ctmyers

Narvaez really struggling to catch Ashby. Stuff is legit, but having a terrible time locating anything.

Coors: .299/.385/.607 Away: .234/.359/.325

That leg kick is epic...

Numbers look great. Does anyone have insight into his repertoire? Here is a sample of his repertoire……don’t know how hard he throws Low 90’s velo. Can run it up to 93. Hides the ball pretty well in the games I’ve watched where it can jump on hitters. Change up is his best and most consistent secondary offering. Has a hard slider, but it’s more of a bury pitch than a strike getter.

In regards to speeding up the game, I've never understood why during each transition from offense to defense a team needs 4-5 minutes to toss a ball around. If a pitcher needs to warm up, go in the dugout and throw. Cut out 10 of the 17-18 breaks, cut 30 minutes from each game. Also, relievers coming in don't need warm up tosses on the mound. Expand rosters to 30 players, mandatory minimum number of designated relievers for each game, whereby allowing/requiring managers to get up enough guys early in the game and not risk burn out.

1 Ethan Small SP 2 Garrett Mitchell OF 3 Brice Turang SS 4 Aaron Ashby SP 5 Freddy Zamora SS 6 Max Lazar SP 7 Antoine Kelly SP 8 Mario Feliciano C 9 Nick Bennett SP 10 Jacob Nottingham C 11 Zack Brown SP 12 Tristen Lutz OF 13 Carlos Rodriguez OF 14 Corey Ray OF 15 Eduardo Garcia SS 16 Thomas Dillard 1B 17 Clayton Andrews RP 18 Phil Bickford RP 19 Braden Webb SP 20 Micah Bello OF 21 Quintin Torres-Costa RP 22 Tyrone Taylor OF 23 Justin Jarvis SP 24 JP Feyereisen RP 25 David Fry C

Other than the fact that a major league baseball club hired her? Whether you agree with the quality of the hire or not, she was hired. There are some pretty smart people running this organization. I'd think that would tip the scales more towards "yes she'll be good" than "no she won't" until proven otherwise. But who am I to attempt to answer this type of question with logic... That's not logic, that's an appeal to authority. Your justification for the hiring is simply that she was hired. If we're using that "logic", we shouldn't be attaching a shred of analysis to any player trades, contract extensions or moves made on the field. I sincerely hope she and the Brewers do well.

If she was one of the leads in the analytics department, could we point to the team's overall downtrend in hitting performance across the board, from nearly every player? If the Brewers are promoting from within, and the underlying system by which players are getting instructed is flawed, it might be reasonable to draw the conclusion that an outside voice may have been better served in this role. Do you have any fact-based evidence that says she will be good at her job?

I mean, cool and all, but how is this “well deserved”? Is there any evidence to point to saying it's not? 27 years old. Was an intern 4 years ago. No major league experience beyond the Brewers. No experience in baseball prior to 4 years ago. We'll all be thrilled if she becomes the best in the business, but the lack of experience is somewhat concerning.

What do you consider Logan Morrison, Justin Smoak, Josh Lindblom, Justin Grimm and Mike Morin, if not reclamation projects? Including Gyorko, that's 20% of the active roster. Morrison was a minor league signing that made the team on the back of strong 2019 minor league numbers and a strong spring. Smoak was coming off a consistent 3-year stretch averaging over an .800 OPS. Lindblom was coming off a Korean League Cy Young. Grimm and Morin were back-end pen arms. They were insignificant. In Morin's case, in particular, there really wasn't much of anything in his career numbers to reclaim. I suppose, by the definition of the idea of a reclamation project, Morrison probably qualifies. But he certainly didn't last longer than a cup of coffee before the Brewers cut bait. Saying a guy "averaged" an 800 OPS over three seasons while not pointing out that he regressed from an .883 ops in 2017, to an .808 ops in 2018, to a .748 ops in 2019, is a disingenuous way to look at the data. Signing a 32-year old soft tossing starter, who had to move to Korea to continue playing baseball, is the definition of a reclamation project. Grimm hadn't pitched in the major leagues since 2018. Morin was coming off a season where he had an ERA with the Phillies of 5.79. So, your assertion that these guys were coming off of "career best" or "near career best" years is simply wrong.

Gyorko was the only "reclamation project" type signing last year (and he ended up being good). Every other signing was coming off either their career-best or close to career-best year. The idea that that Brewers filled their roster with a bunch of reclamation projects last season has simply turned into a much larger assumption than it actually was. You are beating this to death, but when you really look at it, you simply are not correct. What do you consider Logan Morrison, Justin Smoak, Josh Lindblom, Justin Grimm and Mike Morin, if not reclamation projects? Including Gyorko, that's 20% of the active roster.

Relevance? A baseball owner is saying that yearly profits aren't essential to growing or maintaining franchise value. Which is basically irrelevant because franchise value has very little to do with operating revenue. “It’s been absolutely devastating from the revenue perspective,” Smolinksy says.

You used Jeffress as an example of an inability to maintain talent or fix players. Jeffress got fewer strikeouts, walked more batters and gave up harder contact after leaving Milwaukee. He then lucked into better results despite that. Doesn't mean it was the wrong decision to let him go, they were right about him. Performance isn't the same thing as results; they are very closely linked, but in a huge-variance sport like Baseball it takes time for those two things to join up. The Brewers probably hadn't changed their evaluation of Brock Holt all that much from the time they signed him to when they released him. They know that a .136 BABIP isn't sustainable, and that given time and at bats his results will improve. But they also know that in a 60-game season they don't have the time for that if they want to make the playoffs. The Nationals picked him up and are a good illustration of the short-season issues. They started 19-31 last year and won the World Series. They had a similar record this year at 50 games, yet were close to being mathematically eliminated from the postseason by that point. It makes player evaluations very different. In a normal 162-game season Brock Holt would still be a Brewer (Or be given a longer leash at the very least), but in a short season where so many others were struggling too (If it's just one guy, you can "hide" him on the bench for a while) they felt they had to try something. The 80 wRC+ he put up on the Nationals is also only really good by comparison to the first half. The difference between him as National and as a Brewer is simply a matter of BABIP, again. He struck out a bit less as a National, but walked less. Plate discipline numbers are essentially the same. Yet, as so often happens in these cases, the balls bounced differently. So, at worst, if the balls would have bounced differently this year, Jeffress would have been similar to Josh Hader. I think in a worst case scenario, matching the output of one of your most reliable bullpen arms is something the Brewers would have preferred to have, rather than trotting out Feyereisen, Rasmussen, Knebel, Wahl, Grimm, etc. At the same time, if you're going to say that Jeffress was lucky this year, you have to point out that he was unlucky last year. GB% dropped to a career low with the Brewers, BABIP spiked, LOB% dropped to a career low with the Brewers, all while battling through a hip injury on his plant leg. And they could have had him for next to no money. Regarding Holt, after being let go 16 games into a 60 game season, they essentially gave his AB's to Jace Peterson. I could understand the trade off if they had someone waiting who had a track record of success at the major league level, or a prospect requiring a shot against better competition, but Peterson was neither of those. Punting on Holt essentially showed that the Brewers were waving the white flag on trying to fix things with him. Rather, they decided to throw more stuff against the wall, hoping something would stick.

You can call it luck, but results are results. If you want to project regression based on unsustainable numbers, fine, but his season is in the books and for all of the metrics that matter, he was one of the best in the NL. And of course the samples are going to be small, but they were large enough for the Brewers to release Holt mid-season. They obviously thought he couldn't hit and yet he showed he could as soon as he was on another team.

You completely missed the point. The players are not the issue - the staff is. Woodruff was one of the best pitchers in baseball, but we should disregard that, because shortened season reasons. And, again, there is more than enough evidence prior to this season.

And we also saw Yelich who only took off once he came to the Brewers. Jeremy Jeffress...I remember him looking pretty good here as well. We drafted him...and he's thrown ~305 of his 424 innings as a Brewers where he's been better collectively than everywhere else. Jesus Aguilar-WE'RE the team that plucked him from the scrap heap and turned him into an OF'er. In fact...most of the players you mention broke out when playing for the Brewers...and the Brewers have done a better job of finding other teams players and having success than other teams have had picking up our discarded players. Sure, guys like Shaw who we non-tendered(again, AFTER he broke out here for a couple years)...I don't understand how you're using these players as examples of the Brewers not being able to develop talent. Maybe the case is more the Brewers can't afford to acquire elite talent at numerous positions so they have to take risks. Often times those players have had some measure of success, then regressed toward the players they actually are and gotten expensive and the Brewers have had to let them go. Again, the point isn't that they can't find talent, it's that they are abhorrent at maintaining talent and fixing issues when they come up. Jeffress was one of the five best relievers in the National League in 2020 and the Brewers let him walk. Shaw turned in one of MLB's worst seasons in 2019 and in 2020 he would have had the 6th highest OPS on the Brewers. Urias played substantially worse for Milwaukee in 2020, while having a substantially better home park to play in 2019. Sogard's OPS dropped 250 points, YOY. Holt's OPS dropped 450 points from last year, then as soon as he goes to a different team - in the same year - his OPS jumps 346 points. In the same season Aguilar gets traded his OPS goes up by 66 points. Zach Davies is going to be on the Cy Young ballot, meanwhile Eric Lauer was left off the 28-man playoff roster for guys like Adrian Houser and Josh Lindblom. And Omar Narvaez was the 3rd worst hitting catcher in all of baseball, only outpaced by dynamos Tony Wolters and Roberto Perez. What's the common denominator?

In my eyes, the Brewers simply cannot let another player come to Milwaukee, fail miserably or never get a shot, and then show themselves to be a competent starter on another team. Jesus Aguilar, Jonathan Schoop, Brandon Kintzler, Eric Sogard, Dylan Moore, Jonathan Villar, Scooter Gennett, Jean Segura, Jeremy Jeffress, Tyler Webb, Brad Miller, Travis Shaw, Brock Holt and others are a constant reminder that they do not have a talent problem, they a failure to develop and maintain talent problem. At some point this organization has to realize when things go wrong for our guys, we are absolutely horrible at getting them right. Now we've seen Yelich fall apart. Hiura looks lost. Avi Garcia looks terrible. And Narvaez forgot how to hit or take a pitch. This is a Brewers problem and letting another guy like Narvaez walk, when he's shown to be a good player in other competent organizations, would be a huge mistake.

Three True Outcomes - Home Run, Walk, Strikeout

The second part could also be attributed to the 3TO mantra. If these guys are swinging for the fences with RISP, rather than trying to get a base hit, it feeds into the narrative that maybe they should be trying a different brand of baseball.

Well, it's only stupid in that success can't be defined that simply. What seems to be more prevailing nowadays is that you can't win the old way, which is completely untrue. And the take that because A-rod didn't bunt much in his career, it should be an indictment on his philosophy, is also silly. He was paid to drive in the runs. Other guys with markedly lower skill sets should have been used in a way where they maximized Rodriguez's strengths. The same could be said about the Brewers.

I think the sentiment is that the guy batting is probably a terrible hitter anyways, so if the guy gets a hit, it's a minor miracle. If you can get a guy in scoring position, where it takes only one minor miracle instead of two, why not try it?

Thomas Dillard, a fifth rounder, plays first base primarily.

Nobody’s fault but if this is the Yelich going forward it’s going to be impossible to overcome. Dynamite observation.

So a proven set up man for three or four pitchers who will amount to nothing. I hate this quantity over quality crap. Stearns could've got a hundred low level pitchers in the trade, but 100 x 0 is still zero. 1 x 0 is also zero.

So far, Lazar has a much higher K rate than Suter did. Lazar's K rate at A-ball last year was very similar to Mike Fiers (12.4 for Lazar, 12.0 for Fiers, 8.4 for Suter), if you're looking for a high 80's FB comp. I'm pretty sure Fiers was always a 91-94 guy in the minors. It is just really really tuff to be a successful big league right hander throwing 87-88. I hope I am wrong on Lazar. Because Fiers was 24 when he was drafted, it's hard to make apples to apples comparisons between the two. Lazar can throw harder than 87-88, though. He can run it up mid-low 90's easily, but stays high 80's because of how well the fastball plays (particularly up). It's just about getting command consistency with his breaking pitches, which are already very good. And, as previously mentioned, being 20 years old and weighing probably 170 pounds leaves a ton of room for projectability. Davies nor Fiers had that high of a ceiling, imo. I liken him more to Freddy Peralta at a similar age, but with much better control.