Brock Beauchamp

Let me think about this a little bit. It's a really sound idea but one thread would become chaotic, 29 threads are too many. Maybe there's a way to do this that's a bit more coordinated.

Are you speaking about the MiLB forum being too full of articles? Because I kinda forget to clean that forum up... pretty much every day. If that's what you're talking about, I'll try to be better about remembering to clean up that forum every morning.

Well, we've been doing this for 13 months now! That seems impossible but it's true. As always, I try to be as transparent as possible so let's look at some of the numbers. Overall, we're doing pretty great. We're still a fraction of the size of Twins Daily but given how long that site has been around and how it was formed, it would have been pure insanity to expect competition on that level. Year over year, we've seen a 92% increase in users visiting the site... that's great, but that's not really the entire goal. The goal is to bring this community back to its heyday of several years ago. And I'm happy to report that we're making significant strides in that regard, though the road is long and we have more work to do. The best (ie. easiest) way to bring in new users is search engine optimization. If we can place highly on various Google searches, it's essentially "free users"! Most of those users view one or two pages and leave. That's okay. A few create accounts. That's great! A few of those post a comment. That's the goal! So you need a really big funnel working for a really long time to create inertia. We're moving in that direction, thankfully. Organic search results (fancy for "people who clicked from Google/Bing to the site) is up 130% year over year. Another facet of a big switch-over like this is retaining the users we have, which has mostly been the case as well. That is monitored by direct traffic (ie. people who just come directly to the site). Year over year, that's up 73%. But how does that compare to previous years? Let's take a look at the 30 day period of March 19 through April 17. Obviously, there's a ton of noise here because, as we all know, 2020 was the COVID year. 2022 was the lockout year, which hampered traffic a little but mostly from January through March. User Direct Visits 3/19-4/17 2023: 10,093 2022: 5,831 2021: 5,479 2020: 3,511 (COVID) 2019: 16,117 (wow!) 2018: 8,058 2017: 6,241 As you can see, the brass ring is the 2019 season when everybody was pumped about the Brewers. And we're building our way back to that, one user at a time. I think we'll get there in time. As always, thank you all so much for sticking with us through the first year and helping us sort out the bugs. And, as always, my door is always open. If you see something that bothers you, please speak up and let me know about it, either here in the comments or via private message. Go Crew!

North Side Baseball. Matt Trueblood is a Cubs fan and we wanted to give him a platform.

Oh, that rundown at third where he sprinted to the dugout afterward? That’s when I stopped watching the game.

I won't be sad when this west coast swing is over. Both the Cubs and Brewers have been on a west coast swing at the same time, which is making viewing difficult for me personally (not a fan of the Cubs but now that we run a Cubs site, I try to stay abreast of what they're doing). But I was able to watch about half of last night's game and the Brewers looked real good. Two questions: 1. What happened to Burnes last night? 2. Joey Wiemer isn't much longer for this roster at this rate, which is too bad because damn he's fun to watch Also, it's painful to see the Brewers dipping so deeply into their rotation depth and we're not even particularly close to May.

And I think he'll be fine in that regard. He's not hitting the ball particularly hard right now but he's not inducing weak contact, either. Which is why the advanced stats are important. Things like exit velocity normalize much faster than doubles, home runs, or even OPS.

That wasn’t fun, Miller.

Small victories!

I’m pretty sure they usually have good attendance, particularly when the team is good. But I’m on my phone and looking it up sounds annoying so I’m not going to do it.

Wiemer has no right to be as fast as he is.

Aw, send Voit there, we all know he’s got wheels.

Is it just me or is T-Mobile pretty empty? Seems weird given the market and Mariners competitiveness.

That’s funny because I don’t actually believe that. I routinely rip the Twins and Padres for various things. Me being critical of decisions is not unique to the Brewers or this board. Do not take criticism as bashing. I love watching the Padres go crazy but I’ve actually said *on this forum* that I prefer the Brewers’ approach because I don’t see how it’s even possible the Padres aren’t TERRIBLE in a few years And the Twins… well, I doubt I’d take their front office over the Brewers. Out of the three teams, the Brewers probably have the best front office. The Twins are close but also play in a market that allows them to play riskier bets. I doubt they’d be as good as Stearns/Arnold with Milwaukee’s constraints. And while Preller is a fun spectacle, I’d take either the Brewers or Twins front office if they get Siedler’s wallet in the deal. Nothing I’ve said here conflicts with the fact that Stearns/Arnold aren’t without their own flaws nor are they above criticism.

That’s possible. Unfortunately, it’s hard to see this team being good in 2024-2025 without them and if they’re not extended, they can’t be allowed to just walk. Especially Burnes.

Yes. This.

Exactly. I’d be completely happy if he becomes a perpetual second tier catcher.

No one, IMO. Maybe I would have tried to buy out some Contreras seasons immediately following the trade. Most of my focus has been on the big three. And my goals are pretty reasonable, I never expected them to lock up more than one.

This was one of the biggest lingering questions for me heading into the season. Yeah, we all know he's an exciting young catcher and I make that trade 12 out of 10 times but with only one year of good hitting, I wasn't sure which version of the hitter we'd see in Milwaukee. So far, he has hit for little to no power but given the sample size, that's not all that damning. His .400 BABIP won't hold, though, either. He's going to have to start hitting extra base knocks but looking at his StatCast data, I don't see a ton to be concerned about. He's not raking but as a catcher, he doesn't need to rake, especially given that framing number (which I find unlikely to hold as well, though the Brewers have a knack for improving their receivers). Personally, I'd be quite satisfied with a 111 OPS+ (his current number) out of the catcher slot for a long time, even if we don't get the monster version of Contreras in a Brewers uniform.

I consider the Ashby extension recent and I praised it at the time. I still praise it. But Peralta's extension was over three years ago, Yelich shortly afterward (I think?). I don't really consider that "recent".

No, extensions don't always work out but given the market prices of them, they don't need to work out every time to be worth the effort. Kepler's extension is mostly a bust but he's still a marginal big leaguer making under $10m. He's not killing the team and most of my dislike of that extension is tied to my dislike of Max Kepler. Polanco's extension has been phenomenal. He's injured right now but if he doesn't have 550 PAs in 2023, his remaining years become options. He's not going to get 550 PAs this year and as recently as 2021, posted a 4.9 bWAR. If the Twins are worried about his future, they can walk away after this season. Buxton's extension was a no-brainer. You're paying an oft-injured player $15m per year when he earned that in about 60 games last season. And the contract becomes much more lucrative if he plays often and well, in which case the Twins are happy to make that trade every time. And if you get even one healthy season out of Buxton, you could have a 7-8 win player on your hands. Dobnak's extension was a flyer that cost the Twins like $8m total over several years. It's a non-entity in baseball payroll terms. All upside with minimal cash outlay.

It definitely takes two to tango. My frustration is the complete lack of extensions, not that they missed on any single player. For a long time, Woodruff has felt like the obvious choice here. Burnes is too pricey and has the hardware, Adames is kinda scary long-term. But had the Brewers jumped on an extension 18 months ago, one of them should have been affordable. Now with each passing day, it feels any extension of the big three is more unlikely.

Lopez, like the Big Three, was due to be a free agent after the 2024 season. Now, he's probably a step down from Burnes/Woodruff but he's a solid #2 starter with some upside still in the arm. This feels wildly team-friendly to me but the Twins only acquired the guy via trade a couple of months ago. There's no historical good-will between the two sides, as they only just met. The Twins get one arb year plus three FA seasons, pushing Lopez free agency back to the 2028 season. I'm becoming increasingly frustrated with this front office and its lack of extensions.

The west coast trip that never ends... continues. Now we move on to Seattle, a team that started off by stumbling but is currently on a four-game winning streak. It would have been nice to catch them a week ago, like the Cubs did.

I had no idea Tommy Milone was still in the league.