It's been over a week since we last saw Wily Peralta make his debut with the Brewers, pitching one inning on 4/22 against the Colorado Rockies. One inning is nowhere near enough to make any fair observations about Peralta's pitch selection tendencies or the relative strength of each of his pitches. However, we can get at least a preliminary look at his arsenal.

Generally, starting pitcher prospects tend to lean on their fastball heavily when they are called up and asked to pitch major league innings in relief. They also tend to throw harder than they would normally average over the course of a normal start due their short stint (and also adrenaline to some extent, I'm sure). 13 of the 17 pitches Peralta threw in his debut were fastballs, they averaged 95.2 and one hit 96.5, and three topping the 96 mph mark. Peralta tends to work closer to the 92-94 as a starter, but it's reassuring to know that he has 96 if he needs it.

Peralta also threw four breaking balls in his inning, 3 curves and a slider. The curve's obvious comparison is to Yovani Gallardo, he throws it about a mile per hour slower, and it looks to be a bit less of of a 12-6 curve than Yovani's, tending to move away just a bit more from a righthanded batter. He also gave us a brief glance at his slider, a pretty nasty 85 mph pitch that you'd have to figure he'd work in more in something other than a 1-inning role.

Unfortunately, Wily did give up 3 hits and a run in his inning. He pumped fastballs to the first batter he faced, Dexter Fowler. His first two pitches were fastballs near 94 mph, and he missed the zone with each. He then threw a fastball at 93 down the middle, but it was fouled off. His fourth pitch missed well low at 96, and the final pitch of the at-bat was 95 and right down the middle, and Fowler hit it for a single.

That sort of at-bat is understandable for a rookie looking to impress his management enough to show them he deserves a shot as the fifth starter in the MLB rotation. One MLB inning should not be necessary to show Doug Melvin that Peralta should be plugged into the rotation by July at the latest. He's pitched twice since going back down. First came an unremarkable start in which he went 5 innings, gave up 5 runs, struck out 5 and walked 4. Then, two nights ago, he threw 7 innings, struck out 8, walked 2, gave up just two runs, and did it all on 86 pitches.

The fact that the Brewers are skipping Marco Estrada's spot in the rotation leads me to believe they do not consider him the year-long answer as a replacement for Chris Narveson. Estrada is a fine pitcher but if the Brewers want a shot at contention they are going to have to take some risks and go with Peralta at some point. I have a hunch that Doug Melvin agrees. I feel that Peralta is going to stick with the Nashville Sounds through May and probably much of June, continuing to work on his command. Staying at Nashville also will give them a chance to keep closely watch his workload; Peralta threw 150 innings in 2011 and it would be a shame if he excelled with the Brewers only to have to be shut down in September.

I am confident that Marco Estrada can hold down the 5th starter spot for a few more weeks, but it's clear to me that Peralta is very, very close to being ready. Don't forget his name, because I would guess that we will see a lot of him in the coming months.

*Once again thanks to Brooks Baseball and Texas Leaguers for assembling the Pitch f/x data so I don't have to.

Adam McCalvy published a nice story today on MLB.com about how maybe, just maybe, Carlos Gomez might finally become a star this year. He goes into it with a healthy dose of reality and skepticism, as he probably should:

A disclaimer, right off the bat: You may have read this story before.

They wrote it in New York, where Carlos Gomez was a hotshot outfield prospect. They wrote it in Minnesota, where he arrived in the Johan Santana blockbuster and was expected to star. And we've written it in Milwaukee, where Gomez has showed flashes of his tremendous promise over the past two seasons.

Now, we just can't help but write it again: Is this the year Gomez gets it?

Gomez does look great so far, no doubt about that. Yeah, he's starting only against lefties, but it's clear that he's hitting the ball well. Not only that, but McCalvy makes a great point about discipline later in the article, noting that his outside-the-zone swing percentage is down 5 points from 2010 and 2011.

So here's my challenge to you, dear reader: can you find Gomez's current slash line in this group of short, good-hitting stretches Gomez has had in his career? Quick!

45 PA, .326/.356/.465

42 PA, .385/.429/.641

37 PA, .412/.459/.676

49 PA, .348/.367/.500

45 PA, .349/.378/.605

42 PA, .317/.333/.537

36 PA, .344/.417/.438

34 PA, .406/.424/.469

26 PA, .304/.333/.696

37 PA, .371/.389/.657

I'll hide the answer after the jump, but to conclude, we should really keep our expectations in check for the rest of the year. Gomez can be appreciated for what he is: probably the best defensive center-fielder in baseball, a gifted pinch runner, and probably the most valuable right side of a platoon in major league baseball. His 2.0 fWAR in 258 plate appearances last year makes him a roughly average player... over 600 plate appearances. None of this includes his flair for the dramatic on the basepaths, especially in the pinch-running role.

There's a lot of upside, of course. McCalvy's article describes it well. But he's had great stretches before, as have many other hitters who have come short of the potential seen in them by scouts and fans. I'm going to wait at least 150 plate appearances before making any sort of proclamation about Gomez actually possibly "getting it". Until then I'm going to keep enjoying watching him fill his role on the 2012 Brewers and appreciate how much he contributes to this team.

Continue reading this post »

It is way too early to be jumping to conclusions about Chris Narveson's rotator cuff injury. The Brewers have not said much of anything about a timetable for return yet beyond his 2-week DL stay, but surgery could end his season. That's not to say it will-- there's a heck of a lot we don't know right now-- but it seems a good time to evaluate the options out there to replace him in the short term, and possibly the long term.

The first option will be taking Narveson's first turn in the rotation on Saturday: Marco Estrada. In his only significant major league time, last season, he threw 41 innings as a starter, and he struck out 33 and walked 10 (that's 7.2: 3:3 per 9 if you prefer the rate version). The results, a 3.70 ERA, were better than anyone could have expected from a replacement. There's no doubt that a similar performance this year would be more than the Brewers could ask for, but the question is, how likely is something like that? In 3 years at AAA before he found a home on the Brewer major league staff, Estrada had a 7.2, 6.5, and 7.4 K/9 rates; each year his minor league walk rate was less than his 3.3 as a major league starter in 2011. What to make of this? His rate stats were pretty solid last year, showing that he can hold his own, but expecting anything near that ERA would be foolish. Batters only had a .270 BABIP against him as a starter, and that number could just as easily be .330 in 40 innings this year. Estrada's a safe option to fill in for a period of time, but if he's the fifth starter for the rest of the year, the Brewer playoff chances could take a significant hit.

The high-upside option is top prospect Wily Peralta, who turns 23 in May. He throws hard, has been a workhorse in the minors, and strikes guys out. The number one question has been his command, and he went a long way towards answering that question in 2011, striking out 9.4 per 9 and walking 3.5 between AA and AAA. In 17 innings so far at AAA, he's thrown 17 innings, struck out 13 and walked 6 (which is a slightly lower walk rate than last year). Peralta is up this weekend but it looks like it might be a short stay. Some actually argued that he should have started the year in the Brewer rotation, but I was happy they stuck with Narveson to get Peralta (who only has about a month of AAA experience under his belt) more time. If it does turn out that Narveson will be out most or all of the year, and they're determined to go with Estrada in the short run, the best course of action would seem to be to drop Peralta back to AAA and let him get some more starts, monitoring his innings, and then promote him sometime around the middle of the season. Facing Peralta every fifth day in a pennant race would scare teams a lot more than facing Marco Estrada.

The next option, who seems to have been disqualified by his high-ERA start, is Michael Fiers at AAA. Fiers is 26 so it's not like he's still at AAA for seasoning. As a starter, he put up a 9 K/9 to 2 BB/9 ratio at AA and then put up a 9.6: 3 at AAA in 2011. He's given up runs in his first three starts but his peripherals are just about as good as ever. This is a guy who doesn't throw hard but is probably something close to an equivalent to Marco Estrada right now. If Estrada struggles and they still think Peralta isn't ready in a couple of weeks, Fiers would seem a logical choice to join the team.

Finally I have to mention Manny Parra. Before anyone panics too badly about "OMG Brewers have no more starting pitching depth", remember that they would still have a guy who threw 166 innings with a 4.06 FIP and 4.39 ERA and was the number 3 starter for a long period of time on a playoff team back in '08. If 4 more pitches get injured and Parra has to go back into the rotation for a while-- well, there are worse 9th starters out there. You also have Tyler Thornburg who could possibly make a jump from AA for a few starts in an emergency.

To conclude, many a solid team has acquired a good starting pitcher at the trade deadline and gone on to become a much, much better team. Looking around the Brewer offensive lineup, it's tough to see where any position could be significantly upgraded at the deadline without moving a bunch of pieces. If the Narv-dog is out for a long time, maybe the Brewers will go shopping once again for another piece to make a playoff push.

I think I'm directing this piece towards a fan who might be panicking, even though I haven't read any Brewer fans who are panicking at all about losing Narveson yet. If nothing else it's a reminder that the Brewers are well-equipped to lose a starter, and we shouldn't have to change our overall expectations for this team now that the fifth starter is down.

Usually there's a big story throughout the Spring Training about some new special thing that's going to improve everybody and the team's going to be great and it's going to be awesome. It used to be contact lenses and LASIK surgery and new workout programs, and lately it's been the cutter. The glorious cutter. And there's a lot of evidence that says the cutter is a very worthwhile pitch to learn, improving performance in ground balls generated as well as strikeouts, which are both very good things.

Nobody hopped on the cutter bandwagon this spring like Zack Greinke. Just about every game he seemed to emphasize that he was working on the pitch. Through the first four games he's thrown 56 of them, or 20% of his total pitches thrown in those games. His current pitch distribution looks something like this.

As it's pretty clear to see, overall his frequency of total fastballs thrown-- when you include 4-seamers, 2-seam sinkers, and cutters-- has gone up, but that non-cutter chunk has gone down. That's meant that he's thrown fewer of his off-speed pitches this year. Currently he's thrown 50% fastballs and 21% cutters. That total of 71% is well above the 60% career and 56% he threw last year. So to summarize this paragraph, his amount of 2 and 4 seamers thrown is down, but number of total fastballs including cutters is up quite a bit.

Obviously it's very tough to tell what, exactly a heavier reliance on the cutter is going to mean for Greinke, but I'd have a tough time convincing myself it's not a positive development. It seems that though Greinke pitched awfully well last year, when he had problems they came from a somewhat stubborn inability to work outside the zone, ever. He suffered some terrible luck in terms of how few fly balls he gave up and how many home runs he gave up, but there's no doubt that he made plenty of mistakes in the center of the zone that were taken advantage of. Can the cutter make him more efficient? He already did set a career high in GB% last season at 47%, and through 3 games a full 50% of the balls in play against him were hit on the ground.

The cutter itself may be helpful, though it's mostly speculative through only 3 games. In terms of run value, it's been above average compared to other cutters around the league. Of all his pitches so far, the cutter is:

• most likely to be swung at by opposing batters
• most likely to be fouled off
• least likely to be swung at and missed
• 2.5 times as likely to produce a ground ball than a fly ball

Generally, a pitch that doesn't get swung at and missed a lot is a bad pitch, but I can see how this could help Greinke. I hate the idea of "pitching to contact" (as does Greinke, judging by past quotes). But I can certainly see how having a ground ball-inducing pitch that keeps hitters from keying on the straight fastballs could be a big help, and might help him avoid the home run problems he had last year. And with 0 homers allowed through three starts, that mission is a success so far.

All I can realistically conclude right now is that Greinke is comfortable with the new cutter. This is a pitch he has never thrown this year in his professional career, and he's already throwing it more than any of his off-speed pitches, and he's throwing it for strikes. He hasn't made a mistake that has hurt him with it yet. A lot of pitching coaches seem to think that it's better to focus on throwing 3 or maybe 4 pitches effectively, but by all accounts Greinke has mastered his 5 pitch arsenal and it certainly cannot hurt to add another pitch, as long as he can maintain the control on all of them. The early evidence indicates that he can. If he hadn't given up all those bloop hits in an inning in Chicago we'd be talking about a really promising start for him right now. If we're going to have the ace have problems, is a lot better to have him giving up sporadic weak singles than massive home runs.

*All data from the excellent TexasLeaguers.com and BrooksBaseball.com, as well as Fangraphs

W: Aaron Harang, 1-1

L: Randy Wolf, 0-2

S: Javy Guerra, 6

HR: Matt Kemp (7)

Fangraphs WPA Chart

The Brewers had a chance to come back and win their third straight game in the late innings, but weren't able to come back against the back end of the Dodger bullpen. The starters, Aaron Harang and Randy Wolf, exited with the score 4-3 in favor of the Dodgers after 6 and that final held up.

The Dodgers began the scoring today with a sacrifice fly against Randy Wolf in the second. The Brewers rallied in the bottom half with singles from George Kottaras and Alex Gonzalez and an RBI double from Travis Ishikawa (who gave Mat Gamel a day off). Randy Wolf put the Brewers ahead 2-1 with a deep sacrifice fly.

The Dodgers got to Wolf in the middle innings, tying up the game and then taking the lead on 4 consecutive hits by Mark Ellis, Matt Kemp, Juan Rivera, and Andre Ethier in the third. Kemp hit a bomb to right-center in the fifth to expand the Dodger lead to 4-2.

The Brewers began to fight back against Aaron Harang in the bottom of the sixth. Aramis Ramirez (2-3, walk) and Alex Gonzalez each reached on singles and Ishikawa drove in Ramirez with a single to right. Roenicke brought Mat Gamel into the game to pinch hit for Wolf (6 innings, 1 K, 1 BB, 7 H, 4 ER, 99 pitches), but Gamel struck out to end the inning.

Jamey Wright came on in the seventh for the Dodgers and struck out the first 5 batters he faced in order. George Kottaras came through with a 2-out walk and Carlos Gomez, a pinch runner, got to third on a throwing error while attempting to steal second. Alex Gonzalez ripped a shot down the leftfield line, but Jerry Hairston Jr. made a phenomal play to save a double and threw out Gonzalez at first to end the threat.

The ninth didn't go any better for the Brewers against Javy Guerra. Travis Ishikawa was barely thrown out by Hairston (again) trying to reach on a bunt to lead off the ninth. Aoki struck out on a foul tip check swing and Weeks struck out swinging to end the game.

W: Kameron Loe, 1-0

L: Matt Guirrier, 0-1

HR: Ramirez (1)

Fangraphs WPA Chart

For the second consecutive night, the Brewers had a walkoff winner at Miller Park. Tonight it was Ryan Braun hitting a 1 out, bases-loaded sacrifice fly to score Nyjer Morgan (on a play in which he *might* have been tagged out at the plate).

The Dodgers scored in the first when Mark Ellis tripled and was driven in a batter later by Matt Kemp's single. The Brewers evened the score in a similar fashion in the second. After Aramis Ramirez was thrown out trying to stretch a single into a double, Corey Hart reached second when Andre Ethier misplayed his drive to right. Mat Gamel drove in Hart with a 2-out single under Ellis's glove.

Greinke got in a Greinke home groove after the first. In the fourth he worked around Kemp and then got Ethier to fly out with Kemp running. Carlos Gomez easily threw him out from center for the double play. He encountered a rough patch in the fifth, with old friend Jerry Hairston doubling and old friend Tony Gwynn Jr. dropping a single in to center. He got out of the inning fortunate to allow only the one run, getting A.J. Ellis, Capuano (on a sac bunt), and Dee Gordon in order.

Meanwhile, Capuano was looking a lot like his 2005-2006 self in the early innings, that nasty changeup and command of the inside corner working like only Capuano can. The only crisis for him was Aramis Ramirez Harley-Decking a 444 foot home run that must have felt very good for him in the sixth. Capuano exited after six and only threw 82 pitches.

Greinke threw 109 pitches in his 7 innings and pitched very well. He struck out 7 and walked 2. On the account of MLBAM has a stupid rights policy, I can't bring you a breakdown of his pitches tonight until a bit later (and I will look at his pitch selection so far sometime soon, tomorrow hopefully). He started to show signs of running out of gas with two outs in the seventh, when he foolishly walked Tony Gwynn Jr. Gwynn ran on Greinke's 2-1 pitch and Lucroy picked the ball nearly out of the dirt and threw out Gwynn to bail out Greinke.

The eighth was filled with a bit more drama. Francisco Rodriguez came on and did a Francisco Rodriguez thing by allowing a single to Dee Gordon and then walking Mark Ellis, presumably because he was working around Ellis to get to Matt Kemp. He managed to battle back from a 2-1 count against Kemp to strike him out and end the threat. The Brewers wasted a leadoff single by Carlos Gomez with popouts by Braun and Ramirez and then Gomez was thrown out trying to take second.

The extra inning battle involved alternating scoreless innings from John Axford, Kenley Jansen, and Kameron Loe. Jon Lucroy drew a leadoff walk in the bottom of the tenth and was replaced by Nyjer Morgan. Cesar Izturis popped out on a sac bunt attempt but Morgan stole second with Weeks batting and took third on a throwing error. Walks to Rickie Weeks and pinch hitter George Kottaras set the stage for Ryan Braun's sac fly. Morgan beat the tag through the Ed Sedar stop sign on a throw that Matt Kemp probably should have made, against the 5-man infield alignment. But it goes down as a win for the Brewers, who are finding a way to get it done on this homestand.

Last time we checked in with Shaun Marcum he was really, really struggling. After a regular season that can only be described as excellent, he started getting lit up in mid-September and was really beaten up in the postseason, with a 14.9 ERA in 3 starts, and 5 walks and 5 strikeouts, not that you needed reminding.

Anyways, I looked at some data back after his second unsuccessful playoff start and tried to break down his season into parts. I noted then that it wasn't a decline in fastball velocity that seemed to hurt him, his fastball was right around 86.5-87 all season. What I did see, however, was a slight uptick in his changeup velocity, and more reliance on his cutter/slider pitch because he really seemed to lose confidence in the changeup, his best pitch. He threw it 28% of the time from the start of the season until September 8th, and then threw less than 15% of the time in his playoff starts. Things seemed to compound when Marcum threw his 83 mph cutter more, as the small difference between the velocity of that pitch and his 80 mph changeup did not fool hitters.

Marcum, at his best, is going to be primarily throwing an 87 mph fastball and a 79-80 mph changeup, and he's going to use his breaking balls and cutter to just keep batters off balance. If there's one thing to watch for today, it's his confidence in and reliance on the change.

I'm really, really skeptical to even throw spring training data into the mix because Marcum may have just gone out in his final start with a plan to work on his fastball or something, but if a person were to take a cynical view, it probably wouldn't be good news. According to the pitch f/x algorithm, out of 74 pitches, he only threw 10 changeups (much lower than his career rate) and an above-normal rate of cutters and sliders. Those changeups averaged 81 mph. His fastball averaged 86.8 and topped out at 88.7. Again, we will have a much better idea after today if Marcum is going to be able to regain confidence in his best pitch and be the effective pitcher he was for the vast majority of 2011. If he gets the changeup back under control we can look for a good performance tonight, and we'll check back on this issue once we have some solid data from the 2012 regular season.

*Once again, data from TexasLeaguers.com, an excellent pitch f/x tool.

EDITOR'S NOTE: I have a doctor's appointment this morning, so the Mug is under delay. It should be up around noon. - KL

To recap the starting pitching projections I thought I'd go a slightly different route and compare the projected Brewer rotation to the starting pitching elsewhere in the NL Central.

Individually we begin with Zack Greinke, who we project for 204 innings and a 3.09 ERA. That's actually a slightly higher projection than ZiPS (2.98 ERA). I think either are fair projections, it's going to be awfully exciting to see what Zack can do in a full year of playing time. Last year's freak injury in spring training is a minor blemish in his generally very healthy career. I'm already very curious to see how he uses this brand new cutter in his first few starts in the regular season.

Yovani Gallardo set a career high with 207 innings in 2011, and we project him to top 200 again this year. The final line is 204 innings and a 3.34 ERA. That would be another step forward for Yo, who set a career low in walk rate last year but whose strikeout rate also fell below 9. He's an impressive starter entering a prime year and should be free to pitch as many innings as he can. I'd bet money that this is the most productive 1 and 2 starters in the division.

It's going to take a heck of a performance to shake the doubters after his implosion in the playoffs, but Shaun Marcum is still a very good pitcher, and we here at BCB seem to think he's going to be able to bounce back. The official line is 182 innings and a 3.67 ERA. Again here we're less optimistic than ZiPS.

Randy Wolf has really earned his free agent deal so far, and though this is the year we expected to have to throw away to get two good years of production, the BCB projection is still pretty good: 194 innings and a 4.04 ERA. We're actually right on ZiPS here. I wasn't as optimistic about Wolf going into last season-- his 2010 peripherals didn't exactly inspire confidence-- but he really did have an excellent year last year and when this guy is your fourth starter you're doing something right.

Finally we get to the Narve-Dog. Chris Narveson returns for his third season in the recurring role of "fifth starter" on the Milwaukee Brewers. He had a big role in 28 of the episodes last season and was impressive, putting up a 4.06 FIP, though his ERA wasn't quite that low, it gives us some room to project improvement for him again. We project 166 innings and a 4.27 ERA this year. It's easy to forget that Narveson was once a top prospect for the Cardinals, and those strikeouts and lack of walks are awfully pretty.

With that it's Compare the NL Central time. Lining them up is an overly simplistic way of looking at things, but it's all we've got before the season starts. I used 5.3 runs per 9 innings as a replacement-level starter. I really don't know if that's a good number to use for this year but it's an approximation and we're comparing all 3 teams on the same scale so that's the important thing here.

To remove ourselves from calls of bias here, the BCB projections are for higher ERAs than ZiPS on Greinke and Marcum, lower on Gallardo, and about the same on Wolf and Marcum. I faced a bit of an issue with the Cardinals due to Carpenter's health, but I just included him anyway. Feel free to downgrade them to Lynn, who projects below average. Here's the results, using ZiPS for the Cardinals and Reds:

Brewers

Greinke 204 innings, 3.09 ERA, 4.4 WAR

Gallardo 204 innings, 3.34 ERA, 3.8 WAR

Marcum 182 innings, 3.67 ERA, 2.7 WAR

Wolf 194 innings, 4.04 ERA, 1.9 WAR

Narveson 166 innings, 4.27 ERA, 1.2 WAR

Total: 14 WAR

Cardinals

Wainwright 174 innings, 3.12 ERA, 3.7 WAR

Carpenter 201 innings, 3.49 ERA, 3.3 WAR

Garcia 185 innings, 3.58 ERA, 2.9 WAR

Lohse 123 innings, 4.37 ERA, .8 WAR

Westbrook 127 innings, 4.52 ERA, .5 WAR

Total: 11.2 WAR

Reds

Cueto 174 innings, 3.63 ERA, 2.6 WAR

Latos 192 innings, 3.38 ERA, 3.5 WAR

Arroyo 169 innings, 4.84 ERA, .1 WAR

Leake 159 innings, 4.42 ERA, .9 WAR

Bailey 158 innings, 4.28 ERA, 1.1 WAR

Total: 8.2 WAR

This doesn't account for everything, especially starting pitching depth. It's overly simplistic, and it relies on some questionable math. But... I like our chances.

I promised some comparisons and illustrations instead of just posting all of the community projections in a row in one post this year, and number one on the agenda is a look at how the projected infield looks in comparison to last years. A lot of thoughtful observers have noted that making up for the lost production of Prince Fielder at first base isn't easy but that the left side of the Brewer infield in 2011 was so bad that it would be difficult not to get substantially better and come out with a better infield overall. That's shown pretty clearly in our predictions.

At first base we have Mat Gamel with a line of .271/.337/.459 and 73% of the playing time. That puts him solidly above a league-average wOBA; I used 1.75*OBP+SLG/3 to approximate wOBA for the exercise here. However, playing first base means you have to be a better-than average hitter to come out above average. Combined with my conservative assumption of -8 defense, over our projected 497 plate appearances if he hits 6th we project Gamel to produce 1.2 WAR. That's a mighty dropoff from the mighty Fielder, but it's cheap, solid production and in this comparison we're just assuming replacement-level production for the rest of the first base plate appearances, which hopefully is not the case.

At second we project Rickie Weeks to bounce back to 2010 form and hit .271/.360/.477 in 87% of the playing time. If he in fact hits leadoff much of the year that puts him at 663 plate appearances. Rickie's defense looks to be solidly above-average at this point, look at his Fangraphs page and you'll notice his horrendous early-career totals replaced by +3s and +5s in the past few years, but to be safe I'll say he's an average defender. Our projections say that he will put up 5.3 WAR, a step up from his injury-shortened 2011 but off his career high set in 2010.

No one's going to be excited by new shortstop Alex Gonzalez's projected line of .244/.286/.398. No one will complain, though if he receives 87% of the plate appearances, as we project, batting around the #7 hole, which would mean about 1.9 WAR if he can play +5 defense at short. That's a welcome improvement on Yuni's .5 effort from last season.

Finallly, at third we have Aramis Ramirez, who we see maintaining his solid performance of last season with a .284/.351/.491 effort. We have a safe projection of 82% of the playing time at third for Ramirez, and I made him a -8 defender. He's been trending downward in recent years but that seems to be a reasonable number. Batting cleanup that puts him at about 3.9 WAR. Just about anything could top Casey McGehee's .3 from 2011, but the Brewers went out and got a legitimate upgrade.

The WAR calculation is a sum of offensive runs above average (converted from wOBA and plate appearances), defense, a positional adjustment, and an adjustment for the replacement level player. The 2011 infield's regulars put up 5.5 (Fielder), 3.3 (Weeks), .5 (Betancourt), .3 (McGehee). BCB projects the 2012 regular infield at 1.2 (Gamel), 5.3 (Weeks), 1.9 (Gonzalez), and 3.9 (Ramirez). 2011 adds up to 10, while 2012 adds up to 12.4.

That's not to say that next season's infield will be better. For one thing, second and third base got a boost from Jerry Hairston Jr. last season, and this year's backups may not provide that same kind of production in the plate appearances unaccounted for here. But this year's infield can be better. And all it would take is for the four regulars to hit their reasonable projections given to them by the BCB community.

Here's this thing in a chart. The x-axis is WAR, and the y-axis is just the regulars, no backups included (assuming replacement level from any plate appearances not taken by the regular at each position). Look how much nice and longer those red bars are at three out of the four positions!

The story of the 2012 Brewers offense is going to framed-- unfairly-- as Mat Gamel trying to replace a superstar first basemen. Upside performance from Gamel is a bonus at this point. The Brewers replaced Fielder in, well, the aggregate. There's a strong possibility that three out of the four infield spots will get better production than they did in a 96 win, NL Central Championship-winning year. And I'll take my chances that the increase in production at those three other spots will offset the dropoff from Fielder to Gamel, and then some.

Good morning and welcome to the Jordan edition of the Frosty Mug. I haven't mugged since way back in 2010 when I ran the show for a few weeks. So I broke out the old Google Reader list and here's all the news fit to print from the weekend.

It appears that the Brewers played a game yesterday, and here's the BCB recap. The Official Site took the "Gallardo overcomes inconsistent command" angle.

The biggest news in the official article linked above is on the injury front. That's pretty much the only actual news worth monitoring at this stage in the year. Nyjer Morgan is just fine after Barry Zito put a "fastball" into his helmet in Saturday's game, though he sat out yesterday's game. Meanwhile, Corey Hart's recovery from knee surgery is going well and has an "outside chance" at being ready for the opener, though it doesn't sound like they will be rushing anything. One other injury to note, that's lefty non-roster invite Juan Perez, who suffered a partially collapsed lung and is expected to be out for at least a week.

Yoenis Cespedes had a pretty impressive debut for the A's over the weekend. In his first game on Saturday he went 2-2 with a walk, single, and home run in 3 at-bats. Here's the video from MLB.com in case you want to see the Cuban sensation in action.

MLBTR has a week in review with a bunch of transaction notes from the past week. This includes the note that Zack Greinke will most likely hire an agent at the end of the season (Signals intention to request trade?). To sum up what we know about that whole situation, Greinke will negotiate with the Brewers on his own if they approach him with an extension offer.

Fangraphs has a list of minor league system rankings, and the Brewers check in at number 29. Probably not a surprise but it still stings a bit to see the Brewers ranked that low. I have nowhere near the expertise to know if 29 is actually a fair ranking or not, but I do think it's very clear that the system has taken a step forward in the past year, and the major league team doesn't exactly have a short-term need for high-upside bats but that will most likely be the primary focus in the June draft.

In other Fangraphs rankings we have the top 15 teams in terms of starting pitching. We already talked about the Brewers sitting at 17. I'll take the Brewers group over Seattle, Florida, Boston, Minnesota, the LA Dodgers, the White Sox, and Indians. However, remember that it's all based on ZiPS (and Marcum only got 2 WAR), so it's more of a reflection of that than of a conscious decision to knock the Brewers.

One interesting pitcher to keep an eye on this spring (especially for the fantasy players among is) is former Cub Andrew Cashner, sent to the Padres in the deal to acquire first baseman Anthony Rizzo. Cashner averaged 102.22 MPH throwing 10 consecutive fastballs and topped out at 103.3. There seems to be thought that the camera was a touch off, as spring training Pitch f/x cameras sometimes are, but even if it was 2 MPH high that's some impressive heat. Working at Petco Park this year for a team that lost its top two relievers during 2011 he could become a dominant option pretty quick.

The Disciples of Uecker conglomerate pumped out a few stories this weekend, among them some minor league notes on how impressive Tyler Thornburg has been, a comparison between Logan Schafer and Caleb Gindl, and Mark Rogers seeing his first action on the mound for some time. I'd like to tell you how hard Rogers was throwing on Saturday but it doesn't look like there was a Pitch f/x camera working for either Brewer game that day. Also at DoU, the case is made for an extension for Jonathan Lucroy. As with any talk of extension, something below market value should be pursued. Ron Roenicke says that he "couldn't ask for more" from Lucroy this spring, as he's 7-11 with 4 extra-base hits already.

Marc Hulet from Fangraphs dropped his top 100 prospect list for all of baseball today. Wily Peralta is number 88, Taylor Jungmann is number 61 (Hulet has always been very high on Jungmann). The top 3 of Matt Moore, Bryce Harper, and Mike Trout should surprise no one. Interestingly, he says that if eligible, Yu Darvish would rank 8th on the list, and Yoenis Cespedes would rank 32nd. If anything that says a lot about how much the draft supresses salaries, it says that anyone ranked above 32 could do better than the 4 year, $32 million contract Cespedes got from the A's.

Jonah Keri previewed the Blue Jays and the Tampa Bay Rays for Grantland. Grant Brisbee previewed the A's on the Baseball Nation mothership. This is also pretty cool, Fangraphs and Beyond the Boscore author Bill Petti appeared on MLB Network and had a discussion about "clutch hitting" (which, to be clear, exists but is not at all predictable or a repeatable skill, which is commonly misunderstood). Also at Beyond the Boxscore, a neat illustration about hitter durability. Is it just me, or does Beyond the Boxscore have a heck of a lot more graphs than Fangraphs?

This week in stupid controversies, the Astros will keep the gun as part of the logo on their throwback Colt .45 uniforms this season. Also, in case you are starting to feel yourself warming up to the Cardinals now that Tony La Russa and Albert Pujols are gone, here's your reminder that Chris Carpenter is on their team. This link will tell you all about how he has a bulging disk and will miss some time. According to Rob Neyer they're getting Lance Lynn ready to start, so if you were wondering which annoying Cardinals reliever is going to take part in the annual tradition of being a moderately effective starter in 2012, your answer has arrived.

The Jose Canseco story is very weird. Here's him tweeting something funny. Deadspin has been making Jose Canseco tweets into motivational posters, I've linked the entries tagged with "Josayings" right here.

Mat Gamel has been hot and already has 3 home runs on the spring. The fantasy blogs are starting to see him as a "sleeper". I still hold high expectations for him in 2012.

One more prospect note from the morning, but Bryce Harper won't be breaking camp with the Nationals. I didn't realize that was even an option for the 19 year old, but it seems likely he could be up by June.

That's about all I have for you this morning, feel free to add any interesting links in the comments. Soon enough I'll be summarizing the community projections series and doing some fun things with the results, but this week could be a bit too busy for that, so we will get there when we get there. The Brewers don't play today so you'll have to survive without a box score today. 25 days until opening day!

We'll project the 7 guys I think are most likely to get the most innings this season. That's not to say that this will be the 7 pitchers that break camp with the Brewers, but they're the 7 most interesting at least.

John Axford

2010: 2.13 FIP, 2.41 tERA, 2.48 ERA, 58 IP (13 at AAA)

2011: 2.41 FIP, 2.34 tERA, 1.95 ERA, 74 IP

ZiPS: 3.18 FIP, 3.07 ERA, 67 IP

That looks very pretty. I think ZiPS is a bit high. [Jeffress joke]. This guy isn't Turnbow, those are elite numbers over the past two years.

Francisco Rodriguez

2010: 2.63 FIP, 2.62 tERA, 2.2 ERA, 57 IP

2011: 2.64 FIP, 2.76 tERA, 2.64 ERA, 72 IP

ZiPS: 3.26 FIP, 3.23 ERA, 64 IP

Right there is one of the best projections for a second bullpen option you'll see in the entire MLB.

Kameron Loe

2010: 3.71 FIP, 3.67 tERA, 2.78 ERA, 58 IP

2011: 2.80 FIP, 3.07 tERA, 3.50 ERA, 72 IP

ZiPS: 3.62 FIP, 3.61 ERA, 72 IP

And those aren't bad numbers for a third option, either. The important thing is NOT ALLOWING HIM TO FACE LEFTIES.

Jose Veras

2010: 4.06 FIP, 4.67 tERA, 3.75 ERA, 48 IP (30 AAA)

2011: 3.50 FIP, 3.52 tERA, 3.80 ERA, 71 IP

ZiPS: 3.90 FIP, 3.86 ERA, 63 IP

If Veras is the 2011 version, he's a very, very good fourth option and not necessarily a downgrade from Hawkins last year. Those last two years look as good as anyone that was cheaply available on the market this offseason. What's holding Veras back is his perception as a journeyman, but I think we could get a good year out of this guy.

Manny Parra

2010: 4.50 FIP, 4.60 tERA, 5.02 ERA, 122 IP

2011: Did not pitch in majors

ZiPS: 4.41 FIP, 4.80 ERA, 80 IP

Here's lefty wild card number 1. Longtime readers of this site will not be surprised to learn that I'm optimistic, he has performed well in the bullpen in the past and if he stays healthy I expect some good numbers. He's also a nice weapon because he is capable of going multiple innings.

Zach Braddock

2010: 2.90 FIP, 3.16 tERA, 2.94 ERA, 34 IP (16 AAA)

2011: 4.70 FIP, 4.39 tERA, 7.27 ERA, 17 IP (6 AAA)

ZiPS: 3.49 FIP, 3.60 ERA, 37 IP

Here's lefty wild card number 2. If you have a time machine, please shoot me an email and let me know how Braddock does this year. I could see any number of outcomes, all the way from not pitching in the majors at all, to throwing 60 innings with a sub-2 ERA. It's a crapshoot, but he has the stuff and he has the control. Hopefully he can overcome the off-field problems.

Marco Estrada

2010: 6.08 FIP, 5.43 tERA, 9.53 ERA, 11 IP (40 AAA)

2011: 3.67 FIP, 3.69 tERA, 4.08 ERA, 93 IP

ZiPS: 3.81 FIP, 4.03 ERA, 87 IP

Maybe 2011's most pleasant surprise really showed good stuff and got some really good results. I hope the Brewers use him in his best role, which is pitching multiple innings in a row, his struggles last season seemed to be mainly when he was asked to be "the seventh inning guy" or some role of that nature. He's the perfect guy to stick into a game when you're down 2 in the sixth or seventh and just let him go a few innings. I'd also imagine he'll make some starts in the majors this year.

Projections form below the jump. This wraps up the main portion of the projections project, I may ask for input on defense early next week. I'll tally up the results and work on some fun comparisons and visuals to post in the coming weeks.

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We're on the final day of the position players. I don't have much else to write about in the little introduction paragraph, so that's about it.

Ryan Braun

2010: .304/.365/.501, 685 PA

2011: .332/.397/.597, 629 PA

ZiPS: .296/.360/.525, 675 PA

RotoChamp: .313/.380/.555, 421 PA

Last year was another step forward for Braun. He set a career high in walk rate and a career low strikeout rate to go along with a career-high wOBA. Even more impressive is that he actually was only 4 runs below average by UZR in left field last year. Last year's only real problem was his short time out with an injury, a near 700 plate appearance season with the same production would give him an 8+ WAR season. Now that he's off the steroids, though, we should be probably scale back our projections significantly.

Corey Hart

2010: .283/.340/.525, 614 PA

2011: .285/.356/.510, 551 PA

ZiPS: .270/.333/.481, 583 PA

RotoChamp: .274/.343/.493, 580 PA

Those projections listed for Hart both seem low to me. Yeah, he's going to be 30 (so weird) so maybe the projections are going to begin falling now but looking at his track record from the past two years it really seems like he's gotten in quite a groove. He also had a better walk rate and better strikeout rate in 2011 than in 2010. As with Braun and Weeks, he also missed some time last year with 580 PA. Either way, he's been a 4 WAR player in each of the last 2 years and I expect nothing less this season.

Norichika Aoki

2010: .358/.435/.509, 667 PA

2011: .292/.358/.360, 643 PA

ZiPS: .288/.338/.393

And here's the real wild card. Japan introduced new baseballs in 2011 and offense was significantly down across the league so his effort there last year shouldn't be seen as a huge dropoff in skills. Realistically I have no idea what to expect or what kind of playing time he's going to be looking at. I do know that the Morgan/Gomez platoon out in center will most likely account for all of the playing time there, and obviously playing time at the corners is mostly accounted for. Hart could slide up to first base to sit Gamel against lefties, which would allow Aoki to get time-- but that means Aoki's playing time would have to be against lefties, unfortunately, and that's his best opportunity to play. He should be a heck of a fifth outfielder, though, and very nice insurance in case of any injuries.

Form after the jump.

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This is certainly an unconventional position grouping but I've got the corner outfielders slotted in for tomorrow and the relief pitchers for Friday. That leaves the defense-oriented positions for today and we've got Lucroy, Morgan, and Gomez on the menu.

Carlos Gomez

2010: .247/.298/.357, 318 PA

2011: .225/.276/.403, 258 PA

ZiPS: .243/.296/.374, 385 PA

RotoChamp: .236/.288/.378, 295 PA

This season is different for Gomez in that he's not projected to be the full starter in center. He showed some good pop last year and there's a lot of reason to believe that he could put up some career-best numbers if he is shielded from right-handers over the course of the year. Gomez isn't a guy who has a huge platoon split over the course of his career but he did hit lefties much better last year. It's hard to believe he's still only 26 and really just entering his prime years.

Nyjer Morgan

2010: .253/.319/.314, 577 PA

2011: .304/.357/.421, 429 PA

ZiPS: .266/.324/.353, 508 PA

RotoChamp: .281/.343/.378, 443 PA

I almost felt the need to post his 2009 season stats because they look a lot like his 2011 season stats. 2010 is really the anomaly here. As long as RRR doesn't get greedy and play him against lefties-- ever-- we should be in line for more quality production from Nyjer. 2011 shouldn't be seen as the anomaly here.

Jonathan Lucroy

2010: .253/.300/.329, 297 PA

2011: .265/.313/.391, 468 PA

ZiPS: .254/.313/.375, 530 PA

RotoChamp: .272/.323/.393, 446 PA

There's been steady improvement in years 1 and 2 for Lucroy and it would sure be nice to see him take another step forward in his age 25 season. His line from last season made him plenty valuable as a catcher, providing about league average production overall, which has plenty of value. He was never considered a top hitting prospect coming up but he put up some OBPs in the high .300s in his time in the minors, so there's room for hope.

Projection form after the jump.

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Today we tackle the middle infield, and it's pretty neat to talk about the Brewer middle infield and not talk about Yuniesky Betancourt. In fact this sentence is the final time I will mention Mr. Betancourt in this post, and hopefully the final time I ever mention him in this space.

Rickie Weeks

2010: .266/.366/.464, 754 PA

2011: .269/.350/.468, 515 PA

ZiPS: .260/.350/.460, 517 PA

RotoChamp: .261/.352/.457, 599 PA

We've reached the stage in his career where Rickie is a legitimate star if he can put in a full season of playing time. He's becoming more and more of a power threat, as many people expected early in his career, and his defense has matured to the point where it's average or better. It's been overlooked a bit but the Brewers have a nice in-house source of improvement if Rickie can have 650+ plate appearances this year, people tend to forget that he missed a significant amount of time last year.

Alex Gonzalez

2010: .254/.294/.447, 640 PA

2011: .241/.270/.372, 593 PA

ZiPS: .245/.282/.399, 524 PA

RotoChamp: .241/.276/.381, 540 PA

Gonzalez is no wizard with the bat but things should at least be better than last year. He still has some pop, he hit 23 and 15 home runs in the past two seasons, and he spent 2011 in Atlanta, a park that's tough on righty power. His career OBP is only .291 so don't expect anything too special, but I have a feeling this fanbase will just be very happy to see an above-average defender in the field. Anything with the bat will be a bonus.

We're not going to bother projecting the backups, who I assume will be some combination of Brooks Conrad, Jeff Bianchi, Taylor Green, and Cesar Izturis. If you want to project them for fun, go ahead in the comments.

Projection form is below the jump.

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These two spots were manned by Prince Fielder and Casey McGehee in 2011, and those players are now on other teams. However, we only have one unfamiliar face in the three players we will project at these positions. I'm especially curious to see our expectations for Mat Gamel, who I assume will be the regular with the most variation in projections because we have no real idea what to expect.

Aramis Ramirez

2010: .241/.294/.452, 507 PA

2011: .306/.361/.510, 626 PA

ZiPS: .278/.340/.476, 519 PA

RotoChamp: .289/.352/.495, 543 PA

Ramirez's 2010 really looks like an outlier in his career. At this stage, the biggest issues for Ramirez are going to be staying healthy and playing defense. I wonder if the Brewers will consider playing him at first base if his defense looks bad and the Gamel experiment doesn't work out (though I think it will). I'd certainly be happy with those two projections listed.

Mat Gamel

2010, AAA: .309/.387/.511, 359 PA

2011, AAA: .310/.372/.540, 545 PA

ZiPS: .264/.341/.433, 534 PA

I'd imagine the RotoChamp methodology doesn't account for minor league numbers, or doesn't do it well, at least. The ZiPS line is something close to what I expect and I think we wouldn't complain too loudly if that's where he ends up. If he proves able to not be horrible at defense at first (0 to -5 runs) that would make him something close to an average first basemen. And when you look at those pretty AAA lines, you know there's upside here. He had a .332 wOBA in his 150 PAs back in '09, even if he can do that things will not be looking too bad for the Brewers at first.

Taylor Green

2010, AA: .260/.336/.438, 451 PA

2011, AAA: .336/.413/.583, 487 PA

ZiPS: .264/.324/.423, 589 PA

There's no guarantee that Green will even open with the Brewers, but it would make sense for him to stay with the team and back up the corners. He's also played second base in the past and could get a look as the backup there as well. It doesn't make much sense to have Green at first with Ramirez at third because switching their positions would be a stronger defensive lineup, but I doubt the Brewers would shuffle around Ramirez. If Gamel were to get hurt or hit poorly, the logical move would be to let Green play third and move Ramirez. I really have no idea what to expect from Green, though, because there's such a variation in his last two seasons. It should be interesting to watch.

Projections are below the jump. Instructions for format are in the box below the title. Have fun! The percentage of playing times don't need to add up to 100 at each position because we can plan on some other players getting time at first and third.

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This is the year that WAR has entered the baseball discussion. Not every baseball fan is going to understand how to interpret WAR, of course, but we're getting to the point where commentators in the professional media are quoting it to make arguments. That opens up a lot of possibilities for the annual community projections project that we haven't seen before. With the numbers collected here, I'll be able to do a number of things-- total team estimates, position by position comparisons from 2011 to 2012, projection comparisons by position around the NL Central, and a heck of a lot of neat graphs and charts. It should be exciting.

First, though, we need some numbers. For each day this week I'll be your guide. I'll provide some base-line numbers and projections from other systems for each of the players I'm asking you to project, and it's up to the community average to decide our projection. Use your best judgement, and remember to account for the unlikely scenarios in your playing time projections. For example, if you think there's a 90% chance that Greinke throws 200 innings, and a 10% chance he gets hurt and throws 50 innings, don't project him for 200, project him for 185 (mathematically that's (200 * .9) + (50 * .1)). That lets us get a much more realistic projection than if everyone assumes complete health, which will tend to make our projections too optimistic.

Today we cover the starting rotation. I'm only going to ask for projections of the top 5 starters for a couple of reasons: there's really no way to estimate who will be the first injury replacement option at this point, and even if there was a clear #6, there's not really a need to project that when we're doing this mostly for purposes of comparison and not necessarily to try to formulate a total team projection for WAR, for which there are way too many variables involved to get a specific number. So we're going to stick to the primary starters this year and not worry too much about the reserves.

When you're projecting the "True Talent ERA" for each pitcher, it's best to think of that number as FIP or another measure of pitching talent, because we will be accounting for fielding elsewhere. Just use the ERA scale and go from there.

With that being said, the form is below the jump. Please check to see that your numbers make sense, decimals are placed correctly, and the like because it is a real pain to go through 200 rows of projections and fix problems that mess with the average. Feel free to post your projections in the comments as well if you want to discuss, and I should be around to answer questions if the need arises. Happy projecting, your data is below, and the form is after the jump.

Zack Greinke

2010: 220 innings, 3.34 FIP, 3.51 tERA, 4.17 ERA

2011: 171 innings, 2.98 FIP, 2.56 xFIP, 3.54 tERA, 3.83 ERA

ZiPS: 199 innings, 2.98 ERA

RotoChamp: 195 innings, 2.95 ERA

Yovani Gallardo

2010: 185 innings, 3.02 FIP, 3.69 tERA, 3.84 ERA

2011: 207 innings, 3.59 FIP, 3.57 tERA, 3.52 ERA

ZiPS: 195 innings, 3.46 ERA

RotoChamp: 215 Innings, 3.47 ERA

Shaun Marcum

2010: 195 innings, 3.74 FIP, 3.77 tERA, 3.64 ERA

2011: 200 innings, 3.73 FIP, 3.92 tERA, 3.54 ERA

ZiPS: 151 innings, 3.5 ERA

RotoChamp: 200 innings, 3.74 ERA

Randy Wolf

2010: 214 innings, 4.85 FIP, 4.96 tERA, 4.17 ERA

2011: 212 innings, 4.29 FIP, 4.9 tERA, 3.69 ERA

ZiPS: 178 innings, 4.04 ERA

RotoChamp: 190 innings, 3.74 ERA

Chris Narveson

2010: 167 IP (28 starts), 4.22 FIP, 4.21 tERA, 4.99 ERA

2011: 161 innings, 4.06 FIP, 4.57 tERA, 4.45 ERA

ZiPS: 141 innings, 4.32 ERA

RotoChamp: 155 innings, 4.35 ERA

Continue reading this post »

Zack Greinke is the new Manny Parra, in that he's the Brewer pitcher I spend most of my time trying to figure out. With Manny healthy and back on the roster for the 2012 season, it's only a matter of time before we start rehashing the old discussions about his pitch selection and overall effectiveness. There will be plenty of time for that in-season. So to get warmed up I'm going to get right back on the horse and try to figure out what the heck happened with Zack Greinke in 2011, and hope that leads toward some kind of conclusion about what to expect this season.

Greinke started his time with the Brewers with some mind-bending results. He was doing just about everything right in his first starts, in terms of what he can control-- he was striking out a ton of batters and walking very few batters. His strikeout to walk rate was downright historic. He just was not getting results. Part of the problem had much to do with something he does have more control over: too many home run balls. But the rest of the picture didn't add up, because there was really no historical precedent for something this extraordinary, a 11 K: 2 BB ratio and an ERA that wouldn't get under 5 for a frustratingly long time.

Some deserved blame was placed on the defense, but an anamoly like this couldn't be the fault of the defense alone, which was actually just below average and not as bad as it seemed at times. There were other theories about Greinke trying too hard to avoid walks and throwing too many hittable pitches at times when he should have given in and thrown something out of the zone. There was another idea that this was just some horribly bad luck combined with a few poorly timed pitches and that things would even out over the course of the year.

In truth a combination of these ideas was probably the right answer to the question, "Why was Zack Greinke struggling?". As an analyst might have expected, Greinke's outcomes started to even out over the course of the year. He finished with a 3.83 ERA, 2.98 FIP, and 2.56 xFIP (xFIP adjusts for "home run luck", changing actual home runs to a percentage of fly balls). The end result certainly looked much prettier, but other problems held back his debut Brewers season from being a big success. First, Greinke struggled to go deep into games; he went over 7 innings just twice all season and never reached 8. Secondly, he failed to make a dominant impression on the postseason. The Brewers were 2-1 in his starts, but he gave up 3 homers and 4 ER to the Diamondbacks in his start in the NLDS, then gave up 6 ER in 6 innings (including a home run) against the Cardinals, then gave up 5 runs (only 2 earned) and failed to strike out a batter in 5 2/3 innings in his second start of the NCLS.

The new pitch f/x player cards over at Brooks Baseball are the place I started to look. I wanted to compare some numbers from Greinke from his dominant 2009, subpar 2010, and 2011, which fell somewhere in between those two final seasons with the Royals.

Here's a couple of quick charts on things that I thought were interesting. First is boring, pitch selection. Key point here is that his pitch selection changed in 2010 when he was apparently saving his arm while playing for a team out of contention, then basically bounced right back in 2011 to a mix similar to the one he had in 2009. I combine Zack's 2 and 4 seam fastballs here, more about that in a bit.

Next is whiff rate. This is off Brooks Baseball data, they now have a really useful tool to sort player pitches by sabermetric outcomes. Whiff rate is a nice proxy for nastiness of a pitch, it's the percentage of time a batter swings at a pitch and misses. It's closely correlated to overall strikeout rate.

This one's a bit more interesting. I would expect overall swings and misses to go up with Greinke's move to the National League, and in fact he set a career high in that category, with 10.6% last season. Relatively, however, the slider and curveball actually dropped a bit, and the increase in swinging strike rate falls almost entirely on the fastball-changeup combination, judging strictly 2009 and 2011.

Now to touch on the strangest part of Zack's 2011 season, and why I have so much optimism for him in 2012. Greinke set a career high in ground ball rate last season. He drew 40% ground balls in his phenomenal '09 season, upped that number to 46% in 2010 when it looks like he experimented much more with a 2-seam sinker, and then upped it again to 47.7 in 2011 while relying much more on the 4-seamer than he had in 2010. Greinke had a strangely high 22% line drive rate, something that we likely won't see again. 13.6% of fly balls against him left the park, a very high number. It was 4.5% in 2009, and that's something that can account for the difference between one of the great pitching seasons of all time and just a solid campaign.

Zack Greinke isn't the same pitcher he was in 2009, but he hasn't remade himself either. He uses the same general mix of pitches, with about the same levels of nastiness, but he's produced some different results. If he keeps maintaining his ability to induce ground balls, the infield defense will hopefully be improved enough to take advantage. And if that fly ball luck starts to even out, we could be looking at another stellar season from Grienke. I don't think it's going to be 2009 good- only a few pitchers in MLB history have had a better year than that one. But I'd put down money on him having some jaw-dropping numbers this year. The Brewers didn't get some Greinke 2.0 who rebooted after his 9 WAR season in '09, this is the same guy, and he's capable of doing it again.

All the prospect lists coming out before spring training got me thinking about how the cycle of young Brewer pitchers is starting to swing back toward the upper levels of the minors. Last year, at least, Taylor Green and Mat Gamel were really the only big names who had a good shot at coming up from AAA and producing in season. Sure, Michael Fiers got his 2 innings in September, but this year there's a handful of pitchers who could see some big league action in case of need in the bullpen or (and hopefully not) injury to the big league rotation. The last significant Brewer starting pitcher prospect to make it to the majors was Yovani Gallardo. Mark Rogers showed signs of hope 2 years ago before falling off most prospect lists this year. With this flood of solid, and some high-upside, arms approaching the top of the minors it's time to get excited again about possibly seeing some of these guys in action during the season. I'm sure many of us remember the day Gallardo was called up like it's yesterday, there's just something exciting about a new pitcher, and it's infinitely more exciting than the carousel of folks like Sean Green, Jorge Julio, Elmer Dessens, Julian Tavarez, and Claudio Vargas types we've been subjected to in the past couple of years. It's just so much more fun to have a neat prospect be the long man. I make no claims on being an expert on who actually might be at the top of the list for a callup in case of injury or ineffectiveness in the current bullpen, and it might well depend on performance this season, but I'll try my hand at a few options.

Wily Peralta, 6'2", 240, age 22, finished 2011 at AAA. He's the #1 prospect in our own community rankings and the Disciples of Uecker Prospect Rankings revealed this week. There's not much to not like with Peralta, who throws hard, gets strikeouts, and kept the BB/9 rate in the 3s last year. He did most of his work (120 innings) at AA in 2011, and pitched 31 stellar innings at AAA to close out the season. The knocks on Peralta coming through the system were his lack of stamina to go deep in games, raw secondary pitches, and lack of control. He's managed to drop his walk rate, develop his pitches, and go deep into games while maintaining velocity, and there aren't any knocks on him anymore. On a team with a pitching staff less strong than the Brewers (for example, every Brewers team before 2011-2012) he'd be a lock as a midseason callup if he throws well to start the year. I'd think he'd be option number 1 if a starter went down for a significant period of time (as you'd think Marco Estrada would be the short-term spot starter, if need be). Either way, I think Peralta will force his way on to the staff one way or another by the end of the season, even in the bullpen if that's the only spot available, if he pitches anything like he did in 2011. I sure hope he's not needed in the starting rotation, but his middle to high 90s fastball could be an asset out of the pen in August, September and October. I'd say the odds are he pitches a significant amount of innings for the Brewers in 2012.

Tyler Thornburg, 5'11", 185, age 23, finished 2011 at A+. He split 2011 between Wisconsin and Brevard County and had a great season, striking out over 11 per 9 innings and walking only 3.8. He's shot to the top of a couple of prospect lists, he's at 3 in the BCB ratings and 4 in the DoU list. Scouts have had issues with Thornburg's size and penciled him into the bullpen ever since he was drafted, but that's not fair to him yet because he has done nothing but produce. The problem with Thornburg right now is that his high 90s fastball tends to trail off later in games. He will most likely spend all of his age 23 season at AA but could be in line for a promotion to AAA if he pitches well in his first assignment. He's a college-drafted pitcher, so there's no reason to slow him down if he overmatches his competition. In the long run it makes sense to give Thornburg every chance to be a starter, in the short term he could certainly be an option out of the bullpen as a late-season callup if the need arises. I'd say the chances of Thornburg making his major league debut in 2011 aren't that great, but they aren't zero either. Hopefully, he won't need to.

Cody Scarpetta, 6'3", 244, age 23, finished 2011 at AA. Scarpetta had a solid season in 2011 but it wasn't the kind of season he needed to make a convincing case that he deserved a shot in the big leagues this season. He sits at 11 in the BCB community rankings and 10 in the DoU rankings. Scarpetta has a big fastball and a nice-looking curveball, but only managed 7.5 K to 4.4 BB per 9 innings last year at AA. He put up a 3.85 ERA, matching his 2010 total, but also has yet to top 128 innings in his career. 2012 is a big year for Scarpetta. He has to stay on the 40-man roster, so he's automatically going to be considered for a callup when a pitcher is needed. However, he needs to really establish that he deserves a shot at the big league level. I could certainly see Scarpetta spending some time in 2012 in the majors as a long man if a couple of guys in the bullpen go down mid-season.

Taylor Jungmann, 6'6", 220, age 22, didn't pitch in the minors in 2011. Jungmann has been projected by most to begin 2011 at A+, but that might well be a short stop for him if the competition is a bit too easy. Jungmann is a typical, workhorse, advanced college pitcher with a fastball that can get ground balls-- a kind of guy who should be able to dominate at high A at age 22. We will likely see him at AA at some point in 2012. When he was drafted, Jungmann was considered one of those guys who could play in the majors the year or year after he was drafted. Fortunately, the Brewers won't need a pitcher that badly this season to force the issue. In case of emergency, however, Jungmann isn't a bad guy to have stashed at AA late in the season-- if injury issues forced 2 starters out of the rotation at the same time, Jungmann might well be on the list of pitchers to consider to come up and fill in. The only clear-cuts I see ahead of him would be Marco Estrada and Wily Peralta, and likely Michael Fiers. I kind of heavily doubt that Jungmann makes his major league debut this season, but it's not as if it is out of the question.

Finally, I want to mention Michael Fiers, who made his major league debut with a couple of scoreless innings this past September. If everyone's healthy he's not going to make the opening day roster, but he's most likely the first guy to be called up if a pitcher is needed. There's plenty to be excited about with Fiers as well, but my point in this post is that instead of relying on some AAAA pitchers to come up and fill holes as the Brewers have had to do in the past (or even to fill out their roster out of spring training), there's going to be legitimate competition amongst prospects who are close to ready for the final spots on the major league roster. And if somebody goes down, it's not going to be Rick Helling coming up from AAA to make the next 3 starts, it's going to be a legitimate prospect. That's exciting and reassuring that the kind of depth is there to make a big run this year.

In the past few days since Prince Fielder has signed with the Tigers, a few friends who are aware that I am an avid Brewers fan have brought it up with some predictable sentiments. "It sucks that the Brewers lost Fielder," or "baseball should have a salary cap," or "it sucks how baseball teams can't keep their best players." I usually just sigh and agree because I do not feel the need to go into a lengthy lecture about the real truth of the matter. In the future I might just link them to this post to explain why everyone that's a Brewer fan should take this news in stride.

It was extremely unlikely that Prince Fielder was ever going to be a Brewer after his first six years in the big leagues. After his 50-homer season in 2007 it was pretty clear that Prince was going to make a ton of money. The Brewers offered something like 5 years and $100 million when Prince entered arbitration, and when that was turned down there was no chance Fielder was going to be a Brewer beyond 2012. The Brewers knew it, Prince Fielder knew it, and some of the fans knew it.

Prince Fielder did not ask to play for Milwaukee. He is an asset that the Brewers drafted. He was obligated to play here for 6 years, 3 for a salary far below what his talents are worth, and 3 more at a still discounted rate. He gave the Brewers organization everything he had. There's no expectation that he needed to sign here. Prince did just about everything right.

The other piece of the puzzle is that the Brewers could have afforded Prince Fielder. There is certainly an imbalance in the competitive ability of the different franchises in MLB, but there's not some imaginary barrier between teams that can afford superstars versus teams that cannot. For the salaries of Randy Wolf, Rickie Weeks, and Corey Hart, the Brewers could have paid Prince Fielder $26 million next season. The Brewers think that those three players, together, will provide more value in 2012, and they are almost certainly right. That says nothing of 9 years from now, when Fielder will be making $25 million and most likely be nowhere near the production he had as a youngster when the Brewers were paying him $500,000.

The Brewers have to pick and choose when building a team. Some teams can afford to pay market value for a star coming out of his arbitration years, knowing full well that they will be paying close to market value for a few years and most likely overpaying significantly for the last few years of a deal. The only real viable strategy for a team like the Brewers to keep superstars beyond their arbitration years to identify them early. Ryan Braun did not sign his long-term extension as early as, say, Evan Longoria, but it's very clear he could have made a lot more money if he were to test the free agent market.

The Brewers do not need Prince Fielder to win in 2012. They are much better off filling the roster off by plugging holes and relying on cheap players like Mat Gamel and Taylor Green to fill out the roster. I think most Brewer fans understand that but it did not stop me from saying it anyways. If the Brewers, say, traded Randy Wolf and Corey Hart, and not elected to sign Aramis Ramirez, they could have afforded Fielder in 2012. The team, however, would not have been improved.

When Prince Fielder next plays in Milwaukee, hopefully in the 2012 World Series, I hope the crowd stays classy and lays off the booing. He did his time and is now rich beyond anyone's wildest dreams. He did not have to stay here, and the Brewers did not really need him to stay here. We had the privilege of watching Prince play for 6 whole years. I hope he sets all kinds of records playing with Detroit, but the Brewers are in the business of winning a World Series, not giving us a sentimental Brewer-for-life when it's not practical economically or smart in a baseball sense. The Brewers will move on without Fielder, and Fielder will move on without the Brewers. They say a breakup is never really mutual, but I think this one is. Hopefully we can still be friends.

The answer to the question posed in the title really depends on your assumptions. To set up a model to project the amount of wins a team will have, you're going to have a necessary tradeoff between simplicity and practicality. The more assumptions you make, the easier and more practical it is to evaluate the model, but it's also going to be less realistic or accurate. There are a lot of assumptions built in, which is why anyone jumping in right now and saying "this team is 2 wins better than the 2011 team" is going to have to back that up with a full explanation of what, exactly, they mean by that.

The first subject that needs to be addressed is the baseline used for comparison. In my mind I see a few possibilities.

You could be looking at the 2011 team as a 96-win team, and then use projections to replace production from the new players while basically assuming the same production everywhere else from returning players. It's probably the simplest version and it's the version that's most prevalent in simple forecasting.

From that standpoint, it's easy to make an argument that the 2012 Brewers will be improved if Braun's not going to be suspended. You just say, conservatively, Ramirez is +2.5 wins at third base, Gonzalez is +1.5 at short, K-Rod is +1 being here the whole season, and Fielder to Gamel is a 3 win dropoff, and Saito and Hawkins are a loss of 1 win. That comes out to +1 overall. That's a nice, clean argument but it's so simple it's essentially meaningless.

There's a lot of problems in that but the biggest one is probably the baseline. It assumes that in retrospect the 2011 Brewers had a true talent of 96 wins. Is that a valid assumption? Maybe. But there's also a good argument that they slightly overperformed their context-neutral production. BP's third order wins gave them an adjusted record of 92.3-69.7. Clutch performances might have lifted up the total win level just a bit. There's nothing wrong with that, the Brewers were still far and away the best team in the NL Central, by 5 third order wins, and were second to the Phillies in the NL in that category.

That's not even touching on the changes in production from year to year. Production from 2011 is a reasonable starting point for projection for players in their prime, but it's not perfect. I'm not even getting into that yet.

The best projection for 2012 is going to take into account projections going forward and not use a comparison to 2011 because there are far too many variables in play to make that shoddy model mean much of anything. Be skeptical of anyone who makes bold conclusions based on something like that.

The reason I bring all of this up is to make my conclusion a little less mind-bending. Right now, I think the 2012 Brewers are better than the 2011 Brewers. How many wins do I project for the 2012 Brewers, right now? I'm saying 90-94. It's very possible, logically, to think that this team is better but still project a smaller amount of wins. And that the Brewers will be right in contention with that number.

The only two big name free agents linked to the Brewers so far during the winter meetings have been Jimmy Rollins and Aramis Ramirez. I'd much prefer pursuit of Rollins if the two look to be similarly expensive. But I'm starting to like the idea of Ramirez in the lineup if the alternative scenario of free agent spending is a couple of bullpen pieces and Yuni. The only problem is that, as a Brewer fan, I don't really like the guy so much. So, here I try to convince myself otherwise.

I think my dislike of the guy goes back to this game right here. I remember the smug little look on his face rounding the bases. Seeing that the Brewers record that day was 46-33 and the Cubs were .500, that makes a bunch of sense. And I don't think there was anything more frustrating that year than watching Turnbow get through a hold and then seeing Cordero blow a save.

For some reason I had this idea that Ramirez had a reputation as a bad clubhouse guy or something but my research seems to indicate that this is not necessarily the case. The only incident I found was this one right here, in which Ramirez was involved in a "scuffle" with Carlos Silva, which is probably to be looked at as commendable. That article makes specific note of the fact that Ramirez has been witness to many incidents in the volatile Cubs dugout but not been involved himself.

Ramirez is a heck of a hitter. He's not an awful defender at third base, but he's not good. Solidly below average seems to be the spot he's settled into as a defender. And if he's around for 3 years, it makes sense that he could play at first base if the need arises.

You don't give out a multi-year deal to a 32 year old corner infielder if you're not confident in his hitting abilities. He's a career .284/.342/.500 hitter and hit .306/.361/.510 last year. He's had an OBP over .350 every year since 2004 with the exception of his brutal campaign in 2010, when he was basically a replacement-level player.

I don't mind Ramirez for this team. But there are few players I don't like for this team at the right price. Overpaying would be a horrible idea, on a 3 year deal I think you can expect 2 quality years of 3-4 WAR and one year of below average production. That's value. But the reason I like Ramirez is because I think he's going to be something of a bargain, the Brewers are now one of the only teams being mentioned as a suitor now that the Phillies seem to have moved on.

Some people have commented on the potential imbalance that could be created by adding another righty bat, that's something I've never been particularly concerned with. A good hitter is a good hitter. If it means the team mashes lefties even more and righties a bit less, I'm confident it's going to balance out. It creates a team more vulnerable to particular matchups later in the season, but we're talking about building a contender right now, not worrying about matchup issues with Roy Halladay or Cliff Lee.

I'm reserving judgement until I see any dollar and year figures on a potential deal with Ramirez. I haven't even seen any sort of figures thrown around yet so it's tough to even know what we're dealing with. I would focus all energies on Rollins for now, but if he gets out of the price range the Brewers are looking at I certainly wouldn't panic if it looks like they're going to end up with Ramirez. Signing Ramirez and a solid defensive shortstop (like Alex Gonzalez), while shoring up the bullpen with a couple of small deals (like the one for Saito being rumored), would be a solid if not flashy offseason, and it would set up the Brewers for plenty of success. Ramirez is most likely an upgrade on 2009-2010 Casey McGehee, and if McGehee figures out how to hit again, there's always first base for one of them to find playing time.

The Brewers won 96 games with 5.8 WAR from their starting corner infielders-- 5.5 from Fielder, and .3 from McGehee. Ramirez and Gamel (with McGehee backing up) can do that. That gets us right back where we started, even bringing back (gasp!) Yuni on a cheap deal. Swing a deal at the trade deadline for a shortstop or bullpen help and we're talking about a World Series contender again.

Ramirez isn't the best course of action, but he's a heck of a lot better than nothing. Hopefully Doug Melvin can get him for a nice, small amount of money for a short amount of time-- if Rollins and some of the other free agents don't look to be options.

In an ideal alternate world, the Brewers have a first baseman in reserve to replace Prince Fielder. I am envisioning someone with top-prospect pedigree, a proven track record of hitting well in the minors, and experience at first base. And hopefully this is a player who is not a raw prospect just out of AA, but a guy who has hit in his opportunities but has not gotten an opportunity to play in the majors yet-- his costs are low, but he's hopefully entering the prime of his career. Maybe this fellow is something like Ryan Howard, who did not play full time in the majors until his age 26 season, after the Phillies traded Jim Thome to clear a spot for him.

A player like this is not going to replace Prince Fielder's production, and is not going to come particularly close to replacing Prince Fielder's production. No available first baseman (outside of Pujols) can. But if he can provide average production, with a bit of upside, it will allow the Brewers to upgrade spots like shortstop, third base, and relief pitching, to make this team something close to as good as it was in 2011.

Look around the league a bit and it becomes pretty clear that the player who best fits this profile is Mat Gamel (I'm sure I wasn't holding anyone in too much suspense with that indirect introduction). Is he a great, foolproof option? Of course not. Is he the best option? I think so, and here I'm going to lay out my reasons for thinking so.

It's easy to forget how much potential scouts saw in Gamel such a short time ago, and now he's like the forgotten man. I remember hoping that LaPorta was included in the Sabathia package instead of Gamel (which was quite a debate at the time). Gamel was second on Baseball America's Top Ten prospect list in 2009, and he was third going into 2010. He peaked at #1 on Brewerfan.net's Power 50. And all throughout his stay in the minors, there has never been anyone who has questioned his track record as a hitter.

At A+ he hit .292/.375/.459 in 560 PAs

At AA he hit .332/.399/.539 in 604 PAs

At AAA he hit .301/.374/.512 in 1247 PAs

What's holding back the perception of Mat Gamel? It's his line over all 194 plate appearances he's received as a member of the Brewers:

In 2009, he hit .242/.338/.422, a roughly average hitting line, as a 23 year old.

In 2010 and 2011, he's received 44 plate appearances, and hit .146/.205/.195.

Apparently some people perceive Gamel as having attitude or training problems. I don't know the guy, so I'm not going to comment on that. All I know is, If he had not gotten those 44 plate appearances over the past two years in the majors, I bet a lot more people would be hoping he's the man for first base last year. 44 plate appearances is a very small amount of plate appearances. 2,411 plate appearances is a very large amount of plate appearances. Going forward, I'm going to expect he's a lot more like the guy who crushes the ball in the minors than the guy who has struggled in the bigs.

Gamel's not the perfect option. If he's the first basemen, I am prepared for a whole year of adventures with him in the field, but if he's going to get better it's going to be by playing. He's an athletic enough guy, hopefully he can improve, as Rickie Weeks has in his time in the majors. Sure, it would be nice to re-sign Fielder, but that's no fun. If you're interested in winning at baseball without an unlimited payroll, sometimes you have to show up at Scott Hatteberg's house and convince him to play first base. Sometimes you have to play Mat Gamel and hope he comes through for you, because sometimes that's the best option.

I'd much rather spend money on an actual shortstop, and bringing back Saito or Hawkins, and ride with Gamel at first this year than to drop significant money on a Carlos Pena or Derrek Lee, who will probably cost about all the money the Brewers have available, and whose upside is probably below Gamel's at this point. I hope Doug Melvin agrees.

I'm by no means a fan of Tony LaRussa on a personal or managerial strategy level, but tomorrow I think the Brewers can utilize a strategy he's been using very effectively in this series so far.

With a day off today and an elimination game tomorrow, you have to assume that everybody out in the bullpen is available. And this is a strong bullpen. In short spurts, any given inning with one of the five Brewer pitchers out there who have worked in late-inning roles this year has a better chance to not give up runs than Shaun Marcum does at this stage.

So, with that in mind, here's my proposal for the game plan on Sunday night.

First of all, Marcum's not going more than five under just about any circumstances. If he's throwing a perfect game through five I'll think about letting him go back out but it's not a lock. He's on the shortest leash of all time. Two baserunners in any inning and Narveson's getting ready and fast. I'd basically tell Narveson and Estrada to be loose and prepare before this game with an expectation that they'll be going in early. If Marcum gets in any sort of trouble, Narveson's in there and quick.

Second thing I do is talk to Axford and K-Rod and ask what they think about going multiple innings. If that's on the table, you can at least have the option to go to K-Rod as early as the seventh. He throws the seventh and gets an out or two in the eighth and then Axford comes on, if they want to split. If Axford feels like he can go two and K-Rod's thinking one, you can just start out Axford in the eighth. He's gone two innings before. This shouldn't be necessary and hopefully won't be necessary, but what it would allow Roenicke to do is, say, go to Kameron Loe to get out Pujols (or another righty) in the third or fourth if the Brewers get in any sort of jam. I'm envisioning Marcum getting through the first two innings, maybe allowing one run or something, and then Furcal and Jay get on to start the third. You bring on Loe to go get Pujols then go to Narveson to try to battle through the rest of the inning and then maybe the fourth. Then you bring on Hawkins for the fifth, Saito for the sixth, and then use K-Rod and Axford to get through the seventh through ninth innings.

If a game that played itself out like that found a way to get to extra innings, it's an elimination game. All hands on deck. You probably bring on Gallardo for the tenth in that scenario, and start going to your unrested starters an inning at a time if it comes to that.

Obviously there are a million scenarios that could play out in a given baseball game. Maybe the Brewers put up 6 in the first and cruise to a win. Maybe Marcum goes 6 strong and gives the Brewers a lead to go to the setup crew. Maybe he implodes in the first.

All I'm saying here, however, is that there's a way that Marcum can have an outing of something like 2 1/3 innings, some hits, and a run, and the Brewers get out of here with a win if Roenicke plays it right and the offense puts up some runs. He has to emulate LaRussa's strategy of pulling a starter before a disaster can happen. You go down with your best guns, and if they beat Saito, K-Rod, or Axford, you tip your cap and say well done. Everyone in the bullpen can manage to go two days in a row, and if it gets to Game 7 I'll take my chances with Yo and the setup crew all going on back-to-back days.

A lot of pitch f/x data was flying around after Marcum's second playoff start on Monday about his pitch selection, velocity, and results, but it's downright impossible to get any meaning from those numbers without some context. I went through and compiled some information to try to make some sense of it and make an informed decision about his status in the rotation. All data here is pulled from the excellent TexasLeaguers.com database. As usual, I combined the four and two-seam fastballs because I don't trust pitch identification algorithms and Marcum's velocity between the two are very similar. The numbers are close to exact but rounded for some simplicity. Also, pitch f/x isn't perfect so take a one or two game sample of velocity with some skepticism (though the swinging strike rates and pitch selection are going to be accurate for those two samples).

Start of season to September 8

Average fastball velocity: 86.8, 32.6% of the time, 3.7% swinging strike rate

Average cutter velocity: 83.9, 19% of the time, 10.3% swinging strike rate

Average changeup velocity: 79.2, 28% of the time, 19% swinging strike rate

Breaking balls: 20%

September 9 to October 13 (When things began to go downhill)

Average fastball velocity: 86.5, 37% of the time, 5% swinging strike rate

Average cutter velocity: 84.4, 30% of the time, 9.7% swinging strike rate

Average changeup velocity: 80.4, 16% of the time, 17% swinging strike rate

Breaking balls: 17%

9/20 against the Cubs (8 IP, 1 ER, 7 K: 0 BB) (The aberration in the downward trend)

Average fastball velocity: 86.2, 30% of the time, 3.5% swinging strike rate

Average cutter velocity: 83.3, 33% of the time, 25% swinging strike rate

Average changeup velocity: 80.0, 17.5% of the time, 41.2% swinging strike rate

2 Playoff Starts

Average fastball velocity: 87.0, 30% of the time, 4.3% swinging strike rate

Average cutter velocity: 84.9, 42% of the time, 8% swinging strike rate

Average changeup velocity: 81.2, 12% of the time, 0% swinging strike rate

The first thing that jumps out at me, as I think it would to anyone looking over these numbers, is the last line-- in a total of two playoff starts, Marcum has thrown 18 changeups. Batters have swung at 10 of those and made contact with all of them. 1 was fouled off, and the other 9 were put in play. There's clearly something wrong with Marcum's go-to pitch. In the first part of the regular season, batters swung and missed it 19% of the time. Swinging strike percentage is often the best proxy for "nastiness" of a pitch, so it's clear things have gone bad quickly.

The most obvious explanation, it seems to me, is that he's throwing a cutter more and a straight fastball less. His recent fastballs haven't really been outside the range of normal variation for him, they're in the upper 86 to lower 87 range. But it makes sense that if the changeup velocity rises a touch, coupled with throwing more 84 mph cutters, batters are just going to tee off when there's only a 3-mph variation between pitches they're seeing. He's clearly not keeping batters off-balance in the playoffs. Generally a gap of around 8 mph between fastball and changeup is considered to produce the best results. That was Marcum's gap in the early part of the regular season (87 to 79). When it's 87 to 81, or 84 to 81 if he's going to throw a bunch of cutters, it's not going to be anywhere near as effective, and that's been obvious in the results.

So is Shaun Marcum done? Should he be locked up and not throw another pitch in this series? I don't think so. If the team is considering bringing back Gallardo in a game 6 and back to Greinke on 3 days for a game 7, there's an argument to be made that Marcum shouldn't pitch. But if that's not on the table, I think he deserves a shot on an extremely short leash. His velocity hasn't really fallen off, and though it's very possible that his changeup's rising velocity could be linked to fatigue, that seems less plausible considering we haven't seen a drop in fastball speeds from him. I think he needs to sit down with the coaching staff and formulate a game plan, focusing more on fastballs and changeups and staying away from using the cutter too much when it's only a tick off his changeup right now. This looks like a different kind of issue to me than just purely being fatigued. I could easily see him having this stretch in June and arguing to just let him pitch through it.

With that being said, the stakes will most likely be very high in Game 6. If they determine that Gallardo's a go, I'll feel good about that decision. If not, I'd rather not see them panic and use Narveson right away. I'd probably throw Marcum, and basically have Narveson ready to go if he gives up, say, 3 baserunners in the first.

But the larger part of this picture is that if the Brewers are going to advance, and especially if they get to the World Series, they're going to need Marcum to be able to not suck to win. He's been on par with Gallardo and Greinke all year, and there seems to be hope he can get it back. Hopefully he proves capable of making the necessary adjustments.

Kyle asked me last week to put up a post comparing Shaun Marcum to other starters who made the switch from AL to NL. I decided that I have very few interesting things to say about the subject right now. Marcum's peripherals on the year were just about the same as they were last year. You'd expect them to get a little better moving to the weaker league but he still had a quality year, and I hope he throws a great game 3 and the Brewers get out of here with a sweep. And I'm in full-on fan mode, so I'm going to ramble like a fan for a while.

It's easy to tell I'm a bit excited. I was fortunate enough to be able to get down with a couple of friends to see Game 2 on Sunday. We bought tickets on Stubhub for $50 a piece to sit about 10 rows from the top in Section 433 (which was a heck of a lot better than shelling out $175 for a student ticket at the Wisconsin football game). It was something of a weird experience, I thought. I expected there to be a different crowd from a typical summer game, considering that anyone willing to pay to be there was probably a more serious fan, and that was definitely an accurate prediction. Tailgating before the game felt like something of a nervous formality. The other strange thing about the game experience was the crowd's engagement in the game. There was almost complete silence in tense anticipation before some pitches thrown by Brewers, even with a 5 run lead in the ninth, and in any possible rally situation the crowd was really loud and whipping the rally towels.

I think my favorite part of the entire game, as a fan, was this old guy in front of us throwing up the T when Plush knocked that RBI single to the outfield on the first pitch in his at-bat against Ziegler.

Arizona’s turned out more plentiful than the Brewers anticipated. Even though catcher Jonathan Lucroy had laid down so many squeeze bunts this season his teammates call him Mr. Squeeze, the Diamondbacks’ plan for fielding it fell apart because, manager Kirk Gibson said, the noise in the stadium led to a miscommunication.

That's from Yahoo sports today. And that is freaking awesome for a baseball stadium to have that kind of situation happen. I don't think I've ever heard of anything like that in this particular sport.

There was a little post on the Baseball Nation blog yesterday about how the Packers drew a 44% share of Milwaukee TV and the Brewers drew 20%. I say: who cares. Sunday football is a social event for people and the national TV broadcasts are easy for everyday fans to access, not to mention people are conditioned to know that football will be on at noon and 3 on Sunday afternoons. All I know is that Miller Park was packed with passionate baseball fans in the smallest market in baseball, and a few teams in the 2011 playoffs can't even sell out their home park.

Despite that disclaimer, it's getting really neat to see people who haven't cared about baseball in their lives start to take a bit of interest in the Brewers. This, right here, is how you build a bigger fan base-- by winning. And it doesn't hurt to win with a really, really fun team to follow. I get the feeling that I won't be the only one walking out of a midterm at school this week having a strong desire to do Beast Mode.

I remember how awesome it was to leave Miller Park way back in 2008 the night Fielder hit a walkoff against the Pirates, the night that started that incredible week of clutch performance that got the Brewers into the playoffs. It was just like that on Sunday night, when there were deafening "Let's go Brewers!" cheers echoing all the way down the stairs and ramps out of Miller Park and across the bridge to the General parking lot. And it's a great feeling knowing that no matter what happens, it's October 4th and more baseball will be played there this year.

I thought projecting Yovani Gallardo this year wasn't going to be that difficult. After his 110 innings in the majors in '07 and lost season of '08 to his ACL tear, his 2009 and 2010 seasons were just about what everyone could have expected and hoped for: he kept striking everybody out (9.9 and 9.7 per 9 innings in those two seasons), and he showed big improvement on his big problem, walks, by dropping that rate from 4.6 to 3.7 over those two years. To put it another way, he kept striking out 25% of the batters he faced, and walked only 9% compared to 12% the season before.

Back when we were doing community projections for this year, I saw it all coming together in my head, Gallardo making the leap to extremely elite starter by building on those two seasons, dropping the walk rate further, and getting that FIP down into the 2s (it was 3.02 in 2010), and having an important race in September to make it necessary to go above 185 innings pitched, where he's been the past two seasons. I know I wasn't alone; Joe Posnaski even predicted that Yo would be the 2011 Cy Young Award winner in the NL.

The only problem with this nice little idea is that it didn't happen. Gallardo started off with outings of 6 innings, 2 earned runs and followed it with a shutout of the Braves (with only 2 strikeouts). Then things turned ugly: in 5 starts, he threw 26 innings and gave up 26 earned runs. There was widespread panic. I cautioned back in April that this looked like just a weird thing, his strikeouts were down and his walks were also lower, and he was getting more groundballs, but more were falling for hits. I was, however, hopeful that things would straighten out because some broader numbers looked fine and normally stretches like that tend to even out throughout the year.

Now it's September and things have really gotten weird. No doubt, Yo has rebounded in a big way: since he got out of the slump with that near no-hitter in St. Louis, he's struck out 153 in 150 innings and posted an ERA of 3. That's what we like to see. But here's where it gets weird. I noted back in April that he seemed to be adopting a policy of trading strikeouts for fewer walks and more groundballs. So far this mission has generally been a success: a career-high 47% of batted balls against Gallardo have been hit on the ground, and he's only walked 7% (2.6 per 9) of the batters he's faced, easily a career low. But strangely, at the same time, the rate of flyballs against him has also gone up. The only category left, of course, is line drives, and those have fallen.

This is really a roundabout way of getting to the question of "why is he giving up so many home runs". In truth I have no idea. There have been more fly balls hit against Gallardo this year than in a usual year for him, yes. And a fair amount of those fly balls been leaving the park, a career-high 12.9%-- way up from 7.1% last year, but not too far off of 12.3% in 2009 (for comparison, Braden Looper in 2009 had 15.8% of his fly balls leave the yard). Generally, this is something a pitcher has little control over-- so, yes, Gallardo giving up more fly balls this year is more of a concern than it would be if it were just a case of a higher-than-usual amount of fly balls going out. 

With that being said, I don't really see this as a long-term trend or anything. There's not much to suggest going forward that Gallardo is going to keep giving up a ton of homers like this. Pitchers go through phases like this. Zack Greinke had one earlier this season. Looking at Gallardo's season-long indicators of performance don't seem to show any big signs of trouble, either. His swinging strike percentage, for example, is actually higher than it was last year, and that's something that correlates very closely to overall strikeout percentage. And his pitch selection is pretty much normal for him as well-- he's gone away from throwing a changeup almost entirely, but that's not a pitch he has ever really used very much.

2011 has been a weird, though pretty successful, season for Gallardo. He hasn't exactly taken a step forward in the pitching skills department, but he's been somewhere between his 2009 and 2010 seasons in terms of effectiveness so far with a quite different approach. Based on the peripherals from the run he's been on since May, however, I think we have little to worry about and that going forward he can be the guy that strikes everybody out and doesn't walk anybody, provided he can get this little fly ball bug under control. If Gallardo's arm can withstand the workload of a (hopefully) deep playoff run, I think we could watch him really come around, like I hoped he would earlier this year.

I wonder what Ben Sheets is up to these days, and I wonder what he thinks about the Brewers.

Ask a Brewer fan these days what they think about Sheets. I'm sure a serious fan might recognize the stellar career Sheets had as a Brewer, the historically great season he had in 2004, and the tremendous contribution he had to the '08 playoff run, but... I think many would call him an often-injured bust who never lived up to the hype. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Ben Sheets was to the mid-2000 Brewers as Zack Greinke was to the late 2000 Royals. Lovable character, overcame obstacles to success, and mostly, was really the only attraction on some bad, bad teams. I want to take a moment to remember the season Sheets had in 2004. Here are some fun facts about that year:

• Since 2004, the following pitchers have had a season in which they amassed more WAR than Ben Sheets did that year: Zack Greinke, Tim Lincecum, Justin Verlander, Randy Johnson. Each did it once. Greinke, Verlander, and Lincecum did it in 2009, and Johnson did it in 2004. Roy Halladay has a shot to do it this year.
  
• Despite that remarkable number, Sheets finished 8th in the Cy Young voting that year. It says a lot about baseball analysis, I think, that Zack Greinke was able to win the AL Cy Young in 2009 with a 16-8 record (though that is considerably nicer looking than Sheets's 12-14). 
• 264 strikeouts. 32 walks.

We're all familiar with the rest of the story. From 2005 through 2007, Sheets was the productive but often injured mainstay. And in 2008, it nearly all came together. Young hitters like Braun, Fielder, Hardy, Hart, and Weeks were starting to turn things around on the offensive side, and the acquisition of CC Sabathia gave the Brewers a big time ace.

But Sheets was a big part of the story that year. He was the team's leader in innings pitched, with 196. He had about the same WAR as Sabathia, with 4.5. His 3.38 FIP was lower than Gallardo's or Marcum's this year. 2008 was, in many ways, the preview of this year. It was the young guns coming up and starting to play well, a rental pitcher carrying the team to the postseason, and the postseason revealing the shortcomings-- weak bullpen, lack of depth in starting staff, and a younger and slightly more erratic lineup. Weeks and Hart, especially, have come a long way since then.

Those holes have been patched up quite nicely now and it looks like we're going to be in for a fun ride. But it's impossible to discredit what that '08 team did for the fanbase, the team, and the city of Milwaukee. And that couldn't have been done without Ben Sheets.

This all brings me to the story of one of my favorite baseball games ever. It was just over 3 years ago today, on September 6th, 2008, that Ben Sheets faced Jake Peavy at Miller Park. The Brewers were up 4 in the Wild Card and back 4 in the division going into play on that day. They were looking for their 82nd win (they would win 90 games). What we didn't know on that day, however, was that doctors told Sheets he was risking making some trouble he had in his elbow could become worse if he continued to pitch. He did anyways.

Anyone who saw that game surely remembers it, and especially if you didn't, do yourself a favor and watch the highlights on MLB.com. Sheets won 1-0 in a complete game shutout after getting out of a jam in the ninth. It was a typical Sheets start, he gave up 5 hits, walked 1, and struck out 7.

Sheets made another start in that awful series in Philadelphia that got Ned Yost fired, going 6 innings and giving up 5 runs. He left his next start against the Cubs after 2 innings with elbow pain. That's when he first revealed the elbow problems that had been giving him trouble for a few weeks already.

That wasn't enough for Sheets, who knew he was risking long-term injury by trying to pitch more. It was obvious he didn't have it in his final try, on September 27th, when he only lasted 2 1/3 against the Cubs in a loss as part of the ultimately victorious final series that brought the Brewers to the playoffs. From Adam McCalvy in 2009:

After that game, likely his last in a Brewers uniform, Sheets declared, "That's all I have. I've got a broke arm."

We know a lot more know than we did when that was written in early 2009. Sheets deserved to be remembered as a warrior for that final month-- he knowingly sacrificed future earnings to get the Brewers to the playoffs, and sure enough, in the three years since, he has sat out two and been far less effective in the one season he did pitch.

I hope Ben Sheets watches the Brewers these next few weeks, and I hope he knows he's a big part of what turned this team around.

We're 115 games into the season, not exactly a milestone number but a good time to check in on the Community Projections from the preseason to see how our expectations are matching up to the actual performance so far.

Jonathan Lucroy: .259/.327/.387 projected, .283/.325/.405 actual. Power surge! We're actually just about on the money on this one. Lucroy started out very hot but has dropped off, though still has been an asset at catcher. Fangraphs rates his defense below average, at -4 runs, but he's been well above average hitting and is on pace for a season above 2 WAR. Well done sir.

Prince Fielder: .286/.409/.566 projected, .304/.420/.571 actual. That's certainly a pretty line to look at. It's just a touch off from Prince's career best line back in '09. No question that he's having a heck of a year, and has a 4.2 WAR to show for it. He's also been super clutch, with a WPA over 5. He's a legitimate MVP candidate for sure.

Rickie Weeks: .273/.366/.466 projected, .272/.346/.478 actual. His numbers fell a bit before the injury, but let's note that Rickie has had a fantastic year and was keeping pace with Braun and Fielder in WAR.

Yuniesky Betancourt: .261/.296/.389 projected, .268/.286/.391 actual. With his super-hot July, Yuni has finally matched our expectations for him this season. Our expectations were very low. If the Brewers make the playoffs, I would bet that Betancourt doesn't start a majority of the games played late September and the postseason.

Ryan Braun: .314/.384/.565 projected, .326/.395/.576 actual. Braun has improved his walk rate every year in the majors, from 5% in '07 to around 9% now. His wOBA right now would be a career high. There's nothing not to love here.

Carlos Gomez: .259/.305/.376 projected, .220/.270/.378 actual. Forget the hitting, he had a +10 (!) UZR and 1.8 WAR-- which is an average player's production given 600 at-bats worth of playing time. He's been an asset, and though it seems extremely unlikely he'll play again this year, it's worth noting his contributions to this team.

Corey Hart: .276/.333/.488 projected, .277/.353/.484. Hart exceeding our expectations has been an extremely pleasant surprise.

A shout-out has to go to Nyjer Morgan here, hitting .324/.358/.458. We didn't project him because he was acquired after the project was completed.

I'll take a look at the pitchers one of these days when I get some time. In the meantime, let's just enjoy the fact that just about all of the hitters are exceeding our expectations and the team is rolling. I'm looking forward to tonight.

I haven't been able to really give much of my reactions on the acquisition of Rodriguez, but I think there's no question it's a huge win for the Brewers. Some team is going to give up a lot of prospects for Heath Bell, and the difference between Bell and K-Rod for the rest of the year is about a third of a run every nine innings-- Bell's projected at a 2.6 FIP and Rodriguez at 2.9. Melvin rob swindled the rest of the league on this one, and not having to worry about the games finished clause made things all the better.

*I reserve the right to complain if he decided to put any of the top 3 or 4 prospects on the PTBNL list. But if it's McClendon and an outfielder, that's still well below what K-Rod should have cost.

Anyways, Kyle asked for a bit of a profile on the guy and I was happy to comply because I wanted to check out his past a bit too. I always loved me some K-Rod as a younger kid. His crazy run in 2002 was awesome, to refresh what happened, Rodriguez was a starter throughout the minors and only moved to relief to start the 2002 season due to some arm injuries. He was a mid-September callup for the Angels that year and was added to their post-season roster on what we still call "The K-Rod rule", in which a team can use a player not otherwise eligible to replace an injured player on the 25-man. His first 5 wins in the major leagues were in the playoffs, with 2 coming in the World Series. He only threw 5 regular season innings that year, and-- this is one of the coolest things ever-- had a negative FIP. 5 2/3 innings, 13 strikeouts, 2 walks, no home runs= -.04 FIP.

He became a dominant setup man (ahead of Troy Percival) with the Angels and then eventually became their closer and set the single-season save record in 2008 when he accumulated 62. (Side note: the save is a very stupid stat, mostly because it takes way longer to explain than, say, OPS, but most professional writers/analysts will defend it with everything they have, but 62 is still impressive).

From 2004-2007, K-Rod never struck out fewer than 12 batters per 9 innings. He's remained around 10 in these more recent years, and has actually improved his control a bit, walking 3.3 per 9 in 2010 and 3.4 per nine so far this year despite a career average over 4. His stuff has gotten a bit less filthy over the years, with his swinging strike percentage falling from a peak at 14% down to about 10% now, but 10% is nothing to be ashamed of. For example, Axford's also at about 10.5% in his career. There's other evidence of him becoming a wiser pitcher in the past two years. Batters are now making contact with more of his pitches than at any time before in his career. They're also making contact with a lot of pitches they swing at outside of the strike zone, and way more than they did earlier in his career. Though that could be a sign that he's losing some of his stuff, his groundball rates have also shot up in the past two years, so I'm going to look at that as a positive.

In terms of stuff, K-Rod's not too difficult to figure out. If you're a righty, it's going to be fastball/breaking ball, and if you're a lefty, it's going to be fastball/change. He didn't start throwing the change much until about 2007, and it's become one of his primary weapons, thrown about 20% of the time. Pitch f/x is splitting up his breaking pitches into slider and curveball, but I think it's one pitch thrown with a few variations and different velocities because there's a lot of inconsistency with how they're classified. The BIS Data from Fangraphs is also confused, it says he hasn't thrown a slider since '08 but didn't throw a curve in '07. I'm going to assume, unless he tells me otherwise, that he has one filthy "slurve", we'll call it. And it's a good pitch, having been substantially above average over the course of his career.  In terms of runs above average over 100 pitches, his fastball is .3 (very good for a fastball), the slurve is about 1.8, and the changeup is 3.5.

There's no question K-Rod has lost plenty of fastball velocity, from his young days of throwing mid-90s to the present average of just over 90. It's of little concern when you look at how his strikeout rates have stayed high and how he's made adjustments to compensate.

Rodriguez is a heck of an addition for a bullpen that probably didn't even need an addition. I'd project Axford as just slightly better going forward, but they're both great high-leverage options. Hopefully RRR is able to quickly see that he's best suited by establishing Saito and Hawkins as the full-inning pitchers to lead to the 8/9 combo of K-Rod and Axford, and can start using Kameron Loe as a guy that gets out righties, and Estrada as a multiple-innings guy only. The only thing needed now is a lefty. And a shortstop, of course.