2024 Brewers Rotation

[KeithStone53151]

1 hour ago, monty57 said:

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

I pointed out in an earlier comment, fangraphs projection around 70% of pitchers to be between 3.9 and 4.8 ERA. Reality in 2023 was around 30% of pitchers fell within that range. Their projection systems heavily over-project to the mean, and because of it I don't feel like they have much value. A human(not me, an actual expert) analyzing an individual pitcher is going to have a much better idea of how they'll do than fangraphs applying a formula to previous years data.

[Ron Robinsons Beard]

11 minutes ago, KeithStone53151 said:

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.

That is a very fair and logically thought-out response. Thank you. And I agree that the in-game threads are basically unbearable ;)

I understand the frustration. It appears to be logically counterproductive for the team to trade Burnes, knowing that Woodruff is also going to be on the shelf all season, without making any significant dependable additions to rotation ... while making offensive upgrades like Hoskins and potentially Sanchez. I mean, where were signings like that when the rotation was the best in team history for several years? That part is pretty frustrating. 

I dunno ... maybe it's the eternal optimist in me, but I guess I'm banking on the idea that the team has more faith in its rotation options than a lot of us do right now. Because the alternative is likely a 70-win team, and I don't want to think that into existence, at least not on March 6.

[KeithStone53151]

2 minutes ago, Ron Robinsons Beard said:

I understand the frustration. It appears to be logically counterproductive for the team to trade Burnes, knowing that Woodruff is also going to be on the shelf all season, without making any significant dependable additions to rotation ... while making offensive upgrades like Hoskins and potentially Sanchez. I mean, where were signings like that when the rotation was the best in team history for several years? That part is pretty frustrating. 

I dunno ... maybe it's the eternal optimist in me, but I guess I'm banking on the idea that the team has more faith in its rotation options than a lot of us do right now. Because the alternative is likely a 70-win team, and I don't want to think that into existence, at least not on March 6.

I've also said, there's a wider path to being mediocre/good with Hall looking promising early and Ashby appearing healthy. It's still a narrow path, a lot needs to go right...it's also possible the Brewers view Rodriguez/Miz/Gasser as more ready than most of us realize, which has the potential to truly change the game for the rotation. My initial comments a few weeks ago were looking at being forced to put 2 of Ashby/Hall/Junis/Ross into the rotation with Hall being previously a bullpen arm and Ashby's health completely unknown. The first 2 have so much more rotation upside than the latter 2 and it seems Ashby and Hall are first up.

[monty57]

32 minutes ago, KeithStone53151 said:

I pointed out in an earlier comment, fangraphs projection around 70% of pitchers to be between 3.9 and 4.8 ERA. Reality in 2023 was around 30% of pitchers fell within that range. Their projection systems heavily over-project to the mean, and because of it I don't feel like they have much value. A human(not me, an actual expert) analyzing an individual pitcher is going to have a much better idea of how they'll do than fangraphs applying a formula to previous years data.

This goes back to the "Stats vs Scouts" debates from a couple decades ago. Every team has come to grips with the fact that they need both.

Of course a human, whether a scout or a "stat nerd" can go into further depth on each individual case. Having a statistical framework like Steamer helps that human immensely in this. There aren't enough scouts around to do the scouting necessary on every individual who picks up a baseball. However, they can look at data compiled by an outside source and select which individuals they choose to scout. 

MLB teams are going to go into a lot further depth than I'd ever care to go. I know you don't like Junis' slider-heavy repertoire, but that's undoubtedly something the Brewers looked at and liked. I don't know their reasoning, but I'm sure they did their homework before signing him. Same with their choice to include Hall in the Burnes trade. This is something that some posters immediately hated, because of the limited information they had on him, but that hatred seems to be waning as they see him in action.

So yes, teams will do a lot more than look at Fangraphs. For someone like me, it's nice to have some data to go to rather than just saying "this guy sucks" with nothing to base it on other than maybe having seen him pitch once. For teams, there needs to be a database to determine how to allocate their limited resources. Maybe they spend some time looking at Fangraphs, or maybe they have another data source, but it's important information, even if it's not the complete report they'll eventually use in making their personnel moves. 

BTW, anyone can look at Fangraphs or other sites for more detailed information if they want to "dig deeper" on their own. I believe the projections take this information into account, but as others have said, they're regressing a lot of players at once, so some individual screening could be more informative. It doesn't mean the projections suck, just that they could be subject to further screening for anyone who would like to put in the time. 

[BrewerFan]

5 hours ago, monty57 said:

MLB teams are going to go into a lot further depth than I'd ever care to go. I know you don't like Junis' slider-heavy repertoire, but that's undoubtedly something the Brewers looked at and liked. I don't know their reasoning, but I'm sure they did their homework before signing him. Same with their choice to include Hall in the Burnes trade. This is something that some posters immediately hated, because of the limited information they had on him, but that hatred seems to be waning as they see him in action.

Isn't this pretty much every sport? The team has a mountain of information, the average fan, even the really hardcore fan who follows these prospects, they've got a fraction of that information...

I certainly had opinions on who I wanted to see or what I wanted the Brewers to do, same goes with the Packers, Bucks, etc...but ultimately, your confidence in the players should be informed more by the confidence in the team.

They seem to do more with less and see the upside in guys. Joe Ross is one guy I could see now that he's healthy being a really nice starter. Not expecting 200 innings, but 120? 

[StearnsFTW]

Brewers mentioned as a dark horse for Snell/Montgomery in MLBTR's podcast.

I don't really think it's anything other than a hunch, but I found it mildly interesting nonetheless. 

[DR28]

25 minutes ago, StearnsFTW said:

Brewers mentioned as a dark horse for Snell/Montgomery in MLBTR's podcast.

I don't really think it's anything other than a hunch, but I found it mildly interesting nonetheless. 

Well damn..... Peralta, Monty top of rotation would be something!

[brewerfan82]

That would be amazing if we landed one of those two. Snell has a higher upside, but Monty's shown the ability to go deeper into games more consistently:

2021-23 Stats as a SP with IP/GS:

Spoiler

 

Offsetting the loss of Burnes with either one of those guys to head the rotation with Freddy would make this a very interesting team to watch this year.

[CheezWizHed]

39 minutes ago, brewerfan82 said:

That would be amazing if we landed one of those two. Snell has a higher upside, but Monty's shown the ability to go deeper into games more consistently:

2021-23 Stats as a SP with IP/GS:

  Reveal hidden contents

 

Offsetting the loss of Burnes with either one of those guys to head the rotation with Freddy would make this a very interesting team to watch this year.

Considering Woody missed most of last year and we had to deal with a lot of instability at the tail end of the rotation, adding one of these guys would pretty much put our rotation back on par with last year. 

And our offense should be much improved from last year... that would make it interesting.  No clear better team in the central this year.

[brewmann04]

I would be ecstatic adding either or either of the other two would really make this rotation much more formidable 

[CheezWizHed]

On 3/6/2024 at 9:27 AM, KeithStone53151 said:

I pointed out in an earlier comment, fangraphs projection around 70% of pitchers to be between 3.9 and 4.8 ERA. Reality in 2023 was around 30% of pitchers fell within that range. Their projection systems heavily over-project to the mean, and because of it I don't feel like they have much value. A human(not me, an actual expert) analyzing an individual pitcher is going to have a much better idea of how they'll do than fangraphs applying a formula to previous years data.

Out of curiosity, I ran my own numbers on this.  First problem I found was how to pick your starting pitchers...  There are hosts of pitchers used for a start or two.  So I selected this criteria:

• Only pitchers with > 80 IP
  • Avoiding people that started once or twice.  Needed a decent sample size.
• Only pitchers with >5 starts
  • There are some pitchers here that are still have more games as RP than SP, but I picked this to at least give a decent sample of starts in their numbers.

NOTE: this was my own criteria. I did not look at Fangraphs (or even your post) while doing it.  I just grabbed the raw 2023 data and filtered to try to get a decent sample without the noise of random starters.  ( i.e. small samples suck). 

Of that sample size: 

• Average ERA: 4.35
• Standard deviation: 1.01
• Ave ERA +/- one standard dev gives you 70% of the starting pitchers between 3.34 and 5.35 ERA. 
  • Before anyone complains about my 70% number not being 68% for a normalized distribution... this was the calculated number as the distribution is not a normal gaussian distribution.  Close, but not quite.
• ERA between 3.85 and 4.85 was 40% of the pitchers

In graph form it looks like this:

• NOTE: The bar above "2.5" is the number of pitchers that had an ERA between 2.0 and 2.5.  3.0 is between 2.5 and 3.0, etc...
• NOTE2: Total population of pitchers ended up being 159 which is 5.3 SPs per team.. 

EDITED - I used the wrong range for the percentage of players between 3.85 and 4.85 when looking at my spreadsheet. Had two numbers and transposed them.  Post is corrected now. 

[StearnsFTW]

1 hour ago, DR28 said:

Well damn..... Peralta, Monty top of rotation would be something!

I brought up how I thought Montgomery was feasible right after the Burnes trade.

 

They'd have to trade Adames but I want them to do that anyway. 

 

Not likely, but fun to dream about.  

[RedStickBrew]

12 minutes ago, CheezWizHed said:

Out of curiosity, I ran my own numbers on this.  First problem I found was how to pick your starting pitchers...  There are hosts of pitchers used for a start or two.  So I selected this criteria:

• Only pitchers with > 80 IP
  • Avoiding people that started once or twice.  Needed a decent sample size.
• Only pitchers with >5 starts
  • There are some pitchers here that are still have more games as RP than SP, but I picked this to at least give a decent sample of starts in their numbers.

NOTE: this was my own criteria. I did not look at Fangraphs (or even your post) while doing it.  I just grabbed the raw 2023 data and filtered to try to get a decent sample without the noise of random starters.  ( i.e. small samples suck). 

Of that sample size: 

• Average ERA: 4.35
• Standard deviation: 1.01
• Ave ERA +/- one standard dev gives you 70% of the starting pitchers between 3.85 and 4.85 ERA. I was startled at how similar this was to the Fangraphs numbers you quoted.
  • Before anyone complains about my 70% number not being 68% for a normalized distribution... this was the calculated number as the distribution is not a normal gaussian distribution.  Close, but not quite.

In graph form it looks like this:

• NOTE: The bar above "2.5" is the number of pitchers that had an ERA between 2.0 and 2.5.  3.0 is between 2.5 and 3.0, etc...
• NOTE2: Total population of pitchers ended up being 159 which is 5.3 SPs per team.. 

So the key seems to be in whom you use to populate the input data.  Looks like Fangraphs and I (independently) used similar assumptions.  But at least with my explanation it might make Fangraphs output clearer. 

Love the mathing… and providing some possible clarity on the subject. Great work!

[brewerfan82]

35 minutes ago, CheezWizHed said:

Considering Woody missed most of last year and we had to deal with a lot of instability at the tail end of the rotation, adding one of these guys would pretty much put our rotation back on par with last year. 

And our offense should be much improved from last year... that would make it interesting.  No clear better team in the central this year.

Yep. Considering we're only one of those two guys away from pretty decidedly improving the team from last year, while also adding some nice long term additions, it's hard not to like how the offseason has gone.

Going off who ended up playing at each spot the most last year:

C - Contreras/Caratini -> Contreras/Sanchez
1B - Tellez/Santana -> Hoskins/Bauers/Black
2B - Turang/Miller -> Turang/Ortiz
SS - Adames -> Adames
3B - Anderson/Monasterio -> Ortiz/Monasterio/Frelick
LF - Yelich -> Yelich
CF - Wiemer -> Chourio/Mitchell/Wiemer
RF - Taylor/Canha -> Frelick
DH - Winker/Voit -> Sanchez/Yelich

SP - Burnes -> Snell/Montgomery
SP - Peralta -> Peralta
SP - Miley -> Miley
SP - Rea -> Rea
SP - Houser -> Hall
SP - Teheran -> Ashby/Junis/Ross/Gasser

Obviously this rotation feels a lot different without a Snell/Montgomery addition. But I think there's still enough young talent in that rotation that someone could breakout and make the staff still pretty competitive regardless.

[tmwiese55]

Seems if both are down to having to take Hoskins/Bellinger style deals we should be in the conversation, these are the spots we should be open to spending and taking some risks (since its way less than massive 6-8 year deals) like the Moose/Grandall year.

I'm not one with all this data like many here have but just off top of my head isn't Snell a bit of fly ball pitcher so our stadium isn't ideal for him (assuming he wants to have a 1 year show it season).  I don't really recall Montgomery's profile and am not too confident in my Snell memory, but if anyone had that data/info I'd be interested to know.  If not, no worries as both seem like long shots. 

IDK, if I'm Snell (or I guess both) I'd be all about San Fran. Big pitcher park, team that's been trying to spend money, has to be something that can be worked out.

[wiguy94]

20 minutes ago, StearnsFTW said:

I brought up how I thought Montgomery was feasible right after the Burnes trade.

 

They'd have to trade Adames but I want them to do that anyway. 

 

Not likely, but fun to dream about.  

I don't think they would have to trade Adames. They could sign Montgomery to a pillow deal and still be under the 2022 opening day 26 man payroll.

[monty57]

2 hours ago, DR28 said:

Well damn..... Peralta, Monty top of rotation would be something!

My stuff is pretty hittable, but if they want to pay me I'll give it a go :-)

Kidding aside, Attanasio has shown the willingness to work with Boras a number of times in the past. I know that Boras is looked at as the devil by many fans, but he's going to try to get the best deal for his clients. He knows that the Brewers aren't one of the big money teams, but that they will work with him in good faith to get a deal done.

It seems crazy, but we're already a ways into spring training, and the pitchers know they need to get signed soon. These are the type of players that Attanasio would go over budget for, so let's get it done.

[Vgmastr]

Attanasio has done this before.  Remember Kyle Loshe was a FA hold out and signed with the Brewers out of nowhere a week before Opening Day for about half of what Loshe was originally asking for.

[Brewcrew82]

I personally am not (and I suspect MA and the brass aren't either) comfortable with any sort of major long term commitment to Snell and/or Montgomery. Such as what happened with Lohse and Garza and partly contributed to our 2015 rebuild. 

However, if there's a shorter term/pillow deal with a large AAV to be had, you absolutely go for it no questions asked. 

[wiguy94]

1 minute ago, Brewcrew82 said:

I personally am not (and I suspect MA and the brass aren't either) comfortable with any sort of major long term commitment to Snell and/or Montgomery. Such as what happened with Lohse and Garza and partly contributed to our 2015 rebuild. 

However, if there's a shorter term/pillow deal with a large AAV to be had, you absolutely go for it no questions asked. 

Montgomery especially because if he opts out early you can put a QO on him and get a comp pick.

[TURBO]

28 minutes ago, Vgmastr said:

Attanasio has done this before.  Remember Kyle Loshe was a FA hold out and signed with the Brewers out of nowhere a week before Opening Day for about half of what Loshe was originally asking for.

Thanks for the reminder.  :(

[OldHeidelberg]

5 minutes ago, TURBO said:

Thanks for the reminder.  :(

Lohse was very solid for 2 years before falling off a cliff the last year of his deal. The Garza/Suppan contracts were much worse.

[TURBO]

Trevor Bauer is expected to pitch for a Japanese travel team against Dodgers’ minor-leaguers on Saturday.

 

The 33-year-old is hoping to get noticed by professional scouts and this is one way of doing it. The team he’s playing for is called Asian Breeze, a traveling club from Japan that plays scrimmages against squads of minor-leaguers from MLB clubs. Ironically, he will be going up players within the Dodgers organization. Los Angeles has distanced itself from Bauer since he was released in January of 2023 after serving the longest suspension (194 games) in the history of MLB and MLBPA’s joint domestic violence, sexual assault and child abuse policy. This will be closest Bauer has come to a MLB-affiliated competition since his suspension.

 

Source: Bill Shaikin

[Thurston Fluff]

On 3/6/2024 at 4:12 PM, BrewerFan said:

Isn't this pretty much every sport? The team has a mountain of information, the average fan, even the really hardcore fan who follows these prospects, they've got a fraction of that information...

I certainly had opinions on who I wanted to see or what I wanted the Brewers to do, same goes with the Packers, Bucks, etc...but ultimately, your confidence in the players should be informed more by the confidence in the team.

They seem to do more with less and see the upside in guys. Joe Ross is one guy I could see now that he's healthy being a really nice starter. Not expecting 200 innings, but 120? 

That's why I try to figure out the reasoning behind a move instead of trying to grade it. Not to go too far off but it seems like most people view trades as a grade instead of trying to figure out the logic behind the trade. That approach doesn't get you anywhere. If you look at it from a "why did they make the move they did," it can help you understand the team's overall philosophy.

[BrewerFan]

3 hours ago, CheezWizHed said:

Considering Woody missed most of last year and we had to deal with a lot of instability at the tail end of the rotation, adding one of these guys would pretty much put our rotation back on par with last year. 

And our offense should be much improved from last year... that would make it interesting.  No clear better team in the central this year.

You're also getting Ashby back, you have what appears to be a better, deeper pen with MeGill and Uribe appearing to have figured it out and more depth.

One pitcher who is a good bet to give you 180+ innings at a sub 4 ERA would, IMO, make this team much better on paper than last year. 

Of course, those pitchers are expensive for a reason...but it'd be fun. I also don't think I can stomach watching the Cubs beat us in the near future.

I want the Counsell move to have the opposite impact desired. Watch the Cubs win 70 games and the Brewers improve the year after he leaves. Prove that he doesn't actually make a big impact(though...I think he does).