SB Nation User Blog: Jeff Sackmann

Game Thread #96: Brewers (52-43) at Giants (40-55)

Jeff Sackmann — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 22:52:17 -0000

Hey, look at this--we're opening the second half with quite the pitcher's duel. The 2008 Brewers ace versus the 2009 Brewers ace! (Maybe. Kind of. Please?)

CC Sabathia takes the hill with his Marcel-projected 3.21 ERA while Matt Cain counters with his 3.7 runs of average run support. Just think how happy he will be in the Milwaukee rotation.

Game time is 9:15 CT, and thankfully it's the only night game of the series. Here's the BR Game Preview.

Go Brewers!

Solving Second Base

Jeff Sackmann — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 21:54:24 -0000

With CC Sabathia in the fold, the Brewers have made one huge move to improve the team. There are few things you can do that make more impact than replacing your 5th starter with an ace.

Beyond that, it's not entirely clear what else Doug Melvin could do to improve the Brewers' playoff chances. Some of us would like to see a bullpen addition or two. I'm skeptical, largely because we're unlikely to get anyone much better than Riske or Gagne. If such a player became available, he'd be very expensive. Think Linebrink. I wouldn't mind a minor move, but I don't think we can count on increasing the win total via new relievers.

That leaves the offense. A quick glance at sOPS+ by position tells the story. The Crew is average or better at every position except for catcher and second base. We can rule out an improvement at catcher, both because Kendall has been so good defensively, and because a substantial offensive improvement would be next to impossible to come by. Just about every good catcher plays on a contender.

In fact, the sheer number of contenders makes it tough to envision many deals getting done. I suppose another few teams may decide they're out of it before July 31, but as is, I only count 11 or 12 teams that should throw in the towel, and I'm including clubs like the Rockies and Blue Jays, whose GMs may not agree with me.

So. That leaves us with about a dozen teams, each of which have a second baseman who may or may not be worth acquiring.

To set some benchmarks: Rickie is currently OPSing 687, while team second basemen are averaging 688--Counsell is bringing up the OBP and dragging down the SLG. The average second baseman in the NL this year OPS's 743, while the average lead-off guy OPS's 745. Roughly speaking, the difference between Rickie production and average production for the rest of year is worth about one win.

One more consideration. In his career, Weeks has OPS'd about 100 points higher against lefties. That's unsurprising, so I'm comfortable expecting that to continue. With that in mind, a lefty replacement with a marked platoon split would have the potential to improve the team more than a righty replacement who would play second every day.

Let's look at some options:

Brian Roberts, Orioles. If we're going to really go for it, this is the guy. Unless the Rangers have an immediate slump and offer up Ian Kinsler (fat chance!), Roberts is the best player available at the position, by far. He's a switch hitter, but over his career he's had typical lefty platoon splits--about 100 points higher vRHP. The splits are even this year, but I'll take the 4000 PA sample, thank you very much. If he and Rickie have second halves just like their first halves, the difference is a staggering three wins--and that's just at the plate. Even using more conservative estimates, acquiring Roberts would probably have as big of an impact on the win total as picking up CC.
Ray Durham, Giants. His name has already come up in trade rumors, and for obvious reasons. Unlike the Orioles, Rockies, and plenty of others, San Fran realizes they are out of it, and there's certainly no reason to keep Durham around to help them lose. He might be one of the few available players who wouldn't be a defensive upgrade on Weeks, but his bat is solid (800 OPS so far this year) and he's another switch hitter. His splits are a bit weird--this year he's much better against righties, but in 05-07 he was stronger vLHP. Durham wouldn't have near the impact that Roberts would, but presumably, he'd come much cheaper.
Mark Grudzielanek, Royals. This Wisconsin-native All-Grit Team starter is having his second straight solid season at the plate, OPSing 770. I was about to write it off to an unsustainably high BABIP of .343 this year, but he's consistently in the 330 range. Grudz is a righty, meaning that we wouldn't get any platoon advantage pairing him with Rickie, but his glove may well make him a more valuable potential acquisition than Durham. I can't imagine why the Royals would hold on to him if we offered any kind of useful piece.
Jose Lopez, Mariners. This list goes downhill fast. Some people still think of him as good because of a solid first half in 2006. As is, he's not much better at the plate than Rickie (729 OPS) and his glove is suspect. The Mariners should be in fire sale mode, but Lopez is under control for another couple years and there isn't an obvious replacement nipping at his heels. He wouldn't be cheap, and he wouldn't be good. Pass. (Also, did you know the Mariners payroll this year is over 115MM? Wow.)
Mark Ellis, A's. Ellis wouldn't be much of an improvement at the plate--238/332/384 is right in line with what Rickie would do with better BABIP luck--but he is considered one of the best defensive second sackers in baseball. He'll be a free-agent after the season, so unless the A's go on a tear starting this weekend, Billy Beane should make him available. I don't know what kind of package Beane would require, but Ellis's defense probably makes him worth about as much as Durham or Grudz. My gut says that Grudz would come cheaper.

There will surely be other guys out there--Felipe Lopez comes to mind, as does Mark Loretta--but the five listed above are the only ones who have any shot at being a clear win over Rickie. I don't think Melvin will mortgage the future to the extent he'd need to in order to grab Roberts, but with the trio of Durham, Grudz, and Ellis, it might be something of a buyer's market, in which case we could improve the team by giving up some pieces we wouldn't miss.

U.S. Olympic Roster Announced

Jeff Sackmann — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 21:03:02 -0000

U.S. Olympic Roster Announced

No Brewers, but Matt LaPorta is on the team. LaPorta, along with Colby Rasmus and college pitcher Stephen Strasburg, is among the biggest prospects on the team, which has more than its share of non-prospects.

All-Star Game Open Thread

Jeff Sackmann — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 21:52:50 -0000

At 7:00 CT, FOX will be airing a whole bunch of ads. If you watch closely, you'll also see Ben Sheets pitch a couple of innings, Braun get a couple of at-bats, and Hart pinch-hit at some point.

Go futile National Leaguers!

All-Stars and Parity

Jeff Sackmann — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 17:07:15 -0000

The rules governing All-Star Game roster construction have changed over the years, but one thing has been constant for quite some time: Every team must have at least one representative on the team. Naturally, this makes for some undeserving selections now and then.

There are plenty of examples, but in recent years, my favorite has been the 2006 selection of Mark Redman. (I've been fascinated with Redman for a while now--see this article from March 2007.) In browsing through some ASG history yesterday, I came across another galling Royals pick--Jose Rosado, who made the team twice in four-and-a-half year career. Seriously--he was an All-Star twice in the late '90s, and I barely remember the guy.

Of course, the Brewers weren't a good team for quite a long time, and one member of the team needed to be selected every year between the Molitor/Yount era and the Ben Sheets era. In fact, the Brewers had only one All-Star thirteen years in a row, from 1989 to 2001, including such luminaries as Kevin Seitzer, Ricky Bones, and Fernando Vina.

Looking over this year's All-Star rosters, one can find a few picks of this sort, but they are few and far between. I don't know what it says about parity--even bad teams ought to have one good player, right?--but it is encouraging that we'll see close to 18 half-innings of good pitching.

Here are a few of the 2008 All-Star selections that might raise eyebrows:

Cristian Guzman. He's having a career year, but even his empty .313 batting average leaves him with a 102 OPS+, far behind guys like Jose Reyes and JJ Hardy. Actually, the Nats aren't that hard up--either John Lannan or Jon Rauch would've made for a credible selection.
Brian Wilson. This one baffles me. At first, I thought, "Yeah, of course the Giants are sending a lame All-Star." But of course, the Giants are also sending Tim Lincecum. Wilson has 25 saves with a WHIP over 1.5. He's racking up the numbers because the Giants offense never scores enough runs to amass anything bigger than a 3-run lead.
George Sherrill. He's the Wilson of the AL. He's got 28 saves, which makes him the easy choice as a token team rep, but he's not even the best (or second-best) choice from the bullpen. Brian Roberts probably deserved the spot more than Sherrill, too.
Miguel Tejada. This, like the Wilson pick, is just weird. Lance Berkman is a no-questions-asked starter, so there's no need for Tejada on the team, and Miggy's performance certainly hasn't earned him the trip. Tejada has been out-hit by Guzman (his OPS+ is 95), meaning that he's less deserving than someone who really isn't very deserving. Jose Reyes should be ticked. Heck, even Ryan Theriot should be ticked. At least he's not a lying druggie with no range.

Such a list wouldn't be complete without Derek Jeter (740 OPS with crappy defense!) and Jason Varitek (299 OPS!), but the fans and the players (I presume) are to blame for those.

In other words, the one-player-per-team rule didn't bite too hard this year. Really, Guzman and Sherrill are the only guys who snuck in under that rule, and either one could've been replaced by a better option (if not a slam-dunk All-Star, in the case of the Nats) without wreaking too much havoc on the roster.

The All-Grit Team

Jeff Sackmann — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 17:09:03 -0000

I'm not exactly an authority on grit, but it was about time someone named an All-Grit Team. All-Star Week seemed appropriate.

C Jason Kendall
1B Platoon: Doug Mientkiwicz / Kevin Millar
2B Mark Grudzielanek
3B Ryan Freel
SS David Eckstein
LF Scott Podsednik
CF Aaron Rowand
RF Eric Byrnes

If a DH were needed, the all-grit team would do one of two things:

Bat the pitcher, because truly gritty players are throwbacks to when pitchers could hit for themselves
Go with Willie Bloomquist.

The bench is a little unbalanced--in addition to the eight starters, 1B platoon, and Bloomquist, that leaves four or five spots. Again, these guys are throwbacks, so a 10-man pitching staff would have to do the job. That leaves two roster spots for Craig Counsell (team captain) and Nick Punto and three more for backup catchers. Doesn't really matter which ones, though I think Paul Bako has to be on the team.

It doesn't matter that there aren't any backup outfielders, because any truly gritty player can play anywhere in the diamond. In that sense, there are twelve backup outfielders. Similarly, it doesn't really matter which outfielders are assigned to which position, since any of the three could play center, but they, of course, will play wherever they're needed.

I haven't figured out what to do about the pitching staff, since pitchers aren't generally considered gritty in the same way that position players are. It seems that gritty pitchers are generally guys who have hung on past their prime (like Jamie Moyer) or lefty relievers (like Brian Shouse) or both.

You may note that I didn't include a batting lineup--the list above is just the fielding alignment. That's going to be a serious problem for manager Gabe Kapler--left to their own devices, everyone on this team would bat second.

Sheets to be named NL starting pitcher | MLB.com: News

Jeff Sackmann — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 13:56:16 -0000

Sheets to be named NL starting pitcher | MLB.com: News

Sheets will start, but there's no word yet on whether Sabathia will be added to the team to start at DH.

Game Thread #95: Reds (46-49) at Brewers (51-43)

Jeff Sackmann — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 15:45:55 -0000

Thanks to an amazing comeback from the Pirates yesterday, the Brewers stayed within a half game of the wild card lead. It'd be nicer to stay in it by winning a game now and then.

Today, the ball goes back into CC Sabathia's hand, while the Reds turn to Homer Bailey.

Game time is 1:05 CT, and here's the BR Game Preview.

Go Brewers!

Game Thread #94: Reds (45-49) at Brewers (51-42)

Jeff Sackmann — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 21:36:50 -0000

Edinson Volquez brings some very sparkly full-season numbers into tonight's game, but he is coming off of three decidedly mediocre outings--against the Jays, Pirates, and Nats, no less. Seth McClung, on the other hand, has given up exactly two runs in five of his last six starts. The last one of those was even at home!

Game time is 6:05 CT, and here's the BR Game Preview.

Go Brewers!

Game Thread #93: Reds (44-49) at Brewers (51-41)

Jeff Sackmann — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 21:56:57 -0000

The only Brewers pitcher on more of a hot streak than Dave Bush, especially at home, is Manny Parra. Parra is holding opponents to a .646 OPS at Miller Park--basically, he turns the opposition lineup into nine Jason Kendalls on a bad day, only without the grit. Even more impressive, Parra has a 2.08 ERA in his last seven starts, including three scoreless outings in his last four.

Josh Fogg goes for the Reds, and the same positive things cannot be said about him.

And, oh yeah, don't know if you noticed, but the Brewers are currently leading in the NL Wild Card, with the second best record in the National League.

Game time is 7:05 CT, and here's the BR Game Preview.

Go Brewers!