LouisEly

Tate Blackman had a pretty good season offensively; not sure if defensively he can stick at SS, but I wouldn't mind (or be surprised) if the Brewers take a stab at him somewhere in the 8th-12th rounds. Serrano left the team for "personal medical reasons" towards the end of April. Not sure what that means, but coming off of TJ surgery in 9.2 IP he struck out 21. I'd take a flyer on him again somewhere to see if he can get healthy.

In market research, one of the things you learn quickly is to be very careful about presenting statistics to marketers and executives because it is not uncommon for them to latch on to one number (that typically aligns with what they want to believe) and overlook the big picture. I get that OPS, K/BB rates are not the end-all, be-all predictors of future performance. I get that park (Brevard County - notoriously tough on RHH, Colorado Springs - hitter friendly) and league (Cal league - very hitter friendly) factors need to be taken into consideration (and I take them into consideration). However, those stats tend to be the "big picture" stats for hitters. I've heard about Nottingham improving, but when I look at the "big picture" stats I see a sub-.700 OPS and a BB rate <10%. His K rate has improved significantly (30% last year down to 19% this year), and he has a nice differential between BA and OBP, but that differential is driven by an abnormally high number of HBP (already more this year than all of last year). I get that he's two years younger than league average, and that's encouraging. But to me, the big picture says, "encouraging, but still not good", because, generally speaking, a sub-.700 OPS and walk rate of <10% at AA don't translate to future major league success. There's an old quote - "Potential is a French word - it means you're not worth a damn yet." There was another thread where I got into a debate with someone about Corey Ray, and that person brought up some stat that showed he hits the ball harder than average for the league or something to that extent. That's great, but one of the issues with him is his K rate - he's striking out 32% of the time. It's nice that he hits the ball harder than most in his league, but 32% of the time he doesn't hit the ball at all because he strikes out, making that stat less relevant. I get that strikeouts aren't the end-all, be-all either, but there is a big difference between striking out 32% of the time in A-ball and striking out 30% of the time in AAA (Phillips this year) and striking out 26% of the time in the majors (Santana this year). Yes, hitters improve, but so do pitchers as you move up in leagues - you have to not just account for the player's age, but also the improvement in level of competition at the next level. This is what I'm getting at with falling in love with one stat and ignoring the big picture. I'm wondering if advanced analytics have gotten to the point where some are falling in love with one or two niche numbers but overlooking the big picture.

The Cubs got lucky last year. They were not as good defensively as they statistically showed last year, and their rotation was healthy for the entire season. Remember, they could have easily lost to the Giants in the NLDS last year, and they were down 3 games to 1 in the World Series. They were/are not this juggernaut that some think they are. Now you take a big step back defensively with Schwarber in LF, you get a couple of injuries to the rotation and boom... back to Earth.

This is because the starting pitching as of late, specifically Anderson, Nelson, and Guerra, has been ridiculously good.

Since getting "sent" to Helena and recalled, Lara has 8 hits in his last 5 games. After a hot start, Orimoloye is now sitting at a .691 OPS with a .281 OBP. Way-too-early leader for org player of the month: Ronnie Gideon has a 1.233 OPS so far in the month of June. Fun fact: Kyle Wren has the same OBP as Lewis Brinson. Fun fact #2: Ryan Cordell hit for the cycle today. Not in the same game, but CS only batted 13 innings in the double-header. Cordell had a nice day: 6-9, 1 2B, 1 3B, 2 HR.

Just to level-set, it couldn't look any worse. (*ducks and runs for cover*)

3TO night for Carolina. First six batters either struck out or homered.

Your first statement - correct. I meant that in a context that none of them have been what I define as successful so far. Second statement - incorrect. I'm very well aware of age and league context, but being young for a league is absolutely no guarantee that the player is going to get better or handle the jump to AA. You don't need to look any further than Tyrone Taylor, who put up some pretty good numbers for a 19-year-old in low A and a 20-year-old in high-A (in a pitcher-friendly park) but has not translated that to success in two seasons in AA. My definition of "successful" and a "great season" is one in which there are zero qualifiers about performance. If you have to say, "but, his age..." or "but, (list some obscure stat)", then it isn't a great season. And that is very, very excusable thank you. (I also appreciate your politeness and grace in your post. Keep on!)

Gatewood and Harrison are having a good but not great season. Medeiros is having an OK season. The rest... are not. My point is that you can't praise drafting high risk players and then complain that they haven't drafted well when those players don't pan out.

Yeah, Sogard, Franklin, Perez can play two of 3B/2B leaving one on the bench. Broxton/Santana/Phillips in the OF. For one game they can get by with a bench of Aguilar/Franklin/catcher. If they need to add De Jesus or someone they can DFA Reed or Rivera, although I have a bad feeling it would be Rivera being called up. They can also move Hauser to the 60-day DL as he has already missed the first 60 days of the season.

That's the thing - they've gone boom or bust. And it's been all bust - Coulter, Roache, Devin Williams, Neuhaus, Medeiros, Gatewood, Harrison, Clark... none of those guys were high floor. Let's go back to that 2014 draft thread where everyone was so excited about the ceilings of Medeiros, Gatewood, and Harrison. Not exactly panning out.

We have two guys the Pirates didn't want. A 30 year old with less than 60 innings, mediocre at best stuff and middling minor league success, a meh reliever in Torres, Feliz who has had home run problems since he came back from injury and then two good pitchers in Barnes and Knebel. It shouldn't come as any shock that this bullpen is terrible. This (technically three guys the Pirates didn't want - they let Feliz walk).

There's a reason why PIT let him go though. He had some nice ERAs, but his xFIP tells a different story - 4.10 for his career. Last year 4.77. Even in his great ERA years of 2014-2015 his xFIP was 3.79-4.10. He has looked good in a recent small sample, but his career K/9 is 5.5; he just never was as great of a pitcher as a couple of years of good ERAs suggested.

Brinson and Phillips are "serviceable"? And Santana, among 31 RFs with at least 100 PAs, is 7th in OPS. I'd say that's more than "serviceable". (In the NL he's behind only Harper, Stanton, and .006 behind Schebler. Fun fact - he has a higher OPS than Bellinger does right now.) I'm sorry, but if Adell had a decent chance of fulfilling that "potential all-star/MVP" ceiling, he wouldn't be available anywhere near #9. "High School" does not mean "higher upside". What would the Brewers future look like if they had drafted Turner and Buehler instead of Medeiros and Clark?

Carlos Martinez, Lance Lynn, Chris Sale all started their major league careers in the bullpen. I wouldn't read that putting him there now means they are keeping him there. Could be a Phillips thing where he is just up for four days until Garza gets activated (but hope it means a different reliever is getting jettisoned - Feliz or Torres). You both could be right - he's in the bullpen for now, but long term is to keep him as a starter.

Ugh. Well, following the Cubs model, but they have some resources the Brewers don't. The thing with OF... if they draft (another) one at #9 he better be really, really special. Like, perennial all-star/HOF talent. Because what we've seen is that between Brinson, Phillips, Cordell, Santana, Broxton... they are fairly easy to obtain in a trade. They don't cost much to acquire, and you can move guys there too (Perez). They are perhaps the inefficiency in the market. So why spend valuable resources (#9 overall) on assets that don't cost much to acquire?

They had Johnson on the telecast the other day and Johnson said that (paraphrasing) analytics is a way of organizing information for the draft and not ranking players. You simply can't do enough scouting on amateur players, particularly high school players, to do any type of advanced analytics with anything resembling an adequate sample size.

They'll use the "paper" DL/shuffle a guy or two on/off the Helena roster to add a fresh arm or two if they need it. This is why you have to have a couple of rubber-armed vets such as Dillard on the club - guys who can eat up those innings without worrying about fragile young arms. They can't all be prospects at AAA/AA.

Always a good thing when Kyle Wren has two hits in the same inning.

Cravy, Wang, Blazek have been very good in AAA for Colorado Springs. Suter has been getting strikeouts. At this point I don't see what you have to lose by letting Feliz and Torres walk and see what two of the four guys above can do. Cravy pitched very well in relief last year and has been very good this year; there is no reason to think he can be any worse than Feliz or Torres. Same with Suter.

Angel Ventura quietly having a very good season. The strikeouts aren't there, but he's had some bad defense behind him too. I wonder if he learned a new weak-contact pitch, such as a cutter. In his last four starts he's 25.1 IP, 17 H, 5 ER, 5 BB, 16 K.

Couldn't think of a better team to have it against.

What are you supposed to do when the ump calls them well off the plate? You have to swing at them off the plate. Villar almost pulled one over the bag in that AB too... if that's a little bit to the left and over the bag you wouldn't be saying it was a pathetic AB.

As soon as I start bagging on someone they start looking like an all-star, and that's no different with Hughes. For those of you complaining about the Uecker commercial, I'll in a heartbeat trade you for the 40 times a game I have to put up with the Skip & Shannon promo on the Fox Sports app. And no, I'm not exaggerating, it is shown an average of twice per half inning, 18 half innings, plus an average of twice more per two in-inning pitching changes. Couldn't think of two people who are bigger jerk-faces in sports than those two, and I have to see them, literally, 40 times a game.