NBBrewFan

And if there were OPTIONS he would likely have 2 strikes on him. My issue is that they aren't simply going to throw him away because they are drafting contact players and he's not a contact player (he was a lot more of a contact player until someone on the Brewers thought EVERY player should be swinging for the fences) because they don't have other options. Will they trade him? They could, but I highly doubt he has enough value on the trade market to even make it worth it. And yes I am arguing he should be playing, but has minimal value. That says a lot more about what I think about the rest of the lineup. Other than Adames I don't think any other team would put any substantial value on our hitters: Yelich - nobody will take on that albatross of a contract unless the Brewers pay a significant amount of the remainder and they won't do that. Taylor - the Brewers have killed most of his value by continually passing on him to pay for other talent to play in the outfield. And maybe he just isn't valuable as an every day player. Renfroe - 3 other teams were happy to move on from him including the Red Sox who were going to DFA him so they decided to take on an albatross in JBJ instead. Tellez - the Blue Jays pretty much gave him away and besides a few hot spells he's played like a player you can pick up off waivers. Wong - the Cardinals are still laughing. I can't wait to see him gone. Adames - yes, our only real asset. Urias - some team might want him as a 2B, but as a 3B with his offense & defense he's not a great asset. Minimal return, maybe another INF who hasn't been consistent. Catchers - minimal value. Pederson/Broussard - little value. They'll need a 2B, CF, and DH next year. They aren't going to get significant help from FA (they just don't have the budget), They might go with Turang at 2B, but that will likely make the offense worse initially. Would they trade other prospects with value? The most value right now is in Lauer and Woodruff so they can weaken the rotation to fill those holes. As has been the case for years, to fill holes they have to create others because they just don't have the assets to fill all the holes,

Good thing Trevor Kelley still has a 40 man roster spot. He's like playing russian roulette with 6 bullets while Perdomo was 7 bullets.

All of those prospects are 3-5 years away from sniffing the majors. The Brewers aren't making any decision about the MLB roster with regards to the current draftees. You don't throw away an asset when the replacement is 4 years away. Hiura is outhitting McCutcheon, who's only on a 1 year deal. They are going to be paying more for Burnes, Woodruff, Hader, etc and if they decide to continue with mediocre bats then Renfroe will cost more. At this point they need cheap options. So far Hiura fits the need and profile. I think if he continues to put up a >750 OPS then he will likely be the top candidate for full-time DH in 2023, even if he drifts lower, there may not be a better option (cost-wise) on the open market, warts and all.

I don't think it's a crapshoot at all. Baseball compared to Football for sure and somewhat to Basketball and Hockey has a long "development" path from draftee to player with really very little data to judge the players. High School players are the farthest from being productive major leaguer's with the least data so it's very hard to project that development arc. College players have more data so and are in theory farther along in their development so there should be less variance in their projection. or College acts as a weeding out process that for High School players happens in Rookie/A/AA Ball. Most football players have had 3-4 years of competition at a high level to evaluate their talents so you've really eliminated most of the low yield types, not so in baseball. I don't think that's necessarily a crapshoot so much as being very difficult to hit at a high rate so you need some good people and processes to help push your success ahead of a coin flip. And I absolutely believe that the Brewers scouting department is smarter than 99% of posters on websites, what concerns me is are they smarter than any other teams scouts.

My concern is that the IFA market is skewed towards signing kids at 15/16 with so little data that there is just much more risk and noise in getting projections correct.

That ACL dropout isn't going to be your next utility infielder/outfielder or middle reliever while that big school guy very well could be (or at least he has the chance as he didn't flame out already). I think we can agree that we could use a decent middle reliever and the last home grown utility infielder was _______, while Taylor may be the utility outfielder we "developed" in the recent past. I understand these guys all have warts and the farther away from the top rated prospects they get bigger and nastier, I just think that when you have that player who has that big one on the end of his nose, scouts tend to ignore it and some other warning signs and get caught up in intangibles like he's a really great kid that all his coaches love, or he works his tail off, etc. while the kid with a slightly smaller wart who doesn't have the intangibles gets downgraded and we end up with the ACL flameout.

The end of the clip with CC coming out is really interesting. Here we have an example of a clear violation of the Balk rule and CC argues about the call. Saturday we have a complete boneheaded call by the Ump and CC doesn't make a move. Clearly there's a lot of professionals confused about the Balk rule, but to be honest I don't know how to clean it up without making it worse.

Players are lucky to be successful more than 33% of the time (not making out). Umps overall are 85-95% correct in their calls. Human beings make mistakes. The problem for the Brewers as they have evolved into a pitching dominant, weak offense is that successful games (wins) are likely to be low scoring or 1 run differential affairs which means that UMP success rate is going to be critical in determining outcome as are mistakes by the Brewers and mistakes by their opponents. Having so little of a margin of error is going to lead to more cases like Saturday where a Bad BALK call ended up deciding the game. Have their been studies where it's clear the umpiring is getting worse over time? or are we just sensitive to the calls which impact a 1-1 game that are mostly irrelevant in a 4-1 game?

Excellent thoughts. I tend to be biased to swing for the fences in the first/supplemental rounds (maybe even the 2nd) with high ceiling players then play the remainder of the draft going for high floor types. I also hate the moving en masse from one type to another as there is never enough data that 1 approach should be abandoned while another should be adopted completely. We definitely align with the need to balance the different "types" of players.

I've probably been more positive on Alexander than most as I always have been biased that a rotation should have some variety plus a groundball pitcher can be an asset when you have a very good defensive infield. The problem is that the very good defense that the Brewers had last year seems to have evaporated and Alexander needed to be perfect with almost every pitch to avoid getting crushed. I had no problem Counsell leaving him once it got to 9-1 because there is lottery odds that the Brewers would score 8 AND hold the Giants to 0. Chi Chi? How many IP of replacement level performance before any other option is better? It's called a Chi Chi.

Well it's hard to project whether these guys will develop any power. it's harder for 17/18 YO than 21/22 YO as they have more physical development to go through. Look at the Holliday kid. If I had to guess I'd say he was 15. There's a lot of maturity to an adult body to occur there and he could remain thin and lanky or he could put on a lot of lean muscle. His dad was a big dude, but he also probably had some chemical assistance. Very hard to predict where he ends up. Turang was a lanky (i.e. skinny kid) and he hasn't really shown any evidence of a SLG as his ISO is very very low so the hope he will be provide enough S to get his OBP up is very questionable at this stage. Wiemer has the power potential, but he was older when selected so his capabilities were clearer. I definitely prefer going for players who can actually hit the ball enough that they won't disappear as they climb up the levels (no more Victor Roaches or Monte Harrison), but simply drafting athletes has been a losing formula for years.

Too bad the Dodgers, Giants, Red Sox, Yankees, and Cardinals didn't get the memo that you aren't supposed to have successful farm systems if your picking in the 20's so often. I agree, for the Brewers to have improvement they need the crutch of picking near the top.

My Bad, I swapped their dates (trade/hired). Yes Peralta was acquired by Stearns (and so was jackie Bradley JR)

I'll trust the other teams that consistently pick late in the first round and consistently produce MLB players. i.e. that ain't the Brewers. The crazy thing is that everyone thinks the current administration is great at picking pitchers. Hader, Woodruff and Peralta were all Melvin picks/pickups. Sure the pitching lab has helped develop them and I will give them credit for that, but in identifying talent Stearns is getting a lot of credit from help from the previous GM.

Then you think at some point the Brewers would get out of the bottom third of system rankings.

When I said I was guessing light hitting SS I wasn't joking or boasting. I saw the board from about pick 10 on and the only thing that came to mind was they wouldn't take any of the good hitting OF, or the pitchers, they were going to target a light hitting SS. BINGO! Joe doesn't know much about the prospects for 2022 or the draft got it right on. That tells you all you need to know about the quality of the Brewers scouting.

Sign him and have him replace Wong. He'll fit right in with those hard hit outs.

You are absolutely correct and the Brewers scouting department is full of them.

Is he a light hitting SS? That's what I was guessing would be their pick, just don't know enough about the prospects to pick the right one.

They might need a book.

CC pulling his La Russa imitation.

Looky looky. How about that for an above average offense.

I knew it was bad, but I didn't realize that bad until seeing it.

The brewers offense is like a AAAA batter. They feast on AAA pitching and can't hit Major league pitching to save there lives.

LOL. Smoltz could probably outpitch Alexander (Jason and Doyle)