sveumrules

Feels like having both Capra and Durbin on the MLB roster would be a little redundant (pun intentional). I’d personally keep Margot and Canha for the last two spots so Caleb can get regular playing time in Nashville.

Pratt will only be playing in his age 20 season this year. Average age for Southern League hitters was 23.8 last year, for the International League it was 26.4. Nothing wrong with Pratt spending most or all of the year at Biloxi considering his age and only getting 95 PAs at Wisco last year. Last year there was only one "qualified" batter age 20 or younger in the Southern League, and only five players age 20 or younger cracked 100 PAs. Even if he starts back at Wisco (average MWL batter age was 22.3 last year) Cooper is still way ahead of schedule.

When that guy is ranked #14 by both MLB and BA, and they have no motivation to trade him (so any hopeful acquiring team will have to overpay)...yes.

Orioles apparently weren’t willing to move him for one year of Burnes (or maybe the Brewers preferred Ortiz all along). Peralta isn’t as good as Burnes, but it’s two years instead of one. That might be ballpark value wise, but I don’t see the Brewers moving Freddy with injuries already popping up in the rotation. Assuming BAL is looking for MLB arms or close to it in return I’d guess a couple guys out of Misio, Tobias. Gasser, Henderson and Yoho would be must includes. That probably isn’t enough to get them all the way there so add somebody from the Wilken, Boeve, Yophery, Payne, Bitonti, Adams position player group to get over the finish line. There’s also some chance the Brewers eval on Mayo is that he won’t be an MLB calibre defender at 3B so they wouldn’t be comfortable meeting the Orioles big ask for a guy they see ending up at the bottom of the defensive spectrum.

Mentioned on the broadcast he was slated to start in LF last night over Jose Anderson, but was a late scratch with "tightness" I believe they said.

Miller has over 1,450 PAs in the minor leagues. I don't think that seven spring training PAs will move the needle much on his evaluation. Until he shows that he can impact the baseball on contact or makes big strides defensively he projects as a 3rd catcher.

Connor Thomas is a lefty, yes? Pictured is a RHP.

Obviously I like me some stats, but maybe my favorite one is that over the last two years the Brewers are 16th in FIP based WAR (29.2) but 1st in runs allowed based WAR (46.6). Those 17 extra wins align pretty closely with the +19 wins they’ve posted on the FanGraphs projections over the last two years. So it’s probably fair to say our pitchers are around average, but our run prevention is top notch (and the so called experts still haven’t caught on yet).

Yeah, looking at Depth Charts they have the Brewers projected for +8.8 FLD. They were at +64 DRS last year and +68 in 2023. There’s some heavy overlap with the ERA-FIP here, but it looks like the regression they bake into their fielding projections is costing the Brewers five or six wins from the jump. Also saw they have the Brewers projected for +7.2 BsR after they notched a +19.7 last year. Could be another win waiting out on the bases too.

As of today FanGraphs has the NL Central looking like this... CHC: 84.0 W | 41.0% winDIV MIL: 80.8 W | 21.2% winDIV STL: 79.0 W | 14.2% winDIV CIN: 78.3 W | 11.8% winDIV PIT: 78.2 W | 11.9% winDIV Just for reference, over the eight full seasons in the FG database the Cubs (-4 wins cumulative), Cardinals (+9 wins), Reds (-10 wins) and Pirates (-14 wins) have been some of the more accurately projected teams by the FG computers. The Brewers (+71 wins) have not. So where might the Brewers find those extra nine or so wins they have averaged over the preseason FG projections in 2025? Let's look at their Depth Charts to see... Contreras (4.8 projWAR) Last two years he has been at 5.7 and 5.4 WAR, might be able to sneak an extra win here. Hoskins (0.9 projWAR) A return to his pre-injury form (1.9 WAR per 550 PAs from 2018-22) would get us a win here. Chourio (3.1 projWAR) Maintaining his last four months pace over a full season would put Jackson around 6.0 WAR or three wins above his projection. Yelich (2.4 projWAR) Christian put up 3.8 WAR in a full 2023, and 3.0 WAR in half of 2024. Depending how the back is feeling could get another win or two here pretty easily. Mitchell (2.0 projWAR) Garrett has averaged 4.0 WAR per 500 PAs in his MLB career so far. Problem is getting him to 500 PAs. But health maybe finally cooperating could see another win or two here as well. Turang/Ortiz/Frelick (6.4 projWAR) With 7.1 WAR from the trio last year it isn't too hard to see them adding a win or two over that total in 2025 with another year of development. Bullpen (3.1 projWAR) Brewers relievers have averaged around 6.5 rWAR/WPA per full season going back to 2016. Could be another three or four wins here. If they keep up their recent performance levels (20 rWAR / +25 WPA) of the last two years there are even more wins out there for the taking. Pitching Staff (-0.11 projERA-FIP) Brewers have averaged a -0.25 ERA-FIP going back to 2016. If they hit that level this year it would be another two or three wins. If they keep up their recent performance levels (-0.51 ERA-FIP) of the last two years that would be more like an extra six or seven wins. Of course all these things aren't going to happen, but the Brewers have plenty of viable avenues toward beating their FG projections once again.

Yup, Devers has the 3rd worst DRS (-62) and 2nd worst FRV (-21) at 3B since the metrics were introduced. Between him, Yoshida (-4 DRS | -12 FRV in only 714 innings as a LF) and Casas (-7 DRS | -8 FRV in 1,747 innings at 1B) they essentially have three guys that should be mostly DH-ing.

Cole has 19.6 rWAR (4th) and 17.2 fWAR (6th) since joining the Yankees. That’s 3.9 rWAR | 3.4 fWAR per 150 IP. The only pitchers ten years younger than Cole to hit those numbers last year were Skenes (5.7 rWAR | 4.3 fWAR in 133 IP) and Hunter Greene (5.5 rWAR | 3.8 fWAR in 150 IP). Bryan Woo (3.2 rWAR | 2.3 fWAR in 121 IP) and Spencer Scheellenbach (3.0 rWAR | 2.6 fWAR in 123 IP) were close, but didn’t quite get there.

Smith walked three guys in his first outing over 1.2 IP. He had a 16.21 BB9 after the game. He has walked zero over five innings since then bringing his BB9 down to 4.05. If he puts up 0 BB | 3 IP again like he did in his last outing he’d be down to a 2.79 BB9 this spring. 1 BB | 4 IP would make it 3.38. These things change fast in small spring samples. His BB9 throughout the minors was 3.0 and the projections have him down for a 3.3 BB9 in MLB for 2025.

Pretty close to it. According to this leaderboard on FanGraphs the 2024 Brewers +14.4 wSB (weighted stolen base runs) was the 12th highest mark among 1,154 individual full team seasons over the last 40 years, with only the 2007 Mets (+15.0 wSB), 2007 Phillies (+14.1 wSB), 2013 Royals (+13.2 wSB), 2008 Phillies (+12.8 wSB), and 2024 Reds (+12.6 wSB) in the same neighborhood among recent-ish teams.

Last year’s White Sox had a 4.1 BB9. Take the since departed Garrett Crochet (146 IP of 2.0 BB9) and Erick Fedde (131 IP of 2.5 BB9) out of the mix and the rest of their staff had a 4.4 BB9.

FanGraphs with a nice Ueck article today including anecdotes from Lucroy, Kam Loe, and Dim Tillard.

Yeah, feel like I remember seeing them here last spring. Believe someone (Brewers PD or one of the beat guys?) was posting them on Twitter then a poster (@Ro Mueller maybe?) was copying them over to the forums.

Smith averaged over three innings per appearance and had eleven outings between four and six IP last year. Only six times did he throw one inning or less. Even coming off injury, his 154 IP were 14th among all Brewers farmhands the last two years. He’s been gradually building up for two years now post-TJ, this isn’t somebody whose been groomed as a one inning reliever.

Jackson played at a 1 WAR per 100 PAs pace over the last four months. Brewers leadoff hitters got 755 PAs last year. So essentially would just need to hit leadoff all year and see a slight uptick in his wRC+ or defense/base running numbers to get there.

This might be true if Smith were going to a regular old run of the mill bad team, but he’s not. Last year’s White Sox bullpen put up -11.22 Win Probability Added, the Nationals had the 2nd worst bullpen in 2024 at -2.68 WPA. There have been 30 teams in MLB since 1998, so that’s 780 team bullpen full seasons. Only the 1999 Royals (-10.94 WPA) and 2021 Nats (-9.89 WPA) gave the White Sox a run for their money. White Sox rotation managed 7.2 rWAR (24th) last year, but 6.7 of that came from Crochet and Fedde who are gone. Venable said they are considering Smith as a potential rotation option… “I think we’ll continue to build him up as a starter, knowing he can be a versatile piece for us,” Venable said. “I think we owe it to him, and his ability, to stretch him out and look at him as a starter here.”

Looks like Craig Counsell got Dave Roberts an extra 100K annually on his new deal.

Yes, one of the best pitchers in the minor leagues. Among 441 pitchers with at least 150 IP over the last two years… 2.86 xFIP (2nd) | 24.3 K-BB% (3rd) | 32.4 K% (4th) | 1.01 WHIP (5th) | 3.03 FIP (5th) | 2.63 ERA (7th) | .193 AVG (12th) If Shane put up those numbers as a highly drafted player at age appropriate levels he’d be a top prospect in all of baseball, but since he did it as an older undrafted FA he’ll have to settle for #1 pick in the R5 as far as accolades go. Of course there were mitigating factors as to why Erceg only threw 147 innings after high school and before MLB, just like there have been mitigating factors for Smith doing the same. The reason Lucas didn’t get popped in the R5 is because his minor league results were nowhere near as impressive… 4.52 xFIP | 8.5 K-BB% | 23.1 K% | 1.59 WHIP | 5.01 FIP | 5.07 ERA | .245 AVG

Yeah, average age for Carolina League pitchers was 21.6 and it was 23.1 for the Midwest League so while most of his peers were trying to figure out A/A+ Carlos was already putting up a better than average season as the youngest regular SP in the hitter friendly International League.

I’d say the big question is if he can stay healthy and effective for a full MLB season as a reliever since he came up short of that last year. If he can’t make it through a full season relief workload, odds are he wouldn’t hold up as a starter either.

No one pitched much in 2020 on account of the pandemic, then Shane lost most of the 2021-22 seasons to TJ. Since then he’s been healthy and one of the best pitchers in the minors for the last two years. Going back to Erceg, he threw a grand total of 147 innings spaced out over ten calendar years after high school and before making it to MLB.