Robocaller

It certainly devalues guys you might sign at age 16, because they might need to be put on the 40-man roster long before they are ready. And it puts a premium on college players, who will have established themselves (or not) by the time they need to be put on the 40-man.

I just had the thought that the only reason Hiura is still on the 40 man is to hedge their bets in case Winker needs more time to recover (or if he has fallen off the cliff).

I'd make a case we have no idea what to expect from Winker because he'll be recovering from two surgeries after having a very atypical season in 2022. He could revert to his pre-2022 self, or he could continue to fall off a cliff. No one knows 100%. I suspect he'll be closer to his pre-2022 performance, but there's literally no telling.

I think it's equally likely that Ashby is exactly as he was this past season or becomes an all-star in 2023.

If Hiura was a LHB and performed as he had in 2022, he would have been used better and would have fewer people wanting to stake him to an ant hill.

Baseball Ref has him at .511. His monthly splits went up and down a lot.

I really hope they haven't given up on him as a starter, because his stuff is filthy. If they have, they need to acquire another starter; maybe a FA from the trash heap.

The Brewers have gone back to their strategy of "throwing crap at the wall and seeing what sticks," to build a bullpen. "Crap" basically means guys who haven't established themselves as quality ML pitchers, but have something going for them that suggests they might. It has worked in the past (notably when we weren't predicted to compete for the playoffs), but I really wish they acquired one established late-inning guy. A guy who can be closer 1b, or at least push Bush and Strzelecki down the hierarchy.

I think it's best for both parties to separate. I wish he had gotten 20+ more of McCutchen's starts vs. RH starters. We'd have a good sense of his value. But he was misused in 2022. I think we're waiting for some team to offer an A-ball lottery ticket for him. Maybe if he's hitting .400 in S.T. and some team has an injury, we might get more.

Yeah, it's impossible to know if we're doing badly without knowing how other teams are doing. Based on the stats posted elsewhere, few teams have been able to identify and develop catching prospects. And a few of the guys mentioned weren't expected to stay at C even when they were drafted. Then one promising prospect had severe mental health issues. And others were only rated highly because our farm teams were wretched at the time.

Since SF lost Correa, How about Adames (plus Luis Lara and Jadher Areinamo for Kyle Harrison LH starting pitcher, who could be promoted to the majors in 2023. https://www.baseball-reference.com/register/player.fcgi?id=harris003kyl and Casey Schmitt, a 3B/SS who could be promoted during 2023. https://www.baseball-reference.com/register/player.fcgi?id=schmit000cas

One of the difficulties in analyzing L/R splits is that they tend to be highly variable from season to season for some players. Looking at RH OPS minus LH OPS (Negative means reverse splits for LH hitter) Rowdy: 2022: 0.157, Career: 0.068 Winker: 2022: -0.143 Career: 0.224 Yelich: 2022: 0.063 Career: 0.093 Wong: 2022: 0.404 Career: 0.101 (Wong added for reference) Our LH rookies have had reverse (Turang) or very slight splits (Mitchell, Frelick), but we really don't know if that will persist in the majors; it often doesn't as players face better pitchers. Last year, Contreras killed LHP, while Urias, and Brosseau did slightly better against LHP, while Adames had a reverse split (and that agrees with his career numbers). Taylor had a slight reverse split. I hate to say it, but our best hope is for our LH hitters to randomly not have a bad year vs. LH pitchers. That's right, the best we can hope for is random chance. Or maybe for some of our RH hitters to finally realize they're supposed to mash LH pitchers.

So we find out about Feliciano today?

Ashby could become another Ace. Or his command could continue to be a problem. I don't think his HR rate is bad luck as much was it is his lack of command which gets him behind and he grooves one to throw a strike. His command doesn't have to get a lot better for it to have a big effect on his effectiveness. Other than Ashby, they really regress ERA to the mean, like they do batting average. We've got no chance of a pennant if the starters pitch like this. Jason Alexander is fine as an AAAA arm to use for 2-3 starts, but I'm hoping we have better options. Gasser might be a better option by the middle of the season. I don't know how they have Houser pitching in 61 games. He never pitched more than 35 in the majors (39 total, 4 in the minors). If he pitches 61 games, he won't be starting 13.

It's really hard to parse what "overlooked" means in this context. If someone wasn't mentioned, does that mean the player wasn't considered overlooked, or was overlooked twice?

We can hope Contreras will perform better than that projection, but I'd be happy with that level of production. My expectation is his career average for the rate stats.

Steamer must really regress batting average to the mean a lot. Not a lot of variability on that roster. If Winker gets that many ABs and hits .250, he'll get more than 17 HRs. I think they are figuring he'll play a lot of OF. I would be sad if Frelick only gets 118 ABs.

Welcome to the dark side, Darth JayShot.

I guarantee there is a GM who wanted to draft Hiura, and who wants to rectify his error by acquiring him on the cheap.

I'm hoping for an A-ball lottery ticket pitcher.

lol

I left off Cousins. Have him replace one of Guerra, Varland, or Payamps.

Mark my words: barring injury to some player, Toro and Miller are going to keep Turang off the major league roster until the super 2 deadline has passed (sometime in June).

The only way the Brewers sign an OF is if some player wasn't getting squat in salary offers, and we swoop in. But the guy would know he's just a placeholder for one of the rookies, so it would be a really desperate guy, possibly looking for a "prove me" season to get a good salary in 2024. I'm not convinced the Brewers won't go with Blake Perkins on the O.D. roster, keeping either Mitchell or Frelick in AAA until after they would disqualify for rookie status in 2024. I think they're that cheap.

This is the winter doldrums version where we don't acquire anyone else, and we keep Turang in the minors until June. Varland or Guerra could be replaced with Peguero. It could be even worse if they keep Frelick in AAA and have Perkins on the O.D. roster. I think they'll probably sign a reliever, displacing Guerra, Varland, or Payamps. They might sign a bat whom wasn't getting good offers; I don't think any such signing will be significant, but they surprised me with trading for Contreras. The "infield mob" of Urias, Brosseau, Miller, and Toro will cover 2B and 3B (and the occasional start at 1B). God help us if Adames is injured. C: William Contreras ($0.80M) 1B: Rowdy Tellez ($5.30M) 2B: Abraham Toro ($1.40M) 3B: Luis Urias ($4.30M) SS: Willy Adames ($9.20M) LF: Christian Yelich ($26.00M) CF: Sal Frelick ($0.72M) DH: Jesse Winker ($8.25M) Bench OF: Tyrone Taylor ($0.80M) Utility: Owen Miller ($0.80M) Utility: Mike Brosseau ($1.4M) Backup C: Victor Caratini ($2.80M) RP: Peter Strzelecki ($0.70M) 2B: Kolten Wong (trade to Seattle) ($1.75M) RF: Garrett Mitchell ($0.72M) SP1: Corbin Burnes ($11.40M) SP2: Brandon Woodruff ($11.00M) SP3: Freddy Peralta ($3.50M) SP4: Eric Lauer ($5.20M) SP5: Adrian Houser ($3.60M) CL: Devin Williams ($3.20M) RP: Joel Payamps ($0.90M) RP: Matt Bush ($2.00M) RP: Gus Varland ($0.72M) RP: Hoby Milner ($1.10M) RP: Aaron Ashby ($1.00M) RP: Javy Guerra ($0.72M) Payroll is 15.94% under budget