Inbox: Who will be Crew's biggest surprise in 2022?

PHOENIX -- The Brewers’ lone open date -- “Choose your own friends day,” manager Craig Counsell calls it -- offers a chance to empty the virtual mailbag. We’ll start with a fun one:

Who do you project to be the Brewers biggest surprise player this season?
-- @MVPortis on Twitter

I’ll go with Rowdy Tellez. The opportunity for tons of at-bats is there for him, and there’s a long track record of left-handed sluggers having big years at American Family Field.

When the Brewers are loaded on the pitching side, why does [principal owner Mark] Attanasio refuse to spend more on the hitting side? I know he is saving “flexibility” for mid-year, but how come the Brewers can’t increase to $150 million for once?
-- @pudwellphoto on Twitter

Why does ownership haggle over $500k while at the same time purchases a piece of paper for $480k? Also, is Mark A. serious about this window? Should have gotten another bat then.
-- @Schoop_11 _on Twitter

It’s nice to be back arguing about payroll!

Look, there is nothing I can write here that will convince those who believe the Brewers should spend more, or who operate under the impression that owners pay for player salaries by writing personal checks. Perhaps there are exceptions, but generally speaking, that is not how Major League franchises do business. All I can say is that Attanasio was asked why the payroll isn’t higher when he visited camp last week. He gave a thoughtful answer. You can decide for yourself whether it is satisfactory.

Is this [Christian] Yelich’s last season to try and return to form before Brewers move on?
-- @HybickiMike on Twitter

I don’t exactly know what “move on” means in this context, since multiyear contracts are guaranteed in baseball. Yelich gets $26 million this season and for the next six seasons after that. He made the commitment to stay in Milwaukee, the Brewers committed to pay him, and now everybody is working to get back as close as possible to 2018-19 production. The pandemic-shortened season was bad for Yelich and a lot of other really good hitters in baseball, and the early back trouble in 2021 put him on a bad path again.

Opening Day starter- Woody or Burnsy?
-- @JoshKnippa on Twitter

Corbin Burnes. Before Eric Lauer’s groin tweak jumbled things a bit (he was back on the mound Saturday and is back on track) the starters were ordered like this:

Burnes
Brandon Woodruff
Freddy Peralta
Adrian Houser
Lauer

Aaron Ashby will bounce around. I expect he’ll make a significant number of starts and relief appearances this season.

Chances of [Luis] Urías being good to go for Opening Day?
-- @BrewPack8 on Twitter

Zero. It’s not just that Urías (left quad) needs to get healthy, it’s that he has two plate appearances because of the late start to Spring Training. Counsell is leaving the door open a crack, but it doesn’t seem very plausible.

Why have the Brewers put so many resources into fixing Keston [Hiura]? Is there any shot he gets hot in April and gets moved immediately like the move made for [Willy] Adames in May last year?
-- @BigHoppaSU on Twitter

They are putting resources into fixing him because he was the ninth pick in the 2017 Draft and produced .303/.368/.570 with 19 homers in 348 plate appearances as a rookie. The man can hit. He’s another good hitter who did not fare well during the pandemic-shortened season for whatever reason, and that spilled over into 2021 in a big way. But he’s hit his whole life and it makes no sense to just give up now. (Also, remember that the man has Minor League options).

Adam, where do I get the Spring Training hats? The people want to know.
-- @royleythedon on Twitter

This is the easiest question all day, because the answer is the team store at American Family Fields of Phoenix. You can always go old school and give them a call if you’re not seeing them where you are. They are also available online.

P.S. they have the St. Patrick’s Day specials as well.

What kind of role does Mike Brosseau have this year for the Brewers?
-- @baseball6677 on Twitter

I think of him a little bit like a right-handed Jace Peterson; you don’t know where Brosseau is going to play on a given day, but he’s going to play a lot. I think we will see him at first base in addition to the other infield spots. Maybe a few innings at shortstop, but he’s not considered an everyday guy there should something happen to Adames.

When is [Ryan] Braun coming out of retirement to DH?
-- @sclemens55 on Twitter

A second straight year of Braun watch? I’m in.

Adam, any chance another late addition, maybe bullpen? Any names or thoughts?
-- @steelmann58 on Twitter

I think yes, there will be at least one more notable addition, whether it’s replacing someone who is dealing with an injury at the end of camp or just adding depth to that bullpen. When I did my way-too-early roster projection last week at the two-weeks-to-go mark, the bullpen was by far the hardest area to project. Since everyone but Trevor Gott has options, it would be easy to add and see what you’ve got in April.

I’ll throw out some names, just for fun: Tony Watson, since the Brewers aren’t flush with lefties. Old friend Evan Marshall; remember him from that Braun-Jonathan Lucroy drama? Oliver Drake, who actually is already in the clubhouse; there’s a mural on the wall inside the locker room with two players running in the outfield at American Family Field, and Drake is one of them.

Here is MLB.com’s free-agent tracker if you want to see who is available.

Starting pitching and back end of bullpen aside, I see a lot of questions. Tellez MIGHT be good, Hiura MIGHT be back, Urías MIGHT be improved enough to hold 3B, [Lorenzo] Cain MIGHT stay healthy. Yelich MIGHT return to All-Star form. How much [of president of baseball operations David] Stearns' confidence is there in these guys?
-- @PackFanatics on Twitter

Stearns must have a lot of confidence, because Attanasio told reporters that Stearns shared with him that this might be the most talented team on paper in Stearns’ era. I would argue that there are always a lot of “mights” in a sport as difficult and failure-based as baseball, even for the behemoths.

Does firing Andy Haines make a big impact for the offense this year?
-- @chuck57i on Twitter

This will read like a cop-out, and maybe it is: Ask me in September. It’s too early to know anything while Ozzie Timmons, Connor Dawson and Matt Erickson are just getting to know the hitters. Remember, they were denied contact during the lockout. The Brewers wanted some new voices for the hitters but won’t know the impact for a while.

[Tyrone] Taylor over Cain in CF?
-- @bc_hanrahan on Twitter

No, but Taylor is making it interesting. He’s the frontrunner to fill-in for Cain should those lower body issues be a problem again in 2022. Taylor is a cool case study on the value of being patient -- really, really, really patient -- with prospects.

Why wasn’t Hedbert Perez invited to MLB camp this year at 18 but he was last year at 17? Is it due to roster depth/constraints or for him to get more opportunities in Minor League camp?
-- @blazekvladimir on Twitter

Hedbert was not in MLB camp last year, either. He was one of the Minor League players brought over as extras for some Cactus League games. I imagine we will see him over the remainder of this camp.

Do you think this will be Stearns' last season in charge??
-- @AlZaffino on Twitter

Kudos to SNY’s Andy Martino for getting to the bottom of Stearns’ contract, one of the most closely guarded secrets in Brewerdom. According to Martino, Stearns is signed through the 2023 season, but can become a free agent a year earlier if the Brewers go to the World Series in 2022. So, let’s see if this comes into play in the fall.

Do the brewers still believe in Mario Feliciano as a viable replacement for Omar Narváez next year?
-- @Mr_Ron_Mota on Twitter

Absolutely, Feliciano just has to stay healthy. He dealt with a shoulder impingement most of last year after making his Major League debut. As one of four catchers on the 40-man roster, he will log big league time this year.

What is Tom [Haudricourt] up to?
-- @dontmakemebored on Twitter

Haudricourt is in the midst of moving to Virginia and presumably missing us all terribly. Hopefully he stays connected by signing up for the new Brewers Unfiltered podcast with me, Tim Dillard and Brewers social media maven Brad Ford. Debut episode coming Tuesday!