Joseph Zarr

Staying current: LHP Aaron Ashby was optioned to the Nashville Sounds OF Joey Wiemer was optioned to the Nashville Sounds INF Juan Ortuno was assigned to the DSL Brewers 1 RHP Paul Hoff was assigned to the DSL Brewers 1

BUMP: Contreras is in the last week of ST competing for the last Astros bullpen spot. He would be a 40-Man add. Just an incredible spring. I said it many times last year: his fastball already had fantastic arm side 'rise and run'. He explicitly stated just this past December, he came to the Astros to further improve his greatest weapon. I am so happy for him it is working out so far. Even if he doesn't get that Opening Day nod, he is already firmly in the conversation.

Just stay healthy. That's the ask. The rest will take care of itself.

Just a friendly reminder for all: Manfredi came on the radar with Dayton because of his K numbers (3rd in A-10 and 66th nationally) as a senior. He opined after that season that he could have had some more and been higher in the rankings but he was pulled early in a start against U-Mass to preserve himself for the A-10 tourney. He's a really interesting story as he completely reinvented himself post-UCL. He developed a four pitch mix by the time he left Dayton. His last known baseball was in the Cape Cod League in preparations for the possibility of being drafted last summer. In three GS in said Cape Cod League he managed a 2.10 ERA with 16 K to 4 BB. ** The Cape Cod League is generally seen as the equivalent of Low-A MLB baseball fwiw**

Well that absolutely stinks. Ugh. Here's to speedy recoveries for all. May they come back stronger for these unfortunate maladies.

The Brewers make more roster moves as the end of ST nears: - INF's Vinny Capra and Oliver Dunn have been optioned to the Nashville Sounds - INF/OF Owen Miller has been optioned to the Nashville Sounds - RHP Janson Junk has been optioned to the Nashville Sounds

I just thought I'd share we have a Sounds/Mudhens series coming up next weekend. I'm not excited. You're excited! This will be the first series (albeit a brief mini-series) between the two clubs since May of 2022 when they split 3-3 @ Toledo. Of course, I still remember that opening early May doubleheader sweep @ Toledo in 2021. They faced ol' Brewer RHP Wily Peralta. Corey Ray manned the CF grass. How the seasons change!

If Andruw Monasterio earns his playing time by playing solid defense and swinging a disciplined bat with results, I will absolutely 100% not give a rat's petoot how many AB's he will have accrued. I want the players who are playing well consistently to get AB's and meaningful playing time. Who these players are and what their pedigrees are means absolutely nothing to me. I'll root for every one to a man. And may the best man win that coveted spot on the lineup card. May the competition bring out the best in every one of these talented young men.

I speak pretty glowingly of the Brewers org I love and cover throughout the Minor League season. I do this on a consistent basis. I love the team and always will. However, in this case boy do I find it absolutely hard to believe they didn't follow up on this injury back in September. This is your Ace closer. One of the premier late inning arms in the entire League. He should have been handled proactively and in constant communication once the season ended (I'm not saying they didn't do this but I certainly question how they managed it or what paths they took). This appears to be a failure of assessment and process. The only hope we can have here moving forward is they learned from this and will seek out specialists sooner. I mean, for crying out loud they had an entire off-season to do this type of thing. I commend your POV on this @Matthew Trueblood. And let me also be clear I'm not disdainful in any way but man is this smelling of oversights or siloed mistakes. I am a bit in disbelief. It would be one thing if this miraculously just popped up. It seems quite abundantly clear it did not. And, it also seems clear, when it did pop up the 'specialists' in house didn't know what they were actually looking at or how to look at it. I struggle to understand how a major sports team doesn't have the top specialists in the country on speed dial. This is a back issue flaring up? Who is the premier back specialist or specialists. Let's exhaust these avenues. Let me put it this way: If you were somehow a 'small market' Formula One team...and you had a dedicated garage of Ace mechanics. A dedicated team of specialists. And an Ace driver who drove an absolutely top of the line Ace car...and all of the sudden late in the season during a crucial race to chase crucial points, your driver says he notices something different in the sound and feel of the car. BUT, your mechanics run through their diagnostics and their wind tunnels of assessment and vision. AND, nobody can really find anything. BUT, even after the season ends, your Ace driver continues to take this same Ace of a car around laps in practice courses and he insists he continues to feel irregularity and something is consistently just, well, off. Sure, there might be some good days but it still manages to pop up routinely despite the good days. Tell me, as the team owner or someone within the decision-making team, you don't pipe up and ask for an independent assessment from outside the organization? You don't trust your Ace and follow that course to receive multiple opinions from outside the organizational group think? In another manner of speaking, bringing it back to the 'real world', when something goes wrong in our car or in our house do we not seek multiple opinions? Receive multiple quotes or ideas and then marry the consistent discovery? Devin Williams may not be angry at or with the Brewers, but I sure as heck hope the Brewers learn from this and improve their process and avail themselves to seeking highly specialized outside counsel earlier in circumstances that require it.

Don't tell the fine folks at Fangraphs!🫢

Don't get me started on the silliness therein. Completely agreed. It's almost as if the PGA Tour is self unaware. Just classic flippancy and idiocy. Regardless, I just love watching good golfers compete. Wyndham Clark's current play has brought stiffer competition atop the Leaderboards. That putt on 18...what robbery. I was elated to see Joel Dahmen make a Top 20 charge - been a rough start to his year but he is such a likable guy after watching Full Swing season 1.

I just watched Scott Scheffler play a masterful -8 64 to become the first player in the 50 year history at TPC Sawgrass to win back-to-backs. Scheffler is incredible. Wyndham Clark lost in gut wrenching fashion, to boot, missing the potential tying putt on 18. Perfect line. Felt like perfect pace. And it just didn't drop even tho it touched 1/2 the cup. AND, this was Scheffler's 8th Tour Win. He has 1 Major. Tiger won 82 Tour events and 15 Majors. My gods I miss watching prime Tiger play golf. 😅

I am here for J.B. Bukauskas deep dives. Yes. YES. YES. I've been waiting all for ST for this piece @Jack Stern. Thank you for giving this under-the-radar bullpen stalwart his due. The old cliché is: The cream rises to the top. If you watched the Sounds last season, this is an apropos (if overused) phrase. Off the top of my head, outside of Peguero and Megill, he was the one call-up from the Pen who consistently pitched effective innings with the Brewers. While other young arms scuffled mightily, even in mop-up roles, Bukauskas kept delivering clean innings. He dealt with the option game with aplomb and kept dealing - he only conceded 2 ER in all of August and September over 17 outings with the Sounds and Brewers. I personally feel we should all be 'excited' about another legitimate candidate to be a possible stabilizing arm out of the Pen. Such a valuable type of player when you find them.

30 years with the Brewers. Mike Guerrero is a treasure. As a connoisseur of the Brewers system, it would be interesting to know if the move was one of actual promotion or something else. Three decades is an immense commitment to an organization. I simply hope this was on his terms or, in the very least, a mutual decision. From the looks of that interview, I would casually opine it doesn't look as tho he was ready to hand over the managing duties. Regardless, every affiliate will benefit from his immense breadth of knowledge and lifetime in baseball.

I admire your optimism. You absolutely may be right. But, I do believe the percentages don't favor this outcome. Regardless of my own bias and historicity, the NFC North certainly looks quite a bit better as a whole on paper than it did in 2023. Shaping up to possibly be a very competitive division.

Congrats Badgers fans! That must have been a fun one. Overcoming such FT discrepancies and, well, unfavorable discrepancies in most meaningful categories has to feel like an awesome outlier victory. Any time any Wisconsin team can win in that regard is a fantastic outcome. Good luck in the Finals.

Bears fans continue to be spot on regarding their team. A glorious trade on a glorious Saturday. I can not wait for (1) the demise of Caleb Williams when he is forced to play early or (2) Caleb Williams' camp now publicly stating they refuse to play in Chicago. Either way, we are already well underway to their next set of foibles. I fondly recall the litany of Bears fans claiming they could get either a 1st or 2nd rd pick in addition to future draft assets. Incredible.

Being the erudite fashionista that I am in the prime of youth, I have to ask: What are we doing here FOCO? The sole Brewers actual overall is white with pin stripes - ie a tailgate nightmare waiting to happen. The clear overall best look is a pinstripe bib overall? Commmmmme on.

Biloxi's 2023 season ended in September. Let's get even more recent: In a Venezuelan Winter League averaging 5-6 years years older than OF Carlos D. Rodriguez (23), he raked a .348/.891 across 35 games. He controversially finished one single point off the 'Rookie of the Year' voting ballot. Like Collins (who I continue to politely opine is a much more natural 2B but is flexible enough to play LF despite an arm befitting 2B), Cargo is a fantastic baseball player. I expect big things in 2024.

Lara (as you already know) is just so good. One of those guys that impacts every facet of the game in disruptive ways. All the accolades coming from Murphy in MLB ST seemed to be a re-emphasizing and clear testament to how highly the org views him. Hard to fathom we could be very possibly be seeing him in Triple-A by season's end given we were scouring DSL box scores just two years ago. The International pipeline carries onward.

Well, that absolutely stinks. That's all there is to say about that. I'm going to go ahead and guess they are going to go with a committee approach early to see if anyone player can grab that role as the interim. Ouch also comes to mind. Ouch.

I legit LOL'd:

I have no idea, honestly. Originally the transaction wire had said Biloxi too. When I checked back to update our thread yesterday evening it had been amended to state Nashville. His MiLB page currently has him going to Nashville so I am sticking with that for now. Quite a jump for the young man who has struggled to stay healthy to date in his young career.

Staying current with the ongoing roster reductions/allocations MLB side of ST: - C Jeferson Quero was optioned to the Nashville Sounds - RHP Bradley Blalock was optioned to the Nashville Sounds - OF Chris Roller was optioned to the Nashville Sounds