Jopal78

Yea, seems his eye for thinking he was plucking a gem in Urias is his "I've made a huge mistake" moment as of now. Might sting that much more for doubling down on it with the Arcia trade. Pablo Reyes can’t hit either, just play him at short, he’s at least sound in the field

The fans and media wanted it a few years back, now instant replay is here to stay. They should never have adopted it

This is the 163rd big league game for Urias. .209/.316/.365 and shaky D leaves a lot to be desired

Wonder how long before Tyrone is sent down again? Derek Fisher's rehab assignment is up on Monday. Unless they need a pitcher before then, he'll probably get optioned. .212/.316/.379 certainly whatever juice he had when he came up has dried up.

He was a first round pick (#40 overall) out of Stanford in 2018 and had really good numbers in his brief minor league career: 187 IP, 1.078 WHIP, 238K, 61 BB with 8 homers allowed. But that was against low level minor leaguers as he made the jump from high A in 2019 directly to the major leagues last year. Additional fun fact, the Royals drafted Brady Singer #18 overall in the same draft and he is in their rotation and is their #3 starter. That's some nice player development there, finding two pitchers with high upside and getting them both to the major leagues inside of 3 years.

But he's not on record saying he won't opt out. Any athlete who forces a trade always throws around platitudes like "This is where I want to be" or "I plan to stay here a long time". Arenado made the same type of comments to the St. Louis pool reporters in February of 2021. The reality is, after 2021 Arenado has 6 yrs/179 million million left on his contract for an AAV of 29.8 million per year. He can already argue he is younger and a better overall player than Rendon who is making an AAV of 35 million per year. If Arenado and his agent think there is a market there for him, he'll opt out simple as that. After all pro-athletes also always say, "it's not just a game, its also a business".

With Rendon getting 7/245 at 30 years old, it’s a fair bet Arenado opts out after 2021 if he plays anywhere near his usual numbers. So the Cardinals might be hoping for a 7/150 commitment to Arenado after all the Rockies money comes in, but the reality is Arenado will play there for at least one year, opt out and try to improve his situation (and I’d be willing to bet if he opts out of his contract the Rockies don’t owe the Cardinals another dime) so the Cardinals are probably looking at forming over $35 mil per after 2021 Secondly with a no-trade clause it’s a pretty big assumption that Arenado waives his no trade clause to come to Milwaukee without demanding further compensation to do so (the Cardinals had to tack on a 15 million dollar guarantee)

Patch what together exactly? It’s puzzling to me that posters keep harping on Avi Garcia and JBJ as big mistakes by the front office. Given what the going rate is the last couple of season for premium free agents, these guys are both on cut-rate deals. No doubt Bradley has dug himself a bit of a hole, but even leaving out his salad days, here’s a guy who has hit .240/.324/.414 since opening day 2017. Does anyone truly believe he’s going to finish as a .515 OPS player or even a .615 OPS player? Avi Garcia didn’t hit last year but then again half the league didn’t. This year he’s above his career triple slash line, and is earning every penny of his contract. If Yelich wouldn’t have missed almost the entire year so far, and Hiura would’ve played as they had anticipated they’d probably be running away with their division given their pitching so far. Any team that loses their 3 and 4 hitters will necessarily have a “patched together feel” but it doesn’t make it so. Would the Cardinals lineup scare anyone without Arendo and Goldschmidt, the Cubs without Bryant and Rizzo, the Padres without Tatis and Machado, the Braves without Acuna and Freeman

It’s not a question of production. When he’s healthy Cain produces. Even this year he has quietly snuck up to a slash line of .222/.338/.395. for an OPS of .734 Even with his batting average 65 points below his career mark, his OBP is only ten points below his career mark. His slugging percentage is 13 points below his career mark. I think it’s safe to say he’s going to hit better than .226, so he should therefore eclipse his career averages for OBP and SLG% if he’s healthy and in the lineup.

Arenado has a 35 million dollar guarantee for 2021, he is deferring 20 million of that and Colorado has agreed to pay $14,000,000 this year so yes in essence the Cardinals aren’t paying him anything in 2021. However due to the structure of the trade, the Rockies are only kicking in 5 million dollars next year so the Cardinals will see a 30 million dollar jump in payroll if he doesn’t opt out after this year.

I wouldn’t say nothing. The Cardinals gave up a major league swing man type pitcher and their #8, #19 and #22 plus another minor league pitcher. They increased the overall guarantee to Arenado, he can still opt out twice and block any trade. By comparison that would be similar to the Brewers giving up: Suter, Freddy Zamora, Payton Henry, Zach Brown and another player in addition to making the largest guarantee to Arenado in team history. Not to mention the Cardinals system is regarded as superior to Milwaukee’s

If Cain hits under .200 for the year, he won’t be on the Brewers next year. The salary is already a sunk cost, they could very well DFA him and move on (see Pujols in 2021) as Taylor or Corey Ray despite their respective suckitude would probably hit above .200 over 162 games

But is it unrealistic? Take Bradley for example, even removing his biggest years from his career line, he’d still be a .737 hitter. He’s 200 points below that right now, I don’t think anyone believes he’s “washed up” at 31 where he’s suddenly a sub .650 OPS hitter, especially coming off a (short) season where his OPS was over .800. He’s making 12 million dollars, what other OFer see could they have signed at that price point that’s be substantially better? Joc Pederson, Eddie Rosario? As for Cain, he’s been a .752 OPS player with Milwaukee. He’s currently batting .185 and has an OPS of .690. If he gets his batting average up to .230 with all singles he’d be a .735 OPS hitter. To your point, I think it’s unrealistic for a career .287 hitter to regress to the point where suddenly he’s unable to crack .200. If that does turn out to be the case with Cain the the good news is, they’ll release him before the years over. I get it, you've made it clear you don’t like Vogelbach, and I’m not going to argue he’s great. The facts are, however, when he’s gotten more than 100 at bats in a season he has a .768 OPS (108 OPS+). At 28 years old it’s more probably true than not, he’ll start to hit better and get his numbers closer to the league average hitter he is. Shaw at .722 is right about where he was last year .717. He was on a non-roster deal, on the one hand you can say he’s earned every penny they’ve paid him. The big point is, this is a team that is over .500 with several everyday players slumping incredibly, and their best player hurt all year. Even a slight improvement by these players means they probably are a first place team given the pitching. If anyone grumbles about the make up of the lineup, the question becomes who else could they have gotten at the same price that’d would be better?

Take a step off the ledge. Yes it’s a disappointment that some of their hitters have been scuffling to start the year, and their best hitter has basically been injured all year. Then again despite their offensive struggles, they haven’t been under .500 since the first week of the season, they’re within striking distance of the division lead, and 31 of their first 38 games have been against teams that were in the playoffs last year. Unless someone truly believes that JBJ, Vogelbach, Cain, etc suddenly became washed up in the last calendar year, you should expect all of them to play better going forward and approach their career norms. Bradley’s OPS is almost 200 points below his career mark, Cain is 70 points below, Vogelbach is 57 points under. Shaw is an up and down player year to year and even he’s 50 points under his career OPS mark of .770. This all occurring without anyone truly getting hot for more than a few games. They’ll be fine

Ok, but so what? Take Jackie Bradley Jr: He's been an all-star, world series champion, he's hit over 100 homers in the big leagues, played over 900 games in the majors and has made 44 million dollars while doing it. Why would he do anything but "dance with the one that brought him" as opposed to listening to the advice of a coach who might not be there next year, and doesn't hand out major league jobs? Up and down the lineup, these guys have all played 1000s of games and I would bet every single one believes they are where they are at because how they've played the game since they were kids, and they're not going to jeopardize their meal ticket now by taking the advice of an MLB coach. Well what is the point of any coach then? Why don't they just have Stearns set the lineup then let the players play? I'm not sure this holds up The hitting coach isn't there to teach pro ball players how to hit. Give tips on mechanics, sure. Tell the batter how Sonny Gray likes to work right handed hitters, what Kyle Hendricks likes to throw when ahead in the count, absolutely. When a hitter having a down year can literally cost them millions of dollars, I'm sure they rely on themselves for most of all.

Ok, but so what? Take Jackie Bradley Jr: He's been an all-star, world series champion, he's hit over 100 homers in the big leagues, played over 900 games in the majors and has made 44 million dollars while doing it. Why would he do anything but "dance with the one that brought him" as opposed to listening to the advice of a coach who might not be there next year, and doesn't hand out major league jobs? Up and down the lineup, these guys have all played 1000s of games and I would bet every single one believes they are where they are at because how they've played the game since they were kids, and they're not going to jeopardize their meal ticket now by taking the advice of an MLB coach.

Or maybe they’re getting consistently fooled by breaking balls that look like balls out of the hand but hit the mitt in the zone??

I don't either. Haines is giving me pains. Too many guys swinging for the fences and flying out if they are not striking out. How about some contact hitting ... protecting the plate with two strikes, choking up if necessary to do that. Teach the guys how to bunt and hit behind runners to move baserunners over ... too much swing and miss offense or popups/flyouts. Too many dead pull hitters ... guys don't know how to use the whole field ... is there truly any learning/instruction at the major league level? Coaches are hired to be fired, but hitting coaches don’t tell players to “swing for the fences”. Further, a coach can preach choking up with two strikes until they’re blue in the face, but there has to be a hitter receptive to the instruction. Nobody knows what goes on in the dugout and clubhouse but the players, but after playing thousands of games since they were kids, I’d surmise most players are going to do what they’re most comfortable with during an at bat. As for bunting, it’s dead in today’s game. The Sabremetricians convinced all the teams that giving up an out to move a runner along is a poor exchange. In addition to the fact that players don’t get paid for being a great bunter or racking up sacrifices, so they don’t want to do it in the first place.

To be fair, Lindor was the 8th overall pick in the loaded 2011 draft. The Brewers simply haven’t had too many Top 10 picks since Braun (LaPorta #7, Ray #5 and Hiura #9). When you’re drafting in the mid-teens or twenties like the Brewers have been recently, the odds of finding a generational talent type are substantially less than in the top 10. Same deal with Ramirez he was signed in the Dominican Republic as a 17 year old. Historically, the Brewers haven’t had a very large presence in signing amateur players from Latin America, although as I understand it, under Stearns they have increased that presence.

Not much of a replacement

They have 6 batters hitting less than .240 over the last 15 games and three of those six are even below .200. Most of these numbers will normalize; but will they be able to hang around long enough where it will matter

I guess that’s their problem the game is trying to work through. 1-0 pitching duels are great, the other half of the fans want to watch a 4 hour 8 to 6 game with a bunch of homers.

What did Reyes throw 9 pitches. If the Brewers are just going to strike out all the time they could at least make the pitcher work a little

If he goes in feet first, probably won’t have to worry about him trying to block the base again anytime soon.

Who my is Urias hitting in the middle of the order? Punch and Judy hitter is tailor made for the 8 hole.