gregmag

Before looking up numbers to try to get my head around your question, I decided to use xFIP for a quick comparison. I like statistical analysis, but I'm no stat expert or savant, and I had no idea what those numbers would tell me. What they tell me is that five of the six Brewers starters improved between 2010 and 2011, while four of six have regressed from 2011 to 2012. The six pitchers' xFIP numbers for those three seasons: Greinke: 3.60 / 2.56 / 2.77 Gallardo: 3.29 / 3.19 / 3.69 Marcum: 3.71 / 3.89 / 3.97 Wolf: 4.71 / 4.47 / 4.47 Narveson: 4.15 / 4.07 / 5.09 Estrada: 4.79 / 3.58 / 3.34 You're certainly right about Estrada's 2010 sample size, but the fact is that he had failed to establish himself as a big league pitcher before age 28; he got there in 2011. Caveats could also apply to Greinke and Marcum in 2011 because they switched leagues. I don't know whether or how xFIP considers league factors, but I can't believe that would account for all of Greinke's improvement. By the same token, Narveson's decline this year may have had something to do with the injury that eventually knocked him out, but I don't know how much. Looking at the overall three-year progression, just off these numbers, here's what I see: Greinke and Estrada have improved significantly. Wolf has improved modestly. Gallardo and Marcum have regressed modestly. Narveson has regressed significantly. It's also worth noting that Fiers has made an amazing transition from the minors to the majors, far smoother than most successful minor league pitchers, while in smaller samples Thornburg has struggled and Rogers is just getting started. Maybe other stats point in other directions, though I don't see any reason xFIP would bias the outcome systematically toward one conclusion or the other. These numbers back up my eyeball sense, which is that the Brewers' starters, as a group, were remarkably productive (and remarkably healthy) in 2011. Your point that the improvement in the rotation between 2010 and 2011 mainly had to do with improved personnel is obviously right. But the six men, as a group, also got better. The bullpen was pretty outstanding as well, BTW. This year, as we all know, it's a different story in the rotation and, more dramatically, in the bullpen. But of course players or teams that improve in one season tend to regress in the next season. I just think, if you're either going to deny the 2011 success or deny the pitching coach any credit for it, and then turn around and put a big chunk of blame for slippage the next year on the pitching coach, you aren't trying to do objective analysis. I think you're trying to construct an argument to support your pre-formed conclusion that the team should fire the pitching coach.

I just have to say . . . MLB Prospect Watch has Kjeldgaard as the Brewers' #16 prospect and Farris at #19. Among the players who don't make their list at all: Mark Rogers, Taylor Green, Hiram Burgos, and the entire 2012 draft class. I get that it's a preseason list, but they're purporting to update it with the prospects from the trade. You can't do that and ignore the season. Kjeldgaard got DFA'd to make room for the new guys, for goodness' sake! Differences of opinion are one thing, but this list is impossible to take seriously.

But when you put it that way, is it really easier to believe that Kranitz said or did something that made everybody in the pen suck? It's not impossible, but if that happened, it would probably be pretty well known -- like he made them all toss a medicine ball around while blindfolded or something. If their joint collapse isn't a crazy coincidence, what's the basis for assuming it's the pitching coach's fault? At the break, only Axford really looked like a train wreck. Remember when the others all had trade value? That was, like, three weeks ago. Then Axford blew the save against St. Louis, and RR quite reasonably demoted him. At that point, making Rodriguez the closer seemed to most people like a reasonable fallback for a team that hoped to get back into the race. But everything quickly went to hell. Rodriguez started coughing up save chances, and the "setup committee" of Parra, Veras, and Loe all had nightmare games. Doesn't it seem plausible that the chaos of role switches, and the pressure caused by failures at the front of the bullpen, messed everyone up somehow? If so, I'm not sure how to parcel out the blame. DM put the bullpen together. RR adjusted their roles. Kranitz was involved in helping them making the adjustments. The pitchers themselves failed to execute their jobs. I just need to know more about what a pitching coach is supposed to be doing in that situation.

That's really bad news about Marcum. Is it a done deal that he's finished for the year? Because if so, that's a horrible blow, ensuring at least that we'll have to punt on the compensation pick.

"It's about accountability" sounds good, in a macho / parental kind of way, but it's an empty slogan. To me, "it's" about cause and effect. Look at what's happening, figure out what's making it happen, do more of what's making the good things happen, and do less of what's making the bad things happen. The problem here is that figuring out what's making the bad things happen is fairly hard. Louis Ely's argument about the starting rotation seems to me willfully biased and agenda-driven. Estrada has established himself as a back-of-rotation starter over the past two years; Kranitz may deserve some credit for that. Fiers has made a smooth transition to the majors; maybe Kranitz deserves some credit for that. The rotation last year was world-historically healthy; he probably deserves at least some credit for that. Wolf's a soft-tosser who's getting old; pretending age-related regression can't possibly account for that seems very strange. The bullpen was amazing last year. They're terrible this year. What do you do with that information? We know that relievers bounce around all over the place. You can blame Doug Melvin if you want for replacing Hawkins / Saito with Veras, but that hardly seems to me like an obviously devastating move. Was Kranitz a genius last year and an arsonist this year? All I'm saying is, a flat declaration that Kranitz has done a bad job and should be fired seems like a big overreach to me. The people who are making the argument (here, at least) know a lot, but I don't think they know nearly enough to back up such a broad assertion. Now, if you want to be more measured about it -- if you want to say the pitching this year has really regressed, and obviously we should think about whether there's a better candidate out there to be the pitching coach next year, bearing in mind the complexities of the issue -- then I'll jump on that train from a helicopter. Thinking hard and cogently about whether Rick Kranitz should be retained seems to me like a necessary item for the offseason agenda.

I get it, it's easier to dismiss every young MiLB player than try to analyze each guy individually. To each his own. I just prefer to not apply such a blanket policy. I said nothing of the sort. My point was that Schafer has no MLB experience. He could be better than Gomez, and I hope he is, but to Logan who said we should just get rid of Gomez (in favor of Schafer) because Gomez can't hit is about as silly as can be. Gomez hasn't exactly lighted the world on fire with his hitting, but he's certainly not someone that doesn't have some value. He can hit, but he'll never approach what his ceiling may or may not have been. In short, I don't like dumping MLB guys that still have some pretty decent value for a MiLB player that might be a fringe MLB guy. It isn't like Logan Schafer is the second coming of Ryan Braun (i.e. a sure thing). It seems to me like you're being pretty generally dismissive of players who have not yet proved anything in the major leagues. If your formula is that we should prefer any player who has shown barely adequate offense in the majors -- which I think generously describes what Gomez has done this year -- over any player who is not "a sure thing" to produce in the majors, then I think you're pretty far toward the extreme of undervaluing prospects and overvaluing veterans. When we take money into account, your approach seems pretty unwise. To say that Gomez "can't hit" doesn't seem to me quite fair, but it's nowhere near "as silly as can be." Any player who can't post a .300 OBP in the majors is flat-out bad at the most important part of baseball offense. If you're so focused on what a player has proved in the majors, why aren't you more concerned about what Gomez has proved -- that he can't get on base? It seems very, very unlikely that Gomez will every be a better OBP guy than Schafer, which right away provides strong fuel for the "dump Gomez, play Schafer" argument. Having said all that, I actually do think Gomez has value, and hedging our bets on Schafer's arrival is a good idea. I'd play them in a soft platoon, a sort of hybrid cf / 4th of deal; or, as I was suggesting yesterday, do an Earl Weaver bit with the two of them, Aoki, and maybe one of the AA guys if he shows enough this year to make the team. Somebody will get hurt eventually, so it's not like having two cf's around is a bad thing, and Gomez seems likely to earn whatever salary he gets from being arby-eligible.

It has never seemed more like DM was reading this forum before he made trades. High upside prospects for Greinke, a ss and two sp's; a high-upside (if older) reliever for Kottaras. This seems like exactly what the majority of posters here were hoping for, and almost everyone appears to be happy with both deals. It's kind of weird. The only thing he could do now to make us happier is get some kind of value for about another third or so of the 25-man roster.

Sorry -- I missed your name change. I didn't get the "BUC" acronym until I saw this post and put two and two together. You're right, you've made these points a lot, and with all respect you've never moved me very far, although I think your inclination to look at a lot of metrics is wise and well-taken.

Both great points. How could I forget the Gary-Ron connection there? Now that you say that, the Gomez-Morgan platoon looks like RR's most creative managerial move last year; maybe his brother's experience with Weaver inspired him. As for Kh Davis, heck yes, and Ke Davis is making a little noise two. Both of those guys, plus Hunter Morris, should be no more than a phone call away next year, and depending on who else gets moved, Morris or Kh Davis could make the team out of camp.

I think we have the kind of outfield situation, other than Braun, where we should Earl Weaver the thing -- have Schafer, Aoki, Gindl, and Gomez on the roster, and slot them into different matchups with all four getting comparable PT until / unless somebody makes the case to play every day. Among the four of them, they have a great range of skills. I doubt RR could make this arrangement work, but I think it could work. Green . . . yeah, maybe Green is a backup. But would this ever be the perfect time to start him for two months, or even soft platoon him, and see what you have. It isn't like his minor league numbers or his scouting reports are conclusive at all. Trade Ramirez, let Green play some meaningless games, see how he does, and patch with a cheap fix if he doesn't work out. Or wait until Monday and see if Texas will come crawling back to give us Olt for Wolf. We could even throw in Wolf's catching attachment, Kottaras (usually sold separately). On Hart, doesn't DM have a thing about preferring to trade position players in the offseason? With Hart I can see the logic for that. With Ramirez his trade value seems like it will diminish more rapidly, so there's a better argument for taking advantage of contenders' desperation and pushing to move him now.

Thurston -- what metrics do you prefer? Also, what do you want to do about defense, what's your ground for claiming that you can evaluate average performance better than replacement-level performance, and what do you mean by the very loaded phrase "actual production"? For someone who claims to have thought a lot about this stuff, you haven't enhanced your dismissive assertions with many of your insights, and I'd like to know what you're thinking so that I can better evaluate your critique.

Having continued to read everything people are throwing out about these guys, I still haven't seen any persuasive reason to assume Segura won't stick at shortstop. Of course he might not stick at shortstop. But I think it's overreaching to assume that a 22 year-old who's relatively new to the position, doesn't lack any obvious physical attributes for the position, and isn't on any kind of a developmental vector that suggests he'll "outgrow" the position, won't be able to play the position for at least several years. In any event, he'll get a fair chance to succeed or fail, because obviously the team wants him to stick. Also -- this is not a rhetorical question, I'm asking because I don't know -- is it clear that a cf is more valuable than / doesn't need to hit as much as a 3b? This has always been the point of defensive spectrum analysis that I've found most difficult, because you're moving across skill sets. It seems to me that the offensive demands of those two positions might be fairly close. There seem at least to be some plausible situations -- groundball pitching staff, capable corner of's and/or weak ss -- when a 3b would be more valuable to a team. But maybe the incidence of offensive talent at 3b is clearly and constantly superior to the talent at cf. I'm just wondering.

It sounds like you've really done your homework here I just get so sick of guys who are likely overweight, sitting and eating fried chicken, getting greese all over their computers insulting a players toughness and bashing a player because of injuries he's had no control over. I'm guessing is some of these people(not those who question if he can handle the work load based on his history, that's perfectly valid, but those who have to have the biting digs) got off the couch and threw the ball once their arms would be in pain for weeks and they'd be out of breath walking outside in the first place. I thought these types of ignorant comments where reserved for the ESPN board. First of all, I think you make a very important point that players (almost always) have no control over whether they get hurt. Injuries can be a reason to doubt how much a player will produce, but they're never be a reason to question a player's character. Speaking of bad reasons to question people's character, let me make sure I'm getting the takeaway points here: (1) Only people who can play baseball well have any business criticizing baseball players. (2) Anybody who makes a bad or ill-considered argument is presumably fat. (3) Fat people are presumably sloppy. (4) Fat, sloppy people are presumably stupid. Does that about sum it up? Also -- not to undermine what I must presume to be the genius that accompanies your chiseled physical perfection -- you misspelled "grease."

I'm really going to miss Zack. I keep reminding myself that there's no point in investing much personal affection in baseball players; I have very little in common with most of these guys, and I probably wouldn't get along with a lot of them. But Greinke seems like a smart, funny, odd character -- my kind of person. I'm glad he's liked Milwaukee so much. He'll be a very easy guy to root for, even on one of the pennant-buying coastal teams. But yeah, if he's going to get six years at $20 million plus, I just can't see that being smart for anybody, let alone us. On the totally different matter of Segura as a shortstop . . . they moved him there last year, and he got hurt; this has been his first full year at the position. I say he's a shortstop until he proves he isn't. The reports I'm reading on his defense are all over the place: good range / poor range; good arm / poor arm. Some of it is probably just my reading too sloppily. He's 22, fast, and still settling in at the position. Even if he's average . . . man, can you imagine how much better we'd have been last year or this year with an average shortstop? Marc Hulet at Fangraphs really dislikes Pena (as a prospect; I'm sure they're great friends off the field), pegs him as a setup man: http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/index.php/zack-greinkes-strange-brew-ingredients-include-jean-segura-john-hellweg-and-ariel-pena/ Hulet's writeup acknowledges but doesn't say much about Pena's improved control this year. If the increased command is legit, Pena seems to me like a good bet to stick in the rotation. Comparing this deal to our Greinke trade with KC is fun. I'm perfectly happy to have Segura instead of Escobar, in part because Escobar's BA looks like a BABIP mirage, in part because Segura looks like he could develop in a lot of different directions. I'd much rather have Pena than Jeffress. Hellweg looks like maybe half the prospect Odorizzi is -- I'm just pulling that out of my ear, it's late -- and I still really like Cain. (I'm forgetting Betancourt ever existed, and if you remind me, I'll pretend I didn't hear you.) So by my rough math, we gave up, net, at worst a prospect and a half in exchange for a year and a half of Zack Greinke, without whom we probably wouldn't have won our division title. That seems to me like a very good sequence of transactions for the Brewers.

For, on the arby offer or maybe a two-year deal if for some reason he's amenable. If we end up paying him $13m for one year, it won't break our bank -- he might even earn the money -- and making the offer would be worth it to net the comp pick.

All this, and he doesn't even say the word "Davis." Kentrail looks like he's figured some things out, and Khris has been absolutely en fuego. Otherwise a pretty crummy night on the farm, though. Last year's draft is looking seriously grim.

I completely forgot that the Brewers were actually playing a baseball game. It's trade night, for goodness' sake. Man, Fiers is good. I keep hearing people talk about Zach Duke in 2005. Fiers is a little less than three starts short of matching Duke's IP that year, and at this point he has a nearly identical ERA, 1.77 to Duke's 1.81. They're similar by a lot of other measures too (I have no idea how to do charts): DUKE: BB/9 = 2.44; HR/9 = 0.32; BABIP = .298; FIP = 3.00; xFIP = 3.61. FIERS: BB/9 = 2.18; HR/9 = 0.27; BABIP = .291; FIP = 2.20; xFIP = 3.50. Fiers is a little bit better across the board, a lot better on FIP. There are two predictors that looked a lot better for Duke. He had a 47.2% GB rate, compared to 30.5% for Fiers; and he had an absurd 4.5% HR/FB rate, compared to a completely ludicrous 2.6% rate for Fiers. We have to expect that more of the fly balls Fiers allows will land in the seats. But here's the obvious punchline. K/9: 9.14 for Fiers, 6.17 for Duke. Duke's first-year K rate gave him no margin for regression, and when he did fall off a bit (4.64 career rate), he basically fell off a cliff. If Fiers loses 1.5 K/9, he's still at 7.6, and depending on the longballs, he's still a 2 or 3 starter. Home runs are a real concern going forward, but I see no reason not to count on Fiers as a midrotation guy, and it's realistic to hope that he sticks as a #2.

This should be interesting.

BTW, haven't seen this mentioned here -- Maysonet and Brock K. DFA'd.

This seems to me like the kind of deal we all (well, most of us) have been hoping for, but I wasn't really sure it could happen. This is a real star-for-prospects barnburner. I know some folks have criticized DM for not valuing upside enough in trades, and this seems to be that kind of trade. Segura and Pena look like pretty good bets to make it in MLB and could be true frontline guys. Helweg is boom or bust. Gotta go -- looking forward to reading more / saying more after my daughter falls asleep!

Interesting tidbits from MLB trade rumors: If the Rangers do acquire Greinke from the Brewers, MLB.com's T.R. Sullivan speculates that Texas would want a second player back in the deal, "to at least have something to show for it beyond 2012" if Greinke leaves via free agency. Such a second player could be a prospect or bench depth, Sullivan guesses. The Rangers are mainly focused on Zack Greinke and James Shields, but the odds of a trade involving Shields are diminishing because Evan Longoria is on his way back to the Rays’ lineup. [per Jayson Stark on ESPN] ************************* Hamels, Cliff Lee, and Garza already off the market, Dempster has destroyed the Cubs' leverage, and Stark thinks (FWIW) that Shields is staying put. This seems like the best possible scenario for us. You want there to be somebody else available, so that multiple teams build up hope for improving their rotations. Unless the Rangers and Angels form a cartel to drive down the total price for Greinke and Johnson, we should do well. As for the extra player to Texas thing, which is hardly surprising, I can't help thinking that the last time we did a deadline deal with them, the extra player was Nelson Cruz. In retrospect, I think that trade was DM's worst moment. Hardy for Gomez was bad and perfectly mistimed, but at least Hardy had to be traded again before he regained his All-Star form, and Gomez was a useful player in our run last year. But in the other deal, Cordero was a 1.5 year rental we didn't need, Nix is Carlos Gomez and didn't even get there 'til we dumped him, and Mench was a waste of oxygen. To get those guys for our prize trade chip, we threw in the best player in the trade, the best by far if you factor in salary. Horrible. If we send them Hart, at least we know his value (whether or not DM gets value for him).

You still have productivity to hinder? Showoff.

Well, the idea of trading Gallardo does seem to be the major point of controversy in what you're proposing. We know Greinke is gone, and everybody will be happy if we can dump Wolf. Marcum's a variable, but only because of his health. The other somewhat controversial thing you're proposing is to send Estrada (presumably) to the pen, and that's an interesting idea. I expect he'll end up in the rotation next year, but his job description does still say "swingman." I don't think trading Gallardo is a good idea, and if you don't trade him, there's no good reason to shut him down. I don't think the prospect of getting a look at Mark Rogers in the Milwaukee rotation makes trading Gallardo a better idea. Rogers has put together, what, three good starts in a row, for the first time in several years? I'd keep him right where he is; give him a chance to end his season strong and consolidate his gains. Thornburg presumably takes over for the second of Greinke and Wolf to depart, unless of course he's hurt or too fatigued, which he may be. The interesting question that leaves is whether to send Estrada to the pen in order to get a look at Peralta in the rotation. I'd be somewhat miffed about that if I were Estrada; but whatever, send him a fruit basket. Peralta has a history of success, and he's righted himself in the second half. I don't see this as a highly consequential decision either way, because I think both will end up in the 2013 rotation whatever happens now. But if the team made this move, I wouldn't complain.

It could also be that the Brewer Nation report just phrased it wrong. Maybe the Brewers really are looking at the contract, but didn't actually "request" it. Who knows, right? He could have just requested it from an intern who went and pulled it off their database. Don't think this proves anything one way or another. I had the same thought. Haudricourt's post does prove that he's both lazy and condescending. But that's like proving the Earth is round.

I like Andrus, but we don't need a two-year deal... before you know it, we'll be trying to trade him away and we'll be back looking for a long-term answer at SS. In this scenario, we're trading away 3.5 years of an All Star closer (Axford), 1.5 years of an All Star RF/1B (Hart) and 0.5 years of the top starting pitcher on the market (Greinke) for 2.5 years of Andrus and 3 years of Feliz - 5.5 years of players for 5.5 years of players. No pre-arby talent coming back. I don't look at it in quite the same way. Yes, it's 5.5 player years both ways, but we'd be getting back two young players who are still improving and are still reasonably cheap. In exchange we'd give up half a year of a truly premium pitcher; 1.5 years of a slightly above average 1b on the wrong side of 30 who makes real money; and 3.5 years of a reliever who's having a terrible year, may or may not ever recapture his All-Star form, and even if he does come back strong isn't as important as a rotation anchor or an everyday starter. The strong odds are that the players we'd get are likely to increase in value over the remainder of their present contracts. In contrast, Hart will almost certainly hold steady or lose value over the next 1.5 years, and Axford's hard to predict. If we had to trade Andrus in two years, we'd be back to where we are now -- but we would have gotten two years of Elvis Andrus in the bargain. I'll put it another way, and so that my head doesn't explode I'll confine the point to Greinke / Andrus. Let's say that the two players are likely to have comparable value over the next two years; maybe that's unfair to Greinke, but it's not ridiculous. They both play positions of great need for the Brewers. If you could extend Greinke for two years at Andrus' 2013/2014 salaries, knowing that you'd have to trade him at the end of the two years, and with pretty great confidence that his trade value wouldn't diminish over that time, wouldn't you do it in a heartbeat? If you would, then what's not to like about trading Greinke for Andrus? You get two years of likely premium production, and then you go back to the prospect well with comparable resources to what you have now. Isn't that kind of like borrowing money and getting paid interest for your trouble? What's not to like about that? I'm not actually sure what I think of the Andrus scenario; of course a lot depends on the opportunity cost of cashing in Greinke for Andrus. But the analysis I just sketched out seems at least plausible.