Brew crew 92

We’d have a bullpen with 4 lock down closers!!

Stearns literally said in an interview today that they expect Jeffress to be ready to roll by mid- to late April. I don't know why we wouldn't take him at his word. Good info, I did not know that. Whew!!!!

If this happens look for a sell-out streak at miller park, signing would almost pay for its-self.

Stearns maybe knows something we don’t with jeffress. Or is as concerned with pen as some of us are, or thinks jj be ok and just wants massive depth.

I’m sure that is part of the close, we’ll get you opportunity for 60+ saves!

Makes way too much sense! Stearns is unreal, mark A see’s a World Series and is willing to forgo a certain profit for this year. Do what it takes!!!! Come on!!!!

Prior pitching coaches were enamored with the cutter and had him change his slider to a cutter. It worked for Miley but not as much for Barnes. I've been saying ever since he made the change that there isn't enough of a mph differential between his fastball and cutter. Definitely needs to go back to 4-seamer + slider. Thank you for the info! You know that-I know that- Brewers and Barnes wrong on this one. Although I haven’t seen him pitch this spring, maybe he back to high 90s FB and slider?

Does anyone Know what happened to Barnes 4 seam 99 mph FB that he thru in 2017? Now FB I think is a cutter at 93-96? Cutter and slider getting hit much more. Why did he change?

Yes, Great pick-up. Stearns said AAA to start, won’t be there long IMHO, any one of Petricka Barnes stumble........maybe even Albers, but I doubt it.

There we go, this guy’s stats better than half our pen arms now. Feel 5% better about our pen already. I like the pickup, but I think you're letting some small sample observations really sway your opinion on some of the bullpen arms. 2017-18 Stats as a Reliever (note, I normally prefer 3 year splits, but I didn't want Fields' less than stellar '16 to pull his stats down too far): Thanks for last 2 years stats Mr Allen, better than Petricka Albers Barnes.

No on all 6 of your bullet points. Sorry.

There we go, this guy’s stats better than half our pen arms now. Feel 5% better about our pen already.

Don’t think he hurt himself with his performance today. Zero gopher balls givin-up, so that’s a positive!

Stearns & co know what we have with our 3 young guns. He’s had ample opportunities to trade one or more and hasn’t for good reason. As time goes on and these guys start to dominate big league hitters, this is going to become a top 3 pitching staff in baseball by playoff time, and with good health jimmy leading the way.

Good job of explaining what’s likely to happen with Peralta. Goodness gracious the guys only 22 years old and he’s going to get better! And yes our better lineup will lead to more runs scored this year. Actually we averaged 4.6 rpg last year and we should be able to bump that up to five this year.

I should have been more specific when I said I’m concerned about the brewers bullpen. My concern lies in the April and May bullpen . I believe as the as the season wears on our pen will improve. With or without Jeffress. After super 2 I think we are going to see some of this second wave of talented Brewer pitchers up to the pen to replace the likes of Barnes and Albers and petricka. One or two of brown Webb perdomo Jackson Rasmussen Sanchez diplan others will help. Also one or two or three of the young guns and maybe Nelson to protect innings will probably pitch out of the pen. Come playoff time it could be the best in baseball.

What happened to Barnes 99 mph 4 seam that he had in 2017?

I’d stagger one of Burnes Peralta Nelson Woodruff, keeping least one in pen while others in rotation, best way to manage innings and strengthen pen. Maybe this the year to piggyback these 4 to stretch when going from pen back to rotation. We need to keep our best arms on the big club ALL year long and this might be the best way to do it.

Exactly, too much uncertainty. Seems like we went from a dominating, team defining bullpen to maybe slightly above average pen overnight. Barnes has the potential to be a Knebel type arm, but I've thought that for a few years when Barnes numbers looked very similar to Knebel's before Knebel broke out. Very little confidence there. Taylor Williams, I feel good about him. They were pretty careful with him, but he should be a guy they can count on pretty regularly. Albers has been an every other year guy, but that's hardly proof he'll be good this year. We're already down Wahl and Jeffress for at least a while and we lose whichever young guys move to the rotation. Houser is in the same camp as Williams sorta. But it's taking a lot on faith that either will be really good. More likely 3.00-ish ERA type guys. Wahl and Jeffress were two guys I was counting on for 100 innings of high leverage pitching and that number may end up being zero now. If we're really pushing our chips to the middle, see if Kimbrel will take a shorter deal. Maybe even go 1 year 14 with some money deferred(or make it like Grandal, a mutual option he'd obviously decline). It's just extremely rare to have an arm as talented as his still sitting around on March 18th. Your take on our pen is exactly how I view it. Only I believe it’s gonna take way more than a one year 14 mil to get Kimbrel. I’d go 3 yrs 50+. He’s worth it and we have the $ IF Mark wants to invest it.

What I meant to say and should have said is> TOR starter. In all LIKELIHOOD gonna be lots buyers in NL. Stearns has decided not be extorted in that market.

I like the Peralta with the big club-Davies In AAA. All Peraltas’s gotta do is get the ball over the plate and he’ll dominate. You're talking about Peralta like he's Walker Buehler. He's a good looking young starter and better yet, one we developed for the most part, but he doesn't have the velocity to just get the ball over and dominate guys. I like Anderson personally, but I don't like what we've seen from him recently. You can't count on him. I don't like soft tossing right-handers, so I've never been high on Davies. I don't think there's much chance Sueter comes back this year and is productive. In fact, I think we've already seen the best out of him that we'll ever see. You're talking about a guy who had a 4.49 FIP, who had TJ surgery last year coming back and doing what this year? What can we honestly expect out of him? I think it's far more likely he never pitches for the Brewers again than he comes back this year and is an average pitcher again. And if we're going to be a contender, we're going to expect 30+ starts out of 3 guys who've never been regular starters in the big leagues and then ask them to pitch in the post-season? This is why I've changed my tune and am hoping they sign a guy like Kimbrel. I don't know if that's even feasible given our payroll or if he'd even consider the Brewers if we do offer more money given that he probably has 3-4 year offers from other teams and it sounds like he's holding out for a huge offer, but our BP is really gonna have to be great again this year to get us back to where we were. I am confident that Nelson will be back and he'll be very good, I think so long as he's not overused, Guerra is a better fit in the BP and could be dominant. I believe Hader and Knebel will be studs. But I do fear we may struggle for a while with multiple relievers before we find some guys who establish themselves. Guys like Taylor Williams, hopefully Jacob Barnes among them. And I'm definitely not counting on Brown or Supak to come up this year and do anything even approaching what Burnes, Woodruff and Peralta did for us lsat year. I don't even know if we can count on those three to do that. I agree with most of what you said. Biggest disagreement I have is with your take on Peralta. Look at his stats from last year, he was the most unhittable pitcher in baseball, almost 80 innings pitched only gave up 49 hits. Council said he added 2 mph on his FB, going to be even tougher to square up this year. Severely underrated pitcher.

I can't confidently say we have two above average starters. The range of outcomes of this rotation are from replacement level to well above average. The Youngs guys had success last year but they all have big time warts too. Replacement level? Totally sandbagging their performance last year IMHO. Anderson and Chacin above average. 3young guns above ave now, with potential TOR stuff. That’s 5 above average. Then there’s Nelson.

Great post. Although I’d put odds of Brewers signing one of Keuchel/Kimbrel > 10%

I like the Peralta with the big club-Davies In AAA. All Peraltas’s gotta do is get the ball over the plate and he’ll dominate.

You are looking at the worst outcome/concerns of our bottom 4-5 relievers and saying we have questions? By that method so would any team in baseball. I actually think that pitching may keep the Brewers from duplicating last year's success, but the pen isn't my concern. The way you are analyzing our pen is how I analyze our rotation. Chacin, Davies, Anderson all have some level of concern. I know we have depth, but getting positive performance from 5 spots could be an issue. I sort of expect to have to add an arm at the deadline. I was thinking a starter though... With the top end arms we have in the pen, I am ok with what we have there. You can "hide" bottom pen guys in game we are losing, etc. I have zero concern with our rotation, depth and upside best it’s been in a long time maybe ever. We have 7 above ave starters with 2-4 potential TOR in my opinion. Which should bode well this deadline hopefully not needing that expensive starter.