Here’s a well-worn story: A Dominican kid signs a contract with a Major League team, plays ball for a few seasons, struggles to develop as a prospect, and gets cut. This sort of thing happens so often it’s scarcely worth reporting. The kid finds another job or starts a family and that’s that. At least […]
Author: Noah Nofz
Valuing Brent Suter
Last Friday, in one of the biggest games of the season, Brent Suter shone. Suter delivered seven innings of brutal efficiency, mowing through the Cubs’ championship lineup in just 82 pitches. The lanky lefty scattered four meager singles, walked one batter, and fanned five. It was an electric performance, and one that carried the slumping […]
The Land of Booms and Busts
Class-AAA baseball is the league of good-but-not-good-enough, the land of booms and busts. On one hand, that can be thrilling. You can find many of the game’s top prospects honing their talents in AAA before an inevitable ascent to the big leagues. On the other hand, it can be devastating. AAA rosters are littered with […]
Luke Barker is Blazing His Trail
The thing about the bottom falling out is that there’s usually no warning. So it was for Luke Barker on June 10, 2015, the final day of that year’s MLB First-Year Player Draft. Barker sported a 2.91 ERA over 72 collegiate appearances, stands 6’4” and weighed in at 210 pounds on draft day. He has […]
The Other Overlooked Cooper
There’s a player named Cooper opening some eyes on the Brewers farm this year. He can hit for average, draw a walk, and slug one into the gap. He plays a position of recent organizational need, though a few shrewd offseason moves have clouded his path to the bigs. Sound familiar? You might be thinking […]
The Rise, Fall, and Return of Matt Ramsey
Value can come from anywhere. More than anything else, this is the edict of the David Stearns era in Milwaukee. For the past year and a half, Brewers fans have been privy to a magical world where minor league filler is flipped for major league assets and grizzled veterans become improbable trade chips. The waiver […]
Analyzing Espino’s Whirl-windy Debut
My dad, who grew up in and around Chicago, remembers driving into Wrigleyville with a friend in the summer of 1969, when Billy Williams, Ron Santo, and Ernie Banks batted 3-4-5 for the Cubs. He was seventeen years old and was there to see his first-place Cubs take on the New York Mets. The Cubs […]
Tristan Archer Aims for Miller Park
Throwing a small object past a man holding a stick and standing 60 feet away doesn’t sound all that tough. But when the object has to land within an area slightly larger than three square feet and the man holding the stick has muscles the size of your head…. Well, there’s a reason I write […]
Chasing Greatness
Chase Anderson was never a heralded prospect. He’s never been a heralded major leaguer, either. In the January 2016 trade that brought him to Milwaukee, Anderson flew surprisingly under the radar. Never mind that he was a controllable young starting pitcher. Aaron Hill blossomed into an unexpected deadline chip and Isan Diaz rode his powerful […]
Signing Shohei Otani
Chances are you’ve heard about Shohei Otani. Talent hounds have been braying his name for years, and with good reason. A quick introduction: Last year, he performed like Noah Syndergaard on the hill and Mike Trout with the stick. His résumé in the Japan Pacific League included a 1.86 ERA with 11.2 strikeouts against 2.9 walks […]