Last year, with no major leagues in sight, I decided to run an experiment: what if the readers of this website crowd-managed a team? We were assigned the Brewers in an online Out of the Park Baseball league and we spent 2020 striving and failing to make the playoffs. Despite that, the exercise was a ton of fun for me, and hopefully for the audience of crowd-managers as well.

Real baseball has returned. Because more is always more, however, the OOTP league is still running. Last year, the Brewers fell victim to the miracle Pirates, who blew away the NL Central en route to the World Series. It’s a topsy-turvy world in OOTP, and our decisions couldn’t outweigh some bad injury luck and those indefatigable Pittsburghers.

This time, the Brewers are headed into the year with a new-look infield. Nick Allen, gloveman extraordinaire, is the newest Milwaukee infielder. He joins Scott Kingery on the left side of the infield. That pushes Luis Urías to second base, a defense-first alignment that ended with a move to first base for Keston Hiura — sometimes art imitates life.

Live on Twitch or the FanGraphs homepage today at 11 AM PT/2 PM ET, we’ll recap the offseason, comb through some minor leaguers to look for gems, take a look at early leaders, and maybe workshop a trade or two while we’re at it. Come join me and Dylan Higgins to chat Brewers, Out of the Park, and whatever else catches our fancy on FanGraphs Live: