Future of the Rule V Draft

[sveumrules]

1 hour ago, wiguy94 said:

from a pure on paper perspective, that 2014 team actually was a pretty darn good team.

I dunno, they were 15th in runs scored (650) and 17th in runs allowed (657) so pythag thought they were lucky to even go 82-80.

Position players came in at a 102 wRC+ (11th) and 22.0 WAR (9th), so they were pretty solid. Pitchers came in at 11.9 rWAR and 10.9 fWAR (both 22nd) though.

Out of all the Melvin teams it might have been the most Melviny.

[wiguy94]

2 minutes ago, sveumrules said:

I dunno, they were 15th in runs scored (650) and 17th in runs allowed (657) so pythag thought they were lucky to even go 82-80.

Position players came in at a 102 wRC+ (11th) and 22.0 WAR (9th), so they were pretty solid. Pitchers came in at 11.9 rWAR and 10.9 fWAR (both 22nd) though.

Out of all the Melvin teams it might have been the most Melviny.

Yeah but that's with Braun and Segura playing way under their expected levels. 2014 was the only season in Braun's first 10 years where his wRC+ was under 129 and it was 113. Segura went from a 4 fWAR to a 0.1 fWAR season which likely was entirely due to the off the field issues with his sick kid.

If that 2014 team had a typical Braun season and Segura without the off the field issues I think it's certainly a playoff team.

[sveumrules]

49 minutes ago, homer said:

I think there were maybe two national writers that thought the Brewers had a punchers chance of getting the 2nd wild card before 2014. Internally, Melvin probably thought they were a year away from contending. Still an odd move even if you think you're a .500 team.

Yeah. They went 74-88 in 2013.

Their big offseason moves were signing Garza, trading Aoki for Will Smith and hoping for a return to MVP form for Braun coming off suspension/injury.

Those aren’t the kind of moves that move the needle a dozen plus wins.

[SomewhereInTime]

6 hours ago, Axman59 said:

The most egregious use of a Rule 5 pick was Wang Chung by the Brewers in 2014. He was totally out of his depth given his age and lack of experience and was thrown into the bullpen of a playoff contending team. That's not how Rule 5 picks should be used.

I'm still angry about that.

Nah the worst I've seen for the Brewers was definitely Enrique Cruz https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/c/cruzen01.shtml

[RightFieldCoder]

Enrique Cruz was picked up by a team that had just lost 106 games. That is the type of team that should be drafting Rule V players, not the one that has playoff hopes.

[Axman59]

19 hours ago, homer said:

I think there were maybe two national writers that thought the Brewers had a punchers chance of getting the 2nd wild card before 2014. Internally, Melvin probably thought they were a year away from contending. Still an odd move even if you think you're a .500 team.

Agreed. I certainly didn't expect the Brewers to contend that year. But by the end of April they were 20-8 and Wang should have been cut loose. The Brewers quickly knew they could only use him in blow outs, which basically burns a roster spot. Plus I think it was unfair to send the guy into games to get his brains bashed out since he was clearly over his head.

That said, I'm sure he enjoyed the big league paycheck.

 

(Edit - I just checked his game logs for that year. He made 14 appearances. The Brewers lost 13 of those 14 games. The one game he pitched in that the Brewers won was a 11-5 victory over the Cubs. He pitched the 8th when the Brewers were up 11-3. Did not give up any runs in his 1 inning though!)

[nate82]

45 minutes ago, Axman59 said:

Agreed. I certainly didn't expect the Brewers to contend that year. But by the end of April they were 20-8 and Wang should have been cut loose. The Brewers quickly knew they could only use him in blow outs, which basically burns a roster spot. Plus I think it was unfair to send the guy into games to get his brains bashed out since he was clearly over his head.

That said, I'm sure he enjoyed the big league paycheck.

 

(Edit - I just checked his game logs for that year. He made 14 appearances. The Brewers lost 13 of those 14 games. The one game he pitched in that the Brewers won was a 11-5 victory over the Cubs. He pitched the 8th when the Brewers were up 11-3. Did not give up any runs in his 1 inning though!)

Majority of the 14 appearances the Brewers were already well behind in.  In 7 of his 14 appearances he gave up 0 runs.

The last guy in the bullpen is usually the guy you put in when the game is out of hand.  He was the last guy in the bullpen and he fulfilled what the Brewers wanted from him.  In replacing Wei-Chung Wang the Brewers would have had to have a really good bullpen piece to replace him with which they did not.  Replacing Wei-Chung Wang probably would have meant more innings from Henderson who was almost as bad as Wang was. 

[AKCheesehead]

18 hours ago, SomewhereInTime said:

Nah the worst I've seen for the Brewers was definitely Enrique Cruz https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/c/cruzen01.shtml

Cruz was so overmatched it was not even funny.  I guess it may have been worth it since we eventually traded him for Shouse who was decent.

[SomewhereInTime]

8 hours ago, RightFieldCoder said:

Enrique Cruz was picked up by a team that had just lost 106 games. That is the type of team that should be drafting Rule V players, not the one that has playoff hopes.

Yeah but it does no good for anyone to put a guy who is that far from big league talent on the team.  It's a year of wasted development for a young player and probably probably a massive confidence hit.  It's not surprising he only played one more game in the big leagues after that season.

[ClosetBrewerFan]

MLB Trade Rumors has an article on the 2023 Rule 5 drafted players.  There are a few that are doing well and shows why this rule makes sense to keep.  Gives these players an opportunity to get playing time when they might not from the original team.  I'm not sure a rule change is needed or would be better than what we have.  Teams should learn to not select players that are clearly not ready, or if they do, return them early when it becomes clear they are not ready.  I think the Varland case is a good example.  Clearly he has talent, but really needs more time in the minors.  The Brewers took a shot and when they felt it wasn't going to work out, let him go. 

I'm hoping this was a lesson learned from the Wang/Cruz days, when the Brewers hung on to a player just to keep him in the organization.  The cost to try out a player and see if he will stick is low.  To have the team hang on to a player longer than they should in detriment to the big league club is a bigger cost.  

[Axman59]

On 5/18/2023 at 7:22 PM, SomewhereInTime said:

Nah the worst I've seen for the Brewers was definitely Enrique Cruz https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/c/cruzen01.shtml

Oh my. That is some horrid production. -34 OPS+ in 76 PA's.

I wasn't watching that season since I was out of state serving in the Marines. I certainly didn't miss much in those years (99-05).

[brewcrewdue80]

Pretty sure the Wang experiment was an effort to add some kind of pitching prospect the organization fully lacked. The 2014 team I remember for blown saves. Looked at BRef. Rodriquez blew 5 in 49 chances.  Meanwhile 5 other RPs blew 15games in 16 chances.  1 for 16!

 

[wiguy94]

4 hours ago, brewcrewdue80 said:

Pretty sure the Wang experiment was an effort to add some kind of pitching prospect the organization fully lacked. The 2014 team I remember for blown saves. Looked at BRef. Rodriquez blew 5 in 49 chances.  Meanwhile 5 other RPs blew 15games in 16 chances.  1 for 16!

 

I’m guessing that 1 in 16 chances isn’t correct. You don’t need to be pitching the 9th inning to get a BS. If the 7th inning pitched blows the 1-3 run lead then it’s considered a BS so I’m guessing most of those 15 are situations like that not blowing actual 9th inning save situations. 

[brewcrewdue80]

42 minutes ago, wiguy94 said:

I’m guessing that 1 in 16 chances isn’t correct. You don’t need to be pitching the 9th inning to get a BS. If the 7th inning pitched blows the 1-3 run lead then it’s considered a BS so I’m guessing most of those 15 are situations like that not blowing actual 9th inning save situations. 

I wondered that too but you're talking these guys would have pitched in far more save opportunities  than blowing 3 of 3 chances. 16 total chances aside from closing out the game for the likes of Broxton, Smith, Duke, Kintzler, and Jeffress? Yeah they probably blew save opportunities. Rodriquez averaged 1.8days between games pitched. He's not a robot and couldn't save all the games opportunities. 

[wiguy94]

1 hour ago, brewcrewdue80 said:

I wondered that too but you're talking these guys would have pitched in far more save opportunities  than blowing 3 of 3 chances. 16 total chances aside from closing out the game for the likes of Broxton, Smith, Duke, Kintzler, and Jeffress? Yeah they probably blew save opportunities. Rodriquez averaged 1.8days between games pitched. He's not a robot and couldn't save all the games opportunities. 

Last year DW and Hader combined for 44 saves and 4 blown saves. The rest of the pen combined for 8 saves and 25 blown saves. 
 

In 2021 Hader had 34 saves and 1 blown save. The rest of the pen had 10 saves and 26 blown saves. 
 

What you’re talking about happens basically every single season. 

[SomewhereInTime]

14 hours ago, brewcrewdue80 said:

I wondered that too but you're talking these guys would have pitched in far more save opportunities  than blowing 3 of 3 chances. 16 total chances aside from closing out the game for the likes of Broxton, Smith, Duke, Kintzler, and Jeffress? Yeah they probably blew save opportunities. Rodriquez averaged 1.8days between games pitched. He's not a robot and couldn't save all the games opportunities. 

No what you need to do is look at Holds and add those to Saves, then you look at the number of blown saves and you can determine what a guy's percentage was with a lead.