Jopal78

What the Brewers could really do improve one of their teams is get rid of Josh Mauer and Lane Grindle. These two guys are awful at what they do and would be addition by subtraction for the broadcasters.

Narvaez is a free agent. Why on earth would they let Suter "loose"?. He's a terrific lefty reliever and cheap, they'd easily be able to trade him if he's not in their plans of '23.

The 2021 Brewers scored 738 Runs and allowed 623. Through 136 games the 2022 Brewers have scored 613 runs, and allowed 592. (It is 7-1 Colorado in game 136 as this is posted). Simply stated, the big difference is their hitting and pitching are both much worse than they were in 2021. Even if offense being down across the league may somewhat explain the huge drop in runs scored, it further illustrates how poorly their pitching has been in 2022, not to mention everyone on the team is another year older. Succinctly, the Brewers don't have a regular player on offense where you can look and say "player X is definitely going to find another gear and play substantially better in 2023". Renfroe is having a career year in '22. Keston Hiura (.244/.336/.482) has marginally outpaced his career mark of .242/.322/.460. Tellez, Wong, Adames, Urias and Caratini are at or near their career averages in terms of OBP and SLG. Yelich is exactly at his career norms post 2019, and has over 1000 ABs to suggest his MVP days are in the rear view mirror. Moreover, Jace Peterson, one of their more consistent offensive performers, is heading into free agency. Nor, do the Brewers seemingly have a Ryan Braun type of prospect who they can plug directly into the middle of the order of the major league team and not miss a beat. Least mentioned, the bullpen has been leaky all year outside of Williams and Hader; and their bullpen options are now mostly aging veterans who cannot truly be expected to perform substantially better in 2023: Boxberger (34) Matt Bush (37), Milner (32), Suter (33), Trevor Gott (30), Justin Topa (31) etc. Taylor Rogers is 32 an an impending free agent. Maybe their rotation all pitch lights out next year and manage to stay healthy, but the ratio of pitchers who suffer an arm injuries in MLB certainly suggests its not a given.

Are you watching a new telecast, or are you watching a baseball telecast produced by the Milwaukee Brewers? In fact, you're watching a baseball telecast produced by the Milwaukee Brewers baseball club. The Brewers like to sell ads to be shown during their telecast. The prices they can charge for the ads are driven by the number of people watching the telecast. These are facts. Therefore, they want to put their players, managers, etc. in the best possible light, so their viewers remain interested in the product. It really has nothing to do with giving fans the unvarnished truth. It's about getting people to watch and stay watching, which is indisputably easier to do when you create a narrative that the players, manager etc. are all likeable and doing their best. It would defy logic then, that they would make as part of their telecast someone asking questions highlighting the manager is a bonehead, or a player made mistakes that cost them the game, etc. etc. Unfortunately, the newspaper and magazine media where you normally can get that truth is drying up and especially in Milwaukee.

Again, why would the Brewers televise anyone who is going to intentionally make their product look bad by asking critical questions? Would you watch a TV show where someone says during the broadcast, “this show sure sucks doesn’t it”? You should know this. Perhaps instead of “Sophia Smokescreen” write a letter to the editor of the Journal Sentinel about how poor their Brewers coverage has become since Haudricourt left. However, McCalvy and the TV crew are never going to bite the hand that feeds them.

I guess you’re missing the point. You’re watching a TV show owned and produced by the Brewers. On what planet are they going to intentionally have someone make their product look bad? Sophia has a role to provide mostly useless information, I just don’t see where the vitriol comes from.

It’s a television show, if you don’t like it don’t watch the games on Bally then, listen to the radio. Sophia has a job as a “sideline reporter” because of the format of a baseball game as a TV program. She’s not a “reporter” in the classical sense. She’s ostensibly an actress. Producers set up her segments and she wears and ear piece so the producers can communicate and tell her what to do during the game. Nearly every MLB team’s broadcast has a pretty girl who dishes out some fun facts during the game and asks softball questions of the players and manager before and after the game. This is because there are probably drawers and drawers of market research to show it helps ratings asking those softball questions and getting doused with Gatorade.

Why? It’s not Counsell who hangs sliders over the middle of the plate, nor is he hitting .220. The team is right in the middle of playing 18 games in 17 days with no off days. What do you want the manager to do? He threw his freshest bullpen arm when leading 6-1. Sound strategy, the players just didn’t perform. The ‘23 Brewers have a talent gap compared to the likely playoff teams and Milwaukee has had several players underperform to boot. That has nothing to do with Counsell and is almost exclusively the GM’s miscalculation.

That’s why theyre last amongst the teams trying to win. Blow a 5 run lead while the team ahead of them in the wild card chase is losing

I don't think we're really disagreeing, barring a major roster shakeup, Tellez is likely to be the 1B in 2023. But they're most likely not going to sign him to a a contract extension so they will need another first basemen by the middle of 2024, or at the very least an idea of who will play first base after Tellez is gone. I get why they ignore the corner infield; they're philosophy is if a player has the chops to play up the middle they can play anywhere on the diamond (like Jace Peterson). Plus, I think the reason they choose the athletic contact hitters is because "power" remains a relatively cheap commodity to acquire (like Rowdy Tellez, Renfroe, etc.).

Not the foreseeable future, but next year. He's a free agent after 2024, thus as I posted earlier a stop gap that buys the team time to find a replacement, but they'll have to have some notion where they're going with the position by the end of next year.

A sub .800 OPS first basemen is not a rare find. Last year when the ball was still juiced he failed to get over .800 too. He was a guy with some potential that was blocked in Toronto. The Brewers smartly acquired him for next to nothing, but he’s shown he’s not really any different than Carter: a stop gap player that you look to eventually replace rather than build around.

It’s funny, Chris Carter had a better OPS with Milwaukee (.222/.321/.499) than Rowdy Tellez does this year (.229/.319/.471) and the Brewers dropped Carter after that one year. Let’s not kid ourselves, Tellez isn’t anything other than inexpensive.

That’s my point. The Brewers are in last place amongst the teams in the NL that are trying to win. Where does the improvement come from to get back to being one of the top 3 teams in the NL? There is no regular on their MLB roster who isn’t already at or near their ceiling, so the current group isn’t going to simply start playing great en masse. Moreover? calling up “the kids”: Mitchell, Frelick, etc. doesn’t necessarily mean they’ll improve either. After all, Ashby wasn’t good this year in his first shot as a regular, and Mitchell and Ruiz have struggled in their first weeks worth of games in Milwaukee too. On top of that, we all know the Brewers aren’t going to be players for difference making free agents. So really they’re left with trading from one area of the big league club to improve another: they could get lucky but historically that’s a recipe for mediocrity. Maybe they don’t want to do a rebuild but it’s probably better than lateral moves of trading starting pitchers for hitters and hoping to get lucky.

Let me finish your statement: Which wins 85 games in 2023.

Anything is possible, the real question is what’s most probable that’s what you don’t want to discuss.

I’m not putting you down you’re simply not being realistic. The Brewers do not have, according to the pundits, a “can’t miss” prospect close to the major leagues. Therefore it’s fantasy to suggest they’ll simply plug in some rookies and magically cure what ails them. It doesn’t matter what the Brewers did in 2021, they essentially took that 95 win team and ran it back and they’ll be lucky to win 85 games this year. Maybe they’ve been unlucky this year but it’s daydreaming to think they’ll magically rebound to a 95 win team in 2023 with a couple of different band aids. Literally they’re in last place amongst the teams trying to win in the NL and where 40% of the teams now make the post season they’re still most likely going to miss.

Yep, contact hitters don’t forget to see Garret Mitchell’s .135 average. It’s early, he could be great but just like all the other minor leaguers they have close to the majors, none of these players are likely to hit the ground running without their own struggles. So immediate improvement from plugging in some rookies is still sorry to say, dreaming. Stearns said earlier this year that offensive improvement would likely have to come from within. Problem is, their hitters are all likely at or near their ceilings and they’re not good enough to run with the big dogs. Meanwhile the pitching is getting more service time and going to eat up more and more of the payroll limiting what they can do to improve the cumulative talent level Of the team.

You’re dreaming! The price of an elite MLB free agent is 20+ million a year. You honestly think they’re going to sign an elite free agent… not happening. The Brewers have some decent prospects but they don’t have Bryce Harper or Kris Bryant close to the majors ie. Someone projects as an immediate middle of the order hitter. Take off the Brewer colored glasses! They should blow it up, but you’re right they’ll likely run it back with a different set of bandaids next year.

Maybe not. Jerry Reinsdorf is reputed to have said finishing 2nd is best for business. Perhaps the owner and front office are happy to run it back with hopes of getting lucky and if not finishing second. Without an influx of talent, they are what they are though: last amongst the NL teams trying to compete

Sure, and missing the playoffs all together when there were heightened expectations most assuredly changes things. In other words. at the deadline Stearns believed his team was better than it is or he wouldn’t have made the moves he did. I’m fact, given the Mets success and the Brewers exploding like a cheap cigar, Stearns’ prestige in the game has likely taken a hit as well.

That team is no different than this years and wins 85 games. Be like Oakland and take it down to the studs. Dump everyone who is arbitration eligible and start over: Burnes, Woodruff, Houser, Suter, Renfroe, Adames, Urias, Caratini, Hiura, Bush, Tellez etc, The hitting isn’t good enough to win a title, and the pitching will be gone via free agency before the hitters in the minor leagues develop into productive major leaguers. Load up on the talent now and take their lumps in 2023 with Yelich, Ruiz, Mitchell, Turang, Taylor, Peralta, Ashby, Williams, etc.

Haha. The slogan of the 2023 Brewers: barreled up with bad luck.

And simply call the article Ghostbear

Yep, he’s one of the guys hitting .240 with a sub .320 OBP ?