Spencer Michaelis

Sorry @Joseph Zarr, this is my super busy part of the year so I’m a bit behind on these threads so far haha. But yes Birchard was definitely throwing both a slider and a curve! Both could be above average to plus offerings imo

Episode 1 of the Brewer Fanatic podcast, co-hosted by Jack Stern and Spencer Michaelis. Image courtesy of Brock Beauchamp & Brewer Fanatic Jack and Spencer discuss the first five games of the Brewers season, give their early thoughts on Pat Murphy as a manager, their expectations for the season and preview the upcoming series against the Mariners. View full article

The job of a big-league pitcher has evolved quite a bit. Though the ability to miss bats and rack up strikeouts has always been valuable, they've never been more in vogue than they are right now. In the not-so-distant past, the ability to generate soft contact was seen as a more valuable trait. Image courtesy of © Rick Scuteri-USA TODAY Sports While there is no debating the fact that strikeouts are valuable (they nearly guarantee that a batter will not reach base, nor will they allow a baserunner to advance), not every pitcher’s repertoire allows them to pitch that way. Should those pitchers simply be thrown by the wayside? Do they no longer have a place in the game? The Brewers, as well as many other teams, don’t see it that way. Taking a look at the Crew's projected rotation for 2024, it’s clear that while they are missing their two horses from the past (Corbin Burnes and Brandon Woodruff), they do still have some pitchers who can miss bats and rack up strikeouts. Freddy Peralta had a 30.9% strikeout rate for 2023, which was eighth-highest in baseball among pitchers who made at least 15 starts. DL Hall was pitching in relief last season and only threw 19 1/3 MLB innings, but he posted a strikeout rate of 28.4%. He also posted a 32.3% rate in Triple-A, when he was mostly being used as a starter. Jakob Junis also largely came out of the pen, though he did so in longer stints, and he posted a 26.2% rate in 86 innings. Per TruMedia, the league average for pitchers who started at least 15 games last season was 22.8%. There are two names that are expected to be in the rotation who fall into the below-average range. Neither Colin Rea (21.3%) nor Wade Miley (16.1%) were at or above league average this past season. Another candidate for the rotation, Joe Ross, has a career strikeout rate of 21.3% as well. During his time in Arizona, Jack Stern wrote about Rea’s pitchability and how he gets outs despite his “average stuff”. While most of the impetus falls on Rea to execute his pitches, he also made it a point to credit William Contreras's pitch calling in his most recent post-game availability. Contreras is the latest in a long line of strong game-callers whom the Brewers have had behind the plate. Game-calling seems to be a skill the Brewers value when acquiring catchers, but they have also shown an ability to develop that skill once the catchers have been brought in. What may surprise some people is the goal that catchers have when they are calling pitches. For the most part, they are looking to induce early, weak contact, as often as possible. They aren’t going into an at-bat chasing a strikeout, the majority of the time. There are always extenuating circumstances, such as a runner on third base with less than two outs, In that scenario, a catcher and pitcher will often be looking to go after a strikeout from pitch one. Closers and high-leverage relievers are normally pitchers that you are going to want to have the ability to miss bats as well. But in most situations, especially early in games? Soft contact can still reign supreme. When calling a game, there are a number of factors that catchers take into account in order to create the type of contact that limits hits, while also limiting the number of pitches thrown. First, there must be an extremely strong knowledge of the pitcher they're catching. They have to know the pitcher’s repertoire just as well as the pitcher does. They need to know how each pitch moves, what pitches pair well with each other in sequence, as well as which ones do not play well off of each other. Sequencing pitches can sound like a relatively easy thing to understand and implement as a catcher. A high fastball pairs well with a big curveball. A low fastball away from a left-handed hitter could pair well with a changeup. Most people have seen the GIFs that Pitching Ninja posts on Twitter, showing how pitches tunnel with each other. Those are very appealing to the eye, and they do show how one pitch can help another. However, there is a lot more to sequencing than just tunneling pitches. Catchers also need to sequence pitches to change eye levels, to ensure that hitters aren’t able to cue in on one area of the zone, something that makes a hitter's job a lot easier. This is something Burnes needed to make some adjustments to in his final season and a half in Milwaukee, in terms of always wanting to throw low cutters. Eventually, hitters just started sitting on it, and despite the pitch’s impressive characteristics, they were able to ambush it more often as time went on. While certain pitches often pair well with a different pitch, a catcher also has to make sure that they’re not sequencing the same way every time they use a certain pitch. For example, if a catcher always follows a high fastball with a curveball (or vice versa), teams will pick up on that. Although conventional wisdom might tell them to call a certain pitch, they can’t just keep throwing down the same sequence every time. Sequencing also involves the ability to “read swings”. A hitter will often tell you what pitches he is seeing well, as well as which pitches he might be struggling with. This is the job of a catcher, but also of the pitcher. Wade Miley is the king of using a hitter's swings against him. Vinny Rottino did a breakdown on Bally Sports Live last season that perfectly encapsulates how Miley used future teammate Mark Canha's swings against him. during a plate appearance against the Mets. As the video shows, while location is important, timing will always reign supreme for hitters. If a hitter is on time, and a pitcher makes a mistake, he will probably not get that mistake back. What strong sequencing and reading swings can do, though, is to give the location of those pitches a larger margin for error. A hitter who is not on time might be able to get a barrel to a mistake, but he’s not going to be able to hit it at the ideal launch angle. Christian Yelich’s rocket choppers, especially in 2021 and 2022, are a great example of what it looks like when a hitter’s timing is off and they can’t truly punish the mistakes. Pitchers and catchers are aiming to create that type of timing discrepancy. Brewers catchers have done a strong job limiting hard contact through pitch calling. Last year, out of 95 catchers who caught at least 1000 pitches at the MLB level, Victor Caratini was 16th in lowest average exit velocity against. William Contreras was also above average in that regard. Former Brewers catchers Manny Piña and Omar Narvaez were in the top 10, and the recently acquired Gary Sánchez was, as well. Calling pitches is only half of the battle, though. In order to turn weak contact into outs with consistency, your defense needs to work in conjunction with the pitch calling. The Brewers have also excelled in that regard, as they finished first in Outs Above Average in 2023. They also finished second in Baseball Prospectus's "Deserved Runs Prevented". The combination of defense and pitch calling are a recipe for success, but how do the Brewers specifically partner these two facets of the game? In early March, our own Matthew Trueblood spoke to Pat Murphy about defensive positioning and game planning. “There’s a guy upstairs named Fox," Murphy said, referring to Director Baseball Research and Development Andrew Fox. "It’s a collaboration. Andy Fox, [Jason] Lane and [Matt] Erickson, [Quentin] Berry, and Fox. They get together. And then the starting pitcher has a little say in there, where they say in there, ‘I’m gonna throw this guy this way.’ Then we’re gonna do it that way.” Based on that quote, it sounds as though the pitcher and catcher game planning likely happens prior to the defensive positioning. That way, the defensive game plan can be adjusted based on how the battery plans to attack certain hitters. An example of this could be a pitcher planning to only throw a certain hitter pitches away. The defense wants to know that, so that they can align themselves a bit differently to account for the higher likelihood of the batter taking that pitch the other way. "You can’t dictate what’s going to happen in a game, how the ball is going to be hit, whatever," Murphy summarized. "You can’t. You just do what you can to try and put them in the right positions, and put your best defenders out there that you can have, and still put together a complete team." Baseball can be a confusing and frustrating sport. Sometimes a pitcher, catcher, and the entire defense can do everything right. They can have the defense positioned exactly how they should be, and then a soft batted ball will still find a hole for a hit. On the other side, sometimes a hitter will square up a line drive at 110 MPH and it will hit the center fielder in the chest for an out. While pitchers certainly get lucky from time to time, the odds of recording outs are much higher when the ball is hit softly, and that will always remain the goal of a battery. Despite the loss of pitchers like Burnes and Woodruff, the Brewers have the type of defensive personnel (as well as the pitch callers) to generate and capitalize on that soft contact more often than most teams. View full article

I feel like the "eye test" wording here is being used in lieu of "analytics"? Because to me, the eye test and using your gut are more or less the same thing. It's ignoring statistics or numbers and going with what you (think) you see. I'll also add, Bauers' .750 OPS with a reasonable 24% K-rate seems to be getting ripped on a lot. He's had a pretty decent spring and has the ability to hit for power. I'm not sure what he's done this spring to be roped into the same category as Turang's pit of ineptitude at the plate haha.

Prospects Live's Top 100 was just released. I'm a big fan of the work they do. It's their own evaluations, they aren't just following a crowd. They're often the first on breakouts and their rankings are often quite a bit different than consensus. Seven Brewers in the Top 100 (helps that, like with Baseball America, they include DL Hall as prospect eligible still) https://www.prospectslive.com/prospects-live/2024-preseason-top-100-prospects-list

The "Wiemer needs to make more contact" thing while arguing in favor of Mitchell is something I have seen a lot of, and I just don't get it. In MLB, Mitchell's K% is 38.3%. Wiemer is at 28.3%. Mitchell's whiff rate is 35.4%. Wiemer's whiff rate is 33.6%. Both have issues with swing and miss, but Wiemer has had fewer than Mitchell. It's ok to talk about the struggles of Wiemer, but I don't see how it can be flipped into a positive for Mitchell at the same time. Frankly, I think we were very much on the precipice of a Mitchell collapse right before his injury last year, and there would likely be a much different view of him amongst the fanbase if he had played more. All that said... We don't know that he would have collapsed for sure, and I do think his results will usually be better than his expected stats, due to the speed and hustle that will turn grounders into singles and singles into doubles. He has also made some swing adjustments this offseason, like Wiemer. We will see if that helps him cover the top of the zone fastballs any better. TLDR; both Wiemer and Mitchell have plenty of concerns, but using Wiemer's swing and miss concerns as a pro-Mitchell argument doesn't make much sense.

Prospect Tilt has been hyping up Henderson a lot lately, and this news of 94-96 with 18 IVB is extremely exciting. It really will all come down to the slider development for Henderson's chances of starting.

Great work as always Joseph. You are the only Brewer fan I will concede the title of "Most Hours of Brewers MiLB.tv Watched" to 🤣

Jackson Chourio He's the man. He's locked in for up to a decade. I hope he's starting Opening Day in centerfield. It's going to be a fun time watching him grow at the MLB level.Jeferson Quero Always has been one of my favorites, had him top 3 early on in the 2022 season. He's a stud defender, great leader, and the bat could be quite good. Think he's up in 2024 unless one of Haase/Nola really rebound and also stay healthy.Jacob Misiorowski The arm talent is insane. Probably the best of any pitcher in the minor leagues. Can he hold up as a starter and can the command be serviceable? I lean more toward yes than no, but they're real concerns.Tyler Black He's ready for MLB at bats, not sure the Burnes deal makes it more likely that he makes the team than before the deal, but I still think he's got a good chance to be on the roster.Brock Wilken If you read my draft breakdown, you know I was a little down on Wilken's fit with the Brewers. Having seen him play in person twice while he was in Appleton, and watched him at all three levels... He's grown on me. Defense is still more eh, than good, but it's fine, I think the K's are going to start to show more at the upper levels. But he's more of a gamer than I expected, shows some good instincts on the bases, & hit tool is better than I thought too. Early batted ball data's also very good.DL Hall My breakdown on Hall are all in an article already, but my personal thoughts are that I believe in him being a starter. He made a significant change to his mechanics in 2023 and after that the command was *much* improved, and some of his stuff played better after the change too. I'm in on him being a mid to higher rotation arm.Joey Ortiz I'm high on Ortiz. I think the Brewers have their future SS, assuming Adames isn't extended. The glove is elite, and could be a gold glove level defender at short. Strong arm. I think the bat is going to be better than people expect. He hits the ball extremely hard and makes a ton of contact.Luis Lara I think this is a 70 grade defender in center field with hit-ability traits and more power that he will tap into as he matures. 60 grade baserunner but he's faster than that. Just needs to work on his jumps and that could turn to a 70 as well. Even if the power doesn't come, it's easy to see a lot of similarities to Sal Frelick, but as a switch hitter.Robert Gasser Most seasons we would have seen him in MLB. Post-Burnes deal, I think Gasser will get a real chance to make the rotation out of Spring Training. He should be a solid 3-5 starter with a good pitch mix and the re-found command.Carlos F Rodriguez I think we will most likely see Carlos in MLB at some point this season as well. Southern League Pitcher of the Year, the command will need to continue to get better, but he's a bulldog competitor with really good stuff and a starters mix.Eric Brown Jr Still a huge believer. Excited to see him do pretty well in the AFL, hopefully the start of better injury luck and overall health. I think he's an electric player to watch on the bases and in the field and that the bat is going to be there for him once he gets consistent reps. He started getting back into his legs with his swing in the AFL, which should help him get to some of the pop I think he has.Cooper Pratt Still hard to believe the Brewers got Pratt where they did. Huge upside in pretty much every facet. Will need to be patient with him, but the payoff could be a Gunnar Henderson type. In a few podcast appearances he has talked about gaining some good weight and seeing his exit velo's improve. A good start to adding that power.Yophery Rodriguez Slowed down toward the end of the DSL season. Not uncommon for players in their first season. I think he's the guy this far down that could make the leap to top 5 or so in the system by next year. Gorgeous swing, has the ability to tap into more power as he puts on weight. Already shown some real juice to the pull side and an ability to spray the ball all over the field. Should be solid on basepaths and in the field, arm isn't great but could allow him to move to a corner still.Josh Knoth Ceiling wise, only Miz, and maybe Hall have a higher ceiling in the system. Mid-Upper 90's fastball with great life, two nasty breaking balls. Really just need to see how it looks in pro ball, but he's one that has TOR stuff, which isn't easy to find.Luke Adams I remain extremely high on Adams, I think both his glove and his baserunning are heavily underrated. He might not be the most visually appealing player of all time, but I expect him to be able to get it done as he climbs the ladder.Jorge Quintana Switch hitter, in limited video both swings look pretty good. Reports could be a plus hit tool with a line drive swing. Expected to be able to stick at short, despite size. Excited to see how production follows up the reports.Logan Henderson Still surprised we never saw him in Appleton. I think they just wanted him to lead the Mudcats rotation during their playoff push. Best changeup in the system, fastball with ride that has jumped in velo since draft day. I want to see how it goes at tougher levels and if he can continue to stay healthy like he did in 2023. But this is a potential mid-rotation arm. Needs the slider to improve.Eric Bitonti Huge raw power, the strikeouts will be something to monitor. A very good athlete for his size, he's likely a third baseman, and could be a pretty solid one. Really a guy that I am in wait and see mode on, but the ceiling is very high if he can make contact consistently. Mike Boeve Big time hit tool, started to tap into the power more in pro ball. I think it's there, but it may not be there consistently for a year or so. Similar hitter to Tyler Black prior to his power breakout, but not going to steal bases like Black. Likely a better defender at third and second though, has cleaner actions, though still needs some work to be sure.Ryan Birchard I liked Birchard as a potential Brewers target from the start and I really loved this pick. He shows 60 grade stuff across the board in his FB/CV/SL mix. The fastball had an induced vertical break of 20" in the MLB Draft League which is elite. He can touch up to 98 with the fastball. The curve is a near 3000 RPM hammer and the slider is a 2500 RPM pitch with 12-15" of horizontal break. It's a tiny sample, but got some really strong reviews in instructs. Big time ceiling if he can stick as an SP. Here are the rest of my Top 60ish: I have the international guys that we have some information on with a preliminary ranking based on the small info and video we have. 21 RHP Coleman Crow 22 2B Oliver Dunn 23 RHP Bradley Blalock 24 SS Jesus Made 25 INF Juan Baez 26 RHP Patricio Aquino 27 INF Dylan O'Rae 28 SS Luis Peña 29 1B Wes Clarke 30 SS Joandruw Peña 31 INF Jadher Areinamo 32 RHP Tyler Woessner 33 RHP Jesus Rivero 34 RHP Will Rudy 35 RHP Bishop Letson 36 RHP Craig Yoho 37 1B Tayden Hall 38 2B Pedro Ibarguen 39 C Luis Corobo 40 SS Daniel Guilarte 41 SS Freddy Zamora 42 RHP Evan McKendry 43 RHP Alexander Cornielle 44 RHP Shane Smith 45 OF Blake Perkins 46 OF Carlos Rodriguez (OF) 47 RHP Enniel Cortez 48 LHP Victor Emiliano Garcia 49 C Matthew Wood 50 RHP Stiven Cruz 51 RHP Edwin Jimenez 52 OF Luis Castillo 53 SS Gregory Barrios 54 C Satchell Norman 55 Two Way Quinton Low 56 RHP Yorman Galindez 57 UTIL Noah Campbell 58 RHP Dalvin Bodre 59 SS Kevin Ereu 60 SS Josh Adamczewski

To trade, or not to trade, that was the question. On Thursday night, the Brewers chose to trade Corbin Burnes, and the one year of club control left on his deal, to the Baltimore Orioles. In exchange, they received a prospect package, including left-handed pitcher DL Hall. What did the Brewers find so intriguing in Hall? In a trade bound to receive backlash and questions, why are the Brewers “settling” for a post-hype pitcher in a trade that involved giving up one of the best pitchers in their franchise's history? Image courtesy of © Tommy Gilligan-USA TODAY Sports In normal conversation, answering any question with the one-word answer of “stuff” might cause some annoyance on the receiving end of that answer. If that conversation happened with your parents, you might have even found yourself in trouble. For the Brewers, that one-word answer pretty much sums up what they see in Hall and what they hope to build upon. Stuff. Prospect followers have likely heard DL Hall’s name before. At one point, he was seen as one of the fastest-rising pitching prospects in baseball. Some struggles in 2022 caused him to slip back off of many of the mainstream top 100 lists, but he rebounded nicely this past season, including a successful 19.1 innings out of the bullpen at the major league level. No longer qualifying as a prospect by service time standards, Baseball America (who only consider a prospect graduated when they reach the required 130 at-bats or 50 innings pitched plateau) still ranks Hall inside their top 100, as he checks in at 93. He likely would have re-appeared on other lists if he was still eligible. Hall’s “stuff” is one of a myriad of reasons that he was able to bounce back in 2023. Hall is equipped with an elite fastball that averaged 95.6 MPH in MLB in 2023 but has been a tick or two higher throughout his minor league career. Any left-handed pitcher who throws mid-upper 90’s with his fastball will raise some eyebrows. When it comes to Hall, the fastball has characteristics that could make it pretty interesting, even if he only threw it at 91 MPH. One of the most interesting characteristics is his release extension, which comes in at seven feet on average (92nd percentile in MLB during the 2023 season). This means the fastball appears to be a couple of miles per hour higher than the radar gun tells us. It also has a flat Vertical Approach Angle, allowing it to play extremely well at the zone's top. Eno Sarris’s “Stuff+” metric grades the fastball out as 121.5, which ranked 40th amongst pitchers to throw at least 50 fastballs last season. As Nick Pollack of Pitcher List showed in the Tweet below, he doesn’t throw it up in the zone often to right-handed hitters, which is likely something the Brewers will work to adjust. He generated whiffs on 30.2% of his fastballs at the MLB level in 2023, and it’s a pitch that could carry the repertoire even if his secondaries were lagging. The secondaries, however, are not lagging despite, as Curt Hogg pointed out, the fact that the slider did not generate the best results at the MLB level; Stuff+ and scouting grades across the board view Hall's slider as a plus pitch. Baseball America grades it as a 70-grade pitch, a technical "plus-plus." As Lance Brozdowski pointed out in the tweet below, Hall made a major change to the pitch throughout the season. Around June, Hall completely changed the shape of the slider. He added nine inches of drop to the pitch without losing any of its horizontal movement. This took the pitch from a solid offering to the type that gets a 70 grade. The poor results are certainly noteworthy, but it feels safe to say that they likely boiled down to the command of the pitch and it simply being a tiny sample size more than anything else. It doesn't stop with the slider, though. Hall also has a changeup, which grades out quite well by Baseball America, checking in with a 60 grade. Their notes state that the changeup “has developed later in his career into a plus pitch and represents his best offering to right-handed hitters.” While the slider has been primarily used against left-handed hitters, the changeup has been used exclusively against right-handed hitters at the major league level. Throughout Hall’s two stints in MLB, he has thrown 111 changeups, and 110 of them have come against righties. It’s a pitch that he appears to have had some pretty rough luck within MLB so far. In 2023, hitters batted .294 with a .550 slugging against it. The expected stats are much more in line with the Baseball America grade, though, with an xBA of .189 and an xSLG of .368. Hall also brings what Baseball America classifies as a 60-grade curveball. He had scrapped this pitch early in his minor league career but re-surfaced in 2022, and it appears to have been a good call to do so. There’s a separation between the slider and the curveball, not only in the velocity but also in the movement profile. Stuff+ is a bit lower on the curve than Baseball America, but it still has it as 106, meaning it’s above average. His repertoire grades out as having 3-4 plus pitches, or better, by almost every measure, and as Josh Norris points out with this Tweet, he joins Jacob Misiorowski in rarified prospect air with the quality of pitches Hall brings to the table. He hasn’t yet reached the ceiling he is capable of reaching because of a distinct lack of command, which Baseball America placed a 30 grade on. While Hall only walked hitters at a 6.2% rate out of the major league bullpen, that number was quite a bit higher in Triple-A, coming in at 13.8%. The positive is that Eno Sarris’s Location+ backs up the results he was getting in MLB, giving him an overall score of 106, which is above average. If Hall can carry over that level of command to the rotation and over a larger sample, reaching that ceiling starts to look more realistic. It’s easy to see why the Brewers targeted Hall in this return, with his tremendous upside that he mixes with a relatively safe floor. Hall is the type of pitcher that the Brewers have had a lot of success with in recent history. They may have a guy who can be a legitimate top-of-the-rotation arm if he can stick in the rotation. If the command never comes around enough to hold up as a starter, and assuming he remains healthy, the floor should be close to a high-leverage reliever. Perhaps even in the early-career Josh Hader type of role. What are your thoughts on Hall? Do you think he will reach his ceiling? View full article

It should. Black will have made the Baseball America Top 100 and the Pipeline list at that point. The rule states, "Players must be Top 100 in two of the lists compiled by MLB.com, Baseball America or ESPN to qualify."

Not to say that the arm is great or anything, but I do recall seeing this comment on a Fangraphs article about Dunn. No way of truly knowing if this is his cousin, but what a weird thing to lie about if he isn't 🤣

He's too old to be thought of as a traditional prospect, but the Brewers have an infielder right on the fringe of the big leagues who could provide power and versatility from the left side of the plate in 2024. Image courtesy of © Mike De Sisti / The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel / USA TODAY NETWORK Acquired by the Brewers in a trade with Baltimore for cash in June 2022, Patrick Dorrian had gotten off to a really poor start in Triple-A Norfolk, sitting at a 43 wRC+ through 46 games. In the 48 games he played for the Sounds after the trade, he had a 126 wRC+ and showed some very interesting power flashes, making him a player to watch in 2023. Dorrian’s final numbers in 2023 don’t have the look of a post-hype breakout, at least at the surface level. He finished the season with an 89 wRC+, struck out in over 30 percent of his plate appearances and walked only 8.4 percent of the time. That strikeout rate placed him in the 6th percentile of Triple-A hitters with at least 200 plate appearances. The walk rate was in the 15th percentile. When taking only those surface-level numbers into account, it would be fair to wonder if Dorrian is even deserving of a Triple-A roster spot. Instead, I am going to explore whether or not Dorrian could make an impact at the highest level in 2024. First, Dorrian’s season-long stats can be broken down a bit to account for an extremely slow start and a poor ending, as well. He began the season on the Developmental List, before being activated Apr. 13. From that point through the end of April, Dorrian amassed 41 plate appearances, and came out of the month with a wRC+ of 8. His September was not much better, posting a wRC+ of 17 in 61 plate appearances. If you remove those 102 plate appearances, and only take his four-month stretch of May through August, Dorrian’s numbers look much better. In the 305 plate appearances he had during that stretch, he struck out at a 28.5% rate (rough, but theoretically livable) and had a wRC+ of 115. He also hit 20 of his 21 home runs during that period. His slow start and finish can’t be thrown out entirely, but it does add some context to his final numbers. Now that we have that additional context, let’s take a look at Dorrian’s splits in 2023 and see if anything pops out. A left-handed bat, he appears to be a definite platoon candidate, posting an .845 OPS against right-handed pitchers to go along with a 30.3% strikeout rate. Conversely, Dorrian put up a measly .513 OPS against southpaws, with a 34.9% strikeout rate. While the preference would certainly be for every player to be platoon-proof, teams like the Tampa Bay Rays have shown that there are ways to work around big splits like Dorrian’s. Take a look at the below heat maps for Dorrian showing how he slugged against right-handed pitchers and left-handed pitchers. (All heat maps and charts are courtesy of TruMedia.) SLG vs RHP SLG vs LHP Looking at those maps, it seems that while Dorrian can make a lefty pay when they make a major mistake, any semblance of execution will lead to very poor results. Against right-handed pitchers, though, there is a much wider range of red and green. He seems to struggle with low pitches, especially those that are low and away, but he does a lot of damage against pitches that are thigh-high and above and can cover both sides of the plate pretty well when the pitch is up in the zone. It seems clear (both from his surface level stats and the heat maps) that for Dorrian to be at his best, he will need to be facing right-handed pitchers as often as possible. Thus, we are only going to look at things from that perspective for the rest of this article--beginning with the quality of contact Dorrian has shown against righties. Now that we have honed further in on a certain split, the qualifier for any stat that is given will be based on a minimum of 150 plate appearances against right-handed pitchers. Among the 385 hitters who qualified, Dorrian stood out in a number of categories, especially when it comes to hitting the ball with authority. According to TruMedia, Dorrian’s average exit velocity of 91.2 was in the 95th percentile for qualifiers. Just as importantly, 54.1% of his batted balls were 95 MPH or higher, which was in the 97th percentile. Hitting the ball hard is always a good thing, but it’s a lot better if you’re combining that exit velocity with the ability to lift the ball. A TruMedia Barrel is defined as “a batted ball with an exit velocity >= 95 and a launch angle between 10 and 35 degrees.” Dorrian excelled in that regard as well, coming in with a 24.2% barrel rate, which placed him in the 88th percentile. He also led all 385 qualifiers with an average fly ball distance of 356 feet. When Dorrian hits the ball, it is often hit in a way that will bring him a lot of success. Even on a lot of his outs, he was hitting the ball well. He finished in the 98th percentile in “Hard Outs,” which is an out recorded on a ball hit at least 95 MPH and with a launch angle between 3 and 45 degrees. While that may sound like Dorrian simply had a lot of bad luck in 2023, and while he actually did, there is still more to it than just that. Given the strikeout rate issues mentioned earlier, you may have come to the conclusion that Dorrian has some swing-and-miss issues, and you would be correct in that assumption. His in-zone whiff rate of 29.5% was in the 2nd percentile. His swinging-strike rate of 19.1% was also in the 2nd percentile. Not only are they well below where you would hope a hitter would be, there simply aren’t many (if any) hitters who can succeed with that much swing-and-miss in their game. So what is giving him so much trouble? Is this something that can be fixed? In order to find the issues, we can look a bit deeper at his heat maps and break them down by pitch type. SLG vs RHP only (by pitch type) Looking at these heat maps, we see that Dorrian has quite a bit of red on three maps, in particular. He seems to be able to make solid contact with four-seam fastballs in all quadrants; he does very well with mistake changeups; and he does similarly well with curveballs in the zone. The two that stand out as concerns would be the two-seam/sinker and the slider. Cutters may give him some trouble as well, but the heat map isn’t as damning for that pitch as the other two. Based on those slugging heat maps, we now know which pitches he often does his damage on. Where does the whiff trouble come from? Let’s look at contact rates for those same six pitches. Interestingly, the amount of contact made for Dorrian does not correlate very well with the quality of contact or the results. Dorrian actually does a pretty good job of making contact on sliders and sinkers, but he didn't slug much against either. He doesn’t make very consistent contact on changeups or four-seamers, but slugs quite a bit against both. The only pitch that lines up all the way around is the curveball. He does not miss curveballs in the zone and he does it with hard, elevated contact as well. We can see all of the stats laid out in the chart below and that gives more context to what we see in the heat maps. What we see in this chart is that, despite the lower slugging numbers, Dorrian actually makes hard contact against both sliders and sinkers. The issue for Dorrian against sinkers is that he is pounding them into the ground. His Barrel rate of 12.1% is well below his average, and well below average for qualified hitters in Triple A. When it comes to the slider, there’s actually reason to believe he was pretty unlucky in 2023, posting a very strong Barrel rate of 23.5% and hitting the ball at the ideal launch angle between 10 and 30 degrees 41.2% of the time. Overall, there is reason to believe in Dorrian’s ability to hit all six of the main pitches. There is also some reason to worry with the majority of them. He will need to be able to elevate two-seamers, and he will need to be able to make more consistent contact with the four-seamers and changeups. Given the fact that he also fared well against velocity (.802 OPS against FB 95+ MPH), it’s hard to come away from this deep dive thinking that Dorrian would be incapable of hitting against MLB pitching, as long as his platoon splits are managed carefully. All of this is not even to mention the versatility Dorrian provides defensively. He spent at least 15 games at all four infield positions in 2023. The concern with him falls into the “Jack of All Trades, Master of None” category. He has pretty good hands; his range is good enough to handle the middle infield in a pinch; and his arm is average or better. But he doesn’t really excel at any one spot, and expecting even mediocre shortstop play at the MLB level would probably be pushing it. Luckily for him, a utility player often only needs to be serviceable at multiple spots, and he should be able to handle that. Dorrian may or may not help the Brewers in 2024. He’s certainly got his flaws. But he also has a lot of interesting characteristics that, if utilized correctly, could make him a useful player for the big-league club. Dorrian is a good reminder of why it doesn’t make much sense to complain about minor-league moves, especially based on a couple months of results. If Dorrian does end up making an impact, the replies to this Adam McCalvy tweet announcing the trade could be fun to look back on. Even if he never does impact MLB, he has shown that there was plenty of reason to take a shot on him. What are your thoughts on Dorrian? Do you believe he could impact the Brewers roster in 2024? Let us know below. View full article

It is possible it will change a bit for sure. The tough part about VAA is it doesn’t always correlate with the IVB (the inches of carry). It can be caused more by a low release point than simply by the carry of the ball. But it is definitely something we will have to watch.

Definitely an interesting article! My issue with it, is that there are very different shapes on every pitch. I like that they added a sweeper classification, because it is definitely a different pitch than anything else they have. But I also feel like you could start having a bunch of different names for four-seam fastballs if you wanted, given some ride, some run, some are plain flat. If we separate every pitch to the Nth degree, I feel like it'll just become too watered down eventually. It's definitely a hard balance to strike though lol, because I definitely get your point.

I am referring to that one as the sinker yes. In my opinion, two-seamers and sinkers are the same pitch. In fact, I believe MLB doesn't classify them as two-seamers anymore either. The fastball classifications they have are four-seam, cutter and sinker. It was always weird how they separated them to me, so I'm glad they've gone away from it haha.

Unfortunately I don’t think there Is one, single thing that will always translate to success, but outlier pitch metrics tend to give guys a better chance at success. The curveball also gets very poor results against it, from the hitters perspective, and moves more than any curve in baseball. The slider gets really poor contact and a lot of swing and miss as well. It’s not simply the way the pitch moves that’s interesting. Though I would personally argue that the quality of the pitches is more predictive of future success, as players progress through the upper levels, than their surface level results are. Edit: forgot to answer #2. I’m not sure anyone knows for sure, but Tommy John is a very routine procedure these days. It’s pretty much been perfected. Outside of the missed time it takes to rehab, there’s usually not much of a stepback for pitchers. Some even come back throwing harder. Shoulder injuries are the career killers these days.

I’d say next to zero for the chances of him becoming a MiLB FA. Unless his rehab goes horribly, I’d expect him to be on the 40 Man next offseason.

On Wednesday, the Brewers and Matt Arnold made their first trade with an old friend when David Stearns and the Mets agreed to send Coleman Crow to the Crew. In return, they received starting pitcher Adrian Houser and outfielder Tyrone Taylor. In this article, let's take a closer look at Crow. Image courtesy of © Mark J. Rebilas-USA TODAY Sports Coleman Crow was a 28th-round selection by the Angels in 2019, but he didn’t make his professional debut until 2021 due to COVID-19. He worked through the system over the next two years, starting in 2023 in Double A. He made four starts before going on the Injured List with an elbow issue that would eventually lead to Tommy John surgery. Despite the injury, he was dealt to the Mets in a trade for former Brewer Eduardo Escobar in late June. He underwent his procedure in August and will probably miss most (if not all) of the 2024 season. With knowledge of all of that, the Brewers still decided he was worth two respectable big-league players. What did they see in order to make this trade worthwhile from Milwaukee’s standpoint? They saw outlier spin and outlier movement to go along with solid command. Specifically, they saw major outlier qualities in his breaking balls. We would be remiss to ignore (as with any Southern League pitcher who threw in the first half of the season last year) that the spin rates and the movement on his pitches were inflated a bit due to the pre-tacked baseballs they were using. However, simply put, if you can spin the baseball, you can spin the baseball. Crow can do that. Looking first at his four-seam fastball, Crow only sits in the 90-92 range on the pitch, though he can sometimes bump it to 93 or 94. That type of velocity certainly won’t be blowing hitters away. However, his -4 degree Vertical Approach Angle (VAA) could still make the fastball relatively effective. VAA is a term and a measurement that has only existed for a few years. It measures the steepness at which the ball travels as it enters the zone. The average four-seam fastball in MLB the last couple of years has been around -5 degrees. While the difference of only one degree may not seem all that noteworthy, it is a much bigger difference than it appears on the surface. Batters have trained the majority of their lives against fastballs that come in around the average VAA. They are used to the ball following a somewhat predictable downward path based on gravity, speed, and spin. Connecting with any pitch requires a split-second decision. Batters often have to rely on the law of averages for how pitches move. That’s why outliers in either direction are valued so highly. Outliers play tricks on the eyes of hitters. A -4 degree fastball is much flatter than what most offensive players are used to, and it often causes them to swing under the ball. For example, Freddy Peralta is known for his “invisible fastball,” and a big reason for that is his VAA of -3.91 degrees on the pitch. Barring a jump in velocity, the fastball will probably never be more than an average offering, and he will most likely always be prone to some home run issues because of it. Still, the VAA is the reason it shouldn’t be a big enough issue to ruin his chances of starting. The breaking balls are Crow's real appeal, namely his curveball. Not only does he command it well, but according to Baseball America, “his curveball has some of the highest horizontal sweep and spin rate of any curve in baseball. It has the most glove-side run of any curveball in the upper levels, including the majors.” There isn’t much more that needs to be said about the pitch. It’s minimally a plus offering, if not better, and the pitch will likely carry him throughout his career. Crow also mixes in a slider with high spin numbers and a good amount of sweep. The slider has generated strong chase rates and created a lot of soft contact. It’s a pitch that some evaluators think he should throw more often to right-handed hitters, and a team like the Brewers is more likely to instruct him to do so than an organization like the Angels would have been. When he returns from his injury, it will be interesting to see which direction the Brewers take his pitch mix. Curt Hogg of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel had a Twitter thread showing all three pitches discussed above. Beyond his primary, three-pitch mix, Crow also sprinkles in a sinker occasionally, as well as a changeup. Both are lagging behind the four-seam fastball and slider, and they are well behind the curveball. The development of either would benefit him greatly. Still, given his propensity for spinning breaking balls, he is most likely what is referred to as a “supinator” (meaning it’s easier for him to rotate his fingers on the outside of the ball) than a “pronator” (Devin Williams is a definite pronator, as he can rotate the ball the opposite direction better than almost anyone). That could prove a challenge when trying to develop the changeup specifically. The good news is that he could get by with just those three main pitches. While Crow will probably miss the 2024 season, there is reason to be excited about his potential. He possesses an arsenal that, combined with his strong command, could eventually make him a mid-rotation caliber starter. Adrian Houser and Tyrone Taylor were not a cheap price for an arm of this caliber. He will need further refinement of his fastball and slider and, more importantly, a clean recovery from Tommy John, but the pieces are there for Crow. The Brewers hope to help him combine those pieces to form an even larger piece of the puzzle. That is, the post-Burnes and Woodruff starting rotation puzzle. What are your thoughts on Crow? Do you feel better about the deal now that you have seen the upside he could bring? Let us know! View full article

I think the difference in opinion is that I don't have hardly any confidence in Turang moving forward. There were always a ton of red flags with his bat and I'm not convinced the defense will play up as much at short as it does at second. If he did get traded and Adames ended up leaving or being traded as well, I think you could at least find someone who would bring as much value as Turang at short without much of a struggle. At least to hold you over until hopefully one of the lower level guys or EBJ can separate themselves.