DuWayne Steurer

Russ, I'm not at all dissing pythag, I'm just saying that 'this year', the Brewers pen (as you yourself alluded to) has performed almost historically bad in high pressure situations. I'm not asking for 10 to 15 more wins. But I don't think it's unreasonable to say that with even an 'average' performance in high pressure situations (eg: close/late), the Brewers could easily be 3 to 5 wins better than they are now, and still be within the standard variance that pythag allows.

Pythag is extraordinarily accurate, and exactly one team ever has won the world series with a negative run differential during the regular season. Only a handful have made the playoffs with a negative run differential.

The Brewers should be 82-64? The Brewers have under performed but let's not get carried away. It's easy to remember all the games they "should" have won but you can't forget about the ones they stole themselves. Their run differential on the year is +41, which works out to a Pythagorean record of 77-69 (3 more wins). I think what he (and many others) are talking about is the huge number of blown saves/leads by the bullpen. Sure, the Brewers have stolen some. EVERY team steals some every year, and blow some every year, but generally, pythag takes care of that. Let's look at the Royals series, which the bullpen gave up the lead in the 8th, 9th, and 11th innings, and blew 2 saves in the 9th inning. Honestly, what are the odds of that? Let's look at the July series against the Phillies, which featured a 4 run 9th inning surrendered by the pen, a SIX run ninth inning surrendered by the pen, and then for good measure, the took the lead in the 10th inning of the last game of that series, and blew that one too. When people say "the Brewers should have more wins this year", they aren't talking about pythag, they're talking about the incredible bad luck/timing of the bullpen meltdowns, and the horrible pitching of the bullpen in general, and how it has derailed a top-notch performance by the offense, and honestly, a surprising performance by the starting rotation, considering Greinke is gone, Marcum has missed a bunch of the year, Narveson has made 2 starts all year, and Wolf pretty much sucked. I realize that the bad bullpen plays into the pythagorean w/l, but you can't honestly say you'd ever expect a team to blow a save 3 days in a row, let alone blow 3 saves in a 3 game series, twice within a one month span. The odds against are astronomical. Playing devil's advocate here, but taking away even just 3 of those 6 craptastical meltdowns puts the 'Crew a half game in the drivers seat right now.

Wow, Marcum has just pretty much sucked since coming off the DL. Is he still hurt? He's been awful.

This almost seems like some sort of Hollywood deal. The Brewers keep winning, and somehow, everyone in front of them keeps losing. I still am just hoping, and not expecting, but having relevant baseball in mid-September is a pleasant surprise. Of course, I still can't get over the fact that if our bullpen hadn't stunk to high heaven for the bulk of the season, this would all be moot at this point.

You don't even have to say "I think". There's absolutely zero doubt if Axford and K-Rod alone perform like last year, the Brewers would have about 9-10 fewer blown saves, at least.

Awesome. Thanks. I can stop watching games now. For the record, I didn't say anyone say "We got this". I see fans hoping against hope. Good thing we have level headed informed fans like you here to be honest and set the record straight. PHEW!

Yeah, you can count me in on the 'see ya later Shawn" bandwagon. Need a good start, and he gets shellacked. Just like the playoffs last year. I'm totally in the 'no such thing as measurable clutch' camp, but when the Brewers have absolutely NEEDED him to perform, he has disappeared.

You said that about the A's too....

Fixed! I vote they shut him down right now, and have him start spring training a month early Yeah, except he had an .848 OPS in May.

I don't know that they can DL someone who's not technically 'hurt'. And at this point, when they've publicly shut them down, suddenly coming up with a mystery 'injury' would look pretty fishy.

Speechless...........

Range factor is honestly about the worst defensive metric out there. All it does is measure how many balls a guy touches per nine innings. The Brewers pitchers strike out a ton of batters, so that will limit the number of touches the defense can get. Range factor is a horribly flawed stat. Using that to judge a guy's range is terrible.

Insanity: Doing the same thing over and over, and expecting a different result. For the love of God RRR, make it stop....

Why? Honestly, why? Why are we so hung up on ex-Brewer re-treads that for even the WORST of them, there's a 'should we bring them back?" thread when they're available? Are we that interested in chasing 75 wins this year instead of 73 that a guy like Yuni-B becomes enticing? PLEASE no.

He should. He's the best player in the league. Just imagine what he'll be like when he hits his prime. I remember when people said that about Braun, when he was a rookie, having the best rookie season ever. Trout is going to be an awesome player for a long time, but I think we have to be careful when projecting him to be even better. I'm not saying that he can't be, I'm just saying.....

That is very interesting to me, can you elaborate on that please? In what context would a team benefit more from Mariano Rivera instead of Willie Mays? Wouldn't even a great team be better off adding a Mays to an already explosive lineup and just going with a Wilhelm or Hoffman as a closer? Because as teams that score lots of runs score *more* runs, the 10 run rule actually starts to fall apart in terms of wins and losses. When you already (hypoethetically) lead the league in runs scored, adding another big bat is a diminishing return. Bill James' Total Baseball breaks it down quite a bit better than I do of course, but I just don't feel like looking it up right now.

I'm hoping they let him stretch out a bit, and at least get to 140 or so IP. I really want to see this kid (well, he's not really a kid anymore) succeed in Milwaukee.

[quote name='"RockCoCougars" This looks to be a pretty blah return on a guy like Pence. If this is all Hart would bring' date=' I'll keep him, thank you very much.[/b'] This is what kills me about the annual 'trade Hart' threads. He'll go down as one of the most under-appreciated guys in Brewers history. Look at the contracts guys like Werth, Wells, and Rios got, look at what Hart gets paid, and then look at the return packages for outfielders somewhat similar to Hart are, and I can never understand why so many are so quick to want to get rid of the guy. Granted, Hart's a 1B now, and at .825 OPS or so, he's pretty average offensively, but still......

Like a pack of wolves......

http://cdn1.sbnation.com/imported_assets/950892/scapegoat.jpg

I guess my real point is it's a waste of time by Melvin to be throwing comments around like that on guys like Parra. You're not going to drive the asking price up on him by saying "Well, we'll just keep him and use him as a starter". And if Melvin actually thinks that.....he's not as smart as people give him credit for.

Welcome, class, to Driving Up Trade Offers 101. Professor Melvin will be your instructor... I seriously hope there's not a GM in the game dumb enough to fall for something like that on a guy like Parra. That might work with a player who's had more than marginal success for half a season, but not a fringe guy like Parra who is 29, and has sucked since he was a rookie.

This is cool. This is the kind of stuff that will keep me interested in the rest of the season. I'd like to know how many inning Rogers has left in his arm this year though.

I realize it's only July, but this game thread is like reading an Ikea furniture instruction manual. you guys are mailing it in.