cwolf2012

I ask because it seems that something has to change with Manny Parra's fastball. As noted in this article, his fastball is a horrid 16.4 runs below average, up from -24 last year. Does anyone have any experience or read any articles on how difficult it is to learn a new fastball? I suspect that if we got him any sort of pitch that he could throw 91-92 with movement, he would instantly be a better pitcher. Have any minor league pitchers in the last several years developed something like it in a reasonably quick amount of time? I suppose I could google most of this info, but I am looking more for anyone with first-hand knowledge or has done extensive research into the mechanics of various fastballs. EDIT: I think I might have put this in the wrong forum, maybe not. Mods, can you make the call for me?

I want a cheap manager who's willing to take some chances on sabermetric principles. I'm betting anything there's a minor league manager somewhere who could do that. Give him $500k, and see what he can do. As far as names, I don't really have any. If Manny Acta was available, I'd say he'd be a good candidate, but I doubt he'll be available.

As long as the Brewers finish ahead of the Cubs, this season is okay with me. It's not ideal, but it's at least okay.

"Sadly neither happened and they were forced to release him." FWIW, they got a low-level reliever and a little bit of cash back for him from Seattle.

".215/.318/.344 " And yet, that line is still better across the board than Molina.

Mat Gamel says 'Hi!'

I love that Yadier Molina is the starting catcher for the NL. .600 OPS with +1 D vs. .900 OPS and +6 D for Olivo. Great call, voters.

He's also an above average 1B defensively. In the last 2 seasons, where he's played 1B pretty much exclusively, he's +5.6 at defense. He was -.1 at 3B for the Brewers in 2008. He is not a bad defensive player. EDIT: Source: http://www.fangraphs.com/...70&position=1B/3B/OF

I disagree with you, TLB. 122 pitches is bad for a 6 or 7 inning game, but for 9 innings, that's less than 15 pitches an inning. That's not stressful at all.

"we end up debating the merits of statistical noise and luck, which is garbage in my opinion. It's become a convenient excuse used when production doesn't come close to the approximation projected by whatever metric people are trying to use." Do you think "luck" or "statistical noise" or "variance" plays any part in the game at all? Are you completely deterministic? The projections are based upon regressing towards the mean with higher variance statistics and looking at past data, nothing more. "For 2 years now BABIP supporters have been riding the "he's just unlucky" card when if you watch the games it's pretty clear Manny left way too many pitches up and over the plate, and they were getting crushed." This is completely subjective and open to confirmation bias. Some pitchers get away with the high stuff, but when they do, you don't bat an eyelash. But if Manny gets hit, since you seem to have a bias against him, you make a mental note and remember it. If he gets away with it though, I bet you say he was lucky... "Instead of giving the hitters credit for doing exactly what they are supposed to do in crushing a meatball, excuses about luck are made to explain an extraordinarily high BABIP. If MLB hitters cannot turn on a mid thigh to waist high FB... when then they wouldn't be MLB hitters to begin with because everyone can hit that pitch, except maybe Ben Sheets." It doesn't matter how bad the pitch is, if your swing is literally a half an inch too high or too low, it's an easy out. That's precision that fails well with the bounds of human error. That's why you see pitchers get away with stuff all the time. Manny was absolutely giving better pitches to hit than he should have, so he likely deserves a higher BABIP, but his astronomical levels were simply too high to be sustained. That is, unless you think Manny Parra is the worst pitcher in the league. "This season he's been mostly working down in the zone with much better results. He still misses up and he still gets hit hard, but any pitcher that misses up is going to get hit hard." Once again, confirmation bias. I would love for you to bring me some pitch f/x data to back this up, not anecdotal evidence. His LD% is almost the same as last year (18.1% in 09 to 17.6% this year), his GB% is almost the same (48.1% to 49.3%). His LOB% is almost 10% better, and he's giving up slightly fewer home runs. His BABIP is still .362. He's performing almost EXACTLY the same as last year, except his ERA and his results are better. How else can you explain it except he's getting the better end of variance? "I don't believe he was unlucky for a season and a half and now he's suddenly lucky which is leading to better results. Basically, luck is garbage, the end. " His peripherals disagree with you. I know you're a smart guy, so I strongly suggest you take this in and really think about it. LOB%, HR/FB%, and BABIP are 3 stats that have a lot of variance. There are some guys who have the ability to supress BABIP and HR/FB%, and those guys are mostly heavy GB pitchers with good defense behind them (Webb and Jimenez come to mind). There are some guys, like Parra, who are worse with BABIP due to bad defense and bad pitching. That doesn't make him 2 standard deviations from the mean worse than everyone else in a high variance stat. Manny Parra is almost exactly the same pitcher as last year, and the results are better. If that's not luck (or whatever you want to call it), I don't know what is. Edit: Fixed some formatting and grammar.

I think we should DFA him.

Don't underestimate the value of Prince's .400 OBP as well. That's pretty important.

"He got 14 groundballs, the MLB average is only turning about 70-75% of ground balls into outs, so a little luck there." That's pretty darn good to get 14/24 balls in play to be on the ground. If you try and tell me that Roy Halladay didn't get lucky to get his perfect game, then you and I will never agree on anything ever.

If there was ever a need for a challenge system, tonight is the night.

"Not that I'm taking one inning for more than it's worth, but in the outing vs the Twins, he did look very good. His change was back and he looked significantly better." This is super late, but he really had no movement on the pitches. Simply because he made outs (it's very easy to make an out, even on a meatball) doesn't really show anything. I trust pitch f/x a lot more than I trust my eyes.

I think he has just lost it at this point. I don't care if he made the outs his last 2 appearances, his stuff just isn't there. Without the horizontal movement, it's just not enough to make people miss consistently.

I read an article about it, and I guess he did pitch in high school. He was hoping to be allowed to throw a curve and change, but Varitek wouldn't let him.

Chicago has to lose, if only to have Hossa lose in the finals 3 consecutive years with 3 different teams.

When I saw the name, I was honestly intrigued. I took a look at some of the advanced metrics, and I can't justify wanting this guy as anything but AAA filler.

Screw it, if Cappy is up, I want him to start at this point. He's one of the few people who has shown some efficiency this year, if only in the minors.

"but rather a complex system of variables which is incredibly difficult to quantify yielding a result that appears to be random on the surface" Not to cherry pick your post too much, but this is essentially luck. I agree that the situations had specific variables that are absolutely unquantifiable or predictable that led to the specific (if inevitable) outcome that is based 100% on those specific circumstances. It's called determinism in philosophy. Instead of trying to act like those variables can be controlled or manipulated, it's much much easier to refer to that as "luck."

"Wow, so a pitcher can have a low BABIP while getting absolutely shelled, as long as the best hit balls against him are home runs?" Yes, but BABIP isn't used as a value stat, it's a regression stat. HRs are treated in completely different stats, and BABIP is simply a tool to help regress certain things to the mean. HR/FB is typically a high-variance stat like BABIP, but some pitchers are worse at giving up more hard-hit balls. BABIP is only for balls in play. It doesn't count for or against anything if a homerun is recorded. And if a pitcher has a lower BABIP because of it, then they would appear to be overperforming, since BABIP is a stat that is typically a function of luck. Trust me, more home runs does not reflect well on a pitcher in any stat.

All the other teams have solvvd their catching problems. Hopefully Lucroy will do it for the Brewers next year.

Doesn't Jeff Sackmann (formerly of brewcrewball.com) do the Brewers part of that site?

http://www.geekologie.com/2008/04/28/uno-cycle-1.jpg The Unocycle, for the adventurous type.