RollieTime

Arenado just turned 30 and was under contract only through his age 35 season at the time of the trade. He’s won the last 8 gold gloves at third, nearly a career .300 hitter, 30+ homerun pop, right handed bat to pair with Yelich. And the Cardinals only need to pay something like $25 million per season. I would have been all over this.

I actually say sign him. I mean can he possibly be worse defensively than Vogelbach? Plus it’ll make the Cardinals fans bitter and I can go for that I say do it. I would certainly look into it and give him a shot.

Wong is a good hitter with elite defense. He’s a perfect complement to this lineup and fantastic in the field. He is the least of our concerns this season. Be thankful we have a gold glover in his prime on a reasonable contract the next 3 seasons if we decide to keep him, which I imagine we will. I will give you credit in that Stearns does seem to fixate on up the middle guys a little too much instead of guys with great hitting ability. Mitchell was a great pick though for a guy who should have been drafted in the top 5, but fell to us. But that is getting off topic. This lineup needs a healthy Narvaez and Yelich back, JBJ’s hits to start falling in, and an adequate first baseman and this offense would be fine. I do think they have positive progression toward the mean for a couple guys like Cain and JBJ that will help us get going. Yelich being out and the lack of another elite bat in the lineup is why we struggle to consistently score. I hope Stearns focuses on signing an All-Star BAT to this lineup in the offseason and I think it would go a long way in other guys being able to settle into roles that are better suited for them. Taking pressure off of some of the other guys that normally wouldn’t find themselves in significant run producing positions and being expected to carry an offense.

This is what is so frustrating. Stop handing out these contracts to guys that only have a couple decent hitting seasons to their name. Go out and pay a little extra for an actual quality bat instead of spacing out the money for a bunch of unproductive players. Remember when Castellanos was a free agent? How about having a bat like that in the lineup! A number of posters wanted him and I absolutely would have given him the deal he received. I said we should do a 6/$90 million with him back when he was a free agent because of his age at the time and expectations of moving into more friendly AmFam. That right handed bat to put in the middle of the lineup behind Yelich would have been huge. We would have another All-Star quality bat with Yelich for a half decade on a very reasonable contract. Let’s stop committing $10 million to Sogard and Smoak, or over $20 million for Garcia and Bradley. Let’s actually get another big time bat with Yelich. That alone would do wonders for this offense. I’m riding the Rizzo train this offseason. Gold glover, position of need, he’s a little older, but if you’re going to capitalize on this Yelich, Woodruff, and Burnes window, the time is now.

Gar Gar go far far

THAT A BABY SHAW!!

So, he's got a very big family health crisis on his mind. Can explain the struggles. Didn't Travis Shaw's daughter have health problems in 2019, when he dropped off a cliff offensively? I also remember Jean Segura struggled the year he had a VERY sick child, too. Such things can really impact people's performance. They can be really consuming mentally and emotionally. Travis Shaw’s daughter had open heart surgery shortly after birth in 2017. She also was likely to require a second heart surgery between the age of 2-3. I do not recall a follow up on if she had a second surgery up to this point or how she is doing to this day. Segura’s child died in 2014, the first of two seasons where he struggled with the Brewers before they traded him.

Brewers have scored 3 runs or less in 17 of their 36 games. They have scored 2 runs or less in 13 games so far this season. They have scored a total of 135 runs this season. They are averaging 3.75 runs per game this season. If you remove their two highest scoring games (only 9 runs each), they are averaging 3.44 runs per game over the other 34. That is not going to get it done. A 3.44 average would have the Brewers tied for the second worst offense in baseball, tied with the Pirates and only ahead of the Tigers. The Brewers offense so far this season has scored less runs per game than the offense in 2020 that scored 4.02 runs per game.

Thanks for this article. Hader should be the 10th inning guy.

I still have a Jean Segura jersey in my closet. Thought he was going to be a longtime stud here. Too bad he wasn’t able to produce here. He needed a fresh start somewhere else after the death of his child. He has put together a great career, just not for the Brewers. Good for him. It wasn’t surprising to see him have success elsewhere. I would still rep that jersey if I was you. Great guy and good ball player.

Pablo Reyes and Luis Urias swinging 3-0 today. Maybe some changes in hitting philosophy?

Was thinking the same thing. Google had nothing. Seems weird with BA and Rock gone as well. Very weird... I wonder what those three have been up to together recently...

I am with you on that. But the issue is how is it enforced and when/if are teams allowed to shift? Does this completely 100% eliminate the shift or in only certain situations can it be implemented? What if the winning run is on third and the guy is a ground ball hitter. Are you not allowed to pull in an outfielder as a 5th infielder? That’s considered a shift. Is it two players on the right and left side of second base at the pitch? If the shortstop is one inch to the side of second base, is that considered legal? What about if the second baseman playing in a rover position in almost shallow right center/slightly right field area? Is that allowed or do both feet need to be on the dirt? There’s so much that would need to be ironed out for this. And if they were to implement no shifting, then I imagine a team can’t put a 5th infielder on the infield regardless of circumstance. Otherwise the opposition would always say the game is on the line and they need to use the shift in this spot. But now can you place the left fielder one foot off the dirt on the outfield grass and that’s considered legal because he’s in the outfield? Thus finding a hole in the rule? This is something you know every team is going to push more and more and try to find some loophole to use to their advantage.

Lots bought them when he debuted...they didn’t stay out of the closet long. My brother bought a game used bat of Arcia’s after his 2017 season for his mancave thinking it was a sign of things to come since he was only 22. The laughs we’ve gotten from the bat the last few years

We have three straight playoff appearances, and have one of the best records in the NL at the time of this post. We can argue whether we should have won as many games as we have over the past 3+ seasons, but here we are. If we assume that we have won games because we do have some talent on the roster, than we should look at how long we will retain that talent. The only free agents we're losing after this season are Brett Anderson, Travis Shaw, Brad Boxberger, Manny Pina, and Jordan Zimmerman, with Garcia's option likely not being picked up and Bradley possibly opting out of his contract. Everyone we're losing should be easily replaceable, so we are highly unlikely to "tear it down" this season or next season. So, when is a "tear down" possible? I'd say the closest possible timeframe would be after 2023 or 2024, because all of Woodruff, Burnes, Houser and Peralta (and Lauer if that matters) will be free agents after 2024, and Hader is a FA after 2023. I would guess that if the Brewers really wanted to "tear it down" and start trading away players at the 2023 deadline and/or offseason before 2024, they could rebuild their farm pretty quickly by trading away the aforementioned talent. Plus, the only eight figure contract we have on the books past 2022 is Yelich, so we should have plenty of financial flexibility for whatever path Stearns wants to take. I wish we had a better farm system, as small market teams need that, and of course I wish we had even more talent than we have... who doesn't? However, I don't think the future is quite as dark as you believe it to be. We should have really good pitching for at least three more years after this one, and that's a strong base on which to build some playoff runs. Our record is as good as it is because of possessing the reliever of the year the last 3 seasons. Granted is extremely valuable and they would bring back quite a few good prospects. But they are a huge reason for our success. Otherwise this roster is constructed with a lot of question marks and players that wouldn’t fetch much in a trade which was my point. Outside of our starting pitching of course. The reference to a lengthy rebuild was if we were to tear it down right now, it would be quite lengthy because of the lack of talent in the upper minors, paired with a big void on the big league roster. I am with you though on that we won’t be trading Woodruff or Burnes until they have 2 years of team control or less at the very earliest. By then, hopefully Mitchell, Feliciano, Henry, Lutz, and maybe even Perez are the next wave of bats, paired with Ashby, File, Bettinger, Small, and Kelly on the pitching side all knocking on the door or contributing at the big league level.

Wong has such a good approach at the plate.

I never post numbers here unless they are factual. Those are their career strikeout rates. Strikeouts divided by their at bats. I honestly didn’t even think of Wong. But that one signing of a low strikeout guy doesn’t change the fact that he has not made striking out less a priority in his tenure. The numbers speak for themselves. They have struck out the 3rd most or worse in 4 out of his 6 years here while never finishing better than 26th in strikeouts. It’s not like the low strikeout guys are that expensive. My offseason plans have focused on players like that and they tend to be relatively cheap. It’s actually quite surprising he has never made that a priority to see if building a roster full of low strikeout guys is a market inefficiency in this era. I feel like it is and I was hoping the last few years he would have signed players moving towards that.

I don’t think people realize how dire it actually looks right now. Some prospects will flame out that look promising right now. The big league roster doesn’t exactly have much valuable pieces if we had to tear it down. The drafting of bats has been poor. Burnes and Woodruff would bring a good haul, but what’s Hader’s value? People seem to think we can’t get a ton for him. Williams would bring quite a bit I imagine. Yelich’s contract and recent injuries greatly reduces his value. Cain won’t bring back anything. Hiura’s value is basically rock bottom. A complete tear down would basically put this roster at a 50 win roster at best with little in the immediate pipeline to rely on to pull us out of a rebuild. I will give credit and say we have great depth at catcher in the minors, but we basically have holes all over the offense throughout the minors. We are teetering on a lengthy rebuild and are riding a very fine line with it currently. The little bit we had has been traded away in recent years with little on the big league roster worth much to anyone. This outlook is very scary indeed.

I don’t think this is true. The one frustrating thing is that people have talked about him looking for hitters with better approaches that strikeout less when in reality he has basically never put reducing strikeouts as a priority of the offense. In terms of team strikeouts: 2016 Dead last 2017 Dead last 2018 25th 2019 26th 2020 29th 2021 28th A list of his recent free agent targets and their strikeout percentages: Shaw 27% Vogelbach 31% Garcia 26% Smoak 27% Bradley Jr. 29% Then we have Hiura at 37% to go along with that group. I’ve listed players I would have liked to see targeted the last few offseasons and they would have been been significant additions at very reasonable contracts. Wilmer Flores prior to 2019 and went on to hit .317, Jose Iglesias prior to 2019 and went on to hit .288 at SS. I know both of these were cheap and I think both were around $3 million. Their strikeout percentages are 14% and 13% respectively. Other players I mentioned were Michael Brantley (long shot, but we had the money. Just was allocated elsewhere) both times he was a free agent and Tommy La Stella recently. Maikel Franco and his 17% K rate would look pretty good in this lineup. It’s actually pretty frustrating when there are very good pieces available and the deals don’t get done. I know it takes two to tango, but if you offer an extra million to a guy like Jose Iglesias or Wilmer Flores, I imagine they would have found themselves in Milwaukee. Stearns certainly hasn’t gone the route of reducing strikeouts though and the results his entire tenure to this point show that.

Unfortunately that doesn’t happen too often with this offense. It’s just disappointing when there’s one bright spot and they ride the pine after a good game or two. Garcia was 0-1 against Alcantara for his career so there’s not much to go off of there. Oh well. There will certainly be more confusing moves like this. Much needed off day tomorrow for this group. Looking forward to them getting healthy this week.

Just a heads up, the Brewers won the game. That’s completely not the point here at all. The offense struggles to score and players that do well end up finding the bench the next game. That’s like winning a game 10-9 and Yardley gave up 4 runs in the 9th to make it a game and Hader had to come in to finish it out. Can’t say a bad word about Yardley and criticize the performance because we still won. Nottingham was benched after his 2 home run game recently. Hiura had a 2-4 game and smoked the ball 3 times (I believe at Wrigley) and was benched the next game. For being a critical cog in your lineup, a young bat that’s been struggling, and he is benched the day after he’s locked in is asinine. That’s just a couple random ones I can think of currently. It’s bad managing when you remove a hot bat from the lineup intentionally. If he played 15 days in a row, sure. But he just had an off day a couple days earlier too. The Brewers also have an off day tomorrow for him to rest.

I was surprised to see us ranked 16th for RP in MLB going into today Lindblom gave up 8 ER his last appearance and 13 in his last 4 appearances. Zimmerman gave up 5 ER recently in his appearance. Then you have Bettinger who gave up 11 ER in a 4 inning start which ballooned the SP ERA too.

Happy Mother’s Day Brewers fans!

Garcia was 8/13 his last 4 games, 3/5 last night and has been hot for the last 10 days or so. He just had an off day May 6th too. And found himself on the bench today. The Brewers have an off day tomorrow. Another one of those head scratcher moves by Counsell. The hottest bat on the roster for a team that struggles to score and he finds the bench after just having an off day a couple days earlier and a true off day tomorrow. I know they were facing a lefty today, but it might be wise to keep a left handed bat on the bench for other situations later in the game too instead of putting every single one into the lineup. It’s ridiculous how he does his lineups sometimes. Again, you would think success is rewarded and the manager would want a hot bat in the lineup. It’s like he wants to find a way to cool a bat off.

Completely agree with this. Use Hader to your advantage in that situation since he’s a strikeout machine.