Padres at Brewers; Friday, June 6 @ 7:10 p.m.: Chad Patrick (2.97 ERA, 3.29 FIP) vs. Randy Vásquez (3.99 ERA, 5.34 FIP)

[liveforoctober]

I realize this can be taken a few different ways but according to Fangraphs WAR numbers... Isaac Collins has been our 6th most valuable position player this season and he isn't terribly far behind the next few guys ahead of him ... in about half the at bats.

[liveforoctober]

5 hours ago, wiguy94 said:

I'm surprised how many Brewers fans I've seen shocked at how good Ashby looked today. He didn't look this good in his first two outings but this is pretty much exactly what he looked like the last 5 weeks of the season last year when he was one of the best relievers in MLB.

These were his numbers post being called up in late August:

19.2 IP, 1.37 ERA, 0.78 FIP, 1.70 xFIP, 37% K-rate, 4% BB-rate, 51% GB-rate

There is looking good and then there is making the other team look like goofballs. He struck out the side last night with 13 pitches, The Padres only fouled off two of them in that sequence. He hasn't done that before.

Yesterday he looked like Billy Wagner.

[Brian]

9 hours ago, Bulldogboy said:

I think it's because Murphy has buried Ashby. It was kinda like why was Alexander left to lose a game when this guy is out in the pen.

Aaron Ashby is an awesome pitcher and Murphy is not trying to bury him at all.  Ashby's issues have always been all  -  arm/shoulder/forearm/oblique injuries which have totaled over 300 days on the (IL) from my math as a Brewer.  Also, days spent on the (IL) during the offseason are not even counted or associated with the IL stints during the regular season. 

Murphy is not trying to bury Ashby, he is trying to keep him off the IL again.  In fact Murphy even said about Tobias Meyers, "These kids are not machines where you can buy spare parts and never have them miss a start." 

[HarryDoyle]

Didn't Chourio lead off a game this year with a first pitch home run?

[Bulldogboy]

8 hours ago, nate82 said:

I see nowhere where anyone said he is Stan Musial.  May want to step away from the bong or the alcohol because you are hallucinating.  Chourio was actually selective in the game today.  Again look at the screenshots provided.  I have already talked about his season so far and that he hasn't been as selective with his O-Swing%.  He isn't all that far off from last year with his O-Swing%.  He also won't walk all that much check his MiLB numbers for proof on this.  This is just not his game and expecting him to walk more than he did in the minors is rather foolish to expect out of Chourio.  

A new brand of analytical data. Hack at everything regardless of the result. Brilliant. You should quit your day job and open up a hitting school. 😆 

[Playing Catch]

These days, with all of the spin (including on 4-seamers), there's no such thing as a ball right down the middle.

In the original Chourio example, He took a cutter that ended up in the middle of the zone, and he put a good swing on a sinker that started in the middle of the zone.

[Brian]

9 hours ago, brewmann04 said:

7time shutout already  this team needs to find a bat 

Brewers are tied with Baltimore in the 21-22 spot for team BA out of 30 teams. So not playoff caliber right now. A .237 team BA. 

[nate82]

31 minutes ago, Bulldogboy said:

A new brand of analytical data. Hack at everything regardless of the result. Brilliant. You should quit your day job and open up a hitting school. 😆 

It isn't really a new analytical data.  Swinging 3-0 is not something new and players have been doing a lot in nearly every era of baseball.  It is just now we can quantify that it is actually rather beneficial to swing at those pitches when they are presented by the pitcher.  The idea is not to just hack at pitches it is to swing at pitches that can provide a positive outcome which for some is like this foreign or taboo idea because you don't swing on a 3-0 count because?

You haven't even provided anything to go against the claim that swinging at a pitch going right down the middle of the plate is a bad idea regardless of the count.  Some of the greatest hitters of all time just maximized their opportunities when they did decide to swing.  If you are getting a pitch going down the middle of the plate and you are not swinging at it you are not maximizing your opportunities.  You are actually in fact decreasing your opportunities.  Players who are hitting in the low .250's should be trying to maximize their ability and that is not going to happen when you are watching a pitch split the middle of the plate.  The idea here is to maximize those opportunities and to have the player swing at pitches where it maximizes their opportunity to be successful.  You can't be looking at a count and go oh it is 3-0 don't swing because why exactly?  These players don't have the skill of a Tony Gwynn, Paul Molitor, Robyn Yount, Ted Williams or name a good hitter here.  They just don't have the skill to be those players so they should be swinging at pitches which puts them at an advantage.  Pitches that are over the heart of the plate are the pitches they should be swinging at.  

Players who have swung at pitches in the heart of the zone on a 3-0 pitch are hitting .491/.464/1.226 this season.  Why do you believe looking at that pitch is a positive?  Please provide some evidence or logic behind watching that pitch go down the heart of the plate on a 3-0 count.  These are normally rare misses by a pitcher and you should be attacking these pitches not watching.  What is the actual logic or reasoning to watch a pitch go down the heart of the plate?  

I doubt you will ever answer these questions as your responses have been more condescending or just one word responses.  Which tells me you are just stuck in your ways of old school baseball you don't do these things you would probably make a great Cardinals fan.  

[wiguy94]

8 hours ago, liveforoctober said:

I realize this can be taken a few different ways but according to Fangraphs WAR numbers... Isaac Collins has been our 6th most valuable position player this season and he isn't terribly far behind the next few guys ahead of him ... in about half the at bats.

It's because he's been elite defensively and has been a roughly league average hitter. He's basically been as valuable as Blake Perkins just in LF with the dropoff in defensive position being countered by being a slightly better hitter.

[Frisbee Slider]

4 hours ago, Brian said:

Brewers are tied with Baltimore in the 21-22 spot for team BA out of 30 teams. So not playoff caliber right now. A .237 team BA. 

# 16 for OBP. Only a few percentage points away from playoff caliber, so to speak.

Do we care how the Brewers get on base? 🙂

[Jim French Stepstool]

4 hours ago, Playing Catch said:

These days, with all of the spin (including on 4-seamers), there's no such thing as a ball right down the middle.

In the original Chourio example, He took a cutter that ended up in the middle of the zone, and he put a good swing on a sinker that started in the middle of the zone.

This sort of indirectly relates to another factor in this...........anticipating/guessing. If a hitter is guessing breaking ball & gets a FB, it isn't a good bet he'll do much with it even if it's down the middle, hence the take. Same thing in reverse, to a little lesser extent. Those are many of the pitches 'right down the middle' that get watched.

@nate82 mentioned Chourios' lack of walks going back to his time in the minors, when he was a teenager. He's right about that, and it's largely an end product of chasing. If it doesn't improve over time he won't reach whatever his full potential is. Fortunately there have been positive, although sporadic, signs of improvement.