There’s only so long I can put off evaluating the performance of the Brewers so far under the excuse of it being an absurdly small sample size and thus totally useless to look at throughout the season. 3 weeks still isn’t nearly enough of a sample size to make me ever legitimately wonder if a player is having a breakout year or has fallen off a cliff — that’s why I’m waiting to say anything about my impression of the team’s direction and value until at least two months or so into the season.
With that said, the 8-10 start this season isn’t anything to be worried about. Any record this early in the season is too early to think anything of — just take a look at the Pittsburgh Pirates this year as an example. PECOTA projections think it will be business as usual for the Pirates in 2009, making them a 97-loss team for yet another year. However, so far this year they’re 11-7 with the best pythagorean record in the major leagues. The team is clearly playing over their heads right now and I’ll trust an advanced computer projection system over an 18-game span where not even every pitcher has had a chance to make four starts yet. Keep in mind the Brewers as of May 18th last year were four games below .500 and they ended up making the postseason. Even my recent post on the team’s OBP doesn’t actually contain any merit because of this.
-J.J. Hardy has been really unlucky so far. Through his first 16 games, Hardy hit a paltry .177/.235/.339 with 15 strikeouts and 5 walks, making him a virtual black hole in the middle of the lineup. Hardy is typically a hot-and-cold hitter, but I’d argue he’s doing alright with himself. He’s suffered from a paltry .182 BABIP and his LD%, while it is lower than it was in 2008, it’s not enough to be significant (14.6 to 15.5) and his GB% is lower than normal and he’s raised both his FB% and HR/FB rate, he should be doing approximately the same as he did last year. Unfortunately those balls that he’s hitting hard are finding gloves. That will change at some time throughout the season.
-Corey Hart has changed his approach, and it’s going to make him much better. In 2008, Hart had 27 walks over the entire season. So far, in 2009, he already has 9. That puts him on pace to walk 82-83 times this season. Now, I don’t expect that number to stay that high, but considering his recent approach of taking a pitch or two and the added ability to lay off an outside slider I think new hitting coach Dale Sveum is helping him recognize pitches and become a good, patient hitter. A good Corey Hart is a good way to start a repeat playoff season.
-Mark DiFelice is my favorite pitcher. He only cemented his position when he came into the game in the 10th inning on Saturday night with the bases loaded compliments of Carlos Villanueva and got a flyout off the bat of Miguel Tejada and held a one-run lead the next inning to earn a huge win. Not to mention his sparkling 2.84 ERA from the bullpen has been one of the few bright spots so far. A little look into his statistics prove that he’s a legit player, too: 11/3 K:BB ratio and a 0.96 WHIP in 2009. Coming from the bullpen, however, he does hold a full 100% left-on-base percentage, so his ERA might be due for a little blip up, he’s definitely got the pitching skills to become a major part of the bullpen this year. If only the Brewers still had time to stretch him out and turn him into a starter…
-My Bill Hall Fan Club status is still a little tentative. Without the Bill Hall-patented “epic blinks” Hall seems to be seeing the ball much better than last year, raising his OPS by .100 points and turning into a .341 wOBA player at third and his small-sample sized defense has made him much improved over last year’s Bill Hall. However, this increase in average likely is related to his far increased BABIP, when in fact .333 is on the other side of .300 as last year’s numbers. He’s doing a marginally better job at seeing pitches while keeping his other peripheral stats virtually the same. The judgment is still out there to see if he’s actually improved his hitting ability or his increased average is simply a product of luck. Stay tuned.
The news came out last night that Trevor Hoffman is on track to join the Brewers after tossing 18 pitches in a rehab assignment for Triple A Nashville in a successful outing. He should be on track to join the team this weekend in Houston if all goes according to plan.
As with any other reliever coming off the DL, this leaves the Brewers with a little bit of a decision to make as to who they demote back to the minors when Hoffman makes his next big-league debut. The most logical choice is R.J. Swindle, the LOOGY brought up when David Riske hit the DL last week, solely because he was the last man brought up to the team and should be sent down since he still has options remaining before he has to stick with a big-league team. Besides, the Brewers already have a LOOGY ready to go with the name of Mitch Stetter, so keeping Swindle is overkill.
Not so fast. Swindle is most likely going to be one of the most effective relievers the Brewers would have on the team. But how? He’s a lefty sidearmer with a fastball that tops out around 85 mph as well as a cutter, changeup, and my favorite pitch in the game, a 55 mph grandma curveball that’s sure to make even the most patient hitters walk the dog and take a nap before swinging at it. His cutter and changeup both stick in the 70 mph range. He has no dominant pitch. Despite this, he still has posted a career 2.32 ERA in the minors along with a spiffy 1.85 FIP that would make any team in need of a closer (hmm…who needs a closer right now?) salivate.
People tend to assume that Swindle is a LOOGY as well due to his awkward sidearm delivery. It’s true, he does get lefties out at an astounding rate (quick minor league numbers vs. lefties: 52 2/3 IP, 92 K, 9 BB, 0.55 FIP), he can also get righties out at a decent enough rate to justify keeping him in the lineup against them. He has more experience fighting off righties, tossing nearly 100 innings and putting together a sweet 6:1 K/BB ratio and a 0.98 WHIP and only 4 HRs in that same span. This guy is for real, as in a not-insignificant sample size he’s able to throw a 2.54 FIP to right-handed hitters and an incredible way of dominating lefties, and at 25 years old, he may not need any more seasoning in the minors anymore.
But how in the world can a lefty who can barely touch 85 on the gun be so effective? Shouldn’t hitters be able to catch up to his stuff sooner than later and turn him into a scrub in the span of a few games?
One of the things that Michael Lewis’Moneyball touched on was pitcher deception. A pitcher’s raw stuff never equates to success in the major league level, but instead is correlated to how well you can deceive a hitter. To prove this point, they used pitcher Chad Bradford, a right hander with uninspiring stuff but an awkward delivery that caused hitters to think twice about the pitch and that slowed them down just enough to make Bradford effective. Swindle appears to be that type of pitcher; his fastball goes up and in to left-handed hitters and his awkward delivery screws with the hitter just enough to keep them on their toes. When scouts say he doesn’t have the stuff to stay on a major league roster, I’m inclined to disagree until I see him consistently be terrible in action.
But the opportunity for a dominant pitcher is just too great to ignore here.
Besides, there are much worse pitchers period that the Brewers could send down to Triple-A instead of Swindle. Jorge Julio is a prime example of everything that is wrong with Brewers pitchers right now: high ERA, high walk totals. His tmiserable 5th inning helped Philadelphia break the game wide open and Julio is notorious for blowing up the bases with free passes and that’s what made Julio a replacement-level pitcher over his career.
Dropping Jorge Julio would unquestionably make the Brewers a better team right now, but it’s not that simple. Swindle has minor league options remaining while Julio was signed on as a free agent at the beginning of this year and in order to get Julio off the 25-man roster he would either have to be placed on waivers or DFA’d outright, which means that he would likely not be a Brewer for much longer. This would be another hit to the depth of an already-depleted bullpen suffering from injuries enough as it is. There isn’t any additional depth in Triple-A.
Despite all this, I’d still be quite alright with sending Julio to waivers. Money’s not a big deal, since Julio doesn’t hit $1 million, and another replacement-level pitcher can be found in Triple-A. Not to mention that a scrub at Triple-A like Tim Dillard will knowingly be placed in mop-up duty and take less high-leverage innings away from awful pitchers like Julio. If tonight’s 5th inning was pitched entirely by R.J. Swindle I’m pretty sure there wouldn’t have been a 4-pitch walk to the pitcher. Walks are bad, mmkay?
So what do you think? Keep Swindle and DFA Julio? The other way around? Send down someone else?
The Brewers managed yet another 1-2 series loss this weekend in the new Pitchers’ Heaven Field, salvaging a two-run win yesterday after suffering a couple of bad 1-run losses on Friday and Saturday. The Crew’s luck remains a little bit slim to start this season, already going 1-4 in one-run games and a pythagorean record one game better than their actual record, but it of course is early in the season and with 150 games left to go I’m convinced along with everyone else that a 4-8 record isn’t indicative of the team’s early play. The win also came on the heels that Trevor Hoffman should be back by next weekend. Although that makes me optimistic considering the closing struggles of Carlos Villanueva, who really needs Hoffman when Todd Coffey can just pitch the last 8 outs of every game and preserve a tight game.
Jeff Suppan finally put forth a good effort, going 6 innings and giving up only 2 runs, hopefully causing the Brewer faithful to give him a little break and at least let him settle into the season before running to the wayside. Two starts is never enough to adequately judge a pitcher on and just because he had trouble locating his pitches to start the season doesn’t mean he’ll be able to adjust and come back down to normal levels. Now, I’m not saying he’ll be the #1 ace on the team, but it’s unfair to pin the entire blame of the pitching staff on one guy who had two poor starts. Let’s let the man earn his money for now and only throw him to the wayside if he gets demolished at the rate he had been in his first two starts. I’m really glad he was able to take two steps forward yesterday.
If you would have told me at the beginning of the season that Yovani Gallardo and Craig Counsell would lead the team in on-base percentage 12 games in, of course I would have been surprised. I would have then surmised that the majority of the Brewers have started off scuffling; with the exception of Corey Hart and Mike Cameron, every Brewer starter has been significantly below their career averages and are bound to bounce back. What’s especially pleasing to me about the offense so far is that these seem to be BABIP-driven and not necessarily due to a terrible plate approach, circa Corey Hart in September last year. Take a look at these numbers:
Ryan Braun: .222/.340/.356
Prince Fielder: .175/.327/.325
Corey Hart: .279/.385/.558
Bill Hall: .278/.333/.389
Jason Kendall: .129/.243/.161
My favorite part about this season has been the way the coaching staff has seemingly made this team able to take a walk every once in awhile. Most of these OBPs are more than .100 points higher than their averages, meaning that their patience at the plate hasn’t been sacrificed. Most of these OBPs are as high as their career averages, meaning that if their batting average starts regressing towards normal levels, then we may have an incredibly elite offense this year. Think about it. If Prince Fielder gets on base at a .400 clip with Braun and Hart surrounding him, this offense may be impossible to stop. Even Jason Kendall is putting in a good word despite being sickening when he’s standing at the dish.
Bring on the hits, I say. Be patient — the offense will come.
The world lost a baseball legend today with the passing of Harry Kalas. Kalas was probably my personal favorite announcer and arguably the second most important baseball announcer outside of Dodgers great Vin Scully. I’ve always had a beef with the Phillies and Philadelphia in general (I’m still not over 4th and 26), but there was nothing cooler than listening to Kalas slowly and dramatically boom, “struck him out,” or call Jimmy Rollins “J-Roll.” At least he got to see his team win a World Series the year before he passed.
****
Now on with Tuesday Techno.
This doesn’t really count as techno, but it’s awesome nevertheless. Watch this video.
This ThruYou dude has an entire website and album dedicated to remixing youtube videos and making awesome hits based off of things he found. My first impression among hearing this was, “oh man, this is pretty cool, but mostly just quirky,” but after thinking about it this guy is totally legitimate and creating music out of youtube videos is something nobody’s ever thought of before and is exactly the same as taking song pieces and crunching them together. They’re musical artists one in the same.
Techno
DJ Mani released a live set. This one’s from about a month ago — but it’s pretty darn good.
Anton Banks’ radio show called “The Vault” was recorded and released online. There’s a nifty little set list here…
Cuole De Song released a mix that’s worth a download.
IDM
Here is a mix by AA21 (I think?) that’s not really all that great in my opinion but you might like it.
Blamstrain remixed one of my personal favorite albums Ensi and released it via youtube links. Above is a link to my favorite song off the CD — to view the full album list, click here.
The Brewers pretty much did as expected this weekend, going 1-2 in a trio of (moderately) exciting games eclipsed by yet another “wonderful” start from Jeff Suppan and an incredible catch by Reed Johnson robbing a grand slam from Prince Fielder. On Friday I said that I’d be happy with a 2-4 record coming out of this weekend due to the insane pitching matchups the Brewers have had to far, and 2-4 is exactly where they are right now. 2-4 isn’t exactly optimal, but when you face 6 of the best pitchers in the game in a row it’s not unexpected to lose a few and I’m happy to see the offense has performed to the level they have so far.
Suppan has gotten off to an awful head start this year, going 0-2 with an ERA approaching 13 and 7 walks/2 strikeouts and a total inability to get 5 innings in in either of his starts. It’s bad. It’s gotten to the point where people are calling for his head and want him to be DFAd or traded to the first team for a bag of bats and balls. Sure, he’s been horrible, but…not so fast, my friends.
This weekend’s series was amplified simply because it was the Cubs coming into town on opening weekend at Miller Park. It’s been two starts. Unless something’s seriously wrong with his arm, he’s not going to continue the 7:2 BB/K ratio and ERA of 13. If there is something seriously wrong with his arm, or he’s taken a giant step off a cliff, he’ll be shelved for the year on the DL anyways and another equally-frustrating pitcher in Chase Wright or Seth McClung will take his place in the rotation.
It’s two starts yet. Let’s at least give the dude a month to right his location ship before throwing him to the sharks and telling the world that his hefty contract was a waste of money from the beginning. Is Ryan Braun a bad hitter after starting the season with a .613 OPS? “The guys look discouraged when he’s in” isn’t a valid enough excuse to justify jettisoning him two starts into the season. The pressure’s definitely on him to perform up to expectations (4.5-5.00 ERA and an innings eater), but it’s not like this next start should be do-or-die for him. He’ll regress back to normal.
With all that said, this week’s matchups are looking a little more forgiving and a 2-4 start isn’t the end of the world. First it’s the Reds for 3 at Miller Park, and then a trip to New York to go light up perennial overrated veteran Livan Hernandez. If you think Suppan is bad, wait until Livan starts turning into the pitcher he actually is and what the New York media will say about him. You might be thanking your lucky stars that we still have Big (ERA) Jeff and aren’t out signing another puff pitcher to take his place.
Before I leave, I leave you all with the most hilarious video ever:
RIP Nick Adenhart. You know something’s awful when Scott Boras is breaking down crying during an interview with the press. This is one of the few times where it’s appropriate that Boras beefs up a client. Drunk driving is the worst.
*****
Milwaukee went 1-2 on the first three games of the season on the road at the San Fransisco Giants, which isn’t too big of a deal considering it’s the first three games of the season and they had to go through San Fran’s meaty rotation, consisting of Tim Lincecum, Randy Johnson, and Matt Cain. Each pitcher is incredibly efficient, posting career FIPs of 3.02, 3.15, and 3.9, respectively. There’s nothing wrong with 1-2 on the road against two #1 starters and a solid #2/#3 guy when Jeff Suppan is the guy you tag for Opening Day. The only win came against the aptly-named Big Unit, whose Johnson was not so Randy when Yovani Gallardo blasted a three-run shot into the stands to give the Brewers all the runs they would need Wednesday night. (I apologize for that last sentence)
Cain pitched brilliantly the next day, mixing his pitches very well and locating everything perfectly on command. His FIP tends to be a bit high due to some higher walk totals over his career, however, it’s difficult to walk people when you’re (a) getting ahead 0-1, 0-2, and 1-2 in most of the hitters you face, and (b) facing the free-swinging Milwaukee Brewers. There were numerous instances where Cain’s 96-mph fastball painted the outside corner in a pitch that’s just plain impossible to hit.
The Brewers now head home, where the opposing pitching doesn’t get much easier. Perhaps the best pitcher in the majors when healthy, Rich Harden starts game 1 tomorrow night against the half-injured Braden Looper who hasn’t yet proven that he can throw at the velocity he did last year after suffering a couple minor injuries during spring training that held him only to two mediocre at best starts. Harden sports a career 3.23 ERA and Looper’s is on the wrong side of 4.5. Afterwards, it’s Carlos Zambrano’s second start against Dave Bush, which is another terrible mismatch, and Sunday’s finale pens Suppan as the starter, so it doesn’t even matter who the Cubs are trotting out (hint: he’s really good too). Could this perhaps be the toughest opposing pitching opening stretch? Lincecum-Johnson-Cain-Harden-Zambrano-Ryan Dempster. That’s an All-Star lineup right there. I’d be happy to be 2-4 once the Reds come to town.
Also note Edinson Volquez starts Game 1 in that Reds series. He struggled his last time out, but that doesn’t mean he’s not on fire when he’s on. If Milwaukee starts out slow this year, I won’t be too concerned.
Of course, they could just not start off slowly and exceed my expectations by taking 2 of 3 against the sCrUBS.
I have over 150 new e-mails in my inbox that I simply haven’t had the time to sort through until now due to the lagging computer problems and increased business in school. Some of these releases go all the way back to February, so I’m a little out-of-date. I’ll slowly bring your back into midseason form; just give me a couple of weeks.
Detroit Techno
Duplex released a new tracklist. It’s your average hour-long mix set that will sound excellent assuming you’re in the mood for some Detroit.
Placid released another excellent mix of his entitled 3:03am. Anything I put on here by him is definitely worth a listen.
Kyle Cannon has a couple new mixes: a cool techno/deep house mix that I just love and a different mix that I like less but is just as good as the original.
There aren’t really many surprises in the final 25-man roster that hasn’t already been cleared up in the last week or two. At the beginning of March, however, I would have been surprised to see Chris Duffy on the roster over Tony Gwynn Jr., simply based on Gwynn already having a period of playing time in the majors, but poor play and a household name will only get you so far as Gwynn was put on waivers and then unclaimed, meaning he’ll be in Triple-A Nashville when the season starts and is most likely only going to be used in case of an injury to Chris Duffy or Mike Cameron.
Gwynn is a career .281/.352/.354 career hitter in the minor leagues with average defensive numbers (according to Minor League Splits) so he had no place on a major league roster in the first place. Without the high-profile father, Gwynn would just be another spare part in the minor leagues who would hardly even be considered for a backup role. An OPS that barely cracks .700 in nearly 1500 minor league at-bats just doesn’t cut it for a major league roster. Meanwhile, Duffy had a monster spring.
Another spring casualty that I’m concerned about is losing prospect Joe Bateman. Bateman was picked up in the Rule 5 Draft from the San Fransisco Giants last year and sparkled between AA-Huntsvile and AAA-Nashville in his time. Last year was his best season, tossing a 2.47 ERA in 44 2/3 innings.
Bateman’s career has pretty much been spent dominating hitters in the minor leagues, and at 29 years old already, he’s a bet to get worse starting this year or next. With all that said, he would be extremely valuable to have on the team in AAA this season as backup when the inevitable reliever goes down in May for the entire season (David Riske, I’m looking at you). In his time in the minors so far, he’s recorded a wonderfully low 3.17 FIP in nearly 300 innings, most of those at AA. He strikes out nearly a batter an inning, keeps the walks very low, and keeps the ball in the ballpark. He may not have had a huge future in the major leagues, but a reliever who performs at that high of a level for multiple years deserves a shot on a minor league roster spot that’s starving for depth and talent in the first place.
Many of the players and roster moves determined by the team appear to have been based on a small sample size of a camp that’s supposed to take the players out of rusty mode instead of looking at the entire body of work. Guys shouldn’t be evaluated based on one month of baseball where they receive limited playing time. Bateman only pitched four innings in spring training and the organization decided he wasn’t a good enough pitcher to compete in the organization.
Nevertheless, someone will pick him up. Maybe he’ll appear in a Reds or Twins uniform later this season.
Nevertheless, let’s watch some major leaguers play!
