Brock Beauchamp

One of my favorite days of the year! T-Mobile Tuesday MLB.tv!

In what figures to be the last twist of the Brewers’ long spring of roster uncertainty, Owen Miller made the Opening Day roster, relegating Joey Wiemer to Triple-A Nashville. The reason is partly roster math, but it's also partly about Miller, whom the team might have unlocked this spring with some refinements to his approach. Image courtesy of © Mark J. Rebilas-USA TODAY Sports In what figures to be the last twist of the Brewers’ long spring of roster uncertainty, Owen Miller made the Opening Day roster, relegating Joey Wiemer to Triple-A Nashville. The reason is partly roster math, but it's also partly about Miller, whom the team might have unlocked this spring with some refinements to his approach. It came a couple beats after the barrage of news early on Monday, which included Luke Voit re-signing on a big-league deal and Brice Turang officially making the cut. Owen Miller is a Wisconsin native and a fine, versatile player, but for many fans, taking him over an outfield prospect as highly-regarded as Joey Wiemer was the wimpy choice. The only thing more frustrating than following a team that doesn’t take a far-sighted approach to roster decisions is following one that takes an extremely far-sighted one, and the Brewers are the latter. That’s a good thing, in the long run. While they have less of a crunch on the 40-man roster than many other teams right now, the Brewers are rightfully cognizant of the costs and risks that come with putting a player they hope will be a long-term part of the organization onto the 40-man roster. In the case of Wiemer, it wouldn’t have triggered any immediate crisis, but if Tyrone Taylor’s rehab goes smoothly, he could be back with the team by May 1. At that point, they’d need to demote Wiemer, and they’d be one player shallower in the upper minors for having forced him into the picture right away. Of course, it’s far from a guarantee that Taylor will be back that soon. The elbow injury with which he’s dealing has already required a platelet-rich plasma injection, which tends to mean that there’s some substantial damage or inflammation in the affected area. The key thing to keep in mind, then, is that the Brewers still have the ability to option Miller (or someone else) in a couple of weeks, or to make Wiemer the first callup to the parent club, if they start to sense that Taylor is going to have a long road back to the lineup. In the meantime, Miller has more to recommend him than meets the eye, and it’s a good bet that the Brewers believe they can boost his production well above the 89 OPS+ he put up with Cleveland in 2022. If there’s one thing Milwaukee has consistently done in recent years, it’s helping hitters make good swing decisions. They pride themselves on not expanding the zone, but also on crushing what’s within their hitting zones. That’s exactly where Miller needs help. Last year, Miller did several things well. He’s fast. He fielded three infield positions sure-handedly. He also made contact at a healthy rate. His deficiencies were a lack of authoritative contact and too little patience at the plate. For his career, he’s walked in just 6.1 percent of his plate appearances. A few years ago, Luis Urías was in the same position. In his two stints with the Padres, he had an OPS+ of 76, thanks to a pitiful hard-hit rate and too many strikeouts for that profile, Those issues carried over into his first season with the Brewers, the pandemic-ruined 2020. Since then, though, Urías has become a dangerous and fascinating hitter, and much of it can be chalked up to the way he and the Brewers’ hitting coaches have overhauled his approach. Urías leverages the count by adjusting his swing rates to it. That doesn’t sound revolutionary. Every serious hitter does it, and certainly, every MLB hitter does it. The trick is that every hitter has to do it uniquely. The best situational approach, based on count, depends on a hitter’s strengths and weaknesses, and on what pitchers might be expected to throw them in that situation. Both Urías and Miller are right-handed hitters with line-drive swings. When they’re right, they hit the ball in the most productive band of launch angles more often than a typical hitter. Both also make contact at above-average rates. However, they both also have below-average power, in an absolute sense. That means that their approaches based on count should be very similar. They can expect similar things from pitchers, and their swings and skills create roughly the same balance of risk and reward when they make their swing decisions. Here’s how often each swung last year, based on who was ahead in the count, and where their respective swing rates ranked among qualifying batters. Player Behind in Count Even Count Ahead in Count Swing Rate Percentile Swing Rate Percentile Swing Rate Percentile Luis Urías 56.9 77th 38.1 20th 42.5 9th Owen Miller 54.8 66th 38.7 23rd 55.8 83rd That’s the difference between Luis Urías and Owen Miller–a 110 OPS+ and an 89. It’s all in the fact that, with the count in their favor, Urías was able to be patient, knowing that even if the pitcher stole a strike against him, he could try to spoil a two-strike offering, and if the pitcher elected to be careful, he would only get further ahead, or else draw a walk. Miller, meanwhile, got antsy. He tried to attack anything he saw once he got ahead, and it didn’t work, because he’s not that kind of hitter. It would be unfair to expect Miller to instantly morph into Urías this season. There is an often underrated element of intrinsic talent involved in pitch identification and plate discipline, and Miller might not be able to see and react to pitches quite as consistently as Urías does. On the other hand, he’s looked phenomenal this spring at the plate, and he’s an even better overall athlete than Urías is. It might be that the Brewers have found another solid piece for their lineup, just by helping him make the same approach adjustments that worked for his new teammate. View full article

First, welcome to the site. Second, it's very unlikely Keston will hit over .300. After his breakout rookie campaign, he hasn't had a batting average higher than .226. The reality is that Hiura is a player who misses the ball way too often and doesn't have a position. I hope he sticks somewhere else and does well - I have no animosity toward the guy - but he just didn't fit into the Brewers plans anymore.

I truly hope this is the case.

I hope this continues, though I’m skeptical. I have a nagging feeling teams tried out the new running game and will immediately revert to previous trends once games matter.

Good job figuring out the Voit situation. Bummer for Frelick but I suspect we’ll see him soon enough.

Welcome to the site and yes, it's exciting to see these two guys get the call! It's pretty cool that the Varland brothers - Minnesota natives - are now playing for the Twins and Brewers.

Agreed. The Reds should be better than last year but I think they're still solidly a fourth-place team at best. If a few things bounce in the correct direction for the Cubs, they could challenge the Brewers but I don't see the Reds doing so.

Thank you for your support! It really helps a lot.

I find the burgeoning Reds rotation pretty damned scary. This year will be really important in evaluating exactly what to expect of them going forward.

Shrinking on Apple TV+ is extremely good. And with the new season of Ted Lasso releasing, it’s worth a month or two of subscription.

This is a good problem to have. What’s more likely is that by the time Taylor returns, either Mitchell or Wiemer (maybe even Frelick, too) are struggling to the point that the Brewers want them off the 26-man anyway. When dealing with rookies, failure is the most likely outcome.

I doubt anyone will give anything for Hiura at this point.

Welcome to Brewer Fanatic! I think Frelick's hit tool could be really useful on this team but honestly, I can't really get worked up if they call up Wiemer instead. I'm simply happy that one of the kids might make the roster in place of Taylor. May as well make the upside play in Frelick or Wiemer, hoping that they make your decision more difficult when Taylor is ready to return.

Bring on the kids, I say.

I'm sure that has some impact - general cost of living and doing business varies between locales - but in my experience, most of advertising is priced on reach. And the Brewers' reach is greater than many other teams given their viewership numbers.

Yes and no. Those teams definitely hosed Fox/Bally but if Fox was still in control of the channels, I suspect bankruptcy - while possibly inevitable - wouldn't happen for several more years. Losing money on large contracts is only part of the reason Bally is declaring bankruptcy. Bigger factors were that they purchased just before the pandemic, then the pandemic slammed everything in society, and the resulting re-emergence has caused interest rates to fly upwards while inflation is eating the other end of their financials. Why did this hurt Bally so much? They took out a massive pile of loans to make this purchase and now they're getting slammed under loan payments they cannot hope claw out of given the circumstances. But the longer-running problem - and one that predates the Bally sale - is that RSNs bought hook, line, and sinker into the cable package, which everyone with a lick of sanity saw was going to go into a tailspin as far back as ten years ago. And instead of finding a way to weather these bad contracts, they kept jacking up cable package prices, which caused cable streaming - RSNs only real hope of surviving in the here and now - to tell Bally to go pound sand. It's how we ended up with DirecTV being the only streaming service that offers Bally channels (until this year, now Fubo does as well). And DirecTV Stream, to describe it in single word, sucks. It's an awful service. So many bad decisions, any one of which could have prevented this situation from escalating so quickly and in such a damaging way.

It's no secret the Brewers are at a disadvantage but did you know they were so competitive with actual viewership of games? I didn't, which is what I found interesting about the chart. The fact they're barely trailing teams like the Twins while stomping on some much larger market teams was a surprise to me and useful information to know.

It's not worth the money in perpetuity but if you watch TV, Apple TV+ is one of the best bang-for-buck services available, especially if you only subscribe for a month or two and then cancel. Their library isn't big but it's incredibly high quality.

I think it's probably tied to cable bundles. There are simply more cable subscribers in Miami and with the bundled packages, Bally then passes along much of that (undeserved) money to the Marlins, who no one is watching, has watched, or likely will watch. Just another reason to hope the cable industry crashes and burns and income becomes more merit-based, I suppose.

Going back to 2014, I found this: https://www.fishstripes.com/2014/7/18/5914013/miami-marlins-television-viewership-up-38-percent Then from 2017, this headline: Miami Marlins viewership and attendance plummeting https://marlinmaniac.com/2017/07/18/miami-marlins-tv-attendance-plummeting/ And again from 2019, this headline: Marlins ratings down 14 percent https://www.sun-sentinel.com/sports/miami-marlins/fl-sp-marlins-tv-ratings-20191015-yso3tdwndzdkjbgdi5faym6ygm-story.html So after all of that decline after decline after decline, the Marlins signed a $50m per year television contract deal in 2021.

How is this clickbait? Sheesh. And potential eyeballs are only useful if they manifest into real eyeballs. Something that hasn’t happened in Miami at all in 20 years and even then, never coming close to maximizing their market size.

Oh, for sure. These contracts are signed based on market size and the pendulum will swing both ways on actual performance over a long period of time. But I mean, come on, 33% less than the Marlins? That ain't right. Also, LOL at the Rockies and their viewership. Yeesh, that franchise is a trash fire.

One of our authors at Twins Daily posted this little nugget and... ick. Look at where the Brewers sit in average viewership and look at the money they're being paid for TV rights. Then take a gander at the Angels.

That ad is outstanding.