Richard Justice: "Some of their young players haven't played well down the stretch"

[JoeHova]

Richard Justice on why the Brewers lost the NL Central: "Some of their young players haven't played well down the stretch"

 

Justice is a well-known baseball columnist for the Houston Chronicle and PTI refers to him as their "baseball expert". When he said that on PTI on Friday, I was totally taken aback. That had not been my observation at all, so I decided to look at the numbers.

 

Here are the numbers for September (before games of 9/28 (when Justice made his comment)) :

 

Fielder: .349 BA .472 OBP .767 SLG%

Villanueva: 30 IP 2.10 ERA

Gallardo: 33 IP 1.36 ERA

Braun: .312 BA .354 OBP .667 SLG%

Weeks: .247 BA .420 OBP .588 SLG% 9 SB 0 CS

Hart: .304 BA .354 OBP .554 SLG%

Hardy: .281 BA .304 OBP .438 SLG%

 

That is all 7 Brewers who are age 25 or under who have played any kind of role down the stretch. 6 of them performed like all-stars and the other did ok for a shortstop. If anything cost the Brewers the division, it certainly wasn't the play of their young players down the stretch. They performed unbelievably. It distresses me that so much of what "experts" say is wrong. The real shame is that if people say something enough, it becomes the accepted wisdom. I hope no one gets fooled by that. The Brewers youngsters played admirably and don't deserve any sort of blame.

 

 

(edit: sorry, bf.net doesn't work well with Safari for me. I fixed the paragraphs in Firefox)

[Ennder]

Yep I had the same thought when Bill and Brian were saying we struggled because it was a young team. We struggled because the vets failed not because of the young guys.

[AdvantageSchneider]

It's easy to spout cliches, rather than do actual research.

 

Next year when we win the cliche will be that the youngsters learned from their experience this year. Whether that's true or not is debateble, but it will be said regardless.

[biedergb]

Yes the team failed down the stretch due to the following disappearing acts---

 

Geoff Jenkins - did anyone tell him it's September? (Oh that's another thread)

Bill Hall - 24 K in 54 september at bats, not good

Derrick Turnbow - 11 BB to 6 K in 8 2/3 IP, not what you want from your 8th inning guy

 

Not to mention the following vets who were MIA for most of the 2nd half - Chris Capuano, Matt Wise.

 

Can't blame the young guys.

[Fatter than Joey]

We struggled because the vets failed not because of the young guys.

 

Our vets suck. I'd kill for one guy like Derrek Lee or Am-Ram.

[MoneyballMan]

I agree with everything being said in this post. Jenkins was a huge disappointment in September, which went against his historical uprisings in the second half. And until a slight resurgence, Hall was a different player offensively this year.

 

And remember when the bullpen was "automatic" with Wise/Shouse in the 7th, Turnbow in the 8th and Cordero in the 9th? If Wise and Turnbow had not imploded, we wouldn't even know the names of Mitch Stetter, Chris Spurling, etc - let alone having them pitch in crucial situations down the stretch! In April, our bullpen was an absolute strength and significantly shortened games. By September, I couldn't even stand to watch the game after the 6th inning.

 

But for the young studs, what else could Braun, Fielder, Hardy, Hart, Yo and Villy have done? Maybe we should ask Mr. Justice what "playing well" by those guys mean to him. I guess an MVP and ROY among them isn't good enough. (Although I'm starting to wonder if Holliday (MVP) and TT (ROY) may steal these from Prince and Braun.)

[bigbrewkahuna]

Nix is 0-9 this year.Maybe that's how Richard Justice formed his expert opinion that the youngsters haven't played well lately.

[bklynbrewcrew]

These national media guys dont do any research before they speak. They see that the Brewers faded down the stretch and realize that the core of the team is young and just assume thats why we fell apart. Richard Justice is clearly another moron.

[dvoiss]

Actually the Brewers didn't fail in September. Where they failed was the 20-34 record they had in July and August. They are 14=11 in September. If they play .500 ball in July and August They would have 88 wins now and they win this thing in a walk.

[Patrick425]

It's funny, I heard this guy on Baseball this AM on XM yesterday morning. I had never heard him before and thought he sounded intelligent and had a lot of insightful comments about what goes on inside major league club houses. However, it's obvious that this comment does not make a whole lot of sense.

[tomwopat]

This seemed to be the take-home message of Yost's interview before yesterday's game... although it seems to be par for the course that struggles will be blamed upon the "kids", where the victories will result in praised heaped on the "veteran leadership".

 

Makes me long for the days when interviews weren't ridden with weasel words and cliches, but I guess it's a different time.

[TheEndless7]

Braun: .312 BA .354 OBP .667 SLG%

 

Weak. Braun shoulda hit .340

[splitterpfj]

The Brewers could have been, and should have been the Diamondbacks....the difference is the vets. Look at what the DBacks got out of Byrnes, Webb and Davis this year, vs what the Brewers got out of Hall, Capuano and Sheets. I think everyone thought Bush would be better than he was this year, and Turnbow and Wise completely disappeared.

 

The young players here were outstanding, Fielder and Braun were off the charts, Hardy was excellent, as was Hart. Gallardo and Villanueva look like outstanding SPs, and Weeks has been great since his wrist finally healed. The youth here is perhaps better than what any other MLB team can offer, but they've got to get some help from the rest of the guys.

[windiv07]

It's funny, I heard this guy on Baseball this AM on XM yesterday morning. I had never heard him before and thought he sounded intelligent and had a lot of insightful comments about what goes on inside major league club houses. However, it's obvious that this comment does not make a whole lot of sense.

All we hear on the postgames from Ned Yost, Ed Sedar, & Jim Skaalen is how the young guys sometimes struggle. It is like a political mantra...repeat the lie long enough and pretty soon it becomes a core belief. It appears to me that in watching post game interviews, anybody who never watched the game (including fans who missed it) would jump to the same conclusion that what they are being told are Cliff Notes of the game rather than managerial cya. Misniformation abounds in sports reporting just like it does on network news. Propaganda pure and simple.

[JoeHova]

well, I posted those numbers on Justice's Houston Chronicle blog last night, and to his credit, he looked at the numbers and realized he was mistaken.

 

Here is his reply:

 

You're right. I went back and looked at the specific games and was referring to those. When you look at the bigger picture numbers, their kids were phenomenal. Other than Corey Hart (5 for 28) and Ben Sheets (injured), the kids did themselves proud.

[colbyjack]

Actually the Brewers didn't fail in September. Where they failed was the 20-34 record they had in July and August. They are 14=11 in September. If they play .500 ball in July and August They would have 88 wins now and they win this thing in a walk.

 

Agreed dvoiss. It's not the past couple of days of their play down the stretch that killed the Brewers postseason chances, they did themselves in a couple of months ago.

[endaround]

Of course both Braun and Weeks' defense directly lead to two loses during September and how many more indirectly.

[windiv07]

I was not aware Sheets was still a "kid". Everytime I hear about "these kids" I think about the post-game excuse interviews.

[RockCoCougars]

The core numbers look good, but how have those guys done with runners in scoring position. It seems these guys are better hitters when there is no one on base, but I don't know if the stats back me up.

 

This team needs a new manager, a revamped bullpen, a veteran bat in the middle of the lineup and some veteran bats who can actually hit (unlike Counsell and Mench) on the bench. When Tony Gwynn Jr. is the first guy you go to for pinch hitting you are either unbelievably stupid or have a terrible bench.

[JoeHova]

Of course both Braun and Weeks' defense directly lead to two loses during September and how many more indirectly.

 

True, but that's clearly not what Justice meant. He would have said something like, "their defense let them down" or, "the young guys were erratic defensively down the stretch".

 

Also, we knew that Braun & Weeks were going to suck defensively. Their job is to hit and they did that in spades.