Entries from May 2009 ↓

Some thoughts after a totally acceptable 1-2 home series against the Cardinals…

The Brewers have been linked to trading for Jake Peavy to compliment the starting rotation and become this year’s C.C. Sabathia. Actually these articles don’t explicitly mention the Brewers having any interest in Peavy, but simply that people assume the Brewers are frontrunners for the pitcher since he prefers the NL Central out of all other divisions, the Brewers could use another elite pitcher, and the earlier trade the Padres made with the White Sox fell through due to Peavy’s no-trade clause. There’s been no word from anyone in the Brewer front office confirming or denying interest in trading for Peavy although it has been hinted at that Mark Attanasio has the payroll flexibility to add a few extra dollars mid-season to try and push Milwaukee to the playoffs for a second straight year.

Peavy is a soon-to-be 28 year old pitcher with outstanding stuff and fantastic statistics, boasting over his career more than a strikeout an inning and only 430 walks in over 1300 innings pitched. The only season where he had an FIP higher than 3.6 was his 2003 campaign — his first full year in the bigs. So far this year he’s continued his dominating ways as He would be a fantastic addition and result in an addition of approximately 2 wins if Suppan was the odd man out — two wins can mean a whole bunch in whether or not a team makes the playoffs, look at last year — but it would end up handicapping the entire team for years to come.

Peavy’s current contract is not like Sabathia’s was in which we can let him go to free agency at the end of the year. Peavy has a backloaded contract that would pay him on average $16 million/year for the next three years with an absurd $22 million club option in 2013. The Brewers would be on the hook for $15 million in Peavy next year as well as $12.5 million locked into Jeff Suppan. With players like Corey Hard, J.J. Hardy, and Rickie Weeks eligible for arbitration next year, one can assume their salaries are going up and with the only significant salary drop next year being Mike Cameron, spending $27.5 million on a terrible pitcher and a good one when there are better options available will wrap the boa around the franchise’s wallet.

Next year isn’t the only time he would set the franchise back. A $16 million salary in 11 and $17 million in 12 would only further cause too big of a dent in years to come when players’ arbitration cases get them more money and other non-arbitration players are able to increase their salaries. Not to mention free agents that will get more money in an ever-expanding market. Unless we could in turn trade Peavy to someone with the extra money to spend, it’s too big of a hit to our wallets. His contract is too fat.

It’s not even guaranteed Peavy would be pitching then, considering his awful pitching mechanics putting awful stress on his elbow. He’s a giant injury risk and for the costly price he’s paid right now the investment is nowhere near worth it.

I really hope management is able to resist temptation here, it’s really not worth it.

Via Gord Ash’s Twitter:

rhp david riske reports ongoing elbow pain during his most recent “rehab” outing

That sounds like a Tommy John surgery waiting to happen. Why is “rehab” in quotes?

The St. Louis Cardinals have lost to the Milwaukee Brewers four out of four times so far this season, and going back to season the Brew Crew have beaten them up to the tune of a 9-1 record in their last ten meetings. Milwaukee’s kind of treated them recently as if they were the Pirates, and the Brewers’ second 1-0 victory over the Cardinals this season likely won’t put a good taste in the Cardinals’ mouths.

The one-run ballgame was highlighted by Bill Hall’s 10th inning single into the gap with Casey McGehee on third and two outs. Immediately after the game-winner, Hall and the rest of the Brewers decided to run into the dugout (watch the video) and celebrate there. This being a far cry from the Untuckem philosophy that has earned the ire of people in St. Louis. Take a look at what Ryan Franklin, the Cardinals’ closer, said awhile ago:

“Well, they’ve got a little flair about them that some people don’t care for,” said closer Ryan Franklin. “But that’s just the way they are. So yeah, I think it would be more fun to beat them than it would be the Padres or something, just because of what they do after they beat you.”

Today after an emotional victory the Brewers immediately decided to run into the clubhouse instead of untuck the shirts and high-five each other walking into the dugout. They also didn’t do the awful, shove-it-in-your-face celebration by mobbing the guy who hit the game winner at first base after the winning run scored. Instead, they ran directly to the clubhouse so as to not “offend” St. Louis.

The Cardinals’ TV announcer has referenced the way Milwaukee celebrates their wins as unclassy or unsportsmanlike as well. Of course it’s not actually unsportsmanlike, since they do it with every team and it’s a tribute to Mike Cameron’s dad and doesn’t do anything to show up the other team at all. There’s a false pretense in baseball that says any form of celebration in baseball is unheard of and unsportsmanlike — staring at a home run, for example, is objectionable and baseball old-timers think you must run the bases at full speed. Pumping your fist Joba Chaimberlain-style after a big strikeout is just as awful of a thing to do.

Be it America’s pasttime or not, it’s still professional sports and these players get paid millions of dollars to perform at a high intensity and doing things like gazing at your success or pumping your fist at a swing-and-miss is something I’d expect out of my team whether it was in a pennant race or not. Hell, Alfonso Soriano and the rest of the Cubs outfield untucked their shirt when they beat the Brewers at Miller Park earlier this year just to mock Milwaukee and there’s no way I would ever have any problem with that. It means he’s competitive. It means he wants to triumph just to troll them. Competition is good for the game, dormant 1920s polite attitudes are not anymore.

Now, whether or not the Brewers held off on untucking ‘em to not offend the Cardinals or not is unclear, but they shouldn’t care either way.

For me, personally, yesterday’s Memorial Day victory provided a much needed pick-me-up after an awful weekend in Minnesota. I live in Minneapolis, so naturally I used my internship at Fox Sports North to gain a free pair of four tickets to Friday’s game and buy cheap seats for Saturday’s. On the walk back to the bus from the Metrodome I took the liberty of crawling through a hole in a fence to get to a private wooded area to relieve myself since the nearest bathroom was still 30 minutes away. The next day, I woke up with a blotch of red on both of my elbows. The next day, it spread everywhere else.

After having to watch an embarrassing Brewer sweep I ended up covering 1/3 of my body in poison ivy and am going to have to spend the next week or two being a hermit and spreading myself with hydrocortisone lotions every hour to stop myself from itching my limbs. Thank goodness I have something to look forward to — another walkoff tomorrow would be perfect.

From pools of xylophone clear
From caves of memory
I saw the children at heart
That we once used to be
Borne on foaming seahorse herd
Compose with trumpeting shell
- XTC – Mermaid Smiled

The Brewers have put together one of the more memorable starts in recent history, riding a current 21-5 monthly hot streak that has propelled them to a three-game lead in the NL Central and a busty 11 games over .500 less than two months into the season. They’ve done it with being awesome in general: the fourth-best OPS+ in the NL as well as the third best ERA+ so far — only the Mets and Dodgers can argue that their team stats trump Milwaukee’s and they just happen to be the other best teams in the NL.

Many of the stats this year compared to last year’s team are really inflated in a couple of key areas. OBP is the only stat that’s really jumped at me offensively, as a 27-point jump in OBP tells me that walking once in awhile has become a high priority and that leads to more baserunners and eventually runs. 5.11 runs/game is much better than 4.63. On the pitching side, the pitchers’ ERA has stayed virtually the same, however the team’s WHIP is much higher due to an increase in walks: Brewer pitchers this season have issued over 3% more walks per batter than they did in 2008. In other words, perhaps the pitching is due to regress a little bit. Perhaps we need to take this start with a grain of salt.

So without further adieu, let’s take a look a couple players who could see some regression over the next few months of play:

Dave Bush
Bushy this year has thrown 53 innings of excellent baseball, posting a 3.74 ERA and 1.08 WHIP and 38 strikeouts to only 11 walks. Before last night’s start, however, his deeper statistics seem to tell a different story: so far, he’s regressed in many of his main statistics last year and has only gotten lucky. His FB% has shot way up, GB% way down, and a not-insignificant increase in LD% means that his pitchers are more meaty than they should be. What’s mainly keeping him afloat is luck — a .243 BABIP and loomingly large 75% LOB rate mean that he’s benefited from timely outs and lucky baseball paths. This all has led to a 4.86 FIP, meaning that if he continues to pitch the way he is, 5 IP 6 ER and a big, fat L won’t be an uncommon occurrence.

Craig Counsell
It’s not a secret by now that Counsell has never been a beefy hitter, but he’s been pretty hot to start the year so far, batting way above his .256/.345/.346 career line, batting .324/.413/.456. His good hitting has been due to a hot streak and seeing the ball well — his general swing percentage is down significantly from his career, but all of his contact percentages are up. This means that Counsell is being much more selective at the pitches that he swings at, and when he does, he’s not swinging and missing. He’s also getting a little extra punch from a high .356 BABIP, which is getting him a little extra beef. Watch for him to regress back to career norms, but if his pitch selection stays the way it is, I’d be happy to see him stay at 2B for the rest of the year.

Ryan Braun
Even my favorite player is prone to benefiting from a little good luck every now and then. Braun has put up some crazy good statistics on the back. Brauny’s been ridiculous so far, putting up a .323/.451/.571/1.023 line with 8 dingers and a surprising 5:6 K/BB ratio. I really thought he’d strike out more. Braun also has an inflated BABIP (.368) and has a couple of other funky things that are odd with what you’d expect.

Braun’s line drive and fly ball percentages are way down from last year, which tells me that his stats should regress from last year, not go the other way around. What’s made him so effective however is that he has a wonderfully high HR/fly ball rate (25%), which definitely is not sustainable throughout the rest of the season. In other words, his ground balls are finding holes, as evidenced by his high BABIP, and his fly balls are finding the seats. Which is just fine with me. But expect him to come back down or go back into a slump for a little while.

Braden Looper
The biggest free agent signing the Brewers made last year has done a pretty good job so far for the Crew, going 4-2 with a 4.26 ERA — even when Blooper’s not on or doing too well, he’s kept the Brewers in games instead of totally imploding, and the Brewer offense has generally done a pretty good job of keeping him afloat recordwise. However, Blooper has benefited from a lower BABIP as well (.285) and his FIP (5.48) is the worst it’s been for him since his opening year in 1998 with the Cardinals. The reason his BABIP has been so bad is that he’s dramatically increased his walks and home runs so far this year, which has in turn increased his WHIP. I half-expect Looper to cut down on his walks and become better through the year, otherwise the Brewer offense may not be able to pick him up for the rest of the season.

Everyone knows by now that Rickie Weeks is out for the season with a torn tendon sheath in his right wrist. This is the same injury that sidelined him for awhile and subsequently irritated him until last year, and so far this season he looked to be completely healthy and fulfilling the potential he was always labeled with through his time in Milwaukee: he hit .272/.340/.517 with 8 home runs and greatly improved defensive numbers (5.4 UZR through 35 games) — his WAR so far through mid-May was only half a win lower than it was through the entire 2008 campaign.

Unfortunately he’s gone for the rest of the season, as his surgery will take 4-6 months to fully heal. To replace him, the Brewers immediately are turning second base into a platoon with Casey McGehee hitting against lefties and Craig Counsell taking care of right-handers. Since Counsell was originally slated to be Bill Hall’s platoon partner, studly prospect Mat Gamel will take care of right handed pitching at third base. There are a couple of other options the Brewers could pursue, like bringing up light-hitting Hernan Iribarren to take over second base or even signing free agent Ray Durham to try and revive his corpse. But if the double-platoon sticks, how much production will the Brewers lose with Weeks out for the rest of the season?

Weeks so far this season was hitting tremendously but I suspect he has just been seeing the ball particularly well for a stretch and was due to regress a little bit. His 19.1% HR/FB rate combined with sharp LD% and FB% increases and a low GB% implies small sample size and a return to normalcy. Combine that with a (probably) unsustainable 28.3 UZR/150, and it’s pretty clear Rickie was playing a little over his head. His updated ZiPS projections imply he would hit closer to .257/.351/.456/.808 and even if we assume the improved defense that coaches have been touting than I figure that Weeks’ defense should decline to somewhere in between his career numbers at second (essentially dead average) and where he is now (off-the-charts good). Since we’re 1/4 of the way through the season, I estimate that Weeks would be about a 5.0 WAR player for the rest of the season assuming he remained healthy. So, we lose that. But what do we gain back with the Counsell/McGehee platoon?

Counsell meanwhile is a light-stick, good-fielding utility man. He’s pretty clearly not going to keep up his current pace of batting over .300, but he has a decent career OBP (.345) which is pretty close to Weeks’ and while his offense may take a hit, Counsell has extreme value defensively, posting a career 12.9 UZR/150 at second base. Counsell is also in a platoon, meaning that he’ll only face right-handed pitching. Careerwise, he’s better against right-handed pitching, going .258/.348/.353. For the rest of the season, this approximates to about a 1.5 WAR. McGehee, on the other hand, does much better against LHP, hitting for a .796 OPS in AAA last year with 5 homers in 129 ABs, compared to a .767 OPS against right-handers. Considering the dropoff in his statistics now that he’s reached the major league level, he should put up about a WAR of 1 or so. McGehee is particularly difficult to estimate because he’s had a career 16 chances at outs at second base, so basing predictions of performance based on that small of a sample size is dangerous. I’m assuming totally average defense out of McGehee against lefties.

So far, this means that the Brewers are going to lose about 2.5 wins just from replacing Weeks with the less-able-but-still-qualified McGehee/Counsell duo.

However there’s more to the story than just replacing Rickie over at second. Remember that the move also means that the Gamel Camel to replace Counsell at third. Last night, Gamel decided to turn on a Kyle Lohse fastball and crank it to right field to drive in his first three runs and turn a close game into a punch in the gut. Gamel’s an offensive stud ready to be shown off, as evidenced by his nearly 1.100 OPS in AAA-Nashville at only 23 years old. Those numbers upon examination are excruciatingly high, but if Gamel can put up a .900 OPS in the majors he’ll be significantly outperforming Counsell’s bargain at third despite being an average statistical defender at third. Sure, he’ll give away a few horrible throws and have some fielding gaffes, but his bat is a definite improvement over Counsell. I’d estimate on the low end that Gamel’s bat adds a significant amount of WAR to the table. Since he’s predominately starting against righties, he should provide an extra 0.5-1.0 WAR for the rest of the season, assuming he remains called up at this point. To put it differently, Weeks’ loss costs the Brewers about 1.5-2 wins, and at the end of the season, that could mean all the difference when it comes to playoffs or not. We’ll see.

Of course, this is all wildly speculative and an inexact science. Estimating a two-win dropoff due to to Weeks’ departure is sure to be wrong on my part and couldn’t possibly be actually calculated until the rest of the season plays out and the hypothetical assumptions that Weeks could continue his tear at nearly the rate he was going at so far.

Enjoy the hot streak. Remember that the inevitable August and September swoon is upon us yet.

The Brewers signed Frank Catalanotto to a minor league deal on Tuesday, causing Tom H. to think that one of the Brewer bench outfielders like Brad Nelson or Chris Duffy will be replaced due to their ineptitude hitting so far. GM Doug Melvin and manager Ken Macha don’t seem to agree, basically saying the equivalent of, “well, he’s not guaranteed to make the major league club at all — he has to prove to us he can hit before he replaces somebody.”

Catalanotto, by the way, is a 35-year-old defensively washed up corner OF with continually declining statistics (probably due to age) who hasn’t played in the majors so far in 2009. His last time facing live pitching was back in 2008 where he put up a .741 OPS in 248 at-bats with 2 home runs, 20 walks, and 29 strikeouts. He’s an intense defensive liability (why he would be limited to pinch-hitting duties if he made the major leagues) and got his average OPS playing in a hitters’ ballpark. He passes the three checkmarks of a player who I don’t want: old, getting worse, and no defense. It’s like signing Sidney Ponson to pitch in the starting rotation. With all that in mind, he did have a bad-ass mustache.

I don’t think the Brewers are in actual need of this guy. Catalanotto can’t replace Chris Duffy because Duffy is more or less a defensive replacement and acceptable player to give Mike Cameron a day off. Brad Nelson in his career in the minors OPsed .801, which seems about on par for what Catalonotto is set to do when you take into account the major league dropoff. Nelson is also signed for much cheaper since this is his first year making the big league roster; he’s 27 years old and has plenty more time to improve on his hitting skills.

The best justification I can think of for this would be to get Nelson more at-bats in AAA to let him work through his current season-long funk so far. The problem is, Nelson’s amassed only 20 at-bats so far this season and I still think the problem with him is that he’s mired in a funk where he is stressing out too much about getting that first big-league hit. The only way to solve this is getting him some more at-bats. He’s due to get hot and I don’t agree with signing Catalonotto only to put more pressue on Big Brad. 20 at-bats is nothing.

To put this differently, Nelson has nowhere to go but up. Catalanotto would be an offensive downgrade, especially considering he hasn’t seen live pitching since last year. Doug Melvin is right when he says that Mustache Frank should be held down in case there’s an injury to an upcoming fielder — the outfield is pretty thin even when everyone is healthy. I’ll be sad to see Brad go down if Catalonotto does replace him.

No posts coming from me until next week. Until then, enjoy donking your own remixes.

Ryan Braun decided to own once again in the bottom of the eighth on Friday night against a FSWisconsin-doctored 100 mph Aaron Heilman fastball on a 1-0 count by serving it into the UW-Milwaukee sign in right center and give the Brew a 3-2 lead that they wouldn’t give up.

The next day, the Cubs bullpen powerhouse cranked out 6 walks in 1 2/3 IP as the Brewers took another win in a game that lasted over four hours. It was such a good game for awhile until the Cubs bullpen started going haywire and dragging the final two innings much longer than they needed to be. Yesterday’s game didn’t really matter because taking two from the Cubs right after a 3-1 road trip is happy days for me. On Saturday night, watching this made me grin as well. All in all a really good stretch by the Crew and heading into next week with a half-game lead on the Cubs means the Brewers are sitting pretty.

However, this post is about something else… something I wanted to check in on. Bill Hall’s season. I wrote about back in February making the point that he’s really going to have a bounceback season this year due to his statistics regressing upward to the norm and his LASIK eye surgery seemingly adding to his ability to see the ball, which had been a major problem in the past.

This year Bill Halls’ hit .279/.347/.465 with 3 home runs in 86 AB. For a third baseman, that’s not too bad, and with positive defensive numbers at third base so far, that places him significantly above projections this year and actually a really valuable player. How much of this solid play is a regression in BABIP numbers and how much is due to that being a better ballplayer who can see the ball with relative ease now?

An average BABIP in the majors is usually around .300, maybe a little more. Hall’s this year is .350, and in 2008 his was below average at .287. He couldn’t hit the ball well, but he certainly wasn’t very lucky and had his BABIP been slightly higher we wouldn’t be as concerned about this year’s performance. But this year, he’s hitting well, and his BABIP implies he’s been pretty lucky so far, so we should expect his stats to go down somewhere in between 2008’s numbers and his numbers so far.

But personally I think his stats will be skewed a little more towards the side of .250 he’s on now. He’s become a marginally better hitter with better other statistics to imply that he might be a for-real acceptable third base option in case Mat Gamel doesn’t pan out there. In between his year and last, he’s done a much better job of taking pitches and being disciplined at the plate, as evidence by the moderate increase in some of his pitch selection stats so far:

Bill Hall 2008: O-Swing%: 26.8. Swing%: 46.3. F-Strike%: 62.3.
Bill Hall 2009: O-Swing%: 23.1. Swing%: 44.7. F-Strike%: 69.5.

Hall’s swinging at less pitches outside of the zone and less pitches in general, despite the F-Strike% going way up. Considering that he’s able to take more pitches and is putting up the stats consistent with last year’s implies he’s going to get a few more chances to hit with the count in his favor instead of having to work with the count. That means he’ll get more pitches to see on 1-0, 2-0, and 2-1 and those counts have been proven both statistically and by most color announcers to be the ones where hitters salivate over. I think he’ll keep his progress up.

If he does, that just puts the Brewers just that much closer to that coveted wild card spot. Or even division if the Cubs keep getting hurt.

Posts might be scarce the next couple of weeks. Tomorrow (well, today, technically) I’m moving to a new home, and with finals week rapidly approaching, I will have to crunch the time in order to find any time to post anything. Once this summer comes and gets in full swing, I should be back to my ideal three-times-per-week posting schedule.

Normally I’ve been posting on Mondays as a weekend’s digest, but with Comcast unable to come to put internet and cable in until later on Sunday night then you can expect me not to post a Monday post and you might only see one post the next two weeks as my schedule until then is pretty packed. Now, onto the Crew

Earlier this month I said after the first two awful starts by Jeff Suppan that it wasn’t fair to throw him under the bus and to give him time to correct himself. One of the things that concerned me as well as everyone else was that noone had swung and missed at a Suppan fast(meat)ball, but that was obviously a small sample size and Suppan had simply been struggling with his control and mechanics as he adjusted to the beginning of the season.

Perhaps he’s over it. In his two starts since being thrown to the curb, he’s tossed 12 1/3 innings with 9 strikeouts and 4 walks and an ERA hovering around 3. Not bad for a guy who two starts ago was a prime candidate to get DFA’d. But the problem wasn’t absolutely with Suppan – many reactionary fans were just being impatient.

People who have watched Suppan pitch over his career seemed to have unrealistic expectations of what he is supposed to be in the organization. It’s almost like many Brewer fans expected Suppan to be as good as Derek Lowe and eat 7 innings every single start. No. That’s not who he is. He’s a career 4.65 ERA guy who averages less than 6 innings per appearance (this includes bullpen appearances) and has less than a 2:1 K/BB ratio. In other words, he already is awful, and Brewer fans seemed to be begging for an excuse to drop his hefty contract.

Suppan may not be that great of a pitcher, but he’s durable and not awful and starters like those are found in every single rotation across the majors, proving that guys like Suppan or Joe Blanton of the Phillies are definitely valuable commodities and if they’re capable of pitching 5-6 innings of one-run ball every couple of starts, I’m absolutely happy to see what we have in the rotation right now.

I could sit here and cherry pick bad starts by any pitcher and it’s not any more or less significant than the two starts Suppan had at the beginning of the year. Consider Yovani Gallardo’s start earlier this year against the Reds and a start he had

Total between two starts: 7 2/3 IP, 18 ER, and a bunch of other statistics that are much worse than Jeff Suppan’s. You could cherry pick this for any pitcher. Just because Suppan was pitching horribly for two straight starts doesn’t mean anything in the long run. If he continues to throw up an ERA of nearly 6 and uses half of his starts to run around in circles and take a dump on the field, I’m absolutely fine with throwing him to the wolves, but I’m confident that he’ll turn it around enough to keep his ERA right around his career line and put the past behind him. I’m with you, Soup.

With all that said, let’s just celebrate the recent winning streak as it happens. A 2-4 homestand that left many fans wondering about the swagger and pitching of the team has turned into a 6-4 record that seems about par with what we’d expect. This is the power of assuming a small sample size when analyzing early season statistics. We’re two games over .500!