JoeHova

Here is a quote on MLEs from Gary Huckaby, founder of Baseball Prospectus and a consultant with the Oakland A's: he goes on to say that the errors for Ks and BBs are: "not consistently in either direction." Sean Forman, proprietor of baseball-reference.com and a professor of mathematics at St. John's, says:

yes, the MLEs take park factor into account. the accuracy that I speak of is that a player's MLEs are usually a good indication of what a player will do in the future. At the same time, they aren't a projection: they don't take multiple years into account, they don't consider a player's age relative to league, etc.

The Brewers need at least 2 of these 3 if they want to finish .500. Tonight is almost a must win with their best pitcher going against a tomato can.

Ok, this is some interesting stuff. Major League Equivalencies take what a player did in the minors and translate that to what the player would have done in the majors. In other words, it's not a projection for the future, but rather what a player would have done had they spent the year in the majors. MLEs have a long track record of accuracy, although there will always be outliers. Anyway, here are 2005 MLEs for people of interest to BF.net: (avg./obp/slg) Prince Fielder- .262/.345/.492 (this suggests he's already better than Lyle) Rickie Weeks- .286/.383/.562 (too bad about his injury, cost him ROY) Corey Hart- .277/.338/.466 (pretty much exactly average for a corner OF) Nelson Cruz- .250/.331/.445 (slightly below average for a corner OF) Mike Rivera- .257/.287/.495 (that power would look pretty nice in Mil) Ryan Braun- .257/.285/.421 (already a .700 OPS, he really raked in R & A) Hernan Iribarren- .210/.254/.259 (still far from the majors) Alcides Escobar- .196/.217/.250 (even farther than Hernan) Dave Krynzel- .227/.285/.362 (he needs to start hitting at some point) Tony Gwynn- .230/.309/.285 (needs more time in the minors) Lou Palmisano- .213/.258/.294 (so does he) Brad Nelson- .237/.317/.352 (let's see about next year, it's not too late) Enrique Cruz- .254/.297/.379 (this is probably about average for a UT) Steve Scarborough- .228/.286/.364 (hey, it's better than Guzman) Steve Moss- .233/.276/.330 (similar OPS to Gwynn) Vinny Rottino- .253/.297/.333 (needs more time in the minors) John Vanden Berg- .215/.303/.299 (not too bad, but needs improvement) Unfortunately, Angel Salome isn't listed. According to the MLE's, the Brewers had 6 guys in the minors who could have slugged .400 in the majors this year: Prince, Rickie, Corey, and Nelson Cruz (the usual suspects, in other words) and Mike Rivera (he really deserves a call-up after the PCL championship series) and Ryan Braun (that is surprising to me, he's off to a heck of a start). They had 5 guys who would be about average or above for their positions (the big 4 hitters and Rivera) and two guys who would be about average as utility guys (Braun and Enrique Cruz). That doesn't seem too bad to me, especially when you consider that guys like Hernan, Alcides, Angel, and the CFs still have alot of potential to improve. Thought people might be interested in this. It's pretty encouraging to me, especially as it regards Prince, Rickie, Corey, N. Cruz, and Braun. Rivera and E. Cruz were nice surprises this year and deserve to stick around the organization next year. link: home.comcast.net/~briankaat/mle05.csv edit: added two BF.net favorites

woot! on to the next round for Helena. I hope Angel can lead them to the title in his MVP year.

Helena wins 8-4. Inman goes 5 1/3 and gives up 3 runs, but Ks 8. Salome goes 3-4 with a HBP in his return to Helena.

I wonder who will take Helling's next turn in the rotation. I'd prefer anyone on the Brewers 40 man over him, to tell the truth. Hendrickson and Lehr and De La and Capellan are all young enough where they could still end up being servicable starters. Eveland would get rocked, but it would be exciting to see what he could do. Heck, even Santos has pitched well in MLB for stretches over the last 2 years, Helling hasn't. I'm wondering just how committed Yost is to the youth movement when he throws trash like Helling and Magruder out there. Anyway, go Brewers!

this sucks, can't they just give him what the Astros gave Roger's kid and get this over with? Even if there is only a 1% chance that Jemile develops like Rickie did, $350,000 is a cheap price for a ticket in that lottery.

Ezekeil ( english translation ) and he has a 6.66 era. Is he the antichrist that Ezekeil talked about in the bible. You are spelling Zeke wrong, it's Ezekiel in English.

Russ better start every game in Coors. He is tailor-made for that park. Same with Weeks and Jenkins. It seems that guys that can't hit the curve very well but have huge power would do very well in Coors because curves don't break and fly-balls go farther. All 3 of them should be in the lineup.

Doesn't most of the thickness come from tape? That's what it looks like to me.

terrible throw by Carlos, nice that they caught Casey though.

well, I hope they can win tonight. That's all I've got to say, other than, I hope the guys take the advice of sam cooke and the dancing banana.

Thanks Homer and Mass for the RS/RA info. Interesting stuff.

hey Mass, would it be possible to find the RA and RS for each of the Brewers' affiliates? I would try looking, but my connection is too slow to mess around with the MILB.com site. If it's hard to find though, don't worry about it.

Rivera is really hitting for some great power down in Nashville. His OBP is low, but if he could slug .440 in the majors, he would look real nice on a lot of teams in the majors as their backup catcher. I think he could probably do a .280/.440. I wonder if that is worthwhile at the MLB level. It seems like it would be a lot better than what many teams have as their backup backstop. For example, Moeller is at .260/.340 right now. I hope Rivera gets a shot. Swapping Moeller and Rivera may not be a bad idea.

That's pretty awesome. Can anyone think of a reason this isn't a good idea? I can think of two, which are both debatable: 1: less variety for fans wanting to see different teams. 2: If two teams riding hot/cold streaks or dealing with injuries/promotions play each other, 3 5 game series's could decide the pennant in a way that 5 3 game series spread out over a longer time couldn't. For example, a home and home series would now be 10 games long. If one team is missing their best player due to injury and has had their top two starters called up to make spot starts and the other team is on a good streak, the split could easily be 9-1 or 8-2 which could be the margin at the end of the season. I think those are the reasons why they don't do this in the majors.

why is Magruder still on the team? His OPS is under .650 and his D is pedestrian. Cruz and Hart are both much better options, imo. Nice to see JJ get one there.

I look forward to reading it, IIAY, if you ever get the time. Also, I hope Nelson Cruz gets a legit chance this year. He looks like he'd be a great platoon partner for Jenkins, plus he could spell Lee and maybe Clark one in a while too. It looks like he's ready for MLB.

now, Betemit with a hit that Billy would have easily turned into an out. Why did Yost put JJ in? It wasn't a double-switch or anything, Sheets is still in. Is Russ or Billy hurt? the Braves announcers didn't mention the substitution.

there is NO way JJ would have got to that ball Estrada just hit. Excellent play by Billy.

very nice to see.

so Prince is still around? I hope he gets an AB tonight. If Magruder gets off the bench to hit before Prince does, I will be seriously upset.

good work by Turnbow. Nice to win two in a row.

turnbow is not great, but Phelps is even notter great, I dunno why Yost would leave him in unless it was for the platoon differential. Hopefully Turnbow can get through this.