Joseph Zarr

Closing the Lauer loop and Brewers tenure: - LHP Eric Lauer was sent outright to the Nashville Sounds by the Milwaukee Brewers. He opted for Free Agency.

Let's add RHP Sam Gardner to the mix. The Timber Rattlers' key second half set-up man joins the Brisbane Bandits for their 9-week season beginning November 17:

RHP Joseph Hernandez continues to struggle mightily in Arizona: 1 1/3 IP tonight 8 H 1 BB 2 K 4 ER His AFL ERA currently sitting at a ripe 15.19. Yikes. LHP Adam Seminaris started for Surprise and put forth 4 IP, 6 H, 1 BB, 1 K, 3 ER (4.50 ERA overall). EBJ was the lone Brewers field player to make an appearance for the Saguaros. He replaced SS Cameron Cauley (unknown reason) in the 5th frame hitting an RBI single to RF in the bottom half of the same frame. He finished 1-for-3 with 1 R, 1 RBI, and 1 K. That is his 12th RBI of his AFL season. The Saguaros came back from an early 3-0 deficit to win 11-7. Seminaris picks up the 'W' moving to 2-0 overall while Surprise moves to 11-8 overall just 1/2 GB of first place Scottsdale.

I have to say it is pretty spectacle-like amazing witnessing the vast majority of Packers fans (albeit, I'm looking at the Bird App) entirely incapable of accepting the growing pains or 'rebound' (poor word choice) of being outside the bubble of Favre-to-Rodgers brilliance. It's as if people only allowed for the smooth and seamless transition to further excellence and more post-season runs? It's a pretty poor look from the fanbase. People are not handling this well. They should probably go back and watch those 1980's games for a refresher course. Now, this being said, I continue to not enjoy this Packers product. Just no identity. All the same issues repeating themselves. I don't trust this organization to make any intrepid decisions in any form of right timing. It will be certainly interesting to see how the entirety of this season travels and what types of decisions do end up being made.

Clarke has improved his K:BB ratio after 2 AB's tonight to 17:12. Love this trend for him.

Surprise will face Peoria tonight. It's about 40 minutes til first pitch and it would appear Clarke, EBJ, and Mendez are all in the line-up.

100% agreed. And I do fear Giannis may not see that or understand that. It's a legit concern. At this juncture of his HOF career it really is about evolving the mental side of his game. His limits to being even more impactful and evolving further have little to nothing to do with his desire to win by my eyes. I personally 'believe' it had everything to do with how he can advance the basics: seeing the floor; knowing what your team needs to be successful; and getting back to fundamentals (ie Box out for crying out loud, make the simple pass because you know where your shooters are, and for crying out loud get back to 70% FT). I can only hope he will see this as the season advances. I remain skeptical.

Watched the last two pre-season games. With the addendum, it's the pre-season and means zilch, here were my observations: 1) AJJ is definitely a player. He 'should' get PT and enter the rotation this season. The earlier the better. He pops and impacts the entire game every time he's been on the floor. 2) Beauchamp lacks consistency and consistency of confidence but when he is playing confident he is very good to the rack; can shoot from distance; has an improved handle; and has length for defensive impact. It's all about the mental side of the game here it would appear. Hopefully, he solidifies that. 3) AJ Green is arguably the best pure distance shooter on the team. His stroke is straight butter. Hard to fathom he won't get minutes and it's hard to fathom his stroke from distance is purer than Lillard but it just may be. His release point is extremely hard to block as well. He looks like a completely transformed player after one year (physically ripped and speed of play) and this after an unexpectedly decent rookie year. 4) RoLo is, sadly, absolutely washed. He shouldn't see the floor. He likely shouldn't hold a roster spot but there may be some form of agreement with the Bucks and BroLo (as we know they clearly do those things for their core players). He was awful in these meaningless games. It was fairly shocking how far he's fallen off the playable cliff. 5) Giannis was #1 in usage in the NBA last season. Dame was #4. In this equation, Giannis absolutely needs to let go of his own ball dominant fetish. Get the ball in Dame's hands. It's the pre-season, yes, but I did not like how the half court was initiated 90% of the time with the starters and this was largely due to Giannis absolutely hogging primary ball handling duties. This can not remain the trend. There was a reason Giannis was like a -19 yesterday: he played a lot of boneheaded basketball with Dame on the court. He is still in love with his undisciplined distant shooting - man, I sincerely hope he realizes anything more than 2 3's a game from him is egregious with the shooters they have. It's a stubborn refusal to dominate the void within the offense and it actually muddles the offensive flow. Dame relegated to standing in the corner?! This had way too many shades of J Kidd's time with the Bucks. I found this, perhaps, the most disturbing possible trend of the pre-season. I can only hope they were keeping things in the bag for the regular season. It was ugly. Giannis has to understand his role has changed. I fear he may not. If you claim you will set 50 picks if need be, can you please be willing to set 10? My gods. His trend of play offensively is pretty concerning if you're not wearing rose colored glasses. And, the FT's continue to just plummet toward Shaq levels of inefficiency. Yikes. 6) Jae Crowder looks completely reinvigorated. This is a very good thing. 7) This is the most exciting lotto ticket compilation of youth the Bucks have had since...? TyTy looked very good yesterday. Green and AJJ have been discussed. As has Marjon. Livingston could continue to develop as well and has flashed. Obviously Griffin had a conflict with Stotts and that led to a departure. He certainly seems to be the guy to help develop these young guys, however. Given the Bucks Salary Cap implications this will be key moving ahead. 8) I think it's going to take longer than people think for this team to really gel. And, that's just fine. The defensive philosophy is entirely different and more aggressive. The offense will be a work in progress. To me, it's entirely up to how Giannis learns to fit himself into this type of talent. If he continues his #1 usage ways and ball dominance, this team will likely see repeat disappointments. If he truly is the unselfish superstar he claims he is, this team will flourish. That's how I see it entering Game 1.

Ah, yes. It's that athlete posts eyes thing to keep everyone guessing.😅

Still no Mendez in the Saguaros line up. I believe he last played four games ago now. EBJ is the sole Brewer playing so far tonight.

This is another streaming reminder: The Surprise Saguaros will indeed be streaming again on this fine Fall Friday. They will be taking on the also 9-7 Salt River Rafters - both teams trail League leaders Scottsdale and Peoria (who also go head-to-head tonight) by 1/2 G apiece. It certainly appears to be a very intriguing pitching matchup as the Saguaros and Blue Jays AFL Ace, LHP Ricky Tiedemann, faces Salt River and Tigers' former first rounder (2021) Ace RHP Jackson Jobe. The bats may be quiet early so hopefully the bullpens are up to the task. Tune in HERE as game time approaches for the Live Streaming window. Tentative start time is 9:30 EST.

Article linked for subscribers. On Yoho, particularly: *personally, in the clip, particularly fond of the audible 'Whooof' grunt we hear from the video taker at the 8 second mark. I believe that pitch may have had some 'nasty'😄

He surrendered a lot of soft contact (in Double-A) across the board by my eyes. Part of his walk schtick is he doesn't offer a lot of meat on the bone to hitters - the downside (and, i guess, plus side?) of this is he is unafraid or unused to working from behind or in full/elevated counts batter-to-batter. Like Miguel Cabrera's fearlessness in an 0-2 count, Carlos is unfazed in 2-0;3-0; or 3-2. The downside of this, going further, is the greater impact this has within each of his Starts. I can recall numerous prolonged first innings, for example where he hit the mound nibbling and missing and suddenly had the bases juiced. He quite adeptly can work out of these jams but we all know that won't be sustainable the higher he travels in the circuit. It is uncanny the number of starts, for instance, where I ventured to other games to check in on certain other players and I came back to Carlos (who may have elevated his pitch count into the upper 20's after one of those vintage inaugural innings, for example) who had once again managed to K 8-10 and was improbably entering the 6th frame. Anyhow, I attribute all of the above to youth and accumulating experience. He is a very smart pitcher with very good stuff who is still evolving. Because his raw stuff and his head for the game are so good as is, today, I go back to his age. He is doing things at his age from an entirely different end of the spectrum than a Misiorowski. Given he concedes such weak contact, however, the free passes are a distinct area I personally want to see improvements. I compare that quality to Gasser's own struggles...who, oh by the way, has 2 1/2 years of age and experience on him.

The lone Triple-A Nashville showing was, quite simply, very rough. But, it also was a positive in that it showcased what that bump up in competition is going to need: sharpening of the tools. No more getting away with the walks. It will be a very necessary assignment to get him truly pro ready. In that outing versus Jacksonville Rodriguez walked four, hit one, and gave up five knocks in 4 2/3 IP. You'd have to go back to mid-May @ Chattanooga to find a comparably ineffective start by his standards. He just wasn't sharp - his pitches were sailing...he was likely over-amped or just off. And, it will be challenge he needs to evolve his already advanced arsenal to MLB-caliber. BUT, and this is what I harp on with Rodriguez: he will play the entirety of 2024 as his age 22 season. He's 2 1/2 years younger (with room to season) than LHP Robert Gasser. He's literally only six months older than Misiorowski. Sky is the limit here. Much to what you point to above is key to that growth. That change up is an amazing pitch. It's surreal how that pitch sneaks up and then sinks down past bats. I'd put it in the top 10 pitches of the Brewers Minor Leagues. Which, come to think of it, would be a very fun article: The Top 10 Best Pitches in the Brewers Minor League System.

And, after those activations, as has often been the case with the new roster limitations, came the releases: - The ACL Brewers released RHP's Domingo Mejia, Jared Albir, and Samuel Dario - The ACL Brewers released INF Alberis Ferrer - The Carolina Mudcats released Jhoan Cruz

EBJ and Clarke continue their fantastic AFL campaigns. Each 2-for-4 in the late innings. EBJ hit his 5th dub and stole his 7th base. Surprise now leads 5-0 after INF Cameron Cauley finally woke up his bat hitting his second long ball of his evening. And the score is final: 5-0 victory for the Saguaros who move to 9-7 overall. Mendez was once again left out of the lineup and no Brewers prospects pitched, unfortunately.

We can certainly make this argument. I was already feeling him the first couple of weeks in Zebulon. And, then I saw him fire off his cannon arm and I was stunned. I had that very thought then. He solidified himself as the season went on. He's an absolute weapon out there.

It's amazing how universal giving multiple batters free passes negatively impacts an inning. Those infield batted balls were damaging because Wallace walked all those guys. He started it with a basic groundout and then put three men on base and then walked in the tying run. Every level. Everywhere. If you can't control your stuff your journey is going to have many bumps in the road. It was the same for the Saguaros in their 6-run 7th: walks, walks, walks. This just in: pitching is hard!

Fair enough. I mean, you have to fill out and add some body to 'What to Work On' (😅) and you have some in person looks and this is a fun thing to discuss regardless of where we disagree. There was a guy (best said in East Coast accent) this season making a point about Chourio and his jumps and how they were a question mark and, at the time and to this day, it felt like a major reach - almost like we have to find flaws in the players. I am not saying you are doing this here, btw, but when I read that from this guy (again, 'this guy' is best said in an East Coast accent) I found myself thinking: "I've watched nearly every single game of his since he's played Low-A. Have I thought his defense was overrated at times? Yes, absolutely - especially his affiliated Freshman year when I personally felt Wiemer and Crow-Armstrong were more deserving of a Minor League gold glove. BUT, the thing is he's actually continued to get better building off a very good base. Not one single time did I watch a Chourio game and think: Geee, he really needs to improve those reads it's negatively impacting this game." 😅 Anywho, this is a long-winded way of saying: having watched nearly all of Lara's games in 2023, I never once came away thinking any of his current defensive skills were anything other than quite simply put the best outfielder on that grass (and this with Avina and Nicasia at the corners - very good defensive players). But, to your point, let's hope as he ages he just keeps getting better and everything gets even smoother. Given the coach in you, I'll trust that part of your eyes and defer.

Two more 60-Day IL Activations: - RHP Jhoan Cruz was activated off the 60-Day IL by the Carolina Mudcats - RHP Domingo Mejia was activated off the 60-Day IL by the ACL Brewers

I would opine his defense in CF is better than advertised. Really good jumps. Elite speed. Really good range. I saw very little to concern myself with in terms of balls hit at him - his judgments were quite solid; the reads very quick; the jumps instant; and he more often than not made the extremely difficult play look smooth and routine. He made, arguably, the catch of the year tracking a ball to straightaway CF and making the insanely difficult laid out in full straight at the wall grab (can't find the highlight, naturally). It was incredible. His jumps to every direction are more than adequate. He also has a surprisingly very good arm - definitely rips. This was, for me, perhaps the most surprisingly impressive part of his game. He pretty much has a cannon. There just isn't much to gripe about on the defensive side of the ball. This is one of the more exciting prospects in the system given the entirety of what we're witnessing. Here's some defensive examples of get off that are actually available and demonstrate what I'm talking about: Straight over the head? No problems Anyhow, on a nightly basis we Mudcats viewers were extremely spoiled by the defensive web gems we saw routinely up the middle - from Sibrian at the backstop to Areinamo anywhere in the middle infield to from Lara in CF. Three defensive savants.

Yeah, this is fairly shocking - the timing and the suddenness. Not an ideal scenario a week before the regular season starts! Ugh.

It turned into a 6 run lead-taking 7th for Surprise. They cling to an 8-7 lead in the bottom of the 9th. EBJ was brought on as a pinch runner in the top of the frame after a lead-off double. He was gunned down at home on a failed double steal attempt. The Saguaros will look to close it out.

Top of the 7th, Surprise trailing 7-2, they walked the bases full. No outs. Wes Clarke to the dish. He works the count 2-2. He takes a ball low and outside. The count is full. He walks in a run. 7-3 the Saguaros trail. Still juiced. Nobody down. No other Brewers are in the lineup tonight, unfortunately.