2024 Brewers Rotation

[Brewcrew82]

12 minutes ago, KeithStone53151 said:

What makes them middle of the pack? How would you compare them to the Cubs rotation? Here's one power ranking I found that has a top 10 along with 4 missed the cut...no Brewers to be found. There's a path to the Brewers being in the 12-15 range...if Ashby stays healthy and takes a step forward, if Hall's gains in the bullpen last year translate into the rotation, and if Miley continues to defy his age....and if they all stay healthy. That's a lot of things that need to break right for you to be right, with odds being way higher of them being a clear bottom 10 rotation.

https://www.cbssports.com/mlb/news/mlb-power-rankings-baseballs-top-10-rotations-entering-2024-season-with-braves-astros-phillies-at-the-top/

This is probably better to look at....

https://www.fangraphs.com/depthcharts.aspx?position=SP 

[MVP2110]

35 minutes ago, Brewcrew82 said:

This is probably better to look at....

https://www.fangraphs.com/depthcharts.aspx?position=SP 

Yea I think this list is a pretty fair ranking and expectation. 17th isn't great or awful. It's slightly below average with potential to move up or down

[KeithStone53151]

16 minutes ago, MVP2110 said:

Yea I think this list is a pretty fair ranking and expectation. 17th isn't great or awful. It's slightly below average with potential to move up or down

These rankings are worth little. The projections are so heavily slanted to push everyone towards the mean that they don't have much value. The Pirates are really going to have 10 SP with an ERA between 4.15 and 4.80? I'll take that bet. The CBS ones may be just as bad, and for all I know they have the Brewers 15th. Looking at the rotations in the 18-25 range on this fangraphs list, I don't see many that the Brewers aren't either worse than or comparable to. The path to being middle of the pack is pretty narrow, the path to being bottom 5 is significantly wider.

[Brewcrew82]

13 minutes ago, KeithStone53151 said:

These rankings are worth little. The projections are so heavily slanted to push everyone towards the mean that they don't have much value. The Pirates are really going to have 10 SP with an ERA between 4.15 and 4.80? I'll take that bet. The CBS ones may be just as bad, and for all I know they have the Brewers 15th. Looking at the rotations in the 18-25 range on this fangraphs list, I don't see many that the Brewers aren't either worse than or comparable to. The path to being middle of the pack is pretty narrow, the path to being bottom 5 is significantly wider.

They're at least based on objective evidence compared to that CBS writer's completely subjective list.

Projections like that aren't supposed to predict outliers, which is what you're talking about. 

[brewerfan82]

14 minutes ago, KeithStone53151 said:

The Pirates are really going to have 10 SP with an ERA between 4.15 and 4.80? I'll take that bet.

That's not how this works. It's more like the Pirates will have 10 pitchers that each have a 90% chance of having an ERA between 3.65 and 5.30 ERAs. I just made up the +-.5 range on them and the 90% number, each might be larger or smaller, but the point is the projections are not exact predictions, just midpoints where, with a large sample size, 50% of players should underperform the projections and 50% should overperform them.

[monty57]

With some young guys and some guys coming off injury, and most guys having innings limits, the Brewer rotation is hard to predict/project. A lot of my faith comes from the Brewer brass' recent history with pitchers.

I can understand why people (both fans of the team and outsiders) hate this rotation and think it'll cause the team to end up near the bottom of the standings.

I think there is talent there, and I think they're going to rely heavily on multi-inning relievers and a strong bullpen, so the eternal optimist in me thinks the rotation will be strong enough to keep us in contention for another division title.

[Underachiever]

16 hours ago, KeithStone53151 said:

These rankings are worth little. The projections are so heavily slanted to push everyone towards the mean that they don't have much value. The Pirates are really going to have 10 SP with an ERA between 4.15 and 4.80? I'll take that bet. The CBS ones may be just as bad, and for all I know they have the Brewers 15th. Looking at the rotations in the 18-25 range on this fangraphs list, I don't see many that the Brewers aren't either worse than or comparable to. The path to being middle of the pack is pretty narrow, the path to being bottom 5 is significantly wider.

I hear the sad trombone after pretty much every one of your posts.

[Team Canada]

3 minutes ago, Underachiever said:

I hear the sad trombone after pretty much every one of your posts.

This doesn't really advance the conversation. If someone chooses to consistently have a more pessimistic view of things, so be it. Debate it or ignore.

[Underachiever]

1 hour ago, Team Canada said:

This doesn't really advance the conversation. If someone chooses to consistently have a more pessimistic view of things, so be it. Debate it or ignore.

You're right. My apologies to Keith Stone and the board.

[TURBO]

1 hour ago, Team Canada said:

This doesn't really advance the conversation. If someone chooses to consistently have a more pessimistic view of things, so be it. Debate it or ignore.

This is great advice now, and throughout the season.  

[markedman5]

 

[KeithStone53151]

21 hours ago, Brewcrew82 said:

They're at least based on objective evidence compared to that CBS writer's completely subjective list.

Projections like that aren't supposed to predict outliers, which is what you're talking about. 

I'm not expecting them to predict the Cy Young with a 1.8 ERA, but what's the point if you're going to predict the majority of pitchers within 0.5 of MLB average? That's just not useful at all.

[KeithStone53151]

21 hours ago, brewerfan82 said:

That's not how this works. It's more like the Pirates will have 10 pitchers that each have a 90% chance of having an ERA between 3.65 and 5.30 ERAs. I just made up the +-.5 range on them and the 90% number, each might be larger or smaller, but the point is the projections are not exact predictions, just midpoints where, with a large sample size, 50% of players should underperform the projections and 50% should overperform them.

I understand you're point, I also understand that if projections are going to be ultra safe and trend so heavily towards average, they don't really tell us anything. Projections could be more interesting if I could drill down on each player and see X% of outcomes were better than 3.5 ERA, X% were worse than 5.5 ERA, etc. As they are, they suck and are worth nothing.

[KeithStone53151]

5 hours ago, Underachiever said:

I hear the sad trombone after pretty much every one of your posts.

I'll call it as I see it. I have a pretty good track record of optimism on this board. I have a lot of optimism about the 2025 rotation. I have probably higher than most optimism about the 2024 and beyond lineup and ability to score. The 2024 rotation is a problem in my view. A big problem, I'm quite upset it wasn't more adequately addressed because of how good I think the offense can be. I also had a big problem with the Burnes trade...not that we did it, but the return. To this point in spring training...it seems there's a better than I expected chance that the Brewers knew something we didn't know...especially regarding Hall(which gives the rotation some hope). Maybe I'm wrong about the rotation as well, I'm not a baseball expert...I'm a guy that puts a fair amount of time into baseball as a hobby and I have opinions. Some people want to put on their brewerfan shades and happily believe every move is magical and everything is going to go great. And honestly, that's fine. We can revisit this in June and y'all can come dunk on me if the Brewers are a top 10 rotation, and Jakob Junis is racking up QS left and right with his 63% slider usage. 

[sveumrules]

6 minutes ago, KeithStone53151 said:

As they are, they suck and are worth nothing.

You may believe projections suck, but they are certainly not worth nothing.

Teams literally pay money to third parties to provide them with external projections.

They hire numerous analysts to better calibrate their own internal projections.

Does this mean they are unassailable? Of course not. But even for all their shortcomings they have much smaller error bars and inherently less bias than any one human's opinion.

[KeithStone53151]

3 minutes ago, sveumrules said:

You may believe projections suck, but they are certainly not worth nothing.

Teams literally pay money to third parties to provide them with external projections.

They hire numerous analysts to better calibrate their own internal projections.

Does this mean they are unassailable? Of course not. But even for all their shortcomings they have much smaller error bars and inherently less bias than any one human's opinion.

I mean, these projections suck. Any projections that push everybody heavily to the mean...are worth nothing. Teams paying for these are getting a heck of a lot more information than just one number...

[homer]

3 minutes ago, KeithStone53151 said:

I mean, these projections suck. Any projections that push everybody heavily to the mean...are worth nothing. Teams paying for these are getting a heck of a lot more information than just one number...

I am not a math guy but I am guessing the published projections are the mean. The teams probably get variances with a likelihood for guys to hit X percentile. 

[Brewcrew82]

17 minutes ago, KeithStone53151 said:

I mean, these projections suck. Any projections that push everybody heavily to the mean...are worth nothing. Teams paying for these are getting a heck of a lot more information than just one number...

And your "eye test" is significantly more reliable?

[KeithStone53151]

5 hours ago, Brewcrew82 said:

And your "eye test" is significantly more reliable?

You're shifting the argument, classic tactic of yours. You do it literally every time you respond to me. Where in my post did I say "my opinion is better than fangraphs"? I said fangraphs projections suck, simple statement. If you want to counter my argument, fine...tell me why they are good...but don't try putting words in my mouth.

[Brewcrew82]

4 hours ago, KeithStone53151 said:

You're shifting the argument, classic tactic of yours. You do it literally every time you respond to me. Where in my post did I say "my opinion is better than fangraphs"? I said fangraphs projections suck, simple statement. If you want to counter my argument, fine...tell me why they are good...but don't try putting words in my mouth.

How am I putting words in your mouth? You're the one that initially said our rotation would be lucky to be better than bottom 10, and then when presented with the projections indicating a baseline expectation otherwise are like, "projections suck". Which is for all intents and purposes saying your opinion of our rotation is more reliable. 

No they're not perfect (this is statistically impossible btw), but they're by far the best of anything else that's out there. There's a reason why teams use them. Interestingly, what you want them to do, namely, account for random variance, would actually make them less accurate. I recommend these articles for a detailed explanation. 

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-imperfect-pursuit-of-a-perfect-baseball-forecast/

https://www.espn.com/fantasy/baseball/story/_/page/mlbdk2k15_projectionstalk/how-fantasy-baseball-projections-calculated-how-best-use-them

[CheeseheadInQC]

15 hours ago, KeithStone53151 said:

I mean, these projections suck. Any projections that push everybody heavily to the mean...are worth nothing. Teams paying for these are getting a heck of a lot more information than just one number...

I am guessing that the reason most regress toward the mean is because they found that produces the best results. These aren’t about producing a result that mirrors the eventual ERA distribution. They are about finding the most likely result for each individual player. If you wanted the projections to look like the eventual ERA leaderboard, it wouldn’t be hard. Create a curve based upon leaderboards from recent seasons, use the projections as a ranking and place the players along the curve in that order. The thing is, if that were more accurate on a player to player basis over a number of seasons, that is likely how it would be done. It is not.

You aren’t wrong, though, that the mean is far from the only relevant part of a projection system and that projecting reliever to starter is difficult on numbers alone.

[Ron Robinsons Beard]

10 hours ago, KeithStone53151 said:

You're shifting the argument, classic tactic of yours. You do it literally every time you respond to me. Where in my post did I say "my opinion is better than fangraphs"? I said fangraphs projections suck, simple statement. If you want to counter my argument, fine...tell me why they are good...but don't try putting words in my mouth.

OK ... you came on a site named "Brewerfanatic" and literally said the rotation was "awful". At the beginning of March. Then when posters tried to use projections to counter your argument, you poo-pooed them. Now you're surprised that there are posters pushing back harder? What were you hoping for? Everyone to just agree and say "Yep, this rotation is a dumpster fire! Fire Arnold!!!" 

I realize that it is kind of a cop out response, but there is just so many unknowns right now with the current makeup of the starting rotation that it is very difficult to pinpoint where they are going to land. But if I were a betting man, knowing how historically this team tends to turn pitchers into better versions of themselves more often than not, I would say that the floor is probably lower-middle half of the pack, while the ceiling is probably just outside Top 10 should the young arms develop like they are hoping.

[monty57]

17 hours ago, KeithStone53151 said:

I'm not expecting them to predict the Cy Young with a 1.8 ERA, but what's the point if you're going to predict the majority of pitchers within 0.5 of MLB average? That's just not useful at all.

Aren't the majority of pitchers average, and that's why it's average?

[KeithStone53151]

10 hours ago, Brewcrew82 said:

How am I putting words in your mouth? You're the one that initially said our rotation would be lucky to be better than bottom 10, and then when presented with the projections indicating a baseline expectation otherwise are like, "projections suck". Which is for all intents and purposes saying your opinion of our rotation is more reliable. 

No they're not perfect (this is statistically impossible btw), but they're by far the best of anything else that's out there. There's a reason why teams use them. Interestingly, what you want them to do, namely, account for random variance, would actually make them less accurate. I recommend these articles for a detailed explanation. 

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-imperfect-pursuit-of-a-perfect-baseball-forecast/

https://www.espn.com/fantasy/baseball/story/_/page/mlbdk2k15_projectionstalk/how-fantasy-baseball-projections-calculated-how-best-use-them

Or I'm saying, the projections suck(which is my opinion), and providing my own opinion on the rotation. I'm not stating facts, and you're the one bridging the gap between projections suck, and my opinion being better. And note that I only provided an opinion on a few pitchers for the Brewers. My comments regarding the Pirates were as simple as that, these projections suck. All 10 between 4.15 and 4.8, that's terrible, it's worth nothing. I can't tell you how I think they'll do, but there's just no way all 10 land within that ERA range.

And where did I say I want projections to account for random variance? There must be something in these projections that heavily skews everyone towards average, it's the only way to explain why they think such a high percentage of pitchers are going to be near mlb average. I get that they are probably more likely to have greater variances if they make less of an effort to skew toward average, but doing it this way is pointless as it doesn't tell you anything.

[KeithStone53151]

1 hour ago, Ron Robinsons Beard said:

OK ... you came on a site named "Brewerfanatic" and literally said the rotation was "awful". At the beginning of March. Then when posters tried to use projections to counter your argument, you poo-pooed them. Now you're surprised that there are posters pushing back harder? What were you hoping for? Everyone to just agree and say "Yep, this rotation is a dumpster fire! Fire Arnold!!!" 

I realize that it is kind of a cop out response, but there is just so many unknowns right now with the current makeup of the starting rotation that it is very difficult to pinpoint where they are going to land. But if I were a betting man, knowing how historically this team tends to turn pitchers into better versions of themselves more often than not, I would say that the floor is probably lower-middle half of the pack, while the ceiling is probably just outside Top 10 should the young arms develop like they are hoping.

So everyone that comes here needs to look at Matt Arnold like he hung the moon? Nobody can be critical of the macro decisions of the Brewers? You're going to give me this lecture while every in game thread is full of unbearable cry babies that need a new box of tissues every single Brewer game that isn't a 10-0 win?

Every poster more or less dismissed any arguments and simply cherry picked stats while ignoring all evidence that doesn't fit their narrative, or said "here look at fangraphs". I never said I didn't expect pushback. Everyone is welcome to think the Brewers rotation is going to be great, or mediocre, or whatever their opinion is. I expect arguments/discussion in good faith, and not for someone to try to twist my argument into something that it's not.