Jake McKibbin

The luck part is interesting, because while It's fair to say the bloops were lucky, the number of high exit velo line drives hit right at a guy was pretty astounding too, particularly early on, so it kind of evened out

Eight straight HR's to lead off would be even better

Also didn't want to make a whole thread, but it's nice to see Orlando Arcia getting a guaranteed amount that should give him some stability in life. $7.3m guaranteed, not saying he'll never work again but smart investments and that should be him set

Normally CC loves going LRLRLRL so surprised to see 3 straight lefties Contreras always likely to be behind Rowdy or Winker to protect vs left handed relievers Very very excited

The dedication...

Cubs batting Bellinger 4th in the line-up... seems optimistic, then you see the rest of the lineup

Game Time BABYYYYYY Very excited to have competitive games back, and I can watch it live too! HELL YEAH! Yelich setting the tone with a first pitch homer into the Wrigley wind?

I think there's potential that one of Frelick/Wiemer get traded, but I think maybe mid season more so, in the hope that they come out relatively strong and can up their trade value I actually think it's more likely Frelick, but we shall see

https://www.mlb.com/brewers/roster Brewers 26 man is set, Houser beginning on 15 day IL Pitchers Burnes Woodruff Peralta Lauer Miley Milner Payamps Guerra Strzelecki Bush Williams Wilson Varland Catchers Caratini Contreras Outfielders Mitchell Miller Winker Yelich Infielders Turang Urias Adames Tellez Brosseau Anderson (OF) Voit

Interestingly the last time he was actually healthy was 2020... glimmer of hope at least, but thankfully he's not below average vs lefties even when he's struggling more

That's true, but I think you could easily make an argument the Brewers line-up as a parallel is better than the cards rotation, particularly given Flaherty, Matz and Mikolas have missed a ton of time between them, and Wainright is looking hittable with the decreased velo

Yeah I think someone mentioned it but his ST is always dog crap (maybe he relies heavier on scouting reports than some?) but remember he was ace like at the start of last season

Frelick's had far less time to iron out things, and isn't as secure in the outfield. plus Wiemer has looked good this Spring. Last night's double was especially intriguing as he barreled up a ball that had given him real trouble last season Not saying I'd agree with it 100% but I can see some logic, plus I think either of them are quality additions and its exciting to see what they can do

The cards are banking hard on him stabilizing their rotation, I also don't think Mikolas can be as good as he was last year again, certainly not likely 201 innings. There's real potential for this to just blow up on them

Flaherty really struggled in his final tune up today, particularly with striking out guys. I think 6 ER's in 3.2 IP and 1 strikeout

Mike Brosseau is a very interesting player, particularly with the barnstorming ST he's currently having. In four seasons he has accumulated 3.6 bWAR over just 509 plate appearances, including 22 homers, the equivalent to some of a full season. He had one bad season in 2021 (his BABIP dropped almost 100 points), yet every other year has had a BA over .250 and an OPS of over .750. So why does he struggle to garner more playing time? Let’s take a look; The Bat If you asked the everyday fan what Brosseau brings to the table, it’s the ability to crush left handed pitching, something the Brewers are greatly in need of. Over his career, he has a .651 OPS against right handed pitching, and a standout .823 OPS against left handers, with 67% of his extra base hits coming against lefties. A couple of other interesting split based statistics - Brosseau has a .919 OPS against “finesse pitchers”, compared to a .547 OPS against high strikeout guys - He has an OPS of around .700 for No outs, or One Out, but when his team have Two outs, he hits for an .868 OPS - When he swings first pitch, he has a 1.024 OPS - He remains consistent hitting wise regardless of whether he’s in a low, medium or high leverage situation So where does the worry come with Brosseau? Well, with someone who has such a compact short swing, he strikes out a hell of a lot, to a 28% clip against lefties and a 33% clip against right handed pitching. He doesn’t produce upper level exit velocities (his max EV last season was just 104.1mph), but very consistently avoids weak contact. Take a look at how fangraphs views his contact profile: Such low soft contact rates show he has the potential to be a very consistent contributor, but the strikeout rate needs to come down for him to garner more playing time. As you can see below, he swings and misses a lot up in the zone, something exploited by pitches this season who started throwing him a ton more fastballs (57.6% up from 50% in 2021). The up and away zone appears a particular weakness, but the interesting caveat to how much he waves in that area, is that when he makes contact, he averages a 98.4mph exit velocity with a 29 degree launch angle. Plenty of deep fly’s if he could just make contact, but alas, that seems like a tall order. You can also see that he appears to notice this weakness and attempts to take pitches where possible in this area of the zone. The other standout is that it’s unsustainable to be whiffing 24% of the time on meatballs, certainly over the course of a longer season against pitchers who aren’t to his liking (ie high spin, high velocity four seamers). The other thing that really stand out as a weakness in his profile is, despite his short swing, he really struggles to make decent contact when he gets pitched inside. When pitched down and in (in zone) he has a 75% ground ball rate to go with this, almost guaranteeing an out when paired with his low exit velocities. Have a look at his expected BA and regular BA below: As you can see, for such a happy pull hitter, he’d much prefer to have the ball in the middle and outer half of the plate, whilst it’s also intriguing to note he isn’t particularly good at smashing meatballs. I should point out he has had xBA considerably below his actual BA in every season bar 2021, so it doesn’t seem to be the best metric for evaluating him but even so, it paints a solid picture of his zones, and given his struggles to make contact at the top of the zone, and inside, you can see why the high velocity fastballs would be a bit of kryptonite for him. The Glove Last season, using outs above average as the go to metric, Brosseau had his worst season by far at the hot corner, a 65% success rate on his plays at third base being 45 below average, recording -5 OAA. There wasn’t one particular movement he struggled with either, posting negative scores for moving in, moving left and moving to his right. His arm strength was poor, averaging 81.9mph on his throws compared to a league average from 3B of 85.7mph. To put that in a comparison with current Brewers, Brian Anderson averaged 88.9mph on his throws from 3B (not including the OF where he ranked even higher). He seems a sub-optimal defensive presence, without any real injuries or reasons for his declining performance, other than, if you were really stretching, the lack of regular playing time there (albeit he’s never really been a regular throughout his career). Conclusion Brosseau based over his career numbers is a solid bat, and a really strong player for pulling lefties (he could even be a benefactor of the shift rules this season). He doesn’t always make sense given the consistency of his batted ball profile compared with his strikeout rates, his struggles to pull the ball well on the inner part of the plate with a short swing, but he does produce consistently good walk rates and do damage against lefties. He’s not the sort of player you want in an everyday position at third, even if his strikeout rate did drop considerably (unlikely at this point), but to pinch hit him against left handers, or start him against the slower fastball pitchers could show some positive value throughout the season. I think he should be on the 26 man opening day roster given how the Brewers as a team struggled last season against lefties, and save Contreras, not a lot of their signings have addressed this, as well as trading off Renfroe.

Actually created by Oxbridge students, which is baffling as Oxford is as far from a "football" crowd as you could get! Fair point, though I'll stick take issue with calling a sport football when you barely kick the thing

If it happens to one of the games I can watch at a reasonable hour from Ireland, I'd be pissed. but it is what it is. Over here we're used to too many pies for sports broadcasting, and needing multiple services to se them all Premier league football (I refuse to call it s*****) - BT Sports, Sky sports, and no broadcast of any game at 3pm Saturday Rugby - Premier sports, BBC (Free), Sky Sports, BT Sports It's a ballache but they sell games as packages now,

How do you get this? Could you even hear a trashcan sound with all that noise?

Our final Brewers related bracket

This guy comes across so likeable, I'm really rooting for him. Hopefully they're looking for a trade for Hiura, because Voit is a better version of him for my money, and more consistent

Offense - Strengths So again, I’ll start with something slightly out of the blue... despite producing only three stolen bases in 2022, Taylor had 1.2 run value added for his base running, a significant improvement on previous seasons, perhaps indicating a real intelligence on going first to third, avoiding Double plays, but I think given the speed he possesses, he could be an under the radar candidate to steal a few more bases this year. I can’t find data to indicate if it’s his reads, or something else, but given the quality of his initial burst and reaction time in the outfield, it’s not unreasonable to expect that this could translate to the base paths. As mentioned earlier, he has a real ability to a) elevate the ball, and b) pull the ball with authority. His average exit velocity down over the heart of the plate is 97.9mph, translating to him absolutely feasting on sinkers last season to the tune of a BA/SLG of .287/.575. If pitchers try and pitch him below the zone, and miss, he can make them pay for it. He does struggle with the elevated pitches to create consistent launch angles and high velocities, but he can punish mistakes handsomely if you miss your spot, a prime reason for his streaky hitting throughout the season. https://www.mlb.com/video/hunter-greene-in-play-run-s-to-tyrone-taylor Home runs like this kind of defy the stats above, leading to him being coined a “high fastball hitter”, but as impressive as it is, it’s important to recognise the high fastball is really not his strength, and he could be maximised this year by throwing him out more against sinker ballers. His 25.2% strikeout rate, and 5.4% walk rate last season were both career highs, potentially as a result of playing in centre field almost every day. The Brewers didn’t trust Jonathon Davis overly in the batting line-up, and until Mitchell came up, there weren’t many players to spell him defensively. Coincidentally, or maybe not, when the crew started giving Mitchell more time in centre in the last month of the season, Taylor’s productivity shot up, hitting .290/.333/.583 over this period. One further and final point is his ability with RISP. With men on base, Taylor hit .260, and with RISP this rose again to .311 last season. As with Willy Adames, he really thrives under the bigger moments, and is one of the reasons why the Crew were so effective last season when they had men on base. Conclusion Taylor was at the very least, an important contributor to the Brewers last season, with high value in centre field, and an ability to hit the long ball. As a base for a centre fielder, a lot of playoff teams would have taken that, you look at the struggles LA had with Bellinger, Grisham with San Diego, the Phillies, Yankees, etc. So in that context, he’s a valuable commodity, but with the talent the Brewers have coming through he may soon be relegated to more of a fourth outfielder role by the start of next season, or even be a trade option when he hit arbitration. He does need to develop a means of shortening up on two strikes and at least get wood on the ball when chasing pitches, but I do think that his energy levels were sapped a bit by how often he played centre this season with his frame. If he can lay off pitches more efficiently, potentially look to do more damage in the 3 Ball counts, and take advantage of the new shift rules, we could see a 110 OPS+ hitter with an ability to play above average centre field. Who wouldn’t want that on their team?

Frelick struck out looking to end the game, Japan with a big 9-3 win and looking impressive on their way to the semis

A 3 run blast too.. with the way Shohei is pitching, it's tough to see Italy recovering, he's likely going 5 innings today, maybe 6 and this Japanese line-up has been fearsome

Oops Frelick struck out on 4 pitches for first time this tournament, then Ohtani seriously unlucky, mashing a 115mph liner with 2 men on straight to short stop