Matt Breen

I liked Manny a lot. Thought he brought a lot to the game. I would have been happy to have him for another year or two. A bit expensive - and the Crew is always pretty tight on contracts like this. So no surprise. That said, he's 34 years old, and is not in the best shape. He may not age well. Still, it's modest money and not a long contract. Thanks, Manny.

That was pretty bad. I understand the guy has had some major injuries in his career - but the game was on the line then. The Broncos were only down 7 with a quarter to play. You gotta try and make that play. The only thing I can think is that Bridgewater didn't want to get in the way of Melvin Gordon.

I've always liked Kepler. I thought he'd hit for a higher average. But he had a nice swing coming up as a youngster. I thought he'd be special. The hard part is looking at his numbers the last couple of years and seeing anything special. If he rebounds to 2019 form - he's awesome - a left handed power bat who can play corner OF and 1B. I can see a Houser for Kepler swap. Both teams have depth at those respective positions - so it makes sense. I guess we'd have to feel that we could get Kepler back on track. I don't know enough about him to say anything about that. The tough part is that everyone will want a 'big' trade or FA signing. But I just don't see that happening.

If anyone has Britbox - really, really recommend Shetland. Great murder mystery show.

Yeah, this was really fun.

In the Olson vs Ramirez debate, I'm guessing Ramirez is more costly to acquire. The guy has an incredibly consistent track record - producing 6-7+ WAR every year for the past five years except one (and that was a 3.0 WAR). That's really pretty astounding. Add in the ability to play a very good 3B and 2B - and he's just a better player. Not that Olson isn't good. He's really good. But his numbers haven't quite equaled Ramirez's. And he's not been as consistent. And it's hard to ignore his bad 2020 (.195 BA). Olson is a lefty, while Ramirez is a switch hitter. Ramirez has virtually no split differences (.857 OPS vs righties, .851 vs lefties). Olson has more dramatic splits - but not huge - .884 OPS vs righties, .804 vs lefties. These are career numbers. Olson is a year younger - so that's not a huge deal. And salaries shouldn't be too different, and both have two years of control. Both would be amazing players to add. Both would cost a ton.

Reports that Oakland may slash payroll - maybe even to as low as $50M. With an arby figure north of $10M, Olson is a likely candidate to move - not to mention a bunch of other guys. https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2021/11/athletics-trade-rumors-payroll-olson-chapman-manaea-bassitt-montas.html

My son got a Chromebook for grad school a few months ago and has really liked it. He uses it for web surfing and does all his word processing in Google Docs. For him, it's been great. Small, light, inexpensive and easy to use. The downside is you MUST have an Internet connection. My son's grad school was interrupted by a deployment (he's a Marine reservist) that started a week ago (six weeks of taking classes down the drain), and he found that the base they are going to be at for the next 5-6 months has crappy WiFi - so he can't bring it there - which would have been ideal.

I find it pretty amazing no one wanted Miley for that price. He's not great, but he's a solid mid-rotation guy. I am wondering if the uncertainty of the CBA is spooking a lot of clubs.

Bit of a shocker... https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2021/11/buster-posey-to-announce-retirement.html

I think it is something like this: STEP 1 - Calculate the 'value' you expect to get from a player over the length of time you have control over him. The typical way to establish value is using WAR (Fangraphs and Baseball Reference both have WAR values - and while they are often different, they tend to be fairly close in approximation). The value of 1 WAR is around $8-9 million. Thus, if you have a player who you predict will produce 5 WAR over a two year period - his value is estimated at $40-45M. STEP 2 - Determine how much a player is going to make during the years of control a team has on a player. Pretty simple - just have to add up the totals. STEP 3 - You then just minus the salary a player is expected to make from their estimated value. That's the surplus value. So let's take the fictional player I mentioned in STEP 1. His value is $40m over the next two season (for simplicity's sake, I'm using $8m as the value of 1 WAR). Let's say he's due to make around $20M during that time. $40m (value) - $20m (salary) = $20M in surplus value There are probably other factors involved, but I think that's the gist of it. The hard part is accurately predicting the future value of a player. There are formulas for this, but it's a very inexact process.

Who is Turing? Alan Turing. English mathematician and computer scientist. Father of theoretical computer science and artificial intelligence. We are hoping to have him working on the team's FanDuel account - see if we can find some way to pad the team's finances so we extend the budget. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Turing

This would be awesome. I haven't had cable or anything for 5-6 years. I miss watching the Brewers - but such is life. Important games I can go to a friend's or a bar or wherever. I live with it.

Don't forget about Keston, I refuse to believe the kid is done! Keston has a world of talent. Too much talent. I hope we unlock it.

This is a good team. - Rotation of Burnes, Woodruff, Peralta, Houser, Lauer and Ashby is really nice. Small can be integrated in as well. This is such a great asset. - Hader and Williams are great. Need to find a couple of reliable guys to go with Cousins and Suter. But the nice thing about the bullpen is you can retool on the fly. - Adames, Wong, Urias and Rowdy should be good for the IF. And if we can resign Pina to go with Narvaez - catcher is set. - Cain was a very effective player when healthy (big caveat at this age). So I'm good with him in center. - You have to count (hope) on Yelich to rebound - to some extent. A player like him just doesn't fall off a cliff at age 28. So we just have to count on him being healthy and working on things to get back to being a quality player. - Taylor had a nice season. If we don't bring back Avi, I think he can be a solid replacement. - Minor league bats - poised to help in the majors - have been lacking. Another year of experience for Turang, Mitchell, Frelick and others should help tremendously. As I said, even losing Avi, I think this is a good team. The offense needs Yelich to rebound - which I think it can do. And having Adames a full year will be great. Plus, I think Urias can improve at the plate as well.

Yelich has - arguably - the worst contract in all of baseball. Seven more years at $26M a year. That's some heap big amounts of coin. Sure there are some deferrals - but in the end - it's still $26M a year. That's Albert Pujols bad. Miggy Cabrera bad. Where you're stuck owing $25-30M annually for 6-7 years to a guy who is lucky to have a positive WAR during that time. No one will want this contract. You can throw in Mitchell, Turang, Ashby and Frelick and I don't think anyone would take him. There are not many other contracts this bad in baseball. Strasburg and Corbin are awful looking. Even bad contracts like Cano, Hosmer, Bumgarner and Miggy are only - at most - for a few more years - so they aren't as crippling long term. Strasburg is probably the closest looking contract - $165M over the next five years. You have to wonder if Yelich's back issues are the root of things. And back issues have a tendency to linger. Perhaps I'm more skeptical about Yelich than others. He is still only 29 - so there's a lot of time for him to rebound. But I don't see a team like Chicago giving up three players - making $55M or so - to take on $180M+ in salary - on the hope that Yelich regains his form. In the end, the difficult thing about Yelich is that he was not good the last two years. He's had some injuries. If he was owed a lot of money - but was good - well, sure you could trade him. But he's not good right now. I mean - we can try and unload him on someone. But I think teams are savvy enough not to bite on his contract. I think in the end the thing to do is work with Christian - see if we can identify what's been his problem - and try and correct - and get him back to being a good player in 2022. I don't expect .330 and 40 HRs. But if he can hit .280 and 20 HR - that's okay. Not worth $26M - but still helpful.

Yeah, either of those guys would be sweet. I don't think Freeman leaves - too much history there. Both sides will give a bit. Bryant is more likely - and his positional flexibility would be great. And no qualifying offer allowed on him. I think SF steps up and re-signs him - no matter what happens to them in the playoffs. They've got money and the need - and from what I've ready, he's enjoyed his time there. Now, someone could come in and offers an insane contract - but I don't see that as the Brewers. But it's fun to dream.

Ray Fosse, who played for the Brewers briefly in 1979, has passed away at the age of 74 after a bout with cancer. Fosse is probably best remembered for being bowled over by Pete Rose on the final play of the 1974 All-Star game. The injury caused a fractured and separated shoulder - which gave him chronic pain for the rest of his life. Fosse was an extraordinary promising young catcher - hitting .307 with 18 HR at the age of 23. But the injury was a harbinger of things to come, and Fosse never really fulfilled his great potential. He joined the Brewers in 1978, but missed the entire season due to knee surgery. He only played 19 games for the Brewers in 1979, and was cut prior to the beginning of the 1980 campaign. In his career, he appeared in two all-star games, won two World Series rings, and two gold gloves. Fosse spent the last 35 years working as an announcer for the A's.

The season was actually really fun - bad ending aside. I think that we got exposed for a lack of pitching depth (specifically relief pitching), and - obviously - our offense. A mediocre offense - especially if it goes into a funk - is really a disaster waiting to happen. And that's pretty much what happened over the last couple of weeks of the season - and the playoffs. We have a lot of really good pieces - but without 2019-20 Yelich - there's just no stud bat out there - and that hurts. Oh well. Gonna go hug my Giannis poster.

I would bring him back, but I always find the market for 1B-only types difficult to predict, such as C.J. Cron sitting around forever and signing cheaply, or Chris Carter floating around on one-year deals and now out of baseball. Rowdy is in the borderline zone of being a below average major league 1B. (Not clear that we have any better options.) I agree about Rowdy. I think he'll be back. Give him a chance to see what he can do. I doubt we keep both Rowdy and Vogelbach - even with the DH. However, I wouldn't be surprised if the club tries to bring back Vogelbach on a minor league deal (assuming no one gives him a major league deal). A bad start by Rowdy - or an injury - could open up a spot.

The only guys who we could easily let go are Vogelbach and Maile. That saves around $2.4M. Gustave is a whatever - but the savings is minimal. The rest of the guys are pretty important to next year. That still leaves us with $23M in arbitration raises. Plus some players (Yelich, Wong, Peralta) are due about $15M in raises. This countered by some players being free agents - Garcia, Pina, Anderson, Escobar, Boxberger, Strickland, Norris - who's salaries this past year paid by Milwaukee were - roughly - about $20M So, do the math: Arby raises are $23M. Other raises are $15M. $38M total. But we shed $20M in salaries (based on those players' pay this past year). That means our salary total has already risen about $18M over last season. And we need to play Garcia, Pina, Escobar, Boxberger, Strickland and whomever else - or lose them. Will be an interesting off season. The results of the new CBA may affect how things go as well.

mlbtraderumors has their arbitration estimates up. Here's what they have for the Brewers: Jace Peterson – $1.3MM ($0.7M) Omar Narvaez – $4.1MM ($1.6M) Brent Suter – $2.3MM ($0.7M) Luke Maile – $1.0MM ($0.4M) Josh Hader – $10.0MM ($3.25M) Brandon Woodruff – $7.1MM ($3.825) Daniel Vogelbach – $2.0MM ($0.6M) Willy Adames – $4.0MM ($3.6M) Corbin Burnes – $4.0MM ($3.6M) Eric Lauer – $2.7MM ($2.2M) Jandel Gustave – $800K ($0.2M) Adrian Houser – $2.3MM ($1.7M) Rowdy Tellez – $1.9MM ($1.3M) Luis Urias – $2.4MM ($1.8M) Total raises: $25.475 I added the raise from 2021 that the player would get. I didn't have salaries for Peterson and a couple of fringe guys - like Maile - but I assume they got around the minimum. No matter, even if a bit off - the totals will be close. https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2021/10/projected-arbitration-salaries-for-2022.html

Grayson Allen might be a really nice addition this year. DDV brought defense and hustle galore - but his scoring was erratic. He would be great for a week or two - and then just disappear offensively. I don't think anyone expects Allen to offer the defense of Donte - but if he can be a consistent outside shot - he could really add a lot of value. Will be fun to watch.

What kills is Yelich's cratering performance. No doubt the club figured he was that true middle of the order bat for at least a few more years. Just hurts to see him struggling.

If that guess is right (or even close), yeah, I'm out. Easily. If it's Turang and Tellez and a couple fliers, count me in. The cost is obviously the most important thing. Maybe I'm wrong on Olson's value. His 2020 was awful - but the abbreviated season was a weird one - and while I won't dismiss it - I won't weigh it that heavily in things. Otherwise, in his last three full seasons, Olson has averaged 35 HRs and a 4.8 bWAR. BA has been .250-270, plus he takes a healthy number of walks (88 last season). He had the 6th highest OPS+ in all of baseball this past season. While he may not be an elite hitter - he's one of baseball's best. He'll be 28 at the start of next season, so it's a safe bet he keeps up his production. Also, his splits are not too dramatic - .884 vs RHP and .804 vs LHP. The guy would - to be honest - fit perfectly into our lineup. Left-handed power hitting 1B, solid defender. I mean - I would ask about him - but I'm guessing the price would be quite high. A couple of back half/borderline Top 100 prospects, plus a solid major league pitcher doesn't seem crazy as a price.