sveumrules

I wonder what popped out to them about him. At first glance his stuff doesn't seem all that inspiring, but there's gotta be more to it than "Ethan Small did well so let's take someone similar." The Brewers FO has access to (& apparently leans heavily on) data that is not available in the public sphere. Would imagine his pitches have spin or tunneling profiles which the Brewers think will play or can be improved upon, plus his height surely creates a unique angle of attack which they also seem to be pretty big believers in.

We've graduated or traded for Narvaez, Hiura, Adames, Urias, Yelich, Woodruff, Burnes, Peralta, Houser, Hader, Williams, Suter & won the 7th most games in MLB over the last four years. 29th ranked farm or not, Ashby, Small, Mitchell & Turang are all due to start coming up over the next couple years & look like potential MLB contributors at this point. The models are working just fine. Yet we still don't have a 1B or 3B in that model system you speak of. 1B maybe not, luckily that is the easiest position to fill. Sure, over 152 games from 2020-21 the Brewers 1B have posted a 92 wRC+ (25th) and 0.1 WAR (26th). But in the 649 games from 2016-19 Stearns & company managed to get a 120 wRC+ (7th) and 9.2 WAR (10th) from 1B from cast offs & never got a chances like Aguilar, Thames & Carter. There's about four times as much evidence indicating Stearns & company will be able to figure something out than there is that 1B is some huge blindspot in organizational philosophy. Urias is handling 3B capably currently, and Adames could slide over also if Turang is a better defensive SS in the future or the team decides to bring in someone like Marcus Semien over the winter or whoever they go after at the deadline. Plenty of flexibility in both the near & long term at 3B.

Only 16.8% of players drafted in the first round from pick #15 until the end of the first round even cracked a measly 7 WAR from the 2004-13 drafts. It's not as premium of a pick as you think it is, because the MLB Draft is a huge crapshoot after the first few picks. Even in a draft that was universally hailed as the Delmon Young/Rickie Weeks draft at the time, ended up being just the Nick Markakis draft.

Is Nyjer Morgan the type of talent this team should be drafting in the first round. At this point in the draft they should have gone with someone with more upside and no it means nothing to me that he was mocked to go this high. So Wicks getting mocked to the Brewers meant there was a 90% chance he was our pick, but Sal getting mocked consistently in the Top 10 means nothing? Gotcha. Nyjer posted 7 WAR over the course of his career. Zero players picked 15th or later in the first round from 2015 to present have posted seven WAR as of yet, only two from 2014 (Chapman & Flaherty) because these things take time. In the ten drafts prior here are the number of players drafted 15th or later in the first round to crack 7 WAR in their career... 2013: 5 of 25 picks 2012: 10 of 46 picks 2011: 7 of 46 picks 2010: 5 of 36 picks 2009: 7 of 35 picks 2008: 8 of 32 picks 2007: 6 of 50 picks 2006: 4 of 30 picks 2005: 6 of 34 picks 2004: 7 of 27 picks TOTAL: 65 of 388 (16.8%) picks means about 6 or 7 guys per year drafted 15th or later in the first round ever have a career as good as Tony Plush. Among those 65 seven or more WAR players there were 22 college pitchers, 15 HS position players, 13 HS pitchers, 12 college position players, 2 JC position players & 1 JC pitcher.

Other sub six foot Brewers position player prospects in addition to Frelick... Quero (5' 10"), Hedbert (5' 11"), Hamilton (5' 10"), Rodriguez (5' 10"), Valerio (5' 7"), Cantrelle (5' 11"), Bello (5' 11") & Hummel (5' 10") plus guys like Omar (5' 11"), Urias (5' 9") & Kolten (5' 7") on the MLB side. Lack of height doesn't appear to be that big of a deal to the Brewers front office.

Agree the hitters are ahead of the pitchers at the lower levels currently, FG also mentioned in their pre-draft farm system rankings that "teams ranked low who I think have players destined for huge growth includes the Cubs, Angels and Brewers because of the young players they have at Low-A and on the complex right now." On the international/complex side there is Hedbert, Quero, Chourio, Garcia, Eduarqui, Mendez, etc for hitters versus not (m)any really highly regarded guys on the pitching side. Between intriguing guys at A/A+ on the hitting side there is Howell, Warren, Gray, Valerio, Hamilton, Cantrelle, Ernesto, Ward, Zamora, Rodriguez, Wiemer, etc vs only Uribe & Olson on the pitching side before you get into guys who are more speculative like Bullock, Luna, Matulovich, Floyd & Bennett where you hope the Brewers development side can unearth some hidden value. Obviously getting some of the injury guys back on the pitching side over the next year plus will help, but have to imagine the scouting department has a handful of college arms they've got some interesting data on that they believe in & will be targeting on day two.

Contract was announced as 2/24, but it's complicated, Cot's says... 21:$6.5M, 22:$9.5M player option ($6.5M buyout), 23:$12M mutual option ($8M buyout) So the rest of 21 (2+ million) plus the buyouts (14.5 million). Would imagine JBJ can't pick up his PO for 22 if he's DFA, but if he somehow can (and 6.5 + 9.5 + 8 = 24 so maybe he can?) that's another three million. TLDR DFA JBJ $$$$$

Entering today's game, Cincinnati position players have posted a 107 wRC+, -6.0 on the bases & -11.3 in the field, good for 11.7 WAR. Brewers position players have posted a 96 wRC+, +5.3 on the bases & +20.1 in the field, good for 11.6 WAR. For those curious why Stearns & company have a tendency to target multi-category contributors over bat only players, I feel like that is a pretty concise illustration as to why.

Yeah, he has Adam Frazier vibes. IGT darling Frazier was my first thought too. Even with below average power (80 ISO+), he has managed an overall above average batting line (106 wRC+) on the strength of a top ten K rate (60 K%+) & propensity for getting hits (111 AVG+). Throw in league average-ish base running (+2.0) / defense (-1.7) & Frazier has posted 9 WAR with a year and a half of team control remaining. If Sal can put together a similar batting line with better base running & defense, the Brewers will have a pretty valuable contributor to hopefully bounce around 2B/CF/LF.

When the Brewers started the season 17-10, I don't think anyone realistically thought the team would maintain that pace, finish with 102 wins & take the division by a dozen games over the Cardinals, who were two games back at 15-10 then. Regression set in quickly, with the Brewers losing six in a row & 13 of 17 overall to drop their record to 21-23 after 44 games. Now here, I do think some people did believe (& maybe even still do believe) this 77-78 win pace is representative of the team's true talent. Then, the Willy Adames trade happened. The Brewers ran off a 30-10 stretch (which included a 5 game losing streak where they scored only 12 runs) bringing their season record to 51-33 after 84 games (98-99 win pace) which amounted to an eight game lead (15-16 pace) over the Reds. Again, I think most would agree these were not realistically maintainable paces & that the Brewers were not likely to waltz to the NL Central crown by double digits unobstructed. Regression has once again set in, with the Brewers going 2-6 over their last 8 games before the break, cutting their division lead in half to 4 games. But over-reacting to 27 or 17 or 44 or 40 or 84 or 8 or even 92 game stretches during a 162 game season is far from the best way to gauge a team's true talent level. The best way to predict future outcomes (though obviously still far from infallible) is to look at as much information as objectively as possible with a specific focus on certain measurements which correlate best with future performance. Sounds like a lot for my puny human brain to handle, so I trust the computers, who don't seem too worried with current Division Odds of 85.7% vs 6.8% (PECOTA), 79.8% vs 15.7% (FanGraphs), 75.9% vs 19.7% (BRef), and 69% vs 22% (538) all favoring the Brewers heading into the break.

From the FG mock, which had Black going to TB at #34... Black is likely to come off the board a little bit before this (maybe even right before this pick, to Milwaukee), but as a contact-oriented middle infielder, he’s the Rays’ type of player.

Was just re-reading the 2015 draft threads & Grisham was a short OF with a hit over power profile at #15 back in 2015. There were also questions about if his speed/arm would play in CF. Maybe Trent had better power projection as a HS kid, but gotta think Sal has a higher floor being a college draftee with the edge on defense (at draft time anyway).

Looks like the signing deadline is August 1st this year. Carolina still has like seven weeks of games after that, so would imagine Frelick gets some time at the complex after signing then gets bumped to Carolina to finish the season.

I hear this low draft position excuse all the time but organizations like Tampa pick as late or later and have done quite well. So have the Brewers. Tampa's top four prospects entering the year (Franco, Arozarena, Brujan, Patino) were all international signings or acquired via trade, none were drafted by TB. The Brewers made next to zero international effort prior to Stearns & company getting here. Since then they have increased that effort drastically, but we 're talking about 16/17 year old kids from foreign countries, so these things take a looong time & those increased efforts are just starting to show up on the lists. In the FanGraphs pre-draft farm system rankings, they specifically mentioned the Brewers as a team primed for future growth in this area... Teams ranked low who I think have players destined for huge growth includes the Cubs, Angels and Brewers because of the young players they have at Low-A and on the complex right now.

Woodruff was drafted in 2014, Montgomery was only here for 2015-16 drafts.

Yes pick about the biggest outlier of all time to make a point. Jose Ramirez good? Mookie Betts. Wander Franco is listed 5'10". Sure, the likelihood of Frelick (or any player in any draft outside the top couple two tree picks) ever being as good as any of those guys is infinitesimal. My personal theory is the Brewers are targeting shorter players with good approach/bat to ball skills because they believe this player type will benefit most when the electronic strike zone eventually arrives.

The reason we have such a lowly ranked farm system is because we have graduated or traded for over half of the current 26 man roster which has won the 9th most games in MLB at the All Star break this year, combined with poor draft position because the MLB team has won the 7th most games since 2018 with all the players they graduated or acquired via trade from their poorly rated farm system. All our 1st round picks post Ray have performed consistently & steadily climbed the ladder through the system. Just because you don't understand or disagree with the philosophy doesn't mean it isn't working.

We've graduated or traded for Narvaez, Hiura, Adames, Urias, Yelich, Woodruff, Burnes, Peralta, Houser, Hader, Williams, Suter & won the 7th most games in MLB over the last four years. 29th ranked farm or not, Ashby, Small, Mitchell & Turang are all due to start coming up over the next couple years & look like potential MLB contributors at this point. The models are working just fine.

FG chat hinting at Frelick.

I hope not What's wrong with Madden? By most every account he's a hell of a prospect. Apparently he doesn't have the fastball traits the more analytically inclined teams typically target.

KC just pushed one more top 15 guy down the board for us to choose from.

Goldstein saying Jobe to DET on the FG chat. Red Sox snag Marcelo at #4?

Wouldn't be surprised at all if any of the pitchers mentioned here end up getting picked by the Brewers... https://blogs.fangraphs.com/statistical-diamonds-in-the-rough-2/

With Omar & Fred getting added the Brewers will have five All Stars for the third straight game.

Medeiros & Jungmann were both picked prior to Stearns & company arriving, not sure how relevant that really is at this point, even if the mockers did get them right. Ray was the #5 pick, which is a lot easier to mock than the #15 pick. None of MLB, FanGraphs, MyMLBDraft, DraftUtopia, CallToThePen, MinorLeagueMadhouse, BleacherReport (those were just the first page of search results for "2017 MLB Mock Draft") had us mocked for Keston at #9 in 2017. Don't recall much linking us to any of Turang, Small or Mitchell prior to the last three drafts.