Cool Hand Lucroy

I understand the reasoning here. And an incentive-laden deal is probably better than guaranteed money at the end of the day. I guess I just don't fully buy the notion that $10 mil is an amount of money that should matter to the Brewers in this instance. Right now, what does 10 mil get you? A year of Mark Canha? You're also not paying that money out until 2025, meaning you're actually saving it for 2024 since Woody would have gotten at least that much in arb. Bottom line (for me): for 10 mil guaranteed, under this hypothetical scenario, I get to avoid the players-are-assets-and-nothing-more philosophy that has made baseball so brutally efficient and had some important human consequences over the last two decades. I'll pay that price. It's not going to sink our roster, and I'd rather save my cold financial moves capital for situations where where what I'm being cold about involves performance or fit instead of injury.

I mean, in order for anyone to offer Woody a contract, the Brewers have to non-tender him first. That seems...cruel. I get it, it's a business, etc., but it takes some pretty cold thinking to look at the situation and just say, "Bye." There's going to be a 2-3 year offer from the Brewers. I don't know what that offer will be. But I'd guess something like 2/10 or 2/12. Woody gets 1-2 for 2024. He gets 1 WAR money for 2025. Perhaps there's an option for 2026. I think that's in the interest of both parties, if I'm being honest. But if Woody thinks he can get more, he should definitely push for a non-tender and see what the market is like. That's how I'd handle it. Open communication, we want you here, we'll give you what you would've gotten in arb this year for 2025 and a million for the lost year. If people think 10-12 million for a guy coming off shoulder surgery is too much in 2025, I get it. But you'd basically be betting on Woody as a 1 WAR player. I think that's reasonable. Maybe he's bad and you lose. Whatever. Teams take 10 mil flyers all the time. It's one year. Maybe he's great, and you can get a trade return midseason. Maybe he's great and you QO. Maybe he's just alright, and that's fine too.

Yeah, I'm not obsessed about the randomness of the baseball playoffs, or the favorites being down early. Every sport is like this to some extent. I don't know that baseball is any more random than hockey, for example. The NFL often features WC teams making deep runs. Basketball is probably the sport with the most predictable postseason, but that's at least partially a function of how much power NBA players have in free agency and how easy it is, structurally, to create true "superteams." The broader postseason issue for me is the drastic, drastic difference between MLB in the regular season and MLB in the playoffs. Even hockey, where the playoffs are a totally different beast, is less different than baseball. Baseball has the largest sample regular season and the smallest sample postseason, and it's probably the sport with the highest overall degree of variance. It also has the most unequal economic structure, which makes for....a big old mix of weirdness. I try to adjust for this by caring about things like division titles. My mentality as a fan gets adjusted because the gap between October and April-September is so wide. The other route is for baseball to make some adjustments to better reward regular season success. I agree that the simplest way to do that seems to be to extend the DS to the full seven. Would anyone complain if that were to be achieved by shortening the regular season to 156 games? I guess owners would, but at some point you can't have it both ways. It always comes back to the outsized role of market size and TV contracts in MLB for me, but I'm a Brewers fan, so what do you expect?

I mean, the team that beats the Brewers almost always wins the World Series, right? It's literally happened in every postseason appearance save for one (2018). I'd grab those 6 or 7 to 1 odds on the DBacks now if it were any fun rooting for them.

Yup, I agree with this completely. "See where you are at the deadline," but mostly make peace with the QO. I also think Willy's a guy who might be open to a security-type extension. It'd be worth making those offers now while the open market might not be as excited about a guy who just dipped below league-average OPS+ for only the second time in his career. I think I'm more bullish on Turang than most. He put together good ABs with regularity during the second half. Drew some walks in the Wild Card series too, even if he also looked overwhelmed by the moment. Point is, the dude needs to OBP what? .310 to be valuable? .320? Fangraphs WAR had him at .2 this year, bRef 1.6. I saw enough offensive flashes this year to think he could be a 2-win player. It's always going to be carried by the glove, but all the guy's got to do is draw walks and hit strikes, and that's if he basically stays physically the same guy. Plus, his bat doesn't matter as much if we can put a couple more actually good hitters in the lineup. Weimer is a bigger concern. Agree with LouisEly that he probably needs that year in AAA just to see if he can make consistent contact. Save for crucial playoff ABs against a lefty, I have more confidence in Turang to get on base than I do Weimer.

Agree with this in terms of being stuck with the larger playoff field. A couple of ways to improve, from my perspective: 1) Love what the NBA is doing with the in-season tournament this year. I'd love to see MLB take a page from soccer's book and have in-season competitions that matter. You could even do what the NBA is doing and have the games count double (as both part of the in-season competition and as regular season games). MLB could divide teams into 5 groups of 6 teams, top two teams in each group advance, and you play knockout-style three-game series. There are some scheduling quirks you'd need to figure out, but, at the end of the day, you're taking about maybe 30 games of the schedule counting as a separate competition with a trophy. Short of doing promotion/relegation (never happen), I think this is a cool way to add some juice to the regular season. You could even offer big incentives like the winner gets an automatic ticket to the postseason or something. There's just a lot of fun you could do. 2) I'd love to see division winners always get byes. To do this, you just shift to two divisions per league. You could do a radical realignment and even base divisions on market-size or TV contract instead of just geography. Or you could go geographic and do away with "leagues." Four division winners, best six other teams, and there's a random draw for matchups. I'd go with East, Midwest, South, and West as divisions, so the Brewers would be with both Chicago teams, Twins, Cardinals, Royals, and two of Reds/Guardians/Tigers. Probably have to expansion to 32 at some point to make for even, 8-team divisions, but keeping leagues and doing 7-8 in each league could work too. South would probably have 7: Rays, Marlins, Astros, Rangers, Orioles, Nats, Braves. West: Arizona, Seattle, San Diego, Giants, Vegas, two LA teams, Colorado. East: Yankees, Red Sox, Blue Jays, Pirates, one of Tigers/Reds/Guardians, Phillies, Mets. Just ideas, but I'd really love to see #1 happen. It's a great way to keep fan interest up in some markets where maybe the Tigers get hot in a competition despite being out of it overall. And it gives smaller markets another way to measure success. The best part about following the Premier League is that, even though only about 4 teams have any real shot to win it, a lot of teams can find joy and success simply by staying up and avoiding relegation. Some of that spirit can apply in baseball.

I can see this too. I have more faith in Willy than some, maybe, but I'm inclined to think he's going to get better offensively next year.

I am all on board to bring Santana back. Not sure what it'll cost, but between the good defensive (even adjusting for age-related decline) and good ABs and clubhouse presence, he'd be much preferred to Canha, at least for me.

Plus, Adames has a pretty deep track record of being a better offensive player than he was this year. He seems like a classic, "hang on and see where you are at the deadline" guy just because his value is more likely to go up than go down. I also think you just make peace with the fact that you may have to go the QO route. It's not as big of a deal to develop (or acquire or even piecemeal replace offensively) a SS like Willy as it is a pitcher like Burnes. Burnes, you really need to capitalize on him because, as a franchise, it's really tough to get SP like that, and, even in this era, a TOR starter is the most valuable thing in the sport.

Nothing wrong with long. I loved reading this. I echo your thoughts on Woody. I hope we get some encouraging news on his injury. Hopefully they shut it down quickly enough that he can avoid missing a ton of next season and can maintain his usual level of excellence. That seems pretty pie-in-the-sky, but if anyone can do it, it's him. The bad HBP luck (Taylor's in 2019 not being conclusive, Turang's being conclusive) really hurt me too. Frustrating for the season to come down to that, but yeah, just the nature of October baseball. I'll be following along all offseason. Lots of big decisions to be made. I think Milwaukee is going to be a great sports follow for the next couple years, with two small-market teams trying to win in almost diametrically opposed ways. Wouldn't it be cool if Ohtani just thought Giannis was the coolest guy ever or something :) ?

I would LOVE to have Stephen Vogt back in the dugout. So many "I Believe" chants. And I do. I believe in Stephen Vogt.

Yeah, this is good. It really comes down to the role you want baseball to serve in your life. I really like the rhythm and routine of the regular season. I like having that nightly game to look forward to and track and mark time by. I like the background and the moments of surprise, and I care more about preserving that than having October success. I just like when the regular season matters. I also know that nothing delivers joy and pain like October, and lots of folks would be willing to let go of consistent, daily meaning for that big, World Series payoff. Good to have both approaches.

Every decision starts with 1A and 1B, Counsell and Burnes. I think everything you do depends on what happens with those two, and I do think they're largely independent of each other. I don't think Counsell staying means Burnes is necessarily more likely to, FWIW. I would definitely trade Burnes. I just can't see an argument for keeping him, given a) arb cost, b) contract expiring, c) no chance to re-sign, and d) massive need for immediate 2024 offensive production. I doubt Burnes is worth a huge haul, but he should net you something like a MLB-ready, league-average bat with a couple years of team control, maybe something more. Of course, this team got Contreras for basically Esteury Ruiz, so maybe there's some magic out there too. The starting pitching is going to be a massive question mark. How serious is Woody's injury? Is Ashby ready, or even healthy? Can Houser continue to be a consistent depth option toward the back of the rotation? Do we get first half Freddy or second half Freddy? Is 10 million worth it for Miley? Can we get anything at all from Misiorowski, Rodriquez, or Gasser? I have no idea on those questions. You're basically going into the offseason knowing 2 of your starting pitchers. That's....interesting. While I see the argument for trading Devin (and wouldn't be opposed to it on principle), it's going to have to be a huge haul. When baseball seasons go bad, a shaky bullpen is usually a big part of the cause. With all the question marks all over the other parts of the roster, I'd bet on Peguero, Payamps, and Williams being good enough to hold most late-inning leads. Williams is the safest bet of those three, with the longest track record. With a young team, I want no part of a bunch of deflating, late-lead losses. Offensively, Adames is a 3-win player who is probably more valuable to you than anyone else. Hope for a bounce back year, and accept your best case might be a QO and subsequent draft pick compensation. I'd bring Santana back if the price is right. Canha, no. Too expensive, not enough of a difference maker anyway. I'm not into the Donaldson show. Dude looks pretty washed to me, despite hitting a few dingers that stood out because nobody else was doing it. I'm all in on Black starting with the big club. Let's see what he's got. What do we do with all our outfielders? Yelich is going to get starts in left, but probably not as many. Mitchell, Frelick, Weimer, Taylor, even Perkins has some value. Chourio is coming. That's 7 guys for 4 or 5 roster spots. Probably can keep Weimer and Chuorio at AAA early, but for how long? You probably need a backup catcher unless you're ready to go with Quero. Basically, I think there are a lot of good ways to build on this roster, and I'm looking forward to the offseason. It'll be fun to see this take shape. The pieces are there.

It's funny. I spent about an hour postgame thinking we now had the longest active playoff losing streak in sports (at 5). Turns out, that's way wrong. The Pistons have lost 14 playoff games in a row. So, okay, I thought, longest in baseball? Nope, that's Rays at 7. Longest in the NL? Nope! Not even the longest in the division. The Reds have lost 6 in a row, and the Marlins and Cardinals (!) have also each lost 5. All of which is to say, we aren't exceptional at losing, even in our division! At least not lately. Plus, having actually won a playoff series in the last decade, we're in a better position than a lot of franchises. This series sucked. Baseball is cruel. We weren't good enough, didn't get some important breaks, and now we just hope the experience pays dividends for our young guys. I maintain that this organization (even anticipating a lot more uncertainty next year) is in the best shape of my life. We're a chronic contender, and as someone who actually celebrated after that 2005 Brewers won their 81st game, I cannot believe how much better the last 15 years of difficult postseason losses have been. In all honesty, sign me up for 5 more playoff appearances over the next 6 years, even if you also guarantee me they won't win a WS.

Fair enough. Like I said, I think the Brewers are in a better place, both in terms of talent and leadership. I thought the Twins looked a lot looser and ready than the Brewers did in big moments, but that's a subjective judgment. Brewers also got unlucky in important ways. On the other hand, they were also playing in a pretty friendly run environment (AmFAm w/ a closed roof) and couldn't get a big hit. One home run in two games doesn't cut it, so I'm with you. We need to balance out the roster in ways that help boost the offense. The other thing I'll add is this. Winning by run prevention is not a very fun way to win. It makes for a lot of stressful games, a lot of low-scoring games, a lot of really frustrating offensive half-innings and terrifying defensive ones. I'd like to see this team go down 4-0 on occasion and not feel like the game is over, even it means falling behind a little more often.

Not disagreeing. But you don't have literally no-chance. The Brewers were favorites in this game. Even down 5-2 in the 8th, the Frelick AB was a moment where you have to take a shot. You've got Weimer or Miller there to use. It's not that tough. When all options are bad, just seize the platoon advantage and hope. It's not the reason they lost. But I think CC was real shy about taking out Frelick and Turang this series, both in key spots, facing lefties. There's always hindsight involved there, but both times he let the kids bat. Both times it didn't work. It's all pretty minor in the scheme of things. I'm here for it if CC wants to come back. The prospects are going to make this team fun either way. But I'm ready for the next era because change is good, and after nearly a decade with one manager, it's maybe time to try something a little different.

I don't disagree with this overall. Believe me. I'd rather have our FO. But that team has an attitude and feel to it that matches the moment. I'd like the Brewers to find their way to that feeling. I think they will, but it has to start this offseason and be done without sacrificing long-term value.

If you need optimism, check out the ETAs on our MLB.com Top 30 prospect list.

We are mind-melding. The Twins did that this year. They looked so loose and ready these last two days. Everyone focused and locked it and yet still having fun. Brewers could use a Carlos Gomez on this roster. Somebody so gutsy he's probably a little bit foolish, but he sure as heck is confident. Credit to Tyrone Taylor. He played like that guy and has been for a while.

Dude, exactly! We are going to be INTERESTING in 2024. We're going to be FUN. Young, fast, frustrating, and with a new manager too. I have half a mind to say the org should hire Alyssa Nakken to manage and just like become the most fascinating follow in the history of pro sports.

It sure seems like the trend is to hire youngish, analytically minded former players, guys who started their careers in the pre-Moneyball era and ended when every FO was employing multiple Ivy league data analysts and game theory gurus. This is the David Ross, Rocco Baldelli kind of hire. You could argue CC was the first one of that batch! I still think that's the mold the Crew is going to draw from. I'd like to see an innovative hire. Someone a little off-the-map. Someone who's young but maybe not necessarily a former player. I don't know. There aren't a lot of names out there that make me say "Yeah, that's the right person."

I'm interested in the AL much more. Orioles are a fun story. Would love to see them in the WS.

I don't blame anyone either, and I like CC. Always have. He was bad this series, though. Not the reason they lost, and he didn't have a lot of good options offensively. But you've got to at least push a few more buttons when your team struggles so much to score.

That's a tough one. We took all the bad Twins karma on our shoulders, I guess. Here's to breaking our current 5-game playoff losing streak next year.

The fact that Caratini doesn't get one AB bothers me a bit too. That guy's a pro and he's been clutch, and in a two-game series, who cares that he's your only other catcher?