long ball

In theory, I wouldn’t mind adding an innings eater type to get us through the regular season. Ideally Priester can pitch this year. If he’s unable to pitch in the bigs this year that would be a big bummer and a big hit to the depth they probably weren’t planning on. I know we might need Patrick and Drohan out of the pen, but I don’t really mind continuing to develop those guys and Gasser as starters at the big league level.

The Brewers will probably be forced to put Patrick back in the rotation for now. (Or Drohan I suppose) at the very least, we will need a 5th starter likely on June 2 and June 7. Henderson or Woodruff might potentially be ready for the Phillies series (June 12-14).

For me, it’s tough to separate the trades if Burnes and Peralta from all of the other trades that have been made under Arnold (or even Stearns if you want to include his tenure). I’d agree that the Burnes trade looks like it will be a bust. Too early to tell on the Freddy trade (I was against trading Freddy). I think the overall trend is that the Brewers are pretty strong in scouting other orgs and being realistic with what they have in their own players. The brewers trade a lot, not only guys in the final year of team control, and not everyone is going to be a home run. I don’t think the Burnes trade being a bad one is enough for me to question the strategy. hey we traded Civale in the final year of team control and that turned into Andrew Vaughn!

Ya Frelick has been unplayable offensively for a corner outfielder so far. I guess I have some hope his offense will rebound the rest of the way. however if his offense doesn’t improve over the rest of the season, it’s totally fair to question how he fits into the future line up. I wouldn’t argue that outside of 2025, he’s produced like a 4th outfielder.

Murphy said he wants Jett Williams settled at 1 position when he breaks into the big leagues. He’s primarily played 3b so far. if you look ahead to 2027, there’s not really an obvious spot for him as an every day player. Made very well may be our third baseman. Pratt our SS. Lara in CF. Turang at 2b. Chourio and Frelick in the corners. So if all of these guys are retained, we might be looking at a super sub role for Williams as early as 2027. that leads me to think Williams will get some significant run at 3b this season. If he gets the call in early June, that’s 2 months of mlb playing time before the trade deadline. unless Rengifo goes on a heater (had a nice game yesterday), I think the transition to Williams as the primary starter at 3b is imminent.

Yes, I definitely agree with you. I wasn’t so much commenting on my desire to “go all in” this year. More just wanting to comment on my fantasies about the 2028 season and what that rotation looks like if these guys stay healthy and how that position player group transforms over the next 2 years. even in 2018 when we made some “big” trade deadline moves, we only gave up spare parts. The guys we got back were just pretty well known players. To your point, I agree we won’t see any of our big prospects or guys on the 40 man moved. We don’t really need to. Get to the playoffs and hope the team is healthy and we catch some breaks.

I know this is probably more message board fodder than something that would seriously happen, but it’s fun to think about. Would you trade any of the 3 players we got in return 1:1 for Durbin at this point? Definitely not Harrison. Almost certainly not Drohan. Maybe Hamilton? I don’t think Hamilton is great or anything, but his skillset fits our team really well being a left handed hitter, passable SS defensively (more so that Durbin), and elite speed. His OBP is passable. I think he’s a perfect utility infielder and could probably fake it in the OF too if we needed it. as far as Gasser, I’m not ready to give up on him after like 5 MLB outings post Tommy John.

Perkins has been more useful as a right handed bat this year. Approx league average in 30 PA. I’d guess he’s probably in CF. tough to sit bauers right now though because he’s been hitting righties and lefties. Personally, I would either sit Yelich or play bauers in LF and Chourio in CF.

In my head I’ve been thinking 2028 (or 2029 if we keep Turang in his final year of arb) is the prime chance at winning a World Series. Hopefully peak Turang and Chourio. All of these pre-arb pitchers will be 2-3 years of experience at that point and hitting that 2021 level rotation we had. but your point is well taken for me. I think I’ve been too optimistic that guys like Made, Pratt, Lara, Jett, and Quero will be championship level in their second years as potential every day players. I’m probably a little more optimistic than you are as I think Yelich will still be be our DH and Frelick our RF in 2028. as it turns to 2029, that’s one more year of experience for the upcoming core, the pitching will still be similar, but the Turang situation would be up in the air so that would be a huge loss from the line up if he’s traded before 2029.

Ortiz has started 30 games at SS to Hamiltons 16. even shortening it to recently and just considering May, it’s 10:6 in favor of Ortiz. I think Hamilton is fine. I like the OBP and speed out of the bottom of the line up. I don’t mind that he only gets on my bunting or walking since he bats 8th or 9th. I just think that if they’re going to transition to Williams at third, a position he’s new to and a rookie, they’ll want the stability of Ortiz’s defense at SS. point taken that Ortiz has potentially more to gain at AAA offensively. i guess I’ll believe they’d “pick” Hamilton over Ortiz when I see it. I also thought they’d stick with Perkins over Lockridge (before the Chourio injury) so I’ve been wrong before.

“That doesn't necessarily mean the team would dump him as part of calling up Williams, though. In fact, to preserve depth and give their investment a bit more time to turn for the better, they'd be more likely to option either Ortiz or Hamilton (the former being more likely, for multiple reasons) and roll with Rengifo as a bench option for a spell.” Why do you believe the team is more likely to option Ortiz than Hamilton? Or was that a typo?

Makes all the sense in the world to just keep with the 5 man rotation rather than keep certain guys on 4 days rest. There will be plenty of opportunities for them to go on 4 days rest last in the season. Gasser getting the start makes sense since we need the 5th guy and the only heakthy guys who could get that start are Crow (in the minors and can’t be recalled without a being an injury replacement) and Patrick/Drohan who seem to be bullpen guys for now. I wouldn’t be surprised to see Patrick or Drohan follow Gasser on Saturday though.

So we are first in wins. First in runs scored. First in ERA? Seems good.

I definitely think it made sense to bring Patrick in as a starter this year. A) the guy earned it with his performance last year b) he’s one of the older guys in this pre-arb pitching group c) his arsenal was tweaked and maybe that would allow him to thrive as a starter. It didn’t fail, but it also wasn’t great. He’s shown to be an absolute weapon out of the pen whether it be in short or long relief. I like him in this role. Ideally he still remains stretched out to where he can give us 3 IP when needed. I think the Brewers are balancing some things with this group of pre-arb starters. They’re managing workloads, developing guys at the big league level, and trying to compete to win the division. It’s quite ambitious. But I think we will see them continue to try to thread this needle. Realistically, none of these guys have much to learn in AAA at this point, but it’s a way for their innings to be managed and getting their best bullets for the big league club

Brown has mostly pitched in short relief, but he’s made 2 4 innings starts his last two times out of basically shut down the Braves and rangers for 4 innings. Would be a great game for the offense to stick to the “drag him” mentality.