On December 20th, the Milwaukee Brewers shored up the backend of their starting rotation by signing the soon-to-be thirty-year-old right-hander Jhoulys Chacin to a two-year, $15.5 million dollar contract. Chacin is coming off of what was perhaps the best season of his career. He was worth a career-high 2.9 WARP over 180.3 innings pitched with […]
Tag: 2018 Brewers
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 […]
Improving on “Good” is Hard.
I like Yuniesky Betancourt, and it’s not just because one time he had a shockingly productive playoff performance for the Brewers. I like Yuni because it’s really easy to improve on Yuni. If you have Yuni as your shortstop or, god forbid, your first baseman, you can sign a guy like Adam Lind to a […]
Understanding Brett Phillips
It’s hard to overstate the significance of the July 2015 trade deadline. No other 48-hour period has so dramatically altered the franchise than the one that netted the Crew Domingo Santana, Brett Phillips, Josh Hader, and Adrian Houser (to say nothing of Zach Davies, who found his way into Brewers blue through a separate deal). […]
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 […]
It’s a Bad Time to Sell Santana
On December 8th, Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic reported that the Milwaukee Brewers were shopping outfielder Domingo Santana. In a vacuum, it makes sense for the Brewers to seek to trade Santana. The twenty-five-year-old is coming off a breakthrough season in which he posted an .876 on-base-plus-slugging percentage with 30 home runs and 15 stolen […]
A Short Defense of Ohtani to the NL
Look, I’m fully on the Shohei Ohtani bandwagon. I’ve purchased my seat, fastened my seatbelt, and already asked the wagon attendant about the food and beverage service because I’m going to be here a while. Chances are, you’re intrigued too, as a 23 year-old pitcher signed for almost the league minimum who, according to ZiPS, projects […]
Trading Impact Prospects
The Milwaukee Brewers are entering uncharted territory for the David Stearns regime this winter. Stearns and his manager Craig Counsell have both spoken about not setting limits on what a team may be able to do in a given season, and that philosophy helped guide the team to a surprising 86-win campaign and near playoff […]
Against the Austerity Ideology
2017 may go down as the year of triumph of the austerity ideology in sports. Not only did the Astros break through and shockingly satisfy Sports Illustrated’s once-ridiculed (by yours truly among others) prophecy to win the World Series a mere half-decade after entering one of the boldest tanking projects in sports history; Basketball’s Philadelphia 76ers have also […]