TrackCoach

I have had the pleasure of coaching a few "pure athletes" over my career. These athletes seem to excel no matter the situation/position/event you put them in. While this is a whole different level of professional sports, if there is a Brewer that seems to fit that role it is Sal. I welcome them at least thinking outside the box and building the line up flexibility.

Hoskins was my number one target this year and I am thrilled to see it come to fruition. I have acquaintances that have high level coaching and front office jobs and the one thing I keep hearing from them is how impressed the sports world is in how the Brewers took the Marlins ideas and have expanded on them even more to keep a steady flow of young talent being injected into the organization every year. Draft picks, international signings, comp picks, and smart trades lead to a pipeline of talent that can help keep a smaller market team competitive for more than just a short window. I have a similar feeling as to when Barry took over the Badgers and told me to "but my season tickets now because they will be hard to get in a few years". At the moment I thought he was a little over confident and crazy, but he did it.

Armchair general managing aside I would be looking at two players one in high demand (Hoskins) and one that may be looking for a one year prove it contract. I would be targeting Rhys Hoskins (2 years 28 milliion) for first and Matt Chapman (one year 6 million) for third. With these two in the fold we keep Burns and Adames and go for it with little risk to the all-star break. We would have two veteran leaders for our young guys and a good mix of high ceiling possibilities with our young guys. There would also be flexibility for the DH role. Run with it until the all-star break and see where you are at. Worst case scenario we would have a wealth of trade chips to start building for 2025. All this being said I know that free agency is a two-way street and we have no way of knowing what Rhys and Matt are thinking they want to do. The center of this line up looks as good as it has for many years and with some improvement and expectation meeting by some of the young guys the whole lineup could be on pitchers fear. 2024 Offense Frelick OF Chapman 3b Yelich OF Contreras-C Hoskins 1b Chourio-OF Mitchell/Wiemer OF 2b- Turang DH-Combination of Yelich, Hoskins, Chourio, Black, Monasterio, whoever needs a day.

The interesting thing to me about this deal is that it seems to show the Dodgers are out on Burnes and Adames. If there was any interest in them, you would have thought they would have used Hudson as part of the deal. I guess it could have been a mad dash of teams inquiring on Hudson and a separate deal had to be struck but I think it does shed light on any Burnes/Adames conversations with the Dodgers.

The main reason I would like Hoskin is because the Cubs want him.

To me both Garver and Hoskins fit the bill for exactly what I would like to see. Both have the injury warts and limited position flexibility, however, with the depth of position flexibility that the Brewers had, and was built upon this offseason, the focus on the bat production needs to be the focus. Both Garver and Hoskins would fill that role and hopefully the tires have been kicked on both.

Long time reader and lurker, but first-time poster. I consider myself a pretty calm and even keeled person and preach being in control of your emotions to my athletes, but as blindsided as the Brewers were with the Counsell debacle I am not sure that I could help myself from not freeing up a little extra payroll money this year to make a little statement. Corner infield is our obvious need right now and we have the ability to overpay a little to fill one position by bringing up Black to play third base. Rhys Hoskins to me is who I would target. He checks all the boxes, including getting him and the Cubs not getting him. I know it takes two to tango and the contract will likely be quite expensive, but we have to take advantage of our youth surge of talent at lower cost and pair that with more expensive talent that are good role models. I think I enjoy this part of the season even more than then the regular season. I am intrigued with the roster building process and having a young talented top of the end minor league system really makes it even more interesting.