jay87shot

It will be interesting to see if Quero, Misi, or Black (maybe Brown if he keeps the hot streak going, or Guilarte or Lara if rankings like mlb.com don't come out for 2-3 months) make any mid-season top 100. I feel like our 2nd tier prospects are always undervalued nationally.

When I wrote the title the Brewers were 2-8 in there last 10. Maybe I should have use the term "How to fine tune" or "How to turn this team around". With the 3 pitchers when healthy this team is no question a contender. However there are definitely some things that need to happen. One thing is that we need some consistency at the 2-4 spots. Winker, Adames, and Rowdy are way to streaky. If Yeli continues that would be huge and Contreras has been a consistent bat that would go a long way towards lengthening the lineup. The rotation will be fine when Woody and Ashby are back and the pen has been sensational except for 2 games where there was complete melt downs.

I think his 10 million salary makes it a bit hard to just dump him. He is also a really good pinch hitter. Maybe he gets an "injury" and Keston gets an extended look and then figure it out from there.

1) DFA Viot, call up Huira I think everyone has called for this. 2)Switch Lauer and Bryce Wilson temporarily. Lauer needs to reclaim velocity and we need a second lefty, I feel like sending Lauer to the pen for say 5 relief appearances would do that, Have Lauer and Wilson piggy back a game 3/4 innings each, Wilson starts 2ish games, keep Lauer at about 35-45 pitches every 3 days and then stretch him out when the 2-3 mph come back. Wilson has been solid enough that I don't think this is to risky. 3) Send Weimer and Turang down to AAA (not at same time) for 2-3 weeks, this is really just to gain the extra year of control on both. I would send Turang down 1st for Eddy Alvarez (release Claudio), Owen Miller gets near everyday time at 2nd for a bit. Then when Frelick get healthy send down Weimer (unless he gets hot). 4)Stick to one main lineup vs. lefties. Every game it seems like Counsel is overmanaging the lineup against lefties. Just keep Yeli at leadoff full time and keep the best players in the same batting order for a while. 4) Be patient on trades and any big moves. As much as I would love Chapman or a big bat, the Central sucks and we have reinforcements on the horizon eventually. 5) Don't feel obligated to hold on to Gus Varland just to keep a slightly above average arm. His last appearance coupled with his lack of success in his rehab appearances worries me, hopefully we can get some big leads and let him figure it out. However we should cut bait if he has a bad game or two, I don't want to lose a couple games in effort to keep him and narrowly miss the playoffs. He has a nice arm but we have half a dozen guys in AA or AAA who can replace his arm talent. I wouldn't hesitate to call up Abner Uribe (or Trevor Megill, Ethan Small, or Clayton Andrews) straight from AA to replace him. 6)Send Tyler Black and Uribe (if not the bigs) to AAA. Both could help out the big league club at some point this year and don't have anyone blocking them in AAA. Carlos Rodriguez would be a candidate for an aggressive promotion as well with another impressive month or so.

I agree, if we didn't have Winker or if Reyes could play 1st I'd say yes give him a shot. But as an occasional DH and 4/5th OF he won't get enough ab's.

Huira isn't an ideal platoon with Rowdy but at this point you can't be much worse than Voit at the plate. He could take DH ab's from Winker and would be passible in the OF for a game here or there and could play 2B in an emergency. He would a much bigger role than Voit or Winker fill and at this point could be big upgrade. It is crazy to me that he has been trash vs. LHP (.201 career) which is a big worry in platooning with Rowdy. He would be an upgrade if he plays at last years standards as well. If he can play the OF better than I imagine that would help 3B because Anderson could play more 3rd and less RF. At least as a stopgap until a trade option comes around later in the year.

I think Junk is no longer a prospect, at least he disappeared from the mlb prospect rankings. He only has 29+ innings but I would guess he has hit the days limit.

I'd say give Keston another chance before trading for anyone, probably only like 50 ab's max if he isn't great. That being said I'd go Jesus Aguilar as a 1B/DH platoon for LHP. I think he would fit in well and is high on the vs. LHP list. On top of that he probably wouldn't cost much. It would be nice to get a good bat but I don't know how willing I would be to give up a big package of prospects especially with the all the upcoming free agent decisions we will have to make. A big problem is that there aren't going to be many solid bats available, all the sellers have bad offenses. The list of decent hitters who could be everyday players could be dealt are CJ Cron, Kris Bryant(not happening), Charlie Blackmon, JD Davis, LaMonte Wade, Mike Yaz, Luis Robert (maybe), Yoan Moncada, and Brent Rooker (doubtful). If the Cards, Marlins, or Mets stink for a while maybe add some off there hitters but I doubt that would work much in our favor. JD Davis seems like the best option in that group, he might not top prospect but probably a couple good ones. Luis Robert would be interesting but with our young OF might be a bit redundant and would definately cost 2 good pieces and more, my guess is the Sox would want Frelick, Misi/Rodriguez, and 2 top 15-20 org prospects at least.

I wouldn't count the Cards out there lineup of Contrares, Goldschmidt, Donovan, Edman, Arenando, and some combination of Gorman, Carlson, Burleson, Nootbar, Walker, O'Neil, and Yepez. In that lineup hust about everyone has 30 HR or .300 ba. There rotation has been trash but if there starters can even be around a era of 4 they have a shot of putting a 20-5 stretch together and being back in it in no time.

I think with Burnes not pitching up to standards a trade would likely not have any top 25 or so prospects but might have more solid players or an extra lotto ticket type piece. I would love May and Miller as a center but the problem is that May has been better than Burnes so the Dodgers aren't going to give up multiple years of cheaper contol and 2 or 3 nice pieces. I have been trying to piece a 3 team trade where Burnes goes to Baltimore, Baltimore sends out a bullpen piece Cowser/Kjerstad and more, and we get a quality bat and pitching help, but nothing quite works. Something like O's get Burnes Reds get DL Hall, Colton Cowser, Dylan Beavers, Kyle Bradish, and Elvis Peguaro We get Noelvi Marte, Alexis Diaz O's don't give up any of there top couple prospects, the Reds swap SS depth for OF depth and sell high of Diaz. Brewers get a future IF mate to pair with Turang and a high end reliever. The problem is that The Reds probably don't trade Diaz, even though a closer isn't all that valuable on a team that is 2 or 3 years away, essentially the Reds swap Cowser for Marte (maybe a little extra Cowser value because of how good he has been) then Hall, Beavers, Bradish, and Peguaro for Diaz (I am sure you could swap Bradish and Peguaro for prospect like Cade Povich and Cam Robinson).

1) Jackson Chourio Not a great start to the season, but passible, it would seem that he needs some work on pitch selection which is understandable for a 19 yo in AA. 2) Sal Frelick We could really use him in the bigs, hopefully he heals up and gets it going for a end of the year call up. 3)Jefferson Quero Solid start, especially for a young catcher in AA. 4)Tyler Black If the power continues to come through I could see him having a chance to make the big league team by September, say a June-ish call up to AAA. 5)Jacob Misiorowski Everything I have read has been really positive, if he can stretch out outings he can easily be a top 100 prospect by the end of the year. 6)Carlos Rodriguez (P) Probably the most impressive start to the year for a pitcher especially after the aggressive AA assignment. 7) Robert Gasser Ok, start to the year, I would probably prefer to see him over Rea or Junk in an emergency start if possible. 8)Daniel Guillarte Huge start to the season, 8 may be sensationalizing the first 20 or so games. 9)Luis Lara Just got the A ball call at 18, probably a bit high like Guillarte 10)Eric Brown Jr. Easily the most disappointing start to the season, hopefully he adjusts to the new swing soon or goes back to the old one quickly. 11)Abner Uribe He really needs to be in AAA, not sure why Middendorf went to AAA before him. Unless the plan on him going from AA straight to the show. He should be on of the next relievers to get a shot. 12) Justin Jarvis Really impressive, will be knocking on AAA door with a couple more solid starts. 13)Stiven Cruz Probably the most overlooked prospect we have on a national scale, off to a solid A+ season at 21. 14)Luke Adams I wanted to move him up by Guillarte and Lara but his average give me a bit of hesitation, he has a huge ceiling though and could easily be a top 5 org. prospect by the end of the year. 15)Hendry Mendez Seems like I had him in the 13-18 spot for a long time, needs more than being young for his level and takes walks. 16)Alexander Cornielle See Cruz at 13, solid young pitchers who can make big jumps when there bodies fill out. 17)Matt Wood Super productive start needs a promotion 18)Quinton Low Has been hitting 99 mph early on, probably time to give up on the bat when the mound is clearly his future. 19)Robert Moore Disappointing start, not to the Brown level but I expected him to hit and move to AA quickly. Not the case. 20)Jace Avina Way, way to many K's, otherwise I still think his power keeps him as a solid prospect fot a while.

I like the idea but I doubt we slide enough to tear it down. The nl central stinks and we don't play Cincy or Pitt until June. My guess is we could trade one of the main 3 trade candidates but we would want at least one proven mlb piece back. Stone and a quality reliever like Caleb Ferguson or Alex Vesia. I think a 3 team trade could work to get for Burnes, as much as I would like Jackson Holiday he might be playing into an untouchable piece.

Are we going to do a monthly edition of this like we did last year. I enjoy the prospect speculation end a lot. Here is my list after the 1st month-ish. I am leaving Weimer and Turang off as they are likely going to be off the list in less than 2 weeks if the aren't demoted. For those of you keeping track I would put Wiemer 3 and Turang 4. I also am leaving of last year's int. signings but a couple of those guy could be at the tail end of my top 30. 1) Jackson Chourio Not a great start to the season, but passible, it would seem that he needs some work on pitch selection which is understandable for a 19 yo in AA. 2) Sal Frelick We could really use him in the bigs, hopefully he heals up and gets it going for a end of the year call up. 3)Jefferson Quero Solid start, especially for a young catcher in AA. 4)Tyler Black If the power continues to come through I could see him having a chance to make the big league team by September, say a June-ish call up to AAA. 5)Jacob Misiorowski Everything I have read has been really positive, if he can stretch out outings he can easily be a top 100 prospect by the end of the year. 6)Carlos Rodriguez (P) Probably the most impressive start to the year for a pitcher especially after the aggressive AA assignment. 7) Robert Gasser Ok, start to the year, I would probably prefer to see him over Rea or Junk in an emergency start if possible. 8)Daniel Guillarte Huge start to the season, 8 may be sensationalizing the first 20 or so games. 9)Luis Lara Just got the A ball call at 18, probably a bit high like Guillarte 10)Eric Brown Jr. Easily the most disappointing start to the season, hopefully he adjusts to the new swing soon or goes back to the old one quickly. 11)Abner Uribe He really needs to be in AAA, not sure why Middendorf went to AAA before him. Unless the plan on him going from AA straight to the show. He should be on of the next relievers to get a shot. 12) Justin Jarvis Really impressive, will be knocking on AAA door with a couple more solid starts. 13)Stiven Cruz Probably the most overlooked prospect we have on a national scale, off to a solid A+ season at 21. 14)Luke Adams I wanted to move him up by Guillarte and Lara but his average give me a bit of hesitation, he has a huge ceiling though and could easily be a top 5 org. prospect by the end of the year. 15)Hendry Mendez Seems like I had him in the 13-18 spot for a long time, needs more than being young for his level and takes walks. 16)Alexander Cornielle See Cruz at 13, solid young pitchers who can make big jumps when there bodies fill out. 17)Matt Wood Super productive start needs a promotion 18)Quinton Low Has been hitting 99 mph early on, probably time to give up on the bat when the mound is clearly his future. 19)Robert Moore Disappointing start, not to the Brown level but I expected him to hit and move to AA quickly. Not the case. 20)Jace Avina Way, way to many K's, otherwise I still think his power keeps him as a solid prospect fot a while. 21)Jadhier Arienamo Riding the solid 2022 end of the year run, iffy to ok start to the year 22) Dylan O'Rae About where I had him last year, hard to do much until rookie ball starts 23)Carlos Rodriguez (OF) Easily overlooked, needs a tool other than contact to come out. 24)Alexander Vallecillo Don't know a ton about him but excellent start of the season at 20. 25)Hedbert Perez Losing faith the the tools will develop, still only 20 so I am just impatient. 26)Eduardo Garcia See Hedbert 27)Joseph Hernandez So-so start to the season, not bad or good 28)Ben Metzinger Really, really solid, .500 obp at 24 he needs a call-up to be a more serious prospect in my opinion. 29)Logan Henderson Time to be healthy and get some innings in. 30)Freddie Zamora Zamora's defense keeps his floor relatively high Other considered=Small, Valerio, Robinson, Yeager, Thompson, Campbell, Fernandez, Hall, Maldonando, Aquino, Jimenez (both A and A+), Acosta, Wagoner, Gray Jr., Collins, Devanney, Andrews, Woessner, Smith I am sure I left some important off but oh well.

With Eddy Alvarez playing so well in AAA I tend to agree, it would be nice to send Brice down for a few weeks just to gain that extra year of control. He had a solid game last night but Alvarez is at .370/484/616 with 2 hr, 8 sb, 14 bb, 15 k's. I would almost say the same thing with Weimer but there are no decent option in AAA. Maybe if Taylor starts playing well we could go Yeli, Taylor, Anderson (with Miller, Perkins, maybe Huira) for a few weeks and scratch by. Also it is probably time to give Huira another shot, Voit has been useless at the plate and at least Huira has some versatility at 1B, 2B, and LF if need be. If Huira stinks again we can always find a similar platoon 1B option on the cheap (or just let Rowdy start vs. lefties).

I am sure they were worried about him being a cancer in the clubhouse, the way his season ended and the general low morale we had after the Hader deal.

Chapman would be great, Brad Hand would be a good option as well. Could have both for pennies on the dollar this offseason.

Brad Hand would likely be a cheaper option as an early season relief help. He isn't dominate any more but a vet lefty with lots of late inning experience for 2 mill this year and a decent 24 option would be low risk. Probably to lesser prospects could get Hand here early on. It would have been nice to sign him instead of Voit in free agency.

Aroldis Chapman is looking like a perfect early season trade candidate. The Royals are bad, Chapman has a 0 Era with 15 k's in 8 innings. All while averaging 100 mph. I would give up 3 interesting pieces for him, probably no top 10 or so prospects. Say Robert Moore, Hendry Mendez or Hedbert Perez, and Logan Henderson. That is a lot of young talent but nothing with a gaurentee.

Hopefully Guerra passes waivers and we can get him straightened out. Claudio isn't the worst call up but Miller was great in Spring and has been better in AAA. The Tigers have zero impact lefty bats and the Angels only Ohtani so the need to get innings from a lefty the next week really isn't there. Claudio probably should have been like the 4th in line for a call up in the AAA pen.

7-3 west coast road trip against 3 solid squads. On top of that dealing with a ton of injuries and taking on every kind of adversity. Yes sir.

I like German Marquez, my guess is that he would cost a little more than than Lara because he has a team option next year. I could see a potential of packaging Marquez and Daniel Bard for collection of parts around the deadline. Giolito would be nice but I would give up a top 7-8 prospect in the org for him unless he is back to his sub 3.00 era days (6 era in 16 innings). I think I like Brad Keller or Zack Greinke might be the best early season rentals (Mitch Keller as a multi year option). To be honest we will get Houser back soon and Ashby and Woody (hopefully) before mid-season. Burnes, Peralta, Lauer, Miley, Houser (Rea/Junk/Wilson) should be ok to get us to Ashby and Woody. However if we lose another starter (knock on wood) I think a Keller for a couple meh prospects would be a good idea, say Keller for Valerio/Zamora and a lotto type prospect.

In my opinion, Weimer has put together a lot of good ab's, his k rate is high but it seems like there are a lot of 6-7 pitchs k's which aren't great but it appears he is seeing the ball well. He also has had a lot of deep fly balls which hopefully will fly a little better in summer. I have though Weimer's ceiling was always around .275/.370/.900 with 30/30 potential and Gold Glove caliber RF, he has shown that for sure, especially when he makes better contact. Frelick hasn't been great but I could see Frelick and Taylor coming up when Taylor is ready and Weimer and Miller going down. Then we have Taylor and Anderson for lefties in OF and Frelick in CF and Mitchell to RF for RHP.

It's not like we are against extensions, we did sign Ashby and Peralta. I think we should wait until the offseason on the big 3 and see if we can make it work to keep 1, maybe a can't pass up trade comes together and makes that a bit easier. I wouldn't extend Rowdy, Lauer, Houser, or Urias just because all of those are far from a sure thing. Signing Anderson would be nice but I think that can wait a couple months. I would be all over extending Mitchell, Contreras, and Turang at this point if we could get 7-8 year deals and buy out 2-3 years of arby on each for 10-15 million I think I would take the risk. Devin Williams is the only other obvious extension candidate and I think the Hader logic stands that paying a reliever 15+ million at any point is not logical for a team that will never be in the top 15 in payroll.

I would think Weimer goes back to AAA and TT gets some consistent playing time. If Weimer spends a few weeks in AAA it gives us that extra year of control. Ultimately he is the odd man out and would make a nice add in in a bigger trade. Say we trade Corbin, Woody, or Willy by thowing in a TT type it could unlock a better secondary prospect that a team is hesitant to trade.

If the calls were an inch or 2 maybe. But all bad calls look 4-6 inches inside or low.