gregmag

Those are the same guys that wanted every bullpen arm traded the last two years, and then start a discussion about how the bullpen sucks. Some people love the agony of the never ending tank mode You're making this up. Nobody actually did that. Because people here aren't stupid. If you're going to throw around accusations of hypocrisy or stupidity, please provide actual examples and illustrations, rather than imaginary "same guys" and "some people."

It's close. Ponce has a better chance to stick as a starter due to his arm action, but for me Burnes has the better breaking stuff and does a better job driving the ball down in the zone. It seems like Burnes has been maintaining velocity just fine as well, which is a great sign. I also like Burnes' sequencing more right now. He does a great job of keeping hitters off balance. So I'd take Burnes, but it's really close. If/when Ponce finds his location a bit better/gets the fastball down more consistently, I reserve the right to flip flop. I miss your Power 50s. Just sayin'.

He made his mlb debut on the road against the division rival defending champs. He was fine. Peralta's pen debut was sensational. It's just one game, but psychologically it could be a big deal. If I'm him, I'm thinking "Huh. Maybe this isn't so bad."

This is an interesting question that I'd like to know the answer to as well. It doesn't have huge practical significance, but teams plan for contingencies, and it's fun to know what the plan is.

I see three serious problems with this argument. First, the premise doesn't quite hold up. In the first four of the eight seasons you're talking about, Garza's xFIP was considerably higher than 4.00. His good stretch was the next four years, 2011-2014. His xFIP was under 4.00 for all those seasons, though it rose each year during that span. Garza looks like a typical guy who took some time adjusting and then hit a peak. He pitched well for a while there, but it's not a steady or unified story. Second, writing off a player's past two years as outliers based on a few weeks of contrary evidence seems unduly aggressive to me. Two years is a lot of information, and the two most recent years generally provide a lot more relevant information than the earlier ones. This relates to . . . Third, aging is bad for baseball players. Expecting a player at 33 to be the player he was at 27-30, when he wasn't that guy at 31-32, doesn't make much sense, other things equal. Garza was never a world-beater. We should expect him to be in a major decline at 33. I don't know what to make of Garza right now. I've been saying he's bad for years, but he sure isn't pitching badly right now. The peripherals, to the extent the samples are large enough to matter, point in different directions. His BABIP is really low, .279, and his HR/FB is a bit lower than it's been for him in most recent seasons. He isn't striking out a lot of guys. OTOH, he isn't walking anybody, and his groundball rate is way down from last year (though it was around the same when he stunk in 2015). Players make adjustments. Maybe Garza has made the adjustments he needs. If I had to bet, I'd bet on a pretty strong regression, based on 2015-2016, the aging curve, and his BABIP and K rate. But I'd love it if he's figured out a sustainable way to match his peak performance.

The chances that both the Brewers and Garza keep performing as well as they are seem slight. If either one tanks, this becomes an easier question. Another factor in the decision, I think, is the rest of the rotation. Right now Garza is pitching like a reliable vet. He's been, in his few starts, our most reliable starter. If Davies gets his act together, Nelson keeps pitching well, and Anderson pitches competently, then Garza's reliability gets somewhat less important. Rolling the dice on a Woodruff or a Lopez becomes easier to manage. But yeah, what everyone said -- if you can spare him, and if the offer knocks your socks off, let him go. Otherwise, that option still makes him an attractive chip in the offseason.

I've been assuming they had him at AA because they don't like how his stuff plays in the thin air. Maybe that's wrong; he isn't a high priority. But I think Stearns has said that they're thinking about atmospheric effects in placing pitchers at AA or AAA. It may be more likely that Wilkerson gets promoted directly from AA to the majors if they decide to give him a shot, which I'd love to see.

Here's a good piece on Espino from BP Milwaukee back in March: http://milwaukee.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2017/03/24/command-and-curves-paolo-espino/

Man Corey Ray needed that. Has any Brewers prospect concentrated more of his offensive production this year in a few great games than Tucker Neuhaus? That Colorado Springs box score is just a weird read. Michael Blazek started and pitched four shutout innings? Wei-Chung Wang got a hit? Dillard and Goforth still play for us?

I love seeing this. Brewers history isn't exactly first-rate, but history is always interesting. The five most PTSD-inducing words in that article: "Brewers General Manager Sal Bando." I would have taken a team full of Chuckies for a year if it meant we never had to have Bando as GM. The single worst, most destructive figure in Brewers history.

Our rotation is really dreadful. Davies and Nelson are 3s if absolutely everything breaks right for them. Anderson's worse. Peralta's substantially worse than that. Garza's having a nice little stretch. I really hope at least two of our young arms work out.

This is the most grisly day of baseball I've seen in our system all year. Dubon's raking, Guera's on his feet, and that's about it. I'm actually looking forward to grading more exams now.

I don't hate the state of the pen right now. Knebel looks great. Barnes has legit stuff. Drake has been getting people out for a while. Scahill seemed to get some analytics love when he came over last year. Torres has a decent track record. Suter has pitched well enough at AAA that he deserves a chance to make his case. I could see any of those guys being a keeper. I like the Pirates guys least. I can't see a good pitcher in Feliz right now, and I never understood the Hughes pickup. But Feliz is probably worth trying to rehabilitate for flipping, and Cravy vs. Hughes is not exactly a battle of titans or a cause of sleepless nights. The churn is encouraging. They're trying guys out and dumping them if they provide strong evidence that they can't hack it (Milone, Marinez).

I was grading exams, which sucks, and just keeping track of the score. But when it got to 9-6 (not when it got to 8-6, oddly), I just had a feeling. I tuned in just in time for the winning rally. Then when Knebel went 0-2 on the last hitter, I was a minute or two behind on the MLB app, and I accidentally turned off the feed and had to get back in. I thought I would miss the end of the game. When my feed kicked back in, the count was 3-2. I have never been more sure of any baseball thing in my life than that Knebel would get the strikeout. That really was one of the best games I can ever remember seeing. When Pina fouled off ball 4, I was all "aw, come on," but he was just getting into his timing. His bat slam was epic.

Lopez Espino Woodruff Wilkerson maybe Hell, Burgos. Enough of this.

I probably watch about half of about half the games. It's hard because I do a lot of my writing for work at night. Streaming is a godsend, though. I can remember when I was in college in Connecticut, using my body as a secondary antenna to try to hear east coast games through the radio static.

I forgot that was Sogard! This is the thing that put Garza on the road to being my least favorite Brewer ever. The call-up is worth it for the awkwardness of this alone.

Woodruff . . . My goodness. Through 4: 5 Ks, 2 baserunners, 5-1 gb-fb, 57 pitches.

I predict that by August, Garza's gone, Feliz is gone, Nelson's in AAA, Peralta's in the pen, and Lopez and Woodruff are in the rotation. By "predict" I mean "fervently hope."

We haven't been talking about the Cardinals. They're a deep, well-designed team with no glaring weaknesses. Their hitters make hard contact. Their pitchers throw strikes. They have good young talent, and their declining stars, Wainwright and Neck Tatts, still have value. We play basically a quarter of our games against the Cards and Cubs. That's going to make the WC very tough, because I'm pretty sure both of those teams are clearly better than we are. I'm in the camp that says this start is mainly getting me more pumped for next year. We need to figure out our rotation, and that's going to require some trial and error this year.

And my counter point was that if you had the #1 pick all of those players were available but were not drafted, so unless you have become the first person in history who can actually project high school pitchers the 5-10 position swing in draft slots is totally meaningless. The best player could easily be the best "prospect" or the 5th "prospect" or the 20th "prospect". The Dodgers were lucky to have the 7th pick instead of the first that year. So who is to say the Brewers wont be lucky to have the 15th pick rather than the 10th pick next year. You're using anecdotes to argue about something measurable. No one is arguing that the #1 pick, or #2 or #5 or whatever, is a sure thing. The argument, for me, is that over a run of drafts, a difference of five, ten, or fifteen draft slots matters some, quite a bit, and a lot, respectively. Under present rules the slot money adds to the difference.

My first live game of the year, and a fine one it was! Of course you get better talent picking third than picking 20th. People have looked at draft position talent yields. It isn't hard or mysterious. At the same time, the notion that getting Travis Shaw as the second player in a middling trade discredits the rebuild mystifies me. Travis Shaw is close to free talent. Somebody has to play the games. "Building," re- or otherwise, happens gradually. It's very hard to go right from losing 100 games to contending. When you're starting to find young guys who can play, it helps to surround them with competent talent so they don't (a) despair, (b) learn from crappy players how to play like crap, © put too much pressure on themselves, and/or (d) start counting the days til they can leave town. I don't want the worst 3b in baseball (assuming I can even identify him) next to 22 year-old Orlando Arcia. Plus, average regulars have trade value. To put the point another way, planning to be transcendently awful at all costs isn't a proven or particularly logical strategy for success in MLB. Draft leverage isn't nearly what it is in the NBA. Now, if the Brewers actually started using valuable assets to get guys like Shaw before the frontline talent compelled it, I'd be unhappy too. But for half of Tyler Thornburg? IMHO that's sound gradual building. Then again, I reeeeeally like seeing The Most Self-impressed Fans in Baseball get very very sad, so maybe I'm not being rational. Oh well.

Bullpen guys' effectiveness comes and goes. Of the guys who aren't pitching well, who obviously doesn't belong? Marinez earned his spot last year. Feliz has a longish leash for conventional reasons. I would take Scahill over Hughes and probably Suter over Milone, but I think they want Milone as a backup starter, and they ended up needing one. Cravy is a AAAA arm who will get his shot. The real problem is the rotation. Some people were aghast that Nelson and Peralta had to earn spots. They appear to be the same lousy pitchers they've been. Garza is garbage. Anderson so far has been a pleasant surprise. Davies got off to a bad start last year and then pitched really well, so I'm inclined to give him some time. The key decisions this year, IMHO, will be about when to try rookie starters over Nelson, Peralta, Garza, and anybody else who craters. When does Lopez get a shot? Woodruff? Hader? I have to believe we have at least two legit rotation guys among our prospects. The trick is identifying them and then phasing them in. That dynamic, I think, will make or break our season.

This makes sense to me. The one thing I've seen that might cut the other way was in a Fangraphs comment, where the poster showed that Thames has had a very normal distribution of grounders, fly balls, and line drives. His argument was that it's very hard to have a great season with that normal distribution (presumably you want more line drives and fewer fly balls). I don't know whether the premise is correct; I've never seen data on that.

Here's something mildly interesting, or at least it surprised me. This is about WAR numbers, so please assume I understand all the caveats about small-sample WAR and take this as fun with stats, for whatever it's worth: This is based on the WAR numbers that ESPN uses, which I assume is bWAR because Fangraphs looks very different. ESPN has Thames at 1.8 oWAR and -0.3 dWAR, so 1.5 total. For 22 games that's obviously impressive -- MVP-level play. Another Brewer, though, has put up 1.4 total WAR (0.8 oWAR + 0.6 dWAR), with only about 60 percent of the PA Thames has gotten. If bWAR is right, then, the Brewers' best player to this point hasn't actually been Eric Thames. It's been . . . Manny Pina. (FWIW, Fangraphs has Thames at 1.9 total WAR and Pina at 0.9.)