Watching Eddie Rosario as a scorned ex-lover and 5 burning Brewers questions
Turns out the baseball is less fun when your teams are busy playing golf.
The Eddie Rosario series
~Jake
It was clear from the moment the playoffs started that there would be one game, maybe even a whole series, where a recycled Twin would have their moment. There were just so many possibilities.
Would it be a legendary postseason run by a bullpen monster like Liam Hendriks in Chicago, Brusdar Graterol in LA or Ryan Pressly in Houston? Maybe a former utility guy like Ehire Adrianza or Marwin Gonzalez would have his night under the lights. Or maybe we’d see more late-game heroics by Lamonte Wade Jr., the outfielder who managed just 42 games in Minnesota before being shipped to San Francisco where he became a key contributor on the winningest team in baseball? As of Oct. 1, Wade was 13-for-23 with 12 RBIs and a 1.409 OPS in the ninth inning. He tied Aaron Judge for the league lead in go-ahead RBIs (8) in the eighth inning or later this year. Even if it’s just small sample trickery, there’s no denying the guy was clutch this year and it so strongly felt like he was going to do it again this postseason.
But no. His Giants were ousted in the NLDS, with just one postseason hit in 10 tries under his belt.
It wasn’t Eduardo Escobar, either, much to the disappointment of all RPC readers and writers. Five strikeouts in 10 ABs wasn’t what we needed, Ed.
Instead, it was Eddie Rosario, the erstwhile Twins sparkplug turned Atlanta Braves’ season saver. Rosie turned in an all-time supporting cast member performance in game two of the NLCS, going 4-for-5 with the walk-off single in the bottom of the ninth to guide his Braves to a 5-4 win over the Dodgers.
It was a rather innocuous game-winning single—in fact, that the scorekeeper even called it a single is pretty generous, given Trea Turner’s misplay—but it was a defining moment in an otherwise outstanding game for the former Twin. It’s just the seventh time Rosario ever logged four hits in a game, and it happened in a game where the adventurous left fielder made a pair of important catches and scored a big run in the eighth inning.
It was the best kind of playoff game, when an average player becomes a city’s legend. It wasn’t quite Brett Phillips in Tampa Bay, but it wasn’t that far off.
It’s gone beyond just one game, too. Rosario earned NLCS MVP honors after recording 14 hits in the series, tying a postseason series record. He hit a pair of long balls and drove in nine of Atlanta’s 28 runs in the series. He went from potential DFA candidate in June to leadoff hitter in the World Series in October.
It’s hard not to feel bitter about that as a Twins fan. Rosario had plenty of standout moments with the TC on his cap, just never anything like this. The Twins famously never even won a playoff game during his tenure, let alone have an “Eddie Rosario game.” It’s hard to watch someone finally have their glow up after you dumped them, I guess is what I mean.
Now two games into the World Series, there’s still plenty of time for Rosario to turn into the error-prone outfielder with an overly aggressive approach. In fact, we saw that guy in game two Wednesday night, when he threw on the run to third base and...nobody was there. So far, though, the streakiness has worked. And it has kinda hurt.
Five Brewers questions
~Curt
The Brewers season is over. This is not news. It has been over for two weeks now.
We have not put out a newsletter since due to the sheer business of our schedules (Tom moved to California! Jake ran a marathon! Curt, uh, had to deal with an anxiety-ridden dog(?)!) It’s a bit unfortunate, all things considered, to not have been able to do a post-mortem yet on the 2021 Brewers, but the situation is what it is.
So let’s get to some of that post-elimination content. Here are the five burning questions facing the Brewers that will determine how they perform in 2022.
How do the Brewers address the outfield?
There may not be a bigger question the Brewers have to answer than this before the 2022 season. That’s why this is the longest section of all five questions.
With Avisail Garcia likely gone due to the vesting option in his contract and his big 2021 season, the Brewers are looking at an under-contract outfield of Christian Yelich, Lorenzo Cain, Tyrone Taylor and Jackie Bradley Jr.
Yelich is the obvious X-Factor. You could reasonably see him posting a 140 OPS+ or a 90 OPS+ next season. Is there a way for the Brewers to not only diagnose what has gone wrong but assess how to correct it and also set a reasonable expectation for Yelich’s production next year?
The Brewers will likely not bring in any contingencies of note to play left field. If we learned anything from watching Yelich struggle mightily for the final month and the playoffs while not being dropped from the three-hole, it’s that the team is committed to Yelich finding some semblance of his old form.
Lorenzo Cain, for the most part, appears to be a serviceable center fielder for the final year of this deal. He will be 36 and that’s not an optimal age for your everyday center fielder, but he posted a 97 wRC+, above his career average, with a still-good 16.8 K%. His swinging strike rate jumped to the highest it’s been in his three full years in Milwaukee, but you can very much live with that type of profile at the bottom of your lineup given his still-good defense.
Jackie Bradley Jr. will very much still be around due to the player option in his deal. He is very much the fifth outfielder in the group (which, with only four guys on the roster in the equation says something) but there’s still very much a chance he reverts to his career form and returns value on the 2022 money spent on him.
Tyrone Taylor was a revelation this past year in proving that not only is he a capable major leaguer, but can be a good player with extended playing time.
You look at the whole equation, though, and the Brewers seem to be missing someone who can man right field and bop baseballs very far. Banking on a Yelich comeback is a risky proposition. The roster outside of that features a handful of average to just-above-average bats. The front office may want to address that hole.
Where is Josh Hader next spring?
I have flip-flopped on this singular topic more than anything else. One week I’m convinced the Brewers should never trade Hader and give him a five-year extension. The next, I’m staring at Triston Casas videos and telling myself the Brewers should maximize the value they can get for a closer.
The value Hader brings to the team is immense, even as a one-inning Capital-C Closer. He is going to win his third reliever of the year award in four years and is the best reliever in baseball right now.
If the Brewers trade him away, they will almost certainly feel the ramifications of losing him at the back end of games a handful of times. But, considering their offense was poor for most of 2021, was awful in the playoffs and returns most of those guys in 2022, is it worth the literal trade-off?
Of course, there are a lot of moving parts and variables to the question. Hader isn’t the only pitcher they can trade to get offense in return. They don’t even have to address the offense specifically via trade. And maybe, just maybe, Hader is disgruntled by the way he was treated in arbitration and wants to find a new team.
It’s an interesting storyline to follow.
Money, money, money
It has long been stated in this here newsletter that the easiest way to make your team better is spending money. It’s fun and all to compare how much value your team can get out of a Jace Peterson contract but, and I know this is a controversial take, it’s more to forget about the value on a per-dollar basis to watch Nick Castellanos sock some dingers.
I understand there are market constraints to running a pro baseball team. Nobody is expecting the Brewers to be run like the Yankees. Heck, nobody is even expecting them to be run like the Phillies.
But the Brewers averaged roughly $98.3 million per year in payroll from 2010 through 2015, per Cot’s Contracts. Since then, not counting the wacky 2020 season, that figure is $95.8 million. Now, that stretch included the non-competitive 2016 season and the surprise-competitive 2017 campaign, but it also includes two of the best teams in franchise history.
Baseball has also seeing increased revenues over the last decade and I have a tough time seeing the Brewers as being less profitable than they were in 2010, pandemic aside.
It’s easy to spend someone else’s money, sure, but if there was ever a time to make a notable investment in a payroll above what has been done historically, it’s while a generational pitching staff is under club control with an average-at-best offense backing it up.
Now...about that lockout…
Is Luis Urias the third baseman?
To me, this answer feels like “yes.” Despite trading for Willy Adames to take Urias’ starting shortstop gig and then trading for Ed Escobar to cut into Urias’ playing time at third, guess who still led the team in plate appearances by more than 50 PA?
You guessed it.
Who’s on first?
Save for, like, one year where Eric Thames was coming off a big year and then the next when Jesus Aguilar was coming off his All-Star appearance, the Brewers have entered every off-season since Prince Fielder left with a big ol’ question mark at first base. (And even in those seasons where it seemed like they had the answer, the guy at the end of the year was very much not the guy who started it as the starter.)
So, Brewers, is the first baseman Rowdy Tellez? Dan Vogelbach? Keston Hiura? Christian Yelich? (I kid. But not completely.) Some combo of the above? Someone else?