gregmag

This is it, right here. Relatedly, there's a big difference in a public forum between saying "I'm stressed out about this," which is an expression of an emotion as valid as any other, and saying "I'm objectively right to be stressed out about this," which is an argument. Making the same argument over and over, and not responding in any meaningful way to credible counter-arguments, strains credibility and goodwill. There are no absolutes; sometimes the lone voice in the wilderness turns out to be right. But people in the forum are as entitled to judge your argument harshly as you are to keep beating it into the ground. Turning back to baseball -- as others have said, the Brewers' experience over the past couple of weeks exemplifies how statistical locks work. Their division title odds by two weeks ago (IIRC) were 100% on Fangraphs. Then came about as bad a thing as could happen: They went into a little swoon, and one of the teams chasing them set a franchise record for consecutive wins. It didn't matter even a little bit; they clinched the division with a week to spare. (I'd be fascinated to know the odds before the Cardinals' streak that they would close the gap to 7 games. My guess would be 5-10%, but I don't know at all.)

Biggest division lead in the majors.

Brewers 91 Cardinals 90 Cubs 89 Pirates 80 Reds 77

DH baseball is a better, more interesting game than non-DH baseball. If baseball had evolved in a way that didn't cause pitchers as a group to be worse hitters by orders of magnitude than everybody else, that would be great, but it didn't. The argument that non-DH baseball is more strategically interesting, IMHO, misconceives what strategy means. Being forced to do something because of a systematic weakness isn't a strategy; it's a reflex. The absence of the DH causes managers to do things, but those things aren't interesting strategic decisions, they're reflexes. The argument is just odd on its own terms: "It's more interesting to force teams to play a guy who's abysmally bad." If that's so interesting, then let's make the starting 2b hit with a pool noodle. That would be downright fascinating. Tradition? Very few living fans remember life before the DH. To most fans, a version of MLB where all pitchers hit has no more relevance than the versions where fielding gloves were basically made of wood and where there were no teams in the South or West. If traditions aren't substantively good, they only matter until people get over them. Variety between leagues? This is the one argument I sort of sympathize with. Having different versions of the game to watch is fun. But if we want variety, why just this one variable? Back in the 70s, a lot of newer stadiums had astroturf. That was genuinely interesting and made for different styles of play. Unfortunately guys' knees started disintegrating, so that experiment had to end. If we really want to promote variety, we should actually promote variety in multiple creative ways, not just back into it by clinging to one difference between the leagues. Also, cross-league variety makes a lot less sense when the leagues play one another. I wish they didn't, but that train has long since left the station. DH everywhere.

People mostly seem to love this, and it's good to see some of the reasons why. The most persuasive argument to me is that resigning Moose was the least bad available 2b option that still improves us overall. I'm still not loving it. I see a pretty pedestrian offensive player whose low OBP makes him a big-inning killer and whose vaunted fit for Miller Park didn't materialize last year, a guy who adds nothing defensively behind a staff that's going to depend heavily on young pitchers, and a great clubhouse guy which is nice but doesn't actually move the needle. But I'm glad Mark was willing to spend another $10m, I trust that we didn't have any better way to spend it, and $10m for one year isn't going to hurt our flexibility; hell, it's an easy contract to move if Moose is good and the team isn't. I also like that he appears willing to play 2b, because I really didn't like the idea of jerking around Shaw, who I think matters a lot more to the Brewers' medium-term hopes than Moose does. I can't see keeping Thames around, unless they want to reduce Aguilar's playing time substantially. I would think, as someone said above, that the team will shop Thames and Anderson. I completely approve of what the team did with Anderson last fall, but if he isn't bitter then he has to be the most zen guy ever to play baseball.

Gonzalez seems always to have made the most sense. You can go more than one year with him, because he could fit multiple ways once Hiura comes up and also because he's younger than other options (about 5 years younger than Lowrie, about 2 years younger than Dozier). I wonder what he'll get and how far Stearns is willing to go for him.

Yeah, money wins. That’s MLB: always ready with an inspiring story about the triumph of the overdog. Whatever. I don’t hate anybody on the Sawx, so good for them. The Dodgers . . . what a waste. They’re like a kidney stone the NL keeps trying to pass every year. The Brewers would have put up a better fight.

This makes a ton of sense. When a guy goes from Miley's depths last year to his heights this year, something real (not to say necessarily sustainable) is going on. When you can document what that real thing is -- different repertoire, better defense -- you're no longer just talking about a sample; you've got a basis for a theory. All of that said, I wouldn't resign him, unless nobody wants to pay much and he's comfortable taking a cheap deal here. I mainly think that way because of our other 2019 rotation options, so I'll go look for the 2019 rotation thread.

This whole thread is cathartic for me. Molitor was and remains my favorite player ever. I started following the Brewers seriously in 1978 -- probably the best timing of anything in my life -- and so I grew up with Molitor. His departure hit me like a gut punch, even as an adult. My one pushback against the "Molitor was a 36 year-old DH" argument is that he had characteristics of players who age well: high BA, speed, line drive power, smarts. He was also at the peak of his powers, unlike Braun today. No one could have predicted exactly how good Molitor would be over his last years, but it would have been a smart bet that he would at least be worth his contract, and re-signing him would have been a smart baseball move.

I’m just astonished at how similar Braun ‘11 and Yelich ‘18 are. I hadn’t noticed that. It’s basically the same season. I put those two tied for second behind Yount ‘82. WAR in this case tells a reasonable tale. He did everything at an elite level that year. He was otherworldly.

Darn right. Tied for best record in the league. Not too shabby. Well said. Reading Cubs and Cards fan blogs, so many of those folks come off jaded and entitled. However good the Brewers are, or get, I hope we never lose our joy about how precious making the playoffs is.

Last night was the greatest baseball game I have ever seen in person, until tonight. Yelich's ritual evisceration of the Cardinals after the intentional walk to Cain is by far the greatest sports moment I have ever seen in person.

I'm going to all three games in this series -- my amazing spouse got me tickets for father's day. Last night was, by far, the most consequential baseball game I've ever gotten to see in person. It was beautiful; I hope tonight will be a repeat or better. The Brewers can play loose now. Their likeliest landing spot -- WC1 --is now extremely likely. The division is in view, and they'll play hard for that, but we aren't fighting for our postseason lives like the Cardinals are. We needed one and got it. Now we can get greedy.

Hamels' comment irritated me for the same reason MLB in general irritates me: It's become a celebration of the overdog, a moral argument that big and rich and arrogant equals virtuous. I'm very glad to have Austin Tatious on our team, because he's nailed it twice in this thread.

1. Keston Hiura 2b AA 21 2. Corbin Burnes rhp AAA 23 3. Tristen Lutz rf A 19 4. Corey Ray cf AA 23 5. Brice Turang ss R+ 18 6. Zack Brown rhp AA 23 7. Jacob Nottingham c AAA 23 8. Mauricio Dubon ss AAA 23 9. Lucas Erceg 3b AA 23 10. Marcos Diplan rhp AA 21 11. Trey Supak rhp AA 22 12. Micah Bello cf R 17 13. Joe Gray of R 18 14. Mario Feliciano c A+ 19 15. Payton Henry c A 21 16. Cody Ponce rhp AA 24 17. Troy Stokes lf AA 22 18. Trent Grisham rf AA 21 19. Demi Orimoloye of A+ 21 20. Chad McClanahan 1b R+ 20 21. Aaron Ashby lhp R+ 20 22. Caden Lemons rhp R 19 23. Carlos Rodriguez of R- 17 24. Larry Ernesto of R- 17 25. Je’Von Ward of R+ 18 A lot of this is seat of the pants. I'll look at it tomorrow and want to change a bunch of things, but we have to vote. I tend to favor three qualities, in this order: established impact upside; close to MLB with a starter profile; raw promise. Age for level matters a lot to me. My most eccentric omission is Gatewood. He's ahead developmentally of a lot of the guys lower on the list, and some of them will grow warts like his and more as they advance. Probably few other people will have him behind McClanahan. But Gatewood looks to me like a guy with strong evidence that he won't make it -- already a 1b, won't get on base, power his only real calling card, and now he's hurt. I hope I'm wrong. My second-most eccentric omission is Houser. I actually like him, but his injury, up-and-down performance this year, and role uncertainty, along with his age, have me wary. In a year he could be in my top ten if he hasn't graduated.

I loved rooting for Kodi, and he appeared to make serious strides this year. The only way this deal makes sense is if DS has confidence that Kodi won't be one of his 40 most essential roster players when the Rule 5 draft comes around (a thought process that has to take account of which other Rule 5-eligible players he'll be able to trade for value between now and then). In that case it makes a ton of sense. The Brewers' front office knows a lot more about talent evaluation than I do, and their work on finding good players has earned them a pretty substantial benefit of the doubt, so I'm reluctantly on board with this deal.

That was my word, not his. I just write what comes to mind sometimes, especially late at night.

Ken Rosenthal in the Athletic (paywall) argues that the Mets aren't stupid enough to refuse knockdown offers for de Grom and Thor but are just posturing. Take that for what it's worth.

Obviously it's a small sample, but Bello is off to a great start, in particular with BB/K. The only reason I think this is even worth mentioning is that he's 17. I would expect someone that young to look overmatched out of the gate and certainly to lack any semblance of a mature approach. He has plenty of time to come back to Earth, but the fact that he can do this at all at his age, even over a 55 PA stretch, seems very encouraging.

I saw him mow down the Cardinals, my first game at Busch after moving to StL. One of my happiest baseball memories.

Love Jim's work, but "efforting" is not a word.

Every team in the system that played yesterday, from the big leagues to rookie ball, played a one-run game. (Helena played a second game that wasn't; DSL idle). Six one-run games, no active team without one. I wonder if that has ever happened before.

Really interesting data. Thank you!

I really like the Trammel selection, don't love the Morris selection, but he's not the worst pitcher in the Hall. What I want to know is how Trammel gets in and Whitaker isn't even an afterthought. Very similar players, both very underrated.

Do you have a source for this? I don't mean that question in a challenging way; I'm just really interested in knowing why Stanton doesn't want to come to StL.