Turning2

Truly a luxury to have so many good prospects that we feel MIL can afford to move some. Williams and Pena. I don't see where Williams fits other than as a utility infielder, backup OF. Pena because I want a power bat at 3B and Made to take 2B once Turang moves on. I want Fischer, Adams or Wilken at 3B and Burke at 1B. My second option would be Williams and Lara only because I prefer a bigger frame in outfielders. They'll keep Lara and I hope he wins me over. For a team driven by the "more bites at the apple" philosophy, they need to apply that to their developing power hitters. Don't trade any of the several sluggers who have 20 - 40 HR potential, not yet anyway.

Because MN isn’t going anywhere, probably for a while and why not add prospects from a team that is currently among the gold standard of talent development. . Don’t know what players it would take to seal the deal, just tossing out some suggestions. Jett has lots of control. power and plays SS, So they flip Lee for his replacement and whatever pieces.. At the end of the day, Lee is a guy that aligns pretty well in MIL’s trade MO.

No argument that better ABs, higher pitch counts lead to better OBP. It can also lead to a high LOB. Still needs hits, and several if it's just a single. Get that team OBP up and get a fortuitous big pop. The dingers don't need to be solo shots. I'd be quite happy to see MIL paper cut their way past LA, but it's just more likely a pipe dream.

.235, 7 HRs, slugging .368, OPS .692... renting for roughly 12.5 million??? We already have one of those. Meanwhile... Brooks Lee .251, 14 HRs, slugging .440, OPS .746, and controllable / cheap. Perfect short term solution. Send the Twins Jett and some AA or lower pitching. Other considerations could be Bitonti or Boeve. Sure seems like they could address that gaping offensive 3B hole without a long-term commitment or selling too much of the farm, and he would likely still have trade value in a couple years as we admire the WS trophy he helped MIL win 😁

Swap Contreras and Sanches in those roles, and that is probably their most competitive starting lineup currently that they can field (not counting pitching). It runs out the most balanced offense and defense in my opinion. One could quibble about Ortiz or Hammy at 3B. Frelick's bat is heating up, but I still like at least starting the game with both Vaughn and Bauers.

Because it takes one fortuitous swing versus several. You can be out hit, outplayed but still win because of one or two big swings.

What would be bare minimum acceptable for you to view him as "a hitter"?

Pratt is doing about what I expected from a guy who had a cup of coffee at AAA and wasn't tearing it up at the plate. I believed he wasn't ready and that we should expect about .220-.225 tops. But they had to move him up sometime and get him seasoning as they weren't going to trade for a SS and block his development. I think he will be solid in time.

It's not just about the long ball. But if the long ball isn't one of the team's strengths, you can't have the "beat them with 1000 paper cut" singles clam up either. If / when that happens, it's easier to hope to get somebody on via a scattered hit, HBP, walk, speed forcing a bad throw and then get a 2 run shot. Maybe turn a 5-0 game back into a game with one swing, get some momentum. Counting on stringing bunches of hits together with a stolen base in the mix is a recipe for disappointment if they have to get past the LA All Stars is all I'm saying.

I hope you're "team of destiny" impression is right. There was a similar feeling when the Packers finally got back to the SB in the '96 season to beat the Pats except they mostly imposed their will all season. Can't really do that in a 162 season.

Overall, I like Levering. I like Vinny too. They are not insufferable. But I'm beginning to see why people generally prefer BA and Rock. I'm just not interested in the digressions into pop culture fluff, food items, etc that Jeff veers off into sometimes. Everybody has their preferences though.

They are currently in a 3 way tie for 25th in total HRs as a team. Specifying "top of our order" moves the goal posts of the discussion. Certainly the top is going to bring more power than the bottom of the order. That's true with practically every team. For sake of the distinction though, boil it down to Yelich, Chourio, Contreras, Bauers, Turang and Vaughn. On paper that looks like a tremendous amount of pop (especially if we add in Mitchell AND he was living up to his power hype - which he's not). Bauers is MIL's top HR hitter currently. He is ranked 38th in MLB at 14. That doesn't scream they "can slug with anyone" to me. To be fair, Yelich, Vaughn, and Chourio missed most of the first month or so. But again, to be fair, that hasn't really mattered. Yelich has become the ghost of power hitter past and Vaughn has traded power for average. Chourio is putting up respectable numbers. Turang started hot, then dropped like a rock, still likely to hit the 20 or more mark. Contreras like to end up with his usual numbers around 18. Obviously, overall slugging is more than HRs. But as a quick way to measure I go by HRs because the slugging follows suit more often than not. I just don't see the "we're fine, they can slug with anyone" that you feel. At the end of the day, they're more likely to come up short in Oct again because they don't have enough big pop in the lineup than they are to ride their top pitching and sub adequate power. Just my opinion.

Yes, of course they had holes in '82. Hard to gauge the impact of those holes in that era compared to today's MLB. The pitching wasn't as formidable as we currently enjoy to be sure, but we just learned in the Cubs series that formidable pitching isn't enough. You have to have pop. The '82 team ended the '81 season ranked 4th in HRs and finished '82 ranked #1 at least from the stats I see online. Having big pop permeates the dugout swagger. While the 2026 version of the Brewers has strengths that the '82 team didn't, it's still, in my view, a blind squirrel finding an acorn when it comes to hoping for a big bat to pop one at a critical time. It happens, just not often enough to get too confident in. And I think those late '70's early '80s teams felt more confident in that regard. But, admittedly, that's all just subjective, and it's why I don't see the similarities between the two teams that others might.

Would love to get six solid from Sproat. And no more of the 1 hit through 6 or 7 innings from the offense. Somebody needs to step up and lead especially with RISP.

Agreed, he should take some recuperation time. It would a big thing to expect from a 40 year old manager let alone a guy nearing 70.