sveumrules

Soto is an everyday player who had 2.5 years of control at the time of the trade, Hader is a one inning reliever who had 1.5 years of control at the time of the trade. There is a massive gap in value there. Players like Gore (who was a Top Ten prospect for years) or Wood (who was #9 on FanGraphs 2022 midseason update) were likely never on the table for Hader.

Especially considering the outrage that came along with Derek Johnson leaving for Cincy. Just add him to the list of guys whose departure hasn't even come close to dooming the Brewers yet. Johnson, Stearns, Hader, Counsell, Burnes...

There is no one proven way to add value, they all have their various risks and rewards. How did signing JBJ or McCutchen work out? Was Winker a proven MLB player?

FanGraphs was at 55.7% for the Brewers versus 19.5% and 16.9% for the Cubs and Cardinals before the game today. BPro is coming around now too with 43.6% for the Brewers versus 27.6% and 24.3% for the Cubs and Cardinals.

Backup catcher is pretty good.

…seven walks, two hit by pitch, two wild pitches. I’m not calling Abner up until he can exhibit some command in Nashville.

Really good breakdown of the approach changes behind William’s hot start over at FanGraphs today... ”It’s tempting to look at the great leap forward Contreras has taken in 2024 and start rationalizing. He’s not walking more or striking out less. He’s running a .385 BABIP. Surely, this is a hot streak that will even out. But I think that’s wrong. The surface stats are hiding a monumental change under the hood. He’s just gotten more skilled at identifying and attacking pitches. Maybe he won’t quite keep up his current pace, but this is what a great hitter looks like: elite bat speed, great ability to square the ball up, and an advanced ability to attack hittable pitches without over-swinging at bad ones.”

Maybe they could have, maybe they couldn’t have, impossible to know for sure. What we do know for sure is that without trading Hader at the deadline and already having Ruiz in the fold we wouldn’t have been able to insert ourselves into the OAK/ATL deal to steal Contreras.

Gasser had 115 K over 90 IP in the Midwest League when we acquired him. He may have been a “soft tosser” but he was striking guys out at the third highest rate in the league, just fractions behind Antoine Kelly.

Its extremely rare for a kid from the DSL to be ready to go straight to the Carolina League from a competition standpoint and also way easier to help teenagers from a foreign country adjust culturally in the more controlled environs of the Complex. It’s not a coincidence that the only DSL players to skip the ACL were a few highly ranked position players, and the only pitchers to skip the ACL are guys who’ve lived in the states their whole lives.

Brewers position players 2021 98 wRC+ | 17.9 WAR Brewers position players 2022 103 wRC+ | 23.8 WAR (The position players improved by about five percent at the plate and six wins overall from 2022 to 2021, kinda hard for me to blame them for the team losing nine games off their win total.) Brewers rotation 2021 74 ERA- | 22.3 rWAR Brewers rotation 2022 92 ERA- | 13.0 rWAR (The rotation got about 18% worse at run prevention from 2022 to 2021 which cost the team about nine wins from the bottom line.) Brewers relievers 2021 96 ERA- | +5.90 WPA Brewers relievers 2022 97 ERA- | +1.68 WPA (Reliever run prevention didn't change much year to year, but they gave up runs at a lot worse times in 2022 costing the team another four wins from the bottom line. Hader going from +5.05 WPA in 2021 to +0.76 WPA before being dealt is pretty much accounts for the entirety of the difference on his own.)

Because the organization views Dunn as a competent MLB third baseman. Black has played exclusively 1B/DH this year aside from one game at 3B in Nashville. It also allows Black to play everyday at AAA with only sporadic playing time available at the MLB level currently.

Tyler Black has 348 plate appearances in AAA. For his minor league career he has 1,130 PAs across all levels.

Some pitchers do skip the ACL and go right to Carolina. Knoth, Letson and Birchard off the top of my head this year.

Yelich isn’t moving to full time DH (or 1B) so no.

Pretty insane how effective Milner has been, there are 143 relievers with at least 100 IP since 2022 with Hoby coming in at… 165 G (3rd) | 154.2 IP (14th) | 106 K%+ (94th) | 68 BB%+ (10th) | 67 HR9+ (52nd) | 78 FIP- (38th) | 66 ERA- (20th) | 1.9 fWAR (46th) | 2.8 rWAR (27th) | +3.64 WPA (23rd) Getting low end closer/high end set up guy type production out of their gimmicky submariner lefty specialist is a pretty great encapsulation of the Brewers organizational approach to mining value from unlikely places.

Never a dull moment in the ACL, unless you think wild twenty year olds walking the bases juiced is dull. Osbriel came back out to try and finish the game but went K, BB before getting pulled. So now it was up to Anfernny Reyes who walked the first two batters he faced before getting a pop out and K to secure his second save of the season in a 5-2 Crew victory.

From 2017-22 it pretty much was, they had a 104 ERA- (23rd), 11.0 rWAR (22nd) and +7.42 WPA (18th) over that stretch. Last year the Reds young bats got most of the credit, but their bullpen was pretty clutch at 89 ERA- (11th), 7.9 rWAR (3rd) and +8.94 WPA (2nd). The two big guns were Alexis Diaz (67 ERA- | 1.5 rWAR | +4.37 WPA) and Lucas Sims (67 ERA- | 1.8 rWAR | +3.20 WPA) but they’ve both struggled this year with Diaz at a 136 ERA- | -0.33 WPA and Sims at a 104 ERA- | +0.04 WPA so far.

Osbriel works around a pair of walks to put up a zero in the sixth with another K.

ACL Crew picked up a pair of runs in the first via Antony Gomez double, Eric Bitonti walk, Gery Holguin walk, Luiyin Alastre RBI fielder’s choice, and a Johan Barrios bases loaded walk. Eric Prado allowed a pair of runs over four frames with 3 H | 2 BB | 2 K before Osbriel Mogollon put up a scoreless fifth (1 K) working around 2 H and 1 BB. Crew is rallying top of six with Johan Barrios ROE, Luis Lameda single, Ramon Moreno walk, Antony Gomez walk and Eric Bitonti walk netting them another pair of runs. Fillipo Di Turi offered a brief respite with a rare strikeout before a Gery Holguin fielder’s choice netted one more run. Now 5-2 heading to bottom of six with Mogollon still on the mound.

Fun to think about. Guess it all depends around where one wants to draw that arbitrary line. Sorting by ISO+ (isolated slugging adjusted for ballpark/league run environment) on the all time Brewers right handed hitter leaderboard (min. 500 PA) it looks like the homegrown guys at least 20% above average are… Gorman Thomas (180 ISO+), Khris Davis (170 ISO+), Ryan Braun (150 ISO+), Greg Vaughn (149 ISO+), Corey Hart (138 ISO+), Sixto Lezcano (138 ISO+), Tyrone Taylor (130 ISO+), Bill Schroeder (130 ISO+), Joey Meyer (128 ISO+), John Jaha (125 ISO+) and Keston Hiura (124 ISO+). Guys like Bill Hall (118 ISO+) and Rickie Weeks (115 ISO+) come in just below that threshold and were definitely power hitters for their positions, though maybe a little more borderline in an absolute sense.

An intriguing long term play for sure, but just too many guys healthy and performing for him to warrant Top 20 consideration for me right now. Houser (-1.1 rWAR) has been brutal to start the year and Taylor (81 wRC+, -0.1 WAR) has been replacement level, so Coleman won't have a very high bar to clear for the Brewers to win the trade as it stands currently.

With a big four gamer against the Cubs incoming and the season about a third of the way played, now seems like as good a time as any to take stock of the division... MIL: 30-22 | WinDiv: 49.7% (FG) | 36.6% (BPro) Started (9-3) 135 wRC+ (2nd) | SP: 1.4 rWAR (6th) | RP: +0.39 WPA (9th) Since (21-19) 109 wRC+ (7th) | SP: 2.1 rWAR (21st) | RP: +4.00 WPA (1st) Summary: Offense has predictably cooled from their unsustainable early pace, though they have still been healthily above average the last 40 games despite missing Yelich & Hoskins for chunks of that time. Starting pitching over the last 40 has probably been closer to what most envisioned coming into the season. Bullpen has been nails all year, but especially over the last 40 where they have ensured the Brewers won most of the games they should have. CHI: 27-26 | WinDiv: 24.1% (FG) | 37.7% (BPro) Started (17-9) 112 wRC+ (6th) | SP: 2.7 rWAR (8th) | RP: +1.32 WPA (7th) Since (10-17) 80 wRC+ (27th) | SP: 3.3 rWAR (7th) | RP: -0.59 WPA (26th) Summary: Offense and bullpen have collapsed of late, starting pitching has been steady all year. STL: 25-26 | WinDiv: 17.4% (FG) | 21.0% (BPro) Started (15-24) 85 wRC+ (25th) | SP: 1.2 rWAR (25th) | RP: +0.24 WPA (20th) Since (10-2) 135 wRC+ (2nd) | SP: 0.2 rWAR (28th) | RP: +1.57 WPA (4th) Summary: Pretty abysmal across the board to start the year, but the offense and bullpen have gone berserk over their recent hot stretch. Rotation has been even worse than ours all year long despite the Cardinals offseason investment. PIT: 25-29 | WinDiv: 4.2% (FG) | 1.8% (BPro) Started (9-2) 120 wRC+ (7th) | SP: 1.0 rWAR (13th) | RP: +2.06 WPA (2nd) Since (16-27) 79 wRC+ (27th) | SP: 5.0 rWAR (8th) | RP: -2.32 WPA (30th) Summary: Offense and bullpen have been mirror images from the hot start compared to since then, rotation was already solid then got the Skenes boost. CIN: 23-30 | WinDiv: 4.6% (FG) | 2.9% (BPro) Started (14-10) 98 wRC+ (16th) | SP: 1.9 rWAR (13th) | +1.33 WPA (7th) Since (9-20) 75 wRC+ (30th) | SP: 3.1 rWAR (11th) | RP: -0.19 WPA (23rd) Summary: Starting pitching has been steady all year, but offense went from average to adios and bullpen has bombed simultaneously.

Well, whoever is in charge of picking airport codes then. I’ll refrain from making any landing strip jokes.

Dunno who’s in charge of picking the three letter MiLB acronyms but I feel like maybe CHR would have been a better choice than CLT for Charlotte.