ESPN ranking

[dacbrewers]

Haven't the Brewers farm systems over the past 4 years won an Arizona League title, Midwest League Title and a Pioneer League Title? That's probably better than most of the organizations.

[monty57]

Haven't the Brewers farm systems over the past 4 years won an Arizona League title, Midwest League Title and a Pioneer League Title? That's probably better than most of the organizations.

 

reillymcshane's answer in post #9 answers this pretty well. The Brewers have quite a few players who could very well be MLB players. Whether that's a back-of-the-rotation starter, a middle reliever, a utility player or maybe even a league average starter for a few seasons. They lack "star quality" players... guys like Fielder, Braun, Hardy and Weeks around whom we built the run we've been on for the recent past.

 

My concern is that over the next few seasons we will lose a lot of good players. We can't afford to pick up equally talented free agents, and we don't have equally talented prospects to replace them. If you lose players and replace them with less talented players, a logical conclusion would be that we will be worse in a few years than we are today, and today we are a long-shot for a playoff spot.

 

Our hope seems to lie on having a large number of our young pitchers stay healthy and outperform their projections, while our very young hitters shoot through the ranks to be MLB-ready as guys like Hart, Weeks and Ramirez hit free agency. That, to me, seems pretty unlikely. It seems far more likely that we're going to have a greater and greater percentage of our payroll going to a fewer number of players, and those players are going to be surrounded by league-average / "AAAA" type players.

[PrinceFielderx1]

He probably said Peralta is a back end rotation starter back in the day, and he's likely going to be wrong about that as well.

 

You know this is easy to look up. From 2010.

 

Peralta, a strong right-handed starter listed at 6-foot-2, 225 pounds, pitched at 92-96 in a four-inning start for the Brewers' high-A roster, tearing through an underpowered Lynchburg (Cincinnati Reds) lineup. Peralta's best secondary pitch last year was his slider, but on Thursday he showed a better changeup -- one that looks like an 84-86 mph two-seamer with its late tail. He was getting around his slider, flipping it out of his hand instead of snapping it, but it did still have a late downward break, as if it just rolled off the end of a table. His hand travels a long way from glove to release but his arm action is otherwise fine, and he takes an enormous stride toward the plate to maximize his velocity. There's no projection remaining here, so Peralta just needs to refine that slider and keep working on his fastball command (which was pretty good on Thursday) to get to the majors; at worst we're talking about a No. 2-3 starter who carries a 200-inning workload, given that frame and delivery.

 

From 2011

 

Peralta has shot up the prospect lists, earning an honorable mention on Keith Law’s Top 50 Midseason Prospects list (albeit a list which didn’t include some players like Mike Trout due to their presence in the majors at the time) to go with his dominating performance.

 

And he had him ranked the 39th best prospect in baseball in the beginning of 2012.

 

You guys who think Law is just being biased against the Brewers are ridiculous, what he's saying is spot on. There are a lot of mid to back of the rotation starters and maybe a couple of starters on the position player side but there is no monster upside potential superstar like a Braun or a Trout in the system.

 

He better have made that projection. It was the obvious one.

[igor67]

The extreme underweighting of depth is problematic for exactly the reason the Brewers demonstrated last year. Even on pretty good teams the bulk of the roster will be players in the goodish range. While a season can certainly be sunk by injuries to your key ball players at anytime in many cases the sabotage strikes be knocking out the average guy leaving you having to plug in a black hole. Which naturally enough leads to holding onto OK guys late into arbitration and even FA for players you ought to have a good chance to replace. Teams with less resources don't go broke paying the Hallady's and Grienke's of the world. It's the 3-4 Suppan's that kill you. Being able to cycle guys with minimal talent loss at the bottom of the roster at a low cost is a viable strategy.

 

Also Law is an excellent example of the psychological phenomena where acting like a jerk makes people think you are smarter.

[trwi7]

Haven't the Brewers farm systems over the past 4 years won an Arizona League title, Midwest League Title and a Pioneer League Title? That's probably better than most of the organizations.

 

When you draft a bunch of college kids and put them in leagues with a bunch of high school kids they're probably going to win a lot of games.

[monty57]

Being able to cycle guys with minimal talent loss at the bottom of the roster at a low cost is a viable strategy.

 

Yes, but you still need a good core of players to build around. Without them, then all your left with is a bunch of "minimal talent" guys on the roster.

 

Melvin's "window" strategy is why we have a poor farm system, with a few high-priced vets eating up a diminishing payroll. Rather than attempt to infuse the system with some good young talent, Melvin appears to be trying to keep the "window" open a sliver for another year or two. I'm just interested in seeing how we replace the talent we're going to lose as our aging, expensive core drops off the books. Whether the farm is really #29, #24 or whatever, it still lacks impact talent, so we aren't going to replace multiple players with All-Star level talent from the farm.

 

I don't want to sound like an eternal pessimist, but where does everyone else see us in two years? We'll have a 31-year old Braun making $12MM, 29-year-old Yo on option at $13MM, 33-year old Weeks at $11.5MM and 29-year old Lucroy at $3MM. After that, we lose Yo and Weeks. Do we have the horses to fill in around them? Even if we go out and buy a couple of expensive FAs, can we have enough talent on the field to not stink?

 

Maybe I shouldn't worry about the future, but that's really what the minor league system is all about. It's a big part of what draws me to baseball... you can "predict" what the team might look like a few years down the road. I really hope some of the optimism on Brewerfan.net is well-grounded, and our current group of prospects outshine the pundits' seemingly low expectations.

[TooLiveBrew]

I don't want to sound like an eternal pessimist, but where does everyone else see us in two years?

You're not -- you're being realistic. The Brewers have whiffed too much in recent years at the tops of their drafts to be in a comfortable position. I also completely agree that Melvin's window 'strategy' is a massive problem & has done so much more damage to the organization than most Brewers fans are willing to admit.

[TheCrew07]

The extreme underweighting of depth is problematic for exactly the reason the Brewers demonstrated last year.

 

First I hope everyone who reads the forum realizes that I don't hold Law in much regard, simply put if he was that good as a talent evaluator he wouldn't be working for ESPN. However, I also don't think that anything he said about the system isn't true. I think he gets individual players wrong all the time, like saying Thornburg wasn't athletic, which isn't true, but he did do a decent job qualifying the system.

 

I don't know that depth being weighed properly is the issue, I think the issue is that when you're best case for most of the players in your top 10 is "MLB regular" that means their best case is to be average. Well statistically how many players reach their best case or exceed expectations? For every fringy average velocity/stuff guy like Marcum there's 3-4 Manny Parra types... guys with legit stuff that couldn't get the job done. The odds of being successful without legitimate tools are even longer, what guy who put up good stats through his minor league career but didn't have at least one good pitch ever did anything for the Brewers? On the positional side of things, guys like Brady Clark and Casey McGehee should be good examples of why many of us don't get over excited when a player over achieves, they tend to crash back to earth very quickly.

 

There's a difference between being able to appreciate players who maximize their talent and get the most out of what they are given and then being able to project a guy to have success against his peers. I can appreciate McGehee for what he is but I'd rather have a Longoria in the minors to replace him with. For example, I believe Khris Davis will hit MLB pitching and I admit that I may ultimately be proven wrong, but I also understand why talent evaluators aren't jumping all over themselves to pimp his virtue with the stats he's putting up. As a total package his tools are average at best, 2 are way below average, and he's limited defensively. Khris is an easy guy to root for because of his work ethic, production, and humble nature, but it's very difficult to sit here and project him to be anything more than an average MLB player for a couple of years.

 

That's nothing to sneeze at, it's certainly more than I accomplished athletically but on a macro level it's also impossible to compete for anything meaningful if you're constantly replacing 4 WAR players with 2 WAR players. Either you need to replace some 2 WAR players with 4 WAR players at other positions or you're team is going to be steadily declining. Or put another way, what positional player above R+ could any of us legitimately claim will be a 4 WAR MLB player at their peak, knowing what we know today? I think Segura could get there if he sticks at SS and improves defensively, but he's not a prospect anymore.

 

Certainly as Weeks and Hart age their production will decline, which is precisely why we shouldn't extend them again but please don't get caught up in the 2/4 WAR thing. I know those aren't precise figures as they can't be since we're talking about future production, I was just illustrating my point by using league average vs "good". I know we really might be talking about replacing a 3.1 WAR guy with 2.4 WAR guy, but my point still stands, we're losing ground.

 

Losing Ground - that's the problem with the farm system as it stands now, we don't have enough impact talent to maintain what we have. I love the depth, I think any long time farm follower loves the depth, quality depth is extremely important, but not at the expense of legitimate impact talent, which we're sorely lacking.

[PrinceFielderx1]

Monty,

 

I've really learned really not to put much stock in the prospect rankings; especially the top 100. It changes way too often to really mean anything. Heading into the season the top 100 could mean one thing, and then by mid-season could mean something completely different. It's very fluid in my opinion. The top 20-25 prospects, however, most of the time stay consistent for the whole season.

 

In regards to Peralta being the only one ranked in the top 100 in the Brewers system, I think whoever does that hasn't really paid much attention to the Brewers system much including the major league team, but not just that, it's really hard to project the level of major league success.

 

Peralta - This kid is in my opinion going to be special. He's could be one of those true aces in baseball. Better than Gallardo. Gallardo isn't a true ace in my book at least not yet. He's going to be an innings eater and a pitcher who can hit 98 mph for the whole game when he needs too. He reminds me a lot of CC Sabathia in terms of durability and velocity. Big guy.

 

Fiers - in my head I just know he's going to be at least a mid-rotation starting pitcher and possibly as good as a number 1-2. Why? His mechanics are super good and consistent, which explains his excellent control. He has a excellent curveball, which is probably one of the best curveballs from a Brewers starting pitcher I have seen since Ben Sheets, and one of the best in the Majors. My philosophy when it comes to projecting pitchers success is that if you have good location on your fastball, curveball, change-up you are going to have lot's major league success no matter how hard you throw, because you are going to be very deceiving with that arm slot. I believe he throws all of those pitches from the same overhead arm slot, fyi, which is so hard for a batter to pick up and to know what's coming. The sky is the limit with him. He needs to be in the top 100 and possibly closer to top 50. He can handle pressure very well and that's hard to put a price on.

 

Rogers - It's nearly impossible to put this guy in the top 100, because he's been injured way to often to know what he's really capable of. Also, I believe he's had more success in the Majors, then he has in the minors, which is kind of backwards. He just seems like better pitcher when he's with the Brewers ball club, and we will find that out when he pitches more innings this year in the majors. We all know he has wicked stuff. Give this guy lot's of playing time and let him off his leash in Milwaukee and should he prove to be durable, and get ahead of batters, he could be a 1-2 starting pitcher, as well. 52 SO in 49IP in the majors says to me he can do that. btw.. If he would have been more healthy over his minor league career I'd bet he would have cracked the top 50 prospect lists, but that's just my opinion/speculation.

 

Estrada - is very aggressive in the strike zone and has the velocity and stuff to be able to do that and be effective. He's a good 3-4 Starting pitcher.

 

Bottom line: I don't care at all about under rating the Brewers prospects. As long as they get to the Majors and have some sort of success I'm satisfied. Scouts have such a hard job if you really think about it. These sports writers who make these projections or top 50-100 prospect lists have a nearly impossible job, and it's really unnecessary if you think about it. They just do it to gather interest in them and their opinions.

[trwi7]

Fiers - in my head I just know he's going to be at least a mid-rotation starting pitcher and possibly as good as a number 1-2. Why? His mechanics are super good and consistent, which explains his excellent control. He has a excellent curveball, which is probably one of the best curveballs from a Brewers starting pitcher I have seen since Ben Sheets, and one of the best in the Majors.

 

You must have just started watching baseball.

[PrinceFielderx1]

Fiers - in my head I just know he's going to be at least a mid-rotation starting pitcher and possibly as good as a number 1-2. Why? His mechanics are super good and consistent, which explains his excellent control. He has a excellent curveball, which is probably one of the best curveballs from a Brewers starting pitcher I have seen since Ben Sheets, and one of the best in the Majors.

 

You must have just started watching baseball.

 

Care to elaborate? That is a snide comment if I've ever heard one. If you trust Keith Law and believe that he knows what he is talking about when it comes to the Brewers system as a whole, then you must be new to the game. That's me being nice, btw..

 

I haven't see that many batters fail to make solid contact on a cuveball like that since Been Sheets. There have been other Brewers starting pitchers with good cerveballs, but none this good. I'm sorry you're not able to see it.

[trwi7]

Fiers' curveball is big and loopy but it's certainly not a swing and miss pitch and it's definitely not one of the best curveballs ever from a Brewers pitcher. It's not even Fiers' best offspeed pitch. Gallardo has a far better curve than Fiers. Greinke had a far better one when he was here as well.

 

I love Fiers for what he is, a cheap mid rotation starter who can give you 200 innings a year but he's not a possible 1-2 imo and he doesn't have one of the best curveballs in the majors.

[PrinceFielderx1]

Fiers' curveball is big and loopy but it's certainly not a swing and miss pitch and it's definitely not one of the best curveballs ever from a Brewers pitcher. It's not even Fiers' best offspeed pitch. Gallardo has a far better curve than Fiers. Greinke had a far better one when he was here as well.

 

I love Fiers for what he is, a cheap mid rotation starter who can give you 200 innings a year but he's not a possible 1-2 imo and he doesn't have one of the best curveballs in the majors.

 

Trust me Trwi7 when a batter knows that Gallardo's curveball is coming 7/10 times the batter can square up on it and it's going to go far. I know a good curveball when I see one. Gallardo's curveball is 3rd best behind Sheets and Fiers for starting pitchers.

 

A curveball isn't a great curveball, because of how hard it's thrown. Ben Sheets/Gallardo have more of a power curveball. It's a great pitch when it has a huge break to it, changes they eye angle (12/6), and when a hitter doesn't know it's coming, and it can be thrown for a strike from time to time. I have seen Fiers make some of the best hitters in the NL look like 8th graders in high school ball trying to hit a curveball even when he hanged a couple of them. I know that some of those mlb batters even knew the curveball was coming and the only contact they made was while they were on their knees and the ball didn't go up, but rather was hit so poorly that it bounced on home plate and rolled 2-3 feet and that was that. I have seen batters look really off balance (seem drunk) when trying to make contact with a Fiers curveball.

 

I stick by my statement 100%, and I'm also aware that he has other great pitches which is why he could be a 1-2 in the future.

[logan82]

We also saw Fiers get lit up by MLB hitting for a month straight.

[monty57]

I hope Fiers can build on last year's success, but he is 27 (28 in June), so although he was a rookie last year, he is already in his prime. He is going to be a key guy to watch this year, because if he is the guy we saw early on, he could be a mainstay in the rotation for the next five seasons. There is a good chance that he just fooled guys who had never seen him, and once they got some film on him they started hitting him, then he may not be more than a guy fighting for the 5th rotation spot. I don't think we have a clear picture, so I really hope he gets a long leash in the starting rotation this year.

 

Rogers is too much of an injury risk to count on long-term. I really hope they give him a shot in the rotation to start the season, and will be pretty upset if he's bumped to the bullpen, as he could be very valueable starter. He has "stuff," but needs to be able to go deeper into games. I'd say his ultimate upside would be Rich Harden, where he gets a lot of Ks in the 5-6 innings he pitches per outing, and continually gets derailed by injuries. He's got the talent, so the Brewers should get as many starts out of him as they can before his arm explodes. I worry that he is going to be the odd man out, and will end up pitching from the bullpen, seriously decreasing his value to the team. Note also that Rogers is also 27, so he too is in his prime right now, and I think the odds are more likely that he fits into the 3-5 spots in a rotation then that he will become a regular top-of-the-rotation starter.

 

I like Estrada as a middle-of-the rotation starter. He seems to be much better as a starter than as a reliever, so I hope he breaks camp in the rotation. He seems to be doing what a lot of Brewer pitchers will have to do, which is defying scouts and reaching his "ceiling." Estrada turns 30 this year, and is in his first arby year. Since I don't think Melvin will ever consider the notion of trading Gallardo, I think Estrada could be a guy that (if he puts up another decent year this year) could be dangled as trade-bait next offseason as younger guys come up from the farm. A solid, proven middle-of-the-rotation starter with two years of arbitration remaining could net us some much needed position player prospect(s).

 

Peralta is our most physically talented starter, and that includes Gallardo. He's also the only young guy we have in the rotation (everyone else is only "young" in terms of MLB tenure). He is one of the two guys on the roster (along with Segura) who we probably should look at extending in the near future. His physical abilities could allow him to peak as a top-of-the-rotation guy. The negative I heard, which is kind of sticking with me was when he was initially with the Brewers last year, pitching out of the pen, and the announcer (I don't remember who) said that the Brewers had some concerns about his mental makeup, so they were trying to put him in a "low pressure" situation. He came in and got hit around pretty bad, and then went back to AAA where he took about a month to get it back together. He's still relatively young, and he did get it back together, including pitching well for the Brewers in September. But, I don't like that the Brewers have concerns about his mental makeup. If that becomes a non-issue, he should be good.

 

So, I see reasons for optimism. We could have a decent/"league average" rotation this season which, along with our dominant offense and some luck could lead us to the playoffs this season. Or some of the guys could falter (certainly a possibility), leading to a less-than-average rotation and probably knocking us from any playoff hopes. But my previous posts weren't looking at this year. My concern is for the future. Will the guys listed above, along with the guys coming up from the farm (our pitching is the strength of the farm) be good enough to keep us in playoff contention as our offense weakens with the losses of guys like Hart, Weeks and Ramirez, and will we have some top-of-the-rotation guys emerge to replace Gallardo when he's gone?

 

If the answer to the previous question is "no," then the question becomes: "Is it worth taking a long-shot for the playoffs this year, or would we be better off making a few moves (like trading Gomez or having traded Hart prior to his injury) that may take a step back this season, but would strengthen our farm so we'd have a better shot at being good in the future."

 

I obviously think that the odds of making the playoffs this year are slim enough that we should have started looking at ways to build for the future a while ago. That's why I kind of sound like a broken record in saying "he could be traded." Since we're "going for it" again this year, all I can hope for is that everything clicks, everyone has a career year, leading us to win the World Series, and in the future enough of our prospects defy the odds and outplay their projectsion that we still have a good team to cheer for in the future. Maybe Arnett will come back from his surgery and become the #1 starter he was drafted to be.

[NotTheFakeDrugBust]

We also saw Fiers get lit up by MLB hitting for a month straight.

 

He also had a 11.14 k/9 rate and .403 BABIP against that month.

[xisxisxis]

I think there's a lot of similarity in the A's, Brewers, and Braves systems, but I don't think you can argue they are clearly worse than the Brewers. I am fine with a 23rd ranking.

 

Well in early February I thought 23rd was about right for the brewers. Baseball America in the latest issue have their organizational rankings and the Brewers are ranked, drumroll, 23rd......