Jake McKibbin

Also if you get current form of Burnes, and the early season form of Woodruff, they can shutout anyone with this back end bullpen too. So get in the playoffs and let's see what they can do This offense certainly should have more consistency than last seasons, particularly with Yelich and Contreras and if you can get bang average production in other places Plus Tellez could catch fire Lots of ifs and buts there but it is a scenario where the streaky hitters get hot, and the pitchers do their thing

Ronald Acuna Jr and his contract That is all

He has a 1.59 WHIP in 2023, with 2nd percentile xBA and 1st percentile xSlg His xERA is 7.45 We have a resurgent Burnes on the mound Please dear Lord let us rack up a ton of runs The only one of five pitches he throws that hasn't completely sucked is the curveball

It was a borderline pitch but also surprised it wasn't called as the framing was absolutely spot on too

Also fair to say the offense has looked quite good, but god have we not had the BABiP luck

Good god.. they're homering literally every time. Is that all 5 runner on base have scored?

God don't play Hiura at second base It's almost like we're terrified of the lead, Riley and Ozuna have run riot. Acuna is on base almost every time

The timing of this is far too coincidental, it's so blatant. They want Teheran in case Miley goes down again, and/or woodruff

Literally this... Might get in with Freddy and Burnes given the strikeouts but he's average to below average in the field, so with how defense has won games this year and Turang being better at the plate he deserves to start

Braves twitter suggests a start time in 10 minutes or so

I think the forearm was a legitimate reason for his bat speed being slightly below where it normally is He was still hitting the ball hard, and he's for my money closer to an .800 OPS than he will be to a sub .500 OPS Definitely not a given that he pulls it off of course, but if you want a power 1B/DH to take a swing on, he's a better hope than CJ Cron

First delayed start in a while! Has there been one this year?

His stats were really good to start the season no? Like elevating the ball well, hitting for a ton of power and a big part of the big brewers offensive production in April! What made you think he wasn't great at this point? I think if fit and healthy, he's a great middle of the order bat to have for an average offense needing power, and his stats declined to an extent not seen previously in his career through June, making it very likely they were injury related results, and counsell did say he'd been managing them for a month! And actually I'm a big fan of Hiuras, and don't want the organisation to throw him aside and get just a week or two of him before failing to option him this time round. When he was on fire earlier in the season, with his timing on point having removed the toe tap altogether, and catching up to high heat I was really impressed, but I don't think promoting someone when they're finding themselves at the plate out of hope and desperation isn't the right ploy. I can see a scenario where he stays in triple A this season and fights for a DH slot next year actually. I'd love him to find his timing and really get locked in in a way he hasn't since the injury (it's a shame it came when it did) and if he does, get him up. If he doesn't, just keep working with him, the talents there and I think he'll have one last chance to make an impact at some point this season or next, hopefully with real confidence in his own swing and faith from the manager when his chance comes around

Absolutely Also it's important to remember the stolen base threat he added to his game last season to go with the power efforts Wiemer has power but he's far more inconsistent with it, Tellez is a more reliable bat in terms of getting the ball in play, and has bat to ball skills Wiemer lacks. Tellez hit 35 home runs last year and 12 in the first six weeks of this season. Joey might at some point do that with some swing changes, but he's certainly not there yet

He might do a rehab assignment, I think it all depends on how he's looking I think during the rehab after the stitches are out! His injury was maybe going on long enough he could do with one, but as soon as he's even close to ready he'll be back with the Brewers

I'm not judging by his stat lines so much as what I saw watching the AB's if that helps

The Alexander move/Megill option from the 40 man appears to have been in preparation for Justin Wilson's activation tonight, meaning another player may lose their roster spot soon. Be interesting to see who. Wilson has been with the club since Monday, but activation was delayed due to consecutive appearances with Nashville Saturday & Sunday

I'm all for Hiura but only if he's comfortable at the time of promotion. The recent version of him isn't one that we're used to, but a fully firing Keston is an asset. The one I saw last night is not one that would be a positive influence on the big league roster

No he looked really out of whack, I'm hoping he's working on something and it's causing a little rustiness at the plate (there was a suggestion he was closer to the plate, resulting in lots of HBP's recently) He's a .300 hitter mostly due to how outstanding he was pre-injury

I think Arnold said it was touch and go, partly from packing but I think Pittsburgh got home really late from a west coast road trip, so it was mentioned as unsure which day he'd be linking up with the team

It makes such a difference in terms of length too even getting punch out of one of them and average production from the other. With regular quality AB's from Yelich, Contreras, Santana and Frelick, that gives the Adames and Tellez combo a chance to thrive (expecting at least one Adames hot stretch this season) Then Monasterio, Turang and Wiemer can provide occasional threats but are considerably less under the microscope, with the added pressure of not wanting them on base for the top of the lineup coming round again, it really lengthens the whole offense considerably

The Brewers have received dismal production most of the year from their first basemen and designated hitters, and have addressed that with Carlos Santana. But is the real punch coming from a Rowdy renaissance? Image courtesy of © Michael McLoone-USA TODAY Sports Rowdy Tellez is exactly the player needed to sort the lack of power in the Brewers middle order, with a low strikeout rate for a slugger of his profile, and massive power, which should enable them to drive home big totals, and create separation from teams when the likes of Yelich, Frelick and Contreras get on base, as well as our shiny new toy, Carlos Santana. Currently, it seems as though (after the top two hitters) unless they go out of the ball park, they'll be stranded on the bases due to a lack of either consistency or power in the middle of the lineup, and it's preventing the Brewers from gaining separation in games recently, doing the bare minimum to win. Tellez had an OPS in June of .442, surpassed only by a .191 OPS in July during 11 plate appearances before going on the 15-day injured list with forearm inflammation, an injury that had apparently been bothering him for over a month. He was slashing just .136/.184/.173 over his last 87 plate appearances, and hadn’t homered since May 22, at which point he was having quite a fine season. He had hit 12 home runs with an OPS comfortably over .800, ripping 20 RBIs in April alone, looking every bit the slugging monster the team expected. This healthy version of Tellez is perfectly capable of carrying an offense, and is head-and-shoulders above anyone the Brewers will realistically target at the deadline. Last season, he performed to an average level while having one of the worst BABIP’s in the major leagues, which compared to previous years, suggested some optimism of a big bounce back, and perhaps a premier offensive first baseman. Even then, he had a .767 OPS in 2022 with 35 home runs, so even in a down season with deadened baseballs he showed serious power. However, this completely disappeared over the month-plus before he went on the shelf, with just four extra-base hits and a cratering ability to make regular, solid contact, often getting just too far under the ball and causing weak fly balls and pop-ups to the infield. Even when he did rip the ball, he had a knack for finding fielders, and not getting it aerial enough. As such, when Counsell referred to the IL stint being due to a month-long forearm issue, it seemed valid (or more so than Jesse Winker’s “back spasms”). He hadn’t hit a home run in almost two months, and that’s just not conceivable for a player like Tellez outside of some injury. He wasn’t making the quality contact he has in his last two seasons, where his average exit velocity has been above 91 mph. So his exit velocity was dropping with a livelier baseball, and the fly ball issue was causing him to average a 30 degree launch angle in June against breaking pitches, and a rising launch angle against fastballs, too. His timing was off just enough to throw off the Brewers' hottest hitter to start the season. He was just a little behind the ball on the regular, causing any late contact to be a low line drive, or to be slightly under the ball in his uppercut swing, all of which could come from an injured forearm tweaking his bat speed ever so slightly. One thing a six-week break will have done is given his forearm ample time to rest, and remove any and all inflammation in it. There will be a question of if his grip is affected, as Frelick’s was for a while, due to the number of stitches in the finger he subsequently injured in a freak shagging accident, but as it’s a nail bed that hopefully shouldn’t be as big an issue, being on the top of the finger rather than the underside. His estimated date of return is the LA Dodgers series, 15 days after the deadline, meaning acquiring Carlos Santana may be all the Brewers do to cover the 1B/DH position. Instead, they could look to add middle infielders, or an outfield bat like Teoscar Hernandez to be an extra lengthening of the lineup. Showing more propensity to strike out so far this year, and less power than usual, but to the opposite of previously hot trade rumor subject C.J. Cron with an 83rd percentile walk rate, and 75th percentile chase rate, Santana will grind out at-bats and find a way to get on base. However, the Brewers have several of these bats, and the recent issue has been power more than on-base efforts, meaning they need someone to drive in runs in the heart of the order, which Santana hasn’t done so much of this year. He will keep the line moving, and his clubhouse presence has been noted by Adam Frazier as a key part of the Mariners hot stretch last season, but the Brewers still need a little pop in their lineup. Whatever you think of Rowdy as a hitter, he’s definitely not the kind of player who stops hitting for power overnight. He might be streaky, but he’s never been a sub-.500 OPS player, particularly given that he’s struck out at around just a 20% clip in 2021 and 2022. Matthew Trueblood wrote a great article on how his patience at the plate may have belied an injury back in May, covering his incredibly reduced swing rates at the time. Santana could go a long way to helping the Brewers inch themselves towards league average offense, but neither he nor any of the alternatives they might have explored can carry the Brewers the way Tellez can, both to finish the regular season, and deep into the postseason. If he has a six-week period to finish the season as he started, this offense takes on a whole new outlook. View full article

Chirinos only quality pitch this year has been the splitter, everything else has been damaged The sinker and slider (though its really a cutter) have whiff rates of 11.4% & 14% respectively, with a lot of aerial balls against the slider too. The sinker has plus movement but has been very poorly located, as with the "cutter", he will serve up some meatballs that hopefully this lineup can do some damage on

Can we get a walk tracker for Chourio - 5 BB's, 3 days, having had 2 in all of July to that point