tmwiese55

Problem with trading for a 1B/DH is that a portion of the days he is only replacing Contreras at DH. Which is actually likely a downgrade. And Sanchez has been competent. However, come playoffs there's no need to DH Contreras so then it is your max value in the lineup. Still I'd say most 'bang for your buck' in a trade would be outfield. Unless RF continues to do better like it has lately and Perkins manages to keep it up then its not a drastic need either, but I wouldn't be banking on both of those things to hold the next 4 months. And keep in mind that OF could also be part of the same DH rotation improvement the 1B/DH would be.

Good posts. Yea the majority of informed people like many of us here could do just fine on the game decision, batting orders, etc. Strategies, long term planning, garnering respect, leadership skills, and most importantly people management of large egos (and large paychecks) are not things we all for sure could do. CC seemed good on all those things. And as someone else said, once someone has that level of competency, respect, professionalism down there really isn't much one can do to be well above the next guy. As we're seeing in MKE now, and in generally probably seeing with Cubs now. Ross seemed a competent/fine manager on a mediocre team and they had a fine mediocre season. They more or less have the same team now and continue to be mediocre with another competent manager. If someone else did all that stuff behind the scenes that most of don't have the knowledge or ability to do, then had us write the lineup and choose when to switch pitchers we'd probably be able to do just fine. After all, almost all these thousands of decisions fans often freak out and overreact to on a game by game basis are things that really could go either way and no one is a 'moron' for doing it. Sometimes things just don't work out.

Good posts. Yea I think CC is a good manager. But the driving force behind how MKE has been doing this the last chunk of years is whatever is going on with the pitching lab stuff. CC seemed to keep a good culture through mass turnover every year, managed the bullpen well, etc but when it comes down to it the key to all this is they turn over pitching a ton every year and keep pumping out results. I'm sure CC had a hand in that but he's not the main person for it, its a system. I would assume he's trying to bring as much of that to the Cubs as he can, but stuff like that doesn't happen in a few months. Plus, he's not the 'expert' so to speak on whatever MKE has been doing.

Reminds me of this one https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suzy_Favor_Hamilton . If you didn't hear this when it came out, former famous Olympian from WI ends up living a double life as a high end escort later in life.

Yea I'm not a soccer hater, but the way their jerseys are is off to me too. Giant brand logo across the chest and then a small crest of some kind on the upper left for the team. So you see jersey and you're like oh its the Expedia or Turkish Air? What is the team? Talking to Brits they seem to know it all so it doesn't matter to them, but I think it would help brand a team much better and especially to appeal tot he giant US market if you could actually identify who the team is. Or if you buy a jersey of the team it says Manchester so you know what it is, other people know what you're wearing etc rather than seemingly wearing a shirt in support Marathon Oil. Basically they should flip the giant chest one with the small shoulder one, boom done. Sure it costs them some money but the top league teams are unlimited in money

Yea Hudson has been lights out. Milner has been solid for years now and he'd just gone 1-2-3 the inning before. The main discussion would come around taking Tobias out after 6 considering our BP usage this year. I didn't go back and look at Hudson/Milners game logs but I'm guessing they had them pegged as guys that could use an inning today to not be laid off toooo long. Still, why not one more out of Myers first.

Could be nice break for the BP the last week or so too. Off last Thurs, Blowout last Fri with long start. Blowout Sun. 7 inning start Mon. Possible long start today. Day off tomorrow. They could use it

yup. So maybe the 'temper back' could be to make the bases back to the old ways and maybe the throw limit alone would've been enough help. But obviously I'm nitpicking I could say the same on the pitch clock stuff. Love it and its a huge positive. But after how drastic a difference it made I thought maybe adding a second back on could've been an adjustment, instead they reduced it even more this year

Yea with how easy it is to steal 2nd now bunting a guy over to 2nd should never be happening. On a sidenote, its surprising adding just a bit to each base could make this drastic of an increase in SBs easiness. Makes one think teams were probably being a bit too cautious prior to the rule change, like they listened to moneyball tooo much. Also could maybe temper back the new rules a little bit as its become a bit too easy imo. But hey, with how ridiculous pitching is these days any help to O is fine by me, so its not like I'm clamoring for it either.

Yes that's fair, missing their best hitter and pitcher they're not what they were. And of course they're not performing right now while dealing with other injuries too. But their roster is still top notch, would be very surprising if they don't get humming by end of year. And with all those issues, we're still only a few games ahead of them. We have all our injuries too but they have a lot of positive regression to the mean coming from guys. We're currently seeing the negative regression on guys like Contreras/Yeli.

Don't see much that works at the deadline. Offseason though McMahon could make sense. Adames gone, one of Turang/Ortiz goes to short and he takes the freed up spot. 29 year old with with like 3/44ish left on his deal after this year. He has better numbers road than home this year, but career there is the expected dip. Not the splashiest of moves but he's a solid player and that's not a crazy contract for MKE to handle. Would probably be able to bank on him much better than the Winker/Mccutcheon/Bradley guys

The quirk is that a team trading for him wouldn't want to give back MLB level starting pitching since they're also a playoff team. So essentially you'd be working out a 3 way trade. Gets pretty complicated at that point. You should be able to get a mediocre Tyler Anderson level guy without giving up any significant prospects/Adames. I'd assume for a 1/3 year rental the return wouldn't be good enough for us to trade him, but they have to do their due diligence and listen. The idea of starting Dunn/Andruw for the stretch is not good at all, so you're possibly looking to trade for someone to fill that spot and it becomes a wash. Basically robbing peter to pay paul thing

He's always been a good player when healthy. I wouldn't put too much stock in 30 PAs right off the DL in a terrible environment. He does K too much but that's baseball these days.

A CWS guy you could probably get for much cheaper is Kopech. Obviously that is for good reason as he's been rough the last couple years, but his profile is the exactly type of thing MKE has gotten ahold of the last 5ish years and been able to mold into a good pitcher much better than their previous teams did. Has started in the past so could start stretching him back out or focus on tweaking him into another reliever with 100 mph and big breaking pitch Just saying, it wouldn't surprise me at all that if this guy was on the Brewers he'd be killing it rather than floundering. Seems he has one more year of Arby left, only being paid 3 mil this year and is struggling so cost to acquire should be minimal.

League average replacement level RH OF who should cost very little. Same type of SP, who should cost very little. Just league avg/replacement level types. And if they get lucky with Perkins keeping this up and Mitchell/Chourio hitting better over the next 6 weeks might not need the OF. With the gap between them and LAD/Phi/ATL I wouldn't be giving up any legit prospect capital unless its for several years of control. Which I guess would apply to Robert and those CWS pitchers too. Otherwise, generally stay the course with Canha/Santana level pick ups for OF and SP. And I suppose a Rosario type I saw above can't hurt for backup IF and to cover if someone gets hurt, again as long as it doesn't cost legit prospects

Of course we all see the injury issue. But have to remember its also the only reason he's available and why his contract isn't outlandish. For a small market team, this is a risk you have to consider. Lots of players who are injury prone have it go away and stay healthy, and lots stay being injury prone. A team like MKE can't buy players at market cost without flaws but one like this they can and then cross your fingers you can get lucky. Financially, yes there will likely be one overlap year with Hoskins (I assume as of now that he'll pick up his option and be back) next year but after that you're essentially just moving Hoskins money over to him. Before this year we've spending the 8-10 mil on the Mccutcheon/Winker veteran types, well this guy is only like 8 mil more than that. So it really comes down to prospect costs imo. And yea if he still commands a ridiculous haul then pass on him and carry on as is. But, with the issues mentioned and that in general nobody gives up top top shelf prospects anymore my guess is it wouldn't be absurd. Especially since we'd almost assuredly be giving up a ML ready OF Frelick/Mitchell type so that's a solid starting block. I guess I'd also note I'm much more skeptical on our young OFs than most and don't see the harm in a cash out while you can type strategy on them. ETA: I guess if you do get lucky and he can stay healthier keep in mind you'll be able to trade him for a larger package before his FA season as well. Could apply the 'cash out' idea to him as well if you can get a healthy 2025 or 26 out of him

Nothing changed for me. I think I've mentioned a few times I wouldn't be trading anything significant at the deadline due to the gap between us and Phi/ATL/LAD. I thought they're a tier below those teams and this kind of reinforced it. To the consistent O talk. Yes things have improved this year but I'd say the biggest thing of the last few years that frustrates us or could be improved is having all 9 guys be at least league avg/ok guys rather than having 2-3 guys each day you feel are easy outs. This was helped last year by guys like Canha and Santana cleaning up two spots to be competent. Right now you have at least RF and any days there's subs in then at least 2 spots. Perkins has at least bounced back from that slump but you still have a bit of uneasiness with him too. So its better than in past years (and likely why the numbers are better this year) that had 3B and issues at 2b, OF, and 1B/DH. But improve by adding at least one competent OF goes a long way

Well it sure would've been nice if they didn't get these comebacks from the White Sox. Hard to believe CWS can be that bad. But yea to the CC stuff, I know I joked about how he won't make it all 5 years, which I don't think he will. I still think he's a good manager and he was good for us. Its just the cubs, Chicago media/fans, their situation, etc where I think he's put himself in a tough spot with high expectations and that teams is very unlikely to live up to them. Fast forward 3 years of being mediocre like their roster should be (barring ridiculous FA moves) and I think he'll get pushed out

Feels so much like the playoffs th last few years. Get up against good pitching and the O just collapses. And somehow how MASH unit of a pitching staff keeps getting results even against a top lineup

Well I'm convinced Ashby is legit

At least he didn't go down looking

I think he's gonna love 2027-2028 when he's chilling with his family getting paid 8 mil to do nothing.

One thing I noticed with our games vs them and others that have been on TV lately is the talk about Swanson. Things like 'get him outta here before he gets hot', "this won't last long" and just in general this talk like he's some kind of great hitter. Of course, what he's doing this year is worse than expected and some bounce back should come. But the guys essentially been a mediocre hitter his whole career, but they talk about like this is prime Braun all of a sudden OPSing .650. He's a .750ish type guy but due to his name and them giving a terrible contract its talked about like he's some masher.

Yea there wasn't an easy pull up. And sure ok, but still doesn't mean he hasn't been generally fine/good and our standards are high and have to remember people can't be perfect. Most teams would love for his results from a mid innings guy being paid league min. Including last night, 5/10 of his last games he's given up 0 hits or BBs. And that was only his 2nd BS of the year. Personally, for a bullpen full of guys who suck they sure get good results.

Obviously can't remember every game as they run together and there isn't a quick way to game log inherited runners. But on frangraphs, he's only given up a hit in like 3 of his last 10 games before tonight. His season LOB% is 77.5%. I don't really know a comp % on that stat so I grabbed the Baltimore setup man Cano who is very good and should probably be their closer, he's in the low 70%s. Then grabbed former Brewer great Will Smith who's had like a 12 year career as a solid middle/setup guy and won multiple WS and his career % is 73%. I know we have grown accustomed to ridiculous pitching standards the last few years, but these guys just can't be perfect.