sveumrules

Yeah, if you narrow it down to 2020-23 (min 150 IP) Devin is pretty much tops across the board... 42 ERA- (1st) | 53 FIP- (2nd) | 177 K%+ (2nd) | 60 AVG+ (1st) | 8.1 rWAR (1st) | 6.8 fWAR (1st) | +12.24 WPA (1st) Only guy better than him in FIP- and K%+ is Edwin Diaz at 43 and 185. From 2020-23 Hader comes in at 63 ERA- (10th) | 64 FIP- (9th) | 174 K%+ (3rd) | 68 AVG+ (2nd) | 5.7 rWAR (3rd) | 5.3 fWAR (7th) | +7.52 WPA (3rd)

Congrats to Josh, well deserved. Even with a stinker of a 2022, and missing a the first couple months of 2017, he is far and away the best reliever in MLB since his debut (min. 250 IP)... 60 ERA- (1st) | 64 FIP- (3rd) | 186 K%+ (1st) | 63 AVG+ (1st) | 12.8 rWAR (1st) | 11.3 fWAR (1st) | +15.40 WPA (1st) So the reliever who strikes out the most guys and is the hardest to get a hit or score a run off of over the last seven seasons. Hader's 15.40 WPA over that stretch was actually 5th among all pitchers with only Scherzer, Verlander, Cole and deGrom topping his mark.

Because he has an extremely narrow skillset. The Good: Among 177 players with at least 800 PA from 2022-23, he comes in at .306 BA (5th) and 123 wRC+ (44th). The Bad: Among those same 177 players he comes in at 4.7 BB% (169th), .126 ISO (153rd), -22.0 DEF (153rd) and 53.6 GB% (6th). Add it all up and his 3.0 WAR comes in at 122nd among those 177 players with at least 800 PA from 2022-23. Steamer projects him for a 112 wRC+ and 0.5 WAR, ZiPS is less optimistic at 105 OPS+ and 0.3 WAR for 2024. To sustain even that middling level of production he has needed to run a ..354 BABIP (4th). Once that comes crashing down it's over.

The Packers defense allowed 350 points to be scored against them this season, 10th fewest in the NFL.

Among 137 SP with at least 250 IP over 2021-23, Cease comes in at… 97 GS (1st) | 527 IP (15th) | 131 K%+ (9th) | 120 BB%+ (128th) | 79 HR9+ (24th) | 83 ERA- (33rd) | 78 FIP- (16th) | 10.8 rWAR (24th) | 12.6 fWAR (8th) His K rate is tied with Woodruff over that stretch, his HR suppression is right between Bieber and Rodon, his ERA- is tied with Castillo, his FIP- is tied with Scherzer and Buehler, his rWAR is just ahead of Pablo Lopez, his fWAR is just behind Sandy Alcantara. That’s way better than a good #3 or #4 type pitcher, I’d say a solid #2 at worst. Reign in those walks, and get him a better defense (White Sox -151 DRS is dead last from 2021-23) and there is ace upside in there.

One of Mitchell or Wiemer makes sense given the OF surplus, but I wouldn’t want to include Black since that just creates a bigger hole at 3B for the MLB club in 2024. The Brewers internal evaluation of Arraez glove would likely be a big factor too. If they think he is a scratch defender at 2B like DRS does (+2 career), that’s probably fine next to Hoskins (-7 DRS | -11 OAA career) coming off an ACL. If they think Luis at 2B is closer to his OAA marks (-25 career), they might have him pegged as more of a 1B/DH only guy on the defensive spectrum.

If we’re holding Burnes, Adames, Williams to start the season I’d be fine with him as the 13th position player since they get minimal run anyway. Assuming a lineup of Contreras, Santana, Turang, Adames, Black, Frelick, Chourio, Mitchell and Yelich at DH, you can cover all eight positions with a bench of Haase, Monasterio, Perkins and still have one spot for a guy like Votto to pinch hit or spell 1B/DH occasionally. Even a washed Votto should be a big improvement over what we got from guys like Rowdy (78 wRC+), Winker (65 wRC+), Ruf (54 wRC+), Voit (53 wRC+) or Singleton (-8 wRC+) last year. Probably all moot anyway since I don’t see him signing with anyone but Cincy or Toronto.

Wow, that is some dubious voting. Sal Frelcik (1.4 WAR), Abner Uribe (+1.27 WPA), Blake Perkins (1.2 WAR) and Joey Wiemer (1.1 WAR) all handily out-performed Monasterio (0.4 WAR) last year. Garrett Mitchell was able to match that 0.4 WAR in 242 fewer PAs.

Right, I noted his AA struggles (which were also injury influenced). He also bounced back and posted the lowest K rate of his MiLB career in AAA once he got healthy after those struggles. He posted a 139 wRC+ during April/May at AA before crashing to a 54 wRC+ in June/July when he was dealing with the injury. That’s closer to a year and a half ago that any concerns propped up than three years.

Assuming guys like Bellinger, Chapman and Soler are out of our price range in terms of dollars/years, my tiers would probably be something like… Prolly Still a Dream Hoskins, Joc More Realistic Santana, Belt, Turner, JDM, Urshela Please No Ji-Man, Vogelbach, Cooper Would also be fine with a guy like Ryu or Paxton on a one year deal for additional SP depth if the Brewers think they could eke a little last something out of them.

The wonky swing mechanics helped him break out in the first place, to the tune of a 155 wRC+ over 472 PA at A/A+ with a 22.2 K%. A wrist injury ate into his AA production (98 wRC+ over 374 PAs with a 30.2 K%) to start 2022, but he flipped the script with his promotion to AAA at a 135 wRC+ over 174 PAs with only a 19.5 K%. That wonky swing fueled two years of production and scouting reports that landed Joey a spot in the 2022 Futures Game plus #90 (MLB) and #65 (BPro) Top 100 rankings heading into 2023. There was no need to address it over the first two seasons, outside of an injury influenced AA hiccup you couldn’t draw up a much better ascent for a raw 4th rounder from the Midwest coming out of the Covid draft for a 150K bonus. Obviously he was exposed at the MLB level last year after being rushed up faster than anticipated due to injury, then forcing his way into everyday action with even better than advertised defense, but with options remaining and the highest upside of any non-Chourio OF in the system my guess is the Brewers exercise patience with him to figure it out in AAA with guys like Yelich, Frelick, Chourio, Mitchell and Perkins giving them plenty of options to cover MLB OF at bats in the meantime.

This link has the median ZiPS projections for all Brewers players in 2024. The individual player pages also have Steamer projections. ZiPS also provides the 80th percentile projections which look like... Chourio 291/332/458 (114 OPS+) 3.1 WAR Weimer 246/321/446 (107 OPS+) 1.9 WAR Frelick 298/357/426 (115 OPS+) 3.0 WAR Mitchell 282/352/434 (116 OPS+) 1.7 WAR Turang 364/334/387 (98 OPS+) 2.5 WAR Black 264/366/451 (123 OPS+) 2.9 WAR Gasser 3.74 ERA (2.4 WAR) Coleman Crow 3.70 ERA (2.0 WAR) Even McKendry 3.87 ERA (2.1 WAR) Tobias Myers 4.02 ERA (2.0 WAR) Uribe 3.06 ERA (1.1 WAR)

These were the final ZiPS projections for 2023. Adding up the deviation from zero for all 30 teams actual wins I got 272 wins, or just over 9 per team. In this thread I came up with an average margin of error of just under 8 wins for the projected preseason win totals available on FanGraphs Playoff Odds page, which uses a 50/50 split of Steamer and ZiPS. There were 210 individual 162 game seasons in that sample from 2016 to 2023.

I’m not saying BTV is unimpeachable or anything, but they have McLanahan at $37.3M in surplus value compared to $8.9M for Wilken. With some combination Caminero, Mead and Paredes lined up the Rays already have three 3B better than Brock. Rays worst projected positions are currently CF and C, so they’d probably be more keen on Frelick ($35.4M surplus value on BTV) or Quero ($24.2M) as a McClanahan headliner.

Yes. Adames at 12.25M for this coming year, Hader for $11M in 2022, Woodruff fr $10.8M in 2023 and Williams for $10.5M in 2025 on the second year of his extension.

Haha, there was much talk about Tyler Black’s (ahem) shrinkage over on the Minors forum this summer. FanGraphs had a nice dive into the topic in general a little bit back too, with Black getting some mention. Essentially boils down to amateurs over-reporting their height because it is advantageous to do so, and then once they reach the minors (especially leagues with automated ball strike systems) it becomes advantageous to be shorter. Brewers had by far the most players who shrunk in that linked article so there may be some degree of organizational gamesmanship at play as well.

True, but guys like Willy ($12.25M) this year, or Woodruff ($10.8M) and Adames ($8.7M) for 23, or Hader ($11M) and Renfroe ($7.65M) in 22 that were within a couple two tree million of Burnes range all settled without going in front of the panel. Williams just signed a two year deal at big Arby’s money so he can pitch the next two seasons without worrying about financials before hitting FA.

The Bucks had two days off. Celtics flew to Milwaukee after their top four guys played 40-43 minutes each in an OT win. Porzingis was fresh, but noted Bucks slayer Al Horford was out since he played 38 mins the night before. I don’t think it’s an excuse to say the rest deficit played a role in one team playing well and the other playing sloppy. For me it’s more of a schedule loss than any kind of telling Bucks win, but I’ll always enjoy beating down the Celtics regardless. Thanasis minutes at the end were the cherry on top.

Last year every player but Burnes settled without a hearing. This year every single player settled without a hearing. Historically, the Brewers have settled with the overwhelming majority of their Arby’s guys instead of going to a hearing. I think Burnes was the one looking for a fight moreso than the Brewers were last winter.

Justin Chambers clearly has some talent, but has yet to throw a professional pitch. It’ll probably be at least five years before we know if the price paid was steep, inconsequential, or somewhere in between.

Idiotic of the NBA to schedule teams for a National Game on the second half of a B2B, but if that’s what it takes to beat the Celtics…I guess I’ll take it.

Nola probably signed with the Brewers because it's the best offer he got. They also have a reputation for "fixing" catcher defense and Nola has been among the worst with -12 DRS (41st of 50 catchers with at least 1,500 innings from 2019-23) and -8.3 Framing Runs (34th) for his career.

Roster Resource lists Clarke as having an option remaining. MLBTR noted the same in their write up of the transaction.

NL WEST Los Angeles Dodgers (+50 Wins, 2nd) 16: 93 (91) -2 17: 97 (104) +7 18: 95 (92) -3 19: 92 (106) +14 21: 100 (106) +6 22: 95 (111) +16 23: 88 (100) +12 Colorado Rockies (+16 Wins, 8th) 16: 73 (75) +2 17: 78 (87) +9 18: 79 (91) +12 19: 79 (71) -8 21: 65 (74) +9 22: 68 (68) 0 23: 67 (59) -8 Arizona Diamondbacks (+7 Wins, 11th) 16: 78 (69) -9 17: 77 (93) +16 18: 81 (82) +1 19: 77 (85) +8 21: 72 (52) -20 22: 69 (74) +5 23: 78 (84) +6 San Francisco Giants (-6 Wins, 17th) 16: 88 (87) -1 17: 88 (64) -24 18: 81 (73) -8 19: 73 (77) +4 21: 76 (107) +31 22: 85 (81) -4 23: 83 (79) -4 San Diego Padres (-41 Wins, 26th) 16: 73 (68) -5 17: 66 (71) +5 18: 72 (66) -6 19: 78 (70) -8 21: 95 (79) -16 22: 90 (89) -1 23: 92 (82) -10 NOTES: Of course the Dodgers beat up on the projections just like they do the rest of MLB (regular season non-pandemic WS only). They also clock in at +326 DRS (2nd) and +39.88 bullpen WPA (4th) to support the idea that elite fielding and relief pitching help you beat the projections. Rockies at least meet one criteria (+165 DRS, 9th), even if their bullpen is predictably non-impactful (+4.51 WPA, 19th). Frequent Offseason Champion Padres checking in at -41 wins versus the projections, 5th worst in MLB, kind of goes to show that winning the offseason doesn't always equate to winning the actual season.

NL CENTRAL Milwaukee Brewers (+58 Wins, 1st) 16: 69 (73) +4 17: 70 (86) +16 18: 80 (96) +16 19: 81 (89) +8 21: 83 (95) +12 22: 90 (86) -4 23: 86 (92) +6 St. Louis Cardinals (+9 Wins, 10th) 16: 86 (86) 0 17: 85 (83) -2 18: 87 (88) +1 19: 84 (91) +7 21: 81 (90) +9 22: 83 (93) +10 23: 87 (71) -16 Chicago Cubs (-5 Wins, 16th) 16: 96 (103) +7 17: 96 (92) -4 18: 96 (95) -1 19: 87 (84) -3 21: 80 (71) -9 22: 75 (74) -1 23: 77 (83) +6 Cincinnati Reds (-8 Wins, 19th) 16: 71 (68) -3 17: 68 (68) 0 18: 71 (67) -4 19: 79 (75) -4 21: 79 (83) +4 22: 75 (62) -13 23: 70 (82) +12 Pittsburgh Pirates (-12 Wins, 20th) 16: 83 (78) -5 17: 80 (75) -5 18: 76 (82) +6 19: 77 (69) -8 21: 66 (61) -5 22: 69 (62) -7 23: 70 (82) +12 NOTES: Brewers are the biggest projection beaters of them all with +242 DRS (4th) and +41.55 bullpen WPA (1st) doing a lot of the heavy lifting. Cubs are another outlier to the defense/relief theory with +289 DRS (3rd) and a +29.29 bullpen WPA (8th), but a middling -5 wins versus the projections and only a 31 win deviation from zero over the seven full seasons, 3rd smallest in the sample. Also think this exercise does a good job of illustrating how the NLC is superior to the ALC, despite them often getting lumped together as equally bad. The actual win tally comes in at 2,972 for the NLC compared to 2,813 for the ALC from 2016-23, while the NLC came in at +42 net wins vs the projections compared to -123 net wins vs the projections for the ALC.