When Brewers GM David Stearns took over the reins of the club, his first move established a particular type of rebuilding approach: he traded reliever Francisco Rodriguez to Detroit for infield prospect Javier Betancourt and a player to be named later (catcher Manny Pina). This was a relatively solid trade for an established-but-not-necessarily-impact veteran reliever, […]
Category: Articles
2018 MILB Context I: Batters
It’s early in the minor league season, which causes one particular issue in prospect coverage: thus far, the scouting report and prospect list coverage is in the works, so there is an information asymmetry in terms of statistics versus scouting information. This is problematic because, in the first place, minor league statistics do not have […]
Tyrone Taylor is Requesting Reinstatement on Your Prospect Lists
This time last year, the story of Tyrone Taylor looked like it was heading down a classic minor league path: Flashy prospect flames out. Taylor had just spent a second frustrating year in Double-A Biloxi, and was set to embark on a disheartening third tour of duty. It would have been unthinkable a few years […]
Weekend Recap: Beating Bad Teams
While the ending was bittersweet, the Brewers had another successful week. They won four of their six games, with three wins in Cincinnati. However, they only took one of three games from Pittsburgh at home. Unfortunately, this performance seems to have created a schism on Brewers Twitter. Some look at the Brewers, a team with […]
The Big Jump: Thomas Jankins
The jump from Class-A Advanced to to Double-A is considered to be one of the most difficult steps in a player’s minor league development. As Alex Skillin wrote for The Hardball Times in 2015, “Double-A, the thinking goes, is where a minor leaguer’s true ability is tested for the first time against competition that can […]
Run, Pitcher, Run: A Dave Bush Story
A baseball season is long, and weird things happen as a result of teams trying to pace themselves through 162 games. The 25-man limit forces managers to get creative, and in-game roster contortions create amusing situations where players are put in positions they are not comfortable with. Everyone has their favorite; there is an entire […]
Using Deserved Run Average
Baseball Prospectus officially released the new Deserved Run Average (DRA) this week, fresh with a new set of improvements, as always. The main site will have more information coming soon to highlight some of the specific methodological tweaks that were made for the latest DRA. In the meantime, the data are here to play with […]
Weekend Recap: Santana and Jeffress
The Brewers’ eight-game winning streak against some of the worst teams in MLB ended abruptly in Chicago, as the Brewers were swept by the Cubs in a four-game series over the weekend. The sweep was particularly disappointing because the pitching stood toe to toe with the vaunted Cubs offense and held them in check all […]
The Run-Scoring Drought as Milwaukee’s Wake Up Call
It was a disastrous weekend in Chicago for the Brewers, who managed all of two runs as they were shut out twice in a four-game series at Wrigley Field. First place in the division was swiftly surrendered as the Brewers bats went cold; Milwaukee now sits tied for third, 1.5 games back. The cold bats […]
Offensive Ordering
Entering play Sunday, the Brewers offense rode a listless Chicago series to erase many of their gains made over the last couple of weeks. While the bats have performed at a notably below average rate throughout the season, there were signs of life while picking on some of the National League bottom feeders: Milwaukee scored […]