LouisEly

[sarcasm]The game means nothing, so I wouldn't be surprised to see some fly balls get lost in the lights, being careful on pop-ups near the stands so as not to get injured, and a few ground balls booted.[/sarcasm]

"I can't believe that Veras is getting love on this thread. Personally, he's at the top of my 'let go' list, I can't stand how the guy pitches, and I lost all patience with him by the All Star break. " That's the problem, you haven't watched him since the All-Star break. "He was an automatic lead-off walk followed closely by another blow up session so many times this year." Statistically, he's blown one save all year. He has a 1.17 WHIP post-All-Star break over 30 innings. Only 16 of the 61 hits he has given up all season have been for extra bases (9 2B, 2 3B, 5 HR). He does not have a dramatic split between LH and RH hitters - .665 OPS-A vs RH and .724 OPS-A vs LH. If Axford, Rodriguez, and Loe had performed the way Veras has the Brewers would be in the playoffs. Yes, he walks guys. But his stuff is so good that he doesn't give up hits, particularly extra base hits, that cause big innings.

10 K's tonight... only need 9 tomorrow. Hey, to have something to play for on the last game of the season is a good thing.

Is he getting up in the zone now though because he is tired? Or was he up in the zone then and batters just didn't recognize it? He didn't seem to have that problem before mid-August. Lucroy didn't start catching him until late July/early August; Fiers had two good starts with Lucroy behind the plate but then tailed off. Is it that Lucroy doesn't know him as well as Maldonado and what his strengths/weaknesses are, and that has contributed to him tailing off? He's still striking guys out; I would say that if it is because "the book is out on him" that his strikeouts would come down. Regardless, he has pitched well enough that a starting spot is his to lose next year. No winter ball or AFL so he will have plenty of time to rest.

Post All-Star break, Veras has a 2.40 ERA and in 30 innings has given up 20 hits and struck out 38 with a WHIP of 1.17. I'd take a gamble on that trend for $4M, and wouldn't expect a free agent to do much better. Besides, the Brewers have a lot of money coming off the books; if they don't break the bank on a starter they will have plenty of $ to gamble on the bullpen. I'd allocate K-Rod's $8M and Loe's $2M to $4M for Veras and $6M to the two best lefties they can get.

"and has made 62(!) more outs on the season than Trout" Mostly because he's had 68 more plate appearances than Trout.

They're tired. Ten game road stretch without a day off. I knew it would be tough to still be there after that road trip. They went 6-4 on the road trip - hard to expect better than that when seven of the games are at CIN and WAS - but when the Cards are playing the Astros and Cubs at home you're going to lose ground going 6-4. The season was lost in July when they lost 9 of 10 to PHI, WAS, and CIN. They made the right call in trading Grienke. They got a young ML quality SS they desperately needed, and while the power hasn't been there for Segura he has been more than adequate defensively and has shown enough to get excited about.

They'll just use the "SF won their division, MIL didn't make the playoffs" excuse. Although the irony is that LA fans will still be upset. The only thing they hate more than Braun is the Giants.

Yes, but there is a break between the end of the season and the start of winter ball where he could rest, both physically and mentally. IIRC, he also didn't get called up for a week or two after the end of Nashville's season last year so he had a little break then too. While he pitched 150+ innings last year, it wasn't over a continuous season. I'm sure he's tired both physically and mentally.

Fiers has pitched 177 innings this year. Last year he pitched 128 innings, the year before 125. Could he possibly be tired?

Brewers game starts roughly just after halftime of the Badgers game on Saturday. [sarcasm]Will there be anyone left in the stands for the second half at Camp Randall?[/sarcasm]

That. Stick Narveson down in AAA for as long as they can on a "rehab" assignment, and spend whatever money they have available on the best LH relief pitcher they can get and a guy who can go multiple innings. Ax seems to be finding it again, Veras post-All-Star game has a 2.96 ERA .196 BA-A and 17 H + 35 K in 24.1 IP, and Henderson has shown he can get big league hitters out. The funny thing about Parra is that the stats show he is decent against LHP (0.95 WHIP, .611 OPS), but it seems like whenever I watch he is walking or giving up hits to lefties (.224 BA-A vs lefties isn't bad, but Stetter's .179 BA-A vs lefties in 2009 was great). Add in Kintzler, a long man, and a LHP who isn't terrible against RH hitters, and I think the bullpen is in good shape. With possibly five RH starters, they need at least two LHP in the bullpen.

[sarcasm]I hope he gets shingles again.[/sarcasm]

Mature, yes. Peak physical maturity however is more like 27/28.

There’s been a quite a bit of talk about high leverage situations over the years, but how does a situation become high leverage in the first place? If you look at the history of baseball, with the exception of a handful of really bad teams and a handful of really great teams (playing in the same division as some really bad teams) pretty much every team wins 1/3rd of their games and loses 1/3rd of their games. However the other 1/3rd of games are going to be close games where every run matters. In those games the relief pitching can have a significant effect on the outcome of the game where two runs may make the difference between winning and losing. Maybe it's more a case of "high leverage games" than high leverage situations. the sample sizes of a single season of RP are so tiny that you have no idea how good anyone but Rivera is going to be pretty much While the sample size of a single RP is usually going to be small, the aggregate of the entire bullpen and subsequent impact is not. Looking at the Brewers starting pitchers, if you divide the innings pitched by starters by the number of starts you come out to almost exactly 6.0 innings per start. That means that the bullpen pitches about half as many innings as the starters (extra innings games offset the times where they don't have to pitch the bottom of the 9th on the road because they lost). I can't say that relief pitching as an aggregate is a small sample if it is half of the number of innings the starters pitch. I hear what you are saying - you are referring to individual relievers. I am referring to the aggregate.

Harry Caray made a career out of that.

So, let's see: * The offense is scoring more runs per game this year (4.78) than last year (4.45) * The defense has improved (subjectively and objectively - 0.60 errors/game this year vs 0.68 errors/game last year) * The starting pitching is about the same (Wolf was significantly worse, however Fiers/Rogers/Estrada has been better than Narveson/Wolf and Greinke was a little better this year than last year) Yet they have a worse record. Does this mean that relief pitching, particularly in high-leverage situations, is a lot more important than people think?

Before we get too excited, the Brewers have an upcoming 10 game road trip with 7 games against Cincy and Washington, and the other three against Pittsburgh. We'll see where they are at the end of that road trip.

Depending on what de los Santos' injury is, if/when he is healthy I would bet they call him up as he has no options left and they likely want to see what they have in him. Stinson is a surprise; certainly the peripherals suggest he is nothing more than average. My guess is that they either want to see what they have with him to see if he is worth keeping on the 40-man, or they plan on shutting down Fiers, Estrada, and Burgos due to innings and he is the only other starting pitcher in the org under the age of 28, not in danger of an innings limit, and would need to be protected next year. Pena and Anundsen aren't ready, Hellweg is on an innings limit, Nelson doesn't need to be protected next year (I think) and is walking too many at AA, Heckathorn is being moved to the bullpen, Vargas would be pointless... who else is left? Wondering what Taylor Green is thinking right now.

Back to the SS discussion, according to this site Gonzalez is signed for 2013 at $4M and not a team option. So it looks like the discussion is about who the other SS is going to be. Notice how I say "other" because I don't know that Gonzalez will be the starter or how he comes back from injury. If I were a betting man, I'd say Bianchi is the other SS on the roster and Segura starts the year in AAA as Bianchi is probably better suited for a part-time role and Segura needing to play everyday.

Halton and Morris finishing strong, and J-Rogers putting up some nice numbers for a RH at Brevard. Which brings me to the one recent draft pick the Brewers made that I really did not like and felt was a wasted pick - Nick Ramirez. I never saw the upside with him, even though the Pac 10 is a tough baseball conference. A 10th round pick, yes, but not a 4th round pick. Halton does have some significant home/road splits when it comes to SLG, so maybe the PCL hitters parks are inflating his numbers a bit.

Team goals: 1) No major injuries 2) (see #1) 3) Figure out who they can count on in the bullpen for next year 3a) Get Axford straight 4) Figure out who their SS is going to be for next year 5) Screw the Cardinals out of the playoffs

You should probably throw out the start where he got tossed after four pitches, and the next start where he only went 3 because of the start the day before and getting other guys some work before the All-Star break. Excluding those two starts he was at 6.32 for the Brewers.

You can't dismiss the tendency to give up the long ball. Especially the fact that most of them (13 of 16) occured from the 4th inning on. His OPS against goes from .588 in innings 1-3 to .828 in 4-6 and a whopping 1.444 from the 7th on. Thats a formula where games get turned suddenly and contributes to his win total being so low along with poor run support and shoddy relief. His stuff is different, but Dave Bush had a similar tendency. I like Estrada, but I think he'd more have more value coming out of the pen. Pogo, I'm with you on this one. JB, you make good points, however there are three other things to consider: 1) Bouncing Estrada back and forth between the rotation and pen and the rehab stint has likely caused Estrada to not be fully stretched out at times. The significantly higher OPS-A in the later innings might be caused by this. B) Moving him to the pen assumes that there are better starters available. I'm sure most pitchers would probably make better relievers than starters. However you want your best pitchers pitching the most innings - i.e. being your starters. If there aren't five better starters in spring training, then he should be a starter. Pogo you're right, Estrada statistically has earned a starting spot more so than Rogers. And while Peralta has been on a nice run lately, his overall body of work for 2012 suggests he hasn't earned a starting spot over Estrada either. 3) Looking at his 3-year splits from 2009-2011, Estrada had a higher OPS-A as a reliever (.733) than as a starter (.719). For his career, it is almost equal - .750 as a reliever vs. .752 as a starter. For his career, as a starter he has given up 21 HRs in 551 PAs (1 per 26.2 PAs) and as a reliever he has given up 14 HRs in 376 PAs (1 per 26.9 PAs). So statistically it looks like he is roughly the same pitcher as a starter as a reliever, maybe slightly better as a starter. My prediction: 1) Gallardo 2) Free agent (Marcum or other, not Grienke) 3) Fiers 4) Estrada (actually well above average for a #4) 5) Rogers (allows them to skip his turn occasionally to gradually increase his innings)] Peralta, Thornburg, and Burgos in AAA as insurance.

Well... Braun has a strong enough arm to play RF. Hart has impressed at 1B and told his agent to tell the Brewers he will play any position the Brewers want him to play to stay with the team. I think it is possible that if Hart is moved to 1B permanently that Braun could take over in RF IF they are high enough on Davis' bat. While I think the Brewers would be better off having more LH batters in their starting lineup (Aoki, Gamel, Schafer, Gindl, etc.), Davis seems to have picked up where he left off whereas Gindl has regressed and Schafer has more value in CF. Davis in LF could have more offensive potential than Aoki/Gindl/Schafer in RF.