KeithStone53151

I think the Brewers front office has done an absolutely phenomenal job creating a pretty large window of competitiveness. That said, I think it closes with Burnes/Woodruff and retooling will be needed. It's not likely 32 year old Willy Adames is the guy we want as part of the next competitive window. For me, that's likely the case unless this combination of Peralta/Ashby/Turang/Mitchell/Weimer/Frelick/Chourio are the game changers we hope they are. I would like to see the Brewers gauge an extension for Adames based on how those guys do this year as a whole. If that young core can carry a competitive roster, then we might be able to be competitive right away and those first few years of Adames will be on a competitive roster. If not, there's no reason to shell out the $$ so Adames can get us from 68 to 72 wins. A couple small notes, the Brewers will be a lot of fun over the next few years if the position players pan out...we could be scoring a lot of runs and baserunning could be a lot of fun to watch. One argument in favor of Adames that I haven't seen, he's a big energy guy and that's great for a clubhouse. The jolt he gave the Brewers upon acquisition was huge, his energy was infectious all the way through the clubhouse and we started winning like crazy.

I think the return on Burnes would be surprisingly high. I can't think of any precedent of a cy young being traded with 1.5 years of team control, at least not recently. There is of course the Greinke trade, and in retrospect I'm not sure the Royals got enough in that trade. What I've noticed in recent years is teams will truly pay a premium for an elite talent. It is however similar with elite prospects, you don't really see those guys move unless it's for like Mookie Betts or Juan Soto. Burnes does fall in comparable territory for me. A big club could trade for him in order to quickly give him the big extension before he hits FA and keep him long term. Last year, Luis Castillo was traded with 1.5 years of team control. He's a very solid starting pitcher, but inarguably not as valuable as Burnes would be at the deadline assuming he performs to his standards and doesn't get hurt. The Reds for Castillo got currently the number 29 prospect in baseball, the number 44 prospect in baseball, and 2 mildly interesting throw-in types. That is the absolute floor of what we could get for Burnes. I think we would get one absolute elite prospect added to what was received for Burnes. So a prospect in the 5-15 overall range, a couple more between the 30-75 range, and a couple interesting players...probably more interesting than what the Reds received as those guys I don't think have much hope. That can of course get shifted around, if for example the Orioles went on a run and were willing to trade Gunnar Henderson...we might not get much else. I've seen a couple people note Painter/Rodriguez as the headliner, that makes a lot of sense based on the rankings.

That's a fair play and you're probably right, but better not catch too much of the plate down and in against a lefty.

That shift, the big difference is the xbh vs single as was noted above...and beating that shift is significantly less difficult on the hitter than the recently banned version. Pretty much everything 15 degrees to the lf side of the cf is a double, even if it's hit poorly. I believe if rowdy hits it in the corner he has a standup triple. I think maybe the cf moves closer to left, but you're still going to have massive alleys for doubles even if you have 2 prime Ricky Henderson's out there. Seeing that shift, I hope the brewers don't do it and other teams use it against us. And I really hope simply seeing it a few times has brewers players practicing going opposite field a fair amount more because the reward is worth. I feel like the only guy this would be even somewhat effective against on the brewers is tellez.

This seems like a really bad idea, I hope on all hope that teams shift like this against the Brewers. It's one thing for left handed hitters to not want to take bunt singles, but the incentive to just go to left seems way too high with this shift. Even Rowdy might get triples against this. Yelich might score if it's hit right down the line.

Not to get the thread too off-topic, why the heck is Profar asking 10 mil? Dude posted 725 OPS as a LF(which is better than his career splits) and he's turning 30. What am i missing? I don't see any reason to be overly concerned about Mitchell playing every day in CF. If it goes poorly, we can swap him and frelick at any time. If Mitchell twists an ankle in the 5th, we have guys that can play CF for 4 innings and bring in a new guy for the next game. Also worth noting, teams will be making cuts right before the season as we will. We could find a better stopgap option than Naquin(that can play CF) from another teams cuts at the very end of March.

Can you point out where in my post that I said those splits were guaranteed? If any of these guys were specifically really bad against left handed pitchers, I would like to think management would know and/or it would show up in the numbers. Mitchell had an 80 OPS swing, Frelick a 25 OPS swing, Turang was actually better against lefties by a very slim margin. At minimum, Frelick/Turang are candidates to not be protected at all against lefties. There's some argument to be made for Mitchell, but as I've noted, these guys need to face lefties to improve against them. I personally just have no problem with all 3 of these guys playing more or less everyday including against lefties most of the time if they earn everyday spots. The biggest issue with starting 3 rookies is simply starting 3 rookies is a high variance strategy. The Brewers may not due that to avoid that risk, but it shouldn't have anything to do with protecting any of these guys against left handed pitching. As soon as Frelick/Mitchell/Turang are up, they should play minimum 5 days a week and the starting pitcher handedness shouldn't matter.

Considering all 3 LHH rookies are mlb ready and in our top 5 prospects, and none of the 3 have significant LH/RH splits, yes it is a crazy suggestion for an entire season. In September/October...sure. Best bat is all that matters. In April/May...it's crazy.

So you want to turn two of our very top hitting prospects into platoon bats upon hitting the majors? Don't even give them the chance? That seems completely crazy....

Mitchell 2022 - 847 OPS vs RHP 768 OPS vs LHP Frelick 2022 - 890 OPS vs RHP 865 OPS vs LHP Generally speaking you don't want to get overly carried away platooning players, especially young promising players. It's one thing to platoon an established fringe guy like Naquin. They need to continue to face same handed pitching at this point to continue developing those skills. I don't really see a problem rolling out a lineup with Yelich, Frelick, Mitchell, Adames, Urias, Brosseau, Anderson, Contreras, RH DH against a left handed starter. You can even throw Turang in there and have 4 LH bats. LH starters also generally aren't specifically good against same handed hitters like relievers will tend to be. It's pretty normal for a LH starter to see 8-9 RH hitters in the lineup.

We have enough RH hitters in the lineup against LH pitching. Also look at Frelick's career minor league splits, he's just fine against LH pitching.

Last year he had sporadic playing time and mostly against LH pitchers despite being one of the best hitters in baseball against RH pitching most of the year...

I've never liked when people try to make an argument this way, trying to minimize his readiness with one small piece of information. Many guys get to mlb with little to no time in AAA. He's a first round pick, advanced college bat with over 150 milb games in which he's put up really solid numbers at every stop. Ignoring service time, it's questionable whether the Brewers will be better from April through June with having Naquin vs Frelick. There's fair arguments both ways. Beyond that, both Frelick and the Brewers are without question better off if Frelick were to get those MLB at bats over Naquin. Frelick will improve seeing MLB pitchers vs AAA pitchers and be better for it, which is better for both him and the Brewers in 2022 and in the future. A team like the Brewers can't block top prospects with journeyman and inhibit their ability to succeed(see Keston Hiura). That would be fine at 1b or 3b this year, or bringing in a guy like Naquin as a PH/bench bat and insurance. The priority needs to be the young guys. There's nothing anyone on this board can point to as a reason to keep Frelick in AAA other than service time.

That specifically can be tied to having Josh Hader for most of his tenure. Teams with the best bullpens/closers tend to win more close games. That has little to do with the manager.

That's certainly fair, I stand by it in that specific case but that's my opinion...hardly gospel. Not to digress too much, I pop into NSB every so often to read their takes(the best part is how optimistic they are that they'll sign every big free agent to a team friendly deal because everyone loves the cubs...or something) and I noticed you posted in there. I'm guessing you simply are part of that community as I can't imagine someone owning a brewers forum and being a cubs fan.

Question, how much do we think the AGM or GM is evaluating talent? I would think those positions are more involved in the evaluation system and are using analytics and recommendations to make decisions. It would make sense seeing a correlation in us bringing in better talent over the last several years than we had previously, coupled with the Rays success with talent while Arnold was there. And so far, he's done really well in trades. It still baffles me that a trade in which the Braves get the best players, the A's get the best prospects, yet somehow the Brewers get the best value piece. It's like we somehow inserted ourselves and swindled both teams(really we swindled the A's mostly). It will be interesting to see if he still holds up in big mlb caliber decisions in a few years, right now he could be significantly helped by structure largely set up by Stearns for all we know. Also let's hope Arnold turning his attention to the entire organization fully doesn't impact the pipeline quality we've seen over the last few years.

I'm not here to argue 55/45 decisions, like using x reliever instead of y reliever in a given inning. My arguments tend to be leaving a guy in too long or pulling a guy too soon as far as pitching. Sometimes those are 55/45, others are much more clear. One example that sticks in my head from last year is leaving Hader in about 3-4 batters too long against the Giants. He let Hader concede 6 runs including 3 home runs in a game we were up 3 at one point. We lost on a grand slam to Yaz, so up until Yaz we still had the lead. Hader had been struggling a bit recently, I'm pretty sure every manager in the game gets him out of there, except CC. I also largely blame CC for Hiura not getting more consistent atbats last year, and especially against RH pitching. It was completely baffling that CC kept using Hiura primarily against LH pitching and he'd pull Hiura and put in Tellez or Vogelbach or whoever against RH pitching. Most of the season, Hiura was one of the best hitters in baseball against RHP. It's wild to me that CC didn't see the trend. The trend, is actually that CC has started managing in an old school way. Having his 7th inning guy, 8th inning guy, etc. The simple RH hitter vs LH pitcher formula wherever possible regardless of splits. In the Hader scenario I can imagine his thought process in the dugout "well it's still a save situation, must leave in closer". He's going backwards if anything.

I tend to be pretty critical of Counsell. It's quite easy to nitpick his decisions, especially in a monday morning qb sense. I kinda feel like there's some similarity between Counsell and McCarthy. I believe McCarthy did the stuff you don't see really well, but come game day he might literally be the worst coach in the NFL. Counsell isn't THAT bad on gameday, but I sense he does the stuff we don't see pretty well. I get a sense these guys are properly motivated to compete and win. There's a good team aspect to the club. He does a good job managing for longevity of the season, he tends to error on the side of under-using pitchers...especially relievers(he's the anti-Maddon). The biggest problem I have with Counsell's game day decisions is they seemingly have gotten worse, not better, as he's gained experience. I don't think he's a guy that's capable of making the best decisions in the biggest games, now or in the future. So I think the Brewers FO is sitting there in the same situation they were with McCarthy, above average manager but not the guy that's going to get you to the promised land. Do you keep rolling with that manager or try to improve? In the Brewers case, I think the probably will and should continue to roll with CC. We aren't wasting prime #12 years like the Packers were with McCarthy, and teams can certainly win in spite of mediocre management(Ned Yost).

I took a fair amount of issue with his comments and what he felt like he needed. I'm a big proponent of needing to put in the work. Talent only gets you so far, and as talented as he is...he'll fall behind in a hurry if he's not putting in the work. I believe that's part of what we've seen the last couple years. Every other big leaguer is talking about being in the best shape of their life, and Yelich is talking about getting mental clarity. Previous seasons when our guys have gotten covid and had to quarantine, every other brewer talked about the work they were doing...bullpen sessions...etc. Yelich talked about how he picked up a guitar for the first time. Yelich reeks of a guy who got the contract and is going to show up and punch the clock. I hope I'm wrong. I'm certainly not an expert in the field, maybe mental clarity truly is the answer. We'll have our answer in a few months.

I'm hopeful all sides sort this thing out before the regular season. Can you imagine a game that matters ending that way? One question. I assume the pitch clock gets paused or something if a batter takes a foul ball off the shin or the catcher gets his bell rung on a foul?

If they went with a midpoint, sides would be incentivized to be more aggressive in the number they pick to try and settle at a higher midpoint. The one or the other option kinda forces both sides to be as fair as possible. Being too aggressive would be tougher to defend at a hearing and more likely lead to losing.

That did seem like an assumption on the players part. I believe I've seen people say these arbiters tend to value stuff like holds/saves moreso than even the most basic of advanced metrics. Imagine going in there and arguing a hitters value based on RBI's. It seemed interesting that a team can opt to use a right handed reliever against only right handed hitters, or as much as possible, and then use that against them in an arbitration hearing. Especially if data doesn't exist that he has strong splits. It's like they tied his right hand behind his back and said "look he's not good with his right hand". This would be especially interesting if Hiura ever went to a hearing, because in his case the Brewers horrifically misused him by having him hit mostly against lefties despite him being one of the better hitters in baseball for most of the season against right-handed pitchers. At the end of the day, I think all sides would be better off if arbitration was formula driven based on a combined variety of advanced metrics and service time.

There are quite a few reasons this process is flawed assuming this information is accurate. Why would they use arbiters that potentially call runs "points" or basically don't know the game? How can someone that doesn't have at least moderate knowledge of baseball make an informed decision about baseball? That person doesn't know which stats are good and which aren't, they could value holds over ERA/WHIP because they are ignorant and don't know any better. Someone like that is going to rule in favor of whoever makes the best presentation, not necessarily the best argument. He also certainly gives the impression at least his arbiters didn't really take the process seriously. I would think the players should know how many arbiters voted in which direction and they should be required to provide an opinion, which would generally be helpful to see what information is valued by certain arbiters. I suspect MLB knows these things, but players/agents don't...which gives MLB side an advantage heading to hearings. Super interesting though, thanks for sharing.

Specific to the thread, yes that's more or less it. You seem to be the first person to actually grasp and not misrepresent/shift my argument. Baseball is a game, winning is great but I'm not willing to do anything to win. How you win matters. For example, in soccer often when teams get a lead they will take their time to do ANYTHING, lay on the ground faking injuries, etc. I have a team I support, but I will criticize any team including the team I support for playing that way. Apply the same concept here. I'm not going to condone the brewers trashing their best player in an arbitration hearing. You can go into that room with honor and present your case without going negative/the dishonorable route. All that said, my bigger issue in this thread is the whole misrepresentation thing. 3 or 4 people have done it. I didn't really start replying in such a pointed manner until that started happening. I took a pretty long break from replying on these forums and I've very quickly been reminded why

Maybe you should try reading the entirety of my previous post along with the post I quoted in my reply. Or don't...and continue having quite possibly the worst take of all time on the bfnet forums.