Joseph Zarr

Reports were he is sitting 95-97 mph. Touching 98 mph. Which is, well, it's pretty awesome if the reports are accurate (and I have little to no reasons to think they are not).

Yup. It's extremely hard to formulate truly accurate opinions on any of the DSL (or ACL, for that matter) pitchers. I am still only half a season or so removed from the LHP Osbriel Mogollon rise-and-fall within the organization. He was a gem throughout his DSL summer. Came stateside; was promoted to Low-A Carolina; struggled mightily; was sent back to the ACL; played sparingly but still struggled; and was Released. It's very very much hit or miss and, honestly, mostly miss (tho, that may be changing). We can use any number of stats to try to read the Tea leaves but until we see them face those Low-A bats we really don't know all that much of anything. This being said, I personally considered the LHP Jesus Flores and RHP's Yorman Galindez, Dikember Sanchez, Brailin Rodriguez, Manuel Rodriguez, and Daniel Corniel collective developments to be toward the top of my favorite system storylines of the entire 2024 season.

That's OK. I somehow missed voting entirely. 😅 I believe that qualifies for a 'total oversight', actually.

It seriously baffles me the Pack can't find a kicker who can make 85% of his FG. That's the low end of an acceptable NFL kicker in 2024. I just can not grok.

I'm old enough to remember when I thought Narvs' was the LT answer at kicker. 🫠

Man, Narvs missing from 37 has me dressing Emo Goth all weepy-eyed.

I did. Any I went like this:

Agreed. I don't know why you'd choose to play Houston over Baltimore. Baltimore has essentially backed into these playoffs with some serious slumps the past month. They have no historicity of success in the post-season. They're very young. I take the O's 7 days a week over a Houston team and organization that almost always seems to find a way to surprise and advance (if not dominate) in the post-season.

Hard to complain about this list. I have to laugh: Seth sent out the message to get us to Vote as Report writers all season. I completely forgot to vote on anything when I shifted into off-season Farm Mode. 😅Glad to see some of y'all tallied votes! I'll be very curious to see who you all selected in the full-season affiliate realm.

I think my favorite part of tonight's 'W' was this very tempered reaxe vid from Franky 'Bag of Doughnuts' Fleming. Here's to you, Tanky Boy.

I'm surprised about Wilken in that I personally feel an off-season to reset - get further away from his broken face; a disappointing season overall; and find out what it's like to be a father - is more important than more AB's in 2024. BUT, obviously, from a strictly baseball perspective a chance to have a better run at the dish might be worth it as is more games and experiences as a general rule. And, more games and more exposure give the Brewers more information on what he might need to work on in the later part of this year and into spring. I get all that and, at this point, I just hope he crushes it. Baez, also missed quite a bit of time with his shoulder injury this past season so the PT is a need. He's a very fun player. An underrated player at 3B defensively as I've said for awhile. Sure, he had some misplays late in the season but, as a whole, his defense has been better than advertised since the ACL. I continue to believe he can get even better there. He needs the AB's and higher-end exposure - we need to find if he can find more line drive power, for example. I think the AFL is a good fit to see where he is truly at in his career. And, it's a good challenge. He makes too many outs on the base paths - almost as if he thinks his extremely impactful aggressive bat-to-ball skills will just work running the bases. It very much doesn't. Can he rein this back? IF he were a more disciplined base runner, we'd likely be talking more seriously about Baez. Given his primary is the hot corner he has to tap into more power. Given his age and lower prospect ranking, I imagine he will probably be a PT player in Arizona. I hope I'm wrong. I want him to see FT exposure.

Unfortunately, we don't have an injury update there. Woodward's unavailability for the playoffs was quite a bit more disappointing, obviously. He was really starting to find his groove and it was absolutely electric. BUT, we've seen enough in his short bit of work in Carolina to know: the Brewers absolutely have something there. No doubt about it.

Hey, their Double-A Birmingham Barrons team just took the Southern League title (very surprisingly, given their second half) beating both Tennessee and Montgomery. Both better on paper. Take that lead Sox and call it a tie!

Boeve missed way too much time with injury. I still think Areinamo is the best of the next choices - tho, Pena and Adams both had very productive seasons. Two DSL bats tho? Highly unlikely unless they are doing Made things in terms of all the peripherals eye candy he consistently put out there.

It's flashier than 'kinesethic sense' which, honestly, always brings me to some dystopian M. Knight Shyamalan B-Movie on zombie baseball. 🤭

I like that sneaky covert ploy to keep Devin fresh. "Mearsy, give em another crack over da fence. Let Devin work." (Once again, Mears flashed that appealing IVB - 22" today. Gotta get in the Lab. The stuff still has all the raw goods. Gotta sharpen it up)

4-for-17 with RISP? <sad face>

He's not getting any meaningful amount of PT, but I think it's telling Collins stuck while Hicklen was (predictably) optioned. Collins is just such a nice player who can do a bit of everything and improves and fine-tunes at every successive stop up the ladder.

This. They're going to give him a long leash and at least one off-season in the Lab. They gave up two quality ML arms in that deal. I said it then and I'll say it again here: Herrera was the real lotto ticket in that deal. He continued to flash upside at Spokane post-deadline.

Death. Taxes. And Nick Mears giving up Long Balls as a Brewers reliever. The new and improved Matt Bush Era carries onward!

Hard to disagree. Tho, one could make an argument for Areinamo.

File in the 'Well How About That': Baseball 'Merica's 'MLB Prospects Who Added the Most Fastball Velocity in 2024' (Paid Subscription) lists RHP Brett Wichrowski as the second highest gainer (over 3 mph jump on average) and RHP Ryan Middendorf (2 mph jump) as the 24th highest gainer in the 4-Seamer department. The Crew did not have anyone in the 2-seamer category.

- RHP Kevin Herget has been optioned to the Nashville Sounds by the Milwaukee Brewers

Yeah, hard to say. It was one of those classic mildly aggressive promotions of a draft pick the Brewers obviously covet but there was very little in terms of in-season performance to back it up. I personally saw very similar 'issues' (I say this extremely lightly - none of us know what is going on in terms of what these young men are working on or playing with/through) to things we'd seen from both RHP Will Childers (in 2023 when he first appeared) and in bullpen RHP Mitch White. Flat. Flat. Flat. Came off the hand flat. Entered the zone flat. Back to Birchard: I would opine he really needs to avoid the walk issues but I think the walk issues are related to how hittable his stuff was when in the zone. Very much a work in progress. Let's hope he experiences improvements in Arizona.