sveumrules

It could be viewed as a disappointment, but we always knew there would be some element of competition for the 3B/backup IF spot and Dunn/Capra flat out won. Nestor was the guy in the trade we got for 2025. Might be mis-remembering, but I feel like there was quite a bit of uncertainty as to Caleb’s MLB readiness at the time he was acquired. I’d say he qualifies as both a future prospect and someone who could still contribute this year. Ultimately my view is that having the organizational depth to start Durbin (& Black & Misio & etc) in AAA is a good thing. It wasn’t too long ago guys of their ilk would have been rushed up early for lack of better options.

Oh man, that is a lot to try and internalize. 1/2 a point for every out definitely favors starters who would get 7.5 points for an "average" outing of 5 IP versus relievers only getting 1.5 points for an "average" outing of 1 IP. The -4 points for a loss is kind of interesting too. On a leaguewide level last year starting pitchers went 1,424 W - 1,584 L, whereas relievers came in at 1,005 W - 845 L, so wins/losses were awarded more favorably to relievers on a ratio basis anyway.

Relievers will (theoretically) help your ERA/WHIP a lot more than starters though, so there is a tradeoff there too. Not sure how your league is structured but I believe last time I played fantasy there were a certain amount of slots that had to be filled by SP/RP each week and also a minimum number of IP you needed on the season to prevent teams from stacking relievers too much.

666 wins since 2017 is 6th in MLB. Doesn't get much more devilish than that. If we've got Uecker pulling strings from the heavens above and dark magick rising up from the fiery depths below, this could be some kinda summer. Just to sneak one more triple six in for good (bad?) measure, I'll go with 96-66.

Yeah, .843 OPS vsRHP (375 PAs) and .837 OPS vsLHP (143 PAs) last year. 2023 at Biloxi he was more of a lefty killer with a 1.098 OPS in 129 PAs compared to a .703 OPS vsRHP (256 PAs).

Your valuation is perfectly reasonable and sounds most like their respective Baseball America Top 100 rankings with Mayo at #29 and Misio at #44. I think the Orioles position would be more in line with their MLB rankings of Mayo (#14) and Misio (#100) so it would take something better than Lara/Quintana to close that gap for BAL. Ideally someone who could impact the MLB team for them this year. Frelick wouldn't really do much for them this year with Mullins in CF, and not sure how much interest the Brewers would have in moving Sal given their tenuous OF depth situation with Perkins already out for a bit, Yelich/Mitchell having lengthy injury histories and limited OF options in the upper levels.

Gotta imagine EBJ sees a lot of time at 2B and CF this year if Pratt is playing SS five six days a week in Biloxi.

Nice. Had to leave before it was over so missed that one. I had a unanswered question in asking what he thought about the Shane Smith / Connor Thomas gambit, but noticed in another answer he still thinks Smith is a reliever long term.

Couple notes on Brewers prospects in the FanGraphs chat today... Jace, the Mind Sculptor Is Jack Hostetler going to be a thing? Any other totally off the radar guys popping up this spring? Eric A Longenhagen Yes, he's a thing. Milwaukee dev churning them out. 97-98, plus-flashing changeup, breaking balls are below average. Undrafted out of Whitman. Good for them/him. Bishop Letson and Tyson Hardin also arrow up guys in Brewers camp Andy Your write up of Jesus Made said he is arguably priority number 1 for you on the backfields during spring training. What have you seen from him? Eric A Longenhagen It's real. Medium framed guy, great bat speed and rotational explosion from both sides of the plate, skilled defender with enough arm for the left side. He and Luis Pena are both gonna break camp with the Low-A roster and I agree that's correct for both.

Yeah, lots of ways Pratt could still go. How about a JJ Hardy comp? I'd take an eight year run with 4600 PAs of 96 wRC+ and 24.1 WAR like JJ put up from 2007-14. Not sure it's reasonable to project Pratt to be a Top 5 or so defensive SS of the SABR era like Hardy has been to this point, but essentially the rough framework is something like league average offense with plus SS defense shakes out to around three WAR or so annually. Obviously plenty of time to add some ceiling with the bat still, but even if Cooper "only" ever ends up in the neighborhood of Dansby (101 wRC+ and 24.7 WAR over 3922 PAs from 2018-present) or JJ that would still be a really successful outcome and doesn't seem like too much of a stretch given what he's shown so far.

I thought the contribution was positive. OP stated the Pirates lost Jones to a Tommy John injury, which isn’t entirely accurate. so @SF70 clarified things.

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.