PHNX Arizona Diamondbacks Podcast - On The Record: Was Trading Corbin Burnes A Mistake For Milwaukee Brewers?

Episode Date: September 14, 2024

In a new edition of On the Record, Curt Hogg of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel joins Jesse Friedman in studio to discuss this weekend's Diamondbacks-Brewers series. They discuss the aftermath of last year's Wild Card Series, Jackson Chourio's massive impact, whether trading Corbin Burnes was the right move, Willy Adames' impending free agency and the main factors in the Brewers' excellent 2024 season. They also discuss Pat Murphy's approach as manager and why it's drastically different from his predecessor, Craig Counsell. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Welcome in to another edition of On the Record. As always, my name is Jesse Friedman, and we are here to preview. This weekend series for the Arizona Diamondbacks, of course, is the Diamondbacks and the Brewers the first time these two teams have met this season. And here joining us in studio for the very first time, our first ever in studio guest for On the Record is the one and only Kurt Hogg who covers the Brewers for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Kurt, thanks for stopping by.

We really appreciate it. Yeah, you guys are well located downtown, right on the way to the ballpark. There you go. Pop in, do an interview, go watch some baseball. Let's do it. Kurt is apparently in very high demand when it comes to the baseball podcasting community. He was on foul territory, I believe, just a few moments ago. He was on baseball barbecast like a couple of days ago.

So we were just frankly very jealous that Kurt was showing. It's not reflective of me. It's reflective of the baseball team. Sure. And specifically a 20-year-old that they have playing for them. Yes. And we will talk about that 20-year-olds here in a moment. But first, I want to go back.

to the last time that the Diamondbacks played the Brewers, which of course is very memorable for Diamondbacks fans, maybe less so for Brewers fans. But it was very quick, Kurt. We were talking about this before hopping on that like neither of us really remember covering that series because it felt like it happened so quickly. But I'm curious just in the aftermath of that series. Like what was, how were the Brewers kind of explaining that internally? How are they kind of making sense of what happened in that series?

Well, the Brewers are on this streak of playing terribly in the playoffs. Yeah. So it's explained away, kind of the way most teams explain the way their playoff failures, which is, oh, well, it's random, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. This stuff happens. And that's true. That is true. But there was also seemingly like the edge of a cliff waiting for this team. Counsel's contract was up.

It was starting to seem a little bit like he was maybe wasn't going to come back. No one expected the Cubs to happen. Literally nobody, but sure. It seemed like counsel might be gone. He was integral to their success over the last seven, eight years. Corbyn Burns, everyone figured he was going to get traded. No one knew what was up with Brandon Woodruff's injury. Devin Williams, who's still here, was possibly getting traded, a la Josh Hayter a couple years ago.

So there was this big question mark looming over the Brewers, which is kind of what makes what they're doing this year, remarkable, surprising. Like, I didn't see this coming from them. I'm not sure many people did. I certainly did not. The Brewers come into this series with a plus 127 run differential, which is the best run differential in all the baseball coming into the series. They've obviously sort of run away with the NL Central,

have been the far and away favorite there for a while. I guess just big picture, how are the Brewers doing this? Like, how on earth are the Brewers, you know, more than 20 games over 500 and doing all of this after losing some key pieces. I don't want to sell their, they're like stars short because the Brewers do have some really good players. Willie Adamas is a really good player. William Contreras might be the best catcher in baseball.

Jackson Shurio, I'm sure we'll talk about him. Devin Williams is still elite. But the brewers do, the thing they do is pitching development at the big league level. Their coaching staff is excellent. Chris Hook, the pitching coach is at the forefront of that. They kind of turn guys like Tobias Myers, who will see this weekend.

to a guy who goes from non-raster invite was at AA last year, ERA and the Sixes, like midway through last year at AA to one of the better rookie stars in baseball. That's kind of what the Brewers do. And you could point to lots of guys on the roster that they've done this with Jared Canig, Brian Hudson, et cetera, et cetera. That's sort of their M.O. And then they just play really good defense and don't really have a bad. It's not a great lineup, but it's not a bad lineup, which you can.

can kind of use to win some games when you're pitching and defense are pretty good. Yeah, that was one thing that certainly stood out to me. I remember the narrative going into the postseason last year was that the brewers just don't hit, at least not as much as a team that you would expect to hit in the postseason. Last year, I think they had a team-wide 91 OPS plus this year. That number is up to 102, which is not, as you said, it's not like a leader or anything, but it's a far and away improvement. Who are kind of the key pieces? I imagine this is where maybe we talk about Jack's and Churio, who are the key pieces that are allowing this to happen? Yeah, I mean, the offense is sort of predicated on not having any black holes, if that makes sense.

Sure. Now, they do have some spots that are really struggling of late, like Sal Freelick has not been great. Bryce Terrang has been slumping. Reese Hoskins, who was their big off-season signing, has not delivered to this point. Like, there's still time for him to do what he's being paid to do in the postseason. But really, yeah, it's Churio, it's Contreras, it's Adamas. on a nightly basis, those are the three guys that are sort of carrying this offense

and carrying this team. What Chirio's doing is remarkable. Started out of the year really slow, and now he's a top three rookie of the year candidate. I think he's leading the league in hitting since June 1st or second or. Wouldn't surprise me. In that territory,

just got to 2020 last night, became the youngest player to ever, get to 2020 in the major league. So there's a few guys right now that are doing a lot of the damage and who knows what it would look like in a couple weeks. But in the short term, if the dining backs can get those three out specifically, it's very difficult for the Brewers to score runs right now.

I guess Pat Murphy is another big part of the offseason narrative for this team, obviously losing Craig counsel to the Cubs, which I'm sure Brewers fans were not so happy about in the moment. I don't think that probably went over very well. Just a little bit. Just a little bit. But now Pat Murphy is the manager. of the Brewers and someone that maybe DeBox fans are somewhat familiar with.

Of course, he has a pass at Arizona State having coached there as well. What has it been like covering Pat Murphy as a manager here in his first year? It's an experience. Yeah. It really is. It's so much different than, I mean, Craig Counsel is another guy that people here are familiar with. It's very different than that. I mean, they were together for eight years, but their personalities, their management styles,

both in-game and in the clubhouse, completely different. I mean, Murph is one of one. There is no one that's quite else like him. And his style, I wasn't necessarily sure it was going to work at this level. It's sort of like a college team, and I don't mean that in a bad way. But in some instances in the big leagues, that might not work. But with this team, it does work. And you certainly have to credit Murf for a lot of this team's success.

Like there's still areas where you see it. he's a first-year manager, like, in terms of in-game stuff. But you can't deny that when this team is exceeding expectations by this much, the way Murph has gone about it has to be a critical part of that. Is there, I guess maybe we'll maybe dive in here to the starting pitchers for this series. The Diamondbacks have Eduardo Rodriguez going tonight against Freddie Peralta. It's Brandon Fott and Tobias Myers on Saturday. And then Zach Gallen, who has moved up, will face D.L. Hall on Sunday.

You mentioned Tobias Myers. It's been one of the best rookie starters in baseball this season. Freddie Peralta, D-Bas fans may be a little bit familiar there from the postseason in past years. And then D.L. Hall, a guy who seems to have really come on strong lately. What kind of stands out about those three? Well, Freddie's going to be the game one guy. It's been an up and down year for him. Sure.

And that's not entirely surprising, given his profile. He strikes out a lot of guys. He walks a lot of guys, gives up a lot of homers. Tobias Myers we talked about a little bit. He might be in this playoff rotation as well. He's pitched really, really, really well. And then D.L. Hall's kind of the X factor, honestly, for this team moving forward. He will probably pitch out of the bullpen in the playoffs, some sort of abbreviated short-term stretch.

But he's been hurt most of the year. He had the world's longest rehab assignment. I think it was like three months where there was one thing after another would pop back up. And he was just hanging out in Nashville for almost the entire season of Velo. You hear about this guy in the Corden Burnstrade, right? And he's throwing 98. Oh, wow, this is interesting. And then he comes to spring throw in 92 and like, what's wrong?

Oh, wow. So it's been a progressive season of getting healthy for him. And his stuff of late has looked the best it's been. It's looked like it's advertised from D.L. Hall. And that's probably the Brewers X Factor. I don't think he's going to start in the playoffs. but he's going to pitch some big innings. Diamondbacks have struggled against lefties recently.

I imagine maybe that played a role in Y Hall is starting in this series. I think the Diamondbacks sent out two sets of probabilities for the Brewers, and originally D.L. Hall was not included. Do you think that was like a change that they made, or was that maybe just a clerical thing? And he was always in the plans. The brewers are in a stretch. We'll have to ask about that today.

It's a good question. The brewers are in a stretch of playing 13 straight games. Sure. So no off days in their end of the year. They've got this thing wrapped up, maybe just get some innings out of Deal Hall. He has stretched out. But the Brewers also stink against lefties.

Right. Yes. We might see that in play tonight. I guess sticking with the starting pitching here, we talked earlier about how Corbyn Burns is no longer a member of this team. And that was obviously a really big move that the Brewers decided to make over the offseason. In retrospect, given how good this Brewer's team has been, like they could probably use Corbyn Burns, right? I mean, that would probably raise the ceiling of this team.

Do you think there's a sense of regret that maybe the brewers should have stuck by Corbyn Burns and brought him back for his walk here? Regret? Probably not because this is how the brewers operate. They say it's how they have to operate. Whether you agree with that or not, it's the way they go about things. Remember when they traded Josh Hater a couple years ago? Now they've learned from that and they don't do that in the middle of the season when they're in first place. Yeah, that didn't work on.

Notice how they kept Adamas and they kept Devin Williams and all these other guys. this year. It's difficult because, like, sure, the brewers really could use Corbyn Burns this season. And their postseason outlook probably looks a bit different. Yeah. But also, where are they, you know, what's their third base picture look like without Joey Ortiz? Who has been pretty solid at that position. And they're all about these repeated cracks at, repeated bites at the apple, they say, in the postseason.

So eventually, theoretically, one of these years, if you keep going to, in there, it'll work out. It hasn't yet. They're really putting that theory to the test in this last five, six year run. But no doubt this team would look a lot different, and that is a continuous ongoing debate. It's the same thing as the Hater deal. I mean, that loosely netted them William Contreras. They got a story Ruiz in that deal, and they flipped him for Contreras. So loosely, those two things were tied together, but they didn't make the playoffs in 22,

and they tanked their season immediately after trading them. So these are the contentious debates in Brewer's Land, and I don't know what the answer is. I imagine there would have been a full-on riot if the Brewers had traded Willie Adomis at the deadline. In the clubhouse, yeah. Yeah. In the stands, yeah. On Twitter, yeah. Oh, absolutely on Twitter.

There's always a riot on Twitter regardless of what's happening, basically. But I do want to talk about Willie Adomis here because he's had an awesome season, 30 homers, 102 RBI, 18 stolen bases, and OPS right around 800. You know, I feel like I know the answer to the question I'm about to ask. First of all, is there any chance that the brewers are the team to pay him? No, 98% no. Okay, all right. So we got that part out of the way.

Secondly, is Willie Adamas about to make like $200 million? What are we thinking here? I think that's the high end, like the high end of the reasonable expectation. Okay. Danesby Swanson contract is probably the fair comparison. Yeah. You look at kind of where they were when they reached free agency. Willie's honestly a better player than Dansby was at this point in their careers.

His defense has been like sneaky bad this year. Yeah. Depending on which metric you use, but like watching them every day, it's like, oh, this is not what we're used to seeing from him. But yeah, still, you got what, a 28-year-old shortstop who just had 30 homers, 100 RBI. Yeah. Consistent performer. And also, you can't say enough good things about him in the clubhouse. Like, you know you're going to get a seamless transition and a leader.

He's probably going to get paid. We never know how these baseball markets are going to work out, right? Right. The shortstop market a couple years ago was crazy with Story and BIAS, or maybe that was three years ago. But then last year, not so much for a lot of guys. So we'll see if the market's hot, then Willie will be at the forefront of it. And if not, you know, the brewers will be sitting there with like a three-year, four-year offer for them if things don't work out.

So going into the playoffs, obviously the brewers are going to make it. I think we could pretty much safely say that at this point. They're on track to finish with a very similar record as what they had last year. Probably last year they were 92 and 70. Maybe they could finish a few games ahead of that. I'm curious, the 2024 brewers versus the 2023 brewers, obviously, there's so much random. involved in this again, as we said earlier, but which of these teams do you think lines up better on paper for the postseason?

So on paper, I would have said last year. Okay. Especially going into the playoffs before we knew Brandon Woodruff was going to get hurt. Yeah. I remember vividly, I don't know if you were in the room then for his press conference when he walked in all teary eyed after. I was not. They announced that.

That was a memorable moment. He'd go from this guy starting game two to, oh yeah, he's out for like, the next year. So I would pick the Brewers on paper, but the one thing this Brewer's team has going for them is something you can't really describe. It's just like a feeling, and that sort of gets at the whole MRF part of the experience. Like you look at the roster, and it's, they've got good players at the top, but it's not a great roster. It doesn't scream best run differential in baseball. No, exactly.

And so they're getting there through some, I mean, we're 150 games into this. They've done this for five and a half months somehow. I don't want to sell short like what they're good at. But if there's going to be a year where they kind of just like luck and vibes their way to it, it might be this year. But the roster is also not as good as even it was last year, in my opinion. Well, it should be interesting to find out. We're going to get a whole lot of DeBacks Brewer's action here over the next 10 days.

seven games between these two teams in the next 10 days should be fun to watch. Obviously, two very good baseball teams that are both at least currently destined for the playoffs. I think the brewer is certainly in better position there than the DVACs. But the devs aren't in a bad spot in their own right. We'll see what happens. Kurt, thanks again for hopping on. Really appreciate it. Yeah, for sure.