BrewerFan

I feel like you struggle with reading comprehension. I don't feel that way. YOU feel that way. I've watched Baseball long enough to know if you get in the playoffs and get hot, you can win. I LITERALLY said in a reply to you, "I THINK THIS TEAM CAN WIN." You read that as "just say you don't think they will win during this era." The fact that I think it's possible to win in this era but that I don't think losing Burnes and Woodruff is a permanent death sentence to the Brewers is a concept you're not able to fully comprehend, isn't it? I'm sorry about that. I went to great lengths trying to explain this to you.

LOL....

WHO? Who is making that up? PLEASE cite the person who said Gasser will "make us forget about Burnes and Woodruff?" He's been cited as a #3 or back of the rotation pitcher(though a top 100, so ranked roughly the same as Burnes and Woodruff were coming up). What purpose do these absurd, intellectually dishonest replies get anyone? The answer is the same now as it was in 2017 when we traded for Yelich, signed Cain, NEARLY signed Darvish(reportedly made the largest offer to him). The difference then was the Brewers weren't widely respected for their ability to develop pitching. No. I don't agree. I don't know. If Chourio is the player he looks like, and Quero and the Brewers keep developing pitchers like they have, I think they've got a much wider window moving forward than they do now. Remember that NLCS? Who were our starters? We lost in 7 games. Wade Miley, Gio Gonzalez and then piecing together pitchers to get through the game. Woodruff and Burnes were basically long relievers. And what I AM betting on is that among ALL the pitchers they've got and the pitchers they'll invariably sign and select and LIKELY acquire in a trade, I think you'll be able to put together another VERY good staff that may not be built exactly the same. Maybe it has one ace who's better than Burnes or Woodruff in Misiorowski(certainly has better pure stuff at a younger point as prospects) and then we won't have the 2nd ace, but rather we'll have a couple of really good #3's like Peralta, Ashby, Gasser, Rodriguez. Or maybe it'll be Brock Porter and Owen White. What I feel confident is that the Brewers are going to be able to maintain an elite defense, run prevention with Chourio, Frelick, Wiemer, Mitchell, Quero, Turang, Black, Wilken, Pratt, Bitonti, Boeve, Baez...and Yelich, while hitting a helluva lot better than they have(Monastario could be in there as could another dozen young players like Guilarte) and one of the better team at developing pitching in baseball will continue to do so while naming some of the pitchers we've already got with elite stuff. Maybe Knoth with his plus-plus CB becomes the ace and Misiorowski doesn't. What I'm certain of...is nobody has talked about "forgetting," Woodruff or Burnes, but maybe consider the team that's developed a LOT of pitching in recent years won't just forget how to do it moving forward. Also consider that Josh Hader was arguably the 3rd best prospect at the time of that trade and Devin Williams appeared to be on bust when Stearns took over and developed the infrastructure they have no. Not to mention, they drafted, then got Drew Rassmussen to the big leagues and traded from a position of STRENGTH... We've become one of the best teams at identifying pitching and developing it. I'd hope we could agree on that. We've also had a major organizational shift that put those 6 top 60 prospects in our system with several in the big leagues. So I'm left here wondering, why people believe the era of the Brewers being competitive ends with Burnes and Woodruff? Why that means the end of the Brewers when we've got probably the most exciting young prospect the Brewers have EVER had, and one of the best arms in Baseball in AA?

It's been answered. You didn't like the answer.

I don't think he has a plus or even close to a double plus FB anymore though. When he came up, he would throw upper 90s up and then that change. Now he's 94-95 and it's certainly good enough, but I'm also looking at what we've just developed in Uribe, Payamps and Peguero and...as special as I think Williams Change is, that'd make it hard for me to pay him.

Dude...you'd have traded Burnes and Woodruff in 2018 when they were in the top 100 for a veteran rental. At least then though there would have been far more players on the market with fewer playoff spots.

ALL of them hit? Gee...I was just hoping a couple of them would, but that'd be great if ALL of them hit! Of course I did include several pitchers who are pitching great right now, but...sure.

Yeah, but the Brewers have been pretty good at finding pitching. I also don't know that adding Judge and Ohtani would have gotten us to the World Series...if those two players were on the market and we could take on their salaries. I DO know if you're trading those top 5 prospects, then it really doesn't matter if you do find the next Burnes or Woodruff(and you likely just traded the most likely ace in Misiorowski away) because you're going to be pretty bad. I think the plan should be pretty simple. Develop players. And I think we're doing that better now than we ever have. I think this team is fun and as always, getting into the playoffs gives you a chance, but if you really wanted a plan to build a WS Contender, it'd be on the back of franchise cornerstone type players like Chourio, Frelick, Quero and then the return you get for Burnes and then I'd imagine in a year or two for Contreras, you try and fill in. I think we've established we've got a pretty good plan. We've gotten by without Woodruff for most of this year and Burnes hasn't been ace like for a good chunk of it. We've cobbled together a rotation with Rea, Teheran, smart signings like Miley and a deep, talented BP. And we're attacking the pitching by going after volume. Knoth, Letson, a bunch of prep arms we drafted to go with the arms in the upper levels and more projectable LA pitchers. I think there's a pretty clear path to field a more talented team in 3-4 years than we have right now. And I still think this team COULD win.

Oh...and they won't have ANY pitching in the future? They developed Burnes and Woodruff and now that's it. It's OVA! We're just gonna rotate utility men and put them on the mount? You see that Misiorowski guy? He looks pretty good. Gasser was just one of those top 100 prospects. Pertalta...under contract. Uribe, Payamps, Pegeuro, all under control for the next 4-6 years. Ashby I thought was pretty talented. Carlos Rodriguez. The same group that found pitching in the 4th round from St Marry's and in the 11th round from Miss State also won't be able to find some other pitchers? Like Knoth, or Woesser or...I don't know, any number of arms they have or will draft in the future. I'm thinking the "we won't have ANY pitching," during the Chourio/Quero years may be just a tiny bit premature.

I mean...I think we could have probably added 3-4 bats. Just deal Chourio, Quero, Misiorowski, Black, Frelick. Baez(you're probably not getting full value for him, but just add him). And I'm sure there are teams that would have pounced on that type of stupidity. Probably could have gotten Robert Jr and Jiminez for that package. Hell, the Cards would probably love that and would have give up Arrenado and Goldschmidt. Then you stack everyone else back up and I'm guessing Boston would have traded Turner if you gave up Gasser, Rodriguez(just all of them, Carlos the CF, RF), Yophery, Adams. Ashby isn't helping now. So Boston gives you Turner and maybe Yoshida? I love the game threads! It feels like even during a winning streak, you can always squeeze some negative in there!

Yeah...those guys are pretty good. That's why they're highly rated. So pretty good chance the Brewers will be good when all those guys come up...in addition to all the guys who are already up and the guys who are up behind them.

I saw him as 4-star as well with 'Bama, UGA, FSU, Miami, Michigan and about 10 real blue bloods having offered him. I definitely think there's an immediate boost to a recruits status if they declare for Alabama or Georgia. I've seen people actually provide evidence of players getting boosts. Maybe those players just happened to get a boost over the previous period of time for whatever reason, but it feels a lot like the Yankees and prospects. How much did we hear about Jasson Dominguez being the next Bo or whoever? As for the coaches, Fickel might have to win one to equal what Barry did. Barry took the program from bottom of the B1G to a top ~15 program in the Nation when Fickell took over. The Metz era hurt them(and cost Chryst) but we were still probably one of the 15-20 most reliably good programs in the Country. I'll take a lot to top Barry, but I'm shocked at how UW has grown into this cool destination SO quickly. I really feel like we can be similar to what Oklahoma has been the last 10 years.

Yup. Agreed on all of that. I said in the other thread, I think Heath may have made the team on that run blocking play in the 3rd Quarter IIRC where he drove the guy out of bounds. That is the type of thing to make the Packers coaches fall in love with him. Jean-Charles, we've head about him for 2 camps, but this was the first time I saw it. I think we're really set at CB. 6-7 deep there. That might be the toughest spot to get a guy through waivers. Carlson was just so pure on those FGs and then the PATs looked much different. Like a QB or IFer short-arming the ball. Aiming almost. I think that's fixable. I feel better with him after seeing him, but you can't miss multiple PATs. I think Brenton Cox Jr may have also put the final nail in Jackson Carman's coffin. He made him look bad. Again, this is how a young team that plays quite a few starters should look, but there were still some outstanding individual performances and...I think you hit them all. Musgraves was also just burning guys in the passing games, but each QB missed him. Kraft looked solid...though I'd like to see him fight harder for that pass that turned into a pick.

About as fun of a Pre-season game as I've seen in a long time. It reflected the youth and excitement around the team. QB-Both Love and Clifford looked good. Love was sharp. Very clean. One mistake came trying to force the ball to Watson vs Cover2. That's just a play that comes with experience. I would assume he was supposed to try and look the safety off and if the Safety doesn't bit, come back to Reed who was running a deep crosser and was wide open for what would have been a 20-30 yard gain depending on where he put it. Also missed Musgrave on a throw he HAS to make(that guy really needs to stay healthy as he looks like such a difference maker). Clifford looked like everything you want from a backup QB. He's not a threat to Love unless Love is bad, but he's an athlete, he's got decent size(6'2 222 4.62 40) and he looked decisive. Just lacks the arm strength to throw those longer routes from the opposite hash. But that's why he was a 5th Rd pick. After ONE Pre-season game, he seems to have justified one of the more controversial picks of the Packers draft. No surprises. I think the 2 expected to make the roster make it. RB-Jones caught a nice little ball from Love, got tackled and MLF got him the hell outta there. A pretty disappointing performance from this group as a whole. Goodson, a guy I was high on last year(I think just about every Packers fan was) again just goes down with a stiff breeze. He's a scat back. I'm not sure he runs with more authority than Tyler Ervin. Patrick Taylor is fine. A STer. Emanuel Wilson though...even without that 80 yard TD run, he looked like a dude. 5'11 229 and he showed great vision and balance. Then on the big run after bouncing off a couple guys, their safety has the angle coming downhill and Wilson just outruns the angle. I'd predict we go with 2 RBs again and then call up Taylor, Goodson again, but Wilson may force our hand. Especially with Dillon as FA. WRer-Malik Heath just played outstanding in every facet. The Packers HAVE to love the run blocking as much as snagging a couple of tough balls in the middle of the field knowing the safety was closing on him. But when he ran the CB into the kicking net, then backed off and drew the penalty? That is the type of thing that helps you make a team. Toure-The guy the Packers coaches and FO bring up unsolicited on a regular basis had a ugly play on a KR, but outside of that, he also played about as well as you could ask. Reed went up and showed how tenacious he is in 50/50 situations. Wicks, Heath and Toure look like they've gotta be the obvious favorites behind Watson, Doubs and Reed to make the team. TE-Musgrave only finished with 1 catch on 8 yards, but Love missed him on one, Clifford missed him on another. But he was constantly getting open. Austin Allen- at 6'8 260 was WIDE open with room to run and pick up 20-25 yards on that Packer boot off the outsize zone action and Clifford just missed him. Despite the size, he's not a great inline blocker. I think Big Dawg would be inking a contract to return to Green Bay had Tyler Davis injured himself a week earlier. OL-Really interesting to me that JRJ and Tom both took snaps at Center. Caleb Jones looked good when he was in. Didn't see the injury, so hopefully it's minor...but again, a 6'9 370LB OT gets an ankle injury, is it ever minor? Luke Tenuta who looks like HE could be a nice project who starts paying dividends this year, he went down with what looked like a much more significant injury SOLELY from the look on his face. Rasheed Walker was really lazy on a couple of outsize zones going away from him. He HAS to close down...and while it's tough to beat the 3 tech to the spot, you're blocking down. You have to take him and just move him. That's the WHOLE point of the play. TO OPEN THE CUTBACK LANES. One one big loss the Bengals 97 crossed his face, the Packers got no movement on the right side and IIRC, it was Taylor, he had to cut back and it was a 5-6 yards loss because Walker gave up on the play. There was too much mixing and matching to really tell how Schnieder did or any other individuals for the most part. JRJ looked capable at Center. I think that's a really interesting development. It's clear the Packers are not happy with Myers. Oh, we DID have some Sean Rhyan sightings and he looked good. I believe he and Newman were in the game on the Wilson runs. Offense-Looked about as clean as you could have hoped for week 1 of the Pre-season. Emanuel Wilson, Malik Heath and Sean Clifford did the most IMO to cement or improve their chances to make the team. DEFENSE-- Well, they were flying around. Valentine looks like a dude, Cox Jr looked good. The young DL looked good, particularly Wooden IMO. Enagbare looked good. Slaton showed a lot more burst last night. Ford also looked much better getting into the backfield. Tariq Carpenter was up and down, but in there for 3 quarters. Clearly the Packers wanted to get a long look at him. Secondary-CB looks like it's a deep group. Nixon, Valentin and Ballentine played aggressive vs the run. Some breakdowns, but Joe Barry seemed like he might, could be following through on promises to be more aggressive. Put together more aggressive schemes than we've seen from a Packers defensive unit in a long time for a Pre-season game. The defense is far more set than the offense, so it was more about how the fringe players played and I think those guys did as well as you could have reasonably expected. Safety is a problem, but with the depth we have at CB, I'm still hoping we see Douglas playing some safety. Nixon also looks like the nickel at this point. Especially with Stokes fighting back from a pretty significant lower leg injury. Overall, this was what you hope you see from such a young team with so many guys fighting for playing time, for roster spots. Doesn't really tell me much about what this team will look like during a 17 game schedule, but they played fast, they bounced back from mistakes and Love showed about as much as you could have hoped.

Smith isn't a FA for 3 more years. He's just one year into the 4 year extension he signed last year and then restructured that earlier this year converting his...~8.5 base into a signing bonus. So his dead cap is close to 20M. Probably just a little bit under. Spotract doesn't have the numbers right. They have the restructured money excluded, but he's pretty much a lock as a result. Even next year you're not saving much by cutting him as he has a ~13M dead cap hit...but you could trade him(basically give him away or he could restructure and lower his base...though there's really no incentive for him to do so other than to keep playing). So I think it's 4 locks and Cox Jr looked...just outstanding last night. He's undisciplined at times as most young players are...I just don't know exactly what the kids issues were for UGA and UFA to kick him off their Football teams. They'd pretty much roster OJ post acquittal if he had eligibility left. I keep seeing fights. I'm HOPING he was just an immature kid and has grown up. I thought we looked deep here though. Keshawn Banks played really well late, Hollins showed...his same speed rush with a bit more power. Pretty distinct drop offs though. Gary to Smith to Van Ness/Enagbare at this point, then Cox, then Hollins/Banks and high effort potential STers. What, 5 days later for Lewis? I thought of all the players, the vets, he was the ONE who it made a lot of sense to bring back. He's such as massive security blanket for a young QB. Not in the traditional sense, but just as 6 OL. And he was cheap. But you're still losing ~340 special teams snaps and Lewis may replace those on the kicking unit, but I don't see him covering kicks or blocking in the kick return game. Danny Glove's line from Die Hard comes to mind here when thinking of the Packers to get him to run up and down the field covering punts!

It's just gonna be fun to see who is going to pop from this group. Baez, Pratt, Bitonti, Guiarte or at 3B will it be Boeve, Wilken, Adams. There are so many guys from every position group, guys with speed, power... The one area this farm system is lacking is in projectable young arms and that's really relative to the rest of the system. Misiorowski, Gasser, Knoth and hopefully Leston or one of the prep arms from this year develops. Gasser, Rodriguez are middle to back of the rotation types at the moment, but...maybe they tick up. Key is getting a good package back for Burnes, but I could easily see this farm system being a top 3-5 system mid-season next year.

@Mass Haas has explained and I'll just cut and paste it since...it doesn't make a ton of sense to me, but I trust the source; So basically, if they keep him in the minors, they get another year of hm and they get him for half the price. I don't know if that is actually impacting their decision or not, but it certainly seems like something outside of Baseball reasons are having an impact.

I had given up on this guy. The Brewers Bellinger...and then...

Alright...I'm gonna really try to make this the last time I mention this because it's not gonna happen, but I don't think we would have to take a contract back. If he were a FA, you don't think he'd get 5/136.5 in free agency? I think he'd get at least that. And if you wait until he's closer to 35, then you will have to take back a bad contract...most likely for him. But if he's a 4 WAR player for the next couple years, It'd be great. But you're counting on his back and for him to physically hold up and I don't see enough evidence that he can. He's obviously feeling a whole lot better this year as he's moving well. The EV has remained steady, but, sprint speed, his arm from the OF. As for the non-diehards, if you win they'll come. Yelich was pubic enemy #1 for Brewers fans...which is kinda typical. The "he got paid and doesn't care," or the "he can't hit now that they're not giving him the pitch," nonsense that came from the Darvish situation(because a minor glance to see where the 2B is in the shift is proof of something). I suppose that just tells you how fickle a lot of fans are, but I think they'd be happy with the young group they've got. I don't know that it'd be moot. It might be...but he might also accept a trade to a team like the Angels IF they bring Ohtani back. Again, slots in so well from their perspective. Yelly/Trout/Ohtani...and I guess you hope Rendon comes back, but it'd be up to him. Now....we do all agree it's not gonna happen, especially when he's back. We may wish we did in a few years, or we may be celebrating a Brewers great who had a late career resurgence. We'll find out. He's a really easy guy to root for, so this has nothing to do with wanting to see him gone or thinking THIS version of him isn't worth every penny he's making....just to be extra clear.

I get giving Winker a long leash, but it got a little ridiculous given how much his production dropped off last year and then he went and had two pretty significant injuries. Removing him from the 40 isn't the issue. It's not adding him back at SOME point. There were games when he was healthy in June where Tellez, Winker, Tapia and Urias were all starting. This was in the midst or Tellez putting up a ~350 OPS over the previous month. I'll understand all of this if the Brewers retain him on a 1.1M salary next year and he ends up not being a MiLB FA. Outside of that(which seems to be reliable)...I just can't see a justification...and this is getting extremely old at this point.

Yeah, I don't know what happened there. They seemed to like him...and he doesn't grade out as badly as he looked and "only" gave up 3 sacks, but I think that was Rodgers. He's pretty similar to Elgton in terms of size, athletic ability...even both Miss. boys(at least for school). But he was a disaster at RT and he's not someone who inspires much faith, even as the 4th G or 4th or 5th OT. But unless Walker or Rhyan or someone moves ahead of him at Guard, he might make the team again. I'm not sure if Walker has even been getting reps at guard. Jake Hanson is still on the roster too, so... That IOL just doesn't look great past Jenkins, JRJ and maybe Tom, Myers Bakh, Jenkins, Tom, Myers, Runyan Jr, Nijman, Walker, Jones, Tenuta...and I think Newman will make the roster again this year. Maybe they add a Guard or maybe he just gets better this year like TJ Lang. Remember how bad he looked rotating between RT and G first two years?

Some really good tape from Family Night breaking down Wyatt. You see the potential. Also take note that Van Ness gets a bull rush where he catches Tom off balance and on his heels and Tom recovers and while LVN may have made Love reset, Tom's recovery is reminiscent of Bakhtiari. If they don't move Tom to Center, I really see both the physical similarities and the technical similarities between he and Bakh. Now, on this first play, we all know Newman isn't a world beater...but that's still impressive how Wyatt basically throws him. ALSO love how they lined up with Two edges heads up over the OT in a 7 tech, the two DL at 4I or 3 Techniques and then had Quay and the other MLBer both in the A gaps while playing press. Just PLEASE find more ways to get Quay attacking in space, but I think we see this look vs the Bears but with Quay spying Fields. But onto the whole point;

1-"King of the Clubhouse?" That comes off as snide...and I doubt you meant it as any sort of compliment, but Willy Adames is pretty much universally respected in the clubhouse, he's the energy behind the team and the players and coaches all seem to love him. Adames, again, has been at the heart of nearly every Hiura post you've made...and I don't get it. What's the relation? It really seems strange. Like it's personal. He's struggled this year. Got it. He's also got a BB/K rate that's on par with past production(if not better) and he has a .232 BABIP. So he should probably be hitting ~.240/.330 with power. But dropping him down 2 spots in the lineup...it feels like you want this to be punitive. To put him in his place? Who should be hitting where? How big of a difference are we talking about for the amount of energy you've put into making Hiura about Adames? 2-HE'S PLAYED 31 INNINGS. 20 ABs. It's ridiculous... 3-Ok, so the Brewers got Adames and Tellez and they got them to both VASTLY improve off their production at that time, but it's the organizations fault they're struggling this year but NOT to their credit when they improve? Same with Yelich. No credit for him exploding into an MVP caliber player, ONLY blame for him not performing well in '20 and '21...but then again, still not responsible for him bouncing back last year and much Moreso this year. Yeah, that's pretty much the definition of cherry picking.

So what? Adames plays every day. Why WOULDN'T he expect to play? I don't understand your point. And he's not an .800 OPS guy anymore? Meaning...those days are gone or are you simply looking at his stat line and reading it off to me? I fully expect him to return to an ~800 OPS. But moving him down in the lineup? That's why you've singled in on Adames in nearly every post about Hiura? Seems like you're expending an awful lot of energy wanting Adames to hit...6th rather than 4th. He's had a bad year. He's also had a .232 BABIP, so he's hit into bad luck. But this is just a weird detour from the actual topic.

Ok, so I'll assume TJ. When it's forearm, then elbow...it's usually TJ. So hopefully back around this time next year and maybe part of the '25 pen. He has an electric arm, so...still not giving up!