brewerfan82

Count me in as a non-gamer that's enjoying Last of Us! I definitely haven't felt like I've missed anything by never playing the game. I was a Walking Dead fan and made it through that whole thing. There's a lot of similarity between the two (especially the first season of TWD when they were still actually trying to figure out what was going on), but so far Last of Us has a much nicer pace than what TWD became (ie. not staying in one location for 20 straight episodes). Definitely check it out if that genre is your thing.

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.

Do we know the Brewers sent him the old hat? Couldn't it just be that he bought it, or maybe got it as a gift? Maybe he likes the original ball and glove logo? Not sure what the fuss is about, I think it's cool he got geared up and shared a post with it.

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.

I like the signing. Nothing to get too excited about one way or another, but he's heading into his prime years, hit at every level of the minors with stats ranging from .290/.355/.430 121 wRC+ to .336/.368/.495 145 wRC+, provides depth and flexibility, has 2 MiLB options remaining, and only has about a season of MLB stats under his belt so he definitely has room to improve on what he's done to this point. Early offseason acquisitions like Miller, Toro, Perkins, Henry, Junk, Guerra, Payamps, Varland, etc., may not be exciting and they all have their flaws, but they create depth and options as the offseason progresses. In addition to needing that kind of depth in the regular season, that flexibility will become important as the 2nd wave of players become available in the next couple months so we're not locked into any specific need if/when some late FA possibilities fall in our lap (ie. Grandal/Moustakas/Wong/even JBJ-types). And who knows, having that depth could also make some unforeseen/unlikely trade scenarios possible as well (ie. some combo of Miller/Toro/Brosseau at 2nd might not be too bad if they go all in this year and trade Urias/Turang for Devers or something, not advocating that possibility just an example). Throw in the fact that we've also managed to add a couple of fairly major upgrades in Contreras (proj. 115 wRC+ vs Narvaez's '22 71 wRC+) and Winker (proj. 122 wRC+ vs McCutchen's '22 98 wRC+), while also creating extra payroll space, and I'm quite happy with how this offseason is going so far.

My bad, looks like I was looking at his career splits! ?‍♂️

To piggyback on this, I'd say it's moves like this and the shrewd trades made up to this point in the offseason that keep the possibility of signing someone like Turner still in play.

I think you may have gotten your stats mixed up? Here's Brosseau's splits from last year:

Now I'm starting to worry that Ruiz is the next Rickey Henderson or something, lol

Holy crap, yeah the "non-baseball front office" community must have been way off on Ruiz's value this whole time. Adding Contreras, Yeager, and Payamps to the Hader haul definitely softens the sting of that deal.

Adding Ashby (I just threw him in there based on evening out our values) from our end starts to even things out a little (BTV doesn't seem to have Yeager in their system)...

Just a slight side tangent... I feel like a lot of people are misinterpreting the team's direction (or "lack of direction") based on their moves starting with the Hader trade. I don't think they're in sell mode or sending "mixed" messages. Practically every move can be explained by the need to "more efficiently reallocate payroll while still remaining competitive": Hader's estimated to make $12M+ this year and we had Williams ready to slide into his closer spot Renfroe's $11M was replaceable with Mitchell/Frelick/Wiemer at or on the cusp of reaching the big leagues Wong's $10M was better allocated in a big DH bat in Winker as we have Urias/Turang/etc. able to step in at 2B for less and I don't think they'd find a bat in FA with Winker's potential at his cost Holding onto Burnes and Woodruff are necessary to maintain arguably the league's best starting rotation as we wouldn't be able to replace their production if they were traded now (and there's no way we'd be able to replace their talent on the free agent market) Not making Adames available in a trade is a little more suspect, as you could move Turang into SS, but I think they may feel that's spreading the middle infield a little too thin at this point to do. It'll be interesting to see how the rest of the offseason goes, but I don't think they've really done anything to indicate they're drastically cutting payroll, they're just being more efficient with the resources they have available to them. It'd be nice to be able to hold onto "established/projectable" players, but replacing them with younger/more affordable talent when they can and reallocating those funds to other team needs is probably their best chance at sustained, long term success.

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!

We fleeced them! We got 18 times Wong's value in return!

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