Austin Tatious

Nodding with approval. Great idea.

Hader's ERA is microscopic, but he needs to cut down his pitch counts and pitch deeper into games. There's still work to do there.

Let's see this writer go to another country and try to speak their language in a professional setting. He will be humbled. Guys like Gomez are well intentioned and trying to be cooperative to the press outside their native language.

Don't look now but Jacob Gatewood may be figuring things out. Cross your fingers. He's been coming on.

Three to six months ago, some Brewers fans were lamenting, "I wish there was a way that Jason Groome could fall to five." Implicit in that wish was that something (negative) would make him fall. Now it may actually happen. I could see picking Riley Pint over Groome, but I'm still willing to take a chance on whoever the scouts feel is better between the two. How else are we ever going to get our TOR guy, the guy who can win a couple of games in a post season series? Yes, we could end up with Mark Rogers but that's the deal on taking high end high school pitchers. Aside from a high draft pick, it's tough to get your ace. Jake Arrieta type trades don't fall out of the sky often. You can pick apart any high school pitcher for any reason. Possible arm troubles, poor adjustments, etc. It's a risk. But we need to hit on ace. Pint and Groome still seem like mega-talented, precocious arms. That to me trumps everything.

If any team wouldn't pay the price over the winter with some unwise argument about Lucroy's 2015, then you drive the price higher than what they could have gotten him for in the offseason. You play roulette, and the price goes up. Of course, you play teams off each other. Throw him out there to teams competing against each other.

Maybe Groome is too big for his britches or something. If there is some concern about maturity that drops him to Milwaukee, I hope we pounce on him. I get the concern that you draft a high school arm and you end up with a Mark Rogers type disaster and get nothing out of the 5th overall pick. Mike Jones and Nick Neugebauer also say hi. When we drafted Weeks, Braun, and Fielder in the top 10, that was epic. That's also how the Cubs played it with Bryant, Schwarber, Soler, Ian Happ or whoever else they took in the top 10. But Milwaukee has not had a true number one starter come out of the system since Ben Sheets who was a number one pick too. Because of the massive need for a true ace, and if the match is there with a Groome, POUNCE baby.

Thanks for mining all this information. Good reads. Since Attanasio has a low MLB payroll, I'd like to see huge investments in recruiting these guys. The bios on these two guys sound fine. I am not too focused on the precise rankings. I mean, how unscientific can it get, when talking about literally 16 year old boys? Unless you're a prodigy, the rankings are hard to give much credence to. I don't think a ranking of say 17 versus 29 is too pertinent. No one has any idea which of these guys will pop and which will stagnate. This is all much more of a crapshoot than, say, the NFL draft which even still has a crapshoot element to it. Orlando Arcia was a huge get through the process but I am not sure how predictable that was when he was 16. I don't recall him being rated at the top. We don't know how Gilbert Lara will come together. His first year in rookie ball was up and down. He has another year of rookie ball starting soon and hopefully he cranks this year. Many of these guys may do fine hitting teenaged fastballs, but when they see pitchers who can control offspeed stuff, some of these guys will fall of a cliff. Some will have trouble moving away from Latin America to the US. Others won't be gym rats or have a motor. Will it be the 17th rated guy or the 29th to emerge, hard to say. I do agree with the idea that the whole international market thing is wholly dysfunctional. The whole factor of drafting 16 year olds is out there to begin with. Then, the way the big market teams exploit it compared with Milwaukee is pathetic. Other than, what, Wily Peralta and Arcia, in recent years we haven't gotten much. Compare us with some other organizations and it is ridiculous. This will likely need to be collectively bargained for. The agents will drive hard on allowing foreigners in because it drops draft values down for players. The 42nd player picked now may become the 60th picked player or whatever, with monetary values going down. So, the Scott Boras types will want a concession back, e.g., higher payouts to draftees to compensate for lower slotting of picks due to the inclusion of foreign players. It needs to be done, though, for competitive balance reasons.

The last I checked, Gatewood, Harrison, Coulter, Isan Diaz, and Nottingham were all scuffling badly. Hader has a sparkling era but cannot eat up innings. Lopez and Medeiros have elevated era's. Ponce has been hurt. Kirby is out for the year. It's still a small sample size but the bulk of our high profile prospects couldn't be off to a more disappointing start. We saw it from 1993-2004. Rebuilds often don't work. I'd agree with the sentiment that three years would be do-able if everything pans out.

I have got to agree with you 100%. Maybe we get lucky and Groome in particular gets there. The last sentence in his bio was interesting about questions with his makeup. http://m.mlb.com/prospects/2016?list=draft Click on box with Groome's picture

New rankings from Mayo and Callis of MLB. Kyle Lewis and AJ Puk getting some love. http://m.mlb.com/news/article/175743496/aj-puk-at-no-1-in-latest-mlb-mock-draft?topicid=151437456 Does anyone have a take on whether Perez can be a strong bat at 3b as he fills out?

No need to nuke the existing leagues. A tweak here or there like the stros to the AL is one thing. Blowing the whole thing up is entirely out of the question IMO.

Between Puk, Pint, and Groome, IMO all three won't go in the top 4. I think at least one of them could be there at 5 for us.

The first names that came to mind: Nash Walters. Pretty high draft pick with good arm. Tyrone Perry. He has potential if he keeps his weight under control. Big if. Carlos Belonis. Didn't rack up huge stats as he bounced around rookie ball for multiple years but he's off to a hot start at Appleton. Tucker Neuhaus. Another high draft pick who has taken some time to adjust to being a professional coming out of high school. But maybe something will click. The theme here is young guys out of high school who may need time to come into their own. While college players develop in the college structure, it can be a rough adjustment for the out of high school guys who go straight to pros. Their adjustments to higher levels are under a microscope whereas college guys can develop and mature before being drafted. I agree on being interested in Supak, Herrera, Missaki (if he gets healthy) and Peralta as young pitching acquisitions. Not under the definition of under the radar, but I'm very interested in seeing Gatewood and Harrison show positive signs. They haven't been able to solve Class A while being fine in rookie ball. Let's hope there is a nice step forward there and they can adjust to higher level pitching, where they see better command of breaking stuff etc. If they emerge this year, they could be on their way to a good progression through the minor league ranks. If they continue to be stymied this year, it could be a longer haul for them than we hoped.

I'd be happy to give Swihart a look-see, but it's comical how overrated Boston's system is, year in and year out. It's not just Peter Gammons, who has been a biased plague for around 40 years. Someone needs to develop an algorithm for adjusting Boston's farm rankings due to their bias. Look at the list of supposedly top notch prospects of recent years and how they haven't met lofty expectations. It's not just Middlebrooks and Cecchini. Swihart was trumpeted up although its certainly too early to write him off. There are a number of pitchers too that are proving to be mediocrities.

I agree. If Jon Daniels were going to make a deal, a Lucroy to Texas deal would have happened already. Daniels doesn't want to look outwitted in the Ivy League alumni matchup with Stearns. More likely landing spots could be Houston, Washington, Minnesota, Chicago or Boston. You're going to need a reasonable trade partner who understands value of a trade working for both sides. That's how you get things done. It's actually more sophisticated thinking, despite however smart he apparently insists on showing he is. You don't get deals done trying to rip off the other team.

Great article and podcast. Unlike the NFL and even NBA, both of which have a phenomenal amount of draft coverage, I wish there were more MLB draft coverage to be honest. Very interesting about the Brewers being all over Rutherford. The analysts also really liked Ray Montgomery's draft. One of them said Trent Clark was his favorite prospect in all of baseball. I'm admittedly a recipient of information, and not an analyst. But, I was surprised they had Senzel way up at 1.1 and 1.2 overall, respectively, in their two mocks. I like him as I indicated in a post above. One of them even made the same comp I did, i.e., Matt Carpenter. However, on Groome, they thought he was behind where Aiken and Allard were as high school lefties. One had him dropping to 4 which is close to Crew territory especially if he trends down further. They had the Crew passing on Pint although they love his upside. I'd be very satisfied if we got Groome or Pint which has been the prevailing view on this board since last summer. I'm not personally scouting these guys, but going off of the consensus of reports I've found. I mean, Pint is hitting 101 or 102 on the gun. Risk there for sure, but how else do you get your Verlander or Kershaw? Last year I was on here arguing for Aiken despite the injury. He came off the board soon after the Crew so I wasn't off base. Now, I like Clark so there's that. But I really want strong 1 and 2 starters. Hopefully we can get some top shelf starters out of Hader, Ponce, Lopez and others. Maybe Kirby when healthy. But you need to keep cranking on it and increase your odds. We shouldn't draft for need especially in baseball. But I sure hope we can get a 1b, 3b, and C. In the OF, we already have Mav, Demi, Clark, and Monte, among others, brewing. I think we are getting a couple of good players out of that group. But 3b and 1b. I gotta say I love how the Royals trot out Moustaskas and Hosmer. They are solid everywhere. That's what I want.

Good points about Devin and some others being missing on any roster. Can anyone account for this? I am just making this up, but could there be an injury or other reason why they have not been assigned such that they are kept under the organizational umbrella and they get assigned when ready (healthy or whatever reason)?

Good points. I am a Davies fan at least in the short run. Keeping him on the stretched out schedule makes sense. Man, I would like to see Garza show something. Maybe we can get something, anything, for him if he has a good first half.

Weird pick. I wonder why Davies didn't get first crack? Could it be service time?

I agree that Josh Lowe is very intriguing. It would be awesome if we could get a Scott Rolen type of athlete over there. It sounds like Lowe is an athletic guy. I wish we could somehow get Groome but it does not seem likely. Watch him turn into a Kershaw. I would probably take Pint if he were there. If he turned into a Verlander type, that would be phenomenal. We have a lot of young talent, but I really want to see us get an elite pitching prospect, a front line ace. I think Groome in particular, but also Pint, could have that possibility, although any pitching prospect turning into a true ace has an obvious element of a crapshoot. You always have that fear of another Mark Rogers at the 5th pick. I am not sure Pint is a pitcher yet as much as a thrower. But Verlander was that once and you're betting on talent. Puk and Hansen seemed like good prospects, but how do we really know they wouldn't just be in between a Taylor Jungmann, the Ga Tech lefty whose name is not on the tip of my tongue now, or gasp, Eric Arnett. So, if you don't feel really confident about a front ace at 1.5, then I would seriously look at Lowe. He looks like a natural third baseman. Maybe you strike gold. We could use another Braun/Fielder type of stud. 3rd base is also a position where there aren't enough top guys to go around, so you could really have a distinguishing factor there. I'd love a Rolen or Corey Seager at 3rd. Senzel interests me. He has a Matt Carpenter feel about him. If he can legitimately play 3b, he is interesting. But Lowe seems to have more upside.

Rangers claim they are not looking into dealing for a catcher right now. http://m.rangers.mlb.com/news/article/168267028/rangers-like-catchers-behind-robinson-chirinos ----- Continued from: viewtopic.php?p=975891#p975891 Original Lead: viewtopic.php?f=66&t=33647 (edit: links added by 1992casey)

More smoke on the Twins interest in Will Smith, although it's hard to tell if this is new sourced info or if Wolfson is just recycling earlier scuttlebutt. The reference to Ken Giles is telling. The Phillies got a great haul there, including Mark Appel, the former number one overall pick and number two prospect in their system AND other pieces. Will Smith is lefty, not a loogy, has good stuff, is young, and under team control. He's in demand. Getting Kepler plus seems to be on the table. Kepler seems to be a source of surplus for the Twins. They have other options. The world won't end if they trade Kepler but Smith satisfies a real need. Then the Brewers would need another prospect or two coming back.

I agree that the Rangers system is appealing. However, if they aren't willing to deal fairly then you move on. From the Rangers, the pitcher I have a feeling on is Ariel Jurado. He doesn't throw as hard as Luis Ortiz, but he keeps the ball down. From the stats I saw, he had an almost 4 ratio of ground outs to fly outs whereas Ortiz had a ratio around one. Jurado also has good control. Now Ortiz does have the power if that's what he Brewers want because Jurado throws with less velocity. I'd like Brinson, Jurado, and Josh Morgan. I posted earlier that Keith Law said the Rangers want to move Morgan to catcher. That's appealing to me. Morgan sounds like a gamer. My ask here is not crazy. There is no way I'm bundling Peralta or Will Smith for that return. A lesser piece to get it done and add a fourt prospect like Brett Martin, fine. Not Smith or Peralta.

The term tanking comes from large market teams who have big market media guys in their pockets with a vested interest in keeping the Brewers down. The Brewers are rebuilding. You know what, rebuilding works. What doesn't work is having a leaky roster that you play whack-mole with, which is what the Brewers did from 1994 through 2004 when they were the worst organization in the sport. No one wants to repeat those days. Everyone thought it was genius when the Cubs sold off assets like Smardizja to get Addison Russell. They traded for Rizzo. They brought in Soler from Cuba with extra money. They had five straight top ten picks and some in the top 5 when you look at Baez, Almaro, Bryant, Schwarber, Happ. They lost for five years. Now they are a juggernaut for the foreseeable future. With six years of club control, and with older players breaking down, building a good core of young players is a very viable strategy. You just need to execute. The Brewers has 11,000 at the on deck event. The fans are on board.