brooks_quichenick

If you're living on or staying near the East Side, Jack's American Pub on Brady St. is (as far as I know) the only game in town for shuttles to the stadium. Not my favorite spot personally, but the shuttle is a very useful option.

Matt F. Arnold!

We'll see how this plays out of course, but on paper I feel like this is a pretty great move for the Brewers. If Winker is healthy, having him in your lineup at AmFam in a contract year could be pretty savvy. Toro is a guy I've had my eye on for awhile now. He hasn't found success at the big league level quite yet, but he's only 25 years old. A switch-hitting utility guy (his floor) is still valuable, especially for a team like the Brewers that likes to platoon and rotate players often. We've got 4 years of team control for him as he enters his prime years. This is the exactly the type of move the Brewers need to take chances on. On top of all of that, there's also now a bit more of a path for Brice Turang to establish himself in the big leagues this season.

The prospects I'm naming are really just starting points, as none of us truly have a clue how GMs value anyone and this is purely for fun. My point is that the Brewers should make some more aggressive moves this offseason and be willing to part with some valued prospects to do it. Murphy is a great defensive catcher with a consistently improving, above-average bat (on a bad team no less), entering his prime and controlled for 3 more years. I'm high on Quero too but I don't see the org entrusting catching duties to a ~22 year old in 2024, we'll see though. Either way, if he's knocking on the door and they believe he's ready to start then, you can always trade Murphy for his last year or two.

With Matt Arnold taking over Baseball Ops, I'm very interested to see the direction he takes with all of the arbitration eligible players. 2 years left with Burnes and Woody, so I'd really like to take a slightly larger bite of the apple next season... Red Sox/Devers seem to be pretty far apart on extension negotiations, I'd try to pry him away in a deal. Urias + prospects (E. Ruiz?/H. Perez?/Valerio? etc). Trade Frelick/Black/E. Garcia/Brown, Jr. to OAK for Sean Murphy. Try to extend Burnes and Woody, hope to keep one of them, and assess after the 2023 season. Make any trades then, unless we're way out of it by the deadline next season. Slightly over budget, but now's the time. C: Sean Murphy ($3.50M) 1B: Rowdy Tellez ($5.30M) 2B: Brice Turang ($0.70M) 3B: Rafael Devers ($16.90M) SS: Willy Adames ($9.20M) LF: Christian Yelich ($26.00M) CF: Garrett Mitchell ($0.70M) RF: Hunter Renfroe ($11.20M) DH: Keston Hiura ($2.00M) Bench OF: Tyrone Taylor ($0.70M) Utility: Mike Brosseau ($1.20M) Utility: Jace Peterson ($2.50M) Backup C: Victor Caratini ($2.80M) SP1: Corbin Burnes ($11.40M) SP2: Brandon Woodruff ($11.00M) SP3: Freddy Peralta ($3.50M) SP4: Eric Lauer ($5.20M) SP5: Adrian Houser ($3.60M) CL: Devin Williams ($3.20M) RP: Jake Cousins ($0.70M) RP: Matt Bush ($2.00M) RP: Peter Strzelecki ($0.70M) RP: Hoby Milner ($1.10M) RP: JC Mejia ($0.70M) RP: Aaron Ashby ($1.00M) RP: Trevor Kelley ($0.70M) Payroll is 1.92% under budget

Trade Houser, Ruiz, and Small to Tampa Bay for Yandy Diaz and Shawn Armstrong. Yandy to 1B vs. LHP and 3B/DH otherwise. Move Urias to 2B, but he will still play a good amount at 3B (especially days where Rowdy sits and Yandy moves to 1B or DH). Turang is listed at Utility, but he will get lots of AB's at 2B, and at SS on days where Willy sits or gets a DH day. Love Willy's enthusiasm to play every day, but it might be helpful to mix in a few more off days for him next season. I have Frelick listed as the 4th OF, but he will play lots of LF and CF. May end up being the everyday LF before too long. Wiemer is waiting in the wings in AAA as some right-handed thump in case of injury or under-performance by Taylor/Renfroe. Sign Tucker Barnhart to a 1 year/$4.00m contract. He's coming off a rough offensive year with Detroit where his ISO really nosedived, but that team around him was also dreadful. Solid defensive catcher, and a switch hitter with some history of having a decent bat. Would expect some sort of bounceback year from him. Sign Sean Doolittle to a 1 year/$1.5 mil deal, which is what he took last year with Washington before his injury. He wants to return to the Nats next year, but we'll see what happens there. If he's able to stay healthy he'd be a nice higher-leverage LHP option than Milner. Sign Tommy Kahnle to a 1 year/$3.5 mil deal. Another guy coming off of a lengthy injury. Pitched very limited innings for LA late in the season and looked sharp aside from his Game 4 outing. Nasty changeup. 6.31% under budget. C: Tucker Barnhart ($4.00M) 1B: Rowdy Tellez ($5.50M) 2B: Luis Urias ($4.50M) 3B: Yandy Diaz ($5.50M) SS: Willy Adames ($9.50M) LF: Tyrone Taylor ($1.00M) CF: Garrett Mitchell ($0.70M) RF: Hunter Renfroe ($11.00M) DH: Christian Yelich ($22.00M) 4th OF: Sal Frelick ($0.70M) Utility: Mike Brosseau ($1.00M) Utility: Brice Turang ($0.70M) Backup C: Victor Caratini ($2.80M) SP1: Corbin Burnes ($11.50M) SP2: Brandon Woodruff ($11.00M) SP3: Freddy Peralta ($3.50M) SP4: Eric Lauer ($5.00M) SP5: Aaron Ashby ($1.2M) RP: Shawn Armstrong ($2.00M) RP: Jake Cousins ($0.70M) RP: Matt Bush ($2.00M) RP: Sean Doolittle ($1.50M) RP: Hoby Milner ($1.00M) RP: Devin Williams ($4.00M) RP: Tommy Kahnle ($3.50M) RP: Peter Strzelecki ($0.70M) Payroll is 10.38% under budget

"Why can't you rubes evaluate players like me and the scouts do?"

Here here. Confounding stuff from the front office.

Possibly my favorite Lucroy moment:

Hoping that Lamet ends up being a Pomeranz-like acquisition for the Crew. His fastball/slider combo is tailor-made for a dominating bullpen arm.

“Similarly: Fascinated to see what the Brewers pitching machine does with Daniel Norris, who is throwing harder after years of injuries, and already has elite changeup drop. Milwaukee knows a little about changeups.”

The Marlins have DFA'd Jordan Yamamoto https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2021/01/marlins-designate-jordan-yamamoto-for-assignment.html

Isan Diaz with a solo HR off of deGrom

I’d maybe deal Yelich for someone like Juan Soto. Young, controllable MVP-caliber talent. Great contact hitter, power, speed. Watching him at the plate blows my mind considering his youth. He’s a professional hitter and kind of flies under the radar compared to the Acuña’s/Guerrero’s etc.

Wow, yea he really is having a hell of a year. Could end up being the best part of that deal for Miami

He's not growing into power unless he stops hitting ground balls all the time. That may be, but I don't believe that the Brewers necessarily need another power hitter anyways. Yelich puts the ball in play. He can knock one out of the park enough to keep pitchers honest, but his strength is contact/hitting the ball where it's pitched, and he has a lot of success slapping ground balls that find a hole.That is really needed come potential playoff time when you're getting a team's best pitchers out of the pen in big situations every night.

Yes, he did interviews at the fan fest event last weekend. He also did an interview with Barstool Radio that isn’t safe to post here, but you can find if you search for it on Twitter (warning, the host is extremely annoying, vulgar and lewd). Par for the course with Barstool. They're awful.

My thoughts exactly.