brewerfan82

I haven't seen any posted pundit predictions, but the projection systems seem to think they'll be in the mix: Clay Davenport - 1st place NL Central (90-72) https://claydavenport.com/projections/PROJHOME.shtml PECOTA - 1st place in NL Central (87.6-74.4, 64% chance of playoffs) https://www.baseballprospectus.com/standings/ ZiPS - 2nd place in NL Central (83-79, 39.7% chance of playoffs) https://blogs.fangraphs.com/the-2023-start-of-spring-zips-projected-standings-national-league/ (and Dan Szymborski notes "The Brewers come the closest, and they have a very high “perfect health” upside. ZiPS just doesn’t like Milwaukee’s depth anywhere near at much as St. Louis’") Bleacher Report "Way-too-Early Predictions" from November - 2nd place in NL Central (87-75) https://bleacherreport.com/articles/10054283-way-too-early-predictions-for-the-2023-mlb-playoffs-and-world-series Maybe it's a semantics thing? But I think a lot of people think the Brewers will be competing for the division and/or a wild card spot and I would guess there's close to a 50/50 chance of any given pundit putting them down for a playoff spot in their predictions.

Are we missing Ted Simmons in this list? He started 276 games at DH for the Crew, hit 66 HRs, batted .260/.311/.399 and accrued 6.1 WAR over five seasons, two as the primary DH. I'm guessing he's being saved for the catchers list, but seems like he should have at least an honorable mention.

I wouldn't go as far as never. He definitely seems erratic from year to year against lefties, but he certainly has hit them well at times, including last year in his biggest sample (and note that in his bad seasons he had what were likely unsustainably low BABIPs): If you take 4-year splits (I extended it to 4 from my normal 3 to get a bigger sample and to even out a bit the fact that his two best seasons against lefties are in the past three years), he's still one of the top 9 hitters on this roster as well (not to mention has the highest BB rate and one of the lowest K rates against lefties): That said, it probably makes sense to give him his rests against lefties, but I'm just not in agreement that he shouldn't be in there "ever".

We're guaranteeing him practically half the amount of any of those guys... If he's even in the ballpark of being as good as any of them then the assertion that he's a decent deal for the current market seems to hold true.

Looking at 3 year splits, and Steamer's overall projections for 2023, we have some pretty nice lineup/roster options with the current guys in house: That's a lot of 100+ wRC+'s all over the board, against both righties and lefties.

Was just looking at some stats, and IF you wanted to grab a guy to make Lauer expandable for a trade, Miley's a pretty good comp for similar production... 2021-22 Comparison (note both players had fewer than 15 IP in '20, so including that doesn't really change anything): Eric Lauer 2023 Projections: Steamer - 156.0 IP, 4.30 ERA, 4.30 xFIP, 1.3 WAR, 8.69 K/9, 3.39 BB/9, 1.39 HR/9, 35.5% GB% ZiPS - 138.7 IP, 4.02 ERA, 4.29 FIP, 1.9 WAR, 8.6 K/9, 3.1 BB/9, 1.4 HR/9 Wade Miley 2023 Projections: Steamer - 116.0 IP, 4.38 ERA, 4.41 xFIP, 1.0 WAR, 6.25 K/9, 3.07 BB/9, 1.14 HR/9, 47.7% GB % ZiPS - 109.3 IP, 3.95 ERA, 4.32 FIP, 1.7 WAR, 6.3 K/9, 3.2 BB/9, 1.0 HR/9 That said, if you just wanted a second, older Eric Lauer in the rotation, this is also a nice add!

I wonder if the raw numbers for Winker projections need to be adjusted for his move from Seattle to Milwaukee still. American Family Field has a HR park factor of 114 compared to T-Mobile's 97 (https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/leaderboard/statcast-park-factors?type=year&year=2022&batSide=&stat=index_wOBA&condition=All&rolling=&sort=12&sortDir=desc). His wRC+ is a healthy 122, so you would think he'd have a bit more pop showing up in his "non-park-normalized" stats than what is shown there.

Escobar's 2021-2022 Seasons and 2023 Projections: Urias' 2021-2022 Seasons and 2023 Projections: I would say no. But I still think he would be a good bat to complement this lineup and would be a solid option to start the year over Turang until Brice forces himself into the lineup.

Well, cross off the Mancini part as that's basically covered by the Winker acquisition. Turner at 3rd is dreaming a little and I think there's a better possibility of trading for a catcher than signing one, but I think we still see some players added. This team is still in a very good position to be very competitive next season, so I think we'll see at least a couple new significant faces added to the team before the end of the offseason still. Looking forward to seeing what else the Crew pulls off this offseason!

I'm no good at coming up with free agent dollars or trade scenarios, so I just went on a spending spree to fill in some holes on offense using numbers from FanGraph's free agent tracker (https://www.fangraphs.com/roster-resource/free-agent-tracker): Sign Justin Turner 1yr/$12M Sign Trey Mancini 2yrs/$16M Sign Christian Vazquez for 2yrs/$16M Trade Wong for prospects Trade Hiura for prospects I've given Arnold a few million dollars in wiggle room to figure out a way to solidify the bullpen from here ;) Otherwise, I like the mix of veterans and young guys on the team and the flexibility in lineups and matchups it provides. I think it gives them one more chance to win with this pitching staff before they have to start blowing things up. C: Christian Vazquez ($8.00M) 1B: Rowdy Tellez ($5.30M) 2B: Luis Urias ($4.30M) 3B: Justin Turner ($12.00M) SS: Willy Adames ($9.20M) LF: Christian Yelich ($22.00M) CF: Sal Frelick ($0.70M) DH: Trey Mancini ($8.00M) Bench OF: Tyrone Taylor ($0.70M) Utility: Brice Turang ($0.70M) Utility: Mike Brosseau ($1.40M) Backup C: Victor Caratini ($2.80M) RF: Garrett Mitchell ($0.70M) SP1: Corbin Burnes ($11.40M) SP2: Brandon Woodruff ($11.00M) SP3: Freddy Peralta ($3.73M) SP4: Eric Lauer ($5.20M) SP5: Aaron Ashby ($1.20M) CL: Devin Williams ($3.20M) RP: Matt Bush ($1.85M) RP: Jake Cousins ($0.70M) RP: Ethan Small ($0.70M) RP: Hoby Milner ($1.10M) RP: Adrian Houser ($3.60M) RP: Peter Strzelecki ($0.70M) RP: Javier Guerra ($0.70M) Payroll is 7.02% under budget

Great to see all these logical reasons to remain optimistic, however, I need only one reason for optimism...

Great to see all these logical reasons to remain optimistic, however, I need only one reason for optimism...

This is true and I'd be okay with Taylor being the primary CF the rest of the year. That said (and the other poster did say "in a perfect world"), the fact that Taylor's hitting 9th shows he plays the position that we have the most room to upgrade offensively. Move the CF from the 9th position to anywhere higher in the lineup and you're adding some nice length to the order. Not to mention, the upgrade from Davis to Taylor as the 4th OF is a huge jump offensively as well. In a dream world, we'd find a way to get Bryan Reynolds, but even getting someone like Ian Happ would be a pretty significant upgrade to the starting lineup. Any other possible CF additions would be at least a clear upgrade from Davis and add some good depth and flexibility to the roster:

Interesting story! Looks like it was Chris Columbus and Christmas Vacation: https://www.insider.com/chris-columbus-left-christmas-vacation-chevy-chase-2020-11

The optimistic view of this... his FIP (3.78) and xFIP (3.54) are much better than his actual ERA (5.89). The Brewers with their defense have gotten in general better ERA's than FIP/xFIP would indicate, so if they can continue that trend with Norris, that would be good. He's also been very good against lefties. So if you can minimize his appearances against lefties, he could work out (although the 3 batter minimum could make that difficult):

I got the email too. Here's what it said:

I will upvote Six Feet Under and watching Better Call Saul once you complete BB as well. Both addictive shows!

I enjoyed it. I watched it awhile ago and I think it may have taken a few episodes for me to get into, but it's a weird (obv. lol), dark show, with some good intense moments.

Thanks for the suggestion! I'm a big Fargo fan, so I figured I'd check out the first episode last night, ended up watching the first three. Definitely worth a watch if you like good, dark humor, quirky shows. Cool. Yeah. It is cool.

Patriot. (Not 'The" Patriot, the Mel Gibson movie. ) Patriot could be my favorite TV series of all time, it's two seasons. Best way I can describe it it's a dark comedy. Not really the same as Fargo, but if you loved Fargo you'll probably love Patriot. It's unlike anything you've seen, in a good way. Thanks for the suggestion! I'm a big Fargo fan, so I figured I'd check out the first episode last night, ended up watching the first three. Definitely worth a watch if you like good, dark humor, quirky shows.

There are some flash forward scenes that you won't understand but I might even recommend BCS before Breaking Bad so you don't know who lives, dies or will not appear in Breaking Bad. I'm torn because I think they play off of that knowledge as well, but I think you could watch them in either order really. It'll form some interesting discussion once there are people that have watched it in chronological order to see if they feel like they missed anything watching it that way.

I would also add that, at least for me, having seen Breaking Bad adds some intensity to some scenes that involve characters that *aren't* in Breaking Bad because you know they're not around anymore, one way or another.

Both YouTubeTV and Hulu Live were/are about $55/mo. The way I may end up going is: 1.) One of the Sling packages to get some general channels for $30/mo (+ perhaps the $10 sports addon to get MLB Network), 2.) MLB.TV single team package for $94 (or get all teams for $120), and 3.) NBA League Pass single team package for $18/mo (only needed for appx 6 months per year). That adds up to basically a $47/mo package over the course of a year ($57 if I tack on Sling sports). That said, I'm also in Maryland, so MLB.TV and NBA League Pass may have blackout restriction problems for others.

This sucks as the ability to get Bucks and Brewers game through it was a huge reason I've been a customer for them... guess it's time to go back to MLB.TV...

Ummm... okay, sounds like Fox Sports Wisconsin might be going away from YouTube TV in a couple days: