Days rest in parenthesis. 

This is probably dependent on how the series goes, but I'm going to assume seven games.

Option 1 - Steady as she goes This is the rotation that is obvious and the one that RR seems to be leaning toward. It would be just fine if anybody had confidence that Marcum and Wolf would pitch as we expected based on the regular season.

Option 2 - No more Marcum This might be the most popular option at the moment. Remove Marcum and plug in Narveson, Estrada or a tag team of both. It keeps everyone else on normal rest but hopes for the best in game 6.

Option 3 - Now is the perfect time to panic (I'll rest in the offseason) This is an oddball rotation that features no Marcum and no Narveson. Greinke would have to pitch on short rest twice and Gallardo would pitch on short rest once, but 4 of the last 5 games would be started by the G-men,

These guys are pretty good.

Saito has pitched six years in the MLB and has never had an ERA above 2.83.  

Hawkins is having his best season in years.

Rodriguez has a 1.86 ERA since joining the Crew

Axford has been really, really, good

Even Kameron Loe, who was overworked early and had a 4.50 ERA in the first half has lowered his ERA to 3.50 with a 1.93 ERA since the All Star break.

What I like most, however, is that these guys all have have closing experience, and all but Axford had playoff experience entering this year's playoffs.

The talking heads will go on and on about Greinke, Gallardo, and Marcum or Braun and Fielder, but I think getting Saito and Rodriguez in July to solidify the back end is what put the Brewers over the top.  Saito returned July 2nd and Rodriguez arrived July 12th.  Since then the Brewers are 49-23

I'm going to display some ignorance here, because I don't know how to quantify catching intangibles.  So I'm just going to kick things off with my random thoughts and see where things go from there.

I think the future of catching for the Brewers is Jonathan Lucroy.  I don't see any area where Angel Salome has any significant advantage over him.  Lucroy currently has a line of .263/.379/.401.  The number that really jumps out is the OBP of .379.  If you are looking at the batting average, you are seeing a mediocre AA guy.  But if you look at his 62:53 BB/K ratio, you see a guy who has incredible plate discipline for a young player (or any player).

His arm strength has been described as average or fringy, but his quick release has him throwing out 40% of basestealers at AA, after nabbing 51% last year in A ball.  Salome had 33% and 26% at AAA and AA respectively.

Lucroy has a .989 fielding percentage.  Salome is at .979.  FWIW Kendall has thrown out 21% this year after 43% last year.  Kendall also has a .993 fielding percentage (.990 career).

I said all of that to say that everything that the Brewers do regarding catching should revolve around Jonathan Lucroy.  And it might just be time to consider moving him up to AAA, with the idea that he become the MLB starter next year.  Consider that over the last 14 days, his line is .400/.478/.575 - 1.053OPS.  Over the last 28 days its .333/.446/.522 - .968OPS

So what do you do with Salome?  He could be traded in the off season, but for now he could be promoted to the big club.  Yes that means a demotion for BCB favorite Mike Rivera, but it would be a chance to showcase Salome a bit, especially if the Brewers are not in contention.  Granted that craptastic line of .233/.300/.233 for the last 28 days is not going to fly, but Salome is still a valuable trade chip, and the Brewers should have moving him in the offseason as a highly regarded option. 

So Kendall/Salome finish out this year, with Lucroy and Rivera in AAA.  Trade Salome in the offseason for a pitcher or two.  Next year Lucroy starts with Kendall or Rivera backing him up.  Does that sound too aggressive?  Does Lucroy need to just play AA for this year and AAA all of next year?

Either way I think Kendall has to become a bench guy next year or perhaps just move on.  Whether its Salome or Lucroy, its time to promote a guy and take the growing pains they bring with them.

Jake Peavy

What to like:  Career 3.27 ERA and 9.0 K/9 rate.  Consistently good for a long time, and only 28.

What not to like: Pitches in a pitcher-friendly park (3.84 ERA on the road).  Hefty salary

Salary: $11M - 2009, $15M - 2010, $16M - 2011, $17M - 2012, $4M buyout for 2013

What it would take:  It would probably start with Alcides Escobar, and include Manny Parra.  The Padres are shedding and payroll, and would look for cheap, young talent exclusively.

Erik Bedard:

What to like:  2.48 ERA this year.  8.9 K/9.  Was dominant in 2007, his last year with Baltimore. Seattle GM has ties to Milwaukee

What not to like:  Injury history.  Free agent after 2009.  Might be the most sought pitcher in July.

Salary: $7.75M - 2009

What it would take:  Jack Z knows the Brewers minor leagues like the back of his hand and would likely target a top prospect or two.

Matt Cain:

What to like: 2.31 ERA (3.61ERA career).  Younger than Tim Lincecum.  Inexpensive and signed through 2011.

What not to like: Very average K/9 (6.24) and BB/9 (3.66). 2nd place Giants may not be selling.

Salary: $2.9M - 2009,  About $4M for 2010 and $6M for2011

What it would take:  Giants need hitters including a 1B.  From a position of strength, they would probably seek Prince Fielder

Javier Vazquez:

What to like: Strike throwing (11 K/9 2 BB/9) workhorse (9 straight seasons with 32+ GS) is back in the National league where he has had the most success. 

What not to like: In 5 AL years before going to Atlanta, had a very mediocre 4.52 ERA.  Is 32.  Salary

Salary: $11.5M for 2009, and $11.5M for 2010.

What it would take:  Atlanta has a surplus of pitchers with Hudson coming back.  Need hitters including outfielders.  Their good outfielder is RF Jeff Francoeur, but Corey Hart might  still be a target.  Better trade for the off season when guys can change positions.

Others:

Cliff Lee is back to his CY Young ways and Bleacher Reports think he can be had for Angel Salome or Jonathan Lucroy and others. 

Roy Oswalt could be on the move, but I can't imagine that he will be traded within the division

Brad Penny and Jarrod Washburn will be free agents at the end of the year, and both seem like they could be available at the trading deadline.

I have a question about two pitchers and which you think is better.  I'll get into a bit of analysis, but lets start with each of these guys and their statistics for a half of 2008.

Pitcher A

16G

86.2 innings

8-2 

3.95ERA

46BB

68K

9HR

.312 babip

Pitcher B

16G

79.1 Innings

2-6

4.88ERA

29BB

79K

9HR

.356 babip

Continue reading this post »

From Deadspin

OK, let's do a little test of the Internets today: In the last hour, we have been forwarded a list of players mentioned in the Mitchell Report by about 25 different people. Is this list substantiated? No. Is it from an MLB official? No. Do we have any reason to believe it's anything but random bunk? No. But it's what's making the rounds today, and we're less than three hours away, and if the list is wrong, we'll know real soon.

But, if you're curious, here's the list of players supposedly mentioned in the report, according to just about every email we've received. It could very likely be one of those Web urban legends that somehow got around, like when everyone thought Scott Baio was dead. It probably is, actually. (We mean, come on: The list has Rich Garces on it.) We'll know soon enough, but, for now, for "fun" ... After the jump.

(UPDATE: A source inside baseball says this list is "not entirely accurate." Emphasis ours.)

(SECOND UPDATE: WNBC apparently has the same list, some names of which have been disputed by baseball. But not all. And less than two hours to go!)

Brady Anderson
Manny Alexander
Rick Ankiel
Jeff Bagwell
Barry Bonds
Aaron Boone
Rafael Bettancourt
Bret Boone
Milton Bradley
David Bell
Dante Bichette
Albert Belle
Paul Byrd
Wil Cordero
Ken Caminiti
Mike Cameron
Ramon Castro
Jose and Ozzie Canseco
Roger Clemens
Paxton Crawford
Wilson Delgado
Lenny Dykstra
Johnny Damon
Carl Everett
Kyle Farnsworth
Ryan Franklin
Troy Glaus
Rich Garces
Jason Grimsley
Troy Glaus
Juan Gonzalez
Eric Gagne
Nomar Garciaparra
Jason Giambi
Jeremy Giambi
Jose Guillen
Jay Gibbons
Juan Gonzalez
Clay Hensley
Jerry Hairston
Felix Heredia, Jr.
Darren Holmes
Wally Joyner
Darryl Kile
Matt Lawton
Raul Mondesi
Mark McGwire
Guillermo Mota
Robert Machado
Damian Moss
Abraham Nunez
Trot Nixon
Jose Offerman
Andy Pettitte
Mark Prior
Neifi Perez
Rafael Palmiero
Albert Pujols
Brian Roberts
Juan Rincon
John Rocker
Pudge Rodriguez
Sammy Sosa
Scott Schoenweiis
David Segui
Alex Sanchez
Gary Sheffield
Miguel Tejada
Julian Tavarez
Fernando Tatis
Mo Vaughn
Jason Varitek
Ismael Valdes
Matt Williams
Kerry Wood.

Continue reading this post »

10 Really bad losses.  You pick the worst.

Continue reading this post »

On days when Turnbow has had at least a day of rest:

33 games
30 innings
19 hits
7 ER
13 BB
37 K
0 HR
2.10 ERA

On days when Turnbow has had no rest:

19 games
16 innings
16 hits
15 ER
9 BB
21 K
4 HR
8.44 ERA

Ned talked about getting Linebrink to get some rest for Turnbow.  The numbers seem to back up the theory that Turnbow pitches better with at least a day off between appearances.

Hunter Pence has hit the DL for 4 - 6 weeks with an injured wrist.  

Now I know that everyone here is familiar with Ryan Braun.  But I bet if you asked the average fan, they would be split at 50-50 between Pence and Braun for ROY.

Just a recap:

Braun     Pence

51 G          73 G
206 AB       312 AB
43 R          42  R
71 H          103 H
16 HR        12  HR
43 RBI       45  RBI
16 BB        10  BB
48 K          60  K
8  SB         8 SB   
.392 OBP      .355 OBP    
.670 SLG      .564 SLG   
.345 AVG      .330 AVG

1.062 OPS  .919 OPS

One reason that some people lean toward Pence is because he has played an extra month.  Now Braun will catch up in playing time and as long as he keeps ups the gaudy numbers, he should be a lock for best rookie.  

His HR numbers will clinch it.

81 games down 81 to go.  What are you happy about? Not so happy about?  I'll go first.

-- Happy --

Hart and Hardy (sounds like a soup).   These are the hitters that surprised me.  I know others have been high on Hart, but I had not been bullish on someone that projected to be a .280 20/20 guy.

The Uber Prospects  I know its early and that they may occasionally struggle, but Braun can rake.  And Yovani can mow.

Sheets  Kind of taken for granted, and hasn't been flashy, but the healthy ace has been very good.

The Closers  Turnow and Cordero have been very solid

-- Not So Happy --

Middle relief  Dessens and Aquino have highlighted some shaky middle relievers.

Weeks His window for taking the next big step is closing

Starters not named Sheets  A whole lot of average.

Outfield depth  If Jenkins could hit lefties, Mench might never play.  Gross is just a guy.

I got the Sporting News magazine in the mail today and the writer (Stan McNeal) listed who he thought would be on the rosters.  He listed Fielder as a starter and Hardy and Cordero, but no Sheets.

Pros
8-3 3.19 ERA
Winning team
Name recognition

Cons
Started a little slowly
Strikeouts are down.  Hasn't been real dominant.
Every team needs to be represented.
Might have 3 other Brewers on the team.

I'm guessing he sneaks in with an ERA of 2.98. Story is online as well http://www.sportingnews.com/yourturn/viewtopic.php?t=225733

Its tough to decide because they don't have any glaring needs.  The infield appears to be set for years.  The rotation has a lot of depth.

I guess catcher is a possibility.  Outfield maybe.

I'm guessing they just go with the best available.

I'm afraid of another power arm (like Parker).  I might go with a position player because we apparently ave a knack for grabbing quality position players.

Whereas our pitching draft history has been spotty at best.

There are a few items that I would like to look at today, challenging conventional Bill Hall wisdom.

1) Bill is trying too much to hit the opposite way.

Billy has always pulled ground balls to left and has been a spray fly ball hitter.  That is also the case this year.  His hitting chart shows that his past hitting patterns are still in effect

2) Bill is not walking as much.  

This is true.  Though if he were to walk at last year's rate he would only have 4 more walks and his OBP would be only about .010 points higher.

In fact, though his walks ans K's are down, his BB/K% is still a bit below average and largely consistent as seen here

3)  Bill is grounding out more. This is very true, and this is probably affecting his slugging because his HR/FB rate has also dropped.

You can see that his FB% is down to 41% from last year's 48%.  His HR's per FB is down from 19.4% to 10.9%.  It is this combination of things that is killing his slugging percentage, and to a lesser extent his OBP.

134 balls in play.
55 fly balls
6 HR

Using last years percentages he would have
134 balls in play
64 fly balls
12 HR

If Hall had the same FB% and same HR/FB% as last year his SLG% would be at about .560, and his OPS would be about .900.

4)  Hall was due to regress a bit.

Sadly this also appears to be true.

Last year Hall hit .270/35HR/85RBI/.899OPS

Projected Bill James .268/24HR/71RB/.815OPS
Projected CHONE .265/26HR/86RBI/.820OPS
Projected Marcel .276/23HR/73RBI/.836OPS
Projected ZiPS  .268/24HR/72RBI/.830OPS

On pace 2007  .256/20HR/67RBI/.743OPS

Here is my guess.  And its only a guess.  The smart guys that project this stuff thought that the HR's were an aberration.  The HR/FB% of 19.4% put him in company with some heavy hitters.

He was projected to keep the rest of his numbers constant (adjusted for having about 10 fewer home runs), and even have fewer walks and strikeouts.  So basically he is just a little worse than projected by the experts.

Sheets  2-1 3.15 ERA  4BB  18K in 3 starts
Suppan  1-3 5.40 ERA 12BB  10K in 4 starts
Vargas  0-1 7.04 ERA  7BB   8K in 3 starts
Capuano 0-4 7.08 ERA  8BB  14K in 4 starts
Bush    0-2 7.13 ERA  4BB  12K in 3 starts

Yes folks, that is a sparkling 5.86 ERA among the 5 of them.

Anybody got Yovani's number?

Graffanino.

I'm done talking about how unlucky Dave Bush is.  For now.  I'm moving on.  Let someone else talk about it.

Today I'm going to talk about whether Graffanino is unlucky.  First lets look at his historic OBP:

What you see is a very capable hitter who reached base at the league average or above for 8 straight  years, before dropping off badly this year.

You would think that platooning would give him a bump up, but in truth, aside from 2003, he hits lefties and righties pretty equally as seen here:

There are two big dropoffs. The first is that his BABIP is a paltry .213 which is pretty incredibly low.  At first glance it appears that Tony must be just hitting the ball right at guys.

Now we know that he typically exceeds the average BABIP So he is either very unlucky, or has had an ability drop off which brings us to his LD/GB/FB%

In the past two years his line drive percentage has dropped from 22% to 11%.  Of the 91 balls put in play, only 10 have been line drives.

So, is he unlucky in that his BABIP is so low, or is the 35 year old in a permanent decline?

Who is the better pitcher?  

Vargas

 3-0 / 2.93 ERA / 14BB / 39K / 40.0IP - A very nice looking line.

Bush

 3-3 / 5.47 / ERA / 8BB / 38K / 49.3IP - Not so nice looking.

---------------------

Now we all know, that the important stats for pitchers are K/9 BB/9 and HR/9, because the BABIP is largely a latter of luck and tend to even out.

Vargas

8.8 K/9
3.2 BB/9
1.13 HR/9

Bush

7.2 K/9
1.5 BB/9
1.13 HR/9

While Vargas has seen a big jump in strikeouts from 6.4 to 8.8, Bush has remained close to the 7.4 he had last year.  Even with Maddux, its unlikely that Vargas will continue that pace.  Bush experience a similar but smaller jump whe he joined the Brewers but the factors were likely a combination of age, Maddux, and switching leagues.

------------------

Now lets look at a very overlooked stat: LOB%

In general good pitcher have high LOB% because if you only allow a handful of runners, than in general you only allow a small percentage to score.  If you allow runners all over the place, then you probably allow a big percentage of them to score..

Most pitchers are within a few points of the average 72%.  Above 80% is where you find guys like Jake Peavy (85%), Hudson (83%) and Oswalt (82%).  Its also where you find Vargas (83%).

Historically, Vargas is close to the average, meaning that he is suddenly very good, or temporarily very lucky.

On the flip side, the poor or unlucky pitchers you will find are only stranding 60% of their runners.  Guys like Adam Eaton (61%) and Josh Fogg (65%) dwell here.  Bush sits between them at 62%.  Bush was between 71% and 72% his first two years, though his 66% was low last year.

So is Vargas that good and Bush that bad?  Or is it more a function of luck?

Well it turns out that Vargas has an expected LOB% of 73.6%  and Bush has an expected LOB% of 74.3%.

Expect Vargas to start paying for the bases-loaded jams, and expect Bush to start getting out of the potential big inning.

It is assumed by all of us that Yovani and Braun will be called up by the end of the year, so where does that leave us talent-wise?  Its not really a rhetorical question.  I really don't know what we have in the minors.

I do know that the big club will be loaded with the addition of our two uber-prospects, and the club will really have no real weak spots.

But then we need to look at developing the next crop of minor leaguers as this one has been picked clean.

Frankly I don't see much to be excited about.  Do we have a single AAA prospect after Braun and YG?

What about AA?  Inman?  Anybody else?

The Brewers are tied for 3rd (with five other teams) in the majors with 15 errors, so who gets the credit...er discredit?

Hall - 4
Estrada - 2
Graffy - 2
Hardy - 2
Capuano - 1
Hart - 1
Miller - 1
Vargas - 1
Fielder - 1

The obvious story is Hall, who is learning on the job. Without his 4 errors the Crew would have 11 which put them squarely in the middle of the pack.

The other story is the absence of Weeks on the list.  He has 36 put outs and 38 assists without an error.

Dave Bush has BABIP of .415.  For non-geeks, that means of the balls hit in play, over %41 are hits.

Now the league average is always within a few points of .300 and most pitchers fall between .290 and .310

If someone is far above or below that, then they are either very lucky or very unlucky.

Lets look at the other stats.

K/9 is at 7.94 which may show that his 7.11 jump (from 4.95) last year was legit.
BB/9 is 1.1, also very healthy.
HR/9 is also a mere 1.1

Now I'm not a sabremetrics guru, but despite the gaudy 5.82 ERA, Bush has not pitched all that badly.  His FIP (Fielding Independent Pitching) is a healthy 3.24 meaning his ERA should be over two and a half runs lower.

Which brings us back to that pesky BABIP, the one statistic that shows just how (un)lucky a player has been.  Bush has been unlucky so far, but it will all even out in the end.