Jeremy Hellickson might be the perfect pitcher to define the 2018 free agency class. There’s a lack of true impact arms outside of Yu Darvish and Jake Arrieta, both right-handed pitchers that are almost certain to receive massive contracts. Along with Arrieta and Darvish, the injured Michael Pineda also provides a potential upside play for […]
Author: Nicholas Zettel
Brewers 2018 Top Prospects
When the rebuilding began in earnest in July 2015, everyone marked it on their calendars: entering the 2018 season, the new and improved Brewers would have their first competitive, winning season under their belts, and the top of the farm system would be defined by internal draft picks moreso than rebuilding trades. 2018 Milwaukee Brewers […]
Free Agency II: Forecasting Chase
What’s next for the Brewers’ surprising rotation leader Chase Anderson? Can the Brewers be expected to draw lessons from Anderson into further roster moves? Throughout the summer, I found myself repeating an argument about the Brewers front office: if the Brewers front office implements scouting, mechanical, and coaching adjustments with a given player, they have […]
Free Agency I: The Stage
As far as fan and analyst sentiment goes, the MLB free agency crop entering 2018 leaves much to be desired. Aside from a couple of big ticket players, the free agency list appears to be full of role players or players in the decline phase of their career. However, looking at the list through another […]
Rebuilding is a Scam
Late into the Game 7 broadcast preceding the Astros’ 2017 World Series victory, the FOX broadcast team devolved into an insulting-yet-fitting discussion of the devastating floods following Hurricane Harvey. The story goes that Houston Astros players kept photos of devastation in their lockers, so as to remind them of their relatively easy jobs; the story […]
Offseason 1: Securing Roles
Yesterday, the Brewers signed two contracts that will keep key players from 2017 with the organization. GM David Stearns signed RHP Chase Anderson to a guaranteed two-year contract, which also includes escalators and club options that could extent to a four-year deal north of $30 million. This deal gambles on the distance between the gains […]
Roster Surplus and Depth Questions
The 2018 Milwaukee Brewers are in quite a strange position, representing the bundle of contradictions that defined their uncanny 2017 campaign. On the one hand, the organization dropped a “rebuilding” narrative in 2015, meaning that industry writers, analysts, and fans alike did not expect the club to compete, let alone contend, for several years; on […]
2013 Prospect Class: Impact
The 2013 Baseball Prospectus Organizational Top 10 prospects had quite an impact on the 2017 season. This impact includes the Milwaukee Brewers, who saw major trade Tyler Thornburg, roster-drop Scooter Gennett, and final rotational season for Wily Peralta define their in-house 2013 class. Jonathan Villar, Domingo Santana, Lewis Brinson, and Josh Hader made varying organizational […]
Refining WARP and OFP Pricing
Throughout the Brewers rebuilding effort, a difficult question occupied my mind: how does one assess a successful rebuild while it is occurring? There is obviously plenty of room for post hoc analysis, and perhaps room to create expectations about a rebuild (for example, one could say, “the Brewers rebuild is successful if they win 450 […]
Fluctuation Race
The 2017 Cubs had a good rotation, as far as typical, standard rotations go. The club entered the season with their four most productive starters locked in, and many pundits praised their depth moves to fill out the back of the rotation. When a team can prevent more than 100 runs on the front end, […]