How much would Brewers prospect Lewis Brinson earn on the open market right now? Baseball Prospectus ranked Brinson as a 70 Overall Future Potential (OFP) All-Star center fielder, with a realistic 60 OFP grade (“above-average everyday center fielder”). Certainly, there are risks in the youngster’s profile, specifically centering around the development of the hit tool […]
Author: Nicholas Zettel
What is a Playoff Team?
There are a confluence of debates and industry trends that can drive offseason discussion and analysis of this Milwaukee Brewers club. First, there is some debate as to whether the Brewers were “for real” in 2017, or whether they overplayed their “true” talent level on their roster. A corollary to this point is to argue […]
Improving Center Field
In what has been an offseason with a pace that is charitably called “glacial,” Brewers fans were given an apparent gift this week: Milwaukee was one of the teams rumored to be negotiating with center fielder (and former Brewers prospect) Lorenzo Cain. The news struck to the heart of the constant “rebuilding” versus “winning now” […]
Role Risk and Roster Building
Earlier this week, I looked at the future roster outlook for the Brewers, given the perceived roster crunch due to the 2018-2019 Rule 5 draft. Common wisdom says that the Brewers will need to trade away players in order to mitigate the effects of that roster crunch. However, I showed that the club does not […]
Do the Brewers Need to Trade?
The Brewers front office has assembled an almost methodically slow offseason thus far, with the biggest move of acquiring righty Jhoulys Chacin a sign that the club is seemingly ready to test this audacious gang of chumps for yet another season of improbable winning baseball. Naturally, the lack of “impact” signature moves has heightened debate […]
Low Rotation Shift
The Brewers allegedly signed free agent Yovani Gallardo over the weekend, with official announcement of the deal awaiting physical. Brewers fans either expressed joy at seeing the return of Gallardo, or expressed puzzlement at GM David Stearns’s move, with the historical cynics taking their chance to point out how Gallardo’s position among the franchise’s best […]
How the Brewers Beat the Cubs
For all the noise about the Cubs’ issues throughout the 2017 season, and there were real issues, the club finished with an offense approximately 73 runs better than Wrigley Field / 2017 National League. While this is quite a decline from the monstrous +103 RS the Cubs posted during their storybook 2016 campaign, there is […]
Boring Paths
The 2017-2018 offseason winter meetings begin, and the Brewers stand in a bizarre position within a league rocked by the most awaited transactions: The Marlins ownership group’s refusal to capitalize payroll indeed resulted in a bargain bottom deal for Giancarlo Stanton, who will now call the Yankees his team. The….Angels won the Shohei Ohtani sweepstakes, […]
Where are the Trades?
Brewers GM David Stearns was affectionately labeled “Slingin’ Stearns” by Brewers fans upon taking helm of the organization. The young GM blazed a new roster by making deals at a furious pace, and some of his first trades remain his greatest hits (for example, the Jonathan Villar trade is still as good as the Travis […]
GMs and Rebuilding Time
What is a successful rebuilding effort by an MLB club? This question is worth asking in light of the recent Championships by the Houston Astros and Chicago Cubs, both clubs that scorched the earth in order to return to glory in a fully remade club format. In both cases, new front office management teams spearheaded […]