Spencer Michaelis

If you've got questions for this week's episode, please drop them below! This will be our last episode before the trade deadline on Monday.

RHP Jacob Morrison assigned to Wisconsin Timber Rattlers from Wilson Warbirds.

Just was reminded that the brewers could potentially draft and follow Havard for next year because he’s going to a Juco. Would allow them to offer up to $225k before next years draft without using any bonus pool (or more and use some of the pool). Have to wonder if that will be a legitimate consideration if things go decently for him this year.

What about Lin gives you a bulldog vibe? How does one determine that with an ACL player?

Would not shock me if it cost Havard in the end, but no actual idea.

Got a good source on the Knaak story, and I'll share now that it's official. Clemson came in with around $600k in NIL after he had already agreed to an under-slot deal with the Brewers on draft day (not sure of the exact money), and to keep the timeline short, this is where we wound up in the end. The Brewers and even other organizations are not thrilled with Clemson here, as this is not really something colleges do for returning college players. Once they've gone and agreed with a pro team, they don't come in with a late offer. Until that agreement is in place, it's different. Once they have a verbal agreement, colleges back off and look elsewhere so as not to hurt relations with pro organizations. As has been mentioned, this may start a new trend, and in a few years maybe this will be much more normal, but for right now it's definitely not. FWIW, there are some whispers that Knaak's dad was pretty involved in all of this, though I don't have nearly as good a source on that, but probably smart to keep in mind that while he did back out of an agreement, we are talking about a 21-year-old here who was potentially being pulled in a lot of directions by his parents, agent, college coaches, etc.

Hart is not a Brewers fan as far as I know. Kruzan, George and Ruby all are though.

Sounds like Knaak is definitely not signing, according to his dad. Leaves $315,875, which likely will be at least partially used by Hart. At this point, I'm hoping for Havard and he feels like the only realistic one left in my eyes, but would be happy to be proven wrong!

I’d be pretty surprised. I’d assume Hart is over the $150k, and if Knaak doesn’t sign they’re really not going to have much to work with, and even if he does sign they’re probably not getting the discount they originally agreed on.

While Brick has a lot of qualities the Brewers look for, right-handed hitting HS catchers have probably the lowest success rate of any position in the draft historically. Add in the fact that he would demand slot or higher, I think the risk is greater than the reward. I completely agree with you about needing some fresh blood behind the dish, but guys like Brick and Sean Dunlap, who I was high on earlier, are just too risky IMHO. There are still several HS catchers I feel the Brewers could be looking at, like Dylan Kassab, Kendall Hagedorn, or Maddux Lessard, that fit our profile and would be cheaper and therefore less of a risk. Lots of good college catchers that are possibilities too. Garrett Wright, Robbie Lavey, and Cashel Dugger will all be 21.0 or younger on draft day and are really solid prospects. Even Brady Neal, Alabama's catcher, will only be 21.9 as a SR, so could be a great bargain. I mentioned Hagedorn in a post about a month before the draft. Awesome to see they were able to convince him to join the org! They liked Kassab a lot too. I thought they might take him in the 20th.

Either I’m losing my mind, or the Shuckers have not updated the probables in a while. Didn’t Letson go on the IL with an oblique like… 4 days ago?

FWIW, I had a very good source tell me that the Brewers were only going to need to negotiate with 4 players after the draft. That the rest had all agreed to deals before being picked or immediately after. Considering the 13-16 round picks are still unsigned and Knaak is as well, that math isn’t mathing unless someone backed out of (or is considering backing out of) an agreed upon deal. Would seem to be a pretty risky move for a lot of reasons for Knaak, if that’s the case.

Havard's mom followed me on Twitter, so perhaps that's a good sign lol

Martinez is definitely one I should have included. I came away super impressed with his stuff in the game I watched, and the results were legit too. Definitely hoping he can avoid surgery.