2024 Brewers Rotation

[Jopal78]

For what it’s worth, here’s Keith Law’s take on Robert Gasser, might be time to tap the brakes on his ‘24 potential in the rotation unless they let him learn at the MLB level.

 

Gasser had a rough start to 2023, his first full year in the Brewers’ organization after they acquired him in the Josh Hader trade, but he came on strong in the second half and looks once again like a solid fourth starter. He dominates lefties but continues to have a platoon split, with all 12 homers he allowed last year coming to right-handed batters. He has an average or even above-average changeup, but he doesn’t use it enough, preferring his cutter in those situations even though that pitch only seems to get chase swing rather than swings in the zone. His fastball has average velocity with good arm-side run and his sweeper actually sweeps, hard and down away from lefties, generating a lot of swings right over the top. He does have to change his pitching plan against righties to get to that starter ceiling.

[wallus]

One side is using a lot of stats and projections, the other side is mostly using "trust me bro". This is fascinating. 

[RobertCrawley]

41 minutes ago, wallus said:

One side is using a lot of stats and projections, the other side is mostly using "trust me bro". This is fascinating. 

Here's a stat:

Stats are not 100% predictive.

[TURBO]

5 minutes ago, RobertCrawley said:

Here's a stat:

Stats are not 100% predictive.

Especially "projections" that so many here view as gospel.

 

[wallus]

12 minutes ago, RobertCrawley said:

Here's a stat:

Stats are not 100% predictive.

Nope but kind of important when discussing baseball, no?

[TURBO]

Simple fact of the matter is this.

We could have a "decent" rotation, and I use that word as a positive, but it's going to take a lot of things to fall into place to hit decent.

We'll have to have a couple guys pitch better than they previously have in their careers.

We'll have to have some guys who always get hurt stay relatively healthy.

We'll probably need a couple guys to have career years.

We'll need some unproven guys to step up and meet the challenge at the MLB level.

We'll 1000% need Peralta to take the next step into ACE country!

I see so many things that can go wrong, so I just can't get warm and fuzzy feelings from our rotation as it sits.

We are not going to put a powerhouse offense on the field (praying we can be league average), so our pitching is going to have to step up if we have a shot at good things.  I'm not too concerned about the bullpen, but our starting rotation has more question marks and uncertainties than things to make me giddy with optimism.

That's where I stand, but can't wait for this season to start to see what happens!!

[wiguy94]

55 minutes ago, Jopal78 said:

For what it’s worth, here’s Keith Law’s take on Robert Gasser, might be time to tap the brakes on his ‘24 potential in the rotation unless they let him learn at the MLB level.

 

Gasser had a rough start to 2023, his first full year in the Brewers’ organization after they acquired him in the Josh Hader trade, but he came on strong in the second half and looks once again like a solid fourth starter. He dominates lefties but continues to have a platoon split, with all 12 homers he allowed last year coming to right-handed batters. He has an average or even above-average changeup, but he doesn’t use it enough, preferring his cutter in those situations even though that pitch only seems to get chase swing rather than swings in the zone. His fastball has average velocity with good arm-side run and his sweeper actually sweeps, hard and down away from lefties, generating a lot of swings right over the top. He does have to change his pitching plan against righties to get to that starter ceiling.

12 HR in 455 PA isn't bad. LHH had a .722 OPS again him (72 points below the league average OPS). He had a 26.6% K-rate and 8.1% BB-rate vs RHP. 

[sveumrules]

15 minutes ago, TURBO said:

Especially "projections" that so many here view as gospel.

Projections certainly aren't gospel, the average error bars around team win projections are normally something like plus or minus 8 wins per season, for individual players the average error bars are around 10 to 12 points of OPS+ or ERA+ in either direction.

Even with those error bars, they are exponentially better at projecting future outcomes than any single human brain can muster.

The Brewers have also beaten their projections more consistently than any other team over the last seven full seasons at a total of +58 wins, so it's safe to assume whatever internal projections they use are better than the publicly available ones.

[sveumrules]

19 minutes ago, TURBO said:

We could have a "decent" rotation, and I use that word as a positive, but it's going to take a lot of things to fall into place to hit decent.

The Brewers are already projected to have a decent rotation. If all the things you outlined fall into place they'll easily be a Top 10 rotation.

Last year the rotation itself wasn't any great shakes with their 11.2 FIP based WAR coming in at 13th. Once the defense entered the equation though (+68 DRS | 2nd), the rotation came out at 15.8 runs allowed based WAR, 4th. 

The Brewers top notch defense (+249 DRS | 3rd from 2017-23) and demonstrated ability to coax more out of pitchers than their name or past performance might imply (3.88 ERA vs 4.08 FIP from 2017-23) has been a huge part of their success over the last seven seasons.

[Fear The Chorizo]

Preseason projections for young players with talent but little or no mlb experience are about as predictive and accurate as hunches.

Time to actually play ball and find out.

[RobertCrawley]

44 minutes ago, wallus said:

Nope but kind of important when discussing baseball, no?

Yes, of course, but all things in perspective.

Go Brewers!

[Fear The Chorizo]

2 hours ago, Jopal78 said:

For what it’s worth, here’s Keith Law’s take on Robert Gasser, might be time to tap the brakes on his ‘24 potential in the rotation unless they let him learn at the MLB level.

 

Gasser had a rough start to 2023, his first full year in the Brewers’ organization after they acquired him in the Josh Hader trade, but he came on strong in the second half and looks once again like a solid fourth starter. He dominates lefties but continues to have a platoon split, with all 12 homers he allowed last year coming to right-handed batters. He has an average or even above-average changeup, but he doesn’t use it enough, preferring his cutter in those situations even though that pitch only seems to get chase swing rather than swings in the zone. His fastball has average velocity with good arm-side run and his sweeper actually sweeps, hard and down away from lefties, generating a lot of swings right over the top. He does have to change his pitching plan against righties to get to that starter ceiling.

What the hell does starter ceiling even mean?  Keith Law, for what it's worth, big ol' meh from my perspective.  This sounds like he plagiarized a scouting report on Gasser from 2022 post Hader trade and then acted like the back 2/3rds of Gasser's 2023 AAA season never happened.

As it stands, Gasser looks like he profiles as a mid rotation starter who is nails on lefties and has a good enough pitch mix to get through a lineup 3 times pretty consistently.  If he is healthy, when the Brewers are ready for him to join the 40 man. roster he'll be in the rotation, and if there wind up being innings limit concerns he'd slide very nicely into a piggy back/long relief role from the bullpen.

[KeithStone53151]

3 hours ago, wallus said:

One side is using a lot of stats and projections, the other side is mostly using "trust me bro". This is fascinating. 

One side is cherry picking stats that fit his narrative, one side is considering all the stats and a minimal amount of critical thinking...you should try it sometime

[KeithStone53151]

1 hour ago, sveumrules said:

The Brewers are already projected to have a decent rotation. If all the things you outlined fall into place they'll easily be a Top 10 rotation.

Last year the rotation itself wasn't any great shakes with their 11.2 FIP based WAR coming in at 13th. Once the defense entered the equation though (+68 DRS | 2nd), the rotation came out at 15.8 runs allowed based WAR, 4th. 

The Brewers top notch defense (+249 DRS | 3rd from 2017-23) and demonstrated ability to coax more out of pitchers than their name or past performance might imply (3.88 ERA vs 4.08 FIP from 2017-23) has been a huge part of their success over the last seven seasons.

Top 10?!? I'd take that bet in a heartbeat.

[KeithStone53151]

1 hour ago, Fear The Chorizo said:

Preseason projections for young players with talent but little or no mlb experience are about as predictive and accurate as hunches.

Time to actually play ball and find out.

In general I find fangraphs projections pointless. Honestly, scroll the pitching projections. Is 90% of MLB gonna have an ERA between 3.9 and 4.8? According to fangraphs...yup.

[KeithStone53151]

2 hours ago, TURBO said:

Simple fact of the matter is this.

We could have a "decent" rotation, and I use that word as a positive, but it's going to take a lot of things to fall into place to hit decent.

We'll have to have a couple guys pitch better than they previously have in their careers.

We'll have to have some guys who always get hurt stay relatively healthy.

We'll probably need a couple guys to have career years.

We'll need some unproven guys to step up and meet the challenge at the MLB level.

We'll 1000% need Peralta to take the next step into ACE country!

I see so many things that can go wrong, so I just can't get warm and fuzzy feelings from our rotation as it sits.

We are not going to put a powerhouse offense on the field (praying we can be league average), so our pitching is going to have to step up if we have a shot at good things.  I'm not too concerned about the bullpen, but our starting rotation has more question marks and uncertainties than things to make me giddy with optimism.

That's where I stand, but can't wait for this season to start to see what happens!!

I think our thoughts align on pitching, though i disagree on offense. I think there's some real promise on the offensive side. Turang, Mitchell, Frelick, Chourio, that SS we traded for...some of those guys take steps forward and we could put up big numbers on offense. All those guys have a track record in the minors indicative of future success. We certainly could struggle, but a lot more to be optimistic about on the offensive side in the near term.

[sveumrules]

2 minutes ago, KeithStone53151 said:

In general I find fangraphs projections pointless. Honestly, scroll the pitching projections. Is 90% of MLB gonna have an ERA between 3.9 and 4.8? According to fangraphs...yup.

There are 853 pitchers listed on the FanGraphs depth charts.

128 of them have a projection below a 3.90 ERA.

139 of them have a projection above a 4.80 ERA.

They are projecting 68.7% of pitchers between that range, well short of 90%.

So...nope.

[KeithStone53151]

2 minutes ago, sveumrules said:

There are 853 pitchers listed on the FanGraphs depth charts.

128 of them have a projection below a 3.90 ERA.

139 of them have a projection above a 4.80 ERA.

They are projecting 68.7% of pitchers between that range, well short of 90%.

So...nope.

Ok so almost 70%. In 2023, there were 177 SP with over 50 IP. 64 ended under 3.9 ERA, 61 ended over 4.8 ERA. Only 30% of pitchers ended up in that bucket. Fangraphs projections end up throwing way more guys in that middle range than truly belong there. That's how guys like Junis project for a 4.34 ERA

[sveumrules]

2 minutes ago, KeithStone53151 said:

That's how guys like Junis project for a 4.34 ERA

Over the last two seasons since changing his repertoire Junis has a 4.18 ERA and 3.69 FIP covering 198 IP.

Considering FIP is a better predictor of future ERA than actual ERA is they are projecting Junis for a healthy bit of regression already.

[KeithStone53151]

2 minutes ago, sveumrules said:

Over the last two seasons since changing his repertoire Junis has a 4.18 ERA and 3.69 FIP covering 198 IP.

Considering FIP is a better predictor of future ERA than actual ERA is they are projecting Junis for a healthy bit of regression already.

You think he's going to be effective in the starting rotation throwing 63% sliders? You think he's going to hold up doing that? Is there an example at the MLB level of anyone having success throwing sliders at such a high frequency as a starting pitcher? Over the last 2 years he's had most of his success in relief, I think he can be good in relief assuming his arm holds up...I have no confidence he can take his relief repertoire and pitch 5-6 good innings.

[wallus]

21 minutes ago, sveumrules said:

There are 853 pitchers listed on the FanGraphs depth charts.

128 of them have a projection below a 3.90 ERA.

139 of them have a projection above a 4.80 ERA.

They are projecting 68.7% of pitchers between that range, well short of 90%.

So...nope.

You should try a minimal amount of critical thinking!

[Brewcrew82]

5 minutes ago, KeithStone53151 said:

You think he's going to be effective in the starting rotation throwing 63% sliders? You think he's going to hold up doing that? Is there an example at the MLB level of anyone having success throwing sliders at such a high frequency as a starting pitcher? Over the last 2 years he's had most of his success in relief, I think he can be good in relief assuming his arm holds up...I have no confidence he can take his relief repertoire and pitch 5-6 good innings.

I honestly don’t think the Brewers are going to be relying on him to pitch5/6 good innings per start. 

It’s going to be more of a bulk relief type role where you don’t let him go through the order a 3rd time imo.

Again, we should adjust our expectations for our starters this year. It’s going to look more like 18-19 and less like 2021-2023. 

[KeithStone53151]

2 minutes ago, wallus said:

You should try a minimal amount of critical thinking!

Keep being a clown bro. He copy pasted a stat, I was clearly throwing a ballpark number out there of 90%. I more or less proved my general premise was correct by showing that reality is only 30ish% of SP last year ended in the 3.9-4.8 range while fangraphs projects around 70% in that range. Again, try a little critical thinking instead of throwing out one liners from the sidelines.

[wallus]

3 minutes ago, KeithStone53151 said:

Keep being a clown bro. He copy pasted a stat, I was clearly throwing a ballpark number out there of 90%. I more or less proved my general premise was correct by showing that reality is only 30ish% of SP last year ended in the 3.9-4.8 range while fangraphs projects around 70% in that range. Again, try a little critical thinking instead of throwing out one liners from the sidelines.

68.7% and 90% are not even in the same ballpark. The guy that should be wearing the red nose in this is you "bro"

[KeithStone53151]

2 minutes ago, wallus said:

68.7% and 90% are not even in the same ballpark. The guy that should be wearing the red nose in this is you "bro"

My ballpark estimate of 90% is effectively the same as 68.7% when you're comparing to the 30% reality. Either way, far less SP fall between 3.9 and 4.8 than fangraphs projects...my general premise was correct. You're frankly too stupid to argue with that you can't grasp that and are stuck on "bro, 68.7 and 90 aren't even close to the same".