Austin Tatious

Here is a February article on Wichita. Sounds like they want a AA team. If they are building from scratch, they may be worth talking to. http://ballparkdigest.com/2017/02/14/wichita-making-push-for-milb-team/ CS has a population of 445k Wichita has a population of 390k. Sounds like similar markets.

Toby, I have been meaning to tell you that I enjoyed your podcast appearance on the Brewers weekly podcast from before the draft. You did a great job and came across well. Hope to hear more of you on outlets like that in the future.

I hope we stay in Helena. I like the continuity here. I read their local coverage and they seem to be into the Brewers from what I can tell. Edit. Sorry, saw the post about pulling out of Helena later

Not sure where to tuck this, but good to see some guys doing well as the weather heats up. Erceg up to .243. Nottingham up to .238. Harrison with some nice power and glad to see him join his buddies in A+. On the negative side, Diaz's average nosedived. Clark is still scuffling although it's masked a bit by his high BB rate. Hopefully Clark and Ray turn it around the second half and start to surge heading into 2018. You look at a guy like Clark and hope a Jacob Gatewood-like turnaround occurs. He's young and could repeat A+ next year and basically be where Gatewood is now.

If you can get a Segura type return, I'd do it.

Luckily the Bucks already have their core. I hope I'm wrong but I thought Wilson went too early. He may be a nice player but I'm going to predict he will be a journeyman who plays for like five teams in time. I like the Sterling Brown pick, mainly because the entire media loves him. Great reports on him. Having watched a ton of B1G basketball, I thought there were better prospects than Wilson from the conference. I thought OG went a little late. He may not have much value this season because of the injury but that's short sighted analysis. Wilson is a nice player but extremely soft. I think he averaged seven boards per 40 minutes. In a worst case, OG will be a plus defender, play hard, etc. I think OG and Swanigan will be considerably better than DJ Wilson. It's fashionable to go for length and positionless guys but I think Swanigan can find a nice niche. He will absolutely get boards and score inside. I think he will be a nice contributor. Few general comments. Zach Collins to Portland. Love him. He may end up being one of the five best players in the draft. He's a complete player. De'Aaron Fox to Sac town. Not sure he will ever be a shooter but he could be a better Rondo without being a head case. I never got a chance to see Fultz but someone that good should have won more. I don't care what's around you, winning nine games is bizarre for a team with the first pick on it. He's supposedly a nice passer and could be a Chris Paul. Famous last words, but I don't think the Celtics needed a ball dominant guard like that. The downside is the Celtics really helped a rival in the Sixers, where Fultz is a better fit. The Sixers could get crazy good in time and the Celtics helped that cause. Josh Jackson going fourth seems like a steal. Not a shooter, but he brings Scottie Pippen-like game. I really like Phoenix's young core. Harry Giles is a mystery. He may not be explosive anymore, but there's a chance he will regain it in a year or two. Portland is amassing some really nice big guys to go with their nice back court. I think you will see teams like the Spurs and Clippers come down over the next couple of years and Wolves and Portland rise. Maybe even New Orleans but something is off with that franchise. I thought Bam was a nice pick for the Heat. He will go well with Hassan Whiteside. Riley knows what he's doing. Wish he fell to 17 and there'd be nothing to complain about.

Thanks. I missed it live. What a throw! I wonder what that would be clocked at?

You snooze, you lose. Too many decision makers and they end up with paralysis by analysis. I hope they learned their lesson.

I applaud the approach of going after younger guys with upside. Even if you sign 2/3 of them, I'd rather have fewer upside guys than more pedestrian, maxed out guys. We already have a ton of depth further along in the system. It's nice to have an influx of rookie ball teens as the next wave behind them. Maybe a couple of them end up being steals.

Nice to see our prize international signees, Carmona (ss) and Abreu (of), hitting pretty well, although Carmona does have six errors already.

I like the KJ Harrison pick. I've been interested in amateur catchers for a couple of years, so I've been researching future possibilities given Lucroy's status as a trade candidate during that time. Harrison was a top of mind name that kept coming up. I think he's well worth his draft position and if he reverts to catcher, it could be an absolute steal. He was taken right around where Lucroy was taken.

Well that's promising. Crawford, if I recall correctly, tends to be bullish on Brewer prospects.

How does Lemons compare to the Nash kid we drafted a couple of years ago? I'm not going to pretend I focused on him in any research. He sounds like a major reach for a premium pick like 46.

I'm not even sure you would have to pay Romero over slot. His options are limited. You're banking on him maturing though. That's a risk. I'd take that risk.

True. But, other than Bukauskus, we were very close on each. Overall, we had a good handle on the process.

I'm hoping for Tristan Beck and Seth Romero with the next couple of picks.

Ramos at 34 would be fine if he's sandwiched between Baz or Rogers or Hall on one end and Seth Romero or Tristan Beck on the other end. David Petersen has nice peripherals. Very few walks. I still wouldn't take him in the top ten. The analytics folks may love him but he would not be my answer in the top ten.

That would be a pretty amazing haul right there. I agree, that would be impressive. It shows the type of potential haul we can have with our three picks. Personally, I am hoping for Baz at nine, but as I have said several times, I have never seen him connected to the Brewers. And, often, the names that get leaked out tend to be true. The Journal Sentinel all but announced that the Brewers were taking Kodi Medeiros a day or two before the 2014 draft. I would not mind a combo of a high school pitcher and a college pitcher, maybe one lefty and one righty but the key is going BPA, and a position player in the first three picks. So, you could do combinations like Trevor Rogers and Tristan Beck or DL Hall and Beck, or Baz and Romero, as far as pitchers. If you came out with Abell, Campusano, and Romero, that would be great, or tweak it to Abell, Tristan Beck and Romero, and I would be even happier. Lots of combinations work this year.

Did anyone double-check that this isn't Lou Palmisano tyring to get back into the draft? Where is his birth certificate?!? LOL I connected those names too. Funny. I guess we are both Brewer nerds.

When I said this, it was just a guess, and the response here was flat - now look where McKay is projected. It just shows how fluid the process is, and how quickly perceptions can change - here's hoping the Brewers, "guess right" a lot in the next few days. Good to see you. Your contributions have been missed. Hope you will be around more.

Hall

The CS stats are tough to gauge, so without further research, I'm not sure who is pitching well there. It seems like Wang should be up here, lefty or not. Maybe Blazek too as an experienced guy. Cravy does not have great numbers and I thought he was on the DL. Bubba Derby just advanced but he's a guy to keep an eye on because he's been excellent in the pen. May be a very rapid move to get him up here. Wilkerson at double AA has been doing fine. They are still working on Taylor Williams. He may be more of a 2018 guy. I guess I'm in favor of Wang for sure, and maybe Blazek. Peralta may be our most frustrating home grown pitcher since Manny Parra. The amount of sunk cost we've wasted on hoping for his development has been staggering. Feliz is below atrocious. Drake is useless. Hughes has some level of track record which could save him. Torres was very solid last year so you may hope he can work something out, I guess.

I am not going to argue against the empty average thing, at all. I agree with that. I like OPS as a measure. Arcia is under .700 and you'd surely like to see more. But, I also want to be realistic. You have to start somewhere. He's thin and I think will get stronger over the next couple of years. He's got pretty good quickness in his swing. He looks like he's about 160-165 lbs pounds. With some more muscle added, and with that quick swing, I think you will see some gap power and some singles will transform into doubles and triples. Without using a calculator, he's probably on pace for .260, 9-10 hr, 50-55 RBI, .680 OPS. As a baseline, I consider that to be a starting point. I'm bullish on him. I like his defense and how he carries himself.

Thanks for these, and your other aggregations. They are highly useful. In particular, I've followed Beck and Schwarz probably the most since we drafted them. Schwarz had that incredible freshman season at Florida and then has progressively gotten worse as soph and junior, and was a non-factor in Cape Cod. If he could have been drafted after his freshman year, he honestly may have gone top ten. It kind of shows you how the bloom can fall off with younger guys and you can extend that to the obvious risk you take with high schoolers. Rivera became their catcher and I don't know if he's lost it mentally or if his freshman year was an illusion. I'd still be interested in him somewhere on day two of the drafts, maybe 5th or 6th round. Beck is a different animal. He's sitting on an injury but he knows how to pitch. Good era, good whip. I'd be excited if we could get him at 34, assuming the medical folks believe his lower back is not a huge hindrance. Those things can be stubborn but there's risk for a variety of reasons on most players.

Orlando Arcia is up to .260. I don't have exact numbers but I'd imagine he's very strong over the past month since he was .220 ish well into the season. Santana has really put up impressive numbers. Shaw has been outstanding. Pina looks very solid to me as a two-way catcher. He had nice numbers in the minors too. Correct me if I'm wrong but I believe he was considered a good prospect a few years ago. It may be coming to fruition. Perez is a gamer and always has been. The one thing we can always nitpick is the low BB rate. It hurts his OBP but it's just not his approach. He's an ultra competitive kid which I love. I don't know if these guys can keep it up, but I refer to these guys as a huge part of our success. Arcia at his age, and room to fill out as he gets older, is doing as good if not better than any of us could think. The others, well we have minor leaguers who we are excited about, but interestingly, these guys are producing at the levels we would hope our minor leaguers would produce at some day, and we are getting that production now, which is great.