Joseph Zarr

Many interesting nuggets in the interview. I also found this new development and new responsibility under his new title quite fascinating: SO, it seems like he'll have direct input in 'lower-level roster construction and playing time grids.' I also found this particular nugget on the mental approach and just overal hitting acumen Mike Boeve possesses: Obviously, as someone who has been touting Pratt's game above and beyond perhaps any player in the organization other than Made, I absolutely loved reading this: I'll close with the one thing I was disappointed with in the interview is they didn't expressly discuss Eric Brown Jr.'s 2024 season and the multiple swing alterations we've seen since he was drafted. That's a pretty interesting topic from my vantage point and it would have been really nice to hear from Chiaro on that.

I would politely opine, in addition to absolutely blowing the CS% of any DSL competition out of the water, he also flashed some enticing untapped offensive potential. It was one of my more under the radar "...if you are and obsessive Minor League Link report writer paying attention to DSL Game Logs game-by-game..." storylines. It seemed pretty clear: the reports we read during last years Int'l Signing period and then Baseball America's write ups were spot on. The defense appears to be absolutely elite. The pleasant surprise were the random outbursts of offense and, perhaps, a little bit of line drive power in that bat.

The 2 year Josh Rojas Brewers deal with a player opt-out in year 2 is going to hit like crack.

Closing this loop for now: RHP Johandry Ramirez has officially been assigned to the DSL Brewers #1

Realllllly good thinking, amigo. I have a likely BTC High this cycle at $174-200K. We shall see. I have $100 K becoming the 'new floor', so to speak. We both know there is wild n wooly action around these new zones anytime these new zones are being carved out of the greater psyche. Last time, we had a plain as day Ascending Wedge pattern on the higher time frames with BTC so the exit was being messaged to us. I wish I could say I nailed it. I was successful in some ways and ate my proverbial you know what in other ways. Regardless, in retrospect, It was a massive tell that fit the TA probabilities to a Capital 'T'. My current approach is I am cost-averaging into BTC in all these dips below $100k. Then, once She really breaks $100k I'm going to sit back and watch and see how the market reacts. This current price action is still very very much a byulllllish accumulation pattern. Essentially a glorified flag/pole. Beyond that, I got my original ATOM stake to the place I wanted it many many months ago and have simply been flipping my weekly yileds into things like Hedera, XRP, and Solana. Going to be a fascinating cycle, tho. Heck, BTC was sitting at the doorstep of $100K for weeks and the Google Search data showed it wasn't even really registering on the minds of the greater public. Some of my earliest cues of exiting are when my family and long-time friends start asking me about crypto out of the blue. 😅

Interesting. I didn't really track him after he went to the NPB last season. He's a guy who has had absolutely electric stretches in Double-A with Pensacola. He has consistently had issues putting men on base via free passes, however. If the Brewers could help him dial that in he could be a very interesting wild card lefty. Had one cup of coffee in Triple-A in the middle of his 2023 season with Jacksonville and got absolutely shellacked. Extremely small sample. I only remember this because his last Triple-A outing was vs the Sounds and Devanney ripped an RBI double to take the lead. That was his last dance in the International League. Really cool to see he's coming back to affiliated ball tho!

I don't think Spencer 'butchered' it, per se, if I recall correctly. It came across casual and unimportant if I remember correctly. I think he didn't know how to pronounce it in the flow of a live recording and deferred to 'Finn'. SO, your given name was repped twice 😀 I, on the other hand, a player who obsesses over these players throughout the years had two rare brain farts in the flow of 'off the top of my head' - which is how I roll (not the brain farts - tehe - I spend so much time watching these guys and arranging my own spreadsheets I don't really refer to them when we do these. I go from my memory bank). LOL. I couldn't find 'Luis Contreras' in my brain (lonnnnng farm day) and was left hanging with "Luis...oh goodness...the young man who signed with the Astros last season..." 😅 Which is absolutely hilarious as I was a huge outspoken fan and supporter of Contreras and his stuff while with Biloxi and Nashville and kept tracking and sharing his progress in our Alumni thread. AND, then I completely forgot how I have RHP's Chase Costello, Will Childers, and Aidan Maldonado in kind of a trio of 'Guys with stuff that plays in different ways and for different reasons but are often overlooked'. Completely forgot their names (and later finished the thought when I remembered them all). Two pretty funny moments. Thankfully, I don't think I got too hung up in the flabber jabber stutter silence realm for too long. 😅

These are good problems to have when you have two more than adequate solutions to fill the need with adequate defense. Grateful the Brewers have both Ortiz and Turang to add meaningful value on the infield dirt. For me, what this really does is tacitly open a pathway for one Cooper Pratt to make a serious push for a full-time job at SS in 2026. Heck, he may even push for a full-time or platoon case by the middle of 2025. I'm extremely bullish on Pratt's skillset. If we're going to take the Gunnar Henderson comps as seriously as many do...Pratt 'should' be in line for consideration by the end of the 2025 season. I don't count this out in the least. I, for one, continue to believe he'll start 2025 at Double-A Biloxi (prayer hands the Biloxi curse doesn't nip him in the heels!). I have zero reasons, at this point in time, to think he doesn't have the make up to attack that possibility of an earlier than anticipated arrival.

Extremely happy for Willy. A consummate team guy - loved by all within the organization. The writing was on the wall throughout last season and he gave us his best offensive output of his time as a Brewer. I have zero complaints in the end and ultimately am just excited for Willy and his family. I look at this from a few different angles with the overarching theme I absolutely love this for the player and the person: (1) The Brewers can't afford contracts like this (2) I personally don't want to pay a very possibly declining SS (defensively) $27 Milly/year (3) I worry about a career year in a contract year (4) Given the Brewers can't sign players to these types of deals, I love that the Brewers traded for a player who played many years for the org and who then got this deal. This means the Brewers had a stud on their hands and that means very good opportunities to get into the post-season. More lotto tickets means possibly winning the post-season lotto one day. It also gives potential future players traded for a carrot at the end of the stick, so to speak. (5) Because of the type of fan I am, my interest now transitions to contemplating the various ways this impacts future roster construction(s) - into next season and beyond. (6) Jesus Made plays full-season affiliated ball in less than 6 months

That's above my pay grade. Some time early next week, tho, I imagine.

I mean, holy heck this throw...I might have watched this absolute excellence 10 x since the final whistle blew?

Oh fear not, Finn, we gave you flowers right at the top. First 10 minutes.

Folks we tried so hard to keep it sub 2 hours. We failed. Alas, Spencer and I are Brewers Minor League Gossip Lords. 2 hours 8 minutes. We improved. BUT, we must get back to the drawing board; regroup; fine tune our flaws. @wiguy94: You were right. Again. Sighs.

I was hinting at this Bull Breakout many many moons ago. Well, we are very much obviously in the Bull cycle. Here's the thing: It's very very early. This thing is only just getting started. Compare where we currently are to the last cycle's break of BTC at $20K... Anywho, all this is to say the Crypto Bulls are unlike many other markets: Here are our Ledger Live One Month 'Losers' - 3 Stable Coins hovering in their 1% scheduled windows: Here our our One Month 'Gainers': Needless to say, I am quite happy with my HBar and XRP slow accumulations over the past four years. Best of luck to all of you playing in this realm. It could be a very very good run if we play our cards right.

For those of you who made it all the way through our episode One Opus (3 Hours?!? Sheeeesh, who hired these guys?!?) I can avow: We will not record a full-season episode longer than an hour and a half. I think we can get these in at 1 hour to 1 hour 15 minutes. And, as I prepare more fully for this episode I am so so fondly looking back on the past two seasons of Mudcats baseball. A true testament to the depth of talent throughout the youngest ages of Brewers prospects.

Yanni also turns 30 on Friday. Who's the child now, J Brown?!? WHO'S THE CHILD NOW?!?

Just a friendly reminder that Khash is indeed still Khing:

It truly is a beautiful thing. Goodness, I love Giannis. What an athlete. What a human.

Quezada continues to intrigue me. I just like the way he pitches in the bevy of clips and game tapes I've seen. I mentioned it in the pod - he has a Carlos F. Rodriguez thing going on in his delivery. Does he have that level of stuff? Who knows but I think the pre-pitch set-up similarities are quite apparent. Perhaps he was kept within the Dominican Academy because he changed orgs and they wanted that particular pitching staff and coaching staff to work with him as a ground-level approach. I think you can see small discernible changes in his stuff and in his approach this past season than what I saw in the Yankees film. I'm really glad you brought up Mercado and Corniel comparison. I had been thinking the exact same thing this off-season. Corniel was actually really really good at Carolina. Despite what the numbers might say - a lot of those eventual inflated numbers came via one really bad blow-up inning when he stayed in the game after a come backer off his pitching arm. He proceeded to give up like a 7 or 8 spot in his final 2/3 innings in the middle of the game? I believe it was @ Fredericksburg but I'm going strictly off of memory here. It was a wild high-scoring affair at the end of the regular season. Corniel also had a weird thing early in the year where he was struggling for some reason in the third frame. As the season progressed, he squashed that - it was anomalous. He doesn't have Rodriguez's fine-tuned control and consistency at this stage but he has really good off-speed stuff for his age and experience. I looked through Mercado's season and thought the same thing you propose here.

Yes. Like that. You love to see it. Let's hope we continue seeing plays like that to start next season at Wisconsin. And, I think it's very fair to say those are plays he needs to make (while staying healthy) semi-regularly to get back into the serious prospect conversation, imho. Obviously, a player isn't going to track down every gapper. But, he has to track down some. When you are working with a smaller stature, like Perez is, you have to maximize your range and make those plays in the gap and make the routine plays routinely. We saw numerous mental lapses bobbling and dropping routine balls that led to several runs during the playoff push - plays where a basic gather and toss to the relay kept a runner at 2nd or 3rd instead of advancing and scoring. And, we saw some truly poor angles and effort on more than one occasion. It was baffling. Now, he was coming back from injury, as we all know, so that plays a part and we should keep that at the forefront. There is rust there. But the lapses were just very very head scratching. AND, I should add I have been one of the bigger proponents of resurfacing his name as someone to not forget about simply due to our collective prospect fatigue or the fact he missed significant time due to injury. His lefty bat is a really intriguing offering - some power and line drive pop in there and a really smooth and fluid swing path overall. He was making really good swing choices early in his brief return - another plus given his historical penchant for the swing and miss which is something he'll need to address as he continues to mature. As mentioned above, the arm is more than solid too. At this stage, we know he isn't going to be a Luis Lara/Yophery Rodriguez/Jackson Chourio level defensive outfielder. Not many are. But, imho, he has to make the plays he can make and he has to make them consistently. To that end, he could look more toward the consistency we saw from Carlos D. Rodriguez. Perez has a better arm by a good margin there, but Rodriguez was and is currently the more consistent defender in this regard: making the plays he should make. And, obviously, it goes without saying Rodriguez certainly had a better penchant for consistent contact. This upcoming season is a massive season for Perez. He'll be turning 22 years old at the start. He'll be in High-A. He's coming off an injury-mired 1 1/2 seasons. I really really hope he can stay healthy and start working on his game. As Spencer and I discussed in our first podcast: there is ample opportunity in the outfield within the greater Minor League depth chart. It's open season to stake a claim.

Hard to disagree on the final point. Patty Ice definitely appears as tho a move to his real estate office might do all some good. I took it as a real plus he didn't even see garbage minutes last night (maybe I'm reading something into absolutely nothing). Hard to not just be very disappointed with Delon Wright's game at this juncture. This is a guy I wanted in a Bucks jersey for years. We finally get him. And, well, he appears well into the twilight of his career. I continue to believe Bobby is the only real Trade Deadline asset the Buckaroo possess. And, for the right deal, I move him and don't even blink. He continues to be a massive defensive liability and I just don't think his double doubles can overcome where his value is weakest - defensively and moving the ball. Will the Bucks deal him? I have absolutely zero idea. But, for the right wing/guard/big I think they have to seriously seriously consider it. I continue to have faith Chris Livingston is ultimately a solid rotation guy. I don't know when that happens but I just think he does a lot of little things actively and well with an improving mid-range and short game. Anywho, the outlook is much much brighter and that is a very good thing. Man, it was bleak those first 10-12 games. Bleak.

Indeed. Let me just say: He absolutely can not play the type of defense we saw late in the season at Wisconsin. It was really bad. The bat is a real thing. The arm is a real thing. Has to improve the focus, effort and urgency on the outfield grass. There were some truly ugly moments to end his season.

I just read out the last 1 minute 25 seconds. Yeeeesh. That's an All-Time NCAA classic right der. Woooof.