Brock Beauchamp

This is something of a shock. While Counsell-to-Mets rumors have been swirling all year, the Brewers still have their manager under contract through the end of the World Series. Teams will often grant permission for their employees to be interviewed by other MLB clubs but often only if the job opening is a step up the ladder for the employee. Obviously, this is not the case with Counsell, who is interviewing for a lateral position in New York. Counsell is already one of the highest-paid managers in the sport but when it comes to pure spending power, no one in the sport can compete with the Cohen-owned Mets. More to come as the situation develops. View full rumor

Maybe 12 out of 30 is too many but if MLB expands to 32, as they probably should have done a decade ago, is 12 out of 32 too many? I feel like 12 out of 32 is a pretty good ratio. Maybe a bit on the high side but definitely within reason.

This is kinda how I feel. I just don't see many great reasons for Counsell to go to Queens.

I considered starting a brawl by mentioning Ben Oglivie in the same sentence.

I was just waiting for one of you minor league lunatics to weigh in on this. 😄

Well, the Craig Counsell rumor mill has begun churning in earnest, thanks to Jon Heyman of the New York Post. In the end, it feels like no one has any idea what Counsell is thinking or where he will end up in baseball, if he remains in baseball at all. One aspect of this story stuck out to me. I knew Counsell's situation in Milwaukee is rare but I didn't realize it was this rare: "Counsell is believed to be the only one of 30 managers who lives year-round in the city he manages, so there’s a definite home-field advantage for Milwaukee." That's crazy. Ultimately, it might come down to money though Counsell may not be swayed by a small pay raise. He made roughly $21 million as a player and his salary as a manager is reported to be around $3.5 million, which puts him near the top of manager salaries in baseball. Would Counsell risk the bright lights and cut throat media presence in New York to leave his home town team? Only Craig knows for sure and it feels really weird to be talking in this context about a manager instead of a player or even a front office executive. View full rumor

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For example, if you look at one of our prospect rankings pages, when you scroll you'll see related articles and videos. That is merely displaying the three most recent pieces of content that are tagged with "Jackson Chourio", which anyone can also do in the forums. In the wiki, we could extend this beyond articles and videos, including forum posts and user blogs and whatnot. We could also include links to various resources like B-Ref or whatever we want, really. https://brewerfanatic.com/milwaukee-brewers-top-prospect-rankings/jackson-chourio-r14/

The forums containing some of that utility is part of the reason I'd like to create something like this. If users begin using the tagging system, any thread with information on the player could be listed on that player page. It's essentially a catch-all page for all content related to said player.

For all players, minors and majors... but the minor league guys are more of the long-term play with this idea, as it's much harder to find information about them. Also older players who were middling, like Larry Hisle. Basically, I see this working best if it's strongest in the players most of us know the least about.

We've been floating this idea around for years now but it always seemed so cumbersome and difficult that we never went anywhere with it. Well, my slate is mostly open this winter and I'm interested in taking a longer look at the mechanics of such a thing. What I'm envisioning is a community-generated player page for Brewers players. We'd start with zero and any of you hankering to start a page for a player could do so. These pages would include a short bio, user-uploaded images, and would automate links to all Brewer Fanatic content that has that player tagged in it (news, videos, user blogs, forum topics, etc). We could throw in user excerpts of interactions they've had with the player, the sky is really the limit on what we can put on the page. In essence, we'd build a "player hub" for each player. If you want to find all of Brewer Fanatic's content on Christian Yelich (plus his bio information), you'd just hit Christian Yelich's player page. But NO STATS. Stats are their own separate issue and we don't want to replicate/compete with B-Ref; they do a better job of that than we ever could. We'd probably include a B-Ref link to the player's page should anyone wish to check their stats. Is this something some of you would be interested in participating in? Is it a fun project? I just want to hear what you think of the idea and open a conversation about it. Maybe include some kind of system where if one of you users edits a page, you get points for it and can use those points for... stuff. I don't know, sponsoring your favorite player's page or a t-shirt or something. I don't know. I have a pretty good grasp on the technical aspect of this but haven't quite figured out what interests all of you in participating in the project.

I think it's a bit unfair to lump the Diamondbacks and Rangers together. The Rangers missed a bye by losing a tiebreaker to the Astros. The Diamondbacks are unimpressive, sure, but the Rangers are quite good.

I'm surprised you left out the Orioles. Since last winter, I've been angry on behalf of their fanbase. They were sitting in a prime position to pursue free agency and/or trades after a really solid second half of 2022... instead, they did basically nothing and kinda lucked themselves to 100 wins when they could have been a truly great team with the right moves. Their ownership really owes the fans some serious spending and wheeling and dealing this winter.

Lots of players named Alvarez.

I have some sympathy for Bonds and I think more baseball fans should, too. By all accounts I've seen, he was clean until the very end of the 90s. 1998 broke him. He was the best player in baseball and had been for some time. I suspect seeing McGwire and Sosa go off in 98 angered him to such an extent that he said "if you think steroids made them great players, you ain't seen **** yet" and literally became the greatest force in baseball history, even including Ohtani. And I kinda get that, particularly with his family's history with the media, coverage, and just kinda crappiness (the media was pretty brutal to his dad from what I've read, it's no wonder Barry walks around with a chip on his shoulder).

He’s the closest thing to Barry Bonds since… you know, Barry Bonds.

A straight up ass kicking.

No, but they had a winning record against .500 teams and the second half Twins are quite different than the first half Twins. They were boosted by the general incompetence of the ALC but not as much as you might think.

Here are the FanGraphs' BaseRuns records by matchup. The early results don't seem so out of line when approached this way (and none of this factors current team health, second half performance weight, etc). Phillies (94-68) vs Braves (103-59) - two very good teams battling one another, no shock here Diamondback (80-82) vs Dodgers (101-61) - this is the only real surprise but Kershaw was bad and then the Dodgers had to face Gallen Twins (92-70) vs Astros (89-73) - this shouldn't surprise anyone other than Twins fans used to losing every postseason game Rangers (97-65) vs Orioles (89-73) - the Orioles just aren't that good (yet), why is anyone surprised by this

If a change is going to be made, this is the right path to take. People are making WAY too big of a deal about the "favorites" being down early. Kershaw pitched like garbage. The Phillies are really good and it's no surprise they're challenging the Braves. The Twins are just as good as the Astros. Baltimore simply is not as good as their record indicated. What's the big deal here? Every postseason shakes out in crazy, unpredictable ways.

He exceeded rookie status in 2022.

Garver just can't stay healthy and it's a bummer. He was a menace behind the plate early in his career and the Twins - they're kinda Brewers-lite in this regard - have a knack for taking hit-first "catchers" and turning them into legitimate MLB catchers. Garver was their first success story and four years ago, his future was as bright as could be... and he hasn't played in more than 87 games in a season since.

If he'll work for McDonald's gift certificates, Oakland might be interested.