Curt Hogg on Spiderman at Wrigley, Sophomore Chourio, Freddy P trade?

00:00:00
Speaker 1: He's a competitor, he's super fiery, he wants to play through it, and he's catching just as much, if not more, than every other catcher in baseball. So that's the kind of guy he is.

00:00:13
Speaker 2: We're going to get into another component of the Brewers Cups game from yesterday, but I didn't even see this.

00:00:18
Speaker 3: I mean, there was a lot of weirdness yesterday.

00:00:22
Speaker 2: We'll get into Dennis Santana against the fan later. We'll get there. Actually, we're not going to get into this because it's just but who got hit? Sorry Biggie Hunter big. Yeah, there's not much to say besides obviously thinking about him. And I was watching that one live. Yeah, I was, that's right, right, I was watching you faded it. Yeah, I was watching. I put bones on the rays and they let me down. But anyway, more importantly thinking about Hunter and his fam and hope that he's okay. But also there was a fan that climbed the netting.

00:01:02
Speaker 4: That was going to be that strong dude.

00:01:04
Speaker 3: They're strong.

00:01:06
Speaker 4: Yeah, But I mean it's obviously good hitters throw their bat.

00:01:09
Speaker 3: Ye John was high. So a fan did this? This is a fan? This is allowed?

00:01:16
Speaker 2: No, no, no, not at all like Oh, so he got booted, but.

00:01:20
Speaker 3: They brought and brought him back. Then they brought him back. He looks like he was ready for l s U Arkansas, look like talked in with shorts. That's why I was like, pants, Oh, khaki pants? Is that a look for a baseball game? And maybe it's the business person special at lunch.

00:01:43
Speaker 2: See to me, I'm like, you know, like I worked for a minor league team, like those were the sales guys, and I worked at the minor league.

00:01:49
Speaker 3: They're at the game, they're sitting there like that.

00:01:55
Speaker 2: Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Brewers beat reporter Kurt Hogue with us back on FT. Kurt, good to see you. How's life cover in the Brewers right now? Give us the goods? Which juicy with this team?

00:02:07
Speaker 1: Well, the team is playing pretty well the last three fours weeks. They're kind of hanging around in the central The Cubs are really goods, so they haven't made up a ton of ground there. They're back in the wild card race. And most importantly, Scott, we have fans at games on Wrigley trying to climb nettings to grab bats. So life is good?

00:02:27
Speaker 4: All right? Well, well tell me about that. Tell me about Spider Man. I mean the fan who we were we were talking about a little bit maybe outfit choice, maybe wasn't maybe, but he looked like he was a He was a splunker, like a caver. So tell us, tell us what you know about the situation of Spider Man from Chicago.

00:02:46
Speaker 1: As well as Funny Kratz. I talked to him. I went down there and spoke to him. And that was not the first bat that he had grabbed from a net or not from a netting, but had grabbed in the stands out of game. He got a Craig Bigio Hall of Fame bad in ninety six. And then he said there was a according to him, there's no there's no evidence of this. We don't have MLB TV archives to ninety six, A least I don't. And he said Harry Carey was kind of chastising him for not giving the bat to the elderly lady next to him and told him chivalry is dead. So Brian Anderson, another pretty well renowned announcer yesterday, was referring to him as finance bro, which seems about right. And now, so now he's been he's heard it from Harry Carey and ba who's obviously one of the best going in the game today.

00:03:33
Speaker 4: I mean you got I mean, that's like ninety six. He didn't look like he didn't look like he was making he would have been that old. Maybe maybe he was like, how old is this guy? What is his what is his profession? Because you talked to.

00:03:47
Speaker 3: Him, ninety six was about thirty years ago.

00:03:49
Speaker 4: That's what I mean. He looked like he was maybe thirty five. That dressed to dress.

00:03:53
Speaker 2: Noh, obviously wasn't five grabbing bats from elderly ladies.

00:03:57
Speaker 4: That's what I mean.

00:03:57
Speaker 3: It's probably fifty five, right.

00:04:00
Speaker 1: This is my best journalism yet, he said, I think he was mid to late forties. I don't remember the exact number. It's on a notebook somewhere. And he works in a beverage distribution of some sort. I don't know the exact details. That's all I got for you.

00:04:14
Speaker 4: It'd be great if it was Miller lite that he was. So maybe he's a Brewers fan coming down.

00:04:19
Speaker 1: To not a Brewers fan, No, not a Brewis fan.

00:04:22
Speaker 4: That's why I dressed weird, because he was kind of a loser, like like a Cubs fan.

00:04:27
Speaker 3: Really, you're going after the Cubs. I guess you can.

00:04:29
Speaker 1: I'm not commentating on that.

00:04:31
Speaker 4: I'm a Brewer. Oh I read that in your article that you didn't like.

00:04:34
Speaker 2: Comsan right right, all right, So I'll give you something easier to cover.

00:04:39
Speaker 3: Do you think that Freddy Peralta could get traded? Like?

00:04:42
Speaker 2: What's the percentage chance that Freddy Peralta gets traded this season?

00:04:47
Speaker 1: I like it on the spot, I'll go to the Brewers. A lot of people around the Brewers and in important positions were a bit miffed by the way that the Hater trade played out publicly and obviously on the field that's really where they got burned. And the fact that we're still talking about this, or at least I'm talking about it three years later, kind of shows you maybe there was a lesson of sorts learned there. On one hand, the Brewers absolutely would get maximum value if they traded Freddie Prawlt. That would shake up the trade deadline. But Freddie means a lot to the clubhouse, obviously means a lot to the pitching staff. He's probably going to be an All Star for I believe the second time in his career later this summer. He's pitching great he's a leader in there. He's a friend to all the guys. And also, I think this is important to note too, he's a legacy Brewer. He didn't initially get signed by the team, but he came up with them in twenty eighteen. Kratz, I don't know who were you on the team at that point, but he's Him and Yelich and now Woodruff are the only guys that are the consistent threads through this era of Brewers baseball, and I think that means something too. We'll see about the off season, but I personally think it would be an oversight when you're in contention to sell him with a year and a half left.

00:06:06
Speaker 4: First of all, no, I wasn't on the team yet. He made his debut against the Rockies and struck out. I mean, for Brewers fans, infamous, like he struck everybody out, and he came up and they were like, I think it was on Father's Day too. He came up and he did all that. I got there a little bit after that. But my question to you would be, you saw the aftermath of and have heard all the people that are pissed off about the Hater trade. How could the Brewers do it differently this time if they're going to trade them, because the value for Freddie Peralta is what this organization thrives on to stay in contention every year. So how could they do it differently?

00:06:45
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think.

00:06:46
Speaker 1: There's a little bit too that Brewers fans and maybe Brewers players are a bit more used to the way that they know. They say they have to do it this way, and you can kind of see why they traded KORbin traded Devin since then, and so people are a little more used to the Brewer's way of doing things. It's just a little different when you are in the middle of a race in July with two months to go. I think there's probably a few different ways you could handle it better. I think they're going to be in Washington or maybe an off day on the on trade deadline day this year. If you do it, you got to be there. You got to be there talking to the team if you're the guy making the trade. Pat Murphy of all the managers that could probably handle something like this in a clubhouse. That's one of his strengths and one of his specialties. He rallied the guys last year when no one thought they would do anything to make the playoffs, win the division, and win Manager of the Year. So look, I think you have to weigh the pros and cons, and you can definitely see why this would be something that the Brewers would have to at least consider, especially considering they need some more offense next year, in the year after that and as you look down the road. But yeah, it's a tricky calculus to handle, and I do not envy Matt Arnold's position one bit.

00:08:08
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00:08:17
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00:08:18
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00:08:31
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00:08:33
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00:09:08
Speaker 6: I want to stick on Pat Murphy a little bit, man. This guy has been really good manager. He's been a really good coach throughout the years. Talk a little bit about a little bit more about his impact and what he's done for this Milwaukee team and the players too.

00:09:24
Speaker 3: Yeah.

00:09:24
Speaker 1: Obviously we saw it last year with the team of young guys that really rallied around Murphin this year, it's a little bit of a different group and they got off to a slow start and the approach was different than it was last year, they had some team meetings, they had some more talks, they had some more closed door kind of sort of things, and now they're starting to find their groove a little bit and you're starting to feel a little bit like it was last year with the chemistry and the vibe around the club. So we'll see if they're able to catch the Cubs. That's going to be a tough task, but they seem to have finally found a bit more of an identity like they had last year. And obviously that that kind of stems from Murph and the energy and the attitude he brings.

00:10:05
Speaker 6: Uh.

00:10:05
Speaker 1: We saw he saw at the end of the game yesterday in the Cubs where the Brewers were frustrated with calls late in the game, and Murph spent about minute minute and a half during the handshake line, uh, giving the umpire a little bit of his his opinion.

00:10:19
Speaker 4: Okay, so what else did he have to say about that? Because he was you don't usually see umpires, I mean, uh, managers that pissed at umpires when you win the game? Was there some like did did Murph need a little extra cooling off before he talked to you guys?

00:10:39
Speaker 2: Yeah?

00:10:39
Speaker 1: A little bit of cooling off. He he had a nice cold. Uh, not an alcoholic drink. It just a some caffeinated caffeinated water, some sparkling water that he likes and drinks about twenty six of those a day. So we gave him, We gave we walked in, we gave him a few extra breasts. He knew what was coming, we knew what we were asking. And he did not criticize the umpires. He he said, hey, you're the one. You're the one that said they were radic I didn't say that, But then Trevor McGill, the closer, he's not afraid to speak his mind, and he said it like it was. He said the un bluesom calls late in the game, which objectively he did.

00:11:15
Speaker 3: Yep, there you go.

00:11:16
Speaker 2: I'm going to take us in a different direction. I want to ask you about a couple of young players on the ball club and how things are going for them this year. Because I see the numbers, But tell me what you're seeing. Jackson Cheerio not having a bad year by any means, but he's not having a superstar sophomore season.

00:11:32
Speaker 3: Right.

00:11:33
Speaker 2: Numbers are from what I judge a tick down on the offensive side of things. And then William Contreras was hitting the snot out of the ball last year. Again not bad above average offensive numbers by OPS plus waited, but not superstar numbers like he was putting up last year. So what's the story with those two.

00:11:53
Speaker 1: Well, the story with both of those two is they're not quite hitting the ball as hard as they were last year, especially for True in the second half. Contrarists. It's very understandable. He's been playing through a pretty serious finger injury all year that and if they want to fix it it would require season ending surgery essentially, so that's not something he wants to do. He's he's a competitor, he's super fiery, he wants to play through it, and he's catching just as much, if not more than every other catcher in baseball. So that's the kind of guy he is. And you can definitely tell it's impacting him a little bit at the plate, although he's his plate discipline. His walk numbers are up and Tario that's probably the thing to point to. His numbers aren't bad ops sitting around seven forty seven fifty. He's got the power. He's probably going to go twenty twenty again. But it's the plate discipline. It comes and goes. The swing decisions they come and go a little bit. But you just see these flashes still where he's super duper electric at the plate and you just assume kind of that he's going to catch fire at some point, maybe have a really ridiculous month and those numbers are gonna blue. And he's also like adjusted pretty well to centerfield. I think that's an important thing to note. With Blake Perkins out for the entire year at this point, Mitchell played about three weeks and he's been hurt since, so Cherio slid over there. He hadn't played there in the big leagues before. He looked really, really rough there last year in spring training when they tried him in centerfield, and he's been all right to maybe a little bit above average.

00:13:17
Speaker 4: Do you have any injury updates for us on aforementioned Garrett Mitchell and Big Wu. Big Wu leaving his last start after getting hit in the elbow by a line drive, which thought it was going to be his last rehab start.

00:13:30
Speaker 1: But do you have any updates big Woo? Yeah, he threw a bullpen or a live BP. I can't remember him and nest Or Cortes are both in the same general area of rehab. But he's going to go out on a rehab assignment assuming that went well. He threw yesterday and he was probably gonna make one or two to three max, but probably two rehab starts. He's itching to get back. And what's interesting is he said the reset, like the elbow injury and allowing his body to do some things in the room that maybe he hadn't been able to hammer on, maybe in the lower half, really made his the metrics on his stuff play up because he was sitting ninety one ninety two in the fastball. I don't know exactly what metrics he was talking about. It's you know, the IVB or the vertical break or the spin or the vela or whatever. But he felt good after a little bit of a reset to his body, even though he got banged up in his final start before coming back. So Big Wu should be back soon. That'll be exciting for I think anyone that knows him, Brewers fans probably like baseball fans in general, the guy hasn't pitched in what we're looking at nineteen almost twenty months now. And then Garrett Mitchell the other one, he's rehabing a triple A right now. Could see him back maybe next week.

00:14:44
Speaker 4: Could be a shot in the arm, could take a little bit off of the you know, the the weight that Contraras and Cheerio are carrying with a bat and maybe that'll relax him a little bit. Who knows. The Brewers could make a little run here. But I got a question for you. You know, the twenty five year celebration is coming up. I got invited to the twenty five year celebration. Should I or should I not cancel all my plans and make it? And I didn't see myself on the Home Run Derby selection crew that Ryan Brown's gonna be. So should I not come to it? Because they might ask Yasmani Grandal to come in my place instead.

00:15:23
Speaker 1: Well, a Kratz, you have to come. You guys should do a live show and maybe a little short notes, but you guysoud do a live show in Milwaukee for it, and then we can do a framing competition with you and whatever former catchers are going to be there. You gotta be there. I can't believe the oversight. Unfortunately, fortunately Kratz, they picked a pitcher for the home run derby instead of you with Giovanni Gallardo. He could mash a little bit back in his day. But he must have been must have been an oversight. Sorry, I wasn't on the committee framing.

00:15:55
Speaker 4: Competition, Look, Kurt, I am all about I am all about competitions and like stuff at like the All Star Game. If they have a framing competition, I might change the channel.

00:16:07
Speaker 3: You would be a one and done because then you have the challenge system next year.

00:16:11
Speaker 4: It's still the framing.

00:16:13
Speaker 3: Yeah, I know, I know you can frame others.

00:16:15
Speaker 4: It's just not gonna be as valuable. I think John Carlos Stanton's gonna start catching when they bring them robot homes.

00:16:19
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, he'll just sit on a chair.

00:16:22
Speaker 4: He'll just both knees down, just be down to block the ball and catch it and throw them out at second. That's it.

00:16:29
Speaker 2: They might allow you to have a chair at that point. You can sit in a chair and just catch it like that. Anyway, Uh, Gret, good catching up. Thanks for the time then

00:16:38
Speaker 1: All right, Thanks Pellis