TheCrew07

I was bouncing around looking at stats because I actually have time today and I'm not sure I understand what the organization is doing with Gilbert Lara, he's never really hit. If you read and listen to enough MiLB talk you'll find out that many around professional baseball think a player has to fail before they will be coachable, and I'd agree with that to certain extent. All of these players got to professional baseball doing it there own way so the majority are going to have a built up resistance of varying degrees to change, that's just human nature. The minority are so thirsty for knowledge they'll drink up whatever is given, but even though I'm acknowledging that side of the coin I"m addressing my comments here towards the majority. Obviously also I know that many posters want a more aggressive promotion schedule and the current Brewer regime is playing into that, though I think sometimes more so for PR reasons than what's best for the player. Finally, as I post quite a bit about and Louis brought up earlier, perhaps nothing in sports is as important as self confidence, and developing that mental aspect of player's game is also paramount. So how does all of this fit together? Personally, I want players to be ready for the next level before being advanced, and when it comes to pitching I have very specific criteria that I'm looking for, I could care less about the "challenge". Hitting wise I'm more flexible, I'm more concerned with the quality of the ABs than the result, and I want to see some defensive improvement over the course of the season. I've voiced my opinion on many promotions on an individual basis and I won't go into specifics now, but my track record is out there. I think as you look around the system there are some glaring cases where the assignment is stifling a prospect's success. So while I have decent understanding of why the Brewers were motivated to start Lara stateside, I don't get why he was pushed to Helena to finish 2015 and why he's there now. I would have rather he started in the DSL where he may have dominated early and then worked his into the states. Why should Lara have gone through a different promotion path than Joantgel Segovia who's hit at every stop along the way? Why should signing bonus, draft position, or talent matter? I'd rather every player start at the bottom and earn their way up, there can certainly be exceptions such as taking college players high in the draft or signing international FAs (Cubans or Japanese) who are more advanced than your typical amateur, but on the whole players need to be treated in a consistent manner. Then the player can be promoted at the pace their performance and skill progression determine, but they always have that initial success in their careers to fall back on, which I think is very important from a mental perspective. It's much to different to know that you can be successful than hope that you can be successful. Kodi Medeiros is another example, unless they are going to completely revamp his delivery there's nothing wrong with him that isn't going to require lots of simple repetitions to fix (he basically needs to learn to locate his FB down), so why not give him repetitions in an environment that he can have consistent success in? Please spare me any statistical FIP (my disdain of the idea and how FIP is calculated aside) argument, his ERA is indicative of how he pitched in WI and now in BC, I think that's another trap organizations fall into... trying to recreate the wheel with statistical analysis when prospects are so volatile and such moving targets that it's incredibly difficult to quality their progression in a number to start with, and they end up convincing themselves players are better or more advanced than they are. Age relative to league is only an indicator if the performance is there with it, but it's become the crutch excuse for lagging performance around here. What's the point of dropping players into the deep end over their head if they aren't good swimmers? Many will just assume the players were "busts" but I think there's more to it than that, there's probably plenty of fault on both sides, and I often wonder how a prospects' career might have turned out differently if they just be allowed to progress at their own pace. This isn't just a Brewer issue, it's an issue all around baseball as many high draft picks and high profile players are given unending chances because of their talent, but does that matter when they were assigned and promoted based on PR rather than performance and their confidence has eroded down to nothing over time?

Clinton Clubs Wisconsin 8-3 By Chris Mehring / Wisconsin Timber Rattlers Wisconsin Boxscore The pitching from Jake Drossner and Miguel Diaz was less than spectacular here, the longer Drossner stays in a game the worse it tends to get given his FB command, his error didn't help his cause either. The only noteworthy hitting performance came from the bat of Max McDowell (3-4,2B,HR), normally I wouldn't talk about RBIs but Max also drove in all 3 Rattler runs. In fact he had a pretty busy game as he was part of 2 CS but also committed 2 PBs to up his total to 12. Wisconsin Recap

Jungmann's eight strong not enough in walk-off loss Shuckers game two, 2-1, as series shifts to Biloxi Biloxi Shuckers http://www.milb.com/assets/images/4/1/0/192173410/cuts/DSC_1090_6pd9zrou_d5slc719.jpg Taylor Jungmann tossed seven innings of no-hit baseball after giving up a run in the first. (Mark P Driscoll) Biloxi Boxscore Taylor Jungmann with his best all around outing in some time, going 8 full innings on 99 pitches while throwing 60% for strikes, he even collected a hit. I doubt very much if he's ever going to be a high strike percentage guy given his mechanics and stuff, but he can be fairly successful throwing strikes around 60%. Is it just me or is that weird picture? If you didn't know he was throwing a pitch what would that expression say to you? Well the Shuckers collected 8 hits and only went down in order in the 5th and 7th, but couldn't string enough hits together to win. Bunting to win in the 9th didn't exactly work out either... Johnny Davis (3-4,2B) had a nice multi hit game, all of his hits actually left the IF which is pretty rare when he collects more than 1 hit in a game, usually at least one of the hits will be of the infield variety. I find myself often wondering if his walk up music is "Straight Outta Compton" which I thought was epic when he was in WI, especially since there are only a couple of SFW 15 second bits in the whole song. As a baseball player he's basically a more likable Juan Pierre if he makes it to MLB, and what a great story that would be. If you aren't familiar with Davis' story, search the forum for the various features that came out when he was in WI, it's worth the read. I don't normally have a soft spot for players with his skill set, but he's so easy to root for one can't help but pull hard for him. Biloxi Recap

It's pretty easy to refresh one's memory at either MiLB.com or Baseball-reference.com: [pre]Split G PA AB H 2B 3B HR BB SO BA OBP SLG OPS TB GDP HBP April 20 91 77 25 3 2 6 10 12 .325 .429 .649 1.078 50 2 4 May 29 128 112 22 6 0 3 10 25 .196 .281 .330 .612 37 0 4 June 26 107 90 24 8 0 1 12 16 .267 .383 .389 .772 35 0 5 July 27 107 101 23 6 1 1 3 18 .228 .252 .337 .589 34 5 1 August 30 117 101 24 7 0 2 11 19 .238 .325 .366 .691 37 3 3 September 5 19 18 5 0 0 0 0 2 .278 .316 .278 .594 5 0 1[/pre] So no, it wasn't primarily caused by a late season slump. View Original Table

Shuckers post second straight shutout in 2-0 win over BayBears Dustin DeMuth singles in game winning run as Angel Ventura earns first win Biloxi Shuckers http://www.milb.com/assets/images/3/9/6/191949396/cuts/2Q5A5181_40i4ia1t_9u4nzw98.JPG Stephen Kohlscheen recorded his ninth straight save and 13th of the season on Tuesday night (Michael Krebs) Biloxi Boxscore Angel Ventura might have turned his first corner in AA, what an impressive performance, the only thing missing was 6+ innings pitched, but it appears he's still on a 85 pitch count limit. In a year when the posters have been largely bemoaning our high profile pitching prospects besides Hader here's a young man that didn't even get a full A+ season under his belt before getting bumped up to AA. Somehow Angel continues to fly under the radar... Regardless 4 relievers behind Ventura combined to pitch quite awesome allowing just 1 walk and no hits while striking out 4 over the final 3.2 innings. The Shuckers managed just 5 hits, but scored 2 runs because 3 of those hits followed a lead off walk in the 4th. This offense has been incredibly depressing in July after the Tyrone Taylor hit parade ended. I've always believed hitting was contagious both ways, good and bad, and this Biloxi team seems to be giving credence to that theory. Biloxi Recap So using the word "credence" got me thinking about CCR while I was waiting on the game story, which is one of my favorite all time bands, even though they were done playing before my time. So here's one my favorites that applies to MiLB in a round about way: https://youtu.be/4JoeGMazX4o

Lake County beats Rattlers 6-2 Wisconsin drops final two games of homestand By Chris Mehring / Wisconsin Timber Rattlers http://www.milb.com/assets/images/6/9/6/191647696/cuts/7_25_PlayerOfTheGame_JakeGatewood_hl1hmkmk_td1iichg.jpg Jake Gatewood went 1-for-2 with two walks and a home run on Monday afternoon. (Wisconsin Timber Rattlers/Ann Mollica) Wisconsin Boxscore That's a nice picture of Jake with the fans, my kind of thing. Alex Farina hasn't gotten much love from me but after a tough start he's settled in nicely and has been very effective... relievers need to be pretty outstanding to get any love from me simply because my focus on the pitching side is almost exclusively starting pitching. Jake Gatewood's last 10 games is creeping ever closer to the .300 mark, sitting .295 after today's action. It really doesn't matter where he plays, 3B or 1B, but we'd like to see his ISO increase as he progresses up the chain. I agree with the earlier comments that people need to be patient with Jake, I made that case earlier this season when posters were ragging on him for his walk rate. Step 1 in hitting is learning how to square up a ball, being a patient hitter comes later. He probably falls in that .250-.270 range as a hitter but his power potential is enormous. Troy Stokes (2-4,3B) and Lucas Erceg (2-4) had the multi hit games for the Rattlers, I noticed in the Box that Erceg got picked off, that makes him 1-4 with WI on the bases. His bat has been outstanding, but the rest of game is still fairly raw around on the edges. I think with his arm there's a reasonable chance he ends up in RF long term just because he'll be pushed faster than his game can be polished up. Wisconsin Recap ****** Postgame Post – July 25, 2016 ******

Woodruff homers, flirts with perfection, in Biloxi's 1-0 win over Wahoos Brandon Woodruff struck out nine over six innings of one-hit ball Biloxi Shuckers http://www.milb.com/assets/images/4/7/6/191556476/cuts/Woodruff1_d13r428c_gnlpm5fy.jpg Brandon Woodruff has allowed just one earned run over 29.2 innings during the month of July. (Michael Krebs) Biloxi Boxscore So I joked around about Brandon Woodruff being able to swing it a little bit when he was 4-10 on the season, now he's added a homer so it's not much of a joke anymore, he can swing it some. What a performance to bail out the nonexistent offense that once again only managed 3 hits, and only 2 hits beyond Woodruff's homer. The position players did play clean defense so there's that. This is actually one of the better defensive clubs in the Southern League aside from Nottingham who's had a tough year defensively. Biloxi Recap

Win Streak Snapped by Captains Lake County beats Wisconsin 6-2 By Chris Mehring / Wisconsin Timber Rattlers http://www.milb.com/assets/images/5/8/2/191494582/cuts/PlayerOftheGame7_24_IMAGE_z7aqe9ar_60cdurbf.jpg Isan Diaz extended his hitting streak to eight games as he went 2-for-3 with a double and a walk on Sunday. (Wisconsin Timber Rattlers/Ann Mollica) Wisconsin Boxsocre I was worried about this game from a pitching standpoint, but it turned out to be the correct assumption for the wrong reasons as Thomas Jankins actually lowered his ERA with 3 scoreless. This was however a rather uninspiring bullpen performance... David Lucroy's 4.86 ERA is moving the wrong way, he's essentially been giving up crooked numbers every other outing for some time now. Scott Gist has been on the short end of some 9th inning blow ups here recently but on the whole has had an excellent season. just 4 hits from the offense... already covered previously in the thread. Wisconsin Recap ****** Postgame Post – July 24, 2016 ******

Cooper's four hits not enough in loss to Wahoos Shuckers drop fourth straight series after 7-3 defeat Saturday Biloxi Shuckers http://www.milb.com/assets/images/9/5/6/191344956/cuts/2Q5A1805_wvuf4hi0_jppeaf9f.JPG Garrett Cooper recorded his second four hit game of the season on Saturday night (Michael Krebs) Biloxi Boxscore Biloxi Recap

Isan Diaz Dominates in Wisconsin's Walkoff Win Rattlers' slugger hits game-winning HR; Goes 3-for-4 with 2HR's, 6 RBI By Chris Mehring / Wisconsin Timber Rattlers http://www.milb.com/assets/images/1/3/2/191370132/cuts/7_23_PlayerOfTheGame_IsanDiaz_IMAGE_522yc99k_1f9jsrek.jpg Isan Diaz went 3-for-4 with a triple, two homers, and six RBI in Wisconsin's 9-8 win on Saturday. His walkoff homer in the ninth gave the Rattlers the victory. (Wisconsin Timber Rattlers/Ann Mollica) Wisconsin Boxscore Wisconsin Recap ***** Postgame Post – July 23, 2016 *****

Rattlers Hang on to Sweep TinCaps Erceg & Stokes lead the way to 8-7 Wisconsin win By Chris Mehring / Wisconsin Timber Rattlers http://www.milb.com/assets/images/4/6/0/191201460/cuts/7_22_PlayerOfTheGame_ErcegIMAGE_4eg5j8ok_lw0l2go1.png Lucas Erceg went 3-for-4 with a double, a triple, a run scored, and three RBI for the Timber Rattlers on Friday night. (Wisconsin Timber Rattlers/Ann Mollica) Wisconsin Boxscore Back to .500! Every Ratter pitcher in this game gave up at least one run. Corbin Burnes wasn't as dominant as his first time time out but that was balanced by Zach Brown pitching much better than he did his first 2 times out. Troy Stokes (3-5,3B,2 2B) and Lucas Erceg (3-4,3B,2B) were monsters at the plate, though Erceg had a fairly costly throwing error in the 9th. Jake Gatewood (2-4,2B) also had a multi hit game, and has 4 multi hit games in his last 5, as the Rattlers once again broke double digit hits. I talked about how David Denson has struggled since teams started playing the exaggerated shifts against him, but I haven't mentioned that his OF defense is spotty at best, he just doesn't read the ball well off the bat yet. I honestly don't understand that move, it's worked out because of injury, but he's just not athletic or as experienced as the other OFs in the system or even on this team and with even reasonable OF health he would have been relegated to DH duty all season. MH and I have taken Brandon Diaz to task for his incredibly poor season at the plate but he's still playing fantastic defense. He didn't play tonight, but it occurred to me that I didn't mention his great plays from the previous games in this series, hopefully people are watching the highlights on a daily basis, there's just been so much to talk about each day. Wisconsin Recap

Phillips, Wang help Shuckers snap losing streak Brett Phillips went 3-for-5 with a homer and two RBI's on Friday Biloxi Shuckers http://www.milb.com/assets/images/1/2/4/191182124/cuts/Phillips1_ma43jf38_x01am7wy.jpg Brett Phillips snapped an 0-for-28 with a 3-for-5 night on Friday night in Pensacola, including his 12th home run. (Michael Krebs) Biloxi Boxscore Wei-Chung Wang with his best start since July 1, wow. Stephen Kohlscheen continues his excellent season, he now has 46 SOs in 33.2 innings. Biloxi managed double digit hits! Brett Phillips busted out of his slump in a big way, hopefully this gets his him streaking the other way as MH pointed the horrible slump he was in. I don't play the excuse game with prospects (giving him a pass on average because his power stroke came back) so I'll just say that I find his 2016 campaign extremely disappointing. He would have to be Mitch Ghelfi hot most of August to salvage this year's batting line. Biloxi Recap

Wisconsin scores 12 in win over Fort Wayne Rattlers bang out 16 hits in 12-3 win over TinCaps By Chris Mehring / Wisconsin Timber Rattlers http://www.milb.com/assets/images/6/7/6/191004676/cuts/7_21_PlayerOfTheGame_JakeGatewood_IMAGE_31jay7vp_opy4ioge.jpg Jake Gatewood went 3-for-5 with a double, three runs scored, and an RBI for the Rattlers on Thursday night. (Wisconsin Timber Rattlers/Ann Mollica) Wisconsin Boxscore This year's Rattler team isn't good defensively, though individually they have the possibility to be, but the Tin Caps are terrible having committed 119 errors in 97 games. Well Miguel Diaz has completely lost his arm slot, which is why he's been on a downward trend for him. The most memorable batter for me was the second hitter in the 3rd, Miguel was up 0-2, and ended up walking the batter, and he threw every pitch with a different arm slot. His off speed stuff is filthy for this level; his change is average, flashing above average, and his curve flashes plus... there's plenty of potential, he reminds me a little of Jorge Lopez who had a similar issue when he was in WI. Jake Drossner locates his off speed better than his FB, which is why his strike out totals are so high but he still gives up hits and runs. Yesterday was so busy I just skimmed over Lucas Erceg. He's got a nice smooth line drive type swing and while he hasn't had many defensive chances he showcased his arm in his only assist last night. These games with awesome offensive output are fun but take forever to play, 5 Rattlers put up multi-hit games including Jake Gatewood (3-5,2B), Isan Diaz (3-4,2B,BB), Luis Aviles (3-5), Max McDowell (2-3,BB), and Carlos Belonis (2-5,2B). I caught the latest episode of Timber Rattlers Season Pass before the game, the conversations between Chuckie Caufield and David Denson are enlightening if you have TWC and some free time. Wisconsin Recap

Shuckers drop fifth straight on Thursday night to Wahoos, 3-0 Pensacola plated all three runs during the first inning Biloxi Shuckers http://www.milb.com/assets/images/6/1/0/190987610/cuts/2Q5A1845_ngrfubh9_68xcj21t.JPG Tyrone Taylor snapped an 0-for-14 by going 2-for-4 on Thursday night. (Michael Krebs) Biloxi Boxscore It looked like Taylor Jungmann might have turned in a corner in his last start but not so, he did all of the damage to himself here. The batting averages for the 8 position players who started today's game: .246, .238, .224, .299, .288, .222, .240, and .224. Biloxi Recap

That's exactly the guy that pitched in WI last season, I put his radar readings into a LR... with the exception of being consistently in trouble. edit. I'll guess Medeiros, but I could see Diplan and/or Peralta, I'm not huge fan of the mechanics from any of those young pitchers.

Rattlers Crack TinCaps with 21 hits for a 14-6 win Ghelfi stays hot with four hits; McDowell drives in four to erase early deficit By Chris Mehring / Wisconsin Timber Rattlers http://www.milb.com/assets/images/4/0/8/190827408/cuts/PlayerOftheGame7_20Image_yy06q9q2_8e6y8mkj.jpg Max McDowell went 3-for-3 with two walks and four RBI for the Timber Rattlers on Wednesday night. (Wisconsin Timber Rattlers/Ann Mollica) Wisconsin Boxscore Well the pitching from Jordan Yamamoto was hardly battleship worthy, but this offense has the talent to be a juggernaut, and has been putting up some awfully impressive games this month. As noted earlier in the thread Lucas Erceg (6-3) had a nice debut with the T-Rats. Stop me if you heard this before but Troy Stokes (3-5,2B,BB) and Mitch Ghelfi (4-5,2 2B) led the way offensively. I know I whined about being out of superlatives for Mitch earlier but it's true, I'm really at a loss how to qualify this incredible hot streak he's on. It just hasn't happened much with Brewer prospects, regardless of their "status". I brought up Eric Fryer earlier, MH want to the Andrew Lefave card tonight, regardless what a magnificent run it's been thus far. Jake Gatewood (6-2,2 2B), Luis Aviles (3-4,HR,BB), and Max McDowell (3-3,2 2B, 2 BB) were also extremely productive. This is the second time McDowell has been perfect at the plate in a game this season, if you aren't taking him seriously as a prospect you'd better start. His defensive game needs work like all young catchers, but his offensive approach has been very solid for most of the season. Aviles... he's been a completely different player this year, he exudes confidence, plays competent defense at every position, and has surprising pop for a young man who doesn't look all that muscular. He's probably my favorite player on this year's team, but I'm tempering my enthusiasm with the memory of his 2015 performance in WI. Wisconsin Recap Once again there's quite a bit to take in here if you are so inclined.

Comeback bid falls short in 6-4 loss to Wahoos Chris McFarland snaps a long hitless skid by going 2-for-4 Biloxi Shuckers http://www.milb.com/assets/images/6/0/6/190807606/cuts/26373188323_64072c1699_o_ltvda66q_kkp4ronh.jpg Chris McFarland snapped out of an 0-for-23 slump with two hits on Wednesday night (Jason Clark) Biloxi Boxscore Angel Ventura continues the uneven start to his AA career, I don't have any long term concerns at the moment, but XBHs are hurting him right now. The Shuckers matched their previous 3 game hit total with 8 tonight, but it wasn't enough to bail out the pitching in this game. Biloxi Recap

Think there may be a few high-ranking Padres executives in the Appleton area tonight? If they are then they will likely get rained on, it's not looking good. Or not, what crazy weather, at 1 PM it looked like we had a huge storm coming but it never rained at all and when I looked at the radar everything is dissipating as moves across the state.

Think there may be a few high-ranking Padres executives in the Appleton area tonight? If they are then they will likely get rained on, it's not looking good.

There have been lots of posts bemoaning our corner OF depth recently, but most of the players people like as 3B are likely ticketed for the OF unless they make drastic improvement defensively. Gatewood as a 1B is somewhat interesting given his frame and athleticism, one would hope for a Richie Sexson type player, but I don't like the idea of Gatewood floating around being a utility guy to get ABs. We did the "rush prospects to the majors" the first time and the only good defender of that entire group was Hardy, and that's because he was essentially a natural. Braun, Fielder, Weeks... we've been down that road. I feel like I say this all the time but there's really no having it both ways... if you want to aggressively promote a player because of his bat then you have move him down the defensive spectrum to a position he can be "good" at without much effort. There's no substitute for time and quality repetitions, if you want a defensively sound ball club then you need to be willing to let prospects spend as much as time as possible working on their craft in the minor leagues, which is basically going to amount to spending a full year at a stop. For example we've had quite a run of talented SSs come through WI from Rivera to Diaz, and while all of them dazzle at times, they've all made too many mental errors which leads to misplayed ground balls or ill conceived attempts to throw out runners, even Alcides Escobar was of that mold coming through the system. It takes years to reprogram instincts and for those young men to learn when to eat it and how to stay mentally focused for an entire game. No matter a player's talent for the most part they are starting at point D or F and progressing to point A, and there's not a shortcut to go from D to A on the infield or as a catcher, it's a process and takes constant repetition, which takes time. Either we're willing to be patient or we aren't, and if we aren't then we shouldn't expect solid fundamental play simply because there wasn't enough time to develop it in the player. For many reasons that I'm not willing to get into is this thread the athletes today are not as refined as they were in the past, and regardless of sport it falls on the people at the professional level to teach from the ground up. Unfortunately that's much harder because a player must essentially be torn down and start back at square 0 to unlearn all of their bad habits. It's much easier to teach the good stuff upfront but that's not really possible given the climate around athletics right now.

I guess that depends on how you define "okay", there was a discussion regarding his defense in a recent link report.

As the DH, which is irritating.

Shuckers drop rubber match to Barons, 2-0 Brooks Hall tossed seven shutout innings with a season-high eight strikeouts Biloxi Shuckers http://www.milb.com/assets/images/3/3/2/190395332/cuts/Hallthumb2_biw5fu50_hjkz1utl.jpg Biloxi Boxscore If Brooks Hall would continually strike out batters like he did today he could make me a believer, his K rate has significantly improved, but it's not elite. It's actually somewhat hard to believe he's already 26. MH already bagged on the Biloxi offense so I won't do it again, I'll just point out that in the last 3 games combined the Shuckers have collected just 8 total hits. It doesn't matter how good the pitching is when the offense does so little per game. Biloxi Recap

What's the rush? His defense is awful.

Rattlers Drop Road Trip Finale at Dayton Dragons avoid sweep with 8-3 win over Wisconsin By Chris Mehring / Wisconsin Timber Rattlers Wisconsin Boxscore Thomas Jankins could use a do over in his start with WI, this year's 13th rounder hasn't hit the ground running. David Lucroy is a legitimate professional pitcher, he's got some skills, but I've grown leery of his appearances. I'm sure Chris will cover the meager offensive contributions in the game story, this just wasn't a good effort on a getaway day, which is rather typical at this level of baseball. Wisconsin Recap