The W.P. Kinsella League random update thread

[BirdWatcher]

Granted it is way too small a sample size for reaching any conclusions, but the Brewers least experienced members of the rotation, Stephen Brooks and Eric Fehrenbacher, are also the best pitchers on the staff thus far in 1986. Following up Brooks recent 4-hit shutout of St. Louis, Fehrenbacher tossed a 2-hit shutout over Brooklyn in Denver, striking out 9 batters and walking just 2.




Jerry Lillie homered again, this time actually hitting the ball into the seats beyond the right-center wall, some 414 feet away from home plate.

Now if only we could get Eric Maisch right (0-2, 6.94) and get more consistency from Jim Atwell (1-2, 4.14), and well, get the real Austin Bond back (0-2, 9.00).

[BirdWatcher]

The Phoenix Speed Devils rookie center fielder, Hyeong-uk Chun, who came into the 1986 season as the 6th best prospect in the game, is off to a great start as a big leaguer and the very early favorite to be the MGL Rookie of the Year.




Brewers prospect Jeremy Beeson, likely the team's future third baseman, is off to a great start this season at AA Nashville. Beeson profiles as a solid defender and a batter with elite contact and a bit of power.



For fans of the former Brewer Harris/Lee award winning starter and current Bainbridge Brawlers (single A Denver Brewers affiliate) pitching coach Harry Lyerly, here is a fun fact:



Current Brewers starting pitcher Stephen Brooks improves to 3-0 with a 1.25 ERA in spite of walking 7 batters in yesterday's win over Brooklyn. He was once again helped out by the much improved Denver defense, who turned 3 double plays in the game, twice with Brooks on the mound and ending innings in which he got into a jam.

[BirdWatcher]

Veteran Brewer starting pitcher Jim Atwell, perhaps inspired by the early performances of younger rotation mates Stephen Brooks and Eric Fehrenbacher, shut down the offensively gifted Baltimore Lords in their hitter-friendly home park on just 2 hits as the Brewers earned their 5th straight win.

[BirdWatcher]

Matt Enders, who turns 23 in just under a week, celebrated his birthday a little early yesterday by hitting for the cycle in a Chester Big Stick drubbing of the Maybrook Knighthawks.



Enders is not one of the Brewers top prospects but he does have big league potential, at the very least in a utility infield role. He is a manager's favorite with his great work ethic, leadership abilities, and high baseball IQ. He's not likely to hit for much power at the big league level but he could be a decent contact hitter, has plus speed and is a plus plus base stealer and base runner, and can be an elite defensive third baseman or second baseman and likely an above average shortstop (with more experience, he also has the raw skills to play the outfield respectably).

Don't be too surprised if you see the 3rd round draft pick from the 1982 draft in a Brewers uniform at some point this season.

EDIT: Another note about this one is that Dave Cheek Jr. is a very good prospect and the son (presumably) of former WPK reliever Dave Cheek, who led the league in saves in 1967 as a member of the Portland Wild Things. Although I have a process for identifying sons (and other relatives) of former players, this is a game created junior- not the first of course in this save, but the first who it looks like might have a significant career, even very likely better than his father, who pitched for portions of just 5 seasons, having already been 28 years old when the WPK formed.

[BirdWatcher]

The Phoenix Speed Devils have jumped off to a 15-3 start to the 1986 season. And while there are many factors, many good performances by individual players, it would be hard to ignore what rookie Hyeong-uk Chun is doing. With his second 3-homer game in less than a week he now leads all of the WPK with 13 home runs thus far- by far the most- while also leading the MGL in batting average at .424, RBI with 27, WAR among batters with 2.3, etc. A scary good start for the 23-year old rookie out of South Korea.



A good start to the 1986 season also for Denver Brewers starting pitcher Stephen Brooks, who improved to 4-0 with a win yesterday over Montreal, giving the Brewers their sixth straight victory. Brooks lasted 6 2/3rds innings, giving up just 1 run on 4 hits, striking out 8 and walking 4.

[BirdWatcher]

Eric Maisch has the talent to dominate, as he often did during his Harris/Lee award winning 1982 season, but since then dominant performances have been few and far between.
The Brewers can only hope that yesterday's dismantling of the Montreal Royals was a sign that he is getting things together and is heading into a period of dominance once again.




Maisch was pitching a 1-hitter going into the 8th and while he got into a mini-jam in the 9th he worked out of it to preserve the 4-hit shutout, striking out 13 batters, including 5 straight at one point, while not walking a single batter. All of the 4 hits against him were singles.

Justin Banks (.386/.435/.579), quietly having a tremendous start to the season, was one of the hitting heroes, going 2 for 5 with a run scored, 2 driven in, and hitting his team-leading 3rd homer.

For the Brewers it was their 8th straight win.

Bad news for the San Antonio Keys, who are off to a slow 7-11 start. Their superstar (GOAT) shortstop Bud Lindsay is headed to the IL with a partially torn labrum. Lindsay (who is wrecked) was off to a good start, on pace for a 6.9 WAR season.

[BirdWatcher]

With the first month of the season now in the rearview mirror, let's look at the standings in the early going of the 1986 season:





Reigning WPK champs Chicago early on looked like they might have a bit of a Kinsella Classic Series hangover, but they picked things up the second half of the month and have returned to the top of the pile in the SJL West. Not that anyone in that division is offering any great challenge thus far.

Over in the SJL East, the Philadelphia Mud Hens are the early class of the division, having given Washington a run for their money in last year's pennant race, not bowing out officially until the penultimate day of the season. This year Washington has started flat and it is the Jacksonville Wolf Pack, with three tremendous young starting pitchers and a balanced offensive attack, who are vying with Philly for dominance. (For Philly the big story is pitching and the biggest piece of that story will be discussed more below.)

The biggest story though thus far in the 1986 WPK season is the torrid start by those formerly lowly Phoenix Speed Devils. Phoenix has not only a young starting rotation that looks like it could rival that of Oklahoma City for best in the game, but they have the most dynamic rookie in the game, Hyeong-uk Chun, who we will also talk more about below. The reigning MGL West champs, San Francisco, are also off to a great start, also largely on the strength of a strong rotation. And the Denver Brewers, after a slow early start, got hot at the end of the month, winning 10 of the final 11 games of April, including an absolute marathon of a 19-inning 7-6 victory in Los Angeles last night.

And in the MGL East, no team has a winning record. So, well, that's probably enough said there.


The monthly awards honors all went to young and mostly formerly unknown players.

The SJL Batter of the Month, who was also named Rookie of the Month, was El Paso right fielder B.J. Dyer. This one is pretty much a total shocker as Dyer has never been considered a top prospect although he was good enough to be a 3rd round draft pick. Dyer does have an excellent contact bat and elite raw speed, but other than that he doesn't look like anything special and there is some thought that he has played above his abilities in this first month of the 1986 season and is bound to see some regression soon.



On the other hand, Phoenix rookie Hyeon-uk Chun, came into the season considered the 6th best prospect in the game and he is likely for real, although playing his home games at that hitters haven called Phoenix Municipal Stadium surely does inflate his offensive numbers somewhat. Still, he's a legit elite power hitter with a very good eye at the plate, great speed and running abilities, and possible Gold Glove caliber defense in center field. He was, naturally the MGL Rookie of the Month as well as being named MGL Batter of the Month.



On the pitching side, Philly's Jody Valle came out of nowhere at the age of 22 to win Pitcher of the Month honors in the SJL. The 22-year old lefty did pitch in 28 games out of the bullpen with the Mud Hens in 1985, and was not bad, but there was nothing to prepare us for what he has done thus far in 1986. There is no doubting his talent though, as he has potentially elite movement to go along with plus stuff and plus control, throws a nasty sinker which gets him a ton of groundball outs along with a plus splitter. He also has great stamina. But there are questions about whether he can consistently achieve as a starter given that his third pitch (the only other one in his repertoire) is a below average slider.



The MGL Pitcher of the Month was Portland's Kyle Gilbert, who if the analysts and scouts are to be trusted is on the verge of becoming one of the most dominant hurlers in the game. If he isn't already, based upon his early performance this season. His three pitch mix includes one of the best changeups in the game and both plus plus fastball and slider. His stuff is plus plus, his movement nearly that, and his control is well above average. He has been a bit lucky thus far, with a .186 BABIP against, but there is no reason to believe that he won't continue to succeed as he heads towards true ace status.

[BirdWatcher]

I'm not going to go into great detail right this moment regarding the Brewers thus far but here are some basic stats:




The offense is a bit underpowered thus far, and certainly not as potent as it was last year. But the defense is much improved and the pitching staff seems to appreciate that and I don't think we can be too disappointed with the overall results at this stage of the season.

[BirdWatcher]

May 2nd was a big day in the WPK as we saw not only our first no-hitter of the season- a Perfect Game by Seattle's Chris Karstens, but also the first batter hitting for the cycle this season, as San Antonio's great middle infielder John Mussaw accomplished this against Columbus, the first of his glorious career.


For the 28-year old Karstens, a native of Commerce City, Colorado, it is the first career no-no and it is only the second in Seattle Alligators' history (Eduardo Carillo hurled the first back in 1977). Karstens hasn't had what you would call an illustrious career but he is off to a very fine start in 1986 and he has great movement on his pitches with a good forkball and an elite fastball/changeup combo. A lack of stamina is probably his greatest weakness but he had plenty to get this perfecto yesterday.



As for Mussaw, well, he is just another future Hall of Fame San Antonio Keys middle infielder, in the mold of Bud Lindsay. When you think about it, the convergence of middle infield talent in San Antonio in the past decade plus is incredible. Before Lindsay and Mussaw there was 8-time All-Star and 3-time Silver Slugger Jared Hancock, who likely would have been a Hall of Famer had not the younger Lindsay and Mussaw come along to push him out of a starting position. (Hancock may still make it, but because he has mostly played in a back-up role throughout his 30's- he is now 39 and an unsigned free agent- and not because of diminishing skills- he is now a borderline candidate at best.) And that's not even mentioning current Brewer Ryan Campbell, who came up in the San Antonio system as primarily a second baseman and in a Keys uniform had a 5.6 WAR 1982 season and a 7.8 WAR 1984 season. Granted, the Keys have developed great hitters at every position, but their middle infield picture has been a particular embarrassment of riches.




The day before, and now mostly forgotten with the heroics of the next day, on May 1st former top pitching prospect Casey Van Fossen of Jacksonville also pitched a gem, throwing a 3-hit shutout with 12 K's and no walks in a win over that same Seattle club.



And for the Brewers, young Eric Fehrenbacher got another to win to improve to 4-0, getting some serious help from shortstop Willie Romero (.337/.378/.500) who has been a great addition to the club both for his glove (3.7 ZR) and his bat thus far in 1986.

[BirdWatcher]

The Brewers start a short home stand by being beaten twice in a row by Charlotte, including a 14-4 drubbing yesterday, in which Sting left fielder Cameron Walters went 5 for 5.




These two games also saw the young starting pitchers Stephen Brooks (4-1, 4.08) and Eric Fehrenbacher (4-1, 4.05) suffer their first losses of the season and see their ERA's rise precipitously.

One of the storylines of this season thus far, and if we are being honest a trend for a few seasons now, if the emergence of young power hitting players, not all of whom are very well-rounded performance. Count Jacksonville's Matt Haberland in that camp, although he isn't a horrible contact hitter either and while slow he can run the bases with some skill. And yesterday he became yet another young hitter to club 3 home runs in a game this season.

[BirdWatcher]

The Chester Big Stick, Denver's AAA affiliate, went 95-49 last season and won their league's championship. The year prior to that they won 97 games but lost in the championship series. This year they are off to a 21-10 start.
Point is, the Brewers have managed to stockpile some pretty high level minor league talent. The question remaining which of this extensive talent grouping is actually capable of having an impact at the WPK level.



Dave Wofford, a 27-year old outfielder who was the Brewers 10th round draft pick in 1982, continues to make his best case that he deserves a chance to wear Brewers purple and gold. And truth be told, he has pretty much raked at all levels of the minors and continues to, currently working on a 20-game hitting streak. Wofford is a hard worker, a good contact hitter who will rarely strike out, but also will rarely walk and has little power at the plate. He is very fast and a good base stealer but average base runner. And he has plus plus range and arm in the outfield, but is quite error prone. In short, he is another in a growing group of potential 4th outfielders vying for big league jobs.

[BirdWatcher]

Jim Atwell, the veteran workhorse of the Denver Brewers rotation, experienced the most challenging season of his largely successful WPK career last year, when he went 14-13 with a 4.66 ERA, and only a late-season run of good starts made the numbers that respectable.
But early returns in 1986 would seem to indicate a comeback season for Atwell, as yesterday he hurled his 3rd shutout of the season and that against the dangerous lineup of the now 2nd place Phoenix Speed Devils.
The shutout helped the Brewers avoid being swept at home by the Speed Devils, who have been a dominant team this season.
To make Atwell's start even more impressive, it was actually a close contest until the Brewers plated 6 runs in the bottom of the 8th.




One of the key offensive contributors was center fielder Myles Ford, who has been on a tear lately following a very slow start to the season. Ford went 3 for 5 in the game, hitting a double (2) and a home run (3). This follows a 4 for 5, 2 homer game earlier in the week. For these two performances Ford was named the MGL Batter of the Week.



Another Brewer outfielder who got off to a very slow start, Javier Hernandez (.261/.340/.443) has also been heating up and he went 1 for 3 in this one, hitting his 6th double and scoring twice. More impressively, the left-handed hitter drew a walk and hit the double off a tough left-handed pitcher (Ricardo Becerra).

[BirdWatcher]

-Ryan Campbell led the Brewers in WAR last season (5.5) and had a wRC+ of 150. Although he got off to a slow start in his first season as a Brewer, he finished strong to hit .320/.419/.478. He wasn't very good defensively at third base, with a -3.5 ZR and 29 errors. But his value overall cannot be debated.
But here's the thing, I find him frustrating. He is off to another slow start, batting .241/.349/.370. His defense is much improved in the early going- he has a 2.9 ZR and has only committed 2 errors. But one of the things that Campbell was supposed to bring to the Brewers was a middle-of-the-order power bat. He hit just 16 homers last year and is on pace for 10 this year.
Campbell turns 31 in late August but still has two years of arbitration eligibility left. The logical thing is probably to at least try to sign him to a 1-year extension for next season and count on his production to return to more career-average levels for him. He agreed to a very reasonable contract for this season (472K) and even with a healthy bump expected for next season, if he approaches his production of 1985 he will be well worth it.
On the other hand, the Brewers top third base prospect, Jeremy Beeson, is pretty much WPK-ready now. Beeson has excellent contact hitting abilities, but won't walk much (unlike Campbell) and doesn't have much power (then again, does Campbell, really, in spite of his past and his scouting reports?). Beeson should be a very solid defensive third baseman and with some more experience could play second very well and even shortstop passably well. Beeson will likely get a late-season call-up this year and then we will see if he looks overmatched. It is very much an open question to me whether to keep Campbell or fully embrace the youth movement.




-Justin Banks is a similar question. Banks is eligible to be a free agent at the end of the season. He has long been one of my favorite players in the league, well before he joined the Brewers. And he's been good for us. He hit .311/.331/.467 last year, hitting 34 doubles and 14 homers while stealing 26 bases and only being caught 8 times. His defense was not as good as expected and he finished with -0.9 ZR. This year that is even worse, with a -1.2 ZR thus far. He is, though, off to a good start with the bat, hitting .333/.387/.456 and is on pace for a 4.8 WAR season. (He has also stolen 9 bags while being caught just once.) But while Banks is a good guy with a great work ethic, he is also considered greedy.
And we have this guy waiting in the minors:




Nick Mull should be a much better fielding second baseman than Banks and he also would bring great speed to the team, like Banks. Mull hasn't shown himself to be a consistently good hitter in the minors but he has at times hit for more power than expected (11 HR's in 288 PA's in single A, then 17 HR's in 539 PA's in AA). He profiles as a sparkplug as well. Other than maybe underwhelming batting, the other weakness for Mull is that his weak throwing arm keeps him from being a useful multi-position utility infielder. But his basic skills indicate that he could be an above average starter at second base.
And we have Mike Garcia, who has mostly been DH'ing this season. Garcia is naturally a second baseman, and while he isn't the defender Mull is, he isn't a liability there either, and is very good on the pivot. And he hits. He is hitting .323/.376/.495 in 109 PA's this year and hit 3 homers in his brief stint with the Brewers last year (41 PA's). Garcia is a switch-hitter who hits better from the left-side of the plate while Mull is a right-handed hitter. So this might be an ideal semi-platoon situation.

-As has been well documented here, the Brewers have been stockpiling pitching arms (first starters and much more recently relievers) for years. Because of this surplus the Brewers have been able to trade away some pitching prospects the last few years to fill other holes on the team. They traded top pitching prospect, Mike Costa, who had been a disappointment as a Brewer, to San Antonio in the off-season after the 1984 campaign. Costa wasn't good in his first year with the Keys either, finishing with a 12-14 record and a horrible 5.97 ERA. He is a bit better thus far this year, going 4-3 with a 4.03 ERA (but also a 3.92 FIP, his FIP last year was 5.15).
The Brewers also traded away slightly lesser prospect Jim McKnight just prior to this season. McKnight, who is durable and has a solid 5-pitch repertoire, but is considered only average in terms of movement and control, is currently 2nd in the SJL in ERA with a 1.86 mark over 38.2 IP's. It's a small sample size, admittedly, but his BABIP against is, if anything, a bit high and his FIP is 2.56, so he is off to a good start for this new team, the El Paso Dawgs.

Fortunately, this doesn't hurt as much as it could with some of the young pitchers we kept, Stephen Brooks (just had a bounce-back start after suffering his first loss of the season- was Player of the Game even though it ended up being a Denver loss) and Eric Fehrenbacher, are both pitching well this year. Even Jose Corpeno, in his 2 starts has been pretty solid and has a 1-1 record with a 3.60 ERA and 2.97 FIP.
And with two top 100 prospects who are starting pitchers at the top levels of our minor league system- Bernie Lopez (#30 on top 100 prospect list) who is at AAA Chester and Mike Warner (#3) at AA Nashville- the Brewers can afford to wish McKnight well on his new team.

[BirdWatcher]

Gene "Basher" Brasher, the Brewers 8th round draft pick from 1982 out of San Antonio College, is incredibly slow afoot, not a particularly good contact hitter, will strike out a good amount, can only play first base defensively and while he isn't horrible there he will commit his share of errors. On the other hand, the pull hitting flyball hitter has prodigious power, probably the best on the Brewers current roster.



And on a team that is often under-powered, he is making a case for more playing time at first and as the DH, having gone 3 for 5 to help the Brewers win a slugfest in Brooklyn, with 2 of his 3 hits being massive home runs, the second one a particularly impressive shot to right center (he is a right-handed hitter).

In spite of a sub-par start from Jose Corpeno (although only 3 of the 7 runs he allowed were earned and his ERA remains a fine 3.71), the Brewers got the win with timely hitting and more excellent relief pitching from the two best bullpen arms- closer Dan Folk (7 saves in as many opportunities, 0.59 ERA) and set-up man Willie Ramirez (2-0, 1 save, 1.93 ERA).

[BirdWatcher]

Perhaps competitively inspired by Gene "Basher" Brasher performance the night before, Brewers rookie right fielder Jerry Lillie homered twice last night to help lead the Brewers to a second straight win at Brooklyn (to earn at least a split in the 4-game series which raps up today).



Although an 8th inning 2-run homer gave starter Jim Atwell a somewhat less impressive looking outing (7.1 IP, 5 ER, 8 K, 1 BB) he did pick up his 5th win and 4th in his last 5 starts. Closer Dan Folk got into a little trouble in the 9th, giving up a single and a walk, but he was bailed out by his defense when Roger Rhinehart was cut down by Gold Glove center fielder Danny Hendricks trying to advance to third base on a deep fly ball out to end the game.

[BirdWatcher]

The Brewers found their power bats in Brooklyn (in yesterday's series finale it didn't hurt that starting pitcher Joel Travino, who remains one of the best in the game in terms of striking out batters, is very susceptible to the longball) and powered their way to a series win.



Gene Brasher, Jerry Lillie, and Ryan Campbell in particular were blasting bombs this week and Brasher was named MGL Batter of the Week.

[BirdWatcher]

Brewers minor league outfield prospect Dave Wofford has now hit in 30 straight games for the AAA Chester Big Stick (well named) of the King Bedlecom League.



In the WPK, veteran great and team captain Jose Gutierrez of the El Paso Dawgs has now hit in 20 straight games. The Dawgs are off to a decent 23-19 start and in second place in the SJL West, 3 games behind division leader Chicago.



There was an interesting trade made in the MGL yesterday, as the Phoenix Speed Devils, who already have the best defense in the MGL added excellent gloveman (and light hitter) Jim Cleveland in a trade with Detroit. Cleveland has a sparkplug mentality, great speed and base running skills, and is Gold Glove caliber defensively at second base and near that if not that at short and third as well. Detroit does get a potential potent designated hitter in 20-year old Bobby McQueen, who ostensibly is a first baseman but whose carrying tool is definitely his bat, particular his home run power potential.

[BirdWatcher]

For many, many years is has seemed like it wasn't a Baltimore Lords game, no matter who the opponent, if it didn't end up with a lot of runs being scored and a lot of home runs being hit. Whether the game was played in Baltimore or on the road. Which probably speaks to the long-standing trend for the Lords to have great hitting and no pitching.

It was more of the same yesterday in Denver, when the Brewers finally bested the Lords in a high scoring contest which ended with a Gene Brasher walk-off RBI single (he had hit his team high 9th homer earlier in the game) in the bottom of the 10th.



Chris Romines is following up his excellent 1985 season with yet another strong start, hitting .369/.396/.482, and he was named Player of the Game in yesterday's win.

After a few strong starts, Eric Maisch once again struggled, allowing 11 runs, though only 5 of them earned, over 5.1 IP. On the other hand, the Brewers got 3.1 excellent innings from veteran left-hander Diego Lopez, a former Rule 5 pick for the team, who now has a 2.12 ERA in his 17 innings this season. And Paul Johnson, who recently signed a 2-year extension with the club (and is another guy the Brewers got in the Rule 5 draft years ago) worked the last 1.2 innings to get the win, and improves to 2-0 with 1 save and a 2.13 ERA.

The tough win came on the heels of the Brewers dropping 2 of 3 to the visiting first place San Francisco Velocity. The Velocity are off to a decent little start (sarcasm alert), now sitting at 35-8 on the season.

[BirdWatcher]

Let's take a look at the standings on the 1st day of June of the 1986 WPK season:



The Chicago Fire remain atop the SJL West with only the resurgent El Paso Dawgs giving them much competition at this stage of the season. El Paso is getting good offensive production, including key contributions from both young (B.J. Dyer, 24 years old) and veteran (Jose Gutierrez, 34) players. Their starting rotation has also been very good, including some quality innings from a few former Brewers- Sadahige Kawasaki (5-4, 3,81) and Jim McKnight (3-1, 2.13).

The Jacksonville Wolf Pack have been a bit of a surprise in the SJL East, and probably the biggest key to their success is the emergence of a terrific 1-2 combo at the top of their rotation in 23-year old David Parker (8-0, 2.02) and 23-year old Casey Van Fossen (6-2, 3.13). The Philadelphia Mud Hens have regressed a bit lately and their offensive is unimpressive. Their pitching isn't bad and in fact their bullpen is the top ranked in the league, but the defense behind them isn't great either. Washington, the winners of the division the last four seasons, certainly can't be counted out, continue to have solid pitching and at least a few key members of their lineup who have under-performed thus far but are likely to get hot at some point.

It certainly wasn't how it was expected to go down prior to the season, but the MGL West at this point is the powerhouse division of the WPK. Both San Francisco and Phoenix got off to torrid starts though they have cooled off slightly of late, allowing the Denver Brewers, winners of 8 of their last 9 games in May, to climb back into contention.

And the MGL East remains uninspiring. Though at least one team- the Detroit Falcons- are now above .500, if only barely, and another at .500.

Early leaders in candidacy for post-season awards honors are David Parker of Jacksonville, Ryan Rystrom (5-3, 2.56) of Washington, and Jody Valle (7-2, 3.19) of Philadelphia for the SJL Harris/Lee award. Top candidates for the SJL MVP are Boston's Kyle Adams (.360/.462/.549, 2.9 WAR), Matt Van der Heyden of Pittsburgh (.376/.507/.599, 2.8 WAR), and San Antonio's John Mussaw (.316/.354/.549, 2.7 WAR).

In the MGL, the top Harris/Lee candidates are Oklahoma City's Matt Greene (5-5, 2.50), Portland's Kyle Gilbert (6-4, 2.13), and Phoenix' Jonathan Riechman (5-1, 2.07).
MVP candidates in the MGL include Phoenix' rookie Hyeong-uk Chun (.352/.438/.849, 4.3 WAR), San Francisco veteran Mike Shervey (.354/.418/.641, 3.1 WAR), and his teammate Ryan Frommeyer (.409/.444/.557).

[BirdWatcher]

Some of the basics:




The Brewers had a strong May, going 20-9, and clearly the starting rotation is doing much better in 1986 than in '85. Jim Atwell is having something of a comeback season, Eric Maisch is at least trending in the right direction, and the youngsters Stephen Brooks and Eric Fehrenbacher have mostly held their own and at times been quite brilliant.

The bullpen, particularly the trio of Dan Folk, Willie Ramirez, and Paul Johnson, has been tremendous.

Young Gene "Basher" Brasher is making a real case for increased playing time, hitting .315/.361/.694 and leading the club in homeruns with 12 in just 123 plate appearances.