Vaughn has career .830 OPS with bases loaded and two outs (24 PA) source
Frelick has career .321 OPS with bases loaded and two outs (13 PA) source
Vaughn has .686 career OPS in ‘high leverage’ situations compared to Frelick’s .652 OPS. Sal has higher OBP
Vaughn is better in 9th inning and ‘late and close’ situations compared to Sal’s career numbers
I’ll take Vaughn in 2026 in most situations
Conclusion: Frelick should be sent to Nashville to work on things 🙂
Peralta is coming off three consecutive seasons of 200 strikeouts. Only Dylan Cease has more strikeouts than Peralta since 2023. Cease is probably a good comp for Peralta and he got $210 million. I doubt Freddy comes close to that number, though.
The one issue I see is I don’t think Turang or Contreras will want to do a small extension at this point. They will want an Adames style long term extension or more, which is within their right.
We have two more full seasons of Yelich remaining. 🙂
Important to remember we often do not want to extend contracts to aging veterans.
Also, if any of us has the money to pay $250 for seats behind home plate in 2026 then we might have the resources for the new area, too.
The Brewers are not demolishing an orphanage or stealing from the poor to give to the rich. 🙂
At this point in Sal’s career, parts four seasons in Milwaukee, I don’t think the Brewers just send Frelick to Nashville after two bad months. I think Milwaukee’s patience is part of the appeal of playing here.
That essentially means giving up on Frelick in the near term. Sal has had 1,200 reasonably good at bats and 200 bad ones. Frelick has three more years of control left. Vaughn has one additional year left.
All that to say, I agree that Vaughn needs to be in the lineup nearly every day.
I completely understand that Andrew Vaughn deserves more at bat's. I can see the argument against not playing Vaughn over Bauers or Yelich against RHP. The team is also not ready to give up on Frelick after 200 AB.
BABIP still way down, strike outs down, walks up, exit velocity at career high, ground balls up, pulling the ball more, opposite field less.
Seems to me he should just start spraying the ball to the opposite field again.