headed so we might as well try to maintain our minors as much as possible.

Grisham is a 22 year old former first round pick who is mashing at Triple A. He should be a high value target. Ditto Peralta. The media rankings do not currently understand either player's value IMO. The prospect rankings are useless --even more so than normal -- when it comes to these two.

If a team wants to pick up Diplan, does he need to go to the 40 man roster? If so, we could take him back if all other teams decline to do that, right?

Man, the Dodger drafts just keep rolling with guys with monster upside. Kershaw, Buehler, Seager, Bellinger, Lux. Talk about sky high assets. For all the built in advantages they have anyway —from market size and location to TV revenue — their drafts are just sick.

This is a good point and also highlights the folly of the system rankings. Ben Gamel and Suter come to mind. Clancy pushed hard on Suter but hardly anyone else from our site ranked him. All he did was keep advancing. We could have used him this year.

I think the best thing they can do to sustain success is to not trade off a boatload of key prospects. If they only deal superfluous players in the Ryan Cordell mode, that’s good. As for impact prospects, you can trade them for controllable players. But if you start trading off potential major league starters for rentals or guys with 1.5 years of control, you’re asking for trouble unless it is only done sparingly. The Brewers’ minor league system isn’t rated particularly highly, but that’s fairly meaningless. By definition, you don’t know how well players will perform in the majors because the ultimate development is not easily discerned. Ethan Small, Aaron Ashby, Antoine Kelly, Max Lazar. For all we know, that’s four future major league starters with upside. Grisham, Lutz, Ray. They could be starting major league outfielders. Feliciano, Peyton Henry, you might have two starting catchers. Dubon and Turang may be major league leadoff hitters from middle infield positions. Drew Rasmussen and Devin Williams may be legit relievers for leverage situations. That’s 14 guys off the top of my head (without even looking at a list) that are pretty darn good prospects that have all given reason to believe they have very significant impact potential. Some may not work out or be fringe players but there’s potential for much more than that in all of them. If those guys were Dodgers, Cubs, Bosox or Yankees, we’d be hearing about how great they are. I didn’t even get into players from foreign signings. Several of them are toolsy with good potential. You look at Garcia the infielder, the catcher we just signed, the young Asian pitcher and a host of outfielders including Carlos Rodriguez and a bunch of bigger, athletic guys. Garcia could be a major leaguer by the age of 20-21 the way he’s going. I think we’ve got underrated assets in our minors and having a fair share of them develop well will be a key element to sustained success. Imagine the boost the roster would get by the gradual infusion of young precocious talent like that. That was the problem with our last up cycle with that Fielder, Weeks, Braun, Hardy, Hart crew. We didn’t get enough of the infusion of talent, in numbers and the team fell off. Those guys essentially had only two good runs. You’d like much more consistency but it’s going to take fresh talent continually coming up.

I’m not crazy about calling our own players “trash.”

I am hoping for Zach Wheeler and then that we re-sign him. Then hopefully Gio gets his arm back to normal. It will be huge if Aguilar and Chacin are putting it back together. For Aggie, OPS back to 0.725. Not great, but coming back toward respectability. Confidence is one thing. He seemed to be pressing. Chacin looked chunky to me but maybe he's also turning a corner. Woodruff, Wheeler, Davies, Gio, and Chacin in the rotation with Chase and Peralta in the pen for multiple innings could help the back end of the pen.

I believe DEVON Williams to be an option at some point past his futures game this Sunday. Having a great year, and has high leverage stuff, FB 95-98, good breaking ball. Is the 95-98 legit? Does he operate there? I thought he was more low 90s.

Even the biggest contrarian or Brewer homer ill-equipped to handle any negativity would have to agree that the loss of Derek Johnson has been a double whammy. Not only is the Brewer staff largely in disarray, but Johnson has helped a divisional rival.

Good point. They’ve probably got him on a strict innings (pitch) count.

Funny. I wish. At least Bickford seems to be back on the mound for High Class A. He’s essentially made no progress since we got him. There’s talent there so let’s hope he gets his head out of his backside and we see some resurgence. I’d like to hear his velo numbers etc.

Good topic. Feliciano is a good athlete and is having an excellent year. Along with Grisham and Turang, those are the guys who just pop out at you so far this year (as far as position players go). Everything I’ve heard is the organization loves Henry. Rugged catcher with intangibles and good pop although he lacks consistency with the stick. As for Fry, he’s an advanced bat but I’d like to hear more about his receiving skills. Age-adjusted, I’d put him third although I find him intriguing.

Personally, I feel like we have been drafting much more tactically and logically the last few years as compared with that death spiral we were in for like a decade. Ethan Small reminds me of one of those Cardinal type pitchers who ends up being a Lance Lynn or Shelby Miller before the injuries. You just hope you’re not in the Taylor Jungmann or Jed Bradley zone. Antoine Kelly is a high upside type we’ve been craving. If he puts it together he could be that Triston McKenzie type prospect. I like the move with the catchers and Hamilton is a great pick for the upside he has relative to where he was picked. I totally get the emphasis on up the middle talent. You get athletes and they can move around. Heck, Gorman Thomas came out as a shortstop. But, in the future, I hope they work more on 3b. Sure you can get a ss to fill out and play there, but that’s a position that requires an athlete and a certain hit tool. The good 3b can be every bit the unicorn you might see up the middle. And an elite 1b bat never hurt anyone. What they lack in versatility and athleticism can be alleviated by the potential impact to the middle of your order. We drafted lower and lost a couple of picks so it can be tougher to get a bounty. But you can see a method to the madness the last three or so years.