MJLiverock

You are assuming Escobar will hit poorly next year and that Counsel is going to keep his career year stats of this year and not return to a .240/.320/.310 line he put up for many years. I would hope that if Hardy is traded Escobar is the starting SS and Counsel if not retired resumes his super sub/PH role.

La Russa is always on a one year deal by his own choice and he has often said he won't manage without Duncan as his pitching coach. He likes to say if Duncan retires so will he and that may be where some of these rumors or hopes come from. Duncan was supposedly upset when they dumped his son, Chris, but given the Red Sox did shortly as well, maybe reality set in a bit. His other son, Shelley, is stuck at AAA for the Yankees with little hope of unseating Tex at first base. I just don't see La Russa leaving STL unless it is for retirement. The one year deal each year sort of flies in the face of those who say you can't have a manager on a one year deal. I wish teams wouldn't be in such a rush to extend guys like Macha or Yost and say they had to because you can't be a lame duck. It's not the players aren't going to try and hit or pitch because a manager is on his last year of a deal.

It's not that simple either though ender, sometimes older players will play the chase the ring game and sign with whomever has the best team but they also like that they aren't going to be the key guy and be expected to play every down and carry the team. In the NFL those teams on top rotate however as well. It happens in baseball too, Smoltz picked the Cardinals over a pitching starved team like the Nationals or Brewers or Pedro going to the Phillies have some semblance of looking for a postseason to them. It's not like the Steeler don't lose players in free agency despite being a good team. Alan Faneca, a Pro-Bowl guard, left the Steelers for the money of the NY Jets after the 2007 season where the Steelers were 10-6 and contenders for (and actually going on to win) the Super Bowl the next year. The Jets were coming off a 4-12 season. Even after letting Joey Poter go, he signed with the Miami Dolphins coming of their 6-10 season and not one of the reported many other teams looking at him, because they offered the most money. For the most part I think the NFL players follow the money just like the other sports and have a few veterans chasing a ring just like the other sports.

It isn't just about a small market team making it either, you notice the small market teams that make it don't often appear again in the playoffs for some time either since for them to make it everything has to go their way and they have to use all their resources for the one shot by trading for a hired gun like CC, or running a deficit payroll like the Marlins and sell off afterwards. The feel good Cinderella's occure each year but not the same team twice because they can't sustain that level year in and year out and fall back to pack rather quickly. Meanwhile the Yankees, Boston, Dodgers, Angels, etc. go on competing for the playoffs. Sort of like college football, sure Boise State/Utah/Hawaii gets into a BCS game now and then, may even wins one, but USC, Florida, Texas, Ohio State, just keep reloading and expecting to be in those games year in and year out not once every 10 years if everything falls their way. The Brewers, Royals, etc. are like mid major teams compared to the Yankees even though they are all supposed to be in the same league.

I agree with the general economic idea that the players should receive a big chunk of the money and have some rights a la the Curt Flood case. But there also needs to be some understanding that the Yankees and the rich teams receive a benefit from the league as a whole being popular and from having a team to play against. Nobody except a crazy diehard few will want to see the Yankees scrimmage themselves everyday or play in a league of 8 teams. As popular as the Yankees are, there a vastly more people who don't care about them or don't cheer for them. A league of just a few big market teams would fade away as the majority of people in the whole country wouldn't care enough to follow a team outside their market, al that would be left would be the baseball diehards and a few big markets. Baseball has done better in recent years since the bitterness over the strikes has faded, steroids juiced the offense (chicks and most of the masses dig the long ball), not a lot of competition in the summer, tradtions, and America becoming somewhat sports crazy over the last 20 years. But the rich teams can't become so adamant in hording all the money they push their playing partners to the fringe causing people outside of a few select places to tune out the game as a whole. This is where the TV money which is really the driving force in the disparity between teams comes in. Attendance is nice but even with the Brewers drawing 3 million fans a year they still can't compete with the rich teams because of TV. I will admit I don't know a lot about how the TV money each team gets is split now if at all (other than the national contracts with Fox/TBS/ESPN). Does anyone have any idea of the split if any the teams get on the local TV deals? For instance when the Rays play the Yankees do they get anything from the YES contract or does all the money go to the Yankees, who without the Rays being there wouldn't have a game to televise.

Did anyone aske Macha about the Gamel switch in the post game? Or just flat out ask why on earth he isn't playing Gamel everyday from here on out at 3rd?

Wasn't it just a week or so ago that Macha said he wanted to rest Counsell more so as not to ruin his good season? I remember thinking why on earth is a manager worrying about an aged utility infielder's stat line to close out the year when he said the comment. Now Gamel is up and still not playing so I guess Macha is still worried about that old zim zam of playing Gamel over Counsell even when he himself said he wanted to rest Counsell to preserve his good season. But I guess not if he has to play the best hitting prospect the Brewers have in his place. And heaven forbid Jason Kendall doesn't play 6/7 games. Is Macha really that unsure about what Kendall brings?, that enamored with him? scared of him? so sure of Rivera being worse? Insane? Stubborn? Why?

Couldn't have said it better, I was thinking of how to word it and you did it for me. Duncan seems to turn guys around that aren't that successful elsewhere and then watch as the pitchers regress as soon as they leave. Defense has some impact but he gets guys to throw strikes who can't seem to do it elsewhere. Sure they gave up a Dan Haren but it helped get them a World Series title. I think sometimes people forget most prospects flame out and getting good proven ML talent has a cost but also a benefit. Brett Wallace may be a total bust but they knew Matt Holliday is a proven ML hitter to help Pujols. I am not a bit surprised by Holliday's stats in STL, he had a bad April but since then was OPSing over .800 every month and has proven over his career to be a .900+ OPSer. If he walks they get two picks to replace Wallace, but they may be able to keep him and pair him Pujols for as formidable duo as any in baseball. They spun a couple of prospects, even relievers, into DeRosa, a proven ML player who is versatile and allows LaRussa to contintue to put the best lineup possilbe out there by having a guy who can play multiple postitions. They are willing to trade potential for proven players but not just crazily giving guys away, but they understand you have to give to get and that not every "prospect" is going to pan out into a star.

They had a good run at the start of the seaon, but the season is 162 games, not two months. The bullpen was going to wear down and be less effective as the season wore on because the starters do not go deep in games, be it Suppan or Burns. Why have Bush and Suppan continued to get rocked now? They aren't pitching any better than their replacements. They just aren't that great of pitchers and the staff injuries probably wouldn't have made much difference because of that. They have a good game or two but over the course of the whole season they end up with mediocre at best results. I watched Burns outduel Santana for a win, it happens but seeing Bush and Suppan, and Looper and Para get shelled can't be that big of a surprise anymore. Even Gallardo is hitting the wall with innings and pitchcounts for the year.

Thanks for the link, excellent article and underlying comments pointing out basically my contention with the use of UZR and WAR. And Brawndo- A straw man argument is an informal fallacy based on misrepresentation of an opponent's position.[1][/sup] To "attack a straw man" is to create the illusion of having refuted a proposition by substituting a superficially similar proposition (the "straw man"), and refuting it, without ever having actually refuted the original position.[1][/sup] [2] [/sup] This is basically your very argument of brining in Batting Average and using claims against it to refute my arguement about UZR. You introduced a totally other stat that I never even mentioned to argue my points on UZR. As I was driving home last night I thought of this final point on the matter and the article above seems to bring it up as well as a few posts here. If UZR and defensive metrics are so limited by small samples why does anyone take small samples like this seriously? And finally, why are the samples so small? In the Cabrera numbers his put outs and assists were around 600, certainly not that small of a sample. Is the stat then measuring only certain plays like out of zone? or great plays? or limited by the number of chances at OOZ plays? If so isn't the real output of the stat then a function of chances of OOZ plays or for great plays and not really a measure of true defensive ability but a measure of converting tough plays into outs varying by the sheer luck of number of chances? That article and subsequent comments certainly pointed out a number of questions with the stat and made me feel fine with my belief that I still don't trust the stat all that much which was were I started until the whole, "how can anyone question the reliability of a stat" thing started. I picked Cabrera because he was the guy that jumped off the page when I was looking at SS UZR from year to year. I found it odd a player would fluctuate between being the best defender at his position and the worst defender from year to year given defensive ability isn't really luck driven unless of course you are measuring chances at great plays or OOZ plays. In Cabrera's case his UZR wasn't going -5 to 0 to +5 he was going -19 to +19.

Geez TLB and AKA Pete is Doug Melvin your Dad? Serisously, why is it any hint of critcisim or dissatisifaction of Melvin is met with such derision and indignation. I dont' know what deals he could have done, I am not the GM I trade stocks for a living. I do know what the results have been. Last year was fanstastic, and I know going into this year the playoffs were a pipedream. We all heard how the great Doug Melvin would pull a rabbit out of the hat at deadline time and get a pitcher to put them over the top. Well the results were the team looked so bad it wasn't worth it. Then the excuses were nobody wants to trade pitching, but deals happend in season and out of season. Now it's teams paid too much. Talent isn't free but, I believe the Phillies stole Lee from the Indians because I think getting low A pitchers is a huge risk - - look at the Brewer's own results in trying to develp guys from low A to the majors. Even on the batting side when the Cardinals acquired Holliday people cried how could they give up AAA guy like Wallace for Holliday. Yet as the Cardinals run away with the division and Holliday mashes behind Pujols the Cardinals fans are pretty happy. Wallace may turn out to be a total bust, who knows, or the Cardinals may just fill 3B some other way. Point is that it isn't the end of the world if a team trades minor league talent to fill holes in the oranization and to do that a team has to be willing to trade some talented guys. Yeah, I acknowledged he got CC, it was a no brainer. A team and fanbase dying for a playoff appearance after 26 years of futility and 6 or 7 years of just wait til this wave of prospects gets here. Sabathia was a rental, everyone knew it, and all he gave up was a position player who was blocked at the big league level by our two best players. I applaud him for doing it, but it wasnt' like he took a huge risk. That is my problem with him, I dont' think he is a risk taker. Taking risk doesn't mean crazy Vernon Wells deals or bad deals it means taking calculated risk which will involve trading top talent for top talent. That may require giving up top prospects for pitching that is in the upper minors, something Melvin has not seemed willing to do. Other than LaPorta he has held on to every top prospect he could to the extent of the Bill Hall extension when he had no position becaue of Hardy being deemed SS of the Future and Weeks 2B of the future, and Braun 3B of the Future. Now he has the Hardy Escobar situation, I don't blame him for failing to predict Hardy's struggles this year but it could be he ends up getting burned by hanging on too long again and that is where Melvin has to face the music if the results continue to suffer. A team in Milwaukee's situation has to take some risk, they can't just sit back and wait for one sided deals to fall in their lap or get lucky on scrap heap reclamations. Everytime someone defends Melvin with the "what would you do line" it is condescending. No one knows what deals he turned down, or didn't make, or even thought of, but we all know the results are a terrrible terrible pitching staff. I even acknowledged I wouldn't fire him after this year, but the window is closing on this wave and there will be a lull before any of the pitching they have in the minors is ready if they ever are. During that time Fielder will most likely leave and the team will have to fill in the offense for him, find a CF to replace an .800 OPSing Cameron, find a RF and a 1B. Gamel will fill something in but unlikely he will equal Fielder's production and I dont' think Cain will be as good as Cameron. So I am afraid the offense will wither while the pitching still won't be any better in 2 years. I and many others don't want to suffer through 3 or 4 years of mediocre baseball again with the promise of wait til the prospects get here. That woud mean 1 playoff appearence in 10 or 11 years of Melvin's tenure, not really impressive. So the fact that some people are not totally enamored with Melvin's performance isn't outlandish or unfair. As I said earlier if he goes into next season with Gallardo and four designated rotation stooges, people are going be upset with another sub 500 season. He is in a tight spot but he got himself there and I admit I dont' know what trades to make because I am not the GM but accountability for poor records has to fall on someone. Saying this guy didn't pan out or that guy wasn't as good as thought etc. are not acceptable excuses, it is his job to deal with those issues. If I buy my client 20 stocks and 15 are great but 5 are so bad they make my client lose more money than the market I might get fired, I will certainly hear it from my clients and using a defense of I didn't know they were going to commit fraud or I really thought Pets.com was a good company doesn't excuse the actual performance. A growing fanbase is concerned about the future because the pitching is so bleak for the next few years as the current situation stands and the only person responsible is Melvin because that is his job. Nobody hates the guy but status quo and excuses aren't acceptable to some either.

I didn't bring up AVG, it was used as a strawman against my point. I did say it is actually measurable and will say it doesn't fluctate nearly as much as the UZR rating in my example of Cabrera. Sure batting average moves around but Jason Kendall isn't going to suddenly hit .350 next year no matter how much we hope. Players batting avereges don't move from league leader to worst in the league to best in the leage to worst in the league back to the top of the league from year to year. I know WAR isn't predictive but it is used sometimes to say player X is better than Player Y or we can get rid of this guy and add this guy because the WAR only changes by half a win. Those are the comparison I meant.

Wallowing in medioctrity is where this team will be with zero pitching like this year. Now, I think some this is a little venting and some is a little I told you so but there were some seriously inflated expectations by some fans going into this season. Plenty of 90+ win predicitons in that old thread and plenty of, "well losing Sheets and Sabathia is only going to mean a few wins and the offense will pick that up" type comments. Or the team will be in it and Melvin will nab a guy at the deadline to finish out the year. Others myself included, saw a team with a very questionable rotation and have been upset with Melvin's seemingly indifference to it or his public facade that it isn't that bad. He got all pissy along with some people here when Braun insinuated the rotation needed help. He has whined a bit about deals not out there or teams not trading guys, yet Kazmir gets traded, Cliff Lee gets traded, Peavey went, etc. and in the offseason we have seen trades happen. They may not have been garbage for talent like Melvin seems to look for but he can't go around saying no one is willing to trade. It was probably the smart thing to not make a trade at the deadline because the rotation was so awful at this point it wasn't realistic to think they had a shot. I happen to think the Phillies got a steal in the Lee trade so that one may have been worth it since he would be around next year as well. This was a great example of a team with a very potent offense realizing they had a shot at a WS title not only this year but next and willing to seize the opportunity without resting on the laurels of last year's victory. I admit I admire the Marlins and their titles and somehow being competitive even in the rebuilding years. The A's and Twins tried to go half way and have failed to win titles and partially due to only going half way, not willing to go all in to win. I would rather win a title now and then rather than be an average .500 team year in and year out. Melvin is starting to sound defensive and awful quick with the excuses when it comes to the pitching staff and I just don't buy some of the excuses. Suppan getting hurt really didn't matter, he isn't that good and doesn't pitch deep into games. Bush hurt some but again, he isn't CC Sabathia. If Melvin goes into next season with a ragtag staff again the results will be the same, sub 500 hoping to hit 500 and no playoffs or much of a chase. We all heard about wait until the wave of Fielder, Hardy, Weeks, Hart, get here. They did we made one playoff appearance and appear to have taken a step back. The next wave mentioned of Gindel, Schaefer, Cain, Lawrie, LuCroy, Gamel, Escobar is starting but again no pitchers and frankly unlikely any Fielders or Brauns in that mix. It is likely 4 years before any of the pitchers in A ball contribute meaningfully. In most cases 2-3 years before hitting the majors and a 1+ in the majors before being able to pitch 175+ innings. So what are the Brewers going to do in the meantime? Suffer through Gallardo and 3 or 4 designated rotation stooges? That is the question some of the non Melvin apologists are asking. Does Melvin have the stones to make a deal or is he going to go with is usual M.O. of sifting through the scrap pile while telling everyone it'll be OK, or if it isn't, it is just bad luck not bad talent. Melvin did a good job of making the obvious move last year and going in to get Sabathia, but I question whether he is willing to make moves by giving up talent to shore up the gaping hole that is the pitching staff for the coming couple years. So I believe it isn't unrealistic to think there are plenty of questions and problems with the Brewers right now and can see a scenario where mediocrity is the result for a few years. In which case Melvin will have squandered the window of opportunity presented by the wave of prospects that he always pointed to as the future.

I guess I needed to make the point of my post much more obvious. What I'm trying to say is that volatility is not, in and of itself, a reason to dismiss a statistic as though it isn't measuring anything. Once you account for the fact that in a given season, a position player gets countless more ABs than he gets non-routine fielding opps (the kind that differentiate between good and bad fielders), you see that batting average is at least as volatile as UZR, but you don't hear anybody arguing it's a useless stat as a consequence of that volatility. Volatility of that magnitude makes me question how accurate the stat is or how good the information really is, espeically when it is as subjecitve as defensive ability which in reality isn't likely to vary huge amounts from year to year. These defensive metrics are used to compute things like WAR which throws a whole other layer of subjectivity by using a mythical replacement level palyer and a fudge factor for position played. All of these non empiral "measurements" lead to a dilution of the accuracy of the stat and its predictive nature. Batting average is pretty simple hits or outs. The only thing open to interpretation is the occasional error vs. hit in the scorekeeper's judgement a much more observable measurement than all the guess work and fudge factoring going on with WAR calculations and defensive metrics. That is the crux of my problem with the use of WAR as a the be all end all of player evaluation or saying who is better or what to pay a guy that some of these arguements delve into. Stats like WAR and UZR get thrown around like they are the gospel of valuations and in fact have plenty of holes and do not definitively prove anything. Cabrera's UZR rating has vacilated from being the worst (or very near it) in the league, to the best, back to the worst, back to good. That would be like a players's seasonal batting average going from .350 to .220 to .360 to .230 back to .300

I think what MrQL and to a degree lcbj68c are getting at is the team cannot rest on its laurels of one post season appearance. Everytime a criticism of Melvin is met with "but look how bad they were when he got here" as the reason to keep him and never consider a change drives me crazy. The Ned Yost reference was perfect - - just because he helped turn things around doesn't guarantee a job for life no matter what happens or how many mistakes are made. I don't think he needs to be fired after this year but the leash is getting shorter. Expectation levels have been raised, no longer should the mantra be lets hope for .500. That isn't going to keep drawing 3 million fans. Some guys are meant to be turn around specialists and others for getting a team over the hump and into championship caliber. I don't know which Melvin is, if either of just those two choices, but ownership and fans won't put up with digging up old successes vs. current failures forever or relying on the "wait til next year" mentality. That is what the Cubs are for.

That contract is astoundingly bad, but when reading some of the comments it is mentioned it was the ownership that pressured Ricciardi to make the deal against his desire to let Wells walk in FA. I don't know how true it is and it may be more of the "blame the owner when the GM does something dumb or unexpected" a la the blame placed on Attanasio whenever Melvin does something that didn't work out or was unexpected. IIRC, wasn't the Wells deal signed back when it seemed every above average guy was demanding $20MM per year after ARod set the bar at $25MM or so. For awhile there it just seemed like $20MM per was the number everyone threw out as the going rate for key FAs.

Any reason why Escobar didn't come in to pinch run for Lopez in the ninth? I guess even the Cardinals announcers were questioning the non move by Macha. Escobar is fast, can steal put the tying run on second, Lopes is slowed by a leg problem and honestly the Brewers are playing for nothing more than pride at this point so why not? Oh, that's right, Escobar is young and probably can't handle the pressure or you don't want to show up Hardy by having a guy who plays the same position showcase his talents in a key spot. Macha has really really worn on me even worse than Yost.

If you account the discrepancy in the number of opportunities, this reasoning would also forbid you from ever looking at batting average. Cabrera's oppourtunities have been fairly consistent during the timeframe as have his innings played and have varied nowhere near as wildly as the UZR rating or UZR/150 rating. For full years (not including this year with makes the data look even more unpredictive since his UZR is -15.3 so far) his average innings is 1339 with a standard deviation of about 50 innings, his 1 standard deviation from normal results in only a 4% swing in innings Putouts during the 02-08 frame averaged 241 with a standard deviation of 12 resulting in only a 5% deviation from the mean while being with that 1st sd. Assists averaged 429 with a s.d. of 53, so here he shows a little variance from the mean getting all the way up to 12% swings. UZR rating during this time averaged 6.4, one standard deviation was 8.2. He could swing 127% in one direction from his mean and still be within one standard deviation. Even is the UZR/150 is utilized, which attempts to equalize the games at 150 the swings in his defensive rating get even more profound, mostly due to my now being able to include this year but even without it the swings are still greater. The average rating goes to 4.4 while the standard deviation jumps to 11.1 or a 252% swing from the mean and still being within a standard deviation. Given there is really very minor moves in innings, putouts, assists and UZR is all over the place from year to year and I don't have time to run a regression but I am guessing that UZR fluctuation isn't driven by the number of chances.

The Brewers are also demonstating that running our 4 or 5 guys with ERA's over 5 doesn't get you anywhere either.

I didn't mention a thing about run support and I easialy calculated how pitcher like Wainwright is more than 3 wins above a guy like Burns. I didn't meniton wins credited to the pitcher for that very reason, just that the team wins because he is more likely to keep them in the game and sometimes doesn't get the win himself. I just don't believe WAR gives enough credit to great players vs. terrible players. All the players are too closely bunched up making it easy for some of the arguments that player X is only a little better than player Y because, "look their WAR is only 2 or 3 apart." Part of it I believe is due the defensive metrics being poor and also the replacement level settings being off somehow.

If you want to see crazy fluctuations in WAR, and defensive metrics look at http://www.fangraphs.com/statss.aspx?playerid=766&position=SS#value Apparently Orlando Cabrera fluctates from being the best defensive shortstop to the one of the worst defensive shortstops fairly often. I just can't buy into a metric that has something like defensive ability fluctating that much year to year.

Looking at those fangraphs calculations shows that pretty much every single SS is underpaid and in many cases by 10's of millions of dollars. This doesn't add a lot of credibility to the stat, maybe as a comparison between guys but certainly not by any real world measure. Even Cesar Izturis is listed as an $8.1MM SS last year. I've never put a lot of stock in the WAR calculations. Pujols is only 6.8 WAR and is the best player in the game. Jason Kendall is 1.0 WAR, how he is even positive is amazing. But pitching is where the stat really seems to lose all context or meaning. The best pitchers in the game are barely over 3 or 4 while guys like Mike Burns are right around 0. There is just no way I am buying that a whole season of starts from Adam Wainwright or Matt Cain will only get a team 3 or 4 more wins than a season's worth of Mike Burns. Maybe that's Melvin's problem with pitching - - he actually believes having a guy like a Wainwright or a Cain only adds 3 or 4 wins over Burns. Over 32 starts by a Wainwright I would realistically expect the team to win 65% of the time - - basically 21 wins. A guy like Burns? Maybe 35% of the time or 11 wins, that is 9 more wins without getting crazy on either side of the coin. It doesn't even consider the effects on the bullpen either.

This is more like a Taylor Green and one of our A ball arms package. I'd do that in a heartbeat if I was the GM of the Brewers

I like how he has 5 good innings against the worst offense in baseball and everyone is ready to proclaim him fixed or back to his hold self. C'mon, he shut down the Padres for 5 whole innings. I'm just waiting to see him get lit up by a decent team and then the excuse train for what happened.

Ender do you happen to know what the starter's league average is for xFIP? I am curious to see just to get a better picture of where these three are in relation to "average". I look at those numbers and given ages and declines see three guys in the rotation who will likely put up xFIP's of 4.8 to 5.2, probably averaging around 5.0 combined. That can't be good for a rotation unless the other two guys are studs, especially when these 3 are likely going to only 6 innings or less on average. A team almost has to have two horses to offset these three if they want to contend. I still remember ranking the playoff teams pitching last year and seeing the Brewers as near the bottom in almost every metric, i.e. worst pitching staff in the playoffs even with C.C. on the team. Realistically, I think the Brewers need to find 1 above average pitcher and 1 at least average pitcher to think about contending next year. This will push Suppan/Looper out of the rotation. Gallardo is above average but not at ace level yet, an above average guy, an average guy, Bush, and Parra to round out the five. Suppan can be gone or long relief/depth. It is wishful thinking and I have no idea how they do it yet but anything short of that and I see the Brewers as a .500 team that won't really be a contender for the playoffs.