Angels aren't trading Neto.
They need him to finish with 80 wins or fewer for the 9th straight season while running a Top Ten payroll eight of those nine seasons.
His value is significantly higher than a Mark Canha style bat.
I don’t believe the Brewers will move Tobias for anything less than a position player with multiple years of control.
The only rookie pitchers who topped his 3.4 rWAR last year were Skenes and Imanaga & he followed that up with five scoreless in the playoffs.
Obviously the oblique threw him off track to start this year, but he’s got a 65 ERA- | 77 FIP- in AAA, a scooch better than Logan Henderson’s 70 ERA- | 85 FIP- with Nashville.
As they say on the mean streets of Maryvale…Complex Gonna Complex.
Luckily a double dose of two baggers from Engel Paulino & Handelfry walked it off for the Zona Crew by a score of Baker’s Dozen to Regular Dozen.
Mound visit turned into a new pitcher and Frederi Montero came through with an RBI single.
Luis Corobo liked the look of that so he knocked an RBI single of his own.
All nine batters have a hit (& four have two) with one out (& the bases loaded) bottom three.
Zona Crew leading 8-5 heading to bottom three.
Twelve of the thirteen runs have scored with two outs.
Adamczewski (two singles, walk), Jorge Quintana (single, triple), Demetrio Nadal (single, double, four RBI), and Engel Paulino (single, walk, two steals) among the early stand outs.
Mudcats go final with the 5-3 loss.
While we're consolidating bad news, Blake Perkins just donned the golden sombrero with his fourth strikeout of the evening.
Sounds tied 4-4 heading to top nine.
Chad Patrick pitched six innings with 2 R | 5 H | 3 BB | 7 K in his return to AAA. Blake Holub followed with a 4U3D seventh (1 BB), before Will Childers gave up the game tying two run HR in the eighth.
Tyler Black and Jeferson Quero have each homered for Nashville (Black singled too) while Drew Avans has chipped in a single and double.
Mudcats trailing 5-3 heading to bottom nine.
Jayden Dubanewicz was victim to some bad luck with four unearned runs (& one earned) over six frames with 8 H | 0 BB | 5 K. Ethan Dorchies has followed with three scoreless frames of 1 H | 1 BB | 5 K work.
Luis Pena (single, double) and Eric Martinez (HR, double) have done most of the damage for the offense with Gery Holguin, Reece Walling, and Martinez due up bottom nine trying to walk it off.
Let's get the ugly out of the way right away...
Biloxi losing 6-0 top of five and getting no hit.
Wisco was getting shutout and one hit through three innings, but have got a little action going bottom four with a double from Jadher Areinamo, Hedbert Perez walk and Juan Baez loading the bases for a Tayden Hall sac fly to cut it down to a 3-1 deficit.
Over the last two years there are 252 players with at least 500 PA.
Ortiz ranks 204th with an 88 wRC+, he ranks 18th in defensive value at +17.7 runs, and his 3.6 WAR is tied for 106th.
One of the guys he is tied with at 3.6 WAR is fellow infielder Jake Cronenworth who has made $18M the last two years (with another $60M yet to be paid out), versus something like $1.5M for Ortiz.
Colt Keith is just below Joey on the leaderboard with 3.5 WAR, he signed a $28.6M extension last year.
Oft mentioned Brewers trade target Brandon Lowe is just above Joey at 3.7 WAR, but Brandon has made $19.25M the last two years.
Another infielder just ahead of Joey is Andres Gimenez at 3.8 WAR. He's made $15M the last two years with another $86.5M still on his contract.
People want to give up value for Ryan McMahon and he's only at 2.7 WAR since 2024 and has cost $24M the last two years with another $32M still pending.
There is no need to sugar coat anything, Ortiz has produced similar value to a number of well compensated infielders while making league minimum.
Not sure if they actually overlapped at FanGraphs, but Kiley was their lead prospect analyst for awhile and the Brewers Director of Player Information August Fagerstrom used to write for FG before getting hired by Milwaukee.
FanGraphs had him at #29 with a 40 FV. Their 40 FV tier for the Brewers runs from #21 to #37, so just outside of that Top Twenty range in their estimation anyways. TLDR version is they think his issues with command will limit him to more of a multi inning relief kind of a role, but there's still time to figure it out before his 40 Man year.
Just looking at the raw numbers, there are 290 pitchers with at least 150 IP in the minors since last year. Some of Tate's better rankings are 2.94 ERA (18th) | 0.58 HR/9 (35th) | .216 AVG (36th) | 48.6 GB% (47th) | 26.3 K% (50th)
But the 12.6 BB% (273rd) is so extreme on the other end that it tanks his WHIP down to 1.31 (141st) and FIP down to 3.71 (65th).
Believe Spencer mentioned recently that Kuehner had been scaling back his walk rate as the season has gone along. Looking at the game log his last four walk game was on May 23rd, here are his before after splits from that date...
thru 0523
43 IP | 23.2 K% | 16.9 BB%
since 0523
39.2 IP | 29.7 K% | 8.7 BB%
On the surface Zavier's 2023 Biloxi line of 236/319/409 and this year's 246/341/412 look pretty close, but big difference in league context between 2023 (.740 league average OPS) and 2025 (.661 league average OPS) so that 2023 triple slash shook out to a 92 wRC+ compared to this year's model being good for a 122 wRC+.
Looking through the FanGraphs Draft Board and this young hombre sounds kind of like a Brewers sort of guy...
#19 Gustavo Melendez (45 FV) 5'9" lefty hitting high school shortstop among the youngest players in the draft...
Compact infielder with big rotational athleticism. Swing has natural loft. Short to the baseball because of his size. Crushes fastballs and diagnoses breaking balls well; had a 2-to-1 ball in play-to-whiff ratio on the showcase circuit. Body is similar to Jett Williams and Kevin McGonigle when they came out — a compact guy whose perceived power ceiling is lower than his big-framed peers — but Melendez's skills and sneaky pop give him a shot to be an everyday middle infielder. Fits at shortstop on defense with plus actions and a nearly plus arm; range is closer to average. Has a better shot to play shortstop than all but a few players in the class, college or pro, should be in the late first round mix when the cement dries on this class.
Top of the order - Josh Adamczewski (two singles, walk), Handelfry Encarnacion (HR, double, two singles), and Jorge Quintana (HR, single) - propelled the ACL Crew to an 8-4 win with Engel Paulino (double, walk) and Jadyn Fielder (double, stolen base) also chipping in.
Tyler Renz allowed three runs with 6 H | 0 BB | 3 K over 5.1 IP to start things off and Ayendy Bravo finished with three innings of 1 R | 4 H | 0 BB | 3 K work.
Sounds win 3-2 scoring the winning run top of nine on a Jeferson Quero RBI double.
Daz Cameron (HR, single, walk), Quero (single, double) and Jorge Alfaro (two singles) collected most of the hits while Garrett Stallings turned in another impressive start going six innings of 2 R | 3 H | 0 BB | 6 K.
Craig Yoho (1.1 IP | 1 H | 1 K), Bryan Hudson (0.2 IP), and Joel Payamps (1.0 IP | 1 H | 3 K) zeroed out the final three frames.
Both DSL squads came away with wins on the island.
Blue won 5-1 to improve to 15 W - 12 L on the season.
Moises Polanco homered & walked while Carlos Done doubled, with Carlos Galindo going 4 IP | 1 ER | 4 H | 1 BB | 5 K to run his record to a perfect 4 W - 0 L.
Gold prevailed 4-1 (over the Cubs, natch) inching closer to .500 at 12 W - 16 L.
Jose Arias handled the bulk of the pitching with five innings of 1 R | 2 H | 2 BB | 2 K work while Juan Martinez (single, two doubles, stolen base) and Eryks Rivero (single, triple) provided most of the offense. Jonathan Rangel also singled and walked twice to keep that OPS north of a thousand.
TRats got blown out 12-3, but don’t blame nasty Nestor going four scoreless with 3 H | 0 BB | 2 K.
Blake Burke singled, doubled and walked while Hedbert Perez hit his tenth HR of the season.
Welcome to the site.
Definitely one of the best parts of perusing the minor league boxes is coming across guys like Peters and realizing they’re still out there chasing the dream.