3 Brewers Second-Half Storylines That May Make or Break October

32 minutes ago, CheezWizHed said:

1) What Corbin Burnes will be pitching for us in the second half? Dr. Jekyll or Mr. Hyde?

2) Will CC continue to force Winker into the line-up?

3) Which of the struggling sluggers will join Yelich in a resurgence?

4) What trades are made to improve our offense? And who steps out to make room for them?

1) Unfortunately we'll likely see appearances from both characters. He hasn't been remarkably consistent and will flash Cy Young Corbin one game then get shelled the next.

2) Good question. Winker has been bad (.577 OPS, 63 OPS+) and is supposed to be a platoon guy against righties but isn't great at that job either. I'd be surprised if he gets a ton more ABs this year.

3) Probably none. Unlike Yelich, no one else is performing that far below their career expectations. Rowdy should at least be above-replacement but I don't think anyone will be catching up.

4) I was going to say that we need guys that can hit lefties, but after checking the number it looks like we just need guys that can hit in general. The team is posting a .680 OPS against LHP and a .694 against RHP so the team is just not an offensive powerhouse.

11 minutes ago, CheezWizHed said:

Adames got hot recently, but was pretty poor before.  Tellez has been pretty bad all year.  Urias wasn't there long with his injury, but also very low.  Winker of course.  Even Brian Anderson could look more like a younger version of himself (yes, easier said than done and self-realized as I tried playing in a volleyball tournament last week... ouch!)

47 minutes ago, JasonWang7517 said:

what happened in volleyball are u okay

11 minutes ago, CheezWizHed said:

Yes, with our BA and OPS so low, we can't be too picky here.  DH and 1B are obvious areas to upgrade and should be the easiest as they are or can be hit-first players (i.e. defense second).  RF and 3B could be better too. 

I think priority one should be second base. I'm sure he's a very nice guy but Brice Turang is a 59 OPS+ hitter that plays slightly below average defense. How he's above replacement level I have no idea but adding a contact hitter at second base would be immense.

This is an extremely random target but Mauricio Dubon from the Houston Astros is actually someone that comes to mind since Altuve is (almost) back from the IL and they've been splitting time at 2B all season. Dubon doesn't have great power but he's batting .279. His walk rate is garbage but I'd take a .279/.303/.397 over Turang's .207/.265/.315.

26 minutes ago, Team Canada said:

This is very, very wrong.

Brice Turang has 0 OAA and is in the 43rd percentile for this statistic. He has 2 OAA as a second baseman but -2 OAA as a shortstop. That's primarily what I was going off of.

That being said, if we want to evaluate Turange purely as a second baseman, than his 2 OAA and 7 DRS is fine but someone like Dubon (just using him as an easy comparison since we've mentioned him already) has 3 OAA and 8 DRS. 

Defensive metrics are a little less straightforward than offensive metrics since much of it is subjective, but I made that comment based on a quick glance at those two statistics. 

Let me know your thoughts! Always happy to learn more about the game.

17 hours ago, Team Canada said:

As someone posted in the Weimer thread, this makes me pretty skeptical about OAA as a stat. Brice's reputation has always been as a defensive wiz, and he's made so many plays this season that have confirmed that rep, I can't take a stat seriously that says he's mediocre. I'm confident anyone on the Brewers staff would also laugh at that assertion.

It's so hard to find objective defensive stats. Pretty much all of them, even simple fielding percentage, include subjectivity of whether things are errors or "above average outs."

When writing about players, I try to ignore my internal biases and "eye tests" as it feels too opinionated to me, but you're right. OAA might not tell the whole story.