gregmag

The Brewers have joined the 2015 Blue Jays as the only teams in the expansion era with two 11-game winning streaks in the same season. The Brewers are the only team to have an 11-game streak plus a longer one.

If we give up on a guy, I don’t mind too much if he has one good year or half year and then is never heard from again (Lucroy, probably David Fry) or if he stinks before he gets better (Lauer, Houser). Or if he gets expensive, or if I love the guy we traded him for (JJ Hardy) . . . I guess I usually don’t mind when we give up on guys. One of the rare recent exceptions is Grisham, whom we traded to get Lauer.

I think the point about double plays is very important. You would also have to include other disadvantageous outs made on the bases in live-ball situations — like a fielder’s choice that results in and out at third base or home in exchange for the batter’s getting to first base. If we’re going to talk about outcomes that balls in play make possible and strikeouts don’t, we need to look at both sides of the ledger. That said, I have no idea whether it’s a wash. It’s possible to count all the events we’re talking about. I haven’t counted them, and I’m not at all confident in my ability to guess how the balance comes out.

Inspired by the lack of Brewers on ESPN’s updated list of top 50 players, I ask: What’s your Brewers MVP ballot right now? Obviously this is premature, but I think it makes for a fun discussion because I expect people will have lots of interesting disagreements at this moment. I can imagine a top five that’s completely different from mine. Here’s mine: 1. Turang: Does everything pretty well every day. Anchors the defense that’s arguably the team’s foundation. 2. Collins: The team’s best hitter so far this year, with one asterisked exception that I’ll get to, and it isn’t all that close. Premium defender at an offense-first position. 3. Peralta: Despite his hiccups, a premium starter who makes every start and usually ranges from capable to outstanding. 4. Woodruff: I know, a bunch of other guys have been doing it all year. But none has done it better than Woodruff, and it’s hard to ignore that his explosion on the scene corresponded with the Brewers’ rise from excellent to transcendent. Speaking of which . . . 5. Vaughn: I know it’s only a month. I know it isn’t sustainable. But putting him in the middle of the order has unlocked the whole lineup’s best identity. Maybe the Brewers’ most successful in-season position player acquisition ever (though I’m sure someone will remind me of one I forgot that will make me feel stupid). I recognize that elevating the two small-sample guys leaves out Contreras, Priester, Frelick, Yelich, Uribe, Megill, and Chourio (who would be next on my list in that order). Meaning no disrespect to those massive contributors, I’m at peace with it.

My daughter is starting college too, at Wheaton in MA. She is awesome and excited. I am excited and sad.

The Brewers are five games better than any other team in MLB. That seems pretty remarkable, especially for early August.

This is the best writing about baseball I’ve read in a while, even aside from how gleeful the content makes me feel.

He could be a PR front guy? You could be one of those guys who has weird biases, makes stuff up to support them, and then acts like he actually knows something rather than nothing at all. Good thing neither of you is either of those things.

Our roster is deep and pretty flat. By the numbers, running out a Sunday lineup should matter less for us than for almost any other team.

I’m fully on board with your annoyance at this narrative, but where are you getting “vast majority”? I’d say the offseason-deadline kvetchers are a loud minority. Of course, there are a lot more people who reasonably say “I don’t agree with this move” or “I wish we had shored up that position,” but I don’t get the sense you’re talking about those more measured criticisms.

He didn’t make a point about players in MLB. He made a point about players in the minors. Also, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with not knowing much about the minor league system. There is something wrong with not knowing much about the minor league system but then making a sweeping declaration about the system.

No, she’s a mound. (Firesign Theatre joke. I’m old. Don’t mind me.)

A point people have made a lot, notably during the offseason and at the trade deadline, is that the Brewers' "string together baserunners" offense won't work well against the kind of high-end pitching that teams tend to send out in October. One way of testing that claim is to look at how the Brewers have done against top starting pitchers so far this season. I used ESPN to find the list of MLB pitchers who have at least 3.0 WAR (I think ESPN uses bWAR) so far this season. It's a list of 23 starting pitchers (plus Freddy Peralta). That seems like a reasonable cutoff for "the best"; anyway, that's what I looked at. The Brewers have faced pitchers from that list 15 times so far this season. To conveniently evaluate how the Brewers did against those pitchers, I used ESPN's record of pitcher game scores (I think ESPN uses the conventional Bill James method for calculating game scores: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_score.) If you haven't looked at game scores, they just use a starting pitcher's box score stats to boil down a start to a single number, with 50 as a roughly average score. Here are those top starting pitchers' game scores in the 15 games: Max Fried, 3-29: 36 Kris Bubic, 3-31: 72 Nick Lodolo, 4-3: 68 Tarik Skubal, 4-14: 78 Robbie Ray, 4-21: 50 Framber Valdez, 5-7: 72 Joe Ryan, 5-16: 76 Paul Skenes, 5-23: 66 Garrett Crochet, 5-26: 65 Ranger Suarez, 6-1: 54 Andrew Abbott, 6-4: 43 Joe Ryan, 6-20: 54 Paul Skenes, 6-25: 40 Yoshinobu Yamamoto, 7-7: 26 Matthew Boyd, 7-28: 32 In March, April, and May, the Brewers faced top starting pitchers nine times. Those starters' average game score was 64.8. Seven of the nine were 65 or higher. That's pretty dominant. To put it in perspective, Garrett Crochet's 65 game score from May 26 reflects a box score line of 6.2 5 2 2 2 11. In June, July, and August, the Brewers faced top starting pitchers six times. Those starters' average game score was 41.5. Only two of them were above 43, none above 54. That's pretty bad. To put it in perspective, Paul Skenes' 40 game score from June 25 reflects a box score line of 4 4 4 4 2 4. If you believe the Brewers found their offensive formula around June 1, then these numbers may provide some reason to think that formula works fine against top starting pitching. The seven best performances against the Brewers by top starting pitchers all happened before June 1. Even if you take it back a little further, the five best performances against the Brewers by top starting pitchers all happened before May 18. A couple of caveats, however. The six games by top starters since June 1 isn't a lot of data. In fact, one takeaway here is that the Brewers have been fairly lucky since June 1 to not face many of the best starters. Also, this analysis only looks at starters, not relievers. I'm not sure whether there's good support for the claim that homers are a better bet against top closers than stringing together baserunners, but that claim seems plausible. Still, the Brewers' performance since they turned their season around provides some evidence against the claim that a well balanced higher-OBP, lower-power lineup can't succeed against top starting pitchers.

BFWFIB

Some NL Central fun facts: The Brewers lead the Cubs by two games. The Cubs would be in first place in any other division (pending the rest of today’s results). The Brewers now have the best run differential in MLB at +119 (after having had, IIRC, the worst four-game start by run differential in MLB history). The Cubs are next at +115. Then come the 60-52 Yankees at +92. It would be very hard to deny that the Brewers and Cubs have been the two best teams in baseball to this point. As a division, the NL Central is now 32 games over .500. The NL East is -11, NL West is -29, AL East is +23, AL Central is -15, AL West is +2. But the NL Central has also been unlucky. By Pythagorean record, the NL Central should be +42. Every NL Central team except the Cardinals is lagging their Pythagorean record by one or two wins. (My math has to be off by a game or two somewhere, but it’s close.)

The change in his K/BB numbers from White sox to Brewers continues to be absurd. Yesterday, in his first PA, he looked pretty bad — long swings at some questionable pitches. The rest of the game, you could see his adjustments. I’m on the local train from just loving Vaughn’s breakout to believing it. I can see a plausible story about how the White Sox failed to develop the genuinely good hitter they drafted.

Jack, this is super interesting. It really helps to explain some seemingly contradictory things about Turang’s season.

Very sound analysis. I like the pitching situation. I don’t get Lockridge. I wish they had upgraded the infield depth. I strongly assume they know what they’re doing.

It’s too bad we can’t all have your superior character, but if we did, you wouldn’t be superior, so I guess it’s okay. You actually have a great racket figured out. Trading any prospect for any guy who has his own baseball card is always good. Not doing so is always bad. If the traded prospect becomes a star or the coveted veteran acquisition flops, you just lay low. As long as the Brewers are one of the 29 teams not to win the World Series, you’ll come back to bluster that you were right all along. Of course, the only reason the Brewers are good enough to make guys like you scream “ALL INNZZZ!!!” is because they ignored guys like you in past years and held onto prospects Chourio, Frelick, Turang, Woodruff, Peralta, Uribe, etc. . . . Oh, wait, I’m sorry — of course you never wanted to trade the prospects who eventually would pan out, just the ones who eventually wouldn’t; and never for guys who ended up contributing like Jonathan Schoop, only for guys who ended up contributing like CC Sabathia. My bad.

Wow. You said “period.” Now I’m convinced.

I really don’t care how people feel. Sports fandom involves all kinds of emotions. I want smart moves that help. If the only available moves aren’t smart — sending out substantial assets for low-probability “upgrades” — then the smartest move is standing pat. If some people feel unhappy about that, then they can feel perfectly free to stop watching and supporting the best team in baseball.

It’s a weird deadline, because you can make a case that we have good-not-great players up and down the roster whom we likely can’t realistically upgrade, plus our minor league system is so deep that we can definitely trade guys, but it’s hard to settle on which guys. Castro seems pretty ideal — super-utility type who could play a bunch of shortstop or fill in for whomever is feeling gassed. I like O’Hearn as a Bauers upgrade, though I’m with the faction who say a Bauers upgrade isn’t worth what the O’s will probably want. I don’t know the relief field, but I hope and trust Matt Arnold will grab a bullpen arm somewhere.

The caustic edge of some people here who think they’re paragons of courage and vision because they’re happy trading any given prospect for any given rental is exhausting. Every decision involves risk. Trading for Ryan O’Hearn entails risk, yes. So does standing pat with Andrew Vaughn. So does cutting bait on Logan Henderson or whomever. Assessing value is hard. There are good deadline deals and bad deadline deals. Defaulting to only caring about rentals’ value and not caring about prospects’ value isn’t some kind of moral and intellectual high ground. (To be clear, a bunch of people have made strong cases for the Jansen trade, and I completely respect their points.)

“What shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?” — The Book of Craig (also Mark 8:36)

You have a pretty expansive definition of “more competitive” if you think this alleged upgrade is worth anyone who has a chance to be a useful big leaguer. Leaving aside the smug condescension of “prospect hugging,” I don’t mind trading our 25th ranked prospect at all. In fact, he’s exactly the kind of prospect I’m happy to see the Brewers trade — *for someone who helps.* I don’t immediately see how replacing one mediocre backup catcher with another mediocre backup catcher helps anything.