Matthew Trueblood

The price tag on the needed renovations at American Family Field keeps rising, but it's not any dollar amount you should worry about most. Image courtesy of © Benny Sieu-USA TODAY Sports Back in February, a slow volley of proposals for the joint funding of renovations needed at American Family Field in Milwaukee began. The Wisconsin state government, the county, and the Brewers are dancing around one another, trying to find the sweet spot where each contributes a tolerable amount to a project that purports to update and improve the ballpark. The price tags mentioned have ranged from just over $400 million to almost $700 million, with varying divisions of responsibility for each party. I'm a firm believer that Mark Attanasio, who bought the Brewers for $223 million in 2006 and could sell it at no less than a 300 percent profit tomorrow if he so chose, should pay for the renovations--that is, that a billion-dollar corporation enmeshed in a massive cartel that reduces their risk to almost nil should avoid asking taxpayers in any state or municipality to bear their upkeep costs. However, understanding the realities of the modern sporting and political landscapes, I have no intention of hollering about government bodies chipping in on this type of project. It happens; it will continue to happen. It's not the end of the world, but rather, a sure but livable sign that the world is an imperfect place. Rather, I want to ensure that we focus on the one number that will tell the tale of the Brewers' true motives throughout this project. Right now, that number is at 41,900, but the important thing to watch is whether and in what direction it changes. That figure, of course, is the crowd capacity of the stadium. It's almost perfectly average, in MLB. The danger is that it could shrink, because a recent trend in renovations like these has seen teams decrease their home parks' capacities in favor of creating premium spaces and experiences. They're artificially suppressing supply, which drives up the cost of the cheapest tickets they have to put into the marketplace, and they're also making much more money by pulling in corporate and other wealthy customers. They sell all-inclusive options and elite packages, and their profit margin rises. The Cleveland Guardians are the most egregious offenders in this way, but they're far from the only ones. The Rockies, the Red Sox, the Blue Jays, and the Cubs have all done it, too, to varying degrees. Lowering stadium capacity brings down attendance numbers for the full season, obviously, and can give teams more leverage in later negotiations of precisely the kind the Brewers are trying to conduct with the state and county right now. It's so lucrative to rake in money from relatively few big-spending customers that teams stop caring nearly as much about their median customers--middle-class individuals and families, who can afford to attend only a few games a year. Big crowds make baseball better. Crowds actively and intrinsically engaged with the game in front of them make baseball better. Teams in MLB, already massively subsidized and dependent on decades of goodwill and multi-generational brand loyalty for their privileged place in our society, should be expected to act in the public interest, even while being allowed to make enormous profits. Some surtax will eventually pass, piling extra financial burdens onto Wisconsinites (and especially Milwaukee-area residents) to help ensure that the Brewers stick around for another generation or two. That's not so bad, in the long run. If the team starts talking about changes that bring down the stadium's capacity to 39,000 or something, though, it's a sign that they're trying to wring more than they have a right to out of the whole situation, and fans should object strenuously. View full article

When we look back, Monday might be an apparent turning point in the long-term plan for the Brewers' middle infield. In the short term, though, they have the tools to fix Willy Adames. Image courtesy of © Benny Sieu-USA TODAY Sports In an effort to start a mental reset for struggling shortstop Willy Adames, Craig Counsell started Brice Turang at short on Monday night against the Rockies. The coaching staff also issued strict orders for Adames to arrive later than usual to the park; he was given a partial mental health day. It was a drastic measure, but Adames is hitting just .201/.286/.376 overall and .188/.262/.358 since May 1, so these are drastic times. While they're at it, though, the Brewers might attempt what is becoming a formulaic move for them, and add a couple of days to this furlough for a specific mechanical adjustment. To see what I'm talking about, travel back in time with me, to last September. From June through August 2022, Tyrone Taylor steadily got more lost at the plate. Over that span, he batted .198/.255/.367, with 55 strikeouts, 15 extra-base hits, and 11 walks in 192 plate appearances. By the Crew's home stand in the final week of August, Taylor was only a tactical piece, being subbed in and out to maximize the value of his glove but shielded from tough matchups at bat. Here's what Taylor's setup and swing looked like in the last game of that home stand. f429effc-61fa-4380-8422-1605f5380d7d.mp4 To begin September, the team went to Arizona for a series against the Diamondbacks. In the first of those contests, Taylor played half the game, and continued to look lost. 5c9009b4-7848-479a-a882-3f8bdd0df4dd.mp4 After that, though, he sat out a game, and when he returned the lineup on September 3, he had the breakout game that set off his scorching final month. Here's what he looked like doing that. 898362d2-1623-434d-95f0-ca3082b4e6c5.mp4 Spot the differences, though they be subtle. Earlier in the season, Taylor abandoned the relatively extreme setup he and the team had created over the offseason, where he would stand ramrod straight and even lean backward at the plate, the way Luis Urias and Adames both notably did, too. His early movements--what hitting gurus call the load phase of the swing--were quieter, but they weren't especially rhythmic, and he wasn't maximizing the energy actually flowing into the baseball. After being held out of the game for a quick installation of new stuff, though, Taylor exploded. How? He started with his hands higher, and in sharply bringing them down as part of his load, he leaned forward, engaging his core and generating better power. He was better set up to cover the plate. He was naturally timing the ball better and seeing it slightly longer. Armed with those tweaks, he batted .299/.343/.597 from that game through the end of the season. Now, flash forward to last month, when Atlanta came to Milwaukee for a three-game series. Joey Wiemer entered that series struggling mightily. Through two plate appearances in the first game of that series, he had a .165/.281/.311 line over a stretch of 121 trips to the plate, with just seven extra-base hits and 38 strikeouts. Here's what he looked like at the plate at that point in time, during the series the Brewers played in Cincinnati just after the All-Star break. 78bb34e6-b812-4c0f-bf9b-ca6711e3bfac.mp4 By contrast, here's how he looked against the Reds (again) just after his weekend off. 933cb7f6-d64c-4049-a59e-c5ae5f7bb7b9.mp4 With Wiemer, it's always dangerous to extrapolate too much from a few swings, because he's not as mechanically consistent as most hitters are--sometimes, by design. Still, we can note a couple of key things. Mostly, it's his hands. Wiemer does best when he brings his hands way down to his belt after his awkward-looking high set, deepening his load and lengthening his timing phase, but not lengthening his actual swing. Although both of the above are lineouts, he hit the second one harder and on a lower trajectory. The liner to left is a hit 29 percent of the time; the fly out to center is a hit less than 10 percent of the time. Wiemer hasn't had results as eye-popping as those Taylor enjoyed last year, but he's looked much better, with his strikeout rate significantly down and his hard-hit rate up. The Brewers know how to sit a player down for a couple of days, tweak their setup and their initializing movements at the plate, and bring them back in better shape to do damage and make consistent contact. Adames is a natural candidate for precisely this kind of adjustment. Here he is at his best, back in early April, teeing off to the opposite field. 8af5967c-73ea-43b2-88be-d6056a8458c6.mp4 Note that posture, so upright that he actually leans backward, then clenches forward as he triggers his hands to start his swing, all in rhythm. Here's what he looked like during the seventh-inning strikeout Sunday that left him so livid with himself as to prompt his day off. 81463a9c-7e88-49fb-839c-e70b37b8c958.mp4 That lean is gone. So is his rhythm. He's striding longer and rushing to the ball, but it's his hips that are earlier. His bat drags through the zone. Adames needs to get his timing back, and given the way he gets his swing started when he's going well, he could do so by taking a couple of days to rediscover the full-body dance that was his swing before he fell into this funk. Whether that works or not, though, we've now seen the danger in Adames. His upside has always been tantalizing, and he delivered on it for much of his first two seasons with the Crew, but his downside has been on full display for three months. At the same time, fascinatingly, Brice Turang is doing an excellent job of announcing himself as a serious alternative to Adames for the long term. He homered in Adames's absence Monday night, and since his own reset (a few weeks, not a few days, and in Nashville rather than on the bench with the parent club, but a reset is a reset), he's batting .257/.361/.406. In 119 plate appearances, he's struck out 17 times and walked 17 times. Even all of that understates Turang's value. He's reached on three errors during that short span, and he's stolen five bases in six tries. As he constantly reminds viewers, he's also a plus defender, even on the far side of second base. It's no sure thing, but we might be witnessing a change in The Plan. Perhaps it was never that likely that Adames would sign an extension with the Brewers, but the chances that he's traded this winter to make room for Turang have to have risen significantly over the past several weeks, given the performances of each player. All of that can wait until the winter, though. For now, the Brewers certainly could benefit from getting Adames right, and they have the tools and the experience to do so. Turang's emergence, the versatility of Andruw Monasterio, and the fact that the lowly Rockies are in town make it easy to take a day or two to make an important change. In a few days, we might have a better sense of how much Adames can contribute to what remains a promising run toward the NL Central title and a home series to open the postseason. View full article

Last week's trade deadline brought the Brewers outfield reinforcement, and manager Craig Counsell indicated that it would prompt a reorganization of outfield playing time. So far, it hasn't gone as he said it would. That was a bit of a surprise, because Canha is not renowned as a defensive whiz, and because it would seem to put the squeeze on Joey Wiemer as the team's regular center fielder. Counsell sounded so firm in his vision that reporters followed up, and he did say that there would still be playing time for Wiemer, but it was mildly startling to hear him even having to make that clarification. The plan, by all indications in that early interview, was for Canha to patrol right field often, with Sal Frelick in center field. Obviously, it hasn't gone that way at all. One week into the Canha Era, he hasn't started in right field at all. Instead, in the two games in which the Brewers faced a left-handed starting pitcher, it was Tyrone Taylor who started there. Canha has made three starts as the designated hitter, but his other two have come in left field, pushing Christian Yelich to the DH spot. His only inning in right field came Saturday night, after he pinch-hit for Wiemer and before Counsell put Blake Perkins in as a pinch-runner, eventually pushing Frelick back from center to right and sending Canha in to finish the game at first base. The Brewers can't send the message that they prioritize defense much more clearly than that. Canha doesn't seem to be trusted in right field. That could change, if the team gets cornered, but it's very much worth noting that they've gone to a bit of an extreme to avoid that very situation. They're currently carrying six outfielders: Yelich, Canha, Wiemer, Frelick, Taylor, and Perkins. It's hard to imagine a scenario in which Counsell even feels tempted to use Canha in right for more than a few outs, and that seems to be by design. Is that the best use of Canha? Probably so. He really is a less adroit defender than his general athleticism would suggest. Still, it puts pressure on the rest of the roster, because having Canha in there regularly and only using him as either the DH or a left fielder limits the team's ability to get other valuable players into the lineup. Brian Anderson, activated before this weekend's calamitous series against the Pirates, only got four total plate appearances in the four games. Maybe the team is easing Anderson back in, but if he was any less than fully healthy, why did they bring him back, rather than keep the versatile Abraham Toro in that bench role? Anderson seems to be losing playing time to Andruw Monasterio, which is worth a separate examination, but he's also indirectly losing it to Canha. Anderson found playing time earlier this year in right field, but with Perkins, Taylor, and Frelick on the roster, he's not going to be back out there any time soon. It's also harder to give William Contreras a day off from catching duties while keeping his bat in the lineup at DH this way--or, at least, the opportunity cost is higher. If Canha is only trusted as a left fielder, putting Contreras at DH on days when Victor Caratini catches pushes either Canha or Yelich out of the lineup altogether. The Brewers can't afford to do that with any regularity, given their generalized offensive anemia. In fact, that's a good way to sum up this entire decision set, at the moment: the Brewers can't afford it. Carrying six outfielders (three of whom are glove-first guys) when one of their infielders is a capable right fielder is costly. A team getting an .800 OPS from shortstop, as the Brewers might have hoped Willy Adames would provide, might be able to pay that price. If Rowdy Tellez were healthy and producing the way he did in 2022, the Brewers might be able to pay that price. If Anderson or Monasterio projected to give them above-average offense the rest of the way, they might able to pay it. None of that is happening, at least right now. In the short term, to maintain and secure their advantage in the NL Central, the Brewers need to sacrifice some defense for more runs. That can take a few different forms. It doesn't mean that Canha needs to be in right field, but if he's the DH, it ought to be Anderson in right. Frelick can then play center, giving the team significantly better offense than Wiemer would. That's the only way, until Tellez returns or one of Tyler Black and Jackson Chourio forces their way to MLB, that the Crew will get their lineup to function more consistently. Unless and until then, they have a roster construction problem, and the only solution will be a few uncomfortable defensive alignments. View full article

Fully 20 minutes after the actual MLB trade deadline passed, the news leaked out that the Brewers had executed a last-second trade. It involves saying goodbye to a player who looked integral to the team just four months ago. Image courtesy of © Kamil Krzaczynski-USA TODAY Sports Pushed out of the team's plans by an Opening Day injury and poor performance upon his return, Luis Urias is now en route to Boston, where he can help patch the Red Sox's porous infield mix. The Brewers are receiving a pitching prospect in return. Don't expect anything exciting here, of course. To a large extent, this move is about clarifying the Brewers' position player group and giving them greater 40-man roster flexibility. Urias has earned the right to test himself against big-league pitching again, but the Brewers feel better about their defense-first approach to the middle infield, and Andruw Monasterio has blossomed into a more reliable clone of Urias, with more team control remaining. We'll have to wait and see whether the Red Sox took on all of Urias's modest salary in the exchange, but if so, that would also be a benefit to the Brewers, who appear to have added some salary in the trade earlier today for Andrew Chafin. UPDATE: Impressively, the Brewers actually a pitcher with some meaningful promise here. Bradley Blalock, 22, is only in High A, but after missing all of 2022 due to a torn ligament and a resulting Tommy John surgery, he's impressed scouts and put up fine numbers this year. He has three pitches that look likely to be average or better, and a changeup that could round out a strong starting pitcher's arsenal. Given that he hasn't reached Double A and has already gone under the knife, there's tons of risk here, but Blalock could be the Brewers' next solid arm on the farm. Urias netted the team a solid prospect, proving that a brutal half-season didn't torpedo his trade value. View full article

After Justin Wilson's long comeback trail ended in a setback instead of triumph, the Brewers recognized a need for another left-handed reliever. Less than two hours shy of the trade deadline, they got one. Image courtesy of © Rob Schumacher/The Republic / USA TODAY NETWORK Andrew Chafin was not even known to be an available lefty relief option until earlier today. Now, he's a Brewer, with the Arizona Diamondbacks sending him to the Crew despite their shared standing as NL Wild Card contenders. This is a big deal for the Brewers, who have been leaning hard on their high- and medium-leverage relievers and needed some reinforcements. Chafin can help patch their setup bridge to Devin Williams, and will make it less necessary to run Hoby Milner out there every time a fearsome set of left-handed hitters is due up. Chafin, 33, is on a one-year deal with Arizona, but there's a club option for 2024. He's making $5.5 million this year, and the option would be worth $7.25 million more. There will be some financial questions to iron out. Chafin is due $250,000 if traded, and it's not yet been reported which side will pay it or whether Arizona will send any money to the Crew to cover a portion of his remaining salary. A prorated part of less than $6 million shouldn't have been prohibitive, anyway, but if the Diamondbacks do kick in money, expect the prospect price the Brewers pay to be incrementally higher. He's a slider maven, striking out 32 percent of opposing hitters this year, but he's battled some control issues in 2023. More typically, Chafin runs lower (but above-average) strikeout rates but considerably better walk rates, too, and he typically limits hard contact fairly well. He's better if used with an eye toward matchups, but he's survived and thrived even after the implementation of the three-batter minimum rule for relievers because he's not strictly a lefty specialist. Ken Rosenthal was first on the report of this deal. In exchange for Chafin, the Brewers will send Peter Strzelecki to Arizona. Just a few days after recalling him from an optional assignment to Triple A, the Brewers say goodbye to Strzelecki, a feel-good story and good (though not dominant or sufficiently consistent) right-handed arm in his own right. The deal brings better balance to the Brewers pen, and gives the Diamondbacks a controllable, optionable arm to whom they could entrust high-leverage work right away, depending on whether there's anything they want to tweak with him. View full article

With the trade deadline just a few hours away, it's worth stopping to check what the numbers say about the Brewers' chances to win the NL Central, or to claim a Wild Card berth. That should inform their moves this afternoon. Image courtesy of © Dale Zanine-USA TODAY Sports A cursory check of the standings can tell you that the Brewers need to be buyers before the deadline. That's why they've already made two moves to increase their lineup depth and boost their offense, with trades for Carlos Santana and Mark Canha. Those two shore up three of the team's weakest positions, too, as they have been hurting for production at first base, in right field, and from the designated hitter all year. How much those additions have changed the team's outlook in this three-way division fight (and the even more complicated battle for the Wild Card spots in the National League) is a more nuanced, difficult question. Here are the Playoff Odds for the Brewers as of this morning, from each of the three major sites who provide them: Baseball Prospectus: 52.9 % to win the division, 67.1 % overall FanGraphs: 53.8 % to win the division, 65.4 % overall Baseball Reference: 21.1 % to win the division, 43.1 % overall Notably, while Baseball Prospectus and FanGraphs each utilize projection systems to generate their playoff odds, Baseball Reference operates very differently. They use a strength-of-schedule-adjusted rating system based on runs and wins over a team's last 100 games, and don't lean on individual player projections at all. Obviously, there can be arguments in favor of either kind of projection, but Baseball Prospectus and FanGraphs are generally regarded as more mathematically robust and scientific. Still, let's hedge a little. If we give both of the projection system-based odds twice the weight of Baseball Reference's, and then average them together, we get roughly a 47 percent chance of an NL Central title, and a 61.6 percent chance of reaching the playoffs one way or another. That's frighteningly close to a coin flip, but then, the Brewers are 1.5 games behind the Reds and just a few games ahead of the Cubs right now--and never mind the morass of the Wild Card. That underscores the urgency of this afternoon. Canha and Santana each give the team better projected production than they had before, which is baked into the BP and FanGraphs reports but not into Baseball Reference's. If we slightly adjust our rough-hewn mean upward on that basis, then they truly are 50/50 to win a division title. That means that they're right at a critical inflection point. Every move they make, and especially every edge they gain on the Reds or Cubs, will have an outsize impact on their hopes the rest of the way. That doesn't mean the team should sell the form for rental players. Whether and when to do that is a more philosophical than a mathematical question. If there are still players out there who would be major upgrades for this team, though, Matt Arnold should be aggressive, because these odds are fragile, and what he does over the next four-plus hours will determine which way they break. View full article

In Carlos Santana and Mark Canha, the Brewers have already made two key additions to their underwhelming lineup. They also need a bullpen patch today, but before the MLB trade deadline hits at 5 PM Central, Matt Arnold should also check in on these five long-term options. Image courtesy of © Denny Medley-USA TODAY Sports As the clock ticks down to the deadline, teams often go slightly into a shell, opting to focus on players who will be free agents at season's end. Those are the simplest and most time-sensitive moves, so both buyers and sellers (an easier sorting process to perform when discussing players close to free agency) prioritize them. For executives with grander vision, though, the deadline is a bigger opportunity. The Brewers operate on a limited budget, and in the winter, they can be hemmed in a bit by higher-spending rivals. Now is the time to see whether a valuable player under longer-term team control will shake loose at a good price. MJ Melendez, C/LF, Royals Trying to develop Melendez as the successor to Salvador Perez in Kansas City went so poorly that the team recently abandoned the project. He's been almost exclusively a corner outfielder this season, and on the surface, his bat looks light for that role. He's only hitting .217/.292/.352 on the season. Here's why he's still very attractive, in a nutshell: The Brewers aren't the Royals. The Brewers are the Brewers. If they got ahold of Melendez, they might be able to turn him into a catcher, after all. He's a left-handed batter, so he could be a devastatingly good complement to William Contreras in a hybrid catcher-DH role. Melendez has considerable swing-and-miss in his game, but he also has a solid approach, and he makes high-quality contact. Partially because he plays his home games in Kansas City, that contact has gone unrewarded, but his raw production doesn't accurately reflect his skill set at the plate. He's only 24 years old, and has five years of club control ahead after 2023. The Royals would surely try to set a high price on Melendez, but their front office is one of the two or three worst in baseball right now. Calling them about a player with lousy numbers in a corner outfield spot is worth a shot. They might not know what they have, or at least what the Brewers could make out of him. Paul Blackburn, RHP, Athletics His ERA is worse than last year's, but in reality, Blackburn has taken a meaningful step forward in 2023. He's inducing more chases and weaker contact. He has a six-pitch arsenal and has figured out how best to deploy his good slider, and he's under team control through 2025. The A's are so far from contention that he has virtually no utility to them, so although there would be a substantial price to pay, it might not be exorbitant. David Bednar, RHP, Pirates One of the hottest names on the trade market, Bednar is a hulking bullpen monster whom the Brewers already know all too well. His fastball, curveball, and splitter form as good a three-pitch mix as any closer in baseball can boast right now, and the heater sits around 97 miles per hour, with good ride and spin. It's always complicated to assemble an intradivisional trade for a player on more than the shortest-term deal, but Bednar would level up the Brewers' relief corps for quite a while. He's under team control through 2026. Dylan Cease, RHP, White Sox Control is always the question with Cease. He's maddeningly unable, and sometimes even seems unwilling, to attack the strike zone with what is easily above-average stuff. On the other hand, he's capable of dominating hitters like few other starters in the league. Last year, despite those occasional bouts of walks, he was a Cy Young Award vote-getter. He has two and a half years of team control remaining, so bringing him in (while expensive, in terms of talent) would keep the Brewers' pitching machine running smoothly even when Corbin Burnes and Brandon Woodruff reach free agency. Tarik Skubal, LHP, Tigers Often, it's a checkered injury history that makes a talented player available at a reasonable price well before they attain free agency. That's surprisingly inapplicable to the quartet above, but it's certainly the case with Skubal, who missed much of the second half last year and didn't get back until July this season due to elbow trouble. It's possible that the rebuilding Tigers will roll their dice and hope for better health for Skubal, but the likely reward for them in that is just the right to trade him this winter or next summer, instead. If they're willing to listen on him now, instead, he's worth pursuing, because he's a big lefty with good stuff and has demonstrated front-of-the-rotation potential. Skubal is under team control through 2026. The Brewers don't have any more desperate needs to fill on their 2023 roster. There's still room to upgrade, though, and if they're going to pay the premium that comes with climbing above-average at any position at this time of year, they might as well do so in a way that addresses those positions for the long term. Arnold and company landing any of these five players today is improbable, but one of the five will probably be dealt. It might as well be here. View full article

Pouncing on the market for right-handed bats before it could dry up, the Brewers have landed Mets outfielder Mark Canha. Lots more to come on this deal. We've already dug into Mark Canha as a target for this team, because he makes sense in myriad ways. Canha is a better athlete than true defensive presence, and he lacks the power of which one dreams when drawing up an ideal corner outfielder, but he's always had very good on-base skills, and he fits nicely into the Brewers' roster puzzle. In Justin Jarvis, the Brewers disgorged some of their pitching depth at the upper levels, but they're in good position to deal from that area of strength. Jarvis was 19th in our latest ranking of Brewers prospects, which is about the caliber of prospect one should expect to surrender for a valuable role player on an expiring deal. Canha keeps the team sounding the same notes they played by acquiring Carlos Santana late last week. They clearly preferred to shore up and secure the lineup's OBP, rather than chase power upside. Canha (as all favored Brewers acquisitions must) has reverse platoon splits for his career, but he's a consistently average-plus hitter against lefties, too. He'll take over some designated hitter duties, and probably some time in right field, where he could be placed in a rough platoon with Sal Frelick. This figures to be the last move to improve the Brewers' lineup. Their position players, then, look like this: Catchers: William Contreras, Victor Caratini Infielders: Carlos Santana, Brice Turang, Willy Adames, Andruw Monasterio, Owen Miller, Abraham Toro Outfielders: Christian Yelich, Joey Wiemer, Sal Frelick, Tyrone Taylor, Mark Canha, Blake Perkins That's more hitters than the roster will hold. Someone will soon be headed out to Nashville, even before accounting for players who might soon return from injury. Nonetheless, this now seems like a higher-floor, more consistently dangerous offense, and that's a good thing. The Mets are paying nearly all of Canha's remaining salary for the year, leaving the Brewers some flexibility for additions to the pitching staff if the opportunity arises. Presumably, that was how they got Matt Arnold to surrender Jarvis. One key to this addition is Canha's ability to put the ball in play, and to work the count. Though it represents a small improvement over the last month or so, the Brewers still have the sixth-highest strikeout rate in MLB, at 24.6 percent as a team. That begets a certain dysfunction, and bringing in Canha (who is striking out less than 18 percent of the time, for the second year in a row) addresses that deficiency. He manages to get the ball in play while still walking over 10 percent of the time, though, making him a good fit for the league's third-leading walk drawers--and perhaps the organization with the most systematically patient approach. View full article

And isn’t that weird?! He was a staple the last two years. Crazy how fast stuff happens.

Fair... but it's far from guaranteed, especially with this particular group, that those two stay back once they're back, or that the others stay healthy. Or that Colin Rea can stay effective. I'm parroting Tim here but (as I've also already said elsewhere) I think starting pitching is a bigger need for this team than we might realize.

With the trade deadline now scarcely more than 24 hours away, the number of possible moves out there for the Brewers remains pretty large. Whatever happens, though, some 40-man roster maneuvers seem imminent. Image courtesy of © Brad Rempel-USA TODAY Sports It would have been almost impossible, even during spring training, to predict the way this season has played out for Luis Urias and Eric Lauer. Certainly, if you'd said the Brewers would reach the trade deadline in a dead heat for first place, no one within earshot would have guessed that it would have been despite negative contributions in limited playing time from either of those guys. After a strong showing at the World Baseball Classic (including an unforgettable home run during the knockout rounds), Urias looked primed to be one of the Brewers' key cogs this year. Alas, he suffered a severe hamstring strain on Opening Day, and he didn't look remotely right even when he returned. Lauer, by contrast, struggled throughout the spring, but he's the kind of pitcher who can look terrible in exhibition play, then flip a switch and be effective when it counts. After all, he's the rarest breed in the league: a hurler who depends on hitters missing or mishitting balls right down the middle on a semi-regular basis. Whatever allowed him to thrive that way in the past, however, it continued to elude him even in the regular season this time. Now, both Urias and Lauer have spent more of the season elsewhere than with the parent club. Urias has over twice as many plate appearances for Triple-A Nashville as he has for Milwaukee, and Lauer is just getting a rehab assignment going after a long stint on the shelf. Yet, both players are likely to have a modicum of trade value. Urias would be an appealing project for a team selling a rental hitter to the Brewers; he still has two years of team control remaining after 2023. Lauer only has one year, and his health status makes things a bit murkier, but his track record of success and the fact that he's a lefty who's already successfully reegineered himself once will draw in at least a few interested parties. Neither player will be the main piece in a notable trade, of course. Their stock is way down, even though Urias has heated up recently and seems like he might have survived his mid-career crisis. They're worth watching, though, because including them in a deal could lessen the prospect cost to the Brewers for a short-term acquisition, and it could also ease whatever crunch is created by the acquisition of new players who will need to fit onto the 40-man roster. At this time of year, players like Urias and Lauer sometimes change hands out of expediency, as much as out of genuine marketability, but that's ok. The Brewers' surprising depth and good player development have rendered the two redundant, even if they do recover their previous form. Interestingly, each feels like an especially good fit for the Red Sox or the Nationals, two potential Brewers trade partners of note. The Nationals have Jeimer Candelario, the top rental hitter on the market, and Urias could be an instant replacement for him, in addition to whatever prospect capital the Brewers include. Lauer, meanwhile, could eat innings on what is a truly putrid Washington pitching staff. The fit in Boston is just as neat, though a little more layered. The Brewers would have interest in Adam Duvall, the aging, slugging outfielder, who's much less desirable and helpful than Candelario. Both Urias and Lauer are at least as valuable as Duvall alone, but if they included either (or both), the Crew might entice the infield- and pitching-hungry Red Sox to package Duvall with impending free agent James Paxton, whom Mark Feinsand called their best trade chip in an article on MLB.com Monday. Paxton would be a huge upgrade over Colin Rea and Adrian Houser at an unforgettable home runthe back end of the rotation, and could make the Brewers a more dangerous team in an eventual playoff series, too. Urias and Lauer don't have to be traded this week. It's just a good time to check in on each, and to remember that the guys on the fringes of the 40-man roster (really, anyone who is on that roster but not active with the big-league team) are always trade candidates at this time of year. It's strange how these two, especially, have slipped into obscurity, when they had such prominent roles with the team at the end of camp. Soon, they're likely either to be gone altogether, or to be back in the mix for the stretch drive. View full article

It's a legitimate concern.

I mean just so we’re clear, I didn’t even say the name Jeferson Quero in the piece. Not sure how that came into it. And I’d add that I *did* say either Frelick or Chourio, but folks seem much more hung up on the latter than the former. To me, they’re very close to equal in trade value, so the disparity is confusing. Anyway. Just a couple clarifications.

Well, no it isn’t. But if you’re using BTV, like at all, then I understand why you and I aren’t seeing eye to eye on pretty much anything. If any site is for lazy people and trolls, it’s that one.

The Brewers can’t deal Burnes right now, though. Did you mean this *winter*? Because yeah, that starts to make some sense. Would be a very different but interesting deal.

I’m never gonna bicker with you about the Cubs fan thing. You’re free to think I’m a sleeper cell or whatever. 🤣 But never, ever use Spotrac for baseball stuff. They don’t know what they’re doing. Kim can opt out of the deal he’s on ahead of 2025, but he’s still under team control through 2026. It’s like Ohtani, or Jorge Soler back in the day. They agreed on a contract knowing the player might opt out of it at some point, but then he just goes into the arbitration system. He didn’t come over as an unfettered free agent, like Senga or Suzuki or Tanaka.