Below is an analysis of the prospects in the farm system of the Milwaukee Brewers. Scouting reports were compiled with information provided by industry sources as well as my own observations. This is the third year we’re delineating between two anticipated relief roles, the abbreviations for which you’ll see in the “position” column below: MIRP for multi-inning relief pitchers, and SIRP for single-inning relief pitchers. The ETAs listed generally correspond to the year a player has to be added to the 40-man roster to avoid being made eligible for the Rule 5 draft. Manual adjustments are made where they seem appropriate, but I use that as a rule of thumb.

A quick overview of what FV (Future Value) means can be found here. A much deeper overview can be found here.

All of the ranked prospects below also appear on The Board, a resource the site offers featuring sortable scouting information for every organization. It has more details (and updated TrackMan data from various sources) than this article and integrates every team’s list so readers can compare prospects across farm systems. It can be found here. Read the rest of this entry »

What kind of hitter did the Milwaukee Brewers get when they acquired Owen Miller from the Cleveland Guardians on Wednesday in exchange for a player to be named later or cash? Statistically speaking, the answer is someone who put up uninspiring numbers in his first full big-league season. The infielder, who recently turned 26 years old, logged a .287 wOBA and an 85 wRC+ in 472 plate appearances. After starting strong — he had a 1.043 OPS on May 8, and had delivered a number of clutch hits — Miller provided only a modicum of value with the bat.

In terms of his overall development as a hitter, Miller has evolved — intent-wise more than production-wise to this point — from the player who Eric Longenhagen described prior to the 2021 season. Ranking him No. 14 on that year’s Cleveland Top Prospects list, our lead prospect analyst wrote that the former third-round pick out of Illinois State University had a “minimalistic swing [that] enables him to make high rates of contact, while the strength in Miller’s hands generates doubles power.”

Miller stroked 26 doubles this past season, but only six home runs, and he had 93 strikeouts to go with 32 walks. By and large, he remains a work-in-progress — albeit one who can provide value with his versatility while continuing to work on his offensive skills.

The newest Brewer talked hitting in an interview that took place a handful of months into the season, only to be placed on the back burner until now.

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David Laurila: How would you describe yourself as a hitter?

Owen Miller: “I’ve kind of changed, I would say. When I was younger — coming up in college, and in the minors — I was very contact-oriented, with a very line drive approach. I was handsy, trying to manipulate my barrel. Then, over the quarantine period when we had time to work on things… I understood that there are things that elite hitters do as far as using their bodies more, and I started to make some swing changes off of that. Not really swing changes, per se, but rather adjustments. Read the rest of this entry »

The following article is part of Jay Jaffe’s ongoing look at the candidates on the BBWAA 2023 Hall of Fame ballot. For a detailed introduction to this year’s ballot, and other candidates in the series, use the tool above; an introduction to JAWS can be found here. For a tentative schedule, and a chance to fill out a Hall of Fame ballot for our crowdsourcing project, see here. All WAR figures refer to the Baseball-Reference version unless otherwise indicated.

Francisco Rodríguez was the October Surprise. As the Angels went on their 2002 postseason run, they introduced a secret weapon out of their bullpen, a 20-year-old Venezuelan righty with an unholy fastball-slider combination and the poise of a grizzled veteran despite him having all of 5.2 major league innings under his belt. Often throwing multiple innings and quickly graduating into a setup role in front of closer Troy Percival, Rodríguez set a number of records, including one for the most strikeouts by a reliever in a single postseason (28) while helping the Angels to their first (and to date only) championship in franchise history.

Though he endured some growing pains at the major league level, by 2004 Rodríguez was an All-Star, and from ’05-08 he led the American League in saves three times, setting a still-standing single-season record with 62 in the last of those campaigns. His mid-90s fastball and mid-80s slider befuddled hitters, while his demonstrative antics — “a melange of pirouettes, fist pumps and primordial screams,” as one writer put it — sometimes got under their skin.

Rodríguez cashed in via free agency, signing a three-year, $37 million deal with the Mets, but he was rarely the same pitcher he’d been in Anaheim. He made three more All-Star teams, but was arrested twice, once for assaulting his girlfriend’s father (and tearing ligaments in his thumb in the process) and once for domestic abuse. He pled guilty to the former and attended anger management classes, while the charges for the latter were dropped when the woman left to return to Venezuela. Both incidents likely would have interrupted his career to an even greater degree had they occurred after Major League Baseball and the Players Association adopted its domestic violence policy in 2015. Read the rest of this entry »

The Oakland Athletics are in search of a new ballpark, either within Oakland or elsewhere — most likely Las Vegas. If and when that comes to pass, the aging Coliseum will probably be torn down. And here’s where the A’s lose me: They seem to be under the impression that their active players must all be evacuated in the form of being traded to other organizations before the ballpark is destroyed.

The Atlanta Braves were in no hurry to disabuse Oakland of this notion, as they pried catcher Sean Murphy from Oakland’s clutches Monday afternoon as part of a three-team deal with the Milwaukee Brewers. Four weeks ago I wrote about the trade market for Murphy, made expendable in Oakland by the emergence of Shea Langeliers, who came over from the Braves in the Matt Olson trade. Therein, I specifically noted the Braves as a team that should not trade for Murphy, owing to Atlanta’s surfeit of catchers: Travis d’Arnaud and William Contreras.

Sure enough, with Murphy coming in, not one but two catchers are heading out. Contreras is headed north, while third-stringer — and longtime Brewers backup — Manny Piña will go to Oakland. Speedster Esteury Ruiz is also headed down the John Jaha Highway from Milwaukee to Oakland, and no fewer than five pitchers fill out this salad bar of a trade: Freddy Tarnok, Kyle Muller and Royber Salinas from Atlanta to Oakland, Joel Payamps from Oakland to Milwaukee, and Justin Yeager from Atlanta to Milwaukee.

Here’s the entire three-team, nine-player deal in table form, for clarity’s sake.

Nine players makes for a big trade, but nevertheless, let’s go through each name in at least some detail before drawing conclusions. Read the rest of this entry »

The following article is part of Jay Jaffe’s ongoing look at the candidates on the BBWAA 2023 Hall of Fame ballot. Originally written for the 2015 election at SI.com, it has been updated to reflect recent voting results as well as additional research. For a detailed introduction to this year’s ballot, and other candidates in the series, use the tool above; an introduction to JAWS can be found here. For a tentative schedule and a chance to fill out a Hall of Fame ballot for our crowdsourcing project, see here. All WAR figures refer to the Baseball-Reference version unless otherwise indicated.

Wherever Gary Sheffield went, he made noise, both with his bat and his voice. For the better part of two decades, he ranked among the game’s most dangerous hitters, a slugger with a keen batting eye and a penchant for contact that belied his quick, violent swing. For even longer than that, he was one of the game’s most outspoken players, unafraid to speak up when he felt he was being wronged and unwilling to endure a situation that wasn’t to his liking. He was a polarizing player, and hardly one for the faint of heart.

At the plate, Sheffield was viscerally impressive like few others. With his bat twitching back and forth like the tail of a tiger waiting to pounce, he was pure menace in the batter’s box. He won a batting title, launched over 500 home runs — he had 14 seasons with at least 20 and eight with at least 30 — and put many a third base coach in peril with some of the most terrifying foul balls anyone has ever seen. For as violent as his swing may have been, it was hardly wild; not until his late 30s did he strike out more than 80 times in a season, and in his prime, he walked far more often than he struck out. Read the rest of this entry »

Friday afternoon is traditionally the time when organizations dump unpleasant news. The week before the Winter Meetings, it’s also the time when organizations finally get rid of players they’ve been trying to trade. To that end, the Seattle Mariners have acquired second baseman Kolten Wong, along with $1.75 million in cash, from the Milwaukee Brewers in exchange for infielder Abraham Toro and outfielder Jesse Winker.

Huh. Interesting. Read the rest of this entry »

The Milwaukee Brewers are looking to add talented people to their Baseball Research and Development department. The R&D team is involved in every aspect of the organization, including acquisition, player development and scouting and works closely with those departments to build processes and tools for decision making.

We’re looking for people who ask important questions and have the ability to start to answer them. We primarily use R and SQL, with some Python mixed in, but we’ll help you learn our tools if you’re more comfortable with a different set. Having existing knowledge of baseball and sabermetrics is helpful, but not required.

R&D team members generally work 40 to 45 hour weeks, although many choose to stay and attend home games during the season. There can be some weekend support and there are certain times of year (draft, trade deadline) where there may be additional needs. Some travel to spring training or minor league affiliates may be required for full-time positions.

We have the following openings available:

Senior Analyst (Application Link)

What you’d do:

The Senior Analyst owns the design and implementation of various predictive and explanatory models and processes used by other areas of the front office in making baseball decisions. They collaborate closely with departments like Player Personnel, Scouting, Player Development and High Performance to deeply understand their needs and drive innovative solutions.

What we’re looking for:

If you’re someone who has experience creating models with uncertain data and can translate the results into actionable information, you’re a good candidate for this position. You’re comfortable being given a problem or desired outcome and determining a path to get there. You’re inquisitive, excited to learn how different aspects of the organization work and want to help them improve. You have an advanced degree or a few years of work experience in a technical field.

Existing experience with scouting, performance science, strength training or sports medicine will be helpful, but is not required.

Residence in Milwaukee is strongly preferred, but we may consider remote possibilities for the right candidate. If you are remote, you’ll be expected to travel roughly one week a month to Milwaukee or our training complex in Arizona.

Hiring Process:

After you submit your application, it will be reviewed by one of the leaders of the R&D team. We’ll be looking mostly at your research experience – either for work or fun – along with your educational background and previous positions.

If you are selected to move forward, you will be asked to complete a short questionnaire (around 1 to 2 hours of work) to give us an idea of your statistical and baseball knowledge.

From there, you will have a few phone screens with members of the team.

The final step will be a series of discussions with members of the front office and review an in-depth take-home project (less than 10 hours of work) with the entire R&D department. This review mimics the team’s development process and should give you a feel for what it would be like to work with the group.

Analyst (Application Link)

What you’d do:

The Analyst contributes model components to core R&D processes, creates enhancements based on input from other departments, and answers specific questions from front office decision makers. They work collaboratively with the rest of the R&D department, often building depth in a specific baseball area, such as Scouting, Player Development or High Performance.

What we’re looking for:

If you have built predictive, statistical or mathematical models with some guidance and can convey your findings to non-technical audience, you could be a good fit for this role. You’re comfortable being given a direction and working independently with frequent check-ins with the team. You’re interested in the inner workings of a baseball organization and how R&D can support them. You have a bachelor’s degree or at least a year of work experience in a technical field.

Existing experience with scouting, performance science, strength training or sports medicine will be helpful, but is not required.

Residence in Milwaukee is required for this role to start, but there is a possibility of remote work down the road.

Hiring Process:

After you submit your application, it will be reviewed by one of the leaders of the R&D team. We’ll be looking mostly at your research experience – either for work or fun – along with your educational background and previous positions.

If you are selected to move forward, you will be asked to complete a short questionnaire (around 1 to 2 hours of work) to give us an idea of your statistical and baseball knowledge.
From there, you will have a few phone screens with members of the team.

The final step will be a series of discussions with members of the front office and review an in-depth take-home project (less than 10 hours of work) with the entire R&D department. This review mimics the team’s development process and should give you a feel for what it would be like to work with the group.

The content in this posting was created and provided solely by the Milwaukee Brewers.

Hunter Renfroe was probably getting tired of Milwaukee anyway. After spending the first four years of his career in San Diego, he will join his fifth team in five years as the Brewers sent the 30-year-old outfielder to the Angels in exchange for pitchers Janson Junk, Elvis Peguero, and Adam Seminaris.

Starting with the Los Angeles side of the deal: the Angels know what they’re getting in Renfroe. He’s a bat-first corner outfielder who relies on power to make up for what he lacks in on-base ability. After a poor showing in 2020, he bounced back with a 113 wRC+ in ’21 and posted a nearly identical season in ’22, good for a 124 wRC+ in the tougher offensive environment. He hit 60 home runs between the two seasons and posted a .315 on base percentage in both. He’s projected to make $11.2 million in arbitration this year, then move on to yet another team in 2024 as a free agent.

Renfroe owns a career wRC+ of 136 against lefties versus 97 against righties and has often been viewed as a platoon candidate. He improved his wRC+ to 120 against righties in 2022, however, after putting up 101 wRC+ in 2021. And while his defense isn’t to OAA’s liking, DRS and UZR both tend to rate him right around average, and his excellent arm helps to make up for what he lacks in range. He’ll slot into the outfield next to Mike Trout and Taylor Ward. Steamer projects the trio for 10.3 WAR — a big improvement after Los Angeles got just 0.3 WAR from its left fielders last year, good for 27th in the league. Even though Steamer expects Renfroe to take a step back next year, his projection of 2.0 WAR would patch a significant hole. Read the rest of this entry »

Last Tuesday’s 40-man roster deadline led to the usual squall of transaction activity, with teams turning over portions of their rosters in an effort to make room for the incoming crop of young rookies. Often, teams with an overflow of viable big leaguers will try to get back what they can for some of those players via trade, but because we’re talking about guys straddling the line between major league viability and Triple-A, those trades tend not to be big enough to warrant an entire post.

Over the next few days, we’ll endeavor to cover and analyze the moves made by each team, division by division. Readers can view this as the start of list season, as the players covered in this miniseries tend to be prospects who will get big league time in the next year. We’ll spend more time discussing players who we think need scouting updates or who we haven’t written about in the past. If you want additional detail on some of the more famous names you find below, pop over to The Board for a more thorough report.

The Future Value grades littered throughout these posts may be different than those on the 2022 in-season prospect lists on The Board to reflect our updated opinions and may be subject to change during the offseason. New to our thinking on this subject and wondering what the FVs mean? Here’s a quick rundown. Note that because we’re talking about close-to-the-majors prospects across this entire exercise, the time and risk component is less present here and these FVs are what we think the players are right now. Read the rest of this entry »

Brewers Software Engineering Positions

What is Baseball Systems?

• Baseball Systems is the software backbone of Baseball Operations. We provide data and decision-making tools for analysts, coaches, and front office personnel to help win a World Series.
• Our department consists of a team of data engineers and a team of software engineers who work across all different aspects of Baseball Operations providing support and tools relevant to each group.
• We work directly with stakeholders in every department of Baseball Operations to ensure every project we work on drives value to the organization and helps us win more games on the field.
• We help drive technical innovation to find new ways to solve baseball problems

We are looking for someone who:

• loves baseball.
• has created web apps using HTML, CSS and Javascript frameworks
• has experience developing APIs in C# or other similar languages
• has worked with relational databases
• is familiar with Git version control software.

It’s not required, but would be awesome if you:

• have experience with one of the popular front-end Javascript frameworks. We use Angular.
• have experience building visualizations, including in D3, Plotly, or other frameworks
• are familiar with the Software development lifecycle and JIRA or other issue tracking technologies
• have an interest in sabermetrics and statistical modeling.

What will you do each day?

• Design and develop new features or maintain existing features in our internal web applications.
• Squash bugs quickly.
• Collaborate with Baseball Operations staff to plan new features and ensure requirements are met.
• Develop walk-throughs for non-technical users to familiarize them with new features.
• Watch baseball.

Why work for the Brewers?

• Be a part of a mature development environment with tools that won’t get in your way, including full Atlassian suite of tools, mature CI/CD pipelines, code reviews, and robust pull requests.
• Work with specific product teams to directly solve stakeholder issues on key baseball problems.
• Exceptional benefits including:
• health, vision, and dental coverage at VERY competitive rates.
• an enhanced 401k where the company contributes even if you don’t!
• free tickets to baseball games for your friends and family
• Virtual development opportunities for continued growth
• Free gym membership for local staff
• You’ll be working with some of the most innovative people in all of baseball.
• You are a good teammate and like working with other driven and caring teammates.
• Your office is in a baseball stadium!

Our Interview Process

• A 15-20 minute phone call to get to know each other and discuss the position in more detail.
• A tech screen to give us some insight into how you work.
• A few small panel interviews (including lunch) to provide opportunities to get to know the team better. You will also meet other members of Baseball Operations you’d be collaborating with.

Please apply at these links

Software Engineer – Scouting: click here.

Software Engineer – High Performance: click here.

The content in this posting was created and provided solely by the Milwaukee Brewers.