Brock Beauchamp

Personally, I'd knock half a grade off each guy except Renfroe, who has been a pleasant surprise. I worried about him - probably unfairly - before the season but he has been just fine with the bat and pretty good with the glove.

For sure, it's going to be extremely hard for a lumbering first baseman to be valuable if his OPS is under .800, even in this depressed offensive game.

Byron Buxton has an OPS under .300. He's also the fourth most valuable CF in baseball according to FanGraphs.

This is a good point. When talking about the way modern rosters are constructed, ten players is kinda the positional bare minimum but I would probably argue to grade a full 12 players (1 UTIL, 4th OF, 2nd C). Given the flexibility of modern lineup construction and the plethora of injuries in the modern game, a team could have a very good starting "nine" but still be pretty crappy due to the back-end of the roster being atrocious while consuming up to 20% of team PAs.

I didn't realize Wong had been that brutal defensively. I knew he wasn't playing well but... ouch.

I don't know, this is a tough decision. Baseball has probably become a little too homogenized nowadays and outliers can succeed but some swings simply won't translate to major league velocity and movement. I don't know enough about swing mechanics to even venture a suggestion and will defer to the trained professionals in the development pipeline.

Baseball itself is somewhat at fault for this perception, as it's a very common problem with highly-paid players, particularly players in small to mid-markets. MLB and the MLBPA need to adjust how free agency is reached and how much players are paid before they reach unrestricted free agency. If Yelich had already made $80m before reaching FA and/or reached FA earlier than he did, we'd likely see considerable scaling back of these 8-10 year deals with massive dollar amounts for players we KNOW aren't going to be worth that money through at least half the contract.

This is how I've come to view baseball more over the years. While I don't do it as much this year due to general busyness, I'm the type of person that tunes into a Pirates/Marlins game if that's the day game happening. There are obviously teams I'm more interested in than others but I'll watch almost any MLB game if that's what is available to me in the moment.

As a fan of both teams, I've never understood the (mostly manufactured) hatred. I lived in WI for a long time. I've lived in MN for a long time. Then again, the teams I actually "hate" are few and far between. That's just not how I really form a fan experience; I want a certain team to win, I'm not particularly interested in a certain team losing. Obviously, there are divisional rivalries where one team winning means a competitor loses and that's doubly beneficial to the team I want to see win. But outside the division, the only team I come close to "hating" is the Yankees because everybody not from NY should hate the Yankees.

This got me thinking so I looked it up. The 82 Brewers had a 121 OPS+. That's ridiculous. To compare to the modern day, the 2022 Yankees - the best in baseball - have a 117 OPS+ playing half their games in that shoebox of a stadium.

This got me thinking so I looked it up. The 82 Brewers had a 121 OPS+. That's ridiculous. To compare to the modern day, the 2022 Yankees - the best in baseball - have a 117 OPS+ playing half their games in that shoebox of a stadium.

We have weekly draft updates, you can find them here: https://brewerfanatic.com/search/?&type=cms_records1&tags=mlb draft 2022&search_and_or=or On draft day itself, we'll be launching an entirely new section of the site that will be updated in real-time with Brewers picks.

Not much. He's well below where a super-utility like Marwin Gonzalez sat when he entered FA and he only received something like 3/$24m. I suspect Peterson would accept a one-year deal but do not see anyone offering him more than two years, at maybe $4-5m per year.

Not much. He's well below where a super-utility like Marwin Gonzalez sat when he entered FA and he only received something like 3/$24m. I suspect Peterson would accept a one-year deal but do not see anyone offering him more than two years, at maybe $4-5m per year.

It has been a little over three months since we flipped the switch on the new site and exactly three months since the front page news portion of the site was added. We thank all of you for working with us as we kinda find our way through merging an existing community into our site model. There were some bumps and bruises along the way but the community as a whole has been exceptionally welcoming to all of us as we work through issues. First off, the past 30 days have been incredible for us, despite the Brewers scuffling for a significant portion of that time. I'm sure many of you shared my personal experience of grimacing through many of these early June games and Brewers baseball wasn't a lot of fun for a couple of weeks. But you stuck with us and we appreciate that; now let's watch the Brewers sail to another postseason berth (hopefully). Behind the scenes, we've been doing a ton of work to bring in new users. As I mentioned many times early in this process, most forum-only sites are in decline under the assault of Facebook groups, Reddit, and social media in general. I'm happy to say we've reversed that trend on Brewer Fanatic but there's still a thousand miles of headroom left to grow this community, as we're still drawing only about 12% of the users we saw on Twins Daily over the same period. But that's a big step up from the 7-8% we were at three months ago! In the past 30 days, Brewer Fanatic has drawn in 22,000 users with over 20,000 new users. During the same period in 2021 (May 29th - June 27th), BrewerFan.net drew in just under 11,000 users with just under 9,000 new users. That's over 100% gain! We're seeing similar results with user registrations, the second step in building a robust community. If a user doesn't register, they can't comment. In the past 30 days, Brewer Fanatic had 31 new user registrations on the site. During the same period in 2021, BrewerFan.net had six new user registrations on the site. The final step in building the community is getting those users to comment. We've also seen an uptick in those numbers but this is where we have the most work to do: the final conversion step. In the past 30 days, Brewer Fanatic had 8,461 new posts. During that same period in 2021, BrewerFan.net had 7,371 new posts. Once again, thank all of you for being a part of this community and helping us grow. But again, we're only getting started. We've seen all these gains and we have yet to approach two of our top 3-4 biggest points in the baseball cycle: the MLB Draft (just wait until you see what we have in store for that) and the MLB trade deadline. At Twins Daily, we focus an enormous amount of energy on those two periods of time and expect that same kind of coverage here at Brewer Fanatic. I can't wait to see what comes next and I hope you're all there to see it with us!

I generally sum it up this way: 1970s and 80s baseball was strategically dumb but it was a hell of a lot more fun to watch. And given how spectator revenue literally funds the sport, uh... that's kinda really important.

I generally sum it up this way: 1970s and 80s baseball was strategically dumb but it was a hell of a lot more fun to watch. And given how spectator revenue literally funds the sport, uh... that's kinda really important.

His is perhaps the weirdest I ever saw, like he was attempting to get hit by lightning every time he stepped to the plate.

His is perhaps the weirdest I ever saw, like he was attempting to get hit by lightning every time he stepped to the plate.

I mean, you're not wrong but analytics determined that hitting the ball less often but harder results in more runs scored. It's a feature, not a bug. If a player routinely hits a ball at 104mph, they're going to take more bases over a season than a person who makes a ton of 90mph contact. But I think most of us can agree that as spectators, watching more contact is more fun. The toothpaste will never go back into the tube regarding analytics but the real problem over the past half-decade is MLB's refusal to address the least spectator-friendly aspects of the analytics game and suppress them in favor of fan enjoyment of the product.

I mean, you're not wrong but analytics determined that hitting the ball less often but harder results in more runs scored. It's a feature, not a bug. If a player routinely hits a ball at 104mph, they're going to take more bases over a season than a person who makes a ton of 90mph contact. But I think most of us can agree that as spectators, watching more contact is more fun. The toothpaste will never go back into the tube regarding analytics but the real problem over the past half-decade is MLB's refusal to address the least spectator-friendly aspects of the analytics game and suppress them in favor of fan enjoyment of the product.

One thing I miss about old baseball is the wide variety of batting stances. From Julio Franco to Rod Carew to Kevin Youkilis, older generations had so many recognizable stances. I understand why that has changed - we simply know a lot more about the most effective way to hit a baseball hard now - but it takes a little bit of the charm out of the game.

One thing I miss about old baseball is the wide variety of batting stances. From Julio Franco to Rod Carew to Kevin Youkilis, older generations had so many recognizable stances. I understand why that has changed - we simply know a lot more about the most effective way to hit a baseball hard now - but it takes a little bit of the charm out of the game.

Ah, I see Woodruff is already slated to start tomorrow. Good good.

Ah, I see Woodruff is already slated to start tomorrow. Good good.