Entries Tagged 'personal' ↓

I’ve moved everything over to BrewerParadiseLost.com, so please update your bookmarks and everything. All future blog posts will be there.

Still really busy here trying to configure the new blog website and name. Once I get everything fully integrated over into the new domain, czwief.com/blog will no longer be functional. But that hasn’t happened yet — I’ll announce it when it does.

You can check over on my progress on brewerparadiselost.com, since I have that up and running. Links, categories, the new header, and all that other jazz haven’t been implemented yet. I’ll cross-post any posts I make from now until I’m finished blogging over there.

As for last night’s game, it was a really good and much needed win. The Brewers have seemingly fallen behind in their last few series and it’s really good to get a leg up on a 4-gamer against a team that can occasionally go nuts against the Brewers. Putting in Trevor Hoffman in the 9th was a bit unnecessary, but any time you can get a poor Seth McClung relief appearance out of the way without any harm done to Milwaukee’s record.

I gotta tell you, it’s always a pleasure to tune into MLB.TV and listen to one-half of the Reds’ broadcast team. George Grande and Chris Welsh are wonderful to listen to. Grande has a baseball kind of voice and narrates the game well with it, and Welsh provides detailed information about pitching commentary that I’ve never heard of in my years of listening to Bill Schroeder. I mean, I didn’t know until tonight that Jason Kendall always forces pitchers he catches (no matter what team he’s on) to throw inside commonly — even when they’re uncomfortable doing it. Would Schroeder really drop that good of a nugget?

They spent a good detail of time going over pitches and pitch selection. Welsh did an awesome job of explaining a pitch and how it breaks while Homer Bailey served up pitches that didn’t. There was one particular pitch where the camera got a perfect angle inside of Bailey’s glove before he threw the pitch, and was able to tell how his fingers manipulate the seams to get a screwball-like action on his pitch. That’s the kind of in-game context I want from a color commentator, not just “he has loads of RBIs.”

There are few announcers in baseball who can provide that kind of intricate context during a game. Welsh is one of them. Ron Darling is another.

And, of course, some announcers get a free pass and can say whatever he wants and it will still be an awesome baseball experience. His name is Vin Scully.

Just some things to think about as we reach the midway point of the season…

*** Milwaukee’s spent the majority of the first half playing slightly above their record. However their recent 3-8 June Swoon has them at the All-Star Break with a negative pythagorean record. BP’s playoff odds say the Brewers only have a 20% chance to make the playoffs despite being 2 1/2 games out of first place.

BP’s playoff odds basically combine the team’s current record and projects their pythagorean record for the rest of the season. Since the Brewers have scored approximately as many runs as they’ve given up, they should be expected to have a .500 record over the rest of the year, according to BP. An 83-win team won’t make the postseason; they’ll either need some luck or better play in order to capture a playoff birth.

*** With that said, this team isn’t as bad as their June has been, and they should pick it up. Most of Manny Parra’s struggles may be behind him, as a fresh look at AAA have seemingly given him more confidence in his pitches — he should return back to the form we expected him soon. Dave Bush is coming back from an injury and pitched really well in a rehab assignment, so there’s no reason to believe he won’t be back to his form.

Remember that when the rotation is back to full strength it will be the same rotation that helped the Brewers get 18 wins in May and a 3.85 ERA. Everybody talks about trading valuable parts of the farm system away to get another starter at the deadline, but if the rotation comes back with full strength than I see no reason to trade away parts for a Jarrod Washburn when the pitchers the Brewers have at the moment are just as good as he would be. If there was a C.C. Sabathia type of pitcher available who wouldn’t cost everything but the kitchen sink to get (i.e. Roy Halladay), then I’d advocate getting someone, but until then, no dice. The pitching staff is just fine where they are; they’ll stop struggling sooner or later. Preferably sooner.

*** A could of weeks ago I wrote about management’s use of Casey McGehee over Mat Gamel in many key situations where it would have been better to put the lefty slugger in over the current hot bat. Well it appears McGehee’s finally cooled off: he’s 2 for his last 14 over this current homestand and has sat in favor of Gamel recently, probably because of the problems he has with his knee.

McGehee might be entering a prolonged slump here. I only say this because he’s a career .283/.340/.429 hitter in the minors and it’s really, really unlikely a 27-year-old would suddenly find his swing. If scouts for the Cubs would have seen this kind of power or discipline at the plate with any kind of consistency, they wouldn’t have placed him on waivers just a few months ago.

Since his knee is still struggling and it’s likely he’s starting to slump at the plate, now is the time to ride Gamel until Casey’s back to 100 percent.

*** The upcoming schedule for the Brewers is incredibly easy and the Cardinals lead just might evaporate pretty rapidly through August. After spending the last couple weeks before the All-Star break playing the toughest and best teams in the NL, they spend the next month and a half taking a break against them. Here’s a quick list of who they play until the end of August:

4 @ Cincinnati
3 @ Pittsburgh
3 vs. Atlanta
4 vs. Washington
3 @ San Diego
3 @ Los Angeles
3 @ Houston
3 vs. San Diego
3 vs. Houston
3 @ Pittsburgh
4 @ Washington
3 vs. Cincinatti
3 vs. Pittsburgh

The only good team the Brewers play until the end of August is LA, and every other series is absolutely winnable. That’s 12 of the next 13 series against .500 or lower teams. With the starting pitching coming back to full strength, I’m not so sure the Brewers need to trade for a pitcher, nevertheless anyone. I’m thinking 14 games against the Padres and Nationals coming up soon might solve some of the sicknesses that have been plaguing Milwaukee since the beginning of the year.

Another thing to consider is that the Brewers essentially started off the season with a 4-9 mark calling for the head of a couple of players. They were patient and waited it out — and were rewarded in May. Let’s wait a little while before panicking for Roy Halladay.

*** Prince Fielder owns.

A lot of people aren’t swooning over Prince as much as I thought they would after bumping up his OPS by over .200 points from last year. His on-base percentage is a whopping .423 — he’s learned to take walks. He’s on pace for about 40 homers. Pitchers are too afraid to throw him strikes now that he just takes the free pass to first — this Dale Sveum hitting philosophy is way better than Jim Skaalen’s.

One more thing I thought about Skaalen: Last year with the Brewers, virtually every single hitter put up mediocre numbers compared to their career norms. After he was subsequently fired, he’s now the coach of the Oakland Athletics. The A’s are currently awfully underachieving due to the offense putting up incredibly mediocre numbers. Is there a coincidence here?

*** Prince Fielder owns.

CZwief.com is undergoing some changes over the next day or two. This is why I haven’t posted yet this week, although I’ll have one for tomorrow. Here’s what’s changing:

–I’m no longer calling this blog “CZwief.com.” That was only a placeholder until I got around to creating a new name and got myself into blogging a little bit. Say hello to your newest Brewers blog, Brewer Paradise Lost!

I’ve been spending the last couple of days making a new header, updating all the links, and all that jazz. So that’s why there hasn’t been a baseball-related post lately.

–I’m looking for another writer or two to help me out! I only have the time to update this a few times a week, so I’m looking for someone else who wants to write for BPL. Since I don’t have any money to pay you, you’d be free to post updates as much or as little as you want about whatever you want as long as it’s about the Brewers. You’d pretty much have total freedom to blog about the Crew.

If you want to write about the Crew here, email me at cody@czwief.com! Email me a sample too, eh?

Manny Parra made his first start today after a four-start stint in AAA where he did pretty darn well compared to his big league disaster. His peripherals aren’t quite there yet (19K, 13BB, 24 2/3 innings pitched), but he did a good job of keeping the ball in the park and on the ground. He’s appeared to regain at least some confidence and with the rotation in flux as it is it’s time to bring him back.

He decided to perform admirably, to the tune of 7 shutout innings. He hardly had any jams and used the sun to his advantage (Todd Coffey, however, did not). He threw a ton of strikes after complaining about not having the confidence to throw any of his pitches for strikes and got ahead of hitters better than I’ve seen him do all season long.

With him coming back and hopefully being a solid rotation piece, should the Brewers still trade for another starting pitcher to last them through the rest of the season?

I wrote on Monday about the current state of the pitching market and why it makes sense for the Brewers to just stand pat where they are, with regards to Doug Davis. Now, all of a sudden, J.P. Ricciardi says Roy Halladay is available for trade and all of a sudden everbody’s nuts for Halladay! FOX Sports’ own Boras-mouthpiece Ken Rosenthal said in his article that Halladay is ‘all but gone’ in Toronto. Whoo, how exciting! Maybe the Brewers will finally add that pitching piece they so desperately need.

But wait! There’s more. Here’s what Toronto’s GM Ricciardi had to say about Halladay just yesterday:

It would take a lot for us to part with him. We’ve gotten a lot of calls from teams but none of them are telling us at this point what they’re willing to give up. If you’re coming at us with a ‘B” list of young players, don’t bother. This is one of the five best players in baseball. It’s going to take a significant package of players for us to even listen. So as the teams call we’ll go through the ones we feel are the serious ones and then we’ll start scouting their farm systems to see if there’s anything we can do.”

“My gut feeling is no we won’t [make a deal] because there aren’t too many teams out there who are willing to give us the significant package of prospects we would need to make this go. Teams protect their prospects.

In other words Ricciardi said that a player even as good as Halladay is available but it’s going to take a mountain of candy to sweeten the deal enough for them. This suspiciously sounds like the media is trying to create a story out of nothing.

Of course now that Halladay’s been brought up, the media has successfully made something out of nothing. The internet is abuzz with Halladay rumors. The problem with all this new trade talking is that the media has successfully created a story when there might not be one. No more complaining about how much attention Brett Favre’s gotten!

Here is a pretty interesting article about Halladay’s current trade value with what he should get on the market. Here’s some of the more important points:

First off, let’s look at Halladay’s win values over the years. Since 2002, he’s been worth about 46 wins in 1,585 innings, or right around an average of six wins per year. He’s on pace for about a seven win season this year, and he shows no signs of slowing down. Going forward, ZIPS projects a 3.21 FIP and 106 innings in his remaining 15 starts this year, which would be worth another 3.5 wins. Halladay is a +6 to +7 win pitcher, easily the best in baseball.

The market value for wins took a tumble on the low end last year, but at the high end, teams were still willing to pay around $5 million per win for premium free agents. Based on that, we’d say that Halladay’s fair market value is something like $30 to $35 million per season. However, those $5 million per win contracts were all long term deals, which carry extra risk to the organization and therefore pull down the annual average value that teams are willing to pay. With only a 15 month commitment, the long term risk with Halladay is substantially lower, and teams should (and will) pay a premium for that risk avoidance.

…

But, you can’t forget about the fact that he’s very likely to be a Type A free agent at the end of 2010, and the acquiring team would be able to recoup two quality draft choices if they didn’t re-sign him as a free agent. Thanks to some good work by Victor Wang, we can see that the value of Halladay’s Type A status is around $8 million or so.

$52 million for Halladay’s performance + $8 million for the draft picks = $60 million in total value. He will be paid $22 million over that time frame, so 60-22 = $38 million.

To acquire the Jays ace, teams should be expected to surrender something like $40 million in value.

What does $40 million in value look like? Something like three terrific prospects who are not that far from the majors. No one’s giving up players from the Matt Wieters/David Price mold, but it’s going to take several players from that second prospect tier, the top 25-50 type guys.

So in order to obtain Halladay the Brewers would be looking at shipping away J.J. Hardy or Alcides Escobar, Lorenzo Cain, and Bret Lawrie, at the very least. Does that sound worth it to you?

I’m not the biggest fan of disarming the entire farm system to set the franchise back multiple years just to gain an extra win or two for 2009. The really nice thing about last year’s C.C. Sabathia trade was that it didn’t handicap the franchise for the upcoming years; Matt LaPorta was blocked and the other prospects involved weren’t exactly the major-league-ready types. If the Brewers were to give up $40 million for Roy Halladay…that would destroy the franchise. $40 million is almost half of the Brewers’ current salary.

It would be different if Halladay was sour grapes about his time in Toronto and the Blue Jays were looking to get what they could for him. However it sounds like Halladay is happy in Toronto and Ricciardi is just as happy keeping him there. In other words, he’s not going to take pennis on the dollar for Halladay. $40 million in talent seems about right.

It just doesn’t make sense to trade away the farm system — or anyone, for that matter — with the rotation the Brewers have at the beginning of the year. Parra’s only slightly broken (and hopefully is back for good) and when Bush comes back the rotation will be back to where it was at the beginning of the year and in May when the Brewers were the best team in the major leagues. Overpaying for Halladay or Javier Vazquez isn’t going to be the answer. It’s just not going to be worth it.

Joe Buck got lit up the other day on his television show, and since then everybody’s been blasting his cred. The worst blog on the planet really happy he was embarrased on HBO.

Honestly, I don’t see all the hubbub about Buck. He’s a good, solid announcer; he knows the game of football very well; he tells me what’s going on in the game and everything else that could be relevant without getting in the way with smarmy opinions and goofy gimmicks (Gus Johnson). He’s got a good sense of humor and provides good anecdotes to game the game interesting and flowing nicely.

Most fans just don’t like Buck because they’re grumpy that he doesn’t follow sports as much as the blogosphere and got handed the broadcasting role for being the kid of a famous person. People need to stop being so cranky. If he wasn’t any good, FOX would have kicked him off broadcasting by now and he’d be going to school just like the rest of us. He can just afford not to.

On the other side, Artie Lange just isn’t funny. If he made fun of Buck and was funny I’d applaud him. But he sucks.

In the wake of a recent inability to post more than twice per week but still feeling like there’s more to say, I’m going to change the way I blog. Instead of copying Aaron Gleeman’s format of blogging — two posts of baseball analysis per week — I’m going to mix in initial thoughts on Brewers news with a few other cool links and posts to show you. This might take away at my more in-depth analysis a little bit, but since I’m not any good at analyzing pitch f/x data yet and my analysis wasn’t very good in the first place, I doubt it’ll cause a huge fuss.

As always, I post more stuff than what I’m going to post here on my Twitter account, so make sure and check me out there.

Sorry for no activity– daily life, prepping for school, running a bunch of errands, and generally being hectic contribute to my lack of posting. While there’s been no real posting lately, I can say that I’ve virtually finished my 2009 pitching preview and will post it first thing Monday morning. A few newsworthy things:
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While I’m still finishing tinkering this blog, I think it’s about time I start full-out blogging instead of posting here and there. Let’s use this post to outline what you can expect to see in this blog.
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