It's time for Make the Call, a weekly discussion on the top Wisconsin sports stories of the week.
You can listen to the show anytime on the free Civic Media app.
Download it now on your device's app store or at civicmedia.us slash app.
Now, it's time for Make the Call, a Civic Media sports production.
Happy weekend to all those who celebrate and buy all those I mean, all of y'all.
I am Jimmy Cuskas, sports director here at Civic Media.
Welcome in it is time for make the call here on the civic media radio network the vast Empire spanning the Midwest and as always on the program We like to do more than just having one person yak about sports So we bring on our usual trio of knuckleheads to talk sports this week first we head to the Northwoods and Park Falls where we hear from one Gray upper management gunters say great.
What's going on man?
Festivus for the rest of us, Jimmy.
You said happy weekend, but not everybody celebrates.
We have to be sensitive to that.
How's it going?
That is spoken to get true upper management HR packet right there.
And we had to Madison of the capital city, and we hear from Parker Olson.
Parker, what's up, man?
How's the vertical going?
The vertical is good.
I am really glad to hear a Seinfeld reference so early in the day that really that set I think that sets us up for success here, guys.
I sure hope so.
I'm Jimmy Kuska.
I'm representing the western side of the state, the driftless as we get set for today's program.
We have a lot to talk about this week as we kind of start wrapping up on some of our summer topics.
We're getting a lot closer to football and we will talk football today.
We are going to talk about some packers and training camp because training camp starts this coming week and we're going to do that coming up in about 20 minutes.
Also, going to deep dive a bit, the major league baseball trade deadline is approaching.
That's a week from now and we're going to talk a bit about
about what maybe the Brewers could do coming up about a half an hour from right now.
And then later in the program, we will hear from Mike Clemens and a sports week in review and get you caught up on everything that happened this week in Wisconsin sports.
Might be the summer, but there is sure a lot of things happening.
And what we do in the first part of the show is we go through the biggest sports topics or not sports topics of the week.
And this week, we call it our top eight at eight.
And we start at number eight.
with this question and this is sports adjacent, would you survive participating in one day of NFL training camp?
And I have to make you think about this for a second because if you haven't been to training camp, you see the videos of people just playing catch, playing football, whatever.
But I've seen stories where like journalists go through like a practice and they go through a workout and they can't make it.
So I'm curious, do you guys think you could survive one day
Oh, man, it's alternating camp.
No.
Nope.
I can give you a two letter answer to that one.
This would be the last you saw of me.
Wave me farewell like I'm on a boat.
Just give me a good send off if I'm going to training camp.
Parker, you think you could do it?
Yeah.
Short answer, no.
Long answer, no way.
This guy will not stand any chance whatsoever for a multitude of reasons.
I might snap, I think, is
the main one.
Now the joke that comes to mind, who has two thumbs and no athletic ability?
This guy.
I'll give you my context to this.
First of all, I would absolutely wreck myself on one of the little kid bikes just riding in the camp.
I won't even make it to practice.
Just so you know, but the second part of this is I coach high school football and the stuff I make the kids do, I don't think I could do so.
And that's just high school.
So I'm thinking, okay, on the professional level, these guys are doing a heck of a lot more.
There's no way I'm not pushing the flip sled.
I'm not going to make it through.
It's a bad idea, especially when it's hot.
It isn't going to happen for me.
There's a reason why they are professional athletes and I'm just kind of a wannabe athlete.
All right.
So there we go.
That's our sports adjacent topic for the week.
Number seven in our top eight and eight.
And this might be a quick one for all of us, but the World Cup happened.
And I know we talked about, you know, maybe our favorites going into the finals matches.
We talked about maybe some of the teams were kind of rooting for, but, you know, it's been, you know, a week now.
So I'm just curious, is there anything from the World Cup that
that that lingers free.
Is there anything that you take away from the United States hosting the World Cup this year?
No, not really.
The only thing that's lingering is my luck for having turned on the final right after the burgers game.
And that put us like right at the end of the game before extra time.
So I got to see like, oh, is it going to happen?
Are they going to score?
No.
Oh, we get over we get extra time.
Awesome.
Cool.
That is pretty much all I remember from soccer.
I'm not a big guy.
I'm not a big soccer guy.
I'm sorry.
For me, it was mostly present in my day because Joel, who's been here on the show before, was falling into it a little bit.
I think he was just desperate for a sport.
But the moment that game ended, it stopped even being a topic of conversation in our studio.
So yeah, by the same exact test as Parker just gave us, yeah, no, it does not pass.
We're out of soccer mode now around here.
Yeah, I think that you know, what's this the World Cup metadata people that the soccer I already thought this was gonna be the sport You know the World Cup being here is gonna change how Americans perceive the sport and like it would become like kind of the part of Everyday things and it just feels like a week later.
It feels like the World Cup happened like months ago.
It's weird But yeah, it definitely happened and the final was very long But yeah, I'm with you guys.
It's weird that like all of a sudden now that it's over people are already on a
Talking cranny camp and that's what we're gonna talk about here real
Americans Jimmy
Well, let's talk we'll get the football in a second I gotta ask you this so we just because of the news yesterday number six and our top eight at eight Well, we heard yesterday that LeBron James is signing for eight million dollars over two years to play in Philadelphia That's not even Gary Trent money.
So I'm curious about this for you guys.
I Know that's probably a little too
soon
I gotta ask you guys about the ring chasing the super teams.
I mean, what is your reaction to everything happening?
We've spent a lot of time on yotta synthetic info and even he's saying stuff now that's just making you go like, what are you doing, man?
But I gotta ask you guys, you know, with all these moves happening at NBA, does it, how does it affect your kind of how you view how things are going in that sport?
I mean Super teams are something that I don't think
the fans of the NBA at large want.
Similarly for baseball fans, I think a lot of fans would love it if there was a salary cap and it wasn't so possible to create a team like the Dodgers, like the Yankees.
So when you see that kind of stuff happening, it kinda sucks a little bit.
But also, there's gotta be a part of everyone that's like, it's kinda cool to have a bunch of superstars together.
Like, is it gonna work?
Is it gonna be like a real house life swing and they all hate each other?
Like, what are we gonna see when you put all these guys together?
At large though,
I'm not too interested.
I think it's kind of neat to see guys moving around, but there's enough consistency that it's not like.
Jarringly weird like the transfer portal can kind of be
in
college football, right?
And of course, I can't escape this conversation without making a football comparison, but it's an apt one We saw it when Tom Brady left for the Buccaneers anytime one of the goats is on the move It's just a fascinating thought, you know, okay, can he do it elsewhere?
Of course LeBron has already done it in multiple places So that's a little less of a question for him But for me this move and moves like it the moves that have been happening recently
They have me really thankful and bear with me here.
They have me really thankful that the players have some level of control in these transactions because this
feels like a reminder of the money motivations behind the sport.
As an owner for a team who would push for this kind of move, I want this to happen so I can sell tickets and sponsorships.
And that shows through a little bit more in moments like this when the goat moves and he's this old and you've got this kind of thing going on.
He's taking small money, for example.
So you get to see kind of a curtain poll, but you still might get cool results.
So nobody's going to complain.
But it feels to me like we're just a couple inches from, this is almost too much marketing motivation for my taste.
It almost leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
That said, if they go on a tear and they do something cool, that's going to totally drown out anything to do with the owner.
It'll be, hey, good job on you for getting LeBron over that direction.
So we have to go with a we'll see answer for this one.
I'm neutral on it until we see how it goes.
I'm with you a little bit.
I don't want to say that I'm not going to pick a side on it because I have one hand.
I really like that players have control over what they want to do.
I mean, that's something like in baseball that frustrates me that, yeah, on one hand, I want my team to have, you know, they get six years of player control, but on the other hand, if you come into Major League Baseball at 22 years old, all of a sudden you're locked into a team until you're, you know, 29 years old or whatever, like that.
I don't necessarily like that.
I think that players should be able to move a little bit.
There is something to team control though.
But the other part of it, as a fan of a team, I would like to see if I have a great player, see them stick around at least for a little while.
Bucks were incredibly spoiled by getting Yanis for 13 years, right?
The fact that he's in Miami and saying what he's saying, I leave that all aside.
I've kind of stopped following it because he's not there anymore.
I'm worried about who's here.
Bucks aren't gonna be attracting any big-time free agents anytime soon.
You kind of just look at what you got and go from there.
I think too, just on a broader scale, whatever the sport is when there's so much player movement, I feel like in a way it kind of facilitates this 24-7 new cycle, sport cycle, and that there's always got to be something to talk about in player movement.
is a pretty easy topic.
I mean, we just went through 18 months of it with Yanis.
You can probably go back five years with Yanis about people trying to trade him to other teams, right?
That's what's fed.
And that's what we did on our show here, even for almost a year.
I just, I like it in some aspects for the players.
Don't like it as a fan.
So like you guys, I'm a little bit torn on it.
Something I'm not torn on though is number five in our top eight and eight.
And that is this.
Luke Fickle is on the hot seat for the Wisconsin Badgers this year.
I went to a bowl game basically every year until the last couple of years and all of a sudden we entered the year.
The Big 10 put out a list of the top 100 players in Big 10 college football and not a single badger was on it.
So I am just sitting here wondering at what level do you think the badgers need to achieve in order for Luke Fickle to stay in Madison?
The Badgers have got a decently easy schedule I think this year.
I think they kind of lucked out with this as far as Big Ten goes.
You would need to see, I think, a lot of, you need to win the games that you're supposed to win and you should flirt with beating someone that you're not supposed to win.
The Badgers are gonna learn a lot about their new athletic director, right?
This is gonna be the first year with the new AD.
It's gonna be interesting to see.
How hot is the seat is my question?
I don't really know.
We don't really know what the new standards are.
Do you need to be performing at the absolute highest level?
Or do we understand we're rebuilding a little bit?
We're getting there.
If you only win six games this year, okay, that's not awesome, but you know what?
Six games is bowl eligible.
I would take bowl eligibility over anything at all right now.
But I think bowl eligible is kind of the goal.
And if you don't even get close, if you only have four wins, I think you might be gone.
That sounds about right to me.
I think it's going to have a lot to do with where this year compares against last year, for example.
I think I don't have another last year sort of conversation would probably be something that might have happened or might happen soon.
But for me and
Consider this a vague guess.
I would expect that leadership and hiring decisions will be based around significant progress of some kind, a slightly better record, bold eligibility, even if you just keep the fans happy and you don't generate too much of a negative buzz.
With this much turnover, this recently and with NIL still being so early in its stages,
I wouldn't be surprised if they want to give him one more rough year to try to make something of it, especially with the new AD.
You know, let's see what we do with one year of these guys together.
And if we've got to call it a wash, we do.
That said, it kind of feels like anything's on the table.
And so I give you a total cop out answer on this one.
I would expect them to want significant progress.
But if it's not there, I wouldn't be surprised if they still keep them.
What do you got, Jimmy?
There's a financial aspect to this too.
I mean, they don't want to buy out of.
Coach in Madison they did that's why you know Financially doesn't make sense to spend money on a coach who isn't there and I think that's kind of part of this is what we talked about last year They're not gonna get rid of him, you know two and a half years early in his contract like they're gonna probably I think regardless of what happens unless they start like oh and nine or something There's there's no chance that they lose him this year, but
I think the heat really cranks up in the off-season going into next year.
Like you guys said, I think we're going to see Fickle there this year.
Regardless of how hot that seat might or might not be, the financial part of it is really saving him this year, the structure of his contract.
But I think once he gets past this year, that's much less of an issue.
And they got to move on.
They got to move on.
Only got a few seconds for this.
So I'm going to try to get through this quick.
Number four on our top eight and eight.
We're going to talk a lot more about this, by the way, in about 15 minutes.
But do you guys see any weak spots on the brewers roster as we
yet the home stretch now of the season.
Week to week, it's tough to argue with an issue where pitching is concerned right now.
You've got three great pitchers that are not playing or two that aren't playing.
And I think of the Marines who like to say two is one and one is none.
You've got a plan for things to break.
And it's impossible to replace the Miz and the guys that were there.
But we're obviously facing down the barrel of having to do that now.
And it's going how one would expect.
What do you think, Parker?
I think weak is a really harsh word to use on this.
I don't think there's necessarily a weak spot.
There are spots that aren't as strong as I would like them to be, but a weak seems a little much for me on this.
Okay.
You can yell at me later because we're going to talk about maybe some ways to address some of these things coming up, but we got a step outside coming back.
We'll talk a little bit about Packers training camp coming up next on make the call here on the city media radio network.
Welcome back to Make the Call on Civic Media.
Moving along here on the weekend to make the call here on the Civic Media Radio Network.
We are in our top 888 and in this segment we're going to spend a couple of our questions talking about Packers in training camp.
Last week we talked defense.
This week we're going to talk offense.
So number three in our top eight and eight, I'm curious about which offensive position group is maybe the most intriguing position group to you that we should be watching for in this training camp.
We'll start with you, Gray.
Jimmy, this was a super tough choice this week because of the moves that have been made over the off season.
And I know a lot of people will be thinking wide receiver.
We'll have a chance to talk about that later.
I'm thinking offensive line.
It's really easy to forget that Elton Jenkins and Rashid Walker are both
gone out of the building.
And with all the reshuffling that took place due to injury and just because of poor play in certain periods of last year, that's going to have a lot to do with how the season goes for the Packers.
They did settle into a rather consistent offensive line configuration by the end of last year.
But again, two of the players featured in that, or at least one of them, that left tackle position is totally gone.
And the player who's the heir apparent at left tackle, Jordan Morgan, hasn't necessarily seen a lot of snaps there.
That said, he still is pretty
going to be the choice, at least in the long term.
So will we have to have an early reshuffle on the offensive line?
If we do, it's going to be a little nerve wracking for me.
I'll admit, but yeah, there was a close win for the offensive line.
Overwide receivers this year with the changes that have been made.
Parker, where are you looking this season?
I'm going with your close loser with the wide receivers, Gray.
I think that wide receiver group is just really interesting.
It is such a different group than it had been, say, two years ago when we were like, man, we've got so many wide receivers that could be the one.
We don't know what to do with them all.
And now it's not that same group.
They're obviously used to have got some of those guys.
You've got Christian Watson.
You've got Jayden Reed.
Matthew Golden, as well, going to see how much he can do later.
We'll talk about him more later, I'm sure.
But I think that wide receiver group is just going to be really interesting, because once you get past those three, you've got Savion Williams, you've got good old Bull Melton.
Yeah, sure.
Bull Melton.
You get a bunch of this.
Yeah, you get
this right here like that.
I don't know.
Is he wide receiver?
Is he on defense?
Depends on the day.
See what Jersey puts on.
I don't know.
It's an interesting group.
I'm very interested in Skymore as well and what he could possibly contribute to that wide receiver room.
I think, Jimmy, you'll love this.
I think you're going to see him on special teams more, but he might be very big in that wide receiver room as well.
I'm going to go with running back as the position group to watch because of everything that happened this off season.
We talk a lot about things that happened just strictly in football, but there are things that happen outside of football too that can affect things.
I really honestly feel like running back will be a spot that's going to be of vast importance to the team this year.
So who can emerge?
Who can be a viable NFL running back?
You're not looking for your past era NFL guy that's going to carry the ball 25.
times a game or anything.
But you're looking for people who can be effective in that spot, catching passes out of the backfield, picking up blitzes, you know, getting 80 yards and a touchdown or two, whatever it is, they need to find some guys in that running back room to kind of supplement what they might lose just given the situation around Jacobson and everything they're doing there.
So to me, running back is a really, really interesting position group to watch the Packers this year.
And that leads us right into number two in our top eight at eight.
And this is narrowing it down from group to player.
So which player are you most excited to see this training?
camp on offense for the Packers.
Just like that, I'm right where Parker was mentioning.
I'm in wide receiver land.
I'm looking at Matthew Golden.
We know what we've got if Christian Watson stays healthy.
We know what we've got in Jaden Reed, whether he stays healthy or not.
We don't know what Matthew Golden can really accomplish.
One touchdown sort of soft pedaled in the playoffs.
That was not the rookie season people wanted out of the first wide receiver taken in the first round by Green Bay in over 20 years.
So that just wasn't what it felt like.
I think a lot of us wanted it to be.
But again, because of a crowded receiver room, there were plenty of guys to pick up the slack and spreading the ball around those five or six guys was the game plan all year.
Is that even on the table with Savion Williams and Isaiah Nair and Brendan Rice, by the way, at least for the moment on the roster for Green Bay?
Yes, that Rice, if I'm not mistaken.
But that question will morph into other ones.
If we can't spread it around, who's the workhorse?
And if Watson's injured, is there a workhorse?
I kind of feel like the Packers might be where the Brewers are with pitching.
What happens if the first two go?
Do we have enough to fill the hole when that happens?
And I know I like to compare sports a lot, but it's tough to ignore the similarities there.
And I'll admit, I'm a little bit worried that the wide receiver group won't stand one three or four game injury or two.
That might be enough to knock us below another NFC North team like the Bears or Lions.
If we're on top of them mid season, it might not be by much or for very long.
So small differences are going to make big differences, I think, this year.
Parker, who's your
pick?
I want to go out of some room that you mentioned right there.
If there are guys that get hurt in this wide receiver room, in the past for the Packers, you've been able to say, man, Aaron Rodgers makes all of these receivers look so good.
Brett Favre makes all these receivers look really good.
Jordan Love, I'm not 100% sure that I can say that he makes all of his receivers look really, really good no matter who they are.
So that's something to think about if that depth does start to get hurt.
Great, unfortunately, I'm right with you.
I was also going to say Matthew Golden.
I think that he's just so interesting to look at because you're right.
Packer fans gave, they got their first, first round wide receiver in my life.
I think.
And.
Ouch, man.
Whoa.
I know.
I'm sorry.
I hate to, I
hate
to, I hate to do that to you, but first wide receiver, first round wide receiver.
And it was, yeah.
I think Packer fans just wanted something more from him and they didn't get hardly anything at all.
Let's be honest, he didn't get used like they kind of thought that he would get used and it was disappointing to see.
So I think that Packer fans
are going to be desiring for more Matthew Golden.
They yearn for more Matthew Golden.
And they're going to be wanting the offense, however different it may be this year, to be more of Matthew Golden and get more use.
I think that he could be a really good threat on some screens and stuff.
Jimmy, what about you?
So I would normally just say, like, I love quarterbacks.
I want to see Jordan Love just launch bombs.
And plus, you know, Jordan Love just is charity just donated a bunch of football cleats to my high school football program.
So I'm very excited for that.
But the player I'm mostly
interested in seeing to be honest is Tucker Kraft.
I want to see.
how he bounces back from the injury.
Tucker Kraft can help all of the receiver issues you mentioned.
If he can come back and be healthy and play most of the season, I think that alleviates some of the pressure on the wide receiver room.
Also, some of the pressure maybe on trying to solve the running back in Andrem.
And Jordan Love is an incredible statistical success.
But even taking a little pressure off him, when you have someone who can change a game like Tucker Kraft in the middle there, I think it just solves a lot of problems for you.
It solves the problem of who do you go to on third down.
Who do you get to move to Chains?
It's a big, big time player that you got there.
And it's not a lot of tight ends can be that way.
And the Packers have one, a very, very good tight end in the middle.
And that's what I'm going to leave my thought at with this, because we're actually out of time in this segment.
And we got to move on.
And we're going to wrap up our training camp thoughts after the break.
And then when we'll get in, when we get back with that, we're going to dive into the Brewers.
We'll hear from Mike Cummins later in the program on Make the Call, part of the Civic Media radio network.
Welcome back to Make
the Call on Civic Media.
Welcome back.
Gonna finish our thoughts on Packers Training Camp.
It begins this week, by the way.
So if you're heading over to Green Bay to watch the Packers, you want to watch the players ride on the hilariously small children's bicycles to practice.
That's a favorite pastime of many.
That all starts coming up this week.
We spent the last segment talking a bit about our
the offensive positions.
We did defensive positions last year.
Just a couple of final thoughts on it.
One, if you guys haven't been to training camp, it's pretty fun.
It's pretty relaxed.
You get to see, you get to see, you know, favorite packers kind of out in the open.
It's kind of a neat experience.
But also, for people that go there, it, you know, there's a lot of
Lot of ways that you know like in from parking traffic all that but even the weather where things can change in a hurry So if you're gonna go make sure you check that forecast before you get out there because sometimes they move those things indoors and those are close to the public so I always I always have a great time at it just to wrap up a couple of final thoughts So here I'm Packers training camp.
I was talking about Tucker Kraft and just what I think he could mean and you guys You know, we're talking so much about receivers and everything just want to give you a chance to offer maybe a another another look at this but I
I feel like Tucker Kraft is my first person I'm most interested in seeing this camp for the Packers.
Whether he's limited or not, whatever it is, I just feel like he's such a big part of what they're going to do this year.
Well, I absolutely had to resist giving you two answers to those last two questions, Jimmy.
We had to pick one player, and so often we break our own rules.
And Tucker Kraft was on the mind, but I figured I didn't want to steal anybody's thunder if you were going to go that route.
But it really can't be understated how important Tucker Kraft is to the offense.
It's not quite like.
like Devonte Adams in his last season with Green Bay, where I believe 75% of play calls had Devonte as the primary read.
But it's probably as close as we've been since then.
Short of Jordan Love, Tucker Kraft might be the single most important player on the offensive side of the ball.
And I mean, argue as you will about offensive line and such.
But I would say Jordan Love, Tucker Kraft, Christian Watson, and even Josh Jacobs is still back there in fourth place for who's
the most or hardest to replace.
Parker, am I crazy?
Back me up or call me crazy on that one again.
No, you're not crazy.
You're never crazy.
You're always right on the button.
Cheers, man.
Tucker Kraft is definitely somebody that I think that the Packers are going to be able to expect a lot of production from.
I honestly should have brought him up when we were talking about that running back room earlier, or excuse me, the wide receiver room earlier.
He does just add another good element right there.
I think along with Tuckercraft though, we need to talk about Luke Musgrave as well, because he is coming off an injury as well, and he had gone through a pretty long spout of not getting the ball as much as people wanted him to.
So it would be nice to see him get the ball a little bit more, and I know again that both of these tight ends, they can really block, but you'd like to see Musgrave getting the ball as well.
Um, see him stay on his feet.
Uh, be awesome.
So I don't, that's kind of where I go when I'm looking at that tight end room.
I know Tucker craft is going to be really good.
I want to see how they use Luke Musgrave going forward though.
So we're all thinking pass catchers.
That's what we're thinking here makes sense though.
It's a passing league and the Packers are in a pretty good division full of it So that's what we got for NFL training camp this week We'll talk a lot more Packers obviously in the weeks to come with training camp getting underway this coming week pretty exciting and here we can review from Mike Clements coming up in about 15 minutes, but
Number one in our top eight at eight our top topic this week, and I'm bringing this up to you guys.
This is kind of funny I went to a brewers game recently and as you're out in the parking lot, you know before the game They have people that walk around telling you know like make sure that you pay for your parking Scan the little code make sure your parking is paid for but the guy that walked down our road It wasn't just telling us that but he was asking us
Whether or not the brewers need to go all in on a trade, like, hey, who should the brewers trade for?
I thought it'd be a great question for number one in the top 80.
So thank you, unnamed brewer staff for combing the parking lots, making sure people are paying for their parking, forgiving me the inspiration for this.
But I thought his response to what I said was really interesting because I said,
The Brewers are in a great position because they're stocked for the future and they've got a good team already.
I just don't know how much of that you mortgage for the future to go into win now mode when you're already among the best teams in baseball.
But he countered something that made me think for a second.
He's like, well, if you can get better now and give yourself an even better chance at a championship, isn't that what you're supposed to do in professional sports?
And I thought, you know what?
There's a simple brilliance to this.
So I got to hear what you guys have to say about this.
Is there a move the brewers need to make?
Is there a guy that you think puts them over the top?
Maybe a combination of guys?
Should the brewers stand back and do nothing?
I'm curious what you guys have to say, given that we're a week out from the trade deadline here.
You know, I think I had mentioned last week, or maybe it was a week before when we were talking about the brewers and their playoff contention, right?
How good...
They look right now and how that could work out for them when they get into the playoffs.
For a number of years now, as we've seen with the Brewers, they look really good in the regular season.
I think two years in a row now, they've set the record for most wins in the first 100 games.
Franchise record, that is.
The regular seasons have been good.
The playoffs?
You know, there's something left to be desired very frequently in Brewer's playoffs over these last couple of seasons.
The issue that we talked about last week was...
The pitching, for the most part, has been able to do the job during the playoffs.
The problem in the playoffs for the Brewers has been that they have not been able to generate the types of offense that they need to in the playoffs, because in the playoffs, you kind of need to be able to have a guy who can make a big hit.
I'm talking Brandon Woodruff hitting a home run off of Clayton Kershaw, alright?
That's the kind of moments I want.
We need somebody with a bat.
I don't know if I've got necessarily an exact name for you, but I do think if the Brewers go out and get something, it's going to be a bad because I think that they have learned from, I don't want to call them mistakes at all, but I think they've learned from their history of these last couple of seasons and be like, you know what, our pitchers are doing great.
They've been perfectly fine in the playoffs.
It's not been them.
It's been the hits.
The way that the Brewers offense works is very much put the ball in play and try to make something happen.
It doesn't work out as well when you're in the playoffs.
I think you kind of need someone who's got a power bat.
One of the names that I've seen, I don't know if it's, I believe it's Joe Adele, I'm not harm-centred, I'm pronouncing that correctly.
He's the guy that you might have seen with the Angels a couple weeks ago.
I think he stole three home runs in one game.
But that's not why I won him.
I won him for his bat.
He can actually, he's a good power hitter.
And I think that that's something that the burrs could use, especially right now.
I don't know how I feel about Christian Yelich right now.
I think that he is somebody that the brewers kind of need to see a lot of production out of very quickly before he gets benched decently frequently from that lineup.
I think that you very well could see a new DH for the brewers pretty soon here.
And that could be the power bet that they go for.
I don't know, Gray, my nuts on that.
I don't think you're by any means because I mean, you've got that question of if you're trying to replace a bat,
who in the lineup can you move around and reliably replace with with decent production in the outfield on third base whoever you're moving is doing two jobs and it's really uh it's kind of difficult to account just for the bat i mean yelly kind of gives you that that luxury of having him focus on designated hitting as opposed to his other primary responsibilities but anybody else you're going to drop your your
creating a gap in the field at some point.
So is there somebody available who's both a bat and the gap you need to fill in?
I don't know.
I know I've been talking a lot about pitching today, but it's tough to be in a spot where you've got people who are good enough to keep, but who might not be good enough to get the job done in the playoffs when it matters most.
There's not an issue so glaring, we've got to get this guy off the roster and get him replaced.
But that fact, the fact that there is no glaring gap that we need to fill might be the reason we don't pick up the guy who would make the difference.
You know, nobody's bad enough to replace.
but not good enough to get the job done either.
Am I crazy?
I'm throwing it back at you, Parker.
No, I don't think you're crazy.
And I think that this is a different conversation a couple of weeks ago, because a couple of weeks ago I was calling for heads with Jory Ortiz.
Let's be honest.
I have been known to heckle Jory Ortiz while at Brewer Games, just because he's not using that little toothpick that was in his hands, because he would have been as good with the toothpick in his hands for a long time.
But now he's figured it out.
He's gotten hot.
He's kind of started to look like what we thought he might be this year.
You got to go back and remember,
He had a nice world baseball classic and you thought that he could be really good this year and then didn't really do that when he early on in the season.
And now he's really settled in.
Ossley, since the move to third base, I think that's helped Joey Ortiz lock in.
I don't know what it is.
We've seen that.
I think Jackson Churio had a little bit of that as he was adjusting when he was moving positions in the outfield last year.
The bat kind of suffers sometimes when you're thinking too hard about your defensive position.
I think this is kind of the opposite for Ortiz.
I think that he's over at third base now and he's got to lock in extra hard there because he's not as comfortable there as he was at shortstop before.
Now with Cooper Pratt at short, Ortiz at third, he's more locked in.
And I think somehow that's made something click in his head that he's more locked in now when he's in the batter's box and it's producing.
A couple of weeks ago, we had a different conversation.
He wasn't producing and I probably would have said, you know what, let's get rid of Ortiz and let's find somebody else.
and get a bat there.
The Brewer's defense has been a wealth for a long time now, and Ortiz, he's gotten good enough that I don't feel like we need to get rid of him anymore, Jimmy.
I think, too, let's take a step back and just look at what the brewers have done already.
They've already made a move to show our pitching a bit.
Find some innings eaters because of the injuries that were happening with Harrison, with Mizorowski, with Woodruff.
They've had a lot of pitching injuries, so they've had to make necessary moves to sort of address that.
Buying guys who can eat some innings and give them some meaningful pitching.
I don't know that there's a swing for the fences trade that's out there that's waiting to be made because with the expanded playoffs, there's only a handful of sellers.
All of the buyers are all in on those handfuls.
Do you overpay by taking your number one farm system and taking three or four prospects out of it and saying, yeah, we'll take this guy and potentially massively overpay for someone that might only be there for half a season?
There's a lot of big philosophical questions in that.
The way the brewers have operated has been more or less pretty sure.
They're talking about
Minor League extension deals for guys that haven't made the major leagues yet like they've done with Cooper Pratt and and with others with Jackson Cheerio They they make these deals in minor leagues before they hit arbitration they give them these long-term deals They've been very sure about that because it's a small market team at the end of the day But at the same time they have developed such a wealth of talent that when you look at any of the
you know, the top, whatever list, top 100 and baseball list.
And then you see the list that come with it to say, well, these guys are blocked on their path to the majors, and there's three or four brewers on it.
And it feels like everybody's kind of pointing them in that direction that, hey, the brewers have have, I don't want to call it, it's not like disposable income in a way, but you know, you've got players that
you could package together that aren't going to affect you, maybe necessarily long term, then you could still bring that major league guy.
And I just, I don't know if the brewers have it in them to go out there and say, yeah, we're going to go out there and get a top line starting pitcher, or we're going to go grab that quarter outfielder or, you know, somebody that's, that can wheel the big stick.
I don't know if they, they have that in them to say, yeah, we're going to take these farm system guys that we're putting a lot into for multiple years, just to bring a guy in for a playoff run.
I don't know if they have it in them.
No, I think you're right, Jimmy.
They're not that kind of an organization that would do that.
But you are also right that they've got enough ammo in the clip to be able to do that.
It's such a good farm system that they very well could.
It's a great problem to have.
It is.
It's a fantastic problem to have.
Yeah, but you're right.
It's not the way that they've ever been run.
And maybe, who knows, maybe that's the problem.
Maybe that's why they don't win in the playoffs.
Maybe they need to be doing something like that.
Maybe they have to shoot a couple of those prospects off to somewhere else to bring in someone new.
And that could be the difference maker.
I don't know.
It's a really interesting problem that the Brewers have.
You're right.
It's a weird little world that the Brewers have created for themselves, the situations that they work in.
Yeah, and they've been able to manage, you know losing big guys in free agency But you know, it's funny when you come back to all these trade talks and you see on Freddie Peralta comes back to pitch and walkie Well, wait a minute Freddie Peralta's a traitor.
They just got rid of him this last offseason, you know So I don't understand some of the logic that you see out there But the same time I do understand that when you've got a lot of prospects and you've got kind of a wind-out mentality in any professional sport and the Brewers window is still currently open They still have a good window
of contention, best record in baseball.
I feel like, yeah, if they're going to make a big move, they're certainly in position to do it.
I just don't know if, organizationally, philosophically, that aligns with what they do or want to do or have been doing.
But it's going to be interesting.
We got a week, and we'll see what happens here with the Brewers.
We have to wrap up the show.
We're going to hear from my club and so the sports week in review.
And we are going to do that next year on Make the Call, part of the Civic Media radio network.
Welcome back to Make the Call on Civic Media.
Here to wrap things up on Make the Call, we get a chance now to get in any of our sports or not sports thoughts for the week that we didn't make it to in the program and we will turn it over to Madison
First and here from Parker Olson Parker.
My family went and took in a couple of Mallards games this week.
So I did not go with them.
I was too busy coaching football here.
But I'm sure that was enjoyable for you out there seeing my knuckleheads run around one of them throughout a first pitch.
So I thought that was pretty cool.
You know, I thought I saw somebody that looked like you a lot shorter, though.
So that would explain it.
OK,
very short and also much, much more athletic.
So
well, it was a good first pitch.
My mind.
This week is actually not on this weekend's sports, but on Monday guys I'm gonna have the privilege of heading up to Lambeau Field Gonna be going checking out the shareholders meeting go and doing some tours of the stadium really excited to go see the Hall of Fame It's been a while since I've been able to do that so really excited to be doing that and just enjoy what I refer to as the mecca of football Lambeau Field it is
I think the most historic and most important place in football.
I absolutely love it there.
Great.
What do you guys
enjoy too?
They'll have a new curly Lambo exhibit that just started
as well.
So
I didn't know there's that's brand new and that's all ahead of the Wisconsin Notre Dame game coming up beginning of September.
All right, Gray, how about you?
Well, Parker, you mentioned the feeling in the air of Lambo field.
I truly understand the phrase hallowed halls.
When I met Lambo, it just you can feel the history and it's absolutely because of my deep bias and I acknowledge that and I don't care.
I carry it with me and it's a
very precious thing.
For my part this week I am basking in the fact that I get to decide what I think about in sports and what I mean is have you ever been like allowed to leave work early and you find oh cool I feel like staying now that you let me go you know it's almost kind of backwards.
Now that I'm not forced to talk about Giannis or think about him, I'm sitting there doing it freely.
Like, I'll probably be sitting there thinking, what was he talking about that reporter about?
Talking about going back to Milwaukee someday, and I might just allow myself to dwell on thoughts of Giannis today because it's my choice.
And the same things feel different when you choose them versus when you're forced.
And on that happy note, we're going to wrap the show.
We're going to get out of the way.
Mike Clemens is a sports week in Review Next, guys.
Have a great weekend, and we'll see you again here next week.
Thanks, Jimmy.
Have a good one.
This has been Make the Call, part of the Civic Media Radio Network.
Here's Mike Clemens with a Sports Week in review.
Home cooking for the crew.
Hi, I'm Mike Clemens with this week in Wisconsin sports baseball the Brewers wrapping up a nine-game homestand this weekend against the Colorado Rockies It's the longest set of games at home in Milwaukee on the schedule this season now on Monday They'll be in San Francisco for a three-game series against the Giants the next weekend They'll be in Southern, California for a weekend set against the Angels last weekend more bad news regarding injuries after being off all week for the All-Star
Starbreak manager Pat Murphy was asked for an update on veteran pitcher Brandon Woodruff if he had any results back after tests on his injured shoulder.
I'm going to let Woody get specific with you and let him be the one to announce what he wants to announce in that regard.
It's extremely painful to even think about knowing what he meant to this organization and knowing
what he meant
to this team.
Now that was on Friday after the Brewers had beat the Marlins.
We were told the Woodruff would speak to the media on Sunday.
But by the next morning, the press conference had been moved up because Woodruff wanted to set the record straight.
I know yesterday the announcement seemed like I was like I was having a funeral or like I was going to announce retirement or something.
And that's not it at all.
And
I mean, I've got to have surgery.
It's unfortunate.
For me personally, I've got to go ahead and attack this rehab with the goal in mind of pitching again.
I know yesterday with the announcement, it kind of seemed I saw some stuff on the TV where this was supposed to be some type of big deal.
But no, that's it.
I'll have to have surgery.
Now, the last time that Brandon Woodruff had this surgery a few years ago, it took him over 20 months to rehab.
He's 33 years old now.
He says he'd like to stick around the clubhouse if he can't pitch this season and well into next year.
It sucks not being able to help on the field, but you feel like you can help in a way.
We have so many young guys and I was in their shoes at one point just trying to figure out how am I going to get these guys out at a high level.
So I feel like a good implement for me.
If I can't be on the field,
like how can I help do some things that, you know, whether it's a conversation in the bullpen session in between, maybe that helps.
If Woodruff can stay around another year, it will be his tenth season, meaning he'll be fully vested as a player and can collect a full pension of $290,000 per year.
The Brewers held their alumni legend game Friday night.
Several players in town to attend the premiere of Uke, the documentary on Bob Uker, now in theaters across Wisconsin.
Jeff Jenkins team beat Ryan Braun's three to two
But Braun was clearly grateful for another chance to play ball in front of over 37,000 Brewer fans on Friday
night.
baseball's trade deadline is coming up a week from this Thursday, August 6th.
Many believe that when the Mets were in town this past week, the Brewers might make a run to bring Freddie Peralta back to Milwaukee, but Peralta has struggled this year in New York.
He's five and nine for the season.
And losing to the Brewers in Milwaukee, eight to three.
He gave up seven earned runs and two walks in just five and a third innings.
And he was asked over in the visitors clubhouse, what was it like to receive a standing ovation from those Brewers fans?
Amazing.
And you know,
the show was on love.
It felt really good.
Freddie, what did it feel like being back in Milwaukee, seeing your old teammates, seeing the old fans?
I spent a long time here.
It's a place that I always love.
It's always going to be in my heart because a lot of teams, you know, even I can mention that, that I'm both of my kids were born here too.
Milwaukee is always going to mean something for me, for my family too.
And it's a place that is going to be forever in my heart.
In the NBA, it's been announced that LeBron James is leaving the league.
for the Philadelphia 76ers.
That's his fourth team in 23 years.
He will not be joining Yanis in Miami with the heat.
The Bucks though, they're excited about their first round pick.
Braden Burris was selected as one of the top five players in last week's NBA Summer League games in Las Vegas.
The 6 foot 4 rookie guard was asked how he can improve finding a spot on the floor to take the open shot.
When I play, I just try to be aggressive.
You know, I feel like when I'm aggressive, that's when I'm at my best.
I'm always going to make the right play.
Or at least most of the time, make the right play.
Try to make the right play.
But yeah, when I'm aggressive, you know, put foul pressure, put pressure on the rim, you know, and when we get to the regular games, the NBA, like, get six fouls, you know, get people fouled out and stuff, try to get in the bonus.
NFL, the Packers training camp begins this week.
Wednesday morning will be the first practice open to the public on Monday at one o'clock, the annual shareholders meeting.
which the team will reveal for the first time in 30 years, they were actually in the red due to some of their big player contracts like Micah Parsons.
With the Wisconsin Sports Weekend Review, I'm Mike Clemens.
