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Jopal78

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Everything posted by Jopal78

  1. Jopal78
    Guess not, but bWAR for Tellez was .9 in ‘22. Fangraphs had him at .8. More likely than not, you don’t know the definition of the word marginally.
  2. Jopal78
    Tellez and Voit essentially had about the same production in ‘22. Hiura’s metrics were similar but in about half as many PAs. Voit is older but has had the best career out of the three. The reality is Tellez is under control for this year and next, and Voit is as well. Hiura is obliged to the Brewers through ‘25. They’re basically all short term pieces,. With this likely being the last dance for this group of Brewers, they’re likely to go with whomever they feel gives them the best chance to win in ‘23. The Brewers always seem to make a trade on the eve of the season and the odd man out is probably peddled. As for meaningless Spring Training games there is a player nearly every year who comes out of nowhere to makes the team based on their ST performance. It may not be indicative of future performance but it matters in evaluating who they start the season with.
  3. Jopal78
    I don't know about that. His own comments were that he had other NRI deals on the table. I doubt he chose Milwaukee without first having some discussion with team brass that he can actually play his way onto the team in ST. Secondly, bWAR has Voit at 0.8 last year, and Tellez at 0.9. so the bar is not set incredibly high at 1B. Hiura also had a bWAR of 0.8 last year and saw almost all of his playing time at 1B or DH. Thus, at the very least it's a shot across the bow for Tellez and Hiura because quite to the contrary, its most likely the two with the best Spring Traing out of the three will be the ones that will make the team.
  4. Jopal78
    Probably pretty close. I do think that Voit saying he chose Milwaukee when he had other NRI offers tends to indicate he’s probably been assured there’s an open path to the major league roster. I think Blake Perkins is on a major league deal and a switch hitter. He could also be in the mix with Naquin.
  5. Jopal78
    I say that because while Tellez blasts homers, he doesn't really do anything else. He was terrible in the field, he wasn't skilled at getting on base. Despite 35 homers he was marginally better than replacement level. With his stats, and the Brewers having a lot of players who can play 1B, I just don't think Tellez is as cemented in as a regular as some think.
  6. Jopal78
    I'm all for any player who has had recent MLB success willing to sign a NRI deal. This signing also probably speaks to the Brewers feelings about Rowdy Tellez.
  7. Jopal78
    I’m sure when Burnes gets his first bi-weekly paycheck of $390,000 his feelings will suddenly hurt a bit less.
  8. Jopal78
    People need to put on their financial thinking caps. The owners equity in the Brewers is already through the roof and only going higher as the price to own a pro basbeall team has exploded.. The owner could literally become a philanthropist and give away every single dollar he has, then bequeath the team to his children and die knowing he set them up for generational wealth. If you own a baseball team and are a finance guru, you know now is not the time to sell it as the prices keep going up up and up. That would be like dumping Apple stock after the iPod but before the iPhone came out.
  9. Jopal78
    What window? The Brewers are already in Do or Die mode. They fall off the pace by July they’ll break up the team. Moreover, if they keep the team intact through 2023, they will break it up there after, because they’re not gonna lose all those players for nothing to free agency and never were going to resign them to market rate deals. Burnes whining about not getting a big enough raise doesn’t change anything with the teams plans.
  10. Jopal78
    No, Oakland is cheap. The Milwaukee Brewers have the worst media market in MLB, they run the team off the revenue the market provides. The owner is already beyond rich from the world of finance. He certainly doesn't need to run the team on the cheap in order to have the money for the Italian Villa/French Winery, etc. he always wanted. Players can grouse about the organization all they want, I would recommend you take all their comments with a grain of salt, because all of those players above are not playing for free or taking a steep discount because they like the Brewers. They're all out to make as much money from baseball as they can and where they ply their trade is really secondary.
  11. Jopal78
    But it's not similar at all. An Arbitration is ostensibly litigation in a forum other than a Courthouse. There is a panel of arbitrators instead of a Judge, and they review the uncontested facts, hear arguments and make a decision between salary A and salary B. Each participant in the arbitration brings a lawyer to argue why the panel should pick the number their client put forth. Until recently, the person who handled the Brewers arbitrations was Teddy Werner... a guy who went to college at Yale, then Duke Law School. The average worker doesn't bring a lawyer to his annual review. Burnes without a doubt was represented by a lawyer. If his lawyer or agency didn't prepare him for what he was likely going to hear, then they did a poor job for him. Obviously, since the Brewers won the hearing, their attorneys were more persuasive than Burnes. Maybe his ire should be directed at his agency and lawyers. Let's not forget the Brewers gave him a huge raise, it just wasn't as large as he wanted, and he has hurt feelings having listened to his opponents arguments. More probably true than not, he didn't add his own opinion at the hearing as to his worth, nor was his attendance likely mandatory. Perhaps he should have skipped it all together if his feelings were going to be hurt in a contentious hearing. The process is what MLB and the Union agreed to. Bottom line, Burnes, whining about 600K when he's got a 10+ million dollar guarantee is incredibly poor optics on his part.
  12. Jopal78
    I would imagine the number of posters here who went to arbitration with their employer over their salary, is probably zero. This whole story is dumb. First McCalvy is a crappy journalist who never asks critical questions to players likely out of fear of losing access. Here, the obvious follow up question went unasked. When Burnes said his relationship with the Brewers is hurt because what was said at the hearing. The follow up is to ask “what did you expect was going to happen at the hearing”? Plus, there’s only half the story; from the video clip it sure sounds like the Brewers tried to settle with him, and avoid hearing. Yet he wasn’t asked and none of us fans have any information as to whether Burnes was really even willing to negotiate off his number. That Milwaukee settled with everyone else, including Woodruff, leads me to believe the Brewers were earnest in trying to avoid a hearing with their players. Third, and finally Corbin Burnes got a huge raise the other day and he’s unhappy about it. That’s all you need to know about professional athletes.
  13. Jopal78
    It’s a tactic: make it awkward for the Brewers to speak critically about their own player when he is sitting right there listening.
  14. Jopal78
    I think Houser called the process "brutal," in the aftermath of his loss at hearing in '22. Hader called the system outdated when he lost his hearing. Chase Anderson said "it was somewhat awkward to sit in the hearing room and listen to the club make its case for the lower figure submitted" then “You just sit there and kind of wear it." Corey Hart said he had some trepidation entering the hearing because he feared getting taken apart by the club when it presented its case. But he said it wasn't as ugly as he anticipated. "It wasn't as bad as I thought," he said. "You hear a lot of horror stories, that you won't like your team after it's done. I talked with (assistant GM) Gord (Ash) before the hearing and told him there would be no hard feelings, that I wasn't going to be mad if I lost"
  15. Jopal78
    Then again, they did miss the playoffs by one game, and Burnes pitched worse after August 5th (the last day the Brewers were in first place) until the end of the season, than he had up to that point in time. A distortion for sure, but when you miss by one game every player is theoretically a potential culprit.
  16. Jopal78
    You may find watching civil jury trial sometime informative, they work the same way arbitration hearings do. In civil jury trials there are even instructions given to the jury before they decide specifically pointing out what the lawyers said are not facts they're giving argument. The attorneys representing the Brewers are tasked with putting together an argument that persuades the panel to decide in their favor. In fact, its pretty common for witnesses to be upset when they hear how the lawyers distort and recalibrate what they know to be as facts. Don't forget that Burnes' appearance at his own hearing is also a tactic, hoping the Brewers lose their nerve and cave with the looming prospect of having to dump on their own Cy Young award winner with him sitting in the room.
  17. Jopal78
    I mean they have to make a persuasive argument, at the hearing, to the panel in support of their offer of less money. How you do that without being critical of the player "bad mouthing" is beyond me. If a team cannot talk about their players critically, then there is no point to going to a hearing in the first place.
  18. Jopal78
    That's right, and I'd add the only players who really complain are those who feel they got jobbed in the process by not getting a large of a raise as they wanted,. To be sure those same players are but a handful out of those who are arbitration eligible. Anyone think Hiura is upset that his salary increased nearly triple fold, despite being a part time player with mediocre numbers? Rowdy Tellez's production in '22 took a step back from his run with the Brewers in '21 yet his pay doubled anyways.
  19. Jopal78
    I think you're probably right, but gosh that's pretty bad. Miller had a career year last season at 30 years old, and Claudio has been terrible since the Brewers dropped him the first time, and barely even pitched in the majors last year. I'm crossing my fingers that Will Smith is coming back. Maybe not a barn burner but he has a much better track record than the lefty reliever options the Brewers have in-house.
  20. Jopal78
    Except nobody in Quebec cared when the Expos were there which is why they left in the first place.
  21. Jopal78
    Take PECOTA projections with a pretty big grain of salt. They had Milwaukee projected to win 94 games last year, and in ‘21 they pegged the Brewers for 89 wins.
  22. Jopal78
    One would have to see the specific lease as to how "maintenance expenses" are defined. Making sure the toilets all work is one thing, keeping up with the Joneses in MLB is another. Regardless, I don't think the current political climate in Madison is capable of doing anything on this but kick the can down the road.
  23. Jopal78
    There’s a statistic out there to make any point you want to make. So you may as well go ahead and lay them on me, but McCutchen have the superior OPS superior war on baseball reference, and winker is coming off, not one but two operations. He could be healthy and back to the player, and he was with the Reds certainly a possibility, but whether you choose to see it or not, there is a risk that he remains terrible due to injury or ineffectiveness. In the bullpen they’re going with cheap inexperienced pitchers for the most part nobody has a crystal ball and yes, maybe they’ll mostly be killers, but there’s also a real risk that all those players are ineffective and the bullpen sinks their season. The Brewers have some nice starting pitchers, some good but not great hitters, and play in a weaker division. Is that a recipe for the postseason could be, but they’re certainly gonna need to have some luck in my opinion
  24. Jopal78
    It’s not being pessimistic it’s being realistic your refusal to even consider the notion is blinding your logic. For example, key contributors no longer with the Brewers: Hader, Boxberger, Gott, Renfroe, Wong, Suter, et al. Further, they’ve made an upgrade at DH if and only if Winker is healthy and plays, significantly better than he did last year with Seattle, where he was terrible. (I mean there is a reason a player with a 888 career OPS was available for Kolten Wong, right?) I hope you’re right, 97 wins in going wire to wire in first place sounds great to me and. Although I doubt any of the pundits are going to pick the Brewers for the playoffs based upon the talent on the roster but then again, that’s why they play the games.
  25. Jopal78
    Less talent on paper than in prior years, fewer games against the Reds, Pirates, than in years past, as noted above relying on a slew of inexperienced arms in the bullpen and counting on a number of players to bounce back instead of merely producing close to what they did last year?
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