sveumrules

If they assign one or both of Bitonti and Adamczewski to Wisco there should be room for both of Made and Peña at Carolina. But yeah, would be tricky having all four in Carolina unless you want to start trying Bitonti in RF, Made/Peña in CF, or Adamczewski in LF for a game or two a week.

I think there’s a pretty good chance Made and Peña will both start in Carolina. Darkhorse DSL guys to join them would be Juan Ortuno - 344/464/481 (159 wRC+) with 29 BB / 27 K. Played all over at LF (13 G), 1B (12 G), 3B (8 G), DH (7 G), 2B (6 G), and SS (4 G). Jose Anderson - 283/403/512 (143 wRC+) with 29 BB / 38 K playing CF almost exclusively.

Earliest version of FanGraphs Playoff Odds are live with the NLC looking like this... CHI: 84.4 W | 42.7% winDIV MIL: 81.5 W | 24.2% winDIV STL: 78.5 W | 11.9% winDIV PIT: 78.2 W | 11.3% winDIV CIN: 77.7 W | 9.8% winDIV Focusing on the Brewers win projection, we know they are an MLB best +71 wins versus the FG preseason totals for the eight full seasons in their database. No doubt it's not just as easy as adding nine wins and saying cool, the Brewers are winning 90+ again, but maybe we can see where they might be getting underestimated (as they have been in the past). Let's start on offense. Last year, the Brewers 27.2 WAR ranked 5th in MLB. Their component rankings were 27.5 batting runs (10th), 32.0 fielding runs (6th), and 19.7 runs on the bases (1st). Of course, the main concern has been losing Willy Adames. He contributed 16.0 batting runs in 2024. But we're also "subtracting" Gary Sanchez (-1.3), Owen Miller (-3.0), Joey Wiemer (-3.4), and hopefully Jake Bauers (-5.3) from the ledger as well. Their -13.0 combined batting runs cancel out a good portion of what Willy contributed. Somewhat interestingly, the FG depth charts project the 2025 Brewers for 23.9 batting runs, with that 3.6 run loss from last year pretty close to the 3.0 run loss arrived upon with the quick & dirty math in the preceding paragraph. On the other two components they are projecting the 2025 Brewers for +8.2 base running and +9.4 fielding. So for the sake of argument, let's say they are right about the batting. It will take a step back from last year, but not collapse completely with the loss of Adames. On the other side of the coin, the base running and fielding are projected something like 34 runs worse than last year. That seems kind of harsh, especially considering Willy was abysmal on defense and Durbin is a speed demon. Pretty easy to see the Brewers adding three to four wins on the projections here. On the pitching side the depth charts like the rotation for 891 IP of 3.98 ERA | 4.10 FIP good for 12.0 WAR. That is a pretty strong projection for a rotation that posted 794 IP of 4.09 ERA | 4.52 FIP last year which shook out to 7.3 fWAR and 10.9 rWAR. At the same time, we know the Brewers rotation has posted a -0.42 ERA/FIP gap over the last two years, quite a bit larger than the projected -0.12 gap. Could be a win or two on the table here too. The 2025 bullpen is projected for 3.1 WAR. The last two years the Brewers bullpen has posted 10.6 fWAR (8th), 20.0 rWAR (1st), and +24.87 WPA (1st). Now of course Devin Williams accounted for 2.7 fWAR, 4.3 rWAR, and +6.18 WPA all by himself, and he gone. But even so, the Brewers could regress all the way down from 8.5 rWAR in 2023 and 11.5 rWAR in 2024 to around six rWAR in 2025 and still come in a three wins ahead of the projection. So putting it all together, plus three to four wins over the projections on base running / defense, another one or two on the rotation, plus three more on the bullpen (even with heavy regression baked in) gets you to plus seven to ten wins, or something like 88 to 92 wins.

Jose has two seasons over two WAR on FanGraphs - 2013 (2.3) and 2024 (2.5). He didn't play in MLB in 2014 or 2023 on account of injury, but every year from 2015 through 2022 he put up between 1.0 and 1.8 WAR. Has definitely been consistent in that high floor, low ceiling kind of way. Maybe the perfect example of the luxury backup, low end starter kind of archetype. Always thought Tyrone Taylor was another good example and he's got a four year run going now with 1.3 / 2.0 / 1.0 / 1.2 WAR since 2021. Back to Iglesias, since he doesn't hit for power or walk (4.3 career BB%) at all, his whole line is pretty much entirely BABIP dependent... 2013-19 (2832 PAs) .306 BABIP | 85 wRC+ 2020 (150 PAs) .407 BABIP | 160 wRC+ 2021-22 (978 PAs) .315 BABIP | 88 wRC+ 2024 (291 PAs) .382 BABIP | 137 wRC+ Has also hit lefties pretty consistently with a 124 wRC+ vs southpaws over 416 PAs since 2021, and a 110 wRC+ vs LHP for his career. Talking a tiny sample spread out over a really long time so it's probably meaningless, but Iglesias also has a 210 wRC+ (and a literal .500 BABIP lol) in 23 career PAs as a pinch hitter. Odd for sure. Out of 803 players with at least 4,000 PAs in the expansion era, the most similar player(s) I could come up with were... Jose Iglesias 52 BB+ | 58 K+ | 112 AVG+ | 62 ISO+ | 90 wRC+ GRUDZIELANEK 53 BB+ | 77 K+ | 107 AVG+ | 65 ISO+ | 91 wRC+ Dee Gordon 49 BB+ | 72 K+ | 111 AVG+ | 47 ISO+ | 88 wRC+ Tito Fuentes 56 BB+ | 65 K+ | 104 AVG+ | 62 ISO+ | 85 wRC+

Cross Drury off the list, minor league deal with the White Sox.

Think it'll pretty much come down to how the playoffs play out. With CLE, BOS and NYK all clearly ahead of them their realistic ceiling right now is the 2nd round. Bounce in the first? Prolly see big changes. Make it to the ECF or make a surprise Finals run? Horst prolly keeps his job to give it one more shot.

Drury (-2.1 WAR in 2024) is coming off the second worst season of the last ten years. DeJong’s .268 OBP is worst in MLB since 2021, he can’t hit LHP (68 wRC+ since 2021), and his SS defense nosedived last year. Rodgers at least hits lefties alright (106 wRC+ last two years), but he is pretty much 2B only with zero career innings at 3B and 16th percentile arm strength last year.

Over the last ten years there are 2,755 individual player seasons with at least 300 PAs. 2024 Drury comes in 2,754th at -2.1 WAR. The only player worse than 2024 Drury in the last ten years is 2018 Chris Davis at -2.5 WAR. His 34 wRC+ last year was two points lower than the 36 wRC+ that JBJ posted with the Brewers in 2021.

Ortiz had a 101 ISO+ last year, so its more like two infielders with extremely limited power and one who is around average. Moncada has a 93 ISO+ in the 2020’s so he likely wouldn’t have moved the needle much on the power production front.

Moncada 2019 559 PA | 139 wRC+ | 5.2 WAR 84 BB+ | 120 K+ 124 AVG+ | 125 ISO+ [Even adjusting for heightened leaguewide offense in 2019, Yoan was clearly a big beneficiary of the juiced ball posting career best hit and power numbers.] Moncada 2021 616 PA | 120 wRC+ | 3.7 WAR 161 BB+ | 111 K+ 107 AVG+ | 87 ISO+ [2021 was fine on the surface but was almost entirely propped up by a crazy high outlier walk rate as Yoan’s hit fell off and his power cratered to below league average levels.] Moncada 2022-24 835 PA | 88 wRC+ | 2.2 WAR 84 BB+ | 123 K+ 97 AVG+ | 96 ISO+ [Last three have been injury marred blah. I’m not sure there’s much left to really bounce back to at this point.] Maybe they get 350-400 PAs of league average-ish production?

Putting Quero third is kind of burying the lede here. I wouldn’t give up Jeferson alone, much less the rest of that package on top of it for one year of Cease.

The Bucks are 5.5 games up on the last team in the playoffs at the moment, and that is the Bulls who are selling. They are 6.5 up on the 76ers in the 11 spot. It would pretty much take a catastrophic injury to Giannis, Dame or both for them to miss the playoffs this year.

its been all down hill since Giannis hired Adrian Griffin.

I mean, we are definitely in the tailspin and have been for some time, but that is just the reality of navigating the cap with a Superstar. You sell the future for the now until the bottom completely falls out. Assuming this year ends with another 1st or 2nd round exit, fire Horst and fingers crossed they find some whiz kid to take over who can either rebuild it around Giannis and convince him to stay, or deal him (& Dame) for a haul of assets to kick off what will likely be a long rebuild with teams chock full of AJ Johnsons.

How we got to this point is the 2nd apron restrictions introduced in the new CBA. Getting under now frees them up to aggregate salaries to make another move if so inclined. As much as I love Midds and the offensive game is still there, this last ankle(s) procedure(s) seem to have really sapped his lateral movement on defense and has further limited his already tenuous minutes / availability situation. Thanks for everything Khris, and sorry it had to be Washington in the end. Hopefully they can reroute him somewhere relevant like POR did with Jrue. Never been a big Kuzma fan, but with a hopeful motivation / performance boost from getting out of DC and next to Giannis, 2025 Kyle should be better than 2025 Khris.

Not a graphic, but will a string of numbers and acronyms suffice? 2024: LAD, NYY, CLE, NYM, DET, KCR, SDP 2023: TEX, ARI, HOU, PHI, MIN 2022: SEA 2021: ATL, BOS 2020: TBR, OAK, MIA 2019: WAS, STL 2018: MIL 2017: CHC 2016: TOR 2014: SFG, BAL 2009: LAA 2007: COL 2005: CHW 1995: CIN 1979: PIT

Circling back around to the Chourio projection, I was curious how other 20 year olds who got regular playing time ended up performing in their age 21 seasons. Using the leaderboards at FanGraphs it looks there have been 32 players in the Expansion Era to have gotten at least 400 PAs in their age 20 season with Chourio coming in at 117 wRC+ (10th) and 3.9 WAR (9th), not too shabby. For the comparisons below I lopped off 1970 Jack Heidemann who was clearly overmatched for his whole career and 1980 Lloyd Moseby (had a nice run with 118 wRC+ and 22.0 WAR from age 23-27 though) at the bottom of the list, then Mike Trout/AlexRodriguez at the top of the list since they were clearly in a whole other league of their own, plus 2019 Juan Soto & Vlad Junior since their age 21 seasons were in the shortened 2020, which leaves the following 25 players... 1989 Gary Sheffield 20: 405 PAs | 82 wRC+ | -0.4 WAR 21: 547 PAs | 118 wRC+ | 2.9 WAR 2008 Justin Upton 20: 417 PAs | 106 wRC+ | 0.6 WAR 21: 588 PAs | 130 wRC+ | 4.9 WAR 2014 Rougned Odor 20: 417 PAs | 91 wRC+ | 1.0 WAR 21: 470 PAs | 107 wRC+ | 2.5 WAR 1997 Edgar Renteria 20: 691 PAs | 81 wRC+ | 1.0 WAR 21: 580 PAs | 90 wRC+ | 0.9 WAR 1976 Robin Yount 20: 690 PAs | 72 wRC+ | 1.1 WAR 21: 663 PAs | 95 wRC+ | 2.4 WAR 1978 Clint Hurdle 20: 481 PAs | 111 wRC+ | 1.2 WAR 21: 204 PAs | 94 wRC+ | 0.0 WAR 1971 Cesar Cedeno 20: 649 PAs | 94 wRC+ | 1.3 WAR 21: 625 PAs | 163 wRC+ | 7.8 WAR 1972 Buddy Bell 20: 505 PAs | 93 wRC+ | 1.5 WAR 21: 689 PAs | 100 wRC+ | 3.6 WAR 1986 Ruben Sierra 20: 411 PAs | 103 wRC+ | 1.6 WAR 21: 696 PAs | 95 wRC+ | 0.9 WAR 2010 Starlin Castro 20: 506 PAs | 99 wRC+ | 1.8 WAR 21: 715 PAs | 109 wRC+ | 2.7 WAR 1975 Rick Manning 20: 535 PAs | 102 wRC+ | 2.1 WAR 21: 606 PAs | 116 wRC+ | 2.7 WAR 1992 Ivan Rodriguez 20: 454 PAs | 85 wRC+ | 2.3 WAR 21: 519 PAs | 94 wRC+ | 2.4 WAR 1978 Alan Trammell 20: 504 PAs | 90 wRC+ | 2.7 WAR 21: 520 PAs | 87 wRC+ | 0.4 WAR 2009 Elvis Andrus 20: 541 PAs | 81 wRC+ | 3.3 WAR 21: 674 PAs | 75 wRC+ | 2.1 WAR 1999 Adrian Beltre 20: 614 PAs | 100 wRC+ | 3.4 WAR 21: 575 PAs | 116 wRC+ | 3.9 WAR 2015 Carlos Correa 20: 432 PAs | 136 wRC+ | 3.4 WAR 21: 660 PAs | 123 wRC+ | 4.1 WAR 1976 Butch Wynegar 20: 622 PAs | 113 wRC+ | 3.6 WAR 21: 617 PAs | 95 wRC+ | 3.0 WAR 1997 Andruw Jones 20: 467 PAs | 96 wRC+ | 3.7 WAR 21: 631 PAs | 113 wRC+ | 7.0 WAR 1975 Claudell Washington 20: 635 PAs | 120 wRC+ | 3.8 WAR 21: 530 PAs | 94 wRC+ | 0.1 WAR 1988 Roberto Alomar 20: 611 PAs | 107 wRC+ | 3.9 WAR 21: 702 PAs | 110 wRC+ | 3.8 WAR 2013 Bryce Harper 20: 497 PAs | 137 wRC+ | 4.1 WAR 21: 395 PAs | 115 wRC+ | 1.6 WAR 2018 Ronald Acuna Jr. 20: 487 PAs | 142 wRC+ | 4.4 WAR 21: 715 PAs | 125 wRC+ | 4.8 WAR 2010 Jason Heyward 20: 623 PAs | 134 wRC+ | 4.7 WAR 21: 456 PAs | 96 wRC+ | 1.9 WAR 2013 Manny Machado 20: 710 PAs | 102 wRC+ | 5.0 WAR 21: 354 PAs | 111 wRC+ | 2.3 WAR 1990 Ken Griffey Jr. 20: 666 PAs | 132 wRC+ | 5.0 WAR 21: 633 PAs | 148 wRC+ | 6.9 WAR So all told I'd say something like 17 of those 25 players (or 19 of 27 if you include Soto and Vlad Jr) have had at least HofVG careers, which is a pretty nice ratio, and I'd break down their progressions from age 20 to age 21 as such... QUANTUM LEAPERS (4 for +17.4 WAR) 1971 Cesar Cedeno (+6.5 WAR), 2008 Justin Upton (+4.3 WAR), 1997 Andruw Jones (+3.3 WAR), 1989 Gary Sheffield (+3.3 WAR) NICE GAINERS (4 for +6.8 WAR) 1972 Buddy Bell (+2.1 WAR), 1990 Ken Griffey Jr. (+1.9 WAR), 2014 Rougned Odor (+1.5 WAR), 1976 Robin Yount (+1.3 WAR) BOUT THE SAMERS (10 for +1.7 WAR) 2010 Starlin Castro (+0.9 WAR), 2015 Carlos Correa (+0.7 WAR), 1975 Rick Manning (+0.6 WAR), 1999 Adrian Beltre (+0.5 WAR), 2018 Ronald Acuna Jr. (+0.4 WAR), 1992 Ivan Rodriguez (+0.1 WAR), 1988 Roberto Alomar (-0.1 WAR), 1997 Edgar Renteria (-0.1 WAR),1976 Butch Wynegar (-0.6 WAR), 1986 Ruben Sierra (-0.7 WAR) LIL STUMBLERS (2 for -2.4 WAR) 1978 Clint Hurdle (-1.2 WAR), 2009 Elvis Andrus (-1.2 WAR) BIG DROPPERS (5 for -13.0 WAR) 1975 Claudell Washington (-3.7 WAR), 2013 Bryce Harper (-2.5 WAR), 2013 Manny Machado (-2.7 WAR), 2010 Jason Heyward (-2.8 WAR), 1978 Alan Trammell (-2.3 WAR)

The Brewers have won at least 86 games every full season going back to 2017. Not sure if BPro has a historical projections easily accessible, but the Brewers are an MLB best +71 wins over the eight full seasons in the FanGraphs database. The Dodgers are second at +54 wins so it’s by no small margin either. Posted this on the message board side with regards to the ZiPS Chourio projection, but I’ll drop it in here too as I think it does a pretty good job illustrating the range and likelihoods of various potential outcomes for Jackson next year…

Yeah, from 2012-19 the Nationals won the second most games in MLB, were over .500 every season, and made the playoffs five times. Even with all that success and a Top Ten payroll most of those seasons, they were bounced in the NLDS their first four postseason trips before finally breaking through and winning the World Series in 2019. And they needed a fair share of luck just to get out of the Wild Card game that year as we all remember too well. Since then it's all fallen apart. Five straight losing seasons en route to the tying the Rockies for the fewest wins in the 2020's plus the Mets, Braves and Phillies more or less guaranteeing them another 4th or 5th place division finish this year.

Iglesias has a career OPS of .710. In the ten seasons he has gotten at least 150 PAs he has cracked a .775 OPS twice. The last time Jose had an above average glove at SS was in 2019 when he posted +5 DRS | +11 FRV. Since then he’s posted -29 DRS | +2 FRV. Odds are much greater that Iglesias is a .700 OPS 2B at this point than a .775 OPS SS.

The chances that Jake Bauers would play any outfield with the Brewers were slim this time last year too, and he ended up starting seven games in LF and two games if RF.

It comes from people who have watched him play… ”It’s a big enough issue that I have him projected to first base and will speculate he’ll eventually play the outfield corner, as well.” -FG 2024 report ”For a while now there has been doubt about Black’s ability to play the infield, and he started seeing time in the outfield in 2022, especially during the Arizona autumn. The look out there was brief, in part because of the injured thumb, but early returns are positive and Black might be able to play out there.” -FG 2023 report Numerous posters on the minor league forum who watch the affiliates daily have also noted their belief that OF is Black’s best spot defensively.

Even if Hoskins is healthy all year, he won't play 162 games. One day off a week to keep him fresh and one day a week at DH would open around 50 games for Black at 1B. Give Tyler one game a week in the DH spot and he's up around 75 starts. Throw in a handful of random OF games like Bauers got last year and he's starting something like half the games and can probably rack up another 30 PAs or so as a pinch hitter (Bauers had 33 last year). Should be able to get Black 350-400 PAs pretty easy if everyone is healthy. Any time Hoskins or Yelich miss with injury just opens more opportunities.

DeJong’s surface level results were decent last year with a 95 wRC+ and 1.7 WAR. But his 4.8 BB% coupled with a 32.4 K% gave him the 205th ranked BB/K ratio out of 207 players with at least 400 PAs in 2024. His .227 batting average was a step up from the .192 mark he posted collectively from 2021-23 though. No walks and no hits means his .268 OBP from 2021-24 comes in 170th out of 170 players with at least 1,500 PAs over that stretch. His 68 wRC+ vs LHP is 256th out of 266 players with at least 300 PAs vs southpaws since 2021. So on offense we’re talking about a guy whose whole value is wrapped up in how many HR he does or doesn’t pop. His SS defense also fell off from 0 DRS | +6 FRV in 2023 down to -9 DRS | -1 FRV in 2024. Could be fluky one year defensive metrics, could be a sign that he’s just not a SS anymore. That offensive profile at 3B? Woof. Seems like a lot of red flags there.

Portland started the year 8 W - 18 L, but are 10 W - 11 L over the last month plus so they have been playing more like a mediocre team than a bad one of late. Bucks are 4 W - 4 L on the second game of a back to back so far this year. Considering they are one of the oldest teams in the NBA that is about the best one can really hope for. Watching the game last night it was pretty clear they just ran out of gas. Missing two regular rotation players in Bobby and AJG, plus having to contend with Scott Foster on a B2B = scheduled loss.