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Offensive production at 3B has been down for a few years now. League average wRC+ for 3B ranged between 100 and 107 every season from 2012 through 2022. This is the image of a slugging third basemen that most fans still have in their head. Starting in 2023 it has been 96, 97, 96, and now a 98 wRC+ in the early going this year. As far as "power positions" go, LF is even worse with a league average 96 wRC+ so far this year that would be the lowest since at least 2002, the first season FanGraphs has positional splits available.

Perhaps yesterday's Spaghetti Policy game can be this year's Cribbage Board game.

From 2023 to 2025 the Brewers bullpen was credited with 78 losses in 486 games (16%). So far this year the Brewers bullpen has been credited with eight losses in 28 games (28.6%). No Chourio, no Vaughn, no Yelich for half the season, no Priester, no Koenig, Frelick (102 PA of 83 wRC+), Rengifo (86 PA of 38 wRC+), Ortiz (74 PA of 42 wRC+), Perkins (46 PA of 34 wRC+), Matos (21 PA of 24 wRC+), and Jones (16 PA of -33 wRC+) stinking up the joint to varying degrees...this team could easily be in the Red Sox, Mets, Phillies danger zone but instead have never been below .500 all season.

2026 Gary vsRHP (52 PA) 119/288/357 (87 wRC+) 2026 Gary vsLHP (21 PA) 529/619/1029 (349 wRC+) 2023-26 Gary vs RHP (460 PA) 204/300/399 (96 wRC+) 2023-26 Gary vsLHP (261 PA) 252/318/534 (132 wRC+) Since Black came up they have faced four RHP with Gary getting one of those starts. Looks like they are running a soft platoon at DH at least until Chourio/Vaughn are back.

2026 Ortiz bases empty (36 PA) 188/278/188 (40 wRC+) 2026 Ortiz with RISP (24 PA) 368/455/368 (145 wRC+) 2026 Ortiz low leverage (34 PA) 194/265/194 (35 wRC+) 2026 Ortiz high leverage (8 PA) 400/571/400 (196 wRC+) Obviously can't expect Ortiz to keep running such insane RISP/high leverage splits all season, but at least to this point he's been making the most of whatever singles he's scratched out.

Some fun with numbers before tonight's outburst distorts things somewhat... Entering tonight's game the Brewers had 552 PA with the bases empty, fewest in MLB. Their 12.3 BB% is the best in the split, though their .209 batting average, seven HR, and accompanying .091 ISO are all 30th. Put everything together and the walks save them from the basement with a 78 wRC+ (27th). Switch it over to RISP though and the Brewers' 304 PA are 7th, their 146 wRC+ is 1st, and their 114 RBI are tied for 1st. As far as leverage splits go they are are at low leverage (93 wRC+ | 23rd), medium leverage (81 wRC+ | 25th), and high leverage (140 wRC+ | 6th). That (along with +1.9 BsR | 4th) is how they've managed to score 4.89 runs per game (8th) and post +1.08 Win Probability Added (9th) despite an unimpressive overall 93 wRC+ (22nd).

Obviously only 61 early season unsustainable PA so but still pretty wild to see Braylon Payne with matching .429 ISO and BABIP marks.

Not a Top 20 prospect currently, but speaking of 2B gotta mention the insane start that Dylan O'Rae is off to this season at 338/453/455 (146 wRC+) with 16 BB | 14 K and 15 SB | 4 CS over 96 PA at Biloxi after missing all of last year injured.

2025 Misio (66 IP) 145 K+ | 136 BB+ 2026 Misio (32 IP) 170 K+ | 102 BB+ 25-26 Misio (98 IP) 153 K+ | 125 BB+ Obviously will depend on where things settle in (crazy to think there is remaining upside to tap into even with the improvements he's already made over last year) but looking at some guys from 2021 to present the possible range could be something like... Blake Snell (602 IP) 141 K+ | 136 BB+ Dylan Cease (909 IP) 133 K+ | 117 BB+ Hunter Greene (495 IP) 134 K+ | 104 BB+ Tyler Glasnow (472 IP) 144 K+ | 97 BB+ Garrett Crochet (448 IP) 139 K+ | 83 BB+ Paul Skenes (349 IP) 138 K+ | 72 BB+ Tarik Skubal (771 IP) 128 K+ | 65 BB+ Jacob deGrom (395 IP) 155 K+ | 53 BB+

Collins has a 33.3 K% and -3 DRS | -4 FRV playing LF in the early going with KCR. Throw in -1.3 BsR (which is 297th of 303 players with at least 50 PA so far) and he's at -0.3 WAR. Most 4th OF have to be at least passable in CF, so I think before last year most had Isaac pegged as more of an up/down 13th man LF/2B utility type of guy. For his first 119 PA of 2025 he was exactly that with an 82 wRC+. But then he went on an insane heater with a 175 wRC+ over his next 202 PA (check that .413 BABIP under the hood though) before closing the season with another 120 PA of 73 wRC+ back in line with prior expectations. So far this year he has 81 more PA that line up with that original eval.

Assuming that hiring Jenkins tilts the needle more towards Giannis staying & signing the $275M extension... between Turner ($26.6M), Kuzma ($20.5M), and Portis ($14.5M) to match salaries plus the 2031 and 2033 firsts (& 2032 swap) available to be dealt this offseason Horst should have enough ammo go out and make another Bledsoe (2017), Holliday (2020) or Lillard (2023) kind of deal.

Kind of crazy how far ahead of even Chourio's advanced pace Made is so far... Chourio thru Age 18 (628 PA) 290/355/512 (131 wRC+) 8.8 BB% | 23.2 K% Made thru Age 18 (741 PA) 298/402/452 (141 wRC+) 14.3 BB% | 18.4 K% Jackson with the edge in raw power, Jesus with a bigger edge in plate discipline. Obviously a small sample of only 84 PA here to start the year, but Made appears to have somehow turned it up a notch further at 314/429/543 (152 wRC+) with a 16.7 BB% and 13.1 K% in the early going. Over his first 84 PA at Biloxi as a 19 year old Jackson hit 244/286/410 (79 wRC+) with a 6.0 BB% and 25.0 K% and it took him almost 300 PA that year before exploding for 152 PA of 370/421/623 (171 wRC+) with a 7.9 BB% and 10.5 K% from the end of June thru early August. Agree that it's still to early for anything crazy now, but if we get into June with all of Ortiz, Rengifo, Hamilton, Pratt, Jett, and Wilken struggling to varying extents while Jesus continues to make the Southern League look like child's play things could get a lot more interesting.

Yup, National League is currently +25 wins on the AL in Interleague play. NLC teams are...CIN (11 W - 3 L), MIL (11 W - 5 L), STL (9 W - 6 L), PIT (5 W - 2 L), CHI (5 W - 4 L)...so they account for +21 of those +25 wins by themselves.

I’d guess it gets incorporated into the framing metrics. Like a borderline pitch is called a ball so they get -0.XX framing runs, but they challenge the call & it’s overturned to a strike so instead they get +0.XX framing runs.

Yeah, 8/210 could be closer to an opening offer from Turang's camp than a meet in the middle kind of number, but the offensive uptick Brice has shown for the last 70 games or so now also puts him a notch above Nico from a remaining upside perspective. Say he's gonna make around $35M in Arby's over the next three years then offer $25M per FA season over the five years after that and it comes out to an even 8/160. That's a lot of money to say no to, but I wouldn't be surprised if Brice and his reps want at least $200M to forego FA at this point.

It's never too late if one is willing to pay top dollar. He'd surely want something richer than the six years and $141M that Nico Hoerner just signed for. Maybe he'd go for something like eight years and $210M, that would give him the record for AAV at 2B and would be the second largest total outlay for a keystone man after Cano got ten years and $240M back in 2013.

Ortiz (4.5 WAR) and Hall (0.8 rWAR) have already outproduced what Burnes did (4.5 rWAR) in his lone Baltimore season. The Brewers also presumably put some of that cost savings on Burnes towards signing Hoskins (1.1 WAR in his two Milwaukee seasons). Maybe they'd be better off had they kept Burnes and took the QO and found replacements for Ortiz/Hall/Rhys production from the last two plus years elsewhere, but they've already won the 2nd most games in MLB since 2024 so there is a lot more room for downward mobility there than upward in any hypothetical.

For sure. Guys like Tate Kuehner (20.2 IP of 87 ERA- | 65 FIP-), Stiven Cruz (12.1 IP of 68 ERA- | 74 FIP-), Will Childers (9 IP of 0 ERA- | 38 FIP-), Brian Fitzpatrick (8.1 IP of 0 ERA- | 43 FIP-), and Mark Manfredi (7.1 IP of 23 ERA- | 36 FIP-) have all had encouraging small sample starts at the upper levels. None of them are on the MLB Top 30 (looks like Kuehner is #34 on FG list) but it wouldn't surprise me to see all five of them end up in MLB at some point even if middle relief is probably the ceiling for everybody except Tate who still has a shot at a back end starter or maybe something like a Koenig 7th inning guy.

Good topic. Hot hitters like Adamczewski (38 PA of 216 wRC+), Pena (43 PA of 178 wRC+), Payne (37 PA of 167 wRC+), Lara (83 PA of 162 wRC+), O'Rae (67 PA of 161 wRC+), Made (74 PA of 160 wRC+), Dinges (41 PA of 154 wRC+), and Burke (72 PA of 133 wRC+) have definitely outnumbered their pitching counterparts here in the early part of the season. Since the big five of Hader, Peralta, Woodruff, Burnes and Williams graduated the Brewers have really only developed and graduated, what, three arms on the current active roster? Ashby, Uribe and Misio. I guess four if you count CRod, but he is more of an up/down guy. If we zoom it out to the 40 Man that adds Henderson and Yoho as potential long term guys with a chance to make an impact. After that it's in the trade zone. Priester, Patrick, Harrison, Sproat, Gasser, Crow, Drohan among the SP options with Megill, Zerpa, Anderson, Hall, Koenig all on the trade side out of the pen. Ultimately I think there are three things helping me see past the early season struggles from some of the minors arms...(1) it's early (2) with the acknowledgement that pitcher attrition rates are unrelenting the upper level depth is much better than the lower levels (3) looks like Arnold could maybe have a surplus of hitters in the coming years to deal from and he's proven pretty adept on that front over his first few seasons.

If we're talking a single number, yes, wRC+ is best as it assigns weighted run values to each individual outcome based on that season's offensive environment while also attempting to account for the difference between home stadiums. OPS or OPS+ get you pretty dang close and are perfectly cromulent measures but they overvalue SLG relative to OBP. See a player like PCA with his 238/284/427 line shaking out to a 102 OPS+ but only a 95 wRC+. For me personally, I like seeing the triple slash best because it gives one a better idea of how the production is arrived at. Since 2021 both Yandy Diaz and Kyle Schwarber have matching 136 wRC+ marks but did it in way different styles with Yandy at 295/376/449 compared to 231/354/515 for Schwarber. Like most things the truth about batting average probably lies somewhere in the middle. It's nowhere near as important as it was considered to be in the pre-Moneyball days, but at the same time it shouldn't be ignored or written off as completely meaningless because it only tells us part of the story either. A player's hit tool is still a pretty foundational aspect of their profile after all.

Back in 2022 Coleman threw a career high 128 IP, but over the next three seasons he only pitched 24 IP, 9 IP, and 50 IP on account of injury. Would imagine the Brewers don't want him to throw much more than 100 IP this season as he builds back up. Easier to skip a start, give an extra day's rest, or limit his innings per appearance down in Nashville.

Yeah, lots of craziness looking at the early standings. The combination of Cohen's checkbook and Stearns strategery hasn't resulted in the instant juggernaut many predicted. Since the front office switcheroo in 2023 the Brewers have 294 wins (2nd in MLB) while the Mets are a solitary game over .500 at 254 W - 253 L despite outspending the Brewers by about $880M in OD payroll looking at the numbers on Cots. Mets current playoff odds are 45.0% on FG and 57.0% on BPro. Defending AL Champs were a top two FA spender this offseason and are currently 7 W - 13 L. Blue Jays current playoff odds are 28.3% on FanGraphs and 40.0% on BPro. Their opponents in the ALCS were supposed to have the easiest path to a Division Title besides the Dodgers but are currently sitting at 9 W - 13 L. Mariners current playoff odds are 69.6% on FG and 88.1% on BPro. Phillies have the 3rd most wins on that 2023 to present leaderboard, but are currently 8 W - 12 L with an old expensive roster and thin farm system. Current playoff odds are 53.5% on FG and 39.1% on BPro. Red Sox were predicted to compete for the AL East crown with TOR and NYY but instead sit at 8 W - 12 L. Current playoff odds are 41.4% on FG and 34.6% on BPro. Lotta season left, and I'd imagine a couple two tree of the five teams above will turn it around and still end up making the playoffs, but looking at all that is a pretty good reminder of how much worse off the Brewers could be at the moment considering the myriad issues they've had over their first 20 games.

Looks like as of this morning five of the top twelve records in all of MLB reside in the NL Central, take that coastal elites. Seems like as good a time as any to check back in on what the computers think it all might mean... FanGraphs PIT: 85.1 W | 32.7% Div CHC: 84.6 W | 29.0% Div MIL: 84.7 W | 24.6% Div CIN: 79.8 W | 8.8% Div STL: 77.6 W | 4.9% Div PECOTA CHC: 88.5 W | 54.6% Div MIL: 83.7 W | 22.0% Div PIT: 81.7 W | 11.9% Div CIN: 80.9 W | 10.6% Div STL: 71.3 W | 0.9% Div Reds and Brewers are pretty close in both systems with a little larger disagreement on the Pirates, Cubs and Cardinals here in the still early going. The above FanGraphs projections are based off a 50/50 split of the Steamer and ZiPS projections for each player, but as we know the Brewers are pretty good at beating those. If we instead click the FanGraphs projections over to Season To Date results instead that shakes things up a bit... FanGraphs (Season To Date) MIL: 94.0 W | 37.6% Div CHC: 92.7 W | 32.7% Div PIT: 86.1 W | 17.1% Div CIN: 79.8 W | 8.6% Div STL: 74.0 W | 4.0% Div

Forget Nashville. If Made is still laying waste to the Southern League while Ortiz, Rengifo, Hamilton, Pratt, Jett, and Wilken continue their varying degrees of current struggles let Jesus ascend straight to Milwaukee.

How so? 2026 Ortiz (58 PA) 196/268/196 (38 wRC+) 8.6 BB% | 22.4 K% .233 expected wOBA 2026 Frelick (78 PA) 179/286/254 (60 wRC+) 11.5 BB% | 15.4 K% .289 expected wOBA