brewerfan82

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.

Good catch! Fixed!

For reference/perspective, here are the 19 NRI's that came to camp in 2022 (https://www.ballysports.com/wisconsin/news/2022-milwaukee-brewers-non-roster-spring-training-capsules) along with their time spent on the big league club last year: Pitchers: Jason Alexander (71.2 IP), Luke Barker (4 IP), Rex Brothers (0 IP), Moises Gomez (0 IP), Hobie Harris (0 IP), Trevor Kelley (23.2 IP), Josh Lindblom (0 IP), Luis Perdomo (23.2 IP), Connor Sadzeck (3 IP), Ethan Small (6.1 IP) Catchers: Jakson Reetz (0 PAs) Infielders: Mark Mathias (17 PAs), Andruw Monasterio (0 PAs), Brice Turang (0 PAs), Tyler White (0 PAs) Outfielders: Abraham Almonte (0 PAs), David Dahl (0 PAs), Jonathan Davis (91 PAs), Garrett Whitley (0 PAs) I wouldn't read into any specific player coming into camp too much. It's usually a good chance for the coaching staff to get a feel for guys that may come up later in the year or possibly grab the last spot on the roster, but rarely are they players looking to win starting jobs. That said, while Frelick may be a special case this year, I'd venture to guess Wiemer falls more into the "let's give this guy a closer look" category because he's got a shot to get the call later on in the year.

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.

All the green figures are estimated arbitration numbers, however they're replacing them with the actual numbers as they become official so you can't see Caratini's and Milner's anymore. If you want to compare the actual deals with what their estimates were, you can use this link: https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2022/10/mlb-projected-arbitration-salaries-2023.html Here's what they had for the Brewers: They also list Abraham Toro with the Mariners estimated at $1.4M

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!

Haha, who had Correa as the guy that would eventually fall through the cracks and sign with the Brewers on a 1 yr $20M-"Grandal" deal?

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.

He could have been an interesting add. For free agents we're down to Longoria, Anderson, maybe Mancini or Segura as bats that could possibly be nice additions to the roster. That said, while it'd be nice to land someone, I think management has shown so far that acquiring players via trades may be the better route in this market anyways. Winker (proj. 122 wRC+, 1.5 WAR) at $8.25M is probably a nicer add than Bellinger (proj. 97 wRC+, 1.7 WAR) for $17.5M, Brantley (proj. 119 wRC+, 1.4 WAR) for $12M, or J.D. Martinez (proj. 112 wRC+, 1.3 WAR) for $10M. William Contreras (proj. 115 wRC+, 2.2 WAR) and his pre-FA contract is almost for sure better than any catcher free agents would have been: Willson Contreras (proj. 119 wRC+, 3.1 WAR) for 5/$87.5M, Narvaez (proj. 96 wRC+, 2.1 WAR) for 2/$15M, or Vazquez (proj. 95 wRC+, 1.9 WAR) for 3/$30M. I think the Brewers are pretty happy with the current roster, at least on offense, so I don't think they'll force anything at this point, but I also wouldn't be surprised to see them pull one more rabbit out of their hats for an impact bat before the offseason's over.

I don't think anyone wants him over Urias. I think most people want Urias in the lineup. The upgrade at 3rd base is to move Urias to 2nd base so we're not depending on Turang in a starting role to start the season. That said, I think most people also like Turang, it's just that we're leaning heavily on our rookies this season so it'd be nice to hedge our bets a little.

If they had signed Justin Turner I think it'd be pretty easy to make the whole series of transactions make a ton of sense... Instead of Wong at 2B (proj. 108 wRC+, 2.5 WAR, $10M) and Renfroe in RF (proj. 116 wRC+, 2.0 WAR, $11.2M proj.) for about $21.2M in 2023, they would have had Urias slide into 2B (proj. 110 wRC+, 3.0 WAR, $4.3M), Frelick slide into RF (proj. 111 wRC+, 0.7 WAR in only 131 ABs, $0.7M) for about $6.75M (incl. the $1.75M sent to SEA). You'd have Turner at 3B (proj. 115 wRC+, 1.5 WAR, ~$12M) basically pushing Turang either to AAA or UT (proj. 94 wRC+, 1.3 WAR. $0.7M), You'd also have Winker at DH (proj. 122 wRC+, 1.5 WAR, $8.25M). Not sure who we'd have for DH if not him, but he's definitely an improvement on last year's McCutchen ('22 98 wRC+, 0.3 WAR) And then you still also add Toro (proj. 102 wRC+, 0.6 WAR in only 153 ABs, $1.4M), Janson Junk ($0.7M if not in minors), Elvis Peguero (minors) and Adam Seminaris (minors). So in all you're paying about $29.1M for 8 players and a fairly solidly upgraded roster instead of $21.2 for just Wong and Renfroe. I think it makes quite a bit of sense. That said, at this point I think they're still pretty ahead of the game. Just take out the Turner line above and you still have all those upgraded positions and you save $12M going with Turang at 2B and Urias at 3B. I'm guessing they're somewhat content with how things are now, however, the fact that they seemed to be in on Turner indicates they're likely open to upgrading that 3B/2B spot still if the right deal presents itself and likely putting Urias at whichever spot the newcomer doesn't fill.

My wishlist at this point would be to get a couple relievers, along with 1 or 2 bats that can help cover some combination of 1B/3B/OF/DH. For relievers, using the Steamer projections purely to compare players, we currently top out with Williams (0.8 proj. WAR, 3.20 FIP), Bush (0.6 WAR, 3.46 FIP), Cousins (0.3 WAR, 3.80 FIP), Milner (0.2 WAR, 3.96 FIP), Payamps (0.2 WAR, 4.23 FIP), Strzelecki (0.1 WAR, 4.07 FIP), and Alexander (0.1 WAR, 4.47 FIP) as our only relievers projecting a WAR over 0. So grabbing a couple of the following would be nice: - Taylor Rogers (LH, 32 yo, 0.7 proj. WAR, 3.22 FIP, 2 yrs / $15M crowd source proj. contract) - Adam Ottavino (RH, 37 yo, 0.5 proj. WAR, 3.66 FIP, 1 yr / $6M) - Andrew Chafin (LH, 33 yo, 0.4 proj. WAR, 3.66 FIP, no crowd source est. available) - Seth Lugo (RH, 33 yo, 0.3 proj. WAR, 3.68 FIP, 1 yr / $5M) - Luke Jackson (RH, 31 yo, 0.3 proj. WAR, 3.76 FIP, no crowd source est. available) - Trevor Rosenthal (RH, 33 yo, 0.2 proj. WAR, 3.86 FIP, no crowd source est. available) - Chad Green (RH, 32 yo, 0.2 proj. WAR, 3.68 FIP, 1 yr / $5M) For bats, the following could be nice additions (especially if any of them slip through the market and have to take an under market contract later on): - Justin Turner (3B/DH, RH, 38 yo, 1.7 proj. WAR, 115 wRC+, 1 yr / $12M) - Brian Anderson (3B/LF/RF, RH, 30 yo, 1.5 proj. WAR, 97 wRC+, no crowd source est. available) - Trey Mancini (1B/LF/RF/DH, RH, 31 yo, 1.2 proj. WAR, 107 wRC+, 2 yrs / $16M) - Evan Longoria (3B, RH, 37 yo, 1.1 proj. WAR, 100 wRC+, 1 yr / $8M) - Josh Harrison (2B/3B, RH, 35 yo, 1.0 proj. WAR, 95 wRC+, no crowd source est. available) - Donovan Solano (2B/3B/1B, 35 yo, 0.8 proj. WAR, 101 wRC+, no crowd source est. available) - Wil Myers (1B/LF/RF, 32 yo, 0.8 proj. WAR, 104 wRC+, no crowd source est. available) For comparison, here are the projected wRC+ of some of the guys looking to round out the offense currently: - Frelick (111 wRC+), Urias (110), Toro (102), Wiemer (99), Mitchell (99), Hiura (99), Taylor (98), Turang (94), Brosseau (91), Perkins (88), Miller (87)

For those looking for a little direction, I love FanGraph's Free Agent Tracker: https://www.fangraphs.com/roster-resource/free-agent-tracker?&sign=unsigned Their Crowd Source estimates for contracts have been relatively close to those that have signed, leaning a little towards the side of FA's getting a little more than the estimate. So it's a nice barometer for what to expect on that as well.

Well FanGraph's crowd source estimate for him was 2 yrs, $14M, so it was pretty close to however that gets compiled: https://www.fangraphs.com/roster-resource/free-agent-tracker?&pos=c So I guess I wasn't surprised since I saw that beforehand. But I was kind of surprised to see just how bad he was offensively with us looking at his numbers after the fact (85 wRC+). That said his defense was good enough to still place him 13th in fWAR (4.5) in that time period and he's projected for 2 fWAR next season, which puts him in line for that kind of contract.

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)...

I think Boxberger, Gott, and Perdomo are all gone, right? Looks like Brosseau and his $1.4M is missing.