Brock Beauchamp

Willy's on-base skills are really the only thing that scares me about him but they're pretty damned scary. I tend to be of the camp "don't care what's on the farm" when it comes to shortstops and centerfielders. You can literally never have too many of either and the failure rate on both is exceptional. Many become decent players but MLB tends to expose enough chinks in a player's armor that they easily become unplayable at a premium position. Maybe they don't hit enough. Their routes are a little sloppy. Their arm isn't strong enough. We've all seen it a hundred times, a guy rockets through the system as a SS only to play 40 MLB games there and moving to second base or a utility role. It's easy to fall down the defensive ladder and incredibly hard to climb up it. If I can reasonably keep what I know is a proven MLB starter at short or center, I'm usually not going to let pieces on the farm influence my attempts to keep that player. You can always move one of those players to second/third and make your defensive alignment even better should both prove to be capable at the more premium position. I'm not saying they need to keep Adames at all costs but it'd be a big mistake not to legitimately try.

I don't see how the two actions are related, though. If Chourio signs a deal, he'll be paid - at most - a few millions bucks a year for 3-ish years and then increasing from there. By the time Chourio is making real money, Yelich is off the books or close to it.

BTW just want to tag @Smichaelis9 so he can see the glory of Frelick's slide in photo form.

Let's be real here, though. The Brewers gain an entire year of prime service time by keeping him down for three weeks. Baseball needs to change its rules about service time but I absolutely understand why teams do what they do under the current rules.

It's probably fine if you run him out once a week in RF if he's hitting. More than twice a week and you're asking for trouble.

I feel like it's pretty dangerous to throw Mitchell out there every day and hope things just work out. Except the Brewers don't have anyone behind him who can be relied upon, either.

I look forward to actually watching west coast games because eastern/central games I care about end at a reasonable time. I love the Padres and will be happy to watch more of them.

One huge upside for shorter games at the ballpark is that I have young children. I've basically been unable to expose them to baseball consistently but the pitch clock changes that, at least somewhat. Baseball has an old white guy problem (the fastest shrinking demo in America) and maybe this takes a small step toward repairing that damage.

Really nice first entry! I can't wait to see what you have in store for us next. Do you plan to mainly tackle MiLB or will you examine the big league club as well? Oh, and you can embed tables on this site. It's faster to do and displays more nicely. Here's a primer on it:

I LOVE the new pitch clock even more than I thought I would. I know games will likely slow down in the regular season but still, this is awesome. I'm hoping that as the season chugs along, we see a down tick in velocity to go along with the faster pace.

Well, this news makes the opening day lineup in the outfield much more interesting.

I find the catching situation in baseball really interesting as a whole. Did the Cards downgrade from Molina to Contreras in hopes of some form of robotic umpiring taking over during that contract? Does Milwaukee have the same hopes for his younger brother? Or do the Brewers think they can shore up William's defense? With the future of catching kinda up in the air right now, how teams are approaching the situation is really interesting to follow.

That trade was pure black magic and elevated my opinion of Arnold significantly.

Hah! We actually just bought the site. I'm def not a Cubs fan. I'll manage the community but we purchased it because Matt Trueblood is a Cubs fan and we wanted to give him a platform. We purchased this site because I'm a Brewers fan, we're purchasing that site because Matt's a Cubs fan. Right now I'm just getting acquainted with that group. They're a wild bunch, for sure.

I'd like to address this. As a fan of multiple teams and a member of multiple communities, I hear this said about literally every manager in baseball. Which kinda makes the statement impossible. As for Hiura, that's a pretty big complaint I have about both the front office and Counsell. I don't know who is responsible for throwing Hiura out there against LHP but it's super aggravating.

Oh man, I disagree. I think Counsell is a very good manager who manages the team as is required over 162. He runs a tight clubhouse, And baseball is a game where you can argue 55/45 decisions all day long with neither side being satisfied at the end because process doesn't correlate well with results over that data sample.

Someone please correct me if I'm wrong but MLB hasn't lengthened their between-inning commercial breaks for a long time. I know they shortened them in the past few years (2019?). Game length is NOT due to innings breaks, which run on a 2:30 clock (which means TV is back well before that point).

Even though as a Twins fan I hated Mark Buerhle, his ability to spin up a two hour CG was something to witness.

Thank you! I posted all of these back-to-back and that was lost in the shuffle of posting several pieces at once.

Yeah, remember we're a couple of days into spring training. Many pitchers are just lobbing it over the plate at this point while hitters are swinging out of their shoes. Games will slow down a touch as velocity and command ramp up toward the season while hitters start displaying more typical discipline.

So my deep dive analysis is:

Here are his 2022 Statcast numbers. Brutal. A .375+ WOBA on three of his pitches. To put that into context, in 2022 Kyle Schwarber had a .375 xwOBA. Wilson threw about 900 pitches last year that made the average hitter look like Kyle Schwarber. Year Pitch Type # # RHB # LHB % MPH PA AB H 1B 2B 3B HR SO BBE BA XBA SLG XSLG WOBA XWOBA EV LA Spin Ext. Whiff% PutAway% 2022 Sinker 593 402 191 32.5 92.1 179 160 49 38 9 0 2 21 141 .306 .296 .400 .407 .342 .341 91.2 5 1958 6.5 11.7 16.9 2022 4-Seam Fastball 438 117 321 24.0 92.7 114 99 30 18 7 0 5 24 77 .303 .278 .525 .498 .384 .370 91.7 21 2034 6.5 22.2 16.7 2022 Slider 290 228 62 15.9 83.4 77 75 18 10 4 0 4 13 63 .240 .314 .453 .530 .297 .364 88.4 17 2160 6.6 20.7 17.8 2022 Changeup 270 72 198 14.8 85.1 82 73 22 12 6 1 3 10 64 .301 .310 .534 .499 .386 .387 92.9 5 1467 6.5 18.8 13.9 2022 Curveball 234 111 123 12.8 77.2 56 53 13 4 3 0 6 11 43 .245 .245 .642 .519 .378 .334 86.1 18 2307 6.5 20.4 18.3

I wrote up the Wilson acquisition and the first thing that jumped out at me was how many pitches he threw and how badly most of them graded out. It will be interesting to see how the Brewers change his approach and try to accentuate his strengths. I'd be shocked if one of their first moves wasn't to axe a couple of his way-below-average pitches. It baffles me why the Pirates didn't do it last year, seems like a ripe opportunity for Milwaukee.

Nope, PM it to me, please!

I love it. First, I can move on to another game and watch it if I'm still in the mood for baseball. Second, if I just want to watch a game, it's over before I'm bored with it. Third, the long term effect of this is that I can start taking my kids to baseball games without leaving in the sixth inning. Fourth, I can start actually letting my kids watch weekday night games. Short baseball games are good. It's what we all grew up with, provided you're over 30 years old.