Snoebird

So, you're saying you would like the Brewers to mimic the Arizona Diamondbacks, whose season just fell apart with Corbin Burnes' elbow injury. Matt Arnold spent nine years in the Tampa Bay front office trying to avoid those circumstances. The face of this franchise is Christian Yelich, and there is a lot of money riding on his return to a semblance of MVP form.

This season is all about Christian Yelich and whether he is still able at 33 to perform at an MVP level. Jackson Chourio will have his day, but Yelich is still "the guy" the Brewers need to drive the bus. Whether the Crew makes the postseason this year or not isn't as important as having their star player show that he can still be a viable slugger until Chourio truly arrives.

I choose to celebrate the fact that Milwaukee has become a pitching factory. The days of having to trade prospects for Sabathia and Greinke to get into the postseason, or having to dole out piles of money for free agents Kyle Lohse and Matt Garza are over. Chris Hook and his staff are hugely under-appreciated even by Brewers fans for turning water into wine. The Tampa Bay model calls for trading pitchers at the height of their value, and if the Brewers get bowled over for an offer for Peralta, they should want to put themselves in a stronger roster position for the arrivals of Made, Pena, Quero, Wilken, Burke, etc. in two years. That's how this team becomes a postseason power.

My first year following baseball was 1959, and it was gripping. The Braves were coming off a World Series loss in '58 after winning it in '57, and they got into a season-long tussle with the newly transplanted Dodgers and Giants. Imagine a 9-year-old kid trying to follow his favorite team on a transistor radio with West Coast games starting at 10 p.m. Central time. The Giants faded in the last week of the season, but the Braves and Dodgers finished in a tie. There would be a special best-of-three playoff series with the winner facing the White Sox in the World Series. Imagine a Milwaukee-Chicago World Series. But it wasn't to be. The Dodgers won the first two games, which were played in the L.A. Coliseum, then beat the White Sox for the West Coast's first MLB championship.

Sal's leadership qualities will become more important when the next wave of kids hits Milwaukee. Yelich tries to lead by example, but Frelick will set a more demonstrative example. Hopefully William Contreras will still be around to counsel the kids as well.

Sal's rise in productivity has allowed him to show more of personality, and his intensity on both sides of the emotional range wears well on his teammates. I kept my eye on him throughout the Boston series, and it was well worth it to see him pour himself into that sweep of his hometown team. The Brewers lost a team leader in Willy Adames but have replaced a glad-hander with a pure emotional captain. Helmet throws are now a thing.

Braves owner Lou Perini was afraid any televised games would hurt attendance, so he blacked out the CBS Game of the Week. Milwaukeeans who lived in two-story houses with a roof antenna could get Cubs games on WGN, although the Cubs were awful. The crazy part is that when the Braves relocated, their games were televised around the world via satellite twice a day.

If you lived in Milwaukee during the Braves' heyday, you got no national Game of the Week and only saw the Braves when they were in the World Series. However, after the '59 season, we got Saturday night Winter League baseball from Cuba as part of a 10-city syndicate. At a time when the city was crazy for baseball, Milwaukee became the transistor radio capital of America. Braves games aired on WTMJ and WEMP.

The third baseman the Brewers and their fans "have been after for years" is Brock Wilken. Matt Arnold's first draftee after replacing David Stearns projects to be a slugging cornerstone who could wake up the echoes of Eddie Mathews. Brewer fans have waited far too long for the Stearns-Arnold regime to start drafting and developing corner infielders for us to buy stock in Caleb Durbin.

If what comes back in a Peralta trade is a slugger who can help the team this year and beyond -- and allow Jacob Misiorowski to join the rotation -- I don't think fans would have a problem with that, nor should they. Strengthening the core lineup is Job 1 right now and will be until the next wave of prospects establish themselves. Not enough attention has been given to the loss of William Contreras' slugging ability due to his broken finger.

Am I off base in stating that no team depends more on attendance than the Brewers? I also believe that an early bailout to a season commemorating the life of Bob Uecker wouldn't be particularly appetizing to ownership. Add a slugger for a quality pitcher whose departure would create a runway for Misiorowski's arrival, and hope that Yelich, Chourio and Mitchell can stir some season-long interest in this team.

David Stearns' greatest accomplishment was turning Milwaukee into a pitching factory. His greatest mistake with the Brewers was not drafting corner infielders. I understand his reasoning for drafting players at the so-called premium positions, but Matt Arnold promptly corrected Stearns' first-round mistake of Eric Brown Jr. by drafting Brock Wilken atop his first draft. And Arnold has struck a tremendous balance of signing middle infielders from Latin America and drafting sluggers and pitchers. The Brewers are finally on par with the Walt Jocketty Cardinals in their drafting and development, and it will pay off in years to come.

The Brewers are the Guardians of the National League. When a team loses a Willy Adames or a Josh Naylor, and replaces him with essentially nothing, the nucleus of the lineup becomes fractured. And there is no managing or cheerleading around that. The Brewers need Yelich, Contreras, Chourio, Hoskins and Mitchell to be at their absolute best to break down elite pitching. That's asking a lot from a veteran coming off back surgery, a star catcher with a broken finger, a second-year player, a 30-something slugger coming off a mediocre season and an oft-injured prospect trying to establish himself. If the rotation ever solidifies, the Brewers could climb above .500 like Cleveland. The Cubs have added that Naylor/Adames player in Kyle Tucker, and he's brought out the best in everyone around him. Core players have that kind of impact.

The dynamic of the lineup has changed for the worse, so opposing pitchers can work around Yelich with breaking balls and Chourio with fastballs on the outer half. The revelation that Contreras is playing with a broken finger is the last thing this lineup needs. He has only seven extra-base hits for the season. And our hopes that Mitchell would pick up the slugging slack for Adames have been crushed by another injury and little to show for the games he's played. Ortiz has been the third major disappointment. Competent pitchers will start working around Hoskins, and that will be the final straw unless another slugger or two magically appears.

I think the point is that the Brewers have become hard to watch. They need an injection of slugging to be competitive, and they're not getting enough from Yelich, Contreras, Chourio, Ortiz and Mitchell.

The trade that would make the Brewers' lineup potent would be for Nolan Arenado, who is owed $74 million for the next three seasons and who needs to leave St. Louis in order for the Cardinals to launch a youth movement that Chaim Bloom will oversee. Outgoing President John Mozeliak has "Trade Arenado" atop his to-do list, but Arenado has been playing hard-to-leave. He has spoken fondly of the Brewers in the past, but I kind of doubt that Matt Arnold would want him to interfere with his own youth movement, not to mention adding a sizable salary to the payroll.

In a preseason poll, I guessed that the Brewers' 2025 MVP would be Sal Frelick because I foresaw a need for him to play third base. Of course it would be nice to see Sal being treated like the Gold Glove right fielder that he is, but the low-rent state of the Brewers doesn't allow for that. We just saw Jackson Chourio kick a game because Frelick was bypassed to play center field. Versatility is the glue that holds this team together. My preseason vision included tangible outfield contributions from Garrett Mitchell and Tyler Black, but, barring that, Frelick moving to third would merely leave a hole in the outfield.

It doesn't matter where Burnes is pitching now. The return on a trade for a staff ace was perpetually injured DL Hall and, so far, a light-hitting infielder. The galling part is that the Orioles' org was overflowing with talent when the trade was made.

Is getting married a good or bad thing for a player's confidence in his ability to earn a living? Ortiz got hitched and then went to spring training, where he saw the future at his position in Cooper Pratt. Notwithstanding the difference in their experience levels, Pratt carries himself like a veteran and is built like one. I expected to see more muscle on Ortiz, but apparently that's not happening. I think Ortiz's worst fears will be realized soon if he doesn't find a groove at the plate. As it stands, this makes the Corbin Burnes trade look like a bust for the Crew.

Apparently nobody believes Sal Frelick can play third base. Pat Murphy does, and has said as much. And the more time Frelick spends at third, the greater the opportunity for Tyler Black to replace his 2021 draft buddy in the outfield. The Brewers are in no position to ignore a hitting prospect like Black, and the outfield appears to be his calling. Given Yelich's uncertain timetable for returning to full strength and Mitchell's injury history, Black should be given an open window to win a roster spot as an outfielder.

Molitor missed 492 games -- two broken bones, elbow and hamstring injuries plus a shoulder impingement -- in his first 10 seasons and was the first non-pitcher to undergo Tommy John surgery. But he always had those quick wrists at the plate, and had a great late career thanks to his move to DH.

I have two concerns. Both deal with ownership and its narrow-mindedness regarding its immediate and distant neighborhood. I would like to see the 20-square-block asphalt hole in the center of Milwaukee developed into parking ramps, bars/restaurants, green spaces and hotels/motels that would create tax revenue for Milwaukee County and cut into the booming bed business in Brookfield. Tailgating would be shrunk. I would also like to see the fastest-growing metro area in Wisconsin be at the very least recognized by Brewers ownership. Madison's population boom is entering a stronger phase, and the city has become the Midwest's mecca of tech jobs. It would behoove Brewers management to embrace a metro area that exceeds 500,000. Madison is every bit as capable as Des Moines, Omaha and St. Paul of becoming a Triple-A outpost, and could form rivalries with those three neighboring International League cities. With Nashville on the verge of trading its IL team for a MLB franchise, it would make sense for Brewers ownership to pursue an acquisition of the Sounds to anchor that AAA affiliate as well as invest in Madison's growth. Madison Mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway would support plans for a ballpark that the Brewers could build in conjunction with Madison-based American Family Insurance, just as she is rooting for an Amtrak line from Madison to Milwaukee that would require a station. As someone who watched absentee ownership lead to the Braves' departure from Milwaukee, it bothers me that Mark Attanasio has never publicly been photographed in any other Wisconsin city except Milwaukee. It also bothers me that he has assigned Rick Schlesinger to deal with politicos of all manor. He has mentioned his desire for an entertainment district adjacent to his stadium but has done nothing to initiate it. You can't move a stadium, so the pact the Brewers struck with the city, county and state was no great surprise. But the fact that the Brewers aren't realizing the potential for more revenue in their neighborhood as well as eventual revenue in that booming capital city an hour away makes this old-timer uneasy.

Thanks for illuminating some of us old Braves fans on the many challenges Rico Carty faced. I do have one correction to make, and it's a significant one. The Braves were Milwaukee's second major league team. From Wikipedia: The St. Louis Browns was a Major League Baseball team that originated in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, as the Milwaukee Brewers. A charter member of the American League (AL), the Brewers moved to St. Louis, Missouri, after the 1901 season, where they played for 52 years as the St. Louis Browns. After the 1953 season, the team moved to Baltimore, Maryland, where it became the Baltimore Orioles. BTW, the American League was founded in Milwaukee on Jan. 28, 1901. A plaque was erected at the site of the meeting in the parking lot of the former Journal Sentinel building. I'm not sure many Milwaukeeans knew this, either, that the Bucks are the city's second NBA team. The Atlanta Hawks spent four seasons at the Milwaukee Arena in the early 1950s before moving to St. Louis. The only newsworthy event during the Hawks' stay in Wisconsin was the drafting of future hall of famer Bob Pettit in 1954. Owner Ben Kerner gave up on the city because the Braves commanded more attention during their offseason than the Hawks received in-season.

Having the rangiest second baseman in MLB means your team has adjusted to the elimination of the overshift rule better than anyone else. I'll take all of those runs Turang saved over Drury's modest offensive numbers.